My question has been answered!

The Official God FAQ site is here, and it has all the answers!

(Thanks to Protium, who had posted this on his blog here.)

Biblical Error is Impossible...

Here is the Vatican's position (from the Vatican website), in the words of Pope Leo XIII in 'Providentissimus Deus' (his 1893 encyclical on the Study of Holy Scripture):

"[I]t is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it-this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican. These are the words of the last: "The Books of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, as enumerated in the decree of the same Council (Trent) and in the ancient Latin Vulgate, are to be received as sacred and canonical. And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author." "

Wow, I thought the Catholics were one of the more lenient in terms of explaining away some of the more obscure passages. I guess I was wrong.

Intelligent Design?

Neil Tyson is a brilliant scientist. He uses logic and reasoning extremely well. There are numerous videos of him on YouTube that show how great a speaker he is. This following is one of my favorites: (thanks, Tommy) BTW: it kind of relates to my previous post, but I didn't see this video until tonight.

Does God have legs?

Upon reflecting on the creation stories of the Bible while sitting on the shitter (I had nothing to read at the time), more questions arose in me regarding the Christian God of the Bible. It is said that man was created "in the image of God". Did God have legs? I wondered this because he apparently had nothing to stand on for all eternity in the vastness of nothingness. Why would He need legs? He needn't walk anywhere. Why do we have legs? Why don't we have the ability to float or fly or 'exist' in our space? Now I can see the arms thing. You can say they were needed for 'creating', but I figure He could just do it with His mind or something.

Now my mind started to race to other things that I had never given thought to about the man/God physical relationship (no, not that kind of physical relationship!)

Why do we need to eat and drink to survive? Certainly there was no need for food or water for God to survive. He being the omniscient He is (supposed to be), He could save millions of the needless suffering people and children that starve to death, dehydration, food poisoning, etc.

Why do we need to breathe air to survive? God exists in space or nothingness. There is no atmosphere for God. Why do we need air to breathe so we can survive? Again, many needless deaths could have been avoided by those who suffocate, drown, or get lung cancer (smoking would not be an option if we needn't breathe, right?) And why did God create 75% of the Earth's surface water if we cannot survive in it as a natural environment?

Why do we require a person of the opposite sex (God seems to be male according to the Bible) to procreate? And how did God determine what a female would look like? He did not make the female in 'His' image, unless He has tits and a vagina (and a monthly penchant for being pissed off...hey, now that explains a lot of the evil God in the Old Testament!) But that would negate the whole "created man in His image" argument.

Speaking of procreation, why did we need to procreate? Why didn't God just make all of us. He made Adam (and Eve), so why not make everyone? That would save so many needless deaths from pregnancy complications, abortion, stillborns, etc. And it would not require sex, so rape would not exist (and homosexualism- since the Christian's seem to be so against it.)

Why do we require temperatures in the ~ 35F to 100F degree range to survive? God apparently needs no heat to survive. He exists in nothingness. How cold (or hot) is that? I would venture a guess of something like deep space with no sun for heat... pretty effing cold! How about creating a perfect planet with a balmy 72F all over, all year round? This would negate heatstroke, burning to death, frostbite, hypothermia, etc. Damn, this dude is starting to sound like a really sick bastard now.

I'm sure more will come to me, but I will need to eat a few burritos first to make it back to my 'thinking chair'.

The Anger and the Atheist

I recently was referred to this post by Greta Christina today, and felt I should link to it through my blog. It deals with atheist anger: why she has it, and why it's a good thing. She brings up many good points and there are great comments following the post.

Greta appears to be a good writer, and I will be visiting her blog more often to see what else she has to say. Give it a read, it is well-written and worth the time.

A Christian's Response to 'God is Impossible'

In a comment on my first post, I had posted portions of 'Why God is Impossible' by Chad Docterman. Garrett Drew Ellis decided he would give a response to refute the post. Below is his response. (His response is in bold with the original post in italics):

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THE WAIT IS OVER….

Harry,
Here’s my answer. I am glad you didn’t write this because you are much smarter than this. A large part of it, for lack of a better phrase, sucks.

What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.

The bible never says God needs us and I would beg to disagree that just because you are perfect/complete that means that you don’t desire anything. I was a complete person without my wife but that doesn’t mean I didn’t desire her.
I also don’t have a problem with God having feelings. It just shows that we are more like Him than we think, that it is okay to be emotional.

But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect God did create the universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since they were created in God's image and have the ability to make decisions. However, these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey God.

What!? If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this "perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible.

But what is possible is a Perfect God creating humans who were created in a state to remain perfect or to become imperfect. At the point of creation, this does not take away from the fact that they were created in His likeness.

Genesis talks about God creating man in His image, meaning with personality and being triune, body, soul and spirit. But then He also talks about a point where, if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, they would become more like Him. Knowing good and evil. This shows that they were innocent at the point of creation but while they were perfect and “good” in His sight, they were going to be faced with the choice to either stay that way or not. Simply because the highest form of love comes from wanting to love someone, not from not having the choice not to.

The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.

Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.

I don’t know where this rule came from but I have never heard it before and to be quite honest, its false. Adam and Eve were happy before they fell. And God creating beings capable of ruining their own happiness, choosing Him in the face of evil is not impossible. In fact, it is not far from a human father wanting his son to love him because he wants to love him, not because he has to.

Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.

What kinda choice is that?! That’s not a real, substance filled choice. I would rather my kids look at a table of vegetables and cookies and for supper choose the vegetables than to look at a table full of 3 varieties of cookies and choose cookies. OOOOOH, what a choice

Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently?

The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.

No it does not. Its presence proves that real love comes in the face of adversity, not endless perfection.

God is omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings which humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been better for those humans to never have been born (in fact, the Bible says this very thing), and surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of the humans were doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible.

They are doomed to suffer not because He wants them to suffer but because adversity creates appreciation and gratitude. A doctor doesn’t want you to suffer but he knows that in order to allow your leg to heal correctly, he may have to break a few bones and cause a little more pain before the process can really begin

God is perfectly just, and yet he sentences the imperfect humans he created to infinite suffering in hell for finite sins. Clearly, a limited offense does not warrant unlimited punishment. God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is infinitely more unjust than this punishment. The absurd injustice of this infinite punishment is even greater when we consider that the ultimate source of human imperfection is the God who created them. A perfectly just God who sentences his imperfect creation to infinite punishment for finite sins is impossible.

Whoever wrote this needs to watch out because they are placing a definition of what they think that is enough punishment for an offense in front of THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE. Who are they to define justice when they are the ones committing the crime? They are not the victim so they can’t define the punishment.

Consider all of the people who live in the remote regions of the world who have never even heard the "gospel" of Jesus Christ. Consider the people who have naturally adhered to the religion of their parents and nation as they had been taught to do since birth. If we are to believe the Christians, all of these people will perish in the eternal fire for not believing in Jesus. It does not matter how just, kind, and generous they have been with their fellow humans during their lifetime: if they do not accept the gospel of Jesus, they are condemned. No just God would ever judge a man by his beliefs rather than his actions.

The bible clearly teaches a two part answer to this question. The first part is that God works on both the levels of “nation” and of “individual”. Revelations talks about the fact that God will not begin the end time events until every nation has had an opportunity to hear the gospel. So they won’t have an excuse. The second part is that in regards to individuals, there are also two parts. 1 is that this is the reason for evangelism and the great commission. It is the job of the Christian to present, not force, the gospel to everyone they meet. 2nd, for those who don’t hear, the bible talks about the conscience bearing witness of God and this being the standard by which he will judge those who came before the time of Jesus,(the OT), those who die without hearing the gospel and those left on the earth after the rapture of the Church.

The Bible is supposedly God's perfect Word. It contains instructions to humankind for avoiding the eternal fires of hell. How wonderful and kind of this God to provide us with this means of overcoming the problems for which he is ultimately responsible! The all-powerful God could have, by a mere act of will, eliminated all of the problems we humans must endure, but instead, in his infinite wisdom, he has opted to offer this indecipherable amalgam of books which is the Bible as a means for avoiding the hell which he has prepared for us. The perfect God has decided to reveal his wishes in this imperfect work, written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man.

Once again, this is going on the presumption that the fallen state of this world is God’s fault, which I think I made clear I don’t agree with.

But I will say that God chose to make the bible a book that would be inspired by God and written/influenced by men for the reason that our intellect and experience need both deity and humanity in order to work the way He created it to.

No two men will ever agree what this perfect word of God is supposed to mean, since much of it is either self- contradictory, or obscured by enigmatic symbols. And yet the perfect God expects us imperfect humans to understand this paradoxical riddle using the imperfect minds with which he has equipped us. Surely the all-wise and all-powerful God would have known that it would have been better to reveal his perfect will directly to each of us, rather than to allow it to be debased and perverted by the imperfect language and botched interpretations of man.

There is a world wide community of both scholarship (secular and theological) that agree upon what the bible says. There are a vast amount of Christians in community that agree also (with exceptions). There are even leaders and members of OTHER RELIGIONS who can look at the bible and agree on interpretation, regardless of whether they accept it as true or not.

It is so aggravating that there is a world of scholarship out there that answers all of these supposed contradictions in the bible but because people don’t want to really be open minded, they only search for what supports their bias. Now I am not a scholar and don’t have all of the answer but there are those who are scholarly. If you really want to know, REALLY WANT TO KNOW, search harder than just a blog where people with doctorates in theology, archaelogy and the like rarely visit.

One need look to no source other than the Bible to discover its imperfections, for it contradicts itself and thus exposes its own imperfection. It contradicts itself on matters of justice, for the same just God who assures his people that sons shall not be punished for the sins of their fathers turns around and destroys an entire household for the sin of one man (he had stolen some of Yahweh's war loot). It was this same Yahweh who afflicted thousands of his innocent people with plague and death to punish their evil king David for taking a census (?!). It was this same Yahweh who allowed the humans to slaughter his son because the perfect Yahweh had botched his own creation. Consider how many have been stoned, burned, slaughtered, raped, and enslaved because of Yahweh's skewed sense of justice. The blood of innocent babies is on the perfect, just, compassionate hands of Yahweh.

The Bible contradicts itself on matters of history. A person who reads and compares the contents of the Bible will be confused about exactly who Esau's wives were, whether Timnah was a concubine or a son, and whether Jesus' earthly lineage is through Solomon or his brother Nathan. These are but a few of hundreds of documented historical contradictions. If the Bible cannot confirm itself in mundane earthly matters, how are we to trust it on moral and spiritual matters?

The Bible misinterprets its own prophecies. Read Isaiah 7 and compare it to Matthew 1 to find but one of many misinterpreted prophecies of which Christians are either passively or willfully ignorant. The fulfillment of prophecy in the Bible is cited as proof of its divine inspiration, and yet here is but one major example of a prophecy whose intended meaning has been and continues to be twisted to support subsequent absurd and false doctrines. There are no ends to which the credulous will not go to support their feeble beliefs in the face of compelling evidence against them.

The Bible is imperfect. It only takes one imperfection to destroy the supposed perfection of this alleged Word of God. Many have been found. A perfect God who reveals his perfect will in an imperfect book is impossible.

Many of these” imperfections” have also been misconstrued, misinterpreted and misdirected. And they have also been answered by men who have the answers. Scholarship has come a long way. Secular society needs to accept the fact that there is more evidence for this than they think.

A God who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient God who is all-powerful and freewilled is impossible.

This point is stupid. Freewill by definition states that you are “free” to do anything. Even place yourself under limitation if you see fit. And just because you set something in motion that allows people to make choices and you can see what happens to them in the future doesn’t mean its your fault. It means they had a choice.

A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness. We humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. A man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. In contrast, the omniscient God is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may emotively react.

Where is this person coming up with their rules? Just pulling it out of thin air? Having knowledge does not limit how you feel about it. In contrast, the more you know about something, the more of an emotional attachment you have to it.

We humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we cannot fix. The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix anything. Humans experience longing for things we lack. The perfect God lacks nothing. An omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who experiences emotion is impossible.

So the only time we are emotional is when we are in need? What about the times when things go right. We don’t get emotional then? This person needs to stop making broad statements because as I have said before, they are all stupid.

What you think?

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I will post my comments in the comment section, so I don't have to put three different opinions on one post, since it may make it hard to follow. Anyone feel free to agree or disagree as you see fit.

Prayer - Does it Work?

A nice fellow who has been commenting on my blog by the name of Garrett Drew Ellis brought up an interesting point that really got me thinking. Here is what he typed:

"Harry,
Once again, i do have to defend prayer. all through the bible you see that it, as well as the role of the holy spirit, gives access to God. But this is not something you have to accept. A non believer wouldn't get it. :)"

I started thinking about prayer. All the times I have prayed for something that either I needed or wanted. The times I asked for help and guidance in certain matters. The times I prayed for others' needs or for help for others. Why did my prayers not get answered? Was I being selfish? Not in the instances of praying to help others through medical difficulties, surely! But why had God not helped them? Were they not worthy? Or did I taint them because I was not worthy of asking God to help them?

Well, look to the Bible to see what it says about prayer. In Matthew 7:7 Jesus says:

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

In Matthew 21:21:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

In John chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, Jesus tells all of us just how easy prayer can be:

"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

Well, this seems to be a line of bullshit right there!

In James 5:15-16 the Bible says:

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

So why do people not heal when prayed for? This prayer thing just does not work!

Now I could go back and contribute some good things that have happened in my life to prayers being answered. But that still leaves about 99% of all the other prayers unaccounted for. If prayer really worked, then there would be recorded instances of true miracles being performed like amputees growing back limbs. But this has never happened in recorded history that I am aware of. And if the Bible was true and accurate, we could ask for anything in God's name and it would be granted. So I have to say that the Bible is blatantly lying about prayer.

I wonder if I could get my money back from all the contributions I have made to the Catholic church through the years? False advertising. Bait-and-switch tactics. Maybe we should organize a class-action lawsuit against the Catholic church (or any church that claims the Bible is true and accurate.)

My Bible Made Me Do It (Doubt)

My doubts about my faith came only after I started reading the Bible on my own without the "guidance" of my church to tell me what parts to read. The Christian Bible is a book. It may have even been considered a good book by the standards of the time it was written. But to truly be a Christian, you have to believe that the Bible is "the word of God" or "inspired by God." And if anyone reads the entire book and can tell me that they believe everything in the Bible, then I have to dismiss that person as being illogical and/or ignorant.

To someone living in times that the Bible was written, I can see how they could believe most of the stories of the Bible. After about the year 1700 or so, I could see how they could believe some of the stories of the Bible as being true. But to anyone living in our "age of enlightenment" of science and human knowledge, I just can't see how they could believe any of it as being the "Truth".

Upon reading the Bible, it gave me real doubts about my religious beliefs. I contacted a priest at my local church to help me sort out my "evil thoughts" about the Bible. I told him how the story of Noah's Ark had to be false, talking of taking every species of animal into the Ark with only himself and 5 others to round up, care for, feed, dispose of waste, etc. There are numerous other reasons to disbelieve the story of Noah, some of which I brought up to him (not even taking into account that God destroyed every living human, animal, plant, etc on the planet besides the Ark inhabitants.) He was pretty logical by explaining that most stories of the Bible are parables and not meant to be taken literally (which leads to other issues of doubt in itself.)

I also mentioned some inerrancy and contradictions I noticed during my readings. He shrugged them off as items like "lost in translations" of the Bible, the "human errors" made during writing the Bible, making sure you are following proper context of the verses, and other crap. If anything, these meetings brought my faith into more doubt than before. I assume this priest was not used to defending the Bible. I bet I could have received better explanations from a Jehovah's Witness elder, as I am sure they are on the defensive a lot more and have prepared answers from a checksheet or FAQ they have from The Lighthouse.

Thus, the Bible ended up being the reason I doubt my religion. Ironic, no?