Category: God on Trial

The Bible begins with the book of Genesis, in which we read that the first humans, Adam and Eve, were forbidden on pain of death to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Nevertheless, beguiled by the Serpent, they did so and were duly punished (by exile from Eden and …

In the Wall Street Journal’s July 8, 2019, announcement of his new Commission on Unalienable Rights, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated, “America’s Founders defined unalienable rights as including ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ They designed the Constitution to protect individual dignity and freedom. A moral foreign policy should be grounded in …

“I know there’s a god,” someone once told me, “because I need there to be.” This was said at the end of a routine god/no-god debate. Amicable beer-drinking continued thereafter, but that specific conversation had clearly ended with that bit of insight. It was something of an epiphany for both of us. This was the …

Adult Bible Studies is published quarterly. It is identified on its inside cover as “An official resource for the United Methodist Church approved by the General Board of Discipleship and Published by Cokesbury, The United Methodist Publishing House.” Its reading for Easter 2018—which fell on April 1, appropriately enough—was titled “He Has Risen” and opened …

What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? The answer, which allowed the Greek King Oedipus to defeat the sphinx, is humankind. In our infanthood we crawl, from our childhood to old age we walk on two legs, and at the end of …

Jerking, howling, swooning Pentacostalism is the fastest-growing style of Christianity.

For so many reasons, no god (even if one existed) could seriously demand worship!

ISIS’s worst atrocity merely echoes one committed by Moses in the Old Testament.

The argument is irresistibly clear: Since rape exists, God must not.

Religiosity seems to correlate with criminal conduct . . . until you examine the data more scrupulously.

Much—so very much—that afflicts humanity today can be traced to the story of the Garden of Eden.

If the story of Jesus were true, ancient writers should have commented on it—yet 126 (and counting) who might have done so, did not.

The so-called New Atheists have not fared well among scholars of religion. Generally, their work has been shrugged off as shoddy, unscholarly propaganda, or they have been taken to task for conjuring “straw man” caricatures of religious traditions, conveniently ignoring all the good that religious institutions have done, defining faith in a manner unrecognizable to …

No, I’m not asking the old (but good) question of whether the New Testament gives Jews a bum rap. I want to make the argument that the process of unfairly condemning Jews, or Israelites, already begins in the Old Testament. We still read in Jewish as well as Christian writers, even ecumenically sensitive ones, about …

For the moment, let’s set aside the problem of why God doesn’t do what is right regardless of whether people pray. And let’s set aside the problem of what god, if any, is answering prayers. Finally, let’s also set aside the problem of why God doesn’t answer important prayers—like those to alleviate world hunger, those …

The desire to feel secure is the basis for human emotion and behavior, and it is the reason humans have believed in gods since the beginning of known history. The desire to feel secure, however, may result in a false sense of security due to a placebo effect. Placebo effects occur when religious or medical …

Readers may know that I have argued that exactly none of the Gospel sayings “of Jesus” stem from a historical Jesus of Nazareth, and not for the simple reason that there was no historical Jesus. No, my reasoning on that score is inductive, not deductive. My initial working hypothesis was to assume there had been …

Find intelligent design in nature and what—rejoice? A better reaction might be despair. Those betting with Kierkegaardian fervor that order in nature is the result of intelligent design should be very, very careful: getting what they want could be awful. The amazing order evident in the universe can, of course, be seen as the result …

Psychopaths are fascinating, in a repugnant sort of way. Whether we read about Ted Bundy or Paul Bernardo or see psychopaths depicted in fictional characters s uch as Hannibal Lecter, we are forced to wonder how a human being could ever do such horrible things. We are also forced to wonder whether we ourselves could …

Folks in Utah are proud to tell us that Utah’s founder, Brigham Young, had fifty-five wives. They don’t brag too much that many of those fifty-five were children or that history tells us that Brigham was complicit in the killing of 124 men, women, and children at Mountain Meadows in 1857. Few Mormons like to …

The great majority of believers in God would answer my title question with a resounding “On the contrary!” Far from destroying our duty of compassion, they’d say, the existence of God gives us a duty to act compassionately toward others. Some would go so far as to say that it also works in reverse: a …

Dear Lord, I hope you can appreciate a good joke. I’m praying on my back. I wanted be on my knees, which I understand is an ideal place to pray. The joke is that most of the time, that&rsquo ;s exactly where I am. Except that I just had surgery, as You probably know, to …

Theism, the belief in a personal god who takes an interest in and possibly intervenes in human affairs, has at its core an inherent preoccupation with morals. The interest that such a god takes is first and foremost a moral interest, involving approval or disapproval of the behavior of various human beings or groups. Indeed, …

Some of us have enjoyed the luxury of an atheist upbringing. Unlike our brethren who “converted” to a nontheistic worldview as adolescents or adults, we never have to suffer the post-traumatic stress that comes from a religious childhood. There are no ghosts of dictatorial priests or despotic pastors that still make us squeamish about our …

What country is in the midst of a long-standing civil war—a war that has displaced hundreds of thousands of citizens, seen the first widespread use of suicide bombers, and in which the government fighting separatist forces has among its most militant allies the country’s religious clerics? Chances are most Westerners thus questioned would search their …

Belief in a perfect god-creator requires the balancing concept of demonic evil to account for the unsatisfactory conditions of life for sentient creatures. We who discard the first have no need of the second. Both concepts, in Judeo-Christian terms, are absolutes. The rationalist sees the conditions of life as a mix of good and bad …

Most believers and nonbelievers are familiar with Pascal’s Wager, the argument designed to persuade us that the only rational thing to do is believe that God exists. If you do believe, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. If you don’t believe, you’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose. This is …

Countless secular humanists have sought various ways to promote personal commitments as meaningful substitutes for prayer. “Saying My Promises” is suggested as a hybridization of our thoughts for use by youngsters. These general concepts are not wholly new, I hasten to note, and I especially acknowledge Family Matters reader Dawn DeGrazio for her input along …

There are American states in which Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists who kill their children by denying them lifesaving blood transfusions or other medical procedures can escape the consequences of their crime by pleading “freedom of religion.” Currently, thirty-nine states’ civil codes include religious exemptions from child abuse or neglect charges, while thirty-one allow a …