My Debate Notes: "God Probably Doesn't Exist Given the Existence of Horrendous Suffering, by John W. Loftus

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I had mentioned this debate yesterday. Here is my planned opening statement: 

My focus is on heinous, hideous, horrific levels of horrendous suffering given the belief in a theistic God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfect good. Unless we focus on that kind of suffering, the kind that seems needless and absolutely inexplicable, we’ll fail to see this problem for what it is. Instead of focusing on bruises, sprained ankles, slaps on the cheek, a clump of hair being pulled out, or sicknesses like colds and the flu, let’s focus instead on people who have been burned alive, boiled alive, and buried alive.

God may well have good reasons to allow for a modest amount of pain since we have physical bodies and we will all die. So we can set aside that kind of suffering as largely uninteresting in this discussion. Horrendous suffering, by contrast, should be our focus. My perspective is a “minimal facts” approach to the problem of suffering. I’m arguing that God should not allow a specific kind of suffering, horrendous suffering. Failing to focus on it is a failure to honestly search for the truth, for when horrendous suffering is our focus, the standard theodicies don’t work.

My contention is that the theistic God probably doesn't exist given the existence of horrendous suffering. Just ask what we would expect to find if we woke up one morning for the very first time. Would we expect to find so much horrendous suffering on this planet? I submit that people would never guess there would be as much horrendous suffering as there is in our world if such a God existed. For it’s clear that God should never allow it. We wouldn’t expect the existence of God since he could prevent it, should prevent it, yet doesn’t prevent it.

Today I'll Be Debating God and Horrendous Suffering at 3 PM EST

Wish me good providence. No, good luck. No, a well prepared brain. Check back as I'll be posting my ten minute opener later. I go 2nd. I hope it goes well.

The 1941 Babi Yar Massacre vs. God-Is-Good Theology

Horrendous suffering can never be ignored in guessing about god(s)

Please be aware that a primary role of the clergy is always to promote their own cherished version of the faith, despite the fact that there are thousands of competing denominations, brands, sects, divisions into which Christianity has shattered. Promoting their versions of faith commonly means discouraging curiosity. An elderly Catholic woman once told me that the priests warned children not to think about what they’d learned in catechism. Which is a way of claiming that the priests alone possess Christian truth—in other words, they are paid propagandists for their brand. 

It would be so refreshing if devout folks could grasp this reality.

The Cult-Goofy, Defective Final 16th Chapter of Mark’s Gospel

Wrapping up my honest sermons on this first gospel

For many centuries, religious scholars and laity alike had no clue that the final chapter of Mark is defective. But as ancient manuscripts came to light, there was a surprise: the original gospel ended at 16:8, “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” They here refers to the three women mentioned in verse 1, who had gone to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. How could the gospel end so abruptly? It’s possible that the original scroll was damaged, that is, the end of the scroll somehow got torn off. It just seems so unlikely that the author would have ended the gospel this way—although some scholars have argued that it’s possible.

"Why Adam and Eve Sinned & Problems with Free Will" by Edouard Tahmizian

"Why Adam and Eve Sinned & Problems with Free Will" by Edouard Tahmizian is Secular Web's Editor's Choice, Kiosk Article! Congrats goes to Edouard who is the Vice President & Social Media Manager of Internet Infidels! LINK

For Good Reason, Respect for Clergy Has Been in Decline

The clergy themselves are to blame

Many times on this blog I have wondered, “Why isn’t membership in the Catholic church down to zero by now?” Are its faithful members just not paying attention? Their church has paid more than four billion dollars in legal settlements for lawsuits involving clergy rape and abuse of children. Can we imagine any greater scandal? However, churches are not empty because Catholic theology promises eternal life, hence even alarming scandals can be dismissed or ignored. Moreover, its clergy have mastered show business. Their churches are magnificent, the rituals and ceremonies are impressive, and the budgets for clergy costumes must be especially excessive. Such razzle-dazzle keeps the congregants in awe: they show up to get their beliefs, their confidence in eternal life, boosted. Years ago I knew a devout Catholic woman who held on to their faith with fierce determination because she wants to see her mother again in heaven.

Convincing Evidence for a Real Jesus Still Can’t Be Found

Close study of the Bible and other ancient texts isn’t helping

My very devout mother was born in southern Indiana in 1905. It was always a puzzle to me that she was not a fundamentalist. I recall vividly that she never watched Billy Graham on TV—she was put off by his dramatic waving of the Bible above his head. She never attended college, but she read voraciously. While my father and I watched TV, she would go to another room in the house to read—especially history, biography. I remember so many books in the house. I’m grateful that her influence had more impact on me than my father’s devotion to TV.

 

When I was a teenager, she bought the 12-volume Interpreter’s Bible, a product of Protestant theology. I read it too and thought there was nothing unusual about this purchase. She once asked a new pastor at our church about something she’d read in one of the volumes—and he was stunned: “You have the Interpreter’s Bible?” Her non-fundamentalist piety rubbed off on me, and she allowed me to take those 12 hefty volumes with me when I went away to college.

"Christian Nationalism—The Danger That It Poses to Our Democracy" by John W. Loftus

The following link will take you to Google Slides for my presentation on this topic. It was sponsored by CFI Indiana this past Saturday.

LINK. Let me know this works. I press on the down arrow to switch slides. If you see the "Slideshow" click on it, or if you see the "View" tab click on it then click on "slideshow". Not bad if I say so myself! Keep in mind the state of democracy in the USA can change.

The Warsaw Ghetto vs. God-Is-Good Theology

Horrendous suffering can never be ignored to protect god(s)

Not too long ago, a post quoting Bertrand Russell popped up on social media. It was an excerpt from his 1930 essay, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? Much of this essay is devoted to demonstrating that the concept of a god who is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing cannot be reconciled with the depth of pain and misery that we see in the world. His conclusion was that it makes no sense at all to believe in such a god. It was in 1927 that he published Why I Am Not a Christian. He also proposed a thought experiment, The Cosmic Teapot, pointing out that if he claimed that there was a tiny teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars—that could not be detected by any telescope—it is an unfalsifiable claim. The analogy is that claims about gods likewise lack reliable, verifiable, objective data, and are thus not to be believed.

Here is a Visual of the Book "God and Horrendous Suffering"

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Honest Sermons on the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 15

The origins of anti-Semitism in this first gospel 

These 47 verses of chapter 15 should be read carefully, with curiosity fully engaged. How did the author of Mark’s gospel know—how did he find out about—any of what he depicts here? There is wide consensus among scholars that this gospel was written anonymously after the devastating war in Palestine that included the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE. The label Mark was attached to the gospel later, and there has been much discussion of the geographical errors the author made: it would seem he was far removed from scene of his story.

The Best Cure for Christianity Is Reading the Bible, Essay Number 8

There is far too much mediocre, alarming Jesus-script in the gospels

                                                                                                

On social media especially, there is a lot of criticism of Christianity. That is, people who claim to be Christians are accused of not following the teaching of Jesus—who is idealized, credited with a reputation that is not based on what we find in the gospels. Reading the gospels carefully, with critical thinking fully engaged, is not a common practice of the devout. If it were, there would be a lot of alarm and panic. 

 

Ironically, the alarm and panic can be reduced by a stark truth:  There is no way whatever to verify any of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels, which is why the term Jesus-script should be used instead of Jesus quotes. As is all too obvious from comparing the four gospels, their authors had different agendas. Claiming that they were all divinely inspired is a phony diversion. The authors created Jesus-script out of their imaginations. And so much of it reflects their obsession with promoting the Jesus cult. There is a list of 292 bad, mediocre, alarming examples of Jesus-script at this website.

Some Disturbing [Preconciliar] Catholic Art:

Figure 1: Some disturbing Preconciliar Roman Catholic art that I discovered on Pinterest. ‘Passiōnis Īnstrūmenta’, ‘The Instruments of the Passion’.

Bad News About Christianity has some excellent posts about Christianity’s obsession with death. We have ‘[Christianity and] Necrophilia’, for example. Bad News About Christianity’s post: ‘[Christianity and] Sadomasochism’ is also pertinent to our discussion.

In the above image, we have the Instruments of the Passion portrayed. We have the cockerel that crowed when Peter denied him. We have the basin of water wherewith Pontius Pilate washed his hands of the death of Jesus. We have the seamless garment for which the soldiers involved in the Crucifixion threw dice. We have the torches that the soldiers used when arresting Christ in the Garden of Olives. The portrait of Christ is itself an instrument of the passion; it is Veronica’s veil containing the miraculous imprint of the Holy Face of Jesus.

The Latin captions that go along with this image are interesting:

‘Respice mē! Mē conde animō! Mē pectore servā!’

‘Arma vidēs: hīs mortem peccāta daemōna vīcī.’

‘Haec animō memorī sacra trophaea tenē!’

I would idiomatically translate the above Latin captions into Biblical English as:

‘Look thou at me! Bury thou me in thine heart! Serve thou me with thy soul!’

‘Thou seest the weapons: with these I conquered sin [and] the Devil.’

‘Keep thou these sacred trophies[, mementos of the defeats suffered by death and the Devil by means of my Passion,] in mind!’

I would idiomatically translate the above Latin captions into Modern English as:

‘Look at me! Bury me in your heart! Serve me with your soul!’

‘You see the weapons: with these I conquered sin [and] the Devil.’

‘Keep these sacred trophies[, mementos of the defeats suffered by death and the Devil by means of my Passion,] in mind!’

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Ciarán Aodh Mac Ardghail (Ciarán Mc Ardle) is a digital creator from Ireland. Here is his linktree. Here is his YouTube Channel. Here is his LinkedIn. Here is his Instagram.

Horrendous Suffering Cannot Be Ignored in Guessing about God

Religious delusions no longer serve the needs of humanity

In my article here last week, I described three brick walls that Christian theology collides with, and which, in fact, demonstrate that it faces insurmountable problems: 1. Horrendous suffering, 2. Catastrophic superstition, and 3. The vicious god depicted in the Bible. Devout believers fail to detect the superstitions because these bizarre beliefs were imbedded in their brains at a very early age. When I was a kid, attending a Methodist church in rural Indiana, every quarter we had communion Sunday: we pretended to eat the body of Jesus (little chunks of Wonderbread) and drink his blood (thimble-sized cups of grape juice). Nobody was there to tell me, “That’s pretty gross, you know.” On the other side of town, Catholics did this every Sunday and truly believed that, by the miracle of the mass, they were eating and drinking the real Jesus. This is what I mean by catastrophic superstition. In no way does this improve our understanding of reality.

1. Horrendous Suffering 2. Catastrophic Superstitions 3. A Vicious God

Christian theology is shattered by these three factors

For centuries, the devout—determined to preserve and protect their faith—have ignored reality. They have turned off curiosity and critical thinking. That just doesn’t work anymore. 

 

There are major brick walls that Christian theology smacks into—and these should put a stop to belief in the god it claims to adore, follow, and worship. Let’s consider three of these brick walls.

The 2nd edition of "God and Horrendous Suffering" is now available as PAPERBACK book!!!

That's right, finally! The 2nd edition of "God and Horrendous Suffering" is now available as a PAPERBACK book!!! Be one of the very first readers to get it. JUST CLICK HERE. If you want a Kindle ebook instead, CLICK HERE. If you want to see the Preface, Blurbs, Contents, Introduction, and read about the contributors, CLICK HERE. I'm very excited. Please spread the word! I thank everyone that helped make this happen, especially the expert contributors to this anthology!!

Honest Sermons about the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 14

There is more bragging here about the holy hero’s colossal ego  

At 72 verses, Mark 14 is the longest chapter in this gospel. It also gives an account of many conversations, and this should prompt curiosity. How did the author of Mark’s gospel find out about these conversations? Any curious reader today would ask, “Was someone on hand to take notes—and were these notes preserved in an archive that the author of Mark, decades later—would have access to? There is major consensus in Christian academia that this gospel was composed after the disastrous war fought between the Jews and the Romans, during which, in 70 C.E. the Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed (as depicted in Mark 13). Would archives have survived, would detailed documentation have survived? Scholars have no idea, moreover, where this gospel was written, or by whom.

Announcing the 2nd Edition of "God and Horrendous Suffering"!!

The 2nd edition of "God and Horrendous Suffering" is now available as a Kindle book!!! CLICK Here!!

If you want to see the Preface, Blurbs, Contents, Introduction, and learn about the contributors, CLICK HERE !!

I'm very excited. Please spread the word! I thank everyone that helped make this happen, especially the expert contributors to this anthology!!

Richard Carrier On Why There Is No Free-Will

Edouard Tahmizian had an interesting discussion with Richard Carrier about the metaphysical impossibility of libertarian free will. Our actions are aimed at fulfilling our desires; but where did our desires come from? Did we choose our desires, or simply discover that we had them? I offer two considerations below.

A Few Suggestions: New Year Resolutions for Christians

Let curiosity and a desire for knowledge seize the day

Many years ago, when I was the pastor of two Methodist churches in Massachusetts, the clergy in town—across several denominations—were fond of occasionally having “ecumenical” services. That is, all of the clergy would take part, I guess to make the point that we all worshipped Jesus Christ. But as we gathered to take part in these events, one thing we didn’t do was discuss theology, because we knew we didn’t agree. On one such occasion, when we were “backstage” at a Catholic church, I noticed a tiny sink. The priest explained that it drained, not into the city sewer, but it had a small pipe that went through the wall, and emptied into the grass outside. This was the sink into which left-over wine from the mass was poured. Since it had been converted—through the miracle of the mass—into the real blood of Jesus, it would be a sacrilege to have it flow into the sewer. I could hardly imagine a better example of magical thinking, on a par with the fairy-god-mother in Cinderella turning a pumpkin into a coach. It would have been pointless to argue about such theological nonsense.