Tim Callahan’s Critique of the Movie Zeitgeist — The Greatest Story Ever Told

Tim Callahan is the book review editor of Skeptic magazine and author of The Secret Origins of the Bible, which I recommend. In the latest eskeptic email he critically reviews the Movie Zeitgeist:

The Greatest Story Ever Garbled
by Tim Callahan

Perhaps the worst aspect of “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” Part I of Peter Joseph’s Internet film, Zeitgeist, is that some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberally — and sloppily — mixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus. Joseph’s main argument is that Jesus never existed and is in fact a mythical character based on earlier sun gods. He sees all the motifs and characters of the New Testament as coded astrological or solar references. The argument that Jesus was a mythical construct has been made before — for example by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their 1999 book, The Jesus Mysteries, though Freke and Gandy made their argument with a far greater level of scholarship. In reducing Jesus to a sun god, Joseph ignores — as Freke and Gandy did before him — the powerful current of messianic apocalypticism prevalent in first century Judea. The fact that there were references back to earlier dying and rising gods in the Christ myth can lend an air of spurious scholarship to Zeitgeist, as long as one ignores the equally important messianic myth and the fact that there is a viable basis for an actual historical Jesus. Joseph totally ignores the messianic/apocalyptic aspects of the New Testament writings and erroneously asserts that there is no evidence for a historical Jesus. I will return to this issue later. For now, let us consider Joseph’s solar deity argument.

The Solar Cross & Sloppy Solar Symbolism

The first assertion made in Zeitgeist is that the cross is a solar symbol and not a representation of the instrument of Jesus’ execution. That’s true enough, as far as it goes, which isn’t very far. What Jesus was crucified on probably looked more like a capital “T,” the crossbeam to which Jesus’ wrists were nailed being hoisted to rest atop an already anchored upright post. It was then probably secured in place by a spike. The Christian cross probably represents a melding of this “T” shape with the solar cross as a bit of religious syncretism. This can be seen if one considers that many Christian crosses are shown enclosed by or intersecting a circle, as in the Celtic cross. The cross is also a symbol of the four cardinal directions and the four winds. However, the solar associations of the cross, while adding solar connotations to the Christ myth, do not militate against it also being a symbol of the Crucifixion.

Joseph next asserts that the gods Horus, Krishna, Mithra and Attys all paralleled Jesus. Again, there is some truth to this, but Joseph mingles so much falsehood with whatever truths he reveals as to give ample ammunition to evangelical Christians who might want to shoot holes in his thesis. First of all, he says that the Egyptian god Horus was adored by three kings, had twelve disciples and was crucified. He says much the same thing about Mithra, as well as noting that Krishna was born on December 25. Almost none of this is true.

When it comes to Egyptian sources of the Christ myth, Joseph seems to have conflated Horus with his father, Osiris. The Osiris/Horus myth, in much simplified terms, goes as follows: Set, the evil brother of the good Osiris, murders that god and cuts his body into 14 pieces. Isis, the wife of Osiris collects and reassembles the pieces, having to substitute a wooden phallus for that part of the dead god’s anatomy. She copulates with the dead god in the form of a bird, conceives Horus and gives birth to him in secret, raising him on an island in the Nile amidst the reeds. She also raises Osiris from the dead, although this very physical resurrection is in the underworld. When Horus comes of age he does battle with his uncle Set. Set tears out the eye of Horus, while Horus rips off Set’s genitals. Eventually, peace is made between the two, both are healed, and they divide the rule of the year by seasons of life and death.

The physical resurrection of Osiris, even though it is in the underworld, is a significant precursor to Jesus as a dying and rising god, as is the physical resurrection of Dionysus, after he is killed, dismembered and partially eaten by the Titans. Surprisingly, Joseph fails to mention this bit of classical mythology. Horus being born and nursed in the rushes of an island in the Nile is an important parallel to the infant Moses being found among the rushes. However, beyond the resurrection of Osiris, the main parallels between the Egyptian myth and the New Testament are iconic. Isis with the dead body of Osiris prefigures the imagery of the Pieta. More importantly, Christians co-opted the imagery of Isis and the infant Horus in the form of the Madonna and child. I have absolutely no idea where Joseph got the notion that Horus had 12 disciples or that he was ever crucified.

As to the god who is born on December 25 — this was not Krishna, but Mithra in his solar aspect as Sol Invictus (Latin for “Unconquered Sun”). The reason Mithra/Sol Invictus was born on December 25 was that in the Roman calendar of that day, that was the Winter Solstice, the 24-hour period having the fewest number of daylight hours. From that date the days get longer and the nights get shorter until the Summer Solstice. Owing to imperfections in the Roman or Julian calendar, the solstice gradually shifted to December 21, until corrections were made resulting in our present Gregorian calendar. Christianity seems to have deliberately co-opted the birthday of Mithra as a way of occupying a rival’s holiday, rather than this being the result of Jesus being a solar savior.

Joseph’s confusion continues when he tries to tie Isis into the Annunciation narrative of Luke. He says that an Annunciation scene from Luxor shows Isis being told by angelic beings she will bear Horus. Actually, the panels from Luxor depict the mother of Hatshepsut being told she will bear the divine child. Next, the god Amon-Ra consorts with Hatshepsut’s mother. Then the divine child (Hatshepsut) is adored by gods and mortals. This is probably the source of Luke’s Nativity. Mary is told by the angel Gabriel she will bear the divine child. The Holy Spirit overshadows her. Then angels and mortals (shepherds) adore Jesus. However, it has nothing to do with Isis. It was part of the standard Egyptian royal myth that each Pharaoh was engendered by Amon Ra, taking his father’s mortal form to have sexual relations with the Pharaoh’s mother. The reason Hatshepsut (ruled 1498–1483 BCE) had to emphasize her divine origins is that, as a female, she was assumed to have ordinary mortal origins. So there probably is an Egyptian origin to the Lucan Nativity, but it has nothing to do with Isis, Osiris or Horus.

Three Kings & Other Astrological Nonsense

Zeitgeist continues to find not only solar but astrological sources for the Christ myth. The star followed by the wise men is Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major, which lines up with three bright stars on Orion’s belt. These stars are often called the “three kings,” hence the three kings following the star in the Nativity story. Mary is a virgin because she represents the constellation Virgo, which is also referred to as the “House of Bread,” or, in Hebrew beth-lehem, or the town of Bethlehem, The death of Jesus by crucifixion represents the sun being in the Southern Cross, a constellation that in antiquity was visible from the Mediterranean. Thus, the sun was, at its lowest point in the sky (when it “died”) “crucified,” in that it was ensnared in the Southern Cross. Jesus rose from the dead at Easter because it was then, at the Vernal Equinox, that the sun conquered darkness. Jesus had 12 disciples because they represent the 12 signs of the Zodiac. His crown of thorns at the Crucifixion represents the rays of the sun emanating from his head.

This story, like most of Part I of Zeitgeist, is a pastiche of factoid, fiction and ingenious invention. It also betrays a certain naïveté on the part of Peter Joseph in regard to his knowledge of the Bible. This is obvious when he sees in the “Three Kings” of Orion’s belt pointing at Sirius, the source of the magi following the star in the Nativity story of Matthew. At this point, let me ask readers a question: Without looking at a Bible, tell me how many wise men or kings followed the star to Bethlehem. Most likely you answered “Three.” After all, we’ve all heard and sung the popular Christmas carol “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” So weren’t there three kings? Let’s look at the Bible, specifically at Matthew 2:1,2:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.”

Two things are readily apparent from this passage. First, those who saw the star are wise men, not kings. In the original Greek of the New Testament, what is translated as “wise men” is magi, that is, Zoroastrian holy men. The Greek word magos is the source of our words mage, magic and magician. Second, Matthew nowhere says how many magi came to Jerusalem. So where did we ever get the idea there were three of them? Also, if they were actually following a star, it would have led them directly to Bethlehem. The star doesn’t actually lead the magi until they have been told by Herod’s scribes to go to Bethlehem. Only then does the following happen (Mt. 2:9–11):

When they had heard the king they went on their way, and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

This is odd. One wonders why the star didn’t just lead the magi to Bethlehem right off. This has led many to speculate that the “star” wasn’t an actual star, but perhaps a conjunction of astrologically significant planets in one constellation or another. It would be tedious to go into them here. Suffice it to say that Joseph’s “three kings” in the belt of Orion bear no relation to the actual myth in Matthew’s account of the Nativity. The only reason conventions of art and caroling gave us three wise men (not kings) is that the magi give Jesus three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

It is in these three gifts, along with the eastern origin of the magi, that we see the key to the actual myth in Matthew’s Nativity, which is political. Throughout the Mathean Nativity account, the gospel’s author takes great pains to find fulfilled prophecies showing Jesus to be the messiah of the Davidic line of kings. He is born in Bethlehem because that was David’s home town, and Jesus must be born there to fulfill the prophecy in Micah 5:2, which the chief priests and scribes quote to Herod when the magi ask where the baby is that is born to be king of the Jews (Mt. 2:5, 6):

They [the priests and scribes] told him [Herod], “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet:

‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you will come a ruler
who will govern my people Israel’”

So Bethlehem’s mythic associations have to do with Davidic kingship, not astrology. The three gifts also reflect Davidic kingship, since the Queen of Sheba gave King Solomon rich and kingly gifts (1 Kings 10:10). These included a great quantity of gold and, by implication, since Sheba, or Saba was located in modern Yemen, at the southern end of the Red Sea, frankincense and myrrh. Sheba, or Saba, in Yemen is at the southern end, the point of origin of an ancient caravan route that stretched from Yemen to Damascus called the “Incense Route,” since what was traded from the southern end of the Red Sea were two forms of incense, frankincense and myrrh. Thus, the infant Jesus received from the magi the same gifts given to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba.

Other astrological fantasies in Zeitgeist regarding the Christ myth are that Mary is a virgin because she personifies the constellation Virgo, that the Crucifixion represents the sun in the constellation of the Southern Cross, that Easter is related to the sun’s triumph over darkness at or shortly following the Vernal Equinox, that Jesus’ 12 disciples represent the signs of the Zodiac, and that his crown of thorns represents solar rays emanating from his head. The astrological associations of all of these elements are tenuous at best. Certainly, the virgin birth and the elevation of the Virgin Mary in the Gospel of Luke reflects pagan influences on the Christ myth, which can be seen in the Lucan Nativity and which sharply contrast to the messianic/Davidic kingship motifs of Matthew. As previously noted. Luke’s Nativity seems to be based on Egyptian panels from Luxor dating to the 18th dynasty and the reign of Queen Hatshepsut. So Mary could relate to the constellation Virgo, but also took on the iconography of Isis

As to the sighting of Easter near the time of the Vernal Equinox, we must remember that the Passion is staged during Passover. There is a complex layering here that is lost if we simply relegate Easter to a celebration of the Vernal Equinox.

The Christ myth relates not only to previous dying and rising gods, like Osiris and Dionysus, but as well to Jewish messianic, apocalyptic and historical myths. Thus, situating Easter in the Passover season probably relates more to messianic myth than to the sun. Passover itself was probably originally a festival of first fruits, that is, a seasonal, agricultural festival relating to rebirth. However, Jewish seasonal festivals relating to a cyclic view of time were recast in messianic, apocalyptic terms as historical and related to a linear concept of time. In the case of Jewish belief, I believe it’s safe to say that the linear, historical view effectively eclipsed the original seasonal festival. Since the Christian Passion and Resurrection narratives reintroduce a dying and rising god meme into the holiday, the layering of Easter becomes far more complex. Easter blends apocalyptic messianism, emphasizing Christ’s death and resurrection as the critical turning point in God’s war with Satan, and portraying Jesus as the culmination of Israel’s hopes and dreams, with the dying and rising god motif, and the promise to Christians that they, too, would transcend death. It must also be remembered that the cult of Isis and Osiris, which spread through the Roman Empire about a century before the time of Jesus, was not entirely the same as the millennia old Egyptian fertility cult it had originally been. Rather, it was, in all probability, Hellenized and showed some of the refinements of Greek philosophy. This was, likewise, probably the case with the much younger cult of Dionysus, another dying and rising god.

Jesus having 12 disciples also relates more to Jewish messianism than to astrology. The 12 disciples relate to the 12 tribes of Israel, which, though they no longer existed as political entities, were important genealogically to the extent that Paul could confidently claim to be of the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1). Actually, there were 13 tribes, 12 plus the priestly tribe of Levites. Each tribe originally supported the Levitical priesthood and maintained the central shrine for one month a year. The division of the tribes worshipping Yahweh into 12 divisions may well reflect influences of what was originally a lunar cult, but such influences had been subsumed by the apocalyptic, messianic monotheism of post-exilic Judaism well before the time of Christ. Had the 12 disciples represented the signs of the Zodiac, as Joseph asserts, then we would expect to find the disciples individually given specific zodiacal characteristics in the canonical gospels. Instead, most of the disciples are little more than names and lack any character whatsoever.

Jesus’ crown of thorns, along with most of the specific details of the Passion — his being clothed in a purple robe and given a reed as a scepter, the mocking and scourging by the Roman troops, even his being put to death — were probably elements of the Zagmuku Festival, which the Jews brought back with them from Babylon after their captivity there (587–538 BCE). Elements of this festival are to be found in the entirely fictional Book of Esther and the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim. This, by the way, is not to say that Jesus’ crucifixion was not a real, historical event, merely that its details were heavily fictionalized in the process of dramatization and storytelling.

It is the historiscity of Jesus that will tell us whether the Crucifixion was real or merely symbolic of the sun descending into the constellation of the Southern Cross. I will deal with that subject later.

The End of the Age

Zeitgeist continues its assertion of the astrological basis of Christianity and even of the Jewish Scriptures with the assertion that both Moses and Jesus based their words and actions on a belief in astrological ages of roughly 2,000 plus years dominated by a specific sign of the Zodiac. According to this scheme the Age of Taurus (the Bull) was ending or had ended when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and was being superceded by the Age of Aries (the Ram). This age was, in turn, superceded by the Age of Pisces, in which we live, but which is now winding down. It will soon be followed by the Age of Aquarius, hence the song by the same name from the musical Hair. Moses, Peter Joseph says, condemned worshipping the golden bull calf because it was a throwback to an earlier age. The blowing of the shofar, specifically a ram’s horn, and other symbols indicate that Judaism came, initially, out of the Age of Aries. Since Christianity came into being at the beginning of the Age of Pisces, fish symbolism is particularly common in the New Testament. Thus Jesus tells the fishermen he recruits (Mark 1:17), “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Thus he feeds the multitude with loaves and fishes, and thus the fish is a Christian symbol. There are also, according to Joseph, references in the Christian Scriptures to the coming Aquarian Age. Jesus tells his disciples to follow a man bearing a jar of water (i.e. Aquarius, the water bearer) in Luke 22:10:

He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house which he enters, and tell the householder, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?’"

Finally, Jesus tells his disciples (Mt. 28:20) referring to the Age of Pisces and its transition into the Age of Aquarius, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So, was the fish imagery in the New Testament a reference to the Age of Pisces? When Jesus spoke of the “end of the age,” was he referring to the transition from the Piscean to Aquarian age some 2,000 plus years into the future? The answer to all these questions is, “No.”

Consider the antagonism against bull imagery implicit in Moses condemning the people’s worship of the golden calf. This Yahwistic prejudice seems to have evaporated by that time of the building of Solomon’s Temple, as can be seen in this description of the “molten sea,” a huge vessel containing water that was one of the principle furnishings of the Temple (1 Kings 7:25): “It stood upon twelve oxen, three facing nth, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east; the sea was set upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward.” Oxen also decorate the panels of ten stands made of bronze, along with lions and cherubim (1 Kings. 7:28). Yet, for all the rich imagery of the interior of Solomon’s Temple, it is utterly devoid of any image of rams. Thus, we must assume that the story of the golden calf in Exodus refers, as it would seem, to idolatry.

Fish certainly are common images in the New Testament. Yet so are olive trees, fig trees, sheaves of grain, and, particularly, sheep and lambs. In fact, lambs and lost sheep probably figure more prominently in the New Testament than do fish. Does this mean that Jesus actually wanted to turn the clock back to the previous Age of Aries? Joseph would probably counter such an objection by pointing to the Christian fish symbol. Doesn’t this point to Christianity as the faith of the Piscean Age? The Christian fish symbol has been interpreted as referring back to the “fishers of men” phrase from Mark 1:17 and has also been seen as a vaginal symbol lying on its side. However, it appears most likely that the Greek word for fish, ichthys, was an acronym for (in Greek) Iasos Christos Theos Yios Soter, or “Jesus Christ, son of God, savior.”

The assertion in Zeitgeist that when Jesus tells his disciples in Mt. 28:20 he will be with them until the end of the age, he is referring to a time roughly 2,000 years into the future is absurd considering the apocalyptic outlook of early Christianity. Consider what Jesus has to say in Mark 8: 38–9:1:

“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly I ay to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.”

Despite the efforts of Christian apologists to rationalize this as something other than a prediction of the end of the world in Jesus’ own generation, there is little else to which it could refer. The parallel verses in Matthew even throw in the Last Judgment (Mt. 16: 27, 28):

For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not tastes death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

Though there are no parallel verses to this in the Gospel of John, it also proclaims the imminent end of the world (John. 5: 28, 29):

Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his [Jesus’] voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.

Paul also proclaimed the end of the world in his generation in this passage from 1 Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4: 15-17):

For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we, who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep [i.e. died]. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.

These are but a few of the apocalyptic references salted throughout the New Testament. However, lest anyone doubt that early Christians believed the world would end in their generation, consider what John of Patmos says at the opening of Revelation, that vivid and detailed description of the end of days (Rev. 1:1, 2, emphasis added):

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants what must soon take place; and he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

“What must soon take place’” cannot refer to the end of the Piscean Age some 2,000 years into the future any more than it can refer to a series of events triggered by Russia invading Israel in 1988.

History vs. Myth

Again mixing facts with sloppy assumptions, Part I of Zeitgeist concludes with an assault on the historicity of Jesus, claming that, outside the New Testament, there is no indication that Jesus ever existed. Joseph correctly points out that the biblical flood myth has its origins in material antedating the earliest sources of the Hebrew Scriptures. He specifically cites the Epic of Gilgamesh. However, he could just as well have cited the Sumerian flood hero Zuisudra, whose account greatly antedates the flood account in Gilgamesh.

Was there a real Jesus? While the historical evidence is meager, it does exist. In his Antiquities of the Jews, book 20, chapter 9, item 1, referring to the execution of James, Josephus refers to him as the brother of “Jesus, who was called the Christ.” It is quite plain that Josephus didn’t see Jesus as the Christ (Christos, the Greek word meaning “anointed”), he merely recorded that James’ brother was the Jesus who had been called or was alleged to be the Christ.

Beyond this scrap, valuable though it is, we can imply the existence of a historical Jesus from the criteria of embarrassment and difficulty. The criterion of embarrassment says that people do not make up embarrassing details about someone they wish to revere. So, if they say such things about the person, they are probably true. Now let’s apply this to what the Roman historian Tacitus had to say about Jesus early in the second century. Concerning rumors that had spread that Nero had deliberately set fire to the city of Rome, Tacitus says (The Annals of Imperial Rome, Book 1, Chapter 15):

To suppress this rumor, Nero fabricated scapegoats — and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome. All degraded and shameful practices collect and flourish in the capitol.

That Tacitus is obviously a hostile witness makes it much more likely that he accepted Jesus as a real person. Had he reason to suspect he was nothing more than a fabrication, Tacitus would certainly have said so. That author’s claim that Jesus had been executed by Pontius Pilate could only have come from one of two possible sources: Either Tacitus knew this to be true from extant imperial records or he was repeating what Christians themselves had said of Jesus. Were Jesus a mythical character they had invented, they certainly wouldn’t have gone out of their way to invent his being a criminal who had been executed.

In like manner, people do not go out of their way to invent difficulties for a character they have invented. It is clear from the Nativity narratives of the gospels of Matthew and Luke that they were faced with having to explain why Jesus grew up in Galilee if he was born in Bethlehem. Both gospels had to invent rather convoluted means to get Jesus born in Bethlehem in accordance with the messianic prophecy in Micah 5:2, then get him moved to Nazareth. Clearly they were stuck with a real person known to have come from Galilee, when he should have come from Bethlehem. Had they been making Jesus up out of whole cloth, they would simply have said he came from Bethlehem: end of story, no complications. So the evidence for Jesus as a real, historical personage, though meager, is solid.

A Roman Plot?

Considering that Part II of Zeitgeist asserts that the destruction of the World Trade Center was a conspiracy on the part of the powers that be, and that Part III is an attack on the Federal Reserve Board and income tax as unconstitutional plots devised by hidden powers bent on reducing all of us to poverty, one might wonder why Peter Joseph even bothered to open his film with an attack on Jesus and Christianity. Summing up at the end of Part I, Joseph asserts that Christianity was, in fact, developed by the Romans as a means of social control. He cites the Council of Nicaea in 325 as the beginning of this social control. So this is the connection between Part I and the rest of the film: Everything you’ve ever believed to be true is all a pack of lies foisted on you by the secret manipulators who really run things. They faked the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon to manipulate us into a war. They are undermining our financial and other freedoms through manipulation of our money and — guess what?! — they’ve been at it since the creation of Christianity, back in the time of the Roman Empire!

Zeitgeist is The Da Vinci Code on steroids.

Source.

The Best Damn Atheist Book on the Market Today, Bar None, Hands Down, Without Question!

[Written By John W.Loftus] I just finished reading cultural anthropologist Dr. David Eller's magnificient book Atheism Advanced. Let me say that as far as offering us significant new insights into what atheism is all about, Eller's book is the best damn book out there, bar none, hands down, without question.

If you value my advice at all you need to read this book. It is absolutely brilliant! While I'm not yet convinced of everything he argues for, the book has challenged my own thinking on the issues he writes about. If you want an intellectual feast, get this book. Every atheist should read it. If you are a Christian apologist you need to deal with his book. No Christian apologist in the future worthy of being called an apologist should be without Eller's book and be able to articulate some kind of lame response to it (because that's the only response apologists will be able to give it).

Eller does not deal with many issues that other atheist books cover (like philosophical arguments against the existence of God, the problem of evil, and so forth), so you'll still want other atheist books as well. It's just that his book is on my limited essential list of atheist books to have in your library.

This is the highest praise I have ever written about any book, and it's probably because after having read so many atheist books I thought I had read up on most of the issues, but I was wrong. I learned a great deal from Eller's book even after having read so many other works of this nature that it took me completely by surprise.

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

You can read an earlier post describing what I thought of the first six chapters right here, where you can also watch an interview with him. I also wrote on one his arguments right here.

You can order the book here on amazon.

Is God (θεός) Himself an Atheist?

Lets first get a working definition. atheist: noun, One who denies the existence of God.
(Since this definition is based on the Western concept of monotheism, we might expand it to include the Hindu religion or one who denies the existence of any gods.)

What is clear from the growth of the theological tradition in the Biblical text is that the early God of the Hebrews was one of many Semitic gods found in the pantheon usually located atop a high mountain peaks such as the Biblical Sinai or Horeb and it is within this polytheistic society that the first Commandment of Exodus 20 was written.

[An Excursion: The Evolution of “God” in the LXX: A Note on Genesis 1:1

In the early epic cycles in the Hebrew Bible, not only in J and E in in Genesis and Exodus, but as redacted in the Tribal League epics in the Deuteronomistic History of the Tetratuch, the concept of the deity of the Hebrews / Israelites moves from a local god who is but one member of a pantheon of gods which create the world (הארץ) for his people which he rules over to a latter universal single monotheistic deity of the LXX drawn from the Classical Greek concept of θεός.

Genesis 1: 1



This plural form of god is emended in the Old Greek and carried in to the LXX as:
εν αρχη εποιησεν ο θεος τον ουρανον και την γην

(Note: אלהים the plural masculine of אל or singular for god (see: Marvin Pope excellent comments in his classical study: El in the Ugaritic Text, EJ Brill 1955; pp. 1 - 21 and for a more up to date study see: John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (Sheffield Academic Press, 2000)

Genesis 1: 1 clearly states that the world of the Hebrews was formed by a polytheistic assembly of gods just as one would expect in the Semitic cuneiform text of the ancient Near East such as the Enuma Elish.

How in the hell does אלהיםwith יהוהequal κύριος ὁ θεός? I would emphatically state that during Israel’s evolution from polytheism to monotheism has totally eclipsed the Semitic etymology here in favor of the non-Semitic Greek. ]

Since Yahweh demands the Hebrews / Israelites put him first over all the other gods (Please note: Nowhere does Yahweh say these other gods don’t exist, but rather that only he alone wants to be their god-king). Thus, it is plainly obvious that Yahweh himself believes in other gods just a these other gods also believed in him or (to put it another way; Yahweh is not an atheist). Thus, under Josiah’s reforms, all other Beth El’s or other Houses of Gods must be destroyed thus cutting off their food and leaving only Israel’s leading god’s (Yahweh) temple in Jerusalem alone honored with sacrifices.

In conclusion, when we come to the LXX and the New Testament (which is based on the LXX) we do not find Yahweh as simply another god fearing other deities of the Israelites anymore (or even the name Yahweh itself), but an alone and the only real Theos who himself no longer believes in any other living deities, but considers all other forms of competing gods simply worthless and dead idols (See the atheistic theologies to wards other gods in the Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul’s theology). Put another way, the Theos of the New Testament is now fully an atheist when it comes to belief in any god or gods!

Here a some closing questions to consider:

A. When did Yahweh lose his faith / belief in other Gods?

B. Why does the atheistic Theos (θεός) feel that the religious belief of the Semitic Yahweh was wrong?

C. Does the atheistic Greek Theos even deny the ancient Semitic, but religious
(faithfully believing) Yahweh himself?

D. Can the Biblical text reconcile the atheistic Theos with Yahweh’s faith in other gods? (Can the LXX and its later sibling (the New Testament) ever be really reconciled with the MT text? As I have already pointed out, to say that אלהים יהוה equals κύριος ὁ θεός is simply etymologically apologetic crap!)

Guest Post by William Lobdell: Deconstructing Criticism

With the launch of my book tomorrow, I’m starting to read and hear an increasing amount of criticism–something I expected with a memoir titled, Losing My Religion. They have their opinion; I have mine. Fair enough. But I thought I’d take a stab at answering some of the most popular criticisms.

Criticism: You’re anti-religious or anti-Christian. I’m not. I miss my faith. But I can’t believe what I feel in my heart (and see with my eyes) is untrue. I believe I’ve found the truth, but have enough humility (and experience) to know I need to keep my eyes open for new information that could reshape my views. So far, in my three years as an out-of-the-closet atheist, the evidence has continued to pile up against a personal God who intervenes in my life. In the end, I’m anti-hypocrisy–especially when the hypocrites operate under the guise of God.

Criticism: You are trying to lead people away from God and/or Jesus Christ. Not really. This is just my story. I’m really hoping my journey will let folks know it’s normal to wrestle with doubts and also to get people to think more about faith and its shortcomings. Some of the biggest fans of my memoir have been pastors and other reformers who think the Body of Christ has grown soft and could use the wake up call. Christianity would make a whole lot more sense to me if Christians acted like they really believed the message of the Gospel.

Criticism: You’ve confused the sinfulness of man with a perfect God. This is condescending. In Christian theology, I understand the difference between God and fallen man. And I know that means Christian institutions, run by humans, won’t be perfect. But the argument falls apart on several levels. First, despite man’s fallen nature, Christian institutions should behave in a manner morally superior than their secular counterparts. I didn’t see much difference. But that not even where I lost my faith. That fact only caused me to start questioning other aspects of Christianity: why Christians behave basically the same as atheists in terms of morals and ethics; why no studies show that prayer works; why God gets credit for answered prayers and no blame to tragedies; and why the Bible is filled with a litany of bizarre punishments (death for working on the Sabbath, for one), a wrathful God who wipes out whole populations; why Christianity would be the one true faith out of the 1,000 of religions past and present; how God could be both merciful and just (the notions are contradictory); and even why Jesus didn’t speak out against slavery (in fact, he only says they should be beaten less). Eventually, my faith collapsed under the weight of all the evidence against it. I’d say as a Christian, I had mistaken a man-made creation for one developed by a loving God.

Criticism: You were never really a serious Christian, so you didn’t really lose your faith, you never had it. I’d agree with half that statement. I didn’t really lose my faith in the sense that you can’t lose something that didn’t exist. But I indeed was a serious Christian for more than a dozen years. I went to church weekly. I was member of a small men’s group that studied the Bible. I went on retreats. I read the Bible daily. I prayed several times a day. I read scores of Christian books. I don’t see how anyone could argue that I didn’t take my faith seriously. I think it helps critics to paint me as a half-ass Christian because then I’m easily dismissed.

Criticism: You’re just trying to sell books. I do want to sell a bzillion books, but that doesn’t change my experiences or my de-conversion journey. I also find it funny that Christians never accuse Christian authors–who make a fabulous living off their books–of “just trying to sell books.”

Criticism: You’ve consigned yourself to an eternity in hell. Look, I’ve tried my hardest to hang on to my faith. I just don’t have it. If there happens to be a Christian God and, given the circumstances, he still sends me to an eternity in hell, then what kind of loving God is that? Does that make sense to anyone? What kind of person are you worshipping? More likely, if I’m wrong and there is a loving God, I imagine he would look at me and said, “Son, I know how hard you struggled to believe. I’m very proud of your effort. I love you. Let’s spend eternity together.” What would you do as a loving father?

I didn’t write this post to sway critics. I’m guessing they are locked into their beliefs. But I do think there are a lot of people in live in shades of gray. I at least wanted to give those people something to think about.

- William Lobdell

The Buckle on The Bible Belt Loosens Again

NC Presbyterians Vote To Approve Ordaining Homosexuals

RALEIGH, N.C. -(NBC NEWS 17)
Presbyterian Church leaders in central North Carolina have approved a measure to let gays and lesbians in partnered relationships be ordained.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reports that the amendment was approved Saturday by a vote of 177 to 139 with 10 abstentions during a meeting in Cary of the New Hope Presbytery church leaders.

"The mood at the presbytery meeting was while we differ on this issue, and are committed as Christians to vote our conscience, we also are committed to finding ways to live together with our differences," said the Rev. Joseph Harvard, pastor of Durham Presbyterian. "I don't think it's a radical shift in the presbytery."

The measure must be approved by a majority of the nation's 173 presbyteries and conservative congregations including those in Charlotte and western North Carolina have already approved the amendment.

Gays and lesbians can be ordained within the 2.2-million-member Presbyterian Church (USA), but they must remain chaste as church standards forbid sex outside of traditional marriage between a man and woman.

The standard applies to clergy and lay people in the Presbyterian church who participate as deacons and elders. But even if the standard is struck down, individual churches will not be required to ordain partnered gays and lesbians. It would just give those who want to the freedom to do so.

Still, the issue has divided many churches. At least one church, Raleigh's Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church, has lost members who formed a new congregation allied with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in protest of the change.

But the Rev. Moffit Churn, associate pastor at West Raleigh Presbyterian, said Saturday's meeting was not divisive.

"We all held hands and sang 'Blessed be the Tie that Binds' in the Presbyterian way," the Rev. Moffit Churn, associate pastor at West Raleigh Presbyterian, told the newspaper. "The voice of the middle ground is being heard, at least in this presbytery. That was my sense."

Votes have to be completed by June, but half the nation's presbyteries will have voted by the end of this month.

Problems of Mountains

Word has it that young Timothy Collins of Woodward, Kentucky got chewed out by his father Harry after last Wednesday night's Bible Study. Both father and son are members of the Woodward Street Church where it's no secret that Harry Collins runs a tight ship as an active and devoted member of the church and father.

"I got on my son for talking like an atheist." said Harry. What Timothy did was make reference to it being a fortunate turn of events that a mountain had formed nearby. A big, bearded Harry, being a photographer, was capturing an image of a beautiful tree-covered mountainside. "And my son made it sound like the mountain was 'just there.' That's atheist talk, and it won't be permitted in my home."

Being slightly puzzled, a bright young Timothy clarified his father's position for us: "My dad got mad at me because I made it sound like mountains 'just are.' But nothing 'just is.' As Christians, we are forced to believe that everything that happens happens for a purpose. All things are made of God, from the design of curvitures running along the deepest sea floors to the arrangement of obscure dust particles on the dark side of the moon. My dad was right to get on me. The secular public schools teach a lot of wrong and evil things, and look how they have influenced my thinking."

"It's ok, son." Harry said, nodding with approval at his son's words, and then continuing: "The secular schools are full of atheists who profess themselves to be wise, but are fools. They think they are smarter than God. Think about how atheists perceive a mountain; to an atheist, a mountain is just a bunch of dirt that got pushed up when things got steaming hot under the earth's surface, causing a raising up of the ground. And that the mountain is 'tall' means nothing to an atheist because atheists think 'tall' is just a perceptual difference and that the mountain isn't really big or little. Everything is relative to an atheist. They have no objective standards. We Christians happen to know that God made all things purposely and according to his will, and in the case of mountains, he made them so that we could be impressed with their size and marvel at his creative power (Psalm 65:5). This was the same reason he created big, worthless planets and put them in orbit in space (Psalm 19:1-6). They don't do anything, but God wanted us to get smart and build telescopes and look up at the sky and say, 'Wow, those are big! God must be great!' And without mountains, how could Moses have gone up to Mt. Horeb to speak to God and get the ten commandments? So there is another reason why God made mountains."

Jumping in, young Timothy said: "And the Lord has revealed to me a third reason for why God made mountains. It was so that Jesus could mention it in Matthew 21:21 where Jesus said: 'Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.'"

Amazed, Harry said: "That's my boy! I sure am proud of him. He's no atheist, that's for sure! But the lesson to take from this is how atheism is never very far from invading our thinking the moment we start to use our minds. That's how atheism starts - with us thinking of natural reasons for why things happen - and then it progresses to making people say things like this or that 'always was' or 'just is.' And when you have a natural explanation for something, tell me, why do you need a supernatural one? What need is there for God once you've explained the world naturally?"

"Atheists think that the matter composing the universe just is and has always been while we believers understand that you have to go back one more step and say that God -- an unknown phantom spook -- just is and has always been. That's the true position; God created everything and everything needs a creator except for God. He just exists all by himself some way. That's how Christians reason, and that's how God wants us to reason. Stay away from secular reasoning. It will only lead to atheism and then to Hell. It is an unfortunate fact that using the brains God gave us to reason with can send us to burn forever. So try not to reason, except perhaps when reason agrees with the Bible. Then it's ok."

(JH)

Christianity is the Believer's Social Life, That's All it Is, Was or Ever Will Be

On a Christian Blog I had the following exchange today. See what you think:

czechaitian, said...I see Jesus as my center, empirically speaking, because it works for me-- makes sense of my experience, focuses my decision making, teaches me foundation and relationship and commitment, opens practical life opportunities. Why would anyone put something/someone at the center of their lives or mature toward something if that "something" is not producing measurable results?

My response:

For you Christianity is your social life. That's all it is. That's all it ever is. It does not require you to explain how God can think (since thinking demand weighing temporal alternatives); it doesn't require you to explain how three persons of the trinity just happened to be united who have always existed as a single Godhead; it doesn't ask you to explain why God created something in the first place given the amount of horrible suffering in the world and the fact that he was supposedly perfect in love neither needing nor wanting anything; it doesn't ask you to explain the criteria for the human DNA chosen that made up Jesus's body (since Joseph was not supplying any); it doesn't ask you to explain how Jesus is 100% man and 100% God with nothing left over; it doesn't require you to explain where the human resurrected body of Jesus will spend eternity (can it simply be discarded since this Jesus was sinless, or does a trinue God now have a member who is embodied forever); it doesn't ask you to explain how a cannabalized body can be resurrected; it doesn't ask you to explain why a supposedly timeless God now chooses to live forever in time subsequent to creation lest all of the results of human history disappear; it doesn't ask you to explain much of anything crucial to what you believe, and I could go on and on and on.

You believe because you worship in a community of other believers who give meaning to your life. Take you out of that community for a few months or more, read some books, and your faith could suffer and even die. A faith like yours should be sustainable apart from the Christian community of believers but you'll never attempt this, will you?

Christianity Simply Reinvents Itself Over and Over in Every Generation

One of my problems with the Christian faith is that in every generation it reinvents itself to face the challenges of each generation. One would think that if a faith that was "once and for all delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3) this wouldn't be the case.

Christian theology has changed so much that one would not even recognize the Christianities of the first century or two.

Let me just mention some theological changes:

Creation - Not until around 200-700 AD did the church accept creation ex-nihilo.
Hell - From fire and brimstone to the absence of God to annihilation
Baptism - Probably from Immersion to sprinkling; from adults to infants.
Atonement - From ransom to satisfaction to penal-substitutionary to moral influence to relationship theories
Predestination - Possibly "mixed" to Calvinism to Arminianism to Calvinism back to Arminianism
Christology - From Paul to Chalcedon to Kenotic theories
Inspiration - From who knows what to mechanical to verbal-plenary to inerrancy to neo-orthodoxy.
Women - From servants who obey in quietness to teachers and ministers and professors
Slavery - From Paul (Philemon) to southern Slavery to abolition to anti-racism.

There are other theological ideas not mentioned, and there are many details to fill in about these particular ideas, but I dare say if today's Christians went back in time to first century Christianities they would not fit in, nor would they be considered orthodox in most Christian communities. Most all Christians today would actually reject the Christianities of the past. They would reject their theologies, their ethics, and perhaps their church polity (not mentioned previously). In fact, they would simply reject the Christianities of the past!

But what happened is that the church reinvented herself over and over in every generation in response to the challenges of her day. The church and her theology is like a chameleon to me in this respect. But the point is that it changed so slowly that few notice in today's world these drastic changes. Christians today wouldn't even admit that many of the earliest Christianites would be considered Christianity at all! And I know for a fact that the Christianites that will exist in the future will almost certainly be considered strange to the Christianites that exist right now.

I'm not looking for an explanation here, although I know what Christians will say. I'm simply pointing out that Christianity today is probably so far removed from the earliest Christianities that this is evidence that the church is a human not divine organization, one that flows downstream along with the history of human intellectual and cultural life. And I'm claiming this will continue to be true in the future too. At 54 years old I myself have seen these changes slowly take place inside the evangelical church for instance, with "Open Theism," the "Emergent Church," eschatological "Preterism," and an acceptance of babies out of wedlock, divorce in the church, abortion, homosexuality, and so forth.

So I ask, which Christianity is the correct one? There are a multitude of them which exist today all claiming to be the true church, but most all of the present ones would reject most all of the ones in the past, certainly the earliest ones.

Do church history. Do historical theology. It'll probably change your views about the church being a divine institution. It's not at all. The evidence suggests otherwise. Follow the evidence, okay?

Guest Post by William Lobdell: "Without a Doubt"

(Editor’s note: William Lobdell’s memoir—Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace—hits the bookstores Tuesday.)

Without a Doubt, By William Lobdell

When I wrote an essay for the Los Angeles Times in 2007 about how I lost my faith reporting on religion in America, I prepared for an avalanche of criticism. I was sure I’d be branded a tool of Satan or worse.

As any religion writer will tell you, reporters on the faith beat get the nastiest hate mail and phone calls in the newsroom. In my eight years reporting on religion for The Times, I had people of God cuss me out, threaten me, put up a creepy website designed to “bring Lobdell down,” and predict with a great deal of satisfaction that I would spend eternity in hell.

When my essay was published, I was right about one thing: the response was huge. People read about my 20-year journey from evangelical Christian to reluctant atheist and sent e-mails in record numbers to the paper and to me. I personally received nearly 3,000 messages—a record for a single story at The Times. But here’s what I didn’t expect. The vast majority of them—I’m talking 99 percent—were supportive in their own way.

Some Christians tried to reconvert me, sending me books, tapes, videos and testimonies that formed a small mountain on my desk. Others readers suggested I try their faith, claiming I’d find spiritual peace as a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Unitarian, Jehovah’s Witness, and Mormon. The atheists welcomed me into the fold (though some pointed out that it took me an awful long time to get to the obvious truth).

But most readers simply thanked me for honestly expressing my doubts about faith and revealing how tortured and helpless I felt as I lost my once-firm grip on Christianity. Many had privately wrestled with their own demons before keeping or leaving their faith. But they all said talking openly about doubt was discouraged—at their place of worship and their home. Several e-mails came from pastors who no longer believed in God but felt they couldn’t tell a soul. Another arrived from deep inside the Vatican. All said they felt like outcasts with no place to turn.

It reminded me of Mother Teresa, one of the most revered religious persons of our time. She symbolized for millions the beauty of Christian devotion, sacrifice, holiness and works. But she suffered excruciating doubt. Recently published letters in Come By My Light reveal that she felt absent from God for the last 50 years of her life.

Frustrated, ashamed, and sometimes in doubt about God’s existence, Mother Teresa kept her spiritual crisis a secret from everyone but a few spiritual mentors.

“Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead,” she wrote in 1953.

“Jesus has a very special love for you,” she assured one mentor in 1979. “[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand.”

If Mother Teresa doubted God’s existence for five decades, imagine how many people of all faiths secretly harbor doubts about their religion. Several recent studies have shown that there’s little difference in the moral behavior of evangelical Christians and atheists. I’d argue that’s because both groups don’t really believe, deep down, that God is real.

So it’s time for religious doubt to come out of the closet and be dealt openly and thoughtfully. I was honored (and a little surprised) that Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena made my essay required reading for faculty and students. Seminary leaders wanted to address the issue of doubt head-on, which is the healthy course to take. If Christianity is true, its teachers can dispel just about any doubt.

I have a different theory. I think there are so many closet doubters because people sense there’s no God who personally intervenes in their lives. But they can’t take the final step toward deism, agnosticism or atheism because the religious ties that bind us are thick. I know. I was a closet atheist for four years.

Optimistic Christians ask me if the outpouring of concern, love and support after my original essay was published restored my faith in religion. It didn’t. But it did give me a new appreciation of humanity. Most of us are doubters to one degree or another. And there’s comfort in knowing you’re not alone.

Why Are Women More Religious Than Men?

What do you think?

I'm Considered "One of Atheism’s Top Apologists."

That's what an important Christian radio program billed me as, seen here, concerning an upcoming interview on March 1st.

Skeptically Speaking

As some of you know, for about five years I've been a monthly instructional columnist for what I consider to be the best national billiard magazine in America. I'm not too bad at pool, as you would guess.

Last night during our local league play, someone was getting up a game of ringer nine-ball. It's a gambling game in which several people can play. I've played it with as many people as 9 players! Anyone who sinks the 5-ball gets $1 from everyone, and anyone who sinks the 9-ball gets $2 from everyone. If there are five players and I run the rack I get $12 (4 times $3). [Sometimes the bet is $2 on the 5-ball and $5 on the 9]. When you first get into the game you start last, so sometimes you'll have to pay out some money before you even get a chance on a good decent shot. Sometimes even when you get a shot it's a really tough one since you follow a shooter who may miss and accidentally leave you really bad. I got into the game after it started and paid out some money waiting for my first decent shot. Players must get lucky again and again to get other decent shots in subsequent games. Eventually I won about $25. But while I was paying out I called it "the devil's game." That's what it's called because you must get lucky to get some decent shots on the money balls. Depending on how much money you have and how many players are in the game you may never get one before you run out of disposable cash. But when I said it was "the devil's game" a friend of mine said, "Yeah, right, an atheist believes in the devil."

This event reminded me of what I am reading in Dr. David Eller's fantastic book Atheism Advanced. He argues convincingly that western cultures are dominated by Christian language, rituals, symbols, arts, music, habits, and so forth. It's as if we are almost imprisoned in it. He writes:

"We find in practice that atheists in Christian-dominated societies speak and think in Christian terms just as surely as Christians do. We let Christianity set the agenda, identify the questions, and provide the language of the debate. We quite literally 'speak Christian' just as fluently and just as un-self-consciously as they do."

Eller continues:

"We need to stop speaking Christian so as to loosen the grip of Christian language on our thinking....We do well to begin our debunking of religion with a debunking of religious terminology."

While I cannot begin to tell you all of the specifics of his brilliant analysis, and there is much more to it, I learned last night he is right. I'm going to make a conscious effort to avoid all religious and Christian terminology for starters. In pool we also speak about "the pool gods," as a metaphor for good luck. When we cuss sometimes we'll say "God damn it," or "Go to hell."

No more.

Dr. David Eller Interviewed About His Sure to be a Classic Book, Atheism Advanced

[Written by John W. Loftus]  David Eller's book Atheism Advanced should be in every atheist library. I thought I had read up on most every issue concerning the philosophy of religion before reading his book, but I was wrong, dead wrong. His passionate analysis is significant and thought provoking in every single chapter I've read so far (thru chapter six). I think Eller should be the new spokesman for atheism and invited to speak at every atheist conference. I think Christians need to deal with the power of his arguments.

In my book I argue against a specific religious viewpoint likened to a small limb growing out of the very large tree of religion. I'm not arguing against animism, animatism, nor ancestor worship, ethical non-theism (like Buddhism) nor the many polytheistic gods and goddesses, nor do I argue against other monotheisms like the several branches of Judaism or Islam, nor do I argue against whatever original Christianities believed, nor liberalism, nor deism. No. I'm arguing against a small sect in time, evangelical Christianity. And among evangelicals themselves there is no consensus about true Christianity, relegating certain other branches as "cults." Christianity is best understood as a "local Christianity," one situated in a particular time and place held by particular localized people. What a particular Christian believes is a hybrid coming from schism after schism and the conclusions of hindsight through the process of syncretism. Eller effectively argues that Christians believe in a local Christianity or no Christianity at all.

While I argue specifically about the dominant American fundamentalist or evangelical view in my book, Dr. Eller argues against religion itself. Along the way Eller advances (or promotes) our understanding of just what atheism is. [Hint, atheism is not just a view that stands in contrast with the dominant religious view of any particular society. Atheism in Hindu countries would be a-Hinduist, while atheism in Christian countries would be considered a-Christian. But this cannot be what atheism is about!] We atheists have allowed the dominant religious view of our societies to set the definition for what atheism is, and even the language we use to debate the issues, Eller argues. Why is it that most debates in western cultures are debates on such topics as “Christianity vs. Atheism”? Eller wants us to think in larger terms than that. From reading what Eller says the real debate should be set in terms of “Christianity vs. Itself,” since there are so many branches of it, or “Christianity vs. All Other Religions,” since that’s the proper way to think about religion (can you imagine a Christian wanting to debate that topic with an atheist??). Eller writes: “Nothing is more destructive to religion than other religions; it is like meeting one’s own anti-matter twin.” (p. 233).

Eller also argues that there is no specific “Science vs. Religion” problem either, since some religions do not believe in any personal god, and because religious believers are not against most scientific disciplines. Believers are only opposed to those scientific disciplines that come into direct conflict with their own specific religious claims. Some religions don’t even have a creation theory! Surely religious believers are not opposed to quantum theory or gravitational theory or meteorology or botany or gemology (the study of gems), for starters. They are only opposed to specific claims within physics and biology when science crosses over into the arbitrary and sacred/profane boundary of specific religious claims. Religious believers are not opposed to science as a whole, just some aspects of it! So the debate is not about science vs. religion but rather about specific local religions vs specific scientific claims.

There is much more to his book. Every person interested in these issues (both believer and non-believer) should get and read and discuss it. I consider his book essential for understanding these issues. Eller writes well, is passionate, intelligent, and offers very powerful arguments against religion as a whole. In the process he more than adequately advances atheism. This book is destined to be a classic work.

Dealing With More Christian Heuristics.

In a recent comment a Christian Guest said the following.

I do know why some of my friends can't see God;
- generally it comes down to either not wanting to,
- or insisting that if God doesn't follow their rules, he doesn't exist.
- All I can do is testify that for me, it's obvious...

You know why some of your friends can't see God. How do you know? Would they agree with you?

- generally it comes down to either not wanting to,
So if they don't want to, but they really believe they will be punished by experiencing the worst thing ever after they die, then they are crazy aren't they?
Its like they are headed into a burning building but don't believe they will get burned right? Are they crazy, or do they just not believe anything will happen?
In the case of the burning building, we can demonstrate that something will happen. We can demonstrate that they are crazy and should be restrained from harming themselves. In the case of God, we can't.

Can a person be blamed for not believing in something?
Where is the tipping point between a simple agreement to accept and a belief? A belief is an unconscious commitment to an idea. A belief is something that you can't change consciously. It is an unconscious decision. But it will be demonstrated by the action of the person.

- or insisting that if God doesn't follow their rules, he doesn't exist.
What are Gods Rules?
What are your friends Rules?

More importantly, what are YOUR rules?
What is the difference in those rules? How many of those rules match up with each other? What is the overlap? I'll bet a lot of the compassionate ones do and a lot of the barbaric ones do not.

Is it GODS rule to blame people for not believing?
Is it YOUR rule to blame people for not believing?

Is it GODS rule to blame people for not understanding?
Is it YOUR rule to blame people for not understanding?

What are GODS responsibilities to get people to believe?
What are YOUR responsibilities if you want someone to believe anything?

What are GODS responsibilities to get people to understand?
What are YOUR responsibilities to get someone to understand something?

Is it GODS rule that he will make defective products?
Is it YOUR rule that you will make defective products?

How do your Rules match up with Gods?
What are the differences? How does the percentage of how many of your rules match gods compare with how many of your friends rules match Gods?
If he has no responsibility, and he understands us better than anyone, what was the point in making us at all? What is the point of making defective products? So that they can NOT PERFORM the actions that they are NOT ABLE to perform because they are defective?

Ask yourself why is it that Microsoft outperforms Christianity in the adoption of its product,
or electric light bulbs or blood donation, or chemotherapy or vaccinations. Its because by way of experience, people make the commitment unconsciously that it is the right thing to do.

If god can't get better than 35% adoption rate over 2000 years for his product, its his own fault.
But thats what we would expect if the hype doesn't match the experience. If the experience matched the Hype, you'd see as many Christians as Automobiles.

- All I can do is testify that for me, it's obvious;
I can see the horse in the clouds. Can you?
I believe that it has all the characteristics of a real horse, but do you?
I will walk into that burning building (rhetorically speaking) because I don't believe anything will happen, will you?
Why would I do that?

Why do you believe and the other 65% of the world doesn't?
If its true, why are you in the minority worldwide in your belief in the product of Christianity? If it represents the real world, why do so many people disregard it?
Maybe they've cross-checked it with other data and discovered irreconcilable discrepancies?
Or maybe 65% of the world is Crazy and you aren't?

Please Do Not Feed The "Trolls"

"Feeding the Trolls" is a type of Social Engineering, aka manipulation of well meaning guests. Every now and then a "troll" comes along and makes comments that are in poor taste and meant to generate responses from other commenters. We will clean up the blog after one of these events, but I request that when a troll makes a comment that it be ignored because If a troll makes one comment and it gets 2 responses, then 66% percent of the mess is caused by well meaning guests. It takes less time to only have to clean up after the troll. This is simply something we'll have to live with as long as we permit real time free and open discussions.

Seven Steps to Recovery

Hello Everyone,

This is a summary outline I've come up with for recovering from authoritarian religions like fundamentalist Christianity. In my years of counseling experience, I've found that for a lot of people (not everyone), the leaving process takes time and has some important steps. This outline is not meant to be a formula or cover the issues in depth, but I hope it is useful for you to think about.

Kind regards,
Marlene Winell

1. Get Real.
Be honest with yourself about whether your religion is working for you. Let go of trying to force it to make sense. Have a look at life and the world AS IT IS, and stop trying to live in a parallel universe. This world might not be perfect but facing reality will help you get your life on track. If you feel guilty, realize that the religion teaches you to feel responsible when it isn’t working and tells you to go back and try harder, just like an abusive relationship.



2. Get a Grip.
Don’t panic. The fear you feel is part of the indoctrination. All those messages about what will happen to you if you leave the religion are a self-serving part of the religion. If you calm down, you’ll be just fine. Many people have been through this.

3. Get Informed.
Do everything you can to educate yourself. You are free to read and expose yourself to all the knowledge in the world – history, philosophy, other religions, mythology, anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, and more. In particular, read about how the Bible was put together and church history. Read authors who have explained why they deconverted. Many websites have deconversion stories and helpful reading lists.

4. Get Help.
Find support in any way you can. Explore online forums to discuss issues with others leaving their religion. Join a supportive group in your area. If necessary, find a therapist who understands or go to a recovery retreat. Do the work to heal the wounds of religious abuse.

5. Get a Life.
Rebuild your life around new values and engage fully with your choices. Develop your identity as you learn to love and trust yourself. Take responsibility and create the life that works for you – in work, family, leisure, social – all the areas of commitment that make a life structure. If you still want a spiritual life, define it for yourself. Venture into the “world” for new experiences and new friends. This will take time but you can do it.

6. Get With the Program.
Welcome to the human race. Accept the idea that Earth is your home and humanity is your true family. If you aren't part of a special group that is leaving, consider what that means for you. You may want to participating in larger concerns to make the world a better place, such as caring for the environment or working for social justice. Let go of expecting God to take care of all the problems. You can begin with knowing your neighbors.

7. Get Your Groove On.
Reclaim enjoyment of sensation and pleasure as you relax with the idea of being an animal like all the others on Earth. Learn to be present here and now. Discover all the ways to appreciate nature. Enjoy and love other people instead of judging. Reclaim your creativity and express yourself any way you like, not just to “glorify God.” Love your body and take care of it. Embrace this life instead of worrying about the next. Sing and dance and laugh for no reason except Being Alive.


Marlene Winell, Ph.D., is a psychologist who works in religious recovery, and the author of Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion. Information about counseling services and weekend retreats can be found at marlenewinell.net

"Seek And Ye Shall Find: The Atheist Doesn't Do It Right"

This is yet another Christian Heuristic that "blames the victim" in the same way as "if you don't understand it, its your fault". Some qualifiers are missing in that statement, mainly SCOPE and DEFINITION but also the ACTIONS of the AGENTS DOING THE SEARCH and AGENTS BEING SEARCHED FOR. What are the responsibilities of the Agents? What is the definition of "a comprehensive" search? And how will you know when you find it? There must be a description to go by or how will one know when they've found it?

Principles Of Searching.
Searching is a comparison of a description to something else. The more specific the search criteria are, the more likely a successful match will be found. Its Baysian in the sense that one has to make decisions about each clue such as "what is the likelihood that I am having success given such and such indication". But it gets even easier if a human is searching for a person, or a pet. When they are searching for each other they take actions to expedite the search and when they see each other, they make contact in an unambiguous way.

The Critical Question Generators: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
John Searle, a philosopher of mind is quoted as saying that he has a maxim that is summed up as "if you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself". I live by that and it has served me well since I first heard it.
So now, lets get a grip on the scope of the search.

- How do you know?
- How is the search carried out?
- How will we know when we find it?
- How long should we expect to look?
- What do you have to go on?
- What actions should the seeker take? What are the seekers responsibilities?
- What actions should the one being sought take? What are the responsibilities of the one being sought?
- What are we looking for? Does it exist? What does it look like, feel like, taste like, smell like, sound like?
- What are some false indictations that may fool us?
- Who says?
- Who are we searching for? Do they exist?
- Who made it? Who originated it? Who lost it? Who hid it?
- Why do you say that?
- Why isn't it obvious?
- Why are we looking? What is the benefit?
- When did it happen?
- When is it happening?
- When should the search take place? What is the best time? When was it lost? When did it originate?
- Where did it happen?
- Where will it happen?
- Where is it happening?
- Where is the search carried out?

Its always good to check the answers to these critical questions with another pass through the critical question generator to do a "reality check".

Searching For The Most Beautiful Work Of Art
I challenge anyone to go find the most beautiful art work in their nearest museum. I challenge anyone to do an experiment where peple are asked before they go in to find and report back which is the most beautiful art work in the museum. There will not be a consensus. A percentage of people will pick a particular work of art but not all will pick the same work of art. If they are given some criteria to look for and If the searchers report back that they've matched the criteria to a work of art, then its likely what they've identified is not what they think is the most beautiful work of art. Its someone else's idea of the most beautiful work of art.

If they should be told what the criteria are, then where did the criteria come from? Who derived them? Were they qualified to derive them? Do the criteria accurately reflect what the seeker holds as being characteristics of the most beautiful work of art?

Searching For Jesus
So if one must seek Jesus to find Jesus, and one was convinced that they found Jesus but had second thoughts, changed their mind and became an apostate, then what they found must have only matched the description superficially. They must have made a mistake.

Searching is a comparison of a description to something else.
So since its possible to mistake something else for Jesus, the description needs to be more specific as to what it is that should be used as criteria for the search. How will one know it? How long should one look before one can conclude that one is not looking in the right place and have to move on? How long should one have to look for a being that is waiting for another or maybe even looking for that other?

If two people, pets or combination want to find each other, they take some actions to expedite the search.
Why should one have to look for more than a minute for a supernatural being that can do anything to make its presence known to someone? Why would it let someone incorrectly identify something when it knows that the seeker will become discouraged and give up in some cases? Why is it easier for an owner to find their cat than Jesus? I'll bet more cats have been found across all categories of people than Jesus.

The Search for Jesus Violates Sound Principles Of Searching.
How can anyone be blamed for not recognizing what it is they are supposed to be looking for, or not finding something when they don't understand what it is they are looking for?

If the presumption is that God exists, then searching until he's found makes sense, but if he's waiting and looking for us, it doesn't make sense that he would hide or let himself be mistaken for something else. If God doesn't exist, then our poor results are what should be expected.

Happy Valentine's Day to My Wife!

The Bare Minimal Atheist Library!

In the sidebar I linked to six atheist books that could be the only ones you need in your library, given a limited budget. If you were to list only six atheist books on a limited budget, which ones would you list and why?

John Calvin Was Unfit to be a Christian Leader or Teacher of Doctrine!

That's right, so argues one informed Christian. I wholehearted agree.

A Critique of Pastor Dave Schmelzer's Central Thesis in His Book, Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist

Pastor Dave Schmelzer wrote a book called Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist. He and I have been interviewed together on a very popular and respectable Christian program called The Things That Matter Most (publication date March 1st). For a Christian program that's supposed to be fair with both sides, it wasn't. You'll be able to see for yourselves when they post it.

For now let me offer a critique of Pastor Dave Schmelzer's Four Stage faith typology, which can be read in detail right here. If you want to fully understand my critique you need to read what he wrote.

My critique:

This is all rhetoric and completely irrelevant to the truth claims of Christianity in any meaningful sense.

Dave improperly inserts atheism into a rebellious questioning third stage. But there are children who are brought up in good homes without any religious faith at all. Surely someone cannot say these children have been living all of their lives in the third rebellious stage. They were merely raised as non-believers. Only if they question their own atheism could someone say they are in stage three. So to be consistent, the third rebellious stage for the Christian would more properly describe backsliding or questioning Christians, since this is a spiritual four stage process, not a non-spiritual one.

The bottom line is that I could just as easily take these four stages of spiritual growth and apply them to Mormons.

Stage 1: criminal Mormons

Stage 2: rules-based Mormons

Stage 3: rebellious Mormons

Stage 4: mystical Mormons

So this has nothing to do with the truth claims of Mormonism or of Christianity.

The whole reason Dave argues this way is because he claims to have a relationship with an imaginary being. To me that’s representative of young children who play pretend games, not adult thinking, anyway.

To read our further exchange on the value of religious experience read this, leaving him with no reason to believe at all.

[Edited for additional comment below]

I think the four stage process Peck proposes simply represents a four stage personal maturity process. We never ever completely leave any of the earlier stages--sometimes they are necessary.

You can apply this maturity process to spirituality if you want to, or skepticism, or knowledge in general, so long as you keep the focus the same. I could just as easily say that all Christians are in stage 3 from a non-spiritual focus, for I think they are rebelling against the evidence, you see, and I do!

I know of skeptics who think Christians are stupid. I don't consider that a mature stage 4 understanding of the issues that separate us at all, although, I grant that some believers are stupid, as are some skeptics. There are people who think they have all the answers on both sides of this debate, and it is a debate! It's a debate about what to believe. It's a debate about what rules we should live by. And I have every right to rebel against the rules Christians set up, just as Christians might rebel against the rules I might set up. In fact, if atheism were the dominant view in society I could claim that Christians are stuck in stage 3! So you cannot circumvent this whole debate by punting to stage 4 faith. The debate remains regardless.

Let's be done then with this as a focus for describing anything about the content of what a person believes or knows. It doesn't at all. It merely describes the stages that mature adults go through. Some adults never move on to a more mature understanding, I know. But one can have a mature understanding of Islam or Mormonism or atheism too. That's why I describe myself as an "agnostic atheist." I'm not sure there isn't a God but I don't think so. Now that's a true stage 4 if there ever was one! Which Christian here would say the same thing? Which one would say "I think there is a God but I'm not sure"?

Why I'm Doing What I'm Doing

Many Christians just don't seem to understand my motivations for this blog and my book. Since they cannot grasp why I'm doing what I'm doing they falsely conclude I'm angry at God. But I'm no more angry with a God that doesn't exist than Christians are angry with Allah or Zeus. So let me explain one more time:

My Motivations

I backed into what I’m doing right now. I initially wanted to explain to people who knew me why I rejected the Christian faith, because several people were surprised about this and they wanted to know. To do this I self-published my first book to explain my reasons. At that point in my mind I was done with the Christian faith. I fully expected to get on with life. Unexpectedly though, I got noticed as a former student of William Lane Craig’s. It hadn’t occurred to me this was important, but people on both sides took notice of it. So I began engaging in the debate online and found the Christian reasoning lame and offensive in the circles I frequented. I was personally attacked by these Christians. This challenged me to no end. It made me want to go for the jugular vein of the faith that justified their abusive treatment of me. I wondered to myself whether they would light the fires that burned me at the stake in a previous century when the church had the power to do so. This made me think about the many heretics who suffered at the hands of Christians because of this same mentality. I decided at that point I would not let their blood be shed in vain, so I took up their cause. It became personal with me.

I began reading more and more skeptical books and found most of their attempts just as lame as the arguments of believers in defense of their faith. I like challenges. I like attempting and succeeding where others fail. That’s who I am. I wondered to myself if I could break through the barrier between Christian believers and non-believers and speak to believers in ways they could relate to. There were just too many authors on both sides of the fence who were merely “preaching to the choir,” so to speak, so I entered the fray with that goal in mind as well.

This probably explains my initial motivations the most.

Now I have additional motivations. I will cease to exist someday so I would like to know I made a difference in this world. I want to leave the world a better place. And I think a world with fewer believers will be a good thing. I want to help change the religious landscape. I believe there are inherent dangers with religious beliefs. I also want to help people who are struggling with their Christian faith to know there are others out there like me. I believe that life is better from my perspective, having been a former Christian myself. I can be more...well...human. And I think I am uniquely qualified to do what I'm doing as a former apologist for the Christian faith.

Other than that, my motivations are now as multifaceted as any author of any book. Like every author who spends a great deal of time writing a book, I’m pleased to hear that people are reading through it and are recommending it very highly. I'm pleased to be recognized by my peers. I also like being asked to speak for groups and to debate the issues between us.

So there you have it. It's not really that hard to understand, is it?

(Edited) TAG: An Informal Debate

Sye of www.proofthatgodexists.com will engage me on the Transcendental Argument from the Existence of God in the accompanying Comments section on my blog, found by clicking here. John has linked in his reply to other DC bloggers' replies to TAG, and does not wish at this time for the debate to continue on this blog, and I will honor his request by moving it to the linked blog above.

A Christian That Gets That Christians Don't Get God

RichD is one of our Christian commenters. No matter how much we disagree, we can always find a way to inject a little good humor into the dialog. He's smart, he expresses himself clearly, he doesn't seem to take it personally, he keeps his goal in view and he keeps a positive and humorous outlook which, in my view, exemplifies a "good Christian", adds tremendous value to the dialog, and to this blog in general. In my view RichD is one of the commenters that sets the standard.

In this comment from my article Heuristics and When Ones Values Are Out Of Sync With Ones Thinking, he's teasing me by using my name as a suffix. He's a pleasure to have around and I want to feature one of his comments where (for once) we do agree!

I say that Christians are Agnostic with a Bias for God and RichD seems to agree with me. He disagreed with a comment that another Christian named Logismous made and was providing a rebuttal to it. At the end of his comment he asks rhetorically if its not possible for Christians to come to an agreement on the Primary Tenet of Salvation. See what you think.

Hello Lee, Logismous,
I think I'll jump in, and most likely surprise you once again.

I think a key thing that comes up in all of this, and never really takes off, is as follows.



You, Lee, say you were once a Christian and lost your faith, so you obviously understand Christian doctrine. I think we could rule that part out of further discussions, even though I don't recall ever claiming this about you. Logis also claims to understand christian doctrine but not the same as lee, apparently (maybe that's apparentLee).

Logis added [the following bold italicized comment] that should clear everything up
If Christians disagree about things, it's not because we're not all listening to the same Holy Spirit, but because we each misunderstand Him in different ways. We actually claim that none of us understands Him well enough.



So obviousLee, no-one knows anything about God. Or did I miss something, because Logis also said she/he knows God because of the spirit that is always misunderstood differently by everyone. There that ought to clear things up.



So in reality we have a bunch of denominations of Christianity because they all have a different misunderstanding of the doctrine of Christ and they form their own groups based on these misunderstandings. Once saved always saved, saved by faith, saved by grace, saved by works, saved by faith and works, and so on. Which is exactLee what Lee, and others, are confused about.

How can anyone say they understand the doctrine of Christ if all Christendom claims to not understand it "well enough"? 

I agree that we don't understand everything about doctrine, but can't we get enough understanding to come to a consensus about the PRIMARY tenant of the gospel, Salvation?

Thank you RichD for agreeing with me for once, for constantly keeping me on my toes, and making me smile! Keep that BS detector calibrated and ever vigilant! I'll try not to set it off!

David Eller's Book, Atheism Advanced, Looks Like A Superior Book!

Frank Zindler just sent me Dr. Eller's new book Atheism Advanced, and it looks fantastic! [Eller is a cultural anthropologist who wrote the college textbook, Introducing Anthropology of Religion (Routledge, 2007)]. The book is 468 pages long, well documented, and looks very well argued. I rarely recommend a book before actually reading through it, but this one looks like it's good enough to be an exception. I'll try to write more about it later, but read for yourselves the astounding reviews on amazon to see what others are saying about it. Anyone else read it yet?

In the tradition of Frederick Nietzsche, Eller begins in the introduction with a few aphorisms which sum up some of the arguments throughout his book. Here’s a small representative sample of eight pages of them:

An atheist is not a person who knows too little about religion. An atheist is a person who knows too much about religion.

You say your god is unknowable? But the unknowable and the non-existent are indistinguishable.

If atheism is a religion then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

The best argument against religion is all the other religions.

In the absence of evidence, the scientist says, “I don’t know,” but the religionist says, “I believe.”

One does not have to prove a negative. One must assume a negative.

Old gods don’t get disproved. They get forgotten.

Richard Gale v. Alvin Plantinga on The Problem of Evil

Link. It's roughly about 2 hrs and there isn't a way to pause it or fast forward through it.

RationalWiki Atheism FAQ for the Newly Deconverted

RationalWiki Atheism FAQ for the Newly Deconverted.

The Thirty Most Popular Atheist Blogs.

DC ranked 20th. Hmmm, I'm a competitor so let's see about this.... ;-) Any serious suggestions? Maybe we should just blast Christians and Christianity?

Losing Religion on the Religion Beat: A Review of William Lobdell's book, Losing My Religion

My review follows:

William Lobdell’s new book, Losing My Religion, is a page turner from start to finish. As a former religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times he knows how to write in ways that make us feel and think what he does, every step along the way.

Previously I had said Joe Holman’s book, Project Bible Truth, was the most extensive deconversion story I had ever read. But now I must say Lobdell’s book is the most extensive one.

Lobdell’s book does not focus on the arguments against Christianity, like Holman does, although they are there. Rather he takes us on a journey from his evangelical faith to almost becoming a Catholic to what he describes as a “reluctant atheist” or “skeptical deist.”

Lobdell lost his religion on the religion beat: “Like a homicide detective, I had seen too much.” (p. 253). At first he liked his job and it didn’t affect his faith at all. But his doubt started when covering the scandal of Catholic priest molestations and interviewing the victims who were lied to and ignored by the church. For him the most egregious problem wasn’t necessarily the molestations and the ignored children sired from the affairs the priests had with women, although that was bad enough. No. It was the cover-up that the well-organized Catholic Church had for defending them. He just couldn’t understand, nor should anyone for that matter, why the church hierarchy didn’t do as Jesus wanted them to do in upholding the dignity and rights of the downtrodden and the abused. According to him, “the real story wasn’t about the molester priests, but rather the bishops who covered up for them and caused thousands of additional children to be sodomized, orally copulated, raped and masturbated.” (p. 142).

One missionary priest at St. Michael Island, Alaska, “raped an entire generation of Alaska Native boys.” (p. 215) “Though the Jesuits deny it,” Lobdell writes, “there’s evidence to suggest that the villages of western Alaska served as a dumping ground for molesting priests.” (p. 228) Lobdell called this a “pedophile’s paradise.”

As he reported on these abuses he was preparing to become a Catholic himself, and we see him struggle with this decision as he covers the story. Two weeks before doing so he couldn’t go through it. In his words: “Converting to Catholicism during the height of a horrific scandal felt like an endorsement of the establishment,” (p. 158) something he just couldn’t do.

He described going to a “survivor’s meeting” and concurs with Thomas Doyle, a leading advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse, that molesting priests and their superiors were committing “soul murder.” (p. 105) As he recounts it, the church “acted more like Mafia bosses than shepherds.” (p. 119). And he asked himself this question: “If an institution is corrupt, does that have any bearing on God?” (p. 135). He thinks it does. In fact, he started to see that “religious institutions are MORE susceptible to corruption than their secular counterparts because of their reliance on God, and not human checks and balances, for governance.” (p. 161)

Lobdell covered stories about the Mormons and their lifestyle, which were “mesmerizing.” (p. 122), although their beliefs were “nutty.” (p. 124). He recounted their strange beliefs, despite the fact that scientific evidence from DNA shows us “descendants of American Indians came from Asia, not the Middle East.” (p. 280) And he asks: “what’s so strange about Mormonism compared to traditional Christianity?” (p. 126). He himself didn’t see the disconnect at this stage in his faith journey, but he said, “I just happened to have grown up with the stories of the Bible. I was more used to them.” (p. 127) Indeed, that's the only difference.

Lobdell covered some evangelical TV Evangelist scandals, like Robert Tilton, whose ministry placed the donation checks in one pile and the prayer requests in the dumpster; and Benny Hinn, who raised funds for an alleged $30 million healing center in Dallas, Texas, which was never built; and Trinity Broadcasting Network founders Paul and Jan Crouch, who covered up Paul's homosexual tryst, and Paul's forcing a woman to have sex with him. (pp. 173-197). Lobdell asked himself why his faith “had so few people of principle.” (p. 187).

Lobdell reveals the mental gymnastics of believers in defending their faith and institutions when criticized. After he wrote about TV evangelist Robert Tilton’s financial abuses Tilton subsequently used this criticism by claiming he must be doing something right because Satan (i.e. Lobdell) was attacking him, and donations kept coming in. When a Catholic priest resigned after admitting he had “inappropriate contact” with a child 19 years previously, some parishioners suggested naming the new church wing after him for his years of service in the 19 years since then, failing to realize that pedophiles will only admit to the evil deeds they were forced to admit. Pedophiles usually have many more victims, as Lobdell told them. When the DNA evidence showed the Mormon faith was false, the defenders went on the attack against science and him.

After coming out of the closet in a personal piece written by him detailing his deconversion, one criticism levelled at him was that he only had “witnessed the sinfulness of man and mistakenly mixed that up with a perfect God.” Lobdell writes, "I understand that argument but I don’t buy it. If the Lord is real, it would make sense for the people of God, on average, to be superior morally and ethically to the rest of society. Statistically, they aren’t. I also believe that God’s institutions, on average, should function on a higher moral plain than government or corporations. I don’t see any evidence of this. It’s hard to believe in God when it’s impossible to tell the difference between His people and atheists.” (p. 271).

We see Lobdell struggling, really struggling, to maintain his faith in the midst of his reporting. He attended a weekend retreat. He had an email exchange with a good friend and pastor. He looked into studies of prayer to find evidence that prayer works. He did a study to find if believers are any better morally than non-believers. All to no avail.

This is a very good book written by a credible person. While I doubt believers entrenched in their faith will be caused to lose their religion from reading it, Lobdell still stands as a credible witness against religion and the mental gymnastics of believers who simply choose to believe against the evidence.

Antony Flew's Parable of the Invisible Gardener

This is a classic parable. What do you think? Much ink has been spilled over it, I know.

Special Pleading For God

[Written by Lee] Compromising Ones Values And Principles To Support Christianity

When I was a Facilitator for Personal Responsibility Seminars we had an exercise where we arranged our values in an hierarchy. We would put two terms together, such as health and cigarettes, and say, for example, "If I could only have one, I would pick health", or "I like or prefer this over that". Then we would look at examples of behavior of the person and see if it matched the values. I think this and a few other thinking skills should be taught in school.

Some Books Where The Process Of Assessing Values Turns Up In Different Contexts
Over the past few months I've stumbled onto some books that have reminded me of some of the exercises we performed in those seminars. Three in particular are
"The Thinkers Toolkit" by Morgan D. Jones
"How To Measure Anything" by Douglas W. Hubbard
"How To Solve It" by George Polya (if you read the other two you don't need this one. However as far as I can see, it was the first to detail a specific model for problem solving in mathematics which has since been adapted to other contexts such as the first two books).

Start By Defining Terms, Defining The Problem
Of course, in order to do the exercise you have to define those terms. Defining terms such as Good, Bad, Love, Health, Wealth, Success, Peace, Happiness are hard to do because they are subjective, however, common denominators can be found within a range of answers from a range of people and a set of minimum criteria can be derived. But this exercise is not only good for identifying where ones values do not correlate to ones behavior, it is also good for decision making. Its called "Weighted Ranking" and while it is true that this method has its limitations, when the right context arises, it is a powerful tool.

It can be used in evaluating how you really feel about something or someone which is useful in a real world context such as assessing the performance of employees or screening resumes for interviews.

Setting Up The Context Of The Exercise
Here's a silly example off the top of my head of how to do the exercise.

Ted has Diabetes and is overweight. He is out to lunch with friends and they are ordering the type of meals that Ted should not eat. He really wants to share the four cheese pizza with his friends but instead he thinks about what he wants out of life, what his hierarchy of values are and he orders the salad instead. Of course, one of his friends tries to pressure him to conform and eat the pizza too, but he politely declines. Another friend doesn't have as much money as they thought and Ted offers to pay the difference. When they leave the restaurant its raining and Ted offers his coat to a female friend wearing a sleeveless blouse.

How does this relate to Christianity? Thomas Bayes.
It has to do with defining terms, organizing an hierarchy of values and evaluating behavior. Thomas Bayes (1702-1761), a British mathematician, statistician and religious leader, identified and defined an algorithm for the process of belief that seems to be innate in humans. It goes something like the following.
"The probability or likelihood of A given B, C, D, E, F is...."
It doesn't have to be plugged into a mathematical formula, in fact that is not how it is used most of the time. We use it instinctively when deciding what we think about things every day all day. So lets apply it to how we should feel about Ted.

So, how should we feel about Ted? Should Ted be characterized as a "Good Person"?

My definition of a "good person" is .......(write them down).
Is Teds behavior consistent with what I think a good person is?

The likelihood of Ted being a "good person" given
* He chose the salad
* He politely declined when pressured
* He payed the difference in the check
* He gives his coat to his friend.

is high.

New Information About Ted!

The next time we see Ted, he calls Joe at six am on Friday and asks him to swing by on the way to work and pick him up. Ted said he is running late and asks Joe to park the car and come up to the apartment. When Joe gets there he finds that the fender and wheel of Teds car is damaged such that it can't be driven. When he gets up to the apartment Joe finds that the apartment smells like bourbon, the Dog is so thin his bones are showing, the apartment smells like dog urine, there are old dirty dishes in the sink, and Ted is just getting into the shower.

The likelihood of Ted being a "good person" given the new information
* He chose the salad
* He politely declined when pressured
* He payed the difference in the check
* He gives his coat to his friend.
* Teds car is damaged such that it can't be driven.
* The apartment smells like bourbon,
* The Dog is so thin his bones are showing,
* The apartment smells like dog urine,
* There are old dirty dishes in the sink, and
* Ted is just getting in the shower.

is not as high as it was.

Ted probably has personal problems and needs some help, but this forces a re-evaluation of Ted and tightening up of a definition of what a "Good Person" is.

I think where God is concerned, in Christians, this process is interrupted.
They will say that God is Good and Loving EVEN given examples of behavior that would reduce their esteem of a loved one.

One example of this is that fact that supposedly God created Adam and Eve, which means he decided how we would turn out, then when Adam and Eve disobeyed, He kicked them out of their home and put them in the wilderness.

Now if my brother kicked his teenage son and daughter out of the house for disobedience, that would reduce my confidence in his judgment and I would try to convince him that he made a mistake. I think most compassionate people would. But when it comes to God, this principle doesn't apply.

The honest compassionate person when reading through the Bible should see this and other behaviors by God as DISCONFIRMING EVIDENCE that God uses good judgment. If a soldier returns from war and we are told that he cut the baby out of the womb of a mother at the order of his commanding officer, both the officer and the soldier would likely go to court martial justifiably. Yet, God is forgiven of this atrocity.

So lets try it out. Lets do a value system exercise and see how our values correlate to our behavior.

Lets define what we think a good person is and come up with a list. We can define a range of characteristics for what a good person is. In the case that the person contradicts the characteristics by their behavior, their "goodness rating" will decrease. Now think of examples of Gods behavior in the Bible and list them.

Please come up with your own lists, and I invite you to post them in the comments for future reference.

Now try the following.
1. Is God a Person? Well, at least the song says he is: "God in three persons, blessed trinity!"
2. My idea of a Good person is....
3. Is Gods behavior consistent with what I think a good person is?
4. The likelihood that God is a good person given
* instance 1.
* instance 2.
* instance 3.
is [fill in the blank].

Based on my experience here over the past two years and seeing Christians put into this corner, I think this exercise will elicit cognitive dissonance and they will either refuse to do it, or begin special pleading about why it doesn't apply to God.

I'll expect them to say that we cannot judge God by human standards.
I have seen them say that God is good regardless. That he has a reason for his actions we just don't have access to what it is. We don't know what his reasons are. We are agnostic for his reasons but the Bible tells us he's good.

So to them I'll say, "Lets try a little exercise!"

If we are made in the image of God, what does that mean?
It should mean that we should have some things in common with God!
Come up with a list or characteristics that Humans have in common with God.

The likelihood that we are made in Gods image given....
* We can't understand his behavior
* A lot of Gods action don't fall into our definition of behaviors of a good person
* [fill in the blank]
* [fill in the blank]

is [fill in the blank]

DC is one of the Top Ten Atheist Blogs!

Previously Daniel Florien listed the top 30 skeptical blogs. We ranked 4th. Comon Sense Atheism also has a top ten list. We ranked 6th.

Which Authors Present the Best Case Against Christianity?

We have a current poll on this question. Dawkins is certainly the best known author so it's no surprise he will get the most votes. Any discussion of the poll itself? What do you think each author contributes to the debate? How many of these authors have you read? What other authors should be mentioned and why? Is the sum total of their cases good enough to debunk Christianity or will the arguments and counter arguments just keep getting better and better?

Here's the final tabulation:

Which Authors Present the Best Case Against Christianity
(choose more than one)

Richard Dawkins 399 (40%)

Sam Harris 315 (31%)

Christopher Hitchens 279 (28%)

Daniel Dennett 175 (17%)

Victor Stenger 79 (7%)

Bart D. Ehrman 205 (20%)

Michael Shermer 112 (11%)

Michael Martin 54 (5%)

Robert M. Price 118 (11%)

Richard Carrier 104 (10%)

Dan Barker 106 (10%)

David Mills 35 (3%)

Guy Harrison 29 (2%)

The Authors Here at DC 142 (14%)

Other (sorry the list can only be so long) 113 (11%)

None of them 65 (6%)

A Good Review of Three Skeptical Books

G. M. Arnold reviewed my book along with the books of Dan Barker and William Lobdell. He recommends them all. His review can be read here at amazon.com. Enjoy. If you think the review is helpful then check "Yes" and say so.

"[T]here is virtually no difference between the behavior of Christians and atheists."

Yep, that's what studies show, as William Lobdell tells us.

A List of the Top 30 Skeptical Blogs

Yes, DC made it into the top 5.

Christopher Hitchens v. Frank Turek Debate the Existence of God

Frank Turek, co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, and Christopher Hitchens debated this issue in September 2008.


Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist? from Andrew Ketchum on Vimeo.

Jeffrey Amos on "Why I Am An Atheist"

This is a pretty good statement.