“99% of the Bible Would Not Even Be Missed”
It’s not the Good Book…and it’s not a good book to curl up withIn April 2015 the Gideons announced that they had given away their two billionth Bible. The American Bible Society probably isn’t far behind. I don’t doubt, moreover, that the Bible is the best selling book of all time, as is often claimed; it’s also been translated into more than 2,000 languages. So a lot of people on the planet own the Bible.
But how many of them read it? No matter how it has reached so many people, most of its owners don’t find it a page-turner. It’s probably the least read best seller of all time. Believers know they ‘ought’ to read it—but, no doubt about it, it’s a chore. They are stumped by so much of what made it into the canon. It doesn’t feel like God’s Word. Shouldn’t it be the best stuff ever?
Bad Boy, Bad Jesus, Bad Bad Jesus: Reviewing “The Bad Jesus” by Dr. Avalos, Part 2
My guess is that people won't like Jesus after reading his book. I don't. He's not a guy I would want living next to me, or being around my children, or writing a column in a magazine, or politically involved in America that's for sure. No one should. Let's even have done with the notion Jesus was an over-all good person. I would want little to do with him. You might too after reading this wonderfully researched, one-of-a-kind book on an essential issue in disabusing Christians of their faith.
In the future when someone says Jesus was sinless, respond by saying "Bad Jesus." If someone holds up Jesus as an example of a good life, hold up Hector's book "Bad Jesus" in response. If someone asks, "What would Jesus do?," respond by asking them to read "Bad Jesus." It is the antidote to people who indefensibly think Jesus was a perfect human being. It is the corrective to believers who think we need a red-letter edition of the New Testament. It tells us the rest of the story, a story that most people and most Christians have never heard before.
Having said this I want readers to take a look at the contents of his book below, including selected quotes I've chosen from what Avalos writes in each chapter. Keep in mind I make no pretense to summarizing these chapters, only providing a few quotes that might provoke you to read it, which you should. See for yourselves:
Labels: "Avalos", The Bad Jesus
Christian “Truth” in Shreds: Epic Takedown 4
“…helping humanity wean itself off of the Bible…”
“Bibliolatry is the worship of a book, idolatrous homage to a book, or the deifying of a book. It is a form of idolatry. The sacred texts of some religions disallow icon worship, but over time the texts themselves are treated as sacred the way idols are, and believers may end up effectively worshipping the book.” So says Wikipedia, and adds that, “Historically, Christianity has never endorsed worship of the Bible, reserving worship for God.” I suspect this is just flat-out wrong.
Making Excuses for God: The Erosion of Decency
Stretching and Breaking the Truth
“God inhabits eternity, outside of time and space.” So a pastor friend once told me, perhaps without realizing how much hard work was required for theologians to make God sound so good; they’ve been at it for centuries, redesigning God endlessly: an endless quest for respectability.
It’s just a fact, however, that the god who rampages through both the Old and New Testaments is a nasty-tempered tribal deity. Those who protest this assessment would do well to remember the story of Noah: “drown ‘em all” was old Yahweh’s approach to cleaning up sin—and getting even. And when Jesus ‘returns’ there’ll be a repeat—so Jesus himself promised (Matthew 24:38-39).
Hey, Devout Christians: How Did You Get Your Bible?
Other words come to mind as well: indifferent, complacent, gullible. Quite bluntly: There is a lack of curiosity. If the church says that the Bible was inspired by a god, isn’t that good enough? In fact, it is one of the great ironies in the ongoing debate between believers and atheists that the Bible is one of Christianity’s biggest embarrassments. Atheists—anyone outside the faith, for that matter—can point to countless passages in the Bible and ask, “Is that really the god you believe in? Why do you follow/adore/worship Jesus when so much of his advice in the gospels is so bad?” Professional Christian apologists work very hard to make the Bible look good—make it look like it came from a divine author. But the huge problem is that so much of the good book is just awful.
Hector Avalos’s New Book is a tour de force, Part 3
In Memorium of Dr. Hector Avalos Written by Dr. Christopher Rollston
Rollston starts with a personal comment on Facebook, saying,
Two years ago yesterday, Dr. Hector Avalos passed away. He was a distinguished scholar and a cherished friend, and he passed away much too early. In the current issue of MAARAV, I wrote an "in memoriam" regarding him. I have pasted it in below.
In addition, I should like to mention that in this issue of Maarav, one of Hector's final articles (perhaps his final article....I'm not entirely sure) is published, one entitled "By Him" or "Against Him/Them" in El Amarna 364:23?: Implications for the Destruction of Hazor. It's a very fine article and I sort of look at this as a core love of Hector's: history and philology. I'm so glad that this article appeared in Maarav. He had hoped to live to see it in print....this was not to be...but I'm so glad that it appeared within our pages. And again, the full "In Memoriam" is pasted in below.
Dr. W. L. Craig Caught Telling More Untruths: A Case Study in Theistic Apologetics
Theists repeatedly characterize atheists as having little or no regard for the truth. But over on YouTube a blogger using the moniker, “Drcraigvideos,” has posted a gem of a study in the theistic ethics of truth-telling---see
Craig Attack video
It is hard to count the number of untruths in this video, but the story gets even stranger when I confronted the website about these untruths. Since the website would not post my comments there, I decided to bring their unscrupulous tactics to light here. It is a study in how self-described professional evangelical apologists, such as Dr. Craig, use character assassination with little regard for basic fact-checking or fairness.
Labels: "Avalos"
The Bad Jesus Is On Full View in the Gospels
“The Evangelical Resurrection Industrial Complex (ERIC) has churned out scores of scholarly tomes, hundreds of erudite disquisitions in professional journals, dissertations and commentaries, as well as debates and conferences beyond numbering, and the tsunami of dishonest verbiage shows know sign of receding.”
Labels: "Avalos"
Amateur Hour at Triablogue
Being merciful to DC’s readers, I will not provide an exhaustive catalog of Triablogue’s factual errors, illogical arguments, or misreadings of my chapters. I will provide a few samples within these categories:
A. The Credentials Card
B. Ill-read Reviewers
C. Misrepresented arguments
D. Misunderstood Arguments
E. The Ridiculous and the Mundane
Labels: "Avalos", "The Infidel Delusion"
Dr. William Lane Craig Responds to Dr. Avalos' Allegations
I'm happy to clarify for Dr. Avalos what I meant by "printer's errors;" the rest of his remarks hardly merit comment.Dr. William Lane Craig
Since I don't type, I've written all my books and articles longhand, including the book in question. The hand-written manuscript was delivered to a typist, who produced the typescript using an IBM Selectric typewriter with "golf balls" for different fonts. Later this typescript was re-done on a computer. Edwin Mellen Press used the camera-ready copy which I supplied to print the book. Somewhere in the transmission of the text letter-substitutions crept in, resulting in several misspellings. As I said in the debate, I take full responsibility for these spelling mistakes, since it was up to me to proof-read the text. These misspellings have, of course, no impact on the argument of the book. But then Dr. Avalos is less interested in the argument than in impugning the integrity of his opponent.
Such extraordinary ad hominem attacks by Dr. Avalos are unseemly and highly unprofessional and serve, I'm afraid, only to sully his own reputation.
Dr. Avalos' handling of my argument concerning the expression "the first day of the week" (Mark 16.2) well illustrates his modus operandi of half-truth and distortion. As I explained in the debate, the use of the cardinal number rather than the ordinal number violates the conventions of Hellenistic Greek, but not of Aramaic. I even supplied a reference to an Aramaic targum where the very phrase "the first day of the week" is found (Targum Esth. II 3.7) as an illustration. Now the half-truth mentioned by Dr. Avalos is that this targum comes from the period of late Aramaic (A.D. 200-700+). In the scant literature in middle Aramaic (200 B.C. - A.D. 200) we don't have any surviving texts that happen to mention the first day of the week. But we do have texts illustrating in middle Aramaic the convention of substituting the cardinal number for the ordinal number, as in, e.g., "the first month." The fact that no text survives having the very words in Mark 16.2 is thus inconsequential, an accident of historical preservation. That Mark's phrase is a Semitism is widely acknowledged and often remarked on by commentators.
Labels: "Christian Scholars"
Hector Avalos's New Book is a tour de force, a Classic Text, Pt. 2
Is Richard Dawkins the Liar?: “Doctor” Jim West’s Dishonesty Revealed
Labels: "Avalos"
Can Christianity Be Blamed for the Holocaust?
Beware of simple explanations
The oldest surviving manuscript fragment of the New Testament is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52, which is on permanent display in Manchester, England. This scrap of scripture is about the size of a credit card, contains a few verses of chapter 18 of John’s gospel, and is commonly dated to the second century.
When I first heard about this, years ago, I thought, “What a bummer…it had to be from the worst gospel.” Christians so commonly swoon over John’s gospel because of its drumbeat promise of eternal life, so they don’t seem to notice some of its evil messages. In chapter 8, for example, Jesus is in conversation with Jews in the Temple complex. This is the ‘loving’ Jesus, according to John (vv. 42-47):
How Can We Decide Between Experts? Reviewing Mittelberg's "Confident Faith" Part 10
I'm talking about experts with regard to the truth and their level of competence. What are we to do when experts disagree? How can we non-experts choose between experts? Do we have to be experts to choose between experts? There is a whole lot of literature to sift through on these questions.
Labels: Mark Mittelberg
On Lowder's Stupid Atheist Meme #4: “Let’s Put an End to the Philosophy of Religion!”
What I'm writing is helpful. One person wrote:
I have been using the Internet Infidels for about 15 years now. The essays therein has helped me in my philosophical path from "angry antitheism" to a more moderate nontheism. And in all those time I have thought JJ Lowder is a philosopher. I don't know why I had that impression, but I did. Maybe subtle hints in his online writings made me believe that he is one. If you had not exposed his actual academic background, I would still think he is a PhD-toting analytic philosopher. LINK.
Morality, Theology and the Invisible God of the Gaps: A Review of John F. Haught's Book, God and the New Atheism, Part 5
I’ve commented on several of his main themes. Now I want to speak about his understanding of biblical morality. Haught charges that Dawkins discussion of morality and the Bible, for instance, “is a remarkable display of ignorance and foolish sarcasm.” (p. 68). If you’ve read Dawkins, he speaks, as I do, of the morality we find in the Bible, like dashing babies against the rocks, genocide, slavery, and so forth. It’s in the Bible, so we mention it. It won’t do any good to mention the good portions of the Bible, because if there is a perfectly good God these things should never have received divine sanction in the first place, period.
Haught wants to stress that “the main point of biblical religion…is to have faith, trust, and hope in God. Morality is secondary.” (p. 67) So let’s pause and ask what is the main point of biblical religion. Haught should know this is highly disputed by Christian scholars themselves. From Walther Eichrodt to Walter Brueggemann to Jon D. Levenson to Liberation theologies, there is no agreement. Harvard trained Biblical scholar Hector Avalos argues convincingly that biblical theology “often is selective and arbitrary in judging what counts as ‘central’ or ‘significant’ features of biblical thought.” Avalos adds: "No matter which type one prefers, the lesson is that there is no such thing as a unified ‘biblical theology,’ nor can there be.” [The End of Biblical Studies, pp. 249-51). So I ask, who speaks for biblical theology? From all that I know Dr. Avalos is absolutely correct. So I see no reason to fault Dawkins for not caring to know Haught’s particular views on the matter when writing his book.
Dr. Haught claims that the “moral core of Judaism and Christianity” is “justice…what has come to be known as God’s preferential option for the poor and disadvantaged.” (p. 68). Who is he trying to kid here? Yes, there is an emphasis on the poor and disadvantaged in several major sections of the Bible, notably the prophets, but do the “disadvantaged” include slaves, witches, women caught in adultery, or the many offenses that require capital punishment, like a son cursing his patriarchal kingly father? Does it include the women God told the Israelite soldiers to take as sex slaves (Numbers 31:17-18)? Does it include Jepthah’s daughter who was sacrificed to God by her father? Does it include the wives that Ezra told his people to divorce simply because they were not Jewish? Does it include the surrounding nations that God “commanded” the Israelites to butcher? Does it include the virgins that were stolen as wives from the cities of Jabesh Gilead and Shiloh (Judges 21)? If God cares so much for the poor and disadvantaged, then why not advocate justice for them?
Nonetheless, Haught writes: “To maintain that we can understand modern and contemporary social justice, civil rights, and liberation movements without any reference to (the prophets) Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jesus, and other biblical prophets makes Dawkins treatment of morality and faith unworthy of comment.” (p. 68). And for special emphasis he mentions Martin Luther King’s civil rights message, which “clearly cites Jesus and the prophets as the most authoritative voices in support of…his protests against the injustice of racism.” (p. 94).
I think Sam Harris already debunked such a view as “cherry-picking” from the Bible, which theologians like Haught do. In theological terms this is the problem of the canon within the canon, where the question is which parts of the canon are to be stressed and which ones are to be minimized. Christian scholars in previous generations stressed different parts of the Bible didn’t they, which legitimized heretic, honor, and witch killings, along with slavery and holy wars.
Besides, the truth is that the prophets actively preached God’s reign among his people, and this God, as depicted by Hector Avalos, “is the ultimate imperialist.” (p. 279). Even the word for “peace” (Shalom) is viewed through imperialistic terminology, says Avalos. “As used in the Hebrew Bible, it really refers to a state of affairs favorable to Yahweh. Peace means no more war only insofar as Yahweh has destroyed his opponents or he has successfully beaten them into utter submission” (p. 279), and he quotes from Isaiah 14:1-2, as but one example:
The LORD will have compassion on Jacob;
once again he will choose Israel
and will settle them in their own land.
Aliens will join them
and unite with the house of Jacob.
2 Nations will take them
and bring them to their own place.
And the house of Israel will possess the nations
as menservants and maidservants in the LORD's land.
They will make captives of their captors
and rule over their oppressors.
While Haught points to the prophets as the moral center of Biblical religion, he utterly fails to understand that there would be no need to reform the Church from sanctioning such things as heretic and witch killings, along with slavery, racism and sexism, if God was clear from the beginning. God could’ve said things like: “Thou shalt not buy, beat, trade, or own slaves,” and said it as often as needed without giving contradictory advice. If God was this clear from the beginning there would be nothing to reform in the first place. The Church could never sanction witch killings if God had said, “Thou shalt not kill people of different faiths nor those who practice witchcraft” and said it as often as needed from the beginning. Instead we read, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
When it comes to the injustices found in the Bible, Haught admits they are found there. But with sarcasm Haught charges: “Either the God of the Bible must be a perfect moral role model and a perfect engineer, or else this God is not permitted by Dawkins to exist at all.” (p. 105) He thinks there is a third way. He claims that it is not biblical religion but “idolatry” that makes religion go bad.” “The antidote to idolatry, however, is not atheism but faith.” (p. 76)
Haught accepts evolutionary biology and with it believes in a God of process. He claims that from a Christian theological point of view “our lives, human history, and the universe itself are part of a momentously meaningful drama of liberation and the promise of ultimate fulfillment.” (p. 101). He concludes that “the God of evolution humbly invites creatures to participate in the ongoing creation of the universe,” (p. 107), and by this he means being active in the pursuit of justice.
Haught's God is one of mystery that requires faith. But in the end Haught’s God is unwittingly the “god of the gaps” where the gaps left unexplained by science, such as the problem of consciousness and the problem of a basis for morality, leave room for his faith in the mysterious God of Tillich’s “ultimate concern.” I’m sure he’ll deny this. He’ll argue instead that his God is the sustainer of creation and can be seen in all of creation, not just in the gaps. But modern science has closed all of the other gaps, so his God is the only one left after the demolition is done. Prior to modern science Christians believed the Genesis creation accounts literally, but with the advent of modern science Haught’s Church was forced to give that up. Prior to the awareness that every human being should be entitled to human rights, Haught's Church defended witch hunts and slavery. Prior to the women’s rights movement Haught’s Church defended sexism. Because things have changed in defiance of the Church, Haught now wants to maintain this is the result of progressive revelation stemming from the prophets of old which takes place by God’s direction.
I’m sure he is aware of the parable of the invisible gardener. I think he believes in one. His faith needs no positive evidence. The only evidence his faith needs are the gaps in our knowledge. But since there are likely always to be gaps, his faith has no positive evidence for it at all.
There is much more in this book than what I could touch on here. It’s very instructive. Get it and see for yourself his robust defense of Christian theology in the face of the onslaught of the New Atheists. Does his faith survive the attacks of the New Atheists? Maybe, but his God is not worth worshipping. He believes in a distant God, and a distant God is no different than none at all. Judge for yourselves. But for me and my house, faith in the gaps of scientific knowledge is an extremely slender reed to hang one's hat on. What will he believe tomorrow? What will his church be able to believe in the future? Less and less and less and less.
Labels: God and the New Atheism
Two Confusions of My Book "Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End"
“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” -- Richard Nixon
It's sad that too many people misunderstand my book "Unapologetic." Let me address two of the biggest confusions.
ONE) Some people might conclude I have nothing but distain for the discipline I majored in, the philosophy of religion, even though I have contributed several books based in that discipline.
I do nothing more than what the late biblical scholar Dr. Hector Avalos did in his book calling for The End of Biblical Studies. He called for the end of them AS THEY WERE BEING PRACTICED! The reason I say this is because Avalos and I both know that how our respective disciplines are being practiced won't change anytime soon. So we seek to undermine them, to expose them as the sham they really are, by doing our part to end them.
Avalos wrote:
From my perspective, there are really only 3 alternatives for what is now called biblical studies.Dr. Avalos argued it's unreasonable to think biblical scholars could achieve alternative #1. Like the automobile it's here to stay, so long as there are Christians. Likewise, when it comes to the philosophy of religion. So long as there are Christian philosophers in defense Christian theism, they aren't going away either. Option #2 is already being done in seminaries. They actually consider biblical studies to be an extension of Anselm's dictum, "faith seeking understanding." When it comes to the philosophy of religion, merely acknowledging that it's a religionist faith-based enterprise made subservient to apologists is not good enough. For then we'd be found to enable foolish, delusional thinking, with the dubious goal of having a discussion for discussion's sake when we need to change minds.
1. Eliminate biblical studies completely from the modern world.
2. Retain biblical studies as is, but admit that it is a religionist enterprise.
3. Retain biblical studies, but redefine its purpose so that it is tasked with eliminating completely the influence of the Bible in the modern world.
Dr. Avalos preferred the option #3.
I prefer the third option. The sole purpose of biblical studies would be to help people move toward a postscriptural society...What I seek is liberation from the very idea that any sacred text should be an authority for modem human existence. Abolishing human reliance on sacred texts is imperative when those sacred texts imperil the existence of human civilization as it is currently configured. The letter can kill. That is why the only mission of biblical studies should be to end biblical studies as we know it. LINK to Excerpt.When it comes to debunking Christianity I seek to use all the tools available, all of them, including the philosophy of religion. Just take a look at two books I had published AFTER I wrote the book Unapologetic: The Case against Miracles along with God and Horrendous Suffering. They have sections in them that fall squarely in the philosophy of religion area. My goal in them, my focus, is to change minds. I seek to help reason people out of their faith, even though I know it's extremely hard to reason people out of that which they were never reasoned into, who have a tribal motivation to stay within the confines of their cultural indoctrination. I also know such a goal gets tougher and tougher the more educated people become in their delusion.
My focus is on the irrationality of faith itself, and the lack of any relevant objective evidence for any of the miracles in the Bible. My focus is on five powerful reasons not to believe.
The best online excerpt explaining the goal of my book is probably the one Hemant Mehta posted just after its release, right here.
I argue toward what anthropology professor Dr. David Eller advocates in his next book to be published, Liberatheism. It's the third book in a trilogy that includes Natural Atheism (2004) and Atheism Advanced (2007) [See my review of this book!] Eller explains this third book in his Preface:
Natural Atheism was an explanation, examination, and defense of atheism on the premise that humans are born without any religious ideas or beliefs and hence “natural” atheists. Atheism Advanced Further Thoughts of a Freethinker, as the name suggests, pushed atheism in new directions, especially beyond argument about the Christian god, for instance, emphasizing that there are many other theisms and many other gods than Christianity and its god, and noting how arguing about god(s) in a Christian context still has us “speaking Christian.” This current book pushes further still, envisioning a future when we no longer fight about god(s) because we are free of god(s)....TWO) Some people might conclude I advocate ridicule to the exclusion of reasoned arguments, and that this would be counter-productive toward my goals of reaching believing Christians. I have documented the effectiveness of ridicule in several blog posts. But the evidence of my writing on this blog and in my books should dispel this confusion easily, since in them I exclusively reason with believers. I advocate telling our debate opponents the truth even though it may offend them, but only if it's based on good sound arguments, something philosopher Dr. Stephen Law has argued in an essay I agree with completely. He offers five morals that should guide debates between atheists and believers. I don't advocate ridiculing people to their faces, and I almost never do so. But as a general rule ridicule is good and effective. Comedians do it all the time. It can even be considered venting, and in that case why should we not do it in public? If people don't want to come to the show they don't have to do so.
The first step in this process, in theism-dominated societies, is atheism—saying no to god(s). The eighth chapter describes the profound damage that religion has done to philosophy, the oldest form of rational inquiry. It condemns the academic field of philosophy of religion as little more than an adjunct to Christian theology and apologetics. An ultimate betrayal of the commission to analyze and critique our pet ideas and concepts, as well as a colossal waste of brainpower and resources, philosophy of religion is encouraged to liberate itself from its role as a defender of Christianity to become a genuine philosophical approach to the question of religion. The tenth chapter provides some practical advice on how to change people’s minds from theism to atheism, taking advantage of the best knowledge and practices in psychology, education, marketing, and behavioral economics. The chapter invites us to think in terms of “attitude change” and away from conventional confrontational tactics like argument and debate.
The next step is liberatheism—getting free of god(s). The final step is not talking about god(s) at all. The goal is to accelerate toward the day when we no longer argue about god(s) but live free from god(s), when god(s) are simply not worth talking about anymore.
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John W. Loftus is a philosopher and counter-apologist credited with 12 critically acclaimed books, including The Case against Miracles, God and Horrendous Suffering, and Varieties of Jesus Mythicism. Please support DC by sharing our posts, or by subscribing, donating, or buying our books at Amazon. Thank you so much!
A Christian Scholar Reviews Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship
Dr. Herbert Marbury |
Dr. Marbury’s review shows that Christian biblical scholars can appreciate the work of atheist biblical scholars who are critical of biblical ethics. I provide an extract of the review below for those who do not have access to the website of the Review of Biblical Literature:
Labels: "Avalos"