Vacation Bible School

I stopped believing in God through skeptical thinking: I found the whole idea of a supernatural entity as preposterous as the ideas of New Age nonsense.  Having recently tried (again) to belong to a church and read the bible and all the rest of it, I just couldn't see any particular reason to be a believer other than wanting to believe.

The Bible's Like a Box of Chocolates

That is apparently enough for many believers.  I doubt that most believers know who William Lane Craig is.  The Catholics I know haven't pursued religious education beyond catechism, or perhaps Catholic high school.  The evangelical Christians I know seem satisfied with psychological comfort.  Other than a few Bible verses that they quote frequently, they don't seem particularly well-versed in what their religion actually teaches. Many of the believers I have encountered have never actually read the Bible cover-to-cover.  If they go to church at all, they let their pastor's pablum suffice for "theology."  One I know insisted that nobody could ever memorize all 150 psalms even though monks have been chanting them from memory since about the Fourth Century (or even earlier).

For most of the history of Christianity, believers were indeed illiterate.  Slaves of the American South were even prohibited from learning to read, but they were Christianized nevertheless.  American education began with "Sunday School," when children were taught a few basics after church in order to learn to read.  After public education took over the task, "Sunday School" became religious education.

Now there is also "vacation bible school," a week when parents send their children off to be indoctrinated in order to get a break from them during the long hot summer.  Around here, they have bought the "Pandamania" system.  You see a child wearing panda ears and you know they're Christian.  Forget crosses and forehead smudges, yes, it is now panda ears that mark your children for Christ.  Here's the curriculum:

Day 1
Bible Point: God made you.
Bible Story: God creates the world. (Genesis 1)
Bible Verse: "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!" (Psalm 139:14)

i.e., Creationism 101. You are complex, therefore Goddidit.  Everything else is complex too, uhhhh.  Let's sing a song!

Day 2
Bible Point: God listens to you.
Bible Story: Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal. (1 Kings 18:16-39)
Bible Verse: "You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord." (Psalm 139:4)

i.e., God listens to you say what he pre-ordained you would say.  So do you really have to say it?  Why does he pre-ordain it anyway?  And if blasphemy is a sin, then he knows you're going to say it and doesn't prevent you from saying it so you go to Hell and he has pre-ordained it.  uhh.... Let's sing a song and make bamboo crafts!

Day 3
Bible Point: God watches over you.
Bible Story: Jonah tries to escape from God. (Jonah 1-3)
Bible Verse: "Even in darkness I cannot hide from you." (Psalm 139:12)

Leave your happy bits alone. God can see what you're doing under your sheets.  Let's sing a happy song!  Wheee

Day 4
Bible Point: God loves you, no matter what.
Bible Story: Jesus dies and comes back to life. (Luke 23:1-24:12)
Bible Verse: "Lead me along the path of everlasting life." (Psalm 139:24)

So God knew in advance you'd eventually say or think something damnable, then he decided to make his good son suffer in your place.  So go ahead and sin all you want because God loves you!  Let's sing a happy song and pretend we're hungry pandas in a bamboo forest!

Day 5
Bible Point: God gives good gifts.
Bible Story: God gives Hannah a baby. (1 Samuel1:1-2:11)
Bible Verse: "You place your hand of blessing on my head." (Psalm 139:5)

Remember, kids... when you grow up you must procreate, and if you put your happy bits together with someone else's happy bits and someone winds up pregnant, you must have that baby even if it's the result of rape or incest, or is deformed or or will force you into poverty or will kill you.  Because babies are gifts.  God puts babies on your head.  uhhh  Let's put on panda ears and sing a happy song!

What does a panda have to do with any of this? It's a distraction. It keeps the children from thinking too hard about what they're being told. This quote from a review is very telling:

On our last day, we had a parent come for the first time. She cried during the entire program because of the presence of God's love and the love that was expressed for all the children especially her two daughters. This was truly a God sighting.

The other reviews mention how great the songs are, or they talk about the crafts.  They don't say anything about the theology of what they're supposedly teaching these kids.  They don't say anything about the Bible. They might as well be hari krishnas.

More Facebook Funnies

One of my FB friends posted this:

May the Lord guide you today, your steps, your words, and your actions. Ask Him and He will give you the answers. And remember, sometimes silence IS an answer!

*sigh*

Even if I were still a believer, I wouldn't subscribe to the version of Christianity where any person can whip up prayers and homemade theology and then spread it around.  When I see some of the atheist arguments against the arguments for faith, I have to wonder if they've ever encountered Christians like this.  There's no philosophical debating with this kind of "theology."

9/11 and Atheist Activism

I have met more than one atheist who became more open about their atheism because of 9/11. I wasn't shy about telling people I was an atheist, but I didn't read books on it or go to meetups or websites until 9/11.  Afterward, I found the Bush Administration's reference to the Crusades and to religious reasons for fighting back very ironic.  They didn't dial back their religiosity at all in the face of that negative example of what religion can do.  They actually upped it, but not the country.  I think turning to prayer to overcome other people who turn to prayer had to stick in the craw of at least a few believers.

Anywho, I discovered this video in which Sam Harris talks about how he was affected too:

Suicide Bombers and Polygamy

I have a theory about why young muslim men can be persuaded to commit suicide for a cause:  polygamy.

It is mathematically impossible for all young men to get married if they live in a society that allows men to have multiple wives, but does not allow women to have more than one husband.  The ratio of men to women in Afghanistan is 1.05 to 1, hardly enough to accommodate a polygamous lifestyle.  In Saudi Arabia, home to bin Laden, the ratio is even worse: 1.27 for each woman.

Is it any surprise that suicide "martyrs" are promised a harem in heaven?  Islamic law limits the number of wives to four (although bin Laden's slutty daddy had twelve -- apparently you can bend the laws if you're rich even in Islam).  And although polygamy is permitted, there has to be a good reason for it.  The man also has to prove that he is able to treat all the wives and children equally, i.e. besides being affectionate to them all he has to provide material support.

So what hope does a man have if he's educated enough to make a decent living, but not educated enough to make a polygamous living?  Palestinian suicide bombers are enticed by promises of financial support for their impoverished families.  For a middle-class Saudi man, that won't fly.  And unlike a Palestinian, that middle-class Saudi is giving up quite a bit when he sacrifices his life.   They have to up the ante to get them to fall on their sword so to speak.

I haven't seen anybody else make that connection.  This article on infidels.org brought it to mind today, especially this part:

The holy killers left behind a testament they had shared among themselves, saying they were doing it for God: "Know that the gardens of paradise are waiting for you in all their beauty," they assured each other, "and the women of paradise are waiting, calling out, 'Come hither, friend of God.' They have dressed in their most beautiful clothing."

They did it for the wimmin.  Believing that Heaven is a real place was prerequisite of course, but Heaven had to have more appeal than the Judeo-Christian ideal of an eternity of floating around in space and praising God's arse for eternity.  I think it's amusing that they expected virgins, though.  The reason for wanting a virgin on Earth presumably has something to do with ensuring your children will really be yours.   There's no pregnancy in Heaven, so why not have a harem of prostitutes?  They'd be a lot more fun.

There are many possible motivations for killing people, and suicide bombers share them, but promising a harem to unloved young men certainly adds to the mix of possible motivations.  Add the gullibility of religious adherents who will believe anything, and you can promise them the most ridiculous things to get them to off themselves.  The 9/11 hijackers certainly seemed to have polygamous ambitions.

Another BIble-Reading Child-Abusing Murdering Liar

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20110623/BUSTED/106230327/Documents-McConniel-patriarch-beat-tortured-Lauren

Lee has an online Facebook page that he has communicated with friends and relatives on. It also features a photo of Lee and lists some of his favorite things -- the Bible among them, along with a blog featuring religious-themed commentary

It's too bad he didn't read the parts that tell him not to hit a child or not to rape an underage girl.

oh yeah, there aren't any!

Does the Bible condone cannibalism?

This is a very interesting conundrum for Christians.  Leviticus 17:14 says:

For the life of every creature - its blood is its life. Therefore I said to the people of Isra'el, 'You are not to eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it will be cut off.'

Apparently blood is so vile this bears repeating in chapter 19:26 "Do not eat anything with blood."

If Christ is supposed to be the sacrificial lamb, and drinking his blood is salvation, what does this say about the book of Leviticus?  What does it say about Christianity?  What does it say about Christ's theology?  What does it say about the group called "Jews for Jesus?"  What does it say about the Eucharist?  What does it say about Christ being the "sacrificial lamb?"

17: 4-7 shows how blood is supposed to be used during sacrifices:

the people of Isra'el will bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice out in the field -so that they will bring them to ADONAI, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, to the cohen, and sacrifice them as peace offerings to ADONAI. 6 The cohen will splash the blood against the altar of ADONAI at the entrance to the tent of meeting and make the fat go up in smoke as a pleasing aroma for ADONAI. 7 No longer will they offer sacrifices to the goat-demons, before whom they prostitute themselves! This is a permanent regulation for them through all their generations.

This doesn't sound like what Jesus meant.  He was clearly either starting a new tradition or inserting a different cultural practice into his Judaism.  If his sacrifice on the cross is supposed to be represented by his blood he should be commanding his followers to splash blood on the altar.  His "Last Supper" doesn't sound much like a Passover Seder, either, since blood would be splashed on a doorway... and could not have been eaten as part of the meal.

Where did this cannibalistic ritual come from?  In the O.T. people sacrificed their children, but God supposedly condemned that as a foreign practice.  And cannibalism was a form of punishment or a way to deal with hunger after being smote by God.  So God certainly shouldn't have done it himself.  Sacrifice as atonement for sins by offering a burnt animal took place only at the Temple, and the sacrifice was given by sinners to the priests.  Jesus didn't offer to have himself burned, or offer burned flesh to the disciples.

It's easy to see why this new cult had trouble convincing Jews to join.  This supposed rabbi was teaching something totally unorthodox and repulsive to them.



The Bible's contradictions, inconsistencies, errors and what-nots... What do they mean?

Well, it depends on whether you are a fundamentalist, and on how much of a fundamentalist you are.  If you subscribe to the "Fundamentals" as published 100 years ago, then you believe there are no irreconcilable inconsistencies in the Bible. If you are the kind of uber-fundamentalist modern fanatic, you believe there are no inconsistencies at all.  Of course, that also means you haven't actually read the thing.

The many contradictions, inconsistencies, and errors in the Bible are proof that the Bible can't possibly be the inerrant perfect document they believe it to be.  This means that their God isn't the perfect God they believe him to be, because the Bible is His book.  Or it means that the Bible is entirely the product of the human imagination, with a bit of history thrown in to make it more convincing.

And yes, Christians are taught to believe in the perfection of the Bible (which they know is perfect because the Bible says it is).

They get around the disagreements amongst the gospel accounts of Jesus' life by claiming the Bible is the accurate representation of what the witnesses said.  This doesn't account for the differences between the two genealogies of Christ, nor does it explain why Christ even has a genealogy traced through Joseph if he was conceived by the Holy Ghost.

The key word is "irreconcilable."  Reconciling the inconsistencies and contradictions of the Bible is part of  what's called "apologetics."

For the first time in history, we can read both sides of the debate online.  So as an example, the Jesus genealogy, this essay brings up some interesting points, including a curse on some of the kings in Joseph's lineage.  Thebibleanswer guy claims it's cultural, and anyway the Luke genealogy is through Mary's family.  Paul Carlson says that's baloney, since people of the time believed that sperm alone were the source of a baby and the woman was merely the incubator.

A Mormon site claims the Matthew lineage was about legal, not genetic, succession.  Fair enough.  Then they point out that Luke's version could apply to either Mary or Joseph since they were cousins.  This seems to come from what Catholics call "tradition."

Apparently, you can reconcile the infallibility of the Bible with its inconsistencies by having a Perfect Deity fail to insert qualifiers saying why the two are different.  You can also leave out aspects that could be read "wrong," such as a cursed king being part of Jesus' lineage.

And you can interpret writings as human-inspired despite the Bible supposedly being inspired by God.  If the reason for both lineages was to convince two groups of people of Christ's valid claim to be the next great King, then that makes them propaganda, not history.