This is the forty-seventh installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit 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 email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Many people have asked me how would I defend the Bible to someone who seriously questions its value for life and faith today? First, you must understand that you cannot “prove” to anyone that the Bible is true. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. (John 7:17) But we do have good reasons that provide a solid base to put our trust in God’s Word.
The Bible is historically accurate. The writers of Scripture gave careful attention to detail. This shows that they were concerned with an accurate record of words and events. The historical and geographical data that the Bible presents has been confirmed by other books, documents and archaeological discoveries. Then there’s the specific prophecies concerning Old Testament Israel, its neighboring countries, and Jesus Christ which have been fulfilled in great detail (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Matthew 8:16-17; Matthew 27:30-31).
The Bible is remarkably consistent. The Bible was written over a period of 1,500 years by 40 different authors in three languages. It presents a unified description of who God is and what He has planned for mankind. The plan of salvation is the focus of the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation.
The Bible is wonderfully preserved. No other book in history even comes close to matching the manuscript evidence that points to the conclusion that the translation we have today accurately expresses what was originally written.
The Bible is highly recommended. First, the Bible comes recommended by those whose opinion should matter, the writers themselves (Jeremiah 1; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21). Second, Jesus considered the Old Testament to be God’s authoritative revelation. (Luke 24:47) The New Testament is a record of His life and inspired teachings and the teachings of His disciples. To doubt the truthfulness of the Bible is to question the word of Jesus. Third, you and I have experienced the blessings of claiming and walking in the fullness of God’s Word. His promises have sparked a deep abiding hope within us and to multiplied thousands of other Christians.
There’s no other book like the Bible. It’s accurate in what it records, consistent in its message, preserved in its contents and recommended by those who know. The bottom line is this: you don’t have to have a degree in archeology or theology and you don’t need to know Greek or Hebrew to have certainty about the truthfulness of the Bible. I challenge those I witness to, who question the Bible, read it and at the same time ask God to prove Himself and His Word to their heart. And you’ll come to the place where you will say, like me, “I know the Bible is true!”
— Patrick Street, The Marion Star, The Bible is True, October 6, 2016
This is the forty-sixth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit 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 email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
This is the forty-fifth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit 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 email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Today’s bit is a South Park video of Richard Dawkins answering the question, What if you are wrong?
Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.
This is the forty-fourth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit 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 email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Today’s bit is a video titled Religion, Science, and Dinosaurs by Eddie Izzard.
Warning, many of the comedy bits in this series will contain profanity. You have been warned.
Letter submitted to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News on October 16, 2016
Dear Editor,
Local Evangelicals often use the Crescent-News editorial page to wage war against sins they believe will cause the destruction of America. If these sins — abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, same-sex marriage, driving while Democrat — are allowed to continue, they believe God will judge our country and remove his blessing. These same writers have spent years reminding readers that electing Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and now Hillary Clinton will result in the United States turning into a Communist/socialist/atheist/humanist state. Only God and the Christian Bible will do, they tell us. Ignore their words, pay the price.
During the primaries, these same people wrote letters extolling the virtues of various Republican candidates. When the dust settled, Donald Trump was left standing. Donald Trump is a misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, sexual predator with the acumen of a third grader. He offers no policy positions other than his plan to make America great again. Recently, Trump fat-shamed women, calling them names, and last week, a recording of Trump admitting that he sexually assaulted women surfaced for all to see. “Locker room talk,” they say, “just boys being boys.”
Many Evangelicals have decided that while Donald Trump’s a vile, disgusting human being, he’s exactly the kind of person God uses for his glory. “What a testament to God’s wondrous grace that God can even use someone like Donald Trump,” they say. Some believe that Trump is a “baby” Christian and will grow in the knowledge of the Lord. What, I ask, do these people see that the rest of us cannot? Here’s a man who told the world that he’s never asked God for forgiveness, yet we’re supposed to believe he’s a Christian? Please, stop insulting our intelligence.
If God really can use anyone to accomplish his purpose, cannot the same be said for Hillary Clinton? According to Evangelicals, Clinton’s the Antichrist. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God used Clinton to accomplish his purposes? Dare Evangelicals stand in the way of God’s plan for America?
Trump and his followers want to return America to the 1950s — a time when there was no God but the Christian God, Joseph McCarthy found Commies under every bed, men in white sheets ruled the South, abortion was illegal, blacks knew their place, women stayed at home, and gays stayed in the closet. Those of us who believe in progress must not let this happen.
Bruce Gerencser
Ney, Ohio
For context, here’s the text of a letter that appeared in the Sunday, October 16, 2016 edition of the Crescent-News:
Destiny of nation is at stake
What is happening today is almost a fight of Biblical scale. Yes, the good versus evil mode.
If I remember right, God worked with the least likely and flawed person available. He put that person in charge to fight the fight. Samson comes to mind. Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery. Look at David, the shepherd, so young and naive, having only faith when he took on Goliath. Now look at St. Paul. When he was known as Saul, he killed Christians.
But each played a part in God’s plan.
Then there is learning from your mistakes. If you don’t ever see that you have made a mistake, you keep making them. Hillary Clinton has that flaw, Donald Trump doesn’t. The question is will the American people see this, as I have just explained? Or will we be led to the path of self-destruction by a power-driven Jezebel?
After I wrote about the above Trump challenges, I was sitting at my keyboard thinking, “when in history was someone disgraced, demoted and ridiculed, but events took place that allowed this man to overcome his adversaries. The only name that stood out was Patton.
Then I remembered the movie of his life, done with actor George C. Scott. The scene that comes to mind is the one where he is relieved of his command. Patton says, “The world is at war and I’m not in it. This will not be allowed to happen. I will be allowed to fulfill my destiny. Let God’s will be done!”
The destiny of this unique nation, at home and on the world stage, is at stake. With God’s saving grace, Trump will prevail.
…First, explanations that rely on the inexplicable are not explanations at all. They have the form of explanations, but they do not have the content. Yet, psychology experiments reveal that people are often satisfied by empty form. For instance, when experimenters approached people who were standing in line at a photocopy machine and said, “Can I get ahead of you?” the typical answer was no. But when they added to the end of this request the words “because I need to make some copies,” the typical answer was yes. The second request used the word “because” and hence sounded like an explanation, and the fact that this explanation told them nothing that they didn’t already know was oddly irrelevant.
In another study, experimenters approached people in a library, handed them a card with a $1 coin attached, and then walked away. Some people received the card on the top, and some received the card on the bottom:
Although the two extra questions on the bottom card —- “Who are we?” and “Why do we do this?” — provide no information whatsoever, they do give one the sense that puzzling questions have been posed and then answered. The results of the study showed that the people who received the bottom card were, in fact, less curious and less delighted twenty minutes after receiving it than were people who received the top card because only the latter felt that something wonderful and inexplicable had happened. In short, what William Paley did not realize is that statements such as “God made it” can satiate the appetite for explanation without providing any nutritional value.
Read the full article for additional examples of how our brain sees agency in random events.
Why are We Happy?
Another example of how many of our projections of how we would react to events turn out to be wildly wrong is a TED talk by Gilbert titled The Surprising Science of Happiness:
Or, for those that prefer reading, there is an interactive script of Gilbert’s speech. (If you click on any phrase, it takes you to that part of the video):
From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. This almost floors me — a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.
And of course, in psychological studies, there is the infamous Milgram Experiment, and the Stanford Prison Experiment, neither of which I’ll get in to, but you’re welcome to follow the hot links for more information
The overall point though is this: how our brains actually work and make decisions is not nearly as logical as we’d like to think it is. We’re all subject to these strange decision processes, and are largely unaware of them.
“Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!”
“Look! Up in the sky!” “It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s Tim Tebow!”
Ah yes, Tim Tebow is in the news again, this time for praying over a man having a seizure, supposedly resulting in divine deliverance. CHARISMA breathlessly reports:
Former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow’s effective prayer for a fan suffering from a debilitating seizure sparked a social media frenzy Tuesday night.
Tebow was signing autographs after his first baseball game as a Scottsdale Scorpion when a fan suddenly hit the ground and started convulsing uncontrollably.
Tebow sprang into action and laid hands on the man, praying for his healing and comforting him until paramedics arrived.
The violent seizure reportedly stopped moments after Tebow prayed with him. The miraculous healing had many people take to social media expressing their amazement at the power of prayer.
Kari Van Horn tweeted, “Tebow signing autographs. Fan has what looks like seizure. Not moving. Tebow puts hand on him and says a prayer. Man breathes. WOW.”
@danielkellybook took to video and wrote, “My friend had a seizure at Mets game and Tebow prayed for him and stayed with him until paramedics arrived.”
This is not the first time Tebow has prayed for the sick. Earlier this year he prayed for a fellow passenger who went into cardiac arrest on a plane.
Tebow prayed with the dying man and comforted his wife while a physician worked to save his life.
“I watched Tim pray with the entire section of the plane for this man. He made a stand for God in a difficult situation,” one witness said.
Evidently, Tim Tebow’s prayers can heal the sick and raise the dead, but they can’t help him accurately throw an NFL-quality pass or hit a Major League breaking ball. There’s no evidence for Tebow’s prayers doing anything for the latest victim of Tebow’s prayer-power. There was a time when I thought Tebow was just a naïve young man who was easily manipulated by the media — especially Evangelical media outlets who take the minutest God “sighting” and turn it into Moses parting the Red Sea. I now think that Tebow is an aging jock who is having a hard time accepting that his glory days at Florida are behind him. What better way to let everyone know that you are relevant than by running to public scenes such has this one and “praying” for someone. Evangelicals will drool over “God using Tebow” and sports media outlets will use his latest Superman-like escapade as filler for one of their endlessly droning talk shows. For Tebow, he gets another opportunity to remind fawning fans that is he still pursuing his “dream.”
There comes a point, at least for me, where Tebow is the man who always shows up first at house fires. Every few months, it seems Tebow is front and center at a house fire. Perhaps it is time for sports pundits to ponder whether perhaps Tebow is always first on the scene because he’s a publicity whore who craves public attention. Tebow could privately pray, asking God to heal the subject of his utterances. Instead, he continues to behave as he did in his NFL days — Tebowing before the world. In the two stories mentioned above, neither person needed Tebow’s help. Other people were already helping them. Tebow, instead of fading into the background and quietly praying, jumped to the forefront, saying humbly to all, never fear! Tebowman is here!
I am well aware that Tebow does many good things for others, but it seems that reporters and cameras are never far away when he does. I’ll leave Tebow’s BFF Jesus with the last word on this matter:
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:1-6)
Whether we like it or not, when we vote for president we are not voting for Pastor-in-Chief. Rather, we are voting for Commander-in-Chief. The qualifications for the two jobs are different. Further, Trump has expressed regret for offensive things he has said. Hillary has not shown regret for the numerous lies she has told—many of which the FBI has reported. Also, we must remind ourselves that we are all fallen creatures in a fallen world. We don’t have any perfect candidates. So we must choose among imperfect ones. Finally, we have aborted nearly 60 million unborn human beings under Roe v. Wade since 1973—a decision that Hillary ardently supports. Reportedly, Hitler only killed about 12 million people. So when Hillary supporters point to Trump’s flaws, do we not have a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!
….
All the candidates engage in offensive activities, some more than others. Most evangelicals would not vote for any of them to be pastor of their church. But we are not voting for a pastor but for a politician. Many evangelicals envision an ideal candidate who is superior to the ones we have. The problem is that we do not have the choice to vote for this ideal candidate but only for the real ones that are on the ticket. In an ideal world this would not happen, but we do not live in an ideal world but in a real one—a real fallen world. And in such a world we can only choose the best one available, not the best one conceivable. An as an evangelical Christian living in this real fallen world, it looks to me that Trump, as imperfect as he may be, comes closer to what we need in America now than Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For reluctant conservatives who were looking for someone more to the right of center, we must remember that conservatism does not equal Christianity. Likewise, neither does liberalism equal Christianity. But when I am sick, I choose the most competent doctor who may or may not be the most Christian doctor. Likewise, the most competent political leader may not be the most Christian one.
Whether we like it or not, when we vote for president we are not voting for Pastor-in-Chief. Rather, we are voting for Commander-in-Chief. The qualifications for the two jobs are different. Further, Trump has expressed regret for offensive things he has said. Hillary has not shown regret for the numerous lies she has told—many of which the FBI has reported. Also, we must remind ourselves that we are all fallen creatures in a fallen world. We don’t have any perfect candidates. So we must choose among imperfect ones. Finally, we have aborted nearly 60 million unborn human beings under Roe v. Wade since 1973—a decision that Hillary ardently supports. Reportedly, Hitler only killed about 12 million people. So when Hillary supporters point to Trump’s flaws, do we not have a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black!