The Blasphemy Board Game

This board game created by Steve Jaqua will be used by the CFI Michigan group for a night of fun for the whole family this Wednesday. It looks interesting. Be sure to click on the small FAQ link at the bottom. Your aim is to convince others that you are the genuine Jesus. To do this your Jesus must give stirring sermons, perform miracles, attract devoted followers, and make every effort to discredit his rivals. In the end, he must get himself killed. That's when you win the game. What? That's Blasphemy!

I Think Christianity is a Cult.

Here's a ten part essay on cults, including how they recruit, how cult members are deprogrammed, and so forth. I think most Christianities are cults from the various descriptions I read there. What d'ya think?

Finally, a Book that Educates the Masses: A Review of Bart D. Ehrman's Book, Jesus Interrupted

You can find my review of Bart D. Ehrman's book Jesus Interrupted, by following this link and then scrolling down on the page. If you find it helpful I'd appreciate a "yes" vote on the review. There's also a button next to my name that says "see all my reviews." Click on it if you want to read some other book reviews I've written, two pages of them.

Eyewitness: How Accurate Is Visual Memory?

Although the earliest Gospel of Mark was conservatively written over 40 years after the life and death of Jesus and, although these stories circulated in various oral traditions for decades by people who were to illiterate to give these narratives some form of textual stability; major Christian apologists assure us that, other than some minor textual problems that probably were added by careless scribes copying the text, the originals are very trustworthy accounts of what the Historical Jesus really said and did. But is this really the case at all?

Below are two links from CBS’s 60 Minutes that reveal the problems and deception of eyewitness accounts and how they can not be trusted.

Exclusive: The Bunny Effect

Manufacturing Memories

How Human Reasoning Makes Or Breaks the Biblical God of Miracles

When it comes to Biblical faith, the Bible is equal to a chemical catalyst (a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any change). By this I mean that if the Christian believer has the will to believe, then this person also has the ability to explain away exactly why either God or prayer fails to work, or explain a positive random event as the will of God or an answer to prayer.

An example of the Bible as a catalyst would be the story of the Prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel squaring off with the 450 heathen prophets of Baal (and 400 heathen prophets of Asherah: I‘m not sure what happen to them ( 1 Kings 18: 20 -40)).

I can not count the times I heard this preached on at Bob Jones University and in many Baptist churches as an example of what faith in the true God can do. Hey, we all know lighting is a destructive force and how even Jesus (Luke 9: 54) just as Luke in Acts has Paul ( Acts 9: 3 -9 = Acts 22: 6 - 11 = Act\s 26:12 -18) seeing such forces of nature as miracles from God.

On the other hand, I have never heard the wild, but equally truthful Biblical story of Jacob tricking Laban out of his flock by peeling the bark off a stick and placing it near the animal‘s watering hole to cause the breeding animals to produce striped, speckled, and spotted offspring:

“Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters, even in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink. So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted." (Genesis 30: 37 - 39).

But whether one story is preached on a lot to show the power of God while the second story in avoided like the plague from the pulpit; as for as the Bible is concerned, they show the power of faith in men blessed by God.

So, if one believes the Bible as written form Genesis to Revelation, it does not matter whether if Elijah is facing down the 400 prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel; Jacob peeling the bark off a stick to make the DNA in animals mutate and produce weirdly marked offspring or Jesus coming back from the dead on the third day, as for as the Bible goes, they all carry equal Biblical truths or Biblical facts.

Now, since these Biblical stories of God working miracles in the past must be accepted on faith if one is to be a Christian (a point we hear all the time from comments posted here at DC), for the faithful and unquestioning Christian, this Biblical catalyst will set in motion human denial of the logical for the religious mind that believes God can and does act today though miracles just as he did in the Bible. Since the believing Christian can not “Throw the baby out with the bath water”, then the miracle of Jacob’s peeled sticks carries the same miracle truth as the resurrection of Jesus; though not the same theological importance.

We usually hear stories from survivors who have experienced an acute situation in which God has saved their life. This is often heard on radio and television newscast following a plane crash in which religious people give tanks to their God for sparing their lives.

If the entire human life on the plane is spared (as was the case of US Airways Flight 1549 landing in the Hudson River in New York recently) then the catalytic Bible with its miracle stories of faith seems to vindicate itself.

However, when an entire plane goes down, leaving no survivors at all or when over half the passengers are killed during a crash, we only hear the praises to God from the humans still alive and able to talk while the majority of passengers killed are strangely pushed aside and silently left out of the miracle of God’s protection in this equation.

As noted above, an acute situation does not leave one time to relax and think logically, but rather the suddenness of the situation makes it a “Knee Jerk Reaction” based on a cry for help from the divine realm ( the old “there are no atheists in a foxhole” reaction).

On the other hand, doing a chronic or long term situation, one has more time to weight in on the Biblical claims and this mostly leads the victim to conclude both God and the Biblical miracle stories just don’t work.

An example of this is my 14 year old daughter went into End Stage Renal Failure in 1999. I vividly remember the night she and her Renal Nurse came home from choosing a peritoneal dialyzer and how she cried stating that she had to pick out a machine she had to be hooked up to every night to remain alive for the rest of her life.

I also remember the good intentions of the many churches which formed Prayer Chains for my daughter’s recovery. I recall the night a pastor stopped by to assure her that God loves her and will take care of her. But I was even more struck by her response to this pastor. She said: “I love my cats and dog and I take care of them because I love them. If God loves me, then why didn’t He take care of my kidneys?” The pastor just stood there.

Again, in contrast to the acute plane crash situation, the chronically afflicted victim has had time to be exposed to God though faith and prayer and has rightly reasoned that they are basically among the dead passengers in a plane crash.

To further prove my point concerning the chronically afflicted victim and their lack of faith in God and the Biblical catalytic miracle stories; every two years we attend the Transplant Games where people who have had kidney, heart-lung, pancreas, bowel, liver and other donor organs (from both living and dead people (given so that others facing chronic illness and death can live)) attend to celebrate life by competing in athletic competition of life and friendship. The ages of these people include anywhere form a one year old child to 80 plus senior citizens.

As a former seminary student and preacher, I wanted to see how these transplant patients (most must take 20 plus pills per day the rest of their life to keep from rejecting their life giving organ) felt about God and religion.

To experience this on a large scale, I attended both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in which up to 3,000 transplant patients attended and where many gave talks about life and the wonders of modern medicine and their loving thankfulness to the donor families.

Nowhere, and I repeat, nowhere, and at no time was there ever a prayer offered at these opening and closing events! Nowhere and at no time did anyone in these two hour plus ceremonies ever mention, thank or praise God, Jesus or religion as making it possible for them to live (instead, and contrary to the Bible, they praised “sinful man” and his works).

Unlike the acute person who “Finds God” in a panic during a passing time of trouble, these former long term chronically ill transplant people have seen the failure of God, prayer and religion in their lives. Many of the children and youth see themselves born (or created) by the very God the Bible and churches exhort them to turn to. They know and have first hand experience of the futility of religion and Biblical miracles. (Sorry District Supt. Harvey Burnett!)


While the Bible and its God labels humanity as sinful and in need of salvation that can only come from faith and God, these thousands upon thousands of transplanted people know as a fact, that without modern doctors and drugs, they would be just another head stone in some cemetery waiting for Jesus to come back in just another failed Biblically based miracle promise.

Crusade: A March Through Time

We rented a movie recently and my wife didn't know there was probably a Children's Crusade in the 13th century. They all got slaughtered. Regardless of whether there was or not, this movie shows you how people of faith think and argue. The movie is instructive I think, for the boy hero of the story was troubled by it all. Christian, how would you respond to such faith talk? Watch the movie and tell us. That's exactly how you sound to us!

Dr. David Eller Interviewed on the Secular Nation

Eller is the author of Atheism Advanced, which I highly recomend. Link

Isn't it Obvious that Children Raised in Christian Homes Have Been Brainwashed?

Isn’t it obvious that in a Christian dominated culture children are taught to believe before they could ever come to their own conclusions through reason? And in such a dominant Christian culture isn’t it obvious that these children who are raised to believe receive certain benefits from the social relationships of the church they’re involved in that make faith comfortable for them? What best explains why the Amish children stay in the Amish fold if they never leave their particular small culture? What best explains the fact that many young people lose their faith when they get out of such a church environment by attending a University? And isn’t it obvious that if a child is told s/he should not doubt but have faith or else s/he will be eternally punished that this provides a very strong firewall against honest doubt? Child molesters tell their victims not to tell anyone or else they might be killed. Is that much different? And isn’t it obvious that this whole process is best described as brainwashing or mind control? What is it, if that doesn’t explain it? And isn’t it obvious that most of us could be persuaded or manipulated into thinking and doing what we normally would consider false or wrong? Doesn’t the malleability of human thinking alone call upon us all to be skeptics? I think so. If you disagree, why not?

The characteristics of a brainwashed person are 1) xenophobia, or the fear of outsiders, an us/them mentality (which includes the fear of reading what those who disagree write); 2) A high degree of emotionally attachment to a belief; 3) That a person highly prefers his/her beliefs are true. And, 4) wishful thinking, which clouds a person’s judgment. There are other factors.

Believers are blinded by their passions because they have been brainwashed by their culture. Our culturally inherited beliefs are what we use to “see” with. These inherited beliefs are much like our very eyes themselves, so it’s extremely difficult to examine that which we use to see with. We cannot easily pluck out our eyes to look at them since we use our eyes to see. But we must do this if we truly want to examine that which we were taught to believe. Again, it’s a simple fact that brainwashed people do not know they have been brainwashed!

Should We Rate Religious Indoctrination with an R, for Restricted?

In a 2008 book titled Forced Into Faith Innaiah Narisetti "forcefully argues that children's rights should include complete freedom from religious belief. Narisetti proposes that the choice of religious belief or non-belief should be deferred till adulthood. Just as most societies recognise that marriage and civic responsibilities such as voting are adult prerogatives that children should not be allowed to exercise, so should the choice of a belief system wait till an individual is competent to exercise mature judgement."

"In this controversial critique of the UN convention, humanist Narisetti cites numerous examples of the ways in which early religious indoctrination leads to later negative attitudes such as intolerance, suspicion, and outright hostility directed toward those who believe differently. He also notes that religion provides a cloak for such obvious evils as sexual abuse, genital mutilation, and corporal punishment of children. While most societies are quick to condemn such abuses, Narisetti suggests that they should be willing to take the next logical step and look to the role of religion in such problems."

Sometimes ideas take a long time to germinate and become accepted. This proposal may be many decades away from being accepted, but the case has now been made.

Morality Is A Category Of Acts Of Mutual Self-Interest

In my view debates about Morality derive from the tendency of people to attribute and misinterpret intent and intelligence in self-organizing phenomena. To me it is obvious that Morality fits in a category of phenomena that derive from self-organization. Self-organization is commonly spoken about, even by scientists whether they mean to or not, as having some kind of intent or intelligence behind it.

CONFUSING INTANGIBLES WITH TANGIBLES
I think we do this because we are used to talking and thinking about objects. So we use those common patterns of speech as pre-made patterns of phrases to express ourselves because it is convenient for the speaker and the listener. It's so embedded in the English language and culture, in the heuristics we use day to day, even skilled thinkers such as scientists speak as though processes have intent.

In a way Morality is like math.
It is a representation of concepts that have natural relationships that exist and must be discovered to appreciate. In fact, in the days of Pythagoras, math was considered mystical, even divine, being objective and having "forms", and "essence". Its legacy in philosophy can be traced to the concept of the "essence" of humans, or "the soul". But that's a topic for another article half-done in my Googledocs.

Math is the process of applying values to representations of objects and intangibles to manipulate the relationships between them to assess different outcomes. The rules of Math are not so much "invented" as discovered. The rules of math are observations recorded for re-use. In the same way that mathematical rules are recorded observations of the interactions of their properties, the interactions between self-interested agents that have common properties can be recorded and given the name "Morality". Does this mean that "moral" acts can be predicted or assessed mathematically? I think the fact that people are comfortable predicting what someone would do in a given circumstance demonstrates that it is done informally on a day to day basis, and should someone take the time to capture that process mathematically, then I think it could be done probabilistically, similar to Game Theory.

A MECHANISM FOR MORALITY
- Mirror neurons,
"A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal.[1] Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting." Mirror neurons have been shown to have a relationship to intentions, empathy and language.
Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2008. Answers.com 04 Mar. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/mirror-neuron
- An observed event.
One agent observes another agent experiencing some event.
- A Change of State of the feelings of the observer
- The Feeling causes an Emotion
such as "compassion" or "empathy". Additionally, emotion can be stimulated by input from our senses or by artificial stimulation using probes and electricity, or in some cases mirror neurons.
- Desire
The emotion causes a desire
- Thinking
The desire causes thinking processes.
- How do we think about this stuff?
We use mental images, we use language, we use the processes in our brains, and we can only use what we've stored up to the moment. How we think about things is completely dependent on our inventory of thoughts and experiences up to the point. Additionally there is evidence that shows across cultures that people have some parameters for behavior hardwired into the brain. The Trolly Problem demonstrates that people across cultures and categories seem to have a biological algorithm for dealing with situations that distinguishes intentional and unintentional harm during a rescue.

A Theory of Moral Grammar
Harvard University's Cognitive Evolution Laboratory was established to study moral decision making and has a "moral sense test" set up for visitors to test their "moral sense". Marc D. Hauser, a biologist at Harvard, is testing a theory that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their minds by evolution. In his book, “Moral Minds”, he shows that instant moral judgments seem to be generated by the "moral grammar" which are inaccessible to the conscious mind partly because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations.

THINKING ABOUT "MORAL" BEHAVIOR AS AN OBJECT
- How do we capture it for mental storage and transmittal?
We have to have a way to think about all the facets of the event, and how to describe it to some other mind.
- The "Moral" Act
The desire and the self-talk may lead to an action and if it does then the event plus the action could be observed by a third mind and then once its all over, some value ranking goes on, judgments are made, conclusions are drawn, and now there is something to describe, to judge, and store in an inventory of experiences, to share with another mind, and either endorse, reject or ignore.
- Organizing "Moral" Acts
Once there are more than one of these events in an inventory, a way to think about them that reflects their similarities is needed, so we classify them, and we call it "Morality".

MORALITY IS ANALOGOUS TO ECONOMICS
From what I can see, "morality" is a category of behaviors that result from the self-interest of many agents. It is a form of self-organization of these agents according to their mental capabilities into groups behaving according to implicit rules that will become explicit in humans and has an analogy in economics. Its like circumstances are being guided by an "Invisible Hand". "The Invisible hand" is "an economic principle, first postulated by Adam Smith, holding that the greatest benefit to a society is brought about by individuals acting freely in a competitive marketplace in the pursuit of their own self-interest."
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 04 Mar. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/invisible-hand)

The difference between Self-interest and Selfishness
I see a lot of people make the claim that Adam Smith was endorsing "selfishness". Selfish is to Self-interest as Revenge is to Justice. While similar in concept, one is harmful and the other is not. Selfish and Revenge are about gaining an advantage, Self-interest and Justice are about maintaining an equilibrium.

Morality is really just a category of behaviors.
If we say that a behavior that fits in the category of morality is an action by an agent that requires an investment or risk to the benefit of another, then these behaviors can be observed to cross species boundaries and get more sophisticated with the sophistication of the species. All types of animals ranging from Apes, Whales, Dolphins, Birds, Elephants, have been documented exhibiting behavior that could be categorized as a rudimentary form of morality.

The real question is where does the behavior come from?
Lets trace it from its origins in an example taken from one of my experiences. I saw a person walking their dog on a leash. A stray dog attacked the dog on the leash and the person was struggling with separating them and not getting bit. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like I wanted to do something about it. From that feeling rose an emotion that caused me to start a process of thinking. My self-talk was something like "that's not right". I could relate to the person, and I knew how I would feel. I could relate to the dog, it was in danger from an aggressor and at a disadvantage. Through my emotion, self-talk, and narration creation process, I derived a strategy of dealing with the world. So it seems like the feeling came from the stimulus of a situation that was "unjust" or "out of place". The person was doing the right thing, the dog wasn't harming anyone and the stray was loose and aggressive. I made the choice to stop my car, get out and kick the stray dog to make it leave. But it had everything to do with visual and audible stimulus that came in through my biological receptors (eyes and ears) to set some biological process in motion that gave me the feeling, that caused the emotion, that caused me to derive a strategy for engagement with the world that I decided to take action on.

If God, then which God and how much is he involved in "Moral" behavior in non-humans?
If someone wants to inject God into that scenario then one has a lot of explaining to do. Since morality emerges in other species, other cultures and religions, then if God is injected into the situation above then he has to be injected into all the other situations including those of animals and Atheists. Why is God needed to explain it? Where does God Fit? Which god are we talking about? How does one know which god? How can someone else verify that it is being attributed to the proper God? If God has more to do with some situations than others, where are the boundaries for understanding when and how much God is involved and when he's not? Where is the tipping point or turning point when we can say that God is responsible for such and such moral event? And if the claim is "the bible says" then why should anyone trust the bible when the time of origin, the place of origin, the authors, the credentials of the authors are unknown, and there are is a lot of wrong data, even inconsistent data in the bible? The information in the Bible is of demonstrably poor quality when assessed using sound principles for information quality.

Consider these examples of moral behaviors derived from self interest
- I don't hit you because I don't want to get hit back.
- I grow vegetables well, Jill farms animals well, Harry is a good hunter, John makes good pants, and we all trade amongst ourselves for the things we need creating and equilibrium. It is not in our self-interest to allow one of the other participants to feel they are at a disadvantage by becoming selfish.
- I love Jill and when she is sad it bothers me so i try to cheer her up. Cheering her up makes me feel better.
- I trade with harry and he feels bad so he's not hunting, so I try to make harry feel better so I can get more meat
- Momma ain't happy so nobody's happy, so we try to make her happy.

Self-Interest Related to Relations
- We have biological emotional attachments to our children, and families, these are documented in research. Our desires to benefit them are derived in part from our emotions. The initiation of an emotion is not controllable for the most part, but we can do things to reduce the likelihood of their occurrence, or calm down, or work ourselves up, or decide to behave under the influence of the desires brought on by emotion.

It Just Ain't Right!
I don't need the police to do anything with my son when he takes a twenty out of my wallet, and I don't need the church to teach my son that his behavior is unacceptable on many levels.

It Just Feels Like The Right Thing To Do
And what is the origin of the desire to help an "enemy"? An uncomfortable feeling. Helping the enemy helps to resolve that uncomfortable feeling. It just "feels like the right thing to do".

Examples of Aiding the Enemy
- Christmas Truce and Informal Armistice
- Americal Civil War had many reports of aiding the enemy
- The American Underground Railroad for rescuing slaves

Language: Naming, organizing, classifying and categorizing.
Once the agents observe a phenomena and identify what it is they want to talk about, they must give the phenomena names in order to communicate what is going on in their mind. For example they have to give "sharing" a name, give "empathy" a name then they have to define what it is that is going on. The have to capture the phenomena in language so it can be discussed, then they can take steps to refine it and make it better, to set some parameters and boundaries, make some rules. They have to create a mental object from an intangible in order to work with it in a discussion to manipulate it according to parameters to make predictions about it. It's like verbal math working out the details of a moral equation.

The Aggregate Sum Of The Values Of THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Over time, the Value of "Pride" has changed in the moral equation. Pride used to be a virtue during the time of the Illiad, then Pope Gregory listed it as a deadly sin, then it re-emerged relatively recently as a behavior with positive and negative characteristics. The process of classification of morality continues to this day. You can see it in the news stories about legislative debates, most notably of late, legislation about the rights of homosexuals. Its a kind of an "Evolution of Morality" similar to the idea of Evolution of Coorperation

Justification For Morality Without God
The Justification for how "morality" came about is its inherent utility. The explanation starts with the feeling that causes the emotion, that creates the desire to act, which causes the action, and the result is beneficial whether it is realized or not by the agent. If it is realized, by humans for example, then we can further organize and classify it as a moral act and manipulate it to create a rule that can be used as a "tool".

The study of "Morality" seems to me to similar to a few other fields of study that I've listed below. I endorse the reader to take some time to become familiar with them. I've used Wikipedia for the links below and throughout not because it is a highly reliable source, but because it is a good place to start.

- Evolution of Cooperation
- Spontaneous Order
- Emergence
- Self-organization
- Game Theory
- Economics
- Harvards Moral Sense Test
- Marc D. Hauser
- Link to all DC's articles on Morality

Anyone that wants to argue that god has anything to do with morality has a very narrow point of view and is ignoring a ton of disconfirming qualifiers.

Morality is just plain good Economics.
Morality is ultimately an act of self-interest.
It Just feels right, and logically creates better outcomes for all agents.

The Scholarly Trend and the Mark of a Brainwashed Person.

I have argued that the reasons why Christians believe is because of brainwashing, ignorance and fear. We skeptics can even show from psychological studies that people of faith don’t reason too well; none of us do.

How many believers are willing to test what they believe by taking the Debunking Christianity Challenge? If Christians were really interested in the truth then those books would fly off the shelves. What I have learned is that many apologists have not even read many of the best books critical to their faith. Which of those ten books have YOU read Christian? What other books besides those ten have you read?

Yes, there are individual scholars who can stay believers in one or more fields of study antithetical to faith, like anthropology, Biblical scholarship, psychology, archaeology and many of the branches of science, but the overwhelming trend among scholars in those fields is toward doubt. Those are the facts. This means that it's a person's personality and sociological makeup that causes an individual to continue to believe in the midst of the evidence against what s/he believes. If the trend was towards belief then you might have a point. But it isn't, not by a long shot. Want to take a stab at explaining why this is so? My explanation is brainwashing, ignorance, fear of hell, and even the fear of the loss of social relationships.

People who have become atheists after embracing faith describe it as a terrible ordeal, much like pulling teeth out. They fear hell, and they fear what their families will think and do to them. It's best not to question the status quo and simply ignore doubt.

Christians don't realize you've been given a culturally adopted set of eyes through which you see everything. You just cannot see any differently. You don't even want to try to see things differently, do you, because you're scared? Does that describe you? Yes or no? If yes, that is a mark of a brainwashed person. If no, then take the debunking Christianity challenge.

Note to Reppert, Plantinga and Craig: The Claimed Proper Basicality of the Christian Set of Beliefs is Utter and Complete Nonsense!

The more I hear about this extremely queer argument the more I'm inclined to think with Dr. David Eller that believing and knowing are two separate things. He argues for a change in our nomenclature even though I'm not yet convinced he's right. It's just that there is no comparison of the Christian set of beliefs with our knowledge that the past happened. By my lights I see the belief in Elves and the belief in the Christian God as resting on the same foundations--culturally adopted ignorant and delusional beliefs which have no place among intelligent and highly educated scientifically minded people.

The fact that I have been treating Christian beliefs respectfully in the past does not mean I ever thought differently about them or of the people who hold to them. Christian, you are ignorant. Sorry, but that’s what I honestly think. Maybe by my saying this it will make you pause. Just become either an anthropologist, a psychologist, a scientist, a real Biblical scholar, or an archaeologist and it’ll help you appreciate what I’m saying. Yes, there are conservative believers in those fields, I know, but the ratio of conservative believers to liberals and non-believers is much much less in these fields of learning than the general populace (and Biblical scholars started out being conservative). I know why this is so, so you'll have to guess why. Philosophers of religion like Reppert, Plantinga, and Craig are merely accepting the results of shoddy conservative biblical scholarship and then seeking ways to defend those results without being Biblical scholars or archaeologists themselves to know the difference, like Hector Avalos, William Dever, Bart Ehrman are, along with so many others. [Craig is probably best to be thought of as an apologist, not a Biblical scholar]. And anthropology is, well, the clincher, or is it psychology, or paleontology, or geology, or astronomy, or any one of a number of other disciplines of learning?

I've learned a great deal while Blogging these few years. Just like flat earthers are ignorant so also are believers. But there's more to it since being ignorant doesn't exactly describe such a person. Believers are blinded by their passions because they have been brainwashed by their culture. Our culturally inherited beliefs are what we use to “see” with. These inherited beliefs are much like our very eyes themselves, so it’s extremely difficult to examine that which we use to see with. We cannot easily pluck out our eyes to look at them since we use our eyes to see. But we must do this if we truly want to examine that which we were taught to believe. It’s a simple fact that brainwashed people do not know they have been brainwashed!

And there is no parity with an atheist here, so don't say "you too." For the real debate is NOT WITH ATHEISM AT ALL! The real debate is between the Christianities of the past and today along with the debates between a plethora of Christianities in today’s world. Then this debate kicks into high gear between the myriad of religions themselves. An atheist is someone who simply doesn't think that a particular set of religious claims is correct. I came by my atheism as the result of a process of elimination, as most atheists have done. Christians are on that same road too. They just fail to understand that the same kinds of requirements they demand of other Christianities and of other religions they reject also apply to their own beliefs.

As I’ve said before, I think I have solved the Christian puzzle.

Test Your Knowledge about Jesus on a Harvard Final Exam

This course was taught in 1999 by Helmut Koester (John H. Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History) and M.P. Bonz a graduate teaching fellow.

The course was offered as HDS 1500 (Harvard Divinity School 1500) and as FAS 1419 and E 1325 in the general University.

This is the final exam for this Divinity School course entitled Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels.

Harvard Divinity School 1500
Fall 1999

Professor Helmut Koester and Graduate Assistant Marianne P. Bonz

Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels

Final Examination

Section 1: Essays (Write an essay on one of the following topics)

(1) Describe your own portrait of the historical Jesus. What elements of the various gospels (canonical and non-canonical) would you select for your portrait, and why do you regard these particular traditions as more likely to be authentic than other traditions that you would choose to omit?

(2) Discuss the differences of the views of Jesus as they are presented in two gospels of your choice, for example, the Synoptic Saying Gospel and Matthew, or the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Luke.

(3) David Friedrich Strauss claimed that the gospels depict a mythological Jesus; that is, that they are not trying to represent Jesus “as he actually was”. Using relevant biblical texts, respond to this claim. What sort of evidence might either corroborate or refute this claim? Does such appear evidence in the gospels, and if so, what is it?

4) Choose one Gospel and discuss the redactional method(s) and literary concept of the author that have shaped his/her image of Jesus. Be sure to make reference to specific passages that demonstrate the special christological perspective of the author.

Section 2: Exegetical Passages

Choose one form part A and one for part B.

In your comments, discuss form-, source-, and redaction-critical questions, consider parallels in other Gospels as well as the role of the passage for the understanding of that Gospel and the probable value of this text for the question of the historical Jesus.

A. Comparisons (choose one)

Compare Mark 8: 34 - 9: 1 to Matt 16:24 – 28 and Luke 9: 23 – 27.
How does a comparison of these passages indicate Markan priority. Please provide a detail analysis.

Compare Matthew 22: 1 – 14 to Luke 14: 16 – 24 and Gospel of Thomas 64.
Identify the common source and the ways in which the individual authors modify their source to further their individual schemes.

Compare Matthew 16: 5 – 12 and Mark 8: 14 – 21.
What theological themes does the Markan pericope develop? How does Matthew’s version differ and why?

B. Passages (choose two, but not both from the same gospel)

Matthew 6: 1 – 18 (Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting)
Matthew 22: 1 – 10 (Parable of the Great Supper)

Mark 8: 34 – 9:1 (About discipleship)
Mark 12: 28 – 34 (Question of the Great Commandment)

Luke 9: 37 – 43a (Healing of the Epileptic Boy)
Luke 17: 22 – 37 (The Son of Man)

Q/Luke 7: 18 – 35 (Question of John the Baptist)
Q/Luke 13: 22 – 30 (Judgment over Israel)

John 5: 17 – 29 (The judgment that Jesus proclaims)
John 13: 31 – 38 (The new commandment)

Gospel of Thomas 12 – 13
Gospel of Thomas 91 - 94

The Newest Books on Evolution.

Yesterday in our local library I looked through Jerry Coyne's new book Why Evolution is True. [Check out the blurbs for this book on Amazon!] Believe me when I tell you that this is a masterpiece written to explain to the non-technical reader why scientists accept evolution. It presents many charts that explain the text too. If you as a Christian think the book of Genesis tells us about creation then you cannot be ignorant any longer, and ignorance is what it is. Get this book and come up to the educated world. After reading it you will then need to reconcile the fact of evolution with what you find in Genesis, and that prospect is not promising at all.

Another newer book deserving of high praise is Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. Don't be ignorant any longer.

Fitting the Pieces Together, the Christian Puzzle is Solved!

I think I've finally solved the Christian puzzle. Here is my solution in brief (details are linked to, and a much fuller explanation is needed):

Christians do not believe in the God of the Bible, despite what they claim. Instead, they believe in the perfect being of St. Anselm in the eleventh century after centuries of theological gerrymandering. The Bible isn’t consistent in describing its God, but one probable description is as follows: Rather than creating the universe ex nihilo, God fashioned the earth to rise out of the seas in divine conflict with the dragon sea god sometimes called Rahab (in Job 26:9-12). This God is merely the “god of the gods,” who like the other gods had a body that needed to rest on the seventh day and was found walking in the “cool of the day” in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh, the god of Israel, probably emerged out of a polytheistic amalgamation of gods known in the ancient Near East in pre-biblical times. In the ancient Near East, all pantheons were organized as families, and Yahweh was simply one of the members of that family. Some biblical authors consider Yahweh, the god of Israel, as one of many gods fathered by Elyon whose wife was Asherah, to whom was given the people and land of Israel to rule over (Deut. 32:8). This God was responsible for doing both good and evil, sending evil spirits to do his will and commanding genocide. As time went on, Yahweh was believed to be the only God that existed. Still later, Satan was conceived as an evil rival in order to exonerate Yahweh from being the creator of evil. Still later, in the New Testament the God of the Bible was eventually stripped of physical characteristics and known as a "spiritual being" (although, in an era where gods could become men and where women were regarded as merely receptacles of the male seed, the virgin birth story is problematic in the New Testament, and hard to reconcile with a God who is considered a "spiritual being"). As theologians reflected on their God, they came to believe he created the universe ex nihilo. Anselm finally defined him as the “greatest conceivable being.” But Anslem’s God is at odds with what we find in most of the Bible.

The origin of the Christian cult started with an apocalyptic prophet who preached a doomsday message and gained a small following in Palestine. Jewish prophets like these were a dime a dozen and they had it easy given the harsh Roman rule.

After Jesus was crucified his followers had visionary dreamlike or ecstatic experiences which led them to believe Jesus was alive in a heavenly type existence. As time went on an empty tomb sequence was added to the story as well as other mythic elements, like a virgin birth a transfiguration, and so forth.

Their story was of a God who loved people so much that he sent his Son to atone for our sins in a culture where human, animal, and child sacrifice was acceptable to large segments of society. This story made sense and so evangelists and missionaries like Paul were able to reach the people of the whole Roman empire who themselves were superstitious to the core, since they believed in many gods and goddesses and had no evidence for them either. The best story had the best chance of success in those times.

Since warriors go to war in the name of a god, and since the Christian religion was growing in numbers, Constantine went to war in the name of the Christian cross and established a Christian empire. Upon becoming Emperor he called upon the church to settle their disputes which decided orthodox doctrines at that time. So Constantine's battle on the Milvian bridge decided which religion would dominate in western cultures from that time forward. We have inherited our religious beliefs because of this whole process. Had Constantine fought in the name of another god then history might have turned out differently.

Since that time Christianity has simply reinvented itself in every generation, much like a chameleon.

The only reason Christians refuse to acknowledge these things is because they simply are defending their culturally adopted beliefs. Many Christians refuse to even acknowledge that human beings don’t reason logically about this at all! That’s because, as Dr. David Eller argues, our culturally inherited beliefs are what we use to see with. These inherited beliefs are much like our very eyes themselves, so it’s extremely difficult to examine that which we use to see with. We cannot easily pluck out our eyes to look at them since we use our eyes to see. But we must do this if we truly want to examine that which we were taught to believe.

And as far as where we got our morals from in our western cultures, the same things can be said. Our morals evolved.

There is no basis for believing. The only antidote to the brainwashing of our culture is to demand evidence!

The Christian puzzle has been solved for me. In this sense Christians are no different than roughly half of Icelanders who believe in the existence of elves.

The Good Book Looks like a Good Book!

It's already a bestseller, ranked right now at 170 on Amazon! The author is David Plotz, who is the editor of Slate Magazine. To get the book Click here. My claim is that the Bible debunks itself.

Icelanders and Their Culturally Inherited Belief in Elves

Roughly half of Icelanders believe in the existence of elves. So strong is their belief that it halts construction and road projects, among other things. See here. These beliefs are culturally inherited ones. Christian, why do you think yours are not!

HT exapologist

There are Serious Problems With the Flood Stories in Genesis!

That's right. Plus, there is no archaeological evidence for such an event. Let's just admit the Flood stories are myths, okay? Then let's look at other Biblical stories with that same critical eye. Christian, when you do you'll see many of them falling down one after another like dominoes.



Cheers.

Are My Arguments Really Emotional and Superficial?

Some Christians have basically charged that I left the fold for emotional reasons and that my book is superficial. In talking to Norman Geisler, a former student claims Geisler doesn't recommend it because of my arguments but because it shows I left the faith for emotional resaons.

Let it be said that former believers like me left the fold because of emotional reasons. That's just another delusion they have. The fact is that the emotional upheavals in people's lives merely shock them into doing what sane reasonable adults should have done all along, questioning what they believe in the first place.

And so I don't deny Geisler thinks this. He said as much in a series of personal email exchanges. But I think many of the arguments used by some of the top Christian apologists and philosophers are superficial too. Bill Craig even called J.L. Mackie's argument against miracles "shockingly superficial"! Really? That is shocking to even read that. Mackie's arguments are not superficial at all. I find them persuasive.

Where does that get us?

My case rests upon the fact that we simply "see" things differently, and I argue in the first half of my book for why I see things differently. We see through a particular cultural set of controls beliefs. I have an anti-supernatural bias. Christians have a supernatural bias. The real debate is on settling that particular question. No other atheist author that I know of seems to appreciate that point but me, at least not to where s/he will spend over half of a book defending an anti-supernatual bias before looking at the Biblical evidence in the later half of it.

What Evidential Weight Does a Majority of Scholars Have in A Christian Dominated Culture?

William Lane Craig in his debates about the resurrection thinks this matters a great deal. That's why he mentions it. What do you think? ;-)

Bart Ehrman's Book, Jesus Interrupted, to be Released Tomorrow!

I heartily recommend getting this book!

Angry Atheists

My heart sank a bit today when looking at former minister and friend Dane Eidson's blog, Ranting Lunacy. He seems angry. There just might be stages that formerly brainwashed believers go through who leave the fold, and the first stage is anger. I myself didn't experience that stage, and I still have no anger after learning I was brainwashed into believing. After all, I was brainwashed by the brainwashed and I in turn brainwashed others.

Dane writes:

We love to mock Christian evangelicals. If you complain about this blog's contents being offensive after just reading the above text you're only proving two things about yourself. And these are that you're a hypocrite and that you are an idiot!

Some of the purposes of his blog are:

To point out the hypocrisy of far right fundamentalists.
To mock Christian fundamentalism.
To offer evidence that Christian evangelical fundamentalism is actually a mental illness and delusional thinking.
To report on the latest moral failures of Christian fundamentalist preachers through providing the links to and commenting about the news articles and videos catching these hypocrites in action.

And in one of his posts he wrote:

I openly mock you Christian fundamentalists! I piss on the name of your God.

Don't get me wrong, as I've written previously, I understand Dane's anger, much like there was an understandable African-American rage once blacks began gaining their needed rights in American society, it's just that I wish angry atheists would first calm down before they write much. It plays into the stereotypical view believers have of atheists, and it's not healthy if sustained for a long period of time.

At the same time some anger seems justified. Psychologist Dr. Valerie Tarico has written an excellent piece describing the phenomenon of Atheist Arrogance which equally applies I think to “Angry Atheists.” I wish everyone would read what she wrote. It explains so much of what is underneath the stereotype.

My Interview on "The Things That Matter Most"

This Christian show has had a lot of top notch guests on it. The program will be podcast and archived so you can hear it. I felt a bit marginalized but it's always good to have this kind of exposure. See for yourself. No short interview can do justice to the arguments in my book.

What Can Account for Morality, We're Asked?

In David Eller's excellent book, Atheism Advanced, Eller basically explains morality as those moral rules made up by people in order to define what it means to be part of any culture. They are usually based upon the religious myths each culture accepts. There is no morality then, only "moralities."

He finds that there are moralities among animals like Chimps, so it shouldn't surprise us when language bearing humans came up with more elaborate moral rules. And since we're talking about human beings, it's no surprise that our moralities have some major similarities since we are social animals who need to get along, to be loved and to love, to help and to be helped. Anyone who doesn't accept the moral rules of a culture are not allowed in the group, or we banish them, ostracize them, imprison them, and kill them. Do you want the benefits of being in the group? Then obey the moral rules, or at least don't get caught. Otherwise, you’re on your own. As such, there is nothing prohibiting someone from not accepting the moral rules of a culture if s/he doesn't want the benefits of the group (which would be a Freudian "death wish"). Are acts like murder, rape, and theft objectively and universally "wrong" then? That's probably a nonsensical question.

Therefore, there can be no argument for the existence of God based on morality. Human beings make up their own moralities because we're social beings who need to belong and get along. Morality is part of our survival instinct. We need other people to survive!

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For a Christian who might be stunned by the conclusion that it's probably a nonsensical question whether or not murder, rape, and theft are objectively and universally "wrong," then think again. Look at your own Bible. There is plenty of that to be found in it, all sanctioned by your barbaric God. Elsewhere I've argued that rational self-interest can account for our morality.

Louis Feldman on Jesus and the Truthfulness of the Gospels

[Note: This is an excursion from a post I’m working on as a reply to Christopher Price’s study on the Testimonium Flavianum pericope the Jewish Historian Josephus (Ant. XVIII. 63 - 4) is claimed to have written. The full lecture, from which these sections were taken by Louis Feldman, can be found here.]

Louis Feldman:
As Eli Wiesel has said, the world is willing to forget the slaughter of six million innocent Jews sixty years ago, but it will never let the Jews forget the execution of that one Jew two thousand years ago.

However, the fact that it depends upon the Gospels immediately raises a number of questions. Because, after all, when you say the Gospels, there are four different accounts in the Gospels and they don't agree with one another in a number of respects. For example, there are different genealogies of Jesus. They have different accounts of the trial of Jesus. And we'll see there are other discrepancies.

In addition to those four accounts, there are a number of accounts that never made it into the canon of the New Testament. So therefore to speak of something that will be dependent upon the Gospels, which Gospel?

Secondly, how could you depend upon the Gospels when after all, the Gospels were not composed in Galilee where Jesus came from. They were not composed in Jerusalem where Jesus died. They were not composed in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, but in Greek. They were written by people who never knew Jesus in person. None of them knew Jesus in person. One of them, Luke, was not a Jew, incidentally. And the Gospels were written at least forty years after the death of Jesus. Now, coming from such sources, would evidence be admitted in a court today, let alone be ready to convict somebody?

But one thing is clear, that the earliest of the Gospels certainly, usually said to be Mark, dates from around the year 70, which is long after the time of Jesus, who apparently died in the year 29. And that Jesus never wrote anything. You know, if you had an inquest in the case of Jesus, who killed Jesus, you don't have a body. You don't have anything he wrote. None of the authors of the Gospels ever talked to him. So you have nothing.

On Josephus and Jesus:
It's very interesting that there is one other account which, if it is authentic, does deal with the crucifixion. And that is by the Jewish historian Josephus. The question is whether Josephus really wrote it. And I've written about that, and I've come to the conclusion that he couldn't have written it, certainly in the form that we have it, because Origen, the Christian church father, at one point says that Josephus didn't recognize that Jesus was the Christos.

On Pilate and Jesus:
Here we have two people - and these are really the only two people who deal with Pontius Pilate at any length, namely Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, who was the leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria, and Josephus. They both mention Pontius Pilate. I might say that Josephus mentions Pontius Pilate in both the Jewish War and in the Antiquities.

The major difference, I might say, between the two accounts of Josephus is that the Jewish War account, which is almost as long as the one in the Antiquities, does not mention the passage about Jesus, which is a central focus of the Pontius Pilate account in the Antiquities.

Philo says about Pontius Pilate, and again you would never get this from reading the Gospels and certainly not from Mel Gibson, that he was "inflexible, he was stubborn, of cruel disposition. He executed troublemakers without a trial." He refers to Pilate's "venality, his violence, thefts, assaults, abusive behavior, endless executions, endless savage ferocity." And I'm quoting.

Now, Philo was certainly a scholar. He apparently had good information. You can see that he certainly tries his best to be fair towards the Romans. He got along with the Romans. He was the head of a delegation to the Roman Emperor Caligula, yet this is the way he speaks about Pontius Pilate. And those are the only substantial accounts that we have of Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate, according to Josephus, actually took money from the Temple and built an aqueduct in Jerusalem. He offended Jewish sensibilities by attempting to introduce busts of the emperor into Jerusalem.

Again, when the Samaritans arose to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Gerixim, he sent his soldiers, who slaughtered the people. Eventually he was deposed. The Roman governor of Syria, who was in charge of the procurators, actually forced him out of office.