I’m mixing the two subjects, Sylvia Browne (and psychics) with Bible criticism…mainly because I have these open links in my browser I want to close. In a way they’re related topics as both deal with credulous thinking.

First, Browne.
Robert Lancaster who runs the site stopsylviabrowne.com (I think he started this after the boy was found alive and “well” (in the captivity of his accoster, years after his abduction) after Sylvia told the hurting and grieving parents, on national television, that he was dead and buried by a rock somewhere…or maybe it was after she told the grieving grandparents of an abducted girl that she was sold into sex slavery and is alive in Japan…when she was actually dead and dumped 13 miles from her grandparent’s home…) went to a Sylvia Browne reading in Vegas last month while he was attending The Amazing Meeting 6. Here is his wonderful and entertaining account of that evening: (It starts a little slow, but boy does it get interesting)

• I attend Browne’s Las Vegas show, and words are exchanged.

I’ve been reading some of the accounts on the site of the horrid and painful mistakes lies she tells people coming to her for answers about dead or missing loved ones. She is a horrible person, feeding off of pain and suffering for her own fame and fortune. All “psychics” are as they knowingly lie to people who trust them, often causing pain and chaos in their wake (such as the recent case of the psychic instigated investigation of the autistic girl being sexually molested–who wasn’t).

Phil Plait of the BadAstronomer recently recounted his thoughts on a disgustingly credulous Newsweek article about psychics:

• Newsweek embarrasses itself

The Newsweek article is an embarrassment. It actually says this:
“It’s impossible to objectively judge psychic powers.”
Wow. I mean, wow. Of course it’s objectively possible to judge psychic powers. It’s trivially easy to do so. We have a whole field of mathematics called “statistics”, and it can be used to judge quite well if someone is able to do better than random chance in a fair test.

I have a friend who I recently discovered believes in ghosts, specifically “orbs”. Why? Because of an emotional and personal event involving the death of her mother. She knows I’m a vitriolic skeptic, but when she told me this out of respect to her I remain silent. Some would say I’m doing her no favors about not telling her about the statistical certainty that she should have a coincidental feeling matching her mother’s death, or that memory often and easily confuses imagined feelings after an event with coinciding with an event–and you will believe with utmost certainty of the “truth” of this glitch in memory/emotion. But how do you tell that to someone talking about their mother’s death?! You can’t. I won’t. (I’m pretty certain she doesn’t read this blog). Sometimes it’s better to just shut up and let someone have their belief.

But always in the back of my mind is the nagging guilt that by doing so I’m knowingly allowing them to remain suseptible to people like Sylvia Browne who feed like vampires off the willing belief of trusting people. I feel I’m complicit in the scam, the con, the evil by not providing people, especially friends I care about!, the tools to allow them to think critically and not fall prey to evil assholes like “psychics”.

Now, the Bible.
John W. Loftus has an article today:

• Kenneth Copeland, Faith, Fear and Ignorance

I’m familiar with Copeland’s world of merchandise and have seen him on TV a few times, taking the usual cherry-picked positive thinking approach to the Bible. In Loftus’ article he discusses Copeland’s twisted use of “faith” to overcome reasoned thinking and obvious problems with accepting the Bible as a divine relic.

In his article he provides links to some great articles like “The Bible Debunks Itself (Part 1)” (which reminds me of Issac Asimov’s quote: “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” I have to say, my path towards atheism began when I finally, after years of faithful belief, finally read the book that I was professing total faith and belief in.)

“Biblical Scholarship and The Lord’s Prayer,” which focuses on the history of the Bible and its very human and mundane although fascinating creation/compilation. Which reminds me of another Asimov quote: “The bible must be seen in a cultural context. It didn’t just happen. These stories are retreads. But, tell a Christian that — No, No! What makes it doubly sad is that they hardly know the book, much less its origins.” (OK, I admit, I didn’t already know that quote like I did the Asimov/atheism quote. I found it while looking for the exact wording of the former. *grin*)

Anyway, just a couple of the great past articles Loftus links to in his latest blog post. Good reading.

Found some freethinking comics; here’s a couple of good ones:

.

.That one has got some poignant comments under each comic. Here’s another that has a good comment under it (on the source site)…

.And of course this one shows a perennial argument between atheists and believers…

(I’m afraid I don’t have a link for that one.) Yeah, just like not collecting baseball cards is a “hobby.”

When discussing and criticizing New Age, New Thought, pseudoscience beliefs (like The Secret, crystals, homeopathy, chiropractic, ESP, psychics, Tarot, astrology, chi, feng shui, ghosts, reflexology, etc. ad nauseum) people often say “Oh, what’s the big deal? It’s harmless; let people believe what they want,” it’s often because they themselves have some belief or three that they know fall into the category of superstition and credulity. Subconsciously they think, “Hmm, I better not be too harsh on people who believe in The Secret because I know some know-it-all busybody would have problems with my belief in alien visitation.”

But there is a harm to non-critical thinking and it can be as “small” as spending good money on bunk to as significant as death:

• Teen’s death blamed on faith healing

(_Another Child Dies from Faith Healing_.) A cousin of his also recently died due to lack of medical care thanks to religious beliefs. There’s a woman I work with who also believes in faith healing, and has ignored ever-increasing symptoms until she passed out at a chiropractor and was sent to the hospital. Seems she has a brain tumor. (No word yet if it’s malignant or benign.)

There’s no reason for this. I want to try hard not to disparage faith or spirituality, but let’s be realistic here: medical science over the last 200 years has literally turned the worldview of illness in the west completely upside down. What was once thought to be caused by demons and curses we know to be viruses, bacteria, and chemical disorders. No amount of praying has ever repaired anything visibly irreparable and known to be medically incurable or able to go into remission such as amputations or visible horrific burn damage. A recent massive double-blind study showed that of the three groups of heart surgery patients, (one prayed for by large amounts of cross denominational Christians and not told about it, one prayed for and told about it, and one not prayed for) the group not prayed for and the one prayed for and not told had no difference in post-surgery recovery or complications. In fact, the one prayed for and who knew about it fared statistically worse. (Hypothesis is that some of the patients felt increased stress and concern which lead to complications.)

Recently a girl with serious Autism had a teaching assistant who visited a psychic. The psychic told her a student of hers was being molested. She went to the school with her “evidence” and they turned it to the Canadian version of Family Services:

• The Mother, The Child, The School Board And The Psychic

(_Psychics and gullible people do REAL harm_.) Long story short, it was proven without a doubt that the girl was not being molested–the psychic was full of crap (surprise!) The result of her “for entertainment purposes only” seering was to throw a family into upheaval and cost them a great deal of money and emotional distress.

Neurologist Steven Novella has an excellent commentary on this story: _Psychic Alleges Sexual Abuse_:

Any reasonable assessment of the evidence, in my opinion, clearly shows that alleged psychics are frauds - yes, all of them. Some may be self-deluded, while others (by the techniques they use) must be con artists. But they are all frauds - they pretend to do something they cannot do. Spreading false beliefs about reality is harmful in and of itself. But this harm is greatly magnified by great mischief ensues when alleged psychics make serious allegations based upon their intuitions. This elevates fraud to negligence, and perhaps even depraved indifference.

My wife is often a voice of reason to me. When I go off on something, criticizing what I think is irrational thought, she usually has a point of view that pulls me back down to civility. On this issue she suggested that people should be allowed to believe whatever bogus ideas they want, but should be held accountable should negative results arise. Well, of course that makes sense–I don’t think we should outlaw gullibility or non-critical beliefs, that’s fascist and would actually be counter-productive. But there’s a problem: people AREN’T being held accountable because people are scared to death to publicly criticize religion, pseudoscience, superstitions, or other credulous beliefs. From that CNN article on the boy’s death:

After earlier deaths involving children of Followers of Christ believers, a 1999 Oregon law struck down religious shields for parents who treat their children solely with prayer. No one had been prosecuted under it until the Worthingtons’ case [last March].

We have reached a point in our culture where criticizing, examining, demanding evidence for people’s beliefs is verboten. That kind of Christian fundamentalism which eschews modern medicine and science and puts their children in harm damn well deserves to be criticized at its very foundation. All psychics are frauds, period, and should be treated as such by the legal system and society at large. Beliefs which can and often do lead to harm should not be tip-toed around and given a pass because of some misguided desire to give all beliefs respect and tolerance. Some don’t deserve it.

There’s a CNN article yesterday:

• Should I Vaccinate My baby?

It floored me. Because of vaccinations we’ve eradicated polio, a disease which used to kill or paralyze or cripple literally hundreds of thousands of people a year. Measles? Silly measles, we can risk it–why vaccinate. Because measles is a highly contagious disease with a 10-30% fatality rate and killed half a million unvaccinated people in 2003. There’s a reason we vaccinate children–it saves countless lives from many easily preventable diseases. And because of completely non-critical thinking, this process is thrown into question. Because of three converging conditions, this life-saving science is questioned and debated and needlessly avoided by many:

• Symptoms of Autism reveal themselves at the same age range in which we vaccinate kids–regardless of vaccination. We’ve known this for decades, we see this in places where vaccinations aren’t done. It is coincidence which confuses correlation with causation.
• We’re diagnosing more cases of Autism because of changes in methodology. It used to be that only the most severe cases of Autism were recognized as such–non-functional, “Rainman” style Autism. Now an extremely expansive continuum of symptom severity is being diagnosed. People with Ausperger’s Syndrome, a form of high-functioning Autism was virtually undiagnosed a couple of decades ago…now doctors are more readily recognizing and diagnosing cases. It’s always existed–we’re just diagnosing it more and it has nothing to do with vaccines.
• Parents understandably want to blame something. No one, parents, anyone, likes hearing “sometimes things just happen.” People want reasons, they want answers, they want something to blame. It’s completely understandable, perfectly human. It’s why people turn to ideas of “luck” and fortune, ESP, ghosts, aliens, what have you, for explanations to coincidence, accident, unexplained (in their mind) occurrences.

But the bottom line, is test after test, study after study, research after research, prove that there is no link between Autism and vaccines. In fact, one of the most vocal proponents of the connection was invited to help design what was one of the largest and most comprehensive studies examining the possible link. When the data was analyzed and it was becoming obvious that once again there was no link, she took her name off the study and started a propaganda campaign to distance her involvement and try to discredit the study.

Sometimes people want to believe something despite all evidence to the contrary. That’s delusion.

We should hold people accountable for the effects of their beliefs, absolutely. But what happens when those responsible for holding people accountable themselves rely on magical-thinking, superstition, and other woo? People get a pass. Children are being killed by medieval religious beliefs? Well, we have to be tolerant of religion (especially in this country if it in any way involves the words “Christian” or “…of Christ”.) “Psychics” like _Sylvia Browne_ crassly lie to grieving families, feeding on their pain and grief for their own fame and money? Well, it’s for “entertainment purposes” so they’re covered. (Or, hey, in Sylvia’s case it’s a “religious belief”! Two passes in one!) Besides, cultural leaders and gurus like Oprah advocate mysticism, New Age and New Thought, psychic beliefs, and pseudoscience–so, there must be something to it.

And so we continue to support and encourage un-critical thinking and credulous belief in woo as a culture in general, and that affects our legal system, politics, media.

The other day I heard a commercial for some “all natural” prostate health herbal supplement. “And it’s all natural, so you don’t have to worry about those annoying side effects that come with pharmaceutical products.” Got a message for you: poison ivy is “all natural.” Hemlock, toadstools, heroin, arsenic, Ebola, hepatitis, cancer, cyanide, anthrax…all natural, my friends! And here’s another clue: if something, like an herb, is capable of any kind of “positive” biochemical effect on your body, it’s capable of producing unwanted and negative side effects. The only difference, FDA regulated pharmaceuticals go through rigorous testing to find all or most of those side effects, their severity, cross medication reactions. Herbal remedies get none of that testing. St. John’s Wort? All natural, and promotes liver disease. Ginko biloba? All natural, and contributes to heart disease and strokes. (True) homeopathic “medicine” is the safest, being pretty much complete water, so what’s the harm? A lot if people trust water and sugar tablets instead of seeking needed medical advice for symptoms that may indicate something water and sugar don’t affect!

A culture that believes in woo won’t and can’t hold people who harm others or themselves, based on woo, accountable in any significant degree.

• Carl Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
• James Randi’s Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions.
• Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time.
• Madeleine L. Van Hecke’s Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things.
• Thomas E. Kida’s Don’t Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking.
• Robert Burton’s On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not.
• Podcast: Point of Inquiry
• Podcast: Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe
• Blog: Memoirs of a Skepchick
• Blog: NeuroLogica
• Blog/podcast: Skeptoid
• Common logical fallacies
• Comprehensive list of logical fallacies
• Cognitive bias

Most anyone who has driven along the highways and byways of America has surely seen the “God Speaks” billboards: basic black with plain white text saying things like

• “One nation under me”
• “All I know is…everything”
• “Life is short. Eternity isn’t”
• “You think it’s hot here?”
• “Big Bang Theory, you’ve got to be kidding”
• “Have you read my #1 best seller? (There will be a test.)”
• “Will the road you’re on get you to My place?”

and a dozen or so others.

Well, Freethought Action is sponsoring the placement of their own billboards which says: “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” with a URL or phone number to their site or a local freethinkers/atheists organization.

Non-believers is the fastest growing sector of America (versus religious beliefs) and as much as 16% of the country is un-believing or non-religious. We have a right to peacefully express ourselves and to suggest to other people who might not realize they’re not freaks for not believing that they’re not alone.

Here’s the unexpected twist, for me, in this: there seems to be no outcry. I tried to Google for Christian Web sites commenting on the billboards, but can’t find any aside from a few simply repeating a Philadelphia Inquirer interview with the guy who put the one up in PA. Aside from the comic linked above, I can’t find anyone saying anything negative. (Except for a ridiculous hyperbolic report by FOX News, but they don’t count.) In fact, I wrote to this paragraph in my blog wholly expecting to comment on how hypocritical and unfair religious groups are being about this, and could find no negative press. This surprises and pleases me considering how much vitriol and hatred I’ve heard with my own ears by Christians against atheists (here in the Midwest). Perhaps one day it can be like this everywhere, where people can say what they want (non-abusive and non-threatening) and co-exist with people of different beliefs.

Sadly, the religious anti-gay protests going on in California over their permitting other consenting adult humans to marry consenting adult humans of the same sex is going pretty strong. So, there’s still a ways to go.

…with one of these great tees!

♦ Wear Science- Teach the Controversy

(Thanks BoingBoing!)

I recently listened to a recording of a debate between theologian William Lane Craig and scholar Keith Parsons* titled “Why I Am / Am Not a Christian.” It was held in 1998 and can be downloaded here:

♦ Craig/Parsons Debate on Why I Am / Am Not a Christian

Much of it involves the supposed proof of “the empty tomb” (see yesterday’s post on refutation of Craig’s usual arguments: Refutation of the “facts” of the Resurrection..) The topic of nihilism and purposeless/purposeful life with/without God also was discussed. And about 23 minutes into the second part Parsons expresses how vital it is to live life to the fullest, to eke meaning out of every day you have to live. But then Craig tries to refute this stance by questioning “who are you living for”? To what are you responsible to? He believes that without God to be answerable to, life is meaningless and absurd and you might as well live in hedonism and nilistic wantoness and any attempt to live for little meanings is pointless because there’s no objective meaning.

But then the real punchline comes when he says, prompted by a comment from the audience, that without God, “…it doesn’t really matter how you live because your destiny is unrelated to your behavior. The good man ends up no different than the evil man. … In the absence of God, morality becomes in a sense fictitious–it becomes pointless. There isn’t any value in life because it doesn’t change anything, how you live. We all end up the same.”

Parsons replies that indeed because we do all die and that’s the end, then each life becomes utterly significant. Just because Albert Schweitzer and Hitler are both dead doesn’t mean that their lives didn’t have incredible significance. Our finite existence means you must get your joy as you can from each moment. (Unfortunately his response ends with a sentiment that sounds like a promotion of selfish hedonism, but that wasn’t his point nor intent.)

What gets me about Craig and others who share his belief in life being meaningless without God to answer to, is it’s a very childish, immature outlook on life. Note his comment: “[from an atheistic view] it doesn’t really matter how you live because your destiny is unrelated to your behavior…. There isn’t any value in life because it doesn’t change anything, how you live.” His entire focus is on some unknowable afterlife. Some cosmic judging of his life providing reward or punishment. Carrot and stick. You do good because Daddy tells you to else you get a whoopin’. That’s the Christian (or any dogmatic religious) understanding of morality, life’s value. Sure, you’re told to be good to your neighbor, love, forgive, etc. But ultimately, why? So you get rewarded by Sky Daddy and not punished for eternity, that’s why! That’s it. That’s life’s meaning to these people. Earn reward, avoid punishment. (And they say atheists are selfish.)

Granted, an atheist CAN be nihilistic and believe in nothing and thus behave without concern about harming others. But, if history has shown us anything, it’s that a belief in a religion by no means guarantees moral behavior! If a person truly lived according to God’s Holy Word as contained in the Bible, they would commit all kinds of horrible acts we consider terribly immoral today: slavery, lying, murder, child selling, hate, racism, prejudice, all in the name of God, and advocated and condoned by God. Even when people cherry-pick what they want to follow and believe in, in the Bible, there are some who live immorally (by contemporary Western standards) due to the belief that the ends justify the means–when the ends is their interpretation of “God’s Will.” From the person who kills doctors who perform abortions, to those who lie and deceive in order to Spread the Word of Salvation, religion and belief in God doesn’t make the faithful any more moral than a lack of belief in a God makes a person a hedonistic nihilist.

Craig’s profession that value comes from believing in God falls apart when you examine the question it raises: Which god? You could probably grab a few moderate Christians, moderate Muslims, moderate Buddhists, moderate Janeists, moderate Wiccans, and moderate atheists, and find very little to no difference in the way they live their lives. You’ll probably find each one holds the same values: loyalty, honesty, promotion of happiness and avoidance of harm to self and others, supporting family and friends…. Why? Why do most people all over the world regardless of religion and culture share many of the same core beliefs and find the same value in life regardless of what God (or non-god) they believe in? Doesn’t that throw a wrench in the argument that a person must have “Jesus in their heart” to have meaning and value in their life?!

From the atheist point of view, there’s a couple of reasons why most humans share much of the same concepts of morality and value. The first is evolutionary. We have evolved to be altruistic and cooperative because it benefits the species in general, and our selves and our kin and offspring directly. A lot of research has been done on this topic, including observation of what we would call higher order moral, altruistic behavior in other primates. As a species we learned long ago that cooperation is more advantageous to our own survival (the self, our offspring, or species) than solitary competition and perdition. This outlook is extrapolated to our contemporary situation: How long do you think you’ll have freedom to act if you lived completely selfishly and hedonisticaly? Prison, banishment from society, early death is the usual result of nihilistic behavior. Taking a completely selfish look at the issue, you’re better off if you follow the morés of society and value life and avoid harming others.

That’s the basic biological explanation. But while we are animals ruled by general evolutionary biology, that’s not all we are! We do have sentience and individual consciousness and so we are each capable of creating value and meaning in our lives beyond our drives and subconscious programming…and thank goodness! because that same evolutionary biology also has programmed us to be xenophobic and tribal–qualities that are also extolled, promoted, and rewarded by religious dogma. Fear the unknown, value your tribe and destroy those different from you or not part of your tribe, follow tradition and authority. Fortunately the modern moderate religious person tends to eschew, in some ways, these beliefs because they live in a world where tribalism is difficult and empathy with people outside your tribe is encouraged. Mass communication, the threat of destruction by war the likes of which unimaginable by evolutionary biology, have allowed people to start seeing the world as one tribe. Some people, however moderate in their dogma, still see others unlike them with suspicion and/or condescension; but fortunately many people understand the value of all humans in a way that was not seen even 50 years ago, much less 500 years ago, and almost not at all 2000 years ago.

It’s certainly not because of any religious belief, at least none based on any ancient documents! It’s because humans understand humanity. People are by and large empathic to the pain and suffering of other humans, and share the joy of others. We understand that the more we reduce harm to others and expand happiness, the better of a world we have for ourselves and our descendants. There is inherent value in reducing harm and increasing happiness that transcends any religious belief (which tend to limit happiness to only yourself or your tribe and promotes harm to all others). yeah, I may die tomorrow or in 50 years and whatever I do doesn’t change the fact that when my mind ends I “experience” the same non-existence. But while I’m alive, I find contentment and happiness in knowing that maybe I can make the world a better place for my daughter and her children and for humanity in general.

No, I doubt I’ll do anything great or grand. Won’t cure a disease, or solve hunger. But that does raise another question: Most Nobel Prize winners are atheists and agnostics. Why do they feel compelled to aid humanity and the conditions of the world if they’re godless and not guided by any Jesus In Their Heart (or Mohammed or Krishna or Fairy Spirits or whatever)? Because that’s how people define value in their life. I might not win any awards for humanitarianism, but I find value in what little improvement I can make in my own way. I find value in learning as much about reality as I can, and helping others to see the wonder and awe in the natural world. If I cause harm to another, it pains me. When I see joy in another, it elevates my own heart. I don’t need a supernatural Sky Daddy to threaten me with eternal damnation or tease me with everlasting life to know I can make a difference to people around me, and that difference can be positive or negative. Besides, Sky Daddy’s idea of value involves the suppression of reason, free will, intellect, and promotes mindless slavery to childish concepts of fear and black-and-white morality.

I prefer a more thoughtful, honest, free-will, honestly given/acquired sense of value and purpose in life.

* Oddly, I couldn’t find an online bio of Parsons. So, I’ve linked to some of his books

There’s a great refutation of the supposed four basic and indisputable “facts” regarding the resurrection of Jesus. These four facts are often used by Christian apologists, especially the preeminent William Lane Craig as proof of the Resurrection. Yet, they’re easily refuted by a critical thinker, like Jon Curry:

♦ My First Rebuttal

Good page to bookmark for later discussions of your own!

The Gene Expression science blog has an interesting post today:

♦ Biblical literalism or low IQ: which came first?

It’s a meta analysis of existing data culled from various sources which indicates that people who hold onto literal biblical interpretations tend to have lower IQs, and people of certain denominations have lower educations. For example, Unitarians, Episcopalians, and Methodists tend to have less literal biblical interpretations and higher education levels, while Southern Baptists and Pentecostal tend to have the lower IQs and education.

This correlation doesn’t surprise me. Regardless of the validity or truthfulness of the Christian Bible, it’s “easy” to just say “it’s all true” and treat each distinct component as truth. It doesn’t take much thinking or reason to accept what you’re told by authority–we’re fundamentally geared to do so, as humans. Even the cognitive dissonance which is required to believe the Bible literally does not take much thought–in fact, living with cognitive dissonance requires one not to think much about the contradictions and paradoxes that create the dissonance.

But, forgetting religious validity, still, it takes a much more thoughtful person to reason about something presented as fact and appreciate nuance, interpretation, incorporate conflicting data and change your belief and thinking based on new or newly interpreted data! People with lower mental faculties and/or less experience with the challenges of education tend to prefer certainty and order and abhor uncertainty and intellectual conflict that demands resolution, and will tend to believe unquestioningly what they are told by those they look to as authorities in order to preserve order and provide guidance on what to do in their lives.

Religious belief in general doesn’t respond to IQ or education as there are a great many educated intellectuals who hold onto religious beliefs. Though, most Nobel Prize winners in the non-arts have been atheists, and in the past when religious belief was compulsory (lest you were burned as a heretic) many of history’s intellectuals were as close to Deists as the cultural religious attitude would allow.

A really interesting, a little scary, story on io9 today:

♦ The “Trust Me” Drug That Makes You Take Social Risks

Basically, there’s a drug available which can alter the way the brain perceives people and can chemically make you more trusting and willing to behave on that trust.

Lee Randolph on Debunking Christianity discusses this and the entire concept of the brain having physiological areas which affect behavior, and discusses the religious implications in the context of divine reward and punishment:

♦ Brain’s ‘Trust Machinery’ Identified

The Friendly Atheist, a few days back, posted this thought-provoking article:

♦ Why Does God Allow Suffering?

The stream of comments below the article are really interesting to read and consider.

I have to say, this whole concept (along with the absurdity of a slow-spreading revealed religion being the best method an omnipotent god could come up with to spread the only means by which a person avoids eternal punishment for being created a flawed human outside theirn own control) was what clinched my disbelief in any Judeo-Christian idea of God, after years of sincere belief. There’s simply no reasonable excuse, explanation, apology, for it.

Music starts getting annoying, but watch to the end as it’s not all examples–but gets to a very valid and significant point at the end.

We can see from the Bible that the Early Jews struggled with Polytheism which is supported by Archeology.

The latest entry by Lee Randolph on Debunking Christianity:

♦ Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era

In this entry, like his previous one I blogged about: “Genesis… Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths”, he goes to great lengths to document and explain the historical, anthropological basis of the beginning of “man” in near eastern myths–particularly Judeo-Christian.

It continues the concept that religions and their textual basis have origins and a history–they don’t just spring into creation from nowhere. And the Bible is no different. It has a very colorful and interesting history, and a history born in human effort and consciousness.