Acceptance of Atheism in America

                                                       Imagine there's no heaven
                                                       It's easy if you try
                                                       No hell below us
                                                       Above us, only sky

                                                       Imagine there's no countries
                                                       It isn't hard to do
                                                       Nothing to kill or die for
                                                       And no religion, too
                                                                Imagine, by John Lennon, 1971

John Lennon’s “Imagine” is a unique, remarkable song.  Contrary to Steve Martin’s assertion, “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs”, in fact, atheists have this one extraordinary song.  I’m surprised at the success and popularity of Imagine.  It was ranked among the most-performed songs of the 20th century, ranked #3 on Rolling Stone’s 2004 list of the greatest songs of all time, has been performed or covered by over 200 major artists and was featured in ceremonies of three Olympics.

The popularity of “Imagine” is surprising because it is an atheist anthem in a society which generally shuns and despises atheists.  Polling and social research both show that a large segment of the population deeply mistrusts atheists.  However, like various other minorities and “out groups”, such as Blacks, LGBTQ+, Latino, south and east Asian and other immigrants, atheists are gradually gaining more acceptance in America.

[Edit in 2025: I recently realized that Don McLean's classic "American Pie" is another atheist anthem.]

Political Polling
A series of Gallop polls dating back to 1958 tested the acceptance of various out-groups as potential presidential candidates.  The polls asked participants whether they would vote for a well-qualified candidate from their own party, if that candidate were a member of an out-group.  In 2019, an atheist was the most objectionable minority as a presidential candidate, relative to Black, Catholic, Hispanic, woman, Jewish, evangelical Christian, gay, lesbian, young, old, or Muslim hypothetical candidates.  Only a socialist would poll worse than an atheist as a potential candidate.

Nevertheless, there is progress in acceptance of atheism.  In 1958, Gallop found that only 18 percent of American voters would consider an atheist as a potential president.  That number held steady in the mid-40 percent range from the 1980s to 2007, but has risen in recent years to 60 percent.  That said, acceptance of atheists is lagging the acceptance of other out-groups by two-to-six decades.

Decline of Traditional Religion
Polling shows decreasing adherence to traditional religion, across all ages and political affiliation.  Specific numbers are hard to tabulate, due to the personal sensitivity of the topic, and aversion to self-identification as an atheist.  Given the European history of atheist barbecues and torture, that reluctance may be well-founded.  Polling numbers for self-identification of atheists also suffer from nuances of language, and the failure to discriminate between atheists and agnostics.

The decline in traditional religion is mostly a 21st century phenomenon.  As recently as 1996, 96 percent of Americans said they believed in God or a universal spirit, about  the same percentage as in 1947.  Since 2000, increasing numbers of older and conservative citizens identify as spiritual but not religious.  And among younger and liberal citizens, increasing numbers identify as neither spiritual nor religious.

An overwhelming majority of citizens still identifies as either religious or spiritual.  In the 2023 poll, 47% identified as religious, 33% identified as spiritual, 2% identified as both.  Only 18% identified as neither religious nor spiritual.  This is a strong increase from around 10% at the beginning of the millennium, but still a small minority.

There’s a significant cohort which denies the existence of God but still avoids self-identification as an atheist.  In a 2015 poll, only 3% of those surveyed identified as atheists, but 9% denied the existence of God or a universal spirit.  This may simply reflect a failure to provide “agnostic” as a polling option, or may reflect reluctance to openly admit to disbelief, an aversion to the label of atheist, or some nuance of belief or language.

Social scientists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle conducted a series of clever experiments designed to determine the percentage of individuals who are reluctant to admit they are atheist, even in an anonymous opinion survey.  Their results suggest that 26% of Americans are atheists, but that more than half of them refuse to say so.  

Atheism and Morality
In 2023, a Pew Research Poll showed that 65% of Americans said that it is not necessary to believe in God to be a moral person.  The remaining 34% said that a person must believe in God to be moral.  Pew noted that these percentages varied by the strength of religious and political affiliation, and age.  Responses across all other countries surveyed, averaged near the American results, but with a wide range, generally depending upon relative wealth and the degree of religious conservatism.  In earlier polls, Pew noted that majorities in many countries considered that belief in God was necessary for morality.  Those majorities were strongest in poorer countries.

 

Like the political polling, Pew’s results over time show a growing acceptance of atheism in America.  In general, there has been a two-decade trend of increasing acceptance of atheism.  Nevertheless, there is still a strong core of people, representing about one-third of the population, who believe that atheists are intrinsically immoral people.

Social Science
Social scientists have researched acceptance of atheists in society, in this country and others.  The research uses proven but indirect methods for identifying conscious and unconscious bias.  Researchers deliberately chose progressively more provocative associations in an effort to elicit clear results.  

Studies of intuitive perception performed by Will Gervais, University of Kentucky, showed that a significant percentage of people (up to 60%) associated atheists with various kinds of immoral behavior.  In every test, subjects were far more likely to have negative views of atheists than any other religious, social or ethnic group.  Curiously, a larger percentage of atheists themselves associated atheists with immoral behavior than members of established religions.

A higher percentage of Gervais’ subjects (60%) considered that an atheist was likely to be an untrustworthy, opportunistic thief, than any other religious or ethnic group.  Interestingly, atheists were regarded as more likely to cheat and steal than rapists (50%).  The third highest association was for feminists (30%), higher than any religious affiliation.  Gervais subjects also considered that an atheist was more likely to engage in consensual incest (50%, 2.5x higher than other religious groups) or sexual perversion (60%, 3x higher than ethnic groups).

Gervais said, “I wanted to come up with one unambiguously immoral description…[I was] basically trying to come up with something so bad that people wouldn’t think an atheist would do it.”   Gervais’ last survey tested associations with a pathologically sadistic serial killer.  Fifty percent of Gervais’ subjects could potentially associate that description with an atheist.  Interesting, of the religious groups tested, the second most likely association was Christian, ahead of Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim.  

Social science shows that there is still deeply ingrained bias against atheists in the American populace.  Atheists lag behind acceptance of ethnic groups, immigrants, LGBTQ+, and the entire spectrum of religious groups.  

Coming Out as an Atheist
I recently watched the delightful Pixar short film, “Out”, about a gay man coming out to his parents.  It made me wonder, for adults of any age, which would be the most difficult to say to conservative parents: “I’m gay.”, “I’m a Democrat”, or “I’m an atheist”?  Looking at the social science experiments, I suspect the most difficult of those would be “I’m an atheist”.   I am openly atheistic on Twitter, where virtually none of my family or older friends can see my views.  I conceal my atheism on Facebook, where religious family and friends see my posts.  

It seems to me that religious people see atheists as a threat to their beliefs, as well as intrinsically immoral.  I can imagine a conversation with my friends from my childhood church.  “Well, WHY are you an atheist?”  I would then point out that religion contains inescapable logical contradictions and that there is no factual basis for religion.  At that point, they would feel that I was attacking their beliefs.  There’s no way to explain self-identification as an atheist without saying that religion makes no damn sense.

Atheism is one of the least accepted forms of self-identification in America today.  Acceptance is growing, but for now, it seems best to stay in the closet, if I would like to retain my relationships with family and old friends.

Imagine
The closing lines of John Lennon’s “Imagine” are hopeful.  It’s an acknowledgement that there are others in the world who don’t believe in religion.  It is an invitation to let go of things that don’t make sense, adherence to abusive institutions and beliefs that cause conflict and destruction.   I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one.

                                            “You may say I'm a dreamer
                                            But I'm not the only one
                                            I hope someday you'll join us
                                            And the world will be as one”
-------------------------------------
The image of John Lennon's "Imagine" album cover is used without permission but not for profit. 
It will be removed upon request.

References
Political Polling
https://news.gallup.com/poll/285563/socialism-atheism-political-liabilities.aspx
https://news.gallup.com/poll/254120/less-half-vote-socialist-president.aspx
https://news.gallup.com/poll/285563/socialism-atheism-political-liabilities.aspx
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/08/10/431205042/should-we-distrust-atheists

Other Polling
https://news.gallup.com/poll/511133/identify-religious-spiritual.aspx
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/13/15258496/american-atheists-how-many
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/05/31/poll-finds-america-as-churched-as-ever/f5e38ee3-2560-4680-b926-e2829c0c23f1/

Atheism and Morality
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/20/many-people-in-u-s-other-advanced-economies-say-its-not-necessary-to-believe-in-god-to-be-moral/
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/07/20/the-global-god-divide/
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/10/16/a-growing-share-of-americans-say-its-not-necessary-to-believe-in-god-to-be-moral/
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/03/13/worldwide-many-see-belief-in-god-as-essential-to-morality/
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2005/01/24/politics-and-values-in-a-51-48-nation/
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2003/07/10/god-and-foreign-policy-the-religious-divide-between-the-us-and-europe/
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2002/03/20/part-1-religion-in-america/

Intuitive Perception
Popular Perceptions of Atheists, Will Gervais, University of Kentucky
Breaking New Ground in the Science and Religion Dialogue Workshop, University of Texas, 8/3/2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrjw6bBOqR0&t=1195s

Other Resources
https://www.cfequality.org/issues/data
https://www.baylor.edu/baylorreligionsurvey/doc.php/292546.pdf
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/01/03/faith-on-the-hill-2023/

Atheism and Fellowship

 “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs” - Steve Martin

My grandfather had a number of jobs in his lifetime.  He was a Methodist missionary, an English teacher at a Christian boys’ school in Japan, a professor of religion, founding director of the World Council of Churches World Literacy Program (“Lit-Lit”), president of the Pacific School of Religion and author of several books.  His best-known book “This Revolutionary Faith”, was written in 1956.  Writing a few years after Maslow developed his hierarchy of human needs, in this book Grandpa laid out a similar framework for missionary work.  According to my grandfather, people need food, shelter, health, education, and fellowship, and all of these needs come before religion.  A missionary must work to satisfy these primary needs before proselytizing for a particular faith.  Of course, by working to fulfill human needs and living an exemplary life, the missionary is building a foundation so that religious faith will be well regarded.  When religion is finally introduced to a group of people who have found fellowship together, it is much easier to find collective acceptance of the new faith.

Atheism cannot be a binding philosophy in the same way as religion.  It has been said that atheism is a worldview in the same way that not skiing is a hobby.  

Atheism isn’t a movement.  Atheism has no meetings, no music, no collective recitations, no study groups and no buildings.  Atheism has no particular associations or collective goals.  There is no institution that draws atheists together and provides the critical human need of fellowship.  Atheism does not and cannot provide the same social experiences that religion provides so well.  Atheism also does not provide hope for a better life or comfort in times of loss or death.  

Atheists experience social stigma and rejection, something I will explore further in a future post.  In an era of increasing acceptance of human differences, including a wider range of religious beliefs, sexual orientation and gender identification, atheism remains one of the last issues of personal identification to reach social acceptance.  Atheists are still in the closet.  I do not dare to reveal my atheism on Facebook among my religious childhood friends and extended family.  In part, this is because religious people consider any discussion of atheism to be an attack on their beliefs.  

“"I'm atheist. I know that when you die, there's no heaven, so that really bums me out.  I wish I could be Christian and say I'm going to heaven but I know I'm not.  It sucks to know the truth”
- Bree Olson, former pornographic movie actress

Why, then, would someone choose to be an atheist, rather than accept the happiness that comes from church fellowship, the joy in the music, and social support?  It is because religion has a single, fatal flaw.  It isn’t true.  

For those of us who hold the value of truth among our highest lodestars in life, it is simply not possible to accept the comfort of religion.  I think that for many people, there’s a mental compromise, attending church for the friendship, ritual, fellowship, music and activities, but retaining a private core of agnosticism.  They pragmatically avoid thinking about it.  Others struggle to find a comfort zone between their beliefs and the beliefs required by the church community.  

For me, at a certain point late in my life, it became necessary to decide my own belief as documented in this blog.  Luckily for me, my spouse and children agree with me, and each came to atheism as their own belief.  Family does not replace outside fellowship and community, but at least this is not a topic for conflict.

Atheists need community and fellowship, like all humans.  We are social creatures.  For us, it is necessary to find that fellowship in other venues – book clubs, sports, cards or other games, music, etc.  We need to find fellowship in institutions other than church.  We will just not join others in reciting creeds that we know are not true.
---
Atheists Don't Have Any Songs, by Steve Martin

“Christians have their hymns and pages.
Hava Nagila's for the Jews.
Baptists have the Rock of Ages.
Atheists just sing the blues.

Romantics play Claire de Lune.
Born-Agains sing “He is risen.”
But no one ever wrote a tune
For godless existentialism.

For Atheists,
There's no good news.
They'll never sing
A song of faith.
...
Atheists
Atheists
Atheists
Don't have no songs!” 

from “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs”, by Steve Martin
--
Image credit: Runner1928 - Own work, in Wikimedia,
A Lutheran Divine Service in the United States, cropped.

Is Injustice in the Bible a Reason to Disbelieve?

The preceding five posts of this blog concern the Judeo-Christian Bible.  Perhaps that is too much, given the global existence of other religious and spiritual traditions.  The time I’ve spent on these posts reflects my own background as a Christian and the importance of the Bible in American culture.  The Bible itself is often cited by Christians as the ultimate authority on questions of religion, behavior and government without noticing the circular reasoning.  I concentrated on this topic, because, if the Bible is shown to be without moral or divine authority, then the religious conclusions drawn from Bible study are also void.

My posts on the Bible discussed various aspects of Biblical injustice: genocide; tribalism; divine extortion and intimidation; misogyny and sexism.  Indeed, these topics have barely scratched the surface of divinely administered injustice in the Bible.  There is the slaughter of innocent Egyptian children (Exodus), the slaughter of innocents in Sodom & Gomorrah and Noah’s Flood (Genesis), the disproportionate punishment of Lot’s wife, and disproportionate punishment of those condemned to eternal suffering in Hell (Matthew, Mark, Thessalonians, and Revelations).  The book of Job anticipates the plot of the movie “Trading Places”, where God and Satan have a wager about the consequences of ruining Job’s life.  The consequences of the wager include collateral damage: the death of Job’s children, servants and livestock.  Is there any regard for the lives of the innocents when God is punishing opponents or playing a game with Satan?  

Saint Paul writes in 2nd Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”  How can we say that the Bible is divinely inspired if it contains a single example of such injustice?  Indeed, the injustice is ubiquitous, spread throughout the Old and New Testaments, though, to be fair, the New Testament is generally less objectionable than the Old Testament.  To make sense of the Bible in terms of justice, we are forced to cherry-pick the best passages: justice for the down-trodden (Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-12, Luke 6:20-22), love, (1st Corinthians 13), balance in life, (Ecclesiastes 3), and caring for the least of Jesus brothers (Matthew 25: 35-40).  But nearby or adjacent to these verses, we find some deep injustices.  If we hold the value of justice, we have to reject a divine origin for the Biblical texts.  The bad parts are flawed human injustice and the good parts are human wisdom.

You may have noticed that I did not list Psalm 23 or similar texts in my short list of “good verses”.  If you google “favorite bible verses”, you will find many, many verses promising God’s protection and comfort.  If these are comforting to people, why do I not consider them good verses?  It is because they aren’t true.  An earlier post on this site is called “Regarding the Power of Prayer, or Did the People on the Titanic Forget to Pray?”  Simply looking at the lives and deaths of other humans around us, it’s clear that there is no protection by God in this world.  Thus, the promises of God’s protection in the Bible are simply untrue, offering false complacency about the hazards of life.  

The Bible contains its own refutation as divinely inspired guidance for life.

Previous Posts on the Bible

Sexism in the New Testament

https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2023/08/sexism-in-new-testament.html

Misogyny in the Old Testament; Deuteronomy 20 - 22, Numbers 5

https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/11/old-testament-rarely-heard-bible-verses.html

Tribalism in The Old Testament; Deuteronomy 7, 20, 21

https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-old-testament-rarely-heard-bible.html

The Protection Racket in the Old Testament; Leviticus 26

https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-old-testament-rarely-heard-bible.html

Religious Genocide in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 13

https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-old-testament-rarely-heard-bible_29.html

 

Sexism in the New Testament: Saint Paul and Revelations

In my earlier post on misogyny in the Old Testament, I focused on a few particularly egregious, specific examples in scripture.  In this post, I want to highlight a few examples of sexism in the more enlightened New Testament.  

We should ask, what is sexism, and why is systematic sexism a reason to refute Christianity?  A simplified definition of sexism is a belief in the superiority of one gender; gender-based discrimination, and attitudes based on gender stereotypical roles.  All three are explicitly present throughout the New Testament.  The New Testament set the standard and justified two millennia of sexism in the Christian church and Christian societies.  

Funerary Portrait of Roman-Egyptian Woman, circa 1st Century CE

Portraits of women in this post are taken from Fayum funerary portraits of Roman Egypt, painted in the 1st century to the 4th century CE.  These women were contemporaries of Saint Paul.

We must again ask whether God is just and fair.  For Christianity, the Bible is the inspired word of God.  When the Bible says that women are subordinate to men, have limited roles, and conveys gender-stereotypical attitudes, is that fair?  Of course not.  We have to conclude that either God is unfair, or the Bible is a human construct, without divine origin or authority.

I’ll mention just a few examples.  The first is that Christ’s named disciples are all men, setting the standard for two millennia of Catholic priesthood.  It’s true that a handful of women are mentioned among Christ’s followers but no women are included in the list of twelve disciples given in Matthew, Mark or Luke.  In the stories of the gospel, these women are relegated to supporting roles, a textbook measure of sexism.

  The Last Supper.  No women are among the twelve apostles of the gospels.

Second, about one-half of the New Testament is attributed to Saint Paul.  Up to half of those writings may  have been written or edited by others, writing in Paul’s voice.  If the Bible is the inspired word of God, it really doesn’t matter whether St. Paul or others were the authors.  We simply need to decide whether this entire document is sacred, reasonable, just and fair, or simply an old piece of human writing.

Throughout the chapters attributed to Saint Paul, there is sexist guidance about the role of women and the behavior of women.  Saint Paul advises that women should remain silent in church, must be in submission to men, must never be in authority over a man, dress modestly and without ornamentation, receive instruction submissively, be under the control of their husbands, and subject themselves to their husbands as if their husbands were God.  (1 Corinthians 14:33–35, 1 Timothy 2: 9-15, Titus 2:3-5, Ephesians 5:22–24.)  The sexism is not a single anomaly, it is woven into the fabric of the New Testament.

Funerary Portraits of Roman-Egyptian Women, circa First Century, CE.
These women are contemporaries of St. Paul.

The third example comes from the Book of Revelations, 2:18-23, concerning a woman, Jezebel, who was preaching at the church in Thyatira, in modern-day Turkey.  She is accused of sexual immorality and eating food offered to idols, but her principal sin seems to be preaching as a woman.  Revelations 2:22 follows with the rapey threat that Jesus would “throw her on a bed” where she and others would suffer terribly.  As an aside in this narrative, Jesus says that he will kill all of her followers.  What is this passage doing in the inspired Word of God?  What does it mean that women should be shamed and threatened with sexual violence for presuming to preach as a messenger of God?  When there is a difference of sexual morality, why is Jezebel considered wrong, and the author of Revelations right?  Why is Jezebel to be subject to violent punishment for her error, when men are chided with mere words?  Is it fair or just?  Clearly, it is not.

 
John Byam Liston Shaw’s “Jezebel” from 1896.

The name Jezebel in Revelations may be a literary allusion to Queen Jezebel of the Old Testament Book of Kings.  The first Jezebel was a Phoenician princess related to the royalty of Carthage.  Married to Ahab, King of Israel, she instituted the worship of the goddess Ashera and the god Baal, and repressed the prophets of Yahweh.  She was killed in the ensuing revolt.  It is important to note that there is nothing to suggest immorality on her part, but as part of the patriarchal slander of any female opponent (extending to the present day) the name Jezebel became synonymous with sexual licentiousness and debauchery.  Images on current Christian websites seem to show that Jezebel of Thyatira has been rehabilitated. It seems complicated.

Art images of Jezebel of Thyartira, from present-day Christian websites.

There are more examples of sexism in the New Testament, including Jesus shaming the Samaritan woman at the well for having several husbands, and in Revelations the characterization of cities as the Whore of Babylon.  Much of the sexism is rooted in a patriarchal code or sexuality granting license to men and penalties to women.  Regardless of its origin, the broad sexism of the New Testament is unjust and inconsistent with a sacred origin.  

Cited Verses
1 Corinthians 14:33–35  (Paul)
As in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. Women should remain silent in the churches, They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

1 Timothy 2: 9-15 (NASB) says:  (Paul)
Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

Titus 2:3-5 (Paul)
younger women must love their families and be "self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands.”

Ephesians 5:22–24
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.   Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

Revelation 2:18-23
The Message to Thyatira
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
This is the message from the Son of God, whose eyes blaze like fire, whose feet shine like polished brass. 19 I know what you do. I know your love, your faithfulness, your service, and your patience. I know that you are doing more now than you did at first. 20 But this is what I have against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a messenger of God. By her teaching she misleads my servants into practicing sexual immorality and eating food that has been offered to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her sins, but she does not want to turn from her immorality. 22 And so I will throw her on a bed where she and those who committed adultery with her will suffer terribly. I will do this now unless they repent of the wicked things they did with her. 23 I will also kill her followers, and then all the churches will know that I am the one who knows everyone's thoughts and wishes. I will repay each of you according to what you have done.

Image credits:
Images of first-century women are from Fayum Portraits, funerary portraits of mummified women in Roman Egypt, circa first century AD.

John Byam Liston Shaw’s “Jezebel” from 1896.

Charcoal Jezebel image art, K. Kostecka, http://www.burningpointministries.com/jezebel
Jezebel image art, from: https://robinrevispyke.com/2017/03/15/do-you-have-a-jezebel-spirit-2/

Misogyny in the Old Testament; Deuteronomy 20 - 22, Numbers 5

Sexism

The Old Testament is systematically sexist in a way that is inconsistent with my belief in fairness.  There are too many cases to cite; you can randomly open the Book to any page to find examples.  Deuteronomy, as well as other books, contains various laws pertaining to sexual purity and rape.  Of course, the laws regarding sexual purity apply only to women, and not to men.  The following examples are randomly taken, literally by browsing an open Bible.  These examples are better described as misogyny than sexism, for the specific, disproportionate cruelty to women dictated by the Bible.

Here we return to the key questions of this blog.  Does the Bible represent the word of God?  Is misogyny fair, just and reasonable?  If the word of God is not fair, just and reasonable, why should we believe in God?

Judah and Tamar, by Arent de Gelder, 1661

Sexual Purity of Women

Deuteronomy 22 considers the situation where a young man no longer wants a woman he has married, and claims that she was not a virgin at the time of the wedding:

20 “But if the charge is true and there is no proof that she was a virgin, 21 then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father's house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father's house. In this way you will get rid of this evil.

Of course, there is no corresponding proscription on behavior or punishment for men. 

 

Rape and Ownership of Women

There are also laws concerning rape in Deuteronomy 22.  The penalties for rape vary according to the status of a woman.  If a woman is engaged to another man, the penalty is much more severe – death.  Presumably, the harsher penalty is not because the woman was violated, but rather because her fiancé was violated by the attack.  If a woman who is not engaged is raped, the penalty is fifty pieces of silver, to be paid to the father of the woman.  The woman is given to her rapist to be his wife.

25 Suppose a man out in the countryside rapes a young woman who is engaged to someone else. Then only the man is to be put to death; 26 nothing is to be done to the woman, because she has not committed a sin worthy of death.…27 The man raped the engaged woman in the countryside, and although she cried for help, there was no one to help her. 

28 Suppose a man is caught raping a young woman who is not engaged. 29 He is to pay her father the bride price of fifty pieces of silver, and she is to become his wife, because he forced her to have intercourse with him. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

The sense of these passages is that a woman is chattel, property with no more rights than a slave or an animal.  If she is violated by rape, the only concern of the Bible is how her owner – her father, her fiancé or husband – has suffered by the damage to his possession.

Women Captives by War

[Deuteronomy 20]

10 “When you go to attack a city, first give its people a chance to surrender. 11 If they open the gates and surrender, they are all to become your slaves and do forced labor for you. 12 But if the people of that city will not surrender, but choose to fight, surround it with your army. 13 Then, when the Lord your God lets you capture the city, kill every man in it. 14 You may, however, take for yourselves the women, the children, the livestock, and everything else in the city. You may use everything that belongs to your enemies. The Lord has given it to you. 15 That is how you are to deal with those cities that are far away from the land you will settle in.

The treatment of women who are captured in war is different than the treatment of men.  Men are to be enslaved, if the city submits, or killed.  Women, are to be taken, and used, like everything else that belonged to the enemy.  This underscores the idea that in biblical tradition, women are possessions of men. 

 [Deuteronomy 21]

10 “When the Lord your God gives you victory in battle and you take prisoners, 11 you may see among them a beautiful woman that you like and want to marry. 12 Take her to your home, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails, 13 and change her clothes. She is to stay in your home and mourn for her parents for a month; after that, you may marry her. 14 Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free. Since you forced her to have intercourse with you, you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her.

A woman captive may be required to marry one of her captors.  The same tradition exists today in extreme Islam, in ISIS or Boko Haram.  The woman’s rights are still minimal, but a woman granted status as a wife cannot later be treated as a slave.  If the husband no longer wants the captive wife, she is to be freed.

Ritual Poisoning of Women Suspected of Infidelity

In Numbers 5:1-30, if a husband believes his wife is unfaithful but has no proof, or has feelings of jealousy about his wife, she is to be ritually poisoned. 

Numbers 5: 12 - 28

It may happen that a man becomes suspicious that his wife is unfaithful to him and has defiled herself by having intercourse with another man. But the husband may not be certain, for his wife may have kept it secret—there was no witness, and she was not caught in the act. Or it may happen that a husband becomes suspicious of his wife, even though she has not been unfaithful. 15 In either case the man shall take his wife to the priest. He shall also take the required offering of two pounds of barley flour, but he shall not pour any olive oil on it or put any incense on it, because it is an offering from a suspicious husband, made to bring the truth to light.

16 The priest shall bring the woman forward and have her stand in front of the altar. 17 He shall pour some holy water into a clay bowl and take some of the earth that is on the floor of the Tent of the Lord's presence and put it in the water to make it bitter. 18 Then he shall loosen the woman's hair and put the offering of flour in her hands. In his hands the priest shall hold the bowl containing the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall make the woman agree to this oath spoken by the priest: “If you have not committed adultery, you will not be harmed by the curse that this water brings. 20 But if you have committed adultery, 21 may the Lord make your name a curse among your people. May he cause your genital organs to shrink and your stomach to swell up. 22 May this water enter your stomach and cause it to swell up and your genital organs to shrink.”

The woman shall respond, “I agree; may the Lord do so.”

23 Then the priest shall write this curse down and wash the writing off into the bowl of bitter water. 24 Before he makes the woman drink the water, which may then cause her bitter pain, 25 the priest shall take the offering of flour out of the woman's hands, hold it out in dedication to the Lord, and present it on the altar. 26 Then he shall take a handful of it as a token offering and burn it on the altar. Finally, he shall make the woman drink the water. 27 If she has committed adultery, the water will cause bitter pain; her stomach will swell up and her genital organs will shrink. Her name will become a curse among her people. 28 But if she is innocent, she will not be harmed and will be able to bear children.

29-30 This is the law in cases where a man is jealous and becomes suspicious that his wife has committed adultery. The woman shall be made to stand in front of the altar, and the priest shall perform this ritual. 31 The husband shall be free of guilt, but the woman, if guilty, must suffer the consequences.

The poison will cause great suffering, and leave her unable to bear children.  If she has been faithful, God will protect her and she will be unaffected by the poison.   Would any reader volunteer for this test, deliberately taking poison, and trusting to God’s timely intervention?  

Of course, there is no parallel trial by poison for men suspected of infidelity by their wives.  The entire picture of sexual roles in the Old Testament is one of male privilege, and of women as powerless chattel, subject to cruel treatment for the mere suspicion of illicit sexual behavior.

These passages represent unmitigated misogyny.  If this is the word of God, we should ask ourselves if God is real.

Tribalism in The Old Testament; Deuteronomy 7, 20

Tribalism

The God of the Bible is very tribal.  The God of the Old Testament is concerned with the well-being of only the faithful among the Jewish people.  In Deuteronomy, other people and cultures are to be swept away with little mercy.  Women prisoners of war are to be forced into marriage with their captors; cities are to be razed, children to be slaughtered – all for the greater glory of God.

Deuteronomy 7 describes the conquests to come.

“The Lord your God will bring you into the land that you are going to occupy, and he will drive many nations out of it. As you advance, he will drive out seven nations larger and more powerful than you: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 2 When the Lord your God places these people in your power and you defeat them, you must put them all to death.

Deuteronomy 20 continues.

10 “When you go to attack a city, first give its people a chance to surrender. 11 If they open the gates and surrender, they are all to become your slaves and do forced labor for you. 12 But if the people of that city will not surrender, but choose to fight, surround it with your army. 13 Then, when the Lord your God lets you capture the city, kill every man in it. 14 You may, however, take for yourselves the women, the children, the livestock, and everything else in the city. You may use everything that belongs to your enemies. The Lord has given it to you. 15 That is how you are to deal with those cities that are far away from the land you will settle in.

16 “But when you capture cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, kill everyone. 17 Completely destroy all the people: the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord ordered you to do.  18 Kill them, so that they will not make you sin against the Lord by teaching you to do all the disgusting things that they do in the worship of their gods.

Many other passages in the Old Testament deal with war against neighboring tribes, and in particular, wars of conquest and genocide “in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”  There are too many passages to include in a blog post.  But the essence of the passages is that the other people have no right to live, no right to their lands and the cities they have built, no right to live peacefully in their own homes.  Does the behavior of the Old Testament God pass the test of reason and justice?

The words of Deuteronomy are disturbingly close to the Muslim fundamentalist ideas and practices of the Islamic State.  The ethic expressed in the bible calls on other cultures to submit to the Israelites and the Jewish God or be crushed.  The script is the same, whether we are considering the Israelites, Alexander the Great, the Romans or the Mongol hordes.  The God of the Old Testament operates on the same level – submit or die.