Back in the character-based Stone Age of the personal computer, all MS-DOS PCs started up with a C-prompt, the “C:>” text with a blinking cursor. At least, all PCs that weren’t broken.

Can we conclude anything from that? That “C:>” is a reflection of some supernatural or transcendental truth? That it is an insight into God’s mind? No—it’s just a useful trait shared by this class of PCs. There’s no objective meaning behind these characters. This text is useful (it shows the directory in which any typed commands will take place), so it was selected. There’s nothing more profound than this behind it.

Human morality is like this. Almost all humans have shared moral programming, not dissimilar from instincts in other animals. Through instinct, honeybees communicate where the nectar is, newborn sea turtles go toward the ocean, and juvenile birds fly. Training or acculturation can override human programming, of course, but in general we have a shared moral sense—a shared acceptance of the Golden Rule, for example.

We think our moral programming is pretty important, and that’s understandable, but there’s no reason to imagine that it is objectively true and based on some supernatural grounding. Said another way, we think that our morality is true because it tells us that it’s true, but we can’t infer from this that it is grounded outside us. If we imagine a warlike (or gentle or wise) civilization on another planet, their programming would tell them that their morality is the correct approach, not ours.

We must not confuse universally shared moral programming with universal moral truths.

Our morality is what our programming says it is—it’s no more profound than that. There’s as much reason to imagine that it is a window into the transcendent as that the MS-DOS C-prompt is.

More: a popular apologist gets objective morality wrong here.

In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—
there are consequences.
― Robert G. Ingersoll

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 4/26/12.)

Religion is a hugely costly machine, but what does it produce? Let’s compare religion to a big corporation since we know how those work.

Take General Motors (on the left of the red revenue scale in the figure above). In 2010, U.S. sales were $73 billion, and that bought three million vehicles. Pretty simple—$73 billion goes in and three million vehicles comes out.
We can peek inside to see where the money goes. Of the incoming revenue, 87% went to automotive cost of sales—manufacturing and materials purchasing. Next, 8% to sales/marketing and G&A (General and Administrative)—the cost to sell the vehicles plus overhead. The final 5% was profit.
Compare this to religion (on the right side of the revenue scale above). In the U.S. for the same year, donations to religion were $101 billion. But that isn’t the only input. Few GM employees spend their free time selling or manufacturing cars, no matter how much they love the company, but religious believers do the equivalent all the time. They volunteer in all sorts of ways for the benefit of religion: evangelizing, serving as deacon or pianist, doing repairs on the church structure, making food for potlucks and bake sales, and so on. How much is this worth? Multiply by a couple hundred million American Christians and we get an extra 50% of income (a very rough guess).
Where does the church’s income go? We don’t know for sure. The IRS grants tax-exempt status to qualified organizations in return for those organizations opening their books to show the public how they spent their money … except for churches and ministries. All we know is that every year about $100 billion (plus a lot of volunteer effort) goes into a black box.
(I’ve written a series of posts about the problem of churches’ non-accountability here.)
Obviously, personnel must be a huge cost—there are roughly 600,000 paid clergy in the U.S. Buildings, land, and other capital outlays are another biggie—megachurches don’t just build themselves.
So, what’s the output? This black box gets twice the input of GM; what’s religion’s equivalent of six million vehicles?
Nothing goes back to society through taxes. Maybe 10% passes through to good works outside the church—or maybe it’s just 2%. We can only guess since churches’ books are closed. Maintenance of the congregation is another expense, and to some extent this is worthwhile—counseling those in need and providing a community for the members.
The rest is the church’s equivalent of marketing—recruiting new members and keeping current members within the fold. General Motors knows that customers of Buick and Cadillac vehicles won’t remain customers without ongoing marketing, and churches know the same.
And maybe that’s the best way to see religion. Religion is a very inefficient route to charitable giving (imagine a charity with more than 90% overhead), and religion isn’t necessary to get the social benefit of community. Those benefits could be provided without the inefficient machinery of the church. Religion must be propped up with marketing as is done with Chevy and Cadillac (with an imaginative dose of fire and brimstone thrown in) to remind customers that they’ve backed the right horse.
GM doesn’t need faith to stay in business, but it’s the only thing keeping religion going.
Inspiration credit: Richard Russell suggested this comparison.

Everybody’s got to believe in something.
I believe I’ll have another drink.
― W.C. Fields

(This is a modified version of a post originally published 11/18/11.)

The history of the abolition movement in the West isn’t complete without William Wilberforce. His drive was instrumental in abolishing in Britain the slave trade in 1807 and then slavery itself in 1833. There’s much more to the story than just Wilberforce, of course, but the story wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging his work.
Martin Luther King has a similar position within the U.S. civil rights movement. The story doesn’t begin and end with him, of course, but the story wouldn’t be complete without noting his substantial contribution.
Or Gutenberg in publishing. Or Einstein in physics. Or Shakespeare in English literature. Or Charlemagne in the history of Europe. Perhaps their fields would now look to us roughly the same without them; perhaps others would’ve stepped in. No matter—these great leaders were central figures in their fields. You can’t explain the facts of the history of their fields without them. A history book without these figures would have holes, like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing.
Wait—how did the Slave Trade Act get through Parliament with so much opposition? Who gave the “I have a dream” speech? Who developed the theory of relativity? Did the printing press just poof into existence?
There aren’t partisans here, with some historians of science acknowledging Einstein (or Darwin or Newton) and others saying that these figures never existed. Historians might rate their importance differently, but that they were important isn’t questioned.
Now that we know what a central figure looks like, consider God, the central figure in reality. He’s behind life, the universe, and everything. No historical figure so dominates their field as God dominates reality—or so we’re told.
Imagine God removed from reality, like the story of abolition without Wilberforce, or an Einstein-less history of physics. Beyond a superficial summary, we simply can’t explain abolition without Wilberforce or the history of physics without Einstein. So what of reality can no longer be explained without God?
Nothing!
Admittedly, we have riddles at the frontier of science. How did abiogenesis happen? What caused the Big Bang? What causes consciousness? But surely the Christian’s argument is more than, “Science doesn’t have all the answers, therefore God.” And, of course, Christianity doesn’t have any better answers. It can repackage a scientific puzzle with “God did it,” but that explains nothing. Science continues to deliver while Christianity continues to not deliver, but even if science delivered no more, that would say nothing about God’s existence.
Have you heard about the recipe for making boiling water? First put a pot of water on a hot stove, then stir with a magic spoon (just once, clockwise), and then wait for the water to boil.
God is the magic spoon. He’s not necessary. He only complicates the explanation.
Invoke Occam’s Razor and drop both the magic spoon and God.

The problem with quotes on the internet
is that it is hard to verify their authenticity.
— Abraham Lincoln

Photo credit: Will Culpepper

Aaron turned his staff into a snake in front of Pharaoh to show that he and Moses were God’s representatives (Exodus 7). What better way to demonstrate that you’re channeling God’s power today? Pastor Yaw Saul from central Ghana promised to replicate that show of power, but it didn’t turn out as planned. After hours of effort in the market square, the public lost patience. Perhaps inspired by the command in Deuteronomy (“a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded … is to be put to death”), they drove him away by throwing fruit and water bottles.
Balancing act
You must promise, but not too much. That’s the challenge with religion. Promise too little and there’s no attraction. What’s the point in following a god who promises nothing more than an improved complexion and twenty percent fewer weeds in your yard?
But promise too much—that is, make promises that can actually be tested—and you risk getting found out. That was Pastor Saul’s error.
William Miller made the same mistake. He predicted the end of the world on October 22, 1844. When the next day dawned uneventfully, this became known as the Millerites’ Great Disappointment. More recently, Harold Camping predicted the Rapture™ on May 21, 2011 and the end of the world five months later. Too specific—oops.
Almanacs and fortune tellers are in the same boat. If they promise too little, what’s the point? “The winter will be cold” or “This time next year, you will be older” doesn’t attract many fans. But too specific a prediction and you rack up a list of errors that even the faithful can’t ignore.
One way to avoid this problem is to be ambiguous. The predictions of Nostradamus are famously hammered to fit this or that event from history. (Curiously, no one ever uses these “prophecies” to predict the future. Isn’t that what prophecies are for?)
And, of course, the Bible is ambiguous and even contradictory. Exodus has two conflicting sets of Ten Commandments. Whether you want to show God as loving and merciful or savage and unforgiving, there are plenty of verses to help you out. Jesus can appear and vanish after his resurrection as if he had a spirit body, but then he eats fish as if he doesn’t. Jesus can be the Prince of Peace but then say, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
How can such a religion survive? Wouldn’t its contradictions make it clear to everyone that it was just a collection of writings without divine inspiration?
Contradiction as an asset
Let’s skip over the Bible’s consolidation phase that ended in roughly 400CE. The hodge-podge of books chosen from a large set of possibilities was accepted as Christian canon, and we can debate about what sorts of compromises or rationales were behind the final list. But the odd amalgam that resulted has a silver lining: a contradictory Bible can make Christianity stronger. Because it contains both answers to some questions, it is able to adapt to new and unexpected challenges.
Take slavery during the U.S. Civil War. From one pre-war book published in the South:

If we prove that domestic slavery is, in the general, a natural and necessary institution, we remove the greatest stumbling block to belief in the Bible; for whilst texts, detached and torn from their context, may be found for any other purpose, none can be found that even militates against slavery. The distorted and forced construction of certain passages, for this purpose, by abolitionists, if employed as a common rule of construction, would reduce the Bible to a mere allegory, to be interpreted to suit every vicious taste and wicked purpose.

And, of course, others used the very same Bible to make the opposite argument.
Rev. Martin Luther King used the Bible to support his argument for civil rights, and Rev. Fred Phelps uses the same Bible to argue that “God hates fags.” I’m sure that as same-sex marriage becomes accepted within America over the upcoming decades, loving passages will be highlighted to show that God was on board with this project all along.
The Bible hasn’t changed; what’s changed is people’s reading of it. The Bible’s contradictory nature allows it to adapt like a chameleon. Play up one part and downplay another, and you adapt to yet another social change.
Contradiction as a strength—who knew?

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself.
Basically, it’s made up of two separate words—“mank” and “ind.”
What do these words mean? It’s a mystery, and that’s why so is mankind.
— Jack Handey, Deeper Thoughts (1993)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Brethren, I will speak today on the gospel of John, the sixteenth chapter, verse 24. Jesus said, “Ask and you will receive.” As the National Day of Prayer approaches, this verse is both relevant and unambiguous.
Apologists like to water down this verse and many others like it to say that they doesn’t mean what they obviously mean, so let’s be sure we have this right. Here it is in context.
Jesus said,

I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete (John 16:23–4).

A few verses later, we read,

Then Jesus’s disciples said, ‘Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech” (:29).

Clearly, we are given no choice but to consider it at face value. “Ask and you will receive”—okay, got it.
National Day of Prayer
The National Day of Prayer task force (“Transforming our Nation Through Prayer!”) is eager to harness this power. It says

We have an unprecedented opportunity to see the Lord’s healing and renewing power made manifest as we call on citizens to humbly come before His throne.

Is this just feel-good handwaving, or are you making specific, testable predictions?

Our theme for 2013 is Pray for America, emphasizing the need for individuals, corporately and individually, to place their faith in the unfailing character of their Creator, who is sovereign over all governments, authorities, and men.

Not in the U.S., pal. Religion operates as it does because, and only because, it is permitted to by the Constitution. You can pretend to elevate your deity above government, but let’s be clear about what document actually governs this country.
This year’s national prayer seems to push all the right buttons. There’s some thanksgiving and praise, there’s some confession and contrition. But, as Jesus recommends, it also asks.

Lord, we need Your help in America. In recent days, we have done our best to remove Your Word and Your counsel from our courtrooms, classrooms and culture. … Lord, You have not forgotten us! You can bless and help and revive our country again.

Just because it’s alliterative doesn’t make it profound. The Constitution prohibits Christianity in government buildings such as courtrooms and classrooms. That’s the way it’s been since ratification 224 years ago—deal with it. But its First Amendment makes Christianity (and other religions) welcome in culture.
In America, the buck stops with the Constitution, not the Bible. Why is this hard to understand? It’s simply unpatriotic to push society in a way prohibited by the Constitution (more here and here).
What does the task force imagine will happen (besides strengthening their brand, I mean)? Let me admit that there may be a benefit to the person praying. Prayer can be beneficial in the same way that meditation can. But when you’re praying for someone else, that’s not the point. The idea behind person A praying for person B isn’t for person A to feel better, it’s for something specific to happen to person B!
Does prayer work?
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.”
The New Testament unambiguously claims that prayer works, but we all know that that’s wrong, or, said charitably, prayer doesn’t work that way. Apologists handwave that prayer works … for the person doing the praying. Or we’re told that prayers are always answered, but “not yet” or “maybe” are valid answers. This reinterpretation of reality is worthy of North Korea or Animal Farm.
It’s like Harriett Hall’s Blue Dot cure, where the doctor paints a blue dot on the patient’s nose. Suppose the patient gets better. Great—the blue dot worked! Or suppose the patient gets worse. Ah, the doctor says, you should’ve come to me sooner. Or suppose the condition is unchanged. The doctor recommends continued treatment (and it’s lucky we caught it when we did)!
No outcome will make this imaginary doctor reconsider the treatment. Reality is redefined so that the doctor is immune to evidence that shakes his preconception that the cure works.
If the roles were reversed and it was Christians critiquing the supernatural claim of someone else’s religion, I imagine they’d be as skeptical as me. The simple explanation is that there is no God to answer (or not) your prayers. Prayer is simply talking to yourself. There’s no one on the other end of the phone. (More on prayer here and here.)
I’ll close with the wisdom of Mr. Deity:

Mr. Deity: Prayer is not for me, okay? I mean, I like it and everything, I think it’s sweet that people think of me, but I’ve got a plan, and I’m staying the course. But it’s great for them, it gets them focused on what’s important, it’s meditative, I hear it does wonders for the blood pressure. Plus it’s a chance to connect to me. How’s that not going to be good? You should know.
Jesus: Oh yeah, yeah. So what you’re saying here, sir, is that you never answer any prayers?
Mr. Deity: Not really, no. There’s just no incentive. I mean, look—if somebody prays to me and things go well, who gets the credit? Me, right? But if they pray to me and things don’t go well, who gets the blame? Not me! So it’s all good. I’m going to mess with that by stepping in? Putting my nose where it doesn’t belong?

Thus endeth the lesson for today.

Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day;
give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.
— Anonymous

Photo credit: kymillman