I Highly Recommend the New Book, Doubting the Resurrection
It is rare that I recommend a new book twice to my readers, but the recommendations for Kris D. Komarnitsky's book keep coming in: Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? In it he lays out a probable naturalistic hypothesis of Christian origins. Here's what some scholars are saying about his book: “If you liked my book Beyond Born Again, you're going to love this one by Kris Komarnitsky! He shows great acuity of judgment and clear-eyed perception of the issues. He does not claim to have proof of what happened at Christian origins, but he does present a powerfully plausible hypothesis for what might have happened, which is all you need to refute the fundamentalist’s claim that things can only have gone down their way. By now it is a mantra – it is also nonsense, and Kris shows that for a fact.”
–– Robert M. Price, Ph.D. Theology, Ph.D. New Testament“A surprisingly excellent demonstration of how belief in the resurrection of Jesus could plausibly have originated by natural means. Komarnitsky is well read in the leading scholarship on this issue and boils the debate down to bare essentials in plain language. He quotes and cites dozens of scholars and primary sources to build a solid case. Though I don't always agree with him, and some issues could be discussed at greater length, everything he argues is plausible, and his treatise as a whole is a must for anyone interested in the resurrection.”
–– Richard Carrier, Ph.D. Ancient History“Komarnitsky is addressing an important topic in a considered and rational way. This book offers the open-minded reader an opportunity to work through some of the key questions surrounding the Easter mystery that lies at the heart of Christian faith.”
–– Gregory C. Jenks, Ph.D. FaithFutures Foundation“Clearly written and well argued, Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection lays out a plausible and intriguing case for a non-supernatural explanation of the New Testament resurrection accounts. Don’t be put off by the fact that Komarnitsky is not a scholar – his book makes a solid contribution to the historical-critical understanding of these immensely important texts. This book deserves serious attention from scholars and all those interested in Christian Origins.”
–– Robert J. Miller, Professor of Religious Studies, Juniata College."In Komarnitsky's third chapter he ventures onto my home turf--psychology--and his treatment of the the subject is impressive. I found the chapter opening a bit hard to follow, but persistence paid off in spades.
Komarnitsky pulls together the work of historians and psychologists and tells story after story of apocalyptic cults that find ways to sustain their beliefs despite radical disappointments (a messianic figure betrays trust, an end-of-the-world date comes and goes, aliens fail to appear). Social psychologist Leon Festinger's work on cognitive dissonance provides a theoretical framework for understanding an otherwise incomprehensible phenomenon. For anyone who is interested in how apocalyptic beliefs are sustained, whether in a Christian context or not, I recommend this thorough, well-documented overview.
Although the Christian resurrection story is shrouded in mythos, making it hard to know what actually happened in history, modern examples and cognitive dissonance theory offer a compelling possible scenario. Without resorting to any form of supernaturalism, drawing just on what we know about human behavior, Komarnitsky offers a sufficient explanation for the resurrection story at the heart of Christian orthodoxy."
-- Valerie Tarico, Ph.D., Author: The Dark Side - How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth
The Bible and the Treatment of Animals
In this Blog post I want to take a good look at what the Bible says about the treatment of animals. Like most any topic we find in the Bible from abortion to war, there will be inconsistencies and contradictory emphases within its pages, since the books compiled into the Bible were written by different people at different periods in time, and even edited along the way with inserted comments by pseudonymous authors up until the canon for each testament was declared closed. So we can expect to find inconsistencies within the Bible when it comes to the proper treatment of animals as well. And this is what we find. Andrew Linzey and Tom Regan are probably today’s most important Christian voices in support of a new respectful animal theology, having written a number of books on the topic. They admit that “what is clear, and what can be asserted confidently…is that…there are alternative, initially plausible and yet mutually inconsistent ways of interpreting the holy scriptures, some of which supports humanistic interpretations of the values nature holds, others not.” [Animals and Christianity: A Book of Readings (New York: Crossroad Pub., Co., 1988), p. xii-xiii). Indeed, that is par for the course.
In what follows I’ll admit there are passages that speak warmly of animals and of our human obligation to treat them well. These pericopes exist. There are not many of them. We do find a few of them in the pages of the so-called holy scriptures. But we need to keep them in perspective by placing them within the larger context of the whole of holy writ. We need to understand the over-all thrust of what the canonical writings say about human beings, their relationship to their God, and toward animals. We need to place those texts into that whole context. There are always minority voices in any political party or religious grouping. So we shouldn’t be surprised to find minority voices concerning the treatment of animals in the Biblical texts and in the church down through the centuries, and we do. But that’s what they are. Keep this in mind. They are minority voices.
Christians today are resurrecting these minority voices by placing an emphasis on them as if they were “plain as day” to the people of old. They’re not. We need to ask ourselves what the people in the biblical era would have thought about the treatment of animals in their day, not ours. Given the new paradigm that Darwinian evolutionary biology provides us for thinking about this issue, Christians are reinterpreting the main thrust of the Biblical passages to fit this new paradigm in light of these minority voices. They are doing this because we now realize that all animals are considered interconnected with each other in an ecosystem favorable for the rise of human beings where we are all dependent on each other. Given Darwinian evolutionary biology we now see an obligation to keep species from becoming extinct, as far as is possible. We must now care about all animals on the planet to help maintain this favorable ecosystem.
We must place this new Christian emphasis on the minority animal advocacy voices found in the Bible into this larger context. The same thing has happened with regard to anti-Semitism, feminism, slavery, war, capital punishment, homosexuality and the treatment of children. John Shelby Spong, an Episcopal Bishop no less, has documented some of these kinds of Biblical texts and how they were used by the Christian believers down through the centuries in his book, The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible’s Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005). As history has moved on so also has our sense of morality. With this newer heightened sense of morality, Christians have been forced time after time after time to look for these minority voices in the texts of the Bible and in the theologians of the past. But doing this won’t exonerate the Bible from the majority voices that are to be blamed for the horrendous treatment of animals down through the ages.
So my challenge as we look at these texts is twofold. My first challenge is to ask what best explains the fact that Christians must continually seek out these minority voices in the past to defend what they believe? On the one hand is my thesis that the Bible was predominately written and compiled by anthropocentric barbaric men of the past who saw their relationship to the universe and their world in a self-centered patriarchal manner. They saw themselves as patriarchs ruling over nature, over other nations, over their families, over their slaves and over their animals. Just as women and slaves and children were regarded pretty much as chattel (property), so also were their animals. They predominately had an instrumental regard (versus intrinsic regard) for their property. This so-called property, all of it, was to help these ancient men in a hostile world throughout their lives, and so the care of their property was indeed real, but for the most part they cared for it mainly because by caring for it they had a better life. Again, there were exceptions, minority voices. But this is what we find in the majority of the pages in the Bible itself.
By contrast is the Christian thesis that God revealed the essential truth about himself, the world, how to regard other nations, their families, their slaves and their animals. This thesis will be tested in this present chapter. If God revealed the essential truth about everything then how can the Christian explain the passages in the Bible which clearly don’t support such a thesis? I will maintain they cannot satisfactorily do this, especially in light of the new paradigm of Darwinian biology and the new awareness of the need for the rights of animals.
Since I don’t think my first challenge can be adequately met, my second one follows on its heels. Why didn’t God reveal the truth about the intrinsic worth of everything from the environment, to other races of people, to women and to animals from the very start? With regard to the sufferings of animals, why didn’t God tell believers in his book that animals felt pain and that they deserve to be treated with respect with dignity? Why didn’t God dictate several laws to the Israelites against animal cruelty? If God exists and has any foresight at all, and if it’s true that God knows human beings are “wicked,” then why didn’t he do this? If he had done so there would be no biblical justification for any kind of animal cruelty. Lacking this justification his faithful followers wouldn’t do it, or at least, they wouldn’t openly do so with a clear conscience. And such practices wouldn’t have gained any official church blessing. My explanation for this lack of divine guidance is because there is no divine being to be found in the Judeo-Christian religion. It is a man made religion, period.
So let’s look at the Biblical texts according to how they have been understood prior to the rise of Darwinian evolutionary biology, the rise of Biblical Criticism and our heightened sense of civilized morality found in democratic loving societies. The reason for doing this is because it would become uncharacteristic of a perfectly good God to wait until the 18th century for these texts to be understood properly. For he would’ve known believers could not understand what he really wanted them to think and to do. And he would be found misleading believers that is was okay to be cruel to animals up until such time that they understood the minority voices found in his so-called word. For Christians to object that it might have been necessary for God to reveal the truth in this manner will be the subject of a later chapter.
Creation and the Dominion Mandate.
In Genesis chapter one there are six successive creative days represented. The first three days prepare the earth for the populations that will inhabit it in the last three days. Mankind is created last. After creating the world God declares it all “good.” Good for what purpose? Good for whom? Of humans alone is it said we are made in God’s “image” and to humans alone was given what has been called the “Dominion Mandate” over the earth to rule and subdue it. We are to multiply and fill the earth, like some of the other created things, but we are also told to “subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
It is quite clear from reading this text that mankind was the apex of creation, the crown jewel, or the pinnacle of creation. Evangelical Ronald B. Allen sums this up in these words: "The biblical view starts with the assertion that the eternal God has created man, the most significant of all his created works." “Man is not only God’s creation, but the pinnacle of his creative effort…man is distinct, the high point of God’s creative work, the apex of his handicraft. The progression of the created things in Genesis 1 is climatic; all of God’s created work culminated in his fashioning of man.” ["Man, Doctrine of" Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible. H. D. McDonald, another evangelical, concurs when he wrote: “The impression that the Genesis account gives is that man was the special focus of God's creative purpose…All the previous acts of God are presented more in the nature of a continuous series…Then God said, ‘Let us make man.’ Then--when? When the cosmic order was finished, when the earth was ready to sustain man. Thus while man stands before God in a relationship of created dependence, he has also the status of a unique and special personhood in relation to God." ["Man, Doctrine of." Evangelical Dictionary of Theology]. Other scholars concur: "The Genesis account of creation accords to man a supreme place in the cosmos." ["Man," New Bible Dictionary]; "...the creation of humanity is surely accented as the climactic achievement of God’s creative activity." [The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1:1166)].
It is argued that other passages say otherwise. Some have argued that along with Psalms 8; Psalms 144:3, and the ending of Job that man is insignificant. But insignificant compared to what? Human beings are insignificant compared to God alone, but this says nothing against the idea that human beings are the apex of his creation. It’s entirely consistent for man to be the reason for creation and at the same time for God to be so above mankind that the Psalmist can wonder why God even bothers with us at all.
The world was created for human beings. It was a “good” world, for them. And then God tells them what they are to do with the rest of creation; they are to subdue it and have dominion over it, something reiterated in Genesis 9:1-3 and Psalm 8. When we look at the Hebrew words for “subdue” and “dominion” we see just what God wanted from us. The Hebrew word for subdue is כָּבַשׁ and it’s a very harsh word which literally means “to trample on.” According to an authoritative Lexicon it means to “tread down, beat or make a path, subdue; 1. bring into bondage, 2. (late) subdue, force. [Brown, F., Driver, S. R., & Briggs, C. A. (2000). Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon]. We see this word used in Zechariah 9:15 of Israel trampling on the weapons of her enemies. In Jeremiah 34:11 it’s used of slave owners taking back released slaves and subduing them again. The word “subjugate” would be an appropriate word for what this word means, and ding this demanded force. The same word is used by a king Ahasuerus who was angered at what he considered Haman’s attempted sexual assault (”subduing”) of Queen Esther, in Esther 7:8. It’s also the derivative word for the word “footstool.” What God said was for mankind to make the rest of creation a footstool for his own purposes.
The word “dominion” doesn’t fare any better. It has as similar meaning to the word subdue except that it also includes the idea of chastisement. This is no benign way to rule over nature. It meant to “master” over someone, especially when he refused to be subdued, or after conquering him. It’s used of King Solomon’s overseers who forced his laborers to build the Temple in I Kings 9:23. It’s used in Isaiah 14:2 describing the time when the Israelites defeated her oppressors and subdued. According to Biblical Scholar John C. L. Gibson, to “dominate” or “lord it over” would be what is meant. These two words, according to him, were “autocratic, imperialist verbs.” [Genesis, (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1981), p. 80]. One of these words was enough to convey the harshness of this man-given lordship, but when both words were used together the impression is of a dictatorial and domineering rule over nature, subject only to God’s rule over man.
Roderick Nash, a history and environmental studies professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, sums it up in these words: “The image is that of a conqueror placing his foot on the neck of a defeated enemy, exerting absolute domination. Both Hebrew words are also used to identify the process of enslavement. It follows that the Christian tradition could understand Genesis 1:28 as a divine commandment to conquer every part of nature and make it humankind’s slave.” [The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), p. 90].
In 1967 professor Lynn White Jr. laid the blame for our present ecological crisis upon Christian understandings of the Biblical desacralization of nature in an essay titled “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.” [Science 155: 1203-1207]. Of the Genesis creation account White argued that Christians believe “God planned all of this explicitly for man's benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes.” And he charged that: “Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen.” He wrote: “Our science and technology have grown out of Christian attitudes toward man's relation to nature…Despite Copernicus, all the cosmos rotates around our little globe. Despite Darwin, we are not, in our hearts, part of the natural process. We are superior to nature, contemptuous of it, willing to use it for our slightest whim.” Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, viewed as the “Bible” of the animal liberation movement, soon followed on the heels of this essay which supported his claims.
Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong agrees by claiming the Genesis 1:26-28 text “set the stage for seeing the earth as the enemy of human beings.” [Sins of the Scripture, p. 49]. As such the Christian attitude that was derived from it is “anti-earth.” [Ibid., p. 55]. Spong articulates the Darwinian problem of evil for us in these words: “Human beings were not created in the image of some external deity; we developed out of the evolutionary soup as part of the fabric of life itself. DNA evidence today demonstrates that we are kin not only to apes, but to cabbages. We are part of an emerging life force sharing a common environment with every other living thing. No creature can dominate the world, as those called Homo sapiens have sought to do, because all life is radically interdependent.” [Ibid, p. 65].
Several Christian scholars have objected to this interpretation of the Genesis creation text. John C. L. Gibson argues that “what professor White is describing, though a very real Christianity, is a debased and adulterated Christianity.” Gibson claims that “these verses in Genesis could not possibly have been taken by their first hearers to suggest that ‘man’ could do what he liked with God’s creation.” Accordingly, “‘Man’ is God’s representative on earth, his ambassador, and possesses no intrinsic rights or privileges beyond those conferred on him by his divine master, to whom moreover he has to render account.” [Genesis, p. 79-81]. Gordon Wenham, the Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the College of St. Paul and St. Mary in Cheltenham, England, concurs. He claims that although man rules over the world, he “rules the world on God’s behalf,” and as such in this text “mankind is here commissioned to rule nature as a benevolent king, acting as God’s representative over them and therefore treating them in the same way as God who created them. This is of course no license for the unbridled exploitation of nature.” [Genesis 1-15, p. 33]. Richard Bauckmann, professor of New Testament Studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, documented several responses to Lynn White’s thesis. His claim is that these responses “can fairly be said to have refuted it over and again.” He even wrote his own chapter length response to it. [God and the Crisis of Freedom: Biblical and Contemporary Perspectives (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), p. 131. See his chapter 7, “Human Authority in Creation.”].
I find it puzzling that these Christian scholars dispute what seems quite evident from the text itself, even if it can reasonably be said other factors were involved. While we must grant that the dominion mandate cannot mean humans can do anything we want to nature, including animals, the words used are extremely harsh ones when compared to our sensibilities toward animals today. How can someone “trample upon” a slave or a sheep beneficently? What does that even mean? It’s an oxymoron.
These Christian scholars claim our God given dominion mandate over the world should be compared and contrasted with how God rules over the world. We are not God. Instead we are God’s viceroys. So we don’t have the same rights that God has to create “evil” or “calamity” (Isaiah 45:7), nor do we have the same rights to kill at will because we didn’t create life in the first place (Job 1:21). We are caretakers who have been given a stewardship, they claim. But even if our role is to be described as they argue, Marti Kheel, a visiting scholar at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, argues: “Whether as dominators or as caretakers, human still occupy the hierarchical position of managers of the rest of the natural world. I found the idea of a God who, through divine act of nepotism, selects a ‘chosen species’ to manage the rest of the natural world deeply disturbing, and at odds with my feelings of kinship with the rest of nature.” [Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), p. 21].
Apart from these kinds of things, it’s said our rule must be based upon a loving, kind God. Implicit for them is the benign, loving, beneficent God of Anselm’s 11th century perfect being theology after centuries of theological gerrymandering. Having come to believe that God is perfect in love these Christian scholars would want us to think of the biblical God’s lordship in the same manner, as characterized by a loving beneficent king. Hence, man’s rule must have the same moral care in his lordship over nature. But this is emphatically not what we find in the Bible of God’s rule. Yes, there are voices describing God as love and/or caring for his creatures. But there are also many voices showing that God’s rule over us is very harsh, which is reflective an ancient brutal world. It was a very difficult world the ancients lived in where they must struggle to survive against early death and painful diseases from which they had no cures. Starvation was sometimes a few weeks away if they failed to successfully kill their prey. Wars took place almost every year in the springtime (I Chronicles 20:1). Kings were often brutal. Famines and droughts could devastate them. It was a hostile world they lived in. They must subdue it and make it obey.
The people in Biblical times conceived of God based upon this brutal world and the brutal rulers they have known. This God can be cruel. He can be kind. He is cruel with those who do not submit to his rule and obey his every command. He can be kind with those who do. This God can slam the world with a flood for disobedience, require Abraham to sacrifice his only son, pulverize the Egyptian nation with devastating plagues, send snakes to kill 3000 people for their disobedience, and be pleased when babies are dashed against the rocks (Psalms 137:9). He can send a drought or famine or plague of locusts or even another nation to kill every man women, child and animal for being disobedient. This God also threatens us with eternal punishment if we don’t think the evidence to believe in him is convincing. This God is described as a God of War, a Jealous God, and an Avenging God. This would be the divine model we find as the model for man’s given lordship over the earth. Be kind to subjects who are in obedience. But be very harsh toward those subjects who are disobedient. Trample on them. Break them down. It was a patriarchal world. Man was to dominate over the world just as God ruled. And so it couldn’t have been pretty world to live in as women, slaves, children and animals in this world. If a fig tree produced fruit, for instance, bless it, but if it didn’t, then curse it as Jesus did (Matthew 21:18-19).
If I’m wrong about this Genesis text and if Richard Bauckmann is correct to say that despite what seems evident in the Bible the responses to my position “can fairly be said to have refuted it over and again,” which I deny, then Christian scholars still have a major problem. For then the problem is no longer an exegetical one but a historical one. The problem becomes not what the Bible says as interpreted by these modern Christian scholars, who base their exegesis on Anselm’s view of God in light of the new Darwinian evolutionary paradigm, but why God allowed this biblical text to be used by Jews and Christians to abuse the environment and abuse animals. This relates to my second challenge mentioned earlier. Why didn’t God reveal the truth about the intrinsic worth of everything from the environment to other races of people, to women and to animals from the very start? It’s far from clear in this text that he did. He could’ve been much clearer, easily, even if these modern Christian scholars are correct in their exegesis based on hindsight. So the fact that God wasn’t clear is an indictment of a perfectly good God who should’ve known how human beings would interpret these verses. As the CEO of any company knows, if there is any miscommunication about the goals of that company, the fault is his or hers. If the company does wrong because it misunderstood the CEO’s directives, then it’s his or her fault.
Biblically speaking we do not clearly see God’s special providential care for animals in the Creation story with its dominion mandate, nor as we will see in a later chapter, do we see it based on God’s judgment upon the world because of the sin of man. It’s just not to be found in these early chapters in the Bible, the ones that speak of the beginnings of God’s creative work in the world, the ones that set the stage for interpreting the rest of the biblical texts regarding the treatment of animals and of nature.
Old Testament Passages Both Good and Bad.
In the Old Testament there are good passages on behalf of animals as well as passages disrespectful and hurtful to animals. Believing that God is perfectly good means that believers must try to explain why he commanded the abuse of animals. We would expect that any society would produce something good to say on behalf of animals, especially one that collected her writings together into a canon for over a millennium. And so we have some minority voices can be found. After God destroyed all flesh in the Flood he then subsequently promised to all living creatures, man and beast, not to do this again (Genesis 9:8-17), providing the rainbow as a sign of this covenant (as if THAT was the first time a rainbow was ever seen before!). Some comfort that; given God’s post-flood mandate for humans to hunt animals down and kill them for food. The Sabbath day was a rest for both man and beast (Exodus 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:14). The Israelites were told that if they saw their “brother’s ass or his ox fallen down by the way,” they were not to withhold their help from them, but rather to “help him to lift them up again.” (Deuteronomy 22:4). We also read: “If you chance to come upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; you shall let the mother go, but the young you may take to yourself; that it may go well with you, and that you may live long.”(Deuteronomy 22:6-7). The ox was not to plough with the ass (Deuteronomy 22:10), nor were the Israelites to muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain (Deuteronomy 25:4). In Psalm 36:6 we’re told God saves a beast as well as a man. In Psalm 147:9 we’re told that God gives the beasts their food, and in Psalm 148:7-10 they praise him. In Proverbs 12:10 we read: “A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” (See note) And in Jonah 4:11 God is concerned for both the Ninevites and their beasts.
NOTE. If someone wants to hang the care for animals on this lone passage in the Bible from the book of Proverbs then we should be sure to understand something about the genre of that book and with it wisdom literature as a whole. According to Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, the book of Proverbs contains “prudential wisdom—that is, rules and regulations people can use to help themselves live responsible, successful lives.” If a person wants to be successful then he or she should follow its advice, they claim. [See their book, How to Read the Bible For All its Worth (Grand Rapids; Zondervan, 1982), pp. 195-203.] Read with this over-all context of the book in mind, Proverbs 12:10 may merely be saying that if a man wants to be successful he will have regard for the life of his beast, for a righteous man was a successful man and a successful man was a righteous man, usually. This is why we find in the story of Job, as another book in the wisdom literature, a man having great difficulty defending his righteousness before his critics even though disaster has struck him not just once but twice.
Expressed in these verses is some minimal concern for animals. However, one can question the reason why Israelites cared for their animals, given the harshness we find in the dominion mandate and the earliest parts of Genesis. Surely it wasn’t just that they cared for the intrinsic worth and value of animals qua animals. It was because they needed them. Animals were part of their domain, their property, and if found in the wild they were hunted and eaten. Caring for them, just like caring for their wives and children and slaves, was important to Israelite men. For by doing so it was better off for them, their patriarchal headship, and their lordship over their households. Animals would have had merely instrumental value, not intrinsic value. If a man became emotionally attached to an animal to give it special care, which no doubt was done, that was well and good. But it would do little to stop him from butchering it for a future meal much like how farmers do today, or in sacrificing it to God. The Israelites were given permission to eat the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hart, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, sheep, birds and fish, what are known as “clean” animals. (Deuteronomy 14:4-20).
Speaking of animal sacrifices, the Bible strongly suggests this was done quite a bit by everyone, especially at festivals and dedication ceremonies, all sanctioned and commanded by God. According to the Bible there were priests who came from the tribe of Levite who were to offer up sacrifices to God for everything from thanksgiving, to expiation for sins for the individual, to expiation for sins for the whole nation on the Day of Atonement. When Solomon’s slave laborers finished the Temple we read where “the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the Lord. King Solomon offered as a sacrifice twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep.” This was surely an exaggeration if it happened at all (see Jeremiah 7:22-23), but it’s stated nonetheless (II Chronicles 7:5).
Of course, from our perspective this was a completely unnecessary waste of animal life, and a brutal way to kill them. Even if we admit that animal sacrifices were to prefigure the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to atone for our sins, and even if we set aside the insurmountable intellectual problems in understanding how Jesus’ death does anything to atone for our sins, Old Testament sacrifices, according to Christian theology, did nothing to atone for anyone’s sins…nothing. In the canonical book of Hebrews we read that it was “impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins,” that all of these sacrifices could “never take away sins.” They couldn’t have, otherwise Jesus would never had to die on the cross as a sacrifice “for our sins” it’s argued (see Hebrews 10:1-18). These innumerable animals were brutally butchered for no reason at all…none. Their throats were slit and the blood was drained on the altar where they were subsequently skinned and quartered into pieces and then burnt with the smoke of their flesh rising up to God who was considered to reside up in the sky (i.e., “heaven”), as a sweet smelling aroma (Exodus 29:18, 25; Leviticus 3:16; 23:18, etc). Depending on the kind of sacrifice offered some of the meat went to the priests and/or the person making the sacrificial offering. [For more on the biblical depictions of this sacrificial system see Roland de Vaux’s classic work, Ancient Israel: Religious Institutions Vol 2 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company1965), pp. 415-456]
The “Prophetic Tradition.”
Conspicuously lacking in the Old Testament are any prophetic denunciations of animal cruelty, since it’s regularly claimed that the biblical prophetic tradition expresses the moral core of Judaism and Christianity. [One can see this expressed in my former professor Daniel Maguire’s book, The Moral Core of Judaism and Christianity: Reclaiming the Revolution (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993]. When arguing against the so-called New Atheists like Richard Dawkins, John F. Haught, the former Chair and professor in the department of theology at Georgetown University, in Washington D.C., faulted them for not understanding this. Describing the moral core of the prophetic tradition with its emphasis on justice as “God’s preferential option for the poor and disadvantaged,” he wrote: “To maintain that we can understand modern and contemporary social justice, civil rights, and liberation movements without any reference to Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jesus, and other biblical prophets makes Dawkins’s treatment of morality and faith almost unworthy of comment.” [God and the New Atheists: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 68]. But there is nothing in these Old Testament prophets decrying any injustice done to animals. And as we shall see shortly, Jesus’s words and actions fare no better. If the prophets represented God’s concern for the disadvantaged and lowly then apparently God was not concerned for them. If these prophets truly represented the moral core of Judaism and Christianity then it doesn’t include any concern for animals.
There is a vision for the future in the book of Isaiah (11:6-9; 65:17-25), which can easily be disputed given the biblical fact that all God’s creatures were not originally vegetarians. Isaiah 11:6-9 says: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah 65:25 says: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”
About these passages, Paul Copan in his book, “That’s Just Your Interpretation” (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001), p. 229, footnote # 34), rightly points out that Christians “must be cautious about literalizing a poetic and highly symbolic text.” Right that. In Isaiah 65:20 it also says that, “No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.” If taken literally, Isaiah’s vision for the future still involves death, hardly a description of the supposed original paradise in the Garden of Eden and certainly not that envisioned by the final state of man in heaven. Concerning this verse in its context, Copan argues: “Surely the text does not urge literalism here! It uses understatement to stress the longevity of life during the Messiah’s reign.” Distinguished New Testament scholar and professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, C.F.D. Moule, was referring to Isaiah 65 when he wrote: “No one with a grain of sense believes that the passage…is intended literally, as though the digestive system of a carnivore were going to be transformed into that of a herbivore. What blasphemous injury would be done to great poetry and true mythology by laying such solemnly prosaic hands upon it!” [Man and Nature in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), p. 11.]
Copan quotes from John Oswalt’s commentary on Isaiah 11:7 where we find the point of the passage is that “the fears associated with insecurity, danger, and evil will be removed.” [Isaiah 1-39, New International Commentary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 283.]. These passages do not express literal truth even from a biblical perspective. And they are not to be considered prophetic unless it can be shown they were something more than a mere wish for the future. Something yearned for is not a prediction. Anyone can hope for a peaceful paradisiacal future. As such, anyone could write similar poetic things as these. Unless there are explicit dates set for such a prediction to be fulfilled that can be either confirmed or denied such a vision of the future is a mere wish for a blissful future. Even given this hope for the future, the child will not literally play over the hole of a poisonous asp, and neither will the lion nor the ox eat straw. Copan rightly tells us that “the emphasis in these allegedly vegetarian texts is not the nature of the lion’s diet but his domestication, his being tamed so that he is no longer a threat. To eat straw like an ox is to be tamed and not to be a danger.” [Emphasis his]. If, however, the authors of these passages in Isaiah really thought they were describing a literal return to the paradise in the Garden of Eden, then they got it wrong. There was animal predation before the fall as we’ve shown.
The prophets did speak against the waywardness of God’s people and their tendency to offer a false or insincere formalized worship, along with a condemnation of their unrighteous and unjust ways. They condemned any and all animal sacrifices and formalized worship that did not spring from clean and sincere hearts. The prophetic voice in Psalm 50 typifies this (even though it’s a Psalm). There we read: “I am God, your God. I do not reprove you for your sacrifices; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will accept no bull from your house, nor he-goat from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High; and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” What is going on here? According to The Bible Knowledge Commentary : An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-1985, Volume 1, page 831), as just one source among many: “God did not reprove them…for their meticulous keeping of the letter of the Law in offering the prescribed sacrifices. But Israel failed to realize that God did not need their bulls or goats (v. 9; cf. v. 13), for He is the Lord of all Creation. He already owns every animal and knows every bird. He instituted the sacrifices not because He needed the animals but because the people desperately needed Him. He is not like the gods of the pagans who supposedly thrived on food sacrifices. The Lord does not depend on man’s worship for survival” (Emphasis mine). This is hardly a text supportive of God’s care for animals. What God wanted from his people is also expressed in Micah 6:6-8. The important thing for God wasn’t their sacrifices, but “to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly” with him as their God. This does not mean God didn’t also demand their sacrifices. He did. He just wanted these sacrifices to come from a pure and sincere worshipful heart. To say God did not demand their sacrifices pits these prophets against the Mosaic law.
We also read in Isaiah 1:11-17: “‘What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?’ says the Lord; ‘I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.’” Again, there is no care expressed for animals here either, just a condemnation of the injustice of those who made “vain” sacrifices to their God.
We even read in Amos (6:4-6) where God is seemingly displeased with the eating of meat by the people in the southern kingdom of Judah: “Woe to those who lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall; who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David invent for themselves instruments of music; who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!” But Amos’s God is confronting his people with a totally unexpected reversal of what the people expected when the so-called “Day of the Lord” comes. They believed God desired sacrifices, and they were right as we’ve seen. We don’t see anywhere in context where God denies this. Instead, God would rather that they do justice and righteousness (v. 24), not to the neglect of their sacrifices, but along with them. They didn’t heed the prophet’s warnings of judgment. They instead indulged themselves in a decadent hedonism. Their sole concern seemed to be for their own gluttonous lifestyle rather than grieve over what had happened to the northern kingdom of Israel who were slaughtered by the Babylonians They showed no concern with their own impending “Day of the Lord” when they will meet with a similar fate. Therefore, Amos says that God says their gluttonous drunken and luxurious lifestyles with come to an end. The sound of their musical revelry will be silenced.
Robert N. Wennberg, Christian professor of philosophy at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, sums up what I’m claiming in these words: “To be sure, prophetic condemnation of animal sacrifices occurred from time to time, but the prophetic objection was not directed against animal sacrifices per se; rather, it was an objection to sacrificial offerings in a context devoid of genuine repentance, devoid of compassion for the needy, devoid of a true commitment to justice. It was any ritual divorced from true spirituality, not only animal sacrifice, that was the object of prophetic condemnation.” [God, Humans, and Animals (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 296].
When God’s judgment does come on people, their animals suffer along with them for their sins. This can be seen first and foremost when we read the story of God sending the ten plagues upon the Egyptians to free the Israelite slaves at the hands of Moses, the supreme prophet of the Old Testament. Water is turned into “blood” and all the fish in the rivers and streams subsequently die. Frogs were made to cover the land and then all but those remaining in the river Nile were destroyed by God. Gnats laid waste to the land, we read. The Egyptian livestock were all killed with a severe pestilence in the fourth plague; all of their horses, their donkeys, their camels, and their flocks of goats and sheep (but then where did they get horses to pull their chariots to chase the Israelites into the Red Sea?). We also see God sending a fifth plague of painful boils (the same kind we read Job was afflicted with), and then a sixth plague of a storm of fire and hail on both the Egyptians and their beasts. (Note: How many times can the Egyptian livestock be punished after they were already killed in the fourth plague!). Then God ends with a scorched earth policy where an eighth plague of locusts devour any and every green plant or tree which might have been left after the storm of hail. The ninth plague of darkness puts a finishing touch on what God had done to the land indicating there was nothing left for the Egyptians. Here we see a wanton divine disregard for animal and plant life (along with human life since the tenth plague was the death of their first-born sons). All of this devastation was done, not because any of the Egyptian’s animals did anything wrong. It was because of the sins of the Egyptians, particularly those of the Pharaoh who refused to free the Israelites. (See Exodus 7-9).
Likewise when a plague of locusts came and devoured the land of God’s own people the prophet Joel (1:18-20) speaks these words: “How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dismayed. Unto thee, O LORD, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. Even the wild beasts cry to thee because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.” Surely this is a prophetic metaphor aimed at his people who had fallen under God’s judgment. Again we read in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-1985, Volume 1, page 1415): “The people were all too aware (before their very eyes) that their food supply, and with it all reason to rejoice, had disappeared (v. 16). Drought had apparently set in as well, for the seeds had shriveled….With no harvest available, the storehouses and granaries had been left to deteriorate. The domesticated animals (cattle. . . . herds . . . flocks of sheep) were suffering from starvation.” As such, God was punishing nature and with it animals for the sins of man. Again, this is not a text supportive of the care of animals. On the contrary, God punishes animals for the sins of man. (In Hosea 2:18-20 we see a reversal where God promises a covenantal contract with animals, as was done in Noah’s day above, precisely because of the righteousness of human beings).
New Testament Passages—Jesus and Animals.
In the New Testament the treatment of animals seen there fares no better. In fact, it’s claimed that it’s worse. Robert Wennberg acknowledges that the New Testament is not “quite the resource for moral concern for animals that the Old Testament is. This has prompted some to view Judaism as a better friend to animals than Christianity.” [in God, Humans, and Animals (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 291]. Given what we’ve just seen in the Old Testament this doesn’t look good. Peter Singer charged that while the Old Testament “did at least show flickers of concern for their sufferings,” the New Testament is “completely lacking in any injunction against cruelty to animals, or any recommendation to consider their interests.” [Animal Liberation, p. 191].
There is some concern shown in the New testament nonetheless. In the Gospels we read where God feeds the birds of the air (Matthew 6:26; Luke 12:24, 27) and cares for the smallest of sparrows (Luke 12:6-7). But after each of these sayings we subsequently read Jesus saying that human beings are more important to God than they: “Are you not of more value than they?”; and “Of how much more value are you than the birds!”; and “Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Richard Bauckham tries to remedy this understanding of the New Testament texts in a couple of important chapters dealing with Jesus teachings about animals and how he treated them. [Animals on the Agenda, pp. 33-60]. Of the just cited passages he claims: “Only those who recognize birds as their fellow-creatures can appreciate Jesus’ point…it is not an argument which sets humans on a different plane of being from animals. On the contrary, it sets humans within the community of God’s creatures, all of whom are provided for” by God. [Ibid, p. 41]. When it comes to the word “valuable” in these texts where it’s said humans are of much “more value” than these particular animals, Bauckham admits the best interpretation of that word (διαφέρω) is to say humans are “superior” to animals, which is a “hierarchical superiority.” But he comes up with a false analogy to suggest this hierarchical superiority can be compared to a king who is superior to his subjects. There is nothing here to suggest this, nothing. A king is a human being who rules over other human beings. [Ibid, p. 45-46]. And while Bauckham may be correct to suggest these animals have some intrinsic worth to God as the creator and caretaker of them, it doesn’t follow that they have intrinsic value to human beings. Bauckham even admits there were several Old Testament laws where animals were to be regarded as property (see Exodus 21:28-35; Leviticus 24:17-21).
Jesus is also represented as teaching he could heal on the Sabbath by using examples of animals who could be rescued on the Sabbath. Matthew 12:11-12 is typical where Jesus said to his critics, “What man of you, if he has one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.” (See also Luke 14:5; 13:15-16). Such acts were acts of compassion, Bauckham argues, “intended to prevent animal suffering.” [Ibid, pp. 37-38]. Since acts of compassion to help animals are lawful on the Sabbath, so also are acts of compassion toward human being are also lawful, he argues. Of course, here is that same Greek word again, expressing the phrase that humans are of much “more value” (διαφέρω) than these animals. It’s not that animals have no value at all to God or to man, but the kind of value is different for God than for man, as I’ve suggested.
In any case, is this any different than the parable of the man who leaves his flock of a ninety-nine sheep in the open pasture to find the one which was lost, who then rejoices when he does? (Luke 15:4-6) What will he eventually do with his sheep? He will eventually sell it to be killed for a meal or kill it and eat himself. The same thing would go for any sheep that a man rescues from a pit on the Sabbath. The question of what work could be done on the Sabbath day was a legal one, which was disputed in Jesus’ day. Jesus (Mark 12:24-27; John 5:16-18; 7:23), like Paul after him (Acts 17:22-31; 23:6), reportedly used arguments based on what his critics accepted in order to argue his case. Paul did this when in the midst of the Sadducees (the conservatives who believed there was no resurrection of the dead), and the Pharisees (the liberals of their day who did), when he said, “with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead I am on trial,” which immediately “divided the assembly” until the dissention became “violent.” Jesus was doing the same thing with regard to his “healing” people on the Sabbath. He was using something his critics agreed on to make the point that it was also permissible to heal on the Sabbath. Does this actually mean he cared for sheep? Who knows?
Bauckham argues that rescuing a sheep from a pit “cannot be understood as motivated by a concern to preserve the animals as property,” because they were not in any life threatening danger. Would the sheep be in danger of dying if left for a day in a pit? Who knows? Would it suffer harm if left there? Yes. Does this entail a compassion for the animals? Maybe, but it’s not a forgone conclusion given what we know from the majority voices found in the Old Testament itself about the value of animals. If Jesus was indeed expressing some compassion for the individual animal itself, then such an understanding comes from the minority voices in the Old Testament, which I already acknowledged. But surely the desire to keep the sheep from being further harmed could also be understood as a desire to limit any additional loss to the owner of the sheep if not immediately rescued and treated by the owner.
In another story in the life of Jesus he encountered a man with a Legion of demons who feared Jesus would cast them out without providing them another host. [The commonly known Latin word “Legion” referred to a Roman army regiment of about 6,000 soldiers.] So the demons begged him to cast them into a herd of swine, which Jesus did. Upon Jesus’ command they “came out, and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.” (Mark 5; Matthew 8:24-34; Luke 8:26-39). It was a common myth that demons needed a host to inhabit, and it was also a common myth that if they couldn’t find a different host after leaving, or being exorcized out of one, they would try to return to the one they left (Mark 9:25; Matthew 12:43-45). Richard Bauckham tells us that upon being cast into the pigs the reason why the pigs were destroyed by the demons is because this “manifests the inherent tendency of the demonic to destroy whatever it possesses (cf. Mark 5:5; 9:22).” [Animals on the Agenda, p. 47]. Bauckham believes these demons could not be sent back into the “abyss” as they requested (Luke 8:31), because until the final end of history evil can only be “deflected and diminished but not abolished,” based on a passage (Matthew 13:24-30) that has nothing to do with these particular demons and what Jesus could or could not do with them as the supposed “Son of God.” So Bauckham merely admits the supposed completely sinless Jesus “permits a lesser evil” here. He says that “the destruction of the pigs is preferable to the destruction of a human personality,” [Ibid., p. 48] as if there were no other alternative options for Jesus who as God’s “Son” was supposedly omnipotent with “all authority over heaven and earth” (Matthew 28:18). I see no reason at all why Jesus, if he is who Bauckham believes he is, couldn’t have sent them back into the “abyss,” as they requested, especially since these demons would have some idea what was possible for him to do. Or, Jesus could have imprisoned these demons in a cave in the mountains, send them into the evil money changers who’s sins may have deserved it, sent them into a murderer condemned to die, or a number of other alternatives. He could even have sent them into the pigs and then kept the demons from drowning them. As it stands this shows a wanton disregard of the “sinless” Jesus toward swine, animals that the Old Testament already declared unclean.
A few things are sure about Jesus. He was certainly not a vegetarian. We read that in contrast to John the Baptist who came “neither eating nor drinking,” Jesus came “eating and drinking” (Matthew 11:18-19). He would especially eat meat when invited into the homes of some wealthy people (Mark 2:15; Luke 7:36; 11:37; 14:1; and 19:5). We read where Jesus assisted his disciples to catch fish (Luke 5:11), multiplied fish along with some bread for the multitudes to eat (Mark 6:38-43), and it’s even reported after he supposedly resurrected that he prepared a meal of fish for his disciples (John 21:1-4) and even ate fish (Luke 24:42-43). He ate a lamb for the Passover meal every year, certainly at his last supper (Matthew 26:17-20), which had been sacrificed that same day in the Temple. As a good Jew it is almost certain he participated in sacrificing animals to God, which took place during the yearly festivals he attended in Jerusalem (John 2:13; 7:1-10; 10:22-23).
We also know Jesus neglected animals when describing the greatest commandments (Mark 12:28-32; Matthew 22.34-40; Luke 10.25-28). He said all the law and prophets could be summed up in two commandments. The first greatest commandment is that we are to love God above all with everything within us. The second greatest commandment was to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus said: “There is no other commandment greater than these.” That’s what he said, and he said nothing about caring for animals, or the environment itself as even a distant third, which is what a perfectly good person should have said, if he was perfectly good. To say that loving God includes loving nature and animals doesn’t follow, otherwise Jesus would not have had to mention that we should also love our neighbors as we do ourselves, since if by loving God we should also love our neighbor then the second commandment was superfluous.
Jesus is also heard to commission his disciples with a new mandate at the end of the Gospel of Matthew when he commands them to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:16-20). No expressed concern for nature or animals expressed here! The drama of the New Testament is one for the hearts and minds of people whom Jesus died for to atone for their sins. Salvation of men’s souls was of the utmost importance lest they be cast into eternal fire. It was a cosmic battle with the forces of Satan and his evil hosts. It’s this passion for the souls of men that drove the Apostle Paul to suffer much as a missionary for Jesus (II Corinthians 11:23-33). He was after all, not on a mission to alleviate the sufferings of animals.
According to Jesus at the Judgment Day depicted in Matthew 25:31-46, we will be judged by our deeds. That is, if our faith has led us to feeding the poor, being kind to strangers, caring for the sick, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoner, then we will be welcomed into God’s presence in the kingdom. Nothing is said here about caring for animals, nor in James 1:27 where the practice of true religion is “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” And nothing is said in the final chapter of the book of Revelation that animals will be in the new Heavenly Jerusalem either.
New Testament Passages—Peter, Paul and John the Revelator.
There was a major shift in the eating habits of Christians in the New Testament. The Jews had already distinguished between the animals they could eat (clean) from the animals they could not eat (unclean). But with a vision of Peter this all changed. In Acts 10:9-16 we read about it. A sheet came down from heaven and in it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. A voice told Peter to rise and eat but Peter refused. Then a voice told him: “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” This vision in a “trance” was thought by Peter to be a divine instruction that uncircumcised Gentiles who believed would be accepted by God: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” This same sentiment was written back into the words of Jesus in Mark 7:19. Unlike in the Old Testament all animals were considered fair game for hunting, herding, raising and eating.
In I Corinthians 9:9-10 the Apostle Paul wrote in defense of him needing to be given financial help for his ministry by allegorically interpreting an Old Testament passage (Deuteronomy 25:4): “For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.’ Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of a share in the crop.” The problem here was penned adequately by Robert Wennberg, who said Paul “argues that because we could not suppose that God is concerned with oxen, some alternative meaning must be assigned to this passage….and if God is not concerned with oxen, then by implication God is not concerned with any other animal either.” [God, Humans, and Animals, p. 298]. In reply a Christian interpreter could claim this doesn’t mean Paul’s implication follows, but I don’t see why not, for what could it mean to say that while God was not concerned with oxen other animals were? That hardly makes sense. What’s the difference in moral status between oxen and other animals? Other Christian interpreters may claim Paul was not denying the literal truth of Deuteronomy. He was only describing a deeper truth in addition to the literal truth, but that is quite a stretch. The text does not suggest this as a possibility. Conservative Biblical scholar F.F. Bruce simply bites the bullet here by rejecting attempts to soften the blow of Paul’s words by saying that while Paul’s argument clashes with a modern concern for animals, “he must be allowed to mean what he says.” [New Century Bible: First and Second Corinthians (London: Oliphants, 1971, pp. 84-85].
John the revelator in the book of Revelation, who was probably not John the Apostle, used many different animals in telling his apocalyptic vision for end times. Ninety three verses contain references to lions, bears, dogs, cattle, birds, eagles, a Lamb, serpents, scorpions, locusts, horses, a dragon, and a beast. There is a lot of carnage taking place, mostly by these animals to human beings. They are used by God to inflict pain and suffering. Reading through the book we get the very real impression that the animal world is a hostile word for the most part. Locusts and scorpions torment men, while birds feed on their flesh and the flesh of horses. There is a dragon and a beast (numbering 666) which are at war with believers. The one exception, of course is the Lamb, who represents Jesus who conquers over this hostile animal kingdom and rescues believers. But in the heavenly city when all is said and done we read that the wicked, who are represented as “unclean,” will not be there (Revelation 21:27), and that outside are “the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.” (Revelation 22:15) Using “dogs” to represent wicked people who will be eternally condemned to the lake of fire is surely a disgusting image unbecoming of a caring attitude toward them, even if dogs at that time were scavengers.
The only expressly positive thing about the New Testament with regard to animals is that because Christians viewed Jesus’ death on the cross as the final sacrifice they no longer had any reason to participate in the Jewish animal sacrificial worship (See the book of Hebrews). This would mean that animal sacrifice was abolished as unnecessary for them. How long it took Christians to actually understand this is not clearly known. We know the Apostle Paul went up to the Temple to offer animal sacrifices when he visited Jerusalem after his third and final missionary journey. In order to help silence his critics the Jerusalem church elders told Paul to show them he still lived “in observance of the law.” Then we read in Acts 21:24-26 that Paul took four men with him “and the next day he purified himself with them and went into the temple, to give notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for every one of them.” The church had not yet ceased offering animal sacrifices. Presumably Christians came to understand what they did about Jesus’ sacrifice later, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans around 70 C.E. The Jews themselves ceased offering animals sacrifices after that time as well, so even though Christians ceased offering up animal sacrifices they probably didn’t do so any sooner than the Jews themselves. Even if they did, it would best be understood as an unintended consequence of a developing Christian theology. It was not something that they ceased doing because of any care they might have had for animals.
A Final Note.
After reviewing a few of the Biblical passages concerning the treatment of animals in the Bible, Christian philosopher Robert Wennberg candidly speaks about what Christians must do to defend holy writ from this appalling lack of concern found in the Bible about animals. He suggests that the defenders of the Bible who are seeking a Biblical basis for a “dramatic revisioning” of Christian attitudes toward animals “are no worse off, possibly better off, than those who in an earlier century turned to Scripture in order to condemn slavery.” [God, Humans, and Animals, pp. 299-302]. He openly admits that “Scripture may seem to have been more of an impediment to the Christian community’s finally making a decisive break with slavery than it was a help,” which I find a major understatement. According to him “there seems to be considerable textual ammunition for the southern white preacher in the 1850’s to rebut attacks on slavery by Christian abolitionists,” but that eventually the abolitionists won the debate. These Christian abolitionist apologists were not “principally seeking to decide whether slavery is right or wrong,” though. They already knew it was wrong and sought a Biblical justification for it, he admits. What necessitated these attempts, he honestly confessed “was the independent conviction that slavery is wrong.” Hence, just as in the case of slavery where the goal of explaining these specific texts “is typically an activity that occurs after we have come to see slavery to be an evil, not before,” so also he challenges the whole Christian community to “come to terms with all of Scripture,” with the goal of arriving at a “thorough and defensible theological vision of animals and their place in the moral universe.” [Ibid., p. 308].
Such a goal as Wennberg proposes is called special pleading, pure and simple. The conclusion has already been reached. Now find the reasons for accepting it in the texts of the Bible. As I’ve argued in this chapter the Biblical texts do not support Wennberg’s animal concern. The truly intellectually honest thing to do, in my opinion, would be to seek to understand what the Bible actually teaches rather than force it to fit inside the grid of anti-slavery, pro-feminism, or animal advocacy concerns. Only after being candidly honest with the texts themselves will he be able to be intellectually honest when thinking about God and the Bible. My claim is that we do not see much of a concern at all for animals in the Bible. It truly is anthropocentric to the core. And as such it’s not indicative at all of what a perfectly good God would reveal to us. If God was truly concerned for the welfare of animals he would’ve said, “Thou shalt not mistreat, abuse or kill animals,” and said it as often as he needed to without giving any conflicting advice. Then God’s people could not justify the ill treatment of them down through the centuries. Then there would be nothing to reform, since there wouldn’t be such wanton abuse, organized abuse, of them in his world.
Science and Religion: A Truce
I, Science, have heard your plea for a truce, oh religion, My nemesis of ages past.
You are wounded, oh religion.
The still-warm blood runs down your side as you say it did your savior on the cross.
My Soldiers in white coats have maimed you.
They have crippled you, leaving you to limp away a casualty from the battlefield.
And now, on the loser’s end, with My chipped and crimson sword laid at your throat, you plead for mercy.
You beg Me to spare your life.
You ask for compassion and for understanding from Me, Science.
You want to be held up and accepted.
Know that I, Science, have no obligation to hear you.
Better it is that you should die, as all things old and decrepit.
But out of compassion and mercy, I grant you what you seek.
I let you alone.
I let you go your way.
I spare you.
But like a fool, you press your luck and demand more.
Instead of running away with your tale between your legs, with a morsel of thankfulness, and what little dignity you have left intact, you debase yourself.
You whine and complain.
You want your doctrines to be accepted in the universities and Institutions of Science and higher learning as viable theories, if not Scientific Truths.
You ask, “Why does science have to be so hostile to religion?”
“Why does the Scientific Community mock us so?”
“Why can't we as religious believers get the respect that we seek?”
“Why can't science and religion join hands?”
And I, Science, reply to you that We are hostile to you because you claim to be of Our Number, but are not.
Your representatives – the creationists and apologists of the ID movement – claim allegiance to Science when your claim is invalid and a manipulation for your own advantage.
You are imposters, all of you, liars and imposters with an agenda.
You serve yourselves and your own interests, and not those of Science.
You seek to exalt your savior and your faith.
You don't seek Truth.
So this I say to you – the religious intelligencia who actively seek an alliance with, Me, Science – take the liberties I give you. Bask in the sun of the life conveniences and the comforts I have granted to you, to worship, to sing, to pray, and to affirm or to deny any belief you want; teach and expound; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine; imagine and create, appoint and oversee; stand outside and admire the stars and the host of heaven as you believe your god provided them for you to admire.
Let the raindrops bounce off of your tongue; admire to no end; teach on love, seek peace, and promote change as you see fit. Do all these things and My covenant of peace shall abide with you, and a very small number of My White-coated Representatives of Science shall at times join you as you worship.
But should you cross into My Territory, into the Territory that belongs to Science, should you bring your antiquated holy books into My Realms of microscopes and peer-reviewed journals, should you take select quotes from real Scientists to bolster your own beliefs and the claims of your false scientists, I will attack you and will kill you in open debate.
You can never stand up to Me, oh religion.
I am your Successor.
I am your Better.
Should the outstretched arms and bleeding hands of your savior embolden you to embrace Our Naturalistic Approach and begin to choke our Scientific Method, should the representatives of your splintered, pious movements begin to interfere and impersonate Our Scientists, to subvert our Work and to make it your own work, a great trespass is committed, and I will remember no more the covenant I made with you.
Nay, I, Science, shall strike you down, and your academics shall be cast out of the universities.
All My Scholars shall hiss at you, and you will be a mockery and an abhorrence to all of the Enlightened everywhere.
You shall grope in the darkness.
Only the simpleton and the ignoramus and the child shall hear you.
The dumb and the fool and the unlearned shall be they who give ear to your words.
And I, Science, shall surely slay you in the courts of the lands.
Cursed shall you be in the schools and cursed shall you be in the colleges.
Cursed shall you be in the laboratories and cursed shall you be in all of the institutions of higher learning.
I, Science, have spoken.
(JH)
What Is The Difference Between A Perception And Knowledge?
Or, "What is the difference between private personal experience and knowledge?". I know this may sound like a stupid question to some, but it seems that it is pivotal in the "Disregarding Established Knowledge..." discussion.
Disregarding Established Knowledge Is Bad, UnKay?
Its simple,
If your beliefs are not consitent with established human knowledge, then they probably are not justified. In that case, other people are not justified in believing what you say about them, and furthermore you have no reason to expect anyone to believe you.
Another One Leaves the Fold: YOU Could Be Next.
Below are excerpts from yet another former Christian telling his family and church friends he no longer believes. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?I dare say no one has called out more to God than I for answers, even for answers about his own existence. No one has pleaded more with God for help. No one has been on their knees more than me. But I’ve heard nothing. Not one thing but my own voice, until eventually I got the impression that my prayers were merely floating to the ceiling and falling back down like stillborn stars. So, I got off my knees and determined, like the human that I am, to find the truth.
His name is Jeremy Styron.
We have, indeed, for centuries, received nothing at all but silence from the God of the Old Testament, just as we have received no recent word from Jesus or Zeus or Apollo or Allah or Osiris. Thousands of years have passed and not an utterance. Does that not strike anyone else as peculiar?
I did not set out at the start to disprove anything. I set out to find the truth. And these truths we can’t escape: Earth is billions of years old, Earth exists on a spiral arm of our galaxy, an insignificant spot, and not the center of the galaxy as many of our forebearers thought (which, by the way, gave creedance to the argument that we are the special planet, and a special species, in all of creation). The Earth will one day be uninhabited by people once again, not by a rapture, but either by a wayward asteroid or gamma ray burst or by the sun losing power. The truth is the canonical Bible contains many irreparable self-contradictions; condones slavery, mass slaughter, rape, the mutilation or altering of children’s genitalia, among other things; and cannot even get the details straight about the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection.
And at some point, all us of have to make a similar choice: Do we want to be complacent in living our lives for a faith that may or may not, in reality, be true, or can we mentally and emotionally handle another possibility: that we are an insignificant dot in a vast, vast universe.
For me, the option that we are an insignificant dot in a vast universe, takes much more wherewithall, and frankly, is a quite liberating axiom, to know that we are, at the core, connected and interconnected with the universe, not just Earth, and everything the universe is quite a beautiful thing, as astrophycisist Neil deGrasse Tyson noted.
Direct Evidence Of Moral Behavior From Evolution
My working hypothesis is that Game Theory and simple rules derived from self-interest are sufficient to generate self-organized behavior that is labeled as "Morality". Here's more evidence to back that up.
Evolution Guides Cooperative Turn-taking, Game Theory-based Computer Simulations Show, ScienceDaily.com
"We published indirect evidence for this in 2004; we have now shown it directly and found a simple explanation for it. Our findings confirm that cooperation does not always require benevolence or deliberate planning. This form of cooperation, at least, is guided by an ‘invisible hand’, as happens so often in Darwin’s theory of natural selection.”
Should Skeptics Send Their Children to Church on Sundays?
Last night I talked with a skeptic who wants his children to be exposed to Christianity in order for them to learn about it and to decide for themselves. So he's sending them to some church on Sundays. Is this a good strategy? NO, not at all, for several reasons. There are other alternatives. I have an alternative proposal for him and others like him.
Let me suggest to these skeptics what they ought to do. If they want to truly expose their children to religious ideas then they should send their children to different churches for a month at a time, or more. Have them attend them in a random order. Have them attend a Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh-Day Adventist, United Church of Christ, Congregational, Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, Unitarian, Disciples of Christ, and Non-instrumental Church of Christ churches. And don't forget a Jewish Synagogue, a Muslim Mosque, a snake handling service, a Pentecostal healing service, and so on and so on, and so on and so on. If this skeptical parent truly wants to expose his children to the religious ideas of his culture then give them the whole range of choices to choose from. And don’t forget to take these children to atheist meet-ups, and freethought gatherings too. Then these children can truly choose for themselves. Then these children can be truly educated about these ideas. And then these children will most assuredly choose to be skeptics.
Nothing but total exposure to the varying options will educate his children. This is what Daniel Dennett proposes with regard to educating our youths in American schools, but will probably never fly because of First Amendment concerns. When placed on a equal playing field religious options are no options at all. THAT’s why I love Bill Maher’s movie Religulous, because it does just that.
One danger in sending our children to the same church over and over is that children are easily swayed to believe what an authority figure tells them in a community of happy looking, but deluded, people. Take for instance Norman Geisler, known as the "Dean of Christian Apologetics." He was raised in an atheist home, but because of a bus ministry he went to church every Sunday for nine years and was swayed to accept and then later defend Christianity. His parents thought the same thing as this skeptic, but they were wrong to do so.
Inerrancy and the Crisis of Evangelicals in the Late 70's
Last night I heard my friend Bob Price give a talk on his new book Inerrant the Wind, which describes the crisis evangelicals had in the late 70's to the early 80's, of which I remember very well. Harold Lindsell dropped his bombshell of a book on us titled, The Battle for the Bible, where he drew a line in the sand whereby evangelicals must accept inerrancy in order to stay evangelicals. Afterward all of us had to take a position on the matter.
This book is Price's dissertation finally in print about that era. There were five evangelical responses as he describes them. Each one of them opened the door to liberal thought, and he takes us through each one of them. Price argues that basically Lindsell was right. Once evangelicals denied inerrancy they were on a slippery slide to liberalism, but Lindsell was wrong in that the Bible is in fact errant, which led evangelicals to travel on this slippery slide in the first place. A history of evangelicals since that time proves that Price's predictions were correct. Evangelicals who denied inerrancy did indeed become more and more liberal. It's a good book and a very interesting read.
In our own day a recent attempt to reformulate and question inerrancy is the book by Carlos R. Bovell. He's already given up the ship.
I also had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Bruce of "Bruce Droppings" who also wrote about last night.
Rumors of a Tunnel in the Underground Railroad: Using Both Reason and Evidence to Learn the Truth
This past weekend my wife and I went to hear a presentation about the Underground Railroad in Orland, Indiana. This small town has quite an interesting past with regard to aiding runaway slaves. Then we went on a walking tour of a few of the homes where these slaves found rest on their journey to Detroit and then into Canada, which was a free country. The people of this town probably helped thousands of them.
Our guide mentioned that there are rumors of an underground tunnel between the leader’s house to either the library or someone else’s house. But the library wasn’t built until years later and she couldn’t find any evidence of a tunnel.
Here then lies an example of what we do in testing a claim. The first thing we do is to think. Can we account for the origin of a rumor that would lead us to think it’s not true? The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor was it a railroad (although in some cases slaves did hitch a ride on trains). Rumors after all, like folklore, spring up all of the time because we’re story-telling people. Rumors of tunnels have sprung up everywhere with no basis (although archaeologists did discover one under George Washington’s home). Then too, we must ask ourselves what would be the purpose of a tunnel? Tunnels to transport slaves would require a great deal of work, so the payoff would have to be significant. Our tour guide told about one house that had a trap door on the second story where runaway slaves would climb down into a room with no windows and no other way to get out but to climb back up. That seems to have been a good enough hiding place. Why would they need a tunnel? These runaway slaves could be easily transported at night, which they were.
While this disproves nothing, it does cause us to require evidence before we’ll accept such a claim.
See, that way easy. The analogy here at DC is obvious. If it isn't then my next post will make it so.
If God Knows How to Get My Attention Why Doesn't He Do So?
After hearing a presentation of the Underground Railroad my wife and I watched a local parade and then went to the Park to mingle, eat, and watch some skydivers land in an open space. I saw an old friend named Joe there are we got into a conversation. He is a Bible Thumper, and by that I mean someone who finds all of his theological questions answered decisively in the Bible, not in reason. Even as a believer I thought Joe was lopsided, since reason was something God created and he required us to think about these issues as well. But Joe has all of the answers.
Joe is sure that he's right and that he has the proper interpretation of the Bible, even though he has had no deep theological training at all. He has the tendency to talk down to others since he has divine truth and it doesn’t matter if someone has studied these issues out deeply either. Again, he has divine answers.
In the course of our conversation he told me that he cannot convince me to believe again, only the Holy Spirit can do that. As he was starting to quote the Bible I interrupted him. I told him about the presentation I just heard concerning the Underground Railroad and the rumors of a tunnel, and how to think through such claims. Then I said to him he needs to begin by thinking, not quoting.
“Don’t quote the Bible to me. Just think about what you’re saying. Does the Holy Spirit know how to get my attention?” He said that “it depended on whether I reject the Spirit or not.” “But even if I rejected it can the Holy Spirit get my attention anyway, like what supposedly happened to Paul who was so hard-hearted that he was even persecuting Christians? Can he get my attention like his supposedly got Moses’ attention with a burning bush? Can he get my attention like he did with Gideon, or many others?” Joe had to admit that I was right, "yes he knows how to get your attention." Then I simply asked him: "If God knows how to get my attention why doesn’t he do so? It’s not that I don’t want to believe. I am open to the evidence just like I’m open to the evidence that there is a tunnel in the town of Orland. It’s just that I cannot believe. I really can’t. It not only doesn’t make sense, there isn’t enough evidence to believe these ancient stories.”
In the end Joe asked if he could pray for me. I told him yes that would be fine. But then I also said if prayer works it’s a done deal. I should eventually believe.
We parted as friends, but I hope the lesson was not lost on him. We must begin to evaluate a claim by simply thinking about it.
End Times: A set of prophecies or a set of hallucinations?
Real Christians are going to disappear abruptly someday soon. The world is going to descend into a bloodbath while someone known as the antichrist attempts to seize control of the planet. That is what some of your neighbors think—and some of your politicians. Many of them even relish the thought. Is Revelation, the last book in the Bible, a set of prophecies or a set of hallucinations? Neither, says Reverend Rich Lang of Trinity United Methodist in Ballard Washington.
If the Book of Revelation isn’t a blueprint that tells us what is coming in the End Times, what the heck is it?
Like any book in the Bible, Revelation was written from the perspective of faith for the purpose of giving faith. It was written in the early days of the Jesus movement to a persecuted minority that was fearing worse persecution.
As the Jesus movement started in Jerusalem and Jesus was crucified, and there was this experience of resurrection, at the same time, there was a simultaneous political movement within Judaism of rebellion against the Roman Empire. It peaked in the 60’s and 70’s. It culminated finally—horrifically-- in the Roman legions marching into the country, destroying Jerusalem and burning down the temple. These two factors – the young Jesus movement and the brutally crushed rebellion–intersect in the writings we now call Revelation
But Revelation doesn’t talk about Jerusalem being destroyed. It talks about a beast with many heads and a dragon and the four horsemen. . .
That poetic language which sounds so strange to us was actually familiar to ancient readers. The author was writing a dramatic script in a form of popular media. Today we all recognize different modes or “genres” of writing—the detective novel, the love sonnet, manga. . Each has its own familiar structure and images. The same was true in the past.
The book of Revelation belongs to a then popular genre of literature called apocalyptic. The term apocalypse means “unveiling.” There were lots of apocalypses, each a graphic poetic vision of some radically transformed future in which the good guys win. This genre began around 200 BC and went out of style around 150 AD. The book of Revelation is also called the Apocalypse of John, and it is one of several explicitly Christian apocalypses that still exist today. In each, metaphoric language was used to communicate something that, experientially, felt too big for words. It was a way of trying to speak the unspeakable—and to inspire endurance and hope.
So what was the author of Revelation unveiling?
Revelation was written about twenty years after the fall of Jerusalem. The author, who we know only as John, had lived during the horrors that accompanied fall of the city. Imagine: the Roman Empire is surrounding Jerusalem. At the same time, civil war is raging within the walls. People are literally starving to death. As the siege continues, the Romans capture 20,000 Jews and crucify them on the walls of the city—while the city still is under siege.
20,000! We think of the crucifixion being unique.
No. Crucifixions happened all the time. There were thousands and thousands of crucifixions. The Jews wanted freedom. To them it was a blasphemy to have the Romans in their land. Many of them rebelled, and they lost. Eventually, the city fell, and the people were slaughtered. Many remaining were expelled from the land. This is part of the Diaspora—the scattering of the Jews, who became dispersed around the Mediterranean—Asia Minor, Greece, Northern Africa and Europe.
But the author, John, is a Christian.
Remember, the earliest members of the Jesus movement were Jews, and so early Christians scattered with the rest of the Jewish people. Over time, thanks to this scattering and missionary activity, Christianity began to be adopted more widely by gentiles and at that point it began to grow rapidly throughout the Mediterranean. John is writing to Pauline (gentile) churches, but they are very rooted in Judaism and the Hebrew scriptures.
At the time Revelation is written, about twenty years after the devastating events of The Great Revolt, the young scattered Christian movement is being persecuted. They are treated like Blacks in the South during the ‘30s and ‘40s. A Christian carpenter might not be able to get work. Some are lynched. John, himself, is writing from exile, so whatever he was preaching was viewed by the Roman Empire as a threat to law and order.
Why was the message so threatening?
Clearly, part of his message was “Stop participating in the imperial cult. Stop participating in the patriotic way of life of the Roman Empire which requires paying homage to the gods of the Empire and in particular the emperor as an incarnation of God.” The Early Christian movement was an alternative to the way of empire. You know, Jesus is called “Lord and Savior”. If you ask where did that language came from, that language came from Caesar. Caesar was “Lord and Savior.” Christians celebrate the birthday of Jesus on December 25, which was when Roman celebrated the birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The pagans believed that if they didn’t take care of the gods, the gods wouldn’t take care of them. By forbidding the cult of the gods, the Christians threatened this balance.
One thing confuses me. Is John writing about events in his past or events in his future?
First of all, he is writing from a lived experience of what Empire can do. That is the key to understanding his perspective. He is writing a book that combines familiar political images. The dragons, for example, are much like our political cartoons. When you see an eagle and a bear you know it means the United States and the Soviet Union. For him, he is using images largely out of Hebrew scripture to convey what the Roman Empire is, and what he believes will happen to the early Christian movement. John’s primary message comes in Chapter 18: Empire will fall. Rome cannot last. This power structure that seems so big and is so crushing of the people will crumble, and God will re-create out of the ruins a new Jerusalem. John continually counsels the movement to hold fast: Those who endure to the end will be saved. This is a book of hope: The empire is going to fall. God is going to make a way where there is no way.
But had he—lost it? With all of the bizarre images, I’ve heard Revelation called “John on Acid.”
No. Almost all the imagery in the book of Revelation is rooted in the Hebrew scriptures, and some comes from Greek myths. In Chapter 12, you have the woman clothed in the sun and Satan falls out of the sky and there is this dragon that chases the woman. Well, that is the birth of Apollo. Domitian, who is the emperor at that time, he likens himself to Apollo. He is the sun god. So John is taking this known story and writing a counter-myth. He is saying that Domitian is not so important as he thinks. The birth of the child, Jesus, that’s the real big story.
The images of Jesus himself are rooted in Hebrew stories. They simply cannot be understood unless you know that they are coming from the book of Daniel and Ezekiel and Zachariah. The narrative, the story line is rooted in the Exodus story in which God liberates the Jews from Pharaoh’s empire – walks them through the Red Sea and the wilderness and sends them to a promised land. Revelation is a recapitulation, a re-telling of the same story. God is the god who frees us from empire, whether Pharaoh or Dominion. We will come out of this into a land flowing with milk and honey. One of the big exhortations of the book is: “Come out of her.”—Come out of Roman Empire (as the Jews came out of Egypt).
What you are saying helps me to understand why people who are immersed in this theology are so fearful of empire – the League of Nations, the Soviet Union, the United Nations—any form of internationalism. Among the “Left Behind” crowd, people who are bridge builders or peacemakers are seen as evil and to be mistrusted. That is what John was talking about, that was his experience, even if people take it out of context.
From the very beginnings, part of the Christian message was the notion of an end time. God is going to clean up the world –which is a messy awful a place with a lot of violence and evil. After all, the central hero of the Christian story is tortured and crucified-- put to death by an empire! How is God going to clean up the world? Jesus is going to come back and rule the world and shepherd the nations.
The Hebrew understanding of history is that it is going somewhere. It is linear, not cyclical, which is a break with the agriculture-based earth religions. Christianity, which is a child of Judaism, picks up the Hebrew storyline: History is linear. But –and this is really important-- in the Bible the end is never the end of the physical world. It is the end of an age. It’s the end, for example, of the Roman empire, and then what happens is not that everyone is whisked off to heaven but that on earth there is a renewal , a renewal of the earth itself, of culture, of the nations ,peace and justice, everyone has their own vineyard and fig tree.
So, where did the notion of everyone being lifted out of their clothes and cars and cockpits come from?
That comes from the 19th Century. An Anglo-Irish theologian called John Darby created a new interpretive lens for the Bible. It’s called Dispensationalism, because in this system, history is divided into seven “dispensations” or ages within an age. In this system, the Rapture leads to the Millennium when Jesus reigns on Earth for 1000 years but before the Millennium is the reign of the antichrist. At different historical junctures different bad buys are picked as the antichrist. In the 1970’s, thanks to Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, it was all about Russia. And the ten nations, the European Union would become part of the Beast. Today dire warnings about Barack Obama being the antichrist are scattered about the internet. Or Osama Bin Ladin.
Believe me—I’ve seen plenty of both—even Chavez and Bono. But come back, for a moment, to the Rapture itself. What about that verse in Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:16). There’s the Lord descending with a trumpet, and the dead in Christ rising and then “we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.”
That is wonderful graphical mythical language which, when written, had very little to do with the plot of Left Behind.
Thessalonians is Paul talking with an early church in southern Europe, and he faces a specific challenge: Christians have died. We had expected Jesus to come back before that happened. Now what do we do? Paul thought he was living at the end of an age. He thought he would see the day that God would come back, clean up the earth and restore Paradise. But it hasn’t happened within the timeframe he expected, so he offers an explanation that integrates the existing facts—instead of Christ returning before any Christians have died, the dead and the living are united with Jesus together.
Flash forward a little bit. When you study very early church history, if you study the art of the early church you don’t see a lot of images of the crucifix or scenes of the crucifixion; you see images of paradise. And there was a proclamation of the early church that had an optimistic view – that where we were headed --on earth as in heaven, was a paradise. This was the expectation of many in the early Jesus movement.
There was a historical process, and over time this expectation changed for some. This process, which I don’t have time to go into, was wrapped around when Constantine became emperor and absorbed Christianity as the state religion. Rather than being a minority faith it became the dominant faith.. Once it became the dominant faith Christianity radically changed because it became about politics and power and control of the nations.
You have this book that is all about how evil empires can be because he has this horrifying experience and now all of a sudden Christianity is in power; empire is on the side of Christianity. That’s a little awkward.
Yes. And, the book of Revelation was dormant for many many years because of this. In our time the book of Revelation has come back with a vengeance because the imagery is made to order for wild interpretation. You’ve got an entire generation of children being raised in these fundamentalist end-times churches, being told they are the last generation.
You obviously think this is a bad thing.
Well, thankfully these families don’t live as if what they say is true is really true. They are still stashing away money to send their kids to college and for their own retirement. If they really believed you would see a hardening of the faith. There is a far right segment of Christian in which you do see this hardening—churches focused on “spiritual warfare” building walls rather than bridges, organizing services to celebrate gun rights, praying public prayers for the death of abortion providers or Barack Obama or judges. This kind of far right hardening comes out of the misuse of apocalyptic literature. Christianity gets translated into a quest for purity and righteousness that will bring these prophesies to fruition.
You said earlier that there were lots of apocalypses. It was a popular medium. How did this particular book get into the Bible?
Well, there was controversy about that. Many Christians didn’t want it in the Bible, and even Martin Luther question the decision of the Catholic councils to include it. Revelation got into the Bible because the church fathers chose to believe that the same John who knew Jesus in person was the author of this and several other texts. Their primary criterion was “apostolic authority.” What we now know – this is just the evolution of our own knowledge—is that the authors who wrote the Gospel of John, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Letters of John, and the Apocalypse of John, were not the same person. The script is very different. The same phrases are not used. One is written by a highly educated Greek author, the other written by a person whose primary language is Semitic.
These books that the counsels thought were written by John, the companion of Jesus, they were written by two or three people?
The people who actually knew Jesus, the twelve, none of them left writings for us. All of these writings are written well after the death of Jesus. The Church was looking for authority, and so they tried to choose writings that fit a hierarchical form of Christianity and that traced their lineage through the apostles back to Jesus. The Bible is the book for the church and it was compiled by the Church for the purpose of helping the Church advance faith. The books didn’t become finalized as scripture till 300 years after Jesus lived and died.
I was taught as a child that the Bible was essentially dictated by God to the authors. I was never taught about which books were chosen and how. But I would assume that Catholics believe God gave perfect insight to the councils that made the decisions?
I would assume so. And that is a wonderful mask for authority. When religion becomes a pursuit of power—a system to keep people in control, you are always going to have those games that are being played. Against religion, you have the message of Jesus, which is a spiritual message – a message of freedom.
Part of what this comes down to is: What is the Bible? When you are dealing with an end times fundamentalist Christian, you are dealing with a person who believes that the Bible was written by God– God writes it and there is a secret code and if you are in the know you will know the code and the elect will know the code. The Bible itself becomes a magical book, a secret script. If you just know how to read the script, you’ll know where the world is going. And so people begin to live this script as if they live in the end times.
We’re so into that secret knowledge thing, aren’t we? You see it many places: Gnosticism, the Knights Templar, Freemasonry, the Mormon temple, childhood clubs, Skull and Bones . . . .
Yes, and I think you see it in all religions. I think that part of the religious impulse easily gets perverted into a quest for secret knowledge because it makes me more than you. I am special, I am elect, I am closer to God, I know the truth. The reality is that we are all schmucks trying to muddle through as best we can.
This article is adapted from an interview conducted by Valerie Tarico on Moral Politics Television, Seattle, June 12, 2009. Special thanks to Producer Bill Alford.
Is Atheism Rationally Coercive?
Let me comment on what Eric said here at DC, who is an intelligent Christian:
I'm just trying to get at the truth. I was an ardent atheist for a number of years, but gradually came to believe that the theistic worldview and the arguments for it are more consistent with my experience of the world and my philosophic intuitions (which we all rely upon when thinking these things through). I've changed my mind in the past, and I'm certainly open to doing it again in the future. I don't think that my position is rationally coercive, but I do think that it's rational, just as I would say (and I presume John would agree) that the arguments for atheism aren't rationally coercive, but atheism is rational. LINKFirst off I really appreciate Eric's honesty and willingness to consider his faith to be in error. Not many believers will say what he did, and for that I find it a joy to discuss these issues with him, even if we both think the other person is wrong. Kudos to him! Can I say the same thing?
Am I open to the possibility that I'm wrong? Well, it depends on the question. If the question is whether there was a supernatural force or being who may have created a quantum wave fluctuation which caused this universe to spring into existence as his last act before dying, then yes, I could be wrong. Such a being might have existed. Nor am I 100% sure no supernatural force or being exists now. But if the question is whether evangelical Christianity is true or many other moderate to liberal versions of that faith, then yes, I am very sure. Do I think there is a slightest chance that I might be wrong about Christianity? No. In fact, I am so sure I'm right that I'm willing to risk being thrown into hell for all of eternity. I think this says a lot about how assured I am that I'm correct.
That being said, do I think arguments for atheism aren't rationally coercive? Yes, that's what I think. Let me explain by defining the words "atheism" and "rationally" as well as what it means for something to be "coercive". These distinctions need to be fleshed out to see why I say this.
If the word “atheism” means “metaphysical naturalism,” as Eric and many Christian theists equate the terms, then I do not think “metaphysical naturalism” is “coercive” in the sense that the evidence compels people to accept it. One could affirm deism, or the philosopher’s god. If the word "atheism" is defined as simply "the lack of a belief in God," then that too is not rationally coercive, if for no other reason but that rational people disagree (as I'll explain later when it comes to the word "rationally"). I do think that agnosticism is rationally coercive, if by that we mean a skeptical method for assessing truth claims. We should all be agnostics in the Huxleyan sense. I also think agnosticism is rationally coercive if by that we mean the view that we just don't know why the universe exists (known as "soft-agnosticism"). We must all admit this is the default positon before making any positive claims about the origins of existence. I just happen to think this kind of agnosticism leads us to atheism though, as defined in either sense above.
When it comes to what it is that makes a person reasonable or “rational,” this is a complex topic. If people can only be considered rational if they are correct, then there are a few serious problems to be dealt with which cannot be satisfactorily answered. For one, how is it possible for a rational person to change his mind and still be considered a rational person both before and after changing his mind? Did he all of a sudden become rational because he changed his mind for the truth, or did he become irrational because he changed his mind and is now wrong? Besides, how do we describe what it means to be rational when all of us are surely right about some things and yet wrong about other things? Are we just rationally schizophrenic human beings? Furthermore, how can we tell when someone is rational if being rational means being correct, since everyone is influenced by non-rational emotional factors having to do with what William James described as our passionate natures? If we are to judge whether someone is wrong about an issue and hence irrational, then how sure can we be that we are not wrong and therefore irrational ourselves?
If instead we think being rational means following the rules of logic, then rational people can be dead wrong and still be rational. All they have to do is follow the rules of logic to be rational. Rational people can be dead wrong simply because they start with a false assumption. If they take a false assumption as their starting point then they may be perfectly rational to follow that assumption with good logic to its logical conclusion, even though their conclusion is wrong. They would be wrong not because they are irrational, but because they started with a wrong assumption.
To people who think we should have no assumptions I merely say that we must all assume some things if for no other reason than that we can never examine everything we accept to be true all at once. Ideas which are not subject to conscious scrutiny form a set of background beliefs which are used in assessing a given issue at hand. Our conclusions on these other issues are our accumulated set of assumptions. Yes, we must try to examine everything we accept one at a time, but we can never examine all of that which we accept as true. Just as Michael Polanyi effectively argued that we know more than we can tell, we also accept more than we can justify. Have you, for instance, ever serious examined whether or not communication is even possible between two people? Some philosophers have, and at least one ancient Greek philosopher named Cratylus concluded this was impossible. Given that conclusion of his, Cratylus merely wiggled his finger whenever he was asked a question, which, if he was correct, was the logical thing to do even if it might seem irrational. Your assumption that we do communicate is just that, an assumption, until you actually examine the arguments to the contrary. Was Cratylus correct? I don’t think so. But even if he was wrong he was still being rational. In the same sense I think George Berkeley was wrong for arguing there was no physical universe even if I think he was rational in doing so, and I do.
As another example, I personally think the logic of the Inquisition was impeccable, but absolutely wrong because it assumed God was the author of certain Biblical texts that justified it. As another example, if a believer assumes God exists then this might lead him to logically conclude God is the author of morality and that there is a life after death. The logic is probably there, at least for believers. It’s just that their starting assumption is false.
Believers: Should atheists promote religion to improve society?
A deist friend of has pointed me to a couple of articles by atheist Theodore Dalrymple: Why Religion Is Good for Us and What the New Atheists Don’t See.
I find these articles both fascinating and puzzling: a self-confessed atheist praises religion for imbuing the lives of millions with meaning, purpose and morality, while castigating recent atheist writers for their simplistic belittlement of religion. Dalrymple’s perspective is best summarized by the following quote:Though I am not religious, I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible for us to live decently without the aid of religion. That is the ambiguity of the Enlightenment.
I appreciate Dalrymple’s call for personal responsibility, but it strikes me as patronizing for an atheist to say that society needs religion to be decent. Does Dalrymple not consider himself to be decent? If so, how has he managed to maintain his own decency without religion? Does he feel that he has somehow managed to rise above the need for religion while the masses still require it? If so, can they not benefit from the same insights that have allowed him to live morally without religion? He does seem to have a high estimation of the intelligence of the underclasses; why not leverage that intelligence to lead them to an understanding of the benefits of morality without supernaturalism?
I’m writing this post primarily to elicit feedback from believers concerning Dalyrmple’s approach. For which kind of atheist do you have the lesser respect: one who sings the practical benefits of religion or one who advocates putting religion behind us? Before answering this question, perhaps imagine temporarily for the sake of argument that there really are no gods. Also take into consideration Paul’s thoughts in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19:And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
In short, do you appreciate being told by an atheist like Dalrymple that, even if your religion is untrue, you should go ahead and maintain your faith because of its contribution to your sense of meaning and morality? Or would you prefer that atheists encourage you to leave your religion if God does not exist?
Two Thirds of British Teenagers Don't Believe in God
According to a study by Penguin books:
Teenagers even say family, friends, money, music and even reality television are more important than religion.
It also emerged six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion "has a negative influence on the world".
The survey also shows that half of teenagers have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church.
The study of 1,000 teenagers aged 13 to 18 was carried out by Penguin to mark this week's publication of controversial novel 'Killing God' by Kevin Brooks.
The book is about a 15-year-old girl who questions the existence of God.
Kevin Brooks, the author, said: "I can't say I am surprised by the teenagers' responses.
"Part of the reason that I wrote Killing God was that I wanted to explore the personal attitudes of young people today, especially those with troubled lives, towards organised religion and the traditional concept of God.
"How can the moralities of an ancient religion relate to the tragedies and disorders of today's broken world? And why do some people turn to God for help while others take comfort in drugs and alcohol?
"These are just some of the questions I wanted to consider... And I wasn't looking for answers."
The research also found 55 per cent of young people are not bothered about religion and 60 per cent only go to church for a wedding or christening.
Only three out of 10 teenagers believe in an afterlife and 41 per cent believe that nothing happens to your body when you die, but one in 10 reckon they come back as an animal or another human being.
A Church of England spokesman said: "Many teenagers aren't sure what they believe at that stage of their lives, as is clear from the number who said they don't know whether they believe in God.
"On the other hand many of these results point to the great spirituality of young people today that the Church is seeking to respond to through new forms of worship alongside tradition ones."
Hanne Stinson, chief executive of The British Humanist Association, said: "It confirms that young people - like adults - do not need a religion to have positive values.
"The 'golden rule', which is often claimed by religions as a religious value, is in reality a shared human value - shared by all the major religions and the non-religious and almost every culture - that predates all the major world religions."
[Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009]
Debate with Jerry McDonald: Round Two
Round two is now complete. Jerry’s second affirmative and my second rebuttal have been posted, and both statements are divided into two parts (because of their length). I'm curious to know what people think.
Meet My New Neighbors
The late Rev. Ike, who coin the phases: “Some people need a checkup from the neck up.” to “The more you pay, the harder I'll pray.”; used to tell Christians listening to his broadcast: “Why wait for a pie in the sky in the sweet by and by when you can have the pie right NOW with ice-cream on top of it!”
Ministry Leader Building $4 Million Home After Cutting Jobs
A Charlotte-area religious broadcaster is building a $4 million home in western South Carolina, as the ministry has cut jobs.
The Charlotte Observer reported Monday that Inspiration Networks’ CEO David Cerullo, is building the 9,000-square-foot home in a gated community that overlooks Lake Keowee.
Inspiration Networks has drawn scrutiny for up to $26 million in incentives it won from South Carolina to move from Charlotte to Indian Land in Lancaster County.
Don Weaver of the South Carolina Association of Taxpayers says given Cerullo’s salary and land holdings, it doesn’t appear the state needs to offer tax breaks.
Employees told the newspaper the ministry began laying off some workers late last year.
News Channel 7 called and email Inspiration Ministries, to speak to Cerullo or a media relations person. So far, we haven’t heard back from them. But those who know Cerullo said people are developing opinions before they know the facts.
Nick Rubio’s parent’s own the company building Cerullo’s home and he said he is working there during construction. He stresses that Cerullo has been involved in many businesses, other than the ministry.
Cerullo’s bio on the ministry website does state he’s worked internationally and had founded a successful advertising and public relations firm, a construction company and a management consulting firm.
“He was a businessman in real estate and he got into that, and developed that company up,“ said Rubio. “He’s a real genuine, sincere guy who loves God and loves the people that he’s helping.“
Ministry Leader Building $4 Million Home After Cutting Jobs
A Charlotte-area religious broadcaster is building a $4 million home in western South Carolina, as the ministry has cut jobs.
The Charlotte Observer reported Monday that Inspiration Networks’ CEO David Cerullo, is building the 9,000-square-foot home in a gated community that overlooks Lake Keowee.
Inspiration Networks has drawn scrutiny for up to $26 million in incentives it won from South Carolina to move from Charlotte to Indian Land in Lancaster County.
Don Weaver of the South Carolina Association of Taxpayers says given Cerullo’s salary and land holdings, it doesn’t appear the state needs to offer tax breaks.
Employees told the newspaper the ministry began laying off some workers late last year.
News Channel 7 called and email Inspiration Ministries, to speak to Cerullo or a media relations person. So far, we haven’t heard back from them. But those who know Cerullo said people are developing opinions before they know the facts.
Nick Rubio’s parent’s own the company building Cerullo’s home and he said he is working there during construction. He stresses that Cerullo has been involved in many businesses, other than the ministry.
Cerullo’s bio on the ministry website does state he’s worked internationally and had founded a successful advertising and public relations firm, a construction company and a management consulting firm.
“He was a businessman in real estate and he got into that, and developed that company up,“ said Rubio. “He’s a real genuine, sincere guy who loves God and loves the people that he’s helping.“
Ken Daniels' Review of My Book: "An unremitting battery of helpfully organized arguments against orthodox Christianity"
Former missionary turned agnostic Ken W. Daniels reviewed my book on Amazon. Among some minor criticisms he wrote:As a former evangelical missionary who lost my faith nearly a decade ago, I am struck by how closely Loftus' arguments against Christianity match those that drove me independently out of the fold. My journey was long and painful; I discovered the flaws of my faith in bits and pieces until the weight of them all tipped the scales against my former position. In retrospect I believe the process could have been cut significantly shorter if John's book had been available to me years before my crisis finally came to a head.
To read the whole review click here.
The value of this volume lies not so much in its development of unique arguments as in its bringing together in a single accessible package most of the important criticisms that have been advanced against the Christian faith (and theism in general) since the Enlightenment. To be sure, there are individual books that delve into each topic more deeply than John's, but few if any cover as many bases as Why I Became an Atheist, while at the same time digging as deeply as can be expected for a general audience.
Though I have read many books arguing for and against the reasonableness of the Christian faith, I was rewarded with a number of helpful insights sprinkled throughout the text.
I found Loftus' treatment of the Atonement to be particularly incisive. I have not read a more succinct and effective rejoinder to the penal substitution theory than his...
[It is] an unremitting battery of helpfully organized arguments against orthodox Christianity. There is no denying that Loftus is well read and gifted at consolidating the arguments of a wide variety authors, tying them together with his own thoughtful analysis.
Loftus is superb at anticipating and preempting the counter-arguments of believers. Well done, John!
FYI: You can find my book as a Kindle Book on Amazon: Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity
Ken Daniels just informed me he wrote his own book soon to be available on amazon. Ken was a former team member here at DC.
The Christian Faith Makes a Person Stupid (Part of a Series)
While I try to be respectful and polite with believers who disagree with me, there are just some things I do not tolerate at all: stupid attempts to justify Biblical ethics. I may make this part of an ongoing series titled: "Fundamentalists Say the Stupidest Things" [FSST]. But Alan is at it again...
Although I already trashed him in a previous post he seems undeterred. He cannot even fathom what God could've said differently about rapists, even to the point of thinking that his "Put up or shut up" demand is a debate stopper when asking me to suggest something else. Is that not utterly ignorant?
You can read what he wrote for yourselves in context, but in light of a different post I wrote about the Ten Commandments my answer to him is this:"Thou shalt not treat women as inferior persons, nor shall you rape them or force them to marry a man they do not want to marry."
There, that was easy. Given that your God is barbaric I am better than God, and you can quote me on that!
Sheesh. Faith seems to go hand in hand with not being able to think. If this is the ignorant kind of reasoning that makes believers then there is no way in hell they can have any assurance they are right. Alan doesn't even know that he's ignorant!
The Christian Faith Makes a Person Stupid: Another Case in Point.
Read what Alan said in defense of the Old Testament commands concerning rape. This is absolutely stupid.
We were discussing these two passages from the Bible:Deuteronomy 22:23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
Okay so far? Now along comes Alan who writes:
Deuteronomy 22:28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. [c] He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.In some cultures today, once a virgin has been raped, she is shunned by society and remains unmarried all of her days. She pines away as an “untouchable”. This is really sad. In such societies, I would love to see action taken against such damnable perpetrators by having them pay money to the father and require at least an offer of marriage and make the law stick such that he can’t divorce her later. Wait a minute… isn’t this what the Biblical law provides?
This is an utterly stupid analogy. There is no thought in this analogy at all, NONE! Alan is trying to equate what some cultures do today with the command of a perfectly good God regarding such matters. Again, did Yahweh shape the culture of the Israelites or not with his commands? If not, why not? If so, why wouldn't he have commanded them not to shun women who have been raped in the first place, idiot?
But we're not done yet. Next Alan writes this gem:If a law forces rapists to marry their victims, then perhaps the number of rapes will decline to near zero.
Hmmmm. Let's pick our wives this way okay? Whom would I choose to marry? Just rape her. This is fucking nonsense. ;-)What’s more, if the law requires rapists to pay fifty shekels of silver to the father, this could indeed equate to the death penalty if the rapist hasn’t saved toward his bride’s future. Thus, we have narrowed down the field of rapists who marry their victims to only those who have saved for their “brides” future.
Oh, the debtor’s prison, right? Let's have a show of hands in this economy whether people would prefer this barbaric practice? Alan wants to turn back the clock. He wants to live in the ancient world with Madelein Flannagan who likes being treated as women were treated in the Bible. How can I shock these idiots into their senses here? I just don't know, but with every utterly stupid comment they write it makes me more passionate than ever to keep them from getting more control of America. I will stand in the way of these barbaric people who must defend the Biblical ethics in order to continue believing in the barbaric Bible.
But Alan isn't done yet: If the girl happens to be ugly, he is required to marry her anyway. Again, this stipulation will help narrow the field further since potential rapists will be motivated to think before acting.
Naw. Only pretty women will fear being raped, that's all. But then these women might be forced into marrying some ugly bastard like Alan too, which Alan seems not to care for at all. Such idiocy I don't have the words.
Here's Alan again: Thirdly, if one “selects” his wife through means of rape, then he’ll never be able to divorce her even if “she” turns out to be a transvestite.
What? Why do I waste my time here?
Alan again: The law is putting so many roadblocks into the potential rapist’s path, and causing him to think, I would guess most potential rapists would opt for the easier path of waiting for a willing partner.
Here is exhibit "B" of just what it takes to defend Christianity (Madeleine was exhibit "A"). One must defend the indefensible. This is why I say believers are ignorant. Although some of them are also unintelligent, like Alan.
Alan's conclusion :Thus, such a society could easily exceed the American society in quality by many fold. In America, if a woman is raped, often the rapist is nurtured in a prison and the possible resulting child is killed. Why not kill the rapist and let the child live? Often, another woman is victimized as soon as the rapist is released.
So here he is comparing what a perfectly good God commanded with what we do as an American society. Right. There should be no comparison at all if a perfectly good God is behind the laws in the Bible. What Alan wants is for rapists to be killed, for women not to have the right to choose, and for criminals to be flogged, put on chain gangs, or tarred and feathered. Those days are past and for good reasons. It’s just a good thing Alan was not framed for a crime, or a black man facing a white jury, or a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. Alan, you are stupid! Oh, but what I really mean is that your faith makes you stupid.
Kinda reminds me of that commerical where an egg represents your brain. It's cracked open and thrown into a frying pan then we hear the words: "This is your brain on drugs." Well likewise, here's exhibit "B" of what the Christian drug does to your brains too!
To read what Alan said in the context of exhibit "A" here's the link.
The Christian Faith Made Simple
In the words of that famous Christian hymn: Only Believe. Only Believe. All things are possible. Only Believe!
God the Father; God the son; God the Holy Spirit: These three in One. Very God of Very God being of one substance (Homoousios), begotten not made, True God from True God. This very same True God was born by the creature He created (Theotokos: God Bearer or when the Creator created the creature who, in turn, created the Creator in sinful flesh yet without sin): Mary who herself was impregnated by her own Father God so He could be born into the very fallen world of sin the Creator so detested and cursed the created creatures with. In so doing, He became flesh and dwelt among us, but to correct the very Fallen State the Creator cursed the creatures with, the Creator had Himself killed so He as Very God of Very God could shed His own sinless blood for Himself (Creator-Creature atoning to Creator) in order that He could finally accept the world the Creator created in His perfect mind which the Creator had fully planed with fore-knowledge before the foundations of the earth (Gospel of John Chapter 1). The Creator is now seated at the right hand of Himself while making inter-secession to Himself for the fallen creatures of which he had foreknowledge (Supralapsarianism) of before He created the foundations of the cosmos. He, Himself, will now come again to receive this, His fallen creation, unto Himself by re-creating a New Heaven and a New Earth in which the redeemed fallen creatures will also rule with the Creator in a New Jerusalem filled with the very items (Gold and Emeralds: Revelation 21) which produce the greed and lust of the fallen state of the creature the Creator condemned in the old eternal Covernant now replaced with the new eternal Covernant.
Now dear Christian, just which part of your salvation do you not understand? (Remember, your very soul hangs in the balance between orthodoxy and heresy or between eternal damnation and eternal salvation.)
May God have mercy on your mental state!
Former Christian Michael Shermer's 100th Column: "The Answer is Science."
This is an except from his 100th column for Scientific American:
What I want to believe based on emotions and what I should believe based on evidence does not always coincide. And after 99 monthly columns of exploring such topics (this is Opus 100), I conclude that I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know. I believe that the truth is out there. But how can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.Now compare what he wrote to what I wrote here.
Science begins with the null hypothesis, which assumes that the claim under investigation is not true until demonstrated otherwise....Failure to reject the null hypothesis does not make the claim false, and, conversely, rejecting the null hypothesis is not a warranty on truth. Nevertheless, the scientific method is the best tool ever devised to discriminate between true and false patterns, to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and to detect baloney.
The null hypothesis means that the burden of proof is on the person asserting a positive claim, not on the skeptics to disprove it.
Link
"One of the surprising discoveries of modern psychology is how easy it is to be ignorant of your own ignorance.”
The above quote comes from Daniel C. Dennett on page 31 of his book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
My main thrust is that believers cannot be sure they are right. After all, they are making affirmative knowledge claims about God, the Bible, Jesus, the church, and so forth. I deny these claims. That's basically all I do. When someone claims they saw something, anything, I have a right to question whether the person saw this. Usually I don't question most claims if they are what we would expect in the natural world, since such claims told by a sincere honest person with no axe to grind are, so to speak, on the boards. But the number and range of the affirmative claims by Christians is vast, many of which must be right for their faith to be probably true.
Debates take place between us about many issues from the nature of Biblical slavery to the resurrection. Just looking at how confident Christians are in these debates is amazing to me. There are plenty of other reasonable conclusions someone can come to about such issues, but no, they act like answer men--they have the right answers that any reasonable person should see as the truth about them, even people in the past! They ignore for the most part the fact that many other professing Christians, the only kind we see, disagree with these conclusions.
Christianity, the kind I criticize here, claims that God will judge us based on what we believe. We must believe certain things to be saved. If we don't, then to hell we go. And so in the Bible are many warnings not to be led astray by false teachers. My point is that we are all easily led astray. We know this from psychological studies and brain science. Again, we know this. This science cannot be disputed. So I find it incomprehensible to think human beings will be judged by the content of what they believe. And I find it likewise ignorant for someone to claim s/he knows the truth; the whole truth. That's literally impossible. Doubt and skepticism about that which we claim to affirm is clearly required of beliefs which have no mutually agreed upon scientific test for them, which is the best method we have for sorting out that which we can know with any degree of assurance.
In any case, I challenge Christians to look into psychological studies and brain research to see such things as how the brain is woefully inadequate to be objective about the facts. We skew the evidence in favor of conclusions we want to be true all of the time. Read these books:
1) The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God.
2) Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind.
3) After reading them you'll be able to appreciate my book, Why I Became an Atheist.
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Related links:
Who's Ignorant?
Some Thoughts on Science and Religion
Revealing the Reasoning of the Believer.
Christian Belief Through the Lens of Cognitive Science.
A Review of Valerie Tarico's Book.
Madeleine Flannagan is Happy to be Treated as Women Were in the Bible!
Grassroots Atheism
I met Chris McLaughlin at the Mid-Michigan Atheists and Humanists Meet-up last night. He talked to us about a movement he and other people from Detroit are hoping to get going called Grass Roots Atheism (In the link Chris is on the left of your screen). He'd like to see atheists take to the streets, not as the street preachers do who preach to people, but to simply hand people some literature if they're receptive and to let them know we atheists are good people. It's a worthy goal. Consider learning more and consider doing it in your area.
Nitpickers Have Started to Attack
The more educated and intelligent a scholar is then the more that scholar argues against the main argument of his opponent. You can actually tell from what they attack whether they are scholarly or not. They do not nitpick at minor points unrelated to the main argument itself, unless they have first dealt with his main argument.
Well, the nitpickers have started attacking my book.
Layman over at Christian Cadre wrote something about a list of professing Christians I claimed who don’t believe in the empty tomb. He disputes some of them, and he may be right, but I don’t think so. Nonetheless my argument in that chapter stands on its own merits and he has said nothing about it. Nothing. Yup, that's right. Nothing was said against the arguments I laid out in that chapter. That's nada, zip, zilch, zero. Big deal if he’s right on a couple of these names. If all that's required is to nitpick a book for errors in a list of names then have at it, as I said.
But some people have come away thinking with Brad Haggard, that I have "no credible sources" and therefore my "whole argument is undercut." And so it must be that "the list was blatant mischaracterization." Why does he conclude this? Because he has not read my book to know what my argument is, that’s why.
My book covers the topics of God, man and the universe, using the disciplines of science, theology, apologetics, philosophy, history, Biblical studies, and so forth. No mere mortal can have a good grasp of it all, as I told Layman in an email. I even admitted that I know I'm wrong about some things, so I'm willing to learn. Whether Layman is correct or not I'm not sure, and that's my final word on it.
Here's what John Beversluis wrote about my book: "No review can begin to do justice to an ambitious book of this scope or to the sustained theological, philosophical, scientific, textual, and historical critique of Christianity that it contains. Suffice it to say at the outset that I have never read a book that presents such a massive and systematic refutation of the claims of Christianity, and I have seldom read a book that marshals evidence (from such a wide variety of disciplines) and documents its claims in such painstaking detail."
But along comes Layman nitpicking about a detail. Others will do likewise. I am a mere mortal. I did the best I could with what I was doing. I do not have to defend the minutia. Deal with my larger case.
My contention is that at best so far for the most part, all I have seen are mischaracterizations of my book, personal attacks on me, nitpicking at small details, and sloppy reasoning in trying to refute it.
Another nitpicker is Matt Flanagan who wrote a post about slavery claiming with others that the slavery in the American South was not Biblical and should never have been justified from the Bible. He quotes me in it where I say the results were horrific for Frederick Douglass and his aunt.
You can read our exchange there, but I said this:
What I find interesting, Matt, is that you have not addressed my main question in my book: “Why didn’t the Christian God ever explicitly and clearly condemn slavery?...why didn’t God tell his people, “Thou shalt not own, buy, sell, or trade slaves,” and say it as often as he needed to? Why was God not clear about this in the Bible? Just think how Copan’s own arguments would resonate with him if he were born into the brutal slavery of the South! What would he think then as his blood was spilled at the hands of a Bible-quoting master? Sam Harris claims, ‘Nothing in Christian theology remedies the appalling deficiencies of the Bible on what is perhaps the greatest—and the easiest—moral question our society has ever had to face.’”
Was your God as clear on this issue as he was about murder? Oh, that's not a good analogy because, well, you know, genocide, the witch hunts, heresy trials and the crusades. Hmmmm. Okay, let’s try this one: Was your God as clear about this as he was that we should love our neighbors? Oh, that's not a good analogy because, well, you know, the question was "who is my neighbor?” right? But once you get my point you'll have no good answers to this problem and you know it, so instead you side-step it as you did here. That's what it takes to believe, Matt, side stepping problems because you cannot reasonably explain them. Skeptics say believers are ignorant, and they are, but they’re not unintelligent. It takes a great deal of intelligence to find ways around these types of problems in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance they create.
I find your post absolutely pathetic. Oh, that's right, everyone should've seen the truth about slavery as you do based on hindsight. Does this require that believers should be able to study the Hebrew and Greek? They had the King James Version. They came to their own conclusions as Protestants without requiring Catholic ecclesiastical interpretive authority. So, what does God require here?...that they become scholars and figure out by hindsight like you have on these issues? Yeah, right. In fact. I'll bet you think your views on women, heresy trials and the crusades should’ve been plainly obvious to the historic church too. They were just stupid on a par with a rock, right? No, better ease your mind with the idea that they just did not care to follow God, that they purposely twisted the Bible knowing they were wrong for, oh, three centuries when it came to the witch trials. No, they weren't sincere, were they, or Christians, because Christians always understand the truth and they always behave godly, right? Yes, there are insincere professing Christians, but in my experience people agonized over knowing what God's will was for them--the overwhelming majority did. And given the threat of hell why wouldn't they? And let’s not forget that the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit just did not do his job.
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To discuss this post you can go to Ionian Spirit to do so. First register in the upper left corner.
Would You Like to See a Debate Between Dinesh D'Souza and Myself?
Given the failure of Dr. Craig to step up and debate me, Dinesh D'Souza has agreed to do so. D'Souza is the author of What's So Great about Christianity.
Outside of the many attempts from Loftus to get Craig to debate him, others have tried to weigh in. Landon has asked Craig to debate Loftus three times and Craig has denied. We even tried to get Tony from Biola University to ask some of Craig's colleagues to weigh in and they did not put much weight on this.
Please do.
So, we will keep this group going and hopefully growing for now. Maybe we can convince Craig to a debate as more people join in.
In the mean time... We have an agreement from Dinesh D'souza to debate Loftus. Dinesh has read Loftus' book and was going to write a review...but never did, according to Loftus.
I'm working, as we speak, to get this debate going. I will keep everyone up to date on the progress. The only issue here is that Dinesh requires 10 grand plus travel expenses. Although I find this objectionable, I am working on finding funds for him. Loftus is requiring 2 grand plus travel.
We will try to have this debate at Virginia Commonwealth University, sponsored by the United Secular Alliance (affiliated with the Secular Student Alliance, the Atheist Alliance International, and the Rational Response Squad) and any other christian student club from VCU that would like to help, if money permits. Loftus and D'souza are in agreement and I'm going to try to meet with some Deans at VCU for funding as well as try to lobby some christian groups on campus to fork up some money. If you know anyone who would like to contribute, please contact me. Thank you.
In the meantime, spread the word.
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