God, Death, Sodom and Gamorrah
December 25, 2024
by William P. Meyers

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Is Wiping Out Humans Alright with God?

There are about 8 billion human individuals in the world. There were about 1 billion before the industrial revolution (which coincided with an agricultural and medical revolution).

These humans, in addition to their numbers, have been behaving badly. It has been widely known that the world is overpopulated since the 1960s. It has been widely known that the extensive burning of fossil fuels would lead to global warming since the 1980s. In the 2020s we have seen catastrophic results of global warming: storms, droughts, and famines affecting humans, and widespread destruction of many plants and animals.

Despite that, fossil fuel burning continues to rise. Part of the rise is due to economic growth in poorer nations (and classes), allowing them to buy more fuel. But most of it is due to a small percentage of people continuing to amp up high levels of consumption. Unfortunately a small percentage of 8 billion people can be a lot. Let us say the top 10% fossil fuel consumers, that would be 800 million people. And 8 billion times anything is a lot, so each person doing a little wrong can have catastrophic effects.

So far these people have proven too powerful to allow laws to pry their SUVs, mansions, and vacation flying out of their greedy hands. A global democracy, with a Government of Earth and a global EPA might be able to do it. But let us just consider the alternative: moral violence. That is, righteous violence against those who have sinned against the natural world, and against their fellow, poorer human mates.

And where better to find moral guidance than ye olde Bible?

It is pretty clear that God himself (itself?) had no problem mass murdering humans for their offenses against his moral code. I will start with the story of Lot and the punishment of the people of Sodom and Gamorrah. Note there is no evidence, currently, that these Biblical events actually took place. Yet many ancient cities came to bad ends, their people having been eliminated in some fashion.

Not being adept at Hebrew, I quote from the King James translation of the bible.

The story of the cities of Sodom and Gamorrah occur very early in the current layout of the Bible, in the first book, Genesis. They are first mentioned in its Chapter 13, just a few pages in. [Likely the popularity of the story is because it does happen so near the beginning of the book. Few people, even in more religious times, could stand reading through the tedium of repetition that makes up over half of the Old Testament.] By Chapter 13 it has already been well-established that God does not like humans. He cast his first creations out of Eden, then killed most of them in the Flood. When they started building cities, and the Tower of Babel, he caused them to speak different languages so they would have difficulty cooperating with each other (Chapter 11). Finally in Chapter 12 we meet Abram who God sends to Canaan with his wife and son Lot. But there was a famine in Canaan, so Abram and Lot went down to Egypt. Later they get kicked out of Egypt, but in the mean time Abram had gotten rich pimping out his wife to the Pharaoh. Lot splits and takes up residence in the Jordan River Valley, near Sodom. "But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly." So Lot moves closer to Hebron, and is promised all the surrounding lands by the Lord (God).

Next (Chapter 14) there is a war between several tribal dictators (kings), including those of Sodom and Gamorrah. And the rival alliance of dictators captures Sodom, and here we have another of those numberless biblical contradictions, because Lot, who is supposed to be in Hebron, is captured. Also instead of being Abram's son, now he is Abram's brother's son. In any case someone goes and rescues Lot and returns him back to Sodom.

Yada, yada, yada, and Abram get renamed (by God Himself!) Abraham (Chapter 17). And introduces the cruelty known as circumcision. Abraham keeps getting women pregnant, so we learn the names of Abraham's other sons who will be important in later Bible stories. Then God sends angels (or something like them, the word used is "men") to look at Sodom and Gamorrah "because their sin is very grievous." They stop by Abraham's on the way, mainly so the writers of the passage can repeat that his descendants, the Jews, are the only truly good people on earth. But Abraham argues to God that the righteous of Sodom should not be destroyed with the wicked. They try to put numbers on it. God says he will not destroy the two cities if he can find even ten good people in them.

With Chapter 19 we get to the core of the story. God is no longer in person on the mission. Instead there are two angels who arrive at Sodom, at Lot's house. Lot is allowed to go out to gather his sons and daughters-in-law to escape with him. They refuse, so Lot leaves with just his wife and his two daughters. "And the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gamorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." And then Lot's wife gets turned into a pillar of salt, and he has children by his own daughters, who become the Moabites, who are not the Jews, who are the good people who descend from Abraham by his other children.

Sounds like the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs. Or the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden and dozens of other cities in World War II. Or maybe the volcanic destruction of Pompeii, or the destruction of any of a number of cities by war back in the days when you had to slay all the civilians with sword and spear. Maybe something natural wiped out Sodom and Gamorrah, and the Jews just attributed it to their God. A story to tell children to try to keep them from misbehaving.

Still, the take away is that if people are behaving badly, it is okay to kill them all, and take a few good people in the process, just to be thorough.

Let's look at Redmond, home to Microsoft, and Cupertino, home to Apple. Would God be morally justified in completely destroying them, because their denizens are bad people? Perhaps because so many are atheists, or at least don't show up at church on Sundays.

Fortunately, I have a direct line to Nature's God, so I was able to get a direct answer the question.

Why these two cities above all others? Because we need to set an example for everyone else. These cities are not filled with hicks. They are much better educated than most people on earth. They know about global warming, and they know about the role of energy consumption in creating global warming. They know their data centers, and data centers in general, are a major cause of global warming. Yet instead of discouraging smart phone apps and other climate destroying software, they are jumping into AI (artificial intelligence), which will require many more data centers and accelerate global warming.

But what about the fossil fuel producers themselves, oh Lord?

Good point. There's ExxonMobil, which would mean destroying Houston. Never liked Houston, anyway. Next would be Chevron, which is moving to Houston in a few months. It would show me to be a merciful God, just destroying Houston. Two sinful corporations with one stone.

Or maybe Houston and Redmond. Or Washington D.C. So many choices. I'll have to get back to you. But go ahead and write this up. If there are a few good people in any of these cities, they should get out now, just to be safe. And I've always meant to do something about Wall Street ...