Yes, People Should Fear The Woodland Park Fundie Invasion!

"I grew up in Woodland Park and still live in the area. My family and I will not want to engage any of these people on the street trying to convert us. Besides doing our banking from a drive-up window, I do not foresee us doing any business in Woodland Park again. I would rather not support a town that in turn supports a man who believes HIV people should be put to death.

Additionally, the fact that he believes (according to the article) that he can make dead people come alive is absurd"   - S. Platt in Colorado Springs Independent, Dec. 25, p. 4


The letter writer was referencing the setting up of a "bible college" (probably like 'Smokehouse Online Bible College' in FLA) in Woodland Park, not far from us. It is being pushed by one Andrew Wommack, best known for instigating a 'kill the gays'  bill in Uganda (since revised to 'only' life imprisonment).   If it had passed, the original form of the law would have allowed  the execution of all HIV-positive LGBT people in that country. It would also punish friends, family members, and co-workers who don't report LGBT people to police within 24 hours. This is what we secular folk are supposed to "tolerate"  of our nutty Xtianoid Fundie brethren. But, as anyone knows, the basic premise of tolerance is that one is not obliged to tolerate intolerance, especially as evinced in the pending Uganda bill. That is the paradox of it.

The letter writer himself is correct to be concerned, because if Wommack's entity is spawned it means the little burg will be directly supporting extremists and nuts who seek to spread "knowledge" but are really spreading bunkum about "demons", "conversion" and other bollocks. The paradox of the fundagelical morons is that they can't even see the paradoxes of their own bible-based morality. For example, they rant and rave about abortion and "preserving life", yet are willing to pass a law to permit gays (born that way on account of genetics) to be executed.

These fundagelical reprobates actually believe their Bibles contain their moral answers. But if they knew the actual content, I can’t see why they’d do that! For instance, 2 Kings 2, 23:24 allows children to be slain by wild animals if they insult their elders or any authority  (in this case a prophet).  Thus, the Bible is not offering any kind of absolutist moral teaching, but rather more plausibly regurgitating the bloodthirsty thoughts of the vengeful, limited-minded human who wrote it.  Why can't fundies see that? Likely because, like Andrew Womack, their brains are as bloodthirsty as the OT writers.

Similarly, by Deut. 22:22 both John Edwards and his former girlfriend (Riele Hunter) would have been stoned to death. The bible fails here by flouting the absolutist code for 'No killing' (in the 10 commandments) and even worse, allowing it for adultery.

Meanwhile, by Deut. 21: 18-21 we read[1]:

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them,  then his father and mother shall seize him, and that,  when they chasten him will not hearken unto them; Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place. .  And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die; so shalt thou put evil away from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear,

So, any insolent or intemperate son would have to be taken to the outskirts of a city by his parents who'd let the elders stone him to death. While the modernist may think this insane, there are actually fundamentalist Christian apologists who seek to parse it in a way that makes it palatable! The Website for The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry  (CARM) claims, for example[2],

"In the Old Testament God appears harsh for three reasons. First, it was to demonstrate the exacting requirements of the Law, a perfect and demanding standard. Second, it ultimately demonstrates the need for grace that would eventually be manifested on the cross. Third, should rebellion take root the very heart of the gospel would be at risk since the prophecies of the Messiah coming to and through Israel could be undermined should rebellion become rampant and society fall apart causing the prophecies to fail. Therefore, we can conclude that this harsh requirement was a necessary legality to instill and designate the necessity of family order and respect and to ultimately provide another safeguard that would ensure the sacrifice of Christ."

But these rationalizations amount to nonsense. ”Exacting requirements of the law” is in reality no different from the harsh Muslim Sharia law where thieves get their limbs hacked off or women are whipped to death for adultery.  Just because “God” allegedly proclaimed it doesn’t make it morally right and indeed, this is a justifiable basis to question whether this is any real God at all, as opposed to a phantasm percolating in the temporal lobes of an ancient brain. Somewhat similar to the modern schizophrenic or psychotic who claims: “God told me to kill that child!”

The appeal to “grace” is also fulsome and not required, nor is any invocation of "the cross", since even if a historical Jesus actually existed and suffered crucifixion there’s no evidence of a God-man or Savior[3].  The obsession with rebellion and family order isn’t compelling either, given multifold alternatives existed that didn’t require slaying the son. In addition, one can rightfully argue that the apologists are resorting to a slippery slope logical fallacy with the claim that a simple family issue would metastasize into a national rebellion and putatively “failure of prophecies” if the extreme sanction hadn’t been enforced. In any case, the matter of the reality of biblical prophecies also must be questioned, especially whether their fulfillment is always in terms of ex post facto confabulation by zealous scribes using already existing Old Testament pointers.

My point is that the bible cannot be an arbiter of moral authority, far less absolute authority. A more serious and adult take on the whole issue of the biblical God is offered by Lloyd Graham in his 'Deceptions and Myths of the Bible':

"Man owes God nothing, not even thanks. Whatever is, exists because of necessity and not divine sufferance. And whatever exists suffers because of nondivine Causation. Our world is full of suffering, tragedy, disease, disaster, pain; we demand a better reason than religion has to offer. "


Perhaps for this reason, Graham insists that it is the de facto creations – humankind- who are the genuine authors of workable morality (dynamic justness not moral justice) not the claimed Maker portrayed in the Bible. Religious scholar Elaine Pagels makes much the same point in her book, The Gnostic Gospels,  pointing out that the Gnostics regarded the biblical deity as a degenerate sub- being which they called demiurgos..

Again, both Graham’s epigenetic god and the Gnostics' demiurgos are crude God-concepts, hence must be viewed in the light of limited human brains, deficient in their own aspirations to truth or even testability. The danger is that when moral or ethical testability is absent, then uncontained absolutism can result  - with devastating consequences.  Jacob Bronowski has maintained that because human knowledge is limited, and further - the human brain is limited in its processing capacity- one must temper expectations and especially refrain from absolutist moral judgments.  The reason is that only partial aspects will be glimpsed and then invoked to fabricate a false or pseudo morality. As Bronowski has put it:

"The Principle of Uncertainty or, in my phrase the Principle of Tolerance, fixed once and for all the realization that all knowledge is limited."

 The question is how long it will take for those like Andrew Wommack to get this into their thick craniums.

---

[1] Deuteronomy, The Old Testament, 321 (The Authorized King James version)

[2] See, e.g. http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/stone-rebellious-son

[3] This is the take of Biblical scholar and member of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, with whom I concur when he refers to the historical Jesus as a Mediterranean “peasant Jewish Cynic”. Such Cynics were “hippies in a world of Augustan yuppies”. See: Crossan: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, 421.

Biblical Bollocks Galore - But Who's Counting? Not Dumbass Fundies!

Fundies, otherwise referred to in normal parlance as "Christian fundamentalists" are truly so stupid they can't even recognize their own lies and delusions when they blow smoke out of their asses- which is about every two minutes.

They insist we skeptics only find fault with their good Book to be ugly and unkind. They always have a shit load of excuses anytime we point out clear errors, or omissions as well as inconsistencies. Some of their choicest rationalizations (as to why WE are the ones who get it wrong) include the following:

1)Assuming the unexplained is unexplainable: Just because we have not explained everything in the Bible.


Okay, then how long must we wait? Til Hell freezes over? (Btw, we atheist skeptics would rather spend an eternity in "Hell" than two nanoseconds with the likes of  either Pastor Fred Phelps, my hateful asshole sibling formerly known as "Pastor Mike" or Rev. Albert Mohler who now plans to 'double down on evangelicalism").  Anyway, the point is, if these cheeseballs haven't  yet "explained" everything in their book by now it's doubtful they ever will. I mean, sheesh, it's a book (KJV) written with only 8,000 basic words, no equations - not even one differential or tensor eqn. So we aren't talking quantum mechanics or quantum field theory here! They haven't "explained everything" because there' no more to explain!

Another choice excuse:

2) Failing to understand the context of a passage: The Bible says, "There is no God." Of course, the context is, "The fool hath said in his heart. . , 'There is no God' " (Psalm 14:1). Therefore, anyone can make the Bible say anything they want if passages are pulled out of context.


Hmmmmm.....me thinks that resonates an awful lot with question begging. (And, btw, NO skeptic or atheist even if he had it in for your book would eviscerate that much of the original text to make a point - i.e. 'there is no God'! We aren't trying to emulate Mitt Romney after all, in how he relentlessly took Obama's quotes out of proper context!) But aside from your absurd example, the point is if a passage is intended to be taken literally, then HOW LARGE an extended context do we require? A whole page? The whole book? Consider one simple passage from  Deut. 21: 18-21 .   Taking just the words in that lines reference, it is clear to even a non-bible reader that a parent is justified to take any insolent  (or drunkard, or carousing etc.) son  to the outskirts of a city to let the elders stone him to death.

If fundies come back and say we can't take the context so, and we left something out, then, if that is truly so, it means no separate passages can ever be quoted! They might be 'out of context'! Oh, wait, the fundies will respond: THAT context has already been 'approved'.

Another one:

Neglecting to interpret difficult passages in the light of clearer ones:

Yes, well, see Mr. Bumpkin, the point is that your dullard brain is confusing the process of interpretation with literalness. IF the Bible can be taken literally, as you all claim, then it doesn't need interpretation!  Indeed, interpretation then means the Bible CAN'T be taken literally! You only have begun to append the issue of "interpretation" as a fudge factor because we (atheists) have pinned your balls to your brains and exposed all your contradictions and other lies, nonsense.

Yet one more of this crank's list:

Failing to discern figures of speech (i.e., the use of hyperbole) in various verses: For example, when Jesus said: "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out... And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off" (Matt. 5:29-30). Now, anyone in their right mind knows that He obviously didn't mean that literally!

Well fine! Then, that means the Bible can't be taken literally!! If any one part or minor passage must be subject to interpretation, then the whole house of cards falls down. If one must parse EVEN one statement from JC as "hyperbole" then it follows that if reference is made (in the OT) say to Jonah being swallowed by a whale or "big fish" and living in it for THREE days, that is ALSO "hyperbole".  Once you go through the door of hyperbole, even to try and protect your antiquated  bollocks or bunkum, all bets are off.  And NO, you don't get to cherry pick which passages are real and which are hyperbole, if all related passages are equally implausible to the rational mind.

Now, how about we look at clear, unimpeachable outright mistakes which can have no other interpretations. (And let us bear in mind here, neither "context" or anything else ought to matter if the passage can be taken literally - which is what fundies claim. So, they can't have their cake and eat it. If they claim literal interpretation then they are disallowed from appealing to "context", "exegesis", "eigesis" or any other BS that doesn't fit in with their claim.

First some factual errors:

We read (Gen.:1: 1-5)

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day”


The “light” referred to in the last three sentences is none other than the SUN. However, it's clear from reading each line through that the Earth was supposedly made BEFORE the Sun. (E.g. Earth without form, darkness upon face of the deep).


But this is physically impossible. We know from modern astrophysics that the solar proto-nebula had to collapse first to yield the SUN. (No planets, since they had yet to spin off the collapsing nebular cloud – it hadn’t cooled enough to allow it). As the proto-solar nebula collapsed it also began spinning and gained angular momentum. This angular momentum was then transferred to regions of the nebula that cooled and separated from the whole, and these regions became separate clouds of dust and gas that aggregated into the planets.


As more angular momentum was transferred – the planetesimal’s (each one) acquired their own spin (in a period of revolution) and specific shapes. Thus, the Earth spun off about 1.1 billion years after the solar nebula fully collapsed, and it could not have come BEFORE the Sun. Indeed, the absence of the central mass of the Sun, or ~ 10 ^33 kilograms, the Earth would've instantly been hurled toward the constellation Hercules at 12 miles per second with no central mass to keep it in check. We can compute this exactly using the basic principles of celestial mechanics.

It is clear from this that Gen.1:1-5 has stated a patent impossibility which violates all known laws of physics and dynamics and is therefore WRONG!

Other examples:

1 Kings 7:23 :

"He made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."


BUT: Circumference = π x Diameter, which means the line would have to have been over 31 cubits. In order for this to be rounding, it would have had to overstate the amount to ensure that the line did "compass it round about."


Lev 11:20-21:


"All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you."


Fowl do not "go upon all four".  Those are mammals, or some reptiles. Hence, this dolt doesn't know the difference between a fowl and a ferret!

Lev 11:6:


"And the hare, because he cheweth the cud..."


Hare do not "chew the cud", cows do.


Deut 14:7:

"...as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof."


This is wrong on two counts: Hare don’t chew the cud and they do divide the "hoof." Hell, maybe Pastor Mikey wrote it!


Jonah 1:17

"...Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights"

Matt 12:40 says


"...Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly..."


Two errors: first a contradiction between "fish" and "whale"(between biblical verses) and second, whales and fish are not related. (Whales are the largest MAMMALS).

Next thing, since no human can survive for three days in an organic  vat of hydrochloric acid without his bones dissolving, it is clear this MUST be hyperbole!  I mean, look - this has to be at  LEAST as implausible as taking literally JC's command that "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out". But we must conclude if anyone insists the latter must be taken as hyperbole, but not Jonah being swallowed by a whale and living three days inside it, he must be certifiably insane, or at least as irrational and possibly psychotic as Adam Lanza or James Eagen Holmes! In any case, if he has any guns they ought to be seized for his own good!


Matt 13:31-32: :

"the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed which…is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree."


There are two major errors here: first, there are many smaller seeds, like the orchid seed; and second, mustard plants don't grow into trees.


Matt 4:8:

"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them."


Unless the world is flat, the increase in altitude described simply wouldn't be adequate to see all the kingdoms of the Earth. You'd need to be at least twice the height of Everest to see the "kingdoms" then in existence, and if that was done J.C. would have suffocated from lack of O2.


Conclusion: the Bible (KJV or other) cannot be a “divinely inspired” book. Rather it is a HUMAN-inspired work with all the errors one expects humans to make.



Like the reckless use of language in general (to signify things that can't exist - "fairies", "God", "abominable snowmen") one must regard the Bible only in a metaphoric as opposed to literal sense. By the way, it's unfortunate that we still must explain to stupid people, like Mike, why we take this interest despite the bible being essentially an extended 66-book mythology. DUH, Mr. Bible Puncher! Because you use it to justify all your pseudo-religious crap - from how you treat women and homosexuals, to how you treat unbelievers - and trot it out into the political arena where it impacts millions of lives!  If we didn't keep one eye on you and your stupid book, there's no telling how many bastardized laws you little fuckers would get our congress critters to pass! Even now, as you seek to take away abortion rights!

Obviously, what indiscriminate bible thumpers - who worship their book like an idol - need, is those quantum dots implanted to regulate their insanity!

This Fundie Blogger Needs to Look at Himself in the Mirror

Well, you can never expect too much intellectual heft from the fundies! Perhaps this is why they are often regarded as the bottom feeders of the intellectual totem pole. See e.g. Skeptic Magazine (Vol. 15, No. 2, 2009) on how hard core religious belief correlates with lower I.Q.  

Evidently, much of the I.Q. drop can be attributed to a deficit in  ACH thinking - or abstract, categorical and hypothetical  conceptualizing- which appears to be mostly missing from believers' brain tool kits. This sort of thinking figures prominently on many IQ tests (such as the Raven's and Wechsler Similarities tests). Such tests feature many questions which construct an abstract hypothetical from a particular category, then ask the person to predict the consequences, if any.

And so the fundie blogger who ripped into my niece with cancer as a "Satanic tool" has now fired back again, but insists I am the "moron" here, when he up to now, has not addressed the issue of belief relativism from four blogs ago! Instead he yammers at me for holding him to the moral absolutist standards which HE himself has demanded (from his Bible) , and which in earlier blogs he maintained can't be countermanded or contradicted!

But the tap dancing he produces is probably more than I've ever seen a fundie do before. Let's get a look at how he tries to squirm out of his own demands and principles, while tossing his 'good Book' under the proverbial bus..

He begins, referencing my blog on confusing belief and moral relativism:

"He claims that the Bible (which, to him is a "fairy tale" and "myth,"  but nonetheless he habitually quotes from it), cannot be taken literally. His reasoning? Well, besides listening too much to Satan, he doesn't understand the word "literal" in it's proper (biblical) context, as well as comprehending which parts are  figures of speech within its pages"

 

Well, evidently his I.Q. isn't even at room temperature magnitude, else he'd grasp that I quote the Bible to hold his own good Book up to his face - and then let him contradict himself, as he's predictably done.  The splitting of the content into "literal in its proper context" and "figures of speech" is also choice, as it discloses the guy isn't serious about the principle of biblical inerrancy and instead has a cafeteria outlook in which he picks and chooses which phrases he will treat literally and which "figuratively". But that doesn't wash! As we learned in Biblical Exegesis at Loyola University, if you adopt a "figurative" basis, i.e. regarding some passages as metaphors only - say like "it's raining cats and dogs" - then you aren't taking it literally!

Interestingly, he brings up the "cats and dogs" analogy:

"An example of a figure of speech would be that if someone said "its raining cats and dogs outside," you would know that they did not really mean that cats and dogs were falling from the sky (though I may have my doubts about this guy)"

Clever but not clever enough! For one thing no biblical verse contains that particular figure of speech, so it's immaterial to the issue of LITERAL BIBLICAL interpretation. BUT....Mr. Fundie DOES absolutely 100% believe Jonah was swallowed by a whale and remained in its stomach acid for THREE days and emerged alive! NO "figure of speech" there! He believes it word for word, absolutely! Oh, oh, .....but it's now in the correct "biblical context'. See what I mean about tap dancing!  Yet in the same blog he scribbles:

"When we Christians say we take the Bible literally, we do so because we not only can take it literally, but we must take the Bible literally!"


So what is it, Roscoe? Do YOU take the book (actually 66, written over 1,000 odd years) literally or not? Well, again he insists fundies MUST take it literally, but earlier he's back pedaled and insisted "only in certain contexts" and I am "a moron" for not seeing them. Errr.....if you can believe in a man being swallowed by a whale and living in its stomach acid for 3 days before coming out alive, I don't think you know what's to be taken literally and what isn't. In that case, I suggest you take a good long gaze into the mirror, as reflected in the image above (which he actually put on his blog to depict me.)

But let's cut to the chase to the specific moral absolutist biblical references I gave from his good book. Regarding the first, from Kings, he blabbers:

"Mr. Athiest then refers to 2 Kings 2:23:24, which tells us:

"And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."

  Mr. Athiest then writes:
"That means that any kid or kids that diss a religious elder, disrespects him, ought to be taken to the nearest wild animal lair (zoo?) and thrown to the grizzlies or whatever."

See what I mean about him abandoning his God-given common sense and replacing it with Satan's 'commentary'?"  

So, allow me to enlighten him . And I have explained this to him about a year or so ago,  but as always, when he finds himself in a proverbial checkmate, Satan smacks him with amnesia!  To understand the verse in context, we must realize that this group of boys were from Bethel, the religious center of idolatry in the Northern Kingdom, and they probably were warning Elisha not to speak against their immorality as Elisha had done. They were not merely "teasing" Elisha about his bald head, but showing severe disrespect for Elisha's message and God's power! They may also have mocked him because of their disbelief in the flaming chariot that had taken Elisha. When Elisha cursed them, he did not call out the bears himself! GOD sent them as a judgment for their callous unbelief!"

 
Oh, OH!! They weren't merely teasing but showing SEVERE DISRESPECT for his message and power! And lo and behold, it wasn't Elisha who gave the kill order, but GOD! Gimme an effin' break already! But again, the change in killer doesn't change the stance of moral absolutism. So the fundie must find some way out of the corner into which he's boxed himself with his bollocks. So he writes:


"These punks made fun of God's messenger and paid for it with their lives!"

Well, now it's all very clear! You make fun of "God's messenger" and you pay with your life! So, we must wonder then if he will follow this absolutist stance of his deity. Here's the key: Is a moral act good of its own or is it good because God ordains it? God ordained the Ten Commandments according to the fundies, after all, so they carry them out to a tee. But it seems when "God" murders mocking youths, the fundies are more inclined to back away: "HEY! It's God's doin' it ain't mine!"  Anyone smell incoherence here? Anyone smell bull shit?

He goes on to try to clarify the Kings interpretation for all of us 'dummies': He insists that:

" the  'little children' in the story "has been grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted. The Hebrew ne'arim qetanim can legitimately be translated "young lads." Solomon was called a "little child" when he took the throne (1 Kings 3:7), yet Solomon was an adult...a full grown MAN! The bottom line is, these were then no ordinary "innocent little kids" - but a band of full-grown rowdy teenage punks, who are to this day STILL burning in HELL!

Well at least he's cleared that up for us! Sheesh!

Our fable-brained fundie goes on to the next biblical reference:

"Our little lost atheist friend, then cites Deut. 21: 18-21:If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear"

Our atheist  friend, then opines:

:The next biblical , moral absolutist example from Deuteronomy, gives moral license for parents who get sass - say from a teen - to drag him to the edge of town and let the "elders" stone him to death. Say what?"

"Now, first off, the punishment of an incorrigible son seems severe on the surface, but an examination of the text reveals the severity of the young MAN's problem. You see, in OT times, the elders of the city were to hear the case at the city gate, which was the seat of town authority; public affairs were discussed there (22:15; 25:7). When the parents accused their son of being stubborn and rebellious, such a charge was almost proof in itself. The heart of a loving father and mother could not be brought to such a point unless their child's sin was a fact. But the guilt of the son was more than just disobedience. Our friend needs to note the text: "he is a glutton, and a drunkard."

This charge showed that the son was unmanageable and incorrigible. The punishment was stoning to death by the men of the town, not by the father and mother. The basis of such severe punishment was the idea that if a MAN would not obey his parents, he would not obey God, nor was he likely to obey civil authority. Punishing the incorrigible son was punishing crime in its embryonic form.

Our friend (if he were to have studied, like I had, in my formal biblical studies, Old Testament Survey-BBL 101), he would have learned that although this was an OT law, there is absolutely no biblical or archaeological evidence that this punishment was ever carried out! But the point was that disobedience and rebellion were not to be tolerated in the home or allowed to continue unchecked! Obviously (here comes God-given common sense again), these principles must never be used to justify or overlook abuse or harsh treatment of children!"

Woah! Talk about scurrying all over the place to find excuses! I can't count them all. Let's see: "the parents didn't kill the lad, the elders did" (But I never said the parents did it. I said they took the kid to the edge of town and the elders offed him!)  Wait! The son was really a "glutton" and "drunkard" so THAT was the reason to smite him down! Wait again! Though it was an Old Testament law "there's no evidence the punishment was actually carried out."   Holy shit! Does this mean this hyper-parsing character isn't really a biblical literalist, and he actually admits to EVIDENCE before accepting a passage inerrantly?

 Maybe, but he does try to clear it up one last time:

  "Our poor confused friend would also have learned that the OT consisted of three kinds of laws: civil (as was the case in Deut. 21:18-21); ceremonial (e.g., animal sacrifices in which the animal had to be spotless; the person offering the sacrifice had to identify with the animal; and, the person offering the animal had to inflict death upon it. When done in faith, this sacrifice provided a temporary covering of sins. Another sacrifice called for on the Day of Atonement, described in Leviticus 16, demonstrates forgiveness and the removal of sin); and the moral law, which we are to strive to obey today."  


Jeezus Peace, now I have seen the light! I failed to parse the difference between "civil, ceremonial and moral laws"!  Talk about bullshit and bollocks! No wonder James Allen Cheyne in his Skeptic magazine piece, noted the lack of ACH thinking and conceptualizing is the most critical deficit in low I.Q. scores for fundies, and may also account for what their brains are 10-20% smaller (in other research).   I am still prepared to say there's a more physical basis for fundagelical moron-hood and it's implicit in what I expatiated on in my earlier blog on religious absolutism: the OAA region of the brain co-opts neurological function and redirects it. Thus, beliefs become literally as important as life and death, so it's no surprise that to protect them the believers will go to extraordinary lengths to rationalize their crappola, as this guy has done here. 


 In the end, there are two things that emerge concerning our addle-pated fundie friend: 1) He really isn't a biblical literalist, since he can find any justification he wants to make exceptions (i.e. he can take Jonah being swallowed by a whale and living 3 days inside it literally, but not a son being stoned to death for being "incorrigible"), and 2) He really isn't a moral absolutist, since even he can find rationalizations for not doing what the cruel, inhuman barbarians did in the Old Testament, or what its vicious cartoon deity did in the name of ....whatever..  

What we can conclude from this, as George Carlin once aptly put it,  is that bull shit, especially of the religious kind, is the most powerful in human history.

Why Fundies Don't Want to Get into the Problem of Biblical Contradictions

Are assorted “sinners” saved or will they burn in "Hell" forever? Alas, the Good Book held sacrosanct by the brain dead Christianoids can’t make up its mind!


Interestingly, the Hyper-Christianoids, assuming they DO follow their Good Book to the letter, have a REAL problem: How to reconcile numerous contradictory quotes, passages to do with "salvation". This is important because these twits base their whole purpose for living on trying to "convert" or "save" heathens. I.e. Atheists, secular humanists. So, if they can't deal with the contradictions, their heads "explode" when we ask about them.  If they take their Bibles literally, without resorting to qualifications or exegesis, they are compelled to admit their book is either: a) mythical - the vast bulk of material mostly legend, or b) lying - given the stark contradictions, or c) they don't know how the hell to interpret it.

Be assured the zombie fundies will deny everything or say we who approach this book rationally (as we would have in a genuine theology- Exegesis course are "fools"). They'll merely insist the clashing quotes are “inconsistencies” which are not contradictions. I guess this fits right into their fantasy realm wherein they can believe six impossible things before breakfast- so this isn’t too startling.


However, an “inconsistency” defined in my Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, is given as:

"Lacking in agreement, as two or more things in relation to each other"

“Contradiction”

"Direct opposition between things compared, inconsistency. That which is inconsistent involves involves variance, discrepancy or even contradiction, especially from the point of view of truth, reason, or logic."


Note that the word “discrepancy” above, ALSO means DIFFERENCE!

Thus, the two words can, in effect, be used interchangeably, and moreover there is more than the implication (from the latter extension of the def.) that an assault on truth is involved. Now as to reconciling the contradictory passages, I still maintain as I did before that this CAN be done, but ONLY if one adopts a non-literalist approach. Yes, the writers used differing colloquial terms of the period, and maybe even there were “copyist errors” to account for differences.. BUT IF either is true the bible’s words CANNOT be taken literally but must be re-interpreted, e.g. in light of the jargon or word forms of the time, or to reckon in the copyist errors!


Biblical literalists, basically, want to "have their cake and eat it too". They want to claim the bible is “inerrant” and can be read “as is” – literally - but then they want to also claim the “contradictions aren’t real" or have to be parsed in the context of "what the writers really meant". (In other words it can’t be read “as is”) They don’t understand they can’t have it BOTH ways! Either the bible is inerrant and stands alone without the need to interpret the differing passages, OR it can only be read in the spirit of the book and interpretations are a natural part of it.

So, now we give more contradictions to do with the “Salvation” myth. In each case, a question will be given - then the answers: 'YES' and 'NO' and the biblical sources where each is found.

1. Are unsaved sinners eternally tormented?


YES: Isa 33:14; Matt. 13:40-42, 25:41,46; Mrk 9:43-48; Jude 6-7; Rev. 14:10-11


NO: Eze 18:4; Matt 7:13, 10:28; Luk 13:3,5; John 3:15-16; Acts 3:23; 1Cor 15:18; 2Th 2:10; Heb 10:39; 2Pe 3:7,9


2. Will everyone get saved?

YES: John 12:32; Rom 5:18, 11:32; 1Cor 15:22; Col 1:20; 1Ti 2:4,6; 1John 2:2


NO: Matt 7:13-14; Luke 13:23-24


3. Is salvation totally predestined by God? (Meaning there is no "free will")


YES: Ps 65:4; Pr 16:9, 20:24; Isa 46:9-11; Jer 10:23; John 6:44,65-65, 15:16; Ac 15:18; Rom 8:28-30, 9:18; 1Pe 1:2; Eph 1:4-5,11, 2:4-10; 2Th 2:13; Rev 13:8, 17:8

NO: Matt 25:34-40; Luke 10:25-37; John 5:28-29; Rom 2:5-10; Jas 2:14-26


4. Is one who believes in God's son, but who has never repented, saved?


YES: John 3:15-16,36, 6:40,47, 11:25; Ac 16:31; Rom 10:9; 1Jo 5:12

NO: Luke 13:3,5


5. Is one who believes in God's son, but who has done no good deeds, saved?

YES: John 3:15-16,36, 6:40,47, 11:25; Ac 16:31; Rom 10:9; 1Jo 5:12


NO: Matt 25:41-46; John 5:28-29; Rom 2:5-10; Jas 2:14-26


6. Is one who is very moral and charitable, but who does not believe in God’s son, saved?

YES: Matt 19:16-17, 25:34-40,46; Mrk 10:17-21; Luke 10:25-37, 18:18-22; John 5:28-29, 8:51; Rom 2:5-7,10; Jas 2:24

NO: Luke 13:3,5


Note that NONE of these entails “minor differences”. If someone who refuses to accept Jesus Christ as Savior but is still moral and does good works, as applies to most atheists, then the last set of quotations mre than supports his position.

In the end, despite all their bluster and rectitude, the fundies don't have a clue what the prescription for their own salvation is, since they haven't been able to sort out their own scriptures. They ought to at least do that before trying to proselytize the rest of us! Oh, they will make excuses, sound accusatory and inflammatory notes and use ad hominem against us, but ask them to seriously reconcile the citation differences without use of lame tricks and they will punt! All they have left in their meager mental quivers is blunderbust. Or, to use another more colorful term: Bollocks!