You Still Amaze Me

You're argument with Johann Hari's (a man, by the way) review and Hitchens' book seems to be this: "a million things have happened to me that are so amazing that I can only ascribe them to some supernatural being".
Leaving aside the extraordinary vanity that puts you at the centre of some divine plan and the fact that you clearly seem a million perfectly ordinary explanations short of a standard education, the most casual reading of the book (or any other on the subject) specifically does not make the pathetic mistake of confusing the words 'amazing' and 'divine', as you seem to.
Anyone can be amazed at the complexity, or simplicity, of some aspect of life, such as the wondrous colours of a sunset. Atheists look to reason for an explanation - "ooh, look: the sun shining through atmosphere. How pretty!". You, apparently, just put it down to god (or maybe it's Micheal Jordan).
Show one place where either Hitchens or Hari have ever said that the world is without wonder. In fact, the world becomes a lot more wondrous when you realise that it's turned out this way by chance, not by the fiat of some mystery superhero.
Now, feel free to list some of your daily miracles, if you'd like help with an explanation or two.
Here's a free clue: the earth's older than 6,000 years. So is the invention of glue.

Thank you for your feedback, Paul, and for pointing out my error concerning Mr. Hari -- it was my first encounter with his work, and an easy mistake to make, I think. I will correct it in my blog post-haste.

Concerning the meat of your comments, however, I think you missed the point of what I was saying. Hitchens -- and Hari, by extension -- is stating that Mary, in her position as the earthly mother of God, should never have been surprised by anything Jesus did, and I was simply trying to demonstrate that Mary -- or anyone else, if they were in her position -- could indeed be surprised at times (just because I know that God can turn water into wine doesn't mean I wouldn't be surprised if I actually saw Him do it). If you'll re-read my original post, you'll see that I used examples from real life to show how her surprise is possible -- in other words, I used reason, not divine intervention, to make my point.

As to the issue of "divine vs. amazing," I was not deliberately equating those two words. I understand your point that anyone can find anything "amazing" without bringing God into the discussion; the title "You Still Amaze Me" (taken from an Audio Adrenaline song) was simply an extension of the point I was trying to make in the post -- that even though I've known God for a while, He still surprises me at times, even as He surprised Mary at times.

As a final note, I feel compelled to set the record straight about my education -- not as a matter of bravado, but because you seem to think that I (and other believers) are devoid of reason and receive our educations only from crackpots: I was valedictorian of my junior-high class, fifth place in my high-school class, and graduated with high honors from the University of Maine with a bachelor's degree in journalism (3.6 GPA, Dean's List six out of eight semesters, named top male journalism student in my class). For several years now I've made it a habit to read at least two books a month, along with a daily consumption of news and opinion articles ... and, of course, my Bible. Incidentally, I don't believe the Earth to be 6,000 years old. I have no problem admitting that the Earth is millions of years old and the universe billions of years old; from my vantage point, these things don't contradict what the Bible says.

I think this argument has spiralled off onto a daft tangent.Hari picked but ONE example of the Bible possessing an anomoly.
Why not take a look at Ludovic Kennedy's fine book,All in the Mind(out of print,but not too hard to find on ebay),which examines The Bible and finds that it is a ludicrous text which cannot be taken seriously as a source for historical cross-references.Christians who are always saying how much they read the Bible never seem to mention the bits that are full of intolerance, and numerable contradictions between the evidence of the "good news" the gospelers intended to spread.
Kennedy has been totally overlooked ,leapfrogged by Dawkins ,but he was taking on the zealots and wooly thinkers 8 years ago!

Thanks for referring me to Mr. Kennedy and his work. Another work worth checking out is "Can We Trust the Gospels?" by Mark D. Roberts.

As to your reference to "bits (of the Bible) that are full of intolerance," I'm interested to know what examples you're thinking of. The reason I ask is that some people have made the mistake of calling the Bible "bad" simply because it contains stories of murder, adultery, etc., forgetting that even though the Bible is God's Word, it's rooted in real life, and thus uses real-life examples to teach us what's right and wrong. To put it simply, the Bible is no G-rated children's feature. While the Gospel message is certainly simple enough for children to understand, the Bible contains plenty of adult material -- but by no means does the inclusion of such material equate to God's approval of the described behaviors. The story of David's adultery and conspiracy to commit murder, for example, is meant to teach us to avoid those things, not to teach us to do them.

Another mistake that many people make is forgetting the context in which the Biblical books were written. God's people in the Old Testament had slaves, but does God condone slavery? No. This may seem confusing to some people, but it's important to understand that throughout history, God's involvement with humans has been one of process -- that is, teaching us one step at a time. You wouldn't try teaching a child, for example, how to jump hurdles before he's able to even walk. Likewise, God didn't teach us everything all at once, and He didn't try to correct all our mistakes at once. The Bible bears this out: when you read through it chronologically, you see God correcting us of more things, and teaching us more things, as time goes on. Consider slavery: condoned in the Old Testament (because nearly every culture back then condoned it), but looked down upon by Christians in modern times. In fact, the effort to end black slavery in America owes much of its success to Christians who knew of Jesus' teaching that God values each of us equally -- from which these Christians extrapolated that no person had a right to "own" another.

Another common criticism of the Bible is Paul's male chauvinism. But besides the fact that he approved of women in the ministry -- and gave much credit to several women for their work -- we must also remember that Paul was a Jew. Jews, like virtually every other people group of that time, were patriarchal, the men always dominating the women. So of course Paul was chauvinist! Though he was a great man of God, he was as imperfect as any of us, not to mention a new Christian, so we can safely presume that he still had plenty to learn -- including not being so darn chauvinistic.

In other words, what we have with the Bible is God using a bunch of imperfect people from long ago to teach all of the imperfect people who are alive today. And because these people were all imperfect -- and because God taught humankind gradually through a long process (which culminated with the perfect Christ) -- of course they did a lot of things then that we wouldn't do now (such as slavery). It's easy for the "enlightened ones" of the 21st century to look down with misunderstanding on Christianity ... but I should probably expect no less from the CNN generation, those who think they can understand everything simply by watching 30-second news blips.

What is odd to me is not that Old Testament believers condoned certain things that we now disapprove of, but that many of today's "enlightened" folk now condone things that used to be regularly frowned upon and condemned (such as abortions and same-sex relationships). In other words, God's process has been, and is, taking us in the right direction (forward), while the world's process is taking us back in time to when the relativistic, sexed-up lifestyle of pagans ruled the world scene.

Dear Jason,
Not having been educated in the US and having only my prejudices of the overall quality your educational system to go by, I cannot be impressed by your long list of academic achievements. Perhaps you'll appreciate it if I take it on 'faith' that they add something useful to the debate.
Of all the books you have read, the one you are here criticising doesn't seem to be included. Hitchens' point about Mary is not that she is overly awed by his magic tricks - as you say, we all would be - it is that she is constantly surprised by his claims to divinity. She seems to have forgotten that she was herself visited by an archangel, and a swarm of lesser angels, all assuring her she was to the mother of god. That's his point: "One might have expected a stronger maternal memory, especially from someone who had undergone the experience, alone among all women, of discovering herself pregnant without having undergone the notorious preconditions for that happy state", he writes.
Divine vs amazing: I have reread your original post and it seems to me that you ascribe divinity to (at least some of) those things in your life that amaze you. You decline my invitation to give examples but I presume you're talking about all the pretty flowers and how all the planets stay in the same place and how AIDS picks on homosexuals. I don't know; I'm genuinely interested to know how you get from having the behaviour of porpoises explained to you IN ADVANCE to forgetting this on seeing them and shouting "It's a gift from god".
Now, this should be easy because - this bit was my favourite - you actually know god, and have done for many years. How did HE explain porpoises to you?
Don't forget: the very same ability to amaze that you sometimes put down to god, you put down to Michael Jordan!
To turn to your comments to Spidernut...
If the Old Testament, filled with the spoilt, jealous, murdering, ethnic-cleansing hatred of its god, does not disgust you, then you are a hardy man. Don't forget: this is the tradition, the moral education, let alone the vanity, that lets Christians believe that Katrina and 9/11 were god's punishment of sin. There are people who actually believe this; that their god is good but will randomly murder thousands of innocent people as punishment for some private sin.
As for your theory that god didn't want to lay the morality on too thickly at the time, that's risible. It is, in fact, as clear an example as any of the sort of circular non-argument that religion requires to get itself out of trouble: you know his will when it suits your agenda - AIDS, Katrina, etc - but, when an innocent little girl dies of cancer, ah, well, then he's moving in mysterious ways.
You give a classic example of this at the end of your previous comment.
Apparently, you'll have us believe, god didn't want us to know, at the time of the Bible stories, that slavery was bad. However, now, through some unspecified moral osmosis, he has allowed us to ignore great swathes of the old and new Testaments because it's time to give up slavery. Yet you also 'know' that he hasn't done the same with homosexuality.
How do you figure this stuff out? Is it visions? Has he told you, personally, in your ear, "All that stuff I said about slavery, I was just playing along. But, what consenting, loving adults do in the privacy of their own rooms, THAT still pisses me off".
Let me ask you this: doesn't it seem a bit strange that nothing in the Bible shows any intelligence beyond that of its participants? In other words, if it was written by god, and not just made up by men, would you not expect some - just ONE - fact that would be a discovery for them? Couldn't he have just said, once, "I'm not sending those plagues; they're caused by something called germs" or "You should SEE Australia; it's really nice" or "You go round the sun", "It's not flat", "There used to be dinosaurs", "They're WAY more advanced in China than you backward, desert-dwelling idiots", cars, the Internet, The Sopranos, America. "Oh, and tell the priests to stop fiddling with kids. They WILL get found out".
But there is nothing in the Bible that hints at any knowledge outside of the narrow village concerns of the deserts.
Two possible explanations: one, yours, that a divine superbeing wanted to give his people a book to guide them - "don't murder, steal or commit adultery" - gee, thanks, up to now we thought that was OK - but didn't want them to know anything outside of their narrow world or morality, even when clearly wrong.
Or, two, it's ALL MADE UP. It's self-serving, man -made fiction and, today, we're stilling fighting over the same desert-hamlet squabbles that it stirred up.
"Sexed-up"! Hilarious!

Hello again, Paul. Thank you, seriously, for your further thoughts. I appreciate the effort on your part, and the chance to converse with you.
The reason for my amazement at the porpoise is not that I soon forgot what I’d been told about it in advance. I come from the state of Maine, part of the New England region, and one of the distinctive features of that part of the country is that many of the leaves turn orange, red and yellow in the fall. It’s a remarkable sight. Now let’s presume you’ve never even seen pictures of this; I could tell you all about the sight, but once you saw it for the first time, I imagine you’d be in awe – not because you forgot what I’d told you, but simply because there’s a difference between hearing something secondhand and experiencing it firsthand. That’s why I’d be amazed when I saw the porpoise – not because I’d forgotten what the trainer told me beforehand, but because there’s no fitting substitute for the amazement of seeing something yourself, in person. Likewise, I’m sure that Mary didn’t forget about the angels telling her she’d be bearing God’s Son; the difference in her case – the thing that makes her continued astonishment authentic – is that she’s not simply witnessing for the first time a natural phenomena that’s overall quite common (the leaves change color every year), but a unique, once-in-history event – and it came from her own womb!
As for why I ascribe naturalistic phenomena to God … well, in one sense, I suppose, that’s a deeper question with a longer answer, but to give you the short version: Since I already believe in God and that He created everything, it follows logically that I would give Him the credit for those amazing things I see all around me. I’m not discounting the naturalistic explanations for how these things work – I find it quite interesting to learn, for example, what’s happening naturally when the leaves change color – yet I know who created it, so I have to give credit where credit is due.
Which leads me to address another point of yours: how do I know God? Well, since you are, I presume, an atheist (and of the same type as Hitchens), and I a Christian, it may well be that a lot of what I’m saying to you sounds like so much nonsense, faulty from beginning to end, but I try my best regardless, particularly by attempting to address things at a fundamental level where perhaps we have some things in common. So … how do I know God? Well, I view the situation logically: Humor me, if you will, by presuming first of all that there is some sort of supreme intelligence out there; given that fact, it seems logical to me that this being had something to do with us being here, and that he would therefore want us to know about him. For this to happen, he would create a form (or forms) of communicating with us – forms of his choosing – and thus make himself known to us. He could do this through his creation, through spoken or written language, through dreams or visions, through signs and wonders, or even through email if he wanted to. Or through any other method. You name it. And he would be able to do it because he’s the supreme intelligence in the universe. As for myself, my particular belief is that there is indeed a God, and that He wants to communicate with me, and that He does so through prayer, through His word (the Bible), and through circumstances. I’ve had no “visions” or “dreams,” but I don’t discount the possibility of that ever happening to me, since it happened to several folks in the Bible (the prophet Isaiah, for example). As for those who disbelieve in God, well … I guess, from their perspective, it’s impossible to know God since they believer there isn’t one, so I guess that would be a different question altogether.
As for the “morality” of God seen in the Old and New testaments, particularly the Old, and His tactic of teaching us progressively through time: You’re viewing things too simplistically, which is common for atheists (I encourage you to read my post titled “Mr. Hitchens, Meet Mr. Lewis,” which is about atheist-turned-Christian C.S. Lewis). Your view is, “How could a good God do bad things, or at least allow them to happen, especially to good people?” And you believe it’s hypocritical, or at least illogical, for a person to view Katrina as punishment for sin but to chalk up the death of an innocent child to “the mysterious ways of God.” Get ready, because this is going to be a long answer: First, I don’t believe that Katrina and 9/11 were punishments for sin. They could have been, but only God knows. I have no idea. One thing I do know is that because we live in a sin-infected, fallen world, bad things often just happen – not as punishment to an individual or group, but as the result of our bad choices. From playground insults to mass genocide, many bad things happen because of people’s intentionally-bad decisions. 9/11 was perpetrated by whacked-out terrorists (whose beliefs had nothing in common with mine). It was their choice to act in that way. Of course, you could say, “Okay, it was the terrorists’ choice to do that bad thing, but why didn’t your good God stop it?” That’s a fair question. My answer: Because if God stopped every bad possibility from happening, people would never learn the true principle that our actions have consequences (this would also be an assault on the concept of free will). Of course, things like Katrina are natural, not man-made, but I could even make the Biblically-based argument that our sins (our bad choices) infected not only our own hearts but nature itself, causing it to act in ways it was never intended to. As for your comment about God not telling the Old Testament folks that slavery was bad, I ask you to picture this: You and your wife have a child. When he or she gets to a certain age, say, 1, the child starts doing bad things, like hitting other children. Are you going to attempt to explain to this child, a one-year-old, every single thing about good and bad behavior? … Or are you going to teach that child one thing at a time, one step at a time, as he or she grows and matures? Sure God could have told the ancient Israelites that slavery was bad, but it wouldn’t have registered with them. Remember: they lived at a time when slavery was universally accepted; they lived in a world where as long as you didn’t kill, rape or attack anyone, then you were behaving well enough and ought to be left alone to do as you please. In other words, they were moral one-year-olds.
Concerning homosexuals: I don’t hate them, I simply disagree with that lifestyle choice. And God doesn’t hate them. It seems, unfortunately, that you and Christopher Hitchens give heed only to those religious folk who do bad things – child-molesting priests, fundamentalist whackos and the like. There’s not much I can say in answer to that, except, “Look at all the good that religion has accomplished: the soup kitchens, the homeless shelters, the visits paid to the elderly and housebound, the relationship counseling, the civil-rights movement.” I could go on and on. But even though a professed follower of anyone or anything is certainly a reflection, for good or bad, upon the person or thing being followed, I believe that ultimately you have to learn to separate the follower from the followed: the actions of child-molesting priests, for example, though harmful to the name of Christianity, do not, in fact, mean that Jesus was a child molester or a bad person in any way.
Regarding the presence of intelligence beyond that of the Bible’s participants: As I told one other fellow not too long ago who made a proposal similar to yours (the inclusion of germs or Australia or Chinese culture), the Bible isn’t a scientific/cultural treatise but a theological document – more to the point, a love letter from God to humans. The Bible does, however, contain evidence of intelligence beyond that of people. Consider, for example, that in the book of Job, Job describes the earth as “suspended in the middle of nothing.” No one at that time knew that the Earth was suspended in the nothingness of space, so how did Job hit the nail on the head? Providence is the only logical answer.
Lastly (for now, at least), I fail to see how the Bible could be man-made, especially when I consider the Gospels. Most of the original apostles died martyrs’ deaths, so I have to ask, “Why would they die for a man-made story?” Being faithful followers of Christ didn’t make them rich, and it didn’t make them popular (not in a good way, that is), and it didn’t bring them any sort of earthly power, and none of them were known to be mentally ill. So the only logical explanation is that they had truly encountered the God who was everything the Bible says He is. And yes, I can imagine you saying at this moment, “But the Old Testament says God is wrathful and jealous and actually did strike some people dead!” True, all true. But that goes to another point, something that most non-Christians fail to understand: God is not merely good, He is holy, which means that He is perfect and can’t tolerate sin. From God’s point of view, sin is something that needs to obliterated. So, cruel as it may seem, certain individuals and groups (namely the Canaanites) were chosen by God to serve as object lessons in this regard. They worshipped false gods and lived wicked lives, thus being all-too-accurate manifestations of sin, and were thus wiped out by the Israelites, who (when they were being obedient, at least) worshipped the one true God and lived righteous lives, thus manifesting God’s holiness and how it destroys sin. I realize that that can be a hard truth to swallow, but I pray you’ll be able to one day understand it.
By the way, are you British?

Jason, a considered answer, for which I thank you: I see my waspish tone isn't going to rile you.
But that tone comes from a simple question: why do you bother?
I mean that you've admitted you have some intellectual understanding of why leaves change colour, so why, when presented with a perfectly valid, scientifically complete explanation, do you then have to add on the supernatural? It doesn't offer anything useful, a perfect candidate for Occam's Razor. You add a layer of complexity that is unprovable by definition: it's not even wrong.
Twice you make the logical mistake of begging the question: 'Why do I believe in God? First, let's assume he exists...' (par 3: "Since I already believe in God and that He created everything..." and par 4: "Humor me, if you will, by presuming first of all that there is some sort of supreme intelligence out there..."). If you really understood the "naturalistic explanations", you’d realise that there is NO credit due: it just happens. This is the whole point: you don’t need a god for the leaves to change colour.
(I should say here that, whilst British, I was born in Canada and have indeed witnessed with, yes, amazement the leaves changing colour.)
What we need here is some aspect of the colour-changing process that we can only put down to some supernatural force. There is none.
I will concede here that there may be a god – we can’t prove the negative that he doesn’t exist - but he would be a wholly absent landlord.
In truth, there are things that we don’t know, questions that science has yet to answer. But they get fewer by the day.
Religion grew out of ignorance, mixed with humans’ need to understand. In the best scientific tradition, ancient peoples came up with theories, usually based on superhuman powers as explanations for things they didn’t understand: the sun going across the sky was pulled by a chariot, plagues were sent by a god or gods, sacrifices propitiated divine anger.
Then along come bits of real knowledge and each erodes ignorance-based religion. It turns out the earth, for wholly non-divine reasons, moves round a static sun: one less god needed there. Germs cause disease: I guess that it wasn’t an angry deity after all – we can cut back on the virgin-sacrificing now. And of course the big one: evolution. Yikes! There go huge chunks of the belief system.
What this means is that, every time we discover something new, believers either have to stick their fingers in their ears and ignore it (intelligent design) or recast their previously held 'facts' as now 'metaphors'.
But that's not what happens, is it? Any time you invest authority in a fixed, external entity – whether it's a religious text or even a constitution – you need to interpret it. As the society over which that authority is held develops, leaving the context of the entity behind, the interpretations become more and more tortuous. Your rationalisation of the Bible’s attitude to slavery is, whilst despicable, classic.
Incidentally, you mention the civil-rights movement which was only necessary because a) it was constitutionally embedded in the founding of America and b) it was justifiable by direct recourse to the Bible: it was the Southern Christians who were most fond of it and the godless Northern liberals who took it from them.
These texts, be they the Bible or the Koran, are of course the source of many of our problems. Because you rely for your moral guidance on 2000-year old book, full of contradictions, murder, rape, homophobia, ethnic cleansing, misogyny and other travesties, instead of your own conscience, you permit, nay, oblige yourself to do awful things. Would slavery have gone on for so long without the Bible? What about homophobia? Would anyone really care about homosexuality if it weren’t for religiously inspired hatred?
Don’t forget: if I were your friend or relative and I were recommending atheism to you, you would be obliged to stone me to death. So commands your god.
If a mob were to come to your door whilst I dined with you, demanding you hand me over that I may be anally raped by them, you may assuage their anger by handing over your own daughter and giving them permission to gang rape her instead. (This is, indeed, still a legal punishment in Pakistan.)
And Jesus tells you that not one iota of the Old Testament may be ignored. (Don't get me started on atonement for Original Sin!)
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
That's because you have an intermediated morality.
You weasel out of the homosexuality question with your meaningless "I disagree with that lifestyle choice" statement. But you go on to say that I "give heed only to those religious folk who do bad things", mentioning soup kitchens. But it doesn't take religion to do charitable deeds, does it? It does, however, take religion to condemn millions of people to death through proscription of condom use.
If anything, you do charitable deeds not because they are in themselves 'good' or conscionable, as the atheist might. You do them out of fear of the wrath of god (your lesson from the Canaanites business) or for some promise of eternal membership of paradise that lets you smugly lord it over the rest of us burning in hell. I find nothing edifying in that attitude at all.
Your last paragraph makes no sense to me. The Gospels are so clearly a man-made, contradictory rehashing of ancient myths from other religions, written centuries after the events they purport to cover, that they're impossible to believe. That people died because they believe them doesn't prove their veracity, only people's desperate need to believe.
And I think it would take a professional theologian to appreciate your sophistry in twisting the word 'holy' to mean 'justified in ethnic cleansing'.
Let me leave you with a question: why aren't you a Muslim?

Hi, Paul. Occam’s Razor, if I understand the principle correctly, is that you shouldn’t increase, beyond what’s necessary, the number of entities required to explain something. I think the key here is in the meaning of the words “necessary” and “explain”: You have to ask yourself, “How much of an explanation is required to make a sufficient explanation? Is it necessary only for me to know how leaves change color (scientifically speaking), or am I also interested in learning how the leaves got there in the first place?” You asked me why a “perfectly valid, scientifically complete explanation” is not enough for me, but I ask you, What if there is more to be explained? You’ve conceded that there may be a God, so I ask you (in addition to why you think He’d be a “wholly absent landlord”): what if this God had something to do with the leaves’ existence in the first place? A naturalistic explanation of how leaves change color is a great thing – it gives insight into some fascinating processes – but if their very existence is dependent on something external to nature, are you not interested in learning the explanation of that as well? I am. I mean, if the fall colors and the process that brings them about is so amazing (and they are), then the God who put them there would be more amazing still, someone I’d certainly be interested in knowing.
You asked a great question: Why do I believe in God? I realize now, thanks to you, that I was previously giving you answers that only begged the question, so now I’ll answer fully. As I related before, I was born to Christian parents, grew up in a Christian home, so believing in a benevolent God is, in one sense, “natural” for me. But now that I’m an adult, with a mind of my own and a responsibility to make my own choices, a better reason is required – it would not even suffice, I suppose, to say that I believe because I’ve seen no convincing evidence against God’s existence, for then I’d need to give a reason as to why I’m not simply an agnostic. For indeed I do not choose agnostic “neutrality,” but to believe that there is, in fact, a God, and my reason for belief is partly explained in my post “Mr. Hitchens, Meet Mr. Lewis,” so I encourage you to read that. More of my reason for believing can be seen in the rest of C.S. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity, which too I encourage you to read. But to summarize it for you here and now: I believe that there’s a God because there’s a certain morality peculiar to humans that’s engrained in us all and cannot be sufficiently explained in any other way. From where I sit, if God didn’t exist, there would be no “morality” as we know it. Morality, as I see it, is a Law of Right and Wrong that God has written into us (Right and Wrong being defined by Him). Thus, if God did not exist, this law of morality wouldn’t exist, so therefore every person could literally live his life 100% as he pleased and no one would have the right to complain because there would be no inherent absolute standard to appeal to. We would literally not be able to complain, to say things like “I was in line first” or “share with me; I shared with you,” because we would literally have no concept of this thing we call morality. We would literally be like cats and dogs, like wild animals fighting over a carcass: “I don’t care if you were here first; I see it, and I want it, so I’m taking it.” We would have evolved to a point similar to the rest of the animal kingdom: purely instinctual, and with no idea of right and wrong, simply survival. I’ve heard several people say that you don’t have to be “religious” to be moral, or to do good deeds like working at a soup kitchen, and in one sense they’re right: you don’t have to belong to an organized religion to “be a good person.” But it’s clear that humans are distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom, and that one of the reasons for this is our idea of morality, and if “morality” were simply a private notion of yours or mine (not the work of some external force), society would have no common ground from which to do things like create law and order, or perform good deeds. It would be every man for himself. Hence, though you don’t have to be “religious” to do good deeds, none of us would do good deeds were it not for the Moral Law in us (and it must have been God who put it there, because evolution addresses only the physiological and material, not the immaterial and moral).
Something else I want to address: You make many false assumptions wholly lacking evidence. I wouldn’t stone you for recommending atheism (or for any other reason), nor would I hand over anyone to a lustful mob, nor do I ever lord my salvation over anyone. I also don’t do good deeds out of fear of God’s wrath; I do them because God loves people and I love God, and because in doing the deeds I demonstrate to people God’s love for them. You asked me why I’m not Muslim; I’m not sure why you asked that, but it appears that you see a strong correlation between Islam and the Old Testament, and, because of your wrong assumptions of me and the OT, perhaps you figure that I should just be a Muslim instead of a Christian. I can understand how you might compare Islam and the OT, at least by looking at the OT only on the surface. But a couple key points remain: the god of Islam never got around to being nice or merciful (the only guarantee of allah’s favor is martyrdom, thus radical Islam); and, though this brings up another topic that you and I have already shown disagreement on, God always has a reason for doing what He does, even if it looks wrong to us. God did some violent things in the OT, but as our Creator, He has the right to be angry with our mistakes. And though we now live in the Dispensation of Grace, during which time God is showing us His complete mercy through Jesus, the OT covers a period in history when God was still teaching humankind many basic things – what sin is, and that we have sinned, and that He is holy and punishes sin, and that we need His help. We ultimately received that help in Jesus – who perfectly fulfilled the Law for us and also took our punishment, thus enabling God to maintain his holy punishment of sin without destroying us whom He loves. Early in humankind’s learning process, however, God had to show us that He was serious, and, unfortunately, there were plenty of people who flaunted their sin and thumbed their noses at God, which made them ideal candidates for a tough object lesson. I’m sure that strikes you as insane and despicable, but believe it or not, there are plenty of people today who find child-spanking (not beating, but spanking) morally wrong, violent and despicable, yet plenty of parents have done it (including mine), and their children (including myself and my two siblings) turned out to be good people and good citizens, members of society in good standing who make positive contributions to their fellow man. But unfortunately there are parents today who view spanking as an evil and would simply rather let their kids rule the roost, just as – even more unfortunately – there are many people today who view some of God’s actions as evil, when His intention has always been to help us.
This leads me to my last point: You said that the holy books of the world are the source of many of our problems. I disagree. The source of every human problem is not religion, or money, or the desire for power, or any other such thing, but the flawed nature of the human heart. Christians call this “sin.” Religion, money, political office, and all those other things are merely vehicles for carrying out the bad ideas and intentions that originate in our hearts. Some of these vehicles – such as radical Islam – are certainly more susceptible to being used in evil ways, but the truth remains that the real problem lies within each of us.
Again, Paul, I want to thank you for the discussion; it’s thought-provoking, a good challenge. And I’m glad that you’ve seen the fall colors; as far as I’m concerned, no person’s life is complete without seeing that sight at least once.

Your argument goes wrong for me. You say that God can do anything, anytime, and whatever seems best to him. Well, given that framework, I will always be surprised each time God decides that activily helping me out is what seems best to HIM. I'll also be surprised when God decides I need to live through an ordeal so I can be stronger spiritually and emotionally. So in essence, I will consistently be surprised when God reveals his plan for me, since he intervenes at his own Godly discretion. I am not Godly, so I will never fully understand God's plan. I just need to trust that he has one for me, all the while being surprised any time he chooses to intervene.

The point about mary, is that she should know that her child is God. Therefore any Godly things he does, should not be shocking. It's an inconsistancy in the text.

This entire debate is predicated on Mary having been -- as Hitchens implies -- "constantly surprised" at the actions of her son. First, I'm not sure that her surprise was constant -- there's only one recorded event of Jesus' childhood, so we don't know how often she was amazed by him when he was young; and the Bible doesn't record Mary's reaction to many of the things Jesus did as an adult, so we can't know her reactions there, either. Second, and more to the point, atheists and other Bible skeptics view the situation too simplistically: They assume that Mary's knowing that Jesus is God will automatically sap her of all surprise at his actions, as though she would forever view her son in an emotionally-antiseptic way. This mindset ignores a couple things, however: First, as the Bible makes clear, that God is breathtaking beyond all human understanding. Which leads right into point number two: Humans, with our limited minds, cannot fully comprehend God, so even though we may have already witnessed many of His miracles and other displays of power, as Mary and the disciples did, we are still awestruck when He reveals yet another aspect of Himself, still amazed whenever He gives us another glimpse of His transcendant supernatural glory.

Oh -- and one last point which just came to mind: Mary shouldn't have been surprised, say skeptics, because she knew that her child was God. But I might also ask why other parents should be surprised when their young children do things that they find "amazing." I see this all the time. Parents KNOW that at some point their children are going to start learning things and demonstrating what they've learned, and yet the parents are often surprised and amazed by their children's actions -- and not simply because it's their own children, or because they're happy to see their children's development, but because they're genuinely surprised that a one-year-old can do certain things -- and this despite the fact that they've seen similar things happen numerous times before with other people's children.

Paul - come now, are you *sure* you're not a religious man? I only ask because clearly you have the patience of a saint. I have a fairly limited attention span - particularly when surfing the net, what with its myriad distractions - but I've seen this thread through to the bitter, bitter, er... midpoint.

Jason, it appears to me that you live in a total fantasy world, utterly blinkered by your faith and the bizarre, twisted contradictions of the world's most famous fairytale. Can you not see that you're failing to counter even the most fundamental tenets of Paul's argument??

I actually started reading the bible a few months back so I'd have a little bit of ammunition when getting into discussions with people of faith. I know I know, I really should know better and just keep my mouth shut, but I think Hitchens/Harris/Dawkins are right when they suggest that these deluded fantasists will be the death of all of us.

I haven't made it through the 'OT' yet, but stop side-stepping the real issues, Jason. The god of the OT was a complete psycopath, so don't try and flannel it with this nonsense about god teaching us one step at a time. If god is great and powerful - and, let's be brutally honest, a vengeful b*stard to boot - and smites sinners as an example to the god-fearing, *why* did he p*ssy-foot around the slavery issue? Why not simply steam in there and smite a few slave-mongers as a lesson to the rest? You can't have it both ways. "yes he's all powerful, he really can do anything "ah no, but he didn't stop this or that because, er... it wasn't.... um..... he, er...."

Er, I appear to have reached the maximum size for a post, but I'll post the rest just below...

(continued from the post 'Crivens...' just above)

And I think you missed the point when Paul talks about raping house-guests and murdering athiests and taking slaves. I'm pleased that you hope Paul doesn't get bum-raped by a gang of christian zealots or murdered for his opinions on religion, but given that it's the word of god, why don't you subscribe to those teachings as well? Can you really put your faith in a book that peddles this sort of intolorence and hatred?

And why don't you believe the world is 6,000 years old? If it's in the bible, and the bible is the word of god, and 'He' is so great and powerful, dare you really be so arrogant as to cherry-pick the bits that suit you? I'm reminded of the mighty Bill Hicks when he referenced this very subject, spot-lighting these christians who feel they can twist the 'good book' to suit their every need: "I think what god was trying to say..." For the full 'Hicks' effect you need to roll your eyes back into your head and mutter the words in a slow, southern drawl...

From the wholly naive tone of your responses I can scarcely believe you're old enough to have passed through a university. And the fact that you took journalism amazes me still more. How you haven't managed to develop any real critical faculties or a healthy sense of scepticism is stunning. Perhaps we should look to the University of Maine for answers on that one. Either way, I can only assume that you make a living in some other field, or perhaps write for a christian journal.

(continued below)

(continued from above)

Now I know my tone may sound a little harsh, but that's just my way. I don't say any of this with malice, just a sad sense of resignation. Millions of people subscribe to these millenia-old fantasies, and we do seem to be hotting up nicely towards a major global conflagration. And I'll be happy to wager a substantial sum of money on religion being the catalyst when the sh*t hits the fan. Not that I'll be able to collect my ashen winnings from what's left of the post-apocalyptic wasteland, of course, but I think you get my point.

As someone I can't remember the name of once said: if you're going to live your life by just one book, better make sure it's the right one.

Hi Scott. Thanks for taking the time to comment. I would write a longer response except that much of it would simply be repeating what I've already stated above, and nobody I know of likes redundancy. I will make one suggestion, however: Read "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, an atheist-turned-Christian who possessed one of the most brilliant minds in history.

That, my christian chum, is weak....