Every once in a while someone relatively new to the “Atheist movement” will bump up against Sam Harris and his negative feeling toward the word “Atheist”. At the AAI 2007 Convention in Washington D.C., he presented his case against using Atheist and any other label. Sam Harris is well known and important to Atheism. He wrote The End of Faith and his Letters to a Christian Nation is an excellent read—short and to the point. However, he has the idea that we should “go under the radar” and simply think about things rationally as a winning strategy. He starts his talk by saying how strange it is that a meeting of Atheists is even necessary. Then he argues that the use of the word Atheism is a mistake and we shouldn’t be using it. In his talk, he states that the label prevents us from being effective in our criticism of religion. He believes while under the radar, we should be destroying bad ideas where we see them. He says that there are so many bad ideas that we’ll be spending a great deal of time discussing religion. He is wrong.

Not using an identifying label—Atheist, Secular Humanist, Freethinker, Secularist, etc.—might work if winning an intellectual argument is all that is considered but people need more than that. They need community. How do people of a community find each other if not through labels? Look at the Meetup.com site. There you’ll find Tucson Atheists and Skeptics of Tucson. You’ll also find many other groups. A similar search through FaceBook will also result in pages dedicated the Secular Students, Atheists, and Recovering from Religion groups, national and locally.

Dr. Harris spends a great deal of time criticizing religion and he’s good at it. However, we are not all like him. And while we do criticize religion on occasion, any group that spends all of its time criticizing other groups is not mature and supportive of its own membership. Religions often criticize Atheists but it is not all that they do. They provide complete community service. They don’t meet once a week just to compare clothes. They have youth programs, and social events, and often pitch in together to help a member that has fallen on to hard times. Religions also have power through their large numbers and organizations such as the Center for Arizona Policy that act on their behalf and push Christian values on to the society in general. We need to do that and more.

In fact, we are starting to build and Tucson’s Atheist community is doing well. In the Barna Group’s rating of The Most Post-Christian Cities in America we rank #12. Here in Tucson we have multiple groups carrying the labels of “Atheists,” “Skeptics,” and “FreeThought.” We have our own increasingly effective legislature lobbying group The Secular Coalition for Arizona. This would not be possible without the use of identifying labels. In the past several years while the community was expanding, I often heard, “I’m glad I’ve found you. I thought I was the only one!”

The word Atheist has had negative connotations and many would rather not use it but any other term we use to describe ourselves would soon be saddled with the same baggage once it is clear that the term refers to those that don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Have you ever heard someone say “Secular Humanist” in such a way as to be dripping with venom and dismissal? The better strategy is to come out as an Atheist, if you can, and take back the word. Erase the evil, negative connotations through positive example in all that you do.

Last night at Caffeinated Godlessness, we discussed the reasons why someone that came from a church might return. What would it take? Is it even possible? Rarely folks that say that they tried Atheism return to their Christian beliefs. It was pointed out that there is a tendency to paint these “re-converts” as not ever being Atheists. It is tempting and natural to pull out the “No True Scotsman” arguments in these cases. Most Atheists that have had a religious upbringing find that their Atheism won out after a struggle that could have taken years to resolve and most of the Atheists at the Fronimos Greek Café last night agreed that the evidence persuasive enough to force a return to religious belief would be hard to come by and it is improbable that the potentially persuasive evidence would be believed at first. It could only be believed after ALL natural explanations have been researched.

Some of people admitted that they can’t imagine what it would take while others were very inventive and very specific. For example, one individual said God would have to appear as a burning bush at a Karaoke bar and sing “I’m Blue.” By the way, he also said other people would have to witness it too so that he’d know that he wasn’t hallucinating.

There was some discussion of what an Atheist might be missing that the church normally provides the believer. For example, some remember the almost indescribable feeling of ecstasy that sometimes accompanies religious devotion. Others appreciated the religious rituals and consistency of regular experiences. The Catholic Church has seven sacraments that are designed to give a human life a structure and makes them dependent on the Church. They are baptized, receive communion (the first one is a REALLY big deal), confess sins to the priest, get confirmed, get married, some get ordained, and may receive last rights (Extreme Unction) just before their last breath. A religious person can be comfortable in the knowledge that ALL things have been answered. There are no unsolvable mysteries and death, the biggest mystery of them all, is no big deal. It’s just the next phase of their eternal existence. Religious people often have a strong community.

But religions are not derived from reason or from the logic of human philosophy. Many of the pat answers have no basis in science. Religious dogma, while providing a strong often safe foundation, limits the human experience, and it has prevented or at least delayed advancements that are beneficial to all mankind. Also remember that while every religion on earth tends to call itself peaceful, Lilliputian differences have led to incalculable human suffering and death.

Steve Martin says Atheists Don’t Have No Songs but I won’t be going back soon. I enjoy having Sunday’s free, having Rock ‘n’ Roll, and watching football in my underpants. Most of all I like believing things that are demonstratively true in a world where our knowledge freely advances unfettered by religious dogma. In an Atheist world, there is no “chosen people” and human rights are derived from secular societal norms, not poorly translated dictums from Bronze Age writings. Finally, Tucson Atheists have a strong community too. Feel free to join us at The Shanty this Sunday at 7 PM.

From Jim Wilson:

As a fan of rock music as well as many other genres, it is fascinating to hear various religious figures arguing that music is evil.  In the Muslim world, such anti-rock attitudes are often linked with anti-Westernism in general, but here in the West we are more likely to be told that rock music is addictive, that it is a communist conspiracy, or it comes directly from Satan.   Rock music, we are told, has beats authored by Satan in a villainous plot to the control listeners and send them to hell.  Such beliefs have given rise to wild stories.  There is the tale that all rock bands pray to Satan before recording. There is the claim that screamed vocals on rock records are created when the musicians are enjoying anal sex, and there is a rumor most rock albums have satanic messages backed masked into them. There is the claim that every year Keith Richards has all the blood drained from his body and replaced with fresh blood from young donors.

While exploring this topic I stumbled on this video . It is a video of a Christian religious leader preaching on the evils of popular music.  Beginning around 1:54 he states that God does have preferences for everything and that he expresses his preferences through his design.  He states, “God has made your ears to be able to take a certain amount of sound, and if you go beyond that level you’re going to hurt your ears.”  He continues to point out that damaged human ear cells do not heal themselves the way other body parts do making damage caused to ones ears by listening to loud music permanent.

He argues that God intentionally made our ears this way to express his distaste for rock music which admittedly, is often played loud.  That’s right! We are being told to believe that the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of all things demonstrates his preferences through design flaws.  Are we also to also assume that because God designed us to use the same opening to intake food and breathe air that he wanted us to be vulnerable to choking death?  It would have been much more useful for us to have ears that can heal themselves, and hear a wider range of the sounds of nature or to have eyes that could see more of the electromagnetic spectrum including ionizing radiation and magnetic fields.

We are forced to conclude that a supposedly benevolent creator’s designs are intentionally flawed, but the preacher’s argument has other problems. The design flaw says nothing about specific genres of music.  For example, Mozart or Bach music can be played at the same loud volume as Slayer with the same damaging effect.  Furthermore, you can listen to Slayer at low volume and receive NO ear damage.  Many older people who were lifelong rockers are not worse off than the people with ear damage from the sound of gunfire in wars or by the sounds of heavy machinery.  Is God trying to tell us through his poor ear design that he is anti-war or anti-factory?

God doesn’t exist but if he did it is unlikely that he would communicate his musical preferences by making a faulty ear design that doesn’t heal after damage. Rock and roll musicians are not always the best role models, and that is part of the genre’s appeal, but to assert that Rock ‘n’ Roll is from Satan is a load of superstitious nonsense that attempts to close off our experience of a wide range of diverse, innovative, and interesting sounds.  Besides, Rock ‘n’ Roll has also done much to bring people together. Check out Farm Aid , One World Concert, The Moscow Music Peace Festival, Live Aid, and the benefit concert that started it all The Concert for Bangladesh.

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.

Don Lacey

The Tucson Atheists discussed the history of Atheism on April 15^th—tax day—this year at our monthly meeting at Denny’s. The meeting was only two hours long and there was no way to completely cover the topic and while it’s important to get to the facts and figures, the group thrives on discussion and personal feelings. Talking about the facts of history is not difficult. Ideally, the facts and events are simply pinned to a timeline. Sometimes however what those facts and events mean and meant at the time they occurred is unknowable with any certainty and depend on the source of the information and the attitude of the receiver of the information. The sources of the information that was presented to kick off the discussion included Jonathan Miller’s A Brief History of Disbelief and other sources.

The history of Atheism begins thousands of years ago with the Greeks and Romans even though the name wasn’t officially created until the 16^th century in France. The Greek philosopher Aristophanes who lived between 446 and 386 BCE said, “Surely you don’t believe in the gods. What’s your argument? Where’s your proof?” A Greek contemporary, Democritus who was partially responsible for the theory that all matter was composed of atoms said that the greatest good is happiness and contentment. All matter existed forever; therefore, there is no creation. Aristotle born in 348 BCE believed that Tyrants must have gods on their sides. Cicero born in 106 BCE asked, “Do gods exist or do they not?” Seneca born around 4 BCE famously said that “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” Finally, Epicurus born in 341 BCE pointed out the illogic of an omnipresent, omniscient, benevolent god when he said:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

Lucretius born in 99 BCE wrote an ode to Epicurus and contributed his own skepticism of the existence of supernatural beings when he said, “Fear is the mother of all gods. Nature does all things spontaneously by herself without their meddling.”

Religion comes very natural to us and Atheism requires a level of reason and rationality that allows us to overcome it. Atheism as an idea has had its ups and downs and it is by shear serendipity that our country was formed in the period of time called “The Age of Enlightenment.” It was during this time that the world discovered Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), John Lock (1632-1704), Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), Isaac Newton (1643-1727), and Voltaire (1984-1778). These men laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment and pushed the ideas of rationalism, social liberalism, religious toleration, science, the scientific method, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and the separation of church and state. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution particularly the Bill of Rights came out of the Age of Enlightenment and remains the backbone of our Democratic Republic. However, the popularity of reason and intellect has since been challenged by the influences of Romanticism where policy is often dictated by human emotions such as apprehension, horror, terror, and awe along with extreme patriotism. The Zeitgeist or “spirit of the time” which appeals to human emotions has allowed a resurgence of religious fervor. Fear of “godless” Communism has been codified into our lives by well-meaning politicians when they added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, added “In God We Trust” as a national motto to be inscribed on our money.

Slowly our country is moving back to an “Age of Reason.” Religion is losing its hold on the populace as we see the disappearance of “Blue Laws,” the acceptance of alternate lifestyles, and the growth of the number of people identifying as “non-religious.” Not everyone is on board but the trend is undeniable especially considering the polling data that indicates that people under the age of 30 are twice as likely to profess “no religious belief” as those older.

There was also discussion of the “growing pains” in the current movement towards reason. The internet is a two edged sword in that it allows a free exchange of ideas but also anonymous modern day Vandals, trolls, that tend to make small points of contention overblown and damaging. To keep the movement going, we must ignore those that thrive on getting attention at all costs and remember that we’re in agreement 99% of the time. You can catch a very interesting discussion involving Dave Silverman, Hermant Mehta, and Chris Mooney HERE.

By Philip Spacemuseum MacDuff

As an atheist, I’m often asked “Where do you get your morals from?” The implicit attack here is that morals can only come from religion and that, therefore either I have no morals or the morals I do have were instilled in my religious upbringing. I do not intend to write about where I get my morals, beyond simply and quickly saying that my morals stem from a desire to make the world a better place. Instead, I intend to write about where most modern Christians get their morals – and it is most definitely not the Bible. This topic is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, as it has come up over and over in the debate on gay marriage.

Leviticus Chapter 20 Verse 13 has come up repeatedly. It reads as follows (as obtained from BibleGateway.com, the New International Version)

“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

Two verses later, in Leviticus 20:15, a similar admonition against sexual relations with animals is delivered:

“If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.”

These verses are similar to those of Leviticus 18:22-23, but the punishments for these sins are given in the above quoted verses. However, as of this writing, gay marriage is legal in 9 states, and bestiality is legal in 20 (according to www.animallaw.info). Why are there no large-scale protests about bestiality? Why are not more Christians sermonizing on bestiality and how wicked it is, how it leads to the downfall of nations? Should not both biblical statutes carry the same weight in our laws and morals?

More common sins are listed in the previous chapter. Leviticus 19:19 says (quotation marks as in original)

“‘Keep my decrees.

“‘Do not mate different kinds of animals.

“‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.

“‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

Leviticus 19:26 commands:

“‘Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.

Leviticus 19:27 and 28 continue:

“‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

“‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.

These six commands, and more listed throughout the book of Leviticus, are daily violated by good, upstanding Christians without protest. How is it that these commands can be disregarded so easily, but the single command on gay marriage must be not only upheld, but written into our national legislation? Christian morality is full of hypocrisy. The argument is often made that some verses are to be interpreted literally, while others are merely figurative. How then does one determine which are which? The Bible itself cannot be a guide; it gives no direction on how to evaluate its contents beyond such pithy directives as “Keep my decrees”. Some other source must be obtained to make this decision. The lay people of a church rely on the guidance of their pastors, priests, ministers and deacons, but where do these leaders turn for their answers? There must be some source which is not the Bible for making these decisions of morality.

The act of deciding that some commands in the Bible can be safely ignored while others must be upheld literally, and in some cases, violently, can only be rationalized by two possible courses. Either the decision is made to consciously violate God’s sacred commands, thereby intentionally earning a place in the fires of hell, or the Christian has employed a set of morals independent of and superior to the biblical commands. In either case, the Christian can no longer point to the Bible as the ultimate source of their morals. It may provide a starting point, but as we no longer stone women for failing to be virgins on the day they are married to some lecherous old man who bought them, we clearly have evolved our sense of morality since the Bronze Age.

 Jim Wilson explains what’s going on with “memes” on the internet:

The term “meme” is used largely to describe images like this:

Usually there is an image of some character or public figure (in this case Advice God) with a statement on top introducing the topic and some sort of ironic or unexpected punch line at the bottom. They are quite common over the internet. It is possible that the 2012 presidential election may be the first ever to be influenced by the use of this type of internet meme. More examples can be found here.

“Meme” has a much broader and interesting meaning. The term was coined by Richard Dawkins, now famous for being one of the world’s most visible atheists. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins, created the word with the intent of it sounding similar to gene with its roots in the Greek term “mimeme” meaning to imitate.

Dawkins used the term to describe pieces of cultural information, shared among humans, which are able to adapt and evolve in ways that furthers their transmission. They can be seen as parts of human culture that are analogous to genes. Examples include jokes, popular songs, stories, rituals, fashion styles, ideologies, and a wide range of other cultural information. Urban legends are an excellent example, since they frequently change and often grow with the telling. Often versions that hit listeners closer to home or contain more outrageous elements are repeated and in this way are able to perpetuate their existence.

Blue Star Acid is an urban legend in which it was widely believed that people where giving children LSD soaked rub-on tattoos or stickers. There was no evidence to support this scare but the story continued for decades. There were several versions and the details that were included indicated when a particular version originated. Simply put, details that make a story or a joke more likely to spread get passed on while those that don’t simply get killed off. In this way, cultural information undergoes a form of adaptive evolution though it may bear more resemblance to a Lamarckian concept of evolution than a Darwinian one. Memes are often compared to viruses, in that they cannot exist independently of a host or vector and successful ones are able to change the host’s behavior so that it further spreads the meme to new hosts. Successful memes are ones that have accumulated traits that maximize the likelihood that they will be passed on.

The concept has given rise to the field of study known as memetics which looks at how information is spread among humans and adapts to spread further. Unlike other fields, it is more interested in an idea’s successful spread rather than how truthful it is.

Some of the most influential memes are religious ones. They are often characterized by groups of smaller memes combining together to form larger “memeplexes”. For example, Judaism not only features beliefs about the existence of a god but also dietary rules and stories about its history. Christianity builds upon the previously existing Judaism memes and adds new elements like the Jesus story. When looking at the spread of Christianity from the point of view of memetics, it is striking that the Christianity meme found success after adding such suspect features as promises of eternal rewards for believers and eternal punishment for those who doubt (and will not perpetuate) the meme.

It should be noted that memes are not conscious entities that intentionally spread themselves but rather pieces of information with no self-awareness engaged in an unconscious process of adaptive selection. The notion of memes as viruses of the mind makes a lot of sense. People heavily influenced by power memes such as religions like Islam or Christianity or political philosophies like Nazism or Marxism will do things to help aid the spread of their meme that people uninfected by these memes will view as horrific and morally despicable. More thoughts on the idea of Christianity as a meme can be found here.

Skepticism and critical thinking are essential to immunize us from harmful and destructive memes that are all too common in this world.

“Religion – religion, at best – at Best – is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it for a while, and it makes you walk straight and feel better – fine. But you don’t need it forever, or you can become permanently disabled. Religion is like a lift in the shoe, and I say just don’t ask me to wear your shoes. And let’s not go down and nail lifts onto the natives’ feet.” – George Carlin, October 11, 1975 on the first episode of Saturday Night Live.

I just returned from Austin, TX and the 50^th Anniversary of the American Atheists. It is normally held on Easter weekend as it was this year. Activities began on Thursday and ended on Easter Sunday. This year there were 938 attendees. It was a diverse group, too. That’s not too surprising given that the American Atheists was started by a woman.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair is responsible for the creation of the organization in 1963. She was in Austin, TX at the time. Then, she was “the most hated woman in America.” People hated her but she got needed things done and was outspoken and controversial. There were a lot of firsts associated with Madalyn. She was the first guest on the Phil Donahue show. On another appearance on the Phil Donahue show in a debate with “The Chaplain of Bourbon Street,” Bob Harrington, she said, “If America wakes up, what America will do is kick Christianity out.” Additionally, she tried to straighten out the preacher on the definition of Atheism but Bob continued to talk over her. Her cantankerous manner got her an interview in Playboy along with appearances on Merv Griffin and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. However, her most famous “first” was the fact that she was to first to address the United States Supreme Court as an Atheist. She started her opening statement with, “Your petitioners are atheists…” Also included in her statement was the following excerpt which was silk screened on the back of this year’s convention T-shirt:

“An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated.”

In 1963, the justices of the Supreme Court voted in favor of her petition 8 to 1—a decisive victory for the separation of church and state.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair was born on April 13^th, 1919. She was a World War II veteran who served in the field of cryptography. She was college educated and trained in law. She worked as a psychiatric social worker for 17 years and was a supervisor at the Baltimore city public welfare department in 1960. Her Atheist activism started with a lawsuit against the Baltimore City Public School System for requiring her son to participate in Bible readings in the school he was attending. Her case reached the Supreme Court in 1963. Please note, she was not the only one that filed suit against such practices. Her case was combined with Abington School District v. Schempp and school prayer was previously eliminated by the court’s ruling on the case Engel v. Vitale in 1962. However, she was a lightning rod for controversy and unapologetically outspoken. She created the American Atheists and her “empire” had its own printing press and a loyal following.

In 1963 in an interview, Madalyn said that it would take one crazy person to end her life. That crazy person turned out to be David Waters, an ex-convict who served as the American Atheists office manager. He had been caught stealing from the organization and was fired. He took revenge on Madalyn, her younger son, and granddaughter by kidnapping them and squeezing what he could out of the American Atheists bank accounts. After 30 days of holding the family, he strangled them and disposed of the bodies. Ultimately, the disappearance of the trio would be solved but their bodies—dismembered, burned, and sealed in barrels—would not be found for five and a half years. The entire story can be found here. It is estimated that Madalyn Murray O’Hair was brutally murdered on September 29, 1995.

I didn’t know Madalyn but I know people that knew her. Some of the current leaders of American Atheists knew her well. Most that knew her, respected her. She was remembered by many. She knew that, “There is no God. There’s no heaven. There’s no hell. There are no angels. When you die, you go in the ground; the worms eat you.” The people that searched for her, found her, and attended her burial expressed the deepest sorrow for her. She got her wish when she said:

”I hope I live my life in such a manner that when I die, someone cares – even if it is only my dogs. I think I want some human being somewhere to weep for me.”

– Madalyn Murray O’Hair

 …and they did.

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.

Jim Wilson has been waiting to drop the hammer on Kirk Cameron for a while now:

Kirk Cameron  made the news again. From the Crocoduck to the banana, everything he gets involved in is a show case of Christian ignorance and gullibility. Hours ago, the former child actor and star of Growing Pains—a family sitcom from the eighties—made a recent post on his twitter account. The post discusses a massive Ten Commandments monument at a hotel in Odessa, Texas.  Cameron states:

“Check out this huge stone monument at the front door of the hotel I checked into tonight in Odessa. This is the #1 city for jobs in the US (lots of new found oil)! Try to tell this hotel owner in West Texas to remove these commandments and I’m pretty sure a good ol’ boy down here would be willing to make an exception for the 6th commandment just for you… Don’t mess with Texas!…”

The sixth commandment is the one stating that “THOU SHALT NOT KILL”.

Cameron is confused. Secularists such as those in FreeThought Arizona are against displaying Ten Commandments monuments and all other religious monuments in government spaces. We are not against displays in private homes or hotels. However the appearance of religious monuments on government property implies a preference of the religious over the nonreligious and tax money should not be going to the promotion of religious superstition of any kind. No one is challenging the right of private citizens to post religious nonsense on homes or businesses.

Any business owner can be as overtly religious as they please. While they are forbidden from religious discrimination in public accommodations, they can post all the crosses, Ten Commandments monuments, and Ichthys symbols they desire. While it could cost them business from the Freethinking community, that same community would stand with them in opposition to those that might try to remove those things due to our strong desire to preserve freedom of speech.

Kirk Cameron’s celebration of the willingness of “good o’ boys” to ignore their own Bible and kill people is a bit scuzzy but it’s worse if he is implying that it should apply to people who wish to remove such monuments from government places as well. He could be saying that in the wilds of west Texas, they have rugged gun toting “good ol’ boys” who don’t listen to the namby-pamby, politically correct rules such as separation of church and state where bullying Atheists and gay kids is so common that young people are often terrified to come out to their own families. This should not be celebrated… especially from the guy from Growing Pains.