The Bad Shepherd

Labels: j. m. green
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Alexander Mosaic at Pompeii (ca. 100 BCE?) |
Labels: "Avalos"
If you trust God no matter how he acts, then you are in an abusive relationship. The issue isn't whether God could have good reasons for allowing suffering. Serial killers have reasons that satisfy themselves. The issue is whether he could have included less suffering in the world. If he could have and just didn't, then he is sadistic.
If we say God loves humanity no matter how he treats us, then love means nothing. If we can't judge God to be evil, then we can't judge him to be good, either. LINK.
Labels: gay marriage, j. m. green
It’s Easter Sunday, the day when Christians of various (but not all) sorts celebrate the resurrection of Christ– or some version of it. Of course, just as Christ’s birth is recounted differently in the four gospels, the tales of his resurrection are also inconsistent in all kinds of awkward details. Who was it who first arrived at the empty tomb? What or whom did they find inside? Whom did Jesus appear to next? What did he say to them? What did they say to the others? All of these differ from gospel from gospel. So is this a problem for people who believe the Bible is divinely inspired, inerrant, and literally true in every jot and tittle?
Not a problem! The name of the game is harmonization, and here’s how it works. Each different account is treated as absolutely true, but only part of the story – therefore, if the details seem to disagree, it is only because they are about different parts of the same picture. If one gospel says it was Mary Magdalene who first visited the tomb, and another gospel says it was three other women, then both versions are true, but they refer to two different visits. Therefore, all one has to do is manipulate the conflicting details until they form a consistent story – or, to put it another way, until they harmonize.
So how do the harmonizers harmonize the discords among the four gospel accounts of the resurrection? In a word, hilariously. [To read the rest of her essay, click here.]
I have decided that unless something drastically happens to change my mind, this time next year I will quit what I'm doing. I only have one life. I think thirty-nine years spent on a delusion will have been enough. First I'll have to find something else to do that will annoy people, but what it is I haven't figured out yet. ;-)Since I haven't figured out what else to do I guess you're stuck with me. I will be changing my focus though, as I previously said. It hurts my head to think I believed that crazy stuff, the kind I now think is no different than any other religious faith, because faith is the problem! It's an irrational leap over the probabilities. Better yet, faith is a cognitive bias leading people to overestimate the confirming evidence and to underestimate the disconfirming evidence. If faith isn't the problem then what is it?
Labels: God or Godless, GoG Reviews
Labels: gay marriage, j. m. green
What religious diversity shows us is that, if gods exist, they don't care what humans believe... any god worth their title could tweak things so that humans believed whatever they wanted them to believe if belief was important to them, and would have no one to blame but themselves if they were disappointed. (So could an evil demon or super advanced alien.) So either no gods exist, or they are fine with religious wars, misinterpretation, conflicting beliefs, and so forth. YOU privilege your hypothesis because you have been indoctrinated to believe in a god that rewards you for believing whatever you believe --and who will torture you for all eternity if you don't believe it! Just like the Muslims. Is it more likely that some god is involved in such a twisted mental game or that no gods exist? We KNOW for sure that humans create gods and other mythical beings... we have no reason whatsoever to believe that consciousness can exist without a material brain.
If no invisible beings exist, then atheism is true. As far as the evidence is concerned, the invisible beings you believe in are as imaginary as the invisible beings you dismiss as mythological. If there was any real evidence that consciousness could exist absent a material brain, scientists would be testing, refining, and honing that evidence for their own benefit, if nothing else. As it is, nobody really has a good definition for what it even means to be conscious but have none of the measurable characteristics of consciousness-- is the concept even coherent? If a ghost can be conscious then how do you know a rock isn't conscious? What distinguishes a real invisible being from an imaginary one? Why should a rational person give more credence to your supernatural beliefs than you give to Greek Myths or the supernatural beliefs of those in conflicting faiths?
Labels: "Avalos"
“You can’t see love or air. I suppose you don’t believe in them either?”
Translation:
“Please God, don’t let them bring up oxytocin levels, or the fact that air has weight!”
Labels: j. m. green
Labels: God or Godless
Labels: Irish Ancestry
Every civilization, it seems, has its own collection of elf and fairy myths. The notion of tiny human-like creatures with magical powers roaming the earth unseen appears to have universal appeal. This is no less true of Ireland. Treasured by adults and children alike, tales of mischief-making fairies and elves color the rich Irish oral and literary traditions. These tales have made their way down to the rest of the world and are still enjoyed and appreciated today. LINK.
Labels: Irish Ancestry