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Religious Time Machine

Wednesday 24 May 2023

I’ve sometimes wondered what it might be like to travel back in time with our current understanding of the physical world to a time when people thought witches cast spells, that comets were harbingers of the future, that thunder and lightning were from the gods. What kind of frustrating hell would that be to experience others making decisions — occasionally life and death decisions — based solely on uneducated superstition? We would watch in horror as pseudo-physicians drilled holes in epileptics’ heads to allow the evil spirits to escape. We would watch aghast as women accused of witchcraft were burned at the stake, crushed, drowned, and killed in ineffably evil ways. We would witness the spread of the Black Death through Europe and the accompanying brutal attacks against the Jews, whom the non-Jews viewed as responsible for the plague through supernatural means.

With all this swirling around us, we would, I think, find it difficult to keep quiet. As we would attempt to explain to these scientific illiterates the reality of germs, epilepsy, and the complete lack of evidence for the efficacy of witchcraft, we would likely find ourselves labeled as perpetrators of similar acts. Our defense would get us labeled as being “in league with the devil” and likely result in our own persecution or death. If we kept quiet, the frustration of watching people killed, maimed, and tortured in the name of superstition and illogic would take quite a toll on our mental health.

Yet we don’t have to imagine what it would be like to live among the scientifically illiterate who have only the most tenuous grasp on logic because we already do. This is the reality we’re experiencing now watching Qanon proponents try to explain that there is a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who harvest adrenochrome from kidnapped babies who are then raped and devoured. This is the reality we’re experiencing now watching people make unsubstantiated claims about stolen elections even when adequate evidence to the contrary exists. This is the reality we’re experiencing now watching people fall in line behind the far-right position that Russia is the good guy in its war with Ukraine, which has in fact been in various nefarious conspiracies with this or that group bent on world domination. People are swallowing whole lies that are so obviously and ridiculously false that it strains one’s imagination that anyone could respond to such suppositions with anything other than incredulous laughter.

Why would people believe this?

It’s simple: they’re primed to believe things like this. Most of those who hold these various conspiracy theories are on the far-right of the political spectrum, and that usually aligns with the fundamentalist wing of Christianity. These individuals are disproportionally evangelical Christians, and this means they take the Bible literally. There really was a talking snake in the Garden of Eden (indeed, there really was a Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve). Balaam’s donkey really did rebuke Balaam for beating him. Jonah really did survive in a fish for three days. People really do suffer demon possession that results in behavior suspiciously similar to epilepsy. And behind this all lurks an evil spirit secretly pulling the strings of all left-leaning individuals, institutions, and ideologies in an effort to ensnare souls and drag them down to hell with him.

Evangelicals are not the only ones holding these conspiracy theories; Catholics increasingly are falling for them as well. Their view of the source of evil in the world so much the less nuanced that they have a prayer about it:

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Yet no matter whether Evangelical or Catholic, these fundamentalists have one thing in common: their religion itself is a conspiracy theory.

Response: I’m Not All That Impressed with Exvangelical Deconstruction Stories

Tuesday 23 May 2023

“Deconstruction” is the current term for deconverting from Christianity. I’m sure it’s applicable to other religions, and I know not all people who deconstruct end up abandoning their faith altogether, but by and large, the end result of deconstruction is a new skeptic.

The Christian response to this has fallen into a few categories:

  1. They deny that the person was ever a true Christian to begin with.
  2. They blame the churches for incomplete catechesis.
  3. They play down the deconversions by calling them silly or suggesting that their objections are basic and even juvenile.
  4. They suggest that the new skeptic “just wants to sin.”
  5. They blame the parents for not teaching their children their faith well enough.
  6. They suggest that de-conversions do not result in a lack of faith but rather a change in where the faith is placed.

Occasionally, a Christian response can’t quite decide which tack to take and simple mixes and matches responses. Such is the case with Grayson Gilbert’s “I’m Not All That Impressed with Exvangelical Deconstruction Stories” from a couple of years ago.

Gilbert begins condescendingly enough by referencing the “never-ending supply of pastors, pastor’s kids, and artists formerly known as Christians” who are leaving the faith. There may be a number of “grand excuses,” Gilbert suggests, but he insists that the “fundamental issue behind every one of these de-conversion stories” is the fact that, as the Bible explains in I John 2.15, they “went out from us, but they were not of us.”

Gilbert pretends to preempt objections in the next paragraph by acknowledging that for many it’s not an inadequate answer because “it’s a bit too Calvinistic.” That’s a very theologically based objection, firmly grounded in an acceptance of the basic tenants of Christianity and quibbling over details, but most skeptics’ objections would be to question the validity of Gilbert’s and St. John’s foundational assumption: they left Christianity because they were never really Christian.

Forget for a moment how utterly and arrogantly childish it is to suggest that, despite skeptics’ protestations to the contrary, these true Christians can read the mind and know the intentions of those who have rejected Christianity. The truth of the issue is simple: most people who leave Christianity do so reluctantly. They want to believe, but they find they no longer can. Evidence and arguments that once convinced them no longer do. But for a Christian still in the fold, the thought that someone who is a true Christian (how Christians love to be gatekeepers with each other) could lose their faith is terrifying because it means if someone else lost their faith, they could, too. To allay these fears, the only option is to suggest that these individuals never were really Christian in the first place.

Gilbert then deals with a particularly famous ex-evangelical, Abraham Piper, who is the son of John Piper, a Protestant theologian who has written a number of books and runs a successful online ministry in addition to his real-world church. Gilbert points out that “Abraham has taken a fancy to TikTok with clever, catchy tidbits of him mocking the Christian faith.” That sentence is just dripping with derision: Abraham’s efforts online to point out the flaws he sees in Christianity are not a serious work but instead “a fancy.” His succinct observations are merely “catchy tidbits” unworthy of serious consideration. And he is not critiquing Christianity, which would require a measured response; he’s mocking Christianity, which can be easily dismissed and forgotten.

In a parenthetical remark, Gilbert suggests that mocking Christianity “is so in vogue today.” Never mind that this is not a question of popularity; what’s more significant is the notion that critics are merely “mocking” the Christian faith, much like childish bullies mock their victims. It produces the victim complex that Christians expect from exhortations in the Bible, and it downplays the seriousness of the critiques themselves. Christian theology has caused real-world pain and done significant damage in a lot of people’s lives. It has destroyed self-confidence in its near-continual insistence that humans are worthless trash. It has caused untold damage in its institutional misogyny and homophobia. It has literally killed thousands upon thousands in religious wars. It threatens the planet with its denial of science. It stifles critical thinking and encourages blind faith obedience. Leaving this mindset can produce a sense of relief, but if this is something that the new skeptic’s parents taught them, something that’s been a central pillar in their life for so long, there can be understandable anger arising as a result. Gilbert explains he uses some of Abraham Piper’s videos to discuss “the nature of the Proverbial fool” with his son, thus attempting to ensure that his son instinctively reacts as he does without giving further thought to the motives or reasoning behind a de-conversion.

Far from the fact that the son of a celebrated and admired pillar in the Evangelical community has left the faith might depress Gilbert, he insists that he now has “a deeper appreciation for John Piper.  “It led me to see that despite Abraham’s brutal mockery of all his father and mother stand for and love, it testifies of his paternal faithfulness,” he insists.

How does Gilbert square this round hole? He explains that it is a sign of “the faithfulness of a man like John Piper in raising his son to be so inundated with biblical truth that he still can’t quite get away from it well into his adult life. It is constantly on the tip of the tongue; he cannot go about life without thinking of the God he professes to reject.” This is an attempt, in other words, to turn a loss into a win. Gilbert doesn’t consider the possibility that the reason Abraham Piper is critiquing Christianity online is to try to help people who are facing the pain and frustration that rigid, fundamentalist Christianity can inflict (see above). Notice, too, the wording: “the God he professes to reject.” This is a not-so-subtle dig at Piper through a subtle allusion to Romans 1:20:

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Abraham doesn’t really reject it, in other words. He knows there’s a god — he just wants to sin.

Still, even if John Piper had not been a good Christian parent, it’s not his fault if his son rejects faith (and thereby condemns himself, in the Christian view, to hell):

Many a parent neglected to make the Word central in the home, raised their children to be good, obedient pagans, and then wondered why their children came back from school with all sorts of ideas that run contrary to the Christian faith. The onus is still on these children to search out the truth of Scripture, regardless of how bad a job mom and dad have done.

As a skeptic, I have to wonder how one could worship a god that creates such a confusing book that requires a library of explanation and commentary to understand and then sends you to hell if you don’t understand it properly. That’s probably something along the lines of what some of these de-conversion experiences went through as well.

Soon after this, Gilbert switches his argument and employs the “well, everyone is religious” suggestion: the “Religious Nones” are in fact misnamed: “everyone is a devotee to some belief system, whether agnostic, atheistic, or the ever-vague “spiritualistic but not religious” group.” It’s funny how “religious” becomes something of an insult in this case.

Finally, after tossing this argument and that argument at the idea of de-conversion, Gilbert launches his main attack:

I’ve come to be more and more convinced that the vast majority of those who reject the Christian faith do so on the basis of intellectual laziness, intellectual dishonesty, or simple ignorance. They either don’t care to find the answers, they don’t care to hear the answers, or, they don’t know where to even begin.

He classifies the case various ex-Evangelicals have leveled against Christianity thusly:

The objections that people like Rhett and Link, Abraham Piper, the Gungors, Newboys’ former member George Perdikis, dc Talk’s Kevin Max, Joshua Harris, Derek Webb, et al., have, are basic, Sunday school level objections. In where we are in the history of the church, these aren’t even the interesting questions that Christians have any more. These are some of the most basic elements of the historic Christian faith that it leaves many of us wondering if these people took much time at all to crack open some dusty, old tomes from dead guys on the subjects.

This is because for

anyone who has taken the time to actually study these things in depth, the question isn’t if someone has given a satisfying answer to reconcile the apparent contradictions of the Scriptures, given exhaustive treatment on things like textual criticism and transmission, or provided ample solutions to the “problem passages” we find as finite readers.

In other words, they reject Christianity because they are lazy, and even though all the answers to all their objections have been covered time and time again, they reject them in their ignorance. In still other words, they haven’t read the right books, and indeed they probably haven’t even looked for the right books.

Speaking as someone who has done the reading and looked for the answers, I can simply say this: it is entirely possible that someone can start questioning their faith, look for and find answers to their questions, and find those answers unconvincing. We cannot choose what ideas convince us and what ideas don’t, and to suggest that the only other alternative is ignorance or laziness sloppy argumentation at best and simple vilification at worst.

But in the end, that’s to be expected when we consider the intended audience. Gilbert is not seeking to convince wayward Christians of the errors of their ways; he’s soothing the worried faith of those who worry that they in turn might find their Christian faith lacking. If someone like Abraham Piper can reject Christianity, anyone can. But not us, assures Gilbert. We’re real Christians; we know that no matter the objection, there’s an answer for it out there. Notice, though, that Gilbert didn’t rehearse any of the objections or their answers. He simply swept them all away with an easy flick of the wrist: the answers are out there. Surely they’re convincing…

Modern Gnosticism

Monday 22 May 2023

I encountered a meme that got me thinking about the relationship between Christianity and conspiracy theories. It was a meme dealing with the supposedly soon-coming apocalypse that will usher in the end of the world and the return of Jesus (if you’re a post-trib millennialist, I guess).

This sort of hyperventilating anticipation of being able to say “I told you so!” is fairly typical of the fundamentalist Christian mindset, and it’s one of the reasons I’d be nervous having a fundamentalist Evangelical in the White House: he (and it would certainly be a “he”) would be tempted to make decisions based on a sense of what might help prophecy along. At any rate, the meme suggests that skeptics will soon be put in their place:

This sort of gnostic conspiracy theory is part and parcel of the Evangelical tradition. They await anxiously the events suggested in the meme, and the suggestion that Christians have been waiting for 2000 years for something like this is wasted breath. Every Christian generation has had a portion of people who are sure that they are the last generation. Indeed, Jesus himself in the earliest gospel seems to think this:

And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with[a] power.’

Mark 9:1

I grew up in a heterodox sect that took this gnostic conspiracy theory nonsense to the next level, suggesting that its members (numbering less than 150,000 at its peak) were the only true Christians on the entire planet. That’s probably why I’m so skeptical of this nonsense.

Review: The End of White Christian America

Tuesday 25 April 2023

Evangelical Christianity as the dominant political force in America is dying from a self-inflicted wound. To suggest that Christianity in America is not waning is to ignore the obvious. But just in case, there are data to back it up:

Robert Jones’s book looks at the decline of white Christian America (which he shortens to WCA) through a couple of lenses, but most significantly, the decline of WCA is due to its stance on homosexuality:

Today, many white Christian Americans feel profoundly anxious. As is common among extended families, WCA’s two primary branches, white mainline and white evangelical Protestants, have competing narratives about WCA’s decline. White mainline Protestants blame evangelical Protestants for turning off the younger generation with their antigay rhetoric and tendency to conflate Christianity with conservative, nationalistic politics. White evangelical Protestants, on the other hand, blame mainline Protestants for undermining Christianity because of their willingness to sell out traditional beliefs to accommodate contemporary culture.

Traditional Protestantism and more progressive Protestantism are both point their finger at the other, but the dilemma is real:

Moreover, more than seven in ten (72 percent) Millennials agree that religious groups are estranging young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues. Seniors are the only age group among whom less than a majority (44 percent) agree. The dilemma for many churches is this: they are anchored, both financially and in terms of lay support, by older Americans, who are less likely to perceive a problem that the overwhelming majority of younger Americans say is there.

As a skeptic, I can’t help but find hope in this.

Selective Reading

Tuesday 11 April 2023

The kids were reading about Jim Crow laws as part of the To Kill a Mockingbird unit that we started a couple of weeks ago. Part of the article dealt with the religious justification some Christians used to explain the harsh segregation of Jim Crow times. One young lady — a sweet kid that always has a smile — wrote the following comment:

It reminded me of the suggestion that Christians who don’t read their Bibles are Catholic, Christians who read their favorite parts are Protestants, and Christians who read the Bible critically from cover to cover become atheists. It is, perhaps, an over-simplification, but I’d be willing to bet this young lady goes to one of those Protestant churches that are well-versed (no pun initially intended) in the parts of the Bible that make the feel good and avoid completely the tricky parts.

Parts like 1 Peter 2:18: “Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate but also to those who are harsh.”

Or Philemon 1: 15, 16, in which Paul sends back a slave to his owner, suggesting, “Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever—no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.” He could have suggested that slavery is wrong, but he chose not to.

Or all the countless passages in the Old Testament instructing Israelites on the proper use of their slaves.

I, of course, said none of these things to her. It’s not my place: I’m there to teach them, in part, how to think critically, not what to think. However, a close reading of the text…

Check, Please

Sunday 9 April 2023

I need to contest some of these charges.

To begin with, I don’t accept your view of sin. Sin is the violation of a deity’s will; since I don’t believe in a deity, I don’t sin. You can say I sin, but that’s just in your perspective, accepting as a given the deity you believe in.

Additionally, the shame you indicate I should have never showed up. I don’t feel shame for sinning — see above.

As for the pain and past mistakes, I don’t think your product does anything for that. My past mistakes remain mistakes; pain remains. It’s a defective product, in other words.

Rejection and loneliness? I know a lot of people who use your product and experience that. Indeed, your sales force itself practices rejection on a regular basis. Come to think of it, it regularly engages in shaming people as well.

Slavery to sin? See above.

Spiritual death? I don’t even know what that could possibly mean.

Jesus might have paid it all in your scheme of things, but I bought none of it.

Leaving the Faith

Wednesday 5 April 2023

The post stood out immediately: I can relate, and so can K. Granted, I hadn’t been attending Mass as long as the gentleman in question, but I could see myself in the post:

“I am very lost & confused as to where all of this came from,” she admits, and I find myself wondering how this came about. Perhaps the husband had been on this long road of deconversion for years and simply kept it to himself because he didn’t want his wife to worry. Perhaps as the issues piled up in his head he was in some sort of denial. Perhaps he dropped hints, unsure how to begin the conversation outright, and she just didn’t pick up on them because they were so incongruous with everything she knew about him or because he, inexperienced with dropping such hints, was unable to do so in a sufficiently clear way. (That’s the double problem with dropping hints.) Whatever the case, from her perspective, it’s coming out of nowhere.

In responding to this, some people shared that they can relate. But at least a couple had me wondering if effective communication was actually taking place. One response declared that her son had become “a socialist.”

Perhaps he does not align with a socialist political position, but knowing conservatives of the 2020s, it could simply be that he’s now aligned himself with the Democratic party and the mother, true to Fox News talking points, simply labels him a socialist.

To that response, someone commiserated that “it’s absolutely awful what this world is doing today,” to which the original commenter replied that “it is getting scary.” She suggests it’s “this world,” which is American Christian-ese “the Satan-influenced, Satan-worshiping society we live in,” which in turn is simply the non-Christian segment of the population. And it’s getting “scary” because more and more people are realizing that they don’t need Christianity in their lives: church attendance is plummeting, especially among those under 40. These two ladies see the issue in terms of society as a whole, but they fail to understand the underlying causes, attributing it most likely to Satan’s growing influence.

Some, however, did see that it wasn’t simply a question of Satan’s supposed influence but also a question of the hypocrisy and judgmental nature of contemporary American Christianity:

This comment reveals what I see as one of the primary causes of declining church attendance: the church is continually creating situations that amount to self-inflicted wounds.

Fundamentalist Christians insist that the Genesis account is accurate and that evolutionary theory is a Satanic lie. Then their children learn about the mountain of evidence supporting evolution and they’re forced to choose between the faith of their parents or, as they see it, reality.

Fundamentalist Christians insist that homosexuality has no place in a Christian worldview. Then their children meet queer people and realize, “Hey, they’re not the devils they’re made out to be,” and another church teaching falls to the side.

Fundamentalist Christians remove from their fellowship individuals who choose not to live according to fundamentalist interpretations of sexual morality, and their children find out their soccer coach has been fired, despite parents’ and players’ begging, mid-season because she got pregnant out of wedlock. Then the players are crushed, and a handful of them start thinking, “If this is how Christians behave, I don’t think I need that in my life.”

These are just a handful of the ways modern Christianity is sabotaging itself. Perhaps something like this went on with these commenters’ children.

Others tried to fix the problem.

What happens when prayer doesn’t work, though? What happens when these people are still not returning to church? These poor folks then have a second layer of doubt: why isn’t God helping my child save herself? What am I doing wrong that is preventing this prayer from being answered?

As an aside, the metaphor of prayer as “storming heaven” is always a little strange for me. “Storming” is always used in the sense of an assault — storming the beaches of Normandy. Soldiers storm a position because it’s held by the enemy. In this case, “storming heaven” has connotations of viewing God as an enemy. I’m certain this is not what they intend, but I’m equally certain they’ve never really thought about the metaphor. It just sounds like strong, intense praying — praying really hard.

Some people just passively-aggressively blamed the believers: it’s your fault. You’re not trying hard enough. You’re not holy enough.

This could not possibly be helpful. Such a response only increases the sense of overwhelming guilt these people must feel. As with the “storming heaven” metaphor, this commenter probably didn’t even think this comment out.

Finally, there was the Catholic sense of magical thinking on full display:

The Catholic reliance on relics and holy objects fascinates me. What would this scapular actually do? How would it affect things? And since this husband would be unaware that it’s there, would that amount to God acting against this guy’s will, thus negating the cherished notion of free will, a staple among Christians for explaining how evil exists on earth given the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, completely-benevolent god?

I can’t really blame them for their thinking, though: there are certain lines a Christian cannot cross, and “he might have had perfectly good reasons for leaving Christianity, and he might have done so in good faith” is one of them. In such a case, if he found a reason to leave, perhaps I could as well — and that’s unthinkable.

No matter the reason he’d give, though, it wouldn’t be good enough for them.

The Shift: Initial Thoughts

Thursday 30 March 2023

I’ve begun reading The Shift: Surviving and Thriving After Moving from Conservative to Progressive Christianity by Colby Martin. I’ve read a number of books and articles about people who start doubting traditional Christianity and end up leaving it altogether, but I’d never read anything about taking that first step but ending up still in some form of Christianity. The idea intrigued me. Not because I’m interested in finding a place for myself in progressive Christianity but rather because I like reading about different people’s experiences of faith.

I don’t enjoy reading shitty writing, and I’m afraid that’s what this is. The ideas might be good, but the writing so far is awful. Take a look at this passage from the introduction:

Not to brag, but I’m pretty good at sleeping. Normally, it welcomes me like a freshly hired Walmart greeter. But one evening, just before finishing this book, it treated me more like the Costco exit guard who scans your receipt, glances with unprovoked judgment toward your cart, and won’t let you go until you acquire the Sharpie swipe of victory. Frustrated, I stared into the darkness, scanning the receipt of my brain for what held me back from passing to the void. I tossed and turned on my Casper mattress. I fluffed and re-fluffed my Tuft & Needle pillow. Maybe my issue is that I fall prey to too many Facebook ads? Nah, that’s ridiculous, I thought as I unclasped my MVMT watch.

Dear Lord, why do people who have no idea how to construct compelling figurative language insist on doing it anyway? I know there’s tone-deafness; is there metaphor-deafness as well?

And what is the point of all this brand name dropping? His “Casper mattress”? His “Tuft & Needle pillow”? His “MVMT watch”? Did he read somewhere that good writing includes details and so he’s going to include the brand of every damn thing he mentions?

An Apologist’s Response

Wednesday 8 March 2023

While discussing the difference between the Old Testament god and the vision of the Christian god we see in Jesus, a social media commenter suggested I read Dr. Jeff Mirus’s “Making Sense of the Old Testament God” in which he attempts to “make God’s ways under the Old Covenant easier to understand” as a reader had requested. He concludes his introduction by admitting that he “can only do [his] best,” which seems to be a tacit admission that there really is no way definitively to reconcile these two visions of the Christian god and that it’s a matter of faith.

Mirus begins by suggesting that there’s not such a disparity between the seemingly harsh god of the OT and the loving god of the NT. There are two ways he does this. First, he argues that there are many passages in the OT that show a deity in line with what we see from Jesus. Fair enough. But he then suggests that Jesus had a harsh streak himself: Jesus’s “denouncing hard-hearted Jewish leaders, lamenting those who lead others into sin, rebuking the wealthy, condemning hypocrites, and foretelling disaster for unbelieving communities” were harsh elements of “Our Lord’s effort to wake us up.” He then quotes Matthew 11:21-24 in which Jesus does a lot of “Woe to you”-ing. Yet there is a big difference between genocide and harsh words. There is a chasm between rebuking someone and stoning them. This is like saying Truman was as harsh as Stalin because he yelled at people.

As the article develops, so does the offensive weirdness of Mirus’s logic. Regarding the harsh nature of the OT god’s commands to slaughter so many people, he suggests, “Finally, we must not forget the decisive separation of the sheep from the goats—those who will be sent into eternal fire.” He is literally saying that the acts of cruelty we see from the Christian god in the OT pale in comparison to hell. In other words, “Yes, our god was pretty cruel in those times, but just think about how cruel he’ll be toward you for eternity in hell!” There are elements of our god that are even more appalling than what we see in the OT, so this god is really actually good. This is another example of how Christians seem to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome: the very god that “saves” them is the being that creates the conditions from which they long to be saved!

Mirus then deals with a second “misconception [..] that the Old Testament authors thought of God’s will in exactly the same way as we do today.”

This gets at the tension between the obvious fact that humans wrote the Bible and yet Christians claim that their god inspired the Bible. Where does divine authorship/inspiration leave off and human creation begin? In saying that “the Old Testament author thought of God’s will” in any way that could be discernable in the text is to negate the divine authorship. Surely what the human authors thought would not interfere with the divinely giving knowledge of the reality of the situation. But this very idea that somehow the Biblical authors’ own ideas got inadvertently mixed in with the divine revelation gives apologists the room they need to excuse the OT god of any wrongdoing.

Mirus continues by asserting that many of the abuses in the Bible are not God’s responsibility: “It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that everything recounted in the Old Testament is the will of God.” He then relates the story of Jephthah, who made a vow to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his door if his god would grant him military victory. When Jephthah returns home, his daughter runs out to greet him, which necessitates him slaughtering her as a sacrifice to his god.

Mirus argues that this is all on Jephthah and that we cannot hold the OT god accountable for this. That might very well be a good point that solves this dilemma, but it does nothing for the seemingly-countless times this god does indeed command people to do awful things. It’s a softball pitch intended to make readers more confident in the Bible and Mirus’s argument.

In dealing with the OT god’s commands for genocide, he asks, “Is there a significant difference between reading what God has done to this or that person or this or that people in the Old Testament, either directly or indirectly, as compared with the manner in which He appoints our lives, including the circumstances and agencies through which we will die, and which He alone both knows and contains within His own Providential limits?” In other words, our god is in control of how we die anyway, so does it really make him such a monster to kill us in this manner or that manner? He is, after all, a god: he can do what he wants! He made us; he sustains us; it’s his choice.

First, imagine saying that about your own infant child: “Surely I can kill this child. I made her. I sustain her.” What wretched monster would think like that?

Second, apologists can use this line of reasoning to excuse any action they undertake, no matter how horrific

Why Don’t I Believe?

Tuesday 24 January 2023

I was having an exchange on Twitter (I would say “conversation,” but that would be a terribly inflated label given the medium) about my disbelief. “Do you know why the Bible says you don’t believe?” my interlocutor asked.

I was confident I’d hear Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” It’s a favorite among apologists, so I was ready to hear my questioner suggest that I really had no excuse, that I did believe but was just hiding the fact — probably because I “just want to sin.” These moves are as standard as any established chess opening.

Taking that all into consideration, I responded, “I have a hard heart. I refuse to see despite the evidence all around me. Lay the verse from Romans on me, baby! I’m ready!”

Instead, the fellow replied with a verse I’d never really noticed: “He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them” (John 12:40).

How could I have not noticed this verse before? This passage presents a positively damning view of this god, and I pointed this out: “He then is responsible. Your god created me, blinded me, then damned me for being blind. Do you guys not see how sick this is? Do you guys not understand it’s perverse thinking like this that prompts so many to question their faith?”

I was expecting an explanation for how this can make the New Testament god appear to be heartless and even capriciously cruel, that preventing someone from believing and then punishing him for that disbelief is in fact some unfathomable mystery that ultimately will work to this god’s “greater glory” (what an immature, insecure being this god of Christianity is, always demanding praise and worship and smiting those who don’t fall in line — sounds a bit like North Korea). Instead, I got another verse:

But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the [veil] is taken away in Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:14 (New King James Version)

That “Old Testament” bit sounded a bit strange, so I looked it up to find other translations:

  • But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. (New International Version)
  • The people were stubborn, and something still keeps them from seeing the truth when the Law is read. Only Christ can take away the covering that keeps them from seeing. (Contemporary English Version)
  • But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. (New Revised Standard Version)

I suspect this translation to “Old Testament” instead of “old covenant” is to create a sense of continuity between the New Testament and what it views itself as replacing in some sense — a propaganda move, in other words.

Still, I resisted the urge to comment on that (and thus radically derail the topic under discussion) and stuck to the point: “So your god blinds me and then punishes me for being blind. How can you not see how perverse that is?”

He, however, had no qualms about radically changing the topic, which I see as another typical apologetic move. Instead of dealing with what I said, he replied, “I see someone who fights tooth and nail against God. What makes you more deserving? You are already under the judgement [sic] of God.”

“It’s like you willfully misconstrue my objection,” I concluded.