Just back in from the weekend and wow!
I hope you are sat somewhere comfortable and have a strong drink at hand (preferably not Kool-Aid since I've had enough of that this weekend), I have a lot to write about.
Talk 1: How does God guide us?
I think by this point everyone on the course is supposed to be a believer so the talks are directed at what to believe rather than why.
Part 1: The Talk
This talk, as with all on the weekend, was not given by Nicky Gumbel. Which was a relief to say the least.
The speaker, one of the senior members of the church, starts by making everyone relax. He tells us be silent and listen for God. The exercise seemed similar to meditation, most religions have something similar to this and the experiences people have are usually similar too. It is interesting to note the experiences always match the current religion of the person/the people around them. I'm waiting for stories of a group of Catholics praying and speaking to Khorne, better yet being possessed by Khorne's spirit. This passage blatantly means a Bloodthirster:
Revelation 13:11
Then I saw another beast that rose out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb and he spoke like a dragon.
Unfortunately the Bloodthirster's ability on the tabletop doesn't really live up to the expectations set up by the stories in the Codex, sound familiar?
The speaker likens us to sheep, he says that we have gone astray due to our sin. Though why God hates sine waves is beyond me.
To me sin (violation of God's law) is a meaningless concept, one cannot make reference to sin without making reference to a deity, so accusing me of sinning (or threatening me with the consequences) is pointless since I don't believe in God. As a Humanist I can grade actions to be right or wrong based on the effects they have on people and on society.
It is interesting to note that believers say that sin and evil cannot exist in God's presence, yet God is omnipresent, I hope you can see where I am going.
According to the presentation the Bible is only 85-90% of God's guidance, the rest is revealed through private revelations and God's voice speaking to us internally.
Testable - Nope
Falsifiable - Nope
Entirely Subjective - You Bet!
At this point I distinctively think of Andrea Yates, who heard God's voice instructing her to kill her kids to save them from the sins of the world.
At a later point at the weekend I ask some members what they thought happened to un-baptised babies who died. They thought they went to Heaven, which I thought was reasonable enough. However this was the motivation for what Andrea Yates did, she sacrificed her chance in heaven to guarantee he children's.
As I brought this point up I was corrected that she could be forgiven and go to heaven as well which left me rather stunned.
The question of what happens to non christian babies is difficult to answer in this respect.
A: They go to heaven, which was the motivation for Andrea Yates.
B: They go to hell, which means you have God torturing babies.
Back on topic...
A few anecdotes about successful prayer were shared, I've heard plenty of these now, for all religions.
God requires tax, apparently Kent Hovind didn't get that memo, and that Jesus treated everyone with love and respect...
...Except when he charged into a church brandishing a whip, all this assuming the Bible is an accurate account of his life.
We are told we should pick any scripture (I leapt at the nearest bible straight to Leviticus), then that is must be from the NT (oh well straight to 1 Timothy it is), and that it must be one of the parables (sick of the moving goalposts I decided to put the bible down at this point). This will prove the authenticity of the bible apparently. The speaker then says that everything in the bible is verified by archaeology and history, funnily enough there is no evidence the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt, or that Moses ever existed or of the Exodus. I'm not even on to the flood yet.
Continuing on the speaker says that there are 5 ways to know God, Reading the Bible, Studying the Bible, Memorise verses, Meditate and Listen for God's voice. The last 2 again are entirely subjective, and the first 3 beg the question that the Bible is valid, I see a lot of circular reasoning over the weekend.
A great quote from the speaker: "Fear is False Expectations Appearing Real and faith removes all fear". My internal monologue screaming bullshit at me right now he continues on to another great quote: "Common sense is God's gift to us".
This brings 2 quotes into my head, the first is Sagan:
"The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counter-intuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true."
The second is unsourced:
"Common sense, so rare it may as well be a superpower".
Common sense is just an opinion formed on quick observations and only basic rationality, it is a group of basic rules about reality that we observe. It is not that reliable in determining reality, fair enough in everyday life use common sense by all means but is common sense any use at the quantum level or with relativity?
The talk concludes here and we move off into our discussion groups.
Part 2: The discussion
We have no Mary this weekend so the group is led by another member, but Mark is back so all is not lost.
The first question is one of making a decision, in a difficult position most members say they will pray and ask God for an answer. I say I will consider the consequences and benefits of each option.
Mark has an anecdote about how he was going through a tough time finding a job, he asked his pastor and the pastor told him God had spoken to him and said to go for job X. Mark went for job X, still has it and enjoys it. All religions have these anecdotes, they are not evidence of anything supernatural.
The discussion moves on to free will, a member asserts that free will was God's gift to us, and that he doesn't reveal himself to everyone because it would violate their free will. But God revealed himself to Satan and this did not violate Satan's free will. I kept this thought to myself and instead responded by asking if, with God being omniscient is compatible with free will. That is to say if God knows everything that is going to happen and every decision we are going to make do we really make the decision?
The mental gymnastics that followed were amusing. (italics is them)
"It's like when you're at a crossroad, God knows what happens when you go left, and when you go right, you can make the decision between left and right"
"But God also knows which way you will go as well as what will happen since he is ALL-knowing"
"If I play a computer game a second time I know what will happen but I can do things differently and still have the same story"
"And yet God knows if you will do things different or not, it is more like watching a movie a second time".
We go round and round in circles and the question never gets answered until we get this:
"I don't think it's a meaningful question, there is no point even asking it since I know God to be real".
"So you just ignore any questions that might challenge your faith?"
"There are lots of difficult questions, who created God being one of them, but it is meaningless since God always existed"
"2 things, firstly why would you say 'who' and secondly if it is OK to assert that God always existed, is it not also OK to assert the universe existed and remove the unnecessary step in the chain?"
"Well the universe didn't always exist, we know that"
"How?" I am preparing for Kalam now but another member interjects to bring us back on topic.
I ask how we can tell who is right when talking about God's guidance when people get contradictory answers to prayers. Mark brings up the later part of Mark 16:17 (which isn't in earlier manuscripts) about speaking in tongues and driving out demons, I reference the verse after about drinking deadly poisons and handling snakes and ask if anyone would like to try it, unsurprisingly none do.
Talk 2: Who is the holy spirit
My first opinion on the title of the talk was that rather than using the term what they ask 'who' as if it has to have human like qualities.
Part 1: The Presentation
The speaker starts with an analogy I've never heard before:
God is like Aquafresh toothpaste, hopefully you can see where the is going.
Aquafresh has three parts, red white and blue, each performs a different function.
God has three parts, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each performs a different function.
In a Gish Galloping way the speaker moves straight onto the creation account in Genesis 1 then straight onto personal experiences of the Holy Spirit, similar to the Ham Hightail.
The speaker shares an anecdote about a girl practising witchcraft in a village and how the Holy Spirit saved her.
WAIT, YOU FUCKING WHAT!!!!?!?!??!!?!??
Yeah you read that correctly, witchcraft.
I just sat there stunned at this point, was the speaker actually being serious at this point, who knows.
"The holy spirit fills us, as Christians we can feel it, it empowers and guides us".
Sound familiar? It did to me but I couldn't think of where at the time, but suppose I do this:
"The
Boom, instant Yoda.
The joking aside, shall I put.
"It is the Holy Spirit you feel when reading the Bible".
What is it when a Muslim reads the Qur'an or a Hindu with the Bhagavad Ghita then? Experiences, as I have said numerous times, are purely subjective. If a person thinks they are Napoleon you lock them up in a mental institute, but if they think they talk to God that's fine. Funny how when people's ideas of God conflict there is no objective way of verifying one or the other, also funny is how God always seems to agree with the one interpreting him, and have the same knowledge as them. Nobody possessed by the holy spirit gave us relativity did they?
"The Holy Spirit is the source of all human love and compassion"
No it isn't. The brain is.
You can have, and share, love and compassion without God. Look at all the great things Norman Borlaug did, he wasn't religious.
The speaker ends here, I only wrote a little about this talk since it was about personal experiences which I have covered repeatedly.
Part 2: The Discussion
The first question was "What is the connection between Jesus and the Holy Spirit?"
My internal monologue screamed "Well they're both imaginary for a start".
But inevitably anecdotes about peoples experiences of the 2 are shared en masse.
The comparison between the trinity and Polytheism is made.
"Christianity is not Polytheism because they are all part of the same God"
"But they are separate entities, like Thor and Odin are part of the same Pantheon"
Attempting to define the trinity is difficult and usually ends up breaking either the Law of Identity or the Law of Non-Contradiction. Almost like the Logic test of 1984 (I am a fan of Orwell).
The gods of many polytheistic religions are very anthropomorphic, as is God in the OT. They have human emotions, they perform human tasks, they make mistakes, they are depicted as humans or at least of human figure.
I'm getting sick of the anecdotes now but they keep flowing,
"I certainly felt a difference after I was became a Christian"
"I noticed differences in my friends when they joined Christianity"
"But were those changes supernatural or can the same change be caused by other, non-supernatural, events? We see people change for a variety of reasons, not all changes caused by conversions are improvements".
We talk about morality for a while and I ask if you can be good without God.
One member replied with
"If I didn't have my belief in God I would have no motivation to be good"
I must commend the member on their honesty at this point he believes he wouldn't have motivation, however I get my motivation from my rationalism and humanism.
DVD: Science vs Religion
This was my favourite part of the weekend, by far.
A few of the members decided to watch a DVD called Science vs Religion, it was just one long lecture of bullshit, and I wasn't the only one who thought that. It appears I had fellow Biology students there, smart ones too, but I was still the lone non-believer.
One of them requested that the DVD was turned off after 10 minutes but believe there was enough factual errors for me to facepalm with such frequency Mark, not a natural scientist, thought I had been possessed.
As you can probably guess it was based primarily on Kalam Cosmological and the Teleological Argument (each link leads to a different page, 2 per argument), the 2 that I encounter most frequently and both are based on either misrepresentation of science or downright dishonesty. Here I will dismantle the 2 main points of his argument:
Claim 1:
"If the Earth was a few miles further away from the sun, or a few miles closer there would be no life."
Funny how the Earth's orbit varies by as much as 5,000,000km due to it's elliptical orbit, Kasting et al (1993) estimated that, for planets similar to Earth, the Earth could be 5% closer to the sun or up to 37% further away and still be habitable. I have heard estimates of around 25% closer and up to 200% further away but I have been provided no reliable citations so I will stick with the first set of figures. So this claim is wrong.
Claim 2:
"If the Oxygen concentration in Earth's atmosphere varied even by 1 or 2% there would be no life".
Well anyone can tell you this is bullshit, in fact this is the one the other biologists noted, simply because some life in anaerobic. The current concentration of Oxygen, by volume, in the atmosphere is around 20.95%. During the carboniferous era this concentration was as high as 32% as this German graph shows, a graph of time (in million years ago, x axis) and oxygen concentration (y axis).
This was where the DVD was turned off and I had a short discussion with fellow biologists, mainly about mutual friends on the course, I couldn't help myself but I had to say
"You'd think if it was real you wouldn't need to lie about it".
We return the DVD to one of the church leaders who asks why we stopped watching it so early.
"Anyone with even a basic knowledge in natural sciences can dismantle everything he says, he lies repeatedly throughout, we only watched 10 minutes and I have already made a full page of corrections and rebuttals".
His response:
"I think you are being distracted by certain things, you should watch it again when you can focus, distractions make it hard to focus".
Yeah he went there, that reality thing can be very distracting.
Talk 3: What does the Holy Spirit do?
This one was very Yoda-esque.
Part 1: The Presentation
The speaker starts with John 3:3
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.
The speaker continues:
"To be born again means to be filled with the Holy Spirit,
St Paul says in Romans 8:1-2 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Jesus came and set us free of our sin, to be born again and filled with the Holy Spirit allows us to be forgiven of our sins"
Sin is a worthless concept, as I said before. So to be forgiven of it is pointless.
"Romans 8:14-17 says that we become God's children, the word used is Abba, which is similar to our word Dad or Daddy, but not as childish, if we are children, we are heirs, heirs to God's glory and kingdom"
Heir's only only get inheritance after the death of the person they are heirs too. A few anecdotes about adoption are shared, about how we can be brought into a family if not born into it, I'm sure you can all see where this is going.
"God loves us all, he loves everyone of us, he is all loving"
The just brings up the problem of evil, which I think I have referenced before.
Here is Epicurus's version
If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to, Then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing, Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing, Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing, Then why call Him God?
The speaker moves on to the gifts of the spirit, speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues etc. both of which I saw a decent amount of this weekend.
Part 2: The Discussion
The first question is what do we think the Holy Spirit's job is?
I have no answer for this question just like I don't have an answer for the question of "What do you think the green man on Jupiter's job is or what flavour crisps he prefers?" - I don't believe he/it exists in the first place so it's characteristics aren't worth discussion.
"The job of the Holy Spirit is to turn people into Christians, you receive a calling to come to God, the Holy Spirit helps us pray and guides us".
Another member adds
"After you become a Christian your life changes"
"Is this change always for the better though? and the same change is seen when people convert to other religions. What makes Christianity unique among them?"
The tired old point that Christianity is a relationship with God is repeated ad nauseam.
This made me laugh:
"It's like the Matrix, you can take the blue pill and ignore God or you can take the red pill and realise that God is real and wants to have a relationship with you". I won't respond to this here though.
"Would you say we are saved by faith or by works?"
"Faith".
This is interesting, simply because it means that no matter what you do in this world you can get into heaven through faith.
"It's like when your stuck in a room with only one way out and something coming to destroy the room, a trapdoor in the ceiling, someone, God, is trying to help you out, but you have a huge backpack full of bricks, your sin, you have to get rid of, by faith in Jesus's sacrifice, before he can save you".
"What are we being saved from exactly?"
"God's Wrath".
"So he sacrificed himself to himself to save us from rules he himself created, couldn't he just click his fingers and achieve the same goal, what is the significance of blood?"
This goes unanswered.
"If you look at things that are sinful like murder we know these harm society"
"Just thinking about someone on anger is murder, anyone read 1984? this is a thought crime." (Yes, I am a big fan of Orwell).
"If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit you have to want it and be committed in your heart".
Convenient how you have to already believe before you get any evidence.
"I don't want to go to hell, so I believe".
Pascal's wager.
"All are equal in the eyes of God".
"Except some are more equal than others, since they go to Heaven".
And on this I will end for now, 2 more talks from weekend and the one from this Tuesday still in the works.
All feedback welcome and if you enjoyed this, share it with your friends so that they may enjoy it too.
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