How to Make the World a Better Place...
I am 24 years old, and I was born and raised as a Georgia Baptist. Until last year, I had never heard of anyone who questioned the Bible's inspiration. I thought everybody accepted the Bible as God's Word, but some people just chose to ignore it. However, like most Bible believers, I had never actually read the Bible for myself. The bulk of my Bible knowledge came from stories that were told to me as I was growing up, but a little over a year ago, I went through some pretty hard times, and I made the mistake of deciding to read the Bible from cover to cover. I was hoping to find out what I was doing wrong to bring on my hardships. I had barely made it through the first few chapters of Genesis when I realized that something was terribly wrong. Eventually, I turned to the internet to see if I could make sense of it all, and as I was searching for "Bible," I ran across a little site called "The Secular Web." It was then that I began to read some of your articles, which in turn led me to my free one-year subscription to *TSR.* *The Skeptical Review* and your other writings have really helped me to break free of the control that the Bible had over me. I considered myself to be a very "good Christian," but I feel that I am a much better person now that "the Good Book" is out of my life for good! I believe that the whole world would be a better place if all Bible believers would just sit down and ^read^ the Bible and see it for what it is. Thanks for all that you do to promote reason in our sometimes unreasonable world. I have enclosed a check for another year of *TSR.*
T. Carver Anderson, 75 Forest Lake Road, Pendergrass, GA 30567)
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Ever since my own deconversion, I have thought the same thing that Mr. Anderson just said. People don't believe the Bible because they have seriously studied it, critically examined it, and concluded that it is the "inspired word of God." They believe the Bible only because they grow up in societies in which almost everyone accepts that the Bible is a divine revelation, and those that don't believe this just keep quiet about it because they don't want to experience the displeasure of those who will be outraged if anyone should dare question the foundation of their religious beliefs. Like Mr. Anderson, when I was growing up, I didn't know a single person who questioned that the Bible was "God's Word." I knew that some people didn't go to church and certainly didn't live according to basic biblical teachings, but I thought that this was just because they wanted to enjoy the pleasures of "sinning."
My journey to skepticism began when I embarked on a plan to study the Bible from end to end so that I could be a knowledgeable, effective preacher. The result was that I read myself into rejection of the Bible, because I encountered too much nonsense and inconsistency in it to go on believing what I had been taught as a child, *i. e.,* the Bible is God's inspired word. Like Mr. Anderson, I too believe that if everyone who professes Christianity would actually sit down and study the Bible, this would do more damage to the Christian religion than all of the articles posted on internet sites like the Secular Web. I have had too many people tell me that reading the Bible destroyed their faith to believe otherwise.
Mr. Anderson noted that he was helped in his rejection of the Bible by materials that he read on the internet. As I have said in this forum many times, the internet will prove to be the most formidable foe that Christianity has ever confronted. In the past, people like Mr. Anderson and me could grow up and be totally unaware that there were some who rejected the popular view of the Bible, because preachers and Sunday School teachers would never mention them and libraries would not stock books and articles that questioned the inspiration of the Bible, but that time is long gone. Today, anyone with a computer can go to the internet and with a search engine access articles like those published in *TSR* and read debates between Christians and biblical skeptics. The information monopoly that Christianity enjoyed for so long is gone, probably forever. That's bad news for traditional Christianity.
No Longer Frightened...
In the past few years, I've added religious studies to my list of hobbies. I'm trying to answer questions like, "Why are religions so prevalent and held to so fiercely?" The Skeptical Review has greatly assisted me. Its clear reasoning and quotations of appropriate biblical passages have provided insights and inspiration. Combined with other scholarly criticisms of the Christian Bible as well as other religions, I can now find replies that confound, if not convince, those fervent believers who knock on my door.
Better prepared, I no longer fear a presentation of "God's plan." Now it is they whom I find poorly prepared. In large part because of your efforts, I perhaps understand the Christian Bible well enough to do a bit of comparative study. Recently, I invited Mormons to my house for a bit of data collection. A cursory reading of the Book of Mormon shows that it adds nothing new to Christian thought other than a manifestly false history. To boot, it is exceedingly tedious. Give me the Old Testament any day for its originality and variety.
Despite the lack of any new ideas or real differences with other mainline Christian sects, the Book of Mormon does repeatedly warn that unbelievers will be damned. Thanks at least in part to The Skeptical Review I'm not frightened.
(Michael O'Brien, 1017 Chevney Way, Shady Cove, OR 97539)
EDITOR'S NOTE: I often receive letters from people just recently deconverted who express doubts about the decision they have made. They are bothered by the possibility that they made the wrong decision, because the Bible just might be the "word of God" after all. I tell them that such doubts are normal but that if they will stick to their decision, they will eventually pass through this stage and experience the liberating confidence of knowing that they made the right decision. I'm glad to see that Mr. O'Brien has apparently reached this point.
In a sense, the Old Testament may be "original," but in many ways it isn't. This can be seen more clearly when the religions of the biblical era are studied and compared to Judaism. The ancient Hebrews had a tribal god, but so did the Moabites, the Philistines, and other surrounding tribes. The Hebrews offered animal sacrifices to appease their god, but so did the nations around them. The Hebrews built a temple to their god, but the nations around them built temples to their gods too. The Hebrews had a priesthood that they thought gave them access to their god, but so did the nations around them. When the ancient Jewish religion is compared to the religions of other nations of that time, many imitations in Judaism can be identified. Critical scholars recognize, for example, that much of the material in the first eleven chapters of Genesis was borrowed from Babylonian mythology.
Ezekiel's Prophecy against Tyre...
Thank you for continuing to publish The Skeptical Review. I find your material very helpful in my continuing quest to arrive at a frame of reference that I can live with. Please renew my subscription for another year for which I have enclosed the appropriate payment.
In regard to your recent article on Tyre, may I make the following point. When you simply consider the context of this prophecy it becomes rather clear that any futuristic interpretation of this prophecy becomes a moot point. In Ezekiel 26:2-3, the prophet gave the reason for judgment to come against Tyre: "Because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, `Aha! The gate to the nations is broken, and its doors have swung open to me; now that she lies in ruins I will prosper,' therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: I am against you, O Tyre." What follows is God speaking in the first person, describing what would become of Tyre and concluding with these words: "Then they will know that I am the Lord." It should be apparent that the *they* referred to here were the Tyrians who were being punished for having designs on Jerusalem.
The context clearly shows that it was because of the attitude of Tyre toward Jerusalem that it was going to be destroyed. This attitude was being exhibited by the Tyrians at the time this prophecy was written. This attitude could not have been projected hundreds and thousands of years into the future to necessitate a continuing judgment against Tyre. God said that as a result of this destruction "they will know that I am the Lord." This statement was directed to the Tyrians living at the time of this prophecy because it was those Tyrians that had an "attitude" toward Jerusalem, which was the reason they were going to be destroyed. Tyrians living during the time of Alexander and into the hundreds of years after Alexander would have no idea that they were being invaded because of a prior attitude toward Jerusalem and therefore they would not come to "know the Lord" through such invasions. To punish Tyrians living hundreds and even thousands of years into the future for an attitude exhibited by Tyrians living at the time of Ezekiel would place in question the administration of justice in this matter.
Furthermore, in Ezekiel 27, the prophet listed the various nations that traded with Tyre and described the lamenting of these nations over the destruction of Tyre. By simply reading through this material, it becomes obvious that the nations spoken of, and the kind of trading that was done, related to nations existing at the time of Ezekiel and not nations existing hundreds and thousands of years in the future that would be lamenting the destruction of Tyre.
The context shows that the events of this prophecy would apply to the Tyrians living at the time this prophecy was written. Since it is obvious from both secular and biblical history that Nebuchadnezzar did not accomplish a great deal against Tyre, we can clearly see the nonfulfillment of what Ezekiel claimed that God had ordered relative to the nation of Tyre.
(Dave Kroll, 6865 North Burbank, Milwaukee, WI 53224; e-mail dakbjk@aol.com)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Kroll has made some excellent points and in so doing has called attention to one of the simplest ways to debunk prophecy-fulfillment claims. When so-called prophecy fulfillments are analyzed in terms of the full context of the prophetic statement, it will become apparent that the alleged fulfillment event failed to satisfy the full scope of the original prediction. In my latest article in the series that has been examining prophecies that Bruce Weston inquired about (pp. 6-10, this issue), I showed that prophecy-fulfillment buffs have focused on a single verse (Isaiah 11:11) to claim that the formation of the nation of Israel in 1948 fulfilled Yahweh's promise to return his people to their homeland. However, when the context in which this single verse appeared is analyzed, one can easily see that there are too many aspects of the original prophecy that did ^not^ happen in 1948 to consider the formation of Israel as a fulfillment of this prophecy.
The same is true of Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre. In addition to the contextual problems that Mr. Kroll identified, there is the matter of Nebuchadnezzar's role in the "fulfillment." The context of Ezekiel 26:7-14 clearly shows that Yahweh was prophesying that Nebuchadnezzar would be the agent who would bring about a total destruction of Tyre. To circumvent the problem posed by this context, biblicists have tried to claim that Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled the prophecy in that he destroyed the mainland or suburban areas of Tyre, but the total context of the prophecy is not at all friendly to this quibble. As the prophecy continued into verse 27, the context showed that Ezekiel was speaking not of mainland villages but of the island stronghold itself. He referred to Tyre as a city that "dwells at the entry of the sea" and whose borders are "in the heart of the sea" (v:4). These would be accurate descriptions of an island city but not of mainland villages. In verses 4-9, Ezekiel used the imagery of men building a ship to describe the way that the city of Tyre was originally built. This is an appropriate metaphor for a city that covered an entire off-shore island but hardly an appropriate one for mainland villages. Ezekiel warned that when its destruction came upon Tyre in the "day of its ruin," it would "fall into the heart of the sea" (v:27). There are many other contextual references like these that appropriately described a city on an island, but they would not be accurate descriptions of villages built on the mainland. The full context of Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre shows that he was predicting the destruction of the island stronghold and not just the mainland part. Since Nebuchadnezzar failed even to capture the island city, much less destroy it, the only reasonable conclusion is that this prophecy failed.
Ezekiel's Many Nations...
I received The Skeptical Review today and have already read about the Tyre prophecy. There is additional support for your position that many nations fought with Nebby. The 25th chapter of Ezekiel has a tirade against Ammon, Moab, and Edom for their participation against Judah, supporting your citing of 2 Kings 24:2. It was quite common in those days for the winners to put the defeated in their armies (Assyria did it, as did the Romans). Even Tyre had mercenaries in her forces (Ezek. 27:10). Nazi Germany copied this custom during WW2. After overrunning Europe she instituted the Waffen SS. Europeans were invited to join these forces to help fight communism in the East. Although fighting on the Russian front may have been undesirable, it was far better than a concentration camp. Many joined. Anyway, I am going to do some searching for just how prevalent this custom was in the time period in question. I will let you know what I find, if its worth telling. You did well enough as it was; I just like to have "overkill" of information when it comes to debating inerrantists. I am sure you agree.
Although it's not an exact parallel, Desert Storm was "many nations" under one command.
(David Mooney, 1203 Mooney Way SW, Supply, NC 28462; e-mail, atheist89- @hotmail.com)
EDITOR'S NOTE: It does indeed require "overkill" at times in order to convince biblical inerrantists that their position is indefensible. Even overkill will not convince most of them, but it does at least silence some of them.
Encouraging Prison Inmates...
Just read the September/October issue. Excellent as usual. I saw an address for a freethinker lady in a Texas prison. It so happens I already correspond with another lady in the same prison. I have told them about each other and hope they will meet if they haven't already. I take it upon myself to contact anyone listed in your mailbag section who seems to want further contact with freethinkers, and provide them with a list of organization addresses, "nontracts" from FFRF, etc. Iencourage all other freethinker readers of TSR to do likewise, especially for inmates who obviously are more limited in their ability to connect than most others. Since Dennis McKinsey has ceased publication of his Biblical Errancy, it appears it is up to you to hold down the fort on the inerrancy issues. Keep up the great work. Should you need to contact me or the Alabama Freethought Association, temyb@gte.net or here http://alfreethought.home.mindspring.com/
(Temy R. Beal, assistant director, Alabama Freethought Association, editor, *The Alabama Freethinker,* P.O. Box 447, Ariton, AL 36311-0447: e-mail address noted above)
EDITOR'S NOTE: The date of this letter (October 1998) shows the difficulty that I have in finding space to publish all letters that deserve to be read. This delay in publication will perhaps explain to the writer of the next letter why some letters never appear in this column.
Witty, Clever, Trenchant Letters...
Although you haven't seen fit to publish any of the well considered, witty, clever, trenchant letters that I've sent you over the years (the last one delineating why heaven is hotter than hell), you nevertheless do a superb job in keeping the armies of the night at bay. As a result, I cannot help but renew my subscription for yet another year, even as I bind up the wounds of a lacerated ego.
(John Carver, 10517 Oklahoma Avenue, Chatsworth, CA 91311)
EDITOR'S NOTE: I appreciate Mr. Carver's sense of humor, and I hope that my editorial comment above will explain why some letters are never published. For the same reason, I cannot publish all articles that are submitted to TSR. Just trying to read everything requires a big investment of time.
Who's to Blame...
I have enjoyed receiving your newsletter, since I am at this time thinking seriously about the issue of Biblical inerrancy, and you always make me think. Concerning the article "Who's to Blame?" in the January/February 1999 issue of TSR, I have a few comments in reply.
First, an inerrantist could turn the same argument around against atheism. Look at all the officially atheist countries in this century, from the late Soviet Union to Cuba and Vietnam, which have tortured and murdered millions in the name of Marxism or "Scientific Materialism" or whatever. Western atheists such as Corliss Lamont have defended all of them, blaming "excesses" such as show trials, persecution of all who dare to criticize the glorious leader, and the Gulag, to outside interferences from foreigners. One of Joseph McCabe's Blue Books, Atheist Russia Shakes the World (written about 1941, I believe), claims "...the `Godless Bolsheviks,' as the Catholic press still called them only six months ago, have created the greatest civilization of our time." Such statements would be laughable in retrospect, if it were not so tragic that totalitarian regimes were defended by atheists so long as they claimed to be atheist.
Second, the Old Testament prohibition against witchcraft (Ex. 22:18) would be reasonable if one believed that some people really had power to harm others using supernatural means. If one does not believe in the supernatural, then that command is another example of tragic consequences resulting from irrational beliefs. And of course the burden of proof is on those who claim the supernatural exists.
Third, let's just admit that all human beings are capable of horrible actions against their fellow human beings, whether due to "original sin" or primitive residues from our evolutionary past. Their professed belief or philosophy seems to make no difference in their ability to do evil.
Fourth, in your reply to Gleason Archer (July/August 98), you criticized his use of the fallacy of undesirable consequences. I am surprised to see you using this argument for your beliefs. The articles that make the most sense to me are those that argue things such as scientific problems in Biblical statements, unfulfilled prophecy, historical events that should be mentioned in contemporary records but aren't, etc.
I would appreciate your reply. I look forward to many interesting and provoking articles in the future.
(Robert S. Jackson, 159 Gaddis Road NW, Cartersville, GA 30120; e-mail, rjac332730@aol.com)
EDITOR'S NOTE: In my reply to Roger Hutchinson in the May/June issue, I have addressed Mr. Jackson's first point, so the only additional comment that I consider necessary concerns Jackson's reference to the millions who were tortured or killed "in the name of Marxism." I think it is an oversimplification to assume that all of these atrocities were committed "in the name of Marxism," because I suspect that the leaders of these nations were just like other tyrants, whose chief motivation was to secure their power hold on their respective countries, and so their religious beliefs or lack of the same were probably incidental to their actions. Furthermore, Marxism was primarily a political/economic philosophy, and so crimes committed "in the name of Marxism" would have been political crimes and certainly not crimes motivated by lack of religious beliefs.
As for Joseph McCabe's statement about the "Godless Bolsheviks," I feel no need to defend what McCabe may have thought. I have a lot of respect for Joseph McCabe's works. As an ex-priest turned skeptic, he wrote some books that were devastating to the Christian position, but he died in 1955 and did not have an opportunity to examine communism "in retrospect," as we have today, because its political and economic failures were not as obvious at that time as they were later. People living when McCabe did could evaluate what communism had done for the Soviet Union only in terms of how social conditions were under the communist regime compared to life under czarist Russia. An impartial comparison at the time would surely have concluded that they were no worse, if not much better. At any rate, I addressed the atrocities of communist dictators in my reply to Hutchinson. If Mr. Jackson thinks that there is evidence that such leaders as Joseph Stalin were motivated by atheistic beliefs to commit their atrocities, I would like to see it. I am certainly not arguing that no atrocity was ever committed as a direct result of a tyrant's atheism; I am arguing only that Christians rather facilely associate crimes of nontheists with their atheism. If such reasoning is valid, then it would be just as valid to argue that Adolf Hitler's atrocities resulted from his Catholic beliefs or that the vast majority of prison inmates, who are theistic in their beliefs, committed their crimes because of their belief in theism, and that would be patently fallacious reasoning.
Since Jackson and I seem not to disagree on the irrationality of belief in witchcraft, no comment on his second point is necessary. His third point was that human beings seem capable of "horrible actions" regardless of their philosophical beliefs, and I certainly agree. However, that does not remove the fact that an inordinate number of atrocious acts have been religiously motivated, especially by belief in Christianity. To point to atrocities committed by political leaders who seemed to have no religious beliefs and then claim that their lack of faith led them to commit their crimes is a leap in logic that is hardly justified. However, when decrees issued by popes and other religious leaders encouraged and authorized the purging of "heretics," there can't be much doubt that whatever crimes followed in the wake of these decrees were religiously motivated. That is the essential difference in inquisitions and other religious persecutions and the atrocities committed by communist regimes.
I am puzzled by Jackson's surprise that I had pointed out the fallacy of undesirable consequences in my reply to Gleason Archer, because a logical fallacy is a flaw in one's reasoning that should be exposed in debating. Although exposure of scientific problems in Biblical statements, unfulfilled prophecies, and silence in contemporary records of events that should have been mentioned are certainly strong arguments against biblical inerrancy--after all that's the very reason I so often refer to such problems in the Bible-- that is certainly no reason not to point out logical fallacies in an opponent's line of reasoning.
Disunity in Freethought Groups...
Enclosed is a check for another year of TSR. I was wondering, how about 12 issues a year for TSR? Since McKinsey's Biblical Errancy has bit the dust, there is a market for it. I would be more than willing to pay $24 per year for such a publication. It would sure beat $25-30 for each and every atheist group's asking price of membership and the denominational backbiting it brings. In their search for new subscribers they tend to be very protective of their turf but cannibalistic of other like organizations. Talk about your partisan politics.
The problem is that there aren't enough meals for each to feel satisfied or even able to do more than pay legal fees to some lost cause rather than direct aggressive reeducation programs at the general public. If all would bury the hatchet and combine forces and resources, much could be done. Then again, 13 years of being out of the atheist closet and having seen several monthly publications, I went away thinking that the few of which I was a member were the only groups of their kind. I have since come to the conclusion that no matter what two organizations I had been a member of, I would have had the same response. I would never have been introduced to other freethought publications.
We criticize Christians for being so fragmented, but the freethought community is no better and possibly even worse. And what do free thinkers have to show for it? I can name but have never seen several of the reported atheists in Ohio. That number may be smaller or larger, but how could I know? Where is the support system? Oh, I have to pay a fee of $25 to maybe see who my fellow free thinkers are! Sorry, I didn't know the rules even to know that there were others who wished me well. I'm of a substantial belief that I'm the only atheist that resides in Seneca County. I have responded to various TSR mailbag writers, thanking them for a good letter, but none have ever responded. Locally, I no longer have letters to the editors published. I believe isolation is the proper term. No one else was near that I could use to hand off my information in order to circumvent the local paper's censorship. Where can I get help? Oh, I can, but it may well cost me over $100 or more a year, and I'd still be no further ahead in my search.
So without dynamic changes, even TSR may well be shelved. You may die or ill health may bring it to a halt. Your voice will be lost. Sure, we can download all this stuff, but for how long? Five years, maybe ten? The clock is ticking, but are we? Sidebar: I have been a member of both AA and FFRF, and not once did I garner any information about members and those geographically close to me. There seems to be no forum in any such organization. After all, if group xx's information might be used to allow group zz a crack at their membership list, they may "steal" them away, but to criticize leaves one open to personal attacks and misinformation about one who is simply wanting to help the freethought cause. I'm not a joiner; I hope I can be a doer. Within the freethought community it seems that free speaking is heresy, and we think Christians are weird?
(Douglas L. Smith, P. O. Box 513, Tiffin, OH 44883; e-mail, imtruth@yahoo.com)
EDITOR'S NOTE: There is more to Mr. Smith's letter, which discussed advantages that organized religion seems to have over freethought groups. I will publish it in the next issue.
I agree with many of his observations about disunity in freethought organizations, and I have heard other skeptics express similar views. I have found it frustrating to read a letter in another freethought publication in which the writer expressed concerns that I thought I could help with by offering the writer the free subscription to TSR, but I couldn't contact the person, because only initials and the name of a town were used to identify the writer. From the beginning of TSR, I have published the names and addresses of all authors and letter writers so that readers who wanted to contact them would know how to do so. I would think that this is a minimum type of service that freethought publications could offer its readers. In doing this, I have never worried about other organizations and editors stealing my subscribers, because if TSR can't survive competition, maybe it should not be published in the first place. Apparently, this policy hasn't hurt the paper, because the number of subscribers continues to grow and has reached the point of becoming almost too much for me to manage myself.
So 12 issues per year? Bite your tongue, Mr. Smith! Six is almost more than I can manage, and sometimes I find myself wondering why I ever changed from a quarterly format.
Natural-Born Skeptics...
The Skeptical Review was worth receiving this year just for "Who's to Blame?" in the January/February issue, and the exchange between you and Roger Hutchinson in the May/June issue. This illustrates the problem I've had with local Christians whenever I try to show them the dark side of their faith. Even when I point out Bible passages where their god and savior encourage believers to be bigoted and violent, they fold their arms and close their ears. When I press further, they retreat into the not-real-Christians dodge and won't be dissuaded from it. The next time I get into such a debate, I'll send my "opponents" copies of the above articles; they can dismiss me because I have never been a Christian (although I came scarily close), but they won't be able to dismiss a former minister so easily.
I have to comment on two points Mr. Hutchinson made in his article. He wrote, "Perhaps the teaching of evolution in the schools, with its mantra, Survival of the Fittest, accounts for the Paul Hills of the world." What! How non sequitur can you get? Paul Hill is a Protestant fundamentalist and has probably been one all his life (correct me if I'm mistaken about this). He was also well known as a hardcore "pro-life" fanatic before his shooting of Britton and Barrett. Even if he *was* taught the evolution theory, he probably never believed it, and it had nothing to do with his picking up his gun. And I wager that same goes for all the other "Paul Hills of the world."
Mr. Hutchinson also made a point that I agree with. He said, "People are natural born skeptics who reject the Bible." Exactly, my dear sir! And when more people get over their early conditioning and return to their natural skeptical state, the better off we all will be.
(Andrew C. Jones, 5399 Chaison Road, Gladstone, MI 49837-8812)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Hutchinson's jab at evolution is a typical
fundamentalist tactic. My experience with them on the internet has been
that when they are at a loss to defend the absurdity of their beliefs,
they will lash out with something like, "My faith in the Bible is no
more ridiculous than your faith in evolution." It's fun to watch them
try to defend the existence of God with appeals to science: "Scientists
have proven that the universe had a beginning with the big bang," or
"The second law of thermodynamics would prevent evolution from
occurring," or "Science has proven that something cannot come from
nothing," etc., etc., etc. These statements are not just inaccurate;
they are inconsistent with the fundamentalist position that the vast
community of scientists worldwide are wrong in teaching that evolution
accounts for the diversity of life. After all, if scientists can't be
trusted in what they say about evolution, how can they be trusted in
what they say about the big bang or the laws of thermodynamics? Of
course, consistency has never been a characteristic of Bible believers.
