October 2017 – Page 44 – TrueFreeThinker

True Freethinker will now consider their promulgations in the area of Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible.As aforementioned in the parsed essay about rape in the Bible we should again note that when considering any and every atheist condemnation of any action whatsoever it is of primary importance to keep in mind that they are expressing personal opinions about the acts they are condemning. They are merely expressing their personal preferences in the form of morality borrowed from the Judeo-Christian worldview. They are piling unfounded assertion, upon unfounded assertion, upon unfounded assertion, and building a tel of arguments from outrage, arguments from personal incredulity, arguments for embarrassment, etc.

Let us begin at the end of their page as evilbible.com author concludes by stating,

So the next time some Christian tells you about the “love of God”, show them this page and ask them “Why does God want me to burn animals and humans?”

Thus, let us consider the evilbible.com page. Note that indicative of evilbible.com author’s lack of knowledge of the Bible’s content, even on the most basic of basic levels, I must note that even if one completely grants the evilbible.com page it is still fallacious to state, “Why does God want me to…” evilbible.com’s author writes,

The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is filled with numerous stories of animal and human sacrifice. God, we are told, likes the pleasing aroma of burning flesh. Animal sacrifice is much more common than human sacrifice, but both occur and are “pleasing to the Lord”.

Yet, no New Testament examples of human sacrifice are offered. Evilbible.com’s author fails to note, or simply does not know something as basic as, God does not “want me to” because you are not an Israelite, living millennia ago in the theocratic land of Israel with the Temple and attending priesthood under the, and here is the key, “Old” covenant/testament.

As for the animal sacrifice I will simply suppose that evilbible.com’s author is a vegan-vegetarian; I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian for seven years so I can dig it. For my part I will play the specieist and focus on going right down the line and consider each and every example of human sacrifice in the Bible as presented by evilbible.com’s author:

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, has Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son to God. “Take your son, your only son – yes, Isaac, whom you love so much – and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you.” (Genesis 22:1-18) Abraham takes his own son up on a mountain and builds an altar upon which to burn him. He even lies to his son and has him help build the altar. Then Abraham ties his son to the altar and puts a knife to his throat. He then hears God tell him this was just a test of his faith. However, God still wanted to smell some burnt flesh so he tells Abraham to burn a ram.
Even though he didn’t kill his son, it is still an incredibly cruel and evil thing to do. If Abraham did that today he would be in jail serving a long sentence as someone’s prison-b***. It amazes me how Christians see this story as a sign of God’s love. There is no love here, just pure unadulterated evil. [expletive censored]

There is quite a bit to deal with here.Firstly, let us get some inaccuracies out of the way:

1) Abraham does not lie to Isaac. Note that this was an assertion with no backing citation or quotation. The true, honest and scholarly skeptic will not just believe it but will note that Isaac states, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering” (v. 7-8). As it turns out, and as evilbible.com’s author rightly noted, Abraham does end up offering a ram.

2) Abraham did not put a knife to his throat. All that the text states is that, “Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son” (v. 10)

It would be interesting to hear how an atheist would deem what Abraham did as “evil” besides relying on assertions of personal preference based arguments from outrage. One correct statement is that “If Abraham did that today he would be in jail…” That is because atheists claim that morality evolves and so they cannot condemn what Abraham was doing back when he was doing it but must, quite illogically and anti-evolutionarily, condemn him today for something that was not immoral when he did it. However, as we shall see, according to the dictates of Israel’s Law, the Torah, which would be promulgated after the time of Abraham this became a crime in Israel. This is precisely the point of the story, at least one of its many points. Back in Abraham’s day human sacrifice, even child sacrifice, was merely the worship system of the false gods de jour. It is no wonder that Abraham would not have even questioned it-it was standard operating procedure. Yet, God demonstrated then and there that He was not like that, He was not like the false gods and He would not accept human sacrifice. This is why Jews, by extension Christians and by further extension Muslims never practiced human sacrifice when worshipping the God of the Bible but only in the rare occasions when they fell away to worship the false gods.

There are also indications that Abraham knew quite well what was, ultimately, going to happen since he did state to the men traveling with them, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you”-they will both go and both come back. Note also the aforementioned reference to God providing a lamb. Evilbible.com appears to consider these lies but they are only lies if they were lies.

Interestingly, the New Testament states that Abraham did this “by faith” and that faith is not described in the fallacious Atheist Sunday School manner of belief without evidence but as a logical inference, the result of a syllogism:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense (Hebrews 11:17-19).

The syllogism runs thusly,

1) Abraham offered up Isaac.2) Of whom it had already been said that “In Isaac your seed shall be called” (aka through whom his lineage would continue).3) Concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.

Regardless of what you may think of this logic, it is logical nonetheless: Abraham knew that, somehow, his son would live.

But what is this about “in a figurative sense”? Immediately, it means that Isaac did not actually die. There is quite a bit to be stated in this regard as this text is saturated with symbolism.

In Genesis 22, Abraham is told by God to take his son, his only son, and sacrifice him. Abraham had two sons Isaac and Ishmael but God tells him to sacrifice his only son (this word for only is yachiyd: only, only one, solitary one, unique one, indivisible. I elucidate this point here). Abraham loved Isaac and gave him as a sacrifice. They travel, via donkey, for three days to the mountain where the sacrifice was to take place, for three days in Abraham’s mind his son was dead (yet, he trusted in God’s promise of making him the father of great nations).

Isaac caries on his back the wood on which he is to die. When Isaac asks where the sacrifice is, Abraham answers that God will provide Himself a sacrifice. Abraham is stopped from sacrificing Isaac yet, a sacrifice is made. They find a ram caught by his horns in the thicket. Abraham calls the place Adonai Yir’eh: Adonai will see to it or Adonai provides. On the mountain of the LORD it shall be provided or it shall be seen (v. 14).

God loves His son. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. Jesus was dead for three days. He carried the instrument of his death, the wooden cross, on his back. God provided the sacrifice, in the case of Abraham and Isaac God did not call off the sacrifice at all, instead He required that there be a substitute provided by God Himself, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son…” (John 3:16) Jesus was “crowned” with thorns (thicket). The crucifixion took place on the very same mountain which centuries earlier Abraham said that God provided and would provide the sacrifice.1

Moreover, Moriah was the mount upon which Abraham met Melchizedek, the Priest-King, who “brought out bread and wine” (Genesis 14:18) reminiscent of communion. This is the Melchizedek who is likened to the future Messiah in the Old Testament and thus to Jesus in the New Testament (see Psalm 110:4; Hebrews ch. 5-7).Both were loved by their father, both offered themselves willingly, both carried wood up the hill for their sacrifice, both events took place on the same hill, both were delivered from death on the third day.Jesus referred to this incident as prophetic when he said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

Rabbinic writing Midrash Rabbah states the following at Genesis LVI:3 which comments on Genesis 22:6,

AND ABRAHAM TOOK THE WOOD OF THE BURNT-OFFERING (XXII, 6)-like one who carries his stake on his shoulder.
Footnote: “The stake on which he is to be executed.”

Rabbinic writing Midrash Pesikta Rabbati 40:6 states,

What is meant by Moriah? R. Simeon ben Yohai said: It is the Land which, if it were an arrow, would shoot up through the heavens directly to the heavenly altar. Here the word is derived from the stem shot through (yrh) (Exod. 19:13).

Concerning the suffering servant of Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 52, 53, Raphael Patai; Noted anthropologist and Biblical scholar who taught Hebrew at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem writes:

The Aggada, the Talmudic legend, unhesitatingly identifies him with the Messiah, and understands especially the descriptions of his sufferings as referring to Messiah ben Joseph.2

Thus, far we have encountered arguments from outrage but no Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible. We have a little ways to go before we actually get to the “Bible Passages About Ritual Human Sacrifice” as we are thus far in the “Why does God want me to burn animals and humans?” section of evilbible.com-stay tuned.

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Evilbible.com

Evilbible.com certainly live life to the fullest: pronounced moral condemnations without providing a foundation for those condemnations, enjoyed besmirching the Bible whilst only succeeding in demonstrating their stunning level of lack of knowledge regarding its contents, contexts and concepts and, for some odd reason, neglected to mention those texts that were inconvenient to their points.
Yes, evilbible.com had its fun, had its say and now has given up the ghost.

Large portions of evilbible.com have been considered, dissected and declared fallacious on very many levels.

Two examples of this fact are as follows:

Whilst besmirching the Bible for allegedly commanding rape evilbible.com, for some odd reason, neglects to mention the most relevant biblical text related to the biblical view of and law about rape. Why this omission? Who knows, but it would certainly have gotten in the way of a good session of emotive expression of prejudice-it would have discredited evilbible.com to reference this most important text. Indeed, those annoying little facts have an annoying way of getting in the way of good fallacious assertions.

Whilst besmirching the Bible for allegedly commanding human sacrifice evilbible.com, for some odd reason, neglects to mention that the Bible does not command but condemns human sacrifice. Evilbible.com, for some odd reason, neglects to mention that when the Bible reports that human sacrifices did take place they were carried out by Gentile Pagans who were not worshiping the God of the Bible but various false gods. When “Jews” were performing human sacrifices it was only when they turned away from the God of the Bible and joined Gentile Pagans in worshiping various false gods. Yet, in typical militant activist atheist fashion, evilbible.com does not condemn Gentile Pagans but only condemns the Jews.

Many more examples of evilbible.com ubiquitous fallacies are available in the following posts which spell the death of evilbible.com-rest in pieces.

True Freethinker‘s essays on evilbible.com are listed below.
Evilbible.com also played a part in the post History of Atheism wherein they are quoted to the effect that atheists who define “atheism” as merely a “lack of belief in god(s)” are a “few morons” who are “so damn stupid” for defining atheism as such.

Other authors who responded to evilbible.com are as follows:

Vox Veritatis:

The Impossibility of God, Part I: Prolegomena
The Impossibility of God, Part II: The Description of God

Rhoblogy:

The EvilBible.com Project, Part 1 – Murder in the Bible
The EvilBible.com Project, Part 2 – Top Ten Signs
EvilBible.com Project, Part 3 – Synthetic Life

Spirit Slain:
Author of a blog devoted to Debunking “evilbible.com”

Jessica:
Author of a blog called A Rebuttal to EvilBible.com

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Adolf Hitler Was a Christian! Was Adolf Hitler a Christian?, part 1

Atheism, EvilBible.com and Jesus Lied

Atheism, the Bible, Rape, EvilBible.com and Dan Barker, part 1 of 6

Deleterious effects of pseudo-skepticism via evilbible.com

Does the Bible and its God Condone Slavery?

Evil Bible? Slaughter old, young, men, women and children

Evil Bible? Slaughter old, young, men, women and children, part 1 of 5

Evilbible – the Polemical Saga Continues, part 1 of 5

On the evilbible website; is it reliable?

On the Jesus as human sacrifice fallacy

The Rape of Skepticism, part 1

Adolf Hitler Was a Christian! Was Adolf Hitler a Christian?, part 1

“The Holocaust was like a modern inquisition, killing all who did not accept Jesus”

—EvilBible.com

I must admit to being stunned by the power of Adolf Hitler who even today from beyond the grave, as it where, holds sway over so very many people.
Let us consider whether Adolf Hitler was, as some claim, a Christian.

We will be considering a page from evilbible.com. As a reminder; keep in mind that evilbible.com has been discredited on various levels and for various reasons (which I evidence here and will continue to do so below).
Also, keep in mind that as with absolutely every condemnation of the Bible, its God, Jesus and Christianity found within evilbible.com we must note that the condemnations go unsubstantiated since they are premised upon an particular atheistic worldview whereby condemnation of anything at all amounts to mere assertions based on emotive and impotent arguments from outrage. Moreover, as has been evidenced ubiquitously, evilbible.com also thrives on arguments from manipulation and rely on partial, self-serving, information.

You may be aware that evilbible.com has posted certain pages from a certain Charlotte who wrote a series entitled, “The Church of Theists Suck [sic].” These were previously posted on a website that was entitled “Theists Suck.” That website is now dead and gone with portions of it living on at evilbible.com. Charlotte wrote that she is an “ATHEIST WOMAN,” and is clearly both very angry and very lacking in knowledge of even the most basic biblical concepts, contexts and contents. Below we will find that she is equally lacking in logic and knowledge of history.

Be aware that I did write an email to evilbible.com’s administrator. I mentioned that the page contained an erroneous point based on an uncontextual quotation from Hitler and that I would be glad to elucidate the matter.
I reckoned; begin small and take baby steps towards elucidating what a concoction of ahistorical, illogical and manipulative article it is but alas; I received no response.

This time we will consider an essay written by Charlotte entitled, “Hitler Was a Christian – The Holocaust was caused by Christian fundamentalism” (I wonder if she ever got around to writing one entitled, “Communists Were Atheists – The Communist Atrocities were caused by Atheistic fundamentalism”?). She introduces the essay as follows:

History is currently being distorted by the millions of Christians who lie to have us believe that the Holocaust was not a Christian deed. Through subterfuge and concealment, many of today’s Church leaders and faithful Christians have camouflaged the Christianity of Adolf Hitler and have attempted to mark him an atheist, a pagan cult worshipper, or a false Christian in order to place his misdeeds on those with out [sic] Jesus. However, from the earliest formation of the Nazi party and throughout the period of conquest and growth, Hitler expressed his Christian support to the German citizenry and soldiers. Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books before they address their pews and chat rooms.

Considering that Christianity has thus far been incapable of producing an unbiased, educated follower which speaks the truth, (I haven’t encountered any), I have been forced to dispel the myth by writing this essay. It is not until I bring up his speeches, my personal info on the Nazi regime and their tactics that a Christian will begin to question what their clergy told them. (I am the offspring of a German soldier. My Opa served under Hitler in WW2 and my father was raised during the time of the Nazi regime. This is important information to take into consideration for I am privy to some info that most Americans do not know. It is common for American media and education institutions to lie to their citizens concerning Nazi Germany.) So, in presenting this information I must break it into four parts: 1) Facts about Hitler and his involvement with the Church. 2) How the Church was the catalyst for anti- Semitism. 3) Facts concerning how the Nazi regime drilled these beliefs into Germanic society.

4) Quotes Hitler made which prove he had a disdain for atheism/occultism, upheld his Christian faith, and hated Jews due to his Christianity.

Sadly, she could not contain herself and demonstrates a very, very odd and clearly fallacious point of view, “Christianity has thus far been incapable of producing an unbiased, educated follower which speaks the truth,” you may have thought that even one single such Christian in the past two millennia would have been produced but alas—then again this is premised upon the fact that she has not personally encountered any.

This may be indicative of what happens when we engage in well-within-the-box-group-think and never get out into the real world and interact with people with whom we disagree. Thus, her conclusion is that all Christians are biased—this is a biased statement and who is not biased?—all Christians are uneducated—this statement is uneducated and she does not define education—no Christians speak the truth—this is clearly false and she does not define “truth”: and this applies to every Christian who has ever lived in the past two millennia.

Christians are biased, uneducated and do not speak the truth thus, Christians distort history, lie, and commit subterfuge and concealment via camouflage. This just goes to show the mindset which we are up against in dealing with the author of “The Church of Theists Suck [sic].” But so as to not even border on the ad hominem let us consider the substance and details of her actual arguments.

I will begin dissecting her argument by agreeing on one point which is that: my research has not convinced me that Adolf Hitler was an “atheist” (research that I posted as From Zeitgeist to Poltergeist, Part 13 of 13). However, our agreement ends here since I am prepared to argue, and have argued, that Hitler was “a pagan cult worshipper” and “a false Christian.”

Her next point is to present an argument from authority: she is the offspring of a German soldier who was himself raised during the time of the Nazi regime (note that whether her Opa was a “Christian” remains unstated or even if he was a Nazi—keep in mind that German soldier raised during the time of the Nazi regime does not amount to Nazi). Thus, she possessed more and different knowledge than “most Americans” and the “American media” and also American “education institutions” because these “lie to their citizens concerning Nazi Germany.”

Well, I am the offspring of Jews who were murdered by Nazis yet, my research has been based upon information gleaned from wherever I could find it and via considering various sides of the issue. As for Charlotte, we shall have to see what comes from her gnosis.

I thought to provide resources at this time since, in reality, all that which follows could be responded to by appealing to that which I have already written. Yet, evilbile.com’s and Charlotte’s claims are important enough to consider in a point-by-point manner; see From Zeitgeist to Poltergeist

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Adolf Hitler Was a Christian! Was Adolf Hitler a Christian?, part 10 ›

Evilbible – the Polemical Saga Continues, part 1 of 5

I happened upon one of those Q&A websites which I do not care to reference since they are not premised on engaged upon atheist vs. Christian type issues but merely provide a forum to pose question and have people log in and answer them.

Someone asked about evilbible.com and I responded initially with some observations and later with basically the text of the post EvilBible.com is Dead.

This, in turn opened to door to a litany of responses and so, being as unable to engage upon various back and forths elsewhere as I am here at home, I posted another comment informing them that I would write this essay and then provide them the URL so that it may be considered. I told them that I would respond to the questions, comments, and assertions that had been posted up to Sep. 5, 2009 AD.

I will keep their names, or pseudonyms, out of this essay as my purpose is not to call anyone or embarrass anyone but to correct various fallacies, misconceptions, etc.

I will simply parse the various comments and respond as we go along. Let us begin with:

Well take any literature and you’ll find things that can be taken in any way just like some people that claim to have been lead to kill by catcher in the rye.

This is quite accurate and that is just the point. Catcher in the Rye does not command anyone to murder anyone. It required a troubled mind to engage in eisegesis (or isogesis: reading preconceived notions into a text) and infer what was not being implied.

The bible has been changed and is itself a double translation from the origianl (now lost) hebrew to greek (only fragments remain) and then to latin again in bad repair.

This appears to be a particular point about a particular translation which is fallaciously applied to every translation of the Bible-this is an expansio ad absurdum. They appear to be referencing the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate yet, subsequent translations do translate directly from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Moreover, we have many more transcripts from which to work than did the Vulgate translators since more have been found in the intermediate years.The most significant find of Hebrew manuscripts were the Dead Sea Scrolls. Before they were found in 1947 AD we were able to compare the Masoretic text which dated to circa 800 AD. Thus, we were able to determine how well the text has been preserved through one millennia (this does not take into consideration the quotes and allusions to the Old Testament found within the Targumim, the Talmuds, the Midrashim, early Christian writings, the New Testament, the Septuagint-LXX itself, the Aramaic transcripts, etc.).The Dead Sea Scrolls, which date from circa 200 BC to 68 AD they thus took our knowledge of how the text has been preserved back two millennia and the results are that the text has been faithfully preserved with no doctrine being changed but only differences in spelling, place names, a missing word here and there, etc.

As for the Greek New Testament we have circa 5,664 manuscripts (and this is not counting the New Testament manuscripts in Latin=8,000-10,000; Ethiopic, Slavic and Armenian=8,000 for a total of circa 24,000 New Testament manuscripts). This means that the New Testament is the most well documented ancient writing by orders of magnitude.

The comment above ended with,

Add to that years of changing and you’ve got something not quite useful.

Yet, the point of having so many manuscripts, and families of manuscripts, is that if any changes are made they are readily discernable.

Another thing is language is not logical which is where atheists get hit with a brick as you can be as logical as you like but you cannot transfer ideas in their entirety to another language without loss. Please read [pseudonym removed]’s(or evilbible) comment and say what logic got to do with it.

In any case, while translation can be difficult it is possible and this is why we, to offer two examples, have formal and dynamic translations: formal seeks to offer word for word translations even if the reading is choppy while dynamic seeks to offer thought for thought translations even if each and every word is not translated. This is not even to mention various study aids such as lexicons, dictionaries, concordances, etymologies, etc. (ok, mentioning them).

Evil Bible has made a couple of mistakes here and there, but one underlying truth has not been proven against:
Why won’t God Heal Amputees?

It would have been enlightening to learn which mistakes this commentator has discerned. Now to that which apparently is “one underlying truth has not been proven against.” I do not believe that evilbible.com deals with this “truth” at all but it is mentioned twice in a discussion forum. In any case, let us deal with it.Why won’t God heal amputees?Ask Him. I am not kidding; sometimes people hear you say something like, “I am a Christian” and they seem to think that what you just said is, “I am all knowing.”

How do you know that God won’t heal amputees? Is it because you have seen amputees and noticed that God won’t heal them? How do you know that God won’t heal them? Maybe He will but, and this is key: but not according to your schedule.

Note that this question is premised upon a theological position: if God was then God would heal amputees and since God does not heal amputees God is not. This theology presupposes very many things including that if God was God could heal, would heal, would only heal and not allow for any amputee to live life that way, not healing is somehow evil, etc. Thus, the atheist must answer as to whence they have gotten such a theology, such standards, such definitions of good and evil, etc.

In fact, what would an atheist say to an amputee? “Evolution sucks don’t it? Why won’t evolution make it so that human amputees can grow their limbs back? Oh well, deal with it.” Or perhaps they would quote Job’s wife and state, “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9). At least a Christian can offer some hope that in the future their bodies will be restored.

Back to how the theologian who posed this question knows that God won’t heal amputees. They do not know. Perhaps, God has healed many amputees, perhaps in countries in which getting high tech prosthesis is not possible and in which the healing did not make it into the news/journals. One thing in for certain: if an amputee was healed they could certainly care less that they cannot provide evidence enough to satisfy atheists.

This question presupposes knowledge of all amputees and knowledge than none were ever healed. This is because we must agree that if God has never healed amputees then simply stated, God never has. However, we know that God has never healed amputees only if we know that all the reports of such healings are false. Moreover, we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already hold that God does not heal amputees-this circular logic.

However, the claim is not exactly that God has never healed amputees but that God “won’t” heal them (now, or anymore or something). Let us consider whether if God “won’t” heal amputees would not mean that God does not exist. It would not; it would only mean that God chooses not to heal them. What then? Do you condemn God for His lack of action? Upon which absolute grounds? That you know better? The fact is that if God has one, even one, reason for not healing them He is therefore justified in not healing them. And this reason is one that you may not be aware of, or may be aware of and not agree with, or one that you would have never thought. This is logically sound and such objections are irrelevant to God having a viable reason such as the amazing emotional and psychological strength that amputees gain from overcoming adversity and the remarkable talents which they exhibit as they end up doing things that non-amputees cannot do.

This questions, of course, does not consider at least one historical record of an amputee healed by God,

And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.
But Jesus answered and said, “Permit even this.” And He touched his ear and healed him (Luke 22:50-51).

[“Permit even this” is eao toutou hoes in other words you, the one who made the cut, were allowed to act this far but no longer basically allowed until now]

Thus, the question is presuppositional, premised upon a theological concept, and does not prove anything.

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Atheism, EvilBible.com and Jesus Lied

Having previously discredited various assertions made by evilbible.com; I will now consider their page entitled, “Jesus Lied.”

The evilbible.com page revolves around the charge that “Jesus Lied About Prayer” and consists of commentary, quotations and commentary.

Evilbible.com’s author begins this page by make some very obnoxious remarks that are not worth quoting and yet which serve to denote the perfect balance between their level of maturity and their level of scholarship-both of which have been weighed and found wanting.

Considering that the page is premised upon condemning Jesus for lying one paramount ingredient is missing: evilbible.com’s author does not provide an atheist premised upon which to base condemnation of lying. Neither did they provide atheist premised upon which to base condemnation of rape or human sacrifice. In fact, the entire website is one huge argument from impotent outrage.

The primary assertion is,

Jesus is quoted many times in the Bible saying that a believer can ask for anything through prayer and receive it. He even goes so far as to say that mountains and trees can be thrown into the sea simply by praying for it. This is clearly a lie, and can be proven to be a lie by any believer. Simply pray for me to be converted to Christianity right away. Or better yet ask God to move the mountains behind my house… [obnoxious portions follow]

Jesus is quoted and His words supposedly “proves that he lied.” You will note that evilbible.com’s author employs the store clerk tactic by quoting Jesus from different gospels saying the same things. The store clerk bulk up her merchandize-you may think that the big barrel really is full of beans but they are only two inches deep-likewise evilbible.com’s author appears to want to bulk up the proofs by repeating them in quoting parallel versions.

Let us consider the quotes:

1) And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:21-22 NAS)

2) Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8 NAB)

3) Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst. (Matthew 18:19-20 NAS)

4) Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours. (Mark 11:24-25 NAB)

5) And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Luke 11:9-13 NAB)

6) And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it. (John 14:13-14 NAB)

7) If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. (John 15:7 NAB)

8) It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. (John 15:16 NAB)

9) On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. (John 16:23-24 NAB)

As for the mountain moving aspect of the statements I must admit that I am simply flummoxed. Considering that every language that there has ever been allows for hyperbole, metaphor, parable, proverb, allegory, symbolism, analogy, etc. it is astonishing that anyone would fail to note the parabolic statement, the literary devise. This is about taking the Bible literally whereby we keep in mind that to take something literally means to take it as it is intended.

However, even if we grant evilbible.com’s author premise the argument still fails. Why? Because of the qualifiers in the statements. Did you catch them? Here they are:

if you have faith and do not doubt…ask in prayer, believing…and does not doubt…but believes…If you remain in me and my words remain in you

Therefore, if a Christian cannot move a mountain by merely praying for it to be moved, by telling it to move, it is because they do not have faith, they doubt, they do not really believe, they are not remaining in Jesus and His words are not remaining in them.

This is the conclusion of a valid syllogism: 1) Jesus said that if you have faith and do not doubt you will be able to say to a mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea” and it will happen. 2) Christians have (I guess) told mountains to be cast into the sea and they did not move one inch. 3) Therefore, those Christians did not have faith and doubted.

However, if evilbible.com’s author wants to play the fallacious literalist it is still a mistaken notion since the author states that Jesus “goes so far as to say that mountains and trees can be thrown into the sea…ask God to move the mountains behind my house” yet, Jesus specifically referred to “this mountain. Not trees and not mountains (plural) but the one particular mountain.

Fine, but the other non-mountainous texts are very straight forward, “whatever you ask in my name, I will do,” etc.

Please note that there is a qualifier in those instances as well which is, “in My name…in my name…in my name…in my name…in my name…in my name…in my name” respectively.

Unfortunately, some think that “in my name” means saying whatever you want and attaching “In the name of Jesus” at the end of it (or “In the name of Jeeeeeessssssuuuuuussssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”). This is unfortunate because it is not taking the text literally. Taking it literally, as it is intended, we would not remove it from its historical / cultural context and would not contemporizing the meaning of, the concept of, “name.”
To the majority of people living in first world Western countries a name is a word that identifies an individual, it is a mere label. However, in alternate geographies and chronologies a name meant quite a bit more: names denoted a person’s characteristics, names changed as characteristic changed-for example, Abram to Abraham, Naomi to Mara, Jacob to Israel, Saul to Paul-names denoted lineage (as our last names do) and most importantly in this contexts; names carried authority: in the name of the King, in the name of the High Priest, in the name of Jesus. This means actions commensurate with the person’s authority and characteristics.

If you were an observant Jew some three millennia ago and someone came to tell you, “In the name of the High Priest-eat bacon!” You would have said, “That’s not kosher! There is no way that the High Priest has so commanded me.” Likewise, when we go to God the Father in prayer we must pray prayers commensurate with Jesus’ name, His persona, His status, His authority and His character. Just because we pray for something does not mean that we are now sovereign and God our servant. And that is the point; God does, in fact, answer every single prayer but we must remember that God is still God and He may answer by saying “Yes” or “No” (or “wait”).

We know that Jesus did not mean that we would get whatever we want because this would make us God’s God, this would make God not only our servant but would cause intolerable chaos: how many people would pray to be the ruler of the Earth, or the king of the universe, or to be God? In other words the prayers must be in accordance to God’s purpose and will because God is sovereign.

In keeping with this concept note that the first quote from evilbible.com was Matthew 21:21-22 and what do vss. 23-24 state?

And when He had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him as He was teaching, and said, By what authority do you do these things? And who gave you this authority? And Jesus answered and said to them, I will also ask you one thing; which if you tell Me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things…

And that is the point: Jesus’, God’s authority.

Moreover, James has something to say on this subject,

you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures…Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:2-3, 6).

James also makes the point about God’s authority over our prayers all the clearer by writing,

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:13-15).

At Jesus’ birth that His name had a particular meaning was stated thusly,

…you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

Evilbible.com’s author ends by stating:

A lot of Christians ignore what Jesus actually says in the Bible. They also tend to add things to the actual words to make them say something else. If you honestly and truthfully read these quotes, without adding to them, it is very easy to see that Jesus is not saying that God will think about your prayers. He says God will grant all your prayers. Clearly, God doesn’t grant all prayers and this proves that Jesus was a habitual liar.

I do not know what “a lot of Christians” do but as per the above elucidation that I have provided of this issue: there is no need to add things to the actual words but to merely consider the historical / cultural context, consider the nature of language, to apply reason and logic and consider the context and relevant texts.

Atheism, the Bible, Rape, EvilBible.com and Dan Barker, part 1 of 6

Upon learning of a website entitled evilbible.com I thought that I had more important things to do with my time such as oh, I do not know; watching the hair on my knuckles grow, perhaps pocking my eye with a stick or attempting to break the Guinness Book of World’s Record‘s record for most belly button lint collected.
My reading time already consist of circa 90% spent on reading people who are trying to get me to see just how wrong I am. Yet, my attention was drawn to evilbible.com due to a, sadly, typical example of the atheistic pseudo-skepticism modus operandi de jour. I responded to Dan Barker’s claim that the Bible does not condemn rape but actually commands it. Keep in mind that Dan Barker positively affirms that rape is not absolutely immoral, as we will see in part 6. During a debate he premised his argument as to the Bible’s commanding rape upon a Hebrew word which, self-servingly conveniently, he purposefully chose not to translate. I, being a true skeptic, did not take his word for it but look up the passage and did two things which no atheist of whom I am aware would even imagine doing: I actually read the text for myself and I look up the word that Dan Barker chose not to translate (see results here).

Now, I hate to write a post premised upon a comment to this blog because I never want to use my position as this blogs author in order to embarrass or call anyone out-to use the posts as a bully pulpit. Thus, I will attempt, for whatever it is worth, to keep the references generic in pointing out that the first response by an atheist (the second comment) I got was indicative of the deleterious effects of the New Atheist movement (although, this is very, very common to anti-theism-atheism’s entire history). The response was by an atheist who stated that they did not know anything about different Bible translations and did not want to know. Let us note that “ignorance” is merely lack of knowledge and is something that is quite easy to remedy. Yet, when one purposefully chooses to be ignorant we are into an entirely new category.

The typical atheistic pseudo-skepticism modus operandi de jour is threefold:
1) It was to not acknowledge that Dan Barker was suspect for purposefully not translating the very term upon which his argument hinged.
2) It was to not do what I did-actually practice skepticism and conduct research. Rather, it was something to the likes of typing “the God of the Bible loves rape and Dan Barker is an ex-preacher whom no one ought to question” or some such thing. Well, evilbible.com did not disappoint, at least to this level of pseudo-skepticism.
3) The pseudo-skepticism “reasons” that since evilbible.com claims that the Bible “often condones and even approves of rape” it must be true! Look, they even offer quotes and, most importantly, tell me what I should think about the quotes, they infallibly interpret them! Answer that believer!

The second response by an atheist (the second comment) was also indicative of unscholarly gut reactions that consider neither Dan Barker’s argument nor my counterargument. The comments asserted, in a sarcastic manner, that on the Judeo-Christian view Dan Barker, or any ex-Christian/ex-Pastor, may automatically be labeled as not understanding the Bible. Furthermore, it was asserted that I simply “dismiss his [Dan Barker’s] argument.” Need it be pointed out that the inverse is that it is only Dan Barker, or any ex-Christian/ex-Pastor, who truly understand the Bible and that it is only Judeo-Christians who may automatically be labeled as not understanding it?

Indeed this is quite fallacious. And yet, the greater point is that the quip missed the point entirely: Dan Barker presented an argument and I responded. Moreover, he purposefully left the hinge upon which he premised his argument undefined while I presented the definition and further evidence.I would actually be shocked if the second commentator even bothered reading the post. Just how is responding in detail dismissing Dan Barker?

Such emotive gut reactions allow one to excuse their lack of skepticism and ignore their own “faith” based trust on Dan Barker like arguments from authority to the likes of “I’m an ex-Christian/ex-Pastor so I must really know what the Bible says so just listen to me and do not ask any questions.” Dan Barker has premised his entire “career” as an atheist anti-Christian activist on his alleged authority as an ex-Christian/ex-Pastor. In fact, two of his books are premised upon this claim.

After reading the second comment I absconded from the comments section and chose to conduct the research presented in this parsed essay rather than getting bogged down in the nether regions of the comments section.

Let us consider the evilbible.com webpage specifically dedicate to Rape in the Bible. Interestingly enough, the alleged biblical rape prooftext that Dan Barker cited in the debate was not cited by evilbible.com.

When considering any and every atheist condemnation of any action whatsoever it is of primary importance to keep in mind that they are expressing personal opinions about the act(s) they are condemning. They are merely telling you their personal preferences in the form of morality borrowed from the Judeo-Christian worldview. They are piling unfounded assertion, upon unfounded assertion, upon unfounded assertion, and building a tel of arguments from outrage, arguments from personal incredulity, arguments for embarrassment, etc.

For interested parties; they are quoting the New Living Translation which some will not consider very scholarly and yet, evilbible.com’s views are so erroneous that you could use your Precious Moments Bible to defeat them.

Note that the webpage is, refreshingly, very basic consisting of only an intro the interpretation, the quotations and a line or two of commentary. As to the interpretations and commentary; these consist of one sentence and yet, are very telling and suggestive to the reader, particularly the undiscerning, un-skeptical, reader.
Apparently, since they offer the interpretation first they seek to ensure that they first tell you what you should think and that you then read the text with their preconceived notion in mind. This is hermeneutically inappropriate and so I will quote the text first, then quote their interpretation (in the way of a title), they quote their erudite and scholarly elucidations and finally offer my elucidation. Although, premising this essay upon evilbible.com’s views on biblical rape poisons the well from the outset.

Ultimately, we will see that the most telling text in the Bible about its position on rape is, for some unknown and odd reason, missing from evilbible.com; it is simply not addressed-muse as to why this is and we will come to it as we progress.

The evilbible.com webpage begins by positively affirming absolute morality. Therefore, they begin their condemnation of the Bible by borrowing biblical precepts.

Rape is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Yet few people know that the Bible often condones and even approves of rape. How anyone can get their moral guidance from a book that allows rape escapes me_

Next, we are dissuaded from coming to logical and grammatically contextual conclusions as the author of the evilbible.com webpage appears to clearly understand that their arguments fail from the get go and so urges you not to come to the obvious, non-rape, conclusion,

Note that in many places in the Bible there are references to “taking a wife”. Don’t be fooled into thinking that these were voluntary marriages. This first quote clearly shows that murder and force were used to “take” these wives.

With this intro in mind we will move directly to the texts in question in parts 2-5

Atheism, the Bible, Rape and EvilBible.com, part 2 of 6 ›

Month: October 2017

Richard Bozarth

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Atheism, the Bible, Rape, EvilBible.com and Dan Barker, part 1 of 6