Recovering Christians

Why I haven't posted for 11 months

2008-07-09T15:37:00.003+08:00

An email I got from someone via the newly resurrected Atheists Meetup group (Atheist Haven - if you're interested, check it out before the subscription runs out again):

"It was great! You have a web-site for recovering Christians? A pity that you've stopped posting on it."

I was reminded of the existence of this blog, which hasn't been updated since my last post in August last year.

I stopped posting because I was the only one posting here and cross-posted the posts my personal blog anyway. Also, I post semi-regularly on religious issues (not just Christianity, and even Christian-related posts aren't tailored to the theme of "Recovering Christians") on my personal blog anyway. You can check out http://gssq.blogspot.com/search/label/religion if you're interested.

Recent posts include extracts from Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor (from The Brothers Karamazov), a transcript of a newscast on the Onion Radio News on an ex-gay, Paul Tillich on Fundamentalism and an explanation of the strawmen that some apologists attack, like how it was impossible for Jesus to walk on water unles she was the Son of God (which is something contemporary opponents of apologists never bring up)

In any event, the appetite for religious discussion which includes non-theism in Singapore is very small, which probably explains the death of this blog.

How to deal with evangelists

2007-08-03T13:58:00.000+08:00

Rojak or the melting pot: Things I have said to evangelists

"It happened again. Two girls, bright, perky (in more ways than one), polite - approached me in a shopping mall, and asked me if I would be interested in attending a "special event" at their church.

I've always had a special interest in Christian evangelists in Singapore. Singaporeans as a whole seem to be shy about approaching strangers. Evangelists on the other hand, don't seem to mind, in fact, they're quite happy to do so. It's something they share with those credit card roadshow folks, time-share marketeers and "Hi we are looking for model" people.

(strangely enough, students on flag day seem prepared to die of embarrassment. And block the escalator while doing so.)...

EC: Yeah. Take a look at this handy little Christianity 4 Noobz booklet I happen to have here. All here.

Mz12: But I think I'm [insert faith].

Younger cousin: And I'm already Christian, cos I'm Catholic.

EC: Nya-uh. Did you know that [prominent leader of faith] went to hell? There was this guy, see, who had an mystical vision, and saw [leader] in hell. It's true. You can trust people with mystical visions...

YC: Did we just get converted? Mum is going to kill me.

Mz12: I think you go to hell if you convert.

YC: Mum's worse...

Mz12: I think I'm too young and you're not allowed to chose religions if you're too young. I can't even watch porn yet, how can I choose Gods?

EC: You watch porn?

Mz12: Erhm. Bye...

EP: Christ is the only pathway to heaven!

Mz17: Like Led Zeppelin?"

Incidentally, 'Evangelist' is an anagram for 'Evil's Agent'.

I always beat evangelists at their own game. Everyone should try that. It's great fun for the whole family!

Oddly the only time I've been approached since JC (6 years ago) was when someone who knew me tried to do it, and I'm told she was very traumatised by the experience. Maybe I'm too famous already, hurr hurr.

It's also interesting that the evangelists in recent years have stopped approaching Muslims. They're probably afraid of going to jail for sedition.

(X-posted)

Praise God!

2007-08-01T12:16:00.000+08:00

A second South Korean hostage has been killed by the Taliban.

Praise God!

There is no need to mourn our brothers in Christ, for they went to their deaths steadfast in faith and conviction.

This can only serve to deepen the Faith of the rest of the hostages. And even if the other 21 are killed, this will just serve as a testament of their faith to bear witness to the rest of the world.

Also, we must remember that God, in his Wisdom and Grace, has allowed - nay, dictated that this happen. Even if all of them are crucified upside down and then gruesomely beheaded, this is all just part of his Divine Plan and is for the Greater Good. Therefore we should pray that His will be done and that if need be, all 21 of the remaining hostages will die in any manner necessary, no matter how horrific it might be.

Amen.

The persecuted have become the persecutors

2006-12-25T14:40:00.001+08:00

Christianity and Islam are the 2 religions which most often make the news with adherents protesting against blasphemy. The irony is that both religions feature founders who were persecuted for *their* blasphemy, but who were later vindicated by history (or rather by demographics) and have thus become the standard against which it is now blasphemous to deviate from. Viz., the events leading up to the Hijra.

For example, The Last Temptation of Christ was lambasted and Molotov Cocktail-ed when it first came out, but is now accepted by some as making a valid theological point:

"In his defense of the movie, noted critic Roger Ebert writes that Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader

"paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously, and they have made a film that does not turn him into a garish, emasculated image from a religious postcard. Here he is flesh and blood, struggling, questioning, asking himself and his father which is the right way, and finally, after great suffering, earning the right to say, on the cross, 'It is accomplished.'""

The persecuted have become the persecutors, but then this is how like groups that complain about the lack of freedom of speech then try to censor others' freedom once they come into power. Ditto for totalitarian laws and revolutionaries.

Why Won't God Heal Amputees?

2006-12-21T06:54:00.000+08:00

Why Won't God Heal Amputees?

"No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing will happen. The legs will not regenerate. Prayer does not restore the severed limbs of amputees. You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously. And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us. If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day...

What are we seeing here? It is not that God sometimes answers the prayers of amputees, and sometimes does not. Instead, in this situation there is a very clear line. God never answers the prayers of amputees. It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them...

By looking at amputees, we can see that something is wrong. Jesus is not telling the truth. God never answers prayers to spontaneously restore lost limbs, despite Jesus' statements in the Bible. Accepting this piece of factual information, rather than denying it, is the first step in understanding something extremely important about how prayer really works...

Here is another explanation that you might have heard: "God needs to remain hidden -- restoring an amputated limb would be too obvious." We will discuss this idea in more detail in later chapters, but let's touch on it here. Does God need to remain hidden?

That does not seem to be the case. In general, God seems to have no problem doing things that are obvious. Think about the Bible. Writing the Bible and having billions of copies published all over the world is obvious. So is parting the Red Sea. So is carving the Ten Commandments on stone tables. So is sending your son to earth and having him perform dozens of recorded miracles. And so on. It makes no sense for a God in hiding to incarnate himself, or to do these other obvious things. Why send your son to earth, and then write a book that talks all about his exploits, if you are trying to hide?

In the same way, any medical miracle that God performs today is obvious. The removal of a cancerous tumor is obvious because it is measurable. One month the tumor is visible to everyone on the X-ray, and the next month it is not. If God eliminated the tumor, then it is openly obvious to everyone who sees the X-ray. There is nothing "hidden" about removing a tumor. So, why not regenerate a leg in an equally open way? If God intervenes with cancer patients to remove cancerous tumors in response to prayers, then why wouldn't God also intervene with amputees to regenerate lost limbs?...

Finally, there is this oft-used chestnut: "There is no way to understand the mysteries of our Lord. People have believed in Jesus for 2,000 years, and there must be a very good reason for it." This feels like a sad point in the conversation. On one side of the conversation is a person who is defending the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of the universe. This person's position should be unassailable. Yet, if God exists, and answers prayers as described in the Bible, there is no explanation for what we see in the world around us. The Bible is silent in this case. God is silent. There is not a good, comfortable explanation for the situation faced by amputees except to say, "We cannot understand the mysteries of the Lord. We have no explanation for why God refuses to answer prayers to regenerate lost limbs."...

Amputees are not the only ones either. For example:

* If someone severs their spinal cord in an accident, that person is paralyzed for life. No amount of prayer is going to help.

* If someone is born with a congenital defect like a cleft palate, God will not repair it through prayer. Surgery is the only option.

* A genetic disease like Down Syndrome is the same way -- no amount of prayer is going to fix the problem."

A comment I got in my guestbook

2006-11-12T14:41:00.000+08:00

Hello, I'm a Christian, and I find your entries on, or rather against Christianity, highly thought- provoking.

While I do not agree on some of the points and feel that I can come up, sooner or later, with a reasonable, logical argument against them [without having to refer to faith and the bible says etc etc], I strongly appreciate it that you, unlike some others, are able to bring forth a very mature perspective of such a sensitive issue. For this reason I am leaving a comment behind, to acknowledge a very well crafted piece of argument.

I have probably gained a lot of insight regarding a non-Christian’s POV, for example, on relentless evangelism. I strongly agree with you that evangelism should not cross over to harassment, but sadly not everyone shares my mindset. And yes, I agree that there are many people who parade around proclaiming to be Christians but doing and saying things that are just down right wrong,[not just in Christian context] and I abhor such acts, too. While I cannot claim to be 100% innocent of hurting anyone or whatever in the past or in the future, I can say, with all science and humanity backing me up, that a Christian is still a human, and humans can make mistakes, divine intervention or not. Pity that if we draw a Venn diagram of any believer, we’d have our faith as a subset of our human nature, not the other way round.

These are just the few points I’m acknowledging. I would not be denouncing my faith anytime soon, however. But you article has at least made me wake up and see that being labelled a Christian isn’t something that I should take lightly, especially regarding my religion’s history and wide-spreadness. So thank you for writing so thoughtfully from an ex-Christian’s POV, it has truly been interesting to delve into your logic.

Cheers =D

Wah.

Questionnaire for Christians

2006-09-28T17:57:00.000+08:00

(Originally from: http://gssq.entori.net/writings/religion/questionnaire.htm)

Seminal questions to ask Christians across the spectrum, and not just fundies:

1) Do you believe that the bible is literally true?

If so, how do you explain its internal contradictions (2 creation accounts in Genesis, 2 genealogies of Jesus - one cannot be of Joseph since he wasn't the father, Jesus' parents not knowing why he stayed in Jerusalem's temple when he was 12 [Luke 2: 42-50]) and historical inaccuracies (no evidence of the flood, no town of Nazareth in the 1st century BC, no record of Herod's slaughter of the infants)?

If not - how do you know which parts are false, which parts must be 'interpreted' and which parts must be taken in 'context'? Can 'context' ever justify acts of misogyny, evil and genocide (Timothy, the Flood, Joshua & Numbers)? If some parts are false, how do you know others aren't as well?

Who's to say that your particular 'interpretation' is correct; with sufficient 'interpretation' anyone can make the Bible say anything they like? If you interpret it according to your god-given religious and ethical sense and instincts, doesn't the fact that everyone has different instincts and senses mean that it is everything to all people? In which case it loses meaning and significance.

2) Do you think all non-Christians/those not of your specific denomination go to hell? If so, how is it just or fair to condemn billions of innocents to hell for all eternity just because they were born in the wrong place at the wrong time? What if you were wrong and, when you died, you went to the Islamic hell? What would you say to Allah?

3) Do you believe that your god is the ultimate arbiter of morality, yet is supremely good? If so, didn't he merely define himself as good, making a mockery of the concepts of morality and goodness? If one defines morality, wouldn't he be amoral rather than supremely good? If it is impossible for your god to not be good, how does the concept of 'good' have any meaning?

To wit: If your god commanded you to kill, rape, pillage and commit genocide (cf the Midanites), would he still be considered good? How would you know that you were under a good god? And if your god were incapable of doing anything evil, would he not have lost his omnipotence?

4) Do you think your mythology unique? If so, why are so many elements shared with previous religions? (Salvation: Mystery pagan religions - Osiris, Eleusinian mysteries, Alleged virgin births of god-men: Romulus, Augustus, Dionysus, Perseus, Baptism: Mithraic mysteries, ablutions, Miracles: Asclepius raising the dead, Resurrection: Dionysius, Osiris)

If you lived in China, could you "invent" chopsticks?

5) Have you ever communicated with, or felt your god or his presence? If so, how would you distinguish your experiences from similar mystical experiences in other religions, people on an acid trip, those who believe they've been abducted by aliens or those who hear voices in their heads claiming to be gods telling them to kill other people?

Deanna Laney, a Texan mother, thought God told her to kill her children, like Abraham and Isaac. The court did not accept her argument. Would you?

6) How does your faith in your religion differ from that of others in theirs? If it is the same, who's to say which religions are correct?

Put another way, if Hermes, the divine Messenger of the Gods, appeared to you with his winged sandals, broad-brimmed hat and Caduceus and told you that you had been chosen to rescue a princess (or prince, if you like) in distress, what would your reaction be?

Would you expect someone from another religion to have a different reaction if the Angel Gabriel appeared to him?

7) If Christianity is such a good religion, why has so much evil been done in its name; why has it failed to rein in all this evil? If the evil was done only by evil or confused people in Christianity's name - despite their faith, wouldn't the same logic apply for the good it has supposedly encouraged?

"Amazing inspiration"

2006-06-08T23:25:00.000+08:00

Amazing inspiration

"My name is Nick Vujicic and I give God the Glory for how He has used my testimony to touch thousands of hearts around the world! I was born without limbs and doctors have no medical explanation for this birth "defect". As you can imagine, I was faced with many challenges and obstacles."

I find this extremely repellent.

If it's inspiring in any way, it's a testimony to the strength and resilience of the human spirit, not the sadism of some cosmic madman.

It's like praising Hitler for the Final Solution, because that meant the Jews came out stronger as a people.

Stockholm Syndrome is such a sad thing.

Stop this blasphemy!

2006-06-08T23:22:00.000+08:00

Dear Friends,

A blasphemous book is being compiled and is intended to show up in Palestine soon, which shows YHWH coming to earth as a human!

The same way false messiahs have been proclaiming that they are here to restore the nation of Israel with a capital at Jerusalem. It's called "The Bible" and includes the Written Torah, but with a few more books of nonsense tacked on at the end.

It is a revolting joke of YHWH.

But we can make a difference, that's why I'm sending this parchment to all of you. Could you, please, add your name to this parchment's end? If you do so, together we may be able to ban this book from being distributed in Palestine.

Apparently, some of these so-called Christians have been thrown to the lions in Rome already. All we need is a lot of signatures!

Remember, YHWH told Moses: "And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death."

Please, do not simply forward !!! Please, copy all text onto a new parchment with your quill and then add your name a t the end of the list, plus send to all your contacts.

When the signatures get to 500 names (who is list's 500), please send them to:
The Wailing Wall
Jersualem
Palestine 666666
The Roman Empire

And then start it all over again......

IF WE WORK TOGETHER WE MAKE IT !!! Thanks ! CAN

*list of names and addresses below*

***

Dear Friends,

A pornographic movie is being shot and is intended to show up in America soon, which shows Jesus and his discipl es as homosexuals !

The same way as a play that has been in the theater halls for a while. It's called Corpus Christi" which means "The Body of Christ".

It is a revolting joke of our Lord.

But we can make a difference, that's why I'm sending this e-mail to all of you. Could you, please, add your name to this e-mail's list's end? If you do so, together we may be able to ban this movie from being shown in America.

Apparently, some regions from Europe have banned the movie already. All we need is a lot of signatures!

Remember, Jesus said: "That who deny Me before men, I will also deny Him before my Father which is in heaven."

Please, do not simply forward !!! Please, select all text, copy this message (CTRL+C), paste (CTRL+V) in a new message and then add your name a t the end of the list, plus send to all your contacts.

When the signatures get to 500 names (who is list's 500), please send them to: omasg@softhome.net And then start it all over again......

IF WE WORK TOGETHER WE MAKE IT !!! Thanks ! CAN

*list of names and emails below*

The Da Vinci Code - "Exposed" by the CCC

2006-03-22T15:19:00.000+08:00

My ever-resourceful and hardworking Little Bird scanned in the contents of a CCC (Campus Crusade for Christ) pamphlet targetted at Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" for me, zipped into an appropriately titled "BibleTrash.zip".

Now, I am no fan of Dan Brown, since his allegedly well-researched book is full of rubbish. As I often say, there is only one true line in "The Da Vinci Code" ("The Bible did not come by fax from heaven"). Yet, 2 wrongs do not make a right, and this pamphlet is annoying. And so I present what is probably an exclusive feature: not only scans of the pamphlet but a walkthrough the specious arguments contained inside.

Cover - "A companion guide to the movie or novel!"

The cover of the pamphlet looks innocent enough. It is glitzy and official-looking, complete with the barcode at the bottom left hand corner of the magazine. In fact, one would be led to believe that it is an official piece of "Da Vinci Code" merchandise; I believe the customary practise is to say that you are writing a "totally unauthorised guide" - Dan Brown should sue the CCC for copyright infringement. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile hardly prepares one for the horrors inside, yet a hint of it can be found in the promise of an interview with a skeptic-turned-believer (no word about believers-turned-skeptics).

As is the case with much evangelical-fundamentalist material, the cover of the pamphlet is innocent, only truly revealing its contents when one flips it open - a pamphlet they gave out about the Tsunami was similiarly deceptive, and IIRC contained numerous back-handed insults to the memory of Tsunami victims.

Page 1 - Contents

When one opens the pamphlet, one's baloney detectors start to go off. Looking at the content area on the right, one sees 2 forewords written by Reverends from Christian groups, purporting to present information to help readers realise "the Truth". Now that in itself is not sufficient to disqualify the pamphlet, but it is an important clue - one wouldn't expect a publication of the Flat Earth Society to conclude that the earth is round. Further, since the pamphlet promises not to toss logic out of the window, we can turn on our scrutiny-lamps to full power.

One also sees that the good ole "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" false trilemma makes an appearance. Really, you'd think that 35 years after CS Lewis's Mere ~~Bullshit~~ Christianity, they'd get their logical fallacies sorted out.

Page 2 - "novel & movie review"

No comments, other than the very suspicious rating system - giving the movie an eye-boggling 5/5 stars for "Suspense" and "Entertainment", but 1/5 for "Historical Reliability" and "Accuracy of purported facts". Given that the movie is slated for a May 19th release, one wonders what privileges fundamentalist Christians are privy to that ordinary mortals aren't. There is also a curious complexity worthy of a close reading: as the "movie" review itself reads, "Dan Brown makes it clear to all that 'The Da Vinci Code' is "just fiction"." If this is the case, the "purported facts" would not have to be graded - I'm guessing that they mean that Dan Brown admits that his story is made-up, but his so-called facts are false. This smacks of shoddy writing.

Page 3 - Boxing ring

This page comments that the Da Vinci Code and Bible both "purport to tell the truth about the life of the historical Jesus (we just can't escape his influence, can we?)". The little comment at the end irks me, so I'll just add that we can't escape the influence of Adolf Hitler and the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse either. At least, as a friend points out, we should be grateful that the "h" in "his" is not capitalised.

This page also makes the point that in Borders, one can find "The Da Vinci Code" in the "Fiction" section. It might interest readers to know that in the Library of Congress Classification System, one can find the Bible in the "BS" section.

Since bestsellers are going up against each other, they might like to compare the Bible to the next best-selling book of all time - Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (aka The Little Red Book). The 2 have more in common than one might think:

Since bestsellers are going up against each other, they might like to compare the Bible to the next best-selling book of all time - Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (aka The Little Red Book). The 2 have more in common than one might think:

"If they [the Kuomintang] fight, we will wipe them out completely. This is the way things are: if they attack and we wipe them out, they will have that satisfaction; wipe out some, some satisfaction; wipe out more, more satisfaction; wipe out the whole lot, complete satisfaction." - "On the Chungking Negotiations" (October 17, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 56.

"And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire." - Numbers 31:7-10

Page 4. On this page, it starts to get dirty.

For one, we are told that "The Bible is written by more than 40 different authors - Moses". Wait a minute. Moses? This is really strange, considering that although in the biblical tradition Moses wrote the first 5 books of the bible (the Pentateuch), he actually writes about events occuring *after* his death. Indeed, the lack of consistency, jumps in tone in 2 sets of narratives for many events have led mainstream biblical scholars to conclude that 5 people, codenamed J, E, D, P and R, were responsible for writing and compiling the Pentateuch.

The next part of the page ("Fact #1") claims that since so many copies exist of the old and new testaments, they must be reliable. Yet, this is like saying that since the Blaster worm affected 8 million PCs worldwide, it must be a good program. Just because many copies of a document exist does not mean that it is reliable; one can merely compare the copies for copying errors - if the originals from which the copies were made were suspect in the first place, no number of copies would redeem the veracity of the original documents. There is also the question of when the copies date from - if 13,000 copies exist, but 1 dates from 100AD while 12,999 come from the 12th century or later, the numbers don't mean anything.

"Fact #2" is that a short time elapsed between the publication of the original and the date of the earliest surviving manuscripts. Again, as with "Fact #1" the significance of this would depend on the veracity of the original in the first place. The conclusion is that "Most historians accept the textual accuracy of other ancient works on far less adequate grounds than that of the Bible's".

Not so fast. First, we must examine the cute table drawn up below:

"Livy - History of Rome"
Historians accept this text as genuine, yet they do not accept its contents at face value, contrary to the approach in some other fields. Corroborating evidence in terms of archaeology and other documentary evidenc is sought, and no one takes his word about "the kindness of the gods". Indeed, in studies of the text, a critical eye is cast upon Livy's bias and point of view as a Roman citizen, and the possibility that he could have romanticised Roman history.

"Caesar - Gallic Wars"
One must note that coins struck in Caesar's likeness exist. We also can find remnants of his fortifications at Alesia, which correspond to Caesar's descriptions. On the other hand, we have six heads of John the Baptist.

"Homer - Illiad"
The people who wrote this must be joking. Like some other entries in the table, the Illiad is clearly a work of mythology relating how petty, vengeful, imperfect and very human gods interfere in human affairs; a work traditionally ascribed to an individual and yet was written by multiple authors over a long period of time.

One might also consider that more than 20 million copies of L Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics" have been sold worldwide, and that the earliest extant copy likely dates from the year it was published.

It must also be borne in mind that writers of ancient documents frequently invented dialogues for their characters that they'd have no way of being privy to, like Thucydides in "The Peloponnesian War" (despite his otherwise stellar record as a historian). This is curiously reminiscent of someone writing about events occuring after his death.

-End of Part 1-

Parts 2 and 3 of the review are available on Balderdash.

Evolving Evolution

2006-02-23T22:35:00.000+08:00

My apologies if I've put up too many posts on this issue. But I think this sort of issues is a reflection of the 'closed mind syndrome' that needn't exist in reflections of faith. It's not only found in the evolution debate; it also touches other areas of interest like say, protecting the environment. (There's this stereotypical view that 'Evangelicals' are not really concerned about the state of the environment, backing their attitude with the interpretation of the Scriptures, for example.)

A few days ago, the NYTimes had an article about evolution; there're so many quotable quotes! Emphasis all mine.

At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution
By NEELA BANERJEE and ANNE BERRYMAN
Published: February 13, 2006

On the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many Christians say exists between science and faith is false.

At St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85 worshipers gathered yesterday, "A faith that requires you to close your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all."

In the basement of an apartment building in Evanston, Ill., the Rev. Mitchell Brown said to the 21 people who came to services at the Evanston Mennonite Church that Darwin's theories in fact had compelled people to have faith rather than look for "special effects" to confirm the existence of God.

"He forced religion to grow up, to become, really, faith for the first time," Mr. Brown said. "The life of community, that is where we know God today."

The event, called Evolution Sunday, is an outgrowth of the Clergy Letter Project, started by academics and ministers in Wisconsin in early 2005 as a response to efforts, most notably in Dover, Pa., to discredit the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools.

"There was a growing need to demonstrate that the loud, shrill voices of fundamentalists claiming that Christians had to choose between modern science and religion were presenting a false dichotomy," said Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and the major organizer of the letter project.

Mr. Zimmerman said more than 10,000 ministers had signed the letter, which states, in part, that the theory of evolution is "a foundational scientific truth." To reject it, the letter continues, "is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children."

"We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator," the letter says.

Most of the signatories to the project and those preaching on Sunday were from the mainline Protestant denominations. Their congregations have shrunk sharply over the last 30 years. At the same time, the number of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians has risen considerably, and many of them, because of their literalist view of the Bible, doubt evolutionary theory.

The Clergy Letter Project said that 441 congregations in 48 states and the District of Columbia were taking part in Evolution Sunday, but that was impossible to verify independently. Around Chicago, two churches that were listed on the project's Web site as participants in the event said they were in fact not planning to deliver sermons on the subject.

Still, those who did attend sermons welcomed what they heard. After the service at St. Dunstan's, Brett Lowe, a 41-year-old computer engineer, sat in a pew as his son Ian, 2, and daughter, Paige, 6, played at his side. "Sermons like this are exactly the reason we came to this church," Mr. Lowe said.

"Observation, hypothesis and testing — that's what science is," he said. "It's not religion. Evolution is a fact. It's not a theory. An example is antibiotics. If we don't use antibiotics appropriately, bacteria become resistant. That's evolution, and evolution is a fact. To not acknowledge that is to not acknowledge the world around you."

Jeanne Taylor, 65, a recently retired registered nurse attending services at St. Dunstan's, said the Bible was based on oral tradition and today "science is a part of our lives."

At the Evanston Mennonite Church, Susan Fisher Miller, 48, an editor and English professor, said, "I completely accept and affirm the view of God as creator, but I accommodate evolution within that."

To Ms. Fisher Miller, alternatives to evolutionary theory proposed by its critics, such as intelligent design, seem an artificial way to use science to explain the holy. "It's arrogant to say that either religion or science can answer all our questions," she said. "I don't see the need either to banish one or the other or to artificially unite them."

Gretchen Ruethling contributed reporting for this article.

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

2006-02-09T22:25:00.000+08:00

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

(From EvilBible.com)

The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus

2006-02-07T16:26:00.000+08:00

The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus (Reprinted from Al Franken's "Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right")

Thomas: Shouldn't you feed the lepers, Supply Side Jesus?

Supply Side Jesus: No, Thomas, that would just make them lazy.

James: Then shouldn't you at least heal them, Supply Side Jesus?

Supply Side Jesus: No, James, leprosy is a matter of personal responsibility. If people knew I was healing lepers there would be no incentive to avoid leprosy.

(...)

Supply Side Jesus: It is easier for a rich man to enter Heaven seated comfortably on the back of a camel, than it is for a poor man to pass through the eye of a needle! If you are prosperous on Earth, that means that God is rewarding your rugged individualism. If you are poor, it is a sign that God frowns on your reliance on handouts.

Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness In A Sex Ed Class

2006-01-27T00:07:00.000+08:00

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
~Deuteronomy 5:20, The Nineth Commandment

I last wrote about the separation of Church and State eight months ago, and I wondered then whether Singapore would see a similar 'intrusion' of faith into the public space as what's happening in the States and to a less extent Australia. It now looks like this is indeed happening, but probably few people are aware of it.

Read the entire entry here.

Narnia - a rereading

2005-12-28T10:22:00.000+08:00

Narnia is a very powerful and moving allegory. Unfortunately, most commentators, not being trained in the skill of close reading, are unable to divine the true meaning of the allegory. [NB: I will not care about the nuances of Turkish delight as written about in the book, but will confine myself to the limitations of the medium from which most readers, myself included, will be most familiar with the source material.]

Reality and delusion

First and foremost, one has to remember that Narnia was purely in the realm of imagination.

Nothing that happened in Narnia affected the real (outside) world. Time spent in Narnia did not pass in the real world. And those who visited Narnia were unchanged physically; even after spending what must have been 2 decades in Narnia, the children emerged into the real world as they left it - clear proof that it was all in the children's minds (since that's the only thing in the real world which changed).

So even if you are bored, unfulfilled and unloved in the real world, there is no use retreating into a fantasy one of make-believe, since that is just self-indulgent imaginal masturbation (or any other type, if you like) in a vacuum; no matter how happy you might be, it's all a lie. Sinking into delusion could even lead to unnecessary grief (think of what would have happened if Aslan and friends had not been triumphant).

Be that as it may, we can still draw many morals from the children's foray into Narnia, even if it were fictional even in the context of the story.

False trichotomies

The Professor commented to Susan that if Lucy was not lying or crazy (about her visit to Narnia), she must have been telling the truth. Unmentioned is the possibility that she is mistaken - perhaps she bumped her head in the wardrobe, or maybe it had been too long since the thing was claned out, and she breathed in spores from hallucinogenic mushrooms*. Of course, the depiction of the Professor commiting such a glaring logical fallacy is meant to be a commentary on how having a PhD and being a Professor doesn't necessarily mean you're smart, since you can still fall afoul of basic logic.

Moral issues with betrayal

Edmund betrayed his siblings, but this betrayal came about because he was bullied and mistreated by the rest - they have themselves to blame for inciting the betrayal. Furthermore, those who are the agents of salvation are capable of mistreating even their kind: what more their lessers? Also, one might consider that without his betrayal, there would have been no victory in the end: therefore to imbue his treachery with moral undertones is most unfair**.

Free will

The Pevensie siblings feature in a prophecy, and despite their initial reluctance to fulfill it, they are swept along by the river of fate in the end and play out their preordained roles. This shows that there is no room for free will when supernatural are at work, human agency is helpless, and makes one wonder how much they deserve the accolades poured onto them. For example, if the siblings had numbered three, no matter how brave, noble and good they were, they would not have been able to prevail, for by definition the Prophecy must be fulfilled (or it would be a false one, surely one of many, but then that's another issue).

Semi-deification of Aslan

All the (good) characters have an unthinking, almost sheep-like regard for Aslan, looking up to him all the time and generally fawning over him. However, no one asks why he left the land of Narnia in the first place - if he hadn't left, the land and its inhabitants would not have suffered so greatly (and for a long 100 years) in the first place. In the intervening time, Aslan must have been hibernating, chuckling in his sleep about how the inhabitants of Narnia were suffering so and daily growing more eager for his return. At the end of the movie he is also shown walking off into the sunset, and he has obviously done that before - he is not a very reliable lion, not always being there for his people and disappearing often according to his whims.

Much is made of Aslan's sacrifice, but as is obvious from the story, it's not much of a sacrifice if one dies, only to be resurrected after half a night (and knowing that one will be resurrected to boot, resulting in one having no fear of death). Furthermore, Aslan was present when the "great magic" - the underlying magical laws of the land (or some shit like that) - were written. Presumably he had some say in their formulation. So why is it portrayed as tragic when he has to be sacrificed in accordance with these same laws that he had a hand in formulating? I can sympathise with how Aslan felt when he was shaved, though - why, just the other night (or thereabouts) I had a nightmare about the same happening to me.

History is written by the winners. If the White Witch and her minions had won, the story would read very differently, and a diametrical spin would be put on Aslan. For example, the treacherous scum violated the spirit, even if not the letter, of his agreement with the White Witch (then again, he did do that, even with a neutral reading of events).

Primacy of human agency

Although Aslan is glorified and raised to the status of a demi-god, in the end it is through the pivotal actions of humans that Narnia is saved, and they are all crowned Kings and Queens, ranking above him. The story is truly a glorification of the power of humans to change their environment and the seminal role they play in the great events of our time - even if you are a talking lion who can resurrect yourself, who cares? Without the humans you'd achieve nothing.

Conclusion

CS Lewis has been radically misread for decades. Luckily I've unearthed just how naughty he was (then again, see the previous post).

Endnotes:

* - Luckily there was a direct chain of transmission. If Lucy had told Edmund, who told Susan who told Peter, her original story (perhaps having dreamt of entering Narnia) could have been distorted, as anyone who's played the game "Broken Telephone" would know. Alternatively, Lucy could have said that her friend 'Bob' had been to Narnia and told her about it - in this case 'Bob' could neither have been telling the truth, nor lying nor mad, since he wouldn't have existed in the first place.

** - Some might argue that without Edmund's betrayal, victory could still have come, and at a lower price to boot. To fully address this objection, a dissertation on battle tactics and teleology (was what happened the only possible way it could have happened?) would be needed.

Also:

i) I liked the sneaky commentary about global warming and its perils (the melting river and how the children almost died). The Bush administration must be wroth.

ii) If you are ugly, you must be evil. If you look noble, you must be good. Excellent message to take home.

Away In A Manger

2005-12-25T20:20:00.000+08:00

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled... And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from... Nazareth to... Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
~Luke 2:1-7

Yes, there was quite a bit of hustle and bustle at that time because a census was going on, and everyone wanted to make themselves counted. The inns/hostels/guesthouses were all full, and Joseph and Mary had to stay with the animals. So I think, to really experience Christmas, maybe one has to visit the zoo, or at least a place with farm animals, instead of visiting the shopping centres. Farm animals don't need to make themselves counted. They're usually quite unassuming and gentle, very much like the Babe.

So there're similarities between the ancient story and what we see nowadays. Folks are busy with holiday activities, shopping, dining... business is good, inns are full, Tangs is now having a post-Christmas sale, which is probably closer to the Biblical account. (The three wise men only did their Christmas shopping after Jesus was born.)

So that's where all the action seems to be. And it's easy to get carried away. Because the real story was found in the quiet stillness of the night with hay and stuff... and the occasional mooing from the cow...

The Tale of the Twelve Officers

2005-12-24T20:24:00.000+08:00

It was, of course, sad to hear that Ms. K had been slowly raped and murdered by a common thug over the course of one hour and fifty-five minutes; but when I found out that the ordeal had taken place in plain sight of twelve fully-armed off-duty police officers, who ignored her terrified cries for help, and instead just watched until the act was carried to its gruesome end, I found myself facing a personal crisis. You see, the officers had all been very close friends of mine, but now I found my trust in them shaken to its core. Fortunately, I was able to talk with them afterwards, and ask them how they could have stood by and done nothing when they could so easily have saved Ms. K.

"I thought about intervening," said the first officer, "but it occurred to me that it was obviously better for the murderer to be able to exercise his free will than to have it restricted. I deeply regret the choices he made, but that's the price of having a world with free agents. Would you rather everyone in the world were a robot? The attacker's choices certainly weren't in my control, so I can't be held responsible for his actions."

"Well," said the second officer, "my motivation was a little bit different. I was about to pull my gun on the murderer when I thought to myself, 'But wait, wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity for some unarmed bystander to exercise selfless heroism, should he chance to walk by? If I were to intervene all the time like I was just about to, then no one would ever be able to exercise such a virtue. In fact, everyone would probably become very spoiled and self-centered if I were to prevent every act of rape and murder.' So I backed off. It's unfortunate that no one actually showed up to heroically intervene, but that's the price of having a universe where people can display virtue and maturity. Would you rather the world were nothing but love, peace, and roses?"

"I didn't even consider stepping in," said the third officer. "I probably would have if I hadn't had so much experience of life as a whole, since Ms. K's rape and murder admittedly seems pretty horrible when taken in isolation. But when you put it into context with the rest of life, it actually adds to the overall beauty of the big picture. Ms. K.'s screams were like the discordant notes that make fine musical pieces better than they would have been had all the notes been flawless. In fact, I could scarcely keep from waving my hands around, imagining that I myself was conducting the delicious nuances of the orchestra."

"When I first arrived on the scene, I actually drew my gun and pointed it right at the rapist's head," confessed the fourth officer, with a very guilty look on his face. "I'm deeply ashamed I did that. Do you know how close I came to destroying all of the goodness in the world? I mean, we all know there can't be any good without evil. Fortunately, I remembered this just in time, and a wave of such strong nausea came over me when I realized what I had almost done, that it knocked me to my hands and knees. Man, was that a close one."

"Look, there's really no point in my trying to explain the details to you," said the fifth officer, who we had nicknamed 'Brainiac' because he had an encyclopedic knowledge of literally everything and an IQ way off the charts. "There's an excellent reason for why I did not intervene, but it's just way too complicated for you to understand, so I'm not even going to bother trying. I mean, you admit you are nowhere near as knowledgeable as I am, so what right do you have to judge? Just so there's no misunderstanding, though, let me point out that no one could care about Ms. K. more than I did, and that I am, in fact, a very good person. That settles that."

"I would have defended Ms. K," said the sixth officer, who was notoriously careful about staying out of the public eye, "but it simply was not feasible. You see, I want everyone to freely choose to believe in me. But if I were to step in every time someone was about to be raped or murdered, then the evidence would be so clear-cut that everyone would be forced to believe in me. Can you imagine a more diabolical infringement upon their free wills? Obviously, it was better for me to back off and let Ms. K be raped and murdered. Now everyone can freely choose to believe that there is this extraordinary cop out there who loves them like his own children."

"What are you complaining about?" exclaimed the seventh officer when I turned to him, his eyebrows shooting up in exasperated disbelief. "I just saved a woman from getting raped and murdered last week! Do I have to jump in every time I see something like that about to happen? I would say the fact that more women are not raped and murdered in this city is almost miraculous testimony to my goodness."

The eighth officer, too, looked frustrated. "Nothing I do is good enough! Do you know how much worse it could have been? The thug actually had a blowtorch with him when he started out, but I said 'No way, not on my watch,' and knocked it away from him with my nightstick. Sure, I let him keep the switchblade, the pliers, the coat hanger, and the vial of acid, but think how much worse it would have been with a blowtorch! Ms. K should have thanked her lucky stars that someone so loving was there to watch over her."

"I'll let you in on a secret," said the ninth officer."Moments after Ms. K. flatlined, I had her resuscitated, and flown to a tropical resort where she is now experiencing extraordinary bliss, and her ordeal is just a distant memory. I'm sure you would agree that that's more than adequate compensation for her suffering, so the fact that I just stood there watching instead of intervening has no bearing at all on my goodness."

The tenth officer gave us all quite a start when he revealed a surprising secret about Ms. K. "I genetically engineered her from scratch. I made her, therefore she's my property, and I can do whatever I want with her. I could rape and murder her myself if I were so inclined, and it would be no worse than you tearing up a piece of paper you own. So there is no question of my being a bad person for not helping her."

The eleventh officer chimed in, gesturing at the tenth officer "I hired him to create Ms. K for me, because I wanted someone to love and worship me. But when I approached Ms. K about the matter, she actually turned away from me, as though she could find meaning and happiness with someone else! So I decided the loving thing to do would be to break her spirit by arranging to have her raped and murdered by a common thug, so that she might turn to me in her extraordinary suffering, thereby fulfilling the purpose for which she had been created. Well, mission accomplished, I'm happy to say! A few seconds before she died, she was so insane with terror and pain that she actually convinced herself she loved me, since she knew that only I could end her ordeal. I'll never forget the love in her eyes when she looked up at me the last time, begging for mercy, right before the thug bent over and slit her throat. It was so beautiful it still brings me to tears. Now I just have to go to that island so she can claim her prize of servitude."

"Well, this is quite a coincidence," chuckled the twelfth officer. "It looks like the thug got himself double pay, because I actually hired him to carry out the murder, too! Why? Oh, well it was just a test. Ms. K and I had been dating for some time (no offense, I didn't know she was someone else's property), and one beautiful night she finally told me she loved me. So, naturally, I wanted to see whether this was indeed love - that is, whether she would continue to adore me even while drowning in a pool of her own tears and blood, with me standing before her doing nothing."

By now, it had become clear to me that any difficulty I might have had in reconciling the presumed goodness of the officers with their behavior that day was unfounded, and that anyone who sided against them could do so only for love of evil over good. After all, anyone who has experienced their friendship in the way I have knows that they are good. Their goodness is even manifest in my life - I was in a shambles before I met them, but now everyone remarks on what a changed person I am, so much kinder and happier, apparently possessed of an inner calm. And I have met so many others who feel exactly the same way about them - so many who, like me, know in their hearts the truth that others try to rationalize away with their cold reason and sterile logic. I am ashamed that I ever doubted the entitlement of the twelve officers to my loyalty and my love.

As I was getting ready to leave, the first officer spoke up again. "By the way, I also think you should know that when we stood there watching Ms. K. get raped and stabbed over and over, we were suffering along with her, and we experienced exactly the same pain she did, or perhaps even more." And everyone in the room, myself included, nodded his head in agreement.

Copied from The Secular Web

Intelligence Design In Science Textbooks: Breathtaking Inanity

2005-12-22T09:52:00.000+08:00

"I felt like both sides [evolution and Intelligent Design] ought to be properly taught. I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."
~George W. Bush

"The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision [to refer to Intelligent Design in Science classes] is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial."
~Judge Jones/Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District

From Jones's 139-page judgement, this was the Board's decision:

"On November 19, 2004, the Defendant Dover Area School District announced by press release that, commencing in January 2005, teachers would be required to read the following statement to students in the ninth grade biology class at Dover High School:

The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments"

Hooha! What a fantastic outcome of this landmark case that is related to what I talked about previously. If the school board wants to put ID in textbooks, it would be perfectly reasonable as well to say in textbooks that 'the pink unicorn in my backyard created the universe'. It's non-falsifiable, but I know it's true! Furthermore, the theory of evolution fails to explain everything, but my unicorn knows everything! Yeah, it's breathtakingly ridiculous. The following is Jones' conclusion.

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court.

Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID. We will also issue a declaratory judgment that Plaintiffs’ rights under the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have been violated by Defendants’ actions.
~Judge Jones/Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District

Cognitive Dissonance

2005-12-19T17:33:00.000+08:00

The Skeptic's Dictionary on Cognitive Dissonance (how people reconcile contradictory thoughts):

"Cognitive dissonance has been called "the mind controller's best friend"... Marian Keech was the leader of a UFO cult in the 1950s. She claimed to get messages from extraterrestrials, known as The Guardians, through automatic writing. Like the Heaven's Gate folks forty years later, Keech and her followers, known as The Seekers or The Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, were waiting to be picked up by flying saucers. In Keech's prophecy, her group of eleven was to be saved just before the earth was to be destroyed by a massive flood on December 21, 1954. When it became evident that there would be no flood and the Guardians weren't stopping by to pick them up, Keech

became elated. She said she'd just received a telepathic message from the Guardians saying that her group of believers had spread so much light with their unflagging faith that God had spared the world from the cataclysm (Levine 2003: 206).

More important, the Seekers didn't abandon her. Most became more devoted after the failed prophecy. (Only two left the cult when the world didn't end.) "Most disciples not only stayed but, having made that decision, were now even more convinced than before that Keech had been right all along....Being wrong turned them into true believers (ibid.)." Some people will go to bizarre lengths to avoid inconsistency between their cherished beliefs and the facts. But why do people interpret the same evidence in contrary ways?

The Seekers would not have waited for the flying saucer if they thought it might not come. So, when it didn't come, one would think that a competent thinker would have seen this as falsifying Keech's claim that it would come. However, the incompetent thinkers were rendered incompetent by their devotion to Keech. Their belief that a flying saucer would pick them up was based on faith, not evidence. Likewise, their belief that the failure of the prophesy shouldn't count against their belief was another act of faith. With this kind of irrational thinking, it may seem pointless to produce evidence to try to persuade people of the error of their ways."

The power is in the post, not in the deity

2005-12-07T23:02:00.000+08:00

One popular argument used by non-theologians when they engage in theodicy (reconciling an omnibenevolent and omnipotent god with a world full of suffering) is that nobody can question their god, since he can do anything he wants and is answerable to no one. Genocide, babies with Down's Syndrome or Tsunamis - failure to stop any of these does not impugn on the moral character of their god. This god could castrate his devotees (or rape them, for the female ones), tear them limb from limb, tie their intestines to a tree and throw them off a cliff (but alas, not to their doom, for they would come back to life in a Sisyphean manner), and they would be praising him as they plunged. He could send the whole human race to burn in hell for all eternity and his worshippers would still be chanting his praises while roasting in sulphur and brimstone.

The problem with this deceptively convincing argument is that it ignores the question of the definition of "good". An omnipotent and omnibenevolent god can do anything, and he will be acclaimed as being good. If an entity cannot be wrong - is incapable of being wrong - we would label it "amoral" - neither moral or immoral, incapable of being either right or, more relevantly in this case, wrong. A rock, for example, is amoral since it has no will (let alone free will) and thus cannot be held accountable for its actions. To acclaim as good an entity which is incapable of being judged immoral is to make a mockery of the concept of morality (if not to make it an unintelligible concept), and indeed that of divine will, since this god will be incapable by definition of doing something wrong; if somebody cheats and obtains answers to a test and then gets full marks, he would not have achieved anything by any objective measure.

Subscribing to a notion of morality being dependent on a god's ever changing whims (as opposed to an objective moral code that even this god can and has to be held to) in fact condemns us to the ultimate form of moral relativism - what is good can change at any one time depending on what the omnibenevolent god does. Some might counter that some gods have moral codes that do not change with time, but that would render null and void the earlier fudge about whatever gods do being automatically branded as good. Furthermore, a look at the Bible and Christian history puts paid to this argument, at least for the Christian god, for it is clear that moral standards have changed dramaticaly with time. What's worse - the Biblical god does not even abide by his own moral standards.

We might then ask why the Christian devil Satan is so reviled. It is because he does evil things, we are told. Yet, even if the Christian god did evil things, by definition he would be acclaimed as good. Presumably, even if a reasonable man judged that Satan did good things like prolonging lives, reducing suffering, ending pestilence and preventing famines, and the Christian god engaged in evil activities like infanticide, genocide, introducing the Ebola virus to the world, we would have to pronounce the former evil and the latter good. The concepts of "good" and "evil" would cease to have any real meaning. The two entities could even be switched (the former god would now be Satan, and the former Satan be god) and the old god would now be denounced and the old Satan be lauded. What would be worshipped, then, would be the Christian god's post, rather than any of his intrinsic attributes, at least according to the "god can do anything he wants" argument. In that case, anyone could be put in the Christian god's post, even any Tom, Dick or Harry on the street, and he would be lauded as being good. For that matter, a monkey, a computer or even a rock could do the same job, and would accrue the same privileges.

How do we really know that the Christian god is good? We just have to take his word for it (or rather, the word of his spokesmen).

A Christian once told me to judge any religion by its fruits. I suppose the same will have to be said of the Christian god, even if rotten, maggot-ridden fruit is wolved down with relish by his worshippers.

***

Someone: look, you might as well take a look at biblical representation of satan. he didn't start off being the Ultimate Bad Guy
look at his evolution from genesis to job

Me: well this is the fundie representation of him
and I think only fundies use the "god can do no wrong" argument
some liberals even accept that the bible is not 100% true!!!

Sin and Forgiveness

2005-11-29T20:39:00.000+08:00

"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." - Numbers 31:17-18

"And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself... But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee" - Deuteronomy 20:13-17

If a god can be forgiven for such heinous atrocities, what's a little Original Sin?

The LORD shall rejoice in his works

2005-10-27T11:17:00.000+08:00

My Little Bird concatenates the following picture:

Tossing out the changeling with the bath water

2005-10-13T18:26:00.000+08:00

The truth is rarely pure and never simple at No Concept of Liberty reminds us of the delightful tale retold in Judges 19:

the first guy pushes his concubine out of the house and the mob gang-rape her through the night. By the time morning comes, the concubine is one the verge of death. She collapses on the floor outside the house, with one hand on the threshold. When her husband discovers her in this state, and when she does not give any response when he tells her to get up, he loads her onto his donkey and heads home. Thereafter, he cuts her body up into twelve pieces and sends one piece to each tribe of Israel.

(Graphic depiction courtesy of The Brick Testament)

He concludes:

So really the correct response when reading these things is not to try to argue them away by explaining how they are really about showing hospitality or whatever. The correct response is to regard them as the rabid tales of some barbaric ancient tribe and then toss them out of the window.

Some might argue that the passage ends with the words: "Everyone who saw it said, 'Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!'" (NIV), which is hardly approving of the deed. Yet, the mere fact that the conclusion of this sordid tale is absent of any trace of moral condemnation at all is a deafening indictment, considering how verbose the Old Testament is about condemning sin or what JHVH finds distasteful.

The problem, then, is deciding which bits of scripture to keep, and which to dump. For if everyone starts dumping the bits of the bible that they dislike or find repulsive, different people will have different views about which parts are veracious, and no one will have any idea who is right. In the final analysis, what's to stop you from throwing the whole thing out of the window?

Which is one of the main reasons why fundies decide to keep everything, and explain it away with intellectual suicide.

Far better, I think, to toss out the changeling with the bath water and find a real human.

(Cross-posted to Balderdash)

The Canonicity of the Bible

2005-10-06T01:27:00.000+08:00

I just saw a notice on the front page of Wesley Church's website.

Exactly which books constitute the Scripture? Why do the Roman Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox have different books that they regard was scripture? How were these documents admitted into the bible? What were the criteria for doing so? Register now at the Info Counter and find out the answers to these questions and more. 20 & 27 October 2005, 7.30-9.30pm...

I'm going to sign up, anyone wants to come along? I've always wondered, how come I can't write a book, and persuade the Committee that compiles the books of the Bible to include my book in it? ;)

Pascal's Wager revisited

2005-10-01T21:59:00.000+08:00

One of the more commonly heard "reasons" to believe in the Christian god is Pascal's Wager. Simply, if you believe in the Christian god and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing. If you believe in him and he does, you gain everything. Meanwhile, if you don't believe in him and he doesn't exist, you lose nothing, but if you don't believe in him and he does, you suffer for eternity.

Many objections to this simplistic argument can be found, but more novel and interesting is an alternative wager postulated by a Darwin Bedford, the "Atheist Messiah and Spiritual Reality Therapist:

1. If you don't believe in God and you are wrong, after you die, so long as you have lead a moral life you should have nothing to fear. A compassionate god would not punish you for guessing which religion had an exclusive handle on the truth.

2. If you believe in God and you are wrong, you will have done foolish things such as wasting time praying when you should have taken effective action. You will have lived your life as if it did not matter because you erroneously thought it was merely a trial, preparatory to your real life after death. You would have lived an overly safe conventional life, keeping your nose clean and avoiding all adventure. You would have let evil thrive, because you felt dealing with that was God's responsibility, not yours. You would have done irrational things just because some hoary old book tricked you into it, like mistreating blacks or gays. You would have wasted much of your life in fear of the imaginary divine meat axe.

3. If you don't believe in God and you are right, you live a zestful life. Every second counts. It is all you have got. You don't fritter your time in ritualistic activities. You take responsibility for the planet. You make a difference. You made your decisions rationally, not based on fear of some lunatic bogeyman in the sky. You behave well not because you fear punishment, but because you know that such behaviour is globally and locally optimal, good for everyone and also for you. You are a blessing to the planet.

4. If you believe in God and you are right, you are more likely than not to be an insufferably smug hypocrite, looking down your nose at others and judging incessantly just as Jesus told you not to do. God judges your actions, not your beliefs. In Luke 13:25, Jesus warned you that mere praying would not get you into heaven; only good deeds would. You get punished doubly since you ought to have known better.

Questions

2005-09-10T16:59:00.000+08:00

A reader, searching, asked me some questions here, so I'm going to devote this entry to answering some of them.

Hello Jeff. I've read the posts on this page. There was one part in your reply to naniecheng that you said your questioning of your faith turned you away from it. So what was it that you held on to, despite the many times you were turned away by your own questions, did you question yourself into coming back or something like that? or what happened?

There were aspects of the conventional teachings that troubled me. For example, the emphasis on the issue of salvation, to the point that some have the idea that if one doesn't believe in whatever the brochure says, one would go to hell. A natural result is the obnoxiousness of some believers, sometimes reaching ridiculous levels (e.g. Xiaxue's account.) Other times, a greater bad thing happens, and a concern of a lot of Christ's parables: hypocrisy.

So for a long while, I tried to understand this, and I 'turned away' in the sense that I decided that this interpretation isn't really the point. In fact, it could even well be wrong. Let's just say we use the model, everyone will go to hell unless the person believes. OK, if that's true, what happens to the 1 month old baby who dies? Would the baby go to hell? Well, what's the point? A baby is born, and then almost immediately after, gets tortured in hell? I asked many people this, and a common response was on the lines of...well, maybe the baby won't go to hell, or, God isn't that cruel, there might be some criteria that applies to cute babies, or, God works in mysterious ways, which I reckoned was an easy thing to say to 'explain it away'... So there was a period of time when I was very troubled by this.

Another thing that makes me suspicious is this idea of if you believe, you'll go to heaven. The contrary is also true. Now, this seems to me a very conditional thing; it's like emotional blackmail. The question I have is: believe in what? Maybe some believe in the factual account of the Resurrection, some believe in the intellectual arguments or emotional effects, and maybe some believe in the love of God and some believe to be good people, and so on. So there are a range of things that people can believe in, or proclaim.

When I read and try to understand the spirit of Christ's teachings, I realise that this 'model of salvation' seems questionable.

"Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?'

And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.' ~ Matthew 7:21

So, I figure, it's not believing (whatever), per se, it might have to do with other things. So the guys ask how come? We did all the mighty works in your name already, what? How come we're still 'evildoers'? Another is:

Jesus looking at him said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?"

But he said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." ~ Luke 18:24

This passage is for all of us who have Internet connections. There's no arguing that we are rich. So what is Jesus saying? Seems to me that it's no longer an issue of whether we can choose or 'activate' our salvation, not even in 'believing'. It is impossible. It is up to God, and of Christ's sacrifice. (As I write this, I'm also looking at Wikipedia's Protestant entry, and it seems that what I'm expressing is similar to 'sola gracia', grace alone.) So, if this is true, the 'believe or you will go to hell' account can be shown to be considerably weakened. At this point in time, this is what I believe is what the Scriptures mean. Although 'evangelical Christians' are technically Protestants, a lot of 'evangelical' churches do not really preach this.

You know something? I think it is absolutely liberating. What this implies is no longer should we view people as either going to hell, or not, for it is quite irrelevant. It also relieves us of our stress that we need to do enough good things to justify our entry into heaven, because it simply can't be done. On the contrary, we try to do good things for its own sake. And we try to love others for who they are, for they are God's creations.

Obviously the above is not something you mingt find in Sunday School, so I would hope you readers will do your own research and test things out for yourselves. Searching, I'll answer the rest of your questions in due time. :)

Mind control and brainwashing

2005-09-02T20:22:00.000+08:00

The Skeptic's Dictionary on mind control and brainwashing:

"The techniques available to manipulate the vulnerable are legion. One technique is to give them the love they feel they do not get elsewhere. Convince them that through you and your community they can find what they're looking for, even if they haven't got a clue that they're looking for anything. Convince them that they need faith in you and that you have faith in them. Convince them that their friends and family outside the group are hindrances to their salvation. Isolate them. Only you can give them what they need. You love them. You alone love them. You would die for them. So why wouldn't they die for you? But, love alone can only get you so far in winning them over. Fear is a great motivator. Fear that if they leave they'll be destroyed. Fear that if they don't cooperate they'll be condemned. Fear that they can't make it in this miserable world alone. The manipulator must make the recruit paranoid.

Love and fear may not be enough, however; so guilt must be used, too. Fill them with so much guilt that they will want to police their own thoughts. Remind them that they are nothing alone, but with you and God (or some Power or Technique) they are Everything. Fill them with contempt for themselves, so that they will want to be egoless, selfless, One with You and Yours. You not only strip them of any sense of self, you convince them that the ideal is be without a self. Keep up the pressure. Be relentless. Humiliate them from time to time. Soon they will consider it their duty to humiliate themselves. Control what they read, hear, see. Repeat the messages for eyes and ears. Gradually get them to make commitments, small ones at first, then work your way up until you own their property, their bodies, their souls. And don't forget to give them drugs, starve them, or have them meditate or dance or chant for hours at a time until they think they've had some sort of mystical experience. Make them think, "It was you, Lord, who made me feel so good." They won't want to give it up. They have never felt so good. Though they look as if they are in Hell to those of us on the outside, from the inside it looks like Heaven.

What religion doesn't use guilt and fear to get people to police their own thoughts? Even some therapists use similar methods to control their patients. They prey on the vulnerable. They demand total loyalty and trust as a price for hope and healing. They often isolate their prey from loved ones and friends. They try to own and control their clients. The methods of recruiters are not much different. Are the recruits, the converts to the faith, and the patients willing victims? How would we tell the difference between a willing victim and an unwilling victim? If we cannot do that, then we can't distinguish any true cases of mind control."

However, as they point out later, free will is an iffy thing.

When does relentless persuasion turn into subtle coercion? When can someone be said to be manipulated by another? If someone cheerfully does something of his own volition, how can we say that he is being brainwashed? Is advertising a form of mind control?

These are not easy questions to answer, for free will is one of those things, like consciousness, that we are still trying to unravel.

Nonetheless, being told to and made to dwell constantly on what one has done wrong instead of what one has done right, being held to an impossible standard which one is still supposed to aspire to, being given contradictory suggestions, being told to have faith even when said faith may be unjustified, and above all being told still that one is loved despite the lack of objective expressions of this love is surely suspect.

A future post on the signs of an abusive relationship will deal with some of this issues at greater length.

Seen as someone's MSN status message: "I am a hypocrite. I am selfish. I am evil. I am a liar. I am stubborn. I dishonour you. GOD!!! Why do you still love me???"

God bless my Yong Tau Hoo!

2005-08-23T23:39:00.000+08:00

Staff Profile: James Lim

What is your role in the Staff Team?: Minister to Mandarin Service [of the Hope of God Church].

[What was] Your most embarrassing moment?: ...some time ago, I went to eat Yong Tau Fu without bringing enough money. I can still remember the shock and embarrassment I felt at that point of time. Knowing that there is no ATM around and the shop only accept cash payment; I frantically tried calling people for help but no one answered my call. When my Yong Tau Fu came and the waiter extended out his hand for the money, I warned him that I may not have enough money as I took out my wallet. I could clearly see the displeasure on his face. In my heart, I prayed for a miracle as I dug deep into my wallet. Surprisingly, out came the exact amount of money to pay for the food, which I knew for certain wasn't there in the first place. Thank God for saving me the embarrassment.

Hallelujah! Hey presto! GOD EXISTS!!! YAY!

Wear for the 21st Century

2005-08-15T02:56:00.000+08:00

In Junction 8 today, I saw a pseudo-pushcart stall with a T-shirt that read: "Social hazard. I will not conform to the pattern of this world." Wondering how they were being allowed to hawk products with such socially disruptive messages which will inevitably unravel the fabric of our society, causing it to descend into looting and rioting and the end of Singapore as we know it, I looked at the other T-shirts to see if they broadcasted similarly seditious and subversive messages.

I was mildly surprised to find out that the stall was selling "Funky Christian T-shirts" and other such merchandise. The usual trite slogans abounded (eg "No Jesus, No Peace. Know Jesus, Know Peace"), and it seemed that I'd unconsciously filtered them out, only being drawn to the one with the seditious message. Looking closer at it, I found that "Rom 12:2" was written at the bottom of the shirt.

After a quick glance at my portable concordance guide, I immediately conceptualised the most obvious sequel (at least to me) in the same vein: "I hate my family (Lk 14:26)". I also was put in mind of the corollary of the "No Jesus, No Peace" slogan:

"Know God, Know Sin. No God, No Sin."

More wisdom needed

2005-08-12T01:36:00.000+08:00

As a Christian, somehow we still have to use our head to think, I mean, sometimes we just not necessary to listen, or even agree with the sermon.
I still have this vivid memory of what this preacher had been saying in one particular Sunday - and it did make me shake my head so badly.
Basically the sermon was about marriage, and the preacher went - "In a secular world people all have different agenda in life, and that's why they stay single / unmarried until late 30. By the time they got married, they would realise they're unable to have kids as they're too old to have one. As you all can see, this goes against what God said in Genesis - Be fruitful and multiply."
"So here I am saying to you all, as Christians, we should marry early, and multiply."
I looked up to the pulpit, only to realise a lot of the young people (aged 16, 17) looked shocked at the preacher.
So I was thinking, was the reaction simply because the thought was way too challanging, or we just don't like what he said?

Or maybe the main question to ponder on is, how do we know the preacher is preaching the right thing?
As for myself, the answer is wisdom.

Odds and Ends...

2005-08-09T14:33:00.000+08:00

So I'll be going on a boat trip to nowhere, so there'd probably be no new entries from me for the rest of the month.

In the meantime, in case you haven't seen this before, this is a good read from John Scalzi called What My Jesus Would Do.

Miraculous healings and the power of suggestion

2005-08-08T23:28:00.000+08:00

Extract from Jesus: The Evidence by Ian Wilson:

"It is well-known medically that some paralyses are 'hysterical' in origin, that is they have a mental rather than physical cause, usually as a result of some severe emotional stress. Disfiguring skin conditions, blindness, apparent inability to heal or speak, and all manner of seeming mental disorders, can also be induced by hysteria, and while to the patient such ailments seem all too real, and may last for many years, they can sometimes be cured by a reversing or neutralizing of the original, debilitating emotional problem. Although treatment with drugs is of course the most usual way of doing this today, other nonetheless well-recognized approaches are via psychotherapy or hypnosis, the 'cure' as effected by the latter often being dramatically sudden.

It has to be acknowledged that even to this day no-one really knows what hypnosis is, whatever individual hypnotists themselves may claim they know. In essence hypnosis appears to be a belief system shared between two individuals, one, the subject, who abandons himself, in terms of his waking consciousness, to the other, the hypnotist, who by taking charge of the patient's unconscious mind may be able to free elements that the patient's consciousness has previously repressed or held back. So-called 'hysterical' individuals often seem to make particularly good hypnotic subjects and consistently the effects of hypnosis upon these can be in direct proportion to the degree of awe in which they hold the hypnotist. While scientists mostly remain reticent about stating anything too positive about hypnosis because of its continuing mysteries and uncertainties, few would deny that it can and does produce some remarkable phenomena, including spectacular 'cures'.

For instance, the now veteran British hypnotist Peter Casson has on his files the case of a woman who, for fifteen years after a major car accident, had been quite unable to close her hand or to grip with it. Several operations had failed to improve her condition, but on the strength of just one hypnosis session with Peter Casson she found that she could once again close her hand and use it normally....

An even better attestation of hypnosis's medical potential is a British doctor's highly dramatic use of it as a last resort for a particularly disfiguring skin condition that was well documented, with accompanying photographs, in the British Medical Journal of 23 August 1952. The patient was a sixteen-year-old boy who two years earlier had been admitted to East Grinstead's Royal Victoria Hospital suffering from ichthyosis, a most unsightly condition that from ever since he had been born had covered his body with a black, horny, reptilian layer that was as uncomfortable and evil-smelling as it was disfiguring. Although two attempts at plastic surgery had been made, in both the reptilian layer had quickly replaced the skin that had been freshly grafted, so that even Sir Archibald McIndoe, the most eminent plastic surgeon of the day, pronounced further conventional treatment useless.

By chance, however, the boy's plight came to the notice of a young physician with an interest in hypnosis, Dr A.A.Mason, today a psycho-analyst in Beverly Hills, California. Mason asked if he might at least try hypnosis, and on 10 February 1951, having induced a hypnotic state, he suggested to the youth that his left arm's reptilian layer would disappear. There ensued an extraordinary transformation. Within five days the horny covering was soft, pink and normal for the first time in the boy's life. During the next few weeks hypnotic suggestion was given for the clearance of the reptilian layer on the right arm and then for specific remaining areas of his body, each time with between 50 per cent and 95 per cent success. although the cure was slower than it might have been in the case of, say, a hysterical blindness or paralysis (almost certainly because of the very nature of the disease), it is little short of incredible that it should have happened at all. And a fascinating feature is the fact that, because of ichthyosis's rarity, Dr Mason did not even realize at the time that he was dealing with such a congenital, structural illness. As he has frankly admitted, had he realized he would most likely not have tried hypnosis, because he would have thought it unsuitable for anything so deep-seated. But because he believed he could do it, he succeeded. Accordingly, it is the most striking, possible attestation of what mere words, given the hypnotic state, can do."

The human mind is a most mysterious thing, and mere suggestions can induce seemingly miraculous outcomes when psychosomatic symptoms or illnesses are involved.

Agnus Dei

2005-08-06T03:35:00.000+08:00

Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Christians like to refer to themselves as sheep, guided by the shepherd that is their lord. No doubt they feel comforted knowing that a shepherd watches over them and protects them. Yet, it doesn't take much to consider the implications of being a sheep.

Sheep are wolly-headed, easily led off (for good or for evil, no one knows) and prone to falling into the herd mentality. If this were not so, they would not need shepherds to watch over them. And because shepherds understand that sheep are just that, they do not blame them for their actions, even if they are greatly inconvenienced by them. Indeed, if a sheep goes astray, it is the shepherd who is blamed. After all, sheep do not know any better, and the shepherd is the one who has been entrusted with their care.

It might also be profitable to ask why shepherds watch over and protect sheep. Is it because they are charitable, kind or good-hearted? Nay. Shepherds are self-interested beings, like almost all other humans, so we do not expect that they will spend most of their day watching their flock as it grazes merely out of the goodness of their heart. Of course, it's also a good excuse for them play the pan pipes, that's more of a fringe benefit than anything else.

Shepherds, then, have 3 uses for sheep. They either fleece them for their wool, kill them for their meat or screw them when no one is looking (in the absence of willing and available human females). One does not have relationships with sheep, for they are meant to be exploited by their shepherds.

"We enter church, and we have to say, 'We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep,' when what we want to say is, 'Why are we made to err and stray like lost sheep?'" - Thomas Hardy

[Cross-posted to Balderdash]

In The Image Of God, Eventually.

2005-08-05T08:11:00.000+08:00

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Genesis 1:26

I was just reading this in today's newspaper, and it makes me mad! (Well, it's not the first time.)

Click for bigger picture. So Mr. Bush wants to put the so-called Intelligent Design perspective into textbooks. Now, I happen to believe in the spirit of the ID point of view, that life is so intricate that only an powerful or intelligent entity could have done it. However, I also know that this is not science, this is entirely a matter of faith, and therefore, should not be in school textbooks.

If ID is found in textbooks, I'd also advocate that the rest of the world's religions'/belief systems' description of Creation be put into textbooks as well. All of them are also articles of faith, and there's no reason why one should be more feasible than the other, in the context of teaching material in science textbooks. Personally, I'd love to see the Monkey King （孙悟空）and the Jade Emperor （玉皇大帝）in textbooks; these guys are my favourite characters from Chinese mythology hehee...

Now I think this whole evolution thing is one, big, unnecessary conflict for Christians. Firstly, it's useful to understand the reason why 'conservative' Christians are so against it. One main reason is that it allows the possibility that there need not be a God in the scheme of things. Creatures can evolve by natural selection, by chance. Second, it claims that man evolved from apes. Oh, the blasphemy! Humans, the pinnacle of God's creation, descended from some monkey?!

But if evolution is indeed true, does it need to be interpreted in that manner? Absolutely not. Who are we to say how God did not create humans through evolution? How dare we dictate how and in what time-frame God, in His infinite wisdom, chooses to bring about humans. How arrogant we are, sometimes, we of little faith. Yes, the theory of evolution has the potential to take away the necessity of God in creation. On the other hand, it also has the ability to explain how creation came about, and probably a close approximation to what actually happened. This is arrived it by reasoning and careful observation.

I've read somewhere that says God may be a lot of things, but he is certainly no liar. The evidence that He leaves behind, the footprints of paths trodden in the creation of man, is vast and substantial. Can we discern the grand beauty of creation through evolution? Definitely. I once had a pretty primary school science teacher (!) who didn't believe in dinosaurs; I think she said it conflicted with her Christian beliefs or something. Oh, the tragedy! The refusal to acknowledge these grand animals just because of a suspect interpretation of scriptures.

But we must also be fair. Can the theory of evolution turn out to be wrong? For the sake of scientific humility, yes, of course. Science isn't that arrogant to keep sticking to a particular point of view if the evidence shows othewise. But for now, I think whether it's right or wrong is not really the main point. The real question is: do we let God do what He needs to do, or do we limit Him to pander to our pride and dismiss outright the possibility that we might have come from mere monkeys?

All Things Dull And Ugly

2005-08-03T02:55:00.000+08:00

Everyone loves Monty Python:

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.

Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spikey urchin,
Who made the sharks, He did.

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.

Amen.

Some may recognise this song as Monty Python's take on the traditional hymn: "All things bright and beautiful". MP3 available on request. Please leave your email address.

Oh, and feel free to discuss the song, its lyrics or related themes.

Non-falsification

2005-08-01T22:07:00.000+08:00

[Reworked version of an old post]

Something that has always intrigued me is how people are able, through post-hoc rationalisation, to attribute everything to their god and to say that his will, mercy, grace et al are being displayed.

Take the case of someone getting into a serious accident. For every possible outcome, a rationalisation that involves praising and thanking his god can be found:

If they are uninjured - Praise be to God! I am uninjured! It's a miracle!

If they are slightly injured - Praise be to God! I am barely scratched! He's watching over me!

If they are injured - Praise be to God! I am injured, yet since I have faith in him, I have come out stronger. Hallelujah!

If they are badly injured - Praise be to God! This is a caution to me, to tell me not to be so careless next time. Thank you God for protecting me from death this time. I will take better care of myself next time.

If they are crippled for life - Praise be to God! Though I am crippled in body, I am whole in spirit. I will strive to extol him and glorify his name further. I will serve as a testament to his mercy and grace.

If they die - [Said by others] Praise be to God! He has taken xxx to his side, and saved him the torments of his life. His time was up, so he was taken according to God's plan. Amen.

One finds that there is no falsifier for the goodness and grace of this god, and as with much other Christian logic, this stems from working backwards from a pre-determined conclusion (God is great and good) and wrenching the facts so they miraculously point towards this conclusion.

When the answer is a foregone conclusion despite the facts, an argument loses any possible meaning, significance or worth.

Other views:

"Christians have always been the masters of rationization.Sometimes it borders on creative genius.If the explanation has the slightest bit of plausability,they're satisfied with it.They could flip a coin and pray that it turns up heads.If it does,praise God!A clear demonstration that God is with us.If it's tails,it's God's will and someday we'll understand.Then if there's the slightest positive result of it being tails,it proves that God,in his wisdom,knew what He was doing the whole time!"

"I love how God can never be the bad guy. There's always some reason why God will is always the right way. If some guy gets crushed by a steamroller, there's some mumbo jumbo about how God had a plan for him or some shit like that.
I always wonder what the rationalization is for people who agonize over diabetes or bone marrow cancer, who agonize for prolonged periods of time before they finally called by God."

The bounty of New Creation

2005-07-30T01:31:00.000+08:00

It is common to praise the Christian god for blessing you and your kin, and especially for healing you when conventional medical techniques have failed. However, reading the testimonies page of the New Creation church is enlightening. Here, the Christian god is portrayed as one who will grant you various favors if you worship him, much like the pagan gods of Greece and Rome.

Among other things, the Christian god is credited with:

- finding a buyer for a piece of property, and offering a good price too
- increasing sales
- healing someone of food poisoning ("I knew that this was not really food poisoning but more of the devil’s sabotage as I was supposed to have my final-year project implementation/presentation at 2.30pm.")
- getting people jobs
- a fellow church member giving someone a red packet
- upgrading someone from a C to B2 ward at no charge
- giving someone a pay raise of 5%
- taking business away from one company and giving it to another ("Talk about the supernatural favour of my Daddy God!")

My favourite, though, was the following:

I won the first prize!

Dear Pastor,

The year started with a big bang for me. My husband and I were among the selected guests invited to a Volkswagon count-down party at the roof-top of The Esplanade.

When I received the invitation card and noticed that there was going to be a lucky draw conducted that night, I was leaping with joy as if I had won the first prize.

I had no idea what the first prize was but simply went ahead to thank the Lord in advance. However, I did remember telling my husband over dinner the day before that I would like to visit Europe with him and that God would make it happen because He heard our conversation!

Just before midnight, when the emcee was about to announce the first prize, I sensed deep down in my spirit that God had thrown this party just for me to receive my prize. My heart was pounding fast and I could not believe it when my name was announced!

I went on stage to collect my return air-tickets for two to Germany with a 3D2N stay at The Ritz Carlton Hotel! The trip includes a visit to the Volkswagon factory.

Praise Jesus for the child-like faith He encourages us to have. We are receiving blessings and joy in abundance as we enter the year 2005!

In times past I was told that going to mediums at Chinese temples, one could be granted whatever one wished, but would have to pay a price to the spirits granting said favors.

Marriage Maths

2005-07-28T23:17:00.000+08:00

So in the past two weeks, I've chatted with two people, and read about one person online, who have/are going through the issues relating to Christians dating/marrying non-Christians. I think there're lots more people who are in a similar dilemma due to the theological impasse presented by the following black and white picture.

From AnswersInGenesis

So we go to the relevant verse. It is a short verse from Paul, but one that strikes fear and uncertainty in many people.

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."
2 Corinthians 6:14-16

I think it's useful to first consider the practical advantages of taking this verse at face value. Obviously, if two people share similar ideas and beliefs, all other things being equal, life should be easier etc. There would be less quarelling and so on.

But then again, Paul is saying that unbelievers are 'lawlessness' and 'darkness'. I find that really sweeping statement-ish and just a little bit arrogant. In my MSN chat when my friend asked me for my opinion because she once dated a 'non-believer', I thought for a while and typed "Screw it. Love. Love. Love. Love is the answer." or something to the effect. Which, admittedly, was rather idealistic and probably won't be all that simplistic in reality.

Is there any Biblical basis for this? Is there any room for negotiation for verse 14? I think there is. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a lawyer asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him what the Law says and how he interprets it. The legal eagle correctly answers "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind", and "Love your neighbor as yourself." But the lawyer wants to test Jesus some more, and so he asks, "And who is my neighbor?" So...

Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."

Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
Luke 10:30-37

The first two guys who don't help the wounded person are both of the same faith/background as the Jews. The last guy is the Samaritan who helps the wounded guy. Based on this, I reckon that an analogy of the relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans is probably a little similar between Christians and Muslims in today's context. They don't really like each other (or at least some groups!) and they have different beliefs, even if they worship the same God, and one is an outcast in the other's society.

I think the interesting thing about this parable is that essentially, Jesus is asking us to be like the Muslim (as per contextual paraphasing above)! Why? I think Jesus is saying that labels don't really matter as much as the authenticity of the person him or herself. To assign 'righteousness/lawlessness/light/dark' to people based on their social standing or beliefs is just too simplistic. The proof is in the pudding.

So going back to the marriage issue, I think maybe the first verse taken at face value might not be too helpful. Have you ever seen a Christian with a black user icon? I sure have! :) So, my feeling is that yes, Paul's right about choosing wisely as it's not very nice to marry someone who's lawless and basically a really bad person. But anyone can fit this criterion, not just unbelievers. I think faith differences can potentially make or break a relationship. But what about a couple who knows, understands, respects, and accepts another's differing faith? Is that not enough? Is that not one of the grand manifestations of unconditional love?

Update (!): Trackback, must-read counter arguments from Adina.

Slaves And Other Matters

2005-07-24T23:56:00.000+08:00

I like attending the 5pm service at Wesley because it's less crowded. This photo was taken 10 minutes before the start of the service.

Anyway, something interesting from today's sermon...

You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
~Titus 2

So the funny thing about today's sermon was that there are a few politically incorrect things that's present in the passage. I thought the pastor would interpret this in the context of our modern times. Yeah, he did that but he also brought in some bizarre comparisons. For example, in the 'teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything', he agreed that this should be the case, and that they should not 'talk back' because slaves in the old days had no rights! Then he says in the context of our times, this can also refer to subordinates in the office talking back to their superiors, or maids talking back to their 'masters'. So, yeah, very strange.

Also, it's too bad that the NIV translation urges woman to be 'busy at home'. I thought that is pretty funny, does anyone know how the next phrase 'so that no one will malign the word of God' originates from?

I don't really know what to make of Paul. Sometimes he talks about slaves and that women should be submissive to men and not hold important posts in church, and at other times like in 1 Corinthians 13, he writes absolutely wonderful things about love. So I guess not everything is bad; there's still good stuff from the above passage apart from the stuff I mentioned...

Preamble

2005-07-24T22:55:00.000+08:00

This is a blog for me and hopefully others too who are recovering Christians. Recovering as in we once called themselves Christians, but are in some respects disillusioned by the way Scriptures are interpreted, and how Christians treat other people sometimes. Some have abandoned their faith for good reason, others have not (like me). Some have their own conceptions of what the Scriptures are really saying that are very different from what is usually taught.

So naturally, there are things that I will write that are disturbing, so why risk making others angry or disturbed? I guess there are precedents for this sort of thing. If you're a Protestant, you'll know that this means you're from the POV of a protesting Christian in the 16th century, protesting against the Catholic Christians. So, I guess it's not unusual for differences in opinion to appear. It's all part of the continual reformation of the Church. I could keep quiet, of course, but I don't think that would be right. What I wish is that everyone can treat each other with respect, even when there're drastic differences in opinions.

I first got the idea of setting up this blog from Adina's discussion about faith. The Bush win made me abandon my faith for a day because I was just so bloody angry. But I vowed to come back the next day and continue fighting. I realised that this feeling is not that uncommon among people of faith, and subsequently I hope this blog can become a place for discussion and reflection among folks who have similar ideas.

Keep in mind that the stuff that you hear might be considered heretic and not necessarily taught in Sunday School :). If I were living in less modern times, I'd be surely burnt at the stake. I've thought long and hard how to approach this. It's a fine line between doing the work of the Lord and doing the work of the Devil. I hope I can approach this in humility and with grace. It's not easy to go against conventional teachings, and arrogance is always a real danger. But we'll see where this goes. If you wish to be a contributor of this blog (i.e., you can also post new entries), feel free to leave a comment. Contributors might include both believers and non-believers, for I think there are times when we are not sure what believers believe, and what non-believers actually don't believe...