This is my response to a claim that agnosticism is self-contradictory. The author of that claim clearly doesn't understand agnosticism. The claim itself can be found at http://www.choosinghats.com/2011/05/an-informal-introduction-to-covenantal-apologetics-part-43-–-agnosticism/. I tried to comment within that page; however was unable to. It directs to a 404 error. My response follows here.
This argument is flawed as it assumes an incorrect premise. In addition, it necessarily yeilds an irrational conclusion (see last paragraph).
Agnostics do not assume that a god doesn't exist. To the contrary, they assume nothing. An agnostic witholds from forming a belief (one way or the other) until he finds satisfying evidence for either proposition. An agnostic will not hold out that there's no God until satisfied of evidence of that proposition. And an agnostic will not hold out that there is a God until satisfied of evidence of that proposition. And this doesn't just go for God. It goes for EVERY god. It goes for Roman gods and Egyptian gods and Greek gods and Hindu gods. In fact, this is a mindset that isn't even limited to the supernatural. Are there other intelligent beings on other planets in the Universe? I have no convincing evidence for "yes" or for "no". Hence, I withold from forming a view as I have no reasonable basis to hold one.
Is this atheism? Yes, it is. Agnosticism is a sub-branch of weak atheism ("I don't hold a belief that a god exists").
But whatever words we choose to define it, agnosticism (or weak atheism) is a rational approach. One might claim that it's more rational than strong atheism ("I believe there's no god") as the latter attracts a burden of proof (as it's a positive claim). This is arguable and this is not the time and place.
All that needs to be said here is that agnosticism is not self-contradictory and that it doesn't assume that a god doesn't exist. It simply refuses to assume either the existence or non-existence of a god. And as such, it is inevitably a non-theistic position as it lacks belief that a god exists.
Finally, if we are to take your view that an "I don't know one way or another" position is self-contradictory then humans would be forced to form a positive view about every unproven aspect of reality based on sheer arbitrary choice. And that would indeed be irrational.
Regards
@allocutus
Monday, 23 January 2012
Response to a claim that the burden falls on atheists
Since I had a problem posting a comment in the blog (http://www.choosinghats.com/2011/11/extraordinary-claims-the-atheists-burden-of-proof-revisited/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=extraordinary-claims-the-atheists-burden-of-proof-revisited&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) itself, I post it here.
Defectiveabit,
Let me get this right. You refer to weak atheism (the "I lack a belief that a God exists" as opposed to "I have a belief that God doesn't exist) as agnosticism. That's fine, given a specific definition of agnosticism (there are a number).
I agree with you that a strong atheist position ("God does not exist") in itself attracts (at first glance) the burden of proof. This is because of the old maxim that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
That said, that burden is only superficial indeed. There are in fact exceptions to "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Namely, in a situation where, if a claim WERE TRUE, one WOULD EXPECT evidence to be available, lack of such evidence entitles us to conlude that the claim is not true.
Is there a giraffe in my kitchen? I look around, I see no evidence of a giraffe (absence of evidence). Equally, I don't see any evidence of a non-giraffe. At the same time, we know that if a giraffe were present in my kitchen, we would expect clear evidence of it, for instance, it would be seen. It would be smelled, it could be studied in a number of ways. This is an example of a situation where absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.
The same goes for God. If a God who intervenes in human affairs existed, we would have clear evidence of it. We would see clear statistical data that prayers are answered, for example. We would see clear evidence of miracles, confirmed by objective observers and with the use of scientific method. And yet, no such evidence is known. What follows is that it's quite rational to say that God (one that intervenes in human affairs) probably doesn't exist.
When it comes to the Biblibcal God, there is even better evidence that He doesn't exist: The Bible itself. The Bible contradicts itself, knowledge, logic and morality. In other words, it has ALL THE MARKS of a myth: bunk.
The claim that agnosticism is self-contradictory is also incorrect and I will address that in the post that you linked.
Regards
@allocutus
Defectiveabit,
Let me get this right. You refer to weak atheism (the "I lack a belief that a God exists" as opposed to "I have a belief that God doesn't exist) as agnosticism. That's fine, given a specific definition of agnosticism (there are a number).
I agree with you that a strong atheist position ("God does not exist") in itself attracts (at first glance) the burden of proof. This is because of the old maxim that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
That said, that burden is only superficial indeed. There are in fact exceptions to "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Namely, in a situation where, if a claim WERE TRUE, one WOULD EXPECT evidence to be available, lack of such evidence entitles us to conlude that the claim is not true.
Is there a giraffe in my kitchen? I look around, I see no evidence of a giraffe (absence of evidence). Equally, I don't see any evidence of a non-giraffe. At the same time, we know that if a giraffe were present in my kitchen, we would expect clear evidence of it, for instance, it would be seen. It would be smelled, it could be studied in a number of ways. This is an example of a situation where absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.
The same goes for God. If a God who intervenes in human affairs existed, we would have clear evidence of it. We would see clear statistical data that prayers are answered, for example. We would see clear evidence of miracles, confirmed by objective observers and with the use of scientific method. And yet, no such evidence is known. What follows is that it's quite rational to say that God (one that intervenes in human affairs) probably doesn't exist.
When it comes to the Biblibcal God, there is even better evidence that He doesn't exist: The Bible itself. The Bible contradicts itself, knowledge, logic and morality. In other words, it has ALL THE MARKS of a myth: bunk.
The claim that agnosticism is self-contradictory is also incorrect and I will address that in the post that you linked.
Regards
@allocutus
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Logic as proof for God?
I have come across a paper written by James N. Anderson and Greg Welty and entitled "The Lord of Non-Contradiction:An Argument for God from Logic". The full paper can be found at http://www.proginosko.com/docs/The_Lord_of_Non-Contradiction.pdf. It was also twitted on by a user named @ChoosingHats.
The paper provides a philosophical argument that seeks to conclude that a god exists. This is based on the very existence of logic. "God", in the paper, is defined as "necessarily existent, personal, spiritual being" (see p20 for example).
The flow of the argument is as follows (I will not be entering into details at this point):
1. The Laws of Logic are Truths
2. The Laws of Logic are Truths About Truths
3. The Laws of Logic are Necessary Truths
4. The Laws of Logic Really Exist
5. The Laws of Logic Necessarily Exist
6. The Laws of Logic are Non-Physical
7. The Laws of Logic are Thoughts
8. The Laws of Logic are Divine Thoughts (in other words, they are the product of a "necessary mind" - ie God).
I will not attack each premise in turn, althought I have to stress that they are very much open to attack on a number of grounds. To illustrate, the paper includes arguments such as "if we believe in the laws of logic existing then tney must exist". This of course is a non-argument. There are numerous other examples in the paper of similar (and occasionally worse) errors.
That said, I don't wish to focus on those. Suffice it to say that my attack below is by no means the only attack that can be made. Instead, I want to focus on a lethal flaw of the argument itself. The flaw is that the argument either contradicts its own premise or it DISPROVES (rather than proving) God, by making Him impossible. Let's move to the crunch.
A. The Laws of Logic as Necessary
The paper argues (under the heading "The Laws of Logic are Necessary") that a world where the laws of logic don't apply is an impossible world. In other words, the authors claim, it's impossible to have a world in which P (any entity) can exist and not exist at the same time, to give one example (see p7 of the paper). If we disagree with this premise (and claim that a world without logic is in fact possible), the paper fails in its entirety because it can no longer claim that logic is either necessary or universal. And, of course, if logic is neither necessary nor universal, it may simply be a human construct that only applies to the way we ourselves observe our world as we see it.
However, for the purposes of the argument, let's assume that the Laws of Logic are in fact necessary, as is claimed by the authors. Let's assume also that they are universal in the sense that no conceivable world can exist in which they do not apply. Such a world, the authors claim, is impossible. Let's keep in mind that the use of the term "world" in this context doesn't apply to any known physical world, such as a planet, galaxy or universe. It's a philosophical term that simply refers to an imaginable "state of affairs".
Now, having agreed with the paper's premise that a world without logic is impossible, let us consider the paper's conclusion.
B. The paper's conclusion. I will quote it verbatum (page 20 of the paper):
"Propositions are real entities, but cannot be physical entities; they are essentially thoughts. So the laws of logic are necessarily true thoughts. Since they are true in every possible world, they must exist in every possible world. But if there are necessarily existent thoughts, there must be a necessarily existent mind; and if there is a necessarily existent mind, there must be a necessarily existent person."
Now, here's the problem with this:
1. There is a claimed existence of a "necessary mind". It's called "God".
2. The Laws of Logic are (according to the paper's argument) a product of this mind. In other words, they only exist (as thoughts, so the authors say) because the mind (God) has thought them up.
3. Since The Laws of Logic were thought up by God, they do not exist independently. This is to be contrasted with their (claimed by the authors of the paper) existence that is independent of the human mind (this is part of their being "necessary"; they would exist even if no human ever walked the Earth).
4. When we say that God has thought up the Laws of Logic we can only mean one of two things; either God has invented them or God has discovered them. If God has discovered them then they exist independently of God and therefore are not His product at all. It's no different to humans discovering logic but not in fact creating it (as per the paper's claims). And if Laws of Logic exist independently of God (albeit He discovers them and thinks about them) then God is not a valid logical conclusion from the premise that the Laws of Logic are necessary. They are in fact necessary DESPITE God and would be necessary even had God not discovered them or had not Himself existed. What follows is that, for the paper's argument to make sense at all, it must be said that the authors claim that God INVENTED Laws of Logic.
5. If God invented laws of logic then God is not bound by them. They do not apply to God. From God's point of view, they are not necessary at all. To God, they are just one of His inventions. He could have, had He wanted to, created other (different) laws of logic. And this means that it's not necessary for God to CONFORM with the Laws of Logic.
6. From 5 above, we can conclude that God exists in a "world" (again, in the philosophical sense) in which the Laws of Logic do not apply. The law of Non-Contradition (as one of the Laws of Logic) also does not apply in God's world. If it did, it couldn't have been created by God and God wouldn't have the freedom to invent such Laws of Logic as He pleased (and we'd be back to point 4 above).
7. But a world in which the Laws of Logic do not apply is an impossible world (see point A above). This is a permise of the authors' own argument; a premise without which the argument would have no feet to start with; it could never get off the ground.
8. Since God is said to exist in an impossible world, God cannot exist in reality.
What follows is that either the Laws of Logic are not truly necessary (and the paper fails at its premises) or that they are truly necessary and a god who thought them up cannot exist.
One might attempt to counter this by special pleading. For example, one might say that the the laws of logic are only necessary in our world and not in God's (although that is not how the authors put it). But that doesn't help the authors' argument. Once we agree that a world in which the Laws of Logic are not necessary is possible, we refute any universality of the Laws of Logic. Put simply, our world is such that things in it can't exist and not exist at the same time (what does Quantum Theory say about that by the way?) and the creatures in it are conditioned to see it in that same way. But other worlds (whether it be "God's world" or just "another type of universe"), in which different Laws of Logic apply (or none at all) are equally possible (and may in fact be more numerous!). You just can't have your cake and eat it too.
Thanks,
@Allocutus
The paper provides a philosophical argument that seeks to conclude that a god exists. This is based on the very existence of logic. "God", in the paper, is defined as "necessarily existent, personal, spiritual being" (see p20 for example).
The flow of the argument is as follows (I will not be entering into details at this point):
1. The Laws of Logic are Truths
2. The Laws of Logic are Truths About Truths
3. The Laws of Logic are Necessary Truths
4. The Laws of Logic Really Exist
5. The Laws of Logic Necessarily Exist
6. The Laws of Logic are Non-Physical
7. The Laws of Logic are Thoughts
8. The Laws of Logic are Divine Thoughts (in other words, they are the product of a "necessary mind" - ie God).
I will not attack each premise in turn, althought I have to stress that they are very much open to attack on a number of grounds. To illustrate, the paper includes arguments such as "if we believe in the laws of logic existing then tney must exist". This of course is a non-argument. There are numerous other examples in the paper of similar (and occasionally worse) errors.
That said, I don't wish to focus on those. Suffice it to say that my attack below is by no means the only attack that can be made. Instead, I want to focus on a lethal flaw of the argument itself. The flaw is that the argument either contradicts its own premise or it DISPROVES (rather than proving) God, by making Him impossible. Let's move to the crunch.
A. The Laws of Logic as Necessary
The paper argues (under the heading "The Laws of Logic are Necessary") that a world where the laws of logic don't apply is an impossible world. In other words, the authors claim, it's impossible to have a world in which P (any entity) can exist and not exist at the same time, to give one example (see p7 of the paper). If we disagree with this premise (and claim that a world without logic is in fact possible), the paper fails in its entirety because it can no longer claim that logic is either necessary or universal. And, of course, if logic is neither necessary nor universal, it may simply be a human construct that only applies to the way we ourselves observe our world as we see it.
However, for the purposes of the argument, let's assume that the Laws of Logic are in fact necessary, as is claimed by the authors. Let's assume also that they are universal in the sense that no conceivable world can exist in which they do not apply. Such a world, the authors claim, is impossible. Let's keep in mind that the use of the term "world" in this context doesn't apply to any known physical world, such as a planet, galaxy or universe. It's a philosophical term that simply refers to an imaginable "state of affairs".
Now, having agreed with the paper's premise that a world without logic is impossible, let us consider the paper's conclusion.
B. The paper's conclusion. I will quote it verbatum (page 20 of the paper):
"Propositions are real entities, but cannot be physical entities; they are essentially thoughts. So the laws of logic are necessarily true thoughts. Since they are true in every possible world, they must exist in every possible world. But if there are necessarily existent thoughts, there must be a necessarily existent mind; and if there is a necessarily existent mind, there must be a necessarily existent person."
Now, here's the problem with this:
1. There is a claimed existence of a "necessary mind". It's called "God".
2. The Laws of Logic are (according to the paper's argument) a product of this mind. In other words, they only exist (as thoughts, so the authors say) because the mind (God) has thought them up.
3. Since The Laws of Logic were thought up by God, they do not exist independently. This is to be contrasted with their (claimed by the authors of the paper) existence that is independent of the human mind (this is part of their being "necessary"; they would exist even if no human ever walked the Earth).
4. When we say that God has thought up the Laws of Logic we can only mean one of two things; either God has invented them or God has discovered them. If God has discovered them then they exist independently of God and therefore are not His product at all. It's no different to humans discovering logic but not in fact creating it (as per the paper's claims). And if Laws of Logic exist independently of God (albeit He discovers them and thinks about them) then God is not a valid logical conclusion from the premise that the Laws of Logic are necessary. They are in fact necessary DESPITE God and would be necessary even had God not discovered them or had not Himself existed. What follows is that, for the paper's argument to make sense at all, it must be said that the authors claim that God INVENTED Laws of Logic.
5. If God invented laws of logic then God is not bound by them. They do not apply to God. From God's point of view, they are not necessary at all. To God, they are just one of His inventions. He could have, had He wanted to, created other (different) laws of logic. And this means that it's not necessary for God to CONFORM with the Laws of Logic.
6. From 5 above, we can conclude that God exists in a "world" (again, in the philosophical sense) in which the Laws of Logic do not apply. The law of Non-Contradition (as one of the Laws of Logic) also does not apply in God's world. If it did, it couldn't have been created by God and God wouldn't have the freedom to invent such Laws of Logic as He pleased (and we'd be back to point 4 above).
7. But a world in which the Laws of Logic do not apply is an impossible world (see point A above). This is a permise of the authors' own argument; a premise without which the argument would have no feet to start with; it could never get off the ground.
8. Since God is said to exist in an impossible world, God cannot exist in reality.
What follows is that either the Laws of Logic are not truly necessary (and the paper fails at its premises) or that they are truly necessary and a god who thought them up cannot exist.
One might attempt to counter this by special pleading. For example, one might say that the the laws of logic are only necessary in our world and not in God's (although that is not how the authors put it). But that doesn't help the authors' argument. Once we agree that a world in which the Laws of Logic are not necessary is possible, we refute any universality of the Laws of Logic. Put simply, our world is such that things in it can't exist and not exist at the same time (what does Quantum Theory say about that by the way?) and the creatures in it are conditioned to see it in that same way. But other worlds (whether it be "God's world" or just "another type of universe"), in which different Laws of Logic apply (or none at all) are equally possible (and may in fact be more numerous!). You just can't have your cake and eat it too.
Thanks,
@Allocutus
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Evolution as menace to science - yet another gem in Christian propaganda
Here's my response to a tweet about evolution. It cites an article entitled "Why Evolutionary-Based Science Is A Menace To Scientific Research, Discovery, and Progress" and appearing in http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/evolution_menace.html.
As a general note, I must say that the article is nothing new. It's a repetition of the same intellectually dishonest creationist propagand that we've been reading for years. Below, I will illustrate why.
The first paragraph of the article talks about scientific bias. Sure, there are examples of this in all areas of scientific work. This is precisely why scientists have devised such methods as "blind experiment" and "double blind experiment". And is there a pro-evolution bias in science? Only to the extent that not many (in fact very very very few) even bother to try and question Evolution AS A WHOLE. It has been so firmly confirmed by scores and scores of research that only very very few would be inclined to seriously question it. Evolution has only been widely accepted for some 80-100 years. Prior to that, it went through a lengthy period of furious debate, faced with an adverse political climate (more on this later).
Let me move on to the second point.
"Because of this and the fact that most research dollars come from pro-evolutionary sources, scientific discovery and progress has been severely hampered and hundreds of billions of research dollars have been squandered over the years. What's worse is that, in a time in which almost ANY alternative thought is given a platform, the evolution industry openly censors ANY dissenting hypothesis that conflicts with commonly held evolutionary principles ... even when it's from fellow evolutionists!"
Firstly, let's make one thing clear: Disprove evolution and I guarantee you a Nobel Prize. Revolutionary and shocking claims are usually very welcome by science. They take time to become accepted but there's no doubt that, if subsequently confirmed, they give one claim to fame in science; and, face it, scientists are not in it for the money!
Originally proposed by Darwin, 150 years ago, The Theory of Evolution has been challenged with and CONFIRMED by a prethora of scientific knowledge found SINCE Darwin. Genetics confirms Evolution. I reccomend Francis Collins (the head of the Human Genome Project). He's not only a strong proponent of the Theory Of Evolution but also a devout Christian.
Now, getting back to the "political power" argument, it suffers from yet another blow. You see, when Darwin discovered Natural Selection, the political climate was anything BUT anti-creationism. It was the opposite. The Theory of Evolution managed to breach the political barrier precisely BECAUSE it's such a convincing, scientifically sound, and elegant explanation of how complex organisms have come into existence.
And there's a THIRD blow to the political claim in the article. You see, financial power in private enterprise, especially in the USA, lies mostly with the wealthy conservative Christian bracket of the society. Christians have A MASS of resources to conduct their own studies and publish their findings. Indeed, the Discovery Institute (with the cute but intellectually dishonest Michael Behe in its chair), has been spreading its pseudo-scientific Christian propaganda since 1990, and has been having an unfortunate but profound impact on naive members of lay (in the "non-scientifically aware";no religious pun intended)sectors of the population. They are rich, they are powerful, they are influential and they are out there.
Why aren't they heard by the mainstream scientific community? A financially powerful group has published all this information that apparently proves evolution to be wrong and yet not a single scientist has the nerve to get up and say "wow, I'll support that"? Despite the fact that a number (albeit small) of mainstream scientists ARE CHRISTIAN? Are all those Christian scientists so afraid of losing their position (which wouldn't happen) or their reputation (which MIGHT happen, depending on the credibility of the study in question) that they will not stick their little neck out FOR THE LORD?
The answer isn't that at all. The answer is that nobody in their right mind can treat Behe's "research" (and the like) as serious scientific work. He has published a wide array of "papers" with anti-evolution claims and each has been dismissed by a response from someone in REAL science. Behe's methodology is simply flawed. To some this spells "intellectual dishonesty" but I won't go as far as to argue this point. The diplomatic way is to put it on "flawed methodology".
Bottom line: lack of resources is not the issue here. Christians have dough, don't you worry about that.
Now, the rest of the article.
It then talks about Junk DNA and calls it "the biggest blunder of evolutionary science". Let's think about that. Junk DNA is DNA that has no function at all and yet exists in the genetic code of an organism. It is true that since the first discovery of Junk DNA, many claims have been made that particular ASPECTS of it may have a function. Now let's assume that ALL DNA has a function (not true, but let's assume it). In fact, let's assume that Junk DNA as a theory was indeed a blunder! How generous of me, right? Yes! Because it wasn't a blunder made by researchers of Evolution. It was a blunder made by geneticists. Their question was what role certain parts of DNA play. The question is genetic and not evolutionary. Junk DNA SUPPORTS the Theory of Evolution. Now, THAT is true. But a million other things also support the Theory of Evolution and junk DNA is just a drop in the ocean.
Typical intellectual dishonesty. And also irrelevant. Let's assume that in fact Junk DNA WAS a blunder of Evolution. So what? Scientists make mistakes. Of course they do! And they are corrected and proven wrong by other scientists. They publish papers about things. And again, do you think Darwin's theory was accepted overnight? No way. In fact, we can't say that it was truly accepted until some 1930's (that's SEVENTY years after Darwin first published The Origin). Scientific claims are scrutinised and by doing this scientists build their careers. Science contains a self-propelling (and in itself evolved on some level) mechanism for self-correction. Does religion? Is there any way you can verify or disprove the creation story or any aspect of it by the use of a rational (although non-scientific of course) process (and NOT relying on a mythology-like boook) ? If so, please do show it.
The bottom line is this, though. Scientists make mistakes, sometimes use flawed methodology, make an error in the way they interpret data or formulate their conclusion. And they stand to be corrected and they ARE corrected. It's thanks to this that science GROWS and are knowledge of the Universe becomes increasingly greater. Otherwise, we would have pretty much stood still. The working lightbulb is the effect of some 10,000 unsuccessful prototypes by Edison (not that he was the inventor of the lightbulb in the first place but that's a whole different phenomenon in the world of science - where to put credit). And this is why we have a lightbulb that works! Evolution is one of many (to date) different proposed explanations for speciation and diversity. And it's one that has breached an adverse political climate and managed to survive and thrive for 150 years. It gets confirmed with each new methodology available. It is convincing and it has unshakable evidentiary support.
The next section of the main article says this:
'See “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” list of scientists who doubt Darwinism and hold a Ph.D. in a scientific field such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or one of the other natural sciences, and/or hold a M.D. and serve as a professor of medicine. The list includes scientists from the US National Academy of Sciences, Russian, Hungarian and Czech National Academies, as well as from universities such as Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. (Many of these people are risking their careers by 'coming out' against the evolution industry, especially in the United States.)'
The claim is that a number of scientists have signed the following statement:
“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Then there's a list of scientists who signed that claim. I counted approximately 750 and the minimum requirement seems to be a PhD. It includes Dermatologists, Civil Engineers and people who specialise in instrumentation and automatic control; in themselves hardly relevant fields. I wonder if they subscribe to the above statement BECAUSE of some fault with evolution that they found WITHIN THEIR field of specialisation. No data on that...Wonder why. To be fair, the list does contain a number of biologists too.
But let's move on. 750 PhDs sign a statement. How many PhDs are there worldwide? There are 34,000 NEW DOCTORATE EARNED EACH YEAR in OECD countries. Each year the number of doctorates in OECD countries GROWS BY 34,000 (minus deaths) (1). And moving out of OECD in China, a staggering 50,000 PhDs were handed out in 2009 alone (Ibid).
There are hundreds of thousands of PhD's worldwide and some 700 have signed the above statement. This is statistically so insignificant that one might well argue that all 700 suffered from a mental blank on that particular day and did not fully understand what the question meant. And even if they did know what they were saying, they may not have wanted to upset their relatives, from ultra-conservative backgrounds. Or let's say they really do believe it. Believe what? That Evolution should be scrutinised? Of course it should! Everything in science needs to be scrutinised.
The article then mentions a number (again, small) of scientists (who apparently have questioned the Big Bang Theory) blacklisted by archive posting. It doesn't, however, explain just what archive posting is. And I'll tell you what it is. It's the Open Archives Website at the Cornell University. It is managed by a single man, named Paul Ginsparg (2).
So, a bunch of scientists gets blocked from someone's "blog" and what do creationists at http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/evolution_menace.html make of it? A worldwide conspiracy against those who dare to question the Big Bang Theory. Please do consider the level intellectual honesty involved.
The next point in the article is nothing short of highway robbery. Here's what the article says:
"Making a stand against the Big Bang Theory, 33 well-known scientists paid for and published “An Open Letter to the Scientific Community” in the New Scientist on May 22, 2004. (It was originally titled, “Bucking the Big Bang” but the title was later changed.) Since then, hundreds of scientists, engineers, and independent researchers have added their names to the list"
Problem number 1: Well if opposing the Big Bang Theory has such a huge support then why isn't all this published in peer journals? Or maybe it is. But if so, what are the responses to each of the claims published?
Problem number 2: These scientists oppose the Big Bang Theory. But what Theory do they PROMOTE? We don't know. There's cerainly NOTHING in the Open Letter that suggests that they are proponents of an iintelligent creator. Sure, there are alternatives to the Big Bang Theory. Just wiki it and you'll find them (or you can dig deeper, of course). But why do you use this in an article entitled "Why Evolutionary-Based Science Is A Menace To Scientific Research, Discovery, and Progress"? Evolution and Big Bang are two completely distinct explanations of our Universe and don't have anything in common (other that neither one POSITIVELY PROPOSES the existence of an intelligent creator).
So, this is an example of a false dilemma. Just because a scientist doesn't agree with the Big Bang Theory, doesn't mean he agrees WITH YOU!
We can only conclude that this Open Letter has nothing to do with Evolution and isn't relevant to the issue at all.
What can we conclude about the article then? Does it live up to its title? Does it demonstrate that Evolution is a menace to scientific progress? No, of course not. At its best, the article demonstrates that the Theory of Evolution has grown very very strong in the scientific community (no surprised there) and that there do exist a statistically insigniricant bunch of science-trained personnel who subsribe to the very cautious and diplomatic statement that a careful analysis of the evidence for Darwin's theory should be encouraged.
Next time perhpaps, whoisyourcreator.com will write an article that actually attacks Evolution as scientifically sound? Or maybe that would be too much to ask for.
Cited materials:
(1) http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html
(2) http://www.archivefreedom.org/freedom/Cyberia.html
As a general note, I must say that the article is nothing new. It's a repetition of the same intellectually dishonest creationist propagand that we've been reading for years. Below, I will illustrate why.
The first paragraph of the article talks about scientific bias. Sure, there are examples of this in all areas of scientific work. This is precisely why scientists have devised such methods as "blind experiment" and "double blind experiment". And is there a pro-evolution bias in science? Only to the extent that not many (in fact very very very few) even bother to try and question Evolution AS A WHOLE. It has been so firmly confirmed by scores and scores of research that only very very few would be inclined to seriously question it. Evolution has only been widely accepted for some 80-100 years. Prior to that, it went through a lengthy period of furious debate, faced with an adverse political climate (more on this later).
Let me move on to the second point.
"Because of this and the fact that most research dollars come from pro-evolutionary sources, scientific discovery and progress has been severely hampered and hundreds of billions of research dollars have been squandered over the years. What's worse is that, in a time in which almost ANY alternative thought is given a platform, the evolution industry openly censors ANY dissenting hypothesis that conflicts with commonly held evolutionary principles ... even when it's from fellow evolutionists!"
Firstly, let's make one thing clear: Disprove evolution and I guarantee you a Nobel Prize. Revolutionary and shocking claims are usually very welcome by science. They take time to become accepted but there's no doubt that, if subsequently confirmed, they give one claim to fame in science; and, face it, scientists are not in it for the money!
Originally proposed by Darwin, 150 years ago, The Theory of Evolution has been challenged with and CONFIRMED by a prethora of scientific knowledge found SINCE Darwin. Genetics confirms Evolution. I reccomend Francis Collins (the head of the Human Genome Project). He's not only a strong proponent of the Theory Of Evolution but also a devout Christian.
Now, getting back to the "political power" argument, it suffers from yet another blow. You see, when Darwin discovered Natural Selection, the political climate was anything BUT anti-creationism. It was the opposite. The Theory of Evolution managed to breach the political barrier precisely BECAUSE it's such a convincing, scientifically sound, and elegant explanation of how complex organisms have come into existence.
And there's a THIRD blow to the political claim in the article. You see, financial power in private enterprise, especially in the USA, lies mostly with the wealthy conservative Christian bracket of the society. Christians have A MASS of resources to conduct their own studies and publish their findings. Indeed, the Discovery Institute (with the cute but intellectually dishonest Michael Behe in its chair), has been spreading its pseudo-scientific Christian propaganda since 1990, and has been having an unfortunate but profound impact on naive members of lay (in the "non-scientifically aware";no religious pun intended)sectors of the population. They are rich, they are powerful, they are influential and they are out there.
Why aren't they heard by the mainstream scientific community? A financially powerful group has published all this information that apparently proves evolution to be wrong and yet not a single scientist has the nerve to get up and say "wow, I'll support that"? Despite the fact that a number (albeit small) of mainstream scientists ARE CHRISTIAN? Are all those Christian scientists so afraid of losing their position (which wouldn't happen) or their reputation (which MIGHT happen, depending on the credibility of the study in question) that they will not stick their little neck out FOR THE LORD?
The answer isn't that at all. The answer is that nobody in their right mind can treat Behe's "research" (and the like) as serious scientific work. He has published a wide array of "papers" with anti-evolution claims and each has been dismissed by a response from someone in REAL science. Behe's methodology is simply flawed. To some this spells "intellectual dishonesty" but I won't go as far as to argue this point. The diplomatic way is to put it on "flawed methodology".
Bottom line: lack of resources is not the issue here. Christians have dough, don't you worry about that.
Now, the rest of the article.
It then talks about Junk DNA and calls it "the biggest blunder of evolutionary science". Let's think about that. Junk DNA is DNA that has no function at all and yet exists in the genetic code of an organism. It is true that since the first discovery of Junk DNA, many claims have been made that particular ASPECTS of it may have a function. Now let's assume that ALL DNA has a function (not true, but let's assume it). In fact, let's assume that Junk DNA as a theory was indeed a blunder! How generous of me, right? Yes! Because it wasn't a blunder made by researchers of Evolution. It was a blunder made by geneticists. Their question was what role certain parts of DNA play. The question is genetic and not evolutionary. Junk DNA SUPPORTS the Theory of Evolution. Now, THAT is true. But a million other things also support the Theory of Evolution and junk DNA is just a drop in the ocean.
Typical intellectual dishonesty. And also irrelevant. Let's assume that in fact Junk DNA WAS a blunder of Evolution. So what? Scientists make mistakes. Of course they do! And they are corrected and proven wrong by other scientists. They publish papers about things. And again, do you think Darwin's theory was accepted overnight? No way. In fact, we can't say that it was truly accepted until some 1930's (that's SEVENTY years after Darwin first published The Origin). Scientific claims are scrutinised and by doing this scientists build their careers. Science contains a self-propelling (and in itself evolved on some level) mechanism for self-correction. Does religion? Is there any way you can verify or disprove the creation story or any aspect of it by the use of a rational (although non-scientific of course) process (and NOT relying on a mythology-like boook) ? If so, please do show it.
The bottom line is this, though. Scientists make mistakes, sometimes use flawed methodology, make an error in the way they interpret data or formulate their conclusion. And they stand to be corrected and they ARE corrected. It's thanks to this that science GROWS and are knowledge of the Universe becomes increasingly greater. Otherwise, we would have pretty much stood still. The working lightbulb is the effect of some 10,000 unsuccessful prototypes by Edison (not that he was the inventor of the lightbulb in the first place but that's a whole different phenomenon in the world of science - where to put credit). And this is why we have a lightbulb that works! Evolution is one of many (to date) different proposed explanations for speciation and diversity. And it's one that has breached an adverse political climate and managed to survive and thrive for 150 years. It gets confirmed with each new methodology available. It is convincing and it has unshakable evidentiary support.
The next section of the main article says this:
'See “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” list of scientists who doubt Darwinism and hold a Ph.D. in a scientific field such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or one of the other natural sciences, and/or hold a M.D. and serve as a professor of medicine. The list includes scientists from the US National Academy of Sciences, Russian, Hungarian and Czech National Academies, as well as from universities such as Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. (Many of these people are risking their careers by 'coming out' against the evolution industry, especially in the United States.)'
The claim is that a number of scientists have signed the following statement:
“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Then there's a list of scientists who signed that claim. I counted approximately 750 and the minimum requirement seems to be a PhD. It includes Dermatologists, Civil Engineers and people who specialise in instrumentation and automatic control; in themselves hardly relevant fields. I wonder if they subscribe to the above statement BECAUSE of some fault with evolution that they found WITHIN THEIR field of specialisation. No data on that...Wonder why. To be fair, the list does contain a number of biologists too.
But let's move on. 750 PhDs sign a statement. How many PhDs are there worldwide? There are 34,000 NEW DOCTORATE EARNED EACH YEAR in OECD countries. Each year the number of doctorates in OECD countries GROWS BY 34,000 (minus deaths) (1). And moving out of OECD in China, a staggering 50,000 PhDs were handed out in 2009 alone (Ibid).
There are hundreds of thousands of PhD's worldwide and some 700 have signed the above statement. This is statistically so insignificant that one might well argue that all 700 suffered from a mental blank on that particular day and did not fully understand what the question meant. And even if they did know what they were saying, they may not have wanted to upset their relatives, from ultra-conservative backgrounds. Or let's say they really do believe it. Believe what? That Evolution should be scrutinised? Of course it should! Everything in science needs to be scrutinised.
The article then mentions a number (again, small) of scientists (who apparently have questioned the Big Bang Theory) blacklisted by archive posting. It doesn't, however, explain just what archive posting is. And I'll tell you what it is. It's the Open Archives Website at the Cornell University. It is managed by a single man, named Paul Ginsparg (2).
So, a bunch of scientists gets blocked from someone's "blog" and what do creationists at http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/evolution_menace.html make of it? A worldwide conspiracy against those who dare to question the Big Bang Theory. Please do consider the level intellectual honesty involved.
The next point in the article is nothing short of highway robbery. Here's what the article says:
"Making a stand against the Big Bang Theory, 33 well-known scientists paid for and published “An Open Letter to the Scientific Community” in the New Scientist on May 22, 2004. (It was originally titled, “Bucking the Big Bang” but the title was later changed.) Since then, hundreds of scientists, engineers, and independent researchers have added their names to the list"
Problem number 1: Well if opposing the Big Bang Theory has such a huge support then why isn't all this published in peer journals? Or maybe it is. But if so, what are the responses to each of the claims published?
Problem number 2: These scientists oppose the Big Bang Theory. But what Theory do they PROMOTE? We don't know. There's cerainly NOTHING in the Open Letter that suggests that they are proponents of an iintelligent creator. Sure, there are alternatives to the Big Bang Theory. Just wiki it and you'll find them (or you can dig deeper, of course). But why do you use this in an article entitled "Why Evolutionary-Based Science Is A Menace To Scientific Research, Discovery, and Progress"? Evolution and Big Bang are two completely distinct explanations of our Universe and don't have anything in common (other that neither one POSITIVELY PROPOSES the existence of an intelligent creator).
So, this is an example of a false dilemma. Just because a scientist doesn't agree with the Big Bang Theory, doesn't mean he agrees WITH YOU!
We can only conclude that this Open Letter has nothing to do with Evolution and isn't relevant to the issue at all.
What can we conclude about the article then? Does it live up to its title? Does it demonstrate that Evolution is a menace to scientific progress? No, of course not. At its best, the article demonstrates that the Theory of Evolution has grown very very strong in the scientific community (no surprised there) and that there do exist a statistically insigniricant bunch of science-trained personnel who subsribe to the very cautious and diplomatic statement that a careful analysis of the evidence for Darwin's theory should be encouraged.
Next time perhpaps, whoisyourcreator.com will write an article that actually attacks Evolution as scientifically sound? Or maybe that would be too much to ask for.
Cited materials:
(1) http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html
(2) http://www.archivefreedom.org/freedom/Cyberia.html
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Earth as proof for God?
#ateheism @markfromkent @Sacerdotus @jackyoest @r2rock @stillmereally @padremoya
It has just been presented by markfromkent that there is proof of god.
Mark's argument relied on the specific conditions on Earth which (according to this old and dead argument) implies intentional design.
This is what can be called the "Goldie Locks" argument because the very "special" zone in which the Earth is places is often referred to as the Goldie Locks zone; not too hot, not too cold, just right :)
Having introduced the subject, I am now going to demonstrate that the above argument fails on at least two grounds (in reality there are more grounds but I do have limited time).
Ground #1 - Circular logic
The argument fails from the outset because it empoloys a fallacy known as Begging the Question (Circular Logic).
The argument says this:
1. The outcome (the very life-friendly conditions on Earth) is very very improbable
2. Therefore it must have been the result of deliberate design.
Let's stop here and think about this proposition.
Every event is very very very improbable. Think about a planet like Jupiter and some reaction that takes place involving its gasseous (sp?) atmosphere. If any single of a very very large number of conditions were not satisfied, that reaction would not take place. Or it would have taken place but a little bit differently. That specific reaction is very very very very improbable in any one randomly-selected place in the Universe. This goes for every single reaction in the Universe; very very very very rare and very improbable (in fact, to go further, the Universe is by very very very far mostly empty space and ANY REACTION AT ALL is special indeed, without even addressing specific places like Jupiter or Earth; SIDE NOTE, Don't dwell)
Having regard to the above, any state of affairs in any specific place of the Universe is very very very improbable, just as the state of affairs on Earth.
Hence, the argument doesn't even get off the ground AT ALL unless we can demonstrate that there's something special about THIS PARTICULAR STATE OF AFFAIRS. And how special must it be? It must be special enough to support the idea of intelligent design. But we can only say that there was any intelligent design (for this specific state of affairs) if we first demonstrate that the said state of affairs was the INTENDED GOAL of some process or entity. In other words, UNLESS there was some creator who REALLY WANTED TO GIVE RISE TO LIFE, there exists no reason to think that the existence of life is the ultimate goal in any entity's intelligently planned design.
Hence, the argument must start with a hidden premise "life was the desired goal". But wait, if it starts with that premise, it must have ALREADY ASSUMED that there existed an entity who had FORMED THAT GOAL; aka God. What follows is that the argument uses its CONCLUSION as one of its PREMISES; and therefore is circular. It fails.
Ground #2 - the argument lacks any evidentiary backup
The argument as presented by #markfromkent claims that the specific conditions on Earth are so vastly improbable that Earth is a single very special place in the Universe. But this is an assumption with no basis for it. In order to form any idea of the probability involved, one would have to rely on an Equation (Kind of like the Drake Equation which seeks to calculate the probability of another intelligent civilisation in the Universe). The basis for this equation would have to be knowledge about the number of stars in the Universe, how many have planets, how many of those planets have magnetic fields etc etc etc. At the moment, there do exist a number of such equations (the Drake Equation being the original model and still existing and being modified as more and more knowlege is obtained by scientists about the Universe). However, they are based on such hugely unreliable estimates that they range from saying that there are billions of intelligent civilisations in the Universe to saying that even our single one is close to impossible.
But I'm going too far. I don't need to demonstrate that any particular equation is wrong; none was presented by Mark in the first place. To put in another way; Mark presented no evidence to support his claim that Earth's conditions are so vastly improbable in the Universe that they should be consider as special at all.
There you have it, folks. The argument has no legs for the above reasons.
But there's more (just for the fun of it). Think about this:
1. If an intelligent god created the Universe for the purpose of it having LIFE then why would he create it in such a way that 99.99999999999999999% of it (or whatever figure you like) is incapable of sustaining life? It makes no sense at all. And note that "to make us wonder" is not an answer to this question (as entertaining as it does sound). An omnipotent entity COULD create a life-friendly place without making it soooooo huuuuuge and so life UNFRIENDLY.
2. Why would the entity create such kind of life that can only exist in a very narrow time-span when compared to the age of the Universe? Note that "god works in mysterious ways" is not an answer (as entertaining as it does sound).
Best Regards
@allocutus
It has just been presented by markfromkent that there is proof of god.
Mark's argument relied on the specific conditions on Earth which (according to this old and dead argument) implies intentional design.
This is what can be called the "Goldie Locks" argument because the very "special" zone in which the Earth is places is often referred to as the Goldie Locks zone; not too hot, not too cold, just right :)
Having introduced the subject, I am now going to demonstrate that the above argument fails on at least two grounds (in reality there are more grounds but I do have limited time).
Ground #1 - Circular logic
The argument fails from the outset because it empoloys a fallacy known as Begging the Question (Circular Logic).
The argument says this:
1. The outcome (the very life-friendly conditions on Earth) is very very improbable
2. Therefore it must have been the result of deliberate design.
Let's stop here and think about this proposition.
Every event is very very very improbable. Think about a planet like Jupiter and some reaction that takes place involving its gasseous (sp?) atmosphere. If any single of a very very large number of conditions were not satisfied, that reaction would not take place. Or it would have taken place but a little bit differently. That specific reaction is very very very very improbable in any one randomly-selected place in the Universe. This goes for every single reaction in the Universe; very very very very rare and very improbable (in fact, to go further, the Universe is by very very very far mostly empty space and ANY REACTION AT ALL is special indeed, without even addressing specific places like Jupiter or Earth; SIDE NOTE, Don't dwell)
Having regard to the above, any state of affairs in any specific place of the Universe is very very very improbable, just as the state of affairs on Earth.
Hence, the argument doesn't even get off the ground AT ALL unless we can demonstrate that there's something special about THIS PARTICULAR STATE OF AFFAIRS. And how special must it be? It must be special enough to support the idea of intelligent design. But we can only say that there was any intelligent design (for this specific state of affairs) if we first demonstrate that the said state of affairs was the INTENDED GOAL of some process or entity. In other words, UNLESS there was some creator who REALLY WANTED TO GIVE RISE TO LIFE, there exists no reason to think that the existence of life is the ultimate goal in any entity's intelligently planned design.
Hence, the argument must start with a hidden premise "life was the desired goal". But wait, if it starts with that premise, it must have ALREADY ASSUMED that there existed an entity who had FORMED THAT GOAL; aka God. What follows is that the argument uses its CONCLUSION as one of its PREMISES; and therefore is circular. It fails.
Ground #2 - the argument lacks any evidentiary backup
The argument as presented by #markfromkent claims that the specific conditions on Earth are so vastly improbable that Earth is a single very special place in the Universe. But this is an assumption with no basis for it. In order to form any idea of the probability involved, one would have to rely on an Equation (Kind of like the Drake Equation which seeks to calculate the probability of another intelligent civilisation in the Universe). The basis for this equation would have to be knowledge about the number of stars in the Universe, how many have planets, how many of those planets have magnetic fields etc etc etc. At the moment, there do exist a number of such equations (the Drake Equation being the original model and still existing and being modified as more and more knowlege is obtained by scientists about the Universe). However, they are based on such hugely unreliable estimates that they range from saying that there are billions of intelligent civilisations in the Universe to saying that even our single one is close to impossible.
But I'm going too far. I don't need to demonstrate that any particular equation is wrong; none was presented by Mark in the first place. To put in another way; Mark presented no evidence to support his claim that Earth's conditions are so vastly improbable in the Universe that they should be consider as special at all.
There you have it, folks. The argument has no legs for the above reasons.
But there's more (just for the fun of it). Think about this:
1. If an intelligent god created the Universe for the purpose of it having LIFE then why would he create it in such a way that 99.99999999999999999% of it (or whatever figure you like) is incapable of sustaining life? It makes no sense at all. And note that "to make us wonder" is not an answer to this question (as entertaining as it does sound). An omnipotent entity COULD create a life-friendly place without making it soooooo huuuuuge and so life UNFRIENDLY.
2. Why would the entity create such kind of life that can only exist in a very narrow time-span when compared to the age of the Universe? Note that "god works in mysterious ways" is not an answer (as entertaining as it does sound).
Best Regards
@allocutus
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Does God know your secrets?
Here's a pretty neat example of a well known Biblical contradiction.
Many Christians (and not only Christians) believe that God knows and sees everything, that He knows what you're thinking, sees your every move. This point was brought up on twitter today by a Christian user. I replied. Have a look at the original tweet and my reply to it, below.
WRONG:"RT @faithclubdotnet: Ecclesiastes 12:14 #God is going to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret."
What you see above is yet another biblical contradiction. On the one hand, the book of Ecclasiastes claims that God will judge you based on the things you do in secret.
On the other, the Bible make it quite clear that God is not all-knowing. Think about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. What happened after God heard the "outcry" (the report about how bad people in those cities were)? Well, here's what God said:
Genesis 18:20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
Yes, you read correct and it's in your own Bible too. Just open your paperback (or hardback) to Genesis 18 and see the "omniscient" (that means "all-knowing") God say "I will go down and check if the reports are true and THEN I WILL KNOW".
Now, if God can't even observe what's happening in Sodom (without going down to check), how can God see the "sins" you commit in secret? Answer: He can't. Why? Because He's not omniscient.
So why do we have this contradiction in the Bible? Well, it's one of HUNDREDS of other contradictions. The Bible is littered with them. Just read it and you will see for yourself. Or tweet me and I'll show you more. But why are they there? Because the Bibls is just a collection of mythical writings, made up by humans, not unlike the Greek Mythology or the Roman Mythology or that of the Egyptians. The ONLY DIFFERENCE is that some people believe in the Bible while pretty much nobody treats the other mythologies seriously.
Many Christians (and not only Christians) believe that God knows and sees everything, that He knows what you're thinking, sees your every move. This point was brought up on twitter today by a Christian user. I replied. Have a look at the original tweet and my reply to it, below.
WRONG:"RT @faithclubdotnet: Ecclesiastes 12:14 #God is going to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret."
What you see above is yet another biblical contradiction. On the one hand, the book of Ecclasiastes claims that God will judge you based on the things you do in secret.
On the other, the Bible make it quite clear that God is not all-knowing. Think about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. What happened after God heard the "outcry" (the report about how bad people in those cities were)? Well, here's what God said:
Genesis 18:20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
Yes, you read correct and it's in your own Bible too. Just open your paperback (or hardback) to Genesis 18 and see the "omniscient" (that means "all-knowing") God say "I will go down and check if the reports are true and THEN I WILL KNOW".
Now, if God can't even observe what's happening in Sodom (without going down to check), how can God see the "sins" you commit in secret? Answer: He can't. Why? Because He's not omniscient.
So why do we have this contradiction in the Bible? Well, it's one of HUNDREDS of other contradictions. The Bible is littered with them. Just read it and you will see for yourself. Or tweet me and I'll show you more. But why are they there? Because the Bibls is just a collection of mythical writings, made up by humans, not unlike the Greek Mythology or the Roman Mythology or that of the Egyptians. The ONLY DIFFERENCE is that some people believe in the Bible while pretty much nobody treats the other mythologies seriously.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
What tollows is a typical attempt at Christian apologetics. As usual, it’s full of problems; both logical and moral. Let’s have a look at it bit by bit. I will quote parts of the original article (posted on twitter by @faithclubdotnet and retwitted by a number of Christians), followed by my own comments.
Why Christianity Makes Sense
I've heard many people complain,"Christianity makes no sense". They'll then say something in regards to common themes like,"Why did Jesus have to die for me?" or "Why did God kill people when he is supposed to be a good God". To some people, they simply can't piece together why everything had to happen like it did. To make matters worse, the enemy operates on lies, confusion and darkness trying to kindle the idea that,"Christianity makes no sense." There is not much need to worry about the darkness though because light penetrates it and it flees. In this article, I hope to provide light to your way(*v1) such that you might have a clearer notion of why Christianity indeed does make sense.
To start we must look at God's goal. Yes God's ways are above our ways, so it is impossible to understand what God is doing to bring about his goal, but we may know what God wants to do.
PROBLEM NUMBER 1; SPECIAL PLEADING: IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT GOD IS DOING TO BRING ABOUT HIS GOAL.
The above is a typical bit of special pleading. Since we can’t understand what God does to bring about His goal, we place God beyond any realm where His actions can be considered, let alone criticised. My advice to the author of the article would be this:
Stop right there, you don’t need to say anything any more. You’ve just made your point. Christianity makes sense because we’re not allowed to question whether it makes sense. It makes sense because God knows what He’s doing and we don’t know what He’s doing and He knows what's best and we don't.
And of course, this isn’t apologetics, folks. This is dodgery. It’s an escape from any need to explain anything. Nothing really new when it comes to religion. After all, religion thrives on JUST THAT.
Let’s go on with the next section of the article....
God's goal is for all beings to live together in love and peace without harming each other. God is love. Because God is love, he wants to exist eternally with us in love. Love can build over time, so the longer you live together with other people, the more you love them, and the more you want to do good with them. Conflict can also build over time, but as we submit to God as ruler over all to judge conflict, we can be happy when he resolve the conflict. Without God to resolve conflict between people, that conflict might build, and love might be lost and hate take up its place. If you had beings hating each other in the new Heaven, it would not be a place without suffering because harboring ill feelings toward another is actually a form of suffering in itself.
RIGHT, so far, we have a completely arbitrary claim that God is love and wants beings to love each other. One might find this difficult to believe, especially given what this God commands these beings to do. Of course, I’m referring to the Old Testament Law, given by God to His people via Moses and other prophets. There are literally hundreds of examples of this. I will quote but a few.
1. God tells us to execute fortunetellers:
A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)
2. God tells us to execute kids who swear at their parents:
All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)’
3. God tells us to execute daughters of priests (by burning to death!) for fornication:
A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)
4. God tells us to stone girls who turn out not to be virgins on their wedding night:
But if this charge is true, and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)
5. God kills children for the sins of their fathers:
If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted. (Leviticus 26:21-22 NLT)
The above are just a few examples of the Commands that God has issued in the Old Testament. Some of these are once-off orders (applying in a particular situation only); others constitute what’s known as The Law.
There is a well known Christian objection that The Law no longer applies because Jesus has now redeemed us. That of course is not true. Open your Bible at Matthew 5, have a look at verses 17-19. They go as follows:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Now, most Christians are very familiar with verse 17. Jesus comes to fulfill the law. But they tend to not even notice the following verses. And in those verses, Christ makes it clear that The Law applies TO THE LETTER (to the iota) and WILL APPLY to the letter until the end of the world. What’s more, those who obey it will be higher in Heaven than those who don’t.
What follows from the above is that, according to Matt 5, Christ commands us to continue to apply the old law of the prophets, including the commands in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, directing us to kill naughty kids, stone adulterers and homosexuals and commit war crimes.
There are a number of counter-arguments out there. Eg, one can argue that these laws only apply to the Jews. In that case, ask yourself if you’d feel morally comfortable with the idea of a Jew who stones his naughty son to death. Is this an act that a God WHO IS LOVE would command? Have a think about that. Kids are (and always have been) immature and silly. It’s quite easy for a kids to say a swear word at his parents. It happens all the time and it’s put down to immaturity. Of course, we discipline them for it. But not by DEATH. We love our kids. Does God? Arguably not. You don’t have someone killed for uttering a single word; that’s not love.
Another (rather silly but very common) argument is that the Law was designed for the ancient Jews who couldn’t understand any different. That’s of course intellectual dishonesty. The ancient Jews could understand the command “whip someone” (and for some offences, whipping was the God-given penalty). Therefore, clearly, they could understand a Commandment that would say “whip an adulteress” or “whip a naughty kid”. Killing is not the only thing the ancient Jews understood, you can be sure of that. The question to be asked remains the same: is this treatment consistent with a God who IS LOVE? The answer must be a resounding “NO”.
A further argument I have come across is that these laws were put in place to “set up the stage” for Christ to come. In other words, it was necessary for God to commit (and order) these cruel (and seemingly unjust) acts so that the Jews could make their way into the Holy Land where Jesus could be born. This is of course complete nonsense. An omnipotent God does not need to order a killing of children (for relatively minor and immature “crimes”) in order to lead the Jews into a land of their own. In fact, all God had to do was to create a land and place the Jews there. God could even remove the existing nations from their lands (and move them somewhere else) and bring in the Jews. But no, the omnipotent God who IS LOVE has rather chosen to order the Jews to completely wipe out these other nations. This isn’t consistent with a God who IS LOVE.
Given the way the Old Testamnet God has conveyed Himself, it’s nothing short of ridiculous to claim that he “is love”. This is a hateful, chauvinistic and quite monstrous character; one’s worst nightmare. He has absolutely nothing to do with love.
Of course, all I’ve written above is probably a waste of effort. The author of the original article has already safeguarded his position by that first bit of special pleading. We can’t understand why God does things but God is always right!
Let’s move on with the article.
Many people who have bad theology oftentimes think,"If God can do anything, why didn't he create us in Heaven without suffering to begin with". The quick answer is,"We have free will, and in that free will gives us the ability to disobey God." Look at the Devil and the fallen angels, they were in the original Heaven, but they disobeyed and are being judged now as a result. If we were created in Heaven originally, we might have fallen too. But since we're on Earth, we have the ability to be redeemed through Jesus and enter into the New Heaven. Because God is merciful to us, we are given the opportunity for redemption, so we eventually will live forever without suffering or second death.
ANOTHER paragraph, another bit of nonsense. Above it is claimed that God couldn’t just create people in Heaven because then people could fall. Let’s think about that. Isn’t that what God did in the first place? Well, it wasn’t heaven. It was The Garden. But it was Heaven-like in a way, right? Adam and Eve were to have a perfect and happy existence there until they “fell”.
Let’s move on...it is claimed that humans have free will and that this allows them to disobey God. This is a very common argument used by Christians in an attempt to justify the fact that God didn’t place everyone in Heaven in the first place (often even to justify the existence of earthquakes and diseases, but that’s beside the point here). So, what’s the problem with this? Well, it goes like this:
Once people do go to Heaven, they either have free will or they don’t.
If they do, they can still disobey God in heaven and therefore there’s no reason why we couldn’t be all created in Heaven in the first place, by a God who “IS LOVE”. Now, I anticipate that someone will say “but those who are in heaven do not WANT TO disobey God”. Well, if they don’t want to disobey God, that means that they are incapable of forming an intent to disobey God. And that, in turn, means that, for the purposes of making a decision to sin, they actually lack free will! Hence a God who “IS LOVE” would have created people who DO NOT WANT TO (are incapable of forming the intent) disobey Him and would have put them in Heaven. And if they are capable of forming the intent to disobey God, then it makes no sense to say that they WILL NOT disobey God. And that, in turn, means that Heaven is populated by sinners just like us here on Earth and therefore there’s no reason why God couldn’t put all these sinners in Heaven in the first place.
If, on the other hand, people in Heaven do not have free will (for the purposes of deciding to commit a sin) then there’s no harm at all in having a class of people who lack this type of free will. Again, a God who “IS LOVE” would have just created this type of people and sent them straight to Heaven. God doesn’t consider free will to be of such an importance and the entire “free-will line of apologetics” is flawed to start with.
LET’S move on with the article...
Let us examine this method of redemption and why it makes sense. Jesus lived a life without sin, then died on a cross for our sins, was buried, and rose from death three days later on Easter.
To kick this off, first let us examine a method of living forever that would not make sense. Let us say everyone who died gets to come back to Earth at a certain date, but God was not ruling. Wouldn't the people that warred against each other still hate one another? One man will be like,"You burned my village, killed my relatives and stole all our wealth. I still hate you! And then, the men would attempt to kill one another again." Without the philosophy of forgiveness, there is no way for sinful men to get along together in the coming kingdom.
THE ABOVE is again nonsense. What in the world is a philosophy of forgiveness? God apparently forgives us via Jesus’ death etc... That doesnt’ mean that people all forgive one another. In order for people to forgive one another, they have to have a sense of forgiveness implanted in their own morality. That’s NOT THE CASE where it comes to Christians. Christians are full of hatred. They hate atheists, they hate non-Christians (of other religions), they hate homosexuals. Most Christians (at least in the West) are supporters of the Death Penalty. To top it up, revenge is rife throughout the Old Testament and its Laws. And yes, Jesus did say that these Laws will apply till the end of the world (as outlined above).
Back to the article...
Next let us examine a method of living forever that would not make sense either. As was said earlier in this article, without God to resolve conflict, even people who might love each other at one point may have a falling out and hate each other later. Most of us have seen this in our lifetime. We see a couple who loves each other at one point, but then they're spiteful at the divorce proceedings later. Eternity is a long time, and without forgiveness, even the most loving couples might have a falling out. With God to mediate conflicts though, both parties will be happy at the resolution, so God is needed to resolve conflicts over the long haul for even people who love each other at one point.
AT THIS POINT, one must ask again: do people in Heaven have free will? If they do, there must be conflict. A free person might want to spend a lot of time with someone they really really like (say Jenny). Another person might want to spend a lot of time with the same Jenny. But Jenny happens to really really like only one of these two. She doesn’t want to spend all that much time with the other one. Someone here is going to be unhappy! Are they going to feel “jealousy”? Probably. Where there’s free will, there has to be jealousy. Either that, or people in Heaven are all robots who have to like everyone equally and wanna spend time with everyone equally, all share the same interests etc. What a boring, dull, mundane place that would be. And of course, these robot-like souls would indeed have very very limited free will :)
Back to my main point, if people in Heaven have free will, they can get mad at one another over whatever heavenly issues they have, and they can be put in a situation where forgiveness is required.
It is suggested that God can mediate this process. Sure. And God could still mediate this process if there had been no Jesus, no eternal damnation, no redemption (by innocent sacrifice; in itself a disgusting concept); if God just created everyone in Heaven in the first place, without playing the whole cruel (and illogical, as demonstrated in this post) game.
Moving along....
So we found two things that are required for eternal living in peace and love: Forgiveness and conflict resolution with God as judge.
FINE, let’s assume that’s correct. In fact, any society where there are imperfect beings with free will must require a system of laws that will somehow promote forgiveness and conflict resolution with a “judge”. No problems there. But that’s no justification for God’s actions and commands in the Old Testament. It’s also no justification for God failing to create everyone in Heaven in the first place. After all, even the author of the article has just conceded that eternally living people (presumably those in Heaven) will have conflicts.
Let’s move along now....
How does God earn the right to be judge? God earned the right to be judge because he was tempted and tried in every way a man might be tempted to sin against another man, and to the most extreme, but did not sin.
THE ABOVE is, of course, nonsense. “Sin” means “to disobey God”, by definition. It’s impossible for God to disobey Himself. Therefore, all this talk about God “being tempted and not sinning” is pure bunk. It’s impossible to disobey oneself.
And when it comes to the Temptation of Jesus (which I assume is what the author is referring to), that in itself is comical. Satan promises Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for Jesus following him (Satan). Jesus, of course, resists. Now, either you believe Jesus was an idiot OR Jesus must have known that all these kingdoms don’t even belong to Satan in the first place. Nemo dat quod non habet. If I promised you the Eiffel tower (and trust me, it ain’t mine!) and you rejected the offer, would that really make you a hero? Or just a non-idiot?
And here’s my little suggestion: if anyone deserves to be Judge, it certainly isn’t God. Just look at the Law that this particular God has given us. Here are three (of many many more examples):
a) Punishing 4 generations for the sins of their ancestors. Would any Christian like to put this into our legislation? Would you like to see a criminal law in your country of residence that does that? Do you consider that to be fair judgment? (Deuteronomy 5:9)
b) Punishment for rape. Where the victim of rape is an unpledged virgin, God’s “punishment” for the rapist was to make him pay money to the victim’s father. In exchange for this, the victim must (she gets no say in the matter) marry the rapist. Would you like to see THIS implemented into your legal system? Is this a fair judgment? I hope you have just shuddred and said “NO”. But just in case you didn’t, please ask any rape victim what her thoughts on that are. (Deuteronomy 22:19)
c) Finally, the very idea of Redemption itself is a nice illustration of the sense of justice this “judge” has. God cannot find it in Himself to forgive us our sins (which we commit because of our nature; it’s clearly said in the Bible that every man will sin) unless an innocent victim is killed (Jesus). The letter to Hebrews, 9:22, makes it clear. Without blood there can be no remission (note that we don’t know the author of this letter, although some ascribe it to Paul). Well, that may be fine, even though punitive justice is quite difficult to defend philosophically. But let’s say that there’s a point there. But INNOCENT blood? Would you like to see a judge who finds a man guilty of a crime and punishes another (innocent) man? Would you consider that to be justice?
No, God doesn’t deserve to be a judge. Not the God that the Bible presents us with. God has no idea about what justice means. Well, of course, I’m speaking in metaphor here. The fact is that there is no god. The whole book was written by humans (and mostly not very intelligent humans). That’s why it’s so full of nonsense and cruelty and injustice.
Back to the article.....
Let us say we were all together as mankind after we've been raised from death. We're sitting around and going,"Who deserves to be judge?" A democracy might pick the most famous actor or someone at random. Let us say just for the sake of an argument they picked someone who sinned in their life, for example, me. If I was the judge of all mankind, I would be a hypocrite. A hypocrite has no right to judge, but let us examine why I'd be a hypocrite. One of the sins I have performed was that I have lied in the past. It is a very common sin. Now everyone who has also lied, I must not judge guilty, or I myself am guilty. I can only judge guilty those which have not committed the sins I have done. This means if someone committed genocide and also once lied about his age, I need to either declare this man innocent, or I must be a hypocrite by judging him guilty. If we look through all of mankind, the only man who never sinned ever was Jesus. Jesus has the right to judge any man guilty or innocent without also being a hypocrite in the process. Thankfully he is also forgiving!
ACTUALLY, there’s no reason why a judge must be innocent of absolutely all wrongdoing. What’s more important is that a judge must have a good sense of justice and a very logical way of thinking. This can’t be said about Jesus. If you read the New Testament, you will see that Jesus contradicts himself on countless occasions, so much so that his sanity (or the accuracy of the Gospels) should be questioned. And of course Jesus is God; he’s one with the Father. That being the case, the Father’s twisted sense of justice (as portrayed above; see Old Testament) is shared by the Son. And Matthew 5:17-19 does take matters further. Jesus expressly endorses those barbaric an UNJUST laws as applicable until the end of the world. Interestingly, in doing so, Christ contradicts his own assertions (eg, where he took stance against stoning a man for working on the Sabbath). Of course, all that this means is that Jesus isn’t really sure about his own view of the Law. Or, perhaps more realisticly, Jesus (if he existed, and that is not certain either; but I won’t argue this here) was a dynamic character, just like all other characters (in fiction and non-fiction alike). His views changed over time.
Another problem here is Mark 10:18. In that verse, Jesus says "Why do you call me good? Only God is good". This creates a problem in terms of "oneness" between the Father and the Son. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that the author of the article promotes JESUS (as opposed to God the Father) as the perfect judge, even though Jesus himself has conceded that he's not as good as the Father. Now, surely, you'd want to have a GOOD judge, right? And the "good judge" is the Father, the God of the Old Testament, the one who told the Jews to execute naughty children. In John 14:28, Christ says that the Father is greater than himself (Jesus). Why then would you want Jesus to be the judge as opposed to the Father? Isn't it best to be judged by the GREATEST being? Of course it is.
One way or another, Christ wouldn’t make a good judge. His endorsement of the Old Testament Law as well as his involvement in the barbaric (and completely unjust) act of redemption by scapegoating render him very incapable of performing the task. And on top of that, Christ doesn't consider himself as great as the Father; another reason why Christ shouldn't be the judge. If anything, the Father should be. But we already know about the Father's sense of justice.
Back to the article....
Now why did Jesus have to die for our sins? Well let us say we're raised from the dead sitting in judgment with Jesus as judge. A thief enters into the courtroom, and he stole off someone who lost something precious to him. The accuser of this thief isn't going to let the man be forgiven. And he knows that by declaring judgment on him, he is also sentencing himself to be guilty also. This accuser doesn't care, he just wants to see the thief punished so badly. Now someone needs to pay for the thief's sin for justice to be served here.
NOW THE above is an attempt by the author to address the problem of redemption. Note that this is not a very honest attempt. The author mentions “payment” for the theft. But that was never the case. Jesus didn’t offer to pay anyone anything for any loss. Oh no. So let’s put this in another way. I want all Christian readers to consider the following scenario:
A man breaks into your house and rapes your daughter. He is caught and stands before the Courts. He is found guilty. The punishment (not payment!) is 45 years in prison with hard labour. Another man, innocent one, comes to you and says “please let this person go free, I’ll serve the time for him”. Now ask yourself this question: will you be happy for this to occur? You know the innocent man has done no wrong. Will you forgive the guilty one in exchange for the innocent one doing the time for him? Well, I really do hope you say “no”. Because if your answer is “yes”, then you will agree with the author who attempts to portray victims of crime as blood thirsty thugs who just want to see suffering and they don’t care who is at the receiving end of it.
Even to suggest such a result as fair, just or in any way morally satisfying is a sign of complete moral bankruptcy. Sorry, author, no offnce meant but let’s call a spade a spade here.
Back to the article....
Jesus being the loving being he is, does not want anyone to suffer for their sins. This is why Jesus died for our sins, to take our deserved place at judgment. Jesus could say to the accuser,"If you really must accuse severely to condemn someone else, you yourself cannot escape judgment yourself. A man has been punished to take the place of the the accused, and that man was me."
AND ABOVE we have just another repetition of the “whipping boy” syndrome. Nothing to do with justice. Nothing to do with forgiveness. A God who is prepared to forgive us our sins if an innocent man is killed in horrible suffering might as well forgive them without this suffering. It really is as simple as that. To me (and many will agree) this doesn’t sound like a god at all; it sounds like a twisted myth made up by a primitive ancient tribe. Don’t forget that human sacrifice was quite a widespread idea in the ancient times and the concept coud easily be borrowed from older pagan beliefs. But is it fair? No. Is it just? No. Is it loving? No. If you believe it’s fair, you should support its introduction into today’s justice systems of the world. And why not? I’d be prepared to do 5 years in prison for someone, if they paid me enough money. I’m probably not the only one. So why don’t you lobby your government to allow this, if you think it’s just and appropriate? You won’t because you don’t think so at all. You, just like me (and like any other morally healthy individual) find this to be appalling. The only difference is you feel that you’re not allow to say that outloud. So let me say it for you: APPALLING.
Back to the article.....
Hopefully this is making some sense to you. Jesus earned his right as judge by being sinless. Jesus allows guilty men forgiveness by taking their punishment for them. Matthew 7:1 GNT "Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you," You might find the "judge not lest you be judged" scripture even more intense upon realizing what is happening here. When you condemn another person after they rise from death, you're really condemning Jesus to die on the cross. We're all responsible for Jesus' death on the cross for we all have sinned. But we're not all saying that Jesus is deserving of that punishment. So please... please do not harbor such ill feelings to anyone that you never forgive them. Forgive and love everyone, no matter how evil they are. By all means restrain and imprison a maniac, but also forgive them.
THE ABOVE is again wrong. How in the world are we all responsible for Jesus’ death? First of all, most of us don’t do anything that even deserves a death penalty. And those who do, get...well...sentenced to death (in countries where DP is on the books). How does me telling an occasional lie or masturbating now and again or getting angry at times justify any claim that a man should be put to death? It doesn’t. Don’t kid yourselves.
We do not deserve to be sentenced to death for the puny “sins” that most of us commit. That’s the starting point. A God who “IS LOVE” wouldn’t sentence everyone to death for the silly things we do. And if you disagree then consider killing your child for telling you a lie. Would you? Of course not. Well, it follows that you are more “LOVE” than Yahweh.
But even if we DID deserve to be put to death, killing another (innocent) person for it is no solution. At the time that I tell a little white lie (or think about the neighbour’s wife; and there’s some good thinking involved!), Jesus is already dead. He’s been dead for 2000 years. Me having these naughty thoughts does not cause his death. It’s really as simple as that.
Back to the article.......
If you're following this line of thinking, your very core might be being rocked.
WELL NO. If you’re following this line of thinking then you lack logic and your morality is nothing short of sick.
And back to the article again...
It is scary to think,"If I hate someone who is evil, I'm getting really close to condemning Jesus and myself in the process!" It is scary because it seems so natural to love those who are good and hate those who are evil.
ACTUALLY, you’d have to do a lot of research to support the above. I don’t know how many people HATE those who do evil things. I myself work in the justice system (and have for over 10 years) and I find that people (mostly atheists though, granted) are actually very forgiving. They don’t tend to hate anyone. They do want to see justice done but are usually (not always of course) happy to rely on the courts to do it. I don’t think “hatred” is a very appropriate word here.
Back to the article.....
In Christianity we're called to love all. And I'll explain why this makes sense right now. Let us say someone was fed a bunch of lies, and had all sorts of warped reasons why they committed evil. Then they find Jesus, turn around and do good, rejecting all kinds of evil. Their soul is prepped for eternity to do good and love forever. It was only temporary they were doing evil regardless of how much evil they actually did. If everyone forgives each other for the problems we inflict on each other in this world, and make a pledge to accept Jesus as judge and LORD forever, we can live with peace and love forever. Yes, it is possible for one man to do more evil than another man, but if you look at the long term, it is possible for both men to forgive each other and be at peace. It is even said Isaiah 65:17 GNT The Lord says, "I am making a new earth and new heavens. The events of the past will be completely forgotten.
ACTUALLY we can live in peace and love without accepting Jesus. In fact, it’s probably easier. I find it quite easy and peaceful that I don’t have to be prejudiced against people simply based on their sexual preference or their religion. I’m happy to love everyone equally. And I do. I don’t consider women to be inferior (and both Yahweh and Jesus certainly did; do modern Christians? Can’t see why not) to men.
The only difference is this “forever” bit. But that, of course, is dogma. Christians (and not only) believe in life after death. Atheists generally don’t; and for a good reason as there’s not a shred of credible evidence that anyone survives their own death (it even sounds silly if you think about it). Of course, this goes to a totally different way in which CHRISTIANITY DOESN’T MAKE SENSE: It makes no sense to believe that a god exists at all. This should be the first consideration, even before anyone engages in considering the finer dogma of sin and salvation.
Back to the article (and skipping a paragraph as it doesn’t take matters any further).....
Oh and just a quick response to the notion,"How is God a good God when he has killed many people." : Isn't a doctor with a painful cure better than a doctor without any cure at all? If it had to be done this way to enable us to be able to live forever, isn't some finite suffering less than infinite suffering? If we did not get to go to Heaven and live forever with God, we'd suffer infinitely. Thankfully God succeeded in his plan with Jesus as his cornerstone for the church.
WELL, let’s stop here. What does the author mean by “it had to be done that way”? How in the world did God HAVE TO murder all the Egyptian firstborns in order to achieve the final result? Isn’t God meant to be omnipotent? Heck, given omnipotence, I could come up with a way of achieving the precise same result without killing a single innocent person, without sentencing children to be stoned, without ordering the Jews to commit genocide and war crimes, without having an innocent man crucified.
I think it’s quite rich for you to say “it had to be done that way” without a single word of justification. But I entirely understand why you didn’t provide any. It’s not possible to do. There is no justification of why an omnipotent God HAD TO commit atrocities.
Yes yes, I know. Back to the same mantra at the beginning of the article, right? The special pleading. “We don’t understand why God does what He does”. But again, that’s not an answer; it’s dodgery.
The article continues with two more paragraphs but I will not address them. They are neither here or there.
The bottom line is that Christianity does not make sense. The biblical God is a morally inferior concept. The idea of condemnation, as per the Bible, is morally unjustifiable in reference to a God who “IS LOVE” and the method of redemption involved is one that no serious jurist would ever consider and no honest Christian would want to see implemented in his/her own legal system.
Christianity doesn’t make sense. Christianity is bunk, both morally and logically.
More important, however, is another issue, not even addressed by the article: does religion make sense? Why believe in a god at all?
Love without Christ,
@Allocutus
Why Christianity Makes Sense
I've heard many people complain,"Christianity makes no sense". They'll then say something in regards to common themes like,"Why did Jesus have to die for me?" or "Why did God kill people when he is supposed to be a good God". To some people, they simply can't piece together why everything had to happen like it did. To make matters worse, the enemy operates on lies, confusion and darkness trying to kindle the idea that,"Christianity makes no sense." There is not much need to worry about the darkness though because light penetrates it and it flees. In this article, I hope to provide light to your way(*v1) such that you might have a clearer notion of why Christianity indeed does make sense.
To start we must look at God's goal. Yes God's ways are above our ways, so it is impossible to understand what God is doing to bring about his goal, but we may know what God wants to do.
PROBLEM NUMBER 1; SPECIAL PLEADING: IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT GOD IS DOING TO BRING ABOUT HIS GOAL.
The above is a typical bit of special pleading. Since we can’t understand what God does to bring about His goal, we place God beyond any realm where His actions can be considered, let alone criticised. My advice to the author of the article would be this:
Stop right there, you don’t need to say anything any more. You’ve just made your point. Christianity makes sense because we’re not allowed to question whether it makes sense. It makes sense because God knows what He’s doing and we don’t know what He’s doing and He knows what's best and we don't.
And of course, this isn’t apologetics, folks. This is dodgery. It’s an escape from any need to explain anything. Nothing really new when it comes to religion. After all, religion thrives on JUST THAT.
Let’s go on with the next section of the article....
God's goal is for all beings to live together in love and peace without harming each other. God is love. Because God is love, he wants to exist eternally with us in love. Love can build over time, so the longer you live together with other people, the more you love them, and the more you want to do good with them. Conflict can also build over time, but as we submit to God as ruler over all to judge conflict, we can be happy when he resolve the conflict. Without God to resolve conflict between people, that conflict might build, and love might be lost and hate take up its place. If you had beings hating each other in the new Heaven, it would not be a place without suffering because harboring ill feelings toward another is actually a form of suffering in itself.
RIGHT, so far, we have a completely arbitrary claim that God is love and wants beings to love each other. One might find this difficult to believe, especially given what this God commands these beings to do. Of course, I’m referring to the Old Testament Law, given by God to His people via Moses and other prophets. There are literally hundreds of examples of this. I will quote but a few.
1. God tells us to execute fortunetellers:
A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)
2. God tells us to execute kids who swear at their parents:
All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)’
3. God tells us to execute daughters of priests (by burning to death!) for fornication:
A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)
4. God tells us to stone girls who turn out not to be virgins on their wedding night:
But if this charge is true, and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)
5. God kills children for the sins of their fathers:
If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted. (Leviticus 26:21-22 NLT)
The above are just a few examples of the Commands that God has issued in the Old Testament. Some of these are once-off orders (applying in a particular situation only); others constitute what’s known as The Law.
There is a well known Christian objection that The Law no longer applies because Jesus has now redeemed us. That of course is not true. Open your Bible at Matthew 5, have a look at verses 17-19. They go as follows:
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Now, most Christians are very familiar with verse 17. Jesus comes to fulfill the law. But they tend to not even notice the following verses. And in those verses, Christ makes it clear that The Law applies TO THE LETTER (to the iota) and WILL APPLY to the letter until the end of the world. What’s more, those who obey it will be higher in Heaven than those who don’t.
What follows from the above is that, according to Matt 5, Christ commands us to continue to apply the old law of the prophets, including the commands in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, directing us to kill naughty kids, stone adulterers and homosexuals and commit war crimes.
There are a number of counter-arguments out there. Eg, one can argue that these laws only apply to the Jews. In that case, ask yourself if you’d feel morally comfortable with the idea of a Jew who stones his naughty son to death. Is this an act that a God WHO IS LOVE would command? Have a think about that. Kids are (and always have been) immature and silly. It’s quite easy for a kids to say a swear word at his parents. It happens all the time and it’s put down to immaturity. Of course, we discipline them for it. But not by DEATH. We love our kids. Does God? Arguably not. You don’t have someone killed for uttering a single word; that’s not love.
Another (rather silly but very common) argument is that the Law was designed for the ancient Jews who couldn’t understand any different. That’s of course intellectual dishonesty. The ancient Jews could understand the command “whip someone” (and for some offences, whipping was the God-given penalty). Therefore, clearly, they could understand a Commandment that would say “whip an adulteress” or “whip a naughty kid”. Killing is not the only thing the ancient Jews understood, you can be sure of that. The question to be asked remains the same: is this treatment consistent with a God who IS LOVE? The answer must be a resounding “NO”.
A further argument I have come across is that these laws were put in place to “set up the stage” for Christ to come. In other words, it was necessary for God to commit (and order) these cruel (and seemingly unjust) acts so that the Jews could make their way into the Holy Land where Jesus could be born. This is of course complete nonsense. An omnipotent God does not need to order a killing of children (for relatively minor and immature “crimes”) in order to lead the Jews into a land of their own. In fact, all God had to do was to create a land and place the Jews there. God could even remove the existing nations from their lands (and move them somewhere else) and bring in the Jews. But no, the omnipotent God who IS LOVE has rather chosen to order the Jews to completely wipe out these other nations. This isn’t consistent with a God who IS LOVE.
Given the way the Old Testamnet God has conveyed Himself, it’s nothing short of ridiculous to claim that he “is love”. This is a hateful, chauvinistic and quite monstrous character; one’s worst nightmare. He has absolutely nothing to do with love.
Of course, all I’ve written above is probably a waste of effort. The author of the original article has already safeguarded his position by that first bit of special pleading. We can’t understand why God does things but God is always right!
Let’s move on with the article.
Many people who have bad theology oftentimes think,"If God can do anything, why didn't he create us in Heaven without suffering to begin with". The quick answer is,"We have free will, and in that free will gives us the ability to disobey God." Look at the Devil and the fallen angels, they were in the original Heaven, but they disobeyed and are being judged now as a result. If we were created in Heaven originally, we might have fallen too. But since we're on Earth, we have the ability to be redeemed through Jesus and enter into the New Heaven. Because God is merciful to us, we are given the opportunity for redemption, so we eventually will live forever without suffering or second death.
ANOTHER paragraph, another bit of nonsense. Above it is claimed that God couldn’t just create people in Heaven because then people could fall. Let’s think about that. Isn’t that what God did in the first place? Well, it wasn’t heaven. It was The Garden. But it was Heaven-like in a way, right? Adam and Eve were to have a perfect and happy existence there until they “fell”.
Let’s move on...it is claimed that humans have free will and that this allows them to disobey God. This is a very common argument used by Christians in an attempt to justify the fact that God didn’t place everyone in Heaven in the first place (often even to justify the existence of earthquakes and diseases, but that’s beside the point here). So, what’s the problem with this? Well, it goes like this:
Once people do go to Heaven, they either have free will or they don’t.
If they do, they can still disobey God in heaven and therefore there’s no reason why we couldn’t be all created in Heaven in the first place, by a God who “IS LOVE”. Now, I anticipate that someone will say “but those who are in heaven do not WANT TO disobey God”. Well, if they don’t want to disobey God, that means that they are incapable of forming an intent to disobey God. And that, in turn, means that, for the purposes of making a decision to sin, they actually lack free will! Hence a God who “IS LOVE” would have created people who DO NOT WANT TO (are incapable of forming the intent) disobey Him and would have put them in Heaven. And if they are capable of forming the intent to disobey God, then it makes no sense to say that they WILL NOT disobey God. And that, in turn, means that Heaven is populated by sinners just like us here on Earth and therefore there’s no reason why God couldn’t put all these sinners in Heaven in the first place.
If, on the other hand, people in Heaven do not have free will (for the purposes of deciding to commit a sin) then there’s no harm at all in having a class of people who lack this type of free will. Again, a God who “IS LOVE” would have just created this type of people and sent them straight to Heaven. God doesn’t consider free will to be of such an importance and the entire “free-will line of apologetics” is flawed to start with.
LET’S move on with the article...
Let us examine this method of redemption and why it makes sense. Jesus lived a life without sin, then died on a cross for our sins, was buried, and rose from death three days later on Easter.
To kick this off, first let us examine a method of living forever that would not make sense. Let us say everyone who died gets to come back to Earth at a certain date, but God was not ruling. Wouldn't the people that warred against each other still hate one another? One man will be like,"You burned my village, killed my relatives and stole all our wealth. I still hate you! And then, the men would attempt to kill one another again." Without the philosophy of forgiveness, there is no way for sinful men to get along together in the coming kingdom.
THE ABOVE is again nonsense. What in the world is a philosophy of forgiveness? God apparently forgives us via Jesus’ death etc... That doesnt’ mean that people all forgive one another. In order for people to forgive one another, they have to have a sense of forgiveness implanted in their own morality. That’s NOT THE CASE where it comes to Christians. Christians are full of hatred. They hate atheists, they hate non-Christians (of other religions), they hate homosexuals. Most Christians (at least in the West) are supporters of the Death Penalty. To top it up, revenge is rife throughout the Old Testament and its Laws. And yes, Jesus did say that these Laws will apply till the end of the world (as outlined above).
Back to the article...
Next let us examine a method of living forever that would not make sense either. As was said earlier in this article, without God to resolve conflict, even people who might love each other at one point may have a falling out and hate each other later. Most of us have seen this in our lifetime. We see a couple who loves each other at one point, but then they're spiteful at the divorce proceedings later. Eternity is a long time, and without forgiveness, even the most loving couples might have a falling out. With God to mediate conflicts though, both parties will be happy at the resolution, so God is needed to resolve conflicts over the long haul for even people who love each other at one point.
AT THIS POINT, one must ask again: do people in Heaven have free will? If they do, there must be conflict. A free person might want to spend a lot of time with someone they really really like (say Jenny). Another person might want to spend a lot of time with the same Jenny. But Jenny happens to really really like only one of these two. She doesn’t want to spend all that much time with the other one. Someone here is going to be unhappy! Are they going to feel “jealousy”? Probably. Where there’s free will, there has to be jealousy. Either that, or people in Heaven are all robots who have to like everyone equally and wanna spend time with everyone equally, all share the same interests etc. What a boring, dull, mundane place that would be. And of course, these robot-like souls would indeed have very very limited free will :)
Back to my main point, if people in Heaven have free will, they can get mad at one another over whatever heavenly issues they have, and they can be put in a situation where forgiveness is required.
It is suggested that God can mediate this process. Sure. And God could still mediate this process if there had been no Jesus, no eternal damnation, no redemption (by innocent sacrifice; in itself a disgusting concept); if God just created everyone in Heaven in the first place, without playing the whole cruel (and illogical, as demonstrated in this post) game.
Moving along....
So we found two things that are required for eternal living in peace and love: Forgiveness and conflict resolution with God as judge.
FINE, let’s assume that’s correct. In fact, any society where there are imperfect beings with free will must require a system of laws that will somehow promote forgiveness and conflict resolution with a “judge”. No problems there. But that’s no justification for God’s actions and commands in the Old Testament. It’s also no justification for God failing to create everyone in Heaven in the first place. After all, even the author of the article has just conceded that eternally living people (presumably those in Heaven) will have conflicts.
Let’s move along now....
How does God earn the right to be judge? God earned the right to be judge because he was tempted and tried in every way a man might be tempted to sin against another man, and to the most extreme, but did not sin.
THE ABOVE is, of course, nonsense. “Sin” means “to disobey God”, by definition. It’s impossible for God to disobey Himself. Therefore, all this talk about God “being tempted and not sinning” is pure bunk. It’s impossible to disobey oneself.
And when it comes to the Temptation of Jesus (which I assume is what the author is referring to), that in itself is comical. Satan promises Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for Jesus following him (Satan). Jesus, of course, resists. Now, either you believe Jesus was an idiot OR Jesus must have known that all these kingdoms don’t even belong to Satan in the first place. Nemo dat quod non habet. If I promised you the Eiffel tower (and trust me, it ain’t mine!) and you rejected the offer, would that really make you a hero? Or just a non-idiot?
And here’s my little suggestion: if anyone deserves to be Judge, it certainly isn’t God. Just look at the Law that this particular God has given us. Here are three (of many many more examples):
a) Punishing 4 generations for the sins of their ancestors. Would any Christian like to put this into our legislation? Would you like to see a criminal law in your country of residence that does that? Do you consider that to be fair judgment? (Deuteronomy 5:9)
b) Punishment for rape. Where the victim of rape is an unpledged virgin, God’s “punishment” for the rapist was to make him pay money to the victim’s father. In exchange for this, the victim must (she gets no say in the matter) marry the rapist. Would you like to see THIS implemented into your legal system? Is this a fair judgment? I hope you have just shuddred and said “NO”. But just in case you didn’t, please ask any rape victim what her thoughts on that are. (Deuteronomy 22:19)
c) Finally, the very idea of Redemption itself is a nice illustration of the sense of justice this “judge” has. God cannot find it in Himself to forgive us our sins (which we commit because of our nature; it’s clearly said in the Bible that every man will sin) unless an innocent victim is killed (Jesus). The letter to Hebrews, 9:22, makes it clear. Without blood there can be no remission (note that we don’t know the author of this letter, although some ascribe it to Paul). Well, that may be fine, even though punitive justice is quite difficult to defend philosophically. But let’s say that there’s a point there. But INNOCENT blood? Would you like to see a judge who finds a man guilty of a crime and punishes another (innocent) man? Would you consider that to be justice?
No, God doesn’t deserve to be a judge. Not the God that the Bible presents us with. God has no idea about what justice means. Well, of course, I’m speaking in metaphor here. The fact is that there is no god. The whole book was written by humans (and mostly not very intelligent humans). That’s why it’s so full of nonsense and cruelty and injustice.
Back to the article.....
Let us say we were all together as mankind after we've been raised from death. We're sitting around and going,"Who deserves to be judge?" A democracy might pick the most famous actor or someone at random. Let us say just for the sake of an argument they picked someone who sinned in their life, for example, me. If I was the judge of all mankind, I would be a hypocrite. A hypocrite has no right to judge, but let us examine why I'd be a hypocrite. One of the sins I have performed was that I have lied in the past. It is a very common sin. Now everyone who has also lied, I must not judge guilty, or I myself am guilty. I can only judge guilty those which have not committed the sins I have done. This means if someone committed genocide and also once lied about his age, I need to either declare this man innocent, or I must be a hypocrite by judging him guilty. If we look through all of mankind, the only man who never sinned ever was Jesus. Jesus has the right to judge any man guilty or innocent without also being a hypocrite in the process. Thankfully he is also forgiving!
ACTUALLY, there’s no reason why a judge must be innocent of absolutely all wrongdoing. What’s more important is that a judge must have a good sense of justice and a very logical way of thinking. This can’t be said about Jesus. If you read the New Testament, you will see that Jesus contradicts himself on countless occasions, so much so that his sanity (or the accuracy of the Gospels) should be questioned. And of course Jesus is God; he’s one with the Father. That being the case, the Father’s twisted sense of justice (as portrayed above; see Old Testament) is shared by the Son. And Matthew 5:17-19 does take matters further. Jesus expressly endorses those barbaric an UNJUST laws as applicable until the end of the world. Interestingly, in doing so, Christ contradicts his own assertions (eg, where he took stance against stoning a man for working on the Sabbath). Of course, all that this means is that Jesus isn’t really sure about his own view of the Law. Or, perhaps more realisticly, Jesus (if he existed, and that is not certain either; but I won’t argue this here) was a dynamic character, just like all other characters (in fiction and non-fiction alike). His views changed over time.
Another problem here is Mark 10:18. In that verse, Jesus says "Why do you call me good? Only God is good". This creates a problem in terms of "oneness" between the Father and the Son. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that the author of the article promotes JESUS (as opposed to God the Father) as the perfect judge, even though Jesus himself has conceded that he's not as good as the Father. Now, surely, you'd want to have a GOOD judge, right? And the "good judge" is the Father, the God of the Old Testament, the one who told the Jews to execute naughty children. In John 14:28, Christ says that the Father is greater than himself (Jesus). Why then would you want Jesus to be the judge as opposed to the Father? Isn't it best to be judged by the GREATEST being? Of course it is.
One way or another, Christ wouldn’t make a good judge. His endorsement of the Old Testament Law as well as his involvement in the barbaric (and completely unjust) act of redemption by scapegoating render him very incapable of performing the task. And on top of that, Christ doesn't consider himself as great as the Father; another reason why Christ shouldn't be the judge. If anything, the Father should be. But we already know about the Father's sense of justice.
Back to the article....
Now why did Jesus have to die for our sins? Well let us say we're raised from the dead sitting in judgment with Jesus as judge. A thief enters into the courtroom, and he stole off someone who lost something precious to him. The accuser of this thief isn't going to let the man be forgiven. And he knows that by declaring judgment on him, he is also sentencing himself to be guilty also. This accuser doesn't care, he just wants to see the thief punished so badly. Now someone needs to pay for the thief's sin for justice to be served here.
NOW THE above is an attempt by the author to address the problem of redemption. Note that this is not a very honest attempt. The author mentions “payment” for the theft. But that was never the case. Jesus didn’t offer to pay anyone anything for any loss. Oh no. So let’s put this in another way. I want all Christian readers to consider the following scenario:
A man breaks into your house and rapes your daughter. He is caught and stands before the Courts. He is found guilty. The punishment (not payment!) is 45 years in prison with hard labour. Another man, innocent one, comes to you and says “please let this person go free, I’ll serve the time for him”. Now ask yourself this question: will you be happy for this to occur? You know the innocent man has done no wrong. Will you forgive the guilty one in exchange for the innocent one doing the time for him? Well, I really do hope you say “no”. Because if your answer is “yes”, then you will agree with the author who attempts to portray victims of crime as blood thirsty thugs who just want to see suffering and they don’t care who is at the receiving end of it.
Even to suggest such a result as fair, just or in any way morally satisfying is a sign of complete moral bankruptcy. Sorry, author, no offnce meant but let’s call a spade a spade here.
Back to the article....
Jesus being the loving being he is, does not want anyone to suffer for their sins. This is why Jesus died for our sins, to take our deserved place at judgment. Jesus could say to the accuser,"If you really must accuse severely to condemn someone else, you yourself cannot escape judgment yourself. A man has been punished to take the place of the the accused, and that man was me."
AND ABOVE we have just another repetition of the “whipping boy” syndrome. Nothing to do with justice. Nothing to do with forgiveness. A God who is prepared to forgive us our sins if an innocent man is killed in horrible suffering might as well forgive them without this suffering. It really is as simple as that. To me (and many will agree) this doesn’t sound like a god at all; it sounds like a twisted myth made up by a primitive ancient tribe. Don’t forget that human sacrifice was quite a widespread idea in the ancient times and the concept coud easily be borrowed from older pagan beliefs. But is it fair? No. Is it just? No. Is it loving? No. If you believe it’s fair, you should support its introduction into today’s justice systems of the world. And why not? I’d be prepared to do 5 years in prison for someone, if they paid me enough money. I’m probably not the only one. So why don’t you lobby your government to allow this, if you think it’s just and appropriate? You won’t because you don’t think so at all. You, just like me (and like any other morally healthy individual) find this to be appalling. The only difference is you feel that you’re not allow to say that outloud. So let me say it for you: APPALLING.
Back to the article.....
Hopefully this is making some sense to you. Jesus earned his right as judge by being sinless. Jesus allows guilty men forgiveness by taking their punishment for them. Matthew 7:1 GNT "Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you," You might find the "judge not lest you be judged" scripture even more intense upon realizing what is happening here. When you condemn another person after they rise from death, you're really condemning Jesus to die on the cross. We're all responsible for Jesus' death on the cross for we all have sinned. But we're not all saying that Jesus is deserving of that punishment. So please... please do not harbor such ill feelings to anyone that you never forgive them. Forgive and love everyone, no matter how evil they are. By all means restrain and imprison a maniac, but also forgive them.
THE ABOVE is again wrong. How in the world are we all responsible for Jesus’ death? First of all, most of us don’t do anything that even deserves a death penalty. And those who do, get...well...sentenced to death (in countries where DP is on the books). How does me telling an occasional lie or masturbating now and again or getting angry at times justify any claim that a man should be put to death? It doesn’t. Don’t kid yourselves.
We do not deserve to be sentenced to death for the puny “sins” that most of us commit. That’s the starting point. A God who “IS LOVE” wouldn’t sentence everyone to death for the silly things we do. And if you disagree then consider killing your child for telling you a lie. Would you? Of course not. Well, it follows that you are more “LOVE” than Yahweh.
But even if we DID deserve to be put to death, killing another (innocent) person for it is no solution. At the time that I tell a little white lie (or think about the neighbour’s wife; and there’s some good thinking involved!), Jesus is already dead. He’s been dead for 2000 years. Me having these naughty thoughts does not cause his death. It’s really as simple as that.
Back to the article.......
If you're following this line of thinking, your very core might be being rocked.
WELL NO. If you’re following this line of thinking then you lack logic and your morality is nothing short of sick.
And back to the article again...
It is scary to think,"If I hate someone who is evil, I'm getting really close to condemning Jesus and myself in the process!" It is scary because it seems so natural to love those who are good and hate those who are evil.
ACTUALLY, you’d have to do a lot of research to support the above. I don’t know how many people HATE those who do evil things. I myself work in the justice system (and have for over 10 years) and I find that people (mostly atheists though, granted) are actually very forgiving. They don’t tend to hate anyone. They do want to see justice done but are usually (not always of course) happy to rely on the courts to do it. I don’t think “hatred” is a very appropriate word here.
Back to the article.....
In Christianity we're called to love all. And I'll explain why this makes sense right now. Let us say someone was fed a bunch of lies, and had all sorts of warped reasons why they committed evil. Then they find Jesus, turn around and do good, rejecting all kinds of evil. Their soul is prepped for eternity to do good and love forever. It was only temporary they were doing evil regardless of how much evil they actually did. If everyone forgives each other for the problems we inflict on each other in this world, and make a pledge to accept Jesus as judge and LORD forever, we can live with peace and love forever. Yes, it is possible for one man to do more evil than another man, but if you look at the long term, it is possible for both men to forgive each other and be at peace. It is even said Isaiah 65:17 GNT The Lord says, "I am making a new earth and new heavens. The events of the past will be completely forgotten.
ACTUALLY we can live in peace and love without accepting Jesus. In fact, it’s probably easier. I find it quite easy and peaceful that I don’t have to be prejudiced against people simply based on their sexual preference or their religion. I’m happy to love everyone equally. And I do. I don’t consider women to be inferior (and both Yahweh and Jesus certainly did; do modern Christians? Can’t see why not) to men.
The only difference is this “forever” bit. But that, of course, is dogma. Christians (and not only) believe in life after death. Atheists generally don’t; and for a good reason as there’s not a shred of credible evidence that anyone survives their own death (it even sounds silly if you think about it). Of course, this goes to a totally different way in which CHRISTIANITY DOESN’T MAKE SENSE: It makes no sense to believe that a god exists at all. This should be the first consideration, even before anyone engages in considering the finer dogma of sin and salvation.
Back to the article (and skipping a paragraph as it doesn’t take matters any further).....
Oh and just a quick response to the notion,"How is God a good God when he has killed many people." : Isn't a doctor with a painful cure better than a doctor without any cure at all? If it had to be done this way to enable us to be able to live forever, isn't some finite suffering less than infinite suffering? If we did not get to go to Heaven and live forever with God, we'd suffer infinitely. Thankfully God succeeded in his plan with Jesus as his cornerstone for the church.
WELL, let’s stop here. What does the author mean by “it had to be done that way”? How in the world did God HAVE TO murder all the Egyptian firstborns in order to achieve the final result? Isn’t God meant to be omnipotent? Heck, given omnipotence, I could come up with a way of achieving the precise same result without killing a single innocent person, without sentencing children to be stoned, without ordering the Jews to commit genocide and war crimes, without having an innocent man crucified.
I think it’s quite rich for you to say “it had to be done that way” without a single word of justification. But I entirely understand why you didn’t provide any. It’s not possible to do. There is no justification of why an omnipotent God HAD TO commit atrocities.
Yes yes, I know. Back to the same mantra at the beginning of the article, right? The special pleading. “We don’t understand why God does what He does”. But again, that’s not an answer; it’s dodgery.
The article continues with two more paragraphs but I will not address them. They are neither here or there.
The bottom line is that Christianity does not make sense. The biblical God is a morally inferior concept. The idea of condemnation, as per the Bible, is morally unjustifiable in reference to a God who “IS LOVE” and the method of redemption involved is one that no serious jurist would ever consider and no honest Christian would want to see implemented in his/her own legal system.
Christianity doesn’t make sense. Christianity is bunk, both morally and logically.
More important, however, is another issue, not even addressed by the article: does religion make sense? Why believe in a god at all?
Love without Christ,
@Allocutus
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