The Bible in a Nutshell: The Director's Cut

In December of last year I published a little book titled The Bible in a Nutshell which has had a great response from many in the atheist community. But one the big complaints from many was that it was too short and that it glossed over or left out many stories that people wanted to read about. I took that criticism to heart and on September 1st I released an extended version titled The Bible in a Nutshell: The Director’s Cut. This version is over three times the length and word count, with a much more in depth look into the crazy piece of literature that is the Bible.

I wanted to give everyone here in the Atheist Republic community a peek inside this new version, which is quite honestly a whole new book for the most part. So, the following is one full chapter from that book. If you enjoy what you read here and would like to read more, you can pick up The Director’s Cut on Amazon in both print and digital formats by following the link at the bottom of this article. Thanks for all your support, and enjoy the most blasphemous version of the Bible ever written!

Law and Order: Religious Victims Unit (Season One)

After murdering two of Aaron’s kids and making sure he didn’t get drunk in the special wizard tent, The Wiz figured it was time to really get down to laying out the law for these folks. So The Wiz dials up his private telepathic hotline to Moses.

“Hey Moses,” The Wiz said. “I came up with more rules for all your people.”
“Okay…” Moses replied. “But I hope it’s simple, because so far this has all been pretty complicated and seems a bit pointless.”
“Just shut up and listen,” The Wiz replied.

So The Wiz began by telling Moses what things his people could and could not eat and how eating or touching anything not on The Wiz’s approved menu would make them unclean.

Animals with split hooves that chew cud are all good. But animals that only have one of these qualities and not both, such as camels, rabbits, and pigs, are off limits.

Fish and other aquatic creatures that have fins and scales are okay, but none of the other aquatic creatures like shrimp or crabs are acceptable.

Most birds are off limits, including eagles, ravens, kites, hawks, owls, and a few others. The Wiz also included bats on this list because apparently this all-powerful, all-knowing wizard doesn’t know that bats aren’t actually birds.

Flying insects are no good, except for crickets, locusts, and grasshoppers.

This list goes on for some time and just becomes a big mess of nonsense after a while. The Wiz goes into detail about what to do when bugs get into water pots and cisterns and if the touch seeds. Eventually though, The Wiz gets around to pertinent social issues and laws regarding justice among the Jews. But before he gets to those he has to remind the Jews that he really doesn’t think too highly of women, and can’t stand the birthing process that he himself imposed on women.

“Here’s an important bit Moses,” The Wiz said. “If a woman has a male child, she is unclean for one week. If the child is a girl the woman is unclean for two weeks, because girls have cooties. While she is unclean she needs to stay away from my special tent and all my special stuff. If she has a boy, the boy needs to have the tip of his penis cut off on the eighth day and the mother has to wait three days before she is clean again and can touch my special stuff. But if the baby is a girl, the mother has to wait 66 days before she is considered clean again.”

“That seems fair,” Moses says. “After all, boys are awesome and girls just aren’t.”

“I know, right!” The Wiz exclaimed. “Anyway, after all that the woman needs to bring a year old lamb and young pigeon or a dove to my junior wizards at my special tent for them to kill and burn for me.”

Following this, The Wiz goes into really disgusting details about skin sores and flesh diseases for a long time. He describes all these diseases and how to treat these sick people by kicking them out of the camp and making them live like hermits. Then there’s a bit about moldy clothes, and mold in people’s houses, some discussion of STD’s, and when it is acceptable for Aaron and his junior wizard kids to go into the special tent.

Then The Wiz goes into a bit where the people are supposed to tell Aaron and the junior wizards all the stuff they’ve done that The Wiz doesn’t really like. Aaron or any of the other junior wizards who take over after him are supposed to get a goat brought in front of the special tent and then the junior wizard is supposed to lay their hands on the goat’s head and whisper all the nasty stuff into the goat’s ear. Then some other dude is supposed to take the goat out into the woods and the goat will take all the people’s sins with it so the people are all good. And thus, the idea of the scapegoat was borne!

There’s a bunch of other ritualistic nonsense, including a special ordinance against doing anything on the tenth day of the seventh month, and where to offer sacrifices outside of the special tent. Yada, yada, yada.

Now, it should be apparent at this point that The Wiz is totally obsessed with what people do with their sexual organs. But The Wiz feels like he needs to be a little clearer about this.

So The Wiz lays out a bunch of sex rules saying, “No one is allowed to have sex with a close relative. Do not have sex with your mother or with your father’s wife. Don’t get busy with your sister, even if she’s your half-sister, and no matter if she’s from your mother or your father’s side of the family. Don’t have sex with your grandchildren. You’re not allowed sex up your aunts or uncles, whether they’re in-laws or blood relatives. You can’t bang your daughter-in-law or your brother’s wife. Don’t have sex with a woman and her daughter, or with her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter. You also are not allowed to marry your wife’s sister and get frisky with her while your wife is alive.”

“That’s a lot to remember,” Moses said.

“I’m not finished yet!” The Wiz bellowed. “ ‘Do not try to have sex while a woman is on her period. And you also can’t fuck your neighbor’s wife. Don’t give your kids as sacrifices to Molek. And none of that butt sex between two dudes like what was going on in Sodom, because I really don’t like that gay stuff with dudes. And lastly, don’t have sex with animals.”

“Okay…” Moses said quite tentatively.

“What?” The Wiz sked. “You act like there’s a problem here.”

“Well…” Moses began. “It’s just that pretty much our entire lineage is born out of incest. We’re pretty much all married to our cousins. Noah and all his family’s descendants were products of incest and even Abraham married his half-sister which is where all our family line came from. It just seems odd that all of the sudden you’d have a problem with it.”

“Are you trying to piss me off?” The Wiz said.

“No. No.” Moses said stumbling back a bit. “It’s just that it seems odd is all.”

“Look here jackass,” The Wiz said in a very stern voice, “I’m only going to say this once. I work in mysterious ways and if you question me you will be in a world of shit. Are we clear on that?”

“Crystal clear,” Moses replied trembling in his sandals.

“Good,” The Wiz said calmly. “Now that I’ve covered the real important stuff, can I finish with all the other rules I’ve got for you? Is that okay with you Mr. Smartass?”

“Yes,” Moses said still trembling. “My bad.”

So The Wiz finally got around to rules about social issues and legal justice. He continued saying, “Respect your mom and dad, and make sure you don’t work on my special day. Don’t build any more golden calves or other idols to worship. When you harvest your crops, make sure you leave the ones on the farthest rows out for poor folks as well as any of the crops that fall on the ground for them. Don’t steal or lie, or try to trick each other. Don’t make a promise in my name that you don’t plan on keeping or tell a lie and swear that it’s true on my name. Don’t defraud or rob your neighbor. Don’t withhold wages from a hired worker. Don’t mess with deaf folks by yelling at them or making fun of them when they can’t hear, and don’t try to trip blind folks. Don’t be unfairly partial to poor folks or show favoritism to rich folks, and judge everyone fairly. Don’t go talking shit about folks that isn’t true.”

The Wiz paused for a minute to sip some wizard wine because this was a lot of stuff to relate to Moses.

“Don’t do anything that might endanger your neighbor and threaten their life,” The Wiz continued. “Don’t hate your kinsmen, and if your neighbor is messing up tell them very frankly so you aren’t just as guilty as them. Don’t ty to take revenge or hold a grudge against your kinsmen, and be as nice to your neighbor as would yourself. Trying to mate different kinds of animals is not cool. Planting a field with two kinds of seeds is also not cool. I’m not cool with you guys wearing clothes made from two kinds of materials. If a guy sleeps with a female slave who is promised to another guy, but the guy who she’s promised to hasn’t paid for her yet or she hasn’t been given her freedom, then the guy who slept with her should be punished. But not death or anything because she’s just a slave girl, and it’s not that big a deal. Just have the guy sacrifice a ram to me and it’ll be all good.”

The Wiz paused for a moment, and then asked, “Are you listening Mo?”

“Huh?” Moses said drowsily. “Yeah! Yeah! No weird clothes and don’t rape slave girls that are promised to other dudes. I got ya.”

The Wiz shook his ephemeral head thinking to himself that he might have made a poor choice with this Moses guy as his human ambassador. He continued though, because it was a little late to turn back now seeing how invested he already was. The Wiz spoke again continuing this monstrous list. “Whenever you guys plant a fruit tree, you can’t eat the fruit for three years and on the fourth year you need to harvest the fruit and give it as an offering to me. On the fifth year you guys can eat the fruit. Don’t eat any meat with the blood still in it. Do not practice divination or seek omens. Don’t cut the hair on the sides of your head and make sure they look like crazy ass curly fries hanging off your temples. And don’t cut the edges of your beards either, because I’m pretty keen on facial hair. Don’t do any ritualistic self-mutilation including cutting yourself when folks die or getting tattoos. Don’t turn your daughter out as a prostitute either. It is totally fine to sell her off to some guy once, but just the once and the dude has to marry her. Make sure you remember my special days and all my special places. Palm readers and mystics are total bullshit, and if you mess with them I’ll ruin your life. Be cool to old folks and to strangers as well. And make sure you use honest scales when you do business with folks and don’t try to thumb the balance, because that shit is most definitely not cool.”

The Wiz was silent for a bit and Moses wasn’t too keen on chiming in at this point having gotten chewed out the last time he spoke up. Finally The Wiz said, “Did you get all that?”

“Yes,” Moses replied. “Every word… or nearly every word. I mean it was a lot of shit to remember. I probably should have written it all down honestly, because my memory is terrible. But no worries, I got the basic idea and I can just fill in the blanks as we go.”

Of course, The Wiz thought to himself. I picked an idiot for this job.

“Oh!” Moses exclaimed. “What should we do if the people break these rules?”

“You know Mo,” The Wiz mused, “I hadn’t given it a lot of thought. But I am a big fan of murder, so I’d say for most of this stuff you should just kill the folks who break the rules. You can stone them to death because that is pretty amusing, and rather brutal. Oh! You can tie them up and burn them depending on the offense. And I suppose that for all the lesser stuff like incest you can just exile them and kick them out into the desert where I’ll make sure they die.”

“So pretty much death then?” Moses asked.

“Well yeah,” The Wiz responded. ”Pretty much. If you don’t kill them the desert or some crazy folks out in the desert will.”

*Director’s Commentary: A Divine Obsession

This obsession with human’s sex lives and what we do with our genitals is just morbid and perverse. There are so many supposed rules concerning human sex lives and genital restrictions that it can only be described as insanely obsessive. What makes it even weirder however, is that it makes absolutely no sense at all for a supposed supreme being to be concerned with this at all.

Of course, the name of the game is always context. You see, when you have the proper context it all makes sense really.

So here’s the context:

God is the invention of human beings. As such, God acts like a human and thinks like a human and cares about human things. God only cares about human’s sex lives because humans care about other human’s sex lives. Most particularly, men have always wanted to control the sex lives of women. In tends to be a real obsession all throughout history, and is one of the unfortunate side effects of a patriarchal societal system and the inherent misogyny that comes along with that system. One of the other side effects of this mindset is also the idea of cut and dry gender lines, which is why we see such hatred for homosexuality. Too many men believe that there is such a thing as a “man’s man” and that there are clearly defined gender roles that must be adhered to or else the whole system will just fall apart.

But guess what…

Your system is broken and a total failure. It isn’t falling apart, it’s being torn apart by a world who is slowly but surely accepting the reality that this system is failing us. There is no God that cares about our sex lives. That’s just your personal dysfunction, and it’s time you got taken to task on your bullshit.
It’s a new world and you can either adjust and grow, or you can wither and die. The choice is yours, but we’re not going to keep catering to your dysfunctions. Those days are over.