Golden Platypus Atheist

On Tortoises and First Causes

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:41:00 +0000

In considering arguments proposed by Christians attempting to demonstrate that there must be a God, one of their most common comes to mind: The First Cause Argument. It is startling in its simplicity and sufficient to convince many a believer.

The First Cause Argument says that, since everything has a cause, if we go back far enough we must come upon the first cause, which must be God. Someone must have got the ball rolling.

In modern times we have followed the expansion of the observable universe to a singularity, a point of infinite density and infinitesimal size, but because we as yet have no theory to unify gravity and quantum mechanics (the holy grail of physics), beyond this point we are unable to travel. In other words, we have followed the trail to 10^-43 seconds after the Big Bang, but we cannot (yet) penetrate further.

So when physicists are asked, what happened before the Big Bang, they say, "We don't know." When Christians are asked this same question, they say, "God created the universe." God being the First Cause.

However, if everything requires a cause, as these religionists claim, then God must also have a cause. They will attempt to sidestep this problem by claiming that God has no cause. He is the end of the line. But if God does not require a cause, then not everything can be said to require a cause, and the universe can just as easily be without a cause as God.

This is where the tortoise comes in. In the Hindu tradition, the Earth is said to be resting on the back of an elephant, which is in turn standing on the shell of a tortoise. But what does the tortoise stand on? At this point the Hindu must ask to change the subject.

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The meaning of "revelation"

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:36:00 +0000

I shall begin this post with a quotation from the venerable Thomas Payne:

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

-The Age of Reason

When I converted to Christianity (or a peculiar brand of it), I skipped over reason. I navigated no journey of logical, sensible, or rational cognition by which others may have convinced me that the tenets of the religion (the existence of God, the inerrancy of the Bible) possessed any objective basis by which to lay claim to my life. And yet, I was converted.

As I look back at that period of my life, and the years that followed, wherein life in the church cemented my choices and narrowed my options, I can see clearly that, were I, at that tender age, capable of logical thought, I would have rejected the religionists’ claims of “revelation” outright.

Why do men and women accept as revelation from God words that were not revealed by God to them, but rather, supposedly, revealed to someone else, for which claim we have only this person’s claim, or even less credible, someone else’s claim on their behalf? “He saw a burning bush that did not consume the bush!” “They saw Moses and Elijah and Jesus together on the mountain top!” “He calmed the sea!” If someone made such claims in the present we would judge them mentally incompetent. God supposedly told Abraham to slaughter his child and burn it? Believable? A mother makes a similar claim in a courtroom (God told me to knife my children to death!) and she is sentenced to a mental institution or lethal injection.

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Did he go on to his reward?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Just had a relative die. Very religious. His family believes he will be resurrected, receive a new, glorious body, and worship the God of the Bible for eternity in heaven. If this brings his family comfort, all well and good. At the same time, I can't help but wonder about the basis for such a belief.

As far as I know, there is not a scintilla of verifiable, testable or repeatable evidence to justify the idea that life continues after death. The peculiar and specific pattern of neuronal connections that we acquire over a lifetime of being conscious are destroyed when our brain cells cease to metabolize and begin to decay. From what do we build a belief in a Christian resurrection?

Those we interact and bond with affect out own pattern of personality, their consciousness becoming part of our own, such that their cessation causes pain and loss in us. Naturally we long to interact with them again. So believing in a resurrection may bring comfort. But does that make it real?

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Why are religions exempt from demonstrating their veracity?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:20:00 +0000

Ronald Reagan's oft-quoted maxim, "Trust, but verify," actually works in the real world. There is a place for trust, and there is a place for seeking verification. A phone call out of the blue from someone who purports to be a representative of your car company, warning you that your warranty is about to expire, and pressing you to pay (by credit card, over the phone) one thousand dollars to renew it, should not be taken at face value. Although thousands apparently do just that.

Trusting your spouse or loved one is good, but such trust has been earned over a period of time during which they have demonstrated trustworthyness. Trusting that your medical practitioner knows her business is based on a set of regulations that are meant to separate the wheat from the chaff.

And so on.

So why is it that we give religion a pass?

Religions inoculate themselves against such demands quite handily, to whit:

A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. And there shall no sign be given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And He left them and went away (Matthew 16:4).

And he said, I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them. And he said, No, father Abraham, but if one should go to them from the dead, they would repent. And he said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded, even though one rose from the dead (Luke 16:27-31).

Asking for some scrap of proof before I go and commit my life to a set of beliefs is, to my mind, a reasonable request. But religions not only provide no proof of their veracity, they tend to slap you down for even asking.

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The evolution of morality

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:17:00 +0000

Ever noticed the kind of music favored by various radio talk-show hosts? You have the religiously-based hosts like Bill Bennett and Dr. Laura (even though these shows are not overtly religious, the hosts make no secret of their religious biases), whose music tends to be selected from the past. And then there are hosts like Michael Savage, whose music is pretty much cutting edge.

My theory is that religion tends to clutch the past, while atheism tends to fix its eyes on the future. This is similar to the difference between parents and children. The parent has been around for a while and bases his or her understanding of the world on experience. The child, who has no experience to speak of, will generally want to know, "Why?" Both views have merit.

Experience has great value, but is not always a useful guide. Experience that's based on unchanging truths about the world, we ignore at our peril. On the other hand, past experience, the way we've always done it, can be evil and destructive. Hence the great value in the youthful question, "Why." If no one ever challenged the values of the past, we would never move forward.

While religion tends to decry what it sees as the loss of values in the modern world (as when Bob Jones University grudgingly relinquishes its prohibition against interracial dating and Mormons battle against same-sex-marriage) and cling toa 2,000-year-old book as the "unchanging Word of God," atheism demands to know, "Why?"

I propose that we value the past without becoming slaves to it. That we glean from religious valuable insights while maintaining the right to ask, "Why?"

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Why science is way better than religion

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:01:00 +0000

While both science and religion can be called "world views," science is as different from religion as day is from night. I just posted over on Singularity & Futurism an article called "Memristors - The pathway to artificial intelligence?" that reminded me of one of the most important differences between the two.

Science actually discovers truth about the universe in which we live. This truth, when discovered and applied, is demonstrably accurate, as all truth should be, as evidenced by how it works in the real world. Science is real. It works in the real world, and the undiscovered country of things science does not yet know continues to grow smaller.

Certainly the religious adherent may say at this point that religion does the same. But I ask you: What has religion ever discovered? What has religion ever revealed about how our world works?

Religion, at least in its non-supernatural aspects, describes the human condition and what humans have learned about themselves by long, sometimes painful, experience. All well and good, but in doing so it is no different or better than philosophy.

Religion tends to be about coveting the past, while science tends to be about reaching for the future. Listening to Dr. Vernon McGee on one of his Bible broadcasts, I was struck by the irony of his deriding "all this newfangled technology," whilst making excellent use of it to promote his worldview. I daresay no religious individual would want to do without the advantages of technological progress (even the Amish use the wheel), while millions do without religion quite nicely.

What say you?

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Are you angry with God?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:10:00 +0000

It's so common it's become a cliché. Someone close to you dies, so you're angry with God. You lose your job, you blame God. The crops fail, God has it in for you. "Why did God let this happen?" "God and I aren't on very good terms right now." And so on. Seems pretty silly to me. Wouldn't it be more rational and reasonable to conclude that what happened was not the doing of a spiteful deity, but rather the result of earthly causes?

When people suffer, they tend to seek a "reason." They want to have an explanation. But people die. Bad things happen. What makes anyone so special they should be exempt from the harshness of a disinterested universe?

Since I've admitted to myself and others that I'm an atheist I've been accused of being angry with God. How can one be angry with a being one has no reason to believe even exists? When bad or unpleasant things happen to me, it seems I'm much more capable of dealing with these events when I focus on real causes. Is there something I can do to rectify the situation? Is there a way I can prevent this sort of thing from happening again? If not, what's to be gained by dwelling on it? Like that.

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Blame it on the Fall

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:06:00 +0000

An amusing saying: The man who smiles when things go wrong, has found someone else to blame it on.

Christians have a ready-made and defensless scapegoat whenever you point out any one of the counless examples of poor design in nature. If God is so wonderful and perfect, we ask, how could he have screwed up so royally? Why are people's backs so easily put out? Why is there cancer? What's up with the problems between men and women? (You know, can't live with them, can't live without them.)

No matter what you look at that's messed up and badly designed, the answer is the same: It's because of the Fall! Before the Fall, everything was perfect. Animals ate only veggies, not each other. There were no back problems. If only Adam had done the right thing!

Of couse, the Fall might be the perfect scapegoat except for the fact that there isn't a shred of evidence to show that things were ever better than they are now!

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Why Christian preachers perpetuate the myth of us versus them

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:52:00 +0000

I was a preacher and I hung out with preachers. I still listen to preachers on radio and TV from time to time. And so I know this: Preachers are salesmen. The job of the preacher is to sell his brand of church. To sell his product he has to tell his target market why his product is better than the other guy's.

As a preacher, you can sell what you have to offer to 3 sectors: First, there is the sector called the unchurched. Those who don't belong to any church at all. Second, there is the other-churched sector, those who are loyal to a competitor's brand of church. And finally, there is the your-churched, consisting of those who already belong to your brand but who you need to shore up against possible defection.

To sell your product you have to villify the no-church and the other-church options. You have to continually make your brand look better by comparison. And so you have to perpetuate the myth of us versus them.

You paint an ugly picture of what life is like on the outside. You tell your audience how horrible it is to be outsde the walls of your church. You say ridiculous things (which no one questions, much less laughs at). Things like the following:

"It's so wonderful to be here, this is just a little taste of what heaven will be like! There's nowhere else I'd rather be." The truth- There are several places people would rather be, and if this is a taste of heaven, please keep it away from us.

"The world outside is evil and wicked. The world is falling apart. People outside are miserable." The truth- The world outside is not much different to the world inside.

"If you don't have Jesus, you don't have anything!" The truth- Millions of people are doing just fine without Jesus.

Someone should stand up and ask preachers to back up these kinds of statements.

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Christian Apologetics - Why God Allows Suffering

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:28:00 +0000

Imagine this...

A 6-year-old little girl is abducted by a serial pedophile. While her parents are tormented by visions of what may be happening to her, what the perpetrator may be doing to her, and crushed by the realization that they have thus far been powerless to save her, the man uses her sexually and tortures her without mercy or conscience. Finally, he squeezed her trachea shut until her little heart stops beating.

It isn't hard to believe that, during this horrific ordeal, parents and child prayed to the God they were taught to trust and serve. They must have begged, pleaded, through eyes filled with tears and hearts torn apart by anguish. As the man hurt the child, she must have cried for her mother and asked her God to save her.

But her pleas for her parents could not be answered, for they were only human and thus limited. They would easily have given their own lives to save her if they could, but saving her was beyond their power.

What about her pleas to God? He, according to Christian doctrine, could have saved her. He did not. They question that has been asked for centuries is, Why not? If he loves us and is omnipotent, why would he not save a little girl from her rapist and murderer?

Christians have answered this question in many ways. Here is the answer I used to give as a minister:

God has a much larger perspective and does not see death, or even pain, as we do. To his eternal eyes, these things are not the tragedies we see them as, because in just a short while, once we are transported to heaven, we will see that pain and death were but the pain of a moment. What's more, he is like the parent who knows that not getting that special dress is not the end of the world her daughter thinks it is. To the daughter, the suffering is enormous; to the parent, it is fleeting.

I now see a gaping hole in this explanation, and it is this: The pain of a child who doesn't get a desired dress is minimal and ends there. The pain of a child suffering torture and death does not end there. The lives of parents and extended family are twisted beyond recognition, marriages often end, and the pain goes on and on.

In my opinion, cruelty is only multiplied when people are led to put their trust in a deity who does nothing to help them because he can do nothing, because he is not real.

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Is there religion without the supernatural?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:38:00 +0000

This is where semantics can get us into unnecessary difficulty. What is meant by religion? Does the term necessarily include the supernatural? This is important because, to my mind, absent the supernatural, religion can be quite benign, helpful, even.

There are certainly bad religions, as in any that promote distrust or hatred of people who don't look or think like we do, but let's set those aside for this discussion.

What's left? Simply this: Philosophies of life based on long human experience and traits not easily reduced to scientific study. Sets of principles and guidelines that, when understood and followed, increase peace and tranquility in the lives of individuals and societies.

I'm all for that, and I can cheer on and value the role of such religion in the human journey.

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Religious Motivations - Moral Agoraphobia

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:04:00 +0000

DSM IV: anxiety about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing) or in which help may not be available in the event of having an unexpected or situationally predisposed Panic Attack or panic-like symptoms. Agoraphobic fears typically involve characteristic clusters of situations that include being outside the home alone; being in a crowd, or standing in a line; being on a bridge; and traveling in a bus, train, or automobile.

This disorder is commonly thought of as a fear of open spaces. It occurred to me that a moral version of this fear can be a strong motivator towards religiosity. Allow me to explain:

I remember well a metaphor used by preachers of my Church of Christ years. When is a train most free? When it's running on the tracks. Rather than seeing the rules and strictures of Christianity as constraining, we were encouraged to see them as "freeing" us to live as God intended, just like that speeding train.The idea was that, free from rules, boundaries and limitations (as Cesar is fond of saying on The Dog Whisperer),we will necessarily run amuck and headlong into self-destruction.

When Mom and Dad said goodbye and left me on the doorstep of my new residence hall at the University of Florida, my new freedom was both exhilarating and terrifying. Mostly terrifying. I was strongly attracted, therefore, to the outreach of Christians, whose religion promised to provide comforting moral safeguards, tracks upon which I could run safely.

The religions seem to offer us a ready-made set of rules. They offer clear markings on the pavement of our lives that tell us that we may go so far and no farther. There's a degree of comfort in that, yes? It is frightening not to know where the danger lies. Religions promise to keep us safe.

One problem, though, is that they often go beyond moral guidelines and stray into demands for absolute devotion, this devotion often involving the performance of rituals that have no bearing on moral virtue. They are frequently more concerned about their own preservation and supremacy in our lives than about relieving suffering and bringing peace and happiness. Another problem is that they feel it necessary to call upon the authority of a fictional all-powerful deity who will punish us eternally if we stray, as a means of keeping us in line. It isn't enough to point out the reasonableness of morality, that being the goal of bringing joy to the lives of others. They have to beat us about the head and shoulders with silly superstitions to cow us into submission.

The moral codes of most established religions seem worthy enough to stand on their own, as the fruits of millenia of human experience, without the unnecessary baggage of superstition and religion.

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If you go to hell, who put you there?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:22:00 +0000

Many Christians, attempting to harmonize their image of a loving God with the concept of Hell, are fond of telling us that God does not send anyone to Hell at all. They teach that anyone who goes to Hell has sent themselves there in spite of all God's efforts to save them.

So what does the following statement mean?

And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you of whom you shall fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him. (Luke 12:4-5)

Yes friends, the very Bible that tells you of God's love also tells you that you should fear the One who has the authority to cast into Hell. You don't go there of your own accord, beloved. You are cast. Thrown. Dumped. Propelled. By Him.

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Bleeding dead men

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:28:00 +0000

It strains credulity, doesn't it? But it is demonstrably true. Human beings will believe absolutely ANYTHING! And they will believe anything without the slightest bit of evidence besides the fact that someone, anyone, says it's true. And they will believe anything, based on the claims of anyone, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary.

I'm reminded of a story.

Seems there was a delusional fellow who was convinced that he was dead. No one in his circle of friends or family could convince him otherwise. It was time for a professional to try. So, they hired a psychiatrist with a huge reputation for using logical arguments successfully to persuade delusional people to change their minds and abandon their delusions.

The psychiatrist wasted no time using his most powerful argument, one that had worked beautifully in prior cases. "Are you alive?" said the psychiatrist.

"Certainly not! I have been dead for many years now," said the patient.

"Another question: Do dead men bleed?"

"No, I happen to know that once the heart stops beating, there is no longer enough pressure to force blood out. So dead men do not bleed," said the patient.

"Very well, then." And suddenly the doctor snatched up a scalpel, grabbed hold of the man's hand and sliced the patient along the base of his thumb. Blood poured out of the wound until the doctor applied a large napkin to the spot. "So, what do you say to that?"

Ashen faced now, the patient seemed on the verge of an epiphany. The doctor waited for the magic words...

"Well I'll be damned. Dead men do bleed!"

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Debunking Omnipotence

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:56:00 +0000

First, let's agree that the Bible tells us that God is omnipotent.

Job 42:2 I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.

Genesis 18:14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.

Matthew 19:26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Next, let us agree that the Bible also tells us that there are some things that God cannot do.

Hebrews 6:18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone.

The typical argument made in an attempt to remove any apparent inconsistency here is to say that God can do anything as long as it does not go against his nature. In other words, God, by nature, is always truthful, and therefore it is impossible for him to lie. And so on.

However, cannot the very same rationalization be used to excuse our own inability to do things? It is impossible for me to fly without technological assistance. But that is because flying is not in my nature. I cannot survive without oxygen, for doing so is not in my nature.

So God is not really omnipotent. He is merely more potent than I.

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Filling the God-Hole

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:33:00 +0000

A line used often in the battle to win souls goes as follows: There's a space in your heart that only God can fill.

The idea is that God made us each with a God-hole. It's an emotional and psychological emptiness inside us that we can feel, and it's an emptiness that can only be filled by a relationship with Him, or so goes the thinking behind it.

Of course, almost everyone, at some point in their life, will "feel" that something is missing. Back when people had to spend all day, everyday, focusing their energies on putting sufficient calories on the table to avoid starvation, the only emptiness they probably felt was physical hunger and perhaps fatigue. But today, with our scads of free time, we seek to be emotionally and psychologically fulfilled.

No wonder, then, that this appeal finds purchase.

At the ripe old age of 17, I was drawn by this line because I had not found a "meaning" or a "purpose" in my life. If only I had given it 6 more months! Then I would have been fine!

So, this is my advice to anyone who feels that they have a God-hole. Before you commit to religion, give it some time. Look into other ways to fill that emptiness. You may find that the hole can be filled by other things, and you may save yourself a whole lot of wasted time, money and energy.

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Atheists on the left, Christians on the right?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:06:00 +0000

I've posted before on the disturbing trend of Fox News airing blatantly religious content. But there's another, equally irksome penchant I've noticed on the atheist side. Many atheist bloggers, I have noticed, routinely espouse blatantly left-leaning political views on their atheist blogs.

This is certainly their right. It's their blog. My issue has to do with the way they come across. It smacks of the same holier-than-thou mentality of the religious right. If you don't think Obama is your Lord and Master, you're a religious, right-wing freak, according to them.

I don't believe in the Christian God because I see no reason to do so, not because of my political views. Furthermore, I despise being squeezed into a philosophical box. So you won't see me pushing right or left on this blog.

Happy reading!

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Bible Contradictions - giving the lie to omniscience

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:36:00 +0000

He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." (Gen 22:12)

Those three unfortunate, from the point of view of the fundamentalist Christian, words, "Now I know."

Some backstory:

The fundamentalist, or anyone really who believes that the Bible is the inerrant, literal word of God, begins with the premise that A: God exists, leading to B: surely he would have communicated with us, therefore C: the Bible is clearly that communication, so D: surely a creator would have the power to give us an inerrant communication in spite of human frailty.

Having established by such unassailable logic that the Bible is inerrant, it follows that it can have no real contradictions, and therefore any apparent contradictions must be explained away.

Well, here's a doozy.

The Bible describes a deity who is omniscient. He knows everything. He knows perfectly the hearts and minds of men.

The case of Abraham then. After God tests him, after Abraham passes God's test, God says to him, "Now I know..." As in, I didn't know before now. I may have thought, speculated, surmised, but I did not know. I had to test you in this horrible way in order to bring certainty to my mind.

And this is not the only example of such a contradiction. Here's another:

And the LORD said, "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." (Gen 18:20-21)

So, the Lord heard rumors, apparently, about what was going on in Sodom and its sinful sister city, Gomorrah. But he did not know for himself if these rumors were true. He had to "go down and see." If the rumors were false, he assures us, "I will know."

With Abraham, he had to test. With Sodom, he had to personally visit and investigate. Not very omniscient of him, is it?

The inerrant, no-contradictions-allowed crowd will explain all of these problematic passages thus: "Not as if there were any thing concerning which God is in doubt; but he is pleased thus to express himself after the manner of men" (Wesley).

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Ask an atheist - Why not believe in God, just in case?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:55:00 +0000

This question tends to be proffered by some Christians who sincerely wonder why I, and others like me, wouldn't choose to be Christians just to hedge against the possibility that the God described in the Bible actually exists. The question presupposes, wrongly I think, that the God of the Bible would even accept such provisional believers. What I would agree with is the proposition that, since the penalty for unbelief if this God is real is so steep, it would behoove us to look into the matter before . The thing is, I have. Now, after knowing what I know of the question, I see no reason to believe that such an unlikely being exists. Therefore, my answer:

It smacks of cowardice to subscribe to a system of belief that seems so highly unlikely, simply to cover my bases. And it smacks of a lack of integrity. It's as if you are saying, "This is totally bizarre, there's almost no evidence to support it, everything I know to be true about the world contradicts it, more and more so every day, but, I'll go along with it just in case." That's not going to happen. I might as well knock on wood, throw salt over my shoulder, and pay lip service to every other major religion, just to be safe.

Suppose Mormonism is right? Suppose Seventh Day Adventists are right? Suppose Jehovah's Witnesses are right? What possible system of belief could encompass them all and so avoid going to hell if one of them is true? What if L. Ron Hubbard is right? Most Christians choose not to subscribe to the doctrines of most other denominations because they think they are untrue. That's what I'm doing with Christianity. I don't believe it is true.

You may say, what if I am wrong? Doesn't it make sense to adopt belief just in case?

I could do a lot of things to mitigate risk, but when I judge that risk to be so small as to be insignificant, and the price of mitigating it far too great, then, no. I don't consider that smart at all. There is a tiny but non-zero risk that I will be killed in a car wreck tomorrow. Should I stay off the streets to remove that risk? That would be irrational.

I invite your comments.

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Show me the power

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:47:00 +0000

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Eph 3:20-21)

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Eph 1:18-21)

These passages from the Bible, and others like them, use soaring rhetoric to describe the Christian life. According to them, there is abundant power available to and at work within the Christian, power that is both qualitatively and quantitatively equivalent to the resurrection of Christ from the dead!

Now, if this is true, shouldn't it be somewhat evident to the rest of the world? Shouldn't there be some glimpse of the supernatural in the Christian's life? But there isn't. They are ordinary. They live and love, lie and lust, do good and evil in the same proportions as the rest of the populations they inhabit. So, show me the power.

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God as Nagging Spouse

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:58:00 +0000

You know how it is when a spouse or significant other complains about your behavior. They (and you) often exaggerate. You always do x, you never do y. I've asked you a quadrillion times, you never listen. Like that.

OK, that's human. That's what it feels like when we're upset. But would you expect a perfect, self-contained deity to do the same? Take a look...

as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE." "THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING," "THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS"; "WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS"; "THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN." "THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES." (Rom 3:10-18)

Come on, surely god is overstating.

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The subjectivity of Jesus' commands - You can never be certain where you stand

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:49:00 +0000

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life (Jn. 12:25).

Many of Jesus's pronouncements are like this one. They make a black-or-white result come from a shades-of-gray standard. In the statement above, Jesus seems to indicate that there are only two possible outcomes for human beings as they move from this life to the next. For you, this means that you will either "lose" your life or you will "keep it" eternally. Essentially it's the heaven or hell scenario with nothing between. No purgatory, no second chances.

OK, fine. But the problem is, the conditions resulting in these two possible outcomes are not binary. They are not on/off. They might be best described as a continuum of possible conditions, ever changing and impossible to pin down.

In the example above, you can choose between loving your life or hating it. First off, these terms are subject to vast swathes of interpretive geography. What does he mean? Second, how does one measure such things? Do I hate my life sufficiently? Is there possibly some ineradicable smidgen of love that will be my ultimate undoing?

Such subjectivity removes all possibility of rational certainty. There are even cases mentioned in the Bible of people who thought they were on the right side of the equation, only to face a fiery re-education on the matter (Matt. 7:21-23).

So I ask you, believer, how can you be certain where you stand?

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Does Adam Represent You?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Rom 5:19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

According to the Bible, he does. This doctrine is called the agency of Adam. A brief explanation may be in order:

The Bible tells us that "all have sinned" (Rom. 3:23). It is a pillar of Christian teaching that every last human being has or will succumb to temptation and sin. Now, if something is 100% certain in the entire human population, past, present and future, one cannot say that individuals within the population have any choice in the matter. In essence, you cannot not sin. You do not have the power not to sin.

But this was not always the case. In Adam's case, he did have a choice. He did have the power not to sin. As we all know, the dweeb chose to sin.

Now, since Adam chose to sin, he and the rest of humanity lost that power. That's right. You and I and everyone else became sinners.

So if you feel that it is unfair of God to punish you for doing what you have no possibility of avoiding, you must understand that Adam was your representative, your agent. And as any watcher of Judge Judy knows, you are liable for the actions of your agent.

For example, if you hire a tree guy to take down the pine tree in your front yard, and said tree guy messes up the operation and brings said tree down upon your neighbor's new Jag, well, you are responsible. (Of course you can sue the tree guy, but the neighbor will come after you.) Because the tree guy was acting as your agent.

But, you say, I hired the tree guy! I never asked Adam to represent me! Well, that's too bad, because God chose Adam to represent you. Doesn't matter what you wanted. It's just the way it is.

How do you feel about that? Once again we come to the might makes right argument, the one that shuts us up but good. As Paul said (and I paraphrase): Who the hell are you to talk back to God?

But many Christians will then say, yes, but God also made Jesus your agent. He didn't sin, and you can switch reps and be a non-sinner. Potentially. Only if you do everything he says.

So, Adam you got whether you want him or not. To get Jesus, you'll have to do some major sucking up.

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Where'd the Garden Go?

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:25:00 +0000

After Adam and Eve provoked God to the extent that he cursed all of humanity (the same humanity that he designed and built, mind you), and booted the silly, sinning couple out of Eden, the scriptures say this:

So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen. 3:23-24)

So God evicted them without notice and put security guard cherubs, armed with a sword-flambe, at the entrance just in case they tried to sneak back in.

Then humanity goes about its business.

So what happened to the Garden? With Google Earth around, should we be able to see it?

Of course literalistic Christians will say that just because God didn't tell us how he got rid of it doesn't mean he didn't. Or better yet, they'll opine that God has the power to hide it from our satellites if he chooses. Yes, yes, but explanations that make such frequent use of God's alleged superpowers ring hollow. Much simpler and more rational to conclude that the thing never existed in the first place, don't you think?

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Christians not allowed to accept evolution, says Discovery Institute

bmahfood@gmail.com (Barry Mahfood) — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:52:00 +0000

NewScientist - May 28, 2009, by Amanda Gefter

The Discovery Institute – the Seattle-based headquarters of the intelligent design movement – has just launched a new website, Faith and Evolution, which asks, can one be a Christian and accept evolution? The answer, as far as the Discovery Institute is concerned, is a resounding: No.

The new website appears to be a response to the recent launch of the BioLogos Foundation, the brainchild of geneticist Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project and rumoured Obama appointee-to-be for head of the National Institutes of Health. Along with "a team of scientists who believe in God" and some cash from the Templeton Foundation, Collins, an evangelical Christian who is also a staunch proponent of evolution, is on a crusade to convince believers that faith and science need not be at odds. He is promoting "theistic evolution" – the belief that God (the prayer-listening, proactive, personal God of Christianity) chose to create life by way of evolution.

It sounds like a nice idea, but to my mind any time you try to reconcile science and religion by rejecting Stephen Jay Gould's notion of "non-overlapping magisteria" and instead try shoehorning them into a single worldview, something suffers. My concern is that science will take the hit – and Collins's speculative arguments about divine intervention via quantum uncertainty seem dangerously poised for the punch. The Discovery Institute's concern, on the other hand, is that Christianity will take the hit. "For Christians," they write on their website, "mainstream theistic evolution raises challenges to traditional doctrines about God's providence, the Fall and the detectability of God's design in nature." For them, reconciling evolution and religious faith is simply a hopeless endeavour.

Read more>>

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