I am a geek.

I sense your incredulity. As evidence, I hold up my screen name. VorJack was the name of my first roleplaying character — in the Marvel Comics Roleplaying game, of all things.

Have I established my bona fides? Let’s move on.

During high school, one of my friends was a fantasy geek. Like most teens of that type, he was working on a novel. Mind you, he wasn’t working on the plot or the characters. He was working on the most important part for a geek: the magic system.

Magical Realism

It was surprisingly difficult. At the time it was popular to treat magic as a science, and so the magic system had to be rational. No Harry Potter wand waving allowed. It had to start from some basic premises about the nature of magic, such as where magical energy came from and how people could manipulate it. From there it had to logically develop into magical practices, practitioners and traditions. The goal was a system of magic that was roughly self-consistent.

Everything should naturally flow from the premises: once you’d accepted them, everything else should make sense. But of course, my friend had complete control over what those premises were. This was, after all, fiction. These premises could also be vague. What is magical energy? Why, it’s energy that is magical. Nor did these premises have to be justified. Why does magic run in ley-lines and form pools of magic at the junctures? Because that is its nature.

The final result had to allow my friend to write the incredible scenes he had in his head, but not be so powerful that it threw the world he was creating out of balance. As long as he got that right, everything else could be molded to suit.

Wave Your Theological Wand

Pullquote: The goal of theology is to sound plausible without providing real information.

Now, at this point we were attending a Catholic high school with classes on introductory theology. Over time, I began to see a resemblance. Like a magic system, theology seemed to begin with certain premises. Like the magic system, these seemed to be vague. God is omnipotent. Well, what does the mean exactly? They claim God is timeless. How can something be timeless?

These questions didn’t have answers because these words didn’t have meaning. Like “magical energy” and “ley-lines,” their goal is to sound plausible without providing real information. These were the premises that the theologian could bend to suit the need. And the result of this process was to describe an active, interventionist God while still accurately describing the world we live in.

I think that’s why Stephen Law’s God of Eth example works so well. Law takes the “Problem of Evil” argument and turns it into the “Problem of Good” argument. The arguments the reconcile the premise of a good deity to our reality work just as well for the premise of an evil deity. The premises and the resulting arguments are unfixed from reality. Nothing pins them them down.

God will punish women by aborting their fetus through a miscarriage.

“Give them, O LORD–what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.” (Hosea 9:14)

God teaches the use of a bizarre ritual using cursed “bitter water” to abort a fetus who was conceived through infidelity. (Numbers 5:11-21)

God orders Moses to kill every Midianite woman who was no longer a virgin. (many of these women would obviously have been pregnant) (Numbers 31:15-18)

God promises to destroy the infants of Samaria and rip open the stomachs of pregnant women.

The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open. (Hosea 13:16)

God allows the pregnant women of Tappuah to be ripped open.

At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women. (2 Kings 15:16)

God commands the killing of infants and nursing babies.

Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. (1 Samuel 15:3)

God repays your enemies by destroying their babies.

Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us. He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. (Psalms 137:8-9)

The BEattitude makes a good point:

Apparently all life is precious to the god of the Bible, unless it is a fetus conceived out of wedlock or conception happens within an “enemy” nation that does not worship him. The Bible teaches that abortion is acceptable if God performs it or he commands it to be done through contaminated water or by violent force….

You can be a pro-life supporter, but leave your Bible at home. It’s horrific and violent stories against innocent infants and unborn children have no place in a discussion on morality and the value of human life.

Indeed. The “always pro-life” position does not come from the Bible, but from conscience. If a person really get their morals from the Bible, be afraid — you never know what God might tell them to do next, because God commanded just about every evil imaginable in the Bible.

When I believed in an interventionist Christian God, the universe didn’t make any sense at all. I just had to keep telling myself it didn’t make any sense because God’s thoughts were higher than my thoughts, and somehow it all made sense to him.

Once I abandoned supernaturalism in general, and god concepts as part of that, suddenly the universe made perfect sense. The universe is what it is. It offers no plans, no inherent meaning, and asks nothing of us in return. If a meteorite wipes us all out tomorrow, it won’t be an act of vengeance, or retribution, or any sort of malevolent act of any kind. It will just be the natural workings of well understood physical laws and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This freed me to accept bad things happening with no seeming explanation, and it also inspired me to create what comfort and happiness I can in the people I care about. The universe won’t do it for me.

Well said, Ty!

Part 4 of the Pillars of Faith series.

The name of this theologian may be unfamiliar, but most men of God are his heirs.

Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Howard Ahmanson, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy — almost every fundamentalist follows Rousas John Rushdoony, 1916-2001. Newsweek once referred to Rushdoony’s Chalcedon Foundation as the think tank of the religious right.

But what you won’t hear in Sunday school is that Rushdoony is a racist, sexist, Jew-hating bigot who denies the holocaust. Don’t take it from me: The British Centre for Science Education refers to him as “a man every bit as potentially murderous as Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or anyone else you may want to name amongst the annals of evil.”

Democracy Is of the Devil

Pullquote: To keep the secular indoctrination of sciences, arts, and feminism from poisoning society, Rushdoony advocated the death penalty according to Leviticus laws.

R.J.’s basic philosophy was that the Old Testament gave white man dominion over the earth, the animals, women, and heathen nations. Theocracy is God’s will, and democracy is apostasy — only Christians should be able to vote.

To keep the secular indoctrination of sciences, arts, and feminism from poisoning society, Rushdoony advocated the death penalty according to Leviticus laws. Among the 18 capital crimes were of course, adultery, witchcraft, homosexuality, and blasphemy.

Rushdoony is the driving backbone behind the home schooling movement, to guarantee kids would be brainwashed by the O.T. and not by history and literature.

Because R.J. sought to reconstruct the O.T. laws and overturn the apostate civic society, his work is called the Reconstructionist Movement.

Dominion and Stoning

R.J.’s foundation is a web ministry and magazine espousing Reconstructionist theology, promoting home schooling as defense against secularism. “The state, the school, the arts and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere [is] to be under Christ the King. Nothing is exempt from His dominion.”

The magazine publishes thought provoking articles like W. Einwechter’s on stoning the rebellious child. “It displays the wisdom and mercy of God in restraining wickedness so that the righteous might flourish in peace.” (Jan. 99)

Slavery was Awesome for the Negro

Pullquote: “The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro, materially and spiritually.”

R.J. is best known for Institutes of Biblical Law, an 800 page opus on “the heresy of democracy.”

Here are a few interesting statements from the book:

“The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro, materially and spiritually.”

Lazy slaves were “an albatross that hung the South, that bled it.”

“The University of Timbuktu never existed. The only thing that existed in Timbuktu was a small mud hut.”

“Some people are by nature slaves and will always be so.”

“The urge to dominion is God-given and is basic to the nature of man. An aspect of this dominion is property.”

“The false witness borne during World War II with respect to Germany (i.e., the death camps) is especially notable and revealing…. the number of Jews who died after deportation is approximately 1,200,000 … very many of these people died of epidemics.”

“All men are NOT created equal before God.”

“The matriarchal society is thus decadent and broken… matriarchal character of Negro life is due to the moral failure of Negro men, their failure …to provide authority. The same is true of American Indian tribes which are also matriarchal.”

And here are some quotes from Foundations of Social Order:

“An employer therefore has a property right to prefer whom he will, and he can prefer whom he will in terms of color, creed, race, or national origin.”

“Selective breeding in Christian countries has led to … the progressive elimination of defective persons.”

“A ‘Litany’ popular in these circles identifies ‘God’ with the city, with the ’spick, black nigger, bastard, Buddhahead, and kike,’ with ‘all men,this concept runs deeply through the so-called Civil Rights Revolution… But …no society has ever existed without class and caste lines.”

The True Agenda of the Christian Right

But what about Christ’s softer love thy neighbour touch?

His son-in-law, North, explains for him that the Sermon on the Mount was clearly an ethical guide for slaves only!

Most of R.J.’s followers wisely keep his name out of their sermons. But careful examination of the Institutes on which their work is based reveals the truth: power and privilege for white men — God’s only true incarnation — is indeed the true agenda of the Christian right.

Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People.

I have a confession to make. I went Catholic Mass on Palm Sunday. Lest anyone think the spirit has moved me, I went because I lost a bet with one of my non-believing brethren.

I took my medicine like a man, and dutifully sat through the service. Truthfully, I spent most of the service wondering things like: “How can this huge building not be taxed?” and “Some of the greatest classical music was written for the Catholic mass, why don’t American Catholics use it?”

“The Poor You Will Always Have With You”

Then through the fog of my own reason I heard the priest read the following from the Gospel of Mark:

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.

The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.

She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Now this caught my attention: the “people” wanted to sell expensive perfume in order to feed the poor, and Jesus thought it was a better idea to anoint his body with it?!

What Would Jesus Do?

When asking WWJD, aren’t we all suppose to believe that he loves the poor and wants to help them? Yet here he is basically telling the poor to take a hike because his body needs to be properly anointed. Did Jesus really need that perfume?

Doesn’t seem like Jesus acted very Jesusy here.

But what about this “the poor you will always have with you” stuff? Isn’t Jesus part of the three in one all powerful creator God? Doesn’t that mean he can “poof” the poor away in an instant if he wants to? Why doesn’t he?

If Jesus is all powerful, the poor exist because he wants them to exist. Doesn’t seem very worthy of worship.

If Jesus is incapable of raising the poor from poverty, he isn’t all powerful. Doesn’t seem very God-like.

Either way, I’m not putting on my “Sunday best” to go worship him.

Bill Noorlander is a lawyer in Milwaukee, where he live with his wife and four kids. He blogs at Bill Post.

I’m sorry to do this in your place of business, but I had to save my son. God made me a queen and I failed. I’m a fallen angel. He turned me into the anti-Christ…. Hopefully when I die, there will 1,000 years of peace.

So she seems to have thought herself the anti-Christ. A literal reading of Revelation says there will be 1,000 years of peace once the anti-Christ is destroyed.

What a tragedy.

By the way, if you were God and knew this was going to happen and could stop it, can you think of any reason you wouldn’t? I can’t. If God exists, he doesn’t seem to be a very moral being.

That explanation doesn’t make sense to Bart Ehrman. In his book God’s Problem, Ehrman explains why the solution of “free will” is no solution at all to the problem of evil:

Most people who believe in God-given free will also believe in an afterlife. Presumably people in their afterlife will still have free will (they won’t be robots then either, will they?). And yet there won’t be suffering (allegedly) then. Why will people know how to exercise free will in heaven if they can’t know how to exercise it on earth?

In fact, if God gave people free will as a great gift, why didn’t he give them the intelligence they needed to exercise it so that we can all live happily and peaceable together? You can’t argue that he wasn’t able to do so, if you want to argue that he is all powerful.

Moreover, if God sometimes intervenes in history to counteract the free will decisions of others — for example, when he destroyed the Egyptian armies at the exodus (they freely had decided to oppress the Israelites), or when he fed the multitudes in the wilderness in the days of Jesus (people who had chosen to go off to hear him without packing a lunch), or when he counteracted the wicked decision of the Roman governor Pilate to destroy Jesus by raising the crucified Jesus from the dead — if he intervenes sometimes to counteract free will, why does he not do so more of the time? Or indeed, all the time?

The “solution” of free will, in the end, ultimately leads to the conclusion that it is all a mystery. (p. 12-13)

The Christian answer to the problem of evil is complex, mythical and unsatisfying. There is the continuous problem of exonerating God. Supposedly this God is a “loving father,” yet he seems to be more of an absent father. He is said to be justice itself, yet evildoers are rewarded while the virtuous suffer. To explain this, vast theologies of mystery are woven that ensnare the faithful.

The secular answer is simple and — at least to me — far more satisfying. Suffering is simply a byproduct of life. Pain is a result of nerves, which we need in order to survive. There is no sky god watching children suffer to be angry at or puzzled over. There is no comic justice or injustice — only cosmic indifference. Even if there is a god, it doesn’t appear to be anywhere around here, so we must live like there is none. There is no invisible sky daddy to come and help us.

Justice is up to humanity. We must accept the responsibility that comes with our ethical knowledge and sensitivities. If good is to be done, we must do it. If evil is to be stopped, we must stop it. Praying, worshipping, sacrificing goats, performing rituals, chanting scripture, and other superstitions do nothing to further the cause of justice.

It all depends on us. Let’s act like it.

A 27-year-old gunman walked up to the pulpit, exchanged words with the pastor, and fired four shots. The gun jammed after he shot the pastor, so he pulled out a knife — thankfully though, a large group of attenders tackled the man.

It’s not clear what the motive was yet. Hopefully he was just crazy and not part of a skeleton in the pastor’s closet.

Turn the Other Cheek? Yeah Right.

I’m glad these Christians disobeyed the command of Jesus to “turn the other cheek” and tackled the murderer. Here are the words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 5:39:

Do not resist the one who is evil. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Though they claim their morality comes from the Bible, this shows they innately knew what was right — they disobeyed their God’s command in order to do what was really moral.

I find that admirable.

Doubting God

Pullquote: Our great God is not surprised by this, or anything. But we know we can trust Him no matter what.
Nate Adams

These kinds of events cause many Christians to doubt. That’s why Nate Adams, the executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association, had this to say:

“Our great God is not surprised by this, or anything,” Adams said. “That He allows evil and free will to have their way in tragedies like this is a mystery in many ways. But we know we can trust Him no matter what, and draw close to Him in any circumstances. Let’s draw closer to Him and to one another during this terrible tragedy, and renew our faith and obedience to His purposes for however many days we have remaining to serve Him.”

But why trust God and draw closer to him? If God knew this man was going to murder the pastor, why did he let it happen? Why didn’t he make the psycho’s gun jam before he shot someone, instead of after? Or if he couldn’t do that, why not make the pastor sick so he had to stay home? Or any number of other options?

The usual answer given is because God uses these events to work everything for the greater good (Rom. 8:28) — which is often defined as making God look good (”glorifying God”). But does God really have to use these kind of horrible events to make himself look good? Is his ego worth all the suffering that happens? Even if it was, if he is all-powerful, couldn’t he do it a less violent way?

What could possibly be worth this man’s murder — that his family could be more patient or kind or godly? How does this event make God look good in any way?

If there was a man who could have easily stopped this, and yet didn’t, we would hate and shun him. Yet Christians are supposed to love God more when these things happen. It’s bizarre.

The Real Mystery

Pullquote: God doesn’t exist — that’s why he didn’t protect his spokesman, and that’s why the attendees had to take matters into their own hands.

To me, it’s obvious God wasn’t involved at all. He doesn’t exist — that’s why he didn’t protect his spokesman, and that’s why the attendees had to take matters into their own hands. If they would have waited for God to intervene, they would have been waiting a very long time indeed.

The real mystery is not why God allows or causes these things to happen — it is why people continue to cling to a delusion when even they admit it doesn’t make sense.

Regardless, we can all agree this was a horrible tragedy. It must have been a very traumatic experience to those forced to watch this firsthand — especially his wife and kids. I offer my sincere condolences to the family, friends, and church members of Fred Winters.

He believes God makes us suffer, so we should imitate him and make our children suffer by spanking them.

No, I’m not kidding, and no, this isn’t a parody.

Here are some quotes from “Would Jesus spank a child?“:

If Jesus were married and had children, I think he would have spanked the children.

Actually, I think the wonder-working Jesus would have been able to control his kids without hitting them, don’t you? If he could walk on water and rise from the dead, it seems doubtful he’d need to spank his children to keep them in line.

But why would someone think it’s a great idea to hit children? For Piper, it’s a view of God who hurts his children because he loves them:

Deep down, does this person believe that God brings pain into our lives? Because … God disciplines every son whom he loves, and spanks everyone that he delights in (my paraphrase). And the point there is suffering. God brings sufferings into our lives, and the writer of the Hebrews connects it to the parenting of God of his children….

God uses suffering to discipline his children. So do we.

Oh, so God’s like an abusive husband who hits his wife because he loves her! I get it now. He’d be gentle and kind, but that just wouldn’t be as effective, you know?

God also kills his children throughout the Bible. This seems only a couple steps away from, “But God said to kill our children if they talk back! And he talked back to me! God hurts us if we disobey him, and we should hurt our kids if they disobey us! That’s what the Bible says, officer! I’m the one in the right here! I’m just following God’s holy word!”

Can it get any worse? Why yes, it can:

Now, you don’t damage a child. You don’t give him a black eye or break his arm. Children have little fat bottoms so that they can be whopped.

That’s kind of like saying kids have hair to be pulled, or girls wear bras to be snapped. He continues:

Spanking is so clean! It’s so quick! It’s so relieving! A kid feels like he has done atonement and he is out of there and happy…. I just think spanking is really healthy for children.

I just don’t know how to reply to that. Clean, relieving, and healthy for children? What an odd perspective.

So what do you think — would the biblical Jesus have spanked his children? And of more relevance, should we spank our children?

He had a dream about raging fires on October 21 last year and that he woke with “a flash from the Spirit of God: that His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb”.

Why would his God punish innocent people instead of the perpetrators?

Asked if he believed in a God who would take vengeance by killing so many people indiscriminately — even those who opposed abortion, Mr Nalliah referred to 2 Chronicles 7:14 to vouch for his assertion that God could withdraw his protection from a nation.

“The Bible is very clear,” he said. “If you walk out of God’s protection and turn your back on Him, you are an open target for the devil to destroy.”

He’s actually right about that. The God of the Bible enjoys punishing people who had nothing to do with the reason he’s smiting them. To give one example, when Pharaoh didn’t let the Israelites go, the Bible says God killed all the firstborns in Egypt — including the animals. If you look to the God of the Bible for lessons in morality, you’re going to be pretty screwed up.

And if you ask me, a person who blames fires on abortion is pretty screwed up.

(via McBloggenstein)

• God killed everyone except a few people in a global flood [estimated at 30 million] (Gen 6)
• Killed all the innocent firstborn of Egypt [estimated at 500,000] (Ex. 11)
• Maimed and killed 42 children for calling a man “bald head” (2 Kings 2)
• Killed 15,000 people for complaining (Num 16)
• Killed 24,000 for immorality (Num 25)
• Killed 90,000 Midianites (Num 31)
• Killed everyone in the city of Jerico (Joshua 6)
• Killed 12,000 people in a day because they were in the “promised land” (Joshua 8)
• Killed 10,000 Canaanities because they were in the way (Judges 1)
• Killed 10,000 Moabites after using the Moabites to killed many of his own people (Judges 3)
• Made 120,000 Midianites kill each other (Judges 7)
• Killed 50,000 Benjaminites because they made God angry (Judges 20)
• Killed 70,000 men because David did what God told him to do (2 Sam 24)
• Killed 127,000 soldiers over a theological dispute (1 Kings 20)
• Killed 1,000,000 Ethiopians just because (2 Chron 14)

Just in that selective list, God killed about 32 million people!

Hilter only killed 11 million. Try as he might, he just couldn’t beat God’s record even with all that modern warfare technology.

The Bible might be one of the bloodiest books in history — especially for one thought of as perfect, pure, written by God, and the best and only guide for morality.

All I know is I wouldn’t want my children getting their morals from it.

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, said:

The Bible story of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho, and the invasion of the Promise Land in general, is morally indistinguishable from Hilter’s invasion of Poland, or Saddam Hussein’s massacres of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs.

Even if there was evidence that this God existed — and I know of none — would he really deserve to be worshiped? I don’t think so. This god would be the devil of hell.[digg=http://digg.com/arts_culture/God_Loves_To_Kill_His_Children]

Thank goodness he probably doesn’t exist.

[ reddit ]

These poor people were worshipping their God and he couldn’t even stop their roof from falling. It’s almost like he’s not there or doesn’t care, you know? Or maybe he wants them to stop worshiping him.

But, thank God, the church founders are safe:

It was founded in 1986 by Estevam and Sonia Hernandes, a couple who were arrested in Miami in 2007 for failing to declare a large sum of cash brought into the United States…. They are wanted in Brazil on money laundering charges.

Praise be his holy name! His ways are beyond our ways, his thoughts beyond our thoughts!

I am a real live sinful person who clings to the radical idea that God has been infinitely good to me through the bloody sacrifice of Jesus….

I thoroughly enjoy shooting firearms, watching Husker or Sox ball, and engaging in or observing any other form of sporting violence or conflict that reminds me that God is going to pick a fight someday soon and he will tromp the unrepentant bad guys into oblivion forever.  I am also constantly reminded that I was one of the bad guys, and am one of the bad guys, apart from the grace and mercy God has shown to me through his son Jesus.

—Pastor Jon Wymer

There were 42 failed attempts to kill Hitler…. If there is a God seated on his Royal Throne in Heaven, why did he not let [one of them succeed]?

Here are three possible answers:

1. God couldn’t do anything about Hitler. But if that’s true, what kind of God is he? And if he can’t do anything about anything, why pray or worship him?
2. God could do something about Hitler, but he chose not to. In other words, he would be the most evil being imaginable. If a man could easily stop the Nazis without any innocent deaths, but chose not to, wouldn’t he be evil?
3. God doesn’t exist.

I’ll go with #3.