The Idiocy of Biblical Literalism

One of the things that I find most amazing (or disturbing, depending on how one wants to describe the phenomenon) is the lengths that Christofascists will go to avoid admitting that the Bible is neither historically correct as a narrative of accurate history and that much of its premise, The Fall and the coming of a savior as embodied by Christ, has a major problem, namely that Adam and Eve never existed as historical persons.  Without Adam and Eve, there was no Fall, and the rest of the story line collapses. No Fall, and then no need for a savior, etc.  Related to this is the manner in which Christofascists ignore the impossibility of some of the Old Testament.  Which brings me to an article in The Atlantic on the "Ark Encounter."  How 8 people built the huge ark - especially when they had no shipbuilding experience - defies belief.  The same goes for the lunatic claim that dinosaurs were on board.  Here are article highlights (note the references to fabricating "facts"):

Of all the biblical episodes, Voltaire thought none required more faith than the story of Noah’s Ark: “The history of the deluge being that of the most miraculous event of which the world ever heard, it must be the height of folly and madness to attempt an explanation of it.” If only he had visited Ark Encounter—a Christian theme park that opened this summer in Kentucky and boasts a “life-sized” reconstruction of Noah’s Ark. Seemingly impossible details have been fanatically researched and naturalistically explained by Answers in Genesis (AiG), a literalist Christian organization that’s also responsible for the nearby Creation Museum. 

In over 100 exhibits on the ship, visitors learn how each difficulty might have been surmounted: How could eight people feed so many animals? Through an elaborate system of drains and chutes, as illustrated by an interactive video. And what about the stench? Solved easily enough—Noah just needed a ventilation system powered by the tides. And the daily tons of animal waste? Noah could dispose of that with a treadmill-cum-conveyor belt powered by elephants. But how did he fit elephants on the ship? And all those dinosaurs? They were babies at the time. And if visitors doubted that a wooden ship carrying all this cargo could withstand an apocalyptic flood, a placard explains that the ship’s dimensions, as specified in Genesis . . . .

But many I spoke with also confessed that they had never really worried about these details before; instead, they had just ascribed it to God’s power. 

For self-proclaimed literalists, the ark includes a striking amount of fabrications and fictionalizations. Consider, for example, one of the most popular exhibits, where visitors can walk through the family’s living quarters. At the entrance are two placards, one entitled “Artistic License,” and the other “Why Are the Living Quarters So Nice?” In each of the following rooms, visitors can see mannequin renderings of the family and read short bios. . . . But none of these details appear in the Bible. Genesis never takes a charming detour through the family’s hobbies. It never even reveals the names of the women on the ship. And yet these details are integral to the experience of Ark Encounter.

On AiG’s blog, Simon Turpin equates literalism with “plain reading” and “natural interpretation,” suggesting that anyone with common sense will read the Bible as they do. But as Ark Encounter reveals, this apparent simplicity demands endless fabrication. 

Obviously, the First Amendment guarantees citizens the right to cling to whatever religious belief they choose.  That does not, however, mean that the rest of us have to  agree with them or, more importantly, respect them or their insane beliefs that defy reality.

The Demise of the Christian Brand

With more and more evangelical Christians flocking to the racist and neo-fascist banner of Donald Trump, focus is being brought to bear on what I have said for a long time now: conservative Christians are not nice or decent people.   Yes, there are good Christians, but most to the extent they exist tend to be of the more liberal denominations or Catholics who ignore the misogyny peddled by the Vatican.  Moreover, increasingly the term "Christian" is tied to the Christian Right and evangelicals themselves and the growing negative connotations decent people associate with the term.  Combine the evangelicals and the desire of the GOP to foster a reverse Robin Hood regime and one gets a truly toxic brew.  A column written by a psychologist I came across looks at how the evangelicals are killing both the Republican Party and the Christian brand itself.  Here are highlights:

A generation ago, the Republican Party realized that Evangelical Christianity could be a valuable acquisition. “Evangelical” had righteous, “family values” brand associations, the unassailable name of Jesus, the authority of the Bible, and the organizing infrastructure and social capital of Evangelical churches. Republican operatives courted Evangelical leaders and promised them power and money—the power to turn back the clock on equal rights for women and queers, and the glitter of government subsidies for church enterprises including religious education, real estate speculation, and marketing campaigns that pair social services with evangelism.

As in any story about selling your soul, Evangelical leaders largely got what they bargained for, but at a price that only the devil fully understood in advance. Internally, Evangelical communities can be wonderfully kind, generous and mutually supportive.

But today, few people other than Evangelical Christians themselves associate the term “Evangelical” with words like generous and kind. In fact, a secular person is likely to see a kind, generous Evangelical neighbor as a decent person in spite of their Christian beliefs, not because of them.

The Evangelical brand is so depleted and tainted at this point that Russell Moore, a prominent leader of the Southern Baptist Convention recently said that he will no longer call himself an “Evangelical Christian,” thanks—he implied—to association between Evangelicals and Trump. Instead he is using the term “Gospel Christian”—at least till the 2016 election is over. While Trump has received endorsements from Evangelical icons including Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Pat Robertson, other Evangelical leaders (e.g. here, here) have joined Moore in lamenting the deep and wide Evangelical attraction to Trump, which they say is antithetical to their values. 

But how much, really, is the Trump brand antithetical to the Evangelical brand? Humanist commentator James Croft argues that Trump is what Evangelicalism, in the hands of the Religious Right, has become:

“The religious right in America has always been a political philosophy based on bullying, pandering, projecting strength to hide fear and weakness, and proud, aggressive ignorance. That’s what it’s been about from the beginning. Trump has merely distilled those elements into a decoction so deadly that even some evangelicals are starting to recognize the venom they have injected into American culture.”

Croft says that Pastors like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren use Jesus as a fig leaf “to drape over social views that would otherwise be revealed as nakedly evil.”

[T]he Evangelical brand problem is much bigger than Trump and his candidacy or the morally-bankrupt priorities and theocratic aspirations of fellow Republican candidates Cruz and Rubio. Evangelicals may use the name of Jesus for cover, but even Jesus is too small a fig leaf to hide the fact outsiders looking at Evangelical Christianity see more prick than heart.

Here is what the Evangelical brand looks like from the outside:

Evangelical means obsessed with sex. Evangelicals are so desperate to fend off their own complicated sexual desires and self-loathing that they would rather watch queer teens commit suicide than deal with their homophobia. They abhor youth sexuality and female sexual pleasure to the point that they have driven an epidemic of teen pregnancy, unintended pregnancy and abortion—all because accurate information and contraceptive access might let the wrong kind of people (young unmarried and female people) have sex for the wrong reasons (pleasure and intimacy) without suffering for it.

Evangelical means arrogant. Wheaton College put Evangelical arrogance on national display when administrators decided to suspend and then fire a professor who dared to suggest that Muslims, Jews and Christians all worship the same God.

Evangelical means fearful and bigoted. While more secular Europeans and Canadians offer aid to Syrian refugees, Evangelical Christians have instead sought to exclude Muslims.
  Evangelical means indifferent to truth. Evangelicals refuse to acknowledge what is obvious to everyone else, including most other Christians—that the Bible is a human document woven through with moral and factual imperfections. Treating the Bible like the literally perfect word of God has forced Bible believers to make a high art out of self-deception, which they then apply to other inconvenient truths.

Evangelical means ignorant. The only way to protect creationism is to keep people from understanding how science works and what scientists have discovered. As evidence accumulates related to evolutionary biology, insulating children requires a constant battle to keep accurate information out of textbooks. Insulating adults requires cultivating a deep suspicion of science and scholarship, an anti-intellectualism that diffuses out from this center and defines Evangelical culture at large.
Evangelical means predatory. Evangelical missionaries prey on the young and ignorant. 
Evangelical means mean. Opposing anti-poverty programs, shaming and stigmatizing queers, making it harder for poor women to prevent pregnancy, blaming rape victims,diverting aid dollars into church coffers, threatening little kids with eternal torture, supporting war, denying the rights of other species, . . . need I go on?

Laid out like this—sex-obsessed, arrogant, bigoted, lying, greedy, ignorant, predatory and mean—one understands why a commentator like Croft might say that Trump is Evangelicalism. But reading closer, it becomes clear that Trump and Cruz and Rubio are not the problem.

Despite the best efforts of reformers like Rachel Held Evans, the Evangelical brand is toxic because of the stagnant priorities and behaviors of Evangelicals themselves. 

It's a good analysis, in my view.  One can only hope that the demise accelerates and that the much deserved death of Christianity does not inflict too much harm on the rest of society in the process. 

Hobby Lobby Founder Seeks to Enforce a Christian Nation

As readers of this blog know very well, I hold nothing but contempt for Christofascists - especially those who claim to support the U.S. Constitution while in fact seeking to subvert it and destroy the rights of others.  A case in point: the evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby founder which has brought a lawsuit challenging the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act.  A piece in Politico looks at the theocratic agenda of these people and their goal of limiting the constitutional rights of others.  It is another example of how the disingenuous cry of "religious liberty" is being used to deprive others of the religious liberty that the Christofascists want only for themselves.  Here are article excerpts:

The evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby made a fortune selling crafts supplies and made headlines fighting government-mandated birth control coverage. They’re also using their billions to sell the American public on the literal truth of Scripture — through a public-school Bible curriculum, a huge museum around the corner from the Smithsonian and public forums on the faith of the founding fathers.

The Green family may be best known in secular circles for their lawsuit against Obamacare, a high-stakes — and highly political — case that could undercut the administration’s goal of setting minimum standards for health care coverage. By the end of this month, the Supreme Court will decide if the federal government can force the Greens to include methods of contraception they deem sinful as part of employees’ health insurance.

The pending Hobby Lobby ruling has thrust the Greens into the national spotlight, but the family’s mission is far bigger than a single court case. They’re spending hundreds of millions on a quiet but audacious bid to teach a wayward nation to trust, cherish — and heed — the Bible.

Most provocatively, they’ve funded a multimillion-dollar effort to write a Bible curriculum they hope to place in public schools nationwide. It will debut next fall as an elective in Mustang High School, a few miles from Hobby Lobby’s Oklahoma City headquarters.

A draft of the textbook for the first of four planned yearlong courses presents Adam and Eve as historical figures and introduces God as “faithful and good,” “gracious and compassionate” and “an ever-present help in times of trouble.” A list of “curses for disobeying the Lord” warns of defeat, fever and “disaster and panic in everything you do.”

Hobby Lobby founders David and Barbara Green and their three adult children — sons Steve and Mart and daughter Darcee Lett — have donated generously to Christian institutions over the years, but these projects are on another scale entirely. A source close to the family estimates the museum alone will end up costing as much as $800 million, including the acquisition of thousands of ancient artifacts.

The family’s vision is beginning to stir concern, not just among the ACLU and atheist groups such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but even from some Bible scholars.

The plans that have been made public so far — including the high school curriculum — seem aimed at portraying Scripture as historically accurate and an unequivocal force for good, said John Kutsko, executive director of the international Society of Biblical Literature, the oldest and largest organization dedicated to Biblical scholarship.

That approach fails to incorporate the latest scholarship, acknowledge that the Bible has also played a role as a tool of oppression or recognize different religious viewpoints, Kutsko said.

“It’s a simple, superficial, literal reading of the Bible,” Kutsko said.

As presented, the curriculum is “startlingly irresponsible” — and likely unconstitutional, as well, since public schools are allowed to teach about religion but can’t promote any particular theology, said Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University who has reviewed the text.

“They don’t seem to realize that their claims about the Bible’s reliability are statements of faith, not statements of fact,” Chancey said.

Eventually, the foundation developing the curriculum hopes to sell it to districts across the nation. Steve Green has said he dreams of it one day becoming a mandatory course for all high school students.

These people and Christofascists like them are an insidious cancer and a clear a present danger to the freedom of others.  The sooner that the larger society recognizes the danger and the theocratic goals of these folks the better.  it goes without saying that I will never be found darkening the threshold of a Hobby Lobby store.