THOUGHTS ON BEING A DICK

13. June 2009 by Frank.

No, this isn’t a post about Cheney.

It’s not about who’s the better Darrin, Dick York or Dick Sargeant.  The only important thing in that argument was that Elisabeth Montgomery was hot.

It’s not about the paranoia of Dick Nixon or the snark of Dickipedia.

It’s about some truly bizarre stories about male genitalia in the bible.  “Why is that worth looking into?” you ask.  It clearly shows just how primitive and barbaric the foundations of the christian religion actually are.  But really it isn’t limited to just christianity.

God instituted circumcision as a sign of his covenant with Abraham.  Just think how absurd it is that deliberate mutilation of your sex organ is a sign of a covenant with your god.  Just writing that makes for queasy.  Not only is it a matter of removing the foreskin there is also the blood involved.  Just be glad this religion doesn’t practice female circumcision.  That is a ritual that is even worse because it isn’t just the removal of skin, it is the destruction of an important bundle of nerves.

I’m not going to quote a lot of verses but if you don’t have a bible handy I suggest you go to www.biblegateway.com and look them up.  In Exodus 4 we have Moses speaking with god and complaining that he is “slow of speech and tongue” and therefore can’t perform his task with pharaoh.  Inexplicably in verses 24 – 26 the Lord met Moses at a lodging place and was going to kill him.  In order to prevent this Moses’ wife, Zipporah, took a flint knife and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it.  I’m not sure how Zipporah knew what was happening, maybe Moses had an Oral Roberts moment and hollered out, “He’s gonna kill me!”  So here’s Moses trying to fight off an invisible god who’s trying to kill him and his wife quickly surmises that circumcising her son will calm the god down.  “Junior, get over here quick!  And drop your pants!” she yells.  Junior slouches over complaining, “Ah, mom, you told me not to drop my pants in front of people anymore.”  No nonsense Zipporah drops to her knees, yanks his drawers down, and grabs his penis.  Junior’s pathetic whining turns to howls of fear and pain as she whips out her flint knife and deftly slices off his foreskin.  Zipporah then takes her bloody trophy, rushes over to Moses who appears to be beating the crap out of himself, and rubs the bloody piece of flesh all over his feet.  She says, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”  So god released his full nelson hold on Moses and let him go.

OK, I’ve embellished a little, but think about it.  That’s what those couple of verses say happened.  Keep in mind that Moses was the only one actually seeing god.  How did Zipporah know what was going on?  And even given the culture, why would it occur to her that circumcising her son would appease god?  I have no idea how old the kid was but even if he was a baby it could not have been a quick and easy procedure.  Then to take the bloody remnant and rub it on her husband’s feet?  Just think how absurd this sequence of events actually is.  Even more absurd is that god apparently changed his mind because of it and decided to let Moses live which is ridiculous in the first place because god just commissioned Moses to go to pharaoh.

Then we have king Saul offering to sell his daughter Michal to David for the price of 100 Philistine foreskins in 1 Samuel 18.  Saul figured the Philistines would kill him but it didn’t work out that way.  David, the man after god’s own heart, goes out and kills 200 Philistines and takes their foreskins.  Now consider for a moment the carnage of a battle that left 200 dead.  Amidst all that you’re going to go around uncovering the dead’s genitals and cutting off their foreskins.  Then you put them in a sack and take them back to the king to buy his daughter.  Is that not the behavior of barbarians?  Look at 2 Samuel 3:14 just to notice David saying he betrothed to himself for the price of 100 Philistine foreskins.  Women were property.  Property that could be sold for some odd currency.

Let’s back up a bit to Genesis 24 and 47 and consider swearing of oaths while putting your hand under my thigh.  It’s not too hard to imagine what putting your hand under my thigh means.  You’ve heard of pagan practices based on fertility and sexuality.  How is this any different?  Barbaric and very primitive.

It doesn’t change in the new testament either.  There are far more verses in the new than the old involving circumcision.  Circumcision was to be continual without end.  To not be circumcised was to be forever cut off from your people.  Many sects following Jesus were teaching that you had to be circumcised first.  This led Paul to change everything and declare that real circumcision wasn’t of the flesh it was of the spirit and the heart.  Paul changed the definition and then suffered persecution to such an extent that he had to keep writing about it.  But despite his stance, he still circumcised Timothy because of the Jews in Acts 16.  He also boasted of his credentials as a Jew (circumcised on the eighth day – Philippians 3) after calling those who preach circumcision dogs, men who do evil, and mutilators of the flesh.  How did the sign of god’s covenant become mutilation and evil?

Can anyone deny this is primitive, barbaric behavior no different than any pagan rituals?  Is this really the work of a god?  It sounds stupid just writing about it.  But there are still those who preach it in modern times (at least there were back in the 80’s.)  And have you noticed the christian outrage at body piercings and tattoos?  What is so shocking and horrible about that?  You guys used to mutilate 8 day old babies and use the leftovers to buy women.

Barbarians, the lot of you!

Fortunately I’m not.

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