"Perfectly Fiendish"

The following is an excerpt from one of Robert Green Ingersoll's speeches from *Ingersoll--Black Debate on The Christian Religion* (1881):

A very curious thing about these [ten] commandments is that their supposed author violated nearly every one. From Sinai, according to the account, he said: "Thou shalt not kill," and yet he ordered the murder of millions; "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and yet he gave captured maidens to gratify the lust of captors; "Thou shalt not steal," and yet he gave to Jewish marauders the flocks and herds of others; "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor his wife," and yet he allowed his chosen people to destroy the homes of neighbors and to steal their wives; "Honor thy father and thy mother," and yet this same God had thousands of fathers butchered, and with the sword of war killed children yet unborn; "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," and yet he sent abroad "lying spirits" to deceive his own prophets, and in a hundred ways paid tribute to deceit. So far as we know, Jehovah kept only one of these commandments -- he worshiped no other god.

You Saw Whom Yesterday?

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne
No matter how much integrity a person has, it is not sufficient to prove a miracle claim. It is much more likely that the person claiming he witnessed a miraculous event had an error in judgment, is kidding, or even lying than that a miracle actually occurred. We believe this because, all around us all the time we see natural law taking place without  any interruption at all.

If a man tells me he saw Confederate General Robert E. Lee yesterday I immediately think he is either kidding me, that he is mistaken, or even possibly lying to me. For me to believe that he actually saw Robert E. Lee, in the flesh, the evidence would have to be of such an unequivocal, unimpeachable, convincing nature that I would have no choice but to believe it. No testimony even comes close to rising to that level. Whether it is testimony from a good friend from just yesterday about Robert E. Lee or much less from four anonymous writers from 2000 years ago about a man coming back to life after being dead for about  three days.

The only rational way to evaluate claims that one has no firsthand knowledge of is to apply a rule of evidence that Carl Lofmark explained in What Is The Bible?:

When you lack evidence, the only way to decide whether or not to believe something is to ask: Is it likely? If you tell me a bird flew past my window, I will probably believe you, even though I did not see it myself and I have no evidence. That is because such a thing is likely. I have seen it happen before. It is more likely that a bird flew past my window, than that you are deceiving me. But if you tell me a pig flew past my window, I will not believe you, because my past experience tells me that such things do not happen, and so I presume that what you reported is false. Thus, where there is no evidence we have to rely on our own past experience of the sort of things that really happen (pp. 41-42).

Biblical Blasphemy

The following is an article by one of our country's greatest Founding Fathers, Thomas Paine:

The church tells us that the books of the Old and New testament are divine revelation, and without this revelation we could not have true ideas of God.

The Deist, on the contrary, says, that those books are not divine revelation, and that were it not for the light of reason, and the religion of Deism, those books, instead of teaching us true ideas of God, would teach us not only false but blasphemous ideas of him.

Access To Information Changes Everything

By ThinkTank ~ from EXchristian.net

When people ask, “What made you lose your faith?” it’s always a little challenging to know what to say. How do we compress 5-10 years and 100 reasons into a short response when we really need several hours (or days) to talk about the process of losing our faith?

 

Partial map of the Internet based on the January 15, 2005 data found on opte.org. Image via Wikipedia

There is also a similar question that ex-christians ask themselves -- “How could I have believed something so improbable for so long?” It turns out, we were far from unintelligent and there is a very good reason why we believed for so long. We did not have access to information.

No Information = Problems

For most of human history, people have had very limited access to information. Most people were dependent on some type of authority for information because it was difficult to find information or to verify things on one’s own. Being dependent on others for information had lots of problems.

It was hard to learn things independently

People were dependent on what other people wrote, taught, said, did, or presented via TV/movies. Even something as simple as looking up the definition of a word meant stopping to find a dictionary. Most people skipped the hassle and learned to be content with ‘not knowing’.

"They Ought To Know"

The following is an excerpt from Robert Green Ingersoll's, *Why I Am An Agnostic* (1896):

Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed. It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.

Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in eternal pain is growing weaker every day -- that thousands of ministers are ashamed of it. It gives me joy to know that Christians are becoming merciful, so merciful that the fires of hell are burning low -- flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a few years to die out forever.

For centuries Christendom was a madhouse. Popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and heretics were all insane.

Only a few -- four or five in a century were sound in heart and brain. Only a few, in spite of the roar and din, in spite of the savage cries, heard reason's voice. Only a few in the wild rage of ignorance, fear and zeal preserved the perfect calm that wisdom gives.

We have advanced. In a few years the Christians will become -- let us hope -- humane and sensible enough to deny the dogma that fills the endless years with pain. They ought to know now that this dogma is utterly inconsistent with the wisdom, the justice, the goodness of their God. They ought to know that their belief in hell, gives to the Holy Ghost -- the Dove -- the beak of a vulture, and fills the mouth of the Lamb of God with the fangs of a viper.

Life In Lubbock, TX

"Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things. One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, dirty thing on the face of the earth and you should save it for someone you love."

 ~Butch Hancock