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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12669850402902426632014-11-27T08:57:58.126-05:00ExChristian.NetThe ExChristian.Net blog exists for the express purpose of encouraging those who have decided to leave religion behind. It is not an open challenge for Christians to avenge what they perceive as an offense against their religious email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-83058344191458842902014-11-11T16:01:00.001-05:002014-11-24T19:47:04.342-05:00Shame and ShamingBy Slave2Six ~

Whether you read Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Clement of Alexandria, Martin Luther, John Calvin or any other notable voice from either Orthodox or Protestant Christianity, one of the principal aspects that you will find is moral outrage at the behavior of those outside the faith.

You will read any number of prognostications against those who are "shameful" or even accusations that people have lost their ability to feel shame at all.

I am in agreement with the idea that "Shame is fear arising from the anticipation of blame" (John of Damascus) and "he who does not escape notice is wont to abstain from sins, on account of the shame of reproof" (Justin Martyr).

Said another way, one whose actions are either known or likely to become known are far more likely to behave well than those who have no one to help them stay on a good path. I would even argue that shame can be a good thing, in a proper context.

But to the Christian, shame is simply evidence of man's separation from god:

But when, by counsel of the serpent, he departed from the consideration of God, and began to regard himself, then they not only fell to bodily lust, but knew that they were naked, and knowing, were ashamed. (Athanasius, "Against the Heathen")

Shame is one of the pillars of Christian doctrine. It is an obsession that one cannot escape if one is to be within the Christian faith.

There are three aspects of Christianity that relate to shame that I think are worth noting.

This Time It's Personal

Throughout ancient history and notably in the Old Testament, shame and guilt were applied to individuals who were sick or outcasts or who were actively breaking the moral code of conduct. This sense of shame was inflicted on individuals by the community at large.

But shame was also a national issue. When god got involved, it was to punish the nation by sending them into exile or dishing out plagues and other natural disasters.

With the exception of the book of Revelation (whose author is not John the Disciple but some other guy who we know nothing about), shame in the Christian context is entirely personal. Rather than calling nations to repentance, the Christian god calls holds individuals responsible for their "shame" and not the community at large.

The first example we see of this is found in Acts chapter 5. Jesus, having been freshly resurrected and ascended into heaven has left the Apostles to start the church. Two of its congregation sold their house and gave some of the proceeds to the church but claimed that they had given all of the proceeds. For this lie, god killed them both.

Since when is lying is a capital crime? Ask any Christian and see if you can get a satisfactory explanation for that.

Such an act by god only makes sense in light of...

Thought Crimes

In the Old Testament, a person could be punished for actually doing something that was against the moral law. Christianity introduced thought crimes:

You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. ' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You fool, ' shall be guilty before the supreme court...

You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery'; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart...

In the Old Testament, the worst that god could do was kill you, and that was the end of it.

Christianity introduced eternal damnation to accompany thought crimes:

If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell...

Damn! Seriously? Thanks a lot Jesus.

As a Christian, why wouldn't you be constantly introspective and on the lookout for anything that might be considered shameful? Conservative Christians all the way back to the Early Church Fathers went as far as to include fashion crimes in addition to any number of cultural crimes.

If wearing the wrong fashion or thinking the wrong thoughts put one in peril of hell, of course you are going to be careful to avoid those things. But isn't the natural next step to adopt a state of superiority and looking down on those who dress and behave in ways that Christians call "shameful"?

Invariably, this leads to...

 Shaming

Shaming is an act of causing other people to feel shame. And for what? Well, take our pick.

I grew up in a denomination that actively shamed dancing, movies, secular music, dressing "immodestly" and on and on. Of course, they also shamed other Christians, particularly those horrible idol-worshipping Catholics.

This is the darkness that is Christianity. This darkness is not just found among evangelical and politically minded Christians either.

There is a certain mindset that one cannot avoid after engaging in self-flagellation of constant introspection, constantly asking forgiveness, and being grateful that god is so good that he would send Jesus to be the propitiation for their sins. They cannot help but view the world through the god-awful premise:

You were born defective and you're going to Hell, but god loved you so much he became a human, never sinned, and allowed himself to be murdered thus becoming the perfect virgin human sacrifice to appease himself so that you don't have to go to Hell.

The premise is that you are shameful by default.

The real problem with shaming people for things that are, frankly, not shameful at all is that no matter how hard you try you can't do it without first condemning.

Natural Outcomes

Even the nicest of Christians cannot comprehend how horrible their "loving" actions toward those outside the faith actually are.

Even the nicest of Christians cannot comprehend how horrible their "loving" actions toward those outside the faith actually are. When I was a Christian, I was once approached by a college classmate who told me that he was gay. This was in the late 80s and it was extraordinarily brave of him to "come out" like that. I said, "OK" and that was really all the reaction I had. He said, "I know you're a Christian and I wanted to know how you'd respond."

I wish now that I had left it at "OK." But I continued:

Jesus hung out with sinners and outcasts so I don't see what business of mine it is to judge you.

Without even suspecting it, I had already condemned him, assigned him a place among "the sinners" and implied that I was not ("thanks be to god…").

It sounds so innocuous but it is hideously insipid. I see that now. At the time, I thought I was doing a good thing.

What Christian can possibly recognize how awful their actions and words are, and for the same reasons? Even when trying to demonstrate love, they begin at a place of shame and cannot help but convey a message of shaming.

As benign as that may seem, the true state of the Christian mindset is best expressed in this:

Jimmy (age 9), Johnny (5) and Nancy (3) were abandoned by their father and sent to go live with their father's sister and her husband. The mother of the children had died of cancer. Every day of their upbringing, all three children ended their days with a beating because, in the words of their aunt, "You did something wrong today."

That was my grandfather's upbringing. It crippled him for life.

As Ex-Christians, I think we can all agree that we have been crippled in one way or another because of this same basic sense of shame at the hands of Christian doctrine:

You are bad, that by mere fact of your existence you have done something to offend almighty god, and that you are soooooo lucky that he provided a way of escape. You should be ashamed, and if you aren't, we'll try to make you feel ashamed. But this is only for your own good so that you don't spend eternity in torment.

There is simply no way to look at Christianity objectively and fail to see that it is not only irrational but that at its core, it is in fact sick, twisted, and evil.

For those making the transition away from Christianity, it is helpful to understand these things. Recognizing the true nature of Christianity is a healthy step forward. email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-28716292343942584522014-11-08T06:15:00.002-05:002014-11-22T09:31:23.078-05:00Psychological Harms of Bible Believing ChristianityBy Marlene Winell and Valerie Tarico ~

"I am 30 years old and I am struggling to find sanity. Between the Christian schools, homeschooling, the Christian group home (indoctrinating work camp) and different churches in different cities, I am a psychological, emotional and spiritual mess." --A former Evangelical

If a former believer says that Christianity made her depressed, obsessive, or post-traumatic, she is likely to be dismissed as an exaggerator. She might describe panic attacks about the rapture; moods that swung from ecstasy about God's overwhelming love to suicidal self-loathing about repeated sins; or an obsession with sexual purity.

A symptom like one of these clearly has a religious component, yet many people instinctively blame the victim. They will say that the wounded former believer was prone to anxiety or depression or obsession in the first place—that his Christianity somehow got corrupted by his predisposition to psychological problems. Or they will say that he wasn't a real Christian. If only he had prayed in faith believing or loved God with all his heart, soul and mind, if only he had really been saved—then he would have experienced the peace that passes all understanding.

But the reality is far more complex. It is true that symptoms like depression or panic attacks most often strike those of us who are vulnerable, perhaps because of genetics or perhaps because situational stressors have worn us down. But certain aspects of Christian beliefs and Christian living also can create those stressors, even setting up multigenerational patterns of abuse, trauma, and self-abuse. Also, over time some religious beliefs can create habitual thought patterns that actually alter brain function, making it difficult for people to heal or grow.

The purveyors of religion insist that their product is so powerful it can transform a life, but somehow, magically, it has no risks. In reality, when a medicine is powerful, it usually has the potential to be toxic, especially in the wrong combination or at the wrong dose. And religion is powerful medicine!

In this discussion, we focus on the variants of Christianity that are based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. These include Evangelical and fundamentalist churches, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and other conservative sects. These groups share the characteristics of requiring conformity for membership, a view that humans need salvation, and a focus on the spiritual world as superior to the natural world. These views are in contrast to liberal, progressive Christian churches with a humanistic viewpoint, a focus on the present, and social justice.

Religion Exploits Normal Human Mental Processes.

To understand the power of religion, it is helpful to understand a bit about the structure of the human mind. Much of our mental activity has little to do with rationality and is utterly inaccessible to the conscious mind. The preferences, intentions and decisions that shape our lives are in turn shaped by memories and associations that can get laid down before we even develop the capacity for rational analysis.

Aspects of cognition like these determine how we go through life, what causes us distress, which goals we pursue and which we abandon, how we respond to failure, how we respond when other people hurt us—and how we respond when we hurt them. Religion derives its power in large part because it shapes these unconscious processes: the frames, metaphors, intuitions and emotions that operate before we even have a chance at conscious thought.

Some Religious Beliefs and Practices are More Harmful Than Others.

When it comes to psychological damage, certain religious beliefs and practices are reliably more toxic than others.

Janet Heimlich is an investigative journalist who has explored religious child maltreatment, which describes abuse and neglect in the service of religious belief. In her book, Breaking their Will, Heimlich identifies three characteristics of religious groups that are particularly prone to harming children. Clinical work with reclaimers, that is, people who are reclaiming their lives and in recovery from toxic religion, suggests that these same qualities put adults at risk, along with a particular set of manipulations found in fundamentalist Christian churches and biblical literalism.

1) Authoritarianism, creates a rigid power hierarchy and demands unquestioning obedience. In major theistic religions, this hierarchy has a god or gods at the top, represented by powerful church leaders who have power over male believers, who in turn have power over females and children. Authoritarian Christian sects often teach that "male headship" is God's will. Parents may go so far as beating or starving their children on the authority of godly leaders. A book titled, To Train Up a Child, by minister Michael Pearl and his wife Debi, has been found in the homes of three Christian adoptive families who have punished their children to death.

2) Isolation or separatism, is promoted as a means of maintaining spiritual purity. Evangelical Christians warn against being "unequally yoked" with nonbelievers in marriages and even friendships. New converts often are encouraged to pull away from extended family members and old friends, except when there may be opportunities to convert them. Some churches encourage older members to take in young single adults and house them within a godly context until they find spiritually compatible partners, a process known by cult analysts as "shepherding." Home schoolers and the Christian equivalent of madrassas cut off children from outside sources of information, often teaching rote learning and unquestioning obedience rather than broad curiosity.

3) Fear of sin, hell, a looming "end-times" apocalypse, or amoral heathens binds people to the group, which then provides the only safe escape from the horrifying dangers on the outside. In Evangelical Hell Houses, Halloween is used as an occasion to terrify children and teens about the tortures that await the damned. In the Left Behind book series and movie, the world degenerates into a bloodbath without the stabilizing presence of believers. Since the religious group is the only alternative to these horrors, anything that threatens the group itself—like criticism, taxation, scientific findings, or civil rights regulations—also becomes a target of fear.

Bible Belief Creates an Authoritarian, Isolative, Threat-based Model of Reality

In Bible-believing Christianity, psychological mind-control mechanisms are coupled with beliefs from the Iron Age, including the belief that women and children are possessions of men, that children who are not hit become spoiled, that each of us is born "utterly depraved", and that a supernatural being demands unquestioning obedience. In this view, the salvation and righteousness of believers is constantly under threat from outsiders and dark spiritual forces. Consequently, Christians need to separate themselves emotionally, spiritually, and socially from the world.These beliefs are fundamental to their overarching mental framework or "deep frame" as linguist George Lakoff would call it. Small wonder then, that many Christians emerge wounded.

It is important to remember that this mindset permeates to a deep subconscious level. This is a realm of imagery, symbols, metaphor, emotion, instinct, and primary needs. Nature and nurture merge into a template for viewing the world which then filters every experience. The template selectively allows only the information that confirms their model of reality, creating a subjective sense of its veracity.

On the societal scale, humanity has been going through a massive shift for centuries, transitioning from a supernatural view of a world dominated by forces of good and evil to a natural understanding of the universe. The Bible-based Christian population however, might be considered a subset of the general population that is still within the old framework, that is, supernaturalism.

Children are Targeted for Indoctrination Because the Child Mind is Uniquely Vulnerable.

"Here I am, a fifty-one year old college professor, still smarting from the wounds inflicted by the righteous when I was a child. It is a slow, festering wound, one that smarts every day—in some way or another…. I thought I would leave all of that "God loves… God hates…" stuff behind, but not so. Such deep and confusing fear is not easily forgotten. It pops up in my perfectionism, my melancholy mood, the years of being obsessed with finding the assurance of personal salvation."

Nowhere is the contrast of viewpoints more stark than in the secular and religious understandings of childhood. In the biblical view, a child is not a being that is born with amazing capabilities that will emerge with the right conditions like a beautiful flower in a well-attended garden. Rather, a child is born in sin, weak, ignorant, and rebellious, needing discipline to learn obedience. Independent thinking is dangerous pride.

Because the child's mind is uniquely susceptible to religious ideas, religious indoctrination particularly targets vulnerable young children. Cognitive development before age seven lacks abstract reasoning. Thinking is magical and primitive, black and white. Also, young humans are wired to obey authority because they are dependent on their caregivers just for survival. Much of their brain growth and development has to happen after birth, which means that children are extremely vulnerable to environmental influences in the first few years when neuronal pathways are formed.

By age five a child's brain can understand primitive cause-and-effect logic and picture situations that are not present. Children at this have a tenuous grip on reality. They often have imaginary friends; dreams are quite real; and fantasy blurs with the mundane. To a child this age, it is eminently possible that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole and delivers presents if you are good and that 2000 years ago a man died a horrible death because you are naughty. Adam and Eve, Noah's ark, the Rapture, and hell, all can be quite real. The problem is that many of these teachings are terrifying.

For many years, one conversion technique targeting children and adolescents has been the use of movies about the "End Times." This means a "Rapture" event, when real Christians are taken up to heaven leaving the earth to "Tribulation," a terrifying time when an evil Antichrist will reign and the world will descend into anarchy.

When assaulted with such images and ideas at a young age, a child has no chance of emotional self-defense. Christian teachings that sound true when they are embedded in the child's mind at this tender age can feel true for a lifetime. Even decades later former believers who intellectually reject these ideas can feel intense fear or shame when their unconscious mind is triggered.

Harms Range From Mild to Catastrophic.

One requirement for success as a sincere Christian is to find a way to believe that which would be unbelievable under normal rules of evidence and inquiry. Christianity contains concepts that help to safeguard belief, such as limiting outside information, practicing thought control, and self-denigration; but for some people the emotional numbing and intellectual suicide just isn't enough. In other words, for a significant number of children in Christian families, the religion just doesn't "take." This can trigger guilt, conflict, and ultimately rejection or abandonment.

Others experience the threats and fear too keenly. For them, childhood can be torturous, and they may carry injuries into adulthood.

Still others are able to sincerely devote themselves to the faith as children but confront problems when they mature. They wrestle with factual and moral contradictions in the Bible and the church, or discover surprising alternatives. This can feel confusing and terrifying - like the whole world is falling apart.

Delayed Development and Life Skills. Many Christian parents seek to insulate their children from "worldly" influences. In the extreme, this can mean not only home schooling, but cutting off media, not allowing non-Christian friends, avoiding secular activities like plays or clubs, and spending time at church instead. Children miss out on crucial information– science, culture, history, reproductive health and more. When they grow older and leave such a sheltered environment, adjusting to the secular world can be like immigrating to a new culture. One of the biggest areas of challenge is delayed social development.

Religious Trauma Syndrome.  Today, in the field of mental health, the only religious diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is "Religious or Spiritual Problem." This is merely a supplemental code (V Code) to assist in describing an underlying pathology. Unofficially, "scrupulosity," is the term for obsessive-compulsive symptoms centered around religious themes such as blasphemy, unforgivable sin, and damnation. While each of these diagnoses has a place, neither covers the wide range of harms induced by religion.

Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) is a new term, coined by Marlene Winell to name a recognizable set of symptoms experienced as a result of prolonged exposure to a toxic religious environment and/or the trauma of leaving the religion. It is akin to Complex PTSD, which is defined as 'a psychological injury that results from protracted exposure to prolonged social and/or interpersonal trauma with lack or loss of control, disempowerment, and in the context of either captivity or entrapment, i.e. the lack of a viable escape route for the victim'.

Though related to other kinds of chronic trauma, religious trauma is uniquely mind-twisting. The logic of the religion is circular and blames the victim for problems; the system demands deference to spiritual authorities no matter what they do; and the larger society may not identify a problem or intervene as in cases of physical or sexual abuse, even though the same symptoms of depression and anxiety and panic attacks can occur.

RTS, as a diagnosis, is in early stages of investigation, but appears to be a useful descriptor beyond the labels used for various symptoms – depression, anxiety, grief, anger, relationship issues, and others. It is our hope that it will lead to more knowledge, training, and treatment. Like the naming of other disorders such as anorexia or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), the RTS label can help sufferers feel less alone, confused, and self-blaming.

Leaving the Fold. Breaking out of a restrictive, mind-controlling religion can be liberating: Certain problems end(!), such as trying to twist one's thinking to believe irrational doctrines, and conforming to repressive codes of behavior. However, for many reclaimers making the break is the most disruptive, difficult upheaval they have ever experienced. Individuals who were most sincere, devout, and dedicated often are the ones most traumatized when their religious world crumbles.

Rejecting a religious model of reality that has been passed on through generations is a major cognitive and emotional disruption. For many reclaimers, it is like a death or divorce. Their 'relationship' with God was a central assumption of their lives, and giving it up feels like an enormous loss to be grieved. It can be like losing a lover, a parent, or best friend.

On top of shattered assumptions comes the loss of family and friends. Churches vary with official doctrine about rejection. The Mormon Church, for all the intense focus on "family forever," is devastating to leave, and the Jehovah Witnesses require families to shun members who are "disfellowshiped."

The rupture can destroy homes, splitting spouses and alienating parents from children.

For Women, Psychological Costs of Belief Include Subjugation and Self-loathing.

Christianity poses a special set of psychological risks for people who, according to the Iron Age hierarchy found in the Bible are unclean or property, including women. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the combination of denigration and subservience takes a psychological toll on women in Christianity as it does in Islam. Not only do women submit to marital abuse and undesired sexual contact, some tolerate the same toward their children, and men of God sometimes exploit this vulnerability, as in the case of Catholic and Protestant child sexual abuse. But most of the damage is far more subtle: lower self-esteem, less independence and confidence; abandoned dreams and goals.

Why Harm Goes Unrecognized.  What is the sum cost of having millions of people holding to a misogynist, authoritarian, fear-based supernatural view of the universe? The consequences far-reaching, even global, but many are hidden, for two reasons.

One is the nature of the trauma itself. Unlike other harm, such as physical beating or sexual abuse, the injury is far from obvious to the victim, who has been taught to self-blame. It's as if a person black and blue from a caning were to think it was self-inflicted.

The second reason that religious harm goes unrecognized is that Christianity is still the cultural backdrop for the indoctrination. While the larger society may not be fundamentalist, references to God and faith abound. The Bible gets used to swear in witnesses and even the U.S. president. Common phrases are "God willing," "God bless," "God helps those that help themselves," "In God we trust," and so forth. These lend credence to theistic authority.

Religious trauma is difficult to see because it is camouflaged by the respectability of religion in culture. To date, parents are afforded the right to teach their own children whatever doctrines they like, no matter how heinous, degrading, or mentally unhealthy. Even helping professionals largely perceive Christianity as benign. This will need to change for treatment methods to be developed and people to get help that allows them to truly reclaim their lives.

This article was adapted from "The Crazy Making in Christianity" Chapter 19 in Christianity is Not Great: How Faith Fails, edited by John Loftus, Prometheus Press, October 2014.

Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold - A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.  What is the sum cost of having millions of people holding to a misogynist, authoritarian, fear-based supernatural view of the universe?firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-91789872466840618142014-11-01T15:53:00.004-04:002014-11-16T12:55:03.858-05:00Islamic College Quietly Trains Jihadis--Oh, Wait.That's Wheaton!By Valerie Tarico ~

In a quiet suburb of Istanbul, between streets lined with trees and tidy residential compounds, sits a sectarian institution of higher education. Notae'hw is small by American standards, but academically well regarded to the point of being called an "Islamic Harvard." The school fuses conservative Islam with higher learning in fields ranging from liberal arts to the social and hard sciences. Students, both male and female, wear mostly modern fashions, though often supplemented with symbols of modesty and faith. Their influence on the town itself is also modest, save perhaps a greater than average presence of mosques, whose minarets grace many corners, and an abundance of religious paraphernalia in local shops.

Private religious schools like this one are common across the region, but Turkey's secular constitution prevents pubic funds from supporting madrassas or other sectarian education. So investigators, following up on a complaint from within the military, were dismayed to learn this week that a publically-funded campus-based officer recruitment program is unabashedly training jihadis and has been doing so for years, using seasoned officers in uniform to lead the effort.

"For Allah and his Caliphate!" proclaim written materials that enthusiastically describe how the program turns out military leaders in the style of past saints and martyrs. The phrase is the motto of a young "battalion" of student jihadis, centered at Notaehw but drawing from seven Islamic seminaries or colleges in the area. The 140 recruits in the training program hear from Islamist leaders, one of whom gave a 2012 speech to Turkish officers in which he enumerated his "first principles as a Muslim combat leader." These included, "Understand who we are serving: (The Almighty Warrior Shahryar [king]!)" He added that "Your soldiers are spiritual beings –They want to know that their leader is a Muslim . . . That is why Allah selected you to be their leader."

Nonsectarian watchdogs seeking to safeguard Turkey's secular democracy have raised the alarm, claiming that the program violates the constitution.

Oh, wait.

Wheaton College and its ROTC program seem to earnestly believe that the acronym "ROTC" stands for "Religious Officer Training for Christ.I wrote that name backwards. The institution is actually Wheaton, my old alma mater in fact, and it sits in a suburb not of Istanbul but Chicago. The devout young officers in training are being groomed to serve in the army not of Allah but of Christ. The visiting motivational speaker was Steve Banach, whose first principles as a Christian combat leader were delivered at a 2010 Officers' Christian Fellowship Discipleship Training Breakfast on the topic of, "Christ-Like Leadership in Combat." (Officers' Christian Fellowship has been described as "a fundamentalist Christian parachurch ministry whose goal is 'a spiritually transformed military with ambassadors for Christ in uniform.'") It has branches associated with most ROTC programs and military academies in the United States, and is particularly integrated with the Wheaton College program.

Chris Rodda, author of Liars for Jesus, has published a detailed expose of the Wheaton College ROTC program, documenting how it boldly and clearly breaches the wall of separation of church and state, including the constitutional edict, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (Article VI).

Wheaton proudly advertises the only Christian ROTC program in the country: "There's Army ROTC. Then There's Wheaton Army ROTC." So it would seem.

Rodda first learned of Wheaton's unique blend of Evangelical fundamentalism and officer training when an officer in the armed forces sent a complaint to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). He enclosed an internal list of military job openings that included a ROTC assignment stipulating, "must be of the Christian faith."

For officers returning from combat, placement as an ROTC educator can offer a return to normalcy. But the listing (one of only four similar positions across the country), excluded religious minorities. MRFF President and attorney Mikey Weinstein, who received the complaint, was—to put it politely—outraged:

Wheaton College and its ROTC program seem to earnestly believe that the acronym "ROTC" stands for "Religious Officer Training for Christ." Wheaton and its fundamentalist Christian ROTC unit are to the United States Constitution what a dog with a full bladder is to a curbside fire hydrant. In MRFF's nearly 10 years of fighting this precise, illicit version of Christian extremism in the U.S. military, this Wheaton College/ROTC travesty is one of the most disgustingly blatant, appallingly bold, and mercilessly atrocious attacks on the foundational principles of our U.S. Constitution that we have EVER witnessed!

It comes as no surprise to anyone that sectarian institutions across the United States fuse religion with the arts and sciences, seeking to churn out a generation of devout leaders and followers who will ensure a privileged position for Christianity in society. And it comes as no surprise that Evangelical flagship, Wheaton College, is at the forefront of the effort. Back when I attended in the days of my Evangelical youth, the Wheaton sports teams were known as the Crusaders, and the motto adopted by the ROTC battalion, For Allah and his Caliphate, For Christ and his Kingdom, applied to the whole school.

But both mission and motto become more alarming when one realizes that young men and women are being trained to lead our military while believing that their highest obligation in uniform is to serve as emissaries for Christ. And small wonder that once in positions of power they become outraged when accused of church-state boundary violations. Based on the model of their mentors, there's no such thing.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society have been featured at sites including AlterNet, Salon, the Huffington Post, Grist, and Jezebel. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.

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Why Good Christians do Bad Things to Win Convertsemail@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-20699982714232382282014-10-28T04:47:00.003-04:002014-11-09T07:37:57.387-05:00Bible vs Quran—Test Your Knowledge of Who Deserves Death in Which ReligionBy Valerie Tarico ~

The world has watched in horror while members of ISIS justify the next mass murder or icy execution with words from the Quran, followed by shouts of Allahu Akbar—God is the greatest! If beliefs have any power whatsoever to drive behavior—and as a psychologist I think they do—there can be little doubt that the Quran's many endorsements of violence play a role in how exactly ISIS has chosen to pursue religious and political dominion.

At the same time, it should be equally clear a sacred text filled with violence is insufficient to trigger mass brutality unless other conditions are present as well. Culture, empathy, education and empowerment—and other factors that scholars understand only in part—appear to have a protective influence, safeguarding even most fundamentalists against the worst teachings of their own tradition. We know this in part because the Bible contains commandments and stories that are as horrific as those being used to justify butchery in Iraq and Syria.

The following 30 violent exhortations are a mix, drawn from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. The generic word God is used for all deity names, and names of places or people have been replaced with generic terms. How well do you know your Torah, Bible, or Quran and Hadith? Can you tell which is which? Give it a try and then check the key at the bottom.

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the [holy man] who represents God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged.

I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those, who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes.

All who curse their father or mother must be put to death.

Fight them until there is no more [disbelief or worshipping of other gods] and worship is for God alone.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

Whoso fighteth in the way of God, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.

Make ready to slaughter [the infidel's] sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants.

[God's messenger]... was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The [holy man] replied, "They [women and children] are from them [unbelievers]."

Then I heard God say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children."

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

Keep [my holiday], for it is holy. Anyone who desecrates it must die.

The punishment of those who wage war against God and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death.

It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he had made a great slaughter in the land...

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

I shall terrorize the [heathens]. So wound their bodies and incapacitate them, because they oppose God and his apostle.

A [holy man's] daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death.

So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.

Everyone who would not seek God was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.

And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.

But if [a girl wasn't a virgin on her wedding night] and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father's house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against God's people by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say."O [believer]! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you.

God's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but God'.

Cursed be he who does God's work remissly, cursed he who holds back his sword from blood.

God said, 'A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. [Prophet], you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But God desires killing them to manifest the religion.'

Anyone who blasphemes God's name must be stoned to death by the whole community of [believers].

When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) [your religion]; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them... If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them [a tax]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek God's help and fight them.

Anyone else who goes too near the [Holy Place] will be executed.

Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us.

How well do you know your Torah, Bible, or Quran and Hadith?Is the Quran more violent than the Bible as most Americans believe? The question is hard to answer. A tally at the Skeptic's Annotated Bible counts 842 violent or cruel passages in the Bible as compared to 333 in the Quran. That said, the Bible is a much thicker tome, and even though the New Testament endorses and adds to the violence in the Old, when percentages are compared, the Quran comes out ahead. In addition, the kinds of cruelty and violence vary as do the perpetrator and victim and the extent to which any verse can be interpreted as divine sanction for the behavior in question. Either way, endorsements of violence abound in both.

Bible and Quran believers who recognize verses in this list will no doubt protest that they have been taken out of context, as indeed they have. I think the appropriate response to such a complaint is a question: What context, exactly, would make these verses uplifting, inspiring or worthy of praise? In what context are passages like these some of the most important and holy guidance that the creator of the universe might think to impart to humankind? In what context is a book that contains these passages and many, many more like them the apogee of divine goodness and timeless wisdom?

Members of each Abrahamic tradition are quick to point out the rational and moral flaws in the others. I wonder sometimes, what this world might be like if they were as quick to examine the flaws in their own.

Key: Odd numbered quotes are from the Bible, even numbers from the Quran or Hadith. 1. Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT; 2. Bukhari 11:626; 3. Leviticus 20:9 NLT; 4. Quran 2:193; 5. Matthew 10:34-35; 6. Quran 4:74; 7. Isaiah 14:21 NAB; 8. Bukhari 52:256; 9. Ezekiel 9:5 NLT; 10. Quran 8:12; 11. Exodus 31:12-15 NLT; 12. Quran 5:33; 13. Leviticus 20:10 NLT; 14. Quran 8:67; 15. Numbers 31: 17-18 KJV; 16. Quran 8:12; 17. Leviticus 21:9 NAB; 18. Quran 9:5; 19. 2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB; 20. Quran 17:16; 21. Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB; 22. Bukhari 52:177; 23. Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB; 24. Bukhari 8:387; 25. Jeremiah 48:10 NAB; 26. Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 484; 27. Leviticus 24:16 NLT; 28. Muslim 19:4294; 29. Numbers 1: 51 NLT; 30. Tabari 9:69

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society have been featured at sites including AlterNet, Salon, the Huffington Post, Grist, and Jezebel. Subscribe at ValerieTarico.com.

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Test Your Knowledge of Wild, Weird, and Outright Wacky American Religious Beliefsemail@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-81083525275445233272014-10-26T07:33:00.002-04:002014-11-05T19:43:08.461-05:00On the night that Jesus was born... Carolyn Hyppolite ~

Think about any nativity you have passed by around Christmas, what are the components? Mary adoringly staring at her son, Joseph standing behind her oozing with paternal confidence, farm animals surrounding the humble Jesus, Shepherds on bended knee, and wise men bearing gifts.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, supposedly the place of Jesus' birth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a Christian, you assume that is one part of one coherent Biblical account. As you read the Gospels, you forget the details from Matthew that are not found in the Gospel of Luke and vice versa. The Christmas Crèche is a compilation of stories that reflects none of stories reflected in the Bible and that's just the beginning of the problems found in the Nativity narrative.

Neither Mark nor John's Gospel report a nativity story. This is odd given the important events that allegedly surrounds Jesus's birth. First, he was born of a virgin—that doesn't happen everyday; it's news. Secondly, Jesus's birth is accompanied by a massacre of newborn males; that's if it bleeds, it leads news. Why would Mark and John leave out such important details? The most obvious explanation is that they simply were not aware of it.

Matthew's infancy narrative begins with Jesus born in the time of Herod in Bethlehem (Matt 2:1). There are wise men from the East who want to pay him homage having seen his star rising (Matt 2:2). When Herod hears about this, he is frightened and tries to get the wise men to return with information about the child's whereabouts (Matt 2:8). God tips them off in a dream not to reveal anything to the king and so they take another way home. (Matt 2:12). An angel of the Lord also tips off Joseph who flees to Egypt (Matt 2:13-15).

As he does throughout the Gospel, Matthew informs his reader that this fulfills a Hebrew Bible prophecy. As with the previous instances, he misunderstands the text. In this instance he quotes Hosea 11:1 "out of Egypt I called my son." Read in context, it is abundantly clear that the text has nothing to do with Messianic prophecy. Hosea is referring to Israel and the Exodus. God is lamenting the fact that despite his goodness to Israel—having freed them from bondage—they remain faithless.

Herod is infuriated by the wise men's deceit and he orders the slaughter of every male child under the age of two. Again, Matthew misidentifies a prophetic connection, citing Jeremiah 31:15:

A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.

This reference is arguably to the destruction of the Northern kingdom and the exile. It has nothing to do with Messianic prophecy.

I must make a preemptive strike against the claim that Matthew is applying typology—the notion that it is Christ who is prefigured in those texts. There's no indication from the text that that is how Matthew intended to interpret the Hebrew Bible. He cites them as prophecy and a literal reading of what he wrote is the most intellectually honest way to interpret him.

In addition, typology is a way that Christians appropriate the Jewish Bible by reading Jesus into passages where he clearly is not to justify their claims that Christ fulfills the Old Testament. Typology, like Matthew's Gospel, reads the Hebrew Bible out of context.

There are still greater concerns. This story is strikingly similar to that of another Biblical story, Pharaoh's order that the Hebrew males be killed (Exod 1:22). In Matthew's account, just one child is spared—Jesus—by the intervention of God while the others are slaughtered. How likely is it that we live in a universe in which an all-loving, all powerful deity who is capable of sparing the lives of many children only acts to save one child who happens to be his son? Do we even want to live in such a universe?

Of course, there no historical evidence for this massacre. It occurs no where else in the New Testament. There's also no record of it outside the Bible. The historian Josephus records about the cruelty of King Herod but makes no mention of this notable event.

Which is more probable that no one else thought a King ordering a massacre of children is news? That there is a God who can intervene to save children to be massacred but saves only his son? Or that Matthew, who wants to pattern the life of Jesus on the prophet Moses, and who does not understand the Hebrew prophets, concocts this story?

When we turn to the Gospel of Luke, we discover other problems. Luke also places Jesus's birth during the reign of Herod but he has other concerns. Luke starts out with the couple being in Nazareth but he needs to get them to Bethlehem. He records that there was a census called for by the governor Quirinius, which required that all everyone in the Empire return to their ancestral homeland (Luke 2:1-4).

Luke says," Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David" (2:4). This, the link between Bethlehem and the house of David, not history, is what the Gospel writer is really interested in. The census is simply a tool to get Jesus, the Nazarene, born in Bethlehem.

Thus, Joseph takes Mary to Bethlehem where she gives birth to Jesus. In Luke's account, there are no wise men, no Herod ordering mass murder. This is where we get the shepherds adoring (Luke 2:6-20).

An historian can make mistakes. [...] However, a historian who is being inspired by a divine being ...However, Matthew and Luke's nativity story conflict in a more critical way. Indeed, there was a census which occurred during Quirinius's legateship (6-7 C.E.). This is well after the reign of Herod who died in 4 BCE. If Jesus was born under legateship of Quirinius, as Luke claims, he was not born during the time of Herod, as Matthew claims. There might have been other censuses, perhaps, one under the kingship of Herod but not the one that Luke refers to.

An historian can make mistakes. He can neglect to mention important events. He can get dates wrong. However, a historian who is being inspired by a divine being should be immune to these frailties. Of course, it's never okay to just make stuff firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-56984077316107884062014-10-25T06:38:00.001-04:002014-11-02T05:52:30.838-05:00BIBLICAL FATHERHOODBy EChamberlainMD ~

"Virtually every major social pathology -- violent crime, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and suicide -- is strongly associated with fatherlessness. A majority of prisoners, juvenile detention inmates, high school dropouts, pregnant teenagers, adolescent murderers, and rapists all come from fatherless homes. The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families. An estimated 70% of the juveniles in state reform institutions grew up without fathers. After taking into account race, socioeconomic status, sex, age, and ability, teenagers from single-parent households are 1.7 times more likely to drop out of high school than teenagers living with both biological parents." (Reference: ncpa.org/pub/st267)

So, apparently good fatherhood is important.

Now, the very last verse of the Old Testament proclaims that one will come who will TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS TO THEIR CHILDREN AND CHILDREN TO THEIR FATHERS, lest god comes and smites the earth with a curse.

I would think that the last words of the Old Testament would mean something important for the New Testament.

But the first book of the New Testament gives us something else entirely. Early on in jesus' ministry, one of his disciples requests, "Let me first go bury my father." But, in heretical contrast to the Old Testament's last sentiment, jesus delivers this cold eulogy: "Let the dead bury their dead." (Matthew 8)

Who says that kind of thing?

And, yet, just two chapters further on (Matthew 10), jesus says he has "come to set a man at variance AGAINST HIS FATHER."

This is the same jesus who had just used father-son family values to tell people to confidently ask god the father for things, saying, "If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father...?" (Matthew 7)

And what about that touching father-son reunion in the Prodigal Son story jesus told of?

Well, not long afterward (Hebrews 12), the apostles, influenced by jesus for three years, tell god's people who are turning to him that if they're not scourged by god, then they are "BASTARDS and not sons." Who calls a returning, repentant child a bastard? Manifestly, this heavenly father is not Ozzie Nelson, Andy Griffith, Mike Brady, Mr. Cunningham, or Bill Cosby, and certainly not my all-time favorite TV father, Phil Dunphy (from "Modern Family"). If Phil's son asked for a fish, he'd be riding Flipper before the next tide came in.

The Old Testament shows us what the fathers of the faith taught jesus and his disciples about fatherhood. Here are the headlines, taken directly from the writings of their heavenly father--

JUST AND RIGHTEOUS Father Offers VIRGIN DaughterS To Be Raped By Mob.

"I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out to you and you do to them as is good in your eyes." (Genesis 19)

JUST AND RIGHTEOUS DRUNKEN Father HAS SEX WITH DAUGHTERS.

"Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father." (Genesis 19)

FATHER OF FAITH THROWS SON OUT TO WANDER IN WILDERNESS.

"Sarah... said unto Abraham, Cast out this... son... And God said to Abraham, Let it not be grievous in your sight because of the lad... in all that Sarah has said to you, hearken unto her voice... And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar and the child and sent her away... in the wilderness." (Genesis 21)

Father OF FAITH Nearly Kills Son In Sacrificial Obedience To Voice Of God.

"Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son." (Genesis 22)

FATHERS PERMITTED TO SELL OFF DAUGHTERS AS SERVANTS AND SLAVES.

(Exodus 21)

FATHERS COMMANDED TO KILL CHILD WHO CURSES HIS FATHER OR MOTHER.

"For every one that curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death" (Leviticus 20)

FATHERS COMMANDED TO KILL CHILD WHO IS DISOBEDIENT.

"His father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town... Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death..." (Deuteronomy 21)

Father Makes Vow To God AND SACRIFICES Daughter.

"Then the spirit of the lord came upon Jephthah... And Jephthah vowed a vow to the lord and said, If you will without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands, then it shall be that whatsoever comes forth of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace.. shall surely be the lord's and I will offer it up for a burnt offering... And Jephthah came to his house and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child...and... her father... did with her according to his vow..." (Judges 11)

The bible warns that "in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be... disobedient to parents... without NATURAL AFFECTION."

But isn't that cold lack of natural affection exactly what the bible is guilty of?

IF YOU'RE ASKING WHO KILLED THEM

Eddie Chamberlain

Buried in the bullet casings

Between the lines of chalk line tracings

In that place dead men come down on things,

Round and round the sirens chasing

Far behind the bullets racing

Face to face with what consequence it brings,

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

The guns report, the pistols chatter,

The language of a splatter pattern,

The echoes of a spent and empty shell.

No one matters when dead men battle.

They spill out like a spreading shadow

That covers secrets dead men never tell.

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

In obituary epitaphs,

In backpage buried paragraphs,

Another John Doe Junior, a cold case report.

No longer than life cut in half,

The M.E. writes the final draft,

No pulse, no breath, no time left, no day in court.

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

Born into this funeral parlor,

Orphan children soon will father

Another round of drive-by life under the gun.

On corners squashed and lined in squallor

Mourners pinch for dime or dollar

And flinch with every target practice run.

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

The public house of ill-repute,

Of politician prostitutes,

Pregnant with its full-term fiscal fraud,

Gives birth to death and destitute

In slums that poison and pollute

Where crud and crust and crumbs are sold and bought.

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

The choirs rehearse their funeral hymn.

The fires of sacred candles dim.

Here now, every funeral a Father's Day.

Before the final verse begins,

Another shiny hearse rolls in.

The Father says his polished solemn sermon anyway.

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

If you're asking who killed them:

The fathers of fatherless children.

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-20306876138047393402014-10-12T03:51:00.001-04:002014-10-26T07:50:02.510-04:00Fables and ParablesBy Carl S ~

As I child I read Aesop's fables. Returning to them again, I find their wisdom and observations about human nature to be still fresh. For some time now I've thought about biblical parables which are also well known. Let us consider those parables strictly in their own words, and if they hold up as well as Aesop's fables as practical moral lessons.

English: "The Ant and the Grasshopper", from Aesop's Fables (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the fable of the grasshopper and the ants, the moral of the story is not to spend all one's time in pleasure, but to be practical as well, working and providing for the future hard times that will come if you don't. On the other hand, we have the parable of the prodigal son with an opposite message: spend your inheritance wastefully, and when you've used it all up, come back to your father and be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. (Meanwhile, your good and faithful brother is ignored.)

A Biblical parable of the slaves teaches a similar message: The slaves are given "talents," i. e., money, to invest. One of them, fearing that the master will punish him if he loses it by his investment, buries his talent. For this reason alone, he is punished.

The parable of the sower is confusing. If we are to believe the audience's reaction to it, even they had to have it explained to them. The idea that the seed-sower would expect to have it sprout on rock, hard ground, or where the birds can soon consume it, is a rejection of reality. To explain the seed as wisdom or virtue rejected by individual human beings comparable to rock, hard ground, absorbing too much rain, too little sunlight, etc., is like saying that their very natures couldn't possibly create conditions for those words to sprout, their plants to thrive. (Meanwhile, the implication is that a creator created those humans, those conditions.)

Regarding false prophets, one is warned by example: "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit." Yet we have seen good trees with bad fruit on them. Where is the warning in that? What is the moral lesson behind the command to go another mile whenever anyone forces you to go one mile? What of the parables about the dealings of the slave owner with his slaves? Are there really moral lessons to be gained from them when their basic relationship is morally wrong?

The parable of the vineyard workers has the vineyard owner paying the worker who toiled one hour the same wage as those who worked all day. What's the moral in that? The parable of the mustard seed says "It is the smallest of all the seeds." This is not true. On the other hand, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, (Faith comes in sizes, like small, medium, large, extra-large?), you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there, and it will move."

What is the lesson of the parable of the shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to bring back the one which has strayed off, and rejoices over it more than the ninety-nine who didn't – "go astray?" Is that really a moral lesson or an excuse to go astray? (And by the way, we have yet to hear of a shepherd giving his life for his sheep. What would be the practical, moral lesson for doing that?)

Oh well, there are common themes in many of these parables: Forgiveness and forgiving. Trouble is, to be forgiven, you have to do something to be forgiven for. And, if like the prodigal son, you do it up big time, the bigger the rewards you get! And, if you're paying attention, you'll notice that killing the one whose telling the parables will get you the "grand prize forgiveness," because "They know not what they do."

I'm sticking with Aesop.
 firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-43301320898665405732014-10-12T03:35:00.001-04:002014-10-25T06:40:01.988-04:00Hats Off to the CourageousBy Marlene Winell ~

Reclaimers, you are the pioneers. Reclaimers discard their confining religions and free their minds from the cages made in churches. I support you, I help you, but most of all, I salute you. Because it is clear to me after many years of bearing witness to the soul-wrenching work that you do, when I have seen and heard tears and sobs and anger and fear, that you are the ones among us in our world that are birthing yourselves. Most of it is quietly achieved, because you are so ahead of the times that there are not enough words to describe what you are accomplishing. You yourself do not really know.

To understand what you are achieving, let's try to grasp the context. We live in a world that is only partially scientific, only partially rational. Zealous believers are still performing exorcisms. Faith healing is commonplace, along with other "signs and wonders." People believe in the "power of prayer" or that an entity called God will change the laws of nature if asked properly. A majority think that they have souls that will continue after they die despite no evidence. They cling to visions of a blissful existence and fear eternal punishment. The legal system is a simplistic treatment of people as guilty or not, which deals out retribution. A shocking number of people are comfortable with ignoring the findings of science and willing to risk the future of the species because they trust in a supernatural solution for the earth. The most powerful nation on earth deals death from the sky unprovoked on other peoples and makes claims about "just war."

That is, our culture still has one foot firmly planted in the Dark Ages. Most of the unchurched are also unquestioning. It may be true that they have escaped the nightmare indoctrinations of hellfire and basic depravity, and they may have "self-esteem" and sleep well. But they have also not been forced awake. They have not been like reclaimers, jolted rudely and painfully awake and torn away from everything safe and familiar. No, people do not do the hard work that you are doing if it is not required. It is too taxing, too terrifying, too all-encompassing. No one would willingly enter this wind tunnel that seems to have no end.

 We live in a world that is only partially scientific, only partially rational. Zealous believers are still performing exorcisms. Faith healing is commonplace, along with other "signs and wonders." Reclaimers, you who devoted yourselves or were children in the folds of a religion that owned your soul and governed your very breath, will know about this transformation. It is no gentle thing to have the ground give way until there is no where to stand. You have lost yourself, lost the others you thought you knew, and lost your way. It is not exactly the same for everyone. But this much is true: each of you must create your life. You have had much taken from you and it must all be reclaimed: your identity, your will, your thinking ability, your feelings, your trust, your intuition, your sexuality, your creativity, and much more.

The creation of your new life is large, and more than you expected. You are giving birth and you are the parent. There is overwhelming joy along with the responsibility. There is no more outsourcing to "god" and no more talk of being dependent or helpless or bad. There is struggle and there is wonderful discovery. There are questions that are basic and big and tough: Who am I? What am I doing with my life? What is life all about? All of the questions humans have ever asked.

I respect you because I see you rethinking everything and rebuilding everything. You used to have all the answers because they were handed to you and then enforced until you could recite them in your sleep. Now you are working on getting them out of your head. You are stripping away everything familiar even though it hurts because it's worth it. You have opted for integrity over false safety. There is so much stripped away you are not only naked, your skin is raw.

What a grand endeavor! What heroes! How great it would be if everyone did this complete questioning of everything they ever knew and started over. Perhaps our culture would make more progress inching out of the Dark Ages. And you, reclaimers, are doing this radical transformation with little help and sometimes with real opposition from the surrounding culture. It would be nice, but you are not escaping from a harmful religion into a healthy, evolved, nurturing society. The personal revolution and evolution that you are accomplishing (if you go all the way) will put you ahead of many who have never needed to question.

And that means that you will have wisdom to share. It will take some time, but you will find your place, and others will benefit from your hard-won life experience. You will be an "elder" in the best sense of the word. You live here now, on Planet Earth, and we need you.

Marlene Winell, Ph.D.
journeyfree.org email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-92108793550507675212014-10-08T04:29:00.000-04:002014-10-22T04:38:31.825-04:00Why Evangelical Christians Think They are America's Most Persecuted MinorityBy Valrie Tarico ~

A recent Pew study found that white American Evangelical Christians think they experience more discrimination than Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Atheists or Jews.

Really?!

Christianity is the majority religion in the U.S. and many kinds of legally ensconced religious privilege are on the rise including the right to woo converts in public grade schools, speculate in real estate tax-free, repair religious facilities with public dollars, or opt out of civil rights laws and civic responsibilities that otherwise apply to all. By contrast atheists are less electable than even philanderers, weed smokers or gays; Hispanics and Muslims are being told to leave; Jews get accused of everything from secret economic cabals to destroying America's military; and unarmed Black youth continue to die at the hands of vigilantes.

Given the reality of other people's lives, a widespread Evangelical perception of their group as mass victims reveals a lack of empathy that should give thoughtful believers reason to cringe. And indeed, Alan Nobel, managing editor of Christ and Pop Culture, and a professor at Oklahoma Baptist University, wrote a thoughtful, pained analysis this summer of what he called Evangelical persecution complex. Nobel contrasted the privileged position of American Christians with the real and serious persecution Christian minorities experience under ISIS, for example, and he examined the ways in which victimization can become a part of Christian identity and culture to the detriment of Christians and outsiders alike. What he neglected to spell out clearly was the extent to which the Bible itself sets up this problem.

Christianity, born in harsh the desert cultures of the Middle East, got its start by defining itself in opposition to both Judaism and the surrounding pagan religions of the Roman empire. Consequently, from the get-go teachings emerged that helped believers deal with the inevitable conflict, by both predicting and glorifying suffering at the hands of outsiders. Indeed, persecution was framed as making believers more righteous, more like their suffering savior. Long before the Catholic Church made saints out of martyrs, a myriad of texts encouraged believers to embrace suffering or persecution, or even to bring it on.

This sample from a much longer list of New Testament verses about persecution (over 100), gives a sense of how endemic persecution is to the biblical world view.

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. . . Matthew 10:16-17

Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Matthew 10:21-23

You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. Mark 13:9

Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Luke 6:22

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. John 15:19-20

Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. Acts 4:27

Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. . . . They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Acts 5:17-18,40

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. Acts 8:1

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Romans 8:35

That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10

For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him. Philippians 1:29

Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. Colossians 1:24

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone. 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15

In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 2 Timothy 3:12

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:3

But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened." 1 Peter 3:14

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 1 Peter 4:12-14

Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 1 John 3:13

Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor's crown. Revelation 2:10

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 20:4

As any squabbling pair of siblings can tell you, claiming to be a victim is powerful stuff, even if you actually struck first. He started it! yells one kid. No, she started it! yells the other. Parental resolve waivers in the face of uncertainty, and both kids get an exasperated lecture.

Given the reality of other people's lives, a widespread Evangelical perception of their group as mass victims reveals a lack of empathy that should give thoughtful believers reason to cringe.When I was in college, I had a friend who grew up in a rough low income neighborhood. One day we got started talking about car accidents and he said, "My father told me that if you ever get in an accident, you should immediately get out and start yelling at the other driver. Even if it was your fault, it will put them on the defensive and keep them from making wild claims. And maybe the police will believe you." Amoral, perhaps but brilliant.

If claiming to be a victim is powerful, believing you are a victim is far more so, again regardless of the actual facts—which, at any rate, we all are prone to interpret through a self-serving lens. Have you ever noticed that when your friends tell you about conflict with co-workers or lovers, you almost always feel like they got wronged? What are the odds, really? Seeing ourselves and our tribe as innocent victims draws sympathy and support, and it protects self- esteem.

But at a price.

Because when we cultivate the sense that we have been wronged, we can't see the wrong that we ourselves are doing. We also give up our power to make things better. If people keep being mean to us through no fault of our own, then we're helpless as well as victims, at least in our own minds. You can't fix what you can't see.

In the case of Christianity, the theology of persecution serves to give the faithful hope. It inspires persistence in the face of hardship, including the many hardships that life brings on all of us through no fault of our own. But it has also blinded generations of believers to the possibility that sometimes the hardships they face are due not to their faith or evildoers hating Jesus, but to the fact that they hit first. And sometimes the bewildering hostility they perceive may simply be something that the theology of persecution set them up to expect, whether it is there or not.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe to her articles at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com

Related:

Hey, Christians. Don't Be Evil! email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-71912078857860025882014-10-04T04:40:00.004-04:002014-10-19T06:38:03.190-04:00Is Evolution the Enemy of Christianity? By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

Evangelist T.T. Martin's books against the theory of evolution

are sold at an outdoor stand in Dayton, Tennessee, 1925,

scene of the Scopes trial.

Recently it has occurred to me that it makes perfect sense for Christian fundamentalists to oppose the teaching of evolution. After all, properly understood, evolution provides many arguments against belief in a god, or at least the Biblical claim that man was intended to have dominion over the animals.

A comment by the biologist J.B.S. Haldane on god's inordinate fondness for beetles, in "What is Life," immediately springs to mind: "The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals."

If we assume that beetles, through mutation and natural selection, evolved over hundreds of millions of years to fill many, many different niches in nature, in isolation from one another, then the existence of so many different species, while surprising, can be reasonably explained. However, that a god would create so many different species of one type of insect in one day begs the question, "Why?" If, as the Bible implies, the animals were created for the benefit of man, how does the existence of so many species of beetles benefit man?

One might question my assumption that the Bible implies that the animals were created for the benefit of man. Well, let's look at Genesis 1:26: "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.'"

If, immediately after they were created, man was given dominion over all the cows and other beasts, doesn't that imply they were created to be ruled by man for man's benefit? Of course, the author of this passage does seem curiously unaware that cows do not exist in the wild and thus couldn't have been created by god. As we now know, man created cows from other species through centuries of selective breeding.

Do we really have dominion over all the animals? What about all those animal species we can seldom if ever control? [...] Malaria, for example, is a parasite spread via mosquito. I recently read a fascinating article about an Alaskan frog species which got me thinking about evolution and god. Scientists have discovered that this frog spends up to seven months of the winter frozen solid. Its heart and brain functions cease, so that by common definitions they are dead. But, they aren't really dead as some cellular level processes continue while they are frozen, and they thaw out in the spring and continue on their merry way very much alive. Are these frogs so important to us that god would create such an exotic survival mechanism just for them? What's wrong with plain old-fashioned hibernation, or dormant-seed type survival?

Do we really have dominion over all the animals? What about all those animal species we can seldom if ever control? There are millions of such species, including mice, rats, snakes, cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, spiders, flatworms, fleas, ticks, lice, etc. Most such animals are a constant irritating impediment to man, if not downright deadly. Malaria, for example, is a parasite spread via mosquito. In 2010 there were an estimated 219 million cases of malaria, with about 660,000 cases being fatal. How can we be said to "have dominion" over such creatures? A lot of them prey on us for their own survival!

Then there are all those thousands of species which are extremely remote or only very recently discovered, like those deep sea creatures which put on incredible light shows, bacteria living over 2 miles underground, bacteria thriving in acid pools, fish with anti-freeze compounds in their blood in unfished Antarctic waters, and all those thousands of bacterial species on and in our bodies. In fact, because human cells are relatively large, there are more microbial cells in and on our bodies than human cells; and we depend on some of these – some of those in our guts, for instance - for our own survival. How can we be said to rule over such creatures?

It certainly appears that the animal creatures of the earth go their own way, struggling to survive against each other and man, ruled only by their environments, chance, and their own physical and mental abilities. Clearly, man rules over only a very few creatures, like barnyard animals and pet species. The vast majority of the earth's creatures either never come into contact with man or competes with him for survival. This "dominion" claim just doesn't square with what we observe so plainly in nature.

Many fundamentalists realize evolution is a serious problem undercutting their basic beliefs and so they reject it. But that leaves them with no sensible alternatives to explain the incredible variety and extraordinary fitness of millions of animal species obviously not under the dominion of man.

Here's an interesting thought to toy with: if god didn't give man dominion over the animals, as the Bible states, then maybe he didn't really create them either, as the Bible also states.
 firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-84978249047103522712014-10-03T04:54:00.001-04:002014-10-16T05:02:36.988-04:00This is a test. This is only a test. By Carolyn Hyppolite ~

One of the indicators that the Bible is the product of self-interested men is how it treats the issue of testing, both God's testing of human beings as well as the nearly total injunction against testing God, except when it comes to tithing.

Throughout the Bible God is said to be testing his people to see if they will remain faithful. I am not going to dwell here on the obvious question of why an omniscient being would need to test his people. It does not seem that the Scripture writers, especially the writers of the Old Testament, reflected a great deal on this obvious conflict. Presumably because the notion God's omniscience is a later theological development. When God says to Abraham, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me," (Genesis 22:12) it is best to take the text literally. Now, God knows something that he did not previously know.

The psalmist describes God as the one who tests the minds and hearts (7:9). Throughout the Bible, we find God frequently testing Israel often by allowing some calamity to befall them. The book of Joshua records that the Lord did not drive out all the nations from the land "in order to test Israel" (Joshua 2:22). When the people are beleaguered by foreign rulers the book of Isaiah attributes it to testing—"See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of adversity" (Isaiah 48:10).

Anyone who has consulted a spiritual leader in times of difficulties has heard this explanation—God is testing you. Theoretically, it is possible that all the misfortune of this world can be explained by God's testing. However, is this not exactly what one would expect from institution who cannot offer adequate explanation for the distress of the faithful but who nonetheless need the faithful to stay on the religious treadmill? Does this not achieve the result that most benefit the clerical class—keeping the people praying, paying and obeying?

The convenient use of testing is also evident in the nearly universal prohibition against testing God. When the children of Israel where in the desert, after three days of thirst, they complained to Moses, "Give us water to drink."

When my cats complain about food and water, I actually apologize and hasten to resolve the problem. Moses responds by saying, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?" (Exodus 17:1-2). Note that questioning the wisdom of the prophet who seems to have brought the people into the desert to die of thirst is equated with testing God.

Moreover, this alleged treachery of the children of Israel is remembered in numerous places in the Bible Deuteronomy 6:16,33; Psalm 78:17-18, 95:9, 105:9, 104:13-15 to name a few. Again, it is theoretically possible that we live in a universe in which God does not want to be put to the test, but we already know that we live in a universe in which those in power do not want to be questioned. This is exactly what we would expect from a book written by a religious ruling class who does not want to answer tough questions, especially when they fail to deliver.

The New Testament writers depicts a Jesus who equally bristles as being tested. Although Jesus rarely proclaims his divinity in the Gospels, it is one of the ways that the Scripture writers attempts to assert his equality with God.

Testing Jesus in the Gospels generally involves asking him to answer tough questions or to provide a sign for the authority he has arrogated unto himself. Jesus's Jewish interlocutors have the temerity to ask whether it is lawful to divorce (Matthew 19:3), or to pay taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15-18), or even for a sign from Heaven (Luke :15-17).

These reasonable questions are treated as emblematic of the Jewish people's faithless. The 8th chapter of John records a telling conversation with the Jewish people who are baffled by Jesus's claim to be from above and older than Abraham. Jesus accuses them of trying to kill him and being children of the devil, demonstrating that Christian persecution syndrome is not a modern development. Atheists persecute Christians by asking for evidence for their extraordinary claims; the Pharisees had the same problem:

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:38-40).

This is particularly noteworthy when one considers the fact that these texts were written decades after the historical Jesus is supposed to have existed. One can certainly imagine a setting in which people, perhaps Jews, are asking for signs of the claims being made by Christ followers. Instead on offering evidence, the Scripture writers, using the mouth of Jesus, castigates the questioners for asking.

In addition, like Yahweh, his father, Jesus reserves the right to test human beings,

When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little" (John 6:5-7).

The only people who benefit from this double standard are clerics and preachers who don't want to be held accountable for the claims that they are making but who nonetheless want to control the people.

Finally, that testing of God is an artifice of clerics is most evident when we look at the exception. Throughout the Bible, it is prohibited to test God except in one instance—tithing. When it comes to giving money to the temple, God says, go ahead and test me:

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lordof hosts. Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lordof hosts (Malachi 3:10-12).
When my cats complain about food and water, I actually apologize and hasten to resolve the problem. Moses responds by saying, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?" (Exodus 17:1-2).

Keep that in mind next time an apologist tells you that the prosperity gospel is a modern aberration.

In fact, the Lord, who owns the whole world, claims to be robbed if he is deprived of man's offerings—"Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, "How are we robbing you?" In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! (Malachi 3:8-9).

Imagine this scene. The people come to the priests probably because their crops have failed and they are suffering. They want to know why God has caused or allowed this to happen, and the priests say, "It's because your temple offerings are short."

Jesus extols the virtue of the widow who out of her poverty has put in everything she had in the collection (Mark 12:44).

In the book of Acts, a couple's dishonesty about the value of the proceeds from their land results in their death (Acts 5:1-11). Peter simply speaks words of rebuke and they perish. Luke records that "great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things (Acts 5:11), which is of course, the purpose of the story.

There is a great deal of criticism among nonbelievers about the pecuniary motivations of preachers. While charlatans like Creflo Dollar deserve the criticism, the majority of ministers are not in it for the money. In my most recent religious experience, I have encountered men who have given up far more lucrative endeavors for the priesthood, and I would be remiss to besmirch their sincerity and good intentions.

Nonetheless, the Scriptures were written in a very different social setting, a time and place in which ways to earn an honest living were few and arduous. It is in this context that the Biblical text is produced, and what we have is a text that says, "If you are suffering, God is testing you. Be more faithful to the religious institution. If you question God's representative, you are testing God himself. Don't test God except when it comes to giving money to the religious leaders. In that case, test God and watch him bless you. Oh, you're not blessed yet. You have not given enough."

Exactly, what we would expect from a man-made book, written by self-interested clerics.
email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-30885580018885122212014-09-28T08:35:00.002-04:002014-10-13T18:11:45.445-04:00Has the Christian Doctrine of Hell Become an Awkward Liability?By Valerie Tarico ~

Three years ago, my sister, who had long struggled with mental illness, hit her limit and jumped off a freeway bridge. She lived.

She was rushed to the county trauma center, and by the time I arrived from Seattle she was hooked up to an array of life support technologies and monitors. Brain trauma made it hard to know how much she understood of her situation or our conversations, and to know whether she would survive.

One night, while she was in this state, I said to her, "Katha, I don't know if you can hear me, but we all want for you whatever you want for yourself. If you want to fight this thing and try again, we want that. If you are sick of fighting and ready to be done, that's ok too." While I spoke to her, a nurse was doing record keeping at a computer terminal near the foot of her bed. Some time later when I got up to leave, he approached me and said, "You know, if your sister dies right now she will go to hell."

I was too flabbergasted to respond—incredulous that he would say this to me in a public taxpayer-funded hospital; even more incredulous that he would say it where she could hear, if she could hear. I thanked him for his concern and left.

The Lake of Fire, Everlasting Punishment, Perdition, Gehenna, the Inferno, the Abyss, Outer Darkness Where There Shall be Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth . . . . Hell has many names and conjures many images—all of them aimed at triggering a sense of horror. Some of these names and descriptions arguably can be found in the Bible—the Christian New Testament at least—and threats of eternal torture used to be a fine way for Christian ministers and missionaries to win converts or keep "the faithful" faithful.

Famed Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards ("Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") waxed eloquent on the topic, elaborating why simple annihilation was insufficient punishment to satisfy the demands of divine justice. Two hundred years later, Billy Graham drove tent revivals across America by pounding pulpits about the threat. Anglican author C.S. Lewis, beloved of modern Evangelicals, said, "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next" (Mere Christianity).

I think of heaven and hell as donkey motivators—carrots and sticks. What is the most glamorous eternity an Iron Age peasant could dream of? Streets of gold, gem encrusted walls, white robes, no work, and eternal youth. How about the most horrific? Monsters, darkness and agony, burning and thirst that never end. Give me a drink, the rich man in hell begs Father Abraham in the book of Luke, just a drop on the end of a finger. But Abraham instead reminds him that he already had his turn at the good things in life.

For two millennia, the threat of hell has been one of Christianity's core assets. It provided the recruiting tool known as Pascal's Wager, defined thus by the Oxford dictionary: The argument that it is in one's own best interest to behave as if God exists, since the possibility of eternal punishment in hell outweighs any advantage of believing otherwise. Better safe than sorry.

I once knew an elderly lawyer who had been a nontheist for decades though raised in Christian fundamentalism. As death approached, he confided that although he knew hell couldn't be real, he couldn't stop thinking about it and wondering and worrying . . . What if I'm wrong?

I understand the fear; as a child in an evangelical family I asked Jesus into my heart several times, just to be sure. Hell is a scary place. For many people the threat of eternal damnation, instilled in childhood, is so powerful that they simply shut out any questions that might undermine their assurance of salvation.

Because the specter of hell is so frightening and has worked so well for two millennia, some Christian leaders are responding to the modern growth of skepticism by doubling down on the threat, working to make it more visual and visceral. A traveling theatrical production called "Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames" makes its way from megachurch to megachurch illustrating the anguish of the damned. The website Catholic Answers analyses Church doctrine and assures believers that hell exists and is already populated with sinners. Come Halloween, we can expect another round of Evangelical "hell houses" aimed at wooing fright-loving, fun-loving teens and then convincing them the danger is real.

Pascal's wager routinely makes the rounds of the internet as an argument for faith, often coupled with C.S. Lewis's forced-choice "trilemma": Jesus was a liar, lunatic, or Lord—Which one are you going to pick? (Note that both the wager and the trilemma are readily dismissed. Lewis omitted, for example, the fourth possibility that the Jesus of the Bible was mostly legend, while Pascal fails to note that committing to the Christian god may condemn you to another god's hell. Eternal ice, anyone? There are, after all, lots of versions of eternal torture to choose from.)

But increasingly, the specter of a divine torture chamber may be something that turns people away from religion rather than driving them into the fold. Facebook memes compare the Christian god to an abuser who says I love you so much that I'll hurt you if you don't love me back. Vyckie Garrison, founder of No Longer Quivering, uses the "Power and Control Wheel of Abuse" to illustrate her former relationship with Jesus. New Calvinist fire-brands like "women-are-penis-homes" mega-pastor Mark Driscoll may wax eloquent about universal depravity and eternal torture; but more broadly, Christians are becoming reluctant to say that anyone who doesn't share their faith is going to be tortured forever—even if that is what they think.

"You know, if your sister dies right now she will go to hell."When actor Robin Williams committed suicide in August after a long running battle with cyclical depression, Trent Horn, who writes for Catholic Answers, tweeted, "The rules for talking about Robin Williams: Don't say where he is now, don't promote your own cause/message, do pray for him and his family." I sarcastically translated his tweet as, Don't say what you think. Don't say what you think. If you absolutely must talk about it, talk to yourself. Because the bottom line is this: for centuries the Catholic Church identified suicide as a mortal sin and denied Catholic funeral and burial to those who ended their own lives.

In actual practice these days, once a suicide has occurred Catholic priests often scramble to avoid blaming (and so condemning) the victim. They point to mitigating circumstances like depression and suffering, which may diminish the free and conscious choice of the person in question and so his or her eternal culpability.

But even today, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops—acting as god's authorities here on Earth, so they believe—have pitted themselves against death-with-dignity laws that allow for rational suicide of terminal patients. They argue instead that dying men and women whose suffering can't be relieved should be taught to embrace a Christian belief in redemptive suffering. (See Number 5 of the Ethical and Religious Directives that govern Catholic healthcare.)

That brings us back to the topic of hell, because the whole point of the Christian hell is that suffering there is not redemptive. It is, somehow, simultaneously unendurable and endured eternally, and fair--created and administered by a deity who knew in advance that most humans would end up there and yet who created us anyway because loves us so much.

This is where the moral house of cards collapses, and the value of hell as a recruiting device may as well. It is increasingly difficult to convince educated people that they and their friends and children deserve infinite suffering for finite failings—or that a god who acts like an Iron Age tyrant (or domestic abuser) is the model of perfect love. A group called Child Evangelism Fellowship aroused intense opposition in Portland last summer in part because outsiders to biblical Christianity were appalled that insiders would try to convert small children by threatening them with torture.

And so, increasingly the time-honored Christian doctrine of hell is being put into a dark closet where the folks most likely to shine a flashlight on it are anti-theists like me who would rather see it exposed to the bright light of reason and compassion or universalist Christians who question whether it was ever biblical to begin with.

The appeal of hell as a part of the faith package appears to be in decline, even among Evangelicals. According to a 2011 survey, while 92% of Americans claimed some sort of belief in God, only 75% believed in hell. A 2013 Harris poll put belief in the devil and hell at 58 percent. As one theology professor, Mike Wittmer, put it: "In a pluralistic, post-modern world, students are having a more difficult time with (the idea of) people going to hell forever because they didn't believe the right thing."

The decline in hell-belief may be due to the same factors that seem to be causing the decline in Bible belief more broadly—globalization and the internet. It gets harder to imagine oneself blissfully indifferent to the eternal torture of Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and atheists when those people have names and faces and are (Facebook) friends.

Even so, for many Christians the notion that sinners will suffer for eternity offers some lingering satisfaction. This is possible only because most people who believe in hell also believe, at least on the surface, that they are part of an exclusive club that isn't going there. When Pentecostal Bishop Carlton Pearson transitioned from preaching hellfire and brimstone to preaching what he called, "the gospel of inclusion," most of his congregation wasn't ready to follow him. He lost church, friends, and livelihood.

Ultimately, Pearson moved with his wife and family to Chicago, where he launched a "radically inclusive spiritual community." Retired Anglican bishop, John Shelby Spong, author of Why Christianity Must Change or Die praised Pearson's transformation: "The God Bishop Pearson is serving is a God of love, not judgment; a God of universalism, not sectarianism; a God of expansion, not control." Spong called Pearson's Gospel of Inclusion "intriguing, provocative and hopeful, a surprising twist in our ancient faith story."

Radical inclusion means that Pearson opens the door even to even humanists and atheists, not as potential converts but as potential spiritual kin. Without a hell to send them to, what else is one to do?

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe to her articles at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.

Related:

Heaven, Hell and Sam Harris

Baptists Bank on Fire and Brimstone
 email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-21919490416323049422014-09-14T19:06:00.000-04:002014-10-04T05:14:13.196-04:00Morality is Not Dependent Upon a God or Christian WorldviewBy psychman33 http://therageofreason.blogspot.com/ ~

Religious people like to argue that human morality is dependent upon the Christian worldview to make sense. They use this argument as a support for the necessity of their God. They like to argue that without God as a basis, there is no objective morality. I tend to agree that there is no objective morality. Instead, I refer to a shared subjective morality. Our humanness is what determines and leads to this shared subjectivity. I've found that the following explanation, based upon scientific knowledge from biology, sociology, neurology and psychology, usually works to refute the Christian claim, and to establish a coherent moral picture, without having to appeal to any deity or religion.

A humanist model of morality owes nothing necessarily to Christianity. When you observe other animals in nature, you find that animals which evolved to be dependent upon other animals for mutual survival, i.e. social animals, also evolved to allow for a predisposition to remain a more or less cohesive whole. This is generally expressed as a fuller spectrum (positive as well as negative) of emotionality. Depending upon the relative cognitive sophistication of a given species, we can see a more complex set of proto-morals developed. The most intelligent and self-aware organisms besides humans really illustrate this very well- dolphins and other primates, especially. The organisms that developed to be solitary, usually lone territorial predators, do not normally exhibit these predispositions. Compare our two most common pets, cats and dogs. Dogs are evolutionarily social animals. Cats are not. Both have been domesticated. Both are loved by their owners. But study after study shows that dogs demonstrate an emotional connection that cats don't, that they are not wired to have.

The surest way to overcome a prejudiced hatred of a race, gender, or any difference, is to have the hater work and live with the hated. This engenders a sense of identification with one another, and thus the extension of empathy. This shows that the basis of morality is shared emotionality, aka empathy. As a species becomes more cognitively sophisticated and self-aware, the more developed and rich the ability to express and presumably to experience empathy. Nietzsche observed that the etymology of words referring to morality are quite telling of their development. For example, the word kind refers both to a group bearing some unifying similarity, as well as to treat others benignly. This reflects the strongly evidenced fact that empathy is only extended toward those with whom we identify, to the extent with which we identify with them. The surest way to overcome a prejudiced hatred of a race, gender, or any difference, is to have the hater work and live with the hated. This engenders a sense of identification with one another, and thus the extension of empathy.

The mental disorder antisocial personality disorder (formerly referred to as psychopathy and sociopathy) is characterized by the lack or blunting of positive emotions, both self-directed and other-directed (empathy). This illness generally is associated with trauma and/or negligence in early childhood, often before age two. A child raised in a fairly normal setting and manner will develop a healthy sense of empathy. It's the normal and usual path of human development.

Another part of this is social mores implicitly introduced and enforced by the person's social milieu. This is also the result of the social animal path of evolution. It allows us all to get along.

In addition to these, we have created pragmatic rules (laws) as a society which cover other behaviors that would threaten our ability to exist in larger groups.

The first part (empathy) is generally universal along humanity. The second two parts are more heterogeneous, depending upon culture, geographic location, and environment. All of these are dependent upon and emerge from our evolutionary path of development. This is the source of our subjectively shared sense of and practice of morality. From this basis, this universally shared subjectivity, arises the less widely shared variations. An objective morality is not needed and is not supported by the evidence. Our sameness and our difference come from our humanness. This is the basis of humanism. Religions need not apply.
 firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-65674911670515223412014-09-10T19:36:00.000-04:002014-09-30T04:55:03.836-04:00Why Did Jesus' Disciples Abandon Him in His Last Hours?By Wizened Sage (Galen Rose) ~

There is much in the New Testament to cause one to question whether the Jesus story(s) of the Gospels ever really happened. For example, in several places in the Gospels Jesus is quoted as saying this or that, but he was alone at the time according to the text. So, how could anyone know he said those things? There are also all those conflicts in the resurrection story, like how many women went to Jesus' tomb that Sunday, and how many men were in the tomb when the women arrived? The Gospels disagree on these and numerous other details.

One of my own favorite sticky questions is why did all of Jesus' disciples abandon him the night before his crucifixion? As far as I can see, this makes no sense at all in view of what they should have known about Jesus by that time.

Consider that, according to the Gospels, these guys had followed Jesus around for 3 years. They had seen him perform dozens, perhaps hundreds of miracles; healing the sick and crippled with a touch, walking on water, changing water to wine, feeding thousands with a few fishes and loaves of bread, bringing the dead back to life, etc. Pretty amazing stuff, huh? That would have been more than enough to convince me that this guy was god, the son of god, or both.

But that's not all! Three of the apostles witnessed Jesus "transfiguration" on a mountain top. On the mountain, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light. Then the prophets Moses and Elijah appear next to him and he speaks with them. Jesus is then called "Son" by a voice in the sky.

And that's still not all! According to Matthew 10:1, when Jesus

"had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease."
So, now the apostles also had miraculous powers. And, Acts 8:5-8 tells us that they actually used these special powers:

"Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed."

 Why did all of Jesus' disciples abandon him the night before his crucifixion?Yet, after all this, on the night before his crucifixion, all of Jesus disciples abandoned him, denying they knew him and staying away. Contrast this with the Jim Jones of Guyana story where, according to numerous eyewitnesses, many of his followers willingly drank the Kool-Aid. They obviously believed Jones was a legitimate prophet who was in god's inner circle. Yet, Jones never showed them any miracles, was never transfigured, and never passed on any special powers to his followers. How much more evidence did the apostles have of Jesus importance to the cosmos? Yet they still abandoned him.

Is this believable to anyone who has ever given it any real thought? To further confound things, it is claimed that the apostles were staunch supporters and proselytizers for Jesus after his resurrection, some claiming the apostles all died violent deaths rather than recanting their belief in Jesus. Some turnaround, huh?

So, why would the Gospel authors tell the Jesus story in this way? I suspect that Jesus' abandonment by the apostles was merely a literary device to increase the readers' sympathy for Jesus. This left Jesus truly alone in his darkest hour, deserted by even his closest friends. Yet, Jesus keeps faith with god. He becomes an even greater hero through this device; even more deserving of our admiration and worship.

So, what's my point? Well, my point is that this is one more reason to doubt the Jesus story as told by the Gospels. Given what they knew of Jesus, and their own powers given them by Jesus, there was every reason for them to stand by him in his darkest hour; more reason, by far, than Jim Jones followers had to stand by him. I think the Gospel writers seized on this literary device without thinking it through. By using this device they increased our sympathy for Jesus, yes, but they simultaneously cast a very deep shadow of doubt on the whole story – for those of us who actually bother to think about what the Bible says.
 firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-16147819296453713312014-09-07T07:29:00.000-04:002014-09-28T08:36:58.809-04:00God Doesn't Even Answer Prayers to Himself from HimselfBy Carolyn Hyppolite ~

Every January, the Catholic Church dedicates a week to praying for Christian unity. For eight years—even after I had left Catholicism—I joined them in that prayer. As a believer in Christ, I knew how instrumental Christian discord is in sowing doubts in the minds of outside observers. For if Christians cannot bring themselves to agree on what mandates of God are, is it not at least an indication that they are not guided by the same omnipotent deity but rather by their own interior preferences and prejudices?

Christians are often defensive about this charge, quickly discounting their deep differences, and insisting that they are in agreement about the key issue—Jesus Christ.

However, it is not just pesky atheists who think that Christian division poses a threat to the faithful's credibility. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus knew that the faithful's disunity raises doubts:

"I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world (John 17:20-24).

There are two noteworthy issues in this prayer of Jesus. First that he realizes that the lack of unity signals to the world that there are reasons to not believe and secondly that a prayer by none other than Jesus remains unfulfilled 20 centuries after they were allegedly spoken.

Notice Jesus is said to be pleading not for current believers but for future, potential believers. It is their salvation that is at stake by the fact that Christians cannot agree. It's hard enough to believe the claims of one person that he is in communication with a divine, invisible being and that through that communication, he—and it is usually a "he"—has knowledge about how you should conduct your life and that you should give him money. But if another one should interject with a competing perspective on that same deity, we can be assured that at least one of them is mistaken, and moreover, we now have good reason to suspect that both of them are either deceived and/or deceiving.

However, the fact that most nagged me about this prayer in my last year as a Christian is the fact that Jesus prayed it. And I am not referring to the mind-bending notion that an omnipotent being needs to address a prayer to his father, who is simultaneously himself. That bit of nonsense I had rationalized by calling it "mystery"—that dark hole of non-answers where all demonstrably false theistic assertions seek shelter from reason.

I am talking about just the plain fact that Jesus, who presumably excels in faith and virtue, made an important and reasonable request to his father, who allegedly gives good gifts and answers the righteous and yet, here we are 2000 years after the fact and Christians are divided into ever more numerous factions with views spanning the political and theological spectrum.

You cannot know by the fact that someone uses the label "Christian," whether she believes in a literal Hell where there is physical torment, a spiritual Hell where one is separated from God and lives in "darkness," or no Hell at all. All are however united by an eagerness to point out that not everyone who claims to be a Christian is an authentic one and that it is the other guy who has got it wrong.

You cannot know by the fact that someone uses the label "Christian," whether she believes in a literal Hell where there is physical torment, a spiritual Hell where one is separated from God and lives in "darkness," or no Hell at all. All are however united by an eagerness to point out that not everyone who claims to be a Christian is an authentic one and that it is the other guy who has got it wrong.Yes, yes, I understand a delay in the fulfilment of God's action does not mean God has not answered. How do I know that God is not going to bring about Christian unity in his time? God's timing—that other dark hole.

Here's the problem, Christians. God's delay poses an eternal threat to millions, if not billions of well-meaning souls who would have otherwise accepted Jesus and gone to Heaven. If even just one person does not believe and goes to Hell all because God has delayed in clarifying the myriad theological disagreements among Christians then God's delay is responsible for the perishing of that soul. And is not one soul worth God getting off his throne and making himself clear?

Yes, yes, I understand that he made the issues perfectly clear the first time he revealed them just the way your particular denomination now interprets it. I understand if all would just follow your pope, your pastor's view of the plain meaning of Scripture, your sacred tradition, there would be no problem, but would it be such a divine inconvenience for him to send another memo?

Yes, yes, I understand that all atheists really know that God exists and are resisting the knowledge of God because they want to sin, but what might there not be five, just five atheists in the whole history of the planet, who have been dissuaded from faith because there are so many competing views of God? And did we not learn from Abraham that the God should be mindful of just five?

And we know that there must be a few. We know that Christian disunity causes people to not believe for the Bible tells us so. Jesus said so.

After about eight years of praying for Christian unity, it one day occurred to me that if God has not yet answered this very important and reasonable prayer of Jesus, what use was there in adding my own voice? In fact, what basis was there for me to imagine that God would answer any prayer at all?

Today, with the benefit of some distance, I can better imagine the social setting of this strange story arose. I can imagine the early Church breaking up into factions, and I can imagine onlookers pointing out that their factions demonstrates the falsehood of their proclamations. The Scripture writer cannot deny this fact and wants to compel believers to shape up so that their community is not disparaged. What better way to encourage good behavior than to place the words in the mouth of Jesus. Jesus, right before he was crucified, prayed that we be united; surely, we can do it for him.

What the evangelist did not seem to anticipate is that this was easier said than done. He probably also did not anticipate that Jesus would delay his second coming for two millennia allowing ample time for Christians to discover numerous areas of disagreement.

Yet, what should give us even more reason to be skeptical than the fact of Christian disunity is the indisputable fact that God has not answered the prayer of his only begotten son. God does not answer prayer; not even the ones he makes to himself from himself. firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-62782580160195509522014-09-06T06:55:00.000-04:002014-09-22T04:50:15.254-04:00The Revelations of Janet AsimovBy Carl S ~

Once in a great while, someone comes up with answers that exponentially expand the way we see reality; Einstein and relativity, Hubble and galaxies. Charles Darwin's discovery of evolution comes to mind. The world as revealed by him is now seen with the new eyes of a child. (Look! He's proved to be right, again!) With new insights by Janet Asimov, even Creation is not The Creation. They also, like evolution, reveal reality as it is rather than as religion would have it be. Naturally religious organizations with their powers over minds will be threatened. Save her article and scrap your scriptures.

In the Humanist magazine of July/August 2014, is the article by Janet Asimov (psychiatrist and widow of Isaac Asimov), with the title "Creativity, Then and Forever." As I read the article, my enthusiasm boiled over. It's just too good not to share. And as one with a child's wonder who is as well an avid atheist with an agenda to free believers from their various prisons, the temptation was too strong to resist sharing. And a believer happened to be in the room with me. So I jumped at the opportunity to read it aloud.

The author begins by telling of her search for a dictionary meaning of the word "create, " and found, "to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes...to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention."

Asimov strongly disagreed with this narrow interpretation. She asks, among other questions,

"Why do religious fundamentalists insist that their god created everything once and for all? I suppose it makes them feel safe, in a universe teeming with uncertainty...I don't see how creativity can exist without the ability to accept, anticipate, and use the everlasting uncertainty of Change..., I want to step on the toes of whoever put that definition in my dictionary, and especially on the toes of religious fundamentalists who foam at the mouth when Charles Darwin is mentioned."

Whoa! At that point, the believer said, "I've heard enough," and shut her mind's door. Whenever this happens, I know something about the believer as well as about myself: shutting the door means that there is a problem one doesn't want to face. And often it's a serious problem. In this case, the believer almost missed out on the revealing next part. This I introduced gently. Asimov: "I think that creativity is a natural aspect of the universe, and not put there by a creator." She offers examples. She explains that evolution in itself IS creativity, working within the uncertainty of changes, ever manipulating and adapting. (Doesn't curiosity itself create the impulses to create- often just for the fun of it? It sure does.)

Religion opposes the reality of uncertainty. Religion demands security, even if it is falseAt this point, I must say that I see the universe as self-created; unplanned and spontaneous. Period. Prove otherwise. Not only that, but, creativity, like evolution, is how the universe really works.

Well then. Outside of the non-necessity of a Creator to create everything, why should believers be threatened emotionally and "spiritually?" I'll guess it's because creation exists not only in spite of a creator, but in uncertainty, and its results from acts of creating are not predetermined. Believers are scared shitless about uncertainty to the extent that they create gods and other "supernatural" forces to control what might happen and to protect against what is inevitable. Their God "the creator" is dogmatically asserted to have "purposes" for his creations, where creativity is interpreted only as creating something for a purpose. Observations of the natural world reveal otherwise. These observations, like evolutionary ones, run contrary to religious beliefs. (Note: If you want to piss off fundamentalists, simply tell the truth.) Believers want a secure castle in the universe, an all-dependable father-figure they can turn to. Growing up is hard to do. In the words of Janet Asimov, "I suppose it makes them feel safe." Nature couldn't care less about safety.

Obviously, humans aren't really resigned to accepting things as they are. We manipulate reality to our own benefit. We, as well as the rest of nature, create results beneficial to ourselves. We use uncertainty and welcome it as the means to finding answers, solutions, accumulating knowledge, asking more questions, in finding more to be curious about.

Religion opposes the reality of uncertainty. Religion demands security, even if it is false; even if its answers are purely psychological manipulation, and even if its gods are products of the creative imagination. And, while religions deal with uncertainty by proclaiming, for example, "God is in control," their actions tell us that they all deal with the uncertainty of human nature by creating controls over the thoughts and actions of humans.( Sometimes by using the sword to control them.) What about those who want to believe in the supernatural? Don't trust religions with interpreting their "purposes." Religious "certainties" are a double-edged sword. They bring their own self-created anxieties, fears of offending those supernatural forces. They bring uncertainties about whether the misfortunes of one's loved ones or friends are the results of those offenses. (For example: there is the uncertainty of not knowing if someone you love is in eternal torment because he did not believe.)

Unspoken fears were beneath the surface as I read Janet Asimov's words. These explain why my believer was so upset. This person, being human, craves certainty. We all understand this. Her embracing of the certainty she has been taught to believe in has become second nature to her. With the "trigger" words such as God or soul or heaven, or in control of, or grace, she has been programmed to act and react to the reality about her. Unthinkingly and fearfully, she clings to this rock. She has been taught not to doubt and to trust instead the authority of the certain who know not that religion is the business of maintaining denial of the uncertainty and indifference of the universe.

Why bother fearing uncertainty? If the Wright brothers didn't deal with the uncertain outcomes of their experiments, would airplanes exist? Would any progress happen without failures along the way? Why, the uncertainty of outcome does not deter the male birds from ornate displays, dances, nest-building, and ridiculous behaviors to court the female, any more than it does to the male of any species. One doesn't have a guarantee for certain that the soul-mate one knows and loves so well who promises to "forsake all others" will not have affairs and/or end the relationship of eternal love. Tomorrow, you and I may not be alive. (We speak of lingering deaths, but all deaths are instantaneous.) As much as we strive to make the future certain, there are no guarantees. And that can be comforting, because it can turn out better than we anticipated. Doubt and be email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-10663216577085638842014-09-01T06:49:00.002-04:002014-09-14T19:07:33.959-04:00Five Reasons to Suspect Jesus Never ExistedBy Valerie Tarico ~

Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are "mythologized history." In other words, based on the evidence available they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity. At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this view, a "historical Jesus" became mythologized.

For over 200 years, a wide ranging array of theologians and historians grounded in this perspective have analyzed ancient texts, both those that made it into the Bible and those that didn't, in attempts to excavate the man behind the myth. Several current or recent bestsellers take this approach, distilling the scholarship for a popular audience. Familiar titles include Zealot by Reza Aslan and How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman.

By contrast, other scholars believe that the gospel stories are actually "historicized mythology." In this view, those ancient mythic templates are themselves the kernel. They got filled in with names, places and other real world details as early sects of Jesus worship attempted to understand and defend the devotional traditions they had received.

The notion that Jesus never existed is a minority position. Of course it is! says David Fitzgerald, the author of Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All. Fitzgerald points out that for centuries all serious scholars of Christianity were Christians themselves, and modern secular scholars lean heavily on the groundwork that they laid in collecting, preserving, and analyzing ancient texts. Even today most secular scholars come out of a religious background, and many operate by default under historical presumptions of their former faith.

Fitzgerald, who as his book title indicates takes the "mythical Jesus" position, is an atheist speaker and writer, popular with secular students and community groups. The internet phenom, Zeitgeist the Movie introduced millions to some of the mythic roots of Christianity. But Zeitgeist and similar works contain known errors and oversimplifications that undermine their credibility. Fitzgerald seeks to correct that by giving young people accessible information that is grounded in accountable scholarship.

More academic arguments in support of the Jesus Myth theory can be found in the writings of Richard Carrier and Robert Price. Carrier, who has a Ph.D. in ancient history uses the tools of his trade to show, among other things, how Christianity might have gotten off the ground without a miracle. Price, by contrast, writes from the perspective of a theologian whose biblical scholarship ultimately formed the basis for his skepticism. It is interesting to note that some of the harshest critics of popular Jesus myth theories like those from Zeitgeist or Joseph Atwill (who argued that the Romans invented Jesus) are academic Mythicists like these.

The arguments on both sides of this question—mythologized history or historicized mythology—fill volumes, and if anything the debate seems to be heating up rather than resolving. Since many people, both Christian and not, find it surprising that this debate even exists—that serious scholars might think Jesus never existed—here are some of the key points that keep the doubts alive:

1. No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef.

In the words of Bart Ehrman (who himself believes the stories were built on a historical kernel):

"What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time – the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus' name ever so much as mentioned." (pp. 56-57)

2. The earliest New Testament writers seem ignorant of the details of Jesus' life, which become more crystalized in later texts.

Paul seems unaware of any virgin birth, for example. No wise men, no star in the east, no miracles. Historians have long puzzled over the "Silence of Paul" on the most basic biographical facts and teachings of Jesus. Paul fails to cite Jesus' authority precisely when it would make his case. What's more, he never calls the twelve apostles Jesus' disciples; in fact, he never says Jesus HAD disciples –or a ministry, or did miracles, or gave teachings. He virtually refuses to disclose any other biographical detail, and the few cryptic hints he offers aren't just vague, but contradict the gospels. The leaders of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem like Peter and James are supposedly Jesus' own followers and family; but Paul dismisses them as nobodies and repeatedly opposes them for not being true Christians!

Liberal theologian Marcus Borg suggests that people read the books of the New Testament in chronological order to see how early Christianity unfolded.

Placing the Gospels after Paul makes it clear that as written documents they are not the source of early Christianity but its product. The Gospel -- the good news -- of and about Jesus existed before the Gospels. They are the products of early Christian communities several decades after Jesus' historical life and tell us how those communities saw his significance in their historical context.

3. Even the New Testament stories don't claim to be first-hand accounts.

We now know that the four gospels were assigned the names of the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, not written by them. To make matter sketchier, the name designations happened sometime in second century, around 100 years or more after Christianity supposedly began.

For a variety of reasons, the practice of pseudonymous writing was common at the time and many contemporary documents are "signed" by famous figures. The same is true of the New Testament epistles except for a handful of letters from Paul (6 out of 13) which are broadly thought to be genuine. But even the gospel stories don't actually say, "I was there." Rather, they claim the existence of other witnesses, a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has heard the phrase, my aunt knew someone who . . . .

No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef. 4. The gospels, our only accounts of a historical Jesus, contradict each other.

If you think you know the Jesus story pretty well, I suggest that you pause at this point to test yourself with the 20 question quiz at ExChristian.net.

The gospel of Mark is thought to be the earliest existing "life of Jesus," and linguistic analysis suggests that Luke and Matthew both simply reworked Mark and added their own corrections and new material. But they contradict each other and, to an even greater degree contradict the much later gospel of John, because they were written with different objectives for different audiences. The incompatible Easter stories offer one example of how much the stories disagree.

5. Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.

They include a cynic philosopher, charismatic Hasid, liberal Pharisee, conservative rabbi, Zealot revolutionary, nonviolent pacifist to borrow from a much longer list assembled by Price. In his words (pp. 15-16), "The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage. But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time." John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar grumbles that "the stunning diversity is an academic embarrassment."

For David Fitzgerald, these issues and more lead to a conclusion that he finds inescapable:

Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews, complete with pagan rituals like a Lord's Supper, Gnostic terms in his letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors' longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions.

In a soon-to-be-released follow up to Nailed, entitled Jesus: Mything in Action, Fitzgerald argues that the many competing versions proposed by secular scholars are just as problematic as any "Jesus of Faith:"

Even if one accepts that there was a real Jesus of Nazareth, the question has little practical meaning: Regardless of whether or not a first century rabbi called Yeshua ben Yosef lived, the "historical Jesus" figures so patiently excavated and re-assembled by secular scholars are themselves fictions.

We may never know for certain what put Christian history in motion. Only time (or perhaps time travel) will tell.

Author's note: Not being an insider to this debate, my own inclination is to defer to the preponderance of relevant experts, knowing that paradigm shifts do occur. In this case, this means assuming that the Jesus stories probably had some historical kernel. That said, I find the debate fascinating, in part because within the heated back and forth between mythicists and historicists are some points of convergence that for outsiders may be more important than the difference between historicized mythology and mythologized history. The presence of mythic tropes in the gospel stories seems clear, while the imprint of any actual man who may have provided the kernel--how he may have lived, what he may have said, and how he died--is more tenuous than most people dream.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe to her articles at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.

Related:

Easter: Was the Risen Jesus Originally Female?

Ancient Mythic Origins of the Christmas Story

Was Jesus Married? A Religion Scholar Decodes the Clues

The Same God? Twelve Beliefs the Mormon Church Might Not Want You to Know About
email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-19422803540544714502014-08-21T04:47:00.001-04:002014-09-05T04:47:40.117-04:00On the Happiness of "Dangerous" AtheistsBy Carl S. ~

Am I and others like me, the kind of persons referred to when most people say, "It takes all kinds?" In other words, are we eccentric, not dangerous, harmless outsiders to "common sense explanations" of the majority? After all, we don't accept the "obvious truths" of dogmatic things believers take for granted and prefer not to think about. We don't believe in supernatural gods/forces/explanations. We not only question, but outright dismiss "sacred" texts and the "authorities" who quote them for their own purposes. (We OFTEN find those things boring.) Does this make us dangerous and unhappy? A hell of a lot of believers are taught to believe it's so.

A hell of a lot of believers are afraid of becoming "that kind" of person like me. They believe that in leaving belief they would take the chance of being condemned to eternal torture; that belief is of paramount importance for everyone's happiness. And they raise their children to ignore or shun "people like him." This is part of their contract; their eternal insurance policy for their kids. If they can keep me/us in the closet, they can make me/us into any kinds of demons they want to. (A method the Nazis successfully employed against the Jewish people.) This isolation alone, because we're social animals, ought to cause us unhappiness. It comes with a cost-benefit: We do not have that unhappiness which comes from trying to force ourselves to believe things we just can't. (We leave that for those who are unnecessarily struggling to force themselves to believe.)

One reason that believers of all faiths avoid atheists may be that they don't want to take the CHANCE that atheists will question their beliefs or even imply that religious doctrines actually INSULT their intelligences. Nobody wants to face the possibility of being a victim of a con job. Nobody. It's much the human thing to deny and avoid, than to discuss and face that possibility. This is cause for non-believers' outside-the-box head scratching, and investigating.

In some countries, atheists are imprisoned and even await EXECUTION for "blasphemy" because they refuse to PRETEND to believe! Let's face it: if they pretend to believe, then nothing will happen to them. A so-called "Almighty" God is threatened by non-believers in him and can't have his faithful hearing from them? It isn't enough to punish them after death, eternally, either? He sends his goons out to make the lives of non-believers miserable for the short time they have on Earth. Or to end their lives, as we say, "prematurely." Talk about insecure faiths! And the source of all this misery comes from an intolerance to those who merely declare that they find no proofs for a One god or many gods. THIS is what brands atheists as dangerous and unhappy? No, WE'RE not the dangerous and unhappy ones.

Before the believers get their hackles and defenses up, let me tell you this atheist's point of view. We'll start with a great quote from Charles Kingsley : "WE ACT AS IF COMFORT AND LUXURY WERE THE CHIEF REQUIREMENTS OF LIFE, WHEN ALL WE NEED TO MAKE US REALLY HAPPY IS SOMETHING TO BE ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT."

Back in the 1960's, they said, "Whatever turns you on." (Of course we must add, "Just so it doesn't harm anyone.") If someone came up to me beaming away and said, "I'm a born-again Christian!" I'd say, "Whatever." The person might be offended by that. What it comes down to is simple. If you're enthusiastic about it, go for it. But don't expect me to share your enthusiasms. I've got my own, like music, humanism, evolution, etc., etc. ( I'm enthusiastic when sending money to buy birth control pills for a mother who already has 4 kids and lives on two dollars a day, for example, rather than to some god who should be providing for them and doesn't.) If YOU want to purchase a four foot statue of the Virgin Mary, garland it with flowers, light a dozen votive candles in front of it, then go for it. If, on the other hand, you want to put that garland on a bed and the votive lights around the room so that you've made a sweet atmosphere for lovemaking, well... that's what I would be enthusiastic about. You can take your guitar and drums to church, play your heart out for Jesus, and/or spend the evening jamming with a rock combo. Whatever you're enthused about. I'm all for it. Just leave my enthusiasms alone.

 If I find religions boring, anti-thinking and unreasonable, that's no reason for you as a believer not to enjoy the comforting fantasies you're enthusiastic about. No problem for me if that's what turns you on. Just allow me the same freedoms for my enthusiastic pursuits.Sadly, those who would convert us non-believers are unwilling to allow US to give OUR input. They're missing out. Many atheists/agnostics have been there, already have done what they're doing, and are now free. My personal responses for them at this point in my life are, "Whatever turns you on." (Or they might echo Judge Judy's: "That's your problem, not mine," or, "What has that to do with anything?") Write me off as insulting, but isn't mine a better attitude than the Shias, Sunnis, Israelis and Palestinians, Evangelicals and Catholics, have to each other? Yet atheists are their common enemy!

If I find religions boring, anti-thinking and unreasonable, that's no reason for you as a believer not to enjoy the comforting fantasies you're enthusiastic about. No problem for me if that's what turns you on. Just allow me the same freedoms for my enthusiastic pursuits.

I don't care if someone enthusiastically does good deeds and gives credit to God, Allah, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Krishna, Jehovah Satan, etc., or if the good deed doer takes all the credit, enjoys pitching in, relieving suffering. Just so the person is doing good. This is something to be enthused about. On the other hand, if that Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., is enthusiastically doing evil deeds in the name of a god, the acts are still evil - something for their victims to be unenthusiastic about. And before anyone points out the atheists Stalin and Mao, Catholic Hitler and Franco, Muslim Saddam, let's be honest: they were only being themselves. (As God the Dictator is only being himself.)

WHEN we consider happiness as having something to be enthusiastic about, as a "chief requirement of life," then we naturally should extend THAT possibility to EVERY individual. This is where atheism/humanism are MUCH BETTER at promoting enthusiasms and happiness, rather than religions, (which claim to bring comfort and happiness.) Religions RESTRICT or DENY this aspect of happiness, that possibility, to others: predominately WOMEN, non-religious, and those adults and children in those religions, who really need to know the world as it is. There is so much to be known, to be enthusiastic about in knowing and discovering in REALITY that religions smother!

Good reasons atheists like me would give for not being a faithful member of any Abrahamic religion come from statements made by, of all people, Nazi Rudolph Hess. His speech of June 30th, 1934, contain the words, "One man remains beyond all criticism, and that is the Fuhrer. This is because everyone senses and knows: He will always be right. The National Socialism of all of us in anchored uncritical loyalty, in a surrender to the Fuhrer." If you substitute "God" for "Fuhrer", and "the Faith" for "National Socialism," you have the foundations of Abrahamic religions. On a practical level, for "the Fuhrer," substitute "God's spokesmen," and for "National Socialism" substitute whatever faith they represent. Now you get the picture. Atheists/humanists, as all other freedom of conscience supporters, are opposed to what are religious dictatorships.

Happy atheists? I'M happy without any gods or their dictators in my life. No one can really be happy without God? Let's see now. We know of wheelchair-bound individuals who are happy without legs and blind people happy without sight. There are people happy though they have practically nothing in material goods to be happy about - but they're enthused about their kids, friends, hobbies, sports teams, etc., etc. I and you are happy without tons of money, luxuries, and extraordinary pleasures. Sure - you can be perfectly happy without "God," too. Millions and millions of people are.

Happiness isn't without sorrow, betrayals, or disappointments either; life is a kaleidoscope including "mistakes" experiences. Sometimes you just have to accept that there are some things you've done or not done for which you'll never be forgiven. And there are some things you won't be "all right about." That's life. Sometimes you might want to consider that you were happier before belief than after, and now you've returned to that prior state. Be enthused about the New World you've found! And if some believers are unhappy, upset, angry about this, well, maybe it's time they ASK why you're email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-92224310864710100172014-08-11T06:02:00.002-04:002014-08-25T04:16:45.527-04:00The Problem of Good By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

In religious debate, much is made of the "problem of evil;" that is, if god is good, then why is there so much evil in the world. Personally, I think the problem of good is (or should be) just as important, especially to Christians. Let me explain.

Christians frequently claim that god is and must be the final arbiter of good. Skeptics then ask whether something is good just because god says or does it, or whether there is some other standard that even god must meet in order to be judged "good." Overwhelmingly, Christians argue that god is the standard; he determines what is good and what is not.

But, we clearly have a serious philosophical problem here, an epistemological problem. How can we tell that what god commands is good, if there is no external measure for us humans to appeal to? How do we know that what god commands is not actually evil, or that god himself is not evil. There appears to be no way to prove the Christian assumption,because it simply proceeds from a definition; a definition which states, "That which god says or does is good." End of discussion.

There are both philosophical and practical approaches to this problem, and I think it can be reasonably argued that both lead to the conclusion that we humans MUST ultimately judge what is good.

We have suggested that perhaps god is simply an evil god and what he speaks or does is evil. How could we determine this? We could use our intuition to tell us, but that would be putting no trust in the assumption that whatever god says is good or true. In putting the question to our intuition, we would be tossing that standard– if god says it or does it, then it's good – by the wayside. So, if only god knows what is good, then how could we possibly recognize good and evil? By this standard,we are in no position to judge. So, how then can we say that whatever god says or does is good, if only he (and not us) can recognize good and evil.

Philosophically then, we have a dilemma. If god himself is the standard, then we have noway of knowing whether god is good - or evil and just messing with us in a perverse way.

Christians typically complain that unless we accept god as the standard of goodness, then we have no absolute standard; that the question of good becomes a relative matter. I think they are basically correct in this, but that their concern is misplaced. So what if good is a relative thing,at least to a degree? Beef is good, but only if you're not a vegetarian. Any kid will tell you that getting an inoculation is bad, but public health experts will insist that it is good for kids to get their shots. "Good" is often a relative concept.

Let's look at the practical side of this question. Christians often claim that because atheists and agnostics don't fear god they have no reason to be good, to be moral. If this were true,then we would expect to find data to support the claim. So, are atheists and agnostics less"good" than Christians? Well, in a 1997 survey of federal prisons, 82% of inmates self-identified as Christians, while only 0.2% self-identified as atheists (http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm). But if atheists have no reason to be good, then why aren't our prisons full of atheists instead of Christians? Is it just because there are far fewer atheists in the general population?According to the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008 (ARIS), 2.3% of the adult population claimed no belief in a god (atheists). Thus, the prison population has only a tenth of the percentage of atheists as the general population. Clearly, atheists are far less likely to end up in prison. Granted, we're using 1997 data for the prison population and 2008 data for the general population, but the difference here is far too great to be explained by 11 years of growth in atheism in the general population.

Some readers may object that those in the more educated segment of the population are more likely to be atheists, and that the prison population is typically less educated. True, but for whatever reasons, those godless atheists are still less likely to be in prison than Christians, so they obviously are able to be good without god. Their sense of what's"good," may be relative, but it obviously works.

Now, if we accept that the Bible is the inspired word of God, as Christians claim, then we have another problem of a practical nature. The Bible commands a number of things that virtually no modern person accepts as good, or moral, Christians included.

Notice that the Bible not only condones slavery, it even seems to recommend it! Some of the other moral "wisdom" of the Bible includes

Kill disobedient sons (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

Kill those who work on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2)

Kill blasphemers (Leviticus 24:14)

Kill non-virginal brides (Deuteronomy 22:20,21)

Kill homosexuals(Leviticus 20:13)

Kill adulterers(Leviticus 20:10)

Kill witches (Exodus 22:18) -- where it clearly implied that they DO exist and they should be sought out.

If we accept that the Bible is the inspired word of God, as Christians claim, then we have another problem of a practical nature. The Bible commands a number of things that virtually no modern person accepts as good, or moral, Christians included.This last statement, in fact, led to the torture and execution of thousands, maybe millions, by the Christian leaders of the Middle Ages. See what has happened when the Bible has actually been taken as the absolute moral basis for humans? And, we might add to this the common burning at the stake of heretics (non-believers) during the Medieval Inquisition.

Clearly, regardless of what they might say, very, very few Christians accept the morality of the Bible at face value.They don't really believe that if god says or does it then it is"good."

Further, how can god be said to be the arbiter of good when in the Bible he is frequently portrayed as a despicable tyrant, even guilty of commanding child sacrifice

 (Ezekiel 20:25-26):" I defiled them through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the Lord." (NIV)

In his his essay "A Moral Argument for Atheism" (also available in The Impossibility of God), New Zealand Philosopher Raymond Bradley argues for 5 "objective moral truths" that all sensible adults should agree are true for everyone in all places and times:

It is morally wrong to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing.

It is morally wrong to provide one's troops with young women captives with the prospect of their being used assex slaves.

It is morally wrong to make people cannibalize their friends and family.

It is morally wrong to practice human sacrifice, by burning or otherwise.

It is morally wrong to torture people endlessly for their beliefs.

Now, recognizing that Bible-god either commanded or permitted every one of these atrocities, it becomes absurd, from a purely practical standpoint, to claim that whatever god says or does is"good." Any rational and truly moral person must concede that the god of the Bible is frequently immoral – and not "good." (So, how do I explain the fact that the Christian apologist William Lane Craig has publicly defended the genocide and infanticide of the Canaanites ordered by god in the OT as moral? Simple; he is not truly rational,as his moral sense has been perverted by slavish obedience to fundamentalist Christianity.)

So, for both philosophical and practical reasons, we humans are forced to make ethical and moral judgments from our own intuitions. We MUST and DO determine what is good and what is bad, ourselves, regardless of the Bible. Now, when some prominent Christian publicly promotes and lobbies for execution ofhomosexuals and people who work on Sunday because that's what the Bible commands, then I will be forced to rethink my stance. I'm betting this will never happen. And, if it did, I guarantee that 99% of the population, Christians included, would write off that individual as a nutcase who is dangerous to email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-37156122464234723502014-08-07T04:41:00.002-04:002014-08-22T15:08:15.074-04:00This Apostate Hearts the Church of EnglandBy Carolyn Hyppolite ~

I am probably doing the Church of England no favors by praising them. After all, I am an apostate. I am now part of "the world." The very fact that I should consider their actions laudable is proof to their conservative detractors that this church has sold out to the world and is under demonic influence.

But I can't help myself. Church of England has taken some important progressive steps this month—they promoted women and demoted the devil—and they deserve the recognition.

After years of struggle and a few compromises with conservatives in their church who cannot countenance the thought of a woman having authority of men, the Church of England has finally decided to allow women into the bishopric.

If you an atheist, like me, and you are tempted to dismiss this, I get that. So what!? Exactly how grateful should we be that the Church of England has finally caught up? Thanks for joining us in the 21st century!

Okay, okay. But let's face. Religion, particularly Christianity, is not going away anytime soon. In the meantime, there are women, little girls, stuck in those institutions who have to struggle with the hurt and cognitive dissonance that come with being told, God loves you, but here's your place. You're unclean and can't approach the altar. God expects you to be quiet and submissive.

I remember the first time I walked into an orthodox church—seeing an altar surrounded exclusively by male bodies—I cried. I was sad. But I didn't leave. I wasn't ready to leave. So, I kept going back, Sunday after Sunday despite the fact that the exclusion of women caused me emotional turmoil.

What will I tell my daughter? I used to wonder. But I kept going back.

So, we can believe that women bishops are presiding over the imaginary but still be grateful for the gender equality.

Speaking of presiding when that female bishops baptizes an infant to remove imaginary original sin, she will no longer be asking the god-parents, "Do you renounce the devil and all his works?"

Instead, the new wording, approved on July 13, only asks whether parents and godparents will "turn away from sin" and "reject evil."

As is expected in these matters, there is traditionalist pushback. Peter Stanford, author of The Devil: A Biography, said "If we're never going to mention the devil anymore, what exactly is it that these people going to do?"

I think it's pretty clear. They are promising to reject moral evil, which is actually doing something.

The devil is an important part of the Christian story. Without the devil, Christians can't obfuscate about the problem of evil. To that end, we have been offered a villain in a superficial attempt to wrestle with tough question concerning our sometimes perilous existence. More perniciously, we have been offered a distraction from taking real steps to combat the moral and natural evils before us. Renouncing the devil, like prayer, allows one to imagine that she has taken positive action while actually doing nothing.

Stanford adds, "Are we saying that the devil is just a symbol and isn't real and if so, where does that leave God? I think we're in a bit of a muddle here."

Well, yeah. And don't worry. You'll figure it out.

Carolyn Hyppolite is the author of Still Small Voices: The Testimony of a Born Again Atheist
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Visit her blog at http://stillsmallvoices.net/blog/email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-65163789377291934652014-08-03T07:17:00.001-04:002014-09-03T04:34:05.333-04:00Dirt and MagicBy Vadarama ~

For decades I took the Bible's creation account as historical fact. I knew the world's first human was molded by the same hands that knit me together in my mother's womb.1 God's own breath infused brand new dust to create a conscious body. Other species were spoken into spontaneous existence before having their naming ceremony casually outsourced, but Adam was fearfully and wonderfully made.2

We humans were the big stars all along. Earth was a backdrop for our high-stakes drama- a prelude to eternal bliss or agony. Though God had worked on it to the point of exhaustion, He wanted us to be "in the world but not of it"3 - divine beams of light trapped in fragile jars of clay.4 We were doomed to our prisons of expiring flesh until our eventual homecoming in paradise. I expected that realm to be much more hospitable, since up there, no earth quakes, no cancer spreads and no heart splits in two. Mostly, I yearned for the boundless joy, unmediated worship and buffets overstocked with purely recreational eats. Sometimes, I secretly wondered how I'd survive the tedium of infinity.

But it wasn't right to question God's power.Saved by a measure of grace that no mortal could merit, I shouldn't ignorantly evaluate the Kingdom based on my limited perspective. I should "live in light of eternity"5 rather than cling to comforting conventions like space and time. And if things ever got hairy, I'd bea willing martyr- the highest calling. I was encouraged by the words of C.S. Lewis: "Has This world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind."6 I mentally prepared for Judgment Day to avoid being caught off-guard. As a child, I daydreamed about the guillotine and mark of the beast, hoping Jesus would return before the Antichrist took power. In high school, the fantasy involved being singled out by a gun-wielding classmate with deep scars from Sunday School. When he spat in my face and asked if I really believed in God, I'd sob,nod, choke out a 'yes' and brace myself.7 I hoped my loyalty would secure me a spot in heaven if my belief alone could not.

Driving my faith was a keen sense of my intrinsic worthlessness.God could've merely willed me to life like He did everything else. But He personally gifted His spirit, and I immediately betrayed Him with sin. I had not lived in the Garden Of Eden myself, but I was just as accountable for my "fallen"state,8 and I couldn't escape my estrangement from The Father by natural means. To willingly align myself with my traitorous flesh was to choose death over life. If only I'd offer myself as a living sacrifice9 by inviting the Spirit to replace my instincts with God's, I'd avoid the horrific fate of the unredeemed.

Now a few years removed from Christianity,10 I can appreciate the symbolic power of the Genesis story. The Book's authors hadn't yet examined their genetic heritage when they pinpointed humanity's main ingredients. Whether manually molded by a personified deity or perpetually regenerating on the fuel of our innate intelligence, we're essentially a mixture of dirt and magic. Either way, it's clear our bodies are made of the ground beneath our feet. Andour consciousness is still such a perplexing phenomenon that even the least spiritual among us are sometimes enchanted. Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran writes, "How can a three-pound mass of jelly that you can hold in your palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? Especially awe-inspiring is the fact that any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago."11

So we really have been the big stars all along. But the makeup of our species isn't unique; as writer Jostein Gaarder points out: "A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant's trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur."12 The imagery sets my heart on fire and my mind at ease. Since I literally belong to the earth, I can settle in for good. I can live this life instead of steeling myself for the next. I can trust my gut rather than compulsively censor thoughts that might summon The Enemy. I'm not ashamed of being human, and I don't feel hopelessly alienated because of my personal relationship with an authoritarian god. The fact that I'm no more objectively significant than the chair that props me up really takes the pressure off.

Still, I am an inconceivable miracle- a bright flame of consciousness temporarily animating a tiny speck of Earth. While the matter will recycle, the light will flicker out- I hope not a moment too soon or too late.

http://www.vadarama.com/

1. Psalm 139:13: For you created my inmost being;you knit me together in my mother's womb. (NIV)

2. Psalm 139:14: I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.(NIV)

3. popular Christian phrase that I always took for a verse in scripture; may be based in part on Jesus' prayer for new converts in John 17:16:They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
4. 2 Corinthians 4:7: But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not fromus.

5. another ubiquitous bit of Christianese that might aswell be scripture.

6. June 17, 1963 letter to Mary Willis Shelburne, printed in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3

7. Columbine victim Cassie Bernall was a martyr in her mom's book "She Said Yes," a story later undermined by eyewitness reports. Fact or fiction, it made a huge impact on me. I was intimidated by the daunting standard she set but inspired by her bravery.

8. Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

9. Romans 12:1-2: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing ofyour mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

10. Read my "Christian Extimony :http://www.vadarama.com/post/93284447479/from-eternity-to-here-my-christian-extimony.
11. from the introduction of The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Questfor What Makes Us Human

12. from his 1991 novel Sophie'sWorld

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-3951067909226351922014-07-27T06:10:00.001-04:002014-08-19T04:53:35.304-04:00Thomas Jefferson, the First Amendment, and Why We Can't Stop Fighting About Religous FreedomBy Valerie Tarico ~

In 1878, the Supreme Court of the United States wrestled with a religious freedom case focused on Mormons and polygamy. In the written decision, Chief Justice Morrison Waite explained the court's attempt to discern the intent of the First Amendment. He turned to someone who had been in the room when the Amendment was written—Thomas Jefferson:

Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association (8 id. 113), took occasion to say: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions,—I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." (emphasis mine).

Waite took Jefferson's words to be definitive: "Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order."

In other words, the Constitution guarantees a right to religious opinion, not behavior, and specifically not behavior that violates civic responsibilities. Lest we think freedom of thought is too trivial to have been the concern of America's founders, we need only look at how Muslim theocracies are attempting today to insert anti-blasphemy laws into the United Nations or how sanctions against blasphemers have recently been strengthened in places ranging from Russia to Pakistan to Ireland.

Based on this understanding of the U.S. Constitution, the Waite Court ruled that civil authorities had the right to regulate marriage, and that religious conscience claims offered no exemption. Twelve years later, bowing to legal and cultural pressures, the Latter Day Saints Church reversed its support for polygamy. But in the long run, neither Waite nor Jefferson himself has provided a satisfactory solution to American battles over religion in public life.

That is because the line between freedom of opinion and freedom of action is not nearly as clear as it sounds. As a psychologist, I would argue that belief dictates behavior, and strong belief is a strong dictator. If you step through my front door, how I respond depends on why I think you are there. If you come as a friend, I'm likely to be friendly. But if I believe strongly that you are there to rape and kill my daughter, I am likely to shoot you.

A sense of divine mission, if anything, lowers barriers between belief and behavior. Religious belief can be humble and hopeful, but often it is instead backed by righteous certitude that can trump social norms and even humanity's deepest ethical intuitions.

I once wrote an article entitled, "Why Good Christians Do Bad Things to Win Converts." The short answer to the title question is that religious beliefs can co-opt and redirect moral intuitions even in otherwise decent people. For example, earnest volunteer missionaries in Child Evangelism Fellowship feel driven to save kids from hell, and if this requires telling kindergartners they were born bad and deserve eternal torture, so be it. Hell-belief creates an imperative in which the end (salvation from torture) justifies deception, manipulation and fear induction. If I myself believed kindergarteners were slated for torture, I too might be willing to risk causing religious trauma syndrome.

Belief dictates behavior. It is impossible to disentangle creed and deed.

And so we are left with a tangle.

The dividing line drawn in the U.S. Constitution, clarified by Jefferson and reiterated by Waite, may allow civil law and religious pluralism to coexist, but it is inherently unsatisfying. It offers only the most abstract outline for addressing questions about religious freedom: yes to the right of individuals to formulate God and goodness according to the dictates of their own minds; yes to the right of the collective to constrain individual behavior for the sake of coherent civil society and the common good. From day one, lawmakers, the priesthood, corporate bodies, and individual citizens have been wrestling with how to make this work. And despite over 200 years of effort, we have failed to reach agreement on how to balance these competing demands.

The problem—Americans hate to admit this—is that we cannot have it all.

Pretending that we can grant deference to "sincerely held" religious belief while still sustaining a thriving pluralistic democracy—is an exercise in self-deception.By their very nature religions make truth claims and behavioral demands that are at odds with the goals and methods of civil society. Religion seeks to optimize wellbeing in some afterlife; civil society seeks to optimize wellbeing here on earth. Those two goals don't always align. Religion asserts rules for living based on appeals to authority. Ideally, social science proposes rules for living based in evidence and reason.

To further complicate the matter, the truth claims and behavioral demands of many religions are mutually exclusive. Christianity alone has fragmented into over 34,000 different denominations and non-denominations because Christians disagree emphatically about God's priorities and experience these differences as irreconcilable. And though Christianity in one form or another may be the majority spiritual worldview in America, it certainly isn't the only one.

Our religious and spiritual differences put us at odds about the most sacred aspects of our lives: whether we bring a child into the world, how we view the moral standing of other species, who we are willing to kill, and how we die. Furthermore, sincerely held religious belief can oblige believers to control other people and religious institutions to control outsiders. When religious believers are prevented from acting on these obligations, they feel violated, even persecuted.

By definition, religious orthodoxy seeks conformity. This means that increasing one person's religious freedom decreases the religious freedom of another. Giving religious rights to institutions limits the rights of individuals and vice versa.

Secular rules and responsibilities, including basic criminal codes and child protections, not infrequently countermand religious rules and responsibilities as understood by individual believers. American Evangelicals and conservative Catholics keep telling us this, loud and clear, and we should listen to them. Religion is whatever the believer says it is, and no secular or ecclesiastical authority has the power to say otherwise. Enabling a woman to prevent pregnancy, complying with anti-discrimination laws, stopping parents from whipping their children, allowing a cancer patient to manage his own dying process—these really do violate some people's religions.

Pretending that this isn't the case—pretending that we can grant deference to "sincerely held" religious belief while still sustaining a thriving pluralistic democracy—is an exercise in self-deception.

The best we can do is struggle to find balance points that respect individual autonomy while limiting the religious freedom to do harm to either America's democracy or citizens. The First Amendment, as interpreted by Jefferson, grants our government broad latitude to promote the general welfare in cases where religion might dictate otherwise. The 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, basis for the recent Hobby Lobby case, reverses the order of priority, granting sincere believers exemption from otherwise universal responsibilities and rules. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a church-state watchdog, is calling for legislation that would overturn RFRA altogether and revert to earlier standards, which are summarized in Ruth Ginsberg's Hobby Lobby dissent. Constitutional scholars Marci Hamilton and Leslie Griffin instead propose congress should adopt 10 exemptions from the blanket privilege RFRA grants to believers. As they put it, "There are some actions no law should permit even if the person says he was acting out of religious motivation." Their list includes child sex trafficking, terrorist acts, gender discrimination, housing discrimination, illegal drug use, endangering species at risk, and financial fraud but sidesteps current controversies like female genital mutilation and the right of religiously motivated parents to beat children or deny them education. Senators Mark Udall and Patty Murray introduced even narrower legislation to stop employers from interfering in an employee's family planning decisions.

Regardless of how broad or narrow the constraints on religion may be—no matter how compelling the evidence that limiting a given religious behavior promotes public health, child wellbeing, human rights, tax fairness, broad sustainable prosperity, or global relations—lawmakers can be assured that some people of faith will resist. Their sincerely held beliefs oblige them to do so. Religions cannot self-regulate any more than corporations can. That is why it is up to those on the outside to make our own best judgments about what is real and right and to set limits that honor universal ethical principles and wellbeing.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe to her articles at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.
 firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-52119037285829154012014-07-12T08:08:00.000-04:002014-07-27T06:11:30.876-04:00Ten Commandments That Would Have Changed the WorldBy Valerie Tarico ~

The American Bible Society funds an annual "State of the Bible" survey, and this spring the Christian Post cheered some of their findings: "The Bible continues to dominate both mind space and book retail space as America's undisputed best-seller." According to the study, conducted by Barna, over 88 percent of American homes contain a Bible. In fact, the average is 4.7 copies per household.

Now, I should note that a young non-religious friend once came home from school with a bright green Gideon's New Testament that she later touted as a reserve of fine rolling papers, which may explain why the household average isn't a solid 5.

But most Americans treat the Bible with some degree of deference.

Among adults who responded to the survey, 56% were classified as "pro-Bible" meaning they think it is the actual or inspired word of God with no errors. More than a quarter said that they read from the Good Book daily or at least several times a week. Fully half said the Bible contains everything a person needs to know to lead a meaningful life.

Surveys about religious behavior and belief are highly susceptible to social desirability bias, meaning the very human tendency to tell researchers want we think they want to hear and to polish our self-image a little.Survey responses are selfies with mood lighting and make-up.

Even so, it's hard to dispute the fact that the Bible has an enormous influence on our society, not only American society in 2014, but Western society going way back.

That's what makes all of the pages devoted to useless things like tribal spats, genealogies, rules for slaveholders, menstrual rituals, misogynist trash talk, and loquacious donkeys such a wasted opportunity. But even that would be less painful if core moral mandates like the Ten Commandments were of higher caliber.

Secularists had a good laugh a few years back, when Stephen Colbert nailed Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland, who had co-sponsored a bill requiring display of the Ten Commandments in the House and Senate chambers. "What are the Ten Commandments?" asked Colbert. Westmoreland came up with three.

In the darkest part of my heart I hope the esteemed congressman from Georgia spends the rest of his life wearing a scarlet H for hypocrite, even if no one can see it but him. But the truth is, very few Christians know the Ten Commandments from memory, for two very good reasons.

One reason is that the Bible actually gives two different sets of Ten Commandments, and they don't match. In Exodus 20, Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with a set of stone tablets. (This is the most popular version.) Then he gets mad and smashes them and has to go back up and get another set. And God says, "Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest." (Exodus 34:1). But then, apparently, God can't resist tweaking them a little. Ok, a lot.

Here, from the perennially popular King James Version, is the Exodus 20 set:

Ten Commandments From Exodus 20

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

And here, from Exodus 34, is the set with which God replaced them:

10 Commandments From Exodus 34

Thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.

All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.

Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.

Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.

Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

Setting aside the fact that females are relegated to a list of possessions that includes oxen, cattle and slaves; it's not hard to see why the shattered set has the broader appeal. (In fact, it appears they have had broader appeal for a long time; they are repeated, approximately, in the book of Deuteronomy.)

But seriously, the second reason few Christians have memorized the Ten Commandments is that even the popular set lacks the moral clarity and relevance of, say, the Golden Rule or All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

Think about what you've just read. Now imagine for a moment that you are a perfectly Good and All-Knowing Being. Imagine that your core attributes include love, truth, justice and mercy. Imagine that the qualities you want to spread in humankind are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness and kindness—what the writer of Galatians called the "fruit of the Spirit." Imagine that what you most want is for people to fulfill two "Great Commandments"—to love you and to love their neighbors as themselves—and that, as the writer of Matthew said, anything else you tell them is just a way to get there. Imagine that you are going to take one shot—well, ok, two—at dictating Ten Commandments that will be timeless and universally relevant, literally and metaphorically written in stone.

56% of American adults say the Bible is the actual or inspired word of God with no errors.You get where I'm going. With a little help from his weed, Bob Marley could have done better.

For two millennia, or maybe three if the Old Testament stories are rooted in history, people who sincerely believe the Ten Commandments to be the apogee of divine guidance have been doing things like pillaging, slaughtering other species, burning books and witches and infidels, owning sex slaves, beating children, conquering heathens, and generally deciding who counts and who doesn't based on gender hierarchy, religion, and tribal boundaries. Imagine how radically different Western history might have been if the Ten Commandments went something like this:

This above all shall ye take as my first command: Thou shalt treat living beings as they want to be treated. And the second commandment is like unto it:

In as much as be possible, thou shalt avoid afflicting pain or sorrow, which shall be unto thee my signs of ill and evil.

Thou shalt honor and protect all of creation, for I the LORD have created it that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt have sexual relations with neither human nor beast who chooseth not freely what pleasures thou mayest offer.

Thou shalt not beat the child, but by admonition and instruction with kindness shall teach both wisdom and skill.

Thou shalt do unto members of other religions and tribes as thou dost unto thine own.

I, the LORD your God, forbid thee to own other persons be they woman, man or child; neither shall ye subject any gender nor race one to another, but shall honor my image in all.

Thou shalt not destroy the lands of thine enemies, nor poison their well, nor salt their earth, neither shalt thou cut their shade tree nor burn their vineyard, nor wantonly slaughter the beast of their field.

Thou shalt wash thy hands before eating and shalt boil the drinking water that has been defiled by man or beast.

Thou shalt ask the questions that can show thee wrong, so that through the toil of many, from generation unto generation, ye may come to discover the great I AM.

This list of Ten Commandments would have changed the course of history. Think Crusades, or the Inquisition, or Salem, or the American Holocaust, or the slave trade, or Northern Ireland, or the Iraq War.

It would have changed history despite the fact that it is seriously flawed. Some points are redundant. Important concepts are missing. The thoughtful reader will immediately notice gaps or think of improvements. And that, precisely, is my point. People with their brains engaged and moral intuitions intact can do better.

The 56 percent of Americans who think the Bible is "the actual or inspired word of God with no errors" are stuck, anchored to the Iron Age. Many, when they get trapped by the ugly contradictions inherent in this position, do whatever moral gymnastics are necessary to defend the Book.

I once listened in amazement as an elderly pair of sweet and pacifist Jehovah's Witnesses tried to justify the child-slaughters perpetrated in the Old Testament by the Chosen People: The Israelites had to kill the other Palestinian villagers. They were so evil they practiced child sacrifice—they were the first abortionists, don't you know! And once the parents were dead it was simply a mercy to kill their children as well.

Whew. Try to wrap your brain around that one.

I said at the beginning of this article that the State of the Bible survey this year published some numbers that Bible believers find reassuring. Fortunately, that wasn't all the news. Between 2011 and 2013, the percent of American adults who believe the Bible is "just another book of teachings written by men that contains stories and advice" has almost doubled, from 10 to 19 percent. And the shift is being driven by Millennials.

There's hope for us yet.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe to her articles at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.

Related:

If the Bible Were Law, Would You Qualify for the Death Penalty?

Eleven Kinds of Verses Bible-Believers Like to Ignore

What the Bible Says About Rape and Rape Babies

15 Bible Texts Reveal Why "God's Own Party" is at War with Women

Captive Virgins, Polygamy, Sex Slaves: What Marriage Would Look Like if We Actually Followed the Bible firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-66133966415997159792014-07-02T16:49:00.002-04:002014-07-19T06:56:42.747-04:00The Problem With GodJo Parker- no more shame! ~

There are many questions about god I have been asking since I was a child. I have yet to find any acceptable answers to these questions. There are many problems with the christian concept of god. If god can do anything, can he be bad? If he can't be bad, he is limited and not all-powerful. If he can be bad, we can not trust him. What is Free Will? Biblical Free will is not "free". If someone holds a gun to your head, but tells you that you are free to go, do you really feel free in that choice? What is the biblical definition of unconditional love? Telling someone to love you "or else" is not unconditional love. It is, in fact, the very definition of conditional love. Threatening someone with eternal torture if they will not stay with you and worship you is maniacal and abusive.

If we study the bible, how can we walk away from it trusting god? We know from Genesis that god's word cannot be trusted. God breaks promises from the start. Remember that he gave humans Free Will in The Beginning. Before the first chapter in the bible is complete, he wipes out the entire planet in a fit of rage because these same humans exercised their free will. I think it should be renamed "expensive will". Also, according to Genesis, this rage-induced genocide was precipitated by the fact that God's own angels (the sons of god) went down to earth from heaven to have sex with women they found irresistible (the daughters of men). From the way it is written, we have no way to know if this sex was even consensual, or if the daughters of men were aware that they were fornicating with angels. Like in the garden, when God cursed all of man and womankind for a sin that was committed before Adam and Eve had the knowledge to discern between good and evil, this appears to be another case of humans being punished by God for wrongs they could not comprehend. We are to believe this god is just?

It is also important to note that God directly orders the capture and rape of virgins in the Old Testament, and it is also OT law that rape victims must marry their rapists. God readily condones the buying and trading of human beings as slaves, while implicitly stating that the Israelites should treat 'their own' people better. This is a God who: goes back on his word, commits acts of genocide, orders the murder and rapes of tens of thousands in the OT, and is wholly unjust in his condemnation of those who did not understand their so-called crimes. How can we even believe that if we repent and follow him, he will spare us eternal suffering? We know from Job that he has no qualms whatsoever with allowing his adversary to torture his most devoted follower, simply so he could show off how devoted Job is to him. I know I have witnessed men mistreat their girlfriends and wives in public, doing so to boost their ego and show off how their property obeys them at their disrespectful beck and call. This God is an ego-maniacal megalomaniac with extra mania and maniac on the side. He is jealous, vindictive, petty, and cruel. The bible says we were created in the image of God. No wonder we have so many problems.

Many Christians wish to downplay the Old Testament. They point out that God sent his son to die for our sins so that we may have eternal life. God did this as an act of incredible love, they say. There are too many problems with this to fully describe in one sitting. I know there are books on the subject. Here are a few of the problems. First, Jesus is the son of God, but he is also God. So, God sent himself to die for our "sin", which is a concept he created. There would be no such thing as sin, except he decided to make us defective and unworthy of him, calling this defect our 'sinful nature'. Coincidentally, the only cure for it is to grovel to him. Again, we have the Free Will to be cured of our problem (he can make us whole and forgiven), but we must repent and follow him… OR ELSE. He could have absolved our alleged sin that he gave us in any way he wanted. Why did he choose human sacrifice? And what is up with all the animal sacrifice in the OT? Why is this God so bloodthirsty, and why do more people not question it? Whatever, he chose human sacrifice because he wanted it that way.

Moving on…

Christians want to downplay the Old Testament, primarily because the OT God is so malicious and evil. But you can't discount it and be a true Christian. Jesus himself said that he came not to abolish the law of the OT, but to fulfill it! I'm going to skip past many other things that could be said here in order to cut to the chase. Christians like to ignore God and focus on Jesus. When protestant sects attempt to recruit new members (save souls, whatever), they highlight the loving, forgiving, peaceful nature of Jesus. While I could pull out quite a few problems with Jesus to show you, it is true that Jesus is much kinder, gentler, and softer than his dad. What is too often glossed over or completely ignored is that the point of Jesus is to get us to be with God, his father. Yes, that same evil, cackling, untrustworthy lunatic I was talking about earlier is THE reason for Jesus. If you are going to tell me that I should accept Jesus as my savior so that I might be forgiven and one day spend all of eternity with that God up there, YOU are crazy. I'd rather not. While the bible has plenty of unflattering things to say about the devil, he doesn't seem to do much beyond tempt people. If I thought I had to make a choice between the two, I would definitely choose eternal life in hell to escape that God. I don't make such a statement lightly. In fact, I made this choice at age 15, before I was able to fully discard this belief system. It was an important step in my journey to enlightenment.

How can women willingly follow this doctrine? If you are a christian woman, you are nothing but an afterthought to god and an asset to men. You are responsible for sin and for the cursing of all of mankind. It does not matter what kind of pious life you lead. Nothing can make up for what one woman did before you, thousands of years before you were born. This god holds all of us responsible for acts committed by people we never knew. They are known as generational curses, and modern christians still very much believe in them. According to the Old and New Testaments, you are property. If a man rapes you, you must marry your rapist. If you are married, there is no such thing as rape, because your husband OWNS your ass. It is your duty to lie there and take it. No is not an option. It is true that this verse is followed by I Peter 3:7, which states:

"Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered."

Any woman who is not fully insulted by that verse isn't accessing all of her mental faculties. This verse calls you weak and appeals to your husband to be understanding of that. Who is he accountable to, though? He's accountable to god- the same god who orders the kidnapping and rape of women by the thousands in the Old Testament- and god alone. Somehow, this accountability system does NOT make me feel more comfortable. Women, you are worth nothing more than cattle; and if you are barren, you aren't worth anything. You must not teach. You must be silent. Submit to your husband. Shut the fuck up. Your sin got us here! I often wonder how christian women have any self-esteem or self-worth, or if they simply had it beaten out of them in Sunday school.

But how does any christian, male or female, have any self-worth? Without god, you are nothing. Jesus said in John 15:5-6: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." Your life has no meaning or value without him. The bible tells us not to be concerned with things of this world. If the world is so horrible and bad, why did god make it? Why did he put us here? When I still believed, I came to a point that I had to question his motives. Everything seemed like a fucking joke to god, like he put us here for his amusement. If you read the bible, you will find that is exactly the truth, too. Those who don't comply with his "plan" will burn in hell for all eternity. Sounds great. Where do I sign up?

Of course, the biggest problem with god is that he's fictional, and human reason can easily defeat the concept. Once you realize that all of god's attributes, aside from being supposedly capable of smiting us, are petty, human qualities, it's easy to see that men made him up. Whoever did make him up did not do a very good job. Once Christians stop focusing on small passages and look at the larger themes and narrative, they can't be unseen. This is why Catholics were not allowed to read the bible for so many centuries. I hear new Christians discouraged from reading the bible alone all the time. They must be taught how to read it. It is for the same reason Islamic clerics do not advocate for literacy.

This book is far too problematic, as is the Koran. Why do so many people blindly follow? I think it's difficult to break away from what is socially acceptable, popular, and pushed upon us as children. I know that my family is not accepting of me as an unbeliever. Many of us were indoctrinated, lost, lonely, confused, and easily led. But this is no excuse! If you are questioning this garbage, you are not alone. There are others out there. And there are people, like me, who have made it through safely to the other side.

The problem with god is that we need him because we're broken. How do we know we're broken? Because god told us we are. How do we become whole? Well, god has the answer for that, too, coincidentally. It's a house of cards. It looks formidable and impenetrable, but ask a few simple questions, and it all comes crashing down.

It took me a lifetime to finally admit the truth: none of this matters. It's not true. What happens to me when I die? I don't know, but I have no control over it. I hope nothing happens. It took me many years to get here because I believed the most damaging message this religion purports, that I am broken and worthless. I needed for this god to be real. I needed something to fix me. I understand today that I am okay. I am valuable. I was not born sinful and ugly and needing redemption. Repent? For what? My heart is not ugly. My heart is beautiful.

Some may ask why I felt the need to throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater. The answer is simple: the baby Jesus died a long, long time ago, and the bathwater is filthy.
 email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266985040290242663.post-43696891821055857672014-06-29T09:23:00.003-04:002014-07-15T04:37:18.228-04:00Good News Club Targets Children for Summer Salvation; One City Fights BackBy Valerie Tarico ~

In past summers, Child Evangelism Fellowship has targeted children in Boston, Denver, Chicago, Little Rock, Salt Lake City, and the Twin Cities for conversion to their brand of biblical fundamentalism. This summer they chose Portland, Oregon. It may have been a mistake.

Some child advocates argue that proselytizing children for religious conversion is immoral. By contrast, Child Evangelism Fellowship boldly proclaims what they see as a God-given mission:

Child Evangelism Fellowship® is a Bible-centered worldwide organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.

One of their key tools is an after-school program called the Good News Club, which takes place in public grade schools across the country. Good News Clubs mix snacks, games, art projects and stories with upbeat moral lessons and the theology of blood sacrifice. In a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, Child Evangelism Fellowship argued that they were entitled to operate in public schools because they are running a social and moral enrichment program akin to Scouting.

Much to the dismay of church-state watchdogs, a majority of the court agreed, but to call Good News Clubs moral enrichment by secular standards or to liken it to Scouting, is a stretch. Despite Evangelical influences in the Boy Scouts, scouting programs to a large degree emphasize virtues that are prized across both secular and religious wisdom traditions. Good News Clubs teach dark, divisive and potentially traumatic doctrines that are unique to fundamentalist forms of Christianity.

Attorney Eric Cernyar participated in Good News Club as a child. He now monitors Child Evangelism Fellowship activities and documentsclub practices such as deceptive marketing, authoritarian conditioning, diminishing nonbelievers, shame indoctrination, fear indoctrination, attacks on science education, and the cult technique of "mind control."

The Good News Club curriculum is filled with over 5000 references to sin and thousands more to obedience, punishment, and Hell. It stresses Old Testament narratives of a retributive God who must punish sin, warns children that they will suffer an eternity in Hell if they refuse to believe, and stresses complete obedience as the supreme value. Good News Club tells children as young as preschoolers that they have "dark" and "sinful" hearts, were born that way, and "deserve to die" and "go to Hell."

One Good News teaching tool is the "wordless book" in which colored pages represent key doctrines of atonement theology. The black page represents sin, seen as evil born into every human that keeps a person from getting to heaven (represented by a gold page). Red is the blood of Christ, whose death was necessary payment for sin. White represents the pure righteousness of Jesus and people who are saved by his atoning sacrifice. It's as simple as "A,B,C"—Admit your sin, Believe Jesus can save you, and Choose Jesus as your savior. Green, the color of growth, represents the newly-saved child's life as a budding Christian.

Each summer since 2008, Child Evangelism Fellowship has run a saturation blitz called Good News Across America in which "hundreds of volunteers" descend on a targeted city to run Bible schools "in community centers, parks, apartment complexes, playgrounds, boys and girls clubs – anywhere children gather." Child Evangelism Fellowship boasts of reaching 2700 Denver children through these five-day "evangelistic clubs" and swelling attendance at one church from 75 to 235, almost half of whom were children.

This summer over 100 missionaries will set up shop in Portland from July 14-26 when they will partner with 32 local churches to recruit children as young as five years old to summer day camps. If all goes according to plan, come fall these churches will institute Good News Clubs in Portland public schools. But some locals aren't so keen on the idea. They point to the experience of Seattle parent, John Lederer, after a local church "planted" a Good News Club in his daughter's grade school. Lederer was troubled by the treats used to entice children and the way volunteers blurred the line between school and club. But he also hated the effect on the community. "Before we were all Loyal Heights parents together. Now we're divided into groups and labels: you're a Christian, you're the wrong kind of Christian, you're a Jew, you're an atheist."

Good News Club tells children as young as preschoolers that they have "dark" and "sinful" hearts, were born that way, and "deserve to die" and "go to Hell."

For perhaps the first time, this summer Good News Across America will face organized opposition. As volunteers step up preparations for the Portland blitz, a coalition called Protect Portland Children is stepping up outreach to local media, parents, child advocates, and school administrators. Protect Portland Children says they mean no disrespect for local churches and volunteers. Rather, they hope to "spread the word that the Good News Club's extreme teachings can be psychologically harmful to children" and that Child Evangelism Fellowship "is now targeting Portland with a major recruiting campaign." "One of our goals is to help the next city they target and to make this a national conversation," says member Kaye Schmitt.

Protect Portland Children points to the investigative expose by journalist Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club,. Like Seattle's Lederer, Stewart dug deeper after witnessing Child Evangelism in action at her daughter's school. And they are taking tips from Cernyar, whose website Intrinsic Dignity examines legal precedents related to use of public facilities, providing guidelines and models for parents and administrators who oppose religious bullying in public schools. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, Cernyar urges parents and district administrators to push back: "It is possible for a school district to regulate its forum to protect its students from psychologically and emotionally harmful after-class activities."

Child Evangelism brings to the fight the clout of a national organization with over 700 paid staff in the U.S. and Canada alone and a seasoned legal team. They face a loose-knit group of volunteers. To speak in biblical archetypes, it's a story of David against Goliath. But in one regard the opposing sides may well be evenly matched: their sense of righteous mission. On the Intrinsic Dignity site, Cernyar puts it this way:

Children have a right to develop in conditions of freedom, open inquiry, and empathy, and in respect of their inherent dignity and equality. Our mission is to challenge practices—beginning with private organizations infiltrating our nation's public elementary schools—that shame and terrify children and assault their self-esteem.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus sends his disciples out into the world with these words, "be wise as serpents and harmless as doves." It's a shame that some Bible believers seem to have missed the second half of the sentence.

To follow this issue or lend your support, Protect Portland Children requests that you "like" their Facebook page.

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Subscribe to her articles at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.

Related:

Our Public Schools Their Mission Field

Don't Want Pro-Genocide Bible Lessons in Your Public School? Fight Back! Here's How.
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