(2501) Religious belief is correlated to use of intuition
It is well understood that women are more religious than men, at least in Western Countries where Christianity is the dominant religion. The following displays results of a recent United States survey:
In the following study, this difference in religious belief is found to be correlated with the degree to which intuition is used in forming beliefs, and that women have a greater tendency to use that attribute.
A new study provides evidence that women’s reliance on intuition and “gut” feelings helps to explain why they tend to report more magical beliefs than men do. The research has been published in the Journal of Research in Personality.
“I was really intrigued to understand why, across the world, women tend to be more likely than men to report beliefs in magical phenomena like ghosts and haunted houses,” said study author Sarah Ward, an assistant professor of Management at the University of Illinois.
“What social, cognitive, or demographic differences between women and men might explain why they differ in their levels of magical beliefs? I suspected that women’s higher preference for using intuition explained why they were more likely to believe in magical phenomena and superstitions.”
In four studies with 2,545 participants in total, the researchers found that women were more likely than men to endorse magical beliefs. Women tended to report relying more on intuition and scored lower on a cognitive reflection test (an assessment of a person’s tendency to override an incorrect “gut” response), which were both associated with heightened magical beliefs.
The researchers also found that experimentally enhancing trust in one’s intuition increased men’s endorsement of magical beliefs.
“People who trust their intuition and rely on their gut feelings and hunches are much more likely to believe in magic and superstitions. Women trust their intuition more strongly than men do, which helps account for why they express higher beliefs in phenomena like ghosts, fate, and karma,” Ward told PsyPost.
“Although some antiquated stereotypes have portrayed women’s higher magical beliefs as caused by lower rationality or intelligence, this was not supported in the data. Women and men did not differ in analytical reasoning capacities or intelligence in these studies, showing the inaccuracy of these early stereotypes for gender differences in magical beliefs.”
The researchers found no evidence that perceived vulnerability, demographics, or femininity helped to explain why women tended to believe in magical phenomena more than men. But there are likely several other factors that account for some of the gender differences in magical beliefs.
“Although gender differences in trusting intuition helped to account for gender differences in magical beliefs, they did not fully do so, statistically speaking. There are several additional mechanisms that might also help explain why people differ in their tendency to have these beliefs. For example, feeling in control makes people less likely to believe in magic and express superstitions. Men tend to feel a higher sense of control than women do, which might also explain why they are less likely to believe in magical phenomena,” Ward explained.
The very fact that women are more religious than men should be seen as a red flag for Christianity. It implies that men have a built-in disadvantage in gaining entry to heaven. It also displays the disturbing irony that a male-focused faith developed almost exclusively by males is less believed by males. And, as implied by this research, it reveals a correlation between intuition, well known to be a broad avenue to fallacy, and magical or religious convictions. It is likely that if Christianity was true, the tendency of men to use more of a deductive rather than intuitive approach would make them more likely to believe…because there would be enough relevant confirming evidence to trigger that response.
(2502) Evil in his name
Christian apologists often cite the need for God to extend free will to people as the reason for the proliferation of evil in the world. But when the evil is done specifically in God’s name by individuals who mistakenly believe they are doing his service, then the excuse becomes more problematic.
The Crusades, Inquisition, burning witches, etc. were done by sincere humans who believed that they were doing God’s work. Now imagine how God would view these developments. It would be like the president of a company having his employees beat up certain customers while erroneously claiming that the president told them to do so. What would the president do? He would fire them immediately.
It is inconceivable that an omniscient, omnipotent god would allow so much evil to be performed in his name. This is a variation on the standard ‘problem of evil,’ because it tacitly okays (for the purpose of this discussion) some forms of evil but specifically targets it when it is done as an earnest but misguided god-inspired effort. The fact that so many evil acts were done in the name of the Christian god is evidence for his absence.
(2503) Teleological thinking
Teleological thinking is a sophomoric style of reasoning that credits the result of a process as the reason that the process operated in the first place. It leads to all sorts of fallacious beliefs, such as creationism and various conspiracy theories. It is also a principal mode of thought by religious people who see a deific purpose to virtually every calamity or major event.
Ask a three-year-old why they think it’s raining, and she may say “because the flowers are thirsty”. Her brother might also tell you that trees have leaves to provide shade for people and animals. These are instances of teleological thinking, the idea that things came into being and exist for a purpose.
Teleological explanations for natural phenomena are rejected by scientists because these explanations appeal to intentions. But trees do not grow leaves and rain clouds do not drop water with an outcome in mind. It rains because of physics. And those physics would apply equally if there were no flowers or any other life on the planet.
Take teleology one step further, and you get Donald Trump, who thinks that global warming is an invention of the Chinese to make US manufacturing non-competitive. There is growing evidence that indulging in conspiracy theories predisposes people to reject scientific findings, from climate change to vaccinations and AIDS. And researchers have now found that teleological thinking also links beliefs in conspiracy theories and creationism.
Teleological and conspiratorial thought share a number of features in common. Core to both ways of thinking is the act of giving things a purpose. Flowers supposedly produce delightful perfume in order to attract pollinators, and climate scientists supposedly invent a hoax known as climate change at the behest of the “world government” or George Soros.
It is this emphasis on assigning purpose that makes teleological thinking and conspiratorial thought so attractive. In everyday life, assigning intentions often makes perfect sense. If someone asks you why your daughter turned on the TV, it may be perfectly accurate and appropriate to reply with “because her favourite show is on now”. But giving such a presumed purpose to trees, clouds and other natural phenomenon can produce false understanding.
There is much evidence that people are enthralled by teleological thinking and have difficulty leaving it behind. One study showed that even scientists, when put under time pressure, lapse into teleological thinking that they would reject if given more time, being more likely to endorse statements such as “germs mutate in order to become drug resistant” (though still far less likely to do so than a community sample of participants). Another study found that when students are put in a situation in which they lack control, they readily resort to perceiving conspiracies and developing superstitions.
The new study from the University of Fribourg, published in Current Biology, provides evidence that links teleological thinking, conspiracy theories and the rejection of scientific facts about evolution. Perhaps more than any other well-established scientific finding, evolution has been in constant combat with misperceptions arising from teleological thinking. In fact, teleological reasoning is so pervasive that there is much evidence that it impairs people’s ability to learn the concept of natural selection in the first place.
It is tempting to think that giraffes needed long necks to reach leaves at the top of the trees, and so evolution provided them with those long necks. This teleological notion is in conflict with the fact that natural selection had no such goal in mind. There was natural variation in the population and those animals with longer necks had greater reproductive success in an environment with tall trees. So the giraffe evolved and longer necks became standard.
The Fribourg researchers conducted three studies with more than 2,000 participants overall. Echoing previous studies, the findings showed that teleological thinking was associated with the rejection of evolution and the acceptance of its pseudo-scientific alternative, creationism. But the researchers also showed a strong association between creationism and conspiracism.
People who believed in creationism also tended to believe in conspiracy theories, regardless of their religious or political beliefs. Conspiracism was also associated with teleological thinking. This confirms that seeking purpose in random events, such as the death of Princess Diana in a drink-driving accident, or natural phenomena such as rain clouds or the necks of giraffes, reflects a common underlying way of thinking.
Why we deny science
These new results mesh well with other research that has linked conspiracism to science denial across so many domains. Conventionally, the use of conspiracy theories to reject scientific accounts has been explained as a way to avoid accepting an inconvenient truth.
A chain smoker who is confronted with frightening information about his habit might find it easier to accuse the medical establishment of being an oligopolistic cartel than to quit smoking. Likewise, people who feel threatened by climate mitigation, for example because it might raise the cost of petrol, may be more willing to think that Al Gore created a hoax than to accept 150 years of research into basic physics.
The new study takes the role of conspiratorial thought in creationism a step further. It suggests that creationism itself could be seen as a belief system involving the ultimate conspiracy theory: the purposeful creation of all things.
Religion depends on people using teleological thinking because otherwise they would use cognitive processes that would tend to de-couple end states with prior conditions. Here is an example: a person driving a car hits a child riding a bike, killing him. He thinks ‘I killed a child.” However, the child was riding the bike in a dangerous roadway zone, was not wearing a helmet, and veered into the path of the car which was being driven responsibly. A teleological thinker will dismiss these extenuating circumstances and resort to accepting full guilt.
Likewise, they will see humans as being the final goal of evolution if not a product of full-blown creationism. They see the end state as the intent or responsibility of the nearest proximal cause. So, in another way, each book of the Bible is the inspired word of God because centuries later, a conclave of men would know how to select just those books that were actually inspired while dismissing the others- the end state constrains the initial conditions.
(2504) Matthew ‘remembers’ Jesus’ words
It only takes one example to show the folly of Christians believing that the gospels transmit Jesus’ exact words and in a manner faithfully translated. The following was taken from:
https://thechurchoftruth.org/the-bible-is-wrong-about-what-jesus-said/
Take any thought, paragraph, theme allegedly spoken by Jesus.
This one for example:
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Matthew 10:34-37
There are 80 words in that Jesus thought. Say those exact words to a friend and have that friend repeat them back, word for word, to you 45 years from now.
No wait, have that friend repeat them back 45 months from now.
No wait, have that friend repeat them back 45 weeks, 45 days, 45 hours, 45 minutes from the time you recite the lines.
Matthew was the alleged author of those lines spoken by Jesus. At least 45 years after the fact (Most scholars believe it was composed between AD 80 and 90,) Matthew comes up with the above 80 words. Presumably, Matthew, being one of Jesus’ disciples, heard the words first hand. We’ll go along with the charade even though it is a fact that no biblical scholar believes the work was authored by Matthew, the disciple of Jesus.
So, Matthew, unlike your friend, has to remember this thought, along with 1020 additional words spoken by Jesus along with all the other actors in the saga, along with the settings of each of the scenarios presented in Matthew. And, he has to remember them word for word, for at least 45 years.
How likely is that? It is totally impossible.
Of course, Christian apologists will come to the rescue and claim that the Holy Spirit descended on Matthew and told him exactly what Jesus said. Well, that is curious. Jesus must have said much more than just what is in the gospels, so why doesn’t the Spirit come down and inspire a contemporary author to fill in the gaps? A fifth gospel. And how would we know this had happened? We wouldn’t and neither did the people in the Fourth Century know for sure if the Matthew gospel was a truly inspired work. It was simply determined to be so by majority vote. It should be seen immediately that any confidence in the gospels pertaining to the actual words of Jesus depends solely on magical thinking, because there is no other logical explanation.
So, what would we have if Christianity was a legitimate business? We would have the scrolls that Jesus himself wrote, preserved and protected by God himself. There might still be some minor squabbles about how to translate his Aramaic into English or other languages, but, by and large, we would have the precise message that Jesus was preaching. There would be no confusion…just like you would expect from the creator of the universe.
(2505) Jesus lied to the high priest
The gospels are clear in the following passage from Mark and similar passages in Matthew and Luke that Jesus used parables and coded language to transmit the secret of his mission solely to his chosen ones. He did this to ensure that outsiders would not understand the message and thereby be saved.
Mark 4:11-12
He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,“ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’
However, in the following passage from John, we see Jesus saying that he had spoken out in the open and that anyone hearing it should have been able to understand what he was saying.
John 18:19-21
Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.
“I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.”
Either there is something wrong in the gospels, or Jesus told a lie to the high priest. Of course, the more likely truth is that the author of the Gospel of John didn’t like the idea that Jesus was coding his ministry and therefore he eliminated the pretext of secrecy as well as all of the parables. This makes it impossible to determine what was Jesus’ actual mode of operation.
(2506) The all-everything god is an anachronism
The minds that authored the Bible were constrained by the knowledge of their times. When they considered their god to be all-seeing and all-powerful, they were thinking of just a small patch of land and nothing other than points of light in the sky. It was conceivable to them that a single conscious being could oversee this entire ‘universe.’ Had they known the real situation, it is doubtful that they would have accredited God with unlimited powers.
The people who wrote the Bible liked to make grand claims about their God, to the effect that He knows all and sees all, and that He created “the Heavens and the Earth”. The problem is, those people had no idea what “the Heavens” are.
I mean, they barely understood what the Earth is.
The world that the Biblical authors lived in consisted of a patch of land extending a few hundred (rarely, a few thousand) kilometers in each direction from where they had been born. The most widely traveled people of their time were familiar with less than 10% of the Earth’s surface. The stars were glowing dots on a black dome, some of which moved occasionally. How far away even the closest of them are can barely be expressed using the language of the time. And the fact that the most distant stars you can see with the naked eye are less than one millionth of the distance to some other objects would have been utterly incomprehensible to even the greatest scholars of antiquity.
Simply put, when Biblical authors say “all-anything” (all-knowing, all-powerful, “all there is” etc.), we cannot take them seriously. Those people didn’t have the faintest idea what “all” means. When they talk about “the world”, they really mean “the Levant and parts of the Mediterranean, plus whatever glowing dots we can see above us”. They simply didn’t know better.
But most importantly, they didn’t know how much they didn’t know. Whereas today’s astrophysicists (whom the Israelites would probably have considered prophets or even gods) are extremely cautious when making any claims about the nature of reality, a desert tribe 3000 years ago was honestly convinced that they were interacting with the creator of the Universe because they had heard a voice from a burning bush.
Even as science ‘expanded’ the size of the universe, Christians tenaciously retained their belief that their god was unlimited in all attributes, such that now he supposedly can control events simultaneously on planets that are up to 14 billion light-years apart. The all-everything god is an anachronism of a pre-scientific era. If Christianity developed today it is fairly certain that God would have some limits to his powers.
(2507) Conflicting eschatology
Christian end times and Jewish end times are on two different pages. Biblical quotes by Jesus and the Book of Revelation paint a dark, sinister, warring, scary, catastrophic scene in the last days, while Jewish prophecy as documented in the Old Testament speaks of a peaceful, converging worldwide consensus of worship around Yahweh. These two pictures could not be more different. The following was taken from:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_prophecies#The_Universal_conversion_of_the_Nations
One consistent theme throughout the Biblical prophecies that a reader will notice is the worldwide conversion to the Hebrew God. Imagery and predictions about this concept are a common theme throughout many Prophet books, and are not isolated to a specific book. This idea is often accompanied by similarly audacious and ridiculous predictions. We will explore and analyze some of the expressions of this idea.
The first expression of this concept is found in Isaiah 2:1-4, which states the following:
The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
This verse has catastrophic consequences for the New Testament. In many Bible translations, this passage opens with “In the last days”, so this is essentially an End Times prophecy. The problem is that it contradicts just about all of the Book of Revelation, and especially Jesus’ statement that one of the signs of the end would be war. This opens with a few passages about how The Lord’s ‘mountain’ (which some people believe to be the Temple in Jerusalem) will be exalted and raised above all other mountains. This passage then goes on to specifically state that all the nations of the Earth will flock to Jerusalem and worship the Hebrew God. It then goes on to describe some form of world peace, in which nations no longer ‘train for war’. This completely contradicts Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24:6-7 which says that wars and international conflicts will characterize the last days. Essentially, Isaiah 2:1-4 provides its own unique idea about the end times. Despite its conflict with New Testament eschatology, we are noting this passage for its prediction that the nations will convert and flock to Jerusalem. This passage is repeated verbatim in Micah 4:1-4. The author of Micah likely plagiarized it.
The question that should be asked is why God would change his plan for the end times? He wouldn’t. What happened is that pagan influence infiltrated Christian theology, in more ways that just this, and the result is a totally different script for the final chapter.
(2508) The absurdity of dogma
A point that tends to invalidate Christianity is its proliferation of dogma- forcing followers to think in a single way and to behave in a single way, establishing detailed rules about almost every aspect of life. Such a campaign to exercise control over people is much more of a human trait than what would be expected of a celestial deity. The following was taken from:
https://poweryoga.com/blog/the-absurdity-of-religion/
The absurdity of religion is not in its teachings, the absurdity is in the dogma that permeates them. The absurdity is, we are told to follow instead of lead ourselves. Why is dogma absurd? Dogma is absurd because there is not one way. There are many ways. Some might even say there are seven billion ways, as that’s how many of us are on the planet now. When something is done the “right way” instead of “what feels right to you,” it stagnates creativity, personal expression and evolution. It suppresses one’s personal needs and breeds sickness and disease. It can be very offensive to some to say my skin color is optimal or my god is the only god, my culture is better or my gender or sexual orientation is most optimal or my way is the right way. This might be the foundation of all war.
In acknowledging the absurdity of dogma, which permeates religion, we are free to retain any traditions we would like. Yet without dogma steering the tradition, we are liberated instead of repressed, and tradition evolves naturally, as we take out of it what feels right, and leave the rest behind. Kind of like a spiritual buffet. After all, what is wrong with a female priest or a gay catholic other than someone said it was wrong? Why is only the Christian soul going to heaven, and the Jews God’s chosen people? Do we even know who really created these ideas? Why do these Ideas have the right to dictate our lives? Why are these ideas more righteous than our own? Do we not see how our doctrines can be hurtful and repressive? I love the teachings of Jesus (“let he who has not sinned cast the first stone”) and the Ten Commandments (“thou shalt not kill”), I love the examples of Gandhi and Mother Teresa. I love them not because they said it or I’m told to love them. I love them because it feels right to me. I’m inspired by these teachings, I’m not dictated by them. Is it not absurd to be told what to feel and how to think? Instead we should be asked, “how do you feel and what do you think?”
If how you think and feel is what you have been told to think and feel, is it really how you think and feel? If you grew up on a deserted island, would you even know that you are fat and ugly? If Tutsi and Hutu grew up together in an American home from birth, would they hate each other, what about Muslim and Christian or Catholic and Protestant, how about Sunni and Shiite, Tamil and Sinhalese, Indian and Pakistani, Communist and Capitalist? We all know this list can go on hundreds if not thousands of pages. Can you imagine who you think you are might not be who you are but who you were programed to be (a by-product of all you have seen)? Psychology 101 informs us the more you see something the more you believe it, even if what you’ve seen is absurd. Growing up in the West, you might consider a big belch to be crude and rude and may even get upset at hearing one, yet if you grow up in the East, that same belch means you enjoyed your meal and it makes you happy.
Our whole thought process is dictated by our culture. What we see and hear every day over and over again influences or programs us. We have been raised by programmed people who unwittingly have programmed us. It’s said a child will never listen to their parents but they will always become their parents. This is why it is said “history always repeats itself.“ It is because the program has not changed. Is it not amazing that with cell phones, the Internet and space travel, nothing has really changed other than we can now destroy ourselves with a bomb or pollution. There is as much (or more) crime, war, disease, poverty and hunger as ever. Maybe the answer to our great problems is not intellectual prowess so much as recognizing the program or dogma and having a choice about it instead of blindly following.
Instead of establishing commandments and rules that attempt to funnel everybody down a narrow chute of thought and behavior, it would be expected that interaction with an actual god would be much more sublime. In other words, a real god would be less anal-retentive than the god of the Bible.
(2509) Teleporting Jesus
The synoptic gospels tell a fanciful story of Jesus being tempted by the devil, even though it makes no sense to tempt an omnipotent being. Most of the ridiculous elements of this story are discussed in #91. But what should not be missed is the overt comic-book mythology that is implied in the movements of Jesus and the devil during this sequence of events. It appears to involve teleportation. The most detailed description is in Matthew:
Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ”
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
The story begins in the wilderness and then suddenly the protagonists find themselves in Jerusalem, and not just anywhere in the city, but standing on the highest precipice of the temple. Then, just as quickly, they are standing on the peak of a mountain. The nearest mountains of any size are about 100 miles north of Jerusalem in Lebanon and western Syria around Damascus.
There are two possibilities. Either an emaciated Jesus (not having eaten for 40 days) walked from the ‘wilderness’ to Jerusalem and climbed to the top of the temple, only then to walk another hundred miles and climb a mountain, or he was teleported by the devil to these locations. Now, to be honest, this is a fictional story and probably was never intended to be taken literally by the gospel authors, but by introducing the implied teleportation of physical bodies, it enters the realm of science fiction and represents a stain on the historical value of the gospels.
(2510) Miracles more needed today, none provided
Do we live in an irregular, unpredictable world that is inhabited by super-human or supernatural creatures- that is the first order determination everyone should make before signing on to the roster of any religious faith. In times past, natural phenomena got people over this hump easily because they were constantly seeing things that appeared to be miraculous, from earthquakes to comets. So, the step to go from that mindset to a belief in gods was not a long one.
But today, it is very different. We know what is causing these (what are now known to be) natural events. So the step to believing in supernatural beings is longer. Yet, for reasons unknown, God is providing fewer (or zero) miracles at the exact time when more are required. The following was taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/hcm9z5/miracles_as_evidence/
The Bible is full of stories of people who didn’t believe until a supernatural being provided evidence to them in the form of a miracle, including Moses, all 12 apostles, and Paul.
6000 to 2000 years ago there were tons of things humans could observe but couldn’t explain, such as lightning, earthquakes, eclipses, magnetism, famines, sicknesses, etc., that made belief in some magic invisible being causing stuff like that a relatively logical conclusion. Now we have a really good understanding of all of those things and many more, and we see that they’re just the consequence of physics and chemistry, no magic being is needed to explain them.
So why doesn’t God provide evidence to humans today with miracles? If it was needed in Bible times for people to believe, isn’t it much more needed today? Why are we supposed to believe fantastic things based on some words humans wrote thousands of years ago?
Just something I was thinking. If you ask religious people what would change their mind about whether God exists, most will say nothing would. But this is what would make me change my mind about it, and it seems like God used to understand that according to the Bible.
It should be obvious that if you are living in an environment where you are constantly being exposed to events that have no explanation and appear miraculous, it would be easy to believe that gods or other supernatural beings exist and that they are interacting with your world. This was the world of the Bible. According to scripture, God/Jesus nevertheless in those days used actual miracles to convince people of his existence and credentials.
But now that we live in a world where everything we see has a natural explanation, miracles from God are much more needed to demonstrate his existence. Yet he provides none. It is like a parent giving a child $100 to buy a bicycle but only $10 to buy an automobile, providing less when more is needed. God would certainly understand this dilemma, and his failure to comply is evidence for his absence.
(2511) COVID-19 deaths by religious group
A recent study of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and Wales revealed that the mortality rate for atheists was lower than for any religious group. There are various explanations for this outcome, but it nevertheless creates a default observation. The following was taken from:
Age-standardised mortality rates of death involving COVID-19 by religious group
We calculated age-standardised mortality rates (ASMRs)1 for males and females aged nine years and over, aged 9 to 64 years, and aged 65 years and over to assess when contrasts were different among younger and older populations. ASMRs of death involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) can be interpreted as deaths per 100,000 of the population during the analysis period.
Table 4 shows ASMRs per 100,000 population for deaths involving COVID-19 in the period 2 March to 15 May 2020 for those aged 9 years and over.
| Table 4: Age-standardised mortality rates involving COVID-19 for those aged nine years and over by sex and religious group, England and Wales, 2 March to 15 May 2020 | |||
| Religious group | Age-standardised mortality rates involving COVID-19 | ||
| Males | Females | ||
| No religion | 80.7 | 47.9 | |
| Christian | 92.6 | 54.6 | |
| Buddhist | 113.5 | 57.4 | |
| Hindu | 154.8 | 93.3 | |
| Jewish | 187.9 | 94.3 | |
| Muslim | 198.9 | 98.2 | |
| Sikh | 128.6 | 69.4 | |
| Other religion or not stated | 84.2 | 49.2 | |
Source: Office for National Statistics – Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by religious group
It is certainly possible that religious persons were more likely to be infected because they had a greater exposure to crowded and congested indoor arenas during church gatherings. But it also has to be observed that persons of faith would be expected to have compensatory advantages if their god was hearing and answering their prayers. These don’t appear, and the result is fully consistent with atheism while illuminating contraindications for theism.
(2512) The scope of miracles has diminished
There is a negative correlation between the scope of miracles documented in the Bible and the ability of people to record them. The miracles become less extravagant and more local as time progresses…until today when they become non-existent. The following was taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/hcd4en/the_scope_of_gods_miracles_decreases/
The Beginning and pre-flood – God does all kinds of insane colossal acts: Universe created by speaking. Spirit moves upon face of the water. God walks among humans in a garden. Flaming swords guarding entrances. God speaks directly to Adam, Cain etc. God brings two of every creature to the ark. Enoch is taken by a flaming chariot. Nobody had the ability to record these amazing events (all recordings would have been destroyed in the flood anyway), and their documentation is usually attributed to Moses decades (centuries?) after the fact.
Post Flood – A lot of weirdness here and impressive supernatural spectacles performed, though slightly more naturalistic and elemental. Tower of Babel destroyed. Sodom and Gomorrah flattened. Red Sea parted. Mana from the sky. Pillars of Fire. Almost nobody has the skill to write and independently verify as eyewitnesses. Narrative is entirely controlled by select few people who know how to write.
Judges and Prophets – The scope of the acts have decreased somewhat. Instead of huge, earth shattering appearances and geological formations, we witness acts that are more local or based around individuals. Samson performs feats of strength. Elijah makes fire appear on soaked wood. Saul visits the witch of Endor. Eyewitnesses are fewer – miracles concern groups of unnamed people most of whom die before recording is possible (Phillistines killed by Samson, prophets of Baal by Elijah etc.) Events are recorded with disputed accuracy.
Jesus and Apostles – No more earth shattering phenomena and elements miracles. Miracles are local and personal: Healings, resurrection from the dead, demons cast out. Coins found in fish. Ears put back on. People in the same vicinity can either hear or not hear God speaking. Miracles usually performed on unnamed, low-born individuals rather than whole empires, Kings and high ranking priests. Writing is somewhat common but only for educated people. These miracles are documented, but sources are disputed and many extrabiblical oral accounts and spurious recordings exist outside accepted canon.
Modern Era – Writing commonplace. Video invented. Sound recording invented. Almost total and complete ability to verify miracles, yet miracles nonexistent except for unremarkable healings and charlatans.
This trend to having more mundane miracles as society improves its information technology is what would be expected if these miracle claims are false. Just in the past 100 years, we have seen a sharp drop in miracles, and the ones that have been alleged have increasingly withered in the face of scientific scrutiny.
(2513) Proving a negative
It is often stated that it is impossible to prove a negative- that is, to prove that something does not exist. While technically true, there are situations where this adage is rendered effectively false. Consider the following analogy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/hd1ljc/the_bear_in_the_cave_an_argument_for_supporting_a/
You and a friend are hiking deep into the woods and find a cave. You want to go in and explore the cave, but your friend thinks there could be a bear inside. Given what you already know about the area – such as the lack of nearby water and food a bear would need to survive, a lack of visible tracks or trampled vegetation, and information from nearby park rangers about bear locations – you consider the danger to be near zero. Your friend is not convinced and says there’s no way to prove there are no bears without going in. So, you take out a solar panel to power your cell phone and stream video of the cave’s entrance to your home computer for later review. For the rest of the week you review the footage and see no bears. You show the evidence to your friend, but they are still not convinced… maybe the bear is hibernating, or maybe the cave is part of a larger cave system and bears don’t have to use the entrance you found. You admit that is possible and proceed to research bear hibernation and get maps of the known cave systems in the woods. You find detailed drawings of the caves and they are well documented. No other pathways connect to that cave. By now you have weeks of video footage with not a single bear. You continue to review footage over the span of an entire year. At this point, you have proven the non-existence of a bear in the cave beyond reasonable doubt. However, your friend argues that without going into the cave yourself, you can never say for certain. The friend’s claim cannot be supported without the bear having supernatural abilities to never feed, never be seen, and never leaves tracks.
The claim of danger from bears is the fear of the unknown, and it is analogous to the idea of god existing somewhere we cannot see. Based on the evidence we have – the documented evolution of superstition and beliefs, lack of direct evidence, etc. – it’s safe to claim there is no god… even if it still scares us that there might be.
By using telescopes, cosmology, paleontology, geology, scriptural studies, prayer studies, investigation of miracle claims, and the like, humankind has come very close to demonstrating that a god of the type that Christians claim does not exist. If such a god does exist, then it is analogous to an invisible bear that inhabits the cave in the story above. That is, it must be a god that has gone to extreme lengths to conceal its existence. If so, then either the Bible is wrong or this god has decided to go into hiding after for centuries being quite out in the open. Either way, this presents a problem for Christianity.
(2514) Matthew’s anachronism
The person who wrote the Gospel of Matthew mindlessly copied elements from the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Mark apparently not realizing that he had included a prophetic promise of Jesus that was already past due- that the end time events would occur within the generation of Jesus’ listening audience. At least 50 years had already passed after Jesus’ death and that generation was long gone. The following was taken from:
https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2020/06/matthew-enhances-cult-playbook.html#more
But Matthew did a major disservice to Christianity by copying Mark’s horrible chapter 13, thus anchoring grotesque theology permanently in the Jesus Cult Playbook. Note the gist of this dystopian view of the anticipated Kingdom of God (Matthew 24 = Mark 13):
• The cult hero (the Son of Man = Jesus) will arrive from the sky, and will send out angels to gather the elect (i.e., those who have joined the cult). Most of humanity will be left out:
• “For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, no, and never will be.” (Mark 13:19 = Matthew 24:21)
• Not quite satisfied with this grim forecast, Matthew added this detail (24:37-39, which has a parallel in Luke): “For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
So humankind—devoted to eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage—will be swept away when Jesus arrives from heaven.
The coming of the Son of Man will be a time of terror (Matthew 24:16-20):
“…then those in Judea must flee to the mountains; the one on the housetop must not go down to take what is in the house; the one in the field must not turn back to get a coat. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath.”
And the early Jesus cult was so sure this was just around the corner, based on this Jesus script (Matthew 24:34-35 = Mark 13:30-31):
“Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
Naturally, the cult hero was so grand that his words would outlast creation.
All of this would have played well in attracting people to the cult. Who wouldn’t want protection from being swept away “as in the days of Noah”? The fact that Matthew wrote his gospel a couple of generations after the promise that all these things would happen before Jesus’ generation passed away didn’t seem to sink in—or didn’t matter. Cults then—as cults today—were not hobbled by critical thinking.
It is interesting to think that somebody reading Matthew’s gospel ‘fresh off the papyri’ would notice the problem. A more astute author would have changed Jesus’ ‘this generation’ statement or completely left it out.
(2515) Job and abusive relationships
The book of Job is mythical fiction, something that most (other than evangelical) Christians will admit. The idea of God making a bet with Satan to the demise of an innocent person is ridiculous and repugnant. But the fact that it never happened does not excuse the presence of this story in the Bible. It gives cover to abusers and tacitly commands the victims of abuse to not only stay with their abuser but to remain in love with him or her. Any god who would allow this story to be placed into his holy book is not worthy of respect or worship. The following was taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/hd12k8/the_story_of_job/
I have always taken issue with the story of Job. I have always found the message of the story to be that if you are abused, it means the person loves you, and you should continue to love them. I find this to be an uncomfortable. Considering how often people find themselves in abusive relationships where the best thing to do is to leave and disregard any feelings for the abuser, I find it uncomfortable that a huge story in the Bible would promote this idea [to remain in the relationship and continue to love the abuser].
To those who follow the Bible, Why do you think it’s appropriate to worship God even if he is willing to torture someone just to win a bet with Satan? Do you think the same philosophy should be applied to human to human abuse relationships? Am I wrong for my reading of the story? What is your take away from Job?
(For those unfamiliar with the story of Job, here is a summary to my understanding.)
Satan tells God that he bets Job (One of God’s most loyal and loving) would let go his belief and love if God if he had a poor life. God decides to prove Satan wrong by ruining Job’s life. He destroys his house, life stock, family, children. He leaves Job lying in disease and crippled. Despite all this torture Job still loves and remains loyal to God, proving Satan wrong. God, in return for Job’s loyalty, reward’s Job by replacing his livestock, family and children.
This story also makes me uncomfortable because it has the idea that your children can just be replaced.
The story of Job has no place in any book and especially not in a book touted to present a model for moral behavior. It is a scriptural promotion for abusive relationships and an adulteration of the definition of love.
(2516) God is sadistic
Most Christians believe that that God either created the universe in a short period of time or else he guided evolution over a long period of time to achieve the same end. They all believe that God could have created any universe of his choosing. Given that concession, the argument can be made that God deliberately created a world full of immense suffering- in fact, a world where suffering out-duels pleasure by many orders of magnitude. By this measure, one can conclude that God is a sadist. The following was taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/hd3bj9/god_is_sadistic/
Sadistic: deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others.
A common claim is that God designed nature.
And he likes his designs. As per the Genesis account, “and God saw that it was good”.
Many of these designs have brains and nervous systems, wired up to pain receptors. Endowed with the capacity to anticipate pain and feel the emotion of fear.
Nature red in tooth and claw.
“Scientists have documented Namibian Kelp Gulls killing and eating baby seals by first pecking their eyes out and then leaving them to die”
Predatory animals are designed to inflict damage on their prey. Arrayed with teeth for tearing and claws for ripping.
The designer God made it so. And the story starts in stone.
“Fossil embryos of three little ichthyosaurs are preserved within the body of their mother that died while giving birth, 248 million years ago.”
An example of violent and uncaring reality.
These creatures designed with a brain and a nervous system and pain receptors. These creatures designed to suffer. And God said it was good.
The ‘book of creation’ is a testament to Gods insatiable sadism.
There is a weak counter-argument to this point to the effect that suffering serves a purpose of some sort, and any number of theories can flow from that proposition. However, there appear to be too many examples of purposeless, gratuitous suffering to support this view- the idea that God is somehow metering out suffering only when and where it is needed to effect a net positive outcome. The facts on the ground simply do not allow for this excuse. There are only two options on the table- either God is not all-powerful or he is a sadist.
(2517) Sai Baba of Shirdi
Sai Baba of Shirdi (1838-1918) was an Indian spiritual master who is regarded by his devotees as a saint and a fakir. He is revered by both his Hindu and Muslim devotees during, as well as after his lifetime. He allegedly worked miracles that were similar to the ones of Jesus as documented in the gospels.
Although the evidence for Sai Baba’s miracles is more recent and more robust that Jesus,’ Christians dismiss the former and embrace the latter. The following is taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/hdtx9q/sai_baba_miracles_vs_jesus_miracles/
Christians are blindly believing in miracles only because of the time they are placed in. Belief in the miracles of Jesus being historical fact is irrational. If present day miracles and testimonies are to not be believed in the modern age, we should be even more skeptical of the claims in the ancient world.
Jesus supposedly walked on water, healed paralyzed people and made the blind see. Rose from the dead and only one time was this claimed in the entire NT that 500 people saw him. These 500 never felt the need to write about seeing a dead man raised from the dead. We do however have 1 person who saw a vision of him and that is Paul. This is enough evidence for Christians to believe in it.
Now, in our day and age, we have a man called “Sai Baba.” It has been claimed by others (same as the bible) that he performed many miracles such as bilocation, levitation, mindreading, materialisation, exorcisms, entering a state of Samādhi at will, lighting lamps with water, removing his limbs or intestines and sticking them back to his body (khandana yoga), curing the incurably sick, appearing beaten when another was beaten, preventing a mosque from falling down on people, and helping his devotees in other miraculous ways. According to his followers, he appeared to them in their dreams and gave them advice. His devotees have documented many stories. There are paintings and statues and buildings in the name of Sai Baba.
This is in the modern world! Thousands and thousands of people worship this individual, some even claim he is God and they feel his presence even though he is dead. If you deny Sai Baba’s miracles you are denying thousands and thousands of testimonies in the modern age.
If you do not believe these modern miracles and find them to be too great to believe and they lack evidence, I would advise you to look in the mirror.
Sai Baba’s miracles should not be believed and the thousands who do believe in him should be looked at with raised eyebrows. Yet, if you take these miracles (greater than ones in the gospels, such as walking on water) and place them in ancient Rome and in ancient text, now people feel the need to not only believe them but form their entire life around this belief, make it their entire identity, make buildings and then think that those who do not believe will be separated from their God in the afterlife. Some even think their God will torture those who do not believe.
It is of my opinion that if you are a Christian, I do not see how you are any different than someone who believes in Sai Baba. In fact, I think you believe on worse evidence. Feel free to show how you are different, until then I am entirely unconvinced and I think you are blindly believing just like a Sai Baba worshiper.
Sai Baba lived in a place and time that was subject to a much greater degree of historical scrutiny than did Jesus. Yet, his fake miracles were believed by millions. This suggests that it is not surprising, in fact almost expected, that multitudes of similarly gullible people believed the miracles of Jesus. Sai Baba is a modern-day example of how the mythology of Jesus originated.
(2518) Religion makes people stupid
If there really was a god and it provided access to its mind through prayer or other means, it would be expected that religious people, or at least those worshiping the correct god, would be more enlightened, informed, and knowledgeable than the unchurched population. However, we see the opposite. Below, a survey turned up the stupidest things that religious people have said – none of which would have been said without a belief in religion.
“Snakes represent the devil because they are spineless.”
“All these fast-food places mistreat animals, but I know Chick-fil-A doesn’t, because they’re in the faith.”
“If people don’t believe in God, they deserve to die from cancer.”
“You listen to music too much. Allah will punish you after you die by pouring lava into your ears.”
“Every time you watch a TV series, one hundred demons enter your body.”
“God killed Steve Irwin for teaching children about evolution.”
“Believe and don’t do research.”
“Your son is autistic because he wasn’t baptized in time.”
“If you talk to friends from a different caste, their blood will transfuse into you and kill you.”
“Video games are created by Satan because my kid’s console was destroyed when I poured holy water on it.”
“I’ve passed bad checks at supermarkets and gotten away with it, because angels are protecting me.”
“God took your wife to be with Him because as an atheist you don’t deserve to be happy without God in your life.”
“When you masturbate, you’re having sex with a demon.”
“You shouldn’t adopt children. They won’t really be yours in the eyes of God, and then they won’t get to heaven.”
“If you die on the street because EMTs won’t treat you because you’re transsexual and that’s against their beliefs, well, that’s what God wanted.”
“Trump was sent down from the heavens to save America.”
“Masturbation is gay because you are pleasuring someone of the same sex.”
“I would rather leave a child in a room with a pedophile than with an atheist.”
“Drug mules are stuffing dead hollowed-out babies full of cocaine to smuggle them across the border because the devil wants America hooked on drugs.”
“I saw a video of lepers regrowing their limbs through prayer.”
“If you don’t finish your food it’s going to stand before you on Judgment Day.”
“Masturbation and menstruation are sins because every time someone ejaculates or is on their period, they murder unborn children.”
“You really shouldn’t play Uno. That’s gambling.”
“The female orgasm isn’t necessary for reproduction. If God doesn’t care about your satisfaction, why should I?”
“When women get breast cancer it’s because they dress immodestly. God puts the cancer there when they allow people to ogle their breasts.”
“The peace sign is the sign of the devil because it’s a broken cross upside down.”
“Masturbation is wrong because it makes you happy, and only God is supposed to make you happy.”
“Stealing a candy bar and rape are the same thing, because sin is sin. Both will receive the same punishment from God.”
“Don’t burn a candle in your home because Satan tempts the candle makers to put bad stuff in there, and when you burn the candle, it will give you cancer.”
“I don’t want to take science classes for my bachelor’s degree because God made the earth and I don’t believe in geology.”
In a world without religion, the people who made these statements would be more rationale and better able to discern reality from fantasy. The fact that religion makes people dumber rather than smarter is evidence that theists are not interacting with an unlimited celestial intelligence.
(2519) Paul was illogical
Christian theology is based more or less a compendium of letters written by Paul, a man who never met Jesus. That is bad enough. But also his reasoning was full of holes and contradictions. The following was taken from:
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/06/illogical-christianity/
Paul’s illogicality cannot be the word of “the only wise God.”
There is no one in the bible as illogical as Paul. He claims he preached the gospel: “not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.” (1 Corinthians 1:17). Nevertheless, Luke says: “(Paul) reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath.” (Acts 18:4). Paul’s “reasoning” is often incoherent and contradictory. To accept some of the things he says, one has to take leave of one’s senses.
Contradictions galore
Paul maintains salvation is not contingent upon our works, but is “by grace through faith” in Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 2:8-9). Then he puts his foot in his mouth by saying to the Galatians: “You who attempt to be justified by law have fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:4). But if grace is unmerited favour, then a man cannot fall from it. If the favour is unmerited, it cannot be lost by demerits. Paul says we were “bought at a price,” ostensibly by Christ. (1 Corinthians 6:20). But only slaves are bought; sons are not bought but birthed. Then he says we are forgiven. (Colossians 2:13). But if we are forgiven, nobody needs to pay for us; and if we are paid for, then we don’t need to be forgiven.
Paul says: “there is none righteous, no not one.” (Romans 3:10). He then boxes himself into a corner by saying: “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9). But if there is none righteous and only the righteous will inherit, where then will God find the righteous who will inherit his kingdom? Paul just cannot think straight. His defective logic about the non-existence of the righteous does not even recognise “Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1). Compare Paul’s irreverent generalization to Jesus’ recognition of God’s exceptionality. Jesus says: “No one is good but One, that is, God.” (Matthew 19:17).
In 1 Corinthians 2:14, Paul sets a trap for himself and falls into it. He says: “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Then he says: “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.” (1 Cor 15:46). But if the natural is first, how can the natural then become spiritual when, according to Paul’s ingenuity, the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God? Thereby, Paul nullifies his own doctrine and shows it to be idiotic.
Convoluted logic
Paul tries to compare the coming of the New Testament with the second marriage of a widow. But he muddles everything up; casting serious doubts on his alleged Pharisee training. He says: “The woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. .. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another- to Him who was raised from the dead.” (Romans 7:2/4). But a widow does not die because her husband dies. A dead wife does not remarry. In actual fact, it is Christ, the “new husband,” who died. The law, the “old husband,” is still alive.
Quoting Epidemedes, Paul says: “One of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’” Surprisingly, Paul agrees with this, saying: “This testimony is true.” (Titus 1:12-13). But if Cretans are always liars, this statement by one of them must also be false. Thereby, Paul trips on his own shoe-laces once again.
Double-mindedness
Paul comes up with this lofty principle: “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” (Galatians 6:7-8). However, he then nullifies it by insisting those who sow to the spirit should reap in the flesh. He says: “If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?” (1 Corinthians 9:11). This is the hypocritical theology of the money-minded con-man which has so many adherents in the pastors of today.
Paul says: “The doers of the law shall be justified.” (Romans 2:13). Then he contradicts himself in the same breath: “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.” (Romans 3:20). He says to the Galatians: “Bear one another’s burdens.” (Galatians 6:2). Then he says: “Each one shall bear his own load.” (Galatians 6:5). If each man shall bear his own load, how can we then bear one another’s burdens? Paul says: “All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law.” (Romans 2:12). Then he contradicts himself by saying: “where there is no law, there is no transgression.” (Romans 4:15). If, as he says, no law means no sin; how then can he also say no law means sin leading to condemnation?
Listen to Paul in his own self-implicating words. He says to the Thessalonians: “Our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, NOR IN GUILE.” (1 Thessalonians 2:3). Then he says to the Corinthians: “I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you WITH GUILE.” (2 Corinthians 12:16). In short, by his own account, Paul is not deceptive and he also is. Which of these is the infallible word of Paul? Certainly, such illogicality cannot be the word of “the only wise God.” (Romans 16:27).
Paul was an erratic and inconsistent architect of Christian theology. Metaphorizing it as a building, it would fall down under the slightest force. The letters he wrote came from his own confused brain, and it is unfortunate that Christians later came to view them as being inspired by the Holy Spirit. If so, the Holy Spirit was confused as well.
(2520) God changes forgiveness paradigm
If Christianity is true, then it must be believed that God changed the process of forgiveness from a person-to-person to a God-to-person action. Judaism did not include the concept of God providing forgiveness when somebody hurt another- rather the perpetrator must acquire it from the aggrieved person. In contrast, Christianity claims that God can forgive, even without the victim’s acquiescence. This change is problematic. The following was taken from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_Judaism
In Judaism, one must go to those he has harmed in order to be entitled to forgiveness.[32] This means that in Judaism a person cannot obtain forgiveness from God for wrongs the person has done to other people. This also means that, unless the victim forgave the perpetrator before he died, murder is unforgivable in Judaism, and they will answer to God for it, though the victims’ family and friends can forgive the murderer for the grief they caused them.
Thus the “reward” for forgiving others is not God’s forgiveness for wrongs done to others, but rather help in obtaining forgiveness from the other person.
Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, summarized: “it is not that God forgives, while human beings do not. To the contrary, we believe that just as only God can forgive sins against God, so only human beings can forgive sins against human beings.”
In Christianity, forgiveness by God is promised to the repentant even though the wronged party has not forgiven the offender: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
This adds another element to the problem of ‘same god, acting differently.’ Christianity’s credibility hinges on the claim that the god worshiped by the Jews is the same god that it worships, so when differences like this appear it begs the question of why would a god change something as fundamental as the mechanism of forgiveness? Why did Christianity make this change? Perhaps because it was a good marketing tool- the idea that you could get forgiven even if the person you harmed was still angry and fighting against you. This combined with ‘belief is all you need for salvation’ made Christianity appealing to those who wanted an easy path to paradise.
(2521) Phineas Priesthood
The Phineas Priesthood is a loosely organized group of domestic terrorists that consider themselves to be Christian patriots carrying out a modern-day version of the bloodshedding agenda of the Old Testament, particularly targeting race mixing, homosexuality, and abortion. They take their license to use violence from the biblical stories where Yahweh or his lieutenants exact terror on their enemies. The following was taken from:
https://www.deism.com/phinehaspriests.htm
Not long ago the FBI arrested a number of men from West Virginia who had been plotting to blow up the FBI’s Central Fingerprint Registry. These men were associated with a militia type group known as the Phineas Priesthood, which is by design completely unorganized, but are linked by certain values and attitudes in common. Like many militia groups, they’re convinced that the U.S. Government is secretly controlled by a sinister foreign cabal, and that they, as the True Christian Patriots they are, are fully justified in waging war against the government. (Apparently they haven’t read the 13th chapter of Romans.)
Other Phineas Priesthood groups had been arrested, one in Georgia for conspiring to disrupt the Olympics, and another in Washington for a series of bank robberies and bombings. Another series of bank robberies in the Midwest are believed to be the product of another gang of Phineas Priests. The bunch in West Virginia, in addition to amassing explosive materials, had actually sold blueprints of the FBI facility in Clarksburg to a man they believed was a Middle Eastern terrorist. That they were willing to make common cause with such a person to destroy a vital crime fighting facility, and to murder government workers and citizens alike, says a lot about their level of moral depravity and delusion.
What is a “Phineas Priest”, and why does a certain element of the Militia Movement possess this conceit? The inspiration comes from the Old Testament (Mark 7:1-13 shows that Jesus believed the ungodly and brutal Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was the Word of God and Matthew 5:17-19 makes clear Jesus believed the heartless commands and laws of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament will remain in effect “until heaven and earth pass”.) and the Book of Numbers (Numbers 25:6-13)*. Phineas was the grandson of Aaron, who objected to the consorting of an Israelite with a Midianite woman and slew them both. (Ironic when you recall that Moses married a Midianite woman himself.) This zealous deed so impressed his fellows that it assured his succession to the High Priesthood, and the memory of this incident resulted in a faction of priests after the Babylonian Exile centuries later claiming descent from Phineas, and the special status this apparently implied.
This story is an obscure one, unknown to most Christians, but it’s become known to some in the Militia, and of all the myriad episodes in the Bible, this is one they find especially meaningful: a shameful tale of bigotry and murder that provides them with not only a name, but a justification for committing similar heinous acts under the cover of religious zeal. The story of Phineas is not the only barbaric episode in the Old Testament, but one of many; and the existence of such episodes in the absence of any clear moral condemnation can only debase the morals of those who succumb to “zeal poisoning.” After all, if it’s in the Bible, it must have God’s approval (right?), and to imitate such acts must be righteous. Giving full vent to one’s hostile and destructive impulses, furthermore, provides a heady rush that far surpasses any drug, and the delusion that one is acting according to God’s will opens up the floodgates.
This is a glaring defect in the Old Testament that, with the prodigious growth of Fundamentalism, has become a deadly problem. When numerous examples of outright evil are presented as righteous behavior, we should not be surprised when further such incidents by unrepentant fanatics occur in the future. As for the rest of us, who are not in any nut group, the challenge posed by the Old Testament is simple: either we recognize it as morally deficient, or we debase our moral sensibility in order to conform to it. The former course leads towards a steadier pace on the road to becoming truly civilized, but the latter will ultimately destroy civilization in an insane orgy of bloodlust and paranoid delusion.
*Numbers 25:6-13
6 “And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his breathern a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
7 “And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;
8 “And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
9 “And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
10 “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
11 “Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.
12 “Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace:
13 “And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.”
As a Deist, this type of depiction of God as a jealous killer is NOT acceptable. Deists think too highly of God to believe the Bible’s or the Koran’s depiction of the Creator. And now these “holy” horror stories are motivating people, our fellow human beings, to take the lives of others. It’s time to put a stop to the Bible and all forms of revelation/superstition.
It is difficult to call a book ‘good’ if it contains material that terrorists can use to justify violently attacking innocent people and public structures. Christianity is in a hard place- it needs to jettison the Old Testament, but in so doing it would undermine its legitimacy. There is no solution.
(2522) The Christian challenge
Christianity has gotten away for far too long with its spectacularly failed timing of Jesus’ promised return (1950 years late) as well as the failure of the faithful to demonstrate the powers that Jesus said that they would possess. Regarding the latter, a challenge was made for any Christian to demonstrate the truth of the scriptures. The following was taken from:
https://www.deism.com/challengetochristians.htm
The challenge to Christians is to prove Mark 16:18 which says those who believe in the Gospels will be able to “lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” If this is true, then Christians would be able to go to any sick person anywhere and lay their Christian hands on them, and they would recover. The fact that we have millions of very sick people around the world tells us that either this Bible promise is false or that Christians really don’t care about the sick, otherwise they would lay their hands on them and they would be healed! And if they could in fact heal people, there would be no need for doctors, nurses, hospitals, health care or Michael Moore’s new documentary, Sicko!
The World Union of Deists hereby challenges Christian clergy to demonstrate the truth of this Bible promise before the world. Christian clergy should make arrangements by emailing me at bob@deism.com to conduct a verifiable public healing of a terminally ill person. If a member of the Christian clergy, or any Christian, contacts me to meet this Deist challenge, I will make all arrangements for the test of this Biblical promise and will post the information here along with the results of the test.
The falsehoods of the Bible need to be exposed so people can make progress in their lives and in society. As Thomas Paine wrote, “It is an affront to truth to treat falsehoods with complaisance.”
Nobody even attempted this challenge. It would be difficult for any Christian to explain why this one fact does not prove that Christianity is false. Christianity has become a religion of excuses.
(2523) Cognitive dissonance reduction and the resurrection
It is a well-known human tendency to refuse to accept that something strongly believed is false even in the face of compelling counter evidence. Rather, rationalizations are made to support a continued belief in the underlying conviction. This is theorized as an explanation for why the idea developed that Jesus has risen from the dead as a form of psychological compensation following his ignominious and unexpected execution at the hands of the authorities. The following was taken from:
https://www.westarinstitute.org/resources/the-fourth-r/cognitive-dissonance-resurrection-jesus/
The conviction that Jesus was raised from the dead is among the earliest of all Christian beliefs. Paul, the earliest known Christian author, reports the resurrection of Jesus was proclaimed by those who came before him in the Jesus movement (1 Cor 15:3–4). How does one account for the rise of this belief if the gospel accounts of a discovered empty tomb and corporeal postmortem appearances of Jesus are legends, as many scholars propose?
The most popular answer to this question is that belief in the resurrection came about due to a post-mortem bereavement hallucination of Jesus by Peter, and possibly others. Another largely overlooked possibility for the rise of the resurrection belief is the extraordinary phenomenon of cognitive dissonance reduction.
What is Cognitive Dissonance Reduction?
Many scholars doubt that Jesus ever claimed he was the Messiah. However, Jesus obviously made a big impression on some people. Because of this, some may have thought or hoped he was the Messiah, a sentiment not unlike that expressed in the Gospel of Luke: “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). How might people like these, Jesus’ most ardent followers who thought or hoped he might be the Messiah, have reacted to the harsh reality of his death? Jews, at the time of the historical Jesus, expected the Messiah to be a victor, not a victim. The notion that the Messiah would die for the sins of others did not yet exist.
For most people most of the time, the reaction in such a situation would be the depressing realization that expectations were wrong. But sometimes people do not follow that route. We human beings have a tendency, when we deeply believe or want to believe in something, to look for and arrive at conclusions that confirm what we already believe or want to believe. When strongly held beliefs are inescapably disconfirmed by reality, this sometimes leads to extraordinary displays of rationalization. In the case of Jesus’ followers, the strongly held belief was that Jesus was the Messiah, and the disconfirming event was his crucifixion by his enemies. The internal tension caused by a disconfirming event is called “cognitive dissonance” by psychologists, and the release of this tension due to a rationalization (or any other action that releases the tension) is called “cognitive dissonance reduction.” The Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling defines cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance reduction this way:
An individual holds beliefs or cognitions that do not fit with each other (e.g., I believe the world will end, and the world did not end as predicted). Nonfitting beliefs give rise to dissonance, a hypothetical aversive state the individual is motivated to reduce. . . . Dissonance may be reduced by changing behavior, altering a belief, or adding a new one.
The first attempt to study how cognitive dissonance can lead to a new belief was conducted by the highly respected social psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s. In this study, Festinger infiltrated a small cult group and observed firsthand their behavior when their religious beliefs were disconfirmed by the harsh reality of events. This study will be summarized below. It both serves as an initial explanation and the first of four examples of the extraordinary effects of cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance reduction, and demonstrates how they can give birth to a new belief.
Festinger’s Small Cult Group Study
Before summarizing Festinger’s small cult group study, I want to emphasize that the beliefs of the cult group below, which are quite bizarre and no doubt related to the UFO craze of the 1950s, are not being compared to Christianity in any way. My discussion of Festinger’s study aims only to illustrate that people can sometimes come up with ingenious and complex explanations in order to make sense of a disconnect between deeply held beliefs and the harsh reality of events.
The cult group consisted of eleven hardcore members and numerous less committed participants. It was led by a woman who believed she was receiving mental messages from spacemen on another planet. The cult received a message in August 1954 that, on December 21 of that same year, a great cataclysm would ensue around the world. The cult publicly declared this belief and attracted much media attention. Additional messages from the spacemen led the cult to believe that at midnight on the eve before the cataclysm they would be removed from Earth and spared from the destruction. In order for this to happen, they were instructed to wait inside certain identified parked cars and that spacemen would then transfer them from the parked cars to a flying saucer. Imposter cult members (three social psychologists) infiltrated the group and were able, over a period of weeks, to observe the buildup to these expectations and the reaction of the hardcore believers to the shock of disconfirmation, on December 21, when none of the events occurred as they had expected.
Two of the hardcore cult members rejected their beliefs and left the group. But the other nine did not. Instead, they went through a period of intense rationalization over a matter of hours. As members of the group wrestled with their catastrophic disappointment, they floated many explanations. For example, they reasoned that the spacemen must have given them the wrong date. Another explanation was that the events had been postponed, possibly for years, so that more people could prepare to “meet their maker.” Yet another was more complex: the message from the spacemen, which had them waiting in parked cars from which they would be moved to the flying saucer, must be symbolic because parked cars do not move and hence could not take anyone anywhere; therefore, the parked cars must symbolically refer to their physical bodies, and the flying saucer must symbolically refer to the importance to their rescue of their own inner “strength, knowing, and light.” The small group even considered leaving the disconfirmation unexplained while insisting that the plan had never gone astray, accepting that they did not have to understand everything for it all to still be essentially true.
During this rationalization period, one of the social psychologists feigned frustration and walked outside. One of the hardcore members, a physician, followed and offered verbal support. Here are the words of a sane, rational, and intelligent human being who has staked everything on a belief, only to have that belief cruelly disconfirmed by reality:
I’ve had to go a long way. I’ve given up just about everything. I’ve cut every tie. I’ve burned every bridge. I’ve turned my back on the world. I can’t afford to doubt. I have to believe. And there isn’t any other truth. . . . I won’t doubt even if we have to make an announcement to the press tomorrow and admit we were wrong. You’re having your period of doubt now, but hang on boy, hang on. This is a tough time but we know that the boys upstairs are taking care of us. . . . These are tough times and the way is not easy. We all have to take a beating. I’ve taken a terrific one, but I have no doubt.
In the end, the group settled on a rationalization provided by the group’s leader, which was based on a timely message she received from the spacemen. She said that the steadfast belief and waiting by their small group had brought so much “good and light” into the world, that God called off the pickup and the cataclysm. This rationalization was received with jubilation. According to Festinger, “The group was able to accept and believe this explanation because they could support one another and convince each other that this was, in fact, a valid explanation.”
Although the mental health of all the cult members was not open for examination, there was an opportunity for professional psychiatrists to evaluate one of the hardcore cult members, the physician quoted above. The only reason this psychiatric examination was conducted was because relatives questioned his sanity and sought to gain custody of his children. This doctor, a believer in the cult all the way through the disconfirmation and beyond, was cleared by two court-appointed psychiatrists. They concluded that although the physician had some unusual ideas, he was “entirely normal.”
There have been two objections to Festinger’s experiment. First, since the cult group studied was very small, there is no way to rule out the possibility that the three imposter cult members influenced the cult in a way that actually caused the results. To avoid this possibility would require infiltrating a much larger cult group and being present during a disconfirmation of beliefs. While I am sure there are many social psychologists who would love to do just that, I assume such opportunities are rare. This limitation of Festinger’s experiment will be addressed shortly when we turn to three other examples of cognitive dissonance in much larger religious movements. The second problem sometimes cited with Festinger’s study is that it did not follow the cult members for longer than one month after the disconfirmation event. For all we know, belief in their rationalization might have lasted only a month and then faded away. Because of this, Festinger’s cult group study is only useful for showing that a disconfirmation can produce new beliefs; it is not useful for showing that such new beliefs can be sustained. This limitation of Festinger’s experiment will also be addressed in the next examples involving larger religious movements where the new beliefs were sustained. The basic theory of how cognitive dissonance and cognitive dissonance reduction can lead to new beliefs is summarized by Festinger:
Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. . . . The dissonance [conflict between belief and reality] would be largely eliminated if they discarded the belief that had been disconfirmed. . . . Indeed this pattern sometimes occurs. . . . But frequently the behavioral commitment to the belief system is so strong that almost any other course of action is preferable. . . . Believers may try to find reasonable explanations and very often they find ingenious ones. . . . For rationalization to be fully effective, support from others is needed to make the explanation or the revision seem correct. Fortunately, the disappointed believer can usually turn to others in the same movement, who have the same dissonance and the same pressures to reduce it. Support for the new explanation is, hence, forthcoming.
It would have been a major shock to see the person that you believed would cast out the Romans and establish an independent Jewish state being nailed to a cross and dying like a common criminal. So there would be an incentive to invent an alternative theory to makes sense of what happened. The resurrection was a solution that at least a few of them agreed to.
(2524) Defenses of the Christian faith
Christians find themselves on the defensive often when they are rightly challenged on their beliefs and especially on the certainty that so many of them profess- when it is plainly evident to any outside observer that the truth of this religion is anything but certain. The following lists many of the debate points used by Christians- please note that all of them are either exaggerations, falsehoods, or express logical defects or nonsense:
- No-one who lived at the time of Jesus and saw the truth of the lives of Jesus and disciples at first hand, ever raised any suggestion that the Gospels were incorrect.
- Nobody in the ancient world ever disputed the truth of the empty tomb. (just love that one.. No-one in the ancient world ever MENTIONED the empty tomb, let alone disputed it!)
- The Gospels, composed so soon after the life of Jesus are universally acknowledged to be authentic.
- There is no contradiction to be found anywhere in the Bible.
- The Bible is the bestselling book in the world.
- All of the Bible is inerrant Scripture and the only accurate history.
- The English King James Bible is clearly to be seen as perfect and God-given since it has survived intact for upwards of 500 years.
- Divine truth in the Bible is to be seen in the amazing scientific facts described in it.
- The Fine Tuning of this earth and the Solar System demonstrate that the earth was designed for human life.
- The whole Cosmos was designed as the crucial stage for the working out of God’s purpose for mankind.
- The precise clockwork exactness of the heavenly bodies displays the hand of God.
- The perfection of the human body demonstrates the ultimate intelligent designer.
- The Beauty of the world and its wonders proves God.
- Look how many great scientists believe in God.
- Science and Learning have ever been encouraged and preserved by Christianity.
- Christianity emancipated women, eliminated slavery and brought about freedom of Press and Worship.
- Christianity created the first Hospitals, Libraries and Universities.
- All the greatest advances in civilization have been brought about by Christianity.
- The laws of the Western World are based on the Ten Commandments.
- America was founded upon Christian principles by sincere Christians.
- The lives and teachings of Jesus and the Holy Family offer the perfect example for Christian family life.
- Accounts included in Pliny, Josephus and Tacitus prove truth of lives of Jesus and Disciples
- Any teachings that failed to survive the Councils of the first few centuries were clearly wrong.
- The proper interpretation of Jewish Scripture was only made universally by St Paul.
- Paul and some 500 others actually saw the Risen Christ, thereby proving the Resurrection.
- The Resurrection of Christ is one of the most authentic facts of history.
- The most self-evident doctrine of Christianity is to be seen in the Fall of Man and Original Sin.
- The Finite sin of disobedience against an Infinite God must invariably bring about an infinite punishment.
- The ancient Pagan world was totally evil and immoral.
- The Romans from the beginning set out to destroy Christianity.
- Huge multitudes of Christians were martyred by Rome because of their faithful conviction; and no-one would ever die for a lie.
- All ancient historians were convinced that Jesus really lived.
- Since ‘all our righteousness is but as filthy rags’, therefore only Christians can ever do good works pleasing to God.
- Only Jesus can change your life.
- If you pray on your knees before a Crucifix for three weeks you will become Catholic.
- If you pray for three weeks while sincerely studying the Epistles of St Paul you will find Jesus.
- If you pray for three weeks while studying the Book of Mormon, you will be converted to the Church of Latter Day Saints.
- It was Christianity that once and for all explained the reason that evil exists in the world.
- Christianity is based purely on Love. All Christians love everybody.
- Christianity is the only religion that offers Grace.
- Atheists who sincerely research and study Catholicism invariably become Catholics.
- Obviously with all the confusing religions and denominations existing in the world, one only just has to be correct.
- The Catholic Church has survived and prospered unchanged for 2000 years, thus proving its truth.
- Catholic couples who go to Mass and Confession, pray the Rosary and reject Contraception, simply NEVER divorce.
- Mao, Hitler and Stalin were atheists, proving that atheism promotes nothing but evil.
- There are no atheists in fox-holes.
- Atheists have no moral values and live unfulfilled lives of despair.
- Atheists actually believe in God but are too set in wickedness to change their ways.
- Charles Darwin renounced Evolution on his deathbed and embraced Christianity.
- Without the belief in the Devil, there can be no proper belief in God.
- I always feel so much better after praying/church/Bible reading, etc etc.
- Jesus found me a parking spot.
- Jesus performed a great miracle in my life.
Now please note what is missing from this list:
- Numerous studies have proven that prayers to the Christian god have statistical efficacy to the exclusion of all other gods and religions.
- Archaeology and other branches of science have developed sufficient evidence to prove that biblical events such as the Flood, Tower of Babel, and the Exodus were real events.
- Non-Christian historians who were eyewitnesses corroborate what is told about Jesus in the gospels.
- We have eyewitness statements from the 500 people who saw the resurrected Jesus.
- Peer-reviewed scientific studies have verified numerous cases of faith healing attributable to the Christian god.
- Some of these healings have been undoubtedly miraculous, such as re-grown limbs and immediate cures of paralysis.
- Scientific studies have verified the existence of angels and demons.
- These studies have also determined that demons are the cause of some illnesses and psychiatric maladies.
Any one of these eight would carry more weight than all of the 53 above used by Christians combined. And the fact that none of these eight are true is damning evidence against the truth of Christianity.
(2525) Yahweh hates pretty women
In a scripture never read on Easter Sunday, the Christian god Yahweh shows his disdain for pretty, well-groomed, well-appointed women:
Isaiah 3:16-24
The Lord says,
“The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles. Therefore the Lord will bring sores on the heads of the women of Zion; the Lord will make their scalps bald.”
In that day the Lord will snatch away their finery: the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces, the earrings and bracelets and veils, the headdresses and anklets and sashes, the perfume bottles and charms, the signet rings and nose rings, the fine robes and the capes and cloaks, the purses and mirrors, and the linen garments and tiaras and shawls.
Instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding.
Everybody should ask themselves this question: was this written by a man expressing his personal feelings or was this the creator of the universe displaying a grudge against women who try to look nice and sexy? The answer is obvious. The Bible was written by men; there was no god involved.
(2526) Darwin’s deal breaker
Many Christians have come to believe in biological evolution, though reserving the idea that God had directed it for his ultimate purposes. However, Charles Darwin found something that made him conclude that a god was not involved in designing it. The following was taken from:
https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2020/06/biology-defeats-theology.html#more
“Evolution is amoral, meaning it doesn’t care.” Isn’t this awkward for those who claim that a moral God set evolution in motion? “It has no mind with which to care. Therefore, [evolution] predicts, no ecological niche will be so disgusting, so cruel, that some organism will not occupy it.” (p. 368) And she mentions one of Darwin’s observations that was a deal breaker for him—in terms of seeing God behind it all.
“…there are over 60,000 species of ichneumon wasps. These wasps paralyze caterpillars, lay their eggs on them, and then the paralyzed caterpillar is eaten alive by the larvae that hatch out of the eggs.”
For Darwin this was an example of biology defeating theology: “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding inside living bodies of caterpillars…”
And to the devout folks who have conceded—because of the overwhelming evidence—that evolution is true, we have to say smart move, nice try. Nonetheless, their concept of God, a god that is competent and loving, who carefully supervises his creation, take a big hit. Evolution presents a big picture of incalculable suffering. Amateur and professional apologists alike are not up to the task of rescuing the god who created evolution.
Sometimes it takes only one thing to disabuse an idea, and for Darwin the besieged caterpillar was all it took.
(2527) Concept of God has changed over time
Reading portions of the Old Testament belies the claim by Christians that God never changes. What is rather true is that the human perception of God has changed, and these changes are reflected throughout the chronological order of biblical books. The following was taken from
Take a look at Deuteronomy ch. 20, vv. 10-11:
When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor.
In the book of Deuteronomy, God is described as a deity who commands His followers to enslave entire groups of people. Here, His order is that “all the people” living in the town should be subject to “forced labor.” Is this the same God that modern Christians believe in?
Deuteronomy ch. 20, vv. 12-13:
If it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword.
According to Deuteronomy, God is a deity who orders His followers to commit mass slaughter. Is this the same God who does not want women to get abortions?
Deuteronomy ch. 20, vv. 14-15:
You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here.
Here, “women” and “children” are listed together with “livestock.” According to Deuteronomy’s God, human females are “spoil” that the Israelites are supposed to “take” and “enjoy.” Hm.
Deuteronomy ch. 20, vv. 16-18:
But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God.
Skeptics often highlight these verses: “See, the Bible is evil!” And Christians who are unwilling to compromise on their faith-based devotion to the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy will respond to the skeptics by attempting to come up with rationalizations, justifications, and excuses for this patently heinous commandment.
Now, see Deuteronomy 20, vv. 19-20:
If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you? You may destroy only the trees that you know do not produce food; you may cut them down for use in building siegeworks against the town that makes war with you, until it falls.
Deuteronomy depicts a God who cares about trees more than He cares about human lives.
“Enslave everybody.”
“Kill all the men.”
“Take the women for yourselves and enjoy them.”
“Kill absolutely everyone, but just don’t damage the trees.”
Let me be the first to admit that I don’t really believe in the God of Deuteronomy. It would take far too much mental gymnastics to convince myself that these commandments are “good.” I just can’t do it, and I would feel sick to my stomach trying to justify these passages. What could I even say in God’s defense, here?
I suppose could say: “Well, the Canaanites were sacrificing their children to Molech!”
And what if they were? What if a group of people were killing their own daughters and sons right now? What should we do to those people? Enslave them all? Kill all their men? “Take” their women and “enjoy” those women? Just wipe them all out, including the children? These all strike me as evil responses to the issue.
What is my point? That the Bible is evil? That the doctrine of inerrancy is false? No.
What Deuteronomy 20:10-20 proves is that conceptions of God change over time. Theology evolves!!! The God that Christians believe in and worship today is not the God of Deuteronomy. The God that Christians believe in and worship today would never order His followers to slaughter children, even if those children were the children of parents who slaughter children.
It may be true that God never changes, but it is certainly true that human beings’ understanding of God changes tremendously over time.
This is a red herring. Christians are being inauthentic by making the double claim that God is accurately described in the Bible and that he also is unchanging. They need to pick one or the other. Either God has changed from pre-Christian days or else the Bible misrepresents him. This may hurt, but a concession on this point is unavoidable.
(2528) Lazarus disappears
The Gospel of John tells a story of how Jesus raised Lazarus after he had been dead for four days. This would have been Jesus’ most impressive miracle, but because this story does not appear in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, it is thought to be mythical by many biblical scholars. Reinforcing this opinion is the fact that Lazarus is shown to be a target for assassination along with Jesus by the Jewish authorities, but then his story abruptly ends. The following was taken from:
Lazarus is never mentioned in the synoptic Gospels, and he does not appear in John before the story of his resurrection. His resurrection is a remarkable miracle. People who are thought to be dead occasionally revive, which led to the ruling that the bereaved could visit the grave for up to three days (b. Sem 8, 1).9 Lazarus is deliberately portrayed as dead for four days (Jn 11.39), so that Jesus achieves the impossible. If this story were true, it surely would not have dropped out from the synoptic tradition, and this would be doubly so if the fourth evangelist’s account of its effects were true. Moreover, the story is shot through with secondary Johannine features, including its extraordinarily high Christology. At Jn 11.4, Jesus refers to himself as ‘the Son of God’, the term used by Martha in her confession at Jn 11.27: ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who comes into the world.’ In this Gospel the term ‘Son of God’ indicates Jesus’ full deity, an unJewish feature absent from the synoptic Gospels. Martha’s confession also has the secondary title ‘Christ’, which she uses in the confessional manner typical of this Gospel. ‘The Jews’ are mentioned five times in Jn 11.1- 44. John 11.8 is as external and hostile as possible: ‘The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were now seeking to stone you . . .”’. This has the drastic division between ‘the disciples’ and ‘the Jews’ which I have noted in the Johannine account of the Cleansing of the Temple.
John 11.25- 26 offers a classic summary of Johannine features: ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will not die for ever.’ This saying is part of a major feature which this story shares with the Johannine account of the Cleansing of the Temple: it looks forward to Jesus’ Resurrection. When Jesus calls on Lazarus to come forth from his tomb, he came out ‘bound hand and foot with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped around with a facecloth’ (Jn 11.44). It is diffi cult to see how this could happen too, but that is not the point! Great though this miracle is, it looks forward to the greater salvifi c miracle, when Jesus rose and passed through his grave clothes, leaving the facecloth rolled up separately (Jn 20.6- 7).
The consequences of the raising of Lazarus are historically incredible. It leads directly to the chief priests and Pharisees plotting Jesus’ death, a historically implausible reaction by faithful Jews to a mighty miracle. The Johannine authors then put Lazarus into the story of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany, a synoptic story from which he is absent (Jn 12.1- 8//Mt. 26.6- 13//Mk 14.3- 9). This leads to a plot by the chief priests to put Lazarus to death too. And there the story of Lazarus just stops! If the chief priests succeeded in bringing about the death of Jesus, how could they fail to bring about the death of Lazarus? Yet he is not even mentioned in the rest of the Fourth Gospel. Nor does he appear in the early chapters of Acts, as he surely would have done if this story had been true. It follows that the story of the raising of Lazarus is a Johannine invention from beginning to end. (cf. Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth, pg, 513-14).
The story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John is fictional beyond a reasonable doubt. This casts a significant shadow on the reputability of this biblical work. In fact, it is not good fiction. A competent author would not have allowed a significant figure to wither into oblivion.
(2529) The sign of Jonah
In the following scripture, Jesus states that the only sign he will provide to the (doubting) Pharisees is that he will appear after three days in the earth, indicating that he will resurrect after dying:
Matthew 12:38-40
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
However, Jesus did not appear to the people who were challenging him- only to his followers. This presents a problem. The following was taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/hjo9g1/historical_evidence_could_have_easily_been/
In one of the Gospels, Jesus is asked by the Jewish leaders at the time of what sign he will give, and he replies by saying the only sign will be the sign of Jonah. But nowhere are we told that Jesus, after his “resurrection” actually went to the same people he gave this sign and showed them that he is alive and well. This is something I never thought about until someone mentioned it recently and it struck me as a valid point. Why didn’t Jesus show himself in the Temple? If his death was as dramatic as the Gospels claimed, it would have been even more dramatic if he showed up to the same Jewish leaders who saw him on the cross, but he didn’t. Instead, he only showed up to those who already believed in him. In my opinion, that is another indicator that the resurrection of Jesus is a fabricated story with no historical evidence, even when such evidence could have easily been established if Jesus went to the crowds after his “resurrection” and showed the leaders of the Temple of Jerusalem that the man they saw dead on a cross just a few days ago is alive in front of them.
According to the scriptures, Jesus actually stayed only two nights and one day in the ‘heart of the earth’ (tomb). But the greater issue is that he did not appear to the skeptical Pharisees. As a result, they remained traditional Jews. Jesus promised a sign for the ‘wicked’ generation but did not deliver it.
(2530) Paul tapped fear of mortality
Paul was the principal reason that we have Christianity as a current living religion. Without his influence, the small sect of followers of Jesus would have quickly become extinct. It was his easy-to-digest theology combined especially with his invention of an eternal reward that fueled the growth of the faith. The gospel authors would later incorporate the idea of heaven in their accounts. The following was taken from:
http://www.biblicalnonsense.com/chapter1.html
The early spread of Christianity is almost entirely attributed to the Apostle Paul. His letters to neighboring regions, especially the one to the Romans included in the New Testament, were widely influential in changing local religious views. Before the purported arrival of Jesus Christ, the original Hebrew religion, as found in the Old Testament, was an unfathomably harsh one. If you’ve taken the time to read the Old Testament in its entirety, you’ve probably noticed that God was consistently angry and vengeful for what appear to be petty reasons. He even threatened to kill people for excuses most of us would consider insane if offered by an ordinary earthly individual. Records made shortly before the Common Era (otherwise known as the BC period) indicate that the support for this deity had about run out of steam. This natural fizzle is nothing new considering that dozens of religions have flourished and vanished over the past few millennia. Paul, however, was convinced that the idea of Christ renovated the old religion. Thus, he altered the formerly distant and spiteful God into a loving and fair ruler. In fact, the makeover was so drastic that some virtually extinct sects of the new religion believe the god of the New Testament is an entirely different god than the one depicted in the Old Testament.
Paul also dropped an array of incorrigible requirements for converting to this new persuasion, including the most deterring one of all: circumcision. In order to garner a larger following, he also emphasized the aspects of Christianity possessing universal appeal. The most notable of his addendums, the gift of an afterlife, may have been essential for the conversion to be successful. Furthermore, Paul took an additional step toward creating a more accessible belief system by proclaiming that anyone could get into this afterlife regardless of any immoral behavior previously exhibited by the new believer.
Because few people are readily content with the idea of their own mortality, it’s perfectly understandable that many would want to jump to a religious persuasion offering a gift of eternal life. Paul was clearly one of many who was self-convinced that he would never truly cease to exist. Quite predictably, fossil records from the era in which historians now think that beliefs of an afterlife began indicate a concurrent expansion of the human skull around the frontal lobe of the brain, the location at which we appreciate our mortality. In essence, religion was born when we saw death coming. God’s afterlife could be nothing more than the product of a human defense mechanism against death. All creatures fight for their earthly survival; man has tricked himself into believing he’s immortal.
Paul took advantage of humanity’s increasing fear of mortality, by not only offering a solution, but by making the price exceptionally cheap- simply the exercise of a belief. Although his theology was often confused and contradictory, it was marking gold, and it transformed the history of the past twenty centuries.
(2531) End-of-life brain chemistry
One of the alleged ‘proofs’ of Christianity are the visions that people have when they came close to dying. This is claimed to be a glimpse into the afterlife. In most cases, Christians have experiences that align with their theology, while those of other religions have much the same. Despite this discrepancy, apologists have touted this as evidence for their faith and many books have been written about people taking tours of heaven or hell. But, as it always does, science has come along and spoiled all the fun. The following was taken from:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/09/what-it-feels-like-to-die/499319/
For many dying people, “the brain does the same thing that the body does in that it starts to sacrifice areas which are less critical to survival,” says David Hovda, director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. He compares the breakdown to what happens in aging: People tend to lose their abilities for complex or executive planning, learning motor skills—and, in what turns out to be a very important function, inhibition.
“As the brain begins to change and start to die, different parts become excited, and one of the parts that becomes excited is the visual system,” Hovda explains. “And so that’s where people begin to see light.”
Recent research points to evidence that the sharpening of the senses some people report also seems to match what we know about the brain’s response to dying. Jimo Borjigin, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, first became intrigued by this subject when she noticed something strange in the brains of animals in another experiment: Just before the animals died, neurochemicals in the brain suddenly surged. While scientists had known that brain neurons continued to fire after a person died, this was different. The neurons were secreting new chemicals, and in large amounts.
”A lot of cardiac-arrest survivors describe that during their unconscious period, they have this amazing experience in their brain,” she says. “They see lights and then they describe the experience as ‘realer than real.’” She realized the sudden release of neurochemicals might help to explain this feeling.
As we begin to better understand brain chemistry under end-of-life conditions, it becomes clear that neural crises combined with pre-existing beliefs generates a life-like experience that often conforms to those beliefs. However, this in no way expresses evidence that any of these experiences will continue to be sensed after the brain ceases to transmit synaptic signals.
(2532) Non-believers fare better in the pandemic
A study by the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics has discovered that there is a statistically significant variation of death rates from COVID-19 among various religious groups and non-believers, with the latter having the lowest rate. Various explanations are possible, though the raw data exposes a real-life demonstration that the exercise of prayer to a supernatural being is not producing results. The following was taken from:
People without religious faith are less likely to die from Covid-19 than believers, according to the first analysis of its kind from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The highest death rates were among Muslims, with Hindus and Sikhs also seeing more deaths than Christians.
Those increased risks were largely explained by factors including race, sociodemographic characteristics and population density, the ONS said, but an increased risk for Jewish people remained even after they were taken into account.
Separate figures released by the ONS showed that men and women with disabilities were at increased risk of dying from Covid-19 when compared with those without.
People who reported having “no religion” in the 2011 census had the lowest rate of death involving Covid-19, with 80.7 deaths per 100,000 males and 47.9 deaths per 100,000 females.
For Muslims the figures were 198.9 deaths per 100,000 males and 98.2 deaths per 100,000 females. Among Christians, the death rates were 92.6 for men and 54.6 for women, and among Jewish people 187.9 for men and 94.3 for women.
Nick Stripe, the head of life events at the ONS, said: “For the most part the elevated risk of certain religious groups is explained by geographical, socioeconomic and demographic factors and increased risks associated with ethnicity.
“However, after adjusting for the above, Jewish males are at twice the risk of Christian males, and Jewish women are also at higher risk. Additional data and analyses are required to understand this excess risk.”
After taking into account region, population density, sociodemographic and household characteristics and ethnic background, Jewish males remained at twice the risk of Christian males, with the difference in females being 1.2 times.
The ONS also released figures looking at coronavirus deaths among people with disabilities. They found men who had said their activities were “limited a lot” at the 2011 census had a death rate of 199.7 per 100,000, and women 141.1 deaths per 100,000.
The equivalent rates for males and females not disabled in 2011 were 70.2 and 35.6 deaths per 100,000 respectively.
Fresh analysis of deaths among different ethnicities showed men from a black background were twice as likely as white men to die from Covid-19, while for women it was 1.4 times. Men from Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Indian backgrounds also had raised rates of death compared with white men.
Mr Stripe said: “The ONS will continue to research this unexplained increased risk of death, examining the impact of other health conditions.”
Those who profess to have “no religion” will include atheists, agnostics and those who may hold other non-religious beliefs.
Harun Khan, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the data provided further evidence that the government must address racial discrimination due to its consequences for minority communities.
He said: “Today’s ONS figures confirm what Muslim communities, academics and healthcare professionals have been saying for months: that we are dying of Covid at disproportionate rates, and that the root cause of this must be addressed in order to prevent the further unnecessary loss of life.
“Yet the UK government continues to obfuscate the problem, denying the role institutional racism plays in creating health inequalities, failing to tailor public policy to the needs of different communities and overseeing the excess deaths of British Muslims.”
Apologists might try to explain the difference in mortality rates by citing the fact that religious people are more likely to gather together, especially in houses of worship, where the virus is more easily transmitted. But this begs the question of why God would fail to intervene to protect his faithful followers engaged in the process of worshiping him. Another possible explanation, but one that would expose other issues, is that religious people tend to distrust science and therefore might take fewer precautions in the pandemic. But whatever the explanation, it would be expected that any theistic group connected to a living, interactive god who answers prayers should be seen to have the lowest mortality rates. The data speaks otherwise- that there is no god, or at least no god who is capable of protecting its followers.
(2533) God delivers the ‘real’ Bible
So the day came when the real god, the one that had never previously intervened in human affairs, came to the earth to deliver the real Bible, to replace all of the holy texts that had accumulated throughout ancient centuries. And God said, “I am now giving you the true divine word, all that you will need to guide your lives and earthy affairs. Once you read this Bible and hold to its sayings, I will grant you peace and happiness for all of your days. Here is the text:
God’s Word 1:1 “Be nice and treat everybody fairly.”
And God said, “I hope this is not too long or difficult for everyone to read and understand. I realize it is composed of six words in a single sentence. Please read through it and even several times if possible. If you follow the words of this Bible you will be rewarded in ways that you cannot imagine.”
This brings out the point of why we need such a long, convoluted, caustic, and contradictory book from the divine source when just six English words sums up everything that is required for people to live successfully and harmoniously. The Bible is a disaster as a source to guide human behavior with plenty of material to support the nefarious plans of sinister people- who want to enslave, subjugate, kill, and ostracize those who are different. The single verse, God’s Word 1.1, is sufficient and complete.
(2534) Jesus broke the Sabbath
According to the Gospel of John, Jesus broke one of the Ten Commandments- to honor the Sabbath -by performing a healing act. It appeared to be a deliberate infraction meant to teach a lesson, but the sheer bravado of deviating from the divine code (still in effect at that time even if one assumes the Old Law was superseded at the resurrection) indicates a problem with the text or else with the theology of Jesus. This is not an easy one for apologists to explain. The following was taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/hoo1gj/john_518_records_jesus_sinning/
“You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.”
Ex 31:14
Keeping the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. Breaking the Sabbath is sin. It was sin for Old Testament Jews and it’s a sin for New Testament Christians too.
Now, what exactly “keeping the Sabbath” means for New Testament Christians has been debated fiercely. Do Christians need to keep a literal day of rest like the Jews? Or is Christ himself the Christian’s Sabbath rest?
It doesn’t matter. Whatever the Sabbath is, breaking it is still sin – and Christ broke it.
Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath ”Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God”
John 5:18
Now, most assume that the charge of the Jews against Jesus was false, untenable or in some way misleading, but a careful reading of the above verse reveals that the charge of “breaking the Sabbath” is not actually spoken from the Pharisee’s viewpoint, but from the viewpoint of the Biblical writer themselves. The writer does state that the Jews sought to kill Jesus for Sabbath breaking, but also reconfirms that their charge was accurate. Whatever the motivation for the Jews to charge Jesus, the writer agrees with them thet Jesus did in fact break the Sabbath.
God’s word clearly states that breaking the Sabbath is a sin worthy of Death. God’s word also clearly states that Jesus broke the Sabbath.
It is very likely that Jesus never did what is written here, but that the author was trying to set the stage for Gentiles to become Christians without having to observe the Sabbath rules. This would have made it easier to recruit followers. Whatever the reason, it presents a durable obstacle for Christians to rationalize.
(2535) Mark’s crazy Jesus
The author of Mark portrays Jesus as being unglued in many respects, such that future gospel authors had to massage some of what he wrote to make Jesus appear more sane. This sanity cure was complete by the time the Gospel of John was written, but the damage had already been done. The following was taken from:
https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2018/01/getting-gospels-off-on-wrong-foot.html
I am not making up any of this, by the way. Just spend two or three hours carefully reading Mark. See for yourself.
(1) Jesus was an exorcist.
This is most vividly illustrated by the story in Mark 5:1-13, in which Jesus transfers demons from a severely mentally ill man into a herd of pigs. See what I mean by full-throttle crazy? Mark depicts Jesus talking to, bargaining with, the demons. Is this really the worldview that Christians these days want to adopt? Well, maybe so, since many Christians believe in ghosts, angels and dead saints who hear prayers—and demons, apparently. The faux modernist Pope Francis thinks that exorcism is a real thing, and thus—what a surprise—fails as a model of rational thought.
It was commonly believed in the first century that there was a vast spiritual realm—presumably with God (or gods) at the top, but populated by many lesser beings—with Satan somewhere in the hierarchy. Note that in Mark’s gospel, the demons know Jesus (3:11-12), because he has such high ranking in the spiritual world. See also 1:23-26, 1:34, 1:39, 3:15, 6: 7 & 13, 7:26-30, 9:25. I prefer to give wide berth to folks who think they can have chats with demons—or that mental illness can be traced to them.
(2) Jesus tried to fool people by teaching in parables.
Of course, this doesn’t make sense. What was Mark thinking? But here it is, Mark 4:10-12, which includes a quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10:
“When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”
Scholars have long struggled to see how this ‘let’s keep ‘em in the dark’ Jesus fits with a good Jesus, who says in Mark 1:38: “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” Even so, Mark doesn’t drop the theme of keeping the secret: “He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him” (8:29-30).
Another oddity, by the way, is found in Mark 4:33-34: “With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.” It’s odd because—ooops—in John’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t teach in parables.
(3) Jesus believed in human sacrifice to get right with God.
This is a vestige of animal sacrifice superstition, and is a fine specimen of magical thinking: How can killing an animal cancel human sin? Why would a good god set up such a scheme? Mark would have us believe that a Galilean peasant got it into his head that he was selected for this mission (10:45): “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” How can Christians not notice that a human sacrifice to placate God is bad theology?
(4) Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was immanent—and he was wrong.
The present world order was about to be wiped out, indeed “before this generation passes away”—and it would not be pretty. There would be massive human suffering to mark the initiation of the Kingdom of God. Please, Christians, read Mark 13 and seriously ponder how this fits in with your view of what would Jesus do. Calamities are a sign that God’s get-even theology will be realized; the tone of Mark 13 is urgency, with the closing words “keep watch.” Of course, no Kingdom arrived. Mark 13 is an example of religion gone off rails and closely matches the demented ramblings of the apostle Paul. John Loftus is right in describing Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet.
(5) Jesus the great moral teacher fails to show up.
The main focus of Jesus’s message in Mark’s gospel is the approaching Kingdom of God, with far too little said about how to be a moral person. The favorite parables about decent behavior, e.g., compassion (the Good Samaritan) and forgiveness (the Prodigal Son), are not found in Mark, where the parables are primarily lessons about the Kingdom that Jesus anticipated.
The best advice I can find comes at 11:25, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses”—and we know how much attention Christians have paid to that. There are a few other admirable sayings, e.g., 2:27, the Sabbath was made for man.
Moreover, there are comments in this gospel for which Jesus deserves demerits; we expect far better from a great moral teacher. His counsel on divorce at 10:9, for example, is inexplicable and irresponsible. Yes, we can understand that God created male and female—and expects a man to leave his parents to get married. But that does not mean that God has been matchmaker for every couple that ever was: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” In fact, this is a mindless non sequitur—and has caused so much misery.
Jesus gets a very poor grade as well for this bit of cult fanaticism, 10:29-30: “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.” You will be rewarded for leaving your family? You’ll get a new set of relatives and new houses? How can Christians be comfortable with this?
(6) WTF did Jesus mean with this list?
What more could you want? It’s the resurrected Jesus who explains that “those who believe” will be able to do these five things (Mark 16:16-18):
1. Cast out demons (yes, we’re back to demons)
2. Speak in new tongues
3. Pick up snakes
4. Drink any deadly thing
5. Lay hands on people to heal them
Those who want to distance themselves from this text can point out that these verses were not in the original gospel: Mark 16:9-20 is a later addition. No one knows where this part of chapter 16 came from. But those want to dismiss these verses are admitting that fake news about Jesus made it into the New Testament. Alas, however, we don’t know where any of Mark’s gospel came from; maybe it’s all fake news. This list may not be from the mouth of Jesus, but whoever thought it up certainly had a goofy take on Christianity.
But, hey, here’s the challenge for apologists who insist that the gospels are based on eyewitness accounts and highly reliable oral tradition. These six items I’ve listed: Do you really want to argue that these reflect authentic Jesus information? Is this strange Jesus the one you want?
Maybe, after all, there’s a glimpse of history at Mark 3:21, where we find that Jesus’s family wasn’t too thrilled about his vocation. “When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’”
That sounds about right to me.
Very few Christians are aware that the Jesus as portrayed in the earliest gospel bares very little resemblance to the Jesus that is preached in their churches. This early, and presumably the most accurate, biography relates a person who would today be considered an eccentric zealot or a maniacal psychopath.
(2536) Forgiveness incongruity
Standard Christian theology states that a person can enter heaven only by having his sins forgiven and that this forgiveness is predicated on the sinner accepting the vicarious punishment of Jesus on the cross. Paul is infamous for writing that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. But the following scripture seems to broaden the discussion:
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
This implies that if somebody confesses their sin to God that they will receive forgiveness. It does not suggest a requirement to believe in Jesus or his resurrection. In fact, it could be someone who believes in the Abrahamic god, Yahweh, but doesn’t believe that Jesus was divine or that he rose from the dead. This would include Jews and some Muslims and Christians who don’t take the New Testament literally.
So the question comes to whether someone can or cannot achieve forgiveness without Jesus and therefore qualify for heaven. If the answer is yes, then the sacrifice of Jesus would appear to have been unnecessary. If the answer is no, then the scripture above is incomplete and the case can be made that Yahweh is being unnecessarily legalistic in failing to honor the sincere petition from someone who believes in him, though not Jesus.
Here is where Christian theology falls apart. A believer in God, but not Jesus, prays for forgiveness in accordance with 1 John 1:9, but, in contradiction to this scripture, does not receive forgiveness and is sent to hell. If a Christian argues that such a person would still be welcomed into heaven, then the question surfaces- why did Jesus have to die on the cross?
(2537) Jesus condoned cruelty and injustice
The Jesus that is taught to children and parishioners is not based on the whole picture. While the gospels have him saying many admirable things, there is too much garbage to ignore. The following lists some of these distasteful endorsements of cruelty and injustice:
- He discussed the flood and had no issue with the cruelty of God drowning all humanity, sparing only one family (Luke 17:27).
- His parables discuss slavery (Luke 17:7-9) and even the beating of a slave (Luke 12:46-47), but he never condemns the practice.
- He endorsed the racist idea of a chosen people. He initially tried to turn a Canaanite woman begging for his help away because she wasn’t Jewish and compared her to a dog (Matthew 15:23-26). He later relented and helped her but that doesn’t excuse the racism.
- He compared divorce followed by a second marriage to adultery (Matthew 19:9) showing no regard for the reality that couples can grow apart or that relationships can be abusive, and that it should be okay to find love again afterwards.
- He taught that thoughts alone could be major sins (Mark 7:20-23, Matthew 5:28) rather than judging people by their self-control and actions.
- Worst of all, he preached about hell and had no issue with it (Matthew 5:22, 10:28, 13:50). He spoke of wailing and gnashing of teeth inside an eternal fire, told a parable in which it doesn’t matter if those inside hell beg or ask for their family to be warned (Luke 16:19-31), and preached that more people will go to hell than heaven (Matthew 7:13-14), all without condemning this system of torture.
If Jesus was God or even a true divinely-inspired prophet it would not be expected that he would have trampled so nonchalantly over moral issues that have been settled in modern society. This is an indication that Jesus or those that put words in his mouth were nothing more than ordinary people trapped in the mores of their time.
(2538) God’s verdict on rape
If we are to accept Christian doctrine that the Bible contains words spoken, dictated, or inspired by God, then we can question the wisdom and morality of how God instructed his people to adjudicate occurrences of rape. In the following it can be seen that God immorally places blame on the victim:
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 states, “If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife.”
The idea is that victims of rape are partially liable for the rape if they do not scream for help. To believers, these are the commands of an all-knowing good God. And yet it fails to account for all the reasons why a woman may not scream:
- Perhaps she’s afraid that she will face a worse beating by her rapist,
- Perhaps the rapist is covering her mouth/choking her so that she can’t scream,
- Perhaps she doesn’t want to be found and falsely accused of adultery,
- Perhaps she suffers from immense levels of shame and thinks she ‘deserves’ the rape
If a Christian is to believe that these are the words of God, then they must believe that silent rape victims share the blame for their rape and are in the wrong. Some might want to argue that God only allowed this behavior because of the “hard hearts” of the Jewish people (see Jesus’ words in Matt 19:8). But remember: this is not a case of God ‘allowing’ some action. This is God explicitly stating that an action is wrong — i.e. rape victims are morally wrong for not screaming while being raped and should be punished.
If you trust that these are God’s words, some defense must be given for this.
The usual apologetic solution is to assume that this instruction was not meant for cases of rape but solely for consensual sex outside marriage, the idea being that only a raped women would cry for help. Although this rationalization has some merit, it fails to address the four examples above where a raped woman would be reluctant to vocalize her predicament. That, combined with the fact that capital punishment for this transgression is no longer considered moral, makes it seem obvious that no deity was involved in the writing of this verse.
(2539) God is not pro-life
The majority of Christians profess to be pro-life and consider abortion to be immoral. Many would like to see it be illegal. But the Bible does not contain a single verse that forbids abortion. In fact, it contains a lot of verses that suggest that God is OK with the act of killing fetuses. The following was taken from:
https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/25602-abortion-rights
Ten biblical episodes and prophecies provide an unequivocal expression of God’s attitude toward human life, especially the ontological status of “unborn children” and their pregnant mothers-to-be. Brief summaries:
- A pregnant woman who is injured and aborts the fetus warrants financial compensation only (to her husband), suggesting that the fetus is property, not a person (Exodus 21:22-25).
- The gruesome priestly purity test to which a wife accused of adultery must submit will cause her to abort the fetus if she is guilty, indicating that the fetus does not possess a right to life (Numbers 5:11-31).
- God enumerated his punishments for disobedience, including “cursed shall be the fruit of your womb” and “you will eat the fruit of your womb,” directly contradicting sanctity-of-life claims (Deuteronomy 28:18,53).
- Elisha’s prophecy for soon-to-be King Hazael said he would attack the Israelites, burn their cities, crush the heads of their babies and rip open their pregnant women (2 Kings 8:12).
- King Menahem of Israel destroyed Tiphsah (also called Tappuah) and the surrounding towns, killing all residents and ripping open pregnant women with the sword (2 Kings 15:16).
- Isaiah prophesied doom for Babylon, including the murder of unborn children: “They will have no pity on the fruit of the womb” (Isaiah 13:18).
- For worshiping idols, God declared that not one of his people would live, not a man, woman or child (not even babies in arms), again confuting assertions about the sanctity of life (Jeremiah 44:7-8).
- God will punish the Israelites by destroying their unborn children, who will die at birth, or perish in the womb, or never even be conceived (Hosea 9:10-16).
- For rebelling against God, Samaria’s people will be killed, their babies will be dashed to death against the ground, and their pregnant women will be ripped open with a sword (Hosea 13:16).
- Jesus did not express any special concern for unborn children during the anticipated end times: “Woe to pregnant women and those who are nursing” (Matthew 24:19).
This provides an example where Christians have re-constructed God in their own image, such that he now aligns with their sensibilities surrounding the abortion debate. They are doing this without scriptural evidence other than citing one of the 10 Commandments (thou shalt not kill), while ignoring the fact that God himself did a mammoth amount of killing after issuing that commandment. To the contrary, it is actually those who support abortion rights who have the necessary scriptural support to enable their cause. God appears to be more on their side.
If scriptures were still being written today, no doubt God would be quoted as forbidding abortions. It’s just that during the times 2000 or so years ago, it wasn’t something that Christians thought to be important, and thus it never made it into the Bible.
(2540) Deism or atheism
In November, 2019, the Sentinelese tribe was in the news. For centuries they have lived on North Sentinel Island, part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, hundreds of miles off the southeastern coast of India. Their lives are untouched by even a hint of modernity, and they do not welcome visitors. Ever. However, John Chau, a Christian missionary zealot did not comply with their wishes or international regulations and decided to invade the island in an effort to convert the Sentinelese people to his brand of religion. He was killed in what is now considered justifiable homicide. No charges were levied against the Sentinelese people.
This can be viewed as an allegory with God being John Chau and the people of the Earth being the Sentinelese- and why an actual god would not behave in the manner of John Chau. A real god would leave everything and everybody alone, just like the international consensus that we should leave this isolated tribe alone. There is no good reason to interfere in either case. If there is a god, he has likely seen thousands or even millions of civilizations of intelligent beings spring up and die over the past 10 billion years or so (it would have taken several billion years before intelligent life could have developed) and it would be expected that he would have followed the prime directive to leave each of these situations alone.
If this speculation is true, it leaves only two viable views –deism, where a god exists but does not interfere in human or earthly affairs, and atheism, where no god is assumed to exist. Any religion that purports a god interacting with humanity runs into the headwinds of having their god playing the role of John Chau.
(2541) Biblical exaggerations
Humans are prone to exaggerate when they speak and when they write, though we would expect that a book written or inspired by a god would not contain exaggerated language, but rather it would be precise and unamplified. The Bible does not meet this standard. The following was taken from:
http://apatheticagnostic.com/articles/meds3/med51/med1061.html
The Bible contains the same exaggerated speech, boastful lies and holy hyperbole common for its day and age.
Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ [or flute, NIV]. – Genesis 4:21
“All?” Were the ancient Hebrews claiming that one person in particular brought musical instruments to the world, just as the Greeks portrayed Prometheus as the one human-like god who brought fire down from heaven and gave it to all of humanity? It would appear so, even though stringed instruments and blowing instruments were probably invented numerous times by countless numbers of people over the ages and round the world after someone plucked something or blew into something and enjoyed what they heard.
In this passage, Hebrew spies tell their desert-wandering comrades what they found in Canaan:
…all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. – Numbers 13:32-33
The spies are clearly exaggerating (cf. Barker, p. 210). If “all the people” were of such great size, one wonders how to account for the apparently normal size of Rahab, the Gibeonites, and others that Joshua encounters upon entering Canaan 38 years later (cf. Joshua 6:25, 9:3-15). – Peter T. Chattaway, “Giants in the Bible,” RELG 303, March 10, 1994 http://peter.chattaway.com/articles/giants.htm
The camels were without number as the sand of the sea.
– Judges 7:12
If the entire surface of the earth was filled with camels they would not be “without number,” nor would they be as plentiful as “the sand of the sea.”
As the host of heaven cannot be counted, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David.
– Jeremiah 33:22
A Hebrew cultural-centric exaggeration. The number of David’s descendants is nowhere near the number of stars in heaven, nor sand in the sea.
Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men left-handed; every one could sling stones at a hair’s breath, and not miss. – Judges 20:16
Seven hundred who could sling stones at “a hair’s breathe,” and “not miss?” I’m surprised the author’s nose didn’t grow when he told that one. Even the greatest sharp shooters at the turn of this century, who performed in Wild West traveling shows, and shot cards out of each other’s hands, did not retire with all their fingers–because they “missed” some shots by “a hair’s breath.”
Their slain shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
– Isaiah 34:3
It would take quite a lot of blood to melt a mountain. Isaiah must have been confusing mountains with molehills.
The famine was over all the face of the earth…And all countries came unto Egypt to Joseph to buy corn; because the famine was so sore in all lands. – Genesis 41:56,57
“Over all the face of the earth… all countries… all lands?” More exaggerated speech. Were folks in far off China and Japan and Australia and North and South America “sorely famished” and had to go to “Egypt” to buy corn?
[In one of the plagues with which the Lord smote Egypt] All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
– Exodus 8:17
Doesn’t the Bible use the word “dust” to describe the ground, mud, and sand upon which we all walk as in “the dust of the earth?” Therefore if “all the dust of the land became lice” would not the Egyptians have drowned in lice and the pyramids been adrift in seas of lice? “Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Lice.” “Lice Who?” “Run for your lice!”
In one plague with which the Lord smote Egypt “all the cattle of Egypt died.” But a few days after that, “all the firstborn cattle died.”
– Exodus 9:6 & 12:29
Another exaggerated way of speaking. Or perhaps the Lord resurrected the “firstborn” among the cattle just so he could smite them again?
[The Lord said to the Israelites when they were wandering in the desert] “This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.”
– Deuteronomy 2:25
A typical Hebrew cultural-centric exaggeration, i.e., to speak of the nations “under the whole heaven… shall hear report of thee… and tremble.”
THE EXAGGERATED ABUNDANCE OF THE “PROMISED LAND”
In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life in Geneva, Switzerland on the charge of heresy. One point raised by the prosecution was Servetus’s edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, in which Judea (the “promised land” of the Jews), was spoken of, not as “a land flowing with milk and honey,” but mainly meagre, barren, and inhospitable. In his trial this simple statement of geographical fact was used against him by Protestant Refomer, John Calvin, with fearful power. In vain did Servetus plead that he had simply drawn the words from a previous edition of Ptolemy; in vain did he declare that this statement was a simple geographical truth of which there were ample proofs; it was answered that such language “necessarily inculpated Moses, and grievously outraged the Holy Ghost.”
- D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, Vol. 1
EXAGGERATED PROMISE
I have set my king upon the holy hill of Zion… Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen [as slaves] for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.
– Psalm 2:6,8,9,12
The above psalm is believed to have been sung at the coronations of Hebrew kings. Another Hebrew cultural-centric exaggeration. (Though it must be admitted that this psalm later proved popular with some Catholics and Protestants who used it to justify their “breaking” of the “heathen,” driving them into slavery and stealing their land in alleged fulfillment of this exaggerated Biblical promise.)
[Jesus said] “The Queen of the South [i.e., the Queen of Sheba] came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.” – Matthew 12:42
The Queen’s residence, being probably on the Arabian Gulf, could not have been more than twelve or fourteen hundred miles from Jerusalem. If that is the “uttermost parts of the earth” then it is a small world after all.
All the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom.
– 2 Chronicles 9:23
“All the kings of the earth?” Another silly Hebrew cultural-centric exaggeration.
The devil took him [Jesus] up into an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. – Matthew 4:8
Shown “all the kingdoms of the world” from an “exceedingly high mountain?” I suppose so, if the mountain was “exceedingly high” and the earth was flat. Verses in the Bible’s book of Daniel presume a flat earth the same way that verses in Matthew do:
I saw a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth.
– Daniel 4:10-11
Instead of an “exceedingly high” mountain from which “all the kingdoms of the earth” can be seen, Daniel pictures a tree “whose height was great,” growing from the “midst” or center of the earth and “seen” to “the ends of all the earth.”
Funny how such flagrantly flat-earth verses appear in both the Old and New Testaments. “Bible believers” will of course reply that such verses are only “apparently difficult” to explain, and not the “real truth” as they see it. But it is the “apparent difficulties” that remain in the Bible, as it was written, and they will always remain there, regardless of all the ingenuity employed in explaining them away.
A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. – Luke 2:1
“All the inhabited earth?” The Romans and Hebrews indulged in the same cultural-centric exaggerations when it came to viewing their cultures as central to “all the earth.”
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. – Acts 2:5
“Out of every nation under heaven?” Another exaggeration.
A great famine all over the world took place in the reign of Claudius. – Acts 11:28
“All over the world?” Another exaggeration.
Paul the apostle wrote:
Their voice [of first-century proclaimers of the Christian Gospel] has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
The mystery is now manifested and… has been made known to all the nations.
The gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world.
The gospel… which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul was made a minister.
– Romans 10:18; 16:25-26; Colossians 1:5-6,23
Sorry Paul, but “Their voice” (of Christians proclaiming the Gospel) had only reached a handful of churches in the Roman Empire when you wrote the above verses. The Gospel had not reached, nor been proclaimed in “all the earth,” nor “to the ends of the world,” nor “to all nations,” and certainly not “in all creation under heaven,” not like you said it “has” and “was.” (Three billion people on earth still haven’t heard “the Gospel,” at least not according to a statement made by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2004.)
The early church father, Iraenaeus, maintained Paul’s charade when he wrote:
“Now the Church, spread throughout all the world even to the ends of the earth;” “…even though she has been spread over the entire world;” “Anyone who wishes to see the truth can observe the apostle’s traditions made manifest in every church throughout the whole world.” (Iraenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.10.1, 1.10.2, 3.3.1-2)
Not a very big “world,” mind you, leaving out most of Asia and Africa, not to mention the continents of Australia, North America and South America.
SUMMATION OF THE “EXAGGERATIONS OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS”
If an all-wise God had inspired the Bible He would have been able to give its human authors a few inspired geography lessons, just to show them how big the earth really is. Instead the Bible contains the same exaggerated speech, boastful lies and holy hyperbole common for its day and age, rather than evidence of special inspiration.
Furthermore, if the Bible is speaking in an exaggerated fashion when it speaks of “all the earth,” “to the ends of the earth,” “from the uttermost parts of the earth,” “all the inhabited earth,” “in all creation under heaven,” “under all the heavens,” and, “every nation under heaven,” then how can anyone be expected to assume that the statement, “everywhere under the heavens,” as found in the tale of the Flood of Noah isn’t also an exaggeration? (It says in Gen. 7:17, “The water prevailed… and all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.” Why couldn’t the phrase, “everywhere under the heavens,” be another exaggeration to make the Hebrew version of the Flood story (which they stole from the Sumerians/Babylonians) sound more impressive and appeal to the cultural-centrism of the Hebrew’s? After all, they did also change the name of the story’s hero and the name of the mountain upon which the boat eventually rested, just to suit their culture.
Having run across so many instances of cultural-centric exaggerated speech in the Bible one even wonders what is to become of the central Christian boast, the exaggeration par excellence, namely that Jesus died for the sins of “the world?” Believers from every sacred tradition boast that their beliefs affect “the world,” or must be taken utterly seriously by “the world.” Must they? I cannot take seriously many instances in which Biblical authors exaggerate about the extent of a famine, a census, the distance to a queen’s residence, the extent to which a message has been spread, the extent of a flood, etc. And, didn’t “orthodox” Christian doctrines and theology arise via exaggerating the importance of some of the alleged teachings of Jesus above others (as well as by exaggerating the importance of some interpretations of those sayings above rival interpretations)?
This offers an additional clue that the Bible was written by men, using strictly their own knowledge and faculties, while betraying the human tendency to bend the truth to make their stories more noteworthy. The Bible is a product of human minds, period.
(2542) Faith counterargument
One of the apologetic defenses against the lack of evidence for God is to extol the virtues of having faith in the absence of proof. In the Gospel of John, Jesus actually states that those who believe without proof are superior to those who require it (John 20:29). But there is a hole in the argument. The following was taken from:
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/hs8qxd/heres_a_counterargument_against_this_common/
When atheists say that there’s no proof of god’s existence, one of the common arguments that Christians use is this:
“Proof is irrelevant! Christianity is about having faith in something! If God were to show Himself,
there would be no room for faith!”
Here’s my counterargument:
“So you believe that Christianity is about having faith in something you have no proof of? Let me ask you this. If God were to reveal Himself, would you abandon Christianity, because there’s no longer any room for faith and it just isn’t the same anymore? If your answer is “yes,” it means that you’re not a very devout Christian, since seeing god makes you leave Christianity. If your answer is “no,” you would stay with Christianity, then you never really believed in your own argument that Christianity only works when there’s no proof.”
The reasons for a god to universally reveal himself far outweigh any advantage to remaining hidden. Concerning the latter, it is hard to come up with even a single compelling point for God being invisible. But one thing we know for sure: A god that doesn’t exist will never reveal himself.
(2543) Holy Spirit inspiration
Christians claim that the Bible was not the sole product of human effort, but that the Holy Spirit (1/3 of God) guided these authors and inspired their writings. It is also claimed that the Holy Spirit guided the early church fathers to select the correct list of books that the Spirit had inspired for inclusion in the Bible. This involved eliminating many of the books that were not Spirit-inspired, and identifying the 66 that were.
Beyond the mystery of this amorphous deity, this all seems semi-plausible. However, where this doctrine runs into trouble is when the original inspired books were later added to with interpolations. It would be inconsistent for the Holy Spirit to inspire the writings of the 66 biblical books and to ensure their inclusion in the Bible and then, later, ignore when others at a later time added on to them. Thus, to be consistent, Christians must agree that the Holy Spirit also inspired those who added verses to the biblical books, such that these interpolations have the same pedigree as the original writings.
Given this assumption, we run into trouble. One of the best examples is the known interpolation to the Gospel of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) where in verses 17-18 we read:
And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
It can be safely assumed that the Holy Spirit, being an integral part of an all-knowing god, would not have inspired an interpolator to inject a damaging and false claim that snakes and poisons would be harmless to God’s children. The Spirit would have prevented this from ever being placed in the Bible. Therefore, it can be asserted that this verse was not inspired.
This leads to a logical conclusion that goes like this. If A, then B. Where A is the assumption that the Holy Spirit inspired the books that were selected to the Bible, and B is where it is assumed that any interpolations added to these books were also inspired. But if B is false, an added scripture was not inspired, then A must be false as well- leading to a conclusion that the Holy Spirit did not inspire the books of the Bible.
(2544) Yahweh and Ba’al
One of the ways that we know that the Christian god, Yahweh, is fictional is because he is conflated with other fictional gods during a time that there were many gods on the celestial battlefield. In the case discussed below, a relationship existed between Yahweh and Ba’al that played out for centuries before Yahweh assumed the sole deitiship in the Jewish faith.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/hu3gvu/yahweh_and_baal_the_same_deity/
Ba’al and Yahweh are well-known adversaries in the Old Testament, but is it possible that this is because they share far more similarities than differences? Consider these 3 points within the text of the Old Testament and the Ba’al Epic and a note on the name of Yahweh.
1) The Battles with ltn and Yam
Ba’al is most famous in Ugaritic literature for his function as a warrior. In the beginning of the Ba’al Epic, Ba’al fights against Yam, defeating him. Later in the Epic, we learn that Ba’al had previously fought and killed Ltn. This directly parallels Yahweh’s actions in Psalm 74:13-14. Yahweh also fights and destroys Yam and Ltn, the Leviathan.
2) “Rider on the Clouds” and other shared attributes
Ba’al is also named as the “Rider of the Clouds” who brings rain, storms, and fertility. This is also a direct parallel of Yahweh. Yahweh is twice in the Psalms named as a “Rider of the Clouds” in Psalm 104:3 and Psalm 68:4, 33.
In the same Psalms, he is also praised for his acts of giving rain, weather, and fertility, particularly in Psalm 104:7-18, 104:27-28 and Psalm 68:8-9. Yahweh is also praised for having the wind as his Messengers in Psalm 104:4.
3) Meaning of the name “Yahweh.”
While the name Yahweh is identified with the word “be” or “exist” in Exodus, this doesn’t seem to be Yahweh’s actual etymology.
There are lots of other options. A 14th century Egyptian text from the reign of Amenhotep III mentions an possible etymological root, and this attestation would seem to come from the word “he blows,” indicating a storm deity just like Baal.
Conclusion:
These similarities seem to show some specific overlap in the mythology of Ba’al and Yahweh. Is it possible that they were so similar and shared so many attributes that the Yahwistic Henotheists felt the need to vilify Ba’al in order to keep him from being conflated with Yahweh? Or perhaps Yahweh was identified by some as Baal? Or perhaps a writer simply appropriated Baal worship to worship Yahweh. With all the possibilities, it’s clear that the mythology of Yahweh and Ba’al are in dialogue with each other, and each deity had its priestly champions.
The fact that belief in Ba’al died out while belief in Yahweh exploded is in no sense evidence of Yahweh’s existence. Rather he is the circumstantial survivor in a competition of fictional deities.
(2545) God and rape
Few Christians realize that there is a biblical verse (Zechariah 14:2) where God sends people from neighboring nations to Jerusalem for the purpose, among other things, of raping women. How this verse made it into the Bible is beyond comprehension, but its presence nullifies any argument that God is an exemplar of morality. The following was taken from:
“I [God] will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped.” (Zechariah 14:2)
“Does disaster come to a city unless the LORD has done it?” (Amos 3:6)
Raping women by conquering lands is a very corrupt human behavior throughout history, a very scary and disgusting human behavior indeed. Read about the Red Army, how those whom the armies conquered had raped all the women ages 8 to 80, forcing themselves into their bodies. Try reading the diaries of the women who were raped. And you do realize little girls were raped as a result of God’s decree as well right? The soldiers partaking in the Red Army invasions were told not to do such things, but they still engaged in those evil acts. Imagine when God sets your heart to conquer a land, how much more atrocious and uninhibited your actions would be to those women, those little girls? In their eyes they were nothing but meat supplied by God. And Jesus caused it all. The mothers tried to kill themselves along with their daughters to escape this fate of being mass raped.
Why is the Bible immoral? Well, we see the evil of human beings, how they rape children and women whom they conquer in war. The victims of these rapes, let’s say they go to the Bible for comfort, surely, the great God, the righteous judge of all the earth must have an answer to these sort of things? Surely God would never condone, never act in such a way that these vile men during the Red Scare did, right? And she opens the Bible and what does she read?
She reads that God does the exact same thing, and delights in it– the rape of women.
The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth” (Psalm 135:6).
God did not regret this action, rather, it was a judgement, and the Bible tells us:
“Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!” (Revelation 16:7)
We are to celebrate his judgments.
A God that does this to human beings doesn’t deserve any persons’ worship. The question is not whether God exists or not, the question is, would a moral man worship an immoral God? The answer is yes. They will, just as moral men blindly followed Hitler, while he baked Jews in the ovens — all the while God burns those who disagree with him in Hell.
It should be obvious that any actual god would not arrange for a situation where women would be raped. This was nothing more than a misogynistic man using rape as a forceful punishment allegedly spewing from the nostrils of an aggrieved god. It offers a solid cue that the Bible is not the ‘good book’ as claimed by so many.
(2546) God defeats free will to support genocide
Removing one’s free will is a moral miscarriage, but doing so for the express purpose of promoting a merciless genocide is orders of magnitude worse. But the Bible says that Yahweh did just that. These verses from Joshua 11:19-20 are never quoted in church:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/huow0p/joshua_1120_the_most_problematic_verse/
” . 19 Except for the Hivites living in Gibeon, not one city made a treaty of peace with the Israelites, who took them all in battle. 20 For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses. “
This single bible verse creates a host of issues for Christian apologeticism.
Free Will.
How can an apologetic say that God values free will so much that he allows pain and suffering, but at the same point in time the scripture clearly states that he will rip away free will in order to justify causing pain and suffering? This isn’t even the only time this has happened. God specifically told Moses that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus 7:3 for the sole purpose of showing off his power to the Egyptians.
Omnibenevolence.
If God is all-powerful and willing to harden people’s hearts, it’s only safe to assume that God has the ability to soften hearts as well. Since we have already established that God is willing to force people to do things against their will, wouldn’t an omnibenevolent God at least use that ability to save his creation instead of using it as a false flag in order to justify genocide? The Hivites proved that peace was an option, but God forced death, and this is shown by Exodus 15:3 that states quite plainly: ” The LORD is a man of war; The LORD is His name.”
Objective Morality.
As a Christian, can you say that forcing people to fight you so you can have an excuse to kill them all is moral? Is that the objective standard that all humanity must follow? How can one complain that there is no basis for an atheist saying murder is wrong if your standard justifies genocide for absolutely no real reason?
How can anyone carry around a book recounting such an appalling and disgusting act committed by the very god that is being worshiped? The amount of mental gymnastics required to pull this off is astounding. Yahweh is a monster and it is lucky for everyone, Christians included, that he is fictional.
(2547) Mosaic law dropped for convenience
Very few Christians follow the Mosaic laws that are documented in the Old Testament. They have been trained to believe that these laws were superseded by the death and resurrection of Jesus, while conveniently ignoring gospel evidence to the contrary. But the Book of Acts offers a window into why the laws of Moses were relaxed- so they could recruit more Gentiles.
Acts 15:5-6
Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”
The apostles and elders met to consider this question.
Acts 15:19-20
“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood
Acts 15:23-29
With them they sent the following letter:
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
The problem with what was written in Acts is that it was in direct opposition to what had earlier been written in the Gospel of Matthew. The following was taken from:
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2017/07/the-false-reality-why-christianity-requires-ignorance/
The writers of the bible eventually had to admit that the morality of Jesus was far superior to God’s morality and that the Old Testament laws should not be followed by anyone. (Hebrews 8:6-7, 13, Acts 15:1-29). A direct contradiction to Jesus’ statement, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven”. (Matthew 5:18-19)
This sets up a disturbing dynamic- that the followers of Jesus spit in his face and ignored a direct threat that Jesus made about the longevity of the Law. And to do this just because they wanted to recruit more people into their cult (they were famously unsuccessful recruiting Jews so they had to turn to the Gentiles). In so doing, they assured their calling- the least in the kingdom of heaven.
(2548) Jesus’ existence is a reasonable question
It is well known in academic circles that there exists an enigma surrounding the historical footprint of Jesus given two disparate facts- the Bible presents him as being a very famous figure but, outside of the gospels, there is no mention of him in numerous documents that discuss the history of the time. This provides some evidence that Jesus was a mythical person/god that only later was made human decades after the fact. The following was taken from:
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2017/10/wheres-the-historical-evidence-for-jesus/
The Fact is… there is no extra-biblical evidence that Jesus existed, not one iota of evidence anywhere at all. Although there were over 40 major contemporary historians that produced a voluminous amount of literature in one of the most well documented periods of history, as well as the Romans who recorded everything, there is no mention whatsoever of the New Testament Jesus other than the New Testament Bible.
The following verses from the New Testament were devised to deceive us into believing that Jesus was a very famous and important person of the time, as he surely would have been had he actually lived and the things attributed to him were true.
Matthew 4:24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.
Matthew 9:26 News of this spread through all that region
Matthew 14:1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus.
Matthew 28:15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
Mark 1:28 News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
Mark 1:45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
Luke 4:14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.
Luke 4:37 And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.
Luke 5:15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.
Luke 7:17 This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
Jerusalem was a major trade route at that time, so if what the bible says about Jesus was true, his miracles would have certainly come to the attention of foreign travelers and been recorded somewhere. It was also under Roman control and the Romans documented everything of even minute importance that took place within their empire. It was also under the scrutiny of the governor Herod, who was in charge of tax collection for Rome, of which one of the above text claims Herod had received reports about Jesus. Yet no one recorded a single word about him.
It is true that the Romans later suppressed and destroyed practically every religious and philosophical writing in existence that opposed their sanctioned christian doctrines, but they would have had no cause to suppress information about the Jesus figure. They were the ones who invented the “Jesus is God in the flesh” fraud in the first place. For info on this please refer to the video “Caesar’s Messiah” on my blog post Who Invented Christianity. Irregardless, they certainly chronicled other Jewish rabble rousers of the time.
Christian apologist can only point to these four sources in their desperate attempt to manufacture extra-biblical literary evidence for Jesus (and hope to retain a hint of credibility) and these writers were not even alive during his supposed lifetime. They are Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius. Yet, these sources are nothing more than pious fraud. They are either forgeries or are tortured to misrepresent the truth.
It is not possible to find in any legitimate religious or historical writings compiled between the beginning of the first century and well into the fourth century any reference to Jesus Christ and the spectacular events that the Church says accompanied his life.
This confirmation comes from Frederic Farrar (1831-1903) of Trinity College, Cambridge:
“It is amazing that history has not embalmed for us even one certain or definite saying or circumstance in the life of the Saviour of mankind … there is no statement in all history that says anyone saw Jesus or talked with him. Nothing in history is more astonishing than the silence of contemporary writers about events relayed in the four Gospels.” (The Life of Christ, Frederic W. Farrar, Cassell, London, 1874)
This situation arises from a conflict between history and New Testament narratives.
Dr Tischendorf made this comment:
“We must frankly admit that we have no source of information with respect to the life of Jesus Christ other than ecclesiastic writings assembled during the fourth century.” (Codex Sinaiticus, Dr Constantin von Tischendorf, British Library, London)
There is an explanation for those hundreds of years of silence: the construct of Christianity did not begin until after the first quarter of the fourth century, and that is why Pope Leo X (d. 1521) called Christ a “fable” (Cardinal Bembo: His Letters…, op. cit.).
It is difficult to state with certainty that Jesus was a real human being or likewise to state that he was mythical. But it is well justified to state that if Jesus was a real person, then he was not as famous as the gospels made him out to be.
(2549) Jesus and Moses’ snake on a pole
Christians often overlook the verse that lands two verses before the gold standard John 3:16 (For God so loved the world…), but they should pay attention. In it, Jesus professes a belief in a visual cure for snakebites:
John 3:14
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.
Jesus is referring to the following scripture:
Numbers 21:8-9
The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
If we are to remain in the world of reality and realize that there has never been an object that can cure snakebites by simply staring at it, then there are three possibilities here:
1) Jesus knew this was a mythical story, but decided to go along with it to make his point.
2) Jesus trusted his Torah and believed that the snake on the pole was a real story and that it was effective.
3) Jesus never made the statement in John 3:14- it was just made up by the author.
Given that (2) and (3) are devastating to Christianity, most Christians (at least those who concede that the snake on the pole was a mythical story) would opt for (1), that Jesus was just playing to the crowd, fully realizing the truth of the matter, but using the gullible ignorance of his listeners to his advantage. That is, in the same manner that he referred to the Garden of Eden, the Flood, and Jonah and the fish, etc. But this makes Jesus deceptive and that doesn’t fit well with his followers. For those on the other side of the equation, those who believe that the snake on the pole was a real story and that, by looking at it, it could cure snakebites, there exists the question: why aren’t there snake poles in every hospital?
(2550) The promise of reward
Humans are motivated by rewards and thus any religion that failed to offer significant rewards did not succeed. Christianity took advantage of this fact and invented the highest reward possible coupled with the most devastating punishment. This should cause one to be suspicious of crediting its lasting success as supporting its truthfulness. Hypothetically, a religion started by a real god that did not promise life after death would have no chance, though it would still make sense for a god to impart wisdom to mortal human beings. The following was taken from:
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2015/10/the-problem-with-faith-11-ways-religion-is-destroying-humanity/
The faith of many followers hinges on the idea that there is some reward for devotion to their deity. For the Islamic gentleman, it is a promise of virgins after death. For the Christian, it is a perfect place of infinite peace and comfort. For Hindus, it is escaping the grueling task of reincarnation; and for the Buddhist it is reaching Nirvana.
How many of these same enthusiasts would subscribe to their religion if there were not a reward for their commitment? Without a reward, the faith does not carry the same power to control its congregate. There must be a conclusion to every religious story – a reason for carrying the belief to its completion.
It’s not difficult to understand why this is necessary for the ongoing functioning of a religion. Human beings are rarely motivated to commit to anything without a reward for their commitment. We work diligently through school for the reward of a career and money. We work hard in our relationships for the reward of satisfying unity with other human beings. We work attentively on our goals for the gratification of living a purposeful, meaningful and accomplished life. We take time daily to exercise and eat healthy to maintain a fit and healthful body. We humans do everything to reap the rewards of doing that thing.
…And those who create the religions our world follows know this well. Without the reward, the base of followers cannot sustain itself. This is a problem because it keeps people hinged to a system that they never question because they are so immersed in the promise of the reward that they never stop to question if the reward is real, or human-conceived.
Religion keeps people bonded to beliefs that may actually hinder human progress rather than helping procure our growth. It prevents individuals from progressing beyond antiquated thinking. Only they cannot see the problem because no matter what personal sacrifice is made in this life – there is a reward in the end – even if they can’t see that reward until the life they now have is gone from them.
Christianity’s lavish reward/punishment scheme is evidence of its human origins, playing directly into the hopes and fears of human psychology, whereas a real god, assuming that it would actually have a reason to intervene in the affairs of an isolated planet perched as a drop of water in an endless sea, would likely have no incentive to bring dead people back to life.
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