Self mutilation - Matthew 5:29

The new testament is seen as being the less cruel one.

In it, Jesus is seen as the role model for Christians.

However, he is not shy about the natural attraction humans may experience between them (lust):

"If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell."

Even after reading Jesus suggesting mutilation of your own body, people will hide this crazy talk with the metaphor excuse, and how it should not be taken literally. They forget the most important thing there is when reading the Bible: there is no fine print in the Bible stating anywhere what is and what isn't a metaphor.

It should be very obvious to any rational human of the 21st century that feeling attracted to another human is not a strong enough reason to self mutilate. Some would say that is not only cruel advice, but the plain evil kind.

I wonder if Jesus would think I would ever look at the Bible in search of good morality or life lessons after this one.

I would surely prefer to look at any beautiful woman with both eyes and enjoy eyesight together.

Richard Dawkins on Militant Atheism

A few years ago, Richard Dawkins made some very clear points about a reasonable stance to have on religion. This presentation he gave, is part of TED Conferences, and focuses on several aspects that defend the militant atheism stance.
If you have 30 minutes and crave a challenge, press play:

I thought this speech was a very good way to make a 30 minute point for militant atheism. It also highlighted very clearly, some of the problems and contradictions of religion. Some of those will be covered in this blog.

Faith and Doubt events - Part V - week 2

Week 2:

This session had the effects of Christianity in world history as the center of topics.

The whole idea behind all topics covered, was to convince the audience that Christianity was the source of a lot of good, and that the deaths caused by religion were a lot less in numbers when compared to modern atheistic regimes (Stalin, Mao, etc...), and that a lot of the morals and altruism of civilized societies found their roots in Christianity.

Although I do not disagree completely, there were problems:

Critical thinking is hard to accomplish. It is as hard as it is important.

One of the obviously put numerical arguments, in favor of religion, was the fact that in the past, the number of people killed divided by all those centuries of religious oppression, would end up with a very low daily casualty rate when compared to modern wars, specifically, those involving atheistic regimes.

This is an incorrect conclusion.

The reason for this faulty conclusion is simple: it was never taken into account that the technology involved in killing people today is far more lethal and efficient than it was back then.

If the Christian Crusaders of back then were suddenly to pick up the pace they once had, how would the casualties be like if they had access to, for example, a nuclear weapon when invading Arab lands when attempting to convert them?

Exactly. Hiroshima would have happened back then.

As with the first event, there was a surprise factor in this event as well.

After acknowledging the responsibilities of religion in past crimes, an apology was encouraged of all Christians when faced with such historical facts. This was a very rational attitude on their part.

However, one thing needs to be put into focus in this case: history is not the tool to determine who killed the most or the least, neither is that body count the ethical ground on which religion or atheism based their intentions on. The reasoning behind the killings is what was missing here.

The first commandment was certainly put in a very deep drawer that day, month, year, century... centuries...

That is not Christian at all. But in a religion with its share of contradictions, I guess one more won't hurt.

Faith and Doubt events - Part IV

At the end of the event, this is how complex things got:

Consider Exodus 31:14 and Genesis 3:16.

How hard is it to make God look bad with these texts alone?

One makes him cruel and intolerant, the other makes him sexist.

It is hard to hear, yes, but I would say it is as easy for religious people to be shocked at the texts showed in the presentation, as it is for me to look at these 2 that I picked, and accept that sometimes God wakes up to the wrong side of the bed. Without any context, that would always be the conclusion I would arrive to.

In the interest of fairness, there are militant atheists that are more extreme than others, some that are unfair even, but there are others with good reasons for agreeing with: abortion, the removal of religion and creationism from public schools (not from religious related courses, nor history courses), from public government buildings and procedures, from the money we all carry, and the abolition of tax breaks for religious institutions.

Are these claims and its reasons simple to follow or the same for all militant atheists? Of course not. I wish.

Do they make religious people want to understand them before disagreeing with them?

That is why the reasons aren't here now, they are too long, and too many.
But until we know them, we will never know if our conclusions about any atheist or class of atheism carry any truth or value.

Genesis 3:16 - Men rule Women. Period.

Discrimination:
Discrimination is a sociological term referring to the treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group that is taken in consideration based on class or category.

Genesis 3:16

"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;

with pain you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

In other words, women are supposed to bend to men's will. No ifs, no buts, plain and simple. If you are a woman and you have a husband, he owns you. You are no longer free.

If you like to worship a God that discriminates based on gender, Christianity is for you. And if your are a man, you're in the good side of the deal.

Exodus 31:14 - Desecrate the Sabbath, die!

In Christianity, New Testament, all variants of such religion claim to worship an infinitely merciful and just God. Except on one day of the week:

Exodus 31:14

"Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you.

Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death;

whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people."

In other words, do anything unholy on the sabbath and you must be put to death. That is how far God's kindness and tolerance goes in this day of the week. And in case your decide to work, that will cut you off from your people. Very fair, considering that all obstacles of Nature towards Mankind also happen during the Sabbath.

In my humble opinion, I believe the Bible needs to reassess the meaning on the word "infinitely". Because if for some reason another God shows up that is kind and tolerant every day of the week, such new God would be even kinder and more tolerant than the Christian God.

The newer God would then be kinder than the already infinitely kind one we "have" today. Can you really surpass infinity? According to Christianity, yes. They allow infinity to have exceptions.

Jumping Breaks / "Read more" links

It took me a while to notice Blogger had implemented a new feature called "jump break".

That allows me to split the posts in two parts I sometimes feel appropriate: the main part, and some details.

When that happens, you will see a "Read more" (or some similar one like, "Click for the rest", "Get the whole scoop"... I haven't decided yet.) link at the bottom of the posts.

Clicking that link will expand the post to its full content.

I hope this makes the reading experience better.

More about this here.