Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1833

Churches Are Great at Creating Community (Seriously)

The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses how churches are great at creating community (seriously):

This is an excerpt from a longer video, which can be seen here.

A rough transcript of the video can be found on the YouTube page in the “About” section.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next!

And if you like what you’re seeing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon.

Quick Rebuttals to Common Christian Arguments

Happy New Year! Might as well get off to a good start by arming yourself with some strong rebuttals against common arguments for God’s existence, courtesy of Richard Carrier:

Some highlights:

0:28 “Spacetime had a beginning”
1:38 “The Universe is fine tuned for life”
3:43 “Life requires a creator”
5:20 “Consciousness requires a spirit/soul”
7:34 “God is needed for objective moral values”
9:07 “Jesus was resurrected”

You can see the full debate this clip is from right here.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)

The Year in Conservative Christianity: Mrs. Betty Bowers Edition

Mrs. Betty Bowers reminds us of what the year looked like for America’s Best Christian:

(via MrsBettyBowers)

When God’s Not Doing His Job, Might As Well Fire Him

For a while, nothing was going right in Cheryl Abram‘s life. The God she had put her faith in was doing absolutely nothing for her.

So she got rid of Him.

It’s not that her life suddenly got better, but a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders.

She writes about it in her book Firing God (Non-Duality Press, 2014):

In the excerpt below, Abram talks about the time just before she decided to take a leap of doubt:

Living in constant states of disquiet, ungratefulness, unhappiness and dissatisfaction is no way to live and I didn’t want to live like that anymore. I didn’t want to have hope or faith that life would get better “tomorrow”, or when Jesus came back, or when I died and went to heaven. I didn’t want to have faith and trust in a better future or a different outcome.

I wanted to be happy now. I wanted peace now. But I couldn’t just be peaceful or stop being dissatisfied. Peace and satisfaction relied on a certain set of conditions; conditions that were not being met in my life.

I didn’t want to give up my belief in salvation because I still wanted eternal life and all the stuff that came along with being on the good side, so I thought that maybe if I sacrificed more, prayed more, attended church more, tithed more, repented more, helped others more, fasted more… maybe if I did all these things and more, the suffering, pain and depression would subside. I’d feel better about myself and God would be happy with me and give me something for doing all these wonderful things.

So I switched churches, I began to tithe more, I fasted more, I volunteered more, I prayed more, I read my Bible more and I was sure to repent for every little thought I judged to be out of line with God’s Word.

It didn’t work. I tried it all and it didn’t work. I was still miserable.

Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I needed another pastor, another church, a different husband, a different job, a better image of myself, more obedient children, a happier disposition, a healthier body, a more positive attitude, more sincerity, a better relationship with Jesus, more compassion, more courage or less pride. Maybe I needed to make better choices. Maybe I needed to wait a little longer for God to come through for me. Maybe I needed a different mark; a better mark. Maybe I just hadn’t learned my life lesson and problems were just opportunities for me to be more holy, saved, spiritual and dependent of God.

That’s right! I was supposed to suffer and have problems. This was the price, the sacrifice I had to make to be worthy of God’s love. Jesus suffered so I had to suffer. I made a bad decision, not God. I was disobedient, not God. I couldn’t blame God. This was entirely my fault. He was innocent and only wished to love me. I just had to be patient, pray and wait on Him. He didn’t have to do anything for me if He didn’t want to. I didn’t deserve His love at all. Suffering, problems and sacrifice were a small price to pay for what He had already done for me. I sang this song for years. I made excuse after excuse for this God and His inability to keep his promises. Blaming God for anything was not an option. So I remained on my quest to get more.

I had lots of ideas on how I should be better and how I should view suffering and problems and I tried all of them, but I was not satisfied with the results. The result was still misery and unhappiness and a continuation of the tireless and never-ending search for something better. Salvation didn’t work. Saved from what? Hell? The story of Hell is a child’s fairytale when you’re living the reality. When you’re in a fetal position on the floor, thinking of ways you can end your life, and crying until you can’t breathe, while physically feeling the tightness of despair and hopelessness gripping every cell in your body… the story of Hell means absolutely nothing. I didn’t need a Devil or fire and brimstone as punishment for being a sinner. My own thoughts and emotions were the fire and brimstone. My own hopelessness, helplessness and failure at life were punishment enough. An outside agent was not necessary.

Belief in salvation and unworthiness were beliefs in nothing because that’s what they provided me; absolutely nothing.

I’d made a mistake. I’d mistakenly thought that all the work I’d put into limiting and redefining myself would result in a reward, a boon, a better outcome. Belief in unworthiness and subsequent salvation was supposed to get me something more; something better than what I had before. It didn’t. Now I was trapped by what I’d made. I was trapped by my own definition of myself. I was confined in all the concepts and beliefs in my mind. I was at the mercy of the marks I’d made.

I was a 34 year-old unhappy African American woman, mother, sister and wife with no self-esteem and a laundry list of problems. This is how I had redefined myself. I was a person in search of something more. And I was right about this. No one would argue with my definition of myself. This is who I was. While there were moments of happiness, joy, contentment, laughter and beauty they never lasted. Happiness was fleeting and dissatisfaction always overcame contentment. Time always passed and life always ended so I was continually searching.

I was exhausted. I didn’t want to do this anymore.

Firing God is now available on Amazon.

Harlem Hate-Pastor “Debunks” Atheist Bill Maher By Saying There is an Afterlife Since We Can Leave Behind Legacies

Harlem Pastor James David Manning — who’s famous for saying coffee at Starbucks contains the “semen of sodomites” and that LGBT individuals and those who support them should get “cancer HIV syphilis stroke madness the itch then hell” — is back with a rant against comedian Bill Maher.

Manning can’t spell his name. He doesn’t even know what channel Maher’s show is on. But he knows that Maher is wrong for believing there’s no life after death… since people can leave behind legacies.

Which I’m pretty sure Maher would agree with.

An actual still from the video. I don’t get it, either.

After going on a weird tangent about séances, Manning “refutes” Maher by claiming that, since we remember certain people long after they’re dead, there is indeed a kind of afterlife out there. Checkmate, atheists!

I don’t [believe in séances], but a lot of people believe that. But there is sense of spirit — spirituality — of your life, Bill Maher, even when you’re dead, you still have influence. You know, the influence of your mother or your grandmother or loved one. They’re dead now, but their spirit still lives in you. C’mon, talk to me Bill Maher. Talk to me! Talk to me! Talk to me! With your lying self.

…

I just wanted to debunk that heathen.

He didn’t “debunk that heathen” because Maher never said anything to the contrary. Of course you can leave behind a legacy. That doesn’t mean there’s a literal afterlife, or that the souls of the deceased are still out there, or that we have consciousness after death. I think every atheist out there would agree with Manning on that count.

Maher’s not going to talk to a raving lunatic, especially not when there’s nothing to debate.

If anything, Manning’s argument is all the more reason to make the most of this life and stop thinking that you’re just in a trial run for Heaven.

This is one of Manning’s problems. He lives in such a bubble, that he assumes those evil atheists must believe the opposite of whatever he does. He has no desire to actually talk to atheists — or Maher for that matter — because if he did, he would realize the size of the straw man he’s created.

Will anyone in Manning’s congregation challenge him on this — or explain to him that he’s just making a fool of himself? I doubt it. Manning doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would listen to anyone but himself.

(via Raw Story)

Maryland Priest With Known DUI History Was Promoted to Bishop; On Saturday, She Committed a Fatal Hit-and-Run

An omniscient, omnipotent God orchestrated it all, I guess.

Leaders in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland who this spring made Heather Elizabeth Cook a bishop — the diocese’s first female bishop — knew the ugly details of her 2010 drunk-driving arrest but determined “that this one mistake should not bar her for consideration as a leader,” the diocese said in a statement Tuesday.

Now the diocese finds itself under fire after Cook’s acknowledgment that she was involved in a crash on Saturday that killed bicyclist Thomas Palermo, the father of two small children. Cook left the scene but returned later, Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton said in a statement Monday.

In the September 2010 arrest, Cook, then a priest,

… was pulled over at 1:15 a.m. … and was too intoxicated to complete sobriety tests. She had vomit on her shirt, the report said, and one of her four tires was shredded down to the rims. Cook told the officer she was driving from Canada and had drunk alcohol and smoked marijuana while driving, according to the police report.

Cook later submitted to a blood-alcohol breath test and recorded a 0.27, far above the legal limit.

In Saturday’s accident,

Cook left the scene after the 2:30 p.m. crash, despite having a heavily broken windshield. Sutton’s letter said Cook returned to the scene “after about 20 minutes to take responsibility for her actions.” However, cyclists on several Baltimore news and biking sites said that her car was chased by other cyclists and that she returned only because of that.

Five days later, investigators have still not announced whether alcohol was involved, even though Cook’s blood-alcohol level was presumably tested within hours after she killed Palermo. We’ll have to assume that the cops’ refusal to release basic details has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a bishop in a well-connected church.

In a recent sermon that was posted to YouTube, Cook talks a good game about responsibility, invoking people’s behavior in traffic:

“If we routinely drive 55 in a 30 mile-an-hour zone, we won’t be able to stop on a dime if driving conditions get dangerous or if an animal or, God forbid, a human being should step out in front of us. Things happen suddenly, and we’re either prepared in the moment or we’re not, and we face the consequences. We can’t go back. We can’t do it over.

In real life, there are no instant replays. I think this is something of a hard message to give to you today. My perception is that we live in the midst of a culture that doesn’t like to hold us accountable for consequences, that somehow everybody gets a free pass all the time. Well, we do in terms of God’s love and forgiveness, but we don’t in many of the things that happen, and it’s up to us to be responsible.”

Cook’s problems with alcohol are nothing new for her family. She is the daughter of the late Rev. Halsey Cook, a prominent Episcopalian, who told his parishioners in 1977 that he was

… “a sheep, and this place and you people have often shepherded me. I am an alcoholic.”

Palermo, a software engineer at Johns Hopkins, leaves a wife and two young children, aged 4 and 6.

Calgary School’s Science Class Taught Kids That God, the “Greatest Scientist,” Organizes Sunrises and Sunsets

It’s not surprising to see Creationism preached in a private Christian school. But when that school — Calgary’s Glenmore Christian Academy — receives quite a bit of funding from the public, you shouldn’t see a warped science class that’s summarized like this on a report card:

Our year began with an introduction to “What is Science?” and a focus on God, our Creator and the Greatest Scientist of all. As the year progresses, we are looking for evidence of God’s intelligence in creation. We noted an example of God’s organization in creation, as we followed the patterns of sunrises & sunsets and the phases of the moon. Our class verse is Romans 1:20.

By the way, that section of Romans is all about “God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity.” Because that’s what children need to be taught.

The report card summation stirred buzz when it was posted to Twitter over the weekend and Kent Hehr, Alberta Liberal education critic, said what was taught to the kids “Clearly is not part of the Alberta curriculum.”

“It’s expected that science and evolution and the like are taught in our classrooms,” he said. “It appears that this is adopting the theory of intelligent design that has been going around the United States and, in my view, this does not serve the public interest and the education minister should investigate what’s happening in this private school and put a stop to this type of practice.”

Sean McGuire points out, though, that the education minister is hardly an objective observer. It’s Gordon Dirks, the former pastor of an anti-gay church.

Hopefully, the public outcry will force some changes, though. Even though it’s a Christian school, it’s not allowed to run amok by teaching whatever Bible-based bullshit it wants:

… the province cautioned that “The establishment of alternative program, including faith-based, does not remove a school board’s obligation to ensure instruction is consistent with the Guide to Education and the Alberta programs of study.”

You Were Right; Salvation Lies Within

Here’s a Shawshankian Bible you might want to give that atheist friend of yours…

The Good Book, indeed!

(via This is Why I’m Broke)

When to Walk Away from a Conversation About Religion

Anthony Magnabosco has made a whole bunch of videos in which he speaks to a stranger about his or her religious beliefs for just five minutes — and then deconstructs the whole conversation afterwards. (You can see his efforts here, here, here, and here.)

But this time, he made one where he explains when it’s best to just walk away.

The impetus for this series on street epistemology comes from Peter Boghossian‘s book.

If any parts stand out, please leave the timestamps/summaries in the comments!

Christian Proselytizers Pretend They’re Animal Rescuers, Send Trick Postcards With Doleful Puppies and Kittens

Did you know that you and I are exactly like unwanted dogs?

If you’re wondering how so, consider this postcard from the fine Christian folks (including Ray Comfort) behind NeedGod.com. Looking at the photos and reading the copy on the front, you’d surely think it was a request for support from an animal-adoption group.

The word salad on the back reveals a different story:

Thousands of cats and dogs are euthanized each year because they are unwanted and no one is willing to reach out to them and give them a new safe and caring permanent home filled with love and affection. It seems cruel and unfair that these poor helpless animals don’t have a loving caregiver to save them. Many organizations such as the Human [sic] Society and The Fund for Animals are doing a great job and finding homes and saving many of these poor animals from certain death. While all of our hearts go out to animals like the ones shown on this postcard, similarly and more importantly, our heart goes out to you and wants to help you find a new safe and caring permanent “eternal” home filled with love and affection. The first step in this process is understanding you are lost and have a sinful nature.

Followed by Jesus, sin, torment, lake of fire, Jesus, repent, Jesus, sin, submit, and more Jesus.

It’s too bad that such cheap tricks may well make recipients suspicious of future pleas from bona fide animal advocacy organizations. It also bothers me that this deceitful approach is likely to score relatively well with an audience that’s poorly equipped to weigh the message critically: children (I’ve never met a kid who isn’t drawn to puppies and kittens). Halfway sane adults who are threatened with eternal hellfire for not believing in Jeebus can easily dismiss such nonsense, but to young ones the threat can be impressive and terrifying.

To the people behind this postcard: Apart from attempting to sow terror in the hearts of children, is subterfuge and chicanery really the best way to sell your god?

(via Reddit)