Questioning Religion

Questioning Religion

18 Unconvincing Arguments for God
a point-by-point rebuttal to common statements in support of god beliefs

Any Ole God Will Do
what are the implications for the multiple descriptions of god within Christianity?

History's Troubling Silence about Jesus
historical records are virtually silent on the Jesus of Nazareth story, with only a few highly suspect exceptions

Where's Jesus?
the bible claimed Jesus would return in the lifetime of his apostles; what's taking so long?

The Problem of Evil
why would a loving, all-powerful god allow it?

The Winter Solstice and Savior Gods
the origins of Christianity are hardly original

No God of the Gaps
nearly all god beliefs come from a need to explain the unknown—yet they all fail to do so

The Problem with Religious Ethics
why ethics do not and cannot come from god

Why Not Believe? Reasons Why Atheists Don't Believe in Gods
a list from Austin Cline, Regional Director for the Council for Secular Humanism

18 Unconvincing Arguments for God
by August Berkshire, copyright 2007

(1) Holy Books - Just because something is written down does not make it true. This goes for the Bible, the Qu’ran, and any other holy book. People who believe the holy book of their religion usually disbelieve the holy books of other religions.

(2) “Revelations” - All religions claim to be revealed, usually to people called “prophets.” But a revelation is a personal experience. Even if the revelations really did come from a god, there is no way we could prove it. As Thomas Paine said, it is a revelation only to the first person, after that it is hearsay. People of one religion usually disbelieve the revelations of other religions.

(3) Personal Testimony / Feelings - This is when you are personally having the revelation or feeling that a god exists. Though you may be sincere, and even if a god really does exist, a feeling is not proof, either for you or for someone else.

As a matter of fact, scientists have begun to study why some people believe and other don’t, from a biological perspective. They have identified certain naturally occurring chemicals in our bodies that can give us religious experiences. Studies of identical twins separated at birth seem to indicate that god-belief is about 50% nurture and 50% nature. Some claim to have found a “god gene” that makes people more likely to believe.

In studies of religion and the brain, a new field called neurotheology, they have identified the temporal lobe as a place in the brain that can generate religious experiences. Another part of the brain that regulates a person’s sense of “self” can be consciously shut down during meditation, giving the meditator (who loses his sense of personal boundaries) a feeling of “oneness” with the universe.

(4) “Open Heart” - It will do no good to ask atheists to “open our hearts and accept Jesus” (or any other deity). If we were to set aside our skepticism, we might indeed have an inspirational experience. But this would be an emotional experience and, like a revelation, we’d have no way to verify if a god was really speaking to us or if we were just hallucinating.

(5) Unverifiable “Miracles” / Resurrection Stories - Many religions have miracle stories. And just as religious people are usually skeptical towards miracle stories of other religions, atheists are skeptical toward all miracle stories.

Good magicians can perform acts that seem like miracles. Things can be mismeasured and misinterpreted. A “medical miracle” can simply be attributed to our lack of knowledge of how the human body works. Why are there never any indisputable miracles, such as an amputated arm regenerating?

Regarding resurrections, atheists will not find a story of someone resurrecting from the dead to be convincing. There are many such legends in ancient literature and, again, most religious people reject the resurrection stories of other religions.

Modern resurrection stories always seem to occur in the Third World under unscientific conditions. There have been thousands of people in hospitals hooked up to machines that verified their deaths when they died. Why didn’t any of them ever resurrect?

(6) Fear of Death / “Heaven” - Atheists don’t like the fact that we’re all going to die any more than religious people do. However, this fear does not prove there is an afterlife – only that we wish there was an afterlife. But wishing doesn’t make it so.

There is no reason to believe our consciousness survives the death of our brains. The mind is not something separate from the body. Chemical alteration and physical damage to our brains can change our thoughts.

Some people get Alzheimer’s disease at the end of their lives. The irreversible damage to their brains can be detected by brain scans. These people lose their ability to think, yet they are still alive. How, one second after these people die, does their thinking return (in a “soul”)?

(7) Fear of Hell - The idea of hell strikes atheists as a scam – an attempt to get people to believe through fear what they cannot believe through reason and evidence.

Then there is the problem of which religion’s hell is the true hell. Without evidence, we can never know.

(8) “Pascal’s Wager” / Faith - In short, Pascal’s Wager states that we have everything to gain (an eternity in heaven) and nothing to lose by believing in a god. On the other hand, disbelief can lead to a loss of heaven. We’ve already addressed the issues of heaven and hell, so let us address the faith wager part.

First, it assumes a person can will himself or herself into belief. This is simply not the case, at least not for an atheist. So atheists would have to pretend to believe. But according to most definitions of God, wouldn’t God know we were lying to hedge our bets? Would a god reward this?

Part of Pascal’s Wager states that you “lose nothing” by believing. But an atheist would disagree. By believing under these conditions, you’re acknowledging that you’re willing to accept some things on faith. In other words, you’re saying you’re willing to abandon evidence as your standard for judging reality. Faith doesn’t sound so appealing when it’s phrased that way, does it?

(9) Blaming the Victim - Many religions punish people for disbelief. However, belief requires faith, and some people, such as atheists, are incapable of faith. Their minds are only receptive to evidence. Therefore, are atheists to be blamed for not believing when “God” provides insufficient evidence?

(10) The End of the World - Like hell, this strikes atheists as a scare tactic to get people to believe through fear what they can’t believe through reason and evidence. There have been predictions that the world was going to end for centuries now. The question you might want to ask yourselves, if you’re basing your religious beliefs on this, is how long you’re willing to wait – what amount of time will convince you that the world is not going to end?

(11) Meaning in Life - This is the idea that without a belief in god life would be meaningless. Even if this were true, it would only prove we wanted a god to exist to give meaning to our lives, not that a god actually does exist. But the very fact that atheists can find meaning in their lives without a belief in god shows that god belief is not necessary.

(12) “God is Intangible, Like Love” - Love is not intangible. Unlike “God,” we can define love both as a type of feeling and as demonstrated by certain types of actions.

Unlike “God,” love is a physical thing. We know the chemicals responsible for the feeling of love.

Also, love depends upon brain structure – a person with a lobotomy or other types of brain damage cannot feel love.

Furthermore, if love were not physical, it would not be confined to our physical brains. We would expect to be able to detect an entity or force called “love” floating around in the air.

(13) Morality/Ethics - This is the idea that without a god we’d have no basis for morality. However, a secular moral code existed before the Bible: the Code of Hammurabi.

Christians can’t even agree among themselves what’s moral when it comes to things like masturbation, premarital sex, homosexuality, divorce, contraception, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and the death penalty.

Christians themselves reject some of the moral laws found in the Bible, such as killing disobedient children or people who work on the sabbath.

Other animals exhibit kindness toward one another and a sense of justice. Morality is something that evolved from us being social beings. It’s based on the selfish advantage we get from cooperation, and on consequences.

(14) Altruism - People sometimes say that without a god there would be no altruism, that evolution only rewards selfish behavior.

However, it can be argued that there is no such thing as altruism, that people always do what they want to do. If they are only faced with bad choices, then people choose the thing they hate the least.

Our choices are based on what gives us (our genes) the best advantage for survival, including raising our reputation in society.

“Altruism” towards family members benefits people who share our genes. “Altruism” towards friends benefits people who may someday return the favor.

Even “altruism” towards strangers has a basis in evolution. This behavior evolved in small tribes, where everyone knew each other and a good reputation enhanced one’s survival. It is now hard-wired in our brains as a general mode of conduct.

(15) Free Will - Some would argue that without a god there would be no free will, that we would live in a deterministic universe of cause and effect and that we would be mere “robots.”

Actually, there is far less free will than most people think there is and, in fact, most atheists have no problem admitting that, indeed, free will may be an illusion.

Some believe that the only free will we have is to exercise a conscious veto over actions suggested by our thoughts.

(16) Difficulties of Religion - It has sometimes been argued that because certain religious practices are difficult to follow, nobody would do them if a god didn’t exist. However, it is the belief in the existence of a god that is motivating people. A god doesn’t really have to exist for this to happen.

Difficulties can serve as an initiation rite of passage into being counted one of the “select few.” After all, if just anybody could be “saved,” there would be no point in having a religion.

Finally, the reward for obedience promised by most religions – a heaven – far outweighs any difficulties religion imposes.

(17) False Dichotomies - This is being presented with a false “either/or” proposition: where you’re only given two choices when, in fact, there are more possibilities. Here’s one that many Christians are familiar with: “Either Jesus was insane or he was god. Since Jesus said some wise things, he wasn’t insane. Therefore, he must be god, like he said he was.” But those are not the only two possibilities.

A third option is that, yes, it is possible to say some wise things and be deluded that you are a god.

A fourth possibility is that Jesus didn’t say everything that is attributed to him in the Bible. Maybe he didn’t actually say all those wise things, but the writers of the Bible said he did.

Or maybe he never claimed to be God, but the writers turned him into a god after he died.

A fifth possibility is that Jesus is a fictional character and so everything was invented by the authors.

Here’s another example of a false dichotomy: “No one would die for a lie. The early Christians died for Christianity. Therefore, Christianity must be true.” What’s left out of this is that there is no direct evidence that anyone who ever personally knew Jesus (if he even existed) was ever martyred. We only have stories of martyrdom.

Another explanation is that followers had been fooled, intentionally or unintentionally, into thinking Jesus was God.

A final point is that if, for whatever reason, you believe you’ll end up in a heaven after to die, then martyrdom is no big deal. Does the fact that the 9/11 bombers were willing to die for their faith make Islam true?

(18) God-of-the-Gaps (Medicine, Life, Universe, etc.) - The god-of-the-gaps argument says that if we don’t currently know the scientific answer to something, then “God did it.”

God-of-the-gaps is used in many areas, but I’ll focus on the three main ones: medicine, life, and the universe. You’ll notice that God never has to prove himself in these arguments. It is always assumed that he gets to win by default.

Here’s a medical example: A person experiences a cure for a disease that science can’t explain. Therefore, God did it. But this assumes we know everything about the human body, so that a natural explanation is impossible. The fact is, we don’t have complete medical knowledge. Why don’t we ever see something that would be a true miracle, like an amputated arm instantaneously regenerating?

Several studies of prayer, where the patients didn’t know whether or not they were being prayed for, including a study by the Mayo Clinic, have shown prayer to have no effect on healing.

And, of course, this raises the question of why we would have to beg an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god to be healed in the first place. It also raises the Problem of Evil: Why would we be praying to an all-loving god to be cured from diseases and the effects of natural disasters that he himself created?

An example of god-of-the-gaps as it applies to life is creationism and “intelligent design.” It says we don’t know everything about evolution, therefore “God did it.” This ignores the fossil and genetic evidence and also fails to explain the many poor and sub-optimal “designs” we find in nature. Is “God” an incompetent or sloppy designer?

Any Ole God Will Do
by Lee Salisbury, copyright 2004

Don't you believe in God? Christians often respond in amazement that anyone could possibly not believe in their One True God. Christians often view the non-believer condescendingly, as deservedly Hell-bound immoral rebels. But, for objective observers the question has become: Is the monotheistic Christian claim of knowing the One True God rational, let alone moral?

The self evident fact is that for practically every Christian denomination there is a different, even contradictory description of God. But, Christians are unfazed by the implications of their multiple descriptions of God. Somehow Christians, especially bible-believing fundamentalists, are so engaged in affirming the correctness of what they believe, that it never occurs to them that their own multiple descriptions of God preclude belief in a singular God who is the one and only God. Thus, when asked if one believes in the Christian God, it is only logical to ask: "Which God are you asking about?" The Christian response of "Our God is the One True God", reveals a disturbing lack of integrity, let alone candor to say the least.

For example, there is the one-headed God of the Oneness Pentecostal denominations. This segment of Pentecostal Christians consist of over 100 denominations worldwide. They believe the bible clearly teaches the Father is Jesus, The Holy Spirit is Jesus, and the Son is Jesus. All are manifestations of the One indivisible God, not three separate persons. Oneness theology teaches that dividing God into separate persons misrepresent the monotheistic God of the Bible and dilutes the deity of Jesus. The Oneness doctrine was considered so serious a heresy just 500 years ago that Servetus, an eminent physician from Spain was burned at the stake for his Oneness beliefs in 1552 C.E. by John Calvin, a hero and namesake to many Protestant believers.

There is the two-headed God of Anus, early 4th century presbyter of Alexandria. The 18th century scientist and mathematician Isaac Newton was an Arian advocate. Arians believe the true Greek translation of John 1:1 states that "the Word was a God" and Jesus, the Word who became flesh in John 1: 14, was a lessor god because he was "begotten" of the eternal God Jehovah. This Jesus could not be of one substance or co-eternal with the Father. Today's best known followers of Arian theology are the Jehovah Witnesses started by Pennsylvanian Charles Taze Russell in the late 19th century. Russell caricatured the Trinitarian God as "three gods in one person." The controversy over the divinity of Jesus was settled when the Roman Emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. The outcome was to declare the Arian doctrine a heresy, exile Anus as a heretic, and declare Jesus as very God of very God, of the same substance and co-eternal with the Father. Note that at this point in time the Christian God was still a Binitarian or two-headed God.

It was not until the late 4th century when the three-headed God of the Trinity was sanctioned. The Trinitarian doctrine is the belief of most Protestant denominations today. The Trinity teaches that God is divisible consisting of three separate persons who are of the same substance, eternally begotten with one another: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity doctrine is assumed by most Christians to be the belief of the early apostles, though this doctrine was in fact undocumented until the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381 C.E. The Trinity doctrine has virtually no biblical support. I John 5:7-8 attempts to explain the Trinity, but bible scholars acknowledge these verses to be fraudulent insertions of a later period. So the Trinity's incomprehensible three equals one God was established as the "orthodox", "must believe" mystical doctrine of the Christian church. Its orthodoxy in Catholic! Protestant theology is the offspring of the Roman Empire's determination to side-step accusations of polytheism, establish unity, even if concomitant with torture and imprisonment for non-believing heretics.

Then there is the four-headed God of Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholic theologians will vehemently deny that Roman Catholic Mary-ology makes Mary into a member of their Godhead. Nevertheless Catholic doctrine has made Mary the focus of Catholic religious practice by alleging Mary's immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, assumption into heaven, intercessory role, apparitions, rosary beads, shrines, and medals. In reality Mary is treated with an awe and reverence equal to the other members of the Roman Catholic Godhead. Consequently, Roman Catholics pray to and worship God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and Mary, the Mother of God.

Other Christian denominations know no limits in creating their own various God descriptions. There are the Latter Day Saints known as Mormons founded by Joseph Smith following a visit from God's messenger angel Moroni. The Mormon God progressed from mere a man to becoming God established the pattern for his followers who in the same fashion desire to become a God dwelling together on the planet Kolub. There are Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Scientists who believe God is an eternal principal, and Jesus is the highest corporeal concept of the divine idea. There is Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, famous for its Plain Truth magazine, which teaches that the Holy Spirit is an "it", an impersonal aspect of God's life and power. The many Christian denominations, each with their unique contradictory description of their Gods are worshiping a different Gods.

To further compound this cognitive dissonance, all these Christian theologies claim the monotheistic Jewish God, Yahweh, in some mystical sense as being father of Jesus. Yet the Jewish Bible does not contain one hint of the Jewish Messiah being God's son let alone God incarnate. Is it any wonder that orthodox Jews not only reject Jesus as their Messiah, but the entire Christian God concept as blaspheme? To the Orthodox Jew, Christianity is a parasitical religion which has attached itself to the historicity of their Yahweh to gain legitimacy for its pagan, gentile religion.

The irony of ironies is the fact that each Christian denomination claims to have: "The revealed, infallible truth of the One True God." God-believers with differing God descriptions are seen by one another as being deceived by some strange, even heretical doctrine. Nevertheless, Christians overlook each other's heretical God beliefs tentatively accepting them as the less fortunate who "at least" have some kind of God belief which is seen as certainly preferable to non-belief or, heaven forbid, atheism.

Maybe Christians will someday consider the alleged words of their Lord and Savior Jesus who said to take the log out of your own eye before you take the splinter out of someone else's eye. To keep pace with civilization's progress Christianity is grudging at best, acknowledging the import of rational inquiry and critical thinking. However, for any faith-based religious thought process, a conflict arises because serious rational inquiry or critical thinking violates the spiritually esteemed "child-like faith." Faith rejects a questioning attitude. Faith does not base its actions or beliefs on evidence (Heb. 11:1). Faith and critical thinking are at opposite poles. The revered apostle Paul stated, "whatever is not of faith is sir" (Rom 14:23). To "lean not on thy own understanding" (Pr 3:5) is the ultimate in spirituality. To think or question for yourself is the essence of sin. Every religious heretic is labeled as such because they have thought for themselves. Christianity's multiple denominations are simply multiple heretical groups each claiming to be the only one with the real truth. Ask any of them and they will tell you! Objective thinkers cannot help question the rationale and/or morals of God believers who condemn non-belief when these same believers are so comfortable in their self-ordained orthodoxy regarding so basic an issue as which of their multiple Gods are the one true God.

In the U.S. this issue becomes tragically humorous when it is legislated that citizens pledge they are "One Nation Under God." Which God? Whose God? Further, why? Where was this God on 9-11? As comedian Robin Williams suggested, wouldn't "One Nation Under Canada" be more accurate? At least we would then have some tangible evidence for the truthfulness of such a statement.

Christianity's multiple denominations with multiple Gods, each doctrinally condemning as heretics the non-conforming within its own religion is so psychologically addictive that for the unyieldingly religious in need of a mythical heaven any ole God will do!

Lee Salisbury of Stillwater, Minnesota, was a former Bible-believing Pentecostal pastor from 1972 to 1986. He is a former member of the Minnesota Atheists board of directors, is the founder and director of The Critical Thinking Club of Minnesota, is a columnist for www.axisoflogic.com and participates in public speaking and debates. Lee's e-mail is leesal@comcast.net

History's Troubling Silence about Jesus
by Lee Salisbury, copyright 2004

How many people have never heard about Jesus of Nazareth? Of course everybody has heard of Jesus. The bible tells us his fame spread throughout the lands of Palestine and Syria. This is the god-man / savior of the world who performed miracles only a God could perform: He turned water into wine; fed thousands with a few pieces of bread and fish; walked on water; stilled the raging storm; healed the blind, the deaf, the infirm, the withered hand and the demon-possessed; and raised the dead. His moral teachings are said to surpass anything ever taught. Rejected by his own Jewish people, the Romans brutally crucified him. But, that didn’t stop Jesus. At his crucifixion the bible tells us the heavens and earth affirmed his deity, causing a 3 hour eclipse of the sun over all the earth, an earthquake causing Jerusalem’s temple curtain to be split in two, and graves were opened with many Jewish saints resurrected and appearing to the people in Jerusalem. Within three days, the Son of God, defeated Satan the prince of darkness, rose from the dead, appeared to his disciples, then ascended into heaven. How can anybody not love such a story and want to believe it?

The problem sincere, objective-minded inquirers of history have with this astounding story is why the historical record is virtually silent about the Jesus of Nazareth story in the writings of non-Christian Jewish, Greek, and Roman writers. Certainly news of such events, if true, would have spread throughout the Mediterranean world. Yet, the surviving writings of some 35 to 40 independent observers of the first one hundred years following the alleged crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus give virtually no confirmation. These authors were respected, well-traveled, articulate, thinkers and observers, the philosophers, poets, moralists, historians of that era. Some of the most prominent figures who make no mention of Jesus are:

Seneca, 4BCE - 65CE Rome’s most prominent writer on ethics, philosophy, morals, natural scientist who tracked eclipses & quakes; the alleged correspondence between Paul and Seneca was later exposed as fraudulent.

Pliny the Elder, 23-79 CE Natural History 37 books on natural events such as earthquakes, eclipse and healing.

Quintilian 39-96CE authored Instituio Oratio 12 books on morals and virtue.

Epictetus 55-135CE, former slave who became a recognized moralist, philosopher and wrote about the "brotherhood of man" and the importance of helping the poor and oppressed.

Martial 38-103CE Poet, wrote epic poems about human foibles and the diverse characters of Roman Empire

Juvenal, 55 - 127 CE Rome’s most powerful satirical poet, wrote about injustice and tragedy in Romangov’t

Plutarch, 46 - 119 CE Greek, traveled Rome to Alexandria, wrote Moralia on morals and ethics.

Three Romans whose writings contain minimal reference to a Christ, Chrestos or Christians are:

Pliny the Younger, 61-113CE Governor of Bithynia In a letter in 112CE asking Emperor Trajan aboutprosecuting Christians who "met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as to a god." Some eighty years after Calvary, somebody was worshiping a Christ (Hebrew equivalent for Messiah)! But, nothing is said as to whether this Christ was Jesus, a teacher and miracle working man who was crucified and resurrected in Judea or a mythicChrist of the pagan mystery religions. Even Jesus allegedly said there would be many false Christs, so Pliny’s statement lends little if any credence for Jesus of Nazareth historicity.

Suetonius, 69 - 122 CE Lives of the Emperors, a history of 11 emperors; writing in 120 about Emperor Claudius 41-54CE who "expelled from Rome the Jews who under the influence of Chrestus, did not cease to cause unrest." Who is Chrestus? No mention of Jesus. Is this Chrestus a Jewish agitator, one of many false Messiah’s or a mythic Christ? This statement proves nothing for a historical Jesus of Nazareth.

Tacitus, 56 -120 CE noted Roman historian, in his Annuals 14-68 CE Book 15, chapter 44 written about 115CE gives the first non-Christian reference to Christ as a man executed in Judea by Pontius Pilate. Tacitus states "Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate." Scholars point out several reasons to suspect this statement was not from Tacitus or any Roman records, but instead a later insertion in Tacitus’ Annuals. #1. Pilate is referred to as "procurator" which is appropriate in Tacitus’ day, but in Pilate’s day the correct title was "prefect". #2. If Tacitus’s comment was written in the early 2nd Century, why didn’t later church fathers who all sought to find proofs for Jesus historicity such as Tertullian, Clement, Origen, even Eusebius (Father of Church History) quote Tacitus? #3 Tacitus is not quoted by anyChristian writer prior to the 15th Century. This quotations inaccuracy and lack of use strongly suggest it is a later insertion.

The clear and indisputable fact is 80 to 100 years is a suspiciously long time after alleged events of such magnitude for no credible written recognition . Further, the brevity and scarceness of substantive fact in these three writings relative to the claim that this was about a miracle working Jewish Messiah named Jesus who was God in human flesh, crucified, and resurrected clearly calls into question the credibility of these writings.

Three 1st Century Jewish authors of great significance are:

Philo-Judaeus, 15 BCE - 50 CE of Alexandria, a Greek speaking Jewish theologian-philosopher, personally knew Jerusalem because of family living there. He wrote extensively on Jewish history and religion from a Greek perspective and taught the following concepts all prominent in John’s Gospel and Paul’s epistles: God and His Word are one; the Word is the first-begotten Son of God; God created the world thru His Word; God holds all things together thru His Word; the Word is the fountain of eternal life; the Word dwells in and among us; all judgment is committed to God’s Word; and the Word never changes. Philo also taught on God as Spirit, the Trinity, the virgin birth, Jews who sin will go to hell, Gentiles who come to God will be saved and go to heaven, and God is love and forgives. Yet, Philo, a Jew in nearby Alexandria, who would have been a contemporary of Jesus never once mentions anybody named Jesus nor any miracle worker being crucified and resurrected in Jerusalem, let alone an eclipse, an earthquake, or graves opening and resurrected Jewish saints walking the streets of Jerusalem. Why? Philo’s total silence about a Jesus is deafening!

Josephus, 37-103CE a Jerusalem born Pharisee, living in Rome wrote History of the Jews, 79CE and Antiquities of the Jews, 93CE. Christian apologists (defenders of the faith) consider Josephus’ Jesus testimony the one sure evidence of the historicity of Jesus. This Jesus Testimony is found in Josephus’, Antiquities of the Jews. Contrary to those Christian apologists, the Jesus testimony is considered by many scholars including the Encyclopedia Britannica’s scholars as "an insertion by later Christian copyists." This Jesus testimony states "Jesus is the Christ, a doer of wonderful works, was crucified, and appeared the third day as the divine prophets foretold."

Why is this Jesus testimony considered a later insertion?

1. Josephus was a Pharisee. Only a Christian would call Jesus the Christ. Josephus would have had to renounce his pharisaical beliefs to say Jesus was the Christ. Josephus died a pharisee.

2. Josephus writing style is to write chapter upon chapter about the most insignificant people and events. The Jesus testimony consists of four sentences. Why would Josephus’ Christ (the Jewish Messiah) deserve only four sentences?

3. The paragraphs before and after the Jesus testimony describe Romans killing Jews. The paragraph following the Jesus testimony begins "About the same time another sad calamity put the Jews in disorder". Would the "sad calamity" refer to the appearing of the "doer of wonderful works" or Romans killing Jews? The Jesus Testimony clearly does not follow the preceding paragraph and characteristic of later insertions is out of context.

4. Finally, and most convincing had Josephus actually written the Jesus testimony, church fathers in the following 200 years would surely refer to it in fending off critics of Jesus’ being just another myth. But, not once does Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, or Origen ever refer to Josephus’ Jesus testimony. We know Origen read Josephus because Origen’s writings criticize Josephus forattributing the destruction of Jerusalem to the killing of James. The church fathers made no reference to Josephus’ alleged Jesus testimony because it was not in Josephus’ writing.

Not only does the Jesus Testimony appear fraudulent, but Josephus’ historical accounts both contradict and omit other New Testament bible stories:

1. According to the bible John the Baptist was killed about 30 CE at the beginning of Jesus ministry. In Josephus, John the Baptist is killed by Herod when Herod is at war with King Aertus of Arabia in 34 - 37 CE.

2. Josephus makes no reference to the celebration of Pentecost in Jerusalem when allegedly devote Jews of every nation gathered and all received the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in new tongues; a Jewish fisherman Peter is head apostle of the new church; a fellow pharisee named Saul of Tarsus becomes the apostle Paul, or of the church’s explosive growth throughout Palestine, Alexandria, Greece, or Josephus’ city of residence Rome. Peter and Paul’s alleged martyrdoms in Rome about 60 CE isunknown to Josephus. It bears noting that Christian apologists so determined to rely on the veracity of Josephus’ Jesus testimony excuse his later oversights.

Is it probable, as the Encyclopedia Britannica asserts that Christian copyists distorted truth by inserting the Jesus testimony? Eusebius (265-339 CE), acknowledged as "Father of Church History" and known to be the emperor Constantine’s overseer of doctrine writes in his The Preparation of the Gospel published by Baker House (a Christian company) on page 619 "it will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a remedy for the benefit of those who require such treatment." Eusebius, one of the most influential Christians in church history, condoned fraud as a tool to promote Christianity! The probability of Constantine’s Christianity being a product of fraud is directly related to the desperate need of evidence to support the historicity of Jesus. Without Josephus’ alleged Jesus testimony there is no credible first century non-Christian evidence of a historical Jesus.

Justus of Tiberius is the third 1st Century Jewish writer. The writings of Justus of Tiberius have been lost, but Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople 878-886 CE wrote Bibleotheca in which he reviewed the writings of Justus of Tiberius. Photius records "of the advent of Christ, of the things that befell him one way or another, or of the miracles that he performed, (Justus) makes absolutely no mention." Justus’ home was Tiberius in Galilee (Jn 6:23). Justus’ writing preceded Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews 93CE, so it is probable he lived and wrote during or immediately after the alleged era of Jesus, yet remarkably "makes absolutely no mention of him".

Rabbinic literature would logically be the one final inquiry for the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The Bible’s New Testament alleges Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophesy for the Messiah, having been crucified on Passover Day. On that day allegedly Jerusalem had an earthquake, its temple veil was split in two, there was an eclipse of the sun, Jesus is resurrected, even resurrected Jewish saints walked the streets of Jerusalem, a few days later on the Day of Pentecost Jews gathered from every nation to witness the Holy Ghost descending with tongues of fire, and the Christian church growth exploded with both Jewish and Gentile converts, signs and miracles being unleashed in abundance. In 70 CE Jerusalem is besieged by the Roman army and Israel as a nation is destroyed and dispersed. Regardless of Rabbinic rejection of Jesus as Messiah, the historical impact of events surrounding Jesus would logically be noted in Israel’s Talmudic commentaries known as the Midrash. Jewish oral traditions and history recorded in the Midrash were updated and given final form by Rabbi Jehudah ha-Qadosh around 220 CE. Quoting Frank Zindler’s The Jesus The Jews Never Knew, "Remarkably, not a single early rabbinic source so much as hints at the events of a 1st Century false Messiah, of the events alleged surrounding Jesus crucifixion and resurrection, or for that matter of anyone identifiable with the Jesus of Christianity."

The Holy Land’s historic landmarks do not confirm the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. Local monks, priests, and tour guides pointing Christian pilgrims (donations accepted) to the locations of events described in the Bible can hardly be considered as objective. Again quoting portions of Zindler, "Unbiased confirmation of these locations is severely lacking. Nazareth is not mentioned once in the Hebrew Old Testament. The Talmud mentions 63 Galilean towns, yet never mentions Nazareth. Josephus mentions 45 Galilean towns or villages, yet never once mentions Nazareth. Josephus does mention a Japha which is a suburb of present-day Nazareth. Lk 4:28-30 describes Nazareth having a synagogue and a "brow of a hill whereon their city was built" presumably steep enough to kill Jesus had they succeeded in throwing him over it. But, present-day Nazareth occupies a valley floor and the lower half of a hillside. There is no hill. Further, present-day Nazareth has no 1st Century synagogue ruins. Origen 182-254 CE who lived in Caesarea 30 miles from present-day Nazareth does not mention Nazareth. The first solid reference to Nazareth comes from Eusebius in the 4th Century. The best guesti-mates are that Nazareth did not come into existence until the 2nd Century. This historic evidence strongly suggests why no 1st Century non-Christian Roman, Greek, Jewish historian, or Rabbinic literature mentions a Jesus of Nazareth, i.e. there was no 1st Century Nazareth.

Time and space do not allow for discussion of other significant New Testament towns. The historical and archaeological evidence for 1st Century Capernaum (mentioned 16 times in the New Testament), Bethany, Bethpage, Bethabara, and Calvary, like Nazareth is equally unconvincing or even counter-indicative.

The mark of an objective, critical thinking mind is to seek non-biased confirmation of alleged facts. When the only available evidence of an event or product is, not only suspiciously questionable, but is what the event or product’s promoters want you to believe then "Buyer Beware". The facts are that non-Christian Jewish, Greek, and Roman writers of the decades following the alleged events of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection are virtually silent about any person named Jesus of Nazareth. Though the fair-minded critical thinker is always willing to consider further evidence, today 2,000 years later, Christianity has no more 1st Century objective, unbiased evidence for its historicity then The Wizard of Oz, Paul Bunyan, Zeus, or any of the many mythical savior-gods of that era.

References:

THE JESUS THE JEWS NEVER KNEW by Frank R. Zindler

ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA

DECONSTRUCTING JESUS by Robert Price, Ph.D.

JOSEPHUS COMPLETE WORKS translated by William Whiston, Ph.D.

THE JESUS PUZZLE by Earl Doherty

THE JESUS MYSTERIES by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy

Lee Salisbury of Stillwater, Minnesota, was a former Bible-believing Pentecostal pastor from 1972 to 1986. He is a former member of the Minnesota Atheists board of directors, is the founder and director of The Critical Thinking Club of Minnesota, is a columnist for www.axisoflogic.com and participates in public speaking and debates. Lee's e-mail is leesal@comcast.net

Where's Jesus?
by August Berkshire

Jesus and other Biblical figures claimed that Jesus would return within the lifetimes of the disciples. Since this didn’t happen, how can we trust the Bible regarding prophecy and revelation? Might not other things in the Bible be inaccurate as well? (All quotes NIV)

(Mark 9:1)
1 And he [Jesus] said to them, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.”

(Matthew 16:24-28)
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

(Luke 9:21-27)
21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” 23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when hecomes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

(1 Thessalonians 4:14-17)
14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesusthose who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

(Revelation 3:7-11)
7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though theyare not, but are liars – I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. 10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep youfrom the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on theearth. 11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.

(Revelation 22:7-21)
7 “Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book.” 8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” 10 Then he told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. 11 Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue todo right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy.” 12 “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. 14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. 16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” 17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, lethim take the free gift of the water of life. 18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described inthis book. 20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. 21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

This is why the apostle Paul was against sex – why bother to procreate when the world will end within their lifetimes? However, for those couldn’t bear going without sex until Jesus returned, Paul said it was okay to marry.

(1 Corinthians 7:1-9)
1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. 2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. 8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

This is also why true Christians are supposed to castrate themselves (if they are men) or at least not get married. Again, why bother to procreate when the world will end within their lifetimes?

(Matthew 19:11-12)
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

The Problem of Evil
by August Berkshire, copyright 2002

Why would an all-powerful, all-good god allow us to be victims of horrible diseases, predators, poisonous plants, natural disasters, and birth defects, or to be victims of evil perpetrated by others?

The problem of evil can be reconciled with the existence of a weak or evil god. However, most people choose not to believe in such a god.

Following is a general examination of the problem of evil, including attempts to reconcile it with the existence of an all‚powerful, all-good god. Then, four specific religions are also examined to see if they can provide an answers.

The Nature of a God
If it is in the nature of a god to be all-powerful and all-good, then why does evil exist? If any of us, being the kind persons we are, had the power and knowledge of a god, we would certainly eliminate the evils of this world. In fact, given the opportunity, we would never have created them in the first place.

It may be said that hospitals are monuments to god's incompetence, indifference, or cruelty.

"Mysterious Ways"
Some religious people believe a god allows evil for reasons that are beyond human comprehension. But couldn't an all-powerful, all-good god have designed a master plan that didn't involve torturing innocent people?

If evil is the will of a god, then isn't any attempt to overcome evil, such as by medicine or defending ourselves, violating god's will? And if whatever we do to help ourselves is also god's will, and if we have free will, that means we are god! We must do "god's work" because he isn't doing it himself.

Any god that causes, allows, or exploits the suffering of innocent people is not worthy of praise and worship.

The Devil
Some religious people claim there is a devil that causes evil. But this is not a satisfactory answer. Who created this devil? Who has more power than this devil? Who allows this devil to commit evil? If god is all-powerful, then this god is ultimately responsible for evil.

The "Fall" of Humanity
There are those who believe life was originally perfect, but the first humans somehow messed things up and humanity has suffered ever since. This is known as "blaming the victim." (The best-known version of this scenario is the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.)

However, if the first humans were imperfect, who created them that way? Who set them on the path to failure? Who knows everything and knew the Fall would occur? This all-powerful, all-good god.

Since the Fall of these first humans was pre-ordained, why punish them? Furthermore, why punish future generations of innocent people? Civilized countries have laws against such injustice. Doesn¼t this make us more fair-minded than god? Again, god is responsible for evil.

"Robots"
Some religious people argue that, without evil, humans would be "robots." However, there are always a few lucky people who are born healthy, never have a significant illness, never experience a natural disaster, never have a crime committed against them, and die peacefully in their sleep at a very old age. No one would say these people are "robots." So why can't a god arrange this for everyone?

Many people believe a god created a heaven in which there is no evil. Does this mean the occupants of heaven are "robots"? If not, why can¼t Earth be free from evil?

Hell
Many religious people believe in an all-powerful, all-good god who condemns certain people to an eternal hell after death. (Sometimes this punishment is merely for disbelief.) But why would an all-knowing god allow the birth of people destined for hell? And, no earthly crime, no matter how terrible, warrants eternal punishment. How can this god be all-good?

Judaism, Christianity & the Bible
• God Creates Everything. Since This Includes Evil, He Cannot Be All-Good.
• "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them" (Exodus 20:11)
• ". . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:5-6)
• "Who has known the mind of the Lord? For from him and through him and to him are all things." (Romans 11:34,36)
• God Admits He Creates Evil, So He Cannot Be All-Good.
• "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)
• "Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?" (Lamentations 3:38)
• "When disaster comes to a city, has the Lord not caused it?" (Amos 3:6)
• (The Bible also contains many specific examples of this god condoning, ordering, and committing evil himself!)

Islam & the Qur'an
• God Is All-Powerful. Since He Does Not Eliminate Evil, Then He Is Not All-Good.
• ". . . for Allah has power over all things." (Surah 2:20)
• God Ordains Evil Against Unbelievers Of Islam, So He Cannot Be All-Good.
• "I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: (so) strike off their heads and cut off their fingertips." (Surah 8:12)
• ". . . slay the pagans wherever you find them." (Surah 9:5)
• ". . . when you meet the unbelievers, cut off their heads." (Surah 47:4)
• "But those who reject Allah ‚ for them is destruction, and Allah will bring their deeds to naught." (Surah 47:8)

Hinduism
• A God Creates Everything. By Definition, This Includes Evil.
• ". . . I am the generating seed of all existences. There is no being, moving or nonmoving, that can exist without Me." (Bhagavad-Gita 10.39)
• "He encircles all things, radiant and bodiless, unharmed and untouched by evil. All-seeing, all-wise, all-present, self-existent, he has made all things for well for ever and ever." (Isa Upanishad 8)
• Most Hindu gods, demi-gods, and demons are viewed as imperfect and detached from human affairs. However, any gods that are all-powerful must not be all-good; any that are all-good must not be all-powerful. Otherwise, evil would not exist. Any purposeful detachment or indifference to human suffering should be viewed as not being all-good.
• The Hindu caste system, which assigns social value, can bring misery to those considered to be in a low caste. Hinduism also encourages some widows to be burned alive on their husbands' funeral pyres.

Summary
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim their gods are all-powerful creators who actually cause evil themselves. This means they cannot be all-good gods. Neither is any Hindu god shown to be both all-powerful and all-good. We are left with the same questions and contradictions with which we began. Neither the god idea in general, nor the gods of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism in particular, give us a satisfactory answer to the problem of evil.

The Atheist Viewpoint
Good and evil happen to people in an impartial manner. This is what we would expect to occur in a universe without a god. Since there is no evidence of a god who is helping us, we must help each other. Through science and compassion, we can try to create a heaven here on Earth.

The Winter Solstice and Savior Gods
by August Berkshire, copyright 2002

The Sun and Sun/Savior Gods
“Solstice” comes from words meaning “sun stop.” On the winter solstice, Dec. 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun reaches its lowest point above the horizon; it stops its descent. The winter solstice is also the shortest day of the year; the days stop getting shorter and begin to get longer again.

In ancient times, pagans celebrated this day as a “rebirth” of the sun or a sun god, and the beginning of a new year. In some cultures, the winter solstice was also a time to celebrate the birth or rebirth of a savior man-god (who was often connected with the sun). He was usually believed to be the offspring of a god father and a goddess or human mother (who was often a virgin).

Some of the ancient man-gods, most of whose births were celebrated on the winter solstice, include: Tammuz of Babylon; Attis of Phrygia (Asia Minor); Krishna of India; Adonis of Syria; Bacchus of Italy; Osiris/Horus of Egypt; Dionysus, Perseus, and Heracles of Greece; Mithra of Persia and, later, Mithras of the Roman Empire; and, last of all, Jesus of Nazareth.

In fact, Christians began referring to their savior, Jesus, as the “Light of the World” and the “Sun of Righteousness.” Christians moved their Sabbath from the Jewish Saturday to Sunday (sun-day). The Seventh-Day Adventists, however, are an example of one modern Christian group that has kept the Sabbath on the original Saturday.

Parallels Between Pagan Savior Man-Gods and the Jesus Story
Besides the fact that the Christian savior man-god, Jesus, shares the same birthday, the winter solstice, with many pagan savior man-gods, there are many other parallels between Christianity and paganism.

These are some aspects of the Jesus myth that appeared earlier in pagan mythologies:

• The savior is god made flesh, as the son of god. • His father is god and his mother is a mortal virgin. • He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds. • He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism. • He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony. • He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him. • He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. • After his death he descends to hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory. • His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days. • His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine, which symbolize his body and blood.

In fact, pagan sun god celebrations proved too popular for early Christians to overcome. Therefore, they decided to superimpose their story of Jesus (which contained many pagan elements anyway) onto the sun god festivals of the winter solstice (Christmas) and the spring equinox (Easter).

Osiris/Horus/Isis
About 3000 B.C.E., Egyptians began worshipping the god Osiris, who was associated with the sun. He was portrayed as a trinity: a heavenly god, an earthly god, and a falcon. (Later, Christians depicted their trinity as God, Jesus, and a Holy Spirit dove).

The king of Egypt claimed to be the earthly god. He acted as a link between humanity and the heavenly god (like Jesus). It was believed the earthly god king became the heavenly god after death.

Another version of the myth is that the heavenly god, Osiris, was said to have fathered (through Isis, a virgin) an earthly god-son, Horus, who was actually a rebirth of Osiris.

According to legend, the birth of Horus was announced by Three Wise Men, symbolized by three stars in Orion’s Belt pointing to Osiris’ star in the east. Angelic voices hailed his arrival. His birth was often depicted in a manger, with Isis as the Madonna standing over him, and was said to have occurred on the winter solstice. Horus stayed with his mother, Isis, until he was 12 years old. No mention is made of him again until age 30, when he was baptized and received into godhead.

Belief in Osiris, Isis, and Horus later spread to the Roman Empire, until believers began to be persecuted under Christianity.

Five centuries before the supposed birth of Jesus, the Greek historian Herodotus traveled to Egypt. There he witnessed an enormous festival, held every year, in which the Egyptians performed a drama before tens of thousands of people, representing the death and resurrection of Osiris. This story is so ancient that it can be traced back to pyramid texts written over 4,500 years ago.

As far as we can tell, Osiris is the original story of a dying and resurrecting god. The story spread to Ancient Greece in the story of the god Dionysus, then to Ancient Rome in the story of the god Mithras, and then to Christianity in the story of the god Jesus. Along the way it appeared in several cultures under various names.

Mithras
About 2000 B.C.E., Persians began worshipping the man-god Mithra. In the first century B.C.E., Mithra was introduced into the Roman Republic and became, with some changes, the god Mithras.

Mithras was supposedly born from a god father and a human virgin mother. His birth was said to have occurred in a cave or stable, and was witnessed by shepherds who brought him gifts.

Later, his followers celebrated this event with a ceremony at midnight on the eve of the winter solstice, which had many similarities to today’s Christmas Eve Catholic midnight mass celebrating the birth of their savior man-god, Jesus. In fact, the Vatican now stands on the same spot as an ancient temple to Mithras.

Mithras was believed to have performed miracles, such as raising the dead, healing the sick, making the blind see and the lame walk, and casting out devils. According to legend, Mithras celebrated a Last Supper with his twelve disciples before he ascended to heaven. In memory of this, his worshippers partook of a sacramental meal of bread marked with a cross. The bread was eaten with water, and possibly wine.

In subsequent years, Mithras’ death and resurrection was reenacted by placing a stone image symbolizing Mithras in a tomb. It was then withdrawn and he was said to live again.

Mithras was viewed as a Redeemer. Followers of Mithras believed a person had to be baptized in blood in order to ascend into the heavens after death. Mithras is supposed to return at the end of time to judge the human race.

Here are two excerpts from ceremonies to Mithras:

“He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, . . . shall not know salvation.”

“give me over to immortal birth . . . so that . . . I may gaze upon the immortal beginning with the immortal spirit, with the immortal water, with the most steadfast air, that I may be born again in thought and the sacred spirit may breathe in me.”

Mithraism stood as a powerful rival to the newly emerging Christianity:

• In 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian proclaimed the birth feast of Mithras, Dec. 25th, as an official holiday. • In 307 C.E., Mithras was officially designated the “Protector of the Roman Empire.” • However, by 358 C.E., followers of Mithras began to be persecuted under Christianity.

The Roman Empire and the Saturnalia
The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) admits “Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church . . . the first evidence of the feast is from Egypt.”

Pagan celebrations of the winter solstice, especially in the Roman Empire, included social gatherings, lights, singing, gifts, feasts, yule logs, mistletoe, holly, and decorated trees. These festivities were later adopted by many Christians.

The Christian Bible acknowledges that decorating trees is a pagan idea. Jeremiah 10.2-4 states: “Learn not the way of the heathen . . . For the customs of the people are in vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest . . . They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” It seems it is not proper for a Christian to have a Christmas tree!

In 46 B.C.E., Julius Caesar adopted what became known as the Julian calendar. The winter solstice and the beginning of the new year fell on December 25th. Caesar declared this date as the rebirth of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus).

The ancient Roman festival of the Saturnalia (honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture) lasted from December 17th to December 24th. The event concluded with a great feast, the Brumalia, held on December 25th.

Due to imperfections in the Julian calendar,the Roman celebration of the sun god’s rebirth continued to be held on December 25th (as did its replacement, Christmas), while the actual winter solstice drifted to December 21st or 22nd.

Most of the Roman persecution of Christianity occurred from 250 to 313 C.E. However, in 380 C.E. the Roman emperor Theodosius ordered all pagan temples to be destroyed and forced pagans to accept Christianity.

In 354, Bishop Liberius of Rome decreed that the birth of Jesus should be celebrated on the same day as the birth of the sun gods — December 25th. Before this, the Christian church had no official observance of the birth of Jesus.

Christmas in Modern Times
From 1652 to 1659, Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans in the English Parliament outlawed Christmas because it was not sanctioned in the Bible. Churches were ordered to be closed and shops were ordered to be open on this day. Clergymen were imprisoned for preaching on Christmas, and some parish officers were fined for decorating the church.

The Puritan Pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620. From 1659 to 1680, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they prohibited the observance of Christmas: “Whoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas and the like, either by forbearing labor, feasting, or any other way upon such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for each offense five shillings as a fine to the country.”

In Boston, on Christmas day 1706, a Puritan mob surrounded King’s chapel, an Anglican church. The protesters shouted threats and shattered the church’s windows, all to stop the Nativity service.

In New York City, the Daily Times reported on Dec. 26, 1855 that “The churches of the Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists were not open on December 25 . . .. They do not accept the Day as a Holy One . . .”

The U.S. Congress was in session on Dec. 25, 1789, and also for 64 of the next 67 years. It wasn’t until 1836 that Alabama became the first state to make Christmas a legal holiday. In 1894, Christmas was included in the first group of federal holidays. Previously, Congress often met, and mail was delivered, on Christmas day.

Currently, the Worldwide Church of God and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, both Christian religions, do not celebrate Christmas.

The Atheist View
The winter solstice is a great time to get together with family and friends, put up some decorations, exchange gifts, and share a meal. Perhaps someday humanity will set aside divisive religious beliefs and unite to celebrate the winter solstice as a truly universal, secular holiday. The winter solstice reminds us of our common ties to nature and to each other. It is a celebration of life!

Many atheist, humanist, and freethinker groups sponsor winter solstice parties. Please contact us to find out about the one nearest you.

Recommended Reading
• The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
• Jesus Christ, Sun of God by David Fideler
• The Trouble with Christmas by Tom Flynn

The following speech was delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowships in Mankato, Minnesota (Feb. 20, 2005) and St. Cloud, Minnesota (Feb. 27, 2005), as well as Dordt College (Feb. 24, 2005), a Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa.

Introduction
I’ve been active in the atheist movement since 1984, when I was 24 and co-founded the Twin Cities Chapter of American Atheists, the first group in Minnesota to have the word “atheist” in its title.

Over the years, as I have thought about and debated religion, I have come to a startling conclusion: almost all of our god ideas are based on god-of-the-gaps. My talk today will consist of what the god-of-the-gaps is, why it fails to give us any answers, andsome secular alternatives that atheists have found compelling.

The “god-of-the-gaps”
After humans evolved the ability to think, they evolved the ability to contemplate, and they conceived of the process of cause and effect. So, when they looked at the natural world, they wanted to know what caused such things as lightning, earthquakes, disease, life, and the universe. Not knowing how else to explain it, our early ancestors said, “God did it.” The concept of a god filled the gap in our knowledge of nature.

Eventually, though, this answer didn’t satisfy us – we wanted to know how god did it.Gradually, we developed science – science-of-the-gaps, as I call it, – to give us a betterexplanation of how things worked. And so we discovered that electricity causedlightning, germs and viruses caused disease, plate tectonics caused earthquakes, andevolution caused species to develop.

As for the universe, we don’t know if its cause was natural or supernatural – or if iteven had a cause. So that item must remain in the unknown category for now – “god” doesn’t get it for free. We’ll examine the question of the universe more closely in a minute.

Going back to the many naturalistic answers science has provided, most theists have no problem with this. They say that “god” works through scientific, naturalistic means, even to the point of guiding evolution. They see no conflict between science and religion.

Why the “god-of-the-gaps” is not an answer
There is an anecdotal story, where a French scientist named LaPlante presented Napoleon with a model of our solar system. Napoleon supposedly asked, “Where is god in your model?” To which LaPlante answered, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”

And that’s how an atheist looks at the world – we have no need for the god-of the-gaps idea. We have no need for it, because it does not provide us with any answers. The reason we think “god” is not an answer is because an explanation is supposed to provide us with information. But god ideas fail to do this. For example:

If the universe needs a creator, why doesn’t the creator need a creator?

What is a god? What is a god composed of? How many gods are there?

Exactly how does a god create something from nothing? What mechanism does he use? Or, for example, how does dirt magically and instantaneously become a man named Adam?

How is it possible to violate the laws of nature?

How do we describe the intersection and interaction between the natural and supernatural world?

How does a god keep in touch with himself? How do messages travel instantaneously across god’s 25 billion light year diameter?

How does a god get inside our heads, monitor all the electro-chemical reactions in our brains, and decode them so he can read our thoughts?

We don’t know the answers to any of these questions. To say “god did it” provides us with no information and answers a question with a question.

The Universe
Now let’s take a look at the god-of-the-gaps specifically as it applies to the universe. As I have indicated, to say that “god did it” is a meaningless statement because it provides us with no information. But let’s investigate further. Suppose we wish to choose between matter and energy always existing in some form and a god always existing.

To say that a god always existed requires two leaps of faith – that a god exists, and that a god always existed. In contrast, to say that matter and energy always existed requires only one leap of faith – we don’t have to make a leap of faith that matter and energy exist, only that they always existed.

So an eternal “god” requires an extra leap of faith.

But there’s another reason it makes more sense for matter and energy to always exist rather than a god always existing: since god is more complex than the universe, god is harder to explain!

What is the alternative, scientific view of the universe? There are at least two different scientific theories – string theory and quantum loop theory – that allow for matter and energy to pre-date the Big Bang, and, indeed, for matter and energy to have always existed.

We don’t know if this is true, but it at least seems possible.

Cosmological constants: the “fine-tuning” of the universe for life
Now, what about the claim that the cosmological constants of the universe are so fine-tuned for life that only a god could have done it? There are four possible naturalistic answers for that:

The first is that this is cutting edge science, and so the universe may not be as “fine-tuned” as it appears to be.

Second, although it appears that the current expansion of the universe will continue forever, we could be wrong.

The universe may have been expanding and contracting forever – oscillating – with each newly created universe containing a different set of cosmological constants. Eventually, we were bound to get a universe that led to the creation of life.

Third, the universe we live in may only be a bubble in a much larger universe. Each bubble could have its own set of constants. It’s no surprise then that one bubble universe led to the creation of life.

And fourth, it many be that there are many universes, each with its own set of constants. The odds are that one of these universes would have the constants necessary for life.

Finally, what about “god’s” cosmological constants? Is “god” fine-tuned? Could “god” have been any other type of being than what he allegedly is?

If not, if there is no margin for error with “god,” then “god” is even more fine-tuned than the universe. Therefore, using creationist logic, “god” couldn’t have “just happened” – he would need to have been created.

Life on Earth
Now let’s take a look at the god-of-the-gaps as it applies to the life on Earth.

Before we discovered the age of the Earth, and Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the fossil record, and the genetic evidence, we filled the gap in our scientific knowledge ofthe origin of species with the god-of-the-gaps – we simply said “god did it.”

William Dembski has written an intelligent design book called No Free Lunch. And yet that’s exactly what “god” is, in our opinion – a free lunch: We don’t have any evidence for a god, we don’t know what a god is composed of, and we don’t know how a god creates life. “God” gets to win for free – without ever having to prove himself in any way.

The predictions of creationism, intelligent design, and evolution
Creationism and intelligent design make at least four predictions, three of which fail, and the fourth of which is unprovable. (And evolution makes the opposite predictions):

The first prediction is that a perfect god will make no design mistakes. However, there are a number of poorly designed systems, as evolution, but not creationism, would predict. For example:

In men, the urinary tract runs through the prostate gland. As men get older, the prostate gland can enlarge, shutting off urine flow, and causing death. It would have been very simple to run the urinary tract around the prostate gland – and any good plumber would have done so.

Another example of poor design would be the existence of birds with wings that are unable to fly, like the ostrich, the emu, and the kiwi; and fish in caves that have eyes and yet are blind.

The second prediction of creationism is that there will be no transition species. However, we have fossils showing the transitions from fish to reptiles, from reptiles to mammals, and from reptiles to birds.

An interesting example is the transition from land mammal to whales. We have fossils of primitive whales with hind legs: pakicetus, ambulocetus, rodhocetus, and basilosaurus.

Another whale transition fossil, dorudon, has hind legs attached to a pelvis bone, but the pelvis bone is not attached to the spine! Therefore, the legs were totally useless – a transition trait that fits with evolution – but which make no sense from an intelligent design standpoint.

And, as theist and evolutionist Kenneth R. Miller said: if God purposely designed 30 horse species that later disappeared, then God’s primary attribute is incompetence. He can’t make it right the first time.
(“Educators debate ‘intelligent design’” by Richard N. Ostling, Star Tribune. March 23, 2002, p. B9)

The third prediction of creationism is that independent life forms will have independent design. But why do whale flippers and the wings of bats “coincidentally” exhibit the same five-finger bone structure as a human hand?

And if men and women were created separately by a god, why are a penis and a clitoris made out of the same tissue? Why, if you give a man estrogen, will he develop breasts? (Why do men have nipples in the first place?)

The fourth prediction of creationism is that at least some biological mechanisms are too complex to be explained by evolution. This is where the idea of “irreducible complexity” comes in.

But, again, it is no more than god-of-the-gaps. It says, we don’t know how this evolved, and so “god did it.” As usual, “god” never has to prove himself, which is why intelligent design is not science.

Intelligent design assumes that we currently have complete knowledge of biology and that we’ll never know more than we do now.

Intelligent design also overlooks the possibility that although various parts of a mechanism may be inseparable now, this could be the product of evolution, which brought together imperfect parts and then optimized them.

Not everything that appears to be designed is designed. Does anyone really believe there is a god that hand-crafts each and every snowflake?

We might also ask: Is “god” “irreducibly complex” and, if so, who created god?

If the idea of evolution gets you so angry that you snarl, that is a product of evolution.

And if the idea of evolution gets you so scared that you get goose pimples, in a feeble attempt to raise fur on your body that you no longer have, that is a product of evolution, too.

The Meaning of Life
The god-of-the-gaps idea has traditionally been applied to cases where we are trying to figure out how the natural world works. However, the principal can also be applied to other areas of inquiry.

In addition to asking ourselves the question “Where did I come from?” we also ask “Why am I here?” and “What’s the meaning of my life?”

We have an emotional desire to feel special. But the reality is that nature operates without a purpose, oblivious to our existence.

Our human nature asks only three things of us: to survive, to procreate, and raise our offspring to the point where they can repeat the process. But this is not enough of a meaning in life for most of us, including atheists. There is a gap between the reality of survival, procreation, and death and our desire, based on our egos, to have our lives have a greater cosmic meaning.

And so some of us create a god in our own image and claim that he created us in his image, and claim that this god-of -the-gaps has put us, figuratively – if not literally anymore – at the center of the universe, and that our goal is to worship him – which really amounts to worshipping ourselves, since we have created him in our image – and that we will have eternal life.

But again, an atheist sees no evidence for this god-of-the-gaps when it comes to the meaning of life.

In fact, as atheist Richard Dawkins wrote: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
(River Out of Eden, 1995)

But, on a more positive note, atheist Albert Camus wrote: “Without guidance – without a divine presence in the universe – we are left free to live in accordance with our own values and create a life that has personal meaning.”
(The Myth of Sisyphus)

So the atheist solution to the search for meaning in our lives is to take the natural curiosity we were born with and create our own meaning, through such things as family, friends, scholastic studies, the arts, hobbies, sports, etc.

It may be more difficult to create our own meanings for our lives than to have one handed to us, but, ultimately, an atheist finds it more rewarding.

Religious Ethics
Now let’s move on to another area where the god-of-the-gaps idea comes up: ethics.

It would be great if there were an absolute code of ethics, so we would know exactly what to do at all times. Unfortunately, such an absolute code of behavior doesn’t exist. Nevertheless, some people have used a “god of the gaps” to try to create one.

However, it’s not even possible for objective, absolute ethics to be based on a god in general, or on the god of the Bible in particular. Here are the problems we encounter:

First, we don’t know what a god is, what it’s composed of.

Second, we don’t know that a god even exists.

Third, we don’t know which god is the true god.

Fourth, we have no reliable means of determining god’s true message. Each religion claims its “holy book” is the true one, and all “holy books” were written by humans.

What method shall we use to choose “god’s word”? Revelation? What makes one religion’s revelations more true than another’s? How can we differentiate revelation from hallucination? Wouldn’t they both seem just as real?

The fifth problem is, is God telling us something is ethical because an absolute good and bad exists apart from God? In that case, God is merely the messenger. Ethics would not depend on a god, and we might have some other way of discovering them apart from a god.

Or, is something good or bad precisely and only because a god says it is? That would make ethics subject to the whim of a god, and thus ethics could be changed if god changes his mind. In other words, god-given ethics would be arbitrary, not absolute.

Sixth, why would an all-powerful, all-loving, all-ethical god create or allow evil to exist? Isn’t this an internal contradiction?

Seventh, why would a god commit evil acts? One would think that, by definition, an ethical god could not act unethically. Let’s focus on the character of god in the Bible:

God’s condemnation of all humanity, based on the sin of Adam and Eve, is at odds with our modern notion of justice.

If we were to put this practice into law, we would all have to put ourselves in jail, because all of us, somewhere in our past, have an ancestor who broke the law.

In the worldwide flood God kills practically everyone on Earth, including innocent children and unborn fetuses.

What about Onan, whom God killed simply because he refused to make his brother’s widow pregnant?

Then there is the 10 Plagues story, where at least some of the time God hardens Pharaohs heart so that he, God, can perform some more sadistic magic tricks.

The eighth problem is, why would an ethical god order humans to commit evil?

According to the Judeo-Christian god, we should kill the following people:

• people who curse or blaspheme the Lord (Leviticus 24:11-16)
• people who worship another god (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)(Exodus 22:20)
• witches and wizards (Exodus 22:18) (Leviticus 20:27)
• non-virgin brides (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
• gay men (Leviticus 20:13)
• disobedient sons (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
• people who curse their father or mother (Exodus 21:17)
• and someone who works on the Sabbath day. (Numbers 15:32-36) (Exodus 31:15) (Exodus 35:2)

After the Israelites defeat the Midianites, killing all the adult men, Moses, acting as anagent of God, orders: “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:1-18)

According to the Bible, slavery is okay as long as you purchase your slaves from the nations around you. (Leviticus 25:44)

Presumably, then, it is okay for us to own Canadian and Mexican slaves. In fact, a slave owner can beat and kill a slave, but only if the slave takes a day or two to die. (Exodus 21:20-21)

And finally, even within Christianity there is no agreement on such things as masturbation, premarital sex, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, the death penalty, and euthanasia.

Any decent ethical system does not need the supernatural to justify it. However, the supernatural has been used to justify many unethical acts, such as the Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, gay-bashing, and 9-11.

Secular Ethics
Since the god-of-the-gaps can’t give us moral guidance, how do we go about developing a code of ethics?

We evolved as social creatures who are dependent upon one another for survival. We have even found the part of our brains responsible for empathy and compassion – they’re called “mirror neurons.”

Caring for one another has survival value for ourselves and our species. Therefore, we base our ethics on consequences – will our actions help or hurt other people.

Most religious people ignore the bad ethics in their holy books and concentrate on the good advice. In other words, theists pick and choose their ethics just like atheists do. Fortunately, we both tend to choose behavior that benefits both individuals and society.

Afterlife
The final area where we invoke the god-of-the-gaps is to provide us with an afterlife.

Anyone with a healthy survival instinct doesn’t want to die. So, there’s a gap between our desire to live forever and the reality that we will die someday. We fill this emotional gap with the god-of-the-gaps, who we believe will provide us with a heaven or reincarnation.

But, as usual, there is no evidence for a god, no evidence that he created any place for us to go after we die, no explanation as to exactly what that place is composed of, nor how god created it from nothing, nor where it’s located.

No evidence for a soul, no description of what a soul is composed of. And no explanation of how a non-material soul evolved in a material body, or, alternately, no explanation of how or when a god zaps a souls into a body.

If a fertilized egg has a soul, what happens if that egg splits in two to form identical twins? Does each twin have half a soul? Or did the original fertilized egg have two souls?

What about when the opposite happens, when two fertilized eggs fuse to form one human being, creating what is known as a chimera – a single human with two sets of DNA? Does that person have two souls? Or did each original fertilized egg have only half a soul?

As usual, “god” provides us with no tangible information. “God” is not an answer, it is a question.

Religious people can’t agree on what happens to us after we die. Is there a heaven? a Hell? Purgatory? Limbo? Astral planes? Reincarnation? Is there a Seventh Heaven – or are there only six?

Even within Christianity there are three different versions of hell:

The traditional version, where your soul – whatever that is – burns forever.

A second version says that eternal punishment is too cruel for a loving god, so your soul goes to hell and is burnt out of existence.

And a third version says that hell is not a physical place but the condition of being forever separated from god.

But, people like me are already separated from god and we’re having a good time, so I fail to see how this is a punishment.

And, how can one be separated from god when god is supposedly everywhere?

An afterlife relies on the premise that our thoughts can survive the death of our bodies. However, there is overwhelming evidence that thoughts are material things that cannot exist outside of our brains. For example:

We know the chemicals responsible for the feeling of love.

Drugs can alter your mood, and thus change your thoughts.

Physical damage to your brain can change your personality, and your thoughts.

And learning a new skill, which involves thinking, can physically change the structure of your brain.

On the other hand, if thoughts were not material things restricted to the brain, we would expect to be able to detect thoughts outside of our brains, floating around in the atmosphere. This has never happened.

Another reason an afterlife seems impossible is the following: Alzheimer’s patients experience physical damage to their brains that causes them to lose their ability to think. This damage is irreversible. How, one second after these people die, do their thoughts return in a non-material soul?

The day will come when computers are able to truly think, when we will be able to have conversations with them, and they will have personalities. If we then drop the computer on the ground so that it breaks beyond repair, will we assume that some part of this computer “goes to heaven”?

There is no evidence that there is a “ghost in the machine” and there is no evidence that there is a ghost in outer space either.

Conclusion
So, in our opinion, the god-of-the-gaps fails to supply any solutions to the questions we have about the universe, life, meaning in life, ethics, or an afterlife.

The philosopher Paul Kurtz talks about a “transcendental temptation,” a desire most of us have for some type of experience that somehow transcends what sometimes appears to be a desolate, meaningless existence.

Gods are a great idea, but unfortunately there is no evidence that any of them exist, and plenty of reasons to suspect they don’t exist.

So what are we to do with our “transcendental temptations”? To enrich our lives we have such things as a sense of wonder and curiosity, family, friends, science, history, thearts, sports, and hobbies.

For some people this may not be as fulfilling as a god, but for an atheist, it is enough.

The Problem with Religious Ethics
by August Berkshire, copyright 2004

The following essay was adapted from the opening statement given by August Berkshire in a Jan. 21, 2004 debate against Peter Payne at Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo, Michigan. Berkshire is the president of Minnesota Atheists and serves on the AAI Council, the governing board of Atheist Alliance International.

Introduction
Does ethics need a foundation in God? To win this argument, I would merely have to produce one atheist who is leading an ethical life without god belief.

As Thomas Jefferson said about the French Encyclopedists, and atheists in general:

“If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists . . .

“I have observed . . . that . . . the defections from . . . Christianity . . . in Catholic countries . . . are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God.” (Letter to Thomas Law Poplar Forest, June 13, 1814)

I know many ethical atheists, and so do you. End of debate.

But let’s suppose we didn’t happen to know any ethical atheists. Let’s take a look at what’s wrong with basing ethics on god belief.

There are at least nine problems with basing ethics on the god idea in general or the Judeo-Christian god in particular.

The First Problem
The first problem is: What is a god? What, exactly, is a god composed of?

We know what a god isn’t – it isn’t matter and energy as we know it. But we don’t know what a god is.

If god is a “spirit,” we have no idea what a spirit is.

The Second Problem
The second problem is: We have no evidence that any gods actually exist.

Thus, on the very face of it, it is impossible to conclude that ethics need a foundation in god because “foundation” implies something solid, not elusive.

The Third Problem
We now run into our third problem: Is god telling us something is ethical because an absolute good and bad exists apart from God?

In that case, God is merely the messenger. Ethics would not depend on a god, and we might have some other way of discovering them apart from a god.

Or, is something good or bad precisely and only because a god says it is?

That would make ethics subject to the whim of a god, and thus they could be changed if God changes his mind. In other words, god-given ethics would be arbitrary, not absolute.

And if God is not capable of changing his mind, then he doesn’t have free will, and thus would not be all-powerful.

The Fourth Problem
Our fourth problem is: Which of the thousands of gods humans have believed in is the true god?

After all, it is claimed that the various gods don’t all share precisely the same ethics, so it is important to know which is the true god.

What method shall we use to pick our god? Revelation?

What makes one religion’s revelations more true than another’s? How can we differentiate revelation from hallucination? Wouldn’t they both seem just as real?

The Fifth Problem
We now run into our fifth problem: We have no reliable means of determining god’s true message.

Does a god implant a moral sense directly into our brains? If so, exactly what method does God use to accomplish this and how can we be sure?

God seems to whisper in certain people’s ears that they should go out and kill other people and/or themselves. How can we verify that this is or is not god’s true message?

Or maybe a god has left his true message in a book. However, I am unaware of any religion that claims to have any documents in the actual handwriting of their god.

But let’s take a look at one collection of writings some people claim is the word of a god: the Judeo-Christian Bible.

The books of the Bible were assembled in the 300s of the Common Era. Was any direct evidence presented that these books were the word of God, as opposed to other books that were not included in the Bible? Wasn’t it all a matter of faith, politics, and power, and thus arbitrary?

What about Biblical stories and ethics that have parallels in earlier, pagan religions? Are these pagan texts revelations from the Judeo-Christian god as well? Are they revelations from another god? How can we tell?

Even today, the Catholic Church, which, as we know, is the One True Faith, has a different Bible than the Lutheran Church, which, as we know, is the other One True Faith. These, in turn, differ from the sacred writings of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, which, as we know, are the other True Faiths.

There are people today who believe the Gospel of Thomas, and perhaps other books, should be included in the Bible.

In sum, we have no way of reliably determining God’s message to us.

But let’s suppose, that we could somehow determine that the Protestant Bible that most of us are familiar with is the true word of the true god. If the Bible is the word of the Judeo-Christian god, we must assume it is 100% accurate, at least as far as ethics are concerned. If not, we’re going to end up guessing which are the god-given ethics, and our selection will become arbitrary, not absolute.

The Sixth Problem
We now run into our sixth problem: the problem of evil. How can an all-powerful, all-loving, all-ethical god create evil or allow evil to exist? Isn’t this an internal contradiction?

I’m not talking about the evil humans do to each other – that could be explained as a misuse of our free will. I’m talking about diseases and genetic birth defects especially as they afflict children, that have nothing to do with free will.

If god is all-powerful, we cannot pass off responsibility for this to an evil supernatural being, such as the devil.

And we cannot say that evil is for an unknown greater good, for that would mean that god was not knowledgeable or powerful enough to have devised a better plan that didn’t involve torturing innocent babies.

In any case, we don’t have to resort to these false excuses, because the Bible admits that God himself created evil:

“I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7)

“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that both calamities and good things come?” (Lamentations 3:38)

“When disaster comes to a city, has the Lord not caused it?” (Amos 3:6)

The Seventh Problem
This leads us to our seventh problem: Why would an ethical god commit evil?

If the Judeo-Christian god is the source of our ethics, then it is fair to evaluate his behavior as it is depicted in the Bible, to see if he sets a good ethical example. After all, one would think that, by definition, a god could not act unethically.

Right away we have problems. God’s condemnation of the offspring of Adam and Eve, based on the sin Adam and Eve committed, is at odds with our modern notion of justice. If we were to put this practice into law, we would all have to put ourselves in jail, because all of us, somewhere in our past, have an ancestor who broke the law.

Now let’s move on to the worldwide flood. Here God kills practically everyone on earth, including innocent children. Again, I don’t think this is the type of behavior we would want to try to imitate. I don’t think anyone believes that nuking ourselves off the planet is ethical behavior.

What about Onan, whom God killed simply because he refused to make his brother’s widow pregnant? Again, God is not setting a very good example for us.

Now let’s look at the the story of Exodus and the 10 Plagues. Here god punishes an entire civilization for the actions of one man, the Pharaoh. Again, hardly a good example of justice.

But, believe it or not, it gets even worse.

After most of the plagues, Pharoah at first decides to free the Israelites, but then hardens his heart and changes his mind.

But, after plagues 6, 8, and 10, it is God who hardens Pharaoh's heart and causes him to change his mind about freeing the Israelites, presumably so that he, God, can perform some more sadistic magic tricks.

If fact, before the plagues even begin, God says to Moses,

“You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country.

“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you.” (Exodus 7:1-4)

What happened to Pharaoh’s free will? What happened to justice?

Thus, the Judeo-Christian god of the Bible sets a bad example for us to follow and disobeys his own commandment of “Thou shalt not kill.”

The Eighth Problem
Well, maybe it’s a case of “do as I say, not as I do.” Maybe what god tells us to do is better than his own behavior.

That raises the eighth problem: Why would an ethical god order humans to commit evil?

According to the Judeo-Christian god, the following people should be killed:

• people who curse or blaspheme the Lord (Leviticus 24:11-16)
• people who worship another god (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)(Exodus 22:20)
• witches and wizards (Exodus 22:18) (Leviticus 20:27)
• non-virgin brides (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
• gay men (Leviticus 20:13)
• disobedient sons (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
• people who curse their father or mother (Exodus 21:17)
• and someone who works on the Sabbath day. (Numbers 15:32-36) (Exodus 31:15) (Exodus 35:2)

After the Israelites defeat the Midianites, killing all the adult men, Moses, acting as an agent of God, orders:

“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:1-18, NASB)

The Bible condones multiple wives and concubines for men. (Gen 29:17-28) (II Sam 3:2-5.) (II Sam 5:13) (I Kings 11:3) (II Chronicles 11:21)

The Bible condones slavery, and states: “If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.” (Exodus 21:7)

According to the Bible, slavery is okay as long as you purchase your slaves from the nations around you. (Leviticus 25:44) Presumably, then, it is okay for us to own Canadian and Mexican slaves.

In fact, a slave owner can beat and kill a slave, but only if the slave takes a day or two to die. (Exodus 21:20-21)

It is no wonder that one of America’s Founding Fathers, Thomas Paine, stated in The Age Of Reason:

“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God.

“It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.”

If Christians behave well because they are obeying parts of the Bible, then it is only because they are ignoring other parts of the Bible.

All of the Christians I have met have been morally superior to the god they believe in. This god, if it exists, should be worshipping Christians instead of the other way around.

The Ninth Problem
The ninth problem with basing our ethics on the Bible are the contradictions within the Bible and conflicting beliefs among Christians.

For example, if someone injures us, should we seek “an eye for an eye” (Leviticus 24:19-21) or should we “turn the other cheek”? (Matthew 5:39)

Some people claim America is a Christian nation. However, according to the Bible, the very act of rebelling against King George III was unethical, because the Bible promotes the Divine Right of Kings. (Romans 13:1) (Titus 3:1) (1 Peter 2:13) (Daniel 2:21) (Daniel 4:17)

Christians themselves cannot agree whether such things as masturbation, premarital sex, contraception, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and the death penalty are ethical.

You would think that a god would have taken an unequivocal position on these issues, and that he, she, or it would have had an unambiguous method of delivering the message.

With such confusion, how is it possible for ethics to have a foundation on the god of the Bible?

The Nine Problems
So, let’s review the nine problems we have in basing an ethical system on a god or the Bible:

One – We don’t know what a god is.

Two – We don’t know that a god exists.

Three – Ethics either exist apart from a god, in which case god is only the messenger, or god dictates what is good and bad, in which case ethics are arbitrary.

Four – We don’t know which god is the true god.

Five – We have no reliable means of determining god’s true message.

Six – Why would an ethical god create evil?

Seven – Why would an ethical god commit evil?

Eight – Why would an ethical god order humans to commit evil?

Nine – Contradictions in the Bible and disputes among Christians themselves.

Do ethics need a foundation in God? Well, ethical systems obviously exist. And, as I have just demonstrated, it is impossible to derive them from god-belief in general or the Judeo-Christian god in particular. So, the answer to that question would be “No.”

Both atheist and theist ethics are arbitrary. Atheists arbitrarily choose values such as freedom, compassion, not hurting others, equality, and fairness.

Theists may arbitrarily choose these values as well, but if they do, they have no proof that a god ordained them. And, they must often arbitrarily discard other values from their holy books or religion, such as sexism, racism, homophobia, or unjust punishments.

Both atheist and theist ethics are based on consequences. For an atheist, those consequences are usually a better, fairer society.

For the theist, on the other hand, the consequences could be whatever they perceive as the reward or punishment of their god.

For example, they might cruelly attempt to change the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians because they believe it will gain them the kingdom of heaven.

Or they may become suicide bombers, believing, as a consequence, that they are doing “god’s will” and that they will go to heaven.

Good ethical systems do not need god-beliefs to support them. It is only bad ethics that have to rely on religion. How else could people have justified such things as human sacrifice, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, gay-bashing, and 9-11?

As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg said, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

Ethical systems are based on our evolution and expreience.

We have a built-in bias to be cooperative, because that was how we would have best survived as individuals and as a species.

We have discovered parts of our brains called “mirror neurons” that enable us to feel phantom pain and discomfort when we see another person is hurt.

The evolutionary advantage of this is obvious: it would have better enabled us to empathize and sympathize with each other and thus motivate us to help each other.

A recent study has shown that giving of ourselves has a positive impact on our health, so long as it doesn’t involve constant or exhaustive demands.

Another recent study has demonstrated that sometimes humans and chimpanzees are generous toward others simply to get them to quit nagging us.

Another study has shown that capuchin monkeys exhibit a sense of justice by protesting when they have been treated unfairly.

Another investigation reports that a group of baboons blocked a highway in Uganda to protest the murder of one of their members.

Our ethics are the product of natural evolution, not supernatural gods. As the great infidel Thomas Paine stated, “The world is my country, all mankind are my bretheren, and to do good is my religion.”