Progress! Bob Johnson

The following is a column I wrote for www.strike-the-root.com in response to an article they linked to by former US President Jimmy Carter. Carter's article attempted to class the Bible, Koran, etc. as "Words of God" and to address their anti-women teachings. A clergyman wrote a rebuttal to my column, which is also below. I wrote a counter rebuttal to the Christian clergyman but it was not accepted by strike-the-root.com. I'm publishing the counter rebuttal below so people won't falsely believe that the preacher's rebuttal successfully countered my arguments in my first column.

Be Careful What You Call “The Word Of God”

By Robert L. Johnson

Strike-the-root.com had a link reading “The Words of God Do Not Justify Cruelty to Women.” It linked to an article by former US President Jimmy Carter, a sincere born-again Christian. Mr. Carter wrote an article deploring the abusive and unreasonable treatment of women by “revealed” religions. The title of his article is the same as that of the link at www.strike-the-root.com. This title assumes too much.

It is a huge, and based on realities throughout history and currently in the Middle East, etc., violence promoting mistake to make the assumption that a particular book is “the Word of God.” The consequences are deadly and progress retarding. The very title of Mr. Carter’s article makes this deadly assumption. In his article it is clear he is referring to the Bible (both the Hebrew and Christian/Old and New Testaments) and the Quran. To the detriment of humanity, these books are believed to be communication from God to mankind by billions of people and are therefore referred to as “the Word of God.”

For almost two thousand years the Bible has been interpreted to mean whatever one wants it to mean. During the American Civil War the Bible was used by the Union to denounce slavery and by the Confederacy to support slavery. Likewise, people have used it to belittle women and to show, as Jimmy Carter attempted, that the Bible holds women to be of equal value to men. Objectively, the Bible is overwhelmingly anti-women.

Starting with the creation myth, it is the weak-link, Eve, who first falls prey to the talking serpent/snake and disobeys God by eating of the tree of knowledge. Leo Strauss, the father of the Judeo-Christian based neoconservative movement, said in his speech and essay Jerusalem and Athens, regarding the fall of man myth, "Thus the stage was set for the fall of our first parents. The first move came from the serpent, the most cunning of all the beasts of the field. It seduced the woman into disobedience and then the woman seduced the man. The seduction moves from the lowest to the highest."

In Genesis 3:16 the Bible god had this to say to Eve after she and her husband Adam ate of the tree of knowledge, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

Mr. Carter uses this quote to try to make the point that the Bible is not anti-women:  “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

It is true that the Bible contains the verse that Mr. Carter uses from Galatians. However, it also contains much more that makes the selected quote null and void. For example, from the time of birth the female is considered to be very much lacking in value to the male.  In Leviticus 12: 1 – 5 this “Word of God” teaches that a woman is unclean for seven days if she gives birth to a boy, but if she gives birth to a girl she will be unclean for two weeks. In the first place, why would a woman who brings life, the greatest gift known, into the world be considered “unclean”? And why would she be unclean twice as long for giving birth to a girl than if she had given birth to a boy?

In Leviticus 27 we see that the Bible god values men at fifty shekels and women at only thirty shekels. The same Bible god put a value on male children ages five to twenty years at twenty shekels and for girls of the same age at only ten shekels, or half the value of boys. This anti-female patter holds true even for little boys and little girls for the Bible god says to value little boys from one month old to five years at five shekels and little girls of the same age at only three shekels.

In the New Testament 1 Timothy 2: 11-15 says, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”

It appears by the above verse that some of the reason for women being inferior to men in the Judeo-Christian “Word of God” is due to Eve being deceived by the talking snake and that Eve was formed after Adam.  This reflects a lie since the Bible says that Adam also ate of the forbidden fruit on the magic tree of knowledge knowing full well that the Bible god told him not to. Regarding Adam being first formed, that is true if you believe the Bible story at Genesis 2: 20-22 which says that the Bible god took a rib from Adam and made Eve out of Adam’s rib. But if you decide to believe “the Word of God” at Genesis 1: 27 you would believe differently than the writer of 1 Timothy because that verse says “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Jimmy Carter wrote that “Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God.” I’m not familiar with Jesus taking a stand for women other than the Galatians quote Mr. Carter already used.  Moses, the so-called prophets and Muhammad never to my knowledge have spoken out for the benefit of women. In fact, I know that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35, “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in church.” If you believe this Christian teaching you would have to strongly believe that women are very much inferior to men. It’s interesting to note that this quote contains the statement, “they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.” Jesus is said to have said in Matthew 5: 17, “Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”

Jimmy Carter seems to inadvertently make the point that the various and contradicting (and even self-contradicting) “Words of God” are meaningless due to their incongruous structure when he writes, “Although not having training in religion or theology, I understand that the carefully selected verses found in the holy scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar Biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.”

Thomas Paine also made this point in a letter to a friend regarding his powerful book on God and religion, The Age of Reason. Paine wrote to his friend, “In your letter of the twentieth of March, you give me several quotations from the Bible, which you call the Word of God, to show me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and I could give you as many, from the same book to show that yours are not right; consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every way, one chooses to make it. “

One of the primary shackles on humanity that must be broken is the hold the various “revealed” religions have on humanity and many of the individuals who make up humanity. The beliefs and lies taught by these self-proclaimed “revealed” religions have been used by the clergy and by the state to keep people in bondage and to stifle progress through fear and superstition. A great example of this can be found in Romans 13: 1-7 which teaches people to obey the powers that be because they are “ordained of God” and that the rulers (the state) are for good, not evil. It goes on in its nonsensical teaching that those who resist are damned by God. This type of thinking can only lead to tyranny and slavery.

Mr. Carter states that the main point he and his fellow “elders” want to get across is “The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable." The only way he and the elders can legitimately make this point is to be honest and courageous and openly state that none of the books claimed by many to be the “Words of God” are from God or a “Higher Authority.” This is necessary because all three of the Abrahamic “holy books” are full of “justification of discrimination against women and girls”, not to mention justification for slavery itself.  And billions of sincere people mistakenly believe these teachings are from God because they falsely believe that their particular book is “THE Word of God.”  This unfounded belief leads to terrible and reprehensible actions which brings misery and suffering to the world.

Christian Rebuttal

Not By Bread Alone: A Response to Robert Johnson's "Be Careful What You Call 'The Word of God'"

by Lane Connelly

I

As a regular reader and new contributor to Strike The Root, one of the things I can say I most appreciate is the forum for the open exchange of ideas among those who seek to live lives of liberty and freedom. We come from diverse backgrounds and certainly exhibit different ideas about what constitutes freedom. One good example of this is the difference between Mr. Robert L. Johnson and I. Mr. Johnson – a former Roman Catholic and now Deist – recently published an article in which he took to task former president Jimmy Carter for referring to the Christian Scriptures as the “Word of God.” This criticism ultimately extends to all truth claims made by so-called “revealed religions,” especially insofar as an ancient religious text is regarded as divine or authoritative.  

In a fashion typical of the cultured despisers of religion (Schleiermacher’s term, not mine), Mr. Johnson handpicked a series of problematic texts contained in both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and then used them to suggest that either (a) the texts and therefore the religion are inherently unconcerned with issues related to justice and freedom, and (b) these texts and religions are dangerous because of the violence wrought when claiming something to be “The Word of God.” What this suggests to me is that Mr. Johnson fails to employ any sort of modern hermeneutic to his reading of the texts involved.  

When I was in divinity school, we wrestled mightily with what it meant to be modern, critically thinking people who also held an allegiance to Christianity. An inordinate amount of time was devoted to looking at issues of gender, sexuality, race, as well as to social ills that have emerged throughout the years due to blind application of these texts. No whitewashing occurred in the divinity school I attended. We knew the text that drew us into faith was also one fraught with danger if not handled carefully. While my first inclination was to take each text that Mr. Johnson offered and answer each one, I thought it better to explain how texts are read and applied today by the overwhelming majority of scholars and clerics.  

Before I do so, let me say that I have the same objections to the texts written about that Mr. Johnson does. They are – in fact – problematic and have been used for oppressive purposes. (NOTE: A very good overview is found in the groundbreaking book Texts of Terror by Phylis Tribble.) I wish I could say that this was something that only happened in the past, but the truth of the matter is that every sincere faith practitioner must acknowledge that there are those out there who still misuse these texts to oppress any number of people. We even must confess that certain texts seemingly contradict one another. With these acknowledgements, let’s move on to how the texts are actually read in mainline circles.  

II

Outside of fundamentalist circles, you will find very few modern Christians who read Genesis – or most of the Old Testament for that matter – as history or science. I for one do not believe Adam and Eve were actual historical persons. Textual exegesis in the original Hebrew shows us that Genesis 1:1-2:2 is a writing with a different origin than Genesis 2:2 and following. Editors redacted the texts, probably in the post-exilic period of Israel’s history. These stories are attempts to make sense of the origins of the world, and were probably passed around fires and tables for generations before they were ever written down. Does that mean that there is not a moral element in the stories, or that a lack of historicity renders them “untrue” in the most existential sense? Of course not! Moral stories are found in every culture, most often under the guise of religion.  

When it comes to legal codes (think Leviticus), we can easily see through textual research that the complex code of 613 laws evolved and emerged over a long period of time. Not unlike our modern legal codes, Israelite law was problematic. Like most ancient near eastern cultures, the Israelites did not view women as equal to men; rather, women were considered property. Further, in a nomadic, desert culture, women and girls were considered a liability because they were an additional mouth to feed and not capable of contributing to the survival of the household in same way as a prized son (as the father of a beautiful 2 ½ year old daughter, I cannot imagine this line of thinking). Why do I point this out? Because it becomes clear that the horrendous treatment of women under Hebrew law was the result of social constructs common to the region, and are not peculiar to Judaism or Christianity. It is simple enough for modern Christians to look at such texts and reject their applicability to life in our times.  

Sadly, the New Testament witness on women is also problematic, as Mr. Johnson points out. Several times women are told to keep silent in church. Was there really a good religious reason for this? Some scholars have suggested that native religions in parts of the Mediterranean were led by women, and thus early church leaders were trying to find a way to differentiate themselves from the surrounding culture. While this is a possibility, it is more highly likely that what we see in the these texts (called Haustfeln by scholars), simply reflect the household codes of the ancient Roman world, when the idea of the paterfamilias reigned supreme as the model of organization, from the Empire to the private home. Again, what we see here is the inclusion of socially constructed realities into religious texts.  

The job of the person of faith is to carefully examine the truth claims of the texts to which they grant authority. In the case of both Hebrew and Christian Scripture (I am only speaking for texts my faith finds authoritative, though I assume the principle is universal), it is imperative to discern what has eternal value, and what is based on the social constructs of the time, and are thus irrelevant to modern discussion. In this way, the text cannot everywhere be read literally. Indeed, James Fowler, working with the ideas of human development espoused by Piaget and moral development espoused by Kohlberg, designed stages of faith development. The stage of development that most closely associates God as anthropomorphic and the Bible as literal is Stage 2, the literal or mythic worldview. Though commonly associated with school aged children, some adults are never able to move from this immature approach to faith. (NOTE: Fowler asserted that most people made it to Stage 3, an “adolescent” stage in development, and generally progressed no farther. In Stage 3, faith is exhibited by conformity to the expectations of others).  

A perfect example of how this plays itself out is in terms of women’s ordination to ministry. I belong to a denomination that claims that the Bible is its primary authoritative text, yet it ordains women in spite of the passages that prohibit a woman speaking or having authority in a church. In my years of ministry, I have met some very wonderfully talented women who are leaders. So, how are these things held in tension with one another? The answer lies in the fact that the Bible cannot be read as a set of isolated texts, with people picking one or two pet passages or verses and building dogma upon them. Whether doing constructive theology or trying to debunk the Bible as God’s Word, picking a few select texts is called “proof-texting,” a practice no theologian or cleric worth their salt would want to participate in. The primary way the Bible is interpreted today is to look at the overarching themes offered, and to build constructive theology based on themes rather than isolated texts. The great reformer Martin Luther – a man with his own set of flaws – referred to the Bible as the manger in which Jesus was placed. It is not perfect, there may be splinters or crooked boards, but inside of that manger is the place where God can be found in spite of its flaws.  

III

The origin of my interest in liberty lies in both the history of our nation and in the Bible itself. When I look to the overarching themes offered in the scriptures, I see themes of struggle and liberation that transcend space and time. From Abraham striking out on his own to follow a vision God had given him to the flight from Egypt; from exile in Babylon to the return of the homeland, the Old Testament is especially rich with themes and narratives that clearly show the problems of empire and will-to-power among the ruling classes. Some of these are grand narratives involving the rise and fall of kingdoms; others are stories of ordinary men and women seeking to live faithful lives. Regardless of the scale of the narratives, we see how power corrupts, how rulers cannot be trusted, and how it is up to individuals to secure freedom. We see the mistakes made when the people of Israel begged to be like other nations and have a king. We see the corruption of David as he kills Uriah in order to cover up an affair with Bathsheba. We hear the stories of the corrupt kings and queens that follow. We get a glimpse of the Maccabees fighting against the Seleucid invaders that desecrated their altars. The point to all of these stories is that people are not to put trust in princes, for each is a son of man in whom there is no help. (Psalm 146:3)  

As we move into the New Testament, the overarching theme is not that women should remain silent, but that there is liberation to be found through faith, a faith that is made alive through justice, peace, mercy and love. Jesus forces no one to follow him, and those who gather around him do so voluntarily. The disciples are taught to love their neighbors, to love the downtrodden, to bring the hope of liberation to those who find themselves bound by chains – be they literal, spiritual, emotional, mental. Aside from the few cherry-picked passages mandating female silence, we know from both textual and historical research that women often held powerful positions in the early church. Many speculate that Mary Magdalene was one of the chief financial backers of the ministry of Jesus. It was this Mary Magdalene, of course, who was the first to report the resurrection to the other disciples, thus securing the title Apostle to the Apostles. St. Paul uses the same Greek term (diaknonos, or servant, a cognate of deacon) to describe himself as well as several women, asserting that they held the same position in the church.  

Most interesting for the discussion here is the book of Revelation, which many fundamentalists and evangelicals believe is about the future. The alternative way to read that text is to understand it as something from the past, something that has already happened. It is written during a time of great persecution of the early church under the Emperor Nero. Christians are being killed in all sorts of new and creative ways, often for the entertainment of the people. As warm blood colored the ground of the Coliseum an unmistakable shade of red, a man known only as John wrote a letter to bring comfort to the understandably frightened Christians in the Empire. In order to do this and not find himself executed, John used all sorts of vague language to describe the players in the bloody production. While the tinfoil hat conspiracy folks may be convinced that the antichrist is going to emerge with 666 written on his head, those with understanding can look upon the alpha-numeric value of 666 and see the author was actually talking about Nero, and that the great plagues and sufferings described in the book of Revelation was a discourse on what was happening in ancient Rome. In point of fact, Revelation, read properly and carefully, is an extended tirade against unjust oligarchs who were persecuting a religious minority.  

IV

I am a Christian and a libertarian. For many, these two seem incongruous. For me, it is a way of life. As a Christian, I have chosen to not participate in the so-called culture wars, and leave each person to live according to their own conscience so long as their way of life is both peaceful and voluntary. You will not find me foaming at the mouth over conservative pet issues like homosexuality and abortion. When I read the Bible, I don’t read of Jesus forcing anything on anyone, but rather issuing an invitation to voluntarily live in accordance with his teachings. The problem with this is – as Gandhi pointed out – that so few Christians seem to actually live the message of Jesus.  

Truth be told, I generally enjoy Mr. Johnson’s writings. I have read many of his essays and have agreed with him on several points. The issue of religion is where we must depart, however. While I respect Mr. Johnson and his choice to become a Deist, I did not feel as if I could let him portray the texts that I hold sacred as being primarily anti-woman or anti-liberty. To say, “[o]bjectively, the Bible is anti-woman” is to read the text narrowly, without making a distinction between social and cultural constructs that have no bearing on the central spiritual messages contained therein. It is to make an assertion that the only way to approach the faith of revealed religions is to take every word of that faith’s text literally. If this were the standard of true faith, then I – and the vast majority of clergy I know – could never stand in the pulpit. 

Deist Counter Rebuttal

I’d like to respond to Lane Connelly’s column which was a rebuttal to my column, Be Careful What You Call The Word of God. I share Mr. Connelly’s appreciation and belief that the free and open exchange of ideas is crucial to freedom and liberty. There should not be any topic that is protected from frank and open debate. If progress is to be achieved in the world there cannot be any sacred cows. This is why I like the saying, “Sacred cows make great hamburger!”

Mr. Connelly wrote that my statements demonstrating the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are “inherently unconcerned with issues related to justice and freedom” and that “these texts and religions are dangerous because of the violence wrought when claiming something to be ‘The Word of God’” suggests that I failed “to employ any sort of modern hermeneutic” to my reading of the texts involved.

Not being familiar with the word “hermeneutic”, I looked it up and I must say I strongly disagree with Mr. Connelly. The definition I found for modern hermeneutics is: “encompasses not just issues involving the written text, but everything in the interpretative process. This includes verbal and nonverbal forms of communication as well as prior aspects that impact communication . . .”

Regarding nonverbal communications, I’d say when an Israeli (but American made) F-16 drops American made cluster bombs on Palestinian or Lebanese civilians, or when an Islamic fundamentalist blows-up a girls school, or when a Catholic shoots a Protestant or vice versa these are strong nonverbal communications claiming the actor in each of these cases believes not only that their “Word of God” is “THE Word of God” but that their targets are enemies of God because their interpretation of these ancient writings differ from their own.

Mr. Connelly writes, “. . . let me say that I have the same objections to the texts written about that Mr. Johnson does. They are – in fact – problematic and have been used for oppressive purposes. (NOTE: A very good overview is found in the groundbreaking book Texts of Terror by Phylis Tribble.) I wish I could say that this was something that only happened in the past, but the truth of the matter is that every sincere faith practitioner must acknowledge that there are those out there who still misuse these texts to oppress any number of people. We even must confess that certain texts seemingly contradict one another. With these acknowledgements, let’s move on to how the texts are actually read in mainline circles.”

The above admissions of fact by Mr. Connelly, that there are texts in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures that are “problematic and have been used for oppressive purposes”, that these texts are to this day serving these oppressive purposes, and that the sacred Scriptures contain texts that seemingly contradict one another all make the point that neither the Old Testament or the New Testament are the “Word of God.” In my column I also included the Koran as not being the Word of God, however, Mr. Connelly doesn’t mention and doesn’t seem interested in defending the Koran as being sacred Scripture and the “Word of God.” This is probably because Mr. Connelly went to a Christian divinity school and wasn’t “educated” to believe the Koran is the Word of God, only that the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God. As Thomas Paine wrote, “Education makes all the difference.”

Thomas Paine also wrote that theologians and clergy can argue and debate with each other all they want about doctrine, but when they debate with Deists it’s a debate about facts. The fact that Mr. Connelly makes showing that even Christian clergy such as himself don’t believe such things as Adam and Eve being real people, and that they don’t believe most of the Old Testament clearly demonstrates the weakness in the Bible and instantly removes the possibility that it could be the Word of God.

I don’t know Mr. Connelly personally, but I assume he is a very sincere man. I respect all sincere people whether they agree with me or not. All sincere people who truly believe in God obviously believe God is real. All sincere people who believe in God must recognize that if God is real, we can never get closer to God or develop a better understanding of God by following teachings and writings that are proven to be false. We know that our reason, like life itself, is a gift from God. All sincere people who believe in God therefore need to ask themselves if believing in something written by men that requires us to reject or to suspend our God-given reason can really help us to acquire a better understanding of God.

Mr. Connelly’s rejection of the Genesis myths of creation and of Adam and Eve in particular makes Christianity meaningless. The whole purpose of God becoming a man in the form of Jesus and of suffering and dying on the cross is to redeem mankind from original sin which was committed by Adam and Eve who listened to the talking snake/serpent/devil and ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Eating this forbidden fruit brought sin into the world, as the Christian myth goes, and, in accordance with the practices of the Hebrew Bible god, the sins of the parents stain the souls of the children. The only way to prevent every generation from burning in hell was to have God come down to earth in the form of Jesus and shed his sacred blood for all of mankind. But if you don’t believe in Adam and Eve, you don’t believe in the Christian doctrine of original sin, therefore making the sacrifice of Jesus meaningless.

The American Revolutionary War hero and Deist Ethan Allen wrote a letter to his clergyman cousin regarding this matter, telling him he didn’t believe in the Adam and Eve story. His cousin wrote back saying that without the original sin committed by Adam and Eve, Christianity would not be necessary. Ethan Allen wrote him back saying he agreed, Christianity is NOT necessary!

It’s interesting to note that Mr. Connelly refers to James Fowler and his stages of faith. According to Fowler, the last and most advanced stage of faith is “’Universalizing’ faith, or what some might call ‘enlightenment’”. The only universal idea relating to God is the simple belief in God. As Thomas Paine wrote in his essay Of the Religion of Deism Compared With the Christian Religion, “Every person, of whatever religious denomination he may be, is a DEIST in the first article of his Creed.” This is where Deists stop, with the belief in God. They don’t add on doctrines like original sin, etc. In fact, Deists don’t pretend to know anything beyond “God exists.” And this belief that God exists is not from some book written by men, but it is from the application of our reason on the designs in Nature. To a Deist, the designs in Nature, the study of which is science, presupposes a Designer of Nature.

Mr. Connelly writes that he belongs to a Christian sect that claims the Bible as its “primary authoritative text.” Why do we need “authoritative text”? This demonstrates how Deism is very libertarian in nature. Deism has no authoritative clergy or authoritative texts. Deists believe that we are designed by our Designer to be self-sufficient through God’s gift to us of reason.

Mr. Connelly goes on to say, “the Bible cannot be read as a set of isolated texts, with people picking one or two pet passages or verses and building dogma upon them. Whether doing constructive theology or trying to debunk the Bible as God’s Word, picking a few select texts is called “proof-texting,” a practice no theologian or cleric worth their salt would want to participate in. The primary way the Bible is interpreted today is to look at the overarching themes offered, and to build constructive theology based on themes rather than isolated texts.”

It’s a fact that the Bible has many verses in it that degrade women, that calls for the execution of homosexuals and of disobedient children, that condone and support slavery, etc. Should we just ignore these disgusting passages and commands that pretend to be from God? If we don’t ignore these evil teachings we see that they themselves are “overarching themes” of the Bible. Especially the overarching theme in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament that the Hebrews are “above all people on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6) and that the Gentiles are here to serve God’s chosen ones and that the nation that will not serve Israel will be utterly wasted by God (Isaiah 60:12). Are these Bible themes we should follow?

As far as finding liberty in the Bible, I can’t agree with Mr. Connelly who uses examples like “Abraham striking out on his own to follow a vision God had given him” when we read in Genesis 12:13-20 that Abraham used his wife/half-sister Sarah as a pimp uses a woman to make material gains. Most of the examples he uses are nothing but cases of mass genocide committed by the Jews against their neighbors.

If you read Deuteronomy 17:15 you’ll see the Bible god tells Israel that he will set a king over them. How will the people know who the Bible god wants for king? The clergy/priests will tell them the Bible god’s choice. If you go up a few verses to 17:12 you’ll see those who don’t listen to the clergy, to the priests, should be executed! This doesn’t sound much like liberty to me!

I couldn’t believe it when I read, “Jesus forces no one to follow him, and those who gather around him do so voluntarily.” What about burning in hell for eternity?!!! When I was a born-again Christian that is exactly what I believed – if you believe in Jesus you go to heaven, if you don’t you go to hell. The reason I believed it is because the Bible says so and says so often. (John 3:18, John 3:36, etc., etc., etc.)

Mr. Connelly writes, “Aside from the few cherry-picked passages mandating female silence, we know from both textual and historical research that women often held powerful positions in the early church. Many speculate that Mary Magdalene was one of the chief financial backers of the ministry of Jesus. It was this Mary Magdalene, of course, who was the first to report the resurrection to the other disciples, thus securing the title Apostle to the Apostles.” The anti-women passages were not cherry picked, they are peppered liberally throughout the Bible. And they are important statements. How many people would support a social or political organization that said women should keep their mouths shut and obey men if those statements were in their manifesto or rules of conduct?

Regarding women holding powerful positions in the early church, that has no bearing on what is in the Bible.  The influence women had in the early church must had been very minimal due to the anti-women teachings that remained in the Bible when the men voted which books would be the Word of God and which would not make the cut.

The assumption Mr. Connelly makes when he writes “It was Mary Magdalene, our course, who was the first to report the resurrection to the other disciples”, is very telling of why the Bible, or any manmade book, has been imposed upon humanity for so long as being the Word of God – people do not objectively question it! There are four different and contradictory tales of who Jesus first appeared to after he came back to life! It’s like the creation myth, just take your pick of which ever one you like the best!

Mr. Connelly doesn’t put much faith in the Bible’s book of Revelation. He doesn’t look at it like most of the Christian Evangelicals and fundamentalists, that is, as a book predicting the future. Mr. Connelly sees it more as a piece of history written by a Christian named John who was trying to encourage his fellow Christians of his day to keep the faith. However, when he writes, “While the tinfoil hat conspiracy folks may be convinced that the antichrist is going to emerge with 666 written on his head, those with understanding can look upon the alpha-numeric value of 666 and see the author was actually talking about Nero, and that the great plagues and sufferings described in the book of Revelation was a discourse on what was happening in ancient Rome. In point of fact, Revelation, read properly and carefully, is an extended tirade against unjust oligarchs who were persecuting a religious minority.”, it appears he’s trying to make “mainstream” Christians, that is Christians who don’t really believe the contents of the Bible but who seem afraid to let go of the Christian tag, look more respectable by referring to literalist Christians as “tinfoil hat conspiracy folks”. And when he writes about the alpha-numeric value of 666 actually meaning the Roman Emperor Nero, I’m not sure if he’s aware of the fact that the oldest versions of Revelation don’t use 666, but instead they use 616.

The American Deist, Thomas Jefferson, wrote to General Alexander Smyth who had written about the meaning of Revelation and wanted input from Jefferson on his work. On January 17, 1825 Jefferson wrote him saying that he “considered it as merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams. I was, therefore, well pleased to see, in your first proof sheet, that it was said to be not the production of St. John, but of Cerinthus, a century after the death of that apostle. Yet the change of the author’s name does not lessen the extravagances of the composition; and come they from whomsoever they may, I cannot so far respect them as to consider them as an allegorical narrative of events, past or subsequent. There is not coherence enough in them to countenance any suite of rational ideas. You will judge, therefore, from this how impossible I think it that either your explanation, or that of any man in ‘the heavens above, or on the earth beneath,’ can be a correct one. What has no meaning admits no explanation; and pardon me if I say, with the candor of friendship, that I think your time too valuable, and your understanding of too high an order, to be wasted on these paralogisms. You will perceive, I hope, also, that I do not consider them as revelations of the Supreme Being, whom I would not so far blaspheme as to impute to Him a pretension of revelation, couched at the same time in terms which, He would know, were never to be understood by those to whom they were addressed.”

Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason, “It is only through the

exercise of reason that man can discover God.” To Deists, the only

“Word of God” is the universe itself, of which we are all a living part.

Deists see, as former proponent of Atheism and now current Deist

Antony Flew pointed out, that applying our reason to the designs in

the Creation we are pointed to the Designer. When we contemplate

the working code in DNA, which by definition is intelligence dependent,

we can see the work of the Supreme Intelligence. Again, Mr. Paine put

it very eloquently in The Age of Reason when he wrote, “It is only in the

CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite.

The Creation speaks an universal language, independently of human

speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It

is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged;

it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it

cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether

it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth

to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of

God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”