Doubting Thomas

I keep hearing that Xianity is all about evidence, that Xians ask for evidence and receive it, and that god's cool with that. You know, he thinks we should be inquisitive and all that, and he'll provide evidence for us if we really want to see it. For an example of this, Xians often point to the story of Thomas. See, he doubts that Jesus has really come back from the dead, so Jesus literally has him touch the wounds that were inflicted by the crucifixion.

Wow, who could argue with that, right?

Except, there's still one small detail that usually gets left out of the story (and they say that atheists cherry pick from the Bible...) If you read just one more verse, you find this:

20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Notice the part that I took the liberty of bolding. Jesus shows Thomas the marks, and the rebukes him for needing evidence. He says that those who simply believe without requiring evidence are blessed, which doesn't include Thomas. This isn't Jesus saying that Xians should seek evidence, but that they should simply believe on faith. Instead of supporting the argument that Xianity is about evidence, it undermines it.

How Jesus Works Out

"Lord’s Gym, a 10,000 square foot fitness center . . . meshes prayer and push-ups. The gym offers classes including “Yogod,” its take on yoga. . . . Spaghetti-strap tank tops and short shorts are not allowed. . . . Per Heistad, who travels often for business and is a self-described gym rat, said he did not feel entirely comfortable in other gyms anymore. “I don’t need anything to lead me into temptation,” Mr. Heistad said. “I can get there on my own.” Merri Bush, 42, who is a member with her daughter, Christyna Askey, 21, said [that] . . . the two of them walk on the treadmill each morning while they read and discuss the Bible. Ms. Askey said, “It’s cool to be able to do that and not have people say, ‘What are you doing?’ ” —The Times."

The Passion

Most people, I think, are aware that this weekend represents Easter, the time when Jesus is said to have been crucified and then rose up 3 (really 2) days later. (Brains...brains...) The whole idea is that god sacrificed his son in order to allow us to be saved. So, let's look at this idea for a minute here. (I won't get into the patent absurdity that god demands a sacrifice of his own son in order to convince himself to allow himself to forgive us for sins that he placed upon us...at least not in this post.)

In the OT, when people needed atonement from god, they would sacrifice an animal. The idea was that one's sins could be transferred to the animal and then burned away through the act of offering a gift to the god. By the time of the early Xians, this practice apparently wasn't enough. The story of Jesus represents what is essentially a human/god sacrifice. Although Jesus is said to have risen again, the whole point of the story is that Jesus had to endure pain and suffering and death - all on our behalf. This is nothing more than the old idea of transferring one's sins to another vessel as atonement through sacrifice writ large.

Bottom line: Xianity is built on a human sacrifice. Now, why would we believe that such barbarism is worthy of our worship or that an all-loving god would require such barbaric acts?

Where's the Body?

OK, so if Jesus wasn't resurrected, why didn't all his detractors produce the body?

How many times have we all run across this little gem? It's an argument that apologists like William Lane Craig like to use, because they think it's a good argument. But, it only works if you make certain assumptions that can't be supported (i.e. begging the question). But, let's tackle it anyway, shall we?

There's a fatal flaw in this question in that it assumes that what is recounted in the Bible is really what happened - that Jesus lived, preached, died on the cross, that there was a real, dead body, that later people came and moved the boulder away, and found Jesus was alive and healthy. If you assume all this to be true, then it makes sense that people seeking to discredit Jesus would produce his corpse and say, "Here it is." I mean, c'mon, if groups of people are running around proclaiming that the guy you just killed came back to life, and you had his corpse, you'd show them, wouldn't you?

Except, we have no assurance that any of that actually happened! We know that the gospels are all written well after the events that they supposedly tell about, by people who weren't there. After 50 years or so, it's not at all surprising to think that the legend of Jesus could have taken on numerous stories about the things he did (turning water into wine, coming back from the dead, healing lepers, etc). Look at the cult worship that people have for Elvis and you get a sense of what urban legend can become for people who have sincerely held beliefs.

And, that's what is most likely in this case, that the gospel stories are urban legend. Jesus could be a made-up figure, or simply a traveling preacher that taught his brand of Judaism. It's likely that he was never crucified or even if he was that his body wasn't tossed into an unmarked grave and forgotten about, only to have later stories claim that he was resurrected and later Xians claim that the soldiers should have presented his body at the time. Yet, it's absurd to require the soldiers to present the body of a person who died before that person was written into the part of a god. It's just another bad example of apologetics that don't work.

Jesus vs. Foreign Policy

On the subject of war, you'd expect religion to provide solid ethical guidelines - that's what it does best, after all, say its adherents. There may not exist literal deities, messiahs, prophets - but at least the holy texts give us some firm basis by which to lead a good life, and maintain order in society. War is an issue that has troubled thinkers since biblical times and before; it has permitted the greatest atrocities imaginable to take place practically everywhere on Earth. War is the most violent, unforgiving aspect of modern existence; surely we must turn to religion for guidance here?

Take Christianity. The first Christians were absolute pacifists, who held that violence was inherently wrong, completely unacceptable and wholly avoidable. Jesus instructed them explicitly: "if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”, "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you", “blessed are the peacemakers”. They refused to join the Roman Army on principal, and for this were persecuted.

The Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in AD 312, and with him all of Rome. However, the Emperor desired to wage wars for the good of his people, and this was opposed by the teachings of Jesus. So, did he accept the fundamental basis of his religion in order to act morally? No. He waged war regardless.

Later, Christian theologians, most influentially Thomas Aquinas, attempted to justify violence using religion, producing the Just War Theory, which has since been adopted by most developed countries, and shaped United Nations' policy. Today, most Christians see no problem with sending their children to war, or supporting and voting in favour of conflicts around the globe.

My conclusion: despite the fact that Christians are by definition followers of Christ, who, if he taught ONE thing, it was that war, violence and conflict can NEVER be justified, this message is ignored, subordinated to the cunning logic of warmongers.

So what is the goddamn point of Christianity?

How Short is Short?

In the book of Revelation, it opens with the following line:

1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass...

This is followed up by 1:3 which claims that "The time is at hand."

The writers of the Bible seemed to think that the end was near. In fact, there's no shortage of end times warnings in the Bible. In fact, Jesus even says that the end is coming within one generation...

Yet, we are all still here. This is yet another instance of the Bible proving itself to be false.

My Way or the Highway

If you read John 16:4, it clearly states that the only way that one can attain heaven is through Jesus Christ. We can debate as to whether this means that one must follow Jesus, believe in Jesus, etc, but what we can't debate is that the Bible states that one must go through Jesus. So, how does one do that if one has never heard of Jesus? In our modern world, it is difficult to find people who don't learn something about Jesus or at least hear of this idea of Jesus. But, what about people who lived before the age of mass communication? Well, those people are bound for hell, simply for being ignorant of Xianity. I think we can all agree that this is unjust and immoral.

What about children who are too young to believe in anything? Well, then those children are bound for hell as well. I think we can agree that this is unjust and immoral as well.

Some Xians might object that surely a good god would not do such things, and would allow those people to go to heaven. But, this would demonstrate an unjust attitude as well, as those people would be held to different standards than those of us who have heard of this Jesus fellow. Either way, it is god who must act unjustly and immorally.

I've been saved

Today I return to the blog I sculpted with philanthropic intent so long ago; much has changed since that monumental day, including myself, my character, my ideology. No, you have not misread me. I have found God. Today I ask my devoted followers to journey with me once more: a journey to Jesus.

For, in my misguided attempt to find wisdom through science, my imprisonment in an ivory tower of my own psyche, I was neglecting that vital human attribute that is love; Agape, if you will. How often did I blaspheme my Lord. Oh, forgive me, pity me - for it is written that "thou shall not worship false idols", and my Papier-mâché Dawkins has long stood beside my bed as I slept.

To tell the truth I don't, and never did, really think Darwin was right. Have you seen that dinosaur with the tiny little arms? If that's not the work of an ironically fabricating deity I don't want to live. How does it masturbate?

No. My consciousness and innate sense of morality cannot have been forged through an evolutionary process, and I feel embarrassed that I ever believed it possible. From this day onwards I shall follow God through the teachings of His Representative On Earth, the Pope. And if I spread my chlamydia then so be it. I'm not using a prophylactic again.

Oh, how the Devil has led me astray through His soldiers of atheism! How those quick-witted gentiles and infidels held me under their spell of hate and denial! Woe is me! Let me burn, Jesus.

I will no longer donate my money to the poor. For, as it is written in Matthew, capitalism is the righteous path to take: for, as it is written:

10"When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11"When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, 12saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.' 13"But he answered and said to one of them, Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14'Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?'

And I will no longer tolerate: homosexuality; abortion; promiscuity, and not stoning women. X-dog out.

Liar, Lunatic, or Lord...or Something Else?

How often do you hear the apologetic refrain that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or lord? The idea goes that either one must say that Jesus was a con-artist, mentally deranged, or one has to admit that Jesus was the son of god, etc. Unfortunately for the apologist, this is a poor argument in quite a few ways.

First, the argument assumes that what the Bible reports about Jesus is true. We have no reason to believe that, however. The evidence is scant that a person named Jesus existed to begin with, and even if we grant that, there's no evidence to suggest that the Bible is accurate about what he said or did. We know that the accounts were written well after the time period in question by people who were not there to witness the goings-on, which is fatal to the argument.

Second, the argument relies on an emotional response from the one being questioned. People don't like to accuse others of being liars, nor do they like to make pronouncements about the sanity of others, so the question is rigged to play on these emotions and present the third option as more comfortable. This pushes the one being questioned towards that answer due to their human emotions, not their reason or intellect.

Which leads to a third problem, which is that there aren't only 3 choices to this dilemma. It's quite possible that if Jesus did exist and claim to be the son of god, that he might have simply been mistaken or himself misled. There's no reason to rule out those possibilities if we assume that the story is historically accurate. It's just another example of bad apologetics.

The Inevitability of Jesus

I've recently had a theist posit that god planned to have Jesus come and save us from the beginning of time, whether the fall had happened or not. Let's think about that for a moment, shall we?

If Jesus was always destined to come, then humans were always in need of saving, even before the fall. This wipes away any chance the theist has to claim that we deserve hell due to the fall (not that that is a good claim to make mind you). If we were in need of salvation from the beginning, the all humans regardless of our deeds or the past deeds of our ancestors were made by god to be destined for hell unless he comes to save us. What moral being would consciously make entities that it earmarked for hell from the very beginning?

Yet, in a strange way, it's probably one of the most logical stances that a theist could take. If god is omni-max, then anything and everything that happens in this world necessarily has to happen by this god's demand and according to this god's will. So, god wills that people die in horrible accidents, he wills that people are evil to each other, and he wills that people go to hell. The argument that god does not wish for anyone to perish is also obviously thrown out the window with this admission that Jesus was destined from the start. I'd score that one an own goal.

Jesus and the whip

Let us read from the book of John, Chapter 2, verse 15...

OK, let me paraphrase...Jesus gets mad at some money changers hanging out and doing business in the temple, so he fashions a whip and goes into the temple and drives them all out under threat of violence.

But, I thought Jesus was supposed to be peaceful and sin-free? Is it not sinful to whip other people? Ah, some apologists have jumped on this and said that the Bible doesn't say that he actually whipped anyone, so it's all right. But, it's not all right. It's certainly against the law in this country to threaten someone with a weapon (it's called assault at the least). Even if Jesus merely used the whip to frighten the money changers out of the temple, he assaulted them. This is not moral, and violates the same laws that he laid forth in some of his sermons. Apparently, we find once again that god does not have to follow the same moral laws that he expects all of us to follow.

Three Days

So, supposedly Jesus died and was resurrected after three days. So, he died on a Friday - which Xians now celebrate as Good Friday (Yay, Jesus is dead!) - and came back to life on a Sunday. Three days, Friday to Sunday......Oops.

Love Thy Neighbor

I could point to the book of Deuteronomy and what it tells you about treatment of unbelievers - it says that you should kill them. And, I could tie that together with Jesus and his penchant for chiding people for not following the laws of the OT closely enough. But, I thought I would focus on the NT treatment of others.

The well known verse is that Jesus said one should love thy neighbor, and many Xians understand that to mean that one should love all. This is not the case, however, if one takes into account the other teachings of the Bible. Take 2 Cor. 6 for example, where god commands that believers separate themselves from unbelievers, to shun them basically, and shut themselves off from them. That doesn't sound very neighborly to me.

Or, take 2 John. This book tells us that all who don't believe in Christ are liars and antichrists. I'm not sure if the word "antichrist" held the same meaning then as it does now, but if so this book is calling all non-Xians devils. Again, this is not very neighborly. Later, god instructs Xians to turn away all non-Xians, don't invite them into your home, don't even tell them "god speed," because even by bidding them a good farewell you are partaking in their evil deeds. (Aside: evil deeds? It's evil to not believe, even though we are made that way?) Even though the NT no longer directly commands you to kill non-believers, it certainly doesn't command that you love them. When Jesus said, "Love they neighbor," in this context, he certainly meant that one should love his fellow Jews, and the later Xians turned it into loving one's fellow Xians.

The Trinity

OK, so god is a single being, ya know, because Xianity is all monotheistic and stuff, right? But, god is also three distinct beings in the father, son, and holy ghost. Um, what? How is it that god is both one being and three beings, and Xianity is monotheistic? Well, it's just another contradiction of course. When your whole religion is based on contradiction, I suppose it gets easier after a while.

Also, why is Satan not considered at least a demi-god in some Xian sects? Wouldn't this also be a violation of the monotheism thing?

Birth of Jesus

Some Xians seem to think that the Bible is very accurate and archaeologically proven. I've previously shown some examples of how this is not so. Let's take a look at another one, Jesus's birth.

In order to fulfill some prophecy, Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem, so the gospel authors had to invent some reason for Jesus's parents to travel there for his birth as well as establish a timeline. Luke and Matthew both tell us that it was during the time of King Herod's reign. Herod, however, died in 4 BCE. Luke goes on to invent a reason for Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. He tells us that Augustus Caesar has decreed a tax and that all people have to travel to their ancestor's homeland in order to pay this tax. Apart from the absurdity that the Roman government would force people to move simply in order to pay a tax (they were better governed than that and would not erect barriers to taking tax money from their subjects), the timeframe for this is supposedly when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. But, Cyrenius wasn't governor until 6 CE.

So, it appears that there is a problem of timeline here, one that the Bible writers were careless about. It does speak against the claim that many make that the Bible is highly accurate and reliable. There are many instances where the stories simply don't match up with history and evidence, and this is just another case.

The Cross

You do know that the cross that you worship is a torture device, right? And, you do know that it's very probable that Jesus (if he existed and died as the Bible says) would have been crucified on a cross that resembled a "T" and not a "t", right?

Jesus

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to assume that Jesus said the things attributed to him in the Bible, because I want to look at the message that the Bible gives us. Is it a good message or a bad one? Let's find out, shall we?

First, there are some good things in there. The golden rule is one (although it didn't originate with Jesus, still he gets points for saying it), don't brag, don't judge, love your neighbor, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, don't be a hypocrite. Jesus, of course, falls well short of many of these things and is rather hypocritical, and there's serious scholarship about some of these, like the idea of one's neighbors being fellow Jews and no one else. Regardless, let's just move forward.

Jesus also said some bad things, like the bits about how one should hate one's family, how he didn't come to bring peace but to bring a sword, his acceptance of the Noachian flood, etc. One would think that an all-loving, omni-benevolent god would only bring good words and not evil ones, which makes for a real problem for Xians. Also, the good should be considered with the bad. All too often Xians make the mistake of focusing solely on the good and disregarding the bad, but one needs to acknowledge both. This isn't the focus of this post, however.

The real focus is on a big problem I have with the teachings of Jesus in the Bible. Jesus sets up a system of absolutes. One is either good or bad, with nothing in between. Then, he sets up impossible standards. For instance, in the sermon on the mount, Jesus says that one should not be angry with others (without cause I believe). But, he takes it to extremes when he equates being angry with others to be tantamount to murder. This has gone too far as is all too often the case with theistic belief. Anger is a natural and normal human expression. We should strive to not be angry without cause, but it is going to happen from time to time. What we should focus on is finding positive outlets for that anger. Yet, according to Jesus, we are all guilty of murder. We are all guilty of sin and worthy of punishment. And, as if that weren't enough, Jesus is not content to allow us to simply die, but we must be punished. So, he preaches that we are all guilty and are all deserving of eternal torment in hell. This pernicious teaching is simply vile and anti-human.

Evangelical atheism in Peru

I was quite astounded at the arrogance displayed by American evangelicals who travelled to South America to convert "the unreached". These "ignorant" farmers apparently needed to hear the Good News before they died, so as not to burn in agony for infinity. Many Catholic sites have a "pray for them" widget featuring exotic cultures that have not discovered the joys of Jesus and child abuse.

It's this kind of mentality which theoretically justifies the nauseating torture used on Catholics/Protestants/witches in the dark ages: which was done with good intention - 'if we stick weights on Joe heretic until he repents then we're sending him to paradise'.

What confuses me is how Jehovah seems to have got more liberal over the centuries; if it was okay to have a slave or two in the nineteenth century then why has he suddenly gone Democrat about it now? The erosion of religious morality and scientific denial has to end sometime.

Mary

I didn't know this until reading Hitchens' book: some Xians believe that the virgin Mary would not have been pure enough to carry god's seed unless she herself was conceived immaculately. Are you kidding me? Doesn't this set up an infinite regress? If Jesus could not have left Mary untainted by original sin, then she too would still be tainted by original sin unless her mother was an immaculate conception and so on. So, not only do some Xians posit that a woman got preggers without having sex, but so did her mom. Something that we know is biologically impossible happened not just once, but twice.

What is it about being virginal or not having sex that makes one pure? Why is sex considered dirty and why do Xians have such a pre-occupation with the sex of others? This compulsion to label anything sexual as shameful is one of the more perverse parts of Xianity. Apparently god gave us something enjoyable and necessary, then decided that it was a bad thing we should avoid. But he gave us free will as well; which is a bad thing in his eyes, since he made us vulnerable to temptation. Is there anything about Xianity that makes sense?

Jesus and Family

Do Xians love their families? According to Jesus, they shouldn't. First he preaches that children who don't honor their parents should be killed - as the OT law says (Matt 15:4-7); but then he contradicts himself: we should not call our fathers dad, since only god can be "father" (Matt 23:9). We should abandon our families for god (Matt 19:29), etc.

In one particularly telling passage Jesus, in Luke 14:26, instructs his followers to hate their father mother wife children brethren and sisters. Wow. It doesn't stop there though. He even says that one must hate oneself in order to be a follower of him. So, how many of you Xians hate yourselves? Is that healthy?