There is No Doubt - I Was a Christian

A while back I posted my deconversion story and received a lot of comments. I wasn't able to respond to everybody since I was in the middle of moving and lost my internet connection for awhile. But thank you all (well, most of you) for your support.

I expected some opposition, of course, and got some. One commenter said:

A very interesting and thorough account of your alleged deconversion. However, since you were obviously never a believer in the first place, it is merely interesting from the point of view of what the Bible itself says about self-deception and the unconverted...

So the fact that you found Spong, by your own admission, "a breath of fresh air" indicates that you were never educated in the faith (although you may think you were, of course); nor did you hold to the faith (though you may think you did, of course)..

I know why it is so hard for Christians to admit that one time believers have fallen away - if it happened to her, it could happen to me. It is easier to say an ex-Christian was never a Christian in the first place than to have to admit that they were converted away from Christianity.

What could any of us here on the board say to convince the above reader that we were indeed Christians, many of us more devout than the average Christian?

I used to have a devotional time every morning where I prayed for my friends and family and myself, I read the Bible from cover to cover numerous times during my devotions. I witnessed to my family and they were saved (except my dad, no matter how hard I prayed), I brought up my kids as Christians and led them in the sinners prayer, I spoke in tongues and gave prophecies, I went to prayer meetings and Bible studies, I studied the Bible and prayed with my Christian friends. I believed God had a plan for my life, I believed he would help me through any situation, I believed I had a personal relationship with him. I lived my life for him.

So for this reader to say I was never a Christian says more about him than it does about me. I would venture to say that if he knew me when I was a Christian we would have gotten along just fine, he wouldn't have doubted my belief or sincerity one minute, we would have prayed together for all of the lost souls we knew.

To any Christian readers who happen on this blog, please don't doubt my sincerity when I say I used to be a Christian, but ask yourself, what did she find out there that convinced her otherwise.

Can I Judge the Judge?

Christians claim I cannot say God punishes us in barbaric ways even though I think he did so in many examples found in the Bible. If any judge turned someone into a pillar of salt for looking back (Lot’s Wife), or if he struck Uzzah down for steadying the Ark, or if he killed Ananias and Sapphira for lying, I would consider these punishments barbaric by all decent standards in today’s world. Christians claim I do not have a standard of morality to judge how God purportedly punishes us. They claim I must have an objective standard to know what good and evil is. They claim God is the objective standard, so by definition he does what is good, and I have no reason to judge the Judge of all creation.

But this all begs the question. I am seeking to know whether or not God exists from the way he supposedly judges people in the Bible. It’s not that I see myself actually judging the Judge as if he exists. Even if he does exist I don’t see why I can’t assess how he officiates in his court room, just like I do with any other judge in my society. Regardless, I’m looking at how the Bible claims God judges us and asking whether or not he exists. And my conclusion is that if this God exists then he’s not a good God. Since Christians claim God is good, this means their conception of God does not exist. And this is one of many reasons I reject Christianity.

Let's say you didn't believe in God, like me. Would that change anything with regard to how you thought a judge sentenced someone for a crime? Let's say before you became an atheist you thought that if a molestor was merely sentenced to probation, then he received a slap on the wrist for his crime. Would that view of yours change if you became an atheist? NO! I can indeed say when the punishment is too great or small based upon how serious I think the crime is. [At one time the Bible codified the standards of its own day when it proscribed capital punishment for a son who cursed his parents, but Christians no longer believe in that kind of law because history has moved on, and them with it.] Christians say I have no objective standard to claim this, but I say I am well within the standards of decency in modern America, which are more humane and civil than in the barbaric past. Christians say America has no ultimate standards for their morality, or those that do exist are based upon the Bible, but I say there have been a number of civilizations that have had little or no influence from the Bible that would agree with my standards.

Christians say humans beings as a whole have some kind of moral code written within them from God, and I disagree for one obvious reason: there is such a wide diversity of moral standards among the people in our world, along with the fact that there is a wide moral diversity among those who claim to be Christians too. Where is this moral code that is supposedly written into all human beings? Take a poll on the great moral issues of our day. If God writes a moral code within us then he’s writing in invisible ink, as far as I’m concerned. We cannot read it, and if that’s so, what’s left of the claim that God has done so?

Christians claim that God writes this moral code within us, but people just suppress it. However, no one is consciously aware of any suppression. Almost every person thinks his or her moral notions are true. People hold their moral convictions sincerely. For one side to say that the other side is not being sincere, doesn't help know who is correct at all. In fact, I have seen Christians hotly dispute other Christians on so many moral and political issues that it's difficult to see how such a claim makes any sense at all, since not even Christians can claim to know what that code is. This becomes a problem for the existence of the Holy Spirit who is supposed to guide the Christian as well. Where was he when Christians went to war with each other over interpretations of the Bible? Apparently he's not properly doing his job, and never has. These facts strongly suggest to me there is no moral code given us by God, and there is no Holy Spirit either, contrary to the claims of the superstitious people who wrote the Bible, and those who believe those claims. The hard evidence is against it.

The progression of Christian morality that can be read in any history of Christian ethics book will show this. How the Christian judges morality is not necessarily learned from the Bible, but it is brought to the Bible; that is, Christians develop their morality in tandem with their culture and find justification for that morality in the Bible. [Key issues here are slavery, democracy, women's leadership roles, abortion, capital punishment, and what to do about poverty].

In fact, if a Christian became an atheist his or her behavior wouldn't change much either, which is another reason why it's not the Bible that forms our ethics. Michael Shermer asks the Christian one simple question. “What would you do if there were no God? Would you commit robbery, rape, and murder, or would you continue being a good and moral person? Either way the question is a debate stopper. If the answer is that you would soon turn to robbery, rape, or murder, then this is a moral indictment of your character, indicating you are not to be trusted because if, for any reason, you were to turn away from your belief in God, your true immoral nature would emerge…If the answer is that you would continue being good and moral, then apparently you can be good without God. QED.” [Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil, pp. 154-155].

Furthermore, it seems obvious to me that punishing the whole human race for the small sin of curiousity and selfishness that was created within them by God in Adam and Eve, was absolutely horrible of the Biblical God. God would have known that he had not given them enough evidence to believe that eating the fruit would cause so much horrendus suffering. If they had enough evidence to actually believe this would happen, they wouldn't have done it. Besides, God purportedly knew full well in advance they would indeed sin. The sentencing of this God for this crime is warped and barbaric. I think a case can be made for entrapment here.

The only reason Christians don't agree is because they believe in God, and the reason they believe in God has more to do with a felt need for some higher power taken together with when and where they were born, called "the accidents of birth." Their religion was the one experienced within their culture. For if they were born in Turkey they would be a Muslims, and if they were born in Mongolia they'd be Buddhists right now.

If Christians didn't believe in God, they would see what their God concept purportedly does for what it truly is, barbaric. Their God concept clouds their eyes from seeing what seems obvious to others.

And as far as the naturalistic standard of morality goes, I believe at root we all have the same standard, based in nature, it's just Christians refuse to acknowledge it. Christians think they find their morality in the Bible but they don't, as I've indicated. If their morality is to be found inside the pages of the Bible, then they need to explain why Christians have disagreed about that morality down through the centuries, and even today. People have their morality and then they try to find it in the Bible, for the most part, although, since the Bible is part of our culture then it helps to shape our standards in a dialectic conversation.

Another Look at John Loftus', "Why I Rejected Christianity"

The trend is growing. More and more often nowadays we are hearing about Christian preachers walking out of their pulpits, away from lives of privilege and honor, leaving the fold of God. Emerging from different sects of Christianity, these ex-ministers are observed to defect for strikingly similar reasons. When they let us into their lives to see why they forsook their lord and master, we see that virtually all of them found Christianity to be evidentially problematic, if not patently false.

In 1963, a young Church of Christ preacher by the name of Farrell Till left the faith. A number of years later, he became quite outspoken against his former religion in a publication he founded known as The Skeptical Review. Then in 1984, Dan Barker appeared on the scene, a former Assembly of God preacher and graduate of Azusa Pacific University. After leaving Christianity, he joined the Freedom from Religion Foundation where he is now co-president, and in 1992 published his account of the desertion entitled, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist.

As of 1997, another name has been thrown into the hat of unbelievers, John W. Loftus. Like myself, Loftus was a Church of Christ minister and graduate of several Christian colleges and seminaries. Making John even more unique to the already exceptional caste of minister-turned-atheist is his education at the feet of renowned Christian apologist, Dr. William Lane Craig. Craig is best known for his work and defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument and is viewed as a “Big Gun” in the world of Christian-atheist debate. Having spent a number of years as a seeker, a mere doubter of Christianity, Loftus now openly rejects his former theistic belief system and has declared why in this work, Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains.

Says Loftus, “I was a Christian apologist with several Master’s Degrees set for the express purpose of defending Christianity from intellectual attacks.” Was he successful? Could Christianity be successfully defended from the attacks of her systematically versatile secular critics? What was his conclusion after years of preaching and fighting for the faith? “I am now an atheist,” John says. Why? Because the arguments in support of Christianity “just weren’t there, period.” (p. 8)

Having left the ministry myself, I can personally relate to many of John’s struggles as a Christian minister. I have endured some fine ones in my time, plus the painful dregs of resurfacing doubts that just wouldn’t go away all throughout my Christian years. Any Christian-turned-heretic can confirm that eventually, all such doubts terminate in unbelief, and this only after a long and agonizing de-conversion process—right up there in intensity with a divorce or a death in the family. Just ask any apostate who has gone through the ordeal!

In one word…

For a little while now, I have been acquainted with John and have found him to be an upstanding individual. It’s not everyday you learn about someone with the courage and love of self-honesty to turn their back on a cherished belief system. John stepped up to the plate by being willing to follow his heart (and his mind) wherever it led him. It led him right out of Christianity!

If I had just one word to describe John, it would be “noble.” It doesn’t require much of one’s self to gloat in personal positives, but it does require a lot of conviction to expound on the negatives. John is noble and humble to share some less than flattering things about himself in his journey out of Christianity. One word describing John’s book would be “rich,” as every chapter is tightly packed with loads of qualitative information.

Style…

The overall writing style of the book is decent, while the format is at least tolerable, being tiresome on the eyes at times. The outline breakdown of content makes for a somewhat fragmented read with underlined text, bold-faced type, repeated indentations, and tabbed paragraphs not exactly aiding the “lazy eye” along. Incredibly lengthy source quotations and thick paragraphs of book recommendations can be distracting at places, but after reading a few chapters, this begins to seem less obstructive.

A number of writers make the understandable mistake of writing in an outline style, assuming that accented lines of text make for an easier read, when in fact just the opposite is the case. The eye is not only lazy, but prefers simplicity and uniformity. A traditional chapter layout would have proved more accommodating for the reader. But these are merely cosmetic critiques. I now move on to more important matters.

Content…

The book’s central strength lies in it’s information-rich content. In truth, a person could spend quite a long time following up on John’s sources and recommended reading materials. There is a tremendous well of knowledge here. The work is chock-full of great information with one major theme underlying it all; the supporting “facts,” the cardinal pillars of Christianity, cannot be rescued from unrelenting, submerging doubt—even if one happens to find belief in Christianity viable. Cause for serious skepticism is everywhere lurking. The major tenants of Christianity, the “core doctrines” at the heart of the faith, are shaky at best and vulnerable to attack from all sides of debate. John speaks the language of competent and well-known Christian scholars and apologists of both liberal and conservative affiliation, employing their own words against them, demonstrating that they themselves recognize the grave position they are in when facing the critical eye of a skeptical, modern world.

The audience…

I see this book being of exceptional value to college students, philosophy buffs, and particularly those who are “on the fence,” actively struggling with an open mind to objectively beat their doubts about the validity of Christianity. I also see it serving as an ideal study-guide for someone looking to get in touch with other excellent works on the nature of the Christian religion. John’s scholarship is solid, drawing from a host of proponents and critics in a wide range of disciplines, including history, philosophy, and theology. Loftus is very well read. Any doubts about that will quickly disappear upon reading the book.

Concerning his own academic qualifications, John writes, “I consider my expertise (if I have one) in the area of the Big Picture.” “None of us are experts in all the areas we need to be,” and yet “someone has to stand back from all of the trees to see the forest and describe what it looks like.” (p. 59) True that. It is the job of every writer to extrapolate information, to draw from a wellspring of sources and reach conclusions of their own, and to expound upon those conclusions in a clear and thought-provoking manner. This John does, and his conclusion is that Christianity is fatally inundated with problems.

Exceptional chapters…

While I enjoyed reading every chapter, there were some that stood out as sublimely exceptional in nature. These included…The Outsider Test for Faith, The Problem of Unanswered Prayer, The Problem of Evil, The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible, Historical Evidence and Christianity, Was Jesus born of a virgin in Bethlehem?, Was Jesus God Incarnate?, The Devil Made Me Do It!, and Prophecy and Biblical Authority.

The Outsider Test for Faith is one of those chapters that says what every doubter of religion has always thought but perhaps never said so well. The chapter is an absolute jewel, an extended take on the old realization that “If you lived in Iraq, you’d be a Muslim.” John did a masterful job at making application of this truth when he made the following observations…

“If you were born in the first century B.C. in Israel, you’d be a Jew, and if you were born in Europe in 1200 A.D. you’d be a Roman Catholic. But there’s more. Had we lived in ancient Babylonia, or the Greco-Roman worlds, we would have been very superstitious and polytheistic to the core. In the ancient world, we would have sought God’s guidance through divination, and appeased his wrath with barbaric blood sacrifices. We would have also been opposed to democracy and preferred instead the divine right of kings, like Plato and people in the Middle Ages…Our metaphysical and religious beliefs are dependent to a great extent on the ‘accidents of birth’ (when and where we are born) primarily because there are no agreed upon empirical tests to decide between these metaphysical and religious belief systems.” (p. 43-44, 46)

I don’t want to give away too many goodies, but I’ll make mention of several more before moving on. In The Strange and Superstitious World of the Bible, Loftus discusses the more rigorous nature of today’s standards of proof verses those in the minds of first century societies. Loftus rightly points out how big of a discrediting factor to the Bible the superstitious setting from which it emerged is. We should consider it suspect for this reason alone, if for no other…

“We who live in the modern world of science simply don’t believe in a god of the sun, or moon, or harvest, or fertility, or rain, or the sea. We don’t see omens in an eclipse, or in a flood, a storm, snakebite, or a drought, either. That’s because we understand nature better than they did, by using science. We don’t see sickness as demon possession. Nor do we think we are physically any closer to God whether we’re up on a mountaintop or down in a valley. But every nation did in ancient days.” (p. 120)

Commenting on Historical Evidence and Christianity, the chapter bearing this title emphasizes what naturalists have long since known and faulted theistic conceptions for—legends and records of so-called miraculous events cannot survive the stretch of time with credibility…

“History itself is fraught with many difficult problems when one comes to understand the events of the past. According to Beddington again, ‘Any historical account is, in strict logic, open to doubt. It is not just remarkable events long ago like biblical miracles that are not logically certain. But if non-supernatural events in the past are open to doubt, then how much more so is it the case with supernatural claims of events in the past, like biblical miracles?’” (p. 163)

And…

“The modern historian lives in the modern world, a world where miracles and supernatural events simply don’t take place. At least, that is his experience…There should be no reason to suppose that ancient historical people experienced anything different than what we experience today. They were perhaps just superstitious, that’s all, and they lived in a world where there was nothing known about nature’s fixed laws—just their belief in a God who expresses his will in all events. So when confronted with a miraculous story the modern historian assumes a natural explanation, or that the story became exaggerated in the telling, or that the cure was a psychological one, or it may simply be a legend to enhance the reputation of the miracle worker.” (p. 165-166)

The thrust of the chapter forces the believer to acknowledge that the Jesus they preach and defend originates from a limited knowledge of the past, an intrinsically fallible knowledge, one which can be misinterpreted, misrepresented, exaggerated, or just plain wrong. This realization brings shockwaves of uncertainty to an inquiring mind.

Gems…

In addition to possessing some very fine chapters, such as those already mentioned, this work covers some ground that is seldom touched on in other comparable freethought works. These include such things as references to the apocryphal Book of Enoch and Jude’s quotation of a passage from this obvious fake as a divine prophecy from God (Jude 1:14) (p. 153-154). It also delves into a biblical problem with the resurrection story I find to be particularly intriguing—the biblical claim that Pontius Pilate’s guards would approach the chief priest and elders of the Jews to suppress the knowledge that they were actual eyewitnesses of God’s miraculous power in the moving away of the stone from the tomb…

“These soldiers wouldn’t have reported to the chief priest and elders, but to Pilate whose guards they were (Matt. 27:64). And what was the lie? They are to say; “we were asleep” while the disciples stole the body. Now it’s one thing to lie, but another thing for soldiers to spread the word that they were derelict in their duty in order to help people they didn’t care for, especially in light of their vivid experience, and with the possibility of being severely punished for it…But the truth is that it’s a useless and stupid lie. If they were asleep, how did they know what happened?” (p. 213)

John does a number on this and other major logistical problems with the resurrection narrative. Was Jesus God Incarnate? is an especially juicy chapter that focuses on the many serious absurdities and troubles created by the idea of a “fully God and fully man” Jesus. Scholars have unendingly tried to work out the manifold difficulties that the notion of a man-god brings to the surface, one of which has to do with sin and temptation…

“We’re told that Jesus was tempted (Matt. 4:1; Heb. 4:15). To be tempted would entail having thoughts about sinning. One cannot be tempted to do something if there is no desire to do it…But since Jesus was tempted to sin there seems to be some small imperfections in him, since to be tempted means to have desires that do not accord with the nature of God.” (p. 198)

Loftus also mentions the very common (and comical) discrepancy concerning Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a colt, or (depending on which gospel account you read) one young colt and a fully-grown ass! This problem – by far one of the most embarrassing biblical discrepancies of all time – comes from five conflicting passages of scripture (Zech. 9:9; Matt. 21:2; Mark 11:2; Luke 19:30; John 12:14-15). All but Matthew mention Jesus riding on a colt, whereas Matthew mistakenly and ridiculously concludes from Zechariah 9:9 that “riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass,” refers to two mules, which it clearly doesn’t as John points out on page 234.

Many other gems are found throughout that are worth mentioning but are far too numerous, like how the words of Mary at the announcement of Jesus’ miraculous conception, “How shall this be seeing I know not a man?” are a complete literary invention (p. 188). Loftus rightly bears out how Enuma Elish (the Babylonian creation tale) is an older mythical epic, from which Genesis steals its framework (p. 108-109). And on and on we could go.

Criticisms…

Aside from format and basic literary concerns, I do not take issue with many of the claims John makes, and those small tidbits we might happen to disagree on are not even worth commenting on here. But here are a few things I will take issue with…

My biggest complaint is with the tone of the book. It is not aggressive enough. A writer must accept the challenge to exude personal authority, to tell the reader what should be believed and why. The occasional lack of this quality is found throughout the work in certain places where John seems rather withdrawn; namely, I would love to have seen more of John’s own sentiments and less a barrage of thoughts and facts presented by others, which in certain places, can seem rather dry and aloof. A hefty number of sections and chapters, however, including The Outsider Test for Faith, The Problem of Unanswered Prayer, and The Problem of Evil, are fittingly exempted from this criticism.

I would like to have seen John elaborate more on the popular Josephus forgery that some uninformed Christians still claim was Josephus’ testimony of Jesus (found in Antiquities 18.3.3), though even many Christian fundamentalists now realize that the text was in fact doctored by later Christian interpolators, making it royally unlikely that Josephus wrote very much of that text, if any of it (p. 156). More supporting material would have been helpful on the discussion of the Exodus and the Canaanite Conquest (p. 157-158). I happen to agree that the evidence for the traditional view of an Egyptian Exodus is extremely wanting.

I wish John had devoted more space dismantling the Kalam cosmological argument, though he does deal with it (p. 75-76). The same criticism goes for his hasty development and critique of the mildly confusing ontological arguments in Faith and Reason (p. 72-73). John’s writing is not difficult to follow, but with strained and nebulous arguments like those of the Ontological persuasion, more attention and space are needed to exhaustively deal with these subjects as deep as they are, and with as much weight as some contemporary Christian thinkers put on them. This brings out what would be a concern for some—the book is, in a few places, a little too deep for the average reader who may not have at least a tad of familiarity with these philosophical arguments.

A few small criticisms notwithstanding, the book cuts the theological lifeline of mom and dad’s “old time religion.” It is a more than worthy read, making it a fine addition to the freethinker’s library.

Conclusion…

Why I Rejected Christianity is the story of a once invigorated believer who, having seen Christianity from the inside out, chose to reject it. In an age when evangelical Christians have decided to spread their nets to catch a much larger audience, an audience of more critical minds than the average churchgoer who sits in the pews like a wooden Indian, the contents of this work should be considered all the more valuable to them. It will challenge the faith of believers, and only the most wayfaring of them will accept this challenge. The progressively-minded faithful owe it to themselves to strongly consider the material presented herein, forgoing the usual aversions that popular Christian scholars “already answered that.” The biblical incongruities John addresses are “alive and kicking.” They have not been laid to rest by Christian defenders as some assume and would love nothing more than to believe. The rifts and divisions in scholarly thought alone bear witness to this fact. These problems are formidable, and they aren’t going to go away anytime soon.

(JH)

The Concept of God Solves All Problems!?

One of the reasons I started this Blog is because I was curious to see which arguments have the best chance to persuade Christians that their faith is false. Sadly, I am no closer to figuring this out then when I started, and I think I know why.

The bottom line seems to be that when someone believes in God, then his concept of God becomes the answer to all of his problems.

The problems I refer to here are intellectual complexities, socio-political troubles, and personal difficulties. If something bad happens to the believer, for instance, he believes either God has a reason for it, or God will bring good out of it. The same goes for unanswered prayer, for the believer will claim it just wasn’t God’s will, or that it’s not in God’s timetable.

I don’t mean to suggest that there are no problems for the believer. He does indeed have problems. But he also has an explanation for them in that God allows him to experience them in order to strengthen his mind, character, and body, or that they are the punishment for sin. I only mean that with his faith the believer has a solution to all problems, and they are solved by his concept of God.

The Christian thinks this way, as I’ve seen, but so does the Muslim, so does the Jew, so does the Hindu, so does the Buddhist, in their various respective ways. But because religious believers have their problems solved by their faith it’s nearly impossible for them to see that it’s their faith itself that solves these problems, and not the object of their faith. This is especially true when the believer is fearful to doubt.

When you stop to think about it, with such a faith it's nearly impossible to see that faith for what it really is: faith in a concept of God. Such a concept must solve all problems. It cannot be otherwise. By definition the theistic God must answer or solve all problems and/or difficulties, otherwise he's not worthy as a God concept.

I watched the movie Troy (starring Brad Pitt as Achilles) just recently. I liked the movie a great deal even though it was long. It was very entertaining and loosely based on Homer’s The Iliad, along with Greek mythology. You ought to watch it! So long as it’s even close to how the ancients thought about the gods, it’s enlightening. The confidence they had when they spoke of the gods of Apollo or Poseidon or Zeus was absolutely amazing to me, and reminds me of how confident Christians are too, even though there are differences in how they determined the will of the gods. Kings consulted the priests for signs from the gods about whether or not they will win a battle, and the priests saw omens in nature to indicate what the gods will do. [Christians determine God’s will from a book that was written by the same kind of superstitious people, too, although they will never acknowledge this. But even in the Bible divine guidance was sought for through Rhabdomancy, Hepatoscopy, Teraphim, Necromancy, Astrology, Hydromancy, Casting of Lots, and Dreams (look these up yourselves). And while there were many prophets proclaiming what they called God’s word, how did anyone back in those days actually know which ones were from God, if any of them were? I know the so-called tests for a true prophet, but the so-called false prophets didn’t think they were false prophets, did they?...nor did those who followed them. Who would you really believe in Jeremiah’s day, since he was walking around Jerusalem proclaiming that it would fall? On Jonah’s story see here.]

The basis of their faith rests in ancient pre-scientific superstitious people, and in when and where they were born, but they refuse to acknowledge this.

Take for example religious diversity. Why is there a proliferation of religious belief systems? Well, if you believe in a specific concept of God then God is your answer. Consider the arguments used to explain religious diversity by adherents of different religious faiths. These explanations are similar in kind to each other, if not exactly the same. They will argue that those who don’t accept their particular religion are either ignorant of the truth, willfully ignorant, unenlightened, deceived by Satan, or that God has good reasons for permitting this state of affairs. Cultural factors are downplayed or even ignored, even though they play an overwhelming role in what a person believes.

Take for instance the issue of miracles. Miracles don’t occur in today’s world (Pentecostal believers will very rarely claim they happen in today’s world nearly as often as the Bible records, or with such force). But if you believe in the Christian God concept, then God is your answer. Miracles must’ve occurred, even though believers face a double burden of proof, and even though believers must overcome Lessing’s Broad Ugly Ditch

Take for instance the problem of evil. If you believe in a Christian God concept, then God is your answer. God knows what he’s doing, and what he does is good, even though Christians have no answer as to why God didn’t explicitly condemn slavery, or create all human beings with one color of skin. Intense suffering speaks volumes against the Christian faith. Believers will even try to justify why people end up in hell with arguments that seem absurd, because of a faith that believes God solves all problems.

With a God concept like this who solves all problems, it’s nearly impossible to help the believer to see his faith for what it truly is, as a Freudian wish fulfillment, or Nietzsche’s will to power, or the Marxian opiate of the people. Ludwig Feuerbach was correct, human beings have fashioned God in their image rather than the other way around.

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Since I’ve mentioned the movie Troy, according to Greek mythology when Achilles was born, his mother, Thetis, tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. As she immersed him, she held him by one heel and forgot to dip him a second time so the heel she held could get wet too. Therefore, the place where she held him remained untouched by the magic water of the Styx and that part stayed mortal or vulnerable. Achilles died from a heel wound as the result of a poisoned arrow fired by Paris. To this day, any weak point is called an “Achilles’ heel”. I think the Achilles’ heel of Christianity is to be found in the advance of modernity.

Debate DVD and Book For Sale.

I interrupt this Blog to offer a good deal to those who might want it.


A few people have been asking where they can purchase the debate DVD in which David Wood of Answering Infidels and I debated the problem of evil. I have three copies to sell at $15 each plus shipping (which will depend on how you want it shipped and where). If you also want my book and don't have it yet, I'll sell both DVD and book together at a discounted rate of $30 plus shipping. Just e-mail me and I can bill you through PaylPal, or you can send me a check in the mail. First come first served. If there is more interest I'll get some more of both, but it might take some time.

Climbing into de-Bunker....

I apologize from the start for the horrible pun in the title. But get used to it. :o)

Before I was an ex-Christian I was......well, a Christian! I very sincerely confessed my sins and pledged my life to Jesus at the tender age of 7, and I was just as sincere in my effort to maintain my Christianity for the next 35 years or so. I took very seriously the exhortation to 'study to show thyself approved.' Little did I know that my studiousness would be the undoing of my faith in the supernatural.....

My childhood was fairly typical for the son of a Southern Baptist minister. Periods of rebelliousness punctuated an otherwise general attitude of respect and obedience. As a young man I evolved from inerrancy to legalism. I entered Dallas Baptist University with the intention of entering the ministry, which was constantly distracted by my affection for the piano. After my first marriage disintegrated I entered another period of 'rebellion', followed by a return to faith characterized by the charismatic experience. My wife and I met during this time and I led praise and worship for a medium-sized non-denominational church for five years. For most of this time we tithed over 10% of our gross income.

My first dose of critical thinking/reason came from, of all people, my own father! He gave me a copy of Hank Hanegraaff's Christianity in Crisis which, among other things, pointed out a flaw in one of the core teachings of one of our favorite ministers. I soon abandoned most Charismatic teaching and eventually stopped attending church altogether. I later ran across Preterism which at least seemed to make more sense out of the ever-changing field of eschatology while allowing me to remain a Christian. But Preterism's approach to symbolic vs. literal passages in the Bible led me to the discovery of major holes in the Genesis flood story, then creation accounts and eventually the historicity of much of the Bible, from Eden to Palestine. Where faith had taught me to accept even the most incredulous stories as literally true, reason brought doubts. I eventually reasoned my way out of faith in the supernatural altogether.

I have written about this in greater detail here and here.

I look forward to joining my fellow ex-Christians in this endeavor.

The Incoherence of God and Time.

Is God in time or is he timeless? Either stance a Christian takes leads to some kind of incoherence. Let me simply use Christian philosopher Paul Helm’s analysis of this in “God and Spacelessness,” Philosophy55 (1980).

Helm begins with two authors who made similar claims against the timelessness of God. J. R. Lucas made this claim: “To say that God is outside time, as many theologians do, is to deny, in effect, that God is a person.” He reasons that to be a person is to have a mind, and to have a mind requires that it be in time (i.e., thoughts require a sequence of events, etc.). A.N. Prior claimed that a proposition such as “It is raining now” is not equivalent in meaning to “It is raining on Tuesday,” and that an omniscient God who knew the latter would not necessarily know the former, and would not know it if he were timeless, since he could not be present on the occasion on which it was raining.”

[These are pretty persuasive arguments, I might add].

But Helm argues against both authors by merely showing that such a claim also entails the denial that God is spaceless, which in turn denies that God is infinite--something these authors want to maintain. Helm writes that “the arguments used to show that God is in time, in effect support the view that God is finite, and so anyone who wishes to maintain that God is infinite, as the traditional theist does, will either have to find other arguments for the view that God is in time, or eschew the idea of God being in time altogether”—this is the dilemma Helm presents to these authors. And he claims, "if the timeless existence of God is incoherent then so is the spaceless existence of God."

[I happen to agree that they are both incoherent].

Helm does not try to show that God is in fact timeless, nor is his purpose to show that the logic of these two authors is wrong. He admits that he doesn’t even fully understand what it means to say God is both timeless and spaceless. He’s only claiming that a denial of God’s timelessness is also a denial of God’s spacelessness.

After making his arguments he leaves the reader with three alternative consequences to choose from:

1) "Theism is even more incoherent than was previously thought, in that it requires unintelligibilities such as a timeless and spaceless existence." [To this I completely agree with him here.]

2)Recognize that since the belief in God requires an infinite and spaceless God "there must be something wrong" with the arguments against the timelessness of God." [However, it's far from the case that the Bible describes anything but God's activity in time, especially with the purported incarnation. Nicholas Wolterstroff's essay, "God Everlasting" has more than sufficiently shown this, as has Clark Pinnock's essays and books.] The Bible simply does not require that God is timeless. This view of God has been something fully adopted because of neo-Platonism and finally codified by Anselm's conception of the "greatest conceivable being."

3)These authors must "supply an argument against God’s timelessness that does not have a spatial parallel." [To date this challenge has not been sufficiently met].

That is, Helm argues that one can either, a) Deny (or accept) the unintelligible existence of both a timeless and spaceless God, b) Accept the consequences of a God who is both in time and finite, or, c) Supply other arguments on behalf of a God who is in time which does not also deny God’s spacelessness. Not being able to do (c) presents the dilemma of choosing either (a) or (b).

Here is a Christian philosopher of some note who recognizes a very serious problem in reconciling God and time. He makes my case for me. On the one hand we have the Bible, which clearly shows God responds to us in time, along with the philosophical arguments of J.R. Lucas and A.N. Prior. On the other hand, a being in time also denies that God is spaceless. Which is it?

The Thanksgiving Edition of the COTG is Up.

At Hellbound Allee.

A New Atheist/Christian Blog

Daniel Morgan pointed out to me a new Blog on the block. It's called Philaletheia. Here's how it's described:

Somewhere in the blogosphere, two people met on a blog and started a conversation. That’s where this blog began. One is an atheist, one a devout Christian. Both are passionate about seeking truth in their own fashion. Both thought other truth-seekers might benefit from an open dialogue concerning truth-claims, how we know anything, and the nature of everything.

Perhaps you’ve surfed enough to know that atheist/Christian relations are often strained and seldom friendly. One objective of this blog is to listen deeply and learn to talk to one another. Both authors will be contributing thoughts on certain topics, that the other author will be able to respond in the comments along with all other readers.

What I like is that the Christian wrote something on How to Talk to Believers, while the atheist wrote something on How to talk to Atheists.

This is a unique concept, having them both share a Blog. Like them I have always wanted Debunking Christianity to be "a safe place for all involved, be they atheist, theist, or agnostic." I wish them well in their discussions.

The incredible "smallness" of Jesus' sacrifice

Christianity has taught, preached and proclaimed that mankind should stand in awe of the "incredible" depth of Jesus sacrifice on behalf of poor wretched sinners. As we have been taught, Jesus took himself from the highest place in the universe down to the lowest place on the human scale. There to die a death, not just any death but a most cruel and inhuman death which our small heads might be able to imagine. As the trite saying goes, "God bankrupted heaven in order that we might enjoy his riches."

Now, to be sure, the story of Jesus does provide a illustration of a sacrifice. However, are we to be awe-fully impressed by it. Is that sacrifice truly a sacrifice of such magnitude claimed? Let's take a brief look.

First of all, Jesus sacrifice was encapsulated in 33 brief years. So, sandwiched in between eternity previous and eternity post is a segment of time which, in comparison, does not even register as a relative blip on the screen. The insignificance of 33 years is brought out by the statement in II Peter 3:8, "...with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (ESV). I understand that thousand years can easily be interpreted figuratively and not literally. Nonetheless, the point can be argued that 33 years does not even constitute a significant portion of the divine day. Would we commend someone excessively for devoting 1-2 hours out of entire lifetime to be face to face with those he claimed to love. No, we are not impressed. Jesus gave very little of his time to be with us.

Next we must ask, "how hard was it to be away from heaven for those 33 years?" Imagine if a person lived an incredible life of luxury for his entire life . But the only time he had to really sacrifice would be 1-2 hours of incredible suffering. Then immediately afterwards he could go back to his life of incredible luxury. Now this scenerio is flawed with contingencies based on the mental health status of the person involved. But suppose the person involved is a mentally balanced, rational being. Would that person consider this suffering overwhelming? As long as the person kept the 1-2 hours of suffering in perspective, the situation would be "no sweat." How much more from a divine perspective? How much did Jesus really sacrifice by giving up the riches of heaven when he knew it would only be a short time before he received all back again?
In this question, we are defining sacrifice simply as time spent being human, a fate which most of us do not consider a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice for him, Jesus, only in a condescending way. Maybe a true sacrifice would be Jesus being reborn in each generation to be with us. Maybe it would be Jesus just being with us antlike humans from the beginning. I would actually be impressed if the person that I have worshipped for over 30 years actually took the time to meet me face to face in person. That I think I would begin to call a sacrifice on a divine level. As it is, no we are not impressed.

Let us scrutinize a little further. Up to approximately his thirtieth birthday, Jesus simply lived a normal life of a Galilean peasant. Nothing special. He may have gone hungry sometimes. But we are given no indications that Jesus almost starved to death during his physical development. We are given no indications that Jesus suffered any significant physical impairments. How could a real Jesus honestly look at a person who has had cerebral palsy from birth and say that he has made a great sacrifice when Jesus' "sacrificial" experience would provide him not a clue of what it felt like to be CP from birth. If Jesus was going to be truly sacrificial, why couldn't he grow up in a slave camp being beaten daily. Or why couldn't he have a lifetime experience of chronic pain sydrome so that he could truly understand what some of his creature go through without any of the praise and adulation accorded to his name? This shows just how superficial his sacrifice really was. Truly, Jesus, we are not impressed.

Going a bit further, his ministry lasted a mere 3 years, but maybe as short as one year. One cannot disipute that he gave much during this time going without sleep many nights, reaching out to many in need and preaching his double edged message of love and condemnation. Jesus' effort pales incredibly in relation to many of his own followers who have devotedan entire lifetime sacrificing all worldly goods and worldly desires to follow his message. Who should stand in awe and praise of whom. I think Jesus should worship many of his followers because they have sacrificed insurmountably more than he.

Even during this time, did Jesus' sacrifice call him to truly physically suffer? No more than millions of altruistic persons have done. Then what does it come down to? Jesus spent no more than 1 human day truly suffering on an elevated scale including the trial, the scouraging, the mockery, and the actual crucifixion (in which Jesus was granted a brief than usual stay on the cross of only 6 hours. Many others crucified usually spend a much longer time than the fortunate son.). Imagine Jesus thinking to himself, "Sure, right now this is bad. But if I can hang on a few hours. I will be right back up in heaven. And my father promised that everyone will have to bow to my name nowand forever more. I guess that's not such bad deal" Now I am not so "blasphemous" as to suggest that that is the way Jesus actually thought or that the gospel writers imply that thinking. Nonetheless, it pretty much sums up the essence of the situation. How is this sacrifice any greater on the human level? Spartacus, circa 70 BCE,and his compatriots endured torture and the sacrifice on the cross over a much longer period of time for for the commandable goal of raising the status of slaves to a level of human dignifity. His sacrifice was just as noble. But he operated without any promise of a life after death. That raises his sacrifice much higher into the realm of the sublime. If Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, why then does it not appear to be so ultimate?

Shouldn't we expect more of divine sacrifice than we do of human sacrifice?

Does this not make Jesus' sacrifice embarrassing and infinitely small?

Can I ask one more question?

Are we impressed yet?

I Have a Job for You

The Book of Job is a fascinating story, portraying a dialogue between a man and his friends over the concepts of God. Particularly, due to its inclusion in the Tanakh, the God YHWH.

Unfortunately, as infidels, we concentrate on the first two chapters, and the “bet” between God and Satan, while Christians primarily focus on the last five chapters, and God’s reply framed around “Who are you to question God?”

Occasionally we see a verse or two pulled out to defend the idea that dinosaurs walked with humans, or the pyramids were built by God. Often we overlook the rich exchange that happens between Job and his friends.

There is argument that the first two chapters and 42:7-16 were an addition to a much older tale, as the concept of Satan was not introduced until post-captivity. (Satan only makes one other historical appearance in the Tanakh—being David’s Census. 1 Chron. 21:1)

Regardless of the reason for the exchange, the bulk of the book comprises of Job interchanging with three friends over the concept of God. Let’s set the scene.

Job has had a set of personal tragedies that have led him to the point he wishes he was never born. Job 3:11. He gives out a long, whining speech, bemoaning his misery. Three friends respond; Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shulhite and Zophar the Naamathite reply in turn to Job.

(By the way, the next time you hear the phrase, “Job’s Comforters” as a negative reference, remember that the three friends sat with Job in complete silence for seven (7) days. Job 2:13. That takes a pretty good friend.)

After debating back and forth over what God does, God appears in Chapter 38. It is not exactly clear whether God talks solely to Job, or whether all four overhear and see what God says and demonstrates. However, in 42:7 God does speak directly to the three friends, saying:

“…God said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”

God reiterates again in 42:8 that the three friends had not spoken of God what is right, as Job has. In 42:9 it is indicated again that what Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shulhite and Zophar the Naamathite all said was incorrect.

Clear enough. What Job said about God was correct. What the three friends said was incorrect. But have you ever read the book of Job with the mindset that what Job was saying was right, and what the three friends said was wrong? How about a game of “Believer or Infidel” where we guess whether the statement about God was correctly made by a believer, or incorrectly made by an Infidel?

The rhetorical question: “Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker?”

Made by an infidel. Job. 4:17. If God says this is wrong, is it true that humans CAN be more pure than God?

Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.

Infidel. Job. 5:17

Why do you not forgive my sins?

Believer. Job 7:21. Interesting how many times we have discussed here the problem of God only forgiving some sins, or how atonement could be so incomplete. We are often told “Who are you to ask God, ‘Why?’” Yet that is exactly what Job did, and God found that acceptable!

If you will look to God and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your rightful place.

Infidel. Job. 8:5-6 Again, we have been informed by Christians that we can still turn to God. That we can still beg forgiveness for our inability to believe. Apparently according to God, all those believers are quite incorrect and should beg for forgiveness for saying such inaccurate statements about him. ‘Cause when Bildad the Shuhite said the same thing, God said it was wrong.

I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me. Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked?

Believer. Job. 10:2-3. (I’ll bet you are getting the hang of this Game!) Let’s see if I have this right—What Job says is correct. Job has the audacity to question why God condemns him. Therefore, it seems quite appropriate that we, too, even as infidels would be correct to ask God why he condemns us. Especially given the vast amounts of information that point to his non-existence.

God would seem to give the stamp of approval to us questioning his ways—including his methods of judgment! Remember THAT, next time we are told, “God does not have to answer to you.” According to Job, we are at least allowed to ask the question and it is appropriate.

Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know?

Infidel. Job 11:7-8. This has always intrigued me. Remember—God says that this statement about him is incorrect! Very, very often, when discussing God we are informed by Christians that some question, some problem is unknown—because we cannot know the ways of God.

Yeah, this is exactly what Zophar the Naamathite said, “God is too mysterious for you.” And God says that is wrong! So, if God says Zophar is wrong for saying it, are you? Dare a Christian ever revert to the “God is mysterious” defense, in light of Job 11:7-8?

If you devote your heart to him…if you put away the sin that is in your hand…then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand firm and without fear.”

Infidel. Job 11: 13-15.

I desire to speak to the Almighty and to argue my case with God.

Believer Job. 13:3

Your sin prompts your mouth; you adopt the tongue of the crafty. Your own mouth condemns you, not mine; your own lips testify against you.

Infidel. Job 15:5-6

Are God’s consolations not enough for you, words spoken gently to you? Why has your heart carried you away, and why do your eyes flash, so that you vent your rage against God and pout out such words from your mouth?

Infidel. Job. 15:11-13

We could go on for the next few chapters, but hopefully the point has been made. I strongly encourage you to read the book, noting who is speaking, and whether what they are saying is “correct” or not.

Now, I may be accused (perhaps with some justification) that I have picked out some problematic portions while others I have left on the table. The concern is that God (according to the author) fails to differentiate between what parts Job said were correct and what parts Job said were incorrect. Likewise with his three friends.

If the claim is made that only parts of what Job/Friends stated were correct and parts were incorrect, how do we come up with a methodology as to which are which, without relying upon a bias? In other words, claiming God approved certain words, simply because we desire God to approve those words.

So here is my question. It may take a bit of reading, but please read the portions of Job which record the statements made by Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Chapters 4-5, 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, and 25. What, exactly, did the three friends say which was incorrect about God? What was so wrong that God demanded a sacrifice for these horrible statements? I would suspect that any pastor could preach about God working from any of these chapters and not a single person would stand up and say, “Hey. Wait a Minute. What you are saying about God is wrong.”

What did the three friends say that was incorrect?

Preterism is an Admission That Jesus Failed to Return

Exapologist wrote a Blog entry called One of the Main Reasons Why I Think Christianity Is False, concerning the fact that Jesus failed as an eschatological prophet. In the comments section Paul Manata defends a partial preterism eschatology in the comments section, to which I offer these comments:

I believe preterism, or even partial preterism, is a frank concession of the fact that Jesus did not return as was expected from the earliest days of Christianity until recently. It’s one thing for skeptics to scoff, it's quite another to see Christians re-invent their eschatology to accommodate this glaring problem.

I had already mentioned on the Unchained Radio program and in a Blog entry how believers read the Bible through the lenses of their present experiences when it comes to the creation accounts in Genesis, women's roles in leadership, and slavery. Both Paul Manata and Gene Cook disputed that they do this. But here is a case where Manata has done just that.

Now here's the question for Manata. Why can he do this with the return of Jesus and I cannot do this with the present day lack of miracles when I read the Bible? Manata reinterprets the historical church understanding of eschatology in light of about 2000 years of experiences, including several recent failed predictions of the return of Jesus in 1974, 1988, and 2000. So why is it illegitimate for me to see the creation accounts in Genesis as myth because of present day modern science? All I did as a former believer was to attempt to reconcile modern science with Genesis, just as he does with the failed bodily return of Jesus.

As an aside, what can be said about Preterism?

Christians can debate what the Bible says about this all they want to. When they come to an agreement, then I'll know which view to subject to criticism. In the meantime let see what can be said about preterism. Preterism places New Testament eschatological fulfillment in and around AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans when the temple with its old covenantal sacrificial system (the heaven and earth of the Jews) was destroyed, and the new covenant with its heavenly Jerusalem (the new heaven and earth of Christians) was inaugurated. Redemption was made complete and the Kingdom was consummated, we're told.

But this new view is puzzling to me, and I have a few questions about it. Just like the Jehovah Witnesses who say Jesus returned spiritually in 1914, my criticisms are similar in kind. [Exapologist has already quoted William Lane Craig's criticisms of preterism in the comments section of his Blog entry].

In the first place, what was Jesus doing before he returned and inaugurated his kingdom in 70 AD? Was he not already reigning over the believer's hearts? If not, then what was he doing? Was there a time between 33 AD and 70 AD when there was no covenant, no promises, no Christian moral standards to live by? Were Christians still living under the Old Covenant until the temple was destroyed? Was Jesus not yet the King reigning over Christians?

In the second place, what is the difference for the Christian in the supposed return of Jesus in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem, if Jesus was already reigning over their lives. Preterists think it made a difference because the temple was destroyed along with their sacrifices, which leads them to say the Kingdom was inaugurated at that time. But according to the book of Hebrews, sacrifices had already ended in Jesus, and the Spirit had already inaugurated the community of Christians by indwelling believers. If Jesus' resurrection is the only proof that Christians needed, then the destruction of Jerusalem should have proved nothing additional to them, as Christians. This would be the case even if Jerusalem hadn't been destroyed! Think about it. If Jerusalem had never been destroyed with the temple and the sacrifices, then what would have changed for the Christian?

In the third place, did the destruction of Jerusalem prove anything to the Jews? Hardly. Did they become Christians? It only shows me that the Biblical God is barbaric in that he unmercifully destroys people for whom he hasn't given enough evidence to believe. The Jewish religion did go through a major change, though. But the Jewish religion was already supplanted by Christianity decades earlier, according to the NT. The Jews just changed their views of sacrifices, much like how preterists are changing their eschatology today because Jesus failed to return. But why should any of these Jewish theological changes matter to Christians?

Lastly, if the Trinitarian God has always reigned over his world, then what difference did it make to the world in general that Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD? Presumably God (Father, Son, & Spirit) never had to ask anyone for permission to reign over his world. The Bible claims he just does, and that he always has done so. It really doesn't matter to God whether or not people acknowledge that he does--he just does. So if preterists are correct that God-in-Jesus started reigning in 70 AD, then who is Jesus now reigning over that he didn't reign over before then? Since his reign has always been over everyone, then it can only mean that he began reigning specifically over Christians in 70 AD. But ever since the inauguration of the church he was supposedly already their king!

So what difference did the destruction of Jerusalem make in the lives of anyone at all with regard to the reign of God-in-Jesus?

Evangelical Theological Society Purges "Heretics" (Or Seems to Be Getting Ready To Do So)

Evangelical Christian theologians like Chris Tilling at his interesting moderate Christian blog, Chrisendom, are "disturbed" by the recent decision of the Evangelical Theological Society to adopt the Chicago Statment on Biblical Inerrancy, because it was probably lead to members of that society being voted out as "heretics," and not being recognized as "Evangelicals." (Reminds me of Catholics who have been excommunicated yet who still call themselves "Catholic." Though in the later case the excommunicado seems firmer, while Evangelicals can simply start their own church or seminary, and there already are plenty of non-inerrantist Evangelicals, including whole seminaries full, so the term remains more fluid.) At any rate the comments at Tilling's blog are worth perusing if you have ever been involved in a debate with an inerrantist, say, J.P. Holding of Tekton apologetics, who still clings to the myth of "inerrant autographs." You see, there is no need for "Christian debunkers" get involved in debates over the inerrancy of the Bible, since Christians excell most at debating each other's views of the Bible, and there are plenty of moderate Baptists out there as well as moderates in all the world's major Christian denominations willing to debate inerrantists. You just have to know where the moderates are on the web so you can point inerrantists their way. Tilling's blog also contains links to likeminded moderate Christian Evangelical scholars like himself. Though forgive me for attempting a few criticism of my own below, of the blessed Chicago Statement of Know Nothingness:

QUESTIONS CONCERNING

"The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy"

Articles 13 & 14, state, "We deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations. We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible."

[COMMENT: So, the Bible is inerrant DESPITE a plethora of items that any sane person would take as prima facie evidence of errors.]

~~~~~~~~~~

Article 15, "We deny that Jesus' teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity."

[COMMENT: Yet these same inerrantist are free to appeal to any and all possible "accommodation" hypotheses to explain a host of other Old Testament and New Testament verses related to other topics from genocide to Jesus's command that "the slave who was disobedient shall be beaten with many stripes."]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Article 18, "Scripture is to interpret Scripture."

[COMMENT: Really? The opposite appears to be a well-attested fact of all Christian history, not excluding the history of Evangelicalism. Scripture does not interpret Scripture. Rather, it takes dozens of lexicons, history books, commentaries, and plenty of education to interpret Scripture, and what are the odds those commentaries all contain the same interpretations? About the same odds that every Evangelical theologian contributing to the ever more numerous "Viewpoints" series of InterVarsity and Baker Books will interpret Genesis and Revelation and everything inbetween the same way.]

~~~~~~~~~

Article 16, "We deny that inerrancy is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism."

[However...

Exegetical conflicts arose from the 1860s onwards. It was a time of turmoil that also led to the Catholic Church adopting its doctrine of papal "infallibility." The view that the Bible is "inerrant" and the pope "infallible" seem to have similar roots around that time.

Essays and Reviews (a book on the Bible that said among other things that the raqia or firmament in Gensis 1, was solid) published around the time of Darwin's Origins (the mid-1800s) caused quite a stir in the religious world as did Colenso's book, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined, as did the questions of German theologians.

Battle lines began being drawn, and the Catholic church came up with papal "infallibility" (which also was invented to combat growing ideals of "freedom of conscience and belief" that the Catholic Church was against), and the Presbyterians came up with inerrancy of the Scriptures.

For instance soon after The Presbyterian Review was founded in 1880, Warfield and Hodge began formally arguing in its pages for verbal inspiration and consequent inerrancy of the Scriptures.

One prominent "heresy" case (a generation before "The Fundamentals" were even published) involved several Presbyterian professors, Dr. Briggs, Dr. Henry Preserved Smith and Dr. Llewelyn J. Evans. (A retelling of the case in Smith's own words may be found in Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists.) All three men pointed out that neither their church's Presbyterian Creed nor the teachings of many of the best known seventeeth-century Puritan theologians would have agreed with the ideas of "inerrancy" that Hodge and Warfield were then developing.

H. P. Smith's account of his heresy trial in 1892, and the arguments he and Dr. Evans put forth regarding their rejection of "inerrancy" can be found in a book titled, Inspiration and Inerrancy [Cincinnati, Ohio: Robert Clarke & Co., 1892]. Smith added that if you wanted to go back much further, Walton's work from the mid to late 1600's, The Considerator Considered, was also still worth reading. (Walton published in 1657 his great Polyglot, giving the ancient version a place alongside of the Hebrew text, and also supplemented the work with a list of various readings that called forth a bitter attack from John Owen, defender of Presbyterian orthodoxy. Owen deprecated the publication of facts which might militate against the authority of Scripture. Walton's reply to Owen was the work Smith suggested reading, The Considerator Considered.)

Dewey M. Beegle from the 1960s-70s is a more recent example of an Evangelical Christian theologian who left inerrancy and thereafter debated his inerrantist brethren in print, yet remained in the church. (H. P. Smith had to switch denominations to a non-inerrantist one, wherein he continued his scholarly writing career.) Beegle was on the board of trustees and the translations subcommittee of the American Bible Society, and was author of God's Word Into English, as well as, Scripture, Tradiation and Infallibility, and, Prophecy and Prediction. He also composed articles on Moses for Encyclopedia Britannica and the Anchor Bible Dictionary, i.e., based on his research for his book, Moses: The Servant of Yahweh. (Beegle's story, "Journey to Freedom," is in L.T.F., the book already mentioned above, in which Smith's testimony can also be found.)

Today's Evangelical Christian "inerrantists" include Evangelical Theological Society members whose views range from young-earth creationist, to old-earth creationist, to theistic evolutionist (like Clark Pinnock), as well as those who hold rival interpretations of the book of Revelation and the "end times," as well as those with rival interpretations concerning all manner of "teachings" and "commands" in the Bible (as can be read about in the "Viewpoints" series of debate books published by InterVarsity Press and also Baker Books).

Neither can various "inerrantist" seminaries agree whether a person is "saved" by believing in Jesus as "Savior and Lord," or just by accepting Jesus as their "Savior." Nor can "inerrantist" Evangelical and "inerrantist" Pentecostal churches agree on how necessary or unnecessary "speaking in tongues" is, or whether or not it is a visible sign of having rec'd the baptism of the holy spirit. Nor can "inerrantists" of various churches agree on how to view the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church.

If you want to read a brain sizzling book on the topic of inerrancy, there is one that may soon be available at amazon.com, titled, Inerrant the Wind: The Troubled House of North American Evangelicals. It compares and contrasts the many view of inerrancy and semi-inerrancy advocated by different Evangelical theologians. Very interesting distinctions each makes.]

Edward T. Babinski

The 53rd COTG Link

Here's a link to the 53rd Carnival of the Godless.

Slavery and the Bible

Why didn’t the Christian God ever explicitly and clearly condemn slavery?

Paul Copan defends the notion that Biblical slavery was different than American slavery in the antebellum South and shouldn’t have been used to justify it. [“That’s Just Your Interpretation”, pp. 171-178]. Even if this is true, the Bible was still used by Christians to justify the brutal slavery in the American South. Distinguished Princeton professor Charles Hodge defended American slavery in a forty page essay written in 1860, just prior to the civil war. Just read the debates over this issue in Willard M. Swartley, Slavery Sabbath War & Women (Herald Press, 1983), pp. 31-66. Then you’ll see just how unclear this issue really was to them. So again, why didn’t God tell his people, “Thou shalt not own, buy, sell, or trade slaves,” and say it as often as he needed to? Why was God not clear about this in the Bible? Just think how Copan’s own arguments would resonate with him if he were born into the brutal slavery of the South! Speaking of American slavery, Sam Harris claims, “Nothing in Christian theology remedies the appalling deficiencies of the Bible on what is perhaps the greatest—and the easiest—moral question our society has ever had to face.” [Letter to a Christian Nation (Knopf, 2006), p. 18].

Why John Derbyshire No Longer Calls Himself a Christian.

National Review columnist John Derbyshire answers questions about why he no longer calls himself a Christian. My thanks to Ed Babinski for pointing this out. See the full article. Here is a snippet of what he says as he deals with the question of whether or not he believes religion is good for people and society:

Q. Do you believe religion is good for people?

A. You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I thought so for the longest time. All those Golden Rules, those injunctions to charity, compassion, neighborliness, forbearance, and so on. Not only does the proposition seem obvious in itself, but we all know people whose lives were messed up, but were then straightened out after they got religion. I know one and a half cases — I mean, two people this happened to, but one of them relapsed after three or four years, and last I heard she was in worse shape than ever.

On the other hand, some religious people are horrible. This past few years, working at National Review Online and fielding tens of thousands of e-mails from readers, I’ve had my first really close encounter with masses of opinionated Christians of all kinds. A lot of them are very nice, and some are very nice indeed — I’ve had gifts, including use of a house one family vacation (thank you, Pastor!) — but, yes, some others are loathsome. I get lots of religious hate mail, some of it really vile. Often this is in response to something I have said, which I suppose is fair enough, even if not a particularly good advertisement for Christ’s injunctions about meekness and forbearance. Often, though, these e-mails come in from people who are not reacting to anything in particular, they just want to tell me that I am not religious enough to suit them, or to call myself a conservative, or to work at National Review, or to live in the USA, or (though this is very rare) to live at all. Half a dozen times I’ve had readers express these sentiments using four-letter words of the taboo variety.

The usual response to all that is the one Evelyn Waugh gave. He was religious, but he was also a nasty person, and knew it. But: “If not for my faith,” he explained, “I would be barely human.” In other words, even a nasty religious person would be even worse without faith.

I have now come to think that it really makes no difference, net-net. You can point to people who were improved by faith, but you can also see people made worse by it. Anyone want to argue that, say, Mohammed Atta was made a better person by his faith? All right, when Americans say “religion” they mean Christianity 99 percent of the time. So: Can Christianity make you a worse person? I’m sure it can. If you’re a person with, for example, a self-righteous conviction of your own moral superiority, well, getting religion is just going to inflame that conviction. Again, I know cases, and I’m sure you do too. The exhortations to humility that you find in all religions seem to be the most difficult teaching for people to take on board. Mostly, I think it makes no difference. Evelyn Waugh would have been no more obnoxious as an atheist.

And then there are some of those discomfiting facts about human groups. Taking the population of these United States, for example, the least religious major group, by ancestry, is Americans of East Asian stock. The most religious is African Americans. All the indices of dysfunction and misbehavior, however, go the other way, with Asian Americans getting into least trouble and African Americans most. What’s that all about?

In the end, I think I’ve now arrived at this position: An individual might be made better by faith, or worse. Overall, taking society at large, I think it averages out to zero. But then…

Q. Do you think religion is a good thing, or a bad thing, for a society?

A. Having just said that it makes no difference to individuals on gross average, the mathematical answer ought to be “neither.” My actual answer is that the question doesn’t make much sense, as a question. Religious feeling just is, there in human nature, unremovably and inescapably. That’s the point of Chesterton’s famous, and true, remark, or quasi-remark. It’s there, and decent societies have to incorporate it somehow, to the general advantage. That’s all. You might as well ask: Is sex a good thing, socially speaking? Depends whether society is good at accommodating it. Pretty much all societies are — we’ve had lots of practice with that. Really formally organized religion is less than 3,000 years old, though. There wasn’t any need for it until really big human settlements — civilizations — came up. We haven’t all got it right yet.

Religion is first and foremost a social phenomenon. That religious module in our brains is a sub-module of the social one, or is very closely allied to it. To deny it expression is just as foolish, just as counter-productive, as to deny expression to any other fundamental social feature of human nature — sexuality, or aggression, or the power urge, or cheating.

The trick, if you want a reasonably happy and stable society, is to corral human nature into useful, non-socially-destructive styles of expression: sexuality into marriage, or at least some kind of formal and constrained bonding; aggression into sport or military training; the power urge into consensual politics; cheating into conjuring, drama, and games like poker. (I don’t mean you should cheat at poker, only that you need some powers of deception to play poker well.) Any aspect of human nature can get out of hand, as we see with these Muslim fanatics that are making such nuisances of themselves nowadays. That doesn’t mean the aspect is bad, just that some society has done a bad job of corraling it.

So I guess my answer is something like: If a society accommodates the people’s religious impulses well, it’s a good thing, and if not, not.

C. S. Lewis, "Man or Rabbit?" an Essay from God in the Dock

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Christian philosopher Victor Reppert, admires Lewis's essay, "Man or Rabbit," and it was recently cited at his blog here and here. I read that essay ages ago along with all the rest in God in the Dock. But I wonder what Vic really thinks about the following paragraph from Lewis's essay:

"Honest rejection of Christ, however mistaken, will be forgiven and healed—'Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him.' But to evade the Son of Man, to look the other way, to pretend you haven’t noticed, to become suddenly absorbed in something on the other side of the street, to leave the receiver off the telephone because it might be He who was ringing up, to leave unopened certain letters in a strange handwriting because they might be from Him—this is a different matter. You may not be certain yet whether you ought to be a Christian; but you do know you ought to be a Man, not an ostrich, hiding its head in the sand."

Exactly how am I to take the above paragraph except as an altar call?
I say this because in my own journey I sought what I could know about Jesus, I did not ignore the question, because I was at the time a true believer, baptized Catholic, converted and born again Protestant, experienced the charismatic baptism of the holy spirit, read Lewis and Calvin, and hence I could not simply ignore everything I'd been taught about Jesus from birth and my initial reaction to the Gospels as moving literature, nor ignore the arguments I'd imbibed from Christian apologetic books. So I sought to learn about the "Son of Man," and found out to my great chagrin that my beliefs concerning a great number of Christian dogmas and beliefs grew less certain after long study.

So I do not fit Lewis's description of someone "ignoring" the "Son of Man" question. Far from it. But I understand of course from Lewis's perspective of being a convert, that he would write rhetorically in the manner that he does, rather than as I do, about Christianity.

As for those whom Lewis calls "ostriches" for refusing to get involved in the whole deal, and skirting the issue on the other side of the street, I think there's some wisdom in those who choose to skirt the issue, especially when Lewis is cry out at you from the other side of his essay, calling you an ostrich, even implying that you are a damned ostrich and God is sending you letters you are refusing to read.

Maybe Lewis was just peeved at rising rates of biblical illiteracy?

And what exactly is wrong with believing that God wouldn't eternally condemn someone honestly in error? Lewis presupposes the opposite, that God WILL condemn people for not taking HIS [Lewis's and God's] religion seriously enough. Well then, I'd say to Lewis, prove it, prove the Bible is true when it speaks about God, his nature, his commands, his actions, and heaven and hell, salvation, damnation, soteriology, prophecy, et al. I doubt that Lewis has ever proven such a thing or that any Christian apologist has. That's my non-ostrich-like stance. Of course Lewis appreciates people like me moreso than biblical illiterates trying to avoid his favorite holy book entirely, and who believe if there's a God, they find it tough to imagine him not being able to forgive people if their beliefs are wrong. Such ostriches actually imagine that God if He exists might react as any sane normal person wishing to get along with his neighbor would today.

I say, again contra Lewis, that there is something to be said for the much maligned ostrich, keeping its head down when hot headed people shout in essays that there holy book and their "Son of Man" shall damn anyone with enough sense to try and stay out of some of the world's perpetual quarrels, namely over God and holy books, that continue even among the most highly educated religionists, historians, apostates and converts. Heavens!

On The Meaning of Life, Heaven & Hell: Victor Reppert & Edward T. Babinski

Christian philosopher Victor Reppert wrote at his blog: "What God created us for, and what will fulfill us for an eternity is, according to Christianity, eternal fellowship with Himself. If atheism is true, that kind of satisfaction isn't in the cards for anybody. That said, I think Christians make a mistake in saying that life has no meaning if Christianity isn't true. Christianity offers a meaningful life in this particular sense, but atheists can have a meaningful life in many other senses, which should not be denied by theists."

If I may comment on Vic's statement (and those of others who responded at his blog)...

...I take the view that though Vic wrote "eternal fellowship with God" was "the meaning of life," what he was probably more concerned with was the question of the "duration of life," rather than its "meaning." In fact I'd even say that when Vic wrote, "eternal fellowship," he was more concerned with the "eternal" part rather than the "fellowship" part.

Why do I say this?

No matter how you dress up the idea of the "meaning of life" the desire for a longer healthier life is one that we all share, sans all the poetry and heavenly vision talk. Such a simple basic desire is even reflected in the question that Jesus was asked a number of times according to the earliest written Gospels, namely, "How may I inherit eternal life?"

Secondly, concerning the "fellowship" side of Vic's speech, I suspect that having friends and knowing the joy of being with them is something both Vic and I take more for granted than living "eternally." Vic and I already practice "fellowshipping" of a very human sort with people of a wide variety of beliefs and consider it less of a miracle than say "eternal life." I could for instance attend church with Vic, or pray with Vic, and/or he could simply spend time together with me enjoying each others company and friendly banter, and share food, music, films, books, a game of chess, etc. (Speaking of "fellowshipping," a recent poll published in Christianity Today or Christian Century mentioned that even among Evangelicals, most do not put "attending church" at their list of favorite things to do. So most Evangelicals are like most people in general in that respect.)

My point is that "eternal life" is a miraculous wish, but spending quality time with people of different beliefs is something we each do everyday at work, at school, even in our own families where beliefs may differ, but love and "fellowship" of a very human sort, remains. So people of a wide variety of different beliefs are able to enjoy the other "fellow," especially in the U.S.

Unfortunately, many non-U.S. countries are filled with people whose ethnicity continues to regulate their lives, including their language, food, religion, and choice of marriage partners, with rival ethnicities being viewed with suspicion, or sometimes, hatred.

In contrast, in the U.S. people of different ethnic persuasions are uncommonly free to eat what they like, read and watch and speak what they wish, even marry people of completely different religions, and even disagree or change their religion, even within the same family. Take for instance John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture (a magazine published by Christianity Today International, whose flagship magazine was founded by Billy Graham), and who recently mentioned that he and his fellow "Evangelicals are... notoriously riven by disagreement over matters large and small, from the particular translation of the Bible that should be used to the political implications of the Gospel, from the flavor of music most conducive to worship to the role of women in ministry. No wonder a new evangelical denomination or quasi-denomination is born every day;" to which Wilson added, "[Never]underestimate the fluidity of religious identities. My wife and I have four children, all of them raised in an evangelical setting. The two oldest, ages 36 and 28, stopped going to church when they were about 16. We pray that they will return. Our third child — after graduation from Graham’s alma mater, the evangelical Wheaton College in Illinois — converted to Catholicism along with her husband, also a Wheaton grad, who was home-schooled in a self-described fundamentalist family in Texas." [John Wilson, "God Fearing," essay in The New York Times, Nov. 12, 2006]

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NOTE ON "ETERNAL FELLOWSHIP"

If Christianity is true then isn't THIS life here on earth the most exciting point in all of eternity for each human being because only here is where the Christian experiences the excitment of "escaping damnation" and "finding salvation?" It's relatively clear sailing after that according to Christian theology. Or to use an analogy, if Christianity is true then even an "eternity" in heaven seems like an eternal drag on a cigarette after all the "action in bed" is over.

To put it yet another way, see the following conversation, based on something that the famous Rev. Spurgeon really said:

Reporter: But Rev. Spurgeon, What will we do in heaven for eternity? Won’t we get bored?

Rev. Spurgeon: Nonsense. We will joyously sing and meditate on the sufferings of Christ that made the miracle of our salvation possible. As for myself, I could sing and meditate on the wounds round Jesus’s head for a billion years. Then focus on the wounds on his scourged back for the next billion. Then the wound in his right hand for a billion more, the wound in his left hand for a billion, the wound in his side for a billion. Then the wounds in his feet, each foot for a billion years.

Reporter: So, you’re saying there’s nothing worthy of a Christian’s time and devotion, nothing worth looking at, or singing about, for all eternity, except Jesus and his wounds?

Rev. Spurgeon: That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Reporter: So, ah...What’s hell going to be like?

E.T.B. (based on actual replies of Rev. Spurgeon)
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When Robert Ingersoll heard how Rev. Spurgeon planned to spend billions of years in heaven just staring at Jesus’s wounds, Ingersoll said, “I bet he even takes great delight in reading the genealogies of the Old Testament.”

The Best of Robert Ingersoll, Robert E. Greeley, Ed.
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AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE IN HELL? ANOTHER EQUALLY BANAL ANSWER FROM A THEOLOGIAN

An article in Christianity Today (“Hell’s Final Enigma,” April 22, 2002) by Rev. J. I. Packer (professor of theology at Regent College in Vancouver and executive director of the aforementioned magazine) addressed the question, “How might those in heaven feel about those in hell?” The people in hell will include fellow human beings with similar joys, fears, and life stories to those in heaven, and Christians have been taught they ought to love others with an “unconditional love” and “forgive seventy-times-seven times.” So how can heaven truly be bliss for Christians if people whom they have grown to know and love (and care for) on earth are burning in hell?

Reverend Packer replied that heaven’s occupants would be busy loving each other and praising God. (I wondered if he meant that in the same sense as “winning teammates patting each other on the back for eternity?”) He added that their attention would be focused on heavenly glories. (I wondered if he meant that in the same sense as children so immersed in playing an entrancingly beautiful video game that they cannot be distracted by any actions or thoughts outside of the game?) Then, after having described how heaven’s occupants would feel about God, heaven, and each other, Reverend Packer finally replied to the original question of “How might heaven’s occupants feel about those in hell?” The Reverend’s reply consisted of ten words: “Love and pity for hell’s occupants will not enter our hearts.”

But doesn’t such a reply beg the question? What kind of “heart” could find neither “love nor pity” entering it, knowing that the greater portion of mankind, including former wives, children, and friends, were all suffering in hell?

Perhaps Rev. Packer’s next column should be about how to reconcile the following two statements, the first one being his own:

“Love and pity for hell’s occupants will not enter our hearts”

“Love is patient… it keeps no record of wrongs… It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails… These three remain: faith, hope and love.” (1 Corinthians 13:4,7,8,13--NIV translation)

E.T.B.
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According to the book of Revelation, Heaven is an eternal praise service; a service of compliment or flattery. God sits on his throne, attended by twenty-four harp-playing elders (Rev. 5:8) and some other dignitaries pertaining to his court, and looks out over his miles and miles of tempestuous worshippers, and smiles, and purrs, and nods his satisfaction northward, eastward, southwards; as quaint and naive a spectacle as has yet been imagined in this universe, I take it. It is easy to see that the inventor of this image of heaven did not originate the idea, but copied it from the show-ceremonies of some sorry little sovereign state up in the back settlements of the Middle East somewhere.

Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
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Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the dwelling place of slaves and serfs? Simply for the purpose of raising orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish a few of them? That all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist barnacles, petrified Presbyterians and Methodist mummies?

Robert Ingersoll
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Have you ever been awakened early in the morning by a Jehovah’s Witness? Maybe you’ve been accosted by a crazy street preacher with a megaphone? You turn on your TV, and there’s Tammy Bakker, Jerry Falwell, that Reverend Scott guy who never sleeps. Has it ever dawned on you that heaven might be a very annoying place?

My brother Mike has always been--and still is--the most annoying religious person I’ve ever known. He thinks homosexuality is a sickness. He believes that all Jews will burn in hell. He thinks women belong in the home. Mike’s one of those people who has to talk to God, because nobody else can stand him.

One Thanksgiving Mike told me, “You know, Ricky, I’m really worried about you! I’m beginning to think that you might not go to heaven!” I leaned toward him very calmly and said, “Mike, I don’t want to go to heaven. You know why? You’re gonna be there!”

Rick Reynolds, Only the Truth is Funny
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The experts on Heaven disagree about which conglomeration of religious believers will qualify, but they always seem to think that they personally belong to that elite group.An eternity with people that conceited seems intolerable to me.

Robert Anton Wilson, “Cheerful Reflections on Death and Dying,” Gnoware, February 1999