Sunday Sermon: But What About HITLER?!?

Perhaps my favorite rebuttal offered by Christians or other theists is the Reductio ad Hitlerum in which the Christian attempts to discredit atheism and evolution by claiming "But Hitler was an atheist! And so were Stalin and Mao! Therefore atheism and evolution leads to wanton murder and genocide!"

If these claims are accurate, they clearly paint a very bleak picture of atheism. After all, Hitler is responsible for the deaths of 20,946,000 people, Stalin for 51,755,000 deaths, and Mao for 56,218,000 deaths. That said, these allegations, are problematic on a couple of levels.

Sunday Sermon: What About Islam?

It is not at all uncommon - especially on websites that criticize Christianity - to see some commenter or other make a snide little remark to the effect of "You atheists never have any problem attacking Christianity because you know that we won't kill you for it, but are any of you brave enough to attack the homophobic and womon-abusing Islamic religion?"

Sunday Sermon: What Might Have Been

There are a fairly standard set of objections that are used against Christianity. Just to name a few: Christianity is notoriously homophobic, has outdated views on sexuality and reproduction, has a long history of wanton murder, horrendously intolerant of other points of view, and insistent that people were born as broken, wicked, evil people, who deserve to burn forever unless they bow to Jesus.

All of these are blatant problems that typically drive people away from Christianity. Even many Christians have adopted the "New Covenant" doctrine to allow them to casually discard the Old Testament whenever it becomes inconvenient, simply by claiming that Jesus changed the verse in question. This argument typically doesn't hold up when arguing against non-christians, as non-christians realize that the Old Testament seems to not apply, only for those verses where the Christian in question doesn't want that particular verse to apply (i.e. homosexuality is still a sin, but dietary restrictions on eating shellfish don't apply, even though they're in the same book).

Bearing this in mind, I would like this post to be a mixture of a brief history lesson, and some wishful thinking. You see, Christianity didn't have to be this way. In the early to mid second century, Marcion of Sinope was heading up the Marcionite church, which, for a few years, was a real contender to become the dominant Christian faith.

Sunday Sermon: An Atheist in the Courtroom

I've been encountering the same logically flawed objection to atheism a lot lately, and I feel the need to at least attempt to put this objection to bed. The objection usually runs as follows:

"How can you be sure that there is no god? Do you have any proof that there is no god?"

This is an attempt at reversing the long-time atheist argument that "claims require supporting evidence", by saying that an atheists denial of the existence of deities is a also claim that must be supported by evidence. While this may initially seem like a decent argument, it's logic is actually terribly flawed.

Sunday Sermon: The Invention of the Gods

For just a little while today, let's go on a trip. Close your eyes… actually on second thought, ignore that, You're reading a blog post. It won't work if you close your eyes. Regardless, imagine for a moment that you are alone, walking through the savannah. It is a beautiful spring day in the middle of Africa. The year is 150,000 BCE.

Schrödinger's Freedom of Speech

There is a fairly well-known thought experiment known as Schrödinger's Cat. The basic idea of the thought experiment is that, if one were to accept a certain interpretation of quantum mechanics, it would follow that a cat placed into a box, would at some point be simultaneously alive and dead. I'm not a physicist (although I try to stay somewhat informed as a layperson), so if you want to know more about Schrödinger's and his cat, pray to Google, for she is a wise and benevolent deity.

Anyways, I didn't start this post to talk about physicists and their hypothetical cats, but to talk about freedom of speech. It occurred to me last night during a conversation with a friend, that I simultaneously do, and do not, agree with the concept of free speech (hence the title of this post). Allow me to explain.

The Bible: Just the Good Stuff Translation

It is not at all uncommon for Christians to have to "cherry pick" their Bibles in order to avoid the horrendous immorality, logical inconsistency or impossibility, historical inaccuracy, and/or outright contradictions that makes up so much of the book. On a few occasions, I've even said "If you will go into your own Bible, take a permanent marker, black out that verse, and tell me that that verse is false and not the word of Yhwh, I will no longer hold that verse against you in debate." To date, I've found not one Christian who was so sure of what Yhwh meant, that they were willing to black out a verse to improve their Bible.

So, in the spirit of fair play, I've decided to redact the Bible in advance. In my new translation, I've removed every immoral teaching, implausibility, falsehood, etc, and kept only the good stuff. By using my new translation of the Bible, no Christian will ever again have to be embarrassed by the content of the Bible, undertake embarrassing mental gymnastics to explain how it "isn't really that bad", or have to explain how they're a Christian who "doesn't really believe in that verse".

Let's call this new translation:
"The Bible: Just the Good Stuff Translation (JGST)"