Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

Category: confirmation bias (page 2 of 3)

BoM Lesson 1 (Keystone)

3 January 2016 / / 1 Comment

“The Keystone of Our Religion”

Scripture: None

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To question the credibility of the Book of Mormon

Reading

This year we embark on a study of the Book of Mormon, which is a collection of fabrications, plagiarisms, and exhortations that Latter-day Saints think is a volume of scripture.

When I was in the process of deconversion, my Stake President asked to meet. We spent an hour or so in his office, during which I explained that I no longer believed in the truth claims of the church, as they lacked any evidentiary basis. Toward the end of our visit, he pulled out his trump card: “How do you explain the Book of Mormon?”

Now that’s a strange question, isn’t it? But the strangeness isn’t obvious to someone who thinks (as nearly all Mormons seem to) that the Book of Mormon is totes amazing. Dictated in a very short period of time (not necessarily true) by an illiterate farm boy (Smith wasn’t) from gold plates (that no one ever saw).

So how did I explain the Book of Mormon? I told my Stake President, “I think somebody sat down and wrote it.”

It really is as simple as that. People do write amazing books, you know. And they can do it pretty fast, too. Every November during NaNoWriMo, people write 50,000-word novels in a month. The Book of Mormon checks in at 268,033 words, but we could get up to that pretty quickly if we add “it came to pass” 1,353 times (yes, seriously), plagiarise the Bible for a few chapters, and take inspiration from books that are floating around.

I’d suggest a better question: what is it about the Book of Mormon that needs explaining? To me, the book seems not only unremarkable, but also quite wrong in every particular. It’s one of many treatments of the idea that the Native Americans were of Hebraic origin — an idea that was popular in Joseph Smith’s day, but which hasn’t panned out. It contains lists of things that do not appear in the New World (sheep, horses, barley), and omits things that do (avacados, tapirs). On page after page, the Book of Mormon shows the evidence of its all-too-human origins.

Mormons are repeatedly told that the Book of Mormon is “the most correct book” on the earth, when in fact, it is not even a correct book.

Side note: The Book of Mormon is the inspiration for these nerfballs.

geez_seriously

Jeez, how sad is that. People need to know about the Book of Mormon if only so they know that it turns you into this.

Man.

Main ideas for this lesson

The entire church fails if the Book of Mormon is not true

Read this quote from the LDS manual.

Why do you think Joseph Smith called the Book of Mormon the keystone of our religion?
President Ezra Taft Benson explained, “Just as the arch crumbles if the keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1986, 5; or Ensign, Nov. 1986, 6).

This is actually good to see. It annoys me when people are namby-pamby about religious claims. When you say that a thing is true, and then it turns out not to be, too often people say that it’s “intended metaphorically”. So it’s good to see that the church is walling off that kind of dodge. Either it’s true or it’s not. And if the Book of Mormon is not true, the church isn’t.

Except hold on. A shift happened in the last decade. The church is backing away from the view that the Book of Mormon is a historical document, instead describing it a spiritual document.

James Faust: It is important to know what the Book of Mormon is not. It is not primarily a history, although much of what it contains is historical.
…
The test for understanding this sacred book is preeminently spiritual. An obsession with secular knowledge rather than spiritual understanding will make its pages difficult to unlock.

Ask: Why would Latter-day Saints describe the Book of Mormon as a primarily spiritual document, rather than a primarily historical one?

Mormons in times past had no problem describing the Book of Mormon as historically true. But this view is now less and less defensible, as details from the Book of Mormons are either failing to be confirmed — or are disconfirmed — by findings in archaeology, genetics, linguistics, and so on. In response, the church is kicking the Book of Mormon one rung up the ladder of abstraction so it can’t be disconfirmed on a literal level. This is a very common tactic for religious apologists.

The Book of Mormon is not reflective of LDS doctrine

From the LDS manual:

Write on the chalkboard Doctrine.
• In what ways is the Book of Mormon the “keystone of our doctrine”? (See D&C 10:45–46; 20:8–12.)

This is a tricky one. The Book of Mormon contains no mention of many LDS doctrines, including three degrees of glory, temple worship, and the corporeal nature of the Godhead.

The Book of Mormon is really Mormonism v1.

In light of this, many Latter-day Saints view the Book of Mormon, not as a source of doctrine, but as a kind of talisman that proved that Joseph Smith had God’s phone number.

This view is a little silly. God writes a book to restore his church. Here’s his chance to reveal his knowledge to humans for the first time in millennia, and he only includes doctrines that pertain to an early phase of Mormonism that (coincidentally) mirrors the exact time of the book’s publication?

Ask: Why would God hold back on his doctrines?
Possible answer: The world wouldn’t have been ready to accept his deeper doctrines at first.

Ask: Would an all-powerful God have been able to think of a way to express his deeper doctrines in a way that people would have accepted?

  • If so, why didn’t he?
  • If not, he’s not all-powerful.

The Witnesses were not witnesses

The Book of Mormon, the story goes, was written on gold plates — improbably light ones, it would seem — and these plates were allegedly seen by three — and later eight — witnesses. Mormons are fond of saying that none of the witnesses ever denied their testimony.

Have the assigned class members present their summaries of the Testimony of the Three Witnesses and the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses.
• Why was it important to have witnesses of the gold plates? (See Ether 5:2–4.) How do you think having additional witnesses helped the Prophet Joseph Smith?

Ask: Does it matter if eleven witnesses claim to have seen some gold plates, if they’re not publicly available?

Imagine that I’m presenting a paper at a conference. During question time, a member of the audience asks if they can see my data. In response, I say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t show you that. Instead, I’ve shown it to eleven other people, and they promise it’s true.”

While it’s not unheard of to restrict access to data, there has to be a good reason (for example, if it will reveal the identity of an subject). Absent that, refusal to show data is a bit of a red flag. That’s how you catch fabrication.

Evidence must be publicly available to be credible.

Let’s look at some of the problems with the witnesses.

• There’s reason to believe that the witnesses never saw the plates.

The evidence is extremely contradictory in this area, but there is a possibility that the three witnesses saw the plates in vision only, for Stephen Burnett in a letter written in 1838, a few weeks after the event, described Martin Harris’ testimony to this effect: ‘When I came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver nor David . . . the last pedestal gave way, in my view our foundations.'”

From mormonthink.com

Several LDS sources give the eleven men who bore their testimony to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon the special title of eyewitness; however, it appears doubtful that any of them actually saw the plates apart from a supernatural and subjective experience. While they all claimed to have handled what they were told were ancient plates, they did so while the plates were covered up and not visible.

See also: curious_mormon’s excellent post.

• The witnesses joined other religions, and testified of them just as much.

Phineas Young wrote to his older brother Brigham Young on December 31, 1841, from Kirtland, Ohio: “There are in this place all kinds of teaching; Martin Harris is a firm believer in Shakerism, says his testimony is greater than it was for the Book of Mormon” (Martin Harris – Witness and Benefactor of the Book of Mormon, 1955, p. 52)
During the summer of 1837, while in Kirtland, David Whitmer pledged his new loyalty to a prophetess (as did Martin and Oliver) who used a black seer stone and danced herself into ‘trances.'(Biographical Sketches, Lucy Smith, pp. 211-213)

• Some of the witnesses (Martin Harris in particular) had a lot invested in the scheme, and had much to gain if it succeeded.

• It’s difficult to retract a really big lie.

If you were in on a big religious fraud, would be able to take it back? How would that affect others’ confidence in you? Wouldn’t it be easier to just let it ride?

Additional lesson ideas

Bogus prophecy

Another snippet from the manual:

3. The Book of Mormon was written for our day.
Point out that although the Book of Mormon is an ancient document, it was written and preserved for our day (2 Nephi 25:21–22; 27:22; Mormon 8:34–35; Moroni 1:4).

More like in our day, amirite?

Gospel Doctrine teachers are given this teaching suggestion:

• Read with class members Mormon 8:26–41. Explain that these verses contain a prophecy about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. What conditions did Moroni foresee would exist in the world when the Book of Mormon was again brought forth? (Write class members’ responses on the chalkboard. Answers may include those in the list below.) How are these conditions evident in the world today?

a. “The power of God shall be denied” (verse 28).
b. “There shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth” (verse 31).
c. People will “lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts” (verse 36).
d. People will “love money . . . more than [they] love the poor and the needy”
(verse 37).
e. People will be “ashamed to take upon [themselves] the name of Christ”
(verse 38).

In other words, the Book of Mormon says that, in the days of its publication, people will be awful… and it was right! Prophecy fulfilled.
x0lkr
Ask: What problems are there with using these Book of Mormon verses as a prediction?

Answers:

  • This applies to all times and all places. There’s literally no time in history when some people weren’t awful.
  • The opposite of the prophecy is also true, which means that it’s meaningless. The writer could have said that the book would come forward at a time when people were nice, and that would be true, too.

But as a missionary, oh, did I ever lean hard on verse 31 and the “pollutions”. It worked on one of my investigators. (Sorry, Mark, if you’re out there.)

Next week, we’ll get into the actual reading. Great to be back, and see you next week.

NT Lesson 24 (The Holy Ghost)

27 June 2015 / / 1 Comment

“This Is Life Eternal”

John 16–17

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To help readers avoid emotional reasoning.

Reading

In the reading for this lesson, Jesus talks about the Holy Ghost. Since speaking against the Holy Ghost is inexplicably the worst, most unpardonable sin you can commit, I’ll be doing lots of it in this lesson.

Main ideas for this lesson

Holy the Ghost

Some people say that religion fills a need, and I suppose that’s true in a rather sad way: it tries to give people things that life doesn’t. One Christian evangelist revealed one of his angles to me: when he meets people without a strong father figure in their life, he pushes the angle of “God is your father”. Voilá; insta-dad.

Ask: Is that comforting, or just manipulative and awful?

In the same way, people who don’t have a lot of friends might be drawn to the idea of having a “constant companion”, which is how Mormons often describe the Holy Ghost.

Here’s a swag of times where the phrase constant companion has turned up in General Conference. The phrase has been coming up more and more lately. (Try your own searches here.)

And in John, Jesus calls the Holy Ghost “the comforter”. But he mentions another function:

John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

The Holy Ghost will teach you all things? Like as in: all things?

John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Note that there are no caveats as to the kind of truth one can learn from the Holy Ghost. It’s not just spiritual things you can learn by the Spirit; it’s all truth and all things.

We can submit this claim to some skeptical analysis.

Object lesson for class
Here’s a test you can use for comparing the efficacy of the Spirit as a revealer of truth: Have two class members work out the digits of π to some level of precision. One class member gets to use science and technology — math books, web sites, and an ordinary computer — and the other has to use the Spirit. How accurate was each method? I predict the second class member will be right no more than random chance. And it’s no use trying to fudge it and say that the digits of π “aren’t important to your salvation”. Jesus makes no such qualifications in the scripture.

(If this test is not suitable for your class, feel free to substitute any other sort of fact that can be easily verified, and for which answers can be unambiguously right or wrong. Another suggestion is blood type. How accurately can a very spiritual person tell the blood type of various individuals, using revelation? Be sure to have several testing kits on hand.)

There really are no “other ways of knowing”. Science is the only way of knowing. Observing carefully, making predictions, testing them, observing some more — this is the only way we have of knowing something, and even then it’s darn hard. Everything we think is at least a little bit wrong. How could anyone think that communicating with a spirit can do better than science? If it’s hard to get it right with all that careful work, what chance does anyone have mumbling to a ghost?

If you think you know “another way of knowing”, please tell me, because science is hard.

Not only is the Holy Ghost not great at the “revealing truth” part of his job, he’s also terrible at offering companionship. Ask someone their definition of a true friend, and you’re likely to hear that it’s someone who sticks with you through thick and thin, through good times and bad.

Well, the Holy Ghost isn’t that kind of companion. Apparently the Holy Ghost takes off the second you have a lapse in behaviour, or even temperament.

This is not really a dependable companion. Which is why I say: Piss off, little ghost. I have human friends that are more dependable, and a whole lot better at teaching me things.

How to feel the Holy Ghost

Here’s what the LDS manual says about how to feel the Holy Ghost:

To help class members feel and recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost, speak with a few of them in advance, inviting each of them to choose one of the following presentations to do as part of the lesson:

a. Read a favorite scripture passage.
b. Bear testimony.
c. Sing a hymn or Primary song about the Savior.
d. Express love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
e. Share a spiritual experience (as appropriate).

In class, invite class members to describe how they felt during the presentations. Read the statement by President Boyd K. Packer on pages 99–100, and help class members recognize feelings that come from the Holy Ghost. Talk about how you feel when you receive guidance from the Holy Ghost.

What a show: the Gospel Doctrine teacher is supposed to get people to do soppy vulnerable things in front of everyone, and then hope that a collective soppy vulnerable mood ensues. What’s amazing is that it works so often.

After all the things I’ve done in church and all the experiences I’ve had, people still invite me to church hoping that I’ll have some kind of creepy, weepy “spiritual experience”. If I did feel something, that wouldn’t prove the veracity of the church. It would prove that I was capable of emotional reasoning. It would also show that my body can produce oxytocin and other chemicals, which is nice, but hardly evidence for supernatural claims.

Again, from the LDS manual.

President Boyd K. Packer taught: “The Holy Ghost speaks with a voice that you feel more than you hear. It is described as a ‘still small voice.’ And while we speak of ‘listening’ to the whisperings of the Spirit, most often one describes a spiritual prompting by saying, ‘I had a feeling . . .’ . . . Revelation comes as words we feel more than hear” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1994, 77; or Ensign, Nov. 1994, 60).

Emotional reasoning is a bad way of reasoning, but in the LDS Church, ideas verified only by emotion are considered to be the highest form of evidence that there is.

Show the class this video featuring LDS apostle Jeffrey Holland.

“Noting that the sun was going down, we decided that we’d better get back. But we came back to a particular fork in the road, really the only one that at that point was absolutely unrecognizable. I asked my son to pray about which road to take, and he felt strongly that we should go to the right, and I did as well. And we went to the right, and it was a dead end. We went four or five or six hundred yards and it was an absolute dead end, clearly the wrong road.

“Turned around, came back out, took the other road. And clearly the road to the left was the correct road.

“Somewhere along the way, Matt said, ‘Dad, why did we feel, after praying about it, that the right road was the proper one to take, the correct one to take, and it wasn’t?’”

Ask: When the Holy Ghost failed to lead him and his son in the right direction, despite them being sure that they had a confirmation, what should Holland have done if he’d had any intellectual honesty?
Answer: He should have admitted that this method failed in this instance.

Holland continues:

And I said, ‘I think that the Lord, His wish for us there and His answer to our prayer was to get us on the right road as quickly as possible with some reassurance, with some understanding that we were on the right road and we didn’t have to worry about it. And in this case, the easiest way to do that was to let us go 400 yards or 500 yards on the wrong road and very quickly know without a doubt that it was the wrong road and, therefore, with equal certainty, with equal conviction that the other one was the right road.’

Ask: What did Holland do instead to rationalise this failure?
Answer: Claim that the failure was a success! The Lord led them the wrong way to a dead end, so they could be more certain that the right way was indeed right.

This story with its explanation is, quite frankly, astounding. Before Holland gave this talk, if you had a spiritual revelation, you could be pretty sure that what you were told to do was the right thing. Now, post-Holland, you have no idea. Now, a spiritual prompting could be taking you the wrong way, and you won’t know it until you hit a dead end. Is a spiritual prompting to, say, join the Mormon Church leading you to a dead end, and the Lord is helping you be more certain of the right way when you eventually leave?

If you get a hit, your faith is confirmed. if you get a miss, your faith is confirmed more. This is the definition of blind faith. Someone on r/exmormon (can’t find at the moment) said it well: An eye that responds the same to light and darkness is a blind eye. A faith that responds the same way to both confirmation and disconfirmation is blind faith. It is a terrible method. It is just asking to be fooled. We need to make life decisions using good methods and good information.

In the world but not of the world

It’s very common to hear this little aphorism in church, and it’s based more or less on this scripture.

John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

From the LDS manual:

How can we, like Jesus and his Apostles, live in the world and be “not of the world”? (John 17:14; see also verses 15–16).
Elder M. Russell Ballard said:

“In the Church, we often state the couplet, ‘Be in the world but not of the world.’ As we observe television shows that make profanity, violence, and infidelity commonplace and even glamorous, we often wish we could lock out the world in some way and isolate our families from it all. . . .”

With so much violence in the world, isn’t it kind of sweet and touching that he’s concerned about fictional representations of violence? Anyway.

Ask: What function could this idea serve?

This idea works to create a “scary external world” narrative that will ensure that members get their information, their values, and their positive feels only from church. Not only does this foster a “bunker mentality” that keeps members worried about “the world” and therefore likely to remain in the church orbit, it makes it very difficult for Latter-day Saints to appreciate or even recognise the morality of people in the broader community. And this is important for keeping the brand afloat. If people in “the world” are not uniformly lost and wounded, but have morals similar to — and in some cases, superior to — the rather narrow tribalistic morality taught in the LDS Church, this challenges the idea that Mormon morality is superior and divine.

Additional lesson ideas

I’m Jesus: AMFA

Again, Jesus says that whatever you ask for he’ll give you.

John 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

It has occurred to me that perhaps this referred to the disciples only. In that case, it seems kind of strange that they didn’t ask Jesus for some very sensible things, like not being crucified upside-down or not being shot through with arrows. But then the disciples were not the sharpest people ever.

NT Lesson 21 (Second Coming)

7 June 2015 / / 1 Comment

“What Is the Sign of Thy Coming?”

Joseph Smith—Matthew [Matthew 24]

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To explain why Jesus’ return is a failed prophecy, and to show the foolishness of waiting and hoping for the end of the world

Reading

This lesson is about the end of the world. As we all know, Jesus is coming back to kill billions of people (but more of this in the lesson on the Revelation) and usher in his earthly kingdom. Everyone’s been waiting for it for quite a while.

Of course, as we’ve already seen, Jesus taught that he was coming back during the lifetimes of people who were still alive then. And later on, we’ll see how Paul had to hose down the end-of-the-world stuff. “Oh, boy! He’s coming soon!” they said. Two thousand years later, and they’re still saying “Oh, boy! He’s coming soon!”

Still, people wait for the end of the world — in some cases, with an eagerness that any normal person would find unseemly. I guess a lot of people are waiting for Jesus to come back and tell everybody that they had the right religion and everyone else was wrong. Kind of like in this South Park clip.

As for me and my generation, we got told that we were the final generation, held in reserve for the end times, and how valiant we must have been!

Little did we know, we were actually a group of mammals who were born like groups of mammals before us. Which is still pretty great, you know, because mammals.

Still, we thought the end was going to come any day! When you don’t expect it! (Surely someone is expecting it every day.) If God was saying back in Joseph Smith’s time that the day was at the doors, then surely by now we must be in the latter days! It’s even in the name of the church, right? Latter-day Saints?

Then Boyd Packer came and said, “Actually…”

The end is not near, senior LDS apostle Boyd K. Packer said Saturday.

Today’s youths can look forward to “getting married, having a family, seeing your children and grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren,” Packer told more than 20,000 Mormons gathered in the giant LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

Well, now what do I do with all this food storage?

On the other hand, maybe Jesus has already returned.

Teaching tip of the day

A helpful tip from the LDS Gospel Doctrine manual: Don’t just make up a crap answer when you get a question about the made-up crap in the Bible!

Suggestion for teaching: A call to teach does not require that you know everything about the gospel, so you should not feel embarrassed if a class member asks a question that you cannot answer. Instead of making up an answer, admit that you do not know and offer to try to find an answer.

…that someone else has made up. But it will be a correlated someone. Leave it to the professional apologists, kid.

Try to find an answer? There isn’t just one answer to lots of gospel questions because the whole thing is made up from top to bottom.

Why shouldn’t you make up an answer? When has that not been what everyone does? That’s all Joseph Smith did. That’s all any prophet or apologist does — come up with some kind of answer that will satisfy the believing and save the story.

Seriously, when you bring up a discrepancy with a believer, what’s the first thing they try to do? Quick, come up with an answer — whether it’s scriptural or not! Anything that comes to hand will do, and if it sounds right, then it must be right, because the gospel is right. Right?

Look, it’s all very well that the Church try to rein in the impulse to conduct on-the-spot apologetics, but they’re fighting a very strong and well-trained urge — and one that for many people is the quickest way they have of resolving the conflict and putting cognitive dissonance back to sleep.

Main ideas for this lesson

Are the number of earthquakes increasing?

For signs of the end times, Jesus names things that are going on more or less constantly. Smart move, Jesus.

Matthew 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

In church, I sometimes heard about how earthquakes were increasing exponentially as we approached the Last Days. Are they? Not really.

No, the number of earthquakes is not increasing compared with the recorded history, according to data from the US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center.
The USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. There are more seismographs installed worldwide every year, so more earthquakes can be detected. However, the number of large earthquakes (magnitude 6.0 and greater) has stayed relatively constant.

Cecil Adams, in this Straight Dope column, points out that natural disasters — earthquakes aside — may be increasing because of climate change, and because we count the ones that affect humans. Urbanisation means more of those.

You see where it gets tricky — the definition of natural disaster is unavoidably tied to the number of people affected and/or the value of the damage done, both of which will naturally increase as the earth’s population and wealth do, and of course wealth and population aren’t evenly distributed worldwide. And that brings us to the other big part of our growing vulnerability to disasters: urban migration in developing countries means denser populations, which often goes hand in hand with quickly-assembled, not overly sturdy housing. The parts of the world where this is most common tend to have largely informal economies, in which the enforcement of building-code regulations may not be a top priority. All this makes it much more likely that a serious meteorological or seismic event will meet the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance’s criteria for a disaster: ten or more people killed and at least 100 injured, evacuated, displaced, or left homeless. By that organization’s count we now have twice the number of disasters per year that we did 20 years ago.

False prophets

Matthew 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

Well, just don’t believe any prophets. That was easy.

Stars falling from heaven?

Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson points out the obvious flaw in this prophecy.

“You know, one of the signs that the second coming, is that the stars will fall out of the sky and land on Earth. To even write that means you don’t know what those things are. You have no concept of what the actual universe is. So everybody who tried to make proclamations about the physical universe based on Bible passages got the wrong answer.

This generation

Again, Jesus says that the end of the world is coming within his generation.

Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

I’ve had Christians tell me that this statement is only meant to apply to the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in 70 CE. Could that explanation work?

No, not really. It’s true that Jesus talks a lot about the destruction of the temple — and I take this as evidence that it had already happened by the time this was written. But let’s go back a few verses.

Matthew 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
24:32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
24:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

Jesus talks about a lot of amazing public events: everyone seeing him in the clouds, angels and trumpets — things that haven’t happened. Then note that he says that “all these things” will be fulfilled in this generation — not just the one thing. Good try, Christians, but I don’t see any reason to limit the scope like that.

Function of this belief

From time to time, it’s good to ask: What’s the function of a belief like this one?

Matthew 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

I can see a couple of reasons why this works for Christianity.

  • When things go wrong, it provides a handy reason: the world is getting worse!
  • It provides a “scary external world” narrative that keeps people frightened. Frightened people aren’t good critical thinkers. So this meme keeps them in the group, for the perceived safety it gives.

But this “hell in a handbasket” meme is unhelpful. People with the attitude that the world is in an irretrievable and divinely-predicted decline aren’t good at trying to find solutions to the world’s problems. They ooze a kind of cynicism and contempt regarding the “world”. This is what I’ve found when I’ve run across them.

But as I explain to these Jehovah’s Witnesses — who have been wrong many times on this issue — things aren’t actually getting worse. They’re getting better. Steven Pinker explains.

More reading:

On the day this article appears, you will read about a shocking act of violence. Somewhere in the world there will be a terrorist bombing, a senseless murder, a bloody insurrection. It’s impossible to learn about these catastrophes without thinking, “What is the world coming to?”

But a better question may be, “How bad was the world in the past?”

Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse. Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species.

This is very difficult for people to get their head around when they’re been hearing the “hell in a handbasket” narrative for the whole of their lives. I try to bring up this theme whenever possible with a certain believer — we’re at the lowest point in violent crime for forty years, etc. — and every time I do, it’s like it’s the first time she’s heard it. It just bounces off. How could reality compete, when all they have to do — they suppose — is watch the news?

Failed prophecy — and thank goodness

After all these years, one thing should be clear: Jesus is not coming back. This is a failed prophecy, but people don’t realise it’s a failed prophecy because of the rolling deadline.

All those Adventists were wasting their time. So was Bill Maupin, an evangelist who was really the first one to freak me out.

So was Harold Camping.

Harold Camping told us the date on which the world would end. Of course, the date passed without incident. Camping was wrong. According to the Christian bible, the Jesus character told his contemporaries that the world would end during their lifetimes. Jesus was wrong too. Like Camping, the Jesus character was a failed prophet.

So were all these people who made failed end-of-the-world predictions, dating from 2800 BCE to today.

So is everybody in the Church of John Frum. Some Pacific Islanders tell stories of the legendary John Frum, probably a US serviceman who promised to return.

Anthropologists who study the Melanesian tribes speculate that Frum might have actually been a real person – most likely a generous sentry, engineer or aircraft mechanic who handed out goods, Hershey bars or medicine to the locals during the occupation. Perhaps he even identified himself as “John, from America”. Others speculate that Frum may instead be a composite of several personnel from the airbase or even a hodge-podge of American icons and archetypes including Uncle Sam, Popeye and Santa Claus. Some suggest that the Melanesian veneration of John Frum actually pre-dates the Second World War and may be based on some unknown charitable westerner that visited the island by ship in the decades before World War Two.

Regardless, Frum-worshipers still herald their god as the almighty “King of America”. Each year on Feb. 15, devotees mark their bodies with the letters U.S.A. and march in hopes that Frum will return. The entire religion, which is now more of a kitschy tourist attraction than anything else, also formed the basis of a homegrown nationalist political party that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2007.

At this point, it begins to look like the “hero’s return” is a bit of a theme in human belief.

Here’s a really sad story: These parents were so freaked out by the End of Days that they killed themselves and their kids.

Springville • In the Springville home where Benjamin and Kristi Strack and three of their children were found dead on Sept. 27, no note was found to explain the murder-suicide.

In a notebook, a “to-do list” had been scribbled on the pages, Springville police revealed at a press conference Tuesday. The list looked as if the parents were readying to go on vacation — items such as “feed the pets” and “find someone to watch after the house” were written.

But there was no clear explanation for why on that September day, the five family members ingested a fatal mixture of drugs.

In the weeks and months after the family’s deaths, Police Chief J. Scott Finlayson said investigators talked with their family and friends, who told them that Benjamin and Kristi Strack spoke frequently of “leaving this world.” Friends said the couple believed there was a looming apocalypse and that they desired to escape from the evil in the world.

We can see that this is a tragic waste of life, but it’s just as true that putting your life on hold for an imaginary saviour’s return is a waste of your life.

People who work in science already have a pretty good idea of how the world will end. Richard Dawkins tells more.

In about five billion years the sun will run out of hydrogen, which will upset its self-regulating equilibrium; in its death-throes it will swell, and this planet will vaporise. Before that, we can expect, at unpredictable intervals measured in tens of millions of years, bombardment by dangerously large meteors or comets. Any one of these impacts could be catastrophic enough to destroy all life, as the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago nearly did. In the nearer future, it is pretty likely that human life will become extinct – the fate of almost all species that have ever lived.

In our case, as the distinguished astronomer and former president of the Royal Society Martin Rees has conjectured, extinction is likely to be self-inflicted. Destructive technology becomes more powerful by the decade, and there is an ever-increasing danger that it will fall into the hands of some holy fool (Ian McEwan’s memorable phrase) whose ‘tradition’ glorifies death and longs for the hereafter: a ‘tradition’ which, not content with forecasting the end of the world, actively seeks to bring it about.

On that theme, Christopher Hitchens explains more ably than most — and off-the-cuff, as well — how this hope for an apocalypse really evinces a kind of contempt for life.

I think maybe I will take a few moments to say something I find repulsive about especially Monotheistic, Messianic religion, with a large part of itself it quite clearly wants us all to die, it wants this world to come to an end you can tell the yearning for things to be over, whenever you read any of its real texts, or listen to any of its real authentic spokesman, not the pathetic apologists who sometimes masquerade for it. Those who talk, there was a famous spokesman for this in Virginia until recently, about the Rapture, saying that those of us who have chosen rightly will be gathered to the arms of Jesus, leaving all of the rest of you behind: if we’re in a car it’s your lookout, that car won’t have a driver anymore; if we’re a pilot that’s your lookout, that plane will crash; we will be with Jesus and the rest of you can go straight to Hell.

The eschatological element that is inseparable from Christianity, if you don’t believe that there is going to be an Apocalypse, there is going to be an end, a separation of the sheep and the goats, a condemnation, a final one, then you’re not really a Believer and the contempt for the things of this world shows through all of them. It’s well put in an old rhyme from an English exclusive Brethren sect: “We are the pure and chosen few, and all the rest are damned. There’s room enough in hell for you, we don’t want Heaven crammed!” You can tell it when you see the extreme Muslims talk, they cannot wait for death and destruction to overtake and overwhelm the World, they can’t wait for what I would call without ambiguity a Final Solution. When you look at the Israeli settlers — paid for often by American tax dollars — deciding if they can steal enough land from other people and get all the Jews into the promised land and all the non-Jews out of it then finally the Jewish people will be worthy of the return of the Messiah, and there are Christians in this country who consider it their job to help this happen so that Armageddon can occur, so that the painful business of living as humans, and studying civilization, and trying to acquire learning, and knowledge, and health, and medicine, and to push back the frontiers can all be scrapped and the cult of death can take over.

That to me is a hideous thing in eschatological terms, in End Times terms. On its own a hateful idea, a hateful practice, and a hateful theory but very much to be opposed in our daily lives where there are people who sincerely mean it, who want to ruin the good relations that could exist between different peoples, nations, races, countries, tribes, ethnicities; who openly say they love death more than we love life and who are betting that with God on their side that they’re right about that.

So when I say as a subtitle of my book that “Religion poisons everything”, I’m not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle. I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity, it says we can’t be moral without Big Brother, without a totalitarian permission, it means we can’t be good to one other, it means we can’t think without this, we must be afraid, we must also be forced to love someone who we fear – the essence of sadomasochism, the essence of abjection, the essence of the master-slave relationship – and that knows that death is coming and can’t wait to bring it on. I say that this is evil.

So what do we do with our lives, if things will continue as they are until the Big Blast?

Enjoy it. We are born without asking. We are helplessly alive. And we are doomed to die.

Even so, it seems to me that doing something is a higher-quality decision than doing nothing. Here are some ideas.

  • Enjoy life responsibly. You only get one.
  • Help make things better for others. They only get one life, too
  • Learn as much as you can about the world and the universe, since the sharing of knowledge is a very good way to help make things better for everyone.
  • Try to leave something good for the next generation.

And I might add: Interplanetary travel seems like a good idea, if we want to get off this rock.

Now for a closing hymn.

NT Lesson 15

26 April 2015 / / Comments Off on NT Lesson 15

“I Am the Light of the World”

John 7–8

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To discuss how to find out what’s true.

Reading

We’re now in Jesus’ later Judean ministry. He’s gotten people to believe in his miracles. His followers think he’s the Messiah. And now in this reading, in one of the most protracted arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees, he proclaims that he’s actually Jehovah.

If Jesus was a real person who said these things, he seems to have suffered from Joseph Smith Syndrome: having started on this hero-saviour trip, it’s very difficult to stop.

This theological argument takes up most of our reading, and while in some ways there’s some interesting rhetorical jiu-jitsu going on, in the end it’s all just so much pointless sectarian wrangling. From an atheist’s perspective, I just see people tossing around religious insults. Jesus and the Pharisees call each other devils.

John 8:48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?
8:49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.

Jesus threatens them like a pissed-off street preacher.

John 8:23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

Now that I’m out of religion, and understanding that nothing based on supernaturalism can be right, I think I can see this chapter for what it is. I’m so glad that I can check out, and I don’t have to concern myself with it. What a relief.

This is an old, old fight, of course. Unfortunately, it’s been playing out over and over again among the world’s religious believers for millennia. The only difference is that, in this discussion, no one got killed.

Main ideas for this lesson

Heading

John really didn’t like Jews.

John 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.

Oh, John. You can tell that you wrote this last — somewhere between 70–120 CE. That’s when the conflicts between the Christian Jews and the Jewish Christians came bubbling up. It couldn’t have been written earlier.

How do we know what’s true?

Jesus gives a strange way of telling whether something’s true.

John 7:17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

Jesus seems to be saying that experimentation is the way to find out if he’s the real deal. While a good controlled experiment is an important part of the complete scientific method, that’s not what Jesus is describing here. There’s a phrase for it: “Suck it and see.” That’s not the best way of evaluating claims.

But what’s wrong with trying something out? Well, evidence from our own personal experiences may seem convincing to us. But these kinds of anecdotes are actually the least credible form of evidence because of the way our brains put together our own personal story. If I believe that I have a lucky rock that keeps me from harm, then that belief gets in the way of examining the idea as impartially as I could. I might engage in confirmation bias, ignoring the times when the rock doesn’t work. Other forms of evidence would be better.

It’s telling, then, that missionaries use the least effective kinds of evidence on investigators. Missionaries invite investigators to take on an ever-increasing set of commitments, in the hopes that the investment fallacy will take hold. When you’ve started doing something, it’s hard to stop. Stopping would imply that what you did was pointless, and who likes to admit that?

I’m enjoying this post about the investment fallacy from You Are Not So Smart.

Imagine you go see a movie which costs $10 for a ticket. When you open your wallet or purse you realize you’ve lost a $10 bill. Would you still buy a ticket? You probably would. Only 12 percent of subjects said they wouldn’t. Now, imagine you go to see the movie and pay $10 for a ticket, but right before you hand it over to get inside you realize you’ve lost it. Would you go back and buy another ticket? Maybe, but it would hurt a lot more. In the experiment, 54 percent of people said they would not. The situation is the exact same. You lose $10 and then must pay $10 to see the movie, but the second scenario feels different. It seems as if the money was assigned to a specific purpose and then lost, and loss sucks.

Believers seem okay with this experimentation method that Jesus is advocating, but are they okay with it in other areas? Would they agree that the same is true for Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam? The same people who encourage religious experimentation (for their religion only) also discourage experimenting with recreational chemicals and alternative sexual practices. Clearly, they don’t believe that the method is so great; only insofar as it ensnares people into their system.

Ask: If “suck it and see” isn’t a good way to find out what’s true, then what is? How do you know if something’s true?

I use a way that is partial and incomplete, it’s difficult, and it takes a long time. Sometimes the results get overturned later. But it’s the best thing humans have ever made for finding out what’s true. It’s the scientific method.

My favourite formulation of the scientific method is on this terrible Geocities webpage. It uses the mnemonic O HECK.

“O.H.E.C.K.” is a memory aid developed by your instructor to help you remember the order of events in what is sometimes called the scientific method. It is an acronym, with each letter standing for a word.
Observation: someone (maybe you!) notices some event in the natural world (Phenomena) that makes them wonder about the event’s cause.
Hypothesis: this is a possible explanation developed by somebody (maybe you!) as to the cause of some mysterious phenomena that has been Observed.
Experiment: the Hypothesis is tested in some way. If a hypothesis can’t be tested, it really isn’t scientific.
Conclusion: at the end of the Experiment, either the Hypothesis has been proven false or it hasn’t been proven false. It is never “proven” true!
Knowledge-Sharing: the Conclusion of the Experiment must be shared with other researchers, who will either develop a better test for the Hypothesis or (often) develop a better Hypothesis !

I think this last step is the most important. Knowledge must be peer-reviewed. One person can get it wrong, but it’s less likely (in the very long term!) that everyone will get it wrong. As we share knowledge, the good stuff floats to the top. This is why we need a variety of inputs in our knowledge. If someone tells you that certain sources of information are off-limits, or that some points of view are forbidden — not just worthless (like some are), but are wrong even to consider — that’s a warning sign.

Truth makes you free.

One verse in this reading has some merit:

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Testimonials are worthless, as in the chart above. With that established, I would just like to share my own experience. As I’ve learned more about how to find out what’s true, and as my ability to think critically has improved, I’ve been better able to spot poor reasoning and be fooled less often. It’s an on-going process. I try to stay plugged into skeptical topics, keep up with what scientific-minded people are thinking and writing about, and stay open to changing my mind when necessary.

Having a better idea of what’s true means that I have better information that I can use to base decisions on. This has helped me to be freer than I could have been in the church.

Woman in adultery story was added later

I always liked the story of the woman taken in adultery.

John 8:1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
8:2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
8:4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
8:5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
8:9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
8:10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

Jesus is so casual, writing on the ground like that.

So I’m totes devs to learn that it’s probably a fabrication.

Unfortunately, John didn’t write it. Scribes made it up sometime in the Middle Ages. It does not appear in any of the three other Gospels or in any of the early Greek versions of John. Even if the Gospel of John is an infallible telling of the history of Jesus’s ministry, the event simply never happened.

Most Bible scholars agree.

“The most ancient authorities lack 7.53—8.11; other authorities add the passage here or after 7.36 or after 21.25 or after Luke 21.38, with variations of text; some mark the passage as doubtful. Scholars generally agree that this story was not originally part of the Gospel of John.”

Here’s another page of references.

And Nonstampcollector sees a problem that Christians don’t: Jesus is only enlightened insofar as he ignores the law he gave when he was Jehovah the murderous psychopath.

Additional lesson ideas

What didn’t they include in this reading?

One thing they decided not to treat was this story, in which Jesus tells someone not to bury his dead father.

Matthew 8:21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
8:22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

Luke 9:59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
9:60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

Seems a bit heartless, but again, this is right in line with Jesus’ idea that he had to come before everything else, including family obligations. Typical for a cult leader.

Next week: more doubtful miracles. See you then.

NT Lesson 13

12 April 2015 / / Comments Off on NT Lesson 13

“I Will Give unto Thee the Keys of the Kingdom”

Matthew 15:21–17:9

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To show how religious people try to shift the burden of evidence through character assassination and attacks.

Reading

I sometimes say that Jesus acts like kind of a jerk during his ministry — although “kind of a jerk” is an upgrade from the complete psycho that he was in the Old Testament. But during this lesson, Jesus really goes for it, abusing people who don’t believe in him, and even those who do.

Here are the stories we’ll be tackling in today’s lesson.

  • Jesus calls a Canaanite woman a “dog”
  • Jesus criticises people who ask for evidence
  • Jesus says he will build his kingdom on a “rock” which is either Peter, or revelation, or something or other
  • Jesus says he will come back within the lifetime of people who were alive then

Main ideas for this lesson

Jesus the racist

In our first story, Jesus calls a gentile woman a dog. Imagine: A woman’s daughter has a mental illness. She hears that there’s a guy, Jesus, who’s good at this kind of thing. Desperate, she goes to him and asks for help.

Matthew 15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

Ask: What might you say to her?
Answer: I’d tell her that mental illness isn’t caused by demons, and she should consult a psychiatrist.

But Jesus doesn’t even say that; he just ignores her. Finally, she annoys the disciples.

Matthew 15:23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

This is a really important point: Jesus only ever intended to teach Jewish people. He never meant for his message to go to Gentiles, and he would have been horrified to see modern-day goyim worshipping him. Bob the WASP out in North Dakota? Pfeh. Ignore him.

Apparently Jesus didn’t realise that this was going to be a block to future growth, and it would take people with more vision than he had to realise that gentiles would be an important growth market. Diversifying your portfolio and all that. But at the time, Jesus didn’t get it.

Matthew 15:25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.

Ouch! Not cool, Jesus. “Sorry, lady. Jews only. They’re the children, you’re the dog.”

Matthew 15:27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

There’s a saviour for you: the only reason Jesus helped her is because she was able to come up with a witty riposte. What a douche.

The bread trick again

In the last lesson, Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 people on some bread and fish. Now he does it again, feeding 4,000 people.

Remember how in previous lessons, there would be composite stories — two versions of the same story, side by side?

  • The creation
  • Animals aboard the Ark
  • Abraham tells Pharaoh that Sarah is his sister

Well, now we have another example. This happens when people invent two versions of a story, and the compiler basically just leaves them both in.

Asking for evidence

There’s a well-agreed-upon rule of argumentation, and it’s called the burden of evidence (or burden of proof): If someone makes a claim, the onus is upon them to provide evidence for that claim.

Religious people — as with people with extraordinary but unsupported claims — don’t try very hard to support their claim, but they expend a great deal of energy trying to dodge the burden of evidence, and shifting this burden to others.

Here’s how Jesus responds to the burden of evidence:

Matthew 16:1 The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.
16:2 He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.
16:3 And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
16:4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

Ask: How does Jesus respond to people who ask for evidence?
Answer: He calls them adulterers.

Okay, so the Pharisees and Sadducees are asking for the wrong kind of evidence. They want a sign from heaven, some miraculous display. Asking for this is asking to be fooled by conjuring tricks. But asking for some kind of evidence is a normal response to a grandiose claim, and if a claimant tries to dodge this most basic responsibility, then this should serve as a warning. That Jesus responds to this perfectly reasonable request with charges of adultery tells me that he knew he didn’t have the goods.

Ask: What logical fallacy is someone committing if they say that anyone who challenges them must be committing adultery?
Answer: Click here to see the answer.

Joseph Smith used this dodge as well.

When I was preaching in Philadelphia, a Quaker called out for a sign. I told him to be still. After the sermon, he again asked for a sign. I told the congregation the man was an adulterer; that a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and that the Lord had said to me in a revelation, that any man who wanted a sign was an adulterous person. “It is true,” cried one, “for I caught him in the very act,” which the man afterwards confessed when he was baptized. (Feb. 9, 1843.) DHC 5:268. (Teachings, p. 278)

I will give you one of the Keys of the mysteries of the Kingdom. It is an eternal principle, that has existed with God from all eternity: That man who rises up to condemn other, finding fault with the Church, saying that they are out of the way, while he himself is righteous, then know assuredly, that that man is in the high road to apostasy; and if he does not repent, will apostatize, as God lives. The principle is as correct as the one that Jesus put forth in saying that he who seeketh a sign is an adulterous person; and that principle is eternal, undeviating, and firm as the pillars of heaven; for whenever you see a man seeking after a sign, you may set it down that he is an adulterous man. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 156-157)

It is, of course, outrageously ironic for Joseph Smith to have accused anyone of adultery. He was making hay with women before the so-called “sealing power” had been restored, before any “revelation” on the subject, and then lying to Emma and everyone else about it.

Joseph F. Smith continued this dodge.

What is sign seeking?
“It is a wicked and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign. Show me Latter-day Saints who have to feed upon miracles, signs and visions in order to keep them steadfast in the Church, and I will show you members of the Church who are not in good standing before God, and who are walking in slippery paths. It is not by marvelous manifestations unto us that we shall be established in the truth, but it is by humility and faithful obedience to the commandments and laws of God.
Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine

This is a strange claim. In reality, no member could ever be sustained by “miracles, signs and visions” because these things don’t happen. If they did, it wouldn’t be possible to keep people out of the church, and there would be no need for missionaries. The church strings its members along by encouraging them to interpret ordinary events as miracles.

One related point before we move on. Many Latter-day Saints say that people shouldn’t expect to see miracles because the real convincing power comes by the Spirit / feels / emotional reasoning. This quote from the D&C Student Manual ties it all together:

When we understand this process, we can see why sign seeking is condemned. Someone who demands outward evidence of the power of God as a condition for believing is seeking to circumvent the process by which faith is developed. He wants proof without price. As with the adulterer, he seeks the results without accepting the responsibility. Thus it is a wicked and adulterous generation that seeks signs.

This is shifting the “burden of proof” all over again. Why should someone pay a “price” to come up with evidence that the claimant should be providing? Why doesn’t the claimant simply produce the evidence, instead of demanding that the listener do the work for them? Would the claimant be happy to undergo “the process by which faith is developed” for any dumb claim that anyone else chooses to bring, like Muhammad or Reiki?

This is a failure to provide publicly-available evidence, directing the listener instead to unreliable evidence and emotional manipulation. It’s the same as saying, “You have to believe it first, and then you’ll believe it,” which is a tautology. It’s very commonly engaged in by believers, and it’s no surprise that they get the idea from Jesus himself. But it’s a nasty slur, and it’s poor reasoning.

“Upon this rock”

Oh, how Mormons tap-dance around this scripture. It’s like the only time they bust out the Greek.

Matthew 16:13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
16:14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

It’s tricky because Catholics use this to show that Peter was the first pope. Jesus built the church on Peter (πέτρος, petros, “rock”), you see.

How do Mormons respond? By ignoring the whole thing about Peter, and going back to the previous sentence about “revelation”. Here’s the real Gospel Doctrine manual:

Jesus said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that the rock Jesus referred to is revelation (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 274).

Protip: If your argument involves ignoring a chunk of the text, it’s probably not very good.

I don’t have a point with this because I think it’s all silly. But, if you’re an ex-Mormon, isn’t it nice not to have to take this stuff so seriously anymore?

When was Jesus to return?

I always thought of the Second Coming as something that was always meant to happen 2,000 years after Jesus. (Coincidentally, that just happens to be the time I’m alive.) But imagine my surprise: early Christian belief held that Jesus would come back during the lifetimes of people who were living then.

Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
16:28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

This scripture has caused all kinds of gymnastics, creating the myth that John the beloved is still alive somewhere, Highlander style.

But if you think Mormons have it bad, spare a thought for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who pegged the time of “some standing here” to 1914. They expected Jesus to return before the last person in that generation died. Well, Jesus had better hurry, because that was 101 years ago, and counting. (The JWs would appear to have abandoned this line of thinking.)

Additional lesson ideas

What did they leave out of this lesson?

For some reason, the lesson manual skipped this part:

Matthew 15:11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.
…
15:17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
15:18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

Ask: Why might the LDS Church wish to downplay this scripture?
Answer: Now that the Word of Wisdom has been elevated to non-negotiable doctrine status (much worse than other sins), the idea that what you eat or drink is not that big a deal would upset the order of things.

Whatever you’re eating, drinking, or smoking, I hope you’re enjoying it. Until next week, cheers!

NT Lesson 7 (Miracles)

14 February 2015 / / Comments Off on NT Lesson 7 (Miracles)

“[He] Took Our Infirmities, and Bare Our Sicknesses”

Mark 1–2; 4:35–41; 5; Luke 7:11–17

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To show that science has actually accomplished everything Jesus is claimed to have done, but much better and for more people.

Reading

Jesus is really getting into the miracles in this lesson. Here’s what he’s been up to.

  • Jesus casts out devils.

In Mark 5, Jesus finds a man who seems to be some kind of container for unclean spirits. Jesus casts them out, but in a compassionate gesture, allows them to inhabit a herd of swine. The pigs have other ideas, and drown themselves. That’s very sad, isn’t it? Let’s imagine another ending for the piggies:

  • Jesus heals the sick and raises the dead
  • Jesus walks on water

Look out, Jesus!

Main ideas for this lesson

The Bible is wrong about unclean spirits

There are lots of exorcisms in this reading.

Luke 4:33 And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice,
4:34 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.
4:35 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.
4:36 And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.

Luke 4:40 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.
4:41 And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.

And of course, the pig episode.

The Bible teaches that mental illness is caused by demons. And, as with so many things in the Bible, it’s unhelpfully and inexcusably wrong. How easy would it have been for Jesus to point out the real causes of mental illness — psychology, biology, and genetics? Blaming it on malevolent supernatural agents is the kind of thing that pre-scientific people would have come up with.

Thankfully, most Latter-day Saints don’t seem to believe in demonic possession anymore. I still remember one time in church, where a woman had a rather violent psychotic episode in the middle of sacrament meeting. I wonder why no one performed an exorcism — perhaps no one in attendance had the experience. Instead, health services were called, the women was collected, and then jittery ward members — in an adult meeting and a separate youth meeting — were counselled by a psychiatrist and a psychologist who happened to be ward members. It was really handled very well, and all without casting out devils.

In some other Christian churches, though, exorcisms are de rigueur. Benny Hinn makes a good living out of it.

They’re so easy, even a child could do one.

While this ritual seems silly to me, the participants sure do seem to think something real is happening to them. But what’s really going on here? The psychological explanation is that people undergoing an exorcism are conforming to expectations about what is supposed to happen in an exorcism, and how the participants are supposed to behave.

Exorcisms tend to follow a predictable path. The apparent victim of possession’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic, perhaps even violent, until the exorcist casts the demonic spirit out. “Possessed” people may speak in tongues, vomit, become violently ill, or harm themselves. And while these behaviors might seem shocking, they can be easily explained.

Mental issues can cause strange behavior, and people tend to conform to expectations. This means a person experiencing an exorcism is more likely to act in ways he or she has heard of others behaving during exorcisms. Exorcisms sometimes also involve the use of potions, drugs, or fasting, each of which can induce violent illness and strange behavior. Starvation can affect brain function, and the stress of an exorcism may radically alter behavior.

In other words, both exorcist and exorcee are both playing a role. And in some cases, participants can break out of the role at inappropriate times.

“Hang on, it’s the Prince of Darkness; I gotta take this.”

And now for the part that’s not so funny: exorcisms do a lot of harm, and in some cases people get killed. Try reading this very long list of people (especially children) murdered by parents and others who believed they were possessed.

Evelyn Vasquez
Age: 6
The child had a history of sleepwalking. Her mother confessed to brutally stabbing her to death because she believe she was possessed by the devil. She was charged with murder.

Amora Bain Carson
Age: 13 months
They believed the child was possessed and tried to rid her of demons. They allegedly bludgeoned her and bit her more than 20 times. She died. Her mother and a man were arrested and held on $2 million bond.

Dane Gibson
Age: 12
After attending a fundamentalist church, they became convinced they were surrounded by demons. The boy had been held down in the yard as part of an exorcism. They were found not guilty of murder.

And on and on and on and on and on. Exorcism is a barbaric practice that has no basis in fact, and a book that claims to come from the all-knowing creator of the universe ought to reflect this.

Healings

Healings are another dodgy area. Jesus was supposed to have healed a few people of blindness and illnesses. The effect of this on us today in practical terms is about nil. Diseases in our time don’t seem amenable to healing.

Also, some types of healings never occur at Lourdes, as indicated by the comment of French writer Anatole France. On a visit to the shrine, seeing the discarded canes and crutches, he exclaimed, “What, what, no wooden legs???” 

Ask: Why won’t God heal amputees?

But then some people claim that God has indeed healed people of their illnesses, and that this is evidence of God’s existence, love, and what have you. In fact, this really makes the case for God’s goodness even more problematic, not less. If God really is healing various individuals in piecemeal fashion, without addressing the underlying causes of disease and while allowing others to languish and die, then this calls God’s goodness even more into question. Why is he so capricious about who he heals? Why does he choose not to heal the rest, when he could? (What are they, chopped liver?) How does this relate to God not being “a respecter of persons”?

Watch the video for “Thank You, God” by Tim Minchin. In this video, Tim recounts the story of Sam’s mum, who allegedly got God to heal her cataracts.

Ask: What are some other explanations for Sam’s mum’s healing that Minchin mentions? Make a list. How many times can you say ‘Minchin mentions’ really fast?
If God is healing relatively well-off Westerners, then what are some illnesses God is ignoring? Why would he do that?

As with exorcisms, there’s a dark side to faith healing. News reports seem to bring a steady stream of stories of parents who kill their children by denying them medical care in the belief that God will heal them through prayer. Here’s a smattering of recent stories, and I didn’t even have to try very hard to find them.

Faith-Healing Churches Linked to 2 Dozen Child Deaths
Living on a Prayer: Why Does God Kill So Many Children in Idaho?
Faith-Healing Parents Jailed After Second Child’s Death
Big list on HuffPo

Of course, the believer could always argue that someone wasn’t healed because they didn’t have enough faith. It’s a common enough dodge; even Pat Robertson has engaged in it.

But saying that the sufferer didn’t have enough faith is really just a way of blaming the victim. It allows people to believe that faith healing is real, even when it plainly doesn’t work.

Supernaturalism is terrible at curing illness, but science has done a great job. Let’s see the totals for leprosy.

Take a look at this video of a man who is getting his life and his autonomy back by the use of robotic arms that he can control with his thoughts. This is amazing. I see it as nothing less than new-testamental, in a way that the New Testament can’t match. This, after all, is publicly verifiable.

Some people say God is responsible for medical progress. Isn’t it great of God to heal people at exactly the same time that scientists work out how to treat disease? Unless it’s really medical science doing it all, which seems to be a much more straightforward explanation.

We still have a lot to learn about the body, and progress is sometimes frustratingly slow. But in the area of human health, medical science is doing the job that God has failed to do.

Additional lesson ideas

No exorcisms in John

When you read the book of John, guess what you never see? You never see any exorcisms or cases of demonic possession. The reason is a bit of a mystery; Twelftree cites “theological considerations” which I assume means he thinks some compiler left it out on purpose. Or perhaps the synoptic texts (Matthew, Mark, Luke) just come from a different tradition that John.

For whatever reason, it’s yet another way in which the gospels tell widely varying stories about Jesus, and this should cause the reader to regard these fragmentary accounts with skepticism.

Walking on water

This miracle has been difficult to duplicate by spiritual means. Here’s a story that’s both sad and hilarious. Sadlarious.

Nigerian Pastor Tries To Walk On Water Like Jesus, Then Drowns In Front Of His Congregation
Pastor Franck Kabele, 35, told his congregation that he was capable of reenacting the very miracles of Jesus Christ.  He decided to make it clear through way of demonstration on Gabon’s beach in the capital city of Libreville.
Referencing Matthew 14:22-33, Kabele said that he received a revelation which told him that with enough faith he could achieve what Jesus was able to.
According to an eyewitness, Kabele took his congregation out to the beach.  He told them that he would cross the Kombo estuary by foot, which is normally a 20 minute boat ride.
Sadly by the second step into the water Kabele found himself completely submerged.  He never returned.

I guess he didn’t have enough faith.

On the other hand, it is possible to duplicate the feat by non-scientific means, at least well enough to fool you and me. Here’s illusionist Criss Angel doing it.

Try one of the YouTube suggested links for an explanation of how he does it.

And of course, with a little corn starch, you can walk across a non-Newtonian fluid.

Science!

Thank you for reading this week’s lesson. To finish our demonic theme, let’s have a closing hymn.

See you next week.

OT Lesson 28 (Elijah)

27 July 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 28 (Elijah)

“After the Fire a Still Small Voice”

1 Kings 17–19

LDS manual: here

Reading

Elijah and Jezebel

This reading is probably best understood as a conflict between Jezebel and Elijah, representatives of their respective gods. Yes, you’ve heard of Jezebel, the bad girl of the Old Testament, but was she all that bad? Who was she?

Jezebel was a Phoenician princess who married Ahab, king of Israel to the North. (Remember, Israel had split at this point, with the ten tribes to the north, and Judah and Benjamin to the south.) These mixed-faith marriages could be good things, with anthropological mixing and religious pluralism providing some relief from the carnage of religious monoculture. However, Jezebel was influential in promoting the worship of Ba’al, and so the Bible writers — Yahwists that they were — did everything they could to paint her (excuse the pun) as the worst character ever. According to them, she had the prophets of Jehovah killed, not that they wouldn’t have reciprocated.

One thing about Baal: he was a fertility god, and the god of rain. So as our story begins, Elijah shuts up the heavens so it doesn’t rain.

17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

That’s not just petty; it’s to show his superiority over the rain god.

Ravens feed him.

17:6 And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.

Too bad about all the other people affected by the drought, including a widow and her son. The boy dies, but Elijah brings him back in a rather odd ceremony:

17:17 And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him.
17:18 And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?
17:19 And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.
17:20 And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?
17:21 And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again.
17:22 And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.

Chapter 18 is one of my favourites: the head-to-head death match between Jehovah and Baal! On the one side, 450 priests of Baal. On the other, just Elijah. The task: lighting a fire. (It’s like Survivor.)

18:23 Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under:
18:24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.

The priests of Baal yell, scream, and even cut themselves, but Baal just doesn’t light their fire.

18:25 And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.
18:26 And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.

Elijah can’t resist taking the piss.

18:27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.

According to many versions, pursuing means taking a leak. Funny stuff.

There’s one thing I have in common with Elijah, though: Elijah finds it perfectly acceptable to mock the silly religious beliefs of others, and so do I.

18:28 And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.

But no dice. Now it’s Elijah’s turn. He wets the wood with water…

18:33 And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood.
18:34 And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time.
18:35 And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.
18:36 And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word.
18:37 Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.

And still — zappo! — fire from heaven.

18:38 Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
18:39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.

With that, Elijah commands that the priests of Baal be killed.

18:40 And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.

When Jezebel hears that her priests have been murdered, she’s justifiably upset. She tells Elijah he’s going to suffer the same fate.

19:2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.

Elijah hides out, and gets fed by angels. But the writing’s on the wall for Jezebel. Her death is not part of this lesson, but 2 Kings 9 tells of how Jehu had her thrown out a window, to be ignominiously devoured by hounds.

2 Kings 9:33 And he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot.
9:34 And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king’s daughter.
9:35 And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands.

Jezebel might have been ruthless, but no more so than the Yahwists, who committed far more murders for their god. She’s a character who was made to look worse in the edit.

There are more shenanigans in 1 Kings, of course. The Israelites kill another hundred thousand people.

20:28 And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
20:29 And they pitched one over against the other seven days. And so it was, that in the seventh day the battle was joined: and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians an hundred thousand footmen in one day.

And 27,000 more get killed when a wall falls on them. How big a wall would this have to be?

20:30 But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left.

And then there’s this little puzzler. If I were a prophet, and I told you to hit me, would you? Think carefully, because if you get this wrong, you get eaten by a lion. You might say, yes, you’d smite a prophet because you’re supposed to do what the prophet says. But wait: even hitting him? What if you don’t want to hit anyone?

Our first contestant chooses the non-violent option.

20:35 And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbour in the word of the LORD, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him.

BZZT! Wrong answer. Thanks for playing, and now you get eaten by a lion.

20:36 Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and slew him.

The prophet tries it with another guy. This guy gets it right.

20:37 Then he found another man, and said, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man smote him, so that in smiting he wounded him.
20:38 So the prophet departed,

Moral: Give the prophet a beatdown if he’s asking for it.

Main points for this lesson

God doesn’t mind showing up for empirical tests

The story of Elijah and the priests of Baal shows a laudable commitment to empiricism. Far to often, believers make no effort to test their beliefs under controlled conditions, preferring to let confirmation bias work for them instead.

So I always liked the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal. Two altars, one god, see what works. Right?

Except a test isn’t really valid unless it’s replicable, and to my knowledge, no one’s ever tried a repeat. Which tells me that, as with anything that works once and then never again, it’s might be just a big story.

Let’s look at another area: intercessory prayer. Many people believe that people get better faster if you pray for them. Which makes no sense; does God want them to get better or not? Why would he need people to ask him? Is he a bit distracted?

Anyway, there have been some attempts to see whether prayer helps make sick better. These have been double-blind studies where one group of sick people were prayed for, and another group wasn’t.

In the largest study of this kind — a $2.4 million study carried out by the Templeton Foundation — it was found that prayer had no effect on heart disease patients. However, people who knew they were being prayed for had significantly higher complications.

Naturally, the race was on for Christians to explain the failure of prayer. An article in Christianity Today said that, well, God is so awesome that he just helps everyone, prayer or not. Which makes one wonder why one should pray at all.

But many Christians I’ve talked to have explained this result in this way: God doesn’t want to be tested. He does things for his own reasons and in his own way. In other words, the test was double-blind, but it wasn’t triple-blind.

A closely-related rationale is that God refuses to prove he exists. God requires our faith, and leaving clear evidence would thwart his desire for us to believe in him for no good reason whatsoever. Because it’s not true worship unless it’s unmoored from observable reality and careful thinking.

But the story of Elijah and the priests of Baal shows us that this rationale is incorrect. God didn’t seem to mind showing up for a test back then. He was happy to set Elijah’s altar alight in the presence of witnesses. So what’s his problem now? Why does he refuse to heal sick and suffering people just because he knows some scientists might be watching? Why must he operate on the very margins of statistical significance? Unless, again, he’s just a big story.

Sunk-cost fallacy

Even though they’re starving, Elijah gets the widow to feed him first.

17:13 And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.

It’s quite audacious for this old fraud to insist on being served first. However, this is a pattern taken up by the LDS Church, which encourages its members to be financially irresponsible by giving money to it, even if they are unable to meet their other financial commitments.

Your attitude is important in paying tithing. Pay it because you love the Lord and have faith in Him. Pay it willingly with a thankful heart. Pay it first, even when you think you do not have enough money to meet your other needs. Doing so will help you develop greater faith, overcome selfishness, and be more receptive to the Spirit.

And again here:

If paying tithing means that you can’t pay for water or electricity, pay tithing. If paying tithing means that you can’t pay your rent, pay tithing. Even if paying tithing means that you don’t have enough money to feed your family, pay tithing.

And this, even when the church has enormous holdings, builds huge shopping malls, and is not transparent about what it does with the money.

That’s pretty evil for someone to insist on. What’s behind it?

Psychology tells us about the sunk–cost fallacy, which could be formulated:

Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it.

That’s why you might sit through a terrible movie that you’ve paid for, even though you’d have more fun walking out and doing something else.

On a grimmer note, when cult leader Jim Jones induced his followers to commit suicide, he had the children drink the poison first. Why? Once the adults had watched their children die, they would be more likely to follow through and die themselves. They would be all in. What would they then live for?

And so it is with the LDS Church. You are encouraged to give time, money, and effort to the building up of Zion. After an 18–24 month mission, hours spent in meetings, tens of thousands in tithing, and (importantly) saying over and over again from a young age that you know that the church is true, it’s very difficult to then go back on that and say it was all wrong. Leaving would mean the loss of all your contributions, and — in accordance with the sunk-cost fallacy — this is very difficult for our human brains to pull off. This is why investigators are encouraged to start on a path of small but ever-increasing commitments. No one likes to admit that something they’ve done was a waste of time, so the greater the outlay, the tighter the hold.

Additional teaching ideas

Controlling the weather through religion

Controlling the weather is probably one of the earliest uses of applied religion, and it persists today. Check out this item from President Newsroom: Interfaith Group Prays for Drought Relief

Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Baha’i, and other faith leaders participated in a joint prayer service in Nevada on February 1, urging for divine intervention in view of persistent drought conditions in the western United States.

Sparks Nevada Stake President Joseph E. Johnson served as host of the service, held in the Sparks Nevada Stake Center. “Our belief is that prayers are answered and connect us with God. We also need to be responsible stewards of what God has given us,” said President Johnson, who was co-coordinator of the event.

Yep, they really think it works.

I remember how, in 2006, the LDS Church joined a similar interfaith effort to end the drought in Australia. They even put out a press release — now pulled, but which still exists on the Wayback Machine.

Needless to say, the drought in Australia continues. But the thing which I always remembered was that no one at church ever mentioned the fast ever again. No one wanted to talk about it! It was a clear sign to me that confirmation bias was an active force in the lives of Latter-day Saints.

The hell’s a Tishbite?

Elijah is described as a Tishbite, but that’s just someone from Tishbe in Gilead, and not someone who goes around biting anyone. On the tish, or anywhere else.

Tishbite is also the name of a Cocteau Twins song, one of the better ones from their last album. That will be our closing hymn.

OT Lesson 25 (Psalms)

6 July 2014 / / 1 Comment

“Create in Me a Clean Heart”

Psalms

LDS manual: here

Reading

Since we’ve just finished with David, the anonymous body of church correlators has decided to take us into the Psalms. Good idea, faceless men; the Psalms are usually associated with David, and they’re a little lighter than the stuff we’ve been reading, so it’s a nice diversion.

There are a lot of Psalms. To be specific, 150 of them. And I read them all. Well, I admit I pskimmed a few of them. They swing pretty sharply between ‘dreary’ and ‘violently bloodthirsty’. Steve Wells has made it easy with the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible (which I link to in every lesson) by highlighting all the crazy bits.

The Psalms are essentially song lyrics, which makes it funny when people try to build major points of doctrine onto them. I don’t like to read too much into the Psalms, so I’ve ignored a lot of the silly stuff, like inconsequential contradictions and so forth.

In the last lesson, I compared David to a rock star, but which rock star? I’d say Justin Bieber. I don’t like to pile on the Bieber hate because I think it’s a bit of a cheap laugh, but consider: First of all, the themes in Psalms are kind of monotonous. Second, I have doubts about whether David actually wrote this stuff. The main difference between King David and Justin Bieber is that Bieber only has the potential to become a psychopathic killer, whereas David is said to have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Bieber was just alleged to have spat on them (but maybe not). I think he peed in a bucket once. Hardly Old Testamental.

King David: worse than Bieber.

Here’s my quick rundown of some of the themes in Psalms.

Slavery: still A-OK

Reading the Psalms gave me a lot of Messiah flashbacks, since the text of Handel’s oratorio draws so heavily from them. So for example, the text of Tenor aria “Thou Shalt Break Them” comes from Psalms 2:9.

But what’s the previous verse? Why, it’s about how to own people.

2:8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
2:9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

There are lots of scriptures asking God to smash enemies, or even doing the job yourself — all with divine approval, of course.

18:40 Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.
18:41 They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
18:42 Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
18:43 Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; and thou hast made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me.

21:9 Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.
21:10 Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men.

34:16 The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

50:22 Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.

55:15 Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.

58:10 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

69:23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.
69:24 Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.
69:25 Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.

110:6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.

140:10 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again.

144:1 Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:

The American right-wing singled out Barack Obama for a special prayer from Psalms:

109:8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

But did they read the next few verses?

109:9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
109:10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
109:11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
109:12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
109:13 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
…
109:20 Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, and of them that speak evil against my soul.
109:21 But do thou for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.

That’s pretty ugly stuff. “Kill my enemy, but be nice to me, God, because we have a special relationship, okay?”

Mythical animals

Lots of cryptozoology in Psalms, starting with — yes — skipping trees. With a special appearance from a unicorn.

29:5 The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; yea, the LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
29:6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.

Hey, did you see those skipping trees? They were skipping just like a unicorn.

Like the time my sister came to visit in Australia, and I told her to watch out for the drop-bears. And she said, “How big is a drop-bear?” and I said, “About as big as a jackalope.”

Don’t forget the dragons.

44:19 Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.

74:13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
74:14 Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

91:13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

148:7 Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:

Another unicorn.

92:10 But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

Wow, anointing the horn. I didn’t think we were going to get to that until the Song of Solomon.

God will beat David’s children if they disobey

89:30 If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;
89:31 If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments;
89:32 Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.

Unscientific things

Remember the firmament? That imaginary ceiling that holds back the rain? It’s a great example of God’s handiwork. Along with the unicorns.

19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

The earth is held up by pillars.

75:3 The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.

And it doesn’t move.

93:1 The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

And yet it moves.

In addition, the heavens are stretched out like a curtain.

104:1 Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
104:2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:
104:3 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind:
104:4 Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:
104:5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
104:6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.

There are some interesting scriptures that suggest that the Hebrews weren’t really considering the afterlife as a concept yet.

115:17 The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

This scripture about how great children are…

127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
127:4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
127:5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

…has been picked up and used as inspiration for the Quiverfull movement, a very damaging movement seemingly created to keep women popping out as many babies as possible.

And finally, this scripture has gotten a lot of press.

137:9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

I don’t know if I have a problem with this one. Some people say “OMG the Bible says it’s OK to bash children against rocks,”

and I don’t think it does. It seems to me that this is a song lyric, and it’s just a really dark one. Maybe David was going through a black metal phase. I’m okay with that. Not with bashing children against rocks, though, obviously.

Main points from this lesson

Praising the Lord

In Psalms, it’s all about praising God and giving glory to his name. This is the kind of thing we’d expect from a somewhat insecure deity who’s trying to get himself established in a pantheon that’s already kind of full.

29:1 Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength.
29:2 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

86:12 I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.

Now I like praise more than anyone. It feels good when people give me attention and approval. But at the same time, I realise that this taps into something about me that’s not very good. It’s like when I have a need for praise, it’s because of some kind of emptiness in myself. There’s a hole there that I want other people to fill with approval. At times when I’m feeling the healthiest in myself, I don’t have that need. I can get approval from myself.

And I’m just a human, not a perfect all-knowing being. So I have to ask: why would a god need or desire praise from anyone else? If he’s so awesome, doesn’t he know that? And why would he desire praise from us, his creations? What kind of narcissistic egomaniac would he have to be to require praise from these insects? Why would we need to tell him “Good job, God. You’re so great” for eternity?

A perfect being lacks nothing and needs nothing, including praise. As Friedrich Nietzsche said:

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”

Prophecies about Jesus

David was having a rough time for some of those Psalms. He was being chased around by Saul, living from cave to cave, and generally having a bad time of it. But some of the Psalms about David’s sufferings have been picked up and retooled as prophecies about Jesus. For example:

22:16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
22:17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
22:18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

And so on. The real manual gives a lot more examples, and says:

• Jesus Christ is the only person whose birth, life, death, and resurrection were prophesied before his birth. Why do you think such detailed prophecies were given about the Savior’s life?

I think the answer is simple: Because his life was rewritten after the fact to match prophecies. How much more obvious an explanation could there be?

So many Christians have said to me: There were hundreds of prophecies in the Bible that Jesus fulfilled. And I always say, “You mean a prediction in that book… was fulfilled… later on in the same book?” That’s so not amazing.

Additional ideas for teaching

Calling atheists fools

A couple of Psalms say that atheists are fools.

14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

53:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

This seems to me to be just an excuse to call atheists fools, without dealing with their arguments.

(Yes, some of them may not have been atheists in a modern sense. Also: where are the women?)

Atheists have some good questions:

  • What evidence is there for any supernatural being? 
  • Why does God refuse to provide convincing evidence for his existence? 
  • Is it even possible for a being with contradictory attributes (e.g. omnibenevolent, but allows evil) to exist? 

But it’s much easier for believers to avoid dealing with them, and call atheists ‘fools’ instead.

As an atheist, I have a rule I use: Attack the belief, not the person. I avoid saying that Christians are stupid. They’re not necessarily stupid; I wasn’t when I was a believer. But the ideas in Christianity itself are incredibly bad, so I attack them. People deserve respect; ideas don’t.

I guess my idea of attacking ideas and not people is sort of like the Christian idea of ‘loving the sinner but hating the sin.’ Which is strange, when you consider the psalm that says it’s okay to hate unbelievers. Perfectly.

139:21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
139:22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

Reins

Language is funny. We talk about things in ways we know are untrue. We know the earth goes around the sun, but we still say the sun comes up. We know the heart pumps blood, but we still say it hurts or even breaks when we feel sad.

But for the ancient Hebrews, the kidneys were thought to have much the same job. The KJV word for kidneys was reins, from which we get the word renal.

7:9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.

16:7 I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.

26:2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.

73:21 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.

So the Bible writers were attributing feelings to lots of organs. I’m surprised they didn’t haul in the pancreas for some emotion or other. Perhaps ennui.

What’s interesting is that ancient Hebrews didn’t seem to understand the role of another organ that does some important stuff, too: the brain. Wouldn’t that have been a good idea for an all-knowing being: drop some hints that maybe the brain did something? There it is, just sitting up there. What does it do? Aren’t you curious? God could have popped in a scripture: My brain in my head meditateth upon the Lord in the night seasons, blah blah blah. That would have impressed people when they figured that out for themselves. But no, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to God. A missed opportunity.

Did Shakespeare leave an easter egg in Psalm 46?

Finally, a bit of Bible-Code fun that’s probably nonsense, but here it is.

The King James Version of the Bible was published in 1611, when Shakespeare was alive and putting out his plays. It’s been speculated that Shakespeare either worked on the KJV, and put a reference to himself in it — or alternatively, he was known to the translators, and they wished to honour him by slipping in a reference to him.

And the alleged clue is Psalm 46. If you count words, the 46th word from the top is shake, and the 46th word from the bottom (excluding the liturgical word selah) is spear.

46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
46:2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
46:3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
46:4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.
46:5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
46:6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
46:7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
46:8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.
46:9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
46:10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
46:11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Why 46? Because Shakespeare would have been 46 at the time of translation.

So is it true? Did Shakespeare leave us an easter egg? Well, probably not. Some people think so, but experts take a dim view of the story. But consider: It could be an instructive look at how our human brains try to find patterns in noisy data. We even try and shuffle the data to get the answer we want — like excluding the selah. If spear had come bang on word 46 even with the selah, you can bet we’d still accept it as a hit!

And this is nothing compared to the jiggery-pokery we see in the Bible Code. But that’s a whole ‘nother area, and it’s time to move on to the next meeting. So we’ll close. See you next time.

OT Lesson 24 (David and Bathsheba)

29 June 2014 / / 2 Comments

“Create in Me a Clean Heart”

1 Samuel 18–20; 23–24

LDS manual: here

Reading

For today’s lesson, we’re blasting through all of 2 Samuel, and that means it’s all about David. In terms of kingliness, David was the apex. Israel had never seen anything like him. Imagine if John F. Kennedy, in addition to being a handsome president and a war hero, was also a rock star who wrote his own songs. That’s David for you.

And predictably, David collected a harem of women. Chapter 3 starts off with six of them.

3:2 And unto David were sons born in Hebron: and his firstborn was Amnon, of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess;
3:3 And his second, Chileab, of Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite; and the third, Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;
3:4 And the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; and the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital;
3:5 And the sixth, Ithream, by Eglah David’s wife. These were born to David in Hebron.

It wasn’t all slippery intercourse for David, though. There was also murder.

4:12 And David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron.

He wasn’t too keen on lame and blind people.

5:8 And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind that are hated of David’s soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.

But he did like the women.

5:13 And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David.

And one point, he danced — perhaps even cavorted — while not wearing very much.

6:14 And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.

Saul’s daughter Michal thought David was showing more of his body than was proper. So she complained at him.

6:15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.
6:16 And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.
…
6:20 Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!

So David cursed her to be childless for the sin of sarcasm.

6:21 And David said unto Michal, It was before the LORD, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel: therefore will I play before the LORD.
6:22 And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour.
6:23 Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.

Except she did have children. But David took care of that by killing them. More on that later.

He killed off two thirds of the Moabites, and took the rest as servants.

8:2 And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. And so the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought gifts.

We saw in the last lesson that the Israelites had a saying: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” When you get a reputation like that, you have to keep it up, and David does, with the murder of tens of thousands of people — with Jehovah’s explicit encouragement.

8:5 And when the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Hadadezer king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men.
8:13 And David gat him a name when he returned from smiting of the Syrians in the valley of salt, being eighteen thousand men.
8:14 And he put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and all they of Edom became David’s servants. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went.
10:18 And the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there.

And now the famous story of Bathsheba. David sees her bathing, and invites her over for a bit.

11:2 And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
11:3 And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
11:4 And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.

But whoops, she’s pregnant. Now David has to invite Uriah back, to establish plausible paternity.

11:5 And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child.
11:6 And David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David.
11:7 And when Uriah was come unto him, David demanded of him how Joab did, and how the people did, and how the war prospered.
11:8 And David said to Uriah, Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet. And Uriah departed out of the king’s house, and there followed him a mess of meat from the king.

“Wash thy feet.” After the story of Ruth and Boaz, I’m wondering if this means feet, or if it means feet.

But Uriah frustrates David’s plan by refusing to sleep with his wife. Twice! Curses!

11:9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and went not down to his house.
11:10 And when they had told David, saying, Uriah went not down unto his house, David said unto Uriah, Camest thou not from thy journey? why then didst thou not go down unto thine house?
11:11 And Uriah said unto David, The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing.
11:12 And David said to Uriah, Tarry here to day also, and to morrow I will let thee depart. So Uriah abode in Jerusalem that day, and the morrow.
11:13 And when David had called him, he did eat and drink before him; and he made him drunk: and at even he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but went not down to his house.

So David gets Uriah killed by stratagem.

11:14 And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
11:15 And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.
…
11:26 And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.
11:27 And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

Instead of reading all this, you can just listen to the Pixies song, “Dead”, which is a micro version of David and Bathsheba. The song is something of a miracle of economy, conveying the frenzy of David’s adultery, with each chorus pounding in a single word — dead — conveying the emptiness of the whole tawdry affair. Notice also how the rhythmic structure is built around groups of 3, and not 4. I think this makes the song more unresolved and unsettling.

You crazy Bathsheba, I wancha
You’re suffocating, you need a good shed
I’m tired of living, Sheba, so gimme,

Dead

We’re apin’ rapin’ tapin’ catharsis
You get torn down and I get erected
My blood is working but my
My heart is,

Dead

Hey, what do you know?
Your lovely tan belly
Is starting to grow

Uriah hit the crapper, the crapper
Uriah hit the crapper, the crapper
Uriah hit the crapper, the crapper
Dead

The prophet Nathan chastises David in epic fashion, with a particularly scorching metaphor.

12:1 And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
12:2 The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
12:3 But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
12:4 And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
12:5 And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:
12:6 And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
12:7 And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.

He explains that David’s wives will be given to other men, who will have outdoor intercourse with them.

12:11 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.
12:12 For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.

The child of their union dies.

12:15 And Nathan departed unto his house. And the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bare unto David, and it was very sick.
…
12:18 And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died.

But Solomon springs from their loins. More about him in future lessons.

12:24 And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the LORD loved him.

Now a subplot about Absalom. Apparently, he was a handsome guy, with hair that weighed 2.2 kilograms.

14:25 But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.
14:26 And when he polled his head, (for it was at every year’s end that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it:) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king’s weight.

Absalom conspires against his father David.

15:10 But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, As soon as ye hear the sound of the trumpet, then ye shall say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron.
15:11 And with Absalom went two hundred men out of Jerusalem, that were called; and they went in their simplicity, and they knew not any thing.
15:12 And Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counsellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he offered sacrifices. And the conspiracy was strong; for the people increased continually with Absalom.
15:13 And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom.
15:14 And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape from Absalom: make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword.

and even goes in unto his father’s concubines.

16:21 And Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Go in unto thy father’s concubines, which he hath left to keep the house; and all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father: then shall the hands of all that are with thee be strong.
16:22 So they spread Absalom a tent upon the top of the house; and Absalom went in unto his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

Absalom is killed in battle with David, when he’s devoured by a hungry tree.

18:8 For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country: and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

Well, no, the tree didn’t kill him, but he got stuck in one of its branches. And then run through with a dart. Very GoT.

18:9 And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away.
18:10 And a certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, Behold, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak.
18:11 And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle.
18:12 And the man said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king’s son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.
18:13 Otherwise I should have wrought falsehood against mine own life: for there is no matter hid from the king, and thou thyself wouldest have set thyself against me.
18:14 Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.

David’s grief is “characteristically intense“.

18:33 And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

And the concubines? David punishes them by keeping them under house arrest for the rest of their lives.

20:3 And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and fed them, but went not in unto them. So they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in widowhood.

For all this, David sings about how righteous he is.

22:21 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.
22:22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22:23 For all his judgments were before me: and as for his statutes, I did not depart from them.
22:24 I was also upright before him, and have kept myself from mine iniquity.
22:25 Therefore the LORD hath recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight.

Main points of this lesson

God punishes people for arbitrary things that they haven’t even done

There are loads of things in these chapters that deserve punishment — murder being the main one – but as usual, the god of the Bible chooses to punish people, when the blame more properly belongs to someone else.

We’ve already seen how Jehovah/Jesus kills the baby of David and Bathsheba for his father’s sin.

But later, there’s a famine, and Jehovah/Jesus blames the famine on… David? No, Saul, who’s already dead. Why is he punishing people for the actions of a dead man? Who can fathom the divine mind?

21:1 Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.

So David asks the Gibeonites what he can do for them. Answer: kill the supposedly non-existent sons of Michal from chapter 6.

21:6 Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them.
…
21:9 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

And then God punishes Israel for taking a census — that he moved David to take!

24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.
…
24:9 And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
24:10 And David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now, I beseech thee, O LORD, take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.

God hates stats.

So what’s going on? I think there’s something we can learn here about the way religious people attribute causation. When something bad happens, like a famine or a death, it’s normal for us to try and figure out why it happened. That might help us avoid the problem. But we humans, with our monkey brains, have trouble attributing causality.

I know a voice teacher who tells everyone to gargle with zinc when you get a sore throat. Every time she gets the first sign of a sore throat, she’s hitting the zinc. And she always gets better — or at least she hasn’t died yet. Is the zinc helping, or is she getting better by herself? Well, in the absence of a carefully designed experiment, it’s hard to say. She’s certainly convinced. But she could be falling for a very compelling illusion: the placebo effect.

Theism adds another layer: When you believe in a mysterious being who does things for his own reasons, and who isn’t directly available to answer questions, it’s easy to pick up and use the supposed motives of this being as an explanation for everything. This makes people think that:

It’s a very convenient form of reasoning. The cause of the trouble is always something the religious person doesn’t like.

Thomas Gilovich has an interesting case from Israel in his book, “How We Know What Isn’t So“.

“A flurry of deaths by natural causes in the northern part of the country led to speculation about some new and unusual threat. It was not determined whether the increase in the number of deaths was within the normal fluctuation in the death rate that one can expect by chance. Instead, remedies for the problem were quickly put in place. In particular, a group of rabbis attributed the problem to the sacrilege of allowing women to attend funerals, formerly a forbidden practice. The remedy was a decree that subsequently barred women from funerals in the area. The decree was quickly enforced, and the rash of unusual deaths subsided — leaving one to wonder what the people in this area have concluded about the effectiveness of their remedy.”

Religious reasoning. It’s not for nothing that they think God is the answer to everything, because to them it is.

Steadying the Ark

Here’s the story of Uzzah, who Jehovah/Jesus killed because he tried to help. Unfortunately, helping in his case meant trying to touch God’s favourite piece of furniture.

6:6 And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it.
6:7 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.

And God’s all: NO TOUCHING MY FURNITURE! *Zap.*

This is the way the god of the Bible works: kill tens of thousands of people, and you’re a hero; try to keep the Divine Toybox from tipping, and you’re dead.

Uzzah’s death seems unnecessarily harsh, even to Mormons, who have to explain why it was actually okay for God to kill him. For Latter-day Saints, Uzzah’s story is most often employed as a cautionary tale about not correcting the leaders of the church. It’s always seemed odd and self-serving to me that leaders of the church warn against correcting or criticising leaders of the church.

Brian Ricks’ symposium talk about Uzzah is fairly representative of the Mormon view and the Mormon arguments:

We live in a day when we are bombarded with temptations to leave the path of obedience to follow the path of good intentions. There are those who criticize the Brethren, thinking this loyal opposition will help the Church.

This interpretation of Uzzah’s death worked its way into the Doctrine and Covenents:

85:8 While that man, who was called of God and appointed, that putteth forth his hand to steady the ark of God, shall fall by the shaft of death, like as a tree that is smitten by the vivid shaft of lightning.

The real Gospel Doctrine manual skips Uzzah, but the D&C manual says,

In modern revelation the Lord referred to this incident to teach the principle that the Lord does not need the help of men to defend his kingdom (see D&C 85:8). Yet even today there are those who fear the ark is tottering and presume to steady its course. There are those who are sure that women are not being treated fairly in the Church, those who would extend some unauthorized blessing, or those who would change the established doctrines of the Church. These are ark-steadiers. The best intentions do not justify such interference with the Lord’s plan.

Yes, let’s talk about women being treated fairly in the church, shall we?

For decades, the LDS leadership has engaged in double-talk regarding the role of women in the church. They’re equal. But separate! Which means “not equal”.

And while there’s a lot of sexism in our society, we don’t tend to take kindly to ‘old boys clubs’, of which the LDS priesthood is a glaring example. Every male from the age of 12 gets the priesthood, and no woman does.

It was inevitable that there would be a movement to ordain women, and lawyer and feminist Kate Kelly spearheaded just such a movement. Her subsequent excommunication has opened up a huge problem for the LDS Church. With more and more people resigning, converts down, and alternative communities becoming more available, the LDS Church can ill afford to alienate half of its membership. If I cared about the church, I’d be very concerned right now.

And yet it’s the same old story: when you think you speak for a god, it often means you’re not good at listening. Mormons think the church will never fail, and overreach is impossible. And so, predictably, LDS leaders and members are throwing up Uzzah’s ark-steadying story as a way of shutting down the discourse.

The leadership of the LDS Church wants to convince people that they know what they’re doing, it’s all under control. But as the church lurches from PR crisis to PR catastrophe, this becomes harder to believe.

Additional ideas for teaching

The manual conflates premarital sex and sexual assault

We’ve already seen in Deuteronomy how rape is just another way of getting a wife. This lesson tells of the sexual assault of Tamar by her brother Amnon.

13:1 And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her.
13:2 And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do anything to her.
…
13:10 And Amnon said unto Tamar, Bring the meat into the chamber, that I may eat of thine hand. And Tamar took the cakes which she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother.
13:11 And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister.
13:12 And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly.
13:13 And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee.
13:14 Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.
13:15 Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.
13:16 And she said unto him, There is no cause: this evil in sending me away is greater than the other that thou didst unto me. But he would not hearken unto her.

Amnon pays with his life.

13:28 Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon; then kill him, fear not: have not I commanded you? be courageous, and be valiant.
13:29 And the servants of Absalom did unto Amnon as Absalom had commanded.

A very sad story. But now here’s the kicker: the real lesson manual takes the story of this sexual assault, and uses it for a discussion about extramarital sex.

2 Samuel 13 contains the story of David’s son Amnon and David’s daughter Tamar. Amnon was attracted to Tamar and forced her to commit fornication with him.
• 2 Samuel 13:1 says that Amnon loved Tamar. How did Amnon’s feelings for Tamar change after he had sinned against her? (See 2 Samuel 13:15.) Why does hatred, rather than love, often result between people who violate the principles of morality?
President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “I heard Elder John A. Widtsoe . . . say,
‘It is my observation that a young man and a young woman who violate the principles of morality soon end up hating one another.’ I have observed the same thing. There may be words of love to begin with, but there will be words of anger and bitterness later” (“True to the Faith,” Ensign, June 1996, 5).

If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that rape is not the same as sex. But the lesson manual conflates them. This is inexcusable.

Lest we think this is isolated, let’s remember the story of Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped and was forced to live and travel with the rapist. She commented on why she didn’t try to escape:

Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.” Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum. “I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you know longer have worth, you know longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.” . . . Smart says children should be educated that “you will always have value and nothing can change that.”

I heard the ‘chewed gum’ analogy growing up in the church, and it was designed to induce sexual guilt, but in the context of consensual sex. It’s awful that this gets rolled into rape. This attitude harms people, and this part of the manual needs to be retracted immediately.

Interesting language note

This passage caught my attention:

17:29 And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.

What’s with the word kine? It’s a rather unusual plural because it shares no letters with its singular companion, cow. How did it get to be this way?

Back in the early days of English, there were a lot of ways to pluralise things. There was the occasional plural -s that we know so well, but there was also a lot of vowel-raising going on, too. For this, you would swap the vowel for one that was higher in your mouth. That’s why we have

  • man → men, or 
  • tooth → teeth.

But there was another method, and that was to put an -n on the end. That’s how we get oxen and brethren. Some people still say eyen for eye.

For its part, cu appears to have gotten a double shot of plurality: both the vowel raising and the -n on the end. But nowadays, we find it much easier to just put a plural -s onto cow.

If you’re curious about English plurals, you can hear me talking about them with Ben Ainslie on my podcast ‘Talk the Talk’, episode 158.

I also found this construction to be a little unusual: “The people is hungry”. While in American English usage, collective nouns like team or organization are considered singular (as in ‘the team wins’, not ‘the team win’), the noun people is almost always plural. This verse is evidence that, at least in the Jacobean English of the 1600s, people could take a singular verb. A singular observation, to my way of thinking.

OT Lesson 12 (Joseph in Egypt)

22 March 2014 / / 2 Comments

“Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction”

Genesis 40–45

LDS manual: here

Reading

Ch. 40: We left Joseph in an Egyptian prison with a baker and cup-bearer. They both have dreams, and Joseph successfully predicts the meanings: the cup-bearer gets his job back, and the baker gets killed. Oh, thanks for that, Joseph. Some dreams are better left uninterpreted.

Ch. 41: Two years later, the Pharaoh gets a dream about seven fat cows and seven lean cows. No one can interpret the dream until the baker remembers Joseph, still languishing in prison. (Apparently Joseph has no hard feelings.) The seven fat cows are seven good years, and the seven lean cows are a crippling famine. Time to gather a fifth of all the grain. The farmers then have to buy it back, which doesn’t seem quite right. The price is their land, which Joseph moves them off of and takes for himself.

47:20 And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh’s.
47:21 And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof.

Nice work if you can get it.

Ch. 42: Meanwhile in Canaan, Jacob and his sons are starving. Serves them right, after killing all the men of Shechem. Jacob tells them to get their butts down to Egypt to buy some grain, so they all head off, except for Benjamin. (Why not Benjamin? It’s one of those displays of parental favouritism that we’ve grown so used to in the OT. Where does Jacob get it from? Oh, yeah: god.)

The brothers must be sort of dopey, since they don’t recognise Joseph, even though he recognises them. He forces them to bring Benjamin back for a family reunion.

Chs. 43 and 44: So they do. There’s some faffing around with money in sacks.

Ch. 45: Joseph reveals himself to his brothers.

Chapters 46–50 aren’t in the reading because they’re rather tedious — enumeration of families, details of packing and moving. It does list the twelve tribes, though.

So wait a minute — which are the tribes? Well, that depends on which scripture you’re looking at.

Click and behold the contradictions.

Main points from this lesson

There’s no record of a famine in Egypt at this time.

Of course, no Egyptian pharaoh’s going to publicise a big disaster under his watch, but we can use evidence from history, archaeology, and art to tell when famines happened. One famine — a seven-year famine, to boot — happened in the time of 3rd Dynasty king Djoser, around 2670 BCE. That’s a bit early for Joseph, who made his mark around 1750 BCE, according to our trusty seminary bookmark.

While it’s possible that another one happened a bit later, and we don’t know about it, the fact that we’re able to detect one big famine from so long ago puts the literal Joseph story in some doubt.

Can you tell the future from dreams?

The story of Joseph in Egypt is a ripping adventure. With fraternal intrigue, a dash of sex, a rags-to-riches story, and Joseph’s big reveal to his brothers, it’s a real page-turner. And the story’s device — the interpretation of dreams — contributes to the story’s fantastical nature.

Leaving aside the fanciful story of Joseph, is it possible to tell the future from dreams? Many people have thought so. A quick web search will reveal loads of people telling you how, and offering anecdotes about their precognitive dreams. But if someone has a dream that later comes true, we don’t need to assume pre-cognition. A simpler and more plausible explanation involves the law of truly large numbers — there are so many people having dreams about every conceivable topic every night, and some of them are bound to come true. Here’s Robert Carroll from the Skeptic’s Dictionary:

You might say that the odds of something happening are a million to one. Such odds might strike you as being so large as to rule out chance or coincidence. However, with over 6 billion people on earth, a million to one shot will occur frequently. Say the odds are a million to one that when a person has a dream of an airplane crash, there is an airplane crash the next day. With 6 billion people having an average of 250 dream themes each per night (Hines, 50, though I don’t think I’ve ever had more than 5 or 6 dream themes a night), there should be about 30,000 to 1.5 million people a day who have dreams that seem clairvoyant. The number is actually likely to be larger, since we tend to dream about things that legitimately concern or worry us, and the data of dreams is usually vague or ambiguous, allowing a wide range of events to count as fulfilling our dreams.

Combine that with confirmation bias. If we have a dream that comes true, that’s very surprising, and we’re likely to remember it. But if we’re convinced that we can dream the future, we forget all of the things that happen that our dreams didn’t predict, and likewise we forget all of our dreams that don’t come true.

God claims responsibility for famine, and general evil.

As presented in the Bible, this famine caused servitude for some Egyptians, and death for many more. Who was responsible for this famine?

41:32 And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.

That can’t be right, can it? Surely god allows the problems, but doesn’t cause them. But flip forward to Isaiah a bit:

45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Here is a god who causes famines, caring very little if people are harmed. But he is willing to give privileged information to his buddies, if it enriches them. And in Joseph’s case, it sure does. As we’ve seen over and over again, this is not a good being, and it’s not a being worthy of worship.

Additional ideas for teaching

Joseph Smith writes himself into the Bible

Joseph Smith was an audacious fraudster, but I think his most self-aggrandising and unconvincing work was inserting prophecies about himself into Genesis 50.

From the real manual:

The Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis 50:24–38 contains prophecies that Joseph made about one of his descendants who would become a “choice seer.” The Book of Mormon prophet Lehi restated these prophecies in 2 Nephi 3:5–15. The descendant referred to in these prophecies is the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Here Joseph is on his Egyptian deathbed, and Smith gives him an extended monologue about a choice seer whose name would be “after the name of his father” — meaning Smith himself.

How transparently fictitious. ‘Literary vandalism’ is probably too strong a term for this, but this definitely qualifies as literary graffiti.

False prophecies

Jacob prophesied that Zebulun would be “at the borders of the sea”.

49:13 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.

So when the land was parcelled out, did Zebulun ever get that beachfront property? Let’s check the maps.

Not according to this one.

Nope.

Landlocked here as well. Oh, well.

Hey, speaking of Zebulon, didja catch the reference in The Garden of Enid? I think I’ve got a crush on this girl.

Click to go there.

Jacob’s return to Canaan

God promised to bring Jacob out of Egypt one day…

46:3 And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:
46:4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.

…but he never did.

47:28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.

Did Jacob tell his son Joseph to grab his junk?

When Jacob was about to die, he made Joseph promise not to bury him in Egypt, but instead in Israel. But he did this using a curious phrase:

47:29 And the time drew nigh that Israel must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him , If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt:

Put his hand “under his thigh”? Is this a euphemism for grabbing his testicles?

Sadly, probably not. Let’s get into it.

Lots of people think that gonad-fondling was a part of oath-making. Whenever this topic comes up, people seem to link it to the ancient Roman practice of grabbing a guy’s balls when making an oath. Check for example this article which notes the practice among baboons. And the word testify has more than a passing similarity to testes.

So there you have it. Open and shut, right?

Well, not exactly. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a fan of etymology, it’s that if you find a word history that seems particularly entertaining and juicy, it’s probably completely made up.

For one thing, the word testify does not come from testicle. Testify goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European (or PIE), which is a language so old — about 6,000 to 9,000 years ago — we don’t have any direct evidence for it. Linguists have had to reconstruct it by looking at how languages are now, and working backward. The word comes from PIE *tris- or “three”, and referred to a “third person, disinterested witness.” By the time the word appeared in Latin, it was testis. That might make you say ‘aha!’ but not so fast. The Romans applied the word to the manly articles because they were supposed to affirm a man’s virility — serve as a testament, you might say. And in fact, the diminutive form testiculus means ‘little witness’.

But did the Romans have a bit of a fiddle when testifying, at least? Not according to any evidence we have.

The putting of the hand “under the thigh” could instead mean allowing your hand to be sat on. Okay, it’s weird, but you have to admit, letting someone sit on your hand would assert their superiority over you. It would appear that the custom existed in India, so there’s a link. But that’s about as far as we can go on this one.

With all the weird stuff in the Old Testament, I was ready to believe the junk-grabbing, but when the threads all fall apart like this, it’s very suspicious, and a good sign it’s wrong. Too bad. I really wanted to believe this, but we all know how that goes.

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