This page includes some of my thoughts about religion and links to other sites, both religious and anti-religious.
My writings are in black. Plagiarized text is in maroon, sometimes highlighted by me in red.
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"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages." . . . Ruth Hurmence Green, author, The Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible
"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world." . . . Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, 1957
"Religion is based ... mainly upon fear ... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand . . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race." . . . Bertrand Russell
Every religion has for its foundation a miracle -- that is to say, a violation of nature -- that is to say, a falsehood. . . . . Robert G. Ingersoll
"Civilisation will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest" . . . Emile Zola
. . . Some of my beliefs , including: Proof that the God of Christianity cannot exist
. . . Do you believe in magic?
. . . VATICAN ASKS COURT, U.S. GOVERNMENT TO DISMISS LAWSUIT OVER NAZI GOLD Church Evades Responsibility For Clerical Fascism
. . . A Tribute to Steve Allen
The following is a message that I sent to a friend on the Web on 30 Oct 00.
It is interesting that you mention the Unitarian Church. When I was at Queen's I attended off and on a Unitarian discussion group. I am not aware that I felt that I was somehow part of an oddball group in the sense that you mention; however, there definitely was a sense of being somewhat heretical. The people, perhaps ten or so, seemed to have a genuine religious instinct (one that I perhaps had to some extent, but was trying to deny, and still am!); however, they could not abide by the beliefs and rituals of Christianity. My parents were both Protestants, having migrated from a Lutheran Church of their early years in an isolated part of Ontario -- Rainy River, in the Lake of the Woods area, where I was born. All of my relatives there were of Norwegian descent. They later switched to the United Church on moving to Thunder Bay, and later to Niagara Falls and Cornwall. My Mother, who is now about 81, still goes to church north of Victoria, BC, of a bent that is somewhat more fundamentalist than the United Church. My somewhat sardonic characterization of the United Church is that it is a kind of the Velveeta Cheese of churches -- not too piquant to offend the taste of most people! The Great Compromiser, perhaps!
From an early age it was my mother primarily that "forced" me to go to Sunday school and later church. I think that I must have been about ten years old when I first started seriously questioning the whole basis of Christianity. Some of my misgivings went as follows. God is supposed to be all powerful, all knowing, and all loving. In the Garden of Eden, man sinned by virtue of either (a) disobeying God's edict to not learn anything new, or (b) by disobeying an arbitrary and unreasonable edict. Which would have been the greater sin? Apparently to disobey an arbitrary, if not downright anti-intellectual, dictate from God, regardless of what that dictate was. In essence then, although God had created man, man was imperfect. Why had a perfect God created man as being imperfect? By virtue of this initial disobedience of an order by this Dictator God, man acquired Original Sin. In my current parlance, man had, by virtue of this disobedience, acquired what was to become a sexually transmitted disease of sin (STDS). STDS was now to be transmitted by means of sexual reproduction throughout all of humanity down through all generations. So man, even from birth, was to acquire an infection called Original Sin. One major misgiving of mine was why would this loving God create a mankind having such a built-in imperfection right from the beginning? Was it His first try at it? Had this first experiment failed? Are there other universes out there in which He did a better job of it? Or, did God purposely create a mankind that would suffer immensely throughout history because of this disease (created by God) called original Original Sin? Man, how far hast thou fallen, who once was like the angels?
So, man was now doomed to not only a life of some misery on earth because of his fall from grace, but, if he did not believe the right things, he was also doomed to an afterlife in which he could be tortured forever by God in this "loving" God's torture chamber called Hell. When a religious teacher objected to this characterization, my reply was that I assumed from the teachings of Christianity that God had created all things in Heaven and on earth. Did that also not mean that he had created sin, misery, cancer, AIDS, the Devil, and Hell, and the justification for using torture? Not necessarily, was the reply. He created free will for man. It was the Devil and free will that had led man astray. So, to patch up this sorry state of affairs, God impregnates a virgin without her permission. Would we now call it rape or artificial insemination? Why does he do this? To allow a Son to be born who will teach man a lesson about His loving Father. The lesson was that, if man believed in Jesus, he might suffer a miserable life on earth, but that after death he would be "saved" and enter Heaven and an eternal afterlife of bliss. "Saved"? Saved from what? Saved from being tortured forever by this loving Father of His, God, in a place called Hell. Does it make sense so far? We have not even arrived at Easter yet!
So, how is it that man will be "saved"? He will be saved by an arrangement wherein a reluctant Pontius Pilate, the local Roman dictator, is persuaded by one of several factions of Jews, to crucify this rebel upstart named Jesus. Now we have Jesus nailed to a cross and bleeding to death while His loving Father watches over Him, doing nothing to save Him. If you watched your son being nailed to a cross in your front yard and did not even phone 911 for help, would you not be accused of child abuse? It gets even worse. Now, this Jesus fellow cries out "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?". It seems that even Jesus has had last-minute doubts. Doubts about what? About his own divinity? About whether His Father cares a whit for him? Whether His Father is powerful enough to save Him, even if He wanted to? About His own sanity? About the sanity of His Father? Who knows? If a Christian worships God, how can he be sure that he is not worshipping a psychopath? Although we might think that the desire of a human being, such as the dictator emperor Constantine to be worsipped to be a character defect, why would Christians believe that God wishes to be worshipped? Why is worship of the Divine considered to be a virtue? I would consider it to be a vice.
So what have we ended up with, without even getting to Easter yet? A "loving" God watching, apparently either helplessly or uncaringly, as His Son bleeds to death on an old rugged Cross, complaining all the while! This is supposed to save mankind? From what?
Finally comes the "good" news -- the Gospel of the resurrection of the Appointed One. Although Jesus appears to have died, He comes up smelling like roses, literally (I kid you not, its in the Bible!), meets one or two people, and ascends into Heaven. Glory be! That whole drama of human sacrifice, in which the father of the victim was a collaborator and witness, represents the greatest news that mankind will ever receive! Isn't that something to look forward to, indeed! So, by virtue of this barbarity, mankind is to be saved from being tortured by God forever. But, of course, only a select few are to be saved. Only those who believe in this story, and reject the pursuit of worldly knowledge. The Bible says many things. One thing that it does not do, or even hint at anywhere, is to praise the pursuit of knowledge and learning.
Is it of any comfort to an atheist to realize that, according to this bizarre Christianity, a man can arrive on the scene, murder the atheist, get sent to prison where he repents and accepts Jesus as his savior, dies, goes to Heaven, where (the Bible assures us) he has a ringside seat from which he can watch the atheist that he murdered be tortured in Hell by his loving God forever? But what about all of the good works that the atheist did (except for stealing that apple from his neighbor's fruit tree as a boy)? Christianity would say that those works cannot be "good". "Good" is a concept arising only from a belief in God. The works of the atheist might not have been "bad"; however, by definition, they cannot be "good". Even if these works were "good", they count for naught. The only thing that counts is belief in God through His proxy, Jesus, the Man-God incarnate -- the One stained with the dripping fresh blood on the Old Rugged Cross that is our only means of salvation from everlasting torture by a "loving" God. Perhaps in the churches these days this version of Christianity as set out in the Bible and still taught by many churches today is being gradually replaced by a kinder, gentler form of Christianity that I cannot resist calling the Wonderful World of Disneyland Christianity. It is most readily found in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, boys and girls.
Can you imagine a religion more obscene and bizarre than Christianity? Please criticize me as severely as you wish if I have misrepresented anything that Christianity and the Bible teaches us. I might be misinformed, but I hope that I am not being dishonest. Actually, I have left out the most obscene parts of the story. The parts, for example, in which God commits genocide. Oh, you say, but that's in the Old Testament! Yes, that's Judaism, but it's also part of Christianity. Jesus states that he supports all of the teachings of the Old Testament. So, to sum up, Christianity consists of all of the barbaric teachings of the Old Testament (alias Judaism) added to which is the even more cruel human-sacrifice story of the New Testament. What a wonderful font of family values this is!
That, according to some, constitutes the so-called Judeo-Christian tradition upon which those on the religious right claim that our Western society is based, and the values that we should reaffirm and revert to, with the help of such luminaries as the Pope, Stockwell Day, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, Bill Clinton, Preston Manning, and a host of other born-again Christians. Somehow, they fail to mention the fact that the Constitution of the USA was drafted by its founders to very specifically exclude any religious considerations as forming a basis for morality or law, and to exclude the state from in any way supporting or promoting religious ideas or institutions. They fail to mention the fact that the first six presidents of the USA were not Christians (or Jews,either)! They fail to point out that, at the time of its founding, only about 5% of the people of the USA went to church, or that the USA was founded by people who were trying to escape the horrors that Christianity had been imposing for centuries upon the Europe from which they had fled to try to set up a new life of freedom in the New World. -- a New World, they hoped, that would be free of the ravages and misery and cruelty of Christianity.
Now, we all know that one cannot prove that God exists or not. But, perhaps we can prove that the God of Christianity does not exist. Why? Because that god is supposed to be different than some others, such as Odin, Mars, and 30,000 others. Why is it that most religions today believe that there is only one god? Why not 13 gods? Why not believe that God himself worships a higher god,and that the God that Christians worship was created by another god? All of thse conjectures or possibilities are just as valid within a religious system of logic. In other word, all of these possibilities are irrational ideas, none of which is any more irrational than any other.
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Proof that the God of Christianity cannot exist
First, someone beat me to the proof (by 2,300 years!) -- and with more brevity too!
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"The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?"
..........Epicures, 300 B.C.
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Theorem:
If the God of Christianity is supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing and all-loving, then that God cannot exist..
Proof:
1. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then:
If God is all-knowing, then
God must have known of plans to murder Jesus, then
since God is all-powerful, and
since God allowed Jesus to be murdered, then,
God is an accessory to murder, and therefore,
God is not all-loving.
2. If God is all-powerful and all-loving, then:
If God is all-powerful, then,
if God knew of plans to murder Jesus, then
if God is all-loving, then
God would have prevented the murder of Jesus, and
since God did not prevent the murder of Jesus, then
God did not know of such plans to murder Jesus, so therefore
God is not all-knowing.
3. If God is all-knowing and all-loving, then:
If God is all-knowing and all-loving, then
God would know of plans to murder Jesus, then
since God did not prevent the murder of Jesus, then
God could not prevent the murder of Jesus, so therefore
God is not all-powerful.
Conclusion:
Therefore, God is either: (1) not all-powerful or not all-knowing or not all-loving, or (2) God is not all-powerful and not all-knowing and not all-loving.
God cannot be all-powerful and all-knowing and all-loving.
QED.
Comment:
If the God of Christianity is all-powerful and all-knowing and all-loving, then that God cannot exist.
In a secular society, God would be charged with racial and religious discrimination, upholding and justifying slavery as an instiution, genocide, child abuse, infanticide, and possibly rape and adultery.
Although the article continues below, you could go to Page contents near top.
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Let us sketch some of the historical record of Christianity to see whether it has been of net benefit to mankind.
In the USA, although black and white clergy were among the marchers against segregation, a large number of white clergy were defenders of segregation. Segregation itself was a continuation of slavery, both being the product of racism, which in turn was a product of Christianity, as is fully supported in the Bible.
It was a fundamental Christian belief, expressed in the Scriptures and repeated by later Christians, that all pagans serve Satan and that Christians had a right to protect themselves against corruption by pagans and a duty to save the pagans if possible from eternal damnation and torture (by a "loving" God). These beliefs led them to slaughter or enslave millions of European pagans in centuries of crusades, until all of Europe was Christianized.
We know this today because Christian clergymen proudly wrote lengthy chronicles describing in nauseating detail the atrocities Christians committed in forcing pagan conversions.
When 15th-century Christians discovered new lands full of pagans, they did to Africans and American Indians exactly what they did to European pagans, only with one difference. For centuries, Christian artwork had depicted Satan and his demons as black. In Christian literature, Satan was described as black, even specifically as an African, such as in Athanasius' Life of Saint Anthony and the medieval best-seller Voyage of Brendan. Not surprisingly, Christians decided that Africans and Indians were a lot closer to Satan than white-skinned Europeans and acted accordingly to protect themselves from the "pollution" of contact with dark-skinned peoples. Read historian Forrest G. Wood's The Arrogance of Faith for an in-depth exploration of the Christian origin of racism, slavery and segregation.
That's why defenders of slavery in the antebellum South repeatedly use the Bible and refer to Christian concepts in their arguments. Read The Ideology of Slavery, which reprints slavery defenses, edited by Drew Gilpin Faust, to see how devoutly Christian the defenders were. Defenders correctly note that the Bible repeatedly condones slavery, even commands it at times, and never condemns it. Even the Tenth Commandment condones slavery; so much for the Commandments as a source of moral virtue. Also read Proslavery, by Larry E. Tise, pages 116-120, for surveys showing the overwhelmingly Christian character of slavery defenses. In one survey of pro-slavery tracts, clergymen wrote more than half.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, it's no surprise that Sunday morning became the most segregated time of the week. Nor is it surprising that it was agnostics and atheists in various liberal movements who spoke out first against segregation and racism. That's one reason that white segregationists--clergy included--labeled the civil-rights workers "communists," a word they considered synonymous with atheism.
Germany before Hitler's rise was a Christian nation. The majority of its citizens were Christians, mostly Protestants. Hitler came to power only through the support of millions of German Christians, including many Protestant and Catholic clergy and key political supporters. He was reared as a Christian himself, was baptized as a Roman Catholic, and invoked God, Jesus and Christianity in his speeches and in Mein Kampf. You can question whether he was still really a Christian in the 1930s, but his hatred of Jews--like the anti-Semitism of millions of his supporters--was based solely in Christianity. He was never excommunicated by the Catholic church.
It was Christianity, beginning with the Scriptures, that preached that the Jews were servants of Satan, just like pagans. It was Christians who tortured and killed countless Jews over the centuries. While Jews were tolerated at times and places in Christian Europe, their position was always precarious. They were forcibly converted by the Byzantines, Visigoths and the victorious Spanish and Portuguese Christians of 1492. They were driven from England and France at various times. Christians slaughtered Jews out of sheer hatred in the First Crusade, during the Black Death, and many times simply because a "blood libel" or a host-nailing accusation put Christians in the mood for a pogrom. In the 19th century, Christian political parties in Germany, Austria, Hungary and other countries fought ferociously against granting equal civil rights to Jews. In France, the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus was framed as a spy by conservative Christians, some of whom never acknowledged his innocence; a few later collaborated with the Nazis.
Whatever the other sources of Nazism may be, its racism and anti-Semitism are solely the product of Christian beliefs and Christian history. Christianity bears sole guilt for the Holocaust. The few liberal Christians who opposed Hitler -- among whom the theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer, who suffered for his opposition to the Nazis, is often cited. -- cannot reduce the massive guilt of Christianity as a whole for its role in Nazi crimes, which included destroying freethought and atheist organizations in Germany because they opposed Hitler. As part of the Concordat between Hitler and the Vatican in 1933, the Vatican agreed to cut its support of the Freedom Party, the only major opposition to Hitler during his rise to power. In return, the Vatican gained increased control over its bishops in Germany.
One could pose the following question. Were Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin "weak-minded"?
In one sense, certainly not. They were ruthless religious fanatics who supported the repression of all dissent against Christianity--specifically, the version that they and their supporters believed in. Repression began as soon as the Christians gained control of the Roman Empire; Constantine jailed or suppressed Christian bishops who supported Arius. In 385 C.E., the dissident (i.e., "heretic") Priscillian and his followers were executed for heresy. In the 5th century Augustine provided the Church with an ideological foundation for repression. Augustine gave the Church a fig leaf of arguments to cover its naked crimes. In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas supported the execution of heretics. Luther rails against his opponents in numerous works and supported killing , book burning, and the destruction of Jewish places of worship and their writings. Calvin let his deeds speak for themselves, instituting a theocracy in Geneva and sending the theologian Michael Servetus to the stake, among other victims.
It's true that Mother Teresa helped people in the slums of India. But much of her reputation is simply Christian propaganda and the kind of shameless celebrity-mongering that the modern media are all too fond of. As Christopher Hitchens documents, Mother Teresa collected millions of dollars under the pretense of helping the poor, but actually spent only pennies on the dollar of her income, saving the rest for her movement. Poor people dying of lingering, agonizing illnesses got aspirin and a cot to die on, when her movement could easily have afforded good medicine, powerful painkillers and modern facilities. Mother Teresa also didn't care where her money came from; she hobnobbed with dictators who squeezed money from their desperate subjects and bought her good name for their benefit. And Charles Keating's victims never recovered the money he gave her.
More importantly, the biggest cause of India's problem is the size of its population. Population control through family planning and contraceptives is urgent there, yet Mother Teresa fought against these vital programs. Indian humanists despised her.
The alleged benefits of Catholic education are often cited. The Catholic school system in tthe USA was founded in part because of the bigotry of the Protestant majority, who made many public schools into Protestant-propaganda organs. Catholics who protested were brutalized in various ways--an antiCatholic riot in 1843 in Philadelphia, stirred by the school dispute, left 13 people dead; a teacher whipped a boy in 1859 for refusing to recite the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments--a Christian jury acquitted the teacher of criminal charges.
For centuries, Christianity required that all education conform to official Christian doctrine. The Christian Byzantine Emperor Justinian closed the Neoplatonist Academy of Athens in 532, seized its endowment for the benefit of Christians and prohibited the teaching of anything except Christian doctrines in schools. That ban was copied in every Christian-controlled society and was not lifted until the passage of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the USA. Small wonder the Religious Reich hates the First Amendment and has tried repeatedly, through its congressional puppets, to run it through a shredder.
Christian apologists in the USA often note that "we are one of the most religiously observant countries in the world." Yes, and we're one of the most violent societies as well. The most Christian region of the country, the South, has the worst record of criminal violence, not to mention the highest regional rates of poverty, illiteracy, out-of-wedlock births and sexually transmitted diseases. If Christianity were beneficial to society, the South would be a far better place. If Christianity is as influential as some claim, then Christianity has to share in the blame for these problems.
By contrast, nonChristian Japan is one of the least violent societies today. In Western Europe, where atheism is much stronger, the level of violence also is much lower. Massacres in schools, churches and office buildings are far fewer.
One exception in Europe is Yugoslavia, where devout Roman Catholics in Croatia and Orthodox Catholics in Serbia have been slaughtering each other--and a lot of Muslims in between them--for much of the decade.
Another European exception is Northern Ireland, where Protestants and Roman Catholics have slaughtered each other by the thousands for centuries, ever since two 12th-century popes supported King Henry II of England in his invasion of Ireland because the Irish were not the right kind of Christians.
An education by nuns and monks simply leaves one ignorant or deceived about the history and nature of Christianity. A proper, secular education would teach that Christianity has been a source of bigotry, discrimination, repression and endless violence because Christians did indeed consider it their duty "to go out and stick their noses in other people's business."
Tough-minded people, such as freethinkers, are willing to live with the doubts and uncertainties of life, particularly as represented in the probing skepticism of science and philosophy, and feel no need to kill anyone for disagreeing with them or challenging their ideas.
It would take many more pages to even summarize the contradictions inherent within the Bible and Christianity. For such information, refer to the following very detailed source, from which only some extracts have been copied, some highlighted by me.
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Tough Questions for the Christian Church, by James Buckner
http://www.churchofsatan.org/tough.html
Extracts:
After years of studying the Bible as an individual and in groups, listening to sermons, attending Christian conferences, leading a small group Bible study, reading evangelicalism's best apologists, and even preaching from the pulpit once, I was dismayed to discover that the church cannot answer the tough questions about Christianity. And I was heartbroken when I finally recognized, quite contrary to my own wish, that the cumulative force of the so-called "difficulties" thoroughly and unquestionably discredits Christianity.
Problems with the Integrity of the Bible
Biblical Inconsistencies
Biblical Ambiguities and Omissions
Misinterpretation of Scripture by New Testament Figures
Failed Biblical Promises
Failed Prophecies
Problems with Miracles
Origin and Transmission of the Scriptures
The Canon
Biblical Values
1. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, why did God lie about what the outcome would be (Genesis 2:17),
while the serpent told the truth (Genesis 3:5,22)?
2. Why are women treated as chattel and inferior to men throughout the Bible?
3. Why is the Old Testament and most of the New Testament addressed only to free men, and not to women or slaves? Does God deal only with free males?
4. Why does the Bible condone slavery?
5. Why does Yahweh command genocide, including the killing of infants? Why does he command that all women who have "known a man" be slaughtered, but the soldiers are to keep the young virgins for their own use (Numbers 31:14-18)? Why does the Bible portray Yahweh as worse than Hitler (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)? Isn't it blasphemous to call the Bible "God's Word," when it libels him so?
6. Why doesn't the Bible condemn polygamy? Is it not really a sin? In fact, the Bible seems to condone polygamy through examples of God blessing polygamists and by its explicit statements regarding David.
7. Why wasn't Lot condemned for giving his daughters to be abused by the men of Sodom (Genesis 19:8)? The Bible actually calls him righteous (2 Peter 2:7)!
8. How can Christians say that the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion is based on Judeo-Christian ethics when Deuteronomy 13:6-10 and 17:2-7 flatly contradict this?
9. How can being mauled by a bear possibly be a just punishment for name-calling (2 Kings 2:23-24)? Doesn't this contradict God's own edict of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth?"
10. Why is faith - believing something for which there is no evidence - a virtue?
11. Why is rational skepticism a vice? If Christianity is true, won't the truth hold up under scrutiny? Shouldn't the church welcome and promote rational skepticism as a way of confirming and spreading the faith when people see that it fails to undermine Christianity? Why isn't skeptical literature studied and refuted in Sunday School classes?
Biblical Guidance
Conflicts with Science Absurd Doctrines
1. Where is the justice in punishing us for Adam's sin? The Bible itself says that children will not be punished for the parents' sins (Deuteronomy 24:16). Furthermore, if God really created Adam not knowing either good or evil (Genesis 3:22), how could such a harsh and enduring punishment as death for Adam and all his descendants possibly be just? Our secular courts are more just than God when they show mercy on people who cannot distinguish between right and wrong, such as children and the mentally handicapped. And why isn't this doctrine of original sin found anywhere in the Bible except in Paul's writings?
2. Where is the justice in punishing Jesus for our sins? If our courts of law were to accept the punishment of someone else in the place of the criminal, we would not say that justice has been done, but that injustice has been added to injustice. Would the church have me believe that two wrongs make a right?
3. How can sacrificing Jesus on behalf of the sinner atone for another's sin? This would be like killing my child to reconcile for the misbehavior of my neighbor's child. I have the capacity simply to forgive and forget without demanding compensation for small offenses. Why can't God do this? Does he simply want blood?
4. Why pray? If it changes God's mind then he is not sovereign. If it does not change God's mind then it is superfluous.
5. How can the doctrine of the Trinity possibly be true? Any attempt to make sense of it leads to contradictions. If it is so important, why isn't it clearly taught in the Bible? Why shouldn't an objective student of the doctrine conclude that it was created by the church to hide biblical inconsistencies about the nature of Christ behind a shroud of mystery?
6. Why is God concerned about humans at all? We are less than a speck in the universe. Christianity has the hallmarks of being a religion made by humans for humans.
7. Why have all the rational arguments for the existence of God been successfully refuted? If God exists, is it unreasonable to suppose that there would be at least one irrefutable proof of his existence?
8. Why haven't the existing proofs of God's non-existence been refuted? Surely believers, who have the advantage of an indwelling Holy Spirit with an "infinite mind," cannot be stumped by "finite minds" of unbelievers working within the confining limitations of reason, can they?
9. Why is it that some teachings are conveniently tautological (i.e., circular)? For example, you must pray the will of God in order for prayer to be answered; you must believe the Bible in order to understand the Bible; and the Bible is the Word of God, therefore it is true.
10. How exactly does "loving God and enjoying him forever" give meaning to life? Any satisfying secular activity can give meaning to life. Why does the Christian assume that a metaphysical meaning for life is necessary? Isn't it the Christian who imposes meaninglessness on this present life, declaring that meaning depends for its existence on the life to come? And if Christians did not believe they will live forever, would they continue to love and serve God? Isn't it really eternal life that the Christian loves, and not God? If purpose in this present life is really derived from loving and serving God, then what sense does it make for Christians to make meaning dependent upon a future life?
11. Where is objective, verifiable evidence that a soul or spirit exists and survives the body after death? Why does the Old Testament deny such an idea until the later writings, which show the influence of Greek ideas? The idea of "progressive revelation" does not explain this.
Intractable Theological Problems
1. How could Adam and Eve ever have sinned if God had actually created them perfect, even if they did have free will? If God created them imperfect, how could a perfect omnipotent being create anything imperfect?
2. How can evil exist in the world if God is simultaneously good, omnipotent, and loving? Why is it that no theodicy stands up under rational scrutiny?
3. Why does the church say God did not create evil, when he himself claims that he did in Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, and Amos 3:6?
4. Why does God expressly take credit for creating disabilities (Exodus 4:11)? If these are God's doing, then why does the evangelical church insist that disabilities are the result of the fall, or of Satan's work?
5. Why would a loving, omnipotent, benevolent god cause people to believe falsehoods so that he can condemn them (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12)?
6. Why is the Bible inconsistent on major theological issues such as the nature and existence of an afterlife, the efficacy of works of the Law with regard to salvation, and the distinction between soul and spirit?
7. Why does the evangelical church speak of absolute values when the Bible teaches situational ethics?
8. Why is it not possible to formulate a systematic theology that agrees with the Bible in all points? Roman Catholic theology introduces unbiblical and irrational ideas; Calvinistic reformed theology stumbles at the existence of evil; covenantal theology muddles the biblical distinctions between Israel and the church; dispensational theology is too hopelessly complex to be credible because every major inconsistency is explained away by spuriously introducing a new "dispensation;" and Arminianism destroys the sovereignty of God.
9. Why doesn't the Bible itself present its own "revealed" systematic theology. Doesn't God want us to have a consistent and complete framework of theology to support right decision making and teaching others?
Blemishes on the Church
10. Why does the evangelical church rail against one-world government, since they say it is God's plan as revealed in Revelation? How can they justify speaking and acting against God's revealed plan?
The Headless Church
1. Why is the evangelical church subject to the same social movements as the rest of society? If the church is headed by the living Christ, shouldn't the institution be a steady keel in a stormy sea?
2. Why does the church trail rather than lead in social reforms? (For example: the rise of capitalism, rise of the scientific method and critical thinking, abolition of slavery, eradication of Nazism, women's suffrage, civil rights of African Americans after the abolition of slavery.) And why does the church dishonestly claim leadership in these reforms after the fact?
3. Why are the church's day-to-day practices guided by cultural norms rather than by the perfect, absolute, unchangeable norms of God and the Bible? For example, why do churches separate children from their families and age-grade them like the schools, why does the church propagate self-help ideology when the message of the Bible is dependence upon God, why does the church accept and participate in competition where it has rejected it in the past, why has the service of women in the church been addressed only after secular culture has addressed women's issues, why does the style of music in the church and church architecture follow cultural patterns instead of defining cultural patterns?
4. Why doesn't the church understand Jesus's teachings? Why are most preachers afraid to preach straight through a gospel from beginning to end?
Why do they skip over Jesus's "difficult" sayings and the enigmatic passages?
Character of the Church
1. Why has the church done so little good and so much harm in 2000 years, while science has demonstrated remarkable progress in only 500 years? Why is the period when the church dominated western history universally referred to as the Dark Ages, while the period of breaking away from church dogma is called the Enlightenment?
2. Why are the Crusades and the Inquisition and other church-sponsored atrocities politely ignored in many church education programs, leaving church members to learn of these in other venues, or, more likely, to remain ignorant of the heritage of the institution to which they belong and contribute.
3. Why does the church conceal and ignore and misrepresent legitimate criticisms and critics? If Christianity is undoubtedly true, why doesn't the church demonstrate it by refuting the whole body of skeptical literature in Sunday School classes? The church isn't trying to hide something is it? How can the church possibly maintain credibility when it is so blatantly partisan on the side of dogma, and obviously not dispassionately seeking truth wherever the evidence may lead.
4. Why do so many members of the church dismiss the veracity of unbelief without even giving it a fair hearing, especially in light of biblical condemnations of this behavior, such as "He who answers before listening - that is his folly and his shame," (Proverbs 18:13, NIV), and "The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him," (Proverbs 18:17, NIV), for example.
Problems with Jesus's Credentials and Character
13. Why would Jesus prophesy that his kingdom would come in glory before some of those listening to him died, but the kingdom still has not come (Matt 16:18, Matt 10:23, Mark 9:1, Luke 21:31-32)? Surely the son of God could not have spoken a false prophecy, could he?
14. Why did Jesus say his followers must hate their families? Surely, when the son of God said "hate" he meant "hate," didn't he? Why would the son of God confuse us by using hyperbole? How could the examples of Luke 9:59-62, even if allegorical, be hyperbole anyway? Jesus clearly called a man to the irresponsible, disrespectful action of leaving his father, implying that he was not even to attend his funeral, and he called another to leave his family without even saying farewell or letting them know he was deserting them.
15. Why was Jesus disrespectful of his mother?
In John 2:4, Jesus uses the same words with his mother that demons use when they meet Jesus. Surely the son of God knew that Mary had the blessing of the Father, didn't he, not to mention that the son of God would never be rude?
Evolution of Religion by Naturalistic Social Processes
1. If Christian theology and the church have a supernatural origin in an omnipotent God, then why has theology and the church evolved through naturalistic social processes over time?
2. Why does theology change from the beginning of the Bible to the end? Why are the later writings influenced by Greek thought (for example, immortality)? Why is there such a large theological gap between the Old and New Testaments? The changes are not explainable by the idea of "progressive revelation," or by any systematic theology.
3. Why was the doctrine of the Trinity unknown to the church until the fourth century? Why was the doctrine established by vote instead of by revelation? Why was the membership of the voting council loaded with Athanasians? Why was belief in this then-new doctrine made a condition for membership in the church? Why were Arians exiled and executed?
4. Why is Jesus so similar to the other 15 suffering saviors of mythology? Why don't Christians believe any of the other virgin births and savior stories recorded in ancient literature? How is it that the ritual of Christian communion existed in the prior pagan ceremonies of eating the body and drinking the blood of their gods? How is it that the Christian ritual of baptism also existed in the prior pagan cults? Weren't the very defining doctrines of Christianity actually assimilated from the endemic pagan cults? Likewise, why are Easter, Christmas, the Lenten season, rogation days, and others, derived from pagan holidays. Didn't Christianity have any legitimate calendar of commemorations of its own?
5. How did liberal churches come to exist? If they are inclined to believe, why did they not continue to believe the "fundamentals?" Could it be because the fundamentals have insurmountable problems that discredit them?
Conclusion
1. Why hasn't the church answered any of these questions in the 23 years I have been a part of it?
2. Why hasn't the church answered any of these questions in 2000 years?
I can only conclude that it is because the church has no answers.
(c) Copyright 1997, James Buckner. Permission is hereby given to reproduce and distribute this material in whole or in part in any medium, on condition that the reproductions not be sold for any form of consideration, and on condition that the author is duly cited as the source.
===================================================
Some quotations of note:
My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. . . . Bertrand Russell
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.". . . Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, 1957
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather then by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless and will therefore result to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called "education"." . . . Bertrand Russell
"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." . . . Bertrand Russell
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence." . . . Bertrand Russell
"What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer." . . . Bertrand Russell
"There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate government action.". . . Bertrand Russell
"There has been a rumor in recent years to the effect that I have become less opposed to religious orthodoxy than I formerly was. This rumor is totally without foundation. I think all the great religions of the world- Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism- both untrue and harmful." Bertrand Russell, 1957
"Religion is based ... mainly upon fear ... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand . . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.". . . Bertrand Russell
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion. . . . . . . Bertrand Russell
"The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the...passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life." . . . Bertrand Russell
"Everything Hitler did to the Jews, all the horribly unspeakable misdeeds, had already been done to the smitten people before by the Christian churches. . . . The isolation of Jews into ghetto camps, the wearing of the yellow spot, the burning of Jewish books, and finally the burning of the people - Hitler learned it all from the church. However, the church burned Jewish women and children alive, while Hitler granted them a quicker death, choking them first with gas.". . . Dagobert RunesThe further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.". . . Albert Einstein
It was, of course, a lie that you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. . . . Albert Einstein
"Religion has come to mean placing our trust outside ourselves, remaining like children following a long succession of father figures, teachers, preachers, and politicians. And how do we know, once we have ceased to trust ourselves, whether they are Gods or psychopaths?" . . . xX_Fairuza_Xx
"What if we chose the wrong religion? We're just making God madder and madder every Sunday." . . . Homer Simpson
"The Vision of Christ that thou dost see,
Is my vision's greatest enemy.
Thine is the Friend of all Mankind,
Mine speaks in Parables to the blind.
Thine loves the same world that mine hates,
Thy heaven-doors are my hell gates." . . . William Blake"Religion...is the opium of the masses." . . . Karl Marx
"Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money." . . . Leon Lederman
"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." . . . Arthur C. Clarke
"God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown." . . . Friedrich Neitzsche
I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough - I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race." . . . .Nietzsche
"Faith: not wanting to know what is true." . . . Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time." . . . Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?" . . . Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable." . . . H. L. Mencken
"They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse."
-Emily Dickinson"Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a God." . . . Jean Rostand
"I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability." . . . Oscar Wilde
"I'm still an atheist, thank God." . . . Luis Bunuel
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." . . . Voltaire
"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds." . . . Edmund Burke
"Religion is superstition, but with even more rabbit's feet to shake hands with. There's the Shroud, the wooden chips from the Cross, belief in God, Elvis sightings , ..." . . . Wayne Paulson
"Censorship of the Internet is the important first step needed in order to rewrite history in the image of a Christian Disneyland. It is already partly rewrittten. One wonders what George Orwell would have thought!" . . . Wayne Paulson
"God must have either fallen asleep during the Holocaust, or his prayer-line was out of order, or He just thought the whole affair was of no more importance than an ant pile getting flooded. Do ants know how to pray? I think that the Jews tried to -- but maybe not in the "right" language?" . . . Wayne Paulson
"Hitler at least had his victims killed before burning them. Christianity, however, chose to burn its victims alive on its "sacred" crosses." . . . Wayne Paulson
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction." . . . Blaise Pascal
"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think." . . . Arthur Shopenhauer
"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever." . . . Woody Allen
"I'm not afraid to die -- as long as I'm not there at the time." . . . Woody Allen
"Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith." . . . Thomas Jefferson
"The clergy believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyrrany known to the mind of man." . . . Thomas Jefferson
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology." . . . Thomas Jefferson
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
. . . Ambrose Bierce"Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based." . . . Ambrose Bierce
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of." . . . Clarence Darrow
"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose." . . . Clarence Darrow
"The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one." . . . George Bernard Shaw
===================================================
Here endeth the sermon -- at least for now! I have been debating with myself for several years as to whether to call myself an agnostic or an atheist. That is: to state that either I (a) do not believe that God exists, or (b) I believe that God does not exist. Apart from the theological aspect of this question is a closely related one, and that is put into focus by whether or not one believes in the following quotation, by someone who for the life of me, I have not been able to track down (but would be quite in keeping with Bertrand Russell):
"What science cannot tell us, man cannot know".
My translation of this is as follows:
"Believing is not the same as knowing".
I think that this statement is at the same time very simple and very profound. One's answer hinges very crucially on the meanings one ascribes to the words "science" and "know". I take the word "science" in its broadest sense, as being a discipline based on the scientific method, involving theories and statements that are verifiable, at least in principle, by observation.can infer, and in many cases directly observe, something and say that we "know" From that discipline we it. What we thereby "know" may not be what some would think to be some "absolute truth", although, over years or centuries of development, it is expected to approach more and more closely what we might term absolute truth. At each stage, however, even the most hardened scientist would admit that even the most seemingly well-established theory is"just" our best interpretation of an underlying reality or, in other words, of absolute truth. It is always subject to challenge and to overthrow by a more general theory or, even , ideally, a simpler or more elegant theory. But, in contrast to recent tendencies toward Postmodernist ideas, the scientist would probably state that there is an underlying reality, even though our knowledge of it is as yet (and may always be) incomplete and less than perfect. It is in that sense that I believe in the quotation. Many, and I daresay perhaps even the majority of people, do not believe in the quotation. They find it repugnant. To them, it probably sounds too rationalistic, too impersonal, too cold , unemotional, and mechanistic. To some others, it may mean also a rejection of the possibility of anything supernatural, among which, for example could be beliefs in God, unseen (as yet) forces, some kind of life force (involved, for example, in body auras, and touch therapy), more impersonal forces such as those in Feng Shui, ghosts, spirits, water divining, and who knows what else. My sister, who used to go to a Protestant church, at least nominally, over the years, now goes to a Spiritualist (or Spirituality?) Church. It does not teach belief in God, but in some kind of "life force" that is supposed to be manifested in each cell of our body and who knows where else. Perhaps something akin to the teachings of Deepak Chopra and his reincarnation, in newer garb (using some ideas of Quantum Mechanics), of the teachings of ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine? Forgive me if I sound too skeptical!
In these matters, I consider myself to be a scientific rationalist" or "scientific reductionist", and tending more toward atheism than to agnosticism. In contrast to being a "scientific reductionist" are those who one might categorize as believing that a kind of holism is needed to explain things, especially life. To them, the beliefs of reductionism, valid as they may be, are not complete enough, even in principle, to give a collection of parts life. The extra ingredient needed, according to them, is some kind of life force akin to the elan vital or some kind of "connectedness". To consider reductionism as being the idea that the operation of an ensemble of matter and forces is sufficient in itself to explain life may not be giving reductionism its fair due. I consider that the extra ingredient needed to top off a very mechanistic reductionism is not some elan vital of the Enlightenment thinkers, but a combination of the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics combined with complexity theory, a manifestation of chaos theory. In essence, that argument is that, given a sufficient degree of quantity and complexity, an ensemble of molecules can evolve into and exhibit what we call life. The terminology in chaos theory is self-organizing systems.
We still need to say a bit more about the concepts of "know" and "believe". In the above quotation, and in general, I use the word "know" to mean having knowledge that is scientifically verifiable, or at least observable, in contrast to the idea that because one might "experience or believe" something it necessarily means that one "knows" something. As an example, consider the case where a touch therapist moves her hands near someone's body, all the while stating that she is manipulating the body's energy fields and restoring them to a more proper alignment, in order to cure or alleviate some ailment. After a few minutes of such "therapy", the patient arises, claiming to feel much better. Who are we to dispute that the patient feels better? Who are we to dispute that the patient "knows" that she feels better? As skeptical as I am, I might not even dispute these claims. But, when we ask the somewhat different question of whether or not the patient actually is better, then I may have a problem. The patient may claim that she has been healed. I might claim that I believe that she instead, feels and believes that she has been healed, but that this does not mean that she either (a) had an ailment to begin with, or (b) is now cured of that ailment. She might claim that she "knows" that she has been healed, and why not -- she feels much better! As a skeptic, if not a downright cynic, I might instead state that I think that it is more likely that she "believes" that she has been healed, but might not actually be healed. A medical diagnosis, as imperfect as it might be, might conclude that she has not been healed, even though she feels better. In that case I would argue that she "knows" something that is not true, namely that she has been cured. I would be happier if she had stated that she "believes" that she has been cured. So, to "know" something in that sense is not always to "know" something that is necessarily true.
We must also add a bit more about the concept of "belief". When I state that all religions have at their heart a belief in the supernatural, and that, usually, but not always, this supernatural entity is God, I can state that this is equivalent to believing in the irrational. Some religious people may take offense at my characterization of their core beliefs as being supernatural and irrational. So be it. I do not necessarily mean to be pejorative in speaking this way, but I probably am, I must admit. When some church people recently objected to the fact that some of the Harry Potter books were available in elementary school libraries, they objected, on the basis that they involved ideas of witchcraft and magic. I am not sure why they should protest so much. The Catholic Church recently appointed an exorcist for Ottawa. His specialty is to exorcise demons or the Devil that might inhabit someone. That someone could be someone as young as a new-born babe, exhibiting, perhaps, some dire consequences of the "original sin" that it acquired by virtue of its very birth alone. In essence, this is belief in magic. I should have thought that, as a young child, I would be more frightened by the prospect of demonic possession and spending an eternity in Hell being tortured by a "loving" God than by some magic tricks of Harry or the erstwhile witch of the willows! After all, the book is not intended to be anything more theological than fairy tales. And yet, in our publicly funded separate schools, which can be Catholic only, such beliefs in demons are required of Catholics. Our state is thereby promoting such beliefs. Do I call religious beliefs, the supernatural, superstition, magic, vital life forces, black magic, witchcraft, voodoo, and a host of others by the terms religious, supernatural, and irrational? Yes I do -- they are one and the same thing in that sense.
When a religious person challenges me and states that all beliefs have a degree of irrationality in them, so why be so critical of religious belief by calling it irrational, my response is to agree that, perhaps with any belief, no matter how rational it may appear to be, there is always some degree of irrationality involved. I am willing to agree in principle. However, in doing so, I maintain that there is a huge gap of difference between believing that someone is possessed by the Devil and stating that I believe that the bus will arrive at my stop in about ten minutes. My belief about the bus may turn out to be wrong. Furthermore, it is not a statement about absolute reality. It is only a statement of reasonable expectation. The bus might be here in forty minutes instead of ten (it got detoured to another route again!); however, there was at least a reasonable basis for my belief, based on past experience and the knowledge that there was a system in place whose aim was to deliver buses to the right place at appointed times. In contrast, what basis is there for believing that the odd behavior of that person that the exorcist is now studying was due to demonic possession rather than, for example, to an organic brain disease or some psychological condition, in spite of the care which the Church takes in avoiding such misunderstandings?
I put the following little anecdote to a scientific friend of mine. In a debate, a theologian challenges an atheist scientist by stating that science cannot explain everything. The atheist replied by saying that he fully agrees that science cannot explain everything, but that at least it can explain some things, whereas religion cannot explain one single thing whatsoever. My friend took exception to what I thought to be a truism. I suspect that he is religious at heart, although liberal minded. He objected on the basis that he thinks that science and religion are two separate realms, each based on fundamental beliefs that at heart are irrational or quasi-religious. He objected to my example that the standard model, with the big bang and inflationary theory could explain the evolution of the universe, from about the first millionth of a second after its creation to the present, represented a theory that was not necessarily more rational than a religious view. He further stated that it was not the essence of religion to explain anything. My rejoinder was that this has not prevented religion from jailing Galilleo for upstart ideas about the solar system, about criticizing theories of creation and evolution, from banning and burning books and people, from banning contraception and knowledge of it, and much more. I must admit that this gives me some pause and the need for further thought on the issue. There are two schools of thought on this fundamental issue. One stance is to maintain that religion and science are two separate realms of thought, each with their own validity, that do not overlap. The other approach is to maintain that there cannot be two separate realms of ultimate understanding and knowledge. I tend to the latter view. I illustrate this by way of the following letter that I wrote, which was, alas, unpublished.
=======================================
To: Letters Editor, National Post
Re: Letter "Beyond belief" by Rev. Mark Woods, Oct. 5, 2000, p. A19
Evolving belief
(About 148 words to follow, from ~~~~ to ~~~~ .)
~~~~~
In his letter (Oct. 5, Beyond Belief), the Rev. Mark Woods implies that it takes just as much, if not more, "irrational arguments based on faith" to believe that a "whole bunch of nothing" could explode and eventually create life, as it does for his parishioners to believe religious dogmas.
I take strong exception to that point of view. Rational theories justified by fact can explain how matter can be created (and annihilated) in the vacuum state and how the interaction of matter and energy can produce and evolve all of life. Physics can reasonably explain the evolution of the universe from a millionth of a second after the big bang to now.
A theologian might challenge a scientist by saying that science cannot explain everything. Any scientist would readily agree, but would retort that at least science can explain some things, whereas religion cannot explain anything whatsoever.
~~~~~
You are free to publish any or all of the above, edited as you wish, and to quote my name and city.
Signed: Wayne R. Paulson , Ottawa
=======================================
I think that my friend thought that it was I, not the pastor, who was being too dogmatic in a sense, and perhaps I was. In particular, I was assuming the validity of the big-bang theory, as opposed, for example, to a steady-state theory of Hoyle. However, it, to my mind ,is more valid, even if it is not some absolute truth, than one's religious belief that the universe was created on the back of a big turtle. That theory begs the question of where the turtle came from. My big bang theory also begs a question. Where did the vacuum come from, a quantum fluctuation of which created a huge dump of energy from the false vacuum, from which energy evolved into the present mixture of energy and matter in which we now find ourselves? The, in my mind, equivalent problem faced by the pastor in believing that God created the universe is to explain where God came from. So, do we consider the two ultimate questions to be of equal strength or weakness, namely, (a) who or what created the initial vacuum, and (b) who or what created God, who then went on to create either (i) the initial vacuum, or (ii) the beginnings, if not the complete evolution of, the universe? The pastor did not even get to the distinction posited in the preceding sentence. He was disputing the idea that matter could be created out of a vacuum -- calling it a theory that required as much, if not more, irrationality as do his dogmatic religious beliefs. I strongly dispute his contention. It is an observable fact that matter can be created out of vacuum (the Casimir effect, among others). To imply, as he seems to, that by a vacuum we mean emptiness, is false. The vacuum state is not empty. It is humming with energy, the very energy from which, as governed by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, matter can be created, albeit with brief lifetimes that are in accordance with that Principle! It does not require irrational belief, or at least not belief approaching in any way the degree of irrationality of believing that God exists, much less that He could, or would want to, create anything.
The following lettter that I sent may shed more light on the question of degrees of irrationality.
================================================= C:\Up\Belief1.rtf 1-Feb-00
To : Letters Editor, National Post
Re: Article "Is belief in God rational?", 29 Jan 00, p. B11
Rational belief in the irrational?
(About 270 words to follow, from ~~~~ to ~~~~.)
~~~~~~~
In the article "Is belief in God rational?", Jan. 29, the "reformed
epistemologist" Alvin Plantinga is portrayed as endeavoring to show that
one may, without evidence, be just as entitled to believe that Jesus is the
Son of God as to believe that, for example, the earth is spherical. He
claims that religious beliefs are rational, and therefore "warranted",
provided that they are held by sane people with normal faculties and that
there is some protocol by which some beliefs may be invalidated.
This endeavor seems to me to be ridiculous. It puts emotional perception on
the same basis as rational thought as a platform for establishing
knowledge. Plantinga considers belief in God to be warranted on the basis
of emotional perception. Why should we think that a belief in one God is
warranted? Christians believe in either one God or three Gods. Other
religions might believe in thirteen Gods. Are these beliefs all
"warranted", and therefore true? Is it true that there is both (a) one and
only one God and (b) exactly thirteen Gods? Is it warranted to believe that
both (a) and (b) are true simultaneously? If one person believes (a) and
another believes (b), is each person in possession of the truth? It would
seem so if we accept emotional perception as a basis for knowledge.
I would not grace the term "warranted belief" with the term "rational".
The terms "irrational", "emotional", "delusional" and "superstitious" seem
more appropriate. That a belief could serve as a basis for truth is
dangerous in that it would seemingly justify irrational beliefs, be they
religious or otherwise. Remember the Crusades?
~~~~~~~
You are free to publish any or all of the above, including my name.
Signed: Wayne R. Paulson, Ottawa
==========================================================================Additional sources:
KAGIN'S COLUMN
ON RELIGION AS A PUBLIC HEALTH THREAT
http://www.edwinkagin.com/columns/health-threat.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HAS RELIGION MADE USEFUL CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION?
By Bertrand Russell 1930http://www.afgen.com/brussell.html Extracts: My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =======================================================
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VATICAN ASKS COURT, U.S. GOVERNMENT TO DISMISS LAWSUIT OVER NAZI GOLD Church Evades Responsibility For Clerical Fascism
from: AMERICAN ATHEISTS subject: AANEWS for November 26, 2000
A M E R I C A N A T H E I S T S #847 11/26/00
http://www.atheists.org ftp.atheists.org/pub/atheists/
http://www.americanatheist.org http://www.AtheistViewpoint.tv
AMERICAN ATHEISTS: "Leading The Way For Atheist Civil Rights And The Separation Of State and Church"--------------------------------------------------------------
The Institute for Religious Works -- the cover name for the Vatican bank -- has asked a U.S. District Court in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit charging the Holy See with laundering gold expropriated from Holocaust and other victims during W.W.II.
A class action filed in November, 1999 accuses the Vatican of colluding with the Swiss National Bank and the Franciscan Order in concealing hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and assets stolen by the Croatian Nazi Ustashi (Ustasha) regime between 1941-1945. A San Francisco law firm headed by Jonathan Levy and Thomas Dewey Easton represents 28 plaintiffs in ALPERIN v. VATICAN BANK.
The suit deals with atrocities carried by the Nazi puppet government of Ante (Anton) Pavelic, head of the "Catholic State of Croatia." The Pavelic regime was typical of political movements which had sprung up throughout Europe and supported "Clerical Fascism" -- an amalgam of orthodox Catholic doctrine, Anti-Semitism and authoritarian politics. These groups enjoyed the assistance of both the Fascist government in Italy under Mussolini and Nazi Germany's "Ausland" department which assisted like-minded movements outside of Hitler's state. In Croatia, Pavelic's Roman Catholic terrorists received critical funding in 1939 from Mussolini, and with the help of Archbishop A. Stepanic helped establish the Croat Separatist Movement and eventually seized power.
Under the Ustashi, a virtual reign of terror descended upon Jews, Orthodox Serbs who refused to convert to Catholicism, and political dissidents. Pavelic's government operated death camps, and extorted a fortune in gold and other valuables, much from Jews who were shipped to work and extermination camps in Germany. The Ustashi had the support of the Catholic Church (Archbishop Stepanic was the group's official "chaplain" and gave his blessing to the Pavelic regime), and especially the Croatian Franciscans. The San Francisco lawsuit charges that the Catholic order "engaged in far ranging crimes including genocide, funding the reestablishment of the Croatian Nazi movement in South America in the 1950s, and setting up a false Marian religious shrine in Medjugorje, Bosnia in 1981 to bilk pilgrims of funds." The money from this "miracles on demand" scam was then "combined with the remnants of the Croatian Nazi Treasury to fund a second round of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kreanjina in the 1990s."
The latest battle in the lawsuit comes after several interesting developments...
* On October 11, 2000, Levy and Easton announced that the plaintiffs were asking a Federal Magistrate to order the Institute for Religious Works (the Vatican Bank) to divulge information about itself "including its ownership." At issue was who actually owned the bank. "There may be certain defenses available to the bank if it is owned by the Vatican City state but if it owned by an individual or individuals the situation is completely different."
* This past Friday, October 24, Reuters news service revealed that the Vatican was asking that the suit against IOR and the Franciscan Order be dismissed. The plaintiffs have been unable to successfully serve legal notice on the Swiss National Bank. In a 41-page filing, Vatican attorneys charged that the Holocaust-Ustashi victims "lack standing to bring a general challenge to the wartime political decisions of a foreign sovereign (state)."
Supporting the Vatican's filing is a "Verbal Note" from the Holy See's Secretary of State posted at http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/vatsec.htm which acknowledges the San Francisco case and a similar suit in Los Angeles, and cites diplomatic immunity.
"Basing itself upon the diplomatic relations which exist between the United States of America and the Holy See, as well as the recognition which the Government of the United States has accorded to the sovereignty of the Holy See and of Vatican City State, the Secretariat of State requests the intervention of the Federal Government of the United States of America..."
* The suit draws upon a treasure trove of historical documents, including declassified CIA files, a 1998 U.S. Department of State Report, and revelations made by researchers Mark Aarons and John Loftus in their book "Unholy Trinity." These and other materials describe the role of the Vatican and the Franciscan group in providing passports via a "ratline" run by the Holy See for former fascist officials, including Adolph Eichmann, Gestapo official Klaus Barbie, and Ustashi dictator Pavelic. One 1946 U.S. Treasury document, for instance, indicates that the Vatican served as a repository for more than 200 million Swiss francs. Catholic officials linked to the "ratline" operation include Bishop Alois Mudal and Giovanni Montini (who became Pope Paul VI).
* The Los Angeles suit, NAUMOVIC v. SWISS NATIONAL BANK, has sought restitution from Swiss banks on behalf of the survivors of over 12 million non-Jewish victims of the Nazis in Yugoslavia and Russia. There is also LEVY v. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY which involves a Freedom of Information request for files regarding the activities of the Vatican spymaster, Fr. Krusnoslav Draganovic. Draganovic was part of a cadre of high Catholic officials who were indicted for war crimes, including Fr. Dragutin Kamber; Bishop Ivan Saric ("Hangman of the Serbs"); Bishop Gregory Rozman; and Franciscan Fr. Miroslam Filipovic-Majstorovic, a commandant of a Ustashi torture camp where hundreds of thousands of victims (Jewish and non-Jewish) were slaughtered with a degree of brutality that shocked even the Nazi SS.
Draganovic was a Franciscan and senior Ustashi official in charge of the forced "conversion" of Serb Orthodox believers to Catholicism. In 1943, he gained an appointment in Vatican City where he operated an Ustashi cell housed in a seminary of Croatian monks. He and another priest identified as Golik helped operate the Vatican "ratline" to obtain forged documents, including Red Cross passports, for a number of Croatian fascists. Draganovic came to be known as "The Golden Priest," since he ended up with at least some of the gold smuggled out of Croatia when the Germans retreated. He was never charged for his crimes, and returned to Yugoslavia where he died in 1983.
* The legacy of the "ratline" and other operations -- many of which involved the Holy See -- shaped the postwar era. Some Vatican-held gold made its way to Latin America where German and other Nazi expatriates found a warm welcome, and established economic combines and cultural/political groups. Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief of Lyons, used his influence to work with Bolivia drug lord Robert Suarez and pull off the notorious "Cocaine Coup" which placed the notorious Hugo Banzer Suarez in power in Bolivia. Another fascist operative who maintained close ties to the Vatican was the mysterious Liccio Gelli, a former Italian Black Shirt who after the war worked closely with the CIA in "Operation Gladio." Gelli was in charge of a renegade Masonic Lodge, P-2 or Propaganda Due which in the late 1970s and early 80s was linked to an attempted fascist coup in Italy. He was a close friend of Argentine President Juan Peron, and backed the dictator's return to power in 1973; he also was part of an arms-for-machinery deal involving Libya, Italy and Argentina. Gelli was a central player in the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano and the mysterious 1982 death of banker Roberto Calvi; that story linked the Vatican Bank, then under the control of American monsignor Paul Marcinkus.
Obfuscation, Denials From The Holy See
The bloody history of the Catholic State of Croatia is emerging as part of a larger tapestry involving the role played by the Vatican in World War II, particularly in respect to the Jews. Recent books have explored the role played by Archbishop Pacelli, the papal nuncio in Munich, Germany who later became Pope Pius XII. Not only was Pacelli an anti-Semite, but he may well have found an accommodation with Hitler preferable to the specter of what he described as "Bolshevik atheism." Loftus and Aarons are among those who argue that Pacelli encourage the Church to invest large amounts of cash in the Germany economic recovery, and may have even personally handed Hitler a large amount of "church money."
Other evidence points to an obscure group called the Intermarium, a Catholic laity organization that labored to establish "clerical fascist" regimes throughout Europe as a bulwark against the Soviets. Fr. Draganovic was allegedly linked to this group.
The role played by Pius XII -- and the charge that he ignored the plight of European Jews -- is still debated by historians. Recently rediscovered cables from 1942, such as one sent from the U.S. Envoy to the Holy See, Harold Tittmann to Washington, paint a mixed if not disturbing picture. Tittmann suggests that Vatican leadership "did not (repeat 'not') believe that the Allies were in a position to win the war in Europe." This fueled Allied concerns that the Vatican would push for a "compromise" settlement, and that "the pope's peacemaking ambitions might be exploited for their own ends by the Axis powers." Pius' obsessive fears with Communism may well have led him into refusing to unequivocally condemn the slaughter of the Jews.
The Vatican has steadfastly denied involvement in any this, including the acquisition of Ustashi gold and other pilfered assets. The Vatican Bank was "initialized" in 1929 Lateran Treaty or Concordant between the Holy See and the government of Benito Mussolini. This agreement established the Vatican as an independent city-state, declared Roman Catholicism as the "official" religion of the new Fascist order, and compensated the papacy for the earlier confiscation of papal lands. Along with an estimated $85 million contribution to establish the bank, the Mussolini government declared church properties outside of the Vatican City limits to be tax exempt; and all Vatican Bank investments were tax free as well, a practice which despite the efforts of subsequent Italian governments remains in force to this day. By the 1970s, the known holdings of the Vatican bank, and its investments in Italy, were of such enormous scale as to dissuade any talk of taxation. When faced with such a prospect, Fr. Marcinkus and other IOR officials merely threatened the possibility of selling off Vatican assets in Italy and moving the money off shore.
Earlier this month, a number of financial and political institutions including Italy's largest insurance firm, Assicurazioni Generali, agreed to a final settlement with some surviving Holocaust victims and their relatives. The $100 million compensation has drawn praise from quarters; but the lack of participation and reparations from the Vatican continues to attract criticism.
Another settlement, this one involving reparations for up to 12 million victims murdered by Nazis and their client regimes, including the Catholic Croatian State, has been criticized as too little, too late. Here, as well, the Vatican is not participating in the compensation program.
Consecrating Clerical Thugs, Fascists
Perhaps most disturbing, though, are Vatican denials over the role played by its stable of anti-Semitic popes and clerical officials, and attempts to even glorify their lives. A decision to move forward on the beatification of Pope Pius IX drew worldwide criticism this past August. In a letter to Archbishop Jose Martins, the papal chairman of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations noted that Pius "perpetuated centuries-old Church contempt and hatred of Jews, referring to them as 'dogs' and declaring that 'of these dogs, there are too many of them present in Rome.' " There was also the move by Pope John Paul II during his October, 1998 visit to Croatia, to announce the beatification of Cardinal Stepanic, elevating him to the last step before a declaration of sainthood. CNN noted that the announcement, made at a rally with 400,000 followers at Croatia's main shrine to the Virgin Mary, saw the pontiff hail Stepanic "as a hero by Catholics for his resistance to communism and his refusal to separate the Croatian church from the Vatican."
Stepanic's fascist-era activities with the Ustashi has been continually downplayed or ignored by the Holy See; instead, a process of historical revision has been underway, complete with the confabulation of a cultish tale about the Cardinal's cape, which allegedly found its way to the Vatican after being smuggled out of Yugoslavia in 1954 by an American Roman Catholic housewife. Stepanic was also hailed as a "Martyr of Atheistic Communism,'" and in 1998, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley declared May 8 as an official "Cardinal Stepanic Day."
The San Francisco suit may unearth even more details about the political and financial intrigues of the Vatican in connection with World War II. It is quite possible, though, that diplomatic "sovereign immunity" could serve as a legal shield in the Holy See's continued efforts to conceal its historical involvement in the rise of clerical fascism, the Holocaust and the atrocities of that period.
For further information:
http://www.americanatheist.org/pope99.calvi.html ("Through the Looking Glass: Vatican Politics, the Calvi Murder and Beyond")
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/vat10.htm ("House votes 416-1 to retain special Vatican status at U.N.," 7/12/00)
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/vatican9.htm ("As conference opens, Vatican accused of subverting progress for women's' rights," 6/5/00)http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/vatican8.htm ("Bush chases 'Catholic vote,' affirms support for special Vatican status at United Nations," 5/29/00)
http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com (Easton & Levy, details on San Francisco suit)
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