The omnipotence paradox

Via YouTube:

In a video series YouTube user Mike Winger calls, “Things Atheists Should Never Say,” he claims that nonbelievers should never ask this question to believers: “Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it?”

I believe the typical phraseology goes like this: “Can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it,” with the common perception being that if God is all-powerful, he could, in theory, create an object bigger than his omnipotence will allow him to lift, thus hurling his supposed nature into logical entropy. This is called the omnipotence paradox.

Now, I’m not going to write a long essay defending this question. I and fellow nonbelievers don’t need this question, as it were, to tear holes through Christianity and religion in general, but I will add a few words in reference to some comments made over in Mike’s comments section on YouTube.

First, here was my initial response to his video:

What are the list of things an all-powerful god can’t do? It must be a short list. If an all-powerful god has a constraint in character, he is not his own agent, but rather, is answerable to some other entity. If this definition of omnipotence is wrong, then we need another definition of what you mean by “god,” because the traditional Judeo-Christian view holds that he is not only all-powerful but he is the source of all morality, this he has no constraints of character except of his choosing.

And his response:

Again, the false thinking is when we assume that the lack of the ability to do something is because of a lack of power. God cannot lie, this is because of His character not because of some lack of power. This leads to all sorts of strange thinking, I mean, how much more power does God need till He can lie? It starts to sound more and more ridiculous then more you explore it. All powerful doesn’t mean “can do anything” but it does mean “is not limited by any lack of power.”

If I can borrow a line from Nwolfe35 from the Defending the Truth forum, the apologist’s explanation about God’s supposed power usually becomes whatever it needs to be to defend the faith. Thus, Mike is saying here that it is part of God’s nature that he can’t lie, not that he has the inability to lie because of “some lack of power.” OK, but on whose authority does Mike know that God can’t lie? Because the Bible says so? And outside of the passage in Hebrew about God’s supposed natural inability to lie, how does he know? Before going on, I’ll argue again: who says God can’t tell a lie? In any case, he would need to expend very little actual energy to do so.

All we need to do is take a look at scripture to understand that not only God can lie, he does it quite openly. He tells Adam that if he eats of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he will die (More to the point, the writer of Genesis should have said “when Adam eats” of the fruit because God already knew it was going to happen). Christians like to say this is a figurative statement, but the verse simply doesn’t support it, and any attempt to read back into the story doctrine that would be developed much later in the church’s history is vacuous. The Hebrew word, “מוּת,” is used in this instance, and none of the definitions support some kind of delayed punishment that would befall sinners that was later developed in the New Testament, but the meaning is an immediate and/or premature death. Of course, we know that’s not what happened in the tale: Adam lived to be 930 years old — unless we are to believe that Adam’s punishment was being subjected to centuries of shear boredom. I don’t see how someone could argue that when the writer of Genesis jotted down “מוּת,” that he had in mind a spiritual death or delayed punishment, and certainly not that Adam would live to the ripe old age of 930. Yes, mankind was “cursed” because of the sin, but the quote about Adam eating the fruit did not say that he would be cursed, but that he would die (מוּת), as if the tree contained a poisonous fruit, which is actually the impression I got as I read this as a child. My literal childlike mind knew then that, in context, God was talking about an immediate death based on a severe disobedient action. Further, doesn’t God talk to himself (or to the other members of the godhead … or whatever) when he claims that if mankind eats of the fruit, they will become like “us,” knowing good and evil? Here is more support for a physical death interpretation: by becoming like God, mankind would have to leave his carnal existence for a spiritual one.

Next up in the pack of lies is the covenant. Yahweh tells Abram that he would inherent all the land of Canaan. This did not happen, either in the Bible or historically.

Acts 7:5: And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.

Acts 7:17-18: But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, Till another king arose, which knew not Joseph.

Hebrews 11:13: These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Hebrews 11:38-40: … they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

And historically:

But back to the original question. The argument against whether God can create something too heavy that he can’t lift is not an argument against God, necessarily, but an argument against the idea of omnipotence. Believers’ attempts to redefine omnipotence, which means

1. almighty or infinite in power, as God.
2. having very great or unlimited authority or power.

doesn’t erase the problem of omnipotence, no more than it erases the problem of omniscience, for “infinite in power” must include the ability to make a very large rock indeed, and yes, even one that crushes the logic of omnipotence under its weight. Suggestions that God can’t do something outside of his character presupposes that God gets his character from an outside source or force. If God wants to lie, he is certainly at liberty to do so because even he supercedes whatever may have been written about him in the Bible. If he wanted to change the laws of physics so that humans could walk through walls if he so desired, he could. Indeed, he does do this in some sense if we are to believe that all humans are immortal and will exist as massless souls in the afterlife.

The logic behind this question, then, is not airtight only if Christians are allowed to change the definition of omnipotent to suggest that God can’t perform an action that is against his character or nature. First, we can’t possibly know what that character is, and any believer who claims to know an all-powerful creator of the universe is either deluded or lying. Second, an all-powerful creator of the universe would seem to be unconstrained by space, time and logic itself since he knows every detail about the past, present and future. If he is beholden to the ideas that 1+1=2 or that triangles have three sides, he is not in control of everything. He could just as easily, at his whim, decree that he was changing the rules so that four-sided objects would not be called circles, dogs would now be called pigs, horses would grow wings and birds would no longer fly. If he can make our world and perfectly tune Earth to have the right conditions for life, he can just as easily send it hurling toward the sun or remove our ozone layer and let the sun scorch us to death.

How is it that Christians can say that God is constrained by the nature of his character, and thus, can’t do absolutely anything, yet still believe that he knows the future? How is omniscience more acceptable logically than God having the ability to change the laws of physics or the rules of math? As earlier stated, believers’ attempts to make God fit within the bounds of some defined character traits gets God off the hook, as it were, from being fully omnipotent and fully illogical, thus he is given whatever power necessary to defend the belief. In this case, God appears to have been demoted by several steps. I must have been mistaken; I thought this god was truly “awesome,” as the song goes. It seems that believers who do not fully believe in omnipotence and all its implications have a rather dim view of their god, so much so that the explanations given to show that God somehow does not have unlimited power or authority or is somehow constrained seems to pose more severe problems for believers than the recitation of this question in question, silly or not.

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Dawkins on why he won’t debate William Lane Craig

I was amused when I recently came across two articles from The Telegraph and The Guardian (here and here) that both bemoan Richard Dawkins’ refusal to debate William Lane Craig.

The first, written by Tim Stanley, says that Dawkins is either a “fool” or a “coward” for not taking the stage with Craig in a debate about God. Stanley proceeds to call Craig an “excellent speaker” with a “witty, deliberate style that often makes his opponents look (and probably feel) a little ridiculous.”

Therefore, everyone just presumed that Dawkins refused to debate Craig because he’s scared. He is, after all, only human (or a talking monkey, depending on your point of view).

But Dawkins is a proud man (or arrogant chimp), and the accusation of cowardice probably ate at him from within. Finally, on Thursday, he gave a proper excuse for his no show to The Guardian. Its intellectual emptiness says so much about his particular brand of atheism.

To call Dawkins scared of debating anyone is completely absurd in the first place, especially considering any notion that Dawkins was or is quaking in his boots about the possibility of debating a professional obscurantist like William Lane Craig. Please.

In the column about why he won’t debate Craig, Dawkins cites this passage from Craig, in which Craig defends the slaughter of the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 20:

“But why take the lives of innocent children? The terrible totality of the destruction was undoubtedly related to the prohibition of assimilation to pagan nations on Israel‘s part. In commanding complete destruction of the Canaanites, the Lord says, ‘You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods’ (Deut 7.3-4). … God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. … Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy.  Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.”

Dawkins in response:

Do not plead that I have taken these revolting words out of context. What context could possibly justify them?

Here is Stanley:

Actually, the context is called “Christian apologetics”, and it’s been around for centuries. It’s the attempt by scholars to present a rational basis for belief in God. … Craig’s purpose in writing this piece is to unravel the paradox of a moral Bible that also includes lashings of apparently random violence. Craig stresses that these passages of the Bible are difficult for us to read because we are not of the age in which they are written – they are just as alien to us as Beowulf or the Iliad. That’s because Christian society has been shaped by the rules of life outlined in the New Testament, not in the section of The Bible in which this massacre occurs. Far from using this passage to celebrate the slaughter of heathen, Craig is making the point that the revelation of God’s justice has changed over time. The horrors of the Old Testament have been rendered unnecessary by Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. That’s why the idiots who protest the funerals of gay soldiers or blow up abortion clinics aren’t just cruel, they’re bad theologians.

Bad theologians? Really? How is the God (or gods) of the New Testament an improvement on the Old Testament deity? In the Old Testament, we see Yahweh, through his arbitrarily chosen race of people, wreaking havoc on various tribes (men, women,  children and even livestock) in Israel’s quest to conquer the Promised Land.

Dawkins, then, does not refuse to debate Craig out of cowardice or fear but out of contempt for Craig’s failure to denounce the corrosive morality of the Old Testament. Dawkins simply does have enough respect for the man to share a stage with him, and I think that’s clear if one reads Dawkin’s entire column.

In the New Testament, Jesus, operating under the veil of peace and goodwill, actually introduces a more ruthless form of justice than Yahweh ever did. God in the Old Testament seems satisfied with merely killing innocents in the physical world and going about his business. By the time we get to the New Testament, God, we learn, will not just demand utter servitude while people are alive, but he will demand it for all eternity in heaven, or else, they will face the fire forever.

I ask again, how is this system of justice an improvement over the Old Testament? God has went from a completely carnal system (killing people as a means to conquer territory) to a spiritual judgment for non-believers, a punishment that never ends. And, of course, it is not until the New Testament that we get a more robust picture of the idea of sheol, a place of darkness or, by new Testament standards, a place of never-ending torment. So, God’s justice, while it may have changed from the Old Testament to the New, actually got more brutal and more severe by many large degrees.

Craig also claims in his article that we should not feel remorse for the children who died in the Old Testament because they were bound for heaven upon their death. But here, Craig is reading New Testament and later Christian doctrine back onto the Old Testament text because there is scant little in the OT to suggest an afterlife or a system of eternal rewards or punishments (exceptions being, perhaps, Daniel 12:2 and Psalms 16:10-11).

Of course, if God’s idea of justice did change, as is suggested based on the differences between the Old and New testament, that would also rip holes in the doctrine that God is unchanging, as goes the common church mantra: “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

On trial: ‘The Case for Christ,’ part 2

The Eyewitness Evidence: Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?

Welcome to the second part of this 16-part series on Lee’s Strobel’s “The Case for Christ.” If you missed it, here is Part I.

Strobel now gets to the meat of the book designed to investigate the trustworthiness of the New Testament authors and their accounts of the life of Jesus.

In Chapter 1, Strobel interviews Christian apologist Craig Blomberg and asks him how we know that the Matthew, Mark and Luke are the actual authors of the first three gospels. Blomberg then points, not to two sources outside of the church who can vouch for the authorship or the validity of the claims, but to two early church bishops, Papias (70 to about 155 A.D.) and Irenaeus (130-202 A.D.).

According to Blomberg,

Papias, who in about A.D. 125 specifically affirmed that Mark had carefully and accurately recorded Peter’s eyewitness observations. In fact, he said Mark “made no mistake” and did not include “any false statement.” And Papias said Matthews had preserved the teachings of Jesus as well.

Blomberg then read a quote from Irenaeus recounting that Mark was an interpreter of Peter and wrote down his teachings, while Luke wrote down the preachments of his teacher, Paul.

Strobel, in response to this news, said:

If we can have confidence that the gospels were written by the disciples Matthew and John, by Mark, the companion of the disciple Peter, and by Luke, the historian, the companion of Paul, and sort of a first-century journalist, we can be assured that the events they record are based on either direct or indirect eyewitness testimony?

“Exactly,” Blomberg responded.

A few points here before we move on. First, there is no such thing as “indirect” eyewitness testimony. Either the event was witnessed in person or it is second-hand information. And the entirety of the gospels is from secondary sources. Mark, the earliest gospel written (c. 70, or perhaps a few years earlier), was allegedly a recreation from conversations with Peter and does not claim to be a direct witness to the event. Further, Papias and Irenaeus are not unbiased sources. They were church leaders, so of course they are going to vouch for the authenticity of the gospels.

Further still, Matthew never claims to be an eyewitness. Indeed, the quote that Blomberg reads from Irenaeus looks mysteriously similar to a quote from Papias. During their interview, Strobel said Blomberg reached for “a book” from which to read the quote from Irenaeus but conveniently did not provide the source of the quote itself. Consider the following:

  • “Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there.” — unsourced quote from Irenaeus read by Blomberg
  • “Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.” — Papias, Eusebius in Hist. Eccl. 3.39

According to commentary from Peter Kirby at earlychristianwritings.com:

We know that Irenaeus had read Papias, and it is most likely that Irenaeus was guided by the statement he found there. That statement in Papias itself is considered to be unfounded because the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek and relied largely upon Mark, not the author’s first-hand experience.

But let’s grant it. What if at least one of the gospels was written by someone who was actually there? Would that change anything about the gospel’s reliability?

Doubtful. Since Strobel constantly reminds us that he is a journalist, one would think that he would know that eyewitness testimony, in court cases and in written accounts, are not reliable because our memories are not reliable. The psychology has shown this.

In a lecture titled, “The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony,” by Stanford University professors Barbara Tversky and George Fisher, said several studies have been conducted that document people’s propensity to concoct events that didn’t happen:

Elizabeth Loftus performed experiments in the mid-seventies demonstrating the effect of a third party’s introducing false facts into memory.4  Subjects were shown a slide of a car at an intersection with either a yield sign or a stop sign. Experimenters asked participants questions, falsely introducing the term “stop sign” into the question instead of referring to the yield sign participants had actually seen. Similarly, experimenters falsely substituted the term “yield sign” in questions directed to participants who had actually seen the stop sign slide. The results indicated that subjects remembered seeing the false image.

After some more discussion, Blomberg and Strobel move to the alleged claim that Jesus was God. Strobel asked Blomberg about the theological differences between the John and the other three gospels on the divinity of Jesus. Blomberg claimed that the gospels of Matthews and Mark included implicit references to Jesus’ deity:

Think of the story of Jesus walking on the water, found in Matthew 14:22-33 and Mark 6:45-52. Most English translations hide the Greek by quoting Jesus as saying, “Fear not, it is I.” Actually, the Greek literally says, “Fear not, I am.” Those last words were identical to what Jesus said in John 8:58, when he took upon himself the divine name “I am” …

OK, so investigating this claim is easy to do. Here is the original Greek in

  • Matthew 14:27: “εὐθὺς δὲ ἐλάλησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς αὐτοῖς λέγων θαρσεῖτε ἐγώ εἰμι μὴ φοβεῖσθε” or in English: “But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.”
  • Mark 6:50: “πάντες γὰρ αὐτὸν εἶδον καὶ ἐταράχθησαν ὁ δὲ εὐθὺς ἐλάλησεν μετ’ αὐτῶν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς θαρσεῖτε ἐγώ εἰμι μὴ φοβεῖσθε” and in English: “For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.”

If you look carefully toward the end of the verse in Greek, you will find this word: “ἐγώ” in both verses. It is simply the word “I.” While the end of John 8:58 appears nearly identical in the Greek to the “I” reference in the other two verses, “εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί,” the verse in John is written in a completely different context than in Matthew and Mark. In the earlier two gospels, the disciples appear troubled by a man coming across the water, and Jesus verifies for them that it’s him. But in John, however, Jesus is speaking with the Jews and mentioned that Abraham was glad to see him come along. The Jews questioned how he could have spoken with Abraham given his young age. Jesus then replied, “Before Abraham was, I am,” where the words “ἐγὼ εἰμί” actually mean, ” I exist.” First, the various “I am” passages that appear in John are to be taken with a grain of salt anyway because John was the last and most embellished gospel of them all. Second, the early church editors would have wanted to make the New Testament appear to be a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, so they probably tied as many New Testament passages to the old, most notably in this case, Exodus 3:14, in which Yahweh handed down a tautology for the ages, “I am that I am.”

Blomberg was also misleading when asked about the “Son of Man” title often conferred on Jesus in the New Testament:

“Look, contrary to popular belief, ‘Son of Man’ does not primarily refer to Jesus’ humanity. Instead, it’s a direct allusion to Daniel 7:13-14.”

With that, he opened the Old Testament and read those words of the prophet Daniel.

Strobel’s language, “read those words,” seem to indicate a reverence for scripture, not the language of an objective reporter.

In any case, I suppose we’re just supposed to take Blomberg’s word for it that the passage “Son of Man” means is a “title of great exaltation” in Daniel and that the “Son of Man” references in the New Testament look back to Daniel. Again, the New Testament writers and their editors wouldn’t have it any other way.

Just one more quick point. Blombergs points out late in the chapter that the two earliest biographies we have of Alexander the Great were more than 400 years after his death, where as the first gospel was penned within closer proximity of Jesus’ death:

So whether the gospels were written sixty years or thirty years after the life of Jesus, the amount of time is negligible by comparison. It’s almost a nonissue.

This is an often-touted apologetic line. I won’t bother to look up when the first accounts were written of such and such figure in antiquity but the important point is this: no matter when the first account of other historic figures were written, this historic figure, Jesus, is supposed to be the most important figure in all of humanity, and all we have are four relatively short narratives that are equally short on detail. Why couldn’t several of the disciples get together to write an account? If their god were real and all-powerful, he could have made sure it passed through the ages unblemished. How about the 500 people who supposed saw Jesus after the resurrection? Where are their accounts? Comparing Alexander to a person who made the claims that Jesus did just will not do.

Christian atheist?

I read about this via a post from Ed Brayton over at Free Thought Blogs — although I am critical of some bloggers there, I do still browse the site.

Apparently a rabbi has called Richard Dawkins a “Christian atheist,” as opposed to a Jewish atheist (equally absurd) or, you know, just an atheist, period.

Here is part of the article from The Telegraph:

Lord Sacks claimed that a remark in Prof Dawkins’s best-selling book The God Delusion, likening God as portrayed in Jewish scriptures to a fictional villain, was based on centuries of prejudice.

He said that although Prof Dawkins does not believe in God, he was nevertheless a “Christian atheist” as opposed to a “Jewish atheist”.

Prof Dawkins, an Oxford evolutionary biologist, dismissed the allegation as “ridiculous” and said he was not “anti-Jewish” just “anti-God”. …

Lord Sacks complained about a passage in Prof Dawkins’s book in which he said that the God of the Old Testament was the “most unpleasant character in all fiction”. …

… Lord Sacks replied: “There are Christian atheists and Jewish atheists, you read the Bible in a Christian way. Christianity has an adversarial way of reading what it calls the Old Testament – it has to because it says ‘we’ve gone one better, we have a New Testament’.

“So you come prejudiced against what you call the Old Testament and that’s why I did not read the opening to chapter two in your book as a joke, I read it as a profoundly anti-Semitic passage.”

I didn’t quote it because I actually question whether it was accurate, but another part of the article has Dawkins as saying that he called the god of the Old Testament those things as a joke. I’ve read “The God Delusion,” and it did not come off as a joke. Dawkins was making a serious point in the book that Yahweh in the Old Testament is worse than the most vile human being ever born. Dawkins did call God a “bully” and a “megalomaniac.” And he appears to be all of those things and more in the Old Testament. That was no joke if you read the book. Perhaps Dawkins bent to pressure in the moment? I have no idea.

As for Sacks’ claim that the New Testament presents a better representation of God, that’s bullocks too. Not until the New Testament do we have people told that they will burn forever in a lake of fire and be eternally separated from light and love, which is, of course, Jesus, Mr. Meek and Mild. Not until the New Testament do we have blameless people, and not just animals, sacrificed as atonement for sin. Not until the New Testament do we have the wheat separated from the chaff. Not until the New Testament do we have God-created and extremely flawed man, not just suffering the pangs of childbirth or toil on the earth, but suffering eternally for being what he was created to be, namely inquisitive and seeking after knowledge.

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How many paths to salvation again?

Dwindling in Unbelief lists 196. Here are just a few with relevant verses:

2. Do the right things. (Be a do-gooder.)

For we must all appear before the jugment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. — 2 Corinthians 5:10

6.Burn your work.

If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. — 1 Corinthians 3:15

10. Do what is lawful and right.

When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness … and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul. — Ezekiel 18:27

17. Call upon God

As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me. — Psalm 55:16

22. Wait for him

Wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee. — Proverbs 20:22

Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us. — Isaiah 25:9

32. Don’t be so darned wicked

When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul. — Ezekiel 18:27

40. Believe on Jesus (the established answer)

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. — John 3:36

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. — John 6:47

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. — Acts 16:31

57. Just get baptized (you can keep the filth of the flesh)

Baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh). — 1 Peter 3:21

76. Be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 5:20

And best of them all:

77.Hate your own life

The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12:25

Read more from Dwinding in Unbelief.

Leaving the faith

The Baptist Press has posted a column by R. Albert Mohler Jr. about the Clergy Project, in which Mohler complains that former believers, Jerry DeWitt, a native of DeRidder, La., and former pastor Teresa MacBain of Tallahassee, Fla. (I wrote about her here), did not simply resign from their church’s after becoming unbelievers but remained on staff and continued to draw a salary based on hypocrisy. Referring to former believers who were part of a study conducted by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, Mohler said:

 These pastors clearly are not believers, at least in any orthodox or recognizably Christian sense. They spoke openly and in considerable detail about their unbelief, with the ministers explaining how they had abandoned any confidence in biblical Christianity.

Why didn’t they just resign? Most shockingly, some openly spoke of losing their salaries as the main concern. So much for intellectual honesty.

Mohler also presented a dim view of this quote from Richard Dawkins:

It is hard to think of any other profession which it is so near to impossible to leave.

Of course, having presumably never been in the position of DeWitt and MacBain, Mohler is ill-equipped to say how they should or shouldn’t have acted, but as a former believer, I can say that it is sometimes less painful and less stressful to simply remain in the fold rather than to “come out,” which not only strains tensions with family members and fellow churchgoers, but in many cases, a person’s entire social structure can be ripped out from under them.

I experienced some of this, and I was just simply a churchgoer and not really in a position of leadership. From reading about the experiences of former pastors Dan Barker and John Loftus, I can only imagine the feelings of ostracization that come when you are the leader of a church and must proclaim that not only can you not lead the flock anymore, you can’t and you won’t. More so than myself, pastors in small churches, especially in the South, often have no friends and no social framework outside of the church.

So yes, in a very literal sense, the clergy is nearly an impossible profession to leave because if a person is doing it correctly and sincerely, the job comes to define you as a person, as does the religion. So, while Mohler may have a fair point about former believers continuing to draw a salary from the church a) most of them have to continue to support their families while they figure out how they are going to break the news, find a new career and move forward and b) in the midst of the other crushing implications of leaving the church, money is probably not high on the agenda. Having to face life without that a social, and in some cases, familial, framework is probably the highest priority.

Mohler goes on to say that the Clergy Project, an organization with the serious goal of helping former believers (I wish they wouldn’t continue to call themselves clergy) get support from people who are going through similar experiences, is a “magnate for charlatans and cowards.” Cowards? Really? I would be amused to find what would happen if Mohler woke up one day to the truth and then found himself surrounded by people with whom he had nothing in common. Coming out in to the open about who you really are — damn the consequences — is one of the most heroic things a person can do, but that change and that decision does not happen overnight.

He then sets up a bizarre comparison between what he calls “faithful doubt” and “pernicious doubt”:

Faithful doubt leads to a deeper embrace of the truth, with doubt serving to point us into a deeper knowledge, trust and understanding of the truth. Pernicious doubt leads to unfaithfulness, unbelief, skepticism, cynicism and despair. Christians — ministers or otherwise — who are struggling with doubt, need to seek help from the faithful, not the faithless.

Help is not what these pastors and churchgoers struggling with faith are seeking. It is the truth. Under the cloak of religion, the truth can seem like a moving target. Is God real or not? Is he speaking to me or not? What was that voice I just heard in my head? Was that me or someone outside of myself? Why don’t I “get it” like other believers seem to “get it?” What am I missing? Faithful doubt led me into more than one meetings with one of my former church leaders. It led me to my knees on more nights than I can count. It led me to my Bible. And ultimately, when the answers, the proof, the substantiation did not come, it led me right out of the church. There was never anything pernicious or despairing about it. I simply woke up one bright and sunny fall morning when freedom broke, and I was done.

10 Commandments vs. Bill of Rights

The man-made, extensively debated, committee assembled, legislatively enacted Bill of Rights contains more useful morality in its first adopted amendment than we find in all 10 commandments combined. — Steve Shives

See more here.

The god drug

Here is an article on the what makes the contemporary church “experience” so attractive to many people, at least the ones who can get past the ugly doctrines of original sin, blood sacrifice and the well, looming separation of the wheat from the chaff.

The pop and/or rock music, combined with sensory stimulation on projectors, uplifted hands and closed eyes all contribute to the impression that something more than just a meeting of like-minded individuals is taking place. To many, of course, the “feelings” or perceptions or thoughts that one gets while participating in these services comes from none other than the Holy Spirit, who, quite conveniently, is much less conspicuous on every other day of the week … ahh … until the believer gets into his car and once again turns on Steven Curtis Chapman, Chris Tomlin or some other contemporary singer. I, of course, was witness to this phenomenon for years and couldn’t grasp as a believer why, whenever I left church, I could never quite capture the same experience on my own until I learned that there was a very good reason for that.

Read more: God as a drug: The rise of American megachurches