eChurch Blog

BBC:-

Nearly 100% of churchgoers “look forward” to sermons but only 17% think preaching changes the way they live, according to a survey.

Researchers at Durham University found 60% of churchgoers felt sermons gave them a sense of God’s love.

Evangelical Christians looked forward most to sermons, with Roman Catholics wanting to be educated, Baptists converted and Anglicans entertained.

But different dominations disagreed on the ideal length of a sermon.

Many Anglicans wanted a sermon to last less than 10 minutes – although up to 20 minutes was fine if there was no “waffle” – while Baptists were happy to sit through at least 75 minutes. Catholics wanted their homilies to be completed within 10 minutes.

Baptists and Catholics were more enthusiastic about the Bible being mentioned in sermons than Anglicans and Methodists.

Members of new, independent evangelical churches wanted sermons to be challenging and encouraging.

‘Counter-intuitive’

The College of Preachers, which commissioned the survey – carried out by Durham University’s Codec research centre – to mark its 50th anniversary, said it was “surprised” by the findings.

I found these comments particularly revealing further on in the article:-

…..Sermons seem to encourage Christian reflection, but not Christian action.

[....]

16.8% of people felt sermons did not actually change the way they lived

I know that this just sounds like negative whinging, but I’m not surprised by these comments as I believe that the standard of preaching in the UK is generally poor and I often find myself thinking that the preacher has nothing to say and is saying it too loud. I liked the Rev. Stephen Gaukroger’s comments at last years Keswick Convention when he said (quite boldly in my opinion) that the church lacks good preachers.

Charles Spurgeon was called the ‘Prince of Preachers’ and Martyn Lloyd-Jones ‘The last of the great preachers’. Considering that Lloyd-Jones died in 1981, what does this say for us today?

I know all of that was negative, but I’m sure you must have heard some of the absolutely crap preaching as I have, and sound preaching seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

Here’s what Paul had to say to Timothy on this issue:-

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

I have personally known several ‘preachers’ who would watch the God TV channel on the Sunday morning to get their inspiration and ideas for the forthcoming sermon, I kid you not.

I might be wrong…..hope so.

There is much talk online currently regarding the rather fraught Christian-Jewish relationship and of course especially the Catholic-Jewish relationship, following recent developments and the Pope’s visit to the Synagogue of Rome.

Here is a small selection of recent Internet links to give you the flavour and depth of the problem:-

JTA – Spitting on Christians in Jerusalem raises eyebrows

eChurch – Jews move to halt spitting at Christians in Jerusalem

Jerusalem Post – A time to act for Catholic-Jewish reconciliation

Church Mouse – Pope can only end the debate on Pius XII with actions, not words

eChurch – Roman Jews, Benedict XVI and the shadow of Pius XII

Haaretz – Israel and Vatican deadlocked in talks over Holy Land sites

Haaretz – Rabbi calls Israel’s treatment of Vatican ‘outrageous’

eChurch – Palestinian Christian groups are boycotting celebrations of Orthodox Christmas in Bethlehem, accusing their Church of selling land to Israelis.

eChurch – Israel: A meeting was spurred by the growing number of complaints from churches in the vicinity of Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim quarter about violence and harassment toward them on the part of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

eChurch – In a lengthy declaration labeled as a message of “faith, hope and love,” dozens of Arab Christian leaders from various churches represented in the region denounced Israel as the main obstacle to peace and rejected the validity of the biblical link between the Jews and the land.

eChurch – Beit She’an police on Wednesday arrested two haredi residents on suspicion they torched a car belonging to a local messianic Jew late Tuesday night.

eChurch – New Testaments and Christian literature destroyed by Akko council – Israeli Messianic Jewish pastor Tony Simon reports on a local council official who misused his authority to harass and illegally arrest evangelists.

Check out the Rosh Pina Project for analysis and reports on the relationship between Messianic Jews and Israel.

There is something deeply profound and important relating to the relationship between Christians and Jews (I do mean the Jewish race and not just religion or nationality) and I wish I were qualified to be able to explain why. I do know however, that reconciliation is vital.

I’m putting this one on because frankly I’m bloomin’ amazed. How on earth do you go about quietly and sneakily nicking a whopping church bell? I’m assuming that this church bell was mounted high in a bell tower on top of the church, if so, that really takes some doing.

Teenager arrested over Fife church bell theft

I absolutely loved this idea from Daniel-Joseph & MacArthur-Seal over at MercatorNet

The long neglected nation of Haiti is finally the focus of the world’s attention, even if a 7.0 magnitude earthquake is in tight competition with ten centimetres of snowfall for UK headlines. I’ve just heard a prominent Republican advocating turning Haiti into a UN protectorate on a BBC World Service Newshour special on the country’s humanitarian needs. The idea of establishing Haiti as a UN protectorate has been circulating for some time, but the notion of revoking the hard-fought independence of the first truly postcolonial country is naturally tainted.

The fear is that otherwise crisis led pledges will last only as long as the attention of the news media. But for all the gestures of support donned by the international community, one genuine remedy is yet to be prescribed; the relocation of United Nations’ headquarters from uptown New York to the ruins of Port-au-Prince. Such a move would, without impinging Haitian sovereignty jealously guarded since independence, signal the necessary commitment and investment to rebuilding that which was destroyed and much more, while bringing beneficial byproducts to the wider global community.

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Could you imagine this actually happening? If only.

I sincerely hope that the below is true. I noted that the Church Newspaper said something similar as reported by Anglican Mainstream last week. As I have libertarian leanings in general, I can’t abide Labour’s legislation mania and find it overbearing, intrusive and controlling in areas that I feel the government has no buisness.

Previous post here:-

Catholic Herald by Anna Arco

The Government was preparing to back down over a controversial clause in the Equality Bill as The Catholic Herald went to press, after vocal criticism from the Church and other religious groups.

The Government has said that it will change the offending part of the Bill, which is being overseen by Equality Minister Harriet Harman. The move comes after religious leaders raised serious concerns that the Bill could force the Catholic Church to ordain women as well as making it impossible to discipline errant priests without facing crippling legal action.

Michael Foster, the Minister for Equality, said that, contrary to reports circulating in the mainstream press last weekend, the Equality Bill “will still allow churches to hire only male clergy”.

He also said that the Bill would allow employers to “continue to recruit people of the same faith where this is a requirement of the job, such as care staff who may also be asked to pray with the people they look after”.

He claimed that the Government had been “absolutely clear on this throughout the Bill’s passage, but as there has been some misunderstanding around our intentions we will amend the Bill to make this clear beyond doubt”.

According to a Government spokesman, the changes will clarify the legislation in order to prevent the Church and other religious organisations from facing lawsuits because of its employment requirements.

Bishops fear that in its original form the Bill could mean that disciplining priests engaged in scandalous – but lawful – sexual behaviour could go against the regulations that the Equality Bill would enshrine in law.

The Church also worries that the wording could force it to abandon its teaching on priestly celibacy because a priest could get married or enter into a civil partnership under the proposed legislation.

If bishops chose to defy the regulations, they might not only be faced with lawsuits but also fines, imprisonment and sequestrated Church assets.

As The Catholic Herald went to press a spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said that he had not seen the Government’s proposed revision. He said he thought there might still be some problems with it, but that the outlook over the Bill was “not as gloomy as it was because at least the Government is finally addressing some of our concerns”.

He said that the Government sought to change the law about employment in religious organisations after job advertisements appeared in the press which went beyond what was legally permissible. These were mainly from small organisations which were unclear about the law. Instead of publishing guidelines, he said, the Government decided to tackle the matter in the Equality Bill, saying it would not broaden or narrow the law but write it more fully. From the beginning, he said, the bishops had been engaged in making sure the wording was clear and appropriate.

He said: “Since the Bill has been published the Government has refused to move or listen to our concerns over the wording.

“It’s only now that they are facing difficulties ahead of an election that they start to show any interest in the problematic parts of the Bill.” Baroness O’Cathain, a Tory Peer, tabled an amendment together with the Anglican Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt and Lord Anderson of Swansea, which proposed striking the clause out entirely, leaving the provisions for employment as they were defined in 2003. The 2003 Employment Regulations allow employers to discriminate on the basis of religion and sexual orientation with respect to employment for the purposes of organised religion.

The bishops’ spokesman said the amendment “returning the law to pre-existing points” was the “only prudent option unless and until the Government met all the concerns and legal uncertainties” that the new legislation brings with it.

The offending clause in the Equalities Bill, Schedule 9, narrowly defines the type of religious employment exempted from sexual orientation regulations as “employment that wholly or mainly involves” a “leading or assisting in the observation or ritualistic practices of the religion” or “promoting or explaining the doctrine of the religion”.

CARE, a Christian charity involved in public policy work, has published a booklet warning of the dangers of the Equality Bill posed by the section on employment.

Dan Boucher, the author of the booklet, A Little Bit Against Discrimination, and the director of parliamentary affairs for CARE, explained that the charity had always seen the Bill as consolidating all the existing equality legislation in one place, to add to it and further develop it.

He said: “The employment provision was defined in 2003 and that was a hard-fought battle. It was the result of a lot of compromising on our part and if any part of the existing law should remain the same then this is it.”

Dr Boucher dismissed the Government proposal and said that the section defining religious employment should be deleted, not amended.

Here, here Dr Boucher!

Today is the day that Nadia Eweida finally goes back to court against British Airways in the dispute over BA asking her to stop wearing a necklace cross at work. Here is a Press Association piece:

UKPA

Devout Christian Nadia Eweida is appealing against a ruling which cleared British Airways of discriminating against her by asking her to stop wearing a cross at work.

Miss Eweida, 58, from Twickenham, south-west London, wants the Court of Appeal in London to overturn a November 2008 decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal that she was not a victim of religious discrimination.

The tribunal was told she went home in September 2006 after failing to reach a compromise with managers over the visible display of the plain silver cross on a chain around her neck.

The following year, the airline changed its uniform policy and Miss Eweida, a Pentecostal Christian who works in customer services at Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, returned to work.

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I thought the article below to be a sensible approach from Shami Chakrabarti, who is the director of the human rights group Liberty who are representing Nadia. He looks at the different approaches society can adopt towards religion and identifies a common sense approach to this particular case. The argument is that if other faiths are permitted to wear religious paraphernalia, as they were at BA, and this does not constitute a health and safety risk, then it is wrong to discriminate against one particular expression of faith.

TimesOnline – Freedom must apply to all faiths and none

Today Liberty returns to court. After the victory last week of personal privacy over blanket stop-and- search powers in the Court of Human Rights, we go to the Court of Appeal to protect freedom of thought, conscience and religion from unjustified intrusion and prejudice.

You may remember the story of Nadia Eweida, the British Airways check-in worker who was banned from wearing a small cross on a chain. This modest manifestation of her faith was as important to her as a turban or hijab to other workers. Yet the airline accommodated these other items without, perhaps, embracing the underlying values that would have protected Ms Eweida and anyone else from the blundering assertion that “rules is rules is rules”.

After a public outcry that included secular, religious and political voices from across the spectrum, the airline modified its uniform policy. But not before Ms Eweida had been off work for months without pay, and crucially, without accepting the ethical and legal principle that would protect her and others of all faiths and none in the future. Worse still, BA instructed an international law firm strenuously to resist her claim of religious discrimination.

What followed was an extremely disappointing employment appeal tribunal that found no discrimination, because “Christians generally” do not consider wearing a cross as a religious “requirement”. This fundamentally misunderstands the idea of individual rights and freedoms, which do not depend on how many people agree with your conscience or speech. It also opens up secular courts to lengthy arguments as to what is a theological necessity. Making windows into men’s souls is as pointlessly complex as it is dangerous.

Predictably, this case and others like it, have provided fuel for the fire of those wanting to portray tolerance and the laws of non-discrimination as inherently anti-Christian, or as skewed in favour of some communities and not others. Public confidence as well as individual justice demands that liberal values be applied with an even hand.

It seems to me that any society has three choices in dealing with this small question of religion.

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I’m glad that he mentions the fact that this case provides ‘fuel for the fire’ for those that want to jump on the – ‘society is anti-christian’ – bandwagon. This particular case may be an example of Christian prejudice, but I have seen far too many embarrassing examples of Christians pushing this line too far and claiming discrimination at every turn, which simply backfires against the Christian community and portrays Christians as wanting a special status above others and causes resentment. One example that springs to mind is in the medical environment, when religious paraphernalia can constitute a serious health and safety risk.

Some Christian groups are looking for discrimination under every rock, but as in this case, when it looks apparent that there is real discrimination, then the case should be fought with vigour.

A beautifully balanced piece from Calvin L Smith:-

Let’s bring our perusal of this thorny issue of ethnicity and racism vis-a-vis the relationship between the Church and Israel to an end for now (there are other issues I want to explore at a later date) with a brief consideration of the extent to which some Christians themselves might be guilty of racism within this wider debate. Let me begin by pointing out just how harsh and hateful genuine racism is, so I don’t use the term lightly here, unlike some who hijack and employ it loosely for polemical reasons and cheap political point-scoring. I’m talking here about real, premeditated racism, that is, hatred of someone by virtue of their race, rather than the unwitting variety that may also cause offence but which is not driven by outright hatred of someone because of their race.

As such, I do not consider criticising Judaism on purely theological grounds to be racist, just as so-called ‘Islamaphobia’ is not racist, whatever some would have us believe (such people seem unaware of the openly proselytising nature of Islam and how it is practised by people of all races). I am wary of deep-seated anti-Judaism within the Church because it has ultimately manifested itself in expressions of anti-Semitism during certain epochs in the Church’s history. But this aside, I do not consider criticism of Judaism on theological grounds to be racist. It can certainly be distasteful (depending on how it is done), while anti-Judaism moves firmly beyond a respectful theological critique. But I do not believe criticism of a religion is automatically racist.

So how might we differentiate between criticism of Judaism and anti-Semitism? In short, I suggest any irrational treatment of Judaism which goes beyond criticism of the religion to outright demonisation of the Jewish people as a whole marks an important defining line between the two. And here is the crux of the issue with relation to this debate. When the Church has, at different times during its history, singled out for criticism and demonised the Jewish people as a whole on theological grounds, this marks a defining shift beyond simple criticism of Judaism – via anti-Judaism – to outright anti-Semitism. Whether the Spanish Inquisition, Martin Luther’s denunciation of the Jews, or some Nazi Protestants’ role in the Holocaust, I believe an important boundary has been traversed.

I think we are in danger of seeing it again today within some Church circles. Supercessionism as a theological position is quite one thing, and perfectly acceptable to express (though I believe from a biblical theology position quite untenable), and I’m certainly not suggesting most, or even many supercesionists are anti-Semitic. Just as criticism of Judaism on purely theological grounds is not racist, so supercessionism alone is not racist. Neither is Christian anti-Zionism automatically anti-Semitic. But I do think passive supercessionism can and often does differ from proactive Christian anti-Zionism because, just as anti-Zionism often serves as a convenient disguise for anti-Semitism (which is arguably why someone like Martin Luther King Jr maintained anti-Zionism was in fact anti-Semitism), so some Christian anti-Israel statements emanating from segments of the Church today threaten to take on an evermore shrill and polemical tone. This is when there is a real danger of crossing a definining boundary into demonisation of Israel and the Jewish people. I suggest Christian anti-Zionist expressions which constantly and unequivocally present Israel as a bogeyman that can do no right marks an important crossing of that boundary. At the very least such an approach gives the impression of a crusade where all objectivity is ditched.

Neither must we limit our discussion of racism to a woeful Church history of anti-Judaism which has sometimes led to anti-Semitism. Within this wider debate of the Church’s relationship with Israel there are many Christians who so love the Jews as God’s chosen people that they resist and challenge her enemies on theological grounds. Challenging her enemies is quite one thing, but the problem is that this can (and in a minority of extreme cases does) degenerate into another example of racism, namely towards Arabs. To believe God still retains a plan and special place in His heart for the Jewish people is one thing. But this does not justify rejecting Arabs as evil and enemies of God purely because they are Arabs. Regarding this last point, quite the opposite in fact. Remember that as well as making a covenant with the Jewish people, God also made one with Hagar, the mother of Ishmael who fathered the Arab nation. Both peoples, then, have according to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures a special place in God’s heart, and just because He has set one aside for a particular revelatory purpose is not to the detriment of other. (I say this as a Gentile who is not a participant of either of these special covenants, but rather an adopted son.) An important caveat here is that Christian love for the Arab people does not mean one cannot be critical of Islam. Muslims and Christians are critical of each other’s religion on theological grounds. That is not racism.

Thus it behoves all of us, regardless of where we stand on this issue, to avoid unnecessarily inflammatory and sensational language to score theological points. Christian anti-Zionism, then, should at all costs avoid the language of anti-Judaism and anti-Israelism, which can lead to anti-Semitism, or at the very least be seen by unbelievers to be so, which is hardly a good Christian witness. Meanwhile, some Christian friends of Israel should take care not to use language which seems to condemn all Arabs. I suggest criticism of many Arab leaders is perfectly acceptable, and indeed this is where much of the fault lies in the current conflict (many Arabs, including Christian supercessionist, Muslim or atheist, I speak to constantly express frustration with their leaders’ inability to bring about real peace). But just as criticism of Israel should never be allowed to spill over into anti-Semitism, neither should criticism of woeful Arab political leadership spill over into racism towards all Arabs.

In short, Christians should eschew inflammatory language for mere theological posturing and point scoring. Theological points are won on the best, most persuasive biblical arguments, short and simple.

Charming. Previous post here.

Christian Post

Authorities in India’s Orissa state are reportedly forcing Christian refugees out of the makeshift camps ahead of a visit this month by a European Union delegation.

A 10-member EU delegation is due to tour the riot-hit district beginning January 27.

Led by deputy chief of mission in the Spanish embassy Ramon Moreno, the EU group is to go on a fact-finding mission during its four-day visit.

The camps’ residents – Christians caught up in attacks in 2008 – say they are being forced to move out so that the authorities can project an image of peace in the area, reports Bosnewslife agency.

About a hundred refugees in a local market complex in G. Udaygiri of Kandhamal in Orissa were asked to leave as soon as possible. They moved into the complex after the government closed many of the state-run relief camps.

“The local government has ordered to vacate people immediately and if we refuse police force will be used,” a worried survivor was quoted by Bosnewslife as saying.

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Cross-post by Mariano over at the Atheism is Dead Blog

Over yonder at Atheism Analyzed, Stan wrote Visiting weareSMRT Again which urged me to piggy back on his response to SMRT’s Five Good Reasons for Being an Atheist.

SMRT is “A site for Skeptical Minds & Rational Thinkers” with “SMRT” being “an anagram of Smart Minds and Rational Thinkers (SMRT, Who Are We?).

MacGyverJr wrote the post Five Good Reasons for Being an Atheist (November 2, 2009) and Stan wrote a fine response. I did not intend on attempting to improve upon his but as I read his I could barely believe what were being considered to be the good reasons and just had offer a few comments.

MacGyverJr’s premise is as follows:

It’s easy to point out the flaws in a religion or a certain god, but there’s no need to remain skeptical on a god-to-god basis. Lots of reasons exist irrespective of any single religion that makes atheism palatable. So listed here are five good reasons to be an atheist:

Unfortunately, what “atheism” means is not defined. However, due to the context of the article it is clearly a positive affirmation of God’s non-existence (something which is coming back into vogue in atheist circles).

I could not agree more that “Lots of reasons exist irrespective of any single religion that makes atheism palatable.” Amongst these are that atheism is a pseudo-intellectual excuse for the emotionally driven rejection of God; it is a psychological band-aid. Also, atheism is appealing via various consoling delusions such as the delusion of absolute autonomy, the delusion of lack of ultimate accountability, the delusion of being more erudite than thou, the delusion of subjective meaning in an objectively meaningless existence, etc.

Now, let us consider the “Five Good Reasons for Being an Atheist” one by one:

1. We have not found any gods. Contrary to popular belief, lack of evidence is proof of lack of existence. Take, for example, my claim that there is a unicorn in my garage. If independent scientists came to my house and searched my garage without avail, they would conclude there is no unicorn. The same is true of gods. We have looked, but we haven’t found any, ever.

Unfortunately, the term “found” goes undefined as a methodology. Millions of people claim to have “found God”—was God lost? )

Lack of evidence is not necessarily proof of lack of existence. Right now, I am thinking about when, as a child, I sat eating by the sea shore when my father squeezed a lemon on his food but a stream of juice went directly into my brother’s eye. What is the evidence of this? Not only can I not provide evidence that the event occurred (you could ask them but they may have forgotten or we could have collated) but I cannot provide evidence that I was thinking about that event.

Stan provides examples of many things once considered to not being in existence only to be later discovered.

While on some level we have to be agnostics regarding flying purple people eaters on another level we do not have to be aUnicorn-ists or agnome-ist. The levels of which I speak are basically: 1) I do not believe in gnomes because their existence has not been evidenced and 2) no gnomes exist. This is like the atheist assertion to 1) merely lack a belief in god(s) and 2) asserting that god(s) does not exist.

What the “independent scientists” would do is to ask what MacGyverJr meant by reporting a “unicorn.” Is a magical mystical Invisible Pink Unicorn meant? Or, a horse with a horn?

There are many scientists, such as those who established the very fields and methods of science itself, who do claim to have searched for and found God. They have done so by drawing inferences from that which the universe and its fine tuning imply, etc. If MacGyverJr means that we move a rock or look on the dark side of the moon, point our fingers and say, “Hey, look! That’s God right over there!” then that is another issue.

Firstly, it depends on which God we are envisaging. For example, with the God implied by the universe and also reflected in the Bible we must recognize that there is no correlation between a unicorn and this—eternal and immaterial—being. Thus, if there is no unicorn, the same is true of only certain gods.

MacGyverJr needs to elucidate what would be considered finding God; what would be considered evidence of God? For example, seeking physical evidence of a non-physical being is tantamount to seeking wet evidence of a dry object.

2. There are lots of tales of gods. If you need any proof that gods are made up beings, look no further than the amount of mythology surrounding thousands of different gods. Most Christians, Muslims, and Jewish people are atheists to 99% of all the gods ever thought up. Most every agrees that all these gods, like Apollo, are made up. Nothing makes the Judeo-Christian god any more special than Zeus.

I suppose that since there are lots of tales as to how the universe came into being then the universe never came into being. Speaking for Christians; we are not “atheists to 99% of all the gods” but would be more likely to believe that these gods are fallen angels who are deceiving people (for example of this see The “Skeptic’s Annotated Bible” as a Heuristic Device). Thus, we deny that they are ontologically “gods” and thus reject them as “gods” due to them being fallen angels out to deceive: we believe in but do not worship all gods.

In any case, atheists and Christians do not reject other, respectively 100% and 99% of gods, for the same reasons. Atheists paint with a materialistic broom while Christians, being monotheists, deny the existence of any God but the one God implied by nature and expressed in the Bible. This is why it is faulty to correlate the Judeo-Christian God and Zeus.

The overall fallacy here is that since “Most every[one] agrees that all these gods…are made up” (an argument from authority) one can deny that any gods exist at all. This is an expandio ad absurdum.

3. Religion is silly. Take Christianity for example. They believe that they can turn crackers and wine into the symbolic (or real) flesh and blood of Jesus; then they eat it. Also, have you ever taken a look at what the pope wears? The Bible is full of absurdities such as condemning homosexuality but allowing servitude. Religion just doesn’t make any sense.

The fact is that something can be silly and yet, true. Subjective opinions about levels of silliness are irrelevant; this is basically an argument from personal incredulity.

Moreover, this is a non-sequitur since just because “religion” is silly does not mean that God does not exist.

Furthermore, how it is silly to symbolically turn bread and wine into flesh and blood (whatever it may mean to symbolically turn something into something else)?

But what about really claiming to do it? Now we are not speaking of “Christianity” in general but to, for example, Roman Catholicism which claims to possess the ability to transubstantiate: transform the substance of bread/wine into flesh/blood yet, under the appearance of bread/wine. Thus, their claim to a literal transformation amounts to not actually transform the substance (I tackle this issue historically, logically and biblically here).

May one argue that since some atheists believe in “silly” concepts such as a self-created universe, eternal un-cause matter, abiogenesis, etc.; therefore, atheism is false?

The Pope’s regalia is likewise 1) non-biblical, non-God ordained, nor 2) relevant to the issue of God’s existence. May one argue that since some atheists wear “silly” clothes; therefore, atheism is false?

Again, something may strike us as absurd but also be true such as that light behaves as both a particle and a wave—as Prof. Richard Lewontin wrote:

What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity “in deep trouble.” Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.

MacGyverJr’s argument amounts to: God does not exist because “The Bible is full of absurdities such as…”

Yet, perhaps a god does exist but had nothing to do with the Bible. Now, why it is absurd to condemn homosexuality but allow servitude is something that is not elucidated; it is a politically correct emotionally charge appeal.

Firstly, any and every reasonably sane person condemns one or another form of sexual act; surely including MacGyverJr. Secondly, servitude allowed for the disadvantaged to pay off debt via working it off; this was a temporary arrangement which became null and void upon the repayment of the debt or at the year of jubilee.

As for the comment, “Religion just doesn’t make any sense”—again, just because something does not make sense to MacGyverJr does not mean that it is not true—or does not exist. Yet, I agree that all man-made religion does not make sense, is false and is the greatest obstacle to a personal relationship with God (see The Most Anti-Religion Book Ever Published).

4. Religion justifies horrible behavior. Last year in California, a proposition was put before the citizens to ban gay marriage. This was proposition 8. Who were some of the biggest donors to prop 8? The Mormons in Utah! There is no doubt that many in the United States use religion to justify their homophobia. Abroad in the Middle East, violence and bombings are all evoked in the name of Islam. Being religious is not the way to bring peace to this world.

Fighting for freedom justifies horrible behavior therefore, no one should fight for freedom.

Prop 8 opposed radically redefining marriage and thus, it is fallacious to correlate the protection of traditional marriage with homophobia. Any and every reasonably sane person condemns one or another form of marriage; surely including MacGyverJr.

The argument is that violence is justified by extremists by appealing to Islam and Mormons support traditional marriage (at least, on this side of heaven) and thus, religion is not the way to bring peace to this world. This is a non-sequitur since that some perpetrate violence in the name of “religion” does not mean that God does not exist.

Also, atheism has been used to justify horrible behavior therefore, atheism is false. In fact, since the most secular century in human history was also the bloodiest; atheism is not the way to bring peace to this world.

Lastly, consider that the “Encyclopedia of Wars” (New York: Facts on File, 2005) was compiled by nine history professors who specifically conducted research for the text for a decade in order to chronicle 1,763 wars. The survey of wars covers a time span from 8000 BC to 2003 AD. From over 10,000 years of war 123, which is 6.98 percent, are considered to have been religious wars.

See Is the Atheist Argument from Religious Violence Cogent? for further elucidation of this fallacy.

5. Prayers don’t work. I have a testable hypothesis for the existence of gods – pray for something and see if it came true. Prayer has been invoked since the dawn of humanity with no avail or proven results. Gods clearly don’t exist or don’t give a squat about human existence. Since the simplest answer is usually preferred, it’s reasonable to conclude that gods don’t exist.

This is a fallacy of not understanding the concept of prayer. Of course prayer fails when it is defined as God being a cosmic Jeeves. This view of prayer has the God at the human’s beck and call; we pray and God is somehow bound to accomplish the task to which He is put—this is iTheism.

Yet, at least form a Judeo-Christian perspective; prayer is primarily about building a personal relationship with God. Prayer’s primary purpose is therefore not to ask for stuff that we want. We pray and yet, God is sovereign and could be said to answer every pray indeed, but He can say “Yes,” “No” or “Wait.”

Also, the argumentum ad God not giving a squatum fails since, for example, sometimes my children ask for my help in performing a certain task but I, knowing better than they, know that they can accomplish the task at hand without my help. I have all the power whereby to help them but choose to not do so and I choose to not do so based on my knowledge that letting them struggle with a task that they are finally able to accomplish on their own is more beneficial to them than having me swoop in and do it for them.

At times, they ask for my help and indeed, they cannot do something without my help, in which case I help them.

At other times, I do not allow them to perform tasks which they are not physically and or mentally prepared to perform. All this and more based upon my greater knowledge and ability (for further elucidation see Atheism, EvilBible.com and Jesus Lied).

Overall, what MacGyverJr accomplished is a very clear example of the presumption of erudition, logical fallacies, and five good reasons for rejecting MacGyverJrian atheism.

This essay is copyrighted by Mariano of the “Atheism is Dead” blog at http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com.

It may be republished in part or in its entirety on websites, blogs, or any print media for whatever purpose—in agreement or in order to criticize it—only as long as the following conditions are met:

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