Conversations: Prophecies

Zoe
There are people who think that their sacred texts predict the future by means of prophecies. Is this so unreasonable?

Sappho
It is. Consider the Bible, Christians regularly assert that the Bible predicts future historical events. For instance, Deuteronomy 28:64 says, “And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other.”

Helena
Furthermore, Jesus says, in Luke 19:43-44, “For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Now, we are meant to believe that these utterances predict the subsequent history of the Jews with such uncanny specificity so as to admit of only a supernatural explanation.

Sappho
But just imagine how breathtakingly specific a work of prophecy would be, if it were actually the product of omniscience.

Conversations: Moderates and Morality

Helena
Even if a belief in God had a reliable, positive effect upon human behaviour, this would not offer a reason to believe in God. One can believe in God only if one thinks that God actually exists.

Sappho
Good point. Even if atheism led straight to moral chaos, this would not suggest that the doctrine of Christianity is true. Islam might be true, in that case. Or all religions might function like placebos. As descriptions of the universe, they could be utterly false but, nevertheless, useful. The evidence suggests, however, that they are not only false but dangerous.

Zoe
Slow down! Most Christians, Jews, Muslims, et cetera, cannot be categorized as fundamentalists. In fact, when talking about the good consequences that religious beliefs have on human morality, most people of faith follow the example of religious liberals and religious moderates. Consider Christians the world over, rather than say that they believe in God because certain biblical prophecies have come true, or because the miracles recounted in the Gospels are convincing, liberals and moderates tend to talk in terms of the good consequences of believing as they do. Such believers often say that they believe in God because this “gives their lives meaning.”

Mark 11:12-14

12 And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:

13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.

14 And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.

See other: Often Ignored Bible Verses

Confucianism and the Golden Rule

‘The so-called Golden Rule, “do as you would be done by”, appears in Confucianism as a negative: “what you do not desire for yourself, do not do to others.” The difference is subtle but crucial: Confucius does not prescribe what to do, only what not to do, emphasizing restraint rather than action. This implies modesty and humility – values traditionally held in high regard in Chinese society, and which for Confucius express our true nature. Fostering these values is a form of loyalty to oneself, and another kind of sincerity.’

– Atkinson. S., Landau. C., Szudek. A., Tomley. S. (et al.) 2011. The Philosophy Book New York, United States: DK Publishing p. 39

Christmas and Mithras

Christmas is celebrated on 25 December because it is the birthday of the Roman sun god Mithras, whose stories bear a striking resemblance to the basic mythology of Christianity. Characteristics of the Mithras cult included:

• Mithras being a saviour sent to Earth to live a mortal whom it was possible for sinners to be reborn into immortal life.
• He died for human sins but came back the following Sunday.
• He was born of a virgin on 25 December in a manger (or perhaps a cave), attended by shepherds and became known as the light of the world.
• He had 12 disciples whom he shared a last meal before dying.
• His devotees symbolically consume the flesh and blood of him.
• Because he was a sun god he was worshipped on Sundays.
• He is often depicted with a halo around his head.
• Worshippers of Mithras gave each other gifts on 25 December.
• The leader of the religion was called a “Papa”, and their headquarters was Vatican Hill in Rome.

As for December 25 being Jesus’ birthday, no-one is certain on what date Jesus was born – that is, should he indeed have existed. According to Islam, Jesus was born in the summer, while Jehovah’s Witnesses claim he born on the 1st of October. Speaking of which, according to the Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain, the Jehovah’s Witnesses must be right since presumably they were there.

“Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer…. Who’d have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? ” ― Bill Watterson, The Essential Calvin and Hobbes

Church Marquees

Listed below is a collection of church marquees that provide us with an interesting insight into the minds of various Christian movements all over the North-American continent. Church marquees are also telling of the messages these various movements like to communicate to society. Their diversity is enormous, being either oblivious to the most obvious innuendos, too clever by half, or hopelessly bigoted:[1]

• A 4 inch tongue can bring a 6 foot man to his knees. (Word of Life – Church of Christ)
• All churches & members that support homos cursed be thou with cancer syphilis HIV stroke madness itch then hell. (Atlah World Missionary Church)
• Cars aren’t the only thing recalled by their maker. (Pea Ridge Free Will Baptist)
• Christmas: easier to spell than Hanukkah.[2] (Cross of Christ Deliverance Temple)
• Does life stink? We have a pew for you. (Calvary Baptist Church)
• Do not criticise your wife’s judgement – see whom she married. (First Presbyterian Church)
• Don’t be so open-minded; your brains fall out. (Glad Tidings Assembly)
• Don’t make me come down there. – God (Cornerstone Christian Church)
• Easter comes once a year. How often do you? (Kingsley Lake Baptist Church)
• Face powder may get a man, it takes baking powder to keep him. (North Buncombe First Church of God)
• Get off of Facebook and into my book – God (Fall Creek Baptist Church)
• God didn’t create anything without a purpose. But mosquitoes come close. (Bethany Lutheran Church)
• God does not believe in atheists, therefore atheists do not exist. (Palm Heights Baptist Church)
• God, help me to be the person my dog thinks I am! (Northgate Baptist Church)
• Have trouble sleeping? We have sermons, come hear one. (Benton Heights Presbyterian Church)
• Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him. (Stonebridge Church of God)
• I hate this church – Satan (Faith Baptist Church)
• I kissed a girl and I liked it. Then I went to hell. (Havens Corners Church)
• I wish Noah had swatted those two mosquitoes.[3] (Unknown)
• If evolution is true, why help the poor? (Christian Fellowship Church)
• If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? (New Deliverance Evangelistic Church)
• If ur’ faith is big enough, facts dnt count. (Victoria Tabernacle Holiness Church)
• If you don’t love God, go to hell. (Unity Christian Church)
• Jesus had two dads and he turned out just fine! (St. John’s Anglican Church)
• Jews killed the Lord Jesus. (Lovingway United Pentecostal Church)
• Keep using my name in vain, I’ll make rush hour longer – God (First Reformed Church of Bethlehem)
• Now is a good time to visit, our pastor is on vacation. (Cape Coral Community Church)
• Obama Osama (Jonesville Chuch of God)
• Open your mouth and I will fill it. (Grace United Church of Christ)
• Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has. (Beryl Baptist Church)
• Santa Claus never died for anyone. (Apostolic faith Church)
• Staying in bed screaming ‘oh God’ does not constitute going to church. (Church of Redeemer Lutheran)
• Suffering is the soil in which faith grows. (Greensboro Grove Church)
• Surfers, Skateboarders, Musicians, Artists, Vegetarians, Dawkins, Activists, Addicts and Fornicators all go to hell! Repent Now! (Orange Church of God)
• The best gift a mother ever gave was time spent on her knees. (Moler Avenue Church of the Brethren)
• The best way to the top is on your knees. (Hickory Flat Fellowship Church of God)
• Unless you are White, Anglo, and Republican. Stay away! (Scofield Baptist Church)
• Vote for the Mormon, not the Muslim; the Capitalist, not the Communist! (Church in the Valley)
• Wal-Mart isn’t the only saving place. (Faubion United Methodist Church)
• What happens in Vegas is forgiven here.[4] (Unknown)
• Whoever is praying for rain can stop. (Lake George Bible Church)
• Whoever’s praying 4 snow, pleez stop! (McDonaldsville St. Paul)

---

[1] In some cases, punctuation has been added to make the message more understandable.

[2] The Jewish feast of Hanukkah is misspelled here as “Hannukah”, we have corrected this error.

[3], [4] Even though the location of this marquee is unknown, the authors felt this message could not be left out of the final list.

Limbo and Poseidon

‘Consider the recent deliberations of the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrine of limbo. Thirty top theologians from around the world recently met at the Vatican to discuss the question of what happens to babies who die without having undergone the sacred rite of baptism. Since the Middle Ages, Catholics have believed that such babies go to a state of limbo, where they enjoy what St. Thomas Aquinas termed “natural happiness” forever. This was in contrast to the opinion of St. Augustine, who believed that these unlucky infant souls would spend eternity in hell.

Though limbo had no real foundation in scripture, and was never official Church doctrine, it has been a major part of the Catholic tradition for centuries. In 1905, Pope Pius X appeared to fully endorse it: “Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either.” Now the great minds of the Church have convened to reconsider the matter.

Can we even conceive of a project more intellectually forlorn than this? Just imagine what these deliberations must be like. Is there the slightest possibility that someone will present evidence indicating the eternal fate of unbaptized children after death? How can any educated person think this anything but a hilarious, terrifying, and unconscionable waste of time? When one considers the fact that this is the very institution that has produced and sheltered an elite army of child molesters, the whole enterprise begins to exude a truly diabolical aura of misspent human energy.

The conflict between science and religion is reducible to a simple fact of human cognition and discourse: either a person has good reasons for what he believes, or he does not. If there were good reasons to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse, these beliefs would necessarily form part of our rational description of the universe. Everyone recognizes that to rely upon “faith” to decide specific questions of historical fact is ridiculous—that is, until the conversation turns to the origin of books like the Bible and the Koran, to the resurrection of Jesus, to Muhammad’s conversation with the archangel Gabriel, or to any other religious dogma. It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.

While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in God still holds immense prestige in our society. Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about. It is telling that this aura of nobility extends only to those faiths that still have many subscribers. Anyone caught worshipping Poseidon, even at sea, will be thought insane.'[4]

[4] Truth be told, I now receive e-mails of protest from people who claim, in all apparent earnestness, to believe that Poseidon and the other gods of Greek mythology are real.

– Harris. S. 2006. Letter To A Christian Nation p. 21-22

The Good in the “Good Book”

‘Along with most Christians, you believe that mortals like ourselves cannot reject the morality of the Bible. We cannot say, for instance, that God was wrong to drown most of humanity in the flood of Genesis, because this is merely the way it seems from our limited point of view. And yet, you feel that you are in a position to judge that Jesus is the Son of God, that the Golden Rule is the height of moral wisdom, and that the Bible is not itself brimming with lies. You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible—and then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely upon our own intuitions to rightly guide us in the world; rather, we must depend upon the prescriptions of the Bible. You are using your own moral intuitions to decide that the Bible is the appropriate guarantor of your moral intuitions. Your own intuitions are still primary, and your reasoning is circular.

We decide what is good in the Good Book. We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21). If we are civilized, we will reject this as the vilest lunacy imaginable. Doing so requires that we exercise our own moral intuitions. The belief that the Bible is the word of God is of no help to us whatsoever.

The choice before us is simple: we can either have a twenty first century conversation about morality and human well-being—a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all the scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse—or we can confine ourselves to a first century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible. Why would anyone want to take the latter approach?’

– Harris. S. 2006. Letter To A Christian Nation p. 17