Here is another article from Jim Wilson:

My recent post on rhetorical standards received the following comment:

“It is clear you are afflicted with “political correctness” a disease that distorts reality into something it is not.”

This was in response to my argument that referring to other humans as “illegals” was in bad taste and that our presidential candidates should be held to slightly higher standards. Since, I don’t wish to repeat myself; here is a link to that piece (for those who are interested):

http://tucsoncitizen.com/freethought-arizona/2012/03/14/rick-perry-and-mitt-romney-call-people-illegals-rhetorical-standards-and-illegal-immigration/

Anyway, I figured that this response was a great opportunity to clarify what I think of the concept of political correctness. Like nearly everyone I have ever talked to I reject the concept. I am a strong advocate of freedom of speech and strongly support saying what you mean and meaning what you say. I will happily stand up for the rights of racists, bigots, and religious extremists of all forms to say whatever batsh*t crazy things they want. I may not agree with what someone says, but I will firmly stand up for their right to say it. I will also firmly stand up for my right to declare whatever you are saying to be bigoted, stupid, ignorant or insane if I think it is.

I think the notion of enforced orthodoxy is completely opposed to the concept of free thought and skeptical thinking. I am of the opinion that no topics should be seen as taboo and no individuals or groups of people should be above criticism. I reject the notion that anyone has a right to go through life without ever being offended, and it is well known that many of the opinions I have expressed on this blog are quite offensive to many people.

That said, I also advocate, treating others with respect and dignity. I avoid calling people by demeaning, insulting or dismissive names. I tend to dislike it when people display rudeness or meanness simply for the sake of doing so and I believe we should call them on it when they do (as I believe the candidates were when they chose to call some people “illegals”). That is not to say, that there are not occasions where unkind language is not undeserved, for example calling Osama Bin Laden a murderous a#sh@!e is far too kind, as is calling Ted Haggard a hypocritical d@*#!eb@g. That said, I favor calling people by terms they identify themselves with, and treating them as individuals. I prefer that in our discourse we attack arguments and not the people making them, and I would like to see us showing basic levels of human decency. All this strikes me as common sense, but apparently doing so will land one with accusations of having a disease that distorts reality.

To me the whole concept is really bizarre and ambiguous and there seems to be strong disagreements of how to define it or what are actually examples of it. For example are the rules on this website and network television, forbidding the use of certain obscenities examples of political correctness? Was Sarah Palin suffering from the mind-disease of political correctness when she expressed outrage that Rahm Emanuel used the word “retarded” to insult some of his fellow party members? Or, how about when conservative media commentators, called for the boycott of the Dixie Chics after they criticized President Bush and the Iraq war? What about Bill Maher losing his, ironically named show Politically Incorrect, after disputing the claim that the 9-11 terrorist were cowardly? Was it a case of political correctness, when Helen Thomas’ career took a downturn after saying the U.S should get out of Israel, or when the Republican Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss fired an aid for saying all “All [gays] must die.” in a blog comment? What about Rick Santorum’s proposed war on pornography?

Last but not least, I was informed of a case where an officer candidate, within a week of graduating from Officer Training School, was dismissed from service for not saluting a black officer and saying to his pals, “I’ll never salute a n—-r.” In this case, I would have to call the dismissal fully appropriate, not because it violates some code of political correctness, but because it shows a huge level of both insubordination and disrespect for the rules of his branch of the service, not to mention a complete lack of professionalism.

It seems to me there seems to be some pretty big double standards when talking about this issue. Apparently enforced right-wing orthodoxy is just fine, but the minute people or (as is often the case) advertisers question someone who says something bigoted about some minority, they are accused of buying into politically correct dogma (and the person who says the bigoted thing is declared a free speech hero). Interestingly enough, many of the people who outraged by this, tend to be people who under other circumstances would no problems employers firing people, who go around saying things that hurt business.

I am tempted to write off the entire concept of political correctness as a highly successful and cynical effort by conservatives and reactionaries to re-frame and dismiss concerns about race, class issues, and gender issues. It seems to be, more often than not, a last defense for Americans who yearn for days when it was more socially acceptable to hold prejudiced, bigoted opinions or reactionaries who want an excuse for the failure of their ideas and values in academia and mainstream culture. If ideas like, creationism, holocaust denial and global warming denial are rejected by the people who studies these issues, they have and will continue to contend that it must be because political correctness gone mad, rather than because of some problem with these ideas.

Invoking political correctness is great for making reactionaries feel victimized and it great for making it possible to present any bigoted or prejudiced loudmouth out-there as a persecuted martyr. The stating of any stupid, ignorant, or fractally wrong opinion will be seen as heroic if it is prefaced with: “I know this is not politically correct but…” I have honestly never met a single person, who advocates political correctness on either the right or left, and both sides seem to want nothing to do with the term, and yet there are plenty of vocal people on both sides who claim that it is a rampant tyranny limiting what we can say and even think. I have yet to find any source advocating or enforcing such restrictions, but plenty of sources complaining about how victimized they are by it. In fact, a quick Google search of the term leads one to believe that it is one of America’s biggest problems. Apparently the “politically correct crowd” or “PC crowd” is just rampant and out of control and is enacting Marxian thought control on all of us.

Personally, I’m glad it is no-longer socially acceptable to say nasty, racist things, in public and I’m glad that doing so is not good for one’s career. I do not attribute this to there being a powerful, well-organized political correctness movement (I see no evidence such a thing exists), but to the fact our society has become more civilized and that as values change, some opinions will be less well received.

This article from Jim Wilson is NOT about the election.

I apologize in advance for bringing up this exchange several months after the fact, but something about it seems to have really stuck with me. I think the primary reason for this is that it really highlights the issue of holding our public officials to high standards of discourse, presumably higher than we apply to ourselves.

The exchange took place in October, at a Republican debate, in which Texas Governor Rick Perry told former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, “You hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year?” Perry declared this “the height of hypocrisy,” and arguably had a point. Though Romney never specifically hired an illegal immigrant, his lawn care company did. He saw to it that one of the illegal immigrants, (whose employment with Romney was the subject of a critical piece from the Boston Globe) was fired. Despite this Romney continued using the same company, which continued using illegal immigrant labor.  Romney responded to Perry’s assertion, by explaining that he told the company: “Look, you can’t have any illegals working on our property. I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals.”

This sparked a huge reaction because it made Romney (who was already gaining a reputation as an opportunist, willing to adopt whatever position is politically expedient) look as though his primary grievance was not the illegality of what the company was doing, but how it would impact his campaign. Many media outlets went on extensively about how dishonest this made Romney look and questioned his integrity. All of these are important things when considering a candidate, but I was disturbed by the complete lack of concern by the media outlets that our presidential rhetoric had fallen to such a low standard. Is it considered acceptable for them to refer to other human beings as “illegals?”

The term is dehumanizing, dismissive and reflects an “us versus them” mentality. One can argue that it is no worse than calling someone that commits a murder a murderer. After all, these people are here illegally. I disagree. A murderer is someone who has been convicted of committing a murder. Calling a person an illegal is dehumanizing and often racist. Being in the United States without papers may be illegal but hardly criminal in the same way as a murder. It doesn’t make sense, and comes off mean. Illegal immigrants are people. They have real lives and real concerns and a great many of them hard working and contribute to society. Calling them degrading names is not respectable or consistent with human decency, especially when it comes from the very people campaigning to be government leaders.

The context of these debates only seems to make the issue worse, and the candidates are trying to outdo each other on their supposed toughness. They want to be the most xenophobic and reactionary on the issue. Let’s not mention the racist connotation. The word does not conjure up images of illegal immigrants from Canada! In world where blatantly racist language is not permitted on television, this term seems to be catching on because it is a viable substitute.

It is an appeal to the type of voters who believe that the government’s job is to protect American culture. It is the government’s job to protect the rights of its citizens from others so that they can pursue whatever cultural practices they choose, as long as they do not harm others.

Whatever you think the appropriate policies for dealing with illegal immigration are (and I’m sure there is a wide variety of positions about it), Americans and especially our political candidates can talk about it without having to resort to name calling, veiled racism, posturing, and attempts to appeal to the most bigoted voters. Candidates can and should do better. This is a sad reflection on the state of discourse on this subject of illegal immigration. Whether you agree or disagree, with me about this term, I hope you agree that the issue of how we talk about other humans, especially in the political sphere is worth discussing and taking a look at once in a while.

I came across this quote from Elliot Temple:

[S]ome people take fallibility as…a very simple and inescapable fact, with little meaning to real life. It applies to everything, you can’t beat it in an argument, but all it means is don’t say things like “guarantee”, “certain truth”, “prove”, etc…

This is not how Deutsch and Popper think of fallibility. They are not so interested in it as a logical point that can win arguments, and which must be accepted but has minimal meaning. They are more interest in what we might call the “spirit of fallibility” (like “spirit of the law” vs “letter of the law”) — the fallibilist *attitude*. They think fallibility is more than a logical principle, but it’s also an important idea with broad applicability far beyond the small, pretty indisputable part of it…They care about it because fallibility (understood correctly) is a deep philosophical idea with lots of value, use, reach, breadth, etc…

For example fallibility has connections to liberalism: tyranny is a bad idea because Kings are fallible so we need error correction not authority.

When they say this kind of thing, they do not merely mean “Kings, like everyone, could possibly make mistakes”. They mean more like, “Kings, like everyone, commonly make mistakes. People are fallible in the sense not just that errors are possible but that errors happen all the time.”

Anon3 and I argued about fallability a while back in the context of what it means to “know” something. Anon3 argued that the “Justified True Belief” (JTB) model of knowledge is correct, even in the face of fallibility. Anon3 recognizes that justified belief might not, in the end, be true – but he still thinks the right way to go about knowing things is to justify them and believe in their truth based on such justification.

Sometimes justification explicitly rests on faith, as in many religious claims. But even when there isn’t an explicit appeal to faith, at base there is always an element of faith involved in justification. That’s why Christians like the JTB model: they use it to claim that *everyone* must have faith in something in order to know anything - and along with that they can pose the implied question, “So why not just choose to have faith in God?” That is also one of the reasons many find traditional/academic philosophy so irrelevant – it ultimately boils down to having faith about things we don’t really know and aren’t relevant in the real world.

The rival to the JTB concept of knowledge is Popper’s conjecture and refutation concept. Those who are unfamiliar with it can read this, http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/popperphil1.pdf though be warned, it’s not light reading. The short-short version is that instead of trying to justify beliefs, Popper suggests that we take whatever beliefs we have (and can think of) and try to eliminate errors.

I think Elliot’s focus on the “spirit” of fallibility is an important component of critical thinking and in differentiating the JTB concept from conjecture and refutation. It places the focus squarely on finding and correcting the errors in our thinking, rather than on trying to justify our current beliefs. This can be a difficult mindset to adopt, since we all like to be “proven” right rather than wrong. Nevertheless, it seems to me to be the correct, more useful model of knowledge and it doesn’t require faith.

This comes to us from Jim Wilson:

If you were God and you wanted to reveal yourself to humanity through your written word, what would you say?

That question was asked to me by a Christian evangelist a little over a year ago.  My recollection of this question prompted a great discussion on a soon to be released episode of Desert Air Podcast ( http://desertairpodcast.com/), which provides me with many ideas discussed here.

It seemed to me that the purpose of the question was to use what ever answers I’d give to him and argue that all the things I would put in my book, God has already put in the bible, just waiting for my discovery.  This, I would presume would include such things as fulfilled predictions of future events, solid moral teachings and important information about the world we live in.

For better or worse, the conversation did not end up going this way, possibly because I did not have time to visit for too long and possibly because I was familiar enough with such forms of apologetics to find problems with them.  Anyway, my first objection was that if I was all-knowing, all-powerful and all-benevolent, I doubt I would use revealed word in a written format as my form of communication, especially if we are to assume that I am revealing to technologically unsophisticated people like the Judeo-Christian god supposedly did. That would mean the material it was written on would deteriorate and continuously have to be rewritten; as such my word would always be left in someone else’s handwriting.  The rewriting would be subject to human error and vulnerable to people changing it for their own malevolent purposes.  As such it would seem highly short-sighted of a God to leave his message in a written form among a population of largely illiterate and technologically lacking people.

Also, keep in mind this God is supposedly all-powerful so he could make an information vector far more impressive than anything his bronze-age subjects could imagine.  He could have given them permanently charged iPads with the needed information on them, or something even more impressive.  I would see this as  a far more plausible way for an all-knowing being to communicate - that is, in a way that no other extant being could.  A God that would uses a written word, passed down for centuries among a priestly class in an otherwise illiterate population would strike me as highly suspect… either a highly incompetent being or more probably a fraud perpetuated by the previously mentioned priestly class.

Anyway, after stating that objection, I figured why not assume for the sake of argument that as a God, I’d have to use a book to reveal my word to the world’s people.  Given that assumption what would I put in my bible? Well, first to demonstrate my boundless level of knowledge I would fill it with things that no one at the time could have known, like pi, the germ theory of disease, evolutionary biology, genetics, the heliocentric solar system, calculus, the atomic theory of matter, Einsteinian relativity, quantum physics, cures for all diseases humans could ever face, instructions on how to make electricity and computers and a great deal of information that has yet to be known to humans. I would provide a template for producing a technologically advanced, peaceful, environmentally sound society free of oppression and all forms of authority. I figure an all-powerful all-knowing being would be able to clearly communicate all this.

I also would include many important ethical instructions the bible clearly neglects, such as opposition to slavery, opposition to mass murder, opposition to sexual oppression, opposition to prejudice based on sexual orientation, opposition to monarchy and other forms of authoritarianism, opposition to scapegoating or punishing one individual for the actions of others.  These are all things opposed by civilized society today, but are either condoned or commanded by the bible.

Furthermore, any predictions in my revelation would be independently verifiable and written clearly. The bible clearly fails in this regard, since most of its alleged prophecies are anything but clearly written and all of them force you to take the bible’s word about their fulfilment. If I was forced to limit my revelation to bronze age mid-easterners the way the biblical god supposedly did, I would be sure to include descriptions of walruses, kangaroos, platypuses, penguins and seals, sea otters, orangutans, ostriches, emus and all the many fantastic animals around from around the world, as well as places they could be found.  How strange it is that the bible discusses all the world’s animals entering a boat, but neglects to mention any species anywhere that would be unfamiliar to residents of the middle east.

Ideally, I would not want to reveal it to a chosen people like the biblical god is believed to have. To me this type of favoritism reflects the ethnocentric tribal attitudes of the bible’s thuggish creators, rather than proof of it’s divinity. Perhaps I could give parts of it to people all over the world and they would have to come together in unity to decipher it (strangely, the biblical God opposed this type of unity in the story of the tower of Babble).

I of course am not a God trying to communicate by book, but those are the type of things I would expect from a book written by someone all-benevolent and all-knowing.  The bible, God’s supposed word, falls way short of this. This much touted international best seller fails to live up to its own hype. It has no insights that bronze-age Mideasterners could not have been expected to produce, its miraculous claims are completely unverifiable and it’s morality is atrocious even by the most primitive standards.  It looks very much like a work of primitive people, coping with a rough cruel world and nothing like a work of a well-informed intelligence.  That, and there is also the complete lack of kangaroos.

Here’s another interesting insight from Jim Wilson:

I have had members of my own family repeat the nonsense that this country was founded upon Christian principles. Often these are referred to as “Judeo-Christian principles”. Many politicians (more often than not Republicans) speak of bringing us back to these principles. This nonsense needs to be put to rest. There is nothing in the bible that comes anywhere close to prescribing anything like our system of government.

In fact, the American revolution was largely inspired by enlightenment ideas that came about after rejecting the religious dogmatism that governed Europe for the preceding centuries. Many of the founding fathers were actually Deists. All of the tyrannies our founding fathers were fighting against were justified through appeals to Christianity. Furthermore, the founding fathers took multiple opportunities to dismiss the notion of this being a country founded on Christianity. The first Amendment of the Constitution specifically protects against a government imposition of religion and Article six explicitly states “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Furthermore, Thomas Jefferson made it clear he wanted a “wall of separation” between church and state. To quote Christopher Hitchens “Build up that wall Mr. Jefferson.” Furthermore, the Treaty of Tripoli (signed by John Adams) shortly after the country’s founding explicitly states: “ the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Still, the Christian nation mythology is a stubborn one and its crown jewel is the Ten Commandments. The mythology is often embodied by politicians erecting Ten Commandments monuments. Let’s walk through the commandments and see how many parallels to the American legal system are actually there.

The first four commandments:

1. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.”
2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments. ”
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. ”
4. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”

These have nothing to do with our constitution and it would be wholly unconstitutional to force Americans to obey them. They are entirely about what a petty, jealous tyrant this God is.

Commandment 5:

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

Is also not anywhere to be found in the constitution and cannot be enforced. Furthermore it is a horrible commandment. Honor should not be unconditional. One should not honor parents, for example that physically abuse them.

Commandments 6:

“You shall not murder.”

Applied strictly to the other Jews in the bible, and God often commanded the killing of non-jews. But, at last we do have a commandment that is enforced by our laws in this country. The only problem is that all civilized societies have some sort of prohibition against murder, including ones that pre-date the old testament. Frankly there is no reason to claim this commandment is the source of the prohibitions against murder in this country.

Commandment 7:

“You shall not commit adultery.”

This is not against the law in the country either, though it may be admitted as grounds for divorce.

Commandment 8:

“You shall not steal.”

My comments on 6 also apply here.

Commandment 9:

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

We have laws against this, but only in a highly limited context, and dishonesty in general is completely legal except in cases like libel, slander and fraud, where there is actual tangible damage.

Commandment 10:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

This a fundamentally dumb commandment, you really cannot control what you covet, and there is nothing wrong with coveting as long as this does not lead you to steal their possessions. Furthermore, coveting the wealth of those around you is part of what inspires us to work hard to get it ourselves. This is what many argue American capitalism is all about.

Also, keep in mind that in the bible the punishment for disobeying these and the rest of Old testament law was death by stoning. That is one area of Judeo-Christian tradition I am glad we abandoned. Also note that there is a whole different set of ten commandments given in Exodus 34:12-27, which includes instructions for sacrifices, and a commandment not to boil a kid in it’s mother’s milk. So, the question, “which ten commandments” needs to be asked? Anyway, very little of this and the rest of The Law have anything to do with our current system of law and as brutal as much of what is in the Torah, I think we should all be happy about this.

Here’s the latest from Richard Johnson:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, gathering at church – indeed at any “place of worship” – has never been primarily about practicing religion; rather such activity reflects our social nature.  We strive to be with others under all sorts of banners. Church happens to be a common gathering place because historically it is central to most communities. Our nature is to wonder about our existence but this is hardly the reason we congregate at church. Much more pressing is how our town or neighborhood is faring in, say, a time of economic depression or in a period of drought. We look forward not so much to hearing sermons as to being with our fellows when we celebrate the birth of a child and when we seek consolation in the death of a family member; we connect with our neighbors because we want to know how they are getting on. Religion is a sub-theme. If you are a churchgoer, really ask yourself: why do you want to be there?

Unfortunately, gathering under the banner of religion is a divisive practice that harkens back to our tribal origins. For thousands of years, humankind survived in part because groups banded together in solidarity according to birth heritage. Civilization has advanced rendering our existence less dependent on family and ethnicity. There are thirty-four thousand distinct flavors of Christianity (let alone the thousands of non-Christian beliefs).  The distinctions are often nothing more than a delineation of specific scriptural foundations.  In the current day, many fundamentalist sects cloister under endorsement of social prohibitions which would ban gay marriage and limit a woman’s reproductive rights. Think about it. Does it really make sense to find support in ancient texts (which condoned slavery and abuse of women) for condemnation of same sex relationships and denying women autonomy over their own bodies?  Isn’t it grasping at straws to justify bigoted and repressive views?

The notion that churches are the wellspring of charity is a myth. Charity is a human trait. Most of us, whoever we are and wherever we live, want to aid our fellows when they are in crisis. The charitable work of churches is to be commended but it is because of their humanity not divine commandment that it is so.

Religion is a distraction and distortion at church gatherings. A religious service is much like a commercial during television programming. Now a word from our sponsor, clergy seems to intone. And we suffer though some wrecking of our psyche by a minister or priest reminding us of our “sinful nature” and our absolute dependence on illusory agents.

We need to do better than this. Fire the sponsor and decommission the spokespeople for archaic fictional gods. Promote and enhance our humanity.

Here’s another contribution from Jim Wilson:

The major Monotheisms place a big emphasis on the concept of prophecy. In fact, many Christians claim that among the primary reasons they accept Christianity are the old testament Prophecies Jesus supposedly fulfilled. By prophecy, it is generally meant communications between the divine and specific human messengers, communicating important information and revelations.  This is usually demonstrated in the form of predictions. I am of the opinion that no such thing has ever existed and all claims of prophecy are dubious. That however does not mean I have closed my mind to the possibility that legitimate prophecies have occurred or can occur. I just need some strong evidence in order to test this claim, and if any of our readers has any evidence for prophecy, please share it here!!

In order for me to accept that prophecy is a real phenomena, I have a few requirements that any alleged prophetic prediction needs to meet:

1.  It has to be true and demonstrably so.  Obviously a prediction that proves false would not be evidence of anything. Some that fail here include Ezekiel 28:26-24, which predicts Israel will live at peace with it’s neighbors (huge failure), or many instances in which God promises that Davidic line of kings will rule Judah forever (Ex: 2 Samuel 7:13-16, 1 Kings 11:34-36, and Jeremiah 33:17, which states “For this is what the Lord says: ‘David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel’”)

2.  It has to be independently verifiable if true and falsifiable if false. I need solid evidence that a prediction was made and that what was predicted came to pass. If both can be physically demonstrated that would be helpful, even more so if they can be demonstrated to all investigating parties. This is an area where biblical prophecy runs into trouble.  We are expected to take the bible’s word that the events depicted in it actually happened.  In fact, there is no contemporaneous extra-biblical evidence for a historical Jesus.  Also, any claim that cannot be disproved if false is useless.

3.  It has to be specific and not open to interpretation. This is where Nostradamus’ purported prophecies run into trouble. They can all be interpreted in countless ways and have been for centuries. The same can be said about the Revelation of John. Countless political events, natural disasters, new technologies and public figures have been claimed to have been foreseen by this narrative. Its writing is so vague and so heavily filled with symbolic language, that just about anything can be and has been interpreted  as a fulfillment of it.

4.  It  has to be stated before the event it is claimed to predict. This one is pretty obvious and since much of the bible is written many years if not decades or centuries after the events the books in it describe, there is good reason to suspect this often not the case. An example of this is discussed in 6.

5.  It has to something that cannot have been reasonably guessed at the time the prediction was made. After all how is making a perfectly reasonable guess evidence of anything supernatural? Vague predictions concerning possible wars, rumors of wars, the destruction of cultures or cities and natural disasters tend to be safe in general, since these inevitably happen. Interestingly, Isaiah 17, makes such a safe prediction, predicting that Damascus will “cease to be a city” and will become a ruinous trash heap. This has yet to actually happen, as Damascus still stands and is one of the worlds continuously inhabited cities.

6.  It must not be self-fulfilling or intentionally fulfilled. The gospel attributed to Matthew (they were all originally anonymous, only to have names assigned to them centuries later), for example, repeatedly claims that Jesus’ actions were done to fulfill prophecies. In Matthew 21 Jesus, requests that his disciples find a donkey and bring it to him. The narrator then clearly states “This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ Here Jesus is deliberately acting to fulfill a prophesy (and possibly commanding an act of theft). Interestingly, what is actually said in Zechariah is: “O daughter of Jerusalem. Look! Your king himself comes to you. He is righteous, yes, saved; humble and riding upon an ass, even upon a full-grown animal the son of a she-ass,(9.9),” leading Matthew to create the awkward imagery of Jesus riding two animals simultaneously. We know that the authors of the new testament were very much familiar with the old testament and drew heavily from it. Further reading reveals that the verse Matthew is quoting was actually referring to Darius the Great and there is no evidence that it has anything to do with Jesus. It is followed by the prediction that “His ruler-ship will be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.” (9.10). The author of Zachariah almost certainly made this “prediction” after the rise of Darius’ empire which did reach from Sea to Sea.

7.  It has to be an actual prophecy that refers to what it is claimed to be predicting. The Zachariah verse above is a great example of this sort of mis-attribution, since there is no indication it was referring to Jesus’ life, at all.The writers from the new testament did this repeatedly in the construction of their narrative. This also happened with the virgin birth (the Isaiah passage, Isaiah 7:14-16  actually uses a Hebrew term meaning “young woman” rather than virgin and in the context it appears in, it concerns events surrounding King Ahaz of Judah), the nativity (the Micah passage, Micah 5:2, clearly refers to a clan called Bethlehem and not a city.  Also note how vastly different Matthew and Luke’s nativity narratives are).The author of Matthew does this again when discussing Jesus’ return from Egypt, stating “And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.” The source for this passage appears to be Hosea 11:1, which states “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” This passage is clearly a reference to the events described in Exodus, and not a reference to events that will happen hundreds of years into the future.

One final example can be found in the Gospel attributed to John, which states in John 19:37 that “and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced.” Here the Author of John misquotes Zechariah 12:10, which states “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.” Note that in the Zechariah verse the “him and me” seem to be two different people.  Also note that in the context of Zechariah, this verse is discussing an invading army and that no indication is given that it should be seen as a prophecy of events centuries later.

This event also only appears in John’s Gospel, which is generally accepted by scholars to be much later than the others probably more than a life time after Jesus supposed death. We know that the authors of the new testament were very much familiar with the old testament and drew heavily from it, so why should we find it unbelievable that they would have fudged their details so that they correspond with passages of the old testament?   The author of Matthew’s Gospel makes a huge effort to find places in the old testament that correspond with his narrative, and slip references to them in, whether there is any indication that they are supposed to have anything to do with a Messiah or not.  I suspect many of the events that appear in the Gospels were fabricated for this purpose.  As such, I have not found a single reason to find the argument from prophecy convincing.

Here’s the latest from Jim Wilson:

I saw Cee Lo Green perform John Lennon’s Imagine at Times Square this new year (not live, but on YouTube), and was not surprised that many of my fellow atheists as well as many religious people were upset at his changing of one of the lyrics. The original lyric, of course was  “Imagine… and no religion too.” That line was changed to “and all religion is true”. Here are my thoughts:

First off, I like Cee Lo and nearly all of his music and I have for years. He has a great voice, comes up with original songs and generally has a message that many people should hear, despite that it occasionally has religion mixed in with it. I liked his work as a solo artist, including a certain piece he turned into a mockery of Fox News on the Colbert Report: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/365067/november-09-2010/cee-lo-green as well as his work Gnarls Barkley and especially his work with Goodie MOB (whose name means “the Good die Mostly Over Bullsh*t). Their album Soul Food, especially, managed to combine soulfulness and a overall positive message with gangster rap in a sound that uniquely represented the streets of Atlanta Georgia. Their music documented street life rather than glorifying it, and gave a rather realistic look at poverty, crime and drugs. Many of these songs criticized things like shallow materialism, irresponsibility and using drugs instead of facing one’s own problems and bettering one’s self, though it was presented from voices that knew what they were talking about and admittedly dabbled in some of these vices themselves.

I’m happy to see Cee Lo still topping charts and appearing at high profile events like bringing in the New Years Eve ceremony. I think he brings way more to the table and has much more to say than the vast majority of pop stars. That said, I do have issue with his cover of Imagine. For one, I don’t think covering John Lennon’s solo work or the Beatles (or led Zeppelin and much of the Beach Boys work for that matter) is generally conducive to improving or even complementing the original. In short, I say if it’s not broken don’t fix it. Also, I figure if you are going to cover a song, you should do a less well known song. There are so many wonderful pieces that don’t get much play, and it is great to expose an audience to something they haven’t heard before.

I take issue with altered lyrics. Cee Lo’s message was not the message that Lennon wrote the song to convey. He said no religion, and he meant it. The change very much contradicts the spirit of the song.  The rewrite seems to be in the spirit of inclusiveness. It has the fatal flaw of proposing something impossible and horrendous. Simply put, all religions cannot be true because they make many mutually exclusive claims. Many religious groups believe that they alone are God’s chosen people or that one particular god or particular version of a god is exclusively the only one. This is why religions tend to be exclusive and divisive.

Furthermore, I don’t want all religion to be true. For example, I am very happy the hate-filled vengeful version of the Christian God promoted by the Westboro baptist church (AKA the “God Hates America” people) is not real. I am also glad that the Space Aliens of Scientology and the murderous God of the Taliban does not exist. The prospect of all these being simultaneously existing or being different incarnations of the same being is not an appealing concept the more one thinks about it.

Here’s another contribution from Jim Wilson:

Satan, the Devil looms large in our collective consciousness. This world has so many problems, difficulties, and unfortunate events that it is very tempting to call upon the existence of an evil supernatural being to explain them. It is often hard not to look at this world and think there are diabolical activities by powerful evil beings behind much of what goes on. Also the notion of cosmic justice greatly appeals to us, and it makes us feel important to see ourselves as being caught in the middle of epic cosmic battle between good and evil. Occam’s razor, however, should be invoked to remind us that much of this can be easily explained by the much more mundane fact that we are an awkward species, struggling to survive in a planet that was not made for us and as such presents many obstacles to our well being. Devils and demons are not needed to explain these things and positing their existence causes more problems than it solves.

This is especially true for Christians who believe that this evil supernatural being exists alongside an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent supernatural being who apparently cares very much about human well-being. I have to ask how this makes even the slightest bit of sense. Why would God, who is supposedly all powerful and infinitely good, allow an evil supernatural being to go about wreaking havoc on the lives of the people he supposedly cares about, especially when this god knows that this devil’s havoc will result in some of his people being sentenced to eternal torment? If this god wanted to prevent this he could, since he is all powerful. Most believers acknowledge that could easily crush Satan anytime if he wanted to, but he chooses not to.

Some believers claim that God allows the devil to unleash havoc on people’s lives so he will damn himself, and meet an even greater level of God’s wrath. This makes no sense because an all knowing being would not need to see acts of evil done to know what level of wrath the devil deserves. Not to mention that this implies that God is willing to throw some of his people under the bus, just so he can prove a point. This is horrifically immoral and shows a heinous disregard for humanity. It is however perfectly consistent with how God is depicted in the book of Job, where he allows one man to be subjected to a great deal of torment, just to prove a point.

The problem gets worse when we are reminded that this God is actually responsible for creating the devil. Some argue that God created Satan as an Angel and did not intend for him to rebel and attack humanity, but this is completely inconsistent with an all-knowing god or even a competent god. Not to mention that the general Christian view is that all that happens is part of God’s plan which apparently involves allowing the devil and something called sin to inflict pain and suffering on humanity for countless generations, only to culminate in a brutal human sacrifice and the demand that one must believe all this or face eternal suffering. None of this makes a single bit of sense and is profoundly immoral, and really disgusting.

Then there is the problem that we are supposed to accept that an evil supernatural being who wishes to recruit all of our souls works in ridiculous ways, like hanging around the Mississippi delta offering musical abilities in exchange for souls, or participating in fiddle playing contests. I would think that an evil supernatural being would have better and far more appealing means at his disposal. We are expected to believe that all the minor temptations and trivial annoyances in our lives are the devil messing with us. This just makes the devil sound like a ridiculous and petty being. Not to mention that individuals like me are accused of being under the employment of the devil, for nothing other than asking people to question their religious faith. In fact, it is apparently Satan himself that is leading me to doubt what I have been told by Christians and leading me to ask such difficult questions. In short, the Devil made me doubt it.

The role of Satan has evolved considerably within the Judeo-Christian tradition. In his appearance in Job and elsewhere in the old testament, Satan is more of an accuser or devil’s advocate than an evil being, and in Job, God green-lights everything Satan does. It is only a later concept that he is the ultimate evil and the ultimate enemy of humanity. I have heard it convincingly argued that this transformation was the result of Judaism’s contact with the sort of good and evil dualism found in Zoroastrianism.

That said, it is time for people to stop blaming Devils and demons for the bad things that happen to them, and start taking responsibility for their own actions. Not to mention start looking for actual scientific explanations for the problems that plague humanity since this is the only way we will ever solve them.

Ho Ho Ho…or Bah, Humbug?

I’m an atheist.  I also celebrate Christmas. By that I do not mean that I celebrate the generic and politically correct “holidays”. Nor do I mean that I celebrate that holiday observed by many atheists and pagans but unknown to virtually everyone else, solstice.  I don’t mean that I celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa either. I mean that I celebrate the same blinking light, decorated tree, gift exchanging, tinsel hanging, sappy music playing, Santa Clause, Jesus Mary and Joseph Christmas hodgepodge that most other people in western countries celebrate. I don’t celebrate Christmas with nearly as much gusto as some people do, to be sure. I’ve never had the most decorations on my block or thrown a serious Christmas party or anything like that. I grumble about Christmas stuff in November (too early) and obnoxious decorations (too loud/too much). But I do observe the holiday, as opposed to totally ignoring it or actively trying to replace it with something else as many of my atheist friends do.

I have a very specific reason for celebrating Christmas. Christmas day isn’t important to me per se — the twelve days in the traditional Christmas carol is closer to my actual experience. For me, Christmas has no more to do with Santa Clause and elves than it does with baby Jesus in the manger — two legends that I regard as equally fantastical. It certainly has nothing to do with the crass shop till you drop Christmas commercial obligation that is simultaneously generated and lamented by the general public and the media every single year. It’s not a political statement about peace on Earth and goodwill to men either — although that’s a good idea at any time of year. Neither is Christmas just an excuse for eating and drinking with extended family, although that is a nice and enjoyable aspect of the holiday.

The reason that I celebrate Christmas is that Christmas is the closest thing I’ve found to a time machine — a mental express train linking the present with a chain of Christmases stretching back through my entire life. For me, Christmas functions as a potent associative mental shortcut, not just to memories but to entire states of mind. I can re-experience what I was thinking 15 Christmases ago in a way that I can’t re-experience anything else that happened 15 years ago. I do my future planning every New Years Eve, and celebrating Christmas helps me get me into a frame of mind for thinking about long term planning.

It took two Christmases I spent in New Zealand for me to really figure all that out.

I had no idea what Christmas in New Zealand was going to be like before I went. I figured it wouildn’t be much different from Tucson, since Tucson doesn’t usually have snow and isn’t ever very cold at Christmas. But Christmas in New Zealand was really quite different, because even in Tucson it’s still winter. The air here is dry and crisp even if it’s not very cold. The sun comes up late and it gets dark early every evening. The Center for Inquiry has a cute holiday card that reads “Axial Tilt is the Reason for the Season!” Turns out they’re right on more than just an elementary science level.

I called Christmas the two years I was in New Zealand ”The 12 endless summer days of Christmas.” It was summer so of course it felt like summer in every way, which my brain steadfastly refused to associate with Christmas. It was warm, though certainly not hot by Tucson standards. The daily high temps in Tucson and North Auckland where I lived aren’t much different in December, even though at night it gets quite a bit colder in Tucson. The air had that summertime kind of humidity and buzz about.  It smelled like summer, we had the sound of birds and Cicadas outside, and we got afternoon thunderstorms now and then.

They played almost the same Christmas music there as here; people decorated stores and houses in pretty much the same way, perhaps not as much as here but still plenty. By far the biggest thing that kept it from feeling like Christmas was the daylight.  It was bright sunlight out from about 5:30 in the morning to 9:30pm. Because of my early morning work schedule there I was almost never awake long in the evening when it was dark. We had a Christmas tree and some Christmas lights…but when the heck do you turn them on with it light whenever you’re awake? It always seemed rather pointless. I never realized how much of Christmas is associated with staring at twinkling lights in the crisp (even if not freezing cold) darkness, and how much the holiday is completely out of place in the endless light of a warm summer’s day.

The Christmas memory train just wouldn’t run for me in New Zealand. Those two years were the only times I’ve ever been depressed around the holidays, and it remains a factor keeping me from moving back to New Zealand permanently. But it also helped me to make sense of why our family of happy atheists still feels the need to put up lights and a tree, walk though the neighborhood in the dark looking at everyone else’s lights, and add songs with philosophically repulsive lyrics like “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” to our musical playlists every December. It’s a memory aid, which sounds far more trivial than it actually is.

Some may conclude that the failure of Christmas in New Zealand means I have only been celebrating winter solstice all along. For complicated reasons, I was in New Zealand for two summers in a row but never in the winter. I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect that winter without Christmas would have been just as useless in regard to memories as Christmas without winter proved to be. The Christmas train runs on the totality of the Christmas experience, not on any one part of it.

Some atheists probably do hate Christmas, but not me. For those who celebrate Christmas, whether you actually believe in the sky fairies it’s supposedly about or not, here’s wishing you a merry one. Ho Ho Ho! May you relive good memories and create some special new ones. And for those who don’t celebrate Christmas, here’s just wishing you some good times this weekend!