sudo life

What does faith have to do with morality?  The choice to take something on faith is fundamentally a moral choice above all else.  A good definition of faith comes from chapter 11 in the book of Hebrews in the Bible:  “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  Basically, to take something on faith means believing in something for which there is no evidence.  Loaning money to that friend who has never paid you back in the past and hoping this time will be different?  That’s faith.  Asking a stranger for coffee? Quite possibly an act of faith.  Believing there is an all-loving super-being out there who cares for you personally?  Most definitely an act of faith.

As a Christian, moral relativism was something I heard about quite a bit.  The term was used in disdain; it was obvious that the Christians I were around felt that moral relativism represented something very wrong with the world.  This is something I agree with them on.  Unfortunately, I think the Christian stance on this is akin to psychological projection.  That is, they deny that their own faith contains any such relativism, and instead assign it to those “not christian.”

The demonstration that moral relativism is at the core of Christian views of faith is relatively simple.  It is a theme in the bible: from Abraham’s attempted murder via sacrifice of his only son, to the ongoing acceptance of hell as a legitimate theological stance.  Abraham is held up as one of the holiest men of all time – the father of three of the worlds largest religions.  His faith in God is adored and held up as an example.  Very rarely are his actions questioned in a moral light.  The questions, “why did he feel it appropriate to take action he knew to be wrong?”  The answer for Christianity is a given:  God told him to do so, and when you’re given a commandment by god, you are not to question, but to obey.  To obey is the moral, holy thing to do. This idea has not died out.  It’s why we still have suicide bombers, women who drown their children by divine commandment, and apparently, a war in Iraq.

Additionally, a divine commandment delivered personally supersedes any other divine commandments (turn the other cheek leaps to mind, ignoring the Big Ten.)

The other big example of moral relativism is the doctrine of hell.  That is, the idea that those humans not made holy through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior will spend eternity in eternal torture.  It never ceases to amaze me how easily people seem to accept this idea.  It’s given as the practice of perfect divine justice.  Yet, given the definition of Justice, hell certainly doesn’t fit.  There is no justice, fairness, grace, or love to be found in the doctrine of hell.  I’ve gone in depth on this in the past, so I’m not going to rehash it.  The doctrine of hell is the ultimate expression of faith: the acceptance of something known to be morally abhorrent as holy.

The theme is simple: morality is not objective but derived from mandates from god and the only absolute is obedience to those mandates.

This is a source for cognitive dissonance.  How can any god worthy of the title give immoral commandments?  Obviously he cannot, therefore any actions he takes are moral.  Yet just a quick browse through the old testament yields dozens of instances where the abrahamic god is most certainly not moral.  The solution for those who wish to remain Christians is to plead imperfection.  The argument goes, god is much wiser than us, who are we to to judge his actions? God is all-just, especially when he’s killing people – or more likely – commanding people to kill other people.  God is all-wise, especially when sending people to spend eternity being tortured.

The result of all this is nothing more than the further erosion of objective morality.  What meaning does justice have when we accept eternal torture as a legitimate practice of it?  What meaning does “right and wrong” have when it’s subject to ever-changing whims?  It’s even worse in that there is no way to verify these whims.  How can the woman who drowns her children by divine commandment be prosecuted?  How do you know God didn’t tell her to take that action?  There is no way to check.  Luckily we have a secular government who can act against such madness.

Unfortunately for Christians, the remaining choices are not acceptable:  either decide that god is not worthy of worship, and go looking for a god so deserving elsewhere, or stop believing in gods all together (or as I did, both).  Some Christians are forging another way: re-interpreting Christianity to remove the moral ambiguity.  Hell doesn’t survive the cut and Abraham becomes a villain.  I don’t know how intellectually acceptable it is, but it is interesting.

So the next time you hear a Christian railing against “Moral Relativism” just remember: their beliefs are likely more relient on it than yours are.

Disclaimer:  I realize I may be taking a simplistic approach to Abraham’s situation.  The book that really talks about it, Fear and Trembling, is on my reading list, but it might be a while before I get to it.

Disclaimer 2:  Yes, this is another post where I pigeonhole christians to mean “fundamentalist christians”  Bad Josh!  Bad bad Josh!  I realize that not all Christians have the problems described above.  However, those christians who have railed against moral relativism usually do have these problems, and that is why I wrote this.  If you have a better way to describe these people that identifies them specifically, please let me know.

Theology

This post concerns a curious bible story, found in the book of Mark:

Mark 11:12-14

¹²The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. ¹³Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

Mark 11:20-25

²⁰In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. ²¹Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”

²²“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. ²³“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. ²⁴Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Christians tend to look at this story as a lesson in faith.  While verse 24 is quoted often as an example to live up to in faith, I think there is another way to read this story.  It is a retelling of the original downfall of mankind according to Genesis.  The key fact that makes it so is that the fig tree wasn’t in season, something the story points out explicitly.   Jesus cursed it for not bearing fruit when it supposed to have no fruit.  There was no way the fig tree could have behaved any differently.

This parallels nicely the story of man’s downfall in Genesis.  God created Adam and Eve and told them not to eat of the tree of knowledge.  But without the knowledge the tree provided, how were they to know that was wrong to disobey?  How would they know that it was wrong to indulge curiosity?  Their ignorance secured in their creation, they acted in the manner that they were created.  God was not pleased, and he cursed them.

Christians read the story of the downfall as a lesson in disobedience, but I must disagree.  The actions of god in this case are mirrored by the actions of jesus: a curse on his creation for the way he created them!

Theology christianity

In the last month, I’ve heard several different people talking about The Shack, a book that supposedly has new ideas about god and what it means to have a relationship with it.  Last night, a friend loaned me his copy, and I sat down and read it.  At right around 250 pages, it’s a quick read, although the writing itself is not high quality.  For those of you in the know, think “Twilight.”  The writing is self-important, predictable, cheesy, and only thing good I can really say about it is that it’s sincere.  I don’t know how old the author is, but this is the level of writing I would expect from a junior high or high school student.

As for the content, there is nothing that’s really ‘new’ in this book.  It’s basically an anarchist’s reinterpretation of christianity using new age ideas.  The main theme is an attempt to solve the problem of evil by using an appeal to emotion.  There is nothing in the way of evidence or reason offered, and many parts of the book can be considered anti-intellectual.  The parts where it did mention something scientific, the author got it horribly wrong, including a bungling of quantum mechanics (to be fair, though, who doesn’t bungle quantum mechanics?), and the continuation of the idea of mind / brain dualism.

Important issues were brought up by the protaganist in the book.  The doctrine of original sin is re-interpreted as ‘humans wanting their independence and getting it.’  To his credit, the author seems to skirt the issue of hell, and seems to imply that everyone goes to heaven no matter what, and holds to the idea that justice and grace are completely incompatible.  That is a refreshing view from a christian, but nothing life-shattering.

Over all, I have to say this book really isn’t worth reading.  My evening would have been better spent finishing up Proust was a Neuroscientist (review to be posted soon).

Theology Book Reviews, christianity

The Friendly Christian was asking what turns us off from Christianity. I gave my answer there, but I want to expand a bit on one point.

One of the main reasons I can’t be a Christian is what I call the ‘non-uniqueness’ of Christianity. If Christianity was really the one source truth, and all other religions were wrong, wouldn’t there be some very obvious indicators for it? Having posed that question, the first thing that needs to be discovered is what would be an indicator of truth?

There could be a long discussion here about ‘what is truth,’ and/or ‘how do we know what truth is,’ but I’m bored of such discussions. Truth is a representation of realit y. In other words, a ‘true statement’ would be an statement that accurate reflects reality. We verify that something is true through logic, reason, and emperical evidence.

With that out of the way, it’s time to pose my hypotheticals about the bible. What if the following would have happened?

Hypothetical #1
What if the Genesis actually followed the path of creation we know to be true? For example, there was an explosion, and then gas formed, and the gas gathered into stars, and the stars formed into galaxies, and eventually our own star was formed, and around that star was our planet. Et cettera. It would not be difficult to describe this even to a primitive people roaming the desert four thousand years ago. They may not have understood at the time, but it would be something for them to marvel, and then eventually come to understand. And how glorifying that would have been for god! It would be a win-win all around.

Hypothetical #2
[EDIT:  This wording was terrible]
What if instead of portraying men as superior to women, the bible explicitely stated that all people were equal, without regard for gender, ethnicity, or anything else? What if god had given them a morality we could recognize today as ‘good’ instead of something that believers today try very hard to ignore and rationalize away?

Hypothetical #3
What if instead of burnt offerings and other ceremonies, god decided he wanted to have us show our devotion through service to others? You say that Jesus did that? Why the hell wasn’t it like that from the beginning? Some might say that the people weren’t ready, and God was just guiding them along with what they could handle. Can you honestly believe that? Are we better moral beings than what existed a few thousand years ago? The ideas simply hadn’t been invented yet, which is quite obvious when we look at how quickly democracy and similar ideas were adopted after their invention among multiple civilazations. It’s also interesting to note how opposed the church has always been to these ideas, which we know to be good, or at the very least, better than what we had before.

Ok, there are three examples of possible ‘truth indicators’ that could have been unique to Christianity/Judaism. Instead what we see time and time again is that both are copycat religions. They take ideas that have been in use elsewhere, steal them, and use them as their own. And even then, we can see that they still have bad ideas, with little verifiable truth to be found. Sure there’s lots of stuff they say is true, but can’t be proven, but those things are meaningless because of it.

The fact of the matter is that where Christianity has the opportunity to shine as a beacon of truth, it fails miserably. And that is cause for great consideration.

Theology Atheism, christianity

Someone once argued with me, concerning evolution, “science has been wrong before.”

True enough. I didn’t reply at the time, for a variety of reasons. Today, I would challenge them to name something that science has been wrong about. There are several possible choices. One common answer is thinking the earth was flat (most people don’t know about Eratosthenes calculating the diameter of the earth around 200 B.C). Never-the-less, the fact remains that the argument is right. We have been wrong about things in the past. We’re still wrong about some things. We know that many of our theories are incomplete.

Given all of that, though, there is a better point to be made. Science is unique in the way that it is the only self-correcting field out there. All of those times science has been wrong about something, I can guarantee you, it was not the priest that fixed it, but another scientist.

Theology christianity, debate, evolution, Philosophy, Science

Response to Apologetics, as portrayed by Kristen Godeau

While using Google Scholar, I came upon a paper from Kristen Godeau that succinctly describes Christian Apologetics. Instead of responding to works hundreds of pages long over a medium such as this blog, I’m going to take this much shorter paper and respond to that. It’s nine pages long, but there is still a lot of things to cover.

To begin with, here is a link to the original paper:

Why I am a Christian

I’ll start at the beginning and work my way through, putting the quotes from the paper before my responses.

“One of the most prominent antagonists in individuals finding true Christianity is the popular belief that religion must be found by faith alone. This belief is derived from the nature of fideism, which says that there is no logic or verifiability in religion. This separates topics such as history, science and philosophy from religion, making it very difficult for intellectuals to find truth and a deeper meaning to life.”

He starts out great. This is exactly the problem that is faced. I maintain that the case has yet to be made that religion is verifiable, but we’ll see throughout this response.

Kristen goes on to talk about how normal Christians never even try to solve this problem, and how that opens the religion up to numerous criticisms. Once again, I completely agree. Ignorance reigns with the common Christian. He goes on to claim that “there is a philosophical, historical, and scientific basis for these beliefs.” This is where we begin to disagree.

The next few paragraphs give a personal story, and then talks about the nature of god. How “He created our minds, the world around us, and the dimensions of science that even scientists cannot explain.” I only object to the wording “cannot.” There is nothing in the natural world that exists where we can never find the answer to. The basis of science is that we can figure out exactly how the world works through observation and empirical evidence. There are things we cannot answer _as of yet_, such as the specific origin of life, or combing relativistic gravity with quantum gravity, but that is a big difference between saying, “an answer outside of god does not exist.” Perhaps Kristen was not saying this, but I want to make this clear in any case.

Kristen then goes on to say that “I believe that when one studies science alongside the Bible, he will see that they do not contradict each other.” As one who has both studied the bible extensively and studied as much as I can of science, I cannot see this at all. Luckily, Kristen provides examples which I will get to in a moment.

Earlier Kristen stated, “a scientist will refute a Christian by saying that the creation theory is nothing more than a myth.” Kristen then states that science and Christian religion augment each other. However these are mutually exclusive. Even if you say that god used evolution for his creation, it still takes the creation story including adam and eve out of the realm of the literal and into the realm of the symbolic. By definition, the creation story as told in Genesis becomes a myth. A myth does not imply “false.”

Kristen then talks about how many of the great scientists of the western world have been Christians. This I do not debate, but I would point out that the number of Christian scientists contributing seriously to the scientific world has steadily declined ever since the theory of evolution was introduced. Also, Thomas Edison is given as an example, when Edison was an Atheist.

The next thing that is discussed is how the Universe’ order and precision is too perfectly placed in order for them to occur naturally. Sometimes the word used is ‘randomly,’ or by chance, though Kristen does not use these words.

The problem with this is that Evolution is not about random chance at all, but a specific order, called Natural Selection. The constants and forces in the Universe are not formed out of random chance, either, but had to evolve in specific steps. The field of cosmological evolution studies these steps. To claim that the mere presence of order and precision is evidence of a supreme creator is to display your ignorance of modern scientific theory.

Likewise, Kristens example of biological evidence for a creator is explained away by natural selection. Kristen claims to examine the scientific evidence, but never even mentions natural selection. He is still stuck in the past, where we did not yet have the mechanisms to explain these things, and does not seem to want to look at them seriously, even though the premise of his paper resides around that very thing.

This ignorance is plainly evident a few paragraphs down, where the he proclaims, “It makes far more sense in my mind to believe that God created all that is around us than to believe that it just appeared one day, with no source, and no one to organize it all.”

Evolution does not claim that at all! To make that sentence shows the highest form of ignorance of even the most basic principals and ideas of evolution. The universe did not “just appear one day.” How can one even answer this monstrosity?

Kristen then goes on to talk about Christ specifically. He begins with “Archaeology is one aspect of historical studies that points to the truth of the Bible.”

False. Plain and simple. Unless you take into accounts those crackpots who claim to have discovered Noah’s Ark 6 different times now. Please show me some articles from peer reviewed journal. I don’t care if it’s Christian scholars or secular scholars, just show me the articles.

It continues, “There is physical proof of people who we learn about in the Word of God. This is something that makes Christianity different from many other belief systems. For example, there has never been any physical evidence proving the existence of tribes or individuals described in the Book of Mormon.” The first part of this is true. There is archeological evidence for people we read about in the bible. The second part is false. There is physical proof of people we read about in other belief systems. I do not know about Mormonism, however.

Again, “The Bible, on the other hand, has physical proof of historical validity, as well as extra-Biblical writings that have been passed down among Christians and non-Christians.” If you’re talking about Josephus, you can quit, because that’s been pretty well debunked. There exist _no_ first hand accounts of Jesus Christ. Please send me a list of texts if you have otherwise.

Then onto Prophecy: “Another aspect of history that verifies Christianity is Biblical prophecy. Very specific prophecies that were given during Bible times took place over the years to come after the canon of scripture was already complete and in circulation.”

Once again, this shows very ignorant scholarship. Prophecy is one of those things that have not been proven. Prophecies are usually vague enough that they can apply to a large number of things. Or they have been twisted to change their meanings into something else, such as the author of Matthew did at the beginning of the gospel.

Then Kristen goes on to his final impeachment: “The Bible is never altered. Scripture has never been changed, with the exception of possible grammatical alterations.”

Blatantly false. I understand that “Misquoting Jesus” is a pretty good book for talking about this sort of thing. I’ve not read it, but that’s what I’ve heard. There are other examples as well, however, such as the multiple changes to the Old Testament over the Hundreds of years, as well as the false authorship assigned to Moses of the first five books of the bible. Bible scholars and secular scholars alike agree that there have been many changes to the bible over the years.

Kristen goes on to talk about a few other things:

“What other religion can give valid accounts of a human walking on water or seeing someone raised from the dead?” Both have occurred in other religions, sometimes predating Christianity. The idea of “valid accounts” is suspect, because there exists no first hand accounts of any of these things; they are all the product of oral tradition, except perhaps in the case of Appylonius.

“Who can refute a man who walks out of a tomb after the brutal death of crucifixion?” Once again, no first hand accounts.

“Who would even want to stop a man from praying for a leper who is completely healed and restored?” I don’t know what is being said in this sentence.

“How can you argue with a man whose God just brought down fire from heaven to consume a wet altar just to prove that He was real when other gods were simply a figment of the peoples’ imaginations?” Ah, the old testament prophets. I don’t have an answer for this one, other than you have to take the story on faith alone.

“There is never an unfulfilled promise in the Word of God.” Actually there are several. The Skeptics Annotated Bible outlines them. It’s available for free online. Take a look.

“Man would not create a religion in which he was never getting the victory.” Evidence for this statement? I didn’t know that the field of Human Psychology was well developed enough to state something like this as fact.

“The apostles were so impacted by His miracles, teachings, and bodily resurrection that they were willing to give everything they had and suffer even unto death.” You see accounts of this same sort of thing in other religions. It is not unique to Christianity.

“They sacrificed it all for the sake of the Kingdom of God, not for their own personal gain.” This is not evidence for anything, although, I would point out that the bible does speak about ‘treasures in heaven.’ Also, wouldn’t this be evidence for Allah, seeing the modern day prevalence of suicide bombers?

Kristen begins to wrap it up: “When nonbiased study, an open mind and heart, and critical thinking skills are applied, the outcome is almost inevitable.” I agree, but I haven’t seen any of this in the paper. It’s why I’m now an Atheist.

“When all the evidence is spread out on the table, I believe it takes far more faith to disprove the God of the Bible than it does to believe in Him” What evidence?

“I believe that God would rather us believe in Him because we have tested and proven Him, than simply to follow after His followers with a weak heart and a weak faith, trusting only because we have been told we should trust in Him.” Once again, I completely agree. If god exists, this is what he would want. Only, these tests and proofs have not been presented to me, nor have I been able to locate them.

“This is the very reason why I choose to believe in the one true God, because His character and His teachings can stand up to any test.” How about the “ask and it shall be given” test? Or the “when two people are gathered together” test?

“He is always victorious, even when we cannot grasp the fullness of His purpose or mode of victory.” This is the equivalent of saying “God wins even when it looks like he doesn’t.” This is something that is faith based, and completely excludes evidence.

Overall, I am still completely unconvinced. I enter these things with an open mind, but I’m getting tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. The biggest problem is that these people seem to be very very ignorant of what the theory of evolution is, as well as what science in general is all about, or the methods of archeology and historical study, or the formation of the canon and the early evolution of Christianity. Yes, the god who “is the same yesterday today and forever” has ‘shown’ us many different faces over the years. Being ‘two-faced’ is not a compliment unless you’re talking about god, then it is just another example of his awesome perfection.

Perhaps I’ll find something better tomorrow.

And so ends my longest blog post to date. I hope it made sense.

Theology Atheism, christianity

Here is my current line of thinking:

1. If there is a god, faith in that god does not depend on knowledge of a certain scripture.
2. If there is a god, we would be unable to completely be certain of it’s existence, relying on faith instead.
3. There is a god.
4. This god is All-knowing, All-present, and All-loving.
5. This god is so far above our level of thinking, we can not begin to fathom what that thinking is, therefore it is pointless to try to judge god’s thoughts.
6. My faith exists through what I percieve as reflections of god’s ultimate plan in my life.
7. The strength of that faith is not dependent upon outside forces.

Ok, that’s my start. I plan to add my thoughts on prayer, miracles, and other things later on.

Until next time, so long, do well, win awards, and thanks for all the fish. See you in the funny papers.

Theology christianity, Philosophy

There is a devil whispering in my ear the question:

How can something beyond our control have influence on our morality?

Such is the problem with the so-called “Original Sin.”

Theology christianity, Philosophy