25 Stupid Arguments Christians Should Avoid (Part 5)

Last updated on: October 17, 2014 at 12:25 pm By Bob Seidensticker

stupid Christian arguments apologetics Let’s continue with our exploration of stupid arguments Christians shouldn’t use (Part 1 here).

Stupid Argument #17: Failure to acknowledge the incredibleness of the Christian claim. So you think the Big Bang just happened? And evolution says we got here by chance, and life came from nonlife? That’s crazy—I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist!

Correcting the many confidently asserted scientific errors isn’t our goal at the moment. The problem I’d like to focus on is apologists expressing doubt over a naturalistic explanation when their God hypothesis—that a supernatural being created the universe and came to earth as a human and that this was recorded in history—is perhaps the most incredible explanation imaginable.

That the conclusions of science offend their common sense is irrelevant and unsurprising. If science were nothing but common sense, no one would need to spend years getting a PhD. Unfortunately, none of these science skeptics seem motivated to end their perplexity by reading a textbook on the relevant subject.

Science has given us plenty of surprising explanations—the earth goes around the sun, germs cause disease, plate tectonics, quantum physics, and so on—that aren’t on Christians’ radar only because they don’t step on their theological toes.

And when apologists object to a natural explanation for some aspect of the Christian story (the resurrection, say) they ignore that not only is their supernatural explanation less likely than even an outlandish natural explanation, there isn’t even an accepted category of supernatural events that we can all agree to. Science has rejected countless supernatural explanations for natural ones, but the reverse has never been true.

The plausible natural explanation always trumps the supernatural.

Stupid Argument #18: Christians are better. Christians give more to charity (or are nicer or have fewer divorces or have fewer abortions or are better looking or whatever).

In the first place, many of these proud claims wither under closer scrutiny.

Christians are not more generous.
Divorce rates for evangelicals and fundamentalists are the highest of any group.
Teen mothers come disproportionately from red states.
Red states consume the most antidepressants.
Atheists have better mental health than religious people.
Atheists know more about religion than Christians do.
Religious belief is even inversely proportional to innovation and intelligence.

A study by Gregory Paul compared 17 Western countries on social metrics (homicides, suicides, STDs, and so on). The U.S. came out at the bottom of this comparison of social metrics but on the top in religiosity (more). Proving a causal link is difficult, but Paul suggests that poor social conditions cause the high religiosity, and religion is again the opium of the masses, helping people deal with their pain.

I have no interest in getting into a citation war, where you show me studies that rebut any of the points above. Select any subset of the population, and you can probably find at least one thing on which they’re better than average. I’m confident we could find one or more positive traits that Christians have to a greater degree than atheists.

But so what? “Christian belief gives benefits; therefore God” is the pragmatic fallacy. This fallacy argues that if it is beneficial, it must be true.

Perhaps I’m just old fashioned, but I first want my beliefs to be true. I think I can handle the consequences of believing true things.

Stupid Argument #19a: God’s making himself plainly known would impose on your free will. You couldn’t then make a free choice to follow him or not. As C.S. Lewis observed about God making himself known, “[God] cannot ravish; he can only woo.”

Knowing of the existence of no one else offends my free will; why should it be different for God? Satan knows about God in great detail, and he’s still free to not follow him.

The Bible record many instances of God imposing on people’s free will. “God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (Romans 9:18). He hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 9:12), for example, and he gave ungrateful humans over to “shameful lusts” (Rom. 1:26). “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples” (Psalms 33:10). Following the Ten Commandments and the rest of the 613 Old Testament laws is mandatory, which was a substantial imposition on human free will.

And these Christians will be quick to say that belief is the work of the Holy Spirit, so even coming to belief is not something we do freely.

This is a pathetic attempt at avoiding the Problem of Divine Hiddenness and celebrating faith (that is, belief without sufficient evidence). Faith serves no purpose in any other part of life and is always the last resort. Defending an invisible God and celebrating faith is precisely what Christians would do if their religion were manmade (more).

Stupid Argument #19b: “All that are in Hell, choose it” (C.S. Lewis). People send themselves to hell—don’t blame God. God is a gentleman, and he won’t impose himself on people. If they don’t want to be with him, he respects that. The gates of hell are locked from the inside.

Are we talking the same God who imposes genocide? Not much of a gentleman.

I understand the motivation to downplay the eternal torment that the loving God has planned for the majority of his greatest creation, as C.S. Lewis does with his quote above. There may be Bible verses by which liberal Christians imagine a kinder, gentler hell, but the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus gives the traditional view. When the rich man is sent to hell, he says, “I am in agony in this fire.” There’s one person who wouldn’t be in hell if he could choose otherwise.

Continue with Part 6.

If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it,
however helpful it might be;
if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it,
even if it gives him no help at all.
— C.S. Lewis

Photo credit: Scott McLeod

Guest Post: 25 Godly Blunders

Last updated on: October 3, 2014 at 6:38 pm By Bob Seidensticker

This is a guest post from Stephen Gray, a modified excerpt from his upcoming book.

Stephen Gray has a degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, with graduate work in physics from Harvard. He has been studying science and its relationship to religion for years. He is the author of Christianity in Ruins: Refuting the Faith, which is expected to be released in a few weeks.

Here’s his list of God’s blunders.

The perfect God created an imperfect universe. That was his first lapse.
God is merciful, just, perfect, moral, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omnifree, transcendent, genderless, beginningless, causeless, infinite, spaceless, and timeless or eternal. He could easily provide evidence for these properties but doesn’t. Big error.
God created the world and a man and woman. He liked his creation. Adam and Eve were given free will, allowing them to disobey God’s orders. God made another blunder.
Adam and Eve manifested a program bug called “original sin.” That made God place an evil spell on all of humanity forever. That was extremely immoral and comprised one of his worst misdeeds.
God intended the Bible to be a guide to morality and to show his love for humanity, but the older part is full of things like genocides, cannibalism, murder, and blood sacrifices, all done or ordered by God himself. The contrast between what God says and what he does defines hypocrisy.
God had the Bible written to explain his rules and to teach us about Jesus. But the book contains contradictions, ambiguities, ridiculous science, incorrect history, pointless trivia, poor continuity, duplications, inaccurate arithmetic, wrong geography, imitations of older myths, impossible miracles, and plentiful immorality. It deserves a grade of F–, but God shows no remorse.
God could have made our self-control stronger without limiting free will. Not doing this was another bungle.
God, finding his work to be terrible, started over. He killed everything, even flowers, birds, trees, kittens, babies, and fetuses, making him the most prolific abortionist and animal killer of all time. The deaths did not help, so his mass murder was an inexcusable foulup.
God showed extreme sadism by telling Abraham to kill his son but stopped him at the last second. God also had Satan torture Job and kill his ten children. God never apologized or explained. These acts were unusually evil even for God.
God later created a “son,” who both was born at a specific time and existed eternally. This issue will remain a baffling puzzle until all theologians get fired for pointless speculation. Then we can declare it nonsense and forget about it.
Jesus descended from King David in two different ways, but the actual father was the Holy Spirit. Was the son descended from David or not? Confusing.
The son is identical to God and part of him, so he is his own father and his own son. Objective observers see that this is nuts.
The third part of God is identical to but separate from the first two. Its first act was to impregnate Jesus’ mother. It is not known whether this thing is a person, part of one, or something else. The parts of God are called the Trinity, but a Binity might be slightly less ridiculous.
How God’s third ingredient impregnated the virgin is obscure. He, she, or it may have used Joseph’s semen and, having no need to do anything the normal way, entered Mary through her ear. This avoids the problem of Mary’s vagina.
There are more supernatural entities in this monotheistic religion. He is called Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, etc. He practices deception and tempts humans to sin, quite superfluous given our curse of original sin. God is unable to kill him even though Satan is outnumbered three to one by the Trinity—or not.
The Bible explains how to be saved from Hell, but there are many different ways, each one necessary and sufficient. That is logically impossible, so believers have every right to be confused. Leaving salvation unclear is a major blunder.
By painfully killing his son, God punished himself or part of himself in a 1/3 suicide that lasted only a day and a half, so his self-punishment was insincere. Given his record of mistakes, he should have voluntarily disappeared.
The son, Jesus—that is, God, part of God, or something—was dead but is now alive and with his father, that is, himself, so the sacrifice did and did not occur. That is evidence of God’s inability to think. He needs a brain transplant.
The son was supposed to come back in the 1st century, but he’s been absent for 2000 years. A psychiatrist would label this extreme passive-aggressiveness, but the only word doctors have for being that late is dead.
God said that the postmortem life will occur in Heaven, whatever that is. There is no coherent account of what happens there, but many people are eager to go anyway. God might make a good salesman for house plots in a swamp.
In the second part of the book, God orders eternal roasting as punishment for disbelief, even if a person sincerely tries to believe but cannot. Giving us the ability to reason but punishing us for using it is a horrible, evil crime. God should commit suicide or permanently confine himself to a padded cell.
God wants humans to freely love him but issues hideous threats if we don’t. One cannot love while being threatened. Major mistake.
God persists in permanently hiding, perhaps out of shame for his extreme incompetence. His hiddenness makes it almost impossible for a rational person to believe in him, indicating a self-defeating personality. His failure to get help for this problem is a major offense.
One of God’s worst errors was creating millions of people who believe in him despite the lack of evidence and the presence of so many mistakes in his book. This proves that the human brain is defective, so its designer is also defective.
God let his favorite religion split into hundreds of branches. The Old Testament God has been properly called the nastiest character in all fiction. His sick behavior and failure to get it treated is negligent.

This particular God could not run a taco stand, let alone a universe.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably
the most unpleasant character in all fiction:
jealous and proud of it;
a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak;
a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser;
a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal,
genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal,
sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
— Richard Dawkins

The Hypothetical God Fallacy + The Problem of Evil

Last updated on: July 13, 2015 at 10:52 pm By Bob Seidensticker

This is the conclusion of a response to an article about the Problem of Evil by apologist Mikel Del Rosario (read part 1 of this response here).

Del Rosario raises three points. Let’s continue with his point #2.

2. The Problem of Evil Doesn’t Mean There’s No God

The Christian worldview gives us another option that atheists often leave out of the equation. … God can have good reasons for allowing evil—even if we don’t know what those reasons are.

This error is so common that it needs a name, so I’ll name it: the Hypothetical God Fallacy. Sure, if we presuppose an omniscient God, this gets us out of every possible jam in which God looks bad. Banda Aceh tsunami? God could’ve had good reasons. A young mother, beloved in her community, dies suddenly and leaves behind a husband and three children? A result of God’s good reasons. Genocide demanded and slavery accepted in the Old Testament? World War? Plane crash? Missing keys?

God.

This short article is peppered with this fallacy. React to it as an allergen:

If God is good and evil exists …

The mere fact that I can’t figure out why God allows some of the things to happen that he does … is not warrant for the conclusion that he’s got no such reasons.

It actually takes some humility to admit the role of human finiteness in understanding why God allows evil.

Just because something might seem pointless to us, doesn’t mean God can’t have a morally justified reason for it.

Yes, bad things in the world don’t force the conclusion that God can’t exist. Fortunately, I don’t draw such a conclusion. And yes, if God exists, he could have his reasons for things that we don’t understand.

The Hypothetical God Fallacy is a fallacy because no one interested in the truth starts with a conclusion (God exists) and then arranges the facts to support that conclusion. That’s backwards. Rather, the truth seeker starts with the facts and then follows them to their conclusion. (I’ve written more here.)

If God exists, he could have terrific reasons for why there’s so much gratuitous evil in the world. The same could be true for the Invisible Pink Unicorn (glitter be upon Him). Neither approach does anything to support a belief chosen beforehand.

3. The Problem of Evil Isn’t Just a Christian Problem

The Problem of Evil isn’t just a Christian problem. Evil is everybody’s problem!

Then you don’t know what the Problem of Evil is, because it is precisely just a Christian problem. The Problem of Evil asks, How can a good God allow all the gratuitous evil we see in our world? Drop the God presupposition, and the problem goes away.

You could ask the different question, How does an atheist explain the bad in the world? Quick answer: shit happens. Some is bad luck (mechanical problem causes a car accident), some is natural (flood), some is caused by other people (jerky coworker badmouths you to the boss and you don’t get the promotion), and some is caused by you (you didn’t bother getting the flood insurance). Adding God to the equation explains nothing and introduces the Problem of Evil so that you’re worse off than when you started.

Del Rosario again:

If atheism is true, there’s no basis for objective moral values and duties.

Sounds right, but why imagine that objective moral values exist, besides wishful thinking? What many apologists perceive as objective moral values are actually just shared moral values. That we share moral values isn’t too surprising since we’re all the same species. Nothing supernatural is required.

Del Rosario stumbles over another issue with morality.

You couldn’t have any kind of real, moral grounding to call it objectively evil—if atheism is true.

He’s using “real” to mean ultimate or objective. And here again, the ball’s in his court to convince us of his remarkable claim that objective morality exists and that everyone can access it. (Suggestion: find a resolution to the abortion problem that is universally acceptable. If there’s not a single correct resolution then it’s not an objective moral truth, and if we can’t reliably access it, then it’s useless.)

As for the ordinary, everyday sort of moral grounding, the kind that both Christians and atheists use, you’ll find that in the dictionary. Look up “morality,” and you’ll read nothing about objective grounding.

We have one final challenge:

The atheist position’s got another problem to deal with: The Problem of Good. In other words, naturalism has the challenge of providing a sufficient moral grounding for goodness itself—in addition to making sense of evil in the world. And that’s a pretty tall order for a philosophy with absolutely no room for God.

What’s difficult? We’re good because of evolution. We’re social animals, like wolves and chimpanzees, so we have cooperative traits like honesty, cooperation, sympathy, trustworthiness, and so on.

The God hypothesis adds nothing to the conversation, and we must watch out for it being smuggled in as a presupposition. And we’re back where we started from, wondering where the good Christian arguments are.

You don’t need religion to have morals.
If you can’t determine right from wrong
then you lack empathy, not religion.
(seen on the internet)

Photo credit: Wikipedia

5 Recommendations to the Pro-Life Movement

Last updated on: August 24, 2014 at 11:17 am By Bob Seidensticker

It’s easy to assume that pro-life proponents are decent people who honestly want to see good done in the world. The problem is that their arguments are out of touch with reality, so let me make some suggestions that I think will make the discussion more effective for everyone.

It may be odd for a pro-choice advocate to offer suggestions to the pro-life movement, but I want them to be more in line with reality, and I can critique from a very different perspective than an insider can.

1. Don’t Deny the Spectrum; Embrace It.

When trying to shock someone with the downsides of abortion, would a pro-life advocate discuss the horrors of the “morning after” pill rather than talk about a late-term abortion procedure? Of course not. There is a spectrum of personhood from a single cell to a newborn baby, and pro-life advocates know it. Their “it’s a baby” claim for the fetus at every stage of development ignores the glaring fact of the spectrum.

If a pregnant woman sees her fetus as a baby or a gift from God, that’s fine. The problem is when that view is imposed on women who may have very different circumstances and good reason to see their pregnancy differently.

Today, the pro-life movement minimizes information and discourages all abortions. The result is that the abortions that happen are often delayed, resulting in the death of an older fetus. If the pro-life movement acknowledged the spectrum and worked with it, they would instead encourage early detection of pregnancy and a prompt discussion of next steps so that any abortion is done as early as possible. An early abortion is better than a later one from every angle. Of course, pro-lifers could put forward their argument against abortion, but making abortion a taboo subject delays addressing the problem and makes any abortion later than it needs to be. Instead of a naive zero-tolerance approach to abortion they would focus instead on minimizing the harm. (Let’s not pretend that overturning Roe v. Wade would end abortion. It would only allow states to regulate it themselves. Some would make it illegal, but even that would only end legal abortions in those states.)

Recognizing the spectrum would also free stem cell research from nonsensical constraints. (You’re delaying research into treatments that could improve public health because of a worry over the rights of cells?! Get serious.)

2. Embrace Allies.

While I’m pro-choice, I don’t like abortion. The pro-life advocate doesn’t like abortion. In fact, the scared teenage girl going to the clinic doesn’t even like abortion. No one ever said, “Gee, I’m feeling kinda gloomy today. I think an abortion would perk me up.” Some people see abortion as the greater of two evils and others see it as the lesser of two evils, but everyone sees it as a bad thing.

Why focus on the disagreement when both sides of the debate are actually in agreement? And here’s the really important agreement: no one likes the primary cause of abortion, unwanted pregnancy. Instead of the current conflict, all sides should be marching arm in arm toward a better way to minimize unwanted pregnancy.

3. Focus on Education.

Whatever we’re doing to discourage unwanted pregnancies in the U.S. isn’t working. Half of all pregnancies are unintended, and evangelical young adults are about as likely to have had sex as any other group. A no-sex-before-marriage attitude leads to early and less-viable marriages.

Among countries in the West, the U.S. compares poorly. In the U.S., the annual birth rate was 56 per 1000 women aged 15–19. Compare this to 8 in the Netherlands. The U.S. abortion rate for that group of women was 30 per 1000, while it was 4 in the Netherlands. Clearly, there’s tremendous room for improvement.

The goal of the pro-life movement has been to stop abortion. Instead of swimming against the current with this approach, they should work with the current by stopping the need for abortion.

Teen sex is a bit like teen drinking. When a kid gets to be 15 or 16, the parent warns their child against underage drinking. But the wise parent gives a part 2: “If you do drink, or the driver of your car has been drinking, call me. I’ll pick you up anytime, anywhere, with no questions asked. Your safety is the most important thing.” The lesson: underage drinking is bad, but getting hurt while drunk is really bad (and avoidable).

Likewise, if a parent wants to tell the kid that sex is bad before marriage, that’s fine. Just give the part 2: “If you do have sex, you need to know how to have sex safely and use a condom.”

The results show that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work:

A 2007 Congressionally mandated report found that, on average, students who participated in abstinence-only education had sex at the same age as students who had comprehensive sex education. They also had similar rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and used birth control at similar rates as students who had comprehensive sex education.

As children grow into adulthood, they get adult bodies. Wishing it weren’t so doesn’t help. Why wouldn’t we want to give them the owner’s manual that goes along with those new bodies? It’s like kids having access to the car keys without being given driver’s education.

Don’t our children deserve the best training for minimizing unwanted pregnancy? Abstinence-only training has been given a shot, and it doesn’t work. If you oppose the frank teaching of how to not get pregnant in Health class, avoiding abortion must not be the critical issue you say it is.

4. A “Pro-Life” Movement Should Treat Threats to Life in Priority Order.

There are roughly one million necessary abortions per year in the U.S. But around the world there are ten million deaths per year of young children that are not necessary.You want to protect life? Then do so by focusing on this much larger number of children in the developing world who die of mostly preventable causes. Jesus said nothing about abortion, but he did talk about helping the poor and sick.

5. Tell Politicians to Leave You Alone.

Politicians buzz like flies around the pro-life cause, eager to solve the problem. At least they say they want to solve the problem, but they have little motivation to do so. A solved problem doesn’t get votes, and as long as it’s unsolved, the problem remains a vote getter. Politicians benefit from the controversy, not a resolution, and they would stand in the way of the pro-life movement working in harmony with pro-choice advocates.

The Christian can become a marionette to the politician who can say “If you’re truly a moral person, you must vote for me.” Christians should just say no.

There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot,
to suffer it like Christ’s Passion.
The world gains much from their suffering.
— Mother Teresa

Photo credit: macropoulos

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 2/4/12.)

The Inevitability of Gay Marriage

Last updated on: July 26, 2014 at 10:49 am By Bob Seidensticker

gay marriage rights A century ago, America was embroiled in social change. Some of the issues in the headlines during this period were women’s suffrage, the treatment of immigrants, prison and asylum reform, temperance and prohibition, racial inequality, child labor and compulsory elementary school education, women’s education and protection of women from workplace exploitation, equal pay for equal work, communism and utopian societies, unions and the labor movement, and pure food laws.

The social turmoil of the past makes today’s focus on gay marriage and abortion look almost inconsequential by comparison.

Christianity on the right side of social issues

What’s especially interesting is Christianity’s role in some of these movements. Christians will point with justified pride to schools and hospitals build by churches or religious orders. The Social Gospel movement of the early 20th century pushed for corrections of many social ills—poverty and wealth inequality, alcoholism, poor schools, and more. Christians point to Rev. Martin Luther King’s work on civil rights and William Wilberforce’s Christianity-inspired work on ending slavery. (This doesn’t sound much like the church today, commandeered as much of it is by conservative politics, but that’s another story.)

… but maybe not on same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriage seems inevitable, just another step in the march of civil rights. Two years ago, before the tsunami of legal wins for the gay rights side, Jennifer Roback Morse (president and founder of the Ruth Institute for promotion of heterosexual marriage and rejection of same-sex marriage) was asked if she feared being embarrassed by the seeming inevitability of same-sex marriage. She replied:

On the contrary, [same-sex marriage proponents] are the ones who are going to be embarrassed. They are the ones who are going to be looking around, looking for the exits, trying to pretend that it had nothing to do with them, that it wasn’t really their fault.

I am not the slightest bit worried about the judgment of history on me. This march-of-history argument bothers me a lot. … What they’re really saying is, “Stop thinking, stop using your judgment, just shut up and follow the crowd because the crowd is moving towards Nirvana and you need to just follow along.”

Let’s first acknowledge that Morse could be striving to do the right thing simply because it’s right, without concern for popularity or the social consequences. I would never argue that someone ought to abandon a principle because it has become a minority opinion or that it is ridiculed. If Dr. Morse sticks to her position solely because she thinks it’s right, and she’s not doing it because of (say) some political requirement or because her job depends on it, that’s great.

Nevertheless, the infamous 1963 statement from George Wallace comes to mind:

I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

That line came back to haunt him. To his credit, he apologized and rejected his former segregationist policies, but history will always see him as having chosen the wrong side of an important issue.

Uh … no, we were on the correct side of that issue all along!

Christianity has similarly scrambled to reposition itself after earlier errors. Christians often claim that modern science is built on a Christian foundation, ignoring the church’s rejection of science that didn’t fit its medieval beliefs (think Galileo and Creationism). They take credit for society’s rejection of slavery, forgetting Southern preachers and their gold mine of Bible verses for ammunition. They reposition civil rights as an issue driven by Christians, ignoring the Ku Klux Klan and its burning cross symbol, biblical justification for laws against mixed-race marriage, and slavery support as the issue that created the Southern Baptist Convention.

Arthur Schopenhauer observed, “All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; third, it is accepted as self-evident.” And then the opposition claims that it was their idea all along!

The same-sex marriage issue in the United States is halfway between Schopenhauer’s steps 2 and 3. Check back in two decades, and you’ll see Christians positioning the gay rights issue as one actually led by the church. They’ll mine history for liberal churches that took the lead (and flak) in ordaining openly gay clerics and speaking out in favor of gay rights.

If someone truly rejects same-sex marriage because their unbiased analysis shows it to be worse for society, great. But it is increasingly becoming clear how history and the public will judge that position.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.
— Mohandas Gandhi

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 7/4/12.)

Photo credit: Spec-ta-cles

WWJD? Don’t Expect a Consistent Answer

Last updated on: June 2, 2014 at 10:09 am By Bob Seidensticker

WWJD? atheism atheist What Would Jesus Do?

The WWJD acronym became popular in the nineties as a way to imagine Jesus approaching a particular problem or opportunity. Would Jesus smoke that joint? Would he skip his homework? Would he stop to help that person? Many young Christians wore a WWJD bracelet to keep the question in mind.

The problem is that this question delivers contradictory answers. Ask Fred Phelps what Jesus would do, and he would’ve said with confidence that Jesus would be preaching, “God hates fags.” Ask Harold Camping, and he would’ve said that Jesus would be warning people about the coming end. Pro-lifers think that Jesus would be picketing abortion clinics. Televangelists say that Jesus would want you to donate lots of money.

Many conservative Christians think that Jesus would reduce taxes, encourage Creationism in public schools, push laws against same-sex marriage, and deny climate change. Many liberal Christians think that he’d celebrate the scientific consensus, support healthcare provided by society (another word for “government”), encourage sex education to minimize unwanted pregnancies, and helping the neediest people.

Pick any contentious social issue—abortion, same-sex marriage, gun rights, euthanasia, our obligations to the needy, and so on—and you’ll have millions of thoughtful Christians taking each of the many contradictory positions.

What good is it?

WWJD is a useless slogan because it’s ambiguous. It’s a synonym for “In your most moral frame of mind, what would you do?” The Jesus of the Bible is a ventriloquist’s dummy who says whatever you want him to say.

BOB: Say Jesus, I was thinking of putting a little extra in the offering plate on Sunday for the food bank.

JESUS (in squeaky voice): Good thinking, Bob! After all, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

BOB: And speaking of church, I thought that Frank from across the street was a decent guy until I found out that he’s a Mormon. I think I should give him the silent treatment from now on.

JESUS: You’re right there, Bob! Remember that “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother.”

The problem is pretending that Jesus really is feeding you lines. Dropping this pretense may feel like tightrope walking without a net, but “Jesus” in this case is just a synonym for “conscience.”

If “WWJD” were to become a synonym for “use your best judgment to find the most moral solution to society’s problems,” what’s not to like?

Two hands working
can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
— Unknown

Photo credit: sonofgodresources.com

Ten Commandments Have no Role in Public

Last updated on: May 31, 2014 at 12:50 pm By Bob Seidensticker

Ten Commandments

Some Christians have no patience with a separation between church and state and want to display the Ten Commandments in the public square—the state-supported public square.

Judge Roy Moore

As chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Judge Moore installed a 2.5-ton granite monument in the Supreme Court building showing two tablets holding the Ten Commandments in 2001. He said, “Today a cry has gone out across our land for the acknowledgment of that God upon whom this nation and our laws were founded. … May this day mark the restoration of the moral foundation of law to our people and the return to the knowledge of God in our land.” A lawsuit was filed, Moore lost, he was ordered to remove the monument, he refused, and he was removed from office in 2003.

In 2012, the good people of Alabama gave him his old job back. We live in interesting times.

Who knows the Ten Commandments?

A 2007 poll compared Americans’ knowledge of the Ten Commandments with the seven ingredients in a McDonald’s Big Mac hamburger. More people remembered “two all-beef patties” from the TV commercial than remembered “thou shalt not kill” from Sunday school. Even among churchgoers, 30% didn’t remember “thou shalt not kill,” and 31% didn’t remember “thou shalt not steal.”

One atheist wit observed that the Big Mac had an unfair advantage—it had a jingle. Solution: set the Ten Commandments to music. “Only God, no idols, watch your mouth, special day, call your mom … on a sesame seed bun.”

How big a deal is this? Does poor recall of the Ten Commandments correlate to poor morals? I say no, and I think Americans’ poor memory in this case isn’t a shocking oversight; instead, it reflects the irrelevance of the Ten Commandments in modern life. We don’t need the Commandments to remind us that killing is wrong, and they’re not an especially complete or relevant list for secular America. “Don’t enslave,” “don’t rape,” and “no genocide” are glaringly absent, and “have no other gods before me” has no place in a country with a First Amendment to keep the state out of religion.

(Sorry, pro-lifers—abortion was obviously not top of mind for God when he dictated the Commandments, since he included “don’t covet” but omitted “no abortion.”)

When the Old Testament becomes a problem

To wiggle out of uncomfortable baggage, some Christians try to play the “Get out of the Old Testament free” card. They do this when they want to give God a hand, and they say that slavery and genocide were products of that archaic culture. Okay, but then haven’t you shed the Ten Commandments as well, since that’s also in the Old Testament?

The Old Testament is relevant today or it isn’t—it can’t be both ways.

As ancient legal codes go, the Mosaic law isn’t all that groundbreaking. It is predated not only by the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi but Mesopotamian law and Egyptian law. In fact, the pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court building, which many history revisionists claim holds the Ten Commandments, is actually a frieze of Moses along with two other ancient lawmakers, Solon of Athens and Confucius of China (shown in the photo above). And no, Moses isn’t holding the Ten Commandments but rather blank tablets. Moses is also depicted on a frieze inside the courtroom, but he is simply in a procession of 18 great lawmakers.

What if all people followed the basic conventions that society agrees are its moral foundation? That would be great, but if this happened, why give the credit to Christianity? That is, why point to morality and say, “Aha! That’s the good ol’ Ten Commandments they’re following!” No, morality comes from society. The Ten Commandments are a clumsy reflection of some of the best traits from society, not the other way around.

New and improved Ten Commandments

What if we discarded the religious baggage—important within Christianity but irrelevant to the secular, all-inclusive society—and distilled down social wisdom into a secular Ten Commandments? Here’s a version from A.C. Grayling’s Secular Bible.

1. Love well
2. Seek the good in all things
3. Harm no others
4. Think for yourself
5. Take responsibility
6. Respect nature
7. Do your utmost
8. Be informed
9. Be kind
10. Be courageous

At least, sincerely try.

NYC Atheists has an excellent version here (search for “Atheist Freedoms” on page 4). And here is Christopher Hitchens’ version (skip in the video to 6:30). Hitchens’ punch line: “Don’t swallow your moral code in tablet form.”

The Ten Commandments is nothing more than a fragment of an interesting historical document. An example from Georgia shows the problems with treating it as if it’s more than this. Poverty in that state has recently increased so that it is now the third-poorest state. What did its legislature spend time on in response? Getting the Ten Commandments in all public buildings, including schools.

Posturing is easier than actually solving problems, right? And it gets one reelected, so it’s all good.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully
as when they do it from religious conviction.
— Pascal

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 5/25/12.)

Photo credit: djv2130

Happy Birthday, Patheos!

Last updated on: May 5, 2014 at 10:36 am By Bob Seidensticker

#Patheos5Yrs atheism atheist Today is the five-year anniversary for Patheos, the site that hosts this blog. Patheos is now in the top 500 U.S. websites and is the world’s largest site for several communities, including atheists. Congratulations, Patheos!

I’ve been blogging at Patheos for close to two years (and solo for a year before that). When I started, there were about ten Patheos atheist blogs, and now there are 21. Patheos hosts more than 300 blogs exploring many categories of thought.

The Cross Examined blog has gotten almost 900,000 total views. Patheos as a whole will generate that twice in a week, but that sounds like a nice bit of impact to me. And I don’t make the views—you do. This wouldn’t work without you, and I’m very appreciative for your time and feedback.

Figuring out what content connects with the audience and what doesn’t is sometimes difficult. Maybe the headline was boring (if yesterday’s Doonesbury is good advice, I need to work “sideboob” into my titles more). Maybe the post just didn’t get the Facebook or reddit love that it deserved. Or more likely it was just a lot less insightful or interesting than I thought. Ah well—I always learn from the process.

I’ll take this fifth birthday opportunity to muse on five categories of blog posts during my time at Patheos.

1: “10 Reasons the Crucifixion Story Makes No Sense”

This post has been my most popular. Each of the ten points is touched on only briefly, but the post seems to be a useful high-level summary of skeptical criticism of this part of the gospels. Christians who find the sin/redemption story compelling would probably dismiss this post as no challenge to their faith, but that’s not where it ends. These Christians would likely also think that the crucifixion story is compelling to outsiders. It’s not.

2: Social issues

Google ranks “20 Arguments Against Abortion, Rebutted” first for the search “arguments against abortion.” That’s ironic, since it’s a rebuttal of those arguments, and I wonder how many pro-lifers arrive here to find something they didn’t expect. Still, I’m not complaining. I hope it’s provocative while being civil.

Christianity is an 800-pound gorilla within society. It does some good, but it also does a lot of harm, and I’ve responded to some of those social issues—homosexuality and same-sex marriage, Creationism, church/state separation, the First Amendment, and so on.

Institutions like Christianity are inherently conservative, but the paradox is that this one claims to have a direct line to the source of morality. Christianity should be leading the way rather than digging in its heels. Let me quickly acknowledge that some Christians are doing honorable work to improve society, but theirs is too often the still, small voice amidst the wind and earthquake.

3: History

I’ve found the history behind Christianity to be both more complicated and less supportive of confident Christian pronouncements than I expected. I’ve written about:

biblical polytheism
the immense gulf of understanding separating us from the events of Jesus’s day
the illogic of the Garden of Eden, Flood, and Resurrection stories
the weakness of claims of prophecy (Psalm 22, Isaiah 7, Isaiah 53, Daniel 9)
the Mesopotamian Combat Myth (in which good conquers chaos) present in the Old Testament
the irrelevance of our vast number of New Testament manuscripts

In general, I’ve been fascinated at how easily some icons of Christian thought have crumbled with research. That’s not to say that there’s nothing there, but what’s there often turns out to be different from we’ve been told.

4: Apologetics

Apologetics, the intellectual arguments in favor of Christianity, are what got me into this study over a decade ago. I’ve blogged about the Transcendental Argument, Argument from Design, Argument from Morality, Cosmological Argument, and others.

I’ve also responded to arguments from about two dozen apologists. Repeat offenders include William Lane Craig, Greg Koukl, Lee Strobel, Frank Turek, and John Hagee. Their arguments are widespread, and I will continue to respond to what appear to be the most popular.

5: Trying on some new things

New projects keep it lively. I made a short video, “Are the Gospels Eyewitness Accounts?” I wrote a flash fiction piece, “Interloper.” I wrote my second novel exploring atheism and Christianity, A Modern Christmas Carol.

I also issued a public challenge to organizers of Christian apologetics conferences: you say that your apologetics can withstand the challenge? Then don’t have a Christian present the atheist position; bring in an atheist. You’ll get the last word, but don’t you want your attendees to understand the real challenge? Give me an audience, and I’ll do it for free. (So far, no takers. Just intimidated, I guess?)

As a blogger, sometimes I feel like the new teacher who’s just a chapter ahead of the students in the book. I’ll never be a biblical scholar, but if I can learn interesting things and pass them on to you, that will be enough. If you’ve enjoyed reading along, I hope you’ll continue to share the journey with me.

So what’s next? Do you have ideas for improvement? Any fundamentals that I need to focus on or new areas to explore?

Faith is not an excuse for getting “there” last.
It’s an obligation to get there first.
— Leonard Pitts, speaking about how Christianity
often lags society in knowing the right thing to do

Photo credit: Robo Android

Does the Old Testament Condemn Homosexuality? (2 of 2)

Last updated on: February 1, 2014 at 10:02 am By Bob Seidensticker

Last time we looked at the Sodom and Gomorrah story. Let’s move on to the book of Leviticus.

You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; it is an abomination (Leviticus 18:22).

Sounds pretty damning, but the word “abomination” also describes eating forbidden food (Deut. 14:3), sacrificing blemished animals (Deut. 17:1), performing divination and similar magic (Deut. 18:12), and women wearing men’s clothing (Deut. 22:5). These are ritual abominations.

Making sense of ritual abominations

Mary Douglas clarifies the confusing purity laws in Leviticus, where things are clean or unclean seemingly arbitrarily. She argues that “clean” things are proper members of their category. A proper fish has fins and scales, so that makes it an abomination to eat improper sea animals like clams and shrimp. A proper land animal—one that is part of civilized society—is cloven hoofed and cud chewing like a cow or goat. To be clean, any animal or wild game must share these characteristics—hence no rabbits (not cloven hoofed) or pigs (not cud chewers). “Unclean” means “imperfect members of its class.”

A sacrifice must be a perfect animal, hence no blemishes. A priest must be a perfect man, hence he can’t be blind or lame. Don’t mix seeds in a field; don’t mix textiles in a garment.

Homosexuality fits easily into this taxonomy—proper sex is man with woman, so man/man or man/animal sex is explicitly forbidden. But it’s ritually forbidden, not forbidden because of any innate harm.

Leviticus, take 2

Here’s another popular bludgeon:

If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves (Lev. 20:13).

First, note that this again is nothing more than ritual abomination.

Second, note the punishment. Don’t point to the Bible to identify the crime but then ignore its penalty. There is no crime if there is no penalty. Do modern Christians truly think that the appropriate response to male homosexuality is death?

Third, note what else this chapter demands: unclean animals can’t be eaten (20:25), exile for a couple that has sex during the woman’s period (:18), death to spiritual mediums (:27), death for adultery (:10), and death for anyone who curses his father or mother (:9). It comes as a package of out-of-date tribal customs—with what justification can a Christian select the anti-homosexual verse and ignore the rest?

Cafeteria Christianity

If Jesus was the once-and-for-all sacrifice that did away with the need for the Old Testament ritual laws (Heb. 7:11–12 and 8:6–13), then get rid of them all.

God said, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7). Verses like this would saddle Christians with all the Old Testament customs, from the sacrifices to the crazy stuff like genocide that they’d like to distance themselves from, and they’ll say that these verses apply to Jews only. Fair enough—then stop cherry picking Old Testament passages from sections of the Old Testament that don’t apply to you.

This selective reading reminds me of Rev. O’Neal Dozier, an honorary co-chair of Rick Santorum’s election committee, who said that homosexuality is the “paramount of sins” and that it is “something so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit.” My first impulse to this energetic condemnation is to wonder if Haggard’s Law applies, but more to the point, why is homosexuality at the top of the list? Why should it be any worse than any other “abomination” such as eating shrimp, telling a fortune, or a woman wearing pants? (Unless, of course, Rev. Dozier is simply using the Bible as a sock puppet to have it speak his opinions, which is certainly where the evidence points.)

Apologists like Dozier who say that the Bible is clear in its rejection of homosexuality won’t say the same thing about the Bible’s support for genocide, slavery, and polygamy. They’ll say, “Okay, slow down and let me tell you why the surface reading isn’t correct.” The predicament for today’s Christian is the clash between modern morality and the warlike culture of the early Israelites.

A common response to God’s embarrassing actions in the Old Testament is to say that he is mysterious and inscrutable to our simple human minds. But then these same Christians will contradict themselves and say with certainty that God is against homosexuality, abortion, and taxes.

Apologists who pick and choose which commandments must be taken literally are beating the copper of the Bible against the anvil of their faith. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Why is the atheist the one letting the Bible speak for itself?

Or if the Bible is simply the sock puppet used to give an argument credibility, I’d appreciate Christians dropping the middleman, admitting that their beliefs come from their innate moral sense, and defending them as such.

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what we are told.
Religious dogma is doing what we are told regardless of what is right.
— Unknown

Photo credit: Wikimedia

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/12/12.)

Christians: Why You Need an Atheist Speaker at Your Next Conference

Last updated on: January 14, 2014 at 8:01 pm By Bob Seidensticker

I read or listen to lots of Christian apologists. Frank Turek. Norm Geisler. Dinesh D’Souza. William Lane Craig. Gary Habermas. Mike Licona. Jim Wallace. Greg Koukl. Peter Kreeft.

I went to John Warrick Montgomery’s two-week Apologetics Academy in Strasbourg, France in 2011. I want to hear the best that Christian apologetics has to offer.

The reverse is rarely true.

Christian conferences

I see the ads for Christian apologetics conferences that promise to equip dedicated Christians to win souls for Christ. Sometimes they cover arguments for a historical Jesus. Or review scientific arguments that can be used to argue for a deity behind nature. Or even role play interaction with mock atheists.

It’s not enough. They need to hear from an actual atheist. A faux atheist is no foe.

To me, their refusal to invite one means that conference organizers don’t trust their material to carry the day. They’re afraid that they’ll get embarrassed or upstaged or that the attendees would get freaked out or overwhelmed with material that’s just too real.

But then how well do they prepare attendees? If the conference must tiptoe through the material to avoid the difficult topics, how will newly minted apologists do when they get out and talk to real, live atheists? If you hope that God will give you the right words as he did with Moses, you are setting yourself up for embarrassment.

If someone wants apologetics lite, they can read a book, but a conference should ramp it up. Attendees shouldn’t be spoon-fed straw man arguments but given the real thing.

In this blog, I’ve responded to many Christian arguments—from books, interviews, articles, blog posts, podcasts, lectures, and debates. It’s one of my favorite kinds of posts because they pretty much write themselves. Christians’ arguments are easy to refute. I’ve seen enough to know that the good stuff isn’t kept secret, like magic tricks, and whispered to worthy initiates. If you’re counting on an apologetics conference to show you the landscape, you will be disappointed. I’ve heard the good stuff, and it’s not very good.

My proposal

The next time you see a notice for an apologetics conference, tell the organizing team to invite me to speak, either in a debate or with a lecture.

I can educate the audience about atheism. (Yes, atheists have purpose and morality. No, atheists don’t see their worldview as empty or hopeless.) I can argue for same-sex marriage and abortion rights. I can attack intellectual arguments for Christianity, and I can provide positive arguments for atheism. And then you get the last word.

The Christian arguments will be tested in the field. Shouldn’t they be tested in the conference?

My fee: $0

Give me an audience of 50 or more, and I’ll do it for free. Just cover my expenses. I’m meeting you more than halfway—you donate expenses, and I’ll donate a day or a weekend of my time plus preparation.

Read my books and blog to see how I think. I’ll even provide my books to attendees at cost. If you want someone with a higher profile, that’s great. I’ll be happy to make suggestions.

You think that after an atheist presents the best that that worldview has to offer, you can give your audience an adequate response? Great—then an atheist would be an asset to the conference.

You know how to reach me.

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the LORD
— Isaiah 1:18