I was watching a program on U-Tube the other day about the historicity of the Bible where the host of the show was comparing the alleged exploits of the Hebrew leader Joshua to the actual history of that ancient time which was painstakingly chronicled by the Egyptians.
In the Old Testament, after the death of Moses, Joshua led the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, commanding a large army that swept over those in its path with the help of God. You remember the story: in one of the incidents, God made “the sun stand still”, giving Joshua’s army more daylight to complete its killing, raping, and pillaging. Allegedly, Joshua’s rampaging horde of Hebrews included an army of 600,000 men, armaments, horses, cattle, provisions, and their families (parents, wives and children). Basically, the story describes one million to two million immigrants overwhelming whatever lay in their path.
And yet…the Egyptians, who ruled all of this territory and kept detailed records of everything within their domain, never documented Moses, Joshua, the parting of the Red Sea, an army of 600,000 men crushing opponents in Egyptian territory, or even a vast horde of Hebrews treading water in the Goshen wilderness for forty years.
Nothing. Not a single mention in any record, stele, hieroglyphic tablet, or…anything. It’s like the Hebrews weren’t there. That’s strange, because…the Bible says otherwise. You’d think someone would have noticed when the enemy blew a ram’s horn and fortified city walls collapsed!
Archaeologists have been working in Egypt and the Middle East as long as there have been archaeologists attempting to find evidence that will corroborate the Biblical story of the Exodus. They haven’t found anything that fits the narrative: no towns, temporary settlements, pottery shards, bones, discarded implements, weapons, monuments, etc. Nothing…except those fantastic Bible stories.
There is as much evidence that Joshua existed as there is that Thor, Paul Bunyan, Bigfoot, and the Hamburgler roamed the earth. Just sayin’.
Biblical apologists have, since the Enlightenment, come up with a variety of explanations for this striking lack of evidence. The U-Tube program that I was watching included a “rebuttal” from a supposed Biblical scholar who, try as he might, couldn’t come up with any plausible explanation except lame platitudes. In the end, the gentleman offered this pearl of wisdom:
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”
Gee, that sounds like something ginned up at The Vatican. Essentially, the listener is supposed to simply take on faith that the story, which is riddled with holes like Swiss Cheese, has to be true because…well, just because.
In essence, belief doesn’t require facts, so the lack thereof isn’t proof of anything. Period.
That’s interesting because the same people are always saying that the absence of a “missing link” between apes and men disproves the Theory of Evolution! I hate hypocrites.
Moving forward a couple thousands of years, we are now experiencing a situation where the results of a national Presidential election are being challenged by the incumbent who has yet to present any facts to support his case. In fact, his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has pointed to this fact (i.e. lack of evidence) as proof that the election was “stolen”, “fraudulent”, “fixed”, and so forth.
Giuliani, and his client Donald J. Trump, are essentially reworking the lame excuse of the Biblical expert: lack of evidence doesn’t mean that there’s no evidence…they just haven’t found any yet that they can bring before a Federal judge!
But, on the basis of the President’s alleged belief that he was wronged, the American people are being asked to throw out the results of the election (which Mr. Trump lost by almost 7 million votes) and award victory to the loser.
That’s all. Makes sense to a lot of sour-grapes MAGA folk, I guess.
Those people are some of Trump’s strongest supporters: Evangelical Christians. Not coincidentally, those same folks are big believers in the Bible, i.e. that compendium of myths and campfire tales put together by religious leaders a couple thousand years ago…before the Enlightenment, before archaeology, before the Internet, etc. In other words, back when priests could craft any story they wanted to without worrying about pesky facts.
Of course, back in the day, the Church didn’t need facts: they disseminated a specific “truth” and the citizenry either swallowed the bullshit whole or faced the music (i.e. burning at the stake, getting tortured on the rack, etc.) This went on for about one thousand years. Not a good time to ask questions.
As Americans are painfully aware, the past four years have been the Dark Ages of democracy here in our Nation. Not a day has gone by without a crapload of lying, obfuscation, blame-throwing, corruption and, dare I say it, anti-Christian behavior by the President of the United States. And the funny thing is that the “religious right” absolutely adores Donald J. Trump.
Funny may not be the right word. How about incredible?
The so-called leaders of the Evangelical Christian movement, the ones who’ve sucked up to Trump over the past five years, have told their followers that the womanizer, unscrupulous hotel developer, Trump University convicted scammer, and foul-mouthed heathen is “Heaven-sent”, “God’s Chosen One”, and so forth, conveniently omitting his daily, almost minute-to-minute, violations of the Ten Commandments. They’ve given him a Mulligan on that minor stuff, because he’s promised to oppose abortion, allow prayer in schools, and give Federal tax breaks to televangelists who shamelessly fleece their flocks.
A bunch of the most famous of these phonies went so far as to prophesy (i.e. confidently predict, with God’s help)ahead of this November’s election that Donald Trump would easily win re-election because that’s what Jesus wanted…because the Trump Administration has been doing the Lord’s work for the past four years.
You can imagine how embarrassed these Christian leaders are today, facing the inevitability that Joe Biden will take the Presidential reins on January 20th. They are mortified. And angry, because (I guess) Satan fooled Jesus for Christmas.
The irony here is that Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic Christian, who actually believes in God and acts like it, while the loser of the election makes no effort to hide his scorn of Christian beliefs and values. At this year’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., various Christian dignitaries invoked Biblical themes and values in comments from the dais, while President Trump sat fifteen feet away at the head table scowling and miserable, like a kid who’s spending an extra hour at school in detention. Finally, Trump got up to say a few words and launched into a very un-Christian monologue about his political enemies, not “turning the other cheek”, being as big an asshole as he can, and even made fun of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s prayer.
Incredible as it is, those Evangelical Christians are engaged right now in the “Stop the Steal” campaign led by President Trump to, ostensibly, reverse the election of 2020. The basic theme is that Satan (the Democrats) somehow cheated Jesus’ earthly representative (Trump!) out of his rightful throne in Washington D.C.
President Trump and his team of crack lawyers (or, maybe they’ve been smoking crack?) have gone to court in many States to expose the Democrats’ evil schemes and have, at this point, pretty much whiffed on the judicial cheese…despite having Jesus on their side. What is up with that??
Rudy Giuliani, the President’s personal attorney and head of the legal task force, came down with Covid-19 yesterday. Apparently God is not pleased with Rudy’s efforts on behalf of the heavenly franchise.
While this charade is going on, loser Donald J. Trump is making a killing on donations to his “We Want a Recount!” on-line Election Defense Fund. As of last Friday, it was reported that this grift had brought in at least $200 million from gullible MAGA idiots since Election Day. At this rate, supposed billionaire Trump will be a real one by the time Joe Biden is inaugurated.
(As is now apparent, this con was set up way back in the Spring, when the President alarmed everyone by stating that the election was “fixed”, that illegal aliens were being registered to vote, that mail-in ballots would be cast by dead people, and so forth. It was startling to hear a President say such things publicly, casting doubt on the treasured democratic institution of voting. Now we know what he was up to.)
As P.T. Barnum famously said, “There’s a sucker born every minute!” In this case, 73 million of them.
President Trump is laughing all the way to the bank. He’s got a huge MAGA cult following, with lots of their money (and more coming in daily), and the entire Republican Party, including the Senators and Congressmen who were elected (via the “fixed” elections that he’s railed against), terrified of offending the guy. Trump doesn’t need to stay in office to exercise his political power: he will be a force in the G.O.P. for the next four years and can probably name the next Republican ticket. My guess: Donald Jr. or Ivanka.
Besides, failing to un-democratically reverse the election results will allow the slimy creep lots more time to golf and to shoot his mouth off on Fox News and Twitter.
I’ve got to give the Grifter-in-Chief his due: he figured out how to monetize defeat.
