Pick a colloquialism: What's your flavor of non-belief?

“It’s one thing to not believe in God, but an Atheist?”

Comments like the one above have left many non-believers to adopt any one of a number of different colloquialisms to avoid the stigma attached to “The A Word.” Let’s review a few of them, shall we?

Agnostic: Let’s get this one out of the way first; Yes, agnosticism is different from Atheism, but in many cases, it is used by Atheists as a way of self-identifying as a non-believer in a more palatable way. It can also, in fact, be quite a subjective term. Technically, even Richard Dawkins is an agnostic, because he can not say with 100% certainty that there is no such thing as a god or gods. This is exactly my stance as well, but I (and I assume Prof. Dawkins as well) identify as Atheist to indicate that it isn’t something I am unsure about, that I don’t feel there’s any reasonable chance that there is a god. I cannot claim 100% certainty that anything doesn’t exist, but I find it so unlikely that the difference is almost indistinguishable. Thus: Atheist.

Free-Thinker: This is a way of downplaying the disbelief, making it nothing more than incidental to the fact that the bearer of the title practices “free thought.” That free thought should naturally lead to the conclusion that there is no god. I find this to be both pretentious and, somehow, not pretentious enough. On the one hand, “free-thinker” is a way of elevating yourself to a higher status than those you’re differentiating yourself from: that they are inferior because they do not have the ability to think for themselves. In that sense, I think it can be a more damaging label than Atheist. On the other hand, I think that you could drop the “free” and just acknowledge that you just need to think, period, to know that the idea of God is ridiculous.

Humanist/Secular Humanist: The “Secular” part, when added, is almost redundant. Secular doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t believe in God, just that you want that part to be separate from the rest of society, especially government. There are even plenty of Christian secularists here in the States (though not nearly enough). But someone with no belief in gods is almost always going to be a secularist... after all, why would you want something you don’t believe in having a say in something as important as government? “Humanist” serves to express the disbelief, so “Secular” should be logically inferred. But what about that phrase? It indicates a faith in humanity, in human nature to provide morality, empathy, guidance and charity. It says that we don’t need something outside ourselves to be just and righteous. A stance on the existence of God takes a back seat to the more important notion that, whether God exists or not, we don’t need one. In that way, I very much like the term. For me, though, I prefer to be more blunt about my views on the subject of God’s existence.

Skeptic: All Atheists are, by definition, skeptics. In fact, my dictionary says they are synonymous. Unfortunately, too often the term skeptic is thought of more as someone who doubts the existence of ghosts, physics, Bigfoot, or UFOs, rather than someone who doesn’t believe in deities. So, while the term skeptic is perfectly accurate, the perception of the term usually gives a false impression and usually calls to mind people like James Randi, who try to expose faith healers and other charlatans.

Bright: According to the-brights.net, there are semantic differences between a Bright and an Atheist. However, the goal seems to be to introduce the word “Bright” into the public vernacular to mean “A person with a naturalistic, not supernatural, worldview,” mush in the same way that the word Gay went from meaning “happy” to meaning “homosexual.” I think this is a worthy endeavor and I have signed on as part of the movement. But I’ll continue to identify as an Atheist. Especially for the time being, since no one would have any idea what I was talking about if I said “Oh, I’m a Bright!”

Those are all the ones I can think of for the moment. If anyone identifies as something I don’t have listed (or something I do) then let me know what and why. I’m very interested in hearing why people use the colloquialisms that they do.

The Terrible Secret of the Rapture

Biblical scholars and clergymen have spent hundreds of years watching for the signs of the rapture, the time when Jesus would return to Earth and deliver his followers bodily into Heaven prior to starting the apocalypse. In recent years, more and more of the foretold events have been observed, according to such experts, and the general consensus has been that Jesus’ return is imminent.
        “Jesus walks among us today,” says Pastor Jim Davidson of the Crown of Thorns Methodist Church in Albuquerque, NM, “He’s just waiting for the right time to exercise His glorious judgement upon us.”

Many expected that the End Times would be kicked off as the clock rolled over into the new millennium on January 1st, 2000, but seem to have been undeterred when no such thing happened.
        “2000 was as arbitrary a number as anyone could have come up with,” explains the Rev. Patrick McIntyre of Our Lady of Blessed Grace Church in Manhattan, “the truth is, no such theories have anything at all to do with scripture and have everything to do with people trying to guess at the will of God using logic that makes sense to them. The flaw there is in thinking that any of us, or even all six billion of us working together, could ever think or reason on the level of perfection and understanding as the Lord. Such thought is more than folly; it’s blasphemy.”

Rev. McIntyre went on to predict the true date of the Rapture as May 7th, 2011.

Shelby Corbitt, of Bradenton, FL, claims that God came to her and gave her a prophetic vision that the Rapture was coming in 2007. She wrote a self-published book on the subject, launched a website called www.2007Rapture.com and advertised the two, amongst other places, on bus stop benches. Mrs. Corbitt fell victim to quite a bit of ridicule when the calendar flipped over to 2008 without incident and she has since taken down her site and started a new one, www.rapturewatcher.org, where she is less specific on the date that God gave her in her 1986 vision.

As it turns out, Mrs. Corbitt may have been too quick in distancing herself from her previous prophecy and should probably have had more faith in the infallible word of the Lord. After rigorous investigation, we have determined that the Rapture did, indeed occur in 2007. Coincidentally, while she had the year right, it was Rev. McIntyre that pinpointed the day: May 7th.

On May 7th at 11:58 AM, Eastern Time, Edward Bailey, a 36 year old contractor in Hartford, CT, was seen walking out of a local deli, when suddenly...
        “He looked like he was doing that moonwalk dance,” eye-witness Desiree Dupree said, “he was walking, but he wasn’t goin’ no where. It took him a second to notice and I was doin’ a double-take myself. But right when he noticed, I seen this light come down out of the sky and he just gently floated up until I couldn’t see him no more. It was nothin’ but a miracle of the Lord and that’s the truth.”

Ms. Dupree, a 92-year-old widow, wasn’t the only witness, either. The deli was located directly across from a bank, who’s ATM security camera caught the whole event, along with three other cameras on the block, including one on the roof of the building Mr. Bailey had just walked out of, which caught Mr. Bailey in close-up as he ascended past.
        “If you look at the street, there’s no question as to the authenticity of the event,” explained Hartford Police forensic expert Oliver Wright, “First, he would have to have set up some sort of crane or pulley system on the roof, which simply could not have been accomplished here without raising some questions. Also, since multiple cameras caught him walking out of a building from behind a closed door just prior to rising, it was clear that he could not have been wearing any sort of harness to be connected to such a system at the time of the ascent. Though no cameras were pointed at the sky to see him rise higher than would have been possible through human means, we do have a reliable witness [Ms. Dupree] who did see this happen and the rest of her testimony is corroborated by the surveillance footage we do have.”

In response to charges of “Rapture,” officer Wright added, “I won’t make a judgement that it was God or aliens or Osama Bin Laden. All I can say is that we know pretty conclusively that this man was lifted into the sky through no human technological means.”

The day after the alleged rapture, an Argentinean newspaper reported that a church had been vandalized, a message written large across one wall in what appeared to be blood, though no tests have determined from what species the blood may have come. The message read: “Only one man was worthy. The rest of you are assholes.”

No Bullshit Bible Lesson #21: God names Jacob "Israel" (again)

Genesis, Chapter 35:

After Jacob’s sons slaughtered Hamor and Shechem’s tender-dicked people, God came to Jacob with a message,
        “Jacob, you remember when you were running away from our brother and I came to you in a vision and told you I had your back?”
        “You mean in Bethel?”
        “Yeah”
        “I wasn’t running from my brother, I was going to get a wife.”
        “No, I’m pretty sure you were running from your brother. Don’t go back and re-read my account of it, just take my word for it, because I never contradict myself.”
        “Uh. Right.”
        “Anyway: Bethel. Go back there and build me an altar.”
        “Right-o.”

So Jacob gathered all his people together.
        “Okay, everyone! Give me all your false gods, get yourselves cleaned up and changed, we’re going to Bethel!”

So they handed over all their little carved gods and their earrings and, while they were getting changed, he buried all these things under a tree by Shechem...which, after Levi and Simeon were done with him, could probably have been any tree in a three-mile radius.

As they passed out of town, the people in the neighboring town didn’t slaughter them because they were afraid of God. It’s good to have friends in high places.

So they arrived at Bethel, where Rebekah’s nurse promptly died and they buried her under an oak tree. The God showed up and blessed Jacob,
        “Your name is Jacob,” He said, displaying a great ability for stating the obvious, “But from now on, your name will be Israel. And your kids will be kings and you can have the land I gave your father and grandfather and all that.”

So God left and Jacob built a stone altar and poured water and oil on it. Then he named the spot Bethel. Just like he had almost 30 years prior.

They all left Bethel then and traveled to Bethlehem but before they could reach their destination, Rachel went into a difficult labor with her second child, whom the midwife assured her would be a boy. She gave birth to the boy but, tragically, the labor had been too hard on her and she passed away, the last words on her lips, the name of the child she died bringing into the world: Ben-oni.

Jacob had loved Rachel very much, from the moment he met her, and her dying wish were that her son should be named Ben-oni. Unfortunately, she was just a woman. And the wishes of a woman don’t matter, not even the dying wishes matter if they come from a lowly woman. So Jacob named his twelfth son Benjamin. Or maybe he just thought Ben-oni sounded too much like Ben Kenobi (scholars consider this latter possibility “unlikely”).

So Rachel was buried and a pillar erected in her honor.

Eventually, Jacob (now officially going by “Israel”) settled somewhere beyond the tower of Edar. While living there, his eldest son, Reuben, had sex with one of Israel’s concubines...which would be kind of like having sex with your step-mother. Israel heard about it, too. How he felt about it, though, remains unclear.

Later, Israel/Jacob traveled back to be with his father, Isaac, at the end of his days. He died at the age of one hundred eighty, and his sons buried him.

No Bullshit Bible Lesson #20: Dinah's Fate Revealed!

Genesis, Chapter 34:

Though she rated not a single mention in Jacob’s adventures after her birth, his daughter Dinah was, in fact, brought back home when the rest of the family took their leave of Laban.

So Dinah went to see the daughters of the land. Whatever that means. While out and about, she met a prince named Shechem, who took her home and raped her. Unlike most rapists, however, Shechem fell in love with his victim and he tried to sweet talk her into liking him.

Shechem went to his father, a powerful man named Hamor, and demanded that he arrange that Dinah should marry him.

Jacob, meanwhile, had heard about what had been done to his precious (though often overlooked) daughter. His sons were in the field with the cattle when he got word, so he decided to stew in his rage until they returned.

Hamor arrived to discuss the proposal with Jacob at about the same time as the boys came in from the field. When they heard what happened to their sister, they were filled with a rage befitting older brothers in such circumstances.

        “Guys,” Hamor implored, “My son loves your Dinah with all his heart! Please consent to make her his wife! Your daughters will marry into my family and my daughters will marry into yours! We’ll be one, big, happy family! What do you say?”
        “Yeah,” said Shechem, who was also there, apparently, “I’m a good guy! Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you. Anything you want. Trade you a Rolex each for your sister, if you want.”

The men of Jacob’s family discussed amongst themselves briefly and came to a conclusion:
        “The problem,” Jacob said, “is that you heathens have foreskins. Our family has a big problem with excess dick skin and could never give our daughter to someone that’s uncut. But we’re not unreasonable. We will consent to marrying our daughter to you and joining our families if everyone of your people will get circumcised. Otherwise, we’re taking Dinah back and you’ll never see her again.”

Hamor and Shechem left in good spirits. Shechem’s love for Dinah was strong enough that he would mutilate his penis and the penises of every man he encountered, if needs be. So they went and gathered the men of their land and sold them all on the idea of getting circumcised, enticing them with the notion of how much more livestock they could have if they were joined with Jacob’s people. The men agreed and they all set about getting circumcised right away.

The next day, all the men moved about gingerly due to their sore, sore man-units. So when two of Jacob’s sons, Levi and Simeon, charged into town with blades drawn, the men were unable to protect themselves and every last one was killed mercilessly by the brothers.

Their cold-hearted slaughter complete, they freed their sister and took every woman and child captive. They also took all the livestock and harvest and valuables. The town was completely decimated.

Jacob wasn’t too happy to hear what his sons had done,
        “Great. Because of you little shits, everyone around here is going to hate me. You know what’s gonna happen, right? I’ll tell you: all the villages are going to band together, march in here and kill my ass. All because you had to go commit genocide!”
        “Hey, no one treats our sister like a whore, Dad!”

And that seemed to end the argument.

Attention Internet Explorer Users:

It has just been brought to my attention that my site has been crashing your browsers. Sorry about that. It seems I had a widget that IE (and only IE) just didn’t get along with at all. The good news is, the problem seems to be fixed, so you can feel free to read without fear of a browser crash.

And from now on, I’ll be testing all the browsers whenever I add a new widget.

No Bullshit Bible Lesson #19: Jacob vs God in the Steel Cage!

Genesis, Chapters 32-33:

Jacob was finally on his way home and, on his journey, was met by the angels of God. All of them, apparently. And if they had much of anything to say, no one seemed inclined to write it down.

Jacob sent some messengers ahead to inform his brother of his homecoming,
        “Go, tell Esau where I’ve been for two decades,” he commanded them, “and tell him how huge my flock is and how many servants I have, oh, and that I hope he’s happy to see me!”

So off they went, later returning with news of Esau,
        “So, we found Esau and told him you were coming, and he’s coming out to meet you! Oh, and he’s bringing four hundred men with him. Good luck with that.”

Naturally, Jacob freaked out. After all, he spent his early years screwing over Esau as often as he could. So he split his group in two, so that if Esau came and slaughtered one, the other might escape. He also spent quite a bit of time praying to God, and reminding Him how He said He’d do right by Jacob.

Just in case, though, Jacob gathered hundreds of his various animals and, separating them into groups of like animals, assigned each drove to a servant,
        “Okay, guys...I’m gonna send you out in waves, okay? Journey out in the direction of my brother, with some distance between you, so you don’t all get there at once. When you see him, tell him that you and all the animals are a gift from me, and tell him I’m right behind you. If we’re lucky, he won’t want to kill me by the time I finally get to him. If he kills you and takes the animals, I’m sorry. Better you than me, though, right?”

So off they went and later that night, Jacob gathered his wives, and his concubines and his eleven sons (his daughter Dinah still conspicuously unmentioned) and sent them across the ford while he stayed behind for the night.

He was all alone, except for some random guy who came along and wrestled him. They wrestled until dawn, seemingly at a stalemate. As he realized that he wasn’t getting anywhere in this wrestling match, Jacob put his hand on the hollow of his thigh, because it was out of joint.
        “Okay, let me go,” he said to the stranger, “the sun’s coming up. And I’m not letting go until you bless me.” Blessings, apparently, were the big gaudy Championship Belt of the time.
        “What is your name?”
        “Jacob.”
        “Okay...you’re name isn’t Jacob anymore. From now on, you’ll be known as Israel, because you are a prince among men and you have power with God and you have prevailed.”
        “Uh, okay. And what’s your name?”
        “Why would you ask me my name?” he said, before revealing himself to be God, and blessing Jacob right there on the spot, which Jacob came to call Peniel.

After God took His leave, Jacob (apparently less concerned with taking the name that God assigned him than his grandparents had been) continued on his journey, catching up with his family.

Before long, he saw Esau and his four hundred men coming his way. And he did what any good father would do, he put his family between him and the threat, in order of his love for them; The concubines and their children closest to Esau, then Leah and her kids and, with him, Rachel and Joseph. Dinah, however, was still nowhere to be found.

Esau went right past them all to Jacob, who fell to his knees and bowed seven times as he drew nearer. Esau ran up and...grabbed Jacob in a big ol’ bear hug, gave him a kiss and they cried with joy to see one another!

Introductions were made all-around and Esau was reluctant to accept the offerings Jacob had sent to him, but eventually relented at Jacob’s continued insistence.

They journeyed back home together and Jacob built himself a house and bought some land and built an altar. Things were looking up.

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No Bullshit Bible Lesson #18: Jacob Takes Off

Genesis, Chapter 31:

Laban’s sons were bitching that Jacob had conned their dad out of all the good livestock and Jacob, in turn, noticed that Laban was giving him dirty looks lately.

Seeing this, God went to Jacob, “Okay, man. You should just go home now. I got your back.”

Jacob jumped into action and called for his wives to meet him at the flock, where he explained their next course of action,
        “Girls, your dad is being kind of a dick, and we all know how long I’ve been busting my ass for him. And, in return, he’s lied to me, changed my wages ten times...so guess what? When he decided I’d get all the cattle that were spotted or speckled, God made ALL of them spotted or speckled. Not my fault. God saw what he was doing and showed him what was what. And now God wants us to go home.”
        “Hell, yeah!” they replied, “He sold us off and then spent all our money! All the stuff here that used to be his would have been our and our kids’ anyway. We should listen to God and get the hell outta here.”

So Jacob loaded his sons and wives onto camels. His daughter? Maybe he fed her to some dogs. Or made her into saddlebags for the camels. Or maybe he loaded her onto a camel with the rest of the family. We may never know. Jacob had gathered all his things, including the flocks. Rachel, for her part, had stolen her father’s idols when he set off to shear his sheep. So, with everything gathered and everyone (with the possible exception of the daughter) loaded onto camels, it was time to leave, with Laban none-the-wiser.

It took three days for Laban to get word that Jacob had taken off and he immediately set out to intercept him. It was seven days of hard travel before he was able to catch up and on one of those nights, God came to Laban in a dream and told him that he’d better watch his mouth when he speaks to Jacob.

Finally, he caught up to Jacob and went to have words with him.
        “What do you think you’re doing, man? Why’d you take off with my daughters, like they were your hostages? Why didn’t you just come and tell me that you wanted to go? I’d have seen you off with a party! But you do this to me, it makes me want to hurt you, Jake. And I could, you know. I could hurt you. The only reason you’re not bleeding out into the sane is because your God asked me not to hurt you. And I know you want to get back home and see your dad again...you have for a long time, but why’d you have to go and steal my little statues of my gods?”
        “I left because I was afraid that you would take your daughters from me. As for who took your idols...you got me. You find them, then you can feel free to whack whoever has them,” Jacob replied, totally unaware that his wife had stolen the idols.

So Laban went on a tent-by-tent search, tearing everything apart, trying to find his idols. But Rachel was smart, she hid them in her camel’s saddle and sat on them and then told her father that she was on her period, so that he wouldn’t look there.

When the search was complete and the idols were nowhere to be seen, Jacob became furious.
        “What the hell did I ever do to you, Laban, that you’d tear-ass across the desert to catch up to me? You’ve gone through all my stuff and what did you find? Huh? Go on, lay it out so everyone can see what I’ve stolen from you! Oh, you don’t have anything? Because it seems to me that I’ve been working for you for twenty years! Fourteen years for your daughters, six years for the cattle. In all that time, I have never stolen anything. I’ve never eaten your meat, I’ve been the one responsible for any lost or stolen animals. Every day and night I worked, sweating and parched in the day, frostbitten at night. And how did you treat me in return? By changing my wages ten times! If it weren’t for the fact that you’re afraid of my God, you’d have sent me away empty-handed by now.”
        “Okay,” replied Laban, “Let’s come to an agreement here. Let’s make a big pile of rocks.”

So they made a big pile of rocks and Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha. But that name sucked, so Jacob called it Galeed. They all ate a big feats on top of the heap of stones, but when it came to deal-time, it was just Jacob, Laban, and the Heap. And God, I guess.
        “Now just you remember,” said Laban, “If you mistreat my daughters or marry additional wives, that God stands witness to our pact here. That said, I will never cross this pile of rocks to do you harm, if you’ll swear the same. And no going around, either. Just pretend the pile marks an invisible border.”

Jacob swore on his father, with God as witness, to uphold the treaty, with God as witness. Then they broke bread and, in the morning, Laban kissed his daughters and grandchildren (well, grandsons...the jury’s still out on poor Dinah, his granddaughter) and went back home.

It's All a Trick of the Devil

Creationists have been getting a lot of press lately, with their new propaganda film out and their continued efforts to undermine the teaching of science in our school system. These creationists, the ones who hide behind the pseudo-scientific title of “Intelligent Design,” clearly have no understanding of evolutionary theory or even science in general. They are woefully misinformed and, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, approach the whole issue from the wrong end; trying to punch holes in a theory in order to validate their theory, rather than getting any evidence to support their views. These are people who, because of their preconceived notions, genuinely feel that the evidence supporting evolution is flawed or inconclusive. They may believe the Earth is six thousand years old and they may fight tooth-and-nail against anything that contradicts the word of the Bible but I genuinely feel that most of them, if presented with the full scope of the evidence in support of evolution, would at least take it upon themselves to look more closely at the matter, rather than stick dogmatically to their views. That isn’t to say that they would necessarily change their minds, but that if they really knew the full extent of the evidence in support of Evolution, their curiosity would get the best of them and they might be able to look at the situation more objectively.

Less likely to stray from the dogma, however, are the creationists that do accept that the evidence we have clearly supports the theory of Evolution. How can someone that will admit that the evidence supports the theory be a creationist, though? By believing that the evidence is--you guessed it--a trick of the Devil.

Let me go back several years for a moment, back to my very first experience with a Young Earth Creationist. I was about 20 and had only just recently learned that there were people--Americans, no less--who truly believed the Earth to be only six thousand years old. When I first heard this, I immediately thought “Wait...how do they explain dinosaur fossils in their world view?” When I finally met a Young Earth Creationist, I wasted no time in asking the dinosaur question. The answer, as it turns out, is that dinosaur bones are a Trick of the Devil. As if, upon the invention of the shovel, the Prince of Lies worried that the humans would dig straight down to Hell, and decided that ancient bones of giant beasts would be sufficient distraction to prevent such an occurrence. This was, of course, before the phrase “Intelligent Design” was thought up by some brilliant evangelical PR man and thus, before the popularization of the now generally-accepted-by-creationists notion that dinosaurs and man peacefully co-existed.

There are still people, right here in the USA, that think this way. That think that the 150 years of compiled evidence in support of evolution, even right down to the evidence contained within our DNA, is nothing more than the Devil’s trickery. How can you possibly convince these people otherwise? Well, you can’t. Not ever. The Trick of the Devil argument is the ultimate logic-stopper. It’s the adult equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “LA LA LA LA LA LA, I can’t hear you!!” The Devil has played many roles in the mythology of the Bible and now, in the face of overwhelming, mutually supported evidence, he has been cast as the Mark Furman in the OJ trial of Evolution.

It’s quite the confusing situation. On the one hand, these are people who are reasonable enough to look at the sheer amount of the evidence and logically conclude that it empirically supports Evolution. On the other hand, they believe that the only reason Evolution is so clearly obvious is because that’s what the Devil wants us to think! Where does the line get drawn on such reasoning? At what point can someone in that mindset accept anything as reality? After all, it is the clearest example of willful ignorance I can think of. They choose to believe it is a trick of the Devil because they simply aren’t willing to accept the alternative, no matter what the physical world my have to say about it. So where is the line? If one of these people comes home to find their spouse murdered, for example, can they accept that? If they’re unable to accept the shock to their world that the truth of Evolution would be, how can they possibly accept that God would allow someone to murder their beloved husband or wife? If you go to the museum, a dinosaur fossil is just as tangible as the mutilated corpse of a loved one. God could not allow such a thing, the corpse must be a trick of the Devil, right?

Yes, that example may be a bit extreme, but that’s the point. If you’re willing to accept that objects that you can hold in your hand can have been created by Satan to mislead you, then there’s literally no limit, no cut-off that can be clearly defined for what can be accepted as fact and what is test or a ploy perpetuated by the Nemesis. It is the ultimate form of conspiracy theory, where literally everything can be fabricated, in some cases with God’s consent, to lead us to the wrong conclusions. It’s a small stumble from that place to a state of being fully delusional, forming your own beliefs regardless of what you may see, hear, taste, smell or feel to the contrary.

Make no mistake about my intention; I think that most of the people who use the “Trick of the Devil” argument will never use it for anything but as a trap door to escape a debate that their religion can’t win. But it’s important to acknowledge the full extent of the self-deception at work in such seemingly innocuous statements. Only a tiny fraction of one percent of such people may ever make the leap to full-blown paranoid delusions ... but they’re all standing on the precipice.

No Bullshit Bible Lesson #17: Battle of the Wombs

Genesis, Chapter 30:

Seeing how many children Jacob fathered with Leah, Rachel became quite jealous.
        “Jacob, you give me babies or I swear I’m gonna die!”
        “Hey, it’s not my fault God dried up your womb!”
        “Fine, go have sex with my handmaiden and she’ll bear me some proxy babies!”

So Jacob did as his irrational swinger wife demanded and had a baby with her handmaiden. This pleased Rachel to no end and she sent him once again to bed her servant, and another son was born. And Rachel once again felt superior to Leah.

Leah, for her part, could see that her marital advantage was quickly being eroded and, still walking funny from the first four children she bore, sent her handmaiden to bear more children in her stead. And the servant had two of Jacob’s sons. So Leah now felt like she was back on top.

Then Reuben, Jacob’s eldest child with Leah, was out in the fields and found some mandrakes and brought them to Leah. For some reason, Rachel really wanted some of those mandrakes and asked Leah for some.
        “Oh,” Leah replied, “first you steal my man now you want my son’s mandrakes?”
        “Bitch,” Rachel undoubtedly wanted to reply, “Dad had to trick him into your bed, but he chose me, you skanky ho-bag!” Out loud she said, “Oh, for crying out loud! Give me some damn mandrakes and he’ll come screw you tonight, okay?”

So when Jacob came in from the field, Leah intercepted him,
        “Hey, your ‘favorite’ wife just sold your penis to me for the night in exchange for some veggies, so come give it to me, big boy.”

This apparently seemed to God like a virtuous arrangement, so he blessed Leah with yet another son. And then another. Then she felt that surely, having had six of his children, Jacob would move out of Rachel’s place and come live with her instead. She had a daughter anyway, just to sweeten the deal.

God, who had to have been amused by these women battling for the presumably well-endowed Jacob, decided to make things a little more interesting; he unlocked Rachel’s womb, making her the third straight generation in her family to have a barren womb that was made fertile by God. Shockingly, she had a son. She named him Joseph.

About this time, Jacob went to Laban,
        “Okay, man,” he said, “I’ve been working for you for fourteen years. Give me my wives and my kids and let me go home.”
        “Oh, man...I was afraid you were gonna say that. See, you and your kids have been a lot of free labor for me and I’m afraid my farm is gonna go to crap without you! I want you to stay, name your price.”
        “Dude, look. When I got here, you had, like, nothing. Now look at you. You have more cattle than you know what to do with. I did my time, now let me go home and provide for my own family.”
        “Jacob, please stay...just tell me what you want.”
        “I don’t want anything from you. Just let me leave. If you do that, I will tend to your herds once more. I’ll go through and separate from the herd all the speckled and spotted animals and give them to you, fed and cared for. When I am done caring for the flock, the ones that are not spotted will be mine and the rest yours to keep.”
        “Um...sure?”

So Laban took all the spotted, speckled, etc and gave them to his sons and then put three days distance between him and Jacob.

Jacob took this time to use aphrodisiacs on the animals to get them to mate and paired them up to selectively breed them so that he would get all the good, strong ones while Laban was left with all the weak, feeble ones. Just goes to show what happens when you screw a guy out of seven extra years of his life in order to saddle him with a wife he never wanted.

No Bullshit Bible Lesson #16: Jacob Gets Hitched

Genesis, Chapter 29:

After a dream made Jacob decide to give 10% of all his stuff to God, he continued his journey and ended up at the same well where a servant had found his mother on his hunt for a wife for Isaac. Gathered around the well were sheep herders, there to water the sheep.
        “Hey guys,” he called out, “Where you all from?”
        “We’re from Haran,” one of them answered.
        “Oh, cool! You know Laban?”
        “Oh, sure. Good guy.”
        “He doin’ all right, then?”
        “Yeah, he’s doing well. In fact, here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep now.”

When Rachel came near, Jacob rolled the stone off the well because no one else was willing to, and watered the sheep for her. Apparently, he felt that this earned him some “play” because he kissed here right there and in the manliest way possible, cried. After kissing her, Jacob told Rachel that he was her cousin and she ran and told her father. It should be noted that this was due to excitement, not disgust at having made out with her cousin. They were, indeed, different times.

When Laban got the news, he rushed out and met Jacob and embraced him, even kissed him.

Jacob stayed there for a month before Laban said to him,
        “Jacob, you’re family. I can’t have you helping out around here for free. How do you want to be paid?”
        “Oh. Well, uh, I was thinking I could, like, marry Rachel. She’s seriously hot. In fact, I will work for you for seven years in return for her hand in marriage.”

Jacob clearly had not heard how easily the family was willing to marry off its women and that he could have been on his way back home with a new wife come morning if he hadn’t made this ridiculous proposal. Laban, for his part, was not a stupid man. Though he admitted that it would be better for Jacob to have her than anyone else, he wasn’t about to pass up seven years of free labor; he accepted.

So after seven years of indentured servitude, Jacob went to Laban,
        “Okay, Laban. It’s seven years now. Give me Rachel so I can finally have sex with her.”

So Laban put together a great feast for all the men of the village (the women, presumably, were too busy cooking to attend) and, that night, gave his older daughter Leah to Jacob. Jacob, perhaps blinded by seven years of built-up horniness, did not notice that he had been given the wrong wife until he woke the next morning beside her. By this time, of course, he had released the pent-up horniness and was seeing clearly. And seeing red.

        “Dude, what the Hell?!” he demanded of Laban, “I just worked seven years for Rachel, and you give me Leah?! I’m gonna sue your ass for breach of contract!”
        “Jacob...it is just not our way here to give away the younger daughter before the first-born has been married. Tell you what; after Leah has been your wife for a week, I’ll give you Rachel in addition and you can work another seven years for me, since you get two of my daughters.”
        “Fine.”

So, the deal was made and, after a week, Jacob got the wife he wanted in addition to the one he didn’t want and he loved Rachel very much, never having cared all that much for Leah in the first place. And, yes, after taking Rachel for his wife, Jacob was fleeced out of another seven years of his life, working for Laban to pay off Leah, whom he never wanted in the first place. In hindsight, it was clearly very wise for Abraham to refuse to allow Isaac from traveling to pick his own wife, because he clearly knew that a guy could get fleeced out of fourteen years of his life for the sake of a woman.

God, meanwhile, saw that Leah was hated and, in a move that makes one wonder if He knew the whole story, He made Leah extra-fertile, while making Rachel the third consecutive generation of barren-wombed women in her family.

So Leah had a son named Ruben and was convinced that the feat of bearing him a male heir would make Jacob love her. When that didn’t happen, she had another son and named him Simeon. Again, she thought that bearing two sons would make Jacob love her. Not so much. So she went for a third: Levi. Still no love. Lastly, she gave birth to Jacob’s fourth son, Judah, and gave up trying to earn Jacob’s love through baby-making.

It is worth noting that, as much as Jacob loved Rachel, he didn’t seem to have any issue with seemingly consistent sex with her sister. Stay tuned for more tales from the book where all our morals come from, right here on Resurrecting Reason!

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