God Squad Reviews
God Squad Review CLXXV (Atheist/Theist Relations)
July 9, 2006 | 49 Comments
A “happy, well-adjusted atheist” advises the Squad that he would be “interested in your comments about atheism’s claim that there is no god.” The reader also expresses his fear that America is “becoming a nation of ‘Talibaptists,’ so to speak; increasingly, we pass judgment on those who disagree with us, particularly on the topic of religious belief (or lack thereof).”
The Squad doesn’t address the God question, so I won’t either (and can’t). The problem with second question is that it reduces the dispute to one involving just speech and civility. But what bothers people isn’t that someone is “passing judgment” because they disagree. That is the very nature of disagreement — each side “passes judgment” that the other side is wrong. The important issue is which side is right, and the consequences, if any, of translating one set of judgments into action through law or social pressure. The Squad’s focus on school prayer and other public invocations of God similarly ignores much of what the debate is about, although it’s true that those symbolic issues consume a disproportionate amount of atheist attention as well.
The Squad concludes with a prayer that religious Americans will “come to see the atheism of some of their neighbors as neither betrayal nor blindness but rather just another way to stand on the purple mountain majesties.” I am warmed by the generosity behind the thought, but the relativism of it makes me want to jump off of the mountain. Which side I won’t say.
God Squad Review CLXXIV (Music)
July 3, 2006 | 17 Comments
Concerned that “flat note after flat note” issues from the fingers of his church’s organist, a Squad reader asks whether it’s more important to be supportive of the musician or improve attendance with a more talented replacement. The Squad opines that bad music is a “disservice to the spiritual excellence” of the church and recommends the latter option, while noting that it could be a traumatic and divisive event for the congregation.
Would the answer differ for an atheist or humanist organization that provided entertainment at its meetings? First, rest assured that there is a body of relevant music. Dan Barker, a preacher-turned-atheist who is co-president of the Freedom for Religion Foundation, is a prolific songwriter and composer. His five albums — “Beware of Dogma,” “Friendly Neighborhood Atheist,” “Freethought Then and Now,” “My Thoughts are Free,” and “Reason’s Greetings” — are available at FFRF’s online shop. Songs include “Battle of Church and State,” Stay Away Pope Polka,” “You Can’t Win With Original Sin,” “Nothing Fails Like Prayer,” “FFRF,” “Just Say ‘NO’ to Religion,” “Days of the Theocracy,” “Smarter Than You,” and “No Hurry to Die.”
Dawn Eden apparently declined to do the liner notes, but from the titles and available audio clips I surmise that the lyrics to these tunes are meant to be more didactic than uplifting. Battle contains the entire religion clause (establishment and free exercise) to the First Amendment. The title song to Friendly Neighborhood Atheist combats a canard (”I don’t have any horns/If you care to inspect me/But don’t expect me/To think just like you”). When performed, musicianship would likely be subordinate to message-delivery.
God Squad Review CLXXIII (The Holy Spirit)
June 27, 2006 | 25 Comments
A Squad reader requests biblical proof, or the identification of an event, that establishes the existence of the Holy Spirit. The Squad chooses the scriptural option, citing 1 Corinthians 2:9-13. The function of the Spirit is delineated in Galatians 5:22-23, which describes “the fruit of the Spirit” as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
One atheistic objection, among others, is that this theory implies that these virtues are not truly our own our but are imposed upon us by an outside force. That difficulty, however, is not necessarily solved by declaring that the qualities are evolutionary adaptive mechanisms facilitating the mutually beneficial interpersonal interactions essential to the survival and self-perpetuation of the species within the relevant social environment. For that theory still implies that there is something existing outside any individual member of the species — something which is imposing a preference for a self-perpetuation sustained by love, joy, peace etc. And a preference does not exist in the abstract, but is the attribute of a consciousness with a will.
God Squad Review CLXXII (Parkinson’s Foundation)
June 18, 2006 | 5 Comments
God Squad Review CLXXII (Don’t Care What They’re Saying)
If you’re interested in reading the Squad’s babblings on sin and coping with death read their column. I’m giving them a pass this week in honor of Father Hartman’s pledge to cure for Parkinson’s disease within ten years through the efforts of his foundation.
God Squad Review CLXXI (Natural Evil)
June 12, 2006 | 10 Comments
A Squad reader who lost a leg to bone cancer at age 12 has “a problem with people who believe God allows adversity in their lives.” I have a problem seeing how his logic could support anything but the opposite conclusion:
I don’t believe God visited this malady on me. I believe He created natural law. The cancer came about through His natural law. The cancer cells were obeying natural law. I’m sure God knew this would happen and could see the life choices I would make as a result of losing a leg.
Seems to be more that just “allowing” adversity — the problem has been planned down to the last detail, including the victim’s reaction to it. The reader then backtracks a bit, asserting that God also knew he had the “tools” to deal with the disability but that it was his “choice to use my God-given talents or not.” Does the Squad think, he asks, that this mass of contradictions represents “flawed thinking”? Of course not:
You have a very mature, wise and theologically sophisticated view of the problem of theodicy, a fancy term for the problem of why bad things happen to good people.
The idea that adversity is punishment is sometimes plausible, but not in your case. Obviously, there is a connection when people who smoke become gravely ill, when those who overeat and fail to exercise become diabetic, or when those who steal land in jail. However, what happens to such people is not so much punishment from God as the consequence of unhealthy or immoral behavior.
God has set before us all two paths — a path of righteousness and faith and a path of unhealthy physical and spiritual behavior. It’s our choice to walk in the path of righteousness. It’s also our choice and sad fate to bear the burden of our moral lassitude if we choose the wrong path.
Your bone cancer, however, was not the result of any bad choices you made. It’s an example of “natural evil,” as opposed to “moral evil.” You rightly understand that in such a case, God walks with you and helps you through your faith and trust in Him.
Actually, bone cancer sometimes kills people no matter what “tools” they’ve been given and no matter what trust they place in God. As do speeding cars operated by hit-and-run drivers, some of whom are never caught and live long, happy lives. And God occasionally gives smokers the “tools” to somehow avoid lung cancer, while depriving non-smokers of that same immunity.
So the whole “tool” analysis seems shaky. Moreover, if the ability to cope with bone cancer is a tool, so is the ability to cope with the urge to smoke or overeat. Calling a lack of will power a “choice” is questionable — it’s at least as likely that God selects those who will capitulate to it just like he plans out the progress of cancer in children.
God Squad Review CLXX (Biblical Inerrancy)
June 5, 2006 | 85 Comments
“We don’t love the Bible because it’s old; we love it because it’s true,” said the God Squad. But that was last week. This week, in response to a question about conflicting scriptural accounts regarding the sequence of creation of men, animals, and women, they dismiss the book as a bunch of “legends.” Specifically, they embrace the “non-religious, scholarly view” known as the “Documentary Hypothesis”:
Under this hypothesis, the story of the creation of man in Genesis, Chapter 1 (the account where man and woman are created at the same time) was written by the P author, and the story of the Garden of Eden and the creation of Adam and Eve was written by the J author. So, there are two stories of the creation of man because there were two authors, and the authors reflected two different traditions of storytelling about the creation.
The Squad also presents a religious defense of the “storytelling.” Apparently, it can be explained by more storytelling — of a sort that has no scriptural basis at all:
For religious folk who believe that God wrote the Bible and that there can’t be contradictions of any kind in the text, these two stories were a big problem.
One very interesting Jewish commentarial tradition tries to reconcile the two stories by teaching that they describe the creation of two different women. The woman created with the man in Chapter One was called Lillith, and the woman described in the Eden narrative was, of course, Eve.
Lillith was, according to legend, the first wife of Adam. She had long, flowing red hair and was the first feminist! When Adam told her he was boss, she fought with him and ultimately flew away from him (OK, so we forgot to tell you, Lillith had wings!). Adam was so down in the dumps because Lillith had left him to make demon children at the Red Sea (it matched her hair) that he complained to God. That’s when God decided to make a second woman out of Adam’s rib so she would get the idea that Adam was No. 1. Lillith definitely got bad press from this story, but what do you expect from a legend that’s more than 4,000 years old?
In other words, you’d have to be a complete idiot to accept a literal interpretation of Genesis — it’s much to old to be true. Unlike the stuff written just 2,000 years ago, in which dead men fly to heaven without wings. Only angry atheists could doubt that.
God Squad Review CLXIX (Handling a Deadbeat Brother)
May 29, 2006 | 2 Comments
A 50-ish “master manipulator” has been ripping off his parents his whole life. He’s about to get out of jail, and wants to live with his 77 year old mother. Because she’s very religious, the guy’s brother has written to the Squad for advice. They respond with a raft of Old Testament scripture:
We don’t love the Bible because it’s old; we love it because it’s true. The first passages we urge your brother to read are from Leviticus, Chapter 19, where the first way we are commanded to “be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (19:2), is to show respect and reverence, honor and honesty toward our parents: “You shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My sabbaths: I the Lord am your God” (19:3). This same chapter of moral education offers advice to your mother on how to treat her son: “You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord” (19:14). Placing a stumbling block in front of a blind person means offering a drink to someone who is an alcoholic, or, in your mother’s case, offering money to your lying, thieving, cheating brother! Giving him more money just encourages him to perform more mischief.
The Squad also loves the Bible because you can disregard 99% of it’s crazy advice, and quote the passages you agree with while ignoring the ones that contradict them. So while they proclaim the truth of Leviticus 19, they avoid Leviticus 19:20, which lets you sleep with an engaged slave girl as long as you slaughter a ram. And Leviticus 19:19, which forbids you to wear clothing made of two materials woven together, and Leviticus 19:27, which prohibits the trimming of sideburns or beards. Most notably, they ignore Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, which would require the mom to sign over the rest of her assets to the jailbird, or at least slaughter for him the fatted calf.
God Squad Review CLXVIII (Sharing Religious Customs)
May 15, 2006 | 9 Comments
“Is it wrong to share in some beliefs of other religions?” asks a Catholic Squad reader who has recently adopted the Jewish custom of placing rocks atop a relative’s tombstone. The man also wants to know whether the custom has a “special meaning.” The Squad explains the practice (it’s a sign that the living remember the dead) but completely ignores the faith-sharing question.
It was bad question to begin with, for at least three reasons. First, the reader confuses participating in a rock-piling ritual with holding a “belief.” Second, the reader thinks he can hold a belief without first knowing what it means. Third, the reader suggests that the rightness of holding a belief shouldn’t depend upon its truth — but rather on whether it’s already part of the collection of ideas comprising one’s own religion, as opposed to something which must be borrowed from the collection of another set of dogmas.
Had the Squad decided to address the main question, its answer would have only added to the confusion. On the one hand, the Squad believes that all religions are just different paths up the same mountain, and that the “Abrahamaic faiths” share the same core principles. On the other hand, they’re dead set against raising children in an interfaith manner, because for some reason kids need to have a single spiritual “address.” Moreover, notwithstanding the serious internal contradictions that plague every religion, the Squad sees some special problem with Jews sharing a belief in Jesus — “[i]t’s like trying to be a duck and an onion at the same time.” Presumably a Catholic putting pebbles on a grave would face the same problem.
In any event, I have my own advice for those who are curious about the “deeper significance” of outwardly peculiar practices such as piling things on top of other things. If the people engaged in the activity seem to be much smarter than you and are using complicated machines in what looks to be a laboratory, the meaning will likely escape you. However, if the people are at about your intelligence level and it’s easy for you to imitate their behavior, there’s probably no meaning to it at all.
Special God Squad Review (Gellman’s Newsweek Attack on Atheists)
May 1, 2006 | 29 Comments
Chickening out of a debate a few weeks back, the God Squad apologized to atheists for any misimpressions their writings might have created about their attitude to the godless. But the experience apparently left a bitter taste in Rabbi Gellman’s mouth, as evidenced by how he’s now repeating all of the same old canards over at Newsweek:
I think I need to understand atheists better. I bear them no ill will. I don’t think they need to be religious to be good, kind and charitable people, and I have no desire to debate or convert them. I do think they are wrong about the biggest question, “Are we alone?” and I will admit to occasionally viewing atheists with the kind of patient sympathy often shown to me by Christians who can’t quite understand why the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection has not reached me or my people. However, there is something I am missing about atheists: what I simply do not understand is why they are often so angry.
The attack is all so out of nowhere. We, of course, know that he’s pissed that the Long Island Center for Inquiry challenged him to a debate after he suggested that all atheists are immoral, but the average reader wouldn’t have a clue. If you’re going to use a generalization like “so often so angry,” you should provide at least one concrete example of the people you’re talking about. For example, “Rabbi Gellman concealed the fact that he was recently humiliated by an athesit group — why are Jews so sneaky and dishonest?”
One would think that “the biggest” question would be worthy of debate. Especially in America, where a variety of rights and privileges are awarded depending on how one answers it. After all, even little questions get debated — Should we talk to the sky to cure disease or do medical research? Is there a bomb in that abandoned briefcase? Is that clump on the x-ray malignant or benign? If someone just said, “you have your opinion, I have mine” in response to those sort of questions, and then suggested we were immoral for asking them, we’ve have a right to be angry.
Especially when the person effectively admits that his position is irrational. Note that Rabbi Gelman thinks that Christians are clueless for patronizing him with “patient sympathy” for rejecting Christ’s divinity. Plainly, he believes it should be obvious to Christians that Jews consider the resurrection story a lot of hogwash. Why shouldn’t atheists regard his story, taken from the first half of the same book, as just as crazy?
So we disagree about God. I’m sometimes at odds with Yankee fans, people who like rap music and people who don’t like animals, but I try to be civil. I don’t know many religious folk who wake up thinking of new ways to aggravate atheists, but many people who do not believe in God seem to find the religion of their neighbors terribly offensive or oppressive, particularly if the folks next door are evangelical Christians. I just don’t get it.
Once again, there’s no context for the suggestion that atheists are uncivil and aggravating. Example needed, like, “Rabbi Gellman published his attack on atheists in Newsweek — why do Jews control the media?”
What’s aggravating is dealing with someone who claims he’s dealing with the “biggest” question in one paragraph, and then compares it to disputes over sports teams in the next. It’s also incivil to make sweeping generalizations like “atheists are immoral,” and then declare that the matter is not a fit subject of debate. The God Squad devotes a weekly column to settling debates which arise within various religions, religions which have given rise to a vast literature debating their internal doctrines. Jews debate over how God wants food prepared, sometimes forcing taxpayers to finance litigation if the state’s Kosher Law Enforcement division doesn’t side with their Jehovah. That sounds pretty angry and uncivil to me. Not to mention idiotic.
As to whether many religious folk think of ways to aggravate atheists, didn’t you just mention evangelical Christians, Rabbi? They do exactly what you find so offensive — they try to covert people to their point of view. But it’s not the mere effort to do so that’s aggravating — people try to persuade us to do all sorts of things — it’s that their arguments are breathtakingly stupid and rest on the dictates of some old book rather than intellectual debate. The debate you so studiously avoid.
This must sound condescending and a large generalization, and I don’t mean it that way, but I am tempted to believe that behind atheist anger there are oftentimes uncomfortable personal histories. Perhaps their atheism was the result of the tragic death of a loved one, or an angry degrading sermon, or an insensitive eulogy, or an unfeeling castigation of lifestyle choices or perhaps something even worse. I would ask for forgiveness from the angry atheists who write to me if I thought it would help. Religion must remain an audacious, daring and, yes, uncomfortable assault on our desires to do what we want when we want to do it. All religions must teach a way to discipline our animal urges, to overcome racism and materialism, selfishness and arrogance and the sinful oppression of the most vulnerable and the most innocent among us.
You don’t mean it when you imply that atheists are selfish, arrogant, racist, sinful, materialistic animals who prey on the most vulnerable? Examples, examples: like “Rabbi Gellman charges $12,500 for an appearance — why are Jews so greedy, materialistic and selfish?”
I’m much too angry to point out that that (1) religions disagree with each other on every debated moral question, (2) plenty of religions promote the vices the Rabbi has identified, and (3) it might be a better idea to focus the debate about morality on human needs in this life rather than the desires of conflicting deities and their plans for the afterlife. Instead, I’ll just suggest that somebody dropped Rabbi Gellman on his head as a baby and scrambled his brains. Or scrambled them with religion.
Some religious leaders obviously betray the teachings of the faith they claim to represent, but their sacred scriptures remain a critique of them and also of every thing we do to betray the better angels of our nature. But our world is better and kinder and more hopeful because of the daily sacrifice and witness of millions of pious people over thousands of years.
No, it’s the leaders who obey the teachings of their faith who are the dangerous ones. As the Rabbi has himself admitted, the “sacred scriptures” are chock full of violently insane suggestions for behavior. It’s the people who critique them — and more specifically critique the very notion that books should be obeyed unquestioningly — who make the world better and kinder.
To be called to a level of goodness and sacrifice so constantly and so patiently by a loving but demanding God may seem like a naive demand to achieve what is only a remote human possibility. However, such a vision need not be seen as a red flag to those who believe nothing. I can humbly ask whether my atheist brothers and sisters really believe that their lives are better, richer and more hopeful by clinging to Camus’s existential despair: “The purpose of life is that it ends.” I can agree to make peace with atheists whom I believe ask too little of life here on planet earth if they will agree to make peace with me and with other religious folk who perhaps have asked too much. I believe that the philosopher-rabbi Mordecai Kaplan was right when he said, “It is hell to live without hope, and religion saves people from hell.” I urge my atheist brothers and sisters to see things as Spinoza urged, sub specie aeternitatis — “under the perspective of eternity.”
I don’t believe “nothing” — but I do believe that life is short and we die, which is all the more reason to enjoy it while we can rather than making “sacrifices” for the 72 virgins.
And to try a little positivity. Last Sunday I took two high-school girls to Cold Spring Labs to meet Dr. James Watson. One of the girls wants to be a research scientist, and the other has no idea yet, but I think she will be a great writer. I think they also both want boyfriends. I want them to stay smart and not dumb down to get a boy. Watson spoke and listened to the girls, and they left, I hope, proud about being smart. I know that Jim believes way more in Darwin than in Deuteronomy, but he also believes that at Cold Spring Labs the most important thing is not whether you are a man or a woman, not whether you believe in God. The most important thing, as he says, is “to get something done.” Now there’s an atheist I can believe in.
Interesting choice of an atheist friend, Rabbi. Did Watson tell you that he thinks “[o]ne of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural”? And as to your respect for the most vulnerable and most innocent, did he tell you he would have aborted his own son if he knew he’d have epilepsy? With friends like that . . .
God Squad Review CLXVII (Child Sacrifice)
April 16, 2006 | 13 Comments
Was it harder for Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, or for God to sacrifice his son Jesus ? a Squad reader wants to know. He figures it was easier for God to kill Jesus because He knew He could resurrect him, whereas Abraham was just acting on faith. The Squad seems a little put off by the question:
All sacrifices have their spiritual blessings and their spiritual burdens. Ranking things is more appropriate for sports bookies than people of faith, so comparing the incidents you cite is pointless; the sacrifices of Abraham and God were dramatically different.
But “ranking things,” as the Squad pejoratively puts it, is a common way of evaluating and comparing moral conduct. The Bible does it all the time. For example, it says that a small monetary donation by a poor person is better sacrifice than a big gift by a rich person. In any event, the Squad does ultimately compare Abraham’s sacrifice with God’s and implies that Abe’s was harder: “Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac to prove his faith, and he did so without knowing that God would send an angel to stay his hand at the last moment” whereas “[i]n the case of the Easter sacrifice, God knew all along, and Jesus knew all along, that the purpose of His life on earth was to die for the sins of the world.” So Abraham was taking a big gamble but God was betting on a sure thing.
Actually, it’s not as simple as all that. There may not be a significant difference between the two situations. If you’re honestly convinced that you’re getting orders from an omnipotent being, obeying it is the easiest thing in the world. If I was suddenly plucked up into a black void and given my marching orders by a bellowing deity, I wouldn’t hesitate to carry out its orders if it meant flying a plane into a skyscraper or blowing up the world. That wouldn’t really be acting on faith; it would be acting on the reality of what I experienced. Faith comes in only if you’re uncertain whether the God exists because you’ve never seen him. Of course, today you it’s hard to get away with killing a son no matter what your excuse — if you say you’re certain God told you to do it you go to a mental institution, and if you say you were just guessing you go to jail.
The most interesting thing about the Squad’s answer, however, is unrelated to the question posed. For some reason, they’ve decided to take position embracing the newly-discovered scriptures:
The recent discovery of the Gospel of Judas reinforces that central tenant of Christianity, namely that Jesus’ death was not a murder and not a betrayal, but rather a fulfillment of God’s most profound gift to humanity. In the atoning death and resurrection of God’s son, Jesus, whom Christians worship as the Christ (the Messiah), a unique physical sacrifice becomes a unique spiritual gift.
Apparently this wasn’t cleared with the Vatican: the Pope still thinks Judas was a greedy liar.
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