The second time around...

I've been here before.

How's that for a beginning, stranger?

When I say I've been here before I'm not meaning physical location or situation. I don't mean it in the way that someone in an unfamiliar area might look around and conclude that they are lost, "I've been here before, and I've seen that rock, we're going in circles!” I mean that I've been here before because despite many outward signs that would suggest otherwise, I don't think I ever left this spot once I found it.

Where is here? To me, "here" is being able to not just ask but accept my own answers to the questions that I've asked myself since I was twelve. Someone growing up in a true believing conservative Christian fundamentalist household normally would invoke the image of strict control with lots of rules and harsh punishments for failure to follow, yet for me it was actually quite the opposite. In my home curiosity was encouraged, rules were there for practical reasons that generally made sense, and punishments were generally mild and always warranted. That is except for the one question and the ones that follow that I began to ask at twelve shortly after my baptism, the question that brought me here. What if we are wrong and other people are right?

“’Cause you have to remember: It's not just a sin, it's a felony.” (Robin Williams)

Here’s to the memory of the great Robin Williams.

I don't think suicide is the worst thing in the world, and I don't imagine Robin Williams burning in some invented hell or whatever. I will say, though, that this is a loss for the rest of the world. The man was an inspiration to everyone who had any sense.

The fact is, the world is a sad place. It is full of reasons that someone might decide that escape is the best route. I hope that I will also have the ability to choose death on my own terms, and I hope that I will have accomplished only a fraction of the things that this man was able to do in his short life.

May his memory ever be for a blessing among the enlightened of the world. May they remember his humor, his laugh, his wisdom and - most importantly - his strength of character. We love you still, #RobinWilliams, and wish your family the strength to grieve and move on with their lives.

Unbelievers on His Passing

• RIP, Robin Williams (The Friendly Atheist)
• Robin Williams and the False Promise of Success (iMortal)
• Robin Williams, dead at 63 (WWJTD)

Requiescat in pace.

Basic Proofs of Christianity

The following is something that a wrote a long time ago for an old blog. I have cleaned it up and turned it into something for this blog. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to comment on the post in response to the questions that I asked at the bottom.

The way I see it, the claims of Christianity can basically be viewed together as a three-legged stool attempting to support the basic claim that Christianity is true. If any one of the three legs falls, the support disappears, and the body of claims come toppling down.

In the case of Christianity, the three basic claim groups are: 1) Jesus fulfills me personally (personal testimony); 2) Jesus fulfilled the prophetic expectation of the Messiah (prophecy fulfillment); and, 3) The New Testament is an accurate record of the continued revelation of the God of Israel (NT authenticity).

If any one of these claims can be disproved, the weight of the Christian argument comes tumbling to the ground. Christianity depends on all of these things being true, though less so the claims of personal testimony, since these tend to accompany every form of religious expression based in a belief in a higher power.

Toward a System of Morality

I have to admit that I’ve been having a hard time with mapping out my system of morality since I have left religious life. Sam Harris claims that science itself can give us direction in terms of what is right and what is wrong, but I haven’t been able to agree with him. Science can inform us about the how of the world around us, but I cannot understand how he draws conclusions from science about the oughts of our lives. (See post scriptum below.)

A Christian recently posted something about knowing “to choose the good and reject the bad” on Facebook. This quote is pulled from Isaiah 7, which talks about the fall of Ephraim (Israel) and Samaria to the Assyrian Empire before “Emmanuel” learned “to choose the good and reject the bad.” It seems to me that this passage is not about choosing moral good over moral bad (that is, “evil”) but rather about learning to discern between types of food, what is good (delicious and healthy) and what is bad (bland and lacking in nourishment).

Archaeology and Faith

French Dominican biblical scholar and archaeologist Roland De Vaux said, “If the historical faith of Israel is not founded in history, such faith is erroneous, and therefore our faith is also.”

William F. Albright, an early 20th century biblical archaeologist and scholar said as well: “[A]s a whole, the picture in Genesis is historical, and there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of the biographical details.”

The first time I read these words I was impressed with the boldness of the message and did not think then and still do not believe any truer words could be spoken about the relevance of the Bible and the accuracy contained within its recorded history. But these words had been rooted in a belief that the findings would support their literal theological belief. Would these same men have made these same bold assertions should it had been discovered at their time of investigations, what the current archaeologists and professors such as Israel Finkelstein, Amihai Mazar and Neil Silberman have learned and shared through books such as The Bible Unearthed, David and Solomon, and The Quest for the Historical Israel?

The God Virus

I’m about to finish reading The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture by Darrel W. Ray. It’s been quite a trip. He maintains the metaphor of religion as a virus throughout, using terminology such as “vector” for priests, rabbis, ministers and imams, “virus/viral” for religion/religious, and “infected” as a term for those who have been convinced and converted to religion.

I had never considered things in these terms, but the metaphor seems to work well. Religions spread in the same way that viruses replicate, going through mutations and competition, lying dormant and making an appearance when confronted by the right combination of factors, etc.

I’m fascinated by the book and just wanted to share it with you.

My De-Conversion

It is hard to know the moment when I actually began believing in God, coming from a Catholic background and taught from early childhood of his existence.  An important shift in thought would have been the time I started taking God more seriously, which involved incorporating teachings from the bible into my life and this did not occur till young adulthood.

A triggering event that prompted a more thorough study of the bible were the visitations by Jehovah Witnesses, who were distributing their pamphlets while educating me of their views.  I was impressed by what seemed to be the amount of biblical knowledge they had and at the time of their visits,  both my husband and I were experiencing problems of our own so these meetings had become a welcome.

Yetzia bish’eila

I’ve never quite understood why leaving one’s Jewish religion is defined as “leaving with a question”. Notwithstanding the fact that it is a botched counter-term for chazara bit’shuva – the process of repentance for one’s sins – it is often a process which, though riddled with doubts, ultimately ends with one’s adamant surety in his/her decision.

I was certain in my decision to leave the religious world behind, and though my family hadn’t accepted my decision at first and fought me hard on it, I stood fast and carried it through.

Religious folks often liken the process of chazara bit’shuva as “stepping into the light”, darkness being the implied metaphor for the secular world. I would argue that it is just the opposite: leaving one’s religion, and thereby foregoing the belief in an almighty deity, is seeing the world in a much clearer and more truthful way than ever possible in the narrow-minded, superstitious, and fanciful world view of religion.

False Dilemmas and Religious Thinking

Last week I was hit by a huge surprise. Suddenly, my brother – like my aunt before him – starting placing loads of posts on his Facebook timeline (the new designation for the social medium’s “wall”) containing prayers and references to his faith in Jesus and his newly-discovered attention to religious conviction. The newest post in the series featured a picture of Romans 1:16 highlighted in a King James Bible: “I am not ashamed of the gospel....” It was probably the first time my brother had ever come across this verse, given that he doesn't read or understand the Bible.

It turns out that he recently attended a Promise Keepers convention, which reminded him of his bad life decisions, convinced him of his need for a savior and swindled him into committing his life to Jesus – the obvious choice for a savior that one hasn’t investigated. Since then he’s been attending church regularly, tithing, praying, blah, blah, blah.

I was simply stunned, and my reaction (“Why?! No! Don't be hoodwinked!”) may have been a bit strong, but among the replies to my response was a girl who attempted to insinuate that I was “persecuting” my own brother (whom I love dearly) and to lay before me a lame version of Pascal’s Wager. This post is intending to lay out the assumptions involved in that famous wager and also C.S. Lewis’s famous “liar, lunatic or Lord” dilemma.

True to Life

Apparently, the pic was real.

This is one of the more embarrassing elements of Judaism. According to this article (in Hebrew), the man is a cohen (כֹּהֵן “priest” [a son of Aaron]) who was concerned when it was reported that the flight that he had been moved to would be flying over a cemetery. This is a basic explanation of the situation.

Leviticus 21:11 has the following prohibition for cohanim (כֹּהֲנִים – plural of cohen):

וְעַ֛ל כָּל־נַפְשֹׁ֥ת מֵ֖ת לֹ֣א יָבֹ֑א לְאָבִ֥יו וּלְאִמּ֖וֹ לֹ֥א יִטַּמָּֽא׃
And he shall not approach dead bodies, nor shall he be made unclean for his father or his mother.

Since a cemetery is the place where we bury the dead, it has long been the traditional understanding of this prohibition that a cohen cannot enter a cemetery.

The man in the picture above was worried about the fact that the flight path would pass over a cemetery, so he consulted a rabbi. The rabbi told him that if he wrapped himself in a plastic bag, then he would not be contaminated and could pass over the cemetery.