Religion, moral conscience and health care

The Washington Post has an article up concerning a new Bush rule winding its way through the government towards becoming the law of the land.

A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting health-care workers who object to abortion, and to birth-control methods they consider tantamount to abortion, has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients' rights.

You can read the article for more specific information on this, but the short of it is that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc. under this new rule can refuse to provide services to patients who desire them based on their own personal religious views. In other words, if a pharmacist is personally anti-birth control, then he can refuse to sell the pill, condoms, etc. If a nurse is anti-abortion and considers "plan B" abortion, then she can refuse to administer it to a rape victim. If an ambulance driver does not believe in being exposed to a woman who was having her period when she was ill then he would not have to give care to that woman.

That, on the surface, sounds quite reasonable. Why be forced to do something that you find morally reprehensible personally? But here is the problem:

What do you do about a white person who refuses to give care to a black person? It was only a mere few decades ago that that moral reprehension was in effect. Do we bring that back for white doctors who refuse to treat black patients on moral grounds? The same goes for gay patients, patients of another religion which is found to be "satanic" in its origin?

Just where do you draw the line when it comes to personal religious morals and those patients who violate them? Do you say it is acceptable to not give plan B to a patient, but not acceptable to refuse treatment to a black man?

No, the only real solution, and the real rule Bush and Co. should be pushing through is this: If you are not willing to fulfill all your duties as a doctor/nurse/pharmacist by giving your patients all that they require, then you should consider another line of work.

Dobson and Obama: Biblical Christianity

I have to say, I am amused by James Dobson. But not so much that I can just ignore him and his power in this great country. He is, by any terms, a silly person. He claims that he cannot be compared to the Rev. Al Sharpton, because he is not a reverend. He claims he is not a theologian. Yet despite being neither of these things, he can claim:

"Evangelicals are people who take Bible interpretation very seriously, and the sort of speech he gave shows that he is worlds away in the views of evangelicals," he said

And that makes him silly.

Notice how he is an evangelical, but not a reverend or theologian.. That makes it all ok to say ministerial and theological things with authority and then claim not to have that authority.

But the real core; the real meat of the issue is not what Obama said, or what Dobson claims. It is that there is this perception among the Christian Right that only their views on Christianity matter, and those of all the other millions of Christians out there are ignorant or unimportant. And most importantly, this great nation should only be controlled by those Christian views approved by the Christian right. Thus making this country a theocracy, even though it isn't because other Christians and non-Christians can have their views, only that they are not important or useful in governing.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Dobson.

Family Research Council Misses The Point Yet Again

Tony Perkins' Washington Update has this blurb:

Bench Pressing: Equality CA Urges Court to Strike Initiative

The clock is ticking on California's brief honeymoon with same-sex "marriage," and homosexual activists are doing everything in their power to make the court's May 15 verdict permanent. In a last-ditch effort to rob the people of their input in November, advocates of homosexual "marriage" are asking the high court to strike down the marriage protection amendment before it reaches the ballot. Using a tactic that same-sex couples test-drove in Oregon, the groups argue that the initiative "would change the state's Constitution so profoundly that it would amount to a revision." Unlike a simple amendment, a revision--as defined by California law--would require both voters' approval and that of the legislature. When liberals used this same argument to overturn the marriage protection amendment in Oregon last month, it failed. The court of appeals upheld the amendment, sending a powerful message on the effectiveness of a constitutional amendment defining marriage.

This week, Equality California is fine-tuning the strategy, suggesting that "if enacted, [the ballot initiative] would eviscerate the principle of equal citizenship for gay and lesbian people and strip the courts of their authority to enforce basic constitutional guarantees." (Translation: We recognize that the people of California oppose homosexual "marriage," and we'll use every possible loophole to circumvent the democratic process). Unfortunately for same-sex proponents, judicial activism may be common in California's courts, but the nullification of ballot initiatives is not. As the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out, justices seldom intervene once an amendment has qualified for the ballot. Obviously Equality California is more afraid of the people's verdict than the court's. Join us in making more Californians aware of what's at stake this fall. Log on to www.frc.org/marriage to order your free marriage protection kit!

Just how many falsehoods and scare words did you see?
To show you exactly how absurd this line of argument really is, let us take that first sentence and change its meaning a tiny little bit: "The clock is ticking on California's brief honeymoon with [emancipation of slaves] and [abolitionists] are doing everything in their power to make the court's May 15 verdict permanent." If the subject were changed to reinstituting slavery, and that lying on a popular vote then slavery can simply be made legal by a popular vote. You cannot simply vote and take away the equality and rights of one group of people just because they happen to be a bit different in some aspect. Yet this is exactly what FRC and the California initiative are doing. They are attempting to repeal the civil rights equalization of gays. It is no different than the Jim Crow laws of the south and their fighting the entire civil rights movement of blacks.

This sentence repeats the inanity: "(Translation: We recognize that the people of California oppose homosexual "marriage," and we'll use every possible loophole to circumvent the democratic process). " Let me translate the translation: If a majority of Californians vote to kill all the citizens of Los Angeles and burn them for fuel, then the democratic process rules! And cheap energy to boot!! Unfortunately that completely ridiculuous analogy completely shows just how brilliant our founding fathers were and how ignorant the FRC and Tony Perkins. For if you were to use Tony's "logic" regarding our true democratic process, then he would support the murdering of every Los Angelean for fuel if California voted for it. Our founding fathers put in a safeguard against that "majority rules" abuse and desecration of the minority. It is those very same "activist" courts!

What if 50.1% of Americans voted to permanantly ban Tony Perkins to some desolate area of Antartica permanantly? would he look to "activist" courts to stay the decision, or would he just shrug his shoulders and say ok?


Look, its all very simple. America will adjust to this just like they did when it came to the civil rights movement of the 50s/60s. Equality is inevitable in the psyche of America. Some fight it, but they are on the losing end, as American history has shown. Opposite-sex marriages are not in the process of losing their value to their participants. It is just that their next door neighbors who happen to be gay, now have the exact same rights as they do.

A Problem with the "Good Person" Test

Now I wish to say upfront that I understand the ultimate purpose of this test; it is to simply show that there are no good people outside of accepting Jesus.

But we all know that this is total bunk. Even the most basic Christian who remembers even the tiniest amount of Sunday School knows this to be totally false. For that would mean that no one of the Old Testament made it into heaven, because they would have to pass this very same "good person" test, that is unpassable. Yet the Old Testament tells us of a number of Old Testament Persons who made it into heaven, some even bodily.

Thus we know the test is false and a flat out lie on its face. But have any Christians out there thought about what it means for that test to be false? I doubt it because it would mean that Christ is not necessary for entrance into heaven. And that is not what the New Testament tells us. So if those two testaments are in conflict, then which is right and what should we all believe, Christian and non-Christian alike. I will look at that question at the end of this post.

First, I would like to share with you the email I wrote to the authors of this "good person" test..

Greetings,
I just took the test, and I felt wholly unsatisfied. For I know of no one who passes, no matter their Christian leanings. All would fail regardless. Why?

Consider what you wrote:
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
There is none righteous, no not one. Romans 3:10

This is false and misleading. Just consider for a moment the Old Testament. Is Moses in Hell? Is Elijah in Hell? Is David in Hell? What about Aaron, Elisha, Lot, Noah, Solomon? Ruth? I think it harsh to call these people "righteous" "just" and "heroic" and yet tenets of hell. Don't you agree

So there must be a level of "righteousness" that gets one into heaven that a mere human can perform. This makes Jesus irrelevant. Again, I say, this evidence of the "righteousness" of many Old Testament Characters makes the redemptive power of Jesus irrelevant if one can maintain that same level of righteousness as the Old Testament Characters, unless they are not in heaven.

Then you wrote:
"Imagine you are standing in front of a judge, GUILTY of serious crime. All the evidence has been presented and there is no doubt of your guilt. Your apologies
and good works cannot erase your crimes; therefore you must be punished. The fine for your crime is $250,000 and you have no money."

But what happens if the judge is guilty of the exact same crimes as you, and all others, and guilty a hundred thousand times more than you are. If you stole a pen and the Judge stole thousands of acres of land. If you killed a person, but the
Judge killed tens of millions of people, if you raped, but the Judge raped thousands of young girls, and ordered the raped of countless thousands of more. If you blasphemed, but the Judge blasphemed many more times than you and all other humans combined. If you lied, but the Judge lied infinitely more than you. How can that judge be in any way superior and able to judge you?

Remember Paul told us that it is acceptable to lie in God's name. He wrote: "For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?" Romans 3:7 Lying for God is moral.

You also noted: "Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by GRACE ye are saved through faith and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: NOT of works, lest any man should boast.""
But in James 2:14 "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?" Followed by James 2:17, "Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead"

So even the bible lies and is misleading, and you fell for that lie. Just as Paul stated you would when he told you those of the bible would lie to further the message.

I suppose it would be easy to just say that because the New Testament happened second it should supercede the Old Testament. But that in and of itself creates a fundamental problem. God does not change nor does God's laws. Both Testaments attest to this. But if there is a fundamental change, that being that there is a way into heaven by being "righteous" enough, as the Old Testament states, then why even is there a need for the New Testament and Jesus Redemption, if everyone in the New Testament need only to live up to Old Testament standards?

Let me give you an analogy:

Suppose that you you live in an exclusive neighborhood, aimed solely at keeping out all crime. You and you family earned a spot in that neighborhood by being strictly lawful for your entire lives. This same strict standard also applies to all your neighbors. Now suppose some new owner of that subdivision comes along and says that anyone can move in, no matter what their past crimes are, if they simply accept him as their new lawgiver and they promise to abide by his laws. How would you and your neighbors feel that first of all being lawful is no longer the rule or standard, and second of all that murderers and rapists and theives are now allowed into your very own neighborhood, as long as they promise to abide by a set of new rules that didn't even exist when you moved into this neighborhood?

Yet this is the crux of the "good person" test. This is the very founding core of modern Christianity.

Family Research Council Loses it Over McDonalds

As you may have guessed, I am on the mailing list of many, many Christian organizations. I rarely ever discuss them. But this one from the Family Research Council absolutely takes the cake. No. This one takes the cake, imprisons the baker, shuts down all the flour and sugar refineries, and burns all wheat and sugar cane fields...

So why are they all pissed off at hamburger pusher, McDonald's? Let's see:

Sadly, McDonald's is now financing attacks on marriage and the family as a new Corporate Partner of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC).

The NGLCC promotes businesses owned by homosexuals, but it also pushes the homosexual political agenda in statehouses, courthouses, and the halls of Congress. Thought crime ("hate crime") laws, homosexual and transgender "civil rights" preferences, and domestic partner benefits are top-priority issues of the NGLCC.

So I guess now families of Christians are not allowed to eat at McDonald's because MickeyD's allows gays to work there and have, you know, lives. So now gays cannot even be allowed to work and eke out a most meager living working at McDonald's and should just all be unemployed and starve to death because of their gayness. And a company that looks out for all its employees equally is a bad thing because well, I guess because all gays should just waste away and die from being denied any life or employment.

I suppose that's true Christian love for you: Be unemployed and die you filthy fags!

Of course the saving grace to all this: No one, not even the most ardent Christian will stop eating at McDonald's. So not only is this latest FRC notice stupid, it is completely butt-assed ignorant stupid.

Note: The entire release by the FRC is below:

McDonald's is funding homosexual activism--and I'm NOT lovin' it!

May 5, 2008 Refer a Friend
Apparently, serving McFlurries and Big Macs to the public is no longer enough to satisfy the hunger of McDonald's to make a cultural impact on the United States. Sadly, McDonald's is now financing attacks on marriage and the family as a new Corporate Partner of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC).

The NGLCC promotes businesses owned by homosexuals, but it also pushes the homosexual political agenda in statehouses, courthouses, and the halls of Congress. Thought crime ("hate crime") laws, homosexual and transgender "civil rights" preferences, and domestic partner benefits are top-priority issues of the NGLCC.

Richard Ellis, Vice President of Communications for McDonald's, was recently named to the Board of Directors of the NGLCC. In a press release, the NGLCC praised Ellis for his "vast Board experience with LGBT and advocacy related organizations." It's alarming that the overseer of McDonald's advertising campaigns directly geared toward families will now be a leader in the NGLCC's campaign to weaken traditional values.

The NGLCC's efforts on behalf of homosexuality threaten the family, the definition of marriage and the very religious freedom we hold so dear.

Here are two effective action steps you can take to get McDonald's back on course:

1) Sign the attached petition to McDonald's Chairman Andrew J. McKenna. FRC will compile the names and signatures and deliver them to McDonald's at their corporate headquarters.

2) Print out the attached flyer (Click here to download a PDF of the flyer) and bring it to your local McDonald's restaurant. Ask to see the manager, give him or her the flyer, and respectfully request that he or she notify the corporate offices that customers are upset about this policy. We ask that you NOT attempt to post the flyer in the restaurant, hand it out to customers, or put it on windshields in the parking lot--just bring it to the manager. Be polite, of course (the manager probably is not even aware of this new corporate policy). DO print additional copies of the flyer and give them to your friends, however, and ask them to take them to the local restaurant manager as well.

McDonald's has enjoyed enormous success providing affordable food to billions of people; it should resist the temptation to play politics with its business. Thank you for taking action, and may God bless you.

McDonald's is funding homosexual activism--and I'm NOT lovin' it!

Sincerely,Tony Perkins

President
P.S. McDonald's has thrived on selling an array of affordable products to American families. Please forward this email to your family and friends and urge them to sign this petition to get this American-grown company back on track.

I have a truly hard time putting into words just how vile, disgusting and immoral these people are. The irony is that these vile and disgusting people are perfectly free to individually and as groups hate on and demonize anyone they like; they are free to go to their churches and pray to their gods that all gays suffer under torture for all eternity, they are free to express their hatred in whatever manner they desire as individuals and groups and churches, they are free to live their lives in whatever manner they desire. But they turn around and claim that those who disagree with them have no rights whatsoever to enjoy those same freedoms they do. That is beneath contempt. Any Christian who claims to be a patriotic American and believe in the Constitution and "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" should be fully ashamed of these Christian groups.

Evolution, Expelled, Christianity, and Hitler

Over at Pharyngula, PZ posted this:

Now here's the thing, the world is a complicated place, it always has been. Then Ben Stein comes along and claims in his mock-u-mentary that "Darwinism" led to Hitler and Nazism. But something kept digging at my brain about this statement.

I finally came to realize just what it is. The same is true for Christianity as well, but not in the murder millions sense. Ben Stein claims that the concept of Darwinism (i.e. natural selection) gives rise to the social intent (purpose) of selecting races/groups/slivers of humanity as being superior and thus all others in need of extermination. But this is a social construct, and is utilized in many ways (again I will stress without the brutal murder and war). Christianity claims exactly the same thing as is applied to Hitler and Nazism as we see so clearly in Expelled.

What I mean is this: Look at Christianity as a religion and as a social movement. Christianity proclaims that it is an outgrowth and progression of the ancient Hebrew religion and is superior to all other religions. Christians actively spread out via missionaries to spread the good news of Jesus and convert all non-Christians to Christianity. That is exactly the same argument used against Hitler, and by extension evolution. In the case of Hitler, this Darwinistic natural selection is evil and proves why evolution is bad, but in the case of Christianity, this very same Darwinistic natural selection is good.

I can only conclude that science and Darwin had it just right all along. "Darwinism" spreads good and evil without conscience. If I were coming from the perspective of a Christian, that is. In which case I would have to thank Darwin and his natural selection for giving Christianity the exact tool to spread Christianity. For without natural selection, then it would be impossible for Christians to figure out a way to propagate their message.

This at least makes as much sense as Ben Stein does.

The reality is, "Darwinism" has nothing more to do with the spread of Christianity than it does Nazism and the holocaust. For to condemn "Darwinism" for Hitler's actions is the same as to blame the spread of Christianity on "Darwinism".

I have finally figured out that the spread of Christianity is exactly like, and completely analogous to the horror of Hitler and his extermination of Jews -- If "Darwinism" is used as the tool. In one case you have a superior race exterminating its inferior enemies, and in the other you have a superior religion extermininating its inferior religions. This is Ben Stein's folly: The holocaust is just as reliant upon "Darwinism" as is Christianity. And from the standpoint of Christians, this therefore cannot be all bad....

..or maybe, just maybe, reality and the actual theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with either, and this whole argument found in Expelled is total smoke and mirrors.

Is Christianity a Dictatorship?

As I have pointed out many times in the past, there are a huge number of problems with the theology and logic of Christianity. The theology I focus on is the particulars of the bible and the logic is the practice of Christianity. My blog is dedicated to these things.

But today I have to approach a question that is so central to the idea of Christianity that it is not even considered by Christians, just openly accepted. That is, Is Christianity a dictatorship? I ask this because of an essay that Joseph Chambers wrote over at Rapture Ready. In it he was disparaging Catholicism, but he added this statement:

The Catholic view of both the political world and the church is that of a dictatorship rather than a democracy. They brag about their One World views and international monopoly of their contingencies, but their dictatorial and dogmatic approach has always squashed any private views or open debate. [emphasis mine]

Now I have to wonder, is Christianity (or Catholicism, for that matter) really a dictatorship or a democracy? For all I can see, if Christianity were a democracy, then it would be a majority rules situation. And since the majority of Christians happen to be human, then it would be entirely in the hands of humans to decide. Thus if a majority of human Christians decided that abortion and birth control were ok, then the Christian religion would thusly say it is ok. We know, however, that this is not the case. The last word does not come from human majority (i.e. democracy) but from on-high. That is Christianity is a pure dictatorship. Now what if that godly dictator set up a human surrogate (let us call this person, "the pope"), would not this person also have dictatoral powers? If God commanded His own authority within one person, the pope, then would that not constitute a dictatorship?

Then who is Joseph Chambers to argue against God Himself?

That is what I want to know. I say this because the pope has just as much biblical mandate as does Joseph to claim dictatorship. But what is really interesting is that somehow, in some biblical re-interpretation, Christians are magically transformed into a democracy, when every last word of God and law of God claims the exact opposite. God is the ruler, and God rules with an iron fist; so strong, in fact, that if one violates His laws here on earth, that person is eternally punished without any possibility of redemption. That is dictatorship at its extreme.

But just what does this say about our human endeavors into democracy and dictatorship? Shouldn't we all follow in God's model, if we are a God-fearing peoples?

Maybe I should turn this question over to the good folks of Christian Exodus....


Meanwhile, here is the return of the south's version of John Lennon..


Yes, I know Dolly is cheese, but her video, and interpretation of Lennon's song, is particularly powerful, if you ignore her person.

Nature of God is it Defined by Humans?

Jason Rosenhouse over at Evolutionblog has a very interesting post up regarding theistic evolution. I highly recommend that you read it. I'm not going to summarize it here. I am really only interested in his money-quote:

People like Ayala, Miller and Conway Morris are surely among the best theistic evolution has to offer, yet their arguments represent the crassest sort of desperation and special pleading. Ayala's argument for why evolution resolves the problem of evil is afflicted with obvious holes. (Lest you think that the Times article was too short for him to develop his argument seriously, let me assure you this is not the case. I have read his book, and he does not provide any additional illumination there.) Miller's argument is based on an obviously false premise, and even taken it at face value does not explain why Darwinian evolution specifically had to be the mechanism through which God created. Conway Morris' argument is almost certainly false biologically, but even leaving that aside it leaves us in no better position theologically than the ID folks. If we can not explain why God directly creates nasty creatures, we also can not
explain why he sets in motion a process that inevitably leads to nasty creatures. [Again, read Rosenhouse's article for this quote's context]

The tangent he presents here is what I am interested in. I rarely discuss theology here (I prefer the cold hard testimony found in the bible as the basis for my philosophical discussions and reasons to not believe in God.) But theology here is what is in question, and I think it is a very interesting question. The question is all about the nature of God. From the bible we are privy to many human-filtered aspects of God's nature; He is all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, jealous, vengeful, just, and above all perfectly moral (but only because he is defined that way -- or should I say that morality is solely defined against the background of what God considers moral). Thus when we come across passages in the bible such as this: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." [Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)]

If we define God to be all good and all moral, then it must be moral for God to create evil. This is the loophole that is used by all theistic evolutionists which Rosenhouse is discussing. He nails the root of the problem that whether God directly created nasty and vile things, or just set up the process which would lead to nasty and vile things is no different. In a weak analogy, it would be like a car designer actively causing a cars brakes to fail by cutting the brake lines, or passively causing the brakes to fail by designing the brakes to eventually wear out, but do nothing to inform the car-owner of this defect. In both cases the brakes fail and the driver is injured.

So what we really have here is a question about the nature of God. We have the creationists on one side who claim god created everything exactly as it is, and on the other we have theistic evolutionists who claim that God set in motion a process which would lead to humans and nasty and vile things. But both have the clear problem that God created evil and sin and nastiness and suffering. This was Rosenhouse's point.

I would like to build on that and step ever-so-lightly into the realm of theology. Clearly the bible and Christianity define the nature of God. Those are our only sources for what the nature of God is. We certainly cannot determine the nature of God from independent sources. Nature and our (humanity's) own personal experiences cannot ascertain God's nature, because of the simple fact that we can never intersect with God. The only way to know the nature of God is what He intentionally reveals to us through super-natural interactions. The only problem with this, is the we (humanity) and nature have no means with which to filter this information, for we have no access to the supernatural; we have no knowledge of the rules and "nature" of the supernatural. All we have is nature itself.

This leads inevitably to two possible conclusions. The first is that religion (Christianity) must, by default, re-interpret the nature of God via the nature of humanity. Thus God is defined by human terms and given human characteristics. The second is that if the supernatural is undefinable because its rules and nature are by definition, unknowable, then it cannot be determined in any sense to be real or imagined. That is the exact definition of agnosticism. (As a side note, then atheism would be defined as saying that anything that is unknowable is not real until it can be shown to be real -- in other words atheism is the simple rejection of the existence of anything that cannot be proven real.)

I am interested solely in the first proposition. That God is supernatural and His nature is defined in the only way possible, via human terms and knowledge and experience. Thus any conception of God is a product of the incomplete knowledge and experience of humanity. I think it is then obvious to say that God can only exist in the natural realm because of humans. Humans place upon god their very own qualities and characteristics. Humanity knows of power, knowledge, justice, compassion, hatred, violence, meekness, and fealty. Thus those are the very qualities that humanity bestows upon their god. Humanity's god(s) is (are) simply super-sized expressions of humanity's own characteristics. In fact there are no qualities bestowed upon God (any god) which are completely non-present within humanity.

This, to me, is the most fascinating (and shall I say, damning) aspect of God; either God is severely limiting only to humanistic qualities, or there exists no qualities beyond the grasp of humanity. In other words, God is nothing but a "super-sized" human. God's qualities are all the perfections of all human characteristics. God can kill in a more perfect way than humanity, God can save in a more perfect way than humans. god is more powerful, more knowing, etc. But then have we not defined just what the supernatural is?

If the supernatural realm in which God resides is simply a drastic expansion of the qualities of the natural, then we are left with a clear theological problem. The supernatural realm cannot possess qualities with which we have counterpart. For example, time must be drastically expanded in the supernatural. But this leads to a real problem. Just like the problem of God being all good, but by default God has to allow evil to exist, God is all-powerful, but he does not have the power to simple will the devil out of existence. There is a limit to God's infinite powers. There must also be a limit to time. Again, this is all because we have seen that everything in the natural realm is greatly expanded in the supernatural realm if there is to be a supernatural realm at all. Also there can be nothing in the supernatural which isn't also represented in the natural realm, because we would be helpless to grasp it at all. Thus time itself must exist in the supernatural. And like power and goodness, it has its limits as well.

This means one thing. Time had to begin in the supernatural just as it did in the natural. It also means that God is a slave to time just as we are.

Thus: If we attribute to God qualities which we have as humans, and we have to limit those powers of God because if the powers of God were unlimited, then the natural world would not look like it does (and that is our only possible evidence at all). Then all attributes we give over to God must be similarly limited. But this means God is also a slave to time as well. God cannot be infinitely old. God had to have a beginning. This is certainly true in the same way other qualities of God are so limited. But if God had a beginning, then he had a cause too. Maybe that is the super-supernatural realm. I.e. the god that God worships.

But here is the crux. God by godly-constraint, has to allow evil and nasty things to exist, and He had to create them because He is the creator of all. God had to do this because he had to give humans free-will to choose between good and evil. They could not have free will if there was no choice to make. Thus God is responsible directly and absolutely for all the nastiness and evil and vile things. This is the blight on the supernatural chacter of God. For that is not all-good. The alternative is that humans do not have free will. Then the case is that either all humans go to heaven becuase they had no freedom of will to do evil, or those that did evil were specifically designed by God to be evil humans condemned to eternity in hell. In the second case God is a monster who deserves no respect and is completely deviod of even the most basic morals of humanity. In the first case, God created beings who are irrelevant, their lives have no meaning whether they are mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler.

If God created evil and allows free will, then the morality of the will is dependant on humanity, not on God, because God is just as limited and flawed as all humanity, just on a magnified scale.

See how confusing that all is when you want to bring the supernatural into the natural, especially when you can only claim to know about the supernatural those things which you already know about the natural.

Isn't it all much simpler when you only pay attention to those things which you can know and determine? That being the purely natural world. And that world has no god.

[Update:] As an analogy, suppose you are an American. You live by all the rules of America. You are well informed of the culture and livelihood of America. Now you come across an obvious foreigner. That person also abides by all the rules and laws of America. You also learn that that person has lived in America since their onset of adulthood. But you are unconvinced. You want to research that person. You find that that person has never been arrested, and in fact, has been a part of catching the bad guys in America. You would judge that person to be just and moral by the rules and laws of America. But heres the thing, you do not know his country of origin, you do not know if that person is a criminal in that country at all. You have no idea what the laws and morality of that country is, so you has no means to judge or determine the goodness of that person based on the rules and laws of his country of origin. You only have the powers and knowledge of your own country. That is God. We can only judge him and evaluate him based on our own knowledge and experience. And that means that we have an independent means and method with which to judge God. Thus god is subject to our rules and knowledge and experience. Not the other way around. That means we have no need for a God in the first place. So not only do we have no way of knowing if he really exists, we do not need him in the first place.

Faith, Prayer and Humanity

CNN has an update on the story about the parents of a girl with diabetes who died because they decided to pray for her rather than send her to the doctor.

As always, PZ Myers has more on this tragic event.

I would point (maybe wag...) my finger at any believing Christian (I have Rhology, in particular, in mind) and ask them point blank whether they would take cold hard, fact-based, tested, secular, humanistic, agnostic science and medicine over the fantastical sky-fairy god of their very own religion when it comes to health and well-being of their children. If they say science and medicine, then I have to wonder just how much they really do believe in their magical sky daddy they call Jesus/God. If they say faith and prayer, then I have to wonder how much they really love their own children, since they could so easily be cured via human knowledge and ingenuity but are assigned certain death if faith and prayer is used.

Let us go back to the CNN article and look at a few statements of the Jesus-believing parents and friends. I really am curious as to just how out of the mainstream of Christian thought they really are:

Family and friends had urged Dale and Leilani Neumann to get help for their daughter, but the father considered the illness "a test of faith" and the mother never considered taking the girl to the doctor because she thought her daughter was under a "spiritual attack," the criminal complaint said.

Test of faith. Sounds reasonable enough from a Christian perspective. But we are presented with a tangible proof of just why it is not. A girl -- a young daughter -- needlessly died from an easily treatable and controllable disease simpy because the parents chose to trust God over trusting humans and human knowledge. Just look at what that faith in God got the girl; death. If this does not make you feel bad then I can only say that you are hollow and rotten inside. If you have faith in God them you have to side with the parents. That makes you a horrible person as well. If you trust in faith in God, but still would take your very own child to see a doctor, then you are admitting that faith in God is fantasy, and mere shadow in the light of reality. The whole "spiritual attack" is but icing on the cake. For if you are Christian, then you have to accept evil forces at work. And denying faith or prayer in lieu of human ingenuity and humanistic healing, then you have to deny the whole dark side of your belief. And in doing so, then you cannot accept Jesus, for his act was one of fighting an evil force, and not one of making an empty gesture in the face of only one being -- God (no devil).

According to court documents, Leilani Neumann said in a written statement to police that she never considered taking the girl, who was being home-schooled, to a doctor.
"We just thought it was a spiritual attack and we prayed for her. My husband Dale was crying and mentioned taking Kara to the doctor and I said, 'The Lord's going to heal her,' and we continued to pray," she wrote.

So how did all that praying work out? One dead little girl. Look at it this way: With medical help and friends and family praying, many children are healed and live. With praying alone, all children die. What is the random variable there? Medicine and science. Those things create healing. Prayer never does.

I wish the moral to this story was that faith and prayer are useless and superstitious wastes of effort and only through human knowledge and ingenuity can people live better lives. But you and I know that this will not be the real case. For all Christians will simply say that there was not enough faith or prayer present, or that it "was not God's plan" or some other fantastical baloney. They will never get it. They will never see that religion harms, it never helps. Especially in cases where simple human intervention and reality-based knowledge would help.

I do this, I write and I stomp my feet, because if I can get get even a few Christians to realize the absurdity of their beliefs (even if they are liberal Christians) and reject that, and accept real-world and truthful knowledge, then so many of our little tragedies (like this one) could be avoided. For accepting personal responsibility for ones own actions makes those actions much more personal, over attributing them to some magical sky fairy and absolving oneself of all personal responsibility. That is why atheistic morality is now and always will be far superior to any religious-based morality; because it is solely and uniquely based in the personally responsible category. No atheist can claim they did what they did because some sky daddy wrote it down in some musty old book.

God's Real Plan Revealed

PZ Myers has a post up over at Pharyngula about a family of Christian missionaries. In this he cites a story about a plane crash and its survivors as well as fatalities. PZ's take on it is dead right. I encourage you to go over and read it.

But I am seeing some subtext here, and I thought it important enough to point out. We now have an actual peek into just what "God's Plan" really is.

"God's Plan" is to kill off all those who are not evangelical, fundamental, or Christian missionary types. For if there is no one left to preach to or convert, then all those missionaries' work is done and they can all go home and watch tv for the coming of Christ. For the more dead, the fewer there are to convert.

For the survival of a family of missionaries is much more important than the deaths of dozens of people for which God had no plan.

Rhology and Morality

A while back Rhology challenged me to respond to a thesis of his. I did. He then challenged me to respond to a moral situation. I did, here.

He then wrote a non-rebuttal rebuttal (read the comments --ignore mine for obvious reasons -- they are hilarious). I responded on his blog. But along the way I re-challenged him to examine his theistic morals/morality.

His response:

..Crickets chirping..

I really did not think my meager challenge would amount to much, because of its sheer simplicity. But maybe simplicity is the hardest thing to refute after all. Occam's razor and all that.

Here was my simple and meager challenge:

And finally. Here is my situation. You believe in the Ten Commandments I presume. One of which is, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Now presume your neighbor is married. His wife comes to your door; she is bloodied, barely conscious, obviously been hit by a baseball bat (or other blunt instrument) and says to you, protect me, my husband is trying to kill me. So you bring her in and give her all the aid you can, and call the police. Then your neighbor comes banging at your door, he has a gun and a bloody baseball bat. "Do you know where my $%@$#$ wife is?" Do you bear false witness against the wife and tell your neighbor, "No." Or do you tell the truth that she is inside (and the police are coming)? Sometimes lying is a good thing, but you would never know that from the Ten Commandments. Another example is a parent who sexually abuses their child. Should that child submit to the abuse and be right under the fifth Commandment that all children should "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you". Or should the child dishonor their parent and bring to light the evil that that parent does and therefore violate God's unequivical dictate?

Because it was buried within the comments of a post Rhology had been responding to, but is now ignoring, I will assume he did not read it. So I will pull it forward and open it up to everyone. What are your thoughts?

A New Perspective on an Old Meme

As you may well know, I am fascinated by Christian thought, rationalization, and theology. I read as much as I can, given my resources (of course). I generally prefer reading and learning about the more popular Christian sources -- in spite of the fact that I write about the more, shall we say, extremist, sources. Very rarely do I ever write about, say, liberal Christian views or theology.

There is a reason for that. It is not really interesting. The differences between liberal Christianity and secularism is almost undetectable. The only difference being the source of the supernatural (or lack thereof). Morality and life-views are almost identical outside of this mysterious supernatural realm. Giving liberal Christians, or even lapse Christians a pass is hardly difficult to fathom. They view the real world much as agnostics and atheists do: It is all up to us to make our lives better; some magical fairy sky-god isn't going to do all our work for us.

Which leads me to this abrupt realization. I, throughout all my reading journeys, have never come across something so stark and so startling as this statement:

Many religions describe many different gods. Buddhism has Buddha and other gods; Islam has Allah; Hinduism has 300 million different gods from which to choose; and while Judaism’s god seems very similar to the Biblical version, Judaism’s god is one that requires little faith and lots of works. Any god that is different than God Himself is a false god, and there are many in the world today. [emphasis mine]

In other words, there is no Judeo-Christian God. There is a Jewish god and the one, true, Christian God. The two are not the same.

I just wonder if the god of the epistle writer, James, is not the one true God either...

18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? [James 2:18-22 NKJV]

James seems to be saying that gobs of faith (as was shown by Abraham) and lots of works. But then again James only wrote one minor epistle in the New Testament, so he can be ignored.

Oh and the source of that quote? Jason Lovelace in his piece, "The False Gods of this World" over at Rapture Ready.

Would it be bad of me to remember this and pull it out any time some Christian mentions "Judeo-Christian God" or uses the Jewish (i.e. Old Testament) bible as proof that Jesus is part of some trinity of gods which includes said Jewish "God"?

Rhology's "Scenario"

In my post "Atheist Morality" Rhology challenged me to this scenario: (Which he gave me permission to copy in its entirety, and is shown below.)

This is probably my last post before the Christ-mas holiday takes me away from the computer for a while. Merry Christ-mas!I'll celebrate by posing a slightly disgusting question for atheists to answer as they like:

Situation: You are traveling in a foreign land and go to an out-of-the-way picturesque temple. There you meet a native, there to offer religious piety. He finishes lighting
his candle and then greets you, speaking serviceable English. Edit: He introduces himself as Tkalim.He offers to tell you a little about his religion. You, being the courteous gentleman/lady you are, invite him to proceed. He tells you that he and his whole society worship 5 gods of the fish, air, earth, fire, and tree. He then tells you that part of his worship devotion is to go with all the men of his society to steal girls between the ages of 3-8 years from their families in the nearby large city, take them into the jungle, and rape them.

Once raped, the tribesmen leave the girls in the jungle as an offering to the tree god. He says he knows of no girl that has ever returned to the city to her family.

Once he finishes his story with calm voice and clear eyes, he falls silent.

I have something to say to him about this practice. What would YOU say? How would you try to explain that what he is doing is wrong? *Is* what he is doing wrong? On what basis?

Interesting.

I am sorry, I meant boring! First of all just how stable would this be as a moral imperative? Certainly the members of the society who had their girls stolen would be quite (and I say this delicately) pissed. Surely after enough time they would retaliate. This retaliation is what we commonly know as war. They would have a good reason, their girls were being raped. Now is war moral? If your self-preservation is on the line then yes. Clearly we have a situation where war is moral. But what of the other side. They were following a "moral" practice and now are fighting for their lives because of it. Is that moral? No. Because win or lose, they lose valuable resources: their men, their religious practice during the war, and much time and effort which could have been avoided.

As for the coda. How horrible is that for those on the side of morality? They say it is acceptable because none of the victims complained?? Read the Bible. It is rife with victims who never complained (most likely because they were women or children who were stoned to death); and yet died because of moral tenets that everyone today would call vicious and horrid (killing children because they were disobedient, killing virgin women because they were raped and their rapist wanted nothing to do with them, etc.)

Morality is sick when it comes from any supposed supernatural outside-of-human-experience source. Morality only becomes useful when it stands the test of time and human experience. That is precisely why things such as incest, slavery, and plural marriages are now immmoral when they used to be moral within the framework of the Bible, and things like interracial marriage and freedom are now moral when they used to be immoral.

I don't make these rules or decide morality. And it certainly isn't the Bible either. Society does, and it does so only after time and (human) experience determines it as moral. Morality is uniquely human, even in Christian and Jewish circles (which claim to use the same faux source -- God).

Oh, and as for any argument that I ignored/failed to respond to/provided no substance for, Rhology's actual argument. Take what I offer as fair and balanced. For I have never once claimed that because the bible never says anything about genetic manipulation or cloning it is ignoring or providing no substance on those specific issues. (I simply claim that the bible is a work of its times and that it predated real science -- thus has nothing to say on it at all).

Update: Rhology, I never imagined that you would consider your very own duaghters being raped a moral act, if that rape was performed in the name of some god (any god at all), whom of supposed supernatural origins, could never be contested via human experience that rape is bad. In other words, would you Rhology, allow your daughters to be raped if God ordained it, but would call it immoral if some other god ordained it, both being via supernatural origins.

Still Waiting for that Fabled Christian Love of Enemies

Jesus said:

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighborand hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. [Matthew 5:43-45 NKJV]

As an atheist I only guessed that I was an "enemy"... But I have to wonder now. For I have gotten no love from any Christian at all. Not one person took the trouble to send me any of the pro-Christian apologetics materials I requested in this post. I can only guess that either spreading the gospel of Jesus is a false canard for Christianity, or virtually all of today's Christians are not actually Christ-like and all are just as hell-bound as I am.

But as I am a kindly soul, I am willing to offer second chances. You can make up for your sins against Jesus' teachings here and now. Here is the list of Christian materials I desire to read and learn from:

First up is this tome from Coral Ridge Ministries. Who Is This Jesus; Is He Risen?- Book and DVD

Next is the book by Norman Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback)

Otherwise I would love to have copies of Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ and C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Both of which I have read before but were not my copies and I had to give them back.

Please email me for my mailing address. If you have ideas for some other books in the apologetics vein which you think would be useful, please let me know in comments.

P.S. I certainly appreciate more comments along the vein of Rhology's as they just do more to show how hollow, deceitful, and hypocritical many Christians truly (or should I say 'T'ruly) are. Rhology makes me proud to have given up Christianity and in its place embraced humanism.

Atheist Morality

A while back I had an email conversation with a commenter (ok, it was Rhology) here who refused to accept that it was possible that a person who lacked any god-belief could be a moral person. I thought I had answered his questions completely in these posts I had written. (and later in this post.) He had a specific question posed:

Resolved: Any system of morality within an atheistic worldview can be based on nothing more than personal or at most societal preference for its value judgments.

Now when I had written in my posts that all morality actually has its root in society, and that morals which help any given society survive and thrive were considered useful and therefore kept, but those which were destructive either ultimately killed off the society, or those morals were discarded before the society died off. Virgin offerings to gods, cannibalism, incest are all things which had been practiced in the past and because they made the society as a whole unstable, they were subsequently considered "bad" moral guides. In that if they were continued to be practiced, the society would suffer and die off. Then those "bad" moral guides later became immoral.

In the same way "good" moral acts became morality. Such as not murdering, not stealing, etc.

But what about intermediate moral acts? For example having many wives, concubines. Those moral acts of millennia (or even centuries) ago are today now immoral. But just how much impact on society did those acts ever really have? Sure many other immoral acts occurred as a result (murder, for example), but their impact on society was not significant. For those civilizations continued to grow and thrive. It was only later when those intermediate moral acts became burdonsome in some way -- maybe financially, that they became, over time, immoral acts.

Even in today's society we have brand new issues which can go either way, they can be moral or immoral. Stem cell research, abortion, medical technology keeping a body alive long after the mind dies (Terri Schiavo), assisted suicide, same sex marriage. All these issues hang in the balance today.

So now we have a historical perspective with which to judge morality, specifically the morality of these types of issues. Let us take probably the easiest example, same-sex marriage. What is there that makes it appear to be immoral? Nothing. In no way does a man marrying another man harm anyone. It does not harm the children of that marriage in any way. It does not harm the marriages of the couples who live next door to that married couple, and it does not harm their children either. So if there is no harm caused to anyone, then how can it be construed at all to be immoral? If morality is defined to be that which strengthens society, then it is completely moral. If it neither harms nor hurts society, then it is intermediately moral, but still moral based on its effects on society. If it is immoral, then it harms society.

Marriage has changed drastically throughout history, we all know that is a fact. Plural marriage and concubines have been very common in history and have been accepted as moral. But that attitude has changed many times through history to where it is today, no multitudes of wives and the acceptance of concubines, just one woman and one man. But that is not the only way marraige has changed. Consider how just a few decades ago, even the one man-one woman structure had its limits as well. Both had to be of the same race, both white or both black. In many southern states (I refer you to Virginia v. Loving) there were laws against interracial marriage. This was only decades ago. Then the moral concept of marriage changed once again to allow for that new addition to the family of marriages -- interracial marraiges were now moral. So why can't the definition of marraige change once again? Why cannot men marry men and women marry women?

What is at the core of marriage after all? What makes marriage moral? Well love is the most obvious thing. But is it really the foundation of marriage after all? I think not, because even today there are many marriages that are "arranged" that is the parents of the couple decide that they should be united in marraige and the couple has no input in that decision -- they are essentially forced to marry. The foundation of marriage must be more basic than that. It must deal with providing a nuclear unit within a society that society can trust will act for its own best interests without intervention from the society. A family then is a marriage and offspring. The family acts as its own micro-society. Thus many of the duties and responsibilities of that larger society are offloaded onto the family and the marriage at its center. Thus the structure and scope of the marriage is irrelevant to its morality as long as it fulfills that duty and obligation: take responsibility of the offspring and the family unit from society and place it within the confines of the marriage. All marriages throughout history meet this requirement. MArriage types that do not are therefore immoral (i.e. the infamous Rick Santorum man-boxturtle marriage comment). So a same sex marriage would only be considered to be moral in this framework.

Now I am ready to respond to the thesis presented me and how I would respond. I think that all morality, no matter what its current source, is at its very core based on the framework I have just sketched out; that it is always, and always has been, based only on what works for society. Even in the most religious of mindsets, it has always only come down to society. The bible, and its moral code is the perfect example. No matter how a Christian wants to explain it, the fact is that the bible was the result of cultural moral ideals and was written as such, that a god was tacked onto it is not relevant. That biblical society in those biblical times found moral guides which worked for them and they encoded those morals in the bible. So even if one wanted to claim that all morality can only come from God, all their evidence is societal -- i.e. the biblical society surrounding the times of the bible. It is still society that determines what is moral and the way they do that is by sticking with what works and changing what does not. Clearly murder does not work, so it is immoral. But marriage works and it works in many different incarnations, so it is moral.

Therefore the real thesis in the original statement: "Resolved: Any system of morality within an atheistic worldview can be based on nothing more than personal or at most societal preference for its value judgments." is that atheism has nothing to do at all with morality. Atheism is simply a lack of god-belief (it is not a religion). But if lack of god-belief and God belief are not the actual root of morality then the thesis statement is a moot question. Atheism has no more to do with morality than does religion.

Now all of you must be stratching your heads at this point and saying to yourselves, "Hey wait a minute, both atheism and religion impact and influence what is considered morality." Yes that is true. They both do influence or impact morality. They can both even change morality. But the catch is that if either one changes morals in such a way that those morals now harm society, the morals must either therefore be altered again to protect society or the society dies. Which brings us full circle to the incontravertable fact that morals are the product of a healthy society, and not the other way around; a healthy society is the product of morals.

Thus my thesis is this: Both atheism and religion can influence morals in one direction or another; but society, by its long term health and stability, alone determines whether those moral changes are good or bad. Society is the key to morality, not religion or atheism.

Please note: In this essay I have used the words "good", "bad", good, and bad. I would attempt here to define them quickly and easily, but I do not think that is possible. Religion has a specific way of viewing "good" and "bad" through the lense of some magical sky daddy handing down what is good and bad. Ironically enough, for the most part they happen to coincide with the more common definitions of good and bad. I think theists getting them mixed up with holy and evil is the only real departure between the definitions. but that is another topic altogether.

Postscript: Maybe you noticed, but if you did not, this post had nothing to at all with the morality of an atheist. But I hope that it was understood that morality has nothing at all to do with religion or the lack thereof. I concede that both theists and atheists often attempt to change moral standards, but the standards themselves are neither based in a belief in a god or a lack of belief in a god.

New Religion Survey Out

The AP, via CNN, has an article out about a new survey of religious attitudes in the US. The survey was quite large for this type -- 35,000 Americans were interviewed. The main point:

While much of the study confirms earlier findings -- mainline Protestant churches are in decline, non-denominational churches are gaining and the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing -- it also provides a deeper look behind those trends, and of smaller religious groups.

Some of the interesting numbers:

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates the United States is 78 percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority Protestant nation, at 51 percent and slipping.
More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey found. Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of Protestantism to another, the number rises to 44 percent.
One in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a religious institution.
[...]
The majority of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of the overall population -- describe their religion as "nothing in particular," and about half of those say faith is at least somewhat important to them.
Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.
Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from the "unchurched," the survey found most converts to evangelical churches were raised Protestant.

Obviously there is a lot of meat in this survey, and the story itself is rather dry, so here is my rather humble opinion.

First off, I really have to wonder just how many people are completely honest in a survey like this, and what is the methodology to check that... I mean only one in 25 Americans is an atheist? Whereas, the number of self-identified Christians certainly seems about right -- it is in line with most all previous surveys indicating about 80% of Americans are Christian. Secondly, the battle for the minds of those learning about their place in the world and universe, are turning away from religion, calling themselves unaffiliated with religion.

But my main thought on all this is rather simple. The numbers presented here does bode well for the future of atheism/agnosticism. The reason is that if more and more Americans are switching their religious affiliations within Christianity, and/or becoming one of those "nothing at all" people, then eventually religion will recede. This must necessarily happen because as people switch affiliations, things they once believed or were taught will then become "wrong" in the new religious doctrine. And as those people begin to wonder why they will realize that the source of all that confusion is the only source for their religion, the bible. And if the bible is such a muddled mess, maybe it could just be wrong.

And if it could be wrong, then those people would be much more likely to listen to the rationale behind atheism/agnosticism.

Update: Rob Boston has a different and interesting take on this survey. His background is roughly similar to mine -- Catholic family, siblings change religions -- and I think adds another dimension to why I wrote what I did in this post, and why I write what I do on this blog.

Christian Morals Put into action -- Finally

We have discussed the morality found in the bible -- specifically the New Testament -- many times here. When a person actually reads the New Testament specifically for the reason of learning the moral tenets of Christianity; many are found which are today cast aside by even fundamentalist Christians.

However, today we have one example of a group of Christians who actually adhere to one New Testament moral largely ignored by all others. Saint Mary's Academy in Kansas apparently read the epistles of Paul and decided to live by its dictates.

Kansas activities officials are investigating a religious school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.
The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.
The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.

The biblical reason for this is:

And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be
in silence. [1 Timothy 2:12 NKJV]

Here we clearly have a case where the morality espoused in the bible today is now considered immoral by all rational and moral people. The irony, it burns...

This only one small example of where the supposed perfect morality of the bible is actually exactly the opposite of the actual morals of civilization.

As a side issue, the group that is in charge of this school, the Society of St. Pius X, has been excommunicated from the Catholic church. The apostolic letter from Pope John Paul II is here. Reading this letter shows just how screwed up the entire Christian Church (not just Catholics) truly are. (But this is another topic for another time.)

Henry Rollins and Anger

Atheists are almost always described as "angry" by Christians. In reality, that is about as true as atheists describing all Christians as "deluded" because of their magical sky-god beliefs. However, there is a grain of truth to both perceptions. I don't think I need to go into my reasons for accusing Christians of any form magical delusion; they are enumerated throughout my blog. But I will consider the Christian claim of angry atheists. Henry Rollins is angry:


Penn & Teller and their "Bullshit" series also shows flashes of "anger."


But what is atheist anger really?

Christians may desire to portray it as anger against God; thus "proving" that atheists actually do believe in God but simply want to deny him. What we see in reality is that atheists are angry because there is nothing to religion outside ritual and tradition. Atheists are angry because religion causes as much misery in the world as it does good (if not more). And atheists are angry because they (we) cannot fathom how religion still exists and is trumpeted as superior to human trial and knowledge. (The bible is after all nothing but ancient human trial and knowledge.)

Atheists are angry because we are told that we are inferior because we lack faith in magical sky-god beliefs.

Interesting Bible Trivia

Here is a quick quiz for everyone: What is the one Commandment (out of the 'traditional' Ten Commentments) That Jesus Christ Himself did not break? Please consider the four gospels and the Acts in your answer.

If you guessed "graven image" then you are correct. Jesus lied, murdered, coveted, dishonored his parents, blasphemed, failed to keep holy the Sabbath, stole, held up other gods besides God, and committed adultery through lust.

So go check this post out by Ed Brayton. 'Relative' and 'Absolute'? I think someone needs to go to someone more logical than Christianity to define those terms.

I mean if both eating shellfish (like lobster, crab and shrimp) and homosexuality were both 'abominations' to God in Leviticus, but suddenly in the time of Jesus, eating anything was now acceptable but being gay was still wrong proves that 'relative' is in the eye of the religious beholder... as is slavery and a black man marrying a white woman.

I guess killing falls in the same category: It is morally acceptable to kill ala war and the death penalty, but wrong to kill otherwise is absolute, but killing due to only justifiable war, and no death penalty is relative. Who would have guessed?

Discuss the absurdities.

[Update: In comments, Rhology challenged me on my claim that Jesus violated 9 of the 10 Commandments. He wanted me to cite references. So the following addition to this post is my response to that request.]

Rhology, you are correct, I should have given references to all this, but I was feeling lazy and figured it was all known and simply accepted. I had been explained all this when I grew up in private Christian schools. It is all in the gospels clear to see, and required explanation. Of course the reasons given then make no sense to me now because I am older and more rational. In fact the only broken commandment that is not explicitly stated as such is the lust/adultery and that dealt with Jesus and Mary Magdaline. (This was well before Da Vinci Code, Last Temptation of Christ and even Holy Blood/Holy Grail). So let's look at them one at a time and I will mention the specific Gospel verses which show Jesus breaking the given rule.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
Jesus claimed that he was God as a man. But Jewish law (i.e. the Old Testament) said there was only one God, Yahweh; and Jesus was not claiming to be Yahweh, but rather another version or entity of him. See John 5:24-26
Jews at that time believed that there would be a messiah, but they did not believe it would be God Himself in human form, and they certainly did not believe in any such notion as a "trinity" They believed in One God, not Three Gods in One.

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth
Jesus did once stoop to write in the dirt, using symbols known to no one. If they were the "writing" of heavenly bodies, then that could be considered graven images, but since it also could have been doodles in the dirt, then it cannot be considered a violation. Jesus is free and clear on this commandment. Anyone else, however who has a picture of Jesus, or of angels, or devils, or fish or whales or sharks is currently breaking this commandment willfully. See: John 8:5-7

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain
Jesus was crucified for blasphemy. I thought this would be completely self-evident. A man calling himself God is blasphemy. And Remember Jesus' last words upon the Cross:"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" See Matthew 27:46
Does that sound like a person talking to himself? At best, Christianity can claim this should be in the context of the "trinity" but no such concept was ever spelled out in the Old Testament. Only One God. So blasphemy it is.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
This is another one that I thought would be blatantly obvious. It is a story told in all three synoptic Gospels. See It here in Mark 2:23-28.
Note the implications of blasphemy here as well.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee
Again, this is another famous story out of the gospels mentioned in the synoptics. Jesus comes across his family; mother and brothers and sisters. He shuns them (rebukes is a better word) Telling your own mother to 'shove off' is anything but honoring her. See: Matthew 12:46-50
Also see this tale of Jesus rebuking his mother. It is the famous story of turning water into wine in John 2:1-4
Then check out his speech about family: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" See Luke 14:26
Does this sound at all like "honoring your mother and father"?

6. Thou shalt not kill
Another really obvious one here. Jesus died on the cross. He had the power to save himself. He chose to die instead. That is known as suicide. And suicide is killing. I leave it to you to find the appropriate references here.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
As I said before this is the only murky one here. There are a number of heretical sources which reference Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene, or just sleeping with her. But what I really find interesting are the not-so-veiled references to Jesus' homosexual activities. Only in the Gospel of John do you find references to a disciple, "the one whom Jesus loved". Now how creepy is that? You would think, that as his disciples, he loved them all. And furthermore, as a godhead, he would love all humanity -- equally. Yet there are these specific references to a specific person that he loved in a specific way. And that can only mean in a carnal sense -- sex. (Oh, and it was not Peter, either). See: John 13:23, John 19:26, John 20:2 -- this one is particularly creepy, John 21:7, and John 21:20

8. Thou shalt not steal
Jesus stole an ass. Stealing is stealing. Again this is another famous story. See: Matthew 21:1-3

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
Again, very well known. How many times in the gospels did Jesus refuse to tell the truth to the public, but said it in private to his disciples? He even went so far as to "shut up" some pesky demons who wanted to tell the truth to the people. Lying is lying no matter how its done. See for one example:
John 8:14 "Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true"
and John 5:31 "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true"

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's
Clearly Jesus never coveted any material things (except possibly Mary Magdalene), but he did covet one thing and that is the one thing he knew he couldn't keep; his life. Jesus pleaded with his Father that the crucifixion would "pass him by." Now considering everything that was at stake, according to the gospels, that was probably the most selfish act ever in the entire bible. "He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me" Matthew 26:39
And, "Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.”" Matthew 26:42
That is the biggie, but I can also present here as evidence the desire to steal that donkey that Jesus stole as coveting as well, but that really is not as grievous a sin as this one. Desiring another's donkey is nowhere near as selfish as desiring one's own life over that of all of humanity's souls. Now I understand that this also points out the absurd flaw inherent in this commandment; that desiring something is not really bad at all, especially if you don't follow through with that desire, but it is still listed as a sin against God greater than rape (which is not adultery) and abortion (which is not killing) or homosexuality or stem cell research. Oh, and what else is "coveting"? Today coveting is called "Keeping up with the Joneses". In other words, Capitalism. That is correct, The American Way, is anti-Tenth-Commandment.

Sometimes I really am saddened that I am so far ahead in biblical knowledge than those who profess to believe in the bible. I honestly thought all this was common knowledge..

Post Christmas mockery of Rapture Ready

I have written about RaptureReady.com before. ButI have to admit, that this particular article takes the cake. Britt Gillette writes how Jesus' birth was an actual fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy. He gives 10 examples. The obvious problem is that they are either wrong flat out, or refer to something totally unrelated to Jesus. This is the classic example of midrash, the retelling of an old story to remake it into something new. Use an out-of-context Bible verse to make it mean something it has no possibility of meaning. And this is done by biblical literalists? Irony, it seems, has no limit.

This is the list of Ten prophecies:
1. The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
2. The Messiah will be a descendant of Judah.
3. Great kings will pay homage and tribute to the Messiah.
4. The Messiah will be a descendant of David.
5. The Messiah will be born of a virgin.
6. Children will be killed in an effort to kill the Messiah.
7. The Messiah will be taken to Egypt.
8. The Messiah will be the Son of God.
9. The Messiah will be anointed by the Holy Spirit.
10. The Messiah will bring light to Galilee.

Just looking at this list, does anything jump out at you? Anything at all? If I only looked at this list, I would say that an ironclad picture of a very specific person was depicted. I mean, THE Son of God, will be born of a virgin, be the descendant of Judah and David (even though Judad is a place and David is a person) in Bethlehem, be honored by kings who travelled far, go to Egypt to escape the massacre of ALL male children, only to return and be consecrated by the holy spirit and be the light of Galilee. That certainly seems very specific, don't you think?

I would have to say that it only refers to exactly one person, and that person is described in the Gospels as Jesus of Nazareth; Jesus Christ.

Here is another narrative. What if I were a writer in the first century, trying to propagate my new religion. I had a wealth of knowledge and lore at my fingertips in the holy writings of the Hebrews, and I was myself a Hebrew fighting for the freedom of my own people. I could easily fabricate a hero that fit all that, and write about him in a manner that would inspire my fellow Hebrews.

So which is correct?

Well, so much has been written about these so-called prophesies, that it makes little sense to repeat it all here. Dan Barker has written about this is in concise way in his book "Losing Faith in Faith"

I have debated within my mind how best to show just how flawed this entire prophesy story really is. The truth is that the Bible itself proves this whole prophesy wrong, all ten points. But I ask you, I ask all believing Christians, just how many of these prophecies must be shown to be wrong, before the story of Jesus is demonstrated to be nothing more than a made-up retelling and recycling of old biblical passages? Britt seems to think that ten is enough to prove that the story of Jesus is real. So is refuting these ten enough?

I hope so:
1: Britt writes: "The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem". This seems like a clear enough prophesy. And clearly when you read the Gospels it is fulfilled. But look at Britt's citation. He uses the NLT (New Living Translation) a modern language translation (rather like the bible claiming Jesus actually said to his disciples, "hey, dudes, listen to your bra... I know what I'm talking about") Britt's quote:

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a
ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant
past.” Micah 5:2 (NLT) [actual link to NLT added by me]

Here it is in the KJV:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting [Micah 5:2 KJV]

Notice the difference? We went from thousands of Judah in the KJV to a "small village" in the NLT. Now do you really think that there were thousands of small villages in Judah? Certainly thousands of people makes more sense. And Bethlehem Ephratah was a person in the Old Testament, not a place. He is listed in the Chronology of Kings even. So how does a person in the Old Testament become a town after the time of Jesus, and this be considered prophesy?

2: "“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will obey.” Genesis 49:10 (NLT)" [Again I add the link to the NLT because Britt fails to do so]. So what about KJV?

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people [Gen 49:10 KJV]

Shiloh? Why is King James talking about a specific person, Shiloh, and not Jesus? Only by removing the specific reference to a very specific person, not Jesus, can this verse be made into a prophesy of Jesus. I guess here we have proof that lying for the benefit of Jesus is good and holy.

For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? [Rom 3:7 KJV]

Paul says that lying for the sake of God is good. Here we see that ignoring that this was a specific passage written about a specific person, Shiloh, is twisted and recast as a prophesy of Jesus. Maybe Jesus' middle name didn't start with the initial 'H' and was actually 'Shiloh'.

3. Even Britt's quote for this shows him to be wrong:

“The western kings of Tarshish and the islands will bring him tribute. The
eastern kings of Sheba and Seba will bring him gifts.” Psalm 72:10-11 (NLT)
[again, I added the link]

Does the Gospel mention anyone from the west bringing gifts? No. Only from the east.
Wrong is wrong, and if the west did not bring gifts then it is wrong. I don't even need to show why the quote is skewed and how it talks of something specific other than the Son of God. And I don't need to show the KJV quote either. This one speaks for itself as to its flaw. (Post Script: see Matthew 2:1-2) If east and west actually means east, then anything can mean anything: atheist means God-worshipper and Christian means Satanist. Sorry but making this fit the story is simply a lie, plain and simple.

4: “He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Luke 1:32-33 (NLT) [Again I add the missing link...]

Who knew that Israel calls Jesus Christ the king of Israel? (oh, and here is KJV of that passage)

5. The Messiah will be born of a virgin.

“All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel – ‘God is with us.’” Isaiah 7:14 (NLT)

And KJV:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Unfortunately, this was fulfilled in Isaiah's time, by Isaiah himself. At least according to him.

6. Children will be killed in an effort to kill the Messiah.

“This is what the Lord says: ‘A cry of anguish is heard in Ramah – mourning and weeping unrestrained. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted – for her children are dead.” Jeremiah 31:15 (NLT) [I added the link, surprised?]

This passage is a bit different. It clearly refers to something in its current time period. But more importantly, in the time of Jesus, nothing outside the Gospel is ever mentioned of any killing of Hebrew children, not in any historical source at all, be it Roman, Jewish, or Christian.

If even the early Christians ignore this as significant, then what value can it have as historical proof of prophecy? Especially given that the original Old Testament passage refers to a specific event that transpired.

7: “When Israel was a child, I loved him as a son, and I called my son out of Egypt.” Hosea 11:1 (NLT) [The obvious, I produced the link]

I guess the fact that this passage refers to Moses and the exodus means nothing. The fact that only Matthew mentions Jesus being in Egypt and all the other New Testament writers ignoring this seemingly important fact also means nothing. Funny how a reference to a specific thing can much later be picked up by a lone writer and reinterpreted to not be about what it was specifically written about, but actually be about something that no one else guessed it was about, and that makes it factual and real.

Amazing. Amazing how prophecy works. I guess Isaac Newton when he wrote about gravity, was actually prophesying about the current Iraq war. He was a great seer after all.

I don't even need to go to other translations to show how wrong this is.

8. The Messiah will be the Son of God.

The second psalm, recorded approximately 1,000 years before Jesus, prophesied that the Messiah would be the Son of God:
“The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: ‘The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today, I have become your Father. Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.” Psalm 2:7-8 (NLT) [surprise! I gave the link]

King James again makes it a bit clearer:

7I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Apparently, Jesus only became the inheritor at this point in time, and before this he wasnot in possession of all. But I guess then agian, it is entirely logical for a god to be all-powerful and the source of creation, but yet not actually possess that which he created. But as I am not a theologian, I guess that explains why I cannot understand how one can be perfect and all-powerful at the same time as not even possessing one's own creation.

9. The Messiah will be anointed by the Holy Spirit.

“And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 11:2 (NLT) [my link really]

Notice any changes?:

2And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; [KJV]

First I linked to the entire chapter of Isaiah. But more importantly notice how "spirit" is not capitalized? Isn't it odd that the third "person" of the Trinity is not even honored with having His (Its?) name capitalized? After all, the LORD is completely capitalized.

Secondly, the entire chapter speaks of something other than the life and times of Jesus. Since all those other things did not happen, then what can be said about this lone "prophecy" in verse 2? Not to mention that if I were one third of the Most Holy Trinity of The Godhead, the Holy Spirit, I would want at least the first letter of my name capitalized. Then again, the Holy Ghost was always the most unassuming member of the Trinity, not appearing in the story until the New Testament.

10. The Messiah will bring light to Galilee.

“Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will soon be humbled, but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light – a light that will shine on all who live in the land where death casts its shadow.” Isaiah 9:1-2 (NLT) [You guessed it]

This one is probably the most egregarious. The light of Galilee? What does Jesus himself say in the gospels?:

But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. [Mark 6:4 KJV]

Double negative aside, Jesus is saying that a prophet is shunned in his own countryside, Galilee. So what sense does it make to say that Jesus was the light of Galilee and was shunned by Galilee?

The two passages are congruent, they both speak of light. But they diverge critically. With Jesus, they see the light and reject it. But in Isaiah, they see the light and... multiply.

6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and
with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

I just wonder, is Israel a Christian Nation? If not, then Jesus is not promised ruler of Israel. But I suppose I am not looking at the bigger picture; that Jesus was not intended to be the ruler of Israel, but the ruler of the the world, and only in the sense that He was to be the Ruler of Christendom. I guess that puts me into the failed company of all the Old Testament Prophets who called for a new King of Israel.

No matter how you spin it. No matter what translation you claim. No matter how much you lie for Jesus. The truth always bears you out. And the truth is simple. There was nothing which prophesied Jesus before his time. Rewriting and midrash do not make a fictional story true after the fact.