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.

Free Will

If I give you the remote to a TV with 99 channels but that only picks up the reception of 1, and then tell you have the free will to choose any channel, even though the 99 options are real, I do know what you will choose just because I know there is only 1 viewable channel on such TV.
As long as I know what your choice will be, you have to real choice. You will choose exactly what I know you will.

I always felt religion was throwing sand in my eyes when the subject of free will came about to shield gods from guilt and responsibility.

Every time we ask why do gods allow for evil, a weird answer is always given. In those answers, there is always a relative or a too general term to describe the whole deal.
My favorite one, is God giving humans free will.

Let's grasp this concept.
Let us consider God in that moment before creating man.
Then, let us consider mankind as we know it today.

Before Man was created, God knew everything, as He always does.
What this means, is that all future things He was about to create were known to Him.
What it also means, is that the knowledge of all people's actions was also known.
And what it also means, is that he knows exactly what all humans that will ever exist will do every time, in all the moments and choices of their lives.

If He knows all my decisions, then I am only making the decisions He knows I will make. Not the other decisions also presented to me.
If I am living exactly the life God knows I will be living, then I am only choosing to live the life God knows I will live. I will happen exactly the way God wanted and knew all along.

Where do I do whatever I want? So much for free will...
There is no free will if someone else with 100% certainty (such as all knowing gods) can know what my choice will be before I even make it.

Testing

When I think about the movies I like and the actors that play them, I can't help to realize how good some are at playing roles that sometimes are so different from what the actors are in real life.

If you lose some of your limitations, you also lose a part of what you were when you had them, to become what you now would be without them. For example, if you were to become immortal, then dying would be something you would lose, and never again be able to do. Immortal people do not die.

The same thing applies to omniscience, that wonderful ability of knowing everything, that all gods seem to share. If you know everything, there will be a few things you just will not do: wonder about something, the need to ask questions, discovery, learning... etc.
Once you know all, you stop needing those things. And in some cases, just like being immortal, some things you won't be able to do anymore: ignorance is one of those lost things.

We, regular humans, observe the world, pass knowledge from person to person, inquire, experiment, and test things, in order to understand and know the world around us.
Of all these things, all knowing beings need none of them, and can't do a few: like learning. Gods can't learn, because they know all already.

As such, the next time someone tells you that your god is testing your faith, or wants to find out something about us, remember that those are just some of the things he can't do.
He can't find out something he already knows (knows all), or test us to see what we do, because he knows that as well.

Like my favorite actors, some roles just aren't for God. Being curious is one of them.

Responsibility and Blame - Part I

Religious people have a double standard when it comes to figuring out what their god(s) is responsible for.
When we are about to be held responsible for something, two things come into play:

• Knowledge of whatever we're being held accountable for;
• Power to affect whatever we're being held accountable for.

Let's imagine a parent and a toddler in a room.
The parent holds the child while considering putting him/her down to wander the room.
Before that happens, the parent spots broken glass all over the floor (or sparking wires, or whatever your favorite type of problem may be).

In this example, the possibilities would be:

• Protect the child by avoiding the glass (by cleaning it, or deciding that both should leave the room).
• Let the child walk and learn the room and hope for the best.

Let us assume that the parent goes with the second option, and lets the child walk around the room.
All will go well until the child gets hurt with the glass.

Who's responsible for this?

The answer is pretty obvious: The parent.
My claim is, knowledge and power affect guilt. Had the glass been hidden from the parent's view, but in reach of the child anyway, we would call it an accident (knowledge). Had the child been near an exploding window, the parent would have no power to avoid glass and it too would be deemed an accident (power).

An all knowing god, has the knowledge of all "glass". Even before "glass" is created. An all knowing god will know where the glass will be, and who will get hurt with it before it happens. Also, it will have all the power in the universe to change and/or solve any glass problem.

So when I look at this beautiful world but also full of glass, and hear religious people saying we're all god's children, who is to blame when some of us step on the glass that this parent (god) not only knew about, but created, and decided to put us and it in the same room for us to step on (power and knowledge)?

[Definition] Tradition

Tradition: an inherited pattern of thought or action.

In religious debates, a position that supports a religious based action or tradition, against a secular action, can turn into a conflict where only one side can win. Although it's not always about winning and losing, and compromising is most of the times possible, tradition is sometimes a concept that people believe to be of importance.

For some, a tradition holds an importance higher than an unknown or simply recent non-traditional behavior.

For example: tattoos.
In a lot of work places in our society, tattoos are not seen as tradition, and so people applying for sensitive positions are often discriminated based on having visible tattoos. Bank tellers, Presidents, most managerial positions, are usually some of the positions where the issue is most prevailing. It is as if all bad people in the world could be identified by having tattoos.
Most people allow themselves to have double standards. Sometimes without even noticing. For thousands of years, man has marked his body with paintings, carved it with scars, and all that became tradition in some cultures. Tattooing is tradition. But if you're applying for that very nice job, the standard changes and your tattoo is now bad.

Religion is also tradition.
So was burning people at the stake that were thought to be witches, or heretics, persecuting and forcefully converting people based on their religion (crusades, inquisition), hanging criminals in public places in the old west, and other barbaric acts once done and accepted by the population as traditional: that inherited pattern of thought or action, passed from generation to generation (for whatever reason).

Don't let this become tradition!

When something is just tradition, it is just that: something that has been done a lot. Nothing more, nothing less. Lots of bad things have been done in a traditional way, and so have good things. When a tradition is challenged, all we should do is think about it as if it had been created today.

Next time someone defends something based on tradition alone, or in other words, because it has always been so, demand a better answer. Doing wrong over and over does not make it right. Tradition can be changed, and when a bad one, changing it recycles our minds, our ethics, our values and ourselves. And when times and people change, so should their traditions.