An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 4

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Genesis 4

Cain and Abel

¹ Adam ^[a] lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. ^[b] She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth ^[c] a man." ² Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. ³ In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. ⁴ But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, ⁵ but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

"With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.": so I wonder where you place "the LORD"'s involvement in childbirth now that we know the natural process of the sex cells and the meiosis and how it can produce a fully functional living being. Don't get me wrong, life is a wonderful thing, maybe the most wonderful of things in our eyes (that is the eyes of living beings), but it's not a miracle. Of course, it would probably seem more likely that something magical is going on to the eyes of people living thousands of years in the past. "The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.": I can fully understand Cain here. Why is God being such a douche to him and why does he dislikes fruits from the soil that Cain had to work hard on? Oh right, God thirsts for blood, especially when we're talking about firstborns (I know we're talking about simple animals here, but still), because you know, it's more evil...

⁶ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? ⁷ If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

Oh come on God! You already know what he's going to do because you made him angry, at least you should know since you're God... So what are you saying here, that Cain shouldn't be angry that you pulled the middle finger at him because it doesn't mean you're not accepting him as long as he doesn't sin or are you saying that offering fruits wasn't the right thing and that he should know best next time?

⁸ Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." ^[d] And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

OK, maybe I shouldn't have been taking Cain's side before, because now it's clear that the guy is not too smart and has anger issues. I know I said God was a douche, a big douche in fact, but he still said something to cheer Cain up, I guess. Cain, what you did was totally uncalled for. But now, we've got to wonder what kind of God Cain has to fear. I mean, he talks to the guy personally, he knows what kinds of power he has, so he knows he won't be able to hide the murder, he also knows he will probably be punished and he knows that God hadn't abandoned him from what he told him, so I don't understand his actions at all. So it's either that this part of the story isn't true at all and it only serves to show that anger is a dangerous sin or Cain must've been crazy or retarded if he existed and things went on exactly like that. No rational human being would react like that from what I know.

⁹ Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"
"I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Once again, I'm going to point out that God knew all along that this would happen. He did nothing to stop it. If you say otherwise, you have to reject that God knows everything, and I know most people won't.

¹⁰ The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. ¹¹ Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

Doesn't seem like much of a punition for killing. I'm totally against the death penalty, but that's what some countries decide you deserve for your actions. Or at least you get to spend your life in prison with all your liberties removed from you. Cain's punition for killing, as decided by God: move. And it's not like God doesn't kill people later on, for things less serious than murder.

¹³ Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. ¹⁴ Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

Oh I get it; God just gave him a subtle death sentence since people will kill him anyway. OK, I guess it's an appropriate punition since people do look for vengeance (I wonder why we're like that); that is assuming God has informed them... Wait a minute!? What people? I know only of Adam, Eve, now deceased Abel and Cain. I hope we get an answer in the next few verses...

¹⁵ But the LORD said to him, "Not so ^[e] ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. ¹⁶ So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, ^[f] east of Eden.

Well, so what's Cain's punition then? He almost looks like he got a special award, except maybe that people won't respect him when they see him and his mark. I wonder how can someone be punished seven times more than death. By the way, we're not resolving anything about the issue of there being other people on this earth. And how can one be away from the LORD's presence if he's supposed to be everywhere?

¹⁷ Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. ¹⁸ To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.

OK, NOW I'M ANGRY!!! Where the hell does this wife come from and who will explain that to me? Did God make other people or did Adam and Eve have a daughter that Cain is now banging? I hope the latter is not the case, because the risk of genetic disorder is greatly increased in children resulting from incestual relations. Also, I think God should have informed us of any other people he created, did he think we would not see the plot holes? Oh right, barbaric humans wrote that, not a god. Anyway, I see that these passages where we're informed of generations of humans are even more boring (except for the funny names) and they don't serve much purpose at least for now, so maybe I should be thankful that we don't know about every humans God made up to this point.

¹⁹ Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. ²⁰ Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. ²¹ His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. ²² Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of ^[g] bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.

Well, well, well, isn't that our good friend polygamy! Now I'll admit myself that I have nothing against polygamy. I don't think it's a god given right (since I obviously don't believe there's a god granting us any right) and I don't think people should be forced in these relations, but if everyone is satisfied and happy in the relation, I don't see why we should forbid it. As for myself, I don't live in polygamy or plan to, but I'm bringing this up because nearly all believers (at least Christian believers) are against polygamy, even saying that God doesn't want that. Now explain to me why there is so much polygamy in the "holy book", because yeah there's much more to come.

²³ Lamech said to his wives,
"Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed ^[h] a man for wounding me,
a young man for injuring me.

I guess this passage is used to establish that Cain's descendance is as irrational as he was. Can't say much about this, seems fair (not that "being evil" is genetically transmitted, but if you're raised by an "evil" person you start off life on the wrong path).

²⁴ If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times."

Wait! What? Lots of useless things have been written so far, but this accomplished nothing other than being weird and I can't see why it was necessary to include that in the book, whether this is based on a true story or not. And how did Lamech suddenly decide that? Anyway, not important at all and not fair either (but I can't blame it on God this time, since we're not aware of whether or not God gave him the right to say that).

²⁵ Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, ^[i] saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." ²⁶ Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time men began to call on ^[j] the name of the LORD.

So is this a return back in time or are we saying that Seth was born at the same time or even after Lamech? Can't know considering how this "holy book" is written. Now I hate to bring incestual relationships back, but assuming Seth wasn't chased from God's presence like Cain, the only woman around that could give him a son is Eve. I'll remind you that she's his mother. I'm not sure that's what the author meant though. I believe that he was so high at this point that he forgot he had to explain things such as where does Seth's wife come from.

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 4:1 Or The man
b. Genesis 4:1 Cain sounds like the Hebrew for brought forth or acquired .
c. Genesis 4:1 Or have acquired
d. Genesis 4:8 Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Vulgate and Syriac; Masoretic Text does not have "Let's go out to the field."
e. Genesis 4:15 Septuagint, Vulgate and Syriac; Hebrew Very well
f. Genesis 4:16 Nod means wandering (see verses 12 and 14).
g. Genesis 4:22 Or who instructed all who work in
h. Genesis 4:23 Or I will kill
i. Genesis 4:25 Seth probably means granted .
j. Genesis 4:26 Or to proclaim

An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 3

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Genesis 3

The Fall of Man

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

So serpents talk and they're craftier than any other wild animal? Bible authors, please tell me what you were smoking, I want some right now!

² The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

All we know is that God said this to Adam: "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Now there's nothing about touching it and dying, but I'll accept that they skipped some parts of the story, it's already repetitive enough. Hey, but now that I think about it, why are we assuming that Eve is talking about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil specifically, she's just talking about the tree in the middle of the garden (which should be the same Garden of Eden we previously heard about of course). Now there's an error because the previous chapter did not talk about one tree in the middle, but two, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Maybe the tree of life is the evil one that kills. It's a trap!

⁴ "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Who are you going to trust, a serpent or God himself? God wouldn't lie after all, because lying is evil and God isn't evil, is he?

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Well, I guess God was indeed lying (I know people have different ways to say he wasn't). Now I have a couple of things to add. First of all, Eve couldn't even know that eating from the tree was evil; she didn't have the required knowledge or wisdom to understand that before eating the fruit. Also, why is God putting a tree with good food in the middle of the garden if nobody's supposed to eat from it? It's even more evil coming from him if it's true that he knows everything and so already knew that this would happen. Finally, once again what's so bad about being naked? I'll repeat that it's because of the society we live in that we don't feel comfortable walking around outside wearing no clothes, not because we are born ashamed of nudity.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

So God is walking around in the garden? Just like resting, I just didn't picture this God character as someone that would walk around the place. Now, don't Adam and Eve know that God is everywhere, so they can't hide from him (which begs the question: why is he asking where they are?)

¹⁰ He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

Adam is like that semi-retarded guy who would reveal all your secrets as soon as you told him.

¹¹ And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"

How about "I'm not blind! You gave me eyes to see." I know we're probably talking about a deeper meaning, like he couldn't understand he was naked before, but still sounds like a dumb question.

¹² The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."

Hey, nobody likes a squealer! Good way to sound like a 5 years old Adam! Well, I guess that's one line in favor of misogyny.

¹³ Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

Yeah, blame the serpent; you're just like Adam now blaming someone or something else. Hmm, Adam blames the woman and Eve blames the serpent, which could be taken as a metaphor for a penis. I'm probably reading too much into this. But Eve has a point though, she didn't know she was doing an evil act, God put the tree there, God made the serpent, the serpent was telling the truth while the good God was lying. I think her defense is solid.

¹⁴ So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

So we get no description of the serpent before he was transformed to his current form. The way I see it, he must have been some kind of humanoid, after all he could speak. (By the way, you're reading too much into it from your Christian perspective in my opinion if you actually say that the serpent is Satan. You're trying to give it more meaning than it actually has. The book doesn't really leave particular clues to indicate that anyway.) Technically, I don't think serpents see their form as a curse, no more than platypuses! They're just an animal like many others and they don't eat dust, that's for sure.

¹⁵ And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring ^[a] and hers;
he will crush ^[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel."

It might be confusing at first, but you've got to understand that God is still talking to the serpent in this verse. So he's talking about the fact that apparently humans will squash serpents and serpents will bite humans. I don't think we need a Bible verse for that. Plenty of animals will attack us for survival, because they fear us, to eat, etc., nothing magic about it and I don't know why there's such a focus on the serpent. People must have thought they were the most mysterious animal back then.

¹⁶ To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."

Once again, I don't think there's anything supernatural to women experiencing pain in childbearing, that's just how nature works and I don't see how it would've worked any other way before. If you have to push a baby out from your vagina, it has to stretch much more than it usually can and so it hurts. That's normal and other animals experience pain too, even if they did nothing to piss off God. Another verse for misogyny too right here and the Bible is full of them (full of all kinds of hatred in fact). The Bible, pushing feminism 2000 years back. Well, the Bible was written by barbaric men, so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that "God" (wink, wink) said that.

¹⁷ To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.

Yeah, now that we know it doesn't kill, you're reinterpreting your own lines. Congratulations God! All I'm seeing in this verse after that is the author facing his reality, in which he had to work hard on the ground to eat at the time (now we just go to the supermarket while big corporations and farmers take care of the rest, in industrialized countries at least). Previously, he had his fantasy of the Garden of Eden where everything was given to man naturally. After all, if you lived 2000 years earlier, you'd most likely hope for something better. Also, without science, you'd have to invent a story that explains satisfiably why the world is now like it is. Well, not that you'd have to, but humans tend to do that because of their brains.

¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

In a way, I feel that if God is real we must be making him pretty angry when he looks at us living in the modern world with the comforts of modern technology (of course, I'm still talking about industrialized countries and people who can afford it). It's not perfect, but it's really great if you know how to use it. Bottom line is we live much better than people at the time of the Bible and it looks like we screwed God and his punitions for us (of course, people say he's still cursing us with aids and catastrophes of all kinds, but all I'm seeing is a natural world working like it's supposed to).

¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."

I know that I'm not made of dust, I was not taken from the ground either, but this verse is still somewhat accurate, I'll give it that. Not that we return to the ground because we are taken from it (we die because we get sick or because our cells stop regenerating themselves after some time, you know just like objects are not eternal either). And not that we literally return to the ground, but our bodies do decompose and the energy that was within us is distributed in the universe. Insects and bacteria eat us. We become fertilizer for the ground and plants live on that. Animals eat plants. Animals eat other animals. Animals die. The cycle repeats itself. Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transforming.

²⁰ Adam ^[c] named his wife Eve, ^[d] because she would become the mother of all the living.

The man actually names his woman, like he did for animals. Wow, that's pretty awkward! Can you imagine that still going on today? Also that's one verse which might have lost some meaning in its translation (the footnotes suggest Eve means living so that it makes sense, but that just seems to be a wild guess). Anyway, Eve would become the mother of all the living after lots of incestual sex (you can't go too long without that in the Bible).

²¹ The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ²² And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." ²³ So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side ^[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

You know, it's becoming really mysterious how God is referring to himself in a plural way. So the tree of life really was good and made you live forever? And why didn't Adam or Eve ever eat from that tree at least once before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? It's not like God explicitly forbid it. And the way I read it, it just seems like this Garden of Eden place is supposed to be an actual place on earth, something you might expect from a book written by humans 2000 years ago which lived long before humans had explored the whole earth and thus wouldn't know there's not such a place here. Anyway, that cherubim character seems interesting; I hope we see more of him, maybe a boss fight with the flaming sword (a flaming sword to protect a garden?!)

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 3:15 Or seed
b. Genesis 3:15 Or strike
c. Genesis 3:20 Or The man
d. Genesis 3:20 Eve probably means living .
e. Genesis 3:24 Or placed in front

An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 2

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Genesis 2

¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

Yet humanity has found ways to make it much better in all those years.

² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested ^[a] from all his work. ³ And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

So God has to rest? Funny, I didn't picture him like that. Well, I didn't picture him at all in fact, but still it's kind of weird to think that God has to rest.

Adam and Eve

⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- ⁵ and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth ^[b] and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth ^[c] and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ but streams ^[d] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground- ⁷ the LORD God formed the man ^[e] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

So that's how he implanted souls in the human body back then/now (and how is it other animals live if they don't have souls like people usually say, unless souls don't exist)? You know, when doctors resuscitate you, they use electricity, not breath through the nostrils, and they haven't found that soul thing. Also, from now on I don't want to meet the Christian who tells me about other people's wacky beliefs when his book says people were magically made from dust (whether he believes that or not).

⁸ Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Sounds like a nice place! Can I go there? Sounds strange that a tree contains the knowledge of good and evil though, but whatever...

¹⁰ A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin ^[f] and onyx are also there.) ¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. ^{[g] 14} The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

OK, getting boring, can we move on? Wait, ASShur? !!!

¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

How come a God who knows all in advance puts man in charge of the Garden of Eden? We're not particularly good with nature. And why did he put the tree of knowledge there if it was dangerous? Anyway, he already knew the outcome, didn't he? Sounds like a bad, not subtle movie plot to me. Oh well, I just hope our hero is intelligent and he will eat from the more promising tree of life.

¹⁸ The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

At least God sounds nice in this verse. Don't get used to it though.

¹⁹ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam ^[h] no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs ^[i] and closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib ^[j] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Phew! We barely avoided zoophilia territory just now. Am I understanding correctly that animals were made before man in Genesis 1, but after man in Genesis 2? Get your story straight, God! By the way, God was the first surgeon and seeing as how he was able to create a man from dust and a woman from one of the man's ribs (why didn't he just create her out of nothingness or dust, he's supposed to be able to do that isn't he), I have to say this guy is unfuckingbelievable! (Anyone who heard and believes the myth about man and woman not having the same number or ribs is mistaken, all I can say is that yes we can live with less ribs than we currently have.)

²³ The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, ^[k] '
for she was taken out of man."

"This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh": hey, it's true that when you look at it this way, she probably shares his DNA, so she's actually his daughter in some odd way (or clone or twin sister). Spoiler alert: they have children, which means they have sexual relations. Man! Only 2 out of 1189 chapters yet we've already talked about zoophilia and incest, among other nonsensical/odd/unscientific things.

²⁴ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Wow, this one sounds weird. I guess it's what we call marriage and sex, but not everybody follows this model. I don't even see the logic that man gets one rib removed and then for this reason it will be in his nature to do that.

²⁵ The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

This verse makes it sound like they should. We only feel shame because we don't live in a nudist society. Animals feel no shame being nude, we're born nude. So I guess it's one for nudists then! Well, time to wrap up this part now. I've already found many flaws, at least too much for something that was divinely inspired (there should be no flaws I guess if that was the case). See you all in the next part for many more flaws and weirdness!

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 2:2 Or ceased ; also in verse
b. Genesis 2:5 Or land ; also in verse
c. Genesis 2:5 Or land ; also in verse
d. Genesis 2:6 Or mist
e. Genesis 2:7 The Hebrew for man (adam) sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for ground ( adamah it is also the name Adam (see Gen. 2:20).
f. Genesis 2:12 Or good ; pearls
g. Genesis 2:13 Possibly southeast Mesopotamia
h. Genesis 2:20 Or the man
i. Genesis 2:21 Or took part of the man's side
j. Genesis 2:22 Or part
k. Genesis 2:23 The Hebrew for woman sounds like the Hebrew for man.

An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 1

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Genesis 1

The Beginning

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And somehow we don't even know where this "God" character came from. Did he also create the other planets and everything that is in the universe or just "the heavens and the earth"? Also somehow you're expected to believe these words and give your life to them.

² Now the earth was ^[a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The earth was apparently "formless and empty", yet as soon as something physically exists, like the earth does, no matter what form it is and how little it contains the statement "formless and empty" can't be true. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter since they make sure to contradict themselves with the next part when it says that "the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters", meaning there is water and so the earth is definitely not empty.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

"God saw that the light was good": if he's the all-knowing being that people talk about, he didn't even need to see it to know that it was good, but that's extreme nitpicking for now. "He separated the light from the darkness": you can actually do that? And here I thought darkness and light were not actual "things". Darkness occurs when there's no light around, but I guess you'll say that's because he already separated them and I never saw what the non-separated state was like. I can't really argue with that, except to say that it doesn't make much sense.

⁶ And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." ⁷ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

...???...!!!...??? This passage seems to be asserting that the blue sky is actually water. I can see why people would write that 2000 years ago or more, with no science to help them understand the world they lived in, which makes me doubt even more that these are God's wise words if he was to exist.

⁹ And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

"And God saw that it was good" only to flood it later on, but I'm getting ahead of myself... Anyway, is God done congratulating himself? What an ego!

¹¹ Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

Then God said, "Let's smoke some weed!" The next day he created platypuses.

¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Wait a minute, not only is God apparently creating light sources after light itself, but also after plants (which require sunlight as part of their photosynthesis process, which you already know if you know anything about plants. Of course, people didn't know that 2000 years ago.) Hey wait, am I reading correctly, 2 light sources and stars? Stars are light sources too, the sun itself is not something else than a star, not even close to being the biggest one in our galaxy. And hey, the moon is not a weaker light source, it doesn't produce any light at all, it's only reflecting the light from the sun back to the earth. Again, something which you might expect from a book written 2000 years ago, but I doubt "the creator" would be so dumb. Oh right, platypuses!

²⁰ And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

"God blessed them": Hope that helps in any measurable way! Also, apparently God is Dr. Dolittle since he can speak to animals, but I guess that would go with his character of being able to do anything like people say he can (after all, you don't want your god to do any less than that, he is a mega superhuman).

²⁴ And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

I hope that's a figure of speech since the land doesn't produce animals or even plants for that matter (although plants get some of their energy from a fertile land and animals eat plants, among other things).

²⁶ Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, ^[b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Why is God speaking in plural about himself (or is that the trinity, which nobody seems to be able to clearly explain)? Also, if man is to rule over pretty much everything, why is it that so many animals can kill him or outclass him in many domains, except for brains of course? I'm just saying, God should've made us better, with more capacities, especially if we're to be like him or they (after all, there's a plural there even if he's supposed to be the only god).

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

So I'm guessing God is a transsexual then, is that it?

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

One thing I'm noticing now for some reason is how hard it's going to be to rule over birds since we can't fly and fishes since we can't breathe underwater like they do. God is kind of an ironic bastard that way. Thank God we (as in ourselves, human beings) invented ways to compensate for our weaknesses and make the "creation" better in all those years since the Bible was written.

²⁹ Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

Basically, every living creature up to an ant (well he didn't talk about insects, but you know, animals), except for plants, have the same rights as humans except that man has the additional task saying that he is supposed to "rule over them". Why are we supposed to rule over them? I'm no vegetarian by any means (anyway he didn't say to eat other animals in this passage), but I don't think I have the right to do whatever I please with all creatures just because I'm a human and they're not. What kind of sense does that make?

³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

You know, God's time management up to this point has been pretty strange. Creating the heavens and the earth on the first day, then the stars on the fourth day (I'm going to assume all celestial bodies in the universe too even if they don't say, another indication that they didn't know what they were talking about), that would seem to take much longer than creating animals (there's a lot more energy in the vast universe than only on this earth, even if we're talking about non-life vs. life), yet he created fishes and birds on the fifth day and other animals including humans on the sixth day, so 2 days too. It even took him a day to create plants, you know, not the most complex life form around. I mean, if you're saying he's all-powerful, he doesn't even need time; he can all create instantly and already know that it will be good without bothering us about it. If he's all-knowing like most people also agree on, he was even already aware from the very beginning that a being called Bobby Roy, born in 1987, would write this exact piece of text sometime in 2010. If not believing in him is reason enough to send me to the Hell he created, I was already doomed from the beginning and had no free will, but I see I'm getting sidetracked here since this has nothing to do with the last paragraph. See you all in the next part!

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 1:2 Or possibly became
b. Genesis 1:26 Hebrew; Syriac all the wild animals