The Idealized Conservative on Church & State

After hearing more and more conservatives openly promoting the unity of Church and State (only their Church, or course) I found this quote from one of their favs ironic.

Grundy Disagrees #4

My latest disagreement spawned from a Two Catholic Men and a Blog post on the so-called "availability" of God and/or the Holy Spirit. I pointed out that the knowledge of the God's word is not universally available, rather it is asymmetrically available. Some people are born into areas where Catholicism hasn't spread or at least isn't mainstream, some people die before hearing about Jesus, and others are so indoctrinated into competing religions that a near insurmountable boundary is present. Basically, if the Catholic God exists, it is unfair for his word to come so easily to some and not at all to others. Further more, this God is unjust to judge symmetrically given the circumstance he put in place.

Joe, one of the two guys, disagreed.

Here are excerpts of the exchange:

Joe: We must do our part and God will provide the rest. We who are indwelt are called to bring God's love to the whole world. It is OUR fault if some do not hear of God when they are accessible to believers.

You put the fault on God who "makes it so much harder." Again, it is not God who does this. We who imagine and teach the competing worldview are to blame.

God is not a genie in the sky who is expected to wave a hand and fix our troubles. Part of our salvation comes from working to solve just these issues.

Lastly, God judges how God will. He has revealed to believers how he will judge, but God can always save who he will without consulting anyone. Maybe many will be saved in spite of their ignorance. We don't know.

You may say, "perhaps it is better for them to remain ignorant." Maybe. Maybe not. We do know God is just and fair. The question is then, "why bet on ignorance when sure knowledge is available?"

Me: You seem to be trying the justify the lack of availability from the perspective of the believer, but from the perspective of those who don't know about Jesus or have been conditioned to believe otherwise, it's surely not their fault they are in the situation they are in. That's what I'm saying, and it makes God, if he exists, neither just nor fair.

Joe: God does not reveal to us the ultimate fate of non-believer. He only reveals to us our responsibility towards them. Whatever their fate, we as believers are held responsible for our own actions (or non-action) towards them. 

As God is both just AND fair, the fact that someone is the situation they are in when it is not their fault would certainly work in their favor. You are certainly correct in pointing out that circumstances reduce an individual's culpability. 

The Catholic Church has NEVER said that anyone is in Hell. Not even Judas. We hope that Hell is empty. 

Do you see the difference?

Me: I see the difference in regards to hell, but denying some heaven while giving others that reward when asymmetrical circumstances make it so much harder for some to be aware and to believe is the definition of unfair. So, I'll ask you the same question I asked Ben: Do non-Christians go to heaven? Can they?

If the answer is no, God is unfair. If you don't know, then the fairness of God is also unknown and I don't think availability is the best topic to blog about.

Joe: Would you be considered unfair to give a gift to someone but not to another? I would think you would say no.

In the same way, human life is given as gift. If you were in the position of God to create matter from nothing and then bring a non-living being to life, say a clay figure, (see my Clay Man post) you would be perfectly in your rights to do whatever you wish with that Clay figure. You can take away its life without moral impact. It's YOUR stuff. You gave it life and can take it away again.

This is a very hard teaching to accept (as clay men). If you do not accept it, then we have different ideas as to what's "fair" and I'd beware of people who ask you for money since you'd be unfair or unjust not to give money to each and every person who asks.

If God gives life (and eternal life) as gift, it's not mysterious, but it IS up to him. If he wants to explain some of his rationale to us so we can have a chance of obtaining it, even THAT is gift. We are fortunate to listen to it!

Me: I don't accept that teaching and neither do you. Take a child who wouldn't be alive without you. According to this teaching, it is perfectly acceptable for you and your mate to abort the fetus, after all, it's YOUR stuff. I know you don't feel this way because I see you are pro-life. Further, once the kid is born anything from incestual pedophilia to murder one is fine when committed by the parent, right?

Wrong. You and I are both right in not accepting this teaching.

It goes on. Check the comments or weigh in yourself here.

A Decent Idea That'll Never Work

A woman in front of me at the check out counter makes small talk with the cashier. I find her voice beautiful. For someone who is tone deaf in regards to his own singing, I have wildly specific preferences when it comes to sound. Her sound I could listen to everyday. She walks away, never to be heard from again.

After attending Easter service with my religious family, I overhear a teen leaving the church who asks his parents why there is evil in the world if God is good. The kid’s dad offers a “mysterious ways” response and moves on.

What do these two scenarios have in common? In both I wanted to engage someone who it was socially awkward to engage.

In the case of the woman, my interrupting her exit with the simple compliment “you have a beautiful voice,” could make me a creep if she’s immediately uninterested in me, a potential mate if she is interested, and so far out of the ordinary that it’s bound to be weird regardless. To be clear, while I obviously don’t want to be a creep, neither do I want to be her mate. I’m happily married which makes compliments to strange women in any situation somewhat inappropriate. When I said “her sound I could listen to everyday,” I meant only as a friend...or if nothing else, the voice of my GPS.

In the case of the child at church, I’d be leaving my family to answer a question posed to someone else. Offering my take on the problem of evil could be seen as anything from blasphemy on church grounds or telling the kid’s folks how to parent. These possible charges are more than enough in my cost/benefit analysis to persuade me not to engage publicly.

These are small problems. Nevertheless, we have a woman who likely would have enjoyed a compliment under proper conditions, a kid who missed out on an answer to an honest question and me who wanted to share something positive with each. It got me thinking, how could this have gone better?

I thought about how texting is the preferred way to deliver information without the need of pleasantries or the pressure to fill in a conversation. I thought about a location-based service in which a tweet-like message could be sent to geographic neighbors. I thought about how maintaining Internet-like anonymity would make this less creepy in that no real personal information is shared and no motives outside of “just letting you know” could be assumed.

Then I thought about how this service would never reach the user base needed to make the service useful because it would already need to be useful to encourage the growth of the user base: a Catch-22. Then I thought what makes me think an anonymous service that allows for real-time criticism of any social interaction would have a net positive affect on society? It would likely result in an echo chamber of “fail” notices. I’d be no closer to sharing information and affirmations and yet acutely aware of when I’m pwed. I guess I’ll go back to wishing I had telepathy.

The Conversion Catalyst

I’ve interviewed a many notable atheists with great conversion stories. Ex-Baptist minister, Bruce Gerencser, one-time Catholic priest, Thom Burkett, and past Presbyterian pastor, David Hayward, to name a few. I’m aware of atheists who are now proud Christians, mostly because evangelists reshare such stories until my timeline is a flood of textual reruns. They must know that the narrative of someone discarding one life for another can be very compelling, but should it ever be compelling enough to convince you to change? Is there anyone whose conversion would be a catalyst for your own?

Not long ago I had a close college friend pass along his testimony of religious revelation. Unlike a door-to-door religious testimony, my friend’s meant something because I knew that he wasn’t mentally unstable. He wasn’t justifying the means of a lie to the end of saving my soul. Coming from a person who with I’ve spent the best and worst of over four years it meant what he was saying was very likely honest, but probably untrue. My trust in my friends doesn’t supersede my trust in the arrow of time or the laws of physics. I know that makes me the cynic who will eventually be proven wrong in the feel-good movie of the year, but I also know that my life isn’t a fantasy flick.

Still, my friend’s conversion was as an influencer on a personal level, but not on an intellectual level. We never spoke of theology or justified our beliefs. I merely knew he was an atheist. Inquiring further would have required a firmer interest, which I didn’t have at the time. Alcohol and video games seemed more interesting. Fast forward to present day and I wonder what if an atheist converted who based more of their life on their non-belief, like the aforementioned ex-pastors? What if, say, Dawkins accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior? I’d be very interested in that conversion story. The conversion itself would have less affect on me than my friend, but intellectually I’d be fascinated in what facilitated the change. A near-death experience, a personal revelation or some other one-off subjective event would hamper my interest. However, if the change was due to new evidence that Dawkins believes undermines the entirety of evolution in some way? I would probably research it until I was either a Christian or a biologist.

The appeal to authority or celebrity should never be enough to change your mind, but conversion stories can be a marker for information with real value. I’d be willing to bet that the Pope will convert before Dawkins will, but if that happens, I imagine the Church will retroactively revoke his infallible status quicker than you can say "transubstantiation."

An Abortion of a Post

A Catholic apologist I follow recently said that “religion isn’t required to show that an unborn child is a human being.” The particular phrasing of this statement makes it obvious. A child of a human is a human. No need for debate there. The less clear question is this: is an unborn zygote or fetus a child? For the sake of argument, let’s say yes, but that still isn’t entirely the point. After all, the corpse of a human is still a human. The morality of abortion must take into account more than black and white definitions.

Killing cells isn’t a morally wrong act by anyone’s standard. If it was, everything from sun tans to common medical procedures would be stigmatized or illegal. A fertilized egg is a very active collection of cells. In my opinion, the main distinction between human cells and human people is consciousness. While the moral argument of aborting a mind cannot be made until the brain develops, the moral argument for aborting a soul can be made at conception...providing one accepts that the spiritual enters the material during orgasmic climax or shortly thereafter. I know breeders tend to say “on my God” in bed, but I’m not sure that’s exactly what they mean. It’s magical thinking, and it’s the foundation for religious pro-life reasoning.

This post is probably painting me as a bleeding heart pro-choice advocate. I don’t consider myself as such--my view is more nuanced. Unlike religious pro-life reasoning, there is valid secular pro-life reasoning that takes into account the terms of the pregnancy as well as other factors. When the brain and nervous system develop and the unborn child begins to think and feel, I am far less comfortable with abortion. Watching the ultrasounds of my twins, I learned that this development happens surprisingly early. It’s hard to say exactly when my feelings on the subject change. As a rule, I am pro-choice for the first trimester and pro-life for the third, with my opinion during the second trimester contingent largely on the situation--but still leaning pro-life. I think this is a common take on the moral dilemma of the issue. The religious pro-lifers tend to defend their position with images of near-fully developed kids cut out of women’s bodies. This is always gruesome and, at least in my case, a straw man pictorial. In a way, it’s also misrepresenting their own position, considering Catholics focus the lion’s share of their propaganda  on late term abortions while they feel the exact same way about morning after pills.*

*This may be a generalization, but it’s a well informed one. I’m representing the Catholic Church’s position and very few Catholics defect from the Church’s position on anything much less a hallmark like abortion.

The Hypothetical Progressive Pope

I’ve been trying out hypothetical as a way to show believers where their beliefs originate. The best example I’ve worked out is directed specifically toward Catholics. I ask:

If a future Pope reversed the Church’s position on gay marriage, would you also reverse your position on gay marriage?

The word Pope could be substituted for “religious leader” to make this less Catholicism-centric, but the Catholic Church is fairly unique in that it’s doctrine trumps even the Bible in the eyes of its congregation. Seeing how the Pope is the infallible spokesperson for the Church, his word matters immensely.

Now, let’s look at what the possible answers mean. If a believer who opposes gay marriage answers in the affirmative, they show that their assessment of morality and their opinions of what is or isn’t discriminatory are based solely on authority. Whatever the Church thinks is how they think. The Pope is the Borg Queen in this scenario. If the believer instead says they would maintain their opposition of gay marriage against the Church, then we can know for sure that their belief is in fact a product of their own reasoning--at the cost of being a "bad Catholic."

Neither option is at all palatable to the believer, so if you pose the question, expect a refusal to answer. Most often I get, “the Church would never change their position so the question is moot.” That may be, but claiming certain knowledge of the future is a childish dodge for people with a distaste for hypothetical. Nevertheless we can’t force an answer out of them. This isn’t the Inquisition. (Speaking of which, poor Galileo would say that the Church sometimes, eventually, changes their position.) Simply posing the question is enough for the believer to formulate an answer, even if they see the trap set for verbalization. Consider the point made.

Why the Church Fears Gay Marriage

I’ve been thinking about the repercussions of legal gay marriage. We’ll have happier gays, obviously, with the longstanding joke that this will swiftly be followed by unhappier gays. Many of the religious say it will be followed by a drive for legalized bestiality, cat and dogs living together, and mass hysteria...but I think they’re just saying that. I bet they know that the much more likely consequence is that it will lead to a more secular America--an even scarier thought from their point of view.

In the not-so-distant future, gays will be able to marry in any courthouse and many progressive churches across the land. Hold outs, like the Catholics, we be able to deny gay ceremonies within their church. The gay rights wave will likely have enough momentum to brand this as the kind of discrimination that is no longer allowed outside of the umbrella of religious freedom. While a popular reception hall owned by a Catholic businessman will not be able to turn away paying homosexual newlyweds anymore than an office can stop a woman’s progress up the corporate ladder on account of her gender, a church can refuse to wed gays as easily as they can prohibit women from going into the priesthood. Religious freedom trumps discrimination in the eyes of the law, but in public opinion? That’s a different story. As the exceptions for the Church’s otherwise illegal actions continue to mount, I see their congregations continuing to shrink and their leadership continuing to bend. Eventually, a Pope will finally agree to give his blessing to gay marriage, overruling biblical text as they’ve done in the past.

At this point, the church will be two-fold weaker. The delay in their decision will have diluted their numbers and the decision itself will have diluted their relevance. There will be the usual sects that break off to maintain their conservative (read backward) views, but they will become the mocked fringe in a culture that has moved on. Outside of the self-hatred of closeted religious homosexuals, I think fear of this scenario is the central cause of the disproportionate outrage over gay marriage. They don’t fear for the souls of gay sinners so much as for their own lost legitimacy.

How Much Must I Boycott?

Remember when everyone made a fuss over Chick-fil-A? When the gay-friendly thing to do was to eat less chicken because the head of the company voiced his opinion on who should marry whom? I was a bit torn on the issue, myself. Boycotting a business based on corporate executive editorializing seems overboard, but when it came out that a fave fast food of mine was contributing funds to anti-gay organizations...I admit, I was bummed. I hated to think that even a nickel of my $5.99 went to marginalizing a community.

I bring this up now because of a recent story that will likely matter even less to you. A comic book I’d be interested in reading has hit enough political controversy that it might not see light and will surely be delayed. The future author of the comic, Orson Scott Card, is a kooky Mormon who doesn’t support gay marriage and thinks global warming is a shame. So, does this alone mean his work should be censored?

Image via Wired.com; Chris Samnee, DC Comics

Seriously, I’m asking you. The Superman title Card will author has lost an illustrator and some distribution due to the controversy. He’s written one of my favorite books, Ender’s Game, which as an upcoming movie that will likely suffer from his views in much the same way. On one hand, I’m happy that there is public consequences for stupid beliefs because it could shame others into not believing them. On the other hand, I’d rather folks dismiss beliefs because they realize they are stupid and not simply because they are unpopular. Then again, it could be said the measure of the stupidity of a belief is a measure of how poorly they reflect the culture...which is it’s own kind of popularity contest.

I think I’ve decided to separate the work from the man. I figure if I stop using and enjoying everything that socially conservative and evangelical people produce or support--my options will become very limited. After all, it’s not like these guys were Nazi’s.

P.S. Ironically, this was written while listening to Wagner.

P.P.S. When the product and the opinions of those in charge are intermingled, I see a greater conflict. The Boy Scouts, who advertise themselves as a ethical guide for young men, should not have policies highlighting bigotry or exclusionism. Likewise, churches, with whatever moral value they may hold, should never let pedophilia slide.

P.P.P.S. Are postscripts just for letters or are blogs okay?

Not Blessed, Lucky

Flip a coin. Call heads. It’s heads! Congrats, you are on the winning side of what was a 50% probability. This means that your guess of a random, binary outcome was correct. Few would say it was because the god of loose change smiled upon you. However, the few become many when the odds become increasing hard to overcome. Take the long-shot win of a lottery for example. It is understandable that one would conclude that reality is playing favorites. Since the universe can’t make choices, an agent with control over the universe is invented to explain the great fortune of some and the misfortune of others. I would guess this is one of the many reasons that contributes to the origin of religious belief in almost every culture.

It’s not all simply a numbers game of financial gain either. Say, you meet the right person and fall in love. It can feel like a supernatural force brought you two together to fulfill an ultimate destiny. Humans are romantic like that. In reality it means that you were open to sharing your life, found someone compatible of the pool of hundreds of people you come across weekly, and had your feelings reciprocated. There are many such seemingly serendipitous events in our everyday life.

My favorite microcosm of luck confirmation bias is finding the bright side of a calamity. Consider that you are spared the full consequence of some misstep of tragedy. We’ve all heard someone say how blessed someone was for surviving a car accident. “You must have a guardian angel,” they say, “God was watching out for you.”

This combination of optimism and superstition is at the heart of faith. We can see the silver linings of such dark clouds and dress them as a deity who didn’t cause the accident, but rather rescued someone from the jaws of death. It's not only mistaking angelic intervention for human ingenuity in the form of seat belts, airbags and crumple zones; it's not acknowledging that shit happens, both good and bad. Belief in magic informed our past, but moving into the future we should all keep in mind...we’re never blessed or cursed, just lucky or not.

Tweet Round-up

How easy was it to offer "God did it" as an explanation for everything when we didn't know things? About as easy as it is to check Wikipedia now that we do.

As an ex-Christian, I feel retrospectively dumb.

When the CAPTCHA I need to fill before posting a comment on a Christian blog is "FUCYOU" it's time to call it a night.

When gullibility is called "faith" and is considered a virtue, it's clear that atheism has a major branding problem.

Deleting your previous post, disabling my comments and blocking me does not improve your argument.

The gospels are loosely based on real events like Field of Dreams is loosely based on Baseball.

You’re not blessed, just lucky. You’re not cursed, just unlucky. Random stuff happens unguided by a fortune god in the sky.

Don't value faith, value trust. Trust can be earned, therein lies its value.

Apologists hate it when I go off script of their William Lane Craig handbook.

Dear creationists, mythology IS taught in schools, so let your religion die out already.

Dear Lord, please grant your followers the wisdom to quit believing in you. #paradoxicalprayer

If people really believed in God, I imagine more would be screaming “GOOOOOD!” to the sky similar to how Kirk yells “KHAAAAN!”

So...God makes a place of eternal torment to send those who refuse to believe he is a loving god? Awesome plan.

Mock the belief, not the believer.

If I continue debating apologists, I may develop a superiority complex.

For more, follow DeityShmeity on Twitter.

Gaps All The Way Down

“God of the gaps” is a type of theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. (from Wikipedia) History has shown us that many gaps can and have been filled as scientific knowledge grows. So much so, in fact, that it is perfectly reseasonable to assume that there is a natural explaination for our remaining gaps. Theists tend not to come to this conclusion, for obvious reasons, but I wonder how long this conclusion may be avoided.

The best example of a closed gap is Darwin’s shutdown of the argument from design. Of course, I realize there are still individuals and backward denominations that dismiss evolution as a valid explainer of the world’s biological complexity, but if the slow-to-come-around Catholic Church is on board, it’s safe to say that the others are simply in denial. From most of my interactions with honest theists, their main beef with “evolution” is that it is incomplete--meaning that it doesn’t take into account life’s ultimate origin. We should recognize this for what it is: a misunderstanding of the Theory of Evolution’s scope, a moving of the goal post from the argument of design to entirely different argument, and a detour from one closed gap to another open gap.

Darwin closing one of the biggest gaps unintensionally converted many theists across the world. Atheist favorite, Richard Dawkins, wrote that he would still be swayed by life’s apparent design if not for the Theory of Evolution. However, explaining the complexity of life doesn’t explain the existence of life. Our biological origin is still an open gap. Science calls it abiogenesis. We have some ideas how it could have happened, but no reproducable experiments to prove which hypothesis is correct. Like the other gap of note, the ultimate origin of the universe, we are unsure. Whether you’re in the quantum foam camp, the violation of causality camp, or any of the other camps that could all be possible from what we see at the quantum level, there’s no smoking gun...yet. My question to theists is this: would settling your lingering questions allow you to let go of God? Humanity is crazy smart. I used to think some answers would be forever beyond our grasp, but now that I have a clearer sense of where science is going, I wouldn’t take anything off the table. My advice? Don’t take atheism off the table. It’s already the most reasonable worldview, and it’s getting more reasonable everyday.

I realize this is my second post directed towards theists in a couple weeks and I'm fully aware that mostly atheists read this blog. I am trying to engage some believers so that I'm not always preaching to the choir (ironically.)

Whether you are theist or atheist, I'd be interested in your opinion of the truth of this statement:

Theists accept that there are some things are beyond our understanding while atheists accept that there are some things we don't yet understand.

Thanks for reading.

Magic Salvation

I Don't Care What They Say, It's Symbolic.

According to the Roman Catholic Church, sacraments are “efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions."

That last bit, “with the required dispositions” effectively gives up the scam. Let me explain.

I personally received this cracker post-transubstantiation.
Still look crackery to you?

As someone who was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church, I’ve heard the pitch for sacraments from priests, deacons, and Joe-believers alike. They all go out of their way to explain that the sacraments are not symbolic, but literal.  Take the Eucharist, for example. During communion, little disks of bread literally turn into the body of Christ. It’s called transubstantiation. Strangely, the bread still looks, smells, and tastes identical to bread after Jesusification. Unlike other sacraments that affect the unseen (your soul or something,) the Eucharist should change if it is literally changing, correct? The Catholic retort ranges from “yeah, but still” to expecting me to believe a piece of bread is changed spiritually rather than materially. I was unaware yeast had a spirit, but who am I to argue--I’m obviously not “with the required disposition.”

The disposition required is complete and utter gullibility. This form of artificial skeptic-proofing is a hallmark of religion and pseudo-science worldwide. I wonder if a Catholic would accept a failed psychic’s criticism of their closed mind or “negative energy.” If unwavering faith in something had any affect outside our own mind, children and mental patients would be seen flying around on a regular basis. If faith in God is required, I would have seen the miracles I honestly believed would occur back when I was a mark believer.

Spare me the magic clauses that put your beliefs beyond honest inquiry. Either show me a wafer that suddenly contains DNA or just call your morbid pageantry what it is--symbolic.

For God So Loved the World that He Drowned It

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:15-17

but first...

I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
Genesis 6:16-18

God's timing always confuses me. Why was Jesus born when he was? Was it because humanity really needed saving at that point? If so, didn't humanity really need saving in Noah's day? I thought the reason God sent the flood was because they were so sinful. Jesus probably could have helped then. Unless of course, they were beyond saving....but if this is beyond God's abilities, then why call Him omnipotent?

The Second-Hand Miracle

I just got off the phone with one of my best friends from college. It was a call a long time coming. He converted from atheism to Christianity about a year ago and I never had the chance to hear his story. I didn’t rush this call for a few reasons. First, I didn’t want him to think I was jumping for the chance to drag him kicking and screaming back to atheism. Second, I didn’t want his pitching of theism to further hurt our already lapsed relationship. And third, and most importantly, I didn’t think religion would take. It did, and after hearing his story, I understand why.

Quick Background

In college, my friend, we’ll call him John, was no saint. He was, however, fairly typical for his age and culture. His great sin was womanizing, most of which took place entirely within his mind. In the four years I knew him, he cycled between only five or six sexual partners while cataloguing every ass of note in our predominately female class. His conversion brings up an interesting question: if a man stops womanizing by becoming a bible-thumper, is that a net positive or negative for our feminism-infused Atheism Plussers? Either way, his origins in atheism had more to do with rejecting the rules of the Bible than disproving it. As technical as John could be, he never cared about science.

John's Testimony

It started when a pair of Christians came to his work place for a little evangelizing. Why were they allowed to make with the missionary? It’s unclear, but it seems like John’s boss is of the same faith. It’s also unclear whether the Christians started talking to John or if John initiated the discussion. They asked him if he was married and he remembered asking (inexplicably and completely out of character) “how could I be the head of the household without Jesus the head of my life.” The guys kept talking but John only picked up on key phrases like “God loves you” and “Jesus loves you.” John started crying on the spot.

John apparently pulled himself back together and went on his way. Not long after, he found himself having a vision in his car--hopefully when he wasn’t driving. John saw himself in a cathedral in front of an alter, completely at peace. When he came out of this dream state, his GPS was operating with navigation in progress. John follows the God-as-Garmin to, you guessed it, a church. He exists his car, wanders around until a church patron informs him their place of worship is currently a trailer--seeing how their church burned down. The vision of the alter didn’t come to pass, but John managed to find a chair facing a cross and got with the kneeling.

In fact, God made him kneel. At points in this journey, John said he felt lead as if someone was holding his hand. This hand allegedly tugged John down to his knees. He claims to have heard God's or Jesus’ voice say “Let me in” and claims to have seen his own demons pass from his body in the form of a husk of his past self--complete with a schizophrenic last attempt to convince him to stick with his scandalous ways.

So yeah... I went into this conversation expecting a story about his mother, who is also a born-again, or his new bride slowly indoctrinating John into the faith. Instead, I got a personal experience that changed my friend to his core overnight. John hadn’t talked to his mom all but a dozen times since he was 14 and had no contact leading into this conversion. His wife was perfectly happy as an atheist--John had to indoctrinate her into the faith before proposing. How do I reconcile this?

Short answer: I don’t. I can’t. I don’t believe his story, but I believe that he believes it. As many times as he has testified this particular miracle, I’m sure he believes it more now then he did the evening of the event--each retelling solidifying the memory--both the real and imaginary aspects. The only bit that can’t be explained by a mental break from reality is the GPS involvement. Was there really a holy ghost in the machine or did John’s yearning for Jesus make him search for “church” on a subconscious level? The later, of course. And yet...if I had a similar experience, Deity Shmeity would have some rebranding to do. After all, if true, this “miracle,” fits my high-standard of conversion.

I felt that I needed to share this even though parts of this story may seem to undermine my naturalistic perspective. You come to your conclusions, I'll come to mine.

An Assessment of John

You’ve heard my assessment of the story, here is my assessment of John. He is entirely sane. While completely convinced, John seemed confused about parts of his own tale. There was often lost time and parts that he didn’t remember. The telling contained more passion than details, but there were plenty of details. Today John is, by his own account, a better man. His porn addiction and alcoholism are no longer a problem...even though I doubt any doctor would have diagnosed either. An addiction is usually classified as such when it interferes with other aspects of one’s life. His girlfriend seemed fine with porn and he was only drunk in my company for obvious drinking occasions. Since he still enjoys an adult beverage on occasion, I doubt he was an alcoholic. Typically, when they quit, they can never drink again without a relapse. Or so I've heard. I’m not a doctor.

To me, the conversion made him better today by retroactively making him worse yesterday. The shame and guilt of Christianity is in full affect. Now every sexual daydream he ever had is equivalent to rape. The sins of the mind might as well be acts. I’d consider it a wash if he now has a higher opinion of women...but I can’t. He replaced objectifying strippers with minimizing the entire role of females. John made it very clear by saying then reiterating that men follow God and women follow the men who follow God.

Message Interference

This is a less important aside, but if there is a God, shouldn’t he want to get this message out? During this half hour conversation with John he lost cell service twice and we both were interrupted by other callers. Did Jesus have hecklers on the Sermon on the Mount? Did the burning bush take a few times to catch? The Bible probably left that part out.

Infographics Show Many Pastors Hellbound...If You Believe That Sorta Thing. Also, Aliens!

Last week I came across an interesting infographic, but it wasn't totally relevant and certainly not worthy of a post of it's own. This week I was thinking about how almost every apologist and evangelist is selling books and lectures. I started to wonder, how much must these guys make? I found two more infographics, each dealing with church wealth.

This one shows the crazy growth and cash flow of megachurches.

While this one breaks down income levels of the worshipers of various faiths compared to the national average. (Jews live up to their stereotype, by the way.)

It's kinda ironic. According to the bible, the wealthier church goers and church leaders are very likely going to hell.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. ~Matthew 19:24 (KJV)

I've heard that the word for camel and the word for rope are very similar in the original text. Rope makes much more sense here than camel, but I guess fitting a rope through the eye of a needle just isn't difficult enough.

Oh, almost forgot, the original infographic I was talking about was an editable Drake Equation. The DE is a way to calculate how many alien civilizations there many be in the universe. Only problem is, we aren't sure what numbers to input into the equation for an accurate output. This infographic lets you input whatever you want.

The Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed is a profession of faith that is recited by Catholics every single mass. I have included it below, with my two cents, of course.

I believe in one God,

the Father almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible. <- Invisible is his speciality.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the Only Begotten Son of God,

born of the Father before all ages.

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God, <- So...there's two true Gods now?

begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;  <- Consubstantial is a made up word.

through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, <- Bow chicka wow wow.

and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, <- Never knew why they singled out PP.

he suffered death and was buried,

and rose again on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures. <- Fulfilled prophecy is the Bible proving the Bible.

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

to judge the living and the dead

and his kingdom will have no end. <- An infinite dictatorship.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, <- Sure this is monotheism?

who has spoken through the prophets. <-They may have misspelled "profits" here.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins <- Even those sins can be forgiven later too.

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead <- The Walking Dead on AMC.

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

It's a longish creed, granted, but what really gets me is that they need to be reminded of what they believe every Sunday. I've been to a variety of Catholic churches now and when the priest starts reciting this creed, he reads it. When the congregation chants it with him, 80% of them take the card next to their bibles to read it back. Only about 10% have it memorized. The last 10% are either mumbling along or asleep.

Don't take my word for it, go to church. If you can't stomach the hypocrisy, check this photo I took recently during the Creed-read. I'm just glad my religious belief can be summed up with a "non-of-the-above."

Drinkin' and Prayin'

If you haven't noticed, I'm partial to infographics. I'm also partial to beer. Which leads us to this.

from FloatingSheep

Ever wonder what counties tweet more about church than beer and vice versa? Neither did I, but it's still interesting. My area is all red--meaning all church. Awesome.

Reminds me of that scene in the Simpsons movie when everyone in the bar ran into the church and everyone in the church ran into the bar when faced with death in the form of a giant dome.

How's the beer/church ratio where you live?