Monthly Archives: February 2018

Billy Graham’s in Heaven

Posted on by
3

He said he would be, once he died. He said he couldn’t wait to get there (but still hung on until he was 99). He said there’d be a fanfare of trumpets when he arrived, as there would be for all the Saved, and that Jesus would lead him by the hand into the presence of God himself.

I’ve no doubt that Graham was sincere in his beliefs. He was a brilliant orator and during a long public life managed to avoid too much controversy, though he could be anti-semitic and regularly voiced his opposition to LGBT equality. 

Sincere he might have been, but Billy Graham was deluded. Some Christian sites have said so in recent days principally because his doctrine was not quite in accord with theirs; he directed new converts to the Catholic church, for example, if that’s where their interest lay; he seemed to think non-Christians would go to heaven if in life they’d looked to the light and lived honourable lives; he relied on altar calls when they are alien to the bible’s idea of conversion.

But this isn’t why he’s not in Heaven today, nor why he won’t be there at any point in the future. He was deluded because he believed in supernatural beings, in gods and angels, and because he thought human beings could be ‘saved’ by a magical incantation devised by a psychologically damaged zealot two thousand years ago. At the same time he was happy to ignore the claims of the man he believed to be the Son of God when he said he would return in the first century so that God could establish his Kingdom over all the Earth. Graham was equally happy to disregard this same prophet’s insistence that his followers denounce all wealth; he amassed a fortune over his lifetime – around $25,000,000 at the time of his death.

Grahams

Billy Graham repackaged evangelical Christianity, imbuing it with great emotional appeal and proffered it to the masses. He was good at it too; he made the impossible and the fanciful seem plausible and appealing. But he misled people that what he was offering was something they needed. We can only be grateful that what little evidence there is suggests that most of those who went forward as a result of his altar calls did not remain believers for very long. Estimates suggest about 6% stayed the course, though given the numbers Graham preached to, this still means about 12 million people.

He leaves behind a son who seems intent on destroying his father’s legacy and reputation; who is bigoted and virulently homophobic. His daughter too has not inherited his diplomacy nor even common sense. Billy Graham’s life’s work, if not undone by his offspring, will soon be forgotten, like all the other ‘great’ oratory preachers of the past. We should not revere him nor mourn his passing. His only achievement was to mislead people, seducing them into a life of intolerant superstition.

The Myth of God’s Forgiving Love

Posted on by
1

homosexualdemons

God loves you, he really does. His love for you is so wide you can’t get round it. So high you can’t get over it, blah, blah, blah. We know this because Christian preachers are forever telling us. I saw Joel Osteen saying so the other evening on TBN, God’s very own TV station.

Don’t you think it’s strange that God needs TV stations and evangelists and preachers to tell you about his love, and everything else about him? An alien looking at religion without any foreknowledge would think it and its gods were entirely a human creation. He or she would ask why God doesn’t show himself, reveal his nature and demonstrate first-hand how much love he has for us. To which our Christian friends, if they’re not squabbling between themselves or blaming the world’s (i.e. America’s) problems on gay people, abortion or the absence of prayer in school (where, in fact, anyone is free to pray), would tell our alien that God did just that, once upon a time, when he sent Jesus. And they might then tell him how Jesus died so we might all be forgiven our sins and live with God, once we’re dead, happily ever after in Heaven. Grace they’ll call it, the free gift of God.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time – I admire your stamina! – you’ll know that very little of this is what the Bible offers and that Jesus’ idea of getting right with God is very different from this perversion of Paul’s magical salvation plan.

In Matthew 18.21-35, Jesus tells a particularly unpleasant parable about God’s love and patience. It turns out it’s at odds with Joel Osteen’s view of the same things (still, I expect Osteen’s right; he’s got a congregation far in excess of the rabble who followed Jesus.)

The story concerns a king who cancels (forgives) the substantial debt one of his servants owes him. This king, who represents God (or maybe even Jesus himself in one of his more egotistical moments) is indeed forgiving at this stage of the story. However, the servant – let’s call him Franklin – then comes across a fellow-servant (Jason) who asks Franklin to overlook the much smaller debt he owes him. Franklin responds by telling Jason that he must pay his debt immediately or else he’ll have him thrown in jail. Unfortunately for Franklin, the king hears of his lack of compassion and in light of the fact he himself has forgiven Franklin much, is enraged at his attitude towards Jason. He rescinds the forgiveness he extended towards him and has Franklin thrown in jail instead. Having told the story, Jesus hammers the moral home, as he does here in Matthew 6.14-15:

If you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

We learn three things from the parable about how Jesus (or his scriptwriters) viewed forgiveness:

1) Far from being an unmerited free gift, God’s forgiveness is entirely conditional. It is conditional on how much we ourselves are forgiving. Matthew 5.23-26 and the Lord’s prayer both take the idea further: we can’t even expect God to forgive us unless we’ve forgiven others: ‘Father, forgive our sins,’ says the prayer, ‘to the extent we forgive those who sin against us.’

2) God’s forgiveness is not once-and-for-all; it can be withdrawn if and when we fail to forgive others.

3) There is no mention in this story, nor in the prayer, nor in Jesus’ other teaching about forgiveness, of unmerited grace or a salvation formula, even though the gospels were recorded long after Paul devised his magical incantation. God’s forgiveness, therefore is not the result of Jesus’ dying for us, nor is it unmerited, as ‘grace’ would suggest; it has to be earned. And how is it earned? By forgiving others.

4) God is no God of Love. He’s a bastard who can’t be trusted; one slip and you’re out on your ear.

So what does any of this matter when there’s no God and Jesus was something of a deluded charlatan, anyway? Well, you won’t hear this version of forgiveness preached in church or promoted by evangelists, or even practised by Christians. This perspective on forgiveness is so far removed from Paul’s ‘gospel of grace’ and modern day Christianity that it has to be ignored, disregarded, forgotten about. After all, Christian leaders don’t want their flocks to know that forgiveness needs to be earned. And they certainly don’t want the rest of us to know that they’re really not up to the task. Besides, squabbling about doctrine and blaming gays for everything is much more satisfying.

 

How it is

Posted on by
2

God5

It all depends on the premise from which you begin. I’m tired of the arguments of Christians of all stripes that

   The bible is the inspired word of God

      Jesus died for me

          He really did rise from the dead

                Jesus was, in some sense, the son of God

                     God, or Jesus, loves us and wants to have relationship with us

                          God, or Jesus, will forgive our sins if only we ask him

                            He has supernaturally changed the lives of millions

               We are all, whether we realise it or not, involved in a spiritual battle

       Jesus is coming back soon to judge the world

Most people will go to Hell, a select few to Heaven

We can argue with Christians about these claims – and others you can probably think of yourself – pointing out how the Bible really can’t self-authenticate itself, that just because it appears to say it’s the Word of God doesn’t mean it is; arguing about who wrote the gospels and whether they can be trusted; disputing the resurrection when the bible’s own accounts are so inconsistent; challenging the theology behind Paul’s redemption formula… and so on.

But really, why bother? Take a step back.

All of these ideas are dependent on one thing: that there is a God.

Yet there is no evidence there is. Christians will tell us that that the absence of evidence doesn’t necessarily equate with evidence of absence, but in this case it does. The absence of evidence that I keep a pink unicorn in my garage is fairly conclusive evidence that I don’t – and so it is with God. The evidence for him is circumstantial and so remarkably thin that the probability he exists is virtually zero (I’ve discussed this previously; here, for example). What humans have imagined him to be is not evidence of his external reality; a book written by superstitious sheep-herders and first century fanatics certainly isn’t. And beyond that? Nothing.

It follows that if God doesn’t exist then

       the Bible can’t be his inspired word;

                    Jesus cannot be his son;

                       God cannot have sent Jesus to redeem us;

                            he cannot have raised Jesus from the dead;

                                  he cannot be offended by ‘sin’;

                                        it cannot be God who changes lives;

                                  heaven and hell are not real;

the whole panoply of supernatural beings that populate the bible don’t exist either.

Take away God (and he was never there in the first place) and Christianity with its claims of the supernatural, salvation and eternal life, crumbles to nothing. It is nothing.

So it all depends on your premise. If you’re prepared to believe, against the evidence, that God exists you’ll find substance in the claims of religion. If you recognise that he doesn’t, however, you will also recognise that religion’s claims are illusory, fallacious, deceptive. No need to get involved in fruitless arguments with believers about it; that’s how it is.

“Christian” Scare Quotes: A Response

Posted on by
3

JesusLaughs

Christian bloggers like their quotation marks – ‘scare quotes’ as they’re often known. The Righteous wear away the computer keys with them on when ranting writing about same-sex “marriage” in particular. This kind of marriage always receives them, even though marriage is marriage whether same-sex or not. Those who like to use and over-use them, however, intend to show that same-sex marriage isn’t marriage at all but a devilish, unbiblical substitute for the real thing.

The Christian Research Network (a misnomer if ever there was one: the site only ever features two contributors, involves no research and is distinctly unChristian) regularly adds speech marks to other terms and titles. The Pope, for example, becomes “Pope Francis”, and the fact Francis is not his real name is constantly highlighted. This is intended to show, presumably, that he lacks authenticity. The irony is that the figure whom Christians themselves worship and adore isn’t known by his real name either, a fact lost on “God’s chosen”. Yeshua Bar Yosef wouldn’t recognise “Jesus” and certainly not “Jesus Christ”.  Then there’s “Paul”, real name Saul. Christianity’s use of false names is nothing new.

My proposal, therefore, is that from now on, whenever we write “Christians”, we add quotation marks to the term to reflect the hypocrisy of so many of them, as well as the vacuity of the belief system itself. This can be done even when speaking of “Christians”, by wiggling the fingers as the word is said. It can, and should, be extended to all of the other fallacious ideas within Christianity: “God”, “Jesus”, “God’s Word”, “The Kingdom of God”, “Holy Spirit”, “Heaven” and “faith”.

We needn’t worry about running out of quotation marks with which to do this; we can always use those that “Christians” have previously attached to same-sex marriage.