A poor gentile mother begs at Jesus’ feet for her little daughter and Jesus’ response is to refer to her and her daughter as dogs because they weren’t Jewish.

(Mark 7:25 NRSV) but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.

(Mark 7:26 NRSV) Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

(Mark 7:27 NRSV) He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs."

Note: Jesus did eventually help, but he didn’t need to be so rude to a mother begging at his feet for her little daughter. This is inconsistent with a "loving" Jesus.

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Jesus says you will be rewarded if you abandon your wife and kids for for the "kingdom of God".

(Luke 18:28-30 NRSV) Then Peter said, "Look, we have left our homes and followed you."

And he said to them, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life."

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Solomon has his competition (his brother Adonijah), his competition’s sympathizer, and an old turncoat murdered to ensure his rule.

Solomon who was supposed to have "divine right" to the throne, feels the need to execute his possible rivals immediately after ascending to it.

(First Adonijah)

(1 Ki 2:24 NRSV) Now therefore as the LORD lives, who has established me and placed me on the throne of my father David, and who has made me a house as he promised, today Adonijah shall be put to death."

(Then Joab)

(1 Ki 2:29 NRSV) When it was told King Solomon, "Joab has fled to the tent of the LORD and now is beside the altar," Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada, saying, "Go, strike him down."

(Finally Shimei)

(1 Ki 2:46 NRSV) Then the king commanded Benaiah son of Jehoiada; and he went out and struck him (Shimei) down, and he died. So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

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Here Jesus says it’s ok to castrate yourself for the kingdom of heaven.

(Mat 19:12 NRSV) For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the *kingdom of heaven*. Let anyone accept this who can."

The Greek words for kingdom and heaven are: *basileia* and *ouranos*.

932. basileia, bas-il-i’-ah; from G935; prop. royalty, i.e. (abstr.) rule, or (concr.) a realm (lit. or fig.):–kingdom, + reign

3772. ouranos, oo-ran-os’; perh. from the same as G3735 (through the idea of elevation); the sky; by extens. heaven (as the abode of God); by impl. happiness, power, eternity; spec. the Gospel (Christianity): –air, heaven ([-ly]), sky.

Note: This passage is purposely distorted in the NIV and Living bible to appear to be dealing with marriage. There is nothing in the original Greek for this verse that has anything to do with marriage.

The Greek word in this verse specifically is eunuch:

2135. eunouchos, yoo-noo’-khos; from eune (a bed) and G2192; a castrated person (such being employed in Oriental bed-chambers); by extens. an impotent or unmarried man; by impl. a chamberlain (state-officer):–eunuch.

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Samson loses a bet, the "spirit of the Lord comes upon him" and he slays 30 Philistine men to get their robes to pay off the bet.

(Judg 14:19 KJV) And the spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle…

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Perverse men come banging on the door of a man of God and he gives them his guest’s concubine:

(Judg 19:22 NRSV) While they were enjoying themselves, the men of the city, a perverse lot, surrounded the house, and started pounding on the door. They said to the old man, the master of the house, "Bring out the man who came into your house, so that we may have intercourse with him."

(Judg 19:24 NRSV) (The old man) Here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not
do such a vile thing."

(Judg 19:25 NRSV) … So the man seized his concubine, and put her out to them. They wantonly raped her, and abused her all through the night until the morning. And as the dawn began
to break, they let her go.

(later the poor innocent raped concubine returns and is sadistically murdered)

(Judg 19:29 NRSV) When he had entered his house, he took a knife, and grasping his concubine he cut her into twelve pieces, limb by limb, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.

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To prove he is a man of God, Elijah has fire come down from heaven and burn to death 51 men.

(2 Ki 1:10 NRSV) But Elijah answered the captain of fifty, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty." Then fire came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.

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A barbaric punishment for women who interfere with their husband’s brawl.

(Deut 25:11-12 NRSV) If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals,

you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.

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Samson kills 3000 men and women with the help of "God strengthening him".

(Judg 16:27-30 NRSV) Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about *three thousand men and women*, who looked on while Samson performed.

Then Samson called to the LORD and said, "Lord GOD, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes."

And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other.

Then Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." He strained with all his might; and the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life.

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King Solomon enslaves thirty thousand men to build his Temple (which has never been found by archaeologists).

.. Solomon’s biblical Temple of which, like the king who made it, not one trace has survived. – from Romer’s book "Testament"

(1 Ki 5:5 NRSV) So I intend to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD said to my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall
build the house for my name.’

(1 Ki 5:13-14 NRSV) King Solomon conscripted *forced labor* out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men.

He sent them to the Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts; they would be a month in the Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

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Moses is angry because women had been allowed to live by solders in a raid. He tells the soldiers to take the virgins for yourselves and kill all the non-virgins as well as the male children.

(Num 31:14-18 NRSV) Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.

*Moses said to them, "Have you allowed all the women to live?*

These women here, on Balaam’s advice, made the Israelites act treacherously against the LORD in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the LORD.

Now therefore, kill every male among the *little ones*, and *kill every woman* who has known a man by sleeping with him.

But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.

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The Jabesh-gilead tribe of Israel failed to show up for a roll call and are all killed, men, women, and children.

(Judg 21:10 NRSV) So the congregation sent twelve thousand soldiers there and commanded them, "Go, put the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead to the sword, including the women and the little ones.

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Elisha, angered by some children making fun of him curses them and she-bears come out of the woods and mauled the children.

(2 Ki 2:22-24 NRSV)

…Elisha spoke.

He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying,

"Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!"

When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

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King Saul is jealous because David slaughters 10 times more people.

(1 Sam 18:7-8 NRSV) And the women sang to one another as they made merry, "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands."

Saul was very angry, for this saying displeased him. He said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands;

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King David sees Bathsheba in the nude as she is sunbathing, impregnates her and sends her husband off to be killed at the front line of a battle. (Later God disapproves and kills the
baby that is born)

(2 Sam 11:4 NRSV) So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am pregnant."

(King David thinks of a way to get rid of her husband)

(2 Sam 11:15 NRSV) In the letter he wrote, "Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die."

(After he had her husband killed, he added her to his harem of 6 other women)

(2 Sam 11:27 NRSV) When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.

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More murder by King David:

(1 Sam 27:9-10 NRSV) David struck the land, leaving neither man nor woman alive,

When Achish asked, "Against whom have you made a raid today?" David would say,

"Against the Negeb of Judah," or "Against the Negeb of the Jerahmeelites," or, "Against the Negeb of the Kenites."

(2 Sam 3:14 NRSV) Then David sent messengers to Saul’s son Ishbaal, saying, "Give me my wife Michal, to whom I became engaged at the price of one hundred foreskins of the Philistines."

(2 Sam 8:13 NRSV) David won a name for himself. When he returned, he killed eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.

(2 Sam 18:7 NRSV) The men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the slaughter there was great on that day, twenty thousand men.

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After King David sleeps with another man’s wife and then sends that man off to battle to die, God is not pleased, so he kills the innocent baby.

(2 Sam 12:14 NRSV) Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die."

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A man is killed for picking up sticks on the Sabbath

(Num 15:32-36 NRSV)

When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day.

Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation.

They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him.

Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp."

The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death,

just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

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King Solomon has 1000 lovers.

(1 Ki 11:1 NRSV) King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,

(1 Ki 11:3 NRSV) Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines;

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The children of Israel (God’s chosen nation) had slaves. Here is a law concerning their treatment:

(Exo 21:20-21 NRSV) When a slave owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property.

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The adventures of Joab (servant of King David):

(Joab is after Amasa and Sheba, he finds the first one)

(2 Sam 20:9-10 NRSV) Joab said to Amasa, "Is it well with you, my brother?" And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.

But Amasa did not notice the sword in Joab’s hand; Joab struck him in the belly so that his entrails poured out on the ground, and he died.

(Joab goes after Sheba in Abel of Bethmaacah, his forces start to batter a wall down when a woman comes up with a plan to save her city)

(2 Sam 20:21-22 NRSV) The woman said to Joab, "His head shall be thrown over the wall to you."

Then the woman went to all the people with her wise plan. And they cut off the head of Sheba son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab.

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Jael kills her guest Sisera with a tent peg

(Judg 5:24-27 NRSV) "Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, of tent dwelling women most blessed.

He asked water and she gave him milk, she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.

She put her hand to the tent peg and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet; she struck Sisera a blow, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple.

He sank, he fell, he lay still at her feet; at her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell dead.

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An instance of human sacrifice to the God of the Bible.

A man burns his daughter as a sacrificial offering to the God of the Bible in exchange for letting him kill the Ammonites.

(Judg 11:30-31 NRSV) And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when
I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering."

(Jephthah’s daughter came out to cheer his victory and Jephthah burns her as a sacrifice to God)

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Noah becomes drunk and passes out naked. Noah’s son Ham sees Noah naked and Noah curses Ham’s son (*Canaan*).

(Gen 9:21-25 NRSV) He (Noah) drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told
his two brothers outside.

Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son (Ham) had *done* to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan (Ham’s son); lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers."

It is thought that this story has been modified because it makes no sense in it’s current form. It is possible that this story originally had Ham castrating Noah, which would explain Noah’s anger.

By emasculating Noah, Ham would have deprived Noah of a fourth son who would have replaced Ham’s son as Noah’s heir.

There are many parallel castration myths (for example: Cronos castrates his father Uranus).

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According to the bible, disrespectful children are to be dealt with harshly.

(Exo 21:17 NRSV) Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.

from one end of the bible to the other it teaches blind faith which is one of the things that science was developed to filter out of man’s thinking.
6
jimk47 says:

Atrocities and deviant behavior by key Bible figures

The Apostle Paul says all women have inferior judgment to men

The Apostle Paul says women should be silent in church

Jesus calls a begging woman a dog

Jesus says to abandon your family for him

King Solomon has his competition murdered

Jesus says it is ok to castrate yourself for the kingdom of heaven

Samson loses a bet and kills thirty men to pay it off

A woman is given to be raped by a mob and upon returning her husband slices her to pieces

Elijah burns 51 men to death to show he is a man of God

Barbaric punishment for women who interfere with their husband’s brawling

Samson kills 3000 men and women with God’s strength

King Solomon enslaves 30,000 men to build his temple

Moses is angry because not all of the women are killed in a raid

A whole tribe is killed when they fail to show up for roll call

Elisha has jeering children mauled by bears

King Saul is jealous of the magnitude of David’s killing

King David impregnates a man’s wife and sends him off to be killed

More slaughter by David

God kills an innocent baby for King David’s adultery

A man is stoned to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath

King Solomon has 1000 lovers

Israelites are instructed on how to treat their slaves

Joab’s killings (servant of King David)

Jael kills a guest with a tent peg

A man burns his daughter as a sacrifice to God

Noah curses Ham’s descendants for Ham seeing him
naked

Disrespectful children are to be killed

1. Who incited David to count the fighting men of Israel?

* God did (2 Samuel 24: 1)
* Satan did (I Chronicles 2 1:1)

2. In that count how many fighting men were found in Israel?

* Eight hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9)
* One million, one hundred thousand (I Chronicles 21:5)

3. How many fighting men were found in Judah?

* Five hundred thousand (2 Samuel 24:9)
* Four hundred and seventy thousand (I Chronicles 21:5)

4. God sent his prophet to threaten David with how many years of famine?

* Seven (2 Samuel 24:13)
* Three (I Chronicles 21:12)

5. How old was Ahaziah when he began to rule over Jerusalem?

* Twenty-two (2 Kings 8:26)
* Forty-two (2 Chronicles 22:2)

6. How old was Jehoiachin when he became king of Jerusalem?

* Eighteen (2 Kings 24:8)
* Eight (2 Chronicles 36:9)

7. How long did he rule over Jerusalem?

* Three months (2 Kings 24:8)
* Three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9)

8. The chief of the mighty men of David lifted up his spear and killed how many men at one time?

* Eight hundred (2 Samuel 23:8)
* Three hundred (I Chronicles 11: 11)

9. When did David bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem? Before defeating the Philistines or after?

* After (2 Samuel 5 and 6)
* Before (I Chronicles 13 and 14)

10. How many pairs of clean animals did God tell Noah to take into the Ark?

* Two (Genesis 6:19, 20)
* Seven (Genesis 7:2). But despite this last instruction only two pairs went into the ark (Genesis 7:8-9)

11. When David defeated the King of Zobah, how many horsemen did he capture?

* One thousand and seven hundred (2 Samuel 8:4)
* Seven thousand (I Chronicles 18:4)

12. How many stalls for horses did Solomon have?

* Forty thousand (I Kings 4:26)
* Four thousand (2 chronicles 9:25)

13. In what year of King Asa's reign did Baasha, King of Israel die?

* Twenty-sixth year (I Kings 15:33 - 16:8)
* Still alive in the thirty-sixth year (2 Chronicles 16:1)

14. How many overseers did Solomon appoint for the work of building the temple?

* Three thousand six hundred (2 Chronicles 2:2)
* Three thousand three hundred (I Kings 5:16)

15. Solomon built a facility containing how many baths?

* Two thousand (1 Kings 7:26)
* Over three thousand (2 Chronicles 4:5)

16. Of the Israelites who were freed from the Babylonian captivity, how many were the children of Pahrath-Moab?

* Two thousand eight hundred and twelve (Ezra 2:6)
* Two thousand eight hundred and eighteen (Nehemiah 7:11)

17. How many were the children of Zattu?

* Nine hundred and forty-five (Ezra 2:8)
* Eight hundred and forty-five (Nehemiah 7:13)

18. How many were the children of Azgad?

* One thousand two hundred and twenty-two (Ezra 2:12)
* Two thousand three hundred and twenty-two (Nehemiah 7:17)

19. How many were the children of Adin?

* Four hundred and fifty-four (Ezra 2:15)
* Six hundred and fifty-five (Nehemiah 7:20)

20. How many were the children of Hashum?

* Two hundred and twenty-three (Ezra 2:19)
* Three hundred and twenty-eight (Nehemiah 7:22)

21. How many were the children of Bethel and Ai?

* Two hundred and twenty-three (Ezra 2:28)
* One hundred and twenty-three (Nehemiah 7:32)

22. Ezra 2:64 and Nehemiah 7:66 agree that the total number of the whole assembly was 42,360. Yet the numbers do not add up to anything close. The totals obtained from each book is as follows:

* 29,818 (Ezra)
* 31,089 (Nehemiah)

23. How many singers accompanied the assembly?

* Two hundred (Ezra 2:65)
* Two hundred and forty-five (Nehemiah 7:67)

24. What was the name of King Abijahs mother?

* Michaiah, daughter of Uriel of Gibeah (2 Chronicles 13:2)
* Maachah, daughter of Absalom (2 Chronicles 11:20) But Absalom had only one daughter whose name was Tamar (2 Samuel 14:27)

25. Did Joshua and the Israelites capture Jerusalem?

* Yes (Joshua 10:23, 40)
* No (Joshua 15:63)

26. Who was the father of Joseph, husband of Mary?

* Jacob (Matthew 1:16)
* Hell (Luke 3:23)

27. Jesus descended from which son of David?

* Solomon (Matthew 1:6)
* Nathan(Luke3:31)

28. Who was the father of Shealtiel?

* Jechoniah (Matthew 1:12)
* Neri (Luke 3:27)

29. Which son of Zerubbabel was an ancestor of Jesus Christ?

* Abiud (Matthew 1: 13)
* Rhesa (Luke 3:27) But the seven sons of Zerubbabel are as follows: i.Meshullam, ii. Hananiah, iii. Hashubah, iv. Ohel, v.Berechiah, vi. Hasadiah, viii. Jushabhesed (I Chronicles 3:19, 20). The names Abiud and Rhesa do not fit in anyway.

30. Who was the father of Uzziah?

* Joram (Matthew 1:8)
* Amaziah (2 Chronicles 26:1)

31. Who was the father of Jechoniah?

* Josiah (Matthew 1:11)
* Jeholakim (I Chronicles 3:16)

32. How many generations were there from the Babylonian exile until Christ?

* Matthew says fourteen (Matthew 1:17)
* But a careful count of the generations reveals only thirteen (see Matthew 1: 12-16)

33. Who was the father of Shelah?

* Cainan (Luke 3:35-36)
* Arphaxad (Genesis II: 12)

34. Was John the Baptist Elijah who was to come?

* Yes (Matthew II: 14, 17:10-13)
* No (John 1:19-21)

35. Would Jesus inherit Davids throne?

* Yes. So said the angel (Luke 1:32)
* No, since he is a descendant of Jehoiakim (see Matthew 1: I 1, I Chronicles 3:16). And Jehoiakim was cursed by God so that none of his descendants can sit upon Davids throne (Jeremiah 36:30)

36. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on how many animals?

* One - a colt (Mark 11:7; cf Luke 19:3 5). And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it.
* Two - a colt and an ass (Matthew 21:7). They brought the ass and the colt and put their garments on them and he sat thereon.

37. How did Simon Peter find out that Jesus was the Christ?

* By a revelation from heaven (Matthew 16:17)
* His brother Andrew told him (John 1:41)

38. Where did Jesus first meet Simon Peter and Andrew?

* By the sea of Galilee (Matthew 4:18-22)
* On the banks of river Jordan (John 1:42). After that, Jesus decided to go to Galilee (John 1:43)

39. When Jesus met Jairus was Jairus daughter already dead?

* Yes. Matthew 9:18 quotes him as saying, My daughter has just died.
* No. Mark 5:23 quotes him as saying, My little daughter is at the point of death.

40. Did Jesus allow his disciples to keep a staff on their journey?

* Yes (Mark 6:8)
* No (Matthew 10:9; Luke 9:3)

41. Did Herod think that Jesus was John the Baptist?

* Yes (Matthew 14:2; Mark 6:16)
* No (Luke 9:9)

42. Did John the Baptist recognize Jesus before his baptism?

* Yes (Matthew 3:13-14)
* No (John 1:32,33)

43. Did John the Baptist recognize Jesus after his baptism?

* Yes (John 1:32, 33)
* No (Matthew 11:2)

44. According to the Gospel of John, what did Jesus say about bearing his own witness?

* If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is not true (John 5:3 1)
* Even if I do bear witness to myself, my testimony is true (John 8:14)

45. When Jesus entered Jerusalem did he cleanse the temple that same day?

* Yes (Matthew 21:12)
* No. He went into the temple and looked around, but since it was very late he did nothing. Instead, he went to Bethany to spend the night and returned the next morning to cleanse the temple (Mark I 1:1- 17)

46. The Gospels say that Jesus cursed a fig tree. Did the tree wither at once?

* Yes. (Matthew 21:19)
* No. It withered overnight (Mark II: 20)

47. Did Judas kiss Jesus?

* Yes (Matthew 26:48-50)
* No. Judas could not get close enough to Jesus to kiss him (John 18:3-12)

48. What did Jesus say about Peters denial?

* The cock will not crow till you have denied me three times (John 13:38)
* Before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times (Mark 14:30) . When the cock crowed once, the three denials were not yet complete (see Mark 14:72). Therefore prediction (a) failed.

49. Did Jesus bear his own cross?

* Yes (John 19:17)
* No (Matthew 27:31-32)

50. Did Jesus die before the curtain of the temple was torn?

* Yes (Matthew 27:50-51; Mark lS:37-38)
* No. After the curtain was torn, then Jesus crying with a loud voice, said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit! And having said this he breathed his last (Luke 23:45-46)

51. Did Jesus say anything secretly?

* No. I have said nothing secretly (John 18:20)
* Yes. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything (Mark 4:34). The disciples asked him Why do you speak to them in parables? He said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given (Matthew 13: 1 0-11)

52. Where was Jesus at the sixth hour on the day of the crucifixion?

* On the cross (Mark 15:23)
* In Pilates court (John 19:14)

53. The gospels say that two thieves were crucified along with Jesus. Did both thieves mock Jesus?

* Yes (Mark 15:32)
* No. One of them mocked Jesus, the other defended Jesus (Luke 23:43)

54. Did Jesus ascend to Paradise the same day of the crucifixion?

* Yes. He said to the thief who defended him, Today you will be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43)
* No. He said to Mary Magdelene two days later, I have not yet ascended to the Father (John 20:17)

55. When Paul was on the road to Damascus he saw a light and heard a voice. Did those who were with him hear the voice?

* Yes (Acts9:7)
* No (Acts22:9)

56. When Paul saw the light he fell to the ground. Did his traveling companions also fall to the ground?

* Yes (Acts 26:14)
* No (Acts 9:7)

57. Did the voice spell out on the spot what Pauls duties were to be?

* Yes (Acts 26:16-18)
* No. The voice commanded Paul to go into the city of Damascus and there he will be told what he must do. (Acts9:7;22: 10)

58. When the Israelites dwelt in Shittin they committed adultery with the daughters of Moab. God struck them with a plague. How many people died in that plague?

* Twenty-four thousand (Numbers 25:1 and 9)
* Twenty-three thousand (I Corinthians 10:8)

59. How many members of the house of Jacob came to Egypt?

* Seventy souls (Genesis 4 & 27)
* Seventy-five souls (Acts 7:14)

60. What did Judas do with the blood money he received for betraying Jesus?

* He bought a field (Acts 1: 18)
* He threw all of it into the temple and went away. The priests could not put the blood money into the temple treasury, so they used it to buy a field to bury strangers (Matthew 27:5)

61. How did Judas die?

* After he threw the money into the temple he went away and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5)
* After he bought the field with the price of his evil deed he fell headlong and burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out (Acts 1:18)

62. Why is the field called Field of Blood?

* Because the priests bought it with the blood money (Matthew 27:8)
* Because of the bloody death of Judas therein (Acts 1:19)

63. Who is a ransom for whom?

* The Son of Man came...to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all... (I Timothy 2:5-6)
* The wicked is a ransom for the righteous, and the faithless for the upright (Proverbs 21:18)

64. Is the law of Moses useful?

* Yes. All scripture is... profitable... (2 Timothy 3:16)
* No. . . . A former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness... (Hebrews 7:18)

65. What was the exact wording on the cross?

* This is Jesus the King of the Jews (Matthew 27:37)
* The King of the Jews (Mark 15:26)
* This is the King of the Jews (Luke 23:38)
* Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews (John 19:19)

66. Did Herod want to kill John the Baptist?

* Yes (Matthew 14:5)
* No. It was Herodias, the wife of Herod who wanted to kill him. But Herod knew that he was a righteous man and kept him safe (Mark 6:20)

67. Who was the tenth disciple of Jesus in the list of twelve?

* Thaddaeus (Matthew 10: 1-4; Mark 3:13 -19)
* Judas son of James is the corresponding name in Lukes gospel (Luke 6:12-16)

68. Jesus saw a man sitat the tax collectors office and called him to be his disciple. What was his name?

* Matthew (Matthew 9:9)
* Levi (Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27)

69. Was Jesus crucified on the daytime before the Passover meal or the daytime after?

* After (Mark 14:12-17)
* Before. Before the feast of the Passover (John 1) Judas went out at night (John 13:30). The other disciples thought he was going out to buy supplies to prepare for the Passover meal (John 13:29). When Jesus was arrested, the Jews did not enter Pilates judgment hail because they wanted to stay clean to eat the Passover (John 18:28). When the judgment was pronounced against Jesus, it was about the sixth hour on the day of Preparation for the Passover (John 19:14)

70. Did Jesus pray to The Father to prevent the crucifixion?

* Yes. (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42)
* No. (John 12:27)

71. In the gospels which say that Jesus prayed to avoid the cross, how many times did he move away from his disciples to pray?

* Three (Matthew 26:36-46 and Mark 14:32-42)
* One. No opening is left for another two times. (Luke 22:39-46)

72. Matthew and Mark agree that Jesus went away and prayed three times. What were the words of the second prayer?

* Mark does not give the words but he says that the words were the same as the first prayer (Mark 14:3 9)
* Matthew gives us the words, and we can see that they are not the same as in the first (Matthew 26:42)

73. What did the centurion say when Jesus dies?

* Certainly this man was innocent (Luke 23:47)
* Truly this man was the Son of God (Mark 15:39)

74. When Jesus said My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me ? in what language did he speak?

* Hebrew: the words are Eloi, Eloi ..(Matthew 27:46)
* Aramaic: the words are Eloi, Eloi .. (Mark 15:34)

75. According to the gospels, what were the last words of Jesus before he died?

* Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit! (Luke 23:46)
* "It is finished" (John 19:30)

76. When Jesus entered Capernaum he healed the slave of a centurion. Did the centurion come personally to request Jesus for this?

* Yes (Matthew 8:5)
* No. He sent some elders of the Jews and his friends (Luke 7:3,6)

77.

* Adam was told that if and when he eats the forbidden fruit he would die the same day (Genesis 2:17)
* Adam ate the fruit and went on to live to a ripe old age of 930 years (Genesis 5:5)

78.

* God decided that the life-span of humans will be limited to 120 years (Genesis 6:3)
* Many people born after that lived longer than 120. Arpachshad lived 438 years. His son Shelah lived 433 years. His son Eber lived 464 years, etc. (Genesis 11:12-16)

79. Apart from Jesus did anyone else ascend to heaven?

* No (John 3:13)
* Yes. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven (2 Kings 2:11)

80. Who was high priest when David went into the house of God and ate the consecrated bread?

* Abiathar (Mark 2:26)
* Ahimelech, the father of Abiathar (I Samuel 1:1; 22:20)

81. Was Jesus body wrapped in spices before burial in accordance with Jewish burial customs?

* Yes and his female disciples witnessed his burial (John 19:39-40)
* No. Jesus was simply wrapped in a linen shroud. Then the women bought and prepared spices so that they may go and anoint him [Jesus) (Mark 16: 1)

82. When did the women buy the spices?

* After the Sabbath was past (Mark 16:1)
* Before the Sabbath. The women prepared spices and ointments. Then, on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment (Luke 23:55 to 24:1)

83. At what time of day did the women visit the tomb?

* Toward the dawn (Matthew 28: 1)
* When the sun had risen (Mark 16:2)

84. What was the purpose for which the women went to the tomb?

* To anoint Jesus body with spices (Mark 16: 1; Luke 23:55 to 24: 1)
* To see the tomb. Nothing about spices here (Matthew 28: 1)
* For no specified reason. In this gospel the wrapping with spices had been done before the Sabbath (John 20: 1)

85. A large stone was placed at the entrance of the tomb. Where was the stone when the women arrived?

* They saw that the stone was Rolled back (Mark 16:4) They found the stone rolled away from the tomb (Luke 24:2) They saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb (John 20:1)
* As the women approached, an angel descended from heaven, rolled away the stone, and conversed with the women. Matthew made the women witness the spectacular rolling away of the stone (Matthew 28:1-6)

86. Did anyone tell the women what happened to Jesus body?

* Yes. A young man in a white robe (Mark 16:5). Two men ... in dazzling apparel later described as angels (Luke 24:4 and 24:23). An angel - the one who rolled back the stone (Matthew 16:2). In each case the women were told that Jesus had risen from the dead (Matthew 28:7; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:5 footnote)
* No. Mary met no one and returned saying, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him (John 20:2)

87. When did Mary Magdelene first meet the resurrected Jesus? And how did she react?

* Mary and the other women met Jesus on their way back from their first and only visit to the tomb. They took hold of his feet and worshipped him (Matthew 28:9)
* On her second visit to the tomb Mary met Jesus just outside the tomb. When she saw Jesus she did not recognize him. She mistook him for the gardener. She still thinks that Jesus body is laid to rest somewhere and she demands to know where. But when Jesus said her name she at once recognized him and called him Teacher. Jesus said to her, Do not hold me... (John 20:11 to 17)

88. What was Jesus instruction for his disciples?

* Tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me (Matthew 2 8: 10)
* Go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (John 20:17)

89. When did the disciples return to Galilee?

* Immediately, because when they saw Jesus in Galilee some doubted (Matthew 28:17). This period of uncertainty should not persist
* After at least 40 days. That evening the disciples were still in Jerusalem (Luke 24:3 3). Jesus appeared to them there and told them, stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). He was appearing to them during forty days (Acts 1:3), and charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise ... (Acts 1:4)

90. To whom did the Midianites sell Joseph?

* To the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:28)
* To Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh (Genesis 37:36)

91. Who brought Joseph to Egypt?

* The Ishmaelites bought Joseph and then took Joseph to Egypt (Genesis 37:28)
* The Midianites had sold him in Egypt (Genesis 37:36)
* Joseph said to his brothers I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt (Genesis 45:4)

92. Does God change his mind?

* Yes. The word of the Lord came to Samuel: I repent that I have made Saul King... (I Samuel 15:10 to 11)
* No. God will not lie or repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent (I Samuel 15:29)

Yes. And the Lord repented that he had made Saul King over Israel (I Samuel 15:35). Notice that the above three quotes are all from the same chapter of the same book! In addition, the Bible shows that God repented on several other occasions:

i. The Lord was sorry that he made man (Genesis 6:6)

I am sorry that I have made them (Genesis 6:7)

ii. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people (Exodus 32:14).

iii. (Lots of other such references).

93. The Bible says that for each miracle Moses and Aaron demonstrated the magicians did the same by their secret arts. Then comes the following feat:

* Moses and Aaron converted all the available water into blood (Exodus 7:20-21)
* The magicians did the same (Exodus 7:22). This is impossible, since there would have been no water left to convert into blood.

94. Who killed Goliath?

* David (I Samuel 17:23, 50)
* Elhanan (2 Samuel 21:19)

95. Who killed Saul?

* Saul took his own sword and fell upon it.... Thus Saul died... (I Samuel 31:4-6)
* An Amalekite slew him (2 Samuel 1:1- 16)

96. Does every man sin?

* Yes. There is no man who does not sin (I Kings 8:46; see also 2 Chronicles 6:36; Proverbs 20:9; Ecclesiastes 7:20; and I John 1:810)
* No. True Christians cannot possibly sin, because they are the children of God. Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God.. (I John 5:1). We should be called children of God; and so we are (I John 3: 1). He who loves is born of God (I John 4:7). No one born of God commits sin; for Gods nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God (I John 3:9). But, then again, Yes! If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (I John 1:8)

97. Who will bear whose burden?

* Bear one anothers burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2)
* Each man will have to bear his own load (Galatians 6:5)

98. How many disciples did Jesus appear to after his resurrection?

* Twelve (I Corinthians 15:5)
* Eleven (Matthew 27:3-5 and Acts 1:9-26, see also Matthew 28:16; Mark 16:14 footnote; Luke 24:9; Luke 24:3 3)

99. Where was Jesus three days after his baptism?

* After his baptism, the spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days ... (Mark 1:12-13)
* Next day after the baptism, Jesus selected two disciples. Second day: Jesus went to Galilee - two more disciples. Third day: Jesus was at a wedding feast in Cana in Galilee (see John 1:35; 1:43; 2:1-11)

100. Was baby Jesus life threatened in Jerusalem?

* Yes, so Joseph fled with him to Egypt and stayed there until Herod died (Matthew 2:13 23)
* No. The family fled nowhere. They calmly presented the child at the Jerusalem temple according to the Jewish customs and returned to Galilee (Luke 2:21-40)

101. When Jesus walked on water how did the disciples respond?

* They worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God (Matthew 14:33)
* They were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened (Mark 6:51-52)

Bible errors
Jesus said the end of the world would be in his generation
Jesus said that believers could handle snakes and drink poison
Problems with the Exodus story
Jesus’ primitive astronomy
Problems with the Jonah story
Garden of Eden was not a fair test
Joshua makes the Sun stand still in the sky
Nebuchadnezzar has a flat earth dream
Ahaziah was 2 years older than his father
The Bible claims there are 4-legged insects
The Bible claims rabbits (hares) chew their cud
God draws a flat circle on the water to make the earth
Problems with the Tower of Babel story
Jesus incorrectly states that Moses wrote of him in his law
Jesus incorrectly states that no one has ascended to heaven
Author of Matthew miscounts his generations
Jesus quotes a scripture that does not exist in canonized bible
Problems with Paul’s signs of the last days
Problems with Jesus’ signs of the last days
Problems with Satan tempting Jesus
Sorcery forbidden and yet practiced in the Bible
Jesus incorrectly states no man can serve two masters
Peter misquotes an Old Testament verse
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Jesus is talking of signs that will happen before the end of the world to his disciples)
(Notice: Jesus probably thought the stars were little lights attached to a solid rotating sky dome like everyone else at that time)
(Mat 24:29 NRSV) "Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; *the stars will fall from heaven*, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
(Mat 24:30 NRSV) Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory.
(Jesus now says to his disciples that their generation will not pass away before the end of the world)
(Mat 24:34 NRSV) Truly I tell you, *this generation will not pass away* until all these things have taken place.
(Their generation did pass away, but the world didn’t end)
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Jesus tells his disciples that those "who believe" can heal, handle snakes, cast demons out, speak in tongues, and drink poison.
(Mark 16:17-18 NRSV) And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."
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The Exodus story is almost certainly a fabrication or at least extremely exaggerated.
The bible says 600,000 men (hopefully accompanied by an equal number of women), children, and a "mixed" crowd supposedly left Egypt.
(Exo 12:37-38 NRSV) The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about *six hundred thousand men*
on foot, besides children. A mixed crowd also went…
This is somewhere around 1.5 million people (more than live in the city of Dallas).
It is very unlikely that the Egyptians kept 1.5 million people enslaved, controlled, and fed.
It is also very unlikely that hundreds of thousands of Israelites wandered around on foot in a desert region with little food or water for 40 years after they left.
There is no record anywhere of Egypt ever enslaving the Israelites. There is no archaeological evidence to support the Israelites being in Egypt.
It is well established that the Egyptians themselves built all their cities and monuments during the off season (farming).
There is no record in Egypt of 1.5 million people suddenly getting up and leaving (The Egyptians were meticulous record keepers).
There is no archaeological evidence of anything more than a few scattered encampments in the wilderness where supposedly at least hundreds of thousands wandered and died in the bible.
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Jesus was just a mortal man who had no special knowledge of modern cosmology. Here are some verses that indicate this:
(Jesus is talking about the end of the world) (Mat 24:29 NRSV) "Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; *the stars will fall* from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
Jesus is obviously talking about stars (to him little lights) falling from the sky (to him just a few miles up) down to earth.
This was entirely feasible to people of his time as they did not know that the stars are huge objects like our sun (many, many times larger than the earth) that were unimaginably distant.
We know today that stars are suns that are at such distances that light takes dozens to hundreds of thousands of years to travel to us.
Even if they could travel instantaneously to earth, they could not "fall to earth" as they are up to millions of times larger than the earth.
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Here is the mythical story of how Jonah lived inside of a fish for three days:
(Jonah 1:17 NRSV) But the LORD provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Lets assume that the story was talking about a whale that was incorrectly identified as a fish by this tale and that the whale would have some interest in swallowing a person whole, let’s look at some of the other ways this is fiction:
a) No oxygen.
b) Lot of poisonous digestive juices.
c) No drinkable water.
d) A whale has an enormously fast digestive system.
The Bible goes on to tell of how God "talks" to the "fish" and the "fish" "spews" the man on to dry land.
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The test in the Garden of Eden myth, was not a fair test considering it requires the knowledge of good and evil to not do something evil, yet this is what eating the fruit was supposed to give to the couple.
(Gen 2:25 NRSV) And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
(After eating the forbidden fruit)
(Gen 3:10-11 NRSV) (Adam) He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
(God) "Who told you that you were naked?
Not knowing good from evil (Gen 3:5), they did something evil so God punished them…
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The bible’s primitive astronomy provides a longer day to complete the killing of all the Amorite men, women, and children.
Joshua realized that he wasn’t going to have enough time to completely slaughter all of the Amorites (even with God helping by throwing boulders from the sky to crush the people that were fleeing) so he commanded the Sun to stand still in the sky over Gibeon and the Moon to stand still over the valley of Aijalon.
The author of Joshua like everyone else in his day was unaware of the earth’s rotation and thought the Sun went around the earth and that the Sun and Moon were only a few miles up in the sky, hence the command to make them stand still over certain topographic features of the earth.
These same verses were used by the Church against Galileo when he suggested that the earth turned instead:
(Josh 10:12-13 NRSV) On the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the LORD; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand still *at Gibeon*, and Moon, *in the valley of Aijalon*."
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.
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Here is a dream of Nebuchadnezzar as the author of the book of Daniel imagined it. The author imagined a tree growing from the center of a flat earth and it reaching the sky that in his day was thought to be just a few miles high. The tree was visible to the "ends" of the flat earth.
(Dan 4:10 NRSV) Upon my bed this is what I saw; there was a tree at the center of the earth, and its height was great.
The word Hebrew word for earth here is ara:
772. ‘ara’, (Chald.),
ar-ah’; corresp. to H776; the earth; by impl. (fig.) low:–earth, inferior
(Dan 4:11 NRSV) The tree grew great and strong, its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.
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According to the bible, Ahaziah was 2 years older than his father Jehoram.
(Jehoram was inflicted with a disease from God that killed him after an eight-year reign)
(2 Chr 21:20 NRSV) (Jehoram) He was *thirty-two* years old when he began to reign; he reigned
*eight years* in Jerusalem. … They buried him in the city of David…
So Jehoram died at the age of forty.
(2 Chr 22:1 NRSV) The inhabitants of Jerusalem made his *youngest* son Ahaziah king as his successor; for the troops who came with the Arabs to the camp had killed all the *older*
sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram reigned as king of Judah.
(2 Chr 22:2 NRSV) Ahaziah was *forty-two* years old when he began to reign; he reigned one year in Jerusalem. …
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The bible incorrectly says there are 4-legged insects. There are no insects anywhere that have 4 legs.
(Lev 11:20-21 NRSV) All winged insects that walk upon all fours are detestable to you.
But among the winged insects that walk on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to leap on the ground.
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The bible incorrectly states that rabbits (hares) chew their cud.
(Deu 14:7 NRSV) Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cleft you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you.
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Here again the bible seems to be saying that the earth is flat.
Here are more verses describing it as God "drawing" a flat 2 dimensional circle on the *face* of the waters to make the earth.
(Prov 8:26-27 NRSV) when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
(Job 26:10 NRSV) He has described a circle on the face of the waters, at the boundary between light and darkness.
(Isa 40:22 NRSV) It is he who sits above the *circle of the earth*, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
The Hebrew word for circle here is chuwg
2329. chuwg, khoog; from H2328; a circle:–circle, circuit, compass
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Problems with the story of the tower of Babel (A myth to explain why there are different languages).
(Gen 11:4-7 NRSV) Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens,
(Like most people in their time, the authors of Genesis thought that the sky was a dome that was just a few miles up)
and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
(If they don’t make a name for themselves they will be scattered, this sounds fairly contrived so far)
The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.
(The Lord had to "come down" cause he was "up" in heaven not omni- present, but imagined as anthropomorphic to this author. Also he had to come down because he *couldn’t see the city and the tower* from where he was?)
And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
(God is afraid of these people when all they are doing is building. Look at the pyramids in Egypt and Central America, and the structures *high* in the Andies mountains by the Incas, and the skyscrapers we build today. There hasn’t been any apparent divine intervention to spoil these projects yet)
Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech."
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Jesus incorrectly said that he was mention by Moses in his law.
(Luke 24:44 NRSV) Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you–that everything written about me in the law of Moses,…
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Jesus incorrectly states that no one has ascended into heaven except the "Son of Man".
(John 3:13 NRSV) No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
(John 3:15 NRSV) that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
(here is Elijah
*ascending* to heaven)
(2 Ki 2:11 NRSV) As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah *ascended in a whirlwind into heaven*.
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The author of Matthew says there are 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus.
(Mat 1:17 NRSV) So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah fourteen generations. (3 x 14 = 42)
The number of generations he actually lists is instead 41.
Matthew 1rst chapter:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Abraham Isaac Jacob Judah Perez Hezron Aram 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Aminadab Nahshon Salmon Boaz Obed Jesse King David.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Solomon Rehoboam Abijah Asaph Jehoshaphat Joram Uzziah 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Jotham Ahaz Hezekiah Manasseh Amos Josiah Jechoniah
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Salathiel Zerubbabel Abiud Eliakim Azor Zadok Achim 8 9 10 11 12 13 Eliud Eleazar Matthan Jacob Joseph Jesus
14+14+13 = 41
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Jesus quotes another scripture that doesn’t exist in the canonized bible.
(John 7:38 NRSV) and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’"
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Paul gives a list of things that supposedly indicate the "last days", but the things he listed are things that are continually going on all the time.
(2 Tim 3:1-5 NRSV) You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come.
For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them!
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Jesus lists things that supposedly indicate the "last days", but his list is of things that are continually going on throughout history..
(Matthew 24:3-14)
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
Jesus answered them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places:
all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. "Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations; and then the end will come. …
(Here is the only specific thing Jesus says and it is right before the specific "coming on the clouds of heaven")
(Matthew 24:29) "Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
(Again vague nonspecific things that have been going on throughout all history (except for the Messiah statement which has only been going on since the Babylonian Exile ~2500 years ago)
Preachers have been using vague "signs" ever since Jesus to claim that their generation will be the last one. This has been going on for centuries and is being claimed today.
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Here is Satan telling Jesus (who was supposed to be God and owner of the world according to christian religions) to worship him and he will "give" him the world?
(Mat 4:8 NRSV) Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor;
(Only possible on a flat earth, which the authors of the synoptic Gospels must have imagined)
(Mat 4:9 NRSV) and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
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The Deuteronomist outlaws foreign sorcery, but the bible authors use a multitude of their own sorcerers (called prophets) to contact a supernatural power (their god) and to attempt to determine the future.
(Deu 18:10 NRSV) No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who
*practices divination*, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a *sorcerer*,
"Sorcerer practices" or "Divination and Magic" From Holman’s Bible Dictionary:
An attempt to contact supernatural powers to determine answers to questions hidden to humans and usually involving the future.
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Jesus here is simply wrong, a man can serve several masters and hate all of them or love all of them.
Even though this is just an analogy, an analogy is suppose to draw a parallel from something that makes sense.
(Mat 6:24 NRSV) "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. …
(Mat 6:24 NRSV) … You cannot serve God and wealth.
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The Apostle Peter (like the author of Matthew does many times) takes an Old Testament verse out of it’s context to try to make it seem as though it was forecasting a future event.
Some observers see people acting funny, speaking in tongues that they are not capable of (this feat is never duplicated in modern day Assembly of God churches) during their "filling of the Holy Spirit" at the "Pentecost".
They then conclude they are all drunk.
Peter tells them that they aren’t drunk, but they are filled with the Holy Spirit, that is why they are acting strange.
(Acts 2:15-16 NRSV) Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
(Peter then goes on to quote the prophet Joel, claiming that this filling of the spirit means they are in the "last days" before the coming of the "great day of the Lord".
A) The prophet Joel was making another vague prediction about how Judah and Israel are going to get back together and of a great war that the Jews would have with many nations of which only they will survive (this is Joel’s "Lord’s great and glorious day"). Of course this prophecy failed because it never happened. (Joel 2:28 – 3:21)
B) Peter was wrong as this has nothing to do with the Pentecost or Jesus.
C) Peter takes this prediction and turns it into a validation that they were in the last days before Jesus was to come back which was his "Lord’s great and glorious day" (because it mentions a "filling of a spirit" and "prophesying".
D) It was natural for Peter and the Apostle Paul in his letters to assume this because Jesus himself said he would come back before all of the disciples had died. (Mat 16:28)
E) Jesus never came back, not then, and not in the almost 2000 years since, so Peter was wrong about them being in the "last days".
(Acts 2:17 NRSV) ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall …
…
(Acts 2:19-20 NRSV) And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

Bertrand Russell:

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

Ecologia - Leonardo Boff

Ecologia Ambiental

Esta primeira vertente se preocupa com o meio ambiente, para que não sofra excessiva desfiguração, com qualidade de vida e com a preservação das espécies em extinção. Ela vê a natureza fora do ser humano e da sociedade. Procura tecnologias novas, menos poluentes, privilegiando soluções técnicas. Ela é importante porque procura corrigir os excessos da voracidade do projeto industrialista mundial, que implica sempre custos ecológicos altos.



Se não cuidarmos do planeta como um todo, podemos submetê-lo a graves riscos de destruição de partes da biosfera e, no seu termo, inviabilizar a própria vida no planeta.





Ecologia Social

A segunda _a ecologia social_ não quer apenas o meio ambiente. Quer o ambiente inteiro. Insere o ser humano e a sociedade dentro da natureza. Preocupa-se não apenas com o embelezamento da cidade, com melhores avenidas, com praças ou praias mais atrativas. Mas prioriza o saneamento básico, uma boa rede escolar e um serviço de saúde decente. A injustiça social significa uma violência contra o ser mais complexo e singular da criação que é o ser humano, homem e mulher. Ele é parte e parcela da natureza.



A ecologia social propugna por um desenvolvimento sustentável. É aquele em que se atende às carências básicas dos seres humanos hoje sem sacrificar o capital natural da Terra e se considera também as necessidades das gerações futuras que têm direito à sua satisfação e de herdarem uma Terra habitável com relações humanas minimamente justas.



Mas o tipo de sociedade construída nos últimos 400 anos impede que se realize um desenvolvimento sustentável. É energívora, montou um modelo de desenvolvimento que pratica sistematicamente a pilhagem dos recursos da Terra e explora a força de trabalho.



No imaginário dos pais fundadores da sociedade moderna, o desenvolvimento se movia dentro de dois infinitos: o infinito dos recursos naturais e o infinito do desenvolvimento rumo ao futuro. Esta pressuposição se revelou ilusória. Os recursos não são infinitos. A maioria está se acabando, principalmente a água potável e os combustíveis fósseis. E o tipo de desenvolvimento linear e crescente para o futuro não é universalizável. Não é, portanto, infinito. Se as famílias chinesas quisessem ter os automóveis que as famílias americanas têm, a China viraria um imenso estacionamento. Não haveria combustível suficiente e ninguém se moveria.



Carecemos de uma sociedade sustentável que encontra para si o desenvolvimento viável para as necessidades de todos. O bem-estar não pode ser apenas social, mas tem de ser também sociocósmico. Ele tem que atender aos demais seres da natureza, como as águas, as plantas, os animais, os microorganismos, pois todos juntos constituem a comunidade planetária, na qual estamos inseridos, e sem os quais nós mesmos não viveríamos.





Ecologia Mental

A terceira, a ecologia mental, chamada também de ecologia profunda, sustenta que as causas do déficit da Terra não se encontram apenas no tipo de sociedade que atualmente temos. Mas também no tipo de mentalidade que vigora, cujas raízes alcançam épocas anteriores à nossa história moderna, incluindo a profundidade da vida psíquica humana consciente e inconsciente, pessoal e arquetípica.



Há em nós instintos de violência, vontade de dominação, arquétipos sombrios que nos afastam da benevolência em relação à vida e à natureza. Aí dentro da mente humana se iniciam os mecanismos que nos levam a uma guerra contra a Terra. Eles se expressam por uma categoria: a nossa cultura antropocêntrica. O antropocentrismo considera o ser humano rei/rainha do universo. Pensa que os demais seres só têm sentido quando ordenados ao ser humano; eles estão aí disponíveis ao seu bel-prazer. Esta estrutura quebra com a lei mais universal do universo: a solidariedade cósmica. Todos os seres são interdependentes e vivem dentro de uma teia intrincadíssima de relações. Todos são importantes.



Não há isso de alguém ser rei/rainha e considerar-se independente sem precisar dos demais. A moderna cosmologia nos ensina que tudo tem a ver com tudo em todos os momentos e em todas as circunstâncias. O ser humano esquece esta realidade. Afasta-se e se coloca sobre as coisas em vez de sentir-se junto e com elas, numa imensa comunidade planetária e cósmica. Importa recuperarmos atitudes de respeito e veneração para com a Terra.



Isso somente se consegue se antes for resgatada a dimensão do feminino no homem e na mulher. Pelo feminino o ser humano se abre ao cuidado, se sensibiliza pela profundidade misteriosa da vida e recupera sua capacidade de maravilhamento. O feminino ajuda a resgatar a dimensão do sagrado. O sagrado impõe sempre limites à manipulação do mundo, pois ele dá origem à veneração e ao respeito, fundamentais para a salvaguarda da Terra. Cria a capacidade de re-ligar todas as coisas à sua fonte criadora que é o Criador e o Ordenador do universo. Desta capacidade re-ligadora nascem todas as religiões. Precisamos hoje revitalizar as religiões para que cumpram sua função religadora.





Ecologia Integral

Por fim, a quarta - a ecologia integral - parte de uma nova visão da Terra. É a visão inaugurada pelos astronautas a partir dos anos 60 quando se lançaram os primeiros foguetes tripulados. Eles vêem a Terra de fora da Terra. De lá, de sua nave espacial ou da Lua, como testemunharam vários deles, a Terra aparece como resplandecente planeta azul e branco que cabe na palma da mão e que pode ser escondido pelo polegar humano.



Daquela perspectiva, Terra e seres humanos emergem como uma única entidade. O ser humano é a própria Terra enquanto sente, pensa, ama, chora e venera. A Terra emerge como o terceiro planeta de um Sol que é apenas um entre 100 bilhões de outros de nossa galáxia, que, por sua vez, é uma entre 100 bilhões de outras do universo, universo que, possivelmente, é apenas um entre outros milhões paralelos e diversos do nosso. E tudo caminhou com tal calibragem que permitiu a nossa existência aqui e agora. Caso contrário não estaríamos aqui. Os cosmólogos, vindos da astrofísica, da física quântica, da biologia molecular, numa palavra, das ciências da Terra, nos advertem que o inteiro universo se encontra em cosmogênese. Isto significa: ele está em gênese, se constituindo e nascendo, formando um sistema aberto, sempre capaz de novas aquisições e novas expressões. Portanto ninguém está pronto. Por isso, temos que ter paciência com o processo global, uns com os outros e também conosco mesmo, pois nós, humanos, estamos igualmente em processo de antropogênese, de constituição e de nascimento.



Três grandes emergências ocorrem na cosmogênese e antropogênese: (1) a complexidade/diferenciação, (2) a auto-organização/consciência e (3) a religação / relação de tudo com tudo. A partir de seu primeiro momento, após o Big-Bang, a evolução está criando mais e mais seres diferentes e complexos (1). Quanto mais complexos mais se auto-organizam, mais mostram interioridade e possuem mais e mais níveis de consciência (2) até chegaram à consciência reflexa no ser humano. O universo, pois, como um todo possui uma profundidade espiritual. Para estar no ser humano, o espírito estava antes no universo. Agora ele emerge em nós na forma da consciência reflexa e da amorização. E, quanto mais complexo e consciente, mais se relaciona e se religa (3) com todas as coisas, fazendo com que o universo seja realmente uni-verso, uma totalidade orgânica, dinâmica, diversa, tensa e harmônica, um cosmos e não um caos.



As quatro interações existentes, a gravitacional, a eletromagnética e a nuclear fraca e forte, constituem os princípios diretores do universo, de todos os seres, também dos seres humanos. A galáxia mais distante se encontra sob a ação destas quatro energias primordiais, bem como a formiga que caminha sobre minha mesa e os neurônios do cérebro humano com os quais faço estas reflexões. Tudo se mantém religado num equilíbrio dinâmico, aberto, passando pelo caos que é sempre generativo, pois propicia um novo equilíbrio mais alto e complexo, desembocando numa ordem, rica de novas potencialidades.

Gentle rottweiler: Laurie Taylor interviews Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins' attack on religion has been hailed, revered and derided. He talks to Laurie Taylor about the mixed reception of The God Delusion
Laurie Taylor
Before I went to talk to Richard Dawkins in his Oxford home about the critical reactions to his best-selling book The God Delusion, I sat down and watched a quite extraordinary video of one episode from his promotional tour of the States. In this short film we see Dawkins reading extracts from his book and answering questions before an audience in Lynchburg, Virginia. This is already sensational enough: a no-holds-barred atheist standing up and strutting his evolutionary stuff in a town principally famous for the existence of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, a university which proudly announces in its prospectus that “Liberty’s professors integrate a Christian worldview into every subject area… They join Liberty only after completing a rigorous interview process that confirms a born-again relationship with Christ.”

But what is truly extraordinary about this video is that although Dawkins is repeatedly confronted by students and academics from Liberty University, he never seems in any danger of losing the sympathy of most of his large audience. There are even moments when his replies attract not just generous applause but what sound awfully like enthusiastic cheers. As an exercise in consciousness-raising it may hardly be analogous to Stokely Carmichael arousing a black audience with the declaration that “black is beautiful”, but it does suggest that Dawkins was very astute when he described his new book as an invitation to atheists to come out of the closet and publicly declare their disbelief.

He greeted me with his customary friendliness, proposed coffee, and then settled down to answer my questions with quite enough eagerness to allow me to forget that he had been through scores of rather similar interviews in recent months. I reminded him that last time we had met, during an IPPR/New Humanist debate at the 2006 Labour Party Conference, I’d expressed anxiety about the reception he might receive from god-loving Americans during his forthcoming publicity tour.

“Well, let me tell you, it was quite an agreeable surprise. Everywhere I went, including Kansas and Lynchburg, I got rapturous responses. Obviously I was preaching to the choir but I hadn’t realised that the choir was going to be quite so big or so enthusiastic. In Lynchburg they’d obviously bussed them in from Liberty University and so they tended to dominate the questions. They were asking what they thought were testing questions, but the home crowd really were roaring their applause each time I knocked them down. It was rather like a wrestling match.”

“You felt that there was a sense of relief that at last somebody was speaking out. Your analogy with raising consciousness really seemed to hold?”

“Oh yes. I think it really does hold. It was what everybody said in the book signing queues. Time after time, people would say, often in a whisper, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ And I now get so many letters from people in America who say that they were afraid to come clean and say that they really didn’t believe. Sometimes they are afraid of their family, their parents, or their fiancée. Others are afraid of being victimised at work or passed over for promotion.”

I’d decided to start with what I knew was the unexpectedly generous response he’d received in the States because I wanted the main part of my interview to concentrate on the far more critical reaction to his book from a large range of popular and academic reviewers. Had he been ready for this barrage of hostility?

“It was quite a shock to me. All my previous books have been pretty favourably reviewed on the whole. But this one is the exception. It got off to a good start with Joan Bakewell in the Guardian and an anonymous one in the Economist but not elsewhere. I think that because the book has the word ‘God’ in the title they get religious people to review it. So what do you expect?”

“But”, I suggested, opening my file of quotations, “there were some interesting consistencies in this criticism. As far as I can see nobody strongly objected to the way in which you used evolutionary theory to challenge the idea of an initial creator, but there was real concern about your subscription to the idea of moral evolution. Some reviewers quite clearly regarded your belief in the progressive nature of what you call the liberal zeitgeist as a serious departure from strict rationality. Although you admit that there might be temporary setbacks to this progression, the movement is always forward. Contrast that with the views of someone like John Gray, professor of political science at LSE and author of Straw Dogs, who is every bit as Darwinian as yourself but nevertheless reaches deeply pessimistic conclusions about the possibility of human progress.”

“Well, in fact, I could be very wrong about this. But I thought that the illustrations I gave of the moving zeitgeist were fairly convincing. I feel that you can more or less judge the decade in which a piece of prejudice was written by the nature of the prejudice. One can say that this or that piece of prejudice dates from, say, the 1930s. There’s a kind of time signature to social attitudes.”

But wasn’t this to ignore the evidence of the past? I reminded him of the rush of books in the 19th century, like Hobhouse’s Morals in Evolution, which had appropriated Darwinian theory in order to argue that the world was becoming incrementally more moral and that such a movement could only continue in the future. But then, of course, Hobhouse and the other moral evolutionists had been entirely confounded in the first half of the 20th century by the arrival upon the scene of Stalin and Hitler and their organised campaigns of mass extermination.

As I knew from our previous meetings, and from attending his lectures, he always pays close and almost flattering attention to someone else’s arguments. He never rushes in with a response but carefully acknowledges the point before gently countering. His tenacity is only evident in the manner in which he pursues the argument. This was no exception. He was happy to admit that fascism and soviet communism created problems for his moving zeitgeist but still wanted to stick by his thesis.

“We have to consider the advancing technology that made it so much more possible for a Hitler or a Stalin to do the horrible things they did. If you planted Hitler or Stalin back in the middle ages, would they have stood out as they do to us now, or would they have seemed par for the course in terms of their nastiness? I would still suggest that they were temporary setbacks. There is general progress. We don’t now have slavery. We have equal respect for women. A universal revulsion against Hitler. Nobody can now say what Hitler once said without being instantly shouted down.”

Was he really happy to describe a planned policy to exterminate an entire race of people as “a temporary setback”?

“But that belief in the extermination of an entire race, you can say that it was a last gasp.”
But wasn’t this, as his critics insisted, not so much a rational argument as a personal belief? Not so much science as good old-fashioned optimism, a readiness to admit to what could only be called a belief in moral progress, to an ideological optimism?

“Well, I hope that someone in your field is giving proper attention to this because the idea of progress seems to me to be plausible but I wouldn’t be able to argue it for very long. But, yes, I think that is a fair cop. I am an optimist.”

It’s this sort of readiness to concede which causes some of the ambivalence one finds among both Dawkins’ friends and enemies. Anyone who reads The God Delusion can hardly doubt that they are often in the presence of an out-and-out dogmatist. Religious beliefs are mocked, subverted and finally dispatched with an almost chilling logic. There are almost no concessions to agnostics or deists or even the gentler proponents of intelligent design. All deviations from thoroughgoing atheism are ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of experimental science.

But Dawkins in debate or conversation almost seems apologetic about the hard-nosed impression that he so assiduously invites in print. One radio producer recently told me of his astonishment at finding that in the flesh Dawkins did not so much resemble an ideologue as “a gentle country vicar”. It was, said the producer, a combination of his gentle voice and manner as well as his occasional admissions of uncertainty.

I drew upon the remarks of one of his great friends and admirers in an attempt to resolve this apparent contradiction. “Why,” I asked, “do so many of your critics complain about your dogmatism in The God Delusion? Even the philosopher Daniel Dennett, who describes himself as your ally and friend in his review, goes on to say, “some readers will probably come away from the book more impressed by Dawkins’s disrespect than persuaded by his arguments.”

“I think it’s almost a tactical point. You can see it starkly in the evolution debates. In America and elsewhere I am continually and very possibly rightly accused of providing real fodder for the creationists because in America atheism is such a no-no. If anyone stands up and says ‘I am an atheist because I am a Darwinian,’ which I sort of do, they think their birthday has arrived. It is wonderful for them. I had a meeting with Eric Rothschild, who was a lead lawyer in the Pennsylvania evolution case, and he said, ‘Thank goodness we didn’t call you as a witness.’ I would have handed the case to the other side. I don’t know what the answer is to this. There is such a double standard. If you use the same kind of language about religion that anyone else would use about politics, economics, architecture or the theatre, it would be seen as ordinary robust critical language. Yet the moment the same language is used against religion, it suddenly becomes obnoxious, intemperate and offensive. And that is so common among my critics. I don’t know whether I should moderate my language to woo the other side. Do I want to woo the bishops, people like the bishop of Oxford? He’s a terribly nice man and we have collaborated on more than one occasion.”

I suggested that perhaps his ambivalence arose because whilst he was more or less ready to concede, at least in conversation, that he might be mistaken about the role that evolution played in the development of morality, there could be absolutely no concessions when the issue at hand conflicted with the hard science upon which his reputation rested.

“Yes, that’s right. As a scientist I am only interested in the simple scientific question: ‘Is there a God?’ If someone wants to say that God started off evolution then that seems to me to be a total denial of everything that we have learnt.”

But was he always as true to science as he believed? Several of his reviewers had complained that he was too soft on bad science. Whereas his book was filled with examples of bad religion, what many believers would regard as deviations from true religion, he ignored examples of so-called scientific findings which had eventually proved to be quite unfounded but had led to quite disastrous consequences. Why, for example, had he not addressed such “bad science” as eugenics?

“Well, eugenics was a very fashionable science in the 1930s and nowadays it isn’t. Post Hitler there are people who say not only that eugenics is morally wrong but also that it doesn’t work scientifically. That is bollocks. It works with horses, cows and pigs and ducks. Of course it would work with humans. It’s quite another matter to say that it would be a good thing to do. It comes down to a moral and political choice. Just as the H-bomb. As for only giving examples of bad religion, that is not what I wanted to do even if I seem to have done it. I think I could have been accused of that not so much in the book but in the television programme I did for Channel 4 called The Root of All Evil. But a television programme does not have a single author. It was a kind of ‘over my dead body’ title, for example.”

But how would he answer those critics who attacked his persistent use of the loaded word “indoctrination” to describe religious education. As Terry Eagleton wrote in the London Review of Books, “Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school thought that. For mainstream Christianity, reason, argument and honest doubt have always played an integral role in belief.”

“Of course, I recognise that it doesn’t always work. And that’s fine. I think it’s the labelling more than the indoctrination. I think the parallel with the feminists is extremely good. You can’t now say something like ‘one man – one vote’ without flinching. You should also flinch when someone says that here is a four-year-old Catholic. I fully accept that the child may not be made to say its prayers, it may not be indoctrinated in that sense, but society still labels that child a Catholic child and I would be content if we could just get rid of that labelling.”

This, I realised, was the awkward moment when I had to confront him with what one or two of my agnostic friends regarded as the most compelling part of Terry Eagleton’s scathing review of the book. How, I asked, did he respond to Eagleton’s taunt that reading Dawkins on theology gave one a rough idea of what it would be like to listen to someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject was derived from the Book of British Birds. “What, one wonders,” Eagleton continued, “are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? Or does he imagine like a bumptious young barrister that you can defeat the opposition while being complacently ignorant of its toughest case?”

I could tell from his reaction while I read from the review that Richard had been stung by the ferocity of Eagleton’s attack but his response was positively cavalier.

“Look, somebody who thinks the way I do doesn’t think theology is a subject at all. So to me it is like someone saying they don’t believe in fairies and then being asked how they know if they haven’t studied fairy-ology. I think it is as simple as that. I’m all for professors of theology who write about little-known religious texts and study biblical history, but when theology turns to the study of the trinity, then I think it’s a non-subject”

“But isn’t Eagleton complaining that because you don’t know any theology, your account of God is necessarily naïve and simplistic? It doesn’t do justice to the more sophisticated ways of conceptualising God, to such matters as his transcendence and invisibility.”

Richard clearly had no intention of going down that path. With what was the first hint of acerbity, he simply repeated himself. “I think that my point about fairy-ology entirely disposes of that.”

It had, I now began to think, seemed like an excellent idea to confront Dawkins with his critics in the pages of New Humanist. After all, NH readers were probably all familiar with many of the arguments for atheism in The God Delusion even if they had rarely found them made with such force and authority. But I could sense that my litany of reviewers’ objections to his thesis was creating a slightly melancholy atmosphere. During our opening small talk I’d congratulated him on the runaway success of his book and mentioned my delight at having already seen two people on the underground reading it with the sort of attention normally reserved for best-selling potboilers. In the thick of so many critiques, though, this was now beginning to seem like a rather token form of appreciation. I decided to introduce some gentler objections.

What, I wondered, did he make of those reviewers who had gone along with most of his scientific arguments for atheism but queried his ubiquitous references to reason? Some had wanted to argue that reason and science were not at all the same thing and could not be conflated. Others had suggested that his dismissal of faith overlooked its part in everyday life.

“I don’t see that at all. I don’t know what it would mean to say that we live by faith in our daily life. There is, I suppose, a sense that we are sometimes too busy to reason everything out but otherwise I don’t know what it means.”

I reminded him of the very personal moments in The God Delusion: the moving thanks to his wife, Lalla Ward, and the touching references to his deceased friend and collaborator, Douglas Adams. No one could doubt that these were expressions of deeply felt emotions. Would he want to say these emotions were entirely prompted by reason?

“Let me turn it around and say why I believe that somebody loves me. This might look like faith because I can’t really prove it. But I think it would ultimately be based on evidence. It would be based on subtle little signs, on certain catches in the voice, on particular looks in the eyes. And I know where this argument is going. I’ve met it before. It suggests that the reason we believe someone loves us is analogous to God’s love. It isn’t based on evidence. It is not subject to simple experimental verification. Nevertheless it does use real evidence that comes in through the senses.”

“You don’t think that by reducing love to experimental evidence you are losing something of its essence?”

“I’m happy to be governed by feelings and I suppose, in a sense, by faith. But that doesn’t mean that I ultimately believe there is something other than the material world that is causing those feelings.”

“But if you were to tell your wife that you loved her but didn’t have the time to write down all the reasons, would she not be a mite dissatisfied?”

“Life would be intolerable if you wrote down detailed reasons for everything. So I don’t have a problem with faith in that sense. But that is so different from going on from there to declare that there must be something supernatural about it.”

My list was nearly at an end. But I noticed with slight alarm that the next entry simply read in capital letters: RAISE THE SOCIOLOGICAL OBJECTIONS. Richard noticed my pause and looked as though he might be on the edge of devising an escape route. I pressed ahead quickly.

Wasn’t there a danger, I suggested, that his thesis might be playing into the hands of the conservatives in America? Couldn’t his book be misread as an attack upon fundamentalism, and therefore as a contribution to the current climate of Islamophobia? Perhaps some of his American applause was elicited by the sense in the audience that he was attacking an alien and hostile religion.

“That might be true for this country but America is not short of Christian fundamentalists. There are those that kill abortion doctors and those who use the rhetoric of all fags roasting in hell. There are people who believe that they are going to be raptured up to heaven any time now. People who believe that the battle of Armageddon will be a nuclear war in Israel and that this is to be welcomed. One of the main criticisms I get in this country is ‘What are you going on about?’ People need to go to America and see what is going on there.”

I entered my very last objection. “In the language of experimental science, isn’t there a danger that your attack upon religion suggests that it is the independent variable, the cause of all our troubles? But might it not be that the advance of fundamentalism, the revival of religious belief, is dependent upon another sociological development, upon globalisation, upon the spread of a materialist consumer ethic? In such circumstances religion provides a way of resistance, a way of affirming values other than those derived from capitalism and the market place. By alienating the religious we risk losing allies in that fight.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose it fits with people like EO Wilson. He’s an atheist and what you might call more of a religious appeaser than Dennett. But the reason for that is that he is terrified about the imminence of the planet’s self-destruction and wants all people of good will to join together to save the world. But I think you have made a very good point. That’s not what my book is about but perhaps it should be.”

It was too generous a concession to go unrewarded. I closed my objections file and thanked Richard for his time. Thanked him for sitting through so much criticism. Thanked him for his patience and good humour. Thanked him for his book. I forgot only one thing. Standing outside on the pavement waiting for my taxi, I realised that I had not thanked him for perhaps the most valuable thing of all. I had not thanked him for his courage. ■

Queremos uma justiça social que combine com a justiça ecológica.
- Leonard Boff

‘The final stages of a genocide’
The Akuntsu tribe in the Brazilian Amazon has lost its oldest member, Ururú, leaving the tribe with only five surviving members.
Ururú was the oldest member of this close-knit, tiny group and an integral part of it.
Altair Algayer, head of FUNAI’s (Brazilian government Indian affairs department) team which protects the Akuntsu’s land said, ‘She was a fighter, strong, and resisted until the last moment.’ In addition, the oldest-surviving Akuntsu, Ururú’s brother Konibú, is seriously ill.
Ururú witnessed the genocide of her people and the destruction of their rainforest home, as cattle ranchers and their gunmen moved on to indigenous lands in Rondônia state. Rondônia was opened up by government colonisation projects and the infamous BR 364 highway in the 1960s and 70s.
With Ururú dies a large part of the historical memory of this people. While we shall perhaps never know the full horrors inflicted on the Akuntsu in the last half century, today’s survivors say their family members were killed when ranchers bulldozed their houses and opened fire on them. The two surviving men, Konibú and Pupak, have marks on their bodies where bullets entered as they fled.
FUNAI found the remains of houses which had been destroyed by ranchers who were clearing the forest for cattle pasture. The ranchers attempted to hide evidence of the crime, but wooden poles, arrows, axes and broken pottery were discovered.
When the Akuntsu were contacted by FUNAI in 1995 they numbered seven. The youngest, Konibú’s daughter, died in January 2000 when a tree fell on her house.
Today they live in a territory officially recognised by the Brazilian government, where FUNAI protects their land from invasion by surrounding ranchers.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘With Ururú’s death we are seeing the final stages of a 21st century genocide. Unlike mass killings in Nazi Germany or Rwanda, the genocides of indigenous people are played out in hidden corners of the world, and escape public scrutiny and condemnation. Although their numbers are small, the result is just as final. Only when this persecution is seen as akin to slavery or apartheid will tribal peoples begin to be safe.’
The story of the Akuntsu, their neighbours the Kanoê, and the elusive ‘Man of the Hole’ is graphically told in a new film, Corumbiara. The Akuntsu also feature in Survival’s short film, Uncontacted Tribes.
Act now to help the Akuntsu
The Akuntsu continue to live in fear of the threats that surround them. Please act to have their lands secured.
• Writing a letter to the Brazilian Government is a quick and simple way to let them know of your concern.
• Donate to the campaign for the Akuntsu (and other Survival campaigns).
• Write to your MP or MEP (UK) or Senators and members of Congress (US).
• Write to your local Brazilian high commission or embassy.
• If you want to get more involved, contact Survival…



http://www.survivalinternational.org/films/bloodisflowing

Se repararem bem, verão que este urutau mãe-de-lua, que é uma ave mestre do mimetismo, tem uma pequena protuberância à altura da barriga. Não é que esteja contente por me ver, nem se trata de uma hérnia inguinal; trata-se do bico da sua cria que aflora sob a densa plumagem da progenitora.