A Meatball-Head On Religion
I love these people who think they can call the utterly irrational rational and logical as if this will make it be so. This particular meatball-head is a fundamentalist film critic. Here are a few examples of his utter inability to think critically:
There is an unrequited darkness and bitterness in the soul of those who hate religion and faith. Only Jesus Christ can overcome this darkness and bitterness.Recently, two journalists (make that three journalists, hamburger brain), Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, have appeared on TV and radio talk shows speaking bitterly and falsely against people of faith, especially Christians. They think people who have faith in God and Jesus are irrational and stupid.
In reality, however, it is the atheist who must be irrational in order to believe the fantastic idea that all human science and art come from non-rational processes that are purely, only physical. As the leading atheist Antony Flew has discovered, such belief is not rational or scientific.
Unlike all other religions, Christian theology is based on logic and on historical fact. No one has successfully refuted the historical reliability of the New Testament documents, which contain journalistic investigations and historical eyewitness testimonies about the life, death and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Only a rational, logical person can truly understand these texts, their historical context and their meaning.
Oh, please. Don't you know, the person with the extraordinary claim is the person who must prove it? The stuff in this book is beyond extraordinary. Eyewitnesses? Where? Crazy people who say Jesus speaks to them? (Just a suggestion, but maybe the leader of the most powerful land in the world who says he hears voices should be strapped to a bed somewhere, not led to a comfortable chair in the Oval Office?) More from the meatball-head follows:
Whenever Christians rationally study these texts, God illuminates their minds with the power of the Holy Spirit. That power is a rational power, which helps them apply the logic and reason of their own spirits or minds (mind is just another word for spirit in this article) to understand these texts. Such power is foolish to the atheist, because the atheist himself ultimately does not really understand the power of our God-given logic and reason.
Hello? If anyone were "rationally" studying these texts, or applying "logic and reason," they wouldn't be pondering what "God" or "the Holy Spirit" is doing, now would they? The atheist does understand all this bullshit doublespeak above, especially if he or she is a capitalist: It's highly necessary to keep separating willing fools and their money in order to keep the business of religion in business. More from Mr. Meatball:
God is the ultimate source of all logic and reason.
Yeah, and my toast is the source of Congress.
He uses our minds to make us whole, through the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That Gospel is empirically revealed and taught through the journalistic investigations and historical eyewitness testimonies in the New Testament about the life, death and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. These empirical investigations and testimonies are composed of logical, rational truth.Thus, having trusting faith and confidence in God and Jesus Christ is not irrational. In fact, it is one of the most rational things you can do. It is a rational faith founded on fact.
It's anything but -- no matter how many times you write or say it, chopped beef-for-brains. Since Bertrand Russell has been speaking to me (unfortunately, unlike the religious, it's only through words printed on the page, not voices in my head) I'll pull a few of Bertie's words on the topic of religion which I read today.
From various pages in the opening chapter of Why I Am Not A Christian:
There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination....Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one. I am concerned with Christ as He appears in the Gospels...and there one finds some things that do not seem to be very wise. For one thing, He certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that.
...The early Christians really did believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens, because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent. In that respect, clearly He was not so wise as some other people have been, and He was not superlatively wise.
And was Jesus really such a great guy? Bert says no!
Then you come to moral questions. There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly human can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching -- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance find that attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation....There is the instance of the Gadarene swine, where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea. You must remember that He was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go away; but He chose to send them into the pigs. Then there is the curious story of the fig tree, which always rather puzzled me. You remember what happened about the fig tree. "He was hungry; and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came if happily He might find anything thereon; and when He came to it He found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it: 'No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever' . . . and Peter . . . saith unto Him: 'Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.'" This is a very curious story, because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not blame the tree. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects.
And I think I should, too!
Thanks, LYT, for pointing out Mr. Meatball
Great postings Amy
The only point I would make here is what I've posted before and now our boy Bert backs up.
Many people, even the religious, know that things like Moses and the Red Sea, the Exodus itself, Noah etc are, how you say, baloney. But it has generally been assumed that the big boy, Jesus, was real. Now a few people are starting to come to the conclusion that even the star of the show, the big boy himself, was nothing but a myth that was simply reworked from previous myths(Osiris, Mithra, others). Just like the flood tale-a simple reworking of many previous tales from other folklore and religions. The bible is like an onion. As we peel it back we understand that virtually all of the tales contained within it are exactly that, wishful thinking tales. We live in a world where its most famous person, its most beloved person, never actually existed in any other place but in the minds of those who created him. As time marches on, 50, 100, 500 years from now, the big boy will be looked back on in the same manner as Adam and Eve.
chris volkay at January 23, 2005 6:08 PM
Can't happen fast enough. And why, quite frankly, is it taking so long? Are so many people really that irrational and naive in 2005? Scary. No wonder the world is such a fucked up place. As *I* have said before, remove believe in god across the board, and look at all the wars, murder, hatred, and strife you eliminate.
Amy Alkon at January 23, 2005 6:55 PM
An additional note for the hamburger-brain: I don't believe anything without proof. I see the fossil record and a load of other evidence of evolution (and none for the notion that the Grand Canyon was created in six days).
Amy Alkon at January 23, 2005 8:11 PM
While I have no idea of how it "all began," I am not arrogant or idiotic enough to willy nilly come up with explanations based on zero proof -- or believe those in a book of fables just because it seems a convenient way out of existential fear.
Amy Alkon at January 23, 2005 8:14 PM
"Thus, having trusting faith and confidence in God and Jesus Christ is not irrational. In fact, it is one of the most rational things you can do. It is a rational faith founded on fact."
-- since when does faith require fact? can't have it both ways, Mr. Meatball
david at January 23, 2005 11:01 PM
In the rational world, I sweat blood and small woodland animals trying to come up with logical solutions to problems and express them so they make sense to others in my writing. I imagine you -- and all the rest of our working writer friends do the same. How lovely that, in the religious sphere, one can simply string together words into sentences that make no sense at all, and still make a mint!
Amy Alkon at January 24, 2005 12:07 AM
Origin Of Love
by Hedwig And The Angry Inch
when the earth was still flat and the clouds made of fire
and the mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher
folks roamed the earth like big rolling kegs
they had two sets of arms
they had two sets of legs
they had two faces peering out of one giant head
so they could watch all around them as they talked while they read
and they never knew nothing of love
it was before the origin of love
origin of love
the origin of love
origin of love
well there were three sexes then
one that looked like two men glued on back to back
they were the children of the sun
and similar in shape girth were the children of the earth
they looked like two girls rolled up in one
and the children of the moon was like a fork shoved on a spoon
they were part sun part earth part daughter part son
oh, the origin of love
well the gods grew quite scared of our strength and defiance
and Thor said "I'm gonna kill them all with my hammer
like I killed the giants"
but Zeus said, "No!
You'd better let me use my lightning-like scissors
like I cut the legs off the whales
dinosaurs into lizards"
and then he grabbed up some bolts, he let out a laugh, said "I'll split them right down the middle
gonna cut them right up in half!"
and then storm clouds gathered above
into great balls of fire
and then fire shot down from the sky in bolts
like shining blades of a knife!
and it ripped right through the flesh
of the children of the sun and the moon and the earth!
and some indian god sewed the wound up to a hole
turned it 'round to our bellies to remind us the price we payed
and Osiris, and the gods of the nile gathered up a big storm
to blow a hurricane
to scatter us away
a flood of wind and rain
a sea of tidal waves
to wash us all away
and if we don't behave
they'll cut us down again
and we'll be hopping 'round on one foot
looking through one eye
the last time I saw you we had just split in two
you was looking at me, I was looking at you
you had a way so familiar I could not recognize
cause you had blood on your face
and I had blood in my eyes
but I swear by your expression
that the pain down in your soul was the same
as the one down in mine
that's the pain
that cuts a straight line down through the heart
we call it love
we wrapped our arms around each other
tried to shove ourselves back together
we was making love, making love
it was a cold dark evening such a long time ago
when by the mighty hand of Jove
oh, it's a sad story how we became lonely two-legged creatures
that story is the origin of love
the origin of love
oh yeah, the origin of love
the origin of love
the origin of love
Lena, Hedwig, and Jesus Christ will rock your world! at January 24, 2005 3:50 AM
Does anyone else find it interesting that bible thumpers use circular logic? That is, using the book they are trying to prove as true as the source of their proof. There has to be an external source in order to argue to a rational person that it has any validity whatsoever. This idiocy is compounded by the fact that book they're trying to lend some semblance of credence to contradicts itself without apology or explanation. That alone should discredit it as fiction. The bible is responsible for assisting in the creation of the culture of fear we currently live in. It is a tool used by the power-hungry to subjugate the poor, the gullible and the meek. Count me out.
Goddyss at January 25, 2005 9:48 PM
"The bible is [...] a tool used by the power-hungry to subjugate the poor, the gullible and the meek."
Jesus Fucking Christ, Goddyss, could we be a little more paranoid and dramatic? Next thing we know, you'll be accusing the bible thumpers of working as communist spies or commercial sex workers.
Lena is passing you the bong. Toke up! at January 27, 2005 8:49 AM
"The bible is [...] a tool used by the power-hungry to subjugate the poor, the gullible and the meek."
Goddyss, could you possibly be a little more paranoid and dramatic? Next thing we know, you'll be accusing the bible thumpers of working as communist spies or commercial sex workers.
Lena at January 27, 2005 9:54 AM