In the early chapters of Exodus, once can find a remarkable story where the petulant God of the Bible decides that he is not getting enough respect, and so he sends a bunch of plagues to torture and ultimately kill the Egyptians along with their Pharaoh.
As far as Bible stories go, this is pretty standard, especially for the Old Testament. What sets it apart from the other genocidal behavior found in the Bible, however, is one incredibly important detail: God repeatedly tells Moses to offer the Pharaoh a choice first—a way to avoid the plagues and death—and then God psychologically manipulates Pharaoh into make the wrong choice. The mechanism is unclear, but I like to imagine it as something along the lines of the ‘These are not the droids you’re looking for’ scene from Star Wars, where the Jedi master hypnotizes and tricks the stormtroopers.
The end result of the plot of this story was always written--God was going to torture and kill the Egyptians, regardless. He had already made up his mind. So why pretend to offer them a chance to escape those consequences beforehand? What exactly is gained by this? This is literally what serial killer Ted Bundy did with many of his victims, psychologically toying with them in order to demonstrate his power and to increase the sadistic pleasure of the experience.
Sadly, the story does not end in Exodus. The final part of this story continues today in the form of mountains of excuses from Christian apologists arguing that there is nothing wrong with God’s behavior in this story. Their ability to rationalize this straight-up evil is remarkable, considering that most of them are otherwise good, well-intentioned humans, albeit with tragically flawed critical thinking skills. This is one of the most obvious potential downsides of faith.
If you haven’t already, check out today’s other post: Meditation vs. Prayer
Thanks for reading!