Answering David Wood: Super-Christian to the Rescue

Barely a week passes by without David “The Blazing Crusader” Wood unleashing a rich show of pious zealotry onto the masses, which time after time serves us as a duly reminder of the control that God virus exercises over even what appears to be fairly bright minds of our society.

In that respect, I cannot praise enough the work of Darrel W. Ray who established the half-humorous, half-legit links between behavioral changes of a brain infected with religion and sudden triggers that invoke a complete shut-down of the parts of host's brain that are responsible for analysis of incoming information. I strongly recommend you going through all parts of Darrel’s video collection, which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Ug-o9rxWo.

This time around, David releases a video commentary about the recent media frenzy surrounding Tim Tebow and his preposterous and assiduously persistent parading of the beliefs he developed as a sad result of a botched homeschooling job. Since “Christianity under attack” is amongst the most emphatic triggers that cause a complete seizure of rational thinking, David empties his baggage of pre-processed thought devoid of any nutritional value in the form of the article titled “What If Tim Tebow Were Muslim?” (http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/12/what-if-tim-tebow-were-muslim.html). And what can be better than to source original ideas from Fox News – an outfit that would give Hitler an uncensored prime-time daily show on the condition that he would incite anti-gay sentiment and close his show with “In Christ we trust, brothers and sisters”.

This is not a story about religious discrimination. I do not recall either Fox News or David vigorously rushing to the defence of the Iranian women’s soccer team that was disqualified from participating in 2012 Olympics due to their insistence on open display of their religious beliefs.  And why would they? After all, the women intended to march around endorsing a false faith. It is quite obvious that such abominable practice should be banned completely. It would be absurd to allow athletes to showcase their personal beliefs on the field, such as fanatic love of a particular brand of beer or adherence to the “Star Wars” rites and rituals. And I can bet a small fortune that deep down inside (or, most likely, openly) Fox News anchors and David Wood himself would roll on the floor in laughter if Tim Tebow were to greet an imaginary Captain Picard with a two-finger salute before and after each run. And so they should, because strong irrational views, especially when they are capable of defining person's behaviour, are not something to support, promulgate or marvel at. However, both David and Fox News feel perfectly fine with someone gesturing to invoke help of their imaginary Christian God.

This story is really about “double standards” that David continues to bring up. I cannot agree more with David. There is no shortage of “double standards” in the US. At times, it does feel like America is a Middle-East county where all “Islam” and “Muhammad” banners and monikers were suddenly replaced with “Christianity” and “Jesus”. The bigotry and zealotry to promote the “one and true” religion is as strong and all-powerful. The offence many take at the slightest sign of blasphemy or religious disrespect, the force of outrage of infuriated pious crowds and the media coverage given to such cases can easily rival similar scenes seen in Pakistan and all over the Middle-East lately.

Things would be different if Tebow were a Muslim. That’s right, David, they would be. Hordes of Christians would cry foul over the “erosion” of faith pillars upon which this country rests. Fox News will strategically cut our scenes from the life broadcasts. Unfurling of praying rugs before the game on the filed will be banned and Tim will be given a small room away from the public eyes to finish off his rituals inconspicuously and privately. However, when he carries a cross to the field, all spotlights are on him to promote Christianity.

Yes, there are “double standards” of which David complains. Everyone must accept the right of pious Christians to market, display and spread their views. Any limitation to the coercive propagation of Christian beliefs causes tempestuous outcries and extensive lobbying to squash perpetrators and silence their feeble voices. However, no other faith or belief is permitted to display its symbols (aside from Judaism, perhaps) as openly and as forcefully as Christianity does. As unfortunate as it is, David and Co. holds the long-end of the stick in the “double standards” game, while complaining about not having enough leverage over imposing his views onto the rest of us.

David Wood: The Messiah Strikes Back

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Since I started paying closer attention to David Wood's work and his faith-based blog at http://www.answeringmuslims.com, I have discovered a perennial source of inspirations for writing. Don't be surprised to see quite a few posts dedicated to commentary on David's videos, posts and analysis in the future.

In this message, I am going back to his "Islam's Secret Santa" video (http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/11/islams-secret-santa.html) and put my remarks down on some of the comments I found worth mentioning.

First, I did find bashing of a person named "Leo" by righteous Christians to be quite amusing. Leo provided an argument that closely aligns with my own view that in many respects the Christian and Islamic ideologies are not much different. They may phrase things differently, they may put different-coloured icing on the cake, but the substance and the message of both faiths is nonetheless indistinguishable.

David rides in to smite the heads of atheists by frivolously generalizing them as "Leo or his friends", "Leo and Co." and dismissing them as intellectually "sloppy". He brings up a flaming argument and puts it in the heart of that unholy atheistic beast by providing a vacuous analogy. Let's dive right into it.

"I'm not sure Leo or his friends will be able to understand something as simple as an analogy, but we'll find out.

Before my children were even born, I knew they would eventually sin. Does this mean that I wanted them to sin? No, I didn't. I wanted them to do the right thing. Would I have destroyed them for always doing the right thing? Not at all. Instead, I would have been overjoyed. But I still knew that they would do wrong, and when they do wrong, I'll always be there to help them turn things around."

Congratulations to David on winning the "'false analogy' fallacy of the day" contest.

First, David compares God' advance knowledge of humankind sins to David's personal expectations of the eventuality of his children committing sins.

In David's case, he cannot create his children in a way he want them to be. He has no control over the human nature. As much as he doesn't want them to sin, David cannot change their predispositions because he exercises no influence over their design - they are born with certain natural behavioural traits and instincts regardless of David's personal beliefs and "wants".

Judeo-Christian-Muslim God created humans from ground up, or so the faithful say. God can control every aspect of how humans would act. He can control what they will do and how they will go about doing it. He can control their temptations, their urges, their natural reactions and so on. He designs them and he gives them everything they are. So, no, God's expectations of his creation does equate to David's expectations of his children. This analogy is false.

Then, Davie builds on this false premise to expand his idea to saying that "Christian God then takes steps to make us holy again". That makes sense: God  wants us to be holy, so he creates us un-holy, so that he can take steps to make us holy again. Dig the hole just so you can fill it.

Second, the argument goes back to my point that was banned from David's 'discussion' blog.

Muhammad states: If you were not to commit sins, Allah would have swept you out of existence and would have replaced you by another people who have committed sin, and then asked forgiveness from Allah, and He would have granted them pardon.

Forget the daftness of "would have swept you out of existence". Let's concentrate on the basic reason for  God, according to Muhammad, to take such an absurd move: he wants you to commit sins so that you will have to ask for forgiveness, which would give Allah an opportunity to show his grace by pardoning your sins. 

This is precisely what the key message of Christianity is. God created you sinful so that you spend your entire life committing sins (you attempt not to, but by your design and by the way the rules are defined before you, sinning is unavoidable). And, at the end, God will show you his grace by forgiving you, as long as you keep asking for forgiveness and cringe before him. This is exactly the message of the Hadith 6621, minus the "would have swept you out of existence" part.

Over the years, countless Christians understood the absurdity of this idea. Hence the notion born out of their cognitive dissonance - the notion of "free will". However, "free will" is a feeble excuse that doesn't hold any legitimacy - God intrudes on "free will" constantly and besides, he could have effortlessly design humans in a way that they would not sin without limiting their "free will". Any thinking mortal human can come up with a design solution for every flaw of the human character without putting people in a straight-jacket devoted of "free will". I am sure that an all-wise and omnipotent deity could have done it too.

And then David drops a bomb: in a burning desire of promoting himself as an open-minded thinker, David says:

Leo, I don't think you could upset me if you tried. This is a debate site. People (whether atheists, Muslims, or Christians) generally have thick skin. So everyone has thick skin and feels free to respond without holding back

Following the glorious Jedeo-Christian-Muslim tradition set by Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Muhammad and countless others, David says something opposite of being true.

From the initial David's reaction, he is quite irritated by Leo's statement. He comes across un-Christinaly rude.

Then, David says "This is a debate site". Really, David? A debate site would allow all comments on the subject to stay. Instead, David and Co. selectively chooses statements that help bolster David's claims while silencing criticism, as if there is no valid argument to counter David's claims. David allows bashing of anything and everything non-Christian, but it is that the counter arguments that are not welcome, especially if they make sense. However, if they don't make sense, David is glad to post them for his congregation to bash and taunt and feel good about themselves.

There is a world for describing the state of pretending to have virtues, moral beliefs and principles, while practising the opposite. Perhaps, David hasn't heard it before in this context, but this word is hypocrisy. It would be great if David could enrich his vocabulary by learning its meaning.

“Answering Muslims” by David Wood

This blogging business is quite a futile exercise, I must say. At some point, after giving it a feeble try, I decided to abandon the idea of “blogging”, as the world probably doesn’t need another faceless, nameless and, perhaps, useless page on the Internet.

I am going back to writing here, however, since my comments miraculously stopped appearing on a blog that I personally felt very much inclined to comment on. Not that my remarks contained any profanity or personal attacks. Nor they deviated from the main topic of the blog and the article in any way. But, for the reason we might discuss here one day, they just stopped being approved by the blog moderator. C'est la vie.

The blog that I am referring to is “Answering Muslims” run by David Wood and Co. The article that left me out in the middle of my conversation with other blog visitors is “Islam’s Secret Santa”, which can be found here: www.answeringmuslims.com/2011/11/islams-secret-santa.html

First, about the video: it is yet another great job by David. It is worth every minute of your time and I strongly encourage you to watch it. As often, David is clear, concise and humorous in delivering a shutter-proof argument.

However, here is an issue: the argument David has recorded in this superb video appearance applies equally well to both Judaism and Christianity. Sure enough, the decorations and story ornaments of the Judeo-Christian tradition are different from Islam. After all, it is foolish to expect an illiterate caravan driver of mediocre intellectual and story-telling abilities to match a much more sophisticated and thought-out work of many, many writers who created the Torah and the Bible over the years.

But, the argument is simple – God desperately needs sinful people because their sins compel them to repent and ask for forgiveness continuously. Yes, that God. Actually, all three of them – Yahweh, the father Holy Spirit and Allah.

Simple thoughts coming from a simple mind of Muhammad make the idea amusingly clear – we sin because God wants and needs us to sin. The Torah and the Bible veil this notion with obscurity without negating the fact that it is exactly the same – God created us sinful, whether by design or mistake, and he intends on keeping it so.

How is that possible? Read Genesis. God is our creator, it says. Everything we are is done by God. Therefore, the mischievous nature of humans is designed by God too. The sequence of events recorded in the Torah/Bible can be stripped down to the essential components:

1. God creates rules
2. God creates humans in a way that they cannot follow the rules
3. God gets upset and punishes humans he designed and created for not following the rules that he designed and created

This is where the issue with my commentary begins. Many Christian followers of David feel really strongly that their book of fables is somehow less absurd than that of Muhammad. Yes, it is more polished. Yes, it is less direct. Yes, it is more obscure. However, conceptually, it is not much different in many respects. Now, we get to the point of my message. I want to respond to several individuals who I was restricted from responding to using David’s blog.

@Baron Eddie: Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3 describe the process of creation. Everything that follows is the direct result of how God created men. It is foolish to blame men for the way they were created by God.

@Foolster41: Nowhere in my original post it is suggested that the Bible/Torah says the same absurdity as Hadith does in open text. The notion of what they say over many chapters, however, is exactly the same. God created sinful men and he never attempted to fix his mistake by righting them. Instead, he continuously tortures and punishes humans, which he clearly enjoys doing, as Exodus describes. Read your statement again – God creates sinful people – how is that different from the notion in Hadith that was identified by David – God creates sinful people?

Furthermore, Foolster41, you mentioned that God gives people a choice to follow or not follow them. Not according to the Bible. It is true that this is an excuse that Christians have come up with to explain the absurdity of the fundamental ideas underpinning the Judeo-Christian ideology. But it is not true. God punishes those who don’t submit to him. Christian God created Hell to burn people who do not follow him. This is not a choice, but rather an entrapment to ensnare, condemn and torture humans for eternity.

Foolster41, your assessment about God not wanting humans to be mindless robots contradicts the Bible/Torah. Genesis 3:22 – the whole story of Adam and Eve – openly state that God punishes Adam and Eve for acquiring knowledge. God wanted people to stay dumb, blind and stupid, but they managed to gain the knowledge of good and evil, so God contemned them to suffering and expelled them from the garden of Eden. Interesting enough, the same verse – Genesis 3:22 – shows that Judeo-Christian God is wary of humans, since eating from the “Tree of Life” would elevate us to become equal to God.

@D335 – this is a great analogy for this situation – a programmer and a program. The Torah/Bible/Quran describes a programmer (God) who creates a program (humans) that does not work as expected (doesn’t follow God’s laws). Who is to blame for it? The program or the programmer? The program only does what its creator has put in it, whether by design or by mistake. A good programmer would troubleshoot his code and fix bugs that cause the application to misfire. Judeo-Christian-Muslim God follows a different path – he curses, condemns and tortures the program, tries to erase it a number of times, but all that time he doesn’t make a slightest attempt to fix the bugs he is so unhappy about. Christian God also tortures his son so that he can forgive his flawed program for not working correctly. All that time, somehow he never goes about fixing the problem or adjusting his expectations, if the program cannot be fixed.

@Mr McStizzle,

Let’s dissect your post and address each point individually.

The biblical God had an intention for mankind when he created it and this intention was for them not to sin. This is a false proposition. Read Genesis – the only intention of God that is mentioned in the Bible/Torah is that he created a man only to “work and take care” of the Garden of Eden. God created a slave, a mindless drone, a worker to maintain the garden for God. God had not defined any meaningful laws or regulations until after the Exodus – until then he punished and tortured countless generations of men for not complying with the rules that even God himself didn’t know existed.

God stacked the odds in favour of mankind? How so? He left a gullible, inexperienced and easily corruptible man – how else would you explain that a serpent was able to convince Eve in just two sentences to violate the prohibition of God – alone in the garden with a ascendant temptation: the tree of knowledge. It is the same as leaving a 4-year-old home alone with an open cookie-jar sitting in the middle of the room and expecting the child not to eat a single piece. Any intelligent entity will understand the consequences of such decision.

In the Bible, had man not sinned, the world wouldn’t have been corrupted. First, there were no rules to violate, why do we blame man for sinning? Second, the mankind and all its traits were created by God, why then God punishes mankind for it? Third, aside from having a garden-carrying slave, there are no other intentions of God mentioned in the Bible.

Intentions are borne from love? Love? Love? The picture of God that the Bible portrays can be described as anything, but love. There is injustice, lies, deception, sexism, jealousy, treason, torture, condemnation, countless homicides, infanticides and genocides, but there is no love in the Bible. For the crime of eating an apple, which was arranged by God, by the way, man and all his descendants are condemned eternal suffering. You call it “love”?

You attempt to contrast Allah to Yahweh, but there is no difference. Yahweh decided that torturing and killing his own son Jesus is the best way to showcase his love and mercy. He rewards otherwise undeserving Abraham merely for building altars to worship him. He is jealous of men honoring other Gods. He is afraid of mankind rising to his level (Genesis 3:22). No, Allah and Yahweh are not different.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Please feel free to leave your comments below.

A Book Worth Reading

Sunny Sunday afternoon goes well with two things – good quality pilsner and a riveting book on religion.  Having just finished reading “A Friendly Letter to Sceptics and Atheists” by David G. Myers and couldn’t help but draft a post about it (the book can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Friendly-Letter-Skeptics-Atheists-Musings/dp/0470290277 and here for our Canadian readers: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Friendly-Letter-Skeptics-Atheists-Musings-David-G-Myers/9780470290279-item.html?ikwid=a+friendly+letter+to&ikwsec=Home). Before I move on to a few points that I intended to cover in my letter, I wanted to compliment David on the truly delightful and noteworthy theist response that brings us a remarkably coherent perspective of a person who cannot reject science in the name of his religion and who cannot turn away from his belief, and thus creates a personal gospel from the attractive bits and pieces of other faiths. The other apparent benefit of the book is it consolidates the most significant arguments that intelligent contemporary Christians bring up in defence of their beliefs, which makes this book is a truly remarkable literature piece that is worth responding to in details.

Before I proceed with my letter, I wanted to highlight the difficulty that I will face in responding to some issues I noticed in the book. David’s stance on religion makes nailing down specific points an arduous task. What I meant by that is the fact that he does not clearly define his philosophical view on religion. Implicitly, it is clear that he is a Christian and in most cases “religion” was really meant to read “Christianity”. However, at times, David transgresses the limits drawn by Christian faith to come across more as a monotheistic deist, rather than a Christian. On some occasions when he says “Jesus” it is apparent that he refers to the character depicted as a son of God in Christian traditions, although there are a few instances in his book in which he deviate from traditional views on Jesus and attribute some special properties to him that Christianity will not necessarily agree with. Here rises an issue: the flexible position on the literal correctness of Christian scriptures allows for shifting philosophical position from Christian beliefs to those of deists and back, which would aid circumventing any argument that is specific in nature.  

The issue is not limited to views on Jesus. At times, in the book’s “religion” means exactly what it is – a religion. Other times, “religion” is a substitute word for “Christianity”. In many instances, in response to some ideas of the book I can contrast differences of diverse religious teachings that go for and against David’s argument. However, it will not necessarily work to counter David’s position, because implicitly he means “Christianity”. In other instances, David’s argument is contingent upon rolling all religions into one and pinning an argument on Christian beliefs will fail.  

Lastly, I need to define axioms before embarking on the writing journey, as it will help to avoid unnecessary and lengthy explanations for each point. Axiom #1 is the Old Testament is inseparable from the New Testament. The simple proof of it is Jesus never rejected or corrected Yahweh, Abraham or Moses, predicating his teaching on the infallible foundation provided by the Old Testament.  

Page 1 – The first page caught my attention with the phase of “God-professing but war-making American president”. I take that the “but” in this sentence is meant to suggest that war-making does not really belong to the God-professing camp. However, the history of religion shows that God-professing crowds didn’t really shun away from wars. An argument that can be made here, of course, is quite common: the deeds of individuals do not necessarily define the religion and may, actually, go against religions teaching. This is true. However, the history of religion shows that Gods made frequent calls on God-professing mortals to wage wars. Taking a sample of a handful of cultures, Huitzilopochtli, Mars, Camulus, Anhur, Ares, Chamunda and Odin, they all wanted us to fight and kill each other. Sure enough, these are the “foreign pagan” Gods. Closer to home we have Muhammad, who was a self-appointed prophet from the age of 40 and a bandit from the age of 42. He claimed his continuation of Abrahamic traditions and didn’t refrain from attacking others to seize their property, kill their men, and capture their women and children as slaves. Again, we can argue that Muhammad is a false prophet and thus does not deserve to be evaluated in the context of Biblical characters. However, God of the Old Testament sent its subjects to war on several occasions. From the Axiom 1, Jesus may not have continued down the same belligerent path, but he didn’t denounce his father’s violent ways. Long story short, believing in God does not imply belongingness to the peace camp. 

Page 2 – “joining Dawkins in savaging religion by associating it with its worst extremes”. Having read all Richard’s books, I must jump to his defence here. While he does reference the worst of religions, such examples merely illustrate the point that religion does not correlate to righteousness. I find that Richard’s point is much more thoughtful, rational and deep than the primitive “look at him and he is an example of what religion is” as David presents it to be.

Page 2 – “Jesus, a radical critic of the religion of his days”. This is not exactly correct; at least not as it is articulated. Jesus did rebel against the ways of practicing religion, but not the religion itself. He did not abolish, reject or denounce even the most abominable facets of the Old Testament, establishing his teaching on the readily-available basis provided by Torah. 

Page 4 – The book provides two assumptions that are called “axioms” in the next sentence. An assumption cannot be an axiom. I am positive that this is simply a case of unfortunate choice of words, but it also underscores the issue typical to all religions. It often happens that with time, assumptions erroneously become unquestionable axioms. Once becoming part of faith theoretical basis, assumptions are no longer questioned because the mountain of theories and the whole teaching would collapse if assumptions are removed.  

Page 5 – I am delighted to hear that David does not consider sexual orientation as a choice. This is not, however, the underlying assumption of Christianity. The story of Lot unambiguously illustrates God’s view on homosexuality. God wrath suggests nothing, but that the practice is not from God and therefore it is unnatural, abominable personal choice. While I am happy to find David in the rational camp, his views go directly against the presumptions of the religion he calls your own. The question I want to ask is how to reconcile belongingness to two opposing camps: a camp that understands the nature of homosexuality and the camp whose ideology calls it an abomination?  

Page 6 – “If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and what he says does not come true, then it is not the Lord’s message.” If what he says does come true, it doesn’t mean that it was Lord’s message either.  

Page 9 – “you accuse use of hypocrisy…” This is rather a hasty generalization. Most thinking atheists accuse religious groups of believing in something that has no evidence of existing, but not of the things David listed.  

Page 9 – “Authentic biblical religion calls its followers to “do justice”. What they also suffer from is a total lack of definition of what that justice is. Usually, all three Abrahamic faiths imply “do what pleases your unjust, unfair, capricious and wrathful God” as “do justice”. Measured by the rules of common decency, these “do justice” rules sway far in the area of complete injustice. Was it just for Jews to kill native inhabitant of the land of Israel so that Jews had a place to live? Was it just for God to punish a Pharaoh who was, in fact, a victim of a con? Was it just for Muhammad to invade Banu Nadir simply because Muslims ran out of good targets to rob? Authentic biblical justice is not what we would define as one. There is as much of a problem with religious wisdom as there is with those who implement it.

To be continued …

Should Every Creation Have a Creator?

Today, I received a question regarding the famous/infamous “ABC Nightline Face-off: Ray Comfort Proves that God Exists” episode that was recorded a few years back (the full video can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0woXuAk9pDY). My inquisitive interlocutor, who is a creationist, was evidently much impressed by the simplicity and perceived elegance of the explanation about the God’s existence offered by Ray. His question for me was extracted directly from the debate (at 3:15 minutes) and went limpidly “Can there be a painting without a painter?”

Remarkably, I must concede my utter defeat at the hands of eloquent Mr. Comfort and agree with all creationists that there cannot be a painting without a painter. I will even add to their argument that there cannot be an ant hill without ants or sunshine without the Sun or tide-waves without tides.

However, there can be plenty of other creations without a creator. Mountains, rivers, clouds, winds, sunshine, mud patterns on car fenders  – all these, and many other, things are the naturally and often randomly occurring phenomenon. They are formed by geological and other natural processes that have very specific causes that lead to their formation or occurrence. If there is a creator for everything, including each summery breeze and wintery snowflake, then God must be involved in all aspects of the existence of the Universe, which will imply a constant and conscious control (I suppose using God’s Lidless Eye) of every boson and fermion. 

I would advise anyone against rushing to respond with “yes” to the question of “is such granular control possible?” The “yes” answer will open up a whole new can of worms and effectively invalidate many traditions and beliefs that most cults and religions forster. 

Let’s ignore the sweeping generalization of proclaiming that “every creation has a creator” for the sake of argument. As absurd as it most certainly is, let’s presume that there is a creator for every creation. Then what is the difference between Ray’s and scientific approach to the analysis of what the creator is?

Science looks at the facts. In the example of Ray’s “every painting has a painter”, science will examine the paint and conclude that such type of paint was commonly used in the first half of the 16^th century. This might be confirmed by other independent tests of the paint’s age. The paint was commonly used in Italy for such and such purpose. The direction of brush strokes suggests that the painter was left-handed. The dress of the woman indicates that she is from a wealthy merchant’s family.  Piece by piece the science will analyse available facts, striving to put them in the right context. Along the way mistakes will be made, which later will be identified and corrected by further reviews. Every discovery will enhance our understanding of the painting, the painter, his subject and their surroundings.

Give the same painting to the pious and all details that science would uncover will stay fatuously disregarded. Instead, religious crowds will offer you gratuitous statements about what the painter and his relatives wanted from YOU. By looking at the picture of Mona Lisa, they would conclude that “the painter’s name was Bob and painter’s mother-law’s name was Patricia; she wanted you to mutter secret words before every meal; she doesn’t want you to have sex on Sundays and she tells you to drain blood of every animal you kill before you can eat its flesh;” This list will go on and on and on and there will be no evidence in support of any of these claims. They will be provided as is, as long as you have faith.

Ray is undeniably articulate and convincing. However, the genesis of his theories is redeemably hollow and flawed. There are creations without creators and even if there weren’t, it wouldn’t bring us any closer to understanding the will of the creator.

Why It's Time to Protect Public from Forced Delusions

Why It's Time to Protect Public from Forced Delusions

On this lazy summer afternoon I am sitting on my newly renovated deck, which is still emanating the terrific scent of fresh cedar from the recently laid planks. The deafening and, at the same time, relaxing, sound of cicadas feels the air. The article I am reading right now, while enjoying the fabulous combination of the warm, yet, gentle sun and cool, but not chilly, breeze, is written by Jay Haug and curiously titled “Why It's Time to Speak about God Again” (in case you are interested in reviewing the original text, please follow this link: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/why_its_time_to_speak_about_god_again.html). After going through the 11 paragraphs of discontinuous quotes, rhetorical questions and desultory conclusions I couldn’t help but feel obliged to put aside a pint of marvellous light pilsner made by none other than my mere mortals and comment on the notions put forth by Jay.

The first thing, of course, is the catchy intro paragraph, which, supposedly, sets the tone for the rest of the article. And it sets it well. “America is living under an illusion: the idea that we can expunge God (broadly understood) from our national and public belief system and still operate a moral and accountable government.”

We can ignore the clause of “accountable government” – I suppose, the author meant accountable before God himself or otherwise what is the purpose of placing it in such context – although it is hard to refrain from entertaining a question of how this accountability is to be enforced. Perhaps, by recruiting God as a permanent Chief of Staff and making God’s attendance of every government meeting as his compulsory divine duty? We can also ignore the hasty generalization of “America is living under an illusion”.

What we cannot ignore is the three pillars of obstinately unshakable faith that underpin the wide spectrum of America’s social-conservative views. I want to center your attention on these three essential assumptions due the much too frequent role they play in arguments provided by those striving to impose their religious views on others:

1.       Our belief in God is the only true belief;

2.       God is the sole and superior source of moral values;

3.       God is on “our” side.

Our beliefs are the only true beliefs

I don’t have an ounce of doubt that Jay refers to Christianity and Jesus when calling to “speak about God”, although, either preaching from the platform of political correctness or pseudo-all-inclusion he never mentions it directly. However, as unlikely as it seems, there is a possibility that Jay considers all religions to worship the some sort of respectable God and he is open to all of them playing a Godly role in politics. In such case, I’d like to understand how Jay would go about reconciling rather nonconforming views and morals of Zeus, Ra, Huitzilopochtli, Jesus and Allah.

But of course, who is talking about such nonsense? Undeniably, it is Jesus that we shall bring everyone to. In such case, it will be helpful to understand how it was determined with such certainty that the Bible has superiority over other religious teachings? If we are to conform to God’s law, why not opt for Sharia as a governing framework for government’s morals? I suspect, Jay would not enjoy handing over the power of final say over all President’s decisions to priests bowing before Dumbo-like Ganesha?

Surely enough, at times like this, we begin to receive specious arguments about America’s religious legacy and its Founding Fathers. I always strongly suggest to check what the first major God of this land was and for how long. There were gods before Jesus and after Jesus, and yet, some of us strive to tenaciously yank out one of many deities from the chain of idols to place him at the helm.

The Founding Fathers made a conscious decision to separate Church from the state and there were reasons for that. America’s constitution is written to expunge God from the public live. The fact that non-Christian beliefs, let alone professing atheism, make any person unelectable, is a sad aberration that the Founding Fathers would cringe at.

God is the sole and superior source of moral values

Unfortunately, I have to say “no”. First, Gods are invented by people and the moral values they transmit merely reflect views of those who invented Gods. The moral values of men will always be ahead of those of Gods, which are modelled after our own understanding of the world.

People always have been and will be governed only by their personal morals and collective norms of the society. People killed and raped and plunder before Jesus and they committed just as much of the same sins after the messiah’s departure. It was only after secular laws advanced to the next level that the morals changed. Such event transpired in most countries with or without religious influence. Religion plays no role in establishing it, the society does. To Jay’s “A morality unhinged from God is not only inadequate for the times, but it will also doom us to a permanent slide into oblivion.” I’d have to say that the history showed one thing and one thing only: when humans blindly followed God they committed things typical to any other dogmatic thinking – burning at the stake, discriminating, retarding and destroying lives of others. It is only when people rise against the morality of Gods we enter a world of superior life expectancy, fewer deaths and greater harmony.

It is rather sad to hear people stating that their morals and behavioural norms are dictated by the scriptures and the fear of eternal punishment. The question I’d always ask them is “What if there were no Bible, will YOU rape and kill?” It is always very unfortunate when they thoughtlessly answer “yes”.

If were guided by Gods, what kind of morals would we have? Stone your children to death for misbehaving, as Judaism and Christianity call? Enslave? Rape captive women, as Islam permits? God’s laws are inexcusable abomination that always brings much misery, if implemented.

God is on our side

As Jay says, “Unfortunately, since the 1960s, we have expunged the one Presence from our public life who can truly help us as He has in the past.” I hope Jay could provide an example of God’s intervention in American history and evidence of God’s involvement?

This enormous fallacy of “God’s on our side” is as incredibly widespread as it is utterly stupid. Was God on German Catholic side when Nazi tanks rolled over Poland? German Christians most certainly thought so. Was God on German side when Nazis swiped through the Soviet Union? Perhaps yes, German prayers made Blitzkrieg work. Did God switch sides to help Orthodox Russian and Western Anglicans to win over Catholic Germany? Perhaps, yes. Was it because Germans stopped praying as passionately, while Russians put some fire under their prayers? Was God helping “our side” Christians to conquer Jerusalem, exterminating Jews and Muslims (and local Christians too)? Did God then change sides to help “our victorious Muslim forces” to retake Jerusalem?

This fallacy is not unique to Jay. Go back to the times of self-appointed prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, and we find peculiar similarities in stating the obvious: according to Muhammad “Every victory is from God, and every defeat is from your own sins.” Convenient explanation, isn’t it?

Parting words

Quite often, those professing the understanding of God and his will that attempt to impose their will on unsuspected others using misinterpretation of the American constitution and history. Perhaps, Jay’s right, and many believe that America will turn publicly to God. For humanity sake I hope this day will never come.