The Epic Plan of Salvation: The Sequel

I don't see why he can't just jump across...

A while back I made a quite sarcastic post lambasting the Epic Plan of Salvation found in the Bible. While I do think it covered a broad range of important points, I'd like to drill down a little deeper and focus on one particular issue: the play between faith/belief and knowledge/understanding. This post will be more geared toward already-believing Christians but will generally be a critique of the theology in general for those who don't fully understand how it works.

Why is that chair empty anyway?

All too often, hardworking Americans are sleeping soundly on a Saturday morning, only to be rudely awakened by two men at their front door carrying Bibles. When the door is opened, what will be the first thing to come out of the evangelists' mouths? Most likely, "Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?" According to most Christians that I am aware of, the doctrine of salvation is the most important bit of theology from the Bible. Everything else pales in comparison to the question, "Are you saved?" But what do they mean by this question? There are many biblical verses with similar (but not always identical) answers. It generally goes like this:

Realize you are a sinner. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

Understand that you are condemned to death. "For the wages [payment] of sin is [eternal] death [in Hell]." (Romans 6:23)

In order to avoid this death, you must "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31) "[Jesus is] the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father [gets into heaven] except through [him]. (John 14:6)

So he can't jump across the gap but he's supposed to step
over the cross hump? I say give the man a pole and let him
try his hand at vaulting.

Some explain this as the "ABCs" of salvation: Admit that you are a sinner, Believe in Jesus, and Confess that Jesus is your Lord. The reasons for believing that any of the above verses are actually true are sort of assumed in the bible. Theologically, every single person that has ever lived has sinned and deserves to be tortured in hell forever as their just punishment. (No explanation for this necessary - it's just true according to the bible.) You must believe that Jesus took your punishment on the cross and accepting his sacrifice in your place is the only way to avoid hell and receive eternal life. Once you have done this, you are a True Christian™.

See anything missing from the above paragraph? If you were thinking "good deeds" or "a person's heart or attitude" you were right! (Christians are usually very proud of this. They believe it sets them apart from all other religions.) According to the Bible, it's not about what you've done, only what you believe. Many of you may find this as perplexing as I do - that there is a god who wants to forgive you but can only do so if you believe in this particular religion when it says that God became man and lived a perfect life and sacrificed himself to himself to appease himself for the wrong things that human beings have done to other human beings. Why wouldn't God just forgive everyone, or at least everyone who tried to be a good person? Because that's not how it works. You have to believe these very specific things. Which is usually fine and dandy for those who have grown up in Christian households because they are very aware of how this salvation thing works.

But what about those who have never heard before? What about American Indians who lived long before Columbus came and Catholicism could have spread? They would have had no clue what the right thing to believe was, which means there was no way to to believe in Jesus, which is the only way into heaven. Certainly I am not the first person to bring up this kink in the otherwise simple plan of salvation. Nonetheless, the bible seems to be very clear on the rules and therefore the ignorant seem to be doomed. How do Christians explain this troubling problem?

There are two camps. One takes the position that "Because Jesus is the only way, then by definition any person ignorant of the Scripture must be destined to Hell upon death." This is certainly harsh and therefore does not seem to enjoy support from the majority of the Christian crowd. If it were true, then we can easily see how bad a plan of salvation this is, since the vast majority of people who ever lived probably wouldn't know the exact right thing to believe unless a Christian explained it to them. These billions of people would certainly find themselves surprised to appear in the eternal lake of fire upon their death, especially if they were what we would consider good and kind people. Any god using this method of punishment would immediately be condemned as immoral, cruel, and sadistic by an honest, objective observer.

The other camp (and I make no attempt to argue which viewpoint is the "right" one) believes that in the absence of Scriptural understanding, God will judge peoples' hearts and how they dealt with the general revelation that was provided to them. By "general revelation," I mean any evidence that points to the existence of a god that can be observed by simply viewing nature. (Many Christians - and indeed the Bible itself - argue that we can deduce the fact that god exists by the fact that nature exists [Romans 1:20]. While I disagree with this notion, that's an argument for another day.) I understand this to mean that God will judge these peoples' hearts and if they were "good" people according to what they understood about morality, then they can be allowed access into heaven.

If the second viewpoint is true, then a simple question must be asked: Why use the belief based system for the non-ignorant at all? If it is possible to avoid punishment based on one's actions, then why introduce belief into the equation at all? That just makes it more likely that people will end up damned. If a good person who otherwise would have made it into heaven because of their Scriptural ignorance hears the Gospel, they will immediately enter a spiritual state of doomed-until-further-notice. What if they died before they decided to accept? This reminds me of a portion of a dialogue between a missionary and an Eskimo.

Eskimo: “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to Hell?”

Missionary: “Not if you did not know.”

Eskimo: “Then why did you tell me?”

Up until now in this discussion, I have generally assumed that people would generally accept the Gospel if they had heard of it and understood it. This leaves out one major portion of the population, however: those from other religions and atheists. It is generally the case that people brought up in a certain religion will tend to stay with that religion even when approached by missionaries from other religions. But what about my case? Specifically, I am someone who grew up with Christianity and believed it up until around 20 years old, and now rejects it as a myth akin to any other religion that has died out. I am fully aware of what the requirements are for salvation according to the Bible, but I reject the truth of the bible out of honesty and education. "Why is this a problem?" you may ask.

Let's assume for the moment that I am both justified in my non-belief and that the Bible is true insofar as it speaks about salvation. I find no reason to believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again due to lack of historical evidence, but I try to be a good person all the same. There is no reason, theologically, that I should fall under the salvation plan (viewpoint two) of those who have not heard, so I would inescapably be destined to hell. Because I am a good person? No - for as the bible states, even one sin is enough to condemn you to hell forever, no matter at what age that sin was. (Another popular theology is "Original Sin" which basically states that you would still go to hell even if you lived a perfect life, because you inherited the "sin nature" from Adam. Again, not worth discussing in detail but it is relevant in the case that I wanted to somehow argue that I've never done anything wrong, ever.) I would be condemned simply for not believing what I know is not true. This is a plan of salvation that does not factor in what you've done or what you know, it is simply a matter of belief. It rewards blind faith from those who could not possibly know if the biblical stories are true (such as indigenous tribes in Africa) over justified rejection in the case of those who have good reasons not to believe.

This makes sense to me in a religious context, since religions need people to follow regardless of truth. What better way to gain followers than the threat of an eternal fiery torture in hell, when the only thing one must do to be saved is believe the right thing and ultimately assimilate into that religion? What doesn't make sense is how a good, loving, and forgiving god could ever come up with a salvation plan like this. Ignoring the fact that God must have created hell and the rules that condemn everyone to it initially, only a cruel god would reward ignorance over knowledge and faith over justified belief.

The Christian response to this is often either A) You haven't done enough research or you would believe, or B) You are just suppressing (my) god's truth so that you can continue your life of sin. I need only to respond to each of those criticisms by saying that A) I have done more honest research than most Christians I know concerning all kinds of biblical topics, and B) If I really believed that the bible was true and, by extension, that I would be condemned to hell, why would I pretend to disbelieve just so that I could enjoy a short-lived life? Why would I think that any omniscient god couldn't see past my pretending? The fact is that I have no reason to think that the bible is true in any non-trivial way and therefore I have no reason to ask forgiveness from a Jesus I don't think exists. (An aside: why does Jesus want us to ask him for forgiveness instead of us asking forgiveness from those we've wronged? Why are we apologizing to Jesus at all? We haven't harmed him in any way.)

If any Christians are willing to respond, what are your explanations for a plan of salvation that doesn't involve God just forgiving everyone and giving each person a happy afterlife where no one will be wronged again? Why does God reward blind faith over honest research? And what are your opinions on how ignorant non-believers will be handled?

Were the plagues on Pharaoh because of Abram and Sarai unfair?

Plagues! Boils! Torture! Ice cream! Which one of these things is not like the other?

Sorry, I was looking at that tasty Ninja Turtle specimen from my last post and just had to find a way to fit ice cream into this blog entry as well. Carrying on, today we have yet another relevant newsletter from Answers in Genesis. This time, it's about Egypt and all that fun stuff we read about in Genesis. And you know how much I love talking about morality!

Abraham was married to his half-sister, Sarai, who, at age sixty-five, was still apparently beautiful.

I guess I can let that slide. I mean, if she's smokin' hot and still single at sixty-five then I won't hold half-incest against a brotha.

To protect himself, Abraham persuaded Sarah to lie about her marriage to him and pretend to be his sister.

Now the passage describes the rationale here being, "If I say she's my wife then he's going to kill me and take her for himself." Which is a huge compliment to her since, again, she's rockin' it out at 65 years old. This might be a reaction I would have if I could possibly be killed. Or perhaps I'd just say to Pharaoh, "this is my wife, but if you want her, take her." That way I could not lie and stay alive and acquire servants! This isn't exactly the kind of reaction I'd expect from a man who had supposedly talked to God, though. I mean, if I knew I had a universal superpower behind me that wouldn't let me die I'd probably just grab Pharaoh by the balls and tell him to give me some grain or else.

Somewhat ironic, really, how everyone in the bible who supposedly either talked to Yahweh or witnessed acts that could only have possibly been caused by him seem to still have quite shaky faith. And yet, thousands of years later, I'm chided for being an atheist because there is an "abundance" of evidence? It's almost comical, really.

Unprotected by her husband, Sarah was whisked off to Pharaoh’s harem. In exchange, Pharaoh showered Abraham with riches. Since Abraham didn’t properly protect Sarah, who was the promised mother of a new nation that would bless the whole world, God had to step in.

Well, he didn't have to, necessarily. At least, he didn't have to start right off with violence.  But who am I kidding? That's Yahweh's favorite pastime! He loves this sort of thing. If I were Yahweh, I'd probably just come down to Abraham and give him the "grab-by-the-balls" advice again. But clearly, that's much less fun.

God protected Sarah by sending “great plagues” on Pharaoh and his house.

Hmmm... I...

DOES NOT COMPUTE

The Hebrew words translated as “plagues” can refer to sores or wounds and does not require them to be deadly.

Yeah, but knowing Yahweh, they probably were. Just sayin'.

Sarah was kept safe and it seems Pharaoh eventually put two and two together and figured out that the timing and scope of this disease was somehow associated with Abraham’s arrival and that Sarah was Abraham’s wife.

Yeah, just like the destruction of the twin towers were judgments on the gays and the Japanese tsunamis were judgments on the atheists! It's all so crystal clear!

Pharaoh graciously let Abraham keep all the stuff he had acquired in Egypt and summarily sent him away.

Not, I'm sure, until Abraham grabbed him by the balls and demanded that he get to take his stuff with him. Cuz that's how he rolls now.

These plagues on Pharaoh and his house were not so much a punishment as a message, but they are definitely an example of the sins of one person causing others to suffer.

My punching your face repeatedly isn't so much a punishment for your not smiling at me, but rather a message, letting you know that customer service is always important and you won't be getting my business next time unless you ask me how my day was. It's just an example of the wrongs of one person causing... actually, just you to suffer. Really, that's almost more moral, in a way. My punching you, that is. (Metaphorically, of course. I'd never punch you. I actually like you a lot!) After all, I didn't punch your manager or that guy who sits across the room from you. Nope. I only took it out on you.

But God had a different idea, apparently. "PLAGUE THEM ALL! MUAHAHAHA..." Or at least, that's how I imagined it went down. There can't have been that many scenarios since, after all, all that really happened was that Pharaoh took what he thought was a beautiful unmarried woman.

Our cursed world is full of examples of innocents suffering for the sins of others. Drunk drivers, abusive parents, pregnant women on cocaine, thieves, rapists, and murderers are but a few examples of people who cause the innocent to suffer. At least in this case, the suffering was apparently non-lethal and had a clearly-defined purpose.

And all of the examples given are people suffering because of things out of their control. A good driver couldn't anticipate that drunk person coming around the corner at 60 miles/hr in the wrong lane. A rape victim can't always escape her captor and a sleeping person may not wake up until the thieves have come and gone. However, in this biblical scenario, Yahweh would theoretically be in complete control of the situation. It would be completely unnecessary for innocents to suffer for the sins of others. Unless, of course, he wanted it to.

And obviously in this story, he did. Which is especially evil, since the only person who could theoretically be at fault here was Abraham. But did God punish him? Not according to the passage. He never got so much as a verbal reprimand. But Pharaoh and who knows else were inflicted with "serious diseases" without a legitimate explanation. AiG hasn't explained this at all but have merely attempted to lessen the moral judgment on Yahweh.

I mean, look at their last sentence. They say "at least" as if they realize that this was a totally immoral and uncalled for action on their god's part but are saying, "Hey, it could have been worse!" Which, I suppose, is true. But also totally irrelevant. Just try that in court, if you're ever in front of a jury. "Yeah, I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die. But hey, at least I didn't kill two people, amirite?" The 'at least' excuse is somewhat clever, but it will only last until the Canaanites. Or Amalekites, I forget which people groups were slaughtered first.

So what's the moral of the story? That Yahweh doesn't have any. But wait, we already knew that!

God on Trial: The Verdict

Is God Selfish and Vindictive?

There aren't many people I can count on more to dodge questions or commit fallacies than Answers in Genesis. Their most recent newsletter asks this title question and their full article does little to answer it. They first quote Richard Dawkins as saying,

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

I agree with pretty much all of this statement. But instead of trying to refute each (or any) of these statements, they merely shift the subject like so:

Since Dawkins is so adamant in his atheism, perhaps he could explain why any of these things are wrong from an evolutionary point of view. After all, if his philosophical naturalistic beliefs are correct, then there is no such thing as right or wrong. Hence, there would be nothing bad about any of these attributes he assigns to the God of the Bible. Only the Bible provides the basis for morality, so it is hypocritical and illogical for Dawkins or other atheists to appeal to morality while attacking Scripture.

First, why does morality have to have anything to do with evolution? Why is there no such thing as right and wrong if there's no god? Why can only a god can provide a basis for morality? None of these questions are answered - just assumed to be true in the text. I don't want to go into too much detail about morality here because I've already done so somewhat before and probably will again soon. Suffice to say that judging God by common morality (agreed upon by pretty much all civilized societies), Yahweh is one of the most evil people in all of fiction for the reasons Dawkins describes. Even if it were true that somehow, we could never discern right and wrong without appealing to a higher power defined as good, Yahweh does not pass his own moral test. One cannot exclaim killing/murder (depending on what translation you read) to be wrong and command genocide. But more on that later.

First, since God is the Creator of all things, He gets to set the rules.

Be a little more clear. It would be true, in some sense, that he sets the rules in what we are and are not capable of, physically and mentally. But he has no power over morality in that he cannot simply define good as being "like his nature" any more than any other god could. Christians, if you found out one day that your God had been defeated by a more powerful super-God that Yahweh forgot to mention and he declared that, because he is in power, it is morally required to kill every one of your family members and drink their blood, would you consider that "good"? After all, the one with the biggest stick makes the rules! What... you don't agree? The obviously you don't consider the ruler to be the definition of morality - you just attribute it to him because you perhaps cannot think of any other reason we should be good or have any definition of morality without him. And that is unfortunate, but doesn't make it true.

Second, God is perfectly just and must judge sin.

How do you know he is just? Surely you must just be taking his word. Because if I told you that I sent everyone who didn't like me into the torture chamber to be beaten and burned until they die - simply for the fact they didn't accept me for who I was - you'd call me anything but just.

Third, all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and deserve death (Romans 6:23). The fact that God allows us to live at all demonstrates His mercy.

Right, because allowing us to live is so merciful, considering that there are all kinds of other merciful things that he could be doing, like: developing a cure for cancer, eradicating AIDS, solving world hunger, getting rid of Satan once and for all, or making Justin Beiber's voice finally change. The only person who thinks we should all die because we've done at least one wrong thing (or been born with a 'sin nature') is God, and it's already obvious to me and most other clear thinkers that he's not that just to begin with.

With that in mind, is it fair to call God selfish, demanding, and vindictive? Absolutely not! God created a perfect world and gave man dominion over it.

There's no way God created a perfect world. A perfect world, by definition, could never become imperfect. Obviously this world is less than perfect and that's a reflection on the thing who made it, if such a maker exists. You don't blame the plumber for faulty pipe manufacturing. And dominion? Explain T. rexes, grizzlies, and mountains.

If there were no eternal consequences for sin, then people would know they could act however they wanted, and the world would become even worse.

People always can act however they want. That isn't the point. The argument being made here is that if there is no eternal punishment, anyone can and should do whatever they want (terrible, evil, selfish things - I infer that this is what most Christians would do upon learning God doesn't exist). Compelling argument. You should try it sometime and tell me what your friends, family, neighbors, the cops, and the media think about your mental state.

God’s laws are not overbearing, but were given to protect us from others and from ourselves.

That's exactly what I think when I remember that the penalty for a child's disobedience to his parents was stoning. It's a shame that we aren't still practicing this today!

In the book of Joshua, God commands the Israelites to conquer several cities throughout the Promised Land and to kill every person in some of these towns. How can anyone possibly think of God as loving in light of these commands?

Please, do tell.

Approximately 400 years before these battles, God had given the land to Abraham and his descendants (through Isaac and Jacob). However, God also told Abraham that his descendants would serve the Egyptians for 400 years before taking possession of the land. The reason for this delay is that “the iniquity (sin) of the Amorites [was] not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). God graciously gave the people dwelling in the Promised Land 400 years to turn from their sinful ways. When they did not, He used the Israelites as an instrument of judgment.

Oh, ok. God promised the Israelites land that was already occupied because instead of just giving them an easy passageway to a land uninhabited, he thought it would be more fun to have them fight and kill their way through men, women, children and babies. Make no mistake, they had 400 years to change their ways. But they didn't, and the best, most humane, and most enlightened way to deal with it was to slaughter everyone. Sounds very Christian of them.

Second, in many of these battles, the people were commanded to first make an offer of peace (Deuteronomy 20:10–12). It is only in the cases where the people of the land were exceedingly wicked that the Israelites were commanded to utterly destroy them (Deuteronomy 20:16–18).

Does it really make sense that every nation they come up against to conquer would want to make peace with them, especially when the Israelites are instructed to keep those people as slaves if they agree? What would you do if some Muslim extremists came over here and told us to fight them or become slaves? I feel like I shouldn't even have to spell these things out. No, any nation with an army capable of fighting and enough brains to realize what slavery is would immediately reject such an offer. And in most cases, God instructs his people to wipe out everything that lived in the land. This includes all innocent beings like children and babies, not to mention innocent non-children. Some Christians/Jews will object and say, "There is no one innocent!" or "God has the right to give the death penalty to whomever he chooses!"

Response to #1: If you think you're just as guilty as anyone in one of those nations, perhaps you should consider killing yourself so that you receive just as much pure justice doled out by God as they did.
Response to #2: Power does not equal right. If it's wrong for Hitler to kill a million Jews, it's wrong for God to kill a million Canaanites/Amalekites/Hittites/Perizzites/Jebusites/Hivites.

However, in every single case, God provided the means of salvation for those who would trust Him.

"Convert or we'll kill you!" - Always a convincing argument.

The Morality of God

I was going to write a blog entry about what I think of the morality of the God of the bible (inspired by my previous post), but came across this gem, courtesy of The Atheist Experience. Matt Dillahunty, the co-host, sums things up better than I probably could. The first video pretty much sums up my feelings but the second one definitely continues down the line of reasoning very well.

Objective Morality, Revisited

Because there was some confusion over one of my previous posts, I'd like to clarify what my views are on morality. I do think that morality is definitely objective if we agree on what the definition is. Religions have tried to squeeze their god(s) into the picture, but at its core, we pretty much all agree that "wrong" is something that increases suffering or needlessly decreases happiness while "right" is something that increases happiness or decreases suffering. If anyone doesn't agree that this definition encompasses at least 90% of their moral system, they have a poor concept of right and wrong.

The part that religions seem to add would be something like "wrong is doing whatever my god doesn't like" or "right is doing what my god commands." However, these are terrible methods by which to determine right and wrong. Like I've pointed out, if we base our standard on some being that "decides" morality, it could say that torture and genocide are good and commendable acts or that feeding your children is a despicable act of evil. Obviously, this would be absurd. However, as is evident in books like the bible, gods are often fond of commanding evil acts when it benefits them (or, more accurately, the ones speaking for them) in some way. Some examples in Christianity/Judaism would be Yahweh commanding the Israelites to wipe out entire towns and people groups because they occupied the "promised land." Before I hear any objections voice, realize there's a difference between wars fought between soldiers and an army killing all men, women, children, and babies in an area. There's just no excuse for that. Obviously, if any nation today told their military to kill every living person in a certain country, we would condemn them without question. And we wouldn't care if they said their god told them to do it. I think it's pretty obvious that "god told me to do X" is not a sufficient reason for any action. We don't give women who drown their children in bathtubs passes because Jesus told them to do it, and I wouldn't give the Israelites passes because Moses said that it was Yahweh's will. (Not that I'm implying that the Israelites actually did these things historically, but rather that the actions themselves would have been immoral.)

I'm not saying that all moral issues are black and white - obviously they're not, or we would have so many disagreements about things like socialized healthcare. Both sides of the issue, I think, want the best for the general public - they just disagree how best to implement it. Is it immoral to take money from citizens to pay for the care of others? Is it immoral to let people suffer because some people are unwilling to give money to support others' needs? I'm not sure, but do know that it is moral to attempt to lessen the suffering no matter the means by which it is achieved.

A relevant example of how "religious morality" is harming our nation is the vehement anti-gay marriage attitude espoused by many Christians, especially in the south. Analyzing this by my "objective morality" definition, I realize it is a good thing to allow homosexual marriage because it increases the happiness of the couples without increasing suffering of the protesters. I really wish everyone could see this issue as clearly as I believe I do, but some people would rather appeal to an archaic book than use their brain to analyze a position. I think it's a much more honorable thing to do to give gay couples what they should have had many years ago than to try to please a homophobic god whose existence hasn't been demonstrated to any legitimate extent.

Proving God Exists: Morality

I can't decide whether I'm glad or disappointed that Eric Hovind actually hasn't written these articles I'm critiquing here. The dude's name is Joshua Joscelyn, but I'm sure Eric at least had to approve these for them to appear on the website. So I hold them both responsible for their production's absurdity. And this final article is not exempt. Shall we?

Atheism is bankrupt. The unbeliever's worldview is utterly devoid of justification. When someone takes the unbeliever's claims to the bank, the check will bounce. If anything is to be said for this illogical worldview, it could be said that the unbelievers have been clever enough to turn the tables on Christians and paint believers as the illogical ones. However, this only underscores the importance of subjecting your worldview as well as that of the unbeliever to closer scrutiny. And one of the best areas in which to do this is in the area of morality.

Utterly devoid of justification is great wording. Well, at least if you're referring to your previous inane articles where you assumed your own conclusions. I don't feel like anyone has turned any tables. Rather, claims have been held up to scrutiny and some have been shown to be... transparent.

Now, before we go any further, it must be stated that I am not claiming the atheist or unbeliever to be immoral, necessarily. This is often confused with the true intent of what I am about to say. But rather, I will demonstrate that, like logic and science, morality is merely assumed by the unbeliever, yet without a rational basis. While he may claim that morality—the concept of right and wrong—is merely the evolutionary result of self preservation, this counter claim has a few fundamental flaws. The unbeliever suggests that morality is simply a man-made construct that came about as an aid to our evolution. After all, it is simply pragmatic to avoid stealing from or killing my neighbor as this will garner favor for myself, and will thus further my survivability. This is sometimes extrapolated to also suggest that morality is what society agrees upon. But this would mean that societies like Nazi Germany were, by definition, good. It would mean that doing wrong to my neighbor when no one else can possibly find out is not wrong, but right.

Ah, I'm not necessarily immoral. Just probably, amirite? All because of this damned unbelief. God, give me faith! Oh,wait, actually that's just wishful thinking kicking in again. When people tell you to "ask God to increase your faith," that's as helpful as telling me to ask the unicorn fairy to increase my faith in leprechauns. If it helps, it's only because I wanted it to help. Otherwise, wouldn't God/unicorn fairy have increased my faith in the first place? I don't know. I honestly haven't dealt with any supernatural beings in my short stint on earth.

Anyway, yes, I do believe morality is a man-made construct. And yes, I do believe it has its basis in evolution. But please, "assumed... without a rational bias?" Just keep drinking that Kool-Aid. Yes, it does actually increase survivability if you don't go around stealing things or killing people. But you say that morality could (under some definitions) be determined by society. Well, I have to disagree. Read on:

And what is "wrong," anyway? How does one define this word? By what standard can something be right or wrong? When the unbeliever is faced with this question, he does not have a rational response. 

Morality is, at its core, based on the results of free-will decisions upon fellow humans. That is to say, something is morally "wrong" if it unjustly harms someone and "good" if it helps them in some way (which would be decided by the receiver of the action). Now if we use that basic definition of morality to analyze your scenario, the Nazis, we can see that it was not moral. Their actions benefited no one and harmed the lives of millions in unspeakable ways. The tough thing about morality is that there aren't always easy choices. Sure, some basics are easy, like "don't murder" (that never helps the victim), "don't steal" (other people have a right to their property - you wouldn't want someone taking your stuff), or "don't rape" (I don't need to explain this one). But as scenarios change and get more complex, things can get more muddled. This happens for issues like nuclear proliferation (incidentally, not a topic covered by the Bible), homosexual marriage rights, abortion, and "universal" (American) healthcare.

One side (clear-thinking people) believe that homosexual marriage should be allowed because it gives people the right to do what they want in a situation where other people will not be notably negatively affected. The other side thinks that it should continue to be outlawed because.... well, their book says so. This is an issue of morals because one side believes their position is morally correct and the other's incorrect (and vice versa). This issue does not require a Bible or any other text to tell you what to think.

Other, more complex issues would be those like nuclear proliferation. Is it moral or immoral to stockpile nuclear weapons? Should we distribute them? Should we try to remove all of them everywhere and use all of our military power to do so, voiding other countries' rights to sovereignty, trying to ensure that everyone in the world can be free from the threat of nuclear violence? People have taken stances on both sides of this issue and have made compelling arguments both ways. Christians often paint a picture of a completely black-and-white world where each action is either completely right or completely wrong. This unfortunately just isn't how the world works. Choosing the lesser of two evils is sometimes the best thing to do. But I'm digressing.

To him, if right and wrong are only based on human consensus, than morality is entirely subjective—it changes, and is not absolute. In other words, what is right to one group at one particular time can "morally" be wrong to another group at another time. Or if right and wrong are in the mind of the individual, then how can they be blamed by their actions? If evolution is the explanation, and we are only acting as our DNA dictates, then once again, there is no way we can logically be outraged when somebody's DNA causes them to kill, rape, or lie. After all, we are not outraged at the rock that falls on a car and injures the occupants. How is this any different from the purely naturalistic explanation given lamely by the unbeliever? They're only reacting to their genes, right? Evolution cannot account for morality.

No, conversely, if morality is entirely based on what God says, then it must be relative - subjective. It would be completely based on "God says so" (never a good reason to believe when the person who told you that isn't known to be trustworthy).  If God says that action X is good, then it simply is good regardless of context, motivation, or meaning. If God told you to slaughter children (and don't say it hasn't happened... repeatedly), then it is a good thing to do. An honorable one. A required one. And that's something I just can't buy. Remember the Euthyphro Dilemma? It asks the question, "Is it moral because God commands it, or does God command it because it is moral?" Clearly, I do not believe it can be the former, for that would require countless absurdities like the one I just mentioned. If it is the latter, then God is simply a bystander at the moral carnival, watching the ferris wheel of choices spin and dictating to you when to get on and off the ride. This is especially hurtful to those believers who would like to think that God created and is in control of everything, including morality. But it's just not so.

In case it hasn't been obvious from what I've said so far, people are not outraged at rocks for falling on them (well... some are, but it's a futile thing) because rocks don't have free will. They aren't making choices. Morality requires choices. In the same way that you can't fault a person for pulling the trigger and killing a child if his hands and fingers were hooked up to a machine that controlled them against his will, you can't fault a rock for falling on a car if it had no say in the matter. If a rock did become sentient and decide to crush my muscular legs, I'd have a legitimate reason to complain.

Yet evolutionists and unbelievers, in general, behave in moral ways. They make statements like "You shouldn't teach Creationism to little kids," or "You ought not to judge other people." They bear witness to the Creator by their conscience, while making moral statements, though these statements cannot be accounted for within their worldview. The fact that unbelievers appeal to objective morality, even though they lack the standard for such, proves that they really do believe in God! Unbelievers borrow from the Christian worldview in operating within the guidelines of morality. It is the Christian worldview, because morality to a Christian is merely a reflection of God's nature. Morality to a Christian stems from an absolute standard—God and His Word. Morality is built into the hearts of every person God created, whether they follow that conscience or not. Deep down inside, even atheists know that there is an absolute moral standard—they just can't bring themselves to confess His name. In this way, morality bears witness to the Creator God, who is good and right. And that, you can take to the bank.

Yay! You finally get it! We shouldn't be teaching creationism to little kids. Because it isn't science and it isn't true. I mean, you can deny that, but reality isn't up for grabs here.

Non-Christians appeal to a non-objective but intellectually defensible morality that tries to find the best decision in the set of all possible decisions. Note that this whole while, you've used the adjective "Christian" to describe all of these things that you're trying to prove here. I could change that to "Jewish" or "Muslim" and that wouldn't change your arguments one bit. That should raise some flags for you, but that isn't even your biggest problem. You assert, again, without justification, that we have defined our ways of thinking upon your Bible without realizing or acknowledging it. You haven't backed up a whit of these assertions, and I think now that realization has been heavily poured upon your head.

So here's the "moral" of the story. Think rationally. Anticipate the consequences of your actions, especially in situations where you are aware that things can go wrong. By being conscious about the impact you have on your family, friends, and society in general, you can make the world be a happier, less crappy place. And smile about that!

:D

Why Christianity Fails: Morality

A few months ago I heard Christopher Hitchens' introduction in the debate, Poison or Cure? Religious Belief in the Modern World. I thought it was brilliant and I'd like to share it here with you in transcript form. I promise, it isn't boring.

When I debate with Jews and Muslims and Christians, I very often say, “well, do you really believe there was a virgin birth, do you really believe in a Genesis creation, do you really believe in bodily resurrection?” I get a sort of Monty Python reply. “Well, it's a little bit metaphorical, really.”

The main thing I want to dispute this evening is this: you hear it very often said by people of a vague faith that, while it may not be the case that religion is metaphysically true, its figures and its stories may be legendary or dwell on the edge of myth, prehistoric, and its truth claims may be laughable.

We have better claims -- excuse me, better explanations for the origins and birth of our cosmos and our species now, so much better so, in fact, that had they been available to begin with, religion would never have taken root. No one would now go back to the stage when we didn't have any real philosophy, we only had mythology, when we thought we lived on a flat planet or when we thought that our planet was circulated by the sun instead of the other way around, when we didn't know that there were micro-organisms as part of creation and that they were more powerful than us and had dominion over us rather than we, them, when we were fearful, the infancy of our species.

We wouldn't have taken up theism if we'd known now what we did then, but allow for all that, allow for all that, you still have to credit religion with being the source of ethics and morals: “where would we get these from if it weren't from faith?” I think, in the time I've got, I think that's the position I most want to undermine.

I don't believe that it's true that religion is moral or ethical, I certainly don't believe of course that any of its explanations about the origin of our species or the cosmos or its ultimate destiny are true either. In fact, I think most of those have been conclusively, utterly discredited, but I'll deal with the remaining claim that it is moral. Okay, and I can only do Christianity this evening. Is it moral to believe that your sins, yours and mine, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, can be forgiven by the punishment of another person? Is it ethical to believe that?

I would submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly immoral. I might, if I wished, if I knew any of you, you were my friend or even if I didn't know you but I just loved the idea of you (compulsory love is another sickly element of Christianity, by the way), but suppose I could say, “look, you're in debt, I've just made a lot of money out of a god-bashing book, I'll pay your debts for you, maybe you'll pay me back some day, but for now I can get you out of trouble.”

I could say if (I really loved someone who had been sentenced to prison) if I can find a way of saying I'd serve your sentence, I'd try and do it. I could do what Sydney Carton does in a Tale of Two Cities, if you like. I'm very unlikely to do this unless you've been incredibly sweet to me. I'll take your place on the scaffold, but I can't take away your responsibilities. I can't forgive what you did. I can't say you didn't do it. I can't make you washed clean. The name for that in primitive middle eastern society was scapegoating. You pile the sins of the tribe on a goat, you drive that goat into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. And you think you've taken away the sins of the tribe. This is a positively immoral doctrine that abolishes the concept of personal responsibility on which all ethics and all morality must depend.

It has a further implication. I'm told that I have to have a share in this human sacrifice even though it took place long before I was born. I have no say in it happening, I wasn't consulted about it, had I been present I would have been bound to do my best to stop the public torture and execution of an eccentric preacher. I would do the same even now.

No, no! I'm implicated in it, I, myself, drove in the nails, I was present at Calvary, it confirms the original filthy sin in which I was conceived and born, the sin of Adam in Genesis. Again, this may sound a mad belief, but it is the Christian belief.

Well it's here that we find something very sinister about monotheism and about religious practice in general. It is incipiently at least and I think often explicitly totalitarian, because I have no say in this. I am born under a celestial dictatorship which I could not have had any hand in choosing. I don't put myself under its Government. I am told that it can watch me while I sleep. I'm told that it can convict me of, here's the definition of totalitarianism, thought crime, for what I think I may be convicted and condemned.

And that if I commit a right action, it's only to evade this punishment and if I commit a wrong action, I'm going to be caught up not just with punishment in life for what I've done which often follows action systematically, but, no, even after I'm dead. In the Old Testament, gruesome as it is, recommending as it is of genocide, racism, tribalism, slavery, genital mutilation, in the displacement and destruction of others, terrible as the Old Testament gods are, they don't promise to punish the dead. There's no talk of torturing you after the earth has closed over the Amalekites. Only toward when gentle Jesus, meek and mild, makes his appearance are those who won't accept the message told they must depart into everlasting fire. Is this morality, is this ethics?

I submit not only is it not, not only does it come with the false promise of vicarious redemption, but it is the origin of the totalitarian principle which has been such a burden and shame to our species for so long.

I further think that it undermines us in our most essential integrity. It dissolves our obligation to live and witness in truth. Which of us would say that we would believe something because it might cheer us up or tell our children that something was true because it might dry their eyes? Which of us indulges in wishful thinking, who really cares about the pursuit of truth at all costs and at all hazards?

Can it not be said, do you not, in fact, hear it said repeatedly about religion and by the religions themselves that, well it may not be really true, the stories may be fairy tales. The history may be dubious, but it provides consolation. Can anyone hear themselves saying this or have it said of them without some kind of embarrassment? Without the concession that thinking here is directly wishful? That, yes, it would be nice if you could throw your sins and your responsibilities on someone else and have them dissolved? But it's not true and it's not morally sound and that's the second ground of my indictment.

On our integrity, basic integrity, knowing right from wrong and being able to choose a right action over a wrong one, I think one must repudiate the claim that one doesn't have this moral discrimination innately, that, no, rather it must come only from the agency of a celestial dictatorship which one must love and simultaneously fear.

What is it like (I've never tried it, I've never been a cleric), what is it like to lie to children for a living and tell them that they have an authority, that they must love compulsory love? What a grotesque idea and be terrified of it at the same time. What's that like? I want to know.

And that we don't have an innate sense of right and wrong, children don't have an innate sense of fairness and decency, which of course they do. What is it like? I can personalize it to this extent, my mother's Jewish ancestors are told that until they got to Sinai, they'd been dragging themselves around the desert under the impression that adultery, murder, theft and perjury were all fine, and they get to Mount Sinai only to be told that's not kosher after all.

I'm sorry, excuse me, we must have more self-respect than that for ourselves and for others. Of course the stories are fiction. It's a fabrication exposed conclusively by Israeli archaeology. Nothing of the sort ever took place, but suppose we take as metaphor? It's an insult, it's an insult to us, it's an insult to our deepest integrity.

No, if we believed that perjury, murder and theft were all right, we wouldn't have got as far as the foot of Mount Sinai or anywhere else.

Now we're told what we have to believe and this is, I'm coming now to the question of whether or not science, reason and religion are compatible or I would rather say reconcilable. The late, great Stephen J. Gould said that he believed they were non-overlapping magisteria, you can be both a believer and a person of faith.

Here's why I, a non-scientist, will say that I think it's more radically irreconcilable than it is incompatible. I've taken the best advice I can on how long Homo sapiens have been on the planet. Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins and many others, and many discrepant views from theirs reckon it's not more than 250,000 years, a quarter of a million years. It's not less, either. I think it's roughly accepted, I think. 100,000 is the lowest I've heard and actually I was about to say, again not to sound too Jewish, I'll take 100,000. I only need 100,000.

For 100,000 years Homo sapiens were born, usually, well not usually, but very often dying in the process or killing its mother in the process at life expectancy probably not much more than 20, 25 years. Dying probably of hunger or of micro-organisms that they didn't know existed or of events such as volcanic or tsunami or earthquake types that would have been wholly terrifying and mysterious as well as some turf wars over women, land, property, food, other matters. You can fill them in, imagine it for yourself what the first few tens of thousands of years were like.

And we like to think learning a little bit in the process and certainly having Gods all the way, worshiping bears fairly early on, I can sort of see why, sometimes worshiping other human beings, (big mistake, I'm coming back to that if I have time), this and that and the other thing, but exponentially perhaps improving, though in some areas of the world very nearly completely dying out. And a bitter struggle all along.

According to the Christian faith, heaven watches this with folded arms for 98,000 years and then decides, "It's time to intervene. And the best way of doing that would be a human sacrifice in primitive Palestine where the news would take so long to spread that it still hasn't penetrated very large parts of the world and that would be our redemption of human species."

Now I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that that is, what I've just said which you must believe to believe the Christian revelation is not possible to believe, as well as not decent to believe. Why is it not possible? Because a virgin birth is more likely than that. A resurrection is more likely than that and because if it was true, it would have two further implications. It would have to mean that the designer of this plan was unbelievably lazy and inept or unbelievably callous and cruel and indifferent and capricious. That is the case with every argument for design and every argument for revelation and intervention that has ever been made. But it's not conclusively so because of the superior knowledge that we've won for ourselves by an endless struggle to assert our reason, our science, our humanity, our extension of knowledge against the priests, against the Rabbis, against the Mullahs who have always wanted us to consider ourselves as made from dust or from a clot of blood, according to the Koran, or as the Jews are supposed to pray every morning, at least not female or gentile.

And here's my final point, the final insult that religion delivers to us, the final poison it injects into our system. It appeals both to our meanness, our self-centeredness and our solipsism and to masochism. In other words, it's sadomasochistic.

I'll put it like this: you're a clot of blood, you're a piece of mud, you're lucky to be alive, God fashioned you for his convenience, even though you're born in filth and sin and even though every religion that's ever been is distinguished principally by the idea that we should be disgusted by our own sexuality. Name me a religion that does not play upon that fact. So you're lucky to be here, originally sinful and covered in shame and filth as you are, you're a wretched creature, but take heart, the Universe is designed with you in mind and heaven has a plan for you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I close by saying I can't believe there is a thinking person here who does not realize that our species would begin to grow to something like its full height if it left this childishness behind, if it emancipated itself from this sinister, childlike nonsense.

"Proof" That God Exists

The Proof[sic] that God exists is that without Him you couldn't prove anything.

Thank you, proofthatgodexists.org! And no, I'm not kidding. This is actually the crux of the site.

Before they pop this golden nugget of wisdom up onto your screen, you're led through a series of yes/no answer pages asking you if you believe in logical/scientific/mathematical/moral absolutes. (And if you say you don't care if absolutes exists, it just shows an exit button that links to the Disney website. I feel like I should be insulted.) It's really a waste of time though, as they expect you to answer yes to every one and at the end, they quote the scripture about all men having the knowledge of god. Then, on the very next screen, they display this previously quoted block of text as if it somehow follows. Here, I'll break down each of their sections and explain my answers in detail.

Laws of Logic: These laws exist in that we can conceptualize of them. They don't exist in any tangible way; they merely describe the way our universe works. It follows in this reality that if premise A and premise B are true, then the conclusion will be true as long as it follows both premises. I fail to see how this is in any way directly or tangentially related to any concept of a god.

Laws of Mathematics: These laws also exist only in conceptual form. Mathematicians have defined operators such as +,-,/,×, etc. to have certain meanings on specific sets of numbers. This is a human system, not a divine one, so again, this seems to be unrelated to any diestical proposition.

Laws of Science: These exist, though creationists like Sye TenB (creator of this website) often have misunderstandings about what these are. A scientific law is a statement about a specific phenomenon in nature that is always true under a specific set of conditions, such as Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. Laws are not a "higher tier" than theories but are rather incorporated into theories as explanations of systems that extend beyond the laws themselves. But I digress - these laws actually exist to the degree that we can confirm them. These laws are necessarily inductive in their nature which means that we could be wrong about any of them (but we're generally pretty confident). I think this website meant to say something along the lines of "there is uniformity of nature," though that wouldn't seem to suit their purposes later. (See their arguments against radioactive dating measures.)

Absolute Moral Laws: This is where it necessarily gets tricky. Not because I don't believe that morality can be absolute or objective, but that, at some level, it is necessarily subjective. I don't want to go into too much detail about it here, but suffice it to say that under any specific definition of morality, we can make absolute and objective claims about actions, pertaining to the definition, that will have positive, negative, or neutral value. None of this requires a deity (and about the rape and child molestation in the Bible, they are commanded and not prohibited, respectively) and as such it is a poor example. Perhaps Sye expects us to naturally assume a god is required to believe in rights and wrongs but I won't grant him that, despite being the kind man that I am.

The Nature of Laws (a): I have confirmed that all of these "laws" exist (with the knowledge that some of these are poorly worded) and declare that they are immaterial.

The Nature of Laws (b): Here's the problem: all of these "laws" are lumped together as one unit and I have to either accept or reject the fact that they are man-made or universal as a group. I'll just say that they are all universal if we consider that under each of their specific definitions, they are either true or false regardless of who interprets whatever falls under their umbrellas.

The Nature of Laws (c): Are these laws changing? Well, theoretically we could redefine mathematics so that 2+2 no longer equals 4, but I don't ever see that happening. Logical absolutes cannot change and the principle of uniformity tells me that scientific laws probably won't change either. Morality, however, is either static or flexible depending on how you see it. It is flexible if you see it as a set of rules, since these rules can change based on culture, religion, and what people enjoy or dislike. It is unchanging if you see it as a means by which to increase well-being and decrease suffering, as any other definition would seem to render any talk of morality meaningless. But I'll just go ahead and answer "unchanging"...

Filler page ("preproof"): To summarize, "If you don't believe, my god's gonna getcha! But it's sooooo obvious, I mean, who could deny it? My god's eternal power (you know what that means) and divine nature (with 'divine' being a well defined and meaningful word) are just radiating from every rock, crocodile, and roadside hooker. If you think he doesn't exist, YOUR STUPID!"

"Proof": "The Proof[sic] that God exists is that without Him you couldn't prove anything."

I fail to see and you've failed to show how any of this requires a god. Because there is uniformity in nature, I must be compelled to concede that a god/creator/something made it? What? I don't think your bold and unfounded assertion makes any sense for even the most abstract concept of god.

If I require a god to believe in absolutes, and god is an absolute, then isn't this just circular reasoning anyway? I don't think the guy who is running this website knows anything about logic, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm overlooking something.

To be clear, there are two different concepts at play here: reality (ie. the universe and the way it works) and our descriptions and models of how it works, some of which we call laws. And this website is apparently claiming that I require a god to make a conceptual model of this universe based on deductive and inductive principles. Sorry but, to be blunt, you've spent far too much time on what appears to be just another creationist non-sequitur.