Completely fascinating religion research

Today, I googled "people killed by God in the Bible." A wealth of resources came back that provided for some fascinating reading. Here are some links you just gotta check out (the discussion in the comments to these posts are often fascinating too):

How many people did God kill in the Old Testament?

In a previous post, I've listed and counted God's killings in the Bible. But I only included those that said exactly how many were killed by God. I came up with 2,301,417. But that didn't include some of God's most impressive slaughters. How many did God drown in the flood or burn to death in Sodom and Gomorrah? How many first-born Egyptians did he kill? The Bible doesn't say, so there's no way to know for sure. But it's possible to provide rough estimates in order to get a grand total. (New total: 34 million.)

Who has killed more people -- God or Satan? [This one is no contest.]

I've tried to assign numbers to the un-numbered killings in the Bible. You can see the detailed list here. The results were even more lopsided: 33 million (plus or minus a few million) for God; 60 for Satan.

Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran? [Turns out it depends on how one measures it -- total violent passages or violent passages as a percentage of the whole.]

So the Bible has more cruel or violent passages than the Quran. But the Bible is a much bigger book. How do they compare when size is taken into account?

	Violence and Cruelty	Total verses	Percent
Bible	907	31173	2.91
Quran	520	6236	8.34

When expressed as a percentage of cruel or violent verses (at least as marked in the SAB/Q), the Quran has nearly three times that of the Bible. (8.34 vs. 2.91%).

These posts (from Dwindling in Unbelief) often link to:

The Skeptic's Annotated Bible,
The Skeptic's Annotated Quran, and
The Skeptic's Annotated Book of Mormon.

These sites index these "sacred texts" according to fourteen different categories (Absurdity, Injustice, Cruelty and Violence, Intolerance, Contradictions, Science and History, Interpretation, Family Values, Women, Good Stuff, Prophecy, Sex, Language, Homosexuality). There's some really good research here -- and the sites are user friendly and easy to navigate.

But just so you don't think these are just hater sites, note that one of the categories is "Good Stuff" -- they don't overlook the good stuff, they just show how few "good stuff" passages there relative to all the awful stuff.

Good stuff in the Bible.

Good stuff in the Quran.

Good stuff in the Book of Mormon.

For his tireless (and helpful!) research, Steve Wells is hereby named The RFK Action Front Person of the Week!

Update #1: Look, I'm not saying spirit doesn't have a place in this world. I'm agnostic on that point. But what I am saying is that a spirituality written by violent primitive people based on a brutal and cruel god, does not move the world forward. Indeed if we are going to reduce suffering in the world, we're gonna have to find another way.

Update #2: One of the fascinating things about doing a post like this is how terrifying it is. It really shows the way that culture impacts ideation when even the thought of posting something contrary to the prevailing myths gives one pause.

RFK Action Front Person of the Week: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)

A congressman has written a letter to the National Basketball Association and the players union asking them to repeal the rule governing the minimum age of players.

Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, wrote that the four-year-old rule, which requires that players be 19 years old and one year removed from their high school graduation, is of “deep concern.”

“It’s a vestige of slavery,” Cohen said Wednesday in a phone interview, noting that most of the players affected by the rule are African-American. “Not like the slavery of 150 years ago, but it’s a restraint on a person’s freedoms and liberties.”

Letter from Representative Steve Cohen to N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern (pdf)

[Full article here.]

Rep. Cohen is correct. The stars of the NBA playoffs -- Kobe, Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, Rashard Lewis, Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum -- all came straight out of high school into the NBA. Forcing those players -- who have the talent to play in the NBA -- to play in Europe or at Duke for a year is an unfair restraint of trade, it's collusion with the feudal monopoly of the NCAA, and deprives these young men of millions of dollars in potential earnings. Basically, David Stern and the NBA are trying to shift the burden of risk -- from the multi-billion dollar NBA onto the backs of 18 year old (mostly poor black) young men. Besides, the kids who go directly from high school to the NBA are the most exciting players in the league -- why you would want them to risk injury or bad coaching by sending them off to Europe, college or sitting out for a year? why not just develop a mandatory life skills program within the NBA to work with these kids when they enter the NBA?

In response to Rep. Cohen's letter, David Stern said, " This is a business decision by the NBA..." Yeah so was slavery dude.

For stepping up and doing the right thing, Rep. Cohen is hereby named the RFK Action Front person of the week! Now if only he could break up the NCAA cartel which is depriving young men (and some young women too) of millions of dollars in rightful earnings.