Brian David Mitchell...you're doing it wrong!

Elizabeth Smart took the stand yesterday in the trial of Brian David Mitchell, the crazed Mormon who kidnapped and raped her. She described the way he stealthily removed her from her bed while her sister lay just inches away. Mitchell claims God told him to do it. Therefore, it must be ok. Right? The only problem with that is normally the Hebrew god tells his people to brutally murder the entire family and village before taking the young virgin as your wife.

I’m in a quandary. I thought kidnap and rape were wrong. Isn’t the Bible supposed to be our source of morality? Yet, the Bible condones it over and over. I need to find a verse that specifically says, “Kidnapping and raping a young girl is ALWAYS wrong.” I’ve found plenty of verses encouraging it and not one condemning it. Can someone help me out here?

Questions for Christians

From time-to-time, I receive emails from Christians full of questions regarding my deconversion--my rejection of the Christian argument. I always respond to their questions thoroughly and then send my set of questions for them. I generated the list off-the-cuff about 2 years ago. As of late, no Christian has even attempted to answer these questions. They usually claim to be too busy despite the fact I just answered their questions. I'm hoping someone will respond now that I'm posting it as a blog.

Please try not to speculate or provide standard Christian arguments. I'm looking for well-thought out responses.

God
1) Define god.
2) Did your god create sin? Why or why not?
3) Why does your god allow suffering?
4) How and why does vicarious redemption atone for sin? Why is it necessary?
5) What is heaven?
6) What is hell?
7) Why did god not mention hell in the OT?
8) What scientific evidence do you have for the afterlife?
9) What makes your belief any different from a person who claims to have been abducted by a UFO?
10) If the Hebrew god is your moral arbiter and is your source for direction, how do you personally determine his will since he is unseen and mute?
11) If your god “fine-tuned” the universe for life, why is life irregular and chaotic?
12) Have you ever seen a person raised from the dead?
13) Have you seen your god regrow a limb or does he just “heal” things we can’t see?
14) How do you reconcile the inconsistencies among the thousands upon thousands of Biblical manuscripts?
15) If god came to you and told you to kill your child, would you? Please do not respond with "he won't". He did with Abraham. This is a serious question. Would you?
16) If he told you to blow up a public building, would you? He has demonstrated in the Bible that he would ask such a thing.

Biology
1) Show fossils that unmistakably support the creationist view.
2) Show me the alternative system of dating used by creationists.
3) Show me the creationist explanation for vestigial organs.
4) Show me the creationist explanation for fused genes in Chromosome 2 in humans.
5) Show me scientific evidence for the creation story.
6) Show me 10 reputable scientists who have published alternative views to evolution by natural selection.
7) Show me a gene that shows markings of having been created and not evolved.
8) Give me a valid scientific explanation why there are no human bones found in the same layer of earth and/or mingled with dinosaur bones.

Morality
1) If the Hebrew god is good, why did he have the Hebrews commit genocide and rape?
2) Are the Ten Commandments a good moral code?
3) Name them off the top of your head without cheating.
4) If the Hebrews did not have the Ten Commandments until they were wandering in the desert from whence came their morality beforehand?

How do you know what you claim to know in your answers above?

Liberty Lesson—Understanding the Indoctrination of Positive Liberty

The concept of liberty is dear to my heart. It’s a fundamental right, because it is the state in which we naturally seek to exist. Humans and animals desire freedom. Lock up a human or an animal and he tries to escape. In fact, some humans would rather die than be imprisoned.

Many other so-called “rights” are cultural or secondary and are derived from a governing body. In contemporary Western society, many Americans mistake cultural or social rights for fundamental or natural rights. Healthcare, housing, or even clean water are NOT fundamental rights because to have them, there must be an institution in place to provide them—which is not always possible or the case. They are important and sometimes necessities, but not rights.

The basic role of government is to ensure that our fundamental rights are not infringed upon. That’s it and nothing more. Often times, when these secondary, cultural rights are enforced for some, it is at the expense of fundamental rights of others. This is morally, ethically, and constitutionally WRONG. When we sacrifice our fundamental rights for necessities—food, housing—and perks—health insurance, security—we lose our freedom. When government becomes the force infringing upon those basic rights, it becomes the enemy. This is central to libertarian, classic liberal, and individualist anarchist thought. According to philosopher, Sir Isaiah Berlin, this is known as negative liberty (for further explanation, click here).

American Democrats, Democratic Socialists, Socialists, Communists, anarcho-communists, and syndicalists view liberty in an entirely different way—as positive liberty. They see rights and freedom managed and distributed by government or a centralized body—accompanied by power to enforce. They view the individual as part of a whole and should be told how to live and coddled by the nanny state. The laws they establish must be followed on pain of punishment. This inevitably leads to dictatorship and tyranny.

Yes, freedom is a philosophical concept, but science has demonstrated that it is part of our reality. In the wild, you see no forced compliance among animals. You only see survival. If one doesn’t hunt and strive, he doesn’t eat and therefore succumbs to natural death or is eaten himself. Likewise, if an individual, small company, large bank, auto manufacturer, or government can’t survive within the natural framework, they should be allowed to fail and discarded.

When I see fellow atheists turning toward socialism, I am appalled. It is NOT the way of a free thinker or rational person. They shake the shackles of religion only to replace them with the shackles of government. Unfortunately, many people seek to be controlled—whether through government, religion, or some other institution. It is unnatural and weak. These weak-minded people should be defeated and left to rot in their own solipsism.

Most who know me, know I have rejected the concept of god and am not subject to an imagined being or its mouthpiece, the church. Likewise, I will not be subject to any government.

Easter--A "Uniquely" Christian Holiday

Ahhhhh…Easter. Fun time of the year. It’s a blast watching the kiddies running around hunting eggs, looking for that special pantyhose egg with the $50 in it. I remember those days. Oh, what fun.

Making a religion relevant to the audience is a very common practice. It happened in ancient times and still happens today—look at contemporary Christian television, books, music, and movies, not to mention the contemporary worship services. All are attempts to mask the absurdity of the religion and make it more acceptable to a larger audience.

Friday night, I saw Clash of Titans. I’m quite familiar with Greek myths and classical Greek literature. While watching the movie, I was reminded of the parallels between Jesus and other religious heroes throughout history. In the Greek myth, Perseus, was the son of the sun god of Zeus and Danaë, a human. Sound familiar? This story was well-known in the ancient Near East and would have been very well-known among the Greek writers of the New Testament.

Easter was a pagan holiday usurped by the Christians as a sneaky way to rope pagans into believing in Jebus. It’s easy to convince mind-numb people who already believe in a resurrected Greek god—like Attis, for instance—to believe in a resurrected Christian god. A god is a god and it’s all ridiculous.

It's Trendy to have a Non-White Child

The American Baptists who journeyed to Haiti in recent days to round up black kids and take them to the Dominican Republic no doubt had plans to make them available for adoption in the US. The ultimate plan was not part of “doing the right thing for Jesus”, but rather a need to feed the trendy movement in suburban, white, Christian circles to have a dark-skinned child. Once adopted, these children are held up as trophies symbolizing the parents’ religiosity. “Steven Curtis Chapman does it, so we should do it.”

Some of the children begged, “Don’t take me. I have parents!” These objections were overlooked in the name of Jesus and American chauvinism. It’s pathetic and wrong. It makes you wonder how many other non-white children adopted into Christian families were stolen.

Have You Ever Questioned Your Faith?

You should.

Being truly introspective can be difficult when you are a Christian. Our minds are often clouded by religious dogma. We are taught from an early age not to question the authority of God or his mouthpiece, the pastor. During weekly prayer meetings and worship services, we sit quietly and absorb the message. We’re encouraged to fill our minds with the word of God. Our homes and cars are filled with popular Christian music and books. Every aspect of our lives is consumed with Christian doctrine. Our spiritual leaders teach us not to expose ourselves to anything the church considers immoral or sinful (Romans 8:12-17; Romans 12:2).

There’s a problem. With all of these spiritual reinforcements, have you ever truly questioned your faith? If not, now is the time.

Ask yourself a simple question: “How do I truly know there is a God?” How do you know your particular god is the correct one to follow? Most common answers are: “He has revealed himself to me” or “I feel he is there.” I was a Christian for many years and this was not a sufficient answer for me. Basing a decision on feelings or dreams is not how one should live their life. It is fine to say you think there may be a god, but to think we can somehow know the mind, desires, and requirements of a supernatural deity is absurd. The only source of tangible information about this deity is from an unauthenticated, ancient book full of wild claims, mysticism, and contradictions. We do ourselves a disservice by relying on such scant evidence.

The foundation of Christianity is the Bible. Without it, there is no religion. Below, I will address revealed truth and oral tradition—the foundation of the Bible. The goal is to appeal to your rational side. Armed with nothing more than common sense and reason, you can determine for yourself the accuracy of my argument. Let these invaluable tools guide you as you read.

There is nothing truthful about revealed truth

All religions are based on revealed truth from a higher source. These truths are either documented by an individual who experienced the event or by others who learned of the revelation through an oral tradition. Most of the Bible is not written by the individual who actually experienced the revelation or the events described in the stories.

We must consider several points when reading the Bible and other documents that claim to possess revealed truth:

1) Is the author of this book the person who experienced the event?

2) Is the author being truthful, embellishing, or lying?

3) Does the event square with common sense and my understanding of reality? Are the descriptions too fantastical to be real?

4) What is the history of this individual who received the revelation? Is he delusional, schizophrenic, or emotionally unstable?

With regard to all books of the Bible, the authors’ experiences cannot be substantiated and the source of the stories cannot be confirmed. Many of the claims made in the Bible don’t square with common sense or our understanding of reality. Stating that a person walked on water does not make it true. Documenting that a man’s donkey spoke to him does not make it true. Even if there was corroborating evidence for each of these passages, it would still be too incredible to believe. People don’t walk on water. Donkeys can’t talk. We must rely on our rational faculties when processing such wild claims that run counter to reality.

The Problem with Oral Tradition

Did you play “Whisper Down the Line” when you were a child? I did. Here’s a sample statement: “Susie went to the store.” Ten children sit in a circle and a selected child whispers the one-line statement to the person sitting next to them. That person whispers the statement to the next person and so on. The last person repeats the statement outloud—“Sally works for a grocery”. A simple statement becomes twisted and convoluted in just as few as ten generations.

Much of the Bible was created in the same way. Tradition tells us that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible—the Hebrew Torah. The Creation Story in Genesis (Chapters 1-2) is believed to have occurred nearly six thousand years ago. Moses lived around 1200 BC. That would mean his story of Creation would have had to survive nearly three thousand years of oral tradition.

Josh McDowell, a prominent Christian apologist, has attempted to brush off the oral inaccuracy claim by arguing that oral tradition can be trusted. However, this is pointless because the stories themselves are too absurd and unrealistic to even be considered true. Despite any accuracy of oral tradition, these stories remain unbelievable because they contradict common sense and are unsubstantiated by other contemporary documents and evidence. We cannot verify the story or authenticate the author. This creates a dilemma for the thinking person.

Being skeptical is vital in a world cluttered with religions. You are skeptical of all religions except your own. Direct your skepticism at your religion and see what the result is. You might be surprised. It is important to question why you believe what you say you believe. If you come to the realization that religion and the supernatural are false, know you’re not alone there are more nonbelievers in the world than you think.