The End of Christianity (55 page)

8
. On this see, William G. Dever,
Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel
(Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans Publishing, 2005).

9
. See Michael Coogan,
God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says
(New York: Twelve, 2010), 163–88. [Editor's Note: In the last chapter of this book, Coogan describes the sex life of Yahweh, who had one just like the other gods and goddesses of that era. Yahweh probably had a consort whose name was Asherah (the “queen of heaven,” a counterpart to Yahweh as the “king of heaven”). She was worshipped as part of the folk religion of that day, as well as by kings and officials. In one jar fragment archaeologists have found, Yahweh is pictured with a big phallus and his arm around Asherah! The “sons of god” in Genesis 6:1–4 were their offspring. These “sons of god” became problematic to later monotheists, so they reinterpreted them to be “Watchers” and later as angels. Makes sense. Right? What else are you going to do with obvious mythical divine beings like these, and a divine family, after rejecting your former polytheism to become monotheists?

The really fascinating stuff was how Yahweh treated his unfaithful wives. Yes, he was a polygamist. In the prophet's mind this was an allegory, of course, but the allegory must have a meaning for the people it was spoken to, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to them. The prophets Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel tell us about their unfaithfulness to Yahweh their husband, and what he did to them as a punishment for their unfaithfulness. Ezekiel 16 and 23 contain “some of the most shocking and sexually explicit language in the Bible” Coogan tells us (183). In this allegory, the unfaithful wives of Samaria and Jerusalem are brutally punished by their divine husband Yahweh. At one point he strips them before a mob. Then comes a warning from Yahweh himself, that he did this so “that all women may be instructed not to act promiscuously as you did” (Ezek. 23:48).]

10
. Don Cupitt,
Philosophy's Own Religion
(London: SCM Press, 2001), 65.

11
. F. Staal, “Noam Chomsky between the Human and Natural Sciences,”
Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts
(Special Supplemental Issue, Winter 2001): 21, 25–66.

12
. For more detailed discussion and evidence of this psychomorphic projection, see Gericke, “Yahwism and Projection,” 418–22; see also Valerie Tarico's
chapter 6
of this book, “Why the Biblical God is Hopelessly Human.”

13
. This point was succinctly argued by Harwood,
Mythology's Last Gods.

14
. For many more examples of this cosmological ignorance displayed in the Old Testament (corresponding to the very same beliefs coincidentally held by surrounding pagan societies), see Ed Babinski, “The Cosmology of the Bible,”
The Christian Delusion
, ed. John Loftus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010): 109–47.

15
. On the nonexistence of these characters, see
chapter 4
by Hector Avalos, “Why Biblical Studies Must End” (previous), and the discussion and scholarship cited in Paul Tobin, “The Bible and Modern Scholarship,” in Loftus,
The Christian Delusion
, 148–80.

16
. Don Cupitt,
After God: The Future of Religion
(London: SCM Press, 1997), 45.

17
. For an introduction to the “less than perfect being” theology of the Old Testament, albeit an overoptimistic presentation completely ignoring the dark side of Yahweh, see Terrence E. Fretheim,
The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective
(OBT 14, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). For twenty-four examples of that overlooked dark side, see “The Will of God” at the
Christian Delusion
companion website:
http://sites.google.com/site/thechristiandelusion/Home/the-will-of-god
.

18
. On how suspiciously similar Yahweh's Old Testament law codes are to the human-made codes of surrounding pagan cultures when the Old Testament was written, see Hector Avalos, “Yahweh Is a Moral Monster,” in Loftus,
The Christian Delusion
, 209–36.

19
. For more examples and discussion of this kind of sociomorphic projection in the Old Testament, see Gericke, “Yahwism and Projection,” 413–15.

20
. This point is thoroughly proved by Babinski in “Cosmology of the Bible.”

21
. See Avalos, “Yahweh Is a Moral Monster,” 226–27.

CHAPTER 6

1
. Laura Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt,
Getting to Calm: Cool-Headed Strategies for Parenting Tweens + Teens
(Seattle: Parent Map, 2009).

2
. Paul Watzlawick,
The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious (The Pursuit of Unhappiness)
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1993).

3
. Valerie Tarico, “Christian Belief through the Lens of Cognitive Science,” a six-part series published online at the
Huffington Post
(
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
valerie-tarico, see indexes for May through November of 2009); a summary of the main points made in that series was also published in a companion article of the same title in
The Christian Delusion
, ed. John Loftus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010), 47–64. Likewise, an expanded series on the same topic as the present chapter (“Why the Biblical God Is Hopelessly Human”) is also available at the
Huffington Post
(as “God's Emotions,” October-September 2010).

4
. See R. Schwab and K. U. Petersen, “Religiousness: Its Relation to Loneliness, Neuroticism and Subjective Well-Being,”
Journalfor the Scientific Study of Religion
29, no. 3 (1990): 335–45; and Justin Barrett and Frank C. Keil, “Conceptualizing a Non-natural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts,”
Cognitive Psychology
31 (1996): 219–47.

5
. See P. L. Benson and B. Spilka, “God Image as a Function of Self-Esteem and Locus of Control,”
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
12, no. 3 (1973): 297–310; and Barrett, “Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity.”

6
. See Pascal Boyer,
Religion Explained: The Human Instincts That Fashion Gods, Spirits, and Ancestors
(London: Heinemann, 2001).

7
. See discussion and sources cited in David Eller, “Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality,” in Loftus,
The Christian Delusion
, 347–67.

8
. Arthur D'Adamo,
Science without Bounds: A Synthesis of Science, Religion and Mysticism
(Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2004), 210. See
http://www.adamford.com/swb
.

9
. Barrett, “Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity.”

10
. “Positive Atheism's Big List of Albert Einstein Quotations” (
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/einstein.htm
).

11
. “Question and Answer with John Shelby Spong,” September 16, 2010,
http://muzicindi.net/?q=node/41#spong3
.

12
. Alan Nordstrom, “Reconciliation,”
Alan Nordstrom's Blog
, June 1, 2008,
http://alan-nordstrom.blogspot.com/2008/06/reconciliation-how-reason-and-emotion.html
.

13
. Robert Plutchik,
The Emotions: Facts, Theories, and a New Model
(New York: Random House, 1962).

14
. Nasir Naqvi, Baba Shiv, and Antoine Bechara, “The Role of Emotion in Decision Making: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective,”
Current Directions in Psychological Science
15, no. 5 (2006): 260–64.

15
. Antonio Damasio,
Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
(New York: G. P. Putnam, 1994). Notably Darwin wrote up his own scientific studies of emotion in
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
(1872), available at
http://darwin-online.org.uk
. The science of emotion has come a long way since then, and yet many of his observations remain apt.

16
. Marlene Winell,
Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion
(Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications), 177–94.

17
. Jeremy Bentham,
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
(1789) [(New York: Hafner, 1948), 1–2].

18
. Charles Darwin,
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
(New York: D. Appleton, 1872), 1:79.

19
. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides. “The Evolutionary Psychology of the Emotions and Their Relationship to Internal Regulatory Variables,” in
Handbook of Emotions
, ed. M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, and L. F. Barrett, 3rd ed. (New York: Guilford, 2008), 114–37.

20
. See the entry for “triune brain” in Wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain
).

21
. Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (Enfield, CT, July 8, 1741, available in
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html
).

22
. M. Lewis, “The Development of Anger and Rage,” in
Rage, Power and

Aggression
, ed. R. A. Glick and S. P. Roose (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 18–168.

23
. Aaron Sell, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides, “Formidability and the Logic of Human Anger,”
PNAS
[
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
] 106, no. 35 (September 1, 2009): 15073–78,
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/angerselltoobycosmides09.pdf
.

24
. Mary Fairchild, “Children's Morning Prayers: Morning Prayers to Teach Your Christian Child,”
About.com
,
http://christianity.about.com/od/prayersforspecificneeds/qt/morningprayers.htm
, accessed October 19, 2010.

25
. Larissa Tiedens and Alison Fragale, “Power Moves: Complementarity in Dominant and Submissive Nonverbal Behavior,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
84, no. 3 (2003): 558–68,
http://www.unc.edu/~fragales/Tiedens&FragaleJPSP.pdf
.

26
. See
chapter 2
of Keith Johnstone,
Improvisation and the Theatre
(New York: Routledge, 1981), summarized and discussed in Michael Arnzen, “Impro II: Status,” June 18, 2005,
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeArnzen/009704.html
.

27
. John Wilkins, “Social Dominance Psychology in Humans,”
Evolving
Thoughts.net
, July 2, 2009,
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2009/07/02/social-dominance-psychology-in-humans
.

28
. “Primate Behavior,”
Primate Info Net
, 28,
http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/av/slidesets/slides_b/Behavior28.html
.

29
. See Tenzin Gyatso (the current Dalai Lama), “Compassion and the Individual,”
DalaiLama.com
,
http://www.dalailama.com/messages/compassion
.

30
. See the Wikipedia entry on “Ahimsa in Jainism,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa_in_Jainism
.

31
. From Charles Darwin, “Letter to Asa Gray” (May 22, 1860). For a complete account of his reasons for abandoning his faith (which still hold true today), see Francis Darwin, ed.,
The Life and Letters of Charles
Darwin, vol. 1 (London: J. Murray, 1887), 175–78 (for the letter of 1860, see 2:311–12).

32
. Richard Dawkins,
River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
(London: Weidenfeld&Nicolson, 1995), 133.

33
. See discussion of the psychology of this in “Imaginary Friends with Evan Kidd,” La Trobe University, 2009,
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2009/podcasts/imaginary-friends-with-evan-kidd/transcript
.

34
. Dexter VanDango, “Grumpy Old Dad,”
http://dextervandango.com/view.do?contentId=260&menuId=260
.

PART 3

CHAPTER 7

1
. The earliest theory of the atonement was the Ransom Theory (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5–6; 1 Pet. 1:18–19; Eph. 2; Rom. 7 [esp. 7:14,23–24] and 8:23; Gal. 4; Mk. 10:45; etc.). The basic notion is that sinners were being held captive by Satan and the death of Jesus on the cross was the ransom required to free them. Satan, however, was tricked, and he was not able to keep Jesus dead, and thus the resurrection proved Christ's victory over Satan and his demons (“
Christus Victor”).
This theory dominated Christianity for a thousand years (with a number of variants). In the eleventh century, Anselm developed the Satisfaction Theory of the atonement. This theory said that God's honor had been besmirched by man's sin and that man now owed a debt to God that he could not pay. Thus, God decided to pay it for man. God sent his son, who was both God and man, to pay the debt that man could not pay. The Reformers built upon Anselm's theory and developed the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the Atonement. Other theories of the atonement include the Moral Influence Theory (developed by Peter Abelard), the Governmental Theory (developed by Hugo Grotius), and the Recapitulation Theory (developed by various Eastern theologians). [Editor's Note: Sufficient critiques of these other atonement theories can be read in Michael Martin's
Case against Christianity
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 252–63; John Hick's
Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age
(Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 112–133; and chapter 19 in my book, John Loftus,
Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008), 344–50. But the gist of every critique of them is the same: none of these purposes for the atonement is required for an omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity, leaving no reason for such a deity to heed them, much less fashion his system of salvation out of them.]

2
. Blurb in Steve Jeffrey et al.,
Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution
(Crossway, 2007). This book contains forty-one blurbs from leading evangelical theologians covering the first ten pages of the book.