22 February 2010

450 Religious Leaders Killed in a Prayer Contest

But who killed them? Elijah or God or both?

Here's the story.

Ahab, the king of Israel, was a follower of Baal, which, of course, Yahweh and Elijah didn't like very much. So Elijah suggested a prayer contest to determine which god was the real God.

Elijah told Ahab to get all the prophets of Baal to meet him on Mt. Carmel. When they arrived, he told them to get a bull, kill it, chop it into pieces, and put the whole bloody mess on some wood. But don't light it on fire. Then ask Baal to light it all on fire.

So the prophets of Baal did that. They prayed and prayed and cut themselves with knives, but nothing happened. Elijah taunted them, saying, "Pray harder! Maybe your god is on a trip or sleeping or something." But still there was no fire.

Elijah did the same thing. He even poured water over it all three times. Then he prayed to God and a fire fell down from heaven and consumed it all, even the surrounding stones.

Then Elijah told the spectators to slaughter the 450 prophets of Baal.
Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. ....
And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. 1 Kings 18:22, 40

Here's ZJemptv's Mount Carmel Challenge.

Why doesn't anyone try this experiment today? (Skipping the slaughter of the losers.) We could start with believers vs. non-believers, Christians vs. Muslims, Catholics vs. Protestants, etc., until we zoomed in on the correct religious belief. It'd be so simple!



God's next killing: The first God-assisted slaughter of the Syrians

11 comments:

skanksta said...

Steve !
You're like a blogging machine at the moment - great stuff, keeps me going through the boredom of working away from home in the shitehole that is Stoke-on-Trent, UK.

skanksta said...

I love the Mt. Carmel challenge !

I think God SHOULD get the 'credit' - omnipotent beings would surely know that frightened, superstitious people would want to be on the winning side and do whatever Elijah said after that display of power.

But then again...Elijah commands it and people do it. Hmmm, can you give us more details ?

I'll check it out in my bible - the SAB of course !

Autumn said...

Speaking of the Sab, when is going out to print?
I really want to purchase a nice hardcover version.

Steve Wells said...

I'm working on it, Abeille.

I hope to have a print version of the SAB done before the end of the year.

twillight said...

It was Elija's decision to go cleansing his country from the other cult, I don't remember Elohim sending him, so it's all to blame Elija.

And just for the fact, some people DO this challenge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3cubbQ7hrw

Steve Wells said...

That was fun to watch, twillight.

I wonder why believers don't give it a try.

busterggi said...

Try it today?

Its already going on every day - Jews pray to Yahweh, Christians to Jesus, Moslems to Allah, Hindus to a whole bunch of deities, etc.

But none of their gods seems to care enough to show up & demonstrate who is right (apparently none),

Matthew Blanchette said...

Yep; it's like one, great emptiness...

...hmmmm, I wonder why? ;-)

ozhamada said...

Here's ZJemptv's Mount Carmel Challenge: regarding re-enacting the Mount Carmel challenge so that atheists can be given proof of a God.......God has given everything you need already to know him (Bible, nature, a new born baby's cry etc). Science, which atheists hold in such great esteem is itself a gift from God so that we may know him. Ironically, community, including electronic communities are also a gift from God - thus you post against God on a vehicle provided by him! Projects like SAB http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ are actually assisting God's work, like really, you guys can only find that many contradictions? Like a book containing the works of so many authors is not going to contain some contradictions? You should instead be considering the question: "how many contradictions are reasonable?". Before you do that why not also question how many times you have read things too narrowly or out of context. Indeed, too much of the atheist argument is debased in that it is not based on solid academically recognised means of reasoning but instead on childish finger-pointing. Even the Atheist high priest Dawkins strays from principles of academic reasoning.

BTW: your video has the people saying "Jesus Christ"...if that was true then I'm glad they could see him as early as that time .... after all we are told in John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word"

Unknown said...

I Believe we need to read the whole story on Elijah before the incident to actually come to better understanding asking in Prayer the Our Father who is in heaven to fill us with understanding His way and not our way so that we may be able to come to a better understanding, and give Him the glory before after and in all things. For with out Him nothing would be and it is because of Him that things are.

Unknown said...

This is the best bible study guide ever!!!