Podcast Alley has a list of some of The Infidel Guy’s podcasts.
http://www.podcastalley.com/podcast_details.php?pod_id=9302
Just listened to one regarding the Pagan Origins of Christ, with the author of a book and Web site on the subject:
Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth

A lot of stuff I already new, and a LOT of stuff new to me, regarding how nothing about Christianity is new. Virgin birth, hell, salvation, portentious stars upon birth, miracles, sacred meals, God and mortal woman creating man-God, death on a cross, rising from the dead, EVERY aspect of the Christian story comes from ancient pagan myths. Something that was a natural evolution of the Jewish mythology, understood by all at that time as a natural extension of Judaism, and made “unique” and able to exist to this day as a “unique” religion because of the early Roman campaign to force conversion and eliminate non-Christian religions during the 4th century on.

As is what happens when one doesn’t follow a dogmatic belief system (read: “religion”) one’s beliefs can be subject to change. As more thinking and meditation reveals more, as experiences color knowledge, and knowledge increases, a person who does not fall for a religion can be expected to evolve in their beliefs, and faiths.

The bad side of that is that you have people who fall for ridiculous stuff like New Age claptrap. But the failure there comes from focusing too much on the gut instinct and pretty words and twisted logic of other people, and not enough to one’s ability to reason and ability to be skeptical and incredulous.

I consider myself intelligent. Hopefully not arrogantly so, but sometimes I am guilty of it. I read all I can regarding scientific discoveries, developing understanding of astronomy, biology, computer technology. I’m a student of history and study all I can regarding early American history, world history, religious and cultural histories. And then, I’m a flaming skeptic. I doubt all extraordinary claims until I see extraordinary proof. And I’m constantly thinking about topics of spirit, the soul, God, morality. And so while I eschew religion because of its obvious failures both in reality and even spiritual foundations (see: “Why The Very Basis of Orthodox Christianity is Absurd and Cruel” and “Absurdity of Revealed Religions pt. 2” and “Did Jesus Really Exist, pt II“,) it doesn’t mean I disbelieve in spirituality and God altogether.

OK, I’m a realist. I live in a real world with real people. Our universe runs on a set of laws that we have discovered over time. Gravity, evolution, life/death cycle, astrophysics, atomic decay…. We may only be aware of a small fraction of the laws of the universe, and we may only know a small fraction of those we’re aware of. Science is all the time discovering new things that add to or change our current understanding. It’s living life in a fantasy at best, and dangerous at worst, to deny that we live in a physical reality that is subject to certain laws of existence. Thermodynamics and the conservation of energy, for example. If these laws were not absolute, we couldn’t have airplanes, space travel, or medical procedures or life saving medications we do. So for those reasons I remain grounded in reality and am skeptical of anything that refutes reality as we know it. Can see and touch and examine it.

But I’ve said it before and I say again, I believe in God. And, as I’ll delve into in a bit, spirituality. How? Why? The existence of God is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof, and there is none. And when I say there’s no proof to DISprove God, I’m edging into the realm of the believers of ghosts and crystal power and ESP. Well, there’s a difference: The foundational laws of nature and physics already provide a layer of disproof of all those claims that require a believer to find evidence of proof that accurately and undeniably contradict the established laws of science. There’s nothing in science that prevents there from being a God. Nothing. Not fossils, not biological evolution, not gravity, not tectonic plate movement, not thermodynamics, nothing. Now, the religious claims as told on books and scrolls can be disproven, but not the existence of God in general.

Logic has a lot to say about God, though. If God created the universe, what created God? Another God, ad infinitum? Maybe. Why not. We already know that time/space as we know it, while highly structured and definite, is a construct of this universe. We have no idea or conception of reality outside the existence of this universe. We have no way of testing it, observing it, examining it, and possibly no real ability to comprehend it outside of the limitations of human imagination. Maybe God doesn’t need a creator and our idea of the necessity of a creator ends and nullifies once you get outside this universe. Or maybe there are an infinite creator Gods. Or maybe the universe itself IS God.

A true skeptic is not a cynic. A true skeptic does not say anything is impossible, just that anything that is incredible or extraordinary and appears to defy reality as we know it requires incredible and extraordinary proof. Maybe, just maybe there have been alien visitation. Maybe there are ghosts. But for the time being, there is an endless amount of evidence both hard and logical that explain how extraterrestrial and supernatural events are mistakes, misunderstandings and skewed observations, and frauds, just as the preponderance of evidence shows the claims of supernatural (and even many natural) events described in the mythologies of Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Egyptian, ancient Greek, etc, are also fantasy, metaphor, mistakes, fable, parable, lies, well-meaning folktales, and anything but reality.

But still, one has to remember that God and religion are separate things. One can believe in God which has no proof against him without the trappings (literal and figurative) of a religion which dictates how and what God is in human terms, and describes God’s interactions on earth which appear to defy reality and can be summarily explained with science and psychology.

Well, enough said about what I DON’T believe — I’ve done enough of that in a zillion other blog entries. Back to the point.

I believe in God the creator (as I’ve said many times.) But I’m also coming to believe (RE-believe) in a more personal God. The main reason I’ve rejected so heartily the idea of a personal God is mainly because it was a side-effect or a victim of my rejection of orthodox Christianity. I’ve been committing the same crimes against reason that many conservative Christians do and throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater. Er, something like that. Most Christians believe there is “Christian,” and there is “atheist” (or pagan,) and nothing in between. A lot of people can’t wrap their mind around the idea that a person can believe in God, believe in a guided creation (via evolution), and even a personal relationship with God, and yet not believe in the validity of the Bible. If you’re not a Biblical Christian, then you’re atheist/pagan. With us or against us. Black or white. Right or wrong. Well, in my decrying belief in the Bible as being wrong, most of my spirituality went along with it.

I’ve said before that while it’s not necessarily a bad thing to put faith in something that has no proof of being disproved, doing so runs the risk of falling apart if proof against it is ever found. One has to be prepared to modify and evolve their belief in light of natural evidence to the contrary. I also believe that to believe in something simply because it doesn’t seem disprovable is logically bankrupt. The hallmark of Deism, or any -ism that falls under the umbrella of Universism, is that one arrives to the belief using reason, rational thought, skeptical analysis, in addition to personal experience and observation. Which is a slippery subject, because there are thousands of people in the world who swear they have had the personal experience of being abducted by aliens, and are quite incorrect in their observations. Countless people around the world have had “visions” and visitations by angels, God, Jesus, Mohammad, demons, succubi, fairies, the Virgin Mary and other icons of religion, but are ALL of them right? Which is why intelligence, reason, and rationality MUST be paramount in translating and evaluating experience.

A recent guest on The Infidel Guy was a former pastor’s wife. For years she was not only a devout born-again Christian, but took courses in Christian apologetics, moderated Christian discussion boards, devoted her life to the study and promotion of Christianity. But every time she couldn’t find an answer, a GOOD answer, to an “unbeliever’s” questions and challenges, doubt would grow. She was taught whenever doubt takes hold, go back to your “testimony”. Witness of your experience of God taking hold in your life. Which usually helped her. But then, she started reading other peoples’ testimonies. Lots and lots of testimonies, and something struck her… each and every one was emotion based. All of them involved an emotional response to an emotional situation which they attributed to the intervention of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit. Not a single one of them involved something that could hold up under rational or reasoned evaluation. And it finally struck home for her how manipulative (although often well-meaning) and irrational belief in a faith is. And how it can make you rationalize the most absurd illogical events and arguments in order to match what you “feel” in your heart or “gut”.

Emotions are easy to sway. Emotions are easy to manipulate. Emotion is the most direct way to inspire basic and fundamental reactions of fear, joy, anger, and desire, which easily influences belief. And while emotional manipulation is generally short-lived, add some faulty logic that plays upon the emotion, invoke an eternal punishment/reward-carrot/stick system, and build in commands to not question too deeply or deal with people that challenge your beliefs too much, and you have a religion that millions will subscribe to and follow blindly. Humans are very emotional creatures. Everyone has emotions. The ability to reason and be skeptical is a skill that must be learned and developed. It’s harder for people to evaluate an argument for logical fallacies and weigh reasoned analysis of a claim, than it is to just trust in their emotions. But God didn’t make us the most intelligent, aware, conscious, curious, and rational creatures on the planet in order for us to just waste these abilities.

That said, I come back to why I’m beginning to re-believe in a personal God. It’s certainly not just because it can’t be disproved. It’s cheap and silly to believe in something based on the inability to prove a negative. “Prove to me that God doesn’t influence people.” “Prove to me there’s not a blue kangaroo in the world.”

OK, it’s taken me two days to write this, and the bottom line is, I have no reason to believe in a personal God aside from the desire to do so and the lack of ability to prove it’s not possible. I examine my life and my experiences like a good freethinker, and there’s nothing in my experience that can be pinpointed as “God in my life.”

All “religious” experiences I’ve had while an orthodox Christian, no matter how strong and deep, have all been very emotional experiences triggered by outside influences (music, someone’s testimony, a play/cantata/performance, companionship of many like-minded individuals, a powerful speaker….)
I have had similar emotional responses to secular stimuli (music, movies, plays, books, powerful speakers….)

I have had many good things happen in my life.
Many similar good things and even better happen in the lives of non-Christians.

I have recovered or survived bad things in my life.
Non-Christians also survive and recover from bad things in their lives.
Much, MUCH, worse things happen to good, faithful Christians, many of whom don’t or can’t recover from.

There is nothing in my life that makes it better while I was a devout Christian, and nothing in my life that makes it worse now that I’m a Deist. (Well I take that back. I had more friends while I was a devout Christian, but that’s only because when you are an active member of a church, you have a built-in fellowship with lots of people with a similar interest. I have less friends now simply because I don’t get out more. Something I need to change this new year. *grin*)

So I’m struggling lately, and even as I write this, with the desire to believe in a personal God. Perhaps it’s a backlash to all the negativity in my rhetoric lately. For months, all year, I’ve been up in arms and red faced in my campaign against Biblical belief and dogmatic religion, that maybe I need to start nurturing the spirit within. And maybe that IS the effect of a personal God. I absolutely do not believe that belief in a personal God makes your life “better”. Countless faithful, praying Christians have horrible lives and suffer terrible tragedies; countless non-Christians have very spiritually fulfilled and content lives. So having a good life is at least not dependent upon your religion. And since, if God is non-religiously confined and available to all who believe, faithful Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Shintoists and Wiccans and Jews also have equally tragic and content lives, simply believing in a personal God doesn’t make your life better.

The quality of your life is dependent upon your actions, uncontrollable outside events (accidents, disease, the actions of others, natural events,) and your reactions to those things. It’s certainly possible to have a “tragic” life due to outside events like disease and the actions of others, but you may still have a fulfilled and content life because of how you respond to events in your life, and I’m prepared to believe that a belief in a personal God CAN affect that regardless of your religion. I mean after all, if there is a God that does interact with creation on a personal level, why in the world would he limit that influence to only those who believe in a certain book or prophet or set of human laws?

From a purely reasoned point-of-view, there’s no reason to believe in a personal God. The universe is orderly, infinite, clock-work, explainable. People have content, discontented, fortunate, tragic lives regardless of their faiths. There appears to be no need for a personal God aside from simply to feel better about oneself or not feel “alone” in the universe, or to fill that human need to feel like there’s something bigger than you in charge and making sure everything ends up OK.

So while this blog entry began as a way for me to express my re-emerging belief in a personal God, it looks like I’m back to limiting my belief to a creator-God with simply allowing for the possibility of a God that intervenes in the creation. What a lot of wasted rambling and babbling.

As has been obvious on here, I speak my mind. In person too, when something riles me. Like when my sister-in-law mentioned Kevin Trudeau’s book Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You To Know About.
And I’m aware of this fraud’s history, as described on various sources:
Wikipedia description of his criminal history
Skepdic’s detailing of his criminal history and flaunting of federal limitations put on him
Quackwatch article on a ban against him
Quack watch published analysis of his infomercial
…and lots more.
So I bring all this up to her in my usual emphatic and blustery way, and she quiets up. Then my wife tells me that her husband gave the book to her as a Christmas gift. God! Did I feel like a complete and utter ass. I mean, I was committing mental ritual seppuku. And finally I had to apologize to them for being an ass or I’d never be able to live with myself. They said it was fine, that she’d heard the same thing and had just wanted to check the book out. And we started talking about Alton Brown’s books and how he discusses HOW food cook and combine and has great info and fun writing, but I still feel like a jerk.

So, the next day my father-in-law, answering my inquiry about how a new off-shoot church from his was doing, told me about how it’s held in the local school building. My wife expresses concern over church-and-state about that, and I mention that I think it’s fine since it’s when the school isn’t being used and if they gave equal consideration to other religious groups that would want the same consideration. (And I do believe that.)
But my father-in-law (henceforth shall be refered to as FIL,) goes on to say that “seperation of church and state” didn’t come around until the 1950’s, and as a ploy to try to get prayer out of school… implying that religion and government have always been married until the 50’s. Which is the Religious Reicht’s party line.

Let me just say, I love FIL. He’s a good man, loyal, VERY hard working, honest and sincere, and wants the best for his kids and friends and family. But he falls into the propaganda and like most Christians doesn’t bother to check out the rhetoric he’s told. He believes the dogma unquestioning. And so it was literally physically painful to keep my mouth shut. Thanks to my blunder the day before, it was easier for me than normal, but I’m not kidding when I say it hurt to keep my mouth shut. Because here’s the facts that I’m well acquainted with:

• Thomas Jefferson coined the term “a wall of separation of church and state” in 1802 during his presidency in describing the intent of the 1st Amendment to not allow government to infringe upon the religious rights of all citizens.
• James Madison and President Grant both publicly enforced the belief that government and religion must remain separate.
• The Supreme Court in the 1800’s used the term “separation of church and state” in a ruling.
• The fact that various early documents including the Declaration of Independence mentions God, yet the Constituion which was drafted and re-drafted and debated endlessly for years before it was ratified specifically makes no mention of any kind of supreme being or religious figure, further establishes the intent of the Founders that the Operations Manual of the country, the Constitution, is totally and completely civil and secular and in no way draws any ties to any religious connection.

That’s what I already knew by heart and wanted so desperately to say, but there’s even more information below regarding the misunderstanding of the term “separation of church and state,” and even the actual implications of what the Supreme Court established in the 1960’s by decalring school mandated prayer in school as unconstitutional:
http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/seper2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_and_state
http://www.publiceye.org/ifas/fw/9502/digest.html

And so I kept quiet and my brain and gut twisted in agony, and my poor wife got an earful later as I vented my frustration: “Arrghh! George Washington said outright that ‘the founding of the U.S. government was in no respect founded on the Christian religion’!”, “I know, Liam, I know.” “Arrgh! Thomas Jefferson coined that phrase, a couple hundred years ago and was an active opponent to any inclusion of religion in any public aspect!” “I know, I know, it’s OK, calm down.” “Arrgh! Lucy keeps pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown! Why does she keep doing that?!”
OK, so maybe I didn’t say that last one, but darnit, that’s just mean!

For the Christmas holiday season…
The Infidel Guy had a podcast a few weeks ago that involved a debate regarding the resurrection of Jesus:
“Debate: On The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Richard Carrier and Frank Turek debate Jesus’ resurrection. Carrier is the author of “Sense and Goodness without God”. Turek authored “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”
http://www.infidelguy.com/demo/infidelguy.com_Debate_Turek_Carrier_Resurrection.mp3

A very interesting debate.
Was reminded the other day that the debate whether Jesus actually existed isn’t new, it began as early as within 40 years after Jesus’ death! Paul’s writings in his letters “John 1 and 2″ point up very strongly that Jesus existed in the flesh as a reply to the controversy of whether he did or not. The early Councils that helped set in place the dogma of orthodox Christianity debated the concept of a physical Jesus or a symbolic. The Gnostics were one of many early Christian subsets which believed that Jesus did not exist in the flesh, and were one of the Christian subsets that did not have a representitive invited to the Councils that set creeds and cannonized texts in place.

I’ll leave it at that. I just highly recommend that you listen to this debate!

As you may or may not know, Thomas Jefferson is a hero of mine. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine being 2nd and 3rd. And Batman 4th, of course.
Jefferson’s writings and efforts to structure our young government into a representative democracy are valiant and wise. His efforts separate church and state are all affectations of religion and superstition from government and public services are paramount in my religious-political outlook. The man was a true statesman unlike and above any politician seen today, or maybe in the last 50 years if not 200.

But I will be the first to admit that my study of the man is pretty limited. Oh I know more about him than probably any 9 out of 10 high school senior and probably even 4 out of 5 college graduate (who’s not a history major.) But even so, that’s not saying much. Because when I read today something about him I hadn’t read before on Wikipedia, I was incredibly surprised: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

Jefferson’s dedication to “consent of the governed” was so thorough that he believed that individuals could not be morally bound by the actions of preceding generations. This included debts as well as law. He said that “no society can make a perpetual constitution or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation.” He even calculated what he believed to be the proper cycle of legal revolution: “Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it is to be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.” He arrived at 19 years through calculations with expectancy of life tables with taking into account what he believed to be the age of “maturity” when an individual is able to reason for himself (Letter to James Madison, 6 September 1789). He also advocated that the National Debt should be eliminated. However, he did not believe that living individuals had a moral obligation to repay the debts of previous generations. He said that repaying such debts was “a question of generosity and not of right” (Letter to James Madison, 6 Sep 1789).

While Wikipedia has recently been determined to be as accurate, in general, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, I still have to check stuff out. And read his letter to John Adams where he expresses some of these ideas and beliefs: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch2s23.html

This is an interesting development for me. But, not a terribly new internal debate. See, I’m a pretty staunch Constitutionalist. No, not the political Party “Constitutionalists,” they’re wackos. But I strongly believe that the powers of the federal government are carefully detailed in the Constitution, and by mandate of the 10th Amendment, the majority of the power of government rests in the individual and the local governments. So, I’m a believer in gun ownership, for example, and that all laws must strictly conform to the Constitution from which our legal system is based, and anything that does not come from the Constitution much be based on common law and individual rights.

But Jefferson appears to be of the opinion that laws and even the Constitution itself should have temporary power and be thrown out or recrafted or at least reevaluated every generation. And really, that’s not a bad idea. While he obviously could not have foreseen exactly what the world would look like in 200 years, he was wise and intelligent enough to know that things change, develop, and require new consideration as time passes. That stagnation breeds corruption and complicity and complacency. And the laws and morals of one generation should not necessarily apply to the next.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, as a key creator of the Declaration of Independence, the concept of a people overthrowing their government and establishing a new one whenever it fails to be of and by the people, is paramount in that declaration. The Constitution was written to be changeable, as evidenced by all the amendments since. As the fictional President Bartlet says in “The West Wing” in regard to the 2nd Amendment and gun rights “That was written during a time when there were no street lights or a police force… Can’t we all just agree that it’s no longer necessary and just get rid of it?” My kneejerk reaction is NO! It’s there, part of the Constitution, it’s a right and it’s sacred. But then, the literal lesser value of a black person was written in the Constitution as well, and not even an Amendment. The right to vote had to be given to women. Slavery abolishment had to be added. The Constitution was written to be adjusted to the needs and necessities of society as it changes. It’s a built-in function. And this realization about Jefferson makes it drastically more obvious.

But I have a problem. If the whole thing, as Jefferson implies, is fluid and temporary and by necessity should be valid only from generation to generation, that means ALL of it is subject to change and even removal and that includes such rights as the 1st and 4th Amendments. Two rights that I feel are required now and forever for all people. That so long as there ARE governments there HAS to be freedom of the press and freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, otherwise fascism and the complete elimination of liberties and freedoms and the ability for a people to CHANGE their laws becomes greatly diminished if not outright eliminated. Jefferson’s ideals of a legal and political system that changes and adapts to each generation wouldn’t be at all possible if certain “inalienable right” are not set in stone. Because no matter how inalienable they are as basic human rights, there are those in power or who desire power who don’t see it that way. Who believe freedoms and liberties and the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not rights that should be shared by all but rather parsed out by the government to those “worthy” of such rights.

I see the wisdom in Jefferson’s ideas, but I have a hard time accepting that the idea that all laws should be void after 19 to 23 years. But then, I have not read that much of Jefferson’s writings on the subject and it could very well be that while he advocates the adaptability and voiding of laws and even moral obligations one has from generation to generation, he may very well believe that there are certain divinely provided rights that are not voidable and all else must still be subject to, and that may be basic human freedom and the liberty to have self-determination. Considering what I HAVE read by him on that topic, I highly anticipate this will be the case.

(Let me just say first of all, this “war” is stupid.)
OK, the latest edition of Skepticality.com has an interview with Tom Flynn, author of “The Trouble with Christmas.”
The interview should REALLY be heard by anyone who cares about Christmas, either as a religious holiday or those who are annoyed by it. And by the sounds of it, the book will really help both sides come to a realization of how both sides can get what they want. Despite the title, this book could really help Christians put the proper focus on Christmas that they want.

Here’s a segment from the interview:

[I believe that] down the road after a fair amount of social angst, that Christmas will be able to be redeemed by believing Christians who can embrace it as THEIR holiday without feeling like they NEED to have the whole culture up on the bandwaggon with them.
And I think when that happens it will be a lot more authentic for the people who are a part of that tradition.
It’s a big burden to be society’s unofficial recreation director for five weeks every year and that burden has distorted Christmas.

His contention, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is that it’s absurdly ironic that today’s outspoken Christian battlers for increased retail acknowledgement of Christmas is completely the reverse of the way it has traditionally been, and that’s the fear that the increased commercialization and embracing of Christmas by retailers will hurt the purpose of Christmas. What do you think? Has it?

It’s also ironic that there’s no more pagan of a holiday than Christmas (that is, the way we celebrate it.) The only thing Santa Claus has that’s non-pagan is the original name of St. Nicolas. Otherwise everything about Santa comes from a pagan tradition. In fact, many of the traditions of Christmas and Halloween actually come from the same source. The bribing with treats of the invisible nighttime visitor who will grant you with either good or bad gifts, trick-or-treaters or Santa and milk and cookies? Well, both come from a traditionally pagan year’s end celebration. Then there’s the fact that the image of Santa is a marketing image devised by Coke-a-Cola and Macy’s. Most holiday decorations come from Druid traditions. And come on, can anyone deny that the angst and efforts of buying gifts haven’t outweighed the meaning of Christmas?

Christmas as we know it is VERY new. The Victorians actually are responsible for recreating Christmas toward how we see it today. Prior to circa 1880, Christmas was generally not celebrated at all. It wasn’t a very important date, stores didn’t close NOR market it, and those few people who did celebrate it did not make public displays about it and certainly did not go on buying sprees. It was a celebration of the birth of the Messiah, and even that is vaguely new. Traditional Christians did not celebrate births in general, much less the birth of the Messiah. (Ever wonder why only two of the four (six) Gospels even mention his birth?) It’s his death/resurrection that is important. Isn’t it, really, if you’re Christian?

Why should the entirety of society be compelled to celebrate Christmas any more than Christians should be compelled to celebrate Rhamadan or Kwanza? Isn’t better that Christians celebrate Christmas with the sincerety of the meaning and purpose of Christmas, and allow everyone else to celebrate (or not) whatever they want to celebrate? Doesn’t making Christmas a compulsory holiday for everyone completely undermine the meaning of the “gift” of Christ, and the free-will that is supposedly the greatest original gift? Doesn’t trying to force retailers to put focus on Christmas put more emphasis on the spending of money and greed and avarice and envy and superficial trappings of today’s Christmas celebration? Wouldn’t Christmas mean more, more of what the original meaning of Christmas IS, if it’s celebrated honestly by those who come to it on their own as opposed to shoved down throats?

The fact that retailers are wanting to put more focus on “the holidays” instead of Christmas should be welcomed by Christians! It’s the market economy adding commercialism and financial focus on other holidays and giving Christmas a chance to go back to its original meaning and purpose! Taking some money-spending focus away from Christmas specifically, SHOULD be a GOOD thing — the celebration of Jesus’ birth, shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t it?!

This month’s “Skeptical Inquirer” magazine has an interesting article which takes a different view at the all-powerful, all-good BibleGod arguement:

The God of Eth

Over on NewSojourn, Mark discusses the unique validity of the Bible as being inerrantly prophetic and the only source for accurate and actually fulfilled prophesy: “Merry CHRISTmas”

Normally I’d post a reply there, but Mark’s got too much to deal with in his life right now (“Days of Darkness”) to also have to deal with some annoying cynical skeptic evangelist for freethinking nipping at his heels. But BEING an evangelist for skepticism, I find it impossible to keep quiet. So here’s my take on the subject over here instead of encroaching over there.

Mark goes into detail about the prophesies of the coming Jewish Messiah and how each has been fulfilled. He, and apologetics before and all over, make mention of how the Bible in general is uniquely inerrantly prophetic. I’ve always known that to be wrong, and have been working on a list of how so…until I came upon one already compiled:

False Prophecies, Broken Promises, and Misquotes in the Bible

Admitantly, some of these examples are nitpicky. But most are quite direct and blatant. While some can be reasoned away with “poetic license,” for example, right at the beginning (no pun intended) is the warning from God that if anyone eats from the Tree of Knowledge they’ll die. Well, obviously they didn’t for nearly a millennia later. So a literalist will rationalize “die” as meaning either a) Humans were originally meant to be immortal (which considering humans were told to “be fruitful and multiply,” did God coinsider what would happen with an ever increasing number of immortal humans?! Oh but then, God set up using deception and conniving tactics man’s fall anyway, so all’s good,) and to “die meant… eventually. Or b) “Die” meant spiritually. Instead of having your soul destined for “everlast life” it’s now destined to hell (well, the Jews originally believed death was the end, there was no hell, until Christian dogma took over.)

So there are several prophesies and statements of foretelling that don’t come to pass in the Bible that can be rationalized with interpretation and poetic license. But then, so is pretty much EVERY human made prophesy including Nostradamus whose prophesies actually ARE poems filled with symbolic imagery and metaphor. What makes the Biblical prophesies and foretellings any more accurate when they require interpretation than Nostradamus’?

But there’s also prophesies in the Bible that are pretty blunt, and wrong. Like “God promised Zedekiah (Jer.34:5) that he would die peacefully and be buried with his fathers. But here we see that he died a miserable death in foreign land. 52:10-11.” Or, “God prophesies that Babylon will never again be inhabited. But it has been inhabited constantly since the prophecy was supposedly made, and is inhabited still today. 50:39.”

A lot of the prophesies, despite implications and inferences that what is being prophesied will happen shortly, are not directly time sensitive. Like several prophesies of the Nile drying up. Hasn’t happened YET, but I suppose it certainly could eventually. But then, a stopped clock is right two times a day. Is that prophetic? Fortune tellers and spirit communicators, like John Edwards on his show “Crossing Over”, use clusters and shotgunning statements of ambiguity to make ocassional “hits” that they’ll then follow up on to sound prophetic. Because people tend to latch onto and remember the right hits than all the multiple misses.

Which is why any source of prophesy, if it’s going to be valid, HAS to be right, specifically and in detail, 100% of the time. No misses, no rationalizing with interpretation. It has to be unambiguous and with no poetic license. Otherwise, it could be a lot of good guessing and wishful thinking that just happens to come true through law of averages or obvious eventuality.

There’s a great scam going on out there where masses of people on a list will be spammed with a prediction of an upcoming sports game. Half will get one team winning, half the other team. Then after the game, the half that were sent the winning prediction will get mailed the next game’s prediction, and the half of the group that got the winning one will get mailed again, etc. The pool of recipients gets smaller and smaller, but for them the predictions will be 100% accurate each time. Then the small group that is left that have been sent the winning prediction throughout the season will be asked for great sums of money to bet on the result of the upcoming Super Bowl or whatever. To those few people, the source of these mailing will appear supernaturally prophetic! It’s all a matter of appearnce, and hits vs. misses.

Another aspect to remember, is that a great deal of the OT prophesies were written AFTER the events occurred. Mainly the Pentateuch. The writings of “the prophets” themselves were before a lot of what they were predicting. But the first five books of the Bible were written centuries after the events. So the “correct” prophesies aren’t valid as “prophesies” at all. A step further, the supposedly fulfilled prophesies of the NT are also suspect since nothing in the NT has been validated by any source outside the NT itself. There is no non-Gospel record of Jesus’ lineage (much less his existance at all, but that’s another topic.) There’s no writings, no records, of anything Jesus did or said that’s outside the writings of his followers. So there’s no irrefutable proof that any OT prophesy has been fulfilled in the NT.

Not to mention the sad fact that some of what was prophesied in the OT is incorrectly fulfilled in the NT. Or requires rationalizing to make fit. For example, Jesus’ lineage differs from each other in the two Gospels that mention it. Since the Messiah’s lineage is very important as “proof” of fulfillment of prophesy, great pains are made to explain away the differences, and make make the missing links that make them match prophesised lineage. Which I’ve always found odd in the first place since Joseph isn’t supposedly Jesus’ father, but even that is rationalized by having a lineage applied to Mary, or Jesus’ “adoption” by Joseph as his own son as counting.

It’s interesting that in the same way the four (six) Gospels retell some of the same events, some of the OT prophets make similar prophesies. Like how the Messiah will come from the tribe of Bethlehem, not the town. Not to mention the fact that he was BORN in the town of Bethlehem, but as in Jewish tradition, his family is from Nazareth which makes Jesus a Nazarine which is not mentioned in the OT prophesies. Also the fact that the OT prophesies would say the Messiah’s name would be I/Emannuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel. But then, that can still fit if you grant poetic license and differences in interpretation. Which of course all good, accurate, inerrant prophesy should be allowed to do. That issue specifically, God himself, the one and only true God, has several names (depending on whether that section of the Bible was written from a Canaanite tradition, Ugarit tradition, or later Hebrew tradition.) So why shouldn’t the Messiah have different names?

It all works out in the end, and that’s what matters, right? Making all the pieces fit no matter what you have to do to make them? Even if that means, using semantic, poetic, and interpretive license; ignoring the mistakes and errors; contorting connections and using rationalizating to force connections; and focusing on prophesies that have no choice but to come true through the normal course of events as well as prophesies that are written after the event. The end always justifies the means, after all!

This fake “war on Christmas” just astounds me. I want to blog about how we’ve been saying “Happy Holidays” for YEARS without backlash until now, how forcing retailers to say “Merry Christmas” is absurd, how attempts to pass legislation “protecting the symbols of Christmas” and no other religious holidays is a blatant violation of the 1st Amendment–but the following comment from someone else does a perfect job:

From a Jewish blogger, who I have no idea who he is but is quoted on another blog (http://whatbox.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_whatbox_archive.html … scroll down to “My Tree is Baptist, How Bout Yours” (the links to the individual blogs don’t seem to work),) :

“Sure, it’d be nice if the blue-vested old man at the entrance to Wal Mart acknowledge Christ’s sovereignty as you pass by on the way to purchase cheap underwear and mayonnaise… but don’t you people still have, you know, churches?

Is the power of the Son of God to grant eternal life somehow diminished by not being mentioned in the latest Land’s End catalogue?”

Well, how much MORE rationalizing is going to have to be done by the people so married to the Bush administration?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/16/bush.nsa.ap/index.html
If you’re not interested in reading, basically after 9/11, after the 1st Patriot Act bill was passed, Bush signed an authorization to have the NSA conduct secret wire-taps on American citizens without warrents. Without any oversight whatsoever.
It’s not enough that the Patriot Act already authorized secret wire-taps OK’ed by a judge if certain loosened conditions existed, ANY condition and limitation and pesky old qualifications for authorization was a deterant to our safety and protection.

• The Bush administration intended to invade Iraq before 9/11 based on internal memos and statements from Whitehouse employees.
• The Bush administration intentionally withheld intelligence that contradicted distorted or mistaken intelligence tying Iraq with WMD and alQueda.
• Bush gives a medal to the head of CIA responsible for the “flawed intelligence” that took us into a needless war.
• Bush appoints corporate and family friends to vital Cabinet positions who have no qualifications or experience in the job they hold, which helps in the horrendous mismanagement of one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
• The Bush administration held secret meetings with oil company executives (and refuses to release any information about these meetings betraying the responsibility of the government to be transparant in its workings to the people that they work for… US) before creating their energy policies which just so happens to greatly benefit the oil companies more than any legislation since 1930.
• The Bush administration is fighting hard to defeat legislation making any use of torture by the administration illegal (why would they do that?) and has been responsible for authorizing torture based on inter-office memos and their push to change the Army Intelligence handbook changing the definition of torture to an ambiguous statement.
• The Bush administration is responsible for waging a smear campaign involving the outting of a covert CIA operative in retribution for an American diplomat publishing information refuting the administration’s claims of Iraq seeking nuclear material. And Bush has completely renigged on his promise a year ago that he would fire anyone involved in the leak…and yet at least three people in the Whitehouse have been exposed as being involved and aside from one quitting, the other two still are employed by Bush.
• They’ve turned the greatest budgetary surplus in American history into the greatest deficit in history.
• They’re spending billions of dollars a month and willing to continue to spend lives in a military campaign we can’t win and are in for reasons that are lies and deceptions. And continue to be cavalier about how much damage and death we’re bringing to another country we have to right to be occupying.

I simply can’t understand, it’s beyond my grasp, why there are still people who are so in love with Bush and feel he can do no wrong. He’s tearing this country to pieces, made us despised by most of the world, has put us in greater risk of terrorism, is flushing away billions of our dollars and killing our brave soldiers needlessly, handing goverment control over to big corporations and oil interests, taking away civil liberties and human rights left and right, and people still make excuses for him.

It’s very telling how people can allow themselves to be deluded and fall for lies because of an ideology they are married to.

A friend of mine recently experienced great, acute loss.
http://newsojourn.blogspot.com/2005/12/days-of-darkness.html
His young niece was killed in a car accident.

Mark and I worked together, he was my instructor for Web technologies, and while our relationship now is mostly very heated philosophical and religious debates and downright arguments, he is a friend. He’s a good, good man with a kind heart and cares so much for the people in his life. I can only barely conceive of how much pain he’s experiencing.

When my grandfather died, I was grief stricken, but prepared. He had lived a long, good life. Done many things, had a family, built a career, was a Marine in WWII, dealt with illness for a long time. His death was sad, but a release.
The death of a child that hasn’t even begun life yet, is unimaginably tragic. I think of my own daughter and how it would affect me if anything happened to her, and I can’t bear to think about it.

The only consolation there can be, as Mark in his heartbreaking blog implies, his niece will not have to experience the pains and sorrows and grief living in this world can give. But neither will she know the joys and wonder of it either. One can only hope that where she has gone is better than what she could have experienced.

There’s no way, considering how my mind and how my own online journal has focused, to not consider the meaning or purpose behind death. Death, which is my enemy. Which is hated by me with great passion. For when I think about death, all I can think of is all that is takes away. The pain it causes, the opportunities for wisdom and knowledge and experience is takes away. I wish no one had to die. Most of all a child. Why must it happen?

Because we live, so must we die. I hate that fact. I hate that eventuality. I hate the corporeal bodies we have that are so delicate, so prone to pain and disease and injury. But it must be accepted, despite the grief and anger and questions…it must be accepted because what choice do we have? If we don’t accept it, we live in fear of death (as I often do,) we live to hate death (which I often do,) we don’t LIVE because of what we fear and hate. We miss out on living this amazing and wonderful life if we focus on death.

Life is indeed a gift. By whom, I cannot say. I believe in God the Creator. I have faith there is a purpose for the universe. I have faith that our evolution on this planet was intentional, perhaps even guided into being. But I can not believe in a God that personally and individually interferes in life, because if he did, we can do nothing but question why bad things happen to good people. Why did 9/11 happen? Why did the holocaust happen? Why do innocent children die? Why do so many people die of starvation, disease, accidents, random crime? Why do so many people come to early and terrible ends?

We ask these questions individually, and as a race. As a species aware of its mortality, we ask these questions and we can not live without some kind of answer. It’s hard to imagine there not being a reason for it. It’s painful to think that bad things, tragic things happen without reason. We want, we NEED to feel like there is a guiding hand, some protector and wise person that knows what he’s doing and has a reason. Otherwise, the alternative is too frightening to comprehend. We are subject to accidents, to randomness, to entropy and misfortune. And maybe worse, the cruelty or simple negligence of others. We are powerless. And that is disturbing and frightening to the very core. Literally, the core of my being.

But to believe in anything else is deception. A painful, traitorous, betraying deception. Because no matter how much we desire a plan, no matter how much we need to feel protected, no matter how much we need the comfort of a universal wise watcher, bad things will happen. We all die, we all suffer loss, loved ones get cancer, friends experience accidents, wars happen and take lives, the human condition slaps us in the face and reminds us that no one is safe. No one is protected. We are all victims. bad things happen to good and bad alike.

For some, comfort comes from faith. I can’t deny that. I am certain through God given reason and logic that God is not an intervening force of change and wills the life of death of individuals. But who am I to say that he can’t be a force of comfort for grief? Logical fallacies prevents God from being all-powerful AND all-knowing AND all-merciful AND a being… but he can be some of those things. And so while we are human, and we kill and we die and we do terrible things to our own planet and species, God may still be there to give us comfort, and faith, and the ability to get past it and move on.

I DO KNOW that God gave us the gifts of love, of compassion, intelligence, curiosity, reason. These are gifts from God. They are bitter-sweet gifts as these are the very same abilities that allow us to be aware of the pain we suffer, can suffer, can cause. But they’re the same gifts that help us rise above mere existence. The gift of life should not be wasted avoiding pain, fearing death (easier said than done, in my own experience,) but should be used to experience this wonders of this world. This amazing universe created by the same thing that gave us love and compassion and intellect and imagination! For every sorrow, there is joy. For every pain, there is wonder. For every loss, there is gain. If we focus on how horrible this world is, we miss out on how wonderful it is as well. There’s nothing else like it.

Is there a paradise after death? I don’t know. I doubt it. If there is, it’s going to be 100% different from what this life, this world is like. Unimaginable. This life is unique, it’s wonderful, it’s a gift, truly. And God would not want us to go through it in sorrow. He created such amazing beauty from mountain ranges and stellar nebulae, to the experience of cuddling up with the one you love on a cold night. I doubt the afterlife has that. I doubt the afterlife has the simple joy of sitting among trees, listening to birds and looking at the way the sun beams through the leaves. The smell of a favorite leather coat. The taste of your favorite dish, the caress of your soul-mate, the pride of seeing your child learn something new. Even if the afterlife has something better than this, it won’t BE this, and I don’t think God put us here to miss it. I think he wants us to love, and learn, and live, and enjoy what painfully brief time we have here to experience these wonders. Every new star I learn about, every new book I read, every quiet evening cuddled with my wife, every “how come” conversation I have with my daughter, every new spice combination I experience, is a celebration of this life which I will never have again. It’s a celebration of creation! A celebration of God.

We grieve, we get angry, rightfully so! We get so mad at this world for the pain it can cause… but we must not forget that it’s the world we are given to explore and experience for a short while. We have the power to make it a painful place while we’re here and waste the opportunity we’re gifted, or make it a better place! Celebrate the gift! We can leave it to God, or entropy, or fate to do with it what they will, or we can make it as joyous and wonderful of a place as we can while we have it! With our lives, and with our relationships while we have them.

There are a few basic, fundamental requirements of belief to be an orthodox or conservative Christian that not only don’t make any sense, but I have yet to ever have a Christian address them. They’re illogical problems with the dogma that convinced me out of my belief in the religion, and I feel undermine the religion as a whole and should be addressed by anyone purporting to claim orthodox Christianity as being accurate and viable. They go beyond the illogic, contradictions, and factual inconsistencies in the Bible and speak to the very basic premise of the “revealed religion” of Christianity as the only true belief.

But that’s a ways below. First, I had one issue of illogic that was never addressed, until recently, but I’m afraid not very well. The trilemma issue as raised by C.S. Lewis. To paraphrase, if the scriptures are correct, and the Gospels are accurate in that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, then he was either a liar, insane, or the Son of God. And since the scriptures are correct and Jesus fulfilled the scripture, then Read the rest of this entry »