One of the major complaints that I hear coming from Christians, about Christianity, is the lack of bible study among followers.  Whether the blame falls on time constraints, textual length, or translation/interpretation misunderstandings, the lay-Christian of today just doesn’t take the time to read and digest their most sacred holy book.  Believe me, it IS a daunting task!   Because of this, many believers default to their pastor, or spiritual leader to guide them about what the bible has to say.   But how can you know that you’re being lead in the proper direction (can we all say Jim Baker… Ted Haggard)?  

Moreover, why is it that you would want to read the bible in the first place?  Gotquestions.org tells us that one of the main reasons to read the bible is that “there are so many questions that philosophers and people have asked that God answers for us in Scripture: What is the purpose to life? Where did I come from? Is there life after death? What happens after death? How do I get to heaven? Why is the world full of evil? Why do I struggle to do good?”  Now I’ll wait while you go search down the answers to these questions in the Bible.  No, I don’t mind.  Take your time.  Once you’ve found the answers, come on back! …………… Finished?  What did you think about those many-eyed, winged, lion-calf, man-faced beasts in Revelation?  That’s some trippy shit huh?!?  Isn’t it also weird how Satan is sometimes described as the enemy of God, yet in some stories, like Job, he’s actually the henchman of God?  Yeah, it fucked me up too!  Anyway, while you were reading through, you probably found the following answers to our previously mentioned questions:

1) What is the purpose of life? – Worship the one, true God and spread his word, while keeping his 10 commandments. Don’t mess up and don’t blaspheme the Holy Spirit.  Oh, and above all of that, you have to believe that God came down to earth as his own son and was crucified for your sins.  This still doesn’t remove you from having to keep the 10 commandments though.  Yeah, that does suck!

2) Where did I come from? -  Well the bible didn’t tell you this, but YOU, specifically, came from the culmination of your mother and father’s sexual activities.  If you mean the big “I” like all of us, then the bible says we came from a couple of kids named Adam and Eve.  Adam was made from dirt and Eve was created from Adam’s rib.  Cooked at just the right temperature, with the proper blend of herbs and spices, she was delicious and fell right off the bone! 

3) Is there life after death? – Wouldn’t that be a contradiction?  I mean, isn’t death the end of life?  Hell no!  There is eternal life and you better choose which side you’re on, because if the bible is right, you might just end up burning in a torturous hell forever!

4) What happens after death? –  Your body is going to decay and decompose and feed the nutrients of your dead body back into the ground, which in turn feeds the grass, makes the trees grow tall and give the earthworms something to chew on.  Your soul is going to face a day of judgment by the one true god.  There he will decide whether you made the correct string of choices to be allowed into heaven, or if you are going to be punished in eternal hellfire forever, because you made the wrong string of choices. 

5) How do I get to heaven? – We can see from the bible that it’s not by building a giant tower towards the sky.  That kind of thing will get your tower demolished and all of your people scattered to different sides of the earth, speaking different languages.  REALLY!  Supposedly, if you refer to question 1 and follow it, you get to go to heaven.

6) Why is the world full of evil? – Well see, there was this snake in the garden of Eden, you know, where Adam and Eve lived for a little while?  So this snake, he convinces Eve that it’s a good idea to disobey God and eat a piece of fruit that was forbidden.  She then gives the fruit to Adam to eat.  God gets really mad that they do this and damns them to sweat and toil over the land for food, have intense pain during child labor, and introduces the world to that rebellious teenage phase in children.  There are some people who think that this is all God’s fault, but I mean come on.. the bible doesn’t say this, does it? (psst, check out verses 8 and 9 where it says that God placed the tree on the earth that would cause the fall of man)

7) Why do I struggle to do good? – Basically, because you are evil and God is way better than you.  You know that you’re never going to be as good as god, but you still try anyway.  But, allow me to repeat, you are evil and God is way better than you!  I will refer you once again to question #1 so that your evil ass doesn’t go to hell.

So now that we’ve taken a trip through the bible together, I have a few questions.  Did any of these answers really satisfy you?  Does it bother you at all that the one, sole purpose for your life is to bow down and worship an invisible god that will only seem real if you can convince yourself that you have had some sort of metaphysical experience that you will never properly be able to convey as solid proof to anyone else of the true existence of your invisible god?  Does it bother you that most of what you will read in the bible is interpreted multiple different ways, by multiple different people, mainly attempting to back up whatever hair-brained idea they have in their head as to what is truly correct?  Does it bother you that stories involving animated dirt and cloning through rib manipulation are the staple constructs backing the existence of mankind?  Does it bother you that the bible has no real, definitive historical grounding and only hints at certain spaces on our timeline, with keystone events that are not recorded in any other historical document?  Well it bothers me too!

If you go into this book, looking for answers to the questions we just listed, you are going to fall short.  The bible is not a book full of moral grounding and sage wisdom.  People have used the bible to try and convey these types of ideas, but it is only through manipulation of the text and the adding of emotional fluff that they succeed. 

At GoingChurching.com, we understand that your time spent learning is precious.  Why waste it on something as vapid and confused as the Holy Bible?  Many writers have tackled the ideas that we’ve just discussed; writers who don’t simply default to metaphysical existence to answer all of life’s questions.  Whether you are currently engaged in a course of study involving the bible, or if you are simply tired of mentally navigating through a string of thee’s and thou’s, you may find the following texts interesting:

1)  The God Delusion – by: Richard Dawkins

2)  The Reason Driven Life – by: Dr. Robert M. Price

3)  The World of Myth: An Anthology – by: David Adams Leeming

4)  Ishmael – by: Daniel Quinn

5)  Losing Faith in Faith – by: Dan Barker

6)  The End of Faith – by: Sam Harris

7)  What Would You Substitute For The Bible as a Moral Guide? – by: Robert Ingersoll (full text here at infidels.org)

8)  About the Holy Bible – by: Robert Ingersoll (full text here at infidels.org)

9)  Thus Spoke Zarathustra – by: Friedrich Nietzsche (full text here)

10)  Why I Am Not A Christian – by: Richard Carrier (full text here at infidels.org)

Knowing is half the battle!  See you next time!

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Fiddling around on the intertubes yesterday produced the following nugget of goodness, so I thought I’d pass it along.  

dmiessler.com - “God - Not Man - Committed the Original Sin:
http://dmiessler.com/blogarchive/god-not-man-committed-the-original-sin

There is also an “interesting” conversation taking place in the comment thread on that post, so check it out and add something to the conversation!

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Lately I’ve been listening to the back catalog of the radio show “Way of the Master” with Todd Friel, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron.  No, not because I have turned a new leaf and now believe in a horribly unjust, ruler of the universe!  And no, not because I like to torture myself (although if I did, this would be the intellectual equivalent of self mutilation)!  I plan on addressing some of the major flaws within the arguments presented on their show in the near future. 

That being said, one of their major pet peeves on “Way of the Master” is evolutionary theory and evolutionary science.  Man, do they hate evolution!  Sadly, when they discuss the topic of evolution, there is never a segment that includes a single response from anyone in the scientific community.  Their arguments are very, very weak and are actually arguments that have been refuted in depth.  Why do I bring this up?  Lately I have heard many Christians that I have had discussions with use these same types of arguments, thinking they are rock solid and waterproof. 

If you are the type of person who engages in intellectual discourse on religion, and you take on the topic of origins and evolution, it would do you well to check out Talk Origins.org. 

Talk Origins is an archive that has collected articles and essays giving mainstream scientific responses to many of the questions and issues we face about origins, evolution, creationism, intelligent design and much more.  It has been a handy resource for many of the arguments that I have been a part of and would be an invaluable tool for anyone that may not know what the current scientific responses to such ideas are.

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A while back in my post on the scientific proof that god spoke everything into existence, or Episteme Scientia.  I included a video that showed god speaking himself out of existence through a channeled conversation we shared on a Ouija board.  That was back in February, and since then it has had about 3,000 views and about 60 comments. 

These comments have included people warning me not to play with demonic forces, angry people telling me that god had to exist if he contacted me through a ouija board, etc.  Not one person has made the rational observation, that if I am indeed an atheist, and I don’t believe in a god, let alone any supernatural existence, that it would be absurd for me to attempt to contact god through a ouija board in the first place, let alone witness the irony of him speaking himself out of existence.  It had to be a joke!  Not one person making a critical comment came to this conclusion.  There were a few who knew the video was a joke and made a supportive comment, but for the most part, the comment thread is full of people who seem to know how to use comment systems on popular video websites, but don’t know how to think much past that!  See grandma, you can use the internet!

Out of all of the comments received, only one user (Thorncordelia – 19yr. old female - US) decided to spend the extra time to write a message personally to my Youtube account to try and explain her feelings.  My response and our exchange was short-lived but full of valuable insights.  I will list it here in its progression.  Check it out (typos remain intact):

Thorncordelia:  Here’s my proof God exists THE BIBLE. Read it if you know how buddy or you’re in for a rude awakning when you die.

Going Churching:  You don’t have to come off so hostile. Shouldn’t you want to help me find salvation instead of threatening me with hell?

Thorncordelia:  I’m just so ticked off because i’ve seen 3 videos of people who dont believe in God and sometimes you HAVE to be tough to get the message through people. One person made a video saying “the universe is made up of matter blah blah blah blah blah.” How does he know????? So he’d rather blieve that we just evolved??? That dosnt even make any since.

And I’m mad because it’s sad that people dont believe. When they die they will stand before God and God will say “Depart from me I never knew” and they will be cast into the burning flames of hell. If people only knew the love God has for us… I’m sorry I got mad but It was offincave to see that many videos in one night.

It’s difficult to witness to someone who has their mind sit on one thing and one thing only.And then this one woman stopped believing in God because she prayed for her soccer team to win and they didnt.She was from England. God dosn’t CARE who wins a stupid sports game.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God John 1:12-13

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Once again I’m sorry I was so upset. I hope you can forgive me

And that’s where I paused.  I intend to write Thorncordelia back to attempt some discussion on the existence of god and the punishment of hell, but this round of response caught me.  It is obvious that this girl has been brainwashed by modern religion and there are a few things that I would like to point out in Thorncordelia’s messages and share to the rest of the group.  Let’s start from the beginning and work down.

Here’s my proof God exists THE BIBLE. Read it if you know how buddy or you’re in for a rude awakning when you die.

Assuming she means the Christian Holy Bible, we know that it is comprised of two parts, the old testament and the new testament.  Wikipedia tells us that the old testament is sourced mainly from the Tanakh (or Hebrew Bible) and the new testament is comprised of books written mainly in Greek.  The Bible is a sacred holy text of a religious affiliation.  Using the bible as proof of the existence of god, would be like using Marvel Comics as a proof of the existence of Spiderman.  A proof of god would be something testable and reproducible, for instance, if god would start actually healing the amputees that are prayed for all of the time! 

Fear of hell is not a reason for anyone to believe in god.  Using tactics like this makes you deliberately oppressive.  “You better believe like I do, or when you die, you are in for eternal punishment!”  Don’t do that, you won’t get very far.  One thing that needs to be addressed at a fundamental level is this:  If there is an almighty, omnipotent, creator god, that made you, me and everything there is, that then created the ability to dishonor its holy character through “sin” and set into motion the processes that would in fact lead us to the action of “sinning,” then the punishment is misplaced.  I would encourage any modern Christian to re-read the Genesis account of the fall of man and original sin (yeah, thanks St. Augustine).

The actions of the god that you worship are unjust, even by human standards, and supposedly, your god has an infinitely higher sense and standard of justice, or so you all say.  This version of god is also unjust because he would sentence a being to an infinite punishment of eternal damnation, for a finite crime.  In light of this type of thinking, a believer has to ask him/herself, “even if this god does exist, why would I choose to worship this god?”  Personally I would choose eternal damnation, than to devote my life to a system of injustice, but that’s just me.  Moving on…

I’m just so ticked off because i’ve seen 3 videos of people who dont believe in God and sometimes you HAVE to be tough to get the message through people. One person made a video saying “the universe is made up of matter blah blah blah blah blah.” How does he know????? So he’d rather blieve that we just evolved??? That dosnt even make any since.

From my experience, when people don’t believe in god, they usually have good reason, or at least A reason.  The form of “toughness” that Thorncordelia shows us is an offensive attack against an idea that doesn’t line up with her own.  Understand that I’m not trying to bash her.  If you ever engage in discourse with Christians as to the existence of god, you will find that this is a common reaction.  But why is it that instead of defaulting to the Christian love and embrace of the “great commission,” many modern Christians will react offensively? 

As an atheist, I represent a questioning of the answers that they have come to.  All of us, at some time in our life, go through the big “what am I doing / why am I here” conundrum.  Christianity gives many people a quick answer to those big questions.  “God created you, and you are here to worship him and do his work.”  Questioning this principle starts to open up a world of possibility to the Christian mind.  Do you mean that there might not be a god?  Do you mean that there might not be an eternal afterlife and I might only have a limited amount of years in my life in which to fulfill any type of purpose I might find for myself?  Do you mean that ultimately we are still uncertain of the origin of life and the universe, and that I will need to either not care, or become educated on current theories and ideas of origin and evolutionary science so that I can spread the understanding of these ideas within my local / personal societal structure in order to strengthen the growth of human knowledge?  Do you mean that I might not be able to see Mr. Fluffies again in heaven when I die? 

These types of questions are horrendously frightening to a person that has depended on an idea of god for stability and as an answer to the unknown.  I know.  I used to be a devout born-again Christian.  During my transition out of the faith, there were times where I didn’t know what to do, or what to think.  I was scared because my mind had been filled with glorious answers to things I never had to address.  I had been brainwashed from a very young age to not question anything, and rely on the idea of an all powerful father figure in the sky. 

Basically, the rest of Thorncordelia’s response attempts to justify why she was on the offensive.  Towards the end she provides a few standard bible passages that are supposed to lead towards the path of salvation.  They didn’t work in my case.  To give her some credit, as an ending she apologizes for being upset and asks for my forgiveness.  Obviously this is a gesture of courteousness and I took it as such.  I have been in Thorncordelia’s shoes, and I even thought like her at one time.  Reading her messages reminds me a lot of how I thought even when I was her age (although I didn’t feel quite as prone to expressing it as she does). 

I wanted to use her correspondence with me as an example to show how modern Christianity works in the minds of many of its followers and especially in the youth it has affected today.  I was part of this type of youth, and luckily through the guidance of good mentors, instructors and friends, I was able to break the hold that dogmatic, religious, ignorance had on my mind.  I will continue to write to Throncordelia in hopes that I can provide her with information that she hasn’t been presented with in the past and work her out of the shadowy cave of a blindly accepted reality.

On a lighter note, I am giving her comments and response 2 halos, because if she’s 19 and doesn’t know that the universe is made of matter, then we seriously need to address the functionality of our public school systems!  I can’t believe she said, “the universe is made up of matter blah blah blah blah blah!”  To use a colloquialism, OMFG!!!

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