Christian Nationalism
I stumbled upon an article at FindLaw, that highlights a new book by Michelle Goldeberg about the rise of Christian nationalism. I have not read the book yet, though I think I will order a copy, so I can’t really speak to the validity of it’s claims. However, the snippets from both the FindLaw piece and the authors site suggest that it may be worth reading.
The FindLaw piece starts out this way:
If more Americans would read works like Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, the longevity of our democracy, as we know it, would be more assured. I say this because the more people who understand the thinking and agenda of the growing forces of “Christian nationalism,” the less likely it will be that these forces will succeed. Not many people want to go where Christian nationalists want to take the country.
The last 6 or 8 years have already shown us what we can expect from a Christian nationalist government; holy crusades fought at the expense of the tax payers, the suppression of scientific and medical research in the name of perceived biblical doctrine, and the steady dismantling of individual rights. Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg for what the Christian nationalists (CN) really want.
Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish.
- The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action by George Grant
This is the type of religious imposition that we need to guard against most stringently. Sure, being subjected to “in God we trust”, “under God”, or the Ten Commandments is annoying, but all that pales in comparison to what this country will be like if the CN succeeds in their quest for “dominion”.
How do they intend to do it? The strategy has already begun. They are systematically breeding, training, deploying, and installing judges into the US legal system in an attempt to adjudicate the conversion of our country from quasi secularism to full blown theocracy. Again, from the FindLaw piece:
Reconstructionist leaders see federal judges — probably correctly, Goldberg notes — “as the only thing protecting American secularism. They know that if they can take the courts, they’ll have the country.” Their strategy to take the courts is twofold, although, as Goldberg notes, it’s also “somewhat contradictory” — and it envisions a protracted battle.First, Christian nationalists plan to pressure politicians “to pack the bench with their ideological allies,” and they are “training a new generation of home schooled jurists who will approach the law with a Christian worldview.” [...]
Second, accompanying the attempt at court-packing, Goldberg reports that Christian nationalists are “trying to strip the courts of much of their current authority” while “railing against judges who override the popular will.” Or as Goldberg nicely summarizes Christian nationalists’ strategy, they “are simultaneously fighting a war for the judiciary and a war on it.”
Goldberg cites two right-wing judges nominated by President Bush as the kind who would satisfy the court packing plans of the Christian nationalists. Both judges — William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown — initially provoked Democratic filibusters. Unfortunately, my quick search of the debate in the Senate on these two highly controversial nominees does not reveal that anyone in the Senate opposing these nominees was aware that behind them, lurked the hand of the Christian nationalists.
The CN is a small segment of our society, but they are very well funded. Millions of saps pouring money into the coffers of Pat Robertson and company, all in the name of “gifts to God”, generates allot of cash. I am certain that most of those people assume their money is going to feed little Misha or Alina or to help convert Godless “Moslems” in Indonesia. If they really understood that their money was also being used to fund a covert takeover of the American government, I wonder how many of them would still be so generous. The CN are well organized and hold regular meetings. No they don’t meet under the club name “Christian Nationalists”, but they all meet up every Sunday and receive their marching orders. They also control large segments of the media, many many blogs, have a plethora of radio shows, and several TV shows.
I have often thought that atheists need to get their own TV shows. It would be particularly good if it could come on right after the 700 Club. To be acceptable, it would have to have a title that’s more palatable to the general public, so the Angry Atheist Hour, or Religion Sucks!, though accurate, would probably not go over very well in our current society.
The CN is why I started blogging, and why I vote, and I encourage other atheists to do so as well. Atheists should never allow themselves to give in to feelings of apathy or inevitability. Every atheist should be a constructive, active, voice in their local community. There are quite a few atheists that prescribe to the notion that government itself is illegitimate and invasion of personal rights. Whether that is true or not, I will not try and argue in this post. However, I can say with complete confidence, that if we adopt and maintain an abstinence approach to government, the Christian Nationalists will step in and take over.
LBBP
August 26th, 2006 at at 11:27 am
My wife likes ” Happy Pagans”, but as a non-beliver in invisible things I can’t go there. Is there a word for those of us who know that this world is the only thing.
Maybe “Realiststs” or “Realisim”
August 26th, 2006 at at 1:09 pm
I am about halfway through with this book, and I’d like to withhold my review until I’m finished. However, I will say that it is certainly worth reading.
August 26th, 2006 at at 2:20 pm
I intended to buy it but will wait until the paperback version comes out. For such a slim volume, I found the hardcover to be very expensive.
I have some ideas for tactics to fight and roll back the religious right.
While most Americans are religious, even if in a largely symbolic sense, most of them do not want to live under a theocracy. The majority of Americans remain between fundamentalism and secularism. Right now, the Religious Right can rally the middle to its side by scaring them with horror stories of godless liberals and secularists trying to remove God from American public life. What the secularists need to do is find a way to get the nominally religious middle to revolt against the Religious Right.
The best tactic against the religious right is ridicule. But that ridicule can only work if it reaches a mass audience. A major novel or motion picture that lampoons a literalist interpretation of the Bible would be ideal. However, another similar idea on a smaller scale would be to get a group of people together like a Monty Python type of comedy skit team that I would call “Sacred Cows” and have produce video segments on a web site.
August 26th, 2006 at at 3:15 pm
It’s funny how much these people have in common with the supposed terrorists they love to fight. They both use hate and fear to exert power over the masses. Their followers believe they must do X to do the will of God, get into heaven, etc. The terrorists use violence to further their agenda since that is the most effective way to further their agenda. Since this country is more civilized, political means are the most effective way to inflict their will.
Don’t be fooled by the differing means. The desires are both dangerously the same.
August 27th, 2006 at at 4:21 am
Also see Goldberg’s Saving Secular Society, and if you’re interested, my take on theonomy.
August 27th, 2006 at at 8:57 am
Hmmmm, I’m not sure that the best angle is to use a vocabulary of “fight” or “war.” It is overused, dangerous, and can be turned quite rapidly against those of us who want to change the situation, not to mention that it provides “ammo” for their “see, I told you so” attacks. We do need to address the issues forthrightly, and to highlight inconsistency, contradiction, places where their logic fails miserably (most everywhere but we need to be selective at first, it is like pulling a thread in a fine garment), and to above all, direct ourselves to respond to how their agenda limits, circumscribes, and subverts good values. I think we neeed to focus on those things that they eschew: friendliness, interconnectedness, our common humanity, the importance of not finding more ways to be divisive… people respond to such a message much better than to “confictual” ones, although along with that we must have a message that clearly stipulates our differences. In particular we need to find the spots where there are frayed edges in their coalitions, and tug at those hard. The strategy is to undermine their comfort with each other, by making others recognize that behind the facade of harmony, or religious value, comes an agenda of separation, dominionism, and intolerance. We also need to use humor, irony, ridicule, in the service of awakening a realization that others can see through their veil of blidness and/or ignorance.
The values that others will rally around are not “atheistic” values, they are more likely to see them (and want to see them) as common sensical “American” values (or whatever language they’ve grown accustomed to), hence no sense in waging a fight between atheists and religionists. But we can stand for critical sense, for bridging division, for respect, freedom, responsibility, helping those least among us, strong community, etc. One lesson to be learned: we need to take those values and their banner before they do. Otherwise, we will be struggling to define ourselves.
Thanks for the post, Christian Nationalism is a major threat here indeed and Goldberg’s book is well worth reading.
Best,
N
August 27th, 2006 at at 3:44 pm
I personally don’t think there’s very much of a chance of this happening. Fundamentalists have nowhere near enough money or media access to influence the government. You certainly can’t substantially change the nature of a government by simply going and voting in elections every 2 years.
However, they do pose a threat in that they allow for a great deal of corruption in the government. They are content with politicians doing the most atrocious things in exchange for a mention of Jesus in an inappropriate situation.
However, I agree that we shouldn’t have a hands-off approach to politics and elections. There is only so much that you can do by these channels, but we have nowhere near exhausted them.
I actually think that the existence of the CNs could be useful for people who want to change things for the better. It’s no secret that Christian leaders are upset due to the fact that they’ve essentially gotten nothing in return for voting Republicans into office year after year. And in the same vain of what I’ve said above, they will continue to go home mostly empty-handed. However, they would get better representation of their fucked up beliefs if they had their own political party, with a proportional system of representation. Might it be possible to use the huge Christian political machine to the supporting of proportional representation? They might actually be in support of it. And I don’t think there is much to worry about if we did succeed in this cause. The average American, when given a large selection of choices of who to vote for, are unlikely to vote against the majority of their interests in order to support fundamentalists.
August 27th, 2006 at at 5:54 pm
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Yeah, you do.
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TOR Hershman
August 28th, 2006 at at 3:23 pm
It’s funny how much these people have in common with the supposed terrorists they love to fight. They both use hate and fear to exert power over the masses. Their followers believe they must do X to do the will of God, get into heaven, etc. The terrorists use violence to further their agenda since that is the most effective way to further their agenda. Since this country is more civilized, political means are the most effective way to inflict their will.
You must be writing from within the US. ‘political means’ are only more civilised when you’re inside the country dropping the bombs. The ‘political means’ the Christain right use external to the US involves a very large military machine. Just ask the Iraqis if they think the christians are using ‘civilised means’ to push their agenda forward…..
August 28th, 2006 at at 5:55 pm
No, I think LBBP’s assessment is correct here. You are right that the US often acts in ways that can easily be called state terrorism, but this has been happening for a long time, and really has nothing to do with Christian Nationalism. It’s generally materialistic motives that drive the imperialist nature of the US, and doesn’t have too much to do with a particular religious ideology. Like I said earlier, religious forces have little say in the larger issues. Even with the Israel situation, I don’t think that religion plays too much of a part.
August 30th, 2006 at at 12:49 pm
I am a Christian, and I view politics as a moral science – therefore as a subset of theology.
I hope that does not mean that we need to be enemies. I had some atheist friends in high school, and we got along very well.
I’m curious. Would you agree with me that politics is a moral science? Wouldn’t you agree that your worldview affects your political views? Isn’t it true that what you believe about epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics (that is, what you believe to be true, what you believe to be real, and what you believe to be right and just) influences the manner in which you vote?
I understand that you are concerned that we Christians will take away freedom. But do you believe that we need to have the “rule of law?” On what should that law be based? Isn’t this a moral question?
If there is no God, then how do you say that things like murder and rape are wrong? (I am assuming that you do think that murder and rape are wrong, and that they should therefore be illegal. Is this assumption correct?)
See, the reason why morals matter, and the reason why politics matter, is due to the fact that we have been created in God’s image – and therefore have dignity and value.
If you throw out God, then you are denying reality. By denying the fact that you have been created in God’s image, you have no basis to assign value to people.
On a different topic, atheism is a self-defeating religion. Let me explain.
An atheist claims to know that there is no God. In order to “know” that there is no God, the atheist must be omnipresent (because God might be hiding), but he also must be omniscient (because God could be invisible and undetectable to our 5 senses). Therefore, in order to “know” that God doesn’t exist, the atheist must be ominipresent and omniscient. That would, of course, make him God. So, he would have to deny himself. Conclusion: atheism is self-defeating. Those who are atheists have taken a step of “faith” and have chosen to believe that there is no God.
You could also choose to believe that there are no stars beyond the stars we currently know about, but how likely is it that that conclusion is right. Our limited technology leaves us ignorant about those stars that our beyond what we have been able to observe. To conclude that no other stars exist – except what we have been able to observe seems kind of foolish – doesn’t it?
Agnosticism seems to make much more sense than atheism.
Well, that’s all I got for now. God bless you. May He reveal Himself to you. He loves you all.
August 30th, 2006 at at 1:50 pm
ConcernedEngineer -
We don’t have to be enemies, but if you insist on forcing your idea of morals down my throat because it says so in an ancient book, using the gang mentality of organised religion to orchestrate political and legal change to support your ‘morals’ over democratic rule of law then we’ll end up that way.
You cliam that we’re created in Gods image as fact. That’s untrue. That’s a belief system, not a fact.
You say that by throwing out god, we’re denying reality. I say that by choosing to believe in something with no proof *you* are denying reality.
before you start – ‘because the bible says it’s so’ is not proof. ok.
btw, what makes your ‘morals’ superior to my sense of ethics? I am willing to bet almost anything you like that I, as a hard athiest, actually live a more ‘moral’ life than almost every christain I’ve ever met. I’m a pacifist for a start. never hit *anyone* in my life. I’ve never cheated on my wife of seven years. I don’t like or use porn, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those that do. I’m generous to my friends and family and give to charity when I can afford it. I like to think these things (and many more) make me a good person, and I do all of this without any belief in god, without fear of supernatural retribution or hope of eternal afterlife in paradise. I do this because I believe that my time here on earth is all I have and I’m going to make the most of it.
It is not a step of faith to believe there is no god, it is an act of logic.
finally, to answer your first question, about belief in politics as a moral science – I think that the term moral science in oxymoronic. morals are an arbitrary set of human values. science is the process of measuring, theorising and explaining the natural world. the two are pretty incompatable things.
Well, that’s about it. I hope you come to your senses and grow up, stop believing in a non-existant sky daddy and stop participating in a corrupt authoritarian religion that has caused and enabled more wars and suffering than any other force in human history.
August 30th, 2006 at at 2:01 pm
No, I think LBBP’s assessment is correct here. You are right that the US often acts in ways that can easily be called state terrorism, but this has been happening for a long time, and really has nothing to do with Christian Nationalism. It’s generally materialistic motives that drive the imperialist nature of the US, and doesn’t have too much to do with a particular religious ideology. Like I said earlier, religious forces have little say in the larger issues. Even with the Israel situation, I don’t think that religion plays too much of a part.
I wouldn’t say that it is christian nationalism that drives US foreign policy, but it is, in part, religious belief on both sides of the equation that enables the conflict. It’s almost impossible to deny that, for many people involved, the current conflicts the US are involved in are about christianity Vs islam. While the realpolitik may be very different (oil, power, prevention of the development of other powerful nations etc), there are very heavy religious overtones to all the current conflict in the middle east.
August 30th, 2006 at at 2:08 pm
OK ConcernedEngineer, I’ll bite…
Yes, of course politics is a moral science. The problem is, religion is not. Religion is a bunch of arbitrary, and self contradictory rules dictated by ancient sheepherders, that is then twisted and distorted to fit the whims of those that wish to control the masses.
Most atheists make their political decisions based on empirical evidence. One can make simple basic assumptions about existence without invoking spiritual beings. For example, I exist, I wish to continue to exist, I wish to enjoy my existence, and I wish for my children to have the same opportunities (or better) that I have. I can make a reasonable assumption that most other people have similar goals. It is therefore reasonable to conclude, that laws that allow humanity to coexist without killing each other, are mutually beneficial to everyone. The details can get sort of muddy of course, but that is true in any system of politics. No invisible sky friend required.
“An atheist claims to know that there is no God.” I don’t know many atheists that don’t allow for the possibility that they could be wrong. Most will state that if confronted with actual physical evidence of the existence of “God”, as apposed to impassioned hearsay or intentional deceit, then sure I’ll believe in God. BUT, to date NO ONE has been able to offer any EVIDENCE for the existence of anything even remotely similar to an all powerful being.
Your star reference is a good example, but not for you. I can’t choose to believe in God, for the same reason I can’t believe that there are no stars beyond the ones we know of now. New stars are being discovered daily, but we’re still waiting on ANY evidence of Gods.
So which is more likely; “A”, even though we know we have only mapped a tiny portion of the visible sky, there aren’t any more stars? Or “B”, because we have an idea of how big the universe really is, there must be more stars than the tiny percentage we have documented.
Conversely, which of these is more likely; “A”, there has been zero evidence EVER for the existence of God, but some guy told me God exists, so I’m going to ignore the lack of physical evidence and believe, just ’cause it makes me feel good. Or “B”, there is no evidence, so until someone can show me some, I’ll continue to NOT believe in God.
Obviously the answer is “B” in both cases.
As to your rather silly point about atheism being self defeating, I reply with this equally silly retort. I have a dragon that can’t be smelled, felt, heard, or seen, living in my garage. Prove me wrong, without becoming a self defeating, ominipresent and omniscient, and non-existent being.
August 30th, 2006 at at 7:53 pm
To ConcernedEngineer, you ask how can there by morals without God. That is a stupid question because societies that had no contact with or were unaware of the Israelites or Christianity were able to develop complex moral systems.
In ‘The Analects’, Confucius is asked ” Is there a single word which can be a guide to conduct throughout one’s life?”
Confucius replied ” It is perhaps the word ’shu’. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.”
Now we are all probably familiar with the Golden Rule of do unto others as you would have done to you. But Confucius takes it further. He says that we must not do to others what we do not want to be done to us.
None of us wants to be stolen from, beaten, robbed, oppressed, raped, or murdered. Consequently, we should not want to do the same to others. One does not have to believe that some divine being created us and our universe in order to not want to robbed, raped, cheated, oppressed or murdered. If you take two people who live there life according to this principle, one a Christian and the other an atheist, can you really say that the Christian is superior to the atheist? If so, then you are arguing that belief is more important than action.
August 30th, 2006 at at 8:26 pm
Check out this post from ConcernedEngineer’s blog. I’m just pasting the first paragraph.
Mormonism
I had a pretty lively discussion with a couple Mormon guys today. It is amazing to me how a religion that is so bizarre can be so “successful.” Once you suspend disbelief, people can be brainwashed to believe anything.
Oh, how I couldn’t agree more.
Christianity claims their book is inerrant.
Mormonism calims their book is inerrant.
Both have no evidence.
So at least 1 group is wrong. And if 1 is wrong, for all intents and purposes they are all wrong because there is no evidence available that would allow one to determine which one is correct.
So by dismissing one religion, he really is dismissing his own. Of course, his own admitted brainwashing won’t let him see this.
September 1st, 2006 at at 8:02 am
Chelfyn,
Can you define “fact” for me.
The issue here is an issue of epistemology and metaphysics. What is true? What is real? How do we know?
Everyone has assumptions, postulates, axioms with which to start. You can’t really talk about “facts” without presupposing the reality of our existence and the reliability of our senses. These assumptions, in a sense, are taken on faith.
Descartes started with the fundamental presupposition, “I think; therefore, I am.” What I appreciate about Descartes and Christians is that they are upfront about their own presuppositions and axioms. In my experience, those on the political left (whether or not they believe in God) are not upfront (even with themselves) about their presuppositions.
Atheists have presupposed that the best way (and only reliable way) to discern truth and reality is by our empirical senses. But I should like to point out that you did not arrive at that presupposition by “proving” that empirical evidence is more reliable than other forms of evidence. You presupposed it.
The problem is that what we observe with our senses often leads us astray. Our senses fool us all the time. For example, we often observe something that seems “linear,” but we are really observing local linearity. The truth of the matter is unknown to us, because we don’t “see” the big picture. What looks like a line could be a parabola, a circle, an exponential decay, or something else.
That’s why I find it ridiculous for atheists to put so much “faith” in themsevles and in their own finite ability to observe reality and make conclusions about that reality. You atheists think quite a bit of yourselves.
Isn’t it possible that what you observe about reality could be wrong?
Your believing friend,
ConcernedEngineer
September 1st, 2006 at at 8:22 am
On Evidence:
I would suggest that there is a great deal of evidence that points toward the existence of the Almighty.
I would suggest that the existence of the Universe and the existence of life – human life in particular – is some strong evidence that points toward the existence of a Creator.
I know that you are going to bring up the Big Bang and Evolution. But there are some problems with these hypotheses.
The Big Bang suggests that all the matter in the universe was condensed into a tiny ball. But that’s not where it starts – that is supposedly in the first – I don’t know – microseconds (I may be off mathematically by several orders of magnitude here). But before that the ball was even smaller (perhaps in the picoseconds age of the universe). But before that, supposedly, right at the beginning, there were photons.
Who said science was not consistent with the Bible? “Let there be light.”
Now, how do you explain that scientifically? Where did all the matter come from? If matter can neither be created nor destroyed, then has the universe been oscillating from all eternity past? Or was there a beginning (perhaps not this past big bang, but some other big bang)?
Also, if the Big Bang was an explosion, then it seems like it would be awfully chaotic? How does ordered complexity come out of an explosion? If I threw a grenade into a junkyard, I would not suspect that I would be able to produce a car. Yet, there is a tremendous amount of ordered complexity – and information – in the universe.
This leads me to the evolution/ID debate. Evolutionists believe that non-living matter somehow morphed into life, and then that life continued to morph into more complex life. I have four scientific objections to this:
1. The Second Law of Thermodyamics – Nature left to itself tends to get more and more disorderly – not orderly. It is true that the local entropy can decrease (while the entropy of the universe is increasing), but to get from non-life to life to life as we know it by “natural selection” is a pretty wack hypothesis that has not been proved bythe scientific method.
2. Gaps in the fossil record. Darwin thought that by now (2006), the gaps would have been filled in. But they haven’t been. The “kinds” of life are very distinct – both in what we observe today – as well as in the fossil record. There are similarities, but there is also a distinction.
3. Irreducible complexity.
4. DNA – The human “microprocessor.” The idea that the information contained in DNA just happened to develop from a disorganized explosion – that takes a lot of faith.
All of the evidence then seems to point in the direction that the Universe is as it is because it was designed. When you read these words, you don’t think that my cat just jumped on the keyboard and pressed keys randomly. You don’t believe that because these words contain order and ideas that are fairly complex. Yet, you hold on to the idea that the ordered complexity of the universe and of life happened – by chance?
Atheism is more about the heart and the will than it is about reason and logic. You are committed to the idea that there is no God, because you are determined to be independent of God and you find it pathetic to be dependent on God. You want to be independent. That is why you don’t believe. Reason has nothing to do with it.
Your believing friend,
ConcernedEngineer
September 1st, 2006 at at 8:51 am
TommyKey,
Even those who don’t believe in God have “moral sense” because they have been created in God’s image. That is why you find murder and rape abhorrent, yet (I would presume) that you are okay with eating meat (or at least I would presume that you don’t condemn others eating meat). You know that killing cows and pigs for the sake of food is not “wrong.” But you also know that murdering humans is wrong. You can’t escape the truth and the implications that arise from being created in God’s image because that is reality.
The idea of “not imposing” on others sounds good. Often it is good. But where do we take this logic? Are you an anarchist? Any law or rule or policy is going to impose on others. Should we have a lawless society? I would think not. So, then we agree that the law should be based on that which is just. Thus politics is clearly a moral science. We need to be careful not to deny the essential human rights and freedoms (which, by the way, God wants us to defend), but we also must maintain justice. We need to have law and order.
I really think that we agree much more than we disagree – at least on this point.
This is why we actually agree more than we disagree. With or without faith, we have moral sense, and I’m saying it is due to the truth that God created us in His own image.
Since you don’t acknowledge the Creator, then on what authority do you assign “value” to people? On what authority do you determine what is “right” and “wrong.” These are not stupid questions. These are questions that have been discussed and debated for centuries by the most intelligent of philosophers. Let’s not let the debate stoop to low levels by calling “believers” stupid.
There are people who believe in God who are very intelligent, and there are people who believe in God who are very stupid. And the same goes for atheists.
I think that your bottom line – the way you determine what is right and wrong – is by your own judgment. You decide yourself – based on whatever you think. Do you not? Correct me if I’m wrong.
So, then, how reliable are you? If you are your own authority on morality (and if you are not, then I would be intersted in what you hold as your authority on morality if you hold to anything), then are you worthy of placing that kind of trust in yourself? Have you ever done anything wrong? Have you ever stolen? Lied? Cheated? Have you ever hated your fellow man? Have you ever been less than generous?
I’m not trying to be mean. God knows, I’m a sinner. I’m no better than you. But the point is that you and I are not worthy of trust when it comes to issues of morality – because in our hearts and in our actions – we have done that which is wrong, and we have failed to do that which is right.
Your believing friend,
ConcernedEngineer
September 1st, 2006 at at 9:03 am
ConcernedEngineer,
People used to justify slavery and racism not that long ago to the will of a “creator.” Not much has changed since then, except replace blacks with gays.
Yes, religion obviously makes very moral people.
September 1st, 2006 at at 10:23 am
Concerned, how can God be a HE? Does he have a penis? It cracks me up when Christians refer to God as HIM.
I will followup with a more definitive reply to the points you raised shortly.
September 1st, 2006 at at 11:14 am
Okay Concerned, my friend, now to address your points. But first off, I merely said your question was stupid, I did not say that you or any other religious believer was stupid.
The existence of the universe proves nothing more than that the universe exists. If the universe was designed by some higher power or a collection of intelligent beings, the existence of the universe tells us nothing about their characteristics. So, even if one or more “gods” created the universe, it does not follow that the Bible is the word of God, or that Jesus was the son of God etcetera.
You say that God created us in HIS image. To elaborate on my somewhat flippant response above, what exactly does that mean? An image is visual in nature. Thus, I would interpret your statement as meaning that God created us to look like him. But of course, that is ludicrous on its face because we are all different in appearance, and there are males and females. Or are you arguing that God has a body that is symmetrical in appearance, has two arms, two legs, a head, two eyes, two mouths, a nose and so forth?
What we would call morality did not arise because some God spoke to early man in a thunderous voice “thou shalt not kill” and so forth. Morality and order arose because early humans, in order to survive in harsh and dangerous environments, needed to cooperate with one another in order to survive. Certain animals were too large and strong for one hunter to kill, so a group of hunters would band together and cooperate to take down the animal. Presumably, they would reach some kind of agreement beforehand to divvy up who would get which parts of the animal for food. If a member of the tribe was injured and needed to be cared for, other members of the tribe would provide the injured member with food and water and other basic needs. Why? Because they knew that if the same injury happened to them, they would want to be cared for too.
How did the idea of God come about? Primitive hunter gatherers knew very little about how the world worked. If a volcano erupted or if there was an earthquake, they reasoned that some spirit beneath the earth was angry. If there was thunder and lightning in the sky, some spirit in the heavens was angry. Thus was planted in the minds of humans at an early period the belief in spirits, demons, gods and so forth. Early man knew nothing about plate tectonics, meteorology, that the sun in the day time was like the stars at night, that is hot balls of gas that emitted heat and light.
As humans adopted agriculture, the belief in gods and spirits were already ensconced in their mental universe, and new gods needed to be appeased. The god who made it rain, the god who made the river banks flood and so forth. Somewhere along the line, some crafty men must have figured out that the river banks would always flood at a certain time of the year and claimed to other people that they could speak to the god of the river who would demand certain sacrifices in order for the river to continue to flood so that the farmers could irrigate their crops. Thus, the priestly class was born.
All religion since then has basically been about crafty people claiming to be an intermediary between humanity and the gods, thereby arrogating to themselves a position of importance in society.
In my next post, I will explain to you why I came to reject Christianity and the belief that the God of the Bible was real.
September 1st, 2006 at at 12:06 pm
You have argued Concerned that our morals come from God. Since you have identified yourself as a Christian, then you obviously believe that the God from whom these morals allegedly spring is the God of the Bible.
Now, in order to believe that the Bible is the word of God, you are accepting the following:
God is an all knowing and all powerful being who created the Universe.
The Universe is infinite, or so large in extent that it is infinite to us.
God created intelligent life on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy of that universe. On that planet, he chose to make a pact with one guy, Abraham, and all his descendants, and that he gave Abraham and his descendants a strip of land in the Middle East that roughly approximates present day Israel and the West Bank.
Right away, this smacks of one thing, a tribal god, not a universal deity. This “god” makes a pact with one man and his descendants, which means that bloodline is more important to HIM than a person’s qualities or moral nature, and that this God is assigning to Abraham and his descendants a clearly defined territory. Again, this is an attribute of a tribal god and not a universal deity that supposedly loves and cares about ALL of humanity.
Now, it just so happens that this land of Israel is so geographically situated as to be vulnerable to invasion from more powerful neighbors. On the otherhand, an important factor in the longevity and stability of Egyptian civilization was its relative geographic isolation. To the west of Egypt that land was desert except for a narrow and temperate coastal strip which could not support a population mass sufficient enough to pose a threat. Likewise to the east, an invading army would have to cross the forbidding Sinai peninsula. True, this did not mean Egypt could not be successfully invaded. The Hyksos did manage to rule Lower Egypt for a time, the Nubians invaded from the south. But it was not until the 7th century B.C. that powerful states arose that could invade and conquer Egypt with relative ease. But even as late as the Ptolemaic Greeks, Egyptian civilization was so strong that they would culturally absorb their conquerors much the same as the Chinese did to their military conquerors.
Therefore, would a universal deity make a pact with one man and his descendants, and then assign to them a strip of land that would virtually guarantee that they would be invaded and conquered with great frequency? In the Bible, Israel’s neighbors are often portrayed as being caused to war against the Israelites by God because the Israelites did that which was not right in the eyes of the Lord. In order to believe this, one must accept an interpretation of ancient history in which everything revolved around the Israelites and that Israel’s neighbors did not exist for their own purposes but rather to be used by God as a means of punishing his “chosen” people. Again, this interpretation screams tribal god, not a universal deity.
In the book of Exodus, God is described as dwelling at the top of Mount Sinai. A universal deity that created the entire vast universe would not need to “dwell” on a mountain. This God, we are told, gave Moses a set of commandments to be followed by the Israelites. But did anybody witness God speaking to Moses? How do we know that such a thing occurred? We only have the word (supposedly) of Moses that such a thing happened. If God is the most powerful being in the universe, “HE” could have “spoken” to the entire nation of Israel simultaneously. Yet, instead he reveals his laws to one guy. Remember my last post where I talked about all religions basically being created by crafty guys who posed as the intermediary between men and god?
But to step back even further in the Exodus story, its main theme is the enslavement of the Israelites by the Egyptians and their subsequent liberation. At various points in the story, Pharaoh considers letting the Israelites go, but then God hardens his heart and Pharaoh changes his mind, which God then uses as a pretext to inflict more suffering on the Egyptian people. Since the ten commandments (and the other commandments in the Old Testament) are considered so important by Bible believers for living a moral life, wouldn’t a universal deity reveal these truths not only to the Israelites BEFORE they left Egypt, but to Pharaoh as well? After all, as I have already discussed above, Egypt had an advanced civilization. It was in a perfect position to be a transmitter of laws and morals to the rest of the known world at the time. Instead, God leads the Israelites out of Egypt and does not reveal these really important laws until the Israelites are encamped in the barren Sinai peninsula. Again, I repeat, these are the actions of a tribal god, not a universal deity that purports to love and care for all of mankind.
Serious bible scholars will tell you that most of the books that comprise the Old Testament were not written until around the 6th century b.c. What had happened to the Israelites around that time? Well, they were conquered by the Assyrians. Then after the Assyrians were destroyed by an alliance of the Medes and the Babylonians, the Israelites had a brief spell of restored independence until the Babylonians conquered them and many Israelites were carried off to Babylon. Now there is very little in the archeological record to my knowledge to demonstrate the Israelites were anything more than a confederation of sem-nomadic tribes up to the Assyrian conquest. Basically, this means that the Israelites carried off to Babylon were a collection of country bumpkins who suddenly found themselves exposed to Babylonian civilization. So, what did the Israelite priests who read and learned of the mythology of the Babylonians do? They borrowed from the Babylonians and created a past for the Israelites that they were chosen by a one true God in order to create a sense of cohesion and strength in the diaspora community. Their past victories and glories, real and imagined, were due to faithfully adhering to the laws of God, and their failures and defeats owed to their straying from the laws.
Now, to wrap things up, because I don’t want this to drag on, where does Jesus fit into all of this? Well, we are taught that Jesus was the Messiah and that his time on earth was in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. But once you debunk the idea that the Israelites are the chosen people of the creator of the universe, then that collapses the floor from underneath Jesus. To accept that Jesus is the son of the one true creator of the universe is to believe that this one true god acted for most of recorded human history as a tribal god and then suddenly poof he really does want to be the god of all of us.
Concerned, you claim that those of us who are atheist do so because we are controlled by what is in our hearts rather than by reason, that we want to be independent. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else who is an atheist, but as someone who was once a believing Catholic, I abandoned belief in the God of the Bible precisely because the story cannot withstand reason and inquiry. I would turn it around and say that some (but not all Christians) cling to belief in the Bible and Jesus because they have such an emotional investment in believing that it is true that they just cannot permit themselves to believe otherwise.
September 1st, 2006 at at 6:42 pm
OK, concerned, this is my last post on this thread as you’ve successfully trolled this thread way off topic from an article on christian nationalism into a bog standard attack on athieism. I’ve spent enough time in my life arguing religion and philosophy with believers to be, quite frankly, a little tired of running over the same old ground time and time again.
You’ve just done the standard approach for the more intelligent and non-biblical believer. You’ve gone running off to the edges of science and philosophy in an attempt to shoehorn ‘god’ in. equating ‘let there be light’ with the big bang and all that.
I’ll let dictionary.com do some work for me – you ask me to define fact…
fact? /fækt/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[fakt] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth
2. something known to exist or to have happened
3. a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true
4. something said to be true or supposed to have happened
I’ve stuck to the main four here, bit it seems pretty simple.
You then go on to ask ‘what is reality’? It’s the stuff that stays the same every time we look, listen or measure it. It’s the stuff that independant tests and observations get right time and time again, and which doesn;t depend on a personal belief system, isn’t affacted by what country you were born in, or what religious or political cult you follow. If you’re going to push the discussion in to questioning the very nature of reality, then you could argue anything exists and we’re into flying spaghetti monster territory.
You are the one making the claim that god made man in his own image as a fact. a fact requires empirical evidence. you have none.
Athiesm isn’t a belief that there is no god. This is where you’ve got it wrong. I simply have never observed anything, nor has science, that suggests to me that the christian notion of a god exists, in exactly the same way that I’ve never seen any evidence for pink unicorns. If the almighty came down to earth on the end of a lightning bolt and announced his existance and agreed to hang around long enough for scientists to measure, record and take empirical evidence, then I’d change my belief like a shot. I wouldn’t though, if I was the only observer, as I’m well aware how strong an hallucination the mind can create, after all, I dream every night.
You finally ask is it possible that everything I observe could be wrong – well, there’s some miniscule possibilty, yes, but If everything I observe about reality is wrong then I’m a mad person living in a fantasy, or we’re all in the matrix.
What you are essentially trying to do is find the fuzzy edges of known science and reality, and then squeeze in something very very specific: a christian god made in his own image. now I have no idea what happened before the big bang, I’m not even 100% sure that the big bang theory is accurate as, well, I’m open minded enough not to believe anything 100%. There is after all, the possibilty that I’m a nutter in a self-made illusion and nothing is reasl and I’m just imagining that I’m typing this. but just because there are holes in my factual knowledge and exerieance of reality doesn’t mean that the christian god exists. there are many other explanations, with varying levels of credulity. I choose not to believe in any of them without proof.
you choose one supernatural belief over all others. where, though, is your proof. where is your evidence. it’s too grand a leap to go from ‘you don’t know what happened before the big bang’ or ‘I can’t believe that life just arose from random chemistry’ to say ‘that means there is a god, and we’re made in his own image, and that’s where morals come from.’
so, please, stick to the topic. I’m just as responsible for the drift as you are, as I went ahead and bit and engaged in your christian apologist argument, but the article was about the rise of christian nationalism, not my (or anyone else’s here) athieism.
I leave you with this question. I have a 6″ Pink Unicorn that lives on my desk. It claims it made the universe, and talks to me all the time. The question is, why don’t you believe me?
September 1st, 2006 at at 8:51 pm
Chelfyn, Concerned may have dragged uss off topic, but we sure kicked his butt!
September 1st, 2006 at at 9:09 pm
One reason why I don’t believe your 6 inch unicorn created the universe or speaks to you is that your argument is not very convincing. One of the reasons why your argument is not very convincing is that you do not really believe it.
When someone brings up a crazy hypothetical, of course, I am not inclined to believe it. But when someone who has a reputation for sanity and honesty gives serious testimony to that which he observed, I am forced to take his testimony seriously.
Of course, I am still a million miles away from the Christian gospel, the infallibility of the Bible, etc, etc. One step at a time. If I can do nothing else but to convince some of the readers to abandon atheism and become agnostics – well that is a step in the right (and reasonable) direction.
I have the original topic in mind – Christian Nationalism. But in order to make a good argument, I need to establish a good foundation. I can’t build a tower without establishing a foundation. If the foudation is flawed, then the whole system falls a part. If what I believe is not true, real, and able to absorb the toughest of questions and ridicule, then I am a fool and ought to be pitied.
But I contend that the foundations for Christian theology are solid, and that believing in the God of the Bible is reasonable and right. In fact, I contend that we were created to believe the Christian gospel.
Tommy,
Your analysis of the Bible and of the history of Israel is interesting. It would be worth pointing out that in Genesis 12, God did choose the people of Israel – but he chose them to be a blessing to all nations. (See Genesis 12:3)
God is not a racist. But He did choose to bless Israel. He did this according to His Sovereign plan.
But you are right to say that if we can’t believe what I just asserted, then believing in Jesus makes absolutely no sense whatsoever – because Jesus was a Jew. It is very obvious that Jesus believed the Old Testament – the Law and Prophets.
So, it comes down to this: What do we do with Jesus? If Jesus really was/is the Son of God, Yahweh, I AM, then it necessarily follows that the Old Testament must also be taken seriously and believed. You can not consistently believe in Jesus and reject the Old Testament. You can’t have a high view of Jesus and a low view of Abraham and Moses – not consistently.
So, what do you do with Jesus? Was he just a nut? Was he liar? All educated historians agree that the man existed. And, in point of fact, he didn’t exist too long ago. 2000 years sounds like a long time – but when you consider that the last widow of a Civil War Veteran died only about 10 years ago – 2000 years wasn’t too long ago.
Jesus showed up on the scene in Palestine in the time that he did, and he left his mark. The church was born and advanced in the face of persecution, and the gospel message has impacted cultures for the past twenty centuries.
How do you explain these events? Jesus of Nazareth – Liar? (doubtful – his reputation for honesty and integrity is too strong) Lunatic? (Don’t think so. He was too wise. He was too purposeful. He was taken too seriously.) What other possibilities? … Lord? Could it be that He was who He said He was? Could it be that He really did come in the fulness of time (recall the setting in which he came) to show us the way and to give his life for us – to redeem sinful men to God?
The idea that the only way to discern truth is through empirical evidence is a rigid, almost non-human, completely unromantic way to approach life. Look into your heart. You are a person. You are more than the sum total of your chemicals. You’ve been created to love and to be loved. There are truths about life that can be known to a little child – whose heart is full of love – that a cynical trained scientist can never understand or comprehend. Love and joy and friendship – these things can not be measured. But they are real. And I would suggest that people who reject all that can not be measured or observed empirically are missing out on some of the greatest wonders of life that God has graciously offered to us.
I’d like to go a little deeper into my argument that atheism is more a matter of the will and heart than it is a matter of reason and evidence. Not to offend you, but the Bible says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
I paraphrase Michael Shermer more for your sake, because I think that you have more respect for what he says that what I say. For those of you who don’t know, Michael Shermer had a “born again Christian” experience in high school (or maybe college), but then later had a “born again atheist” experience in college. Now, to the best of my knowledge he is an agnostic – with atheist leanings. He appeared on a panel on TBS when they did a series a while back: “The Question of God.” The series was an analysis of Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. I found the series fascinating, and I suspect that some of you might too. Anyway, he said that what led him to his current stance (agnostic with atheist leanings) was basically his desire to be independent. He said that, in general, people don’t use reason to arrive at their worldviews, but that they choose a worldview – based on what they want to believe, and then use logic and reason and even science to justify that worldview. Essentially, as Simon and Garfunkel said it, “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
And I am suggesting that that is why atheists are atheists. They haven’t used reason to prove that God doesn’t exist. If they were going on pure objective reason, then it seems to me that most atheists would be agnostics or maybe they would believe in God (since reason does point toward Design). But atheists WILL not believe. It is a matter of will, a matter of the heart. In your heart, you want independence from any despot who would impose restrictions on you. And God is a Benevolent Despot. He is the Sovereign LORD. He chose Abraham and the children of Israel (the foolish and despised and, frankly, incompetent and very often evil) to display His glory to the whole world. And that goes against your American dream of radical egalitarianism and independence. He died on the cross – the just for the unjust – so that those who believe could be saved. But those who do not believe are condemned already. Note that those who reject Christ are not condemned for their lack of faith, but that they are already condemned as sinners. By not believing they are rejecting the free gift of salvation that has been offered. By rejecting the gospel, you hold on to your own sense of goodness and righteousness – of independence and radical egalitarianism. This is pride. You are attempting to rob God of the glory that is due His Name.
You don’t believe in God, because you will not to believe. I stand by my assertion that reason has nothing to do with it.
I know that this argument is by no means complete. But I hope that it gives you something to think over.
Peace to you, dear atheists.
Concerned
September 2nd, 2006 at at 8:31 am
Concerned, you quote in Genesis that God chose the people of Israel to be a blessing to all nations. But the people of Israel never acted in any such capacity. They were a confederation of semi-nomadic tribes who before the Babylonian captivity had no literature or civilization worthy of notice. The Greek historian Herodotus, in his writings of the peoples of the Near East, makes absolutely no mention of the Israelites, though he does find the time to mention that the peoples of Colchis in Asia Minor have woolly hair similiar to the Egyptians. If God chose Israel to be a light to all nations, then why did such a well travelled and knowledgeable person such as Herodotus fail to notice? Or anybody else for that matter. To reiterate my previous post, Egypt was best positioned to serve as a light to all nations if that was what God really wanted. Egyptian temples and other buildings from 3,500 to 4,000 years ago still stand today and the hieroglyphics can still be read. Thus, if God had communicated his laws to the Egyptians, we would likely have found the relevant hieroglyphics containing these laws today. There are no Israelite monuments or temples from 3,000 to 3,500 years ago because there were none.
Try as you might, you cannot get around the fact that the God described in the Old Testament has all of the attributes of a tribal god, and not a universal deity. If you wish to believe in the face of all logic and reason that the God described in the bible is the actual creator of the universe and that Jesus is his son because it makes you feel better, then by all means do so. But I can no more will myself to believe in the myth of the divinity of Christ than I can make myself believe in astrology and tarot cards, in spite of all the timeworn, recycled arguments you have presented to me.
I call on you to reject belief in the existence of the God of the bible and embrace secular humanism.
Get your head out of the mental prison called the bible.
September 2nd, 2006 at at 8:21 pm
Yawn.
Have any of you read “The History of God” by Karen Armstrong. It is a very well written book that shows the evolution of the notion of God from Judism, Christianity through Islam as well as the histories of those three religions (Christianity and Islam are basically offshoots of Judism).
One fascinating point that Armstrong makes is that at a certain historical point Christians started trying to use reason to “prove” the rationality of their beliefs. I can’t remember, off the top of my head, when this began, but her point was that once Christians started trying to “prove” themselves, the secularization of society (Western society, at least) began. Why? Because YOU CAN’T USE REASON TO PROVE THIS SH*T!!!! Religious belief is based on faith, not reason. A religious person must make that “leap of faith” to say, yes, this stuff doesn’t make much sense, but I believe it anyway.
Some of us just can’t make that leap of faith. So “Concerned Engineer” please stop trying to convince us! Your logic is actually hurting your cause–as Karen Armstrong pointed out in your book. Keep the mystery of the your religion, keep the weirdness, keep the irrationality! That is what makes it powerful. Once you try to “prove” it, it just dies because you can’t prove a mystery wrapped in an enigma, etc. You have your faith–we can live without it!
September 3rd, 2006 at at 2:33 pm
First of all, at no point have I attempted to use reason to “prove” the gospel. The gospel starts and ends with faith. Reason is good, but reason says nothing about presuppositions. Rather people proceed from their presuppositions with reason.
So atheists presuppose that the best way to know truth is through empirical evidence. Then, they proceed from there in a reasonable manner and derive a worldview. Christians, on the other hand, presuppose that the best way to know truth is via divine revelation (and empirical evidence plays a part in general revelation). We then proceed from that creed with reason and logic.
But logic does not dictate which presuppositions we choose to base our lives upon. That is an issue of faith. Atheists are betting that God doesn’t exist, and are betting on their own ability to observe reality via empirical evidence. I choose not to put so much faith in myself – since I know that I am so very far from perfect. Instead, I entrust myself to God – who has revealed Himself to me through creation, through His word, through His people, and through His Holy Spirit.
Tommy, the children of Israel often failed in their calling to be a blessing to all nations. I didn’t suggest otherwise. I merely asserted that God commanded them to be a blessing to all nations, and that God promised that they would. Through Christ, they have. The gospel has influenced nations for the past 2000 years, and many millions of all different cultures, languages, and nations have experienced the blessing of the gospel – which is a fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 12.
Also, God, being the Alpowerful God that He is, did not need the position and the glory of Egypt in order to spread His Name and His fame. God very often stacks the deck against Himself, and then still wins. A God who became famous becaue of the “greatness” of Egypt wouldn’t be too impressive. A God who would need Egypt wouldn’t be worth worshipping.
But a God who took a nation as screwed up as Israel, and then proceeded to use that nation to reveal to the world His greatness and glory – that is an awesome God.
More later….
September 3rd, 2006 at at 8:48 pm
Concerned, it really boils down to this. There is right conduct and wrong conduct. If a person acts with right conduct, regardless of whether the person follows a particular religion or is atheist, that person is a benefit to the world, and if that person acts with wrong conduct regardless of whether that person professes to be religious or atheist, then that person is not a benefit to the world. If there is a God and a person behaves in a way that is pleasing to God, even if that person is an atheist, then God will clearly be pleased with that person, and if a person believes there is a God and that person acts in ways that are harmful to others, then God will not be pleased with that person. And if there is no God, the person who acts with right conduct is still a benefit to the world and the person who acts with wrong conduct is still harmful to the world.
In the Hindu classic “Bhagavad Gita”, Krishna tells Arjuna that “A man who is born with tendencies toward the Divine, is fearless and pure in heart. He perseveres in that path to union with Brahman which the scriptures and his teacher have taught him. He is charitable. He can control his passions. He studies the scriptures regularly, and obeys their directions. He practices spiritual disciplines. He is straightforward, truthful, and of an even temper. He harms no one. He renounces the things of this world. He has a tranquil mind and an unmalicious tongue. He is compassionate toward all. He is not greedy. He is gentle and modest. He abstains from useless activity. He has faith in the strength of his higher nature. He can forgive and endure. He is clean in thought and act. He is free from hatred and pride.”
Now this one paragraph from the “Gita” contains greater moral truth than all of the moral teachings attributed to Jesus in all of the Gospels put together. Even if you disagree with this statement, you cannot deny that just this one paragraph from the “Gita” describes what would be considered right conduct. And whomever wrote the “Gita” had no knowledge of the Israelites or the God of the Bible. So much then for Israelites serving as a light to all nations.
Now, let us visit the writings of someone who was even further away from ancient Israel and had beautiful and profound things to say. The Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu, who lived around the 5th century B.C., said:
“Humane men are concerned about providing benefits for the world and eliminating its calamities, Now among all the current calamities, which are the worst? I say that the attacking of small states by large states, the making of inroads on small houses by large houses, the plundering of the weak by the strong, the oppression of the few by the many, the deception of the simple by the cunning, the disdain of the noble towards the humble – these are some of the calamities of the world… Added to these, the mutual injury and harm which the vulgar people do to one another with weapons, poison, water, and fire is still another calamity in the world.”
“When we come to inquire about the cause of all these calamities, whence have they arisen? Is it out of people’s loving others and benefiting others? We must reply that it is not so. We should say that it is out of people hating others and injuring others. If we should classify one by one all those who hate others and injure others, should we find them to be universal or partial in their love? Of course, we shouls say that they are partial.”
Mo Tzu goes on to argue that “Partiality is to be replaced by universality. But how is partiality to be replaced by universality? Now, when everyone regards the states of others as he regards his own, who would attack the other’s state? When everyone regards the houses of others as he regards his own, who would disturb the others’ houses?” Mo Tzu then asks “Is this a calamity or a benefit to the world? Of course it is a benefit.”
He goes on to conclude that the causes of such benefits is universal love and that “since universal love is the cause of the major benefits in the world, therefore Mo Tzu proclaims that universal love is right.”
So Concerned, here we have a philosopher in China in the 5th century B.C., who had no knowledge of the Israelites or the God of the Bible, proclaiming that universal love is the answer to the strife of the world, that we must regards others as we regard ourselves, not just on a personal level but on a level between nations. These are quite profound teachings and yet only a handful of Westerners likely have ever heard of Mo Tzu. I would wager a large sum that you never have.
Now, as for your ridiculous argument that Jesus was a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, for several hundred years after Jesus is alleged to have lived, only a small portion of the world’s population were aware of his teachings. Now, evangelical Christians are always concerned about “saving” people by getting them to accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior. Funny then that it took some 1,500 years after his death for the message of Jesus to circle the globe. Up until the journeys of Columbus, the tens of millions of people of the Americas had no knowledge of Jesus or the god of the Bible. Neither did many of the millions of people in the present day archipelagos of the Philippines and Indonesia, the inhabitants of central and southern Africa. Add to that the populations of Japan, Korea, much of China, Siberia, Australia etc. We’re talking hundreds of millions of people who never even had the opportunity to be “saved”. For a deity that is supposedly all powerful and omniscient, the Christian God sure chose a lousy way to get his message across.
And when Christianity did take hold in Europe as the official religion of the Roman Empire and then the successor barbarian kingdoms, how did the Christians treat the descendants of Abraham, who God supposedly intended to serve as a light to all nations? The Christians visited upon them the worst forms of oppression that were far greater than anything the Christians suffered under the sporadic persecution of the Romans prior to Constantine.
Face it Concerned, the preponderance of the historical evidence can lead one to the following conclusions, the god of the Bible does not exist, the Jews are not the chosen people of the creator of the universe, Jesus was not born from a virgin and was not the son of the creator and therefore one does not become “saved” from anything by believing in him.
Renounce your belief in the divinity of Jesus Concerned and embrace the humanism and the universal love preached by Mo Tzu and you will have a happier and more productive life. Get your head out of the mental prison of the Bible.
September 3rd, 2006 at at 10:53 pm
Tommykey,
You should have your own blog. I mean you basically have one in the comments section right here, why not make it the real deal?
Even though Concerned probably can’t appreciate your writings, I sure have. Thanks.
September 4th, 2006 at at 7:02 am
Thanks Jay.
I hope to one of these days. It’s hard right now between my work schedule and having to take care of my two little kids when my wife is at work plus all the things that need to be done around the house. But I do hope to get a blog going some time in the near future. Thanks again for your kind words.
TK
September 4th, 2006 at at 7:52 am
Tommy,
First of all, I appreciate your decency, your honesty, and your civility. In my mind there are two brands of atheists – those who are antagonistic towards people of faith – and those who are not. Your civility is truly appreciated.
Secondly, I will say that by the doctrine of “common grace,” people who don’t have all the particulars of theology down right can still get some things right. There are beautiful creeds and doctrines in many of the world’s religions. By believing in Jesus, I do not say that every other religion has everything wrong. What I do say is that on the points in which they contradict Christian dogma, they are wrong.
So, many people of many religions have essentially said, “Love your neighbor.” Well, the greatest commands of the Bible are, “Love the LORD your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Furthermore, many people who have called themselves “Christian” have done many wicked and evil things. These things are wrong. It is worth noting that the people who opposed Jesus the most (according to the gospels) were the arrogant, prideful, and self-righteous religious people – not the “sinners.” Jesus confronted their pride and hypocrisy and exposed it for what it was. This is how he got himself got killed.
But when you assert, “Now this one paragraph from the ‘Gita’ contains greater moral truth than all of the moral teachings attributed to Jesus in all of the Gospels put together,” with all due respect – you are plain wrong. You are obviously a very learned individual. How can you make such an assertion in view of the beattitudes and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount? Or what about the example of servanthood that Jesus set for his disciplies by washing his disciples feet after the Last Supper?
You said, “If a person acts with right conduct, regardless of whether the person follows a particular religion or is atheist, that person is a benefit to the world, and if that person acts with wrong conduct regardless of whether that person professes to be religious or atheist, then that person is not a benefit to the world.” There is truth in this statement, but what I don’t appreciate about this statement is your utilitarian view of people. It seems like in your eyes people need to work in order to have value. People are only valuable if they can be “of benefit to the world.” This is a dangerous idea, and frankly a rather mean creed. I would assert that people are valuable because they are people (created in God’s image). Realizing this, they ought to work and live fruitful and productive lives so that do benefit the world. But they can also know that their worth is not based on what they do, but on what God has said about them – that they are loved and are valuable just as they are.
Do you communicate to your kids that you won’t love them until they earn it, or do you love them as they are, and hope that because of that love, your kids will live a wonderful and productive life which benefits the world?
One of the biggest problems of the world is the problem of wicked people thinking that they are good people. One of the signs of really bad people is their denial of being really bad. See, many religions (and atheists) are in agreement about the “moral code” (love thy neighbor, etc). But what Christianity asserts is that we have all fallen short of that moral code and therefore deserve to be punished. Christianity also asserts that there is nothing you can do to make up for your failure; perfection is the standard. If we stopped here, then this would be really bad news. But we don’t stop here. Christianity asserts that, “God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” By the atoning sacrifice of Christ – the Lamb of God – heaven’s gates are opened wide, that we may now be justified by faith and not by works. For by observing the law, no one will achieve righteousness. But God gives us His righteousness as a free gift. Having humbly received that gift, we are set free to be fully alive in Christ. Then we are ready to do the good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. Then, and only then, will we be of any good to the world. Without Christ, all the “good deeds” that we do – that which we do in our own power according to our own self-proclaimed goodness – these “good deeds” are nothing but filthy rags. We are sinners in nature and in practice. But thanks be to God, there is a Redeemer. Christ redeemed sinners at the cross. When He cried out, “It is finished,” it truly was. The price had been paid. I belong to Jesus, who loved me and bought me with His blood. I have been justified by faith – not by works.
See, you have been created to believe this gospel. God put you together in your mother’s womb, and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. He has made you with wonderful gifts and talents. He knows your DNA. He knows your needs, wants, and desires. It is His will for you to experience life – abundant and eternal. He speaks to you. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. Today is the day of salvation. Take a step of faith. He loves you, friend.
ConcernedEngineer
September 4th, 2006 at at 8:24 am
“Up until the journeys of Columbus, the tens of millions of people of the Americas had no knowledge of Jesus or the god of the Bible. Neither did many of the millions of people in the present day archipelagos of the Philippines and Indonesia, the inhabitants of central and southern Africa. Add to that the populations of Japan, Korea, much of China, Siberia, Australia etc. We’re talking hundreds of millions of people who never even had the opportunity to be ’saved’. ”
This is a common objection to the gospel. I don’t have this completely figured out yet, but I will offer a few thoughts.
First, let’s take the worst case scenario – that the people who had no knowledge of the gospel were not saved – nor did they have the opportunity. I’m not saying that I necessarily agree that this was the reality of the situation, but let us suppose it for a minute.
What if someone had found a cure to cancer and started sharing that cure with people who had cancer? And let us say, for whatever reason, the cure does not make it all around the world right away? And let us say that you have cancer? Are you going to refuse the cure because people on the other side of the world do not have the same opportunity as you? I would think not. Rather, I think that you would receive the cure, and then go on a life crusade to the other side of the world to share the cure with other people.
The failure to propagate good ideas has caused many of millions to suffer all kinds of injustice for thousands of years. Furthermore, the evil powers that be have oppressed the masses successfully, because people are ignorant and sinful. See the cancer cure analogy only works to a point. The gospel addresses and confronts the sinfulness of the human heart, and many people don’t want the truth, because they fear that their evil deeds will be exposed. So, they resist the gospel – without even knowing much of what the gospel is about – because they resist anything and everything that would bring their evil deeds to light.
On the other hand, there are those who are committed to truth and justice. They will go through the hard process of being exposed, because they have faith that as they go through that process, they will find truth and that good will result. It is interesting to note that in some of these tribes in New Guienea, missionaries who have recently evangelized those villages found the village to be expecting them. There were people who had had visions and had prayed to some God out there to send someone to explain the truth.
Those who seek will find.
This brings me to my second scenario. God has revealed aspects of Himself to all people – via the Holy Spirit and through Creation. When you look at the wonderful ordered-complexity of nature (whether the stars, or human DNA, or the mathematics of particle physics), you are oberving the handiwork of God, and you are supposed to be inspired to seek Him. When you hear of the wisdom that says, “Not might makes right, but might for right!” you are supposed to marvel at the little bit of the wisdom of God being revealed.
I believe that in every person’s life, there is at least one time – maybe just for a moment – when God provides an opportunity to see His truth plainly. For Saul of Tarsus, he got knocked off his horse and blinded for three days. For Elijah, he heard a still, small voice. For Isaiah, He saw the LORD, and His train filled the temple, and he saw angels crying out, “Holy! Holy! Holy!” For Jacob, he wrestled with God, an God made him fess up to his nature by asking him his name (Jacob = deceiver). For Peter, after a hard night of fishing with no success, he cast his net down in obedience to Jesus and caught a whole bunch of fish, and he said, “Go away from me Lord! I am a sinful man!” For me, he often caused me to lose sleep at night, as He spoke His truth to my heart.
And there are millions of people who can testify how God has spoken to them.
So, I don’t have everything figured out about those who have not heard. I’m not God. But I do know that God is loving and God is just. Meanwhile, I have answers. I would not withhold medical knowledge from a tribe in Africa ignorant of medicine. And I will not withhold the gospel from people who have not heard.
September 4th, 2006 at at 11:45 am
Concerned, there is a big difference between someone finding a cure for cancer and not being able to distribute that cure to all of the people of the world and a supposedly all powerful and divine entity not spreading its one truth, which apparently people need in order to be “saved”, to all of the people in the world simultaneously, which aforesaid deity clearly should have the means and the power to do so if it is as powerful and compassionate as you believe.
I will add more later, but my brother is here and I do not have the time at present to debate you further.
September 4th, 2006 at at 12:17 pm
Tommykey,
Because the god wants the people to have faith! It exists because you can’t see it. I swear you’re so dense sometimes.
Concerned,
This was my #1 main issue with Christianity as a child. This is one of those issues that most Christians just ignore. Why? Because it’s not justifiable. It’s kind of like the Old Testament. They pick and choose what seems good because a lot of it is completely insane. Like, for example, how women are the property of their husbands and should be stoned for adultery. Just don’t try to justify it, it actually hurts your cause.
September 4th, 2006 at at 8:21 pm
Concerned, the famed Sermon on the Mount is a mixed bag.
The opening, known as the Beatitudes, consists of a collection of meaningless platitudes. In Matthew 5:29, Jesus tells his followers “if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.” Now, how does a right eye cause a person to sin? Or a right hand? The sin occurs in the person’s mind, not in the eye of the hand. Taken to that logic, people who sin should have lobotomies.
The one thing Jesus says in the Sermon that I believe is most important is not to make a show of doing charitable works or prayer in public for the purpose of attracting attention to oneself. “Hey guys, look at me, I’m helping a blind beggar!”
One of these days I will go over the sayings and teachings attributed to Jesus and categorize what I agree with, what I disagree with, and what is just plain nonsense.
Now on to what you claim is my utilitarian view of humanity. You write that “It seems like in your eyes people need to work in order to have value. People are only valuable if they can be “of benefit to the world.” This is a dangerous idea, and frankly a rather mean creed. I would assert that people are valuable because they are people (created in God’s image). Realizing this, they ought to work and live fruitful and productive lives so that do benefit the world. But they can also know that their worth is not based on what they do, but on what God has said about them – that they are loved and are valuable just as they are.”
Nowhere in anything I have written in this thread to I state that people must work in order to be valuable. My love for my children is not predicated on them earning it. Heck, my son is only 5 and my daughter 3 and a half. You are reading into my writings something that is not there. A mentally handicapped person is not a lesser person because he or she cannot do good deeds. The same with a physically handicapped person who is confined to a bed or a wheel chair. Rather they are a test of our own worth by how much we dedicate ourselves to helping them. A person can be capable of doing worthy deeds and yet cheat on his wife on a regular basis. We have to look at people in their totality.
What I am arguing, and which you are unable to defeat, is that the preponderance of the historical evidence must lead one to conclude that the bible is not the inerrant word of some creator deity, that the god of the bible does not exist, that Jesus was not his son, and that Christianity is not a worthy doctrine because there is no deity that judges us based on whether or not we accept Jesus as a personal savior, and therefore there is nothing that a belief in Jesus can save us from.
If, as a Christian will assert, people can only be “saved” from eternal damnation by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior and follow his teachings, it would follow then that Jesus would be revealed to humanity at least as early as the beginning of civilization. That way generations of humanity would have the chance to be saved. But no, instead we have millenia go by without any Jesus. Instead, Christians would have us believe that the Israelites were to serve as a”light” to all nations. But they clearly did not fulfill that function. You state that this is an example of God stacking the deck against himself and still coming out on top. Excuse me, ahem ahem ahem, isn’t the whole flippin purpose of this religion to provide enlightenment and salvation to mankind? Are you saying then that God chose a collection of semi-nomadic tribesmen to be a light to all mankind knowing in advance (after all, he is all-knowing right?) that they would fail in the endeavor? That just is not logical.
September 4th, 2006 at at 9:58 pm
I guess I am just going to have to resign myself to being a horrible atheist who will suffer eternal torments in hell after I die Concerned.
God will not care that I donate blood from time to time, that I pick up litter off the beach on International Beach Cleanup day, that I occasionally spontaneously help strangers in need etcetera. I’m still doomed! I’m going to burn burn burn baby!
September 5th, 2006 at at 7:23 am
“If, as a Christian will assert, people can only be “saved” from eternal damnation by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior and follow his teachings, it would follow then that Jesus would be revealed to humanity at least as early as the beginning of civilization.”
God has given each person sufficient revelation of Himself. God also stands outside of time. The people of the Old Testament who were saved were saved through Christ – by faith. They didn’t see the big picture. But God did speak to them, and the Spirit of Christ was in them – though they did not know the whole story.
I think the situation is similar with those who have not heard. The pure in heart will still see God.
All of this is way beyond my small human ability to fully comprehend. My job is to love God and to honor Him and to proclaim His gospel and to love my neighbor as I love myself. I don’t fully understand all the mysteries of Christianity. I don’t know why God chose the Israelites. I certainly would not have done that if I was God. But we all can be very happy that I’m not God, because I would screw everything up.
God sees the big picture; we do not. That’s why it is necessary to trust in the Lord with all our hearts, and lean not on our own understanding. Our own understanding is limited. We ought to seek answers and we ought to use our minds. But to refuse God because we don’t fully understand God is quite silly – no disrespect intended.
God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and faith. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He loves us. His desire is for us. He is a merciful and forgiving God.
But if you deny your need for forgiveness, then the forgiveness of God doesn’t apply to you, because you have not received it. Yet, He still offers it to you freely. Every passing moment is an opportunity to receive God’s gift of salvation. He holds His hand out to you.
September 5th, 2006 at at 8:09 am
Thank you for providing me with some spirited debate Concerned.
But in conclusion, all I can say about the Bible is this:
GOD DIDN’T SAY IT.
I DON’T BELIEVE IT.
AND THAT SETTLES IT.
September 5th, 2006 at at 10:18 am
God did say it.
I happen to believe it.
But my believing it does not “settle it” (in spite of anything some of my beloved Southern Baptists friends say).
That God said it settles it.
This debate is similar to the debate between Jesus and the Pharisees (except they of course did agree that God exists). Jesus asserted that the Pharisees were following their father the devil, but that before Abraham, he was “I AM!” The Pharisees asserted that Jesus was demon-possessed, and they accused Him of blasphemy. They picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus slipped away.
So, how do we know who is right when Jesus says, “A” and Pharisees say, “Not A”? How do we know who is right when I say, “Jesus loves us, the Bible says so,” but atheists say, “God does not exist”?
If God doesn’t exist, then it is a very peculiar phenomenon that so many of us long for Him. After all, we are hungry, and behold! There is food! We have sex drives, and behold! There is sex. The vast majority of us long for God. It stands to reason that we were created with that desire.
It comes down to this: Joy. Pure, sweet joy. Joy is not an end in and of itself. Joy directs us toward God. When we find our joy in God, when our affections are set on Him, then we will experience the wonderful abundant and eternal life that God has for us. Everthing that is beautiful has a certain order to it: Music has rhythm and harmony; paintings have depth perception; poems have a meter; stories have a climax; sex has a climax; relationships have affection and respect. And we have been created with a soul – that our affections should be set on God. By setting our affections and emotions on God, we are free to wisely invest our affections and emotions into other people – yet with restraint at times – and we experience life and love at its best. This is all a part of what it means to be created in the image of God.
But without God, we screw everything up. This is what sin does. When we sin, we usually sin because we have desires. Well, God created us with desires. God wants our good desires to be met. But when we sin, we pervert those good desires. Perversion implies that there exists something that is pure, right, and good. Otherwise, why not call purity, perversion and perversion, purity? Or for that matter, why even have a concept of perversion or purity? If we are just the sum total of our chemicals, then there is really no such thing as morals, purity, perversion, justice, or love. There is no such thing as rebellion, because there is no standard to rebel against. But you and I know that right and wrong are real. Morals are real and absolute. Perversion is spoiled goodness. You can’t get away from this, because this is reality. I can expect you to know that murder is wrong, because that is in line with that which is real and true. But why should it be?
That the moral code exists and is absolute and is above you and me – that is evidence of a just God. That is evidence that we have been created in His image. As I said, if we hadn’t been created in His image, then none of these ideas would mean anything.
Pure joy. It is not an end. It is the direction of our affections and emotions on God.
To put it another way, everything seems to have its purpose. We have eyes – so we can see. We have ears so we can hear. We have thumbs, so we can pick things up and use tools, etc. We have toes, so we can be balanced. We have organs – all of which do several functions. Why do so many of us desire God? Why do we have desires that can’t be met by anyone or anything in this world? Why are people “broken”? And when we say that people are broken, aren’t we implying that that we have an idea in mind of a person who is “right” or “whole”?
C.S. Lewis (former atheist) once said (and I paraphrase), “If I find in myself a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the greatest probability is that I was created for another world.”
Just a few questions: How did you come to be an atheist? Before you were an atheist, were you mistreated by a thoughtless “Christian”? Do you find it pathetic that so many “Chrsitians” are intellectually shallow? Did you find it scary that so many “Christians” seem to be very easily manipulated by politicians? Did you see “Christians” talk about love and grace and then do some really hypocritical things? Were you hurt? Do you find yourself excited and energized by the idea that you have “risen” above the masses of pathetic humanity who actually depend on deity that (in your mind) doesn’t exist? What caused you to will to be an atheist? Are you offended by the God of the Bible because He is not an egalitarian, and He hardened Pharaoh’s heart? Are you upset at God because, in your mind, He is not just? But from where do you derive your ideas of justice? Do human beings determine that which is just, or is the law of justice absolute and above anything we humans think? Are we able to “change justice?” Or is “justice” an absolute? Where do you really get your moral sense? How do you explain sophisticated ordered-complexity out of a chaotic explosion? How did the conditions of that explosion come to exist? Has the universe existed from eternity past, or did it have a beginning? If enery can neither be created nor destroyed, then what caused the universe to begin? Or if you think that the universe has been from eternity, how can that be? Isn’t it true that your desire to be a self-made man independent of any (non-existing) deity is the reason why you do not want to believe in God? Isn’t it true that you abhor the idea of submitting to a Despot (even if He is a Benevolent Despot)? Isn’t atheism really a matter of the will?
I can preach the gospel in good conscience, because the Holy Spirit – who is real and not fake – is testifying to your heart, confirming that what I’m telling you is true. If I did not believe that, then I wouldn’t preach. But you have been deceived. I suspect that the demonic forces have played on your desire for independence and your pride – whispering in your ear, “Don’t believe in God. He isn’t real. Believing in God is pathetic. Be your own man. Experience self-actualization. You don’t need God. You’re a good person. Christians are hypocrites. The Bible is a bunch of crap.” And you have believed these lies, because you have invited deception.
Make no mistake; deception is always invited. God has made His truth plain to us. But in the deceitfulness of our hearts, we deceive ourselves and let ourselves be deceived.
So, I encourage you to do this: Next time you experience a thought that suggests anything remotely like I have just mentioned, ask yourself, “Is this reality? Or am I attempting to impose my will and my belief (that God is not real, etc) on reality?” When you recognize some idea as a lie, ask yourself, “How do I know this is a lie?” When you are sure that an idea is a lie, call it what it is. But be careful. The human heart is wicked and deceitful. We love to deceive ourselves. But the pure in heart will see God.
I do not desire to offend you.
ConcernedEngineer
September 5th, 2006 at at 10:36 am
I am not offended Concerned, merely amused.
I already explained further up the thread how religion came about, in summary, early humans not understanding natural phenomena, so they attributed them to gods, spirits, etcetera. Then along came some clever folks who figured out that they could harness the fear and gullibility of others by setting themselves up as the intermediaries between humanity and the god (or gods). Thus was born the priestly class. That is all religion has been about ever since.
As for people claiming they have felt the presence of Jesus or the Holy Spirit in their lives, there are also thousands of people who believe that they have been abducted by extraterrestrials and had medical experiments performed on them. There are also many people who claim to have seen Bigfoot in the forests of the American Northwest, Nessie in Loch Ness in Scotland and so forth. Now, some of these people may legitimately believe that they saw or experienced these things, but that does not mean that these things really happened. All supporters of Bigfoot or Nessie have to do is provide us with the bodies. After all, in order for a species to survive, there has to be a sufficient enought breeding population to maintain the stock. What have they come up with? Zip.
The difference between people like you and me is that you look at history through the lens of the Bible, I look at the Bible through the lens of history. You assume or take it on faith that the Bible is the inerrant word of the creator of the universe, and if there are things you cannot adequately explain, or if someone like me points out things that cast doubt on the stories of the Bible, you simply shrug it off as somehow all still being part of God’s plan that we simply cannot understand or were not meant to. Well, that does not fly with me and it never will.
I will simply continue to live life according to the principles in which I believe are necessary for a good and moral life, and when I fail to live up those standards, I will examine myself and try to do better. If some deity up in the heavens still wants to punish me then at the end of my life, well he can just kiss my behind. I will now bid you adieu.
September 5th, 2006 at at 10:55 am
“Now, how does a right eye cause a person to sin? Or a right hand? The sin occurs in the person’s mind, not in the eye of the hand.”
The sin occurs in the mind, but the image comes through the eye, before we intepret it in our minds.
i.e. If I was blind, I wouldn’t be so tempted to look at really hot women lustfully.
The point that Jesus made is that we need to be pretty harsh with ourselves when we sin. He wasn’t advocating self-mutilation.
On the beattitudes, you are way off to call the beattitudes “meaningless platitudes.”
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their is the kingdom of heaven.”
i.e. If you think you are all that and you pray, “Dear God, thank you that I am SO MUCH BETTER than that sinner over there,” then your attitude is all wrong. But if you pray, “Dear God, I am a wretched sinner. Have mercy on me.” Then your attitude is right.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
One of the biggest problems with our society is that this society is filled with a bunch of narcissists. I confess that I tend to be a narcissist myself. Everyone thinks that the world revolves around himself. But Jesus is saying that we need to mourn. We need to mourn over those things which cause God to mourn. We should mourn over injustice. And we should mourn over our sins.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
Meek does not mean weak. Meekness implies gentleness and power – but power under control. I am welcomed and challenged and encouraged by meek people. Humility is definately part of meekness. Jesus demonstrated meekness when he washed his disciples feet, and when he let himself be crucified. At any moment, He could have destroyed us all, but he chose to submit to His Father, and pay the price for our sins. He was meek.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst ror righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Righteousness – true righteousness – should be a really big deal to us. Establishing justice is very important. Doing that which is right. This should be top priority.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
This is probably my favorite of the beattitudes, because I am aware of how needy I am for mercy. People who have been shown lots of mercy tend to show others lots of mercy. People who think that they are pretty darn righteous, tend to be really judgmental and arrogant. If we need more of anything in the world, I would suggest we need a whole lot more mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Purity is so important. Being single-minded in our commitment to God and to righteousness is the key to finding joy and peace in life. For relationships to be healthy, purity is essential. I have plenty of friends who are girls – I view them as my sisters. And I treat them with absolute purity. And because of that, we have a very special friendship.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”
Bringing peace into a home where there is strife is one of the toughest and most important things that the father and husband must be committed to. (Yes, everyone should be committed, but the father and husband really ought to serve and lead in this area). Establishing peace in communities, nations, and throughout the world ought to be high on our priority list. We need to cultivate peace by becoming culturally and socially competent – so as to win hearts and minds. Making peace – whether on a personal scale (being reconciled to your brother that you have not spoken with in years) or on a “larger” scale (figuring out how to deal with Iran) – this requires wisdom, patience, courage, humility, and perseverance.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Anyone who is committed to truth and justice will be opposed by those who are not so committed. Putting pressure on people to do what is right and holding people accountable is a difficult task. But that is what we are to do. We need to have a healthy and steady resolve to do what is right – even when it is unpopular – and even when it causes us to be harmed – or possibly killed. In our nation, being politically correct is more important to many than doing what is right. We sell out to the infamous “bottom line” of corporate America – which cares only about making a buck – and not about treating people with dignity and value. If we fail to do what is right, then those are unjust will come to power. If we don’t confront evil, then we become accomplices to evil.
And when those who do confront evil get persecuted, they ought to rejoice and not be discouraged. Many great men of God throughout history have been so persecuted. Jesus, of course, is the prime example. Paul never shut up – so they killed him. Same thing with John the Baptist.
So, how in the world do you say that the beattitudes are “meaningless platitudes?” Even without believing in God, you surely see the virtue of a man who possesses all of these qualities – don’t you?
September 5th, 2006 at at 11:01 am
I posted my last post without having read your last post. If you do not want to continue this debate, then I will sign off. If you do, well, you know I am down. Feel free to check out my blog anytime you woud like. Take care. I have prayed for you and will continue to do so as God brings you to my mind. Adios.
September 5th, 2006 at at 11:05 am
No, don’t spend another moment’s thought thinking about me. And please do not pray for me either. You are still free to challenge anyone else here though.
September 5th, 2006 at at 11:27 am
Chelfyn,
You said, “finally, to answer your first question, about belief in politics as a moral science – I think that the term moral science in oxymoronic. morals are an arbitrary set of human values. science is the process of measuring, theorising and explaining the natural world. the two are pretty incompatable things.”
So, what is psychology?
Just trying to provoke thought…
September 5th, 2006 at at 11:45 am
Ahhhhhhh shheeeeeeeeeeeite! Now that you’ve written that long post about the Beatitudes, I suppose I have to respond why I think they are meaningless platitudes. But it will have to wait until tonight after I have gotten home and tucked my kids into bed.
September 5th, 2006 at at 11:58 am
I haven’t chimed in more because I’ve been on vacation over an extended holiday weekend. However, I have been following this debate on my Blackberry and feel that I can sum it up quite succinctly.
Concerned says: I believe because I want to believe. You don’t believe because you don’t want to believe. I’m right, you’re misguided. Why don’t you just admit it?
Tommykey says: **Some thoughtful secular rebuttal, and explains why it’s illogical to believe without evidence.**
Concerned: I believe because I want to believe. You don’t believe because you don’t want to believe. I’m right, you’re misguided. Plus, there are aspects of existence I can’t explain, “God” is the only explanation that makes any sense (to me). Even though you’re misguided, if you click your heals together three times and say, “I believe, I believe, I know it’s silly, but I believe.” Then, you’ll come to your senses, and see the “Glory of God”.
Isn’t God swell!
Tommykey: **States another thoughtful secular rebuttal, and further expands on why it’s illogical to believe without evidence.**
Concerned: I believe because I believe, and there are aspects of existence I can’t explain, “God” is the only explanation that makes any sense (to me). You don’t believe because you don’t want to believe. I’m right, you’re misguided. Why don’t you just admit it?
Plus, there are aspects of existence I can’t explain, “God” is the only explanation that makes any sense to me.
Oh yeah, if you click your heals together three times and say, “I believe, I believe, I know it’s silly, but I believe.” Then, you’ll come to your senses, and see the “Glory of God”.
I’ll pray for you.
Repeat Ad Finitum………
September 5th, 2006 at at 1:46 pm
LBBP,
Very clever…
But what you have failed to do is to explain why it is that so many of us do believe and why we want to believe? Furthermore, you have ignored a great deal of scientific evidence (that points to design) and philosophical evidence (that points toward moral reality, moral absolutes, the idea that human beings have real value, and that we have real rights).
Furthermore, none of you have given a very good explanation as to the historical person of Jesus Christ. If He was not who He said He was, then who was He? Liar? Lunatic? The historical account of Christ presents compelling evidence that demands a verdict. The popular idea that he was a “good man,” but not the Son of God is totally illogical. Good men do not deceive.
While it is true that I believe because I desire to believe (because God put that desire in me), you don’t believe because you will not to believe, because of heart attitudes – not reason.
“A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” -Simon and Garfunkel
We’re all right; just ask us.
Coming to faith can happen instantly – or it can be a process. For most people, it is a process. For you atheists, it might start by admitting that God may indeed exist – that there is no evidence that disproves His existence – that there is compelling scientific, philosophical, and historical evidence that suggests that maybe – just maybe – God really exists.
Why not abandon atheism and embrace agnosticism? How badly do you need to be right? Is it possible that your belief that God does not exist stems from your desire to make all believers look silly? If you are so committed to logic and reason, and if you care so little about God, then why not embrace agnosticism? Why be an atheist? Why be an “evangelical atheist?” It seems like you have a vandetta against the Deity that you don’t believe exists! This too is evidence that He is real. If He wasn’t real, the vast majority of people would probably not believe. If He wasn’t real, you wouldn’t be so committed to the denial of His existence. “He” would hardly be a concept worth discussing.
The desire for God not to exist does not affect the reality that He does.
“The fool says, in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
Peace to you.
And yes, I do pray for all of you.
September 5th, 2006 at at 2:07 pm
Concerned, my beef is not, and never has been, against a vague notion that God can neither be proven nor disproven. My beef is with religion in general, and specifically those who profess to know the unknowable will of an imaginary friend in the sky. Even more to the point, I am furious at the horrific atrocities that have been perpetuated time and again by people who claim to be acting on “the will of God”. And, don’t even start on the whole Hitler/Stalin/whoever was an atheist crap. They all had their own twisted religions and ideologies which have absolutely nothing to do with secular atheism.
I started from religion then woke up as I learned more about the natural world, the sciences, and human nature.
But, I have already answered all of your questions about why I am an atheist here.
September 5th, 2006 at at 8:05 pm
Okay Concerned, let’s have one more go at it.
Here is why the Beatitudes are meaningless platitudes: they don’t establish anything. The meek to this day have not inherited the earth nor will they ever. Not everyone who mourns is comforted. Not everyone who works for peace will succeed. Not everyone who thirsts for justice or righteousness will have their thirst quenched. It all amounts to flowery and beautiful language that does not translate into anything tangible or meaningful. I can say blessed are the plumbers who clear the clogs in our sewer lines. Saying so does not make a plumber’s life any better.
In reading some of your posts, I realize I skipped over some things that merited a response. You mentioned some remote tribes in New Guinea telling missionaries that they were expecting someone, and that in your mind that it is proof they were anticipating Jesus. Well, the Aztec emperor Moctezuma was consumed by the thought that the god Quetzalcoatl would return during his reign. And sure enough, when the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes arrived in his domains ridign on horseback and followed by men who carried magical sticks that made explosive sounds (his guns, that is), Moctezuma took Cortes to be Quetzacoatl, which contributed to the ease with which Cortes captured him and seized his throne.
As an aside, and I am sure my fellow atheists here will get a kick out of, recently I got a letter from some Wycliffe Association or something along those lines. It seems their primary line of work is to supply bibles to the tribespeople of New Guinea that are translated into their native language. The Wycliffe people were requesting donations because the rise in the cost of fuel made it difficult to make the necessary payments to ship their bibles to New Guinea. I didn’t get around to it yet, but intend to write back to the Wycliffe group expressing my delight at their troubles and urging them instead to focus on more important things like providing the tribespeople with medicine, clean drinking water, vaccinations etc.
Now in response to your paragraph: “The idea of “not imposing” on others sounds good. Often it is good. But where do we take this logic? Are you an anarchist? Any law or rule or policy is going to impose on others. Should we have a lawless society? I would think not. So, then we agree that the law should be based on that which is just. Thus politics is clearly a moral science. We need to be careful not to deny the essential human rights and freedoms (which, by the way, God wants us to defend), but we also must maintain justice. We need to have law and order.”
In what manner am I promoting anarchy? It is quite clear that what I am talking about is not visiting evil behavior on other people what we do not want visited upon us. Of course we need to have law and order silly. Stop signs and stop lights are necessary because we don’t want people getting killed in traffic accidents. We set up laws to mete out justice, protect our rights, define our obligations and so forth. As populations increase, or new technologies impact society, we notice new problems arising that need addressing and so laws are to a large degree reactive to changes in society. There were very few if any traffic laws until the advent of the automobile, for example. Laws were enacted to ban smoking in restaurants and other public places once medical science determined that second hand smoke was dangerous to the health of nonsmokers. Everything I have advocated above, which you deride as utilitarian, can be more accurately described as communitarian. We all parts of a community and as a community we need to find ways to live together without stepping all over each other. The right conduct I have advocated is all about trying to be a positive force in our communities to the best of our ability, or barring that, to at least avoid trying to be harmful to the community. One of my personal mottoes is “If you want to make the world a better place, then do not add to its problems.”
You write elsewhere: “This brings me to my second scenario. God has revealed aspects of Himself to all people – via the Holy Spirit and through Creation. When you look at the wonderful ordered-complexity of nature (whether the stars, or human DNA, or the mathematics of particle physics), you are oberving the handiwork of God, and you are supposed to be inspired to seek Him. When you hear of the wisdom that says, “Not might makes right, but might for right!” you are supposed to marvel at the little bit of the wisdom of God being revealed.”
This is the argument essentially put forth by Thomas Paine in “The Age of Reason”. Paine rejected utterly the idea that the Bible is the inerrant truth of the creator of the universe and his arguments still stand to this day. Paine was a deist who believed that the Creator did indeed reveal itself to us in the majesty of the creation itself. If I were to believe in a creator, I would probably be a deist too. But what do we have today? People claiming to see the Virgin Mary or Jesus in stains on a frying pan or on a wall beneath a highway overpass.
September 5th, 2006 at at 8:41 pm
Finally, how do I explain Jesus? Well, in the first place, one has to look at the time and place in which the story takes place. The Jews (btw, how come in the Old Testament they are Hebrews or Israelites, but in the New Testament they are the Jews?) have been under foreign domination for centuries. In fact, from the Babylonian conquest in the 6th century b.c. up to the 2nd century b.c., the Jews were under foreign rule successively by the Babylonians, the Persians, Alexander the Great and two of the successor states of his empire, the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Syria. We are talking somewhere between 400 and 500 years of foreign rule.
After a short spell of independence under the Hasmoneans, the Jews were under the rule of the Romans, though from my understanding the descendants of Herod did rule various parts of the former Hasmonean state as long as they remained subservient to Rome.
Now, when you take a collection of people who are taught from childhood on that they are the chosen people of the one true god, add to that a brief spell of independence under the Hasmoneans, which wet their taste for restoring the glory of their past kingdom, there was an expectation that a promised messiah would come. Further add to this that having been under the rule of the more advanced civilizations of the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Greeks, the Jews were exposed to many cultural and religious influences that undoubtedly impacted on their own religion and culture.
The idea of a Jesus born from a virgin and rising from the dead is a product of religious syncretism. Now, I am not going to get into the business of explaining in detail these influences and such, or else I will end up sitting here all damn night. I am familiar with the arguments advanced by some people that there was no real Jesus at all and that he is as mythical as Hercules. But for my own purposes, I have no problem accepting that the Jesus described in the gospels was probably based on a real person. The miracles and the fantastical claims and such were either add-ons or exaggerations that were meant to make him more palatable to people in the Hellenistic world who were raised on tales of gods, demigods, titans and supermortals. As to the trilemma argument that you and countless other apologetics make, it is simply a way of trying to limit a skeptic’s choices and frame the argument to try and get the skeptic to come to the conclusion that you want him to make. It does not allow for the possibility that some of the events and claims in the gospels are not literally true. It is also possible for people to make extraordinary claims about themselves and delude themselves into believing their own claims. For example, the leader of the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-19th century in China proclaimed that he was the son of Jesus Christ and the European powers initially favored him over the Qing dynasty because they thought he would make China a Christian nation. But after a while, it became quite apparent that the man was unstable and the Europeans eventually supported the Qing in suppressing the Taipings, primarily because they did not think that a Taiping government would recognise the concessions that were made to them by the Qing.
During the second century, when the Roman Empire was at its height, the various Christian sects were one of many Eastern mystery cults in the empire. Interestingly, the Jews rebelled against the Romans again around 115 A.D. and during its initial successes, the Jews believed that its leader, Simon bar Kochba, was the messiah. Evidently, Jesus did not make much of an impression of the Jews if they looked to someone nearly 80 years later as being the messiah they sought.
Christianity’s first big break was the strife that befell the empire in the mid-3rd century A.D., when parts of the empire split away and the barbarian tribes began to exert pressure on the empire’s borders. The disruptions and the ceaseless wars and the spiraling taxes may have made more people in the empire susceptible to the message of Christianity because their lives were so miserable and the idea of a better world in the afterlife made their own misery easier to bear. It was by the time of Constantine that there were enough Christians in the empire that he felt they were a force he could harness to serve his own ambitions. Once Christianity became the official religion of the empire, the church had become married to the power of the state and had the power to suppress rival christian groups by declaring them to be heretics, not to mention having greater power and ability to suppress rival pagan religions and cults.
And that Mr. Concerned is why Christianity became so pervasive in Europe from the late Roman Empire onward. Barbarian kings would convert to Christianity and compel their subjects under pain of death to convert because those kings felt there was a benefit to doing so. So centuries later, the descendants of those who were forced to convert simply took it for granted that Christianity must be right and true. After all, these people lived in an environment were free discussion such as we have here on this blog was simply not permitted.
Okay, I think I’ve gone on far enough. Tomorrow is my son’s first day of kindergarten and I have to get up early and get him to school on time.
September 6th, 2006 at at 7:57 am
Well…
My position is pretty clear. Faith is a gift of God. Faith is not wishful thinking. I think that God will use many of you to cause many Christians to think more deeply about their faith, and that is a good thing. Uninformed wishful thinking (aka – blind faith) is an extremely dangerous thing. Frankly, many people are “Christians” not because God has revealed Himself to them, but because they have shut off their brains and have stepped out in blind faith. People ought to think long and hard about that which they choose to base their lives. I thank God for atheists who cause people to think.
Given that… in the spirit of the original topic of this debate, I’m all for a few rounds of sparring about politics – if other people are down. Obviously, our foundational premises are different, so our conclusions will no doubt be different. But it would be interesting to find out how much we agree and exactly where and why we disagree.
First of all, allow me to explain what I mean when I say politics is a moral science – a subset of theology. I’m using the term “science” a little loosely here.
We have the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc). But then we have “moral sciences” (politics, anthrolopology, sociology, ethics, etc). Chelfyn earlier denied that politics is a “moral science.” Well, it may not be a “science” in the strictest definition of the word. But morals certainly has something to say about politics. Virtually anytime we use the word “should,” we are making a moral claim.
Morality and ethics are subsets of theology. There are moral absolutes. As I said earlier, the reason why you atheists are opposed to murder, but okay with eating hamburgers, is because you have moral sense. You have moral sense, because you have been created in the image of God.
So, you can see how not letting theology impact politics makes absolutely no sense.
Let us define religion. I say religion is a set of creeds, doctrines, beliefs, and ideas that command a certain measure of allegiance and respect.
Given that – from a logical point of view – politics and religion and forever intertwined. You can not separate them. It is not a question of whether the government will promote “religion,” but rather which “religion” (which set of creeds, doctrines, beliefs, and ideas) will be promoted and imposed on the people.
Secularism is a religion according to my definition of religion.
Thus, the state is promoting and imposing the contradictory, postmodern religion of secularism. And what drives me absolutely nuts is that the state is using my tax dollars to promote their anti-Christian religion. The religion of secularism forces those who don’t believe to “tithe” (and go way behond tithing) – so that the American civil religion of secular humanism may advance.
Thomas Jefferson once said (in his opposition to Christianity involving itself with government) that the idea that tax payers should be forced to fund the ideas which they disbelieve and abshor is unjust, hypocritical, and sinful.
What do you guys think? Should tax payers be forced to fund the propagation of creeds, ideas, doctrines, and beliefs which the said tax payers disbelieve and abhor?
If you say, “No,” then you can’t impose taxes at all, because the cause for which those tax dollars would be used would surely go against the will of some tax payers somewhere. If you say, “Yes,” then you have parted with Jefferson. Furthermore, you would then agree with me that my tax dollars should not be used to fund public education – where children are being brainwashed with by anti-Christian religion of postmodern secularism. For I abhor the secular crap that is being shoved down the throats of children.
There is no neutral ground. Either we will stand for that which is just and right and true, or we will fall for anything. The idea that it is possible or desirable for teachers to be neutral about morality and religion in a classroom is ridiculous. By not taking a stand for that which is right, the teachers are essentially teaching that it is not acceptable to take a stand for that which is right; that has become her stance. By refusing to say anything that might condemn Hitler – when discussing WWII in history class – you are essentially saying that the possibility exists that Hitler was justified in his actions. Teachers confront racism all the time – because it is the right thing to do. Yet this is an imposition of a religious idea on students. But its okay – indeed it is good, because racism is wrong.
Make no mistake, by standing against a Christian epistemological hegemony, you are contending for a postmodern secular contradictory epistemological hegemony. You will always advance one hegemony or another. If you are totally passive, that too is advancing the idea that being passive is the right thing to do – or at least the acceptable thing to do.
Justice is like calculus. Complicated at times – yet absolute. We ought to stand for justice – regardless of what the powers that be say or do. By failing to stand for justice, we essentially stand against those who put their neck out – standing for justice. That is unjust.
Have you ever seen “V for Vendetta”? Good movie. What they did not show in that movie is what happened the following days, weeks, and months following that futuristic 5th of November. So, while the prospect of a theocracy presents the probability of an unjust tyranny, attempting to completely separate all theological ideas from politics causes the pendulum to swing to the other side – where we have an unjust secular tyranny. Injustice is injustice whether it is done in the name of religion or in the name of secularism (which as I already proved is a religion itself).
And the Bible says, “The just shall live by faith.” We really do need to embrace the beattitudes with hope and faith that God will show Himself faithful to His promises. Without that faith, we will end up giving up on justice, and when that happens, then we will contribute to the unjust world system.
May God give us faith and wisdom to establish real justice in a world filled with lies, corruption, and injustice.
And since you atheists are so big on reason, I plead with you to be reasonable in your reply. Perhaps using syllogisms and drawing Venn Diagrams will help.
September 6th, 2006 at at 8:52 am
Tommy said, “If a person acts with right conduct, regardless of whether the person follows a particular religion or is atheist, that person is a benefit to the world, and if that person acts with wrong conduct regardless of whether that person professes to be religious or atheist, then that person is not a benefit to the world.”
It is not as though I think that he had a utilitarian view of people. It was rather that the logical conclusion to this argument could end up there if we are not careful.
Similarly, I had said, “The idea of ‘not imposing’ on others sounds good. Often it is good. But where do we take this logic? Are you an anarchist? Any law or rule or policy is going to impose on others. Should we have a lawless society? I would think not. So, then we agree that the law should be based on that which is just. Thus politics is clearly a moral science. We need to be careful not to deny the essential human rights and freedoms (which, by the way, God wants us to defend), but we also must maintain justice. We need to have law and order.”
And Tommy felt that I was accusing him of being an anarchist. Notice, that is not what I did. I was pointing out that by having a society where there is law and order, the government will be imposing on others. So, the idea that the government should not impose on society is silly, patronizing nonsense.
Of course, we don’t want to government to overstep her bounds either. But it is fashionable in our day to impose the doctrine that says that we should not impose doctrines on one another. I am merely pointing out that such a doctrine is silly, illogical, and patronizing nonsense. I was not accusing Tommy of being an anarchist. I am trying to get you all to see why theology and politics are inseperable. And I am asking – at very least – that we be very careful not to ever contradict ourselves. If anyone finds himself contradicting himself, he ought to take a step back, think, and decide on a position.
And this is not an accusation that Tommy has contradicted himself. Rather, I am asking him to consider carefully the logical ends of his statements.
September 6th, 2006 at at 10:04 am
I said, “If you say, ‘No,’ then you can’t impose taxes at all, because the cause for which those tax dollars would be used would surely go against the will of some tax payers somewhere. If you say, ‘Yes,’ then you have parted with Jefferson. Furthermore, you would then agree with me that my tax dollars should not be used to fund public education – where children are being brainwashed with by anti-Christian religion of postmodern secularism. For I abhor the secular crap that is being shoved down the throats of children.”
Sorry, I got that backwards. I had an idea in mind, but my logic was flawed. Allow me to correct myself.
I meant this:
If you say, “No,” then you can’t impose taxes at all, because the cause for which those tax dollars would be used would surely go against the will of some tax payers somewhere. Furthermore, you would then agree with me that my tax dollars should not be used to fund public education – where children are being brainwashed by the anti-Christian religion of postmodern secularism. For I abhor the secular crap that is being shoved down the throats of children. Neglecting to teach children every subject in light of the glory of God is to teach children to rebel against God.
If you say, “Yes,” then you have parted with Jefferson. And then the idea of separation of church and state is patronizing nonsense. (Well, it is anyway as I already made clear).
September 6th, 2006 at at 11:01 am
Concerned, politics is not a moral science because I don’t think you could make the case that most politicians are moral people. I mean, when congress puts together a multibillion dollar relief package to help people affected by a natural disaster, you know that various members of congress will tack on things for their home district that were not even in the disaster zone. One example that comes immediately to mind was in the 1990’s when congress put together a disaster relief package for some region out west (can’t remember if it was a hurricane or an earthquake) and Senator Robert Byrd tacked on something like $500 million to build an FBI fingerprinting facility in his state of West Virginia. You could make the argument that politics SHOULD BE a moral science, but like everything else, in a perfect world…
You bring up a common objection that people should not have to pay to fund things with which they disapprove. The problem with that is that in a diverse nation of 300 million people, everyone is going to disagree about something. Some pacifists will refuse to pay income taxes because they don’t want their money to pay for bombs. But since the rest of us pay those taxes and fund the department of defense, the pacifists still benefit from the defense of this country, so they end up becoming free riders.
I have to be off now to run some errands but thought I would throw a few bones your way.
September 6th, 2006 at at 11:35 am
Politicians (for the most part) aren’t moral people in this Republican Democracy in which we live, because the masses are sinful and stupid. We are the ones who vote them into office. We are the ones who fail to hold their feet to the fire.
But we should, and we can hold their feet to the fire. We can be proactive – commending good politicians (if they exist) for their positive actions – and confront and punish bad politicians for their negative actions (or for their failure to take positive action).
We can go to school board meetings, churches, town meetings, etc … and start making noise. We can withdraw children from the temples of secular humanism (i.e. public schools), and support private schools and homeschooling. We can take positive action to look out for and serve our neighbors. Of course, we can pray that God would intervene and do a miracle to establish justice.
Rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior. We can send a clear message to politicians that taking the path of corruption is not worth it, because we the people shall see to it that doing so will result in harsh consequences.
The problem with our Republican Democracy is that people are sinful, stupid, and perhaps worst of all – apathetic.
We ought to love one another. We are failing to do so.
I am not opposed to paying taxes. But I am saying that our taxes should go towards the cause of justice. I am not opposed to all war. But I do insist that any and all wars we fight should be for the cause of justice. I have a good friend leaving today to go to Iraq for 7 months. He’s a marine – in his early 20’s – has a serious girlfriend who really loves him. He is going to war, knowing full well, that in all likelihood, of the 32 guys in his unit going (one of which was born in 1987), 32 guys are not going to be returning home. I am praying that God will protect him and his unit and that God will use him to establish justice. I have committed to him to pray, to write, and do what I can here in the states to get people to value justice and to have the wisdom to discern what justice is.
May God give us the wisdom to see the right, the will to choose it, and the strength to make it endure.
September 6th, 2006 at at 11:43 am
Essentially, what I’m contending for is Camelot.
September 6th, 2006 at at 12:01 pm
So, you want religion back in public schools? (We’ll just ignore for a moment that it’s unconstitutional.) Hinduism maybe, or Islam? No, I know… Scientology! Man, Tom Cruises’ kid is going to be soooo popular on bring your crazy-ass dad to school day.
Also, the reason why we know it’s wrong to kill people? Social conditioning. But, why do people not kill each other to begin with? Well, back in the early days people realized they could do more if they worked together. This meant they couldn’t kill each other. Society was born. Socities cannot exist if everybody kills each other. It’s not complicated and doesn’t require a God to understand this.
September 6th, 2006 at at 1:04 pm
Jay,
You act as if “religion” isn’t in the schools. It is. they don’t call it that. They talk about psychology and psychiatry and self-esteem and social studies and health class. They don’t call it religion. But the children are being trained to think and believe and behave in a certain way. They are certainly being trained to think that God should not be a part of school. Essentially, many children are being trained to be agnostic socialist secular leftists.
Here is a good mantra for the Postmodern American Civil Religion of Secularism (which is the idolatrous religion of the public schools):
Psychiatry is my shepherd; I shall not want. He gives me harmful drugs like Ritalin, because I have lots of energy. I am therefore subdued and stilled. He makes me unable to fulfill my potential, because my nervous system has experienced damage. He forces me to celebrate infanticide and homosexuality, even though the Bible tells me the opposite. Surely confusion and instability will follow me all the days of my life, and I will vote Democrat forever.
But of course, religion isn’t in the public schools. Creeds, ideas, beliefs, values, and doctrines are by no means being used to brainwash the next generation.
Neither Islam, nor Hinduism, nor scientology, nor postmodern secular humanism should be proclaimed in the public school system. Of course, the good and true and right doctrines and creeds and ideas in these religions can be proclaimed (for example, calling racism wrong is cool – and most secularists, Hindus, and scientologists would agree with that). The ideas that should be proclaimed ought to be true, right, and good. The gospel should be proclaimed. Mathematics, science, history, literature, Bible, music, English, foreign language all ought to be taught. In each subject, students should learn the grammar, logic, and rhetoric of the subject. All of it should be for the glory of God, for all truth is God’s truth. Atheists, agnostics, and secularists can only teach truth by borrowing (or stealing) from God’s truth. When you teach calculus, you are teaching God’s truth. When you teach science accurately, you are teaching God’s truth. When you teach children to make beautiful music, you are teaching children about God’s truth and beauty and orderly nature (all beautiful music has order to it).
When you show a kid respect, you are teaching God’s truth. When you discipline a kid for misbehavior, you are teaching God’s truth. When you show a kid kindness and compassion, and when you give a kid encouragement, you are modeling Christ-like attributes, and he is learning about God’s awesome character.
You can’t get away from this; we are created in His Image.
If you try to teach without teaching God’s truth, then you can’t teach math or science or history accurately, you can’t show proper respect to students (proper respect? What’s that? Who are you to tell me what is proper?!), you can’t discipline students (I’m an American; I have rights; and besides absolute moral truth doesn’t exist, so who are you to say that my behavior is inappropriate, you are trying to impose religion on me! You better repent, or I’ll sue you!), you can’t train students to make beautiful music (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I don’t like this music, it reminds me of church, you’re trying to preach the gospel without preaching the gospel), you can’t say that racism is wrong (racism may be wrong to you, but I think racism is a virtue, who are you to tell me what is right and wrong?). Essentially, you can’t teach. But by not teaching, you are teaching that education is not important (How can you say that education is not important? Without education, we won’t have much of an opportunity at life).
If you drew a Venn Diagram, you would see clearly, that the First Amendment is a philosophical contradiction.
If you opened your eyes, you’d realize that religion is already in the public school system, but that it is a bad religion.
Logic… I really wish public schools would teach kids logic. Of course, if they did, the kids might realize that many of ideas on which this society has been built are philosophical contradictions, and then the politicians and othe powers that be might lose power, so I won’t be holding my breath.
Let me put it to you as simply as I can. My God commands me to do everything for His glory and according to His ways. That means that if I were a public school teacher, I would be compelled by God to teach for his glory and according to His methods. This involves loving the children enough to speak the truth. Morals are absolute. Sin is sin. Goodness is goodness. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Jesus loves us, and died for us, and we ought to do everything for His glory. This would effect the manner in which I would teach.
The hardcore secular fundamentalists say that you can’t say or do anything that would promote Christianity in any capacity as a teacher. Essentially, if you want to be a Christian, be a Christian on your own time. You may not be a Christian while you are on the job. You must live a dual existence. It is as if there are two stories of society. Downstairs – where secularism rules. And upstairs – where there is a nursery where you can have your fairies and goblins and Jesus. You secularists are saying, “Christians, feel free to come downstairs, but you must leave your faith upstairs.” In other words, you must live a double life – a lie. You may not walk with integrity, because someone who has integrity has integrated his faith into every part of his life. (note that integrity and integrate have the same etymology).
And by the way, secularism is empirialistic. It is seeking to consume the upstairs portion of society via education, psychology, psychiatry, and just brute tyrannical force.
So, what we have here is a collision of kingdoms. God has commanded me to stand up for his truth and righteousness and justice, and to proclaim His gospel boldly to the whole world. Secuarlists have said, “You may not – not while you are on the job.” But God commands me to love Him while on the job – that my job is to be an act of worship to God. He is holy and has commanded complete devotion; anything less is unacceptable. And secularists have said, “What is that to us? You may not proclaim the gospel if you are being paid by the government.”
The antithesis is clear. And you are on the wrong side. Repent.
September 6th, 2006 at at 3:37 pm
Yeah Jay, I already explained that to him 30 posts or so above and apparently it has not sunk in yet. Morals and altruism developed because early humans needed to cooperate in order to survive. Some people in the tribe have to hunt. Others gather water, firewood and so forth.
September 7th, 2006 at at 7:35 am
I would like answers to these questions (not that I care what any of you think, but I want you to think about this for your own benefit):
May I walk with integrity? May I integrate my faith into every aspect of my life? Or do I need to check with the secularists, and submit to secular authority? When secular authority and biblical authority command opposites, should I obey secular authority or biblical authority? Do I not have the right to integrate my faith into every aspect of my life without checking to see if doing so is okay with the secularists? Or should I exalt the authority of secularists over the authority of God?
The Bible and the secularists command opposites. If you say that I should obey the secularists (and therefore disobey the Bible), that is, if you set up laws that would punish me for doing what the Bible says, then are you not guilty of persecuting me for my faith? Is that not secular tyranny? And if you do that, would I not be right to say that all your talk about “religious freedom” is patronizing nonsense?
2 Peter 2:19 speaks about false teachers and false prophets – those who deny Jesus Christ – the only Sovereign and LORD. It says, “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity – for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.”
Freedom – real freedom – is only found in Jesus Christ. Any “freedom” that is not the kind of freedom that is found in Christ is a facade. People who talk about their freedom to do whatever they want – to get drunk – to view porn – to kill babies – to steal – to rebel against law and order – to harm their neighbor – these people do not even know what freedom is. Many of you (if not all of you) agree that freedom is not limited, but protected by law and order. But, in Christ, by serving one another, we become free, truly free. That is the freedom worth fighting for and dying for. Fighting for the freedom to view porn is twisted and perverse. Fighting for the freedom to worship Jesus Christ – on the job and off the job – that is, fighting to make our lives count for eternity and to be holy in all we say and do – that is the freedom worth fighting for. Freedom to rebel against everything good, just, and holy, is not real freedom. It sounds like freedom. We deceive ourselves into thinking that it is freedom. But it is really slavery.
I expect this shall get a few responses. But before you lash out, I wish to admonish you to consider carefully the relationship between freedom and law. Do we need to compromise both in order to partially satisfy both – but not really fully satisfy either. Do we need to compromise one completely for the other. Or when understood and executed rightly, do they both complement one another?
Grace to you, dear atheists.
There were two separate, albeit related, points that I made in this post. I suspect that I will get responses to the second point, but I ask for logical responses to both points.
September 8th, 2006 at at 11:30 am
Wow, Concerned has really become unhinged now! If he wants to set up his Christian fantasyland, he can move to some isolated part of Idaho and set up a compound there and shout about Jesus at the top of his lungs all he wants.
Interestingly, his writings have come to mirror what I have read about Islamic militants and terrorists, such as Mohammed Atta. Atta, who ironically had a degree in urban planning, detested seeing the Arabic Islamic architecture of the cities in the Arab world being spoiled by Western style buildings, advertisements and other signs of Western consumerism. There is this idea that anything that falls outside of a narrowly conceived vision of Islamic purity represents a form of contamination. This is evident in Concerned’s railings about having secularism shoved down his throat.
In order for a pluralistic and democratic society to not only survive, but to thrive, people do have to compromise some of their beliefs with society. If Concerned was in a park and saw two gay men walking by hand-in-hand, would Concerned start haranguing them that they are sinners, or would he merely make a mental note to himself that he disapproved of what he saw and make a silent prayer that he hoped they would come to reject homosexuality and embrace Jesus? But based on Concerned’s latest rantings, it appears that he believes it would be his duty to harass the gay couple, regardless of whether or not the gay couple wants to be bothered by him. In Concerned’s twisted mind, trying to stop him from harassing the gay couple amounts to persecuting him for his religious beliefs.
Another example where religious belief clashes with societal norms are adherents of certain Christian sects who are against blood transfusions or vaccines. By refusing blood transfusions or vaccines for their children, the parents are endangering the lives of their children. I’m sorry, but saving the child’s life takes priority over the parents’ religious beliefs in situations like that.
What people like Concerned fail to appreciate is that despite the fact that he is 110% sure that his version of Christianity is the only truth in the world, and that every aspect of life in America should conform to his rock certain beliefs, there are millions of people who believe differently than him and yet are 110% sure that only their viewpoints are correct. Since they cannot all be correct, that is precisely why religion belongs in churches, mosques and synagoges and not in the schools and in government.
As for integrating his faith into his every day life, I cannot imagine how society prevents him from doing that. He is free to go to Church on Sunday. He is free to have a sticker on his car that reads “JESUS SAVES”, just as I am free to have a sticker on my car that reads JESUS DOESN’T LOVE YOU”. The thing is, unlike orthodox Judaism or Islam, Christianity (mercifully) does not make a lot of demands on a person’s time or conduct. An observant Jew has to get home Friday evening in time for the sabbath, eat a strict kosher diet, wear a yarmulke and so on, just as a Muslim must pray facing Mecca 5 times a day, adhere to a specific diet, and so forth. So I fail to understand how Concerned is prevented in any way from being a practicing Christian in America, especially when the federal government is controlled by the party that is in thrall to the religious right. What seems to be Concerned’s problem is that not everyone else is like him and he does not want to have to accomodate them in the public square.
David Neiwert, on his blog, made the following description about Michelle Malkin that seems applicable to Concerned as well, “Malkin… is like the lunatic who walks around the public square and pokes people in the eye with a sharp stick, and then is shocked, shocked, that anyone would respond with anger and outrage.” Likewise, Concerned is shocked, shocked, that people can consciously reject belief in Jesus and Christianity and yet still lead lives of decency, morality and happiness. We don’t need your Christ and we don’t need you telling us so Concerned. Since this is not my blog, I do not have the right to ask you to leave, but as far as I am “concerned”, you have worn out your welcome. All future posts of yours will be ignored by me (yes, I really mean that this time!)
September 8th, 2006 at at 1:38 pm
I see no analysis on the relationship between freedom and law. I see no real response to any of the specific points that I brought up. Basically, what I see is that secularists are pretty much okay with me praciting my faith, so long as my actions are approved by them. Since the greatest commandments of the Bible are to love God and to love my neighbors, you may rest assured that I will be focused on that. Thankfully, most secularists are okay with people loving one another.
However, I am also commanded to be involved in the establishment of justice. Justice is, of course, that which is in the moral will of God. So, most of the time, when I see people sinning, I pray for them. There are times when I confront them. And this is where I am concerned that the anti-Christian laws will kick in. Secularists who have no clue about what justice is (since they do not fear the Lord) will pass “hate crimes” and then, if they aren’t careful (or perhaps if they are careful – depending on their hearts’ intent), they will oppress people of faith, and punish those who take a stand for justice.
No one has addressed the dillemma concerning education. I have pointed out quite logically that a set of values, ideas, creeds, and beliefs are being passed on to the next generation via the classroom. Abraham Lincoln said that the philosophy of the classroom in one generation will become the philosophy of government in the next. True to form, hardcore secular leftists are training up children not to be holy, but to be unholy. They see no problem with calling on believers to compromise their beliefs, failing to see that by compromising their beliefs they are disobeying God’s call and command to be holy. But what do they care?
The idea that Christianity doesn’t make demands on time and conduct is incredibly ignorant. God demands all of our time, money, energy, heart, soul, mind, strength. He demands it all. Every moment or every day belongs to Him. Sin is failing to acknowledge and appreciate God. When we do not delight in God, we treat Him with contempt.
And I’m saying that Christian teachers in public schools should not be required to treat God with contempt when they teach. Now, you might say, “We are not trying to cause teachers to treat their God (or their idea of God) with contempt.” But by refusing teachers the God-given right to acknowledge God publicly and conspicuously in the classroom, you are taking a stand for injustice and evil.
If you are going to do that though, at least be honest. Don’t give me this patronizing nonsense that you are trying to defend “religious freedom.” If I am pressured by the laws of the land to compromise on holiness, then my freedom to worship is being challenged.
I say challenged, because you will not overcome us. You challenge us. The weak and fearful and idolatrous cave in under your pressure. And yes, all of us at times are weak and we fall. But by God’s grace, we shall overcome.
I am a little disappointed (but not surprised) by the lack of philosophical depth that the atheists in this forum have brought to the discussion. I am a little disappointed by the lowliness of comparing me to Mohammed Atta. And I’m a little disappointed that no one has responded specifically to the dillemma and the questions I have raised.
But I think that my point is clear. You have demonstrated that you are not really interested in defending “religious freedom.” You have no qualms about taking my money and using it to promote the idolatrous religion of secularism. Yet, you would have a problem with the Christian church taking over government and then taxing you to advance the gospel.
To put this more positively, if you could see the wonder and the beauty and the excellence and the goodness and charity of the grace of God, you would recognize that working to establish a beautiful and good society is what we have been created for.
Rest assured. In spite of my rhetoric, I have no grudge against any of you. I hate your sin, not you. I am a joyful person – happy that I have been forgiven. I am a beggar, and I’ve found bread. And I continue to extend to you all the free gift of salvation. God loves you.
September 8th, 2006 at at 3:58 pm
Shorter Concerned: Wahhh wahhhh! Nobody wants to play with me anymore!
September 16th, 2006 at at 9:13 pm
Concerned does not appear to have checked out the debates on many of his issues already online. I’ve seen many arguments I’ve encountered before. I see the familiar atheist-omniscience strawman argument, but I didn’t see anyone argue any logical contradictions showing the specific claims of the properties of the Judeo-Christian god were incoherent. I also notice an implied ad hominem in the claim that “everybody” who was an educated scholar accepts Jesus existed as claimed (this is still under debate, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus, the biggest issue as I see is the absolute lack of contemporareous writings by historians around his time, the single passage by Josephus being widely accepted as a forgery).
Some good starts otherwise are http://www.talkorigins.org (take a look at the Entropy, Disorder and Life section for one, and about points of co-option and the like, irreducable complexity is not as big a deal as ID makes it), http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ (for some definitive atheist perspectives especially re: morality and on proofs of god, I notice you used the old Lord/Liar/Lunatic trilemma, a form of bifurcation fallacy, check out the Unmoved Mover article), http://www.infidels.org (or course a great general source on various arguments). I would start going point for point on a lot of this in more detail, but getting halfway through it I decided to check if it is still current and it appears this thread is dead.
Otherwise, I was raised a non-commital/unforced Roman Catholic who became a born again atheist, though I had doubts about a lot during then after I got out of elementary school. Didn’t really start perusing the arguments more until just a few years ago, it was sort of a tug-of-war between emotion and reason at various points up until then. I call myself an optimistic skeptic concerning the potentials of consciousness for varying reasons, but the demarcations of corporeal reality and transcendental awareness seem to be quite well fixed, with avenues of interaction that are quite limited, from my experience. Anyway, if anything I just want to toss up some links so people can see them associated with the above arguments as well for another perspective.
Enjoy.
September 16th, 2006 at at 9:24 pm
Oh, one other site that leaped to mind that may be appropriate
http://www.ministerturnsatheist.org/
to see more of the reasoning behind atheist deconversions.
September 18th, 2006 at at 11:17 am
Yeti, Concerned turned out to be just an unhinged troll. I think that is why the thread died, because one he started complaining about secularism being shoved down his throat and that the government should exist to promote Christianity, it was pointless to argue with him.
September 18th, 2006 at at 6:46 pm
Hey Tommy,
Yeah, so I now see as I finished reading the rest of the postings. I commend you on your well developed thoughts and ideas. Just as an aside, from my reading of Mo Tzu (based on a rather old, but I thought informative book, H.G. Creel’s “Chinese Thought”), Mo followed in the Confucian establishment of governmental scholarly advice, after the popularity of Confucian thought (based on a meritocratic rule rather than an ancestral Heavan-authorized rule). To my recollection (I happened to lend out my copy of the book, and it’s been a while since I read it) he made some concessions to Confucius’ stricter declamations against Heaven, admitting that Heaven was real and that it revealed itself in the natural phenomena of storms, earthquakes, disease and the like. His conception of universal love was more a brotherly stewardship, a thing of etiquette, compared to the passionate love other schools of thought claim. Through Mencius into Hiriyana Buddhism, lines of this thought evolved and synthesized with other influences. The biggest initial blow, I think, was still struck by Confucius with his philosophy of educated administration and authority predicated on experience as opposed to divine prerogative.
Anyway, I just trot out the ideas because I don’t often find opportunities to develop them much these days. The double edged sword of living in a very small town, offset by the connection with nature and the overall insularity and tranquility. I always maintained some skepticism when I was a Christian; I remember contesting God’s perfection with my father when I was quite young because I had heard/learned about birth defects (later on, learning about instances where things like the brain could develop outside the skull really drove that home). After learning about other religions, science and other schools of thought, I had a 5 hour conversation with my folks where I broke from the church. I only cemented this with a larger degree of certainty this past year or so, when I finally decided to challenge my doubts by perusing the literature with more focus. I still had the lingering belief that atheism was nihilism and oppressive. Oh how that perception has changed as I compare the rhetoric between both sides, and see Christians continually resorting to special pleading, shifting the goalposts and No True Scotsmans, not to mention a pervasive confirmation bias (Lee Strobel anyone?). Oh, did I mention the ad hominems?
All in all, I feel sadness for my parents, who are still Catholic. Not because they believe in Jesus or their view the world, but because their good nature makes them reject many of the virulent doctrines so many other Christians seem to regard as God-given imperatives. I’m sad because, while they’ve given us of their children such freedom to choose, to find our own way, to make our own mistakes and learn from them, and such tolerance and endurance for hard times, many Christians would call them bad or horrible. Not just for being Roman Catholic (ah internecine strife), but for being “ok” with homosexuals (saying they’re entitled to live their lives), being pro-ecumenical, not getting all bent out of shape over pre-marital sex, believing that good people who live good lives will go to heaven whether they are religious or not, taking an allegorical interpretation of a lot of the Old Testament (or at least admit such an interpretation is possible). They are willing to admit their ignorance and listen to reasoned argument, rather than claiming the truth of everything is in scripture. They don’t intrude their beliefs on others (presupposing the “seeker” in “seek and ye shall find”), they are active in their church communities as choir leaders, just good all around citizens and good all around honest people. They never reject their children, whatever vices we have, and we are always welcome at home. They take pleasure in the simpler things in life. They didn’t give me flak about my atheism, nor are they continuously on my back over it. I suppose by all measures, they are “ignorant Christians” behaving like “Godless liberal humanists”. Yet they consider themselves earnest Christians. I hear a “No True Scotsman” echoing out there. Where did they go wrong? They let us choose for ourselves.
I have only heard of people like our friend Concerned here, who believe that they must be continuous Jesus-broadcasting beacons in every thought and action of their lives. Heard or read about them online, perhaps I have been unduly lucky to have never met one face to face, or if I did, not having been “attacked” by one. I haven’t encountered it in the parishners I knew/know in the community here to such a high degree before. I guess this small town doesn’t produce such vehemence, and while I was away at university, I mostly kept to my classes and work without engaging in much public debate. It is interesting to me to see how they use the very fallacies I studied in their actual reasoning to such a high degree, which was why I posted here peremptorily before reading through the rest. I’d like more practice exercising my logic and memory, not to mention my research skills, in developing the thoughts in actual conversation.
To me the existence of my folks continuously helps keep in perspective that Christianity is a means to an end (trying to reconcile death and life), and that it is as much the product of small cultures in its interpretations as large cultures. That in any population of humans, there is always a spectrum of personalities. Not all Christians interpret the Bible to mean a crusade, be it over land or be it social. Unfortunately, these aren’t the most vocal, so it seems. I think the millenialism mindset is being inflamed today, which makes it enlightening to read about the Dark Ages (especially around the first millenium) and the times of those first Crusades and note the parallels. To hear someone argue that because it is an interpretted religious imperative to take every opportunity to convert others to one’s own religion and castigate them for perceived infractions against their religious law, and that infinging on this is religious persecution, well… I’ve heard it before, but to really think about it, it’s mind boggling. It reminds me of all the spam mail I get, seeing the same message over and over and somewhere, somehow, there’re spammers trading mailing lists thinking that if the same person didn’t buy the penis enlargement cream the first time, they might on the 1000th. I consider spam an intrusion, a violation of my privacy. People saying that they are persecuted because their “right” to persecute isn’t enforced? Yikes.
But I’m rambling. This was an interesting discussion to see at any rate. A lot more involved than some of the name calling and bald assertions I’ve seen in other ones. I’ll try to peruse this site more regularly.
September 18th, 2006 at at 11:08 pm
Thinking a little more about my parents, I guess the point to bring up that brought me into greatest contention with them was that they wouldn’t question things so much as I did. I really had more problem with the church as a whole as I was beginning to recognize it then in this regard. They may not be doing their Christian duties by the standards of other Christians today, but they read to us from the Bible, sent us to Catholic elementary schools, took us to church, told us the doctrine, tried their best to answer the questions we had. And when each of us children parted with the church, each for his or her own reasons (though they did think at some points we were too young to make abrupt decisions without thinking things through), they didn’t disown us or disinherit us, didn’t rail against us or plead with us, or try to fill us with guilt. It was more important to them that their children be free to make up their own minds and make their own choices. Picturing responses to this by fundamentalist Christians makes me cringe, there were days when not only we children would be punished, perhaps killed for such apostacy (I recall something about such for “rebellious” children in Deuteronomy), so too would be the parents for such liberal blasphemy. Such a nasty double-bind to put progressive thinkers into. This is why I abhor absolutism so much.
September 19th, 2006 at at 12:02 pm
YetiHermit,
I am not preaching violence or hatred.
I am preaching love for God and for people – that includes unbelievers.
And while I often speculate about ideals and utopian societies, I am really promoting not a utopian society, but a confessing society.
It has been the commitment of the church throughout the centuries to confess their sins that has kept Christianity culturally relevant. Surely, when people screw up, you appreciate it when they confess their fault.
In doing so, you are appreciating a character quality that is distinctly Christian. I know that many people don’t believe that, but my contention is that being created in God’s image, we are well aware of the reality of the “moral code.”
And still, no one has made a good analysis concerning the relationship between freedom and law.
Peace to you.
September 19th, 2006 at at 4:23 pm
If the church managed to grow a conscience and a sense of ethics they wouldn’t have to keep apologizing each generation for screwing up. See: Inquisition, slavery, and various wars. Where does that leave us today? Probably with the gays. This is not an invitation to discuss homosexuality. I have no desire to.
The church has always used scripture as a means to justify their beliefs and not the other way around. This is very clear from the past. I see no evidence that this has changed nor will it. They start with their beliefs then find scripture to justify it. This avoids their having to justify their beliefs with ethics and logic. Once again, it is merely a way to impose their will on the masses.
You say “It has been the commitment of the church throughout the centuries to confess their sins that has kept Christianity culturally relevant.” What you’re basically saying is that God’s will changes depending on how culture changes. Oops, you might want to take that sentence back. You can’t state that God’s word is immutable and then in the same breath say it changes as culture evolves.
September 20th, 2006 at at 3:01 am
Hello Concerned. A few points (well, maybe several),
Confession, while definitely a prerogative emphasized by Christians, does not address the roots of problems. If a person commits a crime and confesses, yes it’s a good thing to know who did it, but it doesn’t stop the crime. And to my knowledge, Christian confession is a private process with three parties, the priestly confesser, the confessee, and the Christian God. I recall being told that it was even possible to confess directly to God and receive forgiveness, or this is the impression some people have. The priest is under a vow of silence and can offer advice, perhaps urge the person to confess publicly, but for someone who has pathological criminal traits, this may prove less than an incentive. I don’t know if a priest can offer as the only means of absolution public confession, but the I think it still remains that not everyone would follow such advice, and the priest must still remain silent.
To me confession is reminiscent of the gun registration laws here in Canada (which I heard are being abolished as administratively prohibitive in cost, I’m a bit out of the loop on it). The people who follow the laws are honest people who wouldn’t be likely to break them in the first place. The people who commit the crimes will find the guns they need irregardless. To me confession is not something that is uniquely a Christian trait, it is an emergent property of conscience. Not everyone follows such. I see and hear of far too many confessions that are the result of misdeeds becoming public knowledge, as a confession is looked upon more lightly than denial in the face of direct evidence, especially for public figures. This holds in the courts as well. Psychological and social analysis help identify root issues, providing, I think, ideas which can be pursued to more reasonably productive ends. It seems more productive than relying on guilty consciences. They can’t solve everything, the only theoretical way to stop all criminal and unsavory behavior is continuous behavioural monitoring of all individuals, as well as a means to neutralize or halt them before the act is perpetrated (requiring then monitoring of intent as well). I don’t think many people would agree to this system (or if it would ever be truly feasible), though one often hears the rumour of it in an economic sense these days. Some people will just plain evade or avoid any such system of control to do what they want, they’re like the common cold of society, you just have to deal with them as best you can(though some are more virulent diseases).
As to law and freedom, I think you are getting at the idea of moral autonomy, the ability of the individual to decide for oneself and act accordingly. In what I’ve read so far, I see only two options for organizing people that guarantee complete moral autonomy, the maximum freedom of the individual. These are anarchy or unanimous direct democracy. Both are somewhat utopian and have their problems with large and/or pluralistic populations, but both have their theorists and adherents. Anarchism I think requires a very high degree of intellect and personal accountability to work, in essence it is a rejection of the authority of the state. Unanimous direct democracies (where policies must be agreed upon by all members) have been possible with small ideologically focused communities.
Personally I don’t think we are emotionally or socially mature enough as a species to readily adopt either today. But without adopting one or the other of these systems, there must necessarily be a sacrifice of individual autonomy. This comes in the form of the direct or implied social contract one must accept to live in a certain place (Rousseau’s justification for the authority of the state, though it does not demonstrate how to create the ethics they enforce, more on this below). I think Christianity professes to be a form of unanimous direct democracy (perhaps small groups arrived at this in the initial phases of the religion’s development), because it bases its social/behavioural policies, conceptually, on one set of scriptures which are purported to be unanimously accepted by Christians as true. At this point however, the problems of divine command ethics become apparent.
First off, even granted one or more gods exist, how can we be sure of what his/her/their commands are? There are a multitude of religious traditions around the world, what is the rational basis for chosing one over the other? An argument by popularity is not a sound basis for establishing such a system, popularity by itself does not establish one as valid over the others, you can’t consistently test the supernatural claims mandating authority. Next comes interpretational conflicts, in many traditions a few to very many denominations or schools of thought representing different interpretations exist. How are we to decide which is the correct interpretation? Different traditions often sharply contrast on various ethical issues, some even being diametrically opposite (sometimes diametric opposition on various views can be found within the same tradition, take the Christian works meaning nothing without faith, faith meaning nothing without works dilemma in the NT, the Pauline tradition versus the other, which escapes my mind).
Even going on a consensus basis, with religious communities there is not always a requirement that a given community accept the consensus of the rest, they may still practice their interpretation irregardless. Look at all the forceful condemnation of minorities such as homosexuals (in the rather recent past outright racism and mysogeny) and desire for dominion by such sects as the Christian Nationalists in the US, who believe that all aspects of everyone’s life should be governed by Christianity (using apocalyptic language to instill fear). Not all Christians behave this way, I don’t hear calls from the Vatican for dominion and conquering of the earth. When I read the late Pope John Paul II’s “Threshold of Hope” he said his theme was to emphasize similarities instead of attacking differences, between denominations and other religions. Yet simply following the commands of religious leaders is an appeal to authority that ignores all the interpretational conflicts, even among scholars within the religion and the leaders themselves.
Our usual current systems of representative democracy have problems, there is not proportional representation based on numbers of votes in the various communities (the liberty of minorities may be compromised). I’m all for working on a system that better accounted for this. I also think there is too much corporate entanglement with the public arms of many governments, with corporations influencing policy without having been elected to do so. Rather, they are in their position because they have been able to dominate the economic system, many in rather monopolistic or unethical ways. Consider the acts (not universal, though widespread) of divestment of means of production to export processing zones often accompanied by human rights violations (sometimes by influencing foreign government’s policies on things like minimum wage), divestment of consumer sales and service responsibilities to temp agencies further eroding job security, pollution here and in developing countries with pressure for liberal environmental policies and policies allowing for more freedom to exploit labour in developing countries to minimize production costs, big box and clustering techniques that squash small business initiatives. Not every transnational is so bad, but the cases in the past few decades speak for themselves (Nike, Shell, Wal-Mart, etc). The more recent policies of corporate conduct to me are almost religious: they sound good on paper, but they are voluntary and not consistently monitored or enforced. Classism is rampantly reinforced by the organization of these structures, fewer people own more. To me these are issues that are more fundamentally important to society than same sex marriage or a woman’s right to choose, or even behavioural issues like masturbation or premarital sex (abstinence and marriage won’t be universally adhered to any more than someone who confesses to a priest must act on conscience, sex is a private act, contraception is a logical thing to include in sexual policy). Yet they seem to take center stage in political discourse.
As an aside, in any democratic state with a rule by majority, even were we to have a Christian one, there still exists the voter’s paradox (which was the subject of an extended treatise by Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Caroll). As minimal example, take three alternatives, A, B, C and three individuals who are to then rank them by preference. Rationally, we would expect that if by majority rule, A was preferred over B, and B was preferred over C, A would be preferred over C. Yet we can end up with the case:
Individual I Individual II Individual III
A B C
B C A
C A B
If we pair the results and count the votes, we find the majority prefers A to B (Individual I and Individual III), and B to C (Individual I and Individual II), but does not prefer A to C. Instead they prefer C to A (Individual II and Individual III), an irrational result. This aspect of irrationality can be reproduced in any of the ordinary variations which might be adopted in an assembly (for example, voting on one proposal at a time until one is adopted). The individuals are otherwise rational with consistent preferences, yet still this element of irrationality exists.
There is an apparent solution to the paradox, discoverd by Duncan Black. If the choices to be made exhibit “single peakedness” when plotted on a single scale, such as the left-right spectrum in politics, majority rule can be made consistent with social preference. An individual finds his/her place on the scale (between extreme left/radical and extreme right/reactionary), and this is the position of the first choice. Subsequent choices are placed to the right or left of this choice, the further away they are, the less the individual likes them. One may look at the extremes as representing on the right a desire for minimum government intervention, and on the left a desire for maximum intervention (with most people lying somewhere in between on various issues). The currently popular “politics as a spectator sport” model doesn’t seem to be accounting for this. I guess this delves out a bit more esoterically, but I think it’s necessary to see with the paradox.
In my perception Christianity has no more answered these problems of democratic rule any more than the secular version has, except by avoiding them and becoming a totalitarian theocracy. There is still the Euthypro dilemma to contend with in religion: Does God do it because it’s good, or is it good because God does it? If the former, there exists a system of ethics external to God. In the latter, in a Christian sense, one cannot avoid the Old Testament, new covenant or not (God is claimed to be immutable), and we enter the realm of moral relativism (with the attendant problems of divine command ethics above). I don’t agree with moral relativism, I think the best system I’ve seen described in my atheist wanderings as an alternative is “universal utilitarianism”. It is very succinct: “First, minimize actual and potential suffering, then maximize actual and potential happiness”. Both to the best of one’s abilities, or the abilities of the group, depending on the level it is being applied (one cannot, of course, know all possible consequences or understand every act completely). This is in progress from Jeremy Bentham/John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism through Kant’s categorical imperative and into the considerations of the modern day. For the full development, see the Ineffable Carrot and the Infinite Stick link I’ve provided in my references below.
I see the development of a secular system of government as having been necessitated to avoid the above mentioned issues with divine command ethics, characterized by the gradual social awareness, over time, that the first part of the dilemma above may be true. Moral philosophy as a field first arose complementary to, then branched away from, religion. Much as the mechanics of reading are skills independent of what is read, yet tied to a language, I see secular government as a cultural skill that is independent of demographics, yet tied to individuals. If it is egalitarian, in acknowledging a pluralistic society and according individuals in it certain freedoms, the government can no more discriminate against a demographic on the basis of those freedoms than a citizen under its aegis can. Nor can it privilege demographics. Perhaps this is an idealized and/or distorted view, I am no political scientist. Still, it is how I see it when I try to put it in words.
The sticking point you mentioned, Concerned, was your belief that your freedom of religion was being compromised by limitations on your proselytizing, which you consider to be a part of practicing your religion. It follows that there is a conflict between your definition of this freedom, and the government’s definition of this freedom, or how it applies to public or private organizations. Unfortunately, this is an issue I don’t have much of a background on. My initial searches looking at your First Amendment haven’t been the clearest on the situation you decribe. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom states:
“[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
This is supposed to represent the legal concept of the codified law in the First Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”
I am not an American, but if the Statute’s first part applies as a person to person interaction, and not a state to person action, were someone proselytizing to me, I could perceive this act as an attempt to compel me, or causing me to suffer, against my opinions. I would make this known, and further compulsion would be an infringement on my right to religion (or opinion/belief). The other side of it is that one is free to profess one’s opinions in matters of religion. This sounds like an example of the orientation they give in colleges these days about sexual harrassment (for a charge to be filed for something like a perception of harrassment, the party so harassed must give a verbal warning). If coworkers complain to management instead of directly voicing their opinion to you, this may cause the impression that it is an institutional ruling against you, rather than infringements of individuals rights. Perhaps it is a matter of recognizing that not everything is a matter or religion for some people, so not everything need lead back to it. Any more definitive information on this from anybody out there reading this?
I don’t know if any of this will be helpful to you, Concerned, but I appreciate the chance to get to develop some of my ideas and test my knowledge. One thing I will admit, I do sympathize with your desire to share truth with others (however our perceptions/knowledge differs), to state what you feel is important to help others, in this life and in death. I find myself in the position of being an atheist but also being someone who has bipolar disorder/manic depression (which is far from just overpositive or overnegative thinking, being more tied to overabundance in monoamine producing neurons [which create such things as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine], a maternally inherited mitochondrial dysfunction and a depression related cell surface receptor mutation/signal transduction interrupting set of mutations). Not the busy-body hyperactive/crying jag kind, but the type that has had full blown psychosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis)/self annihilation perceptions. These are key times when other bipolars will claim spiritual revelation or connections with God. I initially tried reaching out to religion again to get me through, but this always brought a sense of hollowness/incompleteness, no matter how sincerely I believed I was experiencing something holy, or was in a divine presence. It brought more chaos and confusion to me, the only reason I recovered from my psychoses so fast was because I would leave the religious thinking behind and focus on reality.
Yet reality at times seemed just as daunting, just as confusing. I would end up developing sort of areligious experiences later on, or “conceptually spiritual, but lacking in specific iconography” experiences. This culminated in one very in-body experience where I felt a connection with myself and reality that was timeless, wordless, like my mind was touching infinity and I was gazing at it like the tip of an iceberg. I have since read that something similar can be achieved through meditation (in Franciscan nuns or buddhist monks) by disrupting the synchronization of the brain’s right and left hemispheres (concentrating wholly on the left-language side in prayer or the right-creative side with visualization) and thus shutting down the parietal lobe (the part of the brain that deals with time-space orientation). Though I can understand the possible explanation, it does not explain away the experience, the wordless knowing of something profound, the world-within-universe perception. This, and other experiences, keeps alive for me a sliver of hope slightly larger than the average atheist that there may be more of a timeless or continuous aspect to consciousness, that the ultimate mystery of it, and death yet unraveled may be different from utter annihilation.
When I finally turned the corner on religion by going against the propaganda about atheism I had heard as a child, and began reading about logic and critical thinking more (still something I think is woefully undertaught as standard curriculum), then began reading into philosophy, politics, history and prehistory, corporate practices, even economics (all the things I never took in school, I was science and math all the way), I began perceiving reality in a different way. By better understanding that daunting system of society and culture, which had intimidated me as I struggled with university and work while facing the consequences of being bipolar, I started to feel my life find some stability again. My dark thoughts weren’t half as dark, my dreams seemed more achievable, my flights of fancy didn’t soar to places from which I could not readily return. I didn’t suffer a psychosis for over a year (it had been an annual thing since it all began with a dreadful car accident), and when the mania side showed up again (as all my triggers hadn’t entirely been dealt with), I was able to reason so much more clearly, and it was the shortest hospital time I’d experienced (only 3 days compared to an average of a month before).
I understand how many problems there are in the world, but I’m learning the causes much better now. I don’t get hung up as much on the products of my imagination (though I do try to express myself creatively through drawing and guitar). This atheist perspective has been key for me. I don’t know how any Christian could have seen the things I’ve seen, experienced the things I’ve experienced, read all the arguments and counterarguments I’ve read, and not come out an atheist at the end. I suppose there are Christians making similar remarks about their own series of coincidences and exploration. Yet I enjoy exploring connections between consciousness and reality, potentials and meditations, looking at physics and biology as inspirations (however new age that may be). I try more and more to think provisionally, as opposed to absolutely, with best known or best working concepts. I don’t imagine I’ll change many Christian minds, pursuit of alternate interpretations or contrary knowledge is their gauntlet to face, should they choose it. Really, I get such a bittersweet-tragic impression of many of them (though fundies make me cringe), like they’re faced simultaneously with an impossible task and a task so easy others should already be doing it for themselves. And the dischord continues, disheartening some, invigorating others.
At any rate, I guess I’ve spent more than enough time on this. I don’t know if it’ll be useful, or whether it’s the appropriate place to put it all up, and I’m quite tired, but it feels good getting up on the soapbox every once in a while and letting loose. As the volume attests, it’s actually been quite some time since I’ve had the opportunity. I like this site.
References:
Corporate stuff – No Logo (Naomi Klein)
Anarchy/unanimous direct democracy and voter’s paradox – In Defense of Anarchism (Robert Paul Wolff)
Divine command authority and universal utilitarianism – The Ineffable Carrot and the Infinite Stick (http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/carrot&stick.html)
Religious freedom – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion
September 21st, 2006 at at 5:47 pm
Yeti, don’t feed the troll!
September 22nd, 2006 at at 12:15 am
Hey Tommy,
Sorry, I couldn’t resist putting up some thoughts. I see so many of the same arguments I figured I’d try for some different thoughts. Like I say, so much of this humanities stuff is new to me, when I see an opportunity to synthesize related ideas, I tend to give it a shot.
Troll or no, he’s still human. I do have a curiosity about that kind of mindset, because with the bipolar side of my existence, I’ve had times when I believed (very sincerely) some very odd things. When I hear someone say a person is delusional, I have a more than ample background with this from my disorder. I’ve had some pretty powerful states of mind (the ones that were more coherent): I felt I was in purgatory, I felt I was in limbo, I felt I was in heaven, I felt what I thought was nirvana, I felt I was in a land of the dead, I felt I was frozen in time, I felt I was a single particle moving around rhythmically (that one trying to meditate at the time). As I mentioned previously, I felt timeless and connected to infinity. I do wonder what was going on in my brain for these, I wonder if it was just cyclic feedback or whether I was perceiving some aspect of existence that is not otherwise focused upon regularly. If only one sort occured for me, I wonder whether I would have related everything back to it, even built a largely consistent structure of selective interpretation around it. Mental illness (or in general, different brain chemistry/composition) can be very subtle in effect, and I think some people underestimate just how much a person can do that’s odd in private while acting otherwise normal. I know that from experience. Not all “lunatics” go out screaming gibberish on the streets or banging their heads against a wall, they can be good people with otherwise sincere intentions as much as other people can. Our reasoning sometimes though, can be extraordinarily different.
I don’t mean to make a case for the lunatic side of the trilemma (the problems with the bible are a whole other kettle of fish), just for the potential consistency of other states of mind and their effects in general. Not to mention speaking up for other “lunatics” out there. I wonder if there is a neurological disposition to some people that makes it easier for them to “accept” things, perhaps it is a form of emotional visualization, disassociation or anthropomorphization. I’ve read that bipolar people are supposed to have smaller amygdalas, those parts of the brain that process positive and negative emotion. For my part, try as I might in some of my experiences, I could not “accept Jesus into my heart” because I could not feel anything I could perceive as Jesus being “there”. Sensations of presence I did have (usually thinking some other person was actually someone else, or their representative) were inauthentic or intellectualizations, constructed. The static states of mind I mentioned above usually evolved into a waiting game as I expected (or asked for) some presence to come in and change them, progress them or end them (except the limbo one, that required an ultimate test of willpower to break out of). How can a person tell me I just have to try harder, or be more sincere, when time and time again, I was so utterly convinced that the state of mind was reality that it consumed every aspect of my thoughts, even excluding caring for myself properly? Not trying very hard didn’t work that well for me either.
Perhaps this emotional visualization technique has to do with some people being more right hemisphere dominant, or having this part of the brain more developed than I do (always struggled with the creative side of things). The language centers are on the left side, so this is where much of the sense of ones awareness comes from. I have read that some people, if forced or by circumstance end up using more of the right side (or the left side is overworked), they may experience a sensation of some other self, often perceived as a foreign presence. Since it has no language center, the right brain awareness would be wordless, perhaps emotionally oriented. And as it would be, the right hemisphere houses the portion of the amygdala (part of the limbic system or old mammalian brain) that processes negative emotion. May be some clue to the association of dire consequences and emotionally visualized perspectives perceived as counters to it (associated through the hippocampus on that side to positive declarative memory and navigation).
I do look forward to the day when a person can go in and get a scan of their brain so they can see the structures making it up individually as a matter of course, to better understand their strengths and weakenesses. i.e. people who succeed as London cab drivers have larger hippocampi (used as they are to navigate routes/remember directions). The structural features usually manifest through behaviour anyway, but I think it would be interesting. All of it makes me wonder how many “true believers” there are that really “feel” their religions compared to those that are more just instructed in them and adhere to them because of the purported benefits and consequences for a promised afterlife (a sort of cost/benefit optimized relationship). I don’t think I’ve yet to come across many discussions or writings on the relationship of brain activity to specifically religious activity, other than a speculation that the Buddha may have overloaded his negative amygdala, thus short-circuiting himself to only be able to experience the positive side and relate things to this, and some stuff on Dr. Michael Persinger’s “God Helmet” that, by magnetically stimulating certain parts of the brain, is purported to produce a variety of “religious experience” in around 80% of the people that try it (in addition to the part I mentioned above about Buddhist monks and Franciscan nuns shutting off their parietal lobes). I think it would be interesting to see what gets used differently, or more often.
Anyway, somewhat off topic and rambling again, but as I say, I like developing ideas when they come together.
September 22nd, 2006 at at 9:46 pm
I’ve been reading this book also and must say it is well worth reading. It is well researched and gives an even presentation of what the fundies are up to. They have been at it for aobut 30 hard years and really do plan on gaining dominion over and ruling America. Fuck that.
Here is something by Annie Druyan that says it much better than I :
“It seems to me that the biggest challenge we face is to evolve a language that couples the cold-eyed skepticism and rigor of science with a sense of community, a sense of belonging that religion provides. We have to make it matter what is true. If instead we say that what really matters is to have faith, what really matters is to believe, we’ll never get there. It’s not enough to have forty minutes of science in the daily school program, because science shouldn’t be compartmentalized that way. Science is a way of looking at absolutely everything.
What I find disappointing about most religious beliefs is that they are a kind of statement of contempt for nature and reality. It’s absurdly hubristic. It holds the myths of a few thousand years above nature’s many billion-yeared journey. It says reality is inferior and less satisfying than the stories we make up”.
I fully agree. The religious expect their fantasy to be taken seriously while all the while denying The world around them. As if they can make it go away with some half-baked scheme that is nothing more than lies and dishonesty. Like dominionism or The United States was founded as a xian nation. We must be aware of these people and when we can talk to them about their lies and how they are wrong. Wrong factually and wrong for a nation built on the premise of freedom . You can not stand for freedom with both knees on the ground.
September 23rd, 2006 at at 12:09 pm
I forgot to say. Congrats to you for getting the blog rolling again. Thanks LBBP and I am.
November 4th, 2006 at at 7:36 pm
[...] The two pieces I mentioned above are Christian Nationalism and an interview with Abby Nye, author of A Fish Out of Water. You can read them for yourself. The views expressed in each are diametrically opposed to one another, but that’s not why I found them interesting. What they do have in common is that they both point out the fundementally intolerant nature of Christianity. One author points out this intolerance to show how it is anti-American and a threat to our democary. The other author uses intolerance as a justification for standing up for her own beliefs because, as she puts it, “What good is a conviction if you don’t believe it to your core and reject anything that is in opposition to it?” So if I’m to believe the pro-Christian author, we should just chuck the Declaration of Independence right out the window. Given that our founding fathers weren’t Christians, I think this type of intolerance is precisely what they wanted to avoid. [...]
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