Sadly, this is an ongoing problem. Superstitions combined with immoral actions grounded on unjustified faith and certainty are continuing to cause great harm.
One Account Wonders (& other uncorroborated tall tales…)
A lot of people imagine that many of the tall tales about Jesus are supported by all 4 or at least a couple of separate accounts, and are surprised to learn that this is not the case.
Here is a (not exhaustive) list of magical miracles for which there is only one account.
- Water into Wine – only in John
- Healing a royal official’s son – only John
- Catching a bunch of fish – only Luke
- Raising the widow’s son from the dead – only Luke
- 2 blind men – only Matthew
- Mute man – only Matthew
- 38 yr crippled man – only John
- Deaf man with speech problems – only Mark
- Catching a fish with a coin in it’s mouth – only Matthew (and seriously?)
- Woman with 18 year infirmity – only Luke
- Man with dropsy – only Luke
- 10 men with leprosy – only Luke
- Lazarus back to life – only John
- Severed ear of a servant – only Luke
- catching 153 fish – only John
Notice that it isn’t just minor miracles that are not backed up by any second account. The water to wine miracle, the raising of the widow’s son, and bringing Lazarus back from the dead are some of the more magical of events attributed to Jesus.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth pointing out again. If you check the ending of Matthew or John, two close friends and disciples who apparently followed Jesus everywhere and would have missed him were he to leave, they don’t have accounts of the ascension (arguably one of the more spectacular levitation and disappearances ever performed).
In some of my future posts, I’ll explain how a number of the things attributed to Jesus, were necessary in order to “keep up with the Joneses” of other mythical personas at the time.
What did you learn in Sunday School today?
“Well,” said Mrs. Jones to her young daughter, “and what did you learn in Sunday School today?”
“We learned,” said little Nancy, “about Moses.”
“Ah,” said her mother, “and what did you learn about Moses?”
Nancy said, “Well, he was a general leading an army on a retreat from Egypt. The Egyptians, in hot pursuit, had the weight of tanks on their side, and Moses, taking casualties, was forced back upon the Red Sea, where he faced annihilation. Calling or air cover, however, he proceeded to throw a pontoon bridge hastily across–”
By this time, Mrs. Jones had finally managed to catch her breath and said “Nancy! Surely that’s not what they taught you about Moses.”
“Well, not exactly,” said Nancy, “but if I told it to you the way the teacher told it to me, you’d never believe it.”
-Issac Asmiov, Asimov Laughs Again
Cargo Cults – A case study on the evolution of religions
This is an interesting video on the rise and spread of cargo cults in the South Pacific.
Vilayanur Ramachandran: A journey to the center of your mind
This TED talk by Dr. Ramachandran discusses the connection between our brains and our minds.
Iron Chariots
An excellent resource for those who are willing to examine their beliefs, is the Iron Chariots website. The website takes its name from line 19 at the very beginning of Judges, which says, “And Yahweh was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.” It’s an excellent resource for countering Christian apologetics, and for examining the far fetched claims of religion.
Of course, Christians do have an apologetic response to this verse. They claim that it wasn’t Yahweh that was at a disadvantage because of a neighboring tribes high tech weaponry, but that if you read on in the context of the chapter, it talks about tribe after tribe not being successful (presumably because of a lack of faith) in their attempts at the wholesale slaughter of the existing inhabitants of the land. Unfortunately, this response rings hollow, because when you do look at the context, you first note that the verse starts with “And the Lord was with Judah”, which puts a definite kink in the claim that there was some sort of disconnect between Judah and Yahweh at the time, but when you read the previous verses, you also see that Judah was successful in all four previous attacks on neighboring tribes. So while that apologetic claim might hold some water for why the other tribes failed, given Judah’s track record in the very same chapter, and the specific comment that their deity was clearly on their side, it’s hardly a convincing argument for Judah and Yahweh’s combined failure.
Check the site out, i’m sure you’ll enjoy it: www.ironchariots.org
Minds or Souls?
Sam Harris discusses the evidence for or against the concept of a soul.
Geocentrism and Mars
As odd as it may seem to many of you, I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian school that still taught the Sun goes around the Earth. Yes, I mean geocentrism. Today in the news you may have read how the rotation of the earth was expected to produce a twisting effect in the space-time surrounding our planet, and that this effect has just been confirmed (yet again) by Gravity Probe-B. So today, I would like to look back at one of the earliest bits of evidence and reasoning that changed the opinions of astronomers from the geocentric to the heliocentric model of our solar system.
Below, is a drawing by Johnannes Kepler, from Astronomia Nova in 1609, showing his detailed observations on the apparent movements of the planet Mars plotted with a stationary earth at the center. You can see, how as the movements of the other planets were being more carefully observed and recorded, how much more absurd the idea of geocentrism, and how much more difficult and ridiculous the explanations for what was observed began to be. Yes, from our perspective here on Earth, Mars actually appears to change its’ direction of movement and seems to be briefly moving in the entirely opposite direction. Once it was finally acknowledged that we here on earth aren’t the stationary center of everything, the motions of the heavens again began to make simple sense.
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