You know we’re living in an odd world when atheists encourage people to read scripture. 50,000 people a day sample science blogger PZ Myers‘ Pharyngula posts. “There’s no surer way to make an atheist than to get someone to actually read the Bible,” says Myers.

Here is why: Genesis 6 and 7, for example, tell of God planning and executing the slaughter of billions of innocent animals and millions of children in Noah’s flood. In the words of one distraught parent, “A few weeks ago I read my son a book on Noah’s Ark and my brain started to hurt. It just never really hit me before how truly awful this story is.” Sometimes it is the kids themselves who notice the disparity between the morality portrayed in a holy book and the morality they (and their modern culture) take for granted. Author Nancy Ellen Abrams recounts her run-in with ancient scripture as a child:

“My career in Hebrew school began and ended in the second grade. The first story we read was about Abraham smashing all the merchandise in his father’s religious idol store, and we were supposed to sympathize with Abraham when his father consequently threw him out. The next story was about Abraham not batting an eyelash at taking his son to a mountaintop to kill him. This was too much for me. ‘Who is Isaac supposed to pray to?’ I asked, in perhaps a less than respectful tone of voice. This question elicited an icy stare and a long silence. I was never called on again and eventually I stopped going. That was the end of my Hebrew education.”

The brutality of ancient scripture is indeed an inconvenient truth — a truth that outspoken atheists are all too happy to point out. Consider: Deuteronomy 3:2-6 and 7:1-2 has God commanding the ethnic cleansing of millions of inhabitants of Canaan, including women and children. And the Book of Revelation has God in the future, with the assistance of Jesus, once again brutally torturing countless animals and human beings of all ages, including children.

Nearly a decade ago, I myself was taken aback when a churchgoer lent me an audiocassette book by one of the earliest “New Atheists“: Michael Scott Earl. My wife and I had already been shaken by listening to Earl’s first audiobook, Bible Stories Your Parents Never Taught You. Listening to his second, The Ultimate Terrorist, was even more painful. I shall never forget one dusk, watching the full moon rise straight ahead while driving eastward across Ohio. Earl was speaking these words:

“If we want to know why people kill in the name of God, and why they have been doing so for thousands of years, we must face one simple and obvious fact that almost nobody wants to confront. The fact is this: the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — the God of monotheism — is a terrorist. This is not mere hyperbole on my part; it is an easily verifiable fact. For example, the U.S. Department of Defense defines terrorism as ‘the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate others in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.’”

“When we look at an event like the conquest of Canaan, the massacres of millions of women and children, we must not lose sight of the fact that these actions were carried out in response to orders from God. The Bible makes that absolutely clear. When we read the brutal Law of Moses, where people’s brains are being bashed in with rocks for breaking the Sabbath, for having sex with the wrong people, for believing the wrong things: all of these atrocious laws can be traced back to God. And when we read in scripture about hell, about billions of unbelievers being tortured in fire for all eternity — it is God who is orchestrating all of this. God employs the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear — and he does it for religious reasons. In anybody’s book, that’s terrorism.”

So long as the Bible is seen as an unfailing moral guide and the sole, authoritative source of our images and metaphors of the divine, it should come as no surprise that a thousand people a day are walking away from evangelical churches, (also see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), that liberal churches are shrinking even faster, and that the ranks of atheists and secularists are swelling. So here’s my vision: Thinking of “divine revelation” in mere mythic ways will last a few more decades. But knowing that God (Reality) communicates more clearly through evidence than ancient texts will change everything. Christianity itself will have a born-again experience by mid-century.

Looking back a hundred years from now, few things will be seen to have had a greater positive impact than the “Evidential Reformation” and the transformation that occurred when Christian leaders worldwide began teaching and preaching how “God’s Word” is not limited to the Bible but is revealed in every fact discovered by science. Practically overnight the science versus religion war will end, and the Church will not only regain its moral authority but will become an inspiring force for evolutionary and ecological good in the world.

This post originally appeared on my HuffPost blog, here, where it has generated more than 160 comments (as of 3-8-2012).

The following is cross-posted from my HuffPost blog (where it has received 200+ comments). It is also posted on Connie‘s and my Metanexus blog, here.

We are in the early stages of what I think historians will one day call religion’s Evidential Reformation. Increasingly, most of us (the devout included) relate to scientific, historic and cross-cultural evidence as more authoritative than the dictates of an all-male ecclesiastical body or a literalist reading of Scripture.

A good example of this is a recent Christianity Today cover story: “The Search for the Historical Adam,” which noted that a growing number of evangelical leaders are shedding a traditional reading of Genesis because of what’s been revealed through genetic evidence. In the words of Francis Collins and Karl Giberson, “Literalist readings of Genesis imply that God specifically created Adam and Eve, and that all humans are descended from these original parents. Such readings, unfortunately, do not fit the evidence.”

Just as Augustine reinterpreted Christianity in light of Plato in the fourth century, and Aquinas integrated Aristotle in the 13^th, today there are dozens of theologians across the spectrum re-envisioning the Christian faith. Whose ideas are they integrating now? Darwin, Einstein, Hubble, Wilson and all who have contributed to an evidence-based understanding of physical, biological and cultural evolution.

What many find most inspiring is also the least disputable: what we now know (not merely believe) about big history, human nature and the vital, creative role of death at all levels of the cosmos.

Big history, also known as the epic of evolution or Great Story, is the 13.7 billion year science-based tale of cosmic genesis — from the formation of galaxies and the origin of life, to the development of consciousness and culture, and onward to the emergence of ever-widening circles of care and concern. It is the first origin story in the history of humanity that is globally produced and derived entirely from evidence. Thanks to Bill Gates and David Christian’s Big History Project, it will soon be taught in high schools around the world.

Through big history we discover that we are made of stardust and that we’re related to everything. Indeed, we can think of our own species as the way the universe itself is awakening to the magnificence of its epic journey — a tale of increasing complexity and interdependence. Big history helps us appreciate the role of science in eliciting global wisdom and the role of religion in fostering cooperation at scales larger than our biological instincts could bring about.

Moving from our outer to inner world, science offers a no less remarkable insight. Within us are instincts shaped by millions of years of evolution. Alas, those deep-rooted, compelling drives are now dangerously out of sync with modern times.

To be blunt, the very same instincts that enabled our ancestors to survive and reproduce now make many of us fat, some addicted and most of us frivolous in how we use our downtime.

Instincts can hardly be faulted, however. We are surrounded by “supernormal stimuli“: processed foods, feel-good drugs and alcohol, Internet porn, romance novels, mind-numbing television, addictive gaming — none of which our ancestors ever had to face.

What this means is that without an evolutionary grasp of why our instincts and emotions are the way they are, it isn’t just difficult to wisely choose and live our priorities. It’s practically impossible.

Finally, all religious traditions have offered beliefs that helped their adherents face the inevitability of death — face it with trust. Thanks to science, we now have knowledge that does the same (and more!), while inviting the religious traditions to evolve.

Fundamentally, we learn (via many converging lines of evidence) that death is natural and generative at all levels of reality. Consider: without the death of ancient stars (which are cauldrons of chemical creation), the universe would support nothing more complex than the simplest gases: hydrogen and helium. Without the death of generation upon generation of simple forms of life, no descendants could have evolved eyes to see, colors to attract, emotions to feel. Without the death of fetal cells during the early stages of development, we would all be spheres. And of course, this: In a finite world, without the death of elders there would be no room for children.

Until we grasp that death is no less sacred than life, and that it plays a necessary role in an evolving cosmos, Christianity will be shackled by otherworldly notions of “the gospel,” medical technologies will prolong physical and emotional suffering, and the medical industry will inadvertently underwrite the widening gap between rich and poor.

Few things are more important than transforming how we think about our inner and outer nature, and our mortality. Thus far, the Evidential Reformation has been centered in science. We desperately need our faith traditions to celebrate this momentous time. We need all the experience that the traditions can muster to guide us today. For in truth, evidence is modern-day scripture.

Here’s another music video that I use in contemporary worship settings all the time. The music and lyrics are by Peter Mayer. The photos were taken, and videography done, by my beloved wife and mission partner, Connie Barlow.

I want address the question of death because most people, religious and non-religious folk alike, are unaware of what God/Reality has revealed about death in the past few hundred years, through science. And this ignorance has resulted in untold suffering — for families and for society as a whole, as well as for individuals.

I am regularly asked (more often since I was diagnosed with cancer two years ago), “Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you think happens to us when we die?” My typical response is to make one or more of the following points…

1. As I discuss in “The Gifts of Death” section of Chapter 5 of my book Thank God for Evolution, it is vitally important when thinking about death in the abstract, when contemplating the inevitability of our own demise, or when grieving the loss of a loved one, to have an accurate understanding of the positive role of death in the Universe. Widespread ignorance of the scientifically indisputable fact that death is natural and generative at all levels of reality, coupled with our culture’s failure to interpret the science in ways that will help us to actually feel that death is no less sacred than life, result in not only distorted but outright disabling views. This does not, of course, take away the anguish and grief of death. Such intense feelings are normal and healthy. They should be honored and allowed time to dissipate naturally—which can often take a year or longer. But what this perspective does do is that it provides a reality-based container for death. We no longer need to think that death is a cosmic mistake or that humans are responsible for the existence of death in the universe.

(Here you can sample testimonials from our travels that demonstrate the emotional gifts of a science-based perspective, meaningfully interpreted. It’s also important to remember that Moses, Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and Muhammad could not possibly have known what we know about death. This evidence-based understanding couldn’t have been revealed in a way that we could have received it prior to telescopes, microscopes, and computers.)

2. Looking at reality through evolutionary, “deep-time eyes”, my sense of “self” does not stop with my skin. Earth is my larger Self. The Universe is my even larger Self: my Great Self. So, yes, “I” (in this expanded sense) will continue to exist even after “I” (this particular body-mind) comes to a natural end. There is deep comfort in knowing that my larger Self will live on. More, I am powerfully motivated to be in action today precisely because I do not ignore or deny the inevitability of death. My small self has but a brief window of opportunity to delight in, and contribute to, the ongoing evolution of the body of life. Truly, this is it; now or never. I am immensely grateful for both the comfort and the compulsion born of this sacred evolutionary perspective.

3. From an evidential standpoint it seems clear that we go go to the same place we came from before we were conceived—the same “place” that trillions of other animals and plants have gone throughout Earth’s history when they died. Some speak about it as “coming from God and returning to God”. Others talk about it as “coming from mystery and returning to mystery”. Still others as “coming from nothing and returning to nothing”. All these I sense as legitimate and emotionally satisfying ways of thinking and talking about what happens at death. And as I sometimes humorously respond, when asked about the afterlife, “If where I go isn’t the same place that all other plants, animals, and species throughout Earth’s history have gone, I’m gonna be pissed!”

4. A universal experience whether or not we can admit it, death is the sole companion to life. From the moment we take our first breath, the inevitable result is death. Thus, any so-called “faith” which doesn’t include trusting that whatever happens on the other side of death is just fine is, in my view, really no faith at all. Fear of a terrifying, hellish after-death scenario, OR attachment to a blissful, heavenly after-death scenario are just that: fear or attachment; not faith, not trust. As legendary Griefwalker and “Angel of Death” Stephen Jenkinson puts it: “Not success. Not growth. Not happiness. The cradle of your love of life … is death.” (I highly recommend purchasing the DVD “Griefwalker”. Once you watch it you’ll probably just keep loaning it out.)

5. The idea of being “rewarded” (condemned?!) with experiencing even one year (much less millions or billions of years) of after-death existence free of struggle, challenge, or difficulty, would occur to me as hell, not heaven, were I to think of (or worse yet, witness from on high) the divinely decreed eternal torment and everlasting torture of others who had in some way missed the mark. Adding to the repugnance would be an after-death future in which those relegated to never-ending suffering included not only perpetrators of outright evil but also those condemned for nothing more than holding wrong beliefs—that is, beliefs different from mine.

6. Here is the way I discuss the subject of “the afterlife/what happens when we die” on pages 116-117 of my book, Thank God for Evolution:

My formal training for becoming a United Church of Christ minister culminated in an ordination paper that I wrote and then presented to a gathering of ministers and lay leaders. Titled “A Great Story Perspective on the UCC Statement of Faith” (available atTheGreatStory.org), my talk stimulated a host of comments and queries. A widely respected minister posed a question I shall never forget. “Michael,” he began, “I’m impressed with your presentation and with the evolutionary theology that you’ve shared with us. However, there’s a little boy who lives in me, and that little boy wants to know: Where is Emory?”

Emory Wallace, a well-known and beloved retired minister, had for nearly three years guided me through my ministerial training. He died suddenly, at the age of 85, just a few weeks before my ordination hearing.

“Where is Emory?” My mind went blank. I knew I needed to say something—after all, this was my ordination hearing—so I just opened my mouth and started speaking, trusting the Spirit to give me the words. My response went something like this:

Where is Emory? In order to answer that question I have to use both day language—the language of rational, everyday discourse—and night language—the language of dreams, myth, and poetry. Both languages are vital and necessary, just as both waking and dreaming states of consciousness are vital and necessary. Like all mammals, if we are deprived of a chance to dream, we die. Sleep is not enough; we must be permitted to dream.

We, of course, know that day experience and night experience are different. For example, if you were to ask me what I did for lunch today, and I told you that I turned myself into a crow and flew over to the neighborhood farm and goofed around with the cows for a little bit, then I flew to Dairy Queen and ordered a milkshake—and if I told you all that with a straight face—you might counsel me to visit a psychiatrist. However, if you had asked me to share a recent dream and I told the same story, you might be curious as to the meaning of that dream—but you wouldn’t think me delusional.

So in order to respond to your question, “Where is Emory?” I have to answer in two ways. First, in the day language of common discourse, I will say, Emory’s physical body is being consumed by bacteria. Eventually, only his skeleton and teeth will remain. His genes, contributions, and memory will live on through his family and through the countless people that he touched in person and through his writings—and that includes all of us.

But, you see, if I stop there—if that’s all I say—then I’ve told only half the story. In order to address the nonmaterial, meaningful dimensions of reality I must continue and say something like: “Emory is at the right hand of God the Father, worshipping and giving glory with all the saints.” Or I could say, “Emory is being held and nurtured by God the Mother.” Or I could use a Tibetan symbol system and say, “Emory has entered the bardo realm.” Any or all of these would also be truthful—true within the accepted logic and understanding of mythic night language.

My response was well received in that meeting of nineteen years ago, and it has shaped my theology ever since. Recently, I blended the core of that distinction into my Great Story talks and workshops. I am sure that my understanding of day and night language—language of reason and language of reverence—will continue to evolve and thus inform my preaching, my teaching, and my personal relationship God, the fullness of Reality.

ALSO SEE: Duane Elgin: “Can Death Become Your Ally?”