Michael Gerson to Conservative Christians: Get Over It

As the world and America evolve and the nation's demographics change, evangelical Christians - those whom I call the Christofascists - are fighting an increasingly hysterical rear guard action against anything that threatens their fairy tale image of "Christian America" and white privilege - the two go hand in hand.  Indeed, they are battling against modernity itself, especially scientific knowledge that is increasingly proving that the myths of the Bible are not based in fact but rather the tales of ignorant, uneducated nomadic goat herders. (Islam is having its own battle against modernity which challenges the purported writings of a historical figure who likely suffered from mental illness, but that's the subject of another post).  In today's Washington Post conservative columnist Michael Gerson has a message for the Christofascists: get over it and move on.  Here are column highlights:

[C]onservative Christians have been lately pondering their relationship to American culture. And not just those who are hysterical for a living. When the court rejected traditional sexual ethics as a permissible basis for laws defining marriage, many conservative believers felt a cultural milestone had been reached. 

It had once been plausible — though not necessary accurate — for conservative Christians to regard themselves as part of a “moral majority” in which traditional Judeo-Christian views were broadly shared. That is no longer minimally credible on issues of the family and sexual ethics. And the change in self-perception among some believers has been jarring. 

In an essay in Christianity Today, “The Power of Our Weakness,” my co-author, Peter Wehner, and I explore this altered landscape. The manner in which conservative Christians navigate their journey away from outdated notions of a “Christian America” will have much to say about the quality of our public life in the actual America.

The cultural, legal and theological arguments of the essay might be summarized as: Snap out of it. There is, as legal scholar John Inazu told us, “an insecurity caused by a rapidly lost social position,” leading some to a “growing bitterness and despair.” But this reaction is not particularly constructive or religiously serious.  

But this set of legal challenges does not translate into social apocalypse. By many (though not nearly all) indicators, American culture is getting better. Divorce rates and abortion rates have declined in recent decades. Rates of violent crime and homicide are down dramatically from historical highs. Many religious conservatives mistake alarming legal trends for across-the-board cultural decay. 

[R]eversing the Supreme Court decision on marriage — which is rooted in long-term cultural changes that emerged in the context of heterosexual relationships — is not a realistic political goal. This means that religious conservatives must learn to operate in a same-sex marriage world.

This is not moral compromise; it is the normal practice of democracy. Beyond issues of sexuality, there is a broad agenda for which the building of coalitions is essential: the global fight against HIV/AIDS and sexual trafficking, the reform of foster care and the criminal justice system, the building of safe, healthy, child-friendly communities. 

 Pulling back from the practical, religious conservatives will need to recover some perspective. For most of the past 2,000 years, Christians have lived in societies that did not reflect their sexual ethics.  And sexual ethics is not the sum total of Christian ethics, which, at its best, affirms the priority of the person and the defense of human rights, well-being and dignity. 

I disagree with other parts of the column that suggest the changing face of the nation may be a time of opportunity for Christianity.  With every passing date, science and knowledge further undermines the myths on which Christianity is based, including the myth that Adam and Eve and :The Fall" were all real.  They were not real and the Genesis story is a myth and, hence the whole story line begins to crumble.  The hatred and bigotry towards others that now defines conservative Christians is not the only reason the younger generations are walking away from religion.   Increasingly, they simply do not buy the story line.

Ancient Manuscript: Jesus "Married Mary Magdalene and Had Children"

This blog has noted frequently the problem that biblical literalists are facing both from modern scientific knowledge - such as the human genome project which confirms that Adam and Eve never existed as historical persons - to new history discoveries that challenge the Church's manipulated and enforced version of the Christ story.   Now, a rediscovered ancient manuscript has yet again suggested that the Church's version of Jesus' life is not accurate.  The Independent has details.  Here are highlights:

Jesus married the prostitute Mary Magdalene and had children, according to a manuscript almost 1,500 years old unearthed at the British Library.

The so-called “Lost Gospel”, which has been translated from Aramaic, allegedly reveals the startling new allegations, according to The Sunday Times.

Professor Barrie Wilson and writer Simcha Jacobovic spent months translating the text, which they claim states Jesus had two children and the original Virgin Mary was Jesus’s wife and not his mother.

Many experts have downplayed the biblical figure’s historical importance but, according to the translators of the new gospel, she is of much greater significance than previously thought. 

Mary Magdalene already features in the existing gospels and is present at many of the important moments recorded in Jesus’s life.

“The Lost Gospel” is not the first to claim that Jesus married Mary Magdalene.  Both Nikos Kazantzakis in his 1953 book “The Last Temptation of Christ” and, more recently, Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code” made the same allegation.

Further revelations from the book, including the names of Jesus's children, will be released on Wednesday.

The publisher, Pegasus, has confirmed the press conference will go ahead as planned.

More details will follow.  Expect shrieks and spittle flecked rants from those whose fragile faith depends on a literal (albeit very selective) reading of the Bible  and not having to think.

Why Fundamentalist Christians Fear Knowledge and Intellectualism

I've said before that for fundamentalist Christians - and I would extend this to Islamic fundamentalists as well - the most terrifying prospect is having to think for oneself and face the fact that modern scientific knowledge is proving many dearly held beliefs to be false.  A prime example is the human genome project proof that Adam and Eve never existed as historic figures.  From that discovery, the entire Christian story line of the Fall and Christ redemption begins to come crashing to the ground.  For those with what I see as almost a form of mental illness that demands certainty and the ability to "check off the boxes" to confirm one's goodness or assurance of going to "heaven" knowledge and intellectualism threaten the entire artificial  world in which they live.   A piece in Patheos looks at the terror knowledge and intellectualism strikes in fundamentalists.  Here are highlights:

It is much easier to believe you understand who you are and to be stable when your core belief system is stable. For folks like liberals and progressives this is a little more difficult because the walls around our core beliefs are a little less rigid and more willing to flex as new information presents itself. Which means that we, more frequently than fundamentalists, are reshaping our understanding of who we are and how we relate to society, even if in small ways.

This just isn’t true for a fundamentalist Christians. The protective walls around their core beliefs are tall and rigid – and with good reason. We have to keep in mind, these core beliefs are so much more than ideas or ideals, they are identification and identity. Who we understand ourselves to be is formed around them. When you challenge a specific belief you are also, in small part, challenging the person’s understanding of who they are.

For fundamentalist Christians, it is even more complicated than just that. In both direct and subtle ways, they believe their salvation, at least in part, is dependent upon being correct on issues of faith.

Intellectualism invites the constant assessment of the “correctness” of a person’s belief system. That’s dangerous ground for a fundamentalist Christian. When you confront them on a particular belief you are not only confronting them on an idea that they have held to more rigidly for a longer time than most other folks but you are confronting the very core of who they understand themselves to be. For them, it is those core beliefs upon which their salvation hangs in the balance, at least in part. Questioning it doesn’t just question the thought but, for them, it puts into question a lifetime of holding on tightly to that thought.

When you take all of that into consideration, it’s really not surprise that most fundamentalist Christians react negatively to or avoid all together any intellectual questioning of their core belief systems.

It's a sad form of existence in my view, but that's precisely what demagogues in the pulpits and your Muslim imam  - and bitter old Catholic cardinals - seek to maintain.  Religion remains the source of so much misery in the world.  Fundamentalists of all faiths are the true slaves and, in my view, knowingly or unknowingly, the agents of evil. 

Did the Historical Jesus Exist?

A negative answer to the question posed in the title of this post strikes terror into the hearts (and small minds) of conservative Christians and the professional Christian class that lives a parasitic existence maintaining power and control through manipulation of the Jesus story and selective parsing of the Bible.  Yet, a growing number of scholars are coming to believe that, in fact, the historical Jesus purportedly depicted in the Bible never existed.  Add this to the fact that the human genome project has proven that Adam and Eve never existed as historical persons and the entire Christian story line completely collapses.  A piece in AlterNet looks at the growing belief by scholars that Jesus never existed as a historical person.  Here are excerpts:

Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.”  In other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity. 

At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this view, a “historical Jesus” became mythologized. 

For over 200 years, a wide ranging array of theologians and historians—most of them Christian—analyzed ancient texts, both those that made it into the Bible and those that didn’t, in attempts to excavate the man behind the myth.  Several current or recent bestsellers take this approach, distilling the scholarship for a popular audience. Familiar titles include Zealot by Reza Aslan and  How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman .  

But other scholars believe that the gospel stories are actually “historicized mythology.”  In this view, those ancient mythic templates are themselves the kernel. They got filled in with names, places and other real world details as early sects of Jesus worship attempted to understand and defend the devotional traditions they had received. 

The arguments on both sides of this question—mythologized history or historicized mythology—fill volumes, and if anything the debate seems to be heating up rather than resolving. A growing number of scholars are openly questioning or actively arguing against Jesus’ historicity. Since many people, both Christian and not, find it surprising that this debate even exists—that credible scholars might think Jesus never existed—here are some of the key points that keep the doubts alive: 

1. No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef.  In the words of Bart Ehrman: “What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. . . . . In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name ever so much as mentioned.”

2. The earliest New Testament writers seem ignorant of the details of Jesus’ life, which become more crystalized in later texts. Paul seems unaware of any virgin birth, for example. No wise men, no star in the east, no miracles. Historians have long puzzled over the “Silence of Paul” on the most basic biographical facts and teachings of Jesus. Paul fails to cite Jesus’ authority precisely when it would make his case. What’s more, he never calls the twelve apostles Jesus’ disciples; in fact, he never says Jesus HAD disciples –or a ministry, or did miracles, or gave teachings. He virtually refuses to disclose any other biographical detail, and the few cryptic hints he offers aren’t just vague, but contradict the gospels.

3. Even the New Testament stories don’t claim to be first-hand accounts. We now know that the four gospels were assigned the names of the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, not written by them. To make matter sketchier, the name designations happened sometime in second century, around 100 years or more after Christianity supposedly began.

4. The gospels, our only accounts of a historical Jesus, contradict each other. If you think you know the Jesus story pretty well, I suggest that you pause at this point to test yourself with the 20 question quiz at ExChristian.net.   The gospel of Mark is thought to be the earliest existing “life of Jesus,” and linguistic analysis suggests that Luke and Matthew both simply reworked Mark and added their own corrections and new material. But they contradict each other and, to an even greater degree contradict the much later gospel of John, because they were written with different objectives for different audiences.

5. Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.  They include a cynic philosopher, charismatic Hasid, liberal Pharisee, conservative rabbi, Zealot revolutionary, nonviolent pacifist to borrow from a much longer list assembled by Price . In his words (pp. 15-16), “The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage.  But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time.” 

Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews, complete with pagan rituals like a Lord’s Supper, Gnostic terms in his letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors’ longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions.

 Given the defects in the Jesus story line, it is frightening that the Republican Party has allowed itself to be hijacked by those who continue to claim the Bible is inerrant and literally "the word of God."  The GOP might just as well allow itself to be ruled by nursery rhymes. 

Christofascists Go Berserk Over Book on Gay Christians

At times I ponder how one can become so fearful of uncertainty and anything that challenges a simple-minded (actually, an ignorance embracing), house of cards faith construct that one attacks anything and anyone that threatens their imaginary fantasy world.  Is it a form of mental illness that fuels such conduct?  It surely is not the behavior of normal, well adjusted people.  Yet this fear and reaction against thinking are the norms of today's Christofascists.  Anything and anyone who challenges their world view must be destroyed.  Hence their animus towards gays.  Hence their animus towards the theory of evolution, etc.  A new book on gay Christians has some of the "godly folk" in full spittle flecked conniption fits.  LGBTQ Nation looks at the reaction to “God and the Gay Christian,” by Matthew Vines (pictured above).  Here are some highlights:

A new book that debuts in print this week is already causing outrage and discordant reactions from right-wing American Christian conservatives, who have labeled the book a sham, shameful, inaccurate, and a misinterpretation of the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

The author, Matthew Vines, is a quiet and unassuming 24-year-old former Harvard university student from Wichita, Kan. His book, “God and the Gay Christian,” reexamines what the Christian bible actually says about same-sex relationships, and explores the biblical context and historical background regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

Yet, judging from the outraged reactions to his new book by right-wing luminaries, one would think that Satan himself co-authored Vines’ latest project.

Vines’ new book is a straight-forward structured analysis, coupled with a well researched case, that refutes some common misconceptions of the biblical intent and instead argues for a biblical support of same-sex relationships. The book is 180 pages, followed by another 20 pages of footnotes, citations, and other documentation to make the author’s case.

But critics are quick to dismiss Vines research, and instead opt to reassert their own brand of anti-gay rhetoric, cultivated over years of their own biblical interpretations.

Matt Barber, . . . .  dismisses Vines as “a homosexual activist and Bible revisionist known for manipulating Christian terminology to advance the counter-Christian homosexualist agenda.”

Vines himself isn’t all that concerned.  “I think the backlash has just begun,” Vines tells LGBTQ Nation. “For conservative Christians who base their opposition to LGBT equality on Scripture, it can be unnerving to have their biblical interpretation challenged and undermined by other conservative Christians.”

“Most non-affirming evangelicals aren’t prepared to have this conversation about Scripture yet, so I think a fair amount of bluster will precede actual, widespread engagement with the arguments I’m putting forward,” he says.

“But at some point, the bluster will clearly fail, and even the most determined opponents will have to engage with these arguments,” adds Vines.   “God and the Gay Christian” by Matthew Vines is due to be released April 22, 2014.

Science, knowledge and archeology discoveries are all enemies to the Christofascists flimsy faith construct.  As time goes by only the most ignorant and mentally unhinged will remain clinging to the Christofascists' belief that the Bible is inerrant.  As it is, the human genome project has revealed that Adam and Eve never existed and, therefore, the whole Christian myth of "The Fall" crumbles into dust and Christ's mission of redemption becomes unnecessary.

Mormon Church Claims DNA Studies Do Not Disprove Book of Mormon

Just as many of the supposed scholars of the Southern Baptist Convention are struggling to get around the inconvenient truth that the human genome project has proven that Adam and Eve never existed as historical individuals (and that, there fore the Fall as described in the Bible did not occur), so to is the Mormon Church struggling with the truth revealed by DNA studies which indicate that the indigenous people of the Americas are the descendants of Hebrews who left Jerusalem around 600 BCE.  Once again we are seeing that knowledge and science are religion's biggest enemies because they destroy the myths on which religious dogma is based.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the Mormon Church's dilema.  Here are excerpts:

Last week The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted yet another undated, unsigned document on its official website, this one on the topic of “Book of Mormon and DNA Studies.” The essay addresses issues raised by the fact that there is little to no DNA evidence supporting the Mormon claim that the indigenous people of the Americas are the descendants of Hebrews who left Jerusalem around 600 BCE. This belief was so ingrained that for a very long time, Mormons referred to Native Americans as “Lamanites,” a name that also refers to a people in the Book of Mormon.

I’ve seen discussions arguing that it’s a tacit endorsement of evolution, and also, because it discusses events believed to have happened 10,000 years ago, a tacit repudiation of the Fall and the Flood and other events that supposedly occurred less than 10,000 years ago.

But let’s leave all that aside and instead talk about the nature and ramifications of evidence.

The Church begins by stating that “the primary purpose of the Book of Mormon is more spiritual than historical,” which is true of many religious texts. However, Joseph Smith and the church he founded have also always claimed that the Book of Mormon is a historical record of events that really, truly happened. One wonders why they would’ve insisted so strenuously on this point were it not somehow integral to the book’s importance and usefulness to its readers and authors.

[T]he problem isn’t one field of study, it’s a steady accumulation of evidence that undermines or contradicts the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon—particularly given that Joseph Smith claimed, in a statement the church has made much use of, that “the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”

[T]he mere absence of distress while one reads the Book of Mormon is supposed to be an incontrovertible sign from God that what one is reading is “true.” In fact, it’s supposed to be so reliable that one is encouraged to extrapolate from it: if the words one reads in the Book of Mormon are true, then the entire volume must be true; and Joseph Smith must have been a genuine prophet of God in order to produce it; and the church Joseph Smith created must be, as it claims, “the one and only true and living church on the face of the earth;” and its current leaders must all be, as they claim, appointed by God to lead his church.

[I]t’s not merely DNA studies that “cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.” It’s also a feeling as one reads the Book of Mormon of peace, or warmth and arousal in one’s chest. These things are certainly evidence of something—that the text you’re reading resonates with you on some deep level, for instance—but they’re certainly not proof that it’s logically or spiritually sound to accept all the truth claims of the organization that told you said text might make you feel either peaceful or emotionally aroused.

It then asserts that “DNA studies cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.”

The Christianists' Continuing Problem of Adam and Eve's Non-Existence

The biblical inerrancy crowd continues to grapple with a serious (actually fatal) problem: science tells us that Adam and Eve did not exist.  As noted before on this blog, this poses a huge problem for Christianity - especially the conservative variety which claims that the Bible is literally true in all aspects.  Without Adam and Eve, the Fall as described in the Bible goes away as does the need for Christ's redemption of mankind.  Some Christofascists are simply doing what they do best: ignoring reality and believing only what they want to believe.  Others seem to realize their entire storyline is on the verge of collapsing and, thus, are trying to find a work around to stay in business, if you will.  I for one have little sympathy for the crowd that chants about Bible being the inerrant word of God.  The set the stage for their own debacle.  Andrew Sullivan looks at some of the feverish efforts to salvage the storyline. Here are highlights:

Noting that “genetic diversity in the human population is not consistent with what we would expect if all humans had descended from a single pair of individuals,” Loren Haarsma grapples with what that means for the Christian understanding of original sin:

A variety of scenarios are being proposed by Christian scholars today for how we might understand the Adam and Eve of Genesis 2, and their disobedience in Genesis 3, in light of modern science. Some scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals living in Mesopotamia just a few thousand years ago, acting not as ancestors but as recent representatives of all humanity. As our representatives, their disobedience caused all of humanity to fall into sin. Other scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals, or as literary representations of a small group of ancient representative-ancestors, selected out of a larger population, living in Africa over 100,000 years ago at the dawn of humanity; they were ancestors—but not the sole ancestors—of all humans today; they fell into disobedience against God over a relatively short period of time with a fairly distinct “before” and “after.” Other scenarios propose that Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Genesis 3 is a symbolic retelling of the story of every human who, over our long history, became aware of God’s claims on how they ought to live, and then disobeyed.

Jerry Coyne snarks:

Adam and Eve couldn’t have been the literal ancestors of all humanity. Normally, such a scientific trashing of scripture could be absorbed, at least by liberal theologians. They’d just reinterpret Adam and Eve as metaphors. But that causes big trouble on two counts.

First, if there really were 2,000 or more ancestors, then all of them must have transgressed to bring original sin into the world. That is hard to fathom: did everyone do something bad at the same time? Second, if Adam and Eve were metaphors, and the source of original sin is mysterious, then we have no idea why Jesus died. After all, his death and Resurrection occurred precisely to save us sinful humans from the transgressions of Adam and Eve. If you have to turn that story into a metaphor, then Jesus died for that metaphor. That’s not too palatable to Christians.

An easy and sensible way to solve this conundrum is to assume that the whole scenario is concocted: humans don’t have original sin; there was no Adam and Eve; and the Resurrection and divinity of Jesus were fictions. But Christians won’t have that, for the meaning of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection is the final, non-negotiable “truth” of Christianity.

In short, there really is no way around the problem.  Hence, we can expect the Christofascists to merely pretend that the problem doesn't exist.  Otherwise, their entire house of cards reality comes crashing down and they are - God forbid - required to think and make moral judgments not based on a book that is in the last analysis largely fictional. 

Adam and Eve Debacle: Science Drives Theologians into Frenzy of Fabrication

As noted previously on this blog, the human genome project has scientifically confirmed that the Adam and Eve of the Book of Genesis never existed as historic people.  Thus, the story of the serpent, the fruit from the tree of knowledge and mankind's fall through the sin of Adam and Eve never happened.  Obviously, this blows the Hell out of the Christian story line and the need for a redemptive Messiah to atone for mankind's sinfulness.  Some denominations are trying to merely ignore this reality which has blown apart Christianity's entire premise as violently as the U-boat torpedo ended the Lusitania's reign as a queen of the seas.  Other denominations - e.g., the Southern Baptist Convention - that have stupidly held to the inerrant truth of the Bible are desperately seeking to fabricate a revised story line that avoids the total collapse of the story of the Fall and Christ's redemption.  A piece in Why Evolution is True looks at this desperate endeavor.  Here are excerpts:

Busily engaged in apologetics, BioLogos has a new post on the never-ending kerfuffle about the meaning of Adam and Eve: “Why the church needs multiple theories of original sin.” It’s by Loren Haarsma, who has a doctorate in physics from Harvard and teaches it at Calvin College (he’s also the co-author, with his wife Deborah, of Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design). 

The cynical—but correct—answer to the title question is: “Because science showed that there isn’t an Adam and Eve, so you have to make up stuff to save the meaning of Jesus.” And indeed, that’s precisely what theologians do, though of course they don’t admit it. Instead, they pretend that the scientific results showing that humans didn’t evolve from a single pair of ancestors simply means that we must reinterpret the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. But, as usual, theology cannot solve this problem, though Haarsma pretends that diligent theological study and proper interpretation of Scripture will yield an answer. It’s a prime example of how religious tenets are not only disproven by science, but, more important, how religion, unlike science, is powerless to find truth.

The facts first. Sheehan et al., building on an earlier paper by Li and Durbin (references below), calculated that the minimum population size associated with the worldwide expansion of humans out of Africa about 60,000 years ago was 2,250 individuals . . . . Note: 2,500 is larger than two.

Normally, such a scientific trashing of scripture could be absorbed, at least by liberal theologians. They’d just reinterpret Adam and Eve as metaphors. But that causes big trouble on two counts. First, if there really were 2,500 or more ancestors, then all of them must have transgressed to bring original sin into the world. That is hard to fathom: did everyone do something bad at the same time?

Second, if Adam and Eve were metaphors, and the source of original sin is mysterious, then we have no idea why Jesus died. After all, his death and Resurrection occurred precisely to save us sinful humans from the transgressions of Adam and Eve. If you have to turn that story into a metaphor, then Jesus died for a metaphor. That’s not very palatable to Christians.

But before Haarsma even gets to the science (whose truth he gracefully admits, because he has to), he discusses how the Church has historically dealt with the problem of atonement. The answer is that they’ve considered multiple theories and can’t settle on one. 

A variety of scenarios are being proposed by Christian scholars today for how we might understand the Adam and Eve of Genesis 2, and their disobedience in Genesis 3, in light of modern science.

1. Some scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals living in Mesopotamia just a few thousand years ago, acting not as ancestors but as recent representatives of all humanity. As our representatives, their disobedience caused all of humanity to fall into sin.

2. Other scenarios propose Adam and Eve as two individuals, or as literary representations of a small group of ancient representative-ancestors, selected out of a larger population, living in Africa over 100,000 years ago at the dawn of humanity; they were ancestors—but not the sole ancestors—of all humans today . . .

3. Other scenarios propose that Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Genesis 3 is a symbolic retelling of the story of every human who, over our long history, became aware of God’s claims on how they ought to live, and then disobeyed.

[E]ach of these has its own set of problems if you want to save the idea of original sin. The first raises the problem of how the transgressions of two people could infect the entire species.

The second scenario, which proposes that Adam and Eve could be “literary representations” (i.e., made up) of an entire group of ancestors, also fails to explain how that whole group became infected with original sin.

The final alternative, if you wish to save original sin, is the one employed by more sophisticated theologians like Peter Enns (reference below). Enns, formerly a biblical scholar at BioLogos, but presumably expelled from Paradise by his science-y transgressions, simply says that the whole scenario is metaphorical. . . . In other words, the Adam and Eve story is fictional.

[T]he whole problem is this: what, exactly, is God’s revelation in Scripture? It used to be a literal interpretation of Adam and Eve, and still would be had science not taken that off the table. But maybe original sin is metaphorical, too, and perhaps even Jesus is!  Indeed, maybe God isn’t loving and good, either. After all, he’s pretty much of a hateful bully in the Old Testament.

In the end, the inerrant Bible crowd is left with nothing.  This, of course means their entire house of cards faith construct collapses.  Yet despite this reality, we continue to see folks like those at The Family Foundation and individuals like failed GOP candidates Ken Cuccinelli, "Bishop" Jackson, and Mark Obenshain seeking to impose precepts based on fictional myths on all citizens.  Thinking, decent people need to resist these efforts strenuously.
 

Costco Labeled The Bible As “Fiction”

The Christofascists are always busy looking for perceived offense and reasons to claim they are being persecuted.  Whether it was done "accidentally" as now claimed or not, Costco set off a fire storm when Bibles were placed in the "fiction" section of the retailer's book section.  Candidly, the Bible IS a work of fiction and modern scientific knowledge increasingly makes it clear that only a fool or psychologically damaged individual would take the Bible is inerrant and a truthful historical chronology.  E.g., the human genome project has made it clear that Adam and Eve never existed as historical individuals.  This reality demolishes the whole Bible narrative of mankind's fall due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve.  Not surprisingly, Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, has played to the outrage of the Bible thumpers.  BuzzFeed looks ate the spittle flecked hysteria over what was in fact an accurate classification of the Bible.  Here are highlights:

Californian pastor Caleb Kaltenbach was looking for a gift for his wife when he spotted this Bible labeled as “fiction,” in a Costco.

It immediately sparked furious reactions from his followers and members of his congregation.

Some questioned why The Koran wasn’t also in the “Fiction” section.

Costco released a statement saying a distributor had mislabeled a “small percentage” of Bibles before sending them to the store. 

“We take responsibility and should have caught the mistake. We are correcting this with them for future distribution,” Costco said. All mislabeled Bibles were also immediately relabeled.  “We greatly apologize for the error,” the store said.

For the record: this labeling mishap was at one Costco, and has not been reported at other stores nationwide.

Candidly, BOTH the Bible and the Koran should be placed in the fiction section of book stores everywhere.

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--The Truth About the Bible's Authors

Admittedly, this blog is often not kind to religious fundamentalists of any stripe, but American Christofascists get particular attention.  Why?  Because modern scientific knowledge increasingly shows that some of the claims/myths set forth in the Bible simply are not true.  The human genome project which has shown that the Adam and Eve of the Bible never existed as historical individuals is but one glaring example.  But adding to the batshitery and hypocrisy is the fact that much of the Bible was written by unknown authors or even outright forgers.  A new book by Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a leading authority on the Bible and the life of Jesus.  Here are details from his new book "Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are":

Bart D. Ehrman, the New York Times bestselling author of Jesus, Interrupted and Gods Problem reveals which books in the Bibles New Testament were not passed down by Jesus's disciples, but were instead forged by other hands and why this centuries-hidden scandal is far more significant than many scholars are willing to admit. A controversial work of historical reporting in the tradition of Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan, Ehrmans Forged delivers a stunning explication of one of the most substantial yet least discussed problems confronting the world of biblical scholarship. 

The Untold Story of Forgery in the Bible:  In Forged, leading Bible authority Bart D. Ehrman exposes one of the most unsettling ironies of the early Christian tradition: the use of deception to establish the truth. With the scholarly expertise and provocative claims for which he's known, Ehrman reveals which texts were forged in the name of Jesus's disciples and considers how the deceptions of an unnamed few have prevailed for centuries. The untold story of widespread forgery in the ancient world sheds new light on how documents of scandalous origin became part of the Bible we have today.

Straight blogger, Bob Felton, has some very apt remarks on the truth about the Bible and the utter dishonesty of "conservative Christians" who maintain - either through ignorance and stupidity or in the quest to shake down the gullible or money - rant that the Bible is inerrant.  Here are some money quotes:

When Bart Ehrman’s Forged was published a few years ago, he characterized it as a popular work and promised that a textbook-level treatment of Biblical forgeries would be published soon afterward. That book is now to hand: massiv

It is bad enough that scholars don’t actually know who wrote most of the Bible’s ‘inerrant’ texts, or anything about the authors. Worse, scholars do know that a great many of those texts are forgeries, texts written by somebody who wasn’t Paul but claiming to be Paul, for example, with the purpose of influencing early Christian beliefs, doctrine, behavior. They probably weren’t written at midnight by some drunk who just wanted to see what he could get away with — but, then, you can’t be sure. Nobody knows who was the author of a majority of the Biblical texts, and scholars have known since the revival of historical criticism in the 1850s, following the suppression of Spinoza in the 1670s, that many of the texts are forgeries.

The Bible is not the progressive revelation of the Invisible Wizard’s plan, et cetera, et cetera; it is a collection of texts by different men who practiced related but different religions, and its hundreds of well-documented contradictions are there because they believed different things and sometimes made-up stuff for propaganda purposes.

On what grounds, then, do Holy Men claim that the Bible in inerrant? There are no grounds. It is done solely because the preposterous claim of inerrancy provides them a platform upon which to build their authority, and once they acknowledge the Bible is highly, endlessly, hopelessly errant — this is before we get to the hundreds of years of deliberate revisions by anonymities, scribal errors, and mistranslations — their schtick falls apart and they look like nothing so much as gaudy flim-flam men.

A brutal assessment?  Yes.  Is it on point and accurate?  Again the answer is yes.  Personally, I do believe in the existence of a higher being/creator.  Likewise, I believe in the Gospel message and the teachings attributed to Christ.  The rest of the Bible?  It is most likely mythology written by the ignorant and uneducated and by those with a personal agenda to further (likely involving power, money and control of others).  The true history of Christianity and the Catholic Church is very ugly stuff.  So many deaths and so much suffering so that the few could bask in power and wealth.  It's the antithesis of what Christ - if he truly existed - was all about.

 

France: Gay Marriage Signed into Law

Friday French President Francois Hollande signed gay marriage into law after an eleven hour appeal by the far right challenging the constitutionality of the law.  The Constitutional Council rejected the challenge and it is expected that marriages will begin before the end of the month.   It goes without saying that the child rapist enablers in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and their accessories in crime in the pews are big time unhappy.   France is yet a former Catholic bastion which has ignored the Church's hysteria and anti-gay bigotry and embraced modernity and equality.  The BBC reports on this final step in passage of marriage equality.  Here are excerpts:

On Friday, the Constitutional Council rejected a challenge by the right-wing opposition, clearing the way for Francois Hollande to sign the bill.

He said: "I have taken [the decision]; now it is time to respect the law of the Republic."  The first gay wedding could be held 10 days after the bill's signing.

The anti-gay marriage lobby, backed by the Catholic Church and conservative opposition, argues the bill will undermine an essential building block of society.

Opinion polls have suggested that around 55-60% of French people support gay marriage, but only about 50% approve of gay adoption.

France is now the 14th country to legalize gay marriage after New Zealand last month.  It is also the ninth country in Europe to allow same-sex marriage after legalisation in the traditionally liberal Netherlands and Scandinavia, but also in strongly Catholic Portugal and Spain. Legislation is also moving through the UK Parliament.

I continue to believe opposition to gay marriage ultimately stems from several things: (i) the reaction of the Catholic Church  and other anti-equality churches to finally losing undeserved rights and privileges, (ii) the need for some individuals to have others subjected to discrimination so that they can feel superior about themselves, and (iii) gay marriage sends a strong message that a handful of Bible passages used against gays are wrong and this threatens the make believe world of the Christofascists.  The irony is that a far bigger threat exists to the Christian story line:  The human genome project has confirmed that Adam and Eve never existed as historical individuals.  As a result, there was no "fall" in the Garden of Eden, there is no such thing as original sin inherited from Adam and Eve, and there was no need for a Messiah to redeem mankind from original sin.  Gay marriage is ultimately the least of the Christofascists problems.

GOP Congressman Introduces Bill To Require Political Approval Of Scientific Papers

Nothing threatens the house of cards world view of the Christofascist - and by extension, the policy positions of the Republican Party - than modern scientific knowledge which shows that much of the Bible's supposed inerrant historical and doctrinal positions are untrue.  The human genome project that has confirmed that Adam and Eve were not historical figures is perhaps but one of the many scientific break through that have sent the fundamentalist crowd into conniptions and spells of the vapors.  So what does one do if one is a fundamentalist Christian or one of their political whores in the GOP?   You try to block new scientific research which may further discredit the veracity of supposedly Christian sacred texts.  Rushing in to do just that is GOP Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas (pictured at right) who has introduced a bill that would require that any research done using federal funds (which constitutes the majority of research done in the United States) must have its results and finding approved by the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the House of Representatives.  Given the far right GOP's stranglehold on the House of Representatives, this means that scientific research would come to a halt.  Thus we see the GOP's further embrace of ignorance in the quest to pander to the sensibilities of the most lunatic elements of the GOP base.  Here are some highlights on this idiocy:

Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas really does not understand science. Not scientific method, not scientific theories or laws, none of it. Which is why he submitted a bill draft titled the “High Quality Research Act” which would in effect add a politician into scientific studies.

The bill says that any research done using federal funds (which is the majority of research done in the United States) must have its results and finding approved by the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the House of Representatives. If the findings are not agreed to, the research is taken from the researchers and disposed of by Congress as it sees fit.


Congressman Smith has already landed himself in scientific hot water over his April 25th Letter to the National Science Foundation where he demanded that the NSF conduct an investigation into five research programs which contradict policies his donors want passed. This is what was expected when the noted anti-science Texan was appointed to the Congressional Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Congressman Lamar Smith is a leading example as to the disconnect within the Republican Party and reality. His “improvement” would compromise scientific research, and dismantle what little America has left for integrity. Despite how many other industries have fallen apart across the United States, we as a nation remain the gold standard of scientific research. It appears Lamar Smith will not rest until that too joins our other areas of once excellence, and we surrender to our national collapse.

To be a Republican nowadays, one must be either (i) a far right religious nutcase, (ii) clinically insane, (iii) motivated first and foremost by greed, or (iv) have had a lobotomy.   My many Republican ancestors must be spinning in their graves if they can see what the once respectable and rational GOP has become.

The Vatican And Church Hierarchy Refuse to Accept Responsibility for Collpase of Catholicism in Advanced World

Simple Google search agents yield multitudes of news articles that address the issue of the world wide Catholic Church  sex abuse scandal as well as countless stories of educated Catholics walking away for the Church's 12th century "natural law" theories that underlie much of the Church's "flat earth"  mindset and deliberate rejection of medical and scientific knowledge.   Yet a synod of Catholic cardinals meeting in Rome still refused to acknowledge their own culpability in the Church's collapse in the western world and now even in South America, a former bastion of Catholicism.  With no thorough house cleaning of the Hierarchy of those who enabled and protected sexual predators and no acceptance of modern knowledge, especially in respect to sexual orientation, it is reasonable to expect the collapse of the Church - a net positive in my view - to continue.  A piece by Rueters looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

The alarm was sounded in the final message of a synod of bishops from around the world who met at the Vatican on the theme of the "New Evagelisation", or the need to stop the hemorrhaging of the faithful, particularly in developed countries.

The Church is suffering desertions from its practicing flock in former strongholds in Europe, North America and Latin America due to sex abuse scandals, increasing secularism, rival faiths and open dissent against Church teachings on homosexuality and its ban on a female priesthood.

The message, a synthesis of the topics discussed in three weeks by more than 260 bishops, said that. . . . the Church needed to find new ways of putting it "into practice in today's circumstances".

During the synod, some bishops said it had become more difficult to ask lapsed and lukewarm Catholics to return to the Church after the sexual abuse scandals that hit the worldwide institution in the past decade.

What the synod totally failed to address, in my view, is the growing scientific evidence that shows that Adam and Eve never actually existed, that the story of "the "Fall" through Adam and Eve is untrue and that the whole story of the redemption through Christ the Messiah is unraveling.   I suspect that no matter what the Church does in the advanced nations of the world, it's membership will continue to hemorrhage.  In the context of gay rights, the irony is that in the longer term, the Church may be digging its own grave through its opposition to gay rights and gay marriage.  The hypocrisy of the Vatican and the rest of the Church hierarchy remains staggering.