Month: July 2016

The Targumim:Targum Jonathan,

“For to us a Son is born, to us a Son is given: and He shall receive the Law upon Him to keep it; and His Name is called from of old, Wonderful, Counselor, ELOHA, The Mighty, Abiding to Eternity, The Messiah, because peace shall be multiplied on us in His days.”

“The prophet announced to the house of David that: A boy has been born to us, a son has been given unto us, who has taken the Torah upon himself to guard it; and his name has been called by the One who gives wonderful counsel, the Mighty God, He who lives forever: ‘Messiah,’ in whose day peace shall abound for us.”

The Midrashim:Midrash-Rabbah Deuteronomy I:20,

“‘I have yet to raise up the Messiah,’ of Whom it is written, For a child is born to us.”

Note that according to this understanding, God has not yet done that which is spoken of as a child is born.

Midrash Mishle (S. Buber edition),

“The Messiah is called by eight names: Yinnon, Tzemah, Pele [‘Miracle’], Yo’etz [‘Counselor’], Mashiah [‘Messiah’], El [‘G-d’], Gibbor [‘Hero’], and Avi ‘Ad Shalom [‘Eternal Father of Peace’]”

Midrash Rabbah Ruth V:6 on Ruth 2:14,

“makes reference to the Messiah_AND THEY REACHED HER PARCHED CORN, means that he will be restored to his throne, as it is said, And he shall smite the land with the rod of his mouth (Isa. 9:4).”

Contextually, if 9:4 is Messianic then so is 9:6.

Midrash Rabbah Ruth VII:2,

“Hezekiah, as it is said, That the government may be increased, and of peace there be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it, through justice and righteousness (Isa. IX, 6). And his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom (ib. 5). Some observe that l’marbeh (be increased) is written with a closed meme.(1)”

Footnote (1) The text has ‘lacking a mem‘, but it must be corrected as above. It is difficult to see the point of the Midrash. The ‘closed’ mem is that written at the end of a word. The Rabbis maintain that God intended Hezekiah to be the Messiah, but the closed mem teaches that he was shut out from that honour because he had not sung God’s praises (Sanh. 94a).

FYI: This is one of the essays that I wrote before PZ Myers – The Desecration Delusion but in typical dyslexic (and procrastinative) form am posting now – after the fact, and after the act.

Recently PZ Myers paid Christianity a tremendous compliment. He paid Christianity a compliment by ripping a page out of a Bible.

He describes the occasion thusly (the post refers to PZ Myers in the third person but it was “Posted_by PZ Myers“):

“The introductory schtick to my talk at the Seattle Skeptics meeting last night was to take a Bible and read a bit of Genesis, making the point that it was vague, wrong, and useless (I also ripped out the page and waved the pathetic thing around a bit, which had several people asking if they could have the bible defaced by PZ Myers afterwards). Then, of course, I summarized some small bits of the story of eye evolution to demonstrate that science has a much deeper and more powerful origins story than that little scrap of piss-poor poetry that half this country wants to make the backbone of our science curriculum…if a god had chosen to tell primitive people how the universe came to be, he/she/it could have done so in just as awe-inspiring a way as the false myths we’ve got.”

I am at a loss to understand what the point was, except to say that he was clearly appealing to the emotional (and intellectual?) maturity of his audience who could not wait to have their hero deface the bible further. This certainly gives us a window into the preaching to the children’s choir that goes on at the Seattle Skeptics meeting. One could only hope that some, many, or most of the Skeptics were embarrassed by such anti-intellectual tomfoolery.

As I pointed out in an essay about Prof. Richard Dawkins (here) the Bible states that the universe had a beginning, that it consists of time, space, and matter, that it expands, that the earth hangs on nothing, that it is circular, that the Pleiadian star system is bound together by mutual gravitational attraction, that the Orion system has a belt, to name a few facts (Genesis 1:1; Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22; 42:5; 42:44; 45:12; 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12; 51:15; Zechariah 12:1; Job 26:7; Isaiah 40:22; Job 38:31; Job 38:31).
At any rate, besides expressing his personal prejudice, who knows what Prof. PZ Myers’ topic was. Apparently, for his purposes, the purpose of mixing science and atheism, Genesis was vague, wrong, and useless. But what is it with the tough guy, let us say, ripping a page out of the Bible? PZ Myers paid Christianity a compliment by proving that he is safe and sound besmirching the Bible in a majority Christian country whose government is premised on Christian principles. He knows that the overwhelming majority, by orders of magnitude, of Christians, and Jews, who hear about his childishness will just shake their heads and maybe even pray for him. The authorities are on his side: no, beatings, no jail time, no executions as would surely occur if he were a real tough guy and went, for instance, to Afghanistan and tore a page out of the Qur’an. In fact, I would bet that he would not even have the guts to do that in the safety of America even amongst his immature admirers.

PZ Myers appears to make the same mistake as many skeptics do, he faults the Bible for not stating more about his particular field of interest. Scientists put the Bible down for not stating more about science. Historians put the Bible down for not stating more about history. Archaeologists put the Bible down for not stating more about where we may uncover artifacts, etc., etc., etc. Yet, the Bible’s message is not about science, history, archaeology nor about anything else that we may be specifically interested in. Its message is about the human condition, sin and salvation. What it does state about, for instance, science is not only accurate but has served as the foundations of the very same modern fields and methods of science that PZ Myers et al use as a facade for pushing atheism (see my essay Protecting the Science Classroom).

And so, in America he can deface a Bible, keep on expressing his prejudice at will, and still make a nice living by passing off atheistic-activism as if it were science.

oday, the front page of Prof. Richard Dawkins is advertising, “VOICES OF SCIENCE: PZ Myers – Buy it now on DVD.” Oh, PZ Myers is also a scientist? Who would’a’thunk’it?!?!

Well, that is what I get for procrastinating. I had written up two nice little essays on PZ Myers’ shenanigans and before I got a chance to post them he inflicted the coup de grace. Or perhaps better stated, he lowered himself to even greater depths of childishness and humanization.

Well, I am dyslexic so I think that I will post this first and then catch you up on what lead to it in later posts.

In his post, The Great Desecration (Posted on: July 24, 2008 2:00 PM, by PZ Myers) Prof. PZ Myers states, “It is finished,” although considering the childish nature of his own personality and that of his screeching monkeys (see PZ Myers and Pavlov’s Monkeys), he himself is not finished but has probably gained an ever greater audience of people who appear to have much too much free time on their hands by which to be consumed by expressing their prejudices.

What set off the, so called, great desecration was Prof. PZ Myers’ expressed wish to desecrate the Eucharist (a communion wafer consecrated by a Roman Catholic priest). He begins his post by retelling Roman Catholic persecution of the Jews beginning in 1215 AD based on the alleged Jewish desecration of the Eucharist. Interestingly, when atheist Communists persecuted the Jews they needed no such superstitious pretexts.

After retelling various, rightly condemnable, actions of persecutions (condemned based on Judeo-Christian morality, of course) he writes:

“Catholicism has mellowed with age – the last time a Catholic nation rose up to slaughter its non-Christian citizenry was a whole 70 years ago, after all – but the sentiment still lingers. Catholicism has been actively poisoning the minds of its practitioners with the most amazing bull**** for years, and until recently, I had no idea that a significant number of people actually believed this nonsense, or that the hatred was still simmering there, waiting for an opportunity to rise up in misplaced defense of absurdity.” [asterisks mine, italics his]

I am tempted to respond thusly:

“Atheism has mellowed with age – the last time an atheist nation rose up to slaughter its non-atheist citizenry was a whole 70 years ago, after all – but the sentiment still lingers. Atheism has been actively poisoning the minds of its practitioners with the most amazing claims for years, and until recently, I had no idea that a significant number of people actually believed this nonsense, or that the hatred was still simmering there, waiting for an opportunity to rise up in misplaced defense of absurdity.”

However, this would not be entirely accurate since atheist Communists, as an example, slaughtered non-atheists and atheists alike and are still wielding bloody iron fists wherever they still reign.

Prof. PZ Myers has referred to the Eucharist by many derogatory terms which I do not care to relate here. I did want to mention that while I also disagree with the Roman Catholic concept of transubstantiation. I have actually devoted an entire blog to that specific subject from a logical, historical and biblical point of view. The point being that there are ways in which to deal with such issues.
If you are interested, see this blog: Roman Catholic Doctrine of Eucharist
And, for that matter these: Roman Catholic Maryology and Roman Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory.

Prof. PZ Myers misses the point of some of the statements from some who have written to him on this issue:

“Another common theme has been the attempt to turn away the desecration of a Catholic symbol into the desecration of an Islamic symbol. Obviously, it’s not desecration they find disagreeable – it’s the idea that someone would offend their weird sectarian sensibilities.”

I would not think that this was not the case but would imagine that their point was that he would be afraid to spit in the face of Islam. However, even this is overstated since in the comfort and safety of America a besmircher of any religion, including Islam, is safe, sound and well on their way to becoming a celebrity that is hounded not by religious fanatics but by invitations to lectures, interviews, book authorship, etc. In fact, the letter he quotes to this effect makes this point clear.

Most of his post is simply not worth mentioning because of his childishness and also, I may add, the childishness and malevolence of those who wrote in to disagree with him. In conclusion he wrote:

“OK, time for the anticlimax_.I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt. By the way, I didn’t want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur’an and The God Delusion. They are just paper.”

Finally, he ends by making various dogmatic proclamations:

“Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity’s knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.” [bold in original

Yes, perhaps you also can become so enlightened as to abuse your authority as a professor of science in order to smuggle atheism into the science classrooms and to encourage and exhibit childish malevolence.

Oi vey!

One of life’s greatest mysteries is why Dan Barker is considered an apt representative of atheism and an able debater. During his debate with Kyle Butt that was entitled “Does the God of the Bible Exist?” (hear it here) and which took place on Charles Darwin’s birthday he, yet again, premised his credentials upon being not only an ex-Christian, mind you, but an ex-pastor.

I must say that the more Dan Barker boasts of being an ex-pastor the more there occurs within the inner recesses of my brain an exponential increase in my shock as his stunning lack of knowledge of even the most basic concepts and contents of the Bible.

As for Kyle Butt, one thing that comes through very clearly in the debate is that he is a careful researcher and has given Dan Barker enough credit to carefully consider his positions and statements; he knows where Dan Barker made certain statements and cities Dan Barker’s books and even the page number, he has also double checked references that Dan Barker has provided in his books and is able to elucidate these by giving a greater scope than that which Dan Baker chose to provide by self-serving selective allusions.

Dan Barker employs two favorite cheap debater’s tricks:

1) In appealing to the “problem of evil” he pulls on the heartstrings of the audience by referencing, you guessed it, the children. It is not that the subject is taboo or, in and of itself, fallacious but that he makes it a habit of attempting to bypass his audience’s intellect and getting them to focus on their emotional responses.
The advantage of this tactic is that it establishes an emotional, empathetic, sympathetic connection with the speaker. Once the audience is busy experiencing emotions what has intellect to say? How do you argue against an emotion? Any rational counter argument will likely come across as being heartless and utterly ineffective because emotions are tangible while arguments are ethereal abstract concepts.

2) The other tactic is akin to the fallacy of elephant hurling. In his opening remarks Dan Barker claims that we can know that the God of the Bible does not exist because there are contradictions in the Bible with regards to His nature.
First of all, it should be noted that he is appealing to the Judeo-Christian worldview as a premise for his argument. No, not by referencing the Bible but by appealing to the laws of logic (find an argument for God’s existence from the laws of logic here). If atheistic evolution is a fact then, just like everything else, the laws of logic evolved or are still evolving. Thus, in order to argue against God’s existence by appealing to the laws of logic Dan Barker would have present evidence that when the Bible was written the law of non-contradiction was in affect and/or evidence the evolution of the law.What Dan Barker does is to, in rapid fire succession, shoot off 14 alleged contradictions (plus 6 other alleged reasons why we can know that God does not exist). Kyle Butt mentions this as he pointed out that when a debater shoots off 20 assertions they are doing two things:

1) They are not allowing the audience to digest but are attempting to overwhelm them.
2) They know very well that their opponent simply will not have enough time to respond to each one or perhaps not even half nor a third, etc. Kyle Butt does respond to a few during the course of the debate.

During his first rebuttal period Dan Barker actually manages to sink below merely demonstrating his stunning lack of knowledge of even the most basic concepts and contents of the Bible and poses an argument from Atheist Sunday School: who made God?
In posing an argument from contingency the theist stops at God-a finite regress. Yet, Dan Barker asks, “Why stop there?”-an infinite regress. This argument’s terminology has been updated as “Who designed the designer?” by, as far as I know, Richard Dawkins who made this the very central argument of his book “The God Delusion.”1Succinctly stated the response is that since God is eternal God required no cause therefore, nothing/no one made God/ nothing/no one designed the designer.

But why, it has been asked, as far as I know, since David Hume, could not matter be eternal? Primarily because the very best scientific knowledge at our disposal shows evidence that matter is not eternal (see my correction of a misconception on this matter, pun intended, by the Rational Response Squad‘s Brian Sapient here).

Indeed, it is my contention that God is eternal and required no cause. But why?
Premised upon the cosmological argument which makes clear that everything that begins to exist has a cause it follows logically that since time began to exist time had a cause. Since time began to exist whatever caused time is timeless (infinite or eternal). It is the linear time that makes cause and effect relationships possible: a cause is followed in time by an effect.Yet, since God exists outside of, or without, time; cause and effect relationships are impossible and thus, God is the uncausable first cause: it was God’s first action of creation that brought the space time continuum into being and set cause and effect relationships into motion.

Therefore, in God’s timeless realm there is no such question as “Who made God?” since this is a time space domain based question which simply does not apply.

Yet, there is a lot to be learned from the Atheist Sunday School argument; it asserts that:

It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God made everything out of nothing.
It is rational and scientific to believe that nothing made everything out of nothing.

It is ignorant and superstitious to believe that God is eternal.
It is rational and scientific to believe that matter is eternal.

God is an effect and must have had a cause.
Matter is the uncaused first cause.

If God made everything, then who made God?
Matter made everything and nothing made matter.

Next we come to a discussion of ethics and morals as Dan Barker states:

There are no objective moral values in the universe, there are not. We make values in our brain, a value is a function of a brain…We make values based upon what we need to survive, what we need to enhance our lives, what we need to avoid pain in our lives and we can make, we make comparisons of those values…a value is relative to an organism…
values can be objectively justified. They’re not objective values because to be a, a value is a function of a brain of a mind right? But to be objective means to exist independently of a mind. So how can you have something in the mind that exists independently of the mind that’s an oxymoron. You cannot have an objective value, you can have values that you can objectively justify…we’re all basically situational ethicists in our daily lives and so is the Bible.

Upon this I can agree, “a value is a function of a brain of a mind right”-indeed, the mind of God.

As to the oxymoron: objectivity is more than just existing independently of a mind, it is free of bias, based on facts, observable, etc. For example, it is objective that the Earth is spherical. This is indeed a reality existing outside of our minds and yet, we can commandeer this objective fact into our minds where the fact resides as it accurately reflects objective reality. Thus, we can have something in the mind that exists independently of the mind because having it in the mind that not automatically transform the objective into the subjective-not if it continues to reflect reality once it takes residence in our minds.

Next, Dan Barker then falls back on his absolutist assertion that morals are to be premised upon “how much harm does this cause” which is, of course, a mere authoritarian argument form personalized dogma-thou shall base morals upon this and this alone; thus saith the Barkerian ethic.

Are we all basically situational ethicists, even the Bible? Not exactly. He is making a category mistake: granting that “we’re all basically situational ethicists” we must understand that these are two vast different sorts of “situational ethics” if they both may indeed be referred to as such.

These two sorts of “situational ethics” are the atheistic or Barkerian and the biblical:
According to the Barkerian; the premise is “how much harm does this cause” or as Dan Barker alternately categorizes it does it cause the least amount of harm to the least amount of people. Now, of course, he presupposes that we ought not to cause harm.

Let us apply this concept, perhaps to the extreme but as a logical outcome: Hitler was acting in a morally Barkerian manner since he asked himself “how much harm does this cause and does it cause the least amount of harm to the least amount of people” and his answer was basically that murdering 12,000,000 people caused the least amount of harm considering the great number of people in the various countries which he had under his power. He sought to benefit the majority Germans by eliminating the minority Jews and others-this would provide much needed resources and territory for the majority Germans.

“Going too far,” you say? This is what Hitler wrote in his Last Will and Testament, “In these three decades I have been actuated solely by love and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts, and life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions which have ever confronted mortal man.”
Moreover, referencing his alien rape voyeur argument, during the debate Dan Barker proclaims that if it would save humanity he would rape 2,000 women (he would not like it and would consider suicide afterwards but he would do it).

As for biblical “situational ethics” Dan Barker fails to note something which places it and the Barkerian in separate categories: the biblical may be situational but it is premised upon an absolute and ontological foundation while the Barkerian is strictly situational being premised upon Dan Barker’s baseless assertions which amount to nothing but an ethereal concept.

A little later in the debate he attempts to disregard the Ten Commandments as irrelevant because,

only three of which are relevant to modern American law, the other seven are totally irrelevant. The first four have nothing to do with ethics…the atheistic way is actually a superior intellectual and moral way of thinking.

Stating that only three are relevant to modern American law is making modern American law the standard by which to judge the Ten Commandments. Yet, when when he states that the first four Ten Commandments have nothing to do with ethics he fails to note, or notice, that it is the first commandment upon which all true ethics, in fact the ethos itself, are premised, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

Furthermore, in relation to Hitler; Dan Barker asks Kyle Butt if he had heard him correctly, had he stated that Hitler was an atheistic Communist? Kyle Butt responds in the affirmative to which Dan Barker correctly responds that Hitler was not a Communist but a National Socialist and states that Hitler was a Chrisitan. Kyle Butt states that referring to Hitler as a Communist was a simple misstatement and goes on to demonstrate that Hitler, whatever he was, was certainly no Christian by quoting Hitler.

Dan Barker further stated,

Hitler believed in a God, was not atheistic, he talked about the creator all the time, he was a creationist, he credited Jesus as an inspiration for exterminating the Jews, they wore Gott mit uns – God with us on their belt buckles. Those Nazis where Lutherans and Catholics…he was a lousy Christian, I have to admit he was really a weird Christian but he was not an atheist.

These assertions are fallacious in many levels:Primarily that it presupposes that Hitler was honest-he said it so it must be true.Since Hitler was a Christian he defines what is and what is not Christianity.What Hitler claimed or whom he credited does not necessarily reflect reality.

Stating that they wore Gott mit uns fails to ask who this Gott was and it fails to note that Gott mit uns dates to Otto von Bismarck’s 1870 imperial standard and that the SS’s motto was “Meine Ehre heißt Treue” (my honor is loyalty).

To state that Nazis where Lutherans and Catholics, again, leaves it to them to subjectively define what is and what is not Christianity. Moreover, it proves, by application of the same “logic,” that Communist regime leaders where atheists (because they said so) proves that Communism is atheistic (because the claimed atheism to be its premise) and proves the crimes of Communist citizens, soldiers and Gulag torturers may be blamed on atheism since they were atheists.

As to the statements “he was a creationist…he was not an atheist” let us ask Hitler to describe his view of creation, not when he is merely seeking politically expedient brownie points but when he is actually elucidating his views:

The first step which visibly brought mankind away from the animal world was that which led to the first invention…the struggle with other creatures for his existence and often to provide him with the only means he could adopt to achieve success in the struggle…His first skilled tactics in the struggle with the rest of the animals undoubtedly originated in his management of creatures which possessed special capabilities…all these inventions help man to raise himself higher and higher above the animal world and to separate himself from that world in an absolutely definite way. Hence they serve to elevate the human species and continually to promote its progress….

Without human beings there is no human idea in this world, therefore the idea as such is always conditioned by the presence of human beings and hence of all the laws which created the precondition for their existence…ideas, which have nothing to do with cold logic as such, but represent only pure expressions of feeling, ethical conceptions, etc., are chained to the existence of men, to whose intellectual imagination and creative power they owe their existence…

This planet once moved through the ether for millions of years without human beings and it can do so again some day if men forget that they owe their higher existence, not to the ideas of a few crazy ideologists, but to the knowledge and ruthless application of Nature’s stern and rigid laws.2

These are not “creationist” views but “atheistic” views. So, he held “atheistic” views but was he an atheist? I will conditionally say “No” but could also argue for his being a pantheistic-atheist. There is a lot more that I could say on this whole issue of Hitler, Christianity and atheism (and on what a “pantheistic-atheist” is) but will withhold until around mid April when I will provide some very detailed essays on this topic.

In referencing the point, agreed upon by both debaters, that truth is not established by majority opinion, Dan Barker references the USA’s founding fathers and states,

women should not vote, women should stay home, women should not go to college, women should not own their own property, this all comes out of the Bible, by the way.

Unfortunately, he does not provide citations so you either have to ignore this statement, take his word for it on authority (the authority of an ex-pastor mind you, he must know what he is talking about), or practice the skepticism which the Bible enjoins upon us (Acts 17:11; 1st Thessalonians 5:21, etc.) and take the time, energy, and trouble to double check his statements.
This was more elephant hurling-like tactics as Dan Barker builds a virtual tel of elephantine fossils. While Kyle Butt could also not respond to each in turn, I can and will. As I have previously elucidated in a post on Biblical Women; in the Bible we find that there women had the right to own land, they were prophetesses (in both testaments), judges, disciples, deaconesses, teachers, worked/owned their own businesses, two OT books are named after women and women were the first at the empty tomb while the male apostles were hiding in fear (see Exodus 15:20; Numbers ch. 27; 2nd Kings 22:14; 2nd Chronicles 34:22; Proverbs 31:16; Isaiah 8:3; Judges 4:4; Luke 2:36; Romans 16:1-2; Acts 16:14, 21:7-9, 9:36, 18:26; Titus 2:3-4).

Moreover, while Pliny the Younger (Plinius Secundus) was Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor in 112 AD he wrote to Emperor Tarjan in Epistles 10.96-referring to Christians he writes of “two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses.” This again demonstrates a continued Christian practice of having women in leadership and teaching roles.

As it often occurs with various atheists, and Dan Barker in particular, there comes a point when the veneer, the facade, of intellect, rationale and erudition are worn away and expose what is truly fueling the fires of their unbelief: pure rejection of God, open and proud rebellion against God, emotional reactions to various things such as their unwillingness to accept that there is something, someone, up above and beyond them and adherence to the atheist motto, “I shall have no other gods before me”-before the one in their mirror.

Thus, Dan Barker can contain himself no longer and gives vent to a litany of emotive, childlike, capricious rants to the likes of,

if he [God] wants to prove what a big macho man he is by sending someone like me to hell then let him do it. Fine, I’ll go to hell gladly, proudly, knowing that I resisted somebody like, a dictator like that who would create a hell in the first place….I would say to that God, “You created hell, you go to hell, if you wanna torture me forever fine, prove what a big macho man you are, you do not have my respect!”

Yes, I can feel the adrenaline the emotionally charged excitement but I am also considering whether he is correct. Kyle Butt rights points out that Dan Barker is engaging in an argument from outrage.
And yes, Dan Barker does manage to mention children in promulgating his misunderstanding of what hell is, how children are terrified by the concept, etc. something I have discussed here. He then appeals to the very, very popular but utterly fallacious argument about reward/punishment morality which I have posted about here and here.
I might as well also mention that earlier in the debate he had also demonstrated further lack of knowledge with regards to Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac which I have written about here. And also that he does not seem to understand that the human eye is meant to see through the atmosphere while the eyes of ocean dwelling creatures are meant to see though water.

Three points are to be made about Dan Barker’s rage against the God who created hell:

1) God did not created hell for humans.2) In this case, Dan Barker actually elucidates theology accurately.

3) Unbeknownst to him, Dan Barker has solved the “problem of evil.”

1) Matthew 25:41 refers to, “everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” This means that hell was specifically created for beings for whom God’s existence was not an issue, it was not a question. In counter distinction, note that the Qur’an states that hell was created for sinners (Surah 3:131). Thus, God created a place where those who rebelled against Him could get what they wanted-eternal separation from Him.

2) Since hell was created for fallen angelic beings, humans can go there is they want to-if they choose to go there. In his rage against God we see the whole purpose for hell. As it has been said; there are two sort of people, those who say to God “Thy will be done” and those to whom God says, “Thy will be done.” Dan Barker is so very angry at God that he basically challenges Him to send him to hell.Let us imagine that, may God forbid one thousand times, Dan Barker ends up in hell we may imagine that he will be quite happy having done away with God forever yet, note that Dan Barker is in a rage and this is his attitude towards God. Eternity is about experiencing, living, the lives we have ultimately chosen: those who choose acceptance of God accept God eternally and enjoy an eternal relationship with Him while those who choose rejection of God reject God eternally and rage against Him eternally.

Thus, it would seem that being in hell would not endear God to Dan Barker and so he will be eternally enraged with God-eternally rejecting God. Hell is eternal because the sin of those in hell is eternal-they have chosen eternal sin, “I’ll go to hell gladly, proudly.”

Let us also take a moment to carefully note that another emotive tactic was employed by Dan Barker repeatedly during the debate as he referred to hell as a place of “torture.” While it is true that some translations employ the term “torture” this is a misnomer as the implications of the word torture denote something unknown to the Bible.
Torture denotes the infliction of physical pain, while torment denotes mental anguish. Thus, let us be absolutely clear in understanding that nowhere in the whole Bible is it even hinted at that hell is to be pictured as a Gulag-like torture chamber. Neither is it even hinted at that there will be people or demons whose job is to inflict physical pain. Neither is the devil ever pictured as the king of hell but rather, he is pictured as one who suffers like the rest, and indeed more so. With regards to torment; Alfred Edersheim comments thusly with regards to “weeping and the gnashing of teeth”; “In Rabbinic thought the former was connected with sorrow,3 the latter almost always anger4 – not, as generally supposed, with anguish.” 5

3) Dan Barker claims that evil disproves God via the “problem of evil.” Of course, this conclusion is reached by his relying on theology of his own making. It is the God he imagines that is disproved by the existence of evil.
Now, note very carefully that in arguing that, for example, rape is not absolutely immoral Dan Barker stated, “You cannot name an action that is always, absolutely right or wrong, I can think of an exception in any case.” There you have it Dan Barker has solved the problem of evil. This is because, as philosophers commonly affirm, if God has even one reason for “allowing” evil or momentarily allowing it to exist-even one single reason, even a reason of which we are not aware-then the problem of evil is solved. If God be charged with negligence by allowing any evil whatsoever but can says, “I can think of an exception in any case”-problem solved.

Dan Barker mentions that many of what are claimed to be Old Testament messianic prophecies are,

Christian reinterpretations of Old Testament verses they thought where prophecies; especially Matthew. Matthew was fond of digging through the Old Testament and saying, “Oh, there’s a child mentioned here, let’s connect that with the child Jesus,” he was a very sloppy scholar.

Here I must admit that I get very frustrated with Goyim who are, as Dan Barker proves himself to be, very sloppy scholars who do not consider the traditional Midrashic method of Rabbinic interpretation. They do not consider, if they are even aware of them, the various concepts of Jewish interpretation such as remez, peshat and derash.
He also does not understand the traditional Jewish view of dual fulfillment of prophecy whereby a prophecy points to a contemporaneous event and also to a future event. Later this year I will be posting the results of my studies of Rabbinic literature in relation to Jesus, Christianity and prophecy at my apologetics blog and so will merely assert, at the moment, that Dan Barker is simply not considering historical/cultural context with relation to the manner in which Jews, like Matthew and the other Jews who wrote 25 of the 27 New Testament books/epistles, elucidated layers of interpretation.

Lastly, let us consider one shining example of both Dan Barker’s logical capabilities as well as biblical knowledge as he states,

Paul wrote in the Bible, ‘God is not the author of confusion’ but can you think of a single that’s caused more confusion than the Bible?

Excellent point actually, let us consider it slowly and carefully: since God is not the author of confusion it follows logically that whatever confusion is caused by the Bible, or by people’s misunderstandings of it, was not authored by, was not caused by, God. This is not even to mention that the context of the half a verse is that of how to maintain order when the church gathers to worship (1st Corinthians 14:33 and surrounding).

Overall, this was a very informative debate in that Dan Barker presented a litany of atheist bumper sticker slogans while Kyle Butt was not only able to respond aptly but presented clear and concise arguments and refutations.

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).

Free Republic:
As of October 9, 2009 AD, 51 comments were posted to the Free Republic mention, some pro some against and many carrying on discussions back and forth. Thus, I will focus on a few to which I personally responded.

As with ExChristian.Net Has Been X’d, part 2 one commentator did not seem to understand the concept of referring to something such as a website as being “dead”—as in EvilBible.com is Dead. No, it is not an IT related term such as “dead link” which refers to loss of functionality. Rather, it is a conceptual reference, a reference to discreditation. The comment was,

…the title of your post Evilbible is dead is misleading. Evilbible.com site is alive and fucntioning [sic] well.

They continued by stating,

What does Evilbible.com say about rape in the Bible and what is the most relevant biblical text related to the biblical view of rape? Why not post them so the readers can get the picture instead of taking your word for it?

Thus, it began.

I had noted that, for some odd reason evilbible.com neglects to cite, quote or otherwise allude to the most relevant biblical text related to the biblical view of rape and I provided the hyperlink to Atheism, the Bible, Rape and EvilBible.com foolishly assuming that the curious skeptic would consider the information.

I responded thusly:

Yes, Evilbible.com site is alive and functioning well—yet, their content has been proven to be saturated with misunderstandings, misinterpretations, misapplications, misleading and omissions of texts that are problematic to their points and thus, they are functionally dead.
As far as your claims that I am merely making assertions: this is the very reason for providing the hyperlinks in the original post above. You do not have to take my word for anything as the Bible teaches in Acts 17:11 but can consider the evidence for yourself. The link entitled “Atheism, the Bible, Rape and EvilBible.com” is the one that deals with atheism, the Bible, rape and Evilbible.com

Ok, let us see what will become of a more specific reference to where the answer is to be found.
Since, there was a lot of copying, pasting and parsing what I wrote I will add ellipses for the sake of succinction:

Yes, Evilbible.com site is alive and functioning well—yet… That’s exactly what they say about Bible believers. They support their claims with scripural [sic] (OT) verses. You site Act 17:11 (about Bereans checking the scriputres [sic]). It has nothing to do with rape and the way the OT treats rape. I am not defending Evilbible.com, but if you are just interested in throwing undocumented mud on them you have succeeded. If you want to be taken seriously, then provide some scriptural support that shows their verses are not what they say they are.

they are functionally dead

Perhaps form your point of view, which so far doesn’t account for much.

So, we have moved from not checking the initial reference, to not checking the additional reference whilst claiming that I was leaving them to taking my word for it to now asking me to then provide the scriptural support which I already provided twice. Please understand that, since this continues in this vein, I am not merely being difficult or evasive but I am seeing just what it will take to get them to actually consider the information that I am telling them I have provided via an essay on the matter and seeing just how many times they will accuse me of not providing the information which I provide.

My response was:

Sadly, I perceive that you are actually please [sic, I meant “pleased”] to be un-skeptical, simply believing whatever evilbible.com tells you and not bothering to consider the evidence that I have presented.

Thus, I will say it again: if you actually click on the hyperlinks I provided above you will acquire access to that which you, again, claim that I did not provide.

If you do not do so but merely continue attempting to besmirch the Bible for what you have been told about the way that the OT treats rape you will know that you are being intellectually dishonest and passed up an opportunity to educate yourself—you will know that you are pseudo-skeptical and are engaging upon emotive argumentation even whilst you keep claiming that since evilbible.com said it—it must be true—without question.

I sincerely urge you to actually consider my carefully researched evidence as it will help you determine what they contents, concepts and contexts of the Bible are. You have trouble discerning basic texts such as pointing out that “Act 17:11…has nothing to do with rape” even though I implied no such thing but wrote, “You do not have to take my word for anything as the Bible teaches in Acts 17:11 but can consider the evidence for yourself.”

Why is it that evilbible.com neglects to mention the most relevant biblical text related to the biblical view of and law about rape? Did you know that they did that? Do you wonder why?
You are being manipulated by them and they succeed because you will not question them.

Why do they tell you that the Bible commands human sacrifice when it actually condemns it? Why do they not condemn the Gentile Pagans who actually did perform the human sacrifices which God condemns but are content to condemn the Jews? Do you know that they did that? Do you wonder why?

I am actually begging you to practice honest skepticism.

I think that we are dealing with a sluggish form of pseudo-skepticism which is quite unscholarly—apparently, they want to be spoon-fed rather than clicking on a hyperlink and reading.

Let us see what came of it as they begin with my reference to being pleased to be un-skeptical (again I will add ellipses only in order to make succinct or remove quotes from my previous statements):

This is not about pleasure, or pain. I think it pains me more to see that they find things they find, except I don’t bury my head in the sand and pretend the sun doesn’t shine. Their references are pretty clear, your protests notwithstanding.

…if you actually click on the hyperlinks…

I did. I [sic] is really a lot of rationalizations. Nothing very convincing. The verses are there and they say very clearly what they say…I have no desire to besmirch the Bible.

… passed up an opportunity to educate yourself

That just sounds like a lot of hot air, all fluff and no substance, and lots of making it personal…I never said it must be true because evilbible.com.com says it is. The evidence is not fabricated but pulled out of the Bible. You have yet to address those verses in particular and show that they don’t say what they say.

…evilbible.com neglects to mention the most relevant biblical text…

Which text is that, I am asking you, again?…I think they use the same argument about Bible believers.

…they tell you that the Bible commands human sacrifice when it actually condemns it…

They mention Abraham being told to kill his son (Genesis 22:1-18). No matter how you look at it, putting Abraham through such an ordeal is rather cruel in some people’s eyes. But, then some people don’t think torturing animals is cruel. I guess we must not agree on what constitutes cruel. They quote Lev 27:28-29 where everything that is not redeemed must be put to death (including humans I suppose). They quote Judges 11:29-40 NLT, and Jephthah’s daughter.

They quote Joshua 7:15 NLT God, and so on. In other words they go on to make their case. If you feel their case is worthless, in an absolute sense, then prove it.

I am actually begging you to practice honest skepticism.
I believe I am.

Did you catch the disconnect, or contradiction? First, the claim to have clicked on the hyperlinks aka have read the information and determined that I was rationalizing, unconvincing.

Yet, then they state that I did not “address those verses in particular” when they supposedly read my consideration of said verses, they emphasize that they are asking me again.

If I had to guess I would imagine that they did not click on my hyperlinks but went to evilbible.com, read the page again and said, “Yep, they quote the Bible so evilbible.com’s interpretation must be true.” The individual verses say, very clearly, what they say but they do not say what evilbible.com says that they say.

Also, note that they claim to have no desire to besmirch the Bible. But is promulgating the falsehood that the Bible does not condemn but allows for rape not a besmirchment?
Note also what I noted above about tu quoques granting the argument in the first place as it is applicable to the statement, “they use the same argument about Bible believers.”

‹ The Rape of Skepticism, part 1 up The Rape of Skepticism, part 3 ›

We will now conclude considering that the idea that the Messiah is the LORD originates with Judaism and not with Christianity.

Let us now consider the text of the Dead See Scroll known as The Coming of Melchizedek – 11Q13 – Col.2:

(Ps. 82:1). Scripture also says about him; “Over it take your seat in the highest heaven; A divine being will judge the peoples” (Ps. 7:7-8) Concerning what scripture says; “How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality with the wicked? Selah” (Ps. 82:2), the interpretation applies to Belial and the spirits predestined to him, because all of them have rebelled, turning from God’s precepts and so becoming utterly wicked. Therefore Melchizedek will thoroughly prosecute the vengeance required by God’s statutes. Also, he will deliver all the captives from the power of Belial, and from the power of all the spirits destined to him. Allied with him will be all the “righteous divine beings“(Isa. 61:3).

(The …) is that whi(ch …all) the divine beings. The visitation is the Day of Salvation that He has decreed through Isaiah the prophet concerning all the captives, inasmuch as Scripture says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion “Your divine being reigns”.” (Isa. 52:7) This scriptures interpretation: “the mountains” are the prophets, they who were sent to proclaim God’s truth and to prophesy to all Israel. “The messengers” is the Anointed of the spirit, of whom Daniel spoke; “After the sixty-two weeks, an Anointed shall be cut off” (Dan. 9:26) The “messenger who brings good news, who announces Salvation” is the one of whom it is written; “to proclaim the year of the LORD`s favor, the day of the vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn” (Isa. 61:2)

This scripture’s interpretation: he is to instruct them about all the periods of history for eternity (… and in the statutes) of the truth. (…) (…. dominion) that passes from Belial and returns to the Sons of Light (….) (…) by the judgment of God, just as t is written concerning him; “who says to Zion “Your divine being reigns” (Isa. 52:7) “Zion” is the congregation of all the sons of righteousness, who uphold the covenant and turn from walking in the way of the people. “Your divine being” is Melchizedek, who will deliver them from the power of Belial. Concerning what scripture says, “Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; in the seventh month . . . ” (Lev. 25:9)

The Coming of Melchizedek applies Psalm 82:1 and 7:7-8 to the doings of Melchizedek. These texts read as follows:

So the congregation of the peoples shall surround You; For their sakes, therefore, return on high. The LORD [YHVW] shall judge the peoples; Judge me, O LORD [YHVW], according to my righteousness, And according to my integrity within me (Psalm 7:7-8).

God [elohim] standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods [elohim]. How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah (Psalm 82:1-2).

In Psalm 7:7-8 the LORD [YHVW] is identified as Melchizedek.

In Psalm 82:1 the elohim who judges the elohim, the one who reminds them that they are mere mortals is Melchizedek. See the essay Ha-Shem for an explanation of the term “elohim”; for example, Genesis 1:1 clearly describes the one and only God creating the universe and refers to this creator as elohim.

Next, The Coming of Melchizedek applies Isaiah 52:7 to Melchizedek’s doings,

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God [elohim] reigneth!

Here, “Thy God [elohim]” who “reigneth” and to whom pertains the tidings of salvation, etc. is Melchizedek. The next 5 verses in Isaiah 52 place the reference to elohim into context by making reference to the LORD [YHVH].
Next is a reference to Daniel 9:26,

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof [shall be] with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

Then Isaiah 61:2-3,

To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD [YHVH], and the day of vengeance of our God [elohim]; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD [YHVH], that he might be glorified.

We find another instance of interpreting the LORD [YHVH] as being Melchizedek.
Finally, there is a reference to Leviticus 25:9,

Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth [day] of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

The Jewish Encyclopedia retells a bit of Jewish folklore about “Abraham’s life in his Chaldean home as told by the Palestinian rabbis of the second century, and afterward further developed under the influence of Babylonian folk-lore.”

Basically, after Abraham is born the “councilors and soothsayers of Nimrod” want to kill him.

“Terah then went home and hid his son in a cave for three years.

When, on coming out of the cave, Abraham saw the sun rising in all his glory in the east, he said to himself: ‘Surely this is the Lord of the universe, and Him I will worship.’ But the evening came, and lo! the sun set and night befell him, and seeing the moon with her silver radiance, he said, ‘This, then, is the Lord of the world, and all the stars are His servants; to Him I will kneel.’

The following morning, when moon and stars had disappeared and the sun had risen anew, Abraham said: ‘Now I know that neither the one nor the other is the Lord of the world, but He who controls both as His servants is the Creator and Ruler of the whole world.'”

The story goes on to state,

“Forthwith Abraham asked his father: ‘Who created heaven and earth?’ Terah, pointing to one of his idols, replied: ‘This great image is our god.’ ‘Then let me bring a sacrifice to him!’ said Abraham, and he ordered a cake of fine flour to be baked, and offered it to the idol, and when the idol did not eat it, he ordered a still finer meal-offering to be prepared, and offered it to the idol. But the idol did neither eat nor answer when addressed by him, and so Abraham grew angry and, kindling a fire, burned them all.

When Terah, on coming home, found his idols burnt, he went to Abraham and said: ‘Who has burned my gods?’

Abraham replied: ‘The large one quarreled with the little ones and burned them in his anger.’

‘Fool that thou art, how canst thou say that he who can not see nor hear nor walk should have done this?’

Then Abraham said: ‘How then canst thou forsake the living God and serve gods that neither see nor hear?'”

Biologists or, rather, Darwinist, PZ Myers has announced “I officially divorce myself from the skeptic movement.” Interestingly, with his divorce proceedings, as it were, he noted, “the existence of gods is not a testable claim” and one can understand why he would make the claim since PZ Myers is an adherent of the positive affirmation of God’s non-existence sect of Atheism (about whom you can learn here). In other words, he mere asserts the non-existence of God—period.

He wrote the following:

“Thanks, Jamy Ian Swiss, you’ve opened my eyes and I will no longer consider myself a ‘skeptic’. I am a scientist, and from the talk he gave tonight [at a Freethought Alliance meeting] (which was pretty much exactly the same as his TAM talk, except for the additions where he called me stupid and a liar), it is clear that ‘scientific skepticism’ is simply a crippled, buggered version of science with special exemptions to set certain subjects outside the bounds of its purview.
In addition, its promoters are particularly sensitive to having their hypocrisy pointed out (that, by the way, is what triggered his outburst — you’d have to be stupid or a liar to think that skepticism gives religion special privileges.)…So don’t call me a ‘skeptic’. I’ll consider it an insult, like calling a writer a stenographer, a comedian a mime, a doctor a faith healer, a scientist a technician. I’m out.”

This bring up several issue such as that Atheists, by any other name, have become caricatures of themselves and you could not make fun of them even if you wanted to; all you would have to do is quote them.
Also, the issue is the definition of “skeptic.” Well, as with any term; there are grammatical definitions, philosophical definitions, historical definitions, etymological definitions, popular level definitions, etc.

For example, the apostle Thomas is often called “doubting” but he was actually a true and honest skeptic in that he would not believe until he saw evidence (so, apparently, an evidentialist; see the Richard Dawkins featured essay The Apostle Thomas : Patron Saint of Scientists?).
On a popular level, many who call themselves skeptics are not interested in holding back until they see sufficient evidence. Rather, they have a presupposition and merely seek to defend it. In other words, for them it is not, “I will not believe until and unless” but, rather, simply, “I will not believe.” Thus, may pop-skeptics are, in reality, cynics.

Massimo Pigliucci has chimed in to the PZ Myers divorce and noted (“PZ Myers quits skeptic movement, should we care?”):

“skepticism is not, nor has it ever aspired to be, science. It is a grassroots movement with the triple aim of debunking paranormal claims, defending science in the public arena, and promoting critical thinking.”

Now, should skeptics seek the “debunking” of “paranormal claims” or the investigation thereof? A true and honest skeptic would identify themselves as an investigator and not a debunker. Pigliucci’s statement betrays a presupposition to the effect that they seek only to debunk. They come to the, supposed, investigation with a conclusion in mind and just massage the evidence into position so that they may hit the target of their goal. Moreover, based on their Atheistic worldview and other unproved and unevidenced presuppositions; they do not truly “defending science in the public arena” but defend their philosophical worldview which they hide behind the term “science.” Massimo Pigliucci actually wrote of “the issue of demarcation projects (science vs pseudoscience, science vs philosophy)” and indeed, he has some interesting things to say in this arena, see the following for our articles on him:

Atheism and Science – Is There a Relation?, part 1

Atheism and Science – Is There a Relation?, part 3 – On the Difference Between Science and Philosophy: Richard Dawkins

Atheism and Science – Is There a Relation?, part 2 – On the Difference Between Science and Philosophy: Massimo Pigliucci

Three way atheist fracas: Massimo Pigliucci, Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins

The Massimo Pigliucci vs. PZ Myers Fracas (with a little Michael De Dora thrown in), part 1

The Massimo Pigliucci vs. PZ Myers Fracas (with a little Michael De Dora thrown in), part 2

Lastly, that they seek the “promoting” of “critical thinking” is likewise based on their worldview/presupposition. Just read some material in my Atheist Child Rearing section to see how they turn an outward show of critical thinking into an actual teaching of the Atheist catechism.

PZ Myers also wrote:

“I was also annoyed by the skeptic movement’s appropriation of the term ‘scientific’ all over the place…that so narrowly defines what it will accept as evidence that it actively excludes huge domains of knowledge. It’s toothless science that fetishizes ‘consumer protection’ over understanding.”

Amen! For whatever odd reason, Atheists think that science has something to do with Atheist; which it does not in any way whatsoever. Yet, so enamored are they with their cult of personality hero worshipping that, by golly, if a scientist said it, they believe it, so it must be true. Caricature, to be sure, however, you can see and heard Atheists saying this for themselves in the documentary; Evolution vs. God from which I have compiled clips and fails:

In fact, PZ Myer noted:

“Earlier tonight I spent 15 minutes getting interviewed by Ray Comfort. That was a far more pleasant experience than an hour of listening to Jamy Ian Swiss.”

It is within Evolution vs. God that you can hear Myers claim that “humans are still fish” and how fish evolve into…fish.

Myers also wrote:

“It was an incredibly repellent talk that was not improved in the past year, but only made uglier and more grotesque. He ignored all of my previous criticisms, answering them only by yelling louder. I coulda gagged at the end when he piously announced we all ought to be fighting together for the cause of reason…after an hour of caricaturing atheists as ignorant and smug posturing of ‘scientific skepticism’ as the great good virtue.”

For his part, Massimo Pigliucci notes:

“I think the primary problem with the skeptic movement — of which I am and remain a proud member — is that too many people, both among the ‘leaders’ and the rank-and-file, seem to be in it for the sheer pleasure of calling others out as idiots. Typically this contempt is reserved for religious people, believers in pseudoscience, etc., but occasionally we turn the guns on some of our own and shoot just as joyfully.”

Indeed, a lot of people are fed up with the school yard taunt modus operandi of the pop-Atheist movement, again, by any other name. There is only so far you can go by elbowing your buddy in the rib and saying, “Like, they are so dumb and stuff!”

As Gary Wolf, contributing editor to Wired magazine, noted in including himself in the following description: “we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth” (“The Church of the Non-Believers,” Wired Magazine):

“At dinner parties or over drinks, I ask people to declare themselves. ‘Who here is an atheist?’ I ask. Usually, the first response is silence, accompanied by glances all around in the hope that somebody else will speak first. Then, after a moment, somebody does, almost always a man, almost always with a defiant smile and a tone of enthusiasm. He says happily, ‘I am!’ “But it is the next comment that is telling. Somebody turns to him and says: ‘You would be.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you enjoy pissing people off.’ ‘Well, that’s true.’

“This type of conversation takes place not in central Ohio, where I was born, or in Utah, where I was a teenager, but on the West Coast, among technical and scientific people, possibly the social group that is least likely among all Americans to be religious.”

Vox Day (The Irrational Atheist ) also elucidated an interesting dichotomy between Atheists and Agnostics:

“Agnostic: I don’t believe there is a God. Because I haven’t seen the evidence.
Atheist: There is no God. Because I’m an *******.” [expletive removed]

In any case, just as Atheists and Agnostics fought it out over to which sect Richard Dawkins belonged, we will see what the Atheists and Skeptics do about PZ Myers.

The Targumim:
Here we present samples of the Targumim (plural for Targum, which the Goyim refer to as “Targums”) which are Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament dating from the 1st c. BC. The Targumim take liberties in paraphrasing texts.
For example, if the Targumist thought that a text spoke of the Messiah they would insert the word Messiah. Below we will consider example of where the Targumim takes the concept of the Word of God (known as God’s Memra or Mimra) and inserts it into the Biblical text.
These paraphrases, these insertions, these changes, are not thought to be malicious corruption but rather, helpful elucidation. The point being that if such works were to be produced by Christians they would be attacked as malicious corruption.1

Gentile scholar Risto Santala explains,

“The Jerusalem Talmud states that the Patriarchs knew only the ‘God of heaven, but God did not reveal to them the Lord’s MIMRA.’ This Aramaic word MIMRA the Rabbis often identified with the Messiah. It corresponds to the Greek logos or ‘word.’ Targum Jonathan says that, ‘My name the LORD I did not, however, reveal to them through my Holy Spirit’_

Of special note in these passages from the Targums is that often the Mimra seems to be identified with the name of God: ‘The LORD’s Mimra will be my God’; ‘I will save them through their God, the LORD’s Mimra’; Abraham was justified through the Mimra; the Mimra gave Israel the Law; Moses prayed to the Mimra; Israel was justified through the Mimra’s instrumentality and the Mimra even created the world_

Professor Gottlieb Klein identified Metatron, used as an epithet for the Messiah, with Yahweh’s Mimra or ‘Word.’ In Klein’s opinion it was precisely this Aramaic word which gave the grounds to the belief that Christ is ‘the Word or Logos of God become flesh.’ The Jewish philosopher Philo, who lived about the same time as Jesus, considered the Logos to be God’s delegate, his emissary and angel who ‘prays as High Priest before God on behalf of the world.'”2

Alfred Edersheim notes,

“The Mimra concept associated with God and his manifestations appears 596 times in the Targums-but not once in the Talmud_Targum Onqelos uses the word 179 times, Targum Yerushalmi 99 times, and Targum Jonathan 321 times. Over half of these references to the Mimra approach it as if it were ‘personified.'”3

It is interesting to note that while the Mimra concept was reduced from 179 to 0. Before Jesus this concept is useful and acceptable but the all of a sudden after Jesus this concept disappears. The timing is very interesting.

“The absence of ‘Mimra’ from the Talmud may be a reaction to the first Christians’ interpretation of it as indicating Jesus. But are there really grounds for understanding ‘Mimra’ to mean the same as the New Testament’s ‘Logos’? In answering this question there is good reason to appeal to the Rabbis’ way of grading the old writings according to their source value:

‘The Old Testament leads to the Targums, the Targums lead to the Mishna, the Mishna to the Talmud, and so on.’ [Sifrei Shoftim, piska 160a] Proceeding in this way the Targums give earlier information on the Rabbis’ exegesis than even the Mishna, the oldest part of the Talmud_

If these ideas are joined to the Messianic expectation, a connection the Rabbis made, they will receive a new significance for Christians too. Although consideration of the Greek logos concept will be left for the New Testament section on the opening verses of John’s gospel, it is worth noting even at this point that a similar ‘word’ theology as that found in connection with the Mimra was in part current among the Essenes of Qumran a little before the birth of Christ.

These sectarians, for the most part former Temple priests, stress in their scrolls that everything received its beginning through God’s deliberate purposing, and ‘without him nothing was made’-‘Through your word everything received its beginning, and without you nothing was made’ [Eg. Megilath ha-serachim 1 QS XI:10 and HH&#b4;dayy&#b4;th 1 QH I:19]”4

The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia,

“LOGOS (Greek for ‘word’), a theological concept found in the Judaism of the period of the Second Temple and in Christianity_
In the Targums the word Memra is introduced in every instance in the Bible in which God is represented as talking to man, thus explaining away all the anthropomorphisms found in the text.”5

In Isaiah the Targum refers to the Messiah as the Lord’s servant in Isaiah 42:1, 43:10, 52:13.
And refers to the Messiah in general in: Isaiah 4:2, 9:5, 10:27, 11: 1, 11:6, 14:29, 16:l, 28:5, 42:l, 43:10, 52:13 and 60:1.