Is there fire in Hell?

I'm going to post this article despite what I wrote that I'd do in my previous post. Trust me, I'll get to those later.

When someone talks about Hell in general, do you picture a pit of fire where demons with little red tails are poking us and we're burning forever and ever? Chances are, you do. When you witness, have you ever thought, "I'm attempting to save this person from an eternity of burning in Hell!" You probably have. Lastly, I can probably guarantee that you've heard a pastor, friend, relative, or even atheist refer to a place of literal fire known as Hell, painting that same picture of torturous agony.

This picture, however, is not accurate.

The article in which you are about to read is not me trying to "water down" the depiction of Hell in the Bible (rimshot). It isn't me trying to make compromises for God. It is simply me being realistic.

Pope John Paul II shares my view. He stated that Hell is not a physical place but “the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God.” He denied that Hell is a place of fiery torment and described it rather as “the pain, frustration and emptiness of life without God.” He further claimed that Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God and that eternal damnation “is not God’s work but is actually our own doing.” (Reuters, July 29, 1999). Even such big name people as Billy Graham can be said to identify with this role.

The only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God. We are separated from his light, from his fellowship. That is going to be hell. When it comes to a literal fire, I don't preach it because I'm not sure about it. When the Scripture uses fire concerning hell, that is possibly an illustration of how terrible it's going to be-not fire but something worse, a thirst for God that cannot be quenched.

So what's the basis? If you, like many other Christians today, read the Bible in plain English devoid of context, you'll surely think otherwise. Just like this guy:

The Lord Jesus Christ spoke more about Hell than about Heaven, and He always described Hell in terms of fire and physical torment. This is not a matter that is up for debate. As for the idea that Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God, that is absolute nonsense...Any man who denies or questions these plain biblical facts about Hell is a dangerous false teacher.

Those are some rather strong words. So let's see how this claim holds up.

Key Point One: Darkness

Hell is described as a place of darkness in Matthew 8:12, where it states "But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." This same phrase is repeated in Matthew 22:13 and 25:30.

Utter darkness and fire are obviously quite contradictory. Fire would no doubt get rid of the darkness.

Key Point Two: History

"But what about the 'weeping and gnashing of teeth?' What about the 'worm' that doesn't die, according to Mark 9:48?"

Well, contrary to what you might think, the "other descriptions of hell, such as people weeping and grinding their teeth, match with expressions of shame in the ancient world, but not physical pain." (Holding) So, in other words, that more correctly matches with an expression of rage, obviously due to the realization that you has made a terrible mistake. (Strobel 177) Again, this doesn't point to being in physical agony.

In Biblical times, countless animals were sacrificed every week in the Temple. They had a sewage system for all of the guts to flow out and it gathered in a single area, and there were worms constantly eating that disgusting mixture. So when Jesus referred to the worm in Mark, he was referring to how Hell would be worse than even such a disgusting of a place as that. (Strobel 176)

Key Point Three: Metaphors

Other uses of fire in the Bible are clearly metaphors. Take Hebrews 12:29 for example, where God is referred to as a "consuming fire." This is referenced from Deuteronomy 4:24, which adds "a jealous God." No one in their right mind would think that God is literally a burning fire, but rather a just God.

There's a verse that says that Jesus will come again with a sword in His mouth surrounded by flames. This is, yet again, a symbol for justice, the sword being judgement itself and the flames showing Christ coming in judgement. (Strobel 176)

So what makes the depictions of fire in Hell different? You have no doubt heard the metaphors comparing God or Jesus to water. Notice that the metaphor of judgement with fire and thirst fits right in with the metaphor of God's spirit as water. Or, to take it even further, think of your expression of embarassment or shame. When you say your face is "burning", that doesn't literally mean it is, but rather, it's flushed and red. (Holding)

So What IS Hell?

If it doesn't have burning fire, then what is it? I wouldn't say it's an actual, physical place. Put quite simply, it's a state of shame and complete separation from God. There will be incredible emotional torment, but not physical. And when you think about it, seperation from God is probably much worse than any physical pain you could encounter. Notice how Jesus Christ, during all the crucifixion process, beatings, whippings, disertion by his disciples, being spit on, etc, didn't cry out to God until he was covered in sin and His Father rejected him. "Why have you forsaken me?" he said. It was in the moment that God turned his back on Him that he found the burden overwhelming; it was His pinnacle of suffering (Dunn). He knew that, for the first time in his life, he was completely separated from God, and it was obviously quite unpleasant.

Think of how terrible of a world this is right now. The amount of sin is outrageous: underage drinking, drugs, pornography, rampant sex and pregnancy amongst the unmarried, murder, robbery, school shootings...The list goes on forever. You think God seems far away right now? Try taking him completely out of the picture. You have no way of interacting with Him and vice versa.

The thought is terrifying. And that's exactly why we need to step up as Christians and witness. Not because we're saving people from an eternity in fire...Because we're saving them from being out of God's presence for all time.

Conclusion

Due to the fact that flames would override the Biblical doctrine of darkness in Hell and result in contradiction, the verses citing fire making much more sense as metaphors, and the weeping and gnashing of teeth and worms matching historical expressions of shame and waste disposal, we can safely conclude that Hell is not a physical place of literal fire, but a state of shame and complete seperation from God, which is much worse than the former.

==============

1) Holding, James Patrick. "Answers in a Nutshell." Tekton Apologetics Ministries. 31 May 2006 . <http://www.tektonics.org/nutshell/nutshellhub.html#H>

2) Holding, James Patrick. "Torture in hell?" Tekton Apologetics Ministries. 31 May 2006 <http://www.tektonics.org/uz/2muchshame.html>

3) Strobel, Lee. The Case For Faith. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2000.

4) Dunn, Dr. Bruce W. "Will there literally be a burning fire in Hell?" Christian Answers. 31 May 2006. <http://www.christiananswers.net/q-grace/hell-fire.html>

===============

Coming Up Next: The Problem of Evil
Then: Why The Skeptical Answers to the Resurrection Just Don't Cut It

Reassuring Update

Hey guys. This is to prove I haven't forgotten about this blog yet. In fact, I have a lot in store.

- An article about the Problem of Evil
- An article about Preterism, and probably a review of the movie The Omen as part of it after I see it
- A review of "God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist", a book by William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
- Some additions to my Marshall Boring articles

The only reason the first of these, the Problem of Evil article, isn't already posted is that my computer crashed this morning with the near finished article still on it and unsaved. My hard drive is fried, and therefore I have no way of posting it unless I retype it all on my other computer, which will take a while.

I hope these will be beneficial to everyone.

Marshall Boring - Part Two

Or, “Marshall Shouldn’t-Be-Taken Seriously-by-Anyone-with-a Brain”

This entry is the second part of a rebuttal to WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com. In Part One, I went over how the website is fundamentally flawed due to misreading of scripture extrapolated to the extreme and how he uses purely emotional arguments and nothing rational. In Part Two, I aim to go over how Marshall uses refuted canards about slavery and sexism, has no knowledge of good sources (One would wonder how he made it through college), and his ego and arrogance should be a clear sign to stay away. So let’s get right to it, shall we?

In Chapter 13, Marshall Brain (Henceforth known as Marshall “Boring”) loudly proclaims, “Why does God love slavery?” Then he cites writings by Frederick Douglass to get you to feel sorry for the slaves, which is highly effective, because American slavery was a barbaric atrocity. But what Boring doesn’t seem to understand is that Biblical slavery was nothing like American slavery. He’s never heard of something called “indentured servitude.” He also doesn’t understand that this same kind of “slavery” brought the first of our ancestors to America on their own free will. Even what we all thinks is “slavery” is completely different in the reality of the ancient world.

Raymond Westbrook, in “A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law” states:

Freedom in the ancient Near East was a relative, not an absolute state, as the ambiguity of the term for ‘slave’ in all the region's languages illustrates. ‘Slave’ could be used to refer to a subordinate in the social ladder. Thus the subjects of a king were called his ‘slaves,’ even though they were free citizens. The king himself, if a vassal, was the ‘slave’ of his emperor; kings, emperors, and commoners alike were ‘slaves’ of the gods. Even a social inferior
when addressing a social superior referred to himself out of politeness as,
‘your slave.’ There were, moreover, a plethora of servile conditions that were
not regarded as slavery, such as son, daughter, wife, serf, or human pledge.”

I think that should be enough for Boring to realize his failure to research, but if it’s not, you can see the rest here.

He then talks about animal sacrifices, but really doesn’t do anything except say, “Ewwwww! That’s gross.” Once again, Boring shows his ineptitude for historical knowledge of ancient laws. J.P. Holding explains it like this.

“For the ancient person, an animal was like money. It was their way of giving to charity -- the collection plate, if you will. Furthermore, cultured people of the past had no objection to the idea of vicarious or substitutionary
sacrifice.”

Boring is quick to spout off that that killing animals, “does not have any beneficial effect for anyone,” yet what do you call steak, Boring? But that’s not the point. This section has little substance other than, “The idea of killing an animal, splattering its blood about and then burning its flesh is, quite obviously, absurd and ridiculous. God would have nothing to do with animal
sacrifice.” Notice that we’re not told WHY this is obvious, and notice how this is all relative. He wouldn’t say that about killing the termites that live under his house. He wouldn’t say that when spraying his can of Raid around his living room for spiders. In short, his arguments calling animal sacrifice “absurd” is about equivalent to PETA calling a person eating a hamburger “absurd.” Once again, the question isn’t, “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?” but “Why won’t Boring do any research?”

His argument about sexism is immediately flawed. He cites 1 Corinthians 33-35, which according to Boring says that women have to shut up, but that’s not true at all. This is a case of Paul quoting opponents and then refuting them with strong disapproval. We know this because he just did it in verses 12 and 13, there is a definite change in the tone of Paul's writing, and there was an extra word in the original manuscript after that verse that wasn't translated into the NIV: "What?!" (Christian-Thinktank) This, once again, demonstrates that Marshall Boring doesn't know the meaning of the word, "exegesis." (If you don't either, find out.) Among other things, he says that none of Jesus's disciples were women...but wait, according to Luke 8, Mary Magdalene was a disciple. Boring was probably looking at Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" painting when writing that one up.

Which leads me to my next point. He uses terrible sources. One of them is The Da Vinci Code.

All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts. The process is described succinctly and accurately in the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown.

...Excuse me? What's wrong with this picture? Boring is using The Da Vinci Code, a piece of fiction that has an incredible amount of factual errors, as a credible source of Christian doctrine? You've gotta be kidding me. Now, why is this? Because Boring seems to be unaware of anything by scholars that's been peer-reviewed. He's perfectly ready to cite Marilyn Hickey Ministries, Guidepost Magazines, and Rick Warren as uniform sources for Christian doctrine, but he's never touched any of the material by real scholars. If he stepped onto any of the reputable apologetics websites on the internet, he'd probably cringe in fear.

Last, but certainly not least, he's a very egotistical person that doesn't attempt to hide it. He has an entire section on the page called, "Understanding Your Delusion," that basically says that anyone who believes in any religion is equivalent to any adult that still believes in Santa Clause. He cites the Santa story, saying no adult would believe it unless they were delusional. Then the Mormon and Muslim stories, saying that Christians think those people are delusional. Then, he cites the story of Jesus Christ, and says that all the Mormons and Muslims think that Christians are delusional, so the God of Christianity must be imaginary.

I am using solid, verifiable evidence to show you that the Christian story is imaginary. Your rational mind can see the evidence. Four billion non-Christians would be happy to confirm for you that the Christian story is imaginary. However, if you are a practicing Christian, you can probably feel your "religious mind" overriding both your rational mind and your common sense as we speak. Why? Why were you able to use your common sense to so easily reject the Santa story, the Mormon story and the Muslim story, but when it comes to the Christian story, which is just as imaginary, you are not?

Try again. I have seen no "solid, verifiable evidence." He's done nothing to disprove the Jesus story other than saying, "Duh, Jesus doesn't appear to anyone today, so he must not have resurrected, duh," and "Other people think your stories are false, so, duh, it must be true, duh." Brain hasn't touched the "solid, verifiable evidence" for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Other statements he makes, like this, where he waves the "common sense" flag, which he does in nearly every paragraph:

The Bible is clearly the work of primitive men, many of whom were insane. Anyone with common sense can see that. Exodus 21:20-21 alone is enough to prove it. When people insist that the Bible is the word of God, we should ignore them and exclude them from public discourse.

Or this, where he tells his atheist readers to promote the site like crazy, because if any Christian sees it they'll convert (exaggerated):

The way to change the world is to change people's minds. As more and more people openly discuss the fact that "God" and "Allah" are completely imaginary, the world becomes a better place. The people who believe in "religion" look sillier and sillier. Eventually, religion becomes a fringe activity that is meaningless...

...You would be amazed at how much of an effect discussion and linking can have. If
we keep publicly discussing the problems of religion, we will coalesce the
minority and then begin changing the majority. As discussed on this page,
religion will eventually fall to rationality because of the immense weight of
the evidence.

...clearly show that this man, Boring, thinks he's the "normal" one and everyone else is "delusional." But, as I've shown, if anyone's delusional, Boring is.

He even has the nerve to hide text in his HTML code that's insulting to Christians. Here are some of them.

If you are a Christian, you now have a major problem: We have just proven that God did not write the Bible. You have to solve this problem -- if men wrote the Bible rather than God, Christianity is dead. So you do one of two things with these passages. You simply ignore the fact that God condones slavery in the Bible. You continue to believe in God and the Bible anyway. If someone asks you about all of the pro-slavery passages in the Bible, you change the subject. Or you accuse the person of blasphemy. You try to come up with incredibly convoluted explanations for the pro-slavery passages in the Bible. You try to find some sort of bizarre rationalization to explain away an all-loving God who openly advocates slavery in both the Old and New Testaments.

Sorry, Boring, but we've already showed you how your doctrine of slavery is the "incredibly convoluted" one. If you try to disprove history, which you undoubtedly will to conform with your slavery doctrine, you're the one that's delusional.

Instead of acting like a child and turning to religion and all of its bizarre
mythology, what you need to do is grow up and accept reality. Then you need to
make the most of it.

Oh, please. I'd love to see this guy debate with any educated Christian. We'll see if he still says that they're acting like children or not accepting reality. Boring needs to stop calling the kettle black over and over.

Well, that's about it. WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com is nothing but a bunch of whining and complaining, mixed in with misinformed doctrine that as no historical bearing whatsoever, a whole lot of the phrase "common sense," which in itself seems to be missing Boring, him calling things "bizarre" (he really thinks communion is referring to literal cannibalism, which is hilarious in and of itself), terrible use of sources, fundy-atheist hyperliteral Bible reading, and overall stupidity.

F minus for Failure Beyond Belief.

If this isn't enough for you and you want a much more comprehensive rebuttal to this website, in a parody formation, check out Why Does God Hate Deputies? by James Patrick Holding.

Marshall Boring - Part One

Or, "Why Marshall Brain Should Stick to Explaining How Hair-Dryers Work to Children."

This entry is a rebuttal to WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com. In case you're unaware, the author, Marshall Brain, is the head honcho of HowStuffWorks.com. It seems to me that he thinks his "expertise" in these fields would somehow translate well to religion. From now on, Brain will be known as Marshall Boring, because that's exactly what the website is.

He makes several mistakes that I will soon elaborate on.

• The entire website is based on misreadings and misunderstandings of Jesus's sayings about prayer due to his hyperliteral reading of the text.
• His arguments are all emotional and not rational.
• He uses bad arguments about slavery and sexism in the Bible which have already been taken care of.
• He makes terrible use of good sources.
• His ego is outrageously big and he doesn't try to hide it.

So let's start with the most important, shall we?

The entire website, as I said, is based on misreadings and misunderstandings of Jesus's sayings about prayer due to his hyperliteral reading of the text. What does that mean? Well, he cites a few verses like Mark 11:24, which states, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours," and takes that to mean that you'll get anything you ask RIGHT NOW. My personal favorite is is usage Matthew 17:20 - "For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." He follows that up with, "Since a mustard seed is a tiny inanimate object about the size of a grain of salt, it is easy to imagine that the faith of a mustard seed is fairly small. So, paraphrasing, what Jesus is saying is that if you have the tiniest bit of faith, you can move mountains." Boring, since he's a fundamentalist atheist who takes everything in the Bible literally, thinks that's Jesus giving everyone the right to move mountains at their own will. In all reality, "moving mountains" was an ancient Jewish metaphor for accomplishing what was impossible. Boring doesn't seem to grasp the term "hyperbole." Even later, he Matthew 18:19, but he takes it completely out of context. This verse is about pursuing followers of Christ who go astray, and was never intended as a general instruction on prayer.

Then, building upon these mistakes, he makes an experiment for us Christians to do. He tells us to make a prayer circle for an amputee.

The job of this prayer circle is simple: pray to God to restore the
amputated legs of this deserving person. I do not mean to pray for a team of renowned surgeons to somehow graft the legs of a cadaver onto the soldier,
nor for a team of renowned scientists to craft mechanical legs for him. Pray
that God spontaneously and miraculously restores the soldier's legs
overnight...If possible, get millions of people all over the planet to join the
prayer circle and pray their most fervent prayers...What is going to happen?
Jesus clearly says that if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in
prayer. He does not say it once -- he says it many times in many ways in the
Bible. And yet, even with millions of people praying, nothing will happen.

Does anyone else see the flaw in this logic? These are his overall summary points, found a few paragraphs down from there.

• God is all-powerful. Therefore, God can do anything, and regenerating a leg is trivial.
• God is perfect, and he created the Bible, which is his perfect book. In the Bible, Jesus makes very specific statements about the power of prayer. Since Jesus is God, and God and the Bible are perfect, those statements should be true and accurate.
• God is all-knowing and all-loving. He certainly knows about the plight of the amputee, and he loves this amputee very much.
• God is ready and willing to answer your prayers no matter how big or small. All that you have to do is believe. He says it in multiple places in the Bible. Surely, with millions of people in the prayer circle, at least one of them will believe and the prayer will be answered.
• God has no reason to discriminate against amputees. If he is answering millions of other prayers...every day, God should be answering the prayers of amputees too.

There are several things wrong: God didn't "create" the Bible, men did. In the Bible, Jesus does not make very specific statements about the power of prayer, only Boring would think so. Boring thinks that people in Jewish culture can't use hyperbole, too. God isn't all-loving, but just. The Bible is clear on things that God hates and an "all-loving" God is mere pop-Christianity. Like I've already said, God isn't "ready and willing to answer your prayers no matter how big or small," because only Boring thinks that due to his misreadings. Think about this: If God answered every single prayer, no matter what, think of the chaos that would ensue. I wonder if Boring has seen Bruce Almighty and, while fiction and comedic, it does portray what would probably happen if God answered "Yes" to every prayer.

Also, think about this: If Jesus was really telling the literal truth, and the disciples thought he was telling the literal truth when he essentially said, "Ask and it will be given to you," then the moment the disciples had ONE unanswered prayer, they'd call Jesus a liar. Would Christianity be the same as we see it today? Absolutely not. But let's ignore these points for now.

Essentially, what Boring is saying is that, because God goes on to say is that because God doesn't spontaneously regrow the limb, He must not exist. In his own words: "God is imaginary." The end. "You mean he doesn't even TRY to go over any of the arguments for the existence of God?" No, sir. Not even one. But even though it's based around assumptions, it's an interesting question, isn't it? Why won't God heal the amputee? (Or why does God hate the amputee, as the website was formerly called?)

Before I answer, let me give you some more examples of what Boring says. He cites the story of Neva Rogers, a teacher who apparently prayed to God to save her when a student of hers was pointing a gun at her forehead, but nevertheless was killed. Then, he cites a story about a girl named Ranika who was left in a bus by her day care caretaker in the heat and died. What are these? Emotional appeals, not rational ones. I'm going to get to my answer shortly, bear with me. He even has the nerve to cite "scientific studies" about prayer. Does anyone else find it ironic that when supernatural tries to apply itself to science (Intelligent Design, which Boring has the most laughable retort to in history, I think. I'll get to that later, too.) then it's an unacceptable science, but when science tries to apply itself to the supernatural (Statistically analysing and studying prayer) then it's perfectly okay with Mr. Boring?

But here's the answer. Ranika wasn't left in the bus to die by God. A human caretaker left her there. It's not God's fault, and therefore, God doesn't have to do a thing. The human should have been more responsible, should have had more attendance checks. We didn't need God to have, "helped [her] to be less forgetful," because she should have been more responsible in the first place; it's her job to take care of these kids. Boring even says that God could have sent an angel down to roll down the window, but come on. I bet he wants God to pay his bills and wash his hands before dinner, too. What about Neva Rogers, though? Again, why should God have done anything to help her? We've had countless opportunites to reform that kid who shot her. For example, his parents could have raised him with better morals. His "friends" could have not made fun of him, or encouraged him not to do this terrible thing. Anyone that had come in contact with him, like his counselor, the principal, could have done something. They could have seen the probably obvious signs of anger in his heart. But they did nothing. God doesn't have to do anything, because prayer is not a gumball machine as Boring says about six hundred times.

Another thing I find interesting about Boring is that he's perfectly willing to sit and complain about God doing nothing, but yet he doesn't do anything to prevent it either. Why isn't he counseling kids with anger problems? Why isn't he patrolling day care parking lots in search of babies trapped in buses? Why isn't he out in Africa, feeding all the starving children? Seeing as he doesn't believe God will do any of these things, it's his job to do them himself. Yet he still sits at his computer and merely complains about it. Anyone else see the irony?

"But what about amputees, huh?" Well, what about them? Is this not the same case? If you go to Iraq and get your leg blown off, that's your own choice, and your leg was blown off as a result of people like Saddam Hussein, who was a terrible dictator enough for us to invade, and his many mistakes. Even our own army makes mistakes, and God doesn't have to correct them. Boring gives this as one of his examples in his "Stock reasons" that Christians apparently would say. He follows it up with:

What about all the people who are born with missing limbs, or the people who lose limbs to diseases through no fault or choice of their own? How are these people any different from cancer victims, who, supposedly, are
constantly being healed by God?

But that's why God gives us doctors, brilliant people who can figure out on their own how to remedy that. That's why God gives us men who are smart enough to invent artificial limbs to save them from their inconvenience (I'll also take the time to point out that amputations aren't life threatening, they're just inconvenient. Good grief.) But, apparently that's not enough of a reason for Boring, either. He makes a mistake, though, in his assumption.

Take the case of smallpox. Millions upon millions of people died of smallpox until the vaccine was invented in the twentieth century. If God is the one who inspired the scientists, why did God wait until the twentieth century to do it? Why would God want to be the source of the massive suffering that smallpox caused prior to the twentieth century? And why do we pay the scientists, given that their work is simply God's inspiration?

Because God isn't the one that inspired them. Like I just said, scientists have figured out on their own how to cure smallpox, polio, etc. He gives us brains to use (except for our friend Marshall Boring) and the resources to use. He's done his part. He doesn't understand that if we all did our part, there wouldn't be a single starving kid in Africa. There wouldn't be kids left in buses, or school shootings. There wouldn't be any amputees due to warfare. There wouldn't be any people born without limbs, because we would have figured a way to prevent that. Now why haven't you done your part, Boring? Start sending food to Africa. Start counseling potentially violent kids. Start patrolling parking lots. Start researching the anomaly of being born without a limb. Start funding research to prevent this. Do you have any reason not to, since you don't believe God exists? Oh, I know why...Because it's inconvenient for Mr. Boring, who wants God do do everything while he sits around and eats ice cream sandwiches. He also doesn't understand this: What would God be teaching us if he does everything for us? He'd be teaching us that we don't have to help the planet, we don't have to do good works. God will do everything for us. We can sit around and be lazy.

No matter how sad your stories are, it won't change the fact that they're all due to human mistakes. Like I said, he doesn't even try to touch any of the classic arguments for the existence of God (for example, the Kalam Cosmological Argument) and the ones he does touch (Telelogical/Design) he does exeedingly poorly. In a sense, this is his argument.

1) Scrotums look really funny.
2) Getting kicked in the scrotum really hurts.
3) If God created the universe, he would have made it so the scrotum is inside the body and so getting racked didn't hurt like heck. I got racked a lot as a kid, too.
4) I'm special and require special treatment. But I'm not getting any. Wahhhhhh.
5) Therefore, God doesn't exist.

The funny thing is, I'm only slightly exaggerating. See for yourself. The part about the scrotums is near the bottom. All of his usage of bad things like BO (which God gives us people who can make deodorant), having to take vitamins (which I never do, but I'm healthy. Ironic?), getting tartar and plaque on your teeth (Do I even need to address this? I suppose I do, because Boring is that dumb. If anything, it teaches us that we have to take care of our own body, not just neglect it all the time), and needing sleep and not being able to fall asleep (Please. Get the heck over yourself.) would make any biologist or credible scientific source like Rich Deem get the giggles. And, practically anyone else, like me and this guy named Brother Vinny on TheologyWeb, who said, "Sounds like [Boring] should've been kicked more often, at least enough to ensure he didn't procreate." (haha)

He lists off these "mistakes" the Designer made, many of which are due to our own human mistakes anyway, like the need for eyeglasses, obesity, heart disease, constipation, addictions to cocaine (hahaha. He's complaining that our brains don't work because we get addicted to cocaine. Odd?) baldness, diseases, etc. These aren't God's fault, though. Did the person with glasses take good care of his vision by sitting far away from the TV, not staring at the sun, etc? Did the person control their sin of gluttony enough to not become obese? Did the person have a healthy diet to avoid heart disease and constipation? Does the person NOT do things like cocaine, smoking, alcohol, gambling (sin in the Bible, by the way), and heroine to avoid addiction? The list goes on and on.

Notice how, in the Bible, there's no place that says we're perfect beings. It merely says that God saw us as "good," not "perfect." Because they seem to be inconvenient to Boring and that he's not comfortable with the big tire roll around his bellybutton isn't an argument against the existence of a Creator. He even claims there are "millions of pieces" of evidence against God through science. If there's such comprehensive evidence, which I seriously doubt, then why isn't religion done already? Why are there something called theistic evolutionists and many websites around the internet devoted to them? Why then do we continue to find new discoveries and big problems with the theory of evolution? And why does evolution still not give a good answer for how the universe was originally created other than, "It came out of nothing?"

Since this is getting mighty long, I'll separate it. Stay tuned till later for Part Two, where I'll address Boring's ego, terrible sources, old canards about slavery and sexism.

On the Issues of Christianity

Remember I said that I would post a list of things that I believed within Christianity? Well, here it is.

• I believe that the Bible is God's inspired word. I believe the original manuscripts were inerrant. I do not believe some or all of the current ones are, though, in the sense that there are some scribal errors, as in, numerical or word translation mistakes. I also do not recognize inerrancy as a sacred tenant. If someone were to proved an error or contradiction in the Bible, then bully for them. But that doesn't change that it still has to be critically examined just like it would have been.
• I believe most if not all of the contradictions skeptics frequently cite have answers, and aren't true contradictions. 75% of them can be solved with a simple, contextualized reading. The other 25% need more historical background knowledge, like old Hebrew customs, etc.
• More about God's inspired word...I believe that inspiration does not mean dictation. I have a few friends that believe that God literally said every word of the Bible, but that's rather strange. Why would there be phrases like, "Not I, but the Lord?" if God were saying it? Why, also, would there be certain passages in, say, 1 Corinthians, that say in essence, "Well, I don't have a clear word from God about this, so here's my opinion?" Furthermore, if God dictated the Bible, there would be a uniform style to how they were written, which is obviously not the case, as each author was different in the way they recorded things.
• Due to these two points, please don't try to get me to answer such statements as, "Well, if God were trying to give us a message, he'd make it understandable to everyone/perfect/etc," or any other drivel like that, because to say "God wrote the Bible" is a misunderstanding of what "inspiration" is.
• I believe God is all-powerful, but not beyond the realms of logically or actually possible things. For example, I believe God can't create a rock so big he can't lift it, or can't create a circle with corners. I believe this because the true meaning of omnipotence is to be able to do anything logically possible.
• I believe the Gospels are eyewitness accounts, written by the men they're attributed to. I believe this because of textual criticism of scholars and internal evidence.
• I don't buy the Christ-myth hypothesis (Jesus never existed) because I also don't buy that the US didn't go to the moon or that Elvis is still alive today, or practically any other conceivable conspiracy theory, come to think of it. I do not believe that the Jesus story was an assembly of pagan myths, because to say that and be sincere, you have to be ignorant of the myths and uncritical in your research methods, copying straight from the likes of Acharya or Kersey Graves. I also do not believe that the lack of evidence of Jesus Christ while he was alive is evidence for his lack of existing, because there aren't really any good reasons why there should be, due to his status as a peasant, heretic, run-of-the-mill "prophet" in an honor and shame society.
• I don't buy the whole, "God's plan" thing as much as some people do. In a sense, I believe that God largely lets us make our own decisions rather than setting out a game plan for our lives. When bad things happen, I try not to say "God has a plan for this to work through the good," like others do, because in all reality, he probably doesn't. It's just a mistake that some person made that caused it, which God allowed because he's under no obligation to fix any mistake humans make, and he lets humans have free will. For those of you who think that omniscience is contradictory to free will, I'll undoubtedly get to that later. For now, know that your argument rests on the modal fallacy, and consider Molinism (see works by William Lane Craig) or even Open View Theism if you want to go that far.
• For future reference, I don't capitalize "he" when in reference to God a lot. That's not because I don't find God to be what He is or don't think God is holy or anything. It's simply because I forget, or I'm lazy and it's easier to not capitalize it. :-)
• I think reading Harry Potter as a Christian is perfectly okay.
• I think when people cite Leviticus or Deuteronomy as sources for law, (especially skeptics, who find things cruel and demand to know why we dont follow them today) they don't understand that those laws were given to specific people and that we all didn't sign the Deuteronomic Covenant. Those books are, today, just to serve as a window to our past to see what kind of laws they followed.
• Does this mean I also believe that none of it is relevant? Yes, unless it's repeated in the New Testament. So does that mean that I think when people cite verses about homosexuality from books like that, they're being hypocritical? Yes.
• I do think homosexuality is a sin, though. That's repeated in the New Testament, making it still relevant to our daily lives. That doesn't make me a homophobe, though. I like gay people a lot, in fact, some of my closest friends are gay and I have nothing against them as people. Most of them are incredibly nice people, some of the nicest around. I also prefer to not cause controversy by voicing my opinion to them and saying, "Turn from your ways!" because I acknowledge that it's the epitemy of "Easier said then done" and I don't want to provoke any unneccesary conflicts. So, in essence, my policy is: "Love the sinner, hate the sin, don't talk about their sin, and let them live their own life," in this case. Do I support the legalization of gay marriage? I'll give a reluctant "Yes," here, because I feel that religion doesn't really have a place in legislation and politics. I feel pushing your religion on someone, no matter in what way, is wrong. I also feel, though, that pushing away religion is a terrible mistake as well.
• I'm a preterist. That means that I believe some, or all, or the book of Revelation has already occured in early Jerusalem, and all we have to wait for is the final coming and resurrection. So, naturally, I don't buy the Left Behind series, or the rapture for that matter. I'm not an expert on this yet, so I won't be posting a lot of material about it as of now, but it makes the most sense due to the fact that it solves some Biblical issues (Jesus saying, "All this will happen in this generation," etc)
• I don't believe Hell has literal fire. It's more of a state, rather than an actual place of physical torment. I think J.P. Holding at Tektonics.org explains this nicely: "Biblical pictures of flame are clearly metaphors, first because if taken literally they result in contradiction (how can there be flames, yet also darkness, as the Bible says?); second, because as metaphors they fit in with other metaphors (flames and thirst as the opposite of water, which is in Scripture a metaphor for God's Spirit) and also fit a literal experience of shame (think of being ashamed and your face burning). Furthermore, other descriptions of hell, such as people weeping and grinding their teeth, match with expressions of shame in the ancient world, but not physical pain." So, if you say anything about "God would be cruel to send me to hell and have me burn for eternity," I'll shake my head and say, "I don't buy that."
• My youth pastor commented on that by saying, "Brimstone/sulfur doesn't burn with a flame, so there could be darkness." But as it turns out, when burned it does emit a flame, a blue one in fact. Sorry man.

That's all for now. If you have any specific questions on where I stand on other issues, feel free to email me and ask.

Welcome, Christians and Skeptics!

Welcome to P-Dunn's Apologetics!

This is the first post of what I see to be a big project of mine. So before I start off "doing" apologetics, let me say a little bit about myself and my spiritual life.

About Me:

• I was born on May 25th, 1989
• Some of my hobbies include compsing/arranging/playing music, going to youth group events, video games (Currently, Call of Duty 2 for Xbox 360 and Resident Evil 4 for Gamecube), apologetics (obviously), hanging out with friends, and singing in chorus
• I play seven instruments. In order of skill from best to worst: piano, drums and all things percussion, guitar, bass, violin, and cello. And, since it's in a separate category but still considered an instrument, vocals. I don't know where that goes on the talent scale.
• I'm very active in the chorus at my school. I'm in three choirs, one a select chamber choir called "Madrigals", one a mixed show choir called "Debut", and one a Barbershop quartet called "Most Wanted," where I sing baritone.
• I like meeting new people and I'm fairly outgoing. I can get along with practically anyone, too.

About My Spiritual Life:

• I have no credentials as an apologist other than being a Christian since I was about 4 years old and having been researching many sides of the issues since September 2005
• Around that time, I became incontent with my blind faith. I formed an opinion that it is unacceptable to believe in just anything preachers say, buying into the modernized, pop Christianity that is so oftenly promoted, and not always true.
• I began to formulate what I truly believe about Christianity, not what other people told me I should believe.
• The first atheistical website I encountered was WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com, formerly, Why Does God Hate Amputees? (Hmm. Wonder why he changed...). It initially made me struggle with a lot of what I'd believed in, because I'd never been asked the questions it asked before. But then, I realized, Marshall Brain (the author) too was just buying into the modernized, pop Christianity that I found unacceptable, and some of his claims were laughably out there. I'll be writing an article in response to him and his questions soon.
• I'm a member of the Youth Leadership Council at my church, along with the praise band (vocals and, occasionally, with the possibility of becoming frequently, keyboards) and an evangelical group called the "e-Teams"
• I'm a member of a Baptist church. Compared to others, we're contemporary. But compared to contemporary churches, we're not. I've been going there, essentially, since the day I was born.
• I've been in several debates around the internet, only a few of which have been particularly promising. Most of which have been with atheists who are very stubborn in their beliefs and won't admit they are wrong, ever, even if it's a really small issue. Some of them have been with respectable people who weren't militant ignoramuses. I won't claim victory or admit defeat in any of them, though.

I'm making a separate article about each individual area of Christianity I believe.

So, I hope that you'll bear with me as I start my "career" in "doing" apologetics. I'm not perfect, and I know there will be many others who are better than me. But, as I've said, this is just a side project in preparation for perhaps other things, like a minor in philosophy in college or something.