An amusing saying: The man who smiles when things go wrong, has found someone else to blame it on.

Christians have a ready-made and defensless scapegoat whenever you point out any one of the counless examples of poor design in nature. If God is so wonderful and perfect, we ask, how could he have screwed up so royally? Why are people's backs so easily put out? Why is there cancer? What's up with the problems between men and women? (You know, can't live with them, can't live without them.)

No matter what you look at that's messed up and badly designed, the answer is the same: It's because of the Fall! Before the Fall, everything was perfect. Animals ate only veggies, not each other. There were no back problems. If only Adam had done the right thing!

Of couse, the Fall might be the perfect scapegoat except for the fact that there isn't a shred of evidence to show that things were ever better than they are now!

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I was a preacher and I hung out with preachers. I still listen to preachers on radio and TV from time to time. And so I know this: Preachers are salesmen. The job of the preacher is to sell his brand of church. To sell his product he has to tell his target market why his product is better than the other guy's.

As a preacher, you can sell what you have to offer to 3 sectors: First, there is the sector called the unchurched. Those who don't belong to any church at all. Second, there is the other-churched sector, those who are loyal to a competitor's brand of church. And finally, there is the your-churched, consisting of those who already belong to your brand but who you need to shore up against possible defection.

To sell your product you have to villify the no-church and the other-church options. You have to continually make your brand look better by comparison. And so you have to perpetuate the myth of us versus them.

You paint an ugly picture of what life is like on the outside. You tell your audience how horrible it is to be outsde the walls of your church. You say ridiculous things (which no one questions, much less laughs at). Things like the following:

"It's so wonderful to be here, this is just a little taste of what heaven will be like! There's nowhere else I'd rather be." The truth- There are several places people would rather be, and if this is a taste of heaven, please keep it away from us.

"The world outside is evil and wicked. The world is falling apart. People outside are miserable." The truth- The world outside is not much different to the world inside.

"If you don't have Jesus, you don't have anything!" The truth- Millions of people are doing just fine without Jesus.

Someone should stand up and ask preachers to back up these kinds of statements.

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Imagine this...

A 6-year-old little girl is abducted by a serial pedophile. While her parents are tormented by visions of what may be happening to her, what the perpetrator may be doing to her, and crushed by the realization that they have thus far been powerless to save her, the man uses her sexually and tortures her without mercy or conscience. Finally, he squeezed her trachea shut until her little heart stops beating.

It isn't hard to believe that, during this horrific ordeal, parents and child prayed to the God they were taught to trust and serve. They must have begged, pleaded, through eyes filled with tears and hearts torn apart by anguish. As the man hurt the child, she must have cried for her mother and asked her God to save her.

But her pleas for her parents could not be answered, for they were only human and thus limited. They would easily have given their own lives to save her if they could, but saving her was beyond their power.

What about her pleas to God? He, according to Christian doctrine, could have saved her. He did not. They question that has been asked for centuries is, Why not? If he loves us and is omnipotent, why would he not save a little girl from her rapist and murderer?

Christians have answered this question in many ways. Here is the answer I used to give as a minister:

God has a much larger perspective and does not see death, or even pain, as we do. To his eternal eyes, these things are not the tragedies we see them as, because in just a short while, once we are transported to heaven, we will see that pain and death were but the pain of a moment. What's more, he is like the parent who knows that not getting that special dress is not the end of the world her daughter thinks it is. To the daughter, the suffering is enormous; to the parent, it is fleeting.

I now see a gaping hole in this explanation, and it is this: The pain of a child who doesn't get a desired dress is minimal and ends there. The pain of a child suffering torture and death does not end there. The lives of parents and extended family are twisted beyond recognition, marriages often end, and the pain goes on and on.

In my opinion, cruelty is only multiplied when people are led to put their trust in a deity who does nothing to help them because he can do nothing, because he is not real.


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This is where semantics can get us into unnecessary difficulty. What is meant by religion? Does the term necessarily include the supernatural? This is important because, to my mind, absent the supernatural, religion can be quite benign, helpful, even.

There are certainly bad religions, as in any that promote distrust or hatred of people who don't look or think like we do, but let's set those aside for this discussion.

What's left? Simply this: Philosophies of life based on long human experience and traits not easily reduced to scientific study. Sets of principles and guidelines that, when understood and followed, increase peace and tranquility in the lives of individuals and societies.

I'm all for that, and I can cheer on and value the role of such religion in the human journey.

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DSM IV: anxiety about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing) or in which help may not be available in the event of having an unexpected or situationally predisposed Panic Attack or panic-like symptoms. Agoraphobic fears typically involve characteristic clusters of situations that include being outside the home alone; being in a crowd, or standing in a line; being on a bridge; and traveling in a bus, train, or automobile.

This disorder is commonly thought of as a fear of open spaces. It occurred to me that a moral version of this fear can be a strong motivator towards religiosity. Allow me to explain:

I remember well a metaphor used by preachers of my Church of Christ years. When is a train most free? When it's running on the tracks. Rather than seeing the rules and strictures of Christianity as constraining, we were encouraged to see them as "freeing" us to live as God intended, just like that speeding train.The idea was that, free from rules, boundaries and limitations (as Cesar is fond of saying on The Dog Whisperer),we will necessarily run amuck and headlong into self-destruction.

When Mom and Dad said goodbye and left me on the doorstep of my new residence hall at the University of Florida, my new freedom was both exhilarating and terrifying. Mostly terrifying. I was strongly attracted, therefore, to the outreach of Christians, whose religion promised to provide comforting moral safeguards, tracks upon which I could run safely.

The religions seem to offer us a ready-made set of rules. They offer clear markings on the pavement of our lives that tell us that we may go so far and no farther. There's a degree of comfort in that, yes? It is frightening not to know where the danger lies. Religions promise to keep us safe.

One problem, though, is that they often go beyond moral guidelines and stray into demands for absolute devotion, this devotion often involving the performance of rituals that have no bearing on moral virtue. They are frequently more concerned about their own preservation and supremacy in our lives than about relieving suffering and bringing peace and happiness. Another problem is that they feel it necessary to call upon the authority of a fictional all-powerful deity who will punish us eternally if we stray, as a means of keeping us in line. It isn't enough to point out the reasonableness of morality, that being the goal of bringing joy to the lives of others. They have to beat us about the head and shoulders with silly superstitions to cow us into submission.

The moral codes of most established religions seem worthy enough to stand on their own, as the fruits of millenia of human experience, without the unnecessary baggage of superstition and religion.

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Many Christians, attempting to harmonize their image of a loving God with the concept of Hell, are fond of telling us that God does not send anyone to Hell at all. They teach that anyone who goes to Hell has sent themselves there in spite of all God's efforts to save them.

So what does the following statement mean?

And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you of whom you shall fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him. (Luke 12:4-5)

Yes friends, the very Bible that tells you of God's love also tells you that you should fear the One who has the authority to cast into Hell. You don't go there of your own accord, beloved. You are cast. Thrown. Dumped. Propelled. By Him.

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It strains credulity, doesn't it? But it is demonstrably true. Human beings will believe absolutely ANYTHING! And they will believe anything without the slightest bit of evidence besides the fact that someone, anyone, says it's true. And they will believe anything, based on the claims of anyone, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary.

I'm reminded of a story.

Seems there was a delusional fellow who was convinced that he was dead. No one in his circle of friends or family could convince him otherwise. It was time for a professional to try. So, they hired a psychiatrist with a huge reputation for using logical arguments successfully to persuade delusional people to change their minds and abandon their delusions.

The psychiatrist wasted no time using his most powerful argument, one that had worked beautifully in prior cases. "Are you alive?" said the psychiatrist.

"Certainly not! I have been dead for many years now," said the patient.

"Another question: Do dead men bleed?"

"No, I happen to know that once the heart stops beating, there is no longer enough pressure to force blood out. So dead men do not bleed," said the patient.

"Very well, then." And suddenly the doctor snatched up a scalpel, grabbed hold of the man's hand and sliced the patient along the base of his thumb. Blood poured out of the wound until the doctor applied a large napkin to the spot. "So, what do you say to that?"

Ashen faced now, the patient seemed on the verge of an epiphany. The doctor waited for the magic words...

"Well I'll be damned. Dead men do bleed!"

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First, let's agree that the Bible tells us that God is omnipotent.

Job 42:2 I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.

Genesis 18:14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.

Matthew 19:26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Next, let us agree that the Bible also tells us that there are some things that God cannot do.

Hebrews 6:18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

The typical argument made in an attempt to remove any apparent inconsistency here is to say that God can do anything as long as it does not go against his nature. In other words, God, by nature, is always truthful, and therefore it is impossible for him to lie. And so on.

However, cannot the very same rationalization be used to excuse our own inability to do things? It is impossible for me to fly without technological assistance. But that is because flying is not in my nature. I cannot survive without oxygen, for doing so is not in my nature.

So God is not really omnipotent. He is merely more potent than I.

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A line used often in the battle to win souls goes as follows: There's a space in your heart that only God can fill.

The idea is that God made us each with a God-hole. It's an emotional and psychological emptiness inside us that we can feel, and it's an emptiness that can only be filled by a relationship with Him, or so goes the thinking behind it.

Of course, almost everyone, at some point in their life, will "feel" that something is missing. Back when people had to spend all day, everyday, focusing their energies on putting sufficient calories on the table to avoid starvation, the only emptiness they probably felt was physical hunger and perhaps fatigue. But today, with our scads of free time, we seek to be emotionally and psychologically fulfilled.

No wonder, then, that this appeal finds purchase.

At the ripe old age of 17, I was drawn by this line because I had not found a "meaning" or a "purpose" in my life. If only I had given it 6 more months! Then I would have been fine!

So, this is my advice to anyone who feels that they have a God-hole. Before you commit to religion, give it some time. Look into other ways to fill that emptiness. You may find that the hole can be filled by other things, and you may save yourself a whole lot of wasted time, money and energy.

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I've posted before on the disturbing trend of Fox News airing blatantly religious content. But there's another, equally irksome penchant I've noticed on the atheist side. Many atheist bloggers, I have noticed, routinely espouse blatantly left-leaning political views on their atheist blogs.

This is certainly their right. It's their blog. My issue has to do with the way they come across. It smacks of the same holier-than-thou mentality of the religious right. If you don't think Obama is your Lord and Master, you're a religious, right-wing freak, according to them.

I don't believe in the Christian God because I see no reason to do so, not because of my political views. Furthermore, I despise being squeezed into a philosophical box. So you won't see me pushing right or left on this blog.

Happy reading!

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He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." (Gen 22:12)

Those three unfortunate, from the point of view of the fundamentalist Christian, words, "Now I know."

Some backstory:

The fundamentalist, or anyone really who believes that the Bible is the inerrant, literal word of God, begins with the premise that A: God exists, leading to B: surely he would have communicated with us, therefore C: the Bible is clearly that communication, so D: surely a creator would have the power to give us an inerrant communication in spite of human frailty.

Having established by such unassailable logic that the Bible is inerrant, it follows that it can have no real contradictions, and therefore any apparent contradictions must be explained away.

Well, here's a doozy.

The Bible describes a deity who is omniscient. He knows everything. He knows perfectly the hearts and minds of men.

The case of Abraham then. After God tests him, after Abraham passes God's test, God says to him, "Now I know..." As in, I didn't know before now. I may have thought, speculated, surmised, but I did not know. I had to test you in this horrible way in order to bring certainty to my mind.

And this is not the only example of such a contradiction. Here's another:

And the LORD said, "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." (Gen 18:20-21)

So, the Lord heard rumors, apparently, about what was going on in Sodom and its sinful sister city, Gomorrah. But he did not know for himself if these rumors were true. He had to "go down and see." If the rumors were false, he assures us, "I will know."

With Abraham, he had to test. With Sodom, he had to personally visit and investigate. Not very omniscient of him, is it?

The inerrant, no-contradictions-allowed crowd will explain all of these problematic passages thus: "Not as if there were any thing concerning which God is in doubt; but he is pleased thus to express himself after the manner of men" (Wesley).

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This question tends to be proffered by some Christians who sincerely wonder why I, and others like me, wouldn't choose to be Christians just to hedge against the possibility that the God described in the Bible actually exists. The question presupposes, wrongly I think, that the God of the Bible would even accept such provisional believers. What I would agree with is the proposition that, since the penalty for unbelief if this God is real is so steep, it would behoove us to look into the matter before . The thing is, I have. Now, after knowing what I know of the question, I see no reason to believe that such an unlikely being exists. Therefore, my answer:

It smacks of cowardice to subscribe to a system of belief that seems so highly unlikely, simply to cover my bases. And it smacks of a lack of integrity. It's as if you are saying, "This is totally bizarre, there's almost no evidence to support it, everything I know to be true about the world contradicts it, more and more so every day, but, I'll go along with it just in case." That's not going to happen. I might as well knock on wood, throw salt over my shoulder, and pay lip service to every other major religion, just to be safe.

Suppose Mormonism is right? Suppose Seventh Day Adventists are right? Suppose Jehovah's Witnesses are right? What possible system of belief could encompass them all and so avoid going to hell if one of them is true? What if L. Ron Hubbard is right? Most Christians choose not to subscribe to the doctrines of most other denominations because they think they are untrue. That's what I'm doing with Christianity. I don't believe it is true.

You may say, what if I am wrong? Doesn't it make sense to adopt belief just in case?

I could do a lot of things to mitigate risk, but when I judge that risk to be so small as to be insignificant, and the price of mitigating it far too great, then, no. I don't consider that smart at all. There is a tiny but non-zero risk that I will be killed in a car wreck tomorrow. Should I stay off the streets to remove that risk? That would be irrational.

I invite your comments.

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Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Eph 3:20-21)

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Eph 1:18-21)

These passages from the Bible, and others like them, use soaring rhetoric to describe the Christian life. According to them, there is abundant power available to and at work within the Christian, power that is both qualitatively and quantitatively equivalent to the resurrection of Christ from the dead!

Now, if this is true, shouldn't it be somewhat evident to the rest of the world? Shouldn't there be some glimpse of the supernatural in the Christian's life? But there isn't. They are ordinary. They live and love, lie and lust, do good and evil in the same proportions as the rest of the populations they inhabit. So, show me the power.

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You know how it is when a spouse or significant other complains about your behavior. They (and you) often exaggerate. You always do x, you never do y. I've asked you a quadrillion times, you never listen. Like that.

OK, that's human. That's what it feels like when we're upset. But would you expect a perfect, self-contained deity to do the same? Take a look...

as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE." "THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING," "THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS"; "WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS"; "THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN." "THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES." (Rom 3:10-18)

Come on, surely god is overstating.

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The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life (Jn. 12:25).

Many of Jesus's pronouncements are like this one. They make a black-or-white result come from a shades-of-gray standard. In the statement above, Jesus seems to indicate that there are only two possible outcomes for human beings as they move from this life to the next. For you, this means that you will either "lose" your life or you will "keep it" eternally. Essentially it's the heaven or hell scenario with nothing between. No purgatory, no second chances.

OK, fine. But the problem is, the conditions resulting in these two possible outcomes are not binary. They are not on/off. They might be best described as a continuum of possible conditions, ever changing and impossible to pin down.

In the example above, you can choose between loving your life or hating it. First off, these terms are subject to vast swathes of interpretive geography. What does he mean? Second, how does one measure such things? Do I hate my life sufficiently? Is there possibly some ineradicable smidgen of love that will be my ultimate undoing?

Such subjectivity removes all possibility of rational certainty. There are even cases mentioned in the Bible of people who thought they were on the right side of the equation, only to face a fiery re-education on the matter (Matt. 7:21-23).

So I ask you, believer, how can you be certain where you stand?

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