God of the Bible is the Greatest Mass Murderer In History
Along quite a few roadways in America is a billboard that says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” This quote, from Jeremiah 1:5, is attributed to “God.” Next to the quote is a depiction of a human fetus.
In the verse, anti-abortion zealots find their justification for doing everything possible to eviscerate women’s reproductive rights by outlawing abortion. The message is also available on a bumper sticker, often adorning vehicles driven by people with “In God We Trust” on their license plates.
The other Bible passage popular with anti-abortion activists is Psalm 139:13-16, which says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
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My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” It should be emphasized that abortion is not prohibited or condemned in this lengthy extract.
These two citations contain the strongest biblical support fundamentalists have to argue that life is a gift from god, that god loves the unborn, and that aborting a fetus is murder.
Defenders of women’s reproductive rights should know what the Bible actually says about abortion and, by extension, related issues, including contraception, the morning-after pill, in vitro fertilization, and fetal tissue research. In fact, god is history’s greatest abortionist.
Scriptural Truths
Summarized here are twelve biblical episodes and prophecies that provide an unequivocal expression of god’s attitude toward human life, especially the ontological status of “unborn children” and their pregnant mothers-to-be.
- A pregnant woman who is injured and aborts the fetus warrants financial compensation only, suggesting that the fetus is property, not a person (Exodus 21:22-25).
- God promised the Israelites that if they worshipped him alone, he would not cause their women to miscarry (Exodus 23:24-26).
- The gruesome priestly purity test to which a wife accused of adultery must submit will cause her to abort the fetus if she is guilty, indicating that the fetus does not possess a right to life (Numbers 5: 11-31).
- God enumerated his punishments for disobedience, including “cursed shall be the fruit of your womb” and “you will eat the fruit of your womb,” directly contradicting sanctity of life claims (Deuteronomy 28:18, 53).
- Elisha’s prophecy for soon-to-be King Hazael was that he would attack the Israelites, burn their cities, crush the heads of their babies, and rip open their pregnant women (2 Kings 8:12).
- King Menahem of Israel destroyed Tiphsah (also called Tappuah) and the surrounding towns, killing all residents and ripping open pregnant women with swords (2 Kings 15:16).
- The dead are happier than the living but more fortunate than both are those who have never been born, indicating that life is not sacred (Ecclesiastes 4:2-3).
- Isaiah prophesied doom for Babylon, including the murder of unborn children: “They will have no pity on the fruit of the womb” (Isaiah 13:18).
- For worshipping idols, god declared that not one of his people would live, not a man, woman, or child, not even babies in arms, again confuting assertions about the sanctity of life (Jeremiah 44:7-8).
- God will punish the Israelites by destroying their unborn children, who will die at birth, or perish in the womb, or never even be conceived (Hosea 9:10-16).
- For rebelling against god, Samaria’s people will be killed, their babies will be dashed to death against the ground, and their pregnant women will be ripped open with a sword (Hosea 13:16).
- Jesus did not express any special concern for unborn children during the anticipated end times: “Woe to pregnant women and those who are nursing” (Matthew 24:19).
These twelve incidents and declarations document god’s complete rejection of the anti-abortion crusaders’ claims about the sanctity of life and a divine right to life. There is clearly no biblical justification for the radical theology they espouse.
Biblical Atrocities
This section summarizes god’s monumental history of murderous behavior as recorded in holy writ. We know that god killed millions of unborn children and their pregnant mothers-to-be in Noah’s flood (Genesis 6,7,8), the Conquest of Canaan (Joshua 6,8,10,11,12), the incineration of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18,19), and in twenty major slaughters described in the Bible (e.g. Judges 1:25, 21:10-14; 1 Samuel 15:1- 8; 1 Kings 16:11; 2 Kings 17:19-20; 2 Chronicles 36:17-20).
The critical feature of these horrific events is that all people were exterminated (Luke 17:26-29). Whenever entire communities were massacred, we can be sure that pregnant mothers-to-be and their unborn children were among the victims, along with infants, babies, and children.
Moreover, there are no stated exemptions for this specific segment of the population. This ghastly program of human annihilation makes the god of the Bible the greatest mass murderer in history, who does not care about unborn children or living children or living adults.
If god really opposes abortion, why didn’t he just say so? Why didn’t he authorize one of his trusted spokesmen Moses, Jesus, or Paul to issue a definitive statement on the subject?
Why didn’t he include “Thou shalt not abort a fetus” in the Ten Commandments? It is also noteworthy that while the Bible requires the death penalty for 60 specified criminal violations, abortion is not among them.
When all relevant documentation in the Bible is examined, it is obvious that god does not love the unborn, and he certainly does not disapprove of abortion.
Theological Questions
Anti-abortion zealots assert that life begins at the moment of conception and, therefore, the destruction of a fertilized egg is murder. This is the basis for the concept of “personhood,” which has been defeated in five statewide initiatives since 2010.
The Bible declares that god breathed into man’s body the breath of life, and the man then became a living person (Genesis 2:7). At least a dozen additional verses indicate that breath is synonymous with life (e.g. Job 33:4; Psalm 104:29; Isaiah 42:5; Acts 17:25).
Therefore, because fetuses don’t breathe, this scriptural “truth” completely contradicts the personhood dogma.
More importantly, if the fertilized ovum is a person, as antiabortion extremists claim, then god’s record as the greatest murderer of unborn children is expanded further.
This is because most fertilized eggs either fail to implant in the uterine wall and pass out of the body or, if they do implant, they begin to develop but then are spontaneously aborted. Fewer than one-third of fertilized ova survive to be born nine months later.
Why does god murder untold millions of these “persons” every year in the U.S. alone? Why did god, who allegedly loves the unborn and hates abortion, kill so many unborn children, infants, babies, children, adolescents, and adults throughout biblical history?
Why do fundamentalists pursue a political agenda that is thoroughly refuted by god’s word?
Inapplicable Verses
Abortion opponents believe that eight verses referring to the development of the fetus in the mother’s womb establish the continuity of human existence from the womb to life following birth (Psalms 22:10, 127:3, 139:13; Ecclesiastes 11:5; Isaiah 49:5; Jeremiah 1:4-5; Hosea 12:3; Luke 1:41).
These verses contain undeniably poetic and sometimes literal truth. But while they illustrate why abortion may be an emotional and controversial issue, they do not provide an explicit prohibition against it.
Four additional verses that refer indirectly to abortion or miscarriage which are sometimes cited by antiabortion extremists are Leviticus 26:22, Isaiah 47:8-9, Jeremiah 15:7, and Ezekiel 5:17.
In none of these cases is the practice of abortion prohibited or condemned, and it is often described as god’s ordained punishment.
Anti-Abortion
Antilogies Among those who deny women’s reproductive rights, numerous contradictory positions exist. For example, some prominent politicians who want to overturn Roe v. Wade would allow exceptions for rape, incest, severe fetal abnormality, and/or the life of the mother.
These abortion exceptions necessarily require destroying the fetus, which is the very action they condemn. In other words, the murder of unborn children is acceptable when anti-abortion politicians approve.
Another blatant inconsistency involves physicians who want to defund Planned Parenthood because the organization provides aborted fetuses for medical research. Yet some of these physicians have themselves conducted research using aborted fetuses!
Furthermore, medical investigations using fetal tissue have produced lifesaving vaccines and therapeutic interventions that have benefitted everyone, including the anti-abortion devotees and their families.
A disgusting contradiction exists between the anti-abortion activists’ preferred label “pro-life” and their horrific record of godly violence.
In the forty years since Roe v. Wade was decided, twelve abortion providers have been murdered and seventeen have been maimed or seriously injured. More than six thousand acts of violence have been perpetrated, including fire bombings, arsons, kidnappings, assaults, and death threats.
These agents of godly violence are accurately labeled “radical Christian terrorists.” The political activists who want to make abortion illegal in the U.S. invariably call themselves “Christian conservatives,” stating that they want to reduce government intrusion into the lives of Americans and eliminate burdensome regulations that limit personal liberty.
They say they want to get the government off our backs and out of our lives. Except, of course, when they want to use the coercive power of government to inflict their theological beliefs on everybody else, especially in matters of reproduction and sexuality.
After forty years of at least one million elective abortions performed annually, opponents still refuse to endorse programs that are proven to reduce the number of abortions, such as family planning that stresses contraception and comprehensive sexuality education in the schools.
Instead, they promote ignorance with their abstinence-only curricula. If they would focus their efforts on preventing unwanted pregnancies, they would stop many more abortions than their politically coercive and sometimes violent tactics have. Ironically, the anti-abortion crusaders help to cause the abortions they denounce!
Anti-abortion dogmatists condemn what they call the “holocaust” of 56 million abortions since Roe v. Wade became the law of the land.
At the same time, they spend tens of billions of dollars annually building and operating their grandiose mega-churches, Christian academies, and other programs that promote fundamentalist Christian doctrines.
If they really want to prevent the murder of unborn children, why don’t they just use some of their vast wealth to pay women cash stipends not to have abortions?
The most egregious contradiction occurs whenever the anti-abortion religionists invoke a biblical justification for their sanctimonious stance because the Judeo-Christian god of the Holy Bible simply does not care about the lives of pregnant mothers-to-be and their unborn children.
Summary
The Bible is an unending compilation of atrocities illustrating god’s penchant for feticide, infanticide, and the wholesale slaughter of adults.
There is no biblical basis for the alleged principle of respect for the sanctity of life, the assertion that life is a gift from god or the claim that fetuses possess a god-given right to life. God does not love the unborn or their pregnant mothers-to-be or living children or adults.
He is the greatest murderer of unborn children and the preeminent mass murderer of living people in human history. The Bible does not support today’s fundamentalist Christian assault on women’s reproductive rights.
This crusade is a political campaign that is thoroughly refuted by god’s holy word. God causes all abortions, spontaneous and elective, as well as the destruction of fertilized ova or “persons,” because he is omnipotent and therefore is the cause of everything. The Bible demonstrates conclusively that god is proabortion.
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By Brian Bolton