[Music] Today, we're putting Moses under the spotlight of scrutiny, if you know what I

mean. Now, who was Moses? Well, Moses was a prophet in the Bible. Indeed, he's held as a great prophet in three monotheistic

religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. And just to give you an idea of how high the esteem in which Moses is

held within these religions, this is what the Bible says about Moses: 'But since then there has not arisen in Israel a

prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.' But how does Moses describe God? He describes him like this: 'And the Lord

went before them by day as a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night as a pillar of fire to give them light, so

they could go day and night.' Hmm, that's bizarre. God almost sounds like a volcano—a pillar of cloud by day and a

pillar of fire by night. Well, let's read on. Now it came to pass in the morning watch that the Lord looked down upon the

army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, and he troubled the army of the Egyptians. So the first thing

you'll note here is the Lord is no longer sort of changing his form between day and night, between the pillar of

cloud and the fire. It's the morning watch, and the Lord looked down on them through the pillar of fire and

cloud. So this is now really starting to sound like a volcano. Now, volcanoes are not particularly rare in the

Mediterranean/Middle East area. You've got the African plate colliding with the European plate, and so yes, there are many

volcanoes around this area. There's also lots of geological activity, and these frequently lead to massive landslides,

which can cause tidal waves. Now this is what happens to the Egyptian army; it's described in the Bible: 'For the horses of Pharaoh went

with his chariot and his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon

them. That's a pretty good description of a tsunami. Well, okay, let's let's let's keep

reading and see see what else we can find out about uh, God. Then it came to pass on the third day in the morning

that there were thunderings and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the trumpet

was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Now this is really starting to

sound like a volcano. You see, volcanoes put up these huge plumes that can quite frequently go

up tens of thousands of feet, and these quite often draw in terrific lightning storms. So, you know, well, what do we have? We have

the uh, the eruption, which is the uh, thick cloud on the mountain, the sound of the trumpets, yeah, of course, and the

thunderings and lightnings. This is basically verbatim the description of a volcanic eruption. Now, Mount Sinai was

completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; its smoke ascended like the smoke

of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. Yes, this is verbatim the description of a volcanic eruption. Now,

all right, I know there are no volcanoes on the Sinai Peninsula, but let's face it: what's more realistic, that someone has

got the location wrong and they're describing a volcanic eruption, or that God happened to manifest himself on the

Sinai Peninsula as a volcanic eruption? So Moses goes up into the uh, cloud where God is, who reveals to him

such divine insights, such as, 'Don't kill each other.' A profound sight, so insightful that no other civilization in

the entire history of mankind would have possibly come up with a rule like, uh, 'don't kill each other.' Anyway, Moses then returns to his

people and it goes like this: Now all the people witnessed the thunderings and lightning flashes and the sounds of trumpets and the mountains

smoking, and the people saw it and they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, 'You

speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die.' So the

people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. Yeah, it's called the volcanic plume.

Moses then continues, 'The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on top of

the mountain.' In the eyes of the children of Israel, yeah, presumably they hadn't seen many volcanoes before. Uh, so Moses went into the midst

of the cloud and went up onto the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses, at some

later point, is recalling his interactions with God like this: 'Then you came near and stood at the foot of the

mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness, and the Lord spoke to you out

of the midst of the fire, but you heard no sound of the words and saw no form, but you heard a

voice.' Okay, so you got that: Moses talks to God, but he doesn't hear any words or see any faces. That's until a couple of

pages later when he describes it like this: 'The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the

fire.' So after Moses has come down from the mountain, having received all these divine revelations from God, he starts

having all sorts of other communications with God like this: 'Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying...' And then he goes on to describe how the

Lord God wants his animals sacrificed, then the priest shall dip his fingers in the blood and sprinkle some

of the blood seven times before the Lord, in front of the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest

shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord. Yeah, that's right, the Lord likes the smell of

blood and especially burning burnt offerings, according to Moses. At any rate, he then continues, uh, describing, uh, how

to prepare the, uh, sacrifice. He shall take from it all the fat of the bull—this is a sin offering—and the fat that

covers the entrails and the fat which is on the entrails, the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, by the flanks, and

the fatty lobe attached to the liver above the kidneys shall be removed. Yeah, this is supposedly the the Supreme omnipotent creator of the

universe that wants the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, by the flanks, and the fatty lobe attached to the kidneys

shall be removed. Okay, at this point I call reality check time here. You have one of the great prophets, Moses, one of the

prophets of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity; the guy who supposedly spoke to the God of all three of these

great monotheistic religions. Now you have several options, but here are two of the principal ones:

that yes, the guy really did go up onto Mount Sinai and he really did talk to God, who talked to him about, uh, the two

kidneys and the fat that is on them, by the flanks, and the fatty lobe attached to the liver above the kidneys shall be

removed, and you'll burn the rest and it'll be a sweet incense before the Lord. Either that, or here is another

alternative: a tribe of desert nomads, um, saw a volcanic eruption and one of their number actually went up

into the volcanic eruption, which of course would impress the hell out of a bunch of desert nomads who had never

seen an erupting volcano before and, uh, come back down again with all sorts of divine revelations, which the, uh,

primitive people took a little too much to heart. [Music]

Was God a Volcano?

The true beauty of a self-inquiring sentient universe is lost on those who elect to walk the intellectually vacuous path of comfortable paranoid fantasies.
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Was God a Volcano?

Was God a Volcano?

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