Saturday, August 16, 2014

It Was a Choice, but….

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If you’re like me, you’ve probably been holding your tongue a lot lately.  I’ll just say it this way; people have a lot of opinions, and they know how to voice those opinions quite well.  I am not just now noticing it, but perhaps I am finally too exhausted to keep up with it.  One of my favorite opinonated people to hate, is Matt Walsh.  According to his facebook page, he is a “news personality”, whatever that means.  If there is a big, or minor, or slightly annoying thing happening in any given week, you can guarantee that Matt Walsh will be writing about it, and more than likely, the friends who post what he wrote about it will slightly agree with him on everything, and slightly disagree with him on everything as well.  You know who you are. 

I’ve been watching with slight amusement these past few days as Mr. News Personality has come under attack for his quick response to the tragic death of Robin Williams.  I didn’t read his blog on this topic, because I have developed a habit of not reading any of his blogs as of late, but I did read the title, which implied that Robin Williams was not a victim of depression, but rather “chose” to end his own life of his own freewill.  Maybe the title was satire, but the response by other opinionated folks, have led me to believe that my initial response to his blog titled “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice” was in fact an attempt to say that Robin Williams is to blame for this horrible act, and was in fact a horrible person for putting his family and those who loved him through this. 

This “sayer of truth” as he describes himself on his Facebook page, has since then written a brilliant piece (I assume it’s brilliant though I didn’t read it) defending his previous blog and attempting to illustrate exactly what he meant and what the difference is between depression and the act of suicide.  I have actually heard this same sentiment repeated several times from different sources over the past few days, and tonight, since I cannot sleep and I actually feel like writing, I want to add my own opinions to this discussion.  Not just because my name is also Matt, but that I have a blog that has my name in it as well.

You see, much like Matt Walsh, I have never committed suicide.  I don’t actually know what it feels like to hit rock bottom.  Sure, I have hit my own “rock bottom”, which is to say that I have hit a low point before that is the lowest that I have ever hit, but I am convinced that my three months wallowing in self pity and borderline depression over a decade ago has nothing on the torment that Robin Williams suffered in his last weeks on this earth.  Sure, Robin Williams made a choice to commit suicide, but it was a desperate choice.

A guy I know recently cut someone off in traffic, and the victim of this horrendous act, followed him twenty miles, honking at him, flashing his lights, flipping him some obscure finger, and no doubt saying some rather dubious things as he tailgated him into the McDonalds parking lot where I’m sure he was going to offer to buy him a burger and then smash his head with it.  He drove off when he realized that he was being recorded and probably needed to take his blood pressure medicine. 

This victim of being cutoff in traffic made a choice, and that choice was rage.  Rage not only cost him twenty miles in gas, but thirty minutes of his life where he quit acting civilized and wanted nothing more than to make my friend pay for his crime by yelling obscenities and probably throwing down in the parking lot.  Rage blinded this once calm motorist, and while his choice was his choice to make, it was made under the influence of anger. 

You can see where this is going right?  Yes Robin Williams made the choice to commit suicide, but it was a clouded choice.  Depression, anxiety, and fear all played a part in clouding Robin Williams’ judgment, and leading him to the point of desperation and isolation.  You can write entire essays about how Robin Williams shouldn’t be celebrated, or how he wasn’t the victim of suicide but rather the perpetrator, but depression (pardon the expression) is a bitch. 

Some people have come out of it better and stronger, and some haven’t.  There are many causes of depression and anxiety, and we could only speculate all the differing causes that might have played into Robin Williams taking his own life.  All we know is that he didn’t choose depression, and it may have taken years to get to the place where he was in those final moments desperately trying to silence the pain.  It’s a tragedy, and let’s not muddy it up by blaming him. 

Suicide happens much more frequently than most of us realize, and it rips families a part, and leaves a lasting legacy wherever it occurs.  I wish it didn’t happen, and I wish we could diagnose it or write it off as pure selfishness, but the underlying problem here is not in the act, but in what shape the person is in when they commit such acts.  In this society today, people are by and large spiritually bankrupt, and hardly even aware of what it actually takes for them to live a healthy, balanced life.  For me it takes a trip to the coast every now and then to silence my frustration and anxiety (I also will accept temporary relief by getting out on my own occasionally and taking pointless walks around a bookstore drinking coffee). 

For me, getting to the ocean is a must as it is on these shores (I prefer the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast, but I’ll take what I can get) that I somehow am transformed into someone who can tolerate the opinions of Matt Walsh a little more (they aren’t all wrong opinions, just annoying that he has so many of them about so many topics and thinks his opinion important enough to share on a daily basis…and also that he calls himself a sayer of truth), and I feel peaceful, and present with my creator.  It’s not something I can explain, but it recharges me and makes me whole. 

People fill up their days with so much noise and activity, and I often wonder how they find time to recharge, or if they even realize their own malnutrition.  Robin Williams seemed like he might have been somewhat of an extrovert, which means I have no idea exactly what he needed to recharge or gain perspective as I’m not wired that way, but I am convinced that the only way to fight depression and ward off the terrible reality of what so many people go through on a daily basis is to pin-point exactly what it is you need most, and to make that a priority from time to time for your sake, and for the sake of those around you. 

What happened to Robin Williams is a terrible tragedy, and I know his family must be going through hell right now.  Let’s not add to the noise by trying to understand what happened, or analyzing whether or not Robin Williams had any right to be depressed in the first place. You can honor him by making sure your own physical and spiritual health is in check, and maybe rewatch your favorite movie of his (we all have a favorite Robin Williams film do we not?) 

If you’re depressed, dealing with anxiety or fear, please seek help, and do not isolate yourself.  People do care about you, whether or not you are willing to accept this truth right now or not.  Things may seem hopeless, but I have lived long enough to know the ebb and flow that we all encounter in this life and can assure you that things will get better. 

Because you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like you. 

Also...do I get extra points for using the word dubious?

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

A Reply to Atheism Part Six: Spaceships

It has been a few weeks since I attempted to write my final reply to atheism, and I think perhaps my biggest reason for delay has simply been that I have been searching for the right thing to say.

I asked my five year old son what I should call this, and he told me spaceships....so there you have it.  

People can come up with a million different answers to the questions that plague us all, and some are logical, and many are nonsensical. That still doesn't stop us from trying. As I mentioned early on, religion has always been about us connecting with God. I could not call myself a follower of Jesus if I believed all religions achieved this feat, but this does not dismiss the fact that something deep inside of every man is searching for the truth.

There are certainly different truths out there that apply to each person in each season they are living, and these are things that resonate in our bones. I cannot say that my truth is higher than your truth, for I am but a man, and certainly prone to my own assumptions and leaps like anyone else.

Am I convinced there is a God? Absolutely. If tomorrow I woke up and somehow had irrefutable proof that God didn't exist, would I still be convinced there is a God? Yes, and yes. It is also my assumption that you will continue to believe what you believe even long after it is proven to be false. Why would I say this? Well, I am convinced that all conclusions are but leaps of faith, and that the conclusion you have, as an atheist, agnostic, humanist, mystic, or whatever, must be based on a truth that resonates deeply in order for you to believe it.

I believe the evidence of God is in everything, and there are some who believe everything is evidence that there is no God. I also can say with all sincerity that I think anyone who doesn't acknowledge the probability of there being a God is extremely closed minded and blind to the truth, and I also acknowledge that they have every right to feel the same way about me and my beliefs. That's okay, there is room for both of us here to exist.

The truth is, my Christian beliefs tell me that only God can call anyone to be a follower of Him, and that the rest are actually blinded to the truth (which is why I have a huge problem with our modern concept of hell and eternal punishment), so I shouldn't be surprised when atheists deny the existence of God, even when I believe the evidence is right in front of them.

Listen, a Christian's greatest asset is his or her testimony. A testimony is regarded as the key reason one decided to be a follower of Jesus, and it rarely has anything to do with intellectualism or being proven through what is seen, the existence of God. It's a point in someones life when all presupposed ideas and closely held truths no longer seem relevant.

For me, it wasn't the fact that I grew up in a Christian household, had a lot of Christian friends, and listened to Christian music (which is something I rarely do anymore, just to clarify). My testimony is that there was a time in my early adult life that I started to wander from my faith, and question a lot of things. During that time I grew further and further a part from the life I had once lived and I found myself in a dark place, mentally, and spiritually.

My rock bottom was probably nothing compared to others, but for me I woke up one day feeling anxious, depressed, and completely cold inside. It's hard to explain, but in my memory I liken it to how thick the darkness feels in an unfamiliar windowless basement once the lights turn out. I remember searching myself for something significant or hopeful, and all I felt was dark and cold. I mentioned previously how people turn to God in hard or tragic times, and in this moment, within the confines of my room, I called on God.

For many people who have attended Church and eventually walked away, you no doubt consider how worship services are constructed (especially in the modern church) to give us warm fuzzies, and you might have even experienced this and now dismiss it as a figment of your imagination brought on by a clever structure of songs and emotions. However, there are times when I have experienced the undeniable presence of God that comes out of nowhere, and completely breaks through my defenses and is so overpowering that I have a hard time standing, let alone reasoning against it.

In that moment, when I called on God for the first time in quite a while, I felt this same overpowering presence, and it overtook me. I have no idea how long I wept, but in my memory, I see myself balled up on my bed, unable to move as something powerful and external washed over me. It wasn't a goosebump sensation brought on by an emotionally driven worship band, but rather an overpowering, almost tangible presence, and once that moment had passed, not only did my atmosphere feel lighter, but I felt cleansed, and restored.

This is why I say that even if you showed me irrefutable proof that God doesn't exist, I would still think He does, because such proof would not line up with what I know to be true. Perhaps my understanding of God, or my knowledge of scripture is askew, but my reality, based on my own story, and my own experiences, demands me to believe, and because of that belief, I see evidence that supports this in everything, from watching my kids, to standing at the edge of the sea, to star gazing, all of these things speak of the grandness and supremacy of God.

I don't think even for a second that my story will convince anyone else to be a believer, and that was never the point of writing these replies.

Lastly, I wanted to explain that part of my delay in writing this had to do with my desire to read and understand a book by Kurt Vonnegut called Cat's Cradle. Mr. Vonnegut referred to himself as a Jesus loving atheist, and perhaps there is hardly another author whom I identify with, in his philosophies and understanding of the world, than he. I'm not going to go into too much detail here about the book, but I did want to discuss it's theme.

Here is the line in the book that pretty much sums up the entire point Mr. Vonnegut is trying to make, and it reads:

No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . No damn cat, no damn cradle.”

The point being made here is that all the institutions of man, whether they be religious, political, or scientific, are pretty ridiculous when you take them a part and actually look at them. In a sense it's the unveiling of the great and powerful Oz to be just a short old man with a few gadgets. Sure the mysteries of the Universe are astounding, and man can be pretty clever and entertaining at times, but what happens when they start digging into things? When suddenly it's not enough for you to exist and be happy, but when you decide to start hunting for the truth? Six words, “No damn cat, no damn cradle”.

So where then does this leave us? When everything we believe to be true is empty and false when viewed through the microscope? Don't get me wrong, I believe in absolute truth, but I also understand man's quest for absolute truth to be rather silly and assumptious, no matter how logical things seem to be. For me it is folly to believe that the complexity of life can evolve from molecules without even a hint of external guidance and planning, (and that's assuming Darwin's theory of evolution is true), and for atheists, it is folly to say otherwise.

Do I believe all truth's are equally true? Absolutely not. I also think that man's attempt to understand it and compartmentalize it, is entertaining and not to be taken too literally. So what then is the point? Well, as I explained earlier, my beliefs state that no one can actually be a follower of God or aware of absolute truth unless he is called to do so. There may be some of you reading this who are not called, but the point is there may also be some who are, and God has been working on your heart throughout this conversation. That you have been recalling all those times before when the path you chose seemed empty and hopeless, and how even then you felt the presence of something guiding you and getting you through it. 

Words are just words, but if you are in a place where suddenly these words ring true and you feel as if the pieces of a very complex and scattered puzzle are coming together, then don't resist or try to reason with it, for a deeper truth is resonating in your bones right now.  For whatever reason, the God of the universe is calling you out and offering to let you in on the secret.  It's terrifying and exciting, and it's a purpose worth living if you'll respond to this call.

For the rest of you, I'll just leave you with the words of Kurt Vonnegut found in the dedication of his book “Cat's Cradle”:

"Nothing in this book is true. 'Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy'."


If God calls you, then you'll know. Until then, good luck in your quest for truth, and never stop questioning, even in the things you believe to be true, for this makes us sharper, and more aware of how little we actually know.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

My Reply to Atheism Part 5: What Science Actually Says About God's Existence

Over the course of this discussion there have been many times when I had to remind myself of how clueless I must sound to those believing they are of the “rational mind” variety. I have probably discussed religion more than I have any real evidence of there being a creator, and I have done so only because my own doubts (some of which are still there) spawned first from my understanding of God through the person and life of Jesus. Most people who are atheist or agnostic have already moved past these questions, and I had hoped to at least invite them back into the place where questioning is still relevant in the light of this present age.

Earlier this week, we got to witness two titans of opposing fields square off in a debate that seemed to capture the attention of millions across the world. It was a discussion about “Creationism” and if it has a place in the scientific theorem of origins. Bill Nye, a science guy, and Ken Ham, also a science guy and founder of the Creation Museum, had a respectable exchange of words on the topic of evolution, young earth science, and whether or not it was dangerous to believe things that so obviously denied that which science has proven as factual. As I mentioned earlier, I do not hold a particular stance on this issue, but I do maintain a certain level of criticism in dealing with both accounts. I see both sides of this debate to be struggling with ideologies that are based on great leaps of faith. Both have a lot to say in terms of evidence and how this breaks down, but Ken Ham is right in his assertion that we weren't there to witness when or how it happened, so everything we believe is in fact faith based.

I didn't bring this up to discuss evolutionary science and creationism, but rather to discuss the wave of criticism Bill Nye received for accepting Ken Ham's invitation to participate in this debate. People were outraged, thinking that the very act of entering into this debate means he is giving “creationism” credibility, and that he was doing a huge disservice to science by pretending that there was anything to debate at all. This mindset for me is terrifyingly dogmatic, as it sets up a precedence that says what we know is true and factual, and not up for debate, even when what they know is true and factual is only based on the presuppositions they hold, that is, things they presume to be true but can't actually prove.

Much in the same way I consider our knowledge of God to be deeply flawed, I also feel that our knowledge of the ancient world, as well as the cosmos is also, in all probability, deeply flawed. Scientists are constantly learning and updating their theories based on the latest “discoveries”, but most of the information we know is derived at by making great leaps of faith (even when they are disguised as practical predictions) about certain events that are concluded as most probable.

If the Christian equation is that the Bible claims God made the heavens and the earth in six days, and that according to the genealogy listed, places creation sometime around 6,000 years ago, then all discoveries must fit within this time frame for a Creationist, and if it doesn't, it must be reinterpreted, through the scope of physical events that could have caused such and such to happen. They point to catastrophic events such as a global flood as a viable explanation. I don't know if it explains enough, but when you read the research you can see why they think the way they do.


On the other side, you have a majority of scientists who believe that 14 billion years ago, or there about, there was this matter that exploded (big bang) that over the course of 10 billion years created the universe we now live in and are trying to understand. From there we have theory after theory of how everything was formed, how life evolved, and how Dinosaurs went extinct. What is not commonly understood however about this version of the creation story is how this matter got there and where it came from. In fact, I asked someone once about this, and they said that scientists mostly consider this unknowable, and choose to spend their efforts researching things we can know.

While all of this is considered the consensus, it too is based in faith. It's believing in something that cannot be proven, and basing all events after on such an assumption. Both theories have a structure that relies heavily on faith, and from that structure, the theories and mathematics take shape to paint vastly different pictures. It is up to you to decide which one is more rational, but to dismiss creationism as having nothing to do with science, or not including it in the conversation is absurdly closed minded given the leaps of faith we already take in the more popular story of creation.

Perhaps the one thing that has made many evolutionists uncomfortable in this present age is the growing support among scientists, especially those who deal in biochemistry, whose research has actually led them to conclude that basic Darwinian theorem doesn't actually add up, and that it is entirely unlikely that life just showed up on this planet on it's own. Some scientists have the theory that the first cells actually arrived here from outer-space, and that there is no way to tell exactly what it had evolved from as it is virtually unknowable in our present age, but could possibly be known some day.

Other scientists however have started to embrace the idea of Intelligent Design, and while many of them make no claims to religion, they insist it is much more likely that something external, outside of our reality, must have set things into motion and designed life to be the way it is.

Michael Behe, a biochemist and professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, once said in discussing what happened to him when he broke down the basic structure of a cell and noticed it's complexity, that “A man from primitive culture who sees an automobile might guess that it was powered by the wind or an antelope hidden under the car, but when he opens up the hood and sees the engine, he immediately realizes that it was designed”.

What biochemists and other scientists in related fields are coming to terms with, is the very notion that even with all these great theories and things widely regarded as factual, that the more we learn about that which we can actually learn, that is that which can be studied in a lab and not just through the schemes of presuppositions and careful mathematics, that these things just don't add up. What's worst is that they have been met at the crossroads of their discoveries by an increasingly vicious body of “believers”, that is people who regard any notion of creation or design as being rubbish while holding firmly to their own beliefs in the very theory being questioned, in a similar fashion as the Church once held on to it's position against science when these theories were first introduced.

Instead of constructive and helpful debate, these dogmatic scientists attack and devour all who oppose their long held faith in a theory masked as scientific fact. They compare evolution to things such as gravity, and grow mad at the notion of anyone doubting it's existence. As I have sat on the sidelines over the course of the past two decades trying to keep tabs on the debate and hearing both sides, I have determined that the only “rational” people in this debate are those who seem to be able to embrace both points of views without clinging to their own supposed ideas of what is true. Bill Nye spends a lot of time talking about how important it is for kids to grow up with a “correct” understanding of Science and how it works, but he fails to realize how important it is to be exposed to various views as this alone can teach our children to have critical minds willing to weigh evidence and not to buy into everything they are told to believe.

Now, with that said, I wanted to shift gears here and explain why I think the evidence of God is constantly in front of us if we only knew what to look for. To think that science could prove or disprove his existence is a stretch beyond any faith that I could muster, but according to the Apostle Paul, God's invisible attributes, or rather the evidence of His existence can be found in nature. So let's examine real briefly something incredibly fundamental, and that being atoms.


Atoms are commonly known as the building block of matter. Atoms are small...incredibly small. It is said that one million atoms lined up side by side are as thick as a human hair.

Atoms are made of smaller parts called protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and neutrons are in the center of the atom, called the nucleus, which is one-millionth of a billionth of the volume of the atom. I remember in biology class, this is where we typically stopped in discussing atoms, but atoms are actually made up of even smaller particles, and those particles...yup, even they are made up of smaller particles, further and further into the subatomic world.

Ever since the electron was discovered in 1897, we have come across an astonishing number of new particles, such as bosons, hardrons, baryons, neutrinos, mesons, leptons, pions, hyperons, and taus. Glutons were discovered, which hold particles together, and this has all led to an inconceivably small particle called muon. By now somewhere around 150 subatomic particles have been identified, with the latest being the terribly elusive but important particle known as Higgs Boson.

The thing about particles is that they are constantly in motion, exploring all possible paths from point A to point B at the same time. Electrons for instance don't just travel around a nucleus, but rather they are known to disappear and reappear elsewhere without traveling the distance in between. Particles vanish and then show up somewhere else, leaping from one location to another, with no way to predict when or where they will come or go. This movement is known as quantum leaps...and you thought that was just a television show. A single electron can do forty-seven thousand laps around a four-mile tunnel—in a single second.

The fun thing about particles is that they seem to always know what the other particles are doing without any clear sign of communication. We can't predict what they are going to do, or what path they are going to travel, but they seem to always show up exactly in the right place they need to be. In other words, in the sub-atomic world, things don't actually function the way scientists have assumed the rest of the universe functions, as in particular laws and motions that can be known. Things come and go, disappear and appear, spring and leap and communicate and demonstrate awareness of each other, all without appearing to pay any attention to how the world is supposed to work.

Now here's the thing, all of this is going on while you sit there...or stand...or whatever, unaware of what goes on every fraction of every second of every day. The chair you sit on, well that's just made up of atoms (which is actually 99.9% empty space). The computer you use? Well that operates the way it does based on our knowledge of the quantum theory. It's all invisible, all unseen, and yet as a unit, creates something functional and physical that is, as best we can determine, real.

Tangible, material, physical objects, well they are made up of particles in motion, bouncing off each other, crashing into each other, coming in and out of existence billions of times in billionths of a second, existing in ghost states and then choosing particular paths for no particular predictable reason. Your chair might seem solid, but that is a bit of an illusion. Your chair is just a relationship of energy.

Everything, from planets to tea spoons may appear to be solid, but are at their core endless frenetic movements of energy.

Now consider you...yes you. You are made up of trillions of atoms. You lose fifty to one hundred fifty strands of hair each day (if you have hair that is), and shed ten billion flakes of skin. Every twenty-eight days you get completely new skin, and every nine years your entire body is renewed. Yet in the middle of all this shedding and dying and changing and renewing, somehow your body continues to remember “you”.

Your body is made up of around seventy-five trillion cells, every one of those cells containing hundreds of thousands of molecules with six feet of DNA in every cell containing over three billion letters of coding. These cells are potent blend of matter and memory—bones and hair and blood and teeth and at the same time personality and essence and predispositions and habits.

Millions of cells, drifting through the universe, assemble and configured and finely tuned at this second to be you, but inevitably moving on in the next seconds to be other things and other people. The atoms that make you you in this very second are not the same atoms that made you you a few minutes ago, and yet you stayed the same, nothing changed except, well you know...everything.

The basic elements of life are actually quite common—hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and a few others. The dirt below us, the sky above us, the sun, moon, stars, we're all made of the same stuff. You share over 60 percent of your genes with fruit flies, over 90 percent with mice, and 96 percent with large apes...and yet your DNA is uniquely yours. You are not carbon copies, you are a unique physical creature sustained by an immense amount of energy going on at the sub-atomic level.

Through all of this, these trillions of atoms, when put together responding to the coding and the unique structure of who you are, make you you. Somehow these things know, and are directed, and over the course of the seconds they stay with the whole, they don't change it but rather become part of who you are.

Those trillions of atoms that make you you, they form molecules, and those molecules form cells, and those cells form systems—nervous, immune, limbic, circulatory, digestive, muscular, respiratory, skeletal, and so on. Those systems eventually form a far larger, more complicated system which we know to be you. Trillions of atoms coming and going, billions of times a second, all of them knowing their place within the hierarchy that is you.

Do you understand how incredible this is? What orders these things to respond the way they do? How they they know where to go and what place they belong in the short moments between when they enter and when they leave the hierarchy? Can we assume that natural order just is, and that these things just exist, and that all order is simply controlled chaos?

What's more, even with this natural order, does this account for consciousness and awareness? For poetry, and language, and society? Does this account for our ability to have an invisible consciousness that responds to more than just instinctive behavior?  If you were taken a part, atom by atom, there would be nothing there that is uniquely you, and yet put together, not only do you exist visibly, but your consciousness is self-aware and function.  Where is your consciousness?  Is it in the wiring of your brain?  Can electric pulses firing off in your brain somehow create a self-aware creature that lives for more than just being alive?  That responds to more than just what is needed to survive? 

We can make the bold claim that things are the way they are and have always been the way they have always been, and even that atoms are simply responding to natural order, but in the end, the way our brains respond and perceive cannot be accounted for by some natural phenomenon.

I believe that this energy that flows through us, and that sustains life and creates consciousness and order cannot be accounted for when we are considering something as wonderful, and profound as natural order. This is why I consider it a greater leap of faith to declare that all of this has happened through accidents and wonderful coincidences. I find it completely illogical to say that this hierarchy is formed without any real intelligence navigating each moving piece, (all several trillion of them) to respond and behave in the way they need to in order to maintain the coding found in each of our unique strands of DNA.

I am convinced that scientists only accept the concept of a cosmic accident because there is no other possible explanation. I mean how lucky are we that glutons exist to hold all these particles together?

Once you remove God from the equation you are left with what you must consider rational, which leaves many to marvel at the incredible power of nature, while not seeing the obvious and more practical solution of something external programming this to happen. Logic would tell us when we come across a computer that it was made by intelligence that exists outside of that computers hierarchy. The computer responds to the way it was programmed to respond until let's say a capacitor goes bad, or jumper short circuits, and then what? The electricity stops and the computer stops functioning.  When this happens to a living being, we call this death.  Both things, a computer, and a human brain are complex machines that require electricity in order to function.  Yet we can look at the brain and somehow call it, with all it's incredibly complexity and wiring, the product of billions of years of accidental progress guided by a natural order that in all practicality, shouldn't exist. To say all of this happened by accident would be to deny the obvious.

It doesn't matter what your view is on religion, or theology, these things can be dismissed for many obvious flaws, but to dismiss the notion of design by intelligence? You, my good atheist, have a lot more faith than I ever could.  

Monday, February 3, 2014

A Reply to Atheism Part 4: Blood Shed and Problematic Scriptures

It might be a bit hard to understand why I have chosen to focus so much on problems people have with Christianity, verses the idea of God in general and why I believe the proof of God is evident and completely rational. I am saving this discussion for my final article, as I am merely walking us through the problems I faced in deciding what I believed. The questions I am answering here are the questions I asked ten years ago when I found myself surrounded by doubt, and since I understand God, through the person of Jesus and the gospel message, then I obviously started with my own understanding and went from there.

Atheists seem to have a hard time with the concept that a believer can take issue with the same problematic fundamentals of Christianity and still come out a believer in spite of this. I have had numerous conversations where I unwittingly defuse the conversation by nodding my head and exclaiming, “I know, right?” The truth is, all of the atheists I know (and I mean all) used to be Christians, and therefore their understanding of God is also filtered through the story and person of Jesus. A lot of what made them give up on the concept of God started with the same questions I had to get past as well. I have already discussed how I understand the concept of hell to be presented in the Bible verses how the Church handles this discussion today, and how attacks on the authenticity of historical Christianity are not open and shut cases, but rather stories that do still hold merit, and are only subject to what we prefer the “truth” to be based on our own assumptions about things that history continues to interpret differently.

When discussing the Christian Bible, obviously it doesn't do anybody any good to pick it a part piece by piece. I will acknowledge that the Bible is clearly not without error, and that the majority of the errors are due to the English language doing a poor job in containing all the meaning and emphasis of the Greek language, and scribes who made small errors here and there in preserving these books and letters for future generations. I still hold that the crux of the gospel message is still intact, given how the early Church responded to it and how their understanding of the sacred books is not all that different than it is today.

Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar, and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has written several books on this subject. He became an agnostic after becoming an evangelical Christian and struggling with the concept of evil and suffering (which we addressed in my second article on this subject). I have read some of Ehrman's work, namely his book “Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed The Bible and Why”. In this book, Ehrman concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament texts in order to deemphasize the role of women in the early church, to unify and harmonize the different portrayals of Jesus in the four gospels, and to oppose certain heresies. Ehrman contends that certain widely held Christian beliefs, such about the divinity of Jesus, are associated not with the original words of scripture but with these later alterations. While I found the glimpse he painted of the early Church and how the scriptures were copied and in some cases altered fascinating, I also disagreed with the conclusion that our present understanding of the divinity of Jesus is due to these changes. I look to early Church thinkers such as Justin Martyr, and I see a view of Jesus and the gospel message that is very much in line with what we understand today (though clearly what we understand today is a lot more polluted by theology and years of false assumptions).

It might be likely that the amateur scribes in the early Church did make errors, but the only proof that Ehrman really put on the table had to do with situations where the error was discovered and corrected. Perhaps the biggest problem I see in our current understanding of scripture has more to do with the fact that we live 2,000 years after it was written and some of the ideas, concepts, and dialogue was written specifically for those in Rome, or at least under the empires influence. In order to clearly understand scripture, you can't just read it for face value, but rather in the context to which it is being written.

Some things admittedly do not make any sense at all, especially when Paul is writing about cultural issues. Remember, Paul's letters were considered helpful and beneficial to the Church, which is why they were included in the canon of scripture the orthodox Church put together, but I do not think that Paul was correct in every thing he said, nor do I think he was referring to his own letters when describing scripture as being “God breathed”, or rather “inspired” by God. He may have had great insight into some things that were hidden to others, but his words have also caused more division and and confusion than any other document in the Bible, and since we know that God is not the author of confusion (Paul's words, not mine), than it is safe to say that Paul, being human, wrote things that may not apply to anyone other than the people he had intended as it's recipient. Some of his words, he claims were by revelation, but I do not think he claims the whole as such. In the same fashion, the sacred scrolls that made up the Old Testament, were written by people and not by God. God inspired them, and being the creator of all things, could no doubt decide what was saved and what was forgotten, but it's incredibly naive to believe that Bible is without error.

Perhaps the greatest testament to the Bible as it sits today however is in how few errors there are considering the fact that it contains 66 books, written over a period of about 1,500 years, and the message of death and redemption remains just as fluid and vital as it ever has.

What I have learned however is that many people who leave the Church do so out of a misunderstanding of scripture, not by error of their assumptions, but rather by those who they look to for answers, such as preachers and seasoned Christian friends. There comes a time when the questions can no longer be dismissed with a “just believe”, and they can no longer go on pretending that it makes sense through the filter of a rational mind. As I stated in an earlier article, I like to leave some things up to mystery, but if we can't rationalize with the most fundamental things about a certain philosophy or religion, then it cannot be fully believed for it no longer resonates as truth.

I am a firm believer in “experiencing” truth, and this means that if something doesn't sit well with me, it must be understood to the point where it does, or left behind to be replaced by a truth that does. This may seem like a “new age” principal to some of you, but I am not speaking of “feelings” here, but rather the taste I get when I know what I just heard, or saw, or experienced was true. It's like sitting through a sermon or a lecture struggling to listen while arguing in my head about a point being presented to me, only to be replaced by a revelatory experience when something is said that I deem to be profound in that it helps to draw into focus an understanding that I didn't before have.

Years ago when I was trying to figure out what exactly I believed, a good friend of mine suggested I read a book called “Conversations with God”, written by Neale Donald Walsch. The premise of the book was simple: A man was struggling with his faith, he felt the impression to sit down and write a question to God, and then miraculously his hand was guided to answer the question by the super natural. Again, if I believe in the concept that a creator exists and all of life came from His imagination, then the notion that God could direct a persons subconscious to write answers to very difficult questions, doesn't seem all that far fetched; so I read it.

Over the course of the several weeks I spent on this book, I saw certain scriptures interpreted differently, and at times I even had a moment where I put the book down and had to really contemplate several new notions about God and our own divinity. I was thoroughly confused and perplexed throughout the reading and found myself considering what the book had to say. In many ways the concepts and ideas were exciting, and I found myself wanting them to be true. The book, as it turns out has a very Eastern take on religion, one that shows up in Buddhism a great deal, and many New Age philosophies. In fact, some of the concepts even show up in ancient gnostic writings (early church writings deemed heretical) as well as Mormonism, and several Universalist Churches. I can't pretend that this reading didn't have an impact on me in how I viewed God and the role of man, but in the end, once I closed the book, I didn't have the taste of truth on my lips.

Listen, last night on my way home from work, I stopped at the store to buy some ice cream, and mistakenly picked up “lite ice cream”. Now for anyone who knows me, you know that I do not believe in artificial sweeteners, and I try to stay away from poisonous things such as High Fructose Corn Syrup and Sucrose. The experience is always the same: It tastes just like the actual regular ice cream except I know at the bottom somewhere in my taste buds and collective memory that it's a tad bit sweeter and there is something bitter in the sweetness. That is what I experienced after reading “Conversations with God”, and that is what I experience every time something seems to be true but just doesn't resonate the way truth resonates. It tastes a bit too sweet, with a touch of bitterness.

The problem we face in today's age is that we replaced experiencing truth with abstract thought, and have built structures around our hearts that keep us closed off to things that cannot be understood through deduction and reason. This goes back to what is commonly referred to as the “Golden Age of Reason”, where man, maybe for the first time, started to understand that things could be understood through observation and deduction, rather than some deity giving knowledge out like presents to those he deems worthy. In this age, the “Scientific Method” was discovered, and through it, we were personally delivered out of the dark ages and into an age with endless possibilities. Superstition started to become a thing of the past, and man reasoned that if given enough time, he can understand everything there is to understand.

In his book, “What We Talk About When We Talk About God”, Rob Bell (A great book worth checking out that goes a lot deeper into these things than I intend to go) points out that this Enlightenment Leap has “handed us a number of ways of understanding the world that have worked on us and influenced us for several hundred years now in positive ways. But these understandings also have limits, limits that we become acutely aware of when we talk about God”.

He mentions the first limit being how we filter knowledge, and how reason and logic has become more prominent, while the other ways of knowing have become less emphasized. He asks if everything we know has to be proven intellectually, then what about that which we know absolutely and positively to be true, but would be hard pressed to provide evidence if asked? He goes on to say that “most things in life we're most sure of, many of those events and experiences that are more real to us than anything else, lots of sensations we have no doubt actually happened (such as falling in love, being moved by a song, etc) these are things we cannot prove with any degree of scientific validity.”

The point he made, and the one I am trying to make here, is that the human experience is more than just logic, and that truth can be understood not just through a microscope, but also through our other sensations. Perhaps I have a leg up on some people because I am an artist and I experience this world through sensations that lead me to be inspired and to stir up my creativity. When I go a long time without refilling my tank on what inspires me, I not only become a worst artist, but I tend to become an awful human being. It is the way I am wired, that I only feel rested and tranquil when I have experienced things that resonate truth and life in my bones.

When I went through my “intellectual” phase of trying to reason and understand everything, I also went through my darkest phase, where I became less peaceful, more of a cynic, and borderline depressed. It wasn't that the notion of God not existing somehow made me hopeless, but rather that I wasn't experiencing life the way it was meant to be experienced. It's like eating a diet of nothing but bran flakes and wheat germ, eventually you lose the taste for food and eating no longer seems all that interesting or appealing.

What does this have to do with “Blood Shed, and Problematic Scriptures”? Well, when I read the Old Testament during my days of doubt and intellectual reason, I grew extremely angry at the stories of Israel being told by God to go and commit genocide. I detested the notion that God would have Abraham go through such a daunting test as to actually come inches away from sacrificing his very own son. Don't get me started about how unfair it was that God hardened Pharaohs heart to the point where He sent plague after plague on Egypt and eventually killed all first born males. Then there's what happened to Lots wife as they were leaving their home behind, when she looked behind to see the fire reigning down from heaven, and was turned into a pillar of salt. Yes, it was great that Israel finally made it to the promised land, but why did they have to kill so many in their way, including women and children? Then, once they arrived, they occupied cities they didn't build, harvested from fields they didn't plant, and benefited from the toil and labor of those who they drove out.

Then, let's talk about how unfair God was to His own people. If God didn't commission them to go out and fight a battle, they would lose, and lose badly. When they went through times of rebellion, God would allow them to suffer and be taken as hostage. At one point He decided to allow His entire people, you know, the chosen children of Israel, to be slaughtered and only keep a scattered remnant alive. Then of course you move on and see how God loved the world so much that He sent His only son to die a brutal death he didn't deserve, and how all of his disciples faced certain death for their role in keeping His legacy and story alive.

The Bible is not a clean, tidy little book. In fact there are many stories I won't read to my children because they are just too graphic. The beautiful depiction of Noah and the animals escaping on a giant boat might fit well within Sunday School, but the implication that God got fed up with the flawed people He created and that this flood meant certain doom for millions of people and countless animals. Then when you ask a religious person why all this happened and their best answer is because man is flawed and we live in a fallen world, it's enough to make you want to slam your head into a giant family Bible...repeatedly.



What about Adam and Eve, and how they lived in a garden and God put a tree there he told them not to eat from. Imagine your father making a delicious breakfast and filling the table with meats and fruits of all kinds, only to place a plate of chocolate chip cookies in the middle while instructing you to eat anything you want but not the chocolate chip cookies, for if you do, you will surely die. According to the story, Adam and Eve had never disobeyed God before, and we can only assume they had never been lied to before. This story implies that the temptation was there, and then God allowed His enemy to coerce these naive creatures into doing the one thing God told them not to.

Now, I have my own conclusions about all the things written above, and have studied a great deal in trying to understand these things, but for the sake of time, I wanted to explain what helped me get through it more than anything else. No, not booze, and there certainly wasn't a peace pipe involved. No, it was reading one very simple verse found in the book of Ezekiel, that records the words of God to the prophet Ezekiel where He says “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, therefore repent and live”. Reading all of these stories with that one scripture in mind, suddenly things became a lot more clear. In fact, starting with this verse found in Ezekiel, there are many verses in the Bible that record God's words to His prophets that imply that God isn't out to torment His people or make them children of war, or to suffer, but rather that He wants them to be set a part so as to be a light in a world that is increasingly evil and hostile. He gave people opportunity after opportunity to make it right, explaining that if they would heed the words of the prophets and return to Him, then He would continue to protect them and give them favor, but if they refuse, hey bad things are going to happen because that's just how it is.

Ever notice how people tend to seek out God during hard times? Maybe they are just looking for answers, but I think going through the fire makes us willing to seek actual truth that resonates, verses how we live when times are great. The entire human story is one about death and redemption, ebb and flow, and while man's understanding might have progressed to contain knowledge that was never before even conceived, there is still a lot that we do not understand, or only understand through experience.

The cosmos itself is a great example of this, and while Scientists can explain a lot of what goes on in the cosmos, (though only about 4% of the Universe is even actually knowable), nothing can take away from what we experience when we travel beyond the city lights and experience the night sky through the unfiltered spectrum of standing in a dark field and seeing it through the eyes of experience. Some of my most profound spiritual experiences have happened under such skies, and in that moment, there is no doubt of God's existence, even though it is not something I can fully comprehend. It's something experienced that resonates deeply within my bones that this story is much bigger than man, and much too fantastic to fit within the tidy boxes of theology, philosophy, and anything our finite minds could ever fully understand.

In her book “Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint”, Nadia Bolz-Weber recounts how she was stuck in traffic one day as she became lost in thought while staring at the vivid blue sky through her windshield, and recalled thinking about the outrageous out-there-ness of space. “The beauty of our sky is really just a nice way for the earth to protect us from the terror of what's so vast and unknowable beyond. The boundlessness of the universe is disturbing when you think about it. It's too big and we're too small.” She writes, “Suddenly, in that moment, all I could think was: 'What the hell am I doing? Seminary? Seriously? With a universe this vast and unknowable, what are the odds that this story of Jesus is true? Come on, Nadia. It's a f***ing fairy tale.' And in the very next moment I thought this: 'Except that throughout my life, I've experienced it to be true.”

In the next paragraph, Nadia writes that even when her mind protests, she still cannot deny her experiences. I think this is true for countless others who would classify themselves as seekers. They aren't religious, and they aren't dogmatic, and they understand that they could be wrong, but there is something buried inside that cannot be denied and continues to navigate our lives even when we are trying so desperately to get away from it.

Rob Bell writes in his book mentioned earlier, that “faith and doubt aren't opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it's alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt aren't opposites; they are, it turns out, excellent dance partners”.

Even when things seem to fall a part, and life itself brings more hurt than we deem necessary, it's vital that we not forget our own story and experiences. This is the one thing that led me out of my own dark ages, it wasn't a scientific theory, or a profound discovery that the Earth wasn't flat after all, it was remembering my own story, and what I have experienced not as a Christian, but just by being alive enough to experience things that no Science book could ever teach me.

It seems odd to me that so many people want proof of God's existence through the Scientific method, when God is the very life force behind everything we can scientifically observe. I'll explain what I mean in my next post, What Science Actually Says About the Existence of God.



Friday, January 31, 2014

A Reply to Atheism Part 3: Historical Nonsense

It is a very difficult task to prove to an atheist that God does exist, when proof is all preferential. What I mean is that we determine truth in very different ways while looking at the same evidence. I could explain that anyone looking for proof of God's existence should look no further than the tip of their own noses and marvel at the complexity and design of human life, let alone the environment they find themselves in and the incredible capacity of man to dream, scheme, and accomplish just about anything he sets his mind to.

An atheist could point to the same “evidence” I listed and marvel at how wonderfully advanced man is considering what he came from, and think only of accomplishments while dismissing any silly notion of a creator designing man to have such capacity. An atheist can claim that there is no evidence of God, and dismiss religion as folly, where as a believer could point to everything as proof of existence of God and dismiss the intentions of man as folly. In other words, we all have the same “evidence”, but it is viewed and interpreted vastly differently depending on what worldview you presume to hold.

The same can be said in interpreting historical events. For instance, there are a lot of people who rightfully point out that the story of a global flood as written in Genesis, is not unique at all and that it exists in many other traditional religions, such as Greek mythology (Babylon), Mesoamerican (Aztec), several Aboriginal stories (Australia), Hinduism, Native American, among others. Their claim is that the flood never actually existed, at least not on a global scale, and that the proof is in how many other religions include this unlikely story of a global flood, and a hero who escapes on a giant vessel with his family and some animals.

I could take the same information however, and point to the fact that every religion mentioned here somehow manages to reach every region of the Earth, and if this did in fact take place, then naturally it would be part of that cultures heritage as a literal known event passed down from generation to generation starting with Noah himself.

My point here is that we all have the same evidence, and it's how we interpret the evidence that determines our belief. I am not an historian, nor a scientist, so I will leave a lot of the technical debate up to those who spend their lives researching these things, and all information I share here is public information and not something I discovered and am currently sitting on while waiting for a book deal.

The institution of Science is a vast body of educated men and women, with differing opinions, and intentions in their field. A scientific consensus is not a concrete fact but rather an established truth that is based on the most likely outcome as determined by those doing the research. There are many Scientists on both sides of any issue when determining things that cannot be concretely determined. As I mentioned, we all have the same evidence before us, but the difference lies in the presupposition one might hold in examining such evidence. There are many scientists who believe the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and there are many who think it less than 10,000 years old. From both sides people tend to scoff at the other, but when you read how it all breaks down and how scientists had come to determine such age, you'll find that it all comes back to mathematics starting with a presupposed theory. I could care less if the Earth was thousands, or billions of years old, and I don't think my faith is determined by what is true in this discussion. Civilization itself is less than 10,000 years old, so we can start there and determine whether or not the events of the Bible were true, or if they were based on superstitious lore handed out by the nearest pagan culture.

If you wanted to research the age of the Earth or whether or not a flood occurred, there are plenty of articles online that come from all different viewpoints and arrive at all different conclusions. A great place to start in researching the science from an “Intelligent Design” angle would be the website “answersingenesis.org” which not only bolsters a top rated cast of ID Scientists, but also attempts to answer all of these questions in articles that range from simple, to incredibly complex. Have at it.

As for this particular article, I wanted to address two of the most common and crippling charges people might make against historical Christianity. These two questions led me to almost throw in the towel myself, and are the main talking points people like Bill Maher use in attacking the Christian faith.

No Records of Israelites in Egypt as Slaves or of the Plagues

For years now archaeologists have been trying to find proof of a large settlement of slaves near Egypt, that Egypt actually had slaves at the time the Hebrew's were thought to be there, and if in fact many plagues destroyed parts of Egypt and that this large group of 2 million people actually left, on foot, through a divided sea that wound up consuming Pharaohs men as they pursued them. People rightly point out that they have yet to find any records of any such events taking place, and that surely there would be some evidence given just the sheer size of the population that left. There are countless articles that state that there is absolutely zero evidence to support the claims of the Bible, and that it is a myth.

Back when I first encountered this argument, I read many articles that made similar claims. I remember being troubled over this as I looked for any answer whatsoever that could explain this lack of evidence. The Bible seemed so descriptive, even with it's story about Joseph and his rise to fame in and prominence in Egypt, his grain silos, and even an Egyptian royal burial, yet the accusation of it never occurring stared at me, unmoving, daring me to prove it wrong. Then I came across a small thread of discussions that made the charge that our decades old understanding on Egyptian history, dynasties, and all recorded events might be seriously flawed. Apparently there were some making the claim that the occupation of the Israelite slaves would have actually been during a different dynasty altogether, and that if we simply move from the 18th dynasty to the 12th, everything begins to make sense and actually line up with not only the claims of the Bible, but also the time-line given.

First of all, and this is a common talking point, the Egyptians were not known for recording defeats or embarrassing events, such as a large group of slaves overthrowing the government, so it would be hard to find any official record of the plagues and the journey to Canaan that cost the Pharaoh many lives. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that Egypt tended to rewrite it's own history, and could have just simply pretended that this never happened, even when it comes to giving credit to those Hebrew's who helped build their pyramids. However, Joseph being an important and celebrated figure, there must be some account for his presence there, right? Funny you should ask.




There is a figure, known as Imhotep who served as vizier of Pharaoh Djoser during the 3rd Dynasty, who was known as the chief designer of the step pyramid, which had a design used all over Egypt at that time, and was known to store grain. What's more, the “famine stele” found near the first cataract of the Nile tells the story of Djoser's dream, and how he asked Imhotep to help save Egypt from the coming seven years of famine. In fact, if you haven't guessed it yet, there are many who believe Imhotep and Joseph were in fact the same person, and the similarities went on to describe not only how he bought up a lot of the land except for that belonging to priests, charged a 20% tax, married the daughter of a high priest, and lived to be 110, serving multiple Pharaohs.

Okay, so Imhotep (Joseph) became sort of a god after he died and there is no mention of his connection with the Hebrew slaves, but why would there be? He was an important figure that literally saved Egypt, and held influence across the land up until his death. The fact that his descendants wound up getting forced into slave labor, and that the Pharaohs who ruled during this time knew very little of Imhotep's heritage, let alone the growing Hebrew population in a near by settlement, means nothing in terms of it actually happening. The question then is, if the Hebrew population had grown so much over the course of four hundred years, is there credible evidence to prove that they were there outside of the Bible?

Again, according to the popular timeline of Dynasties and legend (which has been in place since the 1920's), the answer is a resounding no. If we do however, go back to an earlier time, and follow the actual period spoken of in the Biblical texts, we see a much clearer picture.

First of all, a “workers village” has been discovered, and this discovery goes back to the late 1800's. It appeared whoever dwelled there, lived during the 12th dynasty, and vacated it shortly into the 13th dynasty leaving behind numerous artifacts and tools that were used to make mud bricks. This is not necessarily proof that this was occupied by the Hebrew's, but the fact that they were workers who made mud bricks, lines up completely with what Exodus tells us about the type of slave labor they were subjected to. It's also important to note that during the discovery, they found boxes under the floors of the homes that contained the remains of babies up to three months old, which was believed to be the remains of the Hebrew babies killed on Pharaoh's orders around the time of Moses' birth. Another interesting thing is that the 12th dynasty actually used mud bricks laced with straw in their pyramids serving as a core for the structures. The Labyrinth built by Amenhemet III (sixth pharaoh of the 12th dynasty) at Hawara was made out of mud bricks too, as well as many houses and other structures, which all would have taken a huge slave labor force to build. In fact it was common knowledge around the time of Christ that the Hebrew's had actually built the pyramids in the Egypt. (One of the harshest criticisms this story has faced is how the secular timeline given puts Israel's occupation in Egypt long after they had stopped making pyramids, where as the new timeline actually puts them in the middle of it all, and even explains why Egypt stopped making them in the 13th dynasty, you know, due to their labor force up and leaving).


Also, the Pharaoh who built the last pyramids was Amenhemet III, and had no sons. When he died, his daughter took over the throne for only 8 years before she too died and the 12th Dynasty ended. There was a figure however known as Amenhemet IV who is believed to be an adopted son of Amenhemet III and raised by his daughter. The interesting thing about this person is that he seemed to have ruled with Pharaoh for several years, but then suddenly disappeared. There is no further trace of him in Egypt's records, and no one even seems to know where he is buried. As you may recall, the person of Moses was an adopted son in Pharaohs house, who ran away after he killed an Egyptian official for hitting a Hebrew slave, and only resurfaced forty years later prior to the Exodus.
Piecing the rest of this together, we know that the 13th dynasty didn't last all that long and held very short terms for it's Pharaohs, the longest reign was only 11 years. It is believed that the Pharaoh who Moses would have confronted at the time was named Neferhotep I. The settlements believed to be occupied by slaves were occupied up until his reign, and there is very little word on what happened to him, not to mention the fact that his body has yet to be discovered. Following his death, the Hyksos (Amalekites) invaded Egypt with very little resistance, which would have made sense if the strongest men of Egypt were all dead laying at the bottom of the red sea.

Perhaps the case I am making would be more significant if Egypt had kept records of all that occurred, but remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are plenty of facts surrounding this story that line up very clearly with Biblical texts, and it doesn't take a great leap of faith to see the connection. I have discovered that we barely know anything about the ancient world, and what we do know is pieced together by presumed conclusions. Even if we presume that the writers of the Bible inserted their own superstitious ideologies about God, we can be assured that it is still a useful book as one of the most intact recounts of historical events (With the exception of the creation story in which no man was actually there to witness the events that took place).

What we do seem to know a lot about however is ancient Rome, which was one of the largest Empires in the ancient world and still holds a steady influence over modern politics, engineering, law, language, and other very useful societal traits that can be traced back to the culture and influence it held on the region and the tens of millions of people who called it home. We know with certainty that Rome occupied the city of Jerusalem, and that they held authority over the Jewish people. We know that the new Testament was written during this occupation, and that the writers of the books and letters all grew up under it's authority while trying to stay true to their own faith and religious practices. There is no one who would refute that this happened, but there has been a growing population of skeptics who think either the story of Jesus never happened, or that if it did, it became that of legends shortly after when the writers took great liberty to make this story so much more significant than it actually was.

Isn't the Story of Jesus Based on Ancient Myth and Not Actual Events?

Anyone who has heard Bill Maher discussing religions, namely Christianity, knows that his objections to the faith tend to rely heavily on the knowledge he holds of a certain god in Egypt named Horus. He dismisses the Christian myth with a wave of his hand as being superstitious and outdated, and incredibly misleading as it lies heavily on a story that existed thousands of years prior to Jesus entering the scene, and even shows up in the story of Buddha some 400 years prior.

If the story of Jesus is in fact, well, not factual, then the crux of what the gospel is built on is nothing more than legend prescribed to a man who riled up a few religious leaders, and started a rag-tag band of misfits who tried to gain power and influence over their oppressors.
This was the second question I was confronted with that almost made me throw in the towel. However, unlike the story of Hebrew slaves in Egypt, this one is much more easily explained, and if you follow along, you'll see what I mean.

The similarities between Jesus and Horus are astounding, in that he was born of a virgin, walked on water, had 12 disciples, was crucified, and rose from the grave 3 days later. This story can be traced back to the early 1900's, when a poet, and self-taught Egyptologist named Gerald Massey published a book called “Ancient Egypt: Light of the World”. In his book, Massey argues that the story of Jesus borrows heavily from ancient Egypt mythology, and goes on to cite over 250 parallels between the two figures of Massey and Jesus. Massey makes the effort of pointing out that the story of Christ was actually concocted by Roman officials as a means of controlling the masses. (his theory has actually picked up a lot of steam in recent years and there is a growing group of people who believe that this was in fact what Rome did, and they had no idea it would become something so powerful, even though this actually lacks any clear evidence).
It's important to note, before we get into this much further, that Massey's work has never actually been taken seriously by scholars. His book is a weird mix of historical speculation, philology, and theorizing about the precession of the zodiac, all presented as fact with minimal supporting evidence.

So let's start with the charge that Horus was from a virgin birth. The most common story from the ancient world about Horus actually was much different. The most common legend about the birth of Horus is that the god Seth dismembered the body of Osiris, his older brother and husband of Isis. Isis collected the pieces of her husband’s body and sewed them back together, then took the form of a bird and fanned Osiris with her wings, reviving him enough to have sex and get herself pregnant with Horus. Not exactly a virgin birth story, is it? So where do we get the idea that legend would have him born of a virgin? Well, the origin seems to lie with Massey himself as all other accounts found in historical writings and retellings seem to not mention this little tidbit of being born from a virgin, and since Massey gives little reference for his discovery, we are left to conclude that his conclusion was less than...well, conclusive. In fact this claim of being born of a virgin seems to be in many different legends, yet none physically predating Christ. For instance the story of Buddha being born of a virgin may take place historically several hundred years before Christ, but the written form seems to have been recorded around the same time the first missionaries would have traveled to these eastern countries in the first and second centuries. This would also explain why Hinduism seems to have many similar stories, given the fact that missionaries traveled as far as India, and well into these cultures that adopted the stories into their own canon of important figures. It would make more sense to claim that these stories were based on the story of Jesus rather than the other way around, even though the claims seem to be prescribed to deities and figures that predated Christ.

As for the crucifixion and resurrection, well this seems to be based on the story where Osiris, Horus' father, was nailed into a coffin (not crucified) by Seth and revived long enough to essentially be a sperm donor before dying again. It is important to understand how significant the story of Jesus was to the regions in which the gospel spread. Respectable Romans left their own security to join these illegal groups noting that their passion and willingness to die for their beliefs was beyond intriguing, and that in time it gained enough power and influence to literally be the religion of Rome only a few hundred years after it's inception. While the story of Jesus might still be in question, we do have many surviving texts from that era that show the fervor and dedication of it's followers, the simple and moralistic lifestyle of those who followed it's teachings, and the impact it had on Rome itself. Whether or not Jesus was as divine as the story claims, no one can dispute the impact the story of Christ has had on the ancient and modern world. Like any important figure throughout history, legend does seem to follow by those who encounter the story, and we have many writings from that era that are considered false, mystical, or just outright crazy, but one thing has remained constant, and that is the message that Jesus preached and the impact his followers had in giving of themselves to a cause even unto death, based on what they knew to be true.

Forget the western brand of Christianity for a moment, and look to movements around the world that are much more in line with the teachings of Jesus and the early Church movement. What you find is the same spirit alive today as it was two thousand years ago. Communities (often living illegally) fueled by their passion of God, and love for one another.

Next up,
Blood Shed and the God of the Old Testament

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

A Reply to Atheism Part 2: A Good God Wouldn't Send People to Hell


A couple of years ago when Rob Bell's book came out titled “Love Wins”, he received a hell storm of critics calling him a Universalist and heretic. Naturally this made me want to read the book that much more considering the fact that I enjoy reading things that the orthodox might consider heretical. I enjoy thinking for myself and don't shy away from exposing myself to different viewpoints and interpretations of scripture, even going so far as to enjoy a little gnostic reading from time to time (though I have yet to find a gnostic book that is anything less than imaginative mysticism.) Things the church have banned or tried to destroy always perks up my interest, and so I happily exposed myself to all the heretical lies (supposed) that Rob Bell would write about in terms of hell and our misperceptions of the afterlife. The truth is however, that many of the thoughts and conclusions he reached in his book were actually not all that unbelievable, didn't seem all that heretical, and that I had already arrived at similar conclusions in my own studies.

Now just to make this clear, I do think Rob Bell took some liberties with his literal interpretations of the afterlife and I enjoy letting a lot of what the afterlife is remain a mystery. I don't read the book of Revelations all that frequently, but when I do, I do so with the intention of letting my imagination picture the scenes that John describes, and in not allowing myself to get too eager in arriving at any conclusions other than that which is obvious. I interpret the whole Bible that way. If a scripture is troubling, I dwell on it, I consider it's implications, and then I do a little research on it's background, original meaning, and how it relates to what the author or speaker is saying.

Perhaps there is no doctrine more troubling to the stoic mind than that of hell. The very notion of a “good God” giving people eighty years to get it right, and then punishing them for all eternity for getting it wrong is a little unsettling. This has led many to leave the faith, and in my opinion rightly so, as Darwin once explained, "I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother and almost all my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.” I know as a Christian I must believe the Bible as truth, but what does the Bible actually say about hell? It's strange to me that very few Christians I know are willing to look into this matter, when what we believe about hell has so many implications.

People used to consider hell a physical place of fiery torment, such as the sun, or some hidden chamber deep in the Earth. In recent years the majority of people seem to think of it as a spiritual place (as it exists after death and deals with man's spiritual soul and not physical body) and thus the unquenchable flames are simply used as a metaphor to describe the pain and torment caused by being distant from our creator for all eternity. The equation is simple: Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, and enjoy a blissful afterlife where there is no more sorrow, and only joy. Deny Jesus Christ, and enjoy a painful afterlife where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth forever and ever.
There are a lot of problems one might have in believing how this all works in relations to the afterlife. What about those who grew up in the wrong part of the world and never got the chance to hear the name of Jesus let alone make a conscious decision to follow Him? What about those who were born at the wrong time and died before the missionaries came? Christians have a knack for dismissing such difficult questions with rhetorical answers about God's nature being evident in creation, and Catholic Church offers a more structured understanding of this in their Catechism of the Catholic in Church which says: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.”

This explanation is a great attempt at the Church trying to reconcile the fact that there are many who will never hear the name of Jesus, and how then could we expect a loving, or just God to send these people off into eternal damnation? They must be given a chance prior to dying, or once they die their fate is sealed. What then do we have to say about the people who reject the gospel message not because of what the message says but because of it's messengers? The people who may have been sexually abused by a Christian leader, or someone whose Church going alcoholic father revealed Christianity to be nothing but a realm of hypocrites and do-good busybodies? What about the person who was snubbed by the Church for being a homosexual, or for that fact, the man who wore his hair too long and listened to rock music in the 70's? There are a lot of reasons people do not profess Christ to be their Lord and savior, but I insist that the majority of the reasons come down to the messenger and not the message.

A Pastor's fall from stature, a crazy bible thumping neighbor, a hypocritical father, an abusive marriage, a Sunday morning experience that seemed hostile and less than inviting, a childhood friend who got all religious and threatened you with the fires of hell, and crooked politicians claiming to represent the faith. All of these and many more are perfectly good reasons for anyone to be turned off to the gospel of Jesus. Yes, we insist that the imperfection of the faithful is actually our best ministry tool, but then we build up our expectations to be holy and above reproach when addressing these issues. Let's not forget as well the horrific experience one might have of reading the bible, and not only coming across crazy stories of talking Donkey's and the Earth standing still, but also encountering several stories where God orders His people to commit genocide, and even gets his “friend” Abraham to come inches away from sacrificing his son. I still say however that the hardest doctrine to fathom is that which the Church believes about hell and what the Bible seems to say about the fate of all those who get it wrong.

It seems unfair that a loving God would allow so many to be deceived, to walk around with blinders on, to not call them or open their eyes, and then in the end punish them for not accepting something that always seemed to be out of their reach. You can say that I have no right to question God on these things, and you are correct, but I do have a right to question the Church and what it believes when it appears the Bible actually says something else entirely. So let me then go a bit deeper into what the Bible teaches about the afterlife, judgment, and punishment for all those who don't believe.

Our misconceptions of hell

Try this on for size: the Jewish people don't really have much to say about the afterlife. In fact throughout the Torah, the only mention of the afterlife came in speaking of the world to come. No mention of heaven or hell, well except in terms of speaking of the sky and atmosphere, and when speaking of “sheol”, which could also be translated hades, they mean grave. It's odd then that with the exception of speaking of the world during the messianic age, there is very little thought given to the afterlife.

In fact, the early Church didn't really have much to say about the afterlife as well. Now, before you brand me as a heretic, I want you to hear me out. It might be hard to understand how our view of the afterlife today might be a bit skewed in comparison to the scripture we think it is based upon, but it's important to understand the original context. I will lead you through it and in the end state where I stand on this issue. For now just take it as a history lesson, and let's not quarrel over loose interpretations, as I think you'll find my understanding of scripture is more literal than loose fitting. If you are an atheist who cares little for this, then meet me at the end of this essay and I'll explain how this literal understanding of scripture is much more digestible than what the past 1,600 years of biblical interpretation has led to.

First of all, the Bible speaks of three hells. From the original languages in the which the Bible was written, one Hebrew word, and three Greek words are translated “hell” in our English language Bibles. As we've already discussed, the one Hebrew word is “sheol”, which has the same meaning as one of the Greek words “hades” which (regardless of what you might have heard) both refer simply to the grave. The Hebrew word “sheol” is used in the Old Testament 65 times, and the Greek word “hades” is used only 11 times in the New Testament.

The second Greek word, “tartaroo” is also translated hell in the New Testament, but was only used once in the Bible. 2 Peter 2:4, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell(tartaroo) and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;”. Here tartaroo is translated into the word hell, but tartaroo was an actual place in Greek mythology where the rebellious gods were confined (somewhat of an abyss). In spite of it's Greek implications, Peter was actually explaining how the sinning angels were delivered into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment. The place is not referring to some fiery pit of hell, but rather their confinement on Earth, where they wield influence over the nations and individuals. Jesus and His apostles had very real encounters with Satan and his demons. Jesus even referred to Satan as the ruler of this world. The word tartaroo applies only to demons. Nowhere does it refer to a fiery hell in which human beings are punished after death.

The final Greek word is “gehenna”, which is used by Jesus several times and tends to be the one word associated most frequently with our common view of hell. The word is derived from Hebrew Gai-Hinnom, which translates “the valley of Hinnom. This Valley shows up frequently in the Old Testament, mentioned in passing by Joshua, and found in 2 Kings 23 as a place of idolatrous and human sacrifices. King Josiah (of Judah) decided to put an end to these abominations by polluting it with human bones and other corruptions.
At the time of Jesus this valley was what we might call the city dump-the place where trash was thrown and consumed in the fires that constantly burned there. The bodies of animals as well as despised criminals were also cast into Gehenna to be burned. Jesus used this particular location and what took place there to help His listeners clearly understand the fate the unrepentant will suffer in the future. They would have easily grasped what he meant.

Consider then what Jesus meant when He said in Mark 9:47-48: “If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell (Gehenna), where 'their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched'”. Notice that the last part about the worm and fire is in quotations, as Jesus is actually quoting here from Isaiah 66:24 which says, “Then they will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; and they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.” In context, Isaiah 66 refers to a time when, God says, “all flesh shall come to worship before Me”. It's a time when the wicked will be no more, and people will go out and look upon their dead bodies and see the consequences of living a life in rebellion, which results in physical death where even their remains would be devoured by worms and consumed by unquenchable fire until there is nothing left.
According to the “Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament”, the original Hebrew word translated “worm” in Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9:47-48 means “worm, maggot, larvae”. The reason I want to point this out is to let you know that Jesus was not speaking of immortal worms, but rather the cycle of maggots and how they consumed flesh. Maggots would live sustained by flesh to turn into flies, the flies would lay eggs that hatch into more maggots, and on and on until there is nothing left. So what does Jesus mean when he speaks of unquenchable fire? Well, as I pointed out in speaking of the verse in Isaiah, the fires will burn until there is nothing left to consume. Traditionally speaking in Hebrew culture, a body that was not buried, but was subjected to burning, was viewed as accursed.

In short, Jesus uses a common site of trash disposal in His day, the burning garbage dump in the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem's walls, to illustrate the ultimate fate of the wicked in what scriptures call a lake of fire. Just as the refuse of the city was consumed by maggots and fire, so will the wicked be burned up, consumed, by a future gehenna like fire more than 1,000 years after Christ's return.

So what is the point you ask? Perhaps I should answer your question with a question...does God punish people by throwing them into a fiery pit of damnation to suffer for all eternity? I personally don't think the Bible ever really says that. Do I believe that some will go to “gehenna” and be consumed until there is nothing left? Yes, but I think this act must be voluntary and of freewill. This is not to confuse freewill with choices made while being deceived, but a literal choice made to rather face the fires that destroy, than to accept the free gift of salvation and enter into eternity. Notice I draw a distinction between the lake of fire, and eternity. Think for a moment what Jesus meant in Matthew 10:28, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (gehenna).” Notice here that Jesus does not speak of people suffering everlasting torment. He says that God can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna fire.

Jesus here explains that, when one man kills another, the resulting death is only temporary because God can raise the victim to life again. But when God destroys one in hell (gehenna), the resulting death is eternal. There is no resurrection from this fate, which the Bible calls “the second death”.
Lastly, and then I'll move on, for those of you who are hung up on the word “everlasting” and ready to pounce on all the holes in my theology, let's look a bit more closely at what the word “everlasting” actually implies in terms of this gehenna fire.

The word “everlasting” comes from the Greek word “aionios”, which actually does translate as something eternal, without beginning or end, etc. The use of this word in scripture however is not as cut and dry as it appears. For instance, the book of Jude mentions Sodom and Gamorrah as “suffering the vengeance of eternal (aionios) fire”, yet it is obvious that these cities are not still burning. In the case of these cities, and in the case of the wicked, who are consigned “aionios” fire, the first burns and completely destroys. But the eternal aspect of the fire is it's everlasting effect, not how long it actually burns. It's like dropping a wad of cash into an open fire, no matter how much you wish you could get it back, once the act is done, it's done. That money is literally gone for eternity.

Does this mean that I don't believe in a literal hell? Of course not, as long as you don't hold me to your idea of what that literal hell might be. Perhaps this is where I agreed the most with Rob Bell, in that he explained how many people today are already living in hell. Just as I spoke last time about the suffering in this world, there are many people who are held captive by their own depression, and insecurities. People who are heartbroken and lonely, not to mention hopeless. The Bible speaks of how God gives us great joy, peace, and hope. Jesus and John the Baptist both mentioned how the kingdom of God was at hand, and I believe that by us fulfilling our purpose here on the earth, and entering into God's presence through our worship and times of reflection, that we actually experience this kingdom firsthand. I don't know what happens when we die, and surely there are a lot of ideas of what happens whether we immediately go to our destination, or our bodies lie dormant waiting for Christ's return in which the dead in Christ would rise up. I have heard fabulous stories of people who went to the other side and what they saw, and I have also realized that scripture tends to treat death as if we're going into an unconscious slumber. Consider how many times Jesus and Paul referred to death as “sleeping”, and the very fact that he wrote in Romans 6:23 that “the gift of God is eternal life” might lead us to believe that even now our souls, which is our consciousness, will die along with our bodies until Christ Himself raises us up. My point is that I don't know too much about the afterlife, and therefore I don't dwell too much on that which I don't know.

If for a moment we suppose that hell really is a holding chamber for the damned who never professed Christ as their Lord and Savior, we must also recognize that it is in no way eternal regardless of how we interpret it today. In Revelations chapter 20, verse 13, John writes about the throne of God and how the “sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; and they were judged according to their deeds”. After which death and Hades, all whose names were not found in the book of life, along with the Devil, the beast, and the false prophet, are thrown into the lake of fire which is the second death. The Bible clearly teaches that the wages of sin is death, and not eternal life. To say that God grants people eternal life so that they could suffer seems to be a contradiction.
I also must point out that there is one passage that might seem a little troubling to my take on these things, and that being Revelations 20:10 which says, “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Out of all of the scriptures, this might be the hardest one to overlook, but even this is subject to error. First of all, being tormented day and night does not seem to apply to anyone else other than the Devil and cronies. Second of all, the book of revelations is extremely high in symbolism and we must be very careful not to take too many thinks too literally. The lake of fire represents the second death, and the fact that death itself and the grave are tossed in to be destroyed has strong implications of God's intentions of creating a world where there is no more death. Secondly, the words “forever and ever” literally means in Greek, “age to age”, which is not quite as clear as “forever and ever” in terms of actual meaning. It is also important to point out that the scriptures that follow in the next chapter are in relation to the “New Jerusalem”, and all the incredible joy that would follow, which makes one wonder if God would in fact keep a separate realm for all those souls who were rebellious so He could hold them against their will in a fiery torment without end. Perhaps He would, but this again is a hard concept to grasp in trying to determine whether or not God is a good God who acts in mercy, or if He is a mean, vengeful God who enjoys watching people suffer. Afterall, it was God who said through the prophet Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 18:23, “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked," declares the Lord God, "rather than that he should turn from his ways and live”.

Are You Still With Me Atheists?

Here's the bottom line; I have a terrible hard time with the belief that God sends people to hell, and would never condemn anyone to hell myself. Now there is a lot I don't know, and perhaps I am wrong and I will have to make an account for this error, but I don't fear being wrong about hell, for I don't think salvation is tangent on whether or not I believe in it correctly. Someone once told me that it was dangerous to say such a thing and how people who are less versed than I am in scripture might be easily swayed, to which I replied that fear of hell is no means of salvation, and if we are Christian because we fear hell or desire heaven, then we have missed the point entirely of what the gospel message is.

I believe in consequences for the way we live, and I believe as evidenced in scripture that the chosen, the disciples, the teachers, preachers, and representatives of the faith are held to a higher account for our actions than those who don't belong. I remain a Christian today because I discovered our current understanding of hell to be incredibly inaccurate, and that I would have a seriously hard time thinking the gospel to mean good news when it means such bad news for so many other people.

I believe the judgment seat of God which is mentioned in revelations chapter 20 is the one last chance for people to accept the free gift of eternal life. I am not saying we should wait until then to live for God, mostly because it means you are likely going to be living in a figurative hell until then and not know the joy and peace that comes from knowing the Creator Himself, and also because I could be wrong, and if you are at this moment willing to consider that God is in fact real and that He does love you relentlessly, then to dismiss this and hope for a second chance in the afterlife is nonsense. There are some who have a great excuse as to why they didn't confess Jesus as Lord, and then there are some, who don't. All I hoped to accomplish in this essay was to explain how our current thinking of hell is not only illogical, but grossly misunderstood in light of what the Bible actually says about it. There are consequences for our actions, but I don't believe that God is interested in tormenting you for all of eternity over the bad choices you made during the 80 years of your life. The torment you receive is yours and yours alone to own based on a conscious choice you make, and God in His mercy is willing to either grant you eternal life, or let you go the path of destruction which ends in death.

Next
Christianity Doesn’t Add Up Historically, and The Story of Jesus is Borrowed From Other Mythologies