God Mail - I'm mad as hell and I'm ranting.

If we go back to the beginning we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods, that fancy enthusiasm or deceit adorned them, that weakness worships them, that credulity preserves them and that custom respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests.

-Baron d'Holbach

What IS it with some Christians? They just can't leave you alone. They just can't. At some point, they figure it was their mission in life to run about and try to get as many converts as possible. I actually wonder if these people think there is some kind of heavenly tote board where Jesus keeps track of how many converts each Christians gets. "Oh look, Bob got two more. But Suzie here, hasn't had a single convert this week! She'd better pick up the slack!"

I mean, what would the winner get anyway? If there was any justice in the universe they'd end up with a T-shirt that said "I converted the heathens and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

Of course, some of them are pretty open about why they cannot leave the rest of us alone. They say, with that creepy Barney the Dinosaur smile on their faces, things like "You know, if you see a hungry person, and you knew what it was like to go hungry, wouldn't you want to feed them? That is all I am doing." Yeah, well, Jesus-Boy, guess what? I'm not hungry! And even if I was, I ain't buyin' what you're selling!

Naturally, someone of them, when you really get angry after they have been on your metaphysical ass like a cop on donuts, will appologize. "I'm not perfect," they'll say. "We're all sinners you know. I include myself in that too. I'm a sinner too, that's why we need Jesus." Excuse me, but maybe you believe you were born a worthless sinner who has to pay the price for the alleged "sin" of Adam - which amounted to free thinking if you really consider the story - but some of us have a little more self respect than that. Putting aside the story is nothing but a myth for a moment, why does anyone think saying "I'm a sinner too" qualifies as an excuse for being an ass?

Ok, by now you can tell I am rather annoyed, and this post is not really of the same quality of my usual fair here on the handbook. But have you ever had a day where you just have had enough? Today was one of those for me. So you theists with porcelain sensibilities, stop reading now. I've duly warned you, so if you get all offended and weepy after this...well, we're all sinners right?

Anyway, I am more than used to Christians trying to convert me. They've been trying most of my life and at this point nothing much surprises me. I've heard it all. Over the last few weeks, for reasons that escape me, my videos on Youtube, and my blog here, have resulted in a wave of believers all attempting, desperately, to show me how wrong I am and just how much I need this Jesus guy. They tell me atheism is a tool of the Satan. (Hint to Christians: I'm an atheist If I don't believe in a god, why the hell do you think appealing to a devil is going to carry any weight? Think about it.) They tell me how much Jesus loves me. They threaten me with eternal torture in hell. (Another Hint: Again, don't believe in Jesus or a hell so...gah, why do I bother?) Others try the usual arguments from design and arguments from morality. These are easily dispensed with, but I will at least give them props for trying something that doesn't sound insane....because insane is what I often get. Consider this gem from a Youtuber who tries to argue...well, I am not sure what he is trying to argue, truth be told:

In order for something to be faith there must be less evidence. In old times God actually spoke to man, and showedhim great works, the more unpure man became the less God could talk them,makes sense when you thik about pure energy and bad energy. Or like this car radio waves versus traffic sounds that have other radio n waves or honking there horns.

If spirit means constant energy,and whhen you break everyuthing to an atom, and it sees u and it turns invisble and stops blinking,that is remnance of a spiritual thing that made everything,because it leaves behind a constant energy.
Which would mean that is the remnance of Gods energy.
And if God is energy he stays constant and can manipulate other energies,also he can be asexual which is why he can create things,
energy can't be destroyed, like static electricity, can be produced in many things
And if sin= inhereted bad genes, wickedness, and sickness,or bad genes you can pass down.

Makes since why there is sickness

Stuff like this really does make me fear for the future of the species.

Now, before I go on, let's make something clear from the outset. My blog and my videos are open for anyone to comment, even if their comments make it sound as though they allow Mike Tyson to use their brains as a punching bag. By putting my views out there, I open the door, deliberately, to the views of others. This is the way it is, and I encourage it. I even encourage views I don't like particularly. That's really the whole point in writing the essays I do, and make the videos I do. So while someone trying to get me to become a Christian by telling me I am a puppet of the devil is barking mad, in putting my opinons out there, I have to tolerate a certain level of, shall we say, unique opinons. Fortunately, for every screwball who thinks quoting bible versus at me actually works there is often a more thoughtful theist who, while I probably won't agree with them, at least as something interesting to say.

However, there are areas of ones' life where you think the believer with the evangelical itch would be able to restrain themselves. You know, like the mail. My mail. As in, mail I send to other people.

But alas, like the god of the Old Testament, some believers have a very serious impulse control problem.

I sent some Xmas presents to my mother and step father via UPS. (yes, I just wrote Xmas instead of the Jesusmas thing. Why? Because I feel like being a gadfly. nah nah nah.) When the package arrived it had on it a nice, friendly sticker some UPS employee though worthwhile to place on it. It read, in bright friendly letters: GOD LOVES YOU.

Oh really? Does god also realize I don't want him on my goddamn mail? I can only assume that the UPS employee who thought it was totally appropriate to use my mail as a tool to proselytize to the person I was sendingto it is the "just feeding the hungry, we're all sinners so I can do whatever the hell I want" variety. Or maybe it's the "I love you, so I don't want you go to hell, so I am going to do whatever I can to save you." Or maybe he or she is one of those really insipid gotta-convert-the-heathen-types who actually believe if you read the right bible passage to someone at the right time, the clouds will part, a beam of light will fall upon the head of the non-believer and to a chorus of angels singing Hallelujah, the heathen is converted!

Either way, I just don't give a crap. Believe it all you want. I don't really care about that either. But do not, I repeat NOT, put it on my mail. DON'T DO IT.

Look, I am pretty passionate about philosophy, politics, science and atheism (even though I think the term atheism itself is pretty silly...but that is for another, less ranty day.) But you don't see me sticking quotes from Richard Dawkins or Bertrand Russell on random stranger's mail now you do? I don't inavde your personal space with my philosophical views. You are chosing to read this of your own accord. You can stop reading whenever you bloody well please. In fact, even the most so called "fundamentalist atheist" (Another hint to believers: the phrase fundamentalist atheist is a contradication in terms and makes you sound ridiculous. If you investigate why some Christians call themselves "fundamentalists" you'll understand why.) would not put an atheist sticker saying "Christopher Hitchens loves you" on your mail.

But not this beleiver. Oh no. He thought it was prefect okey dokey to use someone else's mail to try and win a convert. I mean, I use UPS for business as well. I wonder if this slap happy Mensa group brainiac ever paused to think of the possible consquences of doing that. What if I was sending a resume to prospective employeer, who gets my packet and sees in happy letters reading GOD LOVES YOU on it? Somehow, I doubt leaving an impression of being a rabid bible thumper is the best way to impress a possible new boss. Not that our fundy friend in UPS cares. He's saving souls after all right?

Now, I know what you might be thinking. "Jesus, Grant. It's just a fucking sticker. Mellow out dude. Have a cheeto." And maybe you have a point. Then again, why should I tollerate this sort of invasion into my personal and private space? Why should anyone? Because someone, somewhere thinks the words "it's my faith" is some kind of get out jail free card? There is no justification for it, no matter what Mad God Sticker What God Sticks At Midnight thinks. (A obscure Tick reference there for those in the know.) At best it was unproffesional. Fortunately, a very helpful chap at UPS customer service though so too when I called and is doing whatever UPS does when this sort of thing happens.

So now I have to wonder if the god sticker guy will fess up if he caught? You know, bearing false witness and all that jazz? And if he does, what will his excuse be? Somehow I would not be surprised if as a defense, the phrase "we're all sinners you know," passes his lips.

Gah. What IS it with some Christians anyway?

Does God Exist: The Debate - Part two of two

I believe that there is no supreme being with human attributes - no God in the Biblical sense - but that all life is the result of timeless evolutionary forces, having reached its present transient state over millions of years.
-Charles Templeton, preacher turned agnostic.


In my previous entry I gave a brief outline of the debate between Dan Barker of the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Peter Youngren of the Niagara Celebration Church.

What I want to do here is examine a couple of the arguments presented by Peter, by way of my own personal analysis.

Through the debate, Peter made a repeated asseration regarding believing big brain types: Albert Einstein and Anthony Flew. Both deists - which to Peter's credit he acknowledged. But Peter's point, was clear: Here are two men of extraordinary intelligence an insight, and they are convinced at the very least convinced there must be some kind of ultimate force behind the universe. It doesn't interact with us in the biblical sense of God coming down with a burning bush or genocidal flood, but they nevertheless believed there must, logically, be some kind of universe force that got everything in motion.

The connection Peter was trying to make was, if they can accept a god, deist though they were, they surely we of lesser minds cannot argue with them. As Peter said "Anthony Flew says he is convinced by the evidence. Well, that is good enough for me."

This is not a particularly new argument, and one that is often used by believers, albeit often by those lacking Peter's capacity for public discourse. It fails for two reasons. First, the deist view is not the Christian view. Although Peter was, by way of an unspoken inference, trying to link the god of Einstein and Flew to his own Christian god, no such link can be made. Even if one concedes that that there must be a "first cause" behind the universe, that is not evidence for the Christian (or Muslim, or Jewish, or Hindu or whatever) version of god. This is because, as I have noted before, the Christian god has very particular attributes. He has a definite personality - a temper, a willingness to heap favors on those he likes, and destroy those he hates. He describes himself as jealous. And he defiantly has an ego: Just check out the number of times god describes himself in the Old Testament. When he isn't threating to blast someone out of existence, he heaps upon himself all manner of praise. The Greeks would have instantly recognized the hubris in him. Or to put this another way, Dr. Phil would have a field day with God.

Anyway, I digress. The point is one simply cannot look to the deist mode of belief as evidence the Christian god is real - as Peter was doing often during the debate - because the god of Einstein and Spinoza and Flew doesn't have a personality. It doesn't even have a consciousness really. Or if it does, it has never expressed to our species. It NEVER performs miracles or hears prayers. It is really only a kind of universal force that gave order to the whole ball of wax. But that's it.

I think Peter understands this, but tried to make the connection anyway almost as if to say, "Well, if one can accept this deist notion, then its only a small jump to get to Jesus." That just doesn't follow.

Still, Peter Youngren would not be Peter Youngren if he didn't possess the gift of gab. Frankly, Peter is the most talented and convinced preacher I have ever met. And I've met many. He is able to make things seem to fit together - even if in the cold light of logic they do not.

It's worth noting as an aside that Peter is not a fire and brimstone preacher. He isn't threatening anyone with hell fire (although he certainly does believe hell is a real place) and that was demonstrated in a moment at the end of the evening. The last question of the night was asked by a fairly hostile woman who attacked Dan Barker with both guns. She was a health profession, she claimed, and said she sees miracles all the time. She even went so far as to claim that she healed a cancer patient of a tumor!! Well, at this point I was forced to step up, as moderator, and ask her to ask a question. Her reply was as strange as it was shocking:

"Ok my question is to Mr. Youngren, can you be gay and be Christian?" she said before hurriedly sitting down in the nearest seat.

The bait and switch had left the audience shocked for a moment. Dan replied to her by saying that if she had evidence of such things she ought to present it to experts who can examine it. When Peter spoke, he said he was not into, what he called "a ministry of behavior modification." Anyone is welcome at his church, he said, and its not up to him to judge them. Gay people are as good and decent as anyone else he said. It was a moment that had even non believers such as myself nodding our heads in agreement. It was a brilliant bit of preaching and politics, frankly, that spoke both to human solidarity and need to treat everyone with respect.

I bring it up because of what came next in the closing remarks for the evening. Peter closed by saying it was fascinated by Dan Barker: an ex-evangelical turned atheist. In some ways, Dan's story is similar to that of Canadian preacher and former peer of Billy Graham Charles Templeton. In fact for a time, Templeton was the evangelical star and Graham the opening act. But Templeton lost his faith, as Dan did, and began to speak out against what he saw as the cruelty of the Christian doctrine and unlikelihood of a god existing at all. He did not become an atheist as Dan did, but an agnostic.

Templeton wrote a book called "Farewell to God: My reasons for rejecting the Christian faith." It is a deeply personal book, although not the best written, and it was one of the books that got me thinking seriously about the unsoundness of the entire Christian thing. It is, therefore a book I know well and my ears perked up when Youngren invoked Templeton's name.

Peter related a story about Templeton in his final remarks. He read from part of Lee Strobel's book The Case For Faith. Strobel is an apologist who claims to have been a former journalist and atheist. He has a whole series of "Case for..." books purported to "objectively" investigate the claims of Christianity. Generally speaking, these books have all the substance of flash paper. They are not objective at all, and Strobel almost never speaks to experts in their fields or to skeptics. He interviews other believers and accepts their conclusions with a monolithic credulity that no journalist worth his salt should ever display. They are basically apologist tracks thinly dressed up as journalism in the same way Intelligent Design is creationism dressed up in drag.

Still, Strobel occasionally presents an interesting interview or two, and his interview with Templeton is one. Peter read in it part to the audience, and I have to say, his reading was both powerful and moving. Like I said, Peter isn't an excellent preacher by accident. He knows his craft.

In the interview, Strobel asks Templeton what the thinks about Jesus and God. Templeton, now suffering from the slow brain rot of Alzheimer's, sickly and near death, dismissed with the entire idea of a loving god. But for Jesus, he appeared to show some genuine emotion. Strobel, shockingly displaying real journalistic instincts, pressed the issue and asked directly what did Templeton think about Jesus:

"Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus. Yes...yes. And tough! Just look at Jesus. He castigated people. He was angry. People don't think of him that way, but they don't read the Bible. He had a righteous anger, and He cared for the oppressed and exploited. There's no question that he had the highest moral standard, the least duplicity, the greatest compassion, of any human being in history. There have been many wonderful people, but Jesus is Jesus."

Peter now had the audience in rapt silent attention. He lowered his voice a bit and read the final lines from Strobel's interview.:

"And if I may put it this way," (Templeton) said as his voice began to crack, "I...miss...him!"

Peter then noted that Templeton waved Strobel away saying "Well, enough of that," and then he ended the story. He went on to say that even Templeton knew Jesus in the end and hoped that Barker would come know the true faith soon.

Being the moderator, I couldn't say anything. My job was not to inject my own thoughts to the debate, but rather to keep it moving in an orderly and fair manner. My own views were not relevant. But I knew something that perhaps Dan Barker, and probably Peter Youngren, did not. The interview with Templeton might be as Strobel reports it. But it is certainly not any evidence that Templeton was near to some kind of death bed conversion.

And this is why I often say "Fact matter!". Because knowingly or not, Peter was not presenting Mr. Templeton's views fairly or accurately. Let this be a lesson to anyone willing to rely on Lee Strobel for information. As a preacher, the guy makes a lousy reporter.

The fact is that yes, Templeton DID miss Jesus. He missed Christianity. He missed the whole religious thing. But this was not shocking or even new. In Farewell to God, Templeton writes about how he missed the certainty religion provides, the easy comfort of believing Jesus and a god that loved him and had a plan for him. And while he could not longer bring himself to believe it anymore, he missed being a believer and could not ignore the impact the figure of Jesus had on his life in a positive sense. No one every said learning was easy or that enligthenment came cheaply. Change is always painful and often filled with regret. Templeton wrote:

"You find yourself rethinking the story of Jesus of Nazareth and, for all its intrinsic fascination, it is not the same. You almost feel that someone you love has died and that you are bereft. And little wonder: no one in Western history has so laid claim to the hearts of men and woman as has Jesus of Nazareth. How memorable his brief life. How fascinating his personality. How insightful his teaching. How inspiring his courage. How shattering the horror of his death. How - perhaps more than any other's in Western history - his life has stimulated the potential for goodness in those who take him seriously.

I miss all that, and more. But, analyzed, the feeling is not unlike the occasional yearning to return to one's earlier years when life was simpler. In the end, one must follow the truth as one perceives it. Not to do so is to live a lie.

Growing up isn't easy, but is there any valid option?"

This is what Peter Youngren and Lee Strobel fail to mention. That Templeton's missing is former faith had nothing to do with believing Jesus was the son of god, sent to save his soul. But it was a a regret at losing something that once gave him such powerful purpose in life.

Templeton, like Einstein, like Flew, ended up as a kind of deist. He believed there might have been some kind of force that got everything going, but it never interfered with human life. His missing his former faith didn't change that.

Which brings us full circle. Youngren's argument was to say "look at these smart guys, they believe in a god, so should you!" But no only is the deist god nothing like the Christian one, not only was Peter not presenting the whole truth about Mr. Templeton, but it makes a final, fatal error in logic. He appeals to authority - a view that certainly Einstein and probably Templeton would have regarded as unwise an an abdication of our own ability to examine evidence and make up our own minds.

Does God Exist: The Debate - Part one of two

"On the subject of the nature of the gods, the first question is ‘Do the gods exist or do they not?’ It is difficult, you may say, to deny that the gods exist. I would agree if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind, it is perfectly easy to do so."
-Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book one

On Wednesday, April 9, I had the pleasure of moderating a debate between one of Canada's best known evangelists and one of America's more prominent atheists. Hosted by the Niagara Secular Humanist Society at the Canadian Auto-Workers Hall in St. Catharines, the event saw Peter Youngren of the Celebration Church and Dan Barker of the Freedom of Religion Foundation square off over the question asked by Cicero all those years ago: Does god exist or not.

Being the moderator, my job was not to debate - in as much as I wanted to - but rather to play the role of referee in a boxing match - make sure the fighters understood the rules, fought according to them, and protected themselves at all times.

It was a lively and sometimes heated debate, but before I present my own views on the night I wanted to say thank you to both Peter and Dan, who were both gracious and made my job as moderator very easy. They are both very likable men, and had the audience of about 300 people.(That might not sound like any great shakes, but for this town it is nothing short of a miracle....if you will excuse the phrase.)

I opened by reading the above passage from Cicero's "On the Nature of the Gods" because when it comes to theology, his question is the first and most important to be answered. Indeed, this is why Cicero includes it early in his book.

The theology of the world's three great monotheism - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - all rest on a single proposition, that God exists. Yes, yes, they each have a different view of what god is, or isn't, but this is the first fundamental assumption each faith makes. Well, they have to, don't they? If there isn't a god then all the theological gobbledygook and fretting about what said god will do to you if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or get up to something with your lover the cosmic voyeur doesn't like isn't worth a bother. It all becomes counting angels on the heads of pins, doesn't it?

I chose Cicero because he expressed something else important about the debate to come - that it was a debate about the existence of god. In public. With no threat of retribution for anyone. The reason Cicero said he would only agree that it is difficult to deny that god exists in pubic, but can easily do so in private, is because for most of western history - and indeed still in many parts of the world - this not believing god stuff would get you locked up, killed or tortured. Or all of the above. Or, if this was a communist country, defending a religious belief in public would be rather like saying "well, I have the noose around my neck anyway, so I might as well just kick the horse." It's important to recognize that we enjoy a historical rarity - the freedom to believe, or not, and to debate those views in public without fear.

For those who do not know, Peter Youngren is one of Canada's best known Christian preachers. He's been in his ministry for over 30 years, regularly travels around the world preaching and appears on TV frequently. I've interviewed him several times over the years as a journalist and while I've never agreed with his religious views, I've always found him to be a likable and sincere person. One of the things that did impress me about him was something he did right after the 9-11 attacks. Many Muslims in St. Catharines, like those around the world, felt they were going to blamed for what happened. In fact, there was a botched fire bombing at the local mosque. Peter was, I believe, the first Christian leader in the community to go to the mosque and tell them not to fear, that they were still part of the community and while he and they believed different things about god, they agreed on many things as well. So while I don't subscribe to Peter's beliefs, I certainly respect what he did to help defuse some community tensions during that time.

Dan Barker's story is really a real life reversal of Paul on the road to Damascus. For decades, Dan was just like Peter Youngren. He traveled and preached as an evangelical preacher. He even wrote several popular Christian musicals for kids. But over time Dan's faith crumbled away. He reached a point where, like Charles Templeton (who we will hear more about later), he felt he had to make a choice between "God and truth", and truth won out. He's since become the co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation in the United States - and turned his musical talents to music for non-believers. Like his better known counter parts like Christopher Hitchens, Dan spends a lot of his time traveling debating with people on issues of religion.

What I'm going to do in part one is provide a quick summary of the arguments and then in part two discuss my analysis of those arguments.

The debate kicked off with opening remarks, with Barker going first and asking Peter to present evidence for the existence of god. Not declarations or statements like "Well it's all so complex here must be a god," but actual evidence. Then he asked Youngren to do something I found very interesting: he asked Peter to provide an example of something that would, in his mind, falsify the god hypothesis. The reason is simple. Science spends most of its time trying to disprove its own ideas, looking for the evidence that "disproves" or falsify a hypothesis or theory. In doing so, science is constantly modifying what it knows by tossing out ideas that don't work. And most know what it would take to undermine a scientific theory. I mean, if a fossil rabbit was ever found in the pre-Cambrian, well, that would just about do it for the theory of evolution. Theories, even the most powerful and well-supported, can be toppled by a single bit of evidence. So Barker asked Youngren, to produce that kind of thing for the notion of god.

Barker also suggested that the morals of the bible, and of the character of god in particular isn't anything to write home about. Referring to the old testament god as a "war god" and listed several of Yahweh's more ghastly episodes of blood-letting, he asked a question of the audience: who believed in this desert war god Yahweh. (Youngren piped up at this point to say he believed in Yahweh, but Yahweh was not a war god). The point, Barker said, is that most people are nicer, kinder and more compassionate than the god of the Bible. He then pointed to the fact that most of the gods once believed in are now regarded as myth and that everyone in the audience is an atheist with respect to Zeus, or Odin or Thor. The only difference between them and the atheist, he said, is that the atheist goes "one god further."

Youngren, who said growing up in Sweden he lived in a community that was largely atheist, took a different tact, attacking what is sometimes called "New Atheism". In particular he said the works of Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennet, and especially Richard Dawkins, showed a great deal of "rage." Rather then embracing science, Youngren suggested atheists ignore the evidence for the existence of god - including, he said, why many cultures have developed a notion of god. His suggestion was that human beings have an innate sense of morality and knowledge of god. Finally, he said that many scientists are believers in a god, and they point to evidence to support that belief.

This followed about an hour of back and forth debate (interrupted for about 10 minutes by problems with the CAW hall's sound system). They covered a fairly wide variety of subjects, but the heart of the debate turned on two questions: the evidence for god, and the morality of god as presented in the bible (which was a repeat of the above arguments.)

On the first question, Barker noted there was no evidence to support the claims made by believers - who incidentally cannot even agree on a definition of what god is. He further noted that if such evidence existed, as many believers claim, why has it never been presented in a scientific paper? Why not win the Nobel prize?

Youngren didn't really meet these questions head on. Instead he pointed out the number of scientific titans who professed a belief in god - including Albert Einstein. On this point, Barker gave Youngren credit because the pastor didn't make the error of saying Einstein believed in a personal god. Einstein was a kind of deist, rather than a theist and Youngren made a point of making sure that was clear. However, he did note the reasons why Einstein believed what he did, and said, in essence, if it was good enough for him why not for the rest of us?

The Q & A that followed the hour long back and forth covered much of the ground already discussed by the speakers. There were a few stand outs however. Most of the questions were directed at Barker, and were from believers. Many got up to make declarations of faith (which meant I had to tell them to ask a question or give up the mic) but generally wanted to know why Barker did not believe when, as far as they knew, the bible was completely true. Some claimed to have seen miracles and one even asked if Barker, when he was a preacher, ever saw something he could not explain. Barker's primary response was to say that, in effect, declarations of faith were not evidence that god exists. He said he also understood that people think they see healings in churches like Youngren's all the time. He certainly did he believed. However, he admitted that at the time, he made no effort to critically examine what he saw and assumed, because of his belief, that the healings were real. Today he doubts they were, and suggests that most of the time it was merely a case of mind over matter. He said there may have been things that happened that he cannot explain, but his inability to explain them is not evidence of god.

The questions that were directed at Youngren were largely from his own flock and some gave him an easy time, such as the young lady who asked Youngren to explain a statement he made that he could not read through Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. (Yougren said he found the book angry and spiteful and felt Dawkins simply made no sense whatsoever, so he gave up reading.) But the preacher did face a couple of critical questions. One came from Horst Klaus of the Niagara Secular Humanist society. He asked if god was loving, why create animals that ate others? Why create viruses and bacteria that destroy other creatures from the inside out? Youngren replied that man created the harsh world we live through Adam and Eve's rebellion in Genesis. He also countered that God, even it appears he is doing something violent or bad, he still approached people with love.

The debate was, overall, well-mannered and was very well attended for the first time such an event has been held in St. Catharines. I want to think both Mr. Barker and Mr. Youngren for their time and willingness to debate such an important subject.

This is a very brief sketch of the debate that night, and I will be extending an invitation to both Dan and Peter, along with Mr. Klaus to post their impressions of the debate.


From Left: Dan Barker - Freedom from Religion Foundation, Peter Youngren - Niagara Celebration Church, Grant LaFleche - Gadfly, Horst Klaus- Niagara Secular Humanists.

Jesus' Free Gift? Keep it please!

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistant that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.

-Thomas Paine


We've all experienced it at some point or another. It might have been in the form of a Mormon god patrol stopping you in the street. Or maybe the Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on your door before mid-day on a Saturday. It might have been someone on a soap box, or someone handing out those insipid Chick Tracks. Or, if you are a glutton for punishment like me and voice your atheistic views on Youtube, it might have taken the form of an email, comment or private message.

However, you might have experienced it, it's the same: A Christian trying to convert you.

Now, I often hear from people who would rather so called "active" atheists and anti-theists just go away, "Why do you pick so much on Christians? You must hate Christianity more than any other religion." Well, this is demonstrably not true. A quick scan of his blog will show you I take aim at religion generally, and most of the big ones come in for their specific bit of criticism sooner or later. But the fact is I live in a predominately Christian society and therefore it is only natural that I comment most on the world I happen to live in. Where I living in a Muslim or Hindu dominated nation, I'd probably be picking on them more.

Of course, there is another reason as well. No Muslim or Hindu has never, ever stopped me in the street to try and convert me. The cold calling conversion attempt is something that, so far as I know, almost exclusively Christian.

What also marks the attempts by those Christians bent on converting others is how aggressive they are about. Now, maybe this just me, but Mormons in particular seem to be able to hunt me down like a pack of bloodhounds. Maybe I have a bubble over my head with the words "HEATHEN" written on it, or maybe the Mormons have developed some kind of advanced heathen sonar system or something. I don't know. But each year, a pack of three of them find me in downtown St. Catharines. Its a different god patrol every year, but one thing is common: They don't take no for an answer. They just don't.

Take this example from my last run in with the LDS god patrol:

Mormons: "Excuse me, do you have a few minutes to talk about Jesus?"

Me: "No thank you. Goodbye."

Mormons: "Well, sir, it will only take a few minutes and its a message you really need to hear."

Me: "No I don't. I said no. Good day." [walks away]

Mormons: [following] "Well, have you ever considered the power of Jesus to change your life?"

Me: [walking away, cracking knuckles] "What part of no do you not understand? You're barking up the wrong tree."

Mormons: [still following] "Well why do you think that, sir? What tree is that?"

Me: [getting annoyed, still walking] "Buzz off. I'm not interested."

Mormons [still following] "Why is that sir? Why aren't you interested."

Me: [stops and turns around] "Stop following me. Get lost. I said no."

Mormons: "Well, do you know anyone we might be able to call upon who might be more open than you that we can share the message of Jesus with?"

At that point I walked into a bank and the trio of mormons left. What I really wanted to do was introduce them to my knuckles. But I wasn't raised in a barn so I didn't. But man was I sorely tempted.

They just don't give up. But as annoying as Mormon missionaries can be, nothing can be the used car salesman pitch used by Evangelists. Seeing as logic and science and reason are not their strong points, their strategy seems to be to ask a series of stupid question which they obviously thing are so penetrating . Check out the following bits from a Youtuber named Helivz who has been trying to convert me for several days:

"If you claim that Christ, Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit is non-existant, then why are you atheists so hung up on it? There, thats proof enough that a supernatural world does exist; one for good and one for evil.
One day this whole world / universe is going to be governed by Christ and all His followers. Get used to it. If you like losing, then stay on the path you are on. If you like winning, turn to Jesus before it's too late."

" You are my evidence that God does exist. The fact that I believe in God, and that I irritate you is evidence. Now, can you prove that satan doesn't exist?Oops, I don't think so. He was impeached during his last term just before Bush took office."

"Go to a free, Bob Larson rally and you'll see public exorcisms. Still doubt it? Go and confront Mr. Larson to his face, or the person with the demon for that matter, that Larson is ministering to, and see for yourself. That demon will likely name off every secret sin in your life, past and present. I'm offering you proof, but be prepared to be humbled."

" Lets talk about Heaven now.
1.)Streets paved with GOLD.
2.) No more pain, death, sorrow nor devil.
3.) Sin, sickness, disease will be a thing of the past.
4.) Uninterrupted pure joy, peace, contentment.
5.) No more "Madonnas" and "Britney Spears" to lead people into hell.
6.) Eternal life. The list goes on and on.

Why pay a high price for the counterfeit when the best is free?!"

Now, that last is the one that caught my eye. Not because this remotely qualifies as a argument or evidence that the Christian sky god exists. But because of that last line. The one about Jesus being "free."

This is the saddest example of evangelism out there, and it is about as common as a te;evangelist sex scandal.

You see, Christians pull a line from the book of Romans in which Jesus's offer of salvation is a "free gift." Well somewhere along the way, some beliefs left the poetry of the New Testament behind for what I can only describe as used-car salesman preaching. Even more vapid than Pascal's Wager, this is an attempt to hustle you into a religion using pitiful, high pressure sales tactics.

You find this "free gift crap" everywhere. Like this website for instance http://www.itshisstory.com where the "free gift" is offered. Run the words "Jesus" and "free gift" on Google and you'll probably find better examples.

I say its used car sales man tactics because it is that low-brow. You'll hear them say things like "You know, when someone offers you a free gift, you usually think "what the catch?" But there is no catch with Jesus's free gift. It's free! How many things to you really get for free? You've have to be insane not to take something that is free!"

This is really one step away from a some kind of Used Car's by Jesus commerical:

"Hi! I'm Jesus, and have I got a deal for you! Tell me, son, what's it going to take to put you into this religion today? I got a free gift for you! My prices are so low, you'd think I should be crucified!"

I really have to wonder on what kind of mind this sort of huckerism works on. Can you really imagine someone saying "Oh well, its FREE! Well, then I'll just jump on board!"

Of course its not really "free" is it? You have to give up your will, the right to free thought and subject yourself to the authority of those who run a church...and that has always turned out just so great in history, hasn't it?

Still, in a way, its still better than the "convert by stealth" approach advocated by this website

which recommends you become friends with an atheist first and then after burrowing your way into his life, start to work on his mind until he caves.Anyway, to any Christians that might be reading this - get the message. We don't want your "free gift" and we aren't impressed by your car lot sales tactics. So give it a rest!

Oh and before you go, do you have a minute to talk about Charles Darwin and how the Origin of Species will change your life?:

The sound and fury of Dinesh D'Souza - Part 2

People believe that this disease is sacred simply because they don't know what causes it? But some day I believe they will, and the moment they figure out why people have epilepsy, it will cease to be considered divine.

-Hippocrates

The man pictured here on an Iraqi currency is
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham, better known as Al Hazen.

He is a titanic figure in the history of science. His works on optics were absolutely critical in Europe in the 15th century when Europe was pulling it's ignorant ass out of the dark ages during the Renascence. It was Al Hazen, a 10th century Arab, who figured out why we see what we see. That is, how light works.

He used logic, reason and experiment to demolish all the old theories about how we saw things - like the idea that light came from your eyes to light up what you were looking it. Al Hazen figured out that light came into your eye from all the objects around you. And the reason that your eye didn't get confused by all this input was that most of the light rays were refracted in your eye, allowing you to see some light, but not all of it. His work was used later in Europe to figure out problems in geometry, optics and architecture.

There is a pretty good chance you've chance you've not heard of Al Hazen. His name doesn't come up much in high school history lessons (or university lessons for that matter) and it appears, neither has Dinesh D'Souza.

You see, D'Souza likes to claim that everything good about the western world is the baby of Christianity. He really does. And this includes science. Take this from one of his recent blogs promoting his new book:

..where did Western man get this idea of a lawfully ordered universe? From Christianity. Christians were the first ones who envisioned the universe as following laws that reflected the rationality of God the creator. These laws were believed to be accessible to man because man is created in the image of God and shares a spark of the divine reason.

It's a lovely conceit I suppose. It's also completely wrong. Now it is true that for believers, a rational universe created by god makes sense, and explains for them why science works. However, it is utterly false to say that "Western man" first got his idea that the universe was knowable through reason from Christianity.

Apparently, D'Souza has never heard ofAnaxamander, Epidicles or Anaxagoras or Hippocrates. These men went about figuring out how the universe worked long before a certain Hebrew carpenter was a twinkle in a virgin's eye. All of them opperated on the notion that the universe was knowable through reason. Not because a god had created it thus, but because that was how the universe was. Men like Democritus weren't even sure the universe and the Earth had been created at all, and suggested that everything had existed forever. Moreover, they looked for material explanations of the universe. In fact, it is from these Greeks that we get the term "cosmos" - the orderly universe. The important thing to note here is that these men came about to this realization without Christianity and their ideas formed the spine of what would become modern science.

Indeed, once the Christians had finished, or thought they had finished, crushing the Greek schools of philosophy with their crazy ideas of rational inquiry and logic, and Europe plunged into the dark ages, did they continue or improve upon the traditions of Greek science? Not in the least. They turned instead to mysticism and superstition. The bible was all the education anyone needed. Augustine's maxim, "believe and then you'll understand" ruled the day. The natural world, from this point of view, wasn't worth bothering about. You know, life is a veil tears and that sort of thing? That was dark ages Europe for the most part.

But, as Jonathan Miller points out, the term "dark ages" is little more than a cliche because it is impossible to totally wipe out free thought. But it is true that this period was one of deep ignorance compared to what came before it.

Yet rationale inquiry lived on, particularly in the Muslim world. It might be hard for us to imagine it now, with rise in Islamist terrorism and draconian Muslim laws regarding women and blasphemy, but there was a time when the Arab world was the most sophisticated culture on the planet. Long before Muslim clerics came up with the bizarre notion that in order to please god, Muslim societies had to try and restore their world to the days of the prophet, the scholars of Islam were the leading scientists on earth.

Men like Al Hazen had kept the old Greek knowledge alive and were taking the next steps. Picking up where the Greeks left off and advancing human knowledge about the universe. And what is critical to remember about this is that Europe began to dig itself out of the dark ages because of an influx of Arab texts. Where once all Europe had was the bible, religious writings and scraps of Aristotle and Ptolemy, now they had volumes of long forgotten Greek and Roman texts, complete with Arab commentaries - not to mention the direct writings of men like Al Hazen. All of these texts operated on that Greek idea of cosmos. That the universe was knowable through reason. An idea much older, and more profound, than any revelation found in the bible or koran.

The sound and fury of Dinesh D'Souza - Part 1

The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.
-Socrates


It should come as no surprise to anyone that with the success of the atheist and anti-theist books of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and others, that believers would feel an obligation to strike back.

The faithful, particularly in our society in the west, often like to portray themselves as a prosecuted lot. This is particularly true of religious conservatives who imagine any statement that disagrees with their theology is a declaration of war. So we get the annual canard of the "war on Christmas" promoted by the likes of Bill O'Rielly on Fox News, or the recent call for a boycott of the upcoming film The Golden Compass by the Catholic League in New York on the grounds that atheism ought not be taught to children. These spastic attacks on non-belief betray, I think, a fundamental insecurity. They need, badly, everyone to conform to their belief systems. If an alternative view exists that opens the door to the possibility that they are wrong, and that seems to scare the hell out of them.

So a cottage industry has grown up in the shadow of the success of what is sometimes called "New Atheism." I've lost track of out many books have been published as responses to Dawkin's "The God Delusion" and Harris' "Letter to Christian Nation." Most of these books are fairly vapid and fail to answer the questions raised by Dawkins, Harris and others. Maybe that is why so many of them use the atheist author's names in their titles ( "The Dawkins Delusion" and "Letter from a Christian Citizen" for example) and even ape the layout of the book covers. Most of the time, these books simply fall back on tried old theist arguments from design and, more often than not, a variation of "the bible is true because the bible says it is."

More intellectually interesting responses do exist, fortunately. The ones I find the most interesting is presented by American Christian conservative Dinesh D'Souza, whose recent book "What's So Great About Christianity?" is the first attempt I am aware of to try and meet New Atheism on its own ground.

Unlike equally impressive theist thinkers like Alstair McGrath, D'Souza tries to use the same tools modern atheism uses - namely reason, logic, and scientific thinking. McGrath, for this all his brilliance, tends to fall back arguments that say "What I want say is there is SOMETHING about Christianity that we MUST pay attention too." Well, no we don't and that isn't much of an argument.

D'Souza on the other hand often lays out his arguments, at least initially, without directly quoting scripture. He doesn't present a nebulous "something" we should pay attention to. He is presenting a definite something, a kind of concrete Christianity that he argues from. This may be why he is, to my knowledge, the only apologist to hold his own against the formidable Hitchens in debate:




Of course, it's much harder to pin down a McGrath type argument because there isn't much there to grab. D'Souza presents claims that can be more directly scrutinized. And it should be, because D'Souza is presenting arguments that need to be careful considered.

During this debate with Hitchens, held at Christian college, D'Souza lays out his case as to why Christianity is "great". And while he presents his case with vigor, his mining of history is selective and at times, demonstrably false. And so while his claims as being the strongest defender of the faith in the wake of the atheism that Hitchens has played a role in reviving and promoting is not completely without merit, D'Souza certainly does not "debunk" atheism or prove the case the Christianity is true.

I'm going to address a few of the claims D'Souza makes during the Hitchens debate to illustrate what I mean. Here I will address his claim that without god we cannot be moral, and without Christian morals in particular Western Society would never have developed.

In part two I'm going to meet his claim that the Christian world view, and it alone, made science possible.

And in part three, I will address his contention that democracy is essentially a Christian invention - that is without Christianity there would no democracy at all.

....God, morality and an ring of invisibility....

"Without god everything is permissible," often appears in D'Souza's blogs and he repeats it in interviews and debates, including his debate with Hitchens. He sources it, as most people do, to the famous Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, and specifically his book The Brothers Karamazov. Unfortunately for D'Souza, and others who constantly say "As Dostoevsky said...", the old Russian didn't actually write that.

Characters in the novel do express that exact sentiment while questioning whether or not god exists. But using that specific line as a direct quotation is incorrect. Moreover, Dostoevsky puts the words into the mouths of his characters and it isn't clear that Dostoevsky, a hard core rationalist, believed such a thing. Indeed the novel itself makes no authoritative claim about the existence or non-existence of god. Dostoevsky, who to a degree mocks believe in god in the story, leaves the question unresolved.

So for an apologetic like D'Souza to attempt to use the novel as some kind of simplistic and authoritative declaration that morality is impossible without god, and imply that was Dostoevsky's personal view, is strange indeed.

Nevertheless, the phrase, misquoted though it is, does sum up D'Souza's position nicely. Morality comes from god. And if god didn't exist - and by god he means the god he happens to worship - then there is nothing to keep human beings in line. Human nature, from this point of view, is fundamentally weak and people will behave immorally without the guiding hand of a supernatural being who can punish and reward.

This is not a particularly new argument. It's one of the oldest declarations by fiat made by theism generally and Christianity in particular. But D'Souza take the argument a step further and claims, as he does during the Hitchen's debate, that without Christianity the West wouldn't be able to behave morally. That is, Christianity brought morality to us. He makes this claim forcefully in several ways, particularly when discussing the foundations of modern democracy, human rights and so on. I'll discuss more of this specifically in part three (where we'll talk a little bit out historical context) but here the critical point is that D'Souza is saying that the West would not have morality but for the faith.

To put it all another way, without god, the argument goes, we humans decide our morality ourselves. Hence the phrase "anything is permissible." Without god if I say raping a child is good, then it's good. There is nothing to contain every nasty impulse a human being has. One imagines, through this lens, that the pre-Christian world was a barbaric place where no one cared about morality at all.

Well, can we test his claim out? If his claim is true, there should be nothing akin to doing good for it's own sake, or philosophy that discussed a godless origin to universal morality before the Christian era. Well, how could there be? The idea here is that Christianity brought a moral code that had never existed before.

So I present Exhibit A: Glaucon.

No I didn't just sneeze. Glaucon was the older brother of Greek philosopher Plato and it is through a discussion between the pair in Plato's famous Republic that we find a Christainless, and godless explanation for morality.

The books is primarily concerned with one question: "What is justice?" and Plato, through the character of Socrates, takes the long way around to presenting an answer.

In the course of a conversation Glaucon gives us a description that I rather suspect D'Souza would agree with if god is taken out of the question. Glaucon tells a story about the a magic ring, the Ring of Gyges that can turn it's wearer invisible. Thus armed, the possessor of the ring can do whatever they want. No one will be able to punish them. Glaucon is making the case that people are ONLY just when their fear punishment. (Rather like the Christians who say that people are only good because they know god is watching.) With the ring all things are premissible, and human beings being weak as they are, will behave unjustly whenever the chance to do arises.

So to take this analogy to our present discussion, using the Ring of Gyges is like living in D'Souza's world without a god. Everything is premissible.

Socrates though, takes a rather dim view of this. He argued that what is just is an innate quality of human nature. To act unjustly is, ultimately, to act against oneself. When reason rules over our impulses, he said, we keep ourselves in check. As a result, one does good things because they are good. You act justly for its own sake. So the truly just man doesn't need the promise of a reward or the threat of punishment. The just man would not use the Ring of Gyges for ill gain, Socrates said, BECAUSE it is unjust.

I recommend you read the Republic in its entirety because what Plato was saying is critically important. If morality only exists because someone enforces it, then it isn't really moral at all.

So here is a pre-Christian line of thought that suggests a very ethical and moral philosophy, doing good for its own sake, that does not require a god at all. Indeed the imposition of a divine morality would, by this view, cease to make it moral. The very existence of Plato's Republic dashes the notion that morality, by definition, is Christian.

Of course, we all know that morality is not absolute. It evolves. Nearly all societies in the past thought slavery, torture and various other abuses were prefectly fine at some level or another. This includes Christianity, by the by. But as society matures and grows things change. What Richard Dawkins calls "the moral zeitgiest" changes.

D'Souza is correct when he points, for instance, that the Quakers used their belief that all men are equal creations of god as a justification to attack the institution of slavery. But what he leaves out is that the Quakers were a sectarian anomaly. Most believers of the day had no problem at all with slavery because the Bible itself contains no injunction against it. Graven images have a specific commandment banning them, but no such rule for slavery. Not surprising given the book was assembled during a period when slavery was as common place as breathing. It takes Enlightenment era Quakers to reinterpret the Bible, ignoring bits like St. Paul telling slaves to obey their Christian masters, to come a moral conclusion that slavery is wrong. Can we really discount the era these Quakers lived in, an era where the ideas secular humanism and the rule law are reborn in their modern sense? To view them in a kind of religious vacuum is, I submit, foolish.

What's my point after all of this? While I agree with him on most things, I will not go as far as Hitchens to say religion "poisons everything." There are enough examples of religiously motivated people doing good to say "everything" goes a bit too far. But that said, when one considers the great moral acts of people like the Quakers necessitated a drastic reinterpretation of the texts, D'Souza's notion that morality comes from Christianity is rather suspect. Rather believers will pick and choose their morality just like everyone else.

I think Plato was right. While it is very difficult to know the exact origins of our sense of morality (although we know much about it from an evolutionary point of view) there is something of an innate sense of morality in all of us. But it is a vague thing, easily changed by cultural influences. So it is not that Christianity created morality, but that it was used by some in a highly selective manner as justification for their morality. So wherever our moral sense comes from, it doesn't come from religion - particularly a religion which claims to be the sole source of an immutable morality.

The question of right and wrong, of how to treat ourselves and others, has been around in Western culture long before anyone heard about a carpenter's kid preaching in the Holy Land. It is something we still struggle with today, and is far bigger than any declaration of faith.