The Freedom from Religion Foundation announced the news of their new website, “Unpleasant Companion.” The new site, drawing its inspiration from Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, offers a searchable database of Old Testament verses which they say “proves that God is, indeed, the most unpleasant character.”
The site takes its title from a quote in The God Delusion’s second chapter in which Dawkins writes,“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving, control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
After receiving pushback for this sentence, Dawkins asked Freedom from Religion Co-President and pastor turned atheist Dan Barker to help him back up the claim.
The resulting book, God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction lists verses for each description Dawkins provided. In addition, Barker argued that Dawkins was too kind in his description of God and contributes eight further descriptions that he sees in Scripture– pyromaniacal, angry, merciless, curse-hurling, vaccicidal, cannibalistic, and slavemonger.”
The site, built by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, contains lists of Bible verses “supporting” each of the characteristics Dawkins and Barker attribute to God.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation promotes “nontheism” and frequently files complaints and lawsuits against state and local governments over what they see as violations of the separation of church and state. The front page of Unpleasant Companion contains a paragraph that champions the Foundation’s legal victory and appeals for donations to help them carry out their mission.
Photo courtesy: ©Thinkstock/Pablo_K
Publication date: June 12, 2017
