An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 9

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 9

God's Covenant With Noah

¹ Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. ² The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. ³ Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

"Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.'": am I the only one feeling uncomfortable with this? "Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.: Well, he already said that man ruled over animals before, not explicitly food, but I think that counts, it's not like a verse said something about plants either. Just look at Genesis 1:26 and you'll see how similar the verses are. Now if you just think about it, it doesn't seem to be long after the flood that God would say something like this. Normally, plants would have died in our natural world and no food would be left for Noah and his family if that's all they ate before. But it just turns out that plants are still alive as we know there's an olive tree among other things. So let me get this straight, now that God has exterminated all species on the earth to near extinction level, he finally gives man the right to eat animals? Sure, that makes sense! And that thing he also said about animals fearing us, that's not entirely true now is it?

⁴ "But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. ⁵ And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.

"But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.": here's one for the next Christian I encounter who says something about, I don't know, maybe homosexuals and how they're living against the laws of God. I'll ask them if they make sure to drain all blood from their meat and if they ever ate blood pudding (I personally hate the thing). That's only one of the MANY things even most hardcore Christians don't necessarily follow, yet they personally like to pick what you can do (according to what most people do anyway and things that people just don't care about) and can't do (less common things, like homosexuality, even if you're born that way). "And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.": sure, we all know that every animal (creatures who don't live by our laws and don't understand them by the way) or man that ever shed someone else's blood accounted for his crimes. God is personally taking care of it. Well, it seems like he's not really efficient at anything other than creating the universe, because we always have to finish his job in his place in the end. (Here's a Christian saying: "But a murderer will pay in the next life!" I answer: "Shut the fuck up and prove me there's such a thing and that it's remotely like you think it is.")

⁶ "Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man.

What happens if I kill someone by accident or in self-defense? Heck, Cain killed his own brother in cold blood for revenge and he got away perfectly fine with his crime. I guess the "Whoever" in this verse is not that important in some cases. But what if I give my blood to help someone else? Does the nurse responsible for draining a little blood out of me has to be punished? In God's words, if "Whoever" applies this time around, yes that person does have to be killed. What about suicide (of course, I'm talking about an "afterlife" punition since the person is already dead in that case)? It would seem evil to me to always punish someone who suicided themselves, because someone who commits suicide might have a real mental problem or his life could have gone totally wrong and it's not always your fault when that happens. Of course, if I am to be taking the verse literally, it only talks about shedding blood, so maybe if someone is killed or kills himself with poison for example, maybe that doesn't count. Here's hoping we get some precision later on; this book is quite thick after all.

⁷ As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."

Hey, you already said that. In fact, that's one of the more repeated phrases so far. God is always talking about sex it seems, I knew the guy was a perv when they described him to me (He's everywhere to look at you all the time, but he's hidden. Except maybe in the Bible, he just seems much more present in the book than nowadays.)

⁸ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: ⁹ "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you ¹⁰ and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. ¹¹ I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.": no, instead I'll just send fires and brimstones. That should be enough to take care of the job! See ya on judgment day! Seriously though, why have I seen this "destroy the earth" thing a few times now? There's a difference between killing most living things on the earth and actually destroying the planet itself. I suspect this planet could very well exist without any living things on it someday, probably without humans at the very least.

¹² And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶ Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

So God has some memory issues? That's why he made the universe so damn big with lots of the same types of rocks and emptiness everywhere. Each time he forgot he had to create something that made sense. Of course, when he does create something more, like the earth, life and humans, he despises it. On a more serious note, just look at this. Isn't that even more proof (of course, never definitive proof, I'm using the term somewhat vaguely) that the Bible was not inspired by God, but written by ordinary men who had to come up with an explanation for natural, yet bizarre phenomenons like rainbows? Rainbows aren't there to remind God of his covenant with all living creatures (they specify on earth, maybe God believes in alien but doesn't like them). Rainbows just occur naturally anyway because of an optical phenomenon that has to do with the position of the sunlight and the water drops in the air. I won't give you all the details, but science can pretty much explain how and why a rainbow occur without any questions left now with proofs to back it up and the methodology to reproduce it yourself. That's why you've got to love science!

¹⁷ So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

I see God is repeating himself once again. Combine that with his problems with his memory and you can imagine why people picture him as an old bearded man in the sky. Furthermore, he's always complaining, even about things he did himself, and always remembering old stuff no one cares about anymore. He's that old man you just love to hate, you know.

The Sons of Noah

¹⁸ The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) ¹⁹ These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the earth.

The Bible has this way of always talking about incest, yet without mentioning incest. I think that's how it got away with it, becoming one of the most beloved books ever while reflecting as good many things society usually despises.

²⁰ Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded ^[a] to plant a vineyard. ²¹ When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. ²² Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. ²³ But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.

Why are they always talking of Ham as the father of Canaan specifically. It just looks like random writing, even if it were true. Like a last minute detail someone forgot to mention before. So Noah the righteous man makes his own alcohol and drinks it until becoming drunk (you need more than a simple glass of wine to be drunk enough to pass out)? That's interesting. At least his sons are nice to cover the man after Ham tells them.

²⁴ When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵ he said,
"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers."

W... Wh... What? What did Canaan ever do to deserve that? And we condone slavery now. Hey, come to think of it, this is Ham's fault apparently, but what did he ever do besides possibly accidentally looks at his naked father after the guy got drunk all by himself? This is not only the Bible saying something is wrong when it isn't (if God wanted us to be clothed, he just had to make us fully clothed from birth; also Adam and Eve were naked before they realized it was wrong somewhat), but it's a case of the Bible punishing an innocent. I don't believe in such a thing as the sins of the father. I believe some stupid evil humans (remember Noah was described as the best man ever in some way) do take vengeance on someone's kids or partner for what that person did, but they shouldn't. I shouldn't kill your son because you're a murderer for example, and anyone with some semblance of logic would understand why. This is your holy book, Jews and Christians.

²⁶ He also said,
"Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem. ^[b]

At this point, why not? Sure Canaan, be the slave of Shem. Spend a miserable life because your father happened to see his father nude someday, I repeat possibly by accident after the guy was drunk enough to pass out.

²⁷ May God extend the territory of Japheth ^[c] ;
may Japheth live in the tents of Shem,
and may Canaan be his ^[d] slave."

Hey Noah, you can't ask to God to extend someone's territory just because someone else saw you naked, I don't even see the logic here. My theory is that if Japheth lives in the tents of Shem, the risk are too high that at some point he's see him in his nakedness. Be careful Japheth, it's a trap! You're gonna end up a slave too! Oops, I'm wrong, your son is gonna be one. My mistake sorry! In fact, you know what we should do. We should gouge our eyes out so that we don't risk seeing our father naked at some point. As for me, I'll just avoid having any child in fear that my father will make them slaves as I've opened the bathroom door more than once by accident while he was taking a leak. Or maybe I could have children after his death, after all we just don't live hundreds of years anymore, so he probably only has a couple decades left to live. (By the way, I don't mean to sound harsh towards my father here, I don't want him to die and he wouldn't enslave my child if I had one. I'm just illustrating how ridiculous the Bible is when you apply it to real life.)

²⁸ After the flood Noah lived 350 years. 29 Altogether, Noah lived 950 years, and then he died.

Good to know...

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 9:20 Or soil, was the first
b. Genesis 9:26 Or be his slave
c. Genesis 9:27 Japheth sounds like the Hebrew for extend .
d. Genesis 9:27 Or their