Amos Chapter 4: Bible Study by Atheists

[00:00:00] Welcome to Sacrilegious Discourse.

[00:00:01] For this is what the Sovereign Lord says!

[00:00:03] Why do you need prophets to tell people who you are and what you want?

[00:00:07] If you can justify everything that the God of the Bible has done, then you can justify any of your behavior.

[00:00:14] A lot of this mentality is trickling into what is now mainstream right-wing Christianity.

[00:00:21] I am capable of empathy greater than this God of the Bible.

[00:00:26] This is a Bible that they tell kids.

[00:00:29] This is the good Lord.

[00:00:31] This is the good book.

[00:00:32] He is fantasizing about murder, mass murder.

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[00:01:17] Husband!

[00:01:18] Wife!

[00:01:18] Do you know where we are?

[00:01:20] It's been a few days.

[00:01:21] Well, we read Amos Chapter 3 last time.

[00:01:25] Last time.

[00:01:26] Yes, the time that we read a chapter before.

[00:01:28] Whenever that was.

[00:01:29] Sure, sure.

[00:01:30] Yeah.

[00:01:31] And God reminded the Israelites that he chose them.

[00:01:35] Mm-hmm.

[00:01:35] And we commented that we kind of wished that he just, you know, could we not be chosen?

[00:01:41] Yeah.

[00:01:41] Could you not pick us?

[00:01:43] We don't want to be part of this.

[00:01:44] Because.

[00:01:45] And because.

[00:01:47] Because.

[00:01:47] Mm-hmm.

[00:01:48] God's MO, so to speak, in the Old Testament is, you don't worship me enough and I'm going

[00:01:56] to kill you.

[00:01:56] Pretty much like consistently.

[00:01:58] Perpetual and consistent.

[00:02:00] Yeah.

[00:02:00] Yeah.

[00:02:00] And even like, if you do maybe repent, he still maybe will kill you.

[00:02:06] Because you're part of a crowd.

[00:02:08] Yeah.

[00:02:08] You know, like you can't overcome the crowd effect because he just punishes willy-nilly

[00:02:12] across the board.

[00:02:13] Or because you belong to a kingdom and your king sucks.

[00:02:17] Yeah.

[00:02:17] Yeah.

[00:02:18] You can't win.

[00:02:19] No.

[00:02:19] God sucks.

[00:02:20] God's going to kill you.

[00:02:22] And you can't do anything about it.

[00:02:23] And it's just going to happen over and over and over and over again.

[00:02:26] But you're an object that belongs to him.

[00:02:27] He made you and you should ever be grateful and never think that you deserve a day of

[00:02:34] life.

[00:02:34] You should always be grateful that he allows you to live and expect that any second you

[00:02:39] might die.

[00:02:40] That seems to track so far.

[00:02:42] Yeah.

[00:02:42] Yeah.

[00:02:42] I mean, he has reasons.

[00:02:45] You don't worship him enough.

[00:02:47] It really all comes down to that, I think.

[00:02:49] Yeah.

[00:02:49] If you don't worship him enough, he's going to kill you.

[00:02:52] Because he's-

[00:02:53] And nobody apparently ever worships him enough.

[00:02:55] Capricious little prick.

[00:02:56] He really is.

[00:02:58] All right.

[00:02:58] So that was Amos chapter three.

[00:03:00] Sure as fuck was.

[00:03:01] Which means that today we're getting into-

[00:03:03] Amos chapter four.

[00:03:04] Before we get into it, I do want to say that we are still doing a weekly wrap up that'll

[00:03:09] be coming out on, well, after we finish Amos chapter five in the Q&A.

[00:03:13] Yeah.

[00:03:13] We kind of fell behind.

[00:03:14] So this is a little weird this week, but there will be a weekly wrap up that encompasses

[00:03:20] everything.

[00:03:20] It's going to be more like a two week wrap up, but it's a week's worth of material.

[00:03:25] Right.

[00:03:25] Yeah.

[00:03:26] So we apologize, but we have been really, really busy lately.

[00:03:32] And tired.

[00:03:33] And tired.

[00:03:34] Our schedules are just still in flux and it makes it really hard, but we are not giving

[00:03:40] up on this project and it is very important to us.

[00:03:43] And that's why we keep coming back just to do whatever we can in any minute that we can.

[00:03:47] Yeah.

[00:03:47] And I've kind of jumped off the asking for help train a little bit lately, but I am going

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[00:04:32] The people who support us now, you guys are absolutely incredible.

[00:04:35] So, um, all right.

[00:04:37] Are you ready to jump into Amos chapter four?

[00:04:40] Sure as fuck am.

[00:04:40] Let's do this.

[00:04:41] Okie dokie.

[00:04:48] All right.

[00:04:49] We're about to jump into chapter four and it's a continuation from the last chapter.

[00:04:53] Okie.

[00:04:54] Yeah.

[00:04:54] And here's how it starts.

[00:04:56] I love this.

[00:04:57] Ready?

[00:04:57] Um, yeah.

[00:04:59] Hear this words, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria.

[00:05:04] You fucking cow.

[00:05:06] I would love to collect all the points where God like calls his people in names.

[00:05:10] You pieces of shit.

[00:05:11] I'm like, Jesus Christ.

[00:05:12] This guy's an asshole.

[00:05:13] You utter trash.

[00:05:14] Right?

[00:05:15] You garbage.

[00:05:16] You human.

[00:05:17] You worm.

[00:05:18] Just to bring it back out.

[00:05:19] My God.

[00:05:20] Oh yeah.

[00:05:21] Hear this word.

[00:05:22] You cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria.

[00:05:24] You women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, bring us some

[00:05:30] drinks.

[00:05:31] You women.

[00:05:32] Like what the, how are the women oppressing the poor and crushing the needy?

[00:05:36] They don't have any fucking rights hardly back then.

[00:05:39] Um.

[00:05:39] Like they, they don't hardly even acknowledge them as human beings.

[00:05:42] I don't know.

[00:05:44] I'm going to look into that, but I think it's less about the women and more like the

[00:05:49] men are doing wrong.

[00:05:50] The women are doing wrong.

[00:05:51] Everybody's doing wrong.

[00:05:52] We've talked about the priest before.

[00:05:54] Right.

[00:05:54] But like, okay, look, I, the women come across as like a convenient scapegoat, like 99%

[00:05:59] of the time in the Bible.

[00:06:00] Right.

[00:06:01] And moreover, like the, the men are the one making most of the decisions from what I can

[00:06:05] gather based on what we were.

[00:06:06] We have read of the Bible.

[00:06:07] Yeah.

[00:06:08] Except for Esther when they had to come for her for help.

[00:06:10] I'm not saying there are, there are actually a lot of accounts that say that they're early,

[00:06:14] early, early on in biblical times that, that women were more prominent and it kind

[00:06:18] of diminished over time.

[00:06:19] But from what we've read in the Bible and from what we understand about the times that

[00:06:24] we're reading about the women aren't necessarily big decision makers.

[00:06:28] Right.

[00:06:29] And, but yet they get thrown under the bus the majority of the time, as opposed to the

[00:06:34] men.

[00:06:34] Because they are items.

[00:06:36] Right.

[00:06:36] Yeah.

[00:06:37] And they're a convenient scapegoat because if you're talking to a bunch of men, you don't

[00:06:41] want to call them out directly.

[00:06:42] Right.

[00:06:43] You don't want to, you don't want to piss them off.

[00:06:45] Right.

[00:06:45] So just throw the women under the bus.

[00:06:46] It's all right.

[00:06:47] Yeah.

[00:06:47] You know, nobody gets offended if you trash their wife.

[00:06:50] Yeah.

[00:06:50] Yeah.

[00:06:51] Of course she's a whore.

[00:06:52] Whatever.

[00:06:52] Yeah.

[00:06:52] It's obviously not my fault.

[00:06:53] Yeah.

[00:06:54] Right.

[00:06:55] The sovereign Lord has sworn by his holiness.

[00:06:58] I swear on myself.

[00:07:00] That's literally what that said.

[00:07:02] He swears on himself and himself.

[00:07:05] He believes himself.

[00:07:07] Yeah.

[00:07:07] Yeah.

[00:07:07] Okay.

[00:07:08] I swear to myself.

[00:07:09] Geez.

[00:07:09] I swear on my own soul to my soul.

[00:07:12] Yeah.

[00:07:13] Okay.

[00:07:13] The time will surely come, he says, when you will be taken away with hooks.

[00:07:19] The last of you with fish hooks.

[00:07:22] You will each go straight out through breaches in the wall and you will be cast out toward

[00:07:27] Harmon, declares the Lord.

[00:07:29] Okay.

[00:07:30] That's very specific.

[00:07:31] Right?

[00:07:31] Yeah.

[00:07:32] I'll have to look up what Harmon is.

[00:07:34] I thought, I don't know.

[00:07:35] I don't want to speak out of hand here, but yeah.

[00:07:38] It feels like.

[00:07:38] I thought it was a fishing place, like a fishing, you know, whatever.

[00:07:43] Like they did a lot of fishing there.

[00:07:44] I feel like it came up for some point.

[00:07:45] Yeah.

[00:07:45] I feel like I've heard the word before, but I don't know.

[00:07:48] Right.

[00:07:49] I'm not going to say I know that without, with the fennetiveness there.

[00:07:52] We will address it in our Q and A.

[00:07:54] Sure.

[00:07:54] What the fuck is Harmon?

[00:07:56] And what's up with these fish hooks?

[00:07:57] And why are they going there with fish hooks through a wall?

[00:07:59] Yeah.

[00:08:00] All right.

[00:08:01] So now we're moving on.

[00:08:02] That continuation from the last chapter is over.

[00:08:05] Okay.

[00:08:05] Yeah.

[00:08:06] Now we're onto our own thing.

[00:08:08] Go to Bethel and sin.

[00:08:09] Go to Gilgal and sin yet more.

[00:08:12] Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years.

[00:08:15] He's being very sarcastic here.

[00:08:17] I gathered.

[00:08:17] Yeah.

[00:08:18] Like I'm trying to convey that with my tone, but he's like, sure, go ahead.

[00:08:22] Do what the fuck ever.

[00:08:23] Why don't you even do worse?

[00:08:24] Go ahead.

[00:08:25] Okay.

[00:08:25] Burn leavened bread as a thank you offering and brag about your free will offerings.

[00:08:30] Boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do, declares the sovereign

[00:08:35] Lord.

[00:08:35] Wow.

[00:08:36] I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have

[00:08:40] not returned to me.

[00:08:42] I punched you in the fucking eye and you don't want me.

[00:08:44] I don't understand it.

[00:08:47] I don't think, you know, for being a God, he distinctly lacks a understanding of human

[00:08:54] nature of human psychology.

[00:08:56] Yeah.

[00:08:57] Yeah.

[00:08:57] Like that's not how you don't, you don't hurt people and then expect them to love you.

[00:09:02] He's the abusive boyfriend who's pissed off that his girlfriend left him and he goes

[00:09:07] after her with a bat and is bashing her in with the hat, with the bat screaming at

[00:09:13] her.

[00:09:13] Why won't you come back to me?

[00:09:15] But he also doesn't even do it directly.

[00:09:17] He does it through a fucking prophet.

[00:09:18] Yeah.

[00:09:18] Like the prophets are the one telling them that he's killing them.

[00:09:20] Yeah.

[00:09:21] And then they're like, well, fuck him.

[00:09:23] Right.

[00:09:24] I mean, I kind of would be too.

[00:09:26] Like, I don't, who, who are you to tell me that this guy is an asshole to me because

[00:09:31] I'm not doing it quite right.

[00:09:33] What, what the fuck, man?

[00:09:34] Yeah.

[00:09:34] I, I don't like the condoning of abuse here.

[00:09:38] No.

[00:09:39] This book is very, um, victim blamey.

[00:09:42] No, it is.

[00:09:43] That's not like, right.

[00:09:45] All right.

[00:09:45] So I fucked you up and you, yet you still have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

[00:09:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:09:49] I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away.

[00:09:54] I mean, I tried to kill you.

[00:09:55] Listen to all these things I did to torture and punish you.

[00:09:58] Right.

[00:09:58] And you still don't love me.

[00:09:59] Jesus.

[00:10:00] I don't understand.

[00:10:00] What the fuck's wrong with you?

[00:10:01] Right?

[00:10:02] Yeah.

[00:10:02] I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another.

[00:10:05] I'm a cruel piece of shit.

[00:10:07] Why won't you love me?

[00:10:09] But what, what did that one town do?

[00:10:10] Did they, I mean, were they good?

[00:10:11] One field had rain.

[00:10:13] Another had none and dried up.

[00:10:14] People staggered from town to town for water, but did not get enough to drink.

[00:10:18] Yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

[00:10:21] I, okay.

[00:10:22] Again, what about this the wrong way, man?

[00:10:24] Correct.

[00:10:25] Yeah.

[00:10:25] That is correct.

[00:10:25] Yeah.

[00:10:26] Mm-hmm.

[00:10:26] Mm-hmm.

[00:10:27] Sounds to me like they made the right choice, personally.

[00:10:29] You know?

[00:10:30] If shit's gonna happen to them either way, thanks, I'll strike out on my own.

[00:10:34] Right.

[00:10:35] Yeah.

[00:10:35] Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew.

[00:10:41] Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

[00:10:46] I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt.

[00:10:49] I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses.

[00:10:53] I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

[00:10:59] How many times do you have to kill, torture, maim, starve?

[00:11:02] Drown.

[00:11:03] Drown.

[00:11:03] Drought.

[00:11:04] Yeah.

[00:11:05] How many times do you have to do that and then have them not return before you start questioning your own actions?

[00:11:09] Well, God can't do anything wrong.

[00:11:11] No, but I'm asking, you know, like, it's a legitimate question.

[00:11:15] If you have created something in your own image and they're not listening to you, or rather you're not talking to them, whatever the case is, when do you examine yourself in that?

[00:11:27] And this God is not perfect, let's be honest.

[00:11:30] Yeah.

[00:11:30] Right?

[00:11:30] Like, this God is definitely flawed.

[00:11:32] There are, there are, he does not, whatever.

[00:11:36] It's just, it's not, he's not good.

[00:11:38] He's not good and he's, he needs to not, I don't know.

[00:11:45] It's just, it's terrible.

[00:11:47] Like the things that he claims to take credit for in the name of fixing his people is horrible.

[00:11:54] Like he can justify mass murder to fix his people.

[00:11:59] Yeah.

[00:11:59] And that's just supposed to be okay to us.

[00:12:02] It's sure.

[00:12:02] It's fine.

[00:12:03] Oh yeah.

[00:12:03] Whatever.

[00:12:04] Okay.

[00:12:05] I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

[00:12:08] And by overthrew, I mean, you know, turned over and killed.

[00:12:12] Yeah.

[00:12:12] Like Sodom and Gomorrah got fucking demolished.

[00:12:14] Yeah.

[00:12:15] That's not just overturned.

[00:12:16] Yeah.

[00:12:17] Okay.

[00:12:17] Okay.

[00:12:17] You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me, declares the Lord.

[00:12:24] Therefore, this is what I will do to you, Israel.

[00:12:27] Oh, okay.

[00:12:28] It's going to be worse.

[00:12:29] More punishment.

[00:12:30] Yes.

[00:12:30] Yeah.

[00:12:31] And because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God.

[00:12:36] Oh, damn.

[00:12:38] That's, I mean.

[00:12:38] Okay.

[00:12:39] That's not over the top.

[00:12:40] I guess you're going to show yourself after you, you know, torture, punish, kill, maim, starve.

[00:12:46] Drown in drought.

[00:12:47] Right.

[00:12:47] Yeah.

[00:12:48] He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind,

[00:12:53] who turns dawn to darkness and treads on the heights of the earth, the Lord God Almighty is his name.

[00:13:00] The end.

[00:13:01] Okay.

[00:13:03] Okay.

[00:13:03] I'm going to get you.

[00:13:04] He turns dawn to darkness.

[00:13:05] Not, that's not just science.

[00:13:07] No.

[00:13:07] The sun didn't go down.

[00:13:09] Right.

[00:13:09] As it always does.

[00:13:10] Yeah.

[00:13:10] And he treads on the highest mountains.

[00:13:12] Maybe that's why you're not supposed to have like altars up there on the high places.

[00:13:16] That's his, that's his like stomping ground.

[00:13:18] He's like, he's like, stay the fuck away from me.

[00:13:21] I'm trying to skip along.

[00:13:22] Yeah.

[00:13:23] I'm trying to do leapfrog.

[00:13:25] God damn it.

[00:13:28] I, this is a lot of punishment that he, he just, he constantly tells them how shitty they are.

[00:13:37] Yeah.

[00:13:37] Calls them names.

[00:13:38] Yeah.

[00:13:39] And, and, and punishes them then like the absolute worst ways.

[00:13:43] And then says, why don't you love me?

[00:13:46] I would think that a God who knows everything omniscient, you know, right.

[00:13:51] Um, would understand psychology and would understand basic human decency.

[00:13:56] And we've talked about that before, right?

[00:13:57] Like, and, and this is, this is the, the phrases.

[00:14:01] These are the things I've heard from people who are, you know, Christian or, or, or whatever.

[00:14:06] They're like, well, different, different errors required different handling with regard to that's why God changed.

[00:14:12] And he couldn't, he couldn't teach them better.

[00:14:15] Right.

[00:14:16] He allowed them to be the way.

[00:14:18] But I don't, I don't think that human nature has really changed dramatically even in two, three thousand years.

[00:14:24] Like the essential way that a human operates and responds to pain and suffering and things like that.

[00:14:30] I was going to say, torture is torture regardless what century.

[00:14:32] Right.

[00:14:32] Right.

[00:14:32] Yeah.

[00:14:32] You peel my skin off.

[00:14:34] I don't care if it's the medieval times.

[00:14:36] I don't care if it's the BC times that shit go hurt.

[00:14:39] Right.

[00:14:39] Yeah.

[00:14:40] Granted, we know a lot more than people 3000 years ago, 2000 years ago, 1000 years ago, you know, but, but we, we respond to punishment, the same essential, essentially the same way.

[00:14:51] Yeah.

[00:14:52] You know?

[00:14:52] And so I, I just, you know what psychology has not changed, right?

[00:14:57] Culture maybe has changed.

[00:14:59] Definitely.

[00:14:59] But psychology has not changed.

[00:15:01] Their, their willingness to accept punishment as a, that may have changed, but it didn't have to.

[00:15:07] Right.

[00:15:07] God could have told them that it was okay to be healthier mentally.

[00:15:12] Right.

[00:15:12] Yeah.

[00:15:13] That's what I'm saying.

[00:15:14] He could have been like, Hey, I really want to punish you, but that's on me.

[00:15:18] So why don't I like get one of my horn and speakers, right?

[00:15:23] And microphone.

[00:15:24] And let's sit down and hash this out.

[00:15:26] Right.

[00:15:27] Like, I feel like I've been a really shitty parent and what let's, let's like group share this, like group thought, you know, what are some ideas?

[00:15:35] Sure.

[00:15:35] What are some ways we can do this better?

[00:15:37] Yeah.

[00:15:38] To where you give me what I need, which is, you know, pure adulation and fear at all times.

[00:15:44] And I give you what you need, which is to be allowed to live without being in constant fear.

[00:15:50] I mean, to be fair to God, they didn't have self-help sections back then.

[00:15:54] But God did.

[00:15:55] Well, but I mean, no, God, God had his own thoughts right now.

[00:15:59] Now, he's omniscient.

[00:16:00] He had access to the self-help sections that would be because I've been, if we assume that on the temporal as well.

[00:16:09] Sure.

[00:16:09] Sure.

[00:16:10] I guess if we were going to take that as the way of things, I'm just playing the game that I was given.

[00:16:15] The game I was given is that he knows all and is outside of time.

[00:16:20] Therefore, he has access to every self-help section that has ever existed and will ever exist.

[00:16:26] Right.

[00:16:26] So he knows psychology and he's choosing not to do it.

[00:16:30] Therefore, he's a piece of shit.

[00:16:32] Yeah.

[00:16:33] Sorry.

[00:16:33] That's the way that goes.

[00:16:34] And if he doesn't know psychology, he's kind of a shit God.

[00:16:36] If he doesn't know psychology, then he's not omni temporal and you misspelled the rules of the game.

[00:16:43] Right.

[00:16:44] Right.

[00:16:45] You can play by your rules, guys.

[00:16:46] Yeah.

[00:16:47] So anyway, that was a bunch of shit.

[00:16:49] It sure was.

[00:16:50] This God sucks as usual.

[00:16:52] He does.

[00:16:52] He does.

[00:16:53] All right.

[00:16:54] Well, that was Amos chapter four.

[00:16:56] Sure as fuck was.

[00:16:57] And we will be back tomorrow for sure with Amos chapter five.

[00:17:03] All right.

[00:17:03] We'll see you then.

[00:17:04] Bye.