6 practices the Bible (never) endorses and Christianity has nothing to hide
As usual Tanner is up to his usual tricks and I thought we will check on his articles again and give him a very friendly spank, it has been a while.
Tanner lists six practices he claims the Bible promotes but Christianity hides. His fundamental premise, which is massively flawed is that if it is found in the Bible, Christians are bound to follow it and are hiding it if they do not. Anybody who knows anything about the Bible knows how ridiculous that is but we will engage with our friend Tanner and unpick his claims. His claims will be italicised and my response in normal font.
1. Magic and Divination
The Bible bans fortune-telling and witchcraft but celebrates miracles that look nearly identical. Moses turns his staff into a snake. Elijah calls down fire. Peter raises the dead.
Religious authority decides which supernatural acts are holy and which are forbidden. Light a candle in church and it’s devotion; light one beside a crystal and it’s witchcraft. Both are rituals. The difference is who gets to perform them. In short, the Bible doesn’t reject magic — it monopolizes it.
This is as ridiculous as complaining that the US government bans counterfeit dollars while celebrating original US dollars. The ban on counterfeit dollars is precisely because original dollars exist and the government does not want confusion between both. In fact the government’s monopoly over production of the US Dollar is very important if the economy is to be secure and retain its integrity.
In like manner, magic is the counterfeit of the supernatural, miraculous power of God. It also has its limits, ask the Egyptian sorcerers who tried to mimic the miracle of lice which God did.
“But I don’t believe in miracles!” Tanner may say. Problem is you then have to explain the universe, why does it exist? Why do human beings exist? Why do the systems between human beings and body parts work so well together? Why does Tanner have consciousness? How does Tanner explain DNA and the intricate working and complexity of a single human cell? If Tanner does not believe in all this, he will need to come up with an explanation more miraculous than anything reported in the pages of the Bible. And if his answer is “I don’t know!”, my question is how then does he know it is not a miracle that started all this?!
2. Stoning People to Death
Adulterers, disobedient children, and Sabbath violators were all sentenced to stoning in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 21 even tells parents to bring a rebellious son to the elders for execution.
Modern society calls that barbaric. Yet for centuries, it was considered holy justice. The only reason stoning faded out wasn’t divine mercy — it was social evolution. People stopped killing their kids for talking back and realized morality could exist without rocks.
Even if we were to play Tanner’s game and work with his flawed underlying assumptions, Jesus in John 8 had the perfect opportunity to sanction the stoning of the woman caught in adultery. Does He do so?
Secondly, Deuteronomy was not written to Christians. It was not even written to orthodox Jews of today, believe it or not. It was a covenant given to the children of Israel prior to the new covenant God promised in Jeremiah 31:31-33. The preamble of the ten commandments literally reads,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
(Exodus 20:2)
If you were not part of the people God brought out of Egypt, God is not talking to you. How does the Old Testament end?
“Remember the Law of Moses, My servant,
Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel,
With the statutes and judgments”
(Malachi 4:4)
Notice who the commandments, statutes and judgments are for? “For all Israel!” not for all Christians and for all civilisations Mr Tanner!
And even for the Israel of today, the New Covenant which is explicitly distinguished from the old one from Exodus in Jeremiah 31:31 so what Tanner quotes should not be followed by the Jews of today even by Christian standards.
3. Animal Cruelty and Ritual Bloodshed
The Old Testament is soaked in blood — not metaphorically, but literally. Leviticus describes in painful detail how to slit a bull’s throat, sprinkle its blood on the altar, and burn its organs for a “pleasing aroma to the Lord.” Every sin, festival, or thank-you note to God required an animal’s death.
Christianity later claimed Jesus’ crucifixion made such sacrifices unnecessary, but it kept the imagery — “the lamb of God,” “washed in the blood.” The violence was spiritualized, not erased. Modern believers recoil at animal cruelty but forget that their faith was built on a system where worship meant killing and burning.
First of all I think Tanner’s take is skewed to the western Christian experience. Do Christians in Africa, Asia and the Middle East recoil at animal suffering? Did Jesus Himself recoil at it? Did He not help Peter catch fish? Did He not roast fish for His disciples in John 21? Did Mary not follow Levitical sacrifices in Luke 2 after Jesus was born? Did the risen Christ not from heaven say to Peter in Acts 10:13, “Kill and eat” in regard to various animals in a vision on a sheet before him?
The thing is people are free to recoil at whatever they wish to recoil at and they are at liberty to do so. This would be a conscience issue like eating food sacrificed to idols or whether to revere a day as sacred or not. I think this would be a very stupid reason to not believe in God or Christianity like Alex O’connor does but it is not a cannon of Christianity that no animal should ever suffer.
Hope that helps Mr Tanner!
4. Human Sacrifice
The Bible denies endorsing human sacrifice, yet it appears throughout its pages. Abraham nearly kills Isaac because God demanded it — only stopping at the last second. In Judges 11, Jephthah vows to sacrifice the first thing he sees if he wins a battle. It turns out to be his daughter, and he keeps his word.
Later prophets condemn child sacrifice, but by then the damage was done: the idea that killing could please God had already been established. Christianity later reframed the concept with Jesus — one ultimate human offering to “satisfy” divine justice. It’s the same logic, polished up for theology.
This is a very weird way to read the Bible. Abraham “nearly kills” Isaac? The story literally starts with “God Tested Abraham!” it was a test, God was never going to accept or condone child sacrifice.
On Jephthah, it is contentious whether or not he actually sacrificed his daughter or if she simply remained a virgin consecrated to God all the days of her life thus depriving Jephthah of descendants.
Secondly, there is no way anybody looks at the book of Judges and sees that as descriptive of the morality God deems acceptable. Virtually all the Judges, other than Deborah, have tragic endings.
Third, nowhere in the story do we see God command or condone this sacrifice.
On the gospel, Christ is God incarnate so it is not just a mere human being that is sacrificed for our sin. Secondly, has anybody ever read the gospels or the theology around it and arrived at Tanner’s conclusion that God deems it acceptable to kill somebody in order to please Him?
I wonder why Tanner is very unique in this regard.
5. Women as Property
In Exodus 21, a father can sell his daughter as a slave. Deuteronomy 22 says that if a man rapes a virgin, he must pay her father and marry her. Women are treated as economic assets.
Even in the New Testament, women are told to remain silent in church and to submit to men. While scholars debate the authenticity of some of those verses, they remain part of the text. The idea of gender equality came from social change, not from biblical reform.
Well Genesis and Galatians are the bedrock of gender equality, not social change.
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
(Genesis 1:27)
And again,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”
(Galatians 3:27)
Husbands are commanded to love their wives and be ready to die for them. I wonder whether Tanner loves any property of his so much that he is willing to give his very life for it.
Again Tanner quotes from a covenant that has nothing to do with Christians and how exactly does he go from “women keep silent in church” to “women are treated as property”?
There is legitimate debate on whether or not women can be pastors or can speak in church but that in no way means women are the property of men.
There is a reason why during the height of the women’s right movement in the UK during the 1970s the symbol was a mannequin on a cross! Think about where the presuppositions underlying that come from.
6. Eye for an Eye
The famous “eye for an eye” law (Exodus 21) was meant to limit revenge, not end it. It told people how much vengeance was acceptable. Justice became math: a life for a life, a tooth for a tooth.
Jesus later told people to “turn the other cheek,” but that doesn’t erase the fact that the older law was considered sacred for centuries. It took human empathy — not divine decree — to decide that breaking the cycle of revenge was the better option.
Again, these are just words from Tanner who again woefully misunderstands what that law was doing. the point of the law was addressed to judges and it was simply this, the punishment must be commensurate with the original crime. Humans have been around since forever and I wonder where all of this empathy was when empires were killing, raping and destroying each other. The fact this “human tendency” kicks in after thousands of years of the Christian message saturating Western Europe is very convenient for humanists like Tanner.
Finally, turn the other cheek is not addressed to judges or the governments, it is addressed to individuals in every day Interactions, so the backbone of every functional criminal justice system remains an eye for an eye.
In conclusion, our friend Tanner just throws out words, that is all. He does not have a clue what he is talking about but we do love him especially because he does not block us like the other atheist writers on this platform.
See Tanner’s original article in full:
