A Brief History Of Early Christianity

Having entered the period called "Lent" and heading toward Easter, it is instructive to examine the  early history of Christianity.  One of the enduring myths about the Christian religion is that it effectively sprung uniform and whole as if like Zeus from Mt. Olympus. Sure, there were a few minor squabbles, but the religion that later became one of the world's largest, to all intents,  began as one more or less monolithic entity.

In fact this is a fairy tale that has no real scholarly support. What I'd like to do here is to provide a kind of concise history of early Christianity, up to about 300 AD. Most of the content has been extracted from some notes on Early Christian History (from Loyola) as well as three excellent books: The Gnostic Gospels and Adam, Eve & The Serpent (by Elaine Pagels), and Lost Christianities, by scholar and former fundamentalist, Bart Ehrman.

The intent here is not to badmouth Christianity or diminish it, but to show it in its historic light, as opposed to the (often) fantastic, and ahistorical light many have used to portray it.

One of the aspects that most stands out is its eclectic nature. Contrary to being a font for monotheism, early Christianity was anything but. Nor had the "god Man" claim for Jesus yet become entrenched, as it did later (mainly compliments of Paul) in the institutional religion.

In terms of the eclectic nature, Prof. Ehrman points out (op. cit.) that "some of the early Christians believed in one God, some in two, and some others in thirty". He also expressed the divergence of belief concerning Jesus:

"There were some who believed Jesus' death brought about the world's salvation (likely the precursors of evangelicals who wouldn't appear in full bloom for another 17 centuries, and others who thought it had nothing to do with it. Others said Jesus never died. We examine here some of the chief Christian voices-groups in the early centuries."

Perhaps the first were the Ebionites, and also the earliest of the banned sects, later to be called "heretics". This group believed in Christ but saw him as the Jewish Messiah, sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people in fulfillment of Jewish scriptures. This take (of Ehrman) also comports with that of Oxford Scholar Geza Vermes, who notes (in his monograph ‘The Authentic Gospel Of Jesus’ (page 415):

“The religion revealed by the authentic message of Jesus is straightforward, without complex dogmas, mythical images or self-centered mystical speculation. It resembles a race consisting only of the final ‘straight’ – demanding from the runners their last ounce of energy and with a winners’ medal prepared for all the JEWISH participants who cross the finishing line."

Vermes goes on to observe (ibid.) that Christianity seems to "belong to another world, with its mixture of high philosophical speculation on the triune God, its Johannine Logos mysticism, and Pauline Redeemer myth of a dying and risen Son of God"

But why express surprise here? The fact is the myth of a redeemer god -Man had been in the cultural -religious zeitgeist (for example with the Mithraic pagans) for over twelve centuries. If a new faith wanted to claim exclusivity or unique gravitas and "separate from the pack" so to speak, it couldn't do better than to appropriate the same god -Man myth then weave it into its textual accounts.   Readers of an inquiring mind  couldn't do better than to access the Yale University Religious Study course lectures below:

The Historical Jesus

Arguing with Paul?


In line with the above, Jesus for the Ebionites was not a member of an eternal Trinity, but rather an ordinary man who kept Jewish law to perfection. As for their sacred text - accepted by them- it excluded the Gospel of John (which many current biblical historians have trouble with as well, partly for its elaborations - like on the trial of Jesus - which no other synoptic gospel discloses) while it retained most of the Old Testament and the Gospel of Matthew.

It's also noteworthy here, that the Ebionites - like the Gnostics- had a particular dislike for Paul, and also like the Gnostics viewed him as "the enemy" for his claim that all of Jewish law was rendered irrelevant by belief in Christ.

The Marcionites were another early Christian group, founded by a shipping magnate, Marcion, ca. 139 AD in Rome. Here, in this manifestation, we find the first appearance of the "double God", later circulated also by the Gnostics. The Marcionites thus accepted the world was created by an "evil God" (the one described in the Old Testament, in his various assorted genocides etc.) and that this evil god imposed a death sentence on humanity when it could not meet its impossibly high demands. In juxtaposition to the evil god was the "God of Jesus" and by belief in him, humans could escape from the vindictive wrath of the evil god. Those who did not, would remain in the evil god's clutches and join him in hell. (Again, we find exact resonances of this in modern evangelical Christianity who worship the same evil God in the OT. At least I've never heard or seen any of them reject him!)

Perhaps the most developed Christian group at the time, with the most refined philosophy and belief system, were the Gnostics. At least a few scholars speculate in fact that Gnosticism is at least partially an offshoot from early Greek philosophy. To summarize the Gnostic take:

'The world is essentially a cesspool and we're all mired in filth and ignorance. We all came from somewhere else, and salvation is finding our way back."

Like the Marcionites, the Gnostics believed an evil and inferior god ruled over the world (and also created our bodies). They called it demiurgos. Existentially, it was roughly on a par with Satan. So the evil god and Satan formed an evil twin duo. Gnostics, in terms of their scriptures and what they believed, penned their own "Gnostic Gospels". They rejected the Old Testament as antiquated rubbish about the demiurgos, while they rejected much of the New Testament because of the Pauline wording corruptions, and references to Jesus as "savior". They believed none of this was original, but the work of Paul's copyist henchmen.

Their core belief was that at the last instant of manifest existence a higher, supreme God would appear and insert into each of us his spark of divinity. At this stage, we would each attain a high enough level of knowledge (gnosis) to conquer our attachment to material reality and become Christs unto ourselves.

Thus, in the Gnostics, we see the first emergence of a totally different version of "Christ" from what Paul taught and circulated. Pagels observes ('The Gnostic Gospels', Vintage-Random House, 1979), p. 124 :

"While Pauline Catholics taught a reality of 'sin' and that 'Jesus alone could deliver healing and forgiveness of sins', the Gnostics on the contrary, insisted that ignorance, not sin, is what involves a person in suffering. The gnostic movement shared in this certain affinities with contemporary methods of exploring the self through psychotherapeutic techniques."

Also(p. 125):

"Whoever remains ignorant... cannot experience fulfilment. Gnostics said that such a person 'dwells in deficiency'. For deficiency consists of ignorance."


Perhaps the most daring, and threatening proposition of the Gnostics, was their belief in gnosis, or the 'de-localization' of Christhood. Why? Because if the (Institutional-doctrinal) Church accepted this, they'd have to surrender their coveted power wielded via intermediaries (priests, bishops, cardinals, etc.). Paul knew this full well, which he fought against the Gnostics' egalitarian Christhood with all his might. There was no way he'd accept that every human could become a Christ in his own right.

Pagels echoing the principle of gnosis (ibid., p.134):

"Whoever achieves gnosis becomes no longer a Christian, but a Christ."

Even today, Gnostic churches exist, despite Paul's effort to wipe them out. In Barbados, a large Gnostic church still remains not far from the Constitution River in Bridgetown. When I last visited, at least three members declared that they were nearly at the level of "Christhood".

In effect, in the Gnostic teachings, anyone had the capacity to become 'a Christ'. Pauline Catholicism, meanwhile - held there could be only one, on which all others had to depend for 'salvation'. The Gnostics, for their part, regarded the Pauline teachings of a unique god-Man as utter blasphemy. NO mere human (which they regarded Jesus) could also be God, but each human could eventually become a limited divine manifestation known as Christ. (They did allow Jesus might have reached that stage before other humans)

Pagels goes on (ibid.):

"We can see, then, that such gnosticism was more than a protest movement against orthodox Christianity. Gnosticism also included a religious perspective that implicitly opposed the development of the kind of institution that became the early Catholic Church. Those who expected to 'become Christs' themselves were not likely to recognize the institutional structures of the church -its bishops, priests, creed, canon, or ritual - as bearing ultimate authority."

For this reason, As Pagels notes (p. 102), the Catholic orthodoxy and tradition (including many Church Fathers such as Tertullian- the original theocon) saw fit to consistently denounce the Gnostics "while suppressing and virtually destroying the Gnostic writings themselves." And of course, we had the likes of the unscrupulous idiot Irenaeus calling them 'frauds'. (Pagels, p. 17) To serve his own purposes of course!

One is left to wonder, why - if the Church and St. Paul felt so self-righteous, they had to destroy and suppress the Gnostic gospels and writings. Was their Church so weak and tepid that it couldn't co-exist? Seems so. Just like today's evangelicals are evidently so weak and tepid that they can't tolerate and co-exist with other Christian groups.

In any case, by the 4th century AD the early eclecticism had nearly vanished and an institutional Pauline Christianity ended up the prime descendant of the original teachings and a religion which had essentially succeeded in wiping out or suppressing all groups not centralized in Rome. The major turning point was undoubtedly the "Edict of Milan" which removed all penalties for professing Pauline Christianity. 

The latter subsequently achieved immense strength as it became the official religion of Rome, thanks to aligning itself with many elements of the Roman Sol Invictus (Sun worship) cult including adopting the same date for Its Nativity: the Winters Solstice or Dec. 25th.  See also:

Revisiting The Origin Of Christmas & Sol Invictus

The rest as they say, is history, though historians such as Edward Gibbons have linked the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to its uneasy integration with the Pauline variant of Christianity. 

See also:

How the early Pauline Christians invented “Jesus t...

Can We Please Leave Jesus Out Of NFL Football Games?

Eddy Piniero - brain charged by adrenalin after Sunday's win over Denver, demands Jesus be treated as real.  Whereupon the obliging atheist must ask:  What does Jesus' reality have to do with an NFL play or game?


If you watched the end of the Bears @ Broncos game Sunday afternoon you saw one of the strangest endings, but which The Denver Post sports section announced with the headline (p. 1B today) : UN-BEAR-ABLE! . Denver had just scored a TD with less than minute left and then after two penalties (one for negative yardage the other positive) set up a two point conversion play on the Bear 2-yard line. The score was 13-12 after the TD.  Broncos' coach Vic Fango preferred to go for the win and not the tie.  The play worked with a shot from QB Flacco to receiver Sanders.  Broncomaniacs went nuts in jubilation given they had a 14-12 lead, what ought to have been enough for their home opener first W of the season.  Plus there were only 31 ticks left. No way the Bears could pull this out, or could they?

Well thanks to an iffy "roughing the passer" penalty against the Broncos' Bradley Chubb, the Bears got to a decent field position. Then with 17 ticks left and one timeout Bears QB Mitch Trubisky - facing a 4th and 15-  let fly a 16 yd. over the middle pass to receiver Robinson.  The play seemed to swallow up all the time remaining and the clock showed: 00:00 at the end of it.  But hold strain, Bears coach Matt Nagy had been riding one of the Zebras to ensure if he tossed the time out flag it'd be seen, not ignored. It worked, and the clock was reset to :01.  One measly second left, but enough for FG kicker Eddy Piniero to try to get the win with a 53 yarder. (Recall this is the same guy who doinked an attempted game winner during the playoffs last year)..

The rest, as they say,  was history.

 Piniero's effort marked was the longest field goal to win a game for the Bears (on the final snap) since Paul Edinger hit a 48-yarder for a 24-21 victory over the Raiders on Oct. 5, 2003 at Soldier Field. Pineiro's kick spared Da the Bears from having to return  home 0-2, something that would have cast a black cloud over a season that began with such high hopes two weeks ago.  Wore, the Bears' long suffering fans have already been suffering extreme paranoia and fear on any FGs since Piniero's 'doink' miss in the playoffs last year.

But the Chicago fans ought to relax. Piniero is on target  to be named the NFC special teams player of the week. He’s 4-for-4 now on field goals and made the only extra point he’s attempted. This is how the Bears went from thinking they could believe in Pineiro,  for whom they traded a conditional 2021 seventh-round pick to the Raiders, to actually believing in him.

After the game ended Piniero delivered some reasonable, rational responses to reporters' questions. e.g.

"I was just hitting some kicks into the net.  Coach Tabor was just telling me, ‘Get an easy swing in,’ this and that. I go, ‘Coach, I got you. This one’s for you.’ Just went out there and hit my kick, you know.”

Q.  Why did Pineiro tell Tabor the kick was for him?

“For all the things he has been through, the coaching staff’s been through.  The whole kicking situation. It was pretty cool.”

So far, so good.  Then possibly under the conditions of extreme euphoria combined with the adrenalin still pumping through his veins, he yelped:

“The biggest thing  I can say now is if you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, you better start.  Because he’s real.”

Ok, Eddy, but what does "belief in Jesus Christ" have to do with the price of tea- or in this case the outcome of a football game?  Or even your 53 yard field goal?   Do you have any grasp at all of how nonsensical that sounds?  And whether J.C. being "real" or not was irrelevant to your FG?   Can you say non sequitur?

Had you failed would you still have made such a proclamation on national TV?  I doubt it because I heard no such thing after your doink FG flub in the playoffs last year.

Indeed,  the reality of Jesus - or Yeshua - isn't really open to that much debate, even by atheists. That such a man walked the earth has been well documented by John Dominic Crossan. He laid out a  compelling case in his 400+ page monograph: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant'.

A formidable problem in researching and writing about historical personages, is that myth often becomes conflated with facts. This is especially true when the research entails exhaustive dredging up of numerous obscure scrolls, manuscripts- not to mention cross checking of sources.That is why  Crossan's book is all the more remarkable. It shines out like a beacon, against a morass of many other comparable books with far less scholarly qualities.

His conclusion: Jesus was a "peasant Jewish Cynic"

As Crossan points out, p. 421, a 'Cynic' embodied "a life-style and mindset in opposition to the cultural heart of Mediterranean civilization, a way of looking and dressing, of eating and living and relating, that announced its contempt for honor and shame, for patronage and clientage. ....Hippies in a world of Augustan yuppies."

Like biblical scholar Geza Vermes, Crossan rejects implicitly the facile explanation that Jesus (Yeshua) claimed to be a unique Son of God who "exercised divine powers".  Those words and claims were added later, most of the additions from bastardizations of the Latin Vulgate in its transcription to the King James Bible - which is probably the worst version of the bible available- though it reads the best!   

My best advice to Eddy Piniero and other NFL players who've invoked Jesus after plays?  Get hold of Crossan's (or Vermes) books and read with an eye to enhancing your critical thinking.  You also might wish to check out Bart Ehrman's book 'Misquoting Jesus'.

Don't have the time to read a serious book on biblical exegesis?  Then go to this 5 minute video:  Crossan on Christian Fundamentalists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f0ZHaoSnf0

Oh, and in the meantime stop calling down Jesus's  name during (or after) contests featuring the most savage sport on the planet!

Is Jeffrey Tayler Correct in His "Atheist Manifesto"?

Jeffrey Tayler, an editor at The Atlantic, has proposed a provocative set of ways atheists can "stand up for themselves". He calls it a "credo for atheists", posed as a list of "concrete responses to faith-based affronts, to religious presumption, or what Hitchens called clerical bullying.'"   I tend to see it more as a kind of atheist manifesto.  As Mr. Tayler puts it:

"The First Amendment, we should recall, forbids Congress both from establishing laws designating a state religion and from abridging freedom of speech. There is no reason why we should shy away from speaking freely about religion, no reason why it should be thought impolite to debate it, especially when, as so often happens, religious folk bring it up on their own and try to impose it on others."

Which is a point  to which I'd have no objection. In general, I'm quite willing to leave people to their own devices and beliefs - whether it's a claim that God is all around them and helping them, or a claim that vitamins are useless garbage- but then, if it is brought up in a public arena I feel quite free to add in my two cents, and provide a rigorous debate. Of course, some nitwits can't be debated because they lack the neurons to do so intelligently, such as those who insist the agnostic atheist "is an oxymoron like an honest thief". Uh no, Einstein, it is a legitimate variation of atheist, first defined by George Smith in his book, Atheism: The Case Against God, viz. p. 9:

The agnostic atheist maintains any supernatural realm is inherently unknowable by the human mind. And further - not only is the nature of any supernatural being unknowable, but the existence of any supernatural being is unknowable as well

So we leave out semi-educated dunderheads because their IQ and their knowledge base are too low to justify extended interaction.


Anyway, let's examine Tayler's list and see if it is possible for the rational person to find concordance:
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Herewith, some common religious pronouncements and how atheists can respond to them.

1.  “Let’s say grace!”

No, let’s not. When you’re seated at the family dinner table and a relative suggests clasping hands, lowering heads and thanking the Lord, say “No thanks. I’m an atheist. So I’ll opt out.” Nonbelievers have every right to object when being asked to take part in superstitious rituals; in fact, if children are present, they are morally obliged to do so. Courteously refusing to pray will set an example of rational behavior for the young, and contribute to furthering the atheist zeitgeist.
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I completely agree with this take, and I also concur it's the atheist's bounden duty to spoil the expectation of uniform compliance at a meal if a Xtian unthinkingly -or deliberately - demands all those present say grace. The atheist who complies because he doesn't wish to ruffle feathers is basically a wimp and not fit to use call himself an atheist. Maybe he is a pretend atheist, or poseur.  Of course, the refusal needs to be done courteously, no one in his right mind is going to say "F*ck off, bozo!" But to refuse to do it is to become an accomplice to the expectation that Christianity dominates the nation and all minorities must kowtow to its themes and preferences.


2.  “Religion is a personal matter. It’s not polite to bring it up.”

No, religion is fundamentally collective, and since time immemorial has served societies in fostering union, but also in inciting xenophobia and violence (especially against “unchaste” women and “impure” minorities), often on a mass scale. Nonbelievers need to further advance the cause of rationality by discussing it openly; doing so, as uncomfortable as it may be at times, will help puncture the aura of sanctity surrounding faith and expose it for what it is.
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Again, I agree. Religion  (and faith) receives too much passive gravitas by no one challenging its presumptions. One of these is the social script that we are all to behave as good little do -be's and never bring it up for debate or discussion. On the contrary, all religions need to be held open to critical review and examination, no matter what the setting....dinner parties, family gatherings, picnics, whatever.....if the opportunity for robust engagement presents itself.


3.  “You’re an atheist? I feel sorry for you.”

No, please rejoice for me. I fear no hell, just as I expect no heaven.

Again, this is a Xtianoid fancy that needs to be fought vigorously. Most high and mighty Xtianoids believe they're superior to atheists because they've already been granted "a seat at the Lord's table" before they even croak.  But as is my wont, all I tell them is they have purchased an afterlife insurance policy that is probably useless. They've suppressed their will and subjugated their reason, as well as sacrificed felicity, all to gain a 'pass' when the lights go out - not realizing that when death arrives the lights really do go out. (Think of the last time you had general anesthesia in surgery).

If the Christian foolishly plays the Pascal wager game, I have an answer for that too. He may claim that I ought to play the wager because if I lose (i.e. cast aside my disbelief and assume afterlife reality exists) I win by gaining heaven, whereas if I maintain unbelief I lose my eternal "soul".  But Philosopher Michael Martin actually turns the originally proffered Pascalian choice on its head in arriving at an alternative view of the Wager, based on a negative deity he calls the “Perverse Master” which (he imagines) acts in consistent contradiction to the “just God” of orthodox Christians.

For example, rather than rewarding belief or faith in itself, especially if such belief is predicated on fear of torment, this entity punishes it for any supernatural being (including itself) while rewarding disbelief with eternal bliss. (Clearly this “PM” prefers not to have millions of “yes men” surrounding it, who’ve only espoused belief to save their sorry hides!)

Apart from this, what does that say about the presumed Christian deity? That it would accept a craven human’s false belief (to save his or her eternal ass) over a courageous atheist’s integrity? If indeed it does so (as the Christian debaters imply) it is nothing but a mere cosmic joke, a petty tyrant too insecure in its being to tolerate unbelief. Yet it would accept a “yes man” in a nano-second!

Pascal's wager is bunk because Pascal rigged the medieval dice and weighted them -or loaded them- in his favor to make the 'wager' come out the way he wanted, while foreclosing all other alternatives.

4.  “If you’re an atheist, life has no purpose.”


This is another load of  religious bull pockey  and really discloses the religionist for being an existential sissy. He is so bereft of balls and vision that he has to formulate an invisible Being to direct his every waking hour  toward some "higher purpose", as opposed to forging his own purpose. I always laugh at this sort of baloney, because it definitely shows how religion has eviscerated people's brains. The problem for those who believe this BS is that can't fathom in a million years how a person could independently craft and direct his life apart from some superimpose hypothetical plan. In many ways, they remind me of the mammoth Powerball winners who, though they win $200 million, state they plan to stay at their boring ass jobs to "have a purpose". They are too pathetic to use their imaginations (and money) to travel, see other cultures, or expand their learning and vision.



5.  “If you abolish religion, nothing will stop people from killing, raping and looting.”

No, killing, raping and looting have been common practices in religious societies, and often carried out with clerical sanction. The catalogue of notorious barbarities – wars and massacres, acts of terrorism, the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc.
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Again, it's amazing how many believers still bring this idiocy up when they ought to know - if they're the least bit educated - that human morality evolved with human culture, it didn't start from religion.
This sort of communitarian moral order became endemic as agriculture subsumed hunter-gatherer culture and human communities  became more organized and interdependent. It was this interdependence that formed the basis of settled societal laws, legal systems . No supernatural law or commandment ordained specific moral or legal behavior. Instead it was the conscious and deliberate recognition that the promotion of the welfare of others was directly linked to the one's own welfare. Compromise others' security, and you compromise your own.  This was embodied in Hammurabi's code in the words,

 

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Which "Golden Rule" or ethic of reciprocity became the basis for nearly all ancient, post-Bronze Age ethics. Incredibly, many Christians actually think Christ spoke these words!  The point is, a coherent morality pre-existed the Bible and Christianity and hence the claim made by the Christian is patented malarkey. I'd be more worried about a Christian going ape shit and slaughtering dozens of people, because "my God told me to do it".

 

6.  “Nothing can equal the majesty of God and His creation.”

Humbug! The universe is majestic enough with its many wondrous sights and objects, i.e.:


Neither of which can be said to have been "created" other than by natural, physical means, i.e. electro-magnetic and gravitational forces acting in concert with basic thermodynamics to shape the final result.


The point? I can immediately access natural majesty just by taking my telescope out on a clear night and observing an object like the Orion Nebula or M13, the globular cluster in Hercules.  I don't need to invoke the phony construct of an invisible Being  to relate to the objects seen.

7.  “It is irrational to believe that the world came about without a creator.”

No, it is irrational to infer an invisible omnipotent being from what we see around us. The burden of proof lies on the one making supernatural claims,
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Again, Tayler is correct. Besides which a number of papers, research have been done (all the total embodiments of RATIONALITY) to show the cosmos incepted from a quantum vacuum.

Those interested can reference my detailed debunking of this argument here:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/09/debunking-anders-primary-cause-fantasy.html

One of the more hilarious analogies used by fundie dunderheads and dopes  to justify their faith in an unseen creator is: "if a plane is flying in the sky you can't see the pilot but you know someone is flying it". Uh, yeppers, Jethroe, but planes are PHYSICAL objects and pilots are physical (and biological) too in order to operate the aviation controls! BUT you're using a PHYSICAL analogy to justify faith in a supernatural entity, you dope!

8.  “I will pray for you to see the light.”

ROTFL!  

Typical palaver from supercilious, smug know nothings who mostly: 1) don't accept evolution, 2) think the Sun is "young" and 3) believe the Earth is 6,000 years old and 4) believe the fundie dope (Jason Lisle) who professes such BS is an "astrophysicist" .   If this constitutes the "light' they see I will happily remain beyond their "light"!


9.  “If you’re wrong about God, you go to hell. It’s safer to believe.”

Pascal’s wager survives even among people who have never heard the name of the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician.

And I already dealt with the wager earlier under No. 3. Again, expressing "faith" merely to save one's ass is the coward's way out. If belief isn't held sincerely but merely as an afterlife insurance policy one really doesn't deserve to call himself a man, certainly not an honorable man. He's a sniveling little skunk coward trying to use his "faith" as a ticket to a safe afterlife destination not realizing there's nothing that comes after you croak.  He's even more of sniveling skunk if he himself cowardly uses his faith shtick to try to browbeat others when he himself doesn't demonstrate the first principles of being a decent human being.



10.  “Religion is of great comfort to me, especially in times of loss. Too bad it isn’t for you.”

George Bernard Shaw noted that, “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.”
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Which I can't do much to exceed in terms of analogy. Besides, the existentialist isn't in need of "comfort". He doesn't regard the world as a giant 'comforter' to wrap himself in, but rather as an entity to be examined, scrutinized to explain by scientific principles. Loss, well it's to be expected. Life is a pattern of loss, and to believe one can surmount it or avoid it is magical thinking. Better to deal with it on the realistic plane than a magical, supernatural one which only allows false comfort.


11.  “As you age and face death, you will come to need religion.”

The truth, hard as it is for many to accept, is that with age comes a clearer, no nonsense grasp of reality and more likely becoming more atheistic, not less. By the time one is 70 he certainly ought to have put behind the things of a child, and that includes false beliefs in fairies, Santa Claus and everlasting lives - post death.

As Taylor aptly puts it:

Aging and the prospect of dying by no means enhance the attractiveness of fictitious comforts to come in paradise, or the veracity of malicious myths about hellfire and damnation.



12.  “You have no right to criticize my religious beliefs.”

Wrong. Such a declaration aims to suppress free speech and dialogue about a matter influential in almost every aspect of our societies.  No one has a right to make unsubstantiated assertions, or vouch for the truthfulness of unsubstantiated assertions on the basis of “sacred” texts, without expecting objections from thinking folk.

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Again, Tayler is totally correct. If the believer keeps the religious beliefs to him-herself, that's a different matter. But once they are publicly advanced then all bets are off, and it's game on. I will give as good I get, and I hope you are up to it. And that means a lot of rational criticism, unless you profess to be like ol' "Pastor Mike" who used to think he was above criticism  - and his KJV carried the solemn word of God (as opposed to the ravings of ancient madmen, lunatics and unethical copyists) Of course, one with the ethics and morality of a groveling pig (but who uses the fig leaf of faith and religion to disguise it) would do the things that would only make such a pig proud: i.e. like proposing a "National Atheist Registry" based on a sex offender registry!


13.  “Jesus was merciful.”

If he existed – and there is still, after centuries of searching, no proof that he did – he was at times a heartless prophet of doom for the sinners he supposedly loved, commanding those who failed to give comfort to the poor to “depart . . . ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
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Here, I have to correct Taylor as one must be totally aware of how words were often put into Yeshua's mouth by the unethical copyists I noted above. Ehrman in his book ‘Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why’, documents numerous copyist errors and multitudes involving deliberate mistranslation. As he observes (p. 209):

“The King James version is filled with places in which the translators rendered a Greek text derived ultimately from Erasmus’ edition, which was based on a single twelfth century manuscript that is one of the worst that we now have available to us!”

Oxford scholar Geza Vermes (The Authentic Gospel Of Jesus) adds even more examples of how numerous passages represent words never uttered  by Yeshua, but put into his mouth. So  - I take most of the quotes that Tayler claims  are "vile" in the NT, to issue from the vile minds (and hands) of copyists and deliberate mistranslators, not from Yeshua himself. Having said that, the issue of Yeshua being "merciful" is still irrelevant - because the same passages that expose mistranslation, errors, also disclose he was no God-man. He was an ordinary flesh and blood human Rabbi, but with charisma and genuine heartfelt sympathy for fellow humans. So, yes, in this sense he was "merciful" but not in the sense of acting as a sacrificial deity (via crucifixion)  for the expiation of "sins" to secure "heaven" for one and all.


14.  ”You can’t prove there’s no God.”

Correct, at least epistemologically speaking. Reasonable atheists, “New” and old, would not argue with this. Richard Dawkins, for example, has told audiences that he is nominally an agnostic, since proving that something does not exist is impossible.
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But the crux of the matter, not brought out by Tayler  (at least under this header), is that it is always the positive claimant who is obliged to provide proof for his existence claim. Since the God-ist or theist is making the positive claim, i.e. adding to reality by postulating a supernatural mega-Being, it is HIS duty to prove its existence, not the atheist's to disprove it.

In the same way, if I postulate that invisible aliens from Tau Ceti inhabit the city of Manitou Springs, I have to prove it!  I would not be daft enough to think the good citizens of Manitou are obliged to disprove my claim!

It is unfathomable that Theists and religionists can't seem to get this into their thick noggins, but there it is. The problem always comes because before the debate is initialized the one making the actual claim isn't usually identified. This is extremely important to do, thus - as in a scholastic debate - you have to first identify which person speaks for the "affirmative" (the claimant) and who is speaking for the negative. Invariably it is always the atheist who take the negative, which means the proof must issue from the affirmative (existent claimant) side.


15.  “My religion is true for me.”

A soppy, solipsistic and juvenile declaration and cop-out bordering on the delusional and contradicting Christianity and Islam, neither of which recognize the other, and both of which espouse universalist pretensions. You will not find a scientist who will say, “quantum physics is true for me.”
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Again, Tayler is spot -on and I would only add here that we need to note the post-modern overtones of this type of statement, "true for me", which really says nothing of import.  The reason is that truth is only significant if universal. Thus, asserting the "Sun is extremely hot ionized plasma" is a universal truth in the context of its temperatures and substance relative to human experience. Same with asserting "the stars are distant objects".

While this sort of solipsistic statement is indeed vacuous, it's at least preferable to the fundie bigot or bully who loudly and brashly proclaims HIS truth must apply to all, and by god if you don't accept 'You is going to Hell, boy'!   Sadly, this 52-cards short of a full deck goober doesn't grasp that he's conflating a truth with his own twisted, personal belief.

16.  “Don’t take everything in the Bible literally.”

Not taking the Bible (or other texts based on “revealed truths”) literally leaves it up to the reader to cherry-pick elements for belief. There exists no guide for such cherry-picking, and zero religious sanction for it.Pastor
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I will also add to this by saying it allows those who profess to take the good book literally, i.e. fundies, to weasel their way out of any debates by invoking "interpretation" and "hermeneutics" when convenient - e.g. trying to repel claims of biblical contradictions. But as I have repeatedly noted, they can't have their cake and eat it. If they therefore profess the bible is inerrant and that it must be taken literally, they can't also invoke "interpretation" because literalness is mutually exclusive with  textual analysis or hermeneutics.

That said, we can't expect extreme pseudo-religionists, especially argumentative fundies, to "play by the rules". Like robbers, brigands and other n'er do wells they will feel it their "right" to use their book any way they want to try to get the better of Materialists, atheists.

The problem for them is that we know what they're up to, and most intelligent observers do as well.

So, bottom line, with a few tweaks Tayler's points make a nice Atheist Manifesto, or at least a first approximation to one.
            

Evangelicals Want to ‘Double Down’ on Bible Thumping? Fine- But It Won’t Make ANY Difference!

According to a report in TIME (‘Preach Like Your Faith Depends On It’, Mar. 25, p.46) Evangelicals of all stripes are wetting their panties and crying because statistics show young people especially are becoming “NONES”. According to stats cited in the article “15 to 20% of all Americans in the past five years have ceased to claim any religious affiliation”. This is especially among the young, i.e. Millennials, the group the fundies would most like to drumbeat into their brainwashed fold. The trend has become so significant that Pew researchers have described it as “the rise of the Nones”.


Instead of figuring out that people are becoming much more informed, and now able to see through biblical bollocks and the bluster of fake pastors, these numskulls intend to “double down” on their preaching, believing they just haven’t been intense enough! Are they on crack as well as stupid? According to the TIME article:

“Rather than softening the Gospel message to make it more marketable to an America skeptical of institutions – a frequent reform point of view- what draws the real energy among the faithful is a commitment to what Christians call  ‘the Great Commission’ the words the resurrected Jesus spoke to his apostles at the end of Matthew: ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’”

Well, hate to break it these hyper-dedicated  faithers, but they could as well save their breath: Jesus never spoke any such words (they were inserted into his "mouth" by a forger) and no one named ‘Matthew’ had anything to do with them either!


This has been confirmed by research by Bart Ehrman, published in his latest book: ’FORGED: Why the Bible’s Authors  Are Not Who We Think They Are.’


For example (cf. p. 256) all the words alleged to have been spoken by Christ during the crucifixion or after (i.e. resurrection) were later insertions by forgers. According to Ehrman (ibid.) while the accounts purport to be faithful representations written only 7 years after the crucifixion, in fact none of the quadriforms (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) were written until 40 to 60 years after his death. Ehrman adds:

“Moreover, these books were not known as a book of writings until the second century.”

More to the point, Ehrman goes on to note we have absolutely NO Roman records of any kind “that attest to the existence of Jesus Christ”. Indeed, if a trial actually occurred, as the Gospel authors claim, one would have thought at least a passing reference would appear in public records. But there are none, zero, nada. No public accounts, no references to any trial, no descriptions of his death….”not even a birth certificate”. Ehrman adds that “not even is Jesus mentioned in any historical source of the 1st century”.


Ehrman is careful to note this doesn’t mean Jesus never existed, only that there are no formal public records of his existence. But it is this very absence of public documentation that makes forgery easy, because there can be no cross checks or independent confirmations. Hence, there's no way to validate words or actions attributed to the putative God-man at the time his would have historically existed. Christ being claimed to have said: "Go and teach all nations etc." then has about as much ballast as me saying: "Go forth and find the extraterrestrials now taking over our leaders on Earth!"  It's bare bollocks!

Why would these forgers be so committed to lies, deceptions? Ehrman references the ancient belief in the “noble lie” – relating lies for a person’s own good (i.e. telling a patient that a horrific tasting herbal brew will be good for him, to cure some illness). In this case, the forgers clearly felt it was more important to lie to entice non-believers to accept the Christ God-man story than to tell the truth….that he was an exceptional but human rabbi and Cynic, blessed with powerful charisma who was probably executed for ‘crimes against the state’, as Oxford researcher Geza Vermes surmises.


I point this out to indicate that ‘doubling down’ on preaching long held myths about Christ is not the way to go. Thus, Albert J. Mohler’s warning in the TIME piece that:

“The evangelical movement in America is going to be forced back into the Book of Acts”

I suspect isn't too bright an idea. (I do give Mohler lots of credit for cojones given how his Xtian mandates were thrashed in the last general election!) Anyway, Mohler's quote is a reference to the 'world of Acts' which featured ferocious witnessers for Jaysus and missionary zeal in making converts. Of course, Mohler is clearly clueless that the Book of Acts itself is replete with forgery. Ehrman notes, for example (p. 206):

“Acts claims to be written by someone who was a companion of Paul, but given the numerous discrepancies between Paul’s letters and the book of Acts this seems unlikely.”

Ehrman then details how and why Acts is a clever forgery, in which again, the notion of going out and converting the Gentiles is trumpeted, though there is no bona fide basis for it. Consider also the letter of Paul to the Galatians. This encapsulates a problem of not only historicity, but of significant copyist errors (bastardized mss.) left to parse, as well as geography.

Even at the time of the original “letter” (assuming it was even penned by Paul), Galatia was not a single town with a single church, it was a region in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in which Paul had established churches. When he writes to the “Galatians” therefore, is Paul writing to ONE single church or to all of them? (Presumably since he doesn’t single out any he intends his missive to go to all of them). If so, given the churches are far apart (on average 150 miles) does that mean he made multiple copies of the same letter – or did he intend one letter to circulate to all the churches of the region?


Suppose he made multiple copies, how did he do it given no printing presses were available and the precise copying of merely one letter would have taken over a year. In fact, the evidence of extant texts shows Paul dictated the letter to a scribe. (Paul’s initials, unusually large, diverge from the scale of script used in the actual letters).

Problem with the dictation: Did Paul actually dictate it word for word, or did he merely spell out general points and enjoin the scribe to fill in the rest?  Here’s what we do know: What survives today is not the original copy of the letter, nor one of the first copies that Paul himself made, nor any of the copies that were produced in the towns of Galatia to which the letter was sent – nor any of the copies of those copies.

The first reasonable copy we have of Galatians is a papyrus called P 46 – for the 46th New Testament papyrus to be catalogued, which dates to 200 CE (200 AD). This is roughly 150 years after Paul putatively wrote the letter. It was in circulation – copied sometimes correctly, sometimes not, for 15 decades BEFORE any copy was made that survived to the present day. Further, we cannot reconstruct the copy from which P 46 was made.

An even more outrageous case of forgery documented by Ehrman (pp.32-33) is the Letter of Timothy, actually forged by a 5th century Church leader named Salvian, based in Marseilles. The excuse this bozo used when caught out by superiors? If he wrote in his own name, no one would pay any attention, so he chose the name 'Timothy' - meaning "honored by God".  Laugh if you will, I suspect most cases of such biblical forgery were driven by the same reasons, plenty of good intentions to be sure, but not the words of the person(s) claimed.

The TIME article, interestingly, ends with a quote from G.K. Chesterton:


“the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”


But perhaps old G.K. never considered the REAL reason the exalted Christian ideal has "been found difficult"  is because touted biblical messages-passages  are rendered not merely difficult in themselves, but nonsensical if  interwoven in a patchwork of outright lies, forgeries. My take is that people would be more welcoming to Xtians as a whole and their message of fellowship if: 1) they admitted most of the Gospels are not historical documents but instead based on forgers’ propaganda, 2) Christians displayed their beliefs by actions toward others, done in a consistent way.


The second is especially apropos. I mean, think of it! Why in Hell’s Bells would I be inclined to pay attention to the blog preachings of some dumb, self-professed "saved'  Xtian  turd who claims to be following Christ, if this turd puts images of me in assorted  "Hell" graphics on his blog? Added to that, he tries to browbeat me with assorted verbal bullying, name-calling and visual (image) assaults and expects me to attend to his  "saving witnessing". To take him seriously? He's either nuts or a fucking moron.

I’d as soon spit on this turd, as listen to him or respect his beliefs! I'd do the same for Fred Phelps or any other self-professed "Christians"  who claim to be preaching an authentic "gospel" message when the most rudimentary intellect can see it's fraught with HATE. (Probably too, none of these imbeciles have ever heard of the old saw that "you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar")

Now, IF he instead went out and set up a table to feed homeless kids, or bought groceries for indigent seniors and helped prepare their meals, I’d be much more inclined to pay attention. If he even went out to pick up garbage, cans, McDonald's wrappers strewn on his highway - to demonstrate something to care for beyond himself with ACTIONS, I'd be more likely to take him seriously.  But not if he froths at the mouth, literally spits his words out at me with pure venom and expects me to be accepting!

Look, I am an unbeliever.  If you claim your faith system is superior to what I uphold (science)  then SHOW me! Not by your fucking words, but ACTIONS!  Not by your stupid, mucked up, forged bible verses but by how you act and show compassion to the world. If you can show me you can do something I have difficulty with, translating ideations to solid, charitable  and compassionate actions, I might decide first - that your system has something to commend it that mine lacks. And second, that you are capable of 'walking the walk' as opposed to merely talking Bible BS. Or....trying to threaten me with hellfires when you haven't even convinced me that I'd remotely wish to spend an eternity with your smug, self-righteous lot! DOH!!! (In other words, dummies, "salvation" is not a big priority on my to-do list if it means spending a nanosecond with religious psychos! Of course, since nothingness is the ultimate end of humans anyway, it's a moot point.)


Basically then the Christians are their own worst enemies in getting their message out far less getting it accepted. If they’d first attend to pruning the creeps and turds from their lot, i.e. those like the Fred Phelpses, Billy Sundays, Pastor Mikes, Pat Robertsons, Jim Joneses, et al – they’d have more success in getting the NONES or us non-believers, to give them respect...maybe even heed whatever scintilla of useful message they might have for us.

Doubling down on biblical bollocks then isn’t going to engage more people - but perhaps attending to truthfulness in their own scriptures will, as well as ACTING the part of the one they profess to follow – as opposed to acting like hateful pieces of ambulatory, diseased dogshit.

Despite My Fundie Psychopath Bro, Why 'Hell' and 'Satan' Can Be Dismissed

I admit to having a laugh attack that had me ROTFL to the googolplex power, after seeing my image inserted several times in the former Pastor Mike's recent blogs. He has me there with flames shooting all around, as well as his usual 'tick, tick. tick' bullshit, as if that is supposed to scare me or anyone with a grain of sense or gray matter. (Especially as his display of HATE, including racial, cannot possibly be reconciled with a spiritual person of any kind! So we must conclude he's a hypocrite).

Well, I return the favor, of showing the squallering brat that he is, in demanding so many take his codswallop seriously. But why should they? In the end 'Satan' is a mythical confection, actually one invented originally by the Mithraists, but stolen by Christians in order to account for apparent sin in the world....oh, and also to run 'Hell'.

"Hell" is likewise a fantasy creation of deformed minds. Sadly, its assorted promoters and Elmer Gantrys aren't even able to see the very possession of such a vile doctrine puts them in league with blasphemers, assuming a God actually exists as they describe It ('infinite, all loving, omniscient, omnipotent etc.)

Philosopher Alan Watts ('Behold The Spirit') has aptly noted that any true belief in 'Hell' would amount to the grossest blasphemy against any divinity alleged to be infinite or omnipotent. As Watts puts it (op. cit., p. 244):


Taken literally as a doctrine of everlasting torture, 'Hell' amounts to blasphemy itself- for if it were in the power of human freedom-choice to produce a consequence of this kind there must be something radically diabolical in the order created by God, and in God himself. Such an interpretation may vindicate human freedom but at the cost of demonizing God.

Watts’ words are important to understanding the mind of the fundagelical Hell monger. He's telling us that this person is so unsure of his own beliefs that he requires a place of eternal torment to vindicate them, i.e. in order to burn up those that don’t share them. But he doesn’t grasp that he ends up demonizing his own deity as a beast, mass torturing maniac no better than an omnipotent Jeffrey Dahmer!  In the process he blasphemes his own deity in other words, but is too blinded by his hate, fear and paranoia to see it.

IF "God as infinite"  is taken literally, this can only mean there is no place where he isn't. Either he is infinite or not infinite. If he is infinite, and HELL also exists, then Hell must be part of the same infinity. It cannot be isolated from it or else we have a condition where Hell is apart from God's being. In other words, the Xtian Hell mongers are identifying God with HELL! Hence, they are identifying all "Evil doers" in the cosmos with God and putatively "Satan". In a word, this is insanity!   So, we have these ineffable logical conclusions:

1) EITHER - Hell exists but GOD is not infinite.

OR

2) GOD is infinite, and Hell must exist WITHIN God, so literally GOD IS HELL

Up to now, no fundie or evangelical has been clever enough to resolve the Hell-God=infinite paradox. There could be two reasons: 1) none of them is smart enough to do it, or 2) they know deep down in their little atavistic pea -brains that the paradox is logically insoluble because their assumptions are in error. (Or, just as bad, they allow the blatherings in an ancient book to trump the importance of examining the assumptions.)

Thus, if they want to preserve their "Hell" they will have to admit their God isn't infinite. If they demand God to be infinite, they will have to jettison their "Hell'. If one grants that "infinite" means extended to or pervading all of Being then there is literally no place left where - whatever it is- doesn't exist.

Hence, if applied to "God" it means all inclusive of reality. However, IF Hell is inserted, it contradicts the proposition by adding a separate entity which limits that which is already claimed "infinite". Thus, if Hell is asserted to exist and is claimed to be "eternal" then God cannot be infinite. If God is maintained to be infinite - meaning all inclusive of Being- the only conclusion is that Hell must be a part of God's Being!

Now, let me grant that the odds are none of these idiots, despite their hellfire screeching, have the necessary IQs to deal with the preceding ...so let's go more into their "territory": i.e. their bible-punching and quoting.

In truth and fact only Matthew 25:46 makes any mention of eternal punishment: (“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal".(KJV)) This is the only place in the entire Bible where we find these two words (everlasting and punishment) together AND only in some Bibles.

For example, the Weymouth New Testament has:

"And these shall go away into the Punishment of the Ages, but the righteous into the Life of the Ages."

But my point is that the entire concept of eternal or everlasting punishment hinges primarily on the single verse of Matthew 25:46. Now let's look at it more closely! Again, this is where an acquaintance with Greek comes in handy!


The Greek for "everlasting punishment" in Matthew 25:46 is "kolasin aionion."  Kolasin is a noun in the accusative form, singular voice, feminine gender and means "punishment, chastening, correction, to cut-off as in pruning a tree to bear more fruit." Meanwhile, "Aionion" is the adjective form of "aion," in the singular form and means "pertaining to an eon or age, an indeterminate period of time." (Note: the two words in many, not all translations become reversed changing the Greek into English.)

Many people unfamiliar with Greek, as they are with Latin (i.e. Sippy cup hell monger Mike) don't realize (as with the preceding case of "Aionion" vs."aion," that the endings of the same word change, i.e. inflection) to indicate its mood, case, gender, etc. Therefore, "aionion" may appear with different endings. "Aionion, aioniou, aionios," for example, are all different inflections of the adjective form of the noun "aion."

Ditto, in the case of Latin, one might see: fructus (nominative case), fructui (dative), fructum (accusative) and fructu (ablative) and for which meanings can range including for 'fruit', 'profit', 'enjoyment' and 'benefit'. Once again, when one has no acquaintance with the underlying language, one will tread dangerously close to self-deception and this is the case here for Matthew's hellfire verse!


Now, further background: The noun "aion" in Greek literature (e.g. Iliad, Odyssey) has always meant "an indeterminate period of time. " It could be as short as the time Jonah spent in the belly of a whale (three days or nights), or the length of a man's life, or as long as a very long age - say the "age of Socrates".Critical examination discloses the Bible speaks of at least five "aions" and perhaps many more. If there were "aions" in the past, it must logically mean that each one of them have ended! When one uses terms such as "past", "present" or "future" he's no longer referring to anything that's everlasting because the latter concept admits of no temporal distinctions! The New Testament writers spoke of "the present wicked aion" which ended during that very generation. Obviously then it was followed by another "aion"-e.g. the "aion" in which we presently live, which will be followed by a future aion.

The point? If there are "aions"past, present and to come, it must mean that aions don't last and the one we live in will also end. Thus, these "aions" are in no way never-ending or everlasting.
There are also verses describing "the consummation of the aions" (from which eons is derived) showing that each "aion" (nee, eon) ends, hence again can't be eternal! Why is it the hardheaded, blustering fundies don't get this? That they can't or won't distinguish a finite from non-finite amount of time? Well, maybe because they never took Greek or Latin!


Other notable examples:

"the coming eon" (Matt.10:30, Luke 18:30)
"the present wicked eon" (Gal.1:4)
"the oncoming eons" (future) (Eph.2:7)
"the conclusion of the eon " (present) (Mt.13:39,40)
"the secret concealed from the eons" (past) (Eph.3:9)


Obviously, the Greek word "aion" transliterated "eon" cannot mean "eternal." A study into the Greek of the Biblical period and before will bear this out. Thus, Matthew 25:46 which embodies the Greek, "kolasin aionion", cannot mean "eternal punishment" but rather a "temporary punishment" or "temporary chastening". (Which would be more akin to a punitive 'timeout' like the old Catholic purgatory concept).

More to the point, and this is critical since I pointed it out to do with Bart Ehrman's studies of later additions by assorted scribes (link on the blog above), if we find that the translations show "eternal punishment" when the authors or copyists likely had to be familiar with these Greek forms (disclosing that "aion" is NOT eternal) then we have prima facie evidence for a deliberate copyist insertion to alter the meaning. In other words, a FRAUD!

Since "Aionion" is the adjective of the noun "aion", then this argument applies to ALL forms, passages, words that contain these words, no exception. Are the fundies bright enough to grasp this? Doubt it, if they can't even solve the Hell-God-Infinite paradox.  But then, these morons were never the sharpest knives in the drawer anyway, if they really believe everyone that doesn't believe a specific piece of mistranslated hokum is forever doomed to the "lake of fire" (term stolen by early Xtian scribes, copyists from the Mithraists in Ized 4, of their Zendavesta).

And finally, since grammar rules mandate an adjective CANNOT take on a greater force than its noun form, it is evident that "aionion" in any of its adjective forms (ios, ou, on) CANNOT possibly mean "everlasting" or anything remotely indicating eternity or unending time.  Hence, we must conclude that either: a) Matthew 25:46 is a bogus later addition, or b) Matthew 25:46 represents the deliberate, fraudulent alteration of an original text in which the Greek forms were changed to reflect an "eternal" as opposed to non-eternal duress or punishment.

Underlying all such salvation-coveting greediness (as exemplified in Mike's blogs) is an embedded religious fanaticism, and a cultish tendency to embrace an unquestioning submission to a god that's caricatured in their own minds, which is largely a magnified version of their own mean-spirited, covetous selves. To question their cartoon god is "arrogant" and so they regard anyone who dares to do so as a "spoiled baby" trying to get his own way as opposed to an adult striving to rise beyond anthropomorphic creations of stupid humans. Thus, even the most innocuous intellectual challenges are seen as "human arrogance" and the elevation of our finite intellects in opposition to the infinite wisdom of the divine. But shrouded in the cloak of their own humility these fanatics fail to notice the arrogance that undergirds their conviction.

Ultimately, as we see time and again with these infantile people, they refuse to recognize that their beliefs about "God’s word" could be wrong, as well as their very deity conceptions. The fanatic treats any questioning of his own beliefs as if it were a challenge to the word of God. But in fact, this is a god created by him in his own image, conceived from his own mental delimitations and prejudices, though he quotes chapter and verse of a bible he doesn't really understand (since he never parses for the underlying Greek meanings, for instance.)

Fanatics in this sense needn’t be violent, nor do they necessarily express the kind of extremes hateful (“God hate fags”) vitriol spewing from such idiots as Fred Phelps. But there is, in this insular faith fanaticism, a dangerous combination of humility and arrogance that hermetically seals blind believer fanatics from reason and evidence. Point of fact then, it's impossible to reason with them because they don't trust reason (though they claim to have a boner for logic). They are instead hostage to their own preconceptions and assumptions, including an arrogance to fit the putative deity into the mental thimble they believe is all they need to conceptualize it.

This is why as many times as I've patiently explained how and why they are wrong (including the basis for their false beliefs), they will never, ever get it. I could present a one hour web video complete with entertaining Geisha girls and assorted props and these bozos would never grasp it, so wedded are they to their singular reality, or rather unreality! Probably no one has put the central issue better than Alan Watts, in his 'The Wisdom Of Uncertainty' (p. 143):

"The misunderstanding of religious ideas is vividly illustrated in what men have made of the doctrine of immortality, heaven and hell. But now it should be clear that eternal life is the realization that the present is the only reality, and that past and future can be distinguished from it in a conventional sense alone. THIS moment is the "door of heaven" the "straight and narrow" because there is no room for a separate "I" or ego"

Doubtless, the crazies,  including infantile, fundie psychos like my brother (and I use that term very loosely)  will never grasp that, just as they'll never ever figure out the infinite-Hell-God paradox, or see why Matthew 25:46's "eternal punishment" is totally bogus!