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.

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.

Christians: Please Read the Gospels, Think, Ponder—Non-Stop

Which is precisely what the clergy don’t want you to do

It is especially important to study the origins of the Christian faith, and—above all—the origins of Jesus. It doesn’t take all that much effort to discover that the four gospel authors didn’t agree about where Jesus came from. At the opening of the first gospel to be written, Mark, Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee shows up to be baptized by John the Baptist, a ritual that John has announced is for “the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus is soon identified—by a voice booming from the sky—as god’s beloved son, with whom he is well pleased. The author of John, the final gospel, who specialized in theology inflation, tells his readers right up front, that Jesus was present at creation:

 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

The Best Cure for Christianity Is Reading the Bible, Essay No. 7

Big problems with the apostle Paul: please stop calling him a saint

Just how did the apostle Paul become convinced that Jesus was the key to salvation? He assured one of his congregations that he heard this news directly from Jesus himself, in a heavenly vision: 

 

“For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin, for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)

The Case for Jesus as a Real Historical Person Continues to Erode

“But I feel Jesus in my heart” is evidence for what you’re feeling

In my most recent articles here I explained why we no longer need to pay much attention to the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments. Most devout churchgoers seem unaware of the many problems presented by these Bible texts. But there’s an even more gigantic problem that is outside the horizon of awareness of those who persist in their devotion to Jesus. There has been turmoil in Jesus-studies for quite some time now, because historians are having a tough time locating reliable, verifiable, objective evidence that Jesus really did exist. The laity would not be able to grasp the problem, because—well, because… “Aren’t the gospels all the proof we need?” 

 

There is little awareness of the major problems presented by the gospels. How thoroughly do devout folks actually study the gospels? The clergy, from their pulpits, share Jesus-script that gives a boost to his reputation, but are careful not to mention the chilling, horrible Jesus-script that is also in the gospels. Real study of the gospels means reading them each carefully, pondering the many troubling aspects of them, comparing these four different versions of Jesus. The next level of study would be reading books written by scholars about the gospels—both devout and secular scholars. Here the laity would be entering that world of turmoil in Jesus-studies I mentioned above.

The Best Cure for Christianity Is Reading the Bible, Essay No. 6

Bad theology in the Old Testament

Not too long ago I saw a video: a conservative woman being interviewed by a man who wanted to know her opinion about what should be taught in public schools. She was adamant that the Bible should be included in the curriculum, but that books that advocated immoral or radical ideas must be banned. The man mentioned that he knew of a book that described a sordid family story: a man had two daughters who got him drunk on two successive nights, took turns having sex with him—and got pregnant. The woman didn’t hesitate: of course that book should be banned. The fellow then pointed out that this story is in the Bible, Genesis 19:30-38, about Lot and his daughters. The woman was shocked…that the interviewer could tell such a lie.

Hey, Devout Folks: Facing Reality Would Be a Smart Move!

No god has “the whole world” in its hands

It was reported that on the Sunday following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, church attendance in the New York area was higher than usual. Perhaps people were searching for comfort, but my own fantasy was that these folks who showed up at church were there searching for a crucial answer—or to hold god accountable: why hadn’t their all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful deity done something to prevent the attacks? Was his attention captured by crises in other galaxies—or was diverting airplanes beyond his skill-set?

The Best Cure for Christianity Is Reading the Bible, Essay No. 5

The Book of Acts, chapters 1 – 5: Our Jesus Cult is the RIGHT Cult
 

Among Bible-reading church-goers, I suspect that the gospels get more traffic than most of the books of the Old Testament. They also probably avoid the letters of the apostle Paul, which are not easy reading: sometimes his theology, his claims, can be confusing, even alarming, leaving devout folks puzzled. I wonder, however, if they venture into the book that follows the gospels, The Book of Acts—that is, the Acts of the Apostles.

Honest Sermons on the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 10

Another mix of flimsy theology and cult propaganda

There are several different topics in this chapter, but the author’s agenda of cult promotion is transparent.
 
Condemning divorce 
 
At the outset (verses 2-12), Mark’s holy hero Jesus makes pronouncements about divorce, positioning his decree as superior to that of Moses. Pay careful attention to two Jesus-scripts in this section:
 
1.     “…from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (vv. 6-9)
 
2.     “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” (vv. 11-12)

Oh the Irony: Religion Is Shooting Itself in the Foot

Disbelief and atheism are on the rise

 
A few years ago I had the misfortune of attending a First Communion service at a suburban Rhode Island Catholic Church. The place was packed, parents and relatives eager to see the children going through this important ritual of the faith. I was not at all surprised to see that the clergy had mastered show business—performing the meticulous ceremonies in their impressive costumes. And the interior of the church was of unexpected grandeur for its suburban setting. Yet I found myself wondering two things: 
 
(1)  What percentage of the hundreds of adults who showed up actually believed the idea that the priests were pushing? Namely, that through the miracle of the Mass, the kids were getting to eat Jesus for the first time. These adults live, work, and survive in the modern world. Do they really accept the superstitions/magical thinking that the Catholic hierarchy still pushes? 
 
(2)  Why was anybody bothering to attend? Why isn’t membership in the Catholic Church down to zero by now? Why do people still show up, in the wake of the world-wide scandal of priests raping children; the most recent figure I have seen is that the church has paid more than three billion dollars in damages.

Honest Sermons on the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 9

A sorry mix of superstition, cult bragging, and bad theology

Baptist preacher William Miller predicted that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. Thousands of people were psyched for this dramatic event, which turned into what became known as The Great Disappointment, since Jesus didn’t show up. Miller had calculated the date based on data—what he assumed was data—that he found in the Bible. He should have grasped that some Bible data is just plain wrong. Such as the opening verse of Mark 9: “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” 

 
We are entitled to wonder what was going on in the head of the author of Mark’s gospel—whoever that was. There is consensus among mainstream New Testament scholars that this gospel was written in the wake of the destructive First Jewish-Roman War (67-70 CE), during which Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. This horror is reflected in Mark 13. The Jesus-script in Mark 9:1 might reflect this gap of four decades between supposed Jesus events and the writing of the gospel: “some standing here who will not taste death” until they see the arrival of the kingdom. Some maybe, likely very few.

Leaving Home

[Dr. Valerie Tarico posted this on 05/25/2007. Enjoy!]

Greetings! John has graciously asked me to join this community of thinkers and scholars, and I am honored to say yes. In a world torn by religous tribalism, what could be more important than re-examining the traditions that have inextricably blended wisdom and community with bigotry and violence.

I will begin, as others have, by posting my deconversion story. Out of a sheer overwhelming lack of time, I am cheating: copying out of my book,The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth, rather than beginning the narrative again from scratch.

Leaving Home.

When I first started having misgivings about my faith, I did what any good Evangelical would: I prayed. I was fifteen at the time, earnest and devout. An eldest daughter with a caretaker’s heart and responsibilities. A good student surrounded by a good family, good friends, and a good church community. Even so, the cognitive changes that beset teenagers—increased ability to introspect, to think critically, and to envision the possible—were giving me trouble.

Honest Sermons on the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 8

This is a mediocre blend of magic folklore and cult promotion

It would seem that the author of Mark’s gospel was obsessed with Jesus’ magical powers to make food appear out of nowhere. In chapter 6 we saw that Mark’s holy hero fed five thousand people, somehow making five loaves of bread and two fish turn into enough food to satisfy them all. And now, at the opening of chapter 8, he produces enough food to feed four thousand. It would also seem that Mark had no trouble disclosing just how stupid the disciples were. Jesus proposes feeding this second huge crowd, “…they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way…” (vv. 2-3)

Careful Bible Study Shows It’s Not a Divinely Inspired Book

If it is, god must have had a lot of really bad days
 

Especially among evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, this remains a deeply cherished claim: that the Bible is true and trustworthy because it was dictated by god. In Caravaggio’s 1602 painting, an angel directs the hand of Matthew as he writes his gospel. But even the most pious conservative Christians must have their doubts when they come across Bible verses that are alarming, cruel, barbaric. Clergy and theologians—who have perfected the art of making excuses—try to rush to the rescue. Careful Bible study by the curious faithful is probably their biggest fear.

The New Testament Itself Sabotages Belief in the Jesus Resurrection

We don’t have to ask science to explain why it didn’t happen

It is so hard for Christians to grasp that—a very long time ago—their religion fell down a deep rabbit hole of superstition and magical thinking. It doesn’t require very much study and critical thinking to figure this out. The clergy, across the wide range of Christian brands that don’t agree, have developed considerable show business skills in the structuring of worship events. That is, they have mastered razzle-dazzle—with the use of music, ritual, costuming, art, and architecture—to disguise and deflect attention from beliefs that are deeply superstitious and dependent on magic. Televangelism comes to mind especially; the phony clergy who run these events know how to put on spectacular displays. And the Catholic church, for centuries, has built impressive cathedrals to function as sets for their rituals—and it wins the competition for outrageous costumes! All this helps boost confidence among the laity that the proclaimed theologies must be true.

The Evil God Challenge, Part One: Introduction

John W. Loftus asked me to write about Steven Law’s Evil God challenge (Wikipedia link). The topic turns out to be rather large, and it ramifies into several related topics that should be familiar to readers of this blog.

The Evil God challenge spawned a sizable literature, with articles that expand on it, and articles from theists that attempt to rebut it or nullify it. To keep the subject manageable, I’ll split my coverage across several articles. This article introduces the subject and provides references and a video.

• Wikipedia articles:
  • Steven Law
  • Evil God challenge (Wikipedia link)
• Steven Law’s blog pages:
  • The Evil God Challenge, February 12, 2010, announcing his original paper:
    • Law, Stephen. “The evil-god challenge.” Religious Studies 46, no. 3 (2010): 353-373.
    • PDF link to the paper
  • God, Evil, and Theodicies - Evil God and Mirror Theodicies, January 10, 2016
• Scholarly links:
  • The Evil God Challenge, Google Scholar entries
  • The Evil God Challenge, Google Scholar search result (original paper plus responses)
• And on Debuking Christianity:
  • What is the Likelihood That a Trickster or Evil God Exists?, 1/22/2010

Now that AI is here, check out my brief chat with Google Gemini on the Evil God challenge. Here is Gemini’s initial response:

Steven Law’s “Evil God challenge” is a philosophical thought experiment that questions the traditional concept of an all-good, all-powerful God. Here’s a summary of its core ideas:

• The Challenge:
  • Law presents the challenge of explaining why believing in an all-good God is more reasonable than believing in an all-evil God.
  • He argues that many arguments for God’s existence don’t inherently prove God’s goodness, and could equally support the existence of an evil deity.
• The Symmetry Thesis:
  • A key component is the “symmetry thesis,” which suggests that if the existence of good in the world is used to argue against an all-evil God, then the existence of evil should similarly argue against an all-good God.
  • Essentially, he questions why the “problem of evil” is considered a strong argument against a good God, but the “problem of good” isn’t considered an equally strong argument against an evil God.
• The Goal:
  • The challenge aims to provoke deeper consideration of the attributes ascribed to God, and to examine the logical consistency of theistic arguments.
  • It also forces examination of why we define good and evil in the way that we do.
• Responses:
  • There have been many responses to Laws challenge, including arguments that good is a positive reality, and evil is a privation of good, therefore not symmetrical. Also there are arguments that an all evil god, would not allow any good to exist.

In essence, Law’s challenge forces us to consider why we prioritize belief in a good God over an evil one, and to scrutinize the reasoning behind our theological assumptions.

Gemini’s summary is pretty good, but could do better at framing the Evil God challenge as a tool for showing how weak the standard theodicies are. (A theodicy is an attempt by a Christian apologist to solve the Problem of Evil, i.e. to explain how there can be so much evil in a world supposedly created by an omni-God.) Steven Law says that for many of the standard Christian responses to the Problem of Evil, there is a “mirror theodicy” that equally well (or poorly) tries to explain how there can be so much good in a world created by an omni-malevolent God. If the theist views the theodicy as a valid justification for the omni-God, why then isn’t the mirror theodicy an equally valid justification for the Evil God?

Alert readers will recognize similarities to parody religions and Street Epistemology, topics I’ll address in following articles. To very briefly summarize, both of those things aim to stimulate critical reflection by showing a person how the arguments they give to support their own religious claims work equally well, mutatis mutandis, to support a wide variety of other claims, such as the claims of other religions, or of parody religions.

This notion of analyzing the form of an argument, and plugging different terms into it, to see if the argument form still seems to work, is central to critical thinking. Around 2400 years ago, Ancient Greek thinkers began to analyze arguments this way. Presumably people had been making arguments for as long as they had language (which might have been for as long as people had anatomically modern vocal organs). Critical thinking began when people realized that arguments aren’t just things you assert when you want to make some specific point, but things that have forms you can analyze. The Evil God challenge is a clever case study in this kind of critical thinking.

Here’s a video to finish off this short introduction to the Evil God Challenge. Enjoy!

Critical Thinking: the Weakest Skill in the Christian Toolkit

Hardly a surprise, since the clergy urge, “Just take it on faith”

Quite a few years ago I knew a devout Catholic woman who bragged that she never read books—not even in college. She managed to get passing grades by taking careful notes in class. Nor did she have any interest in discussing religion, because she didn’t want to risk damaging here faith. Her primary goal in being deeply Catholic was to be able to see her mother again in heaven. She represents a case of extreme piety, but I have met other devout Christians who decline to engage with me on religious issues; they are determined to hold tight to their beliefs, reluctant to weaken them in any way. I suspect they’ve experienced too many moments of scary doubt.

With So Many Flat Tires, How Does Christianity Keep On Going?

Apologists specialize in claiming the tires aren’t flat at all

I can think of at least six Christian tires that have been totally, permanently destroyed. They will be flat forever.  
 
(1)  God is good, loving, and all powerful. Horrendous human and animal suffering—ongoing for millennia—provide abundant evidence that this claim is feeble, indeed ridiculous.
 
(2)  The resurrection of Jesus, that is, god raised Jesus from the dead, thereby rescuing humans—those who believe in it—from eternal punishment. Yet the accounts of Easter morning in the gospels are contradictory and confusing. There are no reports of anyone actually seeing the resurrection happen.
 
(3)  We can be guided and inspired by the god portrayed in the Bible. Anyone who has read the Bible cover-to-cover can see that his claim is baseless. The god described in both the Old and New Testaments is cruel, bad-tempered, vindictive. Apologists deflect attention from this painful truth by quoting feel-good texts…and most churchgoers are none the wiser.

Another Chapter by Dr. David Eller: "Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality"

This is his Chapter 13 from my anthology "The Christian Delusion." Enjoy.

Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality by Dr. David Eller.

            Imagine someone said to you that English provided the only basis for grammar.  After you overcame your shock, you would respond that English is certainly not the only language with a grammar. You would add that grammar is not limited to language: understood broadly as rules for combination and transformation, many phenomena have a grammar, from sports to baking. Nor is grammar the sole or essential component of language: language also includes sound systems, vocabularies, genres, and styles of speech. And you would remind the speaker that grammar does not depend on human language at all: some nonhuman species, including chimps and parrots, can produce grammatical—that is, orderly and rule-conforming—short sentences. Ultimately, you would want to explain that English does not “provide a basis” for grammar at all but rather represents one particular instance of grammar. English grammar is definitely not the only grammar in the world and even more definitely not the “real” grammar.

            The person who utters a statement like “English provides the only basis for grammar” either understands very little about English (and language in general) or grammar, or the person is expressing his or her partisanship about language (i.e., pro-English)—or, more likely, the speaker is doing both. Thus, the person who utters a statement like “Christianity provides the only basis for morality” either understands very little about Christianity (or religion in general) or morality, or the person is expressing his or her partisanship about religion (i.e., pro-Christianity)—or, more likely, the speaker is doing both. But, as a savvy responder, you would answer that Christianity is certainly not the only religion with morality. You would add that morality is not limited to religion: understood broadly as standards for behavior, many phenomena have a morality, from philosophy to business. Nor is morality the sole or essential component of religion: religion also includes myths, rituals, roles, and institutions of behavior. And you would remind the speaker that morality does not depend on human religion at all: some nonhuman species demonstrate moral—that is, orderly and standard-conforming—behavior. Ultimately, you would want to explain that Christianity does not “provide a basis” for morality at all but rather represents one particular instance of morality.  Christian morality is definitely not the only morality in the world and even more definitely not the “real” morality.