Ordinarily I wouldn’t post up a bunch of stuff that I encountered on YouTube, but this collection of one persons account of his deconversion from Christianity to Atheism is so thoughtfully considered and carefully presented that I was absolutely captivated, and would like to share it.

The concept of God is, for most believers, an aggregate of other beliefs. There is no silver bullet, single argument, that will disavow a believer of the God concept. For the author, his belief was built upon

1. logical arguments (exemplified by Schroeder’s The Science of God).
2. answered prayers.
3. God as the source of morality.
4. Life as a testament to the creator.
5. The Bible as the divine word, full of wisdom.
6. The supporting testimony of other Christians.
7. The personal relationship with God, and personal experiences of God.

The big issue with prayer is that the likelihood of having a prayer answered is proportional to the likelihood of that event occurring even without supernatural intercession. Prayer, in a sense, puts a person in the driving seat with respect to an omniscient God. It should be better to figure out what God’s will is directly, rather than plead for what we’d like to have happen. Scientific evidence points out that prayer has no positive effect on patients recovery. [Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer American Heart Journal, Volume 151, Issue 4, Pages 934-942 H. Benson, J. Dusek, J. Sherwood, P. Lam, C. Bethea, W. Carpenter, S. Levitsky, P. Hill, D. Clem, Jr., M. Jain] The traditional dichotomy of “yes”, “no” and “wait” responses that can be received from God in answer to prayer, is entirely psychological.

How can the Bible contain all of God’s Possible Knowledge, if it can’t answer very specific questions such as those regarding dating or personal life objectives. The Holy Spirit, helps by stepping in and filling those gaps. A university class in Professional Ethics, however, completely changed his mind. A text for the class included Being Good, by Simon Blackburn. The professor focused more on ‘how do we make good decisions’, and didn’t reveal his biases during the presentation of dilemmas. In regards to God, he raised the Euthyphro Dilemma, taking the position that Divine Command Theory is bankrupt, because it would allow obviously bad things (rape, murder, pillaging) to ‘become’ good by God’s command. Thus, morality is separate from God, and not a derivative of His command. Do you do good things because you want to be good, or to get into heaven? If you want to be good for its own sake, then you must do the moral footwork, and not delegate this responsibility to God, be threatened by eternal punishment in Hell, or bribed by eternal salvation in Heaven.

There is a discord between the Bible and Science. Genesis is debunked by Big Bang Theory, age of the Earth, Theory of Evolution, Rainbows after the Flood, etc. Schroeder initially offered a reasonable time-frame that allowed compatibility between these magisteria. A post about the book on Amazon was responded to by a professor, claiming that none of the scientific evidences above, are solved by a relativistic time shift. The professor had changed his own mind about God after using the personal library of Ramon Menendez Pidal to vet that the Bible was the result of construction of several previous sources. [Who Wrote the New Testament: The Making of the Christian Myth by Burton L. Mack, and A History of God by Karen Armstrong both provide good layman references to this fact.] Schroeder’s book is an example of extrallusory intelligence.

The professor alerts our author to the tactic of reverse terminology, and shows that “The doctrinal underpinnings of the Bible have been known to be mythological for centuries.” (as shown by Some Mistakes of Moses by Robert Ingersoll, who recounts the conflict between historical linguistics and the Tower of Babel). This conversation evolves, and the professor moves to remove himself from the conversation to avoid inevitable disenchantment, advising not to worry about religious details too much. The author reflects that many of his congregation are not on the path to Truth, and likely fear the dark waters and questions in which he travels, turning their backs on Truth (but he has nevertheless learned spiritual lessons from them).

The Bible clearly offers explanations for why educated people reject god (Romans 1:22). He kept many verses as guidance through his life, but hadn’t actually read the Book from cover to cover. In Genesis, he encountered stories with immoral behavior by God’s characters, and inconsistent punishment for such actions. Hardening Pharaoh’s heart and killing all the firstborn sons violates both freedom and justice. Exodus and Leviticus are found to be full of incredibly detailed rules about sacrifice and offerings, no longer necessary since Jesus’s death. Numbers and Deuteronomy are also full of tedious details, and legalistic jumbo, that Christians with the Holy Spirit don’t need. Some details are fond to be inconsistent: in particular, God’s wrath concerning Judas in Acts is now an account of remorseful self-infliction in Matt). Apologetics is found to be somewhat contorted logic to rescue these inconsistencies.

Our author is now well on his way to using secular learnings as his moral and ethical guide, rather than lessons from the Bible. The Amazon professor, holds the position that many of these stories are incredibly preposterous (Order of Creation, Two different accounts, Noah’s Ark vs actual number of species, God’s command to kill children (Deut 20:16)) Questioning God’s word is still very uncomfortable for our author, as the Bible was communicated directly from God, and comes to us, unedited. But translation is not the problem, for the Bible was written by various authors each with political aims to reconstruct (edit) history. This is the Documentary Hypothesis (The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard Friedman). The Bible is now no longer an infallible source of Truth.

The author reveals that God is attributed, fortuitous coincidence, beauty, numinous experience, etc, and given credit for all that is good. The Holy Spirit is recognized as a voice different from his own, providing guidance and inspiration unlike his own conscience. Religion is the metaphor through which he understands his personal experiences. Failure in daily activities guide our author to a stronger devotion to his faith, yet in college the material is now found to be unsurmountable, even with stronger devotion. Speaking with atheists becomes his new motivation, for it alone now brings feelings of God’s will.

Even if the Bible is not the word of God, having directly communicated reveals that God exists. The Amazon Professor, in respectful observance, neither denies the authors sincerity, nor agrees. Persistence leads our author to continue the the conversation. The logical arguments are battered back and forth, and the professor begins teaching: given what we know, God is just a concept, and personal interaction with Him is a simulacrum. The God concept gives the believer a surrogate parent.

Finally the author concedes that it is possible, the history/creation of the universe, the construction of religion, the lack of positive intercessory prayer, the (im)moral behavior of individuals, the independence of morality from God etc, the personal revelations, all can happed without God. The carefully considered evidence from the Professor, leads our author to see that all these things are explainable without resort to God. Occam’s Razor leads the author from “it is possible that there is no God” to “there is no God”.

The last post about Ray being bananas was far too light on the details. So, I thought I’d say a bit more about the ordeal today, while I have some time.

Ray operates a ministry in Huntington beach, and can usually be found on a soapbox bantering with beachgoers on Saturdays. There are several videos of this on YouTube, that I won’t reproduce here for brevity. He made himself famous online with one episode of his “Way of the Master” series that he produces with his boy-toy and former actor, Kirk Cameron. That episode, Bananas: The Atheist’s Worst Nightmare, claimed that bananas were perfect for human consumption, obviously designed as such by a loving creator god. His arguments were rapidly debunked, both in video form, and through skeptic websites.

In the video, Ray reveals his obvious lack of scholarship. He completely neglected to research anything about bananas before simply making up creationist arguments. He overlooked the history of bananas and their human cultivation for 7,000, year. He missed the fact that the convenient ‘pull tab’ is used by stupid humans, while smart monkeys simply pinch the other end. He claimed that the shape of the banana was a perfect fit for finger joints, while it’s simply a result of having grown in a bunch (nature can pack efficiently). It is unfortunate that Ray has a successful ministry, as it reveals that humans are easily won over by superficial arguments and tend not to take the time to seriously critique the messages they hear. The success of his ministry almost directly demonstrates, how fallible and gullible we are.

More recently, as an obvious publicity stunt, Ray decided to distribute a republication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, in ‘honor’ of the 150th anniversary of its original release. Of course the book has long been in public domain, so, while a bit touchy, this is a perfectly legal maneuver on his part. He placed within the book a 50 page Special Introduction, available at his ministry. In his indoctrination, Ray again reveals sloppy scholarship. He plagarizes, and uses well worn creationist arguments, that have long been refuted. A summary nice refutation can be read at the Don’t Diss Darwin site, setup by the National Center for Science Education. He ends the Indoctrination with a plea that you should buy one of his other books, presumably also as thoroughly researched.

Since enough people within the science community had found out about the publication, there was time to address the misinformation that would be spread on so many college campuses. US News and World Report has a back and forth between Ray and the Eugenie Scott, who works as the executive directory of NCSE and who’s work finding ‘cdesign proponentsists’ helped considerably in the Dover Trial. Ray introduced why he wanted to publish the book, Exclusive: Ray Comfort Defends His Creationist Edition of ‘On the Origin of Species and Eugenie replied with How Creationist ‘Origin’ Distorts Darwin.

Ray had initially planned on releasing his creationist re-publication on the anniversary of Darwin’s original. Yet, since that landed on a weekend prior to Thanksgiving, he rescheduled to Thursday, Nov 19. This was convenient for my club, AAR@UCI because we have meeting on Wed night, and could easily discuss strategy and organization prior to his arrival. We were also hoping, that since UCI is so close to Huntington Beach, he might show up to our campus in person.

Then, on the morning of Wednesday, Nov 18, we spotted his people handing out books! He preempted the schedule! Fortunately, we had already received a collection of banana bookmarks from NCSE, and rapidly organized ourselves to hand them out. He must have felt that the atmosphere in Orange County is too strongly affected by the rationalists because he decided to show up at UCLA instead. He was immediately countered by the Bruin Skeptics though, as recorded by their posts:

• Nazis, Darwin, and Living a Good Life
• BASS Meeting VIII
• A Day Early: Banana Man and Kirk Cameron at UCLA
• Ray Comfort Soapbox Video

In summary, I found the whole event anti-climatic. Most of the world had not heard that this was going on. All they say was some people handing out Darwin books, claiming “This might help you with your studies”. The only people that even wanted to debate with them were members of our own group, who knew what was going on. It seems that the creationists must go to extreme lengths to find a way to shovel their shit into the minds of others. This includes deceit about schedules, slipping bogus content into otherwise good books, neglecting scholarship, misrepresentation of the material, and all other manner of logical fallacies. On strictly moral grounds, I have to give the entire creationist movement a big CHRISTIAN FAIL, for not following their own espoused moral code.

For a couple of months now I’ve know that Ray Comfort plans on distributing a republication of Darwin’s Origin of Species on many North American campuses. I took quite some time out to write a rebuttal to all of the fallacious arguments that he makes in his Introduction so that AAR could use it to hand out during the time that Comfort is distributing his republication. I eventually realized, after not getting very far, that I’d end up with a rebuttal longer than his original Introduction. In lieu of all the tireless work and effort that it would take to address everything in length I’ve decided instead to write a summary of the primary mistakes.

Last night I went up to the Inland Empire Atheists MeetUp, to see Darrel Ray talk about his book “The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture.” It was actually part of a normal meeting, (held in a nice and cozy Unitarian Universalist church) so it started off with introductions by newcomers, and included beverages and desserts with the book signing. Darrel is also the founder of Recovering from Religion and is actively trying to grow the organization so that people who formerly relied on the social support of their religion, can still get it as they transition to non-belief. It’s a cool organization, and I’m hoping to see one pop up in the Long Beach area.

Ray began his talk with a really rousing and impassioned speech about being touched by the Holy Spirit; this got quite a few laughs, and is a very effective attention grabber at an atheist gathering. As a sample of religious behavior it demonstrates a few effective communication mechanisms. After studying psychology and religion (used to be a minister) he tried answer a few questions: “Why do religious people behave the way they do? Why is it so powerful and persuading?”

His theory is this: Religion is a virus. It has strategic pattern of spreading and uses vectors of infection. It reinforces itself with a guilt cycle, sexual control, and mass hypnosis. This makes people who have the infection behave in certain, identifiable patterns. The reinforcement also makes it difficult for a person to leave their religion.

Ray first got the viral analogy from Richard Dawkin’s essay Viruses of the Mind and used it to explain the biggest memetic virus around. From here on I’m going to outline the big ideas from the talk, if you want details get the book.

Religious fundamentalists (regardless of their particular flavor) all behave the same way, talk the same way, etc. The ministers preach, gesture, dramatic pause, pace, etc. in a way that encourages mass hypnosis and trance (same thing is done by big successful politicians, e.g. Hitler’s rallies). This pattern also discourages critical thinking. Many ministers use trigger phrases (’just’ used 20 times in 2 minutes).

Because believers have been infected by a virus, you cannot talk them out of it with logic. It would be akin to curing the flu with argument. Also, depending on how you argue, esp. if you’re assertive, you can easily raise their religious defense system, which will cause them to stop listening. So more successful persuasion uses compassionate outreach, and dances around the religion virus. It’s more important to relate as human beings than to disinfect.

Many viruses participate in brain control. Dennett points an the lancet fluke, but there are many others. Part of the mind control is to spread the infection. This can happen horizontally (mormons do missionary work) or vertically (through the parents, catholics encourage breeding). Not too many are purely vertical (Amish, and Druze).

Most people are infected when they are young and have no rational immune system, you get infected socially (through friends, family) and you are more susceptible when under stress (immune system weakens). Many religions popularize converts (St. Paul), and they have a behavior that helps to spread the infection: proselytize, money donation, break ties with former family/friends. Many are also relapsing into the religion that they grew up with (chicken pox -> shingles).

Churches form the epicenter of infection and use many techniques: Hypnotic sermons, emphasize guilt and stress in daily life, provide social needs, control sexual behavior, indoctrinating music, and childhood intimidation. This can be seen in the video of Sarah Palin getting cured by a witch-hunter in Kenya.

Often relaxation is paired with a guilt message. A different church will usually set of defense mechanisms. The minister speaking style and cadence is targeted for emotional appeal, and induces a trance in the audience. This can be seen in cult leaders, dictators, and videos of John Piper (a popular minister). The guilt message is reinforced in lyrics (Amazing Grace, what a wretch I am) and sermons (not worthy without God’s guidance).

A typical church program is geared to provide a weekly booster shot, and puts its victims on an emotional rollercoaster:

• quiet music as walk in, encourage peace
• open with song about triumph and hope
• then a song with sin and guilt, to make you feel unworthy
• another song about salvation
• followed by a song about rising up and promises of hope
• a sermon about dealing with guilt and self-doubt
• a song about commitment or self-sacrifice before the collection plate is passed
• finally end with a song about joy, happiness or redemption to leave you feeling great

Churches also offer their members a sense of community, but only one if you share their form of the infection (otherwise you’ll be very uncomfortable). Vectors are used: Rick Warren, Ted Haggard, The Pope. Sometimes the message is coded: when the pope says that europe is immoral, it really means: Catholics breed faster, we’re falling behind!. Getting more Holy Spirit translates to “stop questioning everything”.

Many times you’re put on a guilt cycle, where you commit a sin (sex before marriage) and then get forgiven (confession). But forgiveness is more difficult each time, so it reinforces negative patterns of behavior that get a person hooked on the redemption. Often the punishment is more severe (increasing the number of Hail Mary’s). Esp. for sex, religion often takes a thing you’re prone to do anyway, condemns it and then offers you the cure. But constantly the message is: you’re never good enough, and you’re incomplete without the virus.

One of the more interesting conclusions that Ray came to was that religions have a difficult time propagating in a sex positive culture. Their first move into a new culture is often to make sex a taboo. We have the power to combat this situation by talking openly and willingly about sex. Sex is used as part of the guilt cycle, because it’s something humans will do regardless of their belief system.

Then there are statistical revelations: If Jesus (and religion) are supposed to help your marriage…

• Then why are the most religious segment also the least married? (black women)
• Why is the highest divorce rate among evangelicals and fundamentalists?
• Why does MS, one of the most secular states, have such a low divorce rate?

So, when dealing with a religious person, remember that the virus is in control. Don’t raise their defense mechanisms by attacking their religion. Remember that their under the influence, and cut them some slack in matters of logic. Promote humanistic relationships, and express your concerns without mentioning religion. Read between the lines and respond in a positive manner. You can actually see that their entire personality will change.

Today I stumbled across a somewhat recent post by Luskin of the infamous Discovery Institute. Luskin observes some comments made by Eugenie Scott, in regard to how scientists should portray their results, so as not to be pounced upon by the creationists. He accuses Scott of instructing scientists to “spin it [changes in science] positively and never acknowledge they were wrong”. Worse, he concludes with:

When scientists in a field are instructed to avoid publicly admiting when they’re wrong, and are advised that improving the public’s perception of science is not best served by doing better science, then you know that field is steeped in intolerance towards dissent, and political pressure to give assent to orthodoxy. These are not the signs of a healthy science.

Which, while technically an accurate statement, is very misleading in this context. When we look at what Scott actually said, she’s effectively counseling scientists to be careful about their phrasing. Importantly, those working in evolution should avoid hyperbole about their discoveries. She wants scientists to be aware of the following problem:

So people get confused when scientists discover things and change ideas?

Yes, all the time. This is one of the real confusions about evolution. Creationists have done a splendid job of convincing the public that evolution is weak science because scientists are always changing their minds about things.

So, Luskin (and other creationists) are actually responsible for Eugenie’s reaction! They’ve been pouncing all over science, politicizing evolution with a “Teach the controversy” campaign and continuous whining about “being blacklisted from the journals”. They’ve been rejected from journals because they have no falsifiable claims, nor associated experiments; they then tried to push the creationism into schools, but were thrown out in the Scope’s Monkey Trial and again in Dover, Pennsylvania; and now they’ve jumped on an “equal-time in science classrooms” even though the comparison is akin to astrology vs astronomy.

This has really gone on for long enough that Eugenie feels she must remind scientists that:

What’s the current state of the effort to keep schools teaching evolution?

Sometimes it feels like the Red Queen around here, where we’re running as hard as we can to stay in the same place. The thing is, creationism evolves. And for every victory we have, there’s pressure on the creationists to change their approach. We constantly have to shift our response. Ultimately the solution to this problem is not going to come from pouring more science on it.

What should scientists and people who care about science do?

I’m calling on scientists to be citizens. American education is decentralized. Which means it’s politicized. To make a change … you have to be a citizen who pays attention to local elections and votes [for] the right people. You can’t just sit back and expect that the magnificence of science will reveal itself and everybody will … accept the science.

Though Luskin takes warps these comments to imply that science itself isn’t healthy, he should be reminded that the whole political situation is the fault of the creationists! They’ve got a strategic attack with the Wedge Document that’s mostly taken the scientific community by surprise. Then, when scientists make outrageous claims (like when New Scientist had a cover proclaiming Darwin was Wrong) the creationists blow it all out of proportion. That’s why Eugenie is recommending that scientists not try for these kinds of claims; it’s inaccurate and the distortion is too easily inflated by creationist cohorts.

So, Luskin, like all creationists before him, has once again reversed cause and effect and confused his premise and conclusion. It’s not that science is dogmatic because Scott has to encourage carefully worded discoveries; It’s that the political climate surrounding evolution has become so highly charged that it can no longer tolerate the hyperbole that scientists naturally inject into their claims to sell their importance to other scientists. And the entire problem was manufactured by the creationists! And Luskin continues to flame the distortion in his post that prompted this whole rant.

Oh, and one more thing: Any time that a creationist claims the Earth was created in 6,000 years, point them over to Yes, Millions of Years! and then ask who’s rejecting what evidence!

I have the great P.Z. Myers in my RSS feed, and read his post, Men, Women Divided Over Sex Bill. It’s about a bill that proposes to criminalize marital rape, and it’s opposed by bible thumpers (even a women is quoted) on the grounds that “the woman and the man become one flesh” so marital rape, by definition, cannot occur, it’s abuse of one’s own body. It’s a view that strongly encourages the thinking of women as property, rather than partner.

Reading the objections to the bill reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend about The Bible and Homosexuality, who claimed that I had misinterpreted the following passage:

• Romans 1:26-27

  For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
  And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

I claimed that this was the only passage mentioning lesbianism. But apparently this is not true, the real interpretation I would never have guessed because I’m not misogynistic enough.

Apparently the sin of women in this passage, isn’t that they slept with each other; it’s that they refused to sleep with a man (their natural use). And the men sinned in that they disregarded the women for their natural use.

I know that the Bible is awash in passages that treat women as chattel, but, really, this is just too much! I have to agree with Christopher Hitchens when he says that Christianity is immoral. I’m also perplexed by the statistics which show a slightly higher religiosity among women; do people even read their Bible, or are they too busy thumping it?! I think that many of the moral gains achieved by our culture have been made in spite of the Bible. It’s a good thing that our secular culture promotes equality and tolerance; because the Bible sure doesn’t!

It has been an extraordinarily long time since I have written a post. This one was supposed to be written after visiting St. Luke’s Episcopal in Long Beach for a session about “The Bible Revealed: God’s Love For the LGBT Community” on June 14. Though I signed up to receive notes concerning the lecture, I haven’t got them. I took a few brief notes during the talk, but promptly lost them that night at The Abbey in West Hollywood. Considering my negligence, these notes mostly summarize some online research into the topic.

There is much more information available on this topic than I can faithfully represent here. Additionally there are now more pro-gay interpretations that weren’t around when I first looked into this topic in 2003. I’d like to point out that given that homosexuality afflicts approximately 10-15% of the population, the Bible is remarkably silent on the entire issue, and has only a few scant passages that mention it.

The clobber passages.
There are about 6 passages that refer to homosexuality in the Bible, these are called the clobber passages. Most of them refer to homosexual acts in a negative manner. I’ll go through them very briefly, outlining the rationalizations used to dismiss them. All of this information (and much, much more) is available through Religious Tolerance, which also provides a very nice summary table.

• Gensis 19
  

  The story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

  This whole story really refers to inhospitality and/or rape, and doesn’t not specifically condemn homosexual practice.

• Leviticus 18:22
  

  Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

  This is part of a whole prescription of behavior referred to as the Mosaic Code. So many things are abominable (wearing mixed fabrics, eating shellfish, tattoos), that we can safely ignore this passage, as we also safely ignore most of the other 611 proscriptions. The Hebrew word “to’ebah” which is usually translated as abomination, really means “ritually improper” and so it applies to ancient Israelite culture, and not to us.

• Leviticus 20:13
  

  If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

  The capital punishment is today viewed as far to extreme, even if one finds homosexuality detestable. So many things in the Bible call for the death penalty that we can safely ignore this punishment along with the others. J. Nelson interprets the passage by claiming “It is grounded in the old Jewish understanding that women are less worthy than men. For a man to have sex with another man ‘as with a woman’ insults the other man, because women are to be treated as property.” The National Gay Pentecostal Alliance prefers a more literal translation of the passage that uses the phrase “homosexual sex while on a woman’s bed” and so only limits where the act can occur.

• Romans 1:26-27
  

  For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
  And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

  This passage is also the only passage that refers to lesbianism (which western culture has a distinct habit of ignoring). The Liberal interpretation claims that Paul is distinctly addressing Rome, and the reversion to paganism, together with the associated sexual orgies. He’s decrying the inducement (through celebratory wines) of frenzied sexual activity that would go against one’s basic heterosexual nature. This should be viewed as a crime against oneself, and is punishable through STD.

• I Corinthians 6:9-10.
  

  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate (malakoi), nor abusers of themselves with mankind (arsenokoitai),
  Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

  Here Paul is using the word “arsenokoitai” which he made up for this passage, so we have some translation difficulties. Given that “arsen” means “man” and “koitai” means “beds”, he’s probably referring to customers of male prostitution at pagan temples.

• 1 Timothy 1:9-10
  

  Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
  For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind (arsenokoitai), for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

  Again, the word arsenokoitai appears. This time the passage has controversy about whether or not Paul even wrote it, or if it was written 80 years after his death and falsely attributed to him. Either way it probably refers to male prostitution or (at best) the act of male-male sex (orientation is a much more modern concept).

• Jude 1:7
  

  Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

  Here, the condemnation is on sexual perversion, about which the passage is not specific. It refers to the intent of the mob to rape the angles, which can be interpreted as a condemnation of rape in general or bestial (non-human) rape in specific.

Ok, so most of the (very few) passages that mention homosexuality are dismissable using contextual arguments. The most difficult passage to reconcile is Leviticus 20:13 which I’m willing to toss out by arguing that he Mosaic code applies only to ancient cultures, and that, since Jesus, we have a new (more flexible) contract with God.

I find the phrase “their blood shall be upon them” extremely troubling. I’d translate it as meaning that the executioner is not personally responsible for upholding God’s wish that the offenders be put to death. This is not at all innocuous. As evidence, take the case of Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, who were murdered in their home by Tyler and Matthew Williams, who did not consider the killing of Matson and Mowder to be murder, but a “judgement” instead, claiming that they were “obeying the law of God”. In my opinion, religions have got to be more vigilant at policing their own members. Actions like this give me a philosophically hostile attitude to organized belief systems in general, and Christianity in particular.

Take also the fact that many teenagers commit suicide because they find themselves to be homosexual amongst a religious or conservative and intolerant home/town/city/community. Or that many of those who do survive such environments are extremely self-deprecating, or have such low self esteem that they compulsively engage in self-destructive behavior. Religion has much to answer for on this topic, and moreso the longer they hold out. I’m reminded of how many religious zealots used the Bible to support slavery or the laws prohibiting mixed marriage. We all know which way the wind is blowing, so I’m secure in knowing that one day, almost all society will look back on these viewpoints the way that I see them now.

I honestly cannot fathom how an educated person could think that we derive our morality from some ancient book, or even that it would be handed down from on high. I personally find many of the views espoused in the Bible to be patently immoral and unnecessarily divisive. I also can’t fathom why a gay or lesbian person would even want to associate themselves with such an inflexible code of morality. Humans have a remarkable capacity to simultaneously hold what I’d consider to be logically incompatible belief systems that will never cease to amaze me.

I have been, for a very long time now, quite fascinated with how certain organizations and people respond to the idea of homosexuality. I am also quite interested in religious belief. So when the two intersect (with the usual fireworks) I can’t possible ignore it. When I heard (through the LGBT center at UCI) that St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Long Beach was holding a forum on “Coming out to God”, I knew that I had to attend.

The panel wasn’t quite what I was expecting. A normal sized room, with about a dozen people in the audience (one gay couple together for 33years) and 4 people (2 lesbian, 2 gay) on a panel. They simply shared their life’s testimony, and then answered a few brief questions from the audience.

A couple of them had come from a traditional, highly conservative, Catholic background. When growing up, the most powerful aspect of Church doctrine was the “Sin, Confess, Absolution” cycle. God was portrayed as a judgemental god, and required that all his followers repent for their redemption. In this type of environment, being a homosexual is not something that one confesses without horrible social repercussions. So they remained closeted for quite awhile. When they finally did (internally) come to terms with “how God felt about homosexuals” they were able to bear some of the traditional ostracism, by drawing support from a different community: Episcopals.

A couple of the panelists also struggled for a very long time with their personal identity. They were under the impression that God wouldn’t love them unless they were straight. They couldn’t figure out wether the feelings they felt toward the same sex, and the lack of feeling towards the opposite sex, were fixed. One kept hoping for change, the other kept questioning. The text of the Bible didn’t initially help out very much, as it speaks sparsely on the issue (more about this next week). But over time, reality endured, the feelings didn’t change, so the understanding of the Bible did. Each finally came to the understanding that, on the whole, God sides with the oppressed and outcast, the second-class citizens. Each person also came to an emotional realization that God == Love, and that this love is channeled through the support of friends and the community. [St. Luke's in particular has been very active in pro-gay-marriage parades, and an active tightly-knit pro-homo ministry.]

The most interesting thread, that all panelists shared, was that they felt lost without a personal relationship with God, and were afraid of revealing their internal feelings when they conflicted with what is socially right and proper. Having been through an identity search myself, I can relate to this issue. It isn’t something that you willingly share with friends and family, and you can carry the burdensome questions about yourself for a quite a long time (years). Because almost everybody (with varying degrees) has a similar tale (and who wouldn’t during the adolescent transition to adulthood), and nearly everyone is going to have psychological crutches that they use for support during such a time, I can see why the need to have a relationship with God would become reinforced through the resolution of the personal crisis. Especially so when the issue is as deep as coming to terms with yourself as a homosexual, in a society which doesn’t always approve.

In America, the Episcopals have carved out for themselves a niche here. They embrace the plurality, with extended ministries of compassion and love; providing a safe, inclusive haven for the homosexuals outcast from other religions. (One of the panelists effectively lost his friends because they refused to be seen with him in public after he came out). For those that have a religious understanding of the world, the Episcopals have a wonderfully supportive community.

I actually attended so that I could hear the rationalizations that they have to go through to believe in a God that loves them in spite of the literal text in the Bible. But this will have to wait until next week, when one of the panelists gives a speech about what the Bible says concerning homosexuality. So next time, it’ll be back to logical argument; rather than observations about the emotional and psychological support that an inclusive, compassionate, religious community provides.

I, together with a group from AAR, went to Voyager’s Church today. I was reminded, in many ways, of why I don’t like Church.

The service opened with a song, All Because of Jesus by Casting Crowns (lyrics)
I was disturbed by the imagery in this song. It reminded me of why some accuse Christianity of being a Death Cult.

It’s all because the blood of Jesus Christ
That covers me and raised this dead man’s life

After that there was a little bit of talk about The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, followed by a prayer emphasizing the inherent equality and levelling that God’s forgiveness gives us.

Then we had more songs with disturbing Imagery.

• Once Again by Matt Redman, which talks about looking at the Cross and being emotionally broken by the sacrifice it represents. But, encourages celebration of this torturous death with the refrain:
  

  Thank You for the cross
  Thank You for the cross
  Thank You for the cross, my Friend

  Sorry, but I just can’t. I’m on Hitchen’s side with this one. Human sacrifice is both tragic and unnecessary, and I won’t be contracted (against my will) via such a horrific act of violence.

• The Wonderful Cross by Phillips, Craig & Dean. Again recalls the Imagery of the Cross, and fails to have uplifting lyrics.
  

  My richest gain I count but loss
  And pour contempt on all my pride
  …
  Oh, the wonderful cross
  Bids me come and die

  Sorry, but I won’t. I have to side with Ayn Rand on this one, Human effort and productivity are to celebrated in their own right, not wantonly sacrificed. We should be happy and rejoice in our labor, not condemn it. Also, the cross is not wonderful, it’s tragic and really speaks a lot about our baser instincts as revealed in an underdeveloped culture.

After the singing, there was a silent prayer, followed by more singing.

• Expanded version of The Wonderful Cross. With more sacrafical appeals:
  

  Love so amazing, so divine
  Demands my soul, my life, my all

  Again, I won’t be drawn into a contract involving blood sacrifice against my will. I’d rather have been there to help stop the crucifixion, That’s the moral thing to do.

• None But Jesus really just attributes moral support to an imaginary character.

  In the moment of my weakness
  You give me grace to do Your will
  …
  All my delight is in You Lord
  All of my hope, all of my strength
  All my delight is in You Lord Forevermore

  I resent the suggestion that I’d require a figure to worship in order to have these qualities. I much prefer the existentialist message that we are intrinsically capable of delight, strength, and positivism without needing to appeal to something outside ourselves. To suggest otherwise only implies that humans are undeserving worms.

• From The Inside Out was the most disturbing song of the whole service.
  

  My purpose remains
  The art of losing myself
  In bringing You praise
  …
  In my heart and my soul
  Lord I give You control
  Consume me from the inside out

  So, not only do we have imagery of North Korea, where everyone’s only duty is to praise and worship the lord, for all time! But, we also receive the delightful imagery of some wonderful parasite ‘consuming us from the inside out.’ These ideas really need to be put down.

• Came to My Rescue simply contains images of prostration.
  

  Falling on my knees in worship
  Giving all I am to seek Your face
  Lord all I am is is Yours
  …
  My whole life
  I place in Your hands
  God of mercy
  Humbled I bow down

This was followed by a prayer where we were all reminded that our whole lives should be devoted to worshiping and praising the lord. This is truly our purpose in life.

Finally, the pastor got to give us a sermon about the parable read earlier. He went through the development of the parable, nearly line by line. He began by reminding us that the grace shown by this landowner is like the Kingdom of God. Then he told us of the economic disparity that existed between the day laborer and the vineyard owner. Not only did the owner go into market himself to hire help, but he was also willing to discuss the wage dispute at the end of the day. (Apparently this is gracious behavior) The first group of laborers agrees to work for a denarius, while the second agrees to work for “whatever is right”. This automatically implies a scaled earnings contract. Several times he visits the market and hires help. This means that, by the end of the day, he’s hiring the dregs. But, like God, he’s willing to make multiple trips to save us all.

When he does pay their wages, he pays all hired hands ‘the wage’ (there’s only one). This justifiably upsets the workers that were hired first. And they are envious (not merely jealous), that the landowner has “made them equal to us”. He diffuses the situation by reminding them that they agreed to ‘whatever is right’ and ‘a denarius’ for the day’s labor, and also that it’s his money and he can dispense it however he pleases, that giving more to others does not take away from their earnings.

I think the landowner’s an idiot. He’s pays his help unjustly, yet this is called grace. He handles final payment poorly, he’s probably asking for dissent and resentment by paying first the people he hired latest, purposefully raising the expectations of those that were hired earliest. But this is to be a lesson to them, that the grace of God applies equally to all. Such grace does not follow the human intuitions of fairness. I’d rather have fairness, as the grace seems both arbitrary and capricious. He should have been forthright, that wages were based on having worked or not, rather than time and effort spent laboring.

The pastor also railed on and on about how satisfied the landowner must have been to be so generous. Like God, he must have just been wallowing in the gratification of having a beautiful and bountiful vineyard. So much so, that I gathered becomes both smug and economically irrational. But, again, it’s not about how long you spend worshiping, or how many good marks you gather by helping old ladies cross the street, it’s about surrendering yourself to his grace, that equalizes all.

This was followed by a prayer about how we should all be grateful that we have the opportunity, even at the eleventh hour, to serve in God’s fields, that we may be rewarded equally because the joy and (self)satisfaction God feels with his creation fills him with the desire to bestow grace upon us all.

Finally, a last song. You Never Let Go which emphasizes togetherness with the lord, even in troubled times.

So, I didn’t fully agree with the interpretation of the parable. I’d prefer fairness, and forthright agreement as to what is being offered, especially when the contract is different than the socially expected one. I was also disturbed by the imagery evoked in the songs. This is the first time that I’ve attended one of the more ‘vanilla concert’ church services since learning about the psychology of religious belief, and it was instructive.

I’m compelled now, more than ever, to admit that atheists might not be able to compete. We are simply, too independent, too free-thinking, too rational, to embrace such services every week. We aren’t ever going to have these soft, emotional songs about rationality and science. (well, the music was soft, the lyrics weren’t). Atheists simply don’t do the whole sycophant celebration thing. Because of this we have respect for each other, and can work together, but we just don’t have the same community, or accompanying sense of belonging and togetherness.

Maybe next time I’ll go to a service that has the wailing, raving, and speaking in tongues.

For a very long time, western culture has had a strong undercurrent about naming. Conceptually, it starts with the recognition that the ability to name a thing gives you power over it. This is reflected in many deep and ancient cultural mythologies.

The creation story in the Bible begins with:

In the beginning,…the earth was a formless void…. Then God said: Let there be light. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

So God is able to create the Earth with only his Word, and give life to mankind with only his breath. This power is nearly transferred to Adam, when he is given the task of naming all the plants and animals. Only mankind is given this linguistic power.

Jewish mythology picks up on this issue with the story of the Golem.

In many tales the Golem is inscribed with magic or religious words that keep it animated. Writing one of the names of God on its forehead, a slip of paper in its mouth, or inscribed on its body, or writing the word Emet (אמת, “truth” in the Hebrew language) on its forehead are examples of such words. By erasing the first letter aleph in Emet to form Met (מת, “dead” in Hebrew, when the aleph letter א is cancelled) the golem could be deactivated.

Jewish culture continues this tradition with the Kabbalah’s search for the True Name of God. Other cultures also demonstrate this idea. In witchcraft, a demon is both summoned and controlled by speaking its name. In the Hindu tradition AUM is the sacred word that encompasses everything, and is the sole syllable upon which focus is kept during meditation. The idea is also reflected in more modern works, as clearly expressed in Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea:

Ged sighed sometimes, but he did not complain. He saw that in this dusty and fathomless matter of learning the true name of each place, thing, and being, the power he wanted lay like a jewel at the bottom of a dry well. For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing.

Or the so recently popular, Harry Potter, where Dumbledore advises Harry:

Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” (PS17)

But how does this relate to Computer Science? Being a very textual discipline, we have many conventions that relate to naming. In Computer Science, we have the ability to create virtual worlds, and thus we need systems of naming the objects within those worlds. At the Language level we see a focus on naming conventions:

• Hungarian notation, in which variables have a prefix that describes their type, such as strName for a string, or pX for a pointer to X.
• Fortran, which had an implicit typing scheme, where any names beginning with I, J, K, L, M, N were always integer and the rest were reals.
• The Ruby on Rails framework, which has the ability to automatically map a model named “Person” to the “people” table in the database just by name inspection.

But naming actually turn out to be a much deeper issue than these linguistic examples show. In the Distributed Systems world, we have a large focus on naming, for a remote resource can only be accessed through its name, in what’s called name resolution. The easiest example to pick on here, is DNS, the system that allows a person to reference a remote computer by using an easy to remember domain (such as www.example.com) instead of a hard to remember physical address (such as 127.0.01). We can also identify a confluence of two separate concepts: The name of a machine can be used to locate it. This allows machines to operate with the previous cultural ‘power of naming’, knowing a machines name gives one access to that machine.

Since my research focuses on computer security, this duality between names and locations can be really critical. For example, there is a model for building secure software, called the object capabilities model, that not only identifies this power of naming, but actually explicitly states it as an axiom of the model:

• Objects (actors) can interact only by sending messages to unforgeable addresses.
• An object acquires knowledge of other objects in one of two ways:
  1. It is created with addresses that it receives from its creator
  2. It receives a message with an address to another object.

So, the security of the system is brought down to names. Communication and therefore power over other objects can only be obtained by learning their true names, which must be kept secret (unforgeable). For if a malicious object were able to easily guess the names of other objects in the system, it could quickly wreak havoc.

As such systems work their way into our daily lives, our personal names (read: personal identification) have also become much more important recently, as anyone that has been a victim of identity theft can attest. But this is an issue I won’t go into here. There are also other cultural impacts, for names change the way we think about each other.