Little Quibbles Make this Atheist Quote Scripture

Oh boy. Here we go again. Christians criticizing other christians for their interpretations of scripture. Has anyone else noticed that in blog posts recently? I feel like everywhere I turn, christians are bashing each others' lives and claiming to really know the truth. (Well, all religions do that, I'm sure, but christianity is the one I get most exposure to.)

Case in point: today, I stumbled across this blog post:

Long story short, one blogger is reacting to what a celebrity that married young called "biblical marriage" and making several arguments, some strong and some laughable, supporting her own view instead.

Biblical literalists often point out that Colossians encourages women to submit to their husbands, so that must be biblical marriage. This blogger said several things that I agree with, including that at that misogynistic time, that was the only respectable model of marriage, and that in similar passages, Paul advocates those men with power treat their slaves and children well, as well as to love their wives enough to die in their place. But then we come to a comment that just rubs me the wrong way.

Eventually the Church moved to the forefront of abolition because we understood this truth: Just because the bible contained instructions about how to treat slaves in a context and culture where it was acceptable to hold slaves does not mean slavery is a godly practice or part of God's intended purpose for creation.

Hold up. Take a few steps back. The abolition movement in America began in the late 18th century, and officially culminated with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 (after which it was instead the civil rights movement.) In those times, religion was even more prevalent than it is today. In America, "religious freedom" generally meant "You don't have to be a Catholic" or "Pick your flavor of Christianity." Other religions were ignored or minimized, and atheism was basically unheard of except as an insult that implied lack of moral restraint (more comments on the "but no one can be moral without (my) god!" sentiment in another post.) Of course the church led the abolition movement. It was also the biggest player in opposing it and supporting slavery. That's because virtually everyone in America at the time was christian, and even if they were not christian, that was not something they would have been open about. Think of how relatively small the abolitionist movement was in society. That means that far more christians were for slavery or didn't mind it than those who were specifically against it.
Really think about it. Who were the biggest advocates against abolition? The Southern plantation owners who made so much more profit because they did not have to pay the slaves for their work. You know what else the South is famous for? Ebullient greetings and the Southern Baptist Church.

Given that both slave-ownership and church attendance were so high, there has to at least be some overlap between the figures, lots of christians who supported slavery. And I'm sure it was easy, especially with verses like Ephesians 6:5 (Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ) and 1 Peter 2:18 (Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust) to convince them that slavery was okay. Slaves were flat-out ordered in the word of god to be obedient to their masters, regardless of whether they were treated well or not.

Abolitionists probably preferred Deuteronomy 23:15 (You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you) or 1 Corinthians 7:21 (Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.) These say, if a slave has any chance not to be a slave, he should be allowed to escape. This is the current popular interpretation, that all people have dignity and deserve better than slavery. But in case you didn't notice by my slipping into the old testament, there are very few verses that seem to absolutely say "slavery is to be avoided." There are far, far more that fit into the pattern of, "slaves obey your masters," than "treat everyone with respect and dignity." The only new testament verse I could find that encourages vaguely against slavery said IF there's a chance to get out, take it. That actually sounds much more like "obey your masters" if you dwell too long on the idea.

(Not all slavery verses fit into either category. There are also a fair number of "both slave and free" verses, generally implying "everyone" just with more words, and a few that talk negatively about slavery to sin - but only because it prevents you from being a slave to god. In fact, you might conclude from that slavery IS the pattern for life from a christian worldview, because all humanity is supposed to be slaves to god otherwise they are WRONG.)

Yes, this is all my speculation of former attitudes or popular verses. But since many of us, myself included, like observing that the civil rights movement has never stopped, just moved on to encompass new groups as the older ones got vaguely closer to equality, I'd like to tie this in to a subject we've all heard of. The current hot-button equal-rights-for-all issue is whether or not gay people are allowed to marry each other. Religion loves yelling in that political debate. On the two sides I generally hear a few specific arguments within religion (yes, I'm ignoring my own demographic: the atheists that argue from an ethical perspective rather than a religious one.) On the one side, I hear that homosexual-anything is an abomination (fyi, gay marriage really wasn't even remotely a thing back in the Roman Empire, and accordingly, nether Jesus nor any of his friends and followers, said anything for or against it. However, I think it's worth noting that when I was little, and raised in a church, I thought that the main reason "gays" were so awful was that by definition all of their sex was outside of marriage. 13 years ago, gay marriage wasn't legal anywhere in the states; we're making some progress at least.) On the other side, I hear "the first thing god declared "not good" is for man to be alone (i.e. without a life and/or sexual partner, which we can infer because the solution to the problem was the provision of a wife,)" which sort of rubs me the wrong way in that it implies that the wife is an object to be given. Both sides claim to have the bible "right." As an atheist, I don't care because it doesn't hold a place of authority in my life, but I'm not entirely fond of either side.

Have you noticed yet the point I'm trying to make here? No matter the debate, christians on both sides of it will find bible verses that can be taken literally on their own or interpreted in context to support their argument. So much for an inerrant bible that can only speak truth and goodness into people's lives. Honestly, if you take the bible in context and in full, I cannot find anything that truly says "slavery should end." In fact, what I think most honestly sums up the bible's take on slavery is Leviticus 25:44-46, which, in Kara's paraphrase says 'enslave anyone from any other group, but make sure your own group remains racially and socially superior.' Oops. The bible is actually in support of racially motivated slavery and inequality. Lucky for society, most of America ignores that verse either because it's Leviticus, which no one has read, or because instead of saying "your own group" it specifically says "the people of Israel" so it's harder to "literally" apply to ourselves.

If you take the bible literally, you will almost never wind up on the right side of history. The bible may have been socially progressive for the first century C.E. But we've progressed since then and the bible, which has not been re-written, will always be behind. It does advocate slavery. It does encourage unequal marital relationships. (Maybe that's what's so offensive about gay or lesbian marriages. There's no built-in sexism, so they can actually be equal, but people in their patriarchal mindsets, can't figure out what to think, so they get angry instead.)
Stuff like this... It is by no means the reason I decided I was not a christian, but it is one of many reasons why, even if I decide I'm a theist, I will never be a christian again.

All the bible verses in parentheses following their reference are ESV translation. The one in single quotes is marked in context in my blog as my own paraphrase. I don't go out of my way to misrepresent the bible. But I certainly have no qualms pointing out the truths I see now that I would have hated to hear as a christian.

God is Selfish

This blog post may be slightly nsfw due to subject matter.

For some reason, I decided to ponder the question (from a christian perspective) of why god would have created sex. I came up with two plausible reasons that nearly fit within christian theology for this "creation." I also came up with many many less than plausible reasons, and a few runners up may be addressed at the end.

One option is that god, being the perfect loving being, gave sex as a gift to humanity because he knew from experience how wonderful it is. That means either that god-the-father and Jesus are separate enough to have had and enjoyed sex together or, since it is heresy to deny that they are separate beings, that god masturbates and likes it. However, since he forbids masturbation elsewhere in the bible and most if not all churches treat masturbation as a sin, that seems a bit hypocritical of him, no matter how "selfless" he was in giving sex to humans.

Obviously, as an atheist, I cannot believe that god is that selfless, given the many examples in the bible of him insisting on being put first, including the first two of the famous ten commandments and quotes like, "I the lord your god am a jealous god," and "give your first fruits to the lord" which show off that god is a selfish being and knows it. Therefore I find this second option that much more convincing. God is a voyeur. Why else would he create something so wonderful and then put so many restrictions on it? He prefers certain methods of sex to others, so he's convinced humanity that all else is a sin. It's a little bit selfish, but quite understandable. If I was an omnivident (all-seeing) being, I would ask the people I could always see to have sex in the ways I preferred to see so I had less to see of ways I didn't like. I might even ask them not to have sex so often because I would get tired of seeing it. I think god as a voyeur, a picky watcher of everyone's sex, makes lots of sense.

Some christians may protest that god just knows everything and created sex to be good without personal experience. (This is one of those runners-up because of the prevalence of the idea.) But since he created it and then insisted on restricting it, that just seems mean. If he restricts it because he doesn't want anything to rival him in our obsessions, he could have wired us not to enjoy it so much or simply not creating anything that we react to with that level of pleasure. If baby-making itself is so dirty, then he could have made something else to give us that sort of pleasure if the motivation really was to give us a gift. I really can't believe that the act of creating sex was selfless.

Anyway, the impression I get from churches is that sex is so bad because it's god's rival for our attention and god wants all of our attention. I think that's further proof of my own beliefs, that god did not create sex at all, either because he's made up or because he is not all-powerful.

Well, I'm always open to more opinions. Comment below if I've missed an alternative that seems obvious to you.

Books and Snark (and Too Many Parentheses)

Well isn't that just like me. I started a new blog, post twice in three days, then go a week and a half without writing anything relevant. Oops. But in my defense, that includes Thanksgiving Break...

Also, this blog has a meaner tone than usual, even though I was my usual mixture of confused and amused at christians' reactions to different things. But my confusion seems to have manifested itself as snark. I can't figure out how to tell the same story "nicely" so read with caution. Also, spoiler warning for the Twilight "Saga" and Fifty Shades, little bits of each. Each is so notorious that I doubt these "spoilers" will surprise anyone, but I'm giving warning now in case anyone cares.

Anyways, since I go to a Christian school, lunch conversation turns into blog fodder. Today for instance. I ate with four friends. Two know I am dating a girl, AND that I'm atheist, which I very hesitantly share around here. Another is the subject of today's amusement (we will call this person Friend because any identifying information to go along with my teasing would be mean), and the last came in mid-conversation and didn't say much. (Yes, it is unusual that everyone at the table is someone I consider a friend. It's usually a diverse crowd with some of the same people in the mix.) For whatever reason, shortly after I sat down we wound up talking about books. Friend admitted to reading Twilight and commented on the social expectation of being teased for that, which actually none of us tried, though we weren't really left the time to do so. I shared what trivia I know about the series, and conversation continued. When the fourth book came up, which, in case you didn't know, includes a sex scene AFTER the marriage scene. For some reason, Friend freaked out that it included a sex scene at all and then started ranting about Fifty Shades of Grey. "I read the Wikipedia article..." After the first wave of detail-less fury (about how wrong and different it is) I tried to lighten the mood by mentioning that it was so different but it was just someone else's idea of how the world is, I got nearly wordless rage in return, with no more detail than before. I agreed that it was not worth reading, and stated that the only part I actually liked was that they broke up in the end. And I was agreeing with my friend! I was trying to agree and inspire Friend to act calmer, since I wasn't going to get any rational discussion out of the topic, but that agreement only provoked another outburst. One of the friends who knows me better tried to reassure me later that Friend was just very anti-secular and reacted that way to lots of things in the "world." I'm not upset at being basically shouted down, especially because of the reminder that Christians who can't handle anything worldly are honestly quite pathetic. They want to be "in the world, not of the world" but can't handle that people have different standards or priorities or "ethics" (I wouldn't usually classify BDSM or other kinks as defining a moral standard, but if you're referring to the ethic of not hating others for their interests, that does seem to be contrary to christian culture...) Good luck surviving in the world, Friend. Because if you can't handle that a book you will never have to read exists, life is going to be unnecessarily stressful in many ways.

Semantics and Illogic

Okay, so here's a story from Monday night, I've just been slow about typing it up. For some reason, a new physics professor was sitting with my friends at our usual dinner table, so I joined them. Didn't think much of it. I don't remember how exactly it came up, but I wound up mentioning that my bible class teaches me all the ways I'm a heretic, and generally making fun of the class, like I do in this blog except in life I'm not so openly atheist. When asked for an example of what I meant, I explained my favorite, most ridiculous example. I am a heretic because I believe Jesus had one, combined nature. (notice I'm still allowing for the orthodox belief that he was both human and divine). From my point of view, even though he has two otherwise mutually exclusive traits (the perfection of divinity and all the imperfections of humanity) if he acts on them in a consistent proportion, then for all intents and purposes, he has one nature. He is predictable. That is the understood use of the word nature in most other contexts that refer to personality. And usually, the explanation I get is that I cannot deny that he was both human and divine and those are the natures that I am counting and I cannot say they are combined because that is impossible because they are so different.

For some reason, in the middle of explaining this to my friend, the physics prof decided to explain to me the error in my reasoning in the same dogmatic terms I always hear from preachers. We can't understand god. His natures are completely separate. I argued that even though I might at different times present myself as Kara the student or Kara the daughter, my nature was the same. I still avoid conflict as much as possible. I still have a healthy amount of respect for authority coupled with a general unwillingness to take orders. I have the same nature and I act consistently. Jesus acted consistently. One nature. So Mr. Stranger Prof tried to explain to me that in twenty years when I'm married, sometimes my nature as a wife and my nature as a mother will come into conflict and I will have to prioritize my husband versus my children. So many problems with that, mostly because of his assumptions, and a little on the logic:

One, I won't have a husband, I am strongly likely to marry my current girlfriend.

Two, I won't bear our children, she will (we've already agreed on this).

Three, I will never have to choose between a spouse and my children. She is not shallow enough to threaten to leave over anything involving our children, nor to kick them out and I wouldn't still be dating her if she was anything like that. If she and our hypothetical children are all sick, I'll exhaust myself taking care of them all. If they are arguing, I'm a peacemaker. I value peace and everyone getting along. I will work towards that goal which is not choosing one over the other.

Four, his point works a lot better for arguing that I have two natures as a fallible human being than it does for arguing that the perfect son of god who has the ability to be perfectly consistent has two natures.

Yet this is the illogic of Christianity. I'm a heretic, among other reasons, because I insist on using standard definitions of terms. I do not try to deny Jesus' humanity, and for the sake of my Christian friends, I talk from the philosophical perspective of when I was a Christian, so I do not deny his divinity. Those are what I would consider the important points yet even if I were a Christian, that tiny detail where I get in trouble because the church invented its own definition, makes me a heretic.

Hmm. That might be a better name for this blog. "The Happy Heretic"... Thoughts?

Honest Christianity

Thursday, in my bible class, my teacher said that to try to apply logic to the bible "is to do it an injustice"

This sums up in one perfect quote all of my issues with christianity. I have a math brain. I can't live without logic. But at least my teacher agrees with me that the bible can't be logically studied and understood. We just draw opposite conclusions from that fact. I decided that an illogical document shouldn't run my life so I no longer care about its implications, while my teacher obviously decided that since it can't be understood, the dogma should be studied more so it's at least understood in some way, since it's somehow still relevant.

So maybe I'm a little crazy for continuing to go to school here when I'm taught such insanity as reasonable "truth." Among other reasons, it means I always have something to laugh at.

Incidentally, I won't usually have a specific date to point to while telling my stories, because I have lots of places in my notes marked "blog post!" and I will address them all in time.

Introductions

Hey everyone. I'm starting a new blog and while a few friends might follow me over from my old blog, it's still worth introducing myself. My name is Kara. I am an atheist at a Christian college. The second of mandatory bible classes was what convinced me Christianity was not something I could believe in. Now I've always been one to disprove stereotypes, so I don't want to be just another angry atheist. Instead I choose to be amused by the stupidity I encounter in the following bible classes and on other occasions when people discuss Christianity as undeniable truth. I've been meaning to start this blog for a while, but something said the other day in class was so perfect I couldn't help but share. But that will go in its own post. Funny quotes should outshine narcissism, not the other way around.

In any case, welcome, readers.