Monthly Archives: March 2016

Slavery Back as a Discussion Topic? Thanks, Trump.

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On many occasions I’ve engaged with Christians on some aspect of morality—God’s actions in the Old Testament, say, or biblical morality—and I’ve assumed that we agree that slavery is wrong and proceeded from that point of agreement.
Turns out, I was wrong. The moral error of slavery isn’t the universal in the United States that I’d assumed, and Donald Trump’s candidacy is providing cover for racism that had been hidden.
An Economist/YouGov poll in January of likely voters asked about the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln’s executive order that freed the slaves. Did they approve? 53% strongly approved and 17% approved somewhat. Surprisingly, 5% strongly disapproved and 8% disapproved somewhat. And 17% were unsure.
How is this possible? 13% disapproved of the end of slavery, either somewhat or strongly? Barely half strongly approved? And 17% had no opinion? In the United States, in 2016?
Caveats …
Polls can be misleading in lots of ways, and I don’t want to take from this more than is there. Small changes in the phrasing of a poll question can change the answers. The question about slavery was, “Do you approve or disapprove of the executive order which freed all slaves in the states that were in rebellion against the federal government?”
Could respondents have quibbled with the “states that were in rebellion” part and wished that the Emancipation Proclamation simply applied to all states?
Though Trump supporters disapproved of the Emancipation Proclamation most strongly, maybe it’s election year recklessness more than Trump’s I-can-say-whatever-I-want attitude that is bringing this out.
Likelier, respondents had a problem with executive orders—perhaps they were against slavery but wanted it abolished through a Constitutional amendment or a law from Congress.
Nevertheless, those poll results seem to be saying something. In 2016, that troublesome political correctness that kept racists in the closet may be more easily shirked, putting racist ideas back on the menu. And Trump may be most responsible for opening this Pandora’s box. According to a top strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, “Trump’s rhetoric is ‘almost verbatim’ what segregationist George Wallace was saying in his third-party 1968 presidential campaign.” (Source)
Piling on
Trump isn’t alone. The Bible gives full support for the kind of slavery we had in the United States, but Christians had at least been hypocritical enough to pretend it didn’t. But not always.

  • Pastor Steven Anderson directly rebuts my complacent assumption that everyone agrees that slavery is wrong:

People will try to come at us—usually atheists or people like that—they’ll come at us and say, “Well, the Bible is wrong because the Bible condones slavery.” We’ve all heard that before, right?
But here’s the thing about that, is that if the Bible condones slavery, then I condone slavery. Because the Bible’s always right about every subject.

  • Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that biblical slavery would be better than jail for nonviolent crimes.
  • Christian Doug Wilson wrote Southern Slavery as it Was, a defense of American slavery (more).
  • Arkansas State Representative Jon Hubbard said that slavery “may actually have been a blessing in disguise” because slaves were eventually “rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.”
  • History revisionist David Barton also weighs in on the slavery issue. From one analyst:

[Barton] actually said that race relations were better when whites owned black slaves because the whites treated them like members of the family. And whites don’t get enough credit for ending slavery!

  • In a recent Public Policy Polling study, South Carolina voters were asked if whites are a superior race. 10% said yes, and 11% weren’t sure. Trump was again the Republican overachiever, and thirty percent of his supporters either said yes or were undecided.
  • And gay bashing is back. On pastor James Manning’s church billboard: “Jesus would stone homos. Stoning is still the law.” And pastor David Berzinsis also eager to stone gays to death.

The Overton window
To see how Trump providing cover for racist ideas is relevant, let’s look at the Overton window. This is a concept that can help visualize public acceptance of political options that are on the table.
Imagine a bell curve. Along the left side is public acceptance—the ideas in the middle of the curve have the highest acceptance, and those progressively farther out on either side are less acceptable to the public. The bottom axis is government intervention—no government intervention at one end and very high intervention at the other.
Suppose we’re looking at education. At one end is “no government schools,” and at the other, “mandatory indoctrination in government schools.” Along this spectrum (from less intervention to more) might be parents pay for schooling, tuition vouchers, state mandated curriculum, and home schooling illegal.
We can add to this bottom axis labels that describe the ideas along this spectrum. In the center of the curve, with the highest acceptance, is Policy. On either side of that are ideas that aren’t policy but have a decent chance of becoming so—these are labeled Popular. Continue going out from the center, on both sides, with slices of the bell curve labeled Sensible, Acceptable, Radical, and Unthinkable.
Pick a domain of government intervention—civil rights, intervention in a war, gun control, schools—and you have a particular bell curve. The curve for one domain might be quite different—narrower or wider, on the left side or on the right side—than another.
Greta Christina gives gay rights as an example of how conversation has changed. In 1969, with the Stonewall riots, same-sex marriage wasn’t even on the radar. The homosexual movement was focused instead on getting discriminatory policies and anti-sodomy laws overturned. Today, the window has shifted so that all three went from Radical or Unthinkable to Policy.
And that’s the problem with Donald Trump’s “Look at me—I’m so rich, I can say whatever I want!” attitude. He can move or broaden the window. Radical or Unthinkable ideas like whites being superior to other races or slavery being in any way tolerable in twenty-first century America can become Acceptable.
Thanks, Trump.
(For more on the Overton window, Patheos atheist blogger James Croft cautions that it has limitations.)

Why would people in America
want to embrace the religion of the slavers?
— Pat Robertson
(incredibly, he was not referring to African Americans but Muslims)

Image credit: Peter Shanks, flickr, CC

Upcoming Debate 3/19/16: “Is it Reasonable to Believe in God?”

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I will be participating in a public debate on the question “Is it reasonable to believe in God?” this Saturday (March 19, 2016) at 6:30 pm near Port Townsend, Washington. I’ll be debating local a Christian apologist, and I will obviously be arguing for the negative side of the question.
Opponent
Rob van de Weghe has a similar background to my own. He has a Masters degree in electrical engineering and computer science (1982) from a university in the Netherlands. His investigation of Christianity began after his retirement in 1999, and it led to his book Prepared to Answer: A Guide to Christian Evidence (DeWard, 2010). There’s more background at the event’s Facebook page.
I finished reading Rob’s book a couple of months ago in preparation for this debate. I liked the style—it’s well written with lots of footnotes—though the arguments were neither new nor convincing. Perhaps I’ll sift through for interesting arguments to showcase and critique in future posts. Unfortunately, while responding to the arguments in writing should be straightforward, responding on my feet with a time limit is more difficult.
Though I won’t give my opening presentation here, of course, the arguments that I’ll be using are all ones that I’ve written about in this blog. I will plan on Rob having read them.
Debate format
The debate format will be the typical 20-minute opening statement, 10-minute rebuttal, and 5-minute close. Rob will speak first. Following that will be audience Q&A, with a 2-minute answer from the person addressed, followed by a 1-minute rebuttal from the other debater.
Rob has requested that we focus on being informative rather than competitive. That’s a little hard to do in a debate, but I’ll do my best to match his demeanor.
Location and time
Date and time: Saturday, March 19, 2016 from 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Chimacum High School Auditorium, 91 W Valley Road, Chimacum, WA 98325 (map)
 
This is a free event, and if you can make it, I’d love to see you there. If you’re a regular here at the Cross Examined blog, be sure to say hello. It will be recorded, and I’ll make a link available as soon as possible.
(And happy pi day! Using American calendar notation, today is 3/14/16, which is π rounded to five significant digits.)

If placing holy words next to people turned them from sinners to saints,
the mere presence of Gideon Bibles in motel nightstands
would have terminated adultery by now.
— Barry Lynn, God and Government
(referring to the value of placing the 10 Commandments in public view)

Image credit: Leo Reynolds, flickr, CC

Attack of the Angry Atheists! (2 of 2)

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Rabbi Marc Gellman wrote an article describing his efforts to understand “angry atheists.”

There is something I am missing about atheists: what I simply do not understand is why they are often so angry.

My last post addressed the question of what one atheist (me) has to be angry about, but let’s see what he thinks the reasons are.
Why are atheists angry? Gellman offers some possible reasons for why atheists are angry. I’ll take him at his word that this is his best shot at explaining what he sees, but they’re so far off as to be insulting. He says, for example,

I am tempted to believe that behind atheist anger there are oftentimes uncomfortable personal histories. Perhaps their atheism was the result of the tragic death of a loved one, or an angry degrading sermon, or an insensitive eulogy, or an unfeeling castigation of lifestyle choices or perhaps something even worse.

Sure, lots of atheists have been harmed or let down by religion, but this sidesteps the issue. Whether or not someone was harmed by religion says nothing about its truth claims, which is the focus of atheism after all. Whether religion is true or false is the issue, not whether it’s nice or not. No thoughtful atheist would be confused in this way.
Rabbi Gellman again:

Religion must remain an audacious, daring and, yes, uncomfortable assault on our desires to do what we want when we want to do it.

This is the Hedonist Hypothesis: you atheists just do what you want and don’t want to answer to anyone else. This seems to imagine that atheists actually realize that god(s) exist but that they suppress this knowledge because that would ruin their fun. I’m pretty sure that such a god-believing atheist wouldn’t be an atheist.
For me, the reason to be angry is the imposition of religion on me: religion influencing government funding of medical research, threats of prayer and Creationism in schools, threats of the Ten Commandments on courtroom walls or in other public places, “In God We Trust” as the motto for my country, the fact that atheists are so despised that they can’t hold any major public office, and so on.
The article makes a final point:

I can humbly ask whether my atheist brothers and sisters really believe that their lives are better, richer and more hopeful by clinging to Camus’s existential despair: “The purpose of life is that it ends.”

In other words:
Isn’t the atheist idea that there’s no afterlife really depressing? In the first place, I hope all of us are primarily looking for the truth and following the facts where they lead. I know I am. Whether I can invent (or someone else has invented) a worldview that’s more cheerful than the world that I see in front of me is irrelevant. I have no use for that make-believe world.
I want the facts, not a placebo. Though Gellman seems to be worried about me, I’m a big boy and I can handle reality. If I have cancer, for example, I want to know. A visit to a doctor to figure out the next steps for cancer treatment, though difficult, is a lot more satisfying in the long run than the short-term bliss that would come from a pat on the head and the pleasing lie that my symptoms will soon disappear.
In the second place, rabbi, I’m not sure death is any more depressing for me than it is for you. Are you looking forward to your own death? Do Christians and Jews not grieve the death of a friend or family member? I think the answers are the same for all of us, despite the allure of heaven in the Christian worldview. I’m sure I won’t be pleased to die, though it’d be nice to imagine that I would be satisfied that I’d lived a full life, but after death, I won’t care. Before my birth I wasn’t unhappy, and after my death I won’t be unhappy either—I simply won’t be. As Mark Twain observed, “I had been dead for billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
And finally, this life is the one thing we know we have. I’ve got one shot, and I try to live it to its fullest. I won’t be able to visit new places after I die; I won’t be able to learn another language, or comfort a friend, or apologize, or forgive, or simply stop and smell the roses. If it’s important to me, I’d better do it in the one life I know I have. Life is sweeter when that’s all you’ve got.
This is one of the problems with Pascal’s Wager. Pascal argues that there’s no downside to being a believer, so what the heck—why not believe so you bet correctly just in case the Christian story is true? But of course, there is a downside to being deceived. Participating in a religion that is bogus means that I spend time, money, and energy on that religion instead of on something productive. And some people (Mother Teresa, for instance) bear a huge burden of anxiety and frustration when they see themselves failing to measuring up. Guilt is another burden that some believers endure.
Knowing that life is finite means that each day is more special, each sunset is more beautiful, and each friendship is more precious than if I imagine that an infinity of them lies stretched out in front of me.
Maybe atheists aren’t so angry after all.

A lot of people come up here and they thank Jesus for this award.
I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. 
He didn’t help me a bit.
— Kathy Griffin, 2007 Emmy Awards

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/15/13.)
Image credit: Niklas Hellerstedt, flickr, CC

A Critique of a Popular Bible Passage Shows It’s Not the Powerful Evidence Christians Imagine

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Christians often point to chapter 15 in 1 Corinthians as important evidence for the resurrection. This book, Paul’s first epistle (letter) to the church in Corinth, was written roughly a decade before the earliest gospel of Mark (written in c. 70 CE). This makes it the earliest claim for the resurrection of Jesus.
Let’s see if the story holds up. Here’s the section that many Christians point to:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to [Peter], and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have [died]. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (1 Corinthians 15:3–8)

Claims about the dating of this important passage are all over the map. Some argue that it actually precedes Paul’s writing. They say that it appears to be in a different style, as if it were a creedal statement (like the modern Apostle’s Creed) that would have been recited by believers. That is, though Paul wrote this epistle 25 years after the crucifixion, it had been an oral creed since as early as a few years after Jesus’ death. They cite this as evidence that belief in the resurrection was years earlier than Paul’s writing.
But if it’s a creed, it’s not evidence. A creed is a faith statement—a statement of what people believe. It even sounds like one. There is no mention of time or location, like a police report or newspaper article would have, and “Christ died for our sins” isn’t an observation, it’s a faith statement.
Others propose a very different interpretation: that the different style suggests that it was added to copies decades after Paul wrote the original. The gap from the creation of this epistle to our oldest copy of it is about 150 years. That’s a lot of opportunity for hanky-panky as scribes copied and recopied the letter, especially during the early turbulent years of the new religion of Christianity. We can’t know for certain what the original said.
Let’s sift through some particulars from this book that undercut the view that this passage is an important bit of Christian evidence.

  • Jesus was “raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” This is a reference to Jonah 1:17 (“Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights”), but how can the resurrection of Jesus be “according to” this scripture? That verse in Jonah is hardly a prophecy. And Jesus wasn’t dead for three days and three nights; he was out of action for a day and a half, from Friday evening to Sunday morning.
  • Jesus appeared “to the Twelve”? But they were the Eleven after Judas was gone, and his replacement was elected after the ascension of Jesus.
  • The gospels make clear that women were the first to see the risen Jesus. Why are they not on the list?
  • “Christ died for our sins”? Here, the sacrifice of Jesus parallels the Old Testament animal sacrifices. But later in this chapter, Paul discards this by saying, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (15:17). So he’s apparently changed his mind, and now it’s the resurrection that is the saving act.
  • Paul says, “and last of all he appeared to me also.” But the appearance to Paul as recorded in Acts 9:3–9 was a visionary sighting, and his companions at the time saw nothing. The same Greek word optanomai is used for each of the appearances: to Peter, the Twelve, the 500, James, the apostles, and then Paul. If the post-resurrection appearance to Paul was a vision, is that true of the others? If so, that contradicts the gospels.
  • Later in the epistle, Paul says, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (15:22). This is nice symmetry—we didn’t do anything to get tarred with the brush of Adam’s sin, and we don’t need to do anything to get the redemption of Christ. He’s even clearer in another book: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). Christians who celebrate Paul as an important and reliable source need to realize what comes along: Paul argues that all of us are going to the same afterlife.
  • Paul says, “the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all” (15:28). This subordinate position for Jesus isn’t too surprising since our concept of a Trinity of co-equal persons was developed in the fourth century, but it does show that Paul would be shocked at how Christianity has evolved.
  • Paul says, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable … it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (15:42–4). This makes clear that the resurrected Jesus was spirit, not flesh. This sounds a lot like docetism, a heresy that was rejected in the First Council of Nicaea. It also contradicts Luke’s physical post-resurrection Jesus: “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39).
  • We’re told that Jesus “appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time.” But later, after Jesus rose into heaven, the believers were “a group numbering about a hundred and twenty” (Acts. 1:15). The 500 can’t have been too impressed with what they saw if they weren’t all believers. And if Paul’s claim is such compelling evidence, why didn’t any of the gospels include it? (More on the claim of 500 eyewitnesses here.)

Though an important bit of history, this chapter may not be as compelling as believers think.

The book [of Mormon] is a curiosity to me. 
It is such a pretentious affair and yet so slow, so sleepy, 
such an insipid mess of inspiration. 
It is chloroform in print.
— Mark Twain

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/8/13.)
Acknowledgements: I’ve gotten some of these points from The Atheist’s Bible Companion to the New Testament by Mike Davis and Nailed by David Fitzgerald.
Photo credit: Codex Sinaiticus project
 

The Curious Case of Atheist Philosopher Antony Flew

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Antony Flew created waves with his 2007 book There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. He was a prominent atheist philosopher who converted to deism. Attacked or ignored before, Flew suddenly became a darling within many Christian circles and was celebrated by them as one of the 20th century’s most important philosophers.

Antony Flew, the Christian coup

A 2009 Greg Koukl podcast gives an example of this Christian reaction. Koukl blathered on about what a top-flight philosopher Flew was. He attacked the idea that Flew was losing it, as some atheists charged. “Just read his book and see,” he said. He said that scientists like Dawkins should feel privileged to be in the same room with a great philosopher like Flew. And so on.
Koukl is often motivating, and that was the case here. However, I doubt that it motivated me in the direction that he was expecting. In the first place, and you need only look at the cover (above) to see this, Flew wasn’t the author. It says “Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese.” Maybe Flew wrote most of it, but I doubt it. The “with” customarily means that the other guy wrote it all. Skeptic magazine argues that Flew wrote none of it.
There are other clues. This book is structured in a very different way than a typical nonfiction book in which someone lays out a thesis and then supports it with evidence. It has long summaries of the thinking of other people—Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and so on. No original thinking here, just summaries.
For example, it has a book report-like summary of part of Infinite Minds by John Leslie, which talks about quantum laws and special relativity. Flew’s background gives no indication that he was comfortable with this kind of science, and even if he was, who cares? He wasn’t a physicist or even a science journalist, and he brings no authority to his analysis of physics.
There are also lots of places like this: “In my new introduction to the 2005 edition of God and Philosophy, I said, ‘I am myself delighted …’” (p. 123). Flew was reduced to quoting himself? No, this is Flew’s work being mined by a third party.
Another example: “In The Presumption of Atheism and other atheistic writings, I argued that we must take the universe itself …” (p. 134). Here again he’s referring to himself as if he were another person. The book is peppered with this structure. It looks exactly as it would if someone (I don’t know … maybe someone like Roy Abraham Varghese?) were told to write a book-length essay on someone else’s philosophy and tried to couch it as if written by the great man himself.
Was Flew losing it in his waning years?
Here’s how Flew summarized his new position in a 2007 video:

If the integrated complexity of the physical world is a good reason, as Einstein clearly thought it was, of believing that there was an intelligence behind it, then this argument applies a fortiori [even more strongly] with the inordinately greater integrated complexity of the living world.

Let’s step through Flew’s argument.

  1. Einstein is really smart. True, but this is an irrelevant appeal to authority.
  2. Einstein said that there’s an intelligence behind the physical world. False, but even if he did, so what? A really smart guy says that there’s a god behind the curtain, pulling the levers of reality, so therefore it must be so?
  3. As complex as the physical world is, the living world is much more so.
  4. If there’s intelligence behind the physical world, there’s even more reason to believe that about the far more complex biological world. Complexity doesn’t demand design. A pile of straw is complex (imagine documenting each piece), but it wasn’t designed.

Flew approvingly mentioned Einstein’s reluctance to go “where [he] didn’t have any authority at all and wasn’t inclined (reasonably enough) to talk about it.” Too bad Flew himself didn’t follow that advice!
The relevance of Flew’s conversion
Let’s return to Koukl’s point about Dawkins vs. Flew, that Dawkins should feel privileged to be in the same room with such a great philosopher. The book itself shows the ridiculousness of this complaint. In the beginning of the conclusion chapter, it lists “the three items of evidence we have considered in this volume—the laws of nature, life with its teleological organization, and the existence of the universe.” These three are all squarely in the domain of science! Now who’s the interloper into a field that he’s unqualified to critique?
If Varghese wants to spin Flew’s works or glean a theistic argument out of Flew’s writings, that’s fine, but what did Flew himself add to this project besides give permission? The image comes to mind of someone helping a senile old man sign his name to the release form. One critic of the book said, “Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, [the book] rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew.”

If a man stands by [the Bible], vote for him.
If he doesn’t, don’t.
— Jerry Falwell Sr.

Jesus never intended to give instructions to political leaders
on how to run a country.
— Jerry Falwell Jr.

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/3/13.)

Why Can’t God Follow the Lesson in the Prodigal Son Story Himself?

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Jesus tells the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11–32. We’re all familiar with it—a son demands his share of his inheritance and then runs off to some foreign land and wastes it. Destitute, he finally sees the error of his ways and decides to return. He throws himself on his father’s mercy, but the father forgives him in an instant and celebrates his return.
I’m against much of what the Bible says, but here’s a story that has real value. It has become a universally understood metaphor in Western civilization, but the Bible is an odd place to find it. Perhaps God might do well by reading it and resetting his own moral compass by its wisdom.
By contrast, the Old Testament has many one-strike-and-you’re-out stories about God. For example, Uzzah touched the Ark of the Covenant to steady it when the oxen stumbled, but God zapped him dead (1 Chronicles 13:9–10). There’s Onan, who didn’t want to impregnate his sister-in-law and “spilled his seed” (Genesis 38:8-10). Don’t forget that poor schlub who picked up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32–6). And, of course, Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit.
This isn’t the “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” God that other parts of the Bible imagine (Psalm 103:8). God has a short fuse and isn’t at all forgiving, quite the opposite of the father in the parable.
If the moral of the parable is that we need to forgive, even after we’ve been grossly wronged, why can’t God set the example? Is he drunk with power, a deity who can do whatever the heck he likes? That’s the message from Job.
Some apologists will argue that it’s ridiculous to try to understand God’s actions with our puny minds. So what if God’s approach makes no sense? God is inscrutable and we should just assume that whatever God does is good and right by definition. The first problem is that this presupposes God and interprets the facts to fit. The second is that Christians who opt for this route must avoid labels for God that pretend that they do understand his actions, like “just” or “good.”
Imagine a Christian responding to something bad happening by saying that we simple humans can’t understand God’s reasoning. But when something good happens, of course, that same Christian is certain that he understands God’s thought process. I got the new job; the Americans conquer Iraq; a single baby is found alive in a crashed airplane—God’s generosity is boundless and his purpose is clear!
Use the “God can’t be understood” defense if you want, but be consistent. If we can’t understand why God allowed the Holocaust, then we can’t understand why he allowed the survivor in the plane crash.
But to get back to the point, why does God not follow the example of the father in the Prodigal Son parable? If we’ve wronged God, why can’t he just forgive us with no strings attached?
In fact, he does! God says of the people of Israel, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). He says something almost identical in Isaiah 43:25. One wonders then why the song and dance about Jesus dying for our sins.
Incredibly, I’ve heard apologists try to justify the Prodigal Son story by saying that the moral of the story isn’t that generous forgiveness is a good thing. No, the point of the story is that you must ask for forgiveness (like Christians must ask God). They sacrifice a noble story to try to salvage the logic of their religion. Sad.
During the upcoming Easter season, why imagine that a human sacrifice must be given to appease a savage Bronze Age deity? Let’s see the Prodigal Son story as a far more healthy response to being wronged.

An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. 
An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. 
An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. 
He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.
— Madalyn Murray O’Hair

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/1/13.)
Image credit: Way of Mercy Icons, flickr, CC