Christianity Against Religion

The Cruel God of the Hebrew Bible

This is a response to Hank Pellissier’s essay on the cruelty of God. My friend Lincoln has already written a response about theism in general, but I wanted to say something about the portrayal of the Hebrew scriptures as a testament to bloodlust.

The Image of God

In 1000 BC, in a world of slaves and warlords, where life was often nasty, brutish, and short, it would have been hard to imagine that humanity could ever be anything else.

There was no evidence, no indication, no reason for thinking that humanity could ever change. The rule of violent warlords would extend forever, slavery would never end. Whatever situation you were born into, that would be the situation when you died.

Sin, Covet, Judge

It is very common to hear Christians define "sin" as "missing the mark".

Sin then becomes a word for any kind of imperfection or flaw, for basic human fallibility itself. And it becomes very easy to see how everybody in the whole world could be sinners. After all, nobody's perfect, right?

God can be trusted

Once I heard someone declare that God was like an umbrella, always standing between you and all the trouble raining down.

My first thought was, then he's a pretty crappy umbrella.

What's the use of feeling protected like this, if you actually get all the same troubles as everyone else? I mean, it's pretty clear to me that God isn't keeping people from breaking their legs or falling off buildings. How would it make me feel safe to know that God was protecting me, if he was still going to let me fall off a building?

Jesus the Insurgent

This is the fourth in a series of essays on Christianity as Anthropology. Read the previous entries here.

The Works of The Devil

For the past two weeks, I've been exploring the nature and rise of human evil. We're about to move into the New Testament, but before we do, I want to make sure I'm super clear as to the problems that were plaguing humanity, and the problems that Jesus believed he could solve.

Why?

Ancient Israel vs The Blood Gods

This is the second post in a series on Christianity as Anthropology. In this, I'm sketching out in quick narrative form a synthesis of many different ideas. See my references here.

My previous post described how humans became evil. Now, I want to describe how this evil came to be focused on the destruction of ancient Israel.

Why are humans Evil?

Some comments on a recent post brought up the question of why humans are moral. Is it because there is a God, or did we just evolve to act this way?

Intriguing as that question is, I'm more interested in a different question.

Why are humans evil?

Arguing about the Bible

I grew up arguing about the bible.

Son of a preacher-man, raised in one of the most biblically-obsessed religious groups in America, I like to think that I know how to argue it well.

But the toughest argument is always the one with yourself. “Am I reading my own biases into this? What if the other side is right?” There is no real escape from those questions. It might always be that the blindness and ignorance we're accusing the other side of, is really most present in us.

Or more likely, is present in both sides. Present in all people.

Good and Evil, Paradox and Contradiction

Sorry things are a little slow lately. I've been working on some big thoughts, trying to fit them together and make them dance.

But in the meantime, let me share a few thoughts about good and evil.

The New Testament habitually engages in the very confusing practice of both affirming something and disavowing it at the same time. This could be simple contradiction - but it's not. It's very clear that this is being done on purpose, and it's very clear why.

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