Agnosticism, Atheism, Bible Study, Christianity, Culture, Faith, God, Religion

Frustration

Nate

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.

can we trust the bible?

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.

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Published by Nate

1,060 thoughts on “Frustration”

  3. If you want to believe something badly enough, you will always find evidence to support it. I suggest doing the opposite: look at the evidence, and then form your belief.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. “No. God didn’t command Moses to gather an army. God gathered the army himself, taking them out of Egypt as slaves.”

    Crown — He did:

    Numbers 31: 1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

    3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. 6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.

    7 They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses,

    Crown wrote: “Sex slaves? No. There is no sexual slavery whatever in God’s commands. You added that.”

    Numbers:31 – 13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

    15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

    Crown, this behavior is no different than what ISIS is doing. You wrote:

    Crown: “God gathered the army himself, taking them out of Egypt as slaves.”

    Please watch. https://youtu.be/eqRhDqwmUvw (Under 3 minutes)

    I bought into the myths, too, for a couple of decades. I was raised a devout Catholic. I suspect that the reason you are not questioning or are justifying antisocial behavior (on a psychopathic level) in these scriptures is due to death anxiety, which is understandable. Studies show that people have less death anxiety if they believe they are going to heaven. You have repeatedly mentioned in your comments about “waking up” after death.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Crown wrote: “When Israel made war with neighboring nations (not Canaanites), captured men could be enslaved (not for sex), and captured women could be MARRIED by Israelites, after a fixed period of mourning. As a wife, she had all of the rights of any other wife in Israel:“

    Yes — they were married as sex and domestic slaves.

    “The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about… all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance… A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce… the wife called her husband Ba’al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king.

    The Decalogue includes a man’s wife among his possessions… all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession.”

    -Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest

    Source

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Nan – you wrote: “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 have a scholarly bent and discuss interesting issues regarding Scripture. I think we could have an interesting conversation, although we come from very different perspectives.

    You’ve raised the question of provenance of Scripture, who wrote what, when, influenced by whom.

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  9. St. Pauli Girl: “Crown, then what you are saying is that all of the 10 commandments are moot to catholicks? thou shalt not lie, steal, commit adultery does not apply because you’re not a Hebrew that was promised a farm?”

    As given at Sinai, they’re moot to everyone: nobody gets a farm in Israel for obeying them.

    However, Jesus made clear what the law is. On the last couple of pages of Revelation he lists, twice, the things that will get men thrown into the fire at final judgment.

    And during his life he made a series of commandments that are part of the general commandment to “follow him”.

    THOSE are the commandments. Some of the ten included in the Hebrew covenant at Sinai are there.

    But then, the commandments against murder and adultery were given long before Sinai. They appear in Genesis.

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  10. St. Pauli Girl, you wrote “according to you, Crown, god is going to kill you anyway, whether you kill anyone or not. so…….”

    …what? God’s going to kill me. My body will rot. But my spirit will go on, to Paradise or to Gehenna. And eventually I will be resurrected into a body, and in that renewed body I will stand for final judgment. And if I have killed people, then I will be thrown into the Lake of Fire and die again, for good. If I pass judgment I will walk through one of the gates into God’s City.

    So, whether I kill people or not determines, in part, my final outcome. The fact that God kills me along the way is a detail. But if I go killing people, without the sanction of God, well, then I’ve doomed myself through my actions.

    It matters very much.

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  11. “Gods don’t kill people. People with gods kill people.” — David Viaene —

    Hey, David, go tell that to the people who died in Hurricane Sandy, while you’re trying to figure out what people to blame for killing them.

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  12. “Crown — He did:”

    No, Neurotenes, he didn’t.

    God didn’t tell Moses to call together an army. The army was already there. You said that God told Moses to call together an army. Not true. God put Moses at the head of a vast throng of people that GOD brought out of Israel.

    There is a difference. Moses didn’t form the army. God did. I was being precise.

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  13. Neurotones:

    You quoted the Scripture, here: 15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.”

    You quoted this as evidence of sexual slavery. However, this fits into the law. Go read about these virgins: they could be taken as WIVES by the Israelites. After a period of mourning, the Israelites were able to marry them. As married women they had full the rights of wives under the law: to consortium, to children, to support.

    Under the law, the man who deflowered a virgin was married to her.

    Forced marriage is not sexual slavery. It is a different thing.

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  14. Forced marriage is most certainly sexual and domestic slavery. It is immoral and inhumane. These virgin girls watched their parents and siblings get slaughtered and then they are forced to spread their legs and give sex upon command. Please do not make lite of this. It’s horrific and caused and continues to cause untold trauma.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Neotenes: ” I suspect that the reason you are not questioning or are justifying antisocial behavior (on a psychopathic level) in these scriptures is due to death anxiety, which is understandable.”

    Rather than conjuring up stories about my motivations, how about listening to what I have said.
    I became a believer in God because of miracles and personal revelations. That’s why I know God is. I am a Catholic because all of the other miracles out there that I can study (I don’t have to study mine) are Catholic. The miracles vouch for the truth, because the only God I care about is the one who commands nature and can do miracles. I’m not interested in an intellectual exercise.

    I was a Navy helicopter pilot for many years. I’ve fasted twice for 40 days straight, on water alone. I’ve had appendicitis four times but refused to have it removed, and I’ve gotten better on my own. I’ve charged straight at a shooter. I’m not eager to die anytime soon. I simply see it as inevitable, and I don’t worry about it at all. God will kill me when he’s ready to kill me. I won’t live one second less than he decides I will have, and I won’t live one second longer either.

    I know that life goes on and on after death.

    Really, you should just listen to exactly what I say about myself at face value, because it’s the truth.

    Know why? Because one of the list of things that will get a man thrown into the Lake of Fire at judgment is being a LIAR. LYING and trafficking in Lies will get a man damned. I don’t intend to be damned, so I don’t lie.

    There’s really no need to psychoanalyze me. I am exactly what I seem to be, and I say what I think. Straightforward. Honest.

    Let’s talk about Scripture, or the Law of God, or the miracles, or the Church, or history. I am a boring topic.

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  17. Neotenes, you wrote: Yes — they were married as sex and domestic slaves.

    And then you purported to back that up with “scholars”. I don’t give much credence to these “scholars”. I’ve seen Thalidomide victims and watched eggs pass from health food to killer – “as bad as cigarettes” – to being removed from the list of bad foods, all at the hands of “scientific scholars”. I don’t believe them.

    But I’ll accept details from Scripture. It’s a short and direct corpus of work. Cite the details from that that demonstrates that women were sex slaves. They were not. They had a role, as did men. They had a skein of rights given by God, and protections. Slavery is a specific thing. A wife was not a slave.

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  18. “Let’s talk about Scripture, or the Law of God, or the miracles, or the Church, or history. I am a boring topic.”

    OK Crown, let’s talk about scripture alone. You have consistently made it personal —> about you and your experiences. There have been thousands of gods throughout humankind’s history, but you picked this one because this god is a part of your culture.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. “That statement far exceeds any that you have proffered to this point.” – He started out seemingly rational, didn’t he, Nan?

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Neurotenes: “Forced marriage is most certainly sexual and domestic slavery. It is immoral and inhumane. These virgin girls watched their parents and siblings get slaughtered and then they are forced to spread their legs and give sex upon command. Please do not make lite of this. It’s horrific and caused and continues to cause untold trauma.”

    Context: God gives a certain, precisely bounded land to Israel. Not less, and not more.
    The Canaanites WITHIN that land, he sentences to be driven out or, if they stay and fight, complete extermination. There were also Philistines within the territory. God did not similarly put the Philistines under the ban. They could be conquered, but there was no commandment to wipe them out. They could surrender.

    The Hebrews were not given claims over neighboring territories, but if the neighbors attacked, the Israelites could make war to punish them for vanquishing the people of God.

    And, if God was with them, they would conquer.

    What then? Conquest. And enemy city, captured. It’s combattant men, destroyed. Because they made war with the people of God, and God delivered them over. What then?

    Well, then some pretty terrible things happen in war. In ancient warfare, the defeated were enslaved. But what did that mean? In the ancient near east, that often meant having testicles crushed and penis cut off, for men. Or being forced into prostitution for men and women. Not so in Israel. Male captives were not to be mutilated. Females were allowed a period of mourning – something imposed by God – and then, if desired, could be taken as wives. With rights.

    The male slaves could join Israel and cease to be slaves, by converting through circumcision and obeying the law. Then their slavery would be transmuted into indentured servitude, according to the Law.

    War is nasty business. And men fight wars without rules. Today, all over Asia and Africa, and in many European and American ports too, prostitutes are often, in fact, sex slaves. They cannot leave. The US military enters these foreign and domestic ports, and avails themselves of the local services. Shall we imprison half of our military for rape?

    Nations that attacked ancient Israel were delivered into the Israelites’ hands. But God did not grant the Israelites the same sort of plenary authority over their captives that is the norm of ancient or modern warfare. Nor did he command that everybody be put to the sword. Nor did he permit the defeated enemies to be let go – their defeat was deserved.

    Instead, he created a vehicle for INDIVIDUALS to become Israelites, the males through labor and circumcision (or, eventually, freedom in the Jubilee). Women were given the opportunity to mourn, were protected from slavery and prostitution, became wives, with rights of support and periods of rest during their periods, and mothers of Israel.

    Life is harsh and cruel, and ancient war was especially harsh and cruel. Remember: God kills everybody. So, those captives of ancient Israel, were given a route to become part of God’s people, so that their descendants would share in the inheritance.

    You think God should have done something else.

    So tell me: given that American troops murder and rape in foreign wars and ports, what should be done with us? What should our policy be?

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  24. “I am a boring topic.” – Well, I will certainly admit that you write boring and repetitious comments, but a divine dove flew into your head, and I don’t find that boring at all. Rather informational, actually.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. “So tell me: given that American troops murder and rape in foreign wars and ports, what should be done with us? What should our policy be?”

    The same as it should have been back when men created your god and exhibited the same behavior.

    A crime against humanity.

    Liked by 1 person

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