Answers for Sandalstraps' "Bible as the Word of God"

I have been exposed to the Sandalstraps' Sanctuary blog recently. He's one of the few Christian bloggers I've seen who discuss theism and Christianity without resorting to insults to skeptics like myself, and in my spiritual journey, I sincerely appreciate that.

One of his comments to an earlier post of mine linked to his blog's Exodus as a Macro Story. At the end of that post, he lists a few questions about how freethinkers (and I include people who still call themselves Christians, as I sometimes do) view the Bible.

I'd like to respond to his questions here. It's funny: on some days I consider myself a liberal Christian, on others, an agnostic. So I'll answer all three of these questions, as I've been in all three places recently:

If you say that the Bible is somehow the Word of God, what do you mean by that?
This is one of the points that lead me away from Christianity. I don't believe the Bible is inerrant, and that has caused the whole house of cards to topple in my mind. Part of me still thinks that part of the Bible is somehow the Word of God, but I certainly don't think it was divinely inspired and translated to page without error. So how much of it was misunderstood or simply made up by the original authors or subsequent translators? I think God is in there somewhere, but probably isn't recognizable.

If you are within the Christian tradition, and do not use that phrase to describe the Bible, why don't you use it? What phrases do you use to describe the Bible? How do you approach the Bible?
The Bible is a holy book that many people believe verbatim. I used to approach it as a place to prove Christianity. Now I don't trust the veracity of just about anything in it. It may be a decent place to go to for metaphorical truth (similar to Sandalstraps' point in his post), but I can't get away from the feeling that all Christians pick and choose which parts to follow and which parts to ignore. And that destroys the notion of absolute truth.

If you are outside the Christian tradition, what do you think of a group holding up a work like the Bible as in some form a communication of God and from God?
Even inside the Christian tradition, I'm not sure it's a good idea to elevate the Bible to its current standing. It lets people think and act irrationally.

Responses to John Loftus ("Tough Questions for Christians")

Finally!

I found John Loftus’s Tough Questions for Christians and I wanted to respond from my Sorta-Christian-And-Not-Really-Atheist perspective.

First set of questions:
Can God be surprised? Can God laugh? Can God think? Thinking means weighing alternatives. But if God knows everything then can God think? Is God metaphysically free? Did God ever choose his character and his moral standards? Does God ever know what it is to make a choice?
These questions are all philosophically interesting. However, I believe that it is outside the realm of human knowledge to understand the nature of God. Much like Einstein’s mind-bending concept of “spacetime” as a whole unit, the metaphysical existence of God isn’t something we can really wrap our heads around. So—all these answers are, “I don’t know.”

Is God good?
When presented with the three statements: 1) God is omnipotent; 2) God is omnibenevolent; 3) evil exists/bad things happen; it is clear that one of those three statements is incorrect. Christians would probably say that #3 is not the correct statement, as everything is based on God’s will and therefore everything is ultimately good. Deists and atheists both disagree with #1 and #2. From my perspective, #1 is probably false. I think God probably has a way to affect the world, but not completely control it. From a Biblical perspective, however, there is little to support the falsity of #1, and much to support the falsity of #2. The OT supports the notion that God isn’t omnibenevolent -- God commits genocide and stuff.

I find this answer very unsatisfying. I want God to be omnibenevolent—I’d prefer a God who is 100% good over a God who is 100% powerful. But what I want to be true is unsupported by any physical evidence or historical text that I have found (including the Bible). This brings me to the conclusion that if there is a God, and He is the God of the Bible, I don’t like the things he does. And the answer to Loftus’s question (in my estimation) is, “probably not.”

If God didn’t need anything, then why did he create us?
Hm. I don’t know the answer to this. I’d question the validity of the “if” statement, though. How do we know God doesn’t need anything? Our human definition of perfection logically excludes God having needs, but those definitions are human constructions with human limitations. I don’t see any problem with God’s need. (I also don’t necessarily agree that God is perfect, but that’s another discussion.)

Loftus then puts forth several questions that challenge Calvinist thinking:
What’s the point of creating humans, if God planned everything in advance?
What is the basis of God’s foreknowledge?
If God gave us free will and he knew we would abuse it so badly, then why give it to us?
Can God create free creatures who always obey?
Why didn’t God create us with a propensity to dislike sin?
So these questions aren’t really answerable from my worldview. I don’t believe the Bible is inerrant, I don’t believe that the picture of God in the Bible is accurate, and I don’t believe that any of these concepts (about foreknowledge, free will, etc) as they relate to God are necessarily true. So I guess my answers to all of these questions are “I don’t know, but I don’t accept the basis of the ‘if’ statements.”

Loftus then has two questions about why God allows bad things to happen (slavery, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc—that’s oversimplifying his questions, but this is a long post). Again, if, from the textual and physical evidence, I have come to the idea that God is probably not all good, that’s the answer. God allows bad things to happen because he’s either not all good or not all powerful.

These answers are leading me down the path of a major crisis of faith. I think God would probably still be worthy of worship if He were not omnipotent, but probably not if He weren’t omnibenevolent. If He’s not all good, just how bad is He? The textual evidence tells of genocide, Hell, and more horrific (and in my mind, unethical) things performed by the hand of God. I’m not an atheist, but it’s hard for me not to reject the Christian God, whether or not He exists.

A final note: I don’t know where I get the ideas that slavery, misogyny, discrimination against homosexuals, and discrimination against non-Christians are unethical. It appears that God didn’t say those things are unethical (often quite the opposite, in fact), so I guess I didn’t get them from God. I do know that I feel horrible about these things happening in human history, and I do believe evil (as either an absolute or as a human construct) lies in each one of those things. I can’t justify believing these things are evil and believing in Christianity too.

Please comment and answer

Can I be a Christian if I don't necessarily believe that Jesus was resurrected?

The dictionary defines a Christian as "one who believes in Jesus Christ and his teachings." Doesn't say anything about the resurrection. But if you go here, it says:

"Christians universally agree that the resurrection of Jesus is central to their faith...Indeed, one cannot be a Christian unless one believes that God raised Jesus from the dead."

Christian site says "atheists can't say that rape is wrong"

So, it looks like on Debunking Christianity, John W. Loftus (a former minister and current atheist) has gotten into a spat with a Christian blogger by the name of Frank Walton (writer of Atheism Sucks).

First of all, I think atheism does suck. I don't like it. It makes me feel alone and separated from my family.

Secondly, I think the Christian view of atheism sucks more. On this post states that "in no objective sense can they [atheists] say this [rape] is wrong." I think the way he makes his point has a million logical flaws, but that's not what I'm getting at.

This statement reflects a common belief among Christians: that in a life without God, there is no basis for morals. This is not what many atheists believe. The Bible of the Good and Moral Atheist, in its Book of Morality, says:

"All morality begins and ends with sympathy... With sympathy for others and recognition of the similarities between people, we each build an internal code of the morality of our actions. We seek to protect innocent children, for we were once children ourselves and needed protection. We seek a society that does not foster immoral actions, in order to protect the members of society like ourselves. We feel and internalize various plights and pains of others in this process, and develop a true morality."

Armed with sympathy for others, atheists can (and do) state that rape is wrong. One can debate the cause of sympathy (evolution vs. God-given), but atheists need not believe in God to have reasoning behind their moral code.

Why pick on homosexuality?

Having a bit of trouble finding the questions that John Loftus posed on Debunking Christianity. I'll post when I find 'em.

So here's something that puzzles me.

In most translations of the Bible, it's pretty clear that homosexuality is a no-no. There are plenty of other things that are no-nos, of course. The single biggest rule, though, doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality. It's the first commandment (Exodus 20:3), and Jesus puts it above the Golden Rule in Mark 12.

It is this concept: There is no other God but God.

Being gay is not in the Ten Commandments. Being gay is not addressed anywhere by Jesus. But the Christian right want to stop gay marraige because, um, well, I'm not sure.

The American Family Association has an article here that attempts to follow the following logic: If homosexual marraige is legalized, all Christians will be persecuted for their belief that homosexuality is a sin. It cites a teacher who was suspended because of an anti-gay letter he wrote to a newspaper, and a printer who was fined because he refused to print literature from a gay advocacy group.

I guess the Christian right doesn't want gay marraige to be legalized because then they won't be able to legally discriminate against gays.

But, the Christian right isn't making any noise about annulling all marraiges between Sikhs, or Jews, or Muslims, or athiests. "If we legalize it," antigay activists say, "that tells my kids that it's OK to be gay."

Really? Just like it's OK for their kids to be Sikh, or Muslim, or athiest? Many Christian families don't think it's OK to be anything but Christian. Yet thousands of people in America are disobeying the first commandment, nay, what Jesus calls the most important commandment everyday. Why is it OK with Christians that Americans tolerate and offer protection to the breaking of the first and most important commandment, yet homosexuality (which, since Jesus never talks about it, seems like it's much less important of an issue) is condemned to the point where most members of the Christian right still fight to have it criminalized?

Seriously, Christians: why is it OK for Sikhs to get married but not gays?

About Liberal Christianity

As a Liberal Christian, I believed:
- Evolution is the best explanation for the current state of the Earth
- God set evolution in motion
- God created the universe, possibly via the Big Bang
- I did not (and probably would never) understand the nature of God
- I could not answer if God was caused or uncaused
- Jesus was a real person, who was probably touched by the divine in some way
- Jesus was crucified
- The books discussing Jesus (in fact, whole of the Bible) were sometimes accurate/truthful and sometimes inaccurate/untruthful
- Salvation might be true but Jesus probably felt it was more important to be good to each other while on this earth
- The concept of salvation makes it easy for people to be selfish about Christianity
- Everyone should treat each other the way they want to be treated

Uh oh. I just realized that I still believe most of those things. Maybe I'm not ready to deconvert.

Except that when I'm asked the really hard questions (John Loftus-type questions), the above statements mean things about the nature of the universe that don't make sense to me.

I'll go over a few of those questions in the next post...

I'm washed on your shore and barely alive

I dig my heels into the dirt
'Cause this one's gonna hurt
Won't let the waves wash me away
Is what I always pray
In my heart I know you couldn't see
In the dark or find your way through me
Now I'm alone, my hands are numb
How do I carry on?

At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?

Now I'm held hostage in my head
With every word you said
God, all those lessons in my past
I spit them out so fast
I see myself with you, I act so small
I see myself with you, I always crawl
So someone leave a raft for me
The water's getting deep

At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?

Here I am in my insecurity
Here I am in my damaged dignity
Here I am, you're pulling me in too deep
Here I am
Here I am, I'm in the mercy seat
Here I am, running without my feet
Here I am, oh what's come over me?
Here I am

When I was melting in your hand
You didn't understand
You slip through me like grains of sand
You still don't understand
Overboard, I'm thrown out to see
What you are and what I mean to me
But I will always have my dream where you can swim to me

At the turn of the tide
I feel this part of me die
I've been on your shore before
And it was no waste of time
Over my head and in my mind
Am I washed on your shore and barely alive?

—Charlotte Martin, "On Your Shore"

I heard these lyrics for the first time a few weeks ago, and it really touched a nerve. It's possible that Charlotte Martin wrote this song about a lover who spurned her. However, I heard this and I immediately thought the song was written to God about a faith the narrator is just barely hanging onto. The song hit me very deeply and I haven't yet recovered.

Because those lyrics are exactly how I feel about my relationship with Christianity. The ocean of athiesm is pulling me out to sea, and I'm clinging to anything I can to somehow believe. But I know I can't anymore.

My years as a liberal Christian were "no waste of time," certainly. I learned a lot about myself as a person and a lot about viewing faith in different ways. But when I moved to Sacramento, there was a dire shortage of churches that were liberal (at least in my area). A few of my neighbors were extremely Christian--one was a Promise Keeper--and they always found ways to throw God and Blessed and Jesus into the conversation. Yes, we're really blessed to be in such a good neighborhood. Have you found a church yet? It's really important for your kids to grow up with Jesus. Make sure they have lots of friends in church. This was very tough to hear for me--especially since I came back to the church because of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ (yes, the 1988 Scorcese film that Christians picketed).

There are two enormous churches in my area, and I really couldn't stand either of them. One preached about the evils of Harry Potter one Sunday. The UCC's in my area were going through an enormous amount of turmoil--one had lost over half its congregation. I went through a couple of discussion groups led by a pastor--in one, we discussed "God's Politics" by Jim Wallis. But she moved to Washington DC about six months after we met her.

My parents, afraid for my soul, had me talk to a missionary friend of theirs--a really intelligent, well-read guy who I'll call M. I was actually looking forward to having my faith strengthened by this conversation. Now, I was a liberal Christian at this time, although I didn't go to church, but I was reading Marcus Borg and liking his worldview. Immediately, M starts debunking Borg, calling him names and saying no serious Biblical scholar believes anything he says. I told him my view (see previous posts about not believing the book of John and reading the letters as criticism, not Truth).

He tried to debunk that as well--he pulled out 2 Peter 3, in which Peter says Paul's letters should be treated like Scripture. I left empty and confused. (And to think that I hadn't been that confused before I met with M, at my parents' insistence! Irony!)

Turns out that most scholars don't think Peter actually wrote 2 Peter. Most scholars don't think Paul wrote some of the letters attributed to him. Turns out a lot of what I value in the Gnostic Gospels were added in centuries later. Jesus saving the adulterous woman from the stoning ("let the one who is without sin cast the first stone") was added 400 to 600 years later. The verses on the Trinity? Added years later. And the book that revealed all this was by a Christian apologist!

All of this information indicated very strongly to me that I couldn't trust the Bible. And when I sat down and actually read though it, I didn't like what was in there. When I was 10 and read the Bible straight through, cover to cover, did I even think about what I was reading? No. Did I catch all the differences (not necessarily conflicts, but definite differences) between the Gospels and how they portray Jesus? I did not.

But once that whole Bible inerrancy was shot down in my mind, I realized that a lot more was possibly errant than I thought. I also realized that the fear of hell was a very selfish reason to believe in Jesus.

I came back to Christianity a few years ago with an open mind and an open heart, ready and willing to believe, and confident that the more I found out, the more it would strengthen, not shake, my faith. Instead, everything I've uncovered has undermined my assumptions and contraindicated my expectations of Christianity.

While there have been a couple of Christians along the way who have been respectful and understanding, the vast majority have been downright nasty and disrespectful to me. I've been called arrogant, stupid, evil.

Many of the athiests I talk to say that the loss of their faith was liberating. I've found it excruciating. But my goal in life now is to improve others' lives here on this earth. I want to be a good citizen and a good neighbor in a way I never wanted to as a Christian. I want to understand, tolerate, make better. I want my kids to have sympathy and empathy and to act on it, with or without a higher power. I want to leave this world better than it was when I came in. Before, the world didn't matter since I had salvation. Now, my life does matter. I'm scared of that, and it's hard sometimes to get through the day without the comfort of Jesus. That's because I am responsible for everything I do and every decision I make. Accountability is probably the scariest thing in the world.

At the turn of the tide, I felt that part of me die. Now I have to keep myself afloat.

Not just yet...

So, I was planning to talk about my latest deconversion, but the wound is still pretty raw. Maybe it will be better in a few days. In lieu of that, take a look at the The Common Sense Bill of Non-Rights, attributed to U.S. politician Mitchell Aye from Georgia. (For those of you outside the U.S., this is a spoof of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights.) I just received this in an e-mail from a friend.

There are a zillion things I disagree with, but the last article takes the cake:
ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!

This country was founded on the belief in one true God.
So, so, so untrue. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Paine, and many of the other Founding Fathers were Deists or Athiests. Jefferson even took it upon himself to rewrite the Bible because he disliked it. Many church leaders wrote sermons and pamphlets decrying their leadership because of their lack of Godliness.

The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history...
In the 1950's, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy scared many Americans with an imagined Communist threat. In addition to "blackballing" many Americans, effectively ending their careers, he equated Communism and athiesm. As a result of his efforts, "In God We Trust" was placed on all U.S. coins, and "under God" was added after "one nation" in the Pledge of Allegiance. If anyone changed the U.S. history and heritage, it was McCarthyism.

This willful ignorance on the part of the American people stupefies and scares me. How can thinking people fight these misconceptions without making people of faith think we're agents of Satan?