Category Archives: Comedy

Is This Letter a Powerful Defense of Reason? Or Christian Hypocrisy?

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In wrestling with the issues of faith and reason and the role they should play for the Christian, I asked for the input from an experienced pastor. Here’s his letter in reply. I’ll let you evaluate it yourself.

Text of letter below:

Dear Bob,
I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about reason. All right, here is how I feel about this important matter.
If, when you say reason, you mean the arrogance that rejects faith, that would have us discard what we know to be true more deeply than sterile logic can express; if you mean the heartless drive to dethrone the innocent widow or precious child from their cherished beliefs; if you mean the pernicious force that shakes the faith of the honest Christian man or woman in almighty God, what Martin Luther called “the devil’s bride” and “the greatest enemy of faith,” what the greatest minds in Christianity have made a slave to faith, then certainly I am against it.
But if, when you say reason, you mean the tool that gave us medicine, the fruits of which are antibiotics, anesthesia, vaccines, and the distant memory of scourges like smallpox and plague; if you mean the technology that teaches us of our glorious universe and that landed men on the moon and brought us the vibrant world we live in today; if you mean the rejection of ancient superstition in favor of scientific explanations; if by reason you mean our ability to analyze and dismantle foreign religions and reveal their legendary origin, and to reject beliefs that are merely pleasing rather than correct; if you mean God’s greatest gift, the gift for which we must stand in judgment for using wisely, the very tool that gets us safely through each day, then certainly I am for it.
This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.
Kindest regards,
(signed) Rev. Phineas P. Stopgauge

(Alert readers will recognize this as an homage to the 1952 “If by whiskey” speech by Mississippi State Representative Noah “Soggy” Sweat, Jr.)
(This is a modified version of a post originally published 11/4/11.)

Maybe it Works Better in German

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You’d think the reasons would be obvious, but maybe a warning in a severe font will discourage meddling with the First Amendment.

Blind faith is an ironic gift
to return to the Creator of human intelligence.
— Anonymous

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/7/12, which itself was an homage to a mock warning about computers.)

The Declaration of Independence—A Christian Document?

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Is America a Christian nation? Some Christians eagerly point to the word “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence (1776) as evidence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Who is this “Creator”? Is it Yahweh, the Christian god? Is it a placeholder into which you can imagine any god so that Muslims can imagine Allah or Hindus can imagine Brahma?
No—the opening sentence clarifies: it’s not Yahweh but “Nature’s God.” At the time, this phrase was understood as the deist god of Enlightenment philosophers like Spinoza and Voltaire. Deism was popular in Revolutionary America, and Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, and other founding fathers were either deists or inspired by the movement. Deism imagines a hands-off god, a creator who, once the clock is built and wound up, leaves it to tick by itself.
The role of this “Creator” is clarified in the Declaration:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

In other words, the Creator has no role in government. We’ve turned our back on the divine right of kings, where the king was God’s representative who served at God’s pleasure. God isn’t the foundation on which authority rests. No—it’s the consent of the governed. The buck stops here, which is very empowering.
Remember that the purpose of the Declaration was to inform Britain that the colonies wanted to become independent. When government becomes abusive, the recourse isn’t to appeal to God:

Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Again, we see that the government rules at the pleasure of the people, not God.
While the Declaration of Independence doesn’t give Christians what they may imagine it does—an acknowledgement of the existence of the Christian god and his sovereignty over this country—this exercise is largely irrelevant. The Declaration isn’t the supreme law of the United States. That’s the Constitution, and it’s secular. Like the Declaration, it makes clear where the buck stops. In huge letters, it begins, We the People.
Watch out for Christian revisionist historians bringing up the Declaration. They’d bring up the Constitution, the document that actually matters, if they could. But they know they can’t, and that’s the white flag of surrender.

I think of myself as a militant agnostic:
I don’t know, and you don’t either.
— Michael Shermer

(This is a modified version of a post that originally appeared 2/10/12.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

A Powerful Defense of Reason … or Maybe Not

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In wrestling with the issues of faith and reason and how they should be used within society, I asked for the input from an experienced pastor.  Here’s his letter in reply.  I’ll let you evaluate it yourself.

(Alert readers will recognize this as an homage to the 1952 “If by whiskey” speech by Mississippi State Representative Noah “Soggy” Sweat, Jr.)
(This is a modified version of a post originally published 11/4/11.)