Nearly All Christians Are Heretics

You read that right. According to their own dogma, nearly all Christians are heretics and knowing that should keep them up at night worrying about being subject to eternal torment. I realize those are pretty bold statements, but I'm going to unpack them. Fair warning: what follows is going to be some real cerebral egghead type theological stuff. If that's not your bag baby, hit the back button now. I won't mind. It'll still show up as a hit on my stat counter whether you read it or not and my ego will just assume you did.

According to the Bible, believing certain propositions is of eternal consequence. Consider Hebrews 11:6

"And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."

This verse notes that at the very least one must believe at least two propositions. One of those is that God exists. Yet without correctly apprehending what God is or how God is, how does one believe this very basic proposition?

God's Not Dead film to bring urban legends to life on the big screen

Social media recently brought my attention to a trailer for an upcoming film called God's Not Dead. The film stars Kevin Sorbo, known for his portrayal of a fictional hero from Ancient Greek mythology. Sorbo is instead cast in the role of a fictional villain from Contemporary Christian mythology, the evil atheist professor. A relative unknown plays the heroic Christian student. Both characters appear to be adaptations of those found in famous urban legends.

The film is based on a book, based on a popular CCM song and has accompanying workbooks, lectures, t-shirts, necklaces, seminars, evangelism kits, a complete sermon series with Power Point slides and numerous other consumer products. It's just further evidence that the foolishness of preaching has been replaced by the foolishness of the savvy copycat marketing of repackaged weak arguments for Christianity along with a heavy dose of the straw man fallacy. Throw in a dash of Christian pop culture icons from Duck Dynasty and you've got a formula for some financial success. All of this is sure to keep young people in the church and convince skeptics, right?

The Will to Believe and the Will to Know

During a recent car trip, my wife and I listened to Seth Andrews interview Dale McGowan about secular parenting on his podcast. At some point the subject of Santa Claus came up and the question was put to McGowan about whether or not chilren should be taught this myth. Some in the secular community advocate very strongly against teaching kids any myth as fact. McGowan, however, recommends it in the case of Santa because it's a myth that kids will eventually find their way out of and can serve as a powerful life lesson.

Mistakes of Moses Expanded Universe: Genesis 22

In this installment we look at the sacrifice of Isaac. I've been fairly reserved thus far in this series, making light of a few things here and there, pointing out anachronisms and discrepancies and joking at the silliness generated by conservative views of Genesis as an inerrant, divinely inspired book. Fair warning for this passage: the gloves are coming off and I won't be pulling punches or tempering things. I think this chapter strikes at the very core of exactly how the traditional expressions of the Abrahamic faiths are able to make otherwise good people do terrible things in the names of their gods.

Mistakes of Moses Expanded Universe: Genesis 20 & 21

In this installment we get to experience a bit of déjà vu when Abraham once again becomes worried about his super-hot nineteen-year-old ninety-year-old wife, we find another big fat anachronism, we see once again how possession (of a woman) is nine-tenths of the law unless Elohim threatens to smite you, and we get to see just how much of a physically underdeveloped little man-child Ishmael must've been at seventeen.

Genesis 20:1-17

Abraham lives as a temporary resident in Gerar, a Philistine city that current archeology tells us wouldn’t be inhabited until 1200 BC at the earliest and not as anything more than a small village until about 800 BC, putting it hundreds of years after the time when the Patriarchs lived or when Moses supposedly wrote this account (Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, pp. 37-38). While there, not-so-honest Abe has his ninety-year-old sister/wife once again trick the locals into thinking that they aren’t married. Exactly as happened in chapter 12 during the first of the three "Dude, she's just my sister" patriarchal narratives, the ruler sees the nubile nonagenarian and takes her as a wife. In chapter 12 it’s Yahweh that threatens Egypt. Here in Gerar it’s Elohim. Later in 26:6-11 when Isaac pulls the same thing one more time on Abimelech, no specific deity will be named directly.

Leaving the Santa Claus Fan Club

A few days ago I was (virtually) introduced to fellow ex-Christian blogger Neil over at Godless in Dixie. Our backgrounds share a bit of similarity and I liked his blog so much I've added it to my list of "Some Sites I Like" in the column over to the right. That should be worth at least two or three extra hits a quarter for him, based on the traffic I experience here. Admittedly, I've found myself getting miffed at a couple of things he's written because, quite frankly, I wish I had written them.

Mistakes of Moses Expanded Universe: Genesis 19

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Mistakes of Moses Expanded Universe: Genesis 17 & 18

In this installment: Abe is asked to put some skin in the game, everyone gets a laugh about having kids when you're old, Yahweh has to talk himself into telling the patriarch about his plans for Sodom and Abe teaches the deity about fairness, justice and mercy and schools him in negotiation.

Genesis 17:1
In this verse God appears to Abram and identifies himself as El Shaddai. Early translations from the Hebrew like the Greek Septuagint rendered this something like “God Almighty” because a similar word shadad means to overpower or destroy and this seems to fit when the name is employed in Numbers, Job and Ezekiel without the El element.

However, when it’s used in Genesis with El it’s almost always in the context of reproductive fertility (see 28:3, 35:11 & 49:25). Interestingly the Hebrew word shad means “breast” and the ending ai means “my own.” It’s very possible that Shaddai started out as a large-breasted Semitic fertility goddess whose “fruitfulness” attributes were eventually subsumed into Yahweh’s attributes, minus the accentuated breasts, of course.

Mistakes of Moses Expanded Universe: Genesis 15 & 16

In this installment: Yahweh makes some promises to Abram over bisected animal bodies, an ambiguous antecedent becomes the basis for an entire doctrine, more Chaldeans are mentioned before they exist, Yahweh rounds to the nearest hundred, old age is relative and slave girls learn their place.

Genesis 15:1
Yahweh is about to once again promise stuff to Abram, but this time he appears to him in a vision rather than as some sort of manifestation at an altar under a tree.

Genesis 15:2-5
There are a couple of elements in this passage that are highly suggestive of literary construction or oral folkloric tradition as opposed to a historical account. The first is that Abram’s servant and heir, Eliezer of Damascus who is nowhere else mentioned by name, has a name that means “El gives help,” which happens to be exactly what this passage is about.

Computer Brains

I was reading a post about thoughtcrime as it relates to Christianity over at A Counter Apologist's blog when it dawned on me that one of my favorite Christian rock bands had engaged in some unintentional irony related to this issue back in the day.

First some background.

It seems obvious that CCM is highly derivative, and the Christian rock band Petra was certainly no exception. In 1984 (the year, not the book) the young people were all tuning in to keyboard-driven techno pop, so there was a natural inclination for a Christian rock band like Petra to veer away from their rock roots and produce a techno pop album. 1985's Beat the System was that album. It was the first ever CCM recording I was introduced to outside of Amy Grant, Keith Green and Truth.