An atheist biologist wrote that the God of the Bible is "a vindictive character," one of his uncalled for accusations against someone who he believes does not exist, and "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction!" He wrote this in his book, The God Delusion (Amazon: 2006). Moreover, he went on to sell aborticide or feticide as moral in Twitter and he would not apologize for doing so.
Let us learn biblical wisdom by analyzing what kind of a person or character in reality - not fiction – Richard Dawkins is! It is time we check if he is credible in what he says – especially as regards life as in snuffing it out with or without authority. That is the issue.
God, to maintain order among His people, at that time the Israelites, said:
DEUTERONOMY 32:35-36
35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
If everyone living is given the freedom to avenge any offender, whether the offense is real or perceived, we will be seeing a society of humans with animalistic behaviors! The right to judge, to avenge, and vindicate belongs to the power that sustains human society.
JAMES 4:12
There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
Without doubt God is just (to his creation), but His judgments will surely be unwanted because they are meant to be exemplary – as warning or deterrent.
PSALMS 7:11 (RSV)
God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day.
He judges beyond what any judge can see!
ISAIAH 11:3
And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
He knows the depth of the human entity – the nook and cranny of man’s heart.
JEREMIAH 17:9-10
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10 I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
And in judgment He uses mercy where and when it is called for.
JAMES 2:13
For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
PSALMS 62:12
Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work.
To vindicate the offended helpless victims of injustice or give relief to those He is “growing” as a nation, God is vindictive against unpardonable evil, and after many warnings, that is the best justice that can be served. With the incorrigible rooted out, the playing field is leveled.
REVELATION 6:9-11
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
In the real sense of the word, Dawkins, although a popular scientist, did not use a scientific mind in judging that God is vindictive! God waited for four hundred long years for the Canaanites to repent, for four hundred long years for the Egyptians to learn mercy, and for four hundred long years for the Israelites to learn to trust their God. And yet before executing His judgment upon them, God showed supernatural wonders to convert them to obey and be spared!
His simple demand for the Egyptians was to "free My people and be spared of His wrath." They have had enough cruelty against His chosen people for four hundred years. On the other hand, to the Canaanites, the wonders he performed to liberate his people, Israel, were known to them to give them a last chance to change before He would pronounce their total annihilation! But they did not!
JOSHUA 2:9-14
9 And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.
10 For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.
11 And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.
12 Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have showed you kindness, that ye will also show kindness unto my father's house, and give me a true token:
13 And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.
14 And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business. And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee.
The Canaanites were a wayward nation of idolaters and sexually-pervert maniacs, cruel - in the truest sense of it - butchering their own children and offering them to Baal!
Ben Hobrink, author of “Modern Science in the Bible: Amazing Scientific Truths found in Ancient Texts” (Amazon: 2011) was quoting authorities aside from a Professor Merrill Unger (1909-1980), a biblical archaeologist. Merrill mentioned sacred prostitution, child sacrifice and snake worship among the Canaanites. This was corroborated by other sources.
Meanwhile, excerpts from the discovery of Ugaritic texts written by Jack Burch “Jeremiah, Prophet of God,” (http://www.pfce.us/documents/Jeremiah.pdf) told about an ancient tombstone accidentally uncovered on a peasant’s farm at Ugarit in 1928. Ugarit is now part of the country of Syria.
In 1929 the area was excavated by a team of French archaeologists led by Claude F.A. Schaeffer. The original excavations uncovered a house and its library. The building appears to have housed a scribe’s school and hundreds of clay tablet were discovered in the library. These tablets provided archaeologists with excellent information concerning the worship of the Canaanite and Phoenician gods and goddesses, including the bizarre sexual practices of the pagan fertility cults including Baal and Dagon. The building turned out to be the house of the chief priest.
The oldest of these tablets date back to about 1400 B.C. This is about one hundred fifty years before Israel’s exodus from Egypt. A number of religious articles such as small figurines of Baal were also discovered. Additional excavations were conducted in 1948 when the royal palace was discovered, yielding important historical texts. Excavations continued, the latest having been conducted by French archaeologists in the year 2000.
But as I earlier mentioned, child sacrifice appeared to be the apogee of the extent of immorality among Canaanites.
In sum, instead of a bloodthirsty self-absorbed non-being that Dawkins sees, the God of the Old Testament who gave orders to his people to get rid of immoral Canaanites is actually a resolute manager practicing hands-on directorial rights to his creation. Failing to come up to standards, these people who practiced free sex, child sacrifice, spread of venereal diseases, barbarous and licentious cultic practice did not merit remedial or repair strategies to continue existing but total extermination. Given notice to make changes through the international publication of God’s work against the mighty Egyptians, the Canaanites preferred to believe there was no one in charge.
The Canaanite culture of moral corruption reflected a refusal to learn, which to the Manager God was an indication of instability. Their history did not merit managerial considerations of continued land grant, management, and growth in order to succeed. Their riddance then was a coping measure that the Manager God put into action. Since he is creator, he knew best which measures to use according to the enormity of these people’s sins.
Considering all these things, it is but just in all its reality, for God the creator, to pronounce the annihilation of these people. But for Dawkins, a mere human being, to pronounce the death of all fetuses with Down syndrome is most certainly absurd. Shedding of innocent blood is abomination in the sight of the Lord.
PROVERBS 6:16-19
16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
The Bible is clear about shedding innocent blood. But notice what this atheist said, as written by a reporter from BBC News Ouch, dated August 21, 2014. It appears that Dawkins was advising a young woman in Twitter who posed a hypothetical situation when her baby might be born with Down syndrome. What would she do?
As defined in the dictionary, Down syndrome (or Down's syndrome) is a chromosomal disorder caused by an error in cell division that results in an extra 21st chromosome. The condition leads to impairments in both cognitive ability and physical growth that range from mild to moderate developmental disabilities (MedicalNewsToday, Sept 26, 2014). Here are excerpts from the report of Kathleen Hawkins (http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-ouch-28879659 ). It was titled, “Richard Dawkins: 'Immoral' not to abort Down’s foetuses.”
Richard Dawkins, the atheist writer, has caused a stir on Twitter claiming it is "immoral" to allow unborn babies with Down's syndrome to live.
The Oxford professor posted the message on Twitter in response to a user who wrote she would be faced with "a real ethical dilemma" if she became pregnant and learned that the baby would be born with Down's syndrome.
"Abort it and try again," Dawkins tweeted in reply. "It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice."
His comments have caused anger online and have been dismissed by charities, but he insists his views are "very civilised", tweeting: "These are fetuses, diagnosed before they have human feelings."
Dawkins defended his comments on the social media website saying: "I do not for one moment apologise for approaching moral philosophic questions in a logical way. There's a place for emotion & this isn't it."
But in a subsequent blog post outlining what he meant by his tweets, Dawkins writes that he supports those philosophers who say that an adult, a child and a baby should all be granted the rights of a person. "An early fetus, before it develops a nervous system, should not," he concludes.
The report said, Anthony Ozimic, communications manager of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) took exception to Dawkins's comments because they raise the argument about when human life begins. He said all unborn children, whether disabled or not, have right to life with the rest of humanity.
If Dawkins and his fans club, the atheists, will rule the world, there would be three important and comforting words that will vanish from the dictionary: love, mercy, and compassion! That woman in Twitter woefully was not asking a question from the life-giver, but from someone with lack of humanity and emotional disconnect with the living.
What is the truth about Down syndrome? Should the fetus be aborted as advised by Richard Dawkins? Gynecology and obstetrics define feticide or aborticide as “the destruction of a fetus in the uterus.” If not aborted, will these beings become useful or employable at all?
The National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) Organization (http://www.ndss.org/) that is doing its best to increase public awareness and acceptance of people with DS, belies or qualifies the many myths circulating around. These myths include: that DS is a rare disorder; people afflicted with it have short life span; it is hereditary and runs in families; the children are born to older parents; patients have severe cognitive delays; they have to be institutionalized; as children, they must be segregated; they are not employable; and that DS can never be cured. Brief excerpts from the literature of the organization, however, say -
Research on Down syndrome is making great strides in identifying the genes on chromosome 21 that cause the characteristics of Down syndrome. Scientists now feel strongly that it will be possible to improve, correct or prevent many of the problems associated with DS in the future....
Businesses are seeking adults with Down syndrome for a variety of positions. They are being employed in small- and medium-sized offices: by banks, corporations, nursing homes, hotels and restaurants. They work in the music and entertainment industry, in clerical positions, childcare, the sports field and in the computer industry to name a few.
The mission of the NDSS is said to be the national advocate for the value, acceptance and inclusion of people with Down syndrome. In other words, not everyone has the mind of Richard Dawkins, who by all means is countering the efforts of communities sympathetic to this handicap. Records show that most parents are capable of loving these people that could lead useful lives if allowed to survive.
As these are also God’s children, surely this Dawkins is an instrument of Satan, an aborticist, a feticist, a murderer, a Satanist.
JOHN 8:44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Dawkin’s Confusion
While this evolutionary biologist would condone the child sacrifices of the Canaanites by calling God vindictive, this hypocrite would propose aborting the children of a people yet unjudged. He would justify himself saying these DS fetuses have no nervous system yet and there is no point being emotional about it. But it does not appear that feticide or aborticide is anyone’s prerogative, much less one of an atheist.
If God is vindictive in carrying out judgments over immoral nations, even if it meant the elimination of a generation, it is part of his pruning processes as a developer/manager/owner over all his creation. But for an insignificant creature to suggest the demise of another creature, there doesn’t appear any logical authority for such licentious suggestion.
By and large, immorality was the reason the creator “pruned out” bad eggs from the face of the earth. But there was never a suggestion that it is moral if one expelled one’s fetus because there was a chromosomal error. If allowed to live, these children can grow up to honor a God that can be vindictive when there is a wrong to eliminate. But Dawkins cannot tell which is right and which is wrong – being godless.
Why can’t Dawkins make distinctions between an immoral Canaanite nation and the innocent disabled fetuses? Obviously, there is a heavy price to pay. Over the years, Dawkins had been making money taunting the one who gave his life – and he still is. Now, he would be preaching how other’s lives would be snuffed out too.
Richard Dawkins is churning out dead works as he is a living dead.