Pastor Carl Broggi confirms my worst suspicions

In my continual hunt for blog fodder I listen to a lot conservative, and conservative Christian radio. While hunting a month or two ago, I heard a familiar line, it comes up at least once a week on these shows, but this iteration of it was on the ill-informed show Search The Scriptures. Hosted by Carl Broggi (obviously a pastor, as well as some kind of doctor), this show offers all the typical answers to life's most pressing questions. It even offers pseudo-profundities on questions that don't matter. What I learned while listening to Pastor Broggi was this.

Atheists don't exist.

I know, I know, some of you will be saying, "Now wait just a damn minute. I'm an atheist, and I am pretty sure I exist." Not according to the enlightened Pastor Broggi. This is such a bizarre thing to do, to assume that the person with whom you are arguing is lying that I had to ask him if this was a wide spread belief among evangelicals. He was kind of enough to respond to my question on his podcast (at least I think that is what it was). Broggi thinks people who claim to be atheists actually know in their heart (he means mind) that God exists. God stamps an awareness of himself on us through the wonder of Creation. Broggi's proof of this amounts to nothing more than mere assertion backed by a few dubious scriptures.  I don't want to steal too much of this thunder (you can hear his response here -luckily my question gets "answered" first so you won't have to wade through a lot nonsense) but I do want to point out a common mistake in part of his response to me.

In his effort to demonstrate his point, the good doctor Broggi wheels out the rotting corpse of William Paley (1743-1805) whose utility for Christian apologists has never really waned even though the content of Paley's argument has been completely exploded and eclipsed by actual science.  Nevertheless, and generally without attribution, Paley has given the tenacious fundamentalists, what probably remains their best case for a creator, "The Watchmaker Argument."  This argument, also referred to as "The Teleological Argument,"or the argument from design, adduces a deity (or at least an extremely powerful creative agent) from the design, real or imagined of natural things.  On the off chance you have lucked into avoiding this gem let me give you a brief synopsis/refresher. Actually lets just quote the old man himself:

"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there."

-Natural Theology

Paley probably thought the rock and the watch both needed an explanation from the standpoint of a designer.  But he might have known that rocks are sometimes formed from that activity of volcanoes, or  geological processes may have been well elucidated enough at that time that he couldn't really invoke a designer in the case of the rock. Rocks were and are simple.  The hypothetical watch on the ground though was different. Its complexity, and the purposefulness of its parts cried out for a design explanation.  That is to say, watches are designed by intelligent minds who had in mind a purpose in mind.  Watches are for something. A watch couldn't just have chanced together.  This isn't a terrible observation by Paley.  The watch does need a explanation from design. Paley, of course, was trying to draw an analogy with biologically complexity and his carelessly discarded watch.  If a watch needs a designer how much more must the biota need a designer as living things are vastly more complex than even the most intricate watch?  Paley was right by the way.  Living things do need an explanation for their, apparent design.  Paley's mistake, and the mistake of his intellectual descendants,  was and is to think the designer was a who (and a very specific who at that) and not a natural algorithmic process.

Paley's mistake is wholly excusable.  He was, after all, not privy to all the facts (On the Origin of Species wouldn't be published for another 54 years after Paley's death). Living things really do look designed. There really is no excuse for Pastor Broggi and his ilk to make the same mistake and then wallow in it.

In his response to me, Broggi says atheists (who don't exist) know there is a god because, essentially, nature is so awesome. Out comes Paley's watch, needs a designer, blah, blah, whoa nature, look how big and complex, it must need an even bigger, greater and awesomer designer.  I, and all atheists, must know God (at least a god) exists,  Broggi insists, because the living world, and the universe generally, are so intricate that the only thing we can do to explain them is to invoke a supernatural designer.  "You know in your heart that all this can't have come about by chance." God does this, I guess to ensure that people are without excuse when they reach there judgement seat of Christ. There can be no honest mistakes.  One wonders what the people in countries not immediately adjacent to Palestine were supposed to do with this alleged inkling of gods banging around in their heads. Why wasn't Christianity independently discovered by other people if this knowledge is innate in humans?

I digress.

As it happens Dr. Pastor Broggi, I don't think the biota came about by chance, if by chance we mean produced by completely and utterly random events. No atheist/agnostic believes this. Broggi's false dichotomy assumes only complete randomness on the one hand, or "God did it" on the other.  It is this mistake, this false framing I mainly want to address. The explanation most atheists (indeed most scientists atheist, agnostic or believer) find consistent with the evidence is found in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary processes are the designer Broggi and his ilk seem to miss or at least to mistake as random. The only random element of evolutionary process is mutation (I'm intentionally ignoring drift, and other stochastic events that alter gene frequency; they do little to perpetuate the illusion of a purposeful designer). Local environments create certain selective pressures on individuals in a population. Some individuals, owing to a random differences in their genetics, handle these processes better than others.  The former leave more offspring than the latter. And thus any genetic component of that evolutionary success is likely to find its way into the offspring, spreading generation after generation. Selective processes are ongoing and constant, gradually shaping the behavior and morphology of species. Natural processes certainly explain the biota (natural processes explain a great deal more than just this). More than just sounding like a plausible explanation, evolutionary processes are wholly supported by the scientific evidence.

We are actually really convinced by this evidence Dr. Pastor Broggi. It is not an act of rebellion. One cannot assume, on the basis of scripture, that atheists/agnostics/freethinkers are actually lying about this. We are not, as the pastor claims later in his response to me, suffering under a moral problem and trying to find an out from god belief and thus dodge our responsibilities to God.. Hard as it may be to believe, atheists/agnostics/freethinkers have sincerely examined the evidence and have come to a different conclusion.  It really is the height of arrogance for evangelicals to assume they can know what we are thinking, and why we think it.  If nothing else it makes conversation pointless. It absolves such pastors of the responsibility of understanding, or trying to understand our position in any real or significant way. These are not the actions of intellectually honest sparring partners.

I continue to want to bring these things up to Pastors like Carl Broggi because I think this idea (that athests/agnostics really do know that god exists but are foolishly choosing to reject God) he and others promote is pernicious bullshit for which there is no evidence aside from a few passages of scripture. And lets face it, quoting scripture is no kind of evidence at all.

I've written elsewhere that I thought this tactic was St Paul trying to expiate the guilt he and other believers surely must have felt at the notion that so many people would be going to hell simply because they hadn't heard the good news. Or having heard it, rejected it often with good reason.  Burning someone in hellfire for eternity for the minor transgression of being mildly wrong must have seemed like an extreme over reaction on the part of God, even to a fervent believer like Paul. I wonder if these oft quoted scriptures weren't some attempt to alleviate this guilt?

An aside: Isn't it strange that believers of this sort harp incessantly on complexity and purpose needing a conscious designer.  According to them, complexity of the kind found in our universe, from the origin and structure of solar systems and galaxies, to hummingbird bumble bees, and quarks definitely requires a designer to explain it all.  However, any god  capable of creating our cosmos would also have to be enormously complex itself.  Wouldn't such a being also need a design explanation. No question invites special pleading more than "Uh, okay, but who created God?" There is no answer to this question that doesn't try to exempt God from the question.  I am not the first person to point out that such special pleading is not justified and unconvincing.

The bible is just a good book of moral instruction/ Hey now you can't judge the bible outside its historical context...

In the American Culture Wars, it is often said that not only is the Bible full of truth about reality, but that even if one did not believe it that one should still read it and be taught it in schools because it is rich in moral guidance.

It just gives really good rules for how people should live.

Moral truths abound as it were. Or so we are told.

In support of this, people who make such propositions will often adduce the Decalogue of Moses. These are the much contested Ten Commandments over which massive amounts of legal paper has moved. I won't over bore you with my own observations about the Ten Commandments. They have been deconstructed elsewhere, brilliantly by Carlin, and just as brilliantly revised, and analyzed by Hitchens. Penn Jillette takes an enlightened stab them too. So I will not dwell over much on them here as their importance is only tangential to the point I want to make. What I will do is note that in the Decalogue of Moses there are only four useful injunctions with which any secularist, indeed almost any human would agree. The first four are religious injunctions that have little to do with morality or ethics among humans. The fifth isn't a moral statement as written and reads like a bribe (it essentially says to honor parents not for any moral reason, but so that you can receive a reward). and after that Moses gives us the already well understood, don't commit murder, do no adulterous shagging, don't steal, and don't bear false witness. Its pretty hard to find much objectionable with those commandments. The last prohibits thought crime, and forbids even thinking about wanting a neighbor's things while also equating women with chattle). There is nothing terribly moral about telling people what not to think, and plenty immoral about comparing a woman to a cow.

I'm already veering into a tangent, so let me stop. My point is that as a book of moral instruction the bible is a really a mixed bag more heavily weighted toward lessons, stories and examples that comfortably fit in the immoral category. The people who tell you that the bible is just a great book of moral instruction always leave that fact, and it is a fact, out. They will point to the sermon on the mount, or selectively quote only half of some injunction so that it sounds more moral than it actually is (consider again the commandment about honoring one's father and mother).

When people start to bring up the just and moral character of God, I tend to deploy, as a counter example, either the story of Abraham and Isaac, or the genocides and other mindless and monstrous violence found in the Old Testament. The first provides a harder escape by way of historical context as it reveals a rather sadistic character in the person of God, and a rather self-serving asshole in the character of Abraham, both tormenting an innocent boy. There is a different kind of moral gymnastics performed when this story is adduced in the case against God as moral exemplar so we will leave it for another time perhaps.

When you bring up the utterly awful events that occur in the Old Testament there is often an attempt to excuse them as part of the bloody, and blood-thirsty time in which they "occured." The gist of the evasion goes like this:

Well those were the historical times in which God operated so we cannot judge the actions of God or his heroes in those tales by the moral reasoning of our time.

At this point I think we are entitled to say the believer cannot have it both ways. Either God's reasoning is unchanging and perfect which is the case that the fundamentalist believer always makes, or it is not. The power the believer suspects God of having means, at the very least, that he should be no prisoner to the historical context. God's power in the mind of the believer simply makes the fiction (of course much of the Old Testament is fiction) that he was bound by the time silly. You will remember it was God who orchestrated all of the blood soaked events of Exodus, and who demanded death for violation of even his most frivolous laws. He did, after all, harden Pharaoh's heart to the arguments, and conjuring tricks of Moses, after which God amused himself by visiting plagues on the people of Egypt who had very little say on what their ruler did anyway. The sanguinary event celebrated by Passover to this very day serves as an annual reminder that the deity in those stories wasn't bound by the historical context but seemed rather to endorse, and actively participate in the bloody events.

The attempt to excuse God by invoking the Bound by Historical Times hypothesis fails in at least two ways, one profoundly fundamental, and the other editorial. In the first, the Christian God appears to define the very context Christians often use to excuse his actions. God in these stories is simply the author of countless unjust and immoral miseries and cannot reasonably be divested of his culpability in these tales. So the hypothesis is, from the very start, false. God is not bound by any historical context, he is both author and participant. Given the alleged power of the character it seems obvious to anyone not sufficiently indoctrinated by Christian dogma (namely the strange idea of omni-benevolence) that God could have found, and should have found better, more moral ways in which to accomplish his goals.

A second way in which God could have been excused, at least to some degree, by way of historical context is if he (or his writers) had commented on the matters described in the biblical narrative clearly, and negatively. God never even has his writers editorialize during the atrocities. There is no, "Jesus H. Christ! Moses! I never said kill all the males, all the non-virgin females, and keep for yourselves a bevy of virgin sex slaves. That is utterly wrong, despicable, dare I say immoral...etc etc." To extend the example of God's dealings with Moses, his wrath at Moses, stems largely from the fact that Moses took a wee too much pride in his own accomplishments, when all the glory needed to go to God. That, if you missed it, is God taking credit for not just the nice bits (minimal as they are), but also for the bloody, immoral, rape and pillage bits. At the very least God doesn't seemed too bothered at the means by which his holy ends were accomplished.

Commenting on the Obvious

As many of you know I troll the religious radio shows because I am always looking for good blog fodder, and have a curiousity about what is riling up, enraging or captivating Christians. Such radio is almost always evangelical, Baptist, anti-science, and anti-reason. I recently found a local Catholic radio station that managed to convince me that my earlier opinion of Catholics, that they were a more progressive sect of Christianity was wholly mistaken or, failing that, more mistaken than I had originally thought. This really shouldn't have come as a surprise to me, I did attend Catholic School as a kid, and nothing that happened there ever made me think of the Roman Catholic Church was any kind of bastion of free inquiry or rationalism. Oh well, at least I didn't get raped by the priest or beaten by nuns. Though the only nun I ever knew, Sister Annette (a Catholic cyborg I think whose emotion chips were set to off), lamented, and seriously, that she could no longer hit us with rulers. She was only a fixture at Seton Catholic School for one year when I was there. Which was too bad because she was such a class act.
But I digress......

While listening to Catholic radio, some kind of call in show, a caller wonders if the Pope has ever said that the Church's behavior, specifically the burning of heretics, witches and Protestants among others was wrong. The host hemmed and hawed about, didn't really offer a clear answer and then said that Pope John Paul II had apologized for any sin the Church had committed, and hoped people who had been offended and wronged by that sin would forgive the Church. The host, and apparently the Pope, had some trouble saying that burning people with whom you disagree is the wrong way to go.
Caller: So the Pope hasn't said that burning people was wrong, and hasn't apologized for trying to supress differing opinion? [paraphrase by me]
Host: The pope has apologized for any sin the Church has committed. [paraphrase by me]
Caller: So no it hasn't said those actions were wrong and hasn't apologized for them. Then I have to ask what has the Pope specifically said about the burning of Wycliffe? [more paraphrase by me]

A little backstory is probably in order. Wycliffe, who was strong opponent of Papal authority, translated the bible (or he and his acolytes did it together) into vernacular English, and for this and other crimes he was burned. Well his exhumed bones were burned. He had died 31 years before being branded a heretic by the Council of Constance. I think you will agree, they sure showed him. back to the call already in progress....

The host of the show didn't seem to know if the Pope has said anything specific about the bizarre case of Wycliffe's pointless rapid oxidation. And the caller never mentioned why it was a big deal to him that the Council had a dead man burned 31 years after his death. Wycliffe though is important to students of Protestant history so it makes sense to me now that I have done a bit more reading. Burning long dead people matters a lot less to me than burning living heretics. So to me in the annals of religiously inspired batshit crazy this is really pretty mild.

What really blew my mind though was the way the host attempted to get the Church off the hook for its tawdry and bizarre desecration of Wycliffe's remains. First he began to suggest that Wycliffe wasn't really all that great a scholar, and his translation was absolutely horrible. "So there is a lot you maybe don't know about Wycliffe that sheds light on why the Church did what it did." I'm not making this up. The logic of the host seemed to suggest Wycliffe published a shabby translation of the bible (according to later scholars) so whatever the Church did was probably okay. I've heard Catholic scholars make similar noises when you bring up the Church's behavior toward Galileo. Of Galileo these scholars and lay defenders of Rome will say that the science of the day was on the Pope's side so they were right to oppose Galileo's hypothesis, as if Galileo's interrogators were simply journal referees sending his paper back for revision and correction, and not presenting him with a false choice (torture or recantation).

This is an old dodge by the Roman Catholic Church. It is loath to state specifically which actions in the past it has done were wrong (at least in many of the halls of leadership), and simply attempts to diffuse the legitimate accusations, charges with this soft non-admission, non-apology:

The Church apologizes for any sins it has in the past committed, and hope that anyone who has been offended by them will kindly forgive the one true Church, sincerely yours
-The Vicar of Christ on Earth, Pope Benedict

I think this maneuver is performed because ultimately the Church fathers don't really think that the Roman Catholic Church has done much wrong and that it probably views any admission of wrong doing damaging to its claims of ultimate authority. The Pope after all is infallible.

A Quibble with Jeff Sharlet: The C-Street Sex Scandals and Their Importance

Jeff Sharlet is the author of the very capable C-Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy. This is a frightening, enlightening, and wholly edifying journey into the halls of fundamentalist power in the US. My complaints, about and disagreements with, Sharlet's book are probably not insignificant, even if we generally agree. Regardless, Jeff has done more in recent years than most to expose the far reaching and secretive Christian fundamentalism at the heart of the modern culture wars and the divisiveness of modern politics than most. He has named names, exposed gross hypocrisy and incompetence, and exposed to the world, the festering, and grotesque need that is the heart of C-Street style fundamentalism. Power. That may sound simplistic, and leaves out the bit about God, but that is an old story too, and always has been the way of clerics. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, the clerics may talk about glory and rewards in the next world, but what they want is power in this one. Sharlet's work on C-Street, and the secretive, dangerous and it -must be added- odious Family that is housed therein. What ever side of the culture war you happen to find yourself on, conservative, liberal, religious or irreligious one hopes that you will value our secular democratic traditions. Those traditions protect us all from tyranny. So while I do have disagreements with Sharlet, they do little to stop me from recommending that every one, wanting to be an informed citizen, should read his two books on this subject(both are linked to Amazon in the text). Now on to one of the points of disagreement I have with Sharlet.

The C-Street Sex Scandals

Scandals was indeed plural. The pious fundamentalists, as per usual could not live up to the ideals and moral proscriptions they want to impose on the rest of us. Another old story to be sure but the details of these affairs by the C-Streeters (Sen. John Ensign R-NV, Gov Mark Sanford R-SC, Rep. Chip Pickering R-MS) and the ways, and lengths to which the leaders at C-Street, that is to say the leaders of The Family went to cover up these extra-marital affairs is as instructive as it is grotesque. In many ways the scandals that have recently broke concerning The Family (a cabal of fundamentalist Christians who court the powerful in an attempt influence policy) mirrors the scandals and cover-ups that have rocked the Catholic Church. The idea in both groups goes something like this. Cover-up and preservation of the powerful in such organizations is preferable to exposure, justice and living consistently with organizational principles because the organization is doing good things, in the case of either The Family, or the Roman Catholic Church, that means the work of God. I suppose it is easier to sweep any number of evils under the rug if you think you and your organization have a mandate from the author of the multi-verse. I wouldn't know. I'm not delusional. Whether I understand the mentality or not it is clearly over-represented in these circles.

It may not be necessary to go into too much detail about the particulars of these sex scandals with the exception of Mark Sandford. Chip Pickering had an affair with an ex- from college while living in the house known as C-Street. Ensign had an affair with the wife of his top aide (the wife received some kind of pay off from Ensign's parents which adds a whole other level of weird to his tale). Click on the names for more details, and google them. Its all pretty sordid but then so is The Family.

Mark Sanford's affair is a bit trickier, and certainly more spectacular than those of his fellow C-Streeters. It involved apparently real passion (he seems genuinely to have loved his mistress - there are some serious love letters that can be adduced anyway), a strange subterfuge was put on by his handlers to account for his MIA status (he had gone to Argentina to be with his mistress though they claimed he was hiking the Appalachian trail), he also kept his staff, and advisers in the dark about what he was up to(with the exception of key C-Streeters), used some public funds for his Argentina trip, his wife had long known about the affair and lived separately from her husband (had infact asked for an official separation) and...well you get the idea. Sanford (who was fond of quoting biblical verse and waxing poetic about his boyhood memories on his family farm in letters to his mistress) was like maybe the most perfectly inconsiderate, and thoroughly pious character in recent politics. He wanted what he wanted, and could apparently manufacture the rationalizations required to run roughshod over any moral pretense he might have had. What is also strange is his pseudo-apology to South Carolina, his mistress (first) then to his wife. There is also his defiance at the idea of resigning his governorship. You probably won't be surprised to learn that he was one of the people who thought Bill Clinton should have resigned when Clinton's infidelity came out. I could continue to essay these details but I think you get the idea. If you want a complete timeline of the events here is a good place to start. You could also read Sharlet's account which imbues the whole thing with more humanity and sympathy than I can muster.

Sharlet's Question to readers of C-Street:

Jeff Sharlet begins C-Street with a series of political sex scandals, but goes on to argue that we must look beyond the sensational details of a scandal to understand its real importance. Do you think that is true? What interests you about the scandal? What can we learn from a scandal when it happens?

And here comes my argument -minor, I think, but you can decide- with Sharlet. Sharlet describes his own annoyance at the press, even Rachel Maddow, for wanting to go after C-Street over the sex scandals, and Mark Sanford's in particular. Sharlet was very moved by the revelation of the South Carolina Governor's humanity in the content of those love letters to his mistress Maria. Sharlet lamented at the idea of being brought on to these talk shows to kick the Governor who had committed no other crime than being human and falling in love (well that and maybe using state money to fund that Argentinian love romp). I think Sharlet's generosity here is misplaced. If Sanford had been just a politician, or an actor or any person of normal integrity on the street I think Sharlet's tone would be exactly right. I'm not interesting in castigating a bloke for something that probably happens to at least the majority of all people like everywhere. I do, however, think the scandals and the way they are handled reveal much more about both the people involved, and the organization The Family than he does.

Sharlet thinks these sex scandals reveal only human nature, and he is surely right that human nature is jarringly revealed. But that revelation includes the negative aspects of that nature as well. In fact I would argue that the sex scandals of these men, and the behavior they and their C-Street brothers and their Family advisers tells you almost all you need to know about C-Street to write it off as a house of cranks, liars and hypocrites. While Sharlet marveled at Sanford's apparent tenderness toward his lover, he seems to miss or to at least be less concerned with, Sanford's general selfishness, and disregard for anyone else's needs or integrity. His needs are paramount and come first. This is an ugly tendency in anyone, but it becomes even worse when coupled with his breath taking hypocrisy (and it is a tendency that seems to form the foundation any tyrannical character in life or fiction). Sanford, a conservative Christian, apparently keeps two sets of books, the ones he thinks we should have live by, and the ones by which he and his fellow C-Street clan get to live. It would be hard to find an example of behavior and personal attitudes that so perfectly encapsulate the C-Street ethos than the example provided by the behavior of Sanford. The license he granted himself, and that which was granted by his Family gurus reveal both to be self-centered and greedy and obsessed with the conservation of their power and influence despite their Christian pretensions.

Sharlet thought the attention the public gave and gives to such stories is based only on the salacious content. Everyone loves a money shot. Its a valid point, though perhaps too narrow. There is more, at least for thinking people. I think what attracts the public's attention even more, in fact much more, is the revelation of the huge disconnect between the individual's public statement of beliefs, and their actual action in the real world. It fractures their integrity in way that everyone can understand on a very visceral level. The moral calculus is easy. Everyone shares a frame of reference. The public fascination isn't all about who stuck what into whom and where. That isn't what makes people assiduously devour news for a cycle or two. What captivates us is the shocking hypocrisy that is on display. Such hypocrisy also makes people shake their heads in disgust. For normal people who make these kinds of mistakes and mis-steps, many of us can look the other way, or offer human compassion, and understanding. People make mistakes, they think with their heart (or other regions) and leap before looking and generally make a big mess of things. Its different when you claim to be the moral paragon, when you claim to have the answers, and you want to impose those answers on the rest of us. That is a real and legitimate point of concern and it isn't shallow.



TEXT

A Letter to the (apparently) Biblically illiterate Pastor Terry "The bible Doesn't Condone Slavery" Dutton

What follows is a letter I recently wrote to a fundamentalist preacher, Pastor Terry Dutton, who should have known better. In a radio sermon he made the odd, and, as it happens, false claim that the bible doesn't condone the act of slavery. Sweeping God's cruelty, injustice and his obviously immoral (yet godly) edicts under the rug is an old problem for the clergy. It does seem as if the clerics are trying answer the following question: How do we explain away these ugly attributes, stories and behaviors that so obviously offend the senses, and annoy the average moral compass? It is likely they are trying to answer the question for themselves.

The conflict between the "morality" often found in revealed religion and that found among the non-clerical class is probably as old as religion itself and is certainly as old as organized religion that acts as a political force. When churches lose political power and the power to coerce people with the threat and actuality of violence, and when free thought and free speech are permitted very different conceptions of what is and isn't moral or ethical come to the fore. These discourses tend to spread rapidly through cultures. Such moral advancement tends to happen in the teeth, rather than with the support, of orthodox religion (anti-slavery say, or sexual equality offer two salient but by no means exhaustive examples). Since the churches cannot simply say their books were wholly written by men, without divine inspiration, these modern deflections (sometimes artful, generally artless) become necessary and unavoidable when members of the culture are free to ask questions and are not obligated to be quiet. It should be remembered that there was a time when such questions could not really be asked, because to do so probably meant death, and that by long complicated torture. It still can mean violent death in countries where clerical powers continue to hold sway.

And yet consider...no one is troubled by the behavior of Zeus, or Odin, or Ra. This isn't to say that people aren't critical of the aforementioned characters. They don't exist, so contemplating the gross infidelities of Zeus is not a source of existential angst. These mythologies, these dead religions are now largely considered human creations have an easier time of it. I am free, and so are you, to read the Iliad say and to enjoy it as literature. The work of explaining away the gods' vile tendencies is removed and they can be enjoyed and studied as mythologies and windows into the minds, and the times that created them. If Joseph Campbell is to be believed mythology may actually be useful in understanding human nature, and the things it tends to value. Extant religion tends to remove itself from such usefulness by the vigor and relentlessness with which it claims special exception.

Pastor Terry, to whom I have written, is left somewhat in a lurch. As a Christian fundamentalist he professes belief in a 3O god (Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent), he must try to square this 3O character with the revealed text and the ugliness contained therein. Terry Dutton is not the first theologian to fail in this endeavor, so he finds himself in fairly mighty company. Here we might cite ancients like Augustine, Aquinas, Tertullian, Maimonides, and Kierkergard. Or we might dredge these opaque waters at shallower depths and find a C.S. Lewis, or a Billy Graham. We might note progressives like Tillich who chose to abandon literalism but stick with some version of God. In such work we can see, at least, some struggle with the text that first gave them some hint at the entity whose character they seek to clarify. So while Terry may find himself in great company, his efforts aren't even on a par with the dreadful C.S. Lewis. Because unlike his intellectual forebears, Terry Dutton doesn't seem to understand the plain meaning of words. In the broadcast that so annoyed me, he made the claim that the bible doesn't condone slavery, or any of the negative actions taken by any character in the bible. Sometimes the latter may indeed be the case, but Dutton is clearly honestly mistaken, stupid, or dishonest concerning the former. Having listened to his broadcasts on a few occasions I wouldn't be surprised if his entire theology was some combination of the three. The bible clearly gives license for slavery and was widely cited in support of it during our own country's long argument about the practice of slavery and then later about civil rights. My letter was an attempt to point this out. The good Pastor Terry has yet respond.

Terry,
Driving to the gym I occasioned to listen to your radio program. During your sermon you said something about God not condoning several actions, and behaviors on the part of characters in the bible. Much of what you said God didn't condone, is demonstrably false. The most obviously false statement you made in your attempt to excuse the character of God involved your bald assertion that the bible -which you apparently take to be the inerrant word of God- that the bible didn't condone slavery. This is nonsense. The bible clearly expects people to have slaves, has rules for the keeping of slaves, and even depicts Moses and his surly band of violently acquiring sex slaves. God seems to have specific rules for who the Hebrews could buy and who they could not. According to the bible you could sell your daughters. There is really no other way to read the bible on slavery than this: the God of Abraham clearly expects one to own slaves. To take one example, from

Exodus: ^21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished ^21:21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.

This is condoning slavery. Let me say it again. This is condoning slavery. If God had not approved/condoned slavery he could have put something concrete in the books of the bible, say somewhere in the Decalogue? How about "Thou shalt not own other sentient beings, nor trade in them, nor force sexual relations on them, be they Hebrew or not." That would constitute not approving, and not condoning. Not even in the New Testament can you get Jesus to castigate the practice of owing slaves. As grotesque as that is of course it is all pale in comparison to the violence and murder heaped upon the women and children of the Midianites, where all the males and male children were slain, all the females that had sex, slain, and of course the virgins the victors could keep for themselves. That sounds an awful lot like sex slavery to me.

In short the bible does condone these things. It had rules for how the practice of slavery was to be done. To give an illuminating counter example. US legal code does not condone theft. Its rules are always prohibitive. Nowhere will you find a legal code saying , Steal in this fashion, and if you steal from a fellow citizen you must return their stolen merchandise after seven years. You don't see that kind of language because the US legal code doesn't allow for theft under any circumstances. The bible does not issue prohibitive, rule of law, proscriptions against slavery, it says this is how it is to be carried out. Such language is evidence of condoning the practice of slavery.

Something to think about eh?

Thanks for your time.
-Max

Author's Note The letter above is presented with vastly fewer typos than the one I sent to the good Pastor.

The Response: Governor Rick Perry and the ignorant and pathetic "action" of the Faith Based.

It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention, that early birds tend to get the most, and the most succulent worms, and that the sun doesn't shine on a sleeping dog's ass (though this latter metaphor has never made much sense to me as an inducement to action). The meaning is quite clear. Solutions will not come to you, out of the blue. What is required, is effort, thought, reason, cooperation and more effort when the first thoughts, and the first efforts don't succeed. The ridiculous governor of Texas, Rick Perry has decided to forfeit all of his faculties (as well as yours and mine), and probably half the virtues to which he would surely pay lip service, in favor of the clear blue bolt from above in the form of a call to prayer and fasting in his too often benighted state. This marks him as either irredeemably stupid, or irredeemably cynical and dishonest. In either case we in the electorate are well with in our right to treat his proposal, his administration, and indeed he himself with contempt, scorn and dismissal. He has proposed a child's solution and in effect, excused himself from
any discourse dominated by adults. His fellow travelers on the road to the intellectual backwater from which Governor Perry beckons (either earnestly or cynically) should feel free to join him there. I am, perhaps, getting a bit ahead of myself.


Governor Rick Perry has rightly identified that we are a nation facing profound difficulties. His proposed solution to these very real difficulties though leaves a great deal to be desired. This solution is something rather inaccurately called The Response. It amounts to a day a prayer and fasting wherein the attendees will prostrate themselves before a very specific god, and in very sectarian terms pray to that God, his son, and, one supposes, a holy ghost for solutions, revival and other miraculous nonsense.
Why don't I let Perry and his people explain it:

On August 6, the nation will come together at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas for a solemn gathering of prayer and fasting for our country.

We believe that America is in a state of crisis. Not just politically, financially or morally, but because we are a nation that has not honored God in our successes or humbly called on Him in our struggles.

According to the Bible, the answer to a nation in such crisis is to gather in humility and repentance and ask God to intervene. The Response will be a historic gathering of people from across the nation to pray and fast for America.

This drivel is regurgitated on the same page (which can be found by clicking on the title of this blog).

Fellow Americans,

Right now, America is in crisis: we have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy.

Some problems are beyond our power to solve, and according to the Book of Joel, Chapter 2, this historic hour demands a historic response. Therefore, on August 6, thousands will gather to pray for a historic breakthrough for our country and a renewed sense of moral purpose.

I sincerely hope you’ll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God’s forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees.

And that from the feckless mouth of the governor of Texas in the year 2011. To hear this idiot tell it, one would think that our country had never before been attacked by an enemy, or been molested by nature or faced stark economic difficulties. It is a wonder our republic ever made it beyond its own revolution, led as it was by so very many deists, freethinkers, and secularists. Since history clearly demonstrates that the United States has in fact had to deal with all of these hardships, and more perhaps that history of action, and resourcefulness might be a better guide than getting on our knees and talking to an imaginary friend? Governor Perry is certainly correct when he suggests that there is hope for America. That hope however lies in the resourcefulness, foresight and genius of its people. It will not be found in the grim species of fatalism that is at the heart of Perry's fatuous Response.

For all the talk on The Response website of the dire need for the nation to come together its message is completely sectarian, and as such strictly divisive. It alienates the Nation's fastest growing demographic (unbelievers and those who claim no organized religion) as well as the nation's Buddhists, its Hindus, its Muslims, its Wiccans, not to mention its numerous sects of Christianity that do not comport with the version of Christianity favored by Perry and his fundamentalists. So much for unity.

I would urge you to read the Why section found at their website. It is too long to dissect at the moment but I will highlight two points that I think are salient.

1. Humility and humbleness are not qualities a group or a person can be said to have when those groups or people compare themselves to saints, or insinuate special importance to the author of the Universe. Consider the following as just one bit of evidence: "The call of God to His people in times of great trouble is to gather together and call on Him with one voice, one heart, and a unified desire to see great blessing and great glory come to our nation again. The power of unified prayer from a humble gathering of the saints is found in the hope that He might answer us, and turn the tide of trouble and threats that stand against us."

2. The entire enterprise is soaked with at least a mild desire for State support of a very specific religion. It quotes the book of Joel wherein the people of Israel were commanded to stop everything they were doing and pray, and fast. The authors of the website do not seem bothered by this decidedly un-American compulsion to pray, and act in a manner that violates their conscience. The Why section also offers many foolish precedents for National, that is to say, government calls to prayer. Clearly Perry wants his August 6 to be Nationally recognized, and thus he stands against the very freedoms he drones on about. This is of course me accusing him of being anti-American. This he must be because his desires clearly, and certainly conflict with the non-establishment clause of the US Constitution.

Texans you have better things to do on August 6. And to the numerous politicians that Perry has invited to join him on the sixth: You also have better things to do with your time, and mine and that of your various constituencies besides wasting it by attending a meeting of grown children. The good news, if I may be indelicate, is this...some of those better things can be done on your knees.

For more background, do click on the links. It probably won't hurt you, but it may make you mad. And for a sharp critique, vastly more succinct than my own, do check out what the physicist Lawrence Krauss, director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University had to say.

Addendum:
Here is what the Response believes:

What does The Response believe?

The Response is a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting and has adopted the American Family Association statement of faith.
1.We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
2.We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
3.We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
4.We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
5.We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
6.We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
7.We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Given the pluralistic nature of our country it is difficult to see how such a credo could improve nationalunity.

Jack T. Chick sends me email.

I don't know if you have ever heard of Jack Chick, but he is a special brand of moron. Good with pencils (no one would say great), practices a pretty literal theology (no one would say smart), and enjoys making the bad guys in his little comic books look like stereotypical jews, or (and slightly more recently) stereotypical Muslims of Middle Eastern decent (no one would say tolerant). And there is the just plain weird (one would not know what to say). I ought not leave out the plain stupid either (surrounded by a cloud of anti-smart particles). Go on read a few, or at least some. I'll be here when you are ready to continue.

Okay, drink a glass of water, shake the bone-jarring stupid off and lets get on with this introduction, and inevitable farewell to Jack T. Chick.

Now I wouldn't fault anyone for independently producing comics but his material is pretty lousy, and worse it is terribly predictable. Some people might fold predictablity into lousy but I am going to seperate them. The stories could be lousy, but unpredictable like say Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter. Instead though Jack Chick opts for the two-fer and reduces even novelty readership. But I am getting a bit ahead of myself.

If you don't know Jack T. Chick his claim to fame is authorship, and often pencil work of many of the dubious, and poorly researched Christian gospel comic book tracts you have found littering, sometimes surrepticiously, churches of every variety, coffee house community event tables, public restrooms (who picks up anything in a public restroom), and any where else Christian witnesses can think to put them. Fundamentalist Christians can buy by the bundle and at 25 tracts/$3.75 you can see how it is possible to inundate a small unsuspecting populace with these things. So now that you know who Jack T. Chick is, and what has made him famous, or maybe infamous I can move on with the point of this.

You may think the point will be to critique his theology which is terrible. But no, you would be wrong. While Jack certainly misrepresents much in the bible to suit his own particular religious and political needs it is pointless really to go there. Because almost everyone who adopts a good book goes there in some way. It all seems to become, from the very best theology, to the most simple minded and mean, cherry picking verses that appeal to the person doing the picking. So while I think Chick is simple minded, I also think he shares a simple problem with all believers. Besides Chick has no arguments and thus nothing really to analyze. The bible is true because Chick believes it is true. It is also unnecessary review his theological arguments and evidence because I think Jack also knows he has none to offer.
On some level. The bible is true and that, for he and his ilk is really, really, literally, no I mean literally, true, and that is all there is to it.

I suspect this because his method isn't really about converting through the power of arguments, and evidence but about using fear, and self interest to drive people to his point of view. Chick tracts glory in often graphic depictions of violence (particularly gleeful are the hosts of angels who happily pitch the unsuspecting into hell). What his tracts almost universally do is demonstrate torture and violence either on earth or in hell in the most graphic ways, and then offer up salvation at the very end. The violence is offered up in such detail, along with intimations of homosexual sex that I suspect a psychologist might have a field day with Mr. Chick. So violence, repressed sexuality are always front and center and always they function as the lever to scare the mark (that is the reader) into imagining their own eternal torture in hell. And all the tracks end with a few magic words, to recite that allow you, I guess, to be forever saved. In addition to all these manipulative tricks the man and his tireless staff are conspiracy nuts. Islam? Catholic conspiracy. Evolution? Catholic, or Jewish, and or Cathojewlic conspiracy. Of course this would be the case because Satan clearly leads all faiths except the one to which Jack T. Chick belongs.

Kooky conspiracies, subtle racism and a somewhat strange fascination with things he claims to hate comprise the Chickoverse. I got an email from someone who said I should examine the Chickoverse, which prompted me to get on his website, and sign up for updates. I used to examine the strangeness, I even debated via email one of Chick's website personalities, though I cannot now remember who the hell that might have been. I got acquainted with the depth of his conspiracy jones through the crazy newletter that goes up once a month. I've continued to get email updates for years, and today, I followed the links provided therein and found that none of it was really very funny anymore. I used to be amused by Chick's comics. But as looked at what amounted to forty years or so of his life's work I marveled at what an incredible, destructive and mean spirited waste it was. Unlike the guys who masterfully parody Chick's work, Chick and his equally brain dead acolytes actually believe in all the hateful, anti-intellectual nonsense they spew. The Chickoverse is a place that doesn't support honest argument, evidence, reason or principled disagreement. It favors fear, simple-mindedness and naked self-interest. It is a deeply unethical place, that can no longer even pull off the so bad-its-funny manuever.

Jack is one sick Chick....and his other writers are too. I happily hit unsubscribe!
Take that gospel tract man!