₦airaland Forum

Why are Nigerian Pastors Becoming too fetish[istic]? Because, they are all cut from the same cloth.

I bet, Pastor and cheating wife were both crying out "Oh, my god, oh my god" at the moment of orgasm.

I wonder whether she would have been so easily exploited if she had been a rationalist.

I shall later try to describe the various parties in this story under my characterisation of christian.

Deuteronomy 24:1

"When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house."

A_K_O:
They were deleted because they are off-topic.

The thread is about Mary and not the universe/big bang theory/et al.

Next.

Appreciate. But when imbecility is made on a thread, that must be confronted forthwith. As it happens I did not start the derailment, but had to react to the non-sense that some posters were saying.

To go back to the subject - Can a human give birth to a god?

what happened to all the posts on this thread?

Following my many years of living amongst Christians, debating them, reading their literature and my, luckily,  brief incarnation (~5 years.  I don't really count the first 10 years of my life) as a Christian, I wish to attempt a brief characterisation of the various types of Christians I have encountered.

If you find any of this represents you, I would be much obliged if you could respond.  In fact, respond anyway about how you approach your Christian faith.

Here we go;

1)  The Simple Christian

These are characterised as the simple and well-meaning Christian who acquired their beliefs from their culture and have never questioned what they believe.  These types of Xians are usually ignorant of the core tenets of their beliefs and rely part or wholy on the religions leaders to direct aspects of the lives and beliefs.  They tend to accept everything from the religious elders without question and are thus open to exploitation.  The great majority of such Xians are illiterate or semi-illiterate and rarely or never read their holy books.

They tend to have high level of faith in their religion, almost unshakable, as they would have been little exposure to other ideological postions and they generally lack the cognitive skills to assess alternative positions.

You would find such Xians amongst all the myriads of Xian denominations - Catholics, Evangelicals,  Baptists, etc and typically characterised by that country-pumpkin attitude.  Since the level of literacy is low amongst such, you would find most of their in underdeveloped/privileged areas as in the African village communities amongst the ill-educated

2)  Basic or social Christian.

These are the slightly better educated Christian who are passionate about their belief but lack the individual industry to investigate it themselves. The have good reading and comprehension skills, but they would never read their bible unless there is an occasion (like church, prayer meeting, etc).  On such occasion, they get directed from verse to verse by the preacher and they just sit there and shake their heads and even take notes, or highlight (or underline) their bibles.  The minute they are out of the devotional environment, their level of commitment dimishes.

These sort of Christian would have been brought up in a loosely Christian environment and it would be taken for granted that their religion is right and true.  Their basic level of education means that they are amenable to other ideas and are thus easily enticeable to other Christian denominations.

As far as their religion is concerned, nothing but faith speaks to them.  Their basic educations mean they lack the cognitive skills to assess and relate other important fields of human endeavour.  The may have some basic science education but they would NOT have ingrained the principles of scientific and philosophical enquiry.  They tend to be highly manipulable and pliable in other areas of life.

These tend to be biblical literalists and would be in opposition to scientific developments either for want of understanding or for sheer ignorance.  They would not understand scientific concepts/theories such as The Theory of Evolution, Big Bang, etc.

In my experience, the vast majority of Christians would find themselves in this class.

3) Pseudo-sophisticated Christian.

This type of Christian is sheer blooded-mindedly stupid and a zealot, all at once. They are particularly industrous and diligent in their attachment to Christianity and would continue to be so even if the bones of Jesus were to be discovered today and it was proven 100% that these were Jesus's bones.  They do not care about the truth as much as their affiliation to a superstitious myth.  Their industry means that they would have spent time and money investigating the various criticisms of theism and christianity but because they are committed to their position are impervious to reason.  In fact, because of the sense of cognitive disonance they inevitably feel, they would tend to be even more zealous for their defunct ideas.  The operative word for these types is intellectual dishonesty.

They like to engage others, christians and non christians alike in debates and even if caught lying or in dishonesty will rarely back down.

Examples of such are Kent Hovind and many apologist here on Niaraland such as davidylan, pilgrim, Stimulus, Imhotep, etc, etc

Other characterisation to follow . . .

In the summer of 1979, I was a theology student at the top of my game. I was standing next to several of my professors, some recognized as the worldwide authorities in their fields. I had already completed a B.A. degree with a double major, history and theology, with a minor in Koine Greek. Now I was the fair-haired golden boy of the theological seminary at Andrews University. It was graduation. I was speaking with these professors I had looked up to for so many years, who were now starting to treat me as a bit of a colleague. I was basking in the glow of graduation from the Master of Divinity program at the theological seminary and had graduated first in a class of 300, Summa cum Laude. I had just been invited to enter the Doctor of Theology program at the University. What made that unusual was that no student had ever before been allowed to enter that program prior to serving several years as a pastor and receiving ordination. I was being fast-tracked to become a seminary professor myself. I had just been interviewed by the executive editor of the Southern Publishing Association and asked to write a commentaty on the Apocalypse for educated laymen and college students. Two of my professors had already given me multiple opportunities to guest lecture in their M.Div. classes on the subject of apocalyptic literature and New Testament eschatology. I was a committed Christian who was realizing a dream years in the making.

While I had been brought up in the Armenian Protestant tradition, I had steadily been embracing Calvinist theology, albeit without the hard predestinarianism associated with it. The death and resurrection of Jesus as my saviour, forensic justification, the Protestant credo; Grace alone, Faith alone, and scripture as sole authority, were my life blood. I stood firmly in the gospel and let the gospel stand in judgment of all things; creeds, church institutions, and worldview. I was as committed as one could be and certain of my salvation by the grace of God through his son Jesus Christ. I was a believer, an Evangelical Christian.

As I entered into my doctoral program, specializing in apocalyptic literature, I took on the position of associate editor of "Evangelica" magazine, published numerous articles, and begain accepting invitations to give seminars at churches in several states. I excelled in my studies, maintaining a straight 4.0 G.P.A. throughout.

But there was a serpent in the garden. I had studied deeply in Christian apologetics (defending the faith) using clear logic and argumentation to bolster the reasons for articles of faith. I was convinced that reason and faith could work hand in hand, that reason strengthened faith, and faith could take us where reason could not. One day I picked up a book on economics by Ayn Rand, "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal." I found the arguments for free markets and capitalism to be enlightening and compelling from the practical standpoint. But the more challenging part of the book was the moral defence for capitalism. I had always believed, in keeping with the teachings of Jesus, that there was no positive morality involved in the pursuit of commercial interests, wealth, or any of the material benefits of the secular world other than to renounce them and give to the poor. Suddenly I was confronted with a tightly argued presentation of the morality and the necessity of using one's mind for survival and well being, for being properly concerned with life, this life on earth, and the irrationality of self sacrifice and altruism. Her interplay of the practical and the moral were a blatant challenge to my Christian worldview wherein this life was to be used to serve the purposes of God in sacrifice to Him and others, with the reward coming in the next life. Jesus, as he is presented in the gospels, deliberately drives a wedge between the moral and the practical. A three page section of Rand's book called "the Meaning of Money" presented a conversation of two protagonists debating the question of the truth of Jesus' position that money is the root of all evil. As the conversation grew sharper, the debate corrected to Jesus' position that the Love of money is the root of all evil. The capitalist protagonist began to show that there is no higher value to man than life. Without it, no other values exist. That that which supports this life is the moral and that which is destructive of life is the immoral. That this life is the only one we have (any other is just a hope). That we survive through the use of our mind and reason. That we use our minds to judge the best course of action, to reep the rewards of our thought and action, and to live as we see fit without coercion. That reason is our only guide and means of knowledge. That self sacrifice by any organism, from the lowliest worm to the most intelligent human, is the road to self destruction and death. That money is the visible means of identifying the value we offer to others in exchange for the value they offer to us. It is the tangible symbol of the best within us and is the support for life, our highest value. That the value we put on money is the value we put on our own life itself. That to disdain money is to disdain life. That to love life is to love money which supports it. I was stunned, not that I agreed with the position at that time, but that morality could be so logically argued and tightly reasoned from an ontological perspective (arising out of that which is, existence) rather than being a kind of knowledge only available from revelation. Reason from existence vs. acceptance by authority. She summed up Judeo-Christian morality in this way, To the degree that we are fitted properly for this life, we are unfit for the next. The result of the Christian morality is that to the degree we are fitted properly for the life to come, we are unfit for survival in this life. The vision before my mind was the ultimate symbol of Christian righteousness, Christ on the cross, death in this life in sacrifice for others, self immolation, with new life in glory. Death and humiliation as the paradigm for our proper behavior vs. a morality of making the best out of the life we have, to live for our own purposes, to love this life. The differences are obviously stark, and the sources for the two moralities just as opposite, reason vs. authority. The explosion of Christian morality through reason was shocking. I had never questioned it before. I had thought that Christian morality was the obvious, the given. That those who rejected it did so for sinful reasons, not for moral reasons. Could it be that the morality of Jesus' was irrational?

And then came the computer virus that began working its way through my mind, corrupting every connection, thought, and memory. Rand pointed out that all systems of thought begin with premises. But then she issued the challenge, "CHECK YOUR PREMISES." Nothing, no other concept, no other challenge, has so profoundly influenced my life. I had observed Rand systematically debunking the sermon on the mount, the moral teachings of Jesus, and the Christian life of piety, through reason and logic, the same methods I had used in Christian apologetics to support my faith and that of millions of others throughout the last 2,000 years. How could this be? How can two systems both use the same logical methods to arrive at such opposite conclusions? The answer was in their respective starting points. These questions didn't percolate quickly through my mind, but they did work as a background program over the next two years.

Finally, with a troubled mind and a fear of doubting, which is placed into every Christian early on, I took the challenge. I decided to check my premises. It is such a simple thing to do, and it is a continuing source of embarassment to me that I had managed to achieve the doctoral level in my theological studies without ever asking the basic questions and demanding satisfactory answers. I asked myself, "What are the premises upon which Christianity is based?" I started from the philosophy of religion perspective and found Karl Barth to be the most lucid expositor of the theistic premises. He posited two presuppositions (premises) on which the whole of theological speculation is based:

1. There is a God
2. He has revealed Himself.

Yes, I agreed that those are the starting points upon which all logical arguments for God and His will are based. Number one deals with metaphysics, the issue of existence. To acknowledge this premise is to accept as a fact that God exists. Number two deals with epistemology, the means of knowledge and verification. Together, these presuppositions state that God exists and He has made Himself known to man. The problem as I pondered was that these premises were presuppositions, not objective facts. That is, they were propositions that we suppose to be true in advance as a starting point. But are these propositions really facts? Are they proper starting points? Or are they themselves conclusions? On what basis? Theologians and philosophers have long pondered these issues, and other than the more ignorant fundamentalist country preachers, most have acknowledged that there is nothing within the natural world enabling us to indicate the existence of the supernatural. Or to put it another way, God's existence must be taken as a given, not the result of a line of reasoning or argumentation. We must first believe that He is. The act that existence exists, that there is a universe rather than nothing, does not require the existence of God. Without evidence, and indeed no evidence is possible, the brutal fact is that the first premise that God exists, is an arbitrary proposition; arbitrary meaning that it has no cause or evidence. That "God exists" must be accepted solely on the basis of sheer faith, unseen, and unknowable. When it is acknowledged that the first premise is arbitrary, it necessarily follows that the second premise, that God has revealed Himself, is also arbitrary since it is derivative upon acceptance if the first premise that God exists. Even so, the question becomes "Revealed how?" The Christian will always answer this with a two-fold response. God first revealed himself through "inspired" men throughout the ages and finally through his son who was the pre-existent God becoming a man, living about two thousand years ago ina poor backwater of the Roman Empire. This revelation to "inspired men" is problematic. Why was such vital information released piecemeal in a geographically limited area to one group and not available to every person equally? And how can we know that anything was actually revealed to any of these individuals? We cannot check out their stories and claims. In fact, in many cases the original writers are unknown. How do we know if they conveyed their revelations accurately? And how do we know that the copying of texts through millenia has been scrupulously accurate? If errors could have crept in, how do we know what they are, what was original, and what was altered? How do we know which claimants to revelation were truthful and which were fakers? Numerous individuals have claimed to have received communication from a god. We know more about Muhammad, Joseph Smith, Ellen White, and the Rev. Moon than we know about many of the authors of the writings which make up the Bible. Which prophet do we accept and which do we reject? By what criteria? If we choose Paul and use his thoughts as a standard, then we reject Muhammad. But if we choose Muhammad and use his thoughts as a standard, then we reject Paul. Why would the great Revealer make us arbitrarily choose which guy to trust in order to come to salvific knowledge? When we choose, and choose we must if we accept the premise that God has revealed Himself, we are ultimately directing faith not to a god, but to the man or woman claiming to be the recipient of the revelation. Why must we exercise faith in fallible men to understand God and his will? Do we know if any inspired man was actually mentally ill or delusional? Do we know if he had a good memory and faithfully wrote down every detail which was revealed to him accurately? We do know that problems occurred in the transmission of the texts, that corruptions entered the texts through omissions by copyists, additions to add authority to someone's pet beliefs, through changes intended to clarify based upon current understanding, through outright fraud and forgery, through simple copying errors, and by the church of the fourth century as it tried to clarify and define orthodoxy. The fundamentalist will answer that from start to finish, God's revelation was controlled and preserved at every level by his will, that is by a long series of miracles safeguarding his word. But this is an argument of faith, not fact; it is unknowable, circular reasoning.

"All of this is a problem" I thought to myself, "and a huge and fundamental problem at that." If all theological thought begins with two premises which must be accepted by faith alone, then is there no objectivity involved? This gets to the crucial questions,\

1. What do I know? and
2. How do I know it?

We are right back to the issues of metaphysics and epistemology.; I had long believed that reason and faith were fellow travelers. Reason could be used to get us part of the way and to bolster faith with evidence, and that faith could fill in the gaps of information unavailable to reason. But if the starting point must be accepted by faith, it is then like a child's game of "let's pretend." Let's pretend that there is a God and that he has revealed Himself, and then logically and with reason extrapolate those premises. We end up with systems called Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but the pyramid of belief which was so carefully built up with so much painstaking care and reasoning all stands on a completely arbitrary and very uncertain foundation. At this point, the marriage of reason and faith is on the rocks. If faith is the starting point and posits "facts" not in evidence, no reasonong beyond that point, no matter how erudite, can claim anything more than that it is a house of cards, smoke, and mirrors. No knowledge can be furthered by extrapolating arbitrary "facts."

As I grappled with these issues, I was devastated. Could my whole worldview, all my study, all my hopes be false? I couldn't accept it. I began to loook for another way to objectify my beliefs. I turned to the second claim of God's revelation, that of the incarnation of Jesus. The Judeo-Christian tradition (and its stepchild, Islam) is unique in world religions in that it claims that God has entered history. In the case of Christianity, He entered history in the person of Jesus of Nazareth who was born a Jew in the first century, was the promised Messiah of the Jews, taught with the authority of God, worked numerous miracles which certified his claims, was crucified, dead, and buried. That on the third day through a mighty miracle, God raised him from the dead. The risen Jesus was then seen by hundreds of witnesses over a period of weeks, and was then raised up to heaven before a group of witnesses. This claim is not a faith issue (using "faith" as an epistemological method). Rather, it is a historical claim, subject to the same methods of examination to which other events of history are subject. That he was dead and then alive again is the historical claim. That the event has implications for believers is a faith issue and is not subject to historical investigation. It is the claim of the actual events on the Judean dirt that must be examined as history.

I seized on this issue as the solution to my questions. It would objectify the basic claims of Christian belief even if the philosophical side was wanting. I threw myself into the question with high energy. While this is not the venue for explaining the details, I put together a research project to marshall all the evidence possible to bolster the arguments for the objective historical claims. I read every apologetic book I could find on the resurrection. I read some historical-critical scholarly texts. And I did intense research on my own. I came out at the far end of that study with the realization that the claim of the death and resurrection of Jesus as a historical event was indefensible. The only way to hold on to that belief would be to blindly accept the internally contradictory and irrational claims of the mostly anonymous writers of the New Testament.

I was faced with two options; retreat into faith, blind faith, to believe in the absence of evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary. Or I could use the mind I have to apprehend the universe and existence as it is, not as I wish it were. FAITH or REASON. There is no middle ground. Either-or. I chose reason, but not without pain. It was an exceedingly difficult thing to shed the beliefs of a lifetime which had permeated every part of my being and my outlook. At every point I had to stop and ask myself if I were reacting automatically to my old perspectives or was I thinking and acting in accordance with reason.

I deliberately and proudly expunged faith from my being and took up the banner of reason. When asked what I believe in now, I invariably respond "I don't believe in anything." What I mean is that I know. I apply reason to every part of my life. That perspective is helpful in protection against all con men, religious or commercial. For the last 25 years I have been an Objectivist with reason and logic as my only means of knowing and acting. I have rejected Christianity and other forms of theism. I consider faith to be a short circuit of the mind and hugely detrimental to achieving the full potential of human possibility. Faith is the lazy man's attempt at gaining knowledge, free from the rigors and risks of thinking.

In the interim years, I have remained a careful student of philosophy, theology, and history. I have worked diligently to deconstruct the claims of Christianity, for my own benefit and that of others crippled by this scourge. I study the formative period of Christian origins to ascertain what actually took place and how Christianity evolved into that which we recognize today. I believe theism is the most destructive force in the world today. It cripples the human mind and its potential. It causes the sacrifice of the interests of this life for the delusion of a hoped for afterlife. It allows separation and vilification. Its fundamentalist side can has frequently led to coercion and voilence. It is intolerant. Its liberal side has led to the collectivist/altruist governance of communism, progressivism, and the social welfare state. In a post-enlightenment world, it has no place. Christianity belongs to the primitive, superstitious, and credulous past.

Bart Willruth

I wonder whether any members have got any thoughts on this question.

Well done! I bet these prostitute are making Nigerians proud (or not so proud, depending on your attitude).

Keep it up ladies.

Robert Bumbalough's Deconversion From Christianity

From the time of my earliest childhood, I was indoctrinated into the Christian religion. My Aunt and Uncle who raised me after the death of my mother, were devout Christians and members of the Church of Christ. Our home was in Sparta Tennessee, and the faith was “that old time religion”. My Aunt taught me to read using a picture book Bible. I recall the beautiful medieval and renaissance paintings of Biblical heroes that illustrated the stories. I was only five years old, and I loved the painting of Elijah taken up to Heaven by Caspar Luiken (Dutch 1672-1708). The first words I learned to read were from 2 King 2:11 “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” Aunt Grace may have chosen that passage because of her love for bright sunny days.[1] I recall how pleased she was and how I, in turn, wanted to please her. So naturally, I just prayed the sinner’s and bedtime prayers she taught me to say. Thus I was a Christian.

Quite normally, in my teen years I rebelled against convention and all the things that were expected of me. When I was seventeen years old, that changed on Halloween night of 1973. One of my little high school buddies had found Jesus at a Church called “The Lord’s House”. Jay invited me to attend the Worship service that Wednesday evening. Since Jay was one of the cool kids and I was not, I was happy to accompany him. After the congregation would sing its hymns they all raised their hands to God and Jesus. I had never seen that in any other Worship services, but I recall thinking “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. So I too raised my hands and told God what a swell guy he was. The faith inculcated in me had not died, rather it had only gone dormant while my teenage rebellion wore on. The sermon was a typical need for salvation exhortation based on Romans chapter 6. I went down to the front on the second verse of “Just As I Am” for the altar call along with 5 or 6 other teenagers. After leading me through the “Sinner’s Prayer”, Pastor Carlson asked me how I felt. I thoughtfully considered for a moment while thinking of the things my friend, Jay, had said to me about being “Born Again”. I decided to say, “I feel new” because I wanted to please the pastor despite not actually being personally acquainted. This satisfied Pastor Carlson. Yet I did feel something. The feeling others identified as “The Real Presence” or “The Burning In The Breast” signifying the presence of the Holy Ghost witnessing to my “soul” the truth and efficacy of the Gospel. The Lord’s House was a full Gospel Pentecostal Church. A couple of months after being “saved” I became baptized with the Holy Spirit. Speaking in Tongues seemed to me at the time to be a strong confirmation of Christian reality.

As I grew up, Christianity and Church were the most important factors in my life. I was literally living for and experiencing Jesus as what seemed like ultimate reality. I truly loved God. My life was a living sacrifice for Jesus. Time passed, and a few years later, I was staying on campus at Memphis State University in Browning Hall men’s residence. Those years on campus were delightful and fun. I was regularly attending a small Charismatic Baptist Church. I had a part time job, a car, a Christian girl friend, and many Christian pals. My mentors were the mature and mothering Christian ladies of the Church and a number of good friends who were Medical School students. Church, Bible Study, prayer meetings, Devotions and the associated social activities occupied all my free time. I was very keenly aware and motivated to please God and Jesus in all my activities.

I loved learning. Class and homework were a delight. When I learned from Geology, Physics, and Biology classes that the Genesis Creation accounts were not literally true, I was shocked since form earliest childhood, I'd been taught that Genesis was true. What, there was no Adam and Eve, no Garden, no expulsion, no original sin, no Deluge? The evidence of reality told a quite different story. How was I to determine what was real? Should I trust the evidence or the unsupported Bible stories? This was more than my mind could reasonably hold. Something had to go; I chose to accept the evidence and let Mythology go. Yet, I still had faith in God and Jesus because I felt the inner witnessing of what I thought to be the Holy Spirit.

My little job in a restaurant put me in contact with several Navy Vets, and their sea stories influenced me to join the US Navy. I wanted to see the world, so I dropped out of college and enlisted in the Navy. To my chagrin the Navy was unpleasant in its special obnoxious military manner. Despite that, when I look back on those years spent serving aboard ARS-40, USS Hoist, its plain that I was having a great and fun time. Life on the ship was hard work, but going to foreign ports of call made all the work and military nonsense worth while. During this time, I was still a Christian and completely open to whatsoever God had is store for me. My shipboard duties consumed almost all my time. To fit in with the shipmates, I kept my devotions private. But the problems of Christian mythology in light of modern science dogged my thinking.

Hoist was an ocean going tug boat with salvage capability. Fleet command ordered the ship to Haifa Israel for a job recovering an anchor lost by another US Navy vessel. The job took three weeks, and the crew got liberty several times. On a Sunday, the ships service officer arraigned for a bus tour of interesting tourist sites in Israel. The bus visited several ancient Biblical places where we got off for a few minutes to snap some pictures and hear the tour guide lecture. Then it was back onto the bus and off to the next place. The bus took us to what we were told was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We all got off and took the tour of the Church including a visit to the alleged empty tomb. I was still nominally a Christian, but my doubts had crystallized by leading a more secular life in the company of several non-believers.

Reflecting on my Christian Conversion and experience, the doubts engendered by learning the teleology taught to me by my Aunt and Uncle and Sunday School teachers when I was young was false occupied my mind as I walked the tour at The Church of The Holy Sepulcher that Sunday in early summer 1980. After paying the five dollars, the priest showed us about. Walking on the concave path worn down by countless Christian pilgrims back to the Edicule where the supposed tomb of Joseph of Areamathea allegedly once held the corpse of Jesus Christ, I felt a sense of awe and being very small in relation to the depth of history. Then it finally came to be my turn to walk into the tomb. While inside, I was struck by the stark barren walls and crumbling rubble strewn about. There were no carvings or graffiti, no inscriptions, no iconography of any sort, and no way to identify this particular hole in the wall as the tomb of anyone in particular. Yet there I was inside the place where the ultimate act of redemption for mankind was supposed to have occurred, so I prayed. I called on God to show me if he really was real. I recall that I said to God: “Here I am Lord. This is the place where it all took place. If your real, this is the place to show me. If you’ll reveal yourself to me, I’ll spend the rest of my life serving you in ministry. This I pray in Jesus’ name.” In my mind at that time was the sincere intention to devote the remainder of my life to service to God and mankind if God would only show me he was actually real. Then the priest shooed me out of the tomb to make way for the next visitor. As I walked out of the tomb, I thought to myself that all the religious experiences of my life were somehow no longer meaningful. The Spirit did not move me a bit while I prayed and waited. I was reminded of this when I watched the scene in "Kingdom Of Heaven" where Balian stands on the Hill of Calvary and prays for God to show him a sign. Like my own experience, Balian got only silence. Like Balian, I was open to whatsoever the Lord would have me do, but just as God was depicted hiding Himself from Balian, so also He hid from me.

Back at the Hoist, later that evening as I read my Bible, and as much as I wanted a passage to be illuminated to my understanding, none were. Later I recalled Mark 8:12 “And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.” And Matthew 12:39 “But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas”. But why would no sign be given? If we love someone would you or I or anyone else not take time to show that our case was believable? Would not it be wrong to demand someone not only believe but base their life on a fantastic story we offered up without good evidence? So if its wrong for us why is it not wrong for God? Is morality objective? If so then that which is right for us is right for God and what is wrong for us is wrong for God. If Jesus condemns us for not believing, Jesus cannot be “good”. If we say Jesus is good despite the arbitrary and unjust demand to believe without evidence, are we not denuding the concept of goodness of any meaning.

Is a person justified in asking for confirmation from God? The Bible teaches that we are allowed to ask God for confirming signs of his will. Abraham sought a sign from Yahweh in Genesis 15:7-16 to confirm the inheritance promise Yahweh had made to him. In Judges 6:36-40 is found the story of Gideon and the sign of the dewy fleece. Gideon had earlier asked for a sign in Judges 6:17-21 too, yet in verse 39 Gideon asks for double confirmation in order to be sure Yahweh was with him in a war against the Midianites and the Amalekites. In 1 Kings 18:36-39, the prophet Elijah calls for a sign from Yahweh to demonstrate that Yahweh is God rather than Baal. Yahweh is depicted as demonstrating he is God by sending fire to consume a sacrifice that resulted in Elijah murdering lots of people. And in 2 Kings 20:8-11, King Hezekiah wanted a sign that he would be healed. Isaiah the prophet offered the King the choice of either the sun advancing or retreating 10 degrees. Hezekiah choose to see the sun retreat 10 degrees. According to the scripture: “20:11 And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.” In Acts 1:23-26, the Eleven Apostles pray that God show them by way of lottery who is to replace the dead Judas Iscariot. These Biblical periscopes show that one can expect God to reveal Himself when committed to obeying the will of God. But the very fact that God remains hidden in the face of open and sincere seeking is puzzling. Given that God is loving, fair, just, and is not a respecter of persons, then the vast number of non-resistant, open minded and willing seekers who fail to find or experience God in any way is a strong evidential phenomena that God probably does not exist.

John Schellenberg, author of “Divine Hiddenness And Human Reason” expressed an argument from non-resistant non-belief in an essay entitled “What Divine Hiddenness Reveals, or How Weak Theistic Evidence is Strong Atheistic Proof (2008)” [2]

If there is a perfectly loving God, all creatures capable of explicit and positively meaningful relationship with God who have not freely shut themselves off from God are in a position to participate in such relationships--i.e., able to do so just by trying to.

No one can be in a position to participate in such relationships without believing that God exists.


If there is a perfectly loving God, all creatures capable of explicit and positively meaningful relationship with God who have not freely shut themselves off from God believe that God exists (from 1 and 2).

It is not the case that all creatures capable of explicit and positively meaningful relationship with God who have not freely shut themselves off from God believe that God exists: there is nonresistant nonbelief; God is hidden.

It is not the case that there is a perfectly loving God (from 3 and 4).

If God exists, God is perfectly loving.

It is not the case that God exists (from 5 and 6).

A truly loving being would not make unjust, unreasonable demands, and impossible demands on those it allegedly loves. Such a being would very reasonably reveal itself in no uncertain manner to those it loves. Jesus would not expect worship, surrender of moral autonomy, or blind faith under auspices more akin to an ultimatum: "You have 'free will' to worship Jesus or not as you please — just remember that if you don't, there's a lake of fire, a burning Hell where the worm does not die with your name on it." That's more like the Mob’s protection racket than "free will." "Nice little immortal soul ya got here — be a shame if somethin was ta happen to it! Souls burn, ya know, " .


In 1 John 4:8 we’re told that “…God is Love.” This cannot be, for love is a human emotion not a metaphysical quality. It follows from the assignment of value to the love object. God is logically incapable of valuing anything as He is allegedly an eternal, transcendent, infinite, perfect, indestructible, immutable, self-sufficient, self-contained, complete being which lacks nothing. If God did exist, He would not act in the interest of a goal. He would have no basis for goal-setting whatsoever. He would always be what He is, nothing can change Him, nothing can harm Him, nothing can threaten Him, nothing can deprive Him. Nothing can be of any value to Him because value presupposes some want, or desire to be fulfilled in pursuit of continuing to live. But God needs nothing to continue to live, for that reason, He would be incapable of valuing or loving anything. If the Christian God existed, He could do nothing for any action would diminish its perfection, perturb its sufficiency and immutability.

Jesus promised the believers in Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:”

“Jesus said unto him,” in Mark 9:23 and continued, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

In Luke 17:6 Jesus promised: “And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.”

Jesus promises n John 14:12-14 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

When I stood inside the alleged empty tomb and prayed, I was a believer. Yet Jesus did not answer my prayer according to his promises. Instead there was only silence, only inertness, and only the myths that had been inculcated into my child mind by those whom I loved the most. This conflicted with all the promises made by Jesus that He would not only answer our prayers but that He would actually respond to our sincere requests for confirmation and revelation of his will and presence. The confusion and doubt I felt before visiting the Tomb was only exacerbated by God’s silence. If our eternal souls are at stake, and if belief is required, and if God is Love, then why would God remain silent? If God were real, then the silence made no sense. But if God is imaginary then silence, inertness, and hiddenness is to just what would be expected especially in light of the now irrefutable fact that no one can successfully form any sort of an argument for God's existence from natural teleology or cosmology [3] For the next several years, I waited and sought for God to show me he was actually real to no avail. God was silent, hidden, and inert.

With the passage of time, I left the Navy and put Christianity on a lower priority and moved on with my life. Marriage, home life, and career occupied my time. But the questions still haunted me. If the Christian God would not respond to my heart felt earnest faith believing prayer from inside the Tomb when I was simply asking for clarity and verification, then the Christian religion could not be real so I reasoned. Why would God not respond to me in some special way that only an Omnipotent Being could such that I would have known axiomatically beyond the shadow of a doubt that He and Christianity were really true? If God is actually real and actually loves me and is omniscient knowing that I need to know and not just feign belief, then why would He remain silent, hidden, and inert? I am not a slacker. If God had spoken to me inside the Tomb, just think what a powerful testimony for Christ that would have been. If God is totally compassionate and desperately wants to save mankind, then why was He silent in the face of my solid and firm intent to offer the rest of my life in Christian Ministry Service? Many thousands could have been saved, but God was silent, hidden, and inert.

That was the reason why I fell away from the faith. Several years ago all the old feelings from my well Churched youth surfaced in my mind. Since then I’ve spent much time investigating the possibility of the existence of some sort of god, and the validity of Christianity.

Looking back on the visit to the Tomb, I can now see that was the beginning of my deconversion from Christianity to atheism. However, then I started to think that perhaps I was too hasty. There is no reason why God would have to respond to me, and there was the matter of the Empty Tomb and the Resurrection? Was it real? If so, why was the tomb empty? (This is a question I will address below.) I was more confused than ever, and I was left alone to search for answers. But how would I find the answers I sought. Faith simply would not do as faith has no way to distinguish the difference between fact and fiction. One can believe anything by faith, and be convinced by faith to the extent of delusion. Yet without validation and confirmation, the propositions believed by faith are only hollow vapid assertions. If God exists, He requires us to believe the most unbelievable propositions by faith alone. This I neither could accept or act out. I needed empirical evidence upon which to base logical acceptance of valid and soundly induced knowledge that conforms with the argument to the best explanation. Nevertheless, the question of my religious experience remains? Wouldn’t my feelings be countable as evidence? Didn’t I “feel” the Holy Ghost when I thought I was born again or when I spoke with the tongues of “Angels”? Sure, I felt something, but was it God? How can I, a mere person, made of physical matter feel the transcendent Spirit of God? He is not in space and time. An entity that is non-spatial has no dimensions, no coordinates, and no location. The entity’s non-temporality means it lacks duration and can perform no actions. Without location, duration or potential for action, it is impossible for any relation or attachment to interact with something that is spatially located and in time. Any non-located and atemporal relation or relational attachment would have to cross the boundary between the transcendent realm of God and physical existence. [4] Such boundary crossing cannot occur because an entity, relation or attachment cannot be both non-spatial and spatial, both atemporal and temporal simultaneously because the Law of Identity, A=A is in effect. The Law of Identity cannot be evaded; consequently, that which exists must exist as and only as something specific. It is impossible for a human being to feel or sense in any way the transcendent because to so do would be directly self-contradictory. Like a spheroidal-cube, that which is self-contradictory cannot exist.

My feelings come from my brain and central nervous system, and since I cannot feel that which is not in this Universe of space and time, then I cannot feel that which is Transcendent. And that means my feelings and emotions are no help in determining if God is real. How then can I account for the evidence of my Christian experience that I took to be the inner presence of the Holy Spirit?

In "Has Science Found God" Victor J. Stenger describes an experiment conducted (without a control group or statistical error accounting) by neurologist Andrew Newberg on eight Buddhists and several Franciscan nuns in prayer. The test subjects engaged in Tibetan style meditation and prayer. All participants reported transcendent feelings. The Buddhists described the feelings as a sense of timelessness and infinity as if they were [part of everything in existence while the Nuns claimed a tangible sense of the closeness to and mingling with god. None of the subjects reported any "revelations about future events or risky predictions that could be used to objectively confirm a true otherworldly reality to the experience." The subject's brains were imaged with a SPECT camera (single photon emission computed tomography). The images depicted decreased brain activity in an area dubbed, by Newberg, the orientation association area (OAA). Newberg's contends the function of the OAA is to "draw a sharp distinction between the individual and everything else, to sort out the you from the infinite not-you that makes up the rest of the universe." According to Newberg the reduced OAA activity results from a decrease in the flow of incoming sensory information during meditation or prayer. Newberg surmises that without this information the OAA cannot find the boundary between the self and non-self. Therefore the brain has no option but to detect the self as in touch with the transcendent. [5] Newberg's study was coauthored by Eugene d'Aquili and published in his book "Why God Won't Go Away", p.5 Stenger agrees with Newberg and d'Aquili that the sensation born again Christian's experience in response to their emotions of faith and belief has a neuro-physiological basis. The feeling of the presence of the Holy Spirit is most probably a brain phenomena.

Subsequently, the only tool I have to ascertain truth is my human ability to reason, to use methodological naturalism and the scientific method. Only these can actually inform me of what is truth. Therefore it is essential to turn to what can be determined from the evidence.

The defining claim of Christianity is that Jesus Christ Resurrected from the dead via supernatural miracle. The Resurrection hypothesis does not entail survival from swooning. The Resurrection is not resuscitation, or revivification. There can be no possibility of natural causation or of a statistically uncaused event that is mistaken for a miracle. Resurrection presupposes that “supernatural” is a valid concept, but what else does resurrected entail? The characteristics of the resurrected Jesus are listed as propositions by Robert Greg Cavin in his essay “Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence To Establish the Resurrection of Jesus”. Cavin list the properties of resurrection that apologists claim can be demonstrated from the Gospel accounts. Those attributes are that Jesus is unable to be injured, to die, to age, to be sick, and is able to move instantaneously from place to place at will. In order to establish that Jesus was transformed into a super being by supernatural miracle, it is necessary to establish the claimed attributes listed above. Cavin considers what kind of evidence would be necessary to establish such claims. He point out two methods whereby claims are established by evidence.

The first method Cavin dubs “from above”. By favorable comparative reference to an already established general conception whereby obvious axiomatic similarity of the claimed phenomena to the known concept, the phenomena in question can be identified. This works for processes and things because of the nature of conceptual knowledge. Ayn Rand defined concepts as: “A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.” [7]. Ms Rand further noted what concepts do for people: “A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a specific definition. By organizing his perceptual material into concepts, and his concepts into wider and still wider concepts, man is able to grasp and retain, to identify and integrate an unlimited amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the immediate concretes of any given, immediate moment.” [8] Cavin's argument is that the claims of the Christian apologists regarding the resurrection cannot be established “from above” because humanity has no experience of any human being possessing super powers like those asserted for the risen Jesus. Without a broad scope of prior experience of humans with super powers, human beings cannot form concepts with which to compare the asserted attributes of the resurrected Jesus. Thus the resurrection cannot be established “from above” using comparative similarity to human super power concepts.

Cavin's names his second method “from below”. He notes that: “, in order to establish universal generalizations of the form of (Object S is able/unable to C after time T.) “from below” it is necessary (and indeed sufficient) to have as evidence a large number of independent instances acquired over a relatively long period of time in which object S is exposed to a wide variety of conditions that cause C-ing and yet does/does not C.” [9] He argues that the small number (11 reported incidents) of encounters with the alleged risen Jesus are insufficient to establish the proposed resurrection attributes claimed by Christian apologists. Even if it is granted that the New Testament Gospel accounts of the risen Jesus are historical, they are not enough to establish the resurrection of Jesus because they do nothing to specifically test the properties of the alleged Jesus. The disciples do not attempt to burn Jesus at the stake, or to stab him, or to feed him poison, or to smash him with a large object. There is no testing to determine if Jesus aged or was susceptible to disease in the forty days prior to the alleged ascension depicted in the Acts account. But a lengthy and methodological program of such testing would have been required to ascertain if Jesus was actually supernaturally resurrected. Thus the resurrection cannot be established “from below” because the disciples did not use scientific testing of the properties of the alleged resurrected Jesus.

The assertion that “supernatural” is a valid concept is presupposed by Christianity. Ayn Rand's definition of concept renders the notion of “supernatural” specious. How can human beings mentally integrate “, two or more (supernatural) units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), ” [10] when all human perceptual and instrumentation faculties are limited to sensing natural phenomena. By definition “supernatural” implies the negation of all that is natural. Thus no natural effect can have a “supernatural” cause, nor can any natural system interact with anything that is “supernatural”. It is unclear how a miracle of resurrection could occur.

Taken at face value, all should be deeply suspicious of miracle claims because the Uniformity of Nature arises from material existence. David Hume, 19th century atheist [29] philosopher noted this when he wrote:

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature… There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation…

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish….’ When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.” - David Hume, [11]

The making of the extreme claim that Jesus of Nazareth rose from dead via means of supernatural miracle resurrection requires extreme evidence in order that legitimate warrant for belief may obtain. The canonical Gospels of the New Testament do not provide such evidence, nor do the writings of Paul or the other epistolary authors. Without warrant a belief cannot be justified. Without justification a belief cannot be considered probably true. It is far more likely that the Gospel stories are the product of early Hellenistic/Jewish Religious and Gnostic cults who created allegorical metaphor stories via midrashic analysis and story making of Septuagint scriptures combined with pagan mysteries to assert doctrinal positions relevant to their mystery faith communities.

Dr. Robert M. Price wrote about Hume in an essay [12] that: “, Hume simply pointed out that, faced with a report of a miracle, the responsible person would have to reject it, not because he has a time machine in the garage and can go prove it didn't happen, but because he knows the propensity of people to exaggerate, to prevaricate, to misunderstand, to be tricked, etc. Balance against the possible truth of this report of a miracle all the evidence of contemporary experience against violations, suspensions, whatever, of the regular occurrence of events, and where will you come out? You do not know for a fact that the miracle report is mistaken because you can never absolutely know the past. But you have to make your call whether the thing is plausible of not.”

A miracle must be extremely unlikely or else then no one would take notice of them and say “The gods are with us.” However, if we accept all reports of the miraculous without evidence, then we would be up to our eye balls in such claims. It is special pleading that one should believe the purported miracles of Christianity and reject those of the other religions when there is no good evidence for any miracle claim. What does this mean? How are we to judge what is plausible? Christianity as a mystery religion is plausible as Joseph Campbell [13] shows how universal mythemes of dying/rising saviours across the world's many cultures underlay the great religions. This prescient fact vivifies Hume's contention. It is far more likely that reports of miraculous occurrences from antiquity are the product of expression of the dying/rising savior mythemes. These myths in turn developed in the northern and southern latitudes where people depended on seasonal agriculture. The death of vegetation in the Autumn and renewal in the Spring in conjunction with the solar cycles of nature are the driving force behind the human tendency to create savior hero myths.

Richard Carrier in his superb essay , "The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb" [14] demonstrates that it was very probable that earliest Paulian Christians thought of Jesus's resurrection as a spiritual event wherein the rotting corpse remained in the grave. Paul's assertions that “It (the resurrection of the dead) is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.” [15] and “, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” [16] are used by Carrier to make help make his case that Paul believed the Resurrection of Jesus was a spiritual event. Since "supernatural" is not positively defined with any vivifying potentialities, it is therefore simply the negation of the natural. To demonstrate a miracle, the theist must prove the absolute impossibility of any natural causation for the event in question to be held as a justified belief. Carrier and many others have demonstrated that there is a very good probability of naturalistic causation for the alleged resurrection.

It could be, as Dr. Michael Martin points out, that “ , it might be the case that what we thought were strictly deterministic laws are I fact statistical laws. These are compatible with rare occurrences of uncaused events. Thus, the events designated as miracles may be wrongly designated; they may be uncaused in the sense of being neither naturally nor supernaturally determined.” [17]

What of the New Testament’s own witness? There were no eye witnesses to the resurrection itself. The four accounts of post resurrection Jesus sightings cannot be harmonized. The long ending of Mark from 16:9-20 is an acknowledged interpolated appending. Thus there are no post resurrection appearances in Mark. Paul’s list of post resurrection appearances contradicts the Gospels and Acts which in turn contradict each other. The clear progression of legendary development apparent with the chronological order of writing of the Gospels indicates that the original writers had no concern with historical fact. They instead were very much interested in asserting doctrinal and theological points of significance to their faith communities.

Randal Helms, In a great book, “Gospel Fictions” notes many examples of how the Matthew, Luke, and John Gospel evangelists engaged in literary midrash by deliberately and self-consciously changing by elaborative additions to Mark's Gospel. In the second chapter Helms points out that in three of the four canonical Gospels that the alleged final dying words of Jesus are recorded differently, and Matthew spins the words for his own purposes. I will cite the text at length as Helms is an excellent writer.

"For example, according to Matthew and Mark, the dying words of Jesus were, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" According to Luke, Jesus' dying words were, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." But according to John they were , "It is accomplished." To put it another way, we cannot know what the dying words of Jesus were, or even whether he uttered any; it is not that we have too little information, but that we have too much. Each narrative implicitly argues that the others are fictional. In this case at least, it is inappropriate to ask of the Gospels what "actually" happened; they may pretend to be telling us, but the effort remains a pretense, a fiction.

The matter becomes even more complex when we add to it the virtual certainty that Luke knew perfectly well what Mark had written as the dying words, and the likelihood that John also knew what Mark and perhaps Luke had wrote, but that both Luke and John chose to tell the story differently."

The interesting thing here is that both the Lukian and Johnine writers were working from Mark and other source documents, but they choose to tell the story in very different ways for doctrinal and theological reasons related to the needs of their faith communities. Helms continues.

"The Gospels are Hellenistic religious narratives in the tradition of th Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which constituted the "Scriptures" to those Greek-speaking Christians who wrote the four canonical Gospels and who appealed to it, explicitly or implicitly, in nearly every paragraph the wrote.

A simple example is the case of the las words of Christ. Mark presents these words in self-consciously realistic fashion, shifting from his usual Greek into the Aramaic of Jesus, transliterated into Greek letters: "'Eloi eloi lama sabachthanei (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? - Mark 15:34). Mark gives us no hint that Jesus is "quoting" Psalm 22:1; we are clearly to believe that we are hearing the grieving outcry of a dying man. But the author of Matthew, who used Mark as one of his major written sources is self-consciously "Literary" in both this and yet another way: though using Mark as his major source for the passion story, Matthew if fully aware that Mark's crucifixion narrative is based largely on the 22 nd Psalm, fully aware, that is, that Mark's Gospel is part of a literary tradition (this description would not be Matthew's vocabulary, but his method is nonetheless literary). Aware of the tradition, Matthew knew that no Aramaic speaker present at the Cross would mistake a cry to God (Eloi) for one to Elijah - the words are too dissimilar. So Matthew self-consciously evoked yet another literary tradition in the service both of verisimilitude and of greater faithfulness to the Scriptures: not the Aramaic of Psalm 22:1 but the Hebrew, which he too transliterated into Greek - "Eli Eli" (Matt. 27:46) - a cry which could more realistically be confused for "Eleian". Matthew self-consciously appeals both to literary tradition -a "purer" text of the Psalms-and to verisimilitude as he reshapes Mark, his literary source. , Matthew certainly knew that he was creating a linguistic fiction in his case (Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew.) though just as clearly he felt justified in doing so, given his conviction that since Psalm 22 had "predicted" events in the crucifixion, it could be appealed to even in the literary sense of one vocabulary rather that another, as a more "valid description of the Passion.

Luke is even more self-consciously literary and fictive than Matthew in his crucifixion scene. Though, as I have said, he knew perfectly well what Mark had written as the dying words of Jesus, he created new ones more suitable to his understanding of what the death of Jesus meant - and act with at least two critical implications: First, that he has thus implicitly declared Mark's account a fiction; second, that he self-consciously presents his own as a fictions. For like Matthew, Luke in 23:46 deliberately placed his own work in the literary tradition by quoting Psalm 30 (31):5 in the Septuagint as the dying speech of Jesus: "Into your hands I will commit my spirit" ("eis cheiras sou parathesomai to pneuma mou", changing the verb from future to present (paratithemai) to suit the circumstances and leaving the rest of the quotation exact. This is self-conscious creation of literary fiction, creation of part of a narrative scene for religious and moral rather than historical purposes. Luke knew perfectly well, I would venture to assert, that he was creating an ideal model of Christian death, authorized both by doctrine and by literary precedent." [18]

Helms illuminates purposeful editorial revisionism throughout "Gospel Fictions". There are many examples of this sort of redaction to assert midrashic theological-doctrinaire teachings. The last words of Jesus were and are of utmost importance to Christians as is indicated by many Christian citations of John 19:30. Yet each of the canonical Gospels tells it differently or spins it differently in the case of Matthew. This shows that the Gospel authors were self-consciously aware they were not dealing with history but rather with pious fiction. Taken together almost all content of the Gospels can be shown to be based on earlier Moses, Elijah, Elisha, David stories or from bits of liturgical text form the Jewish apocrypha.

Dr. Robert M. Price's does a masterful job of illustrating the midrashic nature of the Gospels. Price informs the reader of the evolution of literary criticism applied to study of the Gospels. “Scholars including Erhardt Guttgemanns, Robert M. Fowler, Frasn Neirynck, and Werner Kelber began to show that, despite their brief episodic character, the gospel stories bear extensive traces of authorial creation, original de novo storytelling. Earlier tradition may have played a role, but there is less and less reason to think so, the more 'Markan', 'Matthean', 'Lukan', or 'Johannine' a story appears. This is measured by the extent to which each gospel story employs the familiar themes and vocabulary of each writer as established by studying his redactional treatment of prior gospels. The resultant theory would see Mark as writing much or even most of his work (as the radical critic Bruno Bauer had said already in the nineteenth century) out of his imagination, with Matthew and Luke freely redacting Mark's work and adding much new material of their own invention.” [19]

There is an interesting puzzle within the Gospel of Mark itself that bears upon the question its reliability regarding historical happenings. We read in Mark 16:5 “, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, ”(RSV) and in 16:8 that “And they went out and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid. (RSV).[20] Who was the young man? The original ending is an obvious literary device to account for why people had not head this story previously. That the women ran away and told nobody is a good reason why the story had not been previously known. Verse 16:8 also functions to explain why it is that the author knows what happened, for implicit is the notion that the young man sitting on the right in verse 16:5 is the author. Mark, or whoever originally penned Mark, wrote himself into the story so that he could authoritatively claim to know what happened. Use of a literary device to feign history would be suspicious. Employed to create pious fiction for the Kingdom of God, use of the literary device would be praise worthy within the faith community that spawned Mark.

What about the Tomb itself? Jerusalem is surrounded by a vast necropolis with many thousands of rock cut tombs. The hole in the wall in question, as it turns out, was selected as a site of veneration by Helen, Emperor Constantine's devote mother, in 325 CE shortly before she commissioned the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. No person living in Jerusalem in 325 could possibly have any factual knowledge regarding the location of the tomb as two major wars and almost three centuries had transpired between the legendary events and Helen's choice. Local Christian traditions articulated by Saint Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, probably influenced Helen's choice. The controversy as to whether the site is actually Golgatha assumes the Gospel stories are true. Such presumption is question begging and special pleading. Mark was knowingly written as an inspirational but fictional liturgy. Since the other Gospels are based on Mark, the Tomb cannot be evidence of any truth.

When the earliest Christian documents, the genuine Pauline epistles, are examined, there is no trace of the life and ministry of Jesus, the Passion, the Trial, details of the Crucifixion, details of the Burial, details of the Resurrection or Empty Tomb. Paul's silence is puzzling. Why would “the Apostle to the Gentiles” not be keen on telling the story of his Master to the Converts? All Christians that have ever lived have at least one thing in common, they are intensely interested in all things Jesus. Would it have been any less so in Paul's day? Of course not.

Peter Kirby in "The Historicity of the Empty Tomb Evaluated: Argument from Silence" points to the silence in early Christian first century writings regarding the Empty Tomb tradition as the reason why the Christian has a burden of proof.



“It should be noted that, outside of the four gospels, all Christian documents that may come the first century mention neither tomb burial by Joseph of Arimathea nor the subsequent discovery of such a tomb as empty. Although there may have been no particular reason for any one of these writers to mention the story, it could be argued that, if they all accepted the story, perhaps one of them would have entered a discussion that would mention the empty tomb story. For example, if there were a polemic going around that the disciples had stolen the body, one of these early writers may have written to refute such accusations. In any case, it is necessary to mention these documents if only to note that there is no conflicting evidence that would show that the empty tomb story was an early or widespread tradition since the argument from silence would be shown false if there were. Here is a list of these early documents:

1. 1 Thessalonians, 2. Philippians, 3. Galatians, 4. 1 Corinthians, 5. 2 Corinthians, 6. Romans, 7. Philemon, 8. Hebrews, 9. James, 10. Colossians, 11. 1 Peter, 12. Ephesians, 13. 2 Thessalonians, 14. Jude, 15. The Apocalypse of John, 16. 1 John, 17. 2 John, 18. 3 John, 19. Didache, 20. 1 Clement, 21. 1 Timothy, 22. 2 Timothy, 23. Titus, 24. The Epistle of Barnabas,

Indeed, outside of the four canonical gospels, the Gospel of Peter is the only document before Justin Martyr that mentions the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea or the discovery of the empty tomb. If the Gospel of Peter as it stands is considered to be dependent on the canonical gospels, then there is no independent witness to the empty tomb story told in the four gospels.” [21]

Christian apologists widely acknowledge there was not a tradition within early Christianity of veneration of Jesus’ tomb. By this they commit error by predicating on that basis argument for an empty tomb. Rather the lack of Christian worship at a tomb site indicates the lack of knowledge of any tomb of Jesus, full or empty. Modern Christian of whatever stripe are intensely interested in visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the empty tomb. It is quite likely that first century Christians would have felt likewise and hence would have wanted to visit and worship at a tomb site. The fact that they did not is evidence against a tomb.

Dr. Michael Martin argues that “Its is difficult to take seriously the alleged fact of the empty tomb given: the inconsistencies in the stories, the lack of contemporary eyewitnesses, the unclarity of who exactly the eyewitnesses were, the lack of knowledge of the reliability of th eyewitnesses,the failure of early Christian writers to mention the empty tomb, the failure of the empty tomb story to be confirmed in Jewish or pagan sources, It is significant that Habermas does not even consider the problem of the failure to confirm the empty tomb story by independent sources.” [22]

Michael Martin cites a goodly number of scholars who are skeptical of various aspects to the resurrection story to rebut Gary Habermas’ claim that “… events that are listed as agreed to be virtually all critical scholars…” regarding the main points of the Jesus story. Dr. Martin continued: “But is there the degree of agreement among scholars that Habermas claims? That he has at least exaggerated this agreement can be inferred from the following. W.Trilling argues that “not a single date of Jesus’ life” can be established with certainty, and J.Kahl maintains that the only thing that is known about him is that he existed at a date and place which can be established approximately”. Other scholars argue that the quest for the historical Jesus is hopeless. Ian Wilson argues that, concerning the Resurrection, “Ultimately, we must concede that on the basis of the available evidence, knowledge of exactly what happened is beyond us.” H. Conzelman finds that the Passion narratives are shaped by the evangelists’ own theological convictions, that they are the results of “intensive theological interpretation”, and that they establish only the bare fact that Jesus was crucified: “Everything else about the sequence of events is contestable.” C.F. Evans argues that “almost all the main factors” in the Passion story “have become problematic.” Dieter Georgi maintains that since Paul’s writing omits any mention of an empty tomb this raises the possibility that Jesus’ body was still inside. He also suggests that the empty tomb stories may have been added to the Gospels after the sack of Jerusalem in A.D.70 at which time the tomb may have been empty. We have already seen that scholars such as Marxsen, Fuller, Kummel, and Anderson disagree over whether the empty tomb stories entered the Christian tradition early or late.” Martin makes it clear that the claims of Christian apologetics regarding any consensus on the soundness of the Gospel traditions is exaggeration. [23]

After thoroughly examining the case for and the evidence against the resurrection of Jesus, Martin concludes “that the available evidence should lead a rational person to disbelieve the claim that Jesus was resurrected from the dead around A.D.30” [24]

John Loftus in his book “Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains” cites Uta Ranke-Heineman who argued against the Empty Tomb tradition from the silence of Paul. “The empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning is a legend. This is shown by the simple fact that the apostle Paul, the most crucial preacher of Christ's resurrection, says nothing about it. Thus it also means nothing to him, that is, and empty tomb has no significance for the truth of the resurrection, which he so emphatically proclaims. Since he gathers together and cites all the evidence for Jesus' resurrection that has been handed down to him, He certainly would have found the empty tomb worth mention. That he doesn't proves that it never existed and hence the accounts of it must not have arisen until later, The belief in the resurrection is older that the belief in the empty tomb; rather the legend of the empty tomb grew out of th faith of Easter.” [25]

If Paul had known of the details of the life, ministry, passion, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, he would have used that information in his preaching and writing. The principle of final causation dictates that a rational and reasonable person will for a given desired end, employ an appropriate means to achieve that end. Paul would have done just that had the Gospel stories been part of his knowledge base.

Charles B. Waite spent years in the Library of Congress often in inaccessible rooms with the help of friends and insiders researching ancient texts to ascertain a history of Christianity up till the second century. His book is titled “History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two Hundred” and is fully and freely available on Google books. This book is considered one of the most accurate histories of Christianity with much information not found elsewhere. Waite wrote much on lost books, early Church fathers and heresy. His conclusion on page 433 of the downloadable PDF reads:

“…no evidence is found, of the existence in the first century, of either of the following doctrines; the immaculate conception – the miracles of Christ – his material resurrection. No one of these doctrines is to be found in the epistles of the New Testament, nor have we been able to find them in any other writings of the first century.

As to the four gospels, in coming to the conclusion that they were not written in the first century, we have but recorded the convictions of the more advanced scholars of the present day, irrespective of their religious views in other respects; with whom, the question as now presented is, how early in the second century were they composed?

Discarding, as inventions of the second century, having no historical foundation, the three doctrines above named, and much else which must necessarily stand or fall with them, what remains of the Christian Religion?”[26] Waite's conclusion is a powerful evidence against literalistic fundamental Christianity.

Richard Carrier made this strong argument in an podcast discussion of the resurrection. My version of that argument is based on what Dr. Carrier said on the Infidelguy podcast. In ACTS 23:26-31 we find Claudius Lysias' letter to Felix. Claudius was Tribune and Chief of Police in Jerusalem. Claudius Lysias was Greek who had purchased his Roman citizenship and likely an initiate of the Elysian mysteries with no belief in a physical bodily resurrection. Claudius' letter claims he was present in the council of the Jews when the Apostle Paul explained his case. Claudius found Paul to be only in dispute with the Jews over a matter of their law. This letter makes no sense in light of a physical resurrection of Jesus, but Lysias' letter is readily explained if Paul believed Jesus to be a spiritual divinity that performed its salvific action only in the spirit realm or via way of a spiritual resurrection in the spirit realm. If Claudius had heard Paul say something like, "Jesus was recently a living man who the Jews tricked the Romans into condemning and crucifying, but GOD physically raised him from the dead, and we know this because he was seen alive by the disciples", then Claudius, being Tribune and top cop in Jerusalem, would have thought Paul had assisted the criminal Jesus in escaping or that Paul knew who helped Jesus get away. So instead of sending Paul to Felix with a nice letter, Claudius would have tortured Paul to find out were the disciples were and would have sent out the troops to search for Jesus. So it would seem that Paul in the council of the Jews said nothing about Jesus being a man in Jerusalem recently crucified by the Romans and physically raised from the dead. If however he had instead presented Jesus as a spirit world deity similar to an ordinary god or as spiritually resurrected in the spirit world, then Claudius Lysias would have acted as he is recorded as doing in Acts 23. In Rome of the first century, it was a capital crime to deify any person after their death other than the Emperor. If Claudius had heard Paul doing so, he would have had to have arrested Paul on charges of treason. But Claudius sent Paul on to Felix, so Claudius heard Paul and the Jews disputing only about matters of Jewish law. This is very well explained if Paul believed Christ Jesus to be only a spirit world deity. Paul's silence regarding details of the alleged passion, crucifixion, burial and physical resurrection of Jesus is strong evidence against a Resurrection and the Empty Tomb.

Why didn't Paul know about the details of Jesus' life, ministry, passion, trial, crucifixion, burial or resurrection? The reason why Paul knew nothing of Jesus' story is that it had not yet been invented. The Q Gospel and the Gospel of Thomas both predate Mark, yet they know nothing of the Story as Mark tells it. The Circular nature of Mark with its abrupt ending at 16:8 depicting the women running away in fear and silence after the young mans tells then Jesus will rejoin his disciples in Galilee prompts the reader to go back to the beginning. In “Deconstructing Jesus”, Robert M. Price notes that Darrell J. Doughty suggest this idea. Price continues: “Mark wants the reader to look next at the only place there is left to look: the beginning. There we find the episode of Jesus' calling the disciples at an the lakeside and the mysteriously immediate response: the disciples drop what they are doing and follow him. Doughty noticed how much sense this scene makes if we assume the disciples know him already. Think of how similar the scene is both to Luke 5:1-11 and to that in John 21:1-11, where it is explicitly a resurrection story! This is the reunion Mark's young man was talking about (Mark 16:7)! So once the Risen Jesus regains his disciples at the sea of Galilee, the post-resurrection teachings begin. They continue throughout the Gospel of Mark.” [27] This sort of religious circularity is characteristic of early Christianity. The presence of such a literary device is yet another piece of evidence betraying Mark's non-historical nature. The other three Gospels depend on Mark, but Matthew, Luke, and John each modify and redact Mark freely. They could only do this if they viewed Mark as Pious fiction to begin with. That their stories differ so profoundly indicates that they were self-consciously crafting liturgical fairy tales for their own faith communities. Thus Christianity is, like all other religions, the result of mythological and legendary accretion.

Nevertheless, even if the Gospels could be shown to be historical and the Empty Tomb established, it would not mean that Jesus had actually Resurrected from the dead by supernatural miracle, Christianity would still be irrational and unreasonable. This finding was reached by Walter Cassels in his great book “Supernatural Religion” after lengthy research and study. Published in 1902, Cassels' magnum opus surveys many of the early Church patriarchs and apologists in detail. (This book is available for free download on Google books.) Its worth quoting at length.

“Orrexamining the alleged miraculous evidence for Christianity as Divine Revelation, we find that, even if the actual occurrence of the supposed miracles could be substantiated, their value as evidence would be destroyed by the necessary admission that miracles are not limited to one source and are not exclusively associated with truth, but are performed by various spiritual Beings, Satanic as well as Divine, and are not always evidential, but are sometimes to be regarded as delusive and for the trial of faith. As the doctrines supposed to be revealed are beyond Reason, and cannot in any sense be intelligently approved by the human intellect, no evidence which is of so doubtful and inconclusive a nature could sufficiently attest them. This alone would disqualify the Christian miracles for the duty which only miracles are capable of performing.

The supposed miraculous evidence for the Divine Revelation, moreover, is not only without any special divine character, being avowedly common also to Satanic agency, but it is not original either in conception or details. Similar miracles are reported long antecedently to the first promulgation of Christianity, and continued to be performed for centuries after it. A stream of miraculous pretension, in fact, has flowed through all human history, deep and broad as it has passed through the darker ages, but dwindling down to a thread as it has entered days of enlightenment. The evidence was too hackneyed and commonplace to make any impression upon those before whom the Christian miracles are said to have been performed, and it altogether failed to convince the people to whom the Revelation was primarily addressed. The selection of such evidence for such a purpose is much more characteristic of human weakness than of divine power.

The true character of miracles is at once betrayed by the fact that their supposed occurrence has thus been confined to ages of ignorance and superstition, and that they are absolutely unknown in any time or place where science has provided witnesses fitted to appreciate and ascertain the nature of such exhibitions of supernatural power. There is not the slightest evidence that any attempt was made to investigate the supposed miraculous occurrences, or to justify the inferences so freely drawn from them, nor is there any reason to believe that the witnesses possessed, in any considerable degree, the fullness of knowledge and sobriety of judgment requisite for the purpose. No miracle has yet established its claim to the rank even of apparent reality, and all such phenomena must remain in the dim region of imagination.” [28]

The story of Jesus' resurrection is probably fictional. However, even if that miracle could be established as happening, there would be no way to determine the actual cause of the miracle. Consequently, there can be no justification for Christian belief. I am justified in deconverting from Christianity in 1981. Nevertheless, the question of the existence of a God of some sort remains, but that is a subject for another time.



[1] Elijah is quite obviously a version of a sun god.

[2] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_schellenberg/hidden.html

[3] See Victor J. Stenger's book “God: The Failed Hypothesis.” and Richard Dawkins' “The God Delusion”.

[4] “Gods Spatial Unlocatedness Prevents Him From Being the Creator of the Universe” http://www.abstractatom.com/gods_spatial_unlocatedness_prevents_him_from_being_the_creator_of_the_universe.htm

[5] Stenger's well researched book yields much of interest, and the above material is loosely quoted and paraphrased from pages 293 and 294 of "Has Science Found God".

[6] “Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence To Establish the Resurrection of Jesus” published in “The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave” p.19

[7] Ayn Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” p.15

[8] Ayn Rand, “The Psycho—Epistemology of Art,” published in “The Romantic Manifesto” p.17

[9] Cavin, p.27

[10] Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” p.15

[11] David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”, p. 114-16

[12] Dr. Robert M. Price, “William Lane Craig's “Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence For the Resurrection of Jesus Christ” published in “Jesus is Dead” p. 199

[13] Joseph Campbell, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”

[14] The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, p105-233

[15] 1 Corinthians 15:44 (RSV)

[16] 1 Corinthians 15:50 (RSV)

[17] Dr. Michael Martin, “The Case Against Christianity”, p.75

[18] Randel Helms, "Gospel Fictions" p.15-17

[19] Price, "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man", p.30

[20] It is widely acknowledged that Mark ended at 16:8 and that the long ending from 16:9-20 is an appended interpolation.

[21] Peter Kirby, “The Historicity of the Empty Tomb Evaluated: Argument from Silence"

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/peter_kirby/tomb/silence.html

[22] Martin, ibid, p.89

[23] Ibid, p.88-89

[24] Ibid, p.96

[25] John Loftus, “Why I Rejected Christianity: A Former Apologist Explains”, p.210

[26] Charles B. Waite, “History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two Hundred”, p.433 – (fully available as a complete book on Google Books)

[27] Robert M. Price, “Deconstructing Jesus”, p.34-35

[28] Walter Cassels, “Supernatural Religion”, p.902-903- (fully available as a complete book on Google Books)

[29] "Hume was charged with heresy, but he was defended by his young clerical friends who argued that as an atheist he laid outside the jurisdiction

Taken from here

A Personal Project
About a year ago now, I began a major personal project. As a devout Christian husband and father of six children, I was unhappy with the "drifting" I had been doing. We had not attended church regularly for over three years at that point, and while we were still actively involved in a weekly small group/Bible study, my disillusionment with Evangelical Protestantism was such that while I remained committed to my belief in God and my faith in Jesus as my redeemer and savior, Christian faith tends to atrophy and even die when it is not connected to a the support systems of church and faith-based community, in my experience.

The "major personal project", then, was the rebuilding and fortification of my faith and beliefs in such a way that I could, along with my family, "swim the Tiber", and become committed, permanent members of the Roman Catholic Church. I embarked on the effort with some enthusiasm; while I still had some major issues to confront in order to become a Catholic, fully committed in good conscience, these issues seemed surmountable, and at the conclusion of this effort, I expected to begin RCIA with my family, and begin the happy process of settling into our new "spiritual home", where we belonged all along, as Catholic friends regularly reminded me.

I took a "first principles" approach, as a means for really doing the thinking and reasoning that would lay the foundation for decades to come as a faithful, enthusiastic and effective Catholic. For the first time ever, I think, I purposely put everything I believed on the table for review, and went to some length in making careful notes and comments in an MS Word Document and an Excel spreadsheet to keep things organized. My faith in God wasn't in question, but I "cleared the decks" as a kind of "provisional atheist", that I might clearly identify the grounding and basis for "non-negotiables" of my belief. The last thing I wanted was to lead a family move to the Catholic church, only to become a dissident there again, as I had become for so many parts of the Protestant faith and culture I lived in presently. More than anything, I wanted clarity about these issues that would stick.

My efforts quickly became a case study for the caution that one should be careful what one wishes for. I wished for clarity and durability in my beliefs about God and religion, and I got it (durability being tentative just a year in, of course). In forcing myself to do a tabula rasa accounting of what I believed and why, I ended up with undeniable clarity on two propositions: my 30+ years of Christian faith were predicated note on verifiable interaction with God and reasoned justification for the truth of the Bible, but instead 1) an (nearly) overwhelming desire for Christianity to be true in some form and 2) cowardice in confronting the prospects of unbelief in my life.

I had pages and pages of outline items documenting the usual historical (claims) of evidence for Jesus' divinity and the resurrection. I had the standard cadre of philosophical arguments in there - the Ontological Argument, The Transcendental Argument, the Cosmological Argument, etc. I had a list of the "miracles" and events in my life I believed represented supernatural intervention and interaction. One by one, though, all of these fell apart under skeptical, honest review. For instance, I had become concerned several years ago at the frankly pathetic state of Intellectual Evangelicalism. In discussing this with friends, they pointed me at C.S. Lewis and William Lane Craig. I was intimately familiar with Lewis, of course, who was the closest thing I had to an intellectual hero of the faith (Chesterton was appealing too, but not nearly in the way Lewis was).

Immersing myself in the books, articles, and debates of Craig, though, just exacerbated the problem. If Craig was even representative of Intellectual Christianity, never mind being one of its best examples, the situation was much worse than I had previously thought. Reading Bahnsen, Frame, Poythress, Plantinga and rest of the Reformed philosophers made the picture bleaker still, a kind of demon-apologetic wearing a cross, and carrying a Bible.

Provisional Agnosticism
Over several months I worked through philosophical and historical arguments from a new, hypothetical perspective. Rather than presupposing God, and synthesizing what I read and heard accordingly, I was now to a point where I began Craig's Reasonable Faith and Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus without extreme prejudice.

At that point, I was still a believer, but on the horns of a very serious dilemma. My project was backfiring, my "first principles" strategy aimed at shoring up my beliefs and convictions was seriously destabilizing them. If I continued, I understood the potential outcome, and the ramifications were quite troubling. If I aborted the effort, no one else would be the wiser, and I could return to my comfortable faith. But I would still know, and would have to live with the knowledge that I bailed out because of my fear, and an unwillingness to be fully honest and self-critical.

It seems "right for the story" to relate my struggle over that dilemma, and how I struggled over time to be deeply honest and transparent with myself and others about the justification and reasonableness of my faith. I did choose to pursue critical examination, the path of honesty, but as it happened, no sooner had I realized the dilemma I was facing, then it was over. I awoke in the middle of the night, and prowled the house through the rest of the night, agonized, exhilarated, shocked and in despair over facing the facts. I did not have a good basis for my beliefs, and the nature of my faith as an expression of my desires and my fears laid open to see, undeniable. I was a Christian because I was raised to be one, and I remained one because it's what I wanted. Moreover, I remained one because it seemed the only choice available in terms of my social connections and relationships. I was an evangelical homeschooler, deeply embedded in my church, thoroughly immersed in my faith, identified by it. I was a "godly man", and a good man because of my faith in God, which I was never shy about or ashamed to admit.

That night, with the realization of how motivated and determined I was, subconsciously or otherwise to tell my own story to myself and the world in terms of am active, powerful relationship with a living God, the creator of the universe, I for the first time faced the reality of God as a creature of my own invention. I "inherited" it in a way, being raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, but I had made the illusion my own, and I now had no way to deny my own self-deception. God was God because that's the way I wanted the truth to be. I wanted to live forever. I wanted a neat clean way to resolve the problems of my immoral and unethical actions. I wanted an easy clear-cut basis for right and wrong. I wanted to think I was special, cosmically-special, just like all my Christian friends and family members. I wanted to think that all men will see judgment day, after death, as a way of relieving the despair of seeing evil triumph on earth, and as a way of abdicating my own personal responsibility to do my part to see justice served; God would fix everything in the end, so I could do what I managed or wanted to do, and sleep easy at night because God would make up any cosmic differences, and ultimately right all wrongs.

I read parts of the book of Job the next morning, which has always been one of my favorite books of the Bible, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Rather than just man being used as cosmic chits in a bit of gamesmanship between God and Satan, I saw man creating God is his own image. I had a daughter die during delivery several years ago (so really, I should probably always say I have seven kids, with one that's dead to be fair and respectful to her), and though I didn't realize it until much later, it was a kind of "Jobian" experience for me. The anguish and pain of losing a child in the delivery room -- her heartbeat and vital signs were terrific at a doctor's checkup at 9am that very morning -- was powerful in reinforcing my conviction this was NOT the end, and that I would see my daughter again some day, beyond this life. It was the only right way for the world to be, and what a happy, hopeful thing to be a Christian, where I did have that very expectation and assurance! If I hadn't ever believed in God until that day, I suppose I would have been quite motivated to invent God, and his heaven, and the afterlife on my own, very much in the mode of Job declaring "And in my flesh I shall see God", out of sheer emotional rejection of the idea that death is final, and some losses are never recovered, some injustices are never set right.

The insight into the plausibility, and the reasonability of my decades of faith being accounted for as imagination, exaggeration and credulity borne of desire caused the full collapse of my faith. I no longer believed, and had achieved a broad, if excruciating, view of why my faith was unfounded and why I had embraced and promoted it still for so long. I knew that I could not prove to myself of anyone else that God did not exist, but I now had a reasonable basis for understanding not just the poverty of evidential arguments for Christianity and the disingenuous dishonesty of the various philosophical arguments for God, but also an explanation for my experiences, and my interpretations of the Holy Spirit and his perceived mediate influence in my life. I had arrived at atheism in my application of honesty, introspection, and fair appraisal of the evidence and issues involved.

I was an atheist.

Costs of De-conversion
My wife is a believer, and has been since before we were married. My family is fundamentalist Baptist. My social circles are dominated by my faith community. I have plenty of non-Christian colleagues and friends through work, but even years after "dropping out" of regular church attendance, my social peers remain members of our last church, and similar churches. We homeshool our children, and so a large part of our lives revolves around the activities of our homeschool co-op. As you might imagine, our homeschool group is a hotbed of religious zeal and fundamentalist/evangelical fervor.

My conclusion, then, or perhaps it's more accurate to say my discovery, was a terrifying one. In a way that is difficult to articulate, the discovery was profoundly relieving, a fact that attests, I think, the latent, subliminal anxieties and stresses that accumulate for thinking Christians and the inevitable cognitive dissonances they must bear. Maybe it captures something of the moment to say that felt supremely honest and open, the liberating effect of renouncing the "sin" of my self-deceptions and indulgences of desire and caprice. But the overriding reality at that point was, in fact, fear. I no longer believed in God, or in anything supernatural as far as I knew, but I very much believed in the value and preciousness of my marriage, and my relationship with my wife. I've been fortunate in many respects in my life, but nowhere so fortunate as I have been in finding and developing the relationship I have with my wife. I've since met a couple men who've confessed to me that they are "closet atheists" who go to church dutifully every Sunday, leading AWANA on Wed. night, and showing up regularly for men's Bible study on Monday evenings. For them, they simply see their atheism as a threat to that which matters most to them, their marriages.

It's easy from outside of that situation to sniff and snort and decry the dishonesty of that kind of "double life", and for what it's worth, it is dishonest, and in a way, quite cowardly. But having been in that same position, those men will find no condemnation or judgment from me. When push comes to shove, I can understand keeping my atheism tightly concealed as a means of preserving stability and continuity for a marriage. One of the best things about my marriage has been an unusual level of honesty and frankness, and this was highly problematic. The most painful experience in all of this was the , distance I felt from my wife in those few days where I had become an atheist, but not let her know. It didn't take long for the pain of that to outweigh the fear of turmoil and disruption -- I let it all out in a long, difficult night just a few days after the collapse.

It's been a painful, hard year. I'm sure many atheists have a story that relates their de-conversion as mostly "upside". For me, it is fundamentally, upside as well, but the cost of "coming out" is big, unpredictable, and long lasting. I'm happy to say that my marriage is intact, and as good as ever. My kids are aware, and although mostly unhappy about it and feeling a bit betrayed (which they should, given the unfounded things I've been indoctrinating them with sense birth), and of course dislocated. I've been "disfellowshipped" by some Christian friends, and have caused a major uproar in the homeschooling groups and forums where I have related my story. The Christian myth that morality and ethical "goodness" is predicated on the belief in God, and either impossible without, or at best accidental, runs very deep in the evangelical/fundamentalist community. So, many who learn of my de-conversion wonder, often aloud, what happens now that I'm free to cheat on my wife, steal, or do any number of things worse than that. It's been an eye-opening experience, and my de-conversion is a kind of Rorschach test for Christians, I think. When they confront my rejection of Christianity for atheism, one gets a sense of what they imagine themselves to be in their "native" state. They say they are wondering about my actions as an atheist, but I'm a year on into this as my usual self, a faithful husband, engaged father, hard worker, etc., and what they are often telling me is what they suppose they would be like if they had to develop and execute their own moral and ethical principles. I don't really agree with this, as I think the truth as truth is an important good in its own right, but many Christians I know make a good case for embracing Christianity, even if it is false; by their own accounts, the kind of person they would be without their invented gods and demons and heaven and hell is often downright scary.

Worst Case Scenario
In cases like mine, inevitably, there are questions raised and suspicions launched about the actuality or sincerity of my faith in the first place. For what it's worth, I claim to be an atheist who was a deeply committed, "sold out" believer for decades. Raised in an extremely devout Baptist home, I "accepted Jesus into my heart" as a gradeschooler like any good, rational kid does who has grown up with hellfire and brimstone on one side, and felt-cloth Jesus on the easel, welcoming the children into his arms, on the other. I was baptized at 12 years old, had a solid string of ecstatic, powerful "mountain-top" spiritual experiences at Christian youth camps and retreats as a teen. I hit a bit of brick wall in college, as I was set up by my parents to embrace young earth creationism, and allowed to continue in my folly right into enrolling in university. That shook my faith badly, as I'd been betrayed and lied to by many of the people I'd trusted most, but that crisis triggered a transformation for me toward a more mature, thoughtful, and personal faith in Jesus Christ. Through the child raising years, and founding several tech startups that failed badly, then one that did well and eventually got bought by a large Internet company in the dot com days, church was my life outside of work (and inside it, too, often enough!), and I continually identified God's hand in influencing and shaping the world around me and in me according to his will. In the last decade when we've been fortunate enough -- blessed by God, as I saw it at the time -- to have the means, my wife and I have gotten involved with our hands and our funds in church planting and church growth as part of our commitment to reifying the Kingdom of God on earth through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I was not a pastor like John, or Dan Barker. I never went to seminary, and my most impressive "official" credentials in the church were nothing higher than "guitarist in the worship band", but I was a "died-in-the-wool" believer. I never heard God "speak" in an audible way, but I saw many things I considered miracles, many events I interpreted as God's special message of reassurance, love and hope to me. I was an avid student of theology, a circumstance which had faith-building and faith-destroying ramifications for me over the years. In any case, I was not a "lukewarm Christian", one of those who slowly drifted out of the faith. My faith did not fade away, it came crashing down, quite unexpectedly, and frankly not of my own choosing (at least at the start). I was a cradle Evangelical fully immersed, well-read and fully on board. As a poster on a forum for (Christian) homeschoolers commented recent in a large "discussion" over my atheism: it's the "worst case scenario". Such is the dissonance for many who have known me, a good share of them have decided I've just been lying or faking it all these years, or I somehow just was never saved, never a Christian that "took".

A Moral Imperative
The irony for me, given all the indoctrination I've received along with so many other evangelicals and fundamentalists over there years about the necessity of God as an underwriter for moral values, is that while my faith collapsed out of reasoning and skepticism, my eventual rejection of Christianity on a lasting basis was predicated on realizing the moral poverty of Christianity. Some come to disbelief in God out of moral outrage toward God, and understandable but dubious path to knowledge. I came to realize my belief was sublimated desire and fear, and that I just did not have any foundation for believing in God's existence, even (especially) in light of my own subjective experiences, which I overlaid on the bare scaffolding of dubious history and incoherent philosophy/theology. I disbelieved first, but freed from my Christian presuppositions, Christianity took on a much more complex, problematic moral character; for whatever good elements remained, the God of Christianity on many fronts represented cruelty, viciousness, caprice, abuse, injustice, and moral incoherence. I did not believe there was any Christian God, or any gods at all, but if the Christian God somehow was real, and I was badly mistaken, I realized I would have to resist his authority and power on moral grounds, as a matter of good moral conscience.

With that, the matter was decided. I had no remaining basis for belief, and Christian belief had become morally problematic, even if I did have basis for it. In the past year, despite all the pain and stress that necessarily comes from someone in my position renounces his faith, I feel like I have a new lease on life, and life itself has value and moral meaning for me that it never did before. There's a lot of adjustment to do when you've come into your life thinking yourself just a "sojourner" here on Earth, making a brief stop on the way to eternal life with God. But as St. Paul said, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child". At 40 years old, I had done well professionally, had a happy, healthy, growing family and a great marriage, but I was stilling clinging to childish thinking and emotions when it came to God, my faith, my moral foundation and the principles I was passing on to my children. Like many Christians, I find great comfort and pleasure in indulging in dreams of living past my death, and living forever. But this past year has been the year -- better late than never -- to put away childish things, and to embrace reality as it is, and live in such a way as to take full advantage of the precious moments I have in this life, and to build a life of virtue, making my little part of the world a better, more just, happier, and humane place for my kids, their grandkids, and all they will share their world with.

-Touchstone

Why I left Young-earth Creationism
by Glenn R. Morton

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/gstory.htm


For years I struggled to understand how the geologic data I worked with everyday could be fit into a Biblical perspective. Being a physics major in college I had no geology courses. Thus, as a young Christian, when I was presented with the view that Christians must believe in a young-earth and global flood, I went along willingly. I knew there were problems but I thought I was going to solve them. When I graduated from college with a physics degree, physicists were unemployable since NASA had just laid a bunch of them off. I did graduate work in philosophy and then decided to leave school to support my growing family. Even after a year, physicists were still unemployable. After six months of looking, I finally found work as a geophysicist working for a seismic company. Within a year, I was processing seismic data for Atlantic Richfield.

This was where I first became exposed to the problems geology presented to the idea of a global flood. I would see extremely thick (30,000 feet) sedimentary layers. One could follow these beds from the surface down to those depths where they were covered by vast thicknesses of sediment. I would see buried mountains which had experienced thousands of feet of erosion, which required time. Yet the sediments in those mountains had to have been deposited by the flood, if it was true. I would see faults that were active early but not late and faults that were active late but not early. I would see karsts and sinkholes (limestone erosion) which occurred during the middle of the sedimentary column (supposedly during the middle of the flood) yet the flood waters would have been saturated in limestone and incapable of dissolving lime. It became clear that more time was needed than the global flood would allow.(See http://www.seg.org/publications/geoarchive/1996/sep-oct/geo6105r1336.pdf for an article showing an example of a deeply buried karst. For a better but bigger (3.4 meg) version of that paper see http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/97/97ng/ng97_pdf/NG4-1.PDF

One also finds erosional canyons buried in the earth. These canyons would require time to excavate, just like the time it takes to erode the Grand Canyon. This picture was downloaded from a site which is now gone from the web. It was http://ic.ucsc.edu/~casey/eart168/3DInterpretation/Deltain3d1.gif

I worked hard over the next few years to solve these problems. I published 20+ items in the Creation Research Society Quarterly. I would listen to ICR, have discussions with people like Slusher, Gish, Austin, Barnes and also discuss things with some of their graduates that I had hired.

In order to get closer to the data and know it better, with the hope of finding a solution, I changed subdivisions of my work in 1980. I left seismic processing and went into seismic interpretation where I would have to deal with more geologic data. My horror at what I was seeing only increased. There was a major problem; the data I was seeing at work, was not agreeing with what I had been taught as a Christian. Doubts about what I was writing and teaching began to grow. Unfortunately, my fellow young earth creationists were not willing to listen to the problems. No one could give me a model which allowed me to unite into one cloth what I believed on Sunday and what I was forced to believe by the data Monday through Friday. I was living the life of a double-minded man--believing two things.

By 1986, the growing doubts about the ability of the widely accepted creationist viewpoints to explain the geologic data led to
a nearly 10 year withdrawal from publication. My last young-earth paper was entitled Geologic Challenges to a Young-earth, which I presented as the first paper in the First International Conference on Creationism. It was not well received. Young-earth creationists don't like being told they are wrong. The reaction to the pictures, seismic data, the logic disgusted me. They were more interested in what I sounded like than in the data!

John Morris came to the stage to challenge me. He claimed to have been in the oil industry. I asked him what oil company he had worked for. I am going to let an account of this published in the Skeptical Inquirer in late 86 or early 87. It was written by Robert Schadewald. He writes,

"John Morris went to the microphone and identified himself as a petroleum geologist. He questioned Morton's claim that pollen grains are found in salt formations, and accused Morton of sounding like an anticreationist, raising more problems than his critics could respond to in the time available. Morris said that the ICR staff is working on these problems all the time. He told Morton to quit raising problems and start solving them. "Morton chopped him off at the ankles. Two questions, said Morton: 'What oil company did you work for?' Well, uh, actually Morris never worked for an oil company, but he once taught petroleum engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Second, How old is the Earth?' 'If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning.' Morton then said that he had hired several graduates of Christian Heritage College, and that all of them suffered severe crises of faith. The were utterly unprepared to face the geologic facts every petroleum geologist deals with on a daily basis. Morton neglected to add that ICR is much better known for ignoring or denying problems than dealing with them."

It appeared that the more I questions I raised, the more they questioned my theological purity. When telling one friend of my difficulties with young-earth creationism and geology, he told me that I had obviously been brain-washed by my geology professors. When I told him that I had never taken a geology course, he then said I must be saying this in order to hold my job. Never would he consider that I might really believe the data. Since then this type of treatment has become expected from young-earthers. I have been called nearly everything under the sun but they don't deal with the data I present to them. Here is a list of what young-earthers have called me in response to my data: 'an apostate,'(Humphreys) 'a heretic'(Jim Bell although he later apologised like the gentleman he is) 'a compromiser'(Henry Morris) "absurd", "naive", "compromising", "abysmally ignorant", "sloppy", "reckless disregard", "extremely inaccurate", "misleading", "tomfoolery" and "intentionally deceitful"(John Woodmorappe) 'like your father, Satan' (Carl R. Froede--I am proud to have this one because Jesus was once said to have been of satan also.) 'your loyality and commitment to Jesus Christ is shaky or just not truly genuine' (John Baumgardner 12-24-99 [Merry Christmas]) "[I] have secretly entertained suspicions of a Trojan horse roaming behind the lines, " Royal Truman 12-28-99

Above I say that I with drew from publishing for 10 years. I need to make one item clear. It is true that I published a couple of items in the late 80s. The truth is that these were an edited letter exchange I had with George Howe. When George approached me about the Mountain Building symposium, I told him I didn't want to write it. He said that was ok he would write it, give it to me for ok and then publish it. Since it was merely splicing a bunch of letters together, it was my words, but George's editorship that made that article. To all intents and purposes I was through with young-earth creationist (not ism yet) because I knew that they didn't care about the data.

But eventually, by 1994 I was through with young-earth creationISM. Nothing that young-earth creationists had taught me about geology turned out to be true. I took a poll of my ICR graduate friends who have worked in the oil industry. I asked them one question.

"From your oil industry experience, did any fact that you were taught at ICR, which challenged current geological thinking, turn out in the long run to be true? ,"

That is a very simple question. One man, Steve Robertson, who worked for Shell grew real silent on the phone, sighed and softly said 'No!' A very close friend that I had hired at Arco, after hearing the question, exclaimed, "Wait a minute. There has to be one!" But he could not name one. I can not name one. No one else could either. One man I could not reach, to ask that question, had a crisis of faith about two years after coming into the oil industry. I do not know what his spiritual state is now but he was in bad shape the last time I talked to him.

And being through with creationism, I very nearly became through with Christianity. I was on the very verge of becoming an atheist. During that time, I re-read a book I had reviewed prior to its publication. It was Alan Hayward's Creation/Evolution. Even though I had reviewed it 1984 prior to its publication in 1985, I hadn't been ready for the views he expressed. He presented a wonderful Days of Proclamation view which pulled me back from the edge of atheism. Although I believe Alan applied it to the earth in an unworkable fashion, his view had the power to unite the data with the Scripture, if it was applied differently. That is what I have done with my views. Without that I would now be an atheist. There is much in Alan's book I agree with and much I disagree with but his book was very important in keeping me in the faith. While his book may not have changed the debate totally yet, it did change my life.


References
For an example of a seismic karst during the middle of the geologic column go to

http://seg.org/

Select 'publications' from that page

Select 'Geoarchives'

Select '1996'

Select 'September and October'

Select 'pdf' from 3-D seismic reflection tomography on top of the GOCAD depth modeler
Jean Luc Guiziou, Jean Laurent Mallet and Raül Madariaga

Scroll down to page 6-8 on the acrobat reader. These are pages 1341-1343 of the original journal.

There you will see 3d seismic data that shows evidence of a subaerial erosional event supposedly in the middle of a world wide flood!

For those who want to go to the library it is Vol. 61, No. 5
September-October 1996 Geophysics.

The wind of change is blowing through the landscape, yes, the religious landscape.  Some years ago the Catholic church official endorsed the Theory of Evolution as having the best explanatory power for explaining the diversity of life on the planet, including human life.

I am sure memories of the persecution of Galileo in the 17th century most have played on their minds, and it was felt the match of scientific progress most not be impeded by religious dogmatism.

However, to say that TTE is not incompatible with Christian (or Catholic) doctrine is not to say that it is.  The Catholic have yet to explain where this leaves the following core parts of the faith;

1) Original sin
2) God's curse on humans
3) The Genesis Accounts
4) Noah's flood

As these difficulties persist, I am sure they will eventually die out the way all superstitions do.


The Anglican Church too, has remarkably declared it intention of issuing a public apology to Charles Darwin, following its official endorsement of TTE.  It too, will have to come up with some interpretational gymnastics to explain away the Genesis accounts.

Now, the bastion of darkness and superstition remains the Christian Evangelical Movement (Fundamentalism) which is digging its dirty heels deep in the cesspit of creationism and biblical literalism.  Despite the fact that evolution is well attested like the nose on our faces, they continue to peddle this brand of mythology from the infancy of humanity.

In modern times, a new breed of creationist have come about, the Intelligent Design Theorists.  To call it a theory is to dignify their ideas.  There is nothing as intellectually bankrupt as ID and this has been proven in several law courts in America.  The ID proponents want to compel the teaching of creationism as science in American schools, despite the fact that there is simply zero body of science data in support of ID.

ID'iots speak in one voice (religious undertones), to their usually scientifically ignorant and illiterate audience and with pseudo-scientific voice to the general public.  Well, such subtefurge have been realised many a times, to the chargrin of their supports.

The creationist, ID'ers glory in preserving their flock in such ignorance and the flock likewise wallow in the cesspool of ignorance. Such scientific ignorant zealotry is dangerous for our civilisation.  Despite the fact that principles based on  TTE hold great promise for staggering therapies, creationist continue to oppose all such advances in human understanding.

The irony is that some of the most prominent advocates for TTE are themselves theists, notably;

Kenneth Miller
Francis Collins
Daniel Fairbanks
Francisco Ayala
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Simon Conway Morris
etc
etc

These are great spokemen for TTE and a new theology called theistic evolution.

What alarms me more is the plight of africa.  With  a relatively low level of scientific literacy, and few public advocates for science, the fast spread of Christian fundamentalism will render the unsuspecting African resistant to the adoptions of TTE and all its consequent benefits.  When killer diseases such as AIDS, Ebola, Bird Flu, Malaria parasite etc undergo mutations and evolve into more resistant organisms, the African will be left at a lost, or dependent on cures from other countries where such opposition to TTE is minimal.  At this rate, the majority of Africans will be left in perpetual intellectual infancy, thanks to their uncritical attachment to barbaric mythologies from the Middle East.

It is about time we wake up from this long intellectual slumber induced by Christian fundamentalism.

There is a very long tradition of religionist arguing that morality the direct result of god prescribing a set of code governing human behaviour. For Christians, this code is inscribed in the bible and Christians have long argued that without such god-given moral code, society would be left adrift and trip into "immorality".

But is it true that societal moral codes are god-given?

davidylan*:
[size=14pt]Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.[/size]

What nonsense are you talking about? Did you read the entire bible before coming up with your false "concern" for consistency?

Then what is the following palaver about:

[size=18pt]Matt 7:

21 Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
22 Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?"
23 And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness." [/size]

davidylan*:
[size=18pt]christianity has nothing to do with morality[/size].

You are kidding, aren't you? Or are you for real?

Matt 7:

21 Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
22 Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?"
23 And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness."

davidylan*:
you have a point. But since we can to a certain extent tell who is a brother or not "by their fruits", its clear you're not.

Never mind me. I don't really care about my afterlife. If you or your ilk wish to call me fool, it doesn't really bother me.

I am really concerned about consistency and logicality in the doctrine and teachings of Jesus. On the one hand he forbads his followers calling each other fools, and yet he doesn't give these same followers the means of identifying who are the really true followers, rather than the deceitful hanger-ons.

davidylan*:
depends on what you assume "fool" means. See bold, i've had that excuse used one too many times here its becoming ridiculous. You use the physical to understand the spiritual.

Matthew 12:48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? 49 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

Thanks for that Matt passage. I cannot say I had any lasting memory of it.

But it would still be difficult to know who your brother is, since it is really for god to know. Didn't Jesus say somewhere "Not everyone who says Lord, Lord shall be his disciple . . ."

So since it is beyond humans to read other humans hearts and minds, you can never really know who is your brother.

Which of these commandments did Jesus fulfil?

davidylan*:
this is a typical athiest outlook. Is it sectarian if people born in America refer to themselves as citizens and you as an illegal alien?

The bible is clear on who is a brother . . . members of the household of faith. If you want to be a part of it then understand that there are rules to follow and a prescribed route of entry. if you do not wish to be a part of this brotherhood of faith then by all means feel free not to.

This humanistic approach is flawed.
Christ came to die for ALL mankind, however He can't force all mankind to accept Him.

You can't constantly struggle to force christian "benefits" into a humankind approach while ignoring the prerequisites.

Yours is quite an inappropriate and bizarre analogy. Let me show you why.

Fristly, are you suggesting that Jesus's (God's) injunctions are on a par with human ones? the epiteths "citizens" and "illegal alien" are simply meant to convey one status vis-a-vis a country or state. They are not meant as insulting or derogatory connotations. I have many friends in the UK who at one time or another have been illegal aliens until their status was regularised.

However, the word "fool" is meant as an insult and to injure feelings. If an American citizen were to call you an illegal alien or a fool - which would you find most hurtful?

The bible is clear on who is a brother . . . members of the household of faith.

Where is the bible clear on who constitute a brother? Chapter and verse, please!

Are you in the same household of faith with Lutheran, Methodist, Mormons, Jews, Muslim, etc?

Chrisbenogor:
Maybe we should start then with the ten commandments are they still binding? if not why?

How about asking first, "Which 10 Commandments? Those in Exodus 20 or Those in Exodus 34? Remember Ex34 commandments were meant to replace the Ex20 ones.

davidylan* link=topic=177704.msg2884767#msg2884767 :
Notice something very important . . . the bible says Noah was a just man and perfect but it quickly qualified that with this . . . IN HIS GENERATION. Every man in the bible was judged according to the light that was available in their generation and that is what i believe God will use to judge those who never had access to the bible during their own generation.

3. Now SLY, remember that you will be judged ACCORDING TO YOUR GENERATION. What will be your excuse on the last day? You can't say you didnt hear of Christ, unlike Noah there is no excuse that the blood of Jesus was not available, you can't claim you never saw a bible . . .

What the deuce is this?  What sort of theology is this?

Christian spend a lot of effort arguing for absolute morality and then you come and argue for relativism.

I have listen to the most prominent of contemporary Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, argue vehemently for absolute morality and god as the source of such morality. You have just come along and taken the opposite road.

Man, go read up on apologetics.

pilgrim.1:
Dear huxley,

Thank you for your reply. I think that the best thing presently would be to probably pretend ignorance until occasion may serve me an invitation to contribute further. As far as I'm concerned, I've seen the same pattern often displayed where atheists feel that the finest quality to display is insult others and ask us to "expect" ridicule where their desires are left unattended. I have repeatedly called for reason; but since that is not yielding fruit, I'll just pretend ignorance and let it look like you've "won" your appetite of assuming we're faith-heads.

Do have a wonderful evening all the same.

Hello again and thanks for engaging me. And I apologize honestly if you took offensive at my use of the word faith-heads. While I was aware that it might contain some derogatory connotation, I did not think it was that deeply penetrating.

Secondly, I am really NOT interesting in winning arguments/debates. I am more motivated by establishing reliable epistemic approaches for revealing the truth about reality. Such truths might come from anyone, I don't care, as long as they have the evidence on their side. That is why I have been banging on about reasons for believing a proposition.

Like I said, I generally do not wish to ridicule. When I used that word earlier, I meant ridicule from the general public. I said I would be gracious. Check it out. You do not ridicule your "friends", do you?

Have a good day and hope you engage some time again in more congenial mode.

Cheers

pilgrim.1:
You may not have read any other other atheists who disagrees with Dawkins; but that does not mean there is none whatsoever.

Are really reading me? Did I even so much as suggest there were none?

This is what I said, for which I response is above;

I have not read any other atheist who disagree majorly with his argument, althought a lot disagree with his style. And he is very MUCH aware of that. He even says he does not know how to play the political game because his style is very direct and up-to-your face.

pilgrim.1:
Great. Maybe the style is much more important to you than the substance of the discussion - which is why for the sake of sanity I have obliged to sit back and watch the drama as it unfolds.

Did I even imply that? This is what I really said;

I am really interested in his argument and I will make and choose my own style.

Which part of that statement did you not understand, to suggest that I find style more important?

pilgrim.1:
@huxley,

You really need to broaden your mind, huxley. It is beginning to be a big disappointment that you would even suggest Dawkins "draws from" . . philosophy. The guy is a zero on it - and his mates have pointed it out in no uncertain terms.

The one thing I often find in many people talking loudly like this is that they don't even know what they are arguing about. >Sigh<. My dear sir, please stretch your mind a bit more broadly and understand that Dawkins is the least person on the list to draw from philosophy - he just doesn't have a clue what it is!

Hello,

First off. Did you see some of the questions I highlighted in red above?

It is rather frustrating when I keep asking you for Dawkins' arguments you find inadequate. You avoid all that and narrow down to small issue which are peripheral to my points, like this taunt about Dawkins not drawing on philosophy.

And then you accuse me of having a narrow mind, without yourself showing how yours is broader. I keep asking but I never get anything back. OK, you have got a broad mind on this subjects, haven't you. Ok, Show us that. Show us the arguments.

If you know anyment thing about philosophy, you would know that NO philosophical arguments are ever knock-down arguments. Some arguments are good, some better, some bad, some higer explanatory power. That is the nature of the territory. Dawkins's philosophical arguments are philosophy lite, and he admits that. Is that not a good quality, to admits own shortcomings, where such are known? If you had read The God Delusion you might have seen he draws from such heavy-weights as David Hume, Dan Dennett, Voltaire, etc.

I really wish we should come off this Dawkins business and look at the evidence for Christianity. But alas, I know you will find something about Dawkins yet again, and drag that back into the discussion.

davidylan*:
Huxley, Plus_queen pointed out a very important part of that warning to you ignored.

Again, anyone who says to his brother

You're neither my physical nor my spiritual brother so i'm not bound by the warning if indeed i call you out on your folly.

Funny. Let's take this argument as far as it could go;

In what sense is brother used in this context? Was it meant as a biological brother, a spiritual brother, a kinship brother. Is it possible to tell from the context?

Now, if Jesus was representing a new dispensation (covenant) for mankind, is there any reason he would have wanted to narrow down the definition to mean only those within a small coterie of people? I call this the sectarian approach. Is there any other evidence in Jesus pronoucements where he is seen to be espousing sectarian ideals? I submit, there is plenty;

"Do not go among the Gentiles, or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel" (Matthew 10:5-6).

"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24).

Ok, given that Jesus expressed such sectarian sentiments, are we to read "brother" in a sectarian sense? I submit there is a strong case for that given Jesus's own sentiments.


The other approach which I tend to favour is to read it as a all-world or universal approach. I call this the humankind approach. In this sense, Jesus, as the claim universal saviour of mankind, meant brother to mean all humans all over the world, including females (and intersexuals). In this approach, Jesus is signaling his sympathies with all of humankind and the need for politeness in human discourse.

What do you guys think?

pilgrim.1:
@huxley,

Lol, what factual statement was in Dawkins' nuance of "faith-heads" against others, especially when there's only ridicule in that cliche? I know at what level I think, and using this as an excuse for continuing your attitude indicates to me that you may not have carefully considered what I said in my repostes.

Let get this straight.  Where have been making an argument for Dawkin's? Did I say anywhere that I expect all atheists to agree with him?  

I was an atheist at least 5 years before I was ever even aware of Dawkins and when I first became aware of him, could not warm up to his direct style.

I have not read any other atheist who disagree majorly with his argument, althought a lot disagree with his style.  And he is very MUCH aware of that.  He even says he does not know how to play the political game because his style is very direct and up-to-your face.

I am really interested in his argument and I will make and choose my own style.

Now You claim to have found faults in Dawkins arguments.  Much as I would like us to get off this Dawkins business, can you present the faulty arguments and lets look at it together rather than just calling names.  
Please take the above seriously

pilgrim.1:
Please huxley, don't even go there! I'm totally shocked at your brashness this evening. Are you the only atheist that is totally unware that Dawkins was not doing SCIENCE in his rants? Or am I the only person who has come across other atheists who are too ashamed to hold up Dawkins as a face for atheism? Your assertions are flying all over the place - and this leaves me wondering how you could be downplaying Dawkins on the one hand and then fronting for him on the other.

Nobody is the face of atheism.  This is the mistake theist make.  Who is the face of Christianity?  Is it the Pope?  Is it Benny Hinn?  Is it Ted Haggard?  Is it Billy Graham?

Nobody is the face of atheism.  I can make strong arguments in favour of atheist without dropping names.

Of course, as a public intellectual I would expect Dawkins to not only draw from science, but also from other areas of human endeavours, viz - philosophy, history, archeology, etc.

C'mon,  tell us here once and for all - Which of the arguments Dawkins present did you find inadequate or faulty.  C'mon, speak for yourself now, or quote the arguments from other people.  I don't care.  I just want to see the argument, even if it comes from a cat.


I ask again, on what grounds should I believe the following:

1)  A virgin gave birth to a god

2)  That the earth is about 6000 years

3)   That a global flood (Noah's flood) once cover the earth

etc, etc,

I really want you to give me reasons why I should think Christians are not faith-driven.

Let us say you were to meet a community of people who lead their lives on the basis that the earth was flat - as flat as a paper.  This belief cause them to eschew travel to distant land, to build vast temples to the flat-earth gods, etc, etc.  Do you think we should entertain such beliefs in this day and age?  Should such beliefs not be ridiculed?

pilgrim.1:
@huxley,

Ahem, ahem!!   This is somewhat hard to digest. Not a disciple of Dawkins and yet you are so used to his nuances. I wonder how many people would be convinced about that; yet I don't hold you against your claim.

You don't suppose "evidence" will be offered when you have derided those whom you hoped to engage in a fruitful dialogue. This is the lesson atheists have to learn constantly.

To use someone's factual or philosophical arguments commits them to their discipleship?  Is this the level at which you think? Arguments stand on their own, not by virtue of who makes them.  Few of Dawkins' arguments are new.  In fact, there is nothing he has said about religion that has not been said by people before him.   He simply presents it in a different light and in light of current scientific/philosophical/sociological thinking.


Why don't you make it easy on yourself(ves).  Do not give your critics the opportunity of misrepresenting you.  Is that too much to ask?  Let us know what and why you believe what you believe.  If it stands to reason we might come to your side.  If not expect , "ridicule", but from me I shall be gracious.

Have you ever been tempted to call someone a fool? If avoid and charges of hypocricy and perhaps ameliorate your chances of going to heaven, you are well advised to take these Jesus's words serious;

Matthew 5

21"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'
22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother[b]will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell

Don't say you were never warned.

Thanks for all your reply.  But get it straight, unlike your disposition to argue from authority,  I don't wish to take that approach.  I am no disciple of anyone, not least Dawkins.  

"Atheists" (doubter of religion) have been around for as long as religion has been about;  from Epicurus, Lucretius, Socrates?, . . . Tom Paine, DAvid Hume, Voltaire, etc, etc.  Each age has its atheist.  Dawkins does not represent atheism, just as he does not represent evolution or gravity or relativity, etc, etc.

I and asking for evidence that your beliefs are based on reason.  But I never get any.  This is what is most frustrating about your ilk.  You have not given me any reason to think you are not guided and driven by faith rather than reason.

Wordsmith:
@ huxley,

LOL, look here little man, you can ignore the latter part of my post and go on and on foaming at the mouth about reason this. . . escatholoshadadajangbalajugbu. . . long tin on a kentro level, man . . . it still doesn't take away the fact that you are as much a bigot and hypocrite, same goes for your goon squad.

LOL, funny enough, you forgot the slowpoke part when quoting the morally bankrupt statement i made . . .

Why am I not surprised? Why arguments fail you, you resort to condescension and insults. I asked you to give reasons why you beliefs should be take seriously. Was that too much to ask? If you cannot then why would I be wrong in using the epiteth faith-heads?

I think you also need to show George W Bush these verse, since he is trying to put through plan for the US government to be responsible for the debts of the banks.

Why would a sensible christian president do something so "foolish" as this?

plus_Queen:
Do you know the book of proverbs in the Bible has so many wise sayings that applies to everyday life.
You may actually save yourself heartaches by heeding those words.
I just love the scriptures.
Do you know the Bible talks of being a surety for other people's loans and warns against such.

"Only a man with no sense would promise to be responsible for someone else's debts" (Proverbs 19:18)


"Don't promise to be responsible for someone else's debts. If you should be unable to pay, they will take away even your bed" (Proverbs 22:26)

Great words of wisdom.

Please share yours

Pardon me, but is this not exactly what the claim Jesus did, promised to be responsible for our debts(sins)? Or did Jesus never read Proverbs?