Religious Satire - You Can't Lay it On Too Thick.

 If the Jahwist had not been the Disney of her time it is likely we wouldn't even have a Bible, or Torah.  Can you imagine worshiping a book compiled from P, E, and R if you left out J? All the good stories that are remembered from the Pentateuch are J's.  It is hard enough to wade through all that crap with the leavening of J.  All that would be left is soggy matzoth.

  If you read the Jahwist stories as a coherent whole The Book of J is a good place to start, although extracting them from your favorite scripture is also a reasonable endeavor, you will find an ironic reading of the oral tradition of the Hebrew people in which the male figures especially Yahweh are generally putzes that can't do anything very well.  The first Jahwist story, the famous creation story, God and Adam stumble around being dicks while mother Eve brings wisdom in the form of knowledge of good and evil without the intervention of any God to humankind.  This pisses off God and Adam, who was trying to push Eve around using God's edicts as a lever, and they blame her for discovering this boon.

The birth of Eve - Beliefnet:

"Agnostic" wrote:

Clearly Eve was a divine creation, separate from Adam. Eve was created in the divine image of God Herself. In contrast, Adam evolved from primates with lower intelligence. It should be obvious that women are innately superior to males.

The Bible shows this. The very name for 'the Lord' is Yahvah. Eve in Hebrew is Chavah. If you look at the original Hebrew letters, they are even more nearly identical.

Each time a female is born, it is another divine creation. Males, on the other hand, bear far too much similarity to apes of lesser intelligence. It should be obvious.

The Genesis story shows God leading the animals and beasts to Adam for a potential mate, because Adam was just an animal. Adam almost chose a dog for a mate. But God, in Her infinite wisdom, realized Adam was not capable of living without divine help, so God gave a replica of Herself to watch over Adam.

This is clear from the Hebrew word, usually translated as 'help mate' It is 'Ezer,' a word which does mean help. But in the Bible, it only appears as a term for God Herself, or for Eve. David says, 'God is my Help (Ezer)' Eve, the Woman, was Adam's Help (Ezer). It was Adam who needed help, divine assistance. Eve was provided. She did not evolve. She had a separate divine creation.

Scientists generally are correct. Adam evolved. But religion is also correct, Eve was a Divine Creation. All the violence is the world is caused by men, who have barely evolved past their lower primate origins. Even with divine assistance from women, they often are unable to advance beyond their atavistic nature."

 In light of Harold Bloom's theory that "J" was a woman, the irony in Genesis 2 is, with this post, beautifully explained.   

 If you read J's stories with an intelligent woman author in mind the misogyny of the traditional oral history is clear from the ironic retelling of the Garden story as a prime example.  "The woman made me do it."  The woman is the only reasonable person in the whole tale.  Both God and Adam look like idiots. 
Unfortunately J's stories became incorporated in the Pentateuch as the "Word of God" mixed up with P, E, & R and the irony and satire got lost as proof-texting was discovered by the (male) preachers and priests and the march of the Patriarchs became unstoppable.

 The entire Book of Mormon is a joke perpetrated on an annoyingly pious young man in New England by his gay, atheist friend Walt Whitman.  The Mormons suppress literary analysis like word count and stylistic and content parallels but they cannot suppress any literate person from comparing the Book of Mormon with Leaves of Grass on a boring few day stay in a Salt Lake City hotel. 

 I read the Book of Mormon on the first night of that boring stay (no booze, no friends) and could not miss the resemblance to a satire of the Bible I wrote in High School.  I gave myself 20 lashes with the monster's noodly appendages for not naming my angel Moroni, but chalked it up to a lack of literary genius.  The next day I got my copy of Leaves of Grass out of my suitcase and read it side by side with the Book of Mormon.  No brainer - same author.  I would not put it past Whitman to have given his friend "magic glasses" and told him where in the woods to dig.  I am sure Whitman kept a copy or revision of his satire and cleaned up parts of it for his future writings.  I still have mine.  

 It is amazing to me that the LDS even refuse to notice the satire of the name of one of their major saints but treat it as part of the Gospel they live by.  The whole BoM if read without belief is a brilliant satire of Christianity.  

 I know less about Islam than Judaism and Christianity, but the proof-texting by the Imams and other "Islamic" leaders from the Pentateuch and Muhammad is obvious to any reasonable observer.  Unfortunately I do not read Arabic and therefore cannot understand the context of the proof-texting.  I suspect the context is similar to Jewish and Christian scripture, and is as ironic in its character. 

In any event, no matter how satirical the original scripture was, religious leader proof texting and commentary can change the satire into doctrine, and the sheeple will bow down and shout amen.