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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.

Clerical Education

Wednesday 15 March 2023

I’m currently reading The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession by John Cornwell, and it’s enlightening and depressing, as one might imagine. The crux of the argument is that confession has been damaging in a lot of ways throughout history, but it has been most damaging in the last 100 years to children. When Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto (Pope Pius X), at the start of the twentieth century, mandated that first communion and first confession shouldn’t happen at age fourteen but rather age seven, he opened a door to the potential emotional abuse of children. Seven year olds don’t really have a good conception of what “sin” might be, and they get conflicting ideas from various people. Therefore, we’ve had several generations of cradle Catholics who have grown up suffering from guilt over the silliest thing, tormenting themselves mentally about “sinning.” For instance, one young boy was terrified that he was going to hell for breaking the pre-communion fast because he’d opened his mouth to catch some raindrops in his mouth on the way to church.

“But wouldn’t these priests hearing these confessions realize this and apply the child psychology they’d learned in seminary to help teach these kids what the church considers sin to be and how to deal with guilt constructively?” one might ask.

Child psychology classes? What are you thinking? That’s not what the pre-Vatican II seminarians learned.

What did they learn?

It was taught that to break the fast and receive the Blessed Sacrament, as we have seen, was a mortal sin. The textbooks enlarged on the circumstances in which the fast might or might not be broken. The rule admitted, it was pointed out, of no exception, and it extended to the smallest quantity of food or drink taken as such’.

So what does it mean to ‘eat’ or ‘drink? The thing consumed must be ‘taken exteriorly. So it is not a violation of the fast, for example, ‘to swallow blood from the gums, or teeth, or tongue, or nasal cavities’, although it would be a violation of the fast to swallow blood flowing externally from the exterior parts of the lips, or from a cut finger, or from the nose, or to swallow tears, unless in each case only a few drops entered the mouth and were mingled with the saliva.’ To violate the fast, moreover, requires that a substance ‘must pass from the mouth into the stomach, so that the fast is not broken if liquid is taken into the mouth, as an antiseptic or for gargling, and is not swallowed. A third condition insists that violation of the fast occurs by the action of eating and drinking, and inadvertence ‘has no bearing on the matter even if it is a ‘drink given to a patient during sleep?

Davis declares that the ‘divines are still disagreeing whether a ‘nutritive injection’ is food, but certainly the introduction of soup or milk through a stomach pump is not allowed, whether the injected liquid be intended to nourish or merely to flush.’ Turning to the vexed question of nail-biting, Davis reports that he believes that this does not affect the fast, but biting off and swallowing pieces of finger skin might do so, if the particles were more than the smallest and not mixed with saliva.’

Such useful information.

My hope is that in the sixty years since Vatican II there has been a change. Surely there’s been a realization that some basic psychology might be necessary. When I look at a seminary’s course offerings at random, though, I don’t see that. I see courses like this:

  • CHUR 501 The First Millennium: Patrology (3)
  • LITY 501 Introduction to the Liturgy (3)
  • MORL 501 Fundamental Moral Theology (3)
  • SCRP 501 Introduction to Biblical Studies: Wisdom & Psalms (3)
  • SYST 501 Revelation, Faith, & Theology (3)
  • ORDN 501 1T Formation Seminar: Celibate Witness (0)
  • PAMU 501 Pastoral Music I (0.5)
  • PFED 502 1T Field Ed Placement: Catechetics & Teaching Ministry (1)
  • PFED 599 Pedagogy seminar (0)

Or like this

  • CANL 601 Code of Canon Law (3)
  • CHUR 601 Modern & Contemporary Church History (3)
  • SCRP 601 The Prophets (3)
  • SYST 605 Protology & Anthropology (3)
  • ORDN 601 2T Formation Seminar: Personal Conduct/Character of Priest (0)
  • PAMU 601 Pastoral Music II (0.5)
  • PFED 601 2T Field Ed Placement: Health Care or Social Justice Ministry (1)

Or this:

  • HOML 701 Models of Preaching (3)
  • LITY 701 Deacon Practicum (1)
  • SCRP 701 Luke & Acts of the Apostles (3)
  • SYST 707 Ecclesiology (1)
  • SYST 709 Ecumenism (1)
  • SYST 711 Mariology (1)
  • ORDN 701 3T Formation Seminar: Parish Admin/Human Resources (0)
  • PAMU 701 Pastoral Music III (0.5)
  • PFED 701 3T Field Ed Placement: Evangelization or Parish Ministry (1)

All very practical. All very helpful. All a bunch of lofty-sounding nonsense.

With each passing year, my disgust at the Catholic church grows.

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

Are You Tolerant?

Wednesday 15 February 2023

While jogging this evening, I listened to a video by Prophet of Zod called “Do We Get Offended Because Christians Believe in Truth?” The entire video is below:

It’s a critique of another video, this one by Impact 360 Institute, a Christian apologetics organization. The original video is here:

It’s a ridiculous caricature of how non-believers view Christians, suggesting that non-Christians feel threatened and offended because Christians believe the things they believe, and these caricature atheists suggest in the name of tolerance that shouldn’t be tolerated. It’s as mind-numbingly stupid as it sounds.

However, there was a link to a set of questions designed to determine if one is tolerant or not. Intrigued, I went ahead and provided my email address (Gmail will sort out any of the spam the organization sends me as a result) and went through the questions.

Question 1: No one has the right to disagree with or criticize another person’s life choices.

The first question is a slow pitch that is based on the premises of the video: atheists are supposedly intolerant in the name of tolerance, and this first question is directed to that assumption. I don’t know of anyone who would agree with this.

Question 2: College students should be protected from hearing ideas they disagree with because that would make them uncomfortable.

There is a fairly robust effort, it seems, to shut out voices that college students seem to disagree with, but it seems to be from the students themselves and not from the institute. The passive construction of the statement (“students should be protected”) only suggests that it’s the college itself that’s doing the protecting. From what I’ve seen, it’s the students who raise a stink. Sometimes, granted, the college caves, but often they don’t.

Question 3: People should have the freedom to believe and publicly promote that two men or two women should be allowed to get married.

Notice the wording: it’s saying that people should be able to promote it. Christians will say they have no issues with people advocating it. When it comes to implementing it, though, they will, as we have seen time and time again, vociferously disagree and fight it in the courts. Which leads to the next statement:

Question 4: A wedding photographer should be forced to use her artistic talents to celebrate and memorialize a same-sex wedding even though it violates her conscience and deeply held religious beliefs.

This is such a loaded, biased question that it’s difficult to know where to start. First, we have the idea that the photographer “should be forced,” which makes it seem like a draconian, totalitarian state that’s behind it without coming out and saying it. It does this through the use of the passive voice. No one is suggesting that a photographer be forced to do this. If the photographer doesn’t want to do it, she doesn’t do it. It does mean, however, that can no longer be a photograph because they are denying their services in a discriminatory fashion. Some will say this is the same as forcing, but people have to do things in their jobs all the time that they don’t really want to do. It’s not, I suspect, that they don’t want to “celebrate and memorialize” a same-sex wedding; they’re homophobic and don’t want to witness this wedding. Fine — don’t. But you can’t withhold services because of that. We can frame this racially and see how bigoted it is: “A wedding photographer should be forced to use her artistic talents to celebrate and memorialize a [mixed-race] wedding even though it violates her conscience and deeply held religious beliefs.” Suddenly, it looks different — except that it doesn’t.

There’s also the word “celebrate.” The wedding photographer is not a guest. She’s not celebrating anything. She’s recording the event. That’s it. By doing so, she’s not approving or disapproving of it — she’s taking pictures. If she’s not willing to provide her services to anyone who wants to pay for them, she needs to find another line of work.

Question 5: No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will.

This is meant to help the individual (most likely a Christian since it is an apologetics site) feel good about their religious views: “We’re not interested in forcing our religion on others!” Except if you’re trying to outlaw (to use the previous example) same-sex marriage, you are attempting to force that particular tenant of your religion on everyone. You’re compelling everyone to follow that particular part of your religion.

Question 6: People should have the freedom to publicly promote their view based on science that unborn babies are genetically distinct, living, and whole human beings and that their human rights should be protected by not aborting them.

Talk about stacking the deck: their view is “based on science.” “We’re just basing our views on science — how can you argue with that?” Unless we bring up all the science they don’t like — evolutionary theory and global warming come to mind.

Question 7: Parents should have the freedom to believe, publicly promote, and teach their children that God designed marriage for a man and woman for a lifetime.

Now we’re back to same-sex marriage — isn’t that what it’s always about? Obviously, parents have the right to teach this, but implicit in this is the notion that they want to be able to support draconian laws to stop same-sex marriage. And that’s fine, I suppose: it wouldn’t be freedom if you couldn’t be free to be a bigot. (Yes, I am aware of the loaded language I just used.)

By the same token, they have to accept that some of us are fine with same-sex marriage and think it might even be — gasp! — a question of equal rights.

Question 8: Muslims should have the freedom to believe and publicly promote that Allah is the one true God and Muhammad is his prophet.

What an out-of-left-field question! I really have nothing to say about it.

Question 9: It’s not OK to respectfully challenge the truth of another person’s sincerely held beliefs.

Christians themselves don’t seem okay with this. “Why are you trying to push your atheism on us?!” they decry when all atheists have been doing is pushing back on centuries of the majority trying to stop them from “respectfully challenge[ing] the truth of another person’s sincerely held beliefs.”

Question 10: People of faith should not be forbidden to worship God according to their conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions.

That depends, doesn’t it? What about snake handers? They claim that three verses in the Bible allow, even call for, the handling of snakes as evidence of faith:

  • Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. (Luke 10:19)
  • And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17-18)
  • And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. (Acts 28:1-6)

Yet several states have legislation on the books that forbids this. Isn’t that a restriction of their right “to worship God according to their conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions”?

My Result

I answered as one might expect a left-leaning moderate atheist to answer. The response:

Congratulations, you are a truly tolerant person! In a culture that operates with a confused view of tolerance that thinks “real tolerance means agreeing that everyone’s moral, religious, or social viewpoints are equally valid and true,” you have rightly rejected this false tolerance because it’s unlivable. True tolerance respectfully allows others the right to be wrong because we disagree with them. The good news is you have strong beliefs about the way things should be. Continue to courageously and respectfully make your case and let the best ideas win. Is it messy? Yes. But true tolerance is the only way we will discover the truth about questions that matter.

Yet I’m sure in discussion, the makers of this “quiz” would determine that I am, in fact, not tolerant.

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.