Oh wait, that’s being done too…

Some of the things you’ll hear do sound a little bit far fetched, I’ll admit that. But then I found out that the other name for the bible is “The Gospel”. So it is all true. Luckily, the clue is in the title.

Ahh… the old “the bible’s true because it says so” argument… put much more eloquently, of course.

Link to Video

(Via Luke Pilarski)

• 7 Proofs That We Live in a Computer Simulation – or Why Proofs of Gods Existance Are Unconvicing
• Why I took so long to accept evolution – a.k.a. Why every christian should read their own bible. “part of what helped me along was actually reading the Bible in high school, being horrified by much of it”
• denialism blog : I can has souls? – There is a god, and it’s a cat.
• Religion and Sexual Ethics – A nice summary of the moral position of various religions. Interesting to compare catholicism and buddhism side by side! (I think I’m with the Buddhists, here)
• LOL cat Bible – Personally, I hate this pathetic LOLspeak crap, although this picture is funny… “In teh beginning, Invisible Man make univerz. Invisible Man say, I can has light. Gots light.”

Let me hear you say “I will empty the contents of my wallet into that little collection plate when it comes around…. hallelujah!”

VIDEO: Hill$ong

Oh, and if you liked that, you might also like this:

VIDEO: What Have We Learned From History?

• Prince Of Peace – God Of War Gets First Review And A Release Date – A film by John Campea (of The Movie Blog) about Christianity and the war in Iraq. The first five minutes are available in the post.
• Ten reasons why beer is better than Jesus – and #11. Beer tastes better…
• The Ultimate Spoiler… – Don’t click this link if you don’t like finding out how the book ends (but… come on, you know you want to click it)
• The Primate Diaries: Today’s Math Lesson – The differences between fundamentalists and moderate believers and atheists.
• Actus Formalis Defectionis Ab Ecclesia Catholica instrument of debaptism – The “Actus Formalis Defectionis Ab Ecclesia Catholica” (that document you can use to ask to be “debaptised” from the Catholic Church – NOW IN ENGLISH!
• BibleMap.org – Want to know where all those places the bible talks about actually ARE? Look no further…

Many people have a vague notion that all the original biblical texts are preserved in vaults somewhere, and translators work from those original texts. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. The earliest surviving versions of the gospels are handwritten copies dating from centuries after the original texts were written. Also, we don’t just have a single version of each gospel; we have many versions, and even more fragments. The trouble is, none of the versions agree with each other.¹

If you haven’t read the book, I’d highly recommend it. Dawkins even mentions it in his recent “God Delusion” (so, it’s gotta be good, right?). Ehrman details many specific examples of differences between versions of the biblical texts, and also examines how the specific books were chosen and compiled.

Also, if there’s any Christians reading this – please, tell me – how DO you reconcile the problems Ehrman mentions? Were all of the copies of the bible divinely inspired? Was there one particular version that was divinely inspired? Please… I’m dying to know!

1. Brown, Doug (2007) Review of Misquoting Jesus, Powell’s Books

While not particularly relevant to the rest of us (although, I discovered recently on my travels to Adelaide – one of Australia’s smaller major cities¹ – shops still aren’t allowed to open on Sundays, and I’m sure we can blame the Christians for that) I thought “Remember the Sabbath” was quite interesting.

Oh, and then – of course – the Rowan Atkinson sketch I was reminded of… (This was linked recently from one of the Atheist blogs I read – I forget where, but if you think it might have been you, let me know and I’ll link to you)

Link to Video

Oh, and if you don’t see the association:

Christians? Christians? Yes, I’m sorry, I’m afraid the Jews were right.

1. Small Major City – is that an oxymoron?

• Morality Part 1: God Hating Atheists
• Morality Part 3: Non-Theistic Morality

Immoral Religion

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. – Steven Weinberg¹

As Steven Weinberg suggests, some people use religion to justify their immorality. I remember a joke I was told a few years ago (by a Lawyer, I think – who knew they had a sense of humour?), that talked about there being two types of Catholics – those who felt so restricted by their religion, that they had very dull lives, and those who live life to the full (“immorality” and all), and then simply ask forgiveness. Religion, I suppose, can be quite liberating for one’s morality if one can always rely on the forgiveness of sins.

According to one book (at least, the review of it that I read) evangelical Christian teenagers, although likely to think not having sex before marriage is the right thing to do, are actually more likely than many other Christians to commit this “sinful” act.

80 percent think sex should be saved for marriage. But thinking is not the same as doing. Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics.²

Sure, maybe you could argue that these teenagers “aren’t true Christians”, otherwise they wouldn’t be having sex before marriage³. But then, that wouldn’t stop people using the bible to justify slavery (as long as the slaves are from neighbouring nations)⁴, and killing people who work on the Sabbath⁵⁶. Not to mention all the historical atrocities committed in the name of religion⁷.

I’m definitely not claiming that religious people are necessarily immoral, but I think I’ve shown that it’s certainly possible to “live by the rules” of religion, and act completely immorally (honestly, does anyone still think slavery is moral?). There’s people out there clearly saying that religion is not always a force for good⁸, and they make some pretty good points!

Why, then, do people persist in claiming that religion is the only way to live a moral life?

1. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26814.html
2. http://www.slate.com/id/2167293?nav=tap3
3. Of course, you might also argue that sex before marriage isn’t immoral, in which case, I’d agree with you
4. Leviticus 25:44
5. Exodus 35:2
6. Some other great examples at Follow the Bible?
7. The Inquisition, The Crusades, etc.
8. Link via Religious Education With Warts

• What if the Women of the Bible Had All Been Feminists? – “After the ladies loosen up around the table, Mary Magdalene would begin by talking about sex workers? rights, and returning belly dancing to its origin as an exercise for giving birth.”
• Intelligent Design Ruled “Not Science” – Thank God! (pun intended) At least ID is officially not science in the UK.
• Calvin & Hobbs: Do you think there’s a God? – Calvin and Hobbs on God.
• FSM on Calculator – How to draw the Flying Spaghetti Monster on your TI graphing calculator
• Non Sequitur – Moses – Moses using MapQuest Version 1.0 (BC) to lead the Jews through the desert
• Paris finds God in jail | Herald Sun – So that’s where God’s been hiding…

• Morality Part 2: Immoral Religion
• Morality Part 3: Non-Theistic Morality

God Hating Atheists

Some have claimed that atheism is responsible for immoral acts, and that lack of Christian morality (ignoring the possibility of other types of morality) in schools is responsible for school shootings. Both these articles describe various violent acts and crimes committed by young USAians¹, and then jump right into blaming Atheists and Darwinists (perhaps I’m missing a step in the argument, but I can’t see it – although “How to build a bomb in the public school system” does have one piece of evidence – the words “Natural Selection” on one shooter’s T-shirt):

Now do you realize who the people are who are responsible for children having gotten so violent? The answer is ATHEISTS and other non-beleivers [sic.] in the true God. So you may ask how can this be? The reason why they are responsible is because they hate God and teach their children against God (which is the highest form of child abuse). For example: Atheists hate the TEN COMMANDMENTS because God is their Author. ²

Aside from the obvious problem that Atheists, by definition, are unable to hate God (because as far as they’re concerned God doesn’t even exist) I see no logical reason why someone couldn’t hate the Christian God, but still “love” the 10 commandments. Jews and Muslims still have the 10 commandments, but in this writers mind, I’m sure Jews and Muslims would classify as “non-believers in the true God” (even though, technically, all three religions have the same roots, and thus the same God). There’s also plenty of people who live arguably moral lives while breaking at least the first few commandments. Depending on your interpretation, it’s also possible that all Christians break the 1st commandment, if you read “thou shalt have no other Gods before me”³ as endorsing strict monotheism, given that Christianity (arguably) invokes three Gods⁴ – I think Jews and Muslims are safe, though. Then, of course, there’s those of us who choose not to kill, steal or commit adultery, and still manage to respect our parents every so often – I don’t need to love (or even believe in) the Christian God for that.

There may be many religion-hating Atheists (or, anti-theists – of which Richard Dawkins comes to mind – while I’ve seen him in documentaries, I have yet to actually read his work, though, so I could be wrong), but a God-hating Atheist is an oxymoron. I certainly don’t think taking issue with religion necessarily makes you amoral, just like I don’t think that following a religion (whatever it may be) necessarily makes you moral.

One final thought – how many “immoral” people do you think are out there in this world? 5%? 20%? 50%? Well, if you subscribe to the theory that without Christianity, you’re necessarily immoral, you are immediately saying that 67%⁵ are incapable of living moral lives – not including immoral “Christians”, of course. Is there really a God who would condemn the majority of the world’s population simply because they were raised in a religion other than Christianity?

(To Be Continued… – Morality Part 2 will be posted next Sunday)

1. Residents of the United States of America – often incorrectly (in my mind) called Americans. “The Americas” cover a lot more ground than just the U.S.A.
2. Atheists Responsible for Youth Crime
3. Exodus 20:3
4. Suggested by AthiestWager, although I think it’s definitely possible to be Christian and follow the 1st commandment – it all comes down to interpretation
5. According to Wikipedia, only 33.06% of the world’s population are Christian