Sigh…
So here’s what’s been going on lately. Most of you who read this blog already know that when my wife and I left Christianity, it wrecked most of our family relationships. My wife’s parents and siblings, as well as my own, felt that they could no longer interact with us socially after our deconversion. We were no longer invited to any family functions, and our communication with them all but disappeared. We would speak if it was about religious issues, or if there were logistic issues that needed to be worked out in letting them see our kids, etc.
Over the years, things have gotten a little better, especially with my wife’s parents. Things are by no means back to normal, but at least our infrequent interactions have become more civil and more comfortable. A few weeks ago, I even had a phone conversation with my father that lasted about half an hour and had no references to religion whatsoever. It was nice.
Nevertheless, the awkwardness is still there, just under the surface. And we’re still blacklisted from all the family functions.
Throughout this time, I’ve occasionally reached out to my side of the family with phone calls, letters, facebook messages, etc, in an effort to discuss the issues that divide us. I don’t get much response. I’ve always been puzzled by that, since I know they think I’m completely wrong. If their position is right, why aren’t they willing to discuss it?
In the last five years, I’ve also been sent books and articles and even been asked to speak to certain individuals, and I’ve complied with every request. Why not? How could more information hurt? But when I’ve suggested certain books to them, or written letters, they aren’t read. When I finally realized that my problems with Christianity weren’t going to be resolved, I wrote a 57-page paper to my family and close friends, explaining why I could no longer call myself a Christian. As far as I know, none of them ever read the whole thing. And sure, 57 pages is quite a commitment. But they say this is the most important subject in their lives…
This past week, the topic has started to come back around. A local church kicked off a new series on Monday entitled “Can We Believe the Bible?” It’s being led by an evangelist/professor/apologist that was kind enough to take time to correspond with me for several weeks in the summer of 2010. I’ve never met him in person, but a mutual friend connected us, since he was someone who was knowledgeable about the kinds of questions I was asking. Obviously, we didn’t wind up on the same page.
My wife’s parents invited us to attend the series, but it happens to be at a time that I’m coaching my oldest daughter’s soccer team. So unless we get rained out at some point, there’s no way we can attend. However, we did tell them that if practice is ever cancelled, we’ll go. I also contacted the church and asked if the sermons (if that’s the right word?) will be recorded, and they said that they should be.
Monday night, the weather was fine, so we weren’t able to attend. And so far, the recording isn’t available on their website. However, they do have a recording of Sunday night’s service available, which is entitled “Question & Answer Night.” I just finished listening to it, and that’s where the bulk of my frustration comes from.
It’s essentially a prep for the series that kicked off Monday night. They’re discussing why such a study is important, as well as the kinds of things they plan to cover. What’s so frustrating to me is that I don’t understand the mindset of evangelists like this. I mean, they’ve studied enough to know what the major objections to fundamentalist Christianity are, yet they continue on as if there’s no problem. And when they do talk about atheists and skeptics, they misrepresent our position. I can’t tell if they honestly believe the version they’re peddling, or if they’re purposefully creating straw men.
A couple of times, they mentioned that one of the main reasons people reject the Bible comes down to a preconception that miracles are impossible. “And if you start from that position, then you’ll naturally reject the Bible.” But that’s a load of crap. Most atheists were once theists, so their starting position was one that believed in miracles.
They also mentioned that so many of these secular articles and documentaries “only show one side.” I thought my head was going to explode.
And they referred to the common complaints against the Bible as “the same tired old arguments that have been answered long ago.” It’s just so infuriating. If the congregants had any knowledge of the details of these “tired old arguments,” I doubt they’d unanimously find the “answers” satisfactory. But the danger with a series like this is that it almost works like a vaccination. The members of the congregation are sitting in a safe environment, listening to trusted “experts,” and they’re injected with a watered down strain of an argument. And it’s that watered down version that’s eradicated by the preacher’s message. So whenever the individual encounters the real thing, they think it’s already been dealt with, and the main point of the argument is completely lost on them.
For example, most Christians would be bothered to find out that the texts of the Bible are not as reliable as were always led to believe. Even a beloved story like the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus writes on the ground, we’ve discovered that it was not originally part of the gospel of John. It’s a later addition from some unknown author. To a Christian who’s never heard that before, it’s unthinkable! But if they’ve gone through classes where they’ve been told that skeptics exaggerate the textual issues in the Bible, and that the few changes or uncertainties deal with only very minor things, and that none of the changes affect any doctrinal points about the gospel, then it’s suddenly easier for them to swallow “minor” issues like the insertion of an entire story into the gospel narrative.
Sigh…
I’m going to either attend these sessions, or I’ll watch/listen to them once they’re available online. I may need to keep some blood pressure medication handy, though.
Finding Truth 
By the way, I originally asked this same question to Brandon. I don’t remember him giving a clear yes or no response either.
Isn’t that odd? People who claim to be the purveyors of divine, objective morality cannot condemn the hunting down and execution of children! What an IMMORAL belief system!
LikeLike
Nan, I agree with you to the extent that you speak of Jesus’ particular, special mission to the Jews. “Salvation is of the Jews”, he said (to the Samaritan woman who, along with her people, was the first non-Jewish population with which Jesus significantly interacted and preached to).
He upheld the Law, but the Law as God had made it, and for the purpose he intended it. The Jews had been given a particular covenant, but if one actually READS THE TERMS OF THE COVENANT (just as one should read all contracts), all that it was, was “Do all this, and you get Canaan and a farm in it, and peace there, health, security and fertility. Don’t, and you’ll be hammered and thrown out.” In other words, follow the law and get a farm.
But Jesus’ larger mission, to the world, was not simply to explain to the Jews how they were supposed to meet the terms of the Torah, in order to keep their little farm.
Jesus declared something new under the sun: the Reign of God. He spoke of what happens after death, of rooms in his Father’s mansion. God never revealed those things through Moses, and the Sinai Covenant had nothing to do with those things.
There are five major covenants that affected the future eras in the Scripture. There are plenty of other promises given to individuals, about their lives, but five major ones that span the ages:
(1) Genesis: Covenant with man and animals – No second world-destroying Flood. (Still in force.)
(2) Genesis: Abraham’s circumcised descendants will be numerous and fill the land of Canaan. (Still in force, and still true: they do.)
(3) Genesis: Hagar’s son, by Abraham, Ishmael, will have numerous descendants, and they’ll live alongside the descendants of Abraham through Isaac, in the land. There will be strife. (Still in force. And very visible.)
(4) Exodus: At Sinai: I’m your God – eat this way and you won’t have the diseases you had in Egypt; keep all of these laws, commandments and statutes, and I’ll give your circumcised heirs peaceful and prosperous farms in the land of Canaan. Break the laws, and I’ll hammer you and drive you out. In Jesus’ day the penalty clause was invoked, Temple and priesthood destroyed and people driven out. The covenant is still in force, and therefore the Israelites don’t have peace in the land and won’t – because they’re not fulfilling all of the terms of the covenant.
(5) Gospels: through Jesus. Be baptized, forgive sins, follow the law of Jesus, and you will be sons of the Father by the spirit, and brothers and sisters of each other, and when you die, you will go to Paradise, and at final judgment, you will enter into the City of God, which will come down to a new earth upon which all have been resurrected. (In force until the end of the world.)
Paul was an evangelist of this 5th covenant. He was a Jew, a Pharisee, himself struggling to overcome all of the baggage of Judaism (which, in anticipation of the Messiah, had begun to mistake keeping the 4th Covenant, the Law of Moses with having something to do with disposition in the afterlife, although God never said that).
It was through Jesus that God DID speak of the afterlife, finally, but what he said was not what the Jews (or anybody else) was expecting. In fact, what he said is so DIFFERENT in many ways from what comes before in the Scriptures, that people who learn about God from the Scriptures tend to really miss it in the same way that the Jews did.
The Law of Sinai is unrelated to everlasting life (although the moral principles embedded within it are, but that is because God gave the Hebrews a COMPLETE law code at Sinai, for running a civil state as well as keeping their spirits clean).
The deeds that Jesus calls for are different, the mental attitude is different. Very different. The Law of Sinai is still in force, but it’s still only about what it was originally about, which was a farm in Israel. It’s not about eternal life. THAT covenant is water, bread, wine and doing the deeds that Jesus said to do. A DIFFERENT law, a DIFFERENT convenant.
For the Jews, it was VERY hard to separate the two, and to not see, say, the food laws as being related to everlasting life – same God, after all. But the covenants themselves are really very clear. God SAYS what you get in each of them: No flood, heirs in the land, a farm of your own, and everlasting life.
Different things.
Because Paul was a Jew, he himself started from the strong Pharisaic error (so visible among Protestants) that the Sinai Covenant and Law were bound up with life after death and Heaven. His great “AHA!” was that they’re NOT related, and he’s right about that.
Unfortunately, he REALLY confused latter-day Gentiles who equate Paul’s “law” (which are really mitzvot – sacraments – under the Torah with morall law (don’t kill). So Paul SEEMS to say that people don’t have to obey law and do proper deeds and avoid bad deeds to be saved, but what he’s really saying, literally, is that Gentiles and Jews are not saved (as in: go to heaven”) for keeping the Mosaic sacraments. Paul’s reasoning is hard to follow. He focuses on Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
Paul isn’t a bad guy, but he’s really easy for non-Jewish Gentiles 2000 years after the fact to misread to think he’s talking about Law in gereral, when he obviously is not.
LikeLike
Gary: “Jesus always called gentiles “the dogs” and he refused to even speak with them And maybe you should always remember that he routinely called the gentiles “the dogs”. (Matthew 15:26)”
Jesus preached to the Samaritan woman at the well, and then her village, at the outset of his ministry.
He drove the demons out of a Gerasene, in the sheepherding country, a Gentile.
He healed the servant of a centurion, and said of him that he’d never found such faith in Israel.
And when, before his death, he was told that the Greeks wanted to speak to him, he spoke about how the message would now go to all nations.
Jesus did NOT “always call Gentiles dogs”. He asked, rhetorically, of a Syrophoenician woman who asked for a specific healing miracle for her daughter if the food should be taken from the table of the children and thrown to the little dogs. And he ultimately gave her the miracle she requested.
All of which is a very far cry from what you said. If you’re going to misrepresent what Jesus said, you’re not being honest.
If you really believe that IS what he said, then you obviously haven’t read the stories very well and should do so with care before saying absurd things that are so easy to refute on the text.
You don’t like religion. That’s your right. But the religion you’re attacking is not the one that’s actually IN the Scriptures, but a figment of your imagination.
What’s actually in the Scriptures is harder to deal with, because God foresees your objections.
LikeLike
Gary M asked: “Why would Matthew have Jesus say he was sent “only” to the Jews, and in John, Jesus is saying that God gave his son for the whole world (Jn 3:16)??”
Jesus said, truthfully, Salvation is of the Jews. HE was a Jew, of the line of David. Also son of God. If his father weren’t God himself, we could call him a Nephil.
God set up Israel, and ruled it, to be the example. And when Jesus came as a man, the Jews had not yet rejected him.
It was the Last Clear Chance for the people YHWH chose to be the light on the hill and a blessing to the whole world. And it was from the Jews that the Christian leadership came: all 12 Apostles, plus Paul. The bulk of the Jews, though, refused to follow. Jesus’ life was cut short because of it.
God was faithful to his covenant, gave the Jews the chance to lead, and a remnant DID follow, and DID leave, and account for the Judaic element in Christianity (along with the fact that the Jewish law itself came from the mind of God),
Jesus came to the Jews, and the Jews who followed him because the light to the whole world. The divine man himself preached to some non-Jews, but his main focus was Jews. This is in keeping with the Scriptures. It wasn’t until he was outright condemned by the Temple authorities and handed over to the Romans that the Temple itself, the Aaronic priesthood, God’s own priests, turned on God through his son and sought his son’s death, and achieved it.
After that, the Apostles did preach to Jews, and some followed. Most stayed belligerent and stubborn, as in all past ages. But THIS time, there was an end to them in the land.
LikeLike
If you cannot categorically and unconditionally denounce the hunting down and execution of children and babies, you are hopelessly without any moral character whatsoever, Crown. Whatever else your “faith” has to offer, if it can’t condemn baby killing, I’m not interested in hearing it.
LikeLike
Well said, Carmen!
LikeLike
Carmen, I am not proselytizing, I’m contradicting. I see calumnies directed at God. I don’t like it, so I defend him.
LikeLike
Crown, I can go along with the first 4 covenants, but I think you’ve manufactured the 5th one. Just my opinion.
One thing I think it’s very important to know/remember is that Paul wrote his epistles BEFORE the gospels were written. When one takes this into consideration, you can’t help but see his influence and how his theology is woven into the “words” of the gospel writers.
You present a rather unusual take on the bible and what the various “events” really mean. Much different than the average Christian’s POV. But then, that’s what usually happens when each person “interprets” the bible to his own way of thinking. And why there are several thousand Christian denominations.
LikeLike
Gary M: “If you cannot categorically and unconditionally denounce the hunting down and execution of children and babies, you are hopelessly without any moral character whatsoever,”
I condemn the hunting down and killing of children and babies by men. I do not condemn God for killing babies and children.
In the specific case of the Israelites entry into Canaan, long ago, and no other case, I do not condemn the Israelites for following the commandments of God, and I do not condemn God for his commandments.
No do I condemn God for earthquakes, hurricanes, cancer, and AIDS.
Nature is part of God. Nature kills everything. God knows what he’s doing when he kills, and he knew what he was doing when he ordered the killing of the children of Canaan.
But men don’t know, and God didn’t grant men the right to kill anybody. There is no human right to kill children, and whoever does that, all the way back to conception, is evil.
God isn’t evil for causing the physics to function so as to kill the child at the hands of the murderer, though, since obviously God is right there in the room and, through the physics, causing it to happen.
LikeLike
Gary M: “I answered your question with a clear yes or no answer, I would appreciate the courtesy of you doing the same.”
No you didn’t. You said you oppose abortion. I’m seeking clarity from you regarding your definition of the word “abortion”. When a woman takes RU 486, a fertilized egg, a conceived human, is prevented from implanting.
Is that an abortion, yes or no.
To be clear, again, on your question: No, I don’t condemn God for killing everybody. Yes, I condemn men for killing anybody. No, I don’t condemn the particular Hebrews in the case of the entry into Canaan, for killing people at God’s command. That is a separate case, because God ordained it.
LikeLike
“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” – Nor anything else, I should imagine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amazing, Crown, how someone who claims to have a degree from the Sorbonne still believes in the fable of the “flood.”
Far be it from me to question the literary talents of a graduate of the Sorbonne, but have you noticed how repetitiously you write? This, from a single comment —
“
LikeLiked by 1 person
Crown: Your superstitious, Bronze Age, middle eastern nomadic belief system is appalling, barbaric, and immoral.
Period.
LikeLiked by 1 person
exodus 20:4 “”You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” 9the second commandment)
the catholick church is resplendent with such images.
and I’m sure even though god forbids it, crown has no problem with that at all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.”
What kind of a god would discriminate against persons with crushed testicles? Really?? Isn’t it obvious to anyone other than the most brainwashed of fundamentalists that a god did not write this nonsense?
LikeLike
Gary,
You wrote: “What kind of a god would discriminate against persons with crushed testicles?”
What sort of “discrimination” do you think is going on here?
We are talking about not attending a ritual, not the deprival of the eucharist.
Why the drama?
LikeLike
“I finished reading the Ray Rogers paper as well as the skeptical response Gary linked to. For anyone who wants to read the paper (5 pages) there is a PDF of it located at: http://www.shroud.it/ROGERS-3.PDF“
Hi Dave, thanks for the links you have posted, it will help me when I can devote a bit more time to this.
LikeLike
as crown says, god can kill anybody any way he wants.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/couple-killed-by-falling-concrete-slab-were-youth-ministers/ar-AAaY6zn
LikeLike
Archaeopterxy: “Amazing, Crown, how someone who claims to have a degree from the Sorbonne still believes in the fable of the “flood.”’
I have a law degree from the Sorbonne. And a law degree from Columbia. And a BS from Annapolis.
I write repetitiously at times. Sue me if you dislike my style.
LikeLike
St Pauli Girl: “as crown says, god can kill anybody any way he wants”
No, I don’t just say that. I say affirmatively that God DOES, in FACT, kill EVERYBODY. And he WILL kill me, and you too, eventually.
God is a universal killer. All flesh is grass, and he’s the reason that is. Hating Nature for being Nature is pointless. We’re all dead men walking.
The good news is that after we die, we get to wake up.
LikeLike
St. Pauli Girl exodus 20:4 “”You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” 9the second commandment)
the catholick church is resplendent with such images.
and I’m sure even though god forbids it, crown has no problem with that at all.”
You’re “sure” God forbids it because your reading comprehension is poor (assuming you’ve read the Scriptures), or because you’ve bought a load of crap from people who themselves have poor reading comprehension.
A covenant is a contract. A contract has parties and terms.
This term: no images (read on in Scripture, and you will find that God means no IDOLS, and that he affirmatively commands the Israelites to make many images of things,in heaven above and on earth, and that Israelite kings also on their own make such images for the temple and that those are acceptable to the Lord, because they are not IDOLS)…this term is one of many laws given by God to the counterparty of the contract.
The contract was “Do all of these things, and you get a farm in Canaan, and security, and health and a big family.” THAT was the contract.
And with WHOM did God make this contract? With you? With me? With “the Catholics”, or “the Protestants”, or “the world”?
No.
He made it with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who were standing there at the foot of that mountain, having been brought out of slavery. He gave them a law and the promise of a land if they kept that law.
So, IF the law meant: You shall make no statues or paintings (which it does not, but you’ve asserted that it does), and IF it applied to the whole wide world and not just to the specific persons to whom it was directed: the Israelites, then what do the Catholics lose by having art in their churches? Eternal life?
No. Because Eternal life is never mentioned in the Torah. It’s not part of the Mosaic Law. It’s not on offer. What the Hebrews got as their reward under the covenant for keeping all of its terms (which mean obeying the laws) was a farm in Canaan.
So, assuming we Catholics are “Hebrews” covered by the Sinai contract (we’re not…), and assuming that statues and religious paintings are idols (they aren’t…), and that Catholics worship that artwork (we don’t…), then what do we LOSE by breaking this rule?
The same thing we lose by eating bacon, cutting our hair, getting tattoos, being uncircumcised, eating crabs and oysters, working on Saturday, not keeping the Passover, mixing fibers in clothing, shaving the edges of our beards, not wearing tassels on the end of our cloaks, and not tithing: we would lose our hope of a secure farm in Israel….IF we were ever promised that…which we weren’t.
You’ve taken the Mosaic Covenant: you Hebrews, obey these laws and you get a farm in Israel! And you’ve turned art into idols, art appreciation into worship, Catholics into Hebrews, and a farm in Israel into life eternal.
Neat trick.
But not what the Scripture says.
The Catholic Church preserved and taught Christianity through the dark ages and among Indians, were nobody knew how to read. Art conveys the stories through pictures.
Guess you’d better get on Jesus’ case for leaving us that image of himself on the Shroud of Turin, eh?
LikeLike
Gary wrote “Crown: Your superstitious, Bronze Age, middle eastern nomadic belief system is appalling, barbaric, and immoral. Period.”
Thanks.
Now tell me: when RU 486 prevents an embryo from implanting, is that an abortion?
Yes or no?
LikeLike
Archaeopteryx wrote: “’No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.’ – Nor anything else, I should imagine.”
LOL!
LikeLike
Hi Crown
This is what I read this morning. As far as I could tell the seconds half was God directly speaking {i.e first person} [in Isaiah it does switch without saying between God and Isaiah] but can not be really understood without the first half when it might be Isaiah speaking {i.e. second person}:
“Who among you fears the LORD
and obeys the word of his servant?
Let those who walk in the dark,
who have no light,
trust in the name of the LORD
and rely on their God.
But now, all you who light fires
and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go walk in the light of your fires
and of the torches you have set ablaze,
This is what you shall receive from my hand
You will lie down in torment.” [Isaiah 51:10-11]
LikeLike
From Facebook:
Ask most grown-ups if they still believe in magic and they’ll deny it. Then, ask them if they believe in God, and you’ll discover many of them lied to you on the first question.
LikeLike