The Terrible Christian Legacy of the Witch Hunts.

I've already spoken about the Christian legacy regarding slavery and the Inquisition. Now I turn to the witch hunts. The Biblical basis for them can be found here: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18) And, "A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones." (Leviticus 20:27).

A very interesting and well written account of the stages of a witch trial can be found here.

I've repeatedly asked that if such barbaric acts like the witch hunts are something God is not to be partially blamed for, then why didn't he condemn them by saying, "Thou shalt not torture, imprison, banish or kill suspected witches or wizards," and say it as often as he needed to so that later professing Christians would not cause so much needless pain and misery? Why didn't God do this if he knew professing Christians would be so evil as to do these great harms unless he condemned them? Why did he not forbid such a practice knowing full well that I would malign him in this Blog entry for not doing what any decent divine person should've done if he wanted his name to be honored among men, instead of reviled? He was supposedly clear about not murdering or raping innocent people. Why not do the same for accused witches and heretics of the Inquisition, as well as slaves in the American South?

I can see no possible justification for God's utter failure to effectively communicate what should be obvious to democratically minded civilized people, that this is barbaric behavior. None. None at all. Nor can I see any justification for it in the same era in which he supposedly commanded it. People have sincere differences of opinion on so many issues, from the important to the unimportant, that it utterly amazes me God should ever command killing witches in the first place. Nor do I see why it's important that God wants us to acknowledge him if he exists, especially when he gives us so many reasons to disbelieve in the Bible and his goodness. A God like that has a lot to answer for. He's a demon in disguise...or he just doesn't exist.

The Purpose of this Blog

I want to briefly take a moment to state the purpose of this blog. I understand the value of a good promotional name so I named it Debunking Christianity. The blog name is primarily to grab attention, and it has done it's job well. We now have about 20,000 visits a month. That's just 10,000 visits less than the massive Secular Web gets. But if you spend any time here at all you will quickly learn we are not abrasive with those who visit and comment (unless provoked).

It's true that this is a blog where we argue against Christianity, and I've already expressed my motivation in doing so. But on many Christian and skeptical blogs and sites there is a systematic policy of demeaning and belittling anyone who disagrees. On these sites a person can quickly see that the authors there do not care what others who disagree think. They don't care about them as persons. They mischaracterize what others say so much that it's obvious they don't even try to understand. We see this on both sides of this great divide. It's a shame, really. We can learn from each other, if we treat each other as persons who simply disagree. Many Christian sites and blogs assume that those who disagree are stupid or in rebellion against God so they are treated disrespectfully. They think they have Biblical justification for treating them so. But this is clearly counter-productive if they want to reach people who disagree. I think there is room for sites and blogs of this kind, on both sides of our debate. I personally don't visit them much. These sites preach to the choir. These sites confirm what the authors want to believe.

But that is not us here at DC. I want a discussion. Yes, we will argue with each other, but it is primarily meant to be a discussion. So if you want a relatively safe place to discuss these issues where you will not be maligned (unless provoked), then join us in the discussion. If we fail to understand your points, let us know. We do not purposely try to mischaracterize what you say like other sites do. We first try to understand. Then we will respond to a fair representation of your argument as best as we possibly can. This is what it means to treat others as we ourselves want to be treated.

Before you comment be sure to read "Our Policy" here at DC.

Does Old Testament Prophecy Point to Jesus?

[Written by John W. Loftus] I know this isn't Christmas time (or is it?). Here's just one example of many to show the Old Testament does not predict anything about the life, mission, death or resurrection of Jesus. Just one of many, okay?

Matthew reports this about Jesus being born in Bethlehem (2:5):

“When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.”’”

The Greek word for “Governor” can be translated in English as “ruler” or as “shepherd” depending on the context. To the Greek mind a ruler is a shepherd and a shepherd is a ruler.

In the first place, "Bethlehem Ephratah" in Micah 5:2 refers not to a town, but to a clan: the clan of Bethlehem, who was the son of Caleb's second wife, Ephrathah (1 Chr.2:19, 2:50-51, 4:4). Secondly, the prophecy, as understood by Herod’s scribes (if they actually did think this), refers to a military commander, as can be seen from the context of Micah 5:6, which says,

“He will be their peace. When the Assyrian invades our land and marches through our fortresses, we will raise against him seven shepherds, even eight leaders of men. They will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with drawn sword. He will deliver us from the Assyrian when he invades our land and marches into our borders.”

This leader is supposed to defeat the Assyrians, which, of course, Jesus never did. This is basic exegesis. If Jesus is who Micah referred to as having been born in Bethlehem, then Jesus was also supposed to conquer the Assyrians.

Gleason Archer deals with this Bible difficulty in his book, The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. He claims Matthew did not quote from the Septuagint version (LXX), which was the standard Greek translation of the Hebrew text, but from some other Greek paraphrase. A paraphrase wasn’t meant to be literal translation; it’s more expressive. It brings out the implications of the prophecy, and Archer claims that's what Matthew used. He also claims Matthew conflated two different prophecies when quoting Micah 5:2. Archer claims Matthew also was quoting from II Samuel 5:2, in which it's said:

“all of Israel” came to King David and said, “In the past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’”

Afterward the people anointed David as their king. Archer claims the phrase, “You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler,” is what Matthew is referring to when speaking about Jesus, not that he would conquer the Assyrians. Archer further states that it was actually “Herod’s Bible experts,” not Matthew, “who quoted from more than one Old Testament passage.” So, “in a sense, therefore, they were the ones responsible for the wording, rather than Matthew himself.”

Now it's true that New Testament writers repeatedly “conflate” Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, and Archer offers a couple of examples. We see this in Matthew 27:9-10, which combines elements from Zechariah 11:12-13, Jeremiah 19:2,11, and Jeremiah 32:6-9. We also see this in Mark 1:2-3, which combines elements from Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1. But Matthew (2:5) explicitly says the prophecy was from Micah, not from the people of Israel in II Samuel 5:2.

Furthermore, if Matthew takes Micah’s prophecy out of context, as I’ve explained, then it doesn’t help anything by claiming he was also referring to II Samuel 5:2, since that too is taken out of context. It isn’t even a prophecy. It’s about David shepherding the people of Israel.

If however, Archer wants to blame the scribes in Herod’s court for misapplying Micah 5:2, then why did Archer expend so much ink trying to show what Matthew was attempting, if Matthew wasn’t attempting to do anything here but merely record what these scribes said? If Herod’s scribes are to be blamed for misunderstanding Micah 5:2, along with II Samuel 5:2, then exactly where is there in the Old Testament any prophecy for the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem? There is none!

My book is 13th On a List of the 12 Most Challenging Books!

I always appreciate it when someone recommends my book, but I got a chuckle out of it currently being 13th on a list of 12 books! Thanks, I think. ;-)

The Secret Files of the Inquisition

Lately I've been discussing the Medieval Inquisition because of the PBS documentary, The Secret Files of the Inquisition. I'm drawing some hard lessons about it regarding the gross lack of communication from God as to what Christians should've done with heretics. My claim is that God is partially to blame for what his followers did to heretics because he was not clear in condemning such barbaric acts. A good God should've known better, if he exists at all. [Before you comment read through the three links above].

Suspension of Disbelief

Changingminds.org is a site devoted to the study of persuasion. A post I discovered today discusses the suspension of disbelief to enjoy a movie or book and how people enjoy this behavior. I think this can be applied to religion to help explain a facet of it.

Below is an excerpt of the key point of the article.
"In his study of happiness, Csikszentmihalyi (1990) showed that being able to let go of the sense of self has a paradoxical effect of creating a state of happiness that perhaps relates to the one-ness of the neonatal phase. In suspending disbelief in their stories, authors thus help their readers feel good."

I highly recommend keeping an rss feed to this site. You can find a ton of good information about how people persuade each other and react to persuasion. It might help immunize some of you "fence sitters" from evangelicals and give you a fighting chance to resist while you are listening to LSAT Logic in Everday Life, honing your critical thinking skills.

Another excerpt from the "About" page on the site follows.
"You might also be the victim or target of persuasion, as we all are, many times each and every day. Because if you can detect a trick or technique coming your way, you can avoid it, expose it, or play with the trickster, doubling back the deception and outplaying them at their own game. For this is the great leveller: if you try to deceive someone and they discover it, then the game ends there and then, and they may never trust you again."

Additionally, here is a link from their blog on seven rules of religion.

There's also a lot of good Human Resources Department type of information at changingminds.org as well.

Deconversion in Stages

Conversion is rarely brought on by a slow, gradual process of thinking and seeking before finding, though it is not unheard of. Many times it is instant, powerful, emotional, and life-changing. Disbelief may come in an equally powerful traumatic and disillusioning moment, or it may come from the gradual and slow erosion of wave after wave. For me, deconversion was not a decision, but a realization.

I received Jesus at age fourteen in 1990 while seeking the meaning of life. I had a very long talk with a born-again side of the family who assured me that I can have a relationship with God, that God still healed and raised the dead today, that tongue-speaking and prophecy were supernatural signs of God's involvement in the lives of believers, that God answers prayer and guides our lives, that Satan is real, that evolution is false, that we are in the end times, that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, etc. In other words, I was taught everything a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian believes today.

I became completely "on fire" and "radical" for Jesus by giving up any sense of the mundane. Life had one purpose, and that was to bring people to Jesus before the tribulation hit. I immersed myself in Bible study, prayer, worship, church involvement, study, and evangelism. People prophesied to me that I was going to be in a Christian metal band witnessing to Satanists. I had received a very "supernatural" experience followed by the gift of tongues and turned my high school into a missionary ground.

Being told not to date because God would supernaturally choose a wife for me, I had a very disillusioning experience in which I believed God had spoken and confirmed that I was to be with a girl who eventually cheated on me and abandoned her faith. I questioned whether or not God was really guiding, speaking, and protecting me. In 1993, my favorite televangelist Benny Hinn was exposed on Inside Edition among other things for airing unverified healings. I wondered why God had not said anything to me about that all those years I was praising him for healing through Hinn. At the very same time, Hank Hanegraaff (The Bible Answer Man) wrote a book exposing the false teachings of many of my favorite teachers, including playing excerpts of Hinn cursing Hanegraaff's children. This eye-opening critique caused me to abandon my entire theological system and wonder if in fact the Holy Spirit was teaching those past years and if God was in fact healing anyone at all.

I realized as well as I played bass in the worship band at church that almost everything that counted for the supernatural was exaggerated. "Manifestations" and "spiritual gifts" were nothing more than people falling down, giving false prophecies, and no one was ever healed. As I took this Inside Edition and Hanegraaff information to fellow believers they all (without exception) refused to look at any of it. Satan was attacking God's anointed. The anti-intellectual lifestyle and willful ignorance of the church floored me, given how cocky we all were that we were right about everything.

By 1994, the most influential example in my life for ministry was a pastor at Sanctuary church in California and the vocalist of a Christian thrash metal band called Vengeance Rising named Roger Martinez. His songs were filled with Bible verses, he preached hard from the stage, had more than fifty teaching tapes available, and was intense in his message that God can free you from addictions and give you life. He sent me a letter saying he was now an atheist who had joined the Church of Satan, slept with girls on tour, was a heavy drug user, and nearly killed himself. He threatened all of the Christian leaders in his life and demanded that his band be pulled from the stores. He was bitter that despite years of promises, God was not supernaturally healing him of his addictions. This crushed me. Another band I really enjoyed at the time was a Christian metal band called Tourniquet. Their former guitarist Gary Lenaire has recently walked away from Christianity and has written a book called An Infidel Manifesto: Why True Believers Walk Away. It has the endorsement of Michael Shermer from SKEPTIC and can be found here:

http://www.aninfidelmanifesto.com/home.htm

The temptation here is for many to say I have put my trust in man and am being letting down by man, but this ignores the fact that there is no truth behind what these men are claiming - namely guidance, healing, deliverance, miracles, and other evidences of God working in people's lives that I now had to deny.

Not to be outdone, at age seventeen, in the middle of ministering and preparing for my calling, I was struck with mononucleosis and chronic fatigue that devastated my health and kept me immobilized for almost a year. Despite all of the prayers, visiting Benny Hinn crusades, being anointed with oil, worshipping, confessing, reading healing verses, and everything else imaginable, I was not healed. What followed was another episode with a girl who agreed God was giving us signs to be together, but did not work out.

As each disillusionment hit one after another, I spent my time in bed worshipping, praying, and studying. In 1995 I got a job at Family Christian Stores and began studying every theology, apologetics, and church history book I could find. I also began an interest in philosophy. It was during this time that I found how little Christianity could be supported and how little was agreed upon among the broad theological and historical perspective. A growing mount of questions to be dealt with and inconsistencies in Scripture arose.

I was introduced to the Internet in 1996 and in a last desperate attempt to save my faith looked up Josh McDowell apologetics. What came up was a skeptical criticism of his books Evidence That Demands a Verdict. The arguments floored me and all of my stereotypes of skeptics being scared, ignorant, and unresponsive washed away. It was the Christians who were afraid to look at their arguments. I printed out 600 pages that night and took it all to my pastor saying, "If I don't find response to this I can no longer be a Christian." It was then I was introduced to James Randi, SKEPTIC, Skeptical Inquirer, and Free Inquiry. More and more I found the skeptics more thoughtful, articulate, reasonable, and convincing than what seemed more and more to be damage control arguments taking leave of common sense from Christian apologetics and mindless and ignorant superstition among my Christian friends.

I gained the nickname "Dr. Doubt" and was told my anxiety was my own fault for trusting in intellect, listening to atheists, and lacking faith. "Forget that stuff, read your Bible, and have faith" was the most common answer. Many even opposed studying theology and apologetics as a waste of time. My pastor told me to keep studying and I'd find answers to my 600 pages of arguments. By the end of 1996 I fell into a complete emotional breakdown facing the trauma of being sick, having no hope, and having to endure life without a God who I believed intimately loved me and who I depended upon emotionally. In a fit of anger at his silence I told him I no longer believed and began writing an essay to my Christian friends and family explaining why I was now leaving the Christian subculture behind and quitting the worship band.

I tearfully wrote a 30-page essay giving all of my arguments and reasons for walking away, asking for response. The arguments were very basic and not well put together, but were enough that no one responded. It is now ten years later and still no one who has ever asked to see it has responded to it. Instead, I was demonized and told not to cause others in the church to fall. Instead of helping me, they defended against me emotionally and protected a belief system they couldn't defend intellectually. That lack of response was all the evidence I needed that there was no integrity to Christian truth claims.

Due to the utter dependence on church, God, and the Bible, leaving these things behind and trying to live without them left me in vertigo. I was a wreck in every area of my life and had a hard time making even the most basic decisions. Many times between 1997 and 2003 I tried more attempts at returning to God only to be met with the same lack of substance. I learned much about liberal Christianity and Unitarianism at the time. I tried to keep some definition of some God alive to avoid pure nihilism and naturalism. In 1999, I had what seemed to be a very supernatural encounter with God and gave my life back to him, but soon after realized the encounter was not from God.

In 2003 I had yet another dialogue begin in my head which I believed was the voice of God reasoning with me to believe he existed without having to be intellectually dishonest. In other words, I didn't have to be a fundamentalist or evangelical, but a person who was led by the voice of God. This began a new wave of Christian involvement for me. I took another crack at apologetics and spent a lot of time listening to Ravi Zacharias, R.C. Sproul, and other apologists as well as reading all I could on hearing God's voice and being led by him. These many books mirrored my experience and I was certain with their endorsement that I was in fact being led by God.

Almost immediately I had an influx of visions, prophecies, impressions, tuggings, and opportunities that all seemed right on. I became involved with a Christian coffeehouse where I was offered $40K a year to pastor after six months of training. I was about to move to Tampa to start a band when a week beforehand I was introduced to a woman and immediately heard God tell me to stay and partner with her in this ministry. One thing led to another and we both had supernatural confirmations that we were to be married, as did many others give prophecies about it. She wanted her unbelieving ex however. So I spent months trying to intercede for her, break curses off of her, and do all I could to get her to stop "living in sin." She rejected me, left the ministry admittedly because she was tired of hearing God tell her he placed me in her life (even going to a friend's house crying and saying, "Tell God to stop talking to me about Paul" with her hands over her ears). My health collapsed (the chronic fatigue turned to fibromyalgia and I had to get on disability in 2001), I lost my job, was about to lose my apartment, this woman left the ministry, and now I was told the coffeehouse wouldn't need a pastor. God was completely silent now. I obeyed God and was left devastated.

This was the "Dark Night of the Soul" I was told. A time in which God is silent and leaves your soul to be tormented and purged. Like Job, he lets everything fall apart. He wants you to learn to trust his voice, not your senses, situation, or intellect. I needed to learn to obey God and take insane steps of faith in obedience to God to prove myself. Then the sense of his presence would return and he could put me in ministry. Because you find no comfort in God in this time, all of your addictions surface to be dealt with. during this time in 2004, a woman auditioning as a vocalist for a musical project I was starting invited me over to listen to her demos. She seduced me by continually begging me to have sex with her. After hours of resisting, I gave in. After the sexual encounter she said, "gotcha, pastor." She then went to the ministry to brag about it to the leadership. I was the seventh guy that month she seduced. She was an ex-stripper who was there because she complained of having demons around her her entire life.

The woman who had left the ministry before had returned and spread lies about me because she was tired of people trying to convince her to marry me. When I called a meeting with her, another person, and the new "pastor" in the ministry I was silenced and screamed at so loudly that the entire building emptied out. This pastor (my cousin) believed himself to an apostle, a prophet, and wanted all authority. The founder needed him to bring in revenue and would not discipline him. As they fought, a split was inevitable with prophets on each side prophesying against each other as well as unethical financial practices and fraud, so I was walked out. In July of 2004 I moved to Arkansas, put this all behind, and was to start a band with a former member of the Christian metal band Living Sacrifice.

While in Arkansas, it was clear there would be no band. I asked God what I was in Arkansas for and he said to heal me and bring me back to this woman after the church splits. People prophesied to me that this was the case and confirmed it as well. Sure enough, the church split, the pastor left, and I received a phone call of apology asking me to come back and pastor. This woman I thought I was to marry called me and said "my eyes are really opened now, can I come visit you?" The night previous a woman praying for us in California said, "God showed me her eyes are open now and you're going to be a very happy man this winter." I heard God say to sell everything I owned, buy a ring, go back to Chicago and propose, and she would say yes. I sent this to her parents and asked them to pray about it. Her mom said, "She definitely respects you and see's herself with you, come back and date her for a few months and we'll give you a blessing at Christmas." I prayed and asked God to guard me or to speak to any prophetic person in my life if this was in any way not of him. Instead of a warning me not to do it, I heard, "I am healing you for what I am calling you to do." Within that month, every symptom of fibromyalgia wore off and I was completely healthy. With this sign, I sold all of my possessions and returned home to marry this woman. This was the absurd faith God wanted to see from me, not looking at circumstances, but trusting his promises.

When I returned to Chicago, she avoided me. As I prayed, God said, "Don't worry, she'll call you in December and you will be invited to her parents house for Christmas and be received. You will know when to buy the ring. She will help you look for an apartment. Don't worry son, I'm right here with you. But don't trust what you are about to see." Sure enough her friend called and told me she was spending time with her ex. I thanked God for warning me not to look at the circumstance, but to trust him. I said, "Lord, will you confirm this through my friend in California again?" Not an hour later she called. Her first words were, "I've been praying for you and God said not to worry, she'll call you." Amazed at God's love and guidance, I awaited her call.

She called on Christmas day to tell me she is begging God that I not be her husband and that she can "feel me praying" against her. She didn't want to see me, talk to me, or befriend me. She was not at all impressed with me sending her a Christmas gift and was clear that I wouldn't be invited over for Christmas. Despite hearing from God that her eyes are open, that she wants me, that she is no longer with her ex, that she would invite me over to her parents house and say yes to a proposal, and despite getting the "confirmations" of other prophecies, none was true. I hung up the phone numb and disillusioned. My life was ruined.

I wrote her an apology, admitted I was wrong, and told her to forget it ever happened. I went to work at a seasonal job at the Christian bookstore that day and a man walked in claiming to be a prophet after we struck up conversation. Not only that, he went to her church. He assured me I did not miss God and that she was rebelling against God purposely, but that I had a big calling to reach thousands of youth and that she was still my wife. I should mention that the most common prophecies I received were all big money, big ministry, health, and supernatural visitations coming "soon" upon my life. She met with me one last time to tell me she wasn't interested and admitted she was trying to make me hate her and trying to shut God up. I wondered if the prophet was right.

In breakdown and not able to handle my life, I tried to look at the emerging church, Christian existentialism, and mysticism, but all I felt was nihilistic despair. Everything I believed since giving my life back to God in 2003 was wrong - about God's guidance, God choosing mates, the dark night - everything. I ended up homeless and living in my car. I slept on park benches and stayed up all night in forests praying and begging God to speak, guide, or do anything but remain silent in my disillusionment. He remained silent. "I obeyed you! What happened? Speak to me! Help me understand!" Silence. I lost my family after very hurtful arguments and many times stopped myself from suicide at the last minute. On Thanksgiving of 2005 after a heated argument with my mom I called friends to say goodbye and was going to end my life that night.

One friend, a virtual stranger, rescued me with his love and his friendship by inviting me to Philadelphia, giving me his bed, and giving me love and understanding in a way that no other Christian friend did. While others were covering their own false prophecies and trying to blame me in one way or another for the state of my life to protect their beliefs, my friend believed God could be found in the act of love itself and not in any religion or subculture. His name is Aaron Weiss, the vocalist in a band called mewithoutYou found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57lFaky5HrQ

After my time in Philadelphia I went down to Florida and encountered more hardships in establishing myself. I walked into the bay wanting to drown myself in the middle of the night at the beach but couldn't do it. I looked up at the sky and knew praying would be a waste of time. I was angry to still be alive. I was invited to Arkansas to become part of a ministry there and it was at that time, in February of 2006, that I realized I no longer believed. I was still hoping for some last minute sign or surprise visit from God. One night after praying I said to myself, "You can waste your time begging God to show up, or you can get up and learn to live without him. The only other option is suicide. That night I decided to learn to live without God. Reality was not providing me God or any supernatural help in my existence. I was living, by default, just as an atheist would. Based on that realization, I called myself a provisional atheist as opposed to a philosophical atheist. Philosophically, it is possible some God exists.

After a long year of more homelessness and job opportunities falling through, I finally got my own place again in September of 2006 and dedicated the next year to recovering from and moving on from my first thirty years of life. The result was a massive autobiography detailing year by year every belief, decision, experience, and influence that led me to where I was.

Life is still not easy for me as I recover from the damage to my health and nervous system the past few years have caused, but I have never been more sober and at peace with the world as it is. My history makes perfect sense if there was no God there to begin with rather than qualifying to death all of the various reasons "things didn't work out" while continuing to believe and set myself up for more devastation. I am in no way bitter with Christianity or out to "attack" it. I have too much life to look forward to than to be sitting around angry about a false belief system. I still have many Christian friends who I discuss these matters with. I am in a wonderful relationship with a beautiful woman who has also escaped a horrible history in fundamentalism. Since then, the woman I believed God was giving me as a wife has contacted me saying she knew the whole time it was from God but was afraid of love due to past abuse. She wanted me to keep my ears open for God's voice again. I tried to talk her out of it and explain simply why none of this was true. She has since walked away from Christianity, finding our story as a last hope that maybe God was involved in her life.

I have turned my attention towards editing my autobiography for publication and writing on various issues surrounding evangelical and fundamentalist psychology, beliefs, and culture. If any of you have knowledge on finding a good editor or self-publishing company, please contact me.

For a fuller yet still condensed version of this story with many more details than I could give here, I have a series of videos on YouTube you can watch called "From Belief To Unbelief by Paul Harrison" The first one is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTl69LlU5YA

Thank you for sitting through an extraordinarily long post.

The Compassionate Side of the Medieval Inquisition

Drawing: Two priests ask a heretic to repent as torture is administered.

From Wikipedia:

Investigation
When a papal inquisition arrived at a town it had a set of procedures and rules to identify likely heretics. First, the townspeople would be gathered in a public place. Although attendance was voluntary, those who failed to show would automatically be suspect, so most would come. The inquisitors would provide an opportunity for anyone to step forward and denounce themselves in exchange for easy punishment. As part of this bargain they would need to inform on other heretics. In addition, the inquisitors could simply force people to be interrogated. Once information had been gathered, an inquisitorial trial could begin.

Trial
The inquisitorial trial generally favored the prosecution (the Church). The defendant would be allowed a lawyer, but if the defendant was convicted, the lawyer would lose his ability to practice. Therefore most lawyers never took the chance of defending a potential heretic. The trials were conducted in secret with only the inquisitors, the defendant and some inquisitorial staff to take notes. Inquisitors sequestered all of the property of the defendant. The defendant was not told the charges, but was always invited to confess, only guessing what for. The accused was expected to self-incriminate and did not have the right to face and question the accuser. It was acceptable to take testimony from criminals, persons of bad reputation, excommunicated people, and convicted heretics. Blood relationship did not exempt one from the duty to testify against the accused. Sentences could not be appealed once made. The inquisitor could keep a defendant in prison for years before the trial to obtain new information.

Despite the seeming unfairness of the procedures, the inquisitors did provide rights to the defendant. At the beginning of the trial, defendants were invited to name those who had "mortal hatred" against them. If the accusers were among those named, the defendant was set free and the charges dismissed; the accusers would face life imprisonment. This option was meant to keep the inquisition from becoming involved in local grudges. A confession under torture was not admissible in court, although the inquisitor could threaten the accused with torture during the proceedings.

Torture
Torture was used after 1252. On May 15, Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull entitled Ad exstirpanda, which authorized the use of torture by inquisitors. It was a common part of the medieval judicial system and not particular to the inquisition. The torture methods used by inquisitors were mild compared to secular courts, as they were forbidden to use methods that resulted in bloodshed, mutilation or death. Also, torture could be performed only once (although a session could be "suspended", and when continued would be regarded as the same session of torture). One of the more common forms of medieval inquisition torture was known as strappado. The hands were bound behind the back with a rope, and the accused was suspended this way, dislocating the joints painfully in both arms. Weights could be added to the legs dislocating those joints as well.

Punishment
Once the trial was concluded the results might take years to be revealed, during which time the defendant stayed in prison. The inquisitors would save up the cases and announce them at once in a public ceremony called, in Latin, sermo generalis, or "general sermon." Among the possible punishments were a long pilgrimage for first offenders, wearing a yellow cross for life, confiscation of property, banishment, public recantation, or long-term imprisonment. Burning at the stake was only for the most serious cases, including repeat offenders and unrepentant heretics. Execution was done not by the Church, which was forbidden to kill, but by secular officials. The accused could have all of his property confiscated, and in many cases, accusers may have been motivated by a desire to take the property of the accused.

The inquisitors generally preferred not to hand over heretics to the secular arm for execution if they could persuade the heretic to repent. It was in the inquisitors' interest to be perceived as merciful, and they generally preferred to keep defendants alive in hopes of obtaining confessions. For example, Bernard Gui, a famous inquisitor working in the area of Toulouse (in modern France), executed 42 people out of over 900 guilty verdicts in fifteen years of office. Execution was to admit defeat, that the Church was unable to save a soul from heresy, which was the goal of the inquisition.

A Means to Manage Uncertainty

Before I get started, I want say thank you for the kind sentiment, the blessings and prayers.

Now, I want to ask you to stop ignoring the fact that we were once as devoted as you. That is called a qualifier. It is part of the truth of what we are saying to you. That we believed, searched with all our hearts, came away with nothing. This means that god doesn't want us, that we are in the queue, or that he doesn't exist.

And I want to point out another characteristic of Christianity that I noticed when I was in it.

Christians try to use god as a way to eliminate uncertainty in their lives. A blessing or a prayer is a way to implore to god to change things in favor of ones wishes.

Christians align themselves with the ideal because (most importantly) they save themselves from torture forever, and they know that a world where everyone thinks the same would logically reduce conflict. Christians just want what everyone wants, they want to live comfortably. Uncertainty is scary.
Eliminating uncertainty is in their best interest.

Christians want to evangelize and change peoples minds, hearts etc, they want to influence the world and they are using god to it.

God is the 'good luck' charm, or the talisman, the magic wand, the appeal to consequences, the appeal to force. They do what they think he wants, as per their interpretation and their individual experience with their personal god. They pray for things to change. They say 'that was a blessing' when they could have just as well said 'that was lucky'.

Christians say "I'll pray for you instead of saying 'good luck' ". They pray for themselves hoping they'll get their wish ("Oh, no, not me, its other Christians that do that!" point, point), knowing in reality that it is up to gods will, and gods will is more or less unpredictable, just like chance. If Christians set up the conditions right, they can get a prayer answered, and if they don't they will likely get squat. Just like chance.

Christians pray for the world to come in line with what they want the world to be rather than accept is as it is and work with it. Rather than figuring things out and determining how to come up with the most likely successful outcome, they waste their time praying about it, waiting for some answer to pop into their head, then they think it came from god. In a worst case they "JUST GIVE IT TO GOD!" and don't seriously think about it anymore. In reality, if something pops into their head, it is an option that they more than likely would have found sooner had they expended some resources to do some investigation and careful consideration. If not, they get whatever happens by chance and lament about how "its gods will and everything happens for a reason".

Ignoring qualifiers is what happens in a biased thinker. Biased in that the Christian wants the world to be a certain way, and thinks that they can make it that way using god. It is self-centered and controlling and to make it work, it requires ignoring facts about the world that negatively impact the scenario (challenge the "reality" of god).

Think about it the next time you do something like go watch fireworks on the fourth of July and hand out free cold water with your church banner hanging on your car. Get those people in your church, change those hearts and don't forget to remind them about the ten percent Jesus commanded when the plate comes around.

I used to be a young earth creationist, because in my mind, to make any sense, the bible had to be literally true if A GOD had something to do with it. How could it not be? Then when I started doing an HONEST search and stopped ignoring qualifiers and started trying to figure those variables in, it started falling apart.

I got this way from an honest search for god.

Believe it or not.

A truth can survive scrutiny if it is a truth. If god is everything he is said to be, he can too. Give it an honest try. Christians shouldn't have anything to worry about if they have the strength of their convictions.

Why I left the church

Growing up, I was fortunate to have parents who raised me in a religion-neutral environment. Well almost. When we were young, we said a ritual prayer before bed and before meals, but by my teens I had forgotten that we had ever done this. I attended a church service with my mother only once and was unaware that my parents had both been confirmed Anglicans. By the age of seventeen, I gave no thought to religion whatsoever. I was an insecure teenager with no discernible skills and a small group of friends, none of whom were particularly close. The summer after my grade 11 year, I began to work at a bible camp where I made a lot of friends and was exposed to the christian faith for the first time.

It was a turning point in my life and I began to go to church and read the bible. Although I was beginning to be exposed to christian values, I was still drinking to excess and behaving irresponsibly in other ways. I would add that the excessive drinking often took place with my 'christian' friends from the bible camp. Eventually, I asked God into my life and my newfound faith gave me what seemed to be a dramatic boost in confidence. At the time, I thought I had undergone some supernatural experience and was changed into a new person. In reality, I had found a supportive community for the first (but not the last) time in my life and my friendships were helping me to grow as a person. I began to attend church regularly. Meeting with longtime church members when I knew next to nothing about the christian faith is intimidating and it stifles one's inclination to ask questions revealing the obvious inconsistencies of the bible. The church's constant teaching that the bible is infallible means that you have to simply accept all the old testament stories in which whole races of people are slaughtered and many other such atrocities. When you are brave enough to question these events, you get trite responses such as "That race of people lived to show how much God loved the Jews.", "God works in mysterious ways." and other such nonsense. At the same time, you learn that God loves everyone. It must have taken a lot of 'tough love' to slaughter whole races of people.

Looking back now, I can't imagine how I bought into christianity. I went on to become a teacher and work at two different christian schools. I taught Sunday school. I led bible study groups. I was a youth leader for a number of youth groups. Ironically, teaching at a christian school was the beginning of the end of my faith. The subculture of a diverse, evangelical christian school includes people from many different branches of the christian faith. You see the best and the worst, but mostly the worst. It became evident very quickly that the people I met there were so wrapped up in their faith, they were completely unaware of problems of the world outside. They would refute evolution on the basis that there was no evidence for it, but they restricted their studies to the bible and spiritual books and could never have come across evidence of evolution in their readings or their sheltered social circles if they had several billion years to do so (not to mention five thousand or so). They supported the fact that Israel occupies Palestine and oppresses the Palestinian people in every way possible. This was acceptable to them because the Jews are "God's Chosen People." Obviously, things haven't changed much since the days of the old testament. Other christians I knew supported politicians who claimed to be christians. They knew nothing of these politicians' personal beliefs, their backgrounds or their political history. There was no analysis. We were supposed to vote for the Reform Party (Canada) en masse because some of their candidates claimed to be Christian. My suggestion to my christian friends that they should evaluate them as politicians and analyze their backgrounds were met with blank stares. Furthermore, the christian schools' approach to thorny issues like evolution, evil and suffering in a world with an 'omnipotent' god, Halloween and many other things were to avoid talking about the issues so that no one would be offended. This pattern would be repeated in other settings such as the various youth groups that I was involved in. Bringing up these issues, I was told, would alienate certain families. It would be far better to focus on other subjects. The fact that no one, including the christian scholars whose works I had been reading, could answer the questions I had, began to hammer more nails into the coffin of my faith. This process took many years. The multitudes of political battles I witnessed in the churches I attended, included behavior that no intelligent christian who has read the bible could condone. This hypocritical behavior took place at the highest levels of the churches I attended without exception. Teachers I worked with at the christian schools would go to chapel and sing songs about love and then the moment they were back in the staff room, they would engage in behavior that included envy, pride, gossip, backstabbing, revenge and other vices. No one even seemed to see a conflict. Christians have often told me not to judge god based on the behavior of 'fallen christians'. The church teaches that the holy spirit comes into your body when you ask god into your heart. Presumably if one-third of the holy trinity rests in my physical body, I should have some advantage when it comes to resisting temptation or making the right decisions. Although I am not basing this statement on a scientific study, twenty years of anecdotal experience in both christian and secular settings has taught me that there is absolutely no basis for the idea that christians behave better than atheists, agnostics and people of other faiths. In fact, if you look at the idea historically (the crusades, witch hunts, the 'Troubles' in Ireland, to name a few), it is clear that christians have committed a shocking number of atrocities in god's name. Of course, atheists have been responsible for atrocities, too. The difference is that atheists are not claiming to have the holy spirit living in them. The details of the event that led me to finally throw off the shackles of the church are unimportant. In brief, it came down to a couple of people who didn't like me or the way I ran the youth groups I was leading. Lies and half-truths led to a request from a representative of the church council for me to move on and I did. Interestingly, when it turned out that I had support from many of the parents whose children were in my youth groups, the propaganda machine was fired up and the truth began to take on several shades of grey. After many years of witnessing others experience such treatment, I realized that my turn had come.

Retrospectively, I think that it was the best thing that could have happened to me. In the church I was taught that the truth shall set us free. In fact, it was the lack of it that set me free. The fact that people were willing to slice and dice the truth, not to mention making bald-faced lies, convinced me that I was better off without the church. It is worth pointing out that it was not this one event, but literally dozens of such events involving others that made me begin to question the teachings of the church. These episodes made me wonder what I truly knew for sure. After much reflection, I realized that prayer was just what I had always known in my heart - an empty one-way exercise. Also known as talking to yourself. When I began to really examine all the 'answers to prayer' I had experienced, I realized that an answer to prayer is when you get what you want. All the times I had felt that God answered my prayers, 'luck' or 'coincidence' had resulted in me getting what I wanted. Because when you get what you want, god is answering your prayers and when you don't get what you want, God has some mysterious reason that only he could understand. The newborn baby that died. "God loved him so much that He took him up to Heaven." Perhaps such an answer would comfort a distraught and somewhat feeble-minded person, but it only fed my skepticism. The whole process of questioning my faith probably took over ten years. The final incident was the little push I needed to help me to decide to leave the church. The analysis of my experiences over those twenty years was sped up by the web of lies and deceit that marked my last experience in the church.

To those christians that may respond that this episode is sad, I would like to say at the outset that what is sad is that it took so long for me to realize that I had been duped into believing a fairy tale. It is nearly tragic that it took twenty years to learn that one can live a guilt-free life. On the positive side, I truly believe that my life is richer for having been involved in the church. Besides learning values and the importance of serving others, I also can do something that almost no christians can truly do. I can evaluate the church and the bible's teachings from the dual perspectives of an outsider and an insider. I have a rich life and am thankful that I can move ahead knowing that my future will not be clouded with superstition, but be enriched with understanding based on observable evidence and reason.

Is God a Better Explanation for Existence?

Here is how BK over at Cadre Comments argues that God is a better "brute fact" than the universe: He wrote:

"we agree that something exists as a brute fact. However, our universe is largely believed by scientists (secular and Christian) to have come into existence ex nihilo, [so] the answers that the Christian provides for God (who is timeless, eternal and uncreated) do not apply to the universe. In other words, your "brute fact" of existence needs some explaining that God, being eternal and uncreated, does not need.

Here is a brief response:

Now this is indeed an odd argument. Whenever it comes to unexplainable brute facts we reach an impasse. The fact is that wherever the buck stops we have pretty much the same problems, and you should know this. For both of us something exists as a "brute fact." You cannot deny this. Since this is the case, agnosticism is the default intellectual position. When leaving the default position one must have reasons for struggling up the ladder to a full blown Christianity, past pantheism, deism, Judaism and Islam (since you believe more things than they do like a triune God, incarnation, atonement and resurrection). Me? It's just easier to move in the direction agnosticism already pushes me toward, atheism.

You claim the upper hand by definition, but that's all you're doing. You define God in such a way that the definition solves problems that the alternative theory doesn't. But just by defining such a Being as one who necessarily exists in all possible worlds doesn't mean such a being actually exists. There isn't much by way of evidence that he does. We have every reason to think this universe exists. Ockham's razor tells us the simplest explanation is the better one. We do not need your "brute fact" since such a God needs an explanation despite your definition.

Besides, your definition has a different set of problems. How is it possible for a being to eternally exist as three "persons" (who always agree) without a body (and yet act in a material world) in a timeless existence (and yet create time); how is it possible for this being to be called a "person;" how is it possible for this being to think (thinking involves weighing alternatives), make choices, take risks, or even freely choose who he is and what his values are? There are additional problems, but you get the point.

You say the universe needs an explanation. I say your explanation has insurmountable problems on its own terms. You say you have an explanation that needs no further explanation. I say such an explanation doesn't explain such a Being as God, plus it has the problem of how it's possible for such a being to always and forever exist, without ever learning anything, as the source of all complex information found in the details of the makeup of this universe.

Questions for Victor Reppert and The Argument From Reason

Edward T. Babinski's Reply to Victor Reppert at Dangerous Idea 2:

If you examine any two things you can find both similarities and differences. The organ known as the human brain (such as scientific experts presently know and examine it under their microscopes and via physical experiments), is of course different from the fullness of the mental world of our minds that we each experience. (But then, dissecting anything, like a frog, doesn't give you the fullness of that frog or its inner world either.)

Also, I agree with you that the connections linking our thoughts in long chains do not appear to be of the same kind of connections linking, say, actual metal chains. (However, we do know that the human brain like all other brains in nature features endless chain reactions of an electro-chemical sort. And the pathways of such electro-chemical activity are becoming more well known to scientists who are mapping them out.)

Question: If one is a "substance dualist" and believes that mental reasoning abilities are supernatural and enter the brain from outside the natural world, which part of the brain picks up these invisible signals from the supernatural world? In other words, if supernatural signals enter the brain at some point, what is that point? Or, if supernatural signals enter the brain at multiple points, then why can't both halves of a split-brain patient's brain "know" what the other half is thinking? Why can't one half of a split-brain patient "read the mind" of the other half of that same individual's brain? Why do split-brain patients, during such experiments, appear as if they were carrying on two separate thoughts and willing two different decisions at the same time?

Also, why the endless chain reactions of an electro-chemical sort that continue unabated between neurons and between entire sectors of the brain, traveling from one sector of the brain to the other and back again if the brain is being directed not by those reactions but by a supernatural force that is able to enter the brain and direct multiple brain sectors simultaneously?

SEE:

C. S. LEWIS’S “Argument From Reason,” vs. Christians Who Reject Mind-Body Dualism and Accept the Possibility of Artificial Intelligence, Even “Born Again” Machines!

C. S. Lewis and the Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism

"Brain and Mind Question" and Christian Theistic Philosophers

Edward T. Babinski

Words From the Inquisition: "Convert or Die!"

I just watched the first episode of the PBS special, The Secret Files of the Inquisition. The second episode will be on next week (5/16/07), and I highly recommend you watch it. One inquisitor, who went on to become Pope Benedict, told a Jew under interrogation, “convert or die!” These three words echoed down into villages and homes for two centuries. That’s two whole centuries. There was no escape from the power of the church since it reigned exclusively, even over the very ideas people entertained.

At the beginning of the 14th century the church was losing power because it was unwilling to change. The people did not have access to the Bible (nor was there a printed Bible). They were simply to believe what the church taught. Furthermore, the Sunday masses were done in Latin, which people couldn’t understand. So it gave rise to many ideas about religious truth, including a heretical group called “The Good Men.” Instead of addressing these disputes civilly the Church set out to stamp out heresy, violently and forcefully.

The angelic doctor Thomas Aquinas had previously argued that heresy was a "leavening influence" upon the minds of the weak, and as such, heretics should be killed. Since heretical ideas could inflict the greatest possible harm upon other human beings, it was the greatest crime of all. Heretical ideas could send people to an eternally conscious torment in hell. So logic demands that the church must get rid of this heretical leavening influence. It was indeed the greatest crime of them all, given this logic. So, “convert or die!”

Christians today say the church of the Inquisition was wrong, just like they say the Christians who justified American slavery were wrong. And that’s correct. They were wrong. But not for the reasons today’s Christians think. Today's Christians think the Christians of the past were wrong because they misinterpreted the Bible. But the truth is that these former Christians were wrong to believe the Bible in the first place. They were wrong to believe the Bible at all. Today’s Christians cherry-pick from out of the Bible what they want to believe. Today’s Christians have developed a more civilized ethical consciousness, and they read that consciousness back into the Bible rather than adopting what the plain sense and logic of the Bible dictates.

Here are some Bible verses to support the logic of killing heretics:

From Exodus 22:
You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live.
Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the LORD alone, shall be devoted to destruction.

From Numbers 25:
2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the LORD’s anger was kindled agai nst Israel. 4 The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the LORD, in order that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” 5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you shall kill any of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.” 6 Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand, 8 he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly.

From Deuteronomy 13:
If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, 2 and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, “Let us follow other gods” (whom you have not known) “and let us serve them,” 3 you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul. 4 The LORD your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. 5 But those prophets or those who divine by dreams shall be put to death for having spoken treason against the LORD your God—who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery—to turn you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 6 If anyone secretly entices you—even if it is your brother, your father’s son orb your mother’s son, or your own son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your most intimate friend—saying, “Let us go worship other gods,” whom neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 any of the gods of the peoples that are around you, whether near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other, 8 you must not yield to or heed any such persons. Show them no pity or compassion and do not shield them. 9 But you shall surely kill them; your own hand shall be first against them to execute them, and afterwards the hand of all the people. 10 Stone them to death for trying to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 Then all Israel shall hear and be afraid, and never again do any such wickedness. 12 If you hear it said about one of the towns that the LORD your God is giving you to live in, 13 that scoundrels from among you have gone out and led the inhabitants of the town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods,” whom you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make a thorough investigation. If the charge is established that such an abhorrent thing has been done among you, 15 you shall put the inhabitants of that town to the sword, utterly destroying it and everything in it—even putting its livestock to the sword

From Deuteronomy 17:
2 If there is found among you, in one of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, and transgresses his covenant 3 by going to serve other gods and worshiping them—whether the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden— 4 and if it is reported to you or you hear of it, and you make a thorough inquiry, and the charge is proved true that such an abhorrent thing has occurred in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or that woman who has committed this crime and you shall stone the man or woman to death. 20 But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.”

How much clearer can the Bible be?

I understand how today's Christians gerrymander around the logical conclusion of these texts. They say these Bible passages don't apply under the New Covenant. But if that's so, then why wasn't God clear about this such that Aquinas and two centuries of theologians got it wrong, causing such torment and misery? Can God effectively communicate to us, or not? Doesn't he know us well enough to do so? It seems that the logic of Aquinas is impeccable, based upon these texts, or an omniscient God needs some basic lessons in communication, or, God isn't a good God.

That being said, I see no moral reason whatsoever for these texts to demand the death of heretics in the first place, even under the Old Covenant. Such commands are reprehensible, coming from an all loving God. But even if they can be justified under the Old Covenant, which they cannot, why didn't God (Jesus or the Apostles) specifically say, "Thou shalt not kill people if they don't believe the gospel," and say it as often as needed? If that was the case, and if you were God, wouldn't YOU do the decent thing here? It just appears the Bible was written by superstitious and barbaric people that reflected their primitive notions about God, that's all. And it best explains what we see in the Bible.

“Convert or die!”

What horrible words to hear! How is this different from militant Muslims?

“Convert or die!”

----------------------------------------------

The broken record I keep hearing from Christians is that I cannot presume to judge God, or that I have no objective moral standard to say that the church did wrong. But what I'm doing is simply taking the present day ethical notions that both Christians and skeptics have and asking why the Bible is so barbaric? I'm saying such notions show me that kind of God doesn't exist. I'm not judging God. I don't think he exists. I'm asking whether such a God exists. I'm asking whether the Bible reflects the will of a good God, and my conclusion is BASED UPON THE ETHICAL NOTIONS OF CHRISTIANS THEMSELVES. I can justify my ethical notions, but that's a separate issue. I'm asking how Christians can justify these texts in the Bible and the logic that follows, if they believe a good God exists.

Another Favorable Review of My Book!

The Spanish Inquisitor just wrote a very favorable review of my book. See below for the text...

[BTW My book is presently ranked 8th among atheist books (although I don't know the criteria used to determine this)].

I started writing this review before I finished the book, because it grabbed me from the beginning. My initial impression, now confirmed, is that it would be a real eye-opener to this non-theist,who was raised as a Catholic, and whose sole theological indoctrination occurred at Sunday Mass and in daily religion classes in elementary and secondary school. That’s why I ordered it after seeing it mentioned over at Debunking Christianity. Those aspects of theology impressed on me at an early age consisted of cherry-picked readings of relevant selections from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the Epistles of Paul (or at least we thought they were all written by Paul). In essence we got feel good Bible stories with a moral, something akin to a religious Aesop’s Fables. John Loftus, in his well thought out, researched and developed “Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains” does of fine job of analyzing, demystifying, and eventually refuting all of the theological bases for Christianity.

The direction of my religious inquiry since I began the undertaking has always been towards the answer to this simple question: Does God Exist? What this book confirmed for me was, first, that he doesn’t, and, second, that Christianity’s cheerleaders, through two millennium, have bent over backwards, indeed sometimes split in two, in severe efforts to rationalize the assumption, without proof, that he does.

As a relative layman to Christian apologetics, then, I found this book useful on two levels. The former Reverend Loftus does a nice job of explaining the history of Christian rationalization, and then, once all of the various arguments are delineated, he shows just how vacuous they really are. He exposes the fact that the Emperor is stark, raving naked (to beat a dead metaphor, if I may).

In the first part of the book, the author begins by giving his bona fides. He was a bad kid who found God, was born again, and went on to study Christianity on his way to obtaining his Masters in Theology and Philosophy. He studied under William Lane Craig. He worked as a minister in various churches, and became an expert in Christian apologetics. He mastered the ins and outs of theology, and used his knowledge to argue the truth of Christianity. Several life crisis’s combined to lead him to doubt his thinking, and eventually to realize there was nothing underpinning his belief, that in fact all the apologetics he had mastered were a sham. This only comprises a short section of the beginning of the book (about 40 pages), but is useful to understanding his motivations in writing the book.

Then, it’s on to the Christian races. Part two, the major section of the book, tackles various arguments (apologetics to the faithful and unfaithful alike) used by Christians to justify many of their beliefs, including the presumed moral superiority of religion, the Virgin birth, the Resurrection, miracles, and historical evidence for Jesus and Christianity in general. The reader can tell that Loftus knows whereof what he speaks. There are ample cites to both Christian and non theist books and articles on the various topics, and it’s clear that he has read, and understands, them all. A skeptic might say that anyone can cite books, but does his analysis make sense? To this reader, the answer was “yes”. I was impressed, in passage after passage, with his grasp of the topics, and found myself marveling at subtle nuances to theological matters I had only a previous cursory knowledge of.

For instance, in the chapter entitled “The Passion of the Christ”: Why did Jesus Suffer?, were you aware that there were several theories, developed over time, attempting to answer the question of why Jesus had to suffer and die for the “sins” of mankind? Neither did I. According to Loftus, the earliest theory was called The Ransom Theory, advanced by some of the early Christians, whereby Jesus’ death paid a ransom to release us from the hold Satan had on us by reason of Adam and Eve’s sin. Later, Anselm came up with the Satisfaction Atonement Theory, whereby our sins, being an insult to God, were atoned for by Jesus’ suffering and death. Apparently, the theory du jour is called the Penal Substitutionary Theory, the current favorite among evangelicals. This evolved after the Reformation, when objective law, as opposed to the will of the ruler, began to form the basis for justice.

Frankly, I’m not sure I fully understand that last Theory, because it requires that Christ be punished for our sins, by taking our place in the punishment process. Since there is no evidence for such a thing as sin, other than in the conceptual, metaphorical sense, (i.e. in our minds) the idea of anyone being punished for a sin of the original human, much less having a scapegoat take our place, smacks of pure rationalization to this reader. Why God felt the need to torture and kill his son in order to sacrifice him to himself to atone for something that he was responsible for in the first place is circular, and nonsensical.

This example is just one of many that I found to be both exhaustive and exhausting. The extent that apologists have gone to justify their beliefs can wear you out, but Loftus does a nice job of showing, in chapter after chapter, that the underpinnings of Christian theology are about as substantial as dust.

I found the book to be very comprehensive, allowing me to delve into the details of apologetics, and the author’s refutations, or skimming those areas if I didn’t feel the need to know everything. In that sense, the book is good for both the reader interested in a concise summary of the essentials of Christian apologetics, and those who want more meat, and a fuller understanding, as there are ample citations to every reference for every aspect of every topic.

ABC Nightline Debate on the Existence of God: Brian Sapient vs Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort

You can watch it here.

While the debate doesn't seem to be very informative either way and not up to the standards of what I would consider useful, it sure looks to me as if Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort took a beating.

Why I Am a Skeptic About Religious Claims, by Paul Kurtz

Paul writes about this topic here: Why I Am a Skeptic about Religious Claims. Below is the text of what he wrote:

Unbelievers have debated the proper way to describe their position. Some scientists and philosophers-notably Richard Dawkins and Daniel C. Dennett-have recently been sympathetic to the use of the term bright. Proponents thought it a clever idea, hoping that bright would overcome the negative connotations that other terms such as atheist have aroused in the past. Many find this to be an attractive advantage. Critics of the use of bright have commented that it is presumptuous for us to suggest that we are "bright," i.e., intelligent, implying that those with whom we disagree are dull-witted or dumb. Clearly, many people have been turned off by the term atheism, which they perceive as too negative or dogmatic. Others may seek refuge in some form of popular "agnosticism," which suggests that they are simply uncertain about the god question-though this may simply enable them to resort to "faith" or "fideism" as an artful dodge.

I would like to introduce another term into the equation, a description of the religious "unbeliever" that is more appropriate. One may simply say, "I am a skeptic." This is a classical philosophical position, yet I submit that it is still relevant today, for many people are deeply skeptical about religious claims.

Skepticism is widely employed in the sciences. Skeptics doubt theories or hypotheses unless they are able to verify them on adequate evidential grounds. The same is true among skeptical inquirers into religion. The skeptic in religion is not dogmatic, nor does he or she reject religious claims a priori; here or she is simply unable to accept the case for God unless it is supported by adequate evidence.

The burden of proof lies upon theists to provide cogent reasons and evidence for their belief that God exists. Faith by itself is hardly sufficient, for faiths collide-in any case, the appeal to faith to support one's creed is irrational in its pretentious claim based on the "will to believe." If it were acceptable to argue in this way, then anyone would be entitled to believe whatever he or she fancied.

The skeptic thus requires evidence and reasons for a hypothesis or belief before it is accepted. Always open to inquiry, skeptical inquirers are prepared to change their beliefs in the light of new evidence or arguments. They will not accept appeals to authority or faith, custom or tradition, intuition or mysticism, reports of miracles or uncorroborated revelations. Skeptical inquirers are willing to suspend judgment about questions for which there is insufficient evidence. Skeptics are in that sense genuinely agnostic, in that they view the question as still open, though they remain unbelievers in proposals for which they think theists offer insufficient evidence and invalid arguments. Hence, they regard the existence of any god as highly improbable.

In this sense, a skeptic is a nontheist or an atheist. The better way to describe this stance, I submit, is to say that such a person is a skeptic about religious claims.

"Skepticism," as a coherent philosophical and scientific posture, has always dealt with religious questions, and it professed to find little scientific or philosophical justification for belief in God. Philosophers in the ancient world such as Pyrrho, Cratylus, Sextus Empiricus, and Carneades questioned metaphysical and theological claims. Modern philosophers, including Descartes, Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, have drawn heavily on classical skepticism in developing their scientific outlook. Many found the "God question" unintelligible; modern science could proceed only by rejecting occult claims as vacuous, as was done by Galileo and other working scientists-and also by latter-day authors such as Freud and Marx, Russell and Dewey, Sartre and Heidegger, Popper and Hook, Crick and Watson, Bunge, and Wilson.

The expression "a skeptic about religious claims" is more appropriate in my opinion than the term atheist, for it emphasizes inquiry. The concept of inquiry contains an important constructive component, for inquiry leads to scientific wisdom-human understanding of our place in the cosmos and the ever-increasing fund of human knowledge.

In what follows, I will outline some of the evidence and reasons many scientists and philosophers are skeptical of theistic religious claims. I will focus primarily on supernatural theism and especially on monotheistic religions that emphasize command ethics, immortality of the soul, and an eschatology of heaven and hell. Given space limitations, what follows is only a thumbnail sketch of the case against God.

Succinctly, I maintain that the skeptical inquirer is dubious of the claims

1. that God exists;
2. that he is a person;
3. that our ultimate moral principles are derived from God;
4. that faith in God will provide eternal salvation; and
5. that one cannot be good without belief in God.

I reiterate that the burden of proof rests upon those who believe in God. If they are unable to make the case for belief in God, then I have every right to remain a skeptic.

Why do skeptics doubt the existence of God?

First, because the skeptical inquirer does not find the traditional concept of God as "transcendent," "omnipotent," "omnipresent," or "omnibeneficent" to be coherent, intelligible, or meaningful. To postulate a transcendent being who is incomprehensible to the human mind (as theologians maintain) does not explain the world that we encounter. How can we say that such an indefinable being exists, if we do not know in what sense that being is said to exist? How are we to understand a God that exists outside space and time and that transcends our capacity to comprehend his essence? Theists have postulated an unknowable "X." But if his content is unfathomable, then he is little more than an empty, speculative abstraction. Thus, the skeptic in religion presents semantic objections to God language, charging that it is unintelligible and lacks any clear referent.

A popular argument adduced for the existence of this unknowable entity is that he is the first cause, but we can ask of anyone who postulates this, "What is the cause of this first cause?" To say that he is uncaused only pushes our ignorance back one step. To step outside the physical universe is to assume an answer by a leap of faith.

Nor does the claim that the universe manifests Intelligent Design (ID) explain the facts of conflict, the struggle for survival, and the inescapable tragedy, evil, pain, and suffering that is encountered in the world of sentient beings. Regularities and chaos do not necessarily indicate design. The argument from design is reminiscent of Aristotle's teleological argument that there are purposes or ends in nature. But we can find no evidence for purpose in nature. Even if we were to find what appears to be design in the universe, this does not imply a designer for whose existence there is insufficient evidence.

The evolutionary hypothesis provides a more parsimonious explanation of the origins of species. The changes in species through time are better accounted for by chance mutations, differential reproduction, natural selection, and adaptation, rather than by design. Moreover, vestigial features such as the human appendix, tailbone, and male breasts and nipples hardly suggest adequate design; the same is true for vestigial organs in other species. Thus, the doctrine of creation is hardly supported in empirical terms.

Another version of the Intelligent Design argument is the so-called fine-tuning argument. Its proponents maintain that there is a unique combination of "physical constants" in the universe that possess the only values capable of sustaining life, especially sentient organic systems. This they attribute to a designer God. But this, too, is inadequate. First because millions of species are extinct; the alleged "fine-tuning" did nothing to ensure their survival. Second, great numbers of human beings have been extinguished by natural causes such as diseases and disasters. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that suddenly killed over two hundred thousand innocent men, women, and children was due to a shift in tectonic plates. This hardly indicates fine tuning-after all, this tragedy could have been avoided had a supposed fine tuner troubled to correct defects in the surface strata of the planet. A close variant of the fine-tuning argument is the so-called anthropic principle, which is simply a form of anthropomorphism; that is, it reads into nature the fondest hopes and wishes of believers, which are then imposed upon the universe. But if we are to do this, should we not also attribute the errors and mistakes encountered in nature to the designer?

Related to this, of course, is the classical problem of evil. If an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibeneficent God is responsible for the world as we know it, then how to explain evil? Surely, humans cannot be held responsible for a massive flood or plague, for example; we can explain such calamities only by inferring that God is malevolent, because he knew of, yet permitted, terrible destructive events to occur-or by suggesting that God is impotent to prevent evil. This would also suggest an unintelligent, deficient, or faulty designer.

The historic religions maintain that God has revealed himself in history and that he has manifested his presence to selected humans. These revelations are not corroborated by independent, objective observers. They are disclosed, rather, to privileged prophets or mystics, whose claims have not been adequately verified: there is insufficient circumstantial evidence to confirm their authenticity.

To attribute inexplicable events to miracles performed by God, as declared in the so-called sacred literature, is often a substitute for finding their true causes scientifically. Scientific inquiry is generally able to explain alleged "miracles" by discovering natural causes.

The Bible, Qur'an, and other classical documents are full of contradictions and factual errors. They were written by human beings in ancient civilizations, expressing the scientific and moral speculations of their day. They do not convey the eternal word of God, but rather the yearnings of ancient tribes based on oral legends and received doctrines; as such, they are hardly relevant to all cultures and times. The Old and New Testaments are not accurate accounts of historical events. The reliability of the Old Testament is highly questionable in the events and personages it depicts; Moses, Abraham, Joseph, etc. are largely uncorroborated by historical evidence. As for the New Testament, scholarship has shown that none of its authors knew Jesus directly. The four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses but are products of oral tradition and hearsay. There is but flimsy and contradictory evidence for the virgin birth, the healings of Jesus, and the Resurrection. Similarly, contrary to Muslim claims that that religion's scriptures passed virtually unmediated from Allah, there have in fact been several versions of the Qur'an; it is no less a product of oral traditions than the Bible. Likewise, the provenance of the Hadith, allegedly passed down by Muhammad's companions, has not been independently confirmed by reliable historical research.

Some claim to believe in God because they say that God has entered into their personal lives and has imbued them with new meaning. This is a psychological or phenomenological account of a person's inner experience. It is hardly adequate evidence for the existence of a divine being independent of human beings' internal soliloquies. Appeals to mystical experiences or private subjective states hardly suffice as evidential support that some external being or force caused such altered states of consciousness; skeptical inquirers have a legitimate basis for doubt, unless or until such claims of interior experience can somehow be independently corroborated. Experiences of God or gods, or angels or demons, talking to one may disturb or entrance those persons who undergo such experiences, but the question is whether these internal subjective states have external veracity. This especially applies to those individuals who claim some sort of special revelation from on high, such as the hearing of commandments.

Second, is God a person? Does he he take on human form? Has he communicated in discernible form, say, as the Holy Spirit, to Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, or other prophets?

These claims again are uncorroborated by objective eyewitnesses. They are rather promulgated by propagandists of the various faith traditions that have been inflicted on societies and enforced by entrenched ecclesiastical authorities and political powers. They are supported by customs and traditions buried for millennia by the sands of time and institutional inertia. They are simply assumed to be true without question.

The ancient documents alleging God's existence are preliterate, prephilosophical, and, in any case, unconfirmed by scientific inquiry. They are often eloquent literary expressions of existential moral poetry, but they are unverified by archeological evidence or careful historical investigation. Moreover, they contradict each other in their claims for authenticity and legitimacy.

The ancient faith that God is a person has not been corroborated by the historical record. Such conceptions of God are anthropomorphic and anthropocentric, reading into the universe human predilections and feelings. "If lions had gods they would be lionlike in character," said Xenophon. Thus, human Gods are an extrapolation of human hopes and aspirations, fanciful tales of imaginative fiction.

Third, the claim that our ultimate moral values are derived from God is likewise highly suspect. The so-called sacred moral codes reflect the socio-historical cultures out of which they emerged. For example, the Old Testament commands that adulterers, blasphemers, disobedient sons, bastards, witches, and homosexuals be stoned to death. It threatens collective guilt: punishment is inflicted by Jehovah on the children's children of unbelievers. It defends patriarchy and the dominion of men over women. It condones slavery and genocide in the name of God.

The New Testament consigns "unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"; it demands that women be obedient to their husbands; it accepts faith healing, exorcisms, and miracles; it exalts obedience over independence, fear and trembling over courage, and piety over self-determination.

The Qur'an does not tolerate dissent, freedom of conscience, or the right to unbelief. It denies the rights of women. It exhorts jihad, holy war against infidels. It demands utter submission to the Word of God as revealed by Muhammad. It rejects the separation of mosque and state, thus installing the law of sharia and the theocracy of imams and mullahs.

From the fatherhood of God, contradictory moral commandments have been derived; theists have often lined up on opposite sides of moral issues. Believers have stood for and against war; for and against slavery; for and against capital punishment, some embracing retribution, others mercy and rehabilitation; for and against the divine right of kings, slavery, and patriarchy; for and against the emancipation of women; for and against the absolute prohibition of contraception, euthanasia, and abortion; for and against sexual and gender equality; for and against freedom of scientific research; for and against the libertarian ideals of a free society.

True believers have in the past often found little room for human autonomy, individual freedom, or self-reliance. They have emphasized submission to the word of God instead of self-determination, faith over reason, credulity over doubt. All too often they have had little confidence in the ability of humans to solve problems and create a better future by drawing on their own resources. In the face of tragedy, they supplicate to God through prayer instead of summoning the courage to overcome adversity and build a better future. The skeptic concludes, "No deity will save us; if we are to be saved it must be by our own efforts."

The traditional religions have too often waged wars of intolerance not only against other religions or ideologies that dispute the legitimacy of their divine revelations but even against sects that are mere variants of the same religion (e.g., Catholic versus Protestant, Shiite versus Sunni). Religions claim to speak in the name of God, yet bloodshed, tyranny, and untold horrors have often been justified on behalf of holy creeds. True believers have all too often opposed human progress: the abolition of slavery, the liberation of women, the extension of equal rights to transgendered people and gays, the expansion of democracy and human rights.

I realize that liberal religionists generally have rejected the absolutist creeds of fundamentalism. Fortunately, they have been influenced by modern democratic and humanistic values, which mitigate fundamentalism's inherent intolerance. Nevertheless, even many liberal believers embrace a key article of faith in the three major Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism: the promise of eternal salvation.

Fourth, we are driven to ask: will those who believe in God actually achieve immortality of the soul and eternal salvation as promised?

The first objection of the skeptic to this claim is that the forms of salvation being offered are highly sectarian. The Hebrew Bible promises salvation for the chosen people; the New Testament, the Rapture to those who have faith in Jesus Christ; the Qur'an, heaven to those who accept the will of Allah as transmitted by Muhammad.

In general, these promises are not universal but apply only to those who acquiesce to a specific creed, as interpreted by priests, ministers, rabbis, or mullahs. Bloody wars have been waged to establish the legitimacy of the papacy (between Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy), the priority of Muhammad and the Qur'an, or the authenticity of the Old Testament.

A second objection is that there is insufficient scientific evidence for the claim that the "soul" can exist separate from the body and that it can survive death as a "discarnate" being, and much less for the claim that it can persist throughout eternity. Science points to the fact that the "mind" or "consciousness" is a function of the brain and nervous system and that with the physical death of the body, the "self" or "person" disappears. Thus, the claim that a person's soul can endure forever is supported by no evidence whatever, only by pious hope.

Along the same line, believers have never succeeded in demonstrating the existence of the disembodied souls of any of the billions who went before us. All efforts to communicate with such discarnate entities have been fruitless. Sightings of alleged ghosts have not been corroborated by reliable eyewitness testimony.

The appeal to near-death experiences simply reports the phenomenological experiences of persons who undergo part of the dying process but ultimately do not die. Of course, we never hear from anyone who has truly died by any clinical standard, gone to "the other side" and returned. In any case, these subjective experiences can be explained in terms of natural, psychological, and physiological causes.

Fifth, theists maintain that one cannot be good unless one believes in God.

Skepticism about God's existence and divine plan does not imply pessimism, nihilism, the collapse of all values, or the implication that "anything goes." It has been demonstrated time and again, by countless human beings, that it is possible to be morally concerned with the needs of others, to be a good citizen, and to lead a life of nobility and excellence-all without religion. Thus, anyone can be righteous and altruistic, compassionate and benevolent, without belief in a deity. A person can develop the common moral virtues and express a goodwill toward others without devotion to God. It is possible to be empathetic toward others and at the same time be concerned with one's own well-being. Secular ethical principles and values thus can be supported by evidence and reason, the cultivation of moral growth and development, the finding of common ground that brings people together. Our principles and values can be vindicated as we examine the consequences of our choices and modify them in light of experience. Skeptics who are humanists focus on the good life here and now. They exhort us to live creatively, seeking a life full of happiness, even joyful exuberance. They urge us to face life's tragedies with equanimity, to marshal the courage and stoic forbearance to live meaningfully in spite of adversity, and to take satisfaction in our achievements. Life can be relished and is intrinsically worthwhile for its own sake, without any need for external support.

Though ethical values and principles are relative to human interests and needs, that does not suggest that they are necessarily subjective. Instead, they are amenable to objective, critical evaluation and modification in the light of reason. A new paradigm has emerged that integrates skepticism with secular humanism, a paradigm based on scientific wisdom, eupraxsophy, and a naturalistic conception of nature. Thus, the skeptic in religion, who is also a humanist in ethics, can be affirmative and positive about the potentialities for achieving the good life. Such a person can not only live fully but can also be morally concerned about the needs of others.

In summary, the skeptical inquirer finds inconclusive evidence-and thus, insufficient reason to believe-that God exists, that God is a person, that all ethical principles must be derived from God, that faith in divinity will enable the soul to achieve eternal salvation, and that ethical conduct is impossible without belief in God.

On the contrary, skepticism based on scientific inquiry leaves room for a naturalistic account of the universe. It can also recommend alternative secular and humanist forms of moral conduct. Accordingly, one can simply affirm, when asked if he or she believes in God, "No, I do not; I am a skeptic," and one may add, "I believe in doing good!"

Is It Really Because We Have a Hard Heart That We Don't Accept Christianity?

Christians who visit us here think that because we don't accept the claims of the Christian faith the reason is because we have a hard heart. I simply refuse to believe, they think. Sometimes they express this sentiment.

But in practically no other area of disagreement is this claim true. Among democratic free speaking people we disagree about everything, and I mean everything. We disagree about which diet is best to lose weight on, and we even disagree about democracy itself! If I don't accept Atkins diet, for instance, do I do so because I refuse to see it's merits, or because I have a hard heart? No. I just don't agree with you.

Why is this different with religious claims? I don't get it. I really don't. I just don't believe, and my non-belief is as sincere as anything I hold to.