richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
THE ' G O O D ' B O O K AND T H E M O R A L Z E I T G E J S T 243As a moral lesson? But what kind of morals could one derive fromthis appalling story? Remember, all I am trying to establish for themoment is that we do not, as a matter of fact, derive our moralsfrom scripture. Or, if we do, we pick and choose among thescriptures for the nice bits and reject the nasty. But then we musthave some independent criterion for deciding which are the moralbits: a criterion which, wherever it comes from, cannot come fromscripture itself and is presumably available to all of us whether weare religious or not.Apologists even seek to salvage some decency for the Godcharacter in this deplorable tale. Wasn't it good of God to spareIsaac's life at the last minute? In the unlikely event that any of myreaders are persuaded by this obscene piece of special pleading, Irefer them to another story of human sacrifice, which ended moreunhappily. In Judges, chapter 11, the military leader Jephthah madea bargain with God that, if God would guarantee Jephthah's victoryover the Ammonites, Jephthah would, without fail, sacrifice as aburnt offering 'whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my houseto meet me, when I return'. Jephthah did indeed defeat theAmmonites ('with a very great slaughter', as is par for the course inthe book of Judges) and he returned home victorious. Not surprisingly,his daughter, his only child, came out of the house to greethim (with timbrels and dances) and - alas - she was the first livingthing to do so. Understandably Jephthah rent his clothes, but therewas nothing he could do about it. God was obviously looking forwardto the promised burnt offering, and in the circumstances thedaughter very decently agreed to be sacrificed. She asked only thatshe should be allowed to go into the mountains for two months tobewail her virginity. At the end of this time she meekly returned, andJephthah cooked her. God did not see fit to intervene on this occasion.God's monumental rage whenever his chosen people flirted witha rival god resembles nothing so much as sexual jealousy of theworst kind, and again it should strike a modern moralist as farfrom good role-model material. The temptation to sexual infidelityis readily understandable even to those who do not succumb, and itis a staple of fiction and drama, from Shakespeare to bedroomfarce. But the apparently irresistible temptation to whore withforeign gods is something we moderns find harder to empathize
244 T H E G O D D E L U S I O Nwith. To my naive eyes, 'Thou shalt have no other gods but me'would seem an easy enough commandment to keep: a doddle, onemight think, compared with 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour'swife'. Or her ass. (Or her ox.) Yet throughout the Old Testament,with the same predictable regularity as in bedroom farce, God hadonly to turn his back for a moment and the Children of Israelwould be off and at it with Baal, or some trollop of a gravenimage.* Or, on one calamitous occasion, a golden calf . . .Moses, even more than Abraham, is a likely role model forfollowers of all three monotheistic religions. Abraham may be theoriginal patriarch, but if anybody should be called the doctrinalfounder of Judaism and its derivative religions, it is Moses. On theoccasion of the golden calf episode, Moses was safely out of theway up Mount Sinai, communing with God and getting tablets ofstone graven by him. The people down below (who were on painof death to refrain from so much as touching the mountain) didn'twaste any time:When the people saw that Moses delayed to come downout of the mount, the people gathered themselves togetherunto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, whichshall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man thatbrought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not whatis become of him. (Exodus 32: 1)Aaron got everybody to pool their gold, melted it down and madea golden calf, for which newly invented deity he then built an altarso they could all start sacrificing to it.Well, they should have known better than to fool around behindGod's back like that. He might be up a mountain but he was, afterall, omniscient and he lost no time in despatching Moses as hisenforcer. Moses raced hotfoot down the mountain, carrying thestone tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments.When he arrived and saw the golden calf he was so furious that hedropped the tablets and broke them (God later gave him a replacementset, so that was all right). Moses seized the golden calf,burned it, ground it to powder, mixed it with water and made the* This richly comic idea was suggested to me by Jonathan Miller who, surprisingly,never included it in a Beyond the Fringe sketch. I also thank him for recommendingthe scholarly book upon which it is based: Halbertal and Margalit (1992).
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244 T H E G O D D E L U S I O N
with. To my naive eyes, 'Thou shalt have no other gods but me'
would seem an easy enough commandment to keep: a doddle, one
might think, compared with 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's
wife'. Or her ass. (Or her ox.) Yet throughout the Old Testament,
with the same predictable regularity as in bedroom farce, God had
only to turn his back for a moment and the Children of Israel
would be off and at it with Baal, or some trollop of a graven
image.* Or, on one calamitous occasion, a golden calf . . .
Moses, even more than Abraham, is a likely role model for
followers of all three monotheistic religions. Abraham may be the
original patriarch, but if anybody should be called the doctrinal
founder of Judaism and its derivative religions, it is Moses. On the
occasion of the golden calf episode, Moses was safely out of the
way up Mount Sinai, communing with God and getting tablets of
stone graven by him. The people down below (who were on pain
of death to refrain from so much as touching the mountain) didn't
waste any time:
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down
out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together
unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which
shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that
brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what
is become of him. (Exodus 32: 1)
Aaron got everybody to pool their gold, melted it down and made
a golden calf, for which newly invented deity he then built an altar
so they could all start sacrificing to it.
Well, they should have known better than to fool around behind
God's back like that. He might be up a mountain but he was, after
all, omniscient and he lost no time in despatching Moses as his
enforcer. Moses raced hotfoot down the mountain, carrying the
stone tablets on which God had written the Ten Commandments.
When he arrived and saw the golden calf he was so furious that he
dropped the tablets and broke them (God later gave him a replacement
set, so that was all right). Moses seized the golden calf,
burned it, ground it to powder, mixed it with water and made the
* This richly comic idea was suggested to me by Jonathan Miller who, surprisingly,
never included it in a Beyond the Fringe sketch. I also thank him for recommending
the scholarly book upon which it is based: Halbertal and Margalit (1992).
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