The Crucifixion of Jesus (A Sacrifice?)

I’ve heard it complained that Jesus getting crucified to atone for mankind’s sins wasn’t all that much of a sacrifice if he knew he was going to be resurrected and live forever. I can’t say I haven’t thought this myself because, well, it’s a good point. If Jesus was God, he was omniscient (or is, if he were actually God) and knew everything that was going to happen regarding his alleged sacrifice. While I’m not going to say getting nailed to a cross is the least traumatic thing you could put yourself through, do the pros outweigh the cons in this situation?

 

On one hand, Jesus is going to be humiliated by the Romans, beaten, flailed, and made to bear a large wooden cross prior to the crucifixion. Of course, after that he’s crucified and it takes him approximately six hours to ‘die’ (according to the Bible, from the third hour to the ninth hour). So, pretty gruesome. On the other side of that, given his resurrection, Jesus is going to live harmoniously forever after either serving as God or at God’s right hand (depending upon your theological interpretation). A few days of hell on earth vs. an eternity of heaven that also atones for mankind’s sins. Is that REALLY a sacrifice?

 

Let’s suppose there’s a donut between me and someone I don’t know. We both want the donut terribly bad – we’re hungry! – and the other person has done something terrible and doesn’t even deserve the donut. Then someone outside of our situation makes me an offer: I can have the donut and that’s that, or, give the other person the donut and starve to death. What’s more, if I give up the donut, after I die after weeks of starving, I will live forever and can have all the donuts I could ever want on a moments notice. Assuming the reward was guaranteed, I’m giving up the donut unless or until I consider the downside of living forever. And I’m guessing most people would give up the donut if some wonderful eternal life were a sure thing. After all, it seems most people give up the donut of rational thinking betting on an eternal afterlife and so accept Pascal’s Wager. But I digress…

 

Clearly, the long-term reward is greater than the short-term reward of enjoying the donut and living out my short life. The same is true of Jesus’ ‘sacrifice.’ Again, I’m not saying getting tortured and crucified isn’t going to be a traumatic experience, however, Jesus goes into it knowing full well the outcome. Jesus didn’t give up his life not knowing if it would do any good. By comparison, any man who signed up to fight in WWII not knowing if the Allies would be victorious against fascism and not actually knowing they would go to heaven if they died in combat are much more heroic and make a much larger sacrifice.

 

So, I can’t say I’m impressed with Jesus’ capitulating to himself (again, if he’s God which he says many times) to atone for mankind’s sins. Honestly, if I cared enough about people, I would do the same thing to save the world even without the promise of an eternal afterlife. That’s what heroes in stories do. Difference is, Jesus knew the outcome so I have a hard time saying what he did was even heroic. More likely, it was the ultimate result of the vanity of a man claiming to be a god. Make no mistake; Jesus even told his disciples they would end up joyous after his death, comparing his ‘sacrifice’ to child-birthing [man’spaining?] because he would return thereafter, so it was obvious to Jesus his agony would pale in comparison to the outcome. So, yet again, not a real sacrifice. A real sacrifice requires one gets nothing in return. Jesus got a lot in return. The pros far outweighed the cons.

 

…

 

I’ve searched in vain for a satisfactory response to this critique. Moreover, some have written, rather cheekily, that it makes no sense for God to sacrifice Himself to Himself to satiate a rule he made, that is, (eternal) death due to sin.

 

One defense typically comes in the form that Jesus and God are not strictly the same, though Jesus doesn’t make this distinction when referring to himself as God, nor is the ‘trinity’ doctrine appear in the Bible anywhere. Jesus, as a man, suffers mightily and that makes what he did extraordinary. That may be so, but I’m sure many, many people have suffered worse fates (which speaks to the horribleness of mankind.)

 

Another defense is that it’s not a rule God can change since the rule exist by virtue of God’s nature, but this defense only serves to defeat God’s alleged omnipotence and makes moral rules arbitrary: God’s rules are what they are because of his existence…which means we have no objective standard by which to judge God’s goodness. Whatever God says is good is good and we can’t question it.  Nor can we question the divine plan of God sacrificing (at least) a part of Himself to atone for mankind’s sins, a plan an omniscient and eternal God must’ve known literally forever. Did Jesus not understand the full weight of what he had to do until he was flesh on earth? That’s not an omniscient deity.

 

Defending Jesus’ crucifixion ultimately makes the whole story look less and less plausible so Apologists are better off just not saying anything about it. “But he died for your sins,” they will say. Sure, but really for a few days. Again, again, again, not a true sacrifice. He practically won the jackpot for his troubles.

 

Prelude to a Crucifixion (a short play)

 

God: (Calling down from Heaven) Jesus. Jesus my son, can you hear me?

Jesus: (Exasperated) God, stop calling me your son. I AM you. Or you in the flesh on Earth. Or part of a trinity. Or the Son of Man. Did we ever settle on any of this? I feel like this is going to confuse some people. Don’t you ever worry about all the different kinds of Christianity there’s going to be if we’re not very clear on what’s going to be written about us?

God: Wow, you need to settle down, boy. There are more important things to worry about right now, like taking away the sins of the world, giving the world Atonement. It’s part of the divine plan.

Jesus: So you’re saying flooding the world and killing all the sinners but Noah and his family didn’t get that sorted out? Oh, yeah, I already know this because I’m you.

God: What can I say? People can’t help but be sinners. I know since I created the circumstances that basically makes it impossible for them not to sin. That being the case, you know what I’m going to tell you to do, because it’s the only way.

Jesus: Is it really the only way? I mean, you know a crucifixion is going to hurt, right? Like, really, really bad. You’re telling me there’s no other way for an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent deity to save His creations from their miserable lives on earth? I feel like we could come up with something easier, or at least classier.

God: Don’t be a snowflake, boy. If it were easy, no one would think it was a sacrifice and be convinced to shower us with tithings. But look on the bright side; a few days of suffering and then you die only to rise from the dead – no small feat – and live happily forever after, literally. I think it’s more than a reasonable trade off.  

Jesus: Okay, just so we’re clear, a few days of excruciating pain for immeasurable happiness forever after; I guess it’s a little bit like a woman giving birth to a child. And, this takes away the sins of the world, although people are going to keep sinning after this and will need to accept me as their personal savior to avoid the fiery pit you…I…created out of love. (Goddamn pronouns…)

God: Yes, it’s so simple its genius. Sure, I could have never created Hell or evil or sin but what fun would that be? Oh, the kick I get out of seeing them struggle against temptation and face the worst life has to offer. All so that they’ll acknowledge me as their king.

Jesus: Careful, we don’t want to admit any vanity. We need to humble ourselves by allowing our own creations to torture me, sort of like what AI is going to do to social media users in the future. But still, when I’m resurrected, I’ll be a king! Ah, but again, just because we’re a king doesn’t mean we’re vain. No, sir, we’re humble. And if people don’t accept me as their savior – after I make this HUGE sacrifice – they will go to Hell for their disobedience to be tortured forever by someone else who disobeyed us. By the way, have you checked on Satan lately to make sure he’s doing his job? It seems counterintuitive that he’d torture people for doing the same thing he did.

God: Don’t get sidetracked, boy, and stick to the plan.

Jesus: Ugh, okay. As long as you’re…I’m…we’re…FUCK – as long it’s going to work and we’re not just throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks.

God: I’m sorry, did you say something? I think the popcorn is done. Well, get on with it. I don’t have all day. Ha, ha, ha, actually I do. I’ve got forever.

Jesus: Okay then, don’t worry about me. I’ll just go collect some painkilling herbs. Don’t forget me when I’m on the cross!

God: (Picking up the phone) Mel Gibson! Hey, playa, it’s God! Listen, do you have a camera handy?

Jesus: First the dinosaurs, now me…(walks away) 

SCOTUS v. Roe v. Wade

1-The pro-birth movement (for they are not pro-life; that’s absurd) is driven by the talking points of evangelical Christian leaders, and white men basically, who want power over women. Their goal is not to preserve life; their goal is the subjugation of women whose freedom they find abhorrent. Put another way, (primarily Evangelical) men find it repugnant that a woman might have sex for pleasure; they think women should only have sex for the man’s pleasure. Men have long gotten a free ride in this respect but it is the woman who they want to force into paying the price. Obviously, if ‘pro-lifers’ actually cared about life, they wouldn’t ignore a child the moment it is born. If ‘pro-lifers’ actually cared about life, they would hold men accountable for their roles in pregnancies and make sure a child has both a married father and mother, per their traditional family doctrine. I could point out hypocrisy all day but as a friend said, “Technically you can’t be a hypocrite if you have no morals to begin with.” Striking Roe down is about a power struggle, a desire to revisit the times one could punish women for doing anything a man doesn’t like, thus reducing women to property once again. This isn’t about life for as everyone knows, if men could get pregnant they’re be an abortion clinic on every corner.   

2-Evangelical followers are led to believe the Bible makes a case for protected fetuses because of verses in Jeremiah and Isaiah that discuss the sanctity of these two prophets’ lives before they were born. Somehow, evangelical leaders extrapolated upon this to convince their flocks that all fetuses are in need of defense, even in cases where that fetus was conceived out of evil (incest and rape). Interestingly, Jews – using the same scriptures – do not interpret these scriptures the same way, seemingly not convinced this prohibits abortions. Enacting abortion restriction for religious reasons establishes state-sponsored religion, which the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids. The Constitution prohibits the establishment of any religion in the governance of its citizens. (Sorry, but I have to keep saying it for Republicans seemingly know the Constitution about as well as they know the Bible.) We have to assume those who serve on the SCOTUS are not stupid and know that the attack on ‘established law’ (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett even said Roe was in their confirmation hearings) is ideologically driven. For any member of the SCOTUS to vote against Roe now would be intellectually dishonest and completely destroy any trust in this government institution, as if it hasn’t been destroyed already.

3-I cannot harp on it enough: Abortion restrictions are religious in nature as there is no agreement on when life begins. Evangelicals tend to tow the line that life begins at conception, but not only is this ambiguous at best in the Bible, it is an arbitrary distinction at well. What’s special about cells dividing? Is someone no longer a person when their cells stop dividing? Moreover, why not go further back than conception to the sperm and egg? Those are living cells, too. Why not go back to the lives of potential parents? The argument gets teleologically silly quite quickly. In fact, there is no complete agreement/scientific consensus on what life is. There is no complete agreement on what a person is. (Legally, corporations are people, but to whom among us does that make sense to?) It seems like these arguments should be settled before affecting half the populations’ lives. I realize there has to be some starting point to that conversation but religion cannot answer the question of life or personhood effectively and therefore should not be an element of the debate.

4-As an aside, if it’s an aside, how much does the healthcare industry stand to benefit from in increase in pregnancies? A woman who is uninsured (a likely scenario thanks to Republicans rolling back the Affordable Care Act) is going to pay on average anywhere from $30K-$50K depending on vaginal vs. C-section birth. Then there is the cost of raising the child, the likelihood of needing childcare (because where is the father?) which isn’t covered by any insurance, and paying for higher education (though to be fair Republicans are fine with people not attending college). Many industries, if not capitalism in general, stand to benefit from an increased birth rate which has otherwise been declining for years. Knowing how Republicans feel about unregulated, unfettered capitalism (unless you speak out against them, Disney) we shouldn’t be surprised if we find out just how much the industries that benefit from the situation are donating to Republican candidates.

5-Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who – like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said Roe v. Wade was settled law, wrote in the leaked documents that the U.S. needs a domestic supply of infants, no doubt referring to white babies. Not only is population growth nowhere in the Constitution*, which is the job of SCOTUS to interpret, population growth has nothing to do with rights or privacy which the Constitution does address. As far as population ‘growth’ is concerned, all the Constitution says is that Congress may conduct censuses if they wish, so it should be unfathomable that Barrett’s personal opinion would shape her vote on abortion, especially after she explicitly said her personal opinion would not during her confirmation hearing. Her ‘new’ position is only slightly worse than Justice Alito’s justification for overturning Roe who thinks the 14^th Amendment used in Roe that made the case for a woman’s liberty was too vague and not rooted in the text of the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, also not rooted in the text of the Constitution are civil rights for minorities and an individual’s right to bear arms when they are not part of a militia. Alito also references a 13^th century document that posits abortion as murder as part of his justification for overturning Roe. Not only does Alito want to interpret the Constitution as written by white men in the 18^th century, he also wants to interpret it through the lens of documents that have nothing to do with the Constitution. One might suppose prohibitions against murder never change yet we don’t see Alito trying to overturn the death penalty knowing there will be wrongful deaths because of wrongful convictions. SCOTUS has acted in bad faith. Now they want to cry foul when protesters show up outside their houses. It seems like someone doesn’t like having their privacy disturbed.

 

What to do? Vote, of course, but this seems to vague. Vote for Democrats and not throw away votes on third party candidates because you don’t agree with every single element of their platform? Enact federal protections for women’s privacy? Expand the court so that conservative judges cannot perjure themselves and get away with it? (Ah, so this is the ‘judicial activism’ Bill O’Reilly warned us about years ago.) Civil war?

 

I recall being an Army veteran and having signed up to fight for the rights of every man – and woman. No one told me shit was going to turn out like this. The country I fought for, that ideal, was an illusion from the get go it seems. There does not seem a way back from any of this.

Oh, Twitter Christians, You Amuse Me

In trying to convince me that the God of the Bible does in fact exist and therefore validates Christianity compared to, say, Zoroastrianism, a Twitter user wrote this to me: “Does Zoroastrianism contain a virgin birth, a Trinity, a created angel/being that became evil, angel human hybrids, God becoming human and dying for our sins, new heavens and new earth?”

 

For some reason, Christians are painfully unaware that virgin births are fairly common in religious mythology. It’s not even a particularly special phenomenon in the animal kingdom, though rare, it can and does happen. Moreover, what is so special about female virgins anyway? The haven’t been tainted by a penis? By that logic any man who has sex with a woman therefore taints her – how rude! Now no god will want to impregnate her! If a religion really wants to impress me, give me a male virgin who impregnates a woman without having sperm taken from him.

 

A trinity? What’s special about a trinity? Lots of things come in threes and stupid tweets are one of them. Why doesn’t God stick to a duality? Or maybe there are four spiritual facets to godhood. What difference does a trinity make? Three is not a special number any more than any other number.

 

A created angel that became evil? Jesus Christ, that’s not even in the Bible. And, as I’ve said many times, any such creation of God had to be known by God to become evil – since the Christian god is omniscient – and this makes God look like a dick; he knew it was going to happen and let it happen anyway! Angelic beings becoming evil also not special in mythology.

 

Angel-human hybrids? Someone has not read ANY mythology other than their own.

 

New heavens and new earth? As I’ve written before, I’m not impressed with believers’ visions of heaven which often sounds a lot like life on earth without having to pay taxes. I get it, though, your life on earth sucks and you need to believe it’ll get better after you die. Yet for some reason, most y’all are scared to die just like anyone else.

 

Comparing one religion to another and pointing out where one is supposedly special whereas the other is not does not validate one’s religion. It just makes you look ignorant. That’s fine for Christians I suppose for in being ignorant and meek they shall allegedly inherit the earth. Mmm, yeah, judging by their work so far, that’s been working out great.

Christians Against Dinosaurs

 A few months ago, I scanned a headline about a group seeking the removal of a dinosaur statue outside a McDonalds in Tucson, AZ. Having lived in Tucson and familiar with the landmark, I was intrigued to the point of actually reading the article.

The group is called ‘Christians Against Dinosaurs’ (aka CAD) which maintains a Facebook page with a dead link to christiansagainstdinosaurs.com (I guess the CAD admins don’t make enough money or haven’t heard about free web hosting). Per the Facebook page, the philosophy – such as it is – maintains: There is no evidence dinosaurs ever existed, that dinosaurs ever existed is based on assumptions, Jurassic Park is not a documentary (I wasn’t aware anyone thought that), dinosaurs in musea(?) are made of plaster, carbon dating is not reliable, and that chickens are not modern dinosaurs. The group admins repeatedly assert they have done the scientific research and have concluded – with no help from their faith – that dinosaurs never existed. Furthermore, to believe in dinosaurs is dangerous because, well, it’s false and naturally leads people away from the Christian god.

 

Of course, I couldn’t help but be tempted to join the group and weigh in on their discussions. I also knew it would be fruitless to change anyone’s mind, so why would I bother? Because insanity doesn’t get a free pass, ever, even when you can’t cure the ill. I’m glad I did join, though, because what I discovered is a potentially dangerous group of people.

 

Let’s begin with their denial of the evidence, of which there is a lot. What I mean is that we’ve recovered fossilized bones (NOT the bones themselves, which CAD members don’t seem to understand) of many exceptionally sized animals that would be classified as lizards. (Lizards being their classification based on anatomy and physiology, and in this case, supposedly their behavior; based on modern lizards). We’ve recovered LOTS of fossils of these lizards and as the evidence mounted, yes, assumptions were made that these fossilized bones belonged to (often large) lizards that we do not see anymore. Because what else could they be?

 

Ah, the ‘fossilized’ bones are either all fakes and/or were put in place by Satan to deceive all of us about there ever being dinosaurs, because the more time you spend obsessing about dinosaurs the less time you spend with God. (The devil couldn’t come up with a better plan than that? That’s disappointing.)

Certainly, nevermind that most adults spend more time at church than on dinosaurs even if they did go through a dinosaur phase as a child. I mean, no one is missing church to go catch the latest Jurassic Park movie. Sheesh. So we can dismiss the Satan Theory as being childish nonsense but to claim all the recoveries are fake? That would be a massive undertaking and human beings aren’t exactly known for keeping their mouths shut the larger a conspiracy becomes. BUT, the fakes are driven by money, prestige and power, leading us to the perpetrators of the conspiracy – Big Paleo. Ooo, scary.

 

I think CAD’s claim about Big Paleo being in it for the money is so ludicrous that it highlights the lack of research group members must avoid. Their assertion is that the field of paleontology makes so much money, that is what drives the industry to lie about what they’ve discovered and what they do. Now, I couldn’t find any estimates on how much money the field of paleontology makes annually, but literally no one thinks of paleontologists first when asked to make a short list of opportunistic careers. (Click here for a list of the most influential – not richest – paleontologists https://paleontologyworld.com/paleontologists-curiosities/12-most-influential-paleontologists ). By comparison, the faith industry in the U.S. alone makes approximately a trillion dollars a year. So, if money is the motivating factor for paleontologists, why aren’t they pastor instead? They’re in the wrong industry! And I won’t even mention the fact that you need at least a Masters degree to make any money in paleontology whereas you don’t need any education to lead a flock astray. So why go through the trouble? By the way, can you can name at least one mega-rich pastor off the top of your head? Who can’t! The lie about Big Paleo is an attempt to cash-in on the hysteria of phrases like Big Pharma and Big Oil which are seen as inherently evil, which in this case is an outright lie. (I know what you’re thinking, why would a Christian lie about something? Perhaps being Christian, they’re already immune to facts. I’m not sure. Actually I do know why but that’s not important right now.)

 

Could it be that Big Paleo is driven by prestige and power? That is possibly more likely since we know spiritual leaders are likely motivated by the same factors; it’s just a human thing to do, pretend you hold special knowledge. So that’s a possible explanation for the ‘lie’ but since that motivation applies to so many people in so many fields, the point is perhaps moot. Except when it comes to fossilized bones there is no special knowledge: We have a bunch of bones that when we compare them can be classified in a certain way and leads us to certain conclusions. As I mentioned the conclusion may be somewhat inexact, but the overall conclusion that really large lizards once roamed the earth is inescapable. (Or at least that’s what Satan wants us to think. I keep mentioning to CAD members that the evidence is there but they just don’t want to hear it; it would be too much mental work for them to draw any conclusions from it.)

 

I also point out that even if we take it as a matter of faith that dinosaurs existed, this is no different than any of them believing in God on faith. Naturally, they always counter this by saying matters of faith are not subject to scientific inquiry as if they’re being clever in avoiding the ‘evidence trap.’ So CAD gets upset that paleontologists tell everyone that dinosaurs existed based on the evidence. What they don’t realize is that, epistemologically speaking, ultimately every belief is a matter of faith, which circles back to my point about just believing in dinosaurs on faith as a non-starter. In other words, they shouldn’t be getting upset if, really, believing dinosaurs existed is a matter of faith since evidence isn’t required for beliefs. CAD doesn’t realize any analysis of their argument in dividing the beliefs undermines that argument. (I’d like to add here that there is evidence for every belief we have, though that evidence may be falsified or be a false claim. No one is born with a belief in God, though it seems human beings are born with an innate ability to believe in the nonsensical or the flimsiest of ‘evidence,’ like a book written by superstitious tribal men.)

 

But aren’t all the dinosaur bones in museums fakes, made of plaster? Many are because fossilized bones which really aren’t ‘bones’ in the way we understand them are very fragile. (This link speaks to the definition and fragility of fossils https://www.amnh.org/dinosaurs/dinosaur-bones#:~:text=The%20%22dinosaur%20bones%22%20that%20you,bones%20are%20turned%20into%20rock. ) Yet many real fossils do appear in museums around the world. Sure, some are plaster replicas made from molds or are guesswork where skeletons have been recovered incomplete, but even forensic scientists do the latter with human bodies. (So I guess we should consider human skeletons that aren’t recovered fully intact fake? I know, that’s a stretch, but it was fun to write.)

 

At this point I’m going to move on to their disdain for (radio)carbon dating which everyone knows can only date organic material back 50,000 years or so. Paleontologists use a different kind of radiometric dating to determine the age of the rock and sediment fossilized bones are found in and that helps estimate the age of a recovery. The most rudimentary research can point this out, so for a group that claims to be scientifically minded they goofed one of their primary talking points. Good grief, CAD’s not doing so well so far.

 

Hold on! You mean chickens aren’t modern dinosaurs? Let’s file this under ‘N’ for No Shit, Sherlock. Chickens aren’t even lizards. Alas, the evidence seems to indicate birds have descended from dinosaurs, because evolution. I won’t get into evolution here because many of its detractors either can’t grasp the basic concepts involved or refuse to believe it on religious grounds. Anyone who says chickens are modern dinosaurs means they are descendants, not that they’re actually dinosaurs. But leave it to CAD not to understand this.

 

Behind all their misleading and outright false drivel is something inevitably more sinister, however. Checking in on them this evening (you gotta keep an eye on these people) sees one CAD member going on a rant because he came across a dinosaur’s face plastered on a case of beer. That’s being a little triggered, wouldn’t you say? CAD members often post such pictures with such pithy captions as, “This is not okay!” or “Dinosaurs never existed!” Similarly, for every new report of a recovery, a CAD member will inevitably remark, “Jesus is really testing us,” making it clear that at least some members really do think dinosaur bones were put in place by Satan.

 

CAD’s desire to see dinosaurs erased from all aspects of culture indicate the worst tendencies of humanity. Among them, the inability to understand science, the declaration of special knowledge, and to be clearly divorced from reality while insisting their religious beliefs have nothing to do with their denial of the evidence. And the group is clearly religiously motivated, which can never be not troubling. Then there’s the fact that they are a group, having consciously sought each other out for the purposes of locking themselves into an echo chamber. Sure, you can try to reason with them, but the echo is too loud and we know by now that reason is not enough to make people abandon false beliefs.

 

Unsurprisingly, member as the group will go out of their way to lie and create memes such as the David Attenborough one here, giving a quote the man never said. Perhaps they missed the commandment (not optional) against bearing false witness? Called out on their lies, they never acknowledge it. Like so many people, their truth is the only truth that matters. Fortunately, science – and courtrooms to a lesser degree – don’t give a fuck about what you think is reality. This raises a question: Should people be allowed to believe their own ‘facts’? Both the far-right and far-left think so, and this is what has made such a cultural and political mess of the United States.

 

What is to be done with CAD, then, leave them to their own device? Ignoring them is more dangerous than fruitlessly trying to reason with them because if we can prevent even one more indoctrination, it’s worth it. Plus, it makes ourselves feel better to insult intentionally stupid people, does it not? It seems to work for them. Interesting that they don’t like it when the shoe’s on the other foot.

All Rights Reserved (C) Theory Parker Dec. 2020

In the Beginning of Creationism vs Evolution

I’ve met an alarming number of creationists lately with whom – due to circumstances – I am unable to debate publicly. On one hand, I largely do not care what people believe as long as they’re not jerks or insist on foisting their beliefs on others. On the other hand, people are so unreasonable, it boggles reasonable minds and something must be said about their erroneous beliefs that they do want to foist upon others. Of course, the belief in creationism over evolution as an explanation for how life may have begun fits the bill.

While evolution doesn’t really explain how life began, people of many faiths and denominations of those faith take this to mean they should devise an explanation that is supernatural. What has long bothered me about creationism as an explanation for life’s origins is this – a believer, probably unknown to themselves because they do no critical analysis of their beliefs, is in essence saying that it is more likely that some divine being took a lump of clay and breathed life into said clay to create a man than molecules could spontaneously come together and at some point begin replicating themselves. The believer believes this despite ample evidence that the universe often displays self-organizing behavior; the formation of galactic clusters, galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets and the elements all of those things are made of to say nothing of the laws of physics that keeps everything stable enough for long enough in order for things to organize. Granted, this doesn’t speak directly to the origin of life, but indirectly speaking it seems plausible that a molecule – possibly RNA according to biologists current theories – might start copying itself or make other molecules due to natural chemical reactions and just might organize themselves into a larger system. As I said, the universe is not without a few examples, examples that are even prior to known life.

Moreover, the explanatory power of evolution is much greater than that of creationism whose powers of explanation do not go beyond the initiation of life. For the creationist who wishes to have their cake and eat it too, meaning they believe in creationism which is guided by evolution thereafter, they are merely shorting the process of evolution by one step. Why not just accept the first step as well or simply admit that one does not know how life began? Evolutionists – at least the ones who know what they’re talking about – will always say that the theory of evolution does not (yet) explain the origin of life, though from what they have inferred from the process thus far, it seems more likely that some molecule in prehistory began the evolution of life rather than submitting the explanation that an invisible and supposedly benevolent force made life simply pop into existence. In short, questions about the origin of life boils down to this: Is it more plausible that life suddenly popped into existence thanks to an invisible force that is sentient or that life began by some simple molecules organizing themselves? Maybe the answer depends upon how much one understands chemistry and biology, and maybe even physics.

As is always worth noting as well is that the very premise of life having a supernatural origin while the originator itself has no creator is completely nonsensical and arbitrary. If a creationist is going to be arbitrary in their beliefs or even claim evidence for their beliefs, why is it wrong for an evolutionist to be arbitrary in their beliefs or claim they have evidence for their beliefs? In actuality, both groups of ‘believers’ have life originating from non-life. Better to have something rather than nothing in common one supposes. Only, why something rather than nothing? 

Manson Family Values

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father and his mother, and wife

and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be

my disciple.” Jesus; in Luke 14:26

I don’t know about you but when I think of the typical American family,

I think of picket fences, summer picnics with 2.5 kids, and cuddly puppy dogs worthy of their own Hallmark cards; the perfect lily white Stepford wives community where we all shower love and support upon one another with nary a cloud in the sky.

And back to reality. These days there isn’t much respect to be had for the family. Spousal and child physical and mental abuse, single parent households, teen pregnancy that lets the fathers off the hook, drug use, too many video games, smart phone use and TV, not enough education, and so on and so forth. For Americans, the phrase “dysfunctional family” has become the default definition of a family. We now live in a day and age when a family that isn’t dysfunctional is considered to be outside the norm.

While religious conservatives would love for you to believe that liberal, homosexual communists are to blame; the disintegration of the family unit actually lies more with, shocker, religious conservatives themselves. As with most anyone worth their salt, conservatives are just as irresponsible at parenting and are among those to blame for the breakdown of the traditional family. After all, weren’t conservatives the stewards of the family unit before it all came crashing down? Somebody somewhere dropped the ball.

In an attempt to disguise and shift the blame, religious conservative in America pretend to get riled up and make a big deal out of the decline of the American family. It’s just that, by golly, the so-called “family values” they support are almost nowhere to be found in the book (the Bible) they claim extols such virtues. [At least Muslims are generally consistent with aligning their values with the Koran in their attempts to subjugate others.] Are religious conservatives for or against the following family values? I’ll report. You decide.

Incest. Any religious conservative will say they condemn such a thing, but the Bible practically condones it! Naturally you don’t believe me, but don’t take my word for. Take God’s word for it. In the Bible, when Lot and his daughters are hanging out in a cave, Lot’s daughters get him drunk and have sex with him and get themselves preggers (Genesis 19:30-38). What, no outcry from the good Lord above? That’s weird. And what about Moses? Moses was the product of an incestuous marriage yet was one God’s favorite characters. I mean, really favorite characters. To be fair, though, the Bible does condemn incestuous marriage in Leviticus. It’s just that God certainly makes exceptions, such as in the case of Abraham and his sister. Ah, what a capricious god.

Sexual abuse. Likewise with incest, it’s hard to find in the Bible where God is against such a thing. Didn’t the previously mentioned Lot offer up his daughters as a sacrifice to an unruly mob (Genesis 19:8)? Rape doesn’t seem to be much of a concern to God. Why, in the Book of Deuteronomy the penalty for raping a virgin is the sum of fifty shekels and having to wed said virgin. Gosh, that’ll make her feel better. Taking female virgins as spoils of war is also okay-ed in the Bible; in Numbers, Judges, and Deuteronomy.

Child abuse. The Book of Proverbs offers up some good advice for dealing with unruly kids. Proverbs 13:24 tells us not to spare the rod. As in, “It was Daddy, in the bedroom, with the lead pipe.” Proverbs 22:15 states beating your child will make them less foolish and perhaps even wise, as stated in Proverbs 29:15. Proverbs 23:13-14 tells us to beat our children hard and often, ya’ know, to deliver their souls from Hell. But wait, there’s more! Exodus 21:7-8 gives instructions on how to sell your daughter. Exodus 21:15-17 and Leviticus 20:9 instruct us to execute a child who hits or curses their parent. And don’t even get me started on that whole circumcision thing! But hey, what are children but glorified piñatas anyway?

Polygamy. Sure we outlaw it these days but that’s hardly because God condemns it. In Genesis, Lamech is the first in a loooong line of really horny dudes to have more than one wife.

The first thing a religious conservative will say in response to this is, “Well, that’s the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus preaches love.” Oh, really? When Jesus preached love, he sure did it in contradiction to respecting your family. On one hand you’ve got Jesus telling people that loving your neighbor is second only to loving God. On the other hand Jesus says in Luke 18:29-30 that if a man leaves his family for God, he’ll be greatly rewarded in Heaven. He affirms more family values when in Acts 16:30-31 he says that if you believe in him your whole family will be saved but in Mark 10:29-30 reiterates what he said in the previously mentioned Luke 18:29-30, giving men great rewards for abandoning their families. Am I really expected to take tips on living harmoniously with my family from a guy who is never once shown to speak kindly to his mother, Mary, and never once speaking at all to his (step) father, Joseph? Am I really expected to follow the example of a man who in Luke 8:10-12 intentionally speaks in parables to keep some people from being saved? Am I really expected to live in the manner of a man who would curse a fig tree for not bearing fruit at his whim? Jesus wasn’t a family man. He was bonkers.

If religious conservatives are to have an argument when they claim they want to protect the traditional American family for religious reasons, they should consider being consistent*. Don’t point out how honky-dory the Bible is when you don’t even adhere to its most basic teachings. If today’s Republican presidential candidates want power, why not just come out and say they want the right to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, the right to sell their daughters, the right to beat their sons within an inch of their lives if they so much as peep when they’re not supposed to? Ah, of course if they did all that, maybe there wouldn’t be so many people in church anymore, at least not of their own free will (putting aside that free will, cough cough, is supposed to be really important to God). Which reminds me, do they ever ask a child if they want the tip of its dick looped off?

“And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.” Genesis 17:14

Way to shun a family member over a piece of skin, God. You are one sick dude.

[* To Jeb Bush’s credit, he has suggested that working-class Americans – the Americans tasked with preserving the family – work longer hours in order to shore up the economy. The consequence, of course, would be that parents would spend even less time with their children than they already do. This would be another form of abuse perfectly in synch with Biblical teachings. Interestingly, one of his competitors for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, has nothing but bad things to say about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, a group of people to whom family is far more important than their fairer skinned American counter-parts. And this…is nothing short of Manson Family Values.]