This is the one hundred and third installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video featuring puppets singing about making Jesus your best friend.
This is the one hundred and thirty-fifth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is From God’s Perspective by Bo Burnham.
[Bo Burnham]
Um…there’s things I don’t want to be miss construed my act I feel off and on. I don’t wish you leave in my shell, thinking that I think I know better than people, or that I think I am better then people in general. Okay, I will put it up there. This is a song from the perspective of God
[Verse 1]
The books you think I wrote are way too thick
Who needs a thousand metaphors to figure out you shouldn’t be a dick
And I don’t watch you when you sleep
Surprisingly I don’t use my omnipotence to be a fucking creep
[Hook 1]
You’re not going to heaven
Why the fuck did you think I’d ever kick it with you
None of you are going to heaven
There’s a trillion aliens cooler than you
[Bridge 1]
You shouldn’t abstain from rape just because you think that I want you to
You shouldn’t rape because rape is a fucked up thing to do
(It’s pretty obvious just don’t fucking rape people
I didn’t think I had to write that one down for you.)
[Verse 2]
I don’t think masturbation is obscene
It’s absolutely natural and the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever seen
You make my job a living hell
I sent gays to fix overpopulation
Boy, did that go well
[Hook 2]
You’re not going to heaven
Eat a thousand crackers, sing a million hymns
None of you are going to heaven
You’re not my children, you’re a bad game of Sims
[Bridge 2]
You shouldn’t abstain from pork just cause you think that I want you to
You can eat pork, because why the fuck would I give a shit?
(I created the universe you think I’m drawing the line at the fucking deli aisle?)
[Verse 3]
You argue and you bicker and you fight
Atheists and Catholics
Jews and Hindus argue day and night
Over what they think is true
But no one entertains the thought
That maybe God does not believe in you
[Hook 3]
You pray so badly for heaven
Knowing any day might be the day that you die
But maybe life on earth could be heaven
Doesn’t just the thought of it make it worth the try?
[Bridge 4]
My love’s the type of thing that you have to earn
And when you earn it you won’t need it
My love’s the type of thing that you have to earn
And when you earn it you won’t need it
I’m not going to give you love just cause I know that you want me to
If you want love then the love is gonna come from you
Thank you very much
This is the one hundred and thirty-fourth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Heaven by Talking Heads.
The Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is based on the following progression of four steps, precursors of which stem back in time to many thinkers, including Anthony Flew, Robert Ingersoll, David Hume, and even Socrates:
People who are located in distinct geographical areas around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and justify a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their particular upbringing and shared cultural heritage, and most of these faiths are mutually exclusive. This is the Religious Diversity Thesis (RDVT).
The best explanation for (1) is that adopting and justifying one’s religion is not a matter of independent rational judgment. Rather, to an overwhelming degree, one’s religious faith is causally dependent on brain processes, cultural conditions, and irrational thinking patterns. This is the Religious Dependency Thesis (RDPT). From (1) and (2) it follows that:
It is highly likely that any given religious faith is false and quite possible that they all could be false. At best there can be only one religious faith that is true. At worst, they all could be false. The sociological facts, along with our brain biology, anthropological (cultural) data, and psychological studies, lead us to this highly likely conclusion.
The only way to rationally test one’s culturally adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever, with the same level of reasonable skepticism believers already use when examining the other religious faiths they reject. They expresses the Outsider Test for Faith.
The OTF is based on the same kind of data that cultural relativists use when arguing that, because moral practices and beliefs do in fact vary from culture to culture as well as at different times in history, morality is not the result of independent rational judgment but rather is causally dependent on cultural conditions. All we have to do is insert the phrase “religious faith” in place of the world word morality, with one caveat. I’m not arguing that all religious faiths are false because of religious diversity or that they are completely dependent on one’s cultural upbringing. I’m merely arguing that believers should be skeptical of their own culturally inherited faith because it is overwhelmingly the case that one’s faith is dependent on one’s cultural upbringing.
….
The Outsider Test for Faith One More Time for Clarity
We are all raised believers. As children, we believed whatever our parents told us, all of us.
We were raised in our respective families and cultures to believe what our parents told us about religion.
Psychological studies have shown that people have a very strong tendency to believe what they prefer to believe. Cognitive bias studies show this.
Psychological studies have shown that most of us, most of the time, look for that which confirms what we believe rather than that which disconfirms it, even though the latter is the best way to get at the truth. This is known as confirmation bias.
Neurological studies have shown that people have a sense of certainty about the beliefs they have that is unrelated to the strength of the actual evidence, as Robert Burton argues in, On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not.
Skepticism is not usually an inherited characteristic. We must acquire the capacity to doubt what we were raised to believe. Skepticism is the adult attitude.
When there billions of people who are certain of an inherited faith they all learned in the same manner, who live in separate geographical locations around the globe, who all prefer to believe what they were raised to believe, and who seek to confirm that which they were raised to believe, it should cause them to doubt what they were raised to believe.
All believers who are certain of their faith will fallaciously argue that this data allies to atheists, too. If that were the case, then which faith should atheists adopt — all of them? You see, this argument does nothing to solve the problem of religious diversity, since believers still have not come up with a method that can solve their own differences. Atheists are doubters. We are skeptics. Knowing this data causes us to require hard, cold evidence for that which we can accept.
Skepticism is a filter that adults use to help sift the wheat of truth from the chaff of falsehood. We cannot doubt that filter! There is no other alternative.
The Outsider Test For Faith is the best and only way to get at truth if you want to know the truth. Examine your own faith with the same skepticism you use when examining the other religious faiths you eject. We cannot merely say to people that they should be skeptical without offering a standard of skepticism. . Why? Because if we ask believers who are certain of their faith to test it with doubt then, to a person, they will say they have, and that their faith is sure. But ask them to test their faith with the same level of skepticism they use when examining the other religious faiths they reject, and that will get their attention.
A Few Questions
If anyone disagrees, I have five sets of questions to be answered:
Do you or do you not assume other religions shoulder the burden of proof? When you examine Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Hinduism, Scientology, Mormonism, Shintoism, Jainism, Haitian Voodoo, the John Frum Cargo Cult, Satanism, or the many African or Chinese tribal religions, do you think approaching them with faith is the way to test these religions, or would you agree with the OTF that a much fairer method is by assuming they all have the burden of proof, including your own?
Do you or do you not think that a consistent standard invoking fairness is the best way to objectively come to know the correct religious faith, if one is?If not, why the double standard?
Do you or do you not think that if Christianity is true, it should be supported by the sciences to the exclusion of other, false religious faiths?
Do you or do you not admit that if you reject the OTF, then your God did not make Christianity such that it would lead reasonable people who were born as outsiders to come to believe it, and, as such, they will be condemned to hell by virtue of where they were born? If not, and if outsiders can reasonably come to believe, then why is it that you think the OTF is faulty or unfair?
Do you or do you not have a better method for us to reasonably settle which religious faith is true, if one is? If so, what is it?
Let the Debates Begin
If religious believers accept the OTF and claim their faith passes the test, then at that point we have an agreed-upon standard for debating the merits of faith. If the test does nothing else, that is a good thing.
Let the debates begin.
— How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist by John W. Loftus, How to Know Which Religion to Defend, pages 106-108 and 114-117
Purchase the books mentioned in this quote:
How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist by John W. Loftus
On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not by Robert Burton
Other books by John W. Loftus
The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True
As many of you know, Polly and I travel the highways and byways of Northwest Ohio, Northeast Indiana, and Southeast Michigan looking for photography opportunities. I have developed an interest in how we as Americans — particularly Midwesterners — memorialize life and death. Of special interest is the various means religious people use to remember the dead. This interest might seem odd for someone who is an atheist, but I am attracted to roadside memorials and cemeteries. From time to time, I plan to share a few of the photographs I’ve shot while stalking death.
In June, Polly and I found ourselves in Reading, Michigan — a town of 1,100 people. On March 29, 2016, 16-year-old Kade Moes, a junior at the local high school, was killed in an automobile accident after he drove off the road and hit a metal railroad crossing pole. After the accident, an impromptu roadside memorial was put up at the site of the fatal crash. The cross with Kade’s name has the word Katastrophe. Kade was a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter and his nickname was Katastrophe. Kade fought in the flyweight division, sporting a 4-0 record at the time of his death.
What a foolish, sad, and predictable lot. They [atheists] appear almost like a new species of humanity, a strange mutation. And like most mutations, they present a harmful, not helpful, distortion. They begin with the assumption of naturalism and, wonders of wonders, they always conclude with naturalism. They cannot find God because their philosophy allows none to exist, having excluded Him by definition. They seem not to understand that apart from their baseless assumption, their arguments ring hollow to the rest of us. The book of Ecclesiastes, while speaking in another vein, gives an excellent description of their folly. “This also is vanity and a striving after wind (4:4).
They do not see — nor do they want to see — that to begin with God gives at least a viable base for making an argument. On the other hand, to begin without Him brings with it a necessary inconsistency and gives the lie (or doubt) to everything. One cannot present a valid argument for truth, a logical argument for reason, a moral argument for good and bad. And baseless arguments are usually — and should be — considered fallacious.
Really now. is it not a bit frustrating? You [atheists] surely want to discredit my contentions. But as I have shown, you have none of the raw material from which to formulate a counter-argument. To answer me, you will need to employ reason in an effort to establish truth. But I have shown that these belong to God, and that you cannot logically use them without dismissing your atheism. You might want to challenge my arguments as unfair, but then you would be arguing on the basis of a moral structure to which your system gives no access. And even science cannot come to your rescue since it depends upon truth and reason under the guidance of morality. But even with all of this, we may have no power to stop your dissent since consistency has never been a part of your repertoire.
As I close, I ask that you recall the horizon line. True seeking requires that you do not limit yourself to the cramped valley of physicalism. Remember that the central issue is atheism against theism. Understand also that it is an artificial sham to pit evolution against creationism or an old earth against a young one. Discover the right key. Only theism is congruous with nature as we know and experience it. Atheism is consistent with nothing, including itself.
Here’s the final word: Either you must admit the fact of God or acknowledge that you have taken a completely baseless and, therefore, defenseless position.
The Songs of Sacrilege series features songs that are irreverent towards religion, make fun of religion, poke fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenge the firmly held religious beliefs of others. Evidently, at least one Christian finds this series offensive.
Inappropriate? Yeah, that’s kind of the point. Christians whining about it lets me know that the series is doing what I intended it to — giving the godless and liberal Christians a laugh and irritating the heaven out of God’s chosen ones.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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This is the one hundred and thirty-third installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Trailer Song by Kacey Musgraves.
You say that you’re watching the birds out the window
Well I’ve got a bird you can watch
You ain’t gotta act like you’re borrowing eggs
Just to see if my dishes are washed
What’s it to you if it’s Wednesday at noon
And I’ve traded my iced tea for scotch
Keep your two cents on your side of the fence
Girl we ain’t friends we’re just neighbors
Nothing to see here
Go back to your trailer
You ain’t gotta ask what I did to my hair
Or whose underwear’s on the line
It ain’t mine
I ain’t gonna ask who’s been mowing your grass
So you ain’t gotta ask who mows mine
Quit judging my job and my car and my clothes
Get your nose out of your mini-blinds
Keep your two cents on your side of the fence
Girl we ain’t friends we’re just neighbors
There ain’t nothing to see here
Go back to your trailer
Don’t ask me if I go to church
I won’t ask if your husband is still out of work
Try and claim high society
We get our mail on the same side of the street
So keep your two cents on your side of the fence
Girl we ain’t friends we’re just neighbors
There ain’t nothing to see here
Go back to your trailer
You nosy bitch
There ain’t nothing to see here
Go back to your trailer
This is the one hundred and thirty-second installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Follow Your Arrow by Kacey Musgraves.
If you save yourself for marriage
You’re a bore
If you don’t save yourself for marriage
You’re a whore-able person
If you won’t have a drink
Then you’re a prude
But they’ll call you a drunk
As soon as you down the first one
If you can’t lose the weight
Then you’re just fat
But if you lose too much
Then you’re on crack
You’re damned if you do
And you’re damned if you don’t
So you might as well just do
Whatever you want
So
Make lots of noise
Kiss lots of boys
Or kiss lots of girls
If that’s something you’re into
When the straight and narrow
Gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint, or don’t
Just follow your arrow
Wherever it points, yeah
Follow your arrow
Wherever it points
If you don’t go to church
You’ll go to hell
If you’re the first one
On the front row
You’re self-righteous
Son of a-
Can’t win for losing
You’ll just disappoint ’em
Just ’cause you can’t beat ’em
Don’t mean you should join ’em
So make lots of noise
Kiss lots of boys
Or kiss lots of girls
If that’s something you’re into
When the straight and narrow
Gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint, or don’t
Just follow your arrow
Wherever it points, yeah
Follow your arrow
Wherever it points
Say what you think
Love who you love
‘Cause you just get
So many trips ’round the sun
Yeah, you only
Only live once
So make lots of noise
Kiss lots of boys
Or kiss lots of girls
If that’s what you’re into
When the straight and narrow
Gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint, I would
And follow your arrow
Wherever it points, yeah
Follow your arrow
Wherever it points
