Month: August 2010

Superstar atheists are motivated by anger —
and boohoo victimhood

On rare occasion True Freethinker reproduces articles written by others in the vast sea of the WWW.

Following is the entirety of the article, “Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining. Superstar atheists are motivated by anger — and boohoo victimhood” written by Charlotte Allen and published in the Los Angeles Times, Opinion, May 17, 2009.

Following is the Los Angeles Times article:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can’t stand atheists — but it’s not because they don’t believe in God. It’s because they’re crashing bores.

Other people, most recently the British cultural critic Terry Eagleton in his new book, “Faith, Reason, and Revolution,” take to task such superstar nonbelievers as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins (“The God Delusion”) and political journalist Christopher Hitchens (“God Is Not Great”) for indulging in a philosophically primitive opposition of faith and reason that assumes that if science can’t prove something, it doesn’t exist.

My problem with atheists is their tiresome — and way old — insistence that they are being oppressed and their fixation with the fine points of Christianity. What — did their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?

Read Dawkins, or Hitchens, or the works of fellow atheists Sam Harris (“The End of Faith”) and Daniel Dennett (“Breaking the Spell”), or visit an atheist website or blog (there are zillions of them, bearing such titles as “God Is for Suckers,” “God Is Imaginary” and “God Is Pretend”), and your eyes will glaze over as you peruse — again and again — the obsessively tiny range of topics around which atheists circle like water in a drain.

First off, there’s atheist victimology: Boohoo, everybody hates us ‘cuz we don’t believe in God. Although a recent Pew Forum survey on religion found that 16% of Americans describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, only 1.6% call themselves atheists, with another 2.4% weighing in as agnostics (a group despised as wishy-washy by atheists). You or I might attribute the low numbers to atheists’ failure to win converts to their unbelief, but atheists say the problem is persecution so relentless that it drives tens of millions of God-deniers into a closet of feigned faith, like gays before Stonewall.

In his online “Atheist Manifesto,” Harris writes that “no person, whatever his or her qualifications, can seek public office in the United States without pretending to be certain that … God exists.” The evidence? Antique clauses in the constitutions of six — count ’em — states barring atheists from office.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled such provisions unenforceable nearly 50 years ago, but that doesn’t stop atheists from bewailing that they have to hide their Godlessness from friends, relatives, employers and potential dates. One representative of the pity-poor-me school of atheism, Kathleen Goodman, writing in January for the Chronicle of Higher Education, went so far as to promote affirmative action for atheists on college campuses: specially designated, college-subsidized “safe spaces” for them to express their views.

Maybe atheists wouldn’t be so unpopular if they stopped beating the drum until the hide splits on their second-favorite topic: How stupid people are who believe in God. This is a favorite Dawkins theme. In a recent interview with Trina Hoaks, the atheist blogger for the Examiner.com website, Dawkins described religious believers as follows: “They feel uneducated, which they are; often rather stupid, which they are; inferior, which they are; and paranoid about pointy-headed intellectuals from the East Coast looking down on them, which, with some justification, they do.” Thanks, Richard!

Dennett likes to call atheists “the Brights,” in contrast to everybody else, who obviously aren’t so bright. In a 2006 essay describing his brush with death after a heart operation, Dennett wrote these thoughts about his religious friends who told him they were praying for his recovery: “Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also sacrifice a goat?” With friends like Daniel Dennett, you don’t need enemies.

Then there’s P.Z. Myers, biology professor at the University of Minnesota’s Morris campus, whose blog, Pharyngula, is supposedly about Myers’ field, evolutionary biology, but is actually about his fanatical propensity to label religious believers as “idiots,” “morons,” “loony” or “imbecilic” in nearly every post. The university deactivated its link to Myers’ blog in July after he posted a photo of a consecrated host from a Mass that he had pierced with a rusty nail and thrown into the garbage (“I hope Jesus’ tetanus shots are up to date”) in an effort to prove that Catholicism is bunk — or something.

Myers’ blog exemplifies atheists’ frenzied fascination with Christianity and the Bible. Atheist website after atheist website insists that Jesus either didn’t exist or “was a jerk” (in the words of one blogger) because he didn’t eliminate smallpox or world poverty. At the American Atheists website, a writer complains that God “set up” Adam and Eve, knowing in advance that they would eat the forbidden fruit. A blogger on A Is for Atheist has been going through the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse in order to prove its “insanity” (he or she had gotten up to the Book of Joshua when I last looked).

Another topic that atheists beat like the hammer on the anvil in the old Anacin commercials is Darwinism versus creationism. Maybe Darwin-o-mania stems from the fact that this year marks the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth in 1809, but haven’t atheists heard that many religious people (including the late Pope John Paul II) don’t have a problem with evolution but, rather, regard it as God’s way of letting his living creation unfold? Furthermore, even if human nature as we know it is a matter of lucky adaptations, how exactly does that disprove the existence of God?

And then there’s the question of why atheists are so intent on trying to prove that God not only doesn’t exist but is evil to boot. Dawkins, writing in “The God Delusion,” accuses the deity of being a “petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak” as well as a “misogynistic, homophobic, racist … bully.” If there is no God — and you’d be way beyond stupid to think differently — why does it matter whether he’s good or evil?

The problem with atheists — and what makes them such excruciating snoozes — is that few of them are interested in making serious metaphysical or epistemological arguments against God’s existence, or in taking on the serious arguments that theologians have made attempting to reconcile, say, God’s omniscience with free will or God’s goodness with human suffering. Atheists seem to assume that the whole idea of God is a ridiculous absurdity, the “flying spaghetti monster” of atheists’ typically lame jokes. They think that lobbing a few Gaza-style rockets accusing God of failing to create a world more to their liking (“If there’s a God, why aren’t I rich?” “If there’s a God, why didn’t he give me two heads so I could sleep with one head while I get some work done with the other?”) will suffice to knock down the entire edifice of belief.

What primarily seems to motivate atheists isn’t rationalism but anger — anger that the world isn’t perfect, that someone forced them to go to church as children, that the Bible contains apparent contradictions, that human beings can be hypocrites and commit crimes in the name of faith. The vitriol is extraordinary. Hitchens thinks that “religion spoils everything.” Dawkins contends that raising one’s offspring in one’s religion constitutes child abuse. Harris argues that it “may be ethical to kill people” on the basis of their beliefs. The perennial atheist litigant Michael Newdow sued (unsuccessfully) to bar President Obama from uttering the words “so help me God” when he took his oath of office.

What atheists don’t seem to realize is that even for believers, faith is never easy in this world of injustice, pain and delusion. Even for believers, God exists just beyond the scrim of the senses. So, atheists, how about losing the tired sarcasm and boring self-pity and engaging believers seriously?

During a brief respite from my critique of Rev. Dr. Mel White’s assertions about homosexuality, Christianity and the Bible I posted the essay below, on abortion.

Interestingly, this past weekend I read an article that drew a wholly fallacious correlation between homosexuality and abortion. Thus, I thought to make mention of it before continuing on with Rev. Dr. Mel White.

Ellen Goodman wrote an article entitled, “Women Who Abort Retreating to Closet.” She correlates homosexual marriage with abortion in claiming that one is becoming increasingly accepted and out closeted while the other is becoming increasingly obscured by a closet door that is at best, ajar.

She writes:

“_how fast attitudes toward gay right have changed. And how fast the public image of gays has gone from San Francisco flamboyance to suburban sobriety_Stanford law professor Pam Karlan was the first to compare changes in the last two decades. ‘Gays have come out of the closet,’ she said, ‘and women who’ve had abortions have gone back into the closet.’ The long slow process of ‘coming out’ means that today nearly everyone knows someone who is gay_The long slow process of ‘going back in’ has meant, in Karlan’s words, that ‘we don’t always know that we know someone who’s had an abortion.’ Has the invisibility of these women made it easier to chip away at their rights?

Interestingly enough, Ellen Goodman employs the term “abortion” without defining to what she is referring. Thus when she writes, “The analogy is far from perfect, a I will hear from every pro-life reader who equates abortion with murder” what other option are we left with? Abortion is, on one level, taking purposeful actions which seek to ensure that a human being is kept from living out their lives. This action which is specifically meant to end a human life is referred to as a “right.” A right that is right along side of a right to marriage, according to Ellen Goodman. As a person who loves homosexuals I find this shockingly offensive.

Ellen Goodman continues,

“Yale historian George Chauncey says, ‘There are_almost no sympathetic characters who are getting abortions.’ Hollywood’s heroines from ‘Juno’ to ‘Waitress’ to ‘Knocked Up’ barely think about it.

How sad, Hollywood think about abortion but not enough. Considering that in abortion we are, typically, dealing with the purposeful and brutal murder of a beautiful, healthy, innocent and defenseless human baby-how is such an act supposed to inspire sympathy? Well, it inspires sympathy for the little baby. Where is concern for the baby in Hollywood.

Ellen Goodman continues,

“Moreover, the narrative of same-sex marriage ends with the sound of a champagne bottle popping at a wedding. An abortion, on the other hand, may be followed by an assortment of emotions, but certainly not joy.

What does she propose that an abortion end with friends and family in the clinic sipping champagne and taking family photos? Family photos minus one actually. Does she propose that gay marriage ceremonies end in a blood soaked clinic with the mutilated corpse of a human being, being disposed of like so much outdated ground beef?
Who knows, but now you can see the appeal of the post below on “Sacred Abortion” which turns a subhuman, inhumane, inhuman act into a ritual blessing.

Ellen Goodman continues,

“Abortion was legalized on the grounds of the right to privacy. And so it remains private. But the more private it is, the more we think it only happens to someone else, someone ‘unlike us.’ The more unlike us she is, the less public support there is for the right.
Abortion rights slip away as the woman slips out of sight. Here is the conundrum in the closet. For all the lingering opposition to same-sex marriage, being gay is losing its stigma. Having an abortion is being more deeply stigmatized.”

Perhaps it should be explained this simply to Ellen Goodman: gay marriage is when two like gendered people who love each other make a legal/spiritual commitment to spend their lives together-no one dies.
Abortion is when a woman somehow finds herself pregnant even though she did not want to be pregnant and since the beautiful little baby in her womb is viewed as an obstacle to her she works hard to earn enough money to hire a “doctor” to make sure that the person whom she knows is within her doe not continue living-no spending a life in love together.

While abortion is one of the, if no the most deplorable act that human being have ever conceived women who had abortions still need love and forgiveness.

Thank our Lord God and Savior the Messiah Jesus for offering forgiveness-He will forgive you.

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KNAPP: …there’s a pretty massive implication that I cannot say that I’m a lesbian and a believer.

BOTSFORD: …Here’s the difference. ^{Jennifer is wanting to justify the sin.}

KNAPP: How did I — how do I — first off, that’s a — that’s a very big premise. You assume that you and I both agree that homosexuality is one, a choice, and two, a sin. So to say that I have to justify it off that premise is inaccurate.

BOTSFORD: Well, based on the sacred writings of what you’re saying your spiritual authority…

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

And that is the point and the difference; she seeks to justify her sin and refuses to repent mostly by seeking shelter in “scholarship” and “churches” that will placate her. Perhaps we should establish churches that accept, endorse and justify adultery, murder, lying, idolatry, etc. (I know, I know, some do so).

Now Ted Haggard joins the conversation:

TED HAGGARD…: Yeah, I think both of them have some good points. I really appreciate what Jennifer is saying and what she is going through. And I think her big premise is that she is on a journey just like every one of us are. She accepts the fact that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that God is working in us, that we have his scriptures to work with. And it is true people read them differently and people interpret them differently.

And the pastor has a point in saying it is his role as a pastor to try to be salt and light, and represent the word the way it’s read…

KING: OK. So therefore, Bob, you’re as bad, if that’s the term, as Jennifer. Your sin may be different, but just different. Why is hers worse than yourself?

BOTSFORD: Larry, I think the difference here, if I can just point out, both with Jennifer and Ted, is this: there — all of us on planet Earth in the human race have sinned. We have all fallen short of the glory of God.

KING: All right.

BOTSFORD: Jesus came to die in our place to forgive of us our sins, no so that we would remain in a sinful lifestyle, so that we would leave that life of sin that leads to death, and be born again. The whole idea of being a Christian is that what I used to be I no longer am.

KING: But you still sin.

BOTSFORD: I make mistakes every day. But sin isn’t ruling my life. Jesus Christ is ruling my life. And when I mess up, I can repent.

KING: So Jesus Christ can’t rule her life if she is a lesbian?

BOTSFORD: Listen, if someone is allowing sin — and sin is called out in the Bible, whether it’s homosexuality, adultery, whether it’s stealing — the list is there. Read it for yourself…

BOTSFORD: Allowing that to continue to reign over your life is not allowing Jesus Christ to be lord. I’m allowing Jesus Christ to be lord. My role every day is to die to sin, not justify sin…

KNAPP: Not for a moment have I ever sat here and justified my individual path in my life. I am not sitting to try and tell someone that they have to walk the path that I walk…

HAGGARD: …Our role isn’t just to call out one particular sin and say all these people are in trouble. Our role is to say we’re all in a process, and we need to encourage one another.

So Jennifer has a group of believers she meets with. They study the scripture. They can go on that. They can do that process. That process obviously is not going to be Pastor Bob’s church. It will be another group of believers which is why we have a diversity of churches.

Ted Haggard is certainly mistaken in stating that, “Our role isn’t just to call out one particular sin and say all these people are in trouble…which is why we have a diversity of churches.”
Consider, for example, the words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians;

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed (1 Corinthians 5:1-3).

Note that this was the original liberal “church” in that they were puffed up with their own tolerance, diversity and liberalism. They were accepting that chosen lifestyle and were not putting them out of the church. Oh, and note that Paul had “judged.”

Next Larry King appears to think that the topic is not controversial enough and decides to, basically, accuse Bob Botsford of inspiring murder:

^{Pastor, do you at all feel bad when you hear stories about people who kill gay people?}

BOTSFORD: Absolutely. Yes, that’s —

KING: They’ve gotten messages about how sinful that is that they take it to that extreme. And you add to that, don’t you?

BOTSFORD: I hope not. I hope I don’t.

Bob Botsford

You see how quickly, within our politically correct pop-culture, a Christian who lovingly disagrees with a person who calls themselves a Christian yet, refuses to repent from homosexuality is inspiring murder. Simply astonishing. Yet, now that Larry King and Jennifer Knapp disagree with those of Bob Botsford’s point of view, if, God forbid, any such Christian is murdered—anywhere in the world—they will be complicit.
Moreover, homosexuals have killed more homosexuals than heterosexuals have killed homosexuals (see here).

Now to a points which Bob Botsform botched in a big way, to the point that Larry King could take him on it:

KING: You paint the picture. Your — in the Old Testament — I’m not a Biblical scholar — you can’t eat shellfish. Do you eat shellfish?

BOTSFORD: Absolutely.

KING: You’re a sinner.

BOTSFORD: No I’m not. There are some things, Larry, that are very important to keep in context here. Although there are verses in the Book of Leviticus that say don’t eat shellfish, don’t wear clothes that have different materials on it, things that Jennifer has mentioned in the article that she has given in the news coming out — you know what, ^{God changed his mind} on shellfish.

KING: When did he do that?

BOTSFORD: There is a wonderful passage —

LYNN: God changed his mind on mankind. And he gave his savior for one and for all.

BOTSFORD: He changed his mind, if I can finish, in Acts Chapter 10, to answer your question, Larry, on shellfish. And Cornelius has this amazing enlightenment, as Peter has this vision of the lord saying eat whatever you want.

KING: Peter may have been hungry. No pun intended.

BOTSFORD: There is this grace that comes upon all of us no longer to live by the law of the Old Testament. But when you get to the issue of homosexuality, he doesn’t change his mind on that. It flows over into the New Testament as powerfully as it was in the Old Testament.

KING: Peter gets a vision about shellfish. What if Ted gets a vision about homosexuality that says, since it’s not a choice, and as long as a person is observant and good, it is no longer a sin. You will not believe Ted?

BOTSFORD: God didn’t use Ted to write the scriptures. And the scriptures that have been written are the scriptures that I go by.

KING: Nothing is being written today?

BOTSFORD: Absolutely not.

That a law, or a set of laws, is in place at one point in time and place and amogst a certain people and is later abrogated does not mean that “God changed his mind.” God applied that which was applicable at the time/place/people. For example, all Old Testament laws that were given to Israel were given to, you guessed it, Israel: to those people, in that place, at that time, living in that theocratic government. Now, there are concepts, such as the moral aspects of the law, that are carried over into the New Testament and are there reiterated and reaffirmed. For example, recall the reference to 1 Corinthians 5:1-3 above? Well, that refers back to Deuteronomy 22:30.
Now, why claim that “God changed his mind” in allowing the eating of shellfish alone; good question. Why not give the whole story?

1) In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were told, “I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food” (Genesis 1:29)—basically a vegan vegetarian diet.

2) Then after, the great deluge, Noah was told, “all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:2-4).

3) Then the Israelites were given specific dietary laws such as those found in Leviticus 11.

4) Finally, according to the New Testament, the new covenant—note that Larry King was correct on one point in stating that “Peter may have been hungry—Peter, “became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance 11 and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. 13 And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again.”

Note also that Jesus had prepped them for this when He stated, “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean’” (Matthew 15:11).

What was applicable was applicable until it was no longer applicable. As I have elucidated in my essay series responding to Rev. Dr. Mel White the commandment against homosexuality is reiterated in the New Testament in various ways.

HAGGARD: As a result of that, there are ethics, there are rules, there are things that happen. But those rules and those ethics are not the core. The core is the relationship…

the Bible says in Romans 1, when it talks about homosexuality, it follows up with the first verse in Romans II saying, hey, be cautious about judging other people about this because you all do the same things. And then he concludes that first paragraph in Romans II by saying — by saying hasn’t it dawned on you that it’s the love and the mercy of God that leads to our repentance and our salvation.

So what he highlights there is that we’re all going — the purpose of the holy spirit is to create in us a holy spirit we grow. The purpose of the word of God is to convict us and help us grow, sanctify us. That’s all good. But we can’t do it to one another like that…

That’s not our role with each other.

KNAPP: I don’t have a problem with that at all. I think that leaves room for a great many sinful people.

BOTSFORD: Well, we’re all sinful people.

What it gives room for is truth is relative. Cain was given parameters and specifics to he is offer. He chose not to do with that offering what God had laid out. So as much as Ted is saying the rules don’t really apply, they apply.

Ted Haggard

Indeed, yet, Ted Haggard is rather intent to keep pushing the gospel of vagueries:

HAGGARD: …Jesus was very clear and the scriptures were very clear when they say the command is to love. The command that covers them all, predominant, “love the lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.”…

And so — so, love is the predominant thing. God is love. The scripture says Jesus displays how to do this.

BOTSFORD: I am just coming back to the Bible. Clearly God has an opinion on this issue. I’m just wanting to stand up for the truth of God’s word.

That we are to love our neighbors and even our enemies does not mean that we must love that which our neighbors and enemies do.

The conversation ends thusly:

KING: …You are saying it is a choice?

BOTSFORD: I’m saying Paul clearly says in Galacians (ph) Chapter Two, whatever my life has been up to this point, I have now melt [met] Christ. And Paul says, as a result of what Christ has done for me on the cross, I am to be crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, whether it is homosexuality tendencies, whether it’s stealing tendencies, whether it’s tendencies of adultery, pedophile. It is no longer I. It’s Christ. And the life I live I live by faith. I can’t have it both ways.

KING: Ted, we only got a minute left. We are never going to answer this, are we, Ted?

KNAPP: Never.

Who is “we” in “We are never going to answer this”?
Jennifer Knapp? Larry King? Bob Botsford? Ted Haggard? Who?

In fact, why was not this interview one that was hostile to Jennifer Knapp’s position? Why was not she made to defend her position and asked theological question or being made to seem complicit to murder?

Well, “we” may never answer this but God has.

“But remember, dear friends, that the apostles of our Master, Jesus Christ, told us this would happen: ‘In the last days there will be people who…make a religion of their own whims and lusts‘” (Jude v. 17-18, The Message trans.)

We quote the following exchange from an NBC Dateline with Stone Phillips presentation entitled Secrets to the Code. Our reason for quoting it is in order to demonstrate just how far some people will go in reading their own preconceived notions into the text of scripture.

Margaret Starbird: “I think they were a couple. I think he found her irresistible.”
Narrator: “Author Margaret Starbird, whose controversial research on Mary Magdalene is cited in The Davinci Code, says there’s no need to look to art for clues of an intimate relationship between Mary and Jesus. All you have to do, she says, is read the New Testament, it’s right there in the Book of John.”
Margaret Starbird: “When Mary Magdalene comes to the garden to mourn for Jesus and to anoint him, for his final anointing, and finds him resurrected in the garden she is overjoyed.”
Narrator: “Before Jesus ascends to heaven Mary reaches out to him and he tells her, ‘Do not touch me.'”
Margaret Starbird: “He’s saying I can’t stay with you now and she’s trying to hold on, it’s not just a touch it’s an embrace. If she weren’t married to him she wouldn’t of dreamed of touching him.”

It is then told that she relies on Gnostic texts such as The Gospel of Phillip, which is a Gnostic work of the late third century-circa 250 years after Jesus died. For conservative Biblical scholars it is important to get as close to the event that was recorded as possible. For liberal Biblical scholars it is important to get as far away from the event as possible hopefully reaching such a distance in time that what is written helps them to besmirch the text of scripture, the more these texts distort the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, the better. Upon these works of fantasy they bestow near infallibility.

The Gospel of Phillip is so poorly represented by manuscript evidence (or lack thereof) that there are holes all over it, literally missing text. What is being referred to in the NBC Dateline presentation is section #63 of that work. Note all of the brackets and ellipses points in the text, which represent missing and reconstructed (guessed at) text, “And the companion of the […] Mary Magdalene. […loved] her more than [all] the disciples [and used to] kiss her [often] on her […].”1
Another translation takes the liberty of filling in the gaps in the following way, “And the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more then all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth.”2

The obvious question is, why choose to insert the word mouth into the text instead of cheek or hand? That is the question, the answer being pure conjecture such as, perhaps it was to make it seem as if there is more going on than there really is. However, this whole discussion is secondary to the fact that we are dealing with a text that was written hundreds of years after Jesus died by someone who never knew Him personally. But what if Jesus did kiss Mary? There were, and are still, many culture in which it is perfectly normal to kiss people frequently. Someone you are meeting for the first time, and every time you greet each other and depart company, it is likewise perfectly normal for men to kiss each other.

In glorifying these texts one publication states,

“These books are rich in cosmogonies and anthropogonies. They contain apocalyptic visions and secret scrolls of Jesus’ life and sayings. The magnificent Gospel of Truth and Gospel of Thomas add greatly to the information provided by the New Testament.”3

The wondrous Gospel of Thomas, a fragment of which was dated to 200 AD, contains such inspirational statements such as is found in #114,

“Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.'”

This sort of sexist concept is utterly foreign to the true Peter, the true Jesus, and the true Gospels in general. In the true Gospels salvation is not based on sex-change operations of any sort. The Gospel of Truth is likewise of a late date, having been written about 150 years after Jesus died.

All of the apocryphal Gnostic Gospels have a few things in common: they were all written much later than even the latest New Testament book, they were all written long after the Apostles died; they all contain doctrines that betray their late authorship since they include teachings that developed in the second to fourth centuries. Comparing the time of the event to the time of the writing, the time of the writing to the time of the earliest manuscript, the number of manuscript and many other signs of authenticity these Gospels fall far, far short of the reliability of the New Testament texts. As stated before, the liberal scholars appear to prefer these, not because they are superior in any way but, because they allow the New Testament to be besmirched, albeit in an utterly unviable manner.

The NBC Dateline presentation ends with a demonstration of the extreme difference between facts and liberal scholarship’s fantasy:

Stone Phillips: “Is there any historical evidence that Jesus fathered any children?”
Prof. Bart D. Ehrman, Ph.D.: “No, there’s not a scrap of historical evidence that Jesus fathered a child.”
Prof. Ben Witherington, III, Ph.D.: “No evidence whatsoever.”
Prof. Karen L. King, Ph.D.: “There’s no evidence at all.”

Reading one’s own preconceived notions into the text (in this case in a way that would interest Sigmund Freud) versus letting the text speak for itself and or relying on historical fact is the difference between real scholarship and very popular fiction.

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The New Testament? A Jewish book? Oi vey!

Is not the New Testament a Gentile book written by Pagans?

Let us see_

Jesus was Jewish. His Jewish parents took him to the Temple to be circumcised on the eighth day. His parents took Him to the Temple feasts. He attended the synagogue and, when of age, He took his turn reading Scriptures to the congregants. Jesus made pilgrimages to worship at the Temple. He was a law abiding Jew.

The first Christians were all Jewish. Later on Gentiles also became Christians by putting their trust in the God of the Jewish Scripture. The writers of the New Testament were Jewish, practicing Jews, monotheistic Jews. The first handfull of people to believe that Jesus as the Messiah were Jewish. The 12 apostles were Jewish. The first 70 disciples were Jewish. In fact, for years the church was strictly Jewish, and some were weary at first to allow Gentiles into the church (not a building but a body of believers).

Eusebius wrote the following in Ecclesiastical History IV:

I have learned from written documents that, until the siege of the Jews under Hadrian, there had been in Jerusalem a succession of fifteen bishops, all of whom are said to have been Hebrews of ancient stock. In fact, the entire church of Jerusalem consisted at that time of practicing Hebrews.

Is it not astounding that millions of Gentiles are following the Jewish Messiah, worshipping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Just as God’s very own people have lived and died for the Word of God, Gentiles likewise are living and dying for the Word of God.

Let us consider the New Testament for a moment. Of the twenty-seven books that make up the New Testament, Jewish men wrote twenty-five of them. A Greek doctor named Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. Luke traveled around and interviewed eyewitnesses in order to ensure that what he was being taught was true and in order to collect first hand accounts of the events that had transpired. Dr. Luke wrote:

Dear Theophilos: Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message. Therefore, your Excellency, since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative, so that you might know how well-founded are the things about which you have been taught (Luke 1:1-4).

The concepts, illustrations, metaphors, allusions, symbolism, etc. within the New Testament cannot easily be understood apart from the proper context of the Old Testament-the Tanakh. As it is said, the New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed and the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed. Take a look at a “Christian Bible” and you can compare the size of the books of the Old Testament to that of The New Testament. The grand majority of the Christian Bible is the Old Testament. In a lecture that I once attended, the lecturer stated that we do not really need the New Testament because the life of Christ is so clearly spelled out in the Old Testament; the New Testament identifies the Messiah Jesus.

There are circa 260 quotes from and 370 allusions to the Old Testament in the New Testament. For example, the Book of Revelation is 404 verses long, 278 of those verses are allusions to the Old Testament.Jesus directly quoted or alluded to the following Old Testament books:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 1st Samuel, 1st Kings, 2nd Chronicles, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah and Malachi.

Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, a.k.a. Paul the Apostle, was especially learned in the Torah, he himself explains,

I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city and trained at the feet of Gamaliel in every detail of the Torah of our forefathers. I was a zealot for God as all of you are today (Acts 22:3).

Gamaliel was a Pharisee and celebrated doctor of the law, he is referred to as an authority in the Mishnah, and was grandson of Hillel. Gamaliel and Hillel These men were two of the most well known and respected sages of their day and still highly revered today. In fact, Paul enters the story of the New Testaments as an extremely zealous persecutor of those who believed in Jesus. He traveled from city to city with armed men and had Christians beaten and jailed, he even approvingly oversaw the stoning to death of the first Christian martyr; Steven.He was not about to let anyone corrupt the Torah, so why did he end up writing the majority of the New Testament? To start with he had a vision in which Jesus told him that he was not merely persecuting the early believers but that he was persecuting Jesus Himself. Paul never met Jesus, all this happened after His death, resurrection and ascension. However, as we know from the Old Testament; as astonishing and emotionally charged as visions and miracles are, they have a tendency to not have a long lasting effect in the life of an individual (for example, consider the complaining of God’s people after the Exodus).What Paul did is to put what the believers were claiming to the test by seeing not only what the people said but in addition he diligently searched the Old Testament to see if Jesus’ life did or did not fulfill messianic prophecy. Paul, the other apostles, and Jesus, were constantly preaching at the Temple and at synagogues.

But as soon as night fell, the brothers sent Saul and Silas off to Berea. As soon as they arrived, they went to the synagogue. Now the people here were of nobler character than the ones in Thessalonica; they eagerly welcomed the message, checking the Old Testament every day to see if the things Saul was saying were true (Acts 17:10-11).

We are being taught to not listen to Paul or any pastor or priest, but to check the Old Testament and see if what is said about Jesus is true. We learn that they eagerly welcomed the message because every single day after Paul spoke to them they checked the Old Testament to see if the things Paul was saying was true. So the truth about Jesus is not only in the New Testament but also in the Old Testament. Before the New Testament existed Jesus was proven to be the Messiah strictly by the Old Testament.

When Jesus encountered two disciples on the road to Emmaus He said to them:

“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:25-27).

Thus, what Paul states is true regarding both the old as well as the new covenant when he wrote,

What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God (Romans 3:1-2).

Actually, considering that the New York Times is a liberal “news” paper it is difficult to discern if they are victims of atheist propaganda or promulgators of it.

True Freethinker has been noting failed attempts by various atheist sects to put a happy public relations face on atheism. Taking advantage of the fact that reporter/journalists no longer seem to bother with annoying little tasks such as conducting research and checking facts various atheist sects get free advertizing by granting interviews. During these interviews they try very hard to control their anti-Christian rage and put on the victim, martyr, friendly atheist next door act. I say “act” because unlike the media I have taken the next step and also considered how these various atheist sects present themselves on their own websites. That is where you find the disparity between the “Can’t we all just get along maaaaaaan?” public image and the anti-Christian support groups found on their well within the box group think prejudice expressing websites.

The free press was provided by the New York Times1 which noted that the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry spent thousands of dollars of donated money during a time of worldwide recession in order to purchase billboards that stated the innocuous enough statement, “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone.”

As we have considered in the past (at this post in particular) atheists also have more than pure motives of doing good deeds. This time we get a refreshingly very good example of that as it is reported that the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry:

They are connecting on the Internet, holding meet-ups in bars, advertising on billboards and buses, volunteering at food pantries and picking up roadside trash, earning atheist groups recognition on adopt-a-highway signs.
They liken their strategy to that of the gay-rights movement, which lifted off when closeted members of a scorned minority decided to go public.

Thus, volunteering at food pantries and picking up roadside trash is a mere strategy employed to earn atheist groups recognition, which they also seek to get by turning adopt-a-highway signs into advertisements.

Founded the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, Herb Silverman, stated, “The most important thing is coming out of the closet.” Assuming that this is true; the problem for such atheists is that the modern day New Atheist movement seeks not only to come out of the closet but then to kick down their neighbor’s door and shove atheism down their throats-as they already do in public school classrooms.

The New York Times also reports,

Ten national organizations that variously identify themselves as atheists, humanists, freethinkers and others who go without God have recently united to form the Secular Coalition for America, of which Mr. Silverman is president. These groups, once rivals, are now pooling resources to lobby in Washington for separation of church and state.

And encouraging the unification of atheism and state.

While the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry sport t-shirts reading “Non Prophet Organization,” an unfriendly anti-theism mockery, they certainly are not nonprofit. At the very top of the Secular Coalition for America website are two prompts to “donate” and one “support us.”

Their advisory board consist of, in part:

The President of the anti-Christian “American Atheists” Ed Buckner.Militant activist atheist, Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Atheism.Buddhist mystic atheist, Sam Harris who does not like the terms Buddhist, mystic or atheist and who is describe as “author on the dangers of religion to modern society” and who has a one word answer for all of the world’s ills, “religion.”Self professed “anti-theist,” Christopher Hitchens.Contender for the record of number of lawsuits filed and claimant that atheism is a religion, Michael Newdow who attempted to have his religion shoved down public school children’s throats by removing “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.Ellery Schempp who was a “litigant in_the 1963 Supreme Court ruling that public school-sponsored Bible readings were unconstitutional.”

And Julia Sweeney whose “comedy” is premised upon promulgating misconceptions about the Bible and Christianity in the form of atheist propaganda.

In an utter display of intolerance and lack of diversity they ask “Can the Obamas Help the Boy Scouts See the Light?” and state:

With reports indicating President Obama will accept the traditional role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America, the Secular Coalition calls on him to use his power to move the Boy Scouts beyond their “traditional values” and to practice the American values of diversity and tolerance. The Coalition also hopes the First Lady, likely to become Girl Scouts’ honorary president, uses her position to promote that group’s enlightened embrace of diversity.

Apparently, to the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry is to intolerantly and in lack of diversity seek to make the Boy and Girl Scouts adhere to uniformity and change them at their core; their core of “traditional values.”They also do not seem to know the difference between the Constitution’s Establishment Clause and a letter written by Thomas Jefferson who attended worship services in a Christian church that worshipped the God of the Bible in the Capitol Building:

The Secular Coalition Thanks the Senate for Upholding Church-State Separation_Secular Coalition for America and its allies won the first battle to protect church-state separation_

We also learn from the New York Times that,

A wave of donations, some in the millions of dollars, has enabled the hiring of more paid professional organizers, said Fred Edwords, a longtime atheist leader who just started his own umbrella group, the United Coalition of Reason, which plans to spawn 20 local groups around the country in the next year.

We can only expect success as such groups prefer legislation from the bench.Also of interest is,

Andrew Morency, who attended a Christian high school, said that when he got to college and studied evolutionary biology he decided that “creationists lie.”

Not a big surprise as I have evidenced that atheists smuggle atheism through the back door of our science classrooms. Actually, they go right into the front door as they have managed to get atheist propaganda to be printed directly into textbooks that are supposed to be about science (see here).It was also reported,

Part of what is giving the movement momentum is the proliferation of groups on college campuses. The Secular Student Alliance_At the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, 19 students showed up for a recent evening meeting of the “Pastafarians,” named for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – a popular spoof on religion_

That’s right college students confuse rebellions again corrupt religion with rebellion against God, remember that there is no ultimate accountability, that you are absolutely autonomous, that if you get away with it you just got away with it and oh, yeah, do whatever you want and still look in the mirror and say, “I’m a good person.”

In keeping with the new generation of atheist evangelists, the Pastafarian leaders say that their goal is not confrontation, or even winning converts, but changing the public’s stereotype of atheists. A favorite Pastafarian activity is to gather at a busy crossroads on campus with a sign offering “Free Hugs” from “Your Friendly Neighborhood Atheist.”

Apparently, the “Friendly Neighborhood Atheists,” all 19 of them, seem to think that it is not confrontation to premise their sect upon mocking theism. Perhaps according to the atheist morality de jour this makes some sort of sense. And who knows who is responsible for referring to the Pastafarians as “atheist evangelists” while claiming that “their goal is not_even winning converts.” How stereotypical the whole thing is.Overall, we find that, yet again, the happy face is just a mask hiding the old, tired, stereotypical anti-Christian atheist support groups.

In July of 2004 AD, Daniel Okrent admitted that the New York Times is a liberal newspaper (he was their public editor). This is, of course, tantamount to admitting that the Sun is hot.

It is generally known and admitted that the media (all but radio, perhaps), Hollywood and its celebrities, academia, and even comedy skit shows and late night TV talk shows favor the non-“traditional,” non-conservative, non-Christian point of view.

Earlier this year the Culture and Media Institute, in conjunction with the Media Research Center, published a “Special Report” entitled “Apostles of Atheism” subtitled, “How the broadcast and print media helped spread the Gospel of Godlessness in 2007” (the hyperlink will open a PDF of the report).

In part, the report states:

” To assess the news media’s coverage of atheism in 2007, CMI examined the morning, evening, late night and weekend news programs on all three broadcast networks, all issues of the three leading weekly news magazines (Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report), and four programs aired on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation).

_This report concludes that, whether deliberately or not, the news media did not subject atheism or atheists to the same skepticism to which they subject Christians and Christianity. By airing unchallenged interviews and reporting predominantly positive-toned features, the news organizations in this study effectively promoted atheism and held it in higher regard than other religions_ Atheists received uncritical treatment from the media in myriad stories.”