From Taoist To Infidel

returning to the theme that the god of 'conservative' christianity is a supreme asshole, here's a little autobiographical essay from noted atheist/freethinker richard carrier. the 2 paragraphs below are quoted from it. below them is a link to the whole essay. it's not very long.

'In all I can say that the Old Testament disgusted me, while the New Testament disappointed me. In general, no divinely inspired text would be so long and rambling and hard to understand--wise men speak clearly, brilliantly, their ability at communication is measured by their success at making themselves readily understood. The Bible spans over a thousand pages of tiny, multi-columned text, and yet says nowhere near as much, certainly nothing as well, as the Tao Te Ching does in a mere eighty-one stanzas. The Bible is full of the superfluous--extensive geneologies of no relevance to the meaning of life or the nature of the universe, long excurses on barbaric rituals of bloodletting and taboo that have nothing to do with being a good person or advancing society toward greater happiness, lengthy diatribes against long-dead nations and constant harping on a coming doom and gloom. I asked myself: would any wise, compassionate being even allow this book to be attributed to him, much less be its author? Certainly not. How could Lao Tzu, a mere mortal, who never claimed any superior powers or status, write better, more thoroughly, more concisely, about so much more, than the Inspired Prophets of God?

It was not only this that struck me. What was most pungent was the immorality of the Bible. Though called a wise father, there is not a single example in the Old Testament of God sitting down and kindly teaching anyone, and when asked by Job, the best of men, to explain why He went out of His way to hurt a good man by every possible means, including killing his loved ones, this "wise father" spews arrogant rhetorical questions, ultimately implying nothing more than "might makes right" as his only excuse. I revulsed in horror at this demonic monster portrayed here. He was worthy of universal condemnation, not worship. He who thinks he can do whatever he wants because he can is as loathesome and untrustworthy as any psychopath. It was bad enough that this God's idea of the "best" in man is a willingness to murder one's own child on demand. It is inconceivable that any kind being would ever test Abraham's loyalty that way. To the contrary, from any compassionate being's point of view, Abraham failed this test: he was willing to kill for faith, setting morality aside for a god. A decent being would reward instead the man who responded to such a request with "Go to hell! Only a demon would ask such a thing, and no compassionate man would do it!" But the Bible's message is exactly the opposite. How frightening. It was no surprise, then, to find that this same cruel God orders people to be stoned to death for picking up sticks on Saturday (Numbers 15:32-36), and commands that those who follow other religions be genocidally slaughtered (Deuteronomy 13:6-16). Indeed, genocide (Deuteronomy 2:31-34, 7:1-2, 20:10-15, and Joshua, e.g. 10:33) and fascism (Deuteronomy 22:23-24, Leviticus 20:13, 24:13-16, Numbers 15:32-6) were the very law and standard practice of God, right next to the Ten Commandments. Instead of condemning slavery, God condones it (Leviticus 25:44, cf. Deuteronomy 5:13-14, 21:10-13). And so on. Nothing could be more repugnant.'

https://infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/carrier.html