Jim Wilson relates his recent experience with a travelling evangelical Christian:

Recently, I met a female evangelist who worked closely in the field with her husband.  The two practiced a very “fire and brimstone,” “angry God” version of Christianity”.   They bad mouthed homosexuals, listeners of rock music, liberals, and made heavy use of threats of hell.

I saw the wife in this pair explain their religious beliefs to a sizable audience they had gathered along with some of the details of their personal history.  Looking back, I regret not having asked her how she reconciles her role in the ministry with first Timothy 2:12, which states, “But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have authority over the man, but to be in silence,” Her story led me to pursue a different line of questioning.

She told of a time when she was a young, ambitious college student.  At this time, she met her future husband who was ministering to students at her university.  For some reason she found this man’s teachings about God, Jesus, and hellfire compelling and chose to follow him and renounce many of her past beliefs and ambitions.  She argued that prior to having met her husband she had been mind-raped by the professors at her University with their teachings of secular humanism, atheism, liberalism and socialism.  She did point out that she in fact paid the professors to teach her, so it was not a “legitimate rape” (Yes, she referenced Todd Akin’s controversial and stupid remark when telling this story.)

After she was done speaking I got a chance to speak with her privately.  I suggested that since she considered her professor’s teachings to be mind-rape, that the same could be said of those of her evangelist husband.  After all, rapists use physical violence or threats of physical violence to subdue their victims, while her husband’s teachings similarly use threats of eternal torment to anyone who dares to question them.  Her husband literally taught this woman she must believe everything he says or terrible things will happen to her—forever.  This element of backing one’s teachings with threats of violence is far more insidious than anything from even the most propagandizing college professors.

As far as I know, professors have no way to force their students to believe anything.  Sure, they may be able to command their pupils to memorize or understand their teachings at the risk failing their tests, but I see no way in which they can force anyone to believe anything they teach or retain it after the semester ends.  I never had a professor threaten me with torture if I fail to believe what he or she taught.  This can only happen in this country at explicitly religious schools.

The evangelist refused to acknowledge my point stating that I was off base, because it was not the fear of hell but the desire to be in the presence of a loving all powerful God.  Maybe she was being honest, but I’m skeptical of this claim since threats of hell are such a huge portion of what her ministry does.  They spent a lot of time asserting that people who disagree with them will be punished. Their time would be better spent explaining the evidence they have for this belief. It would be a much more constructive conversation.

The concept of mind rape describes religious indoctrination quite well.  It is usually performed on children who have not had time to develop critical thinking skills and therefore have no defense.  It is frequently backed up with threats of torments as well as the bribe of an eternal reward.  Frightening children with threats of hell is a form of child abuse, and one that many people never get over.  The degrading message is that we are all so sinful, wretched, and worthless that we should be tortured forever.  Anyone who sees a small child as a being worthy of nothing better than eternal torture by virtue of being born human has truly lost any semblance of decency.

Rape is a horrendous crime and the fact it happens or is tolerated at all in our culture is a tragedy. The evangelist’s notion of mind-rape is ironic and a useful, informative way of looking at religious indoctrination especially indoctrination that features the threat of punishment.

By Jim Wilson

Lately, I have noticed variants of a horrific little essay titled the Scientific Death of Jesus making its way around the internet.   An excellent example, complete with illustrations is found here.  It details the crucifixion of Jesus and then discusses why it is such a great thing and why we should worship the God who arranged for it to happen.  The crucifixion theology is not a great thing. It is sick and twisted.  I’ll explain why using the essay linked above as a starting point.

The essay claims, “Only the worst criminals could die like Jesus.”  However, it was not reserved for “only the worst criminals,” anyone accused of challenging Roman rule could receive this fate. Furthermore, Pontius Pilate was a ruthless executioner who indiscriminately killed those brought before him unlike the way he is depicted in the Bible. He was not likely to petition the Jews to let Jesus off the hook.  Pilate’s Jewish contemporary Philo of Alexandria referred to “his venality, his violence, his thefts, his assaults, his abusive behavior, his frequent executions of untried prisoners and his endless savage ferocity.” That Jesus met the fate of crucifixion hardly makes him unique.

The piece describes the horrible suffering associated with crucifixion, a brutal form of execution.  For sake of brevity, I’ll assume it gives a fairly accurate account.  In the account, “Jesus endured that reality over 3 hours. Yes, over 3 hours!”  I question their three hour figure. Mark 15:25 states “And it was the third hour, and they crucified him,” while verse 34 states “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’” which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”.  Therefore, he was alive for at least six hours.  According to Wikipedia and various other sites, “The length of time required to reach death could range from a matter of hours to a number of days, depending on exact methods, the health of the crucified person, and environmental circumstances.”  In other words, Jesus’s suffering may have been rather short compared to other victims.

According to the essay, “He had no more blood to bleed, He only poured water” and that, “Jesus poured all 3.5 litres of his blood.”   These are highly specific claims to make about an event that happened 2000 years ago.  It is impossible to know with any confidence the contents of Jesus’s body to that degree of accuracy.

Next the essay states, “Beyond that, a Roman soldier who nailed a spear into his chest.”  While certainly possible, the historicity of this stabbing is highly questionable.  The incident appears only in the gospel attributed to John, which scholars tend to recognize as differing heavily from the other canonical gospels and historically suspect.  For example John’s gospel, expands Jesus ministry from one year to three years, with three distinct trips to Jerusalem.  Also, John moves the infamous purification of the temple from the end of his public ministry to its beginning.  While the other Gospels primarily features Jesus speaking in pithy quotes and parables, John expands these into lengthy verbatim discourses (How did he remember them?).  John refers to “the Jews” as if they were some foreign group rather than people from whom the author was born and raised.  John also neglects to mention such events as the transfiguration, the raising of Jarius’s Daughter and the Ascension which other Gospels claim he was one of only a few witnesses.  Also John turns Luke’s parable about a man named Lazarus into and actual historical event.  James Dunn, a leading New Testament scholar, notes that “Few scholars would regard John as a source for information regarding Jesus’s life and ministry in any degree comparable to the synoptics.”

To make matter worse, John States that “For these things came to pass, that the scripture might be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.  And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.”  There is no prophecy preserved in the Old Testament that says a “A bone of him shall not be broken.”  It is often assumed that this refers to Exodus 12:46, Numbers 9:12, which are not prophecies at all but instructions not to break the bones in a Passover lamb, or Psalm 34:20, which is says nothing to indicate that it is a prophecy of some future event.  John’s statement, “and again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced” relies on a mistranslation of Zechariah 12:10.  In the original verse “they look onto me, whom concerning they have pierced and they will mourn him like the weeping of a first born.”  In the context it is clear that the “me” is God, and the piercing is done by the Jewish people, rather than a Roman soldier.  Jews interpret this verse as being about God defending Jerusalem from its enemies at a time when the nations of the world conspire against it rather than the physical injury of a messiah figure.

The Scientific Death of Jesus concludes, “Jesus had to pass all this experience, so that you can have free access to God. So that your sins could be ‘washed’. All of them, with no exception! Don’t ignore this situation. HE DIED FOR YOU.”   In other words, a man allowed himself to be brutally and humiliatingly murdered for me.  Why? Christians generally state that it is because we are all indebted to God by our sins and God required this sacrifice to forgive us.  This is highly problematic. Only a horrible monster would require a brutal murder to take place in order to forgive others.  The need for a human blood sacrifice is a carryover from the animal sacrifices described in the Old Testament and is very much the type of cruel barbarism we should be denouncing rather than celebrating.

Christians will reply though that it is wonderful that God so willingly gave the life of his son.  Did he? In the story, he clearly got his son back. He also created this son specifically for this purpose but Jesus and God are supposedly the same entity (though Jesus only ever referred to God in the third person).  From the Trinitarian point of view, we are forced to conclude that God is putting on a twisted piece of theater where he is sacrificing himself to himself, in a horribly bloody manner, to save others from his own wrath.  What nonsense!

Also, what is three, or six, hours of human suffering to God, to an infinite, eternal, and omnipresent being? For such a being the event would be incredibly insignificant.  If Jesus existed since the beginning of time, a few hours of suffering would hardly be comparable to a pinprick. Further, if God is truly omnipresent he would experience all human suffering anyway and the suffering he experiences in this gesture would be largely redundant.

If we accept the concept of sin as valid, the notion that allowing an innocent person to be murdered as payment that somehow resolves us of responsibility is morally absurd by all convention standards.  It is made worse by the fact that those who are unable to believe this horrific and outrageous set of theological claims are promised eternal punishment.  The Christian God has essentially created a torture chamber that can only be escaped by pledging an eternity of praise and gratitude for allowing a brutal murder to take place.

The crucifixion narrative is rubbish.   It is immoral, nonsensical, and horrendously violent.  The concept of blood sacrifice, human or otherwise, has no place in an advanced society.

By Jim Wilson

Spoiler Alert! The entry discusses in detail some important story elements of Joseph Heller’s acclaimed novel Catch-22.  Those who wish to read the book for themselves should tread no further!

Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22 details the trials and tribulations of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army bombardier stationed in Italy towards the end of World War Two.  The somewhat satirical book is widely regarded as being simultaneously funny and disturbing. It documents Yossarian’s numerous attempts to prolong his life by evading his duty to go on additional bombing missions.  He comes to regard the war as essentially already won and resents his commanding officer’s practice of putting the lives of  the 256th squadron in danger solely to advance reputation and ambition.  Heller himself was bombardier stationed in Italy during World War II who flew 60 missions.  He stated that the odds for his survival were not in his favor.  Much of the book was drawn from his own experiences, though he says he never had a bad officer and much of the book’s cynicism came from the Korean War and the Red Scare rather than World War II.

Catch-22 is the obscure military rule that obstructs Yossarian from getting out of flying the increasingly growing number of required missions. Catch-22 is now widely used to describe a no win situation. It stipulates that, “a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that are real and immediate is the process of a rational mind” and those who possess a rational mind are not crazy and must fly their missions.  Only the insane were excused from service and since asking to be relieved was a sign of sanity, this made it impossible to be relieved from duty;  ” If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”

Of course, no such rule officially ever existed, but because Yossarian’s commanding officer acted as though such a rule did exist, it became very real in practice.  Colonel Cathcart, Yossarian’s commanding officer,  throughout the book continues raising the number of missions each individual is expected to fly before they can go home.  He led his men to believe that each increase would be the last but it was always followed by another.  Yossarian believed the colonel’s dishonesty and willingness to put lives at unnecessary risk, not to mention the residents of the cities being bombed, was driven by personal ambitions and had little to do with advancing the war effort.  Indeed, Yossarian tells another member of his squadron:

“The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don’t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.”

Eventually, Yossarian publicly refuses to fly more missions and captures the attention of Cathcart himself.  Cathcart vehemently hates Yossarian and would very much like to have Yossarian court marshaled but realizes that  Yossarian would get exactly what he wants–to be relieved of flying missions.  Eventually Cathcart and his sidekick, Colonel Korn, decide to make Yossarian an offer.  He can get out of flying more missions on one condition. Colonel Korn’s one condition is, “Like us”. Korn further elaborates the terms of the deal:

“Like us. Join us.  Be our pal. Say nice things about us here and back in the States.  Become one of the boys. Now that isn’t asking too much is it?”

All Yossarian has to do to get out of his missions is publicly speak in favor of Cathcart and Korn. Korn points out that after Yossarian does this it will be much easier for them to coerce the rest of Yossarian’s friends into flying more missions and states that they may even use him as an example. Everything about the idea repulses Yossarian but he considers doing it anyway.  In exchange for this agreement, Yossarian is promised not only freedom from his military duties but a comfortable life as “one of the boys” in Cathcart’s well connected circle of military cronies.

There is a similar Catch-22 found in the Christian faith.   Cathcart and Korn’s offer to free Yossarian from clear and present danger in exchange for compulsory praise is very much like what the Christians think their God offers us non-believers.  We are happy that there is no evidence that the God of the Bible exists. God is depicted in both Testaments of the Bible as a petty, murderous, sexist, capricious, bigoted, genocidal monster. My lack of belief means that he is also not able to put me in the Catch-22 where I am forced to like (no, love) him or be subjected forever to eternal torture.  Any being that would arrange for us to be subjected to complete and utter torment forever unless we submit to ourselves to his complete authority and talk ourselves into liking it, is undeserving of admiration or respect.  Furthermore, such an offer would be a far worse Catch-22 than anything described in Heller’s book.

It has been a busy week! Brother Jed just finished his first week of evangelizing on the University Of Arizona Mall. The newly formed Secular Student Alliance at the University of Arizona had a rough start but finished well. On Monday on the way to the Alumni Plaza, a box dropped off of the hand cart that was transporting the table and supplies. The box that dropped off contained all of “Brother Jed” Bingo cards printed up for the occasion. All 850 cards disappeared out of existence along with a box of highlighters and some twirly helicopter toys but it turned out OK because the weather made the first day a very short. More cards needed to be printed up AND there was Skeptics of Tucson meeting on superstition that night. Both were accomplished and Tuesday turned out to be a better day. Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, was an even better day still and included some expected and unexpected excitement. A student group planned on taking the stage from Brother Jed and performing the Harlem Shake. Brother Jed caught word of the plan and had a counter plan. Everyone’s plans were working out when, in all the excitement, a young man dressed in a Penguin suit fell on the grassy hillside and Brother Jed fell on top of him. No one was hurt and everyone involved including Jed and the Penguin chalked it up as an accident. Some people that weren’t involved and some that weren’t there might claim otherwise, however. Some claim that the kids should be ashamed of themselves for pushing over a 70 year old man and some claim that Jed “tackled” the Penguin. Brother Jed believes that the Penguin fell first and pulled him down. In any case, the show must go on. Preaching and heckling continued throughout the rest of the day on Wednesday and on Thursday and Friday as well.

The Secular Students Alliance of the University of Arizona manned the table, passed out prizes, distributed, and collected Bingo cards all week. They plan on continuing throughout the coming week. After Brother Jed leaves, someone that played Brother Jed Bingo will receive a board game called “Blasphemy” (a $100 value). Brother Jed is a great recruiter for the Secular Student Alliance, a group that is meant to provide community for the non-religious students on campus. The FaceBook page for the new group indicates that there are now over 100 members. The founder and current president of the group announced that regular meetings will begin on Wednesdays at 7 PM on the campus at a place that has yet to be determined. She also indicated that there will be other activities including social events and community service activities. If the logistics can be worked out, her group will be hosting Roy Zimmerman on the campus for some funny songs about ignorance, war, and greed on the 10^th of March.

Tucson Atheists and FreeThought Arizona are sponsors for the SSA of the U of A.

FreeThought Arizona will be having lectures on Sunday, the 17^th at the UMC DuVal Auditorium starting at 10 AM. The first lecture by Dr. Jay Quade, a professor at the U of A, will be on, “Evolution in Honor of Darwin Day” which was on the 12^th of February. The remaining lectures will start at 1 PM. Roy Speckhardt, the Executive Director of the AHA (American Humanist Association), will speak on, “Building a Non-theist Rights Movement” followed by Maggie Ardiente, the Development Director of the AHA, will speak on “An Update from the American Humanist Association.

The Tucson Atheists will be having their monthly meeting at the Denny’s near the corner of Alvernon and 22^nd at 7 PM on Monday the 18^th. The subject of the meeting will be: Is Modern Science due to Judeo-Christian Influence?

Of course, you can still catch Brother Jed and play Brother Jed Bingo throughout the upcoming week. His last planned day at the university is Friday, the 22^nd.

Jim Wilson has a few questions:

Did God give us Free Will? No. There is no reason to think so because there is no evidence to suggest that God ever existed but the existence of free will is still in question. For all practical purposes, it seems that we have it and we must act as though it exists. On the other hand, it could be that all of our behaviors and thought processes are the result of chemical reactions that we have no way of controlling.

The existence of free will depends on the definition of the term. After all, we may have free will in the sense that we are free to make decisions ourselves but, at the same time, we may lack it in the sense that actual decision making process is dictated by immutable physical laws.

Many religious people use free will as an explanation for why the world is messy. They argue that God wants us to voluntarily choose Him. They say our failure to do this has introduced sin into the world along with tapeworms, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Of course, this argument flies in the fact of the claim that God is all-knowing, all-benevolent, and all-powerful. All-knowing assumes prescience and all-powerful assumes total control of everything that happens. If God has a plan, no human activity can effectively alter the plan.

If, however, God is lacking in the infinite knowledge depart, or the infinite powers department, then free will maybe a little more plausible. But that makes God a little less great which may be just fine for some believers. The Judeo-Christian then must ask, “What did God know and when did he know it?” Additionally, it gives rise to countless other questions, such as:

Did God not create Satan? Could God not destroy Satan at this very moment? Did God not knowingly allow Satan to introduce evil into the world? Did God not knowingly begin the chain of events that led to evil being introduced into the world? Could God not have removed evil from the world at any time if he wanted to? If so, wouldn’t that make God ultimately responsible for the existence of evil in the world? Did God know that the world would become such brutal and inhospitable place for humans as a result of Adam eating the fruit? Was this part of this God’s plan or the result of a miscalculation on God’s part? Did God intentionally set Adam and eve up for failure? Were Adam and Eve simply tools used by God to introduce sin into the world? Could God have tweaked Adam and Eve’s personalities such that they could have avoided the whole incident, but chose not to? Was the talking snake actually an agent of God’s will, or the result of some sort of error in his judgment? Why should Adam’s descendants be punished for Adam’s actions? Was it God’s intention that humans should be a permanently ignorant?

Some believers argue that the world we live in is far from the human ideal because this allows humans to be virtuous rather than acting as something akin to robots. This leads me to ask:

Was Adam’s fall necessary for humans to be virtuous? Were Adam and Eve capable of being virtuous before their fall? Given this, is it possible to be virtuous in Heaven? Is there free will or sin in heaven?

Other Christians argue that Satan, rather than God is ultimately responsible for the evil that exist in today’s world. That is too convenient.

There are ambiguities within the Judeo-Christian world-view and areas that are potentially problematic for believers. Different believers will have different answers for these questions but the Bible says, “Prove all things: hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

These are my thoughts on free will and my latest set of questions for the faithful.

The Tucson freethinking community is steadily growing and rather diverse. Not every activity available is for everyone that’s why the activities are as varied as the membership. A few years ago the community was less active with only a couple of groups operating. Tucson Atheists had been around for a while. They met once a month in a back room at Bookman’s (west). We met for about an hour and a half with no agenda. Ten to fifteen people were present and sat in a circle. Everyone introduced themselves and made a personal statement about their Atheism and sometimes that was all we had time for. The other group that was operating at the time was the CFI (Center for Inquiry). Members of the CFI were generally older. They also had a monthly meeting. Their meetings were more sophisticated than the Tucson Atheists meetings and hosted well known, famous speakers at their monthly meetings. I saw an announcement that Paul Kurtz was going to speak in Tucson and that is how I found CFI. The Tucson Atheists has grown since then but the CFI group no longer exists in Tucson. The members created a new group called FreeThought Arizona. They still bring in monthly notable speakers as well as sponsoring this blog and other related activities such as the Desert AIR Podcast.

Now, there is a wider variety of activities available to the freethinking community in Tucson. We still have the monthly meetings of the Tucson Atheists. Skeptics of Tucson also have monthly meetings. FreeThought Arizona has its monthly program at the University Medical Center Duval Auditorium as well as a wide variety of other activities such as meetings on philosophy, arts and humanism, Secular Organization for Sobriety, and the Secular Humanist Jewish Circle.

There are also meetings on books, Recovering from Religion, and drinking.

Last Thursday we met at Fronimos Greek Restaurant for “Caffeinated Godlessness.” There were about 20 people there. Nancy, the current organizer, was there and Jason, the originator of the event, came down from Casa Grande to participate. Nancy kicked off the discussion on sex and religion and the conversation went everywhere as usual. However, for some reason there was a bit more “energy” in the mix than normal. The Tucson Atheists is a rather diverse group and includes participants from all ages, genders, and sexual preferences but the contentious discussions came mostly between some that have been Atheists for a long time and a few that were freshly “minted.”

It’s understandable. Having been raised Catholic, there are times when I still feel the inclination to defend Catholicism when some evangelical claims that Catholics aren’t “true” Christians or that they worship idols. However, it’s a very small inclination and I usually ignore it. I can understand that someone that just realized that Atheism is the way to go still has many believing friends and might take issue with some of the more ardent comments heard at an Atheist meeting. Someone that’s been an Atheist for some time or someone that has never been part of religious belief might find it difficult to empathize with the “new guy.” What’s also understandable is a tendency of people to experience meetings from differing biases and points of view. If a person attends an Atheist meeting and expects to hear only religious bashing, that is likely what he is going to hear. It’s a logical fallacy called “confirmation bias” and everyone has a touch of it. It’s what keeps psychics and carnival mind readers in business.

These problems are never going away. Everyday Atheists are looking for community. Of the new ones, some come from recent realizations and some come from those that have been Atheist for a long time and are just now finding that the community is available. It is hard work supporting maintaining such a diverse group and rewarding at the same time.

Darrel’s presentation style will be fast paced, humorous and engaging. He is not afraid to explore even the most sensitive areas of religious infection from sexual guilt to abstinence only, from the hypnotic techniques of ministers to music’s role in infection and how it all fits together.

The talk will be at 10 AM. There will be time for questions and answers and book signing will follow. There is no admission fee for this talk but donations to keep quality speakers coming to Tucson will be accepted.

You can get more information HERE.

A new discussion from Jim Wilson: John 3:16 deconstructed:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

This statement may well be the most famous verse in the Bible. It has been called the “Bible in a nutshell” and the essence of Christianity summed-up in one sentence. A closer examination of this verse illustrates much of what is wrong with Christianity. To demonstrate this, I will assume, for the sake of argument, that the Christian God exists (despite all evidence to the contrary) and look at the verse piece by piece:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave…”

We know the verse is referring to Jesus but the Christian God at best only temporarily gave up his son. As is stated in the Apostle’s Creed, following his resurrection, Jesus “ascended into heaven and is (now) seated at the right hand of the Father.” In other words, God was without his son for only a brief time but knew he would get him back shortly afterwards. This can hardly be called a sacrifice on God’s part. What kind of person offers a gift but then takes it back shortly afterwards? How is it an expression of love if you take back the thing you are supposedly giving? Perhaps, a better way of putting this would be “For God so loved the world, that temporarily lent his only begotten son.”

At the same time, this is not completely accurate. God is supposedly infinite and everywhere and in control of all things so Jesus would have technically never been out of God’s possession at any point. This is not to mention that many Christians actually consider Jesus and God to be the same being. Rather than say God actually gave up a son, it would be more accurate to say he came down to earth in order to subject himself to torment. Of course, for infinite being, that views things on a scope above and beyond human understanding, the short-lived torment associated with crucifixion would be completely inconsequential. This also brings up another problem. Jesus is supposed to represent a sacrifice to God for the sins of others which puts God in the awkward position of giver and receiver. One can hardly be said to have given anything if he or she is doing both the giving and receiving.

“his only begotten Son”

Christians like to present God as a parent who lost a child on our behalf. They forget the fact that this “son” was apparently begotten specifically for purpose of serving as a human sacrifice which certainly cheapens the value of the gesture. This is not to mention that this God would certainly have had the ability to make an infinite number of sons or daughters if he wanted also very much cheapening supposed sacrifice. It also sounds like much less of a loss when we take into account that Jesus is really supposed to be God himself in a different form. This would suggest that rather actually suffer any loss God just went through a very bloody shape shift routine.

“that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life ”

Why is the supposed sacrifice even necessary? If the Christian God loved the world so much, could he not have granted everlasting life to people without fake sacrifices or brutal torture scenes? Upon closer examination Christians are actually asking us to believe that their god has sacrificed HIMSELF to HIMSELF in order to change HIS rules to save other people from HIS own wrath. This is complete absurdity.

Why should God’s judgment be so contingent upon beliefs anyway? After all, no one alive today was around during the time Jesus supposedly walked the Earth and the claims made are so unbelievable and so unsupported by evidence that there is no logical reason to believe them. It is silly to think that one’s beliefs about incidents that took place over 2000 years ago should be the basis for which people are judged. There are many much better measures of one’s character.

It is ridiculous that something like the ability to live forever would be distributed based on what people believe about a long past historic event. Of course this also overlooks the fact that people who do not believe this still get to live forever. The only difference is that the nonbelievers just get to be tortured forever in their eternal lives.

Perhaps then, John’s gospel should have put it:

“For God so loved the world, that he temporarily lent his only begotten son, which he made specifically for this purpose (and could easily made more of), so that all who are willing to believe this on the thinnest of evidence, will not be subject to the same eternal torture that God has in store for everyone else.

This is actually a much closer approximation of what Christians actually believe. Note once again that in this exercise I only assumed that the Christian God exists for the sake of argument. I actually do not believe any God exist. Furthermore I find it amazing that more people do not recognize the claims of Christianity for the moral and logical absurdity that they are.

I received this submission from “The Liberator.” This one is a guest opinion on “Why I’m an Atheist.”

Being an Atheist shouldn’t be a big deal. I mean, we think science understands the world through its logical, skeptical approach. Scientists don’t believe things without proof, and neither do I.

So why blame me for wanting evidence?

Could it be that I am right and you know it? That you would have to drop your drug, your crutch, see things as they are, not as you’d wish them to be? Now there are various religions and sometimes I talk as though religion is Christianity. But all religion depends on faith—on believing something without proof and taking someone’s word for it. They say it is God’s word, but God didn’t take care to see that the message was clear. Notice how many religions there are? Couldn’t God have revealed the truth to each and so have just one religion? Or do you believe people of other religions believe in different dogma in spite of God?

Let’s look at the New Testament for a bit. There are four gospels: Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. These writers were trying to persuade Jews to become Christians. They would have included all the most important points to convince people that Jesus was God.

Do all 4 gospels have the resurrection? No they don’t. Do they all have the miracles? No they don’t. Interesting, the early gospels don’t have miracles or resurrection, but the later ones do. How could that be?

Simple. At first they told a simple story, but as time went on, they jazzed it up with miracles and resurrection. And if that is not strange enough, they are dozens of clear, simple contradictions in the bible.

But let us say the New and Old Testament is true word for word. I want to tell you a story about a criminal from Ohio who was running from the law back in the 80s. What were his crimes?

1. He killed his children. He burned them alive, some while sleeping. He claimed that he had the right.
2. He allowed two of his other children to play in a garden and pick an apple that was forbidden.
3. He told his children to kill women who commit adultery, children who are disobedient. And sometimes they did.
4. And, he insisted that his children worship him, believe in him. In fact, it is his first rule, thou shall have no other father but me as I am a jealous father.
5. He said not to charge interest on loans, but his organized religious entity decided he was wrong about this.
6. He also said to make no graven image. Why would that matter? Do you get the feeling our criminal was not from Ohio?

Oh, I forgot, it is not right to question why. Just accept what God’s representative says so. And for those who live a good life, but don’t accept this absurd dogma, God sends us to everlasting hell for ever, with no possibility of parole in a billion years.

Seems fair. Right. Why would a fair and just God punish people for not accepting this unbelievable story? I for one can’t worship something so vicious.

So that’s why I am an Atheist. True, there is free will, but not all people have an equal chance of accepting God’s word. Say someone like me, with a logical, rational bent. And why can’t God be as good and fair and you and I? Why is He held to a lower standard? Don’t question that either. Whenever someone says take it on faith, you have hit upon something not defensible, not rational.

Marx, and I am not a Marxist, said that religion is the opiate of the people. True enough. Religion is also the microchip in the brain which controls the people, makes them fear. Imagine Catholics, with all their sexual hang ups, saying that since God sees all, God knows all their most intimate encounters. Nothing is private. That alone would saddle most people with a huge burden, provoking neurosis.

By the way, many believe that their God is male. If their God is male, does he have a penis? If so, what does he use it for? Just sayin’.

So, if I don’t believe in God or gods, what do I “believe in”?

Kindness. Not love. People kill for love. Commit suicide for love. But kindness is just right.  Everyone knows how to be kind. I have seen the power of kindness work overnight on people that hated me. That is evidence. No dogma.  Plain and simple kindness.

Jim Wilson shares some thoughts about Thomas Jefferson and his founding principles:

“And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter.”-Thomas Jefferson

The Declaration of Independence is largely a rhetorical document. It has no legal standing. It was created to list specific complaints and formally explains why the continental congress chose to declare the American colonies independent from colonial rule. Since the time of the revolution, it has been a document with no legal authority. However, believers still like to use it to argue that this country was somehow founded upon their faith. Specifically they gravitate towards the line:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson did not believe in the Christian God, but rather something closer to a deistic or Unitarian God with only limited intervention in human affairs. Thomas Jefferson was interested in Christianity and identified himself as Christian in the sense that he viewed Jesus of Nazareth as an important moral philosopher but not a son of God or any kind of supernatural being. He believed that Jesus never claimed to be God. Jefferson made this known by creating an alternative version of the Christian Gospels with all references to Jesus’s miracles, divinity, and resurrection removed. In a letter to Joseph Priestly, Jefferson discusses his idea of stripping Jesus’s teachings down to “principles of a pure Deism”. He further elaborates on this concept in a letter to John Adams from 1817 stating:

“The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, Materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and preeminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained.”

Overall he was very critical of established organized religion and the priestly classes arguing: “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government” in a letter to Alexander Von Humboldt in 1813 and that “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

However, he found value in religious teachings. He was known to attend various church services though there is no evidence that he was a confirmed member or communicant of any. He also apparently sponsored the building of some churches and other religious activity though refused to be a Godfather to the children of Anglican friends because of his rejection of their faith.

Political opponents labeled him “infidel” and “howling atheist” because he rejected conventional Christianity. Unsurprisingly being heterodox religionist, Jefferson was a major force for keeping church and state separate, which he believed to be encoded in the First Amendment. He believed that:

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”

And that:

If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise as it had happened in a fair or market.

He is of course also, the man who first mentioned the famous wall of separation in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association which stated:

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

His dedication to religious freedom and the right to be heterodox did much to make the US as free a country as it is. Jefferson was an incredible person, with whom much can be learned from.  However, he did own slaves but was apparently conflicted on the institution of slavery.  Jefferson’s statement and the concept of natural or God given rights will be discussed further in my follow-up to this piece. (End of Part I)