The “Four Spiritual Laws” are worthless

Campus Crusade for Christ made a pamplet decades ago titled “The Four Spiritual Laws” to teach people their particular brand of Christianity.  Here’s one version, in the form of a YouTube video:

And here is another version:

http://www.godlovestheworld.com/

And we then turn to the original source for its version, which we may presume is the most faithful form:

http://www.campuscrusade.com/fourlawseng.htm

What wrong with this approach? Well, let’s look at the quotations from the Bible given in the pamplet:

“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NIV).

“I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“Christ died for our sins… He was buried… He was raised on the third day,
according to the Scriptures… He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve.
After that He appeared to more than five hundred…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6).

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to
the Father but through Me’” (John 14:6).

“As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children
of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).

“By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; not as result of works that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9).

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock;
if any one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20).

All of these quotations come from the Gospel of John or the Book of Revelation (which even fundamentalists admit were written several decades after the time of Christ), or the writings attributed to the Apostle Paul, who wasn’t even an original disciple of Jesus. The quotations are all taken out of context and misapplied. There is no reason to assume that they are at all applicable to anyone living today.

For more information, see these previous blog entries:

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-chain-of-abrahamic-religions-is-too-rusty-and-weak/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/the-ultimate-conflict-between-judaism-and-christianity/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/the-bible-cannot-be-the-word-of-god/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/debunking-the-liar-lunatic-or-lord-argument/

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/religious-fundamentalism-is-blasphemy/

Thus, it is a waste of time to put out such pamplets and use them to attract people to Christianity. Those who are attracted would be ignorant about the details of the theological and historical backgrounds of the Christian faith and the Jewish faith it sprang from, and thus would be blind followers, ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous leaders.

We need to do better than this.

The Bible CANNOT be the Word of God

This blog is a direct sequel to these earlier ones:

Religious fundamentalism is blasphemy!
http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/religious-fundamentalism-is-blasphemy/
The chain of Abrahamic religions is too rusty and weak
http://circleh.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-chain-of-abrahamic-religions-is-too-rusty-and-weak/

One of the great tragedies of the Protestant Reformation, in addition to destroying forever the unity of the Christians in western Europe, was that it enshrined the Bible as the sole source of dogma among Protestants. Now, I will grant that the incredible corruption and tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages made the Reformation both necessary and inevitable, but the way it was done by most Protestants made spiritual tyranny inevitable among them as well. This was because they simply replaced the Catholic papacy and church councils with the Bible itself, or rather, how Protestant leaders read the Bible. Calling the Word of God what is actually your INTERPRETATION of words of men writing in the name of God is stretching things beyond any bounds of logic you can imagine, which is why Christians constantly emphasize faith as their standard.

Rep. Michele Bachmann is a liar and an extremist

See for yourself here:

Since when it is anti-American to have political, social, religious, and cultural diversity in your friendships or associations? How is associating with people who are not actually criminals, even if they have done or said questionable things in the past, anti-American? We have had Liberal Presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter and no one questioned their love for America!

This is the sort of innuendo and slander that supporters of Sen. John McCain have resorted to. Let’s send them a message: YOU DO NOT BELONG IN OUR GOVERNMENT ANY MORE!

http://www.censurebachmann.com/

It’s time to tell the truth about Liberals and about their Conservative opponents. Conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and now Rep. Michele Bachmann have been allowed to get away with slander, libel and hyperaggressive tactics for too long. Enough already! Liberals made America a free and independent nation, not Conservatives. Liberals fought to end slavery, not Conservatives! Liberals fought for women’s right to vote,, not Conservatives! Liberals, not Conservatives, led us Americans through two World Wars and even through much of the Cold War, before Conservatives Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. came along and just happened to reap the political benefits of presiding over the downfall of the Soviet Union. What have Conservatives done to make America great? Nothing, instead they only hold us back from being a more enlightened society, preferring one run largely by religious loons who happen to call themselves Christian!

Let George W. Bush be the last “Conservative” Republican President America ever has! I’be absolutely had enough of the hypocrisy of Conservatives and their outdated and increasingly useless dogmas. End their reign of terror, NOW!

The chain of Abrahamic religions is too rusty and weak

There are four religions in the world that are classed as “Abrahamic”, being descended from the original work of Abraham. Abraham himself left no writings of his own and he may have been only legendary, as much as Greek myths are thought to be. He founded no religion that survives today.

Judaism: Considered to have been founded by Moses. He was credited with writing the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament), but this is incorrect; He may have written the laws detailed in the Torah, but not the Torah itself, since his death is recorded at the end of it and it is implied that it was made several centuries after Moses’ time. So the foundation of this religion is uncertain.

Christianity: Considered to have been founded by Jesus, but he himself wrote nothing that we have and the stories and quotations of him are entirely second-hand. In addition, most Christian doctrine was formulated by Paul, who was not even an original desciple of Jesus, but joined the Christians later after being their enemy. Thus the foundation of this religion is highly uncertain.

Islam: Founded by the Prophet Muhammad. He was said to be illiterate, and dictated most of the Quran to various scribes rather than write it directly. It wasn’t until after his death that the Quran was assembled in its final form, and it was not assembled in chronological order.

The Baha’i Faith: Baha’u'llah, the founder of this religion, is said to have written his own books. But he too relied on personal secretaries to do most of this, including Mirza Aqa Jan, who later would be condemned as a “Covenant-breaker” for opposing Abdu’l-Baha, the son and immediate successor of Baha’u'llah.

The credibilility of the Baha’i Faith is dependent on Islam, the credibility of Islam is dependent on Christianity, and the credibility of Christianity is dependent on Judaism. Yet all these religions also claim that the earlier ones were corrupted over time, making the new ones necessary. Does this make sense? What if all four religions were flawed from the beginning, because their means of recording their teachings were flawed? Their founders could have written and edited their writings all by themselves and not allowed others to make unauthorized editions after their time. Thus any possible errors or contradictions in those teachings would have been prevented. Outsiders could have been prevented from polluting the original faith with foreign concepts. Disputes between followers could have been settled without assuming blindly that the leadership was never to be questioned and that others could “agree to disagree” without being treated as traitors.

None of these were done, except by the most liberal branches of these faiths, and thus they have been sources of tyranny and ignorance rather than liberty and enlightenment. And as this essay shows, there is really no reason for ANYONE to be certain that any of them are absolutely true, especially since modern science has completely debunked the creation myth that was said to be the very root of all of them.

Seeking balance in politics and activism

For starters, I wish to state that in an issue like politics, extremism among some individuals is inevitable. There are two reasons for this. First, many people mistakenly apply religious impulses to politics and thus attempt to be consistent with a certain political viewpoint, even at the expense of ignoring or denying clear empirical evidence that is against it. Quite simply, it is easier (if you are intellectually lazy) to just blindly follow a dogma of some kind that happens to appeal to your ego than to dig for the truth, apply consistent logic to all issues, and thus have a perspective that is subject to change and moderation over time. Second, extremists on any issue tend to work the hardest for their chosen causes and thus tend to rise to leadership positions within political organizations as well as single-issue pressure groups, by virtue of their extensive track record of having done so much for their causes as well as appearing to be experts on the issues they represent. This explains why so many otherwise worthy causes, such as animal rights, get so absurdly corrupted by groups that claim to represent them, such as PETA or ALF, and people who might be motivated by natural compassion to support animal rights are repelled by seeing extremist groups like the aforementioned ones claiming to be the best examples of those causes’ representatives. Let me assure you, they are not and I would be quite happy to see them destroyed without thinking for one second that this would be damaging at all to the cause of animal rights. If you, by your words or actions, make a cause look loony, that’s the best way to ruin it, and you might as well just oppose the cause altogether.

The fatal flaw in Baha’i authority

This is the direct sequel to my first blog on the Baha’i faith:

http://circleh.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/why-i-quit-the-baha%e2%80%99i-faith/

The basic problem of authority in the Baha’i Faith, with its false claim that those authorities are infallible, really becomes obvious when you consider the issue of the Guardianship, which Shoghi Effendi held from 1921 until his death in 1957. He was appointed to that position by his grandfather, Abdu’l-Baha.

O ye the faithful loved ones of Abdu’l-Baha! it is incumbent upon you to take the greatest care of Shoghi Effendi… For he is, after Abdu’l-Baha, the Guardian of the Cause of God… He that obeyeth him not, hath not obeyed God; he that turneth away from him, hath turned away from God and he that denieth him, hath denied the True One… All must seek guidance and turn unto the Center of the Cause and the House of Justice. And he that turneth unto whatsoever else is indeed in grievous error.
(`Abdu’l-Baha: Will and Testament, pages 25-26)

Later, Shoghi Effendi himself wrote:

Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of Baha’u'llah would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary principle which, as Abdu’l-Baha has written, has been invariably upheld by the Law of God. …Without such an institution the integrity of the Faith would be imperiled, and the stability of the entire fabric would be gravely endangered. its prestige would suffer, the means required to enable it to take a long, an uninterrupted view over a series of generations would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives would be totally withdrawn.
(Shoghi Effendi: World Order of Baha’u'llah, page 148 )

It stands to reason that if Shoghi Effendi must be obeyed absolutely as the representative of God’s will, then he himself must obey the Baha’i commandments that came before him. If he was disobedient to Baha’i laws, then no one should obey him.

Baha’ullah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, stated in his book of laws, the Kitab-i-Aqdas, paragraph 109, “Unto everyone hath been enjoined the writing of a will.”

Likewise, Abdul-Baha, son of Baha’u'llah, in the very Will and Testament by which he appointed Shoghi Effendi to the Guardianship, stated: “It is incumbent upon the Guardian of the Cause of God to appoint in his own lifetime him that shall become his successor, that differences may not arise after his passing…..Should the first-born of the Guardian of the Cause of God not manifest in himself the truth of the words, ‘The child is the secret essence of its sire’ — that is, should he not inherit of the spiritual within him (the Guardian) and his glorious lineage not be matched with a goodly character — then must he (the Guardian) choose another branch to succeed him.” (Abd’ul-Baha. Will and Testament, p. 12.)

Shoghi Effendi did none of these things. He had no children, perhaps because he or his wife were infertile (which itself may be considered a sign of God’s rejection of the Baha’i Faith). In fact, he expelled from the Faith as “Covenant-breakers” every single descendant of his own grandfather, thus betraying the Faith. When he died in 1957, he left no will and had appointed no successor, thus failing to obey the very Covenant he was expected to uphold.

With no further guidance from the Guardian, the Hands of the Cause of God that he had appointed to assist him did the only thing they could to keep the Baha’i Faith alive: They took over the Faith and arranged for the eventual election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963. But without a Guardian to preside over that body, it would never be in accordance with the very writings that established its authority. And the only ones who could be Guardian were the male descendants of Baha’ullah, all of whom were excluded from the Faith by the first Guardian!

Indeed, the simple fact that Shoghi Effendi disobeyed both Bahau’llah and Abd’ul-Baha by not leaving a will, by expelling all his own relatives from the Faith, and not appointing in his lifetime one of his brothers or male cousins as his sucessor to the Guardianship should be enough to demonstrate that there is NO true Baha’i Faith existing today. Its authority is meaningless by the testimony of its own history!

To all those who are still members of this Faith, as I was years ago, I implore you to be fair in your judgement and search your feelings. The Baha’i Faith has failed you and you need not be bound by laws, authorities, or institutions that are not based on truth. Whether you belong to the mainstream Baha’i Faith that follows the Guardianship-less Universal House of Justice, or one of the splinter groups that rejected the authority of that body, the fact remains you follow a spirtually dead faith and are totally wasting your time. The Baha’i Faith will never become the great religion of the world Baha’ullah and Abdu’l-Baha envisioned it to be, because Shoghi Effendi ruined it with his blind assumption of his own infallibility. His own relatives questioned his decisions and were expelled for doing that. If you cannot question authority, it can destroy you. Or, in this case, the credibility of the authority is destroyed and opposing it becomes a moral obligation. Let it be so!

Conspiracy theories, credible and incredible

For any conspiracy to succeed, there are several conditions that may be required:

1. The participants must be as few as possible.
2. The conspiracy must be of as short a duration as possible.
3. The conspiracy must be extremely secretive.

Condition 3 relies on the first two, as indicated in the proverb, “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

Thus, the commonly held 9-11 conspiracy theory that many government officials under the Bush Administration were directly involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is far less credible than the idea that a few dozen operatives of Al-Qaeda were responsible. Likewise, it is far more credible that Exxon and its operatives have been planting misleading claims about global warming in the popular press and various blogs over the past couple of decades than that thousands of scientists have been misleading people about global warming since 1896, when Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first identified the heat retaining properties of carbon dioxide (called “carbonic acid” in Arrhenius’ paper referred to below).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/18/Arrhenius.pdf

People make up conspiracy theories to explain what could be responsible for something they happen to dislike. The “theory” could be more properly considered a hypothesis in science. The problem comes when these people do not take the next step in the scientific method, which is to test the idea via observation or experiment. Instead, they proclaim the conspiracy theory as DOGMA and proceed to interpret all evidence according to that dogma, despite never finding any direct evidence to confirm the theory. Then they abandon all willingness to allow the claim to be disproven.

You can’t do science that way! Just because a theory claims to explain something doesn’t mean it is true. You must ultimately rule out all other possibilities before stating something questionable to be FACT.

Censorship in the name of religious freedom?

I’ve never seen such a blatant attempt at denial of academic freedom! Now, if the people being attacked were committing libel, this lawsuit would make sense. This is a clear example of hypocrisy!

http://www.pacificjustice.org/resources/news/focusdetails.cfm?ID=PR080512a

A Real Skeptic vs. a Denialist

A skeptic is defined as someone who reserves judgement on an issue until enough evidence is found to support a claim beyond a reasonable doubt and also clearly defines what would make him disbelieve a claim. This is scientific thinking.

By contrast, a denialist has no such defined limits, either of belief or disbelief. The denialist starts from a position of dogma, asserting opposition to an idea by presenting a contrary idea as absolute truth and interpreting all evidence according to that unalterable dogma, rather than draw conclusions based only on the evidence. This is the opposite of scientific thinking, although denialists often use scientific terminology to make their positions seem legitimate to fool the ignorant.

Denialism vs geuine skepticism is found in debates over evolution vs. Creationism, global warming, religion, and politics. If there were no denialists, most of those debates would have either ended long ago, or would be a lot more cordial than they tend to be.

A useless debate

The crazy thing about debating with Creationist hypocrites is that they have ZERO facts that actually support their case, but plenty of rhetorical tricks. I was reminded of that by a “Sirius Knott” who plastered some lame comments on one of my blogs. Here’s the confrontation between him (SK) and me (DH), for those who care to follow it: