God's Not Dead: Film Review

God's Not Dead is a 2014 film that, in a scattered and none-too-subtle way, tells a story of the oppression of religious freedom in an academic setting. It features a young actor/musician named Shane Harper and former Hercules TV series star Kevin Sorbo in a battle of wits and wills as they attempt to resolve the question of whether or not God is, in fact, dead (hint: the opinion of the filmmakers influences the results of the debate.)

The film begins with Josh (Harper) and various others all going about their mornings. Many of these characters are college students, though some aren't related to the college and only tangentially related to the plot. Josh is on his way to schedule his classes, or reaffirm his already made schedule, or something like that. His Newsboys t-shirt and cross necklace tell us two things: firstly, that he is a Christian; and secondly, that the film wasn't lying when, literally five seconds ago, the opening credits stated that it was featuring the Newsboys.

Noticing the cross necklace, and probably having no clue who the Newsboys are, the guy approving schedules on the campus lawn warns Josh that his scheduled philosophy professor will eat him alive, complete with comparison to gladiatorial carnage. This is our first impression of Sorbo's character, Jeffery Radisson. The admissions guy recommends Josh take a different class, or professor, or something, anything. Josh says he can't redo his entire schedule, and it can't be that bad, and goes on with his plans.

Soon we learn that Josh's academic plans are carefully structured - he's a law student, and his girlfriend Kara gave up on going to a better school so that she could stay with him. Nonetheless, they have marginally more chemistry than anyone else in this movie, and seem like typical American sweethearts.

When Josh finally goes into philosophy class, we meet Sorbo's character at last. He is serious and straightforward, and he goes about explaining how everyone knows that God is dead, and it's not worth spending the time talking about religion that would normally be part of the curriculum. He says that as long as everyone will sign an affidavit declaring "God is dead," they can all skip that material, which students usually score poorly on anyway.

Sadly, not much time is spent talking about the phrase "God is dead," a seldom explored and oft misunderstood quote by Nietzsche, a significant philosopher whose name most people can neither spell nor say, and who many have vilified without having ever studied or attempted to understand him. Instead, Nietzsche's first, or perhaps second most well-known phrase is used in a childish, petty and blatantly unconstitutional show of force by Radisson (who seems to fancy himself quite the superman.)

The rest of the class has no problem signing off on what they're told is permission to skip a significant portion of their subject matter, but Josh is troubled, staring uncomfortably at the paper in an awkward form of acting which we will see several more times over the course of the film. In the end, Josh refuses, and Radisson insists that if Josh will not concede the fact that God is dead, that Josh must prove to the class that God exists. He lays out a variety of rules and expectations, and Josh is set on his path to do the unthinkable: to convert a bunch of Americans to Christianity.

Kara isn't happy about this. She warns Josh this could cost him his grades, and that would really muck up their pre-planned life together. Josh struggles with what to do, and, sitting for awhile in an empty church, he gets a bit of advice from Reverend Dave, a side character who we also see palling around with a Magical Negro missionary named Reverend Jude.

Tangent time: seriously, this is such a white movie, the only black characters are a guy who calls himself "G-Dog" and an African missionary with a quaintly calm wisdom, seeing God's plans for Dave through a veil of setbacks and inconveniences. Jude also has the magical power to make a stalling car start, and he can instantly tell that an injured person's ribs are shattered and that their lungs are filling with blood. Despite these gifts, he takes a backseat to Dave, because obviously. Anyway...

Dave gives Josh a bit of encouragement, prompting him to take up Radisson's challenge or else, as implied through scripture, become a horrible failure in the eyes of God. Dave then proceeds to not see or talk to Josh again, and yet continues to be a relevant character, interacting with some of the other supporting characters who have little to do with the plot.

Increasingly, that becomes one of the main flaws of the movie, in my opinion - it spends a lot of its time not really caring one way or another about the titular issue of God's death. We see Ayisha, a girl whose Muslim father forces her to wear a hijab over her face in public. I cannot find an example of anyone wearing exactly what she wears. I'm not going to say they made it up, but... I feel like they made it up.

We also meet Mina, and her mother suffering from dementia, and Mina's brother, wealthy businessman Mark (played by former Lois & Clark star Dean Cain,) who's dating rabid liberal vegan atheist blogger Amy, who attempts an ambush interview on unflappably scripted Duck Dynasty star Willie Robertson... Oh, and Martin, a stereotypically straight-laced and studious Chinese exchange student, but he's actually in Josh's class, making him one of the few relevant characters.

It turns out Mina is dating the much older Radisson, who almost manages to seem charming for about 10 seconds until we see that he's a smug a-hole who demeans and dismisses his girlfriend, further rendering him an unlikeable character in every single aspect of his life. Honestly, they couldn't even show him secretly rescuing animals, or buying Josh a coffee and telling him it's nothing personal.

Another side note: there are three break-ups of couples in this movie, all seemingly within a few minutes of each other, toward the middle of the movie. There is a severe lack of chemistry with any of them, and the terms of the break-ups are cartoonish, fake and unfelt. While they do make one Christian look bad in the process, they make two atheists look far worse, because we all know atheists are selfish people and terrible lovers who are always causing breakups and - oh.

So, the fated day comes, and Josh decides to go forward with his first presentation to win over the class. This kicks off a series of three such sessions throughout the movie, containing a handful of quotes and arguments between Josh and Radisson that, if you are somehow interested in this topic, yet have never read a single book on it nor watched any debates, might briefly captivate you.

Of course, no train of thought is followed to its conclusion, and more focus is placed on topics like big bang cosmology, evolution and abiogenesis than the slated subject of "philosophy." These far from epic intellectual clashes really only comprise a few minutes of the total movie, and hardly manage to define it or tie it together.

These classroom scenes showcase a strong lack of chemistry between the two actors who might as well be on two different screens, and they suffer from the blatantly scripted, empty roles the main characters have been given. Harper is every awkward, goodhearted American Christian teen we've ever seen or heard of, and Sorbo dances between elitist condescension, bland indifference and threatening, domineering anger, all while managing to be a bad actor.

To be fair, there is almost no humanity written into the character for Sorbo to play with. The writers have pushed past mere Straw Man arguments and started creating Straw Men characters - complete without brains. He is a bitter and repulsive Goliath to Josh's everyday David, a punching bag for the predictable conclusion of the movie's core argument, and a sacrificial lamb for the somewhat unexpected - yet contrived, and shamelessly ironic - ending of the movie.

By the time it was over, I did have to admit there were a handful of scenes that were done somewhat well, whether as attempts to tie the story together, or to impact the viewer emotionally. The cinematography isn't bad, and some of the performances are as good as you could expect from a lower budget movie. There isn't a lot that's laughably bad.

That said, all the stray plot points seem like a poor idea. Josh only interacts with a few characters briefly throughout the movie, despite there being a good dozen or so poking around. This makes it hard to convey his actual character growth or struggles. And Radisson's growth is ham-fistedly crammed into the last few minutes. More actual time could have been devoted to these two, and the movie would have been better for it. Ultimately, they are cardboard cutouts, caricatures to reinforce a particular ideology. Which brings me to my final criticism:

Intellectually, this movie is dead. It pays brief lip service to the existence of this debate, but does no justice to the deep history behind it. Everything is superficial, lacking substance. No ideas are explored. You will learn almost nothing about Christianity or about atheism by watching this movie. That's fine and all, but it shows a lack of interest in the actual topic on the parts of the filmmakers, but rather a persecution complex, and a sense of emotional distress. This film is a Christian response to a perceived threat, with a simplistic shadow of that threat puppeted on the screen.

This isn't a movie about addressing intellectually or ideologically whether or not God is dead - it's a movie about how upset some Christians are at the mere idea of God not existing, and their inversion of the issue, to depict atheists upset at God's existing.

The Good

• Mostly decent performances
• Nice camera work and environments
• Some emotionally effective scenes

The Bad

• Some bad/unnatural lines and a broad lack of chemistry
• Obvious messaging with no subtlety
• Mostly one dimensional characters; or two, where the second dimension is that they secretly want to know God and the first is that they're assholes

The Ugly

• Lack of any sympathy or positivity whatsoever toward open atheists
• The tease of actual argument and thought, with only sparse, shallow and vacuous substance to show for it
• The awkward, horrible scenes with Willie Robertson and/or the Newsboys

In a vacuum, for production quality alone, I'd give this movie a C. I'm not angry that I watched it, and it was better than most Hallmark Channel Movie Specials, but most of my interest in it was in its agenda. For having that agenda, and moreover, for the shameless and pandering way it was fed to the viewer, I'll give this movie a D-. An F would imply that it failed, when really, God's Not Dead accomplished what it set out to do: it never honestly tried to prove that God's not dead. It tried instead to undermine the argument itself, then cry out in masturbatory victory - and it succeeded.

If you agree with the title of the movie, and you don't really like atheists, liberals or academics, you'll probably enjoy God's Not Dead. Anyone else, I'd say skip it, unless you have the same morbid interest I do.

Faith Healing Email

My mother is a very caring and compassionate person.  For years she worked as an EMT, then a nurse.  She has wide knowledge and keen insights on medical issues.  Family and friends often look to her for advice and assistance.

As her Christianity became more extreme, she shifted career tracks and worked in large-scale ministries.  She became an expert on prayer, including "prayer walking" and is respected and sought out for these purposes.  To this day, she believe she has been part of many miracles.  She does not charge money or seek praise, and she is quick to insist that she doesn't heal anyone; God does.

She has prayed for chronic conditions, fast recoveries, cancer remissions, positive prognoses, even fertility.  Obviously, she does not medically document, do follow-up examinations, or formally present evidence for her claims.  Still, she remains convinced that God has proven himself time and time again.

Thankfully, in the face of serious illness or emergency, she will give sound medical advice.  She doesn't try to pray wounds shut or for missing limbs or damaged organs to return to normal.  She seems to plug prayer into any situation where there's nothing else she can do.  However, when I ask her why God won't heal amputees, she claims to genuinely think that he can and does, but that it happens in remote villages in third world countries, where the faith is "stronger" - and where proper documentation is conveniently unavailable.

I don't think I can get through to her.  She has seen medical fact demonstrate itself countless times, seen it be the difference between life and death - yet she has chosen to devote herself instead to vague claims and comforting beliefs.  All I can do is talk about it openly and hope that people would rather live in the real world than in hers.

Faith I: Confidence

faith   [feyth]

noun

1.

confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

2.

belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

3.

belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

(dictionary.reference.com)

What is faith? Confidence without certainty. Certainty is what separates faith from knowledge. In many cases, what is considered or assumed to be knowledge may be later shown to be untrue. To assume everything we consider knowledge is true is to have too much faith in it. This is why some knowledge can be expressed through probability, or through an "educated guess". We can know observed details, and use them to come to likely conclusions. Even if the details are true, the conclusions are not always set in stone.

Hence, if someone says "atheists have faith in science," they may be correct that some of us do, but an atheist who has faith in science is making a mistake. We do not trust and assume the inherent veracity and inerrancy of the idea that there was a Big Bang that propelled all universal matter outward or that the age of the earth is 4.54 billion years. We infer these ideas to be the most reasonable situations based on the evidence available.

Some will say that because the estimated age of the earth will fluctuate as we gain new information, the process itself is unreliable. Compare this to solving a coded message:

*** ***** ** *****.

At first, we only solve for t:

T** ***** ** *****.

Our evidence suggests that the first word starts with a "t" sound. However, when we uncover the letter h:

Th* ***** ** *****.

Suddenly, the message is delivered with a "th" sound, which goes against the probable "t" sound originally. Many may state that because the first interpretation was wrong, the second is less trustworthy. But in such a simple example, anyone can see why this is faulty reasoning. We have a better understanding now, not a worse one. It only makes sense that with less information we would have had a less complete estimation. To deny new information because the old wasn't good enough is to shut off the world of possibilities entirely.

Others may have considered the common word "the" all along and predicted this outcome, which is indeed an intelligent guess, but they would have been in the wrong if they had declared this with certainty before the "h" was uncovered. Indeed, we could have selected all possible words which begin with t and contain three letters, and if we were to place a bet on the coded message, "the" is a reasonable choice by many standards. Faith, however, enters the picture when one rejects all other options besides "the" based only on the first one or two letters.

As long as we go forward with honesty, humility and careful consideration, we can uncover great truths:

Th* **r** ** r****.

Th* **r*d ** r***d.

Th* **r*d *s r***d.

Th* *or*d *s ro**d.

Th* *or*d *s rou*d.

The *or*d *s rou*d.

The wor*d *s rou*d.

The wor*d is rou*d.

The wornd is rou*d.

The wornd is rould.

And as long as we can admit when the conclusions don't match our expectations, and change our views to match the facts... our minds will be free. Free to consider the possibility that not everything has a greater meaning or purpose, that a world which may seem bright and personal may be cold and indifferent. Free to all possibilities, bound by none.

Many believe that if they have faith and believe in God, he reveals himself to them and thus they have personal proof that he exists. But what happens if that person stops believing? How can something they knew become unknown unless they didn't really know it? Many Christians look at those people and say "well, they never truly believed". I know, not just because I heard it, and had it explained to me that way, but because I, too, used to think like that about others who stopped believing. Now I'm one of those paradoxical nonbelievers, and I know some people must think the same of me: either I never truly believed, or I'm just mad at God and use a delusional attitude of unbelief to lash out at him. I assure you that neither is true.

I was utterly convinced that God was real and offered myself to him, humbling myself, considering myself base and unworthy, needing of redemption and joyful that I could receive it. I tried to be a new, better person by praying, studying, monitoring my own bad actions and asking for help not to repeat them. Now I don't believe in God, and I find it pretty difficult to be mad at him, in the same way that I can't be mad at the Cat in the Hat for messing up the kids' house. I can still make the logical observation that the Cat, if he were a real guy, is an ass, and call into question why people would hold him up as an example of proper conduct. That's what I do.

I'm not mad at God. If anyone, I'm mad at the people who taught me about God, and at myself for believing it. They don't care about decoding the real questions in life. They want to assume what the message says. They say it's good to assume. They say the real beauty of the message is in trusting a guess. I think that's not only wrong, but it's dangerous, because it trains you to act in ways in which you aren't properly equipped to anticipate the results; not necessarily to make poor decisions, but to make arbitrary ones.

If I use faith to decide whether or not to kill infidels, whether to accept or reject science, or whether to support or deny gay rights, then the conclusions I come to may be anywhere on the map. If I use reason, I can arrive at the conclusion that best supports the ideals, goals and expectations I hold for my life and for the lives around me.

If I use faith for these decisions, I'm stuck with what I've got. To change my mind would be to demean and to nullify the faith I held. Reason, however, is self-correcting, and if I use it to mold my positions, it will improve over time. Where faith told me to close my eyes and pull the trigger, reason tells me to reconsider the value of the lives of others and to weigh the potential consequences for such actions. Where faith told Abraham to put his son on the altar, reason told the schizophrenic to seek help instead of listening to the voices.

Reason is, simply and demonstrably, and in fact by definition, superior to faith for determining truth, and anyone who denies that is my enemy. Mind you, I'm gentle as foes go, and I act in good intention, but don't forget that we're on opposite sides of a very important struggle, so make sure you bring your big guns. If you aren't sure why you're right, don't expect to convince me of it.

This doesn't mean faith is completely useless or inherently evil. But to call faith a good and moral principle is false. I'll explain why next time. For now, you'll just have to believe me that I'm right - or realize that you must use reason to determine whether faith in me is warranted.

ATHEISM

So, I'm sitting there not listening to anything and I hear my mom on the other side of the house through my door:

Mom: I'm surprised Richard didn't notice it.

Oh, now that makes me curious. So I go to warm up my pizza.

Me: What didn't I notice?

Her: What, do you have super hearing? Alright, I'll show you, but don't go on a tirade.

She shows me a piece of paper that says ATHEISM.

Her: It's the lesson for tomorrow.

Me: You're still doing that? (Teaching the youth group.) They sure keep you busy, don't they? Well, you could have a real atheist there to talk, or maybe have a debate?

Her: These are pretty young kids, mostly 7th graders.

Me: Is that the reason why they shouldn't hear it?

Her: ...Yeah.

Me: Oh, well, we'll brainwash them till they're 18, but then they can make up their own minds.

Her: See, I told you no tirades.

Me: Yeah, sorry, you took me to church for 18 years, but of course you can't listen to two sentences from me.

Am I wrong? Because I sure as hell regret that adults didn't respect me enough to allow me to hear an honest discussion or debate. But religion wouldn't survive in the open light. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to debate me yourself. Or ignore me and just target the kids who depend on you to shape their view of reality.

The Things We Worship

Exodus 20:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
3 Do not have any other gods before me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not worship anything but God. If you sin by worshiping another god, then YHWH, I Am, will punish even your children for it.

What does worship really mean? To fling yourself at the feet of something? What if it has no feet, no form at all? If it is an idea, how do you worship it?

It is to hold something sacred, not to question it or challenge it. It is to enshrine within the mind the superior virtue of something beyond oneself... to become a vessel for an idea.

Can you worship the god of the Bible while still considering that he may not exist? Can you devote your life to something you doubt?

Why would God punish your children for your actions? Why not hold everyone to their own account? I posit that this is because the children follow the parents. They are taught, instructed and expected to follow and obey. To this day, many of us assume it only natural to take our children to our own church, to indoctrinate them to perform activities before they can even fathom the meaning or nature of these things they do.

If you falter, your children will falter. If you are strong, your children will be strong. What is the nature of this? Why is it that throughout history, so many cultures all across the world have raised their children up, with a strong likelihood that the child will conform to the religious views of the parents and of the community? If God loves all of us, and wants all of us to accept him through his son, why is the overwhelming trend for cultural exposure to determine our fate? Did Jesus really die for 50% of America and 1% of China?

Indeed, it would appear that the sins of the father shape the fate of the son. However, we all can infer the simple explanation for the stratified trends of religion: as you grow up exposed to something, you will inevitably have to accept or reject it. As I deal with Christianity in my American suburb, atheists in India have fought their intellectual and ideological battles with Hinduism.

As for why so many people accept that religion with which they are raised, it is a simple matter of social cohesion. That a child can be raised to embrace anything from grizzly human sacrifice to safeguarding the life of every insect is a testament to the malleability of the psyche in the hands of its native culture. Children are simply inclined to trust adults, to accept stories, to begin to erect the little idea shrines in the backs of their minds.

Look no further than Santa Claus, a rather recent invention with an easily traced history. As far as belief and mysticism go, it is the mental equivalent of a toy - a simple concept for the warmth and amusement it can bring to children. How naturally we are inclined to create such toys, to give them to our children, to think nothing of this odd, unnecessary process - and how little thought we give to the significance demonstrated by their acceptance. Think about it: if it weren't for all the overt clues like frantic holiday shopping, receipts, homes without chimneys, and for an eventual exhaustion with childish indulgences, or perhaps simply a desire for our children to appreciate the money we spend on them - if not for these things, if the myth were something more abstract, perhaps we could string them along and convince them of Santa for their whole lives.

Even if there is some type of "god" in this reality, the fact that children can so easily be made to believe these things still says much. It should tell a member of one religion why so many other religions are able to thrive, but it should also make them question that one religion of theirs. What do you have that a Hindu does not? And what do they have that you do not? Do you know? Do you care? What meaning is there to truth if you accept the first answer to the question, and never question that answer?

If someone handed you a keyring with 100,000 keys on it, what is the moral value of having faith in one key? And what is the intellectual value of that faith? Statistically, it is a terrible choice, and if opening the door is very important, refusing the other 99,999 keys makes you unlikely to help yourself, let alone anyone else.

To hold the key more sacred than the door is to misunderstand the purpose of the key and to throw away your chances for the door. How is this faith anything but a delusion? How is this faith good in any way? I have never seen or heard a good answer for this, but I have seen stubbornness, dogmatism, redoubling of efforts and the digging in of heels to hang onto the key; I have seen fear, desperation, avoidance and pain at the thought of losing the key. People love their key. People have forgotten the door.

This example doesn't even preclude that the key might open the door. It is common wisdom to consider that a key might open a door, but foolish beyond belief to insist that it must.

So what is the point regarding our worship of that which our parents worshiped? What does it say that we conform to the trends of our culture so frequently? I posit that humans worship human culture.

Christians, or those who have been Christian, consider the fear with which you may knowingly perform some sin, or in which you may avoid committing that sin altogether. When you slyly take that object for yourself, or hide the truth from someone, or think an angry thought - do you forget God in that moment? Do you feel free to follow your whim; free now but due to face the weight of guilt later? Truly, how can you ignore this god which you think is self-apparent and resides in your very heart, mind and soul?

Now, think of how a friend or loved one would react to a particular action on your part - even if you think there's no malice or shame in that action. You hesitate, don't you? You think you may never be able to confront your parents about a sticky issue - you'll let them do as they will. You may feel worse about forgetting to take your shoes off in someone's home than you do about lusting or lying. Respect, shame, and a desire to live up to expectations, these are guiding forces in our lives. When you don't know the answer, you'll seek out someone wise - specifically, someone whose standards of social conduct you are trying to conform to.

To accept the religion of your people without a second thought is to idealize your own culture, your own way of life. It is to create the shrine in your mind, not of your own will but of the will of those before you and around you. This is the nature of God as well as the nature of social cohesion. Is this a coincidence?

To accept the divine nature of a book handed to you, of songs sung to you, of a way of life laid out for you, and to not question these things, is to render them sacred, untouchable. It is in essence to worship these things, to worship the worship itself, to worship human culture and to worship one's own state of being human. If it is possible to worship God without worshiping worship, and to have faith in God without first putting faith in faith, I have not seen any evidence, any examples. I don't think it's possible to truly respect and appreciate the idea of God without fully knowing and investigating the history and complexity of the process itself. To do what everyone else has been doing without first carefully piecing together the nature of this process is not to worship God.

Now, what of atheists? I can't exempt my own from scrutiny. What do they worship, if anything? For some, the scientific method is sacred, or reason, or truth or pragmatism. This creates the amusing appearance of paradox: how can you scientifically verify that the scientific method is the best philosophy? The answer is intuitively simple and holds a greater truth: test the scientific method against other methods, and embrace that method which produces the best results. If one cannot accept this method, one is left in the position wherein they cannot say with integrity that one method of anything is better than any other by any means. Even flawed reasoning is still reasoning. The only other choice would be to make completely random choices. For humans, this is impossible, and even if it were, the word 'choice' would be inapplicable.

In this way, reason is self-verifying where spirituality is not. Spirituality may sometimes look and feel right, but without reason, there would be no ability for us to even correlate those appearances with any actual rightness. In this way, reason is not the shrine set aside in our mind, but the shrine's keeper.

This is why I find it unrealistic to consider the existence of a god who would wish for us to use faith over reason. Why we would be given such a fundamentally and universally sacred tool as reason, and use it, without giving it due respect, merely to serve the cause of such a sloppy, circumstantial tool as belief is beyond me. Where reason affirms itself, faith claims to do the same, but this only renders it less believable.

We are principally creatures of reason. Faith is both less useful and less fundamental to us. The only argument in its favor is that it feels or seems right, and even this isn't true of many people. Matters of faith cannot be adequately demonstrated - if they could, they would be matters of reason. Faith itself cannot even be justified without reason: that which we put faith in is simply that which we at some point arrived upon via reason, and no sensible argument for faith can be constructed by anything except reason. In this sense there is literally no argument as I can see it for faith. Faith is losing this fight, and I invite anyone to try to explain to me why that would be a bad thing.

Tell Ol' Pharaoh, Let My People Go

I went to my parent's church for its 50th anniversary. My mom's one of three charter members who are still alive.

They drag my nephew to church. My sister couldn't care less I don't think but my mom insists and my sister would probably be miserable with herself if she ever expressed anything but acceptance toward my mom's religious antics.

It was probably a good experience for the kid in some sense. He met some other little guys, although he's still such a spaz I think he has trouble making a lot of friends. He hung around me during the church event as much as he physically could. I'm not great with kids and he's an obnoxious one so I get my fill of him fairly quickly. And it doesn't help that they're filling his head with garbage, either.

I'll explain. He went off to children's church during the service. The pastor talked about several things, one of which was the parting of the Red Sea. After the whole thing ended, the kids are loosed and my nephew comes back to me. He's talking about "pharaoh", and clearly his group talked about that stuff as well.

So, he asks me "did pharaoh die?" And I said yes, everyone did eventually. He said how, I said I don't know, probably old age. (Yes, I know a common idea is that pharaoh drowns with the Egyptian soldiers as the Red Sea closes in on them, but historians have found no actual indication that the Egyptians kept Hebrew slaves in the first place, so the chances that a man died amidst an aquatic miracle seem pretty slim to me. And I'm not sure if the Bible verses explicitly state that he drowns.)

He tells me that pharaoh died (and forget me if I get this a little wrong) when my nephew knocked him in the head. I think he actually called this a "great mission". He also claimed he exploded someone's lucky watermelon and I think that had something to do with Egypt too. He starts telling me how he's always been 6 years old and he was around back then and he's like God and he killed pharaoh.

So, I know I'm a buzzkill, but I have a few problems here, both general and specific.

First off, generally speaking, it's clear a six year old is not getting a lot out of these stories. They may as well have taught him Dr. Seuss. It's just a different flavor of silliness, one at least intentionally designed to make children think and have fun, as he clearly wants to do.

I mean, here's this six year old blaspheming God by claiming that he himself is like God. Does God care? Well, of course he should! That's a capital sin! The only way God doesn't care is if he realizes the kid is too young too understand what he's saying... and if that's the case, there's my point proven!

Also, I dislike a lot of these stories being taught to small children. They're almost all about death in some way or another. God killed Egyptian children and animals simply to prove to them that he was serious. (I happened to write about this.)

Here we have my nephew saying he killed someone. And he thinks it's a good thing. I get it, cops & robbers, Ninja Turtles, etc... kids will talk about killing bad guys once in awhile. But, really. Teach my kids that the settlers killed the Indians, and I'm alright with it. Teach my kids that this is okay and God was pleased, and we have a problem. If the world gets flooded, yay, God took care of a few of the animals! Rainbow time. If Samson kills hundreds of people in a fit of rage, sweet!

The worst part is the "great mission" line. Again I'll mention Jesus Camp, because the scary lady in that actually said that she sees how Muslim kids will kill themselves for Islam and she wants kids that devoted to Christ here. If the kid were a little older, a little dumber and thrown into a bad situation, this kind of thought is the potential for bad things to happen.

I'll bridge all this together somewhat. The pastor was talking to us about how the Hebrews hesitated to go through the Red Sea, but 40 years later, they crossed the Jordan River without complaint.

He was saying how awesome this one verse was, verse 11.

Joshua 14:
10 "Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.

He was ranting about "this guy's the alpha dog" and "I hope I'm like that when I'm 80!"

Now, notice verse 12:

12 Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said."

So, yeah! God freed us from slavery, let's go to places where other people already live, kill them, and take their land. After all, it's all God's land. If he wants to kill them and give it to us, then they are surely forfeit. Sounds a bit like those Indians.

Interestingly, a few minutes later the pastor was talking about the greatest commandment: love the Lord, and love your neighbor as yourself.

So I guess the Israelites kick themselves out of their own homes and kill themselves. That's a hell of a prayer retreat if you ask me.

Oh, wait. Jesus didn't come to deliver the "greatest commandment" until centuries later. These guys were pre-love.

Another thing the pastor was talking about was how they originally had to cross the Red Sea, but it parted first. Then they had to cross the Jordan, but they had to get in BEFORE it would part.

He said God will do things differently each time, and you'd better learn to obey. They were thirsty, and Moses struck a rock, which sprang forth with water. Later, they were thirsty again, but God told him to talk to the rock, not strike it. He struck it again. God was mad. He never does things the same way twice, apparently.

Amazingly, this story matches perfectly with the greatest commandment. The first time, God tells you to go strike your neighbor. The second time, he says to go speak with them. Please keep in mind this is the same God whose perfect moral character is forever unchanging. He literally wants you to go kill everyone who isn't like you in one part of the book, and go preach to and show love to everyone who isn't like you in the other part of the book. I dare you, I dare anyone to justify this to me. Really justify it. If you can't, how can you possibly believe or accept it?

What really struck me about this little point was how he didn't talk about it at all. He applied the fighting spirit to moving forward as a church, growing and reaching the community. It's just so easy to gloss over the idea that what is being described is unjustifiable.

If I were a Christian and I went and killed a godless man and moved into his house, would I deserve to go to jail? I know these folks at the church would never want to see that happen now. But they've trained themselves not to think about it, not to worry about barbarism and evil as long a it's in the context of Bible stories.

And I know where it all started. It started with little kids, being numbed to atrocity via watered down stories they could not understand.

And where do I come in? Well, I stay out of it. If my nephew asked me why I don't go to church, or if I believe in God, I would probably answer honestly, but I'd try to skim the topic a bit. I know he wouldn't understand. I know he's not capable of having the conversation with me about how there's not evidence, or how not everything about God is good. And I know even if I tried, even if I just said something like "not everyone believes in God", that might be too much for some of them. That might be "rocking the boat", or disrupting his "spiritual walk" (despite the clear demonstrations of the fact that he has none yet).

And that's fine to a degree. I mean, I know what he's capable of, and what he's not. That's why I'd prefer not to go there in the first place. And that's why I think they're not doing anyone any good by going there themselves.

Of course you'll believe in God if you've never heard anything to the contrary and you're too young, uneducated and obedient to think of a reason otherwise.

I don't mean to insult religion by saying this, but I think any kid who hasn't figured out Santa isn't real isn't old enough to understand religion. Even if God IS real, if you want to grasp the concept as presented, you need to be able to tell the difference between an age-old, life-changing story, and a recent commercial bastardization of an otherwise obscure figure. Otherwise you're just a parrot, reciting a belief in God, ghosts, UFOs, chupacabra, Barack Obama's promise of change, and anything else you hear.

But they won't do that. They do not value the process of free and unfettered choice. Very few of them do, anyway. It's a powerful, time-honed system of social pressure. Make good Christian children. They don't care about the other side. They don't care about truth.

I left the faith because it was dead to me, but then I gradually learned the importance of freedom and of truth, and in doing so I came to despise the nature of organized religion. I despise the pressure thrust upon me by the social machine. I despise that the people who claim to hold the truth do not want to speak of it with me. I despise the use of fear and authority to silence open inquiry and progress.

If Hell exists, it is that moment, frozen in time, where one forfeits their critical thinking.

The God of the Bible is false. I will continue to prove this. That is all.

Love, III

I love you. Whoever you are, whatever you've done, I love you. I love you as much as possible, in the purest and most sincere way, so much so that I can do nothing but love you. I am love.

(Not really, but let's say I am.)

How will I treat you? The best possible way? Showering you with gifts and praise and joy? But no, if I love you, I can't just let you be evil, because evil does not love, but love demands love. Love is so great that if you do not love, I, in loving you, have a problem with you.

And you all just happen to be pretty damn evil.

The Problem: I made you evil.

It was necessary to make you evil. Why? Because love requires free will, and free will creates innate evil, because only I am love.

I made you something that was evil, and even when I send my followers to convince you to do good, it is I who will again make you evil all the same:

Exodus 4:

21 The LORD said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

Exodus 7:

3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.

Exodus 9:

12 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.

Exodus 10:

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD."

20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.

27 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to let them go.

Exodus 11:

9 The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." 10 Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.

Exodus 14:

3 Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' 4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this.

5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!"

I am good, but you, who I make evil, are evil. No matter how many times I reveal myself to you, I will choose to keep you evil. I do this not to show you the way, but to show the way by you.

Incidentally, in the process, I killed all of your firstborn. Men, women, children, babies, because of you. (This was out of love, as are all of my actions.)

But, in giving you "free will", wherein I harden you into evil, I am not to blame, and you are.

Romans 9:

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,

"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

The Answer to the Problem: I made you evil because I am good.

This is the nature of my love. I am love. Oh, and do not forget Malachi 1:

2 "I have loved you," says the LORD.

"But you ask, 'How have you loved us?'

"Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, 3 but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals."

I also hate. Perhaps I forgot to mention that.

Yes, I love and I hate. This is the nature of my love. I hate, and I will take everything away from those I hate; I will lift them up high only to destroy them and show that I am good and they are evil. They are evil because I have made them evil, hardened them evil; I have made them evil to show my goodness, because I am good, because I am love.

You will come to love me if I choose for you to love me. I know you, have known you from the beginning; I know what you could be, and I know what you will be. With that in mind, I have shaped your life and shown you what I will, and denied you what I will.

Lest we forget Matthew 11:

23And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. 24But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."

I know what will make you believe in me and love me. It differs between each of you. I will choose what each person will or will not see, knowing whether or not it will convince them. Though I wish for all to love me, some I will not show what is needed; others I will show the same deeds where it will not help. In my love for you, I will select your fate.

Romans 8:

28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

2 Thessalonians 2:13:

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

The fact that you are puppets is inescapable. For you to claim that you are free is to be made by me to say so. I control you because I love you. Specifically, I love some of you, and hate others of you; I hate those I have made evil, and love those who I have made to love me.

Matthew 13:

40"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

I will burn all but those I have chosen. All others exist to be destroyed as an example of my glory. This is because I am love. This is the nature of love. To doubt this is to not know love.

Do you know love?

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Forever shall I act at Thy command;

Alpha began, as will omega end.

I pray Thee, then, with Thy almighty hand,

In worship may Thou bring my knees to bend.