Customer Reviews

God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (Revised International Edition)

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The biggest problem with the bible is that it is so God Damned boring! Not even the followers of the bible read the bible. In a day and age where literalistic interpretation of the bible has spawned a race of Super-Christians known as Baptists, Evangelicals and Creationists one great man aims to set the world straight on all things biblical.

For whatever reason, followers of the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity and all of their offshoots) have developed some ludicrous delusions that God is great, God is good, all loving, all caring and all powerful. The reality, as CJ Werleman has discovered through his meticulous analysis of the bible, is that all that god is is an uncaring, petty, jealous and violent. He's more like an all powerful bitchy teen than a wise omnipotent being.

His acid wit and delightfully humorous analysis of Biblical testament will have your neck cramping from continuously nodding in agreement. He meticulously scrutinises the Bible, chapter by thrilling chapter, articulating the many contradictions and indeed misconceptions that the religious conveniently overlook.

Authors and sources such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and alike are brilliant if you've got a mind for science and it is safe to say that few fundamentalist/evangelical/creationist Christians do. As such using their methodical logic to logically disprove something that is utterly illogical, i.e. the Bible, is pointless. This book allows you to take a new, fresh and utterly hilarious look at one of history's most revered works. It makes biblical doctrine accessible like never before.

Ultimately, if there is a god, and it is the one described in the bible, then god help us all!

[...].

This is the best book you will ever buy. Buy one for yourself, one for your mother, one for your father, one for your siblings and most importantly, one for every priest you know.

As other reviewers have pointed out:

--The Bible is brutally boring (and most atheist or theist don't know this because they've never read it from cover to cover)
--Werleman is brutally funny (yet it must be mentioned that he provides keen scholarship, a good historical context, and often a poignant view of both ancient and modern society).

The combination is a wonderful, edgy yet comprehensive tour of the Old and New Testament, from Jehovah brutalizing humanity in Genesis to Jehovah brutalizing humanity in the Book of Revelation. And in between and beyond how most of humanity has made himself in his demented image. This is one of those rare books that will make you laugh during and after reading it, and unfortunately cringe as well when you realize the collective psychological trauma it has caused to Western Society.

Werleman nimbly seasons the book with both atheist and theist wisdom of the ages, grim statistics from inside and outside the Bible, and both passionate and compassionate commentary. And when he has to, Werleman lets the Bible narrative speak for itself, for better or worse. An entertaining but balanced read in the end, as well as good reference not only for knowledge of scripture but anti-apologetics as well.

The book is far from a polemic, though. Werleman certainly calls as he sees it, but he's honest enough to understand that the Bible is simply the stories of an ancient people in a brutal time that should be seen in that context (and the horrible damage done by those who refuse to!). He points out the places he found wisdom, the characters he saw as admirable and even the theologies that are inspirational (as are found in any ancient text).

Good fiction is supposed to make you laugh and cry. Werleman takes the reader into a journey through a fiction that will certainly make you laugh and cry. And hopefully the reader can keep laughing because his message is ultimately very serious-- literalist religions have been slowly killing humanity's spirit for the last 2000 years.

The Gnostics realized God truly hated humanity thousands of years ago and proceeded to mock the Almighty for his shortcomings. It's good to see Freethinkers doing the same today(hopefully they won't receive the same fate as the Gnostics). Whether Jehovah exists or not doesn't matter-- he's just as dangerous as he was at the beginning of time.

To start things: I'm an atheist. If you're reading a book called "God Hates You, Hate Him Back", odds are you're either an atheist or someone with a lot of questions over your religious beliefs. If so, this book won't add anything to your life. If anything, this book makes reference to a number of works that do a better job at exposing the bible for all its fallacies, but most importantly, that expose religious belief and the dangers it entails.

The premise of the book is interesting, to point out that: 1) If you actually read the Old Testament without the adulation religion so often demands, you'd reach two possible outcomes: That this is all a work of fiction put up by men with an agenda, and that god doesn't exist; or that he (it?) does, and never in your life would you want to worship an evil entity such as this; and 2) If you actually read the New Testament, Jesus isn't the man of peace and moral example so many Christians believe him to be.

That is all very nice, if it wasn't marred by the fact that close to eighty percent of the book amounts to nothing but scathing commentaries on biblical quotes. At first, it was amusing, but when, more than half way through the book, I saw that this was just a collection of a number of variations for "Are you f*ing kidding me? That's horrible! Who thinks like that? Can anyone but an idiot think like that?", the book began to drag, and what was at first an amusing read turned to an exercise of patience. Many, many times I had to fight the urge to skip pages... It's the same urge I have whenever Dane Cook appears on the TV: Funny at first, but never with the right timing to move on from a joke.

The book is also very much in need editing. The author usually chooses to cover each particular book of the Old Testament in separate chapters, which was fine until he discussed two books in one chapter, no, sorry, two chapters in the same frame... It's strange to read at the beginning of a page "Chapters XX and XX" (can't remember which ones, right now), or to have chapters with two paragraphs about a particular book on the bible on which there was not much to be said. It's okay to skip those...

All in all, this isn't the kind of book for me. Dawkins, Hitchens or Harris do a better job at what this book sets out to do. It doesn't provide you with intelligent arguments, since it's usually too enthralled in trying to form as many snappy remarks as possible. Its premise to do so with humor made me buy it, especially after reading on a review here that it was similar to Monty Python, to which my response would have to be: "Are you f*ing kidding me? Who thinks like that?"

If you want to understand why atheism is world's fastest growing demographic, you would do worse to read CJ Werleman's debut work. Like a Cliff Notes version of the bible written by the unruly kid at the back of the class, it follows, chapter by chapter, the narrative of the greatest work of evil ever written. Although at times the pacing of the book slows, this is more due to the source material than CJ's interpretation - after all the business of ethic cleansing and moral justification can get a little tedious after countless generations, just ask God.

In my mind though, it is once CJ reaches the New Testament that the book really takes on a life of it's own; the more subjective nature of the Gospels etc allow for a greater range of black comedy, and CJ mines the rich material like Yosemite Sam. With great dexterity he brings into sharp focus the dilemma that should be facing modern day Christians: either follow, as Christ himself insists, the word and law of the old testament (or the Jewish Bible, as it is more properly known), in which case you have no moral high ground to take over fundamentalists such as the Taleban (as they do more truly as Christ preaches), or, alternatively, as most Christians choose to do, ignore Christ's supposed teachings and diktats in favour of the far more liberal interpretation as crafted by Paul. That Paul chooses largely to supersede and overrule Christ's teachings shows only that the modern Church is built not upon a 'rock' but on the shifting sands of 1st Century Twitterati, and that this hypocritical social construct should be torn down by the intellectual society that we should be, not prolonged by the myth-believing, sky-god worshipping society that for a large part we remain.

CJ should be widely praised for making such contentious material accessible to the masses, whilst the Church tries to maintain its hegemony of the the spiritual lives of those it claims to liberate. Werleman has achieved what few before him have; he has turned impenetrable hokum into understandable bunk, whine into water. By not directly making any argument for or against a divine being, he has also starved of oxygen the philosophical contingent who would prefer to take the fight to the spiritual plane, leaving only the very foundation of a entire belief system standing naked in front of the class. Werleman is the little boy in the story of the Emperor's New Clothes who first points out the naked truth. One can only hope that the masses will have the veil's lifted from their eyes that they too may see.

CJ Werleman has written an entertaining, laugh-out-loud parody of the Bible. His purpose was to "use the Bible as an indictment against itself," and he has succeeded admirably well. Werleman puts the Bible under a rationalist's microscope, applying logic to each passage. When reading Genesis, he brings up a telling detail you won't hear in Bible class. Werleman asks: "Where the hell did Cain's wife come from?" The original authors of the Bible didn't count on anyone actually thinking through the fact that Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel, but somehow Cain managed to find a wife, even though there were no other women yet "created" on earth to choose from besides his own mother. Continuity issue or incestuous relations among the first family? Christians the world over fail to question these sorts of inconsistencies in their "sacred text."

To give you a sense of how much fun it is to read, I finally got this book back from my seventeen-year-old daughter, who had borrowed it a few weeks ago and was reluctant to return it. This proves that God Hates You, Hate Him Back is the perfect Christmas gift for the questioning teen or budding unbelievers in the family. There's still time to get it under the tree.

No words are minced here as Werleman hold up a mirror to god and the reflection shatters the irrational illusion that Christians hold. God is revealed as a crazed indifferent, unfair, bi-polar, petty, vengeful, perverse, mean-spirited and lopsided flywheel of the greatest serial killer ever known in the history of the world. Don't blame me or CJ for this harsh assessment of the god concept, it's all right there, buried in the Holy Bible, the verses that you WON'T hear from the pulpit on Sunday morning. Scatology, murder, rape of women and children, human sacrifice, incest, mutilation, it's all there with the blessing of The Sky Daddy, these facts cannot be denied by any rational or objective person. God's atrocities are not limited to the Old Testament, Werleman cites the henchmen in the New Testament that continue to carry god's bloody banner, right into John's chilling hallucinations in Revelations. This is a great coffee table addition to R. Crumb's Illustrated Guide to Genesis. Great work and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

This book reviews the bible from the point of view of an atheist. It will improve the readers' knowledge of the bible and make strong points demonstrating that god is not a very decent entity. A very good book for someone just getting into atheism.

If simply reading the title makes you bristle then this is a must read for you. Sadly, judging by many of the negative reviews here you won't bother. Why not? Reading views opposed to your own may not change your mind, but it can give you ammunition when discoursing with people who see the world differently than you do. Perfect for the evangelical among us.

If on the other hand the title immediately draws you in then buy it already. I can't promise you'll learn anything new. You will have a good laugh and get a very good argument for the fallacy of the bible. Most of my book shelves are filled with non-fiction works and finding a light hearted, quick reading, and yet compelling book is perfect kicking back with in the sunshine.

Having been raised Jewish I was much more familiar with the OT than the NT so I did find new information which led me to do additional research both testing the authenticity of the information as well as enhancing my knowledge of the subject. In one case I couldn't find what I needed so via Face Book I was able to communicate directly with the author who happily gave me a helping hand. What more can you ask for?

I was raised a Catholic, went to a Catholic school, devout Catholic parents, and this book made me realised I had no idea how little I actually knew about the Bible.


Positives:

1. Just a great read. If the Bible was told like this to us in school or church I am afraid to say there'd be far less people calling themselves christians.

2. The gospels section is really confronting. As the book cover suggests, Werleman really does use a lawyer approach to show just how badly quilted together Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John are with all their contradictions and so forth. This was the most confronting chapter for someone that has always had some kind of 'loose' faith.

Negatives:

1. Could have elaborated more on the genocides of the bible. I was expecting more information regarding Jerico for example.
2. Spotted 1 or 2 typos.

Overall: STRONGLY RECOMMEND. Not just for atheists or agnostics. Christians should read this too even if it's to help learn the other side's arguments.

Growing up I considered myself somewhat of a religious child- my family had not adopted a single religion, but instead pulled ideals and traditions from many of them. In my teens I began to explore different types of religions closely so that I may find a place in which I "belonged"- ranging from Christianity to Buddhism. During this time, I decided to pick up the Bible and for once read what everyone was believing in. Not only was I stupefied by how utterly outrageous most of the stories where, I found myself agitated that most of it was so difficult to understand. Had this story not been translated enough times? Could they not make it understandable to modern man? Or was this merely a way to keep believers in believing- if they cannot understand it, it must be so because their faith says it is so. I do not know about you- but when I start to scratch my head about something- it is time to take a closer look, not turn a blind cheek.

God Hates You, Hate Him back fills in all of the holes of the Bible that we never hear about- it connects the dots of the entire story rather than pulling the cherry picked verses and screaming them out into a crowd of 100,000 plus people on Sunday morning television. It gives a person the truth to the tale, and let me tell you once the complex jargon is stripped the Bible becomes a simple story written by nothing more than simple men.

You will learn and you will laugh. Werleman is witty in his writing and informative in his descriptions. If nothing more, you will finish God Hates You with a better understanding of a piece of literature that has at one point mystified us all.