Jesus or Billy Mays?

Well, it's happened again.  Some lucky bloke has found their very own manifestation of Jesus, this time in a tree stump.  Naturally I am skeptical, but this time I think I have even more reason to be so.  I think the image looks a lot more like Billy Mays to me...

Unless...  no... it couldn't be... was Billy Mays the reincarnation of Jesus?  :-)

Interview with Deity Shmeity

Recently, self-proclaimed "Evolution's gift to women," Grundy, started popping up in the comments of some of the blogs I frequent.  You always wonder about newcomers, don't you?

Well, Grundy runs the Deity Shmeity blog, and there he does a pretty darn good job of highlighting some of the foolishness of religion, and sharing his approach to the major questions surrounding faith.  Check it out!

If that isn't enticing enough for you, Grundy is working on a series of great, short interviews with semi-prominent atheist bloggers which is definitely worth a read.  I'm not sure how I got into the mix, but, if you follow this link, you'll find an interview with me!

The interviews are quite engaging because of two factors:

1. The people interviewed come from a variety of backgrounds.
2. Grundy actually took the time to read a little about each person and ask them some specific questions based on their histories, as well as some common questions to all.

Enjoy!  I know you will.

The Revolution Will Not Be Biblicized

I'm still here, but work is chaotic to say the least.  I'll be struggling to get my weekly post done for The Wise Fool.  But I'll pass on this info...

The May 2, 2012 USA Today had a pie chart on belief strength in the USA.  40% claimed to be strongly religious.  Get this: 32% percent claimed to be non-religious.  The 40% obviously could be a blend of all religions based on the framing of the question, so it could be Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc.  The remainder 28% were "moderately religious."  The times are changing.

Also, I heard a stat on NPR's All Things Considered(?) today... non-religious is the fastest growing category of religious status.

My friends, the revolution will not be Biblicized....

The Bachelor, and Jesus

Looking for a laugh today?  Follow this news link to about a woman who captured the image of Jesus praying while on her television while she was watching The Bachelor.  You'll be glad you did, especially if you can come up with a character voice for her in your head.  Happy Friday!

From Apocalypse to Spin Cycle

You remember when people started disappearing on May 21, 2011 for the Rapture, right?  Or how about when God divided all of us as either sheep or goats, as either the citizens of Heaven or the denizens of Hell, back on October 21, 2011?  These were the prophetic dates given by Harold Camping, the leader of a Christian ministry which is broadcast through Family Radio.

Prior to these dates, Camping explained how God had given us many infallible(!) proofs from His word that those days would be the markers of the ends of human history as we know it.  When May 21 came and went without any divinely driven exodus, Camping admitted that he didn't know why there was no Rapture, expressed that it was God's prerogative to alter plans as He saw fit, and held fast to the October 21 date as being Judgement Day.  Then October 21 passed into history like any other day...

From that failed prophesy, there are essentially only two paths such a believer can go down:

One path is to renounce the faith completely.  If the proofs of the prophetic dates were infallible and Bible based, then obviously the Bible is wrong.  If the Bible is wrong, then faith in the Bible is not justified.  Psychologically speaking, this is an extremely difficult path.  It involves admitting you are wrong, admitting that you were fooled, and admitting that you have wasted time, money, and effort on something that had false value.

The other path is similar to the first, but different in a critical way, and that makes all the difference in preference of the options.  If you don't renounce the faith, you still can't avoid admitting that you were wrong and that you had been fooled.  Harold Camping has come to terms with this, and posted an open letter on the Family Radio website this month (it took a while to come to terms, obviously) stating among other things:

"... In Romans 3:4 God declares: "Let God be true but every man a liar." Events within the last year have proven that no man can be fully trusted. Even the most sincere and zealous of us can be mistaken. 

...

We must also openly acknowledge that we have no new evidence pointing to another date for the end of the world. Though many dates are circulating, Family Radio has no interest in even considering another date. God has humbled us through the events of May 21, to continue to even more fervently search the Scriptures (the Bible), not to find dates, but to be more faithful in our understanding. 

... 

We have learned the very painful lesson that all of creation is in God’s hands and He will end time in His time, not ours!"

So you see the humble recognition that Camping had gotten it all wrong, trusting more in the wisdom of himself than the wisdom of God.  He is OK with being wrong, because that is the lot of all humanity.  He has also learned his lesson, and will not be claiming any new dates for the End.

But that's not all that he said.  By choosing this path, he did not have to admit that he had wasted time, money, and effort on something that had false value.  In fact, he is quite certain that it did have value:

"Yes, we humbly acknowledge we were wrong about the timing; yet though we were wrong God is still using the May 21 warning in a very mighty way.

... 

Yet this incorrect and sinful statement allowed God to get the attention of a great many people who otherwise would not have paid attention. Even as God used sinful Balaam to accomplish His purposes, so He used our sin to accomplish His purpose of making the whole world acquainted with the Bible."

And so you see how even the most grand of follies is "spun" into an affirmation; both of the awesome power of God, and of the fact that their precious resources were not wasted.  The misguided believer humbles himself only to pat himself on the back for playing his part faithfully in God's master plan.


I've seen the same patterns of self-deception played out on lesser scales time and time again.

(Gay) Star Wars!

Check out this article about Tony Perkins (of Family Research Council) urging fundamentalist to speak out against (virtual) same-sex relationships in a yet-to-be-released portion of a Star Wars MMORPG.

I guess he figures that it is much safer for a guy to pretend to be a girl to engage in a non-consummated, non-graphic, virtual relationship with their son than for a gay guy to just be himself...  Long live fantasy!  :-)

Too bad that Tony doesn't recognize that the real risk is exposing his son to pale-faced super-geeks who live their whole lives online!

Wait a minute.  I live in a glass house.  Maybe I shouldn't be hurling these rocks... ;-)

When Christians Attack!

In the news today was this story about a high-school aged girl by the name of Jessica Ahlquist who was being verbally and digitally abused and threatened via social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.  Why?  Well, she happens to be an atheist who spoke out against a prayer banner which decorated a wall at her school, and, with the help of the ACLU, received a ruling which forced the school to remove the banner.

Clearly asking themselves "What would Jesus do?," Christians reacted to Jessica with messages like:

How does it feel to be the most hated person in RI right now? Your a puke and a disgrace to the human race.


shes not human shes garbage


I think everyone should just fight this girl


F**k Jessica alquist I'll drop anchor on her face


Let's all jump that girl who did the banner


But for real somebody should jump this girl


I want to punch the girl in the face


I hope there's lots of banners in hell when your rotting in there you atheist f**k


jessica alquist is gonna get punched in the face

Also clearly, these Christians, like most Christians I've ever known, live their lives regardless of the teachings of Jesus.  That may be what makes this story all the more important.

Christians are not really different.  I didn't suddenly turn into a different person when I started to have doubts, or when I finally reached the threshold of where I called myself an atheist.  Sure, philosophically and religiously I was different, but the passions of hate and love which dwell within the human psyche remained unscathed.  I was still human, just as Christians are.  So at a certain level, we must realize that this abhorrent anger being displayed by these Christians is something all of us can identify with and could feel under the right (or wrong) circumstances.

So, why did they react this way?  The answer to the question transcends faith, extending to all fields of human belief, having implications for everything from politics to science.  "Science, really?" you ask.  Yes, even there, as it is not always the sterile, truth-is-all-that-matters environment that it should be.

I'm not a psychologist, but I play one on the internet.  So here is my take on the lessons to be learned:

1. When deeply held beliefs come under question from outsiders, feelings of anger can erupt.  No shocker there, right?  Yet this isn't 100% clear until you consider the next point:
2. Deeply held beliefs are often extended by symbolism into physical objects.  Jessica's quest to remove the prayer banner was not at all a literal questioning of Christian belief, yet because of the symbolism involved in the prayer banner, people react as though it was a literal attack on their beliefs.  Interestingly enough, their reaction illustrates that the prayer banner is practically an idol for some Christians, at least in the sense of the word "idol" which Christians have completely bastardized; real idols were objects which received prayer and sacrifice, but the modern Christian use of the term is pretty much anything which is of great importance other than God.
3. When you do not have a strong foundation for your strongly held beliefs, anger is more likely to erupt when they are questioned.  As I quipped above, these particular Christians did not seem to know much about the teachings of Jesus.  They seem to believe based on emotions.  So when their beliefs are questioned, they don't have the comfort of simply knowing that it is true.  Therefore they feel the need to suppress those who question their beliefs.
4. When society as a whole is changing their beliefs, and that trend is against your own beliefs, sensations of being threatened are heightened.  In truth, most of these people who reacted will not be affected one tiny blip by the removal of that banner.  They could go on living Christian lives (or at least what they think is a Christian life) without any problem.  However, the removal of the banner is just one more encroachment of the wave of atheism which has been coming on for decades now, and, in our times, with greater speed than ever as information sharing makes doubts and Biblical issues very easy to explore for the curious.  This connects with the next point:
5. When you use inflammatory language, you get inflammatory results.  Sensing the encroachment of atheism, several prominent pastors which I have heard on the radio, and probably others just form their local pulpit, project this cultural change as a war.  Onward Christian soldier.  The problem is that war is inherently violent.  Even if these pastors are just using the phrase symbolically, the images of violent confrontation still leap into mind and excite the emotions.  After all, There have been a scarce few conflicts in human history where one side marches out to the battle field just to "turn the other cheek."

This is a sad, sad story, but it is one that will play out time and time again in the future until we learn mutual respect and honestly make truth and justice the foundation of all of our relationships.

Random Radio Tidbits

Driving back from the airport today, I had one of the Bible channels on the radio, and the show was a lesser known ultra-right-wing talk show run by a guy with a memorable name, but for the life of me I can't remember his name right now.  Doh!  :-)  Anyway, this guy's guest was a specialist in Islam.  Citing some of the fundamental problems with Islam, the guest said something to the effect of "You know, hate speech is based on when you start to claim your ideology is better than someone else's ideology."  I was thinking "that's the pot calling the kettle black."

The guest then went on to speak about how violent Islam is, adding a comment to the effect of "all you have to do is look back through history to see that it promotes violence."  I was thinking "as opposed to Christianity's history?"

After that guest, the host spoke about how Christian persecution is one of the most under-reported stories in the world today.  The host was actually making a pretty accurate case here, based on the tidbits of news of persecution I have heard.  The persecution is ongoing in countries which are dominated by Muslims, and the host brought up certain examples.  The one example which caught my ear was the report of the persecutions in Egypt.  With Mubarak gone and the military in charge, many of the more radical (more conservative) Muslims have amp'ed up the persecution, and the military is turning a blind eye to it.

This struck me a particularly interesting, because right after Mubarak left, interviews of Egyptian Christians on similar talk shows I heard at the time had a revelation.  To the Egyptian Christians, Mubarak's ousting was an answer to their prayers.  They had been praying for this very liberation.  Praise God!

I am certainly not gloating about anyone's persecution, so don't take this the wrong way.  I am simply pointing out that this is yet another case where people have mistaken events for evidence of God's actions.

One Less Charity...

I've got no children, and, aside from pretty nice vacations, I live a fairly simple and frugal life.  I am reasonably sure that I will have money "left over" when I die, so I have been filtering through in my mind which charities I am going to make an endowment to upon my ultimate departure.  Today, I learned there is one less charity to consider; the American Cancer Society.

According to a news story today, the American Cancer Society (ACS) has rejected the Atheist group Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) from participating in the big fund raising event known as Relay for Life, despite FBB figuring that they could likely bring in somewhere on the order of $500,000 of donations.

Now it seems to me that if your goal is to combat one of the largest causes of death across all of mankind, you would not care where donation money comes from.  You assume, rightfully so, that people who are giving money to combat this disease are genuinely interested in saving their fellow man, or fellow woman.  It is an act of altruistic love.  Such donations often come from people who remained behind while they watched their loved ones whither away in pain before their very eyes, and they do not want anyone else to suffer the same fate.  Anyone.  Regardless of faith, or lack thereof.  Cancer doesn't ask if you believe in a god, or which god you believe in, before it starts festering in your body.

However, the ACS is prejudice where cancer is not.  It does not want freewill love offerings from those of no faith.  So, thank you ACS, for making my charity selection a little easier.

There should be no hard feelings, though.  I probably would have crossed ACS off my list upon learning (as I did tonight) that the Deputy CEO of this "charity" makes $1,407,719 a year for leading the organization.

Tragic Comedy

At the end of the day, we're all just people.  No matter how valiantly or sheepishly we fight for the causes we believe in, no matter what side of the argument we are on, we are all encased in mortal sacks of flesh, and we all have our own families, and loves, and desires.  We are all human.

That's why it is truly a tragedy to hear about a the death of young woman named Kortney Blythe Gordon.  I didn't know her, but the people who did say that she was a gentle and giving person.

Kortney was in a car crash which took her life about a week ago.  She was pregnant at the time, and the baby could not be saved.  Another passenger in her car is in critical condition, and a passenger in the other car is dead as well.  Recently married, she had a joyous outlook ahead, but now only wreckage remains behind.

Kortney was a Pro-Life advocate, and well known in that circle despite her youth, and had held many different roles in her abbreviated career as an advocate.  In fact, if you Google her name, you'll find connection with tons of Pro-Life organizations.

It is a tragedy for such a young, motivated leader to have her life cut short, but I can't help but notice the irony of her death.  Specifically, she had been making a life out of fighting to keep unborn children alive, only to lose her own unborn child along with her own life.  Sure, accidents happen, but the Biblical standpoint is that God controls everything, including when everyone dies.  Ultimately, this death falls in God's hands.  Even if God didn't orchestrate the accident, having omniscience and omnipotence at His disposal, He could have easily kept Kortney alive despite all circumstances which should have proven naturally impossible for life to continue.  I think that they call those types of events "miracles," or something like that.

But God didn't perform a miracle.  He either planned the death of Pro-Life Kortney and her unborn baby, or He just let it happen anyway.  It's like God is into black comedy.  It is impossible to understand from a loving God.  As we are all too often reminded in times like this, His ways are not our ways.  Yeah, in our silly, human ways, we tend to look out for and try to protect people who are fighting for us in any way that we can.  Quite frankly, I think we have better ways.

I hope that this causes some deep reflection about God among those who fought the good fight along side Kortney.  But that can wait.  Right now, my heart just goes out to the husband and family left behind.  I wish no one had to endure such tragedy.

Ten Days and Amish Angst

Believe it or not, these could be your last ten days on earth.  Everybody remembers Harold Camping, right?  The May 21, 2011 day was just supposed to be the date of the Rapture.  October 21, 2011, that is supposed to be the actual end of the world.

What's that?  You still don't believe that these are the End Times?  Well then, consider this:

These are the times of Amish on Amish violence!  It is incredible!  According to a news story at Huffington Post, the "Bergholz Clan," a splinter group of Amish, have acted out against their fellow Amish, breaking into their homes to cut off their beards and hair!

The Bergholz Clan is led by Sam Mullet.  Supposedly Sam wasn't involved in the follicle foible, but is suspected to have been the one directing his followers to lop off the obvious, personal symbols of the Amish lifestyle. 

The Amish, normally ones to settle issues within their own communities, sought the local law enforcement for help on this one.

Sam could not understand why the police were getting involved in this purely religious matter.  Sam told the police that these trimming raids "started with us ex-communicating members that weren't listening or obeying our laws."  Presumably, Sam felt that if you weren't going to obey the laws, you should not be permitted to call yourself Amish or outwardly present yourself as Amish, and that's why he felt he had to take action.

There's not enough detail to say who is more correct from a Biblical doctrine, Sam's splinter group or its victims.  The Amish follow a code of self-imposed, non-Biblical laws, known as Ordnung, as part of an attempt to maintain a more-pure faith in the God of the Bible.  Go figure.

What makes this most amazing is that the Amish are known for their quiet and calm humility, as well as butter, cheese, and quality basic construction labor.  Nonresistance and nonviolence are tenants of their faith.  They are religious extremists, but on the peaceful side of the scale.  So when Amish people start attacking each other, my friends, you know the end has truly come.

Time to start that bucket list!  ;-)

Where, O death, is your sting?

Ten days ago, the 8th of August, the USA Today published an article which would have been unfathomable two hundred years ago.  It wasn't about the new iPad.  It was about Hell, or rather, it was not about Hell.

You see, in this piece titled "Should believers fear Hell - and God?" by Oliver Thomas, Mr. Thomas discussed one of the internal hot-buttons of the church today; whether or not the traditional concept of Hell exists.  Apparently, one major reason this issue is on the forefront is a book called Love Wins by Rob Bell.

Unlike technology, which seems to change faster than my wardrobe, the words of the Bible don't really change.  Finds like the Dead Sea Scrolls illuminate the accuracy and integrity of manuscript copies, and so sometimes changes are made (as in the previous post), but usually these changes do little or nothing to shake the core tenets of Scripture.  Tenets like Hell.  So, how the Hell does Bell make a case for change?

Based off of the words of Mr. Thomas (as I haven't read Bell's book), Bell claims that perpetuated mistranslation is the culprit causing the creation of this wayward doctrine. Thomas provided a four part defense, presumably thanks to Bell.

1. The Old Testament does not portray the domain of the dead (Sheol) as a place of torture, but as a place of no activity.  
2. The Greek word "aiónios" (which he had mistakenly spelled "aionos"), which is translated as "eternal," is better understood as a finality, not a perpetuity (in Bell's opinion).  
3. The word translated as Hell (in the New Testament) is Gehenna, which in Jesus day was in a valley south of Jerusalem where trash was burned, so Jesus was basically telling people that they would be trashing their lives if they did not repent for Salvation.
4. God has perfect love for all of us.  No parent who loved their child could bear to see their child tortured if that child turned out to be a murderer.  How much more that would be true with God.

And, thus, the traditional concept of Hell is completely wrong.  Gone is the burden of trying to reconcile a loving and merciful God with an eternally enduring punishment for the unsaved.

Well, imagine how relieved I felt upon reading this!  As an atheist, no longer did I have to fear repercussions from God, should He happen to exist!  Oh, death, where is your sting!  I now have a hope spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15:55, only on the flip-side of the coin.  It's not eternal life, but, hey, it's not an eternal roast either.

But.  But wait a minute.  Something... something just doesn't seem right.  Let's take a look point by point:

1. Yes, he's right, the Old Testament doesn't suggest that Sheol is a place of torture, but it doesn't describe Heaven as a place of eternal life for good human souls after they die either.  In fact, there is very little to suggest that the concept of an after-life punishment or reward in the Old Testament, aside from what could happen to your still-living progeny.  If you use that to debunk Hell, you'd have to debunk Heaven too, or at least the Christian version of Heaven where the Saved will go.
    
2. The Greek word "aiónios" has "aión" as its root, which is defined as "agelong, eternal," which is why aiónios itself is defined as "age-long, and therefore: practically eternal, unending; partaking of the character of that which lasts for an age, as contrasted with that which is brief and fleeting."  This does not necessarily contradict Bell's position, but his position seems a bit more untenable when you consider Matthew 25:46:
   

   “Then [those separated to the left of Jesus] will go away to eternal (aiónios) punishment, but the righteous to eternal (aiónios) life.” NIV

    
3. Ah, Gehenna.  Yes, indeed, Jesus was using the vivid picture of a burning trash dump, but was it simply to say that those who did not repent would be throwing their lives away, or was it meant to be a metaphor for a punishment which would endure forever?  The verses lean towards the latter because of context.
   
   Take Mark 9:43-48, for example.  That's the lovely passage which says you should chop off your hand or foot if they cause you to sin, or likewise gouge out your eye.  You see, these are better alternatives than being thrown into Gehenna, "where the fire never goes out" and where "their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched."
   
   Why would it matter that the fire never goes out?  How would it be possible that worms feeding on the unsaved would not die, and why would that be significant?  If nothing was to happen to the unsaved at Judgement Day, or if there was just some brief punishment, then these references do not make sense.  On the other hand, if there is an enduring and continuous punishment, well, they are right in line, and probably worth chopping of your hand or foot to avoid!
   
   That's why Jesus told us that we should fear what God could do to us after death.  That's also why the exact concept of Hell as a place of after-life torment is used in a parable told by Jesus in Luke 16:19-31!  That's the one with Lazarus is a beggar, and a rich guy who didn't help him.  When they both died, Lazarus went to "Abraham's side," while the rich guy got thrown into Hell, explicitly to be tormented.  The rich guy begged to have Lazarus sent to warn the rich man's still-living father about the place of torment, but Abraham refuses.
   
   It's rather hard to believe that this is just a matter of mistranslation which somehow Bell can sweep aside.  Instead, he is just ignoring this passage because it's not what he wants to believe, and isn't consistent with the God of love he "knows."
    
4. God seems to have no problem torturing people, or perhaps you are not familiar with the Plagues on Egypt which were the impetus for the Exodus, or the wrath God plans on pouring out in the book of Revelation.

So, it looks like the concept of Hell is well supported by Scripture, and, according to a 2009 Pew pol, 59% of Americans believe that the eternal torment of Hell awaits the unsaved.

Now here is the fun part.  Thomas ends his article asking why would anyone want to worship a God who would eternally torture someone?  And, furthermore, what does it say about a nation which reveres such a God?  Thomas appears to be aligned with Bell, so he can ask these questions from a comfortable distance.  Which, I am sure, is why he doesn't flinch at tying believe in such a wicked version of God as the impetus for "Crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, and, yes, jihad."

Why?  Because "[f]ear is a horrible motivator for human behavior."  Well, Mr. Thomas, on that point, we agree completely.  You might want to bring that up to your Maker.

Old News

Is the Bible inerrant and infallible?  Some people still think so, irrationally.  The reverent believers who study the oldest available manuscripts know better.

Ahab over at the Republic of Gilead sent me an interesting news link regarding a little known project which has been going on for over half a century.  Tucked away in a corner of the Promised Land, a small group of Orthodox Jews are re-writing their Bible, what Christians affectionately call the "Old Testament."  These Jews are meticulously going letter by letter using all of the modern finds, like the Dead Sea Scrolls and other, more obscure scraps of Scripture, and comparing them with the traditional sources used in today's mainstream interpretations of the Bible.

In this tedious process, they've uncovered that some, um, mistakes which were made.  Sometimes, they were just minor changes of a word or two.  Sometimes, the issues were a little more damaging:

"Some verses, including ones containing a prophecy about the seizure and return of Temple implements by Babylonian soldiers, appear to have been added after the events happened."

To the skeptic, this is manna from Heaven.  ;-)   It would be inappropriate to assume that all of the prophesies which appear to have accurately come true were written after the fact based on this finding, but it has happened.  At least once.  That represents something incredibly significant.

An intentionally forged prophesy.  Made to deceive the readers, and/or the followers.  This represents evil intent.  It's a lie.  Why would you need to lie if you have the truth?  If you knew God did exist, how could you dare purposefully write a forgery in His holy book?  If you realize the truth isn't so true, but you benefit from that misguided belief, why not help it become more believable?

The Jewish scholars continue their work with unyielding faith.  Quietly.  With full knowledge that the people working on this project today will not be alive by the time this labor of love is complete.