Based to the number of Gospel tracts I have seen over the past forty years, the theology of Paul (especially as presented in the Book of Romans) is used almost exclusively to teach the doctrine of salvation. However, Paul’s concept of soteriology has a number of major problems!
According to Paul’s doctrine of Original Sin, sin entered in to the world by one man (Adam) and spread throughout to the entire human race as a result of the Fall (Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—Romans 5:12). Below, I have considered a number of major problems with Paul’s theology before, as well as after the fact, of the Fall in Eden:
A. Fact is, both Adam and Eve were going to die anyway and the gods (“Us”) of the Garden of Eden wanted an terminus for Adam and Eve ending in their deaths. According to the text, what the gods feared the most was, that after the humans ate of the Tree of Knowledge, they would next eat of the Tree of Life and live forever as gods themselves. “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— (Genesis 3:22) In light of this, Paul’s theology of Original Sin fails to take into account that death was already part of both the human and the animal world since, without death - being a natural process from disease - the population of both humans and animals would have quickly exceeded the small limitations of the Garden of Eden. This fact is completely missed by Paul as he never considered the Tree of Life in his theology!
B. Paul’s theology fails to take into consideration the fact that God lied and the serpent told the truth that in the same day you eat of it, you shall surly die.” Thus, God himself displayed the vices of sin in untruthfulness. “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2 16 – 17)
This is re-enforced by Eve: 2 “The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.” (Genesis 3: 2-3)
But both divine and human statements are countered by the talking serpent : 4 “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” (Genesis 3: 4 – 5)
C. Paul’s theology would have had a sinless Jesus living forever. In fact, if the Romans had not killed Jesus, who being without Original Sin to caused his natural death (the Biblical three score and ten or 70 years old), Jesus would still be walking and healing among us even today at 2,000 years old (Note: In the Sumerian King List we regularly find kings living tens of thousands of years, so a 2,000 year old Jesus is nothing!).
D. According to Paul’s theology, if the Romans had not had killed Jesus by bleeding him in crucifixion (shedding his blood in atonement), someone would have had to step up to the plate and do the world a salvation favor by causing Jesus enough bodily trauma to cause massive bleeding ending in his death within minutes (The same amount to time for an animal slain with its throat cut on the altar of the Jerusalem Temple to bleed to death. Paul totally fails to understand that suffering is NOT part of animal atonement in Temple sacrifices!)
E. If we take Paul’s theology at face value, only 50% of salvation was done on Jesus’ part, but the other 50% was given to Christianity by the Romans who basically did the world a favor by killing Jesus. In light of this fact, Christians might want to consider making Judas a saint or honoring Pilate as part of their salvation process.
F. Finally, the statements in Genesis proves that animals can reason by the fact in that they understood language such as Hebrew “Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” (Genesis 2: 19), plus the fact that the serpent could think and reason too and was cursed in the Fall, there needs to be a savior and salvation for animals too. (In the Book or Revelation, we read about animals in Heaven).
In the final analysis, Jewish theology is superior to Christian doctrine by the simple reason it avoids Paul’s blunders!
In a question to William Lane Craig, a person named Manol from Albania
noticed a parallel argument to the Moral Argument for the Existence of God.
Here’s Dr. Craig’s Moral argument:
1) If God does not exist then objective moral values do not exist.
2) Objective moral values do exist.
3) Therefore God exists.
Speaking to Dr. Craig Manol writes:
Your argument in support of premise 2 is that in the same way the outer world is objective, in the same way moral values are objective. Our perception of objective moral values is on a par with our perception of the outer world with the five senses.
But if this parallelism between moral values and the outer world is true, then it means that the argument may be turned into something like this:
1) If God does not exist, then an objective outer world does not exist.
2) An objective outer world does exist.
3) Therefore God exists.
If this second argument is used and it is proven not convincing, why should be the moral argument, which is a parallel argument, be convincing? Or, if you think this second argument is not convincing, why is it so?
Dr. Craig responded by saying:On this basis you construct a parallel argument, which, if dubious, ought to make us think that the moral argument is also dubious. Now the parallel argument you construct is actually a sort of cosmological argument for God’s existence. In fact, I think it is a sound argument! It is obviously valid, and both the premises seem to me to be true. For the objective outer world obviously exists, and if God did not exist, then no world at all would exist, including an objective outer world! It’s not that if God did not exist, then the outer world would be merely a subjective illusion; rather it’s that there wouldn’t be anything at all!
The first premise of your parallel argument threatens to beg the question and is not apt to appear more plausible than its negation to someone who is not already a theist. By contrast, as you know, the first premise of the moral argument is one that many atheists themselves believe and argue for. Thus, although the premises of your two arguments are parallel, the support for the premises is quite different.
What Craig said is that these two arguments are parallel but that the one for the existence of an outer world threatens to beg the question and that skeptics just wouldn't be apt to think it’s plausible.
As a skeptic I think there is more room for discussion here. Doesn’t the first premise in the moral argument "threaten" to beg the question in the same way? And can’t we reverse things and say that since the argument for the outer world isn’t plausible then neither is the moral argument?
I think so. Any thoughts?
In response to the my Article
"Jesus Appeared To Other People, Why Can't He Appear To Me?" One of our christian guests commented....
"He will come down and visit with you, except you live your life as though you don't want Him to."
I must be committing Spiritual Suicide!
Lets think about that for a minute. Lets unpack it and lay it out for examination. One way to do that is by using the fundamental critical thinking skills that we should all have learned in school. I think of them as the seven dwarves
- Who
- What
- Where
- When
- Why
- How
- How Much or Scope
By applying the Seven Dwarves or Seven Critical Questions using a brainstorming technique, we have a nice easy to remember tool for unpacking and analyzing complicated concepts. Since a rigorous application of them to this comment would take too much time, I've opted to just pick some common sense critical questions to get us started. They are the following. If any of you can think of any more, please contribute them in the comments.
* Who are you? Who originated that information?
* What do you have to go on? What are some precedents?
* Where did you get that information? Where will or did it happen?
* When did you get that information? When was the origin of that information?
* Why do you say that? Why would that be true? Why should I care?
* How do you know? Are you in a position to know? How do you figure? How does that follow?
* How Much, How often, what is the Scope, and to what degree?
and a couple of words that can be thought of as JUICY TIDBITS are
* Would and
* Should.
When you see these words, you should think "Fish in a barrel" or "Low Hanging Fruit" because they require support, and the data-driven debater can easily dismantle or support a "would" or a "should".
The Position To Know And Agnosticism
Now lets decompose the comment.
1. He will come down
2. and visit with you,
3. except you live your life
4. as though you don't want Him to.
1. He will come down
Really? The commenter is in a position to know?
Lets rephrase that into a question.
Here are the seven dwarves applid to this claim but then I just pick some that I feel would do the job for brevity.
- Who will come down?
- What will come down?
- Where will he come down?
- When will he come down?
- Why will he come down? Is there some principle that would warrant it?
- How will he come down?
- How Much will He come down, to what degree, what is the scope or the upper and lower bounds of His Visit? Will he permit me to video tape it at a Football Game or will it be too subtle for me to recognize?
Will He come down? Why would he come down? Why should he come down?
When has he come down in the past that is not recorded in The Bible? Christianitiy is in some serious need of CROSS-CHECKING. How do you know? Do you presume to know the mind of God?
This statement has some hidden dependencies.
1a. It depends on the commenter being in a position to know what God will do and I know that can't be right with as many times as I get told that I can't predict or know or tell God what to do.
1b. It depends on God wanting to come down, and we know that no-one is in a position to know why God would want to come down because no-one knows the mind of God and being God he's free to change his mind anytime he likes.
1c. It depends on there being a principle in place that would warrant God Coming down. This is the foundation for my rebuttal.
2. and visit with you,
2a. It depends on the commenter being in a position to know and we know that he's not.
2b. It depends on presuming that God would come down and that he would visit with me if he did come down and that I would recognize it if he did. We can't say that he would come down, and we can't say that he would visit me if he did come down and we can't say I'd recognize a visit because we are not in a position to know any of that.
3. except you live your life
3a. Again, the commenter is not in position to know. I have a good job, and the respect of my peers. My moral center is a reasonable one, with several facets, which include such things as "Utility", "Logic" and "The well being of others". I know that my moral scheme and the Christians both have problems but over all they are compatible. To say something like this is a Judgement based on lack of information. I would love it if Jesus appeared to me right now so that I could turn this rebuttal into an endorsement for Jesus, but If I finish it, you'll know he didn't.
4. as though you don't want Him to.
4a. the commenter is not thinking this through.
Protesters are protesting for change. They protest for reasons such as they want some outcome that is being prevented by those in a position to bring it about. I am a protester. I want God to change his strategy to be more in line with how I think because as it is now it doesn't make sense to me and I don't get it and I don't think I ever will. Its true that I thought I got it at one time, but I came to realize that considering there is such a concept as Luck or Chance, and there is a concept of God, it seemed to me that God had the same characteristics of Luck or Chance.
Since I think my understanding of God was a misinterpretation of Chance, and since there is nothing yet to refute that viewpoint, then I am on a one way trip to Spiritual Suicide. God and all of you Christians reading this should think I'm committing spiritual suicide therefore so should the commenter.
So what is the principle that warrants a visit from God?
How to Respond to Expressions of Suicidal Intent
In a situation when someone expresses an intention to commit suicide, you should try not to get upset or embarrassed. Keep yourself calm and encourage the person to explain more in detail why and how he/she intends to commit suicide.
The principle is that Suicide is bad, those that want to commit suicide are not well, and the expression of suicidal tendencies warrants intervention appropriate to dispell it.
That is important enough for him to come down and intervene.
So the key point in this article is that I have noticed that in most cases where a Christian CAN use a Heuristic or a "pre-packaged" argument to rebut an atheist they WILL.
And usually when you unpack it you can find where it does not syncoronize with what their values should be according to what the commonly accepted characteristics of a Christian are.
In this case, the commenter has alluded that my spiritual suicidal tendency is not important enough for God to come down and intervene. The commenter might as well have said that ones suicidal tendencies are not important enough to warrant intervention.
I can only say, "non-sense" to that.
I'm always interested in how Christians respond to the arguments of the so-called
New Atheists. Christian apologist Gary Habermas
responds here. What do you think?
Having just heard this debate I was impressed with Ehrman's passion and knowledge of this field, and I think he made his points well. You can get it
here.
[What I wonder is if White is sharing the money earned from selling the debate with Ehrman. Far too often believers cut the skeptics they debate out from the proceeds of such things].
James White wasn't bad either. He too was knowledgeable. I can certainly see White's perspective, one that I shared with him for years. I'm sure believers will come away having their beliefs reinforced, which is what apologists like him attempt to do, so in that respect he did his job well. It's a job I could no longer do.
Ehrman was talking about the facts of what we know. We know there are as many differences in the manuscripts as there are words in the New Testament texts. White didn't disagree with him on the facts. His main point was that the differences didn't matter. Ehrman's point was that the differences do matter, some of them actually change the meaning of whole book (i.e. the meaning of Hebrews). While the topic was not about Ehrman's view of inspiration his question was that if God inspired the texts then why didn't God also preserve the original texts? In his book on this topic he said it looks like a human endeavor and I agree. This is something former contributor DagoodS argued.
One of the disputes between Ehrman and White had to do with the period of time before we find any manuscripts of the New Testament. They both acknowledged that between manuscripts there were many more variants in the earlier periods than in the later periods. From the 2nd century to the 4th century there were many more variants between texts than there were between the 4th century and the 9th century, for instance. Ehrman's argument is that since this is so then we have every reason to think there were even greater variants before we find our first manuscript copies. Among the earliest untrained and sometimes illiterate scribes we would expect even greater manuscript variants. Based on this trend Ehrman argued we just don't know what the original manuscripts said. James White argued instead that if indeed the earliest copies of the originals contained greater variants, then despite the trend we should see even greater variants among the actual manuscripts we have than we find in them. But we don't, he argued.
I think Ehrman answered White's counter-argument elsewhere when he spoke of the probability that an original text could be copied and never used to copy from again. In this scenario a 2nd generation copy was copied just a few times over but the 3rd generation copy was copied extensively from then on. So even though we may not have as wide a number of variants as we might expect among the earliest manuscripts we actually have if this trend extended to the earliest scibes, it says nothing to counter the trend going back in time. The fact is that the evidence strongly suggests there would've been more variants between the earliest manuscripts the farther back in time we go. It's just that we only have copies of copies of copies to go on and these copies may be all that survived. One can only wonder what the original texts said, Ehrman argues. We just don't know. I agree.
Only if Christians actually try to appreciate Ehrman’s points and try to understand them rather than be defensive will they be able to think about the New Testament transmission and how it affects what they believe. It should cause them to re-evaluate their faith. But Christians will always be able to say that James White stood in the gap. He's knowledgeable and so he must know what he's talking about. Shame really. White has an agenda. He's trying to explain away the facts. He stops short of the best explanation of the data because he's blinded by faith. And this is supposed to represent scholarship? Hardly.
Atheists are arrogant. Who hasn't heard it?
Arrogance is just one of their repellent qualities, of course. They are also ungenerous, cold, lonely, untrustworthy, amoral, and aggressive. You shouldn't leave them around children. When I spoke last week to a group called
Seattle Atheists, the organizer positioned me far from the door, and I speculated aloud about whether I should be worried for my safety, given what we know about atheist ethics.
But the most common accusation hurled against atheists is that they are insufferably arrogant. In my experience, this accusation is rarely about a specific encounter: I was talking with Joan, my atheist neighbor down the street last week and do you know how I was treated by that insufferable witch?!
No, it is more like a mantra.
In Seattle, there's a chain of hamburger joints called Dick's. People who find themselves on the topic of hamburgers will say, "Dick's is great" almost as an opener, before they move on to the details of the conversation. Amazingly, I've heard this even from folks who have never eaten there. Dick's is great. Atheists are arrogant.
The unflinching tones adopted by The Four Horsemen
are not more harsh or critical than what we accept routinely in academic debate or civic life. It is the subject matter that is the issue.The accusation provides cover for those who want dismiss thinkers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens. I've often marveled that anyone could read Harris' manifesto--written as graduate student's post-9-11 cry of anguish, or Hitchens' litany of social corrosion and atrocity in the names of gods, or Dawkins' urgent appeal to evidence and reason, or Dennett's nerdy analysis of human information processing, and find themselves reacting above all to perceived arrogance. Images of people jumping from fiery buildings. Mutilated genitals. Radically cool glimpses of our mental circuitry - and the dominant reaction is disgust about arrogance?
Interestingly, the accusation also provides cover for those who agree with the Four Horsemen. Young non-theists writing even for edgy places like Wired Magazine or The Stranger go to some lengths to say I'm not like those atheist guys. We all can agree to loathe them. Mind you, they do make a decent point or two . . . . The ugly atheist stereotype is so strong, that people feel like they need to distance from atheism's iconic figures if they want a shot at being heard--or perhaps, even, liking themselves.
But what's underneath the stereotype? For years, as a practicing psychologist, it was my job to listen for the feelings and needs behind the tone, and I think a host of feelings and yearnings are obscured by the "arrogance" label. Below are some of the emotions I hear in the writings and conversations of self-identified atheists, and some my imperfect hypotheses about where they come from:
Resolve
Nobody self-labels as an atheist in our culture unless he or she is "out" for a reason. It's like looking white in Alabama and making a point to tell people about your black father. Freethinkers who adopt the label publicly have decided for one reason or another to take the heat, and they are not necessarily representative of the broad range of freethinkers who may choose other labels or none at all.
For some people, being out as an atheist is personality driven or developmental. (All of us know natural born contrarians; many of us experiment with identities on the way to adulthood.) For some it is political. For some it comes from a deep conviction that we must find some way to change the public conversation about what is good and what is real and how to live in community with each other. All self-labeled atheists are braced, steeled against the stereotype, but they have varied reasons for looking society in the eye and saying, This is who I am. What they have in common is a sense of determination and the willingness to pay a price.
Frustration
Theism gets a pass on the rules of reason and evidence that normally guide our social discourse. In a boardroom or a laboratory, we don't get to say, "I just know in my heart that this product is going to sell," or "This drug works even though the experiment didn't come out that way."
Cartoonist Wiley Miller captured atheist frustration perfectly in a recent Non Sequitur entitled "The Invention of Ideology:"
One caveman stands in the rain.
Another behind him under shelter comments, "Um, why you standing in the rain?"
"It not raining"
"Yes it is."
"No it not."
"Huh? Water fall from sky. That rain."
"That your opinion."
"Not opinion. Fact. See? Raindrops."
"Don't need to look. Already know it not rain."
"If it not rain, then why you wet and me dry?"
(Pause) "Define 'wet' . . . "
"Oww . . . Brain hurt!"
What does frustration sound like? When it doesn't sound like brain pain, it sounds impatient,sharp and distancing.
Incredulity
Believers look at the dogmas of religions other than their own and see them as silly, and yet find their own perfectly reasonable. Atheists, except for those few with formal training in the psychology of belief, find it incredible, almost unbelievable that the faithful don't perceive some higher order parallel between their religion and others--and run the numbers, so to speak. Of course that's not how ideology works, and per cognitive scientist Pascal Boyer, rationality is like Swiss Cheese for all of us. But if you buy the Enlightenment view of man as a rational being, it's easy to get sucked in and expect rationality and then be incredulous when you simply can't get smart people to bind themselves to the obligations of logic and evidence.
Offense
It feels obnoxious to have people assume that you have no moral core, that you rejected Christianity because you wanted to sin without guilt, or that you are damaged goods, the object of pity. Fundamentalist Christians, when they have given up on conversion, treat non-believers as agents of evil who reject God, like Lucifer did, out of willful defiance. Modernist Christians express benign sympathy -- and look for early childhood wounding (in particular at the hands of fundamentalists that left the scarred freethinker unable to enjoy the wonder and joy of faith. Both fundamentalists and modernists often assume that freethinkers miss out on wonder, joy and a sense of transcendent meaning. Atheists take offense, even when these assumptions are couched kindly and are well intended.
Resentment
Atheists, along with the rest of America, listened to a presidential inauguration in which the preachers, combined, got almost as much talk time as the president. They help their kids figure out what to do with the anti-communist, "under God" line in the Pledge of Allegiance(Go along with it? Stand silently? Substitute "under magic"? How about "under Canada?"). They pay their bills with "In God we trust." They listen to born-again testimonials as a part of public high school graduation ceremonies and reunions. They do twelve years of training and then twelve hours of surgery and then read in the paper that a child was saved miraculously by prayer. Sometimes they get mad.
Pain
On websites like exChristian.net, doubters often lurk for months or even years before they finally confess their loss of faith. Because apostasy is so taboo, they struggle over how to tell their children, or spouses or parents or congregations--especially the fallen ministers. They wrestle with guilt and fear, just like their religions say they should. They deal with rejection, even shunning. Some of them come out at tremendous personal cost. See "When Leaving Jesus means Losing Your Family." Although this doesn't apply to all freethinkers, for those who are in the process of losing their religion, the pain is real. And pain has an edge. Try selling anything, including dogma, to a woman with a migraine.
Empathy
Not all atheist pain about religion is personal. Many nontheists feel anguished by the sexual abuse that is enabled by religious hierarchy, by women shrouded in black and girls barred from schools, by the implements of inquisition that lie in museums, by ongoing Christian witch burnings in Africa and India, or by those images of people leaping from windows. Even less dramatic suffering can be hard to witness- children who fear eternal torture, teens who attempt suicide because they are gay and so condemned, women who submit to their own abuse or the abuse of their children because God hates divorce. To the extent that we experience empathy, these events are can feel unbearable, the more so because they seem so unnecessary.
Moral Indignation
Atheist morality is rooted in notions of universal ethical principles, either philosophical or biological, and often centered on compassion and equity. Since the point of atheist morality is to serve wellbeing, suffering caused by religion often triggers not only horror but moral outrage. Each believer sees his or her religion as a positive moral force in a corrupt world. Most think that morality comes straight from their god. Because of this, believers fail to recognize when atheist outrage is morally rooted. They don't understand that atheists frequently see religion as a force that pushes otherwise decent people to have immoral priorities. When, for example, the religious oppose vaccinations, or contraception, or they come to care more about gay marriage than hunger, an atheist is likely to perceive that religion undermines morality. When theism sanctifies terrorism or honor killings, atheists are apalled.
Love and Longing
What folks like Sam Harris and Bill Maher are saying, as loudly as they know how, is that they love this imperfect world, and they fear for it. They long to see that which they cherish most: natural beauty, global community, human rights, and the fruits of scientific discovery handed down to their children and ours. But they believe wholeheartedly in the power of religion to destroy that which they hold dear. Why?
Need we even ask? Think about the Twin Towers, the Taliban, the Religious Right's yearning for Armageddon, the geometric progression of our global population curve and the Church's opposition to family planning as a moral responsibility. Think about the trajectory of human religious history - what has happened in the past when unquestioned ideologies controlled government and military. Think abstractly about a social/economic/international policy approach that is unaccountable to data, one that sees doubt as weakness, agreement among insiders as proof, and change as bad. Think concretely about suitcase nukes in the hands of Pentecostals or Wahabis who believe that a deity is speaking directly through their impulses and intuitions.
The prophets of the godless are crying out that 21st century technologies guided by Bronze Age priorities may bring about a scale of suffering that our ancestors could describe only as hell. You might not agree with them, but to understand their in-your-face stridency as anything more complex than arrogance, you have hear the depth of their urgency.
Desperation
Have you ever had a dream in which, no matter how hard you try no-one can hear you? Many freethinkers feel like that whenever they try to talk about their journey of discovery.
"Hey," say former fundies. "Guess what I found out. The Bible contradicts itself. Do you want to see where?"
"I never meant to end up godless," say former moderates. "Do you want to hear how it happened?"
"'A theory' isn't something we dream up afterhours," say biologists. "Can we tell you what a scientific theory is to us?"
"We think we've figured out how those out-of-body experiences and bright lights work - at a neurological level," say neuroscientists. "Care to know?"
"Religion may increase compassion toward insiders at the expense of outsiders," say sociologists. "Are you interested in finding out?"
"What if we can no longer afford beliefs without evidentiary basis?" ask the bell ringers. "What if unaccountable belief inevitably produces some that are dangerous?"
It's not the fundamentalists they are hoping to engage. It is moderate, decent people of faith--the majority of the human race. But are moderate believers open to such questions? Many outsiders think not, and people who feel hopeless about being heard either go silent or get loud.
So, let's come back to arrogance.
Yes. Atheists are susceptible. They think they have it right. (So do we all.) And yes, those nonbelievers who underestimate the power of viral ideologies and transcendent experiences tend to think that belief must be an IQ thing, meaning a lack thereof. And yes, dismay, pain, outrage, incredulity and desperation all make people tactless, sometimes aggressively so.
But I don't think any of these is why frank talk from atheists so consistently triggers accusations of arrogance. The unflinching tones adopted by the Four Horsemen are not more harsh or critical than what we accept routinely in academic debate or civic life. It is the subject matter that is the issue.
I would argue that atheist talk about religion seems particularly harsh because it violates unspoken norms about how we should approach religion in our relationships and conversations. Here are some of those rules:
- It's plain old mean to shake the faith that gives another person comfort and community, so don't do it.
- If you doubt, keep it to yourself.
- Practice don't-ask-don't tell about unbelief.
- Be respectful of other people--respecting people means respecting their beliefs.
- If someone tries to convert you, be polite because they only mean well.
- Remember that faith is good and even a brittle, misguided faith is better than none at all.
Outspoken atheists break all of these rules. They do and say things that are verboten. They insert their evidences and opinions where these are clearly unwelcome. Is this the height of self-importance?
Recently I interviewed former Pentecostal minister Rich Lyons about his journey out of Christianity. We found ourselves laughing about the velvet arrogance of our former beliefs: that we, among all humans knew for sure what was real; that we knew what the Bible writers actually meant; that our instincts, hunches and emotions were the voice of God; that we were designated messengers for the power that created the galaxies and DNA code -- and that He just happened to have an oh-so-human psyche, like ours. What other hubris could compare, really?
Maybe it is time for all of us glass-house dwellers, theists and freethinkers alike, to move beyond conversations about arrogance and onto much needed conversations about substance.
Valerie Tarico is the author of The Dark Side, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org.
In the comments section of my article
Jesus Appeared To Other People, Why Can't He Appear To Me? Darrin started by asking me "What would YOU do as God?". Goprairie mentioned what she would do if she were God. Then Russ contributed what he would do as God. I thought the interaction was brilliant so I'd like to feature it and request responses from everyone meaning all categories from Believers to Non-Believers, Buddhists to Zoroastrians.
Here are the relevant comments.....
Lee Randolph said...
I would do things according to my values and principles which are...
* scrap it all and start over otherwise, knowing full well that I made the parameters, that unless I want to start over I have to work within the parameters and get down to a level that the human can comprehend
* to nurture
* to follow sound principles of communication, because humans demonstrate every day that their behavior can be changed in a variety of ways by a variety of stimuli, none of them having the potential force of a God.
goprairie said...
1) if you were god, would you reveal yourself? to me this is a big duh. what would the harm be? for god to make him/herself obvious to us would sure stop a lot of arguing and fighting and killing. if i were god as i usually hear god defined, i would want to make myself known and stop that kind of crap. like if my kids came home and didn't know if i was here and were about to do something wrong, i would cough to make myself known and prevent their bad behavior.
2) god used to have personal relationships with people. sure, but now we call those personal relationships forms of mental illness. that he 'appears' so differently to people is reason to beleive it is a product of the person's own mind. i know a man who today believes he is a 'prophet' but oddly, the stuff god says thru him is the widely accepted views of a white male 60-something conservative. if god were really appearing to my friend, would there not be some thing that he would disagree with my friend about and that my friend would find challenging and shocking? yet oddly, each prophesy he 'hears' is spot on with what he knows and believes. dead giveaway to me that it is his own brain playing tricks on him, that he is then trying to pass off on us as the word of god. i am pretty sure if god revealed him/herself to me, there would be some surprises!
Russ said...
goprairie,
Great comment.
Question for you: If you were a god, how would you treat the children you created?
For me, like you, goprairie, I would make sure that, at least occasionally, they knew I was there. That's one mark of a loving father. I most certainly would not single out one of them to be nonsensically chatted up out of an incendiary shrubbery, and then, in a monumental display of omniscient stupidity actually expect that everyone concerned and impacted would get the message. Fact is, I would counsel my children that they would do well to simply ignore any and all claims made by each and every forthright forsythia, sincere salvia, ardent arborvitae, and profoundly philosophical philadelphus. Plants are notorious liars.
If I wrote them a book, say three thousand years ago, I would have told them useful things, remembering that, I am, after all, modeling a loving father. Let's say, that although I am omniscient, omnipotent, and whatever other omni's I want to be, I decided not to disclose too much all at once. While I could have kept nuclear bombs and microelectronics in reserve - they would have been really difficult to implement given the technology of the time - I still could have given them much useful information.
Remembering that I actually do love my children, that is, I love every single one of them, in my book I would not pit them against one another by calling some of them my "chosen people." I would not claim to love my sons and daughters while continually demonstrating that I see my daughters as second rate chattel. I would show them a constancy in love that would allow them go to sleep each night assured that their loving father would never intentionally harm any one of them. If I did indeed have the power to destroy my children, being a loving father, I would make sure they were never aware of that awful terrifying thought.
My book for my children would contain lots of good tips: wash your hands; pork is healthy food, just cook it well; slavery is out, period(don't want to interfere with someone's freewill, now, do we?); health problems are caused by germs or a person's own failing body - not demons or witches - so the proper response to someone's illness is empathy, caring, and compassion, not burning them, torturing them, or chaining them to a wall; here's a simple recipe for soap, and here's how you use it; the earth is not the center of the universe and it is much closer to correct to say that the Earth goes around the Sun; here's how to make a printing press; you are related to every living thing on the planet; enjoy sex; avoid violent conflict as far as possible; don't kill those who disagree with you; and, the world is more comprehensible when you approach it systematically through science.
In the introduction I would point out that this material is the best stuff I had available to me, and that as they learn better ways to do things they should update the book with that new data. Being a loving father know-it-all, I would permit updates that were a closer reflection of reality than were the book's current contents and I would disallow those ideas that went too far afield.
I'm guessing I could get all I want to say to them into a 100 page trade paperback in 12 point type, including indexes and appendices (Hey, it's some handy tips from a loving father, not Encyclopedia Britannica). Then, being omnipotent and all, I would drop one copy into the lap of every person on the planet each of whom would be able to read it in their native tongue regardless of age, literate or not(all that omni has to be put to work somehow). Periodic updates would be similarly dispersed.
So, goprairie, if you were a god, how would you treat the children you created?
1:33 PM, January 28, 2009
goprairie said...
russ - not sure what you are asking, but i will toss a couple things out -
i have never tried to write a book for them with all my knowledge, cuz i am here for them. i don't hide in a closet but let it be known that if they have a question or issue or idea, we can talk and we have for their whole lives talked about what is current with them and what they need to know now. i make myself known and available.
if i had written them a book 3K years ago and i had put errors in it, like to hate gay people, i would certainly write them a note now saying hey, i was wrong on that one or hey, i changed my mind or hey, you are misinterpreting that one.
that god does such a poor job of this brings his/her existence into question. anything that tries to make excuses for god not being present to us is making more problems. it is more likely there is not god and when i look, i find alternate answers that make more sense for every single thing ever attributed to god.
9:58 PM, January 28, 2009
God has appeared or unambiguously interacted with a wide range of types of persons in The Bible. But every time I mention that I think Jesus should just come down and visit with me, I get the old Christian rebuttals, such as
- "that would interfere with your free will"
- "God wants us to figure it out for ourselves"
- "suffering builds character"
- "God doesn't do what you want Him too, He does what He wants and He has his reasons that we can't understand"
and a few others I can't think of right now off the top of my head. Those statements basically reduce God to chance. It turns out that Gods interaction in our life has all the appearance of Chance. We may as well call God "Chance" then, or just say that Gods interaction in our life is what we call "Chance".
Why Did God Ever Appear To Anyone?
Overlooking the fact that those rebuttals ignore some relevant real world qualifiers making them eligible to be fallacies, if any of those rebuttals are true, then why did God ever appear to anyone? If they are true now, then they should have been true back then, unless something changed. What changed, and what bearing does it have over whether God appears to people.
Look at Paul.
He seemed to be a pretty nasty character but Jesus popped up in front of him one day and gave him a message. Did he talk to Paul or just put it in his head? Why would God need to talk? He could manipulate the neurons in Pauls head so He could ensure maximum integrity of the receipt and understanding of the information. The details are sketchy because the instances where Pauls Conversion is described don't match up, but in one version, the men that were with him heard the voice but didn't understand. Whats up with that? And then Ananias heard God too. What is the point of only appearing to a few? And what is the point of only partially appearing to some while appearing to one? To have one of them go out and convince the rest of us? Why should I believe them over anyone else? I can understand why the sender would use that strategy if the sender of the message had limited resources, but supposedly God commands everything, including resources.
It would be easy to believe if I could hear the voice of God.
Then I could make a rational decision to accept it or not. But as it stands right now, I don't have any reason to think the Bible is anything more than Folklore from an Ancient Near Eastern Culture. All previous precedents of other Gods interacting with people have become considered "Mythology". Why shouldn't this instance be considered Mythology?
Verifiable Evidence is like mothers milk to a belief.
In the Bible, God has set a precedent of appearing to people in person, and it has the effect of unambiguously fostering and nurturing their belief.
It doesn't take much to change my behavior, just ask my wife or boss. I'm a pretty reasonable guy.
Just like its true that if I want to foster a belief or change the behavior of another person I should logically "do what it takes", God should logically "do what it takes" to change my behavior. Come on God, I love my kids and parents so I call them periodically. Why don't you call me?
Dr. Orvall Roberto Kilton, Pastor of the Harvest Growth Church of Jesus Christ of Tithing and Faith, was arrested in his home Thursday on charges of destruction of legal tender. FBI spokesperson Greg Robins reported that found in the $37.9 million dollar mansion of the famous televangelist were 3 Hefty trash bags full of $100 bills that had been used as toilet paper over the course of two months. Authorities seized the excrement-covered bills as evidence for the upcoming sentencing of pastor Kilton who pleaded guilty to all charges.
"Had pastor Kilton discarded the bags before we followed up on the anonymous tip that led us to the Kilton home, we would have had no case," said Robins. "But because of what we found, the pastor will be facing destruction of legal tender charges. It's against the law to destroy money."
"This is awful news," says Joan Osted, associate pastor of the 46,200-member mega-church out of Orlando, Florida. "It isn't every day that you hear about a world-renowned scholar and televangelist and personal friend of Oral Roberts and Robert Tilton accused of a crime, much less a disgusting crime like this one." Pastor Osted refused to comment further, saying: "God is with brother Kilton. He has led many souls to the Lord. God will direct him through this storm, just as he did with past investigations by the I.R.S. of fraud and tax evasion.”
Dr. Kilton was eager to explain his actions: "I was out of toilet paper, so all I could think to do was to wipe my butt with the money, with the wads and wads of hundred dollar bills that cover the floor of every room in my house. It got to my head. I got wasteful and lazy, and for that I am sorry."
Getting noticeably emotional, the pastor continued: "This is truly a low moment in my life. I could have used that money to feed Ethiopian children who starve and die by the day while I eat and get fatter by the minute, but instead I used it to wipe my stinking rump. I am so sorry! It's just that for years I did what all televangelists do—I never shut up about the necessity of tithing and about how God, "The Great I Am," needs our hard-earned cash. I have always preached that if you send me $20, then God will anonymously send you $200. It worked too well (at least it did for me).”
Pastor continued: “Everyone sent me their money, and this made me rich—filthy, rotten, stinking, irresponsible rich. I have a Ferrari Enzo and a Ferrari F40 – each of them in two different colors – and I bought another 9.3 million dollar Bugatti Veyron less than a month ago. It was much nicer than the old one I bought a few months before that—the one I wrapped around a telephone pole and suffered whiplash from. And I bought everyone in my family the new car and house of their choice. I just invested in the purchase of a 9th golf course, which I've decided to call Shady Acres. I own vacation homes in 26 of the 50 states, the shabbiest one of them costs not a penny less than $320,000, and I have a solid gold banister leading up to our fourth floor bedroom at the main mansion, draped with cougar and bear skins, with ivory and platinum bedposts. The money got to my head."
Pastor did not hide but confessed the fact that half of one of the bags was full of discarded bills that were used as maxi pads by his wife and as napkins by their six kids at the dinner table. There is no word from the authorities on whether or not Dr. Kilton's wife Florence will stand to face charges with her husband.
When asked what he planned to do about the charges, the pastor said: "I may get up to 6 months in jail, and I'll have to pay some very big fines to make that light of a sentence happen, but that's ok. I have plenty of money to hire the best lawyer to get myself the most lenient sentence possible, and I have done that (though my lawyer would only accept a check, and not the barrels of cash I offered him)."
Dr. Kilton was also candid about his recent bouts of a weakening faith: "What I fear is that maybe God shouldn't have given me this money. Kenneth Copeland and I have flown in each other's private jets many times, and we prayed together that God would never give us anything that would take our hearts away from him. But at times, I have my doubts on whether God answered our prayers. Maybe the atheists are right. Maybe Christians who make tax-dodging pigs like me rich are just retarded, desperate, and naive. Maybe we TV preachers are nothing but pompous, greedy windbags who blow God's money on ourselves as we prey upon the idiocy and gullibility of others. Maybe idiots like me and my friends, Jesse Duplantis, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, and Peter Popoff just get rich at the expense of the galactically dumb. I hope they aren't right."
"Support from the church has been overwhelming," said Wilma Wheaton, senior church secretary and friend of the Kilton family for 20 years. "We still love him. We still support him. And yes, we still give to him. That's what makes us Christians. Our pastor has the prayers and the utmost support of the church as he has requested. The pastor's house will be kept stocked with toilet paper weekly. That is important because what got pastor into this mess was his heading out to the church burrito cook-off competition and forgetting to have Shameka the maid go by the store for more Angelsoft. Really, it could have happened to any of us!"
Dr. Kilton told us that plans were underway to forego building what would have been his 27th vacation home in the Maui to build what he will call The Chapel of Conservatism, a daily meditation hall to remind him of his wasteful lapse and to prevent any future ones. We were informed that there will be no gold or platinum in the structure. Only silver and bronze and the usual selection of rare tiger skin adornments. "But I will still need your prayers and your financial support, brethren, now more than ever." pastor added.
(JH)
Pastor Dave Schmelzer wrote a book called
Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist. He and I will be interviewed together on a very popular and respectable Christian program called
The Things That Matter Most (publication date March 1st). Dave's blog has the same title as his book:
Not the Religious Type. What could that mean?
Barna poll shows adults develop their own beliefs
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Half of Americans who call themselves "Christian" don't believe Satan exists and fully one-third are confident that Jesus sinned while on Earth, according to a new Barna Group poll.
Another 40 percent say they do not have a responsibility to share their Christian faith with others, and 25 percent "dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches," the organization reports.
Pollster George Barna said the results have huge implications.
"Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings in the Bible," he said.
"Growing numbers of people now serve as their own theologian-in-residence," he continued. "One consequence is that Americans are embracing an unpredictable and contradictory body of beliefs."
The results are a dramatic departure from the nation's foundings, when leaders held prayer meetings in the halls of Congress and attributed to Almighty God the victory in the Revolutionary War.
Barna noted the millions of people who describe themselves as Christian and believe Jesus sinned, or those who say they will experience eternal salvation because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior, "but also believe that a person can do enough good works to earn eternal salvation."
Barna's private, non-partisan, for-profit research group in Ventura, Calif., has been studying cultural trends since 1984. For this study, the organization randomly sampled 1,004 adults across the continental U.S. The study has a margin of error of 3.2 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
For the study, "born-again Christians" were defined as people who said they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that was still important in their life today and who also indicated they believed that when they die they will go to heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. The results highlight the significant shift in beliefs held by Americans, the study said.
"For much of America's history, the assumption was that if you were born in America, you would affiliate with the Christian faith," the report said. Now however, "half of all adults now contend that Christianity is just one of many options that Americans choose from and that a huge majority of adults pick and choose what they believe rather than adopt a church or denomination's slate of beliefs."
Fifty percent of Americans believe Christianity no longer has a lock on people's hearts. Two-thirds of evangelical Christians (64 percent) and three out of every five Hispanics (60 percent) embraced that position, making them the groups most convinced of the shift in America's default faith.
In contrast, the poll showed the importance of belief was growing along with the number of options about what to believe.
"By an overwhelming margin – 74 percent to 23 percent – adults agreed that their religious faith was becoming even more important to them than it used to be as a source of objective and reliable moral guidance."
Forty percent of respondents who do not affiliate with Christianity confirmed the increasing influence of their beliefs.
The result "underscored the fact that people no longer look to denominations or churches to offer a slate of theological views that the individual adopts in its entirety," the report said.
By a margin of 71 percent to 26 percent adults "noted that they are personally more likely to develop their own set of religious beliefs than to accept a comprehensive set of beliefs taught by a particular church," the report said.
Nearly two-thirds of "born again Christians" adopted that stance.
"In the past, when most people determined their theological and moral points of view, the alternatives from which they chose were exclusively of Christian options - e.g., the Methodist point of view, the Baptist perspective, Catholic teaching, and so forth," Barna noted. "Today, Americans are more likely to pit a variety of non-Christian options against various Christian-based views. This has resulted in an abundance of unique worldviews based on personal combinations of theology drawn from a smattering of world religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam as well as secularism."
Since we have had a discussion of the
Changing Face of Christianity in Asia and the Southern Hemisphere, Joe Nickell, who is the Senior Researcher Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, wrote something of interest
here:
‘Witch’ Killings Continue, by Joe Nickell.
Suspected of being a witch, a young woman in a rural area of Papua New Guinea was burned to death by vigilantes. On the morning of Tuesday, January 6, 2009, a group of villagers in the Highlands region dragged the woman to a dumpsite, stripped and bound her, stuffed a rag in her mouth, and tied her to a log. She was then set ablaze atop a pile of tires. According to the country’s Post-Courier newspaper, last year more than fifty persons were put to death in two Highlands provinces for allegedly practicing sorcery.
Such practices occur elsewhere around the world, for example in South Africa and neighboring tribal areas, as I learned from Joachim Kaetzler, author of Magie und Strafrecht in Südafrica (“Magic and Criminal Law in South Africa,” 2001). As he told me in an interview in Darmstadt, Germany, in 2007, he conducted research in the mid-1990s while living in various South African townships and villages. He was investigating what he called a “powerful belief in magic,” which extended, he said, even to the well-educated, and had strong implications to the legal system. A poll of 400 black Afrikaner law students revealed that between eighty and ninety percent believed in witches, and more than half had actually consulted a witch doctor.
According to Kaetzler, a witch doctor functions as an intermediary between the living and the ancestral spirits of the dead. He typically acts as a fortuneteller, herbal doctor, informal tribal chief, and diviner of witches. As well, priests may embrace superstitious beliefs and adopt magical practices in their churches.
As in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere, the South African “witch” is often a scapegoat for some accidental misfortune or even the crime of another. In one instance, a drunk man had an accident in which a child died, but his guilt was supposedly mitigated by a diviner’s uncovering of the one who “bewitched” him. That man voluntarily confessed (as do about a third of all “witches”), walked to the center of the village, and was stoned to death. Each year in South Africa, some seven- to eight-hundred persons perish in witch-related incidents.
Belief in witchcraft—whether sweeping Europe from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, or Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, or some of the world’s tribal villages in the twenty-first century—is a frightening delusion. It not only continues to claim lives, but even in its milder manifestations, such as soothsaying and spirit communication, it promotes fantasy—always at the expense of science and reason.
We have Christians commenting who do not even try to understand us here at DC, so I thought I'd state the obvious. WE DO NOT BELIEVE! I find it humorous that I must continually state the obvious to Christians who fail to grasp this simple fact. Again, WE DO NOT BELIEVE!
Some Christians tell us to have faith, others quote "Scripture" to us, and still others tell us that when we die we'll know the truth. As far as I can tell these Christians are merely venting. None of this affects us at all. Again, WE DO NOT BELIEVE! Get it? No amount of quoting the Bible or telling us to have faith or that we'll know when we die makes a bit of sense to us. When I believed I at least understood this. You must reason with us. That's right. You must reason with us. Show us why we should believe the Bible, for instance, don't just quote it to us.
The next time you think of telling us to have faith just picture an orthodox Jew saying that same thing to you, okay? Does this do any good to you as an outsider? The next time you think of quoting the Bible just picture a Mormon quoting a passage from the Book of Mormon, okay? How does that feel? Does it do any good? And the next time you think to tell us we'll know the truth when we die just picture a Muslim saying the same thing to you, okay? Saying these kinds of things has no affect whatsoever on you as an outsider, so why do you try that with us?
[As an aside, if there is no afterlife then no one will ever know we were right about it when they die because in order to know we were right they would have to regain consciousness, which, if we're right cannot happen.]
I really liked fellow team member Jason Long’s book,
The Religious Condition: Answering and Explaining Christian Reasoning. In some ways he has done for the average person what I have done in my book for the college student, and for that I can only congratulate him. His book begins by taking a good hard look at why people believe and what believers must do in order to defend their beliefs. This encompasses the first half of the book, or 94 pages (5 chapters). The second half of his book (5 chapters) through to page 248 deals with answering a wide range of specific Christian objections, most of which came from believers who emailed him about his previous book,
Biblical Nonsense.
I like his approach very much. In the second half of his book Long’s answers to Christian objections are solid and convincing for the most part (which provides many specific examples of what Long claims in the first half about how Christians reason). If you’ve read his first book you need to read this one just to see how he effectively deals with the many objections Christians have made against it. Even if you haven't read his first book this is a good read with intelligent answers.
But the first half of Long’s book intrigued me personally the most, especially since I was very familiar with the objections Christians make to our arguments. In this first half Long gives us many examples of how people come to believe strange things and how they in turn defend them, from Virgin Mary healings to UFO sightings to ghost hunters to Mormons to Muslims. Here he includes Christian beliefs as well, since people who adopt a religious faith usually do so based on when and where they were born. One of the lessons of this first part of his book is that “Human beings are unbelievably gullible and illogical creatures. The ability to think skeptically is not innate; it requires practice.” (p. 84). In this first part I believe Long made this point very effectively and it should cause all believers to question their faith, subject it to scrutiny and demand hard evidence to believe.
But what usually happens is that rather than “initiating an honest and impartial analysis” of any new evidence, believers “simply bury their heads in the sand and continue to observe whatever beliefs…their ancestors thought they needed thousands of years ago.” (p. 12). When looking at new evidence believers get into a defense mode where they seek to defend what they believe rather than trying to impartially weigh it, Long rightly charges. Impartiality might be an elusive goal, of course, but we should at least try to look at the evidence. Consider this example from Long: “If you wanted safety information on a used car, would it be wiser to trust the word of a used car salesman or the findings of a consumer report?” (p. 23). I think the answer is obvious. But Christians routinely will only trust other Christians for their information. They don’t trust outsiders. Why? If I were interested in car safety information I want an outsider’s perspective to get a different, more objective opinion. Sometimes I’ll even get a second opinion from doctors or dentists. Why is it that Christians will not read Long's book or mine for a second opinion? I challenge them to do so, even if they might eventually disagree. At least they would be honestly looking at the other side. That’s why I’ve initiated the Debunking Christianity Challenge in the first place. Start with Long’s book if you will. It’s as good of a place to start as any, especially if you are an average reader and you think you have impartially weighed the available evidence.
In this first half of his book Long clearly articulates concepts like “Cognitive Dissonance,” “Impression Management Theory,” and "Psychological Reactance Theory” and shows how believers defend their beliefs when faced with evidence to the contrary. One story he tells from the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology is about an evangelical group who believed there was going to be a nuclear attack so they went into a bomb shelter for 42 days before coming out to find no nuclear attack had happened. So what did they conclude? Not that they were wrong. No sirree Bob. “Rather than accepting the obvious conclusion that they had erred in their prediction, group members proclaimed that their beliefs had been instrumental in stopping the nuclear attack.” (p. 48).
Citing from the most authoritative books on persuasive psychology, one written by Robert B. Cialdini, titled Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and another one written by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo, titled Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches, Long proffers several other examples of this kind of thinking among people who do the same thing with regard to everyday examples. Human beings truly are “unbelievably gullible and illogical creatures.” We’re more likely to buy unusual items when priced higher; we’re more likely to buy items that offer coupons even though there is no price advantage; we’re more likely to agree to absurd requests if preceded by ones of greater absurdity; we’re more likely to consider attractive people to be more intelligent; and we’re more likely to agree with the crowd we hang around because we want to fit in; and so on, and so on. (pp. 84, 88-89)
All believers must do is look at these things to realize that as humans we MUST be skeptical about what we believe! In my opinion these studies reinforce my claim that the default position is skepticism. To embrace this default position is to be an adult mature thinker with regard to what we believe. Instead of being mature, Long shows us that Christians do not seek to be skeptical about what they have been taught from their parents. They seek rather to defend what they believe. They are resistant to any contrary evidence. They seek to ignore it or look for any answer that might solve the cognitive dissonance this new evidence creates just to maintain their comfort zone, even if it is a non-answer, a glib answer, a far fetched answer.
Long tells us that we believe both because of emotional reasons and because of logical reasons and he illustrates this with two people, one who has the fear of heights and another who thinks old skyscrapers are not as safe as newer ones. (pp. 76-77). The latter person has intellectual doubt about the older skyscrapers and must be given reasons to think otherwise. But the former person who has a fear of heights has an emotional problem. He knows people go up to the top of the skyscraper and come down safely. So we cannot convince him by showing him the steel beams, or the safety ratings of that building. He must face his fears. He must get to the first floor and look around. When he’s comfortable on the first floor he must then go up to the second floor, and so on until he gets to the top. This may take a long time and he must be willing to face his fears. This, Long argues, is the plight of the believer, since he thinks there isn’t any good evidence to believe in the first place, and I agree.
Believers think we’re wrong about this but I challenge them to consider the possibility they are wrong for a moment. Consider a more objective perspective coming from two former believers who have investigated the reasons to believe and found them seriously wanting. Given the overwhelming psychological data Long presents you’ve got to at least consider this as a real possibility, and if that’s the case then Long says that to free you from your religious indoctrination “we must delve into the history of the individual’s beliefs to find the avenue from which they originate.” (p. 77) This echoes what I've said about the Outsider Test for Faith. When testing your beliefs as an outsider you need to revisit what the reasons were for adopting your faith in the first place. What were they? Most of them were clearly emotional, weren't they? Were they intellectual? If so, when looking back on these reasons do you now consider those initial reasons less than persuasive? Would those same reasons convince you to believe today or are they much too simplistic? What I argue is that you initially adopted your faith for less than good reasons but from that moment onward you see the world through colored glasses by which you now analyze and examine the evidence. YOU NEED TO TAKE THEM OFF, is what Long and I argue, as best as you can. Then do what Julia Sweeney told us she did. She put on her “No God Glasses” for just a few seconds and looked around at the world as if God did not exist. Then she put them on for a minute and then put them on for an hour, and then a day. To me this would be just like climbing up that skyscraper Long wrote about. That’s one way to face your fears.
But fears they are, Long says, especially since believers think they have a “mind-reading god” always present who monitors their every thought. (p. 74). With such a mind-reading God, believers are just too fearful of being honest with themselves about their doubt. So they refuse to truly look at the evidence to the contrary. To such people Long suggests telling God you are sincerely going to look at the evidence “to determine if the Bible is really his word. Ask forgiveness in advance if you feel you must…” This is great advice. If God really cares he should allow you to be intellectually honest with yourself.
All in all, as I said, I really liked this book and I highly recommend it. It is unusual to other comparable works because it seeks to articulate the real reasons why people believe and reveals the mental gymnastic contortions needed to defend ignorant and comfortable beliefs. This type of book just may go a long way to help Christians be honest about their delusional beliefs.
---------------
Oh, and if you really want to test whether petitionary prayer works, and not just play games, Long offers a unique test that should surely go down in the books (something about arsenic and prayer, but I don't think any Christian should try it. pp. 86-87)
Philip Jenkins has published a few books in which he argues that the locus and shape of Christianity is rapidly changing. A summary of his newest book
The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity states this:
Jenkins (history and religious studies, Pennsylvania State Univ.) believes that we are on the verge of a transformational religious shift. As he explains it, Christianity, the religion of the West, is rapidly expanding south into Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and he predicts that by the year 2050, only about one-fifth of the world's three billion Christians will be non-Hispanic Caucasian. By numbers alone, they will be able to overwhelm the present political secular nation- and city-states and replace them with theocracies, similar to the Islamic Arab nations. He ends with a warning: with the rise of Islam and Christianity in the heavily populated areas of the Southern Hemisphere, we could see a wave of religious struggles, a new age of Christian crusades and Muslim jihads. These dire prognostications could be seen as just another rant from a xenophobic pseudo-prophet; however, the author is a noted historian, and his statements are well formed, well supported by empirical evidence, and compellingly argued.
- From Library Journal
His is a dire warning to be heeded and worth looking at very closely. If true this is one more reason to support the people who argue against Christianity and Islam and for translating our books into these other languages. If you can translate this Blog into Spanish, Korean, or other languages, that is a real need! To this same end I also need your support here at DC. There is a donate button to your right. Please use it to help. If you don't have the means to do the research, I do, but only if I don't have to get a second job. If you have financial means to do so that's how you can help out. Whatever you do, do something for the future of peaceful free loving people and the the planet itself.
Christianity is growing among the people of the southern hemisphere and in Asia by leaps and bounds. It's doing so among superstitious thinking people who are already prone to believing in superstitious things.
Reason and scientific literacy make people less superstitious, period. It took centuries for science and reason to reduce superstitious thinking in Europe (and other things like WWI, WWII), but it eventually did. Europe's Christian population now seems to be at all time lows. Scientific reasoning and freethinking are showing evidence of having its effect on the American continent too, as recent polls show. Christianity flourishes among superstitious people, period. The Christian gospel story is just a more wonderful story as told when compared to other superstitious contenders (God's son died for me? How wonderful!). That's why superstitious people embrace it, not because of the evidence. For if the evidence were behind the Christian story the most scientifically literate people would be the ones embracing it in the industrial West.
So the fact that Christianity is growing in places like Africa and Asia doesn't surprise me at all. Although, sooner or later scientific literacy will catch up to these Christian people and they too will move in the direction Europe has and where America is headed. If we do our best it probably won't take as long for them to become enlightened as it did for the industrial West, maybe just 150 years. But only if we put more effort into this and ban together for the cause of freedom and the planet itself. In the meantime if Jenkins is correct, brace yourselves and your children and your children's children for an escalation of more religious violence in the world.
By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Just three years ago, half of the U.S. adult population felt the influence of religion on American life was rising. Today, only a little more than a quarter believe so. A recent Gallup Poll found that just 27 percent of Americans perceive religion's influence to be on the upswing while 67 percent of Americans say religion as a whole is losing influence on American life.
The trend is consistent with those who attend religious services regularly as well as those who seldom or never attend services, with majorities saying religion is losing influence in this country. Since 2005, the Gallup Poll has recorded a downward trend in those who believe the influence of religion is increasing. The record low for this perception was in 1970 when only 14 percent said religion was increasing in influence at that time.
The last time a majority of Americans felt the influence of religion was rising was in December 2001, just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when 71 percent said religious influence was increasing – the highest percentage Gallup Poll recorded since 1957. Previous polls show that there was a long period of doubt about the influence of religion during the Vietnam War era – from 1965 through 1975, according to the Gallup report. Then, in the 1980s, religious influence was perceived as growing when religious conservatism, or the "religious right," was gaining prominence during the Ronald Reagan presidency.
The Gallup Poll suggests that the recent waning perception that religion is increasing in influence is "partially a result of the decline of Republican political strength throughout President George W. Bush's second term. At the close of 2008, few Americans perceive that religion is thriving in U.S. society, and a relatively small majority believe religion is relevant to solving today's problems," the report stated. "These perceptions may stem in part from the political climate – characterized by a weakened Republican Party and the incoming Democratic administration – as well as from the overwhelming consensus that the main problems facing the country today are economic."
In other major findings, the percentage of Americans who believe that religion can answer society's problems is at an all-time low, with only 53 percent saying religion "can answer all or most of today's problems. "The poll, conducted Dec. 4-7, comes during an economic crisis and at a time when the vast majority of Americans believe the U.S. economy is the nation's greatest challenge.
Meanwhile, over the last several decades, the percentage of those who perceive religion as "largely old-fashioned and out of date" has been on a continuous rise. The latest poll found that 28 percent believe it's old-fashioned. Among Americans who attend worship services weekly, 82 percent say religion can answer today's problems. Only 27 percent of those who rarely or never attend agreed. Also, Americans across all age groups were more likely to say that religion can answer today's problems than reject it as old fashioned. But the poll found that confidence in religion to solve problems increased with age (44 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds believe religion can answer problems compared to 52 percent of those 35 to 54 years old and 60 percent of those 55 years and older).
Despite the decreasing confidence in religion among Americans, a majority still says religion plays a very important role in their own lives and self-reported church attendance has not declined this year, the Gallup Poll noted. Results of the latest poll are based on interviews with 1,009 national adults, aged 18 and older.
Over at The Fallacy Files, the article
The Arguments That Failed discusses the Boston Review Article
God; Philosophers Weigh In by Alex Byrne. Both demonstrate the problems with Anselm's "Ontological" Argument, The Design Argument and The "Fine-Tuning" Argument.
[Redated Post] This show was produced by the Freethought of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, August 2008.
First Episode. And
Second Episode.
A few Christian reviewers of my book, some of whom show no evidence they have even read it, claim there is nothing new in it. I beg to differ.
For people looking for new arguments I actually think I can count five new ones that have probably never been used before in one book (at least not in the way I do that I know of). That's quite an accomplishment since most people don't come up with a new argument their entire lives. It has been quipped, "Confound the ancients; they've stolen all of our ideas." New arguments are hard to come by because there have been thousands of years of books that predate ours. A.N. Whitehead said all philosophy is but a footnote to Plato (This is a gross exaggeration).
And yet, I think there are five things in my book that are probably original to it: 1) My outsider test for faith; 2) my version of the problem of evil (which assumes God exists); 3) Testing the results of prayer by praying to change the past; 4) Looking at the superstitious nature of the people in the Bible (this has been suggested before but mine is probably the first detailed discussion of it); 5) the structure of the whole book itself having three parts containing one cumulative and comprehensive argument against Christian theism.
Some very good reviews are being written about it, for which I'm very thankful. [I update this link periodically.]