Religion No Panacea For Social Injustice

Susan:-
Condolences on your encounter with Nick Gillespie. Beside his shortcomings as an interviewer, he seems exactly the person that "The Age of American Unreeeason" was written about.

Don't Force Your Morals on Me

Whose morals are being forced on America when they make laws against stealing, lying under oath, proscribe murder except for the unborn. Are they no longer moral laws anymore? Justice Stevens doesn’t seem to think so.

Why not let there be free sex and do away with the Laws of Marriage? That’s what the atheists Michael Kinsley suggested as Opinion Editor of the Los Angeles Times. Isn't marriage a law that forces couples to take moral responsibility for their children? Doesn’t the State have any interest in its posterity?

Maybe we should legalize uninhibited sex without a moral responsibility for the unborn child. We wouldn’t want to force such family morality on a poor sex fiend or the pederastic would we?

If your unborn child bothers you, you can have him sucked to pieces for a few bucks, and make a few bucks off his organs and body parts on the side by selling them to researchers.

Taking of innocent life doesn't seem much of a problem for the atheist and agnostics. After all, it's their body irrespectively to their obligations to society and the unborn child.

Marriage doesn't have much standing according to the radical left. However, us stupid Christians think it does. For some irrational reason, Christians believe Marriage is what binds the family. We all know what a family is. .It’s the foundation of society.

Christians also think human life has dignity; to bad, they didn't consult the atheists about that. The majority didn't think so when the Court gave permission to legally murder Terri Schiavo. They just redefined her as a vegetable and we all know what you can do with vegetables, don't we.

It's a shame we have to force people to obey the moral laws created by God. We should be able to write our own moral laws. In fact, Mao, Hitler, Saddam, Lennon, Idi Amin, bin Laden and his merry ban of maniacal lunatic barbarians seem have tried that route and it hasn't been too successful. Did you ever wonder why? Stalin tried it for years and ended murdering some sixty million people before it was put on hold for a while. Cuba and China still think it might work, after Mao murdered over sixty million.

You begin to wonder, why do these blockheads take 30 to 40 years to figure this out when it’s already been written by Christianity that a godless country has never succeeded. Moreover, godlessness has only brought down the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse—Famine, Pestilence, War and Death.

Supreme Court Justice Stevens, a noble atheist, said traditional moral values have no beneficial value to the State or its society and have no standing in Civil Law. That’s kind of strange reasoning, when the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence based on a Christian God’s Moral Laws. The Natural Moral Law is the foundation of man’s inalienable rights and all Civil Law. Of course, Relativist don’t believe in basic inviolable rights except their own.

Justice Stevens subsequently legalized the murder of the unborn and legalized homosexuality making them Constitutional rights.

Did it matter that Stevens abrogated the Constitution's Bill of Rights that all men are equal and have a right to be secure in their own person. I don't think so.

Did it matter Stevens proscribed the inalienable right fundamental to all men, the Right to Life, and ascribed to the Court that it has the sole authority to determine who should live and who should die irrespective of the Legislature? I don't think so.

Nor did it seem to matter that the Court abrogated the Amendment Clause and wrote their own laws? It doesn’t seem like it. Did it matter that five justices impugned the Separation of Powers in doing so? It might if it affected them.

Writing laws by the Court is all well and good when it suits the radical left. However, allowing the Powers of Separation to be maligned by the Court gives the Court a precedence and powers to negate Congress the voice of the people and that may prove unfortunate, not just for the right, but for the liberal as well.

Inalienable rights become unimportant to the liberal, when defending an unconstitutional right, but become very important when their rights are threatened.

Evidently, the Four Apocalyptic Judges on the Court—Ginsberg, Breyer, Souter, and Stephens—thought partial birth abortion was a Constitutional right.

During a challenge of the Congress's law against Partial Birth Abortion, one of the Apocalypse Justices was trying to find out how far the baby had to be out of the birth canal before the abortionist plunged a scissors into the back of its skull and sucked out its brains.

The four Justices weren’t concerned if the child being born was human even though it was obvious that it was. If one denies reality, he eventually destroys himself.

If America can witlessly accept such intrusions of the Separation of Powers by the Justices, then they unwittingly approve of destroying the Constitution that made America one of the greatest governments in history.

Christmas and the Atheists

The world has come to celebrates Christmas but sadly, not one atheists or materialist showed up.

“Christmas night, stars shine bright, and all the angels are singing,’ The Son of God is Born' Little Child, Holy Child, how I want to be near You, this blessed Christmas night –Garry Gamble”

Luke 2: 2cf.
“And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them and the brightness of God shone round about them: and the shepherds were filled with a great fear. Then the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people: For, this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.

And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.”

On that first Christmas day, Mary brought God’s Son into the world and gave Him to all mankind. Eternal light was brought into a world of darkness to light the hearts of all. The Lover came to the beloved; the beloved became the lover. The aura of Christmas is a story of the Perfect Lover infinitely giving Himself to all man, and man responds in mutual reciprocity.

“Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, love divine. Love was born at Christmas; Stars and angels gave the sign—Georgina Rossetti”

Christmas is a celebration of a soul’s ineffable dream for the perfect love coming true, for the desire of God is written in every human heart.

“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind, to cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas—Calvin Coolidge."

Today our nation has unconsciously chosen to rebuke Christmas with a “culture of death.” Sadly, in America, our culture is impaling life’s sacredness. When we impugn human life, we vicariously impugn God through His beloved. The Crèche, that portrays the Holy Family, is banned from the public square; Christ is being taken out of Christmas (XMAS), and Christmas is being incrementally taken out of America.

America’s soul is slowly turning its gaze from the Infinite Good to the profane. Our nation’s heart is overshadowed by a morbid insensitivity towards life. America’s once noble passion to revere life is being traduced by a false sense of compassion defined by a stolid and deadly pragmatism that demeans life. Many schools of medicine have abandoned the teaching of the time-honored Hippocratic Oath, an oath that holds life sacred.

The integrity of life is experiencing a bizarre transmogrification that disembodies man from human dignity. This transmogrify is a contradiction to the Christmas Spirit and is a discord to social order. Its human destructiveness is self-evident in the intentional termination of over 48 million unborn in America and over a billion worldwide.

Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Clause. He is the Christmas Spirit sent down from Heaven by the Mad Lover at Christmas. It is a Spirit of awesome intimate love and joy, undeniable, real, ubiquitous, unwavering, and eternal. Everyone feels its presence of wonder and jubilation. But many refuse to bathe in its Joy. We must embrace it by asking for his Love.

To embrace it is to embrace Eternal Happiness, unbounded in Love. To reject His love is to journey into a futile rapture of unfulfilled emptiness and hopelessness that engenders a self-destructive cynicism and despondency.

So in this beautiful season of Christmas, do not be foolish. Reach for the hand of God! Open the door of your heart to the Infinite Lover. Let His love delirious intoxicate you; His infinite tenderness inebriate you! Feel the thrill of eternal joy and happiness! Let the Mad Lover take you to the celebration of the world’s greatest birthday party.

Do not seek that your Christmas and New Year be only happy and merry. Ask that they also be Holy, then happiness and joy will ensue. Then the Mad Lover will come to consume you, His beloved. Because of His merciful compassion, his intimate infinite love, He has uniquely created you from His unfathomable altruism.

So, come and rejoice at this Christmas feast and be filled with the joys and gifts of the Spirit! Then, you shall receive the Author of Life from His beloved Mother, and you shall eternally be enriched with the blessings of Christmas.

Then the Christmas Spirit will come to wrap you in His arms with His aura of eternal love, touch the deep recesses of your heart with immeasurable joy and happiness, and abide with you forever.

“Then the greater your distress, the more He will comfort you! The more you are scorned, the more He will love you! The more you are insulted, the more He will exalt you! The more you are forgotten, the more He will remember you! If abandoned, He will draw you closer to Himself”—Cardinal John Henry Newman.

"In the end, it was always said of Scrooge that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us all—Charles Dickens." So on this Christmas celebration smile, give your face a holiday, and celebrate Christmas in all its glory.

IN REPLY TO:
“Needless to say, the pope had nothing to say about the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church) … working hand-in-hand with the state in suppressing cultural and political dissent.

So pardon me if I am not impressed with the idea that religion is the solution to serious social problems.”

ANS:
Were you also unimpressed when Pope John Paul II gave Poland the hope that broke the chains of Russian slavery, or Pius XII who saved some 8,000,000 Jews from Nazi executions? To the contrary, the Pope met with the Russians prelates and they walked out.

A religion that worships materialism and humanity, in their wantonness and misapprehensiveness are transgressed by error. Since there is only one God, there can only be one true religion; there cannot be a multitude of contradictory true religions since God cannot contradict himself.

Religions created by man are based on a false perception of God and His creation. That includes Communist religions. Any religion that begins by man is not the true religion. They work on false premises. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has been cleansed by Putin. So ROC is a Communist quasi pseudo religion contravened by materialism and violated by misappropriations.

IN REPLY TO:
“But personal charity alone cannot remedy deep-seated social injustices.”

ANS:
Nor is it meant to.

Benedict XVI
“The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity. If my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice…then violence and untruth, reign supreme.

Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I.” Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.

To suffer for the sake of truth and justice, to suffer out of love, and in order to become a person who truly loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself.

The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world [to an atheist] marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God to an atheist. Therefore, it is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested.

Since there is no God to create justice, [for the atheist] it seems [to them] man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God is understandable. However, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false.

There is justice. There is an “undoing” of past suffering, reparation that sets things aright. For this reason, faith in the Last Judgment is first and foremost hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes...the strongest argument, in favor of faith in eternal life—Benedict XVI.”

A true Christian has an eternal destiny. He turns to God, who assists him in his needs on his odyssey to eternity. The Christian knows there is an eternal reward that awaits him. To him life is a journey to eternal bliss. The only thing an atheists has to look forward to is a dead end and a quick death.

Personal charity is not supposed to cure all injustices; nothing but God can do that. No law can stop every injustice only God can do that. What man and just laws can do is ameliorate the iniquities. Because sin entered the world from Adam’s transgression, social injustices will always exist. Religion gives man faith and hope that Justice will always triumph in the end.

The Truth can set man free from his many frustrations and disappointments and give man the fortitude and perseverance to withstand them. Therefore, man must seek the Truth who is God, for it is impossible to have hope without God’s intercession. However, the problem is, man must make the choice to accept God's help.

Since man has a free will, it is man’s choice to choose the Good. If he chooses evil, he becomes incapacitated. That is why we have laws and justice systems that proscribe evil; however they only allay evil and not remove it.

In addition, there are the two great commandments of Christianity, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and “Do unto others as you will do unto yourself.” After that, man must rely on God, for only God is capable of the requital of all injustices and the restoration of reparation of Justice.

IN REPLY TO;
"Have atheists denied funds for public health programs that encourage people to use condoms in countries where AIDS is rampant?"

ANS:
No, but they should have. In North America in 2006, where there is a plentitude of condoms, there were 43,000-cases of AIDS. Using condoms to solve AIDS contamination is like cutting your head off to solve a headache. Encouraging the use of condoms is a prescription for the spread of AIDS and STDS. Have you checked lately on the number of people dying in America from both?

Facts About Condoms in Brief
http://www.siecus.org/pubs/fact/fact0011.html

If you really want to save people from AIDS, try preaching sex is meant only for Marriage and you won’t need condoms to prevent AIDS or STDs. Moreover, preaching the use of condoms gives one a false belief that condoms prevent AIDS and STDs. To the contrary, they just reduce the risk, a risk only a fool would take.

In addition, condoms are against the Natural Moral Law and the institution of Marriage. Of course, an atheist doesn’t believe in the Moral Law because they can’t recognize the existence of a God who created them. So they make their own moral laws to suit their whims. Consequently, morality becomes subjective and each atheists and agnostic has his own set of morals rendering Morality meaningless.

To the contrary, Morality is based on the nature of man; its principles are universal and unchanging, and the same for all man irrespective of his beliefs, religion or his state in life. To change them, one must change the nature of man. Consequently, atheists redefined not only the Natural Moral Law but inadvertently change the nature of man.

Hence, man becomes an animal that can be disposed of when he is a problem. Thus, an unborn child is disposable at the whims of an atheistic society and man becomes a commodity, the babies’ aborted body parts are sold on the open market. Billy Jean King had her baby legally murdered to play in a tennis match.

Subsequently, divorce is approaching fifty percent and shack-ups and live-ins are becoming the fashion, sex for pleasure alone is ubiquitous throughout our culture presented as natural phenomena, awash in video, books, art, and literature. Notwithstanding, single parent families are at a high rate, and single parent families and a source of high crime rates. The Oklahoma Mall Shooter was an itinerant of a multitude of State appointed foster parent homes.

Every time man tries to abrogate the authority of God, they end creating more of a catastrophe than when they began. Karl Marx, who redefined man and society, is a lamentable example.

In America, the Court redefined “freedom of speech” to included pornography. That generated a plethora of sex crimes, out of wedlock pregnancies, and a watershed of STDs and AIDS. Sex relationship is becoming animalistic; its dignity and its sacredness is being impugned. Conjugal Love in marriage lost its primary purpose, the procreation of a family is being replaced with Sex for Pleasure only, and procreation, the primary purpose of sex is becoming a secondary purpose that is eschewed by the Epicureans.

The solution for unwanted pregnancies is contraceptives; the pill is purported to cause carcinogenic problems. The use of contraceptives produced even more unwanted pregnancies and social problems. The solution was for the Court to redefined human nature by legalizing murder by abortion. Over 48 million unborn have so far died from that solution.

From abortion, some women have become sterile; some died. We get a subsequent solution to sterilization, "In Vitro Fertilization" (IVF) and the murder of the embryo.

IN REPLY TO:
Were atheists responsible for 'ethnic cleansing' in Bosnia?”

ANS:
Slobodan Milosevic, an atheist, had a little bit to do with the “ethnic cleansing,” if you haven’t heard he was a Communist. Communist are atheists, a.k.a. they don’t believe in God. Communist, who are atheists have little respect for human dignity. Milosevic, a Communist, went on to study law at Belgrade University, where he became the head of the IDEOLOGY Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) student branch

His father and mother were staunch Communist. His father hung himself in 1962; his mother hung herself in 1974. It’s a tradition with Communist atheists government officials, namely, hang or be hanged. Either they commit suicide, or their comrades murder them for being good Communists. Do a little research sometime instead of making obscure and incomprehensible remarks that are somewhat intellectually irresponsible and casuistic.

IN REPLY TO:
“Oh, wait, the Serbian Christians were the biggest offenders. Benedict even resorted to beating the dead horse of communism and cited atheism as the reason for Stalin and Mao's crimes. This is utter nonsense.”

ANS:
“Utter nonsense” you say. You seem to be having a habit of letting your predispositions become obstacles to the truth. The horses you mention are the dead horses that both Stalin and Mao rode--the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They brought a rein of terror and destruction on everything they touched. That’s what happens when man writes his own moral laws.

All Communist are atheists whether they worship at a Church cleansed by Communists murderers or not. Stalin and Mao were just two atheists who thought they were God and made their own moral codes just like all atheists do.

You might try the link below to fine out who is murdering whom.

Jihad Watch
Thursday, 20 April 2006
http://www.savekosovo.org/default.asp?p=3&leader=0&sp=30

IN REPLY TO:
What made Soviet Communism a religion was what makes any religion a religion--imperviousness to countervailing evidence.

ANS:
Religion is the paying homage and worshiping God. There is only one true God. If it’s a false God, than it’s not truly a religion but a delusion.

All atheists believe in a god, but it’s a false god and not a real god at all. Atheists make themselves a god unto themselves, as did Stalin and all Communists do; they are their own god. They pagans, atheists, skeptics, heretics, the heathens are all lumped together in one various form or another. They abrogate the Natural Moral Law and usurp the authority of God by making their own moral codes.

Again the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the Court—Stephens, Ginsberg, Souter, Breyer—riding the backs of atheism, agnosticism, heathenism, and paganism claimed the Traditional Moral Law had no standing and served no purpose in civil law. They made their world an anthropocentric one that centers on man and denies the authority of God.

The Court traduced the Constitution and sanctified it by giving it precedence over the word of God. All four denounced the Natural Moral Law by redefining the nature of man and legalizing the murder of the unborn. Consequently, they contravened man's most basic inalienable right, a Right to Life.

To the contrary, it is the atheist that ignores the countervailing evidence. They choose their predispositions over reality. The atheists can’t even admit to Stalin and Mao's atheists. As Einstein so aptly put it, he who can not see there is a God is brain dead. Their minds are closed to reality.

Accordingly, in their blindness atheists and agnostics rely on science only when it is in consonance with their dispositions; otherwise, science becomes their bane.

Thus, atheism can justify Embryo Stem Cell Research (ESCR), they disregarding such eminent scientists as the modern “Father of Eugenics” Dr. Jerome Lejeune, the "Father of IVF. Dr. Landrum Shettles, and former Mayo Clinic’s Chairman of Eugenics Dr. Hymie Gordon, Gordon speaks for them all, "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, human life is present from the moment of conception.” It follows; ESCR and abortion are the murder of a conceived child.

Without a God, man loses his immortality. His purpose in life, in the end, has no meaning. In his final hours, suicide is man's final solution. When an atheist faces evil that is out of his control, he can not turn to God. His final solution is despondency. Atheists, in the thralls of death, have no hope for eternity.

Thus, Schiavo’s life, unfortunately to an atheist, was no longer human; she had no more dignity than a vegetable and was disposed of as one. Schiavo's humanity had been redefined.

IN REPLY TO:
“Seen any atheists committing suicide bombings lately?”

ANS:
At the top of my head, I can name Joseph Stalin, Hitler, and Mao Zedong. Then you might include in this coterie Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Hitler. I think they murdered and bomb millions. Stalin and Mao are responsible for killing about a 120 million alone.

I believe there are no true atheists, and that one who worships a false god worship no god at all; they only think they do.

The atheist wants to deny the tragedies and social upheavals that atheism, hedonism, and atheism have wrought and claim the triumphs of Christianity in the world for their own. Why, because atheism is an ideology of frustration. It has no accomplishments. It is a contradiction of human nature that denies the immortality of the soul, and therefore makes the Natural Moral Law meaningless because there is no Transcendental Authority to enforce it. Man becomes the sole arbiter of morality.

Morality becomes subjective and idiosyncratic denying the reality of moral objectiveness. Subsequently, man is left with an innate longing for eternal happiness but is without the compass, Christianity, to find it. That is the definition of Hell. It was that living Hell that encapsulated the Mall shooter.

Atheism and agnosticism are a devaluation of self-worth and self-destruction. The Oklahoma Mall shooter is an illustration of an atheist whose frustration with his own existence led him to social destruction and finally suicide. He saw no value in life. He cried out for love, but he was blind to the unfailing love his God had for him.

“When man’s everyday hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain. In this regard, our contemporary age has developed the hope of creating a perfect world that, thanks to scientific knowledge and to scientifically based politics, seemed to be achievable. Thus, Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God has been displaced by hope in the kingdom of man, the hope of a better world that would be the real “Kingdom of God.”

Man's Kingdom seemed at last to be the great and realistic hope that man needs. It was capable of galvanizing—for a time—all man's energies. In the course of time, however, it has become clear that this hope is constantly receding.

Hence, while we must always be committed to the improvement of the world, tomorrow's better world cannot be the proper and sufficient content of our hope.

We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them. I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my Incapacity to recognize the evil in me for what it is. If God does not exist, perhaps I have to seek refuge in these lies,[Marxism, Socialism, and Fascism] because there is no one who can forgive me; no one who is the true criterion. Yet my encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of me and those of my contemporaries who shape my thinking, but it becomes a capacity for listening to the Good itself.

When we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater—Spe Salvi.”

The Mall shooter said his life was meaningless and he tried to make everyone else’s life meaningless too.

“If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I sink to the nether world, you are present there ... If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light' —for you darkness itself is not dark, and night shines as the day; darkness and light are the same” (Ps 139 [138]:8-12; cf. also Ps 23 [22]:4).

Let us say once again; we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain.

Let us say once again, we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain.

The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme—Benedict XVI.”

IN REPLY TO
“Religion has, historically, been used more frequently to foster resignation in the poor, sick, and oppressed--by promising them an eternal reward in the next world--than it has been used to change the conditions of their earthly lives.”

ANS:
“An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings."

“It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world. When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of “redemption” which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot resolve by itself the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death.

The human being needs unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say: “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38- 39).

If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then—only then—is man “redeemed,” whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances.

This is what it means to say, "Jesus Christ has 'redeemed' us." Through him we have become certain of God, a God who is not a remote “first cause” of the world, because his only-begotten Son has become man and of him everyone can say: “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

In this sense it is true that anyone who does not know God, even though he may entertain all kinds of hopes, is ultimately without hope, without the great hope that sustains the whole of life (cf. Eph 2:12).

Man's great, true hope which holds firm in spite of all disappointments can only be God—God who has loved us and who continues to love us “to the end,” until all “is accomplished” (cf. Jn 13:1 and 19:30).

Whoever is moved by love begins to perceive what “life” really is. He begins to perceive the meaning of the word of hope that we encountered in the Baptismal Rite. From faith I await “eternal life”—the true life which, whole and unthreatened, in all its fullness, is simply life.

Jesus, who said that He had come so that we might have life and have it in its fullness, in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10), has also explained to us what “life” means: “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship.

Life in its totality is a relationship with Him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with Him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we “live.”

An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine and therefore reality.

'If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I sink to the nether world, you are present there. ... If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light' —for you darkness itself is not dark, and night shines as the day; darkness and light are the same' (Ps 139 [138]:8-12; cf. also Ps 23 [22]:4). "Spe Salvi (In Hope We Are Saved) Benedict XVI

Personally, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as an atheist. It’s often said there are no atheist in the foxhole. That’s because their fear of death is greater than their denial of God. Atheists know there’s a God; they don’t want to admit it because they’re afraid of Truth. They hide in darkness to avoid the light of Eternal Truth.

The evidence there is a God, an Eternal Truth, is indisputable: absolute and incontrovertible. Such evidence is manifested in the effects of Creation. The existence of God is patent, unequivocal, and so obvious only a simpleton or a dullard could be so mentally blind not to see it.

Einstein simply puts it, “That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”--A.E.

The atheist claims there is no God and then makes himself a god unto himself. Adam and Eve thought they could be God. Trying to be one’s own god was the cause of Original Sin at the time of man's creation.

Such arrogance of disbelief in God is the cause of the mess we’re in now, but the atheist is the witless nescient oblivious to God's reality.

Atheistic and agnostic ideologies are fertile ground for materialism because they redefine and devalue man's immortal nature. Consequently, the unborn is matter and can be conveniently disposed of. Such ideology has engendered a legacy of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, Famine, War, Pestilence, and Death personified in the Middle East, Africa and India.

IN REPLY TO:
“It seems that some Shariah-promoting politicians are now being prosecuted for embezzling millions of dollars, and some of the clerics are having second thoughts about the religious intolerance that has resulted, according to human rights organizations, in the deaths of 11,000 to 15,000 in religious/tribal conflicts since 1999 (www.nytimes.com, p. 1, December 1, 2007.)”

ANS:
Man has a free will and by his nature has a right to choose the Good. If he chooses evil, he pays a dire consequence. Embezzlement is a sin against the Seventh Commandment. Religious intolerance is a sin against the two great Commandments, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and “Do unto others as you do unto yourself.” Both evils are forbidden by Catholicism.

Because our Constitution is based on our Judeo-Christian heritage, America is probably the most tolerant country in the world; we even tolerate Communist, notwithstanding atheists and agnostics.

“Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it.” Thus, the Founding Fathers placed them in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights and defended them in Declaration of Independence.

“These rights are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy.”

So states the Constitution. “If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that "everyone should look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as 'another self,' above all bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity.’

No legislation, by itself, could do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness that obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a "neighbor," a brother.”

IN REPLY TO:
“…as long as religion claims the right to determine civil law, there can be no freedom and security for anyone who disagrees.

ANS:
The Catholic religion doesn’t claim any right to determine the Civil Law; that is determined by God. The Church only defends them. Those who disagree invite the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death—down upon their nation. Today the Supreme Court majority has legalized the murder of over 48 million unborn.

The Courts have recognized legal divorce, and now we are approaching a fifty percent divorce rate. The Court is in the process of recognizing Gay Marriage an oxymoron. There is no right to immorality, but the Court has legalized immorality and made it a Constitutional right.

The Court has recognized the right of live-ins, and now we are witness to the destruction of the marriage, and in the end the destruction of the basic foundation of a nation, the family.

Because we are becoming a nation of intolerance of the fundamental moral laws we were founded on, we have created a social malaise that is overshadowing the country. It is a malaise that has invaded the inalienable right to life for the unborn.

Justice Stephens, in concluding for the majority that homosexuality is a natural right, based his opinion on the claim that traditional morality has no standing in Civil Law and has no redeeming value, though all civil law is based on the Natural Moral Law. Civil Law based on the Natural Moral Law was the unanimous opinion of the Founding Fathers.

Moreover, without a transcendental authority, morality is determined by man. What man gives, man can take away. To the contrary, the Declaration, the rationale for which this country sought its independence, did not claim to give inalienable rights to man, but to recognize them as given to man by God, and therefore, they are inviolable.

Moreover, the Declaration states that if our government consistently ignores these inalienable rights, it is the duty of the citizens to overthrow that government and create a new government that is in consonance with human nature.

In addition, Madison was so adamant that these inalienable right be in the Constitution, he added not only the Bill of Rights but also the Ninth amendment to the Constitution to ensure that all natural rights be recognized, even than those not enumerated. Consequently, he wrote the Ninth Amendment—“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

One should take note that these rights are not retained by the government but by the people, intimating these rights are inherent rights not given by government or man, but by God.

IN REPLY TO:
“Official Communist atheism is gone, but official suppression of the fragile civil liberties that were emerging before Putin is back in--and is supported by both the church and the current leader of the Russian state.

ANS:
When you deal with Communist atheists, what can one expect? Putin has the power and Russia is still embedded in its Communist roots. The last elections held in Russia were considered a fraud by anyone competent to criticize the elections. Putin has never stopped being a Communist; he didn’t rise in the KGB because he wasn’t dictator material.

Consequently, don’t blame the Russian Orthodox Church for the iniquities coming out of Putin’s dictatorship. He was a ruthless leader, and he will remain a ruthless leader and despot. Under the pretense of his facetious altruistic propaganda, Putin still remains a vicious totalitarian despot. I would imagine that the Russian Orthodox Church is powerless to do anything in the open that is adverse to Putin’s dictatorship.

“Deep concern has also been expressed at the fact that at the same time the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has proclaimed St Seraphim of Sarov to be the Patron Saint of Russian Nuclear Forces. In the opinion of many devout Orthodox, it verges on blasphemy to dishonor the memory of the greatest Saint of the Russian Church in this way, as his whole life and teaching was concerned with gentleness and purity of heart in accordance with the Gospel, not military violence or weapons of mass destruction. It shows yet again that the Russian Orthodox Church is turning into a tool of the Russian State.”—Wikipedia

IN REPLY TO:
"From Nigeria came a mildly hopeful story, about certain Muslim religious leaders pulling back from the harshest imposition of Shariah, Islamic religious law, in Muslim regions of that unhappy country."

ANS:
Again, Muslims can believe anything they want. Thus, they are all over the place claiming Mohammed inspired them, but the Catholic has no such freedom to make or change the moral laws of God that are based on human nature. To do so is to change the nature of man.

When you have the kind of intense variations of Muslim belief that Muslims have, you get into many contradictions and religious conflicts. Thus, the Sunnis have one view, the Hezbollah another, Saddam’s Bathe Party another, the Shiites have their own view, and bin Laden and his terrorists have their view etc, but all claimed to be inspired by Mohammed. That’s the inherent problem with all religions.

All religions contradict each other in part or in whole. Unwittingly, if God inspired all these religions He would be contradicting Himself, and that would be ridiculous. Thus, there can only be one true religion and that has been shown to be the Catholic Church that is the only Church founded by God.

Thus, if you can find a religious founder who did all the things Jesus did, all the miracles he performed, above all raising the dead and rising from the dead, you might have an argument for another true religion, but until then, there is no argument against the Catholic Church as being the one true Church.

IN REPLY TO:
“[THE CHURCH] is as responsible as any other human institution for creating the serious social problems that produce human misery."

ANS:
First, the Catholic Church is not a human institution founded by man but by God. The serious social problems in the world are not produced by the Catholic Church but by an avoidance of Her teachings and moral precepts.

False religions are the cause of social disorder because they are not the true religion and therefore do not have the message of Truth. The wisdom of the Church has been reinforced and strengthened by over 2000 years of its experience in defending the dignity of man. Notwithstanding, history is a witness of those who oppose Her teachings and they end by acceding to social disorder by their cruelty to mankind.

Today, we are witnessing the death of over 48 million unborn by abortion because a Supreme Court majority legalized murder, renounced the Natural Moral Law, and abrogated the inalienable right to life for the unborn. By doing so they have violated the Bill of Rights and impugned the Constitution in which these rights are written.

Other religions teach error and errors cause disorder because the errors are not in consonance with man’s human nature. Thus, these false beliefs deny humanity their God given rights and consign man to a mortal being denying man his final end in eternity.

It is the Catholic Church that so eminently defends the dignity of man, specifically the Right to Life. No other Church defends the dignity of humanity more than the Catholic Church, no one.

That has the atheists and agnostics mortified and discombobulated because they are adamantly opposed to the existence of a Christian God who created them and bestowed upon them the human rights their nature demands. So says the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights that were founded on our Judeo-Christian Heritage and a Christian God by the Founding Fathers.

IN REPLY TO:
“Is religion uniquely equipped to salve the wounds of poverty, disease, and war? Certainly not."

ANS:
To the contrary, it’s been shown that the Church is uniquely equipped to salve the wounds of poverty, diseases, and war. Catholic Charities in its charity has succored quite adequately and magnanimously to the needs of man's misery and assuaged the plights of poor, hungry the sick and suffering.

Mother Theresa and her nuns withstanding are a contemporary example. However, the atheists and agnostics, troglodytes, iconoclasts and the anti-religious Democrats have attempted to forestall the President’s “Faith Based Initiative,” which attempts mitigate the pours suffering more effectively.

As to diseases, it has been previously shown, the Catholic Dream Program has adequately answered that question. Only a lack of resources is inhibiting its unequivocal success. And, who has helped more of the poor and dying than Mother Theresa and Catholic Charities?

As to war, if people would adopt the two great Commandments of the Catholic Church and Christianity, there would be no wars. Namely, “Love one another as God loves you and as you would love yourself” and “Do unto others as you would do unto yourself.”

Unfortunately, because sin entered the world by the sin of Adam, war at times is inevitable. Because of the likes of such atheists like Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Idi Amin, Saddam, Pol Pot, and Robert Mugabe, sometimes there must be war in self-defense against man’s cruelty to mankind. However, the Church has developed a “Last Resort” theory to mitigate the use of war. In the end, it is man who must choose the guidance of the Church; She can't force man to be good.

It’s correct that every religion is a creation of man, with one exception, the Catholic Church. It was founded by God’s Son, Jesus, who is both man and God. Moreover, He established a Church free from error in its teachings and dogmas. Mt. 28:20; Mt.10; & John 15: 26-27

No other religion has a founder who raised the dead, instantly cured the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk, cured lepers, who controlled the heavens and the seas and all the creatures in them.

No other religion has a founder who walked on water, calmed storms, fed 5,000 and 7,000 people with a few fish and a few loaves of bread. After the crowd had eaten, twelve hampers of leftovers were gathered.

Moreover, no founder of any religion but the founder of the Catholic Church, was found innocent, was murdered by an ignominious death on a cross, and then risen from the dead. Notwithstanding, his whole life was written some 300 years before He was born.

In addition, no other Church has the gift of infallibility in its teachings and dogmas, or has the four marks that make it the one true Church.

The Church is One in its universal teachings and doctrines, and they have never been changed since the Church was founded, contrary to the anti-Catholic demagogues who rail against Her.

Second, the Church is Apostolic in that its lineage is unbroken from the Apostles to the present. She is holy in that her founder who is God, and She is Universal in that Her Church is for all mankind.

"Now, the Church is called Catholic because it is throughout the world, from one end of the earth to the other. She is diffused by the splendor of one faith from the rising to the setting sun'."

Unlike republics of human institution, or the conventiclers of heretics, she is not circumscribed within the limits of any one kingdom, nor confined to the members of any one society of men, but embraces within the amplitude of her love, all mankind, whether barbarians or Scythians, slaves or freemen, male or female.

To the Catholic Church, built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets (Ephesians 2:20) belong all the faithful who have existed from Adam to the present day, or shall exist in the profession of the true faith to the end of time, all of whom are founded and raised upon the one cornerstone, Christ, who made both one, and announced peace to them that are near, and to them that are afar." It is a peace of the soul.

She is also called universal, because all who desire eternal salvation must cling to and embrace her, like those who entered the ark to escape perishing in the flood. This, therefore, is to be taught as a most just criterion to distinguish the true from a false church."

REPLYING TO:
“People who are living longer with AIDS and HIV today owe their continued existence not to religion or religious leaders but to scientists who have developed new drugs in laboratories over the past two decades.”

YES, CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR BECAUSE GOD ISN'T GOING TO CURE YOU.

However, the AIDS victims in Africa have a different view. In fact, they are consulting those greedy Christians who are taking all the people's money and spending it on their bureaucracies.

Catholic Charities
Emergency Services:
“In 2000, more than 5.9 million people received emergency services such as cash assistance, clothing, help with utility bills, temporary shelter, and food through soup kitchens and food banks.

“Millions of working poor families who do not earn enough to provide for their basic needs are turning to Catholic Charities for support. These families face daily dilemmas: Will we pay the heating bill, or buy clothes for our children? Will we pay the rent, or fix the car that we need to get to work? Do we fill the prescription for high-blood pressure when we need that money to buy food?

Social Services

“In 2000, more than 4 million people received what we call social services. These services work to strengthen individuals and their families, as well as the communities in which they live.
Social services include: adoption, family support, and help for at-risk children, housing assistance, job training, respite care, home care, parenting education, pregnancy counseling, prison ministry, refugee and immigration assistance, and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.

“Catholic Charities agencies provide a wide range of immediate services such as disaster relief and soup kitchens, as well as long-term services like family counseling and help for at-risk children.

Vision Statement
“Believing in the presence of God in our midst, we proclaim the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the person by sharing in the mission of Jesus given to the Church." Ridiculous, isn't it?

“September 11 Relief and Disaster Recovery Work

“Catholic Charities agencies respond immediately to natural and man made disasters as during 9/11 in the N.Y. and D.C. surroundings. Catholic Charities volunteers were still supporting relief efforts after others had long gone." I wonder where are all the freethinkers doing. Where are their organizations?

“Their desire to help is not limited by age, race, geography, or faith. Their desire is simply to give something of themselves to make a difference in someone else's life." Yes, it's called love for neighbor.

They are in the world serving as mentors, food bank workers, or senior citizen companions, giving the most important gift to those in need—selfless service.

“The bottom line is that Catholic Charities agencies are providing vital services to millions based on the unique needs of their individual communities. Their long-term assistance can last weeks, months-even years-after a disaster.”

Moreover, “Catholic Charities DREAM (short for "Drug Resources Enhancement against Aids and Malnutrition has proven to be an efficient means of giving access to free ARV treatment with generic HAART drugs to the poor on a large scale: So far, 5,000 people are receiving ARV treatment, especially in Mozambique, but the program is being built up also in other countries: Malawi, Guinea, Tanzania and others.

“The clinic is run by the Italian Catholic charity, Santo Egidio, and treats 2,500 patients, among them 100 inmates from the local jail.

“Despite being FREE, the program aims at excellence in treatment, providing the best existent range of drugs (HAART) and regular blood testing according to European standards.

“Treatment is linked with a nutrition program as well as guidance and sanitary education by volunteers ( and other HIV patients). Today Dream has saved the lives of some 20,000 AIDS victims.”

“Two million people in Africa are getting drug therapies for AIDS as part of the DREAM project. Twelve laboratories already exist in eight different African countries.” Are Catholics brainwashed? Do they hate gays or the sin? Ask Dream.

Notwithstanding, AIDS alone isn’t the only killer of AIDS victims; suicide in a Los Angeles homosexual community is the major cause of their deaths.

And try this for religious hyprocracy. Ever heard of St. Jude's Hospital?

"Make a difference in the life of a child this holiday season by joining Marlo Thomas, her celebrity friends and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital® for our Thanks and Giving campaign.

"Your support can help us find cures for pediatric
cancers and other deadly diseases. Eighty-five cents of every dollar St. Jude receives goes directly to research and treatment." There's those Catholics trying to get your money for their bureaucracies."

IT TAKES MORE THAN SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS TO AID AIDS VICTIMES:

"Spokesman Mario Marazziti told reporters that the group had established 13 centres in Mozambique under the auspices of the Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition project (DREAM), where it treated and cared for people living with AIDS. Around 16.4 percent of Mozambique's estimated 20 million people have contracted HIV, according to the World Health Organisation.

Of the 70,000 people in Africa who currently receive anti-retrovirals (ARVs), about 7,000 are reportedly under the care of Sant' Egidio.

With a small annual budget of five million dollars, DREAM organisers are hoping that the World Bank will come on board as a partner in the project. "Therapy is the only way to avoid (having) the entire struggle against AIDS in the southern areas of the world fail, and much of Africa, today and tomorrow, disappear," said Marazziti.

Nearly 30 million of the 42 million people infected with HIV worldwide are in Africa, according to the latest statistics from the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Sant' Egidio is planning to extend its services to Malawi, Angola, the Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, South Africa and Swaziland.

A video presentation shown to reporters on Tuesday (Mar. 16) also told of how a Mozambican, Isaias Joan Joao, had benefited from the ARVs dispensed by DREAM. Although his bones were protruding from his lanky structure when he first came to Sant' Egidio, Joao knew little about AIDS. And, his family had all but given up on him.

"I lost a lot of weight. I couldn't sit. I couldn't walk. I needed support even for simple activities like eating and bathing," he recalls. "I was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with AIDS."

That was in 2002. By last year he had regained his weight. "My neighbours, who had known and seen my condition, don't recognise me anymore. They think I am dead," says Joao, smiling.

"Indeed, I was dead, but now I have resurrected," the 31-year-old adds. "At the centre, they feed us, bathe us, treat us and follow up the cases of those who are at home."

"The most interesting thing is I didn't pay a cent. But someone paid my bill. I don't know who."

In February, experts and medical doctors from Sant' Egidio presented the results of the DREAM project at a conference on viruses and opportunistic infections in San Francisco. More than 3,000 scientists attended the meeting, considered the most prestigious annual scientific event on HIV/AIDS in the world.

Marazziti rejects the argument that economic and social constraints often make it impossible for Africans to maintain ARV therapy. "If you provide the proper environment for care and treatment, nothing is really impossible."

"Testing without treatment and care will amount to a death sentence for a person with AIDS," he adds. "But if they know that you treat them and look after them, they will not refuse to have themselves tested. In fact, they know that knowing their status will not amount to a death sentence," he says.

Sant' Egidio, which works with local health authorities in Mozambique, puts the cost of full ARV treatment at about 800 dollars per year. "This is still a lot of money. But it is nothing compared to the cost of war materials and cosmetics," observes Marazziti.

More than 350 million people in Africa, over half the continent's population, live on less than a dollar a day, according to the World Bank.

Michael Drysdale of AIDSLINK, a Johannesburg-based non-governmental organization, said ARVs should be distributed free to the poor. "We also have to look at the issue of nutrition which is crucial in managing the conditions of people with HIV/AIDS," he said."

The idea of historical records is interesting. Occasionally I wonder what would have happened if Gandhi had done his stuff a thousand years ago. It is probably due to the quality of the records we have that he has not been mythologized to the point were people are split between worshipping him and denying that he ever existed.

Dear Arminius -

Thanks for your response. After reading it, I'm pondering what was behind your original post to which I responded. Perhaps you were just being a tad snarky.

We're on the same page about the historical "evidence" for jesus/Socrates/Homer et al.

Best,

Mr Mark

Most of the stuff Jesus said and was said to have done was actually pretty standard-issue for ;street crazies' in that day and age.

I wouldn't be too mean to JJ. He's not gonna make the books, but, copyright issues he raises aside,

No new tale to tell. :)

Mad Love: “you seem to feel that scholars who should know better are giving Jesus a free pass. If that is correct, why do you think they are doing it?”

Don’t know, can only speculate. My theory is that they are simple ivory-tower academicians who are neither interested nor equipped to take on the public relations storm that would accompany any negative pronouncement about Jesus. Thus, it’s easier to make a welcome and expected statement that “most scholars” think Jesus existed, than to get into any of the shaky details, and to avoid making any negative statements that “most scholars” also support (e.g., the Moses myth and the myth of the miraculous birth of Jesus). The public doesn’t react much to the scholars’ statements: believers accept the scholars’ support of what they already believe, and non-believers discard it as another example of the establishment selling out.

This has worked so well for the scholars for such a long time that they’re used to people accepting it.

Then, Mad Love, there are things that I know, because I’ve made a point to ask: Some clergy are always walking the line between what they know and what they think their flock wants to know or is ready to hear. Some clergy are incredibly frustrated because their flock makes it abundantly clear that they only want to hear the old stories and want no rocking of the boat. Some clergy deflect questions from their flock because they fear losing pledging members if they answer candidly. Some clergy “believe in belief” (as philosopher Dan Dennett would say), willingly passing on stories they know are not factual to their parishioners, because they think organized religion is good for people.

Mr Mark, my favorite Aist, said:

"I'm disappointed to see you resorting to the "no one can prove that anyone existed or exists, THEREFORE, Jesus DID exist and was the Son of God," argument by mentioning Socrates. Maybe you're tired, bored or simply out of fresh ideas. Having advanced the argument, I'll assume that you're more than familiar with the usual counter-arguments.

I did not say that. Not at all. I am after historical methods here. I am perfectly aware of the lack of absolute proof for the historical existence of Jesus. I am also aware that this absolute proof is lacking for a great number of other historical figures, such as Socrates, Cyrus the Great, etc. Yes, I believe in the historical Jesus, but it is a belief. Can't prove it at all.

Arminius, a Christian

Mr. Mark/E Favorite

If I am understanding your points correctly, you seem to feel that scholars who should know better are giving Jesus a free pass. If that is correct, why do you think they are doing it?

Hey JJ, say no to crack!!!!! I think you should consider psychiatric treatment.

"Good bye Newsweek, Washington Post, Editor & POST et al:
Good bye every body!"

Fare thee well, JJ.

I wouldn't worry about plagiarism: I think we can safely say nobody can carry off some of what you've said.

I hope the fresh air does you good. Forums like this can really just end up ritualizing the conflicts. I think you were a shinier, happier guy when you first arrived.

This 'Culture War' does a lot of harm, and it's important to unplug once in a while, because the Internet tends to amplify differences.

PS - I just read Crossan and Borg's piece here on the first Christmas and see that we mention similar points about the social/political situation in 1st century Judea.

I could say "Great minds think alike" but I believe the more obvious explanation is that I originally got my information from them.

Dear Arminius -

I'm disappointed to see you resorting to the "no one can prove that anyone existed or exists, THEREFORE, Jesus DID exist and was the Son of God," argument by mentioning Socrates. Maybe you're tired, bored or simply out of fresh ideas. Having advanced the argument, I'll assume that you're more than familiar with the usual counter-arguments.

Your argument could just have well been the following:

Arminius: You owe me $1000
Mr Mark: No I don't. Prove it.
A: What proof do you want? Can you prove you love your wife?
MM: Well, I can't "prove" I love my wife, but I'll say that I love her deeply.
A: Fine. I'm willing to take your word that you love your wife, so you should take my word that you owe me $1000. Your check will do nicely. That, or large bills.

Now, there are points of agreement that we can reach in your Socrates challenge. For instance, I'm willing to agree that one can cherry-pick the good stuff that Jesus or Socrates said and use that info to better one's life. One can agree with Jesus' "love your neighbor" stuff while disagreeing with the "hate your family stuff," just as surely as one can agree with the Socratic Method without feeling the need to drink the hemlock when the going gets rough.

I will even stipulate that said Socratic Method could just as easily be the invention of Plato as Xianity was the invention of St Paul. That said, the obvious difference between the two is that the truth of the Socratic Method is in no way dependent on whether or not Socrates existed, while the truth of Xianity is entirely dependent on whether or not Jesus actually existed, at least in his non-Gnostic form (that form being a non-corporeal, pure spirit god).

As far as my using Xian as a shorthand for Christian (ie: the Greek letter "chi" which has a long history of being used to signify Christ), you and I have been through this before, your objections have been duly noted even as my reasons for using the "X" shorthand have been given, we agree to disagree on this point - time to move on, don't you think?

Thanks for the chat.

Mad Love: regarding Jesus being “entirely fictional,” if you change the term in quotes to “mythical,” it doesn’t sound like deliberate scam, at least not to me. Of course I don’t know where exactly Jesus lies along the continuum of real live person to fictional/mythical and don’t think anyone else can say either. What really bothers me (as I always like to point out) is that authorities talk as if they do know, which implicitly or explicitly misleads people – not only about Jesus’ existence, but about his supposed divinity.

Something else I’ve heard from authorities is that people claiming to be the Messiah was a fairly common phenomenon around the time of Jesus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants. Jews, wanting a way out from Roman rule, were hoping an “anointed one” (the Hebrew meaning of “messiah”) to deliver them, based on biblical prophecies. “Jesus” was a very common name back then too, so there could have been (note my deliberate use of the conditional “could”) more than one of these messiahs who were named Jesus.

As far as I can tell, respected scholars do not dispute this, however, I’ve not noticed that they are taking any kind of a public stand on it, in contrast to their willingness to speak publicly about their agreement on Jesus’ existence.

If anyone has evidence to the contrary (from historians who are not also Christian apologists), please let me know.

Arminius – regarding Socrates, I'm anxious to hear Mr Marks response.

Jacob Josevz;
You are really losing it,you nutjob.
Get a grip.You should be kicked off these threads.

Ignore the '3414cv' in the middle of that post. Or maybe not. Apparently my cat wanted to weigh in on this thread.

Mr Mark-

I'm aware that the evidence is scant and that a lot of what passes for evidence is suspect. However the argument that Jesus was entirely fictional (at least as far as 3414cvput forth by Gandy and Freke) strikes me as a little thin. It seems like a whole lot of smoke for there to be no fire at all, but that's just my feeling. If you look at the chronology of the gospels you can see where the story gets more and more mythologized. I think it would be good if more people could see and accept that. Ultimately though, I'm pretty happy to let this particular debate rage on without my help.

Do you know that the top 3 richest people of the
world (westren JewChristian interest based secular capitalistic world)
have the wealth equalant to 48 poor and highly populated countries annual GDP.

BLOOD SUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Instead of preying and destroying if the fascist capitalistic ideologers, if just few hand full numbers out of them wants to ERADICTATE the poverty and hunger out of the billions of human population in todays world they can do it just like that BUT what they are doing???????

- Lotting the world, suppling weopon and dividing!
- Playing media (brain washing the victoms and abusers)
- And if having huge crop then throwing it into the sea to control the market price. YES ! that is your real face USA AND WEST!

AND SHOUTING ALL OVER THE WORLD THROUGH MEDIA WE ARE THE SAVIORS, WE ARE CIVILIZED, WE ARE THE BEST AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE THAN DIE!!!

Good bye Newsweek, Washington Post, Editor & POST et al:
Good bye every body!

Att: Washington Post, Newsweek & Company; You Suck!

Warning: Do not reproduce, deseminate, plagerize, copy, for profit or gain 'ANY of my "POST" on any onf these 'Onfaith' or "onreligion" bloggs, since MARCH.19/20th of 2007 until NOW! Dec.15th.2007!

Vote: ECLATi-ON Party for GRIDARIAN DEMOCRACY & TRANSFINITE CIVILIZATION 2012 & beyond! Bye Yo ALL!

Mr Mark, you said:

"Granted, but my point - and that of E Fav - is that received opinion presents the existence of Jesus as an incontrovertible FACT, when the "evidence" supporting that pseudo-fact is entirely tradition, not truth.

How many Xians do you suppose are aware that Biblical scholars - respected scholars - disagree on this elemental point? I'd guess that 10% would be a very high estimate."

My reply:
Using your basis of pseudo-fact, prove that Socrates existed.

And, by the way. I am Christian, but would like to know what an Xian is. And are you an Aist or an Astic?

Arminius

Ms. Jacoby, it's nice to see that you actually read and (very occasionally) respond to the posts here. I appreciate that, knowing we are not only communicating with each other but the author as well.

The post by FC Sanders is indicative of the understanding the believers have of atheism. They, belonging to one kind of believer's group or another, seem to feel that atheism is a belief system itself.

We come up with quick little sayings such as: Atheism is to religion as Bald is to hair color, and Atheism is to religion as Starvation is to food groups.

But they really don't get it do they? They accuse "atheism" for being the motivating force behind Stalin and Mao. They were both right-handed weren't they? I tend to think it was their right-handedness which was their real motivating force ... it makes as much sense doesn't it?

They accuse secularism of being atheism. Most of the secular-minded people I know describe themselves as Christians.

Can you consider this for a topic one day? Why is it that the believer considers a lack of belief to be a competing belief system. Why do they think atheism is an "ism"?

MAD LOVE writes:
"Mr Mark-

I guess it comes down to "respected scholars" being the ones who tell you what you want to hear."

Granted, but my point - and that of E Fav - is that received opinion presents the existence of Jesus as an incontrovertible FACT, when the "evidence" supporting that pseudo-fact is entirely tradition, not truth.

How many Xians do you suppose are aware that Biblical scholars - respected scholars - disagree on this elemental point? I'd guess that 10% would be a very high estimate.

I find it strange that in our age of relativistic, he said/she said news reportage that the existence of Jesus is treated as a fact, rather than as an opinion, even by atheistic writers like Susan Jacoby. It's a little like discussing what went wrong with bush's war in Iraq without addressing the now-established fact that Saddam had no WMDs and that bushco KNEW he had no WMD when bush launched his war. Everything that has gone wrong in Iraq stems from (and is founded in) the poison of that original lie, a lie that was foisted on the world by gw bush and his minions, just as the divinity and salvation aspect of Jesus is based on the OPINION that he actually lived.

But then, how could any religion survive without its particular fantastic lies and the assumptions that issue forth from the same?

FC Sanders: "How many fund raisers have been started by atheist?Where are they when a storm hits a city and destroys lives and property?"

What makes you so sure that atheists are not involved in all those activities? Because they don't hang a big "atheist" sign over their charitable acts the way churches do? Atheists act individually and quietly. Did you know that some of the most generous philantropists are atheists? Bill Gates, Warren Buffet.

I hope this expands your knowledge of atheist generosity and that you won't repeat your earlier unfounded negative statements about atheists.

Hot off the presses – Richard Dawkins on Jesus: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2026,Happy-Newton-Day,Richard-Dawkins-New-Statesman

“Most but not all scholars think, on balance, that a charismatic wandering preacher called Jesus (or Joshua) probably was executed during the Roman occupation, though all objective historians agree that the evidence is weak.”

Note that while Dawkins does not provide evidence, he does carefully qualify certain issues: “most but not all,” “probably was executed.” He also adds a statement I’ve never heard in glib scholarly attestations of Jesus’ existence: “all objective historians agree that the evidence is weak.” I’ve found this out on my own, after much persistence, upon noticing that the historians who are so quick to agree, are incredibly reticent about revealing their reasons for agreeing.

Also, he provides some description of the Jesus he’s referring to: “a charismatic wandering preacher.” This is in contrast to scholars and clergy who often omit such information, leaving people to fill in what many of them already believe – Son of God, savior of mankind, born of a virgin, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven.

Now, I’d like to see a survey revealing the percentage of “objective scholars” who agree with Dawkins’ statements and the evidence they have for concurring.

Atheist are very good at talking a good talk however when the metal hits the road....where are they? How many fund raisers have been started by atheist?Where are they when a storm hits a city and destroys lives and property?It seems all they can do is yell about other peoples religious beliefs.

Rick,

I wholeheartedly agree: A person being brainwashed through (any) religion as a child does not want to grow up: It is so cozy to live in a warm state of protected unaccountability ("God's will") to abandon self-reliance, to leave kindergarten, to evade becoming a mature person who refuses to believe in Santa Claus or the stork or any similar entity. And one even can resort to the bible: "Unless you don't become like children..."

One is almost inclined to detect a tiny grain of irony in this Jesus quotation...

Bush, Romney, Huckabee and the rest of the bigots: reason to total desperation as to the future of this world.

Mr Mark-

I guess it comes down to "respected scholars" being the ones who tell you what you want to hear.

Huh. I tried repeatedly to see my message. It wasn't here. Now it's here three times. I don't understand it. I think something's screwy, and it isn't me.

Ms. Jacoby,

I agree that from the point of view of atheism, it doesn't matter at all if Jesus existed. From the point of view of historical accuracy... who knows?

But I can say that if Jesus died before 51 CE (and some early Christian sects put his life as early as 150 BCE), there are no contemporary commentaries at all, neither religious or secular. The earliest Christian writing are the works of supposed "Paul," at least 20 years later, and the earliest secular references are second century at best, and those may not be genuine.

Dear Susan,

Oh, yeah, one more thing in regards to:

"--substituting absolute faith in Joseph Stalin for absolute faith in the Orthodox Church..."

That was not faith. It was terror.

Have a nice weekend.

Ms. Jacoby,

From the point of view of atheism, it doesn't matter at all if Jesus existed. From the point of view of historical accuracy... who knows?

But I can say that if Jesus died before 51 CE (and some early Christian sects put his life as early as 150 BCE), there are no contemporary commentaries at all, neither religious or secular. The earliest Christian writing are the works of supposed "Paul," at least 20 years later, and the earliest secular references are second century at best, and those may not be genuine.

Ms. Jacoby,

From the point of view of atheism, it doesn't matter at all if Jesus existed. From the point of view of historical accuracy... who knows?

But I can say that if Jesus died before 51 CE (and some early Christian sects put his life as early as 150 BCE), there are no contemporary commentaries at all, neither religious or secular. The earliest Christian writing are the works of supposed "Paul," twenty years after JC "died," and the earliest secular references are second century at best, and those may not be genuine.

If its the government, private companies, individuals, and or religion that helps other people who cares? There are more than enough starving people in numerous countries that need food and water, and your basic everyday needs that we all take for granted. So let everyone help. I am sure that a starving person would not turn away food for him/herself, or their kids just because the food is from a religious person.

Rick: " As long as the childhood brainwashing goes on, there will be an endless supply of mindless robots with the same evil poison in their brains. The prospect is scary."

Here's the less severe version: "As long as childhood indoctrination goes on, there will be a continuous supply of purposely misinformed, misled people who are otherwise rational, with the same set of myths and beliefs in the supernatural in their brains. The prospect is scary.

In my opinion organized religion has been the single most evil institution in the history of mankind.

The fundamental Problem is that adherents of any particular faith have to believe that their religion is superior to any other. After all, what does one get from religion other than a sense of belonging to an exclusive club. A kind of country club membership. I see all organized religion as a business. The people in charge have to continue to grow the business. And, in order to do so, they try and make a larger and larger percentage of people believe that their product is better than their rivals. Like Coke and Pepsi, each will tell you that their product is better when deep down it is all sugared water.

The other problem, when it comes to religion, is the brainwashing factor. It is so easy to take a bunch of people at an impressionably young age and fill them with the poison of religious bigotary. If I could be granted one wish in the world it would be to ban any person under the age of 21 from reading the Koran, Bible, Gita, Granth Sahib, or any so called holy book. If one does not read a religious book with a critical mind it becomes mere propoganda, and I believe children are not mature enough to avoid falling into the propoganda trap. Once they are hooked, they are gone for good. Even as adults they will never be able to look at the their own religious books and dogmas with a critical eye. They will rationalize, make excuses, find scapegoats, go through all manner of twisted logic to somehow avoid taking a critical look at their faith. This is not limited to Muslims. Sure Islam is the biggest problem now, but one only needs to go back a short period in history to see other faiths going through similar cycles. After all it was not Muslims who threatened to Put Gallileo in jail for daring to say that the earth went around the sun.

I don't know what the answer is. As long as the childhood brainwashing goes on, there will be an endless supply of mindless robots with the same evil poison in their brains. The prospect is scary.

Mad Love – I don’t think Jesus being a real person “ultimately” matters either.

I think it matters a lot right now, though, because so many people are sure that he is a real person. This is not based on a firm awareness or understanding of the limited evidence. It’s simply that people accept the conventional wisdom of his existence that’s circulated by the media, “respected scholars” and clergy. It becomes so ingrained that people become indignant, defensive, or disparaging when asked what their evidence is or when provided with differing evidence . I’ve seen this response among believing and non-believer friends and now even an atheist journalist like Susan. I’m sure it’s not healthy when any “fact” is so ingrained that people actually repel legitimate evidence and only seek to confirm what they already accept as truth.

In the case of Jesus, whole new generations are being taught or indoctrinated to believe that he is without a doubt a real person despite the very flimsy supportive evidence.

I’m now curious about any “most respected scholars agree” type statements in reference to the historicity of Moses. Everything I’ve learned about Moses is that respected scholars concur, based on intense historical and archeological study, that Moses did NOT exist and that the Exodus is myth. The evidence against Moses and the Exodus is much stronger than the evidence for Jesus. However, so far I’ve not noticed scholars speaking publicly about their colleagues’ confidence in Moses’ non-existence. I speculate (without overtaxing my critical thinking skills), that the quality of evidence notwithstanding, scholars choose to avoid going negative, but are happy to loudly confirm any good news.

Even Wikipedia gives a clue. Notice how firm they seem about Jesus:
“Most scholars in the fields of biblical studies and history agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was regarded as a healer, was baptized by John the Baptist, was accused of sedition against the Roman Empire, and on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate was sentenced to death by crucifixion”

And how cautious they are about Moses (PS, keep in mind that “tradition” means “what a lot of people believe” and is not necessarily related to actual known facts):
“According to tradition, Exodus and the other four books of the Torah were written by Moses. Modern biblical scholarship has produced numerous theories, all of which place it in the 1st millennium BC.

Scholars have been unable to link the stories in Exodus to a particular period in history”

So, Mad Love and others – keep your ears open and let me know if you hear scholars talking as openly about Moses non-existence and they do about Jesus’ existence.

Dear Susan,

"The problem with Soviet Communism was that it did, in fact, resemble a religion--substituting absolute faith in Joseph Stalin for absolute faith in the Orthodox Church and the Tsar as God's representative on Russian soil. What made Soviet Communism a religion was what makes any religion a religion--imperviousness to countervailing evidence."

{humor}
OMG that is rich!!!

So now officially Atheist Communism IS A RELIGION?!

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

And BTW I don't believe you said:

"...what makes any religion a religion--imperviousness to countervailing evidence."

That REALLY seals the deal. You really ARE profoundly religious. Will you limit your Canon to the Ancients like Sartre, Nietzsche Marx, and Lenin, or will you accept continuing revelation to accommodate more recent prophets like Crissy Hitchins?

HA HA HA HA I can't stop laughing.

Write some more stuff like that. LOLOL

I am going to footnote you in all future arguments on that topic.

w00t!
{/humor}

Dear Arminius,

According to Susan Jacoby:

"Were atheists responsible for "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia. Oh, wait, the Serbian Christians were the biggest offenders. Benedict even resorted to beating the dead horse of communism and cited atheism as the reason for Stalin's and Mao's crimes. This is utter nonsense. The problem with Soviet Communism was that it did, in fact, resemble a religion--substituting absolute faith in Joseph Stalin for absolute faith in the Orthodox Church and the Tsar as God's representative on Russian soil. What made Soviet Communism a religion was what makes any religion a religion--imperviousness to countervailing evidence. Needless to say, the pope had nothing to say about the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is now back in the business of working hand-in-hand with the state in suppressing cultural and political dissent."

Quot Erat Demonstrandum

Mr. Mark-

I LOVE the Indiana Jones example. I hope you don't mind if I borrow it.

I don't know whether Jesus was an actual person or not. I'm curious, but ultimately I don't think it maters. Son of God? Sure, aren't we all? (No need to respond to that...)

Unfortunately, to the average Christian the Crux of the biscuit hinges on taking the whole thing literally and so the message gets lost in the shuffle. Consequently, it seems there is more emphasis in our "Christian nation" on waiting for/bring about the end of the world, than on actually following the teachings of Jesus and making our society better.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Susan:

U B right: "This is utter nonsense."

"Hmmm, if only the The Jihadist could become just as vocal/"texting" about her warmongering religion and the death and maiming it causes 24/7. Maybe she could donate to the "Deflawing" of the Koran Program?? Or maybe she could simply e-mail the Program to all her fellow koranics??"

You can be replaced by a very small shell script.

Please ignore this post.

ignore

As a young man I decided to try out the Kack Kerouac thing, hit the street and travel you know?
I had a brother who was a homeless drunk at the time (still is 18 years later), I thought I would join him, travel with him, save him or something like that.

I've always been atheist, it wasn't out of some religious business that I thought I'd try it, I wanted my mother to be happy.

As we went from town to town we generally found work at the temporary labor places, so we could feed ourselves for the most part. My brother would drink his money, so I'd feed us both. Back in the 99 cents for a Whopper days Burger King was our big friend.
But when we could find no work, and had no money, we had to rely on charity to eat.

One of the things I like most about America as that we won't let you starve here. no matter what town, how large or how small, there was some arrangement for feeding the hungry. For most towns it was a christian charity of some kind, and in some towns it was several competing christian charities.
Take Ogden UT for example. There was a protestant place where you could get a meal, and a warm place to sleep. But you had to endure the "Harrangue" as the bums called it. This charity would have guest pastors and reverends and whatever show up every night, harrangue us for 15 minutes or sometimes over and hour ... you weren't allowed to leave, they locked the door!

Basically, they were blackmailing us with our own hunger. Sit there and be harrangued and fed, or go out on the cold street and starve.

On the other side of town there was St Catherine's, I think a catholic place. A cafeteria, a shower, pajamas, bunk beds. There were some bibles around and there was a chapel kind of room there, but nobody ever bothered us or insisted we had to be converted before we could eat.

Then in Corona CA, in '94. One saturday my brother and I were sitting in Pioneer Park on a picnic table. we had waited until noon at the labor join, no work, and we were broke. well he was, and I wasn't going to pay for his booze either.
some people got out of a couple of vans, and wandered through the large number of bums there handing out sack lunches. Two sandwiches, potatoe chips, an orange drink, an apple, and a baggie with two cigarettes in it.
Who were these people? it turns out they were Mormons. They never said anything about their god, they never handed out any bibles, and just what the hell were mormons doing giving out cigarettes?
I'll tell you what, they were more concerned with what would make our miserable day better than they were concerned about us following the rules they set out for themselves.

Like anything else involving humans, charity is a complex story, there are good people and bad people. There are enslavers and dogmatics and thou-shalters, and then there are people who just care. Those last people make me proud to be a human in america, the first make me sick to my soul.

Here’s is Susan’s response to me on the “Romney” blog:

“I would also like to add that as an author with a busy professional life, I do not have time to engage in debates with individual bloggers about questions like the existence of the historical Jesus. There are thousands of books on this subject. Do your own research; draw your own conclusions I would also like to add that as an author with a busy professional life, I do not have time to engage in debates with individual bloggers about questions like the existence of the historical Jesus. There are thousands of books on this subject. Do your own research; draw your own conclusions.”

And here is what I said back:
“Hello Susan, Neither I nor other posters on your earlier blog asked you to engage in a debate with us about the existence of the historical Jesus. Several of us pointed out that information we had was different from your statement about the “sheer number of contemporary commentaries” about his existence. We have done our own research and are drawing our own conclusions. The question is, what are your sources of information?

I don’t want to enter into a debate with you about this. I’m just asking you, a journalist, what your source of information is that statement. Or if you don’t want to, or for some reason can’t answer that question, could you please say that?”

Thanks

Yoyo, Chris...

Thanks for your responses.

It truly is a big universe we live in (understatement)..and to try to understand it all..well, for me personally, makes me feel very puny.

I just personally have to believe we are part of a 'chain' of sorts...that, as puny as I am...yet the inherent ability I have to be creative (although that is certainly lacking..:-\)..I have to believe, if only for the sake of the excellence within us all...that there was much more to my/our existence, much more forethough...than it just 'happening'.

I guess you would say Im not your average run-of-the-mill Christian. My family and I dont fit in during the holidays due to the fact we dont observe them. We are called law-keepers by some. I guess we are..but in a NT light. We are not Jewish, either. I personally feel the law was not done away with (though we believe Christs life changed ordinances and the way Holy Days are kept..) and feel there has been a fundamental sidetrack in religion that confuses law and ordinances (practices, symbols,etc). Even man does not 'do away' with his own laws that are meant for our good...so I feel I must respect them all...God's and man's.

I ramble..sorry...early morning thoughts before my first cup of joe.

A good day to you both...and a great weekend. (You too, Henry...wherever you are..)

Jihadist:

You say: "Given a choice to give charities to help people with HIV/AIDS over victims of natural disasters, I pick the latter. Given a choice to help ease the medical bills of those with HIV/AIDS, I chose to help their widows and orphans when all is lost to help those afflicted with HIV/AIDS prolong their lives."

That is your priority: "The HIV people are accountable for HIV, the disaster people are not accountable for disaster."
Why polarize at all? As an atheist, I give regular contributions to orphanage institutions. And I gave a sum to disaster victims. Nothing to brag about, but it sure was not a religious act.

Again - it doesn't have anything to do with a necessity to believe in any set of organized religion. Such a setting may be useful - or not - from an organizational point of view, but why do I have to believe against every imaginable evidence in stories exclusively made up by men? Can't we just leave it at the usefulness, or the social necessity?

To me, it is so remarkable that everybody talks about "God" as a given entity outside our own imagination: Not even the most adamant theologians claim to have the slightest proof of such an existence. And the most enlightened spiritual people not only admit, but claim and demand that "god" is within, not outside your mind, if you so choose.

So why do we always have to mix up useful and intelligent social behavior with some never proved fairy tales?

It is at this point, that I think we would be better off to address the problems directly instead of through the blinding glasses of a religion - any religion. The bickering over question if the evil of the world is caused by religion or by lack of religion misses the point completely.

I should add that there are phenomena for which science has no explanation (yet). Foremost among these are consciousness. But scientific ignorance does not mean that storybook explanations are true; it just means that we have a mystery, maybe to be solved (like comets, lightning, disease, evolution, etc.), or maybe to remain unsolved (as consciousness might).

Either way, I like to keep my mind clean (but my thoughts dirty).

Tday:

Thanks for sharing. I think the biggest difference between us is that you believe in studying what for me is simply a storybook as the means of learning about the universe, whereas I believe in studying the universe as the means of learning about the universe. I'm sure both studies are in earnest.

For me, the storybook exists WITHIN the universe, so I believe it should be studied as a phenomenon OF the universe. Looked at that way, it clearly seems to be of a kind with many other similar storybooks that have been written by many cultures throughout history.

I must admit that I really have no idea why these stories are so captivating to so many people, and how they come to believe such incredibly intricate and phantasmagorical tales whose distinguishing feature (to my mind) is that they fly in the face of common sense and direct experience.

Assuming that you KNOW something like the ressurection or the burning bush to be true, can you explain HOW you know it to be true? In science, EVERY DETAIL of every theory can be traced back to observations for which that detail of the therory is the best explanation. In most cases there simply isn't a credible competing explanation. In other cases the jury may still be out between a small number of hypotheses, in which case scientists are on the ball to make additional observations that will winnow the choices.

Susan – I hope you’re coming back with research-based information on the issue of contemporary commentaries about Jesus. You’ve popped in with your feelings about how foolish you think atheists are to be concerned about this. I hope you’ll pop back in with facts, too.

(I’m also posting this on your new thread. I really want a response. I think you owe it to us as a journalist.)

Smoozealert, regarding "((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))"

Atheists are people too! We bicker, squabble, become insulting, get emotional and act unrationally and rationally. The main difference between us and you is that we don’t believe in invisible supernatural beings.

TDay;
Thanks for your response.May the force be with you.
Who knows...maybe there is a God...maybe he's a molecule or something...
perhaps somekind of virus...or a super gene...
or a big black slab of rock like in 2001 Space Odyssey.
If there is one,he,she,or it will be nothing like we imagine.( I imagine)
The old white bearded skygod is just too cliche to be taken seriously.
Even Einstein,who searched all his life,said he
couldn't believe in a god who we could pray to,
or who was anything like us in any way.
God to him was the great unknown,
a metaphor,I believe,for whatever it is that's responsible for all this.
If Einstein couldn't find God,I'm not even going to try.

Henry,

And thank you, too, for your comments.

I know we all disagree in many ways...but you too seem to be an genuine person who appreciates the good around him and would like the evils to be reversed.

Much happiness to you and yours...

YoYo stated:

>>If there is a God I wish he'd DO something,not just sit around making butterflies and clouds.
And if there was a God I'm sure He would.
But there ain't no such person it seems to me,except in the imagination.

Yoyo,

I appreciate your candor and thoughts. Actually, in exhuastive study of scripture, including all of the original texts, you will find that God will in fact do something...in the appointed time. If you piece the accounts together (the canonized version that most people own is not the whole final word..for sure)...you see how mankind made his own decision to do things 'our way'. Humanity as a whole has grossly misunderstood the symbols of the two trees in the Garden of Eden. The believer sees that our creator God, in His infinite wisdom, is letting us learn a proverbial 6000 year lesson..again, at our own request. And by the way...even the Bible, in its original texts, backs up time before Adam. The actual original Hebrew translation of Gen 1:1 is 'In 'a' beginning'.

Through study, one can also piece together why even the demeanor of the animal kingdom changed from their original created state, and how they will return to that original state in the Kingdom that Jesus Christ sets up on earth at His return (you may have heard from scripture how it is foretold that the lion will dwell with the lamb and the little child shall lead them)..certainly a wonderful time to look forward to.

Not attempting to proselyte...just thoughts about my belief and conviction.

And again, thanks for sharing yours. I sense you are a caring and understanding person.

Yoyo

I like TDay. I think s/he is an honest seeker.

I hope she will follow up on your encouragement to engage with Theodicy, whichever way it leads.

Yes, TDay, Creation is wonderful. Whether or not a God is responsible for it.

And Yoyo and I realize very deeply that there is something (many things) much greater than ourselves. And we are both suitably humbled by that realization.

And we both have as deep and as meaningful a spirituality as you do.

Love
Henry

TDay;
Another thing...apart from all the beauty there's another way of seeing existence.... all God's creatures are hunted;and all God's creatures are the hunters. For many creatures,life means having to eat something while trying to avoid being eaten by something else.
If that's the best system God could come up with,well I'm not impressed.It's a jungle out there.

Daniel;
Thanks for the feedback...also I enjoyed and agreed with your comments...really interesting. Yes,we are the creatures of our environment. The surrounding groupthink is irresistible.

Parker.
Hi.Yes of course,people change their minds about things,and switch religions,or go from religion to non religion,etc. But surely it's self evident that most people remain the same...where on these threads do we read comments from ex-Muslims,or ex-Hindus,or ex-Jews? Very rare. Most atheists are ex-Christians it would seem.But most Christians remain Christians.
Childhood religious indoctrination sticks like a child's first language and accent stick,for life.
That's why some of us think it's immoral to tell children what to believe about gods and other supernatural things.They should be left to learn about the real world,and real theories and knowledge about reality.

Henry James;
Thanks for the comment Henry. Yep.It took Mark Twain to nail it when he said that the foolishness of other guy's religion made him suspect that his own religion was probably just as foolish.Why can't everybody see it as clearly as he does?

TDay;
Hi.Like you I am in awe of existence,the cosmos,the ant,the rose,the raindrop slithering down the windowpane.All of it all the time.
It's absolutely incredible.
But it doesn't follow logically that some great giant of a God made it all happen with a wave of His MAGIC WAND,does it?? Your logic seems to be if it's beautiful,God made it. But its also ugly TDay. Darfur.Somalia.Bangladesh.Iraq.Afghanistan.
We don't see the horrors.The tsunamis,the hurricanes and cyclones that slaughter millions.The floods and famines.
If there is a God I wish he'd DO something,not just sit around making butterflies and clouds.
And if there was a God I'm sure He would.
But there ain't no such person it seems to me,except in the imagination.

SCHMOOZEALERT writes:
Mr. Mark,

"Uh...squabbling is synonymous with quarreling and bickering is basically pentulant quarreling."

Which is what makes my post humorous, ie: splitting hairs over words like bickering and squabbling is akin to splitting hairs over which imaginary god is most "real."

Man, some people just don't get dry humor.

Mr Mark

I hate to quibble,but I'm not sure I agree with you.
I thought squabble was a move on a squash court;or is that the board-game where you have to make disagreeable words from individual letters? Like Scrabble but with attitude? Yeah Squabble.My kids play it all the time.

Andrea stated to WHAT?:

'...just don't engage in the very same "school yard" behavior you chide others for.'

Like, youre the authority to tell me (or anyone here for that matter) what to do or dont do? Some nerve.

If you have a delusion that your my mentor or superior or elected to chastise me...all I can say is get some help. You are not taken seriously.

Mr. Mark,

Uh...squabbling is synonymous with quarreling and bickering is basically pentulant quarreling.

Your not very convincing with regard to basic knowledge. I suggest a remedial course.

Also...just a suggestion...you may want to come up with something more convincing to WHAT? than your last retort, too...it wassss aaaa (((((yawner)))))- youre grasping at straws, dude.

Onward and upward...to alert the masses of the atheist scourge (and might I add...lack of basic types of knowledge to boot!)

Later. Much later.

SCHMOOZEALERT writes:

"((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))"

Sigh. Schmooze doesn't know enough about atheists to realize that we atheists don't bicker.

We squabble.

:(

Chris,
Minus the french and the use of the term "child abuse" in this case, I agree with your sentiment, and have long suspected that this is one of the major pillars on which atheism is based, as a backlash against those be-robed or otherwise pompously accoutred "bards" who attempt to foster belief by appeals to fear or guilt or tradition. I long for the day when a true leader leads like a Washington, be it in front of the troops or in the soup kitchen, in the midst of the bump and grind of life, not for a photo op but because what moves their innermost being compels them to do it.

I also long for the day when no religious leader is guilty of the kind of "do this or else" indoctrination that shackles the "gleam of light" we all long for--especially children. You are right that they have been robbed.

Dear Idealist -

Love the Emerson quote.

Such thoughts explain why some of us choose to (in the words of the religionist) "worship men" over worshipping "god."

Our "worship of men" may be chalked up to the simple reason that the words of men like Emerson are so much more profound than are the words of the men who wrote the Bible.

Thanks!

WHAT? writes:
Mr Mark stated:

>>The religionists should have a field day with what I just wrote. ;)

"Uh, nope...with all due respect, not even worth a blade of grass in the field."

Doesn't the fact that you bothered at all to comment on my post sort of undermine your response to my post - with all due respect? At least my post DID generate a comment from What?. In fact, What? was so champing at the bit that his was the FIRST comment made in response to my post. :)

This reminds me of the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean where the Commodore remarks to Capt. Jack Sparrow that he is, "the worst pirate I've ever heard of"...to which Capt Jack replies, "but you HAVE heard of me."

BTW What? - in case you miss my point, you're NOT Capt. Jack in the afore-mentioned scene.

Idealist:

Apt Emerson quote. Religion extinguishes that "gleam of light" in poor helpless children for whom every pompous ass in a funny robe seems like a bard or sage.

Dawkins is right. Child abuse.

Mr Mark stated:

>>The religionists should have a field day with what I just wrote. ;)

Uh, nope...with all due respect, not even worth a blade of grass in the field.

Actually...just sounded 'Roman' to me...kinda ...
Confusious Pontificus Maximus.

Uh oh....

On this thread...(re: Jacoby's comments to her peers)

((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))
((((((((((BICKERING ATHEISTS ALERT))))))))))))

Betty James stated:
What@

You say to the Great Henry James:

"you are not an authority."

Don't you realize, as he never hesitates to remind us, that he is America's Greatest Literary Critic.?

He sure reminded us often enough around the dinner table.

Look him up in Wikipedia and see if I am not correct.

----

I did. Looks like he passed away in 1916. Thats some funky dinner table you must be sitting at.

(((((Whew)))))

By the way...that Henry James, the Henry James on this blog, Henry James that lives in Timbuktu....sorry, not impressed...literary critic or not.

>>yoyo:

>>To believe in a god,it sure helps to be indoctrinated.

To believe in God, it merely takes an understanding that you arent the center of the universe..or anything close to it.

>>Without the indoctrination,religion is hard to buy into,and makes little sense.
As I was never indoctrinated,I never believed in the supernatural,or gods or devils.Just can't do it.
I am sure,however,that had I been indoctrinated into religion,then today I would probably be religious.
It seems to work that way.

With the beauty of the creation around us, the miracle of birth and the creativity of those that
make the melodic rhapsodies that we enjoy...it is easy to 'buy into' (aka realize) that there is a creator God....even without belonging to or attending any given denomination.

Im sure that as I sit each week and learn about God, that Im not being indoctrinated...because the things I find out about Him, the characteristics that Jesus taught...are things I should be doing. Nothing being crammed down my throat...just reminders of what I need to be. Im human. I need reminders. Especially in this volatile world.

>>If I had been born in Iran of Shia parents,then I would today be a Shia Muslim,and if born in Salt Lake City and raised by Mormons,I would today be a Mormon.And if I'd been raised in Ireland by Catholics,today I would be Catholic.
This seems to me to be undeniable;and tells me that one's religion is more an accident of birth and geography,rather than an enlightened path to some kind of truth.

I was born into a Baptist family...but now you wouldnt know it. Indoctrinated? Not hardly. Born into a world of religious confusion due to mans involvement? Certainly. Surely nothing to blame God for. Its my job to find truth. I did.

Ah, but Henry,
What about the following quote from our esteemed friend, Emerson? (Self Reliance)

"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on the plot of ground which is given him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."

And what about the Bard? (from Julius Caesar)
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars; but in ourselves, that we are underlings."

I side with the 5% who look, reach out from their own experience and search the whole world for something that finally makes sense to them. All the best to you.

Athena,

The Romans obsessively documented everything? References supporting that comment? i.e. The Romans considered Jesus a lowly, Jewish trouble maker. Any extensive records of lowly Jewish trouble makers in yours or someone else's archives??

Yes, indeed the physical resurrection was created/invented to compete with the Roman and Greek and other Pagan "gods".

Considering that Heaven (if it exists) is a spirit state, it was, is and always will be impossible to have a physical resurrection. Many Catholic university graduate school theology professors actually note and teach this. This is the same conclusion reached by many NT exegetes using attestation and scripture dating comparisons. e.g. http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/017_Resurrection_of_Jesus

Once again, Yoyo,
you have hit the nail on the head.

roughly 95% of people in the world remain in the religion of their parents.

say there are 50 religions in the world.

they can't ALL be better than all the others.

so as you conclude

people are not "choosing their religion"
based on any properties intrinsic to the religion
(like that there is a God, or that this religion worships THE RIGHT GOD).

HJ

Dear Susan -

The question of whether or not Jesus existed as a real person has nothing to do with the question of whether or not he was god (I agree, he wasn't), and it hardly forms the basis of anyone's atheism.

Personally, I don't believe he existed. That said, I find in his non-existence a fascinating look into mythology, particularly the fulfillment of Jewish mythology. That's a story that I find very interesting as it relates to humanity's penchant for inventing gods, and for coming up with archetypical gods who can be used and reused to suit one's purposes.

To me, accepting that Jesus was a historical person takes away the magic of his links to mythology. It's a bit like asserting that Indian Jones was a real person. Assert that Jones was real, and the movies about him are just fanciful diversions that may or may not be true. But by asserting his reality, you destroy the link his movies hold to the dime-store novels and serialized adventure tales that pre-dated Spielberg's creation. Do that, and you lose certain connections within the movie to those predecessors - like the scenes involving maps underlying the flight of a model plane from one place to another. Shorn of its archetypical usage, what was meant as an homage to earlier films comes of as some low-tech device used by Spielberg to save a few bucks on expensive location shots.

Sorry if that's not the best example I could give for why I don't believe Jesus existed, but I'm not being paid by the WP, so my standards are - by definition -lower.

The religionists should have a field day with what I just wrote. ;)

I think that Mr. Yoyo is profoundly and EXACTLY right.

We are born in a tiny neighborhood of earth, in a brief moment of time. The extent of all that we may become, derives from this origin, over which we have no choice, and from which we cannot escape.

My view on God does not come from my free choice, but is colored by all the human interpretations of God that I have encountered, together with my own conscious thinking and wondering, and then analyzed by some mysteriously autonomic analyzing process that operates in my head.

I am aware that my total being, personality, and beliefs are merely contingent on virtual "accidents" of the flow of events; and where I may have been on any certain day; and who may have spoken to me; whom I may have listened to; what book, movie, or television show I might have read or watched; if I glanced into the sky and saw a shape in the clouds that cheered me up or made me think of some specific thing...that the world impresses itself upon me, and forms me into all that I become, with only a very little bit of my own destiny and outcome, that I can determine by my own free will or choice.

I believe that each one of us appears in the world as a complete and ready-made product, and we are received and cradled into a world that is complete and ready-made. And we believe according to our experiences more than our choices, that the very term and concept, of choice, is a misnomer, but restraint, and freedom from restraint is a more accurate concept, that we might be free to become what we will, or restrained from becoming what we could have been.

If it sounds like I believe in predestination, I do not; if it sounds like I believe in "intelligent design," I do not; I believe that the complexty of the world is beyond the capacity of a human being to understand, and that many seemingly contradictory things could still be true.

So, Mr. Yoyo, you are quite right, at least in my opinion.

Yoyo,
It's my observation (not that profound) that there are people every day who have changed their minds about something they thought they understood as a child, in the face of new information, new experiences, new self-knowledge. This can apply in many aspects of life, of course, but the implication that there is no "enlightened path to some kind of truth" seems to be a pretty far-reaching statement. Yet, perception is reality, so if that is your perception, then that is your reality. Cheers.

REASONABLE NOT HATEFUL writes:

Not hateful? Hmm?

"Susan along with posters like Mr. Mark HATE religion and will find anything they can to describe the glass as half empty. I really want to know - how many atheists bind together to help the poor and downtrodden? I suspect not many. They sit on the sidelines and critique anyone and everything because people like Rick Warren help people get to know God and walk the talk of the gospel of Jesus Christ by ACTUALLY HELPING THE POOR. "

Looks like Reasonable has engaged in a serious breach of netiquette by dragging my name into his fecklessly argued post about 100 entries ago. I suppose I must now respond:

• I hate religion. That's a fair enough assessment if one goes by the dictionary definition of the word: "intense hostility and aversion...extreme dislike or antipathy." But I don't hate religion in the "extreme definitional baggage added" version of the word.

• Hating religion doesn't mean one hates the religious. In fact, if one considers religion "a sin," then the Christians around here should well understand the concept of hating the sin, not the sinner.

• "How many atheists bind together to help the poor and downtrodden?"

Of course, we atheists "bind together," just not under the banner of atheism. The binding factor could be any charitable organization's mission. Religious and a-religious underpinnings aren't necessary. One may as well aver that one can't help an old lady to cross the street unless one first "binds together" under some religious banner.

• "They sit on the sidelines and critique anyone and everything."

If you knew the extent of my charitable giving and personal involvement with such causes, you'd be embarrassed to float the phrase "sitting on the sidelines." Not being a "look at my good works" religionist, you'll excuse me if I choose not to enumerate them here.

• "People like Rick Warren help people get to know God and walk the talk of the gospel of Jesus Christ by ACTUALLY HELPING THE POOR."

So, being motivated by an imaginary being to do the good and decent thing is good...how? Take away the imaginary being and Rick Warren would stop his good deeds?

There's a wonderful scene in Bertold Brecht's "Life of Galileo" that seems apropos to this kind of religious motivation:

"Pity the country that has no heroes," says one character.
"Pity the country that needs them," says the other.

Why do the religious need imaginary heroes to motivate them to engage in basic HUMAN charity? Why would anyone consider that charitable acts performed under the delusion of religious belief are somehow better than those performed without the aid of a delusional motivator?

Nice chatting.

To believe in a god,it sure helps to be indoctrinated.
Without the indoctrination,religion is hard to buy into,and makes little sense.
As I was never indoctrinated,I never believed in the supernatural,or gods or devils.Just can't do it.
I am sure,however,that had I been indoctrinated into religion,then today I would probably be religious.
It seems to work that way.
If I had been born in Iran of Shia parents,then I would today be a Shia Muslim,and if born in Salt Lake City and raised by Mormons,I would today be a Mormon.And if I'd been raised in Ireland by Catholics,today I would be Catholic.
This seems to me to be undeniable;and tells me that one's religion is more an accident of birth and geography,rather than an enlightened path to some kind of truth.

This was the question:

"Rick Warren's Saddleback Church just hosted its third "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church." Do you think the world's biggest social problems -- poverty, disease, homelessness -- can be cured by well-intentioned religious believers?"

My short answer is, "no."

The problems of health care, homelessness, and poverty are too big and too complex to be solved by "well-intentioned religious believers." Only large secular institutions can exert the economic and political pressure and summon the wealth and resources to have any real impact on these problems.

By "well-intentioned religiouss believer," would I assume the questioner meant "Christians?"

If so, I think of Christianity as a personal religion that guides me in my personal experiences, so that I might be moved to give a handout to a homeless person that I might meet on the street. So, even if alot of us would do that, it could not match the good work of large, well organized secular institutions.

And on top of that, Christians have been free to solve the problems of the world for 2,000 years, but so far, they have not done so.

And another thing, "well-intentioned believer" is sort of a euphemistic misnomer, which does not mean much.

Did you ever know someone with a "good heart?" You notice their good heart, and you think of that person with a good heart. You might even be moved to say to that person, "you have a good heart." And why would you say that? Because a good heart really stands out in the crowded world of regular hearts, or bad hearts.

It is not religious belief or practice that causes someone's heart to be good. Being a "well-intentioned believer" does not make a person better or more willing or able to cure or solve all the problems of the world.

Religion, mainly, is a reaction to death, sickness, suffering, and wonder at how this world can be as it is. Being good is not part of any of that. But some people, are, nevertheless, mysteriously, good.

"Was Jesus a real person or not" is once again a side issue. However, I think that Henry James was profoundly insightful when he said,

"...if there in fact WAS no Jesus, that makes the case for Christianity even shakier..."

Gulp!

Well, I guess it is hard to argue with that.

Now that that's settled, on to other things...

Josephus has two lines that mention Jesus, and the validity of that is in question. Many historians believe that those lines were added by later translators to "prove" that Jesus existed. How is it that the Romans, who obsessively documented everything, have no record of Jesus being brought before the regional governor?

Jesus may or may not have existed, but the idea of a dying and rising God pre-dated him by millennia. Osiris, Tammuz, Dionysus, and Attis are all dying-and-resurrected God figures that pre-dated Jesus.

Chris
apt citing of the argumentative fallacies found here from believers.

re this one "if Jesus' stories didn't come from Jesus then they must have come from someone incapable of telling them, therefore they came from Jesus, therefore Jesus existed)."

reminds me of what my brother used to say

"If Shakespeare's plays WEREN't written by him, they were written by someone else of the same name."

Love ya madly
Henry

Yes Susan, EFav and Chris are correct.

I am happy you find comic-ality in your fellow atheists,

but none of us are making the logical error you accuse us of.

We know that if Jesus existed, he was not a God, and therefore poses no problem for our continuing God-lessness.

EFAV and Chris (and many other serious scholars) are in various shades of doubt as to whether he DID exist at all.

If there in fact WAS no Jesus, that makes the case for Christianity even shakier, don't ya think?

And in any case, with such an important historical persona, it would be useful to know the "facts."

As a journalist, I am sure you agree Susan.

Jihadist,

Thanks for your reply. Your posts on charity made me think of this. In 2001, I accompanied my mother and younger sister on a trip to Cambodia (my sister's birthplace). We were helping a woman carry paperwork for prospective adoptive families to get the ball rolling on their adoptions. This was right before adoptions closed in that country due to accusations of baby-trafficking. We were travelling through the poorest section of the capital city with the wife of a Cambodian politician who was helping us. We drove past a mother on the side of the street, openly cleaning off her sick child who had soiled herself. The politician's wife asked the driver to pull over, that this was one time she didn't "mind helping out her people." The driver slowed to stop when she told him to keep driving. She turned to us in the backseat and told us "she'd just use the money for drugs anyway," and that was the most likely reason she ended up on the streets to begin with.

How did she know that the mother, someone she'd never seen before nor spoken to, ended up on the streets because of drug use and that the money she'd decided not to give her to help her child would have just gone for more drugs? I'm not saying she was wrong in her assumption, I didn't know the mother's story, either. She had just decided not to help a woman, living on the streets with her visably sick child, because she didn't agree with how the woman *might* have ended up there.

E. Favorite,

See Professor Crossan's reviews of the existence of Jesus in his other books especially, The Historical Jesus and also Excavating Jesus (with Professor Jonathan Reed doing the archeology discussion) . Professor Crossan's book, Who was Jesus?, was written unencumbered by pages of supporting references for a audience of non-specialists.

Other NT exegetes to include members of the Jesus Seminar have published similar books with appropriate supporting references.

Part of Crossan's The Historical Jesus has been published online at http://books.google.com/books?id=AsPHR4-7Wc8C&pg=PA444&lpg=PA444&dq=%22place+of+life%22+%22the+historical+jesus%22+crossan&source=web&ots=8mVx_1M6g4&sig=XFqT8S1coAT18xq8Qwt1vMcMjW0 There is also a search engine for this book on the right hand side of the opening page. e.g. Search Josephus

(Warning, the online book is not complete).

Susan,

I see no evidence of foolishness among the atheists here. What I see are atheists criticizing an assertion that rests on flimsy evidence, along with various logical errors being made by the religious on this post (e.g. if Jesus existed then he is a god; if most people in my country agree with me then I am correct; an argument has no validity if the arguer isn't an "authority"; if Jesus' stories didn't come from Jesus then they must have come from someone incapable of telling them, therefore they came from Jesus, therefore Jesus existed).

The foundation of atheism is critical thinking using evidence-based premises and properly-structured logic. When both are missing, atheists pounce.

Susan, with all due respect, I don’t see where any atheist here has connected the “validity of atheism” with the existence of the historical Jesus. The reason to get “exercised” about his mere existence is that it’s presented as a established fact when evidence for it is lacking.

You made a statement, “There are many atheists who think that there was a historical Jesus, for a variety of reasons involving the sheer number of contemporary commentaries about him.” Could you please check the facts on those contemporary commentaries like a good journalist and get back to us? This is more material to the issue at hand than whether some of your readers are “comical” “foolish” or “stupid” in your eyes.

Thanks

What?

"Deep. Real deep. Got some real thinkers on this thread. Sounds like the kids standing around the school my son attends.

Well, didnt know this was a teeny bopper hangout. More intellectual dialogue on 'Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure' than from the above two."

And what deep thought did you contribute with that post? All well and good if you want to bring the topic of discussion back to something serious, just don't engage in the very same "school yard" behavior you chide others for.

Daniel – There are a lot of possibilities between “dreamed up by some hoaxter” and historically factual.
Of course I didn’t suggest Jesus was a hoax, but I realize it’s pretty common to think in these extremes. CS Lewis gave the options of “liar, lunatic or Lord” but left out less dramatic options like “legend” and “myth.” It’s easy for people to reject the negative extremes, especially when dealing when a beloved figure like Jesus, and then not consider alternatives.

Regarding speaking in parables – this was a common mode of expression then, and as you said, while the parables attributed to Jesus might be a cohesive set of ideas, it doesn’t add up to a birth certificate for Jesus (or anyone). Scholars of ancient history have found lots of concepts that appear in both the old and new testaments, that also appear in other, even more ancient, writings. This doesn’t mean they were stolen or plagiarized. It could be that they were simply good ideas (e.g., don’t lie, don’t steal, do unto others…) that were intuited by each new generation or handed down through the generations.

Concerned - Regarding your quote from Crossan and Watt: “"That Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, as the Creed states, is as certain as anything historical can ever be.” This is one of the statements that really peeved me when I was investigating the physical existence of Jesus:

Of course they don’t go on to provide academic criteria for or the concept of " as certain as anything historical can ever be,” which seems pretty important here, considering the general believing public reading could perceive this as scholarly confirmation of Jesus. And even “certainty” about Jesus’ crucifixion says nothing about Jesus’ divinity, but believing Christians will presume that (as lotsofquestions demonstrated – and I’ve seen myself).

I find it extremely comical that there are atheists foolish enough to think that the question of whether a historical Jesus existed has anything to do with the validity of atheism. Regardless of whether there was or was not a real Jesus, he was not a god. So why is there any need to get so exercised about whether a good man named Jesus once existed?

Daniel, good points. I appreciate the fact that Christians may interpret or infer things that are not directly said scripture. But I don't understand why they feel free to do so. Wouldn't they be afraid of inferring or interpreting the text in ways that might displease their god?

"But, when you get into a discussion on large church organizations and the proper role of the govenment, I am not so sure that you can gain much insite from Jesus on what is the proper thing to do."

You might have heard that some fundamentalists interpret Luke as prohibiting the estate tax.

Besides the Josephus reference (http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/josephus.html), NT exegetes use the attestations to Jesus' crucifixion as proof he existed.

Crucifixion of Jesus:(1) 1 Cor 15:3b; (2a) Gos. Pet. 4:10-5:16,18-20; 6:22; (2b) Mark 15:22-38 = Matt 27:33-51a = Luke 23:32-46; (2c) John 19:17b-25a,28-36; (3) Barn. 7:3-5; (4a) 1 Clem. 16:3-4 (=Isaiah 53:1-12); (4b) 1 Clem. 16.15-16 (=Psalm 22:6-8); (5a) Ign. Mag. 11; (5b) Ign. Trall. 9:1b; (5c) Ign. Smyrn. 1.2.- http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/005_Crucifixion_Of_Jesus

Were these stories embellished? Yes, but the crucifixion is the same throughout.

The Jesus Seminar (no need for a critique of the Seminarians, I have seen them all) voted red (the event occurred) as follows:

Jesus was crucified

Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate

Jesus was crucified with the participation of the highest Jewish authorities

Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem

Jesus was crucified at Golgotha

From Professors Crossan and Watts' book, Who is Jesus.

"That Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, as the Creed states, is as certain as anything historical can ever be. The Jewish historian, Josephus and the pagan historian Tacitus both agree that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea. And is very hard to imagine that Jesus' followers would have invented such a story unless it indeed happened. While the brute fact that of Jesus' death by crucifixion is historically certain, however, those detailed narratives in our present gospels are much more problematic. "

“My best historical reconstruction would be something like this. Jesus was arrested during the Passover festival, most likely in response to his action in the Temple. Those who were closest to him ran away for their own safety.

I do not presume that there were any high-level confrontations between Caiaphas and Pilate and Herod Antipas either about Jesus or with Jesus. No doubt they would have agreed before the festival that fast action was to be taken against any disturbance and that a few examples by crucifixion might be especially useful at the outset. And I doubt very much if Jewish police or Roman soldiers needed to go too far up the chain of command in handling a Galilean peasant like Jesus. It is hard for us to imagine the casual brutality with which Jesus was probably taken and executed. All those "last week" details in our gospels, as distinct from the brute facts just mentioned, are prophecy turned into history, rather than history remembered."

See also Wikipedia's review on the historical Jesus to include the Tacitus short reference about the crucifixion of Jesus.

I posted this on a different thread, but they were pretty worked over something and did not notice. This is really more to the point of Susan's essay, so I thought I would try it again here:

The world that Jesus inhabited is quite different than the world that we inhabit. In Jesus's world, there was no point to be interested in the government; there was no such thing as medical care, other than the simple human kindness of offering comfort to the sick; there was no money or wealth, no things to own, other than a few utiliarian implements. All of the things that challenge us now, did not exist then. And so, a Christian must infer many things that Jesus did not direclty say, about the modern world in which we now live.

Still in the personal conduct of your life, it is possible to be a Christian. But, when you get into a discussion on large church organizations and the proper role of the govenment, I am not so sure that you can gain much insite from Jesus on what is the proper thing to do.

E Favorite

I have some thoughts about the existence of Jesus, as a human being who really existed and walked upon the earth. He is said to have expressed his ideas in parables. There are quite a few of them. They are extremely simple in form, but at the same time, extremely complex in meaning. This collection of Jesus's parables is unique. I do not think that they could have been dreamed up by some hoaxter. They are instead a unified philosphical course born of an extremely clever mind.

I know that this is not birth-certificate proof, but it is evidence that there was a person who thought and said the things that Jesus is said to have thought and said.

The government governs all. But all do not believe the same. Therefore, no religion can govern justly. No matter how regimented a society may appear, outwardly, no matter that all the members of a society may conform, it is a sure thing there would be many among the regimented, who suffer and suffocate, and strangle, inwardly suffering, because they are forbidden to reveal their true beliefs, and live and believe as they will.

Each believes as he will, and connot be forced or argued into another belief, that is not his own. A person's inner mind and soul are his alone, and how dare anyone seek to pry into it to alter it and change it and tinker with it.

So what if an atheist does not believe in God? How is that shocking? How is that threatening? How is that a problem or a challenge to anyone or anything? An atheist is only a problem for busy bodies and control freaks, who require everyone and everything to submit to them. And THAT is what is wrong with having a state religion, and a government that is ocntrolled by religion.

Even though I am a religous person, I know that I would be very, very unhappy living under a theocratic regime. I would be worse than an atheist; I would be an apostate and a heretic, and we all know what happens to them. All Christians should think on this.

I believe that people do good and charitble things, not because they feel God commanding them to, and not because they are members of some select and chosen religios group, but I believe some people do good and charitable things because of some mysterious inner disposition that is just there, or not there, and whose origins and nature I cannot really understand.

And I say this from experience, that non-religous people are often very kind and good humored, and religious people are often unkind and illhumored; the relgion thing doesn't seem to make much difference.

And so, there are Christians who will only extend a hand of charity with strings of judgement attached, and there are other Christians who will extend a hand of charity, unconditionally. And what is the difference? Their inner disposition, which their religion does not touch, but which they were born with, like the color of their eyes, the texture of their hair, the shape of their face. Does religion transform all of these things? No. Neither does it change a human basic inner disposition.

Henry James - Hi -- I didn't mean to be hard on Susan and I don’t think she’s trying to be nice. I think she’s misinformed. She’s a journalist and I think she has a responsibility to check the facts and speak from them. I suspect (tell me if I got it right, Susan) that she heard this from a respected authoritative source and didn’t check further.

Susan, before you say this again (I’ve called you on it before, with no response) I really think you should check it out yourself. Truly, I’d love to see whatever information you can dig up, and truly, I doubt you can. When I started my own search, I expected to find a real guy there somewhere, but as I continued looking and not finding, it occurred to me, that if religious scholars had found anything conclusive, it would have been shouted from the rooftops, and engraved in stone in the vestibule of every church. It wouldn’t be hidden in some dusty tome I had not yet encountered or presented in pseudo-convincing terms of “most scholars agree” or the “sheer volume of contemporaneous commentary” without evidence to back up those claims.

Arminius - thanks for backing me up on this. Also, you say, “there are many figures in the past considered real that have similar problems with establishing their historical reality.” Maybe so – I’ve heard that Socrates is in question. Although he was also very wise, he hasn’t had the impact of Jesus – set up as the son of god and the savior of humanity, (as long as you believe in him). They both had some good things to say. t doesn’t matter to me “who” said it, or even who said it first, as long as we have the wisdom. In Socrates’ case, it’s just a matter of preserving wisdom. With Jesus, in contrast, it turned into a huge power structure.

Lotsaquestions – I haven’t set myself up as an authority. I didn’t suggest that the fact that many esteemed scientists don’t believe in God means there isn’t one. You did suggest that the fact that many people believe in God means there is one.

Darn, The Jihadist apparently lost her Five Step Program for "Deflawing" the koran.

Once again:

Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith" a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.

"1. Belief in Allah"

"aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc." should be added to your cleansing neurons.

"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."

Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gib Gnab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "creationist".

"3. To believe in the existence of angels."

A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.

"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."

Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels/"pwtfft"s to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.

Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.

Prophecies are also invalidated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.

"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."

Mohammed spent thirty days fasting in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic violence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallucinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.

Accept these five "cleansers" and we guarantee a complete recovery from orthodox Islam !!!!

Jihadist,

"Why not look at faith groups as sort of monitoring bodies on secular governments to keep them on their toes, to keep clean, to govern well and fairly, not to lie and cheat the people?"

Who monitors the faith groups to keep them on their toes? Who stands up for the individual to keep him or her from being oppressed by both church and state?

"Obedience to a deity? Better to God than to Stalin or Pol Pot don't you think?"

The problem is that there is not only no evidence for a god, there is also no evidence that a particular claim of that god's desires is accurate. Moderates claims that a god wants people to love each other. That is certainly a good thing for people to do, but they cannot prove that this is what the god wants. For all we know, the extremist may be right when he claims that a god wants believers to kill unbelievers, and that the god was on the side of Stalin or Pol Pot. None of those claims have any basis in fact, so the only thing to do is to evaluate the teachings on their own merits and disregard any claims about their sources.

"The notion of submission to authority is not that black and white. "

Yes it is. I'm not talking about recognition of authority or respect for authority, both of which involve some independence and autonomy. Remember that the Abrahamic religions allege that God has absolute power over everyone and everything in the universe, doling doles out ultimate rewards and punishments after death. How can someone believe in such a being and not be completely obsessed with keeping such a deity happy? How can someone who sees himself as accountable only to a god have any regard for the happiness or suffering of his fellow humans?

Chris Everett:)

You : "What comes of all that petty competitiveness among clergy?

Ben Franklin - clerical arguments go like this: It IS so! It ISN'T so! It IS so! It ISN'T so!.."

That is called theology, no?

And all the arguments and competitivenes among clergy lead to more sex, er, pardon me (another Freudian slip), more sects.

regards
"J"

Hello Tonio,

Pardon me. I almost miss you post before getting off.

I am less inclined to regard belief or religion as a form of totalitarianism. Only when they have armies and control states. Religion and the cleric are not a social disease barring what extremists and wackos say and do. They can be contained by adherents and the states though state laws.

I am more inclined to look at what is the positives rather than the negatives, to use the positives to advantage, and reduce or eliminate the negatives in religion as an influence and force for good in societies.

Why not look at faith groups as sort of monitoring bodies on secular governments to keep them on their toes, to keep clean, to govern well and fairly, not to lie and cheat the people?

We all want secular governments to be ethical, and religious types making righteous noises can make them pause, rethink and clean up on all that lying and cheating, waffling and wobbling, spinning and spurning. And put fear in their hearts of being removed from governing if they don't measure up to standards as taught in civics classes all over the world.

Yes, it would seem that theistic religions cause a lot of problems instead of solving them if we look back in history and now of those faiths by the words and actions of some of their adherents.

Look closer in history and we see that it is rulers (fundamentally politicians to the core), specifically "divinely sanctioned" rulers (in Christendon) and pretenders to the Prophet's leadership to lead the umma who use faith as a force for their own purposes. The public has no say in wars their rulers go into then, as now. And they paid for and suffered for all the wars with their lives and homes. And laws enacted in the name of religion that benefits rulers instead of the ruled.

Obedience to a deity? Better to God than to Stalin or Pol Pot don't you think? The so-called "obedience" is really the acceptance that there is a God, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Belief in God and prayers are two of the Pillars. Charity, fasting and Hajj are the other three laying the core principles on oneness of people, to feel imbue feelings of emphaty for others, and to assist others in need as part of community responsibilities for a just social order and shared responsibilities.

Even so, apart from belief in God, there are flexibilities in the other Four Pillars - all to be done if one can to one's abilities. Basically, the core principles of Islam or Pillars of Islam is easy, but the Shariah is really messy in relevance and applications for the contempory umma as the Shariah is formulated centuries ago. Hence the current rethinking on the Shariah in many Muslim societies.

Suffering is not quite Islamic, but patience, including in times of adversity, is lauded and called for in the Qur'an. The thrust is to reduce human wants and suffering (through charitable acts), to fight against injustice and oppression. To help the poor, the sick, the orphans, the elderly, the sick, the widows, the hungry, Muslims charities/zakat/fitrah throughout history has been not only to give one's excess worldy goods to the poor (money,food, clothing) but to build social facilities such as schools (madrassahs), public baths and resthouses, hospitals, etc and not just mosques.

The notion of submission to authority is not that black and white. Every Muslim regards no one comes between him and God. He may listen to Muftis making fatwas, to imams' sermons, but he is basically still free to go along with what they say or disagree. Unless laws are enected and enforced by the states, say, Muslims caught eating in public restaurants will be fined. This in spite of the Qur'an never stating what temporal punishments are for Muslims who can but don't fast. The Shariah laws needs reviewed and the kadis retrained.

As for the ultimate punishment for disobeying a deity be eternally suffering after death, Muslims don't obsess on their fate in the afterlife or even the afterlife, nor do they fear death and are more concerned with their temporal life. Besides, Suras in the Qur'an states one is not in hell permanently.

Every Muslim, no matter what he does in life, thinks he will go to heaven even if he sinned and sin again as God is the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful and will judge each and everyone most fairly.

It is our non-religious elected and unelected leaders/political masters, we are concerned with. They have the police, the army at their disposal to come after us for disagreeing with them, to jail us, to torture us in many reprehensible ways.

Never let any stupidity of judgement by any Muslim kadi in a Shariah court, or plainly stupid rantings by a "free-lance" imam blind anyone to the fact that so-called secular Muslim governments from Algeria to Egypt are more repressive and abusive of their people's rights than any mufti, kadi and imam can ever be.

I have to go.

Thanks and regards

"J"

Art... Do Svidannya! I'd wish you a "Happy Birth of Christ", but my Russian is a bit rusty. Gonna have to brush up on it with Tsar Vladimir on the throne.

Many Americans DO realize that Putin is dangerous. Unfortunately, our own King George considers him to be a good friend.

For those who are claiming that atheism = communism, there's a huge difference between atheism in the USSR and Western atheism. Under Lenin and Stalin, atheism was state enforced and substituted the Cult of Personality for religious beliefs. The Russian Orthodox Church was a tool of the state. Jews, Protestants, and indigenous religions (i.e. Lithuanian Romuva and the Siberian shamans) were persecuted. Western atheists make a personal choice. They generally do not force their beliefs onto others - with some notable exceptions that are trying to make a point.

I tend to agree with Susan about one thing - we need to be careful of people with good intentions. We all know what the proverbial "road to hell" is paved with.

Arminius

smart response as usual. thank you.

i, as an even greater literary critic than Harold Bloom, do believe that jesus existed (Bloom does too)

and that the "essence" of what he preached is probably accurately presented.

and in any case, it doesn't really matter too much.

there is a pretty coherent (and I think fairly simple, in the non pejorative sense) message in the teachings of Jesus as presented in the New Testament.

but we can't know FOR SURE about the historical facts.

henry

"Benedict even resorted to beating the dead horse of communism and cited atheism as the reason for Stalin's and Mao's crimes. This is utter nonsense. The problem with Soviet Communism was that it did, in fact, resemble a religion--substituting absolute faith in Joseph Stalin for absolute faith in the Orthodox Church and the Tsar as God's representative on Russian soil. What made Soviet Communism a religion was what makes any religion a religion--imperviousness to countervailing evidence. Needless to say, the pope had nothing to say about the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is now back in the business of working hand-in-hand with the state in suppressing cultural and political dissent."

Absolutely right! The "new Russian quasi-religion" is that those old ladies who still remember Mr. Stalin found a "substitute" for their "god" - Mr. Putin... and it were they who woted for his "United Russia" party on last elections! And yes, modern Russian Orthodox Church leaders were all involved in KGB (now FSB) as well as Mr. Putin... So they all work togeather now :-( That's pretty sad...

I'm Russian but not the Orthodox - I'm a Protestant and I'm proud about it. The problem is that in modern Russia you can't just say "I'm a Protestant" and have a good chance to survive! Because those "Putin-KGB-Orthodox" people say "You are a heretic"! And... as a result - you can't have a decent job, you can't have a decent life ;-( But for me, my relashionships with God is much more important! God bless USA and please, God, help us to make Americans understand that Putin is more dangerous to All World than Hitler, Stalin and all former dictators were!

Боже, Царя Храни! (Из Династии Романовых - Законных Наследников - Е.И.В. МАРИЮ ВЛАДИМИРОВНУ и ГЕОРГИЯ МИХАЙЛОВИЧА!)

http://countsokoloff.spaces.live.com

Henry James,

Regarding the historical Jesus - Susan was wrong, as you say, because it is true that there are no external, contemporary sources. The only one that comes close is Josephus' statement: Josephus calls James, "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ" He wrote this at about the same time the four canonical Gospels were written (ca 68 - 100 CE).

Perhaps the evidence of His historical reality is circumstantial. What prompted the writing of the four canonical Gospels, which certainly have their differences, but hang together pretty well, as well as a dozen or two other gospels, some of which are contemporary to the four canonical ones? Keep in mind that there was no urge for the original Christians to write it all down, since there was probably a belief that Jesus was returning very soon.

Also, there are many figures in the past considered real that have similar problems with establishing their historical reality. Much, much history was written well after the events.

Arminius

Since we've already gotten inane...

39,001 gods, including Devin Hester. Repent, Redskin infidels, while there is still time!

Papa Bear Halas

What@

You say to the Great Henry James:

"you are not an authority."

Don't you realize, as he never hesitates to remind us, that he is America's Greatest Literary Critic.?

He sure reminded us often enough around the dinner table.

Look him up in Wikipedia and see if I am not correct.

Wha?

You'll have to present an example of when I was ever convincingly contradicted, let alone shamed.

Your inference that because Susan accepted the historical existence of Jesus meant that she was not an atheist was a patently stupid statement.

Do you deny it.

I do not believe the existence of a God has been proved, though I would fight to the death to defend your right to believe in one or more of the 39,000 Gods that Humans have invented over the centuries.

Your reply is a version of my childhood taunt
"I know you are but what am I." Clever, What. Clever.

Love ya
Henry

Well written. And, touche'.

thanks again for standing up for the 'rest of us'

>>Lotsa, you continue to make an enormous fool of yourself for all to see. Have you no shame?

Henry James...you are no authority. Have you no shame?

E Fav..

Just because you 'think' there is no God...makes you no authority either. Some think millions of the masses have been snookered into believing in something that doesnt exist. I personally think those masses are smarter than you let on.

E Fav

I think you are correct in citing Susan for sloppy history.

As Harold Bloom, whose knowledge of the scriptures in relation to Lotsaquestions is of the same ratio as the height of Mount Everest to the pile of dirt in my back yard, notes in his book Jesus and Yahweh,

there is not one uncontested "fact" about Jesus (Yeshua's) life (Lotsa: he was Jewish)

and every statement about him is tendentious (Lotsa: look it up).

I wouldn't be too hard on Susan though, i think she was just trying to be nice.

Lotsa, you continue to make an enormous fool of yourself for all to see. Have you no shame?

Lotsofquestions - I hope your not making the case that because a lot of people believe something, it must be true.

Not a very strong case for anything.

Everyone used to think the world was flat. they've changed they're minds.

JIHADIST:

What comes of all that petty competitiveness among scientists? Oh yeah, I forgot; astronomy, physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, biology, medicine, geology, genetics, ecology, cosmology...

What comes of the same among clergy? Well to paraphrase the great Ben Franklin, clerical arguments go like this: It IS so! It ISN'T so! It IS so! It ISN'T so!...

You choose.

Ms. Jacoby,

With all due respect...With millions of others who believe He is the Word of God that became flesh...to think that you (or any atheist for that matter) are an authority on what to pick out and what not to pick out from 'contemporary' accounts of Christ and his life is in all actuality what is stupid.

There is a fundamental reason why the majority of this counrty believes in a creator God and the Word of God that became flesh. And that reason is not because they are all 'dupped'. Mankind is not a big bang accident...just as, on a smaller scale, the manuscripts that you and others write, the skyscrapers or beautiful homes we peer out of our windows at, or the little infant son or daughter that blesses our lives, are not.

Susan says, regarding Jesus as a real person, because of "...the sheer number of contemporary commentaries about him."

OK - let's see the references. I've been reading, researching and asking seminary professors and Biblical scholars about this for a couple of years now and it's all very sketchy. What I've seen many places is something like "most scholars agree that Jesus existed" but I can't for the life of me find out what actual information is causing them to agree with each other. I have found NO contemporary references and only a few dubious references decades after his supposed death.

I'd be happy to consider Jesus a real person - I had always thought he was -- until I found it so hard to get any real information. So please, Susan – don’t just make the statement – you’ve done that before – tell us your basis for your assertion and lets see the references, beyond, “most scholars agree.”

Thanks

Chris
not that you need the validation, even from America's greatest critic,

but your last post was entirely correct.

Churches often promote charity/handouts to the poor, which has the effect of both avoiding starvation, and of maintaining a usually unjust and always unequal status quo, because too MUCH suffering and starvation leads to revolutions, and the Churches themselves would then have THEIR power threatened,

whereas working for systemic change towards social justice and equality WOULD threaten their power as well as the government,

so they have been pulled kicking and screaming into the anti-slavery or pro civil rights movements of the last two centuries.

which Church has opposed and spoken out against he Bush tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor and the lower middle class? Silence.

Hello Andrea and Daniel:)

Ruffled feathers?

You ain't see me ranting yet against scientists - their pettiness, their jealousies, their greed on discoveries, patents, royalties for discoveries, first to announce a discovery or a remedy, to publish findings and discoveries, to be awarded science awards, to get the Nobel Prize for Cure of HIV/AIDS. Not here, not today. It would be a satiral take I can't resist.

Surely I don't take anyone who disagree or criticise what I said and do as reason to roll over and die? As for feathers being ruffled, ruffle my feathers, tails, fur away too.

No one here is expecting anyone to agree with one all the time, even one's own spouse and children. We even argue about and disagree on the weather. Imagine the amount of debate on where to go, what to do on weekends.

Andrea:

My husband do chide me for me being cold towards the fate of apprehended drug traffickers and ruthless approach on deciding on charities I give to. He's a man who love "The Shawshank Redemption", "Indochine" and "Whitnail and I". That sort of movies. Got a wee inkling of the man I'm married to Andrea?

I agree that certain religious views and, if I may add, attitudes, do make addressing the spread of HIV/AIDS more difficult.

Muslims once thought they would be more "immune" from HIV/AIDs due to no religious injunctions against family planning, including using condoms and the comparatively low abuse of hard drugs. But that is not the case anymore with sex being sex, and hard drug abuse and addiction happening in spite of reminders by both secular and religious authorities not to have indisriminate and unprotected sex, and not to abuse drugs.

In Malaysia, HIV/AIDS is spread mostly by drugs abuse/sharing of needles. Of course Malaysian men do make trips to Thailand for sexual samplings and bring the infectionb back home to their partners.

The Philippines in Southeast Asia has one of the highest percentage of HIV/AIDS infections after Thailand. While for Thailand it is obvious due to its quite lively sex trade and industry (I'm an economist by training too, so the terms used), as well as the Golden Triangle drugs production, trafficking and export.

In the Philippines, HIV/AIDS spread due to, among others, the injunction by the Vatican against condoms. We know that the Vatican held sex is a sacred act, sex outside marraige is a sin, life is sacred, abortion is a sin, but this does not seem to square with the deaths among Catholics infected with and dying of HIV/AIDS by the millions in the Philippines and Africa - that life is sacred. To save the life of an unborn and unformed regardless, but to knowingly let one preventive measures not be used and let people die?

The medication, treatment and care of HIV/AIDs victims is expensive. This is something developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia can't afford and is a burden on their health services. The politisation and greed on generic drugs for HIV/AIDS is very shameful and made it beyond the affordibility of many of those infected with HIV/AIDS. As we know, those infected with HIV/AIDS can survive for years.

Think of years times cost of medication and cost of medical care and cost on family without one breadwinner.

Daniel:

I do know you're not proselytising anyone. I leave that to my favourite preachers - Canyon Shearer and Thomas Baum. I noticed that someone using a handle called "Somalitrade" is certainly having fun doing a Muslim version of proselytising in On Faith threads.

Thank you for the examples given in your post. Much food for though. There is nothing one can do when someone is hurt or dying but to help as much as one can. The question is also how, by whom and who to pay for victims of accidents who did not put on seatbelts when they should to victims of HIV/AIDS who got it from their partners who were sexually careless. All are fundamentally left to be taken care of by medical professionals. We only can offer emotional and financial support, degrees of which varies in personal time, concern and financial capabilities.

I agree with Ms. Susan Jacoby, that religious entities with schools and clinics in developing countries proselytise when they can on students and patients - a means to an end. Until it became an issue with the locals and became an intercultural/interfaith flap.

I also notice that some of those who work in religous entitity affiliated clinics and schools seem more intent in giving medical care and education rather than proselytising....until the ones higher up the church hierachy comes by and ask them how many new converts they have made I suppose. They are alway tense before, during and after such visits. God knows what really transpired. Could it be - "Don't just save their lives! Save their souls too!".

Thank you, best regards
and a good weekend to all

"J"

I think Susan's main thesis is being diluted (by me as much as anyone) - the difference between charity and social activism. Charity eases suffering in the immediate term whereas social activism eases suffering in perpetuity (hopefully). It's the old issue of giving a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish.

I'd like to hear an example of where a major religious institution put its weight squarely on the side of just social activism. I'm sure they're out there, but when I think about the abolition of slavery, women's sufferage, civil rights, science & medicine, etc., it seems the church has generally been dragged kicking and screaming into the present.

Lotsaquestons

Keep em comin'. Just try to make them smarter.

Susan is correct: your inference that because she believes there WAS probably a Jesus that she believes in a god was,
as she notes,
extraordinarily stupid.

ok to be stupid, but then you accuse HER of talking out of both sides of her mouth.

but I love you
Henry

Susan - nothing wrong with being angry -- it's the way it's used pejoratively with atheists - to mean "nasty," "ready to pick a fight" and generally someone you'd like to avoid.

Still, I kinda like the term, because people are so relieved when they find out I'm an atheist and see that I'm a normal, pleasant person. Then some of them at least, realize they've been duped, breathe a sigh of relief and start talking.

Some friends assume I've changed - perhaps the way people change when they become born-agains - and are relieved- and surprised - that I'm the same old me. Then sometimes they get curious.

Reply to "Lots of Questions":

I do think that Jesus was a real person, in real time. That doesn't mean I think that he was the son of God, or God. There are many atheists who think that there was a historical Jesus, for a variety of reasons involving the sheer number of contemporary commentaries about him. How extraordinarily stupid it is to infer that because I rhink Jesus was a human being, I think that he was a god.

Susan Jacoby,
I for one have appreciated the humor in some of the posts on this blog today, so I don't know if your last entry was "all in fun" or whether you really think that Jesus was acting out of anger or speaking in anger in the incident with the money changers. (How ironic to talk about that incident in a discussion about helping the poor, since that is precisely why Jesus got their attention by turning the tables literally so that he could chastise them for their mockery of what the Jewish religion was supposed to have taught them about looking after the poor.) I don't think he was angry in the slightest. We all know about "tough love"--and there was a pretty good example of it.

Henry James and E Favorite,
My origin here will remain, I hope, anonymous. I think much of this discussion has been constructive, upbeat, and insightful. Thanks for the even-handedness, the warmth, and the humor. This subject, and the motives of people who address this subject in their everyday life, are far more complex because of intricate economic, political, and long-term psychological aspects of these issues (helping the poor and distressed) than can be addressed in a page or a dozen pages. Thanks, all, for the discussion.

>>Deep. Real deep. Got some real thinkers on this thread. Sounds like the kids standing around the school my son attends.

>>Well, didnt know this was a teeny bopper hangout. More intellectual dialogue on 'Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure' than from the above two."

>>There it is again - the ad hominem attacks and attempted character assassination that passes for argument in religious culture. How predictable. Please examine how you transitioned from the fair point that, under liberal interpretation, Biblical commandments can be thought of as gentle reminders, to the unfair (and somewhat ad hominem) assertion that L was mockingly denying the existence of a creator god, and the implication that the existence of gentle reminders in a religious context somehow supports the assertion that god actually exists.

>>Excellent, man!

Attack? Character assasination? Oh brother. Sorry, wouldnt stand up even in a secular court.

Hey..just calling it as you present it. Chill out, teeny bopper. Dont want to be referred to as one...dont present yourself as one.

And your 'Excellent' fits.

How predictable, too.

Anon at 5:17 was me.

As if anyone cares.

E Fav,

They do allow non-Christians to adopt, but this is kind of beating a dead horse. I see what you're saying and pretty much agree with it.

Mike,

I think you mean state of mind, not motive. A jury can determine 1st or 2nd degree murder (premeditation vs. sudden rage) by considering the defendant's motives. But a revenge killing is charged the same as an honor killing or matricide as long as they are all planned out ahead of time with a clear head.

As ethicists I suppose we can worry about the purity of our associations. But as citizen-rulers (ostensibly) it is our responsibility to reach the most just ends. Politics is herding cattle. Who cares why they get in the pen?

Henry James:

You said, "I think the same things would make me and Arminius angry."

I reply: I think you are pretty close on that.

Arminius

Susan Jacoby talks as if Jesus was a real person.

I thought you were an atheist, Susan?

Cant say things out of both sides of your mouth...people wont know what to think of you. That goes for anyone.

"Deep. Real deep. Got some real thinkers on this thread. Sounds like the kids standing around the school my son attends.

Well, didnt know this was a teeny bopper hangout. More intellectual dialogue on 'Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure' than from the above two."

There it is again - the ad hominem attacks and attempted character assassination that passes for argument in religious culture. How predictable. Please examine how you transitioned from the fair point that, under liberal interpretation, Biblical commandments can be thought of as gentle reminders, to the unfair (and somewhat ad hominem) assertion that L was mockingly denying the existence of a creator god, and the implication that the existence of gentle reminders in a religious context somehow supports the assertion that god actually exists.

Excellent, man!

What's so terrible about being angry? It all depends on whether you use your anger constructively or destructively. Anger, in Christian theology, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and that's quite ironic, given that Jesus was often a very angry man. Remember his driving the money-changers out of the temple? But then, Jesus was only a Jewish prophet at the time, and anger was very much a characteristic of Jewish prophets. If he'd known he was founding a new religion called "Christianity," he would have held his temper.

Arminius and E Fav

Thanks for being explicit about what all of us who are real people know (or I should say, all of YOU who are real people):

That there are Christians who are adorable
and Christians who are intolerable

And atheists who are adorable
and atheists who are intolerable.

My Brother (not William) is one of those adorable Christians. (William is a pain in the brain).

And yes, E Fav, 99% of atheists spend a miniscule part of their time being angry. Tho there ARE some things and some opinions that should make atheists (and anyone else) angry.

I think the same things would make me and Arminius angry.

>>Chris Everett:
The Church of the Holy Sticky Note.

That's better.

December 5, 2007 4:26 PM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on December 5, 2007 16:26

>>Andrea:
Chris,

I'm currently trying to think of all the sticky notes I have right now in my purse and on my calendar and turning them into sticky note commandments for myself.

December 5, 2007 4:32 PM | Report Offensive Comments

Deep. Real deep. Got some real thinkers on this thread. Sounds like the kids standing around the school my son attends.

Well, didnt know this was a teeny bopper hangout. More intellectual dialogue on 'Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure' than from the above two.

The point, to me, is that religious institutions that conduct charity work rarely, if ever, do so without proselytizing. As a result, it's proper to scrutinize their motivations and consider the complete effect of their actions.

And yes, (for those who will ask) motivations *do* matter. Our justice system, for example, greatly considers one's motivations as they pertain to an outcome. Motivations are the difference between convictions for vehicular manslaughter and simply failure to control.

E Favorite, good point about communication. I've said here before that it's a mistake to treat all Christians as Biblical literalists. Many of the people who oppose creationism in schools are moderate Christians. Having said that, I'm completely mystified as to why most Christians don't read the Bible literally, or at least adhere to one universal reading. Doctrines in all religions seem to be about the idea that there is only one approved way of reading any scripture.

Hi, Arminius and Tonio -

I think the "angry" moniker comes from several sources - 1) the celebrity atheist Chris Hitchens who just looks mean. (You don't see much of Dan Dennett, who is mild mannered and looks like Santa, yet he is a famous philosopher who also wrote a best seller).

2) The media, who are always looking for a good angle.

3) Christian perceptions - considering anyone bold enough to publicly disagree with their beliefs to be angry. I'd put EJ Dionne in that category.

4) actual angry atheists! - but I personally haven't seen any of those. The atheists I see are so happy to be around each other that they're all smiles.

I think calling them angry is just a way to dismiss them -- and hope they'll go away -- like those angry women libbers and uppity colored people.

Chris,

I'm currently trying to think of all the sticky notes I have right now in my purse and on my calendar and turning them into sticky note commandments for myself.

The Church of the Holy Sticky Note.

That's better.

Tonio:

You said, "And even if the "new atheists" are truly that angry, they have every right to be, considering how the James Dobsons and Tony Perkinses have trampled on the First Amendment"

My reply:
Well, some of us Christians are mad as hell at the Dobsons, Robertsons, and Perkinses too.

Arminius

The Church of the Holy Stick Note.

I like it!

>>lepidopteryx:
>>I guess it comes down to one question:

>>Do you offer a hungry person bread only because you are commanded to by a deity, or do you offer a hungry person bread simply because s/he's hungry and you have bread?
>>It seems to me that the fact that another person is hungry and I have bread is sufficient reason.

Human beings need reminders. It is all around us. Notes on the fridge. Phone calls. Sticky notes on the desk. School. Seminars. Cell phones.

No deity that I know of has 'commanded' me to offer a hungry person bread. I do recall being exhorted to 'remember' those less fortunate or other passages that lead me, personally, to do so. But again..it is a reminder. There are some who dont believe in a deity that dont live by 'sufficient reason' and dont offer bread. To mock true meaning of scripture and pass it off as something austere or without feeling('command' to give bread) is ludicrous and yet another weak attempt to deny a creator God.

"The speaker couldn't believe we were atheists because we weren't 'angry' like those 'new atheists.'"

I suspect that stereotype is largely a creation of right-wing demagogues. Even the Post's E.J. Dionne, who is no right-winger, believes in that stereotype. His column from last April suggests he hadn't read the "new atheist" books at all, but was simply reacting to third-hand criticism of the books.

And even if the "new atheists" are truly that angry, they have every right to be, considering how the James Dobsons and Tony Perkinses have trampled on the First Amendment. I don't even see myself as a "hard" atheist, and I'm angry about it. No more Dover PAs.

Hi, E-Fav,

You said:
"I recently went, with a group of atheists, to a church seminar on "the new atheists." The speaker couldn't believe we were atheists because we weren't "angry" like those "new atheists." We made it clear that we were your "friendy neighborhood atheists." Maybe more such outings would help the cause of christian/atheist understanding."

VERY well done. That is one thing we all need - decent communication.

Arminius

WG - I'm glad your relatives are helping poor children - I'd be happier if I knew it weren't restricted to children pledged to be raised Christian - which I bet it is --- you should ask.

I think Christians and atheists are working together everyday -- and in most cases the Christians don't know it -- and if they did, would shy away from the atheists -- at least initially, because we have such bad reputations - thanks to Christians.

I recently went, with a group of atheists, to a church seminar on "the new atheists." The speaker couldn't believe we were atheists because we weren't "angry" like those "new atheists." We made it clear that we were your "friendy neighborhood atheists." Maybe more such outings would help the cause of christian/atheist understanding.

I wish the Christian motto were, "First, do no harm."

Unfortunately, many Christians do indeed do a great deal of harm. I say "many Christians" so as not include all of them.

So, this unfortunate fact makes the whole thing pretty complicated. Everyone is not Christian, and of the people who are Christians, all of them are not well-intentioned, but have dark and malevolent motivations.

The modern world is better for its many secular institutions, that tend to counter-balance all of the negative, excusionary, and judgemental tendencies of historical religion and its institutions.

"Secular" does not mean anti-Christian; it means not pertaining to relgion. There is no reason at all why Christians could not support secular institutions.

Chris,

Oh wow. Maybe they could eat the string and use the book to start a fire?

Andrea:

Don't get me wrong - I'm firmly in the FOOD camp! And no, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but effort at one is ultimately at the expense of the other, even if only marginally.

As a horrible example, I have read that the Kabbalah Centre responded to the recent tsunami by using charitable donations to buy Zohars (their holy book) and red strings (protects against "evil-eye") from THEMSELVES at astronomical markup, then giving this useless crap to the victims for "protection". A money-laundering operation as far as I can tell, but the congregants fall for it because they BELIEVE in its efficacy, which is the whole DANGER of religion - it is FAKE, and it steers good people in the WRONG direction!

Chris,

If you really wanted to, why not both? Or did you only have room for salvation in your lunch box? If someone came begging at your door for something to eat, do you tell the person your pantry is chock-full of salvation, but no food?

E Favorite,

The only reason I used my relatives them as an example is that I know they find their jobs rewarding because they lift kids out of the squalor of Vietnamese, Peruvian, Russian, Ethiopian and Chinese orphanages and into the First World. They don't broadcast it beyond what they have to do to advertise. Preaching doesn't come into play. Therefore, stick with the phrase "I bet".

Do they only pair with Christian couples? I don't know for sure. I definitely know they HAVE to deal with some very unsavory folks in order to gain access to those kids. I'm not claiming their philosophy is flawless in my eyes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to disregard the things they do. They have been working on a hospital recently in Ethiopia, and I was recently trying to find out for them if they could get hooked up with some of those "buyers clubs" for HIV/AIDS drugs that the Clinton Foundation brokers for. On this level, as long as good stuff gets done, I'm cool with it, even if they and I differ theologically.

Can't we return to that? Based on the bombastic statement Ms. Jacoby made earlier in the thread, I worry that she would rather see more African kids die of malaria as long as we can get rid of those darn faith-based charities. This is most likely untrue, but it would be nice if some of her essays focused more on way atheists and believers could cooperate. That "dialogue" question posited to the panel a while back kind of dead-ended, but I'm talking about working together, not accepting each other. Isn't that what democracy is supposed to be--finding a way to get stuff done with the a****** you can't stand? :)

By the way, someone just passed me this note:

"Jihadist,

Do you like me? Circle One:

YES NO

Please don't show anybody.

Concerned"

"and Rick Warren has probably never let a hateful word cross his lips. he's a genial teddy bear who sounds more like a family counselor/social worker than a minister, and his services wouldn't offend anyone on these posts, with the possible exception of the more rabid believers, so that should make my point."

Good for him. I wasn't trying to slam Warren. I was making the point that one can harm others without necessarily having self-serving intentions.

lepidopteryx:

It sometimes comes down to another question: Do you offer a person who is dying of hunger food because they are hungry or "salvation" because they are dying?

I guess it comes down to one question:

Do you offer a hungry person bread only because you are commanded to by a deity, or do you offer a hungry person bread simply because s/he's hungry and you have bread?
It seems to me that the fact that another person is hungry and I have bread is sufficient reason.

JoeT

Your view of Warren is convincing, and it is in accordance with other credible reports that I have read.

I do think he is exceptional in most of the traits that you describe him as having,

i.e. not typical of the beliefs and effects of most established churches.

Again, i think a very high percentage of church-going (and non-churchgoing) people have a significant concern for others.

best
Henry

"I don't see the need to question the motivation of believers, either. they don't do good works just because it will please a deity, they do it because they believe it's good."

I was referring mostly to the hardcore fundamentalist believer, someone who submits completely to what they believe is the authority of a deity.

I agree that many believers don't believe that such complete submission is necessary, that they often use their own informed judgment about what helps or harms other people. What I don't understand is why they do so. If they believe in a god with absolute power over them, why aren't they terrified to their core of doing something to anger that god? Don't all Christians believe in eternal reward and eternal damnation?

Gene Weingarten asked a similar question in his chat yesterday: "If you are completely convinced that there is a God who is going to punish you with eternal damnation or reward you with eternal bliss for your deeds on Earth, how can you not essentially totally devote yourself to your religion? I mean, TOTALLY. How can your religion not be the single most important thing in your life? How can you not, basically, become a nun or a monk or whatever it takes?"

Gee, what can I say but to reiterate my concern for The Jihadist and others like her who are trapped by 1400 years of Arabic mumbo jumbo, "pwtfft"s, flying chariots, a big black stone and a belief in a warmongering, womanizing, hallucinating and illiterate nomad.

It all boils down once again to that famous quote,

"Until the koran is "deflawed", no one is safe"!!!!! (Not even The Jihadist)

Ms. Jacoby,

Loved your post, but you are being too kind when you give religion any credit for fighting against poverty, disease, or homelessness.

Religion, by its own definition, is only interested in the ‘poverty of the soul’ and teaches that material desire is a sin. As Mother Teresa said “The dying, the crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved -- they are Jesus in disguise. … The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have, the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. … The joy of the poor people is so clean, so clear. The real poor know what is joy.”

The Catholics say that they are committed to fighting AIDS in Africa, but teach the people of Africa that condom use is a sin. So, in fact, they are promoting the spread of AIDS. I’ve always believed that actions, not words, define truth.

How can any institution so invested in material poverty and suffering be trusted to fight against poverty, disease, or homelessness. If they succeeded, they would have no ‘blessed’ poor left to fill their pews on Sunday.

Tonio: I don't see the need to question the motivation of believers, either. they don't do good works just because it will please a deity, they do it because they believe it's good.

and Rick Warren has probably never let a hateful word cross his lips. he's a genial teddy bear who sounds more like a family counselor/social worker than a minister, and his services wouldn't offend anyone on these posts, with the possible exception of the more rabid believers, so that should make my point.

E: to clarify, Ms. Jacoby's venom was not directed at Warren in particular, I was commenting on the rest of the piece in that regard. The church is in good shape, but doesn't act like a business that I can see. I don't actually know how much money Warren has, but none of it now comes from the church, thanks to the book, and he would be the last person to ask for credit for not behaving like other ministers. In fact it's probably misleading to even call him a minister, let alone an evangelical. just not the tone of his services, which are a lot about personal growth and self improvement, love, etc. not a bit of dogma.

Henry: greetings. for today at least, I would stick to your first point and leave the rest for another day. but I'm in a good mood at the moment.

First line above should read "to get atheist philanthropists and scientists TO GIVE Christians the option of not accepting their gifts - "

Chris Everett -- You just gave me an idea -- to get atheist philanthropists and scientists Christians the option of not accepting their gifts - whether it be money for education or medical cures.

All atheist givers or scientists would dutifully identify themselves to allow christians the right to not accept anything from these godless people.

Of course, Christians could still accept from atheists, but at least the source of the generosity would be crystal clear and Christians could decide on a case by case basis what to accept. For instance, they might not want their grandchild to get a free computer, but might decide, in a pinch, to get an organ transplant.

Most people, believers or atheists, are people of good will who want to help their fellows.

Churches help their members and others, but they DO, and have historically, tended to encourage people to accept their lot in life with the promise of Green Pastures in the Next Life,

and Churches that are "successful" become part of the power structure, and therefore tend NOT to agitate for change that might lead to more Social Justice and Social Equallity.

Have we heard ANY churches protest that Bush's transfer of wealth through tax cuts FROM the poorer to the Very Rich is not what Jesus would do?

Bottom line: Churches have quite arguably been a force AGAINST social justice and equality rather than promoting these causes.

For Reasonable not Hateful:

How many Christians bind together to help the poor and downtrodden? I suspect not many.

REASONABLE BUT NOT [sic] HATEFUL:

You say "When the day comes that atheists actually do something on a larger scale to help the poor - and I am not holding my breath- then they have more to actually post about. Until then, its just all talk."

As I posted above, "Atheists have disproportionately been at the forefront of grassroots movements for social change, from democracy and the founding of the US, to abolition, suffarage, civil rights, environmental protection and international law."

I don't know where you get off saying that atheists are all talk and no action. What about orgainzations like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders? Or the Peace Corps? Bill Gates, atheist, and Warren Buffet (I'm not sure if he's an atheist or not) are the larget philanthropists in the history of the world. And this isn't a large enough scale to satisfy you?

Religions disproportionally use charity as a means of feathering their own nests. I think if you look at the percentage of contribution money that actually makes it to the needy you'll find that the organizations with the worst statistics are religious.

JoeT - interesting - however, I don't see where Jacoby has said anything venomous or untrue about Rick Warren. She didn't say he was living high on the hog, not once. She said his church was a business and that he was wealthy. Are these things true or not?

It's nice to hear he lives modestly - so do a lot of wealthy people I know. And it's too bad that he stands out among successful evangelicals in that respect. It's almost as people think he deserves special credit for not spending so much of his congregation's money (meant to save their souls) on himself. Imagine, a successful evangelical preacher who's not a narcissistic charlatan.

Joet, no one denies the efforts that churches devote to caring for the unfortunate. I should emphasize that churches have no monopoly on this caring, that belief in a deity is not required to care for one's fellow humans. I suspect you would agree.

The important question is the churches' motivation. If this motivation is the simple desire to please a deity authority, then the principle of helping the poor rests on the ricketiest of foundations. They could just as easily believed that their deity wants them to leave the unfortunate to die on the street. Surely the churches can conclude on their own that alleviating others' suffering is the right thing to do. Submission to authority is not the same thing as morality.

"He lives quite modestly, acts nothing like an empire builder, personally or otherwise, "

I don't know much about Rick Warren, but that description also fit the late D. James Kennedy, who preached the most hateful theocratic obscurantist nonsense. It's reasonable to conclude that Kennedy really believed he was doing what his god wanted. Honest zealotry can be much more damaging than self-serving demagoguery.

Joet, no one denies the efforts that churches devote to caring for the unfortunate. I should emphasize that churches have no monopoly on this caring, that belief in a deity is not required to care for one's fellow humans. I suspect you would agree.

The important question is the churches' motivation. If this motivation is the simple desire to please a deity authority, then the principle of helping the poor rests on the ricketiest of foundations. They could just as easily be convinced that their deity wants them to leave the unfortunate to die on the street. Surely the churches can conclude on their own that alleviating others' suffering is the right thing to do. Submission to authority is not the same thing as morality.

"He lives quite modestly, acts nothing like an empire builder, personally or otherwise, "

I don't know much about Rick Warren, but that description also fit the late D. James Kennedy, who preached the most hateful theocratic obscurantist nonsense. It's reasonable to conclude that Kennedy really believed he was doing what his god wanted.

It is perfectly obvious that Concerned has a bad case of the hots for Jihadist. I would offer to protect that dear lady, but somehow I perceive that she could manage that task on her own.

Arminius

Reasonable but not hateful -- first of all, you're sounding a little hateful -- thought I'd mention it before it gets out of hand.

Secondly, the reason you don't know how atheists help the poor is because they don't put a big ATHEIST sign on their charitable giving - they just do it quietly, individually, not expecting credit from god or other humans.

I'd say I have among the best anti religion credentials on these posts, so guess what? I take issue with Ms. Jacoby. there's no denying that churches have the leadership and organizational structures to do good things, and they are by definition homogeneous groups who subscribe to a creed of caring for the unfortunate. only government is better funded and sometimes better organized. and when they are doing charitable work, churches even look to experts. for the moment the subject isn't churches who undermine the war on HIV/AIDS with their preaching or political power. perfectly valid point.

a church and its members are perfectly free to figure out how much of their own money to put to soup kitchens and how much to put in to their youth center, and how much to put in a bigger church, or whatever.

and as for Rick Warren, I married a parishioner, I have attended services there (another story), I have met him, and I know the story. Ms. Jacoby has it wrong. He lives quite modestly, acts nothing like an empire builder, personally or otherwise, and is the least evangelical minister I have ever listened to, in the pejorative sense of that term. He would not be comfortable on the same podium as nearly any other evangelical minister that would come to the mind of anyone on this forum. Saddleback is now building an enormous youth center to give kids a place to hang out instead of the mall, and I understand that it will not be a place to proselytize. How big it gets is up to the generosity of its members. Living in the shadow of it, I haven't even noticed any public efforts, ads, literature, etc. to convert the neighbors.

For me, Ms. Jacoby, just a bit more venom than the discussion of this particular limited question warranted. perfectly valid points for a different topic, however (apart from your bad information on Warren).

Don't you guys get it?

Susan along with posters like Mr. Mark HATE religion and will find anything they can to describe the glass as half empty. I really want to know - how many atheists bind together to help the poor and downtrodden? I suspect not many. They sit on the sidelines and critique anyone and everything because people like Rick Warren help people get to know God and walk the talk of the gospel of Jesus Christ by ACTUALLY HELPING THE POOR. Believe it or not, Warren really does care about people.

Susan ought to just admit that her ideological bent does not lead to any sort of impartial analysis of people like Warren. Her ideology has nothing to back it from helping society, and Rick's does- and it galls her that this is true.

When the day comes that atheists actually do something on a larger scale to help the poor - and I am not holding my breath- then they have more to actually post about. Until then, its just all talk.

This is for Jihadist, who seems to feel charitably towards the suffering of some, yet gives a cold shoulder to the suffering of others. I am not trying to convert you to Christianity, nor even lay out to you anything of Christian belief or theology. I am just offering you, as we say in English, food for thought.

If a man with a cold coughs or sneezes in your direction, to you regard him with bad feelings because he gave you his cold? He "had" the cold, but he did not own it, and he did not "give" it to you; he was sick, with a virus, which you caught.

If a guest in your house gets sick, and vomits, do you become angry at him and throw him out because he has ruined your carpet, even though hs is sick, and could not help it, and even though it could happen to anyone, even to you, even to your children?

If a child is cold and hungry because his parents do not have enough money to take care of him, do you cast blame at them because they knew they were poor when they had a child; and isn't their own fault for having a baby, and if the child is suffering, then that is what they deserve.

If there is a car wreck, and the victim is thrown out of the car onto the road, and severely injured, because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, do you blame him, and tell him it is his fault? Do the emergency responders just roll him over into the ditch, and leave him there to die, because it is his fault that he did not wear his seatbelt?

If people have built their homes and villages on an alluvial plain that is prone to flooding, do we turn our backs on them during a flood, and let them all drown or starve, and offer no assistance, because, it is there own fault, that they chose to live there?

If a volcano erupts, and kills people living near by, do we simply dismiss this loss of life as deserved, because, after all, it's a volcano, and they chose to live there; they "chose" not to move away from the place where they were born.

If there is famine and millions of people are dying, do we say that it is there own fault for having too many children, and this is just a way (for God) to reduce the population, and they are really only getting what they deserve?

I know from my own experience, that many religious people do think this way. They do "love their neighbors" but only very selectively, and the do feel "charity" for the suffering of others, but only very selectively.

And I also know that doctors and emergency responders, generally do not feel this way, but offer assistance to the suffering, unconditionally, sight unseen, without regard to blame, or guilt, or responsibility.

So which way is better? Who would you want to come to your assistance, when you are weak, and suffering and in position of disadvantage, the one who would first evaluate your responsiblity before offering you a hand, or the one who extends his hand, unconditionally?

And on another subject, I do not think that charity necessarily goes hand in hand with proselytizing. Proselytizing is fairly easy; you just open your mouth, and talk. Talk is easy. Doing real charitable work is hard. Most people that I know who engage in proselytizing are pretty lazy, and couldn't be bothered with putting their money where their big-fat-mouths are.

Concerned loves Jihadist...........Nanee Nanee Boo Boo!

OMG! I just turned 12 again.......really wierd the second time around. Well, at least I'll know what to expect from puberty this time.

VILLAIN...I meant villain.

I don't know about a crush, but I can say that Concerned NEVER makes an entrance into one of these threads where I don't imagine him in a cape and twirling a big moustache like some silent movie villan.

This article confirms my belief that church and religion is the true anti-Christ. When scientist are given credit for anything other than being contributors to the welfare of people we place scientist above God. When church accept money that lines the pockets of the ministers and church elders instead of helping the poor the ministers and elders place themselves above God. When religion and church find excuses not to condemn the slaughter of women and children that is taking place in Afghanistan and Iraq because of fear place themselves above God. How selfish are we who live our lives for ourselves? END THE WAR IN IRAQ.

Hmmm, crush on The Jihadist???? No, not really. Besides, she is a married woman and said crush would put me on another Muslim death squad list :))

It is just a concern for a fellow Bred, Born and Brainwashed "religist". I escaped my Three B's. The Jihadist is just starting her journey with programs such as the Five Step Program to "Deflaw" the koran.

And just think the billions saved via a "Deflawing" of the terror-filled koran could go along way in developing a vaccine for HIV/AIDS!!!!!

"if organised religions creates more problems and create divisions, so do political parties and worst too in coopting God, having an interventionist foreign policy, pursuing supply side economy etc."

Jihadist, that is partially true. The issue is that theistic religions cause more problems than they solve. Those religions insist that the goal of human behavior should be obedience to deity instead of human happiness and suffering. Even when the religions discuss happiness and suffering, they assign value to these only in the context of divine command.

And yes, this problem with submission to authority also affects secular ideologies such as totalitarianism. The difference is that religious doctrines have much more power than secular ones to influence people to harm others. The ultimate punishment for disobeying a secular ruler is death. The ultimate punishment for disobeying a deity is (as claimed by the religions) eternal suffering after death. No contest.

Yes Concerned. Have you got a crush on Jihadist? What's the deal?

WG - I think there are many "good Christians" who truly enjoy the charitable work they do. However, I bet if they were suddenly not allowed to proselytize, they would stop their good works.

Some may want to continue for humanitarian reasons, but I bet they'd find their funding source all dried up.

I say "I bet" because I don't really know, I just have never heard of a religious charitable organization that doesn't also spread the "good news" as part of its role. Have you?

Regarding your Aunt and Uncle - do they ever place children with non-christian couples?

Ms. Jacoby,

Thank you for your response but I am afraid that you are still skirting the issue, maybe because you are not able to get past your negative view of religion. What Rick Warren did with his money is a case in point that not all megapastors and megachurches are in it for the money or see themselves as running a business. When Warren found himself at the head of a fortune, he used it for charitable work, not to live a luxirious life. Even if he is an exception, would it be impossible for you to acknowledge it?

I agree with WS about his point re missionary work. You again show your strong biases by affirming that it is all about winning converts. But even if it were, if the child is fed and clothed and receiving clean water and medication, at the same time that they are taught about God, would you rather that the missionary stays home and the child stays sick and hungry lest his mind be sullied by religion?

A friend of mine is an OBGYN and devout christian. Before the fall of the Taliban, she went on a 3 week medical mission to the area of Afghanistan controlled by the Northern Alliance. She worked 14 hour days in squalid conditions and since she did not speak any other language besides english, she obviously was not evangelizing her patients. She went there out of love for her fellow humans and out of obedience of Jesus's commandemant for taking care of the poor and downtrodden. She did not convert anybody and came back exhausted. And she can't wait to do it again. And there was a whole team of medical workers like her doing the same thing. Do you also dismiss them and think that they should stay home?

I think Jihadist said it best:

"Science and scientists can't solve all human problems and ailments, only to explain what causes them and to find remedies..."

Imagine what the explanations and remedies would be if religion, not science, were the authority? Wait, we don't need to imagine, we have the dark ages as a concrete example. The contributions of science to social welfare are simply STAGGERING!

Religionists might respond by saying that religion fosters morality and good works, so that within the framework of scientific accomplishment it is the religious that are the instrument of social improvement. But this does not stand up to scrutiny. Atheists have disproportionately been at the forefront of grassroots movements for social change, from democracy and the founding of the US, to abolition, suffarage, civil rights, environmental protection and international law. The most just societies are those with the least religion, such as Denmark and Sweeden, wheras the most unjust societies are those with the most religion, such as Sudan and Afganistan.

The bottom line is that there are good and bad people everywhere, but religion is flat-out WRONG, so its power to lead good people astray overwhelms its power to improve the character of bad people. It is INTRINSICALLY crippling. How can that be good? It teaches people to give their religion all the credit for whatever good is in their hearts, and take all the blame for whatever bad is in the world. What's more UNJUST than that?

Science is a mechanism for discovering truth. By its very nature it bows to evidence, thus keeping it on the frontier of progress. Science is humble and makes no grandeose claims to absolute knowledge.

Russell,

I think it's because he's got a crush on her, like the little boy who pulls on the pigtails of the girl he likes.

Concerned <3 Jihadist, awwwww!

Susan,

Even as an atheist I am having trouble with the last statement in your second post. "The purpose of missionary work is to make converts. Period. All of the good things that missionaries have done (opening hospitals, maintaining schools) are tools to promote their faith. Proselytizing is the end; charity is the means." You wanna back that up with some research/statistics/expanded argument? My aunt and uncle run an adoption agency under Christian auspices, and although I can't claim to read their minds, as far as I can tell they are motivated by what they perceive as their Christian responsibility to do good works, not their responsibility to convert. Are they not charitable
_Christians_ because they have no ulterior motives?

Maybe you're not lumping all Christians in with missionaries (which my realtives are not, really). But is that to say people who happen to be missionaries cannot see charitable work as an end in itself? Why not?

Concerned:

Question-Can you talk about anything other than Islam, and Jihadist? Seems kind of pointless to me.

Susan:

Love ya Babe, Love ya.

Jihadist,

Thanks for the reply. Please know that my intent was not to criticize for personal choices, if that's the way you took it. I always look forward to your responses when your feathers are ruffled, however!

You are correct in your assertion that HIV/AIDS is one of the most preventable diseases/infections in the world. We know how to prevent it, but we are unable to do so. We can hand out condoms and pamphlets all we want, but to change cultural views on sex, sexual partners, rape, condom use, etc. as well as certain religious views as well is going to be more difficult than that.

Hmmm, if only the The Jihadist could become just as vocal/"texting" about her warmongering religion and the death and maiming it causes 24/7. Maybe she could donate to the "Deflawing" of the Koran Program?? Or maybe she could simply e-mail the Program to all her fellow koranics??

To everyone who's going to tell me about how much money Rick Warren has given back to his church:

Most writers never make enough money from their books to pay back one year, much less 25, of salary to anyone. Rick Warren is a wealthy man, and his church is a wealthy church.There's nothing wrong with making money, but let us not pretend that evangelical megachurches (like many other religious institutions) aren't successful businesses that provide a fine salary for their leaders.

The purpose of missionary work is to make converts. Period. All of the good things that missionaries have done (opening hospitals, maintaining schools) are tools to promote their faith. Proselytizing is the end; charity is the means.

Ms. Jacoby,

I think it behooves you to know the facts before speaking ill of others in a blanket fashion. Rick Warren indeed made a lot of money from the sale of his book. And do you know what he did with that money? He called a meeting with the elders of his church and asked them to keep him accountable for his newfound riches. He then paid back the church 25 years of salary that they had paid him so far. Finally, he put the money into a charitable foundation to combat AIDS and poverty in Africa. Rick Warren still leaves in the same house and drives the same car as he did before his book came out. Do you still think he is into this just to enrich himself and pay lip service to good works? Have you done such charity with the money you make from your works? Since I don't know, I would certainly not presume to tar and feather you about how you use your resources and wether you are in the freethinkers business just to enrich yourself.

With regard to donations to churches: some megachurch pastors are indeed out there enriching themselves and leaving only a fraction for charitable giving. But some churches are doing the work that governments (including ours) should be doing and are not doing. Our church donates 40% of all giving to missions. Missions is not just about evangelizing. It is also about laying pipes for clean water in the dumps of Brazil where destitute families live, it is buliding orphanages in Haiti, it is adopting a small town in Louisiana and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild houses and replaces furniture, and sending 14 teams so far for week long backbreaking construction and cleaning efforts.

Though I tend to disagree with a lot of what you usually write, in general you tend to be fair minded. But must you despise religion so much so you cannot bring yourself to acknowldge the good when it is there?

Hello Andrea,

Surprised? I am never a dewy eyed idealist. As you know, life is about personal choices - why do we do something, why do we chose something over the other and what are the reasons.

I should read again Susan Sontag's "AIDS as a Metaphor". On HIV/AIDS, some people are sick of screaming, some people feel like screaming, "I told you so!"

I'm already infected with a particular Malaysian disease - being heartless toward drugs traffickers and less forgiving of repeat drug abusers/addicts because of the many rehabs centres for addicts set up for free.

The percentage of gays with HIV/AIDS are very low compared to straights who are sexually adventurous and reckless as well as drug addicts. Lesbians hardly contracted HIV/AIDS unless through tainted blood transfusions or shared drug needles.

Gays are the first know victims of HIV/AIDS, thus forever stimatised with it in the US, but not in the wider world. Gays are the most aware of HIV/AIDS and the most careful. That's the positive. The downside is, gays as the "poster child" and activists on awareness of HIV/AIDs in its early years, makes it seem as if those afflicted with HIV/AID are noble and blameless and victims of society's bigotry and indifference. On that, I disagree. Having HIV/AIDS is not nobler than having cancer ro leukemia. And those two latter diseases are beyond one's control in getting, barring lung cancer through smoking.

It is increasingly and mostly straight men, married or have steady partners, who get HIV/AIDS and gave it to their wives/partners that makes me really livid. Prof. Richard Dawkins wrote in his previous essay on sex, lies and sin in On Faith that we be open to multiple sexual relationships. He has not been to Africa for quite a while, or he would have known that is the approach of many Africans. Very healthy in their attitude on sex, but very unhealthy in getting STDs, HIV/AIDS. Many don't have access to condoms 24/7 at 7-11.

I don't give charities for people with HIV/AIDS but only for phamplets and brochures on HIV/AIDS -precautions for prevention, and already too many of those. I give to charities for support of their widows and children to help them get on with living. The health service in Malaysia is more like the British rather than American. Everyone, even illegal migrant workers, have access to medical treatment and care at goverment/public hospitals for mininal charges. HIV/AIDs patients are taken care of by public hospitals and public funds. One can go to private hospitals if one want better and more varied food.

I know what is happening in the rest of the world on HIV/AIDS. I also live in a region where, every year, people get killed and have their homes and lives ruined by natural disasters. Another Bangladeshi flood has just passed. The Pakistani earthquake victims of a couple of years ago are still not properly resettled. This region is also afflicted by other lethal diseases such as dengue, JE and strains of Asian and bird flus. HIV/AIDS is the most preventable compared to other diseases.

One get HIV/AIDS in what one assert is a very private act that is no one else's business. When one is afflicted with it, one wants it to becomes everyone's business. Sex is a private and personal matter. HIV/AIDS is a public and federal matter. A case of personal irresponsibility shoved as public responsibility. Don't ask me to give to charities giving out free condoms. Men don't like to use condoms nor carry them.

Sexist pinprick - Every woman knows that man (the male gender) is responsible for every mess in the world and not taking responsibilities. They blame their Y chromosomes, religion, hormones, Eve, Satan, governments, God and not necessarily in that order when they mess up.

Compassion is unlimited, but resources are and to be considered on best and most effective use in terms of time, money, manpower and outcome. In deciding which charities to give, I factored that in terms of (for lack of better words) opportunity cost, cost benefit analysis. I decided to help the living, rather than the dying, to get on their feet, to move on, to afford them opportunities and possibilities.

The choices I made, the decisions I made and why I make them, including on HIV/AIDS, are mine alone.

Thank you and best regards

"J"

Susan,

Great post. Nothing more I can say about it, but I'll think about it more today and come back.

However, Jihadist, you surprise me! :)

"Given a choice to give charities to help people with HIV/AIDS over victims of natural disasters, I pick the latter. Given a choice to help ease the medical bills of those with HIV/AIDS, I chose to help their widows and orphans when all is lost to help those afflicted with HIV/AIDS prolong their lives."

Are you saying that drug addicts and homosexuals who've contracted HIV/AIDS are not worthy of your charity?

Are you taking into account that these widows may have contracted HIV/AIDS from their husbands, and may have passed it along to their children during birth? Didn't four people in the Chicago area contract HIV and Hep C from organ transplants last month? Don't some cultures in Africa believe that raping a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS, thus spreading it? These are exceptions to your rule, I know, but if your problem with HIV/AIDS victims is the "selfish" way they contracted it, you need to take these other paths into consideration. But, how will you know how a person contracted the infection? Do you ask them before giving them money to ease their woes? Really can't do that. So you either decide to help them all, or to not help any of them.

Regards ;)

Mr. Norrie Hoyt,

We're always going towards extremes and cliches for convenience such as:

- Atheists believe that all problems in the world are caused by religion.

- Believers believe that all problems in the world can be solved by religion.

You know this already, but I am going to repeat anyway - if organised religions creates more problems and create divisions, so do political parties and worst too in coopting God, having an interventionist foreign policy, pursuing supply side economy etc.

Science and scientists can't solve all human problems and ailments, only to explain what causes them and to find remedies if it is a disease. Politicians can't solve any social and human rights issues without engaging or getting religious leaders (priests, imams, rabbis) on their side or to work together with them. They better do as people like me have very low opinions of all politicians. Statesmen are different.

Human needs and wants, be it for sex, food, shelter, companionship, cooperation, is not enough to be looked at from the observations, research, conclusions or hypothesis of a zoologist/evolutionary biologist or the musings of a philosopher. We also need to look at disciplines directly related to man - anthropology, sociology, political science, economics to understand man as an individual and as a member of a group.

Organised religion already organised man into groups with set of laws, code of ethics in place.
Organised religion already offers an existing mechanism and network for social services (including health) through charities channeled to and dispensed by temples, synagogues, churches, mosques for orphans, widows, the poor, the victims of man-made and natural disasters, refugees and internally displaced persons due to persecution, armed conflicts and natural disasters, victims of trafficking in women and the sex trade. I could go on.

So, why not use it? After all, imams, in their sermons after prayers, are the most constant reminders in hectoring us on social responsibilities and effective hustlers to give our time, funds and materials for any given causes to help those in need. I am, of course, speaking from the perspective of a believer of a faith with no central headquarters and hierachy of clerics to be supported by funds from believers, and where charity is one of the pillar of faith, and the state can't touch the charities meant for the designated targets.

No one seems to consider religious organisations on a par, if not better than NGOs (which they in fact are) that supplement, complement or compete with governments in providing social services to the communities. And how can we not utilise what is already there instead of dismissing them?

Religious leaders, especially community priests, rabbis and imams are less into grandstanding and seeking fame and forture for their charitible activities and meeting the social needs of their community. They are more effective, immediate, trusted and known to their community than Bono of U2. They would be more than happy to let doctors, nurses, human rights activists etc to come to their mosques, churches, temples, synagogues for blood donations, medical advise and human rights consciousness raising.

One can give to non-religious affiliated advocacy and operational NGOs dealing with human rights, health or the environment, but most don't have "offices" or "centres" at the community level such as temples, synagogues, churches, mosques for centralising activities from collection of funds to dissemination of materials and knowledge.

So, now we have all the minds and funds going towards HIV/AIDS research for cure and medical support for the victims. So now we have had people from Tony Blair to Bono not only talking about HIV/AIDS, but also saving the whole of Africa. You don't want to know what some Africans really think about that, but many do appreciate the attention given in the west to their continent and for all the funds and assistance coming in from religious affiliated groups, non-religious NGOs, governments and international organisations.

As for Southeast Asia, from statistics, 80% of those with HIV/AIDS are due to drugs abuse or use as well as indiscriminate and unprotected sex. It saddened me that knowing full well on HIV/AIDS and how it can be transmitted, people still do find ways to get it and pass it on to their partners and spouses. It does make me ashame when a priest, a monk, an imam, tells me that if people had not been so obsessed with personal gratification and dismissive of community responsibility, we would not have HIV/AIDS, that most containable of afflictions as it is not airborne or waterborne, spreading like wildfire.

Given a choice to give charities to help people with HIV/AIDS over victims of natural disasters, I pick the latter. Given a choice to help ease the medical bills of those with HIV/AIDS, I chose to help their widows and orphans when all is lost to help those afflicted with HIV/AIDS prolong their lives.

Belief and religion is not blind faith, misplaced hope and unthinking charity. It is to hope for what is possible, to have faith that what one does is not just best for oneself but for the community as well, and to be charitable to those who really need it through no fault of their own.

Thank you and best regards

"J"

A fine essay, as always.

In the United States today organized religion stirs up more social problems than it ameliorates, by creating divisions and antagonisms.

Feeding the poor and similar socially beneficial activities are per se secular in nature. Food is food and hunger is hunger.

Any charitable tasks undertaken by organized religious groups can be done just as well, if not better, by secular agencies, and without being infused with questionable and divisive doctrines.