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Thursday 22 February 2024

George Carlin once called religion “the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims” in his “religion is bullshit” bit:

Part of the bullshit of the Christian religion is its attempts to verbally meander itself out of the corners it paints itself into. Christianity is a monotheistic religion; it also has a god that has three persons; but that’s not the same as three gods; but it’s three distinct persons.

Bullshit.

Catholicism is particularly adept at this kind of word salad, this verbal meandering, that says absolutely nothing but sure sounds fancy nonetheless. Here’s Bishop Robert Barron’s take on how the Trinity makes sense:

God is, in his ownmost reality, not a monolith but a communion of persons. From all eternity, the Father speaks himself, and this Word that he utters is the Son. A perfect image of his Father, the Son shares fully the actuality of the Father: unity, omniscience, omnipresence, spiritual power. This means that, as the Father gazes at the Son, the Son gazes back at the Father. Since each is utterly beautiful, the Father falls in love with the Son and the Son with the Father-and they sigh forth their mutual love. This holy breath (Spiritus Sanctus) is the Holy Spirit. These three “persons” are distinct, yet they do not constitute three Gods.

Robert Barron, This Is My Body

In what sense could one being be said to “speak himself” and then have this “Word that he utters” be both “the Son” and himself? How the hell does a being speak another being that’s the same being? It’s nonsense.

And then there’s this: “This means that, as the Father gazes at the Son, the Son gazes back at the Father. Since each is utterly beautiful, the Father falls in love with the Son and the Son with the Father-and they sigh forth their mutual love.” What is this, a theological Harlequin Romance? It’s so vapid that I’m embarrassed for Barron: the man has a doctorate from the Sorbonne (I think), and he writes nonsense like that?!

Source

Wednesday 21 February 2024

At E’s basketball practice a few weeks ago, I noticed some Catholic reading materials free for the taking, so always interested in what others say about religion, I took some copies. One of them was This Is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival by Bishop Robert Barron, whom I’ve written about here and here (among other posts).

The Good Reads blurb summarizes:

A recent Pew Forum survey revealed the startling statistic that 69% of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For the majority of Catholics today, the Eucharist is merely a symbol of Christ, and the Mass is merely a collectivity of like-minded individuals gathering to remember his life.

This indicates a spiritual disaster, for the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” In response to this crisis, Bishop Robert Barron, then the Chair of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, began working with his brother bishops on a solution. From these conversations, the National Eucharistic Revival was born.

This Is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival is designed to accompany that revival. In this brief but illuminating text, Bishop Barron offers a threefold analysis of the Eucharist as sacred meal, sacrifice, and Real Presence, helping readers to understand the sacrament of Jesus’ Body and Blood more thoroughly so that they might fall in love with him more completely.

Discover the profound truth flowing out of Jesus’ words at the Last “Take, eat; this is my body. . . . Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant.”

I’ll have a lot more to say about the topic of the book later, but there was one little bit that caught my eye this evening:

One of the most beautiful evocations of this heavenly meal is found in the twenty-first chapter of John’s Gospel. The author of John’s Gospel was a literary genius, and his work is marked by subtle and intricate symbolism. Therefore, we must proceed carefully as we examine this story.

It seems this depiction of John writing his gospel (of course, John didn’t write the gospel; all four gospels are anonymous, with the names we associate with them becoming attached a century or two after they were written, if memory serves) describes a strictly human author. The human author of the book seems to be the literary genius. But wasn’t the author God according to Christians? How can both of these statements be true?

It’s really part of the song and dance more liberal Christians use to deal with the trickier parts of the Bible while holding on to the tasty bits they enjoy. The ugly parts? That’s human. The beautiful parts? That’s God.

But a Catholic like Barron would take a self-contradictory notion that there were human limitations but God’s still the ultimate author. Pious Catholics, it seems, don’t have a problem with contradictions, but one only need look at the topic of Barron’s book — transubstantiation — to see that.

Bed and Faith

Tuesday 20 February 2024

Written on Wednesday 14 July 2021 at 6:54 PM

Getting out of bed is so simple an act that we do it without thinking. We might sometimes want to stay in bed a bit longer, but the act of slinging our feet off the bed and hoisting ourselves into a sitting position — we don’t give that much thought.

When I had my hernia surgery some six years ago, I realized how much we use our abdominal muscles to get out of bed, and because those muscles were terribly sore after surgery, I thought very much about getting out of bed. It was painful, and I wanted to get out of bed quickly to lessen the time my muscles burned, but the act of getting out of bed quickly made them hurt all the more. It was a lose-lose situation. The decision to get out of bed, then, was always a reluctant one.

On the other hand, every time I’ve overslept, I’ve leapt out of bed in a single motion, and it’s a conscious act: I’ve got to get out of the bed as fast as possible and into the shower as fast as possible so I can get dressed and bolt downstairs as fast as possible to grab something to shove down my throat as fast as possible so I can get to work as fast as possible.

Other than that, I rarely think about getting out of bed. The physical act is simple, effortless, and without consideration of its simple significance, a significance that doesn’t appear as such until the ability to do so disappears.

In two or three weeks my father has gone from being semi-independent (such that we could leave him alone for stretches up to eight hours) to being completely bedridden. I don’t think he’s quite come to accept that fact or even completely to understand it. There’s still hope in his mind that he will one day be walking again. I don’t think that’s the case; the doctors don’t think that’s the case; and deep down, he probably doesn’t think it’s the case. Several times a day he tries to get out of bed only for us to remind him that it’s not safe for him to get out of bed. He says things like, “I can’t wait until I get out of this bed and get back to normal.” He doesn’t realize that this new normal is just that, nor does he realize that tragically this new normal will only last for some period of time (weeks? months?) before the next dip, the next drop in his condition, the next “new normal.”

Every new normal makes the previous one look like a paradise. Every new normal reminds us all anew that no matter how trying and depressing for all of us involved, it’s only going to get more trying and more depressing. Every new normal makes the old one seem eons ago. Every new normal quickly begins to feel like it will always be normal, that it will stagnate. That it has stagnated. And then another dip. Another episode. Another new normal.

And the bed he occupies becomes his whole environment, his whole world, his prison.

How anyone could watch how this man is suffering mentally and emotionally and believe that the god he dedicated his life to, supported fiscally (so to speak), and was eternally devoted to would turn his back on him in his time of need — how anyone could think in such a situation that a god like that could exist, and if that god did exist, how it could be considered anything other than capricious and evil, I just don’t know. Belief gives hope, apologists claim. Yet it also gives despair. “What have I done to deserve this?” Dad has asked in his lucid moments. “Why won’t God do something after I’ve devoted my life to him?” Nana pleaded. For both of them, I think, it’s not a matter of “Why doesn’t God heal me so I can go back to my normal life” but something more basic: “Why is God allowing me to suffer like this instead of just letting me die peacefully in my sleep tonight? Why do I wake up day after day to this same prison?”

He remains, as far as I can tell, steadfast in his faith. “I know where I’m going” is his general demeanor, and that might give him some comfort. But I can’t help but think that perhaps that comfort is not worth the anguish it also brings.

In the meantime, we try to comfort him in those admittedly-rare moments of angst, keep him calm throughout the day, and help him take each day in his bed one moment at a time. I don’t know that there’s much more we could hope to do.

Coping

Tuesday 13 February 2024

An article by Karl Vaters entitled “13 Reasons Not to Worry About the Future of the Church” offers insight into how Christians are dealing with the nosedive in attendance and affiliation they are experiencing in America. Vaters acknowledges this immediately:

The church is in trouble.

It must be. My blog feed keeps telling me it is.

For several years now, barely a day goes by without someone writing about the imminent demise of the body of Christ.

Everyone seems to have a different reason why they think the church is dying:

  • The “nones” are growing faster than the church
  • The “dones” are leaving faster than we’re replacing them
  • People aren’t singing together any more
  • Offerings are way down
  • Regulars attend less often than they used to

The post-pandemic turndown seems to be permanent in many places
But despite all the gloom and doom, I have not lost one moment of sleep over the demise of the church.

That Vaters feels no stress reveals the basic disconnect between believers and non-believers on this matter, and that gap is, I’m afraid, permanent and unbridgeable.

It’s evident from the first of thirteen points he makes:

Point 1: The Church Belongs to Jesus, Not Us.

The explanation for this point is one sentence: “And Jesus knows what he’s doing.” God is in control, believers insist, and so even if it looks bleak, his steadfastness is cause for calm. But this, of course, assumes that Jesus/God exists and operates the way Christians believe he does. They are not open to the possibility that the reason people are leaving religion is because they’ve realized the truth: gods don’t exist. Instead, these people are somehow deceived or never were Christians to begin with. This seems a little obvious, perhaps even axiomatic, but the shortsightedness inherent in such a position (“We could be wrong!”) means they will be in constant denial about the reality of the problem, and as it worsens, some of Vaters’s more moderate positions might radicalize.

Point 2: The Picture Is Not As Bleak as We Think

His second point is an attempt to make things global:

While the European and North American church is dealing with significant issues, the church in many parts of the world is experiencing strong, steady growth. As reported at Lifeway.com, “There are fewer atheists around the world today (147 million) than in 1970 (165 million), and the Gordon-Conwell report expects the number to continue to decline into 2050.” Plus, “Not only is religion growing overall, but Christianity specifically is growing,” especially in the global south.

We could summarize this point as follows: Sure, in the West, where scientific literacy is steadily rising, religion is on the decline. But in the developing world, where scientific literacy lags, it’s growing.

If the growth of your religion is most pronounced where scientific literacy is most lacking, it doesn’t say much about the foundations of your religion.

Point 3: The Church Always Thrives Under Persecution

Christians have a persecution complex: they see it as inevitable because it’s throughout the New Testament. True Christians suffer for their faith. This is so engrained in the Christian psyche that I’m not surprised it appears this early and only surprised that it wasn’t the second point.

If persecution is coming to the American church (which is where almost all of this hand-wringing is coming from) it may reduce church attendance numbers and perceived cultural influence, but it won’t kill the church.

Prosperity is far more dangerous to the church than persecution has ever been. As the Puritan writer Cotton Mather put it in the early 1700s, “Religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.”

This point seems more like pop psychology than measured reasoning. It also ignores the reality driving this decline. People aren’t leaving the church because they have cushy lives — not exclusively, anyway. They’re realizing they don’t need this in their lives anymore, and they have tools at their disposal (read: the internet) that puts dissenting views and reasoning well within their grasp. They can begin by feeling church is just not for them anymore and fill that in later (as they so choose) with good critical analysis of Christian theology that makes them add, “Well, not only do I not need it but it also just doesn’t really make a lot of sense when I think about it.”

Point 4: Loss of Privilege Is Not the Same As Persecution

This point is actually refreshing.

The removal of the Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse is not persecution.

I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s not persecution.

There are Christians in places like Syria and Iran who know what real persecution feels like. When we claim persecution for what is a loss of privilege, we minimize the real persecution our brothers and sisters face all over the world today.

It does feel a little like Vaters can’t make up his mind, though: are Christians facing persecution or not? As church attendance continues to dwindle, he might shift his opinion on this a bit.

Point 5: The Church Is at Its Best When We Are Counter-Cultural

I get the feeling that this is an attempt to be a little edgy, but it is in fact quite ridiculous:

The church doesn’t hold the reins of power well. We’re better in a burr-in-the-saddle role than being the conquering hero on the stallion. Let’s leave that role to Jesus himself.

Christianity has dominated the Western world for most of the last 1,700 years. It’s had a near-total monopoly on the culture. Its myths fill our collective consciousness. For hundreds of years it had the power to compel compliance through various means (including torture). To suggest that at any time in modern history it’s only been a “burr-in-the-saddle” of society is absolutely ridiculous.

This is why Christians are panicking. They are losing that monopoly. They are losing their political and cultural power. And they are going crazy about it.

Point 6: The Church Is Bigger than Our Buildings and Our Denominations

Churches are being turned into residential units, bars, and even skateparks. What are we to make of that?

We are likely to lose many church buildings in the coming decades. This will be especially challenging for churches with full-time pastors and a mortgage. I also foresee massive stress points coming for most, if not all, denominations.

I sympathize with those who love their church’s historic building and their denomination, only to lose one or both. But I’m grateful that buildings and denominations are not needed for the church to survive and thrive.

In fact, we may need to lean on our buildings and denominations less in order to lean on Jesus more.

This point is just to serve as a balm to those handwringing traditionalists who are upset about the material decline in the church, nothing else.

Point 7: The Church Is People Who Love Jesus, God’s Word, and Each Other

If churches aren’t buildings, what are they?

This is one of the main reasons the church thrives under persecution. It forces us to turn to what really matters and can never be taken away – loving Jesus, following the Bible, and caring for each other.

Churches (particularly Protestant churches, especially those that align with the Evangelical movement) maintain their hold on people through the social cohesion they provide. Non-theistic churches are forming that attempt to fill this void, so this point is a non-starter from the beginning.

Point 8: The Church Has Faced Bigger Problems Than This (Whatever Your “This” May Be)

Besides, Vaters says, it’s not all that bad:

Whatever your real or perceived church crisis may be, it is not “the greatest calamity the church has ever faced.”

We tend to magnify the severity of small pains that are close to us, while diminishing the reality of much larger pains that are further removed from us.

The church has faced far bigger problems than what most of us are currently experiencing, but those problems are so far away from us that they feel insignificant. The church survived them all.

But it is that bad. Christians fail, intentionally or unconsciously, to realize exactly what the problem is.

The internet is killing the church. It is exposing young people to more and more arguments against theism in general and Christianity in particular. These ideas weren’t widely diseminated in times past. A thousand years ago, uttering such criticism would risk death. Now, it’s everywhere. And content creators are getting better and better at presenting the dark and illlogical sides of Christanity, and Christianity just keeps throwing the same apologetics mud at them. And here, the internet applies something new: reactions to those apologetics. Discections of those apologetics. Critical analysis of those apologetics. So not only does the internet provide the initial explanation of why Christianity makes no sense, it provides answers to Christians’ attempts to explain away those faultlines and fractures, and it shows apologetics to be hollow, shallow, and repetative.

Point 9: My Corner of the Church Is Not the Church

I’m not sure why Vaters put this one in here:

My segment of the body of Christ may be tied to a particular worship style, theological stance, historical background, denominational identity, or any of a wide variety of other distinctives. But the way I worship is not the church. It’s just my little corner of it. If the way I like to worship becomes less popular, that has nothing to do with the strength of the church as a whole.

In fact – brace yourselves – even if the church in America collapses, as tragic as that would be, it would not mean the end of the church.

Jesus has sheep that are not of this fold.

It’s really a tweak of point 6.

Point 10: Maybe the Parts that Can’t Survive Shouldn’t

This point seems like it’s going in a direction of critical self-examination.

I know that sounds harsh, and it may even be triggering for many small-church pastors who have heard something similar because of their lack of numerical gowth. But the small church is not the issue.

This is not a point about size, but of type.

Anything Jesus does will not just survive, but thrive. Eternally. So I have to wonder, if my favorite form of church is dying, maybe it’s because Jesus isn’t building it?

Everything but the church itself (as defined in point #7, above) has an expiration date. No denomination, worship style, or tradition is forever. Sometimes a congregation, tradition, or denomination dies because it has finished serving its purpose.

This point is not meant to trivialize the very real pain of a local church going through serious hardships. I stand with you. Like John said to the suffering saints in Philadelphia (Rev 3:7-13), “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” You have my heart, my prayers, and any help I can offer.

Instead, though, Vaters is simply using an old apologetics technique applied to those those who leave the faith to explain why some churches are failing: they weren’t really Christian.

Point 11: The Church Is the Most Relentlessly Growing Organism In History

This, too, is a short point — two sentences.

For almost 2,000 years of great triumphs and horrifying persecution, the church keeps going.

When Jesus builds something it tends to stand. And stand strong.

The fact that it’s been dominate in the political and cultural machinary of Europe and America for centuries has nothing to do with its longevity. It’s all Jesus’s work.

Remember when we used to worshop Zeus? Neither do I. Worshiping Jesus will eventually seem as antiquated.

Point 12: Worry Doesn’t Work

Another one-sentence explanation: “In fact, worry makes it worse.” This smacks of desparation, but I could be reading more into it than is really there.

Point 13: Jesus Told Us Not to Worry About Anything

The bottom line:

You can toss the previous 12 points. This is all I need to know.

To wildly (but hopefully not inappropriately) paraphrase Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:25-33:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your church building, where you will worship or fellowship; or about your denomination, what decisions it will make. Is not the church more important than buildings, and the faith more important than denominational creeds? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his church’s life or a dollar to its offering basket? But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Whatever is of worry is not of faith.

And we need all the faith we can get.

Vaters is doing his best to cope with the coming reality, but he’s still in denial, so he will never accept it when it comes.

karlvaters.com/future-of-the-church/

Saturday’s Adventures

Saturday 6 January 2024

On the way to the basketball game, the Boy makes a comment about how many churches are around, and then turns the discussion to religion, remarking that Jesus has been dead 2000 years and has still not returned.

“Two thousand years is a long time,” he suggests.

I simply agree.

He continues: “How do we even know that all that stuff happened?”

“What do you think?” again trying to remain non-committal.

“Well, they say they were there,” he suggests.

“How do we know that?”

“Because that’s what they wrote.” He stops to think about it for a moment and then asks, “But how do we know those documents are authentic?”

The short answer is, we don’t. The Gospels, despite the purported authorship the Bible affixes to them, are anonymous. Those names — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — appear only in documents from the third or fourth century if memory serves. But I say none of this. Instead, I simply respond, “That’s a very good question. What do you think?”

“Well, all the Christian scientists trying to prove that are biased. They want to prove it.”

For a moment, I think, “Wait, how did we get onto the topic of Christian Science, but I realize quickly what he means: he’s referring to apologists and Christian New Testament scholars who consistently make the arguments that support Christianity, explaining away the problems like the one of the gospels’ anonymous authorship. But his point is very salient: apologists are indeed biased. They are not seeking truth as much as seeking ways to buttress Christian belief, and many skeptics suggest that apologists are almost exclusively preaching to the choir, so to speak, giving believers answers to questions they might have rather than providing skeptics with evidence to overcome their skepticism.

These are all very good questions that will lead to some answers that might lead the Boy away from church teaching, but I am trying my best not to provide any answers.

We get to the game and immediately see what we’re up against: a bunch of guys eighth graders who are enormous and merciless. They tower over most of our boys.

Their brutality comes from the coach down: They begin applying full-court pressure in the second half when they already have a significant, and they would only begin doing that (I think) because their coach has instructed them to do so. Every time the opposition scores, the coach whoops and hollers like it’s the greatest comeback in history. The final score is 13-22, and I hear the say to his team, “That was okay, but you missed a lot of easy baskets.” Translation: “You beat them badly, but you should have beaten the —- out of them.” At least that’s how I interpreted it as an objective observer…

No Parties in Hell

Saturday 4 November 2023

Another one of these memes I ran into on Twitter: “There are no parties in hell. There’s no cool rock music, no hanging out with friends. You will be burning. Forever. Repent and give your life to Jesus Christ!”

This is clearly aimed at Christians who more fundamentalist Christians see as living a life of sin. It’s certainly not going to convince any unbelievers. In fact, most of us will just read this, shake our heads, and say, “Yes, but Jesus, as God, is the one sending us to this place. What kind of an abusive relationship is this?!”

Villain

Saturday 9 September 2023

Who is the villain in the story of Adam and Eve? Christianity and Judaism will have you believe it’s the serpent, but I think a close reading without the blinders of preconception proves God is the villain.

To begin with, notice when in the narrative God forbids the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2.15-18

That second paragraph is crucial because it shows that God gave the command to Adam before Eve even existed. He told Adam, “Don’t eat of the tree.” He said nothing to Eve. In fact, if you read the text closely, he never talks to Eve at all.

The temptation occurs in the next chapter:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3.1-5

A few questions arise here:

  1. Where was Adam? Since God communicated with him about the cursed tree, he should have been careful to prevent an unknowing Eve from approaching the tree.
  2. Where is God? Since God never communicated with Eve, I’m assuming he assumed Adam would take this role. Now that it’s obvious that Adam is doing nothing, why wouldn’t a loving God step in.
  3. Why the hell is the tree there in the first place? This is the fundamental question. It’s like putting a knife in a baby’s crib. What do you expect is going to happen?
  4. Why did God allow the serpent to enter the garden to being with? Again, it’s like putting a circular saw in the nursery.
  5. Why didn’t God do something to prevent this? He is all-knowing: he knew this is going to happen. He didn’t take a single step other than warning Adam. And of course this gets us back to the question of why the hell God made this tree to begin with.
  6. Why is the tree of knowledge that’s forbidden? What’s so dangerous about knowledge. Oh, never mind…
  7. How could God expect them to obey him (i.e., to realize it was a sin, i.e., to understand it was evil to disobey him) when they clearly didn’t know the difference between good and evil? Now we’ve got a knife and a circular saw in the crib of a blind toddler.

The narrative continues:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3.6, 7

First of all, we see that Adam was right there with her. What the hell was he doing? Why didn’t he stop her?

More significantly, we see that the serpent was telling the truth: “the eyes of both of them were opened.” But the didn’t die, despite God’s telling Adam that “in that day you shall surely die.” They didn’t die: God lied.

So let’s build the case for the serpent being the villain:

  1. He encouraged the couple to disobey God. However, God only bothered to tell Adam, and Adam did nothing to stop Eve. More troubling, they didn’t even know what good and evil as concepts were, so there’s no way we can hold them accountable for that.

That’s it. One point, a point that’s really not significant at all. What’s the case for the serpent being the hero?

  1. He was encouraging them to increase their knowledge.
  2. He told the truth: they did not die when they ate the fruit.
  3. He told the truth: they did receive knowledge when they ate the fruit.

There’s not much, but at least he has the truth on his side.

How about the case for God being the villain:

  1. He put a tree in the garden that he decided was forbidden and chose to punish Adam and Eve for eating of it.
  2. He only told Adam not to eat of it; he didn’t even bother to communicate with Eve.
  3. He lies to Adam about the consequence of eating of the tree.
  4. He expected obedience from
    • newly-formed creatures who
    • didn’t know what good and evil were.
  5. Once Eve and Adam eat of the tree, he punishes all future generations for the crime (which they couldn’t know was a crime because they didn’t know good and evil). And according to Christianity, the punishment is eternal torment. Eternal torment for a finite crime committed by other people!
  6. He turned Adam and Eve’s daily life to a relative hell of struggling for mere subsistence.
  7. After having told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply,” he makes the act of childbirth painful and potentially lethal.
  8. He creates Adam and Eve and the garden and everything else with complete foreknowledge of this catastrophe (for which he is responsible).

And the case for him being the hero? Well, I guess according to the text, we have him to thank for our existence since he made everything. But since that “everything” includes hell and a guaranteed ticket there for the vast majority of humanity, that one point in his favor is hardly significant and is in fact a point against him.

This all of course depends on the narrative being factually accurate, which of course it isn’t. But imagine trying to square all of this with a literal interpretation of this passage: anyone who worships this being is worshiping a monster.

Science Did That

Wednesday 6 September 2023

People throughout the centuries have begged their gods for healing. We see the religious praying for healing. We see the faith healers preying upon their vulnerabilities. We hear of miracles like reversed blindness and re-growing toes.

We hear about this, but we don’t see the evidence. The toe woman won’t show any images of her toes. While it was supposedly happening, apparently no one videoed it or photographed it. People have written about it, and there’s even a website called showmethetoes.com.

Crickets. Not a word.

And then science comes along and simply does what no god has ever done. It gives voice to someone who can’t speak.

It makes the paralyzed able to walk.

Why is science superior to prayer? Because it works. Pure and simple.

Quote

Wednesday 9 August 2023

What does an atheist know?

He doesn’t know anything. He wonders astray. He doesn’t know where north is, where south is, or where is the exit. He dies. And nothing. That’s what it’s all about.

No Rest in Hell

Tuesday 1 August 2023

I recently dipped into a social media feed titled “HELL IS REAL” to see what kind of discussion goes on there. Not much discussion — mainly just a bunch of disturbing memes.

Meme 1: No Rest in Hell

The question that comes immediately to mind: why would an all-loving and omniscient god create a bunch of creatures he knew would end up in eternal torment that he himself created? It just makes no sense.

Meme 2: Hell is not a joke

Two things struck me about this: first, the imagery is so disturbing. Second, “affirm yes”? Did the creator of this meme think that at some point we would be standing in front of God, and he’d patiently point out that we didn’t affirm “Yes” (redundant much?) in our social media feed so it’s off to eternal torment for us…

Meme 3: Hear Hell

This one is so oddly specific. If we could hear the people screaming in hell, we might not fornicate. We might lie; we might do drugs; we might murder (see meme below), but we sure as hell wouldn’t fornicate.

Meme 4: Choices

Why is the devil eating this guy? And do hoodies lead you to hell?

Meme 5: Roads

If only this god who so wants to spend eternity with us had done a better job getting us to that point…

It’s disturbing that in 2023 people still have such simplistic, brutal, and illogical views. They pass this poison on to children and scar them for life. I just can’t understand how they can posit a) a loving god and b) an eternity of torment. It just makes no sense to me.