God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible

His summary of all the events of the old testament are really good and offers a perfectly adequate overview.However, the author's supposedly funny commentaries are pathetic to say the least. His attempting at humor proves that he shouldn't be attempting humor in the first place.

I got this book thinking it would be interesting and possibly a little bit humorous. I was correct in that it was very interesting. However, I was wrong in thinking it would be a little bit funny. It was extremely funny!I am an atheist but enjoy reading about religion to try and understand why people devote so much of their lives to whichever belief they have either chosen or have been brought up into by their parents / elders. It amazes me that in our modern era of scientific knowledge people still believe the stories told in ancient texts. Therefore, this book grabbed my attention and I am extremely glad that it did. The author goes through the bible from the very beginning with God creating everything in a rather unusual order and then he continues through the various stories pointing out inconsistencies, contradictions, errors and ridiculous exaggerations. How did God manage to create a man out of dust and then a woman out of a rib? How did Adam and Eve's children have children without incestuous actions? How did famous biblical characters live to be over 900 years old? How is it considered OK to send your own daughters out to be raped in order to protect a couple of male guests you have only just met? Where are the penguins and kangaroos on Noah's ark, and how did he make sure he had one male and one female of each species, (can you sex a snake or a spider?) Why does this jealous God make loads of promises to various Kings and then break these promises by demanding more worship? What's the deal with all the instances of 40 day or 40 year events? Elisha gets called "baldhead" by 42 youths and so God has them mauled to death by two bears. Where are those bears when teenagers mug and beat up innocent old ladies today? How can believers say that the bible stories are really just metaphors when God tells Moses' followers that he speaks to Moses "... not in riddles."? Then we get to the New Testament where Christians tend to want to start basing their belief. We have the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John telling the story of Jesus. Mr Werleman highlights loads of discrepancies between the four gospels which are supposed to be telling the same story. One point that I found particularly interesting was that the story of Jesus just happens to sound almost identical to at least five other stories from long before his time, right down to the virgin birth, the birth date, the signalling star, number of disciples, healing of the sick, walking on water, betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection. Various other snippets are brought to the readers' attention regarding the not-so-nice side of Jesus too. These are the passages that Christians tend not mention when preaching their religious beliefs. Mr Werleman does a great job in each story of explaining who is who, what they are doing and who they are fighting. He then inserts quotes from the bible to highlight particular statements or actions as well as occasionally adding in his own brand of humour to emphasize just how stupid some of the scenarios really are. There are masses of outlandish stories, contradictions and faults contained within the bibles pages and this book does a fantastic job of pointing them out. This book should be read by non-believers and believers alike. Believers may find it hard to argue a valid, strong point in favour of there being a God after reading this. Then again, they will probably just continue to ignore rational thought and carry on saying, to quote Mr Werleman, "The Bible is true because it is the word of God and I know it is the word of God because the Bible says so."

This book takes a brilliant approach to a classic argument. Unlike like the many books that debate the existence of God, this book avoid that argument altogether. Rather than debating whether the god of Christianity is real, it examines the Bible to learn more about the nature of this God (real or fabricated).In its preamble, the book points out some surprising survey results. For America to be so frequently cited as a "Christian nation," this book points out the shocking ignorance of American citizens about the BIble. For instance, polls are cited which reveal that while over 93% of Americans own at least one copy of the Bible, more than 50% are unaware that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Similarly, more than 50% are unable to name a single Gospel.Initially, I was surprised that so many apparent Christians would be so ignorant about the Bible. However, by the time I finished this book, it became clear that ignorance of the Bible is the very reason there are so many Christians in America.The heart of "God Hates You, Hate Him Back" is a book by book recap of "God's word." This recap highlights some of the most alarming -- and most systematically ignored -- stories and ultimatums the Bible has to offer.Offerings from the Old Testament reveal a God who is hateful, spiteful, insecure, misogynistic, homophobic, and racist. After so many stories of genocide, infanticide, and torture at God's hand, it becomes clear that this "loving God" we often hear about, is not a characterization that can be readily supported by a thorough and objective review of the Bible.Moving into the New Testament, passages highlight some of the many discrepancies about Jesus, as recounted by his followers. Even more damning perhaps,is that we see some very unflattering quotes from Jesus himself (for example, in Luke 19:27 we hear Jesus ask that his detractors be retrieved and slain right in front of him). Considering how much the Bible has been edited and translated over the millennia to promote Christianity, you can't help but wonder how many more contentious and militant stories the Gospels might have originally contained.Like many of you, I was raised in a Christian household and, at one time even defined myself as a Christian. However, as I began to read the Bible on my own, I became alarmed by some of the very same, rarely quoted or even acknowledged, passages presented here.After the many years I'd spent as an active and committed Christian, I thought I'd been exposed to all of the Bible by now. However, Werleman does a remarkable job of comparing and contrasting key scripture that most Christians have never seen. In addition, he does so in a way that is compelling, entertaining, and frequently very humorous."God Hates You..." exposes seamy little underbelly of the Bible. If you're only familiar with the highly selective Bible passages and stories covered in church and Sunday school -- and you have interest in the Bible or God -- you owe it to yourself to see what you've been missing.Besides, if the Bible is God's handiwork, He'd want you know all of it, right?

This book makes for a very good read and has given me a far better insight into the bible than all the time spent going to Sunday school and church as a youngster. It is a shame that the author uses the F word this only detracts from the standing of the book, keep a bible handy for cross reference always check what you read before believing the statements made. If you believe the story of Adam and Eve then you must concede that the human race was started through incest!The author states that " one of Adam and Cain's descendant gave birth no Noah". This is incorrect as the Bible states that Noah is a descendant of Seth not Cain. From investigating this fact you can see that no mention is made of the wives to Noha's family tree, showing how women were not important to the people (men) who wrote the bible .I highly recommend this book but was unable to award it five stars because of the use of the F word (call me old fashion)if you wish.

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard DawkinsThis book demonstrates and displays these qualities of the biblical God book by book, all through the 66 books of the bible, from Genesis to Revelation the character of the biblical God is exposed and on full display for all to see.I wish this book was mandatory reading for all people on planet earth. I read about two or more books a week on average. When I read I always think about which books I would have my future kids read(If I ever have them) and which books I think would be the most important and beneficial to have the whole world read. This book made the list.Most people are not going to suffer through reading the higher critics hit parade works on the bible. This book combines humor, wit, accessibility, as well as high educational and entertainment value. It is a great cocktail to help expose people to the multitude of absurdities in the "good book" that almost all believers have made a pre-mature concession in believing its contents divine, true, and good.Until a little over two years ago I was seeking to be a Christian Philosopher and Apologist. I have read hundreds of book related to Christian Apologetics in one way or another . I have read all of Lewis, all of Schaeffer, all of Peter Kreeft, all of Dr. Geisler's books, including his encyclopedia A-Z twice, and his Systematic Theology twice, I have read Plantinga, McDowell, Craig, Ravi, Moreland,Holding, Swinburne, N.T Wright, Paul Copan, R.C Sproul, Van Til, Gary Habermas, Lee Strobel, David Noebel, Francis Beckwith, Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcy, Chesterton, Stuart C. Hacket, Martin, Richard Purtill, Stephen T. Davis, Dembski, Behe, Johnson, Collins, Paul K Moser, and many other Christian Philosophers and theologians. I was going to spend my life defending Christianity.I set out to read all the top skeptic books to see of my faith could withstand the scrutiny. To make a long story short I realized I was dead wrong. I have now read over 170 skeptic related books and I am now a confident Atheist.It is easy to get bogged down in all the complicated back and forth that goes on in the philosophy of religion. Realizing the utter absurd and malevolent nature of the Biblical God is something anyone can readily grasp and understand and it is often very powerful once people are exposed to it and understand that context is not going to resolve the issue.Most Christians are conditioned from a young age to view the God of the bible in a certain idealized way. They first get exposed to the Idea of the biblical God through their parents, pastor, and a very selective reading and commentary of the bible. For most Christians this process is continued throughout their life, their idealized view continues to get bolstered and fortified by the Christian books they read their pastor and friends. The conditioning is often so thorough and entrenched that they often do not see the obvious implication and meaning of the text but instead read into the text what they have been conditioned to believe or they dismiss the texts that are not in accord with their conditioned view and think they must not mean what it seams to mean or that some apologist must have some good explanation that would resolve the apparent problem."No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means." - George Bernard ShawThere actually is a whole litany of rationalizations that Christians use, everything from "Gods ways are not our ways" to "We cant Judge God". These attempts to get God off the hook do not hold up under even cursory examination." I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go." - John Stuart MillThe infidel Guy the other day said this"One of my facebook friends says that they "absolutely LOVE the lord!" I could not possibly "absolutely love" anyone that; kills children, drowns babies, burns people alive, slaughters the innocent, inoculates people with dreaded diseases, modifies babies to have horrible genetic disorders, sics animals to attack and ki...ll children, punishes people by raping them, inflicts pain and death indiscriminately? You?"Here is a satirical response I wrote.Well you see God is perfectly good by definition. There is no evil in the bible or even any imaginable hypothetical evil that anyone could think up(such as tormenting the mass of men and women for eternity... o wait I forgot he will do this in hell) that could even in principal disconfirm this. Besides we would not even have any ethical bases NOT to commit unwarranted gratitouse acts of genocide, rape, murder and things such as ; unless we worship and believe in the almighty morally perfect being who sanctions, commits, and or condones genocide, rape, murder and things such as.You see, we can judge the charactar and actions of all the other Gods and all the other versions of the God of the bible, such as calvins God, but we must not and cannot judge the version I hold to, why? Because he told me personally that he cant be judged by man. He did say we could judge his actions to be perfect and holy, as long as we dont judge anything in a negative light(:When you cant differentiate whatsoever, what and what is not becoming of a morally perfect being, then how can we as humans say what or what not is good for man? If we cant give an example of even what in principle would falsify this concession to a perfect being and if we are at a loss to say what would make him less then morally perfect , then what are we really saying when we say he(God is jesus and jesus has a penis, so god is a he, deal with it) is the most morally perfect being possible? I used to think we could know something about morals from what god taught us in the bible, but then God both affirmed and denied moral claim x, as well as breaking his own rules. So that took me back to square one. Why would god try to teach us ethics when he new we could not understand ethics?I guess in the end we just have to have faith that he is morally perfect, even though predicated on our view of God we cant really say what that means. How can we believe that something has a certain quality when we cant even know what it is at all? God is a tricky fellow. I guess what he does must just look so stupid sometimes because we are so stupid, but then I wonder if he wants a relationship with us then why did he not make us smart enough to understand him? But I just know he is morally perfect, he told me he was yesterday. (:"God so loved the world that he arbitrarily decided to damn the majority of it" -Ingersoll. I dont understand it, and I dont understand what it even means to believe it, but praise the baby jesus I believe it.(:If I could have a Christian only read a handfull of books to deconvert him, this is one of the ones I would have him read. It forces the person to view the biblical God all through the bible frome Genesis to Revelation. If you are a Christian I challenge you to read this book and judge for yourself if you can reconcile the God of the bible with your idealized view of God. If you look up apologetic responses I challenge you to see if they can withstand scrutiny of Counter responses( Such as the outstanding response Hector Avalos wrote to the Arguments Christian Apologist Paul Copan gave in Defense of the Character of the God of the bible.)This is a great and handy book, buy some for friends, family and yourself. You wont regret it.