Above: Just before sacrificing a lamb at the Grand Opening of the new Third Tabernacle Church!

We should do Grand Openings this way

Chapter 7, if I'm not mistaken, is about the Grand Opening of the Tabernacle. Rather than the usual tame ribbon-cutting affair practiced by modern folks, representatives of the 12 tribes got together and sacrifces bulls, rams, lambs, baby goats, and oxen. Approximately 240 animal sacrifices were done on that day.

Y'know, we should bring that back! Imagine a steakhouse's grand opening with 240 animal sacrifices! Or, better yet, a bank! Or a preschool! Or even just a church. A church is probably the closest thing to a Tabernacle, anyways. And so what if PETA gets angry. Eff' PETA!

Being a Nazarite

Let's imagine that you are a Nazarite, or Nazirite. A Nazarite is a person who set himself aside in devotion to Yahweh, in order to live an ascetic life - a mystic, if you will. That's what Chapter 6: 1-21 is about.

It's similar to a Buddhist monk, too. Sorta. Except I imagine these guys are a lot hairier than your average Buddhist monk.

Anyways, no drinking liquor or wine, or grapejuice. He can't even eat grapes. Presumably, the Israelites must have thought grapes had some sort of alcohol content in it, because grapes are the main ingredient in wine. There could be other reasons, but because grapes are grouped in with alcohol, I'm just going to guess that's their reasoning.

Here's where it gets silly. Nazarites have to let their hair grow out, BUT if he comes into contact with a dead person - if someone dies right next to him, for example - the Nazarite will be unclean for seven days, and on the seventh day he must shave his head. On the eighth day, the Nazarite must bring two turtles and two pigeons to the priest

When the Nazarite fulfills his vow (usually after a 30 day period), the Nazarite must bring:

An unblemished lamb as a burnt offering

• A ewe lamb as a sin offering
• One ram as a peace offering
• A basket of unleavened bread
• Cakes of fine flour mingled with oil
• unleavened bread wafers
• meat offering
• drink offering

Being a priest must have been very lucrative. And so, after a lot of hocus pocus, waving various offerings in the air, shaving the Nazarite's hair, etc. Finally, finally, the Nazarite may drink wine (Numbers 6:20).

I'm all for being a mystic, as long as the attempt is both rational and reasonable. Which means, the experience can be had by anyone, but we don't need to have all the extra, irrational baggage that religion adds to the mix.

Christians tell us that God created people so imperfect that He blamed them for their imperfections, and therefore sent His Son down to be tortured and executed by these imperfect people, to make up for how imperfect they are and how imperfect they inevitably will be. It's crazy, but that's essentially what it's all about. Jesus is kind of like the Ultimate Scapegoat.

Leviticus Chapter 16 talks about the 'scapegoat', a ritual where all the sins of the tribe are placed on a goat and then the goat is taken out to the wilderness. I'm going to skip the ritual, as it seems pretty damn superstitious to me, and extremely uninteresting. That's my secret so far. In order to read the Bible, make sure you skip the parts that are boring.

Chapter 17 is just more regulation on sacrifices. These priests are not you average laissez faire capitalists; they want a complete monopoly. Chapter 17 is also significant because God says explicitly that it's the blood that atones for the sins in a sacrifice.

• If a man kills an animal and DOESN'T bring it to the tabernacle as an offering, he shall be cut off from the people. Presumably, this is because the man was going to offer this to some other god.
• Any person that eats blood will also be cut off from the people.
• If you eat an animal that died of natural causes, or was torn apart by other animals; you'll be unclean until evening.

I'm going to stop here because I want Leviticus 18 to stand alone. That's where we get into some of the debate about homosexuality. Please keep in mind some of the arbitrary rules we've read about up to this point, and how random they are (like boiling a baby goat in its mother's milk).

Biologist Richard Dawkins gets chided a lot for his description of the God of the Bible. But when we read the Bible, we have to admit that his description is accurate. I think the conflict happens because people's spiritual experience do not square up with the Bible's description. In fact, that's probably why most people DON'T read the Bible!

Dawkins famously said that Yahweh is "a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." We've only gone into Leviticus, the third book of the Old Testament, and we can't deny any of it.

Well, after all the rules on sacrificing animals, God has a few more rules that He suggests following. That's right! The all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe does not want you to follow these rules:

You can:

• Eat cloven-footed animals that eat their cud (i.e. cattle). Okay, I do this!
• Eat animals that have scales or fins (aka fish). I love fish, and I especially love ceviche!

You must:

• Circumcise your male children. I don't have a problem with this, but that's probably because I'm circumcised and I find chicks dig it.
• Sacrifice a lamb AND a small bird on your child's first birthday. Hey, my mom and dad never did that!
• Arrange to have a priest sacrifice a lamb and a small bird after giving birth.
• Quarantine diseased individuals, and have a priest inspect him. Generally good advice! But thankfully we have doctors nowadays.

You can't:

• eat divided-footed animals that chew their cud (i.e. camels).
• eat rabbits or hares because their feet are divided. What's wrong with eating rabbits?
• eat pork. As long as you cook pork, it's clean.
• touch the corpses of the above animals. So did they just left the corpses lying around, or did they have infidels dispose of them?
• eat rodents or tortoises (not sure why they're grouped like that).
• eat lizards or snakes. I heard lizards and snakes are good eatin'.
• get leprosy or you'll be considered 'unclean! That sucks. First you get leprosy; and then you become ostracized by the community.

He also wants you to know the following unscientific "facts":

• sea creatures without fins or scales are ABOMINATIONS. No, they're not. They're perfectly natural.
• rabbits chew their cud. They actually chew their food, crap it out, and THEN eat their crap!
• bats are birds. Bats are actually mammals!
• some insects have four legs. There are no insects with only four legs.
• some birds have four legs. There are no birds with four legs.
• women are dirty and sinful after childbirth. Physically dirty (more like bloody) maybe; but sinful (aka 'spiritually dirty')?
• Women are dirty when they're on their period. Really?
• Women who give birth to a male child are unclean for one week; two weeks if it's a female! That's just messed up.

God's also got an interesting cure, or maybe just a ritual, for lepers. Check it out:

1. Get two birds; kill one.
2. Dip the live one in the blood and sprinkle or smear the blood on the leper, using the live bird as a brush.
3. Then let the blood-soaked bird fly away.
4. Next, find a lamb and kill it.
5. Wipe some blood on the leper's right ear, right thumb, and right big toe.
6. Sprinkle oil on the leper and rub some of the oil on the leper's right ear, right thumb, and right big toe.
7. Repeat steps 1 through 6.
8. Find another pair of birds. Repeat steps 1 through 3.
9. Sprinkle the house with blood.

Next time, I'll discuss yet more crazy stuff from Leviticus, including what to do if you accidentally jizz on yourself!

From the previous chapters in Leviticus I learned that there was a particular way to perform a sacrifice (unblemished male, kill it, cut it up, burn it). Christians like to say that Jesus was the "ultimate sacrifice." But Jesus's sacrifice left out two important steps, the cutting up and burning, and wasn't ritualistic at all. Did we just catch Christianity on a technicality? To be honest, I think all the Judeo-Christian religions are full of technicalities and are embarassingly easy to disprove, IF you think logic is a reasonable criteria for belief.

IF you are against logic, and unreasonable, yea ... you'll probably maintain the belief. That is one of the great mysteries of human psychology: Why do we maintain false beliefs? Psychologists actually have an answer for that; confirmation bias. We find comfort and hope in these beliefs; we don't find comfort in not knowing. We also find meaning in everyday acts through hindsight bias.

In Chapter 8, Moses makes Aaron a priest and gives him the breastplate and all the special garments God told him about up on Mt. Sinai. He even hooks Aaron up with the Urim and the Thummim. The Urim and Thummim is just a coin they flip to make tough decisions.

Then, to purify Aaron, they sacrifice a ram. They 1) pick an unblemished male; 2) kill it and sprinkle and smear the blood on Aaron's ears, thumbs, and BIG TOES; 3) cut it up, and 4) burn it so God can smell it.

Chapter 9 is just more animal sacrifices. Well, that's an understatement. Moses calls for two calves, two rams, a baby goat, a lamb, and "a bullock" to be sacrificed. So what follows is what appears in my mind to be a massive animal blood orgy; a vegan's worst nightmare. They kill the animals, sprinkle their blood around, cut them up and wave the parts in the air, and then burn it. The worst thing about this is that no one eats these; they are a waste of food.

Chapter 9 ends with God consuming the animal parts with fire in such a way that the Israelites fall to the ground in awe.

Chapter 10 is tragic. Aaron's sons light an incense and offer it to God. But God doesn't authorize that kind of fire, and basically burns the two sons to death. Aaron puts on a poker face, but if I was in that situation I'd still be sad. Moses tells Aaron that he shouldn't mourn, or else God will kill him and the whole community, too. Yikes!

Leviticus is another book of laws. A lot of Christians like to use the anti-homosexuality stuff, but completely ignore the crap about killing kids who talk back to their parents. The truth is no one is a fundamentalist; everyone cherry picks the Bible according to their own prejudices.

Chapter 1 starts off with a very detailed account on the best way to sacrifice to Yahweh. To sacrifice, it is necessary to follow these important rules. It can be summed up as follows:

1. Pick an unblemished male from your livestock. No females, that's just gross.
2. Kill the animal, let the blood sprinkle around the altar. You know - let it marinate!
3. Cut the animal into little pieces.
4. Light it on fire, because God loves the smell of burning meat. Wait ... don't we all? Barbecues, anyone?

If you're sacrificing a sheep, be sure to kill it on the north side of the altar.

And there is an explanation on how to sacrifice birds:

1. Pick out a turtledove or a young pigeon. Don't show off and sacrifice an ostrich, guys.
2. On the altar, rip off its head, and let the blood drip to the side of the altar.
3. Pluck its feathers, and cast those darn feathers to the east of the altar! Cut up its wings.
4. Finally, burn it.

Hey, Yahweh's a cool guy! He loves a good barbecue. It's a sloppy, bloody barbecue where no one eats; but you gotta hand it to Him for style. His rules on animal sacrifice make for an interesting form of entertainment. And He just wants to smell it! F*!& oxygen bars; that's for wimps! Yahweh's gotta love my house on the weekends, then. Too bad no one says grace there, though.

The rules on animal sacrifice go on until Chapter 7, and prescribe animal sacrifices for very specific 'sins', like 'sinning through ignorance', or 'lying about possessing someone else's property'. The prescription for the latter is to first return the property, plus a fifth more than its value. Then, the lying thief has to bring one of his flock and have a priest atone for his lying. Any leftover meat from the sacrifice goes to the priest (in this case the priest is Aaron) and his sons.

It's a very lucrative occupation to be a priest in Bronze Age Israelite culture.