I felt so sleezy in the bookshop earlier. I tried oxfam first but could only find books about the bible and god etc. One of them was called "How To Read The Old Testament" - oh dear.

When I went to a "real" bookshop and was confronted by an assistant I felt like I was buying pornography. - "Do you need any help?" - aaaahhh! - why did she have to say it like THAT? Like - yes I need help -do you have a bible? Keeping my voice down looking really shifty
"erm? do you have a bible-I'm not a christian or anything honestly". When they directed me to the back of the shop I joked "hope it's on the top shelf away from children" - it was - fantastic!

"In the begining god created the heaven and the earth" - ok so we're off to a pretty bad start as that is utter nonsense and provably so. But let's not start taking it literally as apparently, according to many theologians, we should not. By page 3 (appropriately enough!) this version of god has advocated the oppression of women - from genesis chapter 3 verse 16: "and thy desire shall be (ha! love the emphasis - god's early material has me in stiches) to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" - WHAT! Ok so he's a misogynist but at least he hasn't killed anyone yet. Oh and what was the heinous crime Eve had committed? Well the awful woman was tempted by a talking snake and she ate from a tree (where does all this stuff to do with apples come from?) apparently of "knowledge" but the only knowledge that seems to be imparted is that they should feel a little bit embarrassed to be naked.

Then there's some really weird stuff where for some reason god doesn't much care for his five-a-day preferring Abel's meat offering to Cain's veggie delights (sounds like a shop name?!?!). Cain gets pissed off about this and kills his bro. Whoo-hoo - first murder and only on chapter 4. Oddly enough god has to ask Cain where Abel is but let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just seeing whether Cain would 'fess up and not that the big guy wasn't omniscient at this point.

At last some genocide in chapter 7 - you know that bit where he destroys every living thing on the planet apart from selected animals and Noah's family by means of drowning. But hang on - what about the fish? Presumably they (and other organisms perfectly capable of living in water) were ok - they're not actually mentioned. Why should fish get "let off the hook" and women have to do all that suffering and stuff.

Ok so far this god doesn't seem like a very nice guy - vengence all the way. Ok so perhaps we shouldn't take all this stuff literally but how should we take it? A moral lesson? Be really scared of me and do what I say 'cos I can wipe you all out if you piss me off? What a tosser! Like the begatting though - bloody loads of it!