All throughout history, there have been numerous self-proclaimed Chosen People. Let’s take a look at some of the more well-known Chosen Peoples throughout history. Perhaps the original Chosen People were the Hebrews of ancient Israel, ancestors of the modern Jews. According to most Jews and Christians, the Hebrew people were chosen by the biblical God to set a sterling moral example for the rest of the world to follow, and to eventually bring morality to savages via Christianity. Most Jews and Christians believe that the ancient Hebrew people were far superior morally to their neighbors and all other ancient civilizations.
However, how accurate is this perception? The truth of the matter is that the supposed Chosen People received much of their morality, mythology and culture from the Egyptians and other ancient peoples. According to the Black anthropologist J.A. Rogers, in World’s Great Men of Color, Volume I, many passages from Proverbs appear to have been copied almost exactly from the Egyptians. The Ten Commandments came from the Declarations of Innocence (or ‘Negative Confessions” in the Egyptians’ Book of Coming Forth by Day into Night , or the Book of the Dead), as well as the Code of Hammurabi of the Babylonians. According to many scholars – including the ancient Greek historian Herodotus – the Hebrews received the practice of circumcision from the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, and an ancient civilization known as the Colchians. Monotheism originated, not with Moses or any other Hebrew, but with the pharaoh Akhenaton of ancient Egypt. (The Hebrew people were originally henotheists and believed that, though there were other gods, their God was the greatest of them all.)
There is no strong historical evidence to back up the outrageous claim that the Hebrew people were morally superior to all other ancient peoples. However, there is biblical evidence that the Chosen People practiced genocide against their neighbors, owned slaves, considered women to be the property of men, killed homosexuals and disobedient children, etc. On the subject of genocide, it would be surprising if a Chosen People would not try to wipe out their neighbors. Chosen Peoples invariably see their enemies as evil, disease- ridden, etc. and worthy of enslavement and death. This is why biblical “heroes” such as Aaron, Moses, Samuel, Joshua, and Gideon could slaughter men, women and children (while keeping female virgins alive for the males, Numbers 31:17-18) without compunction. Judges 6-9 shows Gideon at his bloodthirsty worst.
In later years, the Chosen People were thoroughly persecuted and oppressed – especially in Europe. They were victimized in pogroms, and millions of them were killed in the Holocaust. Christians such as Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler came to see certain Christians as the Chosen People, and Jews simply had to go. However, African American athletes such as Jesse Owens and Joe Louis defeated Germany’s greatest athletes in their respective fields, and later, Hitler was defeated, putting rest to the myth that the “Aryan race” was superior to all others.
In America, White settlers believed that they were special in the eyes of their Christian God. They decimated the First Nation People (Native Americans) and enslaved Blacks. When conquering Native Americans, they argued that they were simply following in the footsteps of Joshua and other biblical conquerors. (And they were!)
In the 20th Century, religionists such as Herbert Armstrong with his World Wide Church of God argued that Americans and the English were blessed with wealth and abundance to fulfill biblical prophecy. Many Americans have maintained that Americans are the most moral people in the world. Yet, even leaving aside the mistreatment of Native Americans and African Americans, many people throughout the world consider Americans to be among the most immoral people in the world. When AIDS was first introduced into the Philippines, many angry Filipinos viewed it as a disease brought to them, not via Africa, but from sexually degenerate Americans. Many Muslims in the Arab world talk about “the decadent (Christian) West,” and blame Americans for pornography, violent films and television programs, illicit drug use, etc. Is this how Chosen People are supposed to behave?
Then there are African Americans that believe Blacks are God’s Chosen People. Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam (NOI) swears up and down that Black people are highly favored by God. Much to the consternation of many religious Whites, he dogmatically claims that “God is always on the side of the oppressed.” Since its inception, the NOI has claimed that God will one day judge White America and destroy the nation for its sins against Black people. The ultra-reactionary Black Hebrew Israelites make similar claims.
This is all strange, indeed. Blacks are at the bottom of every socioeconomic indicator. They have the worst health, they had been literally enslaved for centuries, they had been victimized by apartheid, they have, for the most part, not had access to genuine economic power, they have been the poorest, etc.
Considering the numerous ways in which ostensibly Chosen People have suffered, who in their right mind would choose to be among the Chosen? When, in light of the Jewish Holocaust, atheist debater Edward Tabash’s mother told him that the Jews are God’s Chosen People, he told her, “the next time, I hope he chooses somebody else.” Indeed, it seems that reasonable theists would shout, “Thank God we’re not the Chosen People!”
In reality, there are no Chosen People, and there never have been. There are only arrogant, paranoid, self-righteous and self-deluded bigots that believe they are better than everyone else.