The Great Gilgamesh Nut Cow Or, The Great Flood Fib

excerpt from

Supernatural Hypocrisy:
The Cognitive Dissonance
of a God Cosmology

Volume 3: Cosmology of the Bible

The Great Gilgamesh Nut Cow

Or, The Great Flood Fib

“There’s a huge hole in the whole Flood drama, because

anything that could float or swim got away scot-free, and it

was the idea to wipe out everything, He didn’t say, ‘I will kill

 everything, except the floating ones and the swimming ones,

 who will get out due to a loophole.’”

 ~ Eddie Izzard

T

he story of the flood is a familiar one to most people. A man is instructed by God to build a large boat to save himself and his family, along with the male and female of each animal species. God then sends a great flood, and all are drowned except for the occupants of the vessel.

     Am I speaking of Noah and the Ark? Yes. But also of The Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Egyptian Book of the Divine Cow. (I kid you not.) From texts discovered in the tombs of pharaohs, we learn of a tale about the people turning bad and the sun god who had to kill them all and start civilization over. The Divine Cow was a transformation from the Goddess Nut. (I promise you, I’m not making this up. But someone did, and that’s the point here).

     The biblical motifs of the Fall and the Flood suggest a rupture, a necessary loss of "eternity", forcing mankind to return to the original state of perfection through history. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this cleavage between man and God ensued when the former ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (between good and evil). So history starts when, stripped naked, man, in blood, sweat & tears, has to work for his living. But this is not enough. Divine wrath floods humanity, leaving only a small percentage a life. The literary parallels are obvious.[1]

     The Gilgamesh story was itself a borrowed tale of Sumerian origin. Both these ancient stories were combined and altered to produce the biblical flood story. The Gilgamesh epic was written on 12 clay tablets in cuneiform script, and dating to between 2750 and 2500 BCE—long before the story of Noah was to have taken place. In fact, The Epic of Gilgamesh is thought by ancient historians to be the oldest written story ever found.

     Most Christians view the flood story as unique to Christianity, but it is, in fact, a copy of the two other stories, tweaked to fit the needs of the Christian religion. There are obvious similarities that cannot escape the attention of anyone capable of employing reason. For example, In the biblical account, we see:

      Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the Earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under Heaven; everything that is on the Earth shall perish. “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. “Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. “As for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them.” Thus Noah did; according to all that God had commanded him, so he did (Genesis 6:14-22).

     In the Epic of Gilgamesh, we see:

Tear down the house and build a boat!

Abandon wealth and seek living beings!

Spurn possessions and keep alive living beings!

Make all living beings go up into the boat. The boat which you are to build, its dimensions must measure equal to each other: its length must correspond to its width. Roof it over like the Apsu. I understood and spoke to my lord, Ea: 'My lord, thus is the command which you have uttered I will heed and will do it  (Tablet XI).

The Gilgamesh author also used the measurement of cubits[2] as did the biblical story of the flood.

The child carried the pitch, the weak brought whatever else was needed. On the fifth day I laid out her exterior. It was a field in area, its walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height, the sides of its top were of equal length, 10 times It cubits each (Tablet XI).

Both stories also tell of the boat mooring or being stuck on a mountain. In the Bible, it was Mountains of Ararat, in Gilgamesh, it was Mount Nimush.

     And just as the Genesis story, a bird was sent out to seek land, and finally land was located, and the animals of the ark were released. In the biblical account, it says,

...and he sent out a raven, and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the Earth. Then he sent out a dove from him, to see if the water was abated from the face of the land; but the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, so she returned to him into the ark, for the water was on the surface of all the Earth. Then he put out his hand and took her, and brought her into the ark to himself. So he waited yet another seven days; and again he sent out the dove from the ark. The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the Earth. Then he waited yet another seven days, and sent out the dove; but she did not return to him again (8:7-12).

Notice the similarities in the Gilgamesh version:

I sent forth a dove and released it. The dove went off, but came back to me; no perch was visible so it circled back to me. I sent forth a swallow and released it. The swallow went off, but came back to me; no perch was visible so it circled back to me. I sent forth a raven and released it. The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back. It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me. Then I sent out everything in all directions and sacrificed [a sheep] (Tablet XI).

Now, according to reason, it becomes plain that the flood stories are myth, based solely on this information, and common sense. The truth is even more illuminated by the obvious flaws.

     Historically, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers did overflow and cause great damage, but nothing as severe as the biblical account relates. The only river in the region that could have been involved was the Jordan, but it was below sea level. There are no historical records, nor archeological nor geological evidence that show a flood of this magnitude in the region.

     Aside from the obvious widespread killing of everyone who wasn’t on the Ark, including children and animals who could not logically be regarded as “evil”—there are the usual problems.

     Regarding the logistics of Noah and the Ark, first, the size of the Ark would have resulted in the boat breaking in half under the force of the first wave it encountered; modern ship builders know this for certain. They also know that Noah could not have constructed this Ark in the amount of time allotted.

     The animals that Noah allegedly loaded onto the Ark (using both versions of that information found in two different places in Genesis) would not only be too numerous to fit, as our modern science tells us that 99% of the world’s species are now extinct, and it’s obvious that even if the Ark were built and loaded today, they wouldn’t fit; so why would they fit then, when there were millions. Remember there was only “one” creation, according to the Bible. This, even though the fossil record shows us that there were many rebirths of new species when others were wiped out (remember the dinosaurs?). The fossil record also shows us that modern species began later—that’s why they are called modern. To hear the theists tell it, all the animals, of all kinds were created by God, during the Original Creation of the world. That’s easily explained, of course, by the facts of evolution; which theists insist isn’t accurate, even though we have libraries of evidence in a slew of different scientific disciplines, shown to a high degree of certainty, while the Biblical story is simply a story with no empirical corroboration at all.

     Back to the Ark: Also, there would be no room to store water and food for them, and no way the small group of people on board could care for them and clean up after them. Not to mention that it would collapse from the weight and sink. Then there’s the fact that all animals weren’t indigenous to the area in which Noah lived, yet there is no mention of a “road trip” to herd all those animals to the Ark. Additionally, if one only has a male and female of each species, this would create mutants due to inbreeding.

And what about this verse?

“…taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done” (Genesis 8:20-21).

Noah took “some of all” of the animals, which would mean there were some who couldn’t “be fruitful and multiply” because, as we know, Noah loaded the Ark with one male and one female of each kind. That would leave some without a mate. Those species must have just died out. Maybe that’s what happened to the dinosaurs, eh?

     Also, the most glaring error of all: why did the animals have to be saved in the first place? Since God is omnipotent, why couldn’t he just re-create them all after the flood waters receded?

Other details in the flood story don’t add up, either. God places a rainbow in the sky to remind himself of the event—though why a Omni-everything being would need a atmospheric Post-it Note is beyond me.

     There’s also the obvious belief by the author of the Book of Genesis that the Earth was flat, and there was only water above the dome of sky and below the ground. Again, if God created all these things, and then inspired men to write about them, would he not correct such a profound inaccuracy?

     And what about the depth of the water as told in Genesis?

The water prevailed more and more upon the Earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the Heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered (7:19-20).

If we figure a cubit as on the average being 19 inches, that would mean the water level reached around 24 feet. Obviously not enough to cover all those mountains, even the smallest of the small. It’s another case of making a mountain out of a molehill; common in the Christian religion.

---

[1]  Wim van den Dungen. “The Book of the Heavenly Cow.“ http://www.maat. sofiatopia.org/heavenly_cow.htm.

[2] A cubit was an ancient unit of length, equal to the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, approximately 43-56 cm (17-22 in) [14th century]. Latin cubitum "elbow, forearm"(Encarta Dictionary).

The Great Gilgamesh Nut Cow Or, The Great Flood Fib

Devout Follower seeks Advice from Dr. Laura....

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?

I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread. (cotton/polyester blend) He also tends to curse and blaspheme alot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

-------------------------------

this joke came from D.A.F.T. message board via Atheistalliance

Devout Follower seeks Advice from Dr. Laura....

The Stuttering Murderer Who Was God's Bitch

Excerpt from
Supernatural Hypocrisy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology

WHILE A PHARAOH WAS ordering all male Hebrew babies killed, the mother of Moses attempted to spare his life by placing him in a basket as a three month old infant, and sending him floating down the river, where the daughter of Egyptian royalty found him and raised him. All very dramatic, but not in the least original.

In fact, this story was originally a Babylonian tale about King Sargon, rendered a very long time before Moses was born. Again, this is a borrowed myth found in the bible, but presented as a unique bit of biblical history.

According to scripture, Moses was a humble man with a speech impediment. God never praised him for his servitude, other than to say "...my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house." (Numbers 12:7). That's why I see him as God's Bitch.

Chosen by God, though he was, Moses was nonetheless a murderer. One wonders why God chooses murderers as his favorites. Moses had killed an Egyptian man for beating a Hebrew man, and escaped once his crime was found out (Exodus 2:11). Maybe the tainted past of Moses is precisely why he was chosen. God wanted him to do some unsavory things. He needed to know he was capable of it.

And he even broke the Ten Commandments—literally. Broke the tablets. When he returned from the mountain, with those big, huge, heavy tablets in hand, and saw the big party going on, he threw them down and broke them in anger (Exodus 32:19). Now, if you had words written “by the finger of God” in your hands, would you thoughtlessly throw them down and break them? Just a postscript. In the famous Rembrandt painting, Moses is depicted holding these two stone tablets over his head, as if they were made of Styrofoam. This would of course be true for Charlton Heston in the movie version, but obviously wouldn’t be true at the alleged event. I just find things like that comical.

Oh, and the story of the tablet? Also previously found in Babylonian myth of Hammurabi. A child is born in secret, the child had to be sent away because of events going on, the child was placed in a basket of bulrushes, sealed with tar and sent adrift on a river, and then the child was discovered by someone who became a foster parent. Just like many of the stories in the bible, this one is no different. There can be found striking parallels to other ancient stories. The birth of Moses is merely one.

Later, Moses gets married and becomes a shepherd, and then sees the burning bush, and it’s God, who introduces Himself and tells him He wants Moses to free his people (The Hebrews) from the oppression of Egypt, and guide them all to the Land of Canaan, where there is milk and honey and all that jazz. But first, he has to take the magical powers God will give him and show the Egyptians, so they’ll let him go, and God also demonstrates a few magic tricks, then gives Moses permission to plunder the Egyptians before he begins the journey.

Moses is still a little hesitant, because he doesn’t communicate well, and has a speech impediment, and God assures him he will be able to do it properly because He will help. Moses is still unsure and this makes God mad, so he says he will allow his brother Aaron, who is well-spoken to relay God’s message, and so Moses can tell Aaron, and then Aaron can do the talking. And what does Moses finally have to say, at the behest of God Almighty? "Israel is my son, My first-born[1] and...Let my son go so that he may serve me, but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your first born.” So, more killing, sanctified by God.

God then decided to kill Moses, but no one seems to know why, and changed his mind, when the mother of that first-born, cut the end of her baby’s penis off[2] and threw it at Moses.

When Moses confronts the Pharaoh, his parlor tricks weren’t all that impressive, because it seems the Pharaoh’s magicians could do the same things. So what was so special about God giving Moses the same abilities?

Then, Moses turns the river to blood, and the magicians could do that too, so the Pharaoh still didn’t listen. The Nile was polluted and undrinkable, yet the Egyptians lived for 7 days, and maybe longer, who knows, with no water. Egypt, kids, is in Africa. It was hot. Wonder how everyone survived?

Then came the plague of frogs, which the magician’s were also able to replicate.

Then the plague of gnats, and the magicians couldn’t seem to replicate that trick, and thus announced it “the finger of God” finally.[3] The same type of thing happened repeatedly with different plague-forms afterward; from dying cattle, to boils, to hail, to locusts.[4] But notice that with the plague of boils, the repeated phrase, “But the heart of the Pharaoh was hardened” or “but Pharaoh hardened his heart” then became “And the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”

Now, if God was trying to convince the Pharaoh to listen to Him, through Moses, then why in the world would He harden Pharaoh’s heart? God was playing his own Devil’s Advocate. Makes no sense.

Then when the Hail Plague was on its way, the bible states that those who did not heed the warning would die. If God wasn’t yelling this from the heavens, how did everyone know about it? Again, a flaw in the plot written by God.

After the hail, the Pharaoh finally got the picture and admitted he had sinned against God. Then changed his mind when the hail ceased. Was God toying with him again?

Next, God sent the plague of locusts (because the gnats weren’t insecty enough, I suppose).

Then finally we see that God was indeed doing all this so he could make fools of the Egyptians and word would travel about how God doesn’t screw around. But why would an omnipotent being need to go through this song and dance when he could have just smote the Pharaoh and left a burning, handwritten message on the floor next to him?

Then the Pharaoh repented again, but God flipped the hard-heart switch and he reneged once more. Then the same thing happened with three days of darkness over the land, and finally, Pharaoh was so flustered by being bandied about by the manipulations of God, that he told Moses to go and take his livestock and his people, and if he ever saw his face again, Moses would die, and Moses said something like “you’re right, I won’t see your face again!” These men were just marionettes for the Almighty.

Then for good measure, God sent one more plague.[5] And it was a doozy. He decided to kill all the first born sons of every family in Egypt, (to include the first born of the animal kingdom present there). Seems God was just as fond of killing first-born sons, as Pharaohs. In this case, when God saw enough blood running in the streets, he would protect the Hebrews from the massacre He Himself rendered. And this, my friends, is known as Passover. The lovely festival celebrated by Jews. A holiday rendered in the blood of innocents. Amen, and praise His name.

This was by no means the whole story of Moses, but with these points in mind, it’s hard to view the Pentateuch[6] as anything other than another myth, unless you instead choose to worship a god of this ilk. And yet, Christians base their beliefs on information of this sort.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] That would make Jesus the Second-born?
[2] AKA, circumcision.
[3] Though why it wasn’t the “hand of God” I cannot surmise; perhaps because gnats are small, they assumed it must only take a God-Finger.
[4] Didn’t he already do the insect thing?
[5] He must have been having too much fun and couldn’t help Himself.
[6] The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also called the Torah. In Greek, the word Pentateuch means “five volumes.”

The Stuttering Murderer Who Was God's Bitch

Honk if You'll Kill for God

(from my book in progress, Supernatural Hypocrisy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology")


...We have had time to evolve since those dark days. Yet, how could we, when there were so many examples and encouragements to keep us uncivilized and vicious?

In the story of Abraham and Isaac most Americans are familiar with, God commanded Abe to sacrifice his son to Him. Old Abe never batted an eye. Good thing an Angel stilled his hand just in time. Abraham was praised and promised blessings because he feared the Lord enough to sacrifice his son, whom he loved, because "God" told him to.

Abraham's "devotion" to God makes him a model of faith to Christians and Jews alike. . .right. But a model of WHAT? I have a few suggestions. How about a model of zealotry? A model of stupidity? A model of a schizophrenic killer?

What would have impressed me more, and made a great deal more sense, is if Abraham would have instead said, "I will not kill my son for you, because to ask this of me proves that you are evil, and I will neither worship nor obey an evil God." That would have shown Abraham to be truly a model for other people-not of faith, which this shows is not a positive thing to have, but a model of ethical, loving behavior. This would have also shown him to have courage in the face of some request made by a God he worshiped, but who had obviously become something not worthy of adulation or obedience. And if God had really been testing Abraham's mettle, He would have responded, "You are indeed a man of great courage and integrity and compassion and ethics, and I am well pleased." But as we all know, that's not what happened.

To anyone reading this, Christian or not, if you really believed God was telling you to kill your own child, would you do it? It is my most fervent wish that all of you will answer a resounding and unhesitating "No." If you answered otherwise, you are no better than Abraham, and no better than our more modern example of the 39 year old Texas woman, Deanna Laney, who thought that God told her to kill her three sons. She managed to succeed with two of them, sparing only the infant, who will now have a life of dependency on others, since the injuries from the attack will forever render him incapable of self care.

As a nation of ethical, loving, and compassionate people, we were shocked and disgusted by this heinous act. Why do we see this behavior as abhorrent in real life, but hold it up as some paragon of virtue when referring to faith and the Bible?*

Oh, it gets worse. This next tale is not one I ever heard before reading the Bible, and it is glaringly apparent why not. It's another example--not so summarily candy-coated--of why blind faith can be one of the most evil things in existence.

Jephthah. He made a stupid promise to God that if He would award him victory in battle, he would sacrifice the first person to walk out of his house and greet him, after returning from a mission of slaughter in war, and give this doomed candidate as a burnt offering to the Lord. **

When Jephthah returned home from the exhilarating slaughter of thousands, the target for sacrifice turned out to be his daughter. He just decided, "Oh, oops. Too bad, have to kill her. I promised."

I can mark that off to human stupidity, but then, God didn't stop him. Was God stupid? Or just unfathomably mean? God allowed Jephthah to kill his own daughter, and proves Himself again, a blood-thirsty apathetic being.

With complete comfort, I challenge God Himself to come down here and explain that one to me. But God won't do that, because though Christianity is one of the "revealed" religions, this in no way indicates that God ever reveals Himself in any real way.

Both of these stories are examples of religious zealotry, not at all contrary to what the Muslim hijackers did when they piloted the planes into the Twin Towers. They, too, were following the literal instructions given to them in their holy books, the Koran and the Hadiths, (which is second only to the Koran in sanctity, and gives more detail about the life of Mohammad).

Now, it would be cowardly of me not to think about this, and what it really means. A parent would actually kill his own child because some deity told him to-told him, apparently, by way of a voice in his head. (Isn't this similar to what murderous schizophrenics experience?) Abe didn't know God would stop him. He did it with the fullest intention of completing the hideous task. And Jephthah not only did the same thing, but came up with the wager by himself, as a way to reach his dubious goal of successful, widespread slaughter.

So. This still happens today, though not cloaked in the shroud of admirable character. Quite the opposite is true, isn't it? God didn't stop Deanna Laney, either, though she was about to kill her kids believing that's what God wanted. Why didn't God step in and say, at the very least, "No, no, Deanna. . I'm not doing that stuff anymore. I decided it was better to just kill my own son to cover all the sacrifices we might need in the future, and be done with it." (Well at least God did what he expects of others, that one time). But God didn't stop her, just like He didn't stop Jephthah. Thankfully, our judicial system did something about it, by putting her on trial, judging it wrong and worthy of punishment. Unfortunately, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was committed to a mental facility for an unspecified period of time.

But if you are either guilty or insane for thinking that God told you to kill your kids, are either of those valid reasons to defend the virtues of Blind Faith?
Um. No.
-----------------------
*And more poignantly, there is no mention of how Isaac felt after his sacrificial test. I can't imagine that he would be able to love his father after being tricked and nearly killed by him. The two dead Laney children could not be reached for comment, and the one who survived won't ever be able to comment.
** First, I am struck by the absurdity of this deal. Why would anyone make such a vow in the first place?

Honk if You'll Kill for God