This is the eighty-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 God Said by Anthony David.
You know Christie
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti
And the people don’t wanna talk about it
They were under the heel of the French
And they got together and they swore a pact to the devil
They said we’ll serve you
If you’ll get us free from the French
True story
And so the devil said okay it’s a deal
And ever since then they have been cursed
Shake the hand of my imaginary friend
See the trouble he gets in
Can’t be traced back to me
He can’t pretend at the slightest of his when
He has the power to suspend our rules of morality
And when he gets angry he can make the lion cry
He can help me win the fight with his power
Yes he speaks to me and it’s always positive
Cause I can just ask for forgiveness and it’s over
[Chorus:]
So you can’t put the blame on me I’m doing what God said
What God said, what God said
Don’t you put the blame on me I’m doing what God said
What God said, what God said
So you’re praying for the death of the president of the united states
Do you think it’s appropriate to say something like that or…
I’m not saying anything what I’m doing is repeating what God is saying
In the name of the one who made us all
I will hide behind these walls from my enemy
By the power bestowed from up above
I will conquer you because it is my destiny
And with the righteous hand
I will bring you to your knees
I will strip you of your freedom without mercy
And when the earth quakes and the blood runs in the sand
There will be no final stand for the unworthy
[Chorus:]
So you can’t put the blame on me I’m doing what God said
What God said, what God said
Don’t you put the blame on me I’m doing what God said
What God said, what God said
I stand on a mountain top on a solid rock
I stand on abundance truth and I won’t be moved
And when I come to claim my victory
I’ll repeat what was told to me
[Chorus:]
So you can’t put the blame on me I’m doing what God said
What God said, what God said
And he speaks to only me I know what God said
What God said, what God said
This is the eighty-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 Get Down on Your Knees Dear Father by Rabbie 1121.
This is the eighty-first 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 No Laughing in Heaven by Ian Gillan.
I used to be a sinner, used to have my cake and eat it
They warned me of my fate, but I was quite prepared to meet it
You’ll go to Hell they smiled at me
And told me of the roaring fires
But I was happy living wild
And fueling my own desires
I was a wild man
Drinking, smoking and messing around with women
Lots of women
No, not swimming, women
I wanna go to Heaven
The place to be is right up there
I wanna go to Heaven
It’s gonna be good so I won’t despair
I decided to reform and pray
Beg mercy for my soul
I prayed in church
Threw away my bad habits
Prayed out of church
Adopted an entirely different role
I gave my money to the poor until I was poor
But at least I ensured that I would go up there
Instead of down below to the Inferno
Where the evil flames of desire
Burned higher and higher and higher
I’m gonna go to Heaven
Paid my dues so I’m getting in
I’m gonna go to Heaven
It’s looking good if I abstain from sin
I knocked on the pearly gates
Neatly side-stepping the long queue
Waved hi to St. Peter
Who checked my card and let me through
I smiled, threw my hands in the air
Laughed and got arrested
They said hey man, you’re in the wrong place
Your behaviour is a disgrace
Here we pray every hour, on the hour
Read extracts from the Bible and look solemn’
What, says I, no party?
No party?
Let me out
Let me out of Heaven
I got it wrong, no I can’t stay here
No laughing in Heaven
Let me out, I just can’t stay here
Well I ran around in the state of shock and panic
This wan’t what I expected
Here was what looked like a bunch of manic depressives
Can I get a transfer, I screamed
But no, once you’re in Heaven, you’re here for good
The good of your soul, but that’s no good for me
If you want to go to Hell you’ve really got to be bad
Okay, okay, I’ll be bad
Too late
What do you mean too late
Too late
No
In the meantime
Let me out of Heaven
I’ve got it wrong, no I can’t stay here
No laughing in Heaven
Oh God, it’s awful here
Going crazy in Heaven
Take me out and let me go to hell
No laughing in Heaven
Don’t laugh, this place is Hell
Evangelical missionary Matthew Durham was sentenced Monday to 40 years in prison for sexually molesting children while working at Upendo Children’s Home in Nairobi, Kenya. Durham, 21, “engaged in sexual acts with multiple children, male and female, aged between 4 and 10 years.” Casi Marlowe, a writer for Dead State, reports:
A U.S. federal court passed a 40 year prison sentence on a former missionary from Oklahoma for molesting children at a Kenyan orphanage. Twenty-one-year-old, Matthew Lane Durham, was accused of molesting eight children at the Upendo Children’s Home in Nairobi, Kenya in 2014.
Although Durham claimed he did not molest the children, prosecutors revealed he told staff members at the children’s home that he had been possessed by an “evil spirit.” He also claims he doesn’t remember the crimes.
During a preliminary hearing, prosecutors revealed that a live-in caretaker at the orphanage said the children reported that Durham either touched them sexually or encouraged them to touch themselves while he watched. According to a criminal affidavit, Durham was confronted by the founder of Upendo along with several church members, where he allegedly confessed to his crimes.
Despite pleading not guilty to 17 charges last June, a federal judge found Durham guilty on seven counts, including engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. However he was acquitted on three of the counts by US District Judge David Russell in January because the judge felt prosecutors failed to establish enough evidence that Durham had engaged in sexual acts with with (sic) one of the victims.
Prosecutors argued Durham used his position as a missionary to win the trust of the children in order to prey on them. But Durham’s attorney claimed his handwritten and taped confessions were coerced. Officials at the children’s home only reported Durham to the authorities after sending him home to the United States.
….
In 2014 Durham told friends that he was possessed by a demon. Here are several screenshots of text messages Durham sent to his friends prior to his return home from Kenya.
Link to PDF of messages
Here is several screenshots of part of the July 18, 2014 amended Federal criminal complaint against Durham:
Readers might remember my posts on Durham after he was arrested in 2014. Durham will be an old man before he is released from prison. I hope his story will serve as a warning to Evangelicals who use their position of authority to abuse, sexually assault, molest, and rape those who trust them to do no harm.
Notes
Durham attended and graduated from Crossings Christian School , an Evangelical institution located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His mother is a fourth grade teacher at Crossings.
Arizona House Democrat Juan Mendez. Representative Mendez is an atheist.
What follows is a video of Arizona House Democrat Representative Juan Mendez offering a secular prayer at the start of the legislative session. The video also shows the reaction of Christian Republican legislators to Representative Mendez’s prayer. Only one legislator defended Mendez’s prayer — assistant Democratic leader Representative Bruce Wheeler. I was astounded to hear Wheeler — a Roman Catholic — state that Catholic legislators are not permitted to attend the weekly Arizona House Bible study. Let this video be a reminder of what happens when Evangelicals ignore the law and carve out special rights for their religion.
A top House leader slapped down a Democratic lawmaker today for using the time set aside for prayer to instead give thanks for diverse beliefs — including the belief there is no higher power.
Majority Leader Steve Montenegro declared that Rep. Juan Mendez, D-Tempe, had violated House rules that require that each day’s session begin with a “prayer.” That’s because Mendez, an atheist, used the time to talk about the “pluralistic society.”
And he made a point of saying that, from his perspective seeking divine intervention or hoping for a place in the afterlife is unnecessary.
“We need not tomorrow’s promise of reward to do good deeds today,” Mendez said. “For some may seek the assistance of a higher power with hands in their air, there are those of us that are prepared to assist directly, with our hands to the earth.”
That invocation, Montenegro complained, left the House without the required prayer. So House Speaker David Gowan, who clearly was prepared for the dust-up, called the Rev. Mark Mucklow — who conveniently was on the House floor — to fulfill the obligation.
Mucklow obliged, with a lengthy prayer asking God to direct and lead lawmakers. And to put a point on what was missing before, he asked that “at least one voice today say, ‘Thank you, God bless you and bless your families.’ “
Then other lawmakers began piling on Mendez.
Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, said the time at the beginning of the session is set aside for prayer. He said lawmakers have a right to say anything else they want — but only after the prayer.
“I’m saddened and offended that a member of this body would knowingly disregard our call for prayer and our House rules,” he said. Finchem said there needs to be a time for prayer, “lifting this body up to the God that we speak of when we say our Pledge of Allegiance.”
“We are ‘One nation under God,’ “ Finchem said. “This republican form of government came out of the Book of Exodus,” he continued, saying “it is a matter of fact.”
Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, said she believes the First Amendment is important.
“Not everybody in this room is Christian or Mormon or Jewish,” she continued. “I think it’s important we respect each other.”
But she said Mendez was wrong in using the time for the prayer for his invocation.
“It’s not time to be proselytizing even if you’re proselytizing something that’s not a religion,” Townsend said.
“I personally took offense at some of the words that were said,” she continued.
Rep. Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, said he was upset about Mendez saying that while some look to a higher power that others help directly. He said Mendez was “impugning not me, but in a small way millions of people, women and men that are part of our pluralistic society that use their faith and their belief in a God … they allow to guide them in serving directly, every day and all day.”
Rep. Bruce Wheeler, D-Tucson, said he doesn’t personally believe as does Mendez.
“But he has every right to say and voice what he said on the floor today,” he said.
Montenegro pointed out that he put out a memo earlier in the session spelling out what is acceptable as a prayer under House rules. And he said what Mendez said does not comply.
“Prayer, as commonly understood and in the long-honored tradition of the Arizona House of Representatives, is a solemn request for guidance and help from God,” Montenegro wrote in that memo. He said anything else — including a moment of silence — does not meet that requirement.
Rep. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, said he doesn’t need a memo to know that what Mendez said is not a prayer.
“We know what it looks like, we know what it is,” he said.
“We also know what it looks like when someone is desecrating or mocking someone else’s beliefs,” Petersen said. And he said those who want to do that using his or her freedom of speech, they can — but not during the time reserve for prayer.
….
Evangelicals believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. It is, in every way, a supernatural book written by a supernatural God. Its pages purportedly contain words that have magic power. While Evangelicals deny that the Bible is in any way a magical book, their recommendation of it belies their denial.
Evangelicalism is a text-based religion. The 66 books of the Protestant Bible are the foundation of every Evangelical belief. Remove the Bible, and Evangelicalism crumbles and falls to the ground. This is why scholars such as Bart Ehrman are so deadly to evangelical faith. What happens when Evangelicals learn that the Bible is not what their Christian forefathers, parents, teachers, and pastors claim it is? What happens when Evangelicals learn that the Bible is not inspired, nor is it inerrant nor infallible? What happens when Evangelicals learn that the Bible has internal contradictions and is riddled with mistakes and errors? What happens when Evangelicals learn that virtually all of their cherished beliefs are subject to debate and question? What happens when Evangelicals learn that the history found in the Bible is suspect and the creation story is a lie? What happens when Evangelicals, troubled by doubts and fearful of losing their faith, ask pastors, church leaders, and Christian friends for help?
Doubting Evangelicals naturally turn to people of faith to help them with their fears and doubts. Who better to help allay their troubles than those who have walked the Christian path before them. Surely they have struggled, having questions and doubts about the veracity of the Bible and its teachings, the doubters think. So they naïvely seek out the counsel of those they have entrusted with their spiritual welfare. Sadly, they quickly learn that questions and doubts are not welcome, and that toeing the theological line is more important than finding honest answers to sincere questions. These doubters immediately find out that fidelity to orthodoxy and resolute commitment to what is perceived to be the faith once delivered to the saints is all that matters. For all their talk about having freedom in Jesus, Evangelical pastors and church leaders demand cult-like sameness from those who are church members. People who refuse to blindly submit are most often marginalized or excommunicated. These supposed men of God, fearing that doubts and questions could wreak havoc to their churches, do all they can to make sure that dissidents have no opportunity to spread their “lies” among congregants.
A pastor friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, is going through a crisis of faith. Several years ago, he and I briefly crossed swords over the Bible and its teachings. Our discussions ended with us each going in separate directions. Several months ago, out of the blue, he contacted me about the struggle he was having with certain Evangelical theological beliefs. While some atheists might see this as an opportunity to make a convert for godlessness, I am more concerned with helping my friend continue his journey, wherever it might lead. My goal has never been to make converts. Having been exactly where my friend now is, I have first-hand knowledge of the gut-wrenching struggle he is going through. To be confronted with the notion that everything you once believed might be a lie can, and does, cause great emotional and mental distress.
My friend has shared with me some of the discussions he has had with pastors and fellow Christians. I am astounded by how often he has been told to set reason and intellect aside and just have faith. Just believe Brother Horatio — not his real name — and all will be well! But try as he might, Horatio has found it impossible to turn off his brain and just faith-it.
Recently, one man asked him if he would be willing to commit to just reading the Bible for the next 90 days. No other books, no blogs, no discussions with outside sources, just read the Bible. The thinking behind this request is that the Bible has some sort of magical power, and that if my friend will just immerse himself in its pages his doubts, fears, and questions will dissipate and he will find himself once again following after Jesus.
I walked away from Christianity in November 2008. In the initial months after my deconversion, I was inundated with emails from pastor friends and former parishioners pleading with me not to give into this temptation from Satan. Recognizing that secular books were a big part of my deconversion, my pastor friends and former parishioners asked me to stop reading these books and to commit myself to only reading the Bible. They were certain that if I just stopped reading Bart Ehrman and other non-Christian authors and start reading the book-above-all-books — the Bible — that I would soon see that Satan was using these other writers to lead me astray. Little did they know that it was the Bible itself that played a big part in my deconversion. Taking a fresh look at beliefs that I had held for five decades forced me to conclude that the Bible was not what Evangelicals say it is. While I certainly think that the Bible has some moral and ethical value, it is now very clear to me that it is in no way an inspired, inerrant, infallible book written by the Christian God.
Evangelical zealots need to understand that telling people who have spent their lifetime studying and reading the Bible to just “read the Bible” is patently offensive. Having preached through most of the books of the Bible, I think it is safe for me to say that I have a thorough understanding of the Biblical text. Unlike most Evangelicals, who never seem to have the time to read God’s love letter to humanity, I devoted myself to reading every book, every chapter, and every word of the Bible. I did this numerous times over the course of my 50 years in the Christian church — especially as a pastor. I am not ignorant of the Bible’s teachings and neither is my pastor friend. The Bible is the problem, not the solution.
Suggesting that the Bible is some sort of magic book is ludicrous. It would be quite easy for me to prove the falsity of such claim. All I would have to do is devote myself to reading the Bible every day for 90 days, or whatever faith-renewing time frame is appropriate. And when no change takes place, where will Evangelicals place the blame? On God and his magic book? Of course not. The blame will rest on me. God is above and beyond culpability. If the magic words found in the Bible fail to restore me to faith it is because of some defect in me, not in God and his supernatural book.
Over the years, numerous Evangelicals have written to tell me that I just needed to — in faith — ask God to reveal himself to me. If I would do this, they were certain that Jehovah would, in no uncertain terms, make himself known. Humoring such people, I often pray their suggested prayers. Despite praying, the heavens remain silent. God is to blame, right? Maybe I am not one of the elect or perhaps I have committed the unpardonable sin. Whatever the reason might be, the blame never rests with God. It is always my fault. I did not have enough faith when I prayed, because if I had had enough faith then God would have revealed himself to me. That he did not shows that the fault lies with me, not God.
While I certainly think that most of the people asking me to read the Bible or to pray the prayer of faith sincerely want to be a help to me, they should understand that I cannot be swayed by metaphysical claims requiring faith. Either one believes or one doesn’t. It is not that I do not want to believe as much as it is I cannot believe. I do not have the requisite faith necessary to set aside reason and rational thought and believe ancient religious stories written thousands of years ago. Since it is unlikely that any new evidentiary argument for the existence of the Christian God and the veracity of the Bible is forthcoming, I hope that Evangelicals will understand when I reject requests to read their magic book or incant magical prayers. I am no longer willing to accept such childish requests that require me to shut off my mind and just believe.
[Inspired by a very humorous Amazon review for the Book of Mormon, I decided to post my “game” review for the current version of Christianity]
The game of Christianity is quite old but it has some really compelling hooks to lure you in. It can become quite addictive, especially if you are exposed at a very young age. Most agree it’s particularly compelling when played in large groups. I participated in the game for over 3 decades but I gave it up a few years ago. I still have many family and friends who insist on playing despite the game’s many issues. I’ve heard Minecraft or Skyrim are both better.
For those who have never played: You start by rejecting your current real-life character in a very self-deprecating ritual of sorts. Tearful sobs and pleas for mercy to an imaginary sky ghost will help to validate the new character you’ll be forming. Bonus points are awarded if your old character is especially naughty or heinous. Those who are gifted story tellers can quickly advance a few levels by telling older players the details of past naughty exploits. The old timers relish in that sort of thing. I’m not sure why.
Once you’ve created your new character, please note that it can be quite difficult to locate a clan that you can feel comfortable playing with. There are over 40,000 variations of clans so choosing one can be a daunting task. Unfortunately, that mission is made even harder since many of the clans claim they alone are the one “True Clan” and joining any other group can mean permanent disqualification and exile from the game (at least according to some). A few players give up when they discover this complexity.
Like most games, there’s a master guide-book but each clan interprets the rule book quite differently. Even though significant portions of the guide were written by a collection of unknown authors, tribal feuds erupt rather frequently over the master guide book. A number of clans have attempted to bring harmony to this chaos by releasing new and improved guide books which attempt to fix past errors. These new editions often employ more modern vernacular but many of the older clans insist that only King Jim’s version is valid. This is especially odd since Jim’s version has a great many errors, but in spite of this, many older players tend to ridicule anyone who claims that the modern guide books are better. Occasionally, players who are well versed in it all try to expose the numerous contradictions and flaws contained therein, but this sort of action can quickly get a player banned. Flame wars are frequent and quite hostile at times.
The game is open to different styles of play. Many prefer the lite version, or the “pay as you go” mode. By putting a few dollars into the game plate on a semi-regular basis, your character can remain viable, albeit your character’s life gauge will stay near death unless you take further action. On the other end of the scale, there are many deeply committed game players. These individuals sink enormous amounts of time and money into their roles. These guys often become teachers, or guides, as they prefer. A few even turn it into a full-time gig but the pay can be dishearteningly low unless you become especially popular. Many of us know of a former full-time player named Bruce from Ohio who gave it his all for a long time. He now helps to caution those who take the game too seriously as he once did. There are also some full-time giggers who earn astounding amounts of money by tricking other players into donating significant in-app funds to their game account by promising a large gold payout to these gullible souls in a later stage of the game. Many of us try to caution new gamers about this risk, but our warnings go unheeded.
The game is open to both male and female, however female players are often told to remain silent during clan meetings and assume a subservient character. A small minority of female players even wear dainty little white caps during game play. It’s quite an odd sight. The attire for gamers can really vary and its routinely based on the particular clan you hang with. Some insist on dressing up in very lavish robes for sacred game ceremonies. Others prefer casual clothing but a person can find themselves banned for wearing immodest attire. The game can also get especially hostile to those who like to play with the same sex. Despite that odd animosity, I used to play with a group that liked to wash the naked feet of other same-sex players. This would happen just before “the sacred initiation” of level 12 in the game.
As an older game, it has gone through a number of mutations and variations. A majority prefer to play on Sundays, but a small minority insist that only Saturday is the appropriate day to play, and anyone who disagrees will be banished into everlasting game-darkness. There are also ongoing arguments over appropriate drinks, music and movie viewing habits.
Tensions frequently run high between those who still play the game vs. the former participants. It’s a very divisive sort of thing. Whenever someone who no longer plays says something even slightly derogatory about the game to current players, these individuals cry “hater!” and quickly dismiss the naysayers as never having been True Gamers. I myself played for nearly 32 years and I often spent over 5% of my gold on in-game purchases just to get anywhere. The promises outlined in the master guide-book indicated a 10-fold return to faithful game players, but only if they endured to the end. I eventually realized the game was rigged by a bunch of old uneducated geezers who made it all up some 2000 years ago. I’ve met many other players who have quit. A few have gone on to play a different game but most (like me), became so disillusioned that we’ve given up any similar sort of game entirely. I must say, I am much happier now.
For anyone considering this game, please do some honest research beforehand. Be leery of taking a current gamer’s word for it. They have quite the confirmation bias. So think carefully before committing your life and hard-earned money.
I am a big fan of John Oliver’s show, Last Week Tonight. What follows is a video clip of a show segment on how religious Republican legislators are systematically, with no regard for women and their health, turning back the clock on legalized abortion.
What follows is an excerpt from a recent post Dr. Bart Ehrman wrote about a 2008 interview on the subject of the Bible, God, and suffering. This interview occurred around the time Ehrman released God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer. Ehrman wrote:
For most of my life I was a devout Christian, believing in God, trusting in Christ for salvation, knowing that God was actively involved in this world. During my young adulthood, I was an evangelical, with a firm belief in the Bible as the inspired and inerrant word of God. During those years I had fairly simple but commonly held views about how there can be so much pain and misery in the world. God had given us free will (we weren’t programmed like robots), but since we were free to do good we were also free to do evil—hence the Holocaust, the genocide in Cambodia, and so on. To be sure, this view did not explain all evil in the world, but a good deal of suffering was a mystery and in the end, God would make right all that was wrong.
In my mid 20s, I left the evangelical fold, but I remained a Christian for some twenty years—a God-believing, sin-confessing, church-going Christian, who no longer held to the inerrancy of Scripture but who did believe that the Bible contained God’s word, trustworthy as the source for theological reflection. And the more I studied the Christian tradition, first as a graduate student in seminary and then as a young scholar teaching biblical studies at universities, the more sophisticated I became in my theological views and in my understanding of the world and our place in it.
Suffering increasingly became a problem for me and my faith. How can one explain all the pain and misery in the world if God—the creator and redeemer of all—is sovereign over it, exercising his will both on the grand scheme and in the daily workings of our lives? Why, I asked, is there such rampant starvation in the world? Why are there droughts, epidemics, hurricanes, and earthquakes? If God answers prayer, why didn’t he answer the prayers of the faithful Jews during the Holocaust? Or of the faithful Christians who also suffered torment and death at the hands of the Nazis? If God is concerned to answer my little prayers about my daily life, why didn’t he answer my and others’ big prayers when millions were being slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, when a mudslide killed 30,000 Columbians in their sleep, in a matter of minutes, when disasters of all kinds caused by humans and by nature happened in the world?
….
About nine or ten years ago I came to realize that I simply no longer believed the Christian message. A large part of my movement away from the faith was driven by my concern for suffering. I simply no longer could hold to the view—which I took to be essential to Christian faith—that God was active in the world, that he answered prayer, that he intervened on behalf of his faithful, that he brought salvation in the past and that in the future, eventually in the coming eschaton, he would set to rights all that was wrong, that he would vindicate his name and his people and bring in a good kingdom (either at our deaths or here on earth in a future utopian existence).
We live in a world in which a child dies every five seconds of starvation. Every five seconds. Every minute there are twenty-five people who die because they do not have clean water to drink. Every hour 700 people die of malaria. Where is God in all this? We live in a world in which earthquakes in the Himalayas kill 50,000 people and leave 3 million without shelter in the face of oncoming winter. We live in a world where a hurricane destroys New Orleans. Where a tsunami kills 300,000 people in one fell swoop. Where millions of children are born with horrible birth defects. And where is God? To say that he eventually will make right all that is wrong seems to me, now, to be pure wishful thinking.
As it turns out, my various wrestlings with the problem have led me, even as an agnostic, back to the Bible, to see how different biblical authors wrestle with this, the greatest of all human questions. The result is my recent book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer. My contention is that many of the authors of the Bible are wrestling with just this question: why do people (especially the people of God) suffer? The biblical answers are striking at times for their simplicity and power (suffering comes as a punishment from God for sin; suffering is a test of faith; suffering is created by cosmic powers aligned against God and his people; suffering is a huge mystery and we have no right to question why it happens; suffering is redemptive and is the means by which God brings salvation; and so on). Some of these answers are at odds with one another (is it God or his cosmic enemies who are creating havoc on earth?), yet many of them continue to inform religious thinkers today….
Here is a one hour video of the interview. If you are unfamiliar with Dr. Ehrman, I encourage you to watch the video.
I heartily recommend Ehrman’s book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer. You can purchase it here.
Ehrman has a member-only blog, with an annual $24.95 membership fee (all monies raised go to charitable groups).
Other books written by Ehrman can be purchased here. Ehrman’s latest book, Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior, is scheduled to be released on March 6, 2016. You can pre-order the book here.
My good friend, former Evangelical pastor Jim Schoch, sent me a link today to an article about atheism in Arizona. According to azfamily.com:
It’s a long-honored tradition at the Arizona state Capitol. Lawmakers pray every day at the start of the session.
“The country was founded on certain Christian beliefs,” Sen. Steve Smith said.” We have people give Jewish prayers, Mormon prayers, Christian prayers, Catholic prayers, all kinds of prayers.”
But if you don’t identify with a particular religion, you can no longer be a part of that opening prayer.
“I find myself not being able to give a prayer,” Rep. Juan Mendez, a self-proclaimed atheist, said.
In 2013, all lawmakers took turns giving the prayer. When it was Mendez’ turn, he didn’t want to do it.
“I actually tried to not do the prayer. I avoided it,” he recalled. “They essentially made me give a prayer. So, I scrambled to even understand what it would mean for me, and it took me awhile.”
….
Mendez gave the invocation again in 2014, and he wanted to get on the calendar this year, the same day the Secular Coalition for Arizona would be at the Capitol.
Mendez was denied this time around because he “doesn’t invoke a higher power,” part of the new rules just put into place by House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro.
….
“It’s frankly disgusting,” Arizona State University Professor Lawrence Krauss, a well-known atheist, said. “How can something that is respectful be insulting?
“We are allowed to treat someone with total disrespect because they lack faith, that we would never do to someone who claimed to be religious,” he continued.
Why?
According to Krauss, a world-renowned theoretical physicist and best-selling author, some people equate no beliefs with no values.
“[Some have] the idea that somehow if you question the existence of God, you’re a bad person, that the only way to be moral is to believe in God,” Krauss said.
….
Krauss says atheists are seen as “more negative than no experience, financial impropriety, adultery or in this case, even being a Muslim. Somehow, atheism is associated with evil.
He says people are afraid of anything that threatens their faith and that asking questions will confront it.
“It’s kind of amazing, religion has captured the market on morality,” he said.
Krauss has a theory.
“Obviously, if you look at the First World, I think it’s education,” he explained. “As the populace becomes more educated, their willingness to believe myths decreases, and their willingness to openly ask questions increases.”
….
Numbers show nonbelievers account for about 23 percent of Americans, yet Mendez is the only admitted atheist in the Arizona Legislature.
“You can be good without necessarily having a god,” Mendez said. “I’m here to do positive, good work.”
Mendez said his constituents don’t have a problem with his lack of faith. His only challenges seem to come from his colleagues at the Capitol.
He points out that more often than not, the prayer is usually the same call to action referencing the same couple of names from the same religion.
“To where it really normalizes it and makes it sound like we all have one religion down here,” Mendez said.
“We haven’t been able to find a proper and nondiscriminatory way to have people participate in the prayer, and now it’s going to be something that much more divides us,” he said.
You can read the entire article here. By the way, in 2008, seventeen percent of Arizonans were NONES. 2014? Twenty seven percent.
