Monthly Archives: May 2018

25 Reasons We Don’t Live in a World with a God (Part 11)

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Do we live in a world with a god? It doesn’t look like it (read part 1 of this series here).

Let’s continue our survey with the next clue that we live in a godless world.

21. Because doctrinal statements exist

Doctrinal statements (faith statements) are contracts that Christian scholars must commit to at many Christian universities and ministries. These statements might, for example, declare that life didn’t evolve but was designed by God, or they might state that Jesus had a virgin birth.

The problem is that they’re not a commitment to follow the evidence but a commitment to a conclusion regardless of the evidence. Suppose a professor has signed a doctrinal statement that includes the virgin birth and then writes a paper arguing that the virgin birth was historical. What good is that paper when we knew beforehand that they were obliged to reach that conclusion? The professor has no reputation for honest scholarship, and readers must critique the argument themselves, which is beyond most readers’ ability.

A university that constrains its professors with a doctrinal statement has created a straightjacketed environment. Even if scholars honestly followed the evidence where it led, readers could only think that they were parroting their doctrinal statement.

More importantly for our purposes, that university has created scholarship with training wheels by prohibiting all that pesky contrary evidence. Their arguments can’t take the critique that historical arguments must face in the real world, so they have created their own parallel kindergarten with a low bar of evidence. (More here and here.)

If we lived in God World, no one would need to discard rigorous standards for scholarship because the evidence for God would meet those standards. Said another way, the low standards for Christian “scholarship” and its inability to compete with other disciplines makes clear that we don’t live in God World.

22. Because prayer doesn’t work

The Bible makes clear that, when it comes to prayer, God is pretty much a vending machine. In Matthew, Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” In Mark, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” In John, Jesus says, “He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.”

But that’s not the way it works in the real world. Christians often lower expectations of what prayer can deliver so that it doesn’t disappoint. Here’s one Christian example:

Instead of understanding prayer to be conversation with God as with a friend, we generally see prayer referred to as something reminding us of Santa Claus or a vending machine. And that sets us up for disappointment or disillusionment. . . . Let’s enjoy conversation with God as with a friend—without prayer jargon, vague language, or a list of requests for God to break natural law.

One response is to say that God answers prayer with Yes, No, and Not Yet, but of course that is not what the Bible says.

Experienced Christians sometimes say that a person’s faith “matures.” One sign of this maturity is an acceptance of how reality shows prayer works over how Jesus claimed it works. Atheist blogger Neil Carter observed, “The mature Christian eventually learns to wait and see where the arrow lands, then they draw a target around that spot, calling God faithful and his word true.”

The 2006 Templeton prayer study is probably the most famous and comprehensive scientific study of prayer. It showed no benefit. The “researchers” who should best know if prayer works are televangelists. If prayer actually worked, they would simply ask for prayers, but of course they don’t. It’s always prayers plus donations.

Not only does prayer not work but Christians themselves admit this when they make it their avenue of last resort. When a Christian actually takes Jesus at his word and relies on prayer for something important, society doesn’t rally around to celebrate their marvelous, powerful faith. Instead, they react with varying degrees of shock. Parents have prayed for their sick children instead of taking them to the hospital, people have sold their worldly goods to make themselves right with God before the end of the world, and one person closed their eyes to pray while driving. These situations did not turn out well.

If God existed, prayer would work as he promised. It doesn’t. (More on prayer here, here, here, here, and here.)

Continued in part 12.

When atheists accuse religious people of just praying
instead of “doing something”
I often chastise them for not getting it
that prayer is often just what people do
after they’ve done all that they personally could
and wish there was something more.
— Camels with Hammers blog

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Image via Dmitry Kalinin, CC license

25 Reasons We Don’t Live in a World with a God (Part 10)

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Do we live in a world with a god? It doesn’t look like it (read part 1 of this series here).

Let’s continue our survey with the next clue that we live in a godless world.

19. Because the “best” Christian arguments are deist arguments

A Christian appeal for the existence of God typically brings up arguments such as the ones below.

  • The Moral argument: How can there be objective moral truth without God?
  • The Cosmological argument: The universe had a beginning, which requires a cause, and that cause was God.
  • The Fine-Tuning argument: The constants in the universe are fine-tuned for life; that must’ve been done by God.

There are lots more arguments like these—the Ontological Argument, the Design Argument, the Transcendental Argument, and even the Argument from Mathematics. These are all deist arguments, which means that the god behind them might have been nothing more than a clockmaker who created and wound up the universe and then walked away. And if the creator god actually does interact with our world, nothing in these arguments points to the Christian god any more than to Marduk, Allah, Brahma, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If we lived in God World, the go-to arguments would unambiguously identify this god, not be one-size-fits-all arguments that point to no god in particular—not Yahweh any more than the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

And just so no one is confused, the arguments in the list above fail.

  • The Moral argument needs to first establish that objective truth exists. More here, here, and here.
  • The Cosmological argument as Craig defines it fails in many ways. More here and here.
  • The Fine-Tuning argument also fails. A universe made by God wouldn’t need fine tuning since God can make life anywhere (he’s God, remember). And the multiverse. More here, here, and here.

20. Because the Bible story keeps rebooting

God has a perfect plan, and he’s stickin’ to it. He created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but those pesky kids messed things up. The resulting society became irredeemable, so God drowned them all. All, that is, except the brave little troupe that was Noah’s family. (I’m imagining Gilligan’s Island except with a cruise ship full of manure.)

Society had been set right, God put his bow in the heavens (that is, the rainbow) and promised never to fly off the handle again, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Or not. The story next lurches forward with Abraham, and God makes a perpetual covenant with Abraham—five times, in fact. And once again we think we’re done.

Nope. Abraham begat Isaac, who begat Jacob, who begat the twelve patriarchs of the (soon to be) twelve tribes of Israel. Then slavery in Egypt, then Moses frees his people, then the Exodus through the desert, and then entry into the Promised land. God ties a bow on the story with the perpetual Mosaic Covenant that is still in force today. The End.

Wrong again. No, it turns out that it was Jesus who was the key to the whole thing. Who saw that coming? What a twist! The entire New Testament (plus a couple dozen church councils) are required to figure out what this new religion actually is and to rationalize some sort of harmony with the Old Testament, which is (oddly) still in force.

But don’t think that that’s the last reboot. Islam was a reboot. Mormonism was a reboot. And there you go—that incompatible mess is God’s perfect plan(s). (More detail on these reboots here.)

If a perfect god actually existed, he would get his story straight from the beginning, and it wouldn’t look like what it is—a collection of loosely connected ancient mythology and legend.

Continued in part 11.

(How big an impact did Jesus have on civilization?)
If you’re just going to go with “well, his ideas lived on,”
I’ll put Jesus behind Archimedes, Socrates,
Euclid, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Pasteur, Einstein,
Fleming, and Bohr in that regard.
All of their ideas are current today
and of great value in modern society,
whereas Jesus espoused monarchy, slavery,
and second-class status for women.
— Richard S. Russell

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Image via Alejandro Forero Cuervo, CC license

 

Yes, Biblical Slavery Was the Same as American Slavery (2 of 2)

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In part 1, we looked at the popular Christian notion that biblical slavery was a benign form of servitude, quite unlike American slavery. In fact, it turns out that they were almost identical.

Now, let’s look at a companion article from the Cold Case Christianity blog, “Why Would God Have Permitted Any Form of Servitude or Slavery?” Christian Jim Wallace tries to salvage God’s reputation despite his support of slavery.

What’s the big deal?

Let me again start with a positive observation. There’s a popular but flabby apologetic that Wallace didn’t appeal to. This argument says that the difficulties in our lives here on earth will count for nothing in the grand scheme of things. In other words, finite difficulties on earth ÷ an infinite afterlife in heaven = nothing to complain about. Paul said, “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

So you lived in barbaric conditions as a slave—big deal. A trillion years from now as you’re helping yourself to hors d’oeuvres at heaven’s all-you-can-eat buffet, that life will be an insignificant memory.

As our own appetizer, let’s dismantle this argument. Compare it with an analogous situation: you and I are arguing, and I get so frustrated that I punch you in the face. After a moment to collect myself, I realize that I’ve made a big mistake, so I offer you a million dollars in compensation. You accept and promise not to press criminal charges.

Yes, you’ve received overly generous compensation, but of course the injury was still morally wrong. Compensation acknowledges the injury; it doesn’t erase its existence.

The same is true for the fate God gives you. Trying to dilute the Problem of Evil (why would an all-good God permit the evil that we see all around us?) with the infinite time of heaven doesn’t get God out of his moral jam. He’s still responsible for the problem.

Spiritual sandpaper

Wallace begins his defense of God by arguing that hardship can improve us, using the analogy of sandpaper shaping wood. This doesn’t explain why some of us get growth-encouraging hardships while others get devastating hardships such as abusive relationships or devastating disease or injury. Hardship can improve, but it can also tear down.

And, of course, this simply presupposes God and selects the facts to support that conclusion rather than following the facts where they lead.

Slavery, according to Wallace, is spiritual sandpaper.

We mustn’t confuse God’s use of an institution to accomplish something good, with God’s approval of an institution as something inherently good. Even though slavery is not part of God’s heavenly plan . . . He does use human evil here on earth to accomplish his goals for all of us.

So God used slavery without approving of it? Let’s test that with another institution. The book of Proverbs admonishes merchants to use fair weights and measures—four separate times, in fact. For example, “The Lord detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him” (Prov. 20:23). Does this mean that God used the wicked institution of commerce without approving it? There’s no evidence to imagine this. A smart guy like God who spoke the very universe into existence, who drowned the world for its wickedness, and who demanded the death penalty for breaking his commandments wouldn’t feel shy about making his feelings known about human institutions. His regulation of commerce makes clear that he approves of it when correctly done, and his many rules about slavery—nicely documented in Wallace’s previous post—make clear that he approves of that, too.

The slavery question is no better dealt with in the New Testament.

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves. (1 Timothy 6:1–2)

I’m sure Wallace disapproves of slavery, and so do I, but there’s no justification for reading our own morality into the Bible. Let it speak for itself.

Societal vs. individual focus

Wallace tries another gambit. He argues that God’s focus is at the individual level, not the societal level. Sure, slavery was bad, but so what? Society’s problems aren’t on God’s radar.

God can (and has) used what is clearly evil at a societal level to accomplish something beneficial at an individual level.

But what’s “clearly evil”? We moderns agree that slavery is evil, but you’re reading your own morality into the Bible imagine that condemnation there.

Overturning slavery in the time of Jesus?

Wallace quotes Paul’s letter to Philemon, asking him to treat his returning slave with kindness. Wallace concludes,

The Bible does reflect God’s desire to seek the end of slavery, but it does so one heart at a time.

Huh? Of course it doesn’t! If God desired the end of slavery, he could just end slavery. Failing that, he could make clear in the Old Testament that he disapproves and that we should stop it. Failing that, his earthly representation as Jesus could make clear that he disapproves. Failing that, one of the epistle writers could make clear that he disapproves so the Bible could say at least something against slavery.

Fail. Don’t say that God doesn’t like slavery when there is no evidence for this. Don’t imagine your own morality coming from God, playing God like a sock puppet.

Wallace anticipates this:

The Roman Empire had 60 million slaves living amongst its citizenry. To call for an end of slavery in this culture and context would have resulted in mass murder and civil war.

God is magic, remember? If God wanted a different world—one with a healthy Roman economy not dependent on slavery, say—he could make it. To imagine God constrained by mankind’s social institutions is to imagine a puny God.

The shackles that hold God back

Wallace also asks us to “remember the cultural context of the ancient world.” But can God be constrained by the social conditions of the moment? God didn’t feel bound by the status quo when he introduced the Ten Commandments, with the death penalty backing most of them. Whether it was convenient or not for stick collection on the Sabbath to suddenly become a capital crime (Numbers 15:32–6) didn’t bother God.

It would be . . . unfair to judge God based on what we think God should do about slavery.

What do we do then? What do we make of this conflict between the obvious wrongness of slavery and the obvious support of slavery in the Bible? Should we just presuppose God and then figure that he has his own good reasons for acting in a way that, in any other situation, you’d call “immoral”? Or should we drop any special pleading and evaluate the Bible as we would any other claimed moral source? I’m certain Wallace wouldn’t take this approach to avoid critique of any other holy book.

The problem for Wallace is that if you evaluate the Bible, you’ll find no baby. It’s just bath water.

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder
than closed by belief.
— Gerry Spence

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 8/27/14.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

 

Guest Post: How Children Are Indoctrinated into Religion

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Dr. Karen Garst, author of Women Beyond Belief (2016) is the editor of a new book, Women v. Religion. This is an excerpt that gives one woman’s perspective from inside Christianity.

 

People always ask why there are not more women in the “atheist movement.” One of the main reasons is because more of them are sitting in the pews each Sunday morning. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that women are more likely than men to say religion is “very important” in their lives (60% vs. 47%). They are also more likely than men to say they pray every day (64% vs. 47%). When I grew up in a Lutheran church, the women also did most of the unpaid work—they cooked for potluck dinners, cleaned up the kitchen afterwards, folded the bulletins on Saturday morning with their children, taught Sunday School and directed the children’s choir. Whew!

But where women have the most impact is in bringing their children to church. My husband’s mother is a devout Catholic. Her husband never attended church. But she was faithful in bringing her children every week to Sunday school. (My husband usually slipped out the back door.) Because of this, indoctrination into religion comes at a very early age when children’s minds are the most malleable. Alexis Record, a frequent blogger and essayist in my new book Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith—and for Freedom, examines in detail one of the most severe indoctrination methods entitled Accelerated Christian Education. Unfortunately, she got to know the ins and outs of ACE directly as she received 12 years of “education” through this method. Needless to say, colleges didn’t consider it the equivalent of a high school diploma.

One of the ways in which this “education” is effective is the child is surrounded by people who reinforce everything that is taught. As Alexis explains, “The bubble I grew up within was tightly controlled, and most of the influences on my thinking were limited to those that reinforce the conservative Christian worldview.” When a child is young, they tend to believe what their parents tell them and don’t question them or the other adults in their lives. If your whole life is caught up in Sunday services, choir practice, Sunday school and then your entire education is more of the same, it is not surprising that this is your world view. While those raised outside of religion find this a bit hard to understand, Alexis explains it well.

I have often wondered how I could have ever truly embraced a faith that would make any sane person recoil. The answer lies in the fact that I wasn’t simply taught these lessons, I inherited them. They were my upbringing—repeated tirelessly by those who raised me. To reject them would have been to conjure the temerity to reject my family, my community and my own identity. That is a lot to ask of anyone, but grossly unfair to ask of a child. The well-known verse in Proverbs 22:6 is fairly perceptive of the process to follow. “Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.”

Studies have shown the impact of religious activities on the brain. They actually make people feel more and, as Alexis explains, become “aware of themselves less.” The authors of one study—Miron Zuckerman, Jordan Silberman, and Judith A. Hall—cite a significant negative association of intelligence and religiosity. Their definition of intelligence is as follows: “ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (p. 13). As is evident in Alexis’ description of ACE, the only important aspect is to believe and repeat what is said.

The ACE method also reinforces all of the misogynistic aspects of Christianity. A woman is expected to follow her father’s, then her husband’s wishes. She is to be subservient. Her job is to manage the household (wash dishes and iron!) while her husband is the wage earner in the family. It also teaches that the “wages of sin are death” invoking the punishment of hell as the result of falling off the true path. If a psychologist were to give an honest opinion on this teaching method, he or she could only conclude that it is child abuse.

When Alexis grew up, she was expected to train her children in the same way, thus the cycle repeats itself. When she was expecting her first child, the pastor told her he was excited that she would “raise him up in service of the Lord.” But Alexis came to doubt the precepts of the religion she was raised in and has become a pretty fervent atheist. She, as many others have done, also paid the price of leaving her church behind—they left her behind as well.

I was uninvited to holiday gatherings, was unfriended on social media, lost baby sitters, experienced strained interactions with once-close family members, and had to change my will since those who had previously been selected to inherit my children in the event of my death had disappeared entirely from our lives without a word.

Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith—and for Freedom contains thirteen essays that deal with the severe impact of religion on the lives of women including African-American, Hispanics, transgender, ex-Muslim, and ex-Jewish women, as well as others. It is available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and will be available in bookstores in May.