See the link. Here are some ways to celebrate it...
Use a Bible as a door stop.
Use a Bible to make a Paper Mache bust of Darwin.
Listen to a skeptical podcast.
Read a chapter or two in a critical thinking textbook.
Enroll in a class on some aspect of science.
Tell someone who does not know, that you’re a skeptic.
Call up all your closest friends and relatives to tell them you’re a skeptic.
Write a letter to the editor about Ben Stein’s movie Expelled.
Become a member in a skeptical group or organization.
Go street witnessing with a copy of Origin of the Species in your hands.
Picket a church with a sign that says: “Smile, there is no Hell.”
April 30, 2008
Religious Mental Instability and the Will of God
Please God, Help Me!
One of the things I’ve noticed after 30 years as a Christian and a minister is the number of mentally ill people who desperately depend on the Biblical promises and myths to give their life meaning. When my high school psychology class visited the state metal hospital, I remember seeing many of the patients with Bibles and one patient grabbing hold of my arm and telling how wonderful Jesus had been to him. Before I graduated, I knew a boy name Rusty J. who, as a Baptist, would have wide mood swings from one month, trying to save every student in the school, to the next month cussing like a drunken sailor and picking fights.
Mentally instable people who are charismatic cult leaders have caused true believers to murder as well as commit mass suicide. A example of the former was the 1969 murders of 7 people in by the Charles Manson “family” based on his reading of the book of Revelation mixed with the Beatle’s song Helter Skelter to create a theology Manson construed to being the end times with an apocalyptic race war that the murders were intended to precipitate leaving Manson and his “family” to lead the new world order.
But the Bibles has given the mentally ill illusions of messianic grandeur, be it Jim Jones founder of the Peoples Temple who (full of drugs and Biblical ideals) lead 913 people including 276 child into his view of Heaven where all the believers would be waiting after everyone left this evil world with strychnine laced Kool-Aid.
Then there is the mental messianic figure of David Koresh whose 1993 understanding of Daniel and Revelation drawn from his theology rooted in Branch Davidian Biblical hermeneutics convinced 76 people (17 of which were held under the age of 12) were either forced to stay (the children) or stayed freely in a Biblical apocalyptic and prophetic end to history in Waco, Texas.
In 1997 a San Diego, Calf. Heaven's Gate Cult lead by Marshall Applewhite got ready to ride to Heaven in a space ship coming to get them behind the Comet Hale-Boop since, Applewood claimed that it was the “Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before It Is Recycled”. They purified themselves in the food they ate and six male members had even castrated themselves (Matt. 19: 12). Wikipedia states: “In preparing to kill themselves, members of the group drank citrus juices to ritually cleanse their bodies of impurities. The suicide was accomplished by ingestion of Phenobarbital mixed with vodka, along with plastic bags secured around their heads to induce asphyxiation. They were found lying neatly in their own bunk beds, with their faces and torsos covered by a square, purple cloth. Each member carried five dollars in quarters in their pockets. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike tennis shoes, and armband patches reading "Heaven's Gate Away Team." The suicides were conducted in shifts, and the remaining members of the group cleaned up after each prior group's death.”
While group suicide cults have often held the news headlines, personal religious mental illness has left its mark too. Such was the case of a 1982 high school valedictorian Andrea Yates, who, in June 2001 killed all five of her children by drowning the in a bathtub explained her “Christian action” to her jail psychiatrist, "It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell."(Wikipedia)
Just to night on the new here in South Carolina, a Florence 18 year old high school youth “Schallenberger was arrested April 19. Authorities say he bought materials to make several bombs and had written a journal detailing his plans to attack Chesterfield High School. The teen faces several state and federal charges, including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. That charge carries a possible life sentence if he is convicted.” (The Greenville News). When asked why he was planning to kill his classmates, he said so he could go to Heaven, stand before Jesus at the judgment at which time he would kill Jesus also.
While the Bible can inspired everything form Holy Rollers to Mountain Snakes Handlers to Faith Healers to Satan Worshipers, it has a very profound affect on the mentally unstable. It is at just such a juncture that the freedom to worship as one’s conscience dictates can mean the difference between life and death, not only for the cults true believer, but for innocence adults and children as well.
April 29, 2008
Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths
This Article covers Genesis 1:1-25 and compares it to older pre-existing Near Eastern creation myths of the universe and earth.
Using the principle that the greater civilization influences the lesser, this series of articles intends to falsify the claim that the Torah was given to moses by God and to show how syncretism(1) blended folklore(2) in the Ancient Near East and South-Southwest Asia as a result of the interconnectedness of the Ancients which was discussed in the first article of this series Interconnectedness of the Ancients(3).
This article begins with some historical background information intended to show that key elements of Hebrew scripture existed in several areas of the Near East and Southwest Asia prior to being Incorporated into scripture. Once the background information has been presented, it uses Genesis 1:1-25 as its point of reference. Because the focus of this article is the book of Genesis, it overlooks many similarities between the Egyptian(4), Mesopotamian(5) and Hindu(6) religions that are not incorporated into Judaism(7), and it overlooks aspects of the other religions that share concepts with Christianity(8) which came much later. It is my assertion that the more popular religions in the Near East borrowed from each other.
BACKGROUND: SOME IMPORTANT CIVILIZATIONS AND EVENTS
A list of Important Civilizations and events follows. I could not list all of the most important ones (such as the city-states) because I wanted to keep the article as short as possible. I tried to make a "snapshot" estimation of the positions of the largest civilizations to each other on the map. I recommend you scroll down and open the map at the bottom of the article in another window so you can reference it as you follow along. The map is meant to represent "initial conditions" of the LARGEST civilizations at the start of the second millennium and ignore the smaller nomadic, mountain and Arabian tribes present in the area. For example, the Persians lived in the mountains of Iran as early as 3000 BCE but they weren't organized to any significance.
* 8000 - 500 BCE - Vedic Religion in the Indus Valley
* 5000 - 300 BCE - Mesopotamia
* 4000 BCE - Estimation of the creation of the world as calculated according to Hebrew Scripture.(39)
* 4300-3300 BCE - Southern Levant, Canaan. The Ghassulian period created the basis of the Mediterranean economy which has characterised the area ever since. This region was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the late 3rd millennium (3000-2000) BCE. Although Neanderthals (from 200,000 BCE) and Homo Sapiens Sapiens (from as early as 75,000 BCE) occupied the same territory for thousands of years, it can't be classified as a civilization.(11)
* 3650 - 1100 BCE - Minoans (9)
* 3500 - 2000 BCE Sumer
* 3100 BCE Egyptian and Sumerian Languages develop.(18)
* 3150 - 31 BCE - Egypt and their Myths
* 3000 - 1500 BCE - Indus Valley (10)
* 2400 - 612 BCE - Assyria
* 2350 BCE - Traditional date for the global flood
* 2300 - 2100 BCE - Akkadian
* 2300 - 1000 BCE - Indo-Iranians, Andronovo (12)
* 2250 BCE - Traditional date for the tower of Babel and the catalyst for the differentiation of all the languages of the world.
* 1959 - 1659 BCE Babylonia
* 1920 BCE - Traditional date for when Abraham was approached by God.
* 1750 - 1180 BCE - Hittites (13)
* 1700 - Enuma Elish created
* 1550 - 1060 BCE - Mycenaean (14)
* 1550 - 1450 BCE - Moses traditionally thought to have lived
* 1500 - Exodus?
* 1150 - 1020 BCE David traditionally believed to have lived.
* 900 BCE - According to the Documentary Hypothesis, thought to be when the Jawist scriptures were written.
* 700 BCE to 1935 CE - Persia until it became Iran. (15)
- During the Second Millennium, when Abraham showed up, the Near East was a busy place. Here is a proposed map of 1300 BCE I presume done by a historian of sorts.(17). In The Second Millennium Indo-Aryans migrated into the the Indus valley(19). They brought with them the Sanskrit language and the Vedas. The Hindus up until the the Buddha (between 500-400 BCE) were very ethnocentric and concerned with ritual cleanliness. Only the priests knew the scriptures, they were called Brahmins, and were the source of this ethnocentrism. Their culture was more pastoral, less violent. I mention this because I notice many similarities between Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity and because to get to Mesopotamia from the Indus Valley, it would only take a little over a month of traveling along the coast on a raft. There has been discussion for over a century about the Hindu Origin of the Abrahamic religions(42).
OBVIOUS INCONSISTENCIES BETWEEN HISTORY AND THE BIBLE
- The Agricultural revolution was already underway in Mesopotamia when scripture says the world was created and human beings had already spread all over the world, even to the Polynesian Islands.
- Commerce and exploration by sea was already underway by the time of the Global Flood. Sea worthy ships capable of carrying cargo already existed and probably could have carried a crew with enough supplies to last a little over a month (or up to 40 days).
- There were already a multitude of languages by the time the Tower of Babel was destroyed.
BACKGROUND: TRAVEL TIME BY SEA VIA COAST OR OPEN SEA
Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer, set out to test his theory that South Americans had populated Polynesia using rafts(20). He was investigating reports from Spanish explorers to Peru that had been told legends about a "white race" that had been routed and escaped to the west on rafts. Heyerdahl theorized that they wound up in Polynesia and settled there. He made a raft to second millennium specifications which he named Kon-Tiki, set sail and after a 101 day, 4,300 mile (7,000 km) journey across the Pacific Ocean, Kon-Tiki smashed into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. Using Kon-Tiki's voyage as a baseline, 43 miles a day or roughly two miles an hour, comes out to about 1.5 knots an hour. To get from Oman to the Indus Valley which is 439 miles at 1.5 knots would be 12.19 days open ocean (http://www.dataloy.com/).
It would take a little over a month or up to 40 days to go from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia.
Persian Gulf properties(21)
* Max length - 989 km
* Max width - 56km
* Average depth - 50m
* Max depth - 90m
Gulf of Oman(22)
* Width: ~230 mi (370 km),
* Length: ~340 mi (545 km) long.
It connects with the Persian Gulf through the shallow Strait of Hormuz.
It would take a little over a month or up to 40 days to go from the lower Red Sea to the upper red sea.
Red Sea Properties(23)
* Length: ~2,250 km (1,398.1 mi) - 79% of the eastern Red Sea with numerous coastal inlets
* Maximum Width: ~ 306–355 km (190–220 mi)– Massawa (Eritrea)
* Minimum Width: ~ 26–29 km (16–18 mi)- Bab el Mandeb Strait (Yemen)
* Average Width: ~ 280 km (174.0 mi)
* Average Depth: ~ 490 m (1,607.6 ft)
* Maximum Depth: ~2,211 m (7,253.9 ft)
And using the length of the Red Sea as a standard, and a ruler, you can see for yourself that the distance from the coast of Africa to the Indus Valley would take a little over a month or up to 40 days.
And by the same standard, to get from Mycenea to Canaan, would be 15-20 days.
NEAR EASTERN CREATION MYTHS
A list of common themes in Near Eastern and South-Southwest Asian creation myths(24) follows.
1. Some Gods pre-exist, or self-create.
2. Creation is done by acting on some sort of primordial matter, in a state of chaos, which is often represented by the Sea. The Sea is big, uncertain, frightening, unmanageable, destructive and a source of chaos.
3. Creation is done through conflict, between god and chaos where chaos is represented as some sort of sea monster. The God kills the chaos monster uses the body of the monster to create the ordered cosmos. The God and the chaos monster exist before everything else. In the Old Testament in Job(25), a Leviathan(26) is discussed and it is a sea monster which God can and does overpower.
4. Creation is the result of a Sexual act. Gods in human form have sex and make other gods. Sometimes Gods have sex with Humans.This type of thing happens in Greek and Egyptian mythology. In the Enuma Elish(27,28), Gilgamesh was part God part human, and went on to be king. It turns out there was Historical Gilgamesh. Obviously the kings name was inserted in the story to Legitimate him. In the old testament we have mention of the Heroes of old (Nephilum)(29) that were the result of supernatural beings mating with human women.
5. Creation is the result of spoken word identifying and controlling the essence. It requires only a single god. In ancient languages, breath, wind and spirit were conveyed by single word. In Hebrew scriptures god spoke the universe into existence, breathing out a word giving it spirit, giving it life. In Greek, the Logos existed prior to all things and in Hindu, the God spoke the Universe into existence with the word AUM(33).
Egyptian Creation stories seem to be indigenous to a City or Region. They can be found in books about creation myths or online(41). Because of their age, they have been modified to fit the culture that used them and are frequently contradictory. The best known Mesopotamian creation story comes from the Enuma Elish(27,28) of which versions have been found in Canaan, and in modern day Iraq and was very well known in that area. Variations of portions have been found in many more places. Hindu Creation Stories come from the Vedas and were evidently a composite of pre-existing Indus Valley civilization and immigrant Central Asian people commonly known as the Aryans. Hindu scriptures (Vedas) are so old that they have been modified as they were used by groups and therefore are sometimes contradictory.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT DATES IN NEAR EAST RELIGION
* 8000 - 500 BCE - Vedic Religion in the Indus Valley
* 3150 - 31 BCE - Egypt and their Myths
* 1700 - Enuma Elish created
* 1550 - 1450 BCE - Moses traditionally thought to have lived, creation of the the Torah.
GENESIS 1:1-25
* Egypt - Some Gods like Atum(30), Ptah(31), Amun(32) pre-existed.
-- Amun was believed to be not only king of the gods but also the divine essence found in all gods.
-- Amun is understood as “self-generated,” active in creation as the impulse of creative energy prompting the Ogdoad (a group of four pairs of gods and goddesses) into action.
* Hindu - The God Vishnu was pre-existant, grew a lotus flower from his belly and from that was born the God Brahma who created the other Gods.
* Mesopotamia - Enuma Elish begins with three uncreated Gods, the God Apsu, his consort Tiamat, and Mummu.
* Jewish - God pre-existed or was self-created
* The Universe and Earth were created by the Gods acting on some primordial matter, in a state of chaos. Common representations of Evil were the dark, chaos, and the sea because of its unmanageable nature, it potential for destruction, the fact that salt water wasn't drinkable and the Hebrews weren't sea faring people so they didn't understand the fundamental characteristics of the sea. Breath, wind and spirit were conveyed by a single word.
* Egyptian - Amun created the Ogdoad and they were the agents of creation. The Ogdoad existed initially as entities within the primordial sea.
-- Before creation Nun (Primordial chaotic waters) already existed as a principle of chaos.
* Hindu - The Golden Seed incubated on the waters of chaos
* Mesopotamian - Tiamat is a body of water, the bitter sea waters that support the earth.
-- Like the waters of the abyss, Tiamat is formless and exerts power without purpose.
* Egyptian- Ptah was worshiped from the early dynastic era, but his role as the patron of artisans (for example, carpenters, woodworkers) came later. Ptah creates by speaking a word, giving spirit to a divine idea and “breathing” it into being.
* Hindu - Some Hindus believe that the universe created from Sound. The sound was AUM(33). Each letter is the sound of a God. It is the sound of the three foundational gods, the Trimurti(40), ("The Great Trinity" Brahma(34), Shiva(35) and Vishnu(36)) as One. Three gods make up one which is similar to the Christian idea of the Trinity. In reading the Vedas, ancient Hindu scripture, it is customary to start with the word AUM and end with the world AUM. Similar to the Christian word and usage of Amen. Sound is very important to the Hindu gods. Similar to Logos, it regulates moral order, ritual, morality. Sound and Ritual ceremony was connected to the cosmic structure, morality and moral activity. The Vedas(37), were a collections of prayers, wisdom literature (but not stories like the Old Testament) that could only be handled by Brahmin(38) (Priests) and were thought to be lethal to non-priests. The ears of a non-priest would burn if they came in contact with their sounds. In the beginning, it was considered heresy to try to capture the Vedas in writing, however, the influx of outsiders and the potential for their corruption caused someone to write them down. The Vedas were not written down until around 600 BCE and not translated into English until the 18th or 19th centuries.
And now we have the ordering and organization of things which follows closely the order or creation in the Enuma Elish.
* Egyptian - A few myths cover this in different ways. Geb and Nut were separated to make the earth and the sky.
* Hindu - They have few myths that cover this it different ways. The golden egg separated and each have half made the the earth and the sky. Or one of the Gods bodies was sacrificed (concept similar to Mesopotamian god that was killed to make people and the Christ that was sacrificed for the benefit of humans) and divided up to make the earth, cosmos and people.
* Mesopotamian - Finally, Marduk smashes Tiamat’s (waters of Chaos) head and splits her body in two to form the heavens and earth.
Egyptian - In the midst of Nun, Atum stood on the Benben, a primeval pyramidical hill that arose out of the waters
At this point (Genesis 11-25) God created the rest of the vegetation, animals, sun, moon, and Man. The Hebrew scriptures diverge with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian gods and their more violent, less nurturing natures. The Hebrew God is more like the Hindu gods in that he is more part of the creation, has created the cosmos for humans, however the Hebrew god is not as much a part of creation as the Hindu Gods.
Myths are a reflection of the culture they belong to. The remarkable thing about the Indus Valley Civilizations are the lack of weapons relative to Mesopotamia and Egypt. They seem to be a more peaceful people. In the Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths man is created as lowly, flawed, subservient and savage by design. The creation of Humans will be covered in the next article.
CREATION MYTHS OF CONFLICT EMBEDDED IN THE BIBLE
In Job, Isaiah and Psalms there are characteristic elements of the conflict type of Creation story embedded. Since there is evidence of water-borne trade starting around 4000 BCE, It seems that sailors saw whales and relayed information about them that made their way into creation myths. The description in Job is similar to characteristics of commercial whaling. The description in Isaiah and Psalm 74:14 is more similar to creation myths, and Psalm 104:26 seems to describe a whale.
* Book of Job 3:8 "May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan "; NIV
* Book of Job 41
* Isaiah 27:1: "In that day,
the LORD will punish with his sword,
his fierce, great and powerful sword,
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea." NIV
* Psalms 74:14: It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert. NIV
* Psalms 104:26: 26 There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. NIV
This brings us to the creation of Man in Genesis 1:26.
To be continued......
"Snapshot" of Ancient Civilizations in the second millennium (2000 - 1000 BCE)
Land and Sea routes between the Civilizations
Quick Reference to material in the sources. For the Quick References, Wikipedia is used liberally because while academics don't consider Wikipedia definitive or acceptable as a source they do consider it generally good enough for quick reference. Please do not confuse quick references with the sources. The sources are where the majority of information came from.
1. Syncretism
2. Folklore
3. interconnectedness of the Ancients
4. Ancient Egypt
5. Mesopotamia
6. Hinduism
7. Judaism
8. Christianity
9. Minoans
10. Indus Valley Civilization
11. Southern Levant
12. Indo-Iranians
13. Hittites
14. Myceneans
15. Persia
16. Abraham
17. Eastern Hemisphere 1300BCE
18. List of Languages by first written accounts.
19. Indo-Aryan Migration
20. Thor Heyerdahl; Kon-Tiki
21. Persian Gulf
22. Gulf of Oman
23. Red Sea
24. Common Themes in Creation Myths
25. Job
26. Leviathan
27. Enuma Elish
28. Enuma Elish Text
29. Nephilum
30. Atum
31. Ptah
32. Amun
33. AUM
34. Brahma
35. Shiva
36. Vishnu
37. Vedas
38. Brahmin
39. Blue Letter Bible Chrono-Genealogical Table
40. Trimurti
41. Egyptian Myths
42. Hindu Origins of Abrahamic Religions
Sources
1. Human Prehistory and First Civilizations, The Teaching Company
2. Great World Religions: The Religions of India, The Teaching Company
3. Great World Religions: Hinduism (2nd Edition), The Teaching Company
4. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World, The Teaching Company
5. Ancient Near Eastern Mythology, The Teaching Company
6. The Book of Genesis, The Teaching Company
7. Great Figures of the Old Testament, The Teaching Company.
8. History 4A_ The Ancient Mediterranean World - Fall 2007, University of Berkeley
8. The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers
9. Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, The Teaching Company
RELATED INFORMATION
Joseph Campbell books on Amazon
The Early History of God, Mark Smith
Ancient Ships
* Maritime history - Wikipedia, the free encyclop...
* ancient ships
* Archaeology team helps find oldest deep-sea shipwrecks HarvardScience
* Ancient Egypt: Ships and Boats
* Ancient Phoenician Ships, Boats and Sea Trade
* early ways of navigating sea
Whale information
* Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries
Monsoons
* Monsoon African Connections: An ... - Google Bo...
* 538bc monsoon
Ancient History
* Ancient history
* First dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ancient Prehistory
* archaeolink.com archaeology, anthropology, social studies, general knowledge
* Evolution of Modern Humans: Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Hominid Species
Behavior
* Novelty Seeking Study
* NOVELTY SEEKING e-Review of Tourism Research
Interconnectedness of the Ancients
* Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Prisoners Dilemma
* Sea Level
* Monsoon Winds
* Ancient Sea Exploration
* Second Millenium shipwreck
* Whales Arabian Gulf
* Whales Turkey and Greece
* Whales Coast of Oman
* Leviathan
* Syncretism
* Creation Myths
Foundational Study, recommended reading
Cognition
- Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition) by Cialdini, Robert
- Persuasion: Theory and Research (Current Communication) by O'Keefe, Daniel J.
- How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
- Innumeracy : Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Social Consequences by John Allen Paulos
- Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science) by Martin Gardener
- Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
- Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought by David H. Fischer
- Conquering Deception by Nance, Jef
- General Psychology course from Berkeley
- Self and Society by John P Hewitt
- How We Know What Isn't So by Gilovich, Thomas
Christianity
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol. 1 by Josh McDowell
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol. 2 by Josh McDowell
- More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell
- Biblical Errancy: A Reference Guide by C. Dennis McKinsey
- Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures by Joe Nickell
- Mysterious Realms: Probing Paranormal, Historical, and Forensic Enigmas by Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer
Folklore
- Folklore in the Old Testament by Frazer by James George
- Gospel Fictions by Helms, Randel
- Holy Writ as Oral Lit : The Bible as Folklore by Dundes, Alan
- Old Testament Parallels (Fully Expanded and Revised) by Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin
- Don't Know Much About Mythology by Kenneth C. Davis
History
- The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin by Neil Asher Silberman and Israel Finkelstein
- The Bible with Sources Revealed by Friedman, Richard E.
- The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith
- The Historical Jesus & the Mythical Christ by Massey, Gerald
- The Secret Origins of the Bible by Tim Callahan
Using the principle that the greater civilization influences the lesser, this series of articles intends to falsify the claim that the Torah was given to moses by God and to show how syncretism(1) blended folklore(2) in the Ancient Near East and South-Southwest Asia as a result of the interconnectedness of the Ancients which was discussed in the first article of this series Interconnectedness of the Ancients(3).
This article begins with some historical background information intended to show that key elements of Hebrew scripture existed in several areas of the Near East and Southwest Asia prior to being Incorporated into scripture. Once the background information has been presented, it uses Genesis 1:1-25 as its point of reference. Because the focus of this article is the book of Genesis, it overlooks many similarities between the Egyptian(4), Mesopotamian(5) and Hindu(6) religions that are not incorporated into Judaism(7), and it overlooks aspects of the other religions that share concepts with Christianity(8) which came much later. It is my assertion that the more popular religions in the Near East borrowed from each other.
BACKGROUND: SOME IMPORTANT CIVILIZATIONS AND EVENTS
A list of Important Civilizations and events follows. I could not list all of the most important ones (such as the city-states) because I wanted to keep the article as short as possible. I tried to make a "snapshot" estimation of the positions of the largest civilizations to each other on the map. I recommend you scroll down and open the map at the bottom of the article in another window so you can reference it as you follow along. The map is meant to represent "initial conditions" of the LARGEST civilizations at the start of the second millennium and ignore the smaller nomadic, mountain and Arabian tribes present in the area. For example, the Persians lived in the mountains of Iran as early as 3000 BCE but they weren't organized to any significance.
* 8000 - 500 BCE - Vedic Religion in the Indus Valley
* 5000 - 300 BCE - Mesopotamia
* 4000 BCE - Estimation of the creation of the world as calculated according to Hebrew Scripture.(39)
* 4300-3300 BCE - Southern Levant, Canaan. The Ghassulian period created the basis of the Mediterranean economy which has characterised the area ever since. This region was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the late 3rd millennium (3000-2000) BCE. Although Neanderthals (from 200,000 BCE) and Homo Sapiens Sapiens (from as early as 75,000 BCE) occupied the same territory for thousands of years, it can't be classified as a civilization.(11)
* 3650 - 1100 BCE - Minoans (9)
* 3500 - 2000 BCE Sumer
* 3100 BCE Egyptian and Sumerian Languages develop.(18)
* 3150 - 31 BCE - Egypt and their Myths
* 3000 - 1500 BCE - Indus Valley (10)
* 2400 - 612 BCE - Assyria
* 2350 BCE - Traditional date for the global flood
* 2300 - 2100 BCE - Akkadian
* 2300 - 1000 BCE - Indo-Iranians, Andronovo (12)
* 2250 BCE - Traditional date for the tower of Babel and the catalyst for the differentiation of all the languages of the world.
* 1959 - 1659 BCE Babylonia
* 1920 BCE - Traditional date for when Abraham was approached by God.
* 1750 - 1180 BCE - Hittites (13)
* 1700 - Enuma Elish created
* 1550 - 1060 BCE - Mycenaean (14)
* 1550 - 1450 BCE - Moses traditionally thought to have lived
* 1500 - Exodus?
* 1150 - 1020 BCE David traditionally believed to have lived.
* 900 BCE - According to the Documentary Hypothesis, thought to be when the Jawist scriptures were written.
* 700 BCE to 1935 CE - Persia until it became Iran. (15)
- During the Second Millennium, when Abraham showed up, the Near East was a busy place. Here is a proposed map of 1300 BCE I presume done by a historian of sorts.(17). In The Second Millennium Indo-Aryans migrated into the the Indus valley(19). They brought with them the Sanskrit language and the Vedas. The Hindus up until the the Buddha (between 500-400 BCE) were very ethnocentric and concerned with ritual cleanliness. Only the priests knew the scriptures, they were called Brahmins, and were the source of this ethnocentrism. Their culture was more pastoral, less violent. I mention this because I notice many similarities between Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity and because to get to Mesopotamia from the Indus Valley, it would only take a little over a month of traveling along the coast on a raft. There has been discussion for over a century about the Hindu Origin of the Abrahamic religions(42).
OBVIOUS INCONSISTENCIES BETWEEN HISTORY AND THE BIBLE
- The Agricultural revolution was already underway in Mesopotamia when scripture says the world was created and human beings had already spread all over the world, even to the Polynesian Islands.
- Commerce and exploration by sea was already underway by the time of the Global Flood. Sea worthy ships capable of carrying cargo already existed and probably could have carried a crew with enough supplies to last a little over a month (or up to 40 days).
- There were already a multitude of languages by the time the Tower of Babel was destroyed.
BACKGROUND: TRAVEL TIME BY SEA VIA COAST OR OPEN SEA
Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer, set out to test his theory that South Americans had populated Polynesia using rafts(20). He was investigating reports from Spanish explorers to Peru that had been told legends about a "white race" that had been routed and escaped to the west on rafts. Heyerdahl theorized that they wound up in Polynesia and settled there. He made a raft to second millennium specifications which he named Kon-Tiki, set sail and after a 101 day, 4,300 mile (7,000 km) journey across the Pacific Ocean, Kon-Tiki smashed into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947. Using Kon-Tiki's voyage as a baseline, 43 miles a day or roughly two miles an hour, comes out to about 1.5 knots an hour. To get from Oman to the Indus Valley which is 439 miles at 1.5 knots would be 12.19 days open ocean (http://www.dataloy.com/).
It would take a little over a month or up to 40 days to go from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia.
Persian Gulf properties(21)
* Max length - 989 km
* Max width - 56km
* Average depth - 50m
* Max depth - 90m
Gulf of Oman(22)
* Width: ~230 mi (370 km),
* Length: ~340 mi (545 km) long.
It connects with the Persian Gulf through the shallow Strait of Hormuz.
It would take a little over a month or up to 40 days to go from the lower Red Sea to the upper red sea.
Red Sea Properties(23)
* Length: ~2,250 km (1,398.1 mi) - 79% of the eastern Red Sea with numerous coastal inlets
* Maximum Width: ~ 306–355 km (190–220 mi)– Massawa (Eritrea)
* Minimum Width: ~ 26–29 km (16–18 mi)- Bab el Mandeb Strait (Yemen)
* Average Width: ~ 280 km (174.0 mi)
* Average Depth: ~ 490 m (1,607.6 ft)
* Maximum Depth: ~2,211 m (7,253.9 ft)
And using the length of the Red Sea as a standard, and a ruler, you can see for yourself that the distance from the coast of Africa to the Indus Valley would take a little over a month or up to 40 days.
And by the same standard, to get from Mycenea to Canaan, would be 15-20 days.
NEAR EASTERN CREATION MYTHS
A list of common themes in Near Eastern and South-Southwest Asian creation myths(24) follows.
1. Some Gods pre-exist, or self-create.
2. Creation is done by acting on some sort of primordial matter, in a state of chaos, which is often represented by the Sea. The Sea is big, uncertain, frightening, unmanageable, destructive and a source of chaos.
3. Creation is done through conflict, between god and chaos where chaos is represented as some sort of sea monster. The God kills the chaos monster uses the body of the monster to create the ordered cosmos. The God and the chaos monster exist before everything else. In the Old Testament in Job(25), a Leviathan(26) is discussed and it is a sea monster which God can and does overpower.
4. Creation is the result of a Sexual act. Gods in human form have sex and make other gods. Sometimes Gods have sex with Humans.This type of thing happens in Greek and Egyptian mythology. In the Enuma Elish(27,28), Gilgamesh was part God part human, and went on to be king. It turns out there was Historical Gilgamesh. Obviously the kings name was inserted in the story to Legitimate him. In the old testament we have mention of the Heroes of old (Nephilum)(29) that were the result of supernatural beings mating with human women.
5. Creation is the result of spoken word identifying and controlling the essence. It requires only a single god. In ancient languages, breath, wind and spirit were conveyed by single word. In Hebrew scriptures god spoke the universe into existence, breathing out a word giving it spirit, giving it life. In Greek, the Logos existed prior to all things and in Hindu, the God spoke the Universe into existence with the word AUM(33).
Egyptian Creation stories seem to be indigenous to a City or Region. They can be found in books about creation myths or online(41). Because of their age, they have been modified to fit the culture that used them and are frequently contradictory. The best known Mesopotamian creation story comes from the Enuma Elish(27,28) of which versions have been found in Canaan, and in modern day Iraq and was very well known in that area. Variations of portions have been found in many more places. Hindu Creation Stories come from the Vedas and were evidently a composite of pre-existing Indus Valley civilization and immigrant Central Asian people commonly known as the Aryans. Hindu scriptures (Vedas) are so old that they have been modified as they were used by groups and therefore are sometimes contradictory.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT DATES IN NEAR EAST RELIGION
* 8000 - 500 BCE - Vedic Religion in the Indus Valley
* 3150 - 31 BCE - Egypt and their Myths
* 1700 - Enuma Elish created
* 1550 - 1450 BCE - Moses traditionally thought to have lived, creation of the the Torah.
GENESIS 1:1-25
* Egypt - Some Gods like Atum(30), Ptah(31), Amun(32) pre-existed.
-- Amun was believed to be not only king of the gods but also the divine essence found in all gods.
-- Amun is understood as “self-generated,” active in creation as the impulse of creative energy prompting the Ogdoad (a group of four pairs of gods and goddesses) into action.
* Hindu - The God Vishnu was pre-existant, grew a lotus flower from his belly and from that was born the God Brahma who created the other Gods.
* Mesopotamia - Enuma Elish begins with three uncreated Gods, the God Apsu, his consort Tiamat, and Mummu.
* Jewish - God pre-existed or was self-created
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
* The Universe and Earth were created by the Gods acting on some primordial matter, in a state of chaos. Common representations of Evil were the dark, chaos, and the sea because of its unmanageable nature, it potential for destruction, the fact that salt water wasn't drinkable and the Hebrews weren't sea faring people so they didn't understand the fundamental characteristics of the sea. Breath, wind and spirit were conveyed by a single word.
* Egyptian - Amun created the Ogdoad and they were the agents of creation. The Ogdoad existed initially as entities within the primordial sea.
-- Before creation Nun (Primordial chaotic waters) already existed as a principle of chaos.
* Hindu - The Golden Seed incubated on the waters of chaos
* Mesopotamian - Tiamat is a body of water, the bitter sea waters that support the earth.
-- Like the waters of the abyss, Tiamat is formless and exerts power without purpose.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
* Egyptian- Ptah was worshiped from the early dynastic era, but his role as the patron of artisans (for example, carpenters, woodworkers) came later. Ptah creates by speaking a word, giving spirit to a divine idea and “breathing” it into being.
* Hindu - Some Hindus believe that the universe created from Sound. The sound was AUM(33). Each letter is the sound of a God. It is the sound of the three foundational gods, the Trimurti(40), ("The Great Trinity" Brahma(34), Shiva(35) and Vishnu(36)) as One. Three gods make up one which is similar to the Christian idea of the Trinity. In reading the Vedas, ancient Hindu scripture, it is customary to start with the word AUM and end with the world AUM. Similar to the Christian word and usage of Amen. Sound is very important to the Hindu gods. Similar to Logos, it regulates moral order, ritual, morality. Sound and Ritual ceremony was connected to the cosmic structure, morality and moral activity. The Vedas(37), were a collections of prayers, wisdom literature (but not stories like the Old Testament) that could only be handled by Brahmin(38) (Priests) and were thought to be lethal to non-priests. The ears of a non-priest would burn if they came in contact with their sounds. In the beginning, it was considered heresy to try to capture the Vedas in writing, however, the influx of outsiders and the potential for their corruption caused someone to write them down. The Vedas were not written down until around 600 BCE and not translated into English until the 18th or 19th centuries.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
And now we have the ordering and organization of things which follows closely the order or creation in the Enuma Elish.
4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
* Egyptian - A few myths cover this in different ways. Geb and Nut were separated to make the earth and the sky.
* Hindu - They have few myths that cover this it different ways. The golden egg separated and each have half made the the earth and the sky. Or one of the Gods bodies was sacrificed (concept similar to Mesopotamian god that was killed to make people and the Christ that was sacrificed for the benefit of humans) and divided up to make the earth, cosmos and people.
* Mesopotamian - Finally, Marduk smashes Tiamat’s (waters of Chaos) head and splits her body in two to form the heavens and earth.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water."
7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.
8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
Egyptian - In the midst of Nun, Atum stood on the Benben, a primeval pyramidical hill that arose out of the waters
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so.
10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
At this point (Genesis 11-25) God created the rest of the vegetation, animals, sun, moon, and Man. The Hebrew scriptures diverge with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian gods and their more violent, less nurturing natures. The Hebrew God is more like the Hindu gods in that he is more part of the creation, has created the cosmos for humans, however the Hebrew god is not as much a part of creation as the Hindu Gods.
Myths are a reflection of the culture they belong to. The remarkable thing about the Indus Valley Civilizations are the lack of weapons relative to Mesopotamia and Egypt. They seem to be a more peaceful people. In the Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths man is created as lowly, flawed, subservient and savage by design. The creation of Humans will be covered in the next article.
CREATION MYTHS OF CONFLICT EMBEDDED IN THE BIBLE
In Job, Isaiah and Psalms there are characteristic elements of the conflict type of Creation story embedded. Since there is evidence of water-borne trade starting around 4000 BCE, It seems that sailors saw whales and relayed information about them that made their way into creation myths. The description in Job is similar to characteristics of commercial whaling. The description in Isaiah and Psalm 74:14 is more similar to creation myths, and Psalm 104:26 seems to describe a whale.
* Book of Job 3:8 "May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan "; NIV
* Book of Job 41
* Isaiah 27:1: "In that day,
the LORD will punish with his sword,
his fierce, great and powerful sword,
Leviathan the gliding serpent,
Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea." NIV
* Psalms 74:14: It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert. NIV
* Psalms 104:26: 26 There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. NIV
This brings us to the creation of Man in Genesis 1:26.
To be continued......
"Snapshot" of Ancient Civilizations in the second millennium (2000 - 1000 BCE)
Land and Sea routes between the Civilizations
Quick Reference to material in the sources. For the Quick References, Wikipedia is used liberally because while academics don't consider Wikipedia definitive or acceptable as a source they do consider it generally good enough for quick reference. Please do not confuse quick references with the sources. The sources are where the majority of information came from.
1. Syncretism
2. Folklore
3. interconnectedness of the Ancients
4. Ancient Egypt
5. Mesopotamia
6. Hinduism
7. Judaism
8. Christianity
9. Minoans
10. Indus Valley Civilization
11. Southern Levant
12. Indo-Iranians
13. Hittites
14. Myceneans
15. Persia
16. Abraham
17. Eastern Hemisphere 1300BCE
18. List of Languages by first written accounts.
19. Indo-Aryan Migration
20. Thor Heyerdahl; Kon-Tiki
21. Persian Gulf
22. Gulf of Oman
23. Red Sea
24. Common Themes in Creation Myths
25. Job
26. Leviathan
27. Enuma Elish
28. Enuma Elish Text
29. Nephilum
30. Atum
31. Ptah
32. Amun
33. AUM
34. Brahma
35. Shiva
36. Vishnu
37. Vedas
38. Brahmin
39. Blue Letter Bible Chrono-Genealogical Table
40. Trimurti
41. Egyptian Myths
42. Hindu Origins of Abrahamic Religions
Sources
1. Human Prehistory and First Civilizations, The Teaching Company
2. Great World Religions: The Religions of India, The Teaching Company
3. Great World Religions: Hinduism (2nd Edition), The Teaching Company
4. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World, The Teaching Company
5. Ancient Near Eastern Mythology, The Teaching Company
6. The Book of Genesis, The Teaching Company
7. Great Figures of the Old Testament, The Teaching Company.
8. History 4A_ The Ancient Mediterranean World - Fall 2007, University of Berkeley
8. The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers
9. Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, The Teaching Company
RELATED INFORMATION
Joseph Campbell books on Amazon
The Early History of God, Mark Smith
Ancient Ships
* Maritime history - Wikipedia, the free encyclop...
* ancient ships
* Archaeology team helps find oldest deep-sea shipwrecks HarvardScience
* Ancient Egypt: Ships and Boats
* Ancient Phoenician Ships, Boats and Sea Trade
* early ways of navigating sea
Whale information
* Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries
Monsoons
* Monsoon African Connections: An ... - Google Bo...
* 538bc monsoon
Ancient History
* Ancient history
* First dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ancient Prehistory
* archaeolink.com archaeology, anthropology, social studies, general knowledge
* Evolution of Modern Humans: Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Hominid Species
Behavior
* Novelty Seeking Study
* NOVELTY SEEKING e-Review of Tourism Research
Interconnectedness of the Ancients
* Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Prisoners Dilemma
* Sea Level
* Monsoon Winds
* Ancient Sea Exploration
* Second Millenium shipwreck
* Whales Arabian Gulf
* Whales Turkey and Greece
* Whales Coast of Oman
* Leviathan
* Syncretism
* Creation Myths
Foundational Study, recommended reading
Cognition
- Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition) by Cialdini, Robert
- Persuasion: Theory and Research (Current Communication) by O'Keefe, Daniel J.
- How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
- Innumeracy : Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Social Consequences by John Allen Paulos
- Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science) by Martin Gardener
- Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
- Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought by David H. Fischer
- Conquering Deception by Nance, Jef
- General Psychology course from Berkeley
- Self and Society by John P Hewitt
- How We Know What Isn't So by Gilovich, Thomas
Christianity
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol. 1 by Josh McDowell
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict Vol. 2 by Josh McDowell
- More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell
- Biblical Errancy: A Reference Guide by C. Dennis McKinsey
- Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures by Joe Nickell
- Mysterious Realms: Probing Paranormal, Historical, and Forensic Enigmas by Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer
Folklore
- Folklore in the Old Testament by Frazer by James George
- Gospel Fictions by Helms, Randel
- Holy Writ as Oral Lit : The Bible as Folklore by Dundes, Alan
- Old Testament Parallels (Fully Expanded and Revised) by Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin
- Don't Know Much About Mythology by Kenneth C. Davis
History
- The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin by Neil Asher Silberman and Israel Finkelstein
- The Bible with Sources Revealed by Friedman, Richard E.
- The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith
- The Historical Jesus & the Mythical Christ by Massey, Gerald
- The Secret Origins of the Bible by Tim Callahan
April 27, 2008
The Resurrection and Prayer
On August 6, 1945 the United States Air Force detonated a nuclear weapon over the city of Hiroshima. 140,000 people died in the blast, many of whom were immediately vaporized into their constituent atoms, leaving no remains at all. Yet a majority of Christians in the US believe that those victims of the bombing will one day be made whole and stand in judgment before God. A majority of Christian Americans believe in a God so powerful he can reconstruct the exact DNA and protein sequences of each of those bodies, in exactly the form they were in at the moment before they died in that blast.
Yet a sizable number of commenters on this blog seem to believe this powerful God, who is keeping track of the DNA sequences of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the certainty of a future resurrection at some date uncertain, is unwilling to heal a girl of diabetes, or meningitis. They believe he can't even make the common cold go away, or clear up a horrendous case of warts. This incongruity is rarely pointed out, and making it more explicit is what I will try to do in this post.
Christianity is based on the belief that a man, Jesus, lived and died. Christians to some degree or another also believe that this man was divine, most believing that he was the God of the universe in human flesh. In addition, most Christians further argue that this man's life was sinless, and that by his death, Christians can escape the consequences of their sin. Most also assert that his resurrection is the evidence for a future resurrection of all mankind. Thus, most Christians believe that God will, at some point, bring all the dead humans who have ever existed back to life.
Thus, when we discuss issues about prayer and healing, the assertion that God can do nothing about sickness, suffering and pain on earth is a perfectly reasonable assertion to make if there were no future resurrection. For instance, a Deist can hold to this position with no logical contortions. Certain Jews such as the Sadducees could reasonably hold to this, since again, they do not believe the human exists again after his death.
For the bulk of believers though, and here I mean those who accept Jesus' resurrection as a historical fact and those who believe in a future resurrection, the inaction of God in the face of suffering has to be deliberate. For Christian believers, the argument that God is somehow hamstrung from acting to heal the sick flies directly in the face of the miracles of Jesus. Even after Jesus' death, the Bible is full of stories of wondrous healings on the part of the apostles, none of whom felt it was necessary to hold back from helping the sick because it would leave them without free will.
The modern concept of free will is not mentioned in the Bible. It's an ex post facto justification for the modern finding that faith healing doesn't happen. Even medieval Christians firmly believed God healed the sick. The relic of the "one true cross" was determined to be such because it had the power to heal the sick when it touched them. There was no begging for the wonders of free will to be manifest in the lives of those supposedly healed by it. In France, the touch of the king was believed to heal scrofula, and this was due to the king's proximity to the deity, yet nobody in France complained that the king was violating the free will of those who were healed.
No. This free will defense is weak tea, the only leftovers of a warmed-up, thrice picked-over last meal. But again, think of the victims of Hiroshima. They are spread throughout the ecosystem now after they were thrown up into the atmosphere by the cloud of gas that flew up from the city. Yet their free will had nothing to do with their vaporization. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. My explanation for the facts is simple: the victims of Hiroshima, and all other people who ever died, are dead now, and will remain so. My explanation fits all available facts.
Some Christians may adopt the idea that the resurrection will not be one of bodies, but only one of spirit. I applaud them for this, but then the conundrum of Christianity grows even deeper. For if the resurrection of the dead does not entail the reconstruction of their bodies, why was it necessary for Jesus to be resurrected at all? After all, sacrifices given by the Israelites prior to Jesus were of animals, and God did not need to resurrect those sacrificed animals for the deaths to be atoning. In fact, the bodily resurrection of Jesus makes the atonement suspect, for all Jesus really did was experience the absence of cellular activity for something like 36 hours. Is this really such torture?
To hold the position that the cessation of cellular activity in a man-god for 36 hours is an adequate recompense for all the evil mankind has done over roughly 150,000 years of history -- including Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the pogroms of the medieval era, the countless genocides, petty violences, rapes, murders, infanticides and slavery of human existence -- is one of the silliest beliefs I've ever heard. It sits up there with flat-earthism, phrenology and young earth creationism.
So the Christian believer is presented with a quandary and I suspect their lack of unanimity in the face of this quandary is the single best evidence for the essential vacuum at the core of this system of belief. For if there were a cogent explanation, one that was satisfactory to all, Christianity would at least be unanimous in accepting it. This suggests to me that if I ask questions of Christians, their answers to these questions should be the same, since the same divinity that remembers the exact sequence of DNA in the victims of Hiroshima could certainly make the followers of his One True Religion aware of the truth of it. Yet the answers to the following questions are probably as varied as the answers to questions about taste in food, clothes, or film, but I will ask them anyway:
1. Is it the position of Christians that all humans will be resurrected bodily at some future time by God?
2. Is it their position that God has the power to do this phenomenal act of healing, but cannot heal the children who are dying because their parents are praying for their life, or rid someone of a crippling, deforming disease because to do so would harm their free will?
3. If so, why were Jesus and the apostles, the "one true cross" relic and the king of France able to heal without violating free will? If not, why do we have no evidence that God does any healing at all?
4. Finally, if Jesus' death were necessary for the atonement of man's sin, what purpose was his bodily resurrection? Specifically why was it necessary for his atonement to include a resurrection when sacrificial animals, who were sacrificed under the rules God gave to the Israelites, were not resurrected but were eaten?
Yet a sizable number of commenters on this blog seem to believe this powerful God, who is keeping track of the DNA sequences of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the certainty of a future resurrection at some date uncertain, is unwilling to heal a girl of diabetes, or meningitis. They believe he can't even make the common cold go away, or clear up a horrendous case of warts. This incongruity is rarely pointed out, and making it more explicit is what I will try to do in this post.
Christianity is based on the belief that a man, Jesus, lived and died. Christians to some degree or another also believe that this man was divine, most believing that he was the God of the universe in human flesh. In addition, most Christians further argue that this man's life was sinless, and that by his death, Christians can escape the consequences of their sin. Most also assert that his resurrection is the evidence for a future resurrection of all mankind. Thus, most Christians believe that God will, at some point, bring all the dead humans who have ever existed back to life.
Thus, when we discuss issues about prayer and healing, the assertion that God can do nothing about sickness, suffering and pain on earth is a perfectly reasonable assertion to make if there were no future resurrection. For instance, a Deist can hold to this position with no logical contortions. Certain Jews such as the Sadducees could reasonably hold to this, since again, they do not believe the human exists again after his death.
For the bulk of believers though, and here I mean those who accept Jesus' resurrection as a historical fact and those who believe in a future resurrection, the inaction of God in the face of suffering has to be deliberate. For Christian believers, the argument that God is somehow hamstrung from acting to heal the sick flies directly in the face of the miracles of Jesus. Even after Jesus' death, the Bible is full of stories of wondrous healings on the part of the apostles, none of whom felt it was necessary to hold back from helping the sick because it would leave them without free will.
The modern concept of free will is not mentioned in the Bible. It's an ex post facto justification for the modern finding that faith healing doesn't happen. Even medieval Christians firmly believed God healed the sick. The relic of the "one true cross" was determined to be such because it had the power to heal the sick when it touched them. There was no begging for the wonders of free will to be manifest in the lives of those supposedly healed by it. In France, the touch of the king was believed to heal scrofula, and this was due to the king's proximity to the deity, yet nobody in France complained that the king was violating the free will of those who were healed.
No. This free will defense is weak tea, the only leftovers of a warmed-up, thrice picked-over last meal. But again, think of the victims of Hiroshima. They are spread throughout the ecosystem now after they were thrown up into the atmosphere by the cloud of gas that flew up from the city. Yet their free will had nothing to do with their vaporization. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. My explanation for the facts is simple: the victims of Hiroshima, and all other people who ever died, are dead now, and will remain so. My explanation fits all available facts.
Some Christians may adopt the idea that the resurrection will not be one of bodies, but only one of spirit. I applaud them for this, but then the conundrum of Christianity grows even deeper. For if the resurrection of the dead does not entail the reconstruction of their bodies, why was it necessary for Jesus to be resurrected at all? After all, sacrifices given by the Israelites prior to Jesus were of animals, and God did not need to resurrect those sacrificed animals for the deaths to be atoning. In fact, the bodily resurrection of Jesus makes the atonement suspect, for all Jesus really did was experience the absence of cellular activity for something like 36 hours. Is this really such torture?
To hold the position that the cessation of cellular activity in a man-god for 36 hours is an adequate recompense for all the evil mankind has done over roughly 150,000 years of history -- including Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the pogroms of the medieval era, the countless genocides, petty violences, rapes, murders, infanticides and slavery of human existence -- is one of the silliest beliefs I've ever heard. It sits up there with flat-earthism, phrenology and young earth creationism.
So the Christian believer is presented with a quandary and I suspect their lack of unanimity in the face of this quandary is the single best evidence for the essential vacuum at the core of this system of belief. For if there were a cogent explanation, one that was satisfactory to all, Christianity would at least be unanimous in accepting it. This suggests to me that if I ask questions of Christians, their answers to these questions should be the same, since the same divinity that remembers the exact sequence of DNA in the victims of Hiroshima could certainly make the followers of his One True Religion aware of the truth of it. Yet the answers to the following questions are probably as varied as the answers to questions about taste in food, clothes, or film, but I will ask them anyway:
1. Is it the position of Christians that all humans will be resurrected bodily at some future time by God?
2. Is it their position that God has the power to do this phenomenal act of healing, but cannot heal the children who are dying because their parents are praying for their life, or rid someone of a crippling, deforming disease because to do so would harm their free will?
3. If so, why were Jesus and the apostles, the "one true cross" relic and the king of France able to heal without violating free will? If not, why do we have no evidence that God does any healing at all?
4. Finally, if Jesus' death were necessary for the atonement of man's sin, what purpose was his bodily resurrection? Specifically why was it necessary for his atonement to include a resurrection when sacrificial animals, who were sacrificed under the rules God gave to the Israelites, were not resurrected but were eaten?
April 24, 2008
Christian, How Could You Know You're Wrong?
Eheffa asks an important question: "If the Christian belief system is false or based on fabricated source documents - how exactly under your current set of suppositions with the Bible as the only authoritative admissible evidence, would you ever be able to detect the falsity of that belief system?"
What It Takes to Believe in Hell
A very ignorant person. There's no other way to describe this...
There are several conceptions among Christians about the belief in hell, all of them but one involve punishment, and even the annihilationist view doesn’t rule it out, since we’re not told the manner in which the unsaved are annihilated.
I amazes me how hard it is to make Christians see the truth of this horrible belief, since it should be obvious. The belief in hell developed during the Hellenistic intertestamental period. There was the idea of a fiery judgment (1 En. 10:13; 48:8–10; 100:7–9; 2 Bar. 85:13), in a fiery lake or abyss (1 En. 18:9–16; 90:24–27; 103:7–8; 2 En. 40:12; 2 Bar. 59:5–12; 1QH 3). Just take a look at I Enoch 48:8-9: “For in the day of their anxiety and trouble their souls shall not be saved; and they shall be in subjection to those whom I have chosen. I will cast them like hay into the fire, and like lead into the water. Thus shall they burn in the presence of the righteous, and sink in the presence of the holy; nor shall a tenth part of them be found.”
Are the writings from that period inspired? Doesn’t it make better sense to see that these ideas were adopted in the New Testament just like ideas about witch hunts were adopted then discarded in early modern Europe? We are children of our times. During those times people believed in hell. And this is what we find in the New Testament.
The truth is that most traditionalists don’t actually take what the New Testament says literally in our modern era, but creationist Henry M. Morris and Martin E. Clark do. They wrote, “So far as we can tell from Scripture, the present hell, Hades, is somewhere in the heart of earth itself….The Biblical descriptions are quite matter-of-fact. The writers certainly themselves believed hell to be real and geographically ‘beneath’ the earth’s surface.” [The Bible Has the Answer: Revised and Expanded (El Cajon: Creation Life Publishers, 1987), p. 312].
But theists today reject such a notion since the rise of modern geology, which shows otherwise. In fact theists have continually reinterpreted what the Bible says about such topics as hell, women, slavery, inquisitions, and witch hunts in the light of more and more knowledge. In today's world there are many liberal Christians who claim no one will end up in hell at all!
The belief in hell requires the assumption of retributive punishment, in that people should get what they deserve. But such a notion is being rejected by ethicists in today’s world. Basically the only people who still accept such a notion are those who still believe in hell. Psychologists have repeatedly shown how people are not evil so much as they may be sick. We may have a Freudian death wish, is all. Our environment and our genetic makeup dictate who we are and what we do to an overwhelming degree. And the more that a person knows about these influences the more of a love/pity he has for these sick people. Sociologists have shown that what we believe is based on when and where we are born, too. Geneticists are showing that whether we are prone to act out homosexual desires, and addictions like alcoholism, is in our genes. There can be no wrathful God, period, and therefore there can be no punishment in hell, however conceived.
This is especially true since we do not know that we are rejecting God by our choices. No one would consciously disobey God if he knew that hell awaits him when he dies…no one, unless he couldn't avoid it. The oft quoted phrase that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” implies that we can know what that law is, but the evidence of billions upon billions of non-Christians down through the centuries conclusively shows otherwise. Where is the evidence for such a claim?
John McTaggart has argued convincingly against the traditional view of hell. Since there is no empirical evidence for it, the only way we would know it exists is if God reveals this to us. However, the concept of hell is just too vile and repulsive for us to believe, so this calls into question anything of importance that such a God might reveal to us. Since a God who would consign people to hell cannot be trusted, we would have no good reason to trust that he is telling us the truth about anything important. So on the one hand there is no reason or evidence to believe in hell, and on the other hand there would be no reason to trust what God would say if he revealed it to us. [John McTaggart, Some Dogmas of Religion (London, 1906), section 177].
Christians will also claim that the unsaved will rather be in hell than in heaven too. But this is another ludicrous claim. If hell is painful then who in her right mind would enjoy being there? If however, hell is where we prefer to be then how is that to be considered punishment? Besides, once we arrive in hell we would immediately believe the gospel and feel anguish that we didn’t accept it. So in hell everyone will be believers. At that point the residents of hell should be great candidates for heaven and desire nothing else. In fact, because of the logic of this many theologians have argued for a second chance for these believers, the belief in purgatory being just one example. And if believers retort that heaven will be more painful for the unsaved than hell, then how does that make any sense? Even believers themselves argue there will be gradations to their reward in heaven, with some in the “nosebleed” section, just as there will be gradations of punishment in hell for the unsaved (Dante's Universe as one example). But why? Either Jesus washed away all of your sins or he didn’t? If he did, then why are there different rewards? Any lack of obedience from a believer on earth is a sin (sins of "ommission" or "missing the mark"), and yet all sins supposedly have been washed away…all of them. But if those sins are not forgiven and believers are correct about what we'll find in the afterlife, then just as there will be unsaved people in hell who prefer to be there, then there will be some believers in heaven who may not enjoy it there and prefer hell, or at least have periods where they would like to be there. Why not?
Beyond these things the belief that God was so vainglorious that even though life was perfect for him without any want whatsoever, he decided to create this world anyway, knowing in advance that by doing so he would have to punish billions (“the many”) in hell in order to gain a few believers by his side, which he never needed or couldn’t have even wanted in the first place!
The belief is hell is morally repugnant, superstitious, indefensible, barbaric, and contrary to democratic free thinking people since it demands people are punished for what they believe or don't believe. People who defend it are ignorant of a whole host of things, from understanding intertestamental literature, to science, geology, the history of Biblical interpretation, to sociology, psychology, and ethical understandings about punishment.
So what does it take to believe in hell? A very ignorant person. There's no other way to describe it. None.
There are several conceptions among Christians about the belief in hell, all of them but one involve punishment, and even the annihilationist view doesn’t rule it out, since we’re not told the manner in which the unsaved are annihilated.
I amazes me how hard it is to make Christians see the truth of this horrible belief, since it should be obvious. The belief in hell developed during the Hellenistic intertestamental period. There was the idea of a fiery judgment (1 En. 10:13; 48:8–10; 100:7–9; 2 Bar. 85:13), in a fiery lake or abyss (1 En. 18:9–16; 90:24–27; 103:7–8; 2 En. 40:12; 2 Bar. 59:5–12; 1QH 3). Just take a look at I Enoch 48:8-9: “For in the day of their anxiety and trouble their souls shall not be saved; and they shall be in subjection to those whom I have chosen. I will cast them like hay into the fire, and like lead into the water. Thus shall they burn in the presence of the righteous, and sink in the presence of the holy; nor shall a tenth part of them be found.”
Are the writings from that period inspired? Doesn’t it make better sense to see that these ideas were adopted in the New Testament just like ideas about witch hunts were adopted then discarded in early modern Europe? We are children of our times. During those times people believed in hell. And this is what we find in the New Testament.
The truth is that most traditionalists don’t actually take what the New Testament says literally in our modern era, but creationist Henry M. Morris and Martin E. Clark do. They wrote, “So far as we can tell from Scripture, the present hell, Hades, is somewhere in the heart of earth itself….The Biblical descriptions are quite matter-of-fact. The writers certainly themselves believed hell to be real and geographically ‘beneath’ the earth’s surface.” [The Bible Has the Answer: Revised and Expanded (El Cajon: Creation Life Publishers, 1987), p. 312].
But theists today reject such a notion since the rise of modern geology, which shows otherwise. In fact theists have continually reinterpreted what the Bible says about such topics as hell, women, slavery, inquisitions, and witch hunts in the light of more and more knowledge. In today's world there are many liberal Christians who claim no one will end up in hell at all!
The belief in hell requires the assumption of retributive punishment, in that people should get what they deserve. But such a notion is being rejected by ethicists in today’s world. Basically the only people who still accept such a notion are those who still believe in hell. Psychologists have repeatedly shown how people are not evil so much as they may be sick. We may have a Freudian death wish, is all. Our environment and our genetic makeup dictate who we are and what we do to an overwhelming degree. And the more that a person knows about these influences the more of a love/pity he has for these sick people. Sociologists have shown that what we believe is based on when and where we are born, too. Geneticists are showing that whether we are prone to act out homosexual desires, and addictions like alcoholism, is in our genes. There can be no wrathful God, period, and therefore there can be no punishment in hell, however conceived.
This is especially true since we do not know that we are rejecting God by our choices. No one would consciously disobey God if he knew that hell awaits him when he dies…no one, unless he couldn't avoid it. The oft quoted phrase that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” implies that we can know what that law is, but the evidence of billions upon billions of non-Christians down through the centuries conclusively shows otherwise. Where is the evidence for such a claim?
John McTaggart has argued convincingly against the traditional view of hell. Since there is no empirical evidence for it, the only way we would know it exists is if God reveals this to us. However, the concept of hell is just too vile and repulsive for us to believe, so this calls into question anything of importance that such a God might reveal to us. Since a God who would consign people to hell cannot be trusted, we would have no good reason to trust that he is telling us the truth about anything important. So on the one hand there is no reason or evidence to believe in hell, and on the other hand there would be no reason to trust what God would say if he revealed it to us. [John McTaggart, Some Dogmas of Religion (London, 1906), section 177].
Christians will also claim that the unsaved will rather be in hell than in heaven too. But this is another ludicrous claim. If hell is painful then who in her right mind would enjoy being there? If however, hell is where we prefer to be then how is that to be considered punishment? Besides, once we arrive in hell we would immediately believe the gospel and feel anguish that we didn’t accept it. So in hell everyone will be believers. At that point the residents of hell should be great candidates for heaven and desire nothing else. In fact, because of the logic of this many theologians have argued for a second chance for these believers, the belief in purgatory being just one example. And if believers retort that heaven will be more painful for the unsaved than hell, then how does that make any sense? Even believers themselves argue there will be gradations to their reward in heaven, with some in the “nosebleed” section, just as there will be gradations of punishment in hell for the unsaved (Dante's Universe as one example). But why? Either Jesus washed away all of your sins or he didn’t? If he did, then why are there different rewards? Any lack of obedience from a believer on earth is a sin (sins of "ommission" or "missing the mark"), and yet all sins supposedly have been washed away…all of them. But if those sins are not forgiven and believers are correct about what we'll find in the afterlife, then just as there will be unsaved people in hell who prefer to be there, then there will be some believers in heaven who may not enjoy it there and prefer hell, or at least have periods where they would like to be there. Why not?
Beyond these things the belief that God was so vainglorious that even though life was perfect for him without any want whatsoever, he decided to create this world anyway, knowing in advance that by doing so he would have to punish billions (“the many”) in hell in order to gain a few believers by his side, which he never needed or couldn’t have even wanted in the first place!
The belief is hell is morally repugnant, superstitious, indefensible, barbaric, and contrary to democratic free thinking people since it demands people are punished for what they believe or don't believe. People who defend it are ignorant of a whole host of things, from understanding intertestamental literature, to science, geology, the history of Biblical interpretation, to sociology, psychology, and ethical understandings about punishment.
So what does it take to believe in hell? A very ignorant person. There's no other way to describe it. None.
April 23, 2008
Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know...
See the essay in the April 16th '08 online Scientific American.
Interconnectedness Of The Ancients
This is the start of a series of articles intended to debunk Genesis 1-11 and Romans 5. They will be an overview that come from notes from several courses I have taken over the past months. I intend to provide links to starting points to enable those interested to pursue what I call a "Serious Bible Study". It will show the means, motive and opportunity for the development of Judaism and Christianity in the Ancient World.
I recommend scrolling to the bottom of the article and opening the image in a separate window so you can look at it as you read.
Migration of humans out of Africa starting after the last ice age from 130,000 to 90,000 BCE(1) ensured robust populations in the Near East and South Asia. The natural cognitive algorithms enabling self-preservation, pleasure and novelty seeking account for the survival of the individual. The natural algorithms that develop from self-preservation and fostering offspring provide a means for early humans to prefer to stay in groups. Over the course of thousands of years development of new albeit primitive technologies and the naturally occurring algorithm of mutual self-interest(2) fostered trade between these populations and primitive "economies" to develop. Of course there were battles over various things but people seek comfort more than uncertainty which ensured the mutual survival of groups.
Generally people traveled over land at the end of the last ice age, the sea levels were about 130 meters (400 feet)(3) lower that what they are now. This caused the distance between coasts to be significantly less and caused land bridges to appear. The gap in the Red Sea between present day Djibouti and Yemen was smaller as was the distance from the coast of present day Oman to Pakistan and more importantly, the Indus Valley. Along the coast from Djibouti and Somalia are the regularly occurring Monsoon winds which change direction twice a year(4). Not only could people travel from Ethiopia and Somalia across lower half of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula through present day Yemen and Oman, to get to the Indus Valley, once the sailboat was developed in the fourth millennium BCE (4000-3000 BCE)(5), they could travel by sailboat from port to port along the coast of present day Yemen and Oman to the Indus Valley, and down the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. It also facilitated easier travel along the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. While it is not clear where the technology for the sail originated, it is clear that its use was common in the third Millennium BCE (3000 - 2000 BCE) in Mesopotamia, Egypt and in Asia Minor and facilitated a "World Economy"(6) between the regions. The self-esteem, greed and competition between kings ensured that technology changed hands and improved. Once the Ancients began traversing the oceans, they must have been shocked by the size, grace and water spouts of the Whales which are indigenous in those areas(7)(8)(9). The fear of the sea and the stories of those whales naturally led to the inclusion of them in their Creation Stories(10).
Just as technology is traded, so are ideas. Ideas lead to beliefs and beliefs lead to religion. The blending of ideas is common, it leads to similar characteristics between cultures and when the blending of ideas involves beliefs and faiths, it is called "Syncretism"(11). Evidence of the battles of the early Jews to resist syncretism appears in old testament scripture, and other forms of historical evidence are abundant. It is a fact of life that people trade everything, including ideas, and it is a means to more successful outcomes.
The civilizations affected by this technology and "world economy" are Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley the east coast of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor (Turkey) and Greece. It makes a triangle of interconnectedness along the waterways and land. Some of the founding Gods of those civilizations were, in Egypt Ptah and Atum, in the Indus Valley Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati, Brahma, Indra, Varuna and Vishnu, Purusha Sukta, In Mesopotamia Marduk, Asia Minor had El and Greece had Zeus(12). As one goes through reading the names of the Gods and stories, one notices striking similarities in the names that appear in the myths.
Canaan, Palestine, Israel and Judah were enclosed in this triangle of interconnectedness, and that brings us to Genesis 1.
To be continued.....
For the references, Wikipedia is used liberally because while academics don't consider wikipedia difinitive or acceptable as a source they do consider it generally good enough for quick reference.
Quick References
1. Early Modern Homo sapiens
2. Prisoners Dilemma
3. Sea Level
4. Monsoon Winds
5. Ancient Sea Exploration
6. Second Millenium shipwreck
7. Whales Arabian Gulf
8. Whales Turkey and Greece
9. Whales Coast of Oman
10. Leviathan
11. Syncretism
12. Creation Myths
Sources
1. Human Prehistory and First Civilizations, The Teaching Company
2. Great Religions: Hinduism (1st Edition), The Teaching Company
3. Great Religions: Hinduism (2nd Edition), The Teaching Company
4. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World, The Teaching Company
5. Ancient Near Eastern Mythology, The Teaching Company
6. Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, The Teaching Company
Related Information
Ancient Ships
* Maritime history - Wikipedia, the free encyclop...
* ancient ships
* Archaeology team helps find oldest deep-sea shipwrecks HarvardScience
* Ancient Egypt: Ships and Boats
* Ancient Phoenician Ships, Boats and Sea Trade
* early ways of navigating sea
Whale information
* Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries
Monsoons
* Monsoon African Connections: An ... - Google Bo...
* 538bc monsoon
Ancient History
* Ancient history
* First dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ancient Prehistory
* archaeolink.com archaeology, anthropology, social studies, general knowledge
* Evolution of Modern Humans: Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Hominid Species
Behavior
* Novelty Seeking Study
* NOVELTY SEEKING e-Review of Tourism Research
I recommend scrolling to the bottom of the article and opening the image in a separate window so you can look at it as you read.
Migration of humans out of Africa starting after the last ice age from 130,000 to 90,000 BCE(1) ensured robust populations in the Near East and South Asia. The natural cognitive algorithms enabling self-preservation, pleasure and novelty seeking account for the survival of the individual. The natural algorithms that develop from self-preservation and fostering offspring provide a means for early humans to prefer to stay in groups. Over the course of thousands of years development of new albeit primitive technologies and the naturally occurring algorithm of mutual self-interest(2) fostered trade between these populations and primitive "economies" to develop. Of course there were battles over various things but people seek comfort more than uncertainty which ensured the mutual survival of groups.
Generally people traveled over land at the end of the last ice age, the sea levels were about 130 meters (400 feet)(3) lower that what they are now. This caused the distance between coasts to be significantly less and caused land bridges to appear. The gap in the Red Sea between present day Djibouti and Yemen was smaller as was the distance from the coast of present day Oman to Pakistan and more importantly, the Indus Valley. Along the coast from Djibouti and Somalia are the regularly occurring Monsoon winds which change direction twice a year(4). Not only could people travel from Ethiopia and Somalia across lower half of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula through present day Yemen and Oman, to get to the Indus Valley, once the sailboat was developed in the fourth millennium BCE (4000-3000 BCE)(5), they could travel by sailboat from port to port along the coast of present day Yemen and Oman to the Indus Valley, and down the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. It also facilitated easier travel along the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. While it is not clear where the technology for the sail originated, it is clear that its use was common in the third Millennium BCE (3000 - 2000 BCE) in Mesopotamia, Egypt and in Asia Minor and facilitated a "World Economy"(6) between the regions. The self-esteem, greed and competition between kings ensured that technology changed hands and improved. Once the Ancients began traversing the oceans, they must have been shocked by the size, grace and water spouts of the Whales which are indigenous in those areas(7)(8)(9). The fear of the sea and the stories of those whales naturally led to the inclusion of them in their Creation Stories(10).
Just as technology is traded, so are ideas. Ideas lead to beliefs and beliefs lead to religion. The blending of ideas is common, it leads to similar characteristics between cultures and when the blending of ideas involves beliefs and faiths, it is called "Syncretism"(11). Evidence of the battles of the early Jews to resist syncretism appears in old testament scripture, and other forms of historical evidence are abundant. It is a fact of life that people trade everything, including ideas, and it is a means to more successful outcomes.
The civilizations affected by this technology and "world economy" are Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley the east coast of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor (Turkey) and Greece. It makes a triangle of interconnectedness along the waterways and land. Some of the founding Gods of those civilizations were, in Egypt Ptah and Atum, in the Indus Valley Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati, Brahma, Indra, Varuna and Vishnu, Purusha Sukta, In Mesopotamia Marduk, Asia Minor had El and Greece had Zeus(12). As one goes through reading the names of the Gods and stories, one notices striking similarities in the names that appear in the myths.
Canaan, Palestine, Israel and Judah were enclosed in this triangle of interconnectedness, and that brings us to Genesis 1.
To be continued.....
For the references, Wikipedia is used liberally because while academics don't consider wikipedia difinitive or acceptable as a source they do consider it generally good enough for quick reference.
Quick References
1. Early Modern Homo sapiens
2. Prisoners Dilemma
3. Sea Level
4. Monsoon Winds
5. Ancient Sea Exploration
6. Second Millenium shipwreck
7. Whales Arabian Gulf
8. Whales Turkey and Greece
9. Whales Coast of Oman
10. Leviathan
11. Syncretism
12. Creation Myths
Sources
1. Human Prehistory and First Civilizations, The Teaching Company
2. Great Religions: Hinduism (1st Edition), The Teaching Company
3. Great Religions: Hinduism (2nd Edition), The Teaching Company
4. Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World, The Teaching Company
5. Ancient Near Eastern Mythology, The Teaching Company
6. Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition, The Teaching Company
Related Information
Ancient Ships
* Maritime history - Wikipedia, the free encyclop...
* ancient ships
* Archaeology team helps find oldest deep-sea shipwrecks HarvardScience
* Ancient Egypt: Ships and Boats
* Ancient Phoenician Ships, Boats and Sea Trade
* early ways of navigating sea
Whale information
* Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) - Office of Protected Resources - NOAA Fisheries
Monsoons
* Monsoon African Connections: An ... - Google Bo...
* 538bc monsoon
Ancient History
* Ancient history
* First dynasty of Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ancient Prehistory
* archaeolink.com archaeology, anthropology, social studies, general knowledge
* Evolution of Modern Humans: Early Modern Homo sapiens
* Hominid Species
Behavior
* Novelty Seeking Study
* NOVELTY SEEKING e-Review of Tourism Research
Guy Harrison on "Where Are the Moral Believers?"
Guy P. Harrison is the author of the soon to be released book, 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God. He submitted the following essay to DC which was originally published in Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 25, No. 1:
Where Are the Moral Believers?
Satan exists, say hundreds of millions of Christians around the world. But he is evil, so they reject him as a supernatural being worthy of worship. They do not pray to him for help in landing a new job or overcoming an illness, and they do not follow his instructions. Because of moral failings, this god of sorts is denied their love and obedience. But why do they only judge the devil? Why don’t believers scrutinize all gods in this way?
Pointing out examples of the Jewish/Christian god committing, commanding, or condoning slavery, violence, and sexism—as described in the Torah and Bible—is a favorite pastime for many atheists. Yes, it may be no better than a grown-up version of pulling the wings off of flies, but it is undeniably fun to watch a believer squirm trying to explain how slavery and stoning were somehow OK in “Bible times.” It is even more entertaining to watch smoke rise from the ears of the devout as they attempt to defend the “God of love” for his genocidal rampages.
Some atheists ridicule such exchanges, and they have a valid point. Arguing over a god’s moral character is a lot like debating the aerodynamic qualities of Santa’s sleigh. Still, there may be a real benefit to enlightening believers about the character of their gods. If pursued, it should be done only to challenge a believer’s loyalty to a god, however, not to make the case for nonexistence. After all, a god does not have to be nice in order to be real. Strangely, this pattern of belief coupled with morally based disobedience is virtually nonexistent when it comes to the popular gods. We just don’t see millions of believers in the Jewish/Christian/Islamic god, for example, shunning him solely for his moral crimes. There are no large organizations campaigning against religion from the moral high ground rather than the perspective of disbelief. There are few, if any, anti-god books written by theologians who still believe in a god. Rebellion need not be tied to nonbelief, so where are the righteous rebels who stand against gods who have done great evil? Where are the moral believers?
Fear of hell or some other divine punishment for refusing to follow a god does not seem to be an adequate explanation, not when one considers history’s long roll call of courageous heroes. Across cultures and across centuries, good people have suffered banishment, imprisonment, torture, and execution because they refused to bow down before evil human leaders. It seems likely that a significant number of believers would rebel in the same way, if they faced up to the serious faults and crimes attributed to their gods. Fear of torture and execution in the present (in reality) must be at least somewhat comparable to fear of a god’s wrath in some vague afterlife to come (in belief).
Most Christians are probably good people with a reasonable grasp of right and wrong. They know, for example, that it is wrong to kill children. (“At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon . . . there was a loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead” [Exodus 12:29, New International Version].) They also are likely to agree that it is wrong to punish children for the crimes of their fathers. (“He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation” [Exodus 34:7, NIV].) But they are loyal to a god who has done these things.
Why aren’t millions of believers saying, “Yes, I know my god is real because the universe is intelligently designed and I believe that the [Bible, Koran, or Torah] describes him accurately. However, based on the actions of this god. I cannot follow or worship him because I am a decent human being.”
I have long believed that religion will be educated out of humankind eventually. It may take many centuries, but it seems probable. After all, polls show that belief goes down as education goes up. And most of the extremely smart and educated people (such as elite scientists) already don’t believe in gods. But what if it never happens? What if educational levels do not continue to rise as they have over the last few thousand years? Or what if the cosmos is just too big, too complex, and too scary for most people to ever accept rational explanations and lingering mysteries? If so, eroding believers’ loyalty to their gods and encouraging greater respect for basic morality may be the way to go.
Militant atheists who are concerned with the proliferation of RMDs (Religions of Mass Destruction) may be missing an important point here. After all, it is not gods who inflict so much ignorance, hate, and violence upon the world. (Gods almost surely do not exist, remember?) The source of trouble, indeed, may be belief itself, but the direct cause of the many problems we are all burdened with is that so many people try to please gods by following their orders and their example. Consider the fact that millions of people believe in ghosts, but no one worships them in tax-free buildings under the guidance of trained professionals. Ghosts are just not respected in the way gods are. Therefore, the concept of ghosts is not pushing evolution out of classrooms or motivating people to strap bombs around their torsos. With ghosts, it’s mostly just a case of gullible people wasting a bit of space in their skulls with nonsense and causing relatively little harm to the world.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the gods lost their grip on humankind and fell to the status of mere ghosts, no longer able to command vast armies of believers? Even if millions still believed them to be real, it would be a vast improvement. Imagine if the gods were condemned to roam forever in fantasyland with no one willing to follow them. While this might not make for an atheist’s paradise, it would at least be a far better world, one where believers no longer work to please divisive and violent gods at the expense of all humanity.
Where Are the Moral Believers?
Satan exists, say hundreds of millions of Christians around the world. But he is evil, so they reject him as a supernatural being worthy of worship. They do not pray to him for help in landing a new job or overcoming an illness, and they do not follow his instructions. Because of moral failings, this god of sorts is denied their love and obedience. But why do they only judge the devil? Why don’t believers scrutinize all gods in this way?
Pointing out examples of the Jewish/Christian god committing, commanding, or condoning slavery, violence, and sexism—as described in the Torah and Bible—is a favorite pastime for many atheists. Yes, it may be no better than a grown-up version of pulling the wings off of flies, but it is undeniably fun to watch a believer squirm trying to explain how slavery and stoning were somehow OK in “Bible times.” It is even more entertaining to watch smoke rise from the ears of the devout as they attempt to defend the “God of love” for his genocidal rampages.
Some atheists ridicule such exchanges, and they have a valid point. Arguing over a god’s moral character is a lot like debating the aerodynamic qualities of Santa’s sleigh. Still, there may be a real benefit to enlightening believers about the character of their gods. If pursued, it should be done only to challenge a believer’s loyalty to a god, however, not to make the case for nonexistence. After all, a god does not have to be nice in order to be real. Strangely, this pattern of belief coupled with morally based disobedience is virtually nonexistent when it comes to the popular gods. We just don’t see millions of believers in the Jewish/Christian/Islamic god, for example, shunning him solely for his moral crimes. There are no large organizations campaigning against religion from the moral high ground rather than the perspective of disbelief. There are few, if any, anti-god books written by theologians who still believe in a god. Rebellion need not be tied to nonbelief, so where are the righteous rebels who stand against gods who have done great evil? Where are the moral believers?
Fear of hell or some other divine punishment for refusing to follow a god does not seem to be an adequate explanation, not when one considers history’s long roll call of courageous heroes. Across cultures and across centuries, good people have suffered banishment, imprisonment, torture, and execution because they refused to bow down before evil human leaders. It seems likely that a significant number of believers would rebel in the same way, if they faced up to the serious faults and crimes attributed to their gods. Fear of torture and execution in the present (in reality) must be at least somewhat comparable to fear of a god’s wrath in some vague afterlife to come (in belief).
Most Christians are probably good people with a reasonable grasp of right and wrong. They know, for example, that it is wrong to kill children. (“At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon . . . there was a loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead” [Exodus 12:29, New International Version].) They also are likely to agree that it is wrong to punish children for the crimes of their fathers. (“He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation” [Exodus 34:7, NIV].) But they are loyal to a god who has done these things.
Why aren’t millions of believers saying, “Yes, I know my god is real because the universe is intelligently designed and I believe that the [Bible, Koran, or Torah] describes him accurately. However, based on the actions of this god. I cannot follow or worship him because I am a decent human being.”
I have long believed that religion will be educated out of humankind eventually. It may take many centuries, but it seems probable. After all, polls show that belief goes down as education goes up. And most of the extremely smart and educated people (such as elite scientists) already don’t believe in gods. But what if it never happens? What if educational levels do not continue to rise as they have over the last few thousand years? Or what if the cosmos is just too big, too complex, and too scary for most people to ever accept rational explanations and lingering mysteries? If so, eroding believers’ loyalty to their gods and encouraging greater respect for basic morality may be the way to go.
Militant atheists who are concerned with the proliferation of RMDs (Religions of Mass Destruction) may be missing an important point here. After all, it is not gods who inflict so much ignorance, hate, and violence upon the world. (Gods almost surely do not exist, remember?) The source of trouble, indeed, may be belief itself, but the direct cause of the many problems we are all burdened with is that so many people try to please gods by following their orders and their example. Consider the fact that millions of people believe in ghosts, but no one worships them in tax-free buildings under the guidance of trained professionals. Ghosts are just not respected in the way gods are. Therefore, the concept of ghosts is not pushing evolution out of classrooms or motivating people to strap bombs around their torsos. With ghosts, it’s mostly just a case of gullible people wasting a bit of space in their skulls with nonsense and causing relatively little harm to the world.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the gods lost their grip on humankind and fell to the status of mere ghosts, no longer able to command vast armies of believers? Even if millions still believed them to be real, it would be a vast improvement. Imagine if the gods were condemned to roam forever in fantasyland with no one willing to follow them. While this might not make for an atheist’s paradise, it would at least be a far better world, one where believers no longer work to please divisive and violent gods at the expense of all humanity.
What Did God Intend When He Created This World?
emodude1971 said:
I would like to propose another blog topic. How did God intend for our world to be? I think we can all agree that God did not WANT Adam and Eve to sin. So what would our world be like if they didn't, and presumably, this would be the state that god wanted the world to be in. Would we all be a bunch of naked, sinless, not knowing good and evil living in a wonderful garden happy go lucky skipping child-like clowns? Did god intend on Adam and Eve reproducing before the fall, or was it just going to be those two? What would life be like, right now in the year 2008 (some 6000 years later :)) if Adam and Eve had never sinned? I'm actually very curious to get some christian opinions on this.
April 22, 2008
What Do Burning Children and the Defense of Jesus Have in Common?
In Richard Bauckham's book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, the author tries to show the power of testimony and why it is necessary for telling what happened when it comes to the unique events in the life of Jesus. So he uses Holocaust testimonies as examples. Here is page 497 in his book:
Bauckham writes:
These stories force Christians to do what theologian John Roth said when trying to justify God's purported ways with us: "No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children."
Christian, care to try?
Bauckham writes:
The passage concerns perhaps the most unbelievably inhuman feature of the destruction of Jews in Auschwitz: the cremation of small children alive. I quote first another report of this before turning to Wiesel's account:Isn't it strange that Bauckham uses these stories to make a point about testimonies of God's love in Jesus and utterly fails to see in them the horrible nature of God's impotence to help these children? What's with it, Christian?The other gas chambers were full of the adults and therefore the children were not gassed, but just burned alive. There were several thousand of them. When one of the SS sort of had pity upon the children, he would take a child and beat the head against a stone before putting it on the pile of fire and wood, so that the child lost consciousness. However, the regular way they did it was by just throwing the children onto the pile. They would put a sheet of wood there, then sprinkle the whole thing with petrol, then wood again, and petrol and wood, and petrol - then they placed the children there. Then the whole thing was lighted. [From L.L. Langer, Holocaust Testimonies (Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 54-55].Wiesel's reference to this way of killing children is in one of the most famous passages of Night. The young Wiesel and his father arrive in Auschwitz:Not far from us, flames were leaping up from a ditch, gigantic flames. They were burning something. A lorry drew up at the pit and delivered its load -little children. Babies! Yes, I saw it - saw it with my own eyes ... those children in the flames. (Is it not surprising that I could not sleep after that? Sleep had fled from my eyes.) ...
I pinched my face. Was I still alive? Was I awake? I could not believe it.
How could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and for the world to keep silent? It was a nightmare ....
These stories force Christians to do what theologian John Roth said when trying to justify God's purported ways with us: "No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children."
Christian, care to try?
April 21, 2008
Another Brawl at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (& stories of some previous ones with added news and opinion)
April 21, 2008, the headlines read:
Orthodox groups clash in Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
Christians fist fight at Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre,
Police breaks off clash at Church of Holy Sepulchre,
Priests exchange blows over religious rights,
And about 180 other headlines...[just visit google news and enter "church of the holy sepulchre"]
For stories about previous brawls at that "holy site" keep reading. There's also some interesting related news and opinion. (Paul Manata and Victor Reppert may want to take note; or better yet, J.P. Holding and James White; or J.P. Holding and Steve Hays)...
EARLIER FIGHT AT HOLY SITE
Six Christian denominations jealously guard their rights at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, so when one denomination moved a chair into a spot claimed by another, it was a declaration of war (a violation of the “status quo” law as enshrined in a 1757 Ottoman declaration). About eleven monks were taken to hospital after being hit by rocks, metal rods and chairs that they threw at each other.
Christian monks from rival denominations [Ethiopians and Egyptian Copts] have been warring for more than a century over the roof of the shrine which the Ethiopians call the “House of Sultan Solomon” because they believe the biblical King Solomon gave it as a gift to the Queen of Sheba. The Ethiopians lost control of the roof during an epidemic in the 19th century which enabled the Copts to take over. But in 1970, during a brief absence by Coptic priests from a rooftop chapel, the Ethiopian clerics returned and have been squatting there ever since. An Ethiopian monk huddles in the corner of the chapel day and night to guard the squatters’ claim. The Egyptian monk, who has been living with them on the roof since the 1970 takeover to assert the Copts’ rights, decided to move his chair out of the sun during a hot Jerusalem day. “They (the Ethiopians) teased him,” said Father Afrayim, an Egyptian Coptic monk at the next door Coptic monastery. “They poked him and brought some women who came behind him and pinched him,” he said. Each side accuses the other of throwing the first blow in the fist-fight and stone throwing that ensued. Police eventually broke up the brawl but by all accounts many of the protagonists were already wounded.
Reuters, July 29, 2002
____________________________
ANOTHER FIGHT AT HOLY SITE
Greek Orthodox and Catholic Franciscan priests got into a fist fight at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, Christianity’s holiest shrine, after arguing over whether a door in the basilica should be closed during a procession. Dozens of people, including several Israeli police officers, were slightly hurt in the brawl at the shrine, built over the spot where tradition says Jesus was crucified and buried. Four priests were detained, police spokesman Shmulik Ben-Ruby said. Custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is shared by several denominations that jealously guard territory and responsibilities under a fragile deal hammered out over the last centuries. Any perceived encroachment on one group’s turf can lead to vicious feuds, sometimes lasting hundreds of years.
Monday’s fight broke out during a procession of hundreds of Greek Orthodox worshippers... Church officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that at one point, the procession passed a Roman Catholic chapel, and priests from both sides started arguing over whether the door to the chapel should be open or closed. Club-wielding Israeli riot police broke up the fight…
In 2003, Israeli police threatened to limit the number of worshippers allowed to attend an Easter ceremony if the denominations did not agree on whom would lead the ceremony… But a year earlier, the Greek patriarch and Armenian clergyman designated to enter the tomb exchanged blows after a dispute over who would be first to exit the chamber.
Associated Press, 2004
____________________________
CATHOLIC MARCHERS TURN ON GLASTONBURY PAGANS
Local pagans were pelted with salt and branded witches who “would burn in hell” during a procession organised by Youth 2000, a conservative Catholic lay group. The Magick Box, a pagan shop on the route of the march, was also singled out and attacked. Maya Pinder, the owner of the shop, said: “We’ve had to hear comments such as ‘burn the witches’, we’ve had salt thrown in our faces and at our shop, people were openly saying they were ‘cleansing Glastonbury of paganism.’ It was as if we had returned to the dark ages. This is hugely damaging to Glastonbury… it is hard enough to trade in Glastonbury as it is, if you were to take away the pagan element it would be a dead town.” The Somerset town is known for having a large population of resident and visiting pagans.
The archdruid of Glastonbury, Dreow Bennett, said: “To call the behavior of some of their members medieval would be an understatement. I personally witnessed the owner of the Magick Box being confronted by one of their associates and being referred to as a bloody bitch and being told ‘you will burn in hell.’”
Father Kevin Knox-Lecky of St Mary’s church said that after meeting representatives of the pagan community he had decided not to invite Youth 2000 to the town again. He said: “A family appeared who we don’t know, who were very destructive not only in the town and to the pagan community, but were also swearing at our parishioners as well.” He said the majority of Catholics taking part in the procession had been well-behaved and respectful of the pagans. The retreat was organised last week to mark the 467th anniversary of the beheading of the last abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Richard Whiting, and fellow martyrs. Youth 2000 describes itself as “an independent, international initiative that helps young adults aged 16-35 plug back into God at the heart of the Roman Catholic Church.” It was set up 10 years ago by a disenchanted Catholic barrister who wanted a return to the traditional teachings of the church for young people.
Charlie Conner, the managing director of Youth 2000, said: “There were several incidents that happened that same weekend that were linked to people who had come to Glastonbury for the retreat. This was in direct contravention of the general spirit of Youth 2000 and its express instructions. The young man who was fined was not in fact registered on the retreat, although he did attempt to attend it. Youth 2000 does not condone or encourage this kind of behaviour from anyone. We fully agree that differences on matters of faith cannot and should not be resolved by any kind of harassment.”
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset police confirmed a youth had been arrested at Magick Box on suspicion of causing harassment, alarm or distress. Two women were also given cautions and warned about their future conduct.
Thair Shaikh, “Catholic marchers turn on Glastonbury pagans,” The Guardian, UK, Nov. 4, 2006 www.guardian.co.uk
____________________________
MARK TWAIN’S EXPERIMENT
Consider my experiment. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk [Muslim] from Constantinople; a Greek Orthodox Christian from Crete [Greece]; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahmin [Hindu priest] from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.
Man is the only animal that has religion, even the True Religion--several of them.
Mark Twain, “Man’s Place in the Animal World,” 1896
____________________________
A VERSION OF MARK TWAIN’S EXPERIMENT
In the middle of the 20th century in the eastern European country of Rumania (that was communist at the time), anyone whom the government considered “anti-communist” was imprisoned. In one case ministers of different religions were imprisoned together in the same close quarters:
“In the hour which the priests’ room had set aside for prayer, Catholics collected in one corner, the Orthodox occupied another, the Unitarians a third. The Jehovah’s Witnesses had a nest on the upper bunks; the Calvinists assembled down below. Twice a day, our various services were held: but among all these ancient worshippers I could scarcely find two men of different sects to say one ‘Our Father’ together. Far from fostering mutual understanding, our common plight made for conflict. Catholics could not forgive the Orthodox hierarchy for collaborating with Communism. Christians of minority beliefs disagreed about ‘rights.’ Disputes arose over every point of doctrine. And while discussion was normally conducted with genteel malice, as learnt in seminaries on wet Sunday afternoons, sometimes tempers flared.” [Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, In God’s Underground (London : W. H. Allen, 1968), p.218, 232)]
Their “quarrels...came to a halt” only after loudspeakers were put in their cells that blared communist slogans day and night, and they were forced to attend lectures advocating communism. That was when the priests and ministers “learned that all our denominations could be reduced to two: the first is hatred, which makes ritual and dogma a pretext for attacking others; the second is love, in which men of all kinds realize their oneness and brotherhood before God.” But if the communists had not added those blaring speakers and forced them to attend lectures, would the pastors and priests have all joined together against their common enemy and “learned” how to avoid “disputing over every point of doctrine?”
E.T.B.
____________________________
“EQUUSTENTIALISM” BY EMO PHILIPS
(Excerpts from his 1985 comedy CD for Epic Records, E=MO2)
Emo: I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said “Stop! don’t do it!”
Jumper: “Why shouldn’t I?” he said.
Emo: “Well, there’s so much to live for!”
Jumper: “Like what?”
Emo: “Well...are you religious or an atheist?”
Jumper: “Religious.”
Emo: “Me too! Are you a Christian, Jew, or something else?”
Jumper: “A Christian.”
Emo: “Me too! Protestant or Catholic?”
Jumper: “Protestant.”
Emo: “Me too! What franchise?”
Jumper: “Baptist.”
Emo: “Wow! Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
Jumper: “Northern Baptist.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
Jumper: “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”
Jumper: “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”
Jumper: “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
Jumper: He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
Emo: And I said, “Die, heretic!” And pushed him off the bridge.
____________________________
But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!
Denis Diderot (1713-1784), cited in Against the Faith by Jim Herrick
____________________________
Men have gone to war and cut each other’s throat because they could not agree as to what was to become of them after their throats were cut.
Walter Parker Stacy (1884-1951)
____________________________
There’s a tendency [in religion] to declare that there is more backsliding around than the national toboggan championships, that heresy must be torn out root and branch, and even arm and leg and eye and tongue, that it’s time to wipe the slate clean. Blood is generally considered very efficient for this purpose.
Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
____________________________
Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility.
Sidney Hook, The Partisan Review, March, 1950
____________________________
The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they’ve realized they can’t get away with it.
W. H. Auden, in Alan Arisen, ed., The Table-Talk of W. H. Auden (1990), quoted from Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations
____________________________
EVERYONE’S A SKEPTIC
(ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE’S RELIGION)
Millions of Hindus pray over statues of Shiva’s penis. Do you think there’s an invisible Shiva who wants his penis prayed over--or are you a skeptic?
Mormons say that Jesus came to America after his resurrection. Do you agree--or are you a doubter?
Florida’s Santeria worshipers sacrifice dogs, goats, chickens, etc., and toss their bodies into waterways. Do you think Santeria gods want animals killed--or are you skeptical?
Muslim suicide bombers who blow themselves up in Israel are taught that “martyrs” go instantly to a paradise full of lovely female houri nymphs. Do you think the dead bombers are in heaven with houris--or are you a doubter?
Unification Church members think Jesus visited Master Moon and told him to convert all people as “Moonies.” Do you believe this sacred tenet of the Unification Church?
Jehovah’s Witnesses say that, any day now, Satan will come out of the earth with an army of demons, and Jesus will come out of the sky with an army of angels, and the Battle of Armageddon will kill everyone on earth except Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do you believe this solemn teaching of their church?
Aztecs skinned maidens and cut out human hearts for a feathered serpent god. What’s your stand on invisible feathered serpents? Aha!--just as I suspected, you don’t believe.
Catholics are taught that the communion wafer and wine magically become the actual body and blood of Jesus during chants and bell-ringing. Do you believe in the “real presence”--or are you a disbeliever?
Faith-healer Ernest Angley says he has the power, described in the Bible, to “discern spirits,” which enables him to see demons inside sick people, and see angels hovering at his revivals. Do you believe this religious assertion?
The Bible says people who work on the Sabbath (Saturday) must be killed: “Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death” (Exodus 31:15). Should we execute such people--or do you doubt this scripture?
At a golden temple in West Virginia, saffron-robed worshipers think they’ll become one with Lord Krishna if they chant “Hare Krishna” enough. Do you agree--or do you doubt it?
Members of the “Heaven’s Gate” commune said they could “shed their containers” (their bodies) and be transported to a UFO behind the Hale-Bopp Comet. Do you think they’re now on that UFO--or are you a skeptic?
During the witch hunts, inquisitor priests tortured thousands of women into confessing that they blighted crops, had sex with Satan, etc. then burned them for it. Do you think the church was right to enforce the Bible’s command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18)--or do you doubt this scripture?
Members of Spiritualist churches say they talk with the dead during worship services. Do you think they actually communicate with spirits of deceased people?
Millions of American Pentecostals spout “the unknown tongue,” a spontaneous outpouring of sounds. They say it is the Holy Ghost, the third god of the Trinity, speaking through them. Do you believe this sacred tenet of many Americans?
Scientologists say each human has a soul which is a “Thetan” that came from another planet. Do you believe their doctrine--or doubt it?
Ancient Greeks thought a multitude of gods lived on Mt. Olympus--and some of today’s New Agers think invisible Lemurians live inside Mt. Shasta. What’s your position on mountain gods--belief or disbelief?
In the mountains of West Virginia, some people obey Christ’s farewell command that true believers “shall take up serpents” (Mark 16:18). They pick up rattlers at church services. Do you believe this scripture, or not?
India’s Thugs thought the many-armed goddess Kali wanted them to strangle human sacrifices. Do you think there’s an invisible goddess who wants people strangled--or are you a disbeliever?
Tibet’s Buddhists say that when an old Lama dies, his spirit enters a baby boy being born somewhere. So they remain leaderless for a dozen years or more, then they find a pubescent boy who seems to have knowledge of the old Lama’s private life, and they anoint the boy as the new Lama (actually the old Lama in a new body). Do you think that dying Lamas fly into new babies, or not?
In China in the 1850s, a Christian convert said God appeared to him, told him he was Jesus’s younger brother, and commanded him to “destroy demons.” He raised an army of believers who waged the “Taiping Rebellion” that killed 20 million people. Do you think he was Christ’s brother--or do you doubt it?
James A. Haught, “Everyone’s a Skeptic--About Other Religions” [Originally delivered as a talk to Campus Freethought Alliance, Marshall University, Huntington, WV, July 12, 1998] http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1998/skeptic.html
Orthodox groups clash in Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
Christians fist fight at Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre,
Police breaks off clash at Church of Holy Sepulchre,
Priests exchange blows over religious rights,
And about 180 other headlines...[just visit google news and enter "church of the holy sepulchre"]
For stories about previous brawls at that "holy site" keep reading. There's also some interesting related news and opinion. (Paul Manata and Victor Reppert may want to take note; or better yet, J.P. Holding and James White; or J.P. Holding and Steve Hays)...
EARLIER FIGHT AT HOLY SITE
Six Christian denominations jealously guard their rights at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, so when one denomination moved a chair into a spot claimed by another, it was a declaration of war (a violation of the “status quo” law as enshrined in a 1757 Ottoman declaration). About eleven monks were taken to hospital after being hit by rocks, metal rods and chairs that they threw at each other.
Christian monks from rival denominations [Ethiopians and Egyptian Copts] have been warring for more than a century over the roof of the shrine which the Ethiopians call the “House of Sultan Solomon” because they believe the biblical King Solomon gave it as a gift to the Queen of Sheba. The Ethiopians lost control of the roof during an epidemic in the 19th century which enabled the Copts to take over. But in 1970, during a brief absence by Coptic priests from a rooftop chapel, the Ethiopian clerics returned and have been squatting there ever since. An Ethiopian monk huddles in the corner of the chapel day and night to guard the squatters’ claim. The Egyptian monk, who has been living with them on the roof since the 1970 takeover to assert the Copts’ rights, decided to move his chair out of the sun during a hot Jerusalem day. “They (the Ethiopians) teased him,” said Father Afrayim, an Egyptian Coptic monk at the next door Coptic monastery. “They poked him and brought some women who came behind him and pinched him,” he said. Each side accuses the other of throwing the first blow in the fist-fight and stone throwing that ensued. Police eventually broke up the brawl but by all accounts many of the protagonists were already wounded.
Reuters, July 29, 2002
____________________________
ANOTHER FIGHT AT HOLY SITE
Greek Orthodox and Catholic Franciscan priests got into a fist fight at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, Christianity’s holiest shrine, after arguing over whether a door in the basilica should be closed during a procession. Dozens of people, including several Israeli police officers, were slightly hurt in the brawl at the shrine, built over the spot where tradition says Jesus was crucified and buried. Four priests were detained, police spokesman Shmulik Ben-Ruby said. Custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is shared by several denominations that jealously guard territory and responsibilities under a fragile deal hammered out over the last centuries. Any perceived encroachment on one group’s turf can lead to vicious feuds, sometimes lasting hundreds of years.
Monday’s fight broke out during a procession of hundreds of Greek Orthodox worshippers... Church officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that at one point, the procession passed a Roman Catholic chapel, and priests from both sides started arguing over whether the door to the chapel should be open or closed. Club-wielding Israeli riot police broke up the fight…
In 2003, Israeli police threatened to limit the number of worshippers allowed to attend an Easter ceremony if the denominations did not agree on whom would lead the ceremony… But a year earlier, the Greek patriarch and Armenian clergyman designated to enter the tomb exchanged blows after a dispute over who would be first to exit the chamber.
Associated Press, 2004
____________________________
CATHOLIC MARCHERS TURN ON GLASTONBURY PAGANS
Local pagans were pelted with salt and branded witches who “would burn in hell” during a procession organised by Youth 2000, a conservative Catholic lay group. The Magick Box, a pagan shop on the route of the march, was also singled out and attacked. Maya Pinder, the owner of the shop, said: “We’ve had to hear comments such as ‘burn the witches’, we’ve had salt thrown in our faces and at our shop, people were openly saying they were ‘cleansing Glastonbury of paganism.’ It was as if we had returned to the dark ages. This is hugely damaging to Glastonbury… it is hard enough to trade in Glastonbury as it is, if you were to take away the pagan element it would be a dead town.” The Somerset town is known for having a large population of resident and visiting pagans.
The archdruid of Glastonbury, Dreow Bennett, said: “To call the behavior of some of their members medieval would be an understatement. I personally witnessed the owner of the Magick Box being confronted by one of their associates and being referred to as a bloody bitch and being told ‘you will burn in hell.’”
Father Kevin Knox-Lecky of St Mary’s church said that after meeting representatives of the pagan community he had decided not to invite Youth 2000 to the town again. He said: “A family appeared who we don’t know, who were very destructive not only in the town and to the pagan community, but were also swearing at our parishioners as well.” He said the majority of Catholics taking part in the procession had been well-behaved and respectful of the pagans. The retreat was organised last week to mark the 467th anniversary of the beheading of the last abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Richard Whiting, and fellow martyrs. Youth 2000 describes itself as “an independent, international initiative that helps young adults aged 16-35 plug back into God at the heart of the Roman Catholic Church.” It was set up 10 years ago by a disenchanted Catholic barrister who wanted a return to the traditional teachings of the church for young people.
Charlie Conner, the managing director of Youth 2000, said: “There were several incidents that happened that same weekend that were linked to people who had come to Glastonbury for the retreat. This was in direct contravention of the general spirit of Youth 2000 and its express instructions. The young man who was fined was not in fact registered on the retreat, although he did attempt to attend it. Youth 2000 does not condone or encourage this kind of behaviour from anyone. We fully agree that differences on matters of faith cannot and should not be resolved by any kind of harassment.”
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset police confirmed a youth had been arrested at Magick Box on suspicion of causing harassment, alarm or distress. Two women were also given cautions and warned about their future conduct.
Thair Shaikh, “Catholic marchers turn on Glastonbury pagans,” The Guardian, UK, Nov. 4, 2006 www.guardian.co.uk
____________________________
MARK TWAIN’S EXPERIMENT
Consider my experiment. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk [Muslim] from Constantinople; a Greek Orthodox Christian from Crete [Greece]; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahmin [Hindu priest] from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.
Man is the only animal that has religion, even the True Religion--several of them.
Mark Twain, “Man’s Place in the Animal World,” 1896
____________________________
A VERSION OF MARK TWAIN’S EXPERIMENT
In the middle of the 20th century in the eastern European country of Rumania (that was communist at the time), anyone whom the government considered “anti-communist” was imprisoned. In one case ministers of different religions were imprisoned together in the same close quarters:
“In the hour which the priests’ room had set aside for prayer, Catholics collected in one corner, the Orthodox occupied another, the Unitarians a third. The Jehovah’s Witnesses had a nest on the upper bunks; the Calvinists assembled down below. Twice a day, our various services were held: but among all these ancient worshippers I could scarcely find two men of different sects to say one ‘Our Father’ together. Far from fostering mutual understanding, our common plight made for conflict. Catholics could not forgive the Orthodox hierarchy for collaborating with Communism. Christians of minority beliefs disagreed about ‘rights.’ Disputes arose over every point of doctrine. And while discussion was normally conducted with genteel malice, as learnt in seminaries on wet Sunday afternoons, sometimes tempers flared.” [Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, In God’s Underground (London : W. H. Allen, 1968), p.218, 232)]
Their “quarrels...came to a halt” only after loudspeakers were put in their cells that blared communist slogans day and night, and they were forced to attend lectures advocating communism. That was when the priests and ministers “learned that all our denominations could be reduced to two: the first is hatred, which makes ritual and dogma a pretext for attacking others; the second is love, in which men of all kinds realize their oneness and brotherhood before God.” But if the communists had not added those blaring speakers and forced them to attend lectures, would the pastors and priests have all joined together against their common enemy and “learned” how to avoid “disputing over every point of doctrine?”
E.T.B.
____________________________
“EQUUSTENTIALISM” BY EMO PHILIPS
(Excerpts from his 1985 comedy CD for Epic Records, E=MO2)
Emo: I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said “Stop! don’t do it!”
Jumper: “Why shouldn’t I?” he said.
Emo: “Well, there’s so much to live for!”
Jumper: “Like what?”
Emo: “Well...are you religious or an atheist?”
Jumper: “Religious.”
Emo: “Me too! Are you a Christian, Jew, or something else?”
Jumper: “A Christian.”
Emo: “Me too! Protestant or Catholic?”
Jumper: “Protestant.”
Emo: “Me too! What franchise?”
Jumper: “Baptist.”
Emo: “Wow! Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
Jumper: “Northern Baptist.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
Jumper: “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”
Jumper: “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”
Jumper: “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
Emo: “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
Jumper: He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
Emo: And I said, “Die, heretic!” And pushed him off the bridge.
____________________________
But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!
Denis Diderot (1713-1784), cited in Against the Faith by Jim Herrick
____________________________
Men have gone to war and cut each other’s throat because they could not agree as to what was to become of them after their throats were cut.
Walter Parker Stacy (1884-1951)
____________________________
There’s a tendency [in religion] to declare that there is more backsliding around than the national toboggan championships, that heresy must be torn out root and branch, and even arm and leg and eye and tongue, that it’s time to wipe the slate clean. Blood is generally considered very efficient for this purpose.
Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
____________________________
Religious tolerance has developed more as a consequence of the impotence of religions to impose their dogmas on each other than as a consequence of spiritual humility.
Sidney Hook, The Partisan Review, March, 1950
____________________________
The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they’ve realized they can’t get away with it.
W. H. Auden, in Alan Arisen, ed., The Table-Talk of W. H. Auden (1990), quoted from Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations
____________________________
EVERYONE’S A SKEPTIC
(ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE’S RELIGION)
Millions of Hindus pray over statues of Shiva’s penis. Do you think there’s an invisible Shiva who wants his penis prayed over--or are you a skeptic?
Mormons say that Jesus came to America after his resurrection. Do you agree--or are you a doubter?
Florida’s Santeria worshipers sacrifice dogs, goats, chickens, etc., and toss their bodies into waterways. Do you think Santeria gods want animals killed--or are you skeptical?
Muslim suicide bombers who blow themselves up in Israel are taught that “martyrs” go instantly to a paradise full of lovely female houri nymphs. Do you think the dead bombers are in heaven with houris--or are you a doubter?
Unification Church members think Jesus visited Master Moon and told him to convert all people as “Moonies.” Do you believe this sacred tenet of the Unification Church?
Jehovah’s Witnesses say that, any day now, Satan will come out of the earth with an army of demons, and Jesus will come out of the sky with an army of angels, and the Battle of Armageddon will kill everyone on earth except Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do you believe this solemn teaching of their church?
Aztecs skinned maidens and cut out human hearts for a feathered serpent god. What’s your stand on invisible feathered serpents? Aha!--just as I suspected, you don’t believe.
Catholics are taught that the communion wafer and wine magically become the actual body and blood of Jesus during chants and bell-ringing. Do you believe in the “real presence”--or are you a disbeliever?
Faith-healer Ernest Angley says he has the power, described in the Bible, to “discern spirits,” which enables him to see demons inside sick people, and see angels hovering at his revivals. Do you believe this religious assertion?
The Bible says people who work on the Sabbath (Saturday) must be killed: “Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death” (Exodus 31:15). Should we execute such people--or do you doubt this scripture?
At a golden temple in West Virginia, saffron-robed worshipers think they’ll become one with Lord Krishna if they chant “Hare Krishna” enough. Do you agree--or do you doubt it?
Members of the “Heaven’s Gate” commune said they could “shed their containers” (their bodies) and be transported to a UFO behind the Hale-Bopp Comet. Do you think they’re now on that UFO--or are you a skeptic?
During the witch hunts, inquisitor priests tortured thousands of women into confessing that they blighted crops, had sex with Satan, etc. then burned them for it. Do you think the church was right to enforce the Bible’s command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18)--or do you doubt this scripture?
Members of Spiritualist churches say they talk with the dead during worship services. Do you think they actually communicate with spirits of deceased people?
Millions of American Pentecostals spout “the unknown tongue,” a spontaneous outpouring of sounds. They say it is the Holy Ghost, the third god of the Trinity, speaking through them. Do you believe this sacred tenet of many Americans?
Scientologists say each human has a soul which is a “Thetan” that came from another planet. Do you believe their doctrine--or doubt it?
Ancient Greeks thought a multitude of gods lived on Mt. Olympus--and some of today’s New Agers think invisible Lemurians live inside Mt. Shasta. What’s your position on mountain gods--belief or disbelief?
In the mountains of West Virginia, some people obey Christ’s farewell command that true believers “shall take up serpents” (Mark 16:18). They pick up rattlers at church services. Do you believe this scripture, or not?
India’s Thugs thought the many-armed goddess Kali wanted them to strangle human sacrifices. Do you think there’s an invisible goddess who wants people strangled--or are you a disbeliever?
Tibet’s Buddhists say that when an old Lama dies, his spirit enters a baby boy being born somewhere. So they remain leaderless for a dozen years or more, then they find a pubescent boy who seems to have knowledge of the old Lama’s private life, and they anoint the boy as the new Lama (actually the old Lama in a new body). Do you think that dying Lamas fly into new babies, or not?
In China in the 1850s, a Christian convert said God appeared to him, told him he was Jesus’s younger brother, and commanded him to “destroy demons.” He raised an army of believers who waged the “Taiping Rebellion” that killed 20 million people. Do you think he was Christ’s brother--or do you doubt it?
James A. Haught, “Everyone’s a Skeptic--About Other Religions” [Originally delivered as a talk to Campus Freethought Alliance, Marshall University, Huntington, WV, July 12, 1998] http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1998/skeptic.html
Of Trees and Men
Warning! Read this first! What you are about to see is not an internet prank or a hoax, but is very, very real and VERY, VERY disturbing! Prepare yourself!
In 34 years of life, I don't know that I've seen anything that actually outclasses this in terms of producing horribly unsettling feelings. Worse than blood, guts, or violence from a Hollywood horror flick, and worse than anything that's been shown as an alien virus from outer space invading a human body is Dede's (a.k.a. "Tree man's") condition. This poor man suffers from the typical HPV virus that so many of us get and have without even knowing it. But unlike our bodies, Dede’s body doesn’t have the genetic requirements to fight it off. The result is his freakish appearance as the virus hijacks his cells.
This guy was an Indonesian fisherman whose wife left him because of this condition. He lost his job and even sold himself as a circus freak for a while, but the ridicule became too much. And that's not all; the guy can't work, bathe, take care of his teenage daughters, or do anything without the support and assistance of his family.
He's been begging for help – any help – and when the doctors in his homeland could do nothing, he was out of luck. Then, finally, help came in the form of a skin doctor from the U.S. who volunteered to help him. But still, there are no guarantees. He will never have a normal body, even with the help of modern science, though he might be able to use his hands again.
My question is, what can those who believe in a divine Creator possibly say to this? What was God thinking when he created this man? Where was Jesus and his grace? What would this man have done had he been born in a time before modern medicine? How could he have had any quality of life at all, much less a prognosis for improvement?
It's seeing things like this that never fails to reaffirm my atheist convictions. If seeing children dying from cancer is not enough, if seeing gross bone deformities and massive, out-of-control tumors isn’t enough, just getting a gander at this poor guy is a one-way-ticket to heathen-ville U.S.A. Nope, it's safe to say that no compassionate deity would have allowed such a terrible thing. Our bodies would not be so poorly designed that cells go crazy like this had we been created by a heavenly tailor.
But I wonder what kind of quibbling our Christian readers will offer us when they see this? What excuses for the Almighty will they give us for this genetic monstrosity? And the really sad part is, Christians believe that if this man chose to kill himself to get out of a life of misery and ridicule, he would go straight to hell, having his own blood on his hands. So he’d suffer not only in this life, but in the one to come. I really am glad I'm an atheist!
(JH)
In 34 years of life, I don't know that I've seen anything that actually outclasses this in terms of producing horribly unsettling feelings. Worse than blood, guts, or violence from a Hollywood horror flick, and worse than anything that's been shown as an alien virus from outer space invading a human body is Dede's (a.k.a. "Tree man's") condition. This poor man suffers from the typical HPV virus that so many of us get and have without even knowing it. But unlike our bodies, Dede’s body doesn’t have the genetic requirements to fight it off. The result is his freakish appearance as the virus hijacks his cells.
This guy was an Indonesian fisherman whose wife left him because of this condition. He lost his job and even sold himself as a circus freak for a while, but the ridicule became too much. And that's not all; the guy can't work, bathe, take care of his teenage daughters, or do anything without the support and assistance of his family.
He's been begging for help – any help – and when the doctors in his homeland could do nothing, he was out of luck. Then, finally, help came in the form of a skin doctor from the U.S. who volunteered to help him. But still, there are no guarantees. He will never have a normal body, even with the help of modern science, though he might be able to use his hands again.
My question is, what can those who believe in a divine Creator possibly say to this? What was God thinking when he created this man? Where was Jesus and his grace? What would this man have done had he been born in a time before modern medicine? How could he have had any quality of life at all, much less a prognosis for improvement?
It's seeing things like this that never fails to reaffirm my atheist convictions. If seeing children dying from cancer is not enough, if seeing gross bone deformities and massive, out-of-control tumors isn’t enough, just getting a gander at this poor guy is a one-way-ticket to heathen-ville U.S.A. Nope, it's safe to say that no compassionate deity would have allowed such a terrible thing. Our bodies would not be so poorly designed that cells go crazy like this had we been created by a heavenly tailor.
But I wonder what kind of quibbling our Christian readers will offer us when they see this? What excuses for the Almighty will they give us for this genetic monstrosity? And the really sad part is, Christians believe that if this man chose to kill himself to get out of a life of misery and ridicule, he would go straight to hell, having his own blood on his hands. So he’d suffer not only in this life, but in the one to come. I really am glad I'm an atheist!
(JH)
April 20, 2008
Decision-making May Be Surprisingly Unconscious Activity
ScienceDaily.com
A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain. (Thanks to Scott.)
So what does this mean for passages such as Matthew 5:21?
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.
In light of this research, that seems extreme. How is one accountable for "Flash" Anger? How does one prevent "Flash" Anger? If a large percentage of your action or decision is prepared in the "background" how much of that are we in control of? I'll stipulate that we have the final choice, but how we feel about it is quite another thing. The brain is like a modular unit. Its made up of modular circuitry that have processes that run in background of which we are not aware. Any poor performance in any one of those circuits could cause us to do something or feel someway we wouldn't normally. For example lack of sleep and the resultant crabbiness that accompanies it. It seems extreme to put our fates in the hands of a three pound meatball that is so easily influenced to operate outside of "specifications"
Excerpts from the article.
A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. Even several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain. (Thanks to Scott.)
So what does this mean for passages such as Matthew 5:21?
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.
In light of this research, that seems extreme. How is one accountable for "Flash" Anger? How does one prevent "Flash" Anger? If a large percentage of your action or decision is prepared in the "background" how much of that are we in control of? I'll stipulate that we have the final choice, but how we feel about it is quite another thing. The brain is like a modular unit. Its made up of modular circuitry that have processes that run in background of which we are not aware. Any poor performance in any one of those circuits could cause us to do something or feel someway we wouldn't normally. For example lack of sleep and the resultant crabbiness that accompanies it. It seems extreme to put our fates in the hands of a three pound meatball that is so easily influenced to operate outside of "specifications"
Excerpts from the article.
This unprecedented prediction of a free decision was made possible by sophisticated computer programs that were trained to recognize typical brain activity patterns preceding each of the two choices. Micropatterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex were predictive of the choices even before participants knew which option they were going to choose. The decision could not be predicted perfectly, but prediction was clearly above chance. This suggests that the decision is unconsciously prepared ahead of time but the final decision might still be reversible.
More than 20 years ago the American brain scientist Benjamin Libet found a brain signal, the so-called "readiness-potential" that occurred a fraction of a second before a conscious decision. Libet’s experiments were highly controversial and sparked a huge debate. Many scientists argued that if our decisions are prepared unconsciously by the brain, then our feeling of "free will" must be an illusion. In this view, it is the brain that makes the decision, not a person’s conscious mind. Libet’s experiments were particularly controversial because he found only a brief time delay between brain activity and the conscious decision.
In contrast, Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts -- even up to 7 seconds ahead of time -- how a person is going to decide. But they also warn that the study does not finally rule out free will: "Our study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer ahead than previously thought. But we do not know yet where the final decision is made. We need to investigate whether a decision prepared by these brain areas can still be reversed."
The Goals of Debunking Christianity
When I first started this blog in January '06 I wanted to choose a title that best described what I intended to accomplish that would also grab people's attention, so I chose the present title, Debunking Christianity. It has done it's work well. When you see it listed on another blog or website it grabs your attention. It has increased our traffic.
This title also best describes my goals. My goals are negative ones. I do not intend to defend atheism, per se, even though I am an atheist, but to argue against evangelical Christianity, which is the most obnoxious type of that faith held by the majority who are so cocksure of their views. I'm merely claiming that their type of Christianiy is a delusion, something every non-Christian and liberal Christian can agree with me about. This is my niche, and I hope I'm doing this well. To those who disagree with these goals I respond that by having narrow goals of this type I can better achieve them. Larger goals are harder to achieve, because the larger the claim is the harder it is to defend. My goals allow me to focus on one thing and to do it well. My primary goal is to knock conservative Christians off of center...to make them question their beliefs. Where they end up after this is not my immediate concern. There are other sites and other books that can take up where I leave off. But I'm doing the hard work, not that debunking evangelical Christianity itself is difficult, but that getting Christians to acknowledge that their faith is delusionary is indeed difficult. And I've been willing to take the barbs thrown my way (not with pleasure) for this purpose.
Then I began inviting people on DC who shared these same goals, and we have developed quite a nice list of contributors, beginning with exbeliever. Some contributors merely wanted to post their deconversion stories, while others have come and gone for various reasons, and I thank them all for their contributions.
But the title of this blog also leads to some confusions. One confusion is that it sounds offensive. It sounds as if we are hostile to Christian people themselves. It sounds like a personal attack. But we're not at all hostile to Christian people, unless provoked, and I have been provoked quite a bit simply because this blog exists. We try our best to be cordial and polite, although this is difficult to do in the midst of these type of debates, especially when dealing with a belief system we think is akin to Holocaust deniers and Flat Earth Society members. It's hard not to ridicule what we think has no evidence for it, but we try really hard not to so.
The title may also lead Christians to think we are ignorant, since skeptics have tried to debunk Christianity for millenia to no avail. Some Christians have shown up here, read one post, and blasted us without seeing the depth of our arguments. They in turn soon realize that we do know what we're talking about. No one can say all that he knows in one post. So because we leave out something, a Christian might retort with a Bible passage as if we've never considered that before. It doesn't take long for that Christian to see we have considered it and rejected something about it.
The title also sounds as if we are hostile toward the Christian faith, so it provokes hostility in return. Well, in some real sense we are a bit hostile to Christianity. We think it causes harm in many ways, yes. But even though this is true in varying degrees, we try to dispassionately argue against it. We are testing our arguments against what Christians can throw at us, and we have learned a few things in our debates. I personally love to learn from others no matter what they believe, and I do. No one has a corner on the truth. We admit this. If we are wrong show us, that's all we ask, although we no more think we are wrong then others who disagree.
As former insiders to the Christian faith we reject it with the same confidence that Christians reject the faiths of all other religions, even other branches of Christianity. The rejection is the easy part. We all do it. My claim is that agnosticism is the default position, which merely claims "I don't know". Anyone moving off the default position has the burden of proof, for in doing so that person is making a positive knowledge claim. When I argue for atheism I too am making a positive knowledge claim that must bear its own burden of proof. But I also claim moving from agnosticism to atheism is a very small step when compared to moving up the ladder to a full blown evangelical Baptist Christianity (as but one denomination among many), past pantheism, panentheism, deism, theism, Christianity, and evangelical Christianity itself.
This title also best describes my goals. My goals are negative ones. I do not intend to defend atheism, per se, even though I am an atheist, but to argue against evangelical Christianity, which is the most obnoxious type of that faith held by the majority who are so cocksure of their views. I'm merely claiming that their type of Christianiy is a delusion, something every non-Christian and liberal Christian can agree with me about. This is my niche, and I hope I'm doing this well. To those who disagree with these goals I respond that by having narrow goals of this type I can better achieve them. Larger goals are harder to achieve, because the larger the claim is the harder it is to defend. My goals allow me to focus on one thing and to do it well. My primary goal is to knock conservative Christians off of center...to make them question their beliefs. Where they end up after this is not my immediate concern. There are other sites and other books that can take up where I leave off. But I'm doing the hard work, not that debunking evangelical Christianity itself is difficult, but that getting Christians to acknowledge that their faith is delusionary is indeed difficult. And I've been willing to take the barbs thrown my way (not with pleasure) for this purpose.
Then I began inviting people on DC who shared these same goals, and we have developed quite a nice list of contributors, beginning with exbeliever. Some contributors merely wanted to post their deconversion stories, while others have come and gone for various reasons, and I thank them all for their contributions.
But the title of this blog also leads to some confusions. One confusion is that it sounds offensive. It sounds as if we are hostile to Christian people themselves. It sounds like a personal attack. But we're not at all hostile to Christian people, unless provoked, and I have been provoked quite a bit simply because this blog exists. We try our best to be cordial and polite, although this is difficult to do in the midst of these type of debates, especially when dealing with a belief system we think is akin to Holocaust deniers and Flat Earth Society members. It's hard not to ridicule what we think has no evidence for it, but we try really hard not to so.
The title may also lead Christians to think we are ignorant, since skeptics have tried to debunk Christianity for millenia to no avail. Some Christians have shown up here, read one post, and blasted us without seeing the depth of our arguments. They in turn soon realize that we do know what we're talking about. No one can say all that he knows in one post. So because we leave out something, a Christian might retort with a Bible passage as if we've never considered that before. It doesn't take long for that Christian to see we have considered it and rejected something about it.
The title also sounds as if we are hostile toward the Christian faith, so it provokes hostility in return. Well, in some real sense we are a bit hostile to Christianity. We think it causes harm in many ways, yes. But even though this is true in varying degrees, we try to dispassionately argue against it. We are testing our arguments against what Christians can throw at us, and we have learned a few things in our debates. I personally love to learn from others no matter what they believe, and I do. No one has a corner on the truth. We admit this. If we are wrong show us, that's all we ask, although we no more think we are wrong then others who disagree.
As former insiders to the Christian faith we reject it with the same confidence that Christians reject the faiths of all other religions, even other branches of Christianity. The rejection is the easy part. We all do it. My claim is that agnosticism is the default position, which merely claims "I don't know". Anyone moving off the default position has the burden of proof, for in doing so that person is making a positive knowledge claim. When I argue for atheism I too am making a positive knowledge claim that must bear its own burden of proof. But I also claim moving from agnosticism to atheism is a very small step when compared to moving up the ladder to a full blown evangelical Baptist Christianity (as but one denomination among many), past pantheism, panentheism, deism, theism, Christianity, and evangelical Christianity itself.
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