I Don't Understand What You Think God Is. And Neither do You

What is God?

This is definitely not God.

Ask google, and you'll be flooded with thousands of sites which exude confidence. But dig a little deeper and you'll see that they're peddling platitudes.

God is the creator of mankind and He loves you.
You were created by Him and He knows everything about you.

Note: Some of them seem to have identical content: http://myranchlandchurch.com/god-is-real and http://mastersmen.com/who-is-god-answers-about-life-and-god/ haha.
The site contains claims about the things we ought to credit god with, but not a single observable property of this god.

• “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’” (John 14:6).
• “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).
• “You have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:15-16).
• “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).
• “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).

These are presented by one of the more credible articles as "very logical answers to what is God, and what is He doing." Yet even the most cursory review and it's clear that they're empty dogmatic claims, not observable properties of a anything.

You don't know either

So here's the hard point. Not only are Christian apologetics and ministries unable to articulate any tangible properties of their god, but neither are you. Most Christians think of god as a personality they can interact with and a place-holder for the unanswerable questions of the universe.  But can you identify any tangible properties? Before you get angry, consider some practical questions:

• If a person introduced themselves as god, how would you know if they're lying or honest? 
• When a fortunate event occurs to you or a loved one, how can you tell if it's an action  of a god or just good fortune?
• Suppose find yourself in a place devoid of features. There's a person-like entity there which knows your name and speaks to you. The implication is that you've died and are in some sort of afterlife. The usual cues are missing.   No puffy clouds and halos, no firey pits and horns.  How do you determine if the entity is a god or a demon?
• That voice in your mind seems to always know what you need to hear. How can you tell if it's a god or just your own imagination?

In short, there's no good way to tell whether these characters are gods or someone else. I don't understand what you think god is, and neither do you.

Epilogue

In researching this post, I came across this post, which starts out surprisingly well. It's not the usual hateful misrepresentation of atheists. But it makes the usual mistakes regarding their own beliefs. Once they start describing the Bible, the claims quickly go from "the authors said" to "it's true."  Here's the paragraph where it happens:

There is a book that has existed longer than the philosophies of materialism and humanism. Those who wrote this book claimed that they were personally in contact with the one, true Creator God. They say, in fact, that this God actually inspired what they wrote, and they claimed to know Him personally. Furthermore, they wrote that God has a plan—a purpose—for each human life. They claimed that what they wrote in this book called the Bible is truth—from the God of truth. They staked their lives on it! 

Another way to understand God is to be willing to take a close look at what He reveals about Himself in the only book that can be seen as a legitimate source of information about Him. Most people own a Bible, but most people—even Christians—have never really honestly or thoroughly examined the Bible to see what it reveals about God. You will likely be very surprised to see what God says about Himself!

Oh well.  It's  a train-wreck from there.

Response to: "Existence of the God of the Bible"

Introduction

I hate to give away the punchline,
but it's something like this.

This is a response post to "Existence of the God of the Bible". I'll be discussing the original author's points one-by-one.  Usually, I'll quote the text of the original article first, then follow it up with commentary on the quality (or lack thereof) of the presented evidence.  Once in a while, I'll interject with [square brackets, bold, and italics].

Here it goes...

Existence of The God of the Bible

This is only an introduction to the main arguments for God’s existence.  Obviously, much more can and has been written.  First, the question of evidence for God’s existence is not a matter of some evidence being for God’s existence and some being against.  It is whether or not the existence of God explains all of the evidence better than the alternative (that, is, that there is no Being higher than us).

If that's the test for existence, you're already tilting the playing field  strongly in theist's favor.  You've eliminated a huge array of potential gods and lowered the burden of proof to just "better explanation than no god".  Imagine if we applied that same low threshold to a murder trial. "The defendant is guilty if it seems more likely that he did it than didn't do it."

Second, we say that one’s own understanding of the concept of God is one strong piece of evidence.  This is something which most people have no problem understanding even though most people also have a natural tendency to want to reject God (as I once did and all of us actually do by nature).  This tendency shows that belief in God is not a matter of wishful thinking.

I accept that the concept of "God" exists.  That doesn't mean that the actual thing envisioned in the concept exists.  I have a concept of Zeus and Poseidon and Ra and Harry Potter.  Yet no reasonable person would suggest that my "own understanding of the concept of Harry Potter is one strong piece of evidence" for Harry Potter existing, would you?! This tendency does not even remotely show that "belief in God is not a matter of wishful thinking." And I don't even follow the "logic" which would imply to the author that it does.

Third, there is the fact that you or anything else exists, since, as a contingent being, your existence must ultimately have come from some Necessary Being.  

Huh? Is this a feeble attempt at the first cause argument? There are a great many well known problems with it which are commonly taught in Freshman level philosophy.

Fourth, there is the amazing intricacy and capabilities of even simple forms of life.  For example, a common house-fly is a far more advanced flying machine than anything we have been able to design.  To say that the emergence of such life did not require design, but only mindless natural forces operating over a vast period of time violates the principle of Occam’s Razor, which says that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.  The naturalistic explanation can only be surmised, never observed.

False. Evolution is a well established, relatively simple scientific theory that has vast  explanatory powers for complex life. It describes how complex organisms form over time by a process of random mutations and natural selection. The fact that the author thinks evolution is too complicated does not invalidate an entire field of modern science. Evolution is so simple and effective that it is even used in engineering (genetic design algorithms).

But we constantly observe how the application of intelligence on matter produces complex items.  Indeed, in the absence of efforts guided by intelligent purpose, the natural tendency of matter is to go from order to disorder (as anyone who never cleans their house will easily recognize!).

This is tap-dancing near the second law of thermodynamics, which even Answers in Genesis lists in its "arguments to avoid" section.  Simply put, the tendency of matter towards disorder only applies to closed systems. Since the sun provides energy to the Earth, we are NOT in a closed system, and the second law of thermodynamics does not apply.

Fifth, the dominant belief today that the universe ultimately consists only of mindless matter/energy in time cannot explain the existence of us as people and any of our knowledge, experience or values (including all ethics). 

Why not?  It's clear that consciousness is a gradient -- from the simple consciousness of a fruit fly to mice, dolphins, gorillas, and humans.  Knowledge resides in our brains, as every neuroscientist will tell you.  Our brains are made of "mindless matter/energy".  Your computer has "mindless energy" too yet it can appear to think.

Sixth, ethics can only be arbitrary unless there is a Higher Standard.  The only reason good and evil are not arbitrary is because goodness is God’s Nature as The Perfect Being.  Anything which contradicts or opposes this is evil.  (I would add that the only reason God can truly be self-sufficient as a Person is because He is relational within His ow/n Being as multi-Personal.  This shows the superiority of Christian Monotheism.)

This is such a mess.

• First, it's not an argument for the existence of a god, but simply an insult to your opponent:  those of us who don't believe a god exists.  It's the age old "where do you get your morals if not from god?" taunt. 
• Second, it shows a juvenile view of right and wrong. "Anything against my god is evil". And I suppose you're going to tell us what you think your god wants. And Islam will tell us what their god wants. And they're not the same. And that's where holy wars come from.

To assert that an ultimate "Higher Standard" determines right from wrong sets aside nuances of specific situations and the limitations of an individual's knowledge / information which all bear on the "arbitrary" judgement of right from wrong.  And of course, each individual's values determine how that person will select the best among multiple good things or the least bad among multiple bad things

Even if one were to claim that all of our experience as human beings is only an illusion, this still wouldn’t eliminate the fact that we still exist as real subjects of the illusion!  And, taken to its logical conclusion, the anti-Theistic alternative absurdly posits an empty universe of objects with no knowing subjects.  In other words, your existence as a human person disproves the Materialism/Empiricism of Atheism.  For example, unless we existed as more than physical chemistry, a person looking at their own brain chemistry could only be described as chemistry somehow viewing itself!  This is the “reductio ad absurdum” of Materialism (also known as Naturalism, which is supported by the equally-flawed epistemology of Empiricism).

This seems to be a straw-man (solipsism isn't atheism) followed by who knows what "empty universe of objects with no knowing subjects" is supposed to mean.  So no, my existence as a human person does NOT disprove Materialism, Empiricism, or Atheism.   Note also that materialism and empiricism are not atheism. Each one is a  unique concept. As an electrical engineer, I see no problem or issue whatsoever with your "chemistry viewing itself" attempt at "reducto ad absurdum". It works just fine and in no way challenges materialism, naturalism, or empiricism.

Downhill Slope

As you'll see, the last couple paragraphs of the blog entry are basically insults to non-believers and preaching. It's crash and burn for this guy.

All of these things point to the necessary existence of The Creator God described in the Bible.  They are not necessary proofs in the respect that God’s existence needs to be established by proof.  God is not a theorem.  He is The Ultimate Fact.  [snort]  In fact, even logic itself is not explainable without the existence of The One True God (as the way His Mind works and the way ours is supposed to work because we have been made in His likeness).  So, God must exist or else we couldn’t prove anything.

You've posited without evidence that your god is responsible for these things, then turned around and made the absurd assertion that their existence is evidence of your god.  This is the logical equivalent of: "Mermaids make seashells so seashells prove the existence of mermaids."
I'll just ignore the baseless claim that "God is not a theorem. He is The Ultimate Fact". I'm sure you believe that's true, but your belief doesn't make it true.
Finally, you've wound yourself around the axle of logic with a Sye Ten Bruggencate style "you're not allowed to have logic unless you accept my god" argument. Next, you'll be saying "I don't do Bible study with atheists."   It's patently absurd to everyone but believers who blindly accept your initial premise: that god is responsible for logic. You've not established that to be true, merely claimed it without the slightest shred of justification.

Thus, all of these “proofs” are not really proofs, [FINALLY, something I can agree with.  Oops. I should finish the sentence … ] but “evidence after The Fact” of something which is above all proof: God’s inescapable existence.  [awwwwwww. It started out so good] But most people “can’t handle the truth!” that God exists because they want to be the god of their own lives [Insult your opponent time?].  The Bible calls this our “sinful nature”, by which we are naturally-inclined to reject God. [Who cares what the Bible says, you haven't proven god exists yet!!]  This is despite the most direct piece of evidence of all: the fact that all of us inevitably and inescapably know The One True God in our hearts, but suppress this knowledge. [LMAO]

Calling this last bit a "fact" doesn't make it an actual fact. Rather, it's just a claim from your particular holy book and doctrine.  As an atheist, I can say with confidence that it's wrong, and so is Paul when he says anyone who leaves Christianity wasn't a Christian to begin with.
Nevertheless, the author has gone off the rails from what started as a rational explanation for god's existence. He is now just spewing his personal dogma. Well, let's see what's next.

Many reading this will undoubtedly deny that you already know God exists, just as you will likely resist where all of the above evidence points. But that is simply you acting according to the basic characteristic of mankind, as the Bible alone explains it: because you were born as a member of a rebellious race of sinners.  Only God can change this, but all of us are culpable for not seeking Him and asking Him to open our hearts, eyes and minds so that we can get to know Him and so that we can be saved and transformed.  The Gospel found in the Bible explains this and has led millions to The Greatest Blessing possible: the peace and joy of knowing that I have been forgiven of my sins and that my Creator loves me with perfect love.

That's silly. The author's argument is bad  because the author's argument is bad. Trying to lay the blame for your bad argument at your reader's feet is just further embarrassing yourself. Your Bible was written millennia ago by anonymous authors you believe to be "divinely inspired" for no other reason than the church told you that's what it is. I reject that claim until adequate evidence is provided too.
Blah blah blah preaching.

I hope and pray that you will truly consider all of this and find the same Blessing which I found 32 years ago.

You've wasted 32 years of your life praying to a god which doesn't exist. I hope you can escape this fallacious thinking some day, but I don't hold out much hope.  You seem to be in pretty deep. 

Speaking for God

I've spent over year now debating theology with Christians and Muslims. One thing that's constant is that they'll make a claim about God without an ability to back it up. Then they get upset when I tell them the claim is baseless. Yet they cannot point to an objective fact or means to validate their claims.

In a nutshell, this is one of the foundational problems with religion: In religion, the church is created to represent an absentee God for the believer. Since nobody can communicate with God, your church, synagogue, or mosque tells you what he is like and what he wants from you.

At this point, some religious believers might be thinking "that's not true! The [Name of holy book] is the word of God!" But of course, that holy book simply supports or is supported by the aforementioned religious organization. Regardless of the religion, there are many different interpretations of the holy book which quibble over details ranging from acceptance of gays to the divinity of Jesus or Mohammed. Of course none of the beliefs are based in objective evidence, so it's impossible to resolve these disagreements. The disagreeing groups simply aren't equipped with (or aren't willing to use) the critical thinking skills necessary to resolve their disagreement. They seem unable to even see the foundational epistemological failures that explain why their groups cannot agree.

The process by which churches make these claims about the nature and desires of God is gradual and subtle. It's done through sermons, songs, and discussions with other church members who also accept the dogma. Through this process, religion is helping to define the believer's expectations for what God is like. When the believer then communicate with God through "prayer," their mind forms plausible responses from this shared vision of God. Humans are VERY good at imagining conversations. The imagined interlocutor is convincing enough that people believe their imagined God might be real.  Of course they're prepared for this delusion by being taught they need to "listen carefully" and "God will speak to them." This handy guide provides a nice template for how the delusion is cultivated.

First, Christians should build relationships with other Christians

The belief spreads best if you're surrounded by people who support your belief.  Since there's no objective evidence, developing a social group is the best way to convince yourself.

A Christ follower should spend daily time reading the Bible, mulling over the messa and praying for ways to make scripture’s lessons into a lifestyle. 

Repetition and meditation helps solidify a common belief

By adding prayer for others and himself to this daily quiet time, the Christian will find it easier to turn away from their own self-focused desires, and advance God’s priorities to first place. 

Believing they're helping other people helps believers feel like this repetitive action isn't as selfish as it really is,

 Christians should actively seek opportunities to tell others about what they are learning from and about God.

The best way to follow through with a commitment is to publicly affirm it.  This makes the believer be more committed to the beliefs. Turning away from the commitment after publicly affirming it is socially awkward.  To avoid this embarrassment, a believer will tend to shun any self-doubt. or at the very least conceal this doubt from fellow believers. The end-result is a community which can more strongly reinforce the religious dogma of the sect.

It is through this mechanism that these God beliefs flourish. Each believer thinks theirs seems rational because they're surrounded by people with nearly identical beliefs. The belief which cannot be supported by any rational or objective means is supported by the echo chamber of the social group instead. When confronted with a differing belief or a different religion, there's no way to resolve the different subject of gods each group has independently created.  

So what happens? Christian theologians review Muslim work and find all the logical and factual flaws in their religion and say, "Ha ha Islam is false!" But of course, Muslim scholars do the same for Christianity. The leaders of each religion are capable of critical thought and logical evaluation of other beliefs. But for their own favorite belief, they're unable or unwilling to apply the same standards. This is the part that I don't understand.  

How can intelligent people be oblivious to their own double-standard? I suppose it takes effort to evaluate one's own deeply held beliefs, but that's an essential part of being an honest person.

Thoughts on College Park Church Sermon

Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch

A twitter user I was talking with asked for my thoughts on a Sermon in the College Park Church discussing Romans 9:30-10:13, "Whosoever Calls on the Name of the Lord Will be Saved". Since the response would clearly take more than a single tweet, I decided to capture my thoughts here. The preacher's name is Mark Vroegop.
The Bible verses are reproduced here for your convenience,

30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 

10 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

My first thoughts are why would "Faith" be important in the view of a just God? Under what sort of "universal ethical system" is such a thing fair or ethical?

There's a prayer at the beginning of the sermon for people to be converted. What a strange thing to ask for. If God simply appeared and communicated his demands, we'd all immediately believe. There'd no longer be any question. If God actually wanted people to believe, he could simply show up! Bam! Done! No more mystery.

Next, the pastor asks people which Bible verse they would give to quickly invite a dying person to become a Christian. What a horrific way to treat a dying person. Shove your ridiculous beliefs on them in a moment of pain or suffering? Like they would want to spend their last moments alive listening to your inane legends and threats of eternal torture?! Don't be an asshole. Keep it to yourself.

Then he says that somehow Christianity is different from all other religions. How absurd. It's called a faith for a reason. There's no evidence. If there were evidence, we'd call it history or science. I'm going to start posting time tags so those of you who are gluttons for punishment can follow along at home.

Time: 9:30-ish
Next, he goes on to explain how the Jewish prophesies haven't failed, and how any injustice we perceive in god is actually fair because god isn't under any obligation to give a shit about any of us. Finally, fairness needs to be redefined such that anything God does is fair, regardless what any normal rational observer may conclude.

Time: 11:00
All that matters is believing and confessing. Under this ethical system, Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler could be in heaven.

Time: 11:45

Christians declare the Jews are wrong and the Christians are right.  What a stunning display of the beauty of God's mercy the arrogance of Christian beliefs

I fixed that quote for them. I like it better my way.

Time: 13:00
The preacher addresses two groups:  Christians, and "those of you who have yet to receive Christ".  Just so you know, I received Christ and then realized that it was unfounded, unproven, untestable, and absurd. I left. Christianity is a false religion. Just like all the others at godchecker.com

How wonderful it is that God RESCUED the Jews from Slavery!!!! (Which he allowed them to fall into)

Time: 14:00
Righteousness of the Gentiles is part of the liberal policies taught in the NT.  It was a message that the Jews weren't special "chosen people."  Ironically, Christians now act like God's "Chosen People". Of course, Jews don't believe this.  They say Jesus as a false prophet.  And they should know. It was their book that made the prophesies.

"Righteousness by Faith" somehow doesn't apply to Jews and Muslims? They have equal faith. In fact, the Muslims who flew planes into the towers on 9/11 had a hell of a lot more FAITH than most Christians.

Time: 16:00
All that matters is faith. Works don't matter. Do whatever you want, only your beliefs matter? This is the structure of a horribly broken ethical system.

Time: 17:30
The Jews trust in YHWH more than Christians, who added an extra two "bonus gods"

Time: 18:00
It's rather self-righteous of this Baptist Christian preacher to assert that the Jews are such horrible people and who couldn't be righteous because they didn't have his particular belief system?! This self-righteous denigration of Jews in the NT is not surprising.  Christianity is a separatist Jewish cult. And there's no evidence to show that the Christians are right and the Jews were wrong.

Time: 20:45

Christian culture doesn't produce righteousness. Jesus does.

What an arrogant and baseless claim. Why should anyone believe that? It makes no ethical sense. Remember that Jesus never actually shows up to anyone in real life. Only in imaginations, which are seeded by the picture of Jesus painted by … the church. The church is the proxy for the "real Jesus" who never actually shows up. They might as well say that only the church produces righteousness.

Time: 25:00

You can be zealous and be wrong, right?

You sure can! You're pretty zealous about Christianity. And you're wrong. Or at the very least, you have no objective evidence to demonstrate that you're right. You're in the same boat as  all Faiths. Faith is what people use when there's no evidence to be had.  It's a euphemism for self-imposed gullibility.

Time: 28:00
I'm starting to find this preacher's Christian zeal more and more ironic.
Time:  28:50.

"Zeal does not make you right! In fact, it can only serve to make you even more self-deceived" 

OMG, the irony is off the charts!  YES, YES, YES! You don't know Jesus or God is real, and your 50 years of zeal makes you blind and unable to even consider the possibility that you're wrong about that.

Time: ~30:00

"Being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God."

How did you establish this claim to be true? First, how do you know god is real. Second, what makes you think righteousness comes from him?
Until you can show those two things to be true, I have no reason to believe this claim any more than the Muslim claims that righteousness comes from praying 5× per day.

Time: 31:40
Yup. Hypocrisy is a common human trait.

Time: 32:10 

"The heart of all this is that we are rebelliouslly resistant"

Though this is pitched as a message about resistance to God, in reality it's a message about rebellion against church doctrine. It's another threat to follow the church or god will torture you. Why should anyone trust the humans who run the church to give them honest guidance.

Time: 33:30 OMG. Seriously?! "I haven't killed anyone" isn't my answer, asshole.

Preacher: "The irreligious person feels like he can justify himself by all the bad things he hasn't done, while the religious person feels like he or she can justify himself by the good things he has done"

This quote really pisses me off. How dare he tell fabricated lies about my personal beliefs and the origin of my personal self-worth! How dare he paint Christians as better than atheists -- as if they're more inclined to do good deeds. What an ignorant, bigoted, self-righteous, zealous, hypocritical liar.

Time 34:30: 
Christ is all there is. Look how this guy passionately makes the congregation focus all their hopes on one single idol the church props up. None of them have EVER met Christ.

At best, they've imagined conversations with him.  They tell each other that Christ talks to them, and nobody ever wants to admit that they suspect it's just their imagination.

Time: 37:00 

Rigteousness does not come to those who work for their righteousness. … How do you receive righteousness? You don't work! It comes by faith"

So in this world view, you're a good person if you just have faith in Jesus. You can be a complete asshole (like this arrogant bigoted preacher).  Just put all your unfounded trust in this unproven claim the CHURCH is telling you to believe.

Preacher: "To believe means you put your trust in what God says about Christ, about your sin, and about atonement." 

The problem here is that God hasn't ever said jack shit. The preacher REALLY wants you to put your trust in what the CHURCH says. What this PREACHER says, what the BIBLE says. None of those things are God.

Preacher: "I'm fundamentally broken I'm a sinner at my core, I'm totally and utterly broken, … and that's how wholeness actually happens [applause]"

What a horrific and depressing worldview to push on people. Self-hate is love, punishment is justice, death is life. These are the fundamental teachings of the Christian church. Self-loathing and hatred, giving up control of everything in our life to the church (which conveniently represents the completely and utterly absent character of Jesus)

Time 46:20 

Preacher: "No matter what you did an hour ago, the salvation through Jesus""You only need to believe to receive and you'll be saved"

Under this horrific and immoral framework, the Bind Torture Kill (BTK) serial killer will go to heaven, and Mahatma Gandhi will be tortured in hell. And we're to believe the god who created this framework is a moral and ethical being? How patently absurd.

Based on this principle, when are we judged? Bible never says, does it? Just convention that we'd better do it by the time we die. If this is all real, I'll start believing it as soon as I see it.  If that doesn't happen until until after I'm dead, why wouldn't that be good enough for God? What's with the artificial urgency of deciding before we die?  God is clearly unwilling to provide us with the senses or scientific instrumentation necessary to detect his presence, let alone validate the truth of the absurd claims in the New Testament.

Time: 48:20 

All the horrible things that happen are just to make us trust god? What absurd rationalization. Nothing could happen that would help these people ever see their own delusions.

I want you to understand that God’s grace is extended to people regardless of what they've done or how bad they have been. … The solution, according to Romans 10, is simply that if you believe in Jesus, you will be saved. If you believe that he is the Son of God who died for you sins, and if you will look to him as the basis of your hope and your forgiveness, you can be saved, cleansed, and rescued. It doesn't matter if you blew it an hour ago, and now you are sitting in church. It doesn't matter that this is the only time that you've been in church for years. What matters is that you believe in Jesus. And if you believe today, you will be saved.

This isn't morality. It's manipulation by the church to get people to fall in line. Because if you believe in Jesus, you'll come to church and give and participate.

Here comes the grand finale:

So what is stopping you?

The complete lack of any verifiable evidence.

Why not come to faith in Jesus right now?

Faith is lying to yourself. Believing things that aren't evidenced in the real world. Through faith, we have Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Native American Tribal traditions, Mormonism, and a whole host of others. And that doesn't even count all the religions that have failed and are no longer practiced. We call these failed religions "myths". Some of us dare to call current religions "myths" too.

Why not confess that he is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead? Why not come to Jesus right now?

Show me where Jesus is. Tell me how to talk to him. I'd like to verify your story, but I've never met the guy. Don't tell me I just think the things in my head after I believe 'cause that's how all the other religions work, and we all know they're just talking to themselves in their heads. Odds are pretty good that yours is the same.

Everyone that calls the name of the lord will be saved.

Nope. That's wishful thinking. There's no reason to believe your holy book over all the other ones.

The conclusion is very emotional and manipulative. It's about convincing the people that only the church can save them from all the horrible broken things that are inherent to their nature.

No Traumatic Experience Necessary For me to Leave Christianity

Hubble Pic from NASA Goddard.

I'm sure as a believer it might be easy to think that all the ex-Christians left because of some sort of abuse or trauma or other bad experience in the church.  For me, this couldn't be farther from the truth.  I had wonderful, meaningful, loving, beautiful experiences in the Presbyterian church. The minister was a close family friend. She was kind and loving and nurturing. Same with the youth group leader.

The only bad experience I had was gradually realizing that all my religious experience was just as easily explained as my imagination. Discovering that my beliefs reinforced themselves by making me feel the good feelings during prayer, worship, etc. When I found out that I could feel the same emotions as prayer when I imagined an intimate conversation with a close loved one.

Because once I realized that these experiences of bliss and joy and closeness to God could also be experienced in my imagination, it became painfully clear all my religious experiences were exactly that. The explanation was so much simpler. All the evil in the world now made sense. The absurdities of the OT, which so plainly conflict with observed reality melted away.

The world is simply as we see it. Rigid, unbreaking laws of physics resulting in beautifully complex structures and behaviors. No need for external interference, so why carry it along? I could write:

$$ F + G = ma + G $$

But the G is pointless. It has no bearing on the results of the equation, so we might as well drop it. It adds complexity to the model with no additional explanatory power.

$ F = ma $ for me.

…  Ok, $ F = \frac{dp}{dt} $ because that works better near the speed of light.