Newt Gingrich

In a speech given to a congregation of Evangelical Christians in Texas, Newt Gingrich explained that he has a fear of the coming America a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists. But what does that even mean? This is a perfect example of the sort of nonsense put out by the far right. The former Speaker of the House most likely has no fear of this, holding a PhD means he probably understands how that statement is an oxymoron. To put it plainly, an atheist state cannot be dominated by theists. There is little doubt though that Newt chose these words very carefully, peddling fear the way a drug dealer who doesn't sample his own product would. He knows that the Evangelical Congregation will react well to such rhetoric.

The words Secular and Islamic have become the new slogans for the right when they want to incite panic. They are deployed in discussions only when one side wants to slander the position of the other. It come about because Secularism and Islam are presented as un-American, as if no real American could ever be a secularist or Muslim. This flies in the face of many great Americans who were just that secular or Muslim. The founding fathers,Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, Adams, and Washington were all secularists. Thomas Jefferson promoting the separation of Church and State; and being a generally irreligious person, rewrote a version of the New Testament which eliminated any and all supernatural events. Thomas Paine was a proponent of freethought and atheism writing works such as The Age of Reason as well as being a leading figure in both the American and French Revolutions. Benjamin Franklin was an outspoken opponent to religious dogma once stating in a letter to George White field:

"But I wish [Christianity] were more productive of good works, than I have generally seen it; I mean real good works; works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday keeping, sermon-reading or hearing; performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised even by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity".

John Adams expressed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson:

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

Finally, George Washington was far from the bible thumping conservative Christian the religious right portrays him as. Though he would infrequently attend mass with his wife he would always leave before communion. When Rev. Dr. James Abercrombie, rector of St. Peter Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, approached him on the matter Washington admitted that it must be distracting, apologised and ceased attending at all.

What of the famous Muslim Americans? Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress; André Carson, a Muslim congressman from Indiana; and Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry are all Americans who do not represent the cookie cutter mold of John Walker Lindh or John Allen Muhammed used to scare Americans into voting for the party of fear, a party that is so called "tough on terrorism".

In short it was secularism, not Christianity, which formed our nation and it takes a

wide brush to paint all Muslims as wanting to tear down the traditions, laws and heritage which make America the nation that it is. These comments made by the former Speaker of the House are used strictly to ignite anger toward his political opponents. They are meaningless semantics devoid of context. They "birther" claims, Glenn Beck's Stalinist-Maoist-Nazi witch-hunt, and Sarah Palin's drill, baby, drill, nothing more than buzzwords and catchphrases employed to gain a following of people too ignorant of the political process to understand an actual political platform. These words are for the people who elected George W. Bush over Al Gore because he seemed more likable, rather than more experienced. People who can be scammed into thinking that a secular atheist nation dominated by militant Islamists could possibly exist are no different than those who think that suffer from any other unreasonable delusion.

It is one thing to be critical of government, or anything for that matter as a fine tuned critical faculty allows us the ability to distinguish what is and is not genuine; it is another thing to have irrational grievances based on unsubstantiated claims. If Gingrich were to lay out his actual political platform, sans any Tea Party jargon or right wing rhetoric, it would be much less appealing to his base of religious right voters. His constituents and supporters would see him and his party for what they are, greedy old men seeking power at the expense of the less fortunate citizens of the United States. Gingrich, a Roman Catholic, has little vested interest in Evangelical Protestants let alone middle class America aside from his own political aspirations and his nonsensical fear-mongering proves just that.

“Of course what you say is true, but we should not say it publically”

“Would you willingly lie to your children?” asks Rabbi Adam Chalom, Ph.D.  “Would you say this is what happened when you know this is not what happened? There’s an ethical question there.” The lie Rabbi Chalom is referring to is the continued maintenance of the popular belief that the Jewish foundation narrative detailed in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) chronicles actual historical events, when in fact it’s been known among biblical archaeologists for well over two generations that the Five Books of Moses (the Torah) and the Deuteronomistic History of the Nevi’im (including the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel) are no more a literal account of the early history of the Jewish people than J. R. R. Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings, is a literal account of World War 1. “The truth is out there,” continues Rabbi Chalom. “They’ll find this archaeological, evidence-based version of Jewish history… and then they’ll say, why did you lie to me?”

On first inspection Rabbi Chalom’s explicit dismissal of the veracity of the bible might seem an aberration to many not versed in biblical criticism, an odd and unfamiliar voice in the dark, but he in fact represents the consensus position of rabbis in all but orthodox movements of Judaism who today concede (although rarely publically announce) not only that the Patriarchs tales are simple mythology, but also the more intrusive admission that the Israelites were never in Egypt, that Moses was a legendary motif not found in history, that there was never an Exodus, and that there was never a triumphant military conquest of Canaan. It is a deeply pervasive confession and strikes to the heart of what will be for many outside of Judaism one of the most profoundly uncomfortable historical readjustments this century will likely witness. Redefining the early history of the Jewish people means, after all, also redefining the very foundation slab of two of the world’s most popular theological systems – Christianity and Islam – and when words like “historical,” “genuine,” and “actual” are replaced forever with words such as “fiction,” “fable,” and “myth” worlds will invariably collide, and they will do so regardless of anyone’s sensibilities.

“The Pentateuch is the Jewish Mythology,” stated Rabbi Nardy Grün speaking to me recently from Israel; one of over sixty rabbis from every movement in Judaism I reached out to for this essay and whose thoughts concerning the authenticity of Jewish scripture and its problematic relation to the actual early history of the Jewish people are, in part, detailed here. “My duty as a Rabbi is to interpret the Bible and consider it as my Mythology,” Grün continues, “as the founding story of the people of Israel, of course not to take it literally… it is not a book of facts, but a myth.” An “extended metaphor” is how Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism described the view of the bible held by most rabbis today. “The Torah is not a book we turn to for historical accuracy,” noted Newsweek’s Most Influential Rabbi in America (2012), Conservative Rabbi, David Wolpe; one of the leading figureheads in Judaism’s largest single denomination. “Most Reform rabbis and Jews agree that the biblical text is not to be taken literally or word-for-word,” confirmed Reform Rabbi Victor Appell. “My sense is all liberal seminaries and the vast majority of Jews assume the Bible isn’t literally true,” asserted Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of The National Jewish Centre for Learning and Leadership, adjunct at the United Theological Seminary, and also one of Newsweek’s Most Influential Rabbis. “The Pentateuch is filled with wonderful mythology of our beginnings,” attested Rabbi Robert Schreibman. “The Torah is a piece of human literature,” professed Humanistic Rabbi, Jeffrey Falick of The Birmingham Temple.  “Its stories are fictional and that is how I teach them.”

“Some people are surprised, even upset, by these views, yet they are not new,” wrote Rabbi Wolpe in a 2002 article, Did the Exodus Really Happen? “Not piety but timidity keeps many rabbis from expressing what they have long understood to be true.” Wolpe, who was also named one of the Fifty Most Influential Jews in the World by the Jerusalem Post (2012), was among the first rabbis to publically address the awkward, but unignorable, corporeality of biblical authenticity against the backdrop of archaeological discoveries when in his now famous 2001 Passover Sermon he told his unsuspecting 2,300 strong congregation at Los Angeles’ Sinai Temple that Moses and the exodus he supposedly led was little more than a work of inventive fiction, and that “the rejection of the Bible as literally true was more or less settled and understood among most Conservative Rabbis.”

Understanding something does not, however, necessarily translate to that same thing being enthusiastically embraced. In a recent conversation Wolpe confirmed to me an eyebrow lifting anecdote in which he recounts a (nameless) Jewish scholar who while scolding him publically in print for his disclosures at the time took him aside over a lunch one day and privately confessed: “Of course what you say is true, but we should not say it publically.”

What this nameless scholar was admitting to be true but which he deeply bemoaned being spoken aloud was in fact nothing more than what the world’s leading biblical archaeologists had been saying for decades, and what they’d been saying was most economically summarised by famed Israeli archaeologist, Professor Ze’ev Herzog of Tel Aviv University in the foreword to his 1999 essay, Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho: “The patriarchs’ acts are legendary stories, we did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, we did not conquer the land… Those who take an interest have known these facts for years.” Reviewing Herzog’s paper, Professor Magen Broshi, archaeologist at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, endorsed the essays startlingly blunt opening remarks, stating, “There is no serious scholar in Israel or in the world who does not accept this position. Herzog represents a large group of Israeli scholars, and he stands squarely within the consensus. Twenty years ago even I wrote of the same matters and I was not an innovator. Archaeologists simply do not take the trouble of bringing their discoveries to public attention.”

Archaeology is a difficult science to be so confident about, discovered artefacts rarely line up in such a way to paint a complete picture of ancient eras, and the unusual solidness of the consensus here reflects a century of exhaustive archaeological work conducted across Israel and its environs, including the Sinai into which archaeologists poured following Israel’s capturing of the peninsular in the 1967 Six Day War. It was work that steadily, albeit un-expectedly,  shattered the thesis present at the beginning of the 20th century which, perhaps mostly because of familiarity with the stories, accredited the biblical narratives with an assumed historical validity that many believed needed only to be unearthed to be confirmed. It was a position that even in the gentle hands of biblical advocates such as the American archaeologist, William Albright working in the first half of the 20th Century, proved disturbingly elusive. “Slowly, cracks began to appear in the picture,” explained Herzog in his essay. “Paradoxically, a situation was created in which the glut of findings began to undermine the historical credibility of the biblical descriptions instead of reinforcing them. A crisis stage was reached when the theories within the framework of the general thesis were unable to solve an increasingly large number of anomalies. The explanations became ponderous and inelegant, and the pieces did not fit together smoothly.”

The reasons why the thesis collapsed was relatively simple to explain: the greater part of the Masoretic Text was a work of 7th and 6th Century BCE fiction conceived of and promoted to service 7th and 6th Century territorial and theological ambitions, not document actual historical events, rather invent them in a legendary time so as to fit the contemporary geopolitical needs of Judah and its Yahwehist priests after the sacking of Mamlekhet Yisra’el (Kingdom of Israel) by the Assyrians in 722 BCE.

“There is no archaeological evidence for any of it,” declared renowned Israeli archaeologist and professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Israel Finkelstein. “This is something unexampled in history. They [Judah] wanted to seize control of the territories of the kingdom of Israel and annex them, because, they said, `These territories are actually ours and if you have a minute, we’ll tell you how that’s so.’” In a sentence, for Joshua’s purported 12th Century BCE conquest narrative to make sense to a 7th and 6th Century audience a period of enslavement and rightful (miraculous) return was invented, and for that chapter to bear faculty an ancestral origin tale was constructed and put to ink. “The goal was to create a myth saying that Judah is the centre of the world, of the Israelite way of life, against the background of the reality of the later kingdom,” explains Finkelstein. “The people of Judah started to market the story of Joshua’s conquest of the land, which was also written in that period, in order to give moral justification to their territorial longings, to the conquest of the territories of Israel.”

 “Scholars have known these things for a long time, but we’ve broken the news very gently,” explained one of America’s leading archaeologists, Professor William Dever. What Dever, a one time Christian seminary student and biblical maximalist to many, was referencing was the provocative yet conclusive collage of archaeological evidence that when superimposed over settlement patterns, population data, and comparisons of biblical and Egyptian texts did not tell the story of a once enslaved people returning to Canaan, rather a people who never left; hill-people, refugees from Canaanite coastal states who created a culture and economy that would ultimately be unified as the nation of Israel. As the historian and biblical archaeologist Professor Carol Meyers of Duke University stressed, “no archaeological evidence of a massive migration of Jews from Egypt across the Sinai Peninsula to Israel has been found and the biblical account of Jewish origins is, at best, historical fiction: sometimes plausible, but generally imagined.” Proffesor Amihai Mazar (the self-described “moderate conservative” and nephew of the celebrated Israeli archaeologist, Benjamin Mazar) from the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University, said, “Currently, there is broad agreement among archaeologists and Bible scholars that there is no historical basis for the narratives of the patriarchs, the exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan, nor any archaeological evidence to make them think otherwise.” To this point Robert Coote, Senior Research Professor of Hebrew Exegesis at San Francisco’s Theological Seminary, was far more pronounced, stating, “The period of the patriarchs, exodus, conquest, or judges as devised by the writers of Scriptures… never existed.” Even Orthodox Rabbi, Shalom Carmy, granted to me that “Outside the Bible and the literature it engendered, we do not presently have direct reference to Moses;” a concession mirrored in the second edition Encyclopaedia Judaica which concludes that the entire Exodus narrative was “dramatically woven out of various strands of tradition… he [Moses] wasn’t a historical character.” 

“We looked for evidence for the Exodus in the Sinai Desert and found there was nothing in the Sinai Desert,” explains Rabbi Chalom. “We looked at the Patriarch stories and the times in which they supposedly lived, and it didn’t seem to match. Then we looked at the stories of the Patriarchs in the time they were apparently written, historically, and that matched much better.” “The Torah reflects the attitudes of the people who wrote it, and their attitudes are a reflection of the times in which they lived, no more and no less,” affirmed Rabbi Falick. “Biblical tales are not so much descriptions of real events as they are propaganda for political and religious arguments which took place many centuries after the presumed events took place,” wrote Rabbi Wine in his posthumously published book, A Provocative People. “The story of Abraham has less to do with 1800 BCE, when Abraham presumably lived, than with 700 BCE when his story was created.”

Against the tide of contradictory evidence, is it at least provisionally plausible that there are kernels of truth lurking behind these narratives, obscure waypoints from which the larger theatrical epic was hung? Even staunch minimalists are unwilling to rule out the possibility of seeds; no story, real or imagined, develops wholly in isolation and groups such as the Hyksos (expelled from Egypt in 1560 BCE) might indeed be the artistic bridge between the actual and the adapted dream sequence retold by villagers in the Canaanite hills, but it must be underscored that of the biblical descriptions and their application to the authentic historical Jews nothing matches. Nothing, that is to say, without a great deal of sometimes jaw dropping imaginative manoeuvring, like the idea forwarded by an Orthodox Rabbi who suggested the reason why the Sinai was so conspicuously free of evidence was because Yahweh had (obviously) deputised a tribe to clean it all up; an idea which Professor Herzog would no doubt call an inelegant explanation.

The strength of this new understanding of the less adventurous, more pedestrian early history of the Jews – a history that even objective biblical maximalists today reluctantly admit has no appreciable resemblance to the scriptural narrative up until the period of Babylonian captivity – is in fact so overwhelming that the word “myth” has now even breached the rigid walls of Orthodox Judaism. In early 2012 Orthodox Rabbi Norman Solomon published his book, Torah from Heaven: The Reconstruction of Faith, in which he presented the case that the concept of Torah Mi Sinai (the claim that the Five Books of Moses were dictated by the god Yahweh to Moses on Sinai, itself a legendary location that has never been found) was not rooted in reality but was rather a “foundation myth;” an origin dream, not a descriptive historical fact. The admission sent shockwaves through the Orthodox world not felt since the one-time candidate for Chief Rabbi of Britain, Rabi Louis Jacobs, contested the validity of Torah Mi Sinai by delicately suggesting that it was a “complex idea with textual, historical, and philosophical problems that needed to be addressed;” a seemingly benign statement, but one which ultimately cost him the position and standing in the Orthodox community. Fifty years later Solomon’s conclusions have drawn analogous and strikingly harsh criticism from influential Orthodox groups including the Vaad Harabonim, a cluster of Canada’s most prominent Orthodox rabbis, who publically denounced the British rabbi and accused him of ‘kefiroh baTorah’ [heresy].

Writing in the Huffington Post, Yoni Goldstein said of the incident: “[The rabbis response] reveals how terrified the Orthodox hierarchy is by the idea of modernizing religion to correspond to new revelations from the academic world. What Solomon is suggesting is no less than a direct threat to the future of Orthodox Judaism. If the principle that god dictated the Torah to Moses at Sinai is false, then the entire movement begins to unravel. If that isn’t true, what else isn’t true? Most Orthodox Jews’ beliefs would be shattered in an instant, and Solomon’s notion of “foundational myth” is not going to be much of a consolation prize.”

Such severe criticism is however thoroughly contrasted by Conservative Rabbi Steven Leder who said in 2001, “Defending a rabbi in the 21st century for saying the Exodus story isn’t factual is like defending him for saying the Earth isn’t flat. It’s neither new nor shocking to most of us that the Earth is round or that the Torah isn’t a history book dictated to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.”

For the Orthodox, retreating into a theological redoubt from which they can preserve a literal interpretation of the Bible is what Rabbi Karen Levy described to me as being “radically un-self-aware,” yet for many Orthodox rabbis the inexplicable contradictions have meant a choice between participating in the evidence-based world or that of the poetic, unsubstantiated narrative. As Orthodox Israeli rabbi and scholar Mordecai Breuer wrote, “Unable to withstand the contradiction most men of faith consciously avoid biblical scholarship in order to safeguard their traditional belief.”

Wilful ignorance, like the nameless scholar’s plea to Rabbi Wolpe to not talk publically about already well-established facts, is an unsustainable and ultimately unacceptable response. “The truth is out there” attested Rabbi Chalom, and this truth does not only press upon religious Jews. Accompanying them down this rabbit hole where the familiar quickly becomes the unfamiliar are those bound to both the Christian and Islamic faiths; religions whose foundations are rooted to the history of the Jewish people, and as that substructure shifts so too will the superstructure of all Abrahamic religions shift with it. How, after all, does an Abrahamic theology reconcile itself with the news that there was no Abraham, no Moses, no Exodus, and no Conquest? How does one re-categorise a revealed religion when there evidently was no revelation? How do Christians and Muslims harmonise their faiths in light of the tremendously awkward realisation that their central figures of devotion, supposedly inspired sages, were unable to distinguish between historical fact and inventive fiction?* Indeed, at what point do librarians delete “historical” forever from their call cards and re-type “mythological”?

It is a far-reaching, deeply penetrating catechism that will weigh heavily on 21st century Western (and Middle Eastern) religious practice and, ultimately, redefine its validity and reception in our societies. And with that we return to the question posed at the beginning; a question that will become increasingly difficult to avoid as popular culture catches up to the educated, evidence-based position of the majority of Jewish rabbis today who concede that the foundation narrative upon which all Abrahamic faiths are built is little more than a handcrafted human myth: Would you willingly lie to your children? Would you say this is what happened when you know this is not what happened?

 *In Islam, Musa (Moses) is considered a prophet and is named 136 times in the Qur’an. Abraham is named 69 times. In the New Testament, Moses is mentioned 85 times with Jesus naming him in Luke 3:8, John 5:45 and twice in Matthew. Abraham is mentioned 75 times with Jesus specifically identifying him eighteen times in John 8 alone.

Christian Shocker: God-Based AA Program Harms Alcoholics

Did you know that the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-step program, which has God as the foundation of its program, doesn't work? Not only doesn't it work, but many scientific studies have shown pretty clearly that it does more harm than good! What's more, it appears that the religious component of the AA program is the culprit.

I was quite frankly shocked when I heard this. While I'm not religious, I have always admired AA members for their dedication and selfless efforts to help one another. I've had close friends and family members who were alcoholics, and wished they could find the strength to acknowledge their disease and go to AA for help.

But no more. After reading this damning article, which refers to dozens of scientific studies including several sponsored by AA board members and advocates, I now see AA for what it is: another faith-based folly that continues because of faith, not reason. In study after study, scientists, sociologists and doctors find that AA is worse that getting no help at all.

And it's pretty clear why. Look at the first three of the famous twelve steps:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

In other words, "I'm not good enough, I'm a failure." That leads to a "victim" mentality where the alcoholic doesn't take responsibility for his/her own actions – they're told that they aren't capable of handling their own problems. So when they "fall off the wagon," they fall hard. They often resort to binge drinking. After all, they're powerless (or so they are told by AA) to control their drinking. It becomes an excuse to continue their alcoholism.

Here is just one of the examples cited by "A. Orange" in Effectiveness of the Twelve Step Program. In San Diego County, 301 people arrested for public drunkenness were randomly assigned by the courts to one of three programs:

1. Control group that got no treatment
2. Sent to a professional alcoholism medical clinic
3. Sent to Alcoholics Anonymous

After a year, guess what?

In every category, the people who got no treatment at all fared better than the people who got A.A. "treatment". Based on the records of re-arrests, only 31% of the A.A.-treated clients were deemed successful, while 44% of the "untreated" clients were successful. Clearly, Alcoholics Anonymous "treatment" had a detrimental effect. That means that A.A. had a success rate of less than zero. Not only was A.A.-based treatment a waste of time and money; A.A. was actually making it harder for people to get sober and stay sober.

That's shocking enough, isn't it? But what's even worse in my eyes is that the people who run AA have known this for years. It's another example where faith trumps reason. AA has turned into a religion, and people keep believing in spite of clear, compelling evidence that AA doesn't work, that it actually harms people and delays their possible recovery.

One of my biggest criticisms of Christianity and religion in general is that it takes away personal responsibility for our accomplishments and takes away blame for our failures. You're not good enough, you're a sinner, you're a bad person. It's a lesson that is drilled into Christians from an early age.

And when someone with the terrible disease of alcoholism comes to AA this message is reinforced: You're a failure. And not surprisingly the alcoholics agree and continue to fail.

But lest anyone think I condemn everything about AA, I don't. The one aspect of their program that I believe is exceptional is that of the "buddy system" where new members are assigned a sponsor to help them in time of need – someone to talk to, someone to be a friend, provide encouragement, share stories, and help them when they have trouble. I believe that whatever successes AA can claim are due the the dedication and tireless efforts of the volunteer sponsors.That is a life-affirming, positive way to help someone in the grips of alcohol or drugs. Many addicts have no social support, no family and no friends. A sponsor can make all the difference in the world. Sponsors, all of whom are former addicts themselves, work selflessly and tirelessly, often for years or decades providing that helping hand and support that helps addicts get and stay on the path to recovery.

Billboard in Sacramento.

Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter:  

Just in time for the holidays, a non-profit group is planning on erecting dozens of atheist billboards to let fellow non-believers know they're "not alone." 

The Greater Sacramento Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has paid for 55 different billboards this year to go up in Sacramento, Calif. 

"It's because atheists are starting to speak up and they're beginning to identify each other," chapter president Judy Saint told a local TV station. 

"There are a lot of non-believers and this time of year, they feel like they're alone. This isn't directed to people who enjoy their church, who enjoy their religion." 

"That's fine. But we're talking to people who don't know that atheism is okay." 

The billboards, all featuring area residents, share non-religious messages such as, "I worship nothing and question everything," or "Science. It works." 

Somehow I don't think this is going to convince the Religious Right that there is no war on Christianity.

But should they care? After all there are billboards all over the country that encourage people to find God, accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior, and attend church. Actually these are in response to those.

And besides if your faith is shaken by something that you read on a billboard, then did you have much faith in the first place? 

As an Atheist I am just glad that we finally feel confident enough to come out of the shadows, show our faces in public, and speak out against the thousands of years of oppression, persecution, and isolation that we have suffered at the hands of those who consider themselves our moral superiors.

That awkward moment when the primitive tribe you have come to convert to Christianity, instead converts you to atheism.

I have started to write about this incredible conversion multiple times but always put it off. But the other day I stumbled across this YouTube video of Everett reading from his book and realized that it was much more powerful coming from him. (Oops it turns out it was read by another. Still better hearing it read aloud though.)



The Pirahãs, he said, “believed that the world was as it had always been, and that there was no supreme deity”. Furthermore they had no creation myths in their culture. In short, here was a people who were more than happy to live their lives “without God, religion or any political authority”. 

Despite Everett translating the Book of Luke into Pirahã and reading it to tribe members, the Pirahãs sensibly resisted all his attempts to convert them. 

According to a report in the New Yorker: 

His zeal soon dissipated … Convinced that the Pirahã assigned no spiritual meaning to the Bible, Everett finally admitted that he did not, either. He declared himself an atheist.

As an Atheist of course I find this story very gratifying. But as an American I am almost saddened to realize that even such a primitive people were able to discover a truth which still eludes so many of my fellow countrymen.

Interview with Bruno and the Baron

Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) Monk who defied the church with his vision of an infinite universe almost a 100 years before Isaac Newton.

Baron d'Holbach (1723 – 1789) "Father" of modern atheism. Author of the first book on outright denial of the existence of God, The System of Nature.

Bruno was bombastic, vain, utterly sure of himself.
The Baron was calm, supremely rational, with soft demeanor but intellectually firm.
-------------------
INTERVIEWER: Gentlemen thank for agreeing to this joint interview. It is hardly likely that you’ve met since you lived about 200 years apart. Let me introduce you. This is Giordano Bruno, 16th century poet, philosopher and monk of the Dominican order. And this the Baron d’Holbach, a Prussian by birth but a revolutionary Frenchman by intellect. [they shake hands]

BARON: I do not see how you could have supposed a Dominican monk and I would have something in common to talk about. It is well known that I have expressed a deep aversion to religion and all things religious.

BRUNO:I, also, am bewildered. I have become aware of the Baron’s chief work, something he calls The System of Nature. I too, have written of Nature. But more grandly.

INTERVIEWER: What was your book about?

BRUNO: My book’s title was Of the Infinite Universe and the Many Worlds. It is a celebration of the magnificent work of God! It shows how our Earth cannot be the center of the universe. God’s plan is grander than that!

INTERVIEWER: I think there is something of importance linking your thoughts, one to the other. Perhaps I’m wrong. If I am, I will apologize for troubling you – Friar Bruno, let me start with you.

BRUNO:[interrupting] Don’t call me Friar! I renounced that foolish appellation.

INTERVIEWER: How then shall I address you?

BRUNO: I took the title of ‘Doctor of the More Developed Theology’ or ‘Professor of Pure Wisdom.’ Either one will do.

INTERVIEWER: Well then... Doctor – Why did you leave the monastery and renounce your Dominican vows? Why did you wander all over Europe?

BRUNO: May I be frank? I am a Neapolitan. My blood heated my body too much. I had to throw off the suffocating monk’s robe and its vows of celibacy. Not all the snows of the Alps could quench the carnal fire that burned inside me. But it was not only my body, my mind was on fire too. I could not be silent.

INTERVIEWER: What set your mind on fire?

BRUNO:It was Copernicus. I read his book and I saw the light. I saw infinity. The Earth was not the center of creation. Even the Sun was not the center. I tried to tell everyone that the infinite cosmos was the creation of an infinite God. 

INTERVIEWER: I see, you tried to bring the new science of the time into theology. [turning to the Baron] Isn’t that what you were trying to do Baron?

BARON: No, not at all. We, my French colleagues and I, were bringing the new knowledge of the world to the people of the world not to the clergy. The clergy would have none of us and we certainly wanted nothing of them. They were, and will ever be, the supporters of ignorance. We tried to write a compendium of all knowledge, the first encyclopedia, and would have all people benefit from it.

INTERVIEWER: I understand you were the major contributor to the Encyclopedia, both with money and by writing articles. Didn’t you write over four hundred articles mostly in the natural sciences? Voltaire called you the most learned of the all philosophers.

BARON: [modestly] I tried to do my part.

INTERVIEWER: You also wrote many other books. One of them was called Christianity Unveiled in which you vehemently attacked religion.

BARON: Yes

INTERVIEWER: Did you really say that all children are born atheists?

BARON: Yes, I did write that. Children know nothing of a deity until their parents teach them to fear a supernatural power.

INTERVIEWER: On what did you base your disbelief in the existence of God?

BARON: I based it on rational thinking. If God wishes to be known, why not manifest himself to the whole earth in an unequivocal manner? In place of so-called miracles could not the All-powerful not write his name, his will, in a manner not subject to dispute? No one then would have been able to doubt his existence.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t you fear retribution? 

BARON: From god? If he is infinitely good, what reason would we have to fear him? If he knows everything, why inform him of our needs and weary him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why build temples to him? If he is inconceivable, why concern ourselves about him?

INTERVIEWER: [Short pause] You were critical of the clergy also. Why were you so hostile toward them?

BARON: For many reasons... but foremost because their control of education barred the way to the increase in scientific knowledge. They looked on the freedom of men to think as a threat to their power. They hang superstition like a blanket over the mind of man and ally themselves with political power to maintain control. The fundamental evil for the common man is the alliance of the priests and the political rulers.

BRUNO:[annoyed because he is overlooked] Excuse me but I too suffered because of the arrogance of those in power.

INTERVIEWER: But didn’t you find a haven within the courts of Europe? Didn’t Henry III appoint you a professor at the College de France? Didn’t you live at the French ambassador’s home in London for two years and didn’t he often take you to the English court? Queen Elizabeth admired you and you had several private conversations with her. You even lectured at Oxford.

BRUNO:Bah! To hell with royalty and the colleges ! They treated my message as a exciting new idea that amused them for a time. They then turned away.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

BRUNO:The thought of an infinite God as the spirit of an infinite universe made them uncomfortable. The arrogant clergy would not understand. They revered the writings of Aristotle more than they acknowledged the thoughts that their own minds were capable of.

INTERVIEWER: You doubted the teachings of Aristotle?

BRUNO: Yes, I dared to question Aristotle. I declared there is no Prime Mover. There is motion in every part of the universe. God is not an external intelligence. It is more worthy for him to be the internal principle of motion of the universe.

INTERVIEWER: That is a very strange idea.

BRUNO:They found other ideas of mine even stranger. My studies showed me that the stars appear small because they are distant. I declared that the stars, each one of them, are suns much like our own. And around each one of them are planets like the Earth. And on them are men and women, loving and hating, laughing and crying just as we.

INTERVIEWER: Isn’t it that the idea that got you in trouble with the Inquisition? If there were an infinite number of Earths there would have to be an infinite series of revelations and divine visitations. Clearly church doctrine proclaimed the one and only son of God was of this Earth. Therefore your ideas were heretical.

BRUNO:They could not see my vision. An infinite universe requires an infinite God.

BARON: My dear sir, why should that be true? If there is no evidence for a divine power why postulate that it exists? If one accepts nature as that which simply is – then the notion of supernaturalism falls away. We have no need of that hypothesis. I agree with you that everything in the universe is in motion. The universe consists of only particles of matter and their motions. Nothing more.

INTERVIEWER: That is a very materialistic view of existence. But I notice that you both agree on that point.

BARON: That is true. It is obvious that if all motion were to stop then time itself would stand still.

BRUNO:[grandly] I repeat, it is the spirit of God that moves all – the planets, the stars, the universe itself. I see God in the unchangeable laws of nature, in the light of the sun, in the beauty of all that springs from the bosom of mother earth.

BARON: Particles make up everything that is. They act according to unchangeable laws of nature -- but it is their own laws of being. No God is necessary. The more our knowledge grows, the more overwhelming is the evidence that the universe acts only through natural causes without the spirit of any deity.

INTERVIEWER: Were there others that shared your views Baron?

BARON: It was around our dinner table that these ideas were discussed.

INTERVIEWER: Who were your guests?

BARON: My wife chose our guests. It pleased her to sometimes include men who would be in opposition to my views. On one occasion a guest, I believe it was the philosopher David Hume. He avowed that all men must have some deep sense of the divine and he did not believe that any real atheists could exist. I advised him to look around the table and he would see 18 of them.

INTERVIEWER: I have heard the ideas discussed around your table formed the ideological basis of the French revolution?

BARON: Perhaps. We did discuss how the collusion between the priests and the aristocracy produced the fiction of the divine right of kings. We arrived at the conclusion that a good government derived its powers from the consent of the governed. I believe that idea spread in France and to the British colonies in America.

INTERVIEWER: Your salons held every Thursday and Sunday were famous all over Paris and intellectuals vied for invitations. Wasn’t Benjamin Franklin one of your guests?

BARON: Yes. He was an interesting man. We discussed his experiments with electricity.

BRUNO:(Interrupting) It seems that the Baron had all that is necessary to live a life of happiness. He had money, intellect, a beautiful intelligent wife, friends – not all of us are so lucky.

INTERVIEWER:: You are referring, of course, to the poverty and chaos of your own life.

BRUNO: Yes

INTERVIEWER: But didn’t you bring that on yourself? You seem to have enjoyed enraging people with your diatribes. And why, when you knew the Inquisition had burned your book did you return to Italy? To Venice.

BRUNO:For the love of true wisdom and zeal for contemplation, for these I exerted myself. I left Frankfort to go to Venice where I thought there was enough freedom for me to pass unnoticed. And I went out necessity. I had to earn some money. I went as a tutor in one of its illustrious families. I thought them friendly to my thought but they were leading me on. They reported me to the Inquisition.

INTERVIEWER: What were the charges brought against you?

BRUNO: Strangely, no mention was made of my vision of an infinite God in an infinite universe. They accused me of rejecting the idea of the Trinity and denying that the church wine cup held the blood of Christ. They said I had called all priests asses who defiled the Earth with their hypocrisy and avarice. They accused me of maintaining that carnal pleasures was natural to men and women and not a sin.

INTERVIEWER: Did you do all of those things?

BRUNO:Yes – Yes I did! But I didn’t confess it outright. I had hopes I could convince the inquisitors in Venice that I was repentant. I was in their hands from May to September when the authorities in Rome asked that I be sent to them.

INTERVIEWER: What happened in Rome?

BRUNO:Nothing happened. I sat in a dark cell without books or writing materials for a year before they even examined me. For 7 more years there were periodic questionings and long periods of starvation but I grew obdurate. I would not retract.

INTERVIEWER: Why did they keep you so long under those conditions?

BRUNO: I do not know. But in 1600 the Pope declared me guilty. When the verdict was read I said “You who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.” It was the last thing I was able to say. They tied my tongue so that I could not speak. Later, they bound me to a stake and burnt me.

INTERVIEWER: It is said that when the fires were lit and the crucifix was offered to you on a long pole for you to kiss you turned your head away.

BRUNO: [softly] That is true.

[pause]

BARON: I am truly sorry, sir, for your pain. I admire you for your steadfastness and your vision. The happiness of the human race requires that religious superstition be overcome so that reason can elevate the mind to thoughts far greater than a vengeful God and his cruel clergy.

INTERVIEWER: I understand now where I got the sense that there was a link between you two. There is a line of thought that begins with the Greek philosopher Democritus in 370 B.C. that everything is made up of small particles in motion.
It was Bruno’s thought that there was within the universe a principle of motion and called it God. d’Holbach thought that motion was intrinsic to the particles themselves.
Both agreed that this universe is governed by natural laws.
Both challenged the religious authorities of their time.
I want to thank you both for being here and for doing what you did. Your names will be gratefully remembered. [They shake hands all around.]

The Problem with Fundamentalist Religion

As I define it, fundamentalist religion is the strict adherence to traditional beliefs and practices of a religion including, but not limited to, the literal interpretation of holy texts. The problem with fundamentalist religion is that it leads people to not only be immune to reason, but also to behave in ways which are harmful to themselves and others.

The Problem with Faith

In its 2012 platform on education, the Republican Party of Texas made a statement that it opposes the teaching of critical thinking skills because it “challeng[es] the student’s fixed beliefs and undermin[es] parental authority.”[1] Why would this be? It is because religious fundamentalists, such as those who hold political sway over the Texas Republicans, believe that unquestioning faith is a supreme virtue. This is also why many fundamentalist Christians fear sending their children to non-religious universities. As Republican Rick Santorum stated “62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it,” which as it turns out is not a true statistic.[2]

Recall that faith is a belief in something which is not supported by evidence. Thus, to unquestioningly adhere to beliefs based on no evidence means that no amount of reason or evidence should be able to change a true believer’s mind. As I explained in my post regarding blind faith, humans naturally rationalize their beliefs and ignore evidence which contradicts them. However, this stubbornness is outright encouraged in fundamentalist religions, which makes them far more immune to reason than other ideologues.

Beyond being unreasonable, fundamentalists are also far more likely to be taken advantage of by politicians and religious authorities. Regarding politics, people often vote for Republican candidates even when they stand for policies that go against their best interest. Why? Because the Republicans use far more religious rhetoric and promote far more socially conservative causes than do the Democrats.[3] As for religious authorities, consider televangelists and faith healers who scam their followers out of millions of dollars, and clergy who successfully molest children for years without ever being held accountable. Trusting those who put up a façade of religious purity leaves many strict theists vulnerable to being hurt and supporting those who do not have humanity’s best interests at heart.

The Problem with Fundamentalist Beliefs

Religious fundamentalists hold onto beliefs and ideas which were devised back when humanity knew much less about science, human psychology, and ethics than we do today. Consider this quote from Abraham Lincoln, the American President who was so progressive that he freed the slaves “I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people… while [negroes and whites] do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”[4] Despite being far more enlightened than most men of his day, Abraham Lincoln was still a racist by our standards. Religious fundamentalists often adhere to beliefs which were formed far earlier than Lincoln, yet are just as backward as his historically moderate racism.

Intolerance

Fundamentalists have very concrete ideas about how people ought to live, and how society should be run. Those who do not fit their mold are despised as unrepentant sinners and/or agents of evil. Given their conviction, religious fundamentalists do not keep their disdain to themselves. Often, they lash out at those who they dislike, leading to much unnecessary suffering. Consider these examples provided by the ACLU:[5]

• Religiously affiliated schools firing women because they became pregnant while not married.
• Business owners refusing to provide insurance coverage for contraception for their employees.
• Graduate students, training to be social workers, refusing to counsel gay people.
• Pharmacies turning away women seeking to fill birth control prescriptions.
• Bridal salons, photo studios, and reception halls closing their doors to same-sex couples planning their weddings.

Misogyny

The vast majority of successful societies throughout human history have utilized a patriarchal social structure.[6]As such, the traditional view of women is that they are inferior to men, and are often treated poorly as a result. This perspective is reinforced by the world’s major religions, and stridently kept alive by their fundamentalist adherents. For example:

Christianity:

• In 1 Peter 3:1, wives are told explicitly to “be in subjection to your own husbands.”
• In both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, women are not allowed to be ordained as priests.[7]
• Fundamentalist Christians fervently oppose abortions even in cases of rape and incest.[8]

Islam:

• Women are encouraged to cover their bodies lest they tempt men to sin by thinking lustful thoughts, but studies have shown that sexual harassment among conservatively dressed women is commonplace in many Islamic countries.[9] 
• Domestic violence is also very common in Islamic countries, as it is fully endorsed in the Quran.[10][11]

Hinduism:

• In Hindu India, it is common to blame victims of rape, and allow rapists to go unpunished.[12]
• In the Vedanta, it is said that only males are allowed to study the Vedas, which is necessary for achieving full realization of one’s soul.[13]

Psychologically Damaging

A recent study including over 8,000 people in 7 countries has found that religious individuals are more likely to be depressed than those who are non-religious. On top of that, the most religious tended to be twice as likely to be depressed.[14] While it is probable that depressed people may be more likely to seek emotional benefits from religion, I would argue that for some, religion can do more harm than good. For example, gay teens are 3.4 times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.[15] The homosexual teen suicide hotline “Trevor Lifeline” reported that nearly twice as many calls come from Southern US states than from Northeastern ones.[16] For those who are not familiar, the Southern states are known for their religious conservatism, and the Northeastern for their secularism. Thus, it is likely that at least a portion of these gay teens committed suicide because they felt shame for their innate sexual preference.

Beyond gay teens, religion can also incite shame and guilt for doing or thinking things which are perfectly healthy (e.g. premarital sex, masturbation, doubting beliefs, etc.) This shame may also be coupled with the petrifying fear of spending eternity in hellfire for displeasing God. On top of that, fundamentalist religions prescribe many unnecessary rules of conduct, dress, cuisine, ritual, etc. that can be burdensome to the practitioners. Consider the plight of Islamic women, for example. Living in fear of sexual and physical abuse certainly isn’t conducive to psychological health.

How Fundamentalist Religion is Ruining the World

Radical Islam

Radical Islam poses one of the greatest threats to the stability and safety of our society. In 2011, Sunni Muslim terrorists accounted for 70% of the all terrorist murders, and over 95% of suicide bombings are conducted by Muslim extremists.[17] In addition to the violence perpetrated by Muslim terrorists, one of the major tenets of fundamentalist Islamic doctrine is that democracy is in contradiction with the sovereignty of Allah's law.[18] The Hizb ut-Tahrir Movement in particular has gained significant momentum in much of Europe.[19] This sect publicly eschews violence, but regularly holds rallies and protests accompanied by statements such as “Britain will be an Islamic state by the year 2020!” to promote its goal of overthrowing democratic governments in favor of a global caliphate.[20]

Degenerating Public Trust in Science

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution hasn’t set well with religious fundamentalists since its inception. Today in the United States, 35% of Americans believe God created humans in their present form around 10,000 years ago, and 26% believe God guided our evolution.[21] This has led to many battles in religiously conservative states to include curricula regarding intelligent design and creationism as well as anti-evolution messaging in public school science classes.[22][23] This isn’t a uniquely American problem either, as South Korea nearly passed a law to drop references to evolution in their public school textbooks.[24] This isn’t only a Christian problem either, as only 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, 14% of Pakistanis, 16% of Indonesians, and 22% of Turks agree with Darwin’s theory.[25]

So why does this lack of acceptance in the theory of evolution matter? For starters, it is how humans came to exist in our present form, and misleading our children about it robs them of a full understanding of their own humanity. Beyond this, I personally know a person who went to a Christian college that teaches creationism in its biology classes, yet has both an accredited nursing and PA program. This has the potential to endanger public health, as evolution is central to the study of biology and thus medicine.

In addition to these issues, denying evolution undermines trust in science. This is why religious individuals are far more likely to deny global warming than those who are unaffiliated with any religion (Total U.S. population 47%; Unaffiliated with any church 58%; White mainline Protestants 48%; White, non-Hispanic Catholics 44%; Black Protestants 39%; White evangelical Protestants 34%).[26] This matters not only because the vast majority of climate scientists believe it is a real threat, but also because it has the potential to severely diminish humanity’s ability to thrive on this planet.[27]

Ruining our Political Systems

In the United States, the Republican Party has recently been taken over by religious fundamentalists.[28] This means that half of the world’s richest and most powerful country’s government is being influenced by people who are both immune to reason and firm believers in harmful nonsense. This is why in 2011, 1,100 reproductive rights laws were introduced by state lawmakers during a time when the unemployment rate was 8.2% and over 400,000 children remained in the US foster care system.[29] This is also why in 2013, the federal government was shut down in part due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act, which provided free access to contraceptives to women.[30] Finally, it is also why in recent years, we have had one of the least productive Congresses in US history.[31] In short, fundamentalist religion is ruining my country, and in effect, making the entire world much worse off.

Conclusion

Among all topics I’ve covered in my blog, the problem with fundamentalist religion is one of the most difficult to explain succinctly. There are simply too many examples, too many angles of approach, and too little room to fully detail the degree to which fundamentalism is awful for humanity. Ultimately, the problem is that fundamentalists stubbornly believe in harmful ideas and feel compelled by their religious fervor to make life miserable for the rest of us. Given their large numbers and political influence, their negative impact on humanity will likely be felt long after society fully moves away from such belief systems.