Numbers Chapter 31:
" They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.
15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."
Recent studies show that the above verses are not entirely mythical:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0522/How-a-few-Bronze-Age-forefath...
http://genome.cshlp.org/content/25/4/459.full?sid=62781f22-8abe-46e1-998...
3300 years ago the most aggressive males of an already aggressive species discover monotheism and the power of religious authority. The cultural practices of religious genocide and the sexual enslavement of women become codified in scripture and within the genetic make up of this population. The memes for religion, politics , and misogyny are carried along with the genes for dominant and aggressive behaviors.
The Inquisition and the Caliphate , the subjugation of indigenous peoples , the conquering of the earth for Christianity and Islam was enacted by the progeny of a few bad men.
Today ISIS and Republican lawmakers wage separate campaigns to revive the moral universe of these bronze aged tyrants. I think Hitchens was right. Religion poisons everything. Even the gene pool.
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Everything need to be said has already been said. This post is of such high quality I feel like calling it Kosher.
Only bad men would contrive deities to hold hostage entire populations to do their bidding. It defines bad.
Indeed.