Root of all Evil
I've just watched episode 1 of 'The Root of All Evil'. If Richard Dawkins is arrogant, and in my opinion he is almost too humble, then the religionists are frothingly rabid. I think it is time for a new crusade, it is time for a crusade of reason, and we must go armed with money and influence and we must fight for the minds of the young. And, you are not going to like this my enlightened friends, we must be prepared to use violence to defend ourselves from those who threaten us. Dead people make poor arguments. Martyrs only get sainted if there is a church to beatify them.
posted by MikeS at 9:21 pm
12 Comments:
Hi there. Saw your comments on mallangong.co.uk and found your blog. Just wondered a few things. What exactly are you insinuating in terms of violence? Just who is threatening you? I'm quite concerned. I am an evangelical Christian myself and I totally distance myself from the violence that many have committed in the name of religion. As many people have pointed out, Dawkins' arguments in the programme could well be used to show that people in their unshakeable SELF-belief (not belief in God) are the root of evil, or however you want to phrase it. Now you're suggesting that a 'reasonable' response against this kind of thing is to use violent force? My hypocrisy alarm is going off mate! Maybe I'm wrong. Please clarify your comment. Cheers.
Hi Nathan,
Did you see the interview with Ted Haggart? Did you hear what the US atheists said about living in fear? Have you read the newspaper articles about the US academic who sent an e-mail critical of ID and was subsequently violently mugged.
I am suggesting that we may need to defend ourselves in exactly the same way as others have defended themselves, and that we cannot continue to 'turn the other cheek' all the time; or to hide or deny our reasoned beliefs just to appease those whose self-belief includes an absolute conviction that they know the will of their particular deity.
I am saying that if we are physically attacked we must defend ourselves, because in my experience atheists tend to be reasonable to the point of surrender. So where is the hypocrisy?
I used to be a Christian, but then I realised that basing my entire life on the inaccurate translations of a text that, by the Church's own admission, is a fragmented collection of "best guess" folk stories and half-remembered yarns from hundreds of years previously, (the New Testament) is hardly rational.
I'm still a sort of agnostic monotheist, and believe that probably, some big bloke with a beard set the whole thing off in 4.6 billion years BC. Not 4004 BC. The trouble with university CU types like the charming Nathan is that:
a. They're all far too nice.
b. They're all far too good looking.
c. They all marry at 23 just to have sex, but then spend the rest of their lives in married bliss bringing up beautiful and well-balanced children.
d. They believe in the "literal" word of the Lord. Except he hasn't written anything, or spoken to anyone, or claimed he has, since the Old Testament. So actually, they believe in the "literal" word of some medieval scribe. Hail to Godric the almighty....
Sorry to butt in, Boofy...
Hello again. Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I'll respond to Mike first.
I did see the interview with Ted Haggart. I blogged about my response to that interview and the whole programme at http://nathanburley.blogspot.com/2006/01/everyones-favourite-atheist.html I thought Haggart was very honest with Dawkins and that it was very telling that the Prof wasn't that "amenable to debate" as he'd like to appear. However, having said that, I was appalled by the treatment of some atheists in the US. It's totally wrong that these "Christians" have struck out violently at anyone, whatever their beliefs. I'm completely opposed to that as I said in my last comment. I agree that the hypocrisy comes from those who claim to follow Jesus but ignore what he says about non-violence and loving those who disagree with you. I guess if you want to defend yourself then fine but an attack might well make you as bad as they are. That was the hypocrisy I was referring to originally.
In response to The Merkins (cheers for coming to my site by the way) I'd be interested as to who exactly in the church "admits" that the Bible is so flawed? As someone whose job it is to handle the Bible on a day-to-day basis, I'm always constantly amazed at just how true it is and how it does all hold together. Anyway, thanks for those backhanded compliments Merkins. I'd be interested to find out why you think being "nice" or getting married at 23 is such a problem. Hope to hear back from you soon.
Nathan, my fresh-faced brainwashee, wonderful to hear from you! No one in the Church (whichever church that is) admits the bible is "flawed". What scholars do admit is that the source material from the NT is hardly unimpeachable or current-at-the-time-of-writing, and the translations are not exactly modern, reliable or recent. It's like basing an entire religious doctrine on stories handed down orally through (at least) 3 generations before they were written down, and even then, no-one who witnessed the events did the writing. And the editing process is a bit hapazard as well, with many gospels and books ignored and not included.
HOWEVER, I fully agree with the fact that the version we have is almost like a "Greatest Hits". The parables and analogies are moving and apposite, the lessons are incredibly moral and humbling, and the overall story is a ripping yarn. I just don't believe it literally.
As for the compliments, it's not a "problem", it's just a fact, and an infuriating one at that. You're all so good looking, and happy, and forgiving, it's sickening. In a nice way - I'm just jealous. I wasn't that happy until I fell in love!
Hi Merkin. Thanks for clarifying the "compliments" although I'm still reticent to say that I or other Christians are particularly good looking! Most of the time I look like crap. But that's besides the point!
For a "brainwashee" I've actually done my research. I agree with you that you need to be rational and thorough when figuring out what you believe. I am constantly seeking the truth and being corrected in certain areas, and I welcome investigation of my beliefs and where they stem from. With this in mind, my trust of the Bible comes from such investigation. I'd be interested to know which scholars say what you claim. All available evidence points to the accurancy and reliability of source texts and current translations.
You say that the New Testament was written long after the time of Jesus. That is simply untrue. All but 5 of the NT books were written by apostles, those specifically chosen by Jesus to be the people who would continue his ministry once he had gone. The others were by Mark (who wrote down what the eyewitness apostle Peter told him), Luke (who also wrote Acts and worked alongside Paul, as Luke 1:1-4 points out he undertook a full investigation and interviewed many people), Jude (who was the brother of the apostle James and notably Jesus himself), and finally the writer of Hebrews (who was probably Barnabus or Apollos, both close associates of Paul). All these books were recognised by the early church made up largely of apostles and eye-witnesses. So the authors themselves were the authorities on the matters on which they wrote.
It's also interesting to note that the all of the books in the NT were written between 50AD and 95AD. Only Revelation was written that late and the rest are mostly in the 50's and 60's (AD of course!). These dates are important because we can know that a) the people writing were linked to the events they discuss as I've already covered, but also vitally b) at the time of writing there were thousands of eyewitnesses who agreed with them! Think about it, if the events in the gospels weren't true there were plenty of people to rubbish them at the time. Nobody did! Think of the feeding of the 5000. That number only counts the men so these guys often had their wives and kids there too so the crowd is pretty massive. Any one of those people could have blown the whistle if the stories were false. That's just one occassion. The gospels are deliberately full of accounts of things happening at very specific times in very specific places in front of many people. Eye-witnesses are one thing that the NT is certainly not lacking.
Referring to the books you say were ignored or left out, those are the ones that weren't by eye-witnesses, were written long after the events by random people and were therefore pretty swiftly rejected. For example, the Gospel of Thomas was written in the second century and not by the apostle Thomas. It contains bizarre and deliberately twisted elements that are totally at odds with anything remotely Christian (women have to become men in order to be spiritual!?!). There are others that were rejected on precisely the same grounds that you reject the New Testament. Believe it or not but Christians also think it's vital not to be deceived and so the process of verifying and preserving the documents was incredibly stringent.
Finally, I am glad that you find the teaching in the NT to be challenging and helpful. However, my suggestion would be that you should take it for what it claims to be. You can't really pick and mix with it. Jesus said some outrageous stuff that (unless it was true) are not the signs of a great moral man. I'll finish off this long comment with a quote from CS Lewis who puts it better than I could.
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He did not leave that open to us. He did not intend to."
Nathan, I'll yield to your greater knowledge about timelines, except to say that there is absolutely no evidence that the Apostles wrote the books that are named after them - anyone in (say) 150AD could write a story and claim it as "Matthew's true word", and 2000 years later, who are we to judge?
As for the feeding of the 5000, and having discussed it with my local pries (really!), it is generally accepted that Jesus didn't actually turn that fish into enough food to feed that many people, the miracle was that all present were so overcome with selflesness and concern for others worse off than themselves that they all pretended to take some food before passing it on, but no-one actually did so. In a way, that mass changing of minds of a hungry crowd makes it even more impressive than a conjuring trick.
Oh, and I think you're hot! (joking! Dont get all Levitcus on me...)
I'm really pleased that you guys are having such a civilised discussion. Forgive me for not joining in, but I'm being persuaded of how well the Quran hangs together, how much evidence there is for Mohammed - much more than for Jesus - and what a stew of illiterate bigotry is in that piece of work. Thoughts?
Hi! Thanks again Merks. I'll try to resist my urge to smite you!! Ha ha!
Back to the debate! Just wanted to note that using superlatives doesn't add much weight to an argument. Saying "there is absolutely no evidence that the Apostles wrote the books that are named after them" is just not true. There is plenty of evidence both internally & externally corroborative, which I won't go into here. Not to mention the fact that there aren't any other suggestions for authorship. The apostolic authorship was so important for deeming the texts as authoritative that it was verified and no other suggestions were brought forward. For the fabricated "gospels" that were ignored by the church there are many different suggestions of author because whoever did write them did exactly what you mention; randomly say "Errr, yeah, Thomas wrote this." Remember that we have example texts dating back an incredibly long way so we're not just dealing with a 2006 reprint of the Bible and taking someone's word for it that "Matthew" wasn't just tagged on later. All the earliest documents attribute the apostolic authorship as part of the material.
Also, it's not "generally accepted" that the feeding of the 5000 didn't actually happen. Christians throughout the ages have held firmly to the facts that are evident there in black and white. With the greatest respect, I'm not surprised you gave up on the Bible if the people who taught it to you didn't even trust what it said. The theory about everyone actually not eating anything has no substantial backing other than from people who seek to water down the plain words on the page because they find it hard to believe. Do you see what I'm getting at?
But anyway, the thing I really wanted to mention is the point I made before about Jesus being either mad, bad or God. I'd be really interested to know what you think on this.
Here is a recent post i made to alt.wisdom..... It made my hackles rise as i re-read it. i thought it worthy of re-posting here. Narcisistic I know....
We've been asked why?
Why do we want to leap in and denounce theist diatribes. Why should we cut in between a group of theists and confront them with our rational, atheistic logic? Many times we are confronted with a plaintive "Why can't we agree to disagree and respect each others points of view?" I will try to explain my own personal stance here. Enough is enough! It's time to draw that line in the sand. For too long, for millennia, since man first started to form societies we have had our view of the universe tainted with religion. To say that theists have had a fair crack at the whip would be understatement in the extreme. Theistic dogma has caused more misery, more wars, more suppression and held back the discovery of the universe we inhabit than any other invention. From the indoctrination of generations of innocent, inquiring children in the home, through schools and their mandatory acts of worship of fictitious, vengeful gods, the foul distortions introduced by the likes of the Dover School Board, the theft of a woman's right to control of her own body, the intrusion of a false morality upon our daily lives and the stifling of science. All these things must stop! It is no longer a matter of respect, of tolerance or of agreeing to disagree. The stakes are far too high. No! You cannot blow people up in the name of your mythical being. No! You cannot kill doctors who choose to help women regain control of their lives. No! You cannot divert money that should be healing the sick to spend on your costumes and buildings. No! You cannot tell me how to think anymore. No! You cannot claim that your damn stupid, lame, small minded little creation myth has equal value to Darwin's evolution and modern cosmology. The time has come to leave the nursery, cast off these childish, dangerous stories and grow the fuck up! Religion has sapped enough of mans resources. Time, money, effort, emotion and whole damned races have been swallowed up by these deluded zealots. Every theist that EVER went into battle always had a god on their side. Every poor sap who worked till they dropped was promised their reward after their death. The crippled, the sick, the outcast and the insane have turned to religion and been rewarded with nothing except vacuous empty promises. It's time to stop the madness. It's time to confront this awful cancer, this creeping, insidious lie. It's time to free humanity from the shackles of the past. from the guilt. from the original sin. from the inferiority. It's time to stop the killing. The gang mentality. Them and us. The threats of heaven, the lure of hell, the hell of the faithful. Theists, you've had your chance. You've had millennia of chances. Look at the planet now. Is it better for religion or does the worlds major human conflicts have their very basis in religion. Theism is a mind numbing death shroud for humanity. It can not be allowed to continue. We have to stop lying to our children. To ourselves. This is why I leap in and denounce theists wherever I find them. If I upset a few simpletons who cannot think outside their late bronze age shackles then so be it. But your not going to poison this race forever. If you theists have your way you will be the end as you always predicted. Self fulfilling prophecy. I will do my level best to rid my race of this handicap. The future of man lies in the stars. Our Earth is finite, eventually our sun will leave the main sequence and go red giant. If we're not out of here by then we, as a race. are doomed. It is science that is our route to our true home in the universe. You can't pray your way out of this one.
Thanks Morpheus - have you submitted this to carnival of the godless? I think they would like to link to it.
It is latest post on my blog at http://armsofmorpheus.blogspot.com/ . Not sure who you mean Carnival of the Godless. But will have a search for them...
Morph...
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