The Odd Coupling

For me, embracing atheism has been rather recent for me.

I considered theism in a generic sense. Paganism became particularly attractive for a short while. Yet, I couldn't summon the drive to worship God in any sense.

I just slid into a posture of atheism.

Since then, I never really gave the philosophy of atheism serious thought until lately.

Upon doing so, I noticed something odd . . .

The coupling of omniscience and omnipotence as qualities of God become quite problematic.

With omniscience, God knows everything. He knows all of history. He also knows all future events. He knows which door we choose to open and which path we take throughout our lives.

Omniscience suggests that God's knowledge transcends ours. Yet we tend to desire the kind of rationality that makes sense only to us rather than to God. Besides -- if God made us, we are that way because of it. So, either God built into us a drive for inquiry, or our powers of rationality and intellect was honed by evolution.

Regardless, we humans are a curious bunch. Thus, I cannot resist asking some hard question about God.

If God knows everything, at what point do I truly chose my own path in life? If God knows everything but cannot do anything about our choices, then he is not omnipotent. But if he is omnipotent . . . why does he allow certain evils in the world?

What does God understand that I don't about allowing people to starve to death?

Every single day?

What greater good does God see in things like that? I would like to know.

Free will doesn't convince me. If someone attempts to commit suicide, people who care will violate that person's free will to save his or her life. A person who is suffering in the final stages of a terminal illness cannot seem to easily exercise his or her free will to perform euthanasia; people won't readily allow it. We breach the free will of others all the time for what we think is the greater good. Why doesn't God? Why does he get an excuse?

Why do doctors have to study stem cells and learn how to grow new organs for people when God can effortlessly heal everyone?

Why do people try to thwart evil in the world, yet God sees all things and seems to do nothing about it -- so far as I can tell?

When we say that God knows all things and can do anything . . . God's goodness and purity turns into a philosophical quagmire.

Examine the idea of God creating a person, yet he knows that person will die and go to hell.

For what? Why? I'd rather have not existed, than to be born only to spend eternity in hell.
My life span next to eternity? Can you even imagine how lopsided that is?

And when a person gets to heaven, what will make him or her different from today? How can humans who are prone to sin really be different in heaven? After all, Lucifer (Satan) is said to have lived in heaven as an angel. He was sinless and holy at first -- until he fell.

What will keep people from that same danger, even in heaven? Will God? Why will he do this for us, yet punish Lucifer for eternity?

And remember that mankind ultimately fell, too. What will keep him from falling again? Will God finally lock down our free will when we get to heaven to keep us sinless?

What about the Pharaoh in Exodus? God hardened his heart to receive glory for himself. What if Pharaoh's heart had not been tampered with by God? Was Pharaoh doomed to be swallowed by God's wrath no matter what?

Isn't that rather harsh for an omnipotent God to pick on a measly human?

I know many of the typical answers Christian apologists would give to my questions.

And when I believed in the Bible, such answers would easily dismiss such questions from my mind. But when I lost faith in the Bible, these questions resurfaced. And this time, my mind could not ignore them any longer.

For me, the omniscience and omnipotence of God is an odd coupling indeed. I am now baffled by this strange union of self-opposing attributes.

My musings leave me to think that should God exist, he (or she) is confided by a series of laws from nature, just as we.

Either that, or God is a tyrannical, illogical despot.

Then there is this last alternative . . .

Perhaps God doesn't truly exist.

The Gossip Game

I love my son, but sometimes I just don't believe a word he says.

He comes home from school and tells me that kids are selling cocaine on his bus!

Yeah, cocaine.

While that is possible these days . . . keep in mind that my son is in second grade (at the time of this post).

Second grade.

C'mon.

C'mon now.

In a town that has virtually no major crime reported.

In the second grade!

C'mon, now.

So, naturally, I start asking questions.

• me: How do you know they were selling cocaine, son? (keeping a straight face)
• son: The bus driver said it. (remember that statement . . .)
• me: The bus driver?
• son: Yeah, the bus driver wrote them up and then suspended them from school.
• me: That's an extraordinary claim, son. Do you know what I mean when I say this?
• son: No . . . . . *shakes his head*
• me: What if I told you I saw a purple dog flying through the sky while wearing a cape? Would you believe me -- even if I really sounded serious about it?
• son: No . . .
• me: That's what I mean by an extraordinary claim, son. So, tell me what happened. Start from the beginning.
• son: Well, K stood up on the bus and shouted.
• me: Uh-huh . . . so, what did he say?
• son: K was talking loud about J. and said that J's name sounded like a girl's name -- but J. is a boy. The whole bus heard and everybody started laughing.
• me: OK. What next?
• son: J got mad at K.
• me: Why was K bothering J?
• son: K was just being mean. Making fun . . .
• me: So . . . . what next?
• son: The bus driver stopped the bus and went to the back. Then J got written up. I think he got suspended.
• me: Why did J get into trouble? He was being picked on . . .
• son: He put up his middle finger to K.
• me: Oh, I see . . . J threw the bird atK. (sounds like K asked for it . . .)
• son: Yeah . . .
• me: So, did K get into trouble?
• son: No.
• me: No? Hmmm . . . that's sounds unfair. OK, well . . . what next?
• son: The bus driver got back into his seat and started driving again . . .
• me: OK, then what?
• son: That's it.
• me: *incredulous silence*
• me, again: Where does cocaine fit into all of this?
• son: L said that they were selling something in the back of the bus.
• me: Was this during all the commotion between J and K?
• son: No . . . but a few days ago our bus driver said we shouldn't sell things to each other on the bus.
• me: I don't care about a few days ago. I mean, I'm not disputing that you shouldn't sell things. I'm not disputing what your bus drive said. But, I want to know about today and you're claim that someone sold cocaine.
• me, again: Did you even see anyone sell anything?
• son: No . . . I was sitting in the front of the bus.
• me: Son, do you even know what cocaine looks like?
• son: It looks like cigarettes.
• me: How do you know?
• son: Well . . . that's just my opinion.

Yeah, my son and I have had the "fact and opinion" talk.
He's slowly learning to call things his opinion if he knows he doesn't have any facts to back up what he's saying.

I guess he's still learning this lesson, huh?

• me: So far, only J is in trouble. Did anyone else get into trouble? Did anything else go on?
• son: K got in trouble for selling.
• me: You know this because?
• son: L said they were selling stuff.
• me: Who is L?
• son: The girl that was sitting with me on the bus. We were sitting up front together.
• me: How did L see what was going on and you couldn't? You were both in the front of the bus.
• me: Anyhow, did you stop to think that K got in trouble for taunting J, while J got in trouble for throwing the bird. After all, you said that K shouted loudly. The whole bus heard him. He didn't go unnoticed by the bus driver. It makes sense that they would both get into trouble. Wouldn't you agree?
• son: Yeah, I guess he would have gotten in trouble, too. They were both really mad at each other and causing a ruckus.
• me: So, where does the cocaine fit in all of this? Is this something you only heard from L? You said that the bus driver said this, too. Is that really true?
• son: The bus driver was really mad and told everybody on the bus to shut up because we were so loud.
• me: Are you trying to say that because he was so mad, they were selling cocaine?? Did youpersonally hear the bus drive say anything about cocaine?
• son: No . . .
• me: Son, I have one more question . . . why should you believe what L has to say? I didn't believe you because you gave sketchy information. If I L were here to make the same claims you originally made, I'd ask her the same sort of questions I just asked you. I wouldn't believe her, either -- especially if she gave me the same kind of answers you gave. So, why should you believe what she has to say about this?
• son: *sits quietly* (Imagine that!)
• me: I'm not fussing at you, son. I'm not even accusing you of lying. I just want you to think more about what people tell you, before you go spreading around potentially harmful rumors to everyone else. OK?
• son: Okay . . .

That discourse got me to thinking: Is fundamental Christianity a harmful rumor that everyone keeps spreading? Is Evangelical Christianity really the Gospel, or just a huge Gossip Game? Why believe the sketchy information of the Bible and the extraordinary claims of 2000 year old stories without at least some question?

If you do believe the stories, that's certainly your prerogative. But at the very least, check up on your facts from history, first. Otherwise, you're only playing the Gossip Game.

And remember . . . rumors can produce a lot of hurt.

Foul Statements Deserve Foul Language

I don't usually talk like this, but I can't help it this time. Here it goes . . .

I ran across this e-mail message that said something like:

I'm confused. If two million black people can show up at Washington D.C. for an Inauguration, how come all those black people got stuck in New Orleans?

Whoa! What kind of ass-wipe would say something like that?

Can you smell the stink of racism coming from this dip shit? Only an ass hole can emit this type of excrement.

I won't even begin to go into why the above statement was foul. But anyone can tell that this statement is racist and insensitive to all people of any race who had their lives destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.


There. I'm finished. But ranting like this doesn't seem to help.

Boy, what a dumb fuck that person was to forward an e-mail like that!

Not Fair; You're Cheating!

When I was little, my big brother started teaching me how to play chess. I learned the moves, but my brother always stomped me when we played.

Big brother used a chess board to beat up on his poor little brother.

How shameful!

He left me wondering why I could never win. Why could he always make certain moves whenever he wanted, but I couldn't. The rules always seemed to work for him, but never for me.

I felt like he was always cheating.

But as I got older, I improved enough to see that my brother was simply a better chess player. After all, he was much older. He understood the game and knew how to use strategy within the rules and crush me. He know how to limit my movement on the chess board until he trapped my king -- which is the ultimate prize in chess.

I slowly learned to hold my own against him in chess. He remained the better player, but I could get him now and then.

However, when I tried to match wits against my big brother in religious discussions (back when I was a Christian), I would get that same felling I had when he was teaching me chess. I felt like the rules always worked in his favor -- hardly ever in mine.

"Not fair", I'd say to myself. "He's cheating".

Today, I know better. My brother was never cheating at all. He simply knew something that I didn't.

Church Tradition

And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition . . . Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Mark 7:9 and 7:13

I've realized over these past few years that a disconnect exists between religious beliefs and actual written scripture. I've come to realize that churches simply pass down their religious doctrine to the next generation and mainly study from the passages that reinforce their traditions.

Ironic that Jesus himself makes this same complaint against Jewish leaders within the New Testament text. Yet, generally, Christians do not heed this warning.

If they did, they'd be in for a treat . . . or a shock.

Here are some common misconceptions that I grew up with due to Church tradition, but are not compatible with scripture:

Sunday is the Sabbath day for Christians

Tithing is required from the Church (Keeping parts of the Law)

Marriage to a new spouse is acceptable among Christians after divorcing the original Christan spouse

Nothing is wrong with Christians taking other Christians to court to settle a legal dispute

Woman are equal to Men in Church (Most don't want to own up to this sexism. But if you take many passages that speak of women being subject to men literally, can you really make an exception?)

The Lord's Supper consisted of crackers and grape juice

The Bible was a complete unit during the early Christians lives (I never would have admitted this verbally, but time had to go by before I could grasp the fact that scripture went through a canonization process where both Jewish and Christian leaders argued over which books would be included. This process happened for Judaism around 3 or 4 B.C. by many sources. For Christians, this happened around the 2nd century or so. That's 200 years after Jesus was crucified!)

The United States is a Christian Nation (First, the Bible doesn't even mention the United States! Next, the Constitution Separates Church and State. Before you disagree with me, read the First Amendment and Article Six of the Constitution. Many Christians want the United States to be a Christian nation because Israel is known as a Jewish nation and God did such a good job of protecting them because of it -- Israel being conquered by the Babylonians, the Romans, the Jews suffering during the Holocaust and the present day military conflicts make great examples of God's wonderful protection! The United States needs God's protection, too! So lets be a Christian nation just like Israel is a Jewish nation! Please!)

I could think of other examples, but I'll stop here. These traditions contradict scripture, but Christians do not want to surrender these ideas for various reasons.

Well, I only have one computer but my immediate family and extended family is waiting in line to use the PC.

I need my own laptop!!