From a Christian perspective it can be tough to understand why their religion is laughed at by many. The best way for a Christian to understand why it is often viewed with levity and humor is by analogy. This is not addressing the truth or falsity of actual Christian beliefs, but rather clarifies a certain perspective. Consider three major beliefs unique to the Christian religion:
Christianity claims that a man was born to a virgin woman. Humans cannot be born to virgins. This violates laws of biology and physiology.
Christianity claims that a man converted water into wine. This is impossible, and violates a number of laws of physics and chemistry.
Christianity claims that a man died, and came back to life. This is also impossible. No living thing can die and come back to life, so this violates basic physical and biological laws.
There’s more where that came from, but that’s enough for now.
The Christian should imagine someone openly and loudly declared they had found the “truth.” You would ask, what is this truth? And they reply: 10,000 years ago, a man got pregnant and gave birth to a child. That child grew up, transformed a chicken into an elephant (among other things), and when he died, instead of falling over dead, he melted and became a puddle of mud.
The Christian can see how this story violates the same kinds of physical and biological laws, in the same ways, as the Jesus story. The Christian would be forgiven for bursting out laughing when this person with the “truth” told this story with a straight face. Whatever else the 10,000 year old man said, did, his message, his example, etc, will never make up for the ridiculous claims made about his life.
Christianity is, at the end of the day, a joke. Oftentimes a bad joke.
God and sex often have a relationship of mutual suspicion. To succeed with one, one must often fail with the other. Religion in general is typically a force for restraining the passions and modifying human desires. Major religions emphasize forsaking the things of the material world for the purpose of success in the supernatural world–receiving God’s favor, achieving eternal life beyond the grave, or whatever the goal may be. The conformity, rigidity and moral discipline of religion results in an overall attitude of suspicion toward many simple pleasures in life, including sex or alcohol. In more extreme circumstances, the restrictions extend to music, dancing, mixing between the sexes, or even just laughing.
It comes as no surprise that atheists are reported to have the best sex lives. Although the report is incomplete and limited in various ways, it is thought-provoking. With fewer inhibitions, fewer hang-ups and a more carefree and accepting attitude toward the body and toward fun and happiness, atheists and nonbelievers are able to explore and experiment more than their religious counterparts. The effect is documented among atheists who are former followers of various religious traditions. These people have been able to shed the guilt and shame of their former lives, and this has been a powerful force for sexual satisfaction.
Nevertheless, God can sometimes use sex for his own purposes, or at least his followers can. A group of young Germans created a 2006 calendar featuring nudity and titillating imagery, Biblically-based, in an attempt to entice more people to church. This yet another demonstration of God and religion being molded to the norms and standards of modern culture, rather than the other way around. Religion, lacking any kind of explanatory legitimacy unto itself, has always had to change and refine itself in order to be appealing to people. In a vibrant religious marketplace like the United States, this tendency is seen in spades as religious groups and faith communities, like companies competing for customers, adapt themselves to the desires and expectations of potential consumers. In Europe, where religion has traditionally enjoyed a close relationship with the state and thus a monopoly on perceived spiritual legitimacy, this tendency is far less pronounced, and accordingly, Europe is the most thoroughly secularized continent on earth (barring Australia, perhaps).
Some of the most interesting (and hilarious) developments occur when religion fails to adapt to modern circumstances, and subsequently clashes with the changing environment around it. To wit, the young Christine O’Donnell. Christine O’Donnell, although somewhat more reasonable in recent years, was staunchly against masturbation and, indeed, sex in general in her youth. Offering a throwback to the more restrictive interpretations of godliness, O’Donnell (ironically, given her political leanings) put herself on par with the fundamentalist types of Saudi Arabia and Iran. The science indicates that masturbation is actually healthy and beneficial, but religion and modern secular science do not have the best of relationships.
Going forward, we can expect God to continue to change and adapt to a more sexualized and sexually open culture. At bottom, sex is simply a far more powerful, direct and immediate force in human experience than God will ever be.
Religion generally claims absolute and exclusive truth. Yet most religions were created long before modern notions of freedom, justice, fairness, science, reason or logic. So it should come as no surprise when hilarious and ludicrous outcomes result from religious encounters with the changing circumstances of the modern world.
Authorities in Thailand recently indicated they would look to ban tattoos of the Buddha’s image. The idea is that his image is sacred, and tattoos of it are becoming so widespread, especially among tourists, as to be disrespectful and demeaning. Like the widespread outrage among Muslims at the image of the Prophet Muhammad, this demonstrates many religious believers’ inability to adequately square with the free choices of modern people. It is not good enough for them to abide by their backward traditions and odd moral values, they must foist them upon others as well.
To that end, Lady Gaga may be banned in Lebanon for offense to Christians. Specifically, authorities are concerned that the extra-sensitive Christian community in Lebanon will be offended by various imagery, symbolism and content in the songs of her new album. The social stability of Lebanon, such as it is, relies on the various religious and sectarian communities being appeased in various ways, including censorship of art and music. Luckily, artistic and musical expression do not have a tradition of being denied for very long, whereas religion has an extensive tradition of molding and adapting to changing secular cultural tendencies and values.
Meanwhile, in the just-plain-odd category, a Jewish court in Jerusalem, Israel recently sentenced a dog to death by stoning because the judges believed it was the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who had insulted the court several decades earlier. The court decided the sentence should be carried out by children. Clearly some people’s standards of child-rearing are a little different from the mainstream. Fortunately for the dog and the children’s psychological development, the dog managed to escape.
The underlying problem of religion is that it provides a framework for understanding based on unverifiable supernaturalism and speculative subjective experience. This is why, despite all scientific evidence to the contrary, Christians and Muslims continue to battle the theory of evolution. In the absence of any real rational system of knowledge, anything potentially goes. Yet at the same time, religion so often audaciously claims absolute and exclusive truth. Needless to say, the continued decline of religion in the modern world is a good thing, insofar as it brings us all closer to a more rational, more tolerant, more reasonable and more dynamic and enriching human existence.
Update: Evidently the dog stoning story from Jerusalem was completely inaccurate. Nevertheless, it was pretty believable.
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
5. Can nature generate complex organisms when previously there was none?
Yes. Through evolution. Yet again, he drags in an irrelevant topic (evolution versus creationism) into the discussion.
The speaker asks “where else does [the development of life] take place in our universe.” The answer is potentially in many places, since very little of the actual universe has been observed to this detail. But he misses the fact that in most of the universe, the conditions simply are not right for the development of life in the first place, much less complex life, much less intelligent life. So the “contingencies” (in his words) are not there.
He makes the fantastic declaration that the atheist believes that “nature is blind; everything else is designed intelligently.” Everything else? Nature is everything else! Almost everything in existence is nature, and only a few things (relatively speaking) are man-made. He finds it amazing that undirected, uncoordinated processes can occur in nature, but I find it amazing that he even says this. Is he not aware of a myriad number of such processes, the most important being the undirected, uncoordinated joining and organization of protons, neutrons, electrons and atoms? Clearly, undirected processes in nature are not only possible, they are the norm and they have been occurring continuously for eons.
Indeed, when it comes to the development of life from inanimate matter, given what we know about the natural, uncoordinated processes of the world, it is entirely expected–not surprising–that it should arise through an undirected process. It is, however, surprising and ludicrous and even disturbing from the perspective of a creationist, which is why they so often make this argument from outrage.
“So what you’re saying is, time and chance, plus something coming out of nothing, morality evolving–and then suddenly we’re here.”
No, no and no. Wrong on all 3 counts. As I mentioned previously, evolution is not about “time and chance.” No one believes that “something came from nothing” (except the theists, of course, who believe that God created the world ex nihilo, ”out of nothing”). And clearly humans did not “suddenly appear”–it took millions of years. The notion of things “suddenly appearing” is yet another common misconception and straw man used by creationists to make evolution seem ludicrous. All it really does is show their total ignorance of the theory and the argument.
Atheism, secularism and evolution remain safe after this speaker has finished.
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
This is a bit of an odd question, since the speaker has already addressed the issue of morality previously. He makes the mistake of saying that self-consciousness or self-awareness played a role in the evolution of morals. They did not. The process of natural selection and random change did. In other words, people thousands of years ago did not need to know what evolution was in order to evolve morals; they simply had to respond to the changes in their environment and species–including the consequences of their actions–and adjust their behavior, their culture, their priorities and values accordingly. That’s it.
His argument is as ridiculous as saying that a bird ancestor had to consciously think about what would be the best way to travel long distances in order to develop wings. Proto-birds did not need governmental councils and reams of scientific research in order to “figure out” that wings were beneficial. They just had to act and respond to changes in their environment and in their species. And the same goes for early humans.
He gives an example of cave men killing each other and feeling guilt. Why would he feel guilt, when killing the opposition is good for his survival? Yet again, he (like many creationists and intelligent designers) unknowingly gives away the game by demonstrating his lack of understanding of the theory of evolution and how it applies to morals.
Killing a foreigner was indeed good for the survival of the clan or tribe, and therefore for the individual, but killing a fellow member of the tribe was bad for the tribe and for that individual. That is why the earliest forms of codified morality (demonstrated wonderfully in the Old Testament, for example) praised the killing and conquest of foreigners, while nevertheless condemning the killing of fellow in-group members. “Love thy neighbor” really meant “love your fellow Jew, but be willing and eager to kill anyone who stands in the Jews’ way.”
