Brain Is Ignorant

Marshall Brain is Ignorant

2011-01-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome, Christians and atheists alike!

Last updated September 8th, 2009.

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If you're interested in a refutation of Marshall Brain's atheist propaganda websites, you've come to the right place.

Are you looking for a refutation of Why Wont God Heal Amputees? Start here.
Are you looking for a refutation of God Is Imaginary? Start here.
Are you looking for a short, easy to read summary of my God Is Imaginary refutation? Click here.
Are you interested in finding out why prayers go unanswered? Start here.
Are you looking for news and updates? Click here.

Read what you see with an open mind. There will be sarcasm. There will be some punches pulled. But none of it will be without factual arguments and an exposition of Mr. Brain's fallacies and absurdities.

Sincerely,
Patrick Dunnevant

Chapter 26 - What does it all mean?

2009-09-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 26 - It means that we must continue doing research."

Let us pause for a moment and review the evidence that we have seen in the prior 25 chapters. I feel like this is what we've already been doing. If God exists, how do we explain all of the different things that we have seen? By realizing that, if God exists, none of these things would disprove God's existence. There is enough independent evidence that suggests that he does to make this meaningless.

How do we explain the death of Neva Rogers? (see Chapter 1) Human negligence, violence, and sin.

How do we explain the 39 houses that were destroyed on Pinecastle Street? (see Chapter 2) Natural disaster.

How do we explain the death of Ranika? (see Chapter 4) Human incompetence.

How do we explain the way that God ignores amputees? (see Chapter 5) God doesn't "ignore" amputees anymore than he ignores anyone whose prayers he refuses to answer positively.

How do we explain the fact that Christians need health insurance? (see Chapter 6) Because Christians want to be able to productively function in society too.

How do we explain the fact that you cannot move a mountain? (see Chapter 7) Because the verses in question are likely not literal, showing clear evidence of hyperbolic language.

How do we explain the fact that bad things consistently happen to good people? (see Chapter 8) Because of human will, and therefore the tendency to sin. That's merely the way things are.

How do we explain God's plan? (see Chapter 8) God's plan is not, and has never been, literally planning out every action that will take place, which would completely remove free will.

How do we explain the fact that Christians who pray have exactly the same odds of winning in Las Vegas as people who don't pray? (see Chapter 9) Because God probably doesn't want to encourage and enable greed, or gambling.

How do we explain the fact that so many people die on battlefields when all of them are praying? (see Chapter 10) Because people die in war. This shouldn't be incredibly surprising.

How do we explain the fact that God is a huge proponent of slavery? (see Chapter 13) By pointing out that the type of slavery in the Old Testament is quite different from the concept of "slavery" that we are more familiar with in the Ancient Near East.

How do we explain God's statement in Exodus 21:20 where he says, "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod... he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property." How can God encourage humans to beat other humans? (see Chapter 13) Because beating was a form of punishment in the ANE for both slaves and free people.

How do we explain the fact that Exodus 21, where God is telling us it is OK to beat our slaves as long as we do not kill them, is the chapter that immediately follows Exodus 20, where God enumerates the Ten Commandments? Why would we hold up the Ten Commandments as the immutable and sacred word of God, while at the same time knowing that Exodus 21 is ridiculous? (see Chapter 13) Well, because we don't hold up Exodus 21 as ridiculous. We understand it by researching the historical context.

How do we explain the fact that God demands animal and human sacrifice? (see Chapter 14) By pointing out that animal sacrifice has been observed in literally every culture, and by saying that God never "demanded" a human sacrifice.

How do we explain God's hatred of women? (see Chapter 15) By pointing out that his "hatred of women" is imaginary, and that you're poorly interpreting scripture.

How do we explain the fact that God massacres so many children in the Bible? (see Chapter 16) By pointing out the context of each event, showing the true motive and legitimate reason behind the actions, and recognizing when the Bible merely records something as having happened rather than God commanding it.

How do we explain the fact that the Bible is so full of irrelevant, incorrect and useless material? (see Chapter 17) By pointing out that you are a decontextualized bigot who can't understand why if the meaning of something isn't immediately apparent, it it still isn't "irrelevant," etc.

How do we explain the fact that the Bible tells us to kill all homosexuals? (see Chapter 17) By pointing out that this commandment was not given to "us," but to the people who signed on to the covenant, in order to keep the society from dying out, and by also explaining how it's not "homosexuals" who were ordered to be killed, but people who practiced homosexual activity. And believe me, there's a huge difference.

How do we explain the fact that the Bible is supposedly inspired by an all-knowing being, yet the author of the Bible knows no more than the primitive men who wrote it? (see Chapter 17) Well, we would articulate that there's a great deal that appears to be prophetic knowledge in the Bible, but qualify that by saying that the Bible was still written by men.

How do we explain the fact that Jesus never proved that he is God? (see Chapter 19) By asking you to define what you mean by "prove," since apparently walking on water, feeding five thousand or more people with a scrap lunch, and resurrecting from the dead after telling people it would happen wasn't enough.

How do we explain the fact that Jesus has never appeared to anyone after his death? (see Chapter 20) By telling you about the five hundred people who are said to have seen Jesus after his death.

How do we explain the fact that we have to eat Jesus' body and drink his blood? (see Chapter 21) By explaining the difference between literal cannibalism and ritualistic communion.

How do we explain the fact that 10 million children die every year of simple things like starvation? (see Chapter 22) Human greed and apathy.

How do we explain the fact that Jesus -- the all-powerful, prayer-answering creator of the universe -- needs your money? (see Chapter 24) By clearly postulating that God doesn't need a cent, but churches need money to pay the bills.

How do we explain the fact that there are a billion Muslims who think that all the Christians are delusional, and there are two billion Christians who think all the Muslims are delusional? (see Chapter 25) By explaining that we don't actually think anyone is "delusional;" we merely believe that they are mistaken.

How do we answer all of these questions? With careful consideration and evidence.

Here is the thing that I would like to help you understand. If we assume that God exists, then each of these questions presents us with its own individual mystery. I don't see that as being true. None of these have been all that mysterious. I fairly easily answered every one of them. Each question creates a paradox that requires excuses, rationalizations and convoluted explanations. But none of my explanations were any of those. If you think they are, you must demonstrate it to be true rather than merely assert. These paradoxes and rationalizations are extremely uncomfortable because they make no sense. You're not thinking hard enough, then. If we assume that God exists, then God is ridiculous. Because you're not trying even remotely hard enough to understand God.

On the other hand, if we assume that God is imaginary, then all of these questions are very easy to answer. Our world makes complete sense. Actually, these questions may often become more difficult to understand, and the entire rest of the world becomes a huge absurdity.

What you realize, if you take the time to probe into your religion and think about it deeply, is that all of this evidence is telling you something important. It is telling you, clearly and concisely, that God is imaginary. False, false, a hundred times false. There is so much more evidence outside of this essay here that demonstrates the existence of God.

If you are a Christian, I realize that your immediate reaction may be to completely ignore what you have read here and turn away from it. Rather than turning away, however, I would ask you to examine all of the evidence that you have seen in this book. I have, and you have come up empty. Think about the questions at the top of this page. Give your mind permission to understand what the evidence actually means. I urge you to do the same, then, and allow yourself to admit that you may be making a terrible mistake. Allow your brain to analyze your religion rationally. What you will find is that all of this evidence points in the same direction: God is imaginary. Most of it points in the direction of you being in huge error.

Reviewing the evidence

In this book we have looked at God from many different angles. What we have found is that there is no evidence for God's existence, except the creation of the universe out of nothing, the fine-tuning of the universe, the objective moral values we see in the world, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, the personal experience of literally billions of people, the logical absolutes that we use to even make these arguments, and the very ontology of God. God does not answer prayers except for the thousands upon thousands of prayers that even people within my inner circle of friends have uttered that have gone radically answered. God did not write the Bible except by inspiring it, which is different from dictation. God has not incarnated himself except in Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit which dwells within us. In other words, God is imaginary only if you don't really look around you.

How do we know, for sure, that God does not answer prayers? As described in section 1, we simply pray and watch what happens. Odd. I tried that, and prayer worked. What we find is that nothing happens. No matter how many people pray, no matter how often they pray, no matter how sincerely they pray, no matter how worthy the prayer, nothing ever happens. Except for yesterday, when I prayed for something, and it happened. If we pray for anything that is impossible -- for example, regenerating an amputated limb or moving Mt. Everest to Newark, NJ -- it never happens. Except when people I know prayed for a blind person to receive sight, and they immediately were able to see. We all know that. The idea that "praying for impossible things means they won't happen" should theoretically be a no-brainer, if you think about it. If they're impossible, they are not possible to answer. If we pray for anything that is possible, the results of the prayer will unfold in exact accord with the normal laws of probability. Except the situation above, right? It is easy to demonstrate this fact. For example, if we ask 1,000 devout Christians to pray that a coin toss come up heads, and we then have all one thousand of the Christians flip a coin one time, about 500 of them will see their coins land tails. Have you tried this experiment, or are you merely assuming? If we repeat the experiment, the same thing will happen. Has this been proved, or are you making a guess? In every situation where we statistically analyze the effects of prayers, looking at both the success AND the failure of prayer, we find that prayer has zero effect. Not the case, as there are actual scientific studies that have determined that prayer has had a positive effect. That happens, always, because God is imaginary. Every time a Christian says, "The Lord answered my prayer," what we are seeing instead is a simple coincidence. Somehow I doubt that praying for a girl who is mute and deaf to receive her hearing and speech and having them both suddenly happen is "simple coincidence." Christians never talk about failed prayers, but if we look at all the prayers that fail as well as the prayers that work, a statistical analysis proves that God does not answer prayers. Christians do talk about "failed" prayers. I've heard stories of them all over. But it's usually to demonstrate how what we see as a "failure" ultimately worked out for good. See section 1 for details.

How do we know, for sure, that God did not write the Bible? As discussed in section 2, we simply read the Bible and note how uncomfortable it is in so many places. Being uncomfortable with it makes no logical claim on who the author is. We note that God is a huge proponent of slavery in the Bible, despite our absolute certainty as normal human beings that slavery is a moral abomination. The fact that we can be "absolutely certain" about a moral judgment implies that there are moral absolutes, and therefore that God exists. We note that God is a huge misogynist in the Bible, despite our certainty that misogyny is a moral abomination as well. How do we know this apart from a transcendent moral standard, Mr. Brain? We note that God kills huge numbers of babies and small children in the Bible, and we know that this is both an atrocity and horrifically disgusting. Etc. We note that God, who is supposed to be all-knowing, knows no more than the primitive men who actually wrote the Bible. And so on. Yes, merely repeating yourself ought to make it sink in. Anyone who takes the time to actually read the Bible rapidly reaches the conclusion that the Bible was written by primitive men, not by an all-knowing God. See section 2 for details.

How do we know, for sure, that Jesus was a normal human being? As described in section 3, we can ask this simple question: If a man were to proclaim himself to be the son of God today, what would we do? We would want to see incontrovertible proof. Jesus does not get a pass because he lived 2,000 years ago. We note the fact that none of Jesus' miracles left any lasting evidence. But what does that even mean? For example, even though Jesus proclaimed that anyone can move a mountain, we note that no one -- not even Jesus -- has moved a mountain. Likely because it was a hyperbolic statement, which would be quite clear if anyone else had said it. All of Jesus' miracles are either faith healings or magic tricks, and we all know that faith healers and magicians are frauds. Of course, that statement is so broad and vague, and unsupported, that we can dismiss it immediately. We also note that there is no evidence that Jesus is resurrected except for four early accounts, some by eyewitnesses of the event, a variety of creeds which can be dated back to within a few years of the event, and an unexplainable belief in a resurrection. Jesus could easily appear to each of us in the flesh to prove that he is resurrected, just as he did with Paul the mass murderer who ultimately went on to be responsible for spreading Christianity enough that it still exists today. Yet Jesus never does that because it is completely unnecessary. If he did, there would be thousands of videos floating around on the Web showing Jesus' appearances. There are thousands of videos floating around of miracles happening. Do you believe any of them? We note that Jesus says dozens of things in the Bible that are plainly wrong. Like? We note that even though Jesus is the all-powerful creator of the universe and promises to answer prayers, all of his churches depend on the money of mere mortals to support themselves, which is perfectly understandable given that Christians are not above the law. And so on. It is obvious that Jesus was a man like any other. See section 3 for details.

It is also interesting to note that, by proving any one of these things, we have automatically proven the other two. Are you serious? Do you really believe that by proving Jesus was just a man, we have proved that atheism is true? For example, once we know that the Bible was written by primitive men rather than God, then it is automatic that God does not answer prayers and that Jesus was a completely normal human being. Complete hogwash. Even if the Bible was indeed written by men, that says nothing about the reality of God. That is such a non sequitur. The Bible is the book that tells us about prayer and Jesus, so if the Bible is meaningless then prayer and Jesus are meaningless as well. I honestly don't see how someone could make such a grievous logical fallacy and not realize it. The fact is that we have proven all three things separately. Jesus is not God, the Bible is not the word of God, and God never answers prayers. These three things are true, therefore, both directly and by association. One hundred percent false. There is absolutely no logical connection between them.

Understanding your delusion

In this book there is a tremendous amount of evidence showing us that God is imaginary. You have just seen 25 chapters of good, solid, easily-digested evidence. It is good evidence, it is, it is, it IS good evidence! I'm going to keep saying it until you believe it. It's good evidence! It would be easy to present a hundred more chapters just like them. You tried to make fifty other proofs, but most of them are repeats of this website. The evidence is all around us, so why don't you believe in God?

On the other hand, there is no evidence showing that God is real. Broken record. Broken record. Broken record. A Christian can point to prayer, but it is easy to disprove the efficacy of prayer with statistical analysis (see Section 1). A Christian can point to the Bible, but it is easy to show the myriad problems with the Bible (see Section 2). There is no verifiable evidence for Christians to present. What about philosophical arguments, like the Kalam Cosmological Argument? You never address that here.

Is God real, or is he imaginary? At this point, we have our answer. We can look at all of this evidence and we can see that God is imaginary. Christianity is a delusion. Religion in general is a delusion. Sigh.

I understand that the word "delusion" is uncomfortable because it has strong connotations of mental illness. However, it is the correct word in the English language to use. No, it isn't. The dictionary defines "delusion" in the following way:

A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence. [ref] But you left out the second half of the definition! What about the part that says, "especially as a symptom of mental illness?" You wouldn't want to insinuate that all Christians are mentally ill, would you?

Would you?

When I say that religion is a delusion, I am not intending that in an insulting way or a derogatory way. Given the rest of the writing, you are. Instead, I am speaking to you as a friend would. I don't know about your social circle, but most of my friends wouldn't call me "delusional," or insinuate I have mental illness for holding a particular belief. My goal here is not to criticize you for your religious beliefs, but instead to help you to recover from your delusion. Yes, because I'm sick.

I know what you are thinking. If you are a Christian, you are thinking, "I am not delusional. Christ is the way, the truth and the life." What if I could show you your delusion? Haven't you been trying? What if I could hold up a mirror that would allow you to see your own delusion in the reflection? If you would like to clearly see how the delusion of Christianity works, please read Understanding Delusion. Basically, this essay says that because we apparently look at Muslims and think they're delusional, Christians are also delusional because we're just as wrong. But as usual, that isn't demonstrated.

All religion is delusion. With any luck you can see that now, and you can start down the road to recovery -- you can begin the process of healing that will free you from your own personal delusions. Stop calling me mentally ill.

What does it mean?

There are three reasons why it is important for us to speak honestly and openly about the delusion of religion:

Religion truly is a delusion. That's not a reason to speak about it. You told me that there were three reasons for why we should speak about why religion is a delusion. One reason can't be "Because it's a delusion." That's the equivalent of me saying, "We should talk about the stupidity of socialists because they're stupid." By allowing this delusional behavior to persist unchallenged, we do ourselves damage. What damage?

We currently have significant free-speech and free-thinking issues around religion, which means religious people have just as much free speech as you.

It is time for us, as an intelligent species, to understand the reasons why human beings invent religions, and to begin addressing those reasons rationally rather than delusionally. Yes, we must remove religion so we can progress as a species. Because religion is holding us back. Pardon my skepticism.

Each of these points is important. Let's look at them one by one so that we can understand what they mean.

Reason #1: Religion truly is delusional [It's important to speak about religion being a delusion because it's a delusion.]

Let's start by asking a question: Does it matter? In this book we have proven, conclusively, that God does not answer prayers, that God did not write the Bible and that Jesus is not God. I don't even have to say anything here. In other words, the God of popular religion is imaginary. But does it really matter? What difference does it make if half of the people in the United States want to believe in an imaginary being? What does it hurt?

Let's ignore the danger that can be found in the ashes of 9/11/2001, and the subsequent events in Afghanistan, Iraq, Madrid and London. There are many zealous and misguided Muslims who believe that, through Jihad, they must kill non-Muslims -- Christians and Jews in particular. Let's ignore that. So now we're talking about Islam, not Christianity, or Jesus, or the Bible.

Let's ignore the ill effects of religion around the world over the last several decades. We have Muslims killing Christians (and vice versa) (vice versa? Not nearly as many, certainly), Jews killing Muslims (and vice versa), Protestants killing Catholics (and vice versa), Shiites killing Sunnis (and vice versa), white people killing black people (and vice versa), Republicans killing Democrats (and vice versa), National Socialists killing Jews (and not vice versa), Communists killing Christians (and not vice versa), etc., etc. All of it is completely pointless, because all human gods are imaginary. But let's ignore all of that killing and destruction. People will kill regardless of the motive, Mr. Brain.

Let's also ignore all of the insanity that religion has brought us through the ages -- the crusades, the witch hunts and all the rest, which has killed maybe a couple million people in the last two thousand years. Kind of like the atomic bomb, which killed a quarter of a million people in a single day. Let's ignore it because it's all water under the bridge.

Even in the United States -- a modern, advanced nation -- religion creates problems. The delusion created by Christianity is so extreme and so pervasive at the moment that we have Supreme Court justices and politicians who publicly claim that God handed down the Ten Commandments to us in the Bible (see chapter 13). These justices and politicians are speaking about a book that openly advocates slavery and misogyny along with many other notions that are beyond absurd. Yet no one can question their claims in public because it is far too dangerous (see next section for details). Oh, please. You are questioning their claims in public.

To have otherwise intelligent Americans babbling on about an imaginary God like this is dangerous, if for no other reason than this one: If so many people are this delusional in the area of religion, it makes you wonder where else they harbor equally significant delusions in their thinking. He who asserts must prove. Demonstrate your case. In addition, religion in America is now actively restraining scientific research and social progress. If that's the most you can cry about, then religion can hardly be called "dangerous." The problem that American scientists are having with stem cells is just one of the many manifestations of the problem today. Well, if they really wanted to, they could go somewhere else to do their research.

There is also growing evidence that the delusion of religion may cause significant social dysfunction. Statistical research is revealing the problems that go with religious delusion. For example, a recent article in the Journal of Religion and Society points out that religion is correlated to the significant social difficulties that we can see in America:

In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies (Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a "shining city on the hill" to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic measures of societal health. [ref]

Yet even the Journal of Religion and Society admits that this correlation does not equal causation, and they still don't know if society is dysfunctional because of religion, or the society turns to religion because it is dysfunctional. Most studies that have this sort of conclusion opt for the latter option.

Of course, you'd likely say that's only because of their fear of religious backlash.

The prevailing view is that religion is harmless even if it is delusional. Actually, the "prevailing view" is that religion is not a delusion. You're still a minority view, remember. That turns out not to be the case. America is the most religious country of those studied in the developed world. America also has the biggest problems in terms of things like homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion.

How ridiculous. What's so interesting about this study is that it ignores any evidence to the contrary. It puts America up as the Christian nation and compares it to "secular" nations like those in Europe, but of course ignores the "secular" nations that have incredibly high rates of abortion, STD rates, etc. New Zealand, for example, is 40% non-religious, and has one abortion for every two live births.

Religion is delusion. A planet full of delusional people is not healthy. And yet, this is exactly what we have, and most religious people aren't murderous, or even remotely dangerous.

Reason #2: We must freely discuss the delusion of religion [It's important to speak about religion being a delusion because we must freely discuss the delusion of religion.]

Religion creates significant free-speech and free-thinking issues both here in the United States and around the world. Let me help you to understand what I mean when I say that, and offer a solution to the problem.

Let's imagine that any normal, intelligent American were to stand up in public today and say something like this: "I do not believe that an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God wrote the Bible or the Ten Commandments. The reason why I don't believe it is because the Bible openly advocates slavery and misogyny in both the Old and New Testaments. God could not love slavery or hate women." See section 2 for details on his statement.

Within seconds of making this honest, completely rational statement, that American will be branded as an atheist. Likely because most people don't make statements like that unless they're atheists.

In today's America, being branded as an atheist is poisonous. It is as poisonous as being branded during the McCarthy era in the 1950s. So people are being tried for being atheists? Imagine someone who has been branded as an atheist trying to run for public office in America today. Like Pete Stark, the atheist congressman. I'm sure he's being routed out and tried for being an atheist, and I'm sure his constituency would never let him into office because of their bigoted ways. Oh wait. Many christians are so polarized and so sensitive right now that they will crush anyone with an opinion contrary to their own. Once branded as an atheist, the candidate is attacked in the public forum. Just like candidates are attacked for openly expressing views based on the Bible. Right? Just like people who are against gay marriage, irrespective of their actual views, are immediately branded religious fanatics or Christian fundamentalists.

Then look at the rest of the world. In many Islamic countries, women cannot freely choose how they dress, much less what they do, where they work or how they behave. They often cannot even drive a car. The repression of women's freedom in Islamic countries is well known, and ridiculous. Okay, so make a website specifically addressing the problems of Islam. Don't blame "religion" for something that is the fault of "Islam."

There really is only one solution. It is time for Americans, both religious and non, to openly discuss the evidence showing that God is imaginary. Which we've been doing for a very long time. Let's stop hiding the discussion, or attacking it. Let's talk openly. Let us have an honest, open, rational, civil conversation about all of the evidence that we have seen in this book. Okay. Let's have a public debate, just like hundreds upon hundreds of philosophers, authors, speakers, and other professionals are doing in front of audiences of thousands of people. Let's make documentaries that lampoon religion and show them in theaters and make millions of dollars, like Bill Maher. Let's be like George Carlin and be one of the most renowned comedians of all time, all the while belittling religion.

If we have that debate in an open forum, the majority of us will reach agreement that God is imaginary. Really? Does that line up with the actual post-debate surveys taken? Because you can go find the statistics of how many people thought the Christian won or the atheist won on almost every debate held on the subject. The reason why we will come to that conclusion is because the evidence, as presented in this book, overwhelmingly favors it. Then why aren't thousands of people deconverting after attending debates about the existence of God? Why, for example, did Christopher Hitchens get absolutely spanked in his debate with William Lane Craig?

We must also recognize as a society that there is no such thing as an atheist. Funny, that's what Ray Comfort believes too. We must end the branding and the name-calling. Click here for details. Because calling yourself a "Rational" is not branding or name-calling Christians as immediately irrational or insane.

Reason #3: Understanding why people create religions [This is the only one that remotely makes sense as a reason.]

What I am proposing to you in this book is both quite profound and quite baffling. It is this: Everything that we associate with religion is imaginary. God, the Bible, Jesus, the resurrection, prayer, the Ten Commandments, the creation story, your soul, everlasting life, heaven... every bit of it is the product of human imagination. The same goes for Allah, the Koran and so on. As a species we have believed all of this religious dogma for centuries, and most of us believe it today to some degree. And yet... it is all fiction. It is just as fictional as were the gods of the Egyptians, the Romans and the Aztecs. We have seen 25 chapters of clear, unambiguous evidence and all of it supports this conclusion. Clear and unambiguous...Broken record, broken record.

If it is so obvious that God is imaginary, then why might half of the American population profess belief in God? Interesting question. If the evidence is actually all around us, how is that millions of people aren't becoming atheists daily? We have asked this question throughout the book because the whole situation is profoundly strange. Why would we, as a species, create all of this mythology and nonsense over and over again through the millennia? We must do it for a reason. Perhaps because there seems to be a lot of evidence of the supernatural, and humanity attempts to relate to it in some way through religion.

If we can understand the reasons and deal with them rationally rather than through the silliness and mythology that is religion, we actually can do ourselves a great deal of good.

There are two important reasons why humans fabricate all of our religions:

People invent God as a way to cope with death. Many humans are terrified by death for some reason. They invent religion as a way to deal with their terror. How could this be true of Judaism, a religion that had no concrete afterlife concept?

People invent God as a proxy for goodness. People want a way to promote "goodness" and eliminate "evil" in their societies. It's interesting that now you're putting "goodness" and "evil" in quotes, as if they're not legitimately real things, and yet when it suits your interest, you treat things as "moral abominations." In the past, inventing an imaginary God has been perceived to be one way to facilitate that process. Of course, this has nothing to do with Christianity, or at least why it was founded.

Death and goodness are important to people. They touch on fundamental human emotions. If we can separate death and goodness from the mythology of God so that we can understand them and work with them in a positive way, we can actually do something very helpful. We can create a rational world for ourselves that is focused on benefiting mankind. A utopia, if you will. Right? Except all of the attempts to create a secular, "rational" utopia have ended in the genocide of millions of people.

In chapter 27 and chapter 28, we will talk about death and goodness. We need to understand the reasons why we fabricate our gods and then act on these reasons rationally. I look forward to your attempts to grapple with explaining them in a naturalistic way.

Once we understand why we create religion, we can begin creating the social structures that will replace religion. The remainder of the book discusses this process. Oh, joy.

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2009. All rights reserved.

Chapter 25 - Reviewing the evidence about Jesus

2009-06-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 25 - Trying and failing to redeem myself."

If we were to talk to a Christian about Jesus, the conversation might go something like this:

Chris: You are completely wrong about Jesus. Jesus is Lord! Jesus is resurrected and Jesus sits on the right hand of God the father almighty!

Bright: Oh, hey guys! Good to see you two again.

Norm: Why do you believe that?

Chris: I know it in my heart. I talk to Jesus every day. I have a loving, living relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ!

Bright: What about the fact that there's a great deal of evidence to support it, Chris? I think we should stop pretending that Norm isn't aware of these things.

Norm: How do you know that Jesus is resurrected?

Chris: It says so right in the Bible. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were real people. So was Paul. They have no reason to lie. They saw the resurrected Jesus.

Norm: I understand what you are saying. The thing I would like to help you understand is that the Bible is full of problems. There is no reason why we should believe the Bible when it talks about the resurrection.

Chris: The Bible is not full of problems!

Norm: That is what we saw in Section 2. The Bible thinks that slavery is great, that women are to be hated, that people should be sacrificing animals and that God loved killing children. We can open the Bible to nearly any page and find nonsense. We know that the story of Noah is nothing but a story. And so on. There are problems with the Bible everywhere we look. Given all of these problems, there is no reason to trust anything the Bible says.

Bright: Rather, it regulated a process far different from what you would call "slavery," it values women as precious children of God, and features God enacting judgment on individuals (saying nothing about God "loving" anything). Of course, you're right on one thing...It does say we should practice sacrifice. Just like every single other culture on the planet at one point.

But even if all of those were true and espoused by the Bible, that still would not prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead, or that Jesus isn't God. You're viewing the Bible as one monolithic source, which is an invalid way of viewing it. An apparent contradiction in Genesis and Second Kings doesn't discount that...

Chris: Jesus is resurrected! Jesus is Lord!

Bright: Thanks, Chris.

Norm: Let's pray to Jesus and ask that he appear to us right now to settle this.

Chris: He can't do that! Jesus can't appear to us!

Norm: Why not?

Chris: He cannot!

Bright: Hold on now, Chris. Nobody said anything about "can't" here. After all, I have a friend that claims he did directly appear to her. My grandfather, in another case, says that God appeared to him in the form of an external, audible voice. What about them?

Norm: But why?

Chris: He's so busy doing everything God needs him to do! Plus, if he just appeared right here out of thin air, it would take away our free will. We would both KNOW that he exists. He can't do that!

Norm: Then how was Jesus able to appear to Paul? How was Jesus able to appear to the 500 brethren? Why was it OK for them to KNOW that Jesus exists?

Chris: That was different.

Norm: Why?

Bright: Because Paul was a mass murderer who was killing Christians, and if it weren't for Paul and that initial five hundred brethren, Christianity would have been relegated to the status of a cult religion that lasted maybe a few years and then died off forever.

Chris: Jesus had only been dead a couple of days.

Bright: Correct. And God doesn't need to do anything more than what he's already done for us, in actuality.

Norm: Why does that matter to a timeless, omnipotent being?

Chris: You are so wrong about this!

Norm: OK, then let's pray to Jesus about anything. Let's ask Jesus to do anything for us right now. What we saw in Section 1 is that Jesus does not answer any prayers. Why don't we ask him to move a mountain for us?

Bright: What's all this "Section" business? Are you quoting a book or something?

Chris: You are so wrong.

Norm: Why can't we pray to him right now? In Mark 11:24 Jesus' message is crystal clear: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." He says, "Ask, and you shall receive." In Luke 1:37: "For with God nothing will be impossible." Nothing is impossible through prayer. Why won't he respond to us if we pray to him right now?

Chris: You are completely wrong. That is not how prayer works!

Bright: Right. Prayer was never intended to be a gumball machine. There are a litany of valid reasons for why prayers are not answered by God.

Norm: Here's another way to look at it. Why don't we take a vote? We take all six billion people on the planet and we ask them to vote on whether Jesus is God or not. Only two billion people on the planet are Christian, so the other four billion are going to vote against Jesus. For every Christian, there are two non-Christians who think you are delusional.

Bright: What's your point, Norm?

Chris: They are all wrong! If only they knew the Lord Jesus like I do!

Norm: You are telling me that all one billion Muslims are wrong? They believe that Jesus was a man, not God. It says so right in the Koran [Koran 5:75].

Chris: The Muslims are delusional!

Norm: Those are fightin' words.

Bright: ...Coming from a guy that believes 90% of the world's population is COMPLETELY wrong about something as fundamental as the existence of God, or the validity of spiritual experience.

Chris: They are delusional! Everyone knows it! Jesus is Lord!

Norm: So there are a billion Muslims who think that all the Christians are delusional. And there are two billion Christians who think all the Muslims are delusional. Would you consider, at least for a moment, the possibility that all three billion of you are delusional?

Bright: But there are a billion people who describe themselves as non-religious. What if they are delusional?

Chris: I am not delusional! Jesus Christ is our resurrected Lord! I talk to him every single day and he talks to me! And he answers my prayers!

Norm: OK, then give me anything -- give me any evidence at all that shows me that Jesus exists.

Chris: The Bible talks all about Jesus!

Norm: So you think we should reinstate the slave trade? You think that Christians should hate women?

Bright: You're ridiculous, Norm. Give up your childish reasoning and act like the adult you are.

Chris: NO!

Norm: Give me anything.

Chris: I cannot. Jesus must remain hidden! If he were not hidden, we would all know that he exists. It would destroy faith.

Norm: If Jesus must remain hidden, then how do you know that he exists?

The conversation can go on and on like this. See, not if you were actually talking to a theist. It's easy to make a conversation circular if you're the one talking on both sides.

To anyone who stands outside the Christian faith and looks at Jesus rationally, it is obvious that Jesus either was a complete myth who never existed at all, or was a normal human being who was turned into a myth after-the-fact. Only someone as arrogant as you would claim that such a thing is "obvious." I don't think it's "obviously" true that Muhammed was not a legitimate prophet. That takes serious argument to demonstrate. Yet, despite all the problems, contradictions and lack of evidence, a Christian will cling to Jesus. You will begin to understand why Christians do that in Chapter 27, but for now let's simply review the evidence that we have seen. Exactly what we need: psychoanalysis.

In this section of the book we have looked at Jesus from a number of different angles. False. You have looked at Jesus from a single angle: the atheistic view. What we have found is that Jesus was a human being just like you and me. Of course, this was determined merely by asking why he doesn't do miracles for every person ever. This is clearly not a valid way of finding anything out. We simply ask the questions that any normal person would ask of someone who claims to be God. For example:

If Jesus is God, why did he never prove it in a meaningful way? Overturning the laws of nature and rising from the dead isn't "meaningful?" Why are none of his miracles visible today? How could any of them possibly be? We examined this question in chapter 19. And my response is here. Of the questions asked in this section of the book, this one is the most important. And when it's thrown out, so is the rest of your argument against Christ. It is important for this simple reason: If a man were to walk up to you today and state that he is God, you would want to see proof. Name one instance where Jesus "walked up to" someone, out of the blue, and said he was God. The proof would have to be obvious to everyone and scientifically irrefutable. Jesus is no different. Which is why he did such things as feed 5,000 people using a single lunch. Obvious, and scientifically irrefutable.

If Jesus is God, and Jesus is resurrected, then why hasn't he appeared to you in the flesh to prove that he is resurrected? Because most of us really do not need him to. We examined this question in chapter 20. Click here. In order for the Apostles to believe in the resurrection, Jesus appeared to them. Because without a knowledge of the resurrected savior, Christianity would not exist today. In order for Paul to believe in the resurrection, Jesus appeared to him. Because without him, Christianity would not exist today, and there would have been a lot more Christians murdered by the terrorist himself. Why would Jesus, who is all-loving and timeless, think of you as any less important than Paul? It's not that we're less important. It's just that God doesn't need us to create a religion. The reason is because Jesus did not appear to anyone. Your conclusion does not logically follow.

Why do we need to eat Jesus? We don't. It's a symbolic ritual that isn't required for anything. We examined this question in chapter 21. My response is here. We have Jesus -- the all-loving creator of the universe -- demanding that we ceremonially cannibalize his body and satanically drink his blood if we want to have "eternal life." No, communion is not required for any inheritance of eternal life. It's a reminder of his sacrifice, and nothing more. The source of this bizarre ritual is not Jesus. The ritual comes from primitive pagan religions that were common at the time. His source for this is The Da Vinci Code, interestingly enough.

Why do so many children live in poverty, and why does Jesus misspeak so many times in the New Testament? In chapter 22 we examined a number of statements where Jesus is wrong. And in my response, we examined why you were mistaken, and why the amount of children in poverty do not effect the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. Why would a perfect God write things in the Bible that are incorrect? A loaded question, isn't it?

Why does Jesus need money from you every Sunday morning? In chapter 24 we examined this interesting paradox. There is absolutely nothing paradoxical about it. To call it a paradox is a grievous misstatement.

There are broader pieces of evidence as well. Like what? As pointed out in Section 1, Jesus does not answer prayers. As pointed out in Section 2, the Bible is provably the work of primitive men. And so on. If you've read anything up to this point on this blog, you'll know that neither of them are the case.

We can look at Jesus from several other angles and reach the same conclusion.

The biggest problem with Jesus

The biggest problem with Jesus is his incredible myopia. We can see that now looking back at him 2,000 years later. Why didn't Jesus use his omnipotence to actually do something magnificent and beautiful on earth rather than squandering his "power" as he does in the Bible? Again, how is walking on water, feeding a huge crowd with virtually nothing, healing crippled people and curing disease by touching them, or rising from the dead, not magnificent or beautiful?

At the very least, Jesus could have transcribed passages into the Bible that would have ended sexism, racism and slavery forever. Hello: Jesus didn't "transcribe" anything in Scripture. We've been over this before. As the simplest example, think of all of the suffering that slavery has caused. As described in chapter 13, millions upon millions of people have suffered through the bondage and the remarkable brutality of slavery because Jesus and his Bible fully endorse slavery. "Fully endorse" is a meaningless concept given what Jesus actually says about slavery, and what kind of slavery it actually was back then. If Jesus had simply made a clear statement -- "Slavery is forbidden, free all the slaves" -- he could have prevented much of that suffering. Is it his job to prevent suffering, or ours? Yet he did nothing of the sort. He also never spoke about marijuana, or pedophilia, or lots and lots and lots of things. That doesn't make him evil. In the same way, Jesus could have chosen women to be six of his apostles and made several speeches on the topic of women's equality and he would have put a huge dent in sexism (see chapter 15). Notice that the witnessess to Jesus's resurrection were women, and their testimony was not valid in court. The very fact that Mary Magdelene was considered a disciple, and that women could prophecy in church, should illustrate the point that Christianity was leaps and bounds ahead in terms of gender equality than its neighbors. Still today we see the effects of Jesus' shortsightedness in this area. Ironic, considering that most people regard Jesus's morality as far ahead of even contemporary models of morality.

At a larger level, if Jesus were God, he could have performed so many real miracles. You haven't even really diagnosed any of the real miracles he did perform. What business is it of yours to suggest something like this? He could have, for example, eliminated smallpox and a host of other diseases that science is busy eliminating today. And the fact that he did not proves absolutely nothing. Jesus could have given the people of Israel the knowledge that they would need to start a technological society and raise themselves above the primitive living conditions of the day. As mentioned in Chapter 17, Jesus could have taught the Israelites about metallurgy, chemistry, biology, physics, manufacturing, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc., etc., etc. And all of it would have been meaningless and ineffective to the homeless peasant people he was talking to. He could have also taught them how to responsibly use these technologies to solve the problems of pollution and habitat destruction that so often accompany them today. He could have made clear statements to deter nuclear proliferation. Because "nuclear proliferation" means a heck of a lot to a first century Isrealite, and they totally would have considered that to be relevant enough to record in Scripture. He could have taught mankind to share wealth so that the immense problem of global poverty that we see today would have been solved long ago. He could have laid down a template for governance that would have ended monarchies, dictatorial regimes and warlords forever. Yes, we all know that governments specifically model their ideas after the Bible. He could have made his message so clear, and the proof of his godliness so obvious, that all six billion people on the planet would have aligned with him rather than fragmenting into dozens of bizarre and often warring factions. The problem is not that the message is unclear. The problem, as usual, is with you.

Jesus, if he actually were God, could have done so much. He could have prevented massive amounts of human suffering with his words and deeds. Instead, he did none of this. To any rational person, these problems make it painfully obvious that Jesus was a normal human being. No. Normal, rational people don't demand such actions out of Jesus, because he already did so much for us.

Jesus, the eternal torturer

Simply take a moment to think about the following statement:

"Hello, my name is Jesus. I love you deeply. I have loved you since you were conceived in the womb and I will love you for all eternity. I died for you on the cross because I love you so much. I long to have a loving personal relationship with you. I will answer all of your prayers through my love. But if you do not get down on your knees and worship me, and if you do not EAT MY BODY and DRINK MY BLOOD, then I WILL INCINERATE YOU WITH UNIMAGINABLY TORTUOUS PAIN IN THE FIRES OF HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!"

Yes, this is the central message of Christianity. My foot.

Think about this message. We have a being who, according to the Standard Model of God, embodies love. Yet, if you do not get down on your knees and worship him, you will be physically tortured for all eternity. No, not physical torture. Not even emotional "torture." The usage of terms like "fire" are clearly metaphors. What sort of love is that?

Imagine a human being who acted this way. Imagine that a human being for some reason "falls in love with you." This person sets up hidden cameras and begins tracking you everywhere you go every minute of every day. This person leaves a book on your doorstep that professes how much he loves you. But this person gives you a deadline and says, "If you do not begin to love me by my deadline, I will capture you and physically torture you in the most hideous ways." How would you describe such a person? We would call such a person a lunatic, and we would put such a person in prison for life. On a basic level, because no human has the right to demand love.

Asking Jesus to appear

Here is another way to prove it to yourself. Simply get down on your knees and pray to Jesus. Ask him to appear to you, in the flesh, just like he did to Paul (see chapter 20). Paul's vision was auditory, not visual. Ask Jesus to demonstrate to you, personally, that he is resurrected. When he appears, take your family camcorder and record the event for posterity. Frankly, if we're talking about "just like Paul," then I know someone who had a similar experience: my grandfather. But of course, you would dismiss this out of hand.

Of course, Jesus will not appear.

What Jesus says in John 14:12 is so clear:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

You have asked for something in his name. You have even asked him to do something that he is clearly able to do. The Bible says that Jesus appeared to hundreds of people, so it should be no problem for him to appear to you.

Yet, predictably, Jesus will not appear. I don't really need Jesus to appear, though. Most people who you would want to pray this prayer do not.

Now I would ask you to examine it at a deeper level. Look at what is happening inside your mind right now. You have read the Bible and seen Jesus' clear statement: "If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." It's also clear that there are a great number of things that have to happen before you can get to that place. He does not say, "I might do it." You have prayed for Jesus to appear and Jesus has ignored you.There are probably a thousand good reasons for why this occurs.

Even though Jesus did not appear, and even though Jesus says to you quite clearly in the Bible that he will, look at how you deal with this setback. Do you draw the obvious conclusion from the evidence? Yes, because the evidence is not contingent on whether or not Jesus appears to me. Even if he doesn't, the rest of the evidence is still there. If you are a Christian, then probably not. Wrong. Instead, in your mind, you are coming up with a thousand rationalizations to explain why Jesus did not appear:

It is not his will - Which is not a rationalization, but a valid reason.

He doesn't have time

He may appear, but it will be in the afterlife

I didn't pray the right way - You're right, we probably don't.

I am not worthy - You're right. We are not.

I do not have enough faith - You're right. We don't.

I cannot test the Lord- Etc.

Jesus only appeared to the apostles

Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, and is no longer appearing on earth

Jesus is actually all around me, but I cannot see him

It is not part of Jesus' plan for me

Jesus will not appear in the flesh, but instead will appear by rearranging the dust motes in the air. But it is not dusty enough here.

Jesus will appear in my dreams

Jesus is here -- I can feel him in my heart

And on and on and on...

You are an expert at creating rationalizations like these. It is not your place to say that any of those are "rationalizations." You, who deliberately distorts Scripture to make your convoluted arguments; you, who refuses to adequately examine any of Jesus's miracles directly; you, who does not even consider the possibility of God having a legitimate reason for not appearing. You have to be, because Jesus constantly lets you down. The reason why you are an expert is because you have been creating rationalizations like this for Jesus your entire life. Jesus has disappointed you so many times that you expect to be disappointed. That is why creating this list of rationalizations is so easy and so natural for you. If you were raised like this, then I feel for you, man. Most Christians would never say anything like this.

But here is the more interesting thing. Let's say that there is some legitimate reason that Jesus did not appear to you. Ooh, finally trying to consider the opposition. For example, it turns out that you happened to be wearing blue jeans as you prayed, and Jesus does not like the color blue. I guess we're not actually going to try, then. The fact is that the resurrected Jesus has not ever appeared to anyone. Unproven assumption that goes contrary to the evidence. Zero people are worthy, or we would see the video clips for sale at Christian book stores. There are hundreds of videos of miracles on YouTube. Do you believe any of them?

It is easy to imagine how a Christian would respond to this experiment:

Chris: Of course Jesus would not appear to you -- that would take away your free will. And if you video taped it, it would take away the free wills of everyone else.

Norm: So Jesus can appear to no one, is that correct?

Chris: Yes, that is correct. That is why the resurrected Jesus does not appear today.

Bright: This is where your argument falls, Chris. It's not that he "can't" appear to anyone. It's that he has valid reasons for not doing so, and it is not needed anymore.

Norm: Then how did Jesus prove that he was resurrected?

Chris: By appearing to people, of course. How else would we know that Jesus was resurrected?

It is a circle of absurdity. The only way for Jesus to prove that he was resurrected was to appear to people, and that was OK, but for Jesus to appear to you is impossible.

The reason why Jesus does not appear to you has nothing to do with your free will. It has to do with the fact that Jesus appeared to no one.

The evidence of Jesus

Another way to prove to yourself that Jesus does not exist is to ask yourself this simple question:

Is there any evidence that Jesus exists today?

As you think about this simple question, you will realize that there is not. Hmm. Strange, I came to the opposite conclusion. Everything else that you believe in has left behind some sort of evidence that proves its existence. But with Jesus there is nothing except five hundred witnesses who claim to have seen him alive after he was crucified, a long trail of disciples that were willing to die for what would have been a lie otherwise, a religion that has withstood the test of time, and billions of people who claim to experience Jesus as a reality in their lives. There is no physical evidence of his existence. There is also no physical evidence of the laws of logic or mathematics. There is no miraculous evidence -- it is very strange, but not a single one of Jesus' miracles left behind any physical evidence for us to see today. You still have not really specified how this would be possible with the miracles Jesus performed. There is no prayer evidence. Except for that time when a close friend of mine prayed in Jesus's name for a deaf and mute woman to receive her sight and power of speech, and immediately afterwards, she heard and spoke for the first time in twenty years. No matter how much we pray to Jesus, nothing ever happens (see section 1). Eh? There is, quite simply, zero evidence to prove that Jesus exists today. Hold your ears if you want. Suit yourself.

A devout Christian would point out that there is the Bible -- God's perfect word. Yes, there is the Bible. The Bible talks all about Jesus. It predicts Jesus' coming (see chapter 23) and then tells us about Jesus' time on earth.

But this same Bible also tells us that slavery is great, that women should be hated, that animal and human sacrifice is necessary, and that massacring babies and small children is one of God's favorite pastimes (see Section 2 for details). We don't believe the Bible when it talks about slavery, misogyny, etc. Why would we believe the Bible when it talks about Jesus? Because the logic that one morally objectionable passage proves the entire book is morally objectionable is completely, 100% flawed.

Understanding the evidence

There are two options with Jesus. Either Jesus is God, or Jesus was a regular human being. Or, that Jesus was insane. You would have to be to carry on such a ministry and really believe you were God. When you look at all of the evidence, which of these two options seems more likely to you?

If you are a Christian, and if you have believed all your life that Jesus is resurrected and Jesus is God, all that I would ask you to do is take a few moments to look at all of this evidence.

I have. It conclusively shows that Jesus was God, and he rose from the dead. All the attempts you have made to show otherwise have failed.

See also chapter 27 to understand where your beliefs about Jesus may be coming from. I look forward to this.

Chapter 24 - Why does Jesus need your money?

2009-06-20T14:03:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 24 - Are you being willfully ignorant again?"

Imagine hearing this advertisement on the radio one day:

"Hello. My name is Jesus, and I am God. I am the all-powerful creator of the universe. I created everything that you see before you -- the galaxies and stars in the heavens; the oceans, the mountains and the plains of earth; the sun and the moon and the skies; along with every living thing on the planet. I created you personally, and I gave you your unique soul. I created everything!

Mr. Brain, would you actually be convinced by this sort of medium of communication? If you actually heard this radio message, would you (or even any Christians) actually believe it was Jesus coming over the radio waves?
Everything of value on earth I created. I buried thousands of tons of gold in mines around the planet. I placed billions of gallons of oil under the sands in the Middle East. I created the millions of carets of diamonds being mined in South Africa.
And I will answer your prayers. Pray to me for anything and I will hear and answer your prayers. I say it in dozens of places in the Bible, but I like the way I say it in Mark 11:24 the best: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Anything you need -- money, love, happiness, you name it -- I am here to provide it for you. If you're just tuning in to this refutation, please check my earlier responses to this sort of argumentation.
Now, there is just one thing I need in return. I need your money. See, if anyone actually was convinced beforehand, they wouldn't be anymore. I need lots of your money. The Bible specifies that you send me ten percent of your gross income, but think of that as a starting point. Feel free to give more! When they pass the offering plate at church, be sure to give generously!
Because even though I created the universe and everything in it, and even though I will give you everything you ask for in prayer, I can't give a cent to any church, ever.
So, please give generously at your place of worship today! I thank you for your support!"

This is what every church tells you every Sunday morning when they pass the plate. Jesus is the all-powerful creator of the universe and everything in it, he will answer all of your prayers, but he has no money. The question is not whether God has any money. The question is whether the church has money. I (sort of) appreciate your feeble attempt to make this essay literarily interesting, but the fact remains that God is not the one who needs our money.

Why don't the ministers and deacons of the church gather together every Sunday morning and pray for Jesus to deposit $1,000,000 in gold bars in the offering plate? Why doesn't Jesus answer their prayers? Why do they have to beg for money from mere mortals when there is an immortal, all-powerful God who should provide anything they ask for?

Because, aside from the fact that prayer simply doesn't work like that, money really isn't the point of tithing. The point is for humans to make a sacrifice of what they have and dedicate it to the Lord. The point is for us to show to God that he is worth more to us than our money, seeing as he said to us that "no one can serve two masters." If God merely gave everyone the money so no one would have to tithe, that would not only go against Biblical commandments to tithe, but also would defeat the purpose of it altogether.

Plus, how would the deacons and ministers explain all of this extra money to people who keep an eye on church spending? I feel like the explanation "God did it" wouldn't satisfy many outside observers. And why would any one church need that much money anyway? A million dollars every week? Within a few years, they'd have more money than many corporations. And then, you'd likely accuse them of all sorts of financial misdeeds. And doesn't Jesus talk more about money (usually negatively) than anything else in his entire ministry, based on whats recorded in Scripture?

The reason why Jesus needs lots of your money every Sunday morning should be obvious to you at this point. Jesus doesn't need a cent of my money. Churches do, though. Churches need money to run the air conditioning, keep the electricity on, pay the staff and pastors, feed people at their events, put on events in the first place, donate to missions and other charitable endeavors, etc. This is basic economics, Mr. Brain. Christians don't operate by different economic rules than other people.

If you're really trying to make an argument for the non-existence of God by saying "Well, God doesn't put $1,000,000 in our offering plates every Sunday, so he must not actually exist," then you need to seriously rethink your education.

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2009. All rights reserved.

Why Donate to P-Dunn's Apologetics?

2009-03-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

If you clicked this link, you're wondering why you should donate to a blog like this. So what about Brain Is Ignorant, or any one of my blogs, deserves your financial support? Why in the world should you donate?

Donating any amount is an expression of appreciation for what I've done, a "thank you" for all of the time and effort it has taken me so far. This is a ministry that I've run for almost three years now. I began contributing to Brain Is Ignorant in July of 2006, and it has been an ongoing effort. I've worked a lot of hours and hopefully saved you the trouble.
As you can see, it is still not finished. And it will never be finished. I think that what I've done here will be a continuing effort: continually rewriting and re-evaluating what I have already put forth. And that's not just on the blog! I have a YouTube channel that is also used for apologetics, and continuing that is a goal of mine as well. Your contribution will encourage me that people really are interested in what I've done, and really do want me to continue this effort.
Your contribution will allow me to purchase more resources to make better responses to atheistic arguments. I have an extensive Amazon Wish List for books about Christianity, many of which are in relation to atheism, and I can't get any of them without money.

Thank you for taking the time to consider donating to P-Dunn's Apologetics. I'm not a non-profit organization, and you won't be tax exempt; I'm just a (broke) college student trying to make it. Anything you give me will be very much appreciated, especially in such a time as this.

Thank you again,
Patrick Dunnevant

Chapter 23 - Was Jesus' coming Prophesized?

2009-03-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 23 - Did you really just say 'prophesized?'"

In the eyes of Christians, one of the things that irrefutably proves that Jesus is God is the fact that Jesus fulfilled many prophesies from the Old Testament. For example, if you look at the Web site for the Campus Crusade for Christ, you find this paragraph:

More than 300 prophecies like this were made in the Old Testament and then fulfilled through Jesus' life, death and resurrection. The chances of one person fulfilling a mere 8 of these prophecies are 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. For one person to fulfill 48 of these prophecies, the number becomes staggering--1 chance in 10 to the 157th power (1 with 157 zeros after it). Add to that the 250 other prophecies and it becomes impossible for any other person except Jesus to ever fit that particular sequence of time and events. [ref]

300 certainly is a huge number of prophesies, and Christians put a lot of stock in them.

However, the "prophesies" that Jesus fulfilled are odd. According to whom, exactly? They are a collection of rather strange, oblique references scattered throughout the Old Testament. Strange? Oblique? Where are you getting these words from? People have grabbed onto them as somehow indicative of something having to do with Jesus, although it is not clear why they do that. With some, maybe. With others, it's pretty clear. Let me show you several of them so that you can see what I mean. Why thank you, Mr. Brain.

Example 1

Here is a complete chapter from the book of Isaiah so that you have plenty of context: So you've suddenly realized the benefit of reading things in context? Or is this only when its convenient for your case?

Isaiah chapter 7:

¹ When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.
² Now the house of David was told, "Aram has allied itself with Ephraim"; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.
³ Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub, to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field. ⁴ Say to him, 'Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood-because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. ⁵ Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son have plotted your ruin, saying, ⁶ "Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it." ⁷ Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
" 'It will not take place,
it will not happen,
⁸ for the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is only Rezin.
Within sixty-five years
Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people.
⁹ The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah's son.
If you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.' "
¹⁰ Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, ¹¹ "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights."
¹² But Ahaz said, "I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test."
¹³ Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? ¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. ¹⁵ He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. ¹⁶ But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. ¹⁷ The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah-he will bring the king of Assyria."
¹⁸ In that day the Lord will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria. ¹⁹ They will all come and settle in the steep ravines and in the crevices in the rocks, on all the thornbushes and at all the water holes. ²⁰ In that day the Lord will use a razor hired from beyond the River-the king of Assyria-to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to take off your beards also. ²¹ In that day, a man will keep alive a young cow and two goats. ²² And because of the abundance of the milk they give, he will have curds to eat. All who remain in the land will eat curds and honey. ²³ In that day, in every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, there will be only briers and thorns. ²⁴ Men will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briers and thorns. ²⁵ As for all the hills once cultivated by the hoe, you will no longer go there for fear of the briers and thorns; they will become places where cattle are turned loose and where sheep run.

That's a lot of stuff. So you look at it. You read it closely. You read it again. You read it again in a different translation. You read a commentary on this passage. You read another commentary on this passage. You look up words in the original language that you don't understand. You read about this passage from a historical perspective. It is pretty dense, I realize, and much of it is completely nonsensical (see chapter 17 on irrelevant material in the Bible). Any further comment about material being "nonsensical" or "irrelevant" will be ignored, for this reason: such a comment betrays a petulant chronocentricism, a very basic ignorance of the Bible, and a lack of desire to actually understand anything we say. I will make you a wager that you cannot get halfway through it without your eyes glazing over, but try to muscle through it and read the entire thing. If you really wanted to get the meaning of the passage, you would complete the rest of what I said too. In there is an important prophecy of Jesus' life. Can you see it? It is in verse 14. The sentence is:

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

According to Christians, this sentence prophesizes that Jesus will be born of a virgin mother. And also, Immanuel means "God with us," which seems to be very indicative of God himself showing up. That is one of the 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that prove that Jesus is the son of God.

You have the context of the entire chapter -- do you see anything here that indicates we are talking about Jesus? Well, yes. The child in question would be born of a virgin, called "God with us," he will always choose good over evil, and he will come at a time where Israel needs redemption and salvation. Then there are all the other "prophesies" in this same chapter -- the flies and the bees, the curds and honey, the razor from across the river, the cow and the goats, the briers and thorns, etc. What is the relationship between curds and honey and Jesus? It shows that this child would grow up like any normal child; he would eat the same food as everyone else, not eating some sort of divine food.

Example 2

Here is another example. In the book of Hosea, chapter 11, there is an important prophecy about Jesus. This is the entire chapter so you have plenty of context:

¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. ² The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Ba'als, and burning incense to idols. ³ Yet it was I who taught E'phraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. ⁴ I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one, who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them. ⁵ They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. ⁶ The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them in their fortresses. ⁷ My people are bent on turning away from me; so they are appointed to the yoke, and none shall remove it. ⁸ How can I give you up, O E'phraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! How can I make you like Admah! How can I treat you like Zeboi'im! My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. ⁹ I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy E'phraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy. ¹⁰ They shall go after the LORD, he will roar like a lion; yea, he will roar, and his sons shall come trembling from the west; ¹¹ they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says the LORD. ¹² E'phraim has encompassed me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit; but Judah is still known by God, and is faithful to the Holy One.

So you look at it. You read it. You read it again. Etc. Once again you notice that the material is completely nonsensical (see chapter 17). In there is an important prophecy of Jesus' life. It is in verse 1. This is supposedly the prophecy that Jesus will be called out of Egypt after God sends him there to avoid the murder of thousands of babies (see chapter 16).

You have the context of the entire chapter -- do you see anything that indicates we are talking about Jesus besides the random pair of words "my son"? Well, it's actually "Out of Egypt I called my son." Even verse 2 is nonsensical. How? It is a statement that people sacrificed to idols. They either did, or didn't. Nothing is nonsensical about saying they did. There are all the other "prophesies" in this same chapter -- the Ba'als, the incense, E'phraim, the bands of love, the return to the land of Egypt, the kingdom of Assyria, the sword, the yoke, Admah, Zeboi'Im, the lion, the birds, the doves of Assyria and so on. Many of those you just mentioned are not prophecies, but just normal statements. Are you merely assuming that literally every sentence in the book is called a prophecy by Christians? What is the relationship between all of this random material and Jesus? Well, it's all once again talking about how God loves Israel and wants to provide salvation and redemption for them.

Example 3

In Zechariah Chapter 9, there is a prophesy that Jesus will ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. Here is the context and the verse:

¹ The word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach and will rest upon Damascus- for the eyes of men and all the tribes of Israel are on the Lord - ² and upon Hamath too, which borders on it, and upon Tyre and Sidon, though they are very skillful. ³ Tyre has built herself a stronghold; she has heaped up silver like dust, and gold like the dirt of the streets. ⁴ But the Lord will take away her possessions and destroy her power on the sea, and she will be consumed by fire. ⁵ Ashkelon will see it and fear; Gaza will writhe in agony, and Ekron too, for her hope will wither. Gaza will lose her king and Ashkelon will be deserted. ⁶ Foreigners will occupy Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. ⁷ I will take the blood from their mouths, the forbidden food from between their teeth. Those who are left will belong to our God and become leaders in Judah, and Ekron will be like the Jebusites. ⁸ But I will defend my house against marauding forces. Never again will an oppressor overrun my people, for now I am keeping watch. ⁹ Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. ¹⁰ I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. ¹¹ As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. ¹² Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. ¹³ I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and make you like a warrior's sword.

Once again you notice that this material from the Bible is totally irrelevant and nonsensical (see chapter 17). The prophesy is verse 9. Most would say it continues on from there, too. Do you see anything in there that says we are talking about Jesus? I am beginning to wonder if you are expecting a literal, "This is talking about Jesus" to be there...Some sort of Biblical footnote. Verse 8 is also interesting in light of Hitler. Then make your case. What does "house," "my people," and "overrun" mean in the context of this passage and its original language?

Example 4

In Micah Chapter 5 verse 2 there is a "prophesy" that Jesus will be born in Bethlehem:

¹ Now you are walled about with a wall; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike upon the cheek the ruler of Israel. ² But you, O Bethlehem Eph'rathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. ³ Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest of his brethren shall return to the people of Israel. ⁴ And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. ⁵ And this shall be peace, when the Assyrian comes into our land and treads upon our soil, that we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men; ⁶ they shall rule the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with the drawn sword; and they shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land and treads within our border.

Look at all the other stuff around this "prophecy." There is the wall, the siege, the rod, the cheek, the flock, the Assyrians, the seven shepherds, the eight princes, the Nimrods, the sword, and so on. Once again all of this material is irrelevant and nonsensical (see Chapter 17). Not if you're reading this realizing that this is all talking about a future messiah, coming to provide salvation and redemption for the Jews.

There is something else that you may notice in this passage. Look at this phrase: "with a rod they strike upon the cheek the ruler of Israel." Let's say that, at some point in the Gospels, Pontius Pilate had struck Jesus with a rod on the cheek. If that had happened, then Micah 5:1 would be a prophecy about Jesus' coming. Notice, then, that Jesus was flogged for a long time prior to his execution. So this criterion is essentially fulfilled. Where are the Christians saying this is a prophecy? Since Jesus is never struck on the cheek with a rod in the New Testament, this "prophecy" is never mentioned. Not only are you resulting to mere conjecture here, you're also somehow contorting the Bible to make it seem like literally every verse is a prophecy. How is this true? Seems like, in the context of this passage, that it is referring to the fact that the ruler of Israel at the time may have been attacked by the forces. Once you understand that, you completely understand the "300 prophecies of Jesus." So by quoting four examples, saying "These are strange and there's a lot of material that I don't think applies," you have somehow discredited an additional two hundred and ninety-six prophecies?

This "rod and cheek" phenomenon is where the "prophecies" of Jesus are coming from. The Old Testament contains thousands and thousands of words, most of them total nonsense. You're a bigotted idiot, Mr. Brain. Out of those thousands of words, you are going to get some that happen to match up with the New Testament accounts of Jesus in some obscure way. However, you are going to get thousands more, like the rod and the cheek, the curds and the honey, the razor from across the river, the Nimrods and all the rest, that do not. Are these prophecies? If you look for the ones that do happen to randomly match up and completely ignore the thousands and thousands that do not, you can claim that the Old Testament "prophesizes" the coming of Jesus. The argument you're trying to make here is noble, but it falls dramatically short. The whole Bible isn't just a prophecy about Jesus. The books prophecy about a lot of different subjects. Go audit even one Old Testament course, or read even a single book about Old Testament prophecy, and you would realize that. Any normal person, on the other hand, sees it all as gibberish. Any correspondence is complete coincidence. So you're a completely unbiased interpreter, aren't you?

In chapter 17 of this book we discussed the amount of nonsense in the Bible. In all of the quotes that you have seen around these prophecies, do you find that you are left in amazement at the word of the Lord? Am I supposed to? Or have you found it all to be completely meaningless to you? Sigh. Why, if the Bible and these "prophecies" are the word of the Lord, is book filled to the brim with such meaningless, useless, ridiculous nonsense? I will respond by quoting what I said in chapter 17:

"I've never seen such cultural snobbery, such petty self centeredness, such abject anti-intellectualism, or ridiculous stupidity. Who in the world are you, of all people, to say that certain things in a book written thousands of years ago are "useless" or "irrelevant?" Has it occurred to you in the slightest that when it was written down, these events and regulations meant literally the world to people? Have you ever considered that, to the Isrealites, these books made up probably the sole written record of the history of their people, and they spent years memorizing every single word so that they could base their lives around it?

"This is exactly the reason why the new atheists are chastised: because of their complete hypocrisy."

Here is one last thing to consider. No one would care about these "prophecies" in the Old Testament if Jesus had actually proven that he is God. Since Jesus did not prove that he is God (see chapter 19), Christians have to fall back on the "prophecies" because this is all they've got. What a laugh. Jesus provided more than enough proof that he's God. Your attempt to refute that has been miserable. Since any normal person can see that the prophecies are completely meaningless, this is a very sad place for a Christian to be. Don't patronize me, Mr. Brain. You're not in any position to.

Reaching a conclusion

If you are a Christian, you have heard the following statement over and over again: "Jesus' coming was prophesized hundreds of times in the Old Testament, centuries before Jesus' birth! The ONLY way that could have happened is if God wrote the Bible and if Jesus were sent by God! The chances of one man fulfilling all of these prophecies together are infinitesimally small -- Jesus MUST be God!" You've heard it so many times you've simply taken it on faith. Says who? You're merely assuming.

But have you ever actually taken the time to read the Bible and check out these "prophesies"? Yes. Have you ever looked at the context around them as we have here? Yes. Have you ever noticed that the "prophecies" are scattered far and wide throughout the Old Testament [as we would expect] without a single thing tying them together [except the New Testament and Jesus's life, of course] and absolutely nothing indicating that they point to Jesus [except Jesus's life and the New Testament, of course]? Have you ever noticed that there are thousands of other prophesies -- like the rod and the cheek, the bees and the curd, the seven shepherds, the eight princes, the Nimrods, the doves of Assyria, the razors from across the river, etc., etc., etc. -- that never came to pass? How do you know they never came to pass? Have you looked at extra-Biblical history? Have you looked at the actual history in the Bible and seen if it matched up?

If you read all of the examples in this chapter, and especially if you read the material in the Bible surrounding the "prophecies", I believe that you will understand two things. First, the "prophecies" that "prove" that Jesus is God are irrelevant and meaningless. Any unbiased observer can see that. No need to pretend we don't have biases, Mr. Brain. Jesus' coming was never "prophesized" in the Bible. The word you're looking for is "prophesied." Why should I think you're a credible source if you don't even know the correct term? These prophesies are as random and arbitrary as your horoscope in the newspaper -- so vague and diffused among so much irrelevant material that they are completely meaningless. Let's see about that later.

The second thing you will see is a reiteration of chapter 17 -- much of the Bible is irrelevant to us today. Since God is all-knowing and timeless, it is difficult to understand why that would be unless we assume that God had nothing to do with the Bible. Again...Nothing to say except, "You're wrong."

All right, Mr. Brain. Let's look at the Suffering Servant passage, one you seemed to completely ignore in your diagnosis of prophecies. Tell me if this is "random," or "arbitrary," or "irrelevant," or "nonsense." We'll provide the entire passage for context. Tell me that Isaiah 53 doesn't sound like Jesus:

¹ Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied ;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

So what can we infer about this person?

He was hated by a lot of people. Jesus was hated by lots of people.
He was rejected by men. Jesus was even rejected by his own family.
He took up our infirmities and sorrows. Jesus felt our pains, and healed people.
He was marked and afflicted by God. Jesus was transfigured.
He was "pierced for our transgressions" and "crushed for our iniquities." Jesus was crucified for our sins.
His punishment "brought us peace." Jesus's death brings us forgivenesss.
By his wounds, we are healed. Jesus's death brings us healing from sin.
He did not resist his punishment. Jesus did not speak in his defense at the trial.
He did not have any descendants. Jesus never had any kids.
He was given a grave with the wicked, "with the rich." Jesus was buried by a rich man, killed amongst theives.
He had done no violence or deceit. Jesus never sinned.
God made him a "guilt offering." Jesus died as a guilt offering for our sins.
He will see the "light of life" after his soul suffers. Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven.
By his knowledge, his servants will justify many. His disciples and followers carried on his mission and now we have a religion in his name.
He poured out his life unto death, numbered as a transgressor, bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the other transgressors. That's Jesus.

So, Mr. Brain? What about that chapter? Fifteen clear indications of Jesus from this passage, and that's just from me reading it. Is this irrelevant or nonsensical?

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2009. All rights reserved.

Chapter 22 - Why do so many children live in poverty?

2009-03-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 22 - Why does Mr. Brain keep bringing up completely unrelated topics?"

If, on any Sunday morning in America, you were to visit a Sunday school class full of small children, there are two things that are nearly guaranteed. On the wall there will be a picture or poster of Jesus with a group of children around him. And the class will end up singing the song "Jesus loves the little children." Christians are quite fond of both the imagery and the music.

The question that we should ask is a simple one. If Jesus is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving, and if Jesus loves the little children, then why do so many children live in abject poverty? So, this is the problem of evil, then? More specifically, the "problem of hunger." A paper entitled "Chronic poverty in India" describes the poverty faced by the world's children in this way:

Poverty has been described as a situation of “pronounced deprivation in well being” and being poor as “to be hungry, to lack shelter and clothing, to be sick and not cared for, to be illiterate and not schooled…Poor people are particularly vulnerable to adverse events outside their control. They are often treated badly by institutions of the state and society and excluded from voice and power in those institutions.” Using income as a measure of poverty, the World Development Report refers to the “deep poverty amid plenty” in the world and states that a fifth of the world’s people live on less than $1 a day, and 44% of them are in South Asia. [ref]

Sounds like the environment of the New Testament.

Even in the United States -- one of the wealthiest nations on earth -- poverty is a major problem. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 26 million children in the United States participate in the National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost or free lunches to children at or near the poverty level. [ref] 26 million children represents about half of all the children in the United States.

One thing that you quickly realize, if you allow yourself to think about it, is that the number of people living in abject poverty on this planet is staggering. A "fifth of the world’s people" is more than a billion people. You also realize that $1 a day means that these people are living in hopeless, wretched conditions. Think about how little food you can buy for $1. Actually in many countries, just one American dollar goes a very long way. You would probably have known that if you've ever sponsored a child. Now consider the fact that the $1 is spent on that little bit of food, so there is no money left for housing, clean water, restroom facilities, clothing, shoes, health care, education, infrastructure, etc. etc. Disease runs rampant. Starvation is common. This level of poverty is nearly unimaginable to most people in the United States, yet more than a billion people live this way today. Ironically, in many of these same countries, there's also an immense amount of wealth restricted to a small amount of people. Greed and selfishness run rampant.

Now consider the fact that, if you raise the bar to $3 a day -- still an extremely meager amount -- half of the people on the planet are living at that level of poverty. More than three billion people. As discussed in Chapter 5, 10 million children die every year as a result of abject poverty.

Where in the world is Jesus? I think a better question is this: "Where in the world are Jesus's people?" Or even, "Where in the world are you?" Or, even, "Where are the atheist organizations fighting poverty overseas?"

Here is what Jesus has to say about poverty in the Bible. If you look in Matthew chapter 6:25, you will find this amazing quote:

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all."

Read this with the context in mind that Jesus himself was homeless and living in abject poverty. So was everyone he was speaking to.

If "your heavenly Father knows that you need them all," then what in the world has gone wrong? When Jesus says, "Do not be anxious," what could he possibly mean? If you are living on $1 a day, you are going to be anxious about everything including food, clean drinking water, clothing, basic medical care, sanitation facilities and education. Does that make being anxious right? More than a billion people are living like that today.

How many people is a billion? Prepare for an emotional appeal...Take all 300 or so million people in the United States. That is a lot of people. Here it comes... Quadruple that number. That is how many people are living in abject, wretched, unimaginable poverty around the world. Ah. There it is. If Jesus loves all the little children of the world, he has a truly bizarre way to show his love. Wait, this is Jesus's fault? Somehow I thought it was our responsibility to take care of the world. Silly me!

What any normal person realizes, when looking at the facts that are plainly visible in our world, is that what Jesus said in the Bible is completely wrong. Jesus' statements about poverty in Matthew 6:25-32 are clearly false. I think it's a lot more clear that you need to contextualize the passage before you make brash, across-the-board attributions. God is not looking out for these people. Are you? God is not feeding them, nor is he clothing them like lilies. Your complaint seems to amount to, "God isn't opening their mouths and putting pre-chewed food inside, nor is he putting their clothes on for them. Therefore, he doesn't exist." God doesn't even do that with the animals, Brain. Jesus hates quite a few of the little children of the world, and he demonstrates his hatred by imprisoning them in abject poverty.

Okay, let's turn this argument around. Because you're not doing everything you possibly can do to help these poor, deprived children, you therefore are a vile person. For crying out loud. You have a website that explains how things like washing machines work. Think of how many people are dying right now that could be saved with the amount of money you pay in bandwidth and server costs every month. I guess all we can conclude is that you hate these children.

Fair?

Jesus is completely wrong

This is not the first example that we have seen in the Bible where Jesus is completely wrong. So you're recapping for basically the twentieth time in twenty chapters, then? In section 1 of this book, we saw that Jesus is clearly wrong when he talks about the power of prayer. Jesus says in Matthew 21:21 for the ninth time so far:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

That is obviously false. I don't feel like any comment is needed here other than: "You're wrong." Section 1 demonstrated dozens of examples that prove this statement to be incorrect. See in particular Chapter 7.

This statement is also false in John chapter 14:12:

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

If this were true, we would have completely eradicated all diseases and eliminated all poverty centuries ago.

This statement in Mark 16:15 is provably false:

And [Jesus] said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."

I don't even need to mention that this is not in the original Bible. Or do I?

If this were true, we would not need doctors, hospitals or pharmaceutical companies. You would not need health insurance. And we've been over this. The two billion Christian believers on planet earth today could take care of all of our medical needs for free by simply laying their hands on us. Blah.

This passage from Matthew 15:21-28 is quite bizarre:

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

The thing you notice is the incredible racism. Jesus equates the woman to a dog because she is not an Israelite. ...No, he didn't. He told her not to feed her children's food to the dogs. How you pulled that conclusion out is beyond me. Would God do that? No. Good thing he didn't. Imagine a world leader today equating someone to a dog because she is not of the correct nationality or religion. The negative reaction would be overwhelming. Probably.

What you realize is that, if you go through the Bible and actually read what Jesus says, he is completely wrong in quite a number of cases. The question you must ask yourself is this: If Jesus is God, why is he not perfect? You have failed in each instance to prove this.

Here is the thing that I would like to help you understand: The reason why Jesus was incorrect in so many places is easy to understand. Jesus was not God. Jesus was a normal human being who was way, way out on a limb. So you've stopped talking about hunger and children now? Now it's all about Jesus and how bad of a person he was? What about all the children dying of preventable diseases?

It's interesting that the only reason you ever refer to these children is to make an argument for atheism, and then you proceed to abandon them after you've made the point. Thank you, Mr. Brain, for merely using them as a pawn to further your propaganda. You don't really care about them, do you?

For those of us interested in a real response to your original argument, let's continue.

First off, check out my YouTube video called The Problem of Hunger: A Christian's Answer. I summarize my video by making this argument:

Suppose you are at a banquet table. You symbolize your country. God is the patron of the banquet, and there is enough food for everyone, all the countries.
But the rich countries push the poor countries out of the way and eat all the food. Nothing is left.
Suddenly, the rich countries realized what they have done, and begin to shout at God, saying, "Why didn't you put enough food on the table for everyone? How can you call yourself a good patron if these people don't get to eat?"
On the one hand, God put enough food on the Earth for everyone and commanded humans not to be selfish or covet.
On the other hand, we humans who are more fortunate eat comfortably while they starve to death.
So is it God's fault, who has given us all the necessary resources to solve this problem? Or is it our fault for continually ignoring him and failing to do so?

Furthermore, notice that almost all of the organizations that are in these poor countries doing relief efforts, and almost all of the organizations that offer us the ability to sponsor children and even entire families, are religious in nature, or founded because of religion.

Think about these organizations:

The Salvation Army
World Vision
Food For The Hungry
Christian Disaster Relief
Mission of Mercy
Operation Blessing
Christian World Adoption
Compassion International
World Missionary Evangelism
International Mission Board
Young Men's Christian Association, aka YMCA
Habitat for Humanity
Christian Children's Fund
Mercy Ships
Farndale Charity Network
Christian Outreach for Relief & Development
Christian Blind Mission
Food for the Poor, Inc

There are many many more. Notice that all of them were founded by Christians for the purpose of doing Christian outreach.

So, Mr. Brain? Are you sponsoring children, paying for their well being with your pocket change? Are you donating to charities, providing these organizations with the money they so desperately need to operate? Are you doing volunteer work in inner cities, providing education, cleanup, food, medicine, and love for people who do not have the ability to do these things themselves? Do you ever spend time with homeless people, feeding them meals and providing them with clothing? Are you going on relief trips to foreign countries, helping to build schools?

If you're not doing everything you can, then you cannot make the argument that God is evil because he isn't doing everything He can.

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2009. All rights reserved.

Chapter 21 - Why do we eat Jesus?

2009-03-07T10:37:00.000-08:00

Rather, "Chapter 21 - Willful Stupidity, Copied Almost Verbatim from Proof #29"

If you are looking for an easy way to prove to yourself that Jesus is not God, try this simple experiment. Take a small child, perhaps age 4 or 5, to church on Sunday and let the child watch communion. Because we all know that things four and five year old children say, who cannot really think for themselves nor understand complicated theological concepts, have a bearing on the validity of the truth claims of religion. You may experience something like this, though I seriously doubt it:

Child: Daddy, what are they doing?

Daddy: Well dear, this part of the service is called communion.
Child: What's communion?
Daddy: Well, it's where... Well, it's... you know, what we do is we eat Jesus' body to... Well, it's complicated. Let me see...
Child: We eat Jesus' BODY???
Bright: Hey, guys. Nice to see you in church this morning. What happened to Norm and Chris?
Daddy: Yes. Well, no, but...
Child: Why do we need to eat Jesus??? I don't want to eat Jesus!!!
Daddy: No, no, no. It's OK honey. It's OK. Be quiet now, don't cry in church. Shhhh. Shush. Now it's OK.
Bright: Don't worry, kiddo. It's symbolic.
Child: But Daddy, I don't want to eat Jesus!
Daddy: Mom, help me out here.
Mom: Honey, it is a holy sacrament. You see, we eat Jesus' body and we drink his blood because...
Child: I have to drink his blood too??? Mommy, I don't want to drink blood!!!
Mom: Honey, calm down! You don't actually drink his blood.
Bright: Right, it's just grape juice. Or maybe it's wine...I haven't been to this church in a while. Either way, it's all metaphorical.
Child: But that man up there is holding up a cup and he is saying that it is Jesus' blood! Mommy! I want to leave! I am leaving!
Mom, Dad: No honey! Wait! We can't leave now!
Bright: Seriously, guys. You need to learn how to discipline your children.

And so on...

Because Christians have been participating in the communion rite for many years, they tend to forget just how bizarre this ritual is. But any child sees it with fresh eyes. And many children are, naturally, horrified at the thought of eating Jesus' body and then drinking his blood. It is grotesque in the extreme and a child implicitly understands that. What's funny is that I don't know a single person that has ever experienced anything remotely like this. I don't know any child that was "horrified" by this, or thought it was "grotesque." Perhaps that's because we understand the symbolism, and you apparently have no creative ability whatsoever.

Or, you're merely being antagonistic for the sake of argument. You're being willfully stupid.

Have you ever wondered where this ritual came from, or why billions of people would participate in a ritual that is this bizarre? First, let's look at the part of the Bible that prescribes the ritual. You find it in Mark, Chapter 14:

And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

There are a few lines in Luke chapter 22 that are nearly identical. Reading through this passage, can you seriously say you don't see the metaphor? Is it really this difficult to see the blatant symbolism here? I think any child reading this could easily make the association that bread = body, and beverage = blood. We could study this in our English courses as an example.

Jesus gets far more graphic, however, in John chapter 6:53-55:

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

To any normal person, this sounds very much like the script of a gruesome horror film. Actually, I'd say most "normal" people totally understand what communion is all about. It sounds like some sort of revolting satanic ritual. What does "satanic" mean, Mr. Brain? It definitely does not sound like the words of the all-loving creator of the universe.

Imagine that you are a normal person, and you have never been exposed to Christianity before. Now imagine that a Christian comes up to you and quotes John 6:53. Just out of the blue? Walked up to you in the street and blurted it out for no reason? Any normal adult would rightfully assume the Christian to be insane. Probably, because the verse is out of its context. But, to be fair, if you were a "normal person" and had never been exposed to the theory of evolution by natural selection before, and someone came up to you and said that chimpanzees and humans have a common ancestor, you would likely assume that person to be insane too. That doesn't make it false. Thus, you never see a bumper sticker that says "John 6:53."

However, the assumption is accurate. You can't be serious. The dictionary describes cannibalism in the following way:

The usually ritualistic eating of human flesh by a human being

What Jesus is demanding is cannibalism. So you're serious?

No, he's not demanding anything. I think you're being really extreme when you're saying such a thing, and you're probably doing this knowing how over the top you are. To truly come to that sort of conclusion, you must rip those verses out of the rest of the context of Jesus's entire ministry and out of the entire history of Christianity.

You may be beginning to see a pattern here. The only pattern I'm observing is your complete cluelessness about Christianity. We have already discussed in chapter 14 that God, in the Old Testament, is quite captivated by animal sacrifice. Did we now? God tells people how they are to sacrifice animals in minute detail. In the New Testament things move to a completely new level and God requires human sacrifice. God is not the only one who gets excited by human sacrifice -- a flood of Christians saw the movie "The Passion of the Christ." Oh, come on.

Now we learn that the human sacrifice is not enough, and we need to ritualistically cannibalize Jesus' body, and satanically drink his blood, to have "eternal life." But what does that mean? What is a metaphor? What is a symbol?

What does your common sense tell you about all of this? My common sense, as well as the "common sense" of every "normal person," says that you're woefully misguided. Look at it through the eyes of a child who doesn't know what a metaphor is. Now it all makes sense. What we are talking about here is cannibalism, and what Christians are doing looks exactly like a pagan/satanic ritual. If you are a Christian, the two questions you may be asking yourself right now are:

Why in the world am I, as a sane individual, participating in ritualistic cannibalism? How in the world did I stoop to this point?

Why would an all-powerful, all-loving God demand that I do this? What sort of God am I worshipping?
Actually, I don't have any of those on my mind right now. I do have another one, though:

Why does Marshall repeatedly ignore the concepts of metaphorical language, hyperbolic language, dramatic orientation, and symbolism?

As we saw in section 2, God condones slavery, demands animal and human sacrifice, hates women and revels in the annihilation of children. How loaded can we be? Cannibalism is just one more thing to add to this pile of insanity. I feel like there's nothing else to say other than you're an idiot.

The source of the ritual

If you are curious, here is why Christianity contains this bizarre ritual. Please tell us, oh wise one. It is not the case that an all-powerful God in heaven demands this behavior. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts. Wait...Christianity is a snowball? But...I thought it was a religion...What does that mean? Mommy? DADDY?! AHHHHH!!!! The process is described succinctly and accurately in the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. Apparently, he still hasn't realized the incredible mistake of citing a popular fiction book as an accurate source about historical religion. The book offers these two accounts of the creation process:

"The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Even if that were true, it wouldn't have any bearing on the validity of the faith, would it? Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. "Miraculously conceived?" I mean, sort of...Horus was born when Isis had sex with Osiris after putting his body back together. But using the term "miraculously conceived" as a comparison to the virgin birth is laughable. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating" - were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions." Yeah, you're going to have to back that up.

"Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras - called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans." Wrong, wrong, wrong. He wasn't called the Son of God and the Light of the World...You can look through many scholarly works and you won't find those titles attributed to him. The December 25th issue is really a non-issue, since nowhere does the New Testament attribute that date to Jesus's birth in the first place. Most importantly, there are NO references anywhere in Mithraic studies literature to Mithra being buried, or even dying, for that matter; there is no resurrection three days later, because there's no death in the first place. I've also found no references to the gift giving either. Dan Brown might as well have made all of that up.

To any normal person, the practice of communion is one of the most bizarre things that Christians do. Jesus' cannibalistic tendencies offer explicit evidence that Jesus is not God. Actually, even if we all were real bloodthirsty cannibals, it wouldn't have any impact on whether or not Jesus was actually God or not. The two don't have any logical correlation.

When you research it historically, you realize that Jesus was a human being like any other. Your historical research is "The Da Vinci Code." You have no room to talk. The mythology of his birth, life and death are pagan stories that are all man-made. Keep shooting yourself in the foot, Mr. Brain. It can't get much worse. Or maybe it can.

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2009. All rights reserved.

Chapter 20 - Why doesn't Jesus appear to each of us?

2009-03-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

Rather, "Chapter 20 - Why don't you believe everyone who says he has?"

In the last chapter, we discussed Jesus' miracles. There is one miracle, however, that deserves special discussion. Jesus' resurrection after his death is the ultimate and defining proof of Jesus' divinity.

Just about everyone knows the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. The story is summarized in the Apostles' Creed. Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And will come to judge the living and the dead. Don't forget!

There is only one way for Jesus to prove that he rose from the dead. He had to appear to people. So your criterion to establish this is that he must appear to people. Noted. Therefore, several different places in the Bible describe Jesus' appearances after his death:

Matthew chapter 28

Mark chapter 16

Luke chapter 24

John Chapter 20 and 21

1 Corinthians 15:3-6 provides a nice summary of those passages, as written by Paul:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

As you can see in this passage, Jesus appeared to hundreds of people a number of different times. Which means, by the criteria you provided, his job of proving that he rose from the dead is fulfilled. You say he had to appear to people, and he appeared to hundreds of people. I'd say that over five hundred witnesses is more than enough, even overkill, to establish something like that. Done.

Being like Paul

When we look at these Bible passages, there is a question that comes to mind -- why did Jesus stop making these appearances? Why isn't Jesus appearing today? It might be an interesting question, but it has no bearing on whether he rose again back then.

Even so, I have two questions for you, Mr. Brain. First, what makes you think this is necessary? And secondly, who says he isn't?

It really is odd. Obviously Paul benefitted from a personal meeting with the resurrected Christ. Because of the personal visit, Paul could see for himself the truth of the resurrection, and he could ask Jesus questions. He also stopped being a terrorist and murderer who targeted Christians.

So... Why doesn't Jesus appear to everyone and prove that he is resurrected, just like he appeared to Paul? There is nothing to stop Jesus from materializing in your kitchen tonight to have a personal chat with you. I mean, there's a great deal. On a very basic level, I'm not worthy of such a visit. Not even in the slightest. And if you think about it, Jesus really does need to appear to each of us. No, he doesn't. Most Christians wouldn't say that. We already believe in him. If Paul needed a personal visit from Jesus to know that Jesus was resurrected, then why wouldn't you? Perhaps because we aren't terrorists or murderers who will go on to compose over half of a Testament.

It is an important question for the following reasons:

We are told by the Bible that Jesus appeared to hundreds of people, which therefore fulfills the criterion of, "To prove he resurrected, he had to appear to people."

We know that it is OK for Jesus to appear to people -- it does not take away their free will, for example -- because it was OK for Jesus to appear to hundreds of other people. Perhaps this was because it was necessary to prove a resurrection to even get the faith off the ground. Think about it. Do we need Jesus to appear to us now that a third of the population believes in him, and another third regard him as a very important prophet?

We know that it would be easy for Jesus to appear to everyone all through history, since Jesus is all-powerful and timeless. Having the ability doesn't make it more probable or necessary.

We know that, if Jesus did reappear to everyone, it would be incredibly helpful. We could all know, personally, that Jesus is resurrected and that Jesus is God. Except the Bible says that it's OUR job to seek God, not God's job to seek us. If Paul (and all the other people in the Bible) needed a personal visit to know that Jesus was resurrected, then why not you and me? Because we are not the future founders of the religion, who are responsible for spreading the Gospel so that it survives into culture.

Yet, we all know that Jesus has not appeared to anyone in 2,000 years.We all know?

Mr. Brain, let me tell you a story. Just for clarification, I am not making this up as an example; this actually happened.

I know a girl who claims that on the night she became a Christian, Jesus physically appeared to her. There was a great light in the room that didn't go away until she fell asleep. He stood by her and spoke comforting words to her.

If this is true, then Jesus has appeared to someone. So do you believe her?

In other words, there is nothing stopping Jesus from appearing to you, and several good reasons for him to appear. I don't think this has been established, to be honest.

Praying to Jesus

What if we pray to Jesus like this: "Dear Jesus, please appear to us, as you did to Paul and the 500 brethren, so that we can see the evidence of your resurrection. In your name we pray, amen." If we are already praying to Jesus in such a way, we likely already believe in his resurrection, and therefore don't need further evidence. Here is what Jesus has promised us in the Bible:

Matthew 7:7 Jesus says:

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

We've been over this. There's nothing in this verse that promises a guaranteed positively answered prayer.

In John chapter 14:14:

Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

God, please kill all of the Jews. You have to do it now, right?

In Matthew 18:19:

Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

And we've been over this too.

Jesus is actually in our midst. So he is right here already, supposedly. Yet when we pray to him to physically materialize, as he did to hundreds of others, nothing happens.

Isn't it odd that Nothing happens, given the fact that Jesus promises us that something will happen? Actually Jesus promises nothing of the sort. Jesus never mentions anything about appearing to anyone in these verses. What you are doing here is called decontextualization. Isn't it odd that nothing happens when, supposedly, Jesus is right here with us already, and materialization would be trivial for him? No, it isn't odd. Not for Christians, anyway.

Let's discuss this whole "trivial" question. What does it mean for something to be "trivial" for God?

Suppose Jesus actually was to appear to you, Mr. Brain. Let's go through what would happen. You are minding your own business, most likely on the computer. A great light shines out of nowhere, and suddenly there is a person standing where there used to be just air. You, therefore, are scared out of your wits, potentially going into some state of shock. Furthermore, you would probably attribute it to some form of hallucination, not to God.

But is this business of scaring the hell out of you "trivial?" God would have to violate his hidden nature, which to me doesn't seem very trivial.

What you will find, if you think about it, is that the situation we see here is exactly like the situation in Chapter 5. We have created a situation where coincidence cannot "answer" the prayer. The only way for this prayer to be answered is for Jesus to actually, unambiguously, materialize. In this situation, we also know that it is trivial for Jesus to materialize, that there would be many benefits if Jesus did materialize, that Jesus has supposedly materialized to other human beings, and that Jesus has promised to answer our prayer that he materialize.

How do we explain the fact that this prayer goes unanswered, no matter who prays, despite Jesus' promise that he will answer our prayers? How can you say that with no proof? You are making a claim based on an assumption, with no evidence.

As you think about this, you will realize that Paul's story in the Bible must be false. Based on what logic? Simply look at Paul's story like any judge in a courtroom would. What Paul's story in 1 Cor 15 is suggesting is entirely unprecedented - a man dead three days with mortal wounds came back to life. Yet there is no evidence that it is true, and there are many alternative explanations for what Paul is saying. If the direct visual testimony of five people, in addition to the confirmation of five hundred people, is not evidence, then my name is Stephen Spielberg. Paul could be fabricating the story, which would not explain the empty tomb, other post mortem appearances, and would render his sudden change of heart from a terrorist to a humanitarian completely inexplicable. Paul could have hallucinated or dreamed the meeting, which would not explain other conversions and post mortem appearances, nor the empty tomb. Paul could have seen an imposter, which would not explain the great light, nor the experience of the people he was with, nor the post mortem apperances and conversions of others. etc. In addition, no one is seeing Jesus today, even though it would be trivial and obvious for Jesus to appear to people today just like he did with Paul. If we were in a court room, this would not be considered evidence to the contrary; one, it is an argument from ignorance; two, no judge would demand to see the murder again to establish a victim as guilty. That would be an absurd criteria.

Given this evidence, if this were any normal situation instead of a religious one, people would conclude that what Paul is saying is untrue. Would they? Suppose someone came up and told you that they saw a dead man walking around again, alive. You may dismiss his testimony. But if a mass crowd of five hundred people came up to you and confirmed his testimony, you would probably be convinced.

There is zero evidence to support Paul's story, zero reason to believe it, a motive to lie and plenty of alternative explanations. A motive to lie? That's an incredibly curious statement. Paul was a terrorist and murder who's job was to kill Christians. Why in the world would he make up a lie so that he can be one? Why would he resign himself to a life of homelessness, poverty, persecution, inprisonment, and eventual execution, forsaking all of the prowess, power, and position that he had established as a Pharisee, just so he could lie about a resurrection? Seems like there is no motive whatsoever to lie. There is also the fact that much of the rest of the Bible contains provably false stories. Funny: you haven't mentioned one. Plus the fact that it would be trivial for Jesus to provide the evidence that Paul needs to confirm his story by reappearing on earth. There is no need for us to have this done to us. Think this through. Add to that the fact that Jesus has promised to answer our prayers but refuses to materialize when we pray to him. I've shown you how fallacious this reasoning is on multiple occasions. The only thing to do is to reject Paul's story. Every bit of evidence points to the fact that the resurrection story is a myth, nothing more. Yet, the mythological explanation fails on numerous points of the criterion of explanatory power, and thus, the explanation must be rejected.

What about Jesus' famous statement in the Bible, "Happy are those who have not seen yet still believe"? A better translation would be "blessed." What you realize is that this statement creates the perfect cover for a scam. Let's say you are Jesus, you are a normal human being, you realize that you are going to die and you want to cover for this fact. Jesus had already risen when he made this claim. Here is what you would say: "Happy are those who have not seen yet still believe." What you are saying is, "I exist, and the way I am going to show you that I exist is by not showing that I exist." This is a ridiculous summary, and I think even you know why. For every other object in the universe, the way that we know it exists is because the object provides evidence of its existence. Jesus provided evidence to hundreds of people, and some people today claim he has done so for them. If you don't believe them, why should I think you would beleive Jesus? If there is no evidence for an object's existence, we call it imaginary (e.g. Leprechauns). But with Jesus, the lack of evidence is turned into evidence. That's not what he said at all. This statement has nothing to do with evidence. Quite clever, but obviously a scam.

If the resurrection were true, then Jesus would be answering prayers as he promises in the Bible. He would also appear when people pray to see him. The fact is, as we saw in Section 1, there is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus answers prayers. Wrong, time and time again.

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2009. All rights reserved.

Why Prayers Aren't Answered - Part II

2009-02-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

An Examination on Why Prayers Are Not Answered
Part One: God's Will For Your Life

Prayers are often offered up to God as an expression of our will towards Him. We desire to achieve certain statuses or obtain certain gifts, and so we ask God to give them to us. This has become the normal method of how prayer works, especially in Western culture. In fact, prayer itself is synonymous with "asking for stuff."

God, please give me safe travels.

God, please let this date go really well tonight. I like this girl a lot.

God, please give me the words to say during this job interview, because I think this job is what I should be doing with my life.

God, please bless my business and help my income.

There are also things that we ask that seem to be related to different things:

God, please heal my mother of her cancer.

It's only natural to take our cares and wants to God. When our world seems so caught up in what we want, what our goals are, we, in our self-centered mentalities, think that God must be keen on giving us those things, because they are important to Him too.

But perhaps God doesn't want the same things we do.

It's a rather self explanatory concept. If you ask God for something, and you don't get it, it is likely because God does not want you to have that particular item, or status, or even level of health. He, as the all-powerful Creator of the Universe, most likely views his desire for your life as more important, and in fact better for you, than your own. As Delta Goodrem says, "When we're busy makin' plans, God laughs.

First, I must explain what "God's will" means. Is it a micromanaging of your life, so that you do not have free will? No. Is it something we are forced to follow? Certainly not.

God's will is the basic idea for how God wants your life to go. His will is anything that he desires to occur in your life.

How do we discern this will? Through many things, I would suggest. But perhaps the biggest suggesting factor for God's will is our prayer, because it is a form of directly asking God for something and directly observing the results.

Example

Gentlemen, suppose you met a woman and you have fallen head over heels. You have been dating her for a long time, and the relationship has begun to get pretty serious. Understandably, you are now wondering if she is the one for you. What would you do to discern this?

If you are a Christian, perhaps you would pray the following prayer:

God, thank you for blessing me with Jane. She's a wonderful woman and my life has been incredible ever since she came into it. But now I'm wondering if this is the woman you want me to marry and spend the rest of my life with. Can you help me discern whether or not this is the case? Is she your will for my life?

Soon, you begin to pick up on various things about Jane that you hadn't noticed before. Some of them are rather troubling. She has strange nervous habits that make you uncomfortable. The way she laughs begins to sound piercing and irritating to you. Your nagging feeling in your stomach of uncertainty has only increased since you prayed that prayer.

It could all be coincidence. But one could suggest that perhaps this was God's way of showing you that Jane is not who he has in mind for you.^[1]

Biblical Support

Is this idea of God answering prayers according to His will Biblical? It sure is. First John 5:14 says this:

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

Delta Goodrem appears to agree with Proverbs 16:9, where it says:

A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

Ephesians 1:11 describes God as one who "who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."

Daniel 4:35 offers this hyperbolic and anthropomorphic description to illustrate the power of God's will:

All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth.

And, of course, we have Jesus himself telling us in the model for prayer to ask for God's will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Conclusion

The point of all of this is very simple:

Prayer, in this particular example, is the act of asking God to give you something.
In order for God to do something on your behalf, he has to want to do it (God's will).
If God does not want to do it, God will not answer your prayer positively.
Therefore, God answering prayer is entirely contingent on his own will.

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2009. All rights reserved.

^{[1] There is great debate as to whether God actually does plan out who you should be marrying. This may not have been the most air-tight example as a result, but I used it because the average Christian tends to believe that God does take an interest in our future spouses.}

Chapter 19 - Why didn't Jesus move a mountain?

2008-11-29T14:40:00.000-08:00

Rather, "Chapter 19 - Why doesn't Jesus give us more proof than we actually need?"

Let's say you are walking down a New York City street one day, and you notice a man walking toward you from the other direction. There are two reasons why you notice him. First, he is wearing a long white robe and leather sandals. Second, he is obviously planning to talk to you. He has made direct eye contact and is motioning for you to stop so that he can say something to you.

You try to look at the ground and walk past him, but he actually steps right into your path and you stop short. He focuses his eyes on you and says, " I am the light of the world: he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. I am the prince of peace. I am God. Believe in me and you shall have Eternal life...." Can you name one example of this actually happening in the Bible? Jesus never randomly walked up to people and said, "I am God," or even confronted people in such a manner. Rather, we see that it's actually the other way around: usually Jesus would wait for people to confront him.

You are thinking that this person is a total nut case. You are fingering the cell phone in your pocket, making sure that you will be able to dial 911 if you need to. Fortunately there are a number of other people walking by, so you feel fairly safe. And there is something about the intensity of his gaze...What is the point of this emotional play-by-play, Mr. Brain? Instead of running away, you say, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me make sure I heard you right. You are God?"

Man: "Yes. I am God. I am the son of the highest. I am the lord of our righteousness. I am the horn of salvation. I..."
You: "Whoa. Slow down. You are God?"
Man: "Yes. I am God."

It's at this point that a casual observer, walking with his two children and wife on their way to see The Lion King, stops and listens to your conversation. He's a tall man with intense blue eyes gazing through the frame of emo glasses, wearing a sweater vest, a white collared shirt, and jeans. He has a curious look on his face.

You: "Can you show me an ID?"
Man: "No. I am God. I don't need an ID."
Casual Observer: "What happened if he actually showed you a license that said, 'God, Ruler of the Universe' on it? Would that actually make him more credible?"
You: "Of course not. I'm just egging him on. Anyway, can you tell me your name?
Man: "My name is Jesus2."
You: "Can you prove to me that you are God? That's a pretty stupendous claim."
Man: "Yes, certainly. Walk with me."

Jesus2 walks about half a block, and you come upon a homeless person in a wheel chair begging for change with a sign and a rattling cup. Jesus2 approaches him and says, "Good sir. May we interrupt you for a moment?"

Homeless man: Yes.
Jesus2: Have we ever met before?
Homeless man: No, I've never seen you before in my life.
Jesus2: Now good sir, how long have you been confined to this wheel chair.
Homeless man: Going on 20 years I'd say. Seems like my whole life.
Jesus2: Arise and walk. You are healed!

At this point the homeless person leaps to his feet screaming, "It's a miracle! I am cured! I am able to walk!" and runs off down the street joyously.

Now, what do you think about this? You need to make a decision here. Either this man is God and has just healed a person who has not walked for 20 years. That's option #1. Or... this man is not God, and there is some other explanation for what you just saw. For example, it might, possibly, be the case that Jesus2 is a homeless man too, and that these two homeless men might -- just might -- be working together on some sort of scam. That is option #2. What if you knew the homeless man? What if you remember the day he was told he would have to spend the rest of his life unable to walk? What if you passed him every day on the way to church? This, after all, would have been Jesus's situation. Towns were very small. Everyone would have known who the homeless people were.

Chances are that you suspect that option #2 is the more likely of the two scenarios at work here. In a setting like New York City, it's more probable that #2 is correct than not. So you might say to Jesus2, "Wow. That was impressive. You just healed a guy who had been in a wheelchair for 20 years. But look -- I need something a little more convincing. See that skyscraper across the street? Can you pick it up and move it to the middle of Central Park?"

Casual Observer: Woa, man. What about all of the people currently working there? Won't they be terrified?

Jesus2: Which part of Central Park?
You: It really doesn't matter to me.
Casual Observer: What about the owner of that particular building? How would he feel about you moving his property a few miles away, for apparently no reason?
Jesus2: Well, there is a slight problem.
You: Really? What is the problem?
Jesus2: It is not my will to move the skyscraper.
Casual Observer: What about all of the people on the ground that witness a building flying through the air? What are they going to think? It will cause a mass panic!
You: Really? I thought you were God. Aren't you all-powerful?
Jesus2: I am God, yes. I am the bread of life. I am the blessed and only potentate. However, it is not my will to move that skyscraper.
You: Why not?
Jesus2: It simply is not. I like Central Park the way it is.
Casual Observer: Moving a skyscraper into Central Park will cause a lot of unnecessary destruction of plants and walkways, costing lots of money to repair. Plus, you may hurt somebody. I like Central Park the way it is too.
You: OK. Move it somewhere else. Move it to a vacant lot in Jersey.
Jesus2: It is not my will to do that.
You: I see. Well, have a nice day!
Casual Observer: Well, bye. Hey, Jesus2. What about that part of the Bible where Jesus1 talked about false prophets and false teachers doing great wonders to mislead the people, in Matthew 24:24?

And you would walk away.

Prove it

Think about it. If someone were to come to you and say, "I am God!", wouldn't you want proof? Yeah, I would. Yes, you would. Of course you would. Of course. But I wouldn't ask for anything that would cause destruction to property unnecessarily. I would ask for anything that would cause a mass panic in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world. I certainly wouldn't ask for more proof than was actually needed. And you would not want goofy proof. You would not accept something that looks like a faith healer's show at a tent revival, and you would not accept something that looks like a magic trick. You want real, solid proof. You want any person who claims to be God to do something that is clearly impossible, like picking up a skyscraper, levitating it through the air and settling it into the middle of Central Park. No, I wouldn't. Nobody needs that much proof. I think other miracles that didn't involve terror or needless suffering would be great.

Something like that, quite obviously, would have to be the work of an all-powerful God. Levitating a skyscraper and moving it from here to there is clearly something that no human being can do, so it would be convincing. There is no way to fake it. And millions of other people would be able to verify that, yes, the skyscraper did move from its original location to a new location. If the building were hooked into water, sewer, power and phone at its new resting place, that would be perfect. And this is all to satisfy the curiosity of one person on a street in New York?

No normal person, and I mean no one, would accept anything less than rock solid proof from a person who claims to be God. Apparently, you define "rock solid proof" in a much different way than most people do. I think the spontaneous healing of someone who is known to have been crippled for 20 years is pretty "rock solid."

Why should it be any different with Jesus? Jesus was a man who claims to be God. If he is God, then he ought to be able to prove it in a real, inimitable way. If he cannot prove it then, quite clearly, he is not God. See below.

A Christian would say, "But Jesus HAS proven it! Just look at all of the miracles he did in the Bible! He healed the sick! He changed water into wine! That PROVES that Jesus is the Lord!"

Does that make sense to you? Not fully. The fact that he claimed to be God, then predicted his death and resurrection, and then actually rose from the grave, is proof that he's God. Miracles are not the exclusive ability of God, as we observe in Scripture. Imagine that someone, today, were to come up to you and say, "I am God, and I will prove that I am God by healing the sick and turning water into wine!" What would you say? I'd say, "This oughta be interesting." Be honest. You would not believe this person because:

Everyone has seen all sorts of "faith healers" who can "heal" the sick. I've never heard of someone who has ever restored sight to a blind man. I've never heard of someone who has ever raised someone from the dead by telling him to. And we all know that this sort of "healing" is quackery. Don't make such generalities. Lots of people do believe in "faith healers." Have you heard of Todd Bentley, for example? If it were true, then we would not need doctors, hospitals or prescription medicines. (see also Chapter 6) Not true, as I have already talked about.

Turning water into wine... Doesn't that sound like something that a B-grade David-Copperfield-wannabe magician would do in a nightclub act? Well, it depends. What would happen if I was there watching him every step of the way? What if I could taste the wine after the miracle was completed to verify that it was wine and not some kind of dye in it? What if I could inspect every aspect of the miracle to verify it, as The Amazing Randi would do? There are a dozen ways that you could stage things to make it look like water is turning into wine. "Look like" is one thing. Actually turning it is another. There is no reason why a normal person would accept a magic trick as proof that someone is God. But this wouldn't be a magic trick.

It is as simple as that. If someone claimed to be God today, you would never believe it if the evidence consisted of faith healing and magic tricks. Never. I would believe based on actual healing and actual miracles. Yet billions of people claim that Jesus' faith healing and magic tricks prove that he is God. Somehow I don't see how creating enough food to feed thousands of people by using a little boy's lunch constitutes as a "magic trick." Somehow I don't see how shouting Lazarus's name and telling him to come out of his grave constitutes "faith healing."

Dismissing these things out of hand only goes so far. If these miracles were confirmed, what then?

Real proof

Let's imagine that Jesus truly is God. What might he have done to prove it? Predict his own death and the come back to life after being dead for three days? Appear in his new body in front of hundreds? Perform miracles in front of thousands of witnesses? He could have started by taking one of his most famous quotes from the Bible and acting on it. Famous on this website, perhaps, but not in reality. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says quite clearly:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

To prove that he is God, Jesus would have moved a mountain. I'm sure that's one way of doing it. But how did you come to the conclusion that Jesus would have to move a mountain to prove his divinity? Especially since it is so easy. Is it really? And Jesus would have written something down to explain himself. Here's what the first page of Jesus' book might have looked like:

My name is Jesus, and I am God. I know there are a lot of people out there who will doubt that I am God, so let me start off by proving it to you. Take a look at Mount Sinai. Everyone knows that, until today, Mount Sinai stood near here. It is the mountain where God, my father, gave Moses the Ten Commandments.
Mount Sinai vanished this morning, and what was left in its place was a perfectly smooth, polished stone base measuring four miles square. Hundreds of years from now, people will find that Mount Sinai landed near a place that will be called Newark, New Jersey. When scientists dig into the mountain, they will find that the bottom of the mountain is also completely smooth and polished, and that the bottom of the mountain in New Jersey perfectly matches the polished plain nearby. Scientists will be able to align the mountain and the plain, looking at it rock crystal by rock crystal at a microscopic level. I have said many times that, if you have faith, you can move mountains. I moved Mount Sinai to show how easy it is, and to prove that I am God.
I know that that may not be enough, so let me offer a second proof. If you draw a circle, you know that there is distance across the circle. Let us call it the diameter of the circle. There is also a distance around the outside of the circle. Let us call it the circumference. If you divide the circumference by the diameter, you get another number. Let us call it Pi, and its first 6 digits are 3.14159. Pi is an irrational number. It is a number that is made up of an infinite number of non-repeating digits.
There will come a day when machines called computers will calculate billions of digits of Pi. If you calculate Pi out to the millionth trillionth digit, here is what you will find:
9823456451237823492278583495083498745....
Now, having proven that I am God to any rational being, through my documentable movement of a mountain and through my foreknowledge of Pi at the millionth trillionth position, here is what I want to say to the human race as your creator, and as the creator of the universe...

Yes, Mr. Brain, I'm sure calculating pi would have meant a great deal to the average, illiterate Hebrew who's chief concern was their next meal.

Wouldn't that be awesome and amazing? If we had such a book, and if Mount Sinai had actually moved, then there would be no questions about Jesus. Perhaps that's for the best. Do you really want to live in a world where there are "no questions about Jesus," and following him would be forced? We would all believe that he is God. How could we not? But what difference would that make? It would be like belief that the sky is blue. Sure, we all know that, but how does that change your life? How does that inspire you to be a better person? Imagine what such a book would say on the following pages. A book like that, I am sure, would leave all of us in awe. (see also chapter 17) It also would have confused the heck out of people for thousands of years.

Unfortunately, Jesus did not provide concrete proof of his divinity by your definition of what constitutes "concrete." By my definition, he's provided more than enough. For any normal person, that makes things simple -- Jesus is not God. Actually, "normal people" would realize that this is a fallacious argument from ignorance: just because it's not proved does not mean it isn't true, and vice versa. We would not believe that anyone today is God without concrete proof. Jesus doesn't get a pass because he lived 2,000 years ago. Resurrecting someone is still concrete proof, even 2000 years ago. Even today.

For religious people, however, it is a different story. If you ask a religious person about Jesus' divinity, you may find yourself in a conversation like this:

Norm: If Jesus is God, why didn't Jesus ever prove that he is God?
Chris: He did! He performed many miracles, and he was resurrected. That proves that he is God!
Bright: Hey guys! Glad you could make it to my party. There are drinks in the refrigerator and snacks on the counter in the kitchen.
Norm: Why did he not prove that he is God in a way that is definitive and scientifically provable -- for example, by moving a mountain?
Bright: Oh, are you guys still on about this? Norm, have you read anything I've given you yet?
Chris: He could not do that! That would take away man's free will to believe in him. People must come to God through faith.
Bright: Well, I'd say it's more likely that he does not do it because it's completely unnecessary. Millions upon millions of people have believed in his miracles without such ridiculous confirmation.
Norm: Why, then, did Jesus perform the miracles described in the Gospels?
Chris: To prove that he is God. If he had not done the miracles, culminating in his final most miraculous resurrection, we would not know that he is God.
Norm: I thought that if Jesus performed miracles to prove that he was God, then it took away our free will.
Chris: No.
Bright: Well, you did say that, Chris. Own up to your mistakes, it's okay. Norm has made quite a few that he hasn't yet owned up to, and you don't want to be like him.
Norm: Isn't that what you just said?
Chris: No. What I just said is that Jesus' miracles prove that he was God.
Norm: So why didn't Jesus perform real, concrete miracles like moving a mountain?
Bright: Because "moving mountains" was an incredibly common metaphor amongst ancient Jewish peoples to convey something that was difficult, or commonly thought to be impossible, and Jesus was not speaking literally. No first century Jew would have thought he was.
Chris: Because that would take away our free will.

Try having this conversation yourself with a Christian and you will find it to be a very odd discussion. The circular logic will make you dizzy:

Jesus had to perform miracles to prove his divinity, and that doesn't take away free will...Apparently, it didn't. Some of his disciples still doubted him to the very end.

...But if Jesus performed miracles that we could see and scientifically verify, it would take away free will.

Any normal person can see reality. The reason why Jesus did not perform concrete, verifiable miracles is because Jesus was a man like any other. The "miracles" discussed in the Bible were not miracles at all. I love how you determined that without really examining any more than one miracle he ever did, and by merely asserting it's a magic trick.

I mean, really now. You disproved the miracles by saying, "They're not miraculous enough, and therefore, they're actually not miracles at all." When has that logic ever worked.

A hidden God?

Here is a line of reasoning that Christians will frequently use to try to rationalize Jesus' behavior. In the book "The Case for Faith," the author Lee Stroble interviews Peter Kreeft, Ph.D. Dr. Kreeft says the following:

"Scripture describes God as a hidden God. You have to make the effort of faith to find him. There are clues you can follow. And if that weren't so, if there was something more or less than clues, it's difficult for me to understand how we could really be free to make a choice about him."

Clues? Hidden? According to the Bible God incarnated himself. So? He created an entire human body named Jesus. That is not a "clue" -- that is a huge, obvious piece of evidence. If God came down today as a human being and walked down the street, nobody would be able to tell the difference. How is this obvious? It is very hard to "hide" a 170-pound human being who is running around performing miracles on every street corner. Every street corner? Try scattered areas amongst the lowest classes in a remote area of Israel. Then you collect the stories of those miracles and publish them in a book. Where is the hiding in that? Obviously, the book isn't obvious. If it were, you would be a Christian by now.

There are examples of God's desire for publicity throughout the Bible. The best known is God's parting of the Red Sea in the book of Exodus, chapter 14:

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

That is impressive, and it is utterly obvious. Thousands of Israelites who already believed in him witnessed this event. There are many other events that are equally obvious: manna from heaven given to people who already believed in him, the Ten Commandments carved onto stone tablets for people who already believed in him, the Passover massacre to save people who already believed in him that killed people who likely believed in him by that point, and so on. All of it is described in the Bible, which God wrote so that billions of people can read about these events and experience them vicariously today, and you still do not believe.

It is pretty hard to hide something that you do in front of thousands of people and then describe and publish in billions of books. Clearly God is not a hidden God. I say again: if this is all so obvious, why in the world are you still an atheist?

But there is an even more impressive sign that we often forget. If God exists and God wrote the Bible, then rainbows are actually proof that God exists. God is not hiding at all. If you read Genesis 9:12-13 you will find this:

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth..."

What could be more obvious than that? God left a sign for all future generations, according to the Bible. Clearly God does not want to hide. And yet, you still don't believe. That's funny.

There are also plenty of cases in the New Testament. For example, Matthew, Chapter 17:

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"

These are not exactly the actions of a God in hiding. Apparently the free wills of Peter, James and John were not that important to God. He also tells them not to tell anyone what they had seen shortly after this passage. Sounds strange coming from a God who you are accusing of wanting to show himself to everyone. And again it is published in the Bible so that billions of other people can read about it. No further comment is necessary, I think.

Or take this passage from the book of Matthew, Chapter 3:

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Again, not exactly a hidden God. And how many people witnessed this?

Or this passage from the book of Luke, Chapter 2:

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

The free will of the shepherds was certainly tarnished a bit here. How many of them? Certainly not many.

In 1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul says,

Then he [Jesus, after the resurrection] appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time.

Those 500 people must have lost their free will. I think not. It's certainly possible to dismiss this as a hoax. Some of them did, actually, according to scripture. And John says:

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

That's an awful lot of miracles -- so many that the world would not have room for all the books describing them. Presumably at least one person witnessed each miracle. Think of how many names fill just one phone book. Now imagine a whole world full of phone books. That's a lot of people. Weren't all of their free wills affected? How is God hiding if millions of people saw Jesus and the miracles he performed? I still think it's hilarious, even though this is the second time you've used this exact argument, that you really interpted this verse literally.

Jesus claims to be God, and Jesus is a physical being running around Israel for all to see. He apparently performed millions of miracles in front of millions of people. "Millions" is a truly gross overstatement. The God of the Bible is not hiding -- God is so hungry for publicity and exposure that he actually incarnates himself and then starts performing miracles for everyone on the planet. Then he creates a God-breathed book to describe everything and publishes billions of copies all over the world.

And the funniest irony is this: after stating all of this, you still do not accept any of it as true. Why is this? Perhaps it's because he left it open enough for you to decide for yourself, not to be forced to believe it because it's so obvious.

Yet, for some reason, God wants none of us today to see any of those miracles because he "needs to remain hidden" so that he will not "taint our free wills." Does that seem likely? Yes. It's likely because, in the scheme of things, the people that saw these miracles amount to a ridiculously miniscule percentage of people who have actually lived. How many is ten thousand, give or take a few, in comparison to the amount of people who have lived since thirty three A.D.? Or is it more likely that Jesus never performed a real miracle? That would appear unlikely. The textual evidence supports it. When you combine this evidence with the fact that Jesus answers no prayers (see section 1) (see my response), it is clear to us what is actually happening. You've got everything wrong. Again.

Drawing a conclusion

Here is an important question for you to ask yourself: If Jesus needed miracles to prove to people that he is God, and if it did not hurt their "free wills" to see these miracles, and if all these miracles were written down and attested to by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so that we could all experience them vicariously today, then why didn't Jesus perform a single real miracle? You have not proved this. Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles have a physical permanence that would transcend time and prove his story? Because it's completely unnecessary to compel belief. Except maybe for you.

To better understand the question, try this: Imagine that you are watching a magician like David Copperfield on television. He "heals" a few people -- makes a blind person see, makes a lame person walk, etc. He demonstrates that he can "turn water into wine." Then he goes one step further and says, "I am God! I have just proven it to you by my miracles!"

To better understand this analogy, let's break it down? Are the blind and lame people in question people who had been medically established as being so beforehand? Are there doctors who can verify that they are not blind and lame anymore? Did he actually turn water into wine, or was it an illusion?

Would any of us believe him? Of course not. To believe that someone is God, we would need incontrovertible proof. We would not accept magic tricks. We know that they are meaningless. But aren't you assuming precisely what needs to be proved?

God is not trying to remain "hidden" -- all we have to do is open the Bible to see it. Indeed. Open the Bible to Isaiah 45:15: "Truly, You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, Savior!" And it is obvious that, if a person were to claim to be God today, we would demand real proof. Like a resurrection from the dead? Therefore, the fact that Jesus did not perform a single miracle that is visible and testable today proves to all of us that Jesus was a normal human being, just like you and me. Even if it were visible, it would never really be "testable." Testing implies repeating.

Chapter 18 - Was Jesus the son of God?

2008-09-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 18 - An introduction to more disastrous arguments."

The centerpiece of the Christian faith is Jesus. Thank you for acknowledging this. You said that the centerpiece of the Christian faith was the Bible in the last essay, so I'm glad you finally have come to your senses. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus are celebrated by Christians all around the world. Jesus' miracles prove to Christians that Jesus is the son of God. As discussed in chapter 14, Jesus' death is the human sacrifice that finally appeased God. And as we discussed in Chapter 14, "appease" is the wrong word to use.

Jesus claims in many places in the Bible, and in many different ways, that he is God. Some atheists do not admit this. I thank you for that as well. For example, in John chapter 4, verse 25 we find this:

The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."

Well, to be fair, being "the Messiah" is not necessarily God.

In John Chapter 10, verse 24 we find this:

So the Jews gathered round him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me."

In John chapter 14, verse 8 we find this:

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father."

And so on. It is clear that Jesus claimed to be God. I don't believe that these verses are the best you could have done, but I will grant you that anyway, since it is quite clear in other places that Jesus did claim to be God.

According to Jesus, his miracles prove that he is God. For example, in Matthew chapter 11 we find this:

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them."

There are also numerous attestations of Jesus's miracles in other places in Scripture too.

What we have here is a man who says that he is God, and who claims that his miracles prove that he is God. The question that any normal person would ask is simple: Is this true? Is Jesus God, or was Jesus a normal human being? Or perhaps an abnormal human being?

© P-Dunn's Apologetics 2008. All rights reserved.

Chapter 17 - Reviewing the evidence about the Bible

2008-09-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 17 - Yet another ridiculously long article 'reviewing' something. The only reason I'm doing this article is for completion's sake, since you're bringing nothing new to the table."

In the last four chapters we have [childishly, lazily, and uncritically] looked at dozens of Bible passages. And I have shown you why that was poor. We have found that God is a huge proponent of slavery [See here], that God hates women [see here], that God revels in the destruction of small children [Go here], and that God spells out detailed instructions for animal and human sacrifice [Aaaand here. I will point out though that there are no instructions whatsoever given about human sacrifice at all]. If you are a Christian, here is the important question that you should be asking yourself:

Do you believe that an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, prayer-answering God wrote these passages in the Bible?

What I believe is that God inspired the authors of the text. There's a difference.

This question is incredibly important because of this fact:

There is no reason for you to believe that you have a soul, or that you will have eternal life after death, or that there is a heaven and hell, or that God answers prayers, or that God wrote the Ten Commandments, or that Jesus is resurrected, and so on, unless you believe that God wrote the Bible.

Really think about what he just said. Does that even make a lick of sense whatsoever? There are plenty of less conservative Christians, even those on the liberal end of the spectrum, who believe that Jesus resurrected and God answers prayers, yet believe that the Bible is a completely human work. There is NO reason to believe that these issues are entirely hinging on Biblical inspiration. That's a ridiculous non-sequitur.

If you insist that God wrote the Bible so that you can believe in the Ten Commandments or eternal life, shouldn't you also be a proponent of slavery and a misogynist? No, no, a thousand times no. On a very basic level, the Ten Commandments are set aside from the rest of the commandments. But on a more important level, there is no place in scripture that commands anyone to own slaves, nor is there any grounds for misogyny. It is the same book in both cases.

The point is simple. Can you imagine God sitting on his magnificent throne in heaven saying this?

"As the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe, I shall write a book for my creation, and I shall call it The Bible. No, I can't imagine God saying such a thing. Mostly because we invented the term "Bible," and the composition of it is nowhere close to what you make it out to be. Let's see, what shall I put in it??? An all-knowing God would certainly know that only one question mark is necessary, not three. Well, I want to be SURE to write about my absolute endorsement of slavery in both the Old and the New Testaments -- slavery is very important to me and I want people buying and selling slaves for thousands of years. "Absolute endorsement" is merely weasel words. And I want to be CERTAIN that the book shows how much I hate women in both the Old and the New Testaments. Yeah, a God that makes special covenants with women, who punishes men for hurting them, and who sends special messengers to women before he ever sends them to men certainly hates women. And I can NOT forget the parts about animal and human sacrifice, because sacrifices are an essential element of every proper religion. I want people slaughtering animals, splattering their blood and then burning the carcasses on a stone altar because the aroma is pleasing to me. I ask again. Have you ever cooked meat...ever? If not, go grill a steak and tell me how it smells. And I want to make human sacrifice the centerpiece of my worship. Of course, this sort of sacrifice is about as far and away from the other religions as one can get. And I CERTAINLY need to include the juicy parts about child massacre in both the Old and the New Testaments. Baby killing is something that I will emphasize throughout this book because it is very important to me. Yawn."

Do you believe this? Of course not. Of co--oh wait, you answered for me. Yet, clearly, if God does exist and God wrote the Bible, this is in fact what God said to himself. Really? I had no idea that God was so juvenile, used poor grammar, and overexaggerated everything without taking things into their proper historical context. God seems surprisingly like Marshall Brain. You have seen with your own eyes the numerous passages in the Bible where God displays these tendencies. Confirm them yourself by looking them up in God's word. I wonder if you really believe Christians aren't aware of these things, and haven't been for the past few thousand years, in their very own holy book.

An all-knowing, all-loving God could not have written such appalling verses into the Bible. It should be obvious to you that primitive men wrote this book, not God. Even if that's true, it still has to be examined like every other historical work. You don't get a free pass on this one.

What should the non-Christians make of this? I don't particularly care.

If you are a Christian, and if you insist that God wrote or "inspired" the Bible, then there is a second question that you may want to consider:

Why do you worship this God? And why do you publicly and openly admit it?

I'll answer each one individually.

1) I worship God because he asks us to. I worship God because he deserves it. I worship God because that is what we, as humans, were created to do. I worship God because we are worshipping agents, and rather than worshiping myself, or other things that are of the world, I feel it necessary to worship the person whom worship reaches its pinnacle with.

2) I don't see any reason for me to keep the relationship I have with God a secret. To me, this is like asking me, "Why do you publicly and openly admit being in possession to the cure for heart disease?"

Think about the non-Christians who live next door to you. They can read the Bible. Wouldn't it seem logical for people outside Christianity -- for example, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists and so on -- to look at you as a monster for worshipping such a being? Not really. Most Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists I know have a better understanding of Scripture than you do. The irony here is that people who look at other belief systems and say, "Those people are monsters," is the prime example of what bigotry is all about. By worshipping this God, giving him your money, etc., you show that you yourself must believe in slavery, misogyny, animal/human sacrifice and baby-killing. Talk about hurling the elephant. Good grief. Do you not? All of these passages are right there in the Bible. Anyone can read them. By stating that you believe the Bible, are you not endorsing these passages? No more than reading "The Columbine High School Massacre: The FBI Files" makes me endorse what Harris and Klebold did. At least, if what you say is true, and the Bible really does "endorse" such things.

By worshipping this God, do you not show that you endorse his actions in the Bible? It may seem that way, but I don't think so. I don't necessarily approve of everything God does. I think some of them were over the top. Of course, I realize that there are other circumstances revolving around these events, unlike you, that we may not be able to understand given the current information. Besides, God's chief desire from us is not love, or approval. It's obedience. Why in the world would non-Christians want you openly spreading your messages from a slavery-condoning, woman-hating, sacrifice-loving, child-killing God? Something tells me that I'll be hearing those words a lot for the rest of the essay, and book.

A Christian would respond to this question with something like the following: "God is NOT a murderer! God does NOT kill babies! God does NOT hate women! God would NEVER do any of the things that you are talking about. God is LOVE. It says so in the Bible!" A smart Christian would give evidence to back these up, as I have done time and time again, and you still haven't responded. Such a person is ignoring the obvious. There is nothing really "obvious" about any of it. The slavery-condoning, woman-hating, sacrifice-loving, baby-killing verses are all there in the Bible plain as day. They would not be there unless God wanted them there. God is omnipotent. If God took the time to write the Bible, he would also take the time to protect its contents from corruption. Evidence, please. If God wrote the Bible, then every word in it was placed there -- intentionally and purposefully -- by God himself. Evidence, please. There are a variety of different theories of inspiration, many of them not including such ideas.

It is not as though God has one slip of the tongue that might be misinterpreted as condoning slavery -- there are at least ten places in the Bible where God openly, unashamedly and absolutely endorses slavery. Regulating something is a far cry from openly, unashamedly, and absolutely endorsing slavery. Will you ever learn this distinction? You remind me of the people who seriously think that libertarians all endorse the use of drugs because they want them legalized. God does not "sort of hint" that he might dislike women -- God displays open animosity toward women in his words and deeds. If he ever displays animosity toward women, it is almost always accompanied by animosity towards the men they were with. This is why Eve was not singled out and punished while Adam got off without punishment. God not only likes animal sacrifice -- he demands it, and gives explicit instructions for how it is to be done. Chick-fil-A not only likes animal sacrifice -- it demands it, and gives explicit instructions for how it is to be done. God does not kill one or two children -- God openly massacres millions of children and admits it in writing. The problem is what, exactly? Are you telling God that he can't take away the lives of people he created?

This is the God of the Bible. This is the God that Christians worship.

A God who loved his creation so much that he became a human, with all of the limitations involved, in order to live amongst the poor and destitute, reject all social norms, and be tortured to death.

A God who says that there is no slave or free, no man or woman, because we are all equal in the sacrifice of Christ.

A God who constantly gave warnings and chances to repent before every single example of punishment, sometimes for as long as several hundred years before action.

A God who associated himself with the kind of humans that his people seemed to hate.

A God who forgave a woman who was caught in the act of adultery, risking execution himself.

A God who is willing to forgive and forget whatever sins you committed, based only on his grace.

Sounds like a great person to me. What's your problem?

Why is the Bible so irrelevant? Why are you such a cultural snob?

For many people, the last four chapters prove that God did not write the Bible. They prove it beyond the shadow of any doubt. It is painfully obvious: Primitive men wrote the Bible, not God. For the sake of argument, I will grant this.

But what if you need still more proof? If so, then here is a question: Why, when you read the Bible, are you not left in awe? Never mind the fact that you are psychoanalyzing us, since you have no idea what kind of feelings we get after reading it. Why doesn't a book written by God leave you with a sense of wonder and amazement? Never mind that there are plenty of parts in the Bible that will, and should leave you in awe if you read it with any kind of cultural and historical knowledge. If you are reading a book written by the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of the universe, wouldn't you expect to be stunned by the brilliance, the clarity and the wisdom of the author? Never mind the fact that the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, etc are still today regarded as some of the best, most profound advice one can receive. Would you not expect each new page to intoxicate you with its incredible prose and its spectacular insight? Never mind that much of the Bible isn't supposed to.

The Bible wasn't written to impress anyone. There is no indication whatsoever that the purpose of the Bible is to "intoxicate you with incredible prose." Much of the Bible was merely written to inform and educate.

Really, Mr. Brain. "The world does not revolve around you and your petulant childishness."

Instead, opening the Bible inevitably creates a feeling of dumbfoundment. And yet, you're the one telling us how to interpret things. Have you ever noticed that? Instead of brilliance, much of the Bible contains nonsense. Yes, that's right. The book regarded as the most influential work of ethics, history, and literature in human history is mostly "nonsense." The topics of the previous several chapters, where we discussed the Bible's advocacy of slavery and animal sacrifice, the Bible's misogyny and so on, are excellent examples. But they are just the tip of the iceberg. You can open the Bible to almost any page and find nonsense instead of wisdom. Here are several examples:

Judges Chapter 4

But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.

Yes, this is nonsense. Instead, it should read like this:

"But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a feather and a back massager and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She gave him a back massage and tickled his neck, and he smiled."

What is your problem, Brain? Why in the world is a random passage from what obviously is a historical narrative "nonsense?"

Genesis Chapter 19

Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let's get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father."

His two daughters were bad people. What's the issue? Does the author of the book approve this? Certainly not.

Genesis Chapter 38

Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord 's sight; so he put him to death also.

From here:

Onan refused to carry out his responsibility as the brother of the deceased. Onan not only refused, but repeatedly refused. Onan not only repeatedly refused, but pretended that he wasn't refusing. Onan was therefore setting it up so that he would get the big bucks and leave Tamar penniless, as she wouldn't have born an heir, and therefore Onan would have gotten the entire inheritance.

Judges Chapter 3

Ehud then approached him [the fat king] while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

What kind of guy do you think the king of Moab was, Mr. Brain? Think he was a good, innocent guy?

Judges Chapter 19

But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. Everyone who saw it said, "Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!"
Reading on, you will soon discover that the tribe of Israel is absolutely outraged by this, enough to go to war with the tribe of Benjamin, which should prove to you that even a concubine woman was valued by society. The fact that this story is "nonsense" to you seems very convenient.

Joshua Chapter 10

When they had brought these kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had come with him, "Come here and put your feet on the necks of these kings." So they came forward and placed their feet on their necks.

Joshua said to them, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight." Then Joshua struck and killed the kings and hung them on five trees, and they were left hanging on the trees until evening.

1 Samuel Chapter 31

Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me."
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.

Problem is?

Numbers Chapter 31

Moses was angry with the officers of the army-the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds-who returned from the battle. "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the Lord 's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."

We've been over this one. You're resorting to repetition now.

Deuteronomy Chapter 25

If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

You probably think this is nonsense because you don't really understand what it means to live in a society where heirs were necessary in order to survive.

There are two things to notice in these quotes. First, they are all disgusting. This doesn't mean anything. Second, they all tell stories about men and women doing things that are utterly and completely irrelevant. Irrelevant to whom? You?

Why do you care about a woman killing a man with a tent peg, or a man cutting up his concubine and mailing her body parts around? Do you care about Moses telling his soldiers, "kill everyone, but save the virgins for yourselves"? If God is going to take the time to write a book that will last for millennia, why fill it with such useless material?

I've never seen such cultural snobbery, such petty self centeredness, such abject anti-intellectualism, or ridiculous stupidity. Who in the world are you, of all people, to say that certain things in a book written thousands of years ago are "useless" or "irrelevant?" Has it occurred to you in the slightest that when it was written down, these events and regulations meant literally the world to people? Have you ever considered that, to the Isrealites, these books made up probably the sole written record of the history of their people, and they spent years memorizing every single word so that they could base their lives around it?

This is exactly the reason why the new atheists are chastised: because of their complete hypocrisy.

Another problem with the Bible is that it frequently contradicts the Standard Model of God. Here is an example from Leviticus 21:17:

Say to Aaron, None of your descendants throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, a man blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or a man who has an injured foot or an injured hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a defect in his sight or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles; no man of the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the LORD's offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God. He may eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy things, but he shall not come near the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the LORD who sanctify them.

Doesn't it seem odd for an all-loving God to discriminate against people with handicaps and genetic problems? You act as if there were lots of people who could enter the sanctuary, and God is somehow singling out these people. On the contrary, only a Levite, who was a Holy Priest, could enter the sanctuary once a year. Is that discriminatory? I don't see that it's discriminatory any more than only letting a few people into Fort Knox is discriminatory.

You also seem to forget that even people with disabilities were permitted to eat of the offering that was given, meaning that all people, regardless of their circumstance, could receive the blessing of God.

Here is another example. In the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 21:18, the Bible says:

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Doesn't that seem to contradict the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill"? The commandment is "Thou shalt not murder," which does not include the death penalty. And doesn't it seem just a tad harsh? Considering the socio-historical context, not really. If we applied this sort of philosophy today (as Christians should, since they proclaim the Bible and the Ten Commandments to be God's infallible word *sigh*), millions of our teenagers would need to be stoned to death.

Why assume that these are "teenagers?" His sin is being a "drunkard," which at that time was a very "adult" sin, and the term for "son" gives no indication of his age. Furthermore, the terms used for "stubborn and rebellious" indicate a complete, willing aversion to all authority, being a danger to one's self and those around him, and therefore a danger to the survival of the ANE society. "Harsh" penalties were enforced to deter people from bringing the community down.

Here is another example. On the day Moses comes down from Mount Sinai with the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, he discovers that the Israelites have created a golden calf. To punish the people, Moses gathers a group of men and takes the following action in the book of Exodus, Chapter 32:

"Then he [Moses] said to them, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.' " The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.

So... one minute we have God carving into stone, "Thou shalt not kill." Murder. Then the next minute we have God telling each man to strap a sword to his side and lay waste to thousands. Wouldn't you expect the almighty ruler of the universe to be slightly more consistent than this? 3,000 dead people is a lot of commandment breaking. Further references to that commandment will be ignored, since I've already corrected you on it time and time again.

You tell me what an absurd situation this is, Mr. Brain. The Israelites had just witnessed God bring plagues upon their enslavers of several hundred years, so that they would be set free. God led them out of slavery, even opening up a new path of escape for them on the ocean floor, and kept them safe until they were out of reach by their captors. Their leader goes up to a mountain for a while, and those people, who were just let out of a life of bondage for no reason other than God's incredible grace, turned away and worshiped their own creation, committing spiritual adultery as a thank-you note.

What would you suggest God do? Give them a talking to, point his finger and scold?

Some Christians try to find an out for all of this irrelevance and contradiction by saying, "Well, I don't believe the Old Testament. God sent Jesus to cancel it out." Such would be a rather naïve understanding of how the superceding of the law happened. But that really is not the case. If God wrote the Bible, then God fully intended for the Bible -- the entire Bible -- to be a timeless book. Why? Much of the Bible was written to very specific people under very specific contexts for very specific purposes. In Isaiah 40:8 God says, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever." In Matthew 5:18 Jesus says, "For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." And Jesus accomplished all of the law. QED. When Jesus says "the law" what he is talking about is all of the laws that God lays down in the Old Testament. Those laws include everything that God says about slavery, misogyny, animal sacrifice, stoning teenagers, cutting off hands and all the rest. Tell me why not a single Old Testament scholar agrees with you.

An experiment

Here is an experiment for you to try. Pick up any handy Bible. Open the book to a random page. Read it. You tell me -- is this a book that amazes you? Do you employ this method with all works of history, like the Annals and the Antiquities, or are you just using this for the Bible? I am trying this experiment this morning as I write this book. Consider reading Bible passages in their proper context rather than opening it and reading random paragraphs. When will that EVER give you a successful reading of anything? Here are the five random quotes that I came upon:

Leviticus 15:

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Say to the people of Israel, When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. And this is the law of his uncleanness for a discharge: whether his body runs with his discharge, or his body is stopped from discharge, it is uncleanness in him. Every bed on which he who has the discharge lies shall be unclean; and everything on which he sits shall be unclean. And any one who touches his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And whoever sits on anything on which he who has the discharge has sat shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches the body of him who has the discharge shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And if he who has the discharge spits on one who is clean, then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening. And any saddle on which he who has the discharge rides shall be unclean. And whoever touches anything that was under him shall be unclean until the evening; and he who carries such a thing shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.

Can you imagine every doctor and nurse following God's law? Does the concept of ceremonial cleanliness mean anything to you? I suppose not. If it did, you wouldn't be making bigoted comments.

1 Kings 8:

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers' houses of the people of Israel, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. And all the men of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the feast in the month Eth'anim, which is the seventh month. And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark. And they brought up the ark of the LORD, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

Yes, so? How is this at all relevant? Why would God write this? It still astounds me how pathetically juvenile this is on your part. You sound like a person sitting in a history class in fifth grade, asking a teacher, "Why do I have to learn this? What does it mean for me?" Historians know exactly what it means, and this section of the Bible is a historical narrative that meant a great deal to the people to whom it was written.

Psalms 89:

A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite. I will sing of thy steadfast love, O LORD, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations. For thy steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is firm as the heavens. Thou hast said, "I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant: 'I will establish your descendants for ever, and build your throne for all generations.'" [Selah] Let the heavens praise thy wonders, O LORD, thy faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones! For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD, a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and terrible above all that are round about him? O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as thou art, O LORD, with thy faithfulness round about thee? Thou dost rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, thou stillest them. Thou didst crush Rahab like a carcass, thou didst scatter thy enemies with thy mighty arm.

Again, how is this relevant? It is a Psalm that would most likely have been used in worship services. It is relevant to the people it was given to.

Acts 10:

The next day, as they were on their journey and coming near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. And he became hungry and desired something to eat; but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heaven opened, and something descending, like a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." But Peter said, "No, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." And the voice came to him again a second time, "What God has cleansed, you must not call common." This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision which he had seen might mean, behold, the men that were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon's house, stood before the gate and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there.

Actually, this passage has a great deal of significance. It is direct proof that the law of the Old Testament was indeed superceded, at least in significance to the laws regulating what people can eat. Did you somehow miss that?

Revelations 12:

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

You most likely haven't the slightest clue what the symbolism for all of these things is.

Are you amazed by these passages? In regards to the ones you quoted, I am "amazed" by the significance of two of them. Are you inspired by their brilliance and insight? Some of them. Do they leave you with a sense of wonderment? Some of them. Do they have any bearing at all on you, or your life? At least two of them do. After reading them, do you find the Bible to be a book that you would want to continue reading? Yes, if only to get the rest of the context in. You butchered it, after all. Most importantly: Do these passages leave you with the impression that they were written by an all-powerful, all-knowing God? Not in the way you're suggesting. Or was this book written by primitive men? The answer is "both." God inspired the thoughts of humans, and the humans wrote it out in their own way. Try the experiment yourself and see what you find. Think about what you are reading in the context of an all-knowing God.

What happens if I happen to open it up and find Proverbs, which is an incredible source of "brilliance and insight?" What happens when I run into a passage where Jesus does something groundbreaking and social norm shattering, which fills most individuals today with "wonderment?" What happens when I come across the beautiful language of Ecclesiastes or John? What then, Mr. Brain?

Be honest with yourself. Does the Bible strike you as a book filled with brilliance, or with nonsense?

Brilliance. How else could a book of that sort survive so long, making such an impact on our modern ethics? I, unlike you, am not a provincialist bigot who looks at a book of this sort, opens to a random sentence, and asks how this is relevant to me, as if the Bible needs to be revised to suit your interests and satisfy your juvenile desires of petty intellectualism.

Think about what you are reading

What do I mean when I say, "think about what you are reading?" Let's use Leviticus 15, from the previous section, as an example. The passage is discussing "discharge." Why doesn't God in Leviticus 15 say:

"There are 47 different types of abnormal discharges that I have inflicted on the human body when I created it. Evidence? They are, in order of frequency of occurrence: 1) Discharge from an infected skin lesion, normally caused by some sort of cut or puncture wound. What is happening here is a bacterial infection. First off, whenever you get a cut or puncture wound, you should wash it carefully with an antiseptic solution to kill the bacteria, and then cover the wound with a sterile dressing to keep bacteria out. Also, make sure that your tetanus vaccination is up to date. These steps will prevent 98.7% of all infections. But if the wound does become infected, what you should do is incise and drain the wound. This will be painful, but it is important because if you allow the pus to build up..."

And the thousands of starving Isrealites go, ".........Huh? Vaccine? Bacteria? Sterile? Tetanus? Incise? Infection?"

And the fundamentalist atheists go, "Why would God be so cruel as to write something so confusing that wouldn't have been relevant to people for thousands of years?"

The irony here is that you accuse the Bible of being irrelevant to you personally, but seem to be completely content with making the Bible irrelevant to everyone else before you.

God should know all of this stuff -- according to Christians he is all-knowing. When reading Leviticus 15, any normal human being asks questions like these:

Why didn't God transcribe a useful medical guide into the Bible for these primitive people, rather than transcribing rituals that accomplish nothing? And your evidence that these things accomplished nothing is.....?
Why doesn't God explain how to manufacture antiseptic solutions, sterile dressings, tetanus vaccines and antibiotic creams? Because those things would have meant nothing to anyone for thousands of years.
Even better, why not explain how to build a Star Trek Tricorder to instantly heal the wound? A quick Wikipedia search has informed me that Tricorders do not heal wounds, but scan the land around the user and provide information regarding the topography, etc.
Even better, why didn't God design the human immune system to prevent all infections in the first place and eliminate the discharges completely? Why would God intentionally inflict human beings with all of these different types of abnormal discharges? The argument that needs to be considered is that we were not initially created in such a way, and our sin is causing our decay.

Extending on these ideas, why doesn't God use the Bible to explain metallurgy, chemistry, biology, physics, manufacturing, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. to these primitive people so they can dramatically accelerate their development?

You are a bigot, and a foolish one at that.

Why, in other words, is the Bible so useless? What a statement. Why does the author of the Bible, who is supposed to be God, who is supposed to be all-knowing, know so little? Why is the knowledge of the author limited to the knowledge of the primitive men who wrote the book? If you think about what you are reading in the Bible in the context of an all-knowing God who supposedly wrote it, none of it makes any sense. But if you think about the Bible as being a book written by primitive men like you would find in the remote regions of Afghanistan today, it makes complete sense. Again, only someone as ignorant as you would call people in Afganistan "primitive."

After reading the Bible passages in this section, what is your common sense telling you about the Bible? Do these passages from the Bible match up with your view of what an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful being would write down in his book? Does it make sense to you that a book created by an all-knowing God would contain so much nonsense? Are you left agape as you read the Bible, or are you dumbfounded by its utter stupidity?

Weigh the evidence. Does it seem more likely that the Bible was written by God, or by a bunch of primitive men?

Both. The Bible was written both by "primitive" men and by God.

Proving it to yourself

It is easy to prove to yourself that God did not write the Bible. We can do it in the following way.

I challenge you to go on national TV with me. We are going to go on a major, nationally broadcast show with a major host like Oprah, Larry King, Bill O'Reilly, etc.

Here's all that you have to do. You are going to read for 30 minutes from the New International Version or the New American Standard Version (your choice) of the Bible. This should be a dream come true for you -- here you will have the chance to spread the power of God's word directly to the nation.

There is only one thing that I ask. I want you to let me choose the verses that you will read.

I accept. Leave a comment on this post or drop me an email and let me know the circumstances. I will be waiting.

Would you take the challenge? Of course not. I most certainly will. If I pick the passages, I can make you look like a total idiot on national television. If you pick the passages, and I use scholarship to show what these verses actually mean, I can make you look like a total idiot on national television. I can have you read verses about slavery [which I will inform you is quite different from what you argue it is], misogyny [which doesn't exist in the mind of God], animal sacrifice [which we do all of the time in different forms, and you don't seem to care], child massacre [which we can use commentary to establish what actually happened], sliced up concubines [which I can inform you was not directed by God, and in fact the point of the story is to show the folly of the person involved], tent pegs [ditto] and all the rest. No one in their right mind would take this challenge. I see myself in a totally right state of mind, which means that I can use real scholarship to prove you are a fool.

This is how we know, without a doubt, that God did not write the Bible. If an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing creator of the universe actually wrote this book, it would not be filled with so much idiocy. The Bible would be all about flowers, imagination, frolicking, and, warm fuziness, and sentimentalism. Slavery, misogyny and child-massacre are abominations and we all know it, and never once are they portrayed in Scripture as being good. The reason why the Bible contains this material is because primitive men wrote the Bible, not God.

What it all means

If the Bible really were the error-free word of an all-powerful God, it would be profound, meaningful, timeless, fascinating, and enlightening both at the spiritual level and at the technological level. And it is, at least where it's meant to be. It would tell us things that we did not already know. I can find many, many examples of things in the Bible that weren't practiced, or people were unaware of, before it came on the scene. Take practically any of Jesus's ethical teachings. It would stun us with the brilliance of the author. We would look at the words in the Bible in awe. People have for thousands of years. Your point?

Instead it is clear that God had nothing to do with the Bible. Simply open the book up and read it. The Bible is the work of primitive men who lived 2,000 or 3,000 years ago, without a hint of guidance from the "all-knowing creator of the universe." The previous chapters clearly demonstrate that beyond the shadow of any doubt. Read: You should accept what I say uncritically, because no doubt is reasonable.

If you are a Christian, this leaves you with two choices:

You can continue to proclaim that the Bible is the Word of God. You do that knowing that it is a lie. Quite clearly an all-knowing, all-loving God cannot also advocate slavery. Nor can he be sexist.
You can make a rational decision based on clear evidence: you can reject the Bible. You can accept that the Bible is the work of primitive men and is therefore completely irrelevant to us today. You can reject the Bible's authority, and you can reject all the people who claim that the Bible is a message from God.
You can do some research outside of the popular Christian circle, or even the popular atheist circle, come to educated conclusions about what it says, and continue to be an intellectually fulfilled believer.

Once you accept that the Bible is a book written by primitive men rather than God, it is a very powerful realization. It has many implications:

The Bible claims that Jesus is the Son of God. Now that you know that the Bible is the work of men rather than God, you can see reality -- Jesus was a man like anyone else. Why is this so? There is no reason to believe that, if the Bible is purely a work of man, that Jesus wasn't God. That does not follow.
Both Christianity and Judaism are invalid as religions, having lost the Bible as a theological foundation. Our theological foundation is Christ, not the Bible.
The Bible can no longer be used under "God's authority" as a tool of oppression. For example, take the Bible's position on women. In 1 Corinthians the Bible says: "As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." See the link above for an explanation. That's about as oppressive as you can get. Please refrain from using ridiculous hyperbole. However, I assume Paul thought it was oppressive, since he is quoting the argument and showing his disapproval. Or look at the way the Bible discusses homosexuals. Leviticus 20:13 states: "If a man lies with a male as a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them." Conservative Christians are quite fond of these passages, and use them whenever they wish to justify their prejudice against women and homosexuals. They do so, in their minds, with God's blessing. Since it is quite obvious that the Bible is not the word of God, we can see that people who quote these verses are simple bigots rather than God's messengers. Your use of the word "bigot" is a very satisfying irony. The next time you hear people try to marginalize or degrade anyone using the Bible, you are able to completely ignore them.
The Bible's story of creation is irrelevant, so we can completely ignore "creationists" and the proponents of "intelligent design". Also a non sequitur. God did not create human beings as described in the Bible -- the entire creation story is a mythological legend written by primitive men. The concept of "original sin" and the concept of mankind's divine creation are invalid. Non sequitur.
You have no soul and there is no eternal life after death. See Chapter 27 for details. I am looking forward to this chapter.
An amazing 59% of the American population believes that the Bible's book of Revelation will actually come true. Now it is easy to see that the Book of Revelation is a work of pure fiction. Non sequitur. Revalation claims to be a book written by a human who was given a vision by God. This can still be true even if we take the book for what it says and it was written by a human.
And so on� Question mark?

The Bible clearly is not the word of God. The slavery passages in Chapter 13 [Response Here] provide more than enough evidence to prove that. Riiiight. When you think about it and truly let that fact sink in, the full implications [of Brain's ignorance] are enormous. Once you eliminate the Bible, it is amazing what you eliminate with it.

As intelligent people, what do we do with the Christians -- millions of them -- who insist that the Bible is the word of God? Throw them all in a mental institution, like Brian Sapient would? Let me answer that question with another question: What do we do with people who believe in astrology? You know the people I am talking about -- they believe in horoscopes, and they believe that the alignment of the planets affects our lives on earth today. What do we do with them? We ignore them. We do not take them seriously. We exclude them from reasonable public discourse and debate. We censor them. We do not allow their opinions to be heard, because we must create a society based on reason, and unreasonable opinions cannot be allowed. Big Brother is watching.

If a presidential candidate were to stand up and say, "the alignment of the planets indicates that in foreign policy, we should follow a path that�," or if he/she were to end a speech with "Jupiter bless America," we would not vote for this candidate.

People who believe in the Bible are in the same boat. Why would we listen to anyone who believes in slavery, hates women and supports a God who is a flagrant baby-killer? You have been corrected many times on this. Do we want people like that holding public office, sitting on our courts, running our corporations or teaching our children? They already do, and look how successful our nation is.

The Bible is clearly the work of primitive men, many of whom were insane. You love to throw that word around, and have not provided a speck of evidence for us to go along with you. Anyone with common sense can see that. Funny that "common sense" is somehow restricted to 10% of the world's population. Exodus 21:20-21 alone is enough to prove it. Two verses in Exodus is enough to prove that Jesus isn't the son of God and that the entire Bible isn't inspired, eh? We have a phrase for that. It's called "a bloated conclusion." When people insist that the Bible is the word of God, we should ignore them and exclude them from public discourse. We should censor all Christians and keep the airways exclusively filled with our atheist propaganda, much to the chagrin of Marshall Brain. It's a free country, and people have a right to their superstitions in the privacy of their own homes. But no one is required to take them seriously in a public forum. What you are saying is essentially the argument that segregationists made sixty years ago. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

Simply look back through Chapters 13, 14, 15 and 16. The Bible is [not] so wrong in so many places, [but Marshall Brain is.]. What are we thinking when we quote from this book? What are we thinking when we quote Proverbs 3:13? What are we thinking when we quote passages that say not to commit adultery? How foolish are we to quote the Bible? Why do intelligent people allow this book to be referenced in public discourse? Because there is a great deal more to it than what you are allowing. It is amazing when you consider how much evil this book harbors. See Chapter 28 for additional details. I look forward to driving your points into the ground.

Chapter 16 - Why does God massacre millions of children?

2008-08-18T13:12:00.001-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 16 - Why does Marshall Brain continue to bring up Biblical passages and rant about them, as if Christians and Jews haven't been aware of them for literally thousands of years?"

For most people, the last three chapters offer all the evidence that they need to prove to themselves that God did not write the Bible. In reality, all you've provided us with is more than enough evidence that you have no idea what you're talking about. Clearly, an all-loving God cannot be a huge proponent of slavery. He isn't, at least the kind you're thinking of. Nor can an all-loving God be an advocate of both animal and human sacrifice. Interestingly enough, you never actually demonstrated this point at all. You merely said, "Here it is in the Bible, in a way that is completely different from the other sacrificial systems we observe. That's ridiculous, and therefore I'm right." Nor can an all-loving God be a flagrant misogynist. Of course not. I'm glad I don't worship one. Therefore, since the Bible specifies that God loves slavery and animal/human sacrifice and that God hates women, it is easy for most people to conclude that primitive men wrote the Bible rather than God. No comment needed here.

However, if you need additional evidence, [read: if you're still stupid and aren't yet rational like me] then we can approach the Bible from another angle and reach the same conclusion.

In the book of Matthew, chapter 2, mixed into the Christmas story, the Bible describes an amazing massacre of thousands of babies:

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

Thousands? Bethlehem was a very small town in that day, hardly even worthy of the word "town." Probably less than twenty or thirty were killed here, maybe even less than ten.

Think about the thousands of families who were affected by this massacre. The Bible describes their suffering: they wept and could not be comforted. Of course they could not be comforted. If you are a parent, you know exactly how distraught you would feel if an agent of the government came to your door one morning and slaughtered your children.

Why did God do this? Umm...God didn't do this. Herod did. Being all-knowing, God knew that this would happen. Irrelevant. In fact, according to the Bible, God acted on his knowledge. Where in the scripture does it say that God did this? But why would God take the time to reach down to earth and save his own child, and then allow all of these thousands of other innocent children to die? Because if Jesus had been killed by the authorities, the entire point of Jesus being there would be foiled. If God is love, where is the love in that? How could a loving God willfully allow such massive suffering without taking action? Isn't that what Jesus himself asked on the cross?

Think about how easy it would have been for God to prevent all of this suffering:

God could have appeared to Herod in a dream and told him not to kill these children. God appearing to anyone in a dream is a very, very rare event.

God could have killed Herod. So you are admitting that Herod did this, then? Even if you're not, what you're still advocating is violence on God's part.

God could have guided the wise men so that Herod would not have felt mocked by them.

God could have protected the babies.

God could have spoken to the murdering soldiers and turned them away from the task.

God could have sent all of these families to Egypt when he sent Jesus and his family there.

God could have made it so that no male children besides Jesus were born during that time.

God could have changed history so that Herod was not king. Oh, great idea. Reach into the past and change something that already happened. If God was going to change the past, or change history in any way to eliminate any wrongdoing, the world as a whole wouldn't exist at all.

It is easy to come up with thousands of solutions, yet God did nothing. You realize that this is the same sort of argument that has been brought up for thousands of years, and yet you're treating us as if we've never thought of this before.

God, by sending his son to earth, was the direct cause of this massacre. No. Herod, by getting jealous that some people apparently would worship this "king of the Jews," was the direct cause of this massacre. And God, as an all-powerful and all-knowing being, knew that it would happen and had the power to prevent it. In fact, God did take direct action to save Jesus, because he was literally a manifestation of himself. Instead of saving the thousands [ten to fifteen] of other children, however, God stood by and watched as they were slaughtered.

It is interesting to note that this is not the only place in the Bible where God causes thousands of children to die. In the book of Exodus chapter 12 verse 28, God writes about one of his early massacres:

So the people of Israel did just as the LORD had commanded through Moses and Aaron. And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.

Here the death of the children is directly at the hand of God. Congratulations: you've finally learned what "causation" means. Of course, as is typical with atheists, you neglect to let the world know of the events that led up to this event. You neglect to tell us that this was the last resort in a long line of lesser actions on the part of God, which resulted in many different warnings on the part of Moses that it would only get worse after each one. You forget to inform the world of why God was punishing them; this is ironic, since a few chapters ago, you were railing against slavery, calling it "abhorrent," "remarkable brutality," and "repugnant." Did you mention that Pharaoh was overseeing a regime that directly approved the same sort of forced, sub-human, non-temporary form of slavery that you were railing against? Of course not. Did you mention that the total death toll for this plague was most likely around seventy thousand, whereas the amount of people killed by Pharaoh's infanticide program was over two and a half million? Of course not.

In Isaiah chapter 13, God paints this word picture:

Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.

What a lovely image. What an immature analysis on your part, Mr. Brain. Do you care to provide any historical background as to the atrocities of Babylon? I suppose not.

In Jeremiah chapter 49, verse 20, God paints a similar picture:

Therefore hear the plan which the LORD has made against Edom and the purposes which he has formed against the inhabitants of Teman: Even the little ones of the flock shall be dragged away; surely their fold shall be appalled at their fate. At the sound of their fall the earth shall tremble; the sound of their cry shall be heard at the Red Sea.

In Hosea chapter 13, God paints a similar picture:

Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

In Numbers chapter 31, God paints a similar picture:

Moses said to them, "Have you let all the women live? Behold, these caused the people of Israel, by the counsel of Balaam, to act treacherously against the LORD in the matter of Pe'or, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Here Moses, acting as an agent of God, specifies that thousands of male babies and children be killed, as well as thousands of women. The Bible states in verse 35 that the captured women numbered "thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known man by lying with him." This was not a small attack. Tens of thousands men, women and children were massacred. Twenty four thousand Israelites were also killed, according to the text. Care to mention that? Care to highlight the obvious mercy that the Israelites showed to the young girls, allowing them to assimilate into their society rather than taking their lives? Of course not! Why would we show the mercy of God when we're trying to disprove him? Silly me.

In Deuteronomy Chapter 3 we find this:

Next we turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan with his whole army marched out to meet us in battle at Edrei. The LORD said to me, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon." So the LORD our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors. At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages. We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city—men, women and children. But all the livestock and the plunder from their cities we carried off for ourselves.

They massacred all the men, women and children in 60 cities at God's request. Care to tell us the motive for such an action? Care to tell us who, exactly, is getting "massacred," and what they did to deserve such an action?

Then there is Noah's flood, in which God massacred every single child on the face of the earth. Child? Try human.

Doesn't it feel odd to find all of this material in the Bible? At times. But then again, we know exactly why they're in there. You apparently don't. Especially the quote from Moses in Numbers 31. Why single that out? You may recall that the sixth commandment is, "Thou shalt not kill." And yet, the sixth commandment doesn't mean that you can't take a life. It means that you should not "murder." There's a clear difference. Killing someone in a judicial sense is not ever condemned in the Bible.

What does God have against children? Why would an all-loving, all-knowing being act in this way? Because an "all-loving" God is also a "just" God, which requires the punishment of sin. In the case of Herod's massacre, a religious person might say, "God had to do it to fulfill a prophecy in the Bible." But that makes no sense, because God could have left the prophecy out. That's not a good explanation, because God didn't "do it." Herod did.

A normal person, after reading passages like these, is left first with a deep sense of disgust. I wouldn't blame them. After all, a normal person, reading an isolated few verses totally removed from their context, is understandably confused and disgusted. Normal people, however, upon researching, are no longer disgusted. Any normal human being knows that these acts are monstrous. Are you confessing that normal human beings have a sense of right and wrong that is not merely personal opinion? Hmm. What we are seeing here is not a loving God, but instead a demonic executioner working at a massive scale. What is it with you and the word "demonic?" You don't seem to have any understanding as to what it actually means. Why would anyone worship this appalling monster? A better question is, "Why would anyone worship a God who was merely content to allow people to do whatever kind of evil they wanted with no consequences?"

A normal person then asks the obvious question: Did God actually write these verses in the Bible? Reading them, it would appear not, since the authors clearly distinguish what was said by the Lord and what wasn't. Inspiration does not mean dictation. Would God actually condone these acts? You tell me. What does the scripture say?

I think we can all agree that a loving God would not condone these acts. Oh? Therefore, these parts of the Bible could not have been written by God. It should be obvious to all of us that God did not write the Bible. So because there are parts of the Bible that explicitly aren't written by God, the whole thing isn't? I've already demonstrated the flaw in this logic.

It is appropriate at this point to speak to Christians, especially the "casual Christians" who go to church occasionally because it seems like the "right thing to do." Most Christians have never read the Bible. The irony here is that your interpretations are those of people who haven't read much of it either. They have no idea that the God of the Bible is a huge proponent of slavery, or that God hates women, or that God finds the annihilation of small children so enthralling. Enthralling? Why in the world do we observe that all of these actions were the last resort, then? Should we, as human beings living in the modern world, be worshipping a God like this? Why not? If God is punishing evil, he's a just God. People who are perfectly just deserve a lot of worship.

Mr. Brain, a friend of mine would ask the following questions of you at this point.

Is there anything wrong with anything?
Why?

What is wrong with anything God is doing in these passages? Please demonstrate your opinion. Here are your options:

God is killing children, and killing children is wrong.

The statement "killing children is wrong" is a moral absolute.
Moral absolutes cannot occur without some absolute standard to ground them in.
No atheistic explanations can provide an absolute standard. For example, evolutionary morality cannot be absolute by it's very definition.
There can be no absolute morality without an absolute standard of God.
God must exist.

Absolute morality doesn't exist, but I personally don't like what God is doing.

Who cares? If absolute morality doesn't exist, and instead we are left with moral relativism, then what we say thousands of years later has no bearing on what was done back then.
You have no argument.

Perhaps God has a valid reason for what he's doing.

Perhaps the people in question were child sacrificers. Perhaps they would kidnap children. Perhaps they would lead others to destruction by their lifestyles.

Take your pick.

Chapter 15 - Why is God so sexist?

2008-08-14T15:32:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 15 - More childishness and lack of education."

If you are a Christian woman, then in this chapter I would like to talk with you directly and openly about God. I am not a woman, but I will look with you anyway. And let me get right to the point. When we look at the Bible -- God's Word -- God seems to have a major problem with women. On the whole, that statement is rather ridiculous. But I'll play along with you.

The dictionary defines a misogynist as "One who hates women." [ref] It defines the word "sexist" as:

Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women.

Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender

Do you, as a woman, think of God as sexist, or as a misogynist? I, as a man, do not. Nor do any Christian women I know. (Further responses will not have the "as a man" qualification.") Probably not -- why would a Christian woman worship God if he were obviously a sexist? Why, indeed, have millions of Christian women read the entire Bible, didn't find anything sexist about it, and continued to worship God? When we think of God, we generally do not think of him as hating anyone. Under the Standard Model of God, we think of God as an all-knowing and all-loving father. We think of him as being fair. Do we really? We think of God as loving each person equally, regardless of any distinction like skin color or gender.

Yet, strangely, we find that God treats women quite differently than he treats men. For example, we find this in 1 Corinthians chapter 14:

As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

On a very basic level, these are Paul's words. If you're going to charge God with sexism, then use a quotation that has something like, "Thus sayeth the Lord" before it. But let's dive right in.

Number one: "silence" was not considered to be a bad thing. Men were encouraged to learn in silence too! Silence, in those days, and to some degree these days, meant a respect for the teacher. Given the fact that Paul singles out women here, then this means he is referring to a specific case in which women were attempting to get special privileges. This makes sense in light of the Gnostic ideal of enlightened, supernatural women that was prevalent in the day: Paul was rebutting this idea.

Secondly, and more importantly, this passage is not nearly what you seem to think it is. This is Paul quoting his opponents and refuting them. How do we know this? Something called exegesis.
We do know that Paul uses this type of literary device frequently. For example, he used it in 1 Corinthians 6:12-13.
Upon exegesis of the verse, we find a small particle of text not translated into the NIV right after verse 35...a one word exclamation often translated as, "What?!" This type of text particle often indicates "violent disagreement."
The flow of Paul's argument, which changes from a "gentle, instructional, nurturing tone in 14.26-33" to a "gentle, instructional, nurturing tone in 14.26-33" to a "rebuking, ironic tone...[in] 36-38" and back to a "gentle, instructional, nurturing tone in verse 14.39-40," should demonstrate that he's rebuking the teaching.
The nature of the rebuttal in 36-38 indicates that some Christians actually held that view, but not Paul.

This seems like a straightforward passage. It is anything but, as I've just proven. And God is the one who inspired the Bible. In Isaiah 40:8 God says that the word of the Lord will last forever, and he says the same thing again in 1 Peter 1:24-25. Why must you continue to use this passage? It is 100% irrelevant to what we're talking about. So here we have God, in his eternal and everlasting Word, saying that it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Really? Let's continue:

Why would God personally create man and woman in his own image, and then silence the women? Isn't that what Paul is asking, too? He's disapproving them, is he not? What possible reason does an all-loving, all-knowing God have to be sexist? None.

Even more interesting is this question: why would you, as a woman, worship a God who acts like this? Because he deserves it.

The breadth of God's sexism

There are many places in the Bible where God talks about women. This quote from 1 Corinthians 11, for example, is odd: Odd to who, exactly?

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head--it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels.

Funny that you conveniently leave the conclusion out. All emphasis is added.

[In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice--nor do the churches of God.]

Thus we see that this is not about anyone hating women. It's about women having a different place than men. Is one greater than the other? I think not.

What, exactly, is God saying there? That women were allowed to prophecy and pray audibly, which means they were allowed to speak in church, which proves that your interpretation is wrong, and I am right when I say that Paul was quoting and refuting his opponents. You have officially refuted yourself. You may find it hard to believe that something that confusing is in the Bible, yet if you look it up you will find it is there. It's confusing to people who don't look these types of things up.

Then there is this section from 1 Timothy chapter 2:

Also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.

It is hard to miss God's meaning when he says something as direct as, "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent." (see chapter 12)

Let's go to the Greek, then. What does "have authority over" mean? The word is authentien. In most usages of that word, it connotates "usurping" authority, sometimes even murder. So what you're saying is that Paul saying women shouldn't kill someone and take their position, or force someone out of their position and usurp their authority, is somehow sexist?

I mean, really. Of all the verses to pick, you use this one?

If you think about it, you will realize that God started this type of sexism at the very beginning of the Bible. In Genesis chapter 17 God says:

This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

God makes no mention of forming any sort of covenant with women. That's probably because women don't have penises, Mr. Brain. Would you rather God command the clitorises of all women be cut off? That is, in fact, the sort of "female circumcision" we observe in other religions, and we observe that it effectively kills their sex life. Is that fitting in your eyes?

There are many other examples that we can find in the Bible:

In Matthew 25:1 Jesus says: "At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom." And this statement is sexist...how?

In John 20:17 Jesus says to Mary: "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father," as though the touch of a woman is somehow improper, but a few verses later, is happy to have Thomas touch him. How inexcusably naïve of you to really think that, because it's "a few verses later," it must have actually been a few moments later. In reality, a span of about two week went by between those verses, in which Jesus did "ascend to the father."

In Genesis chapter 3, God punishes Eve, and all women for thousands of years, with greatly increased pain during childbirth. No such pain is inflicted on Adam. Perhaps that's because men don't give birth.

In Deuteronomy 22:28-29 we find this: "If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman�s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives." So, what God is saying is if you are a man, and you rape a girl, she gets to be your wife. Very nice. I think it is nice, actually, that the rapist would be forced to financially support the woman for the rest of their lives, without the possibility of escape from that arrangement. In our society, rapists may go to prison for a while, but ultimately, they have no responsibility to their victims...Did you really think this marriage is about love?

In Ephesians 5:22-24 we find this: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." I've never met a Christian woman who had a problem with this passage. Still looking for one.

In 1 Peter 3:7 we find: "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers." It is an observable fact that, most of the time, women are physically weaker than men. Is acknowledging this plain and simple truth somehow sexist?

In 1 John 2:13, John says, "I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father." No mention is made of women. That's because the document was written to a group of very specific people, all of whom were apparently men. By this logic, any time I write a letter to my fraternity brothers, I am being sexist, since I don't write to both men and women.

In Numbers 31:14-18 we find: "Moses was angry with the officers of the army�the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds�who returned from the battle. "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Making sex slaves of women apparently is God's will. More naïvety. Of all the things the Isrealites were accused of by their contemporaries, keeping sex slaves was not one of them. Saying this verse is about "sex slaves" is a baseless interpretation that has no textual data supporting it whatsoever.

And so on. There are many, many examples like these throughout the old and new testaments. Hmm. Most of them that you mentioned have nothing to do with sexism.

There are other, broader examples of misogyny that are readily apparent in the Bible:

Are any of Jesus' disciples women? No. False. Mary Magdalene is mentioned as a disciple in Acts.

Are any of the elders in the book of Revelation women? No. So what?

Are any of the books of the Bible written by women? No. Many of the books in the Bible are anonymous. Who are you to assume that they were all written by men? No Japanese people wrote books of the Bible either. Does that mean God hates Japanese people?

Etc...

God, it would seem, wants nothing to do with women. Oh, that's hilarious. Yes, these are all consistent with a God who wants nothing to do with women:

Women were necessary to make the universe "good" (Gen 1.26-28)
They shared joint responsibility with man to rule/fill the earth. (Gen 1.26-28)
God judged people who sinned against females. (Gen 12.17; Gen 20.1-6)
God spoke directly with females. (Gen 16.17ff; Gen 21.17-19;Judg 13.2)
God listened to females and answered their prayers. (Gen 16.17ff; Gen 30.17; I Sam 1.27)
God makes promises to females. (Gen 16.17ff; Gen 21.17-19)
The first appearance of the Angel of YHWH was to a female. (Gen 16.17ff)
God blessed Sarah at the same level and in the same covenant-forms as Abraham. (Gen 18.9ff)
God includes females and their issues in His discussions with males. (Gen 18.9f; 19.12f)
God is gracious and faithful to females. (Gen 21.1f; Gen 29.31; Gen 30.17)
God tells males to pay attention to their wives! (Gen 21.12)
God imparts insight/wisdom to women.(Gen 21.17-19)
Women could inquire of God formally. (Gen 25.2f)
Women were the first to 'inquire' of God in scripture. (Gen 25.2ff)
God delivered prophecies directly to women. (Gen 25.2ff)
Women recognized God's goodness and so bore witness in their children's'` names. (Gen 29.32f; 30.18ff)

Almost every single verse there is from Genesis alone. Do you really need me to go on?

The modern rejection of God's misogyny

How do you, as a woman, feel about all of this sexism? Loaded question, huh?

Keep in mind that God's misogyny as portrayed in the Bible has affected society for centuries. The United States constitution, for example, was originally drafted to specifically deny rights to women. I find it odd that you continually assert that the Constitution was not founded on religious principles, and then argue that something from the Bible was drafted into the Constitution. Which is it? Women could not even vote in the United States until 1920, and only then after decades of battle in the women's suffrage movement.

If you think about it, you will realize that something else is odd. In spite of the Bible and its far-reaching effects, and in spite of the fact that the Bible is supposed to be God's eternal Word, modern human beings have advanced well beyond the Bible's teachings. In fact, we totally reject God's sexism. There is no sexism to reject, Mr. Brain. Modern human beings completely ignore God:

We make women the CEOs of major corporations, just as early Christian churches appointed women as prophets, a very high ranking office in the church.

We elect women to high government offices, which the Bible says very little about.

We appoint women as presidents of universities, which is a foreign concept to the Bible.

We fill our schools with female teachers, just as passages in Corinthians provide evidence of women in teaching positions in churches.

We allow women to speak freely in church, just as Paul was suggesting that the Corinthians do.

We do all of this in direct defiance of God's Law in the Bible because we know God and his eternal word is wrong. Come off it. You have hardly demonstrated that God is sexist, let alone wrong.

Why do we completely defy the Bible like this? Why do you, as a woman, reject God's Word when it comes to sexism? I would offer this possibility: We do it because the Bible's attitude toward women is completely irrational. You love to throw that word around, but you don't seem to really understand what the word "irrational" means. There is no rational reason for women and men to be treated in any way other than equally, and modern, intelligent human beings know that with complete certainty. Do we really? Why, in fact, are there labor laws that protect women from having to lift things beyond their capacity, but no such regulations for men? Why, then, are women not subject to the draft, while men are? Is this equal treatment? Certainly not. But that's because we intelligent human beings know that there are differences between men and women, and they are vast. Therefore, we have to reject what God says in the Bible.

Can you see the contradiction there? We are mere mortals, and we have told our all-powerful God that he is completely wrong. Yeah, how ridiculous of a concept that is. What makes us so arrogant as to think we can correct God on anything?

The funny thing is, billions of Christians still worship God and claim that the Bible is the word of God. Women will happily stand up in church and proclaim how much they love God, in complete defiance of God's word. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will trumpet his support for the Ten Commandments, which come from the same book that tells women to shut up and be subservient (see Chapter 13 for details on Justice Scalia).

What is going on here? I'll tell you exactly what's going on, Marshall Brain.

People have been reading these passages for literally thousands of years. Even with our "modern sensibilities," we still observe millions of women reading the Bible and seemingly not having a problem with what it says. You're not telling us anything we don't already know, and already have no problem with. Christian women don't have a problem with what's being said, because it's not sexist.

Rationalizing misogyny

If you are an unbiased observer, which you are most assuredly not, you probably find this situation to be mystifying. There is not any room for misinterpretation when God says, "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission." False, as proven above. Nor when God says, "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent." False, as proven above. Why would God say that if he did not mean it? And why would Christians allow women to speak in church and teach in our schools given that God specifically forbids it? Because He doesn't.

A religious person might say, "God had to 'fit in' with the customs of the time." We discussed this argument in Chapter 13 when discussing slavery. I don't recall such an argument being made, actually. Glad to see you removed the argument about present verses aorist infinitives from this current draft, however. What does your common sense tell you? If God -- the all-powerful creator of the universe and father of mankind -- wanted women treated equally, all that he had to do was set things in motion when he created Adam, which he did by giving men and women equal responsibility in subduing and populating the earth, punishing them both for sins they committed, etc. Or God could have written a twelfth commandment that said, "Thou shalt treat men and women equally." Like when the Bible says that there is no man or woman, slave or free, since we're all equal in Christ Jesus? That's one of the most frequently quoted verses in Scripture, Brain. Where have you been? God could portray men and women as equals throughout the Bible. Many times, women play great, positive roles in stories. What Bible are you reading? Half of Jesus' apostles could have been women -- that would have made things utterly clear. Utterly clear to who, exactly? If God wanted men and women to be equal, he would have made it happen.

You can think about it, and think some more. No matter how you slice it, the sexism is there, plain as day in the Bible. There is no ambiguity. We are forced to conclude God is an all-powerful misogynist, are we not? No, we're not. Because some of us do research, and others don't.

In chapter 17 we will discuss the following comment in detail, but it is important to introduce it here: if God is going to take the time to write and publish "the Word of God," why does the book contain so many problems? Begging the question, huh?

Why isn't each page of the Bible astonishing us with its brilliance and insight, and filling us with wonder? Oh, come on. Grow the heck up, Marshall.

Why, instead, does the Bible contain so much nonsense or, in this case, bigotry? In every case where you attempt to prove this point, you have failed. I'm sorry, but I'm not taking your word for it.

Why are Christians constantly having to justify, rationalize, excuse and explain the Bible? In this case, we find modern Christians trying to defend a God who obviously dislikes women on many different levels. A better question is, "Why are atheists so undereducated about such matters as Greco-Roman rhetoric, or how life actually worked in the time the scriptures were written?"

Why didn't God understand how he would look to intelligent human beings in the twenty first century, and get it right when he wrote the Bible? Read: Why didn't God make it so that I could understand it better? The fact is that we are forced to completely ignore God when he says, "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent." No one believes that, most especially the 50% of the population who are female. And yet, precisely 0% of those who actually understand what this passage means.

If you are a Christian, I would ask you to consider the two possible ways to explain the sexism that we are seeing in the Bible:

You can assume that God actually did write the Bible and truly is sexist and misogynistic. In that case we are directly defying God's word today by allowing women to be equal to men.

Or you can assume that God had nothing to do with the Bible. In that case, the Bible is meaningless and we can discard it, as discussed in Chapter 13.

Or, you can assume that the verses in question mean a heck of a lot more than what you think they mean, and God isn't sexist. You really are a host of false dichotomies, Mr. Brain.

Drawing a simple conclusion

To any [theoretically, but (in reality) impossible] unbiased observer, the reason for sexism in the Bible is very easy to understand: The Bible was not written by God. It was written by primitive men who were flagrant sexists. Just look at how men in primitive countries like Afghanistan treat women today. It is a sure sign of Westernization if one looks at a country like Afghanistan and honestly says they are "primitive." Those are the kind of men who wrote the Bible.

And we all know it -- Christians and non-Christians alike. The reason why modern societies (including most Christians living in those societies) completely reject sexism is because we all know that the Bible's sexism is wrong. Where did you get such an idea, Marshall? How did your morals come to be? It is exactly the same situation we see when Christians face slavery and animal sacrifice in the Bible. In light of my responses, you shouldn't make that comparison. Christians and non-Christians alike reject the Bible's teachings in these areas because the Bible is obviously wrong. The part that is profoundly strange is that, while completely rejecting these parts of the Bible, Chistians will claim that other parts of the Bible are God's word. They seem to be blind to the obvious contradiction. I'll get to that essay eventually.

At some point, Christians have to accept the evidence that we all can see: Either God wrote the Bible, or he did not. This is a false dichotomy. It is possible for God to have written parts of the Bible, and not others. That's exactly what we observe in scripture. If he did, then he is wrong, and we should reject the Bible and him. If he did not, then we should reject the Bible. Yes, reject all the admonishments for men not to be deadbeat dads, or to love their wives as Jesus loved us. Great plan.

This fact should now be apparent to every woman, and to any rational man. I'm tempted to say you aren't either, but that would be a misuse of the term "rational." I'd go with "petulant" and "childish" instead.

Chapter 14 - Why does God love animal sacrifice?

2008-07-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

Rather, "Chapter 14 - Why does Marshall Brain love irrelevant things like this?"

For most people, the last chapter offers sufficient evidence to prove to themselves that God did not write the Bible. Actually, it did nothing of the sort. You used absurd reasoning to demonstrate that. Clearly, an all-loving God cannot be a huge proponent of slavery as we see it in Frederick Douglass's day; thankfully, he isn't. Therefore, since the Bible specifies that a form of voluntary, indentured, humanitarian, temporary slavery is perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, as it is in most of ours', it is easy to conclude that primitive men wrote the Bible rather than God. Whether the Bible contains anything about slavery is completely irrelevant to it's authorship.

However, if you need additional evidence, then we can approach the Bible from another angle and reach the same conclusion. I'm going to need a great deal of additional evidence.

To any normal human being, the idea of animal and human sacrifice is both abhorrent and nauseating. Really? Because it was totally normal for literally thousands of years. The ancients never thought such a thing at all. The dictionary defines "sacrifice" in this way:

The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or a person. [ref]

This, quite clearly, is something that primitive savages would do. It is all to easy for you to accuse these people of being primitive and savage, but you never do anything past assert it. There is no need to beat around the bush: We all know, without question, that animal and human sacrifice is an absurdity. Claiming to know something of this sort "without question" makes you just as bad as the ultra-conservative fundamentalists that you tend to criticize. Sacrificing and burning an animal on an altar does not have any beneficial effect for anyone. Except that whole "eating" thing. You know, when you kill an animal and consume it?

The Aztecs in Mexico would take a virgin to the top of a pyramid, slice her still-beating heart out of her chest and eat it -- or whatever -- [or whatever?! Do you care to research this at all?] and we all know that their practices were insane and barbaric beyond belief. [ref] The death of the virgin did absolutely nothing to improve crop yield or rainfall, nor did it "appease" the Aztec gods (since those gods were completely imaginary). It is impossible to understand why the Aztecs would do something so bizarre and disgusting. No, it isn't impossible. Social theorists have proposed a wide variety of explanations. Was it mass delusion? Rampant superstition taken to the Nth degree? Total desperation? A horrific combination? There is no way to know, but we do know that the behavior of the Aztecs was insane. It likely wasn't insane. When historians look at things of this sort, they do not immediately judge that these people were insane. When real experts look at things, they try to understand it as best they can without resorting to bigoted psychoanalytics.

Any normal person is disgusted by religious sacrifice, and you would imagine that God is too. I see what you did there: once more, throwing around the term "normal" in order to exclude all manner of religious people. Ritual slaughter like this has nothing to do with an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, prayer-answering creator of the universe. The idea of killing an animal, splattering its blood about and then burning its flesh is, quite obviously, absurd and ridiculous. Except when we make hamburgers. I'm sure killing cows splatters a lot of blood, after all. God would have nothing to do with animal sacrifice.

But then we examine the Bible -- the holy word of God and the single authoritative source of all information about Jesus [not true. Tacitus and Josephus provide key information that scholars consider to be authoritative] -- and find passages like these:

Leviticus Chapter 1

The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting. He said, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When any of you brings an offering to the Lord, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock.
"If the offering is a burnt offering from the flock, from either the sheep or the goats, he is to offer a male without defect. He is to slaughter it at the north side of the altar before the Lord , and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle its blood against the altar on all sides. He is to cut it into pieces, and the priest shall arrange them, including the head and the fat, on the burning wood that is on the altar. He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to bring all of it and burn it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .
"If the offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, he is to offer a dove or a young pigeon. The priest shall bring it to the altar, wring off the head and burn it on the altar; its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He is to remove the crop with its contents and throw it to the east side of the altar, where the ashes are. He shall tear it open by the wings, not severing it completely, and then the priest shall burn it on the wood that is on the fire on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord .

Burning flesh is an aroma pleasing to the Lord? Does this make any sense to you as a rational human being? It makes a great deal of sense, actually. Have you been in the kitchen when someone is cooking bacon? Most people I know, including myself, would consider that to be a very pleasing aroma. How about you, Marshall Brain?

Here is another example:

Leviticus Chapter 5

'If a person sins because he does not speak up when he hears a public charge to testify regarding something he has seen or learned about, he will be held responsible.

'Or if a person touches anything ceremonially unclean-whether the carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean livestock or of unclean creatures that move along the ground-even though he is unaware of it, he has become unclean and is guilty.
'Or if he touches human uncleanness-anything that would make him unclean-even though he is unaware of it, when he learns of it he will be guilty.
'Or if a person thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil-in any matter one might carelessly swear about-even though he is unaware of it, in any case when he learns of it he will be guilty.
'When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.
'If he cannot afford a lamb, he is to bring two doves or two young pigeons to the Lord as a penalty for his sin-one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. He is to bring them to the priest, who shall first offer the one for the sin offering. He is to wring its head from its neck, not severing it completely, and is to sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering against the side of the altar; the rest of the blood must be drained out at the base of the altar. It is a sin offering. The priest shall then offer the other as a burnt offering in the prescribed way and make atonement for him for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven.

You are an intelligent human being, so think this through. I'm thinking. People are doing something wrong, and so something needs to be punished. But rather than punish the humans, substitutionary sacrifice is specified. What's the deal? Here is the logic expressed in Leviticus chapter 5:

"Today I accidentally touched something that was 'ceremonially unclean,' and I didn't know about it at the time, but fortunately a priest brought it to my attention, and I am guilty. Which is legitimate. Ignorance of the law is not a viable defense in court or excuse for breaking a law, especially not God's. It's likely that such a situation, involving someone who was ignorant of what was ceremonially unclean, is unlikely, since the entire society revolved around ritual purity and cleanliness. Now, I can't afford a lamb. But I can get two young pigeons for a shekel over at Saul's bird emporium, and then I can take them both to the priest. Such a person would likely already have pigeons. Most everyone kept at least some sort of animal for sacrificial purposes. He will wring the head from the neck of one of them, but not sever it completely. And he will sprinkle the blood, and drain the rest. While sprinkling isn't, draining the blood is a common practice even today when one kills an animal. And then the priest will burn the other pigeon. Then I am forgiven. Thank God!"

What does your common sense tell you about this? It probably tells you that it is impossible to imagine an all-loving, all-knowing God demanding this, and you are correct. Why is it impossible? For it to be impossible, there most be some irresolvable contradiction between an all-loving, all-knowing God and animal sacrifice. You certainly haven't demonstrated one, so I would appreciate it if you stopped throwing such huge words around.

Here is another example:

Leviticus Chapter 7, The priest's share

The Lord said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites: 'Anyone who brings a fellowship offering to the Lord is to bring part of it as his sacrifice to the Lord . With his own hands he is to bring the offering made to the Lord by fire; he is to bring the fat, together with the breast, and wave the breast before the Lord as a wave offering. The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast belongs to Aaron and his sons. You are to give the right thigh of your fellowship offerings to the priest as a contribution. The son of Aaron who offers the blood and the fat of the fellowship offering shall have the right thigh as his share. From the fellowship offerings of the Israelites, I have taken the breast that is waved and the thigh that is presented and have given them to Aaron the priest and his sons as their regular share from the Israelites.' "

Does it seem more likely that God commanded this, or that primitive men looking for the "priest's share" wrote this? It seems unlikely to me that priests, if they're greedily looking to get a big share of things as you make them out to be, would explicitly delegate it to fellowship offerings, which weren't even mandatory. These offerings would be specifically given to the priest, thanking them for what they were doing. In a sense, this is like a sacrificial "tithe," which is optional. Lastly, if you really think they are doing it for their own benefit, why wouldn't they have asked for more than just a thigh?

Here is another example:

Leviticus Chapter 9

[Moses] then presented the other ram, the ram for the ordination, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head. Moses slaughtered the ram and took some of its blood and put it on the lobe of Aaron's right ear, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. Moses also brought Aaron's sons forward and put some of the blood on the lobes of their right ears, on the thumbs of their right hands and on the big toes of their right feet. Then he sprinkled blood against the altar on all sides. He took the fat, the fat tail, all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, both kidneys and their fat and the right thigh.
Then from the basket of bread made without yeast, which was before the Lord, he took a cake of bread, and one made with oil, and a wafer; he put these on the fat portions and on the right thigh. He put all these in the hands of Aaron and his sons and waved them before the Lord as a wave offering. Then Moses took them from their hands and burned them on the altar on top of the burnt offering as an ordination offering, a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire. He also took the breast-Moses' share of the ordination ram-and waved it before the Lord as a wave offering, as the Lord commanded Moses.

We have Moses putting the blood of a freshly slaughtered animal on the ears, thumbs and toes of other people. The reason being that it symbolized ritual purity for the various parts of the body that they would use to live: ears needed purification for what was heard. Thumbs needed purification for what they touched. Toes needed purification for how one walked, both physically and metaphorically speaking. But I suppose that doesn't mean anything to you, since your analysis is nothing more than bigotry that doesn't attempt to discover what's actually going on.

What does your common sense tell you about these passages? That Isrealite methods are very complicated.

When looking at passages like these in the Bible, everyone can see the problem. Animal sacrifice is abhorrent, and it has nothing to do with an all-knowing and all-loving God. "No it isn't."

That's all the reply you'll get, seeing as you have yet to demonstrate your assertion. That which is asserted without demonstration can be dismissed without demonstration.

For most people, no further evidence is needed. It is obvious that primitive men wrote the Bible, not God. Which doesn't mean the whole thing is false anymore than Tacitus's Annals is false, since it was written by a "primitive" man. God would have nothing to do with the Bible if these passages are in it, and the Bible is an all-or-nothing book (see Chapter 13 for details) Yes, please check the previous proof for a demonstration of how ridiculous that argument is. No all-powerful, all-loving God wants people to kill animals, splatter their blood, cut them up into pieces, arrange the pieces on an altar and burn them so that he can "smell the pleasing aroma." Have you ever been to a meat factory, Mr. Brain? They are doing almost the same thing in order for us to "smell the pleasing aroma." There is no difference between the Bible's book of Leviticus and the insanity of the Aztecs.

You really think there is absolutely no difference between killing animals (and eating them), as the Isrealites did, and flaying the skin of a newlywed couple, putting on the skin like an outfit, and cutting out people's still beating hearts with a knife and then cannibalizing the body, as the Aztecs did?

That you can really say such a thing with a straight face in your attempt to emotionally manipulate Christians is despicable. If you really think that, then you are a danger to society.

Therefore, in the same way that the slavery passages in the previous chapter prove that God did not write the Bible, these animal sacrifice passages prove that God did not write the Bible. I really don't understand this sort of logic. Because you disagree with something in it means that the authorship is somehow changed? The whole notion of an all-knowing, all-powerful God purposefully writing this material is patently absurd to any rational human being. And yet, you have failed to demonstrate why.

Keep in mind that all of this material about animal sacrifice is found in the Old Testament of the Bible. This is the same place where we find the Ten Commandments. Only about 20 pages separate Exodus chapter 20 -- the source of the Ten Commandments -- from Leviticus Chapter 1. Point being?

Human Sacrifice [is usually condemned in the Bible.]

If you are a Christian, how do you handle these passages in the Bible? A Christian has a problem, because it is hard to put faith in a book that harbors numerous passages where God demands animal sacrifice. You act as if Christians somehow haven't been aware that the Old Testament exists for the last two thousand years. As with the slavery problem discussed in the previous chapter, there are two possible approaches for a Christian:

Pretend that the passages are not there and change the subject when they are mentioned. What Christians have you talked to?
Try to develop some sort of highly convoluted rationalization on God's behalf to explain the passages. Of course, anything other than, "Oh, God must not have written the Bible after all" is a "rationalization" in your mind. You fail to mention that. How about this:
Give an educated answer regarding the purpose of animal sacrifice.

Christians tend to take the latter approach, and then they do something quite unexpected. You would imagine that Christians would try to distance themselves as far as possible from animal sacrifice. But they do not. Perhaps because most of us don't share the view you have. Isn't that incredible? By golly, most of us believe that animal life isn't as valuable as human life. This is why we wear leather shoes and eat cows and chickens and pigs and fish. This is why the penalty, and emotional reaction, is less for hitting a deer with your car than hitting a five year old boy.

Suprisingly, many Christians embrace these parts of the Bible. Because they play a huge part of the work, and the symbolism is very important. Only in the context of this abhorent practice does the horrific death of Jesus on the cross (as portrayed in the movie The Passion of the Christ) make even a modicum of sense. For Christians, the human race had to actually move into the realm of human sacrifice to finally appease their God. Senselessly killing animals was not sufficient. To use the word "senselessly" is a mere admission that you have no idea why this was done, and probably have no desire to understand. According to the Christian faith, Jesus is the human sacrifice that satisfied God. It's not mentioned, of course, that the sacrifice is a manifestation of God himself. That's typical.

For example, here is something that a Christian minister might say:

If you read all those dry regulations for sin sacrifices in Leviticus and if you read about the requirements for the Passover lamb, you will realize that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice for sin. He is the first-born son, not of a sheep or a goat, but of God. He is innocent of all sin, He volunteers of His own free will�that is, He was convicted only by His own confession. He freely submitted to His Father�s will. He is, by the Levitical code, a perfect sacrifice, and therefore He perfectly removes all sin. He meets all the requirements for a fellowship offering, and thus places us in fellowship with God. Since even on the cross, none of His bones were broken, He also meets all the requirements for a Passover lamb, whose blood protects us from the angel of death, thus He prepares us for the Resurrection.[ref]

Ken Collins unfortunately misses the point. Jesus, though he was "innocent of all sin," became guilty for us. Sacrifices of innocent human beings is vehemently condemned in the Bible.

As uncomfortable as this sounds, this is the core belief of the Christian church. Your being "uncomfortable," is rather irrelevant. Christ had to die as a human sacrifice for our sins to appease the "God" of Leviticus. The case of Christ is extremely different from the normal concept of human sacrifice. The most prominent religion on this planet, practiced by two billion people, has human sacrifice as its central tenet. An exclusive event, mind you. Let's look into this, shall we?

Christ's death is what we refer to as a substitutionary death. We rational people today value such things. We call the Secret Service agents who jumped on top of Ronald Reagan after he was shot "brave" because they were willing to die in place of the President. We celebrate people who work in AIDS hospitals in Africa, and ultimately die of AIDS themselves. If someone jumped in front of a bus and was killed because he pushed a small child out of the way, then he is considered a hero.

So what is going on here is that Jesus became a substitutionary death, in order to save us from having to go through that. The wages of sin is death, according to the Bible, and since we all sin, we all deserve death. Jesus says no man has greater love than the one who lays down his life for his friends, and that's exactly what he did. It's not so much as to "appease" God as it is to take the punishment in our place, especially since Jesus is an incarnation of God himself, and he voluntarily chose to lay down his life (John 10:18).

When we read about animal sacrifice in the Old Testament, what we discover is a God who must be insane. No rational human being can accept that an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God could possibly support animal sacrifice. We, as a society, support "animal sacrifice" every day. Why would you make such a claim?

But then we turn to the New Testament and find that God has moved beyond insanity. God becomes a monstrous absurdity who demands human sacrifice. In other words, Christians are dwelling in the same realm as the virgin-killing Aztecs. So then, you take your prior statement back? But even then, you're still not saved from your terrible comparison. It's still far and away from what the Aztecs did. God does not support cannibalism. He doesn't support flaying of people's skin and wearing it like a coat. He doesn't support cutting people's hearts out.

Contemplating the crucifixion

Have you ever thought about how bizarre the crucifixion story is? It is indeed bizarre that a God would have himself tortured and killed for his sinful creations that did not deserve it. Imagine the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe sitting on his magnificent throne in heaven. He looks down onto earth and says to himself: So this is the third time you've used this exact phrase?

Those evil humans down on earth. I hate what they are doing. All this sin...You would probably have us believe that we humans really aren't that bad, I guess...while simultaneously talking about all the evil in the world as proof of God's nonexistence.

Since I am all-knowing I know exactly what the humans are doing and I understand exactly why they commit each sin. Since I created the humans in my own image and personally programmed human nature into their brains, I am the direct author of all of this sin. Wrong. Human nature has been corrupted by our sin, and we were not created in such a way initially. Furthermore, God cannot be the "author of sin," since sin is not even something that can be "created" in such a sense. The instant I created them I knew exactly what would happen with every single human being right down to the nanosecond level for all eternity. Doubtful. God knows all that can be known, but the future does not exist yet to be known. If I didn't like how it was going to turn out, I could have simply changed them when I created them. God gave us free will to decide how we were going to turn out. And since I am perfect, I know exactly what I am doing. But ignore all that. Ignore your ignorance? I hate all these people doing exactly what I perfectly designed them to do and knew they would do from the moment I created them...Such an idea is completely and totally absent in Christian theology.

So here's what I am going to do. I will artificially inseminate a virgin. She will give birth to an incarnated version of me. The humans will eventually crucify and kill the incarnated me. That will, finally, make me happy. It has nothing to do with making God "happy" at all. It's about the only way to redeem humans from their sins. Yes, sending myself down and having the humans crucify me -- that will satisfy me. I feel much better now. Somehow I doubt that God felt "better" after being crucified.

It makes no sense, does it? The doctrine of atonement is one of the easiest doctrines in all of Christianity to understand. Why would an all-knowing being need to have humans kill himself (Jesus is God, after all) to make himself happy? Again, happiness is not part of this. Especially since it is a perfect God who set the whole thing in motion exactly the way he wanted it? But that's not what Christianity teaches. He gives us enough free will to decide exactly how we want our lives, rather than micromanaging everything. The whole story of the crucifixion is absurd from top to bottom if you actually stop to think about it. Christians have been "thinking about it" for literally thousands of years. Do you really think this issue hasn't come up? Do you really think there's no answer?

Chapter 21 explains where this bizarre story actually comes from. It has nothing to do with "God". Your argument is that it came from pagan mythology, which is an idea that is accepted by virtually no scholars, neither conservative nor liberal.

Thinking about our sacrificial God

Have you ever stopped to think about it? If you are a Christian, have you ever thought about how uncomfortable this is? You are worshipping a God who demanded animal sacrifice, and then was finally "appeased" by human sacrifice. Appeasing, yet again, is the wrong word. Many Christians seem to actually revel in human sacrifice. How else can we explain the tens of millions of Christians who flocked to the movie The Passion of the Christ? You really think all of those Christians went to see that movie because they love the idea of watching someone be sacrificed?

Have you ever consciously thought about how truly uncomfortable this situation is? Perhaps if you keep repeating yourself, we will be forced to consciously think it's uncomfortable. After all, repetition is the best form of propaganda.

Please simply take a moment and think about what you have read in this chapter. Here are two points of view for you to consider:

God wrote the Bible and the Bible is the word of the Lord. God demanded animal sacrifice and he specified how he wanted the sacrifices done in minute detail in the Bible because God enjoys animal sacrifice. Again, regulation does not mean enjoyment. These ritualized animal killings allowed humans to atone for our many sins against God, and the aroma of the burning flesh was pleasing to the Lord. Unless you are a vegan, I really can't understand why you think "burning flesh" being a "pleasing" smell is totally normal. By moving to the level of human sacrifice, Christians were finally able to appease their God.

Animal sacrifice is absurd, abhorrent, ridiculous and revolting. Rather, it is a very useful practice, one that we do every single day in meat factories, and clothing companies routinely use to provide us with shoes and belts to wear. Human sacrifice even more so, which is why it was only commanded once, and that person can only conservatively be called "human." The Bible was written by primitive men, not by God. Animal sacrifice is in no way incompatible with God. Those primitive men were as insane as the Aztecs. If you really think that, you are the insane one.

There is a concept that most modern people don't understand called ritual purity. In order to keep yourself clean and pure in the eyes of God, you had to have your sin's punished. God provided a way for the ancients to have their sins forgiven that involved the exchange of an animal (which, in those days, was essentially like money). Since animal life is not as valuable as human life, and since we all continue to kill animals for our benefit today, there should be nothing wrong with what we're reading in the Bible.

Use both your head and your heart to analyze the situation. Which point of view makes more sense to you? Once again, mine.

Now, let's look at another example that is just as outrageous...Goodie.