Let’s start the new year off with a short rant about religion. Last month I finally purchased a copy of the Torah and as I read, I wondered what I could actually find in the Bible since most of the older religious documents of almost all religions are pretty blood thirsty.

Anyone who claims to admire and worship the biblical God has either abandoned all sense of moral judgment or has never actually read the Old Testament. Since most believers are good people, I prefer to assume the latter. I think the world would be a much better place if people would actually read the book. A.A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh, said: “The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief — call it what you will — than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.” Here are a few more of the Old Testament tidbits that will have you rushing off to church.

• Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the [holy man] who represents God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged.

• I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those, who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes.

• I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your streams will be filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Your cities will never be rebuilt. Then you will know that I am God.

• Fight them until there is no more [disbelief or worshipping of other gods] and worship is for God alone.

• Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

• Whoso fighteth in the way of God, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.

• Make ready to slaughter [the infidel’s] sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and possess the earth and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants.

• [God’s messenger] . . . was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The [holy man] replied, “They [women and children] are from them [unbelievers].”

• Then I heard God say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children.”

• “See, the day of the Lord is coming — a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger. . .. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty. . .. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted, and their wives violated.”

• Keep [my holiday], for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die.

• The punishment of those who wage war against God and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified, or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter, they shall have a grievous chastisement.

• “O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”

• “And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me but walk contrary unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”

• “You shall acknowledge no God but me. . .. You are destroyed, Israel. . .. The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.”

I for one am grateful that I was born after most of that craziness had run its course. There still are a few fanatics out there from all religions but they are thankfully very few in number.

AND PEOPLE SAY THE MUSLIMS ARE BLOODTHIRSTY