Mothers Day

A few thoughts for Mother's Day...

This mother's day, please take time to remember the historical record, the prejudices and autrocities that continue to this day around the world against women:
"[The Israelites] warred against the Midianites [...] And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones [...] And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? [...] Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
-Moses
(Numbers 31:7-18, KJV)

What an uncivilized people they were.

On Wed, 10 May 2006 alerts@takeaction.amnestyusa.org wrote:
As we prepare to celebrate Mother's Day, I would like to let you know that our campaign demanding the Guatemalan authorities investigate the brutal murders of over 1,900 women - mothers, daughters and sisters - is taking off.

In the 3 days since my last message, over 11,000 people like you have taken action demanding justice for those killed and protection for the women living in fear in Guatemala. Thank you.

And with your help, we're making sure the Guatemalan government doesn't forget the violence they've condoned. Here's what we plan to do:

1. In memory of the women brutally killed, we plan to deliver 300 roses and carnations to the Guatemalan embassy in Washington, DC. Carnations traditionally symbolize mourning in Guatemala.

2. Amnesty activists will take action against this violence by demanding improved investigative procedures and prosecutions, proper documentation of gender-related crimes and improved access to legal aid for victims' relatives.

3. Amnesty International USA will lobby the Guatemalan Congress to enact legislative measures that promote and protect women's rights.

This Mother's Day, with your help, we can commemorate the lives of the 1,900 daughters, sisters, mothers and friends who have been killed. And we can give hope to the remaining Guatemalan women - hope that the institutional discrimination and violence will end and that no more lives will be needlessly taken.

Sincerely,

Larry Cox
Executive Director
Amnesty International USA

Mohammed's commendation of the sword by word and deed found a ready response in the hearts of his followers. Under the double impulse of a fresh religious zeal and military ambition, they sallied forth to the work of conquest. And where these two motives failed, a third came in to urge on the halting, -- the love of plunder, so strongly rooted in the Arabs of that as of other ages. To use the graphic description of Sir William Muir: "The marauding spirit of the Bedouin was in unison with the militant spirit of Islam. The cry of plunder and of conquest reverberated throughout the land, and was answered eagerly. The movement began naturally with the tribes in the North, which had been first reclaimed from their apostasy, and whose restless spirit led them over the frontier. Later on, in the second year of the Caliphate, the exodus spread to the people of the South. At first the Caliph forbade that help should be taken from such as had backslidden. But step by step, as new spheres opened out, and the cry ran through the land for fresh levies to fill up the martyr gaps, the ban was put aside, and all were welcome. Warrior after warrior, column after column, whole tribes in endless succession, with their women and children, issued forth to battle, and ever, at the marvelous tales of cities conquered, of booty rich beyond compute, of fair captives distributed on the field, --'to every man a damsel or two,' -- and, above all, at the sight of the royal fifth of spoil and slaves sent to Medina, fresh tribes arose and went. Onward and still onward, like swarms from the hive, one after another they poured forth, pressed first to the north, and spread thence in great masses to the east and west." 1 Annals of the Early Caliphate.

The Koran embodied not only a religion, but a social system. In respect to the latter, it no doubt introduced much improvement upon the previous customs of the Arabians. At the same time it built enormous barriers against future progress. By giving the sanction of religion to the cardinal vices of Eastern civilization,- polygamy, unlimited license in concubinage, and slavery, -- it mortgaged unnumbered generations to degradation.
-Henry C. Sheldon, Boston University, 1895
"History of the Christian Church"
Limitation Of Christian Territories By Mohammedanism

Saint Jerome:
"I am aware that some have laid it down that virgins of Christ must not bathe with eunuchs or married women, because the former still have the minds of men and the latter may present the ugly spectacle of swollen [pregnant] bellies. For my part I say that mature girls must not bathe at all, because they ought to blush to see themselves naked."

Tertullian:
"God's sentence hangs over the female sex, and His punishment weighs down on you. You are the devil's gateway. You first violated the forbidden tree and violated God's Law. You shattered God's image in man. And because you merited death, God's Son had to die."

Augustine:
"How can woman be the image of God? ... Woman, compared to other creatures, is the image of God, for she bears dominion over them. But compared unto man, she may not be called the image of God, for she bears not rule and lordship over man, but ought to obey him."

Thomas Aquinas:
"Woman is defective and misbegotten. For the active power in the male seed produces a perfect male likeness. A female comes from a defect in the male seed, or some indisposition, such as the south wind being too moist."

John Knox:
"Women are weak, they are frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish. They are inconstant, they are cruel, and lacking of spirit, and counsel. Woman in her greatest perfection was made only to serve, and obey men."

Martin Luther:
"Men have broad shoulders and narrow hips, so they have intelligence. Women have narrow shoulders, and broad hips to sit upon, so they ought to stay home, keep the house, and raise children. The woman differs from the man. She is weaker in body, in honour, in intellect, and in dignity."

and...

"Take women away from their house-wifery, and they are good for nothing. If they get tired, and die from bearing children, that is no problem. They are made for that."
--

"Just throw your wife and children away"
... notice Ezra makes no mention of the Hebrew woman who took a strange husbands. Such women were surely "lost" from her people, not even considered part of the Hebrew. mere property of a foreigner. . . Ezra calls only to the men.
3 Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. 10 And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.
11 Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.
17 And they made an end with all the men that had taken strange wives by the first day of the first month.
18 And among the sons of the priests there were found that had taken strange wives: namely, of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren; Maaseiah, and Eliezer, and Jarib, and Gedaliah.
19 And they gave their hands that they would put away their wives; and being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for their trespass.
--

Holy Superstitions
Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christianity: Sexual mutilation of accused witches was not uncommon. With the orthodox understanding that divinity had little or nothing to do with the physical world, sexual desire was perceived to be ungodly. When the men persecuting the accused witches found themselves sexually aroused, they assumed that such desires emanated, not from themselves, but from the woman. They attacked breasts and genitals with pincers, pliers and red-hot irons. Some rules condoned sexual abuse by allowing men deemed "zealous Catholics" to visit female prisoners in solitary confinement while never allowing female visitors. From earlier post.
--

"The Works of Philo" (Complete and unabridged edition), page 152, "On The Giants", I,
(4) "And no unjust man at any time implants a masculine generation in the soul, but such, being unmanly, and broken, and effeminate in their minds, do naturally become the parents of female children; having planted no tree of virtue, the fruit of which must of necessity have been beautiful and salutary, but only trees of wickedness and of the passions, the shoots of which are womanlike.

(5) On account of which fact these men are said to have become the fathers of daughters, and that no one of them is said to have a begotten a son; for since the just Noah had male children, as being a man who followed reason, perfect, and upright, and masculine, so by this very fact the injustice of the multitude is proved to be altogether the parent of female children. For it is impossible that the same things should be born of opposite parents; but they must necessarily have an opposite offspring."
--

Revelation 14:4 "These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb." (KJV)

MALE AGGRESSION
by Edward T. Babinski

I think the majority of human male primates on this planet are muscle bound testosterone driven brutes who commonly seek either psychological or physical domination over other males, females, and children. Males continue to fill our prisons more than women do. Just google up all the major horror stories reported by the news any day of the year and males continue to make bold verbal threats and murder and wage wars. Males continue to murder males galore even in their own coutries in gang warfare, organized crime, family disputes, robberies, and of course rape, torture and murder of females and children as well.

And holy books continue to contain verses about females being there to "serve and obey" males, which is also the message of the apes of the secular world as well. Even Hinduism preaches that being reincarnated as a female is not equal to being reincarnated as a male. Actually, I suspect the reverse is nearer the truth and that being reincarnated as a female is something more Hindu males ought to aspire to. I also suspect that more Muslim and Christian male ought to listen to females and make plans together with them rather than continue to inculcate in the female mind the necessity of "serving and obeying" them.

"In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men enslaved their fellowmen; they trampled upon the rights of women and children. In the name and by the authority of ghosts, they bought and sold each other. They filled heaven with tyrants and the earth with slaves. They filled the present with intolerance and the future with horror. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, they declared superstition to be the real religion. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the human mind; they polluted the conscience; they subverted justice, and they sainted hypocrisy. I have endeavored in some degree to show you what has been and always will be when men are governed by superstition."
-Robert G. Ingersoll, Ghosts

Does the Bible give woman her rights? Is this Bible humane? Does it treat woman as she ought to be treated, or is it barbarian? Let us see.

"Let women learn in silence with all subjection." (I Tim. II, 11)

"If a woman would know anything let her ask her husband. Imagine the ignorance of a lady who had only that source of information. (Laughter.)

"But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. (Why, magnificent reason.)

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression. (Splendid.)

But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." That is to say, there is as much difference between the woman and man as there is between Christ and man. There is liberty of woman.

"For the man is not of the woman, but the woman is of the man." It was the man's cutlet till that was taken, not the woman's. "Neither was the man created for the woman." Well, what was the man created for? "But the woman was created for the man. Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord." (There's liberty!)

"For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."

Good again! Even the Savior didn't put man and woman upon any equality. The man could divorce the wife, but the wife could not divorce the husband, and according to the Old Testament, the mother had to ask forgiveness for being the mother of babes. Splendid!

Here is something from the Old Testament:
"When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and they Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou has taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to wife, Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails." (Deut. XXI., 10,11,12.)

That is in self-defense, I suppose! (Cheers and laughter.)

This sacred book, this foundation of human liberty, or morality, does it teach concubinage and polygamy? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, read the twenty-first chapter of Deuteronomy, read the blessed lives of Abraham, of David or of Solomon, and then tell me that the sacred Scripture does not teach polygamy and concubinage? All the language of the world is not sufficient to express the infamy of polygamy; it makes man a beast and woman a stone. It destroys the fireside and makes virtue an outcast. And yet it is the doctrine of the Bible. The doctrine defended by Luther and Melanthon! It takes from our language those sweetest words father, husband, wife, and mother, and takes us back to barbarism and fills our hearts with the crawling, slimy serpents of loathsome lust.
-Robert G. Ingersoll, Hell

AIDS AS MASS FEMICIDE: FOCUS ON SOUTH AFRICA
© by Diana E. H. Russell
Professor Emerita of Sociology
Mills College, Oakland, California, U.S.A.

"Male sexual privilege is what drives the [AIDS] epidemic."
-- Mark Schoofs, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, December 7, 1999, p. 68

"In this country [South Africa], rape is not just a devastating act of violence. It can be a death sentence."
-- Kelly St. John, 2000, p. A1

According to Jeannie Relly, the Ministry of Health in Trinidad and Tobago reported that seven out of eight people infected with HIV/AIDS between the ages of 10 and 19 are female (February 2000, p. A15). The Health Minister attributed the spread of AIDS to "the irresponsible sexual behavior of our men" (p. A15). Peggy McEvoy, AIDS policy team leader for a Caribbean program, explained that "married women face high risks because their partners are unfaithful and will not use condoms" (Relly, 2000, p. A15). If the women insisted that their husbands use condoms, "Their husbands would kick them out," McEvoy explained (Relly, 2000, p. A15). "Many women are also unaware that their husbands are having extramarital affairs," McEvoy added.

The dowry and the shallow graves of female infantcide
Chinese Cultural Studies: Women in China: Past and Present
... her baby girl in a shallow, unmarked grave next to a small stream. ... In other cases, the family cannot afford the dowry that would eventually be ... Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion are not unique to India

CNN.com - Grim motives behind infant killings - Jul. 7, 2003
In India each year, parents kill thousands of female babies because they believe ... Police, however, are still finding the shallow graves of babies and say more than a hundred female children here are killed by their parents every year.

Orwell's Grave: July 2005
In some countries there are culture-specific forms of violence against women like female genital mutilation, and, in India, for instance, dowry murder.

SOUTHERN BAPTIST HISTORY 101
by Edward T. Babinski

On June 10, 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention, for the first time, amended the 1963 Southern Baptist statement of faith known as the Baptist Faith And Message, adding a brand new section (XVIII) entitled the “Family Amendment” that states in part, “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him [spiritually], has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation [in the societal realm].” [Comments in brackets by E.T.B.]

Of course, Southern Baptists believe their amendment concerning the necessity of wifely “submission” and the wife’s duty to “respect, serve and help” her husband, is what the Holy Scriptures demand. But Southern Baptist slaveowners once believed the same thing regarding the “submission” of slaves and the slave’s duty to “respect, serve and help” their masters. Here’s the story. In 1844, the national Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions refused to license slaveowning missionaries. One year later, that refusal led to the split between the northern and southern Baptists. The southern Baptists were absolutely convinced that the Bible taught that God had divinely sanctioned slavery. As early as 1823, Richard Furman, a leader of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, a slaveholder, and for whom Furman University is named, stated in a famous address to the Governor of South Carolina, "The right of holding slaves is clearly established by the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." [See Exposition of The Views of the Baptists, Relative To The Coloured Population In The United States]. The next year, in 1845, those firmly convicted defenders of slavery formed their own separate Baptist denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.

Baptists at the 1998 Convention should go back and read the pro-slavery sermons, tracts and treatises of the founders of their denomination. Their Biblical expositions of Negro inferiority were based on Noah's curse of slavery upon Canaan, son of Ham, who was presumed to be the ancestor of the Black race; and also based on the patriarchal and Mosaic acceptance of slavery, and, also based on the New Testament commands of Peter and Paul regarding slave-master relationships. Rev. Furman stated, "For though they are slaves, they are also men; and are with ourselves accountable creatures; having immortal souls, and being destined to future eternal reward." The Southern Baptist view was that slaves were better off under the loving, tender, compassionate care of Christian slaveowners, and the institution of slavery was to be "a blessing both to master and slave." [Just like today’s Southern Baptists who preach that the “submission” of women to men is the only “blessed” norm.--E.T.B.] In fact it would little rewording of the 1998 “Family Amendment” to make it fit the 1845 Southern Baptist view toward slaves: “A slave/wife is to submit themselves graciously to the servant leadership of their master/husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. Slaves/females, being in the image of God as is their master/husband and thus equal to them [spiritually], has the God-given responsibility to respect their master/husband and to serve as their helper in picking cotton/managing the household and nurturing the next generation [in the societal realm].”

One hundred and fifty-five years later, after a Civil War that left six hundred thousand dead and one million wounded, we recognize that our Southern Baptist forefathers and foremothers were on the wrong side of history and Biblical interpretation… But if the slave subordination and submission passages are no longer binding upon the church, then why are the female subordination and submission passages?

Big Bang and Christian Evolutionists

Tom Dean: Evolution cannot be right...simply the fact is you can say the big bang happened and all matter was created but you cant show where this happened. SOMETHING HAD TO CAUSE IT...

Edward Babinski: please visit the magazine section and look for the May 2006 issue of the conservative Christian magazine, First Things, and peek inside the "Letters" section in the front at the reply that "Stephen M. Barr" wrote to criticisms he received from Chuck Colsen and others, for an article that Barr wrote that was in favor of theistic evolution. Barr admits that not knowing what existed before the Big Bang proves nothing. It simply means we don't know.

Some Intelligent Design advocates have admitted that the "Designer" might not even be "personal."

Name: Tom Dean
Title of Article: Evolution challenge
Religious Belief: Christian

Comments: Evolution cannot be right Ed...simply the fact is you can say the big bang happened and all matter was created but you cant show where this happened. SOMETHING HAD TO CAUSE IT... If Hydrogen did create the stars where did that hydrogen come from, and if the thing that created the hydrogen created the hydrogen...where did that come from...and where did that come from...and where did that come from, because according to a certain famous scientific theory, matter cannot be created or destroyed...so unless somthing or someone higher than us had some involvment evolution is a rediculous claim to try and satisfy our human nature to know everything about everything...yet it is beyond us Ed, and will always be unless you looked into somthing that gave you spiritual satisfaction, because frankly Ed...what do you have to lose in beliving in god...your dignity???
PS. Please get back on this as I would like to hear your view on this.
Sincerely Tom

ED: Hi Tom. Please keep in mind that I was a born again Christian. (I can email my testimony to you as an attachment from my home email address upon request.) I also never totally lost my belief in God, though I have more questions now than I formerly did.

If you have a Barnes and Noble near you, or any large bookstore, please visit the magazine section and look for the May 2006 issue of the conservative Christian magazine, First Things, and peek inside the "Letters" section in the front at the reply that "Stephen M. Barr" wrote to criticisms he received from Chuck Colsen and others, for an article that Barr wrote that was in favor of theistic evolution. His reply deals exactly with some of the points you raised above, and he is a theoretical particle physicist whose speciality is the Big Bang and the origin of matter, and he is a Christian. Check out "Stephen M. Barr" on the web.

Barr admits that not knowing what existed before the Big Bang proves nothing. It simply means we don't know.

Some Intelligent Design advocates have admitted that the "Designer" might not even be "personal."

Even the Intelligent Design textbook, Of Pandas and People opens up the questions, "Who or what is the intelligent designer?" and "Who or what created the intelligent designer?" But it leaves those questions open.

Others argue that the cosmos was fine-tuned before the Big Bang but afterwards things evolved (and they reject "Intelligent Design" arguments)

The intelligent designer might be a divine tinkerer

One physicist has pointed out that physicist admit most of the cosmos probably consists of mysterious "dark matter," and that the stuff we see and that we are made out of is simply in the minority of matter, "light matter," and that the cosmos appears fine-tuned to create more and more black holes, which may lead to the creation of cosmos upon cosmos: Fine-Tuning a Killer Cosmos

Check out this list of prominent Christian evolutionists and visit their websites where you can discuss further theological questions with them.

Let me leave you with this:
Creationists Admit "Difficulties" With Their Hypothesis [especially when trying to explain away the evidence for stellar evolution].

Keep reading. The recent letter by Stephen M. Barr in the May 2006 issue of First Things magazine is an excellent place to start, seeing Christians discuss with fellow Christians many of the same questions you asked me.

Cheers,

Ed

Book Review: Why I Rejected Christianity

It's not everyday that I get to befriend a fellow apostate and freethinker who left the Christian faith but also one who has a sharp theolgoical mind such as John W. Loftus. A divinity school graduate with three masters degrees, a former student of William Lane Craig, and an academic star in his school days, Loftus has a formidable resume. That's why I was eager to purchase and read Loftus' book Why I Rejected Christianity. This book is one of the best introductory texts on the philosophical problems with Christianity.

As a way of introducing himself, Loftus begins with the story of how he got involved with and came to reject Christianity. Like myself, he adopted his faith because it was the only thing he really knew and had no exposures to anything that would challenge his faith. I was sorry to hear of the trials he went through with the Restorationist movement (which, ironically, is what denomination my mother grew up in- so I have some familiarity with the mind-frame), his experience with Linda, and his experience with Jeff. All I can say is that I am pleased that he got out of all of that. I am particularly pleased that John has found new happiness with Gwen. For someone constantly wrestles with grave doubts on whether he will ever meet the love of his life or not, it sort of sparked new hope in me. I just hope my newfound hope lasts.

I have to say that I agree with many of Loftus' philosophical arguments. His argument called the Outsider Test , based on the presumption of agnosticism, I very much agree, is the best way of approaching all supernaturalist claims of revealed religion. His chapter on prayer is particularly excellent! Though brief, he states the chief problems with prayer, especially petitionary prayer. I loved his chapter on "Historical Evidence and Christianity"- that was superb! These were some of the best chapters of the entire book! I would like to focus on other chapters, while good throughout, or having some good points, could've been argued better. There is a chapter "On the lessons of Galileo, Science, and Religion". I wasn't sure what Loftus was getting at until I read that science was divorcing itself from the religious community and that methodological naturalism was probably the best way to conduct science. I agree but I also think that there is something that is overlooked by many Christians and nonChristians. The point was driven home to me after reading an essay of considerable length by Robert M Price and Reginald Finley on biblical cosmology. Many Christians point out that Galileo's approach to science and religion is best. The problem is that Galileo started the whole conflict between science and religion in my opinion. Loftus correctly notes what the Hebrew universe is like on pgs. 104-5, but as far as I can see, Galileo refuted the biblical cosmology by verifying the cosmology of Copernicus. When Scriptural references to primitive-sounding cosmology are pointed out in the Bible, Christians will say "Well, that's because the Bible is using a language of "appearance". Thus when the Psalmist says that the sun rises, or when the pillars of the earth are spoken of by Isaiah, or there is spoken of water above the firmament, modern fundamentalists, often with a straight face, will say that the Bible is speaking of a language of "appearance", describing events of the natural world using a language of how things "appear" to someone stationed on earth. But then, again, one can use this kind of rationalization to "explain" away obvious geo-centric, flat-earth cosmological references in just about any literature in antiquity. To argue that it's langauge of "appearance" is gross special pleading. You can make any ancient text scientifically inerrant by invoking such nonsense. The problem, I see, is that this nonsense about "appearances" started with Galileo.

Martin Luther, whom I regard as a antiscience, antireason, antiintellectual rube, condemned Copernicus for espousing a view that was contrary to Scripture. Yet it was Martin Luther who understood the Bible better than Copernicus and Galileo did! Luther may be an antiscientific ignoramous in every sense of the word imaginable, but Luther was biblically justified! It was Galileo, in my opinion, started the whole war with Christianity. Copernicus and Galileo were Christians who started the whole enterprise of "compromise" of the Bible with science that creationist organizations like Answers in Genesis are so fond of whining about! The geologists who gave us the geological system of earth's history and an ancient earth, older than James Ussher would've thought concievable, were Christians who went about trying to compromise Genesis with long periods of time. All of this is borne out of attempts to reconcile the Bible with science. Even Kenneth Miller, a respectable cell biologist believes that God wasn't being literal with Genesis as he explains in Finding Darwin's God. God used evolution but couldn't accurately communicate these truths about evolution, DNA, and the Big Bang. Right, and my life is just some mad scientist's experiments and my brain is in a vat somewhere with electrodes in it only making me think I was typing this review and making me think that Loftus and others would read it for comments.

I am glad that Loftus tackled the question of God's existence in a chapter, critiquing some of the well-known arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, and the ontological argument. Although I see deep problems with all of these arguments, I will, for the sake of space constraints, limit myself to the cosmological argument, particularly the Kalam cosmological argument. I was particulary delighted by the critique offered by one Blogger who argued what applies in our universe may not apply in a "yniverse", a universe bigger than ours which contains ours, yet the same laws and rules do not apply there as they do here (pg. 76). That's a good point! I think the chief problems with the 'kalam' cosmological argument, that I didn't see addressed in the book (Loftus is more than welcome to use these observations in a future edition if he pleases), are 1.) the argument self-destructs on inductive grounds, and 2.) the argument is necessarily scientifically incomplete and therefore, one cannot logically argue the conclusion from the premises. The argument assumes that a.) that which begins to exist must have a cause. Fine and good...until you consider that, inductively speaking, everything which is caused to come into existence, does so being assembled from preexisting materials! A house began to exist at one point and its existence was caused, but it just didn't pop into existence ex nihilo! No, it was assembled from preexisting materials; lumber, metal, glass, wiring, concrete, bricks, etc. If we apply this to the universe, it leads us to a conclusion that is bound to give William Lane Craig a hernia: the universe began to exist because it was constructed out of preexisting materials. Another problem: not everything began to exist at once! The earth, life, and us humans are some of the last things that evolved in this cosmos. Stars are constantly coming into existance. Red giants, existing for millions of years, explode as supernovas; they have been around for a long time. Not everything began to exist simultaneously. Furthermore, we can break things down quite a bit. A house can be broken down into smaller parts. And some of these smaller parts into even smaller parts. Did these parts began to exist simultaneously? No. Do they comprise our physical "universe"? Yes.

We can break things down physically until we get to the point where we can break them down no further. Scientists believe that this point of irreducibility is where we break down all matter into elementary particles. So the argument should be that elementary particles began to exist at one point: the rest of the cosmos evolved out of these elementary particles as they combined into more complex systems; protons, atoms, molecules, elements, compounds, gasses, metals, etc. None of these necessarily originated simultaneously, yet they all comprise our existing universe. Rather than argue that the universe came into existence, Kalamers (as I like to call them) such as Bill Craig, need to argue that elementary particles began to exist. Many cosmologists will argue that elements are generated by thermonuclear fusion in stars. Atoms, elements, etc, and that these materials get pushed out when the stars explode as supernovas-they need no supernatural cause for their existence, especially protons, neutrons, and atoms. But wait, a number of quantum physicists believe that elementary particles pop into and out of existence with no apparent cause! Oooh, that's got to throw a huge monkey wrench into the whole argument! Why believe that God had anything to do with the origin of such particles, many eons ago, when many scientists believe they originate on the subatomic level acausally, even as we speak? The second problem is that the argument is necessarily incomplete. The problem? The problem is that we haven't synthesized Einsteins' theories of relativity and quantum mechanics into a quantum theory of gravitation. We will never know, for sure, how the universe originated and whether it had a cause for its existence unless we have this much needed and badly desired quantum theory of gravitation. Craig argues that the universe began to exist at the moment there was a singularity in the Big Bang and that God caused the universe's origin with the singularity. Um, okay, but many quantum physicists believe that the singularities result from imperfections of our theories and that they are mathematically incomplete. A mathematically complete may well yield quantum gravity theories lacking singularities.

In fact, some physicists, like Lee Smolin, argue that singularities do not exist in nature and that time didn't begin with the Big Bang but extends eternally into the past. He makes a brilliant argument for this in his book Life of the Cosmos. Smolin argues that our universe originated in a black hole from another universe. Black holes, you see (yes, those mystical things that are the stuff of science fiction and fantasy) can give birth to baby universes! Smolin also argues that the fine-tuning of the universe is no accident; the fine-tuning of the universe is one that makes it possible to have many black holes and that the more black holes there are, the better are the chances that black holes can produce more baby universes like ours. I personally agree with Smolin's theory here. Smolin believes that this is what a quantum theory of gravity will show, or what it may well show! I personally don't buy that singularities exist! So much for the cosmological argument! (Even if Smolin's theory proves flawed; there are other cosmologies that eliminate singularities and allow time to extend indefinitely into the past as well as explaining the apparent fine-tuning of the cosmos!) Loftus can use an argument like these to really blow the Kalam cosmological argument to smithreens!

I particularly enjoyed Loftus' chapter on the Incarnation. I thought his arguments were very good! There is only a bit of tidying up as far as this argument goes and I wish to explore it in a future blog on Loftus' website "Debunking Christianity" of which I am a proud member! Loftus's argument against Jesus being born in Bethelhem is good, but there are some problems I believe Loftus may not have considered that would've made his case better. I agree with Sander's criticism of the problems inherent in Luke and the census! But a bigger problem is that Matthew and Luke contradict each other as well! Luke has Joseph take the Holy Family from Bethelhem to Jerusalem for up to 40 days and from there straight into Nazarenth. Matthew has the Holy Family in Bethelhem for up to two years, and then after the wise men leave, Joseph is warned to take the Family to Egypt until Herod dies. The Family is on its way to return to Bethelhem when Jospeh is warned again not to go to Galilee, so Joseph settles in Nazarenth (for the first time!). Thus there is a big, disasterous contradiction in the two stories! This is not only argued cogently by Ed Sanders but also by Richard Carrier in an essay designed to show that Luke made an error in claiming the census during the reign of Quirinius!

Loftus has a chapter on the devil and concludes by saying that "The bottom line is that if Satan was the brightest creature in all of creation, and he knew of God's immediate presence and omnipotent power like no one else, then to rebel against God makes him dumber than a box of rocks!" Perhaps so! A bigger problem, however, that would make the chapter even better, is to point out how paradoxal the concept of Satan is! Think about it: according to the Bible, we sin because we are tempted to rebel against God. It's impossible for God to be tempted, sure, but it seems that we cannot be tempted to sin apart from Satan tempting us to sin. Alrighty, but who tempted Satan then? What? Satan doesn't need a tempter? Then, how did the concept of sin, of rebellion, of going against the will of God, enter into Satan's mind? Why would Satan want to? I recall being told on a number of occasions that it was pure and sheer pride that Satan wound up the way he did. Oh? But where did the pride come from? Well, God put Satan in charge of some awesome responsibilities, it went to his head, he wanted to be God, and thus it happened. If that's the case then, it was God who was responsible for Satan to get the idea of sinning. It was God who was responsible for putting Satan into a position, knowing that the devil would become prideful. However the devil wound up the way that he did, it was God who put the devil into the position, however directly or indirectly so. Any rebellion or sin, or what-have-you, is ultimately God's fault; he was the one who either directly put it into Satan's mind or it was he who put Satan into a position where the concept of sin, pride, rebellion, etc, would be planted and sprout forth!

I read with great interest Loftus's chapter on the resurrection, and its the last one that I wish to review before closing this review. First I agree with criticisms that the resurrection are not based on eyewitness accounts in the gospels. I agree that they are also impossibly inconsistent and contradict each other. I think that Loftus' objections and incredulty of the account of doubting Thomas are reasonable (pg. 210) but I do think that Loftus may be missing the larger picture. The account of doubting Thomas was written as an apologetic against various heretics, especially some Gnostics who had docetic views of Jesus. Docetic heretics believed that Jesus never really had a body of flesh, he only appeared to have one! This is why Jesus eats fish in the presence of his disciples in Luke. These accounts were written as apologetics against heresies of Gnostics, especially docetic ones. This also explains the fact that in Luke's account, all Eleven disciples (except Judas Iscariot) were present on the first Easter Eve. In John's account, only ten are present! Notice the contradiction? Loftus is right to criticize the presence of doubt (which, in these apologies, it was usually a foil against which the miraculously risen Jesus performs the deed that convinces them that he's no ghost and that he can really eat and drink like the rest of them!) This seems to be the verdict of many critical New Testament scholars ranging from Robert Price, to Gerd Ludemann, to Charles Talbert!

Loftus does good to notice that Christian scholars engage in double-talk regarding the discrepancies. They will try to rationalize them away by trying to make contradictions evidence of their reliability. No collusion among the authors? You mean the authors were writing independently of each other and had no clue as to what the authors other authors were writing? Yeah, sure. I guess then that Josephus was wrong when he argued that the greatest evidence of veracity was when two or more historians agree on the same event that they are narrating. Josephus charged the Greek historians of his time to be in error because they would contradict each other when narrating the same event! Silly Josephus. Poor bastard didn't realize that the Greek historians were right; it just goes to prove that they didn't collude with each other when writing about the same narrative. Sure. That said, I move to the problems I have with the chapter on the resurrection though. First, of all, even though I am an advocate of the theory that the earliest Christians started out with a spiritual resurrection, I believe that Loftus is in error when he states that "...Paul didn't think of resurrection in terms of a physical body" (pg. 216). Actually, Paul would've thought of it as a physical body. I believe that Robert Gundry has demonstrated this point thoroughly in his book Soma in Biblical Theology. I don't believe that the ancients would've thought of the spiritual as "nonphysical". That is a later conception. In fact, I am convinced that people in antiquity wouldn't have concieved of anything as "nonphysical" and certainly would've have thought to equate anything spiritual as being "nonphysical". Rather, the most important thing about the spiritual resurrection, was that the spiritual body, being necessarily physical, was something lacking in flesh! It was lacking in flesh for the same reason that the sun, moon, and stars are lacking in flesh! They are all made of the same substance! This is why flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God in Paul's mind. Natural bodies consist of flesh and it is flesh that is perishable. Spiritual bodies must be made of incorruptible substance to survive in the realm of the heavenly bodies and must be lacking of corruptible, perishable substances such as flesh! Notice in 1st Corinthians 15, with its distinction between the natural and physical, how the contrast is between things containing flesh and those which lack flesh! So the spiritual resurrection must not be thought of as "physical vs. nonphysical" but, rather, "flesh vs. nonflesh".

Loftus follows this discussion with a greater discussion about Paul's vision in Acts. However, in Galatians, Paul seems to recount his Damascus experience and uses a word for "reveal" that is used chiefly of visions. Putting two and two together, we can see, then, that in 1st Corinthians 15:8, then, that his Damascus experience was a vision and since, as Loftus points out correctly, that the Greek word is ophthe, this necessarily means that since Paul is using the same word to describe the Christophany he experienced, that he is using to describe the other appearances, it necessarily follows, that they, too, must have been visions! Next is the section on the empty tomb. Loftus has what I consider to be an bad argument from silence, quoting Uta Ranke-Heinemann. I don't exactly agree that the empty tomb is a legend just because Paul fails to mention it. If Paul didn't know about any empty tomb, I can only agree because it's a symbolic creation of later gospel writers as Richard Carrier argues for in his essay "The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb". Loftus also uses the arguments of Peter Kirby in his essay "The Case Against the Empty Tomb", especially in regards to a lack of tomb veneration (both essays appear in the anthology The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave). However, I believe that Kirby's case against the empty tomb has been invalidated completely by the research of Byron McCane. He has written a book called Roll Back the Stone. McCane argues, persuasively, that the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimethea would've been dishonorable. The difference between an honorable burial and an dishonorable one was that honorable burials involved burial in a family tomb and ritual mourning. In the gospels, Jesus is not buried in a family tomb nor is there ritual mourning; Jesus was given a dishonorable burial. This is why there was no tomb veneration; the empty tomb would've been regarded as a place of shame for some time, not because, as Kirby maintains that "the earliest Christians did not know the location of the tomb of Jesus, neither of an empty tomb nor of an occupied tomb." There would've been no tomb veneration regardless of whether the tomb was occupied or empty.

This means that there are two possibilities: the tomb story is a symbolic fiction as argued for by Richard Carrier or that it is a core historical fact, argued for by McCane. I do agree with Stephen Davis that the empty tomb is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the resurrection of Jesus" but for reasons he doesn't consider (Loftus quotes Davis here, pg. 221). I believe that if there was an empty tomb, Jesus was simply reburied elsewhere, giving rise to visions that he was alive. I agree with Davis and Flew for the reasons stated and I am glad that Loftus quoted them. I do believe, however, that Loftus could've made his case much stronger. Cultural anthropologists know how such visions occur. Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, in their excellent Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels point out that the "appearances" of Jesus to his followers, as narrated in the gospel resurrection stories, are examples of visionary experiences involving altered-states-of-conciousness. These kind of ASC visions were so common in antiquity that they were considered to be normal, thus the case can be made that the resurrection "appearance" visions were just as common as any other visions were, whether to individual people or to groups of people at a time, and were therefore caused by the same psychodynamic forces that caused just about every other visionary experience involving ASC.

To summarize, I believe that John Loftus has written a good introductory book on the philosphical problems with Christianity. I would best recommend his book for those who are new to the philosophical problems of Christianity and may be wrestling with doubts. Loftus was more than just another Christian, just another face one saw in Church. This book, written by a former apologist, is a good introduction to the problems of Christianity from a philosophical viewpoint. I would recommend his book as food for thought and for those who are wrestling with problems to see that there are others who go through the same struggle, have the same doubts, and leave for the same reasons. I tip my hat to John! He had some very good reasons for rejecting Christianity and I share many of those same reasons myself!

Visionary Basis of Christianity

I believe for the most part that Christianity had its origins in a series of visions. These visions, I believe, were naturally-caused and are in no need of supernatural/divine causation. Many Christians will object by saying that while individuals may have hallucinations or visions, it cannot happen to a group or collection of people at the same time. This, I believe, is wrong. What I wish to show in this post is 1.) that visions have occured in antiquity, 2.) that they occur to groups of people at a time, and 3.) they were so common in antiquity that they were considered actually to be normal.

To accomplish these three goals, I wish to provide the social-scientific basis for such visions. Then, I wish to give a few examples of what I consider to be these kinds of visions in history. Let me start with the social-scientific basis of the visions that I have in mind.In pages 327-329 of their excellent Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh engage in a discussion on "Altered-States-of-Conciousness". I reproduce their section below:"Anthropologists studying cross-cultural psychology define altered states of conciousness as conditions in which sensations, perceptions, cognition, and emotions are altered. Such states are characterized by changes in sensing, perceiving, thinking, and feeling. When a person is in such a state, the experience modifies the relatoin of the individual to the self, body, sense of identity, and the enviroment of time, space, or other people. One scholar has identified twenty such states of conciousness: dreaming, hynogogic (drowsiness before sleep), hypnopompic (semiconsciousness preceding waking), hyperalert, lethargic, rapture, hysteric, fragmentation, regressive, meditative, trance, reverie, daydreaming, internal scanning, stupor, coma, sotred memory, expanded consciousness, and 'normal'. In trace or in any other altered state of conciousness, a visionary encounters, indeed enters, another level of aspect of reality registered physiologically in the brain in the same way 'normal' experiences are. Culturally 'normal' of consensual reality is that aspect of dimension of reality of which a person is most commonly aware most of the time."Alternate reality describes that dimension of reality in which the deity and spirits reside, in which human beings from culturally 'normal' reality can sometimes visit in ecstatic trance by taking a journey (variously called "sky journey" or "soul loss" and the like), and to which people go when they die (Those who do not believe any of these things would call this nonconsensual reality.) During the centuries before and after the Gospels were written, countless persons reported a range of visions and appearances involving celestial entities. There is no reason not to take the experiences of these persons seriously, at their word. Their experiences have to be interpreted within the framework of their own culture's consensus reality (rather than ours)."The authors go onto list five main incidents of these kinds of visions and appearances; the baptism of Jesus, the testing of Jesus, the miracle of walking on the sea, the Transfiguration, and the Resurrection appearances. Their comments on the resurrection appearances are especially pertinent. They say:"The appearances of Jesus raised by God are visions of Jesus in alternate reality, where he, as God's chosen holy one, continues to live. The appearances of a holy man are altered-states-of-conciousness experiences and therefore are quite real. The interpretation that the disciples gave to these experiences was that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Mainstream U.S. culture frowns upon and even denies the human capacity for visions, trances, and experiencs of alternate realities. We are very cruious about nonrational dimensions of human existence, but tend to label all such occurences as irrational. John Pilch cites the work of Erika Bourguignon, who compiled a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, at various levels of technological complexity, and found that ninety percent of these societies evidence 'altered states of conciousness' Her conclusion: "Societies which do not utilize these states are historical exceptions which need to be explained, rather than the vast majority of societies that do not use these states" (cited by Pilch 1993). Thus it would be quite anachronistic and ethnocentric to take our post-Enlightenment, post-industrial revolution, technologically obsessed society as the normative for judging anyone other than ourselves. For most of the world, even today, a report of altered states of awareness would be considered quite normal."Cross-cultural comparison suggests that the Gospel authors describe experiences of altered states of awareness. This may be difficult for us to believe because we have been enculturated to be selectively inattentive to such states of awareness except in dreamsand under the influence of controlled substances."I have highlighted in bold what I consider to be important points relative to my arguments. First of all, note that Malina and Rohrbaugh consider the postmortem appearances of Jesus to be "visions". Note also, that they point out that visions of a holy man are in altered-states-of-awareness. Next, note that during the time before and after the Gospels were written that these visions and appearancs were widely reported in history and that they involved altered-states-of-consciousness. Finally note that the U.S. appears to be the exception, not the norm, and that these kinds of ASC type of visions are normative and considered usual in honor-shame soceities. This provides, I believe, the social-scientific basis for visions. Now as for specific examples of these kinds of visions in history involving ASC.

My first example is from Gershom Scholem's remarks on "the messianic revival of Sabbatai Sevi": The people of Smyrna saw miracles and heard prophecies, providing the best possible illustration of Renan's remark about the infectious character of visions. It is enough for one member of a group sharing the same beliefs to claim to have seen or heard a supernatural manifestation, and the others too will see and hear it. Hardly had the report arrived from Aleppo that Elijah had appeared in the Old Synagogue there, and Elijah walked the streets of Smyrna. Dozens, even hundreds, had seen him.... A letter written in Constantinople notes apparitions of Elijah "whom many have seen." In fact, visions of Sevi were very common after his death to his followers from what I understand (Price, Beyond Born Again, "Guarding an Empty Tomb"). These visions of Sevi can be understood as having occured in altered-states-of-consciousness, just like what Malina and Rohrbaugh have argued. Robin Lane Fox, in his work Pagans and Christians also seems to provide an example of a ASC- group vision:"Every visitor to the Black Sea knew the special island of Achilles, and in his report on the area, a visiting governor, Arrian, informed the Emperor Hadrian how 'some said' Achilles appeared to them in broad daylight on the prow or mast of their ships, 'as did Castor and Pollux'. Maximus, indeed knew a man after Homer's own heart. Near the same island, visitors had 'often' seen a young, fair-haired hero dancing in armour and had heard him singing a paean." (Fox pg. 144).According to Fox, Arrian informed Emperor Hadrian of reports that Achilles had appeared to groups of visitors to that special island of Achilles. In fact, according to this report, visitors "had often seen" what they took to be Achilles. In fact, Fox stresses that Miletus was alive with glimpses of the gods which had been granted to all sorts of people (pg. 143). Granted, Achilles and Sevi were probably not in the least considered holy men, but that's not my point here; rather my point is that these kinds of group visions involving altered-states-of-consciousness were common in antiquity. In fact, one can argue that legends arose from these kinds of visions. Even if some stories of these kinds of visions are pure legends, one can reasonably argue that the legends might reflect actual visionary experiences of these kinds.

This, I consider to be the naturalistic basis upon which Christianity was founded on.

Matthew

Bird Brain!

"13. Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich? 14. Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust, 15. And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. 16. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not her's: her labour is in vain without fear; 17. Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding." (Job 39:13-17)

The truly amazing thing about this passage is not that God created a merciless ecosystem where certain animals are incapable of caring for their young, but the fact that the ancient writers, like most unobservant theists today, honestly did not give the matter a second thought! Characteristically, God-believers have always tended not to notice when heinously sadistic characteristics of the "nature" that God created are pointed out to them. Apparently they have willfully blinded themselves to the implications of God saying he knowingly created an inept creature who is naturally an unfit mother! Why on earth would your god do that, theists?

Population control? Maybe, but if that is so, it is not only wasteful and unnecessary (God could just lessen the amount of eggs laid), but not part of what this text says at all. It says she crushes them because she is stupid! She can't help it. She is profoundly stupid. She just doesn't know any better! God intentionally created what would be the inspiration behind the reference, "bird brain." God gave those much needed IQ points that were supposed to go to the bird to us, so we could speak eloquent flatteries to God and remind him of how great he is. I'm sure, if the bird was smart enough to contemplate her short-changed situation, she'd pray for wisdom.

It is a known fact that if a manatee mother has two or more calves, she will often leave all but one behind because she is incapable of counting past the number one. Like his mother, that lost manatee calf may not be very smart, but I'm certain it experiences the same sense of horror and distress when it is deserted as one of our own children would getting lost in a mall or being sent to an orphanage.

Apologists are content to dilly-dally with what they consider to be new and improved versions of various philosophical arguments and biblical textual evidences that "prove" the God of the Bible's existence. What they should do instead is take a step backwards and deal with simple but inexcusable problem passages like this one!

(JH)

A Response to Jason

Here's John W. Loftus, once again responding to Jason Engwer's post here.

Jason argued: On the subject of the alleged gullibility of ancient people, Loftus lists some ancient practices he disapproves of, such as the behavior of the prophets of Baal and astrology…

In other words, Loftus compares what he considers some of the worst elements of the ancient world to what he considers some of the best elements of the modern world. He doesn't mention the positive elements of the ancient world or the negative elements of the modern world. As I've said repeatedly in previous responses to Loftus, the large majority of the people in the world today are supernaturalists. I can produce a list of modern beliefs that Loftus would disapprove of that would be longer than his list of ancient beliefs he disapproves of in his latest article. Many modern people believe in God or gods, astrology, ghosts, psychics, etc. And while our technology is more advanced than ancient technology, people in the forty-first century surely will have more advanced technology than we have.

I believe no one who truly looks at the evidence can come away thinking that ours is as superstitious of an age as the ancient people were, especially with the rise of science, newspaper reporters, and the rise of an historical consciousness. We are comparing the masses of people in the ancient world, like Jonah, the Ephesians, the people of Lystra, those on the island of Malta with your average educated American.

Even among God’s people we see divination through the Casting of Lots. In the OT the lot was cast to discover God’s will for the allocation of territory (Jos. 18–19, etc.), the choice of the goat to be sacrificed on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16), the detection of a guilty person (Josh. 7:14; Jonah. 1:7), the allocation of Temple duties (1 Chr. 24:5), the discovery of a lucky day by Haman (Esther 3:7). The Urim and the Thummim are lots used to make important decisions where the answer was either yes or no (1 Sam. 14:41; 28:6; Exod. 28:29; Deut. 33:8; Lev. 8:7; Num. 27:21). In the NT Christ’s clothes were allocated by lot (Mt. 27:35). The last occasion in the Bible on which the lot is used to divine the will of God is in the choice of Matthias (Acts 1:15–26). Can you imagine any judges today casting lots to divide up land or to make any decisions?

Dreams. Dreams in the ancient world were believed to be communication from God. Dreams were thought to convey messages from God or the gods. (See Genesis 20; 21:32; 24; 31:24; 40-41; Judges 7:13-14). Pharaoh had two dreams and demanded that someone interpret them, and it’s claimed Joseph accurately interpreted them for him (Genesis 41); Solomon had a dream where he asked and received his request for wisdom (I Kings 3:5-15); Matthew records five dreams in connection with the birth and infancy of Jesus, in three of which an angel appeared with God’s message (Mt. 1:20; 2:12–13, 19, 22). Later he records the troubled dream of Pilate’s wife that Jesus is innocent, and this dream was considered by Matthew as at least enough evidence of Jesus’ innocence to mention it (27:19). On occasions there is virtually no distinction between a dream and a vision during the night (Job. 4:12f; Acts 9:10; 10:10, 30; 16:9; 18:9f.). There is a very close connection between dreams and visions and prophecies: “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” (Joel 2:28 & Acts 2:17, cf. Numbers 12:6) [On dreams see A. L. Oppenheim, The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East, 1956].

Today’s modern educated people simply don’t accept that view of magic, divination, blessings, curses or dreams. Dreams, for instance, are the combined product of memory and sensation running wild, as the rational part of our brains is unconscious. CAT scans and probes tell us which parts of our brains are “asleep” and which parts are awake when we are sleeping. Dreams open the window of the mind. Dreams give us glimpse of a person’s unconscious self. The Bible contains far too many things that people living in our day and age simply cannot accept any longer. It is simply irrational and superstitious, in the light of brain science, to consider dreams as any communication from God, gods, or the dead.

Sometimes Jesus is called demon possessed simply because he says things that seemed to his hearers just plain crazy: “’Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?’ ‘You are demon-possessed,’ the crowd answered. ‘Who is trying to kill you?’” (John 7:20). “At these words the Jews were again divided. Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?” (John 10:19-20, also John 8:48-51). Even John the Baptist was thought to be demon possessed. (Matt. 11:18). It was easy to claim someone was possessed in those days. Whenever Jesus’ acted contrary to what was expected or his teaching sounded strange or weird, they concluded he was a demon-possessed person, much like someone today might say, “you’re crazy.”

The Gospel of John

One huge piece of evidence that leads most scholars to believe John’s Gospel was written very late is his usage of the phrase, “the Jews.” It occurs about seventy times, in contrast to five occurrences in the other Gospels. In John’s gospel it is a stereotype for Jesus’ opponents. Compare 7:13: “for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him (Jesus)” (See also John 2:18-20; 5:15, 18; 7:1; 9:18, 22; 10:31; 12:9; 18:28; 19:38; 20:19). But they were all Jews! How do Jews fear the Jews? The Gospel writer himself was a Jew, if it was John! Such a usage reveals the complete break between official Judaism and Christianity, which occurred after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by the Roman army. It is a very odd use of the phrase, leading some to believe John the Apostle didn’t even write this gospel, because he himself was a Jew. At the minimum it reveals that the author was not so much interested in historical facts, but in elaborating on history, and even creating history. [Someone might object that the phrase “the Jews” merely meant those people who lived in Judea, but several of these occurrences could not be just about people in Judea: John 2;13; 4:22; 5:1; 6:4, 41; 18:20, 33; 19:3,21,19,40].

Conservative scholar James Dunn, in The Evidence for Jesus, tells us the specific problem. It’s “whether we can use John’s Gospel as direct testimony to Jesus’ own teaching.” “This problem was not invented by modern scholarship; it was rather discovered by modern scholarship.” (p. 31). John’s Gospel is “obviously different” from the other three earlier Gospels in terms of style and content. In the other three Synoptic Gospels (so named because they see the same things) Jesus speaks in proverbs, epigrams (cf. Sermon on the Mount for example, Matt. 5-7) and in parables, whereas in John’s Gospel Jesus often speaks in long involved discourses (John 6, 14-17). In the three Synoptic Gospels Jesus speaks often of the “kingdom of God” and hardly anything about himself, but in John’s Gospel he speaks often about himself (“I am the light of the world…the bread of life…the way the life and the truth.”), but he hardly says anything about the kingdom of God.

At best, scholars see these differences as indicative of the fact that John’s Gospel is a theological elaboration of history, while still others see them indicating it is wholly theological in nature with not much historical value at all when it comes to what Jesus taught. Case in point is the question of the high view of Christ revealed in John’s Gospel. Even Dunn acknowledges that the number of times Jesus speaks of God as his “Father” or ‘the Father’ in John’s gospel (173 times—Dunn’s count) when compared to all three earlier Synoptic Gospels (a sum total of 43 times, many repeated between them) leads him to say that John’s Jesus is “the truth of Jesus in retrospect rather than as expressed by Jesus at the time…it is expanded teaching of Jesus.” (p. 45). And yet it is mostly because of John’s Jesus that we get a very high Christology. John’s Jesus is quoted as saying: “I and the Father are one,” (John 10:30), and “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John14:9). But, based on what we’ve just seen, he never said those things. This is John’s Jesus speaking, not the historical Jesus.

Furthermore, James D.G. Dunn asks a very important question with regard to the “I am” claims of Jesus: “If they were part of the original words of Jesus himself, how could it be that ONLY John has picked them up, and NONE of the others (emphasis his)? Call it scholarly skepticism if you will, but I must confess that I find it almost incredible that such sayings should have been neglected HAD they been known as a feature of Jesus’ teaching (p. 36).

Jude 14: “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones.”

It is just wrong that Enoch, the “seventh from Adam” said this, even though this is quoted from the Book of Enoch. Because it was written in the 2nd century B.C. and couldn’t have come from Enoch himself! About this text, listen to what James Barr said in his book After Fundamentalism (pp. 42-50): "The letter of Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch with all the air of accepting it as a fully authoritative religious book. It is not just a minor allusion, or the borrowing of a few words as a matter of style. It is the fullest and most explicit use of an older sacred text within the letter. It is aligned with a series of references: to the exodus from Egypt (v. 5), to Sodom and Gomorrah (v.7), to an incident involving the body of Moses, an incident not related in the Old Testament (v. 9), to Cain, Balaam and Korah (v. 11), and to ‘predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (v. 17). It is clearly intended to carry the strongest weight within the argument of the letter.”

“Enoch is regarded as having ‘prophesied’, just as Moses or Elijah or Isaiah had done. As all true prophets were, he must have been inspired. The citation of Enoch had, for the purposes of Jude’s argument, just the same validity and the same effect as the citation of the scriptures which came later to be deemed canonical….He quoted Enoch because it was an authoritative utterance of a prophet of ancient times, accepted as such in the church. To say…Enoch’s book ‘was not scripture’ would have been unintelligible to Jude.”

Jason Engwer vs. The Superstitious Past

Jason Engwer has offered a critique of what I argued in “Jonah, Evidence and the Superstitious Past” I will respond to it here.

Jason: John Loftus has made another attempt to justify his assertions about the alleged gullibility of ancient people. His latest attempt, like the ones before it, fails to prove anything significantly relevant to the issue at hand. I'm writing a response primarily for the benefit of other people. John Loftus has repeatedly demonstrated his unreasonableness, and his latest article gives many more examples. If you read the Debunking Christianity blog in the future, or have discussions with people influenced by it, keep in mind their demonstrated lack of effort in being reasonable. The number of errors they make and the ease with which those errors could have been avoided are significant.

All I can do is to share reasons why I see things differently than Christians do. And I can only do so one story at a time and one argument at a time, since my rejection of Christianity is based upon a cumulative case. To say that I’m unreasonable is merely to say you disagree with the way I see things. To argue that I am unreasonable because you reject the way I see things, is judging the way I see things by the way you see things. I do my best to describe the way I see things. But if you reject my reasons for seeing things the way I do, it's not because I’m unreasonable, for I'm sure that I am reasonable. It may be because you have blinders on. And it may just be that we see things differently. Anyway, let’s see how unreasonable I am…..

Citing people like the Ephesians in Acts 19 doesn't explain the beliefs of somebody like Thomas, Paul, or Luke. That's why no scholar arguing against Jesus' resurrection, for example, will just cite something like the book of Jonah or Acts 19, and refer to ancient people as gullible, without addressing the details surrounding the claims made by the early Christians. You can't sufficiently explain the testimony of somebody like Paul or Luke by arguing that some ancient Ninevites or some ancient Ephesians were gullible. Similarly, we can't dismiss what John Loftus says just because he lives in a world with militant Muslims and people who consult psychics.

Just so we are clear here, I never said that based upon my analysis of the Ephesians and Jonah’s book that the resurrection never happened. I have some other reasons for thinking this. But I'm saying that the people in Biblical days were very superstitious such that I question whether any evidence was needed to convince them of something. I merely used the Ephesians and Jonah’s book as examples of this. I could multiply these examples with Elijah at Mt. Carmel with the prophets of Baal (did these “false” prophets really think they could bring down fire from the sky, such that they spent all day trying?) Paul in Lystra (Acts 14:8-20), Paul in Athens (Acts 17:16), Paul on Malta (Acts 28:1-6). Then there’s Daniel who was the head of the Magicians (do you know what Magic is?). There is Nebuchadnezzar and his dream (Daniel 4), Pharoah and his dream (Gen. 39ff), and even Pilate’s wife’s dream. There are mandrakes, and Pharaoh’s sorcerers.

There is Rhabdomancy, (Ezk. 21:21. Sticks or arrows were thrown into the air, and omens were deduced from their position when they fell); Hepatoscopy. (Ezk. 21:21. Examination of the liver or other entrails of a sacrifice was supposed to give guidance); Teraphim. (Associated with divination in 1 Sam. 15:23; Ezk. 21:21; Zech. 10:2); Necromancy, or the consultation of the departed (Deut. 18:11; 1 Sam. 28:8; 2 Ki. 21:6); Astrology (draws conclusions from the position of the sun, moon and planets in relation to the zodiac and to one another). The wise men (Magi) who came to the infant Jesus (Mt. 2:9) were probably trained in Babylonian tradition which mixed astronomy with astrology and Hydromancy, or divination through water. (Here forms and pictures appear in the water in a bowl, as also in crystal-gazing. The gleam of the water induces a state of light trance, and the visions are subjective, Gen. 44:5, 15).

Speaking of visions Matthew has argued that there is a visionary basis to Christianity.

And our world is different than the ancient world. We can see how applied science has impacted us (in no particular order) in the areas of medicine, biology, earth science, computer science, engineering technology, zoology, geology, electricity, botany, genetics, dental technology, rocket science, astronomy, forensics, meteorology, chemistry, laser surgery, hydraulics, X-rays, Plasma Physics, increased the number of elements in the Periodic Table of Elements, understanding the nervous and muscular system, brain science, the whole notion of friction, etc, etc. [See the popular treatments in New York Public Library's Science Desk Reference, or the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, ed. James Trefil, (Routledge, 2001)].

Compare the above scientific disciplines with such things as divination, casting of lots, dreams, visions, trances, magic, exorcisms as healings, astrology, necromancy, sorcery, prophets for every religion, idol worship, gods and goddesses for every natural phenomena, human and animal sacrifices, priests, omens, temples, festivals, sacred writings, and the Pseudepigrapha. We live in a much different world than the ancients, primarily because of Newtonian science.

Consider also how that in a modern world Christian Prayers have been secularized. This all makes me wonder why Christians presuppose the Bible is true?

Jason: Christians would justify their acceptance of the book of Jonah on the basis of something like the evidence we have for the inclusion of Jonah in the canon of the ancient Jews and Jesus and the apostles. In other words, the evidence we have for the apostles' reliability, for example, would be applied to their comments relative to the canon. We would accept Jonah on the basis of apostolic authority.

Sure you do. And I make no outrageous claims here that you are unreasonable to do so, like you fault me when I think the opposite. Look at the book of Jude. He believed that Enoch, “the 7th from Adam” prophesied something (v.14). Jude made it into the canon too. But it’s crystal clear Enoch’s book is pseudonymous and not written by Enoch. So if I’m right that there was no evidence for Jonah’s prophecy, then those who accepted Jonah into the canon didn’t have any either! (Did you miss this point?) You must argue from within the book of Jonah rather than claim that because his book was canonized it proves what you think it does. I’m questioning Jonah and the people in his story. They did not act like modern people would act today (even if there are always superstitious people in every age).

Jason: There would be false prophets alongside true prophets.

Of course there were. But in such a superstitious age they were everywhere. They had a dream. They claimed to see a vision, which according to fellow Blogger Matthew J. Green is the basis of the Christian religion, and able to be explained naturalistically. How would anyone know which visions or prophesies were true? Jeremiah had a battle over this. In his day the people didn’t know whom to believe since prophets abounded saying this or that, and Jeremiah advocated that God’s people surrender the city of Jerusalem. With so many prophets saying this or that, someone was bound to be right. The fact that Jeremiah labels them “false” prophets is simply because he ended up being correct and wrote his book telling the story(if it was written by him). History would’ve been written differently by those whom he called false prophets, if what they said eventually happened. Then Jeremiah would have been called a false prophet by them.

Jason: If unreasonable and reasonable people can co-exist in today's world, why not in the ancient world as well?

Sure they do. But I never claimed ancient people were stupid. I think the collective IQ has pretty much been the same down through the centuries. I’m just claiming the ancients were overly superstitious by today’s standards. They were much more willing to believe something without evidence when it came to God, gods, or goddesses.

Jason: Why should we think that there were "police" in Tarshish who checked ships for lists of passengers? How does Loftus know what happened when the ship did arrive at its destination? Why would ancient court systems have to operate as John Loftus describes in order for us to conclude that the Bible is credible?

Our modern standards are different, then? This grants my point, does it not?

Jason: Making a judgment about whether God is going to punish the ship you're traveling on or the city you live in isn't in the same category as making a judgment about whether you saw a man perform miracles and heard that man speak with you after He had risen from the dead. Mental judgments about unseen and complex entities aren't in the same category as judgments about what you see with your eyes, touch with your hands, etc. Saying that the Ninevites believed Jonah too easily doesn't justify a rejection of the eyewitness testimony of a John, a Paul, or a Luke.

Well then, Jonah also describes himself as swallowed by a great fish; probably one of the mythical sea creatures of the deep, like Leviathan, Behemoth, or Rahab. This is something he claimed to have seen, but taken with the rest of what he writes I have no reason to believe it.

Besides, when it comes to John, Paul, and Luke, which ones can actually claim to be an eyewitness of Jesus’ miracles and resurrection? John? And where can we find his testimony? The book of John? Most scholars dispute he wrote it. And what makes you so sure that the book of John didn’t embellish the stories, since gospel scholars see him doing so with Jesus’ long discourses?

Jason: Loftus ignores the potential conditional nature of the prophecy, and he ignores the indicators within the narrative that point to a conditional nature. It seems that, again, he's going to the text with a desire to find error, and his desire leads him to wrong conclusions.

Hmmmm. Then the conditional nature of prophecy is something added to the Mosaic tradition which originally didn’t provide for any exceptions or conditions…it must come to pass.

Jason: How does Loftus know that Behemoth and Leviathan were "mythical"? He doesn't. How does he know that the creature mentioned in Jonah was mythical? He doesn't.

Rahab? Then whom was God fighting in order to create the universe? (cf. Isaiah 51:9-10; Ps. 74:13-14; 89:10-12; Job 26:7-13).

It is claimed that Behemoth and Leviathan denote respectively the hippopotamus and the crocodile. However, "they are probably instead chaos monsters. The description of neither Behemoth nor Leviathan corresponds to any known creature, and certainly not the hippopotamus and crocodile. It seems fundamental to the argument in Job 40–41 that the beasts in question can be captured by God alone, otherwise Job might have replied that he could have captured them, and then God would lose the argument!” [The Anchor Bible Dictionary].

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GeneMBridges said:
It's really funny to watch this one unfold. Loftus denies the historicity of the Bible, yet he appeals to it as historically reliable in order to make his case for the gullibility of its people, but if the Bible "debunks itself" and is not historically reliable, then how can he use it as historically reliable evidence for the gullibility of the ancients?

I provisionally take Jonah at face value, as if it happened. Then I ask questions about those purportedly historical claims, to test them. If the questions I ask lead one to think ancient people acted in ways that would be rejected by most all of us today, then I can subsequently reject those historical claims of Jonah. There’s nothing absurd with that, and if I don’t miss my guess, this is what you call an “internal critique” of the book.

Jason: Apparently, Loftus thinks it's significant that not only does he consider ancient people gullible, but so does the Bible. If he wants to argue that something like the account of Thomas was fabricated so as to give an appearance of having evidence for Christianity, then why would the ancient Christians have done such a thing? Why would gullible people living in a gullible world fabricate evidence in order to persuade people? Why is evidence fabricated in a world that's unconcerned with evidence? How does Loftus explain the many Biblical passages that make arguments from evidence and advocate evidential concepts like prophecy and eyewitness testimony?

In the case of the disciple Thomas, John describes a risen Jesus who appeared to Thomas, even “though the doors were locked,” indicating that Jesus either walked through the doors, or just appeared out of thin air. And then Jesus proceeds by asking Thomas to put his finger in his hands, and his hand in Jesus’ side. How can both of these descriptions of Jesus be of a flesh and blooded person? The way Jesus appeared to Thomas leads us think that this was nothing but a vision. How then can Thomas touch the flesh of Jesus, which still had open fatal wounds? Did the post-resurrected Jesus still have blood running in his veins? We now know that blood is necessary for the body to function, and that breathing gives the blood its oxygen, which is pumped though the body by the heart. Did he have a functioning heart and a set of lungs? Did the post-resurrected Jesus breathe? To speak, as it’s claimed Jesus did, demands a functioning set of lungs. John specifically said that he breathed (John 20:22). But didn’t Jesus lose all of his blood on the cross, and didn’t the post-resurrected body of Jesus still have open fatal wounds, according to John? These fatal wounds would cause him to lose any remaining blood out of his body. All of this leads me to suspect, at best, it was a vision.

There was no evidence. It was a story about Thomas. A vision. And it subsequently became a legend, which grew and grew as people passed it on, not unlike how the myth of Santa Claus grew up until the poem, “’twas the Night Before Christmas,” which revolutionized the way we thought about St. Nick.

Jason: Jonah was able to accurately predict the future, such as in his prediction of how the storm at sea would end (Jonah 1:12-15). He may have had evidence for answered prayer, if his deliverance came around the time that he prayed (Jonah 2:1-10). And he heard God speak in some manner (Jonah 1:2, 4:4-11). Loftus' suggestion that prophets like Jonah had no evidence to go by is unproveable and contrary to the data we have.

There's no evidence here. This is just Jonah's story-telling. Jonah tells us this. And I've already argued he was a superstitious ancient person (if he existed), who believed God chases people down for running away from them and who believed the lot will reveal God’s truth (divination—do YOU do this?).

Jason; Jonah's shipmates: The fact that they also appealed to the supernatural doesn't prove that they would believe any supernatural claim they came across in any situation in life.

They would have believed Poseidon (or some god of theirs) sent the storm if the lot had been cast saying so. And if the storm didn't subside, it must've been a different god who sent it, or this god refuses to be appeased for some reason.

Jonah, Evidence and the Superstitious Past

Since I have recently argued the Bible itself tells us ancient people were superstitious, compare what I argued there with this older post of mine on the story of Jonah:

For what I consider a typical look at the evidence of a prophetic word, take a look at the prophetic story in Jonah. Although I do not believe there is a shred of historical evidence for this story, let me treat it as if it were historical in every detail. Try to put yourself in the shoes of each of the characters involved, including Jonah, the sailors, the police in Tarshish, the king of Ninevah and his people. Read the story as if you are each of these characters respectively. What would you think and do?

Prophets received their prophecies by means of dreams and visions (Numbers 12:6). Several of the prophetic books claim to be based upon visions (Isaiah 1:1; Ezk. 1:1; Obadiah 1:1; Nahum 1:1), while most all of the rest of them start out either with “the word of the Lord came to me,” (Jonah 1:1) or simply, this is “an oracle.”

In the O.T. there were many prophets (I Sam. 10:10-13), and they sought guidance from God in dreams and visions. So how did any of them know for sure their prophecies were truly from God? They had a dream. They saw a vision (which probably is indistinguishable from a dream like state anyway). I take it that Jonah was upset at the corruption in Ninevah, much like Christians today are upset at the corruption in America, and had a dream about it, and just felt certain about it.

There were lots of prophets in the land, false ones, and prophets for other gods. THEY ALL FELT CERTAIN THEIR PROPHECIES WERE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. ALL OF THEM. The tests of the prophet laid down in Deut 13, and 18 just demand that they spoke in God’s name, and the thing should come to pass.

But when God purportedly called Jonah to preach against the city of Nineveh he tried to flee from God by sailing to some place called Tarshish (v.3). Even though Jonah felt certain about the prophecy, he didn’t like it, because he didn't want to warn the Ninevites of their impending destruction. But the kind of God he believed in when he fled was a tribal, localized god, and certainly not the later monotheistic omnipotent creator God.

1:4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship.

Of course, any sailor back then would blame God for the wind and the storm, but this is also Jonah’s belief, since this is supposedly his writing. Is that what we do today?...blame someone for a storm?

1:5-6 But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.”

The captain didn’t care which god Jonah prayed to, so long as no god was left out of their prayers. This is a true polytheism.

1:7 Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.”

They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. This is a form of divination. Do you want to cast lots to see who’s to blame for any hurricanes that come our way? Jonah accepted the results too.

1:8 So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?” 9 He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.” 10 This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)

Jonah expresses a view of God here that is at odds with his running away from God earlier. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that he thought he could run away from God with his belief that the God is a “God of heaven, who made the sea and the land,” except that Jonah may have truly realized this for the first time in the storm itself. But he states this as if he thought this way all along.

With the casting of lots and the fact that he was running away from this kind of God, it terrified these sailors. These things would not terrify us today. Does God zap people who disobey him today? Like Ananias & Sapphira? Uzzah? Lot’s wife? What if the lot had instead fallen on some follower of Zeus who was running away from him, or fighting against him, like Odysseus in the Odyssey? These sailors would still respond in the exact same way, because the proof was in the casting of lots, and the storm, and the story. They didn’t need any other proof or evidence. Does this type of gullibility describe any thinking person today?

1:11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” 12 “Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”

Yep, that’s what Jonah concluded. Kill me and it’ll be okay for you. We learn at the end of this book that he was suicidal anyway, so there’s no difference expressed in this attitude of his. Jonah believes the storm is his fault? Have you ever blamed yourself because of a storm? Does God or nature act that way?

1:13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried to the LORD, “O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased.”

Here they faced an ethical decision. They "know" Jonah is to blame for the storm, but does Jonah’s God also demands they kill him? If they kill him, will Jonah’s God be more upset with them for doing so? But Jonah eased their minds, because he himself says that’s what they should do.

1:15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.

These sailors should be tried for attempted murder. Surely they had a list of the people on board. And when they docked to a port someone would notice him missing. What would the police in Tarshish do then? Anything comparable to what our police would do? What would these men say to the police? Would their story hold up in today's courts? Absolutely not!

1:17 But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

Hmmm. With a person like that telling the first part of this story, I doubt that he can be trustworthy telling the rest of the story. And if people were superstitious enough to believe God caused a storm to stop Jonah in his tracks without any evidence but nature and the story itself, then they would also believe he was swallowed by a fish simply because he told them it happened. If no evidence is required to believe the first part of the story, then no evidence is required to believe the last part.

But lookee here at the end (chapter 3) after the fish puked him up:

1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

Jonah obeyed his vision or dream, and preached the message he felt certain about; That “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”

That’s what he said. Remember this.

3:6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

In the first place, what evidence did the king of Ninevah have for believing Jonah? We are simply not told. Presumably none was needed because of the supposed fame of the Hebrew God. But even with the supposed fame of the Hebrew God, how would the King know that Jonah was his true prophet? That's a fair question, isn't it? Even Moses supposedly had wondered how the Pharaoh would know he was sent from God, didn't he?

Still, how would America react to the same prophetic message by none other than Billy Graham: “Forty more days and America will be overturned.” The laugher would be constant. Jay Leno and David Letterman would have a field day with this. That’s because we today would demand some evidence. And there have been some prophets of doom in America too. Just listen to Jack Van Impe. But for the last 30 years or more he's always been wrong!

3:10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? I’m sure I read somewhere that the test of a prophet was that what he said was to come to pass. Didn’t he say Nineveh would be destroyed? Did he or didn't he? Answer the question. But it wasn’t destroyed after all, was it? What if Billy Graham used this excuse to explain why America wasn’t destroyed? Laughter again. What would you say about Jonah then? After all there were a great many prophets running around proclaiming that God spoke to them too. If what he prophesied didn't come to pass, then is there any evidence at all that he was really called to speak God's word?

And how should we now think about Jonah? After all, his prophecy failed the test of a true prophet! But yet his book is in the Bible.

What's missing in this story is evidence. No evidence was offered for any claim, except that Jonah said it was true. Without a doubt no Christian today would believe the same type of story told by a modern Christian, unless there was some pretty hard evidence.

Is there even any evidence that Nineveh became monotheistic and righteous? If they remained polytheistic and failed to worship the Hebrew God, that wouldn't be enough for Jonah's God, would it? If it was just about their moral behavior, then cities and countries all go through some cycle of "revival" from time to time, so it might be that Jonah was taking credit for something that happened on its own anyway.

And where's this fish? The ancients had the superstitious belief that mythical beasts and fish lived in the seas, likened to the Loch Ness Monster, like "Rahab," "Behemoth," and "Leviathan."

This is what I mean by superstition. Little or no evidence is required, just a good story, based in fear, along with the storms of life. The Bible Debunks itself.