This scripture surely confirmed my atheism, amonst others. But the clincher for me was the story of the she-bears that ripped apart 42 children just for teasing the bald prophet Elisha. THAT gave me all I needed to diss this bastard god and see in scripture more BS than in any fairy-tale.
First the character of YWWH proves to be one of a cruel despot - but quickly, you realize the story is bogus, because 2 bears can only kill the few slowest ones to run away. No way can 2 bears kill FORTY-TWO kids unless they are paralyzed on the spot for the taking. In any case, that story, the flood, the creation days where the sun was created AFTER vegetation, etc... gave me enough to know the Bible was a bunch of stories to not be taken literally, and also to be disguarded scientifically as barbaric and naive.
But most of all - it's the horrid character of YHWH that is painfully apparent.
As Richard Dawkins nailed it:
“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.”
THis is to say that EVEN if YHWH came to me in person, proving he exists _ I would REFUSE to follow him, just as I would refuse to obey Hitler.
