Archive for free will

Betting on God’s Favoritism

Posted in Atheist, belief, Christianity, faith, Hebrew scripture, random, religion, scriptures, theology with tags , , , , , on May 12, 2014 by chouck017894

Gambling, simply defined, is taking a risk in the hope of gaining some advantage; it is an act or undertaking with an uncertain outcome. From a mortal’s point of view, that seems to be the game plan of Creation itself. Conception is a gamble. The first breath of every entity is a gamble. And, to be candid, even one’s personal faith is a gamble, for belief-chips are wagered at the table of life where the dealers may be slipping in cards from the bottom of the deck. That premise is slyly admitted in the rules of the game as promoted in holy texts.

For example, in the scriptural book Numbers (17:8-10) there is given instructions for making twelve rods to be placed upon the altar so God could show which of the twelve tribes of Israel he allegedly favored for priesthood honors. That, of course, is simply a variation of casting lots to determine a question by chance. How the tribe of Levi, as the story has it, wound up with special sacerdotal functions which entitled it to receive material support from all the other tribes sounds more like the result of a priestly con job than godly selection. Suspicion is aroused by the fact that Hebrew Scriptures are not consistent with regard to either the number or the names of Jacob’s sons after whom the tribes were allegedly named.

Chapter 17 of the book of Numbers, written by priest authors, is an account of how the Lord allegedly conveyed his wishes to Moses concerning which of the twelve tribal members he favored to serve as his representatives. This game of chance was set up by Moses after his brother Aaron’s priesthood had been questioned in the rebellion of Korah. Each leader of the twelve tribes were instructed to bring their tribe’s rod–a long, thick piece of wood bearing the tribal identity which symbolized their tribal leader’s authority–and place it in “…the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony…” (verse 4). The godly scheme was that whichever of the twelve rods of supposedly dead wood would blossom would reveal the Lord’s choice for priest. Why the Creator-God could not express his will without intermediators is never addressed. Anyway “…every one of their princes gave him (Moses) a rod apiece…according to their fathers’ houses…and the rod of Aaron was among the rods.” (verse 6)

Well, Surprise! Surprise! It came to pass that Moses’ brother Aaron’s rod won the prize! Verse 9 set the scene: “And Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord unto all the children of Israel: and they looked, and took every man his rod.” These rods which represented a tribal leader’s authority were all handed down and dried out with age, therefore it is a declared “miracle” that one of the rods could bud forth. Verse 10: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron’s rod again before the testimony, to be kept for a token against the rebels…” Moses had not made any objection to this means of determining God’s will. As far as Moses was concerned the position of high priest was already settled. It was merely coincidence that Aaron’s rod happened to have some life-flowing sap within it. Thus was the priestly lineage divinely bestowed by God upon the descendants of Levi.

According to Deuteronomy (written c. 640 BCE) the priestly status was to be determined through Levi lineage, and this is what supposedly validated a priests’ share of secular goodies. But there has been disagreement whether Levi was originally a secular tribe (Genesis 49:5-7). Indeed, in Numbers (4:1-33) the descendants of Levi’s sons–Gershon, Kohath and Merari–are burdened with strict distinctions of duties which actually barred them from priesthood and the three sons functioned under Aaronic supervision. However, according to Deuteronomy, the contents of which happened to have been “discovered” in the wall of the Temple in Jerusalem being remodeled c. 640 BCE, the Levites are presented as “Judges” (17:8-9), and as custodians of the Torah scroll (17:18). And later in chapter 27:9 the Levites are said to stand with Moses to proclaim a covenant renewal “…this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God.” In the two books of Chronicles, however, the confusion seems to stem from an attempt to arbitrate and establish a cooperative approach between the Aaronic and Levite tribes.

As noted, the chance of “rods” budding to indicate the Lord’s chosen representatives, is a close relative to the casting of lots to determine some prize. Interestingly the practice of casting lots is referred to seventy-seven times in the Old Testament and pops up seven times in the New Testament. Casting of lots are used in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, 1 Samuel, Esther, Psalms, Proverbs, Daniel and Jonah. In the New Testament lots are referred to in John, Acts and 1 Corithians.

In Christian lore (John 19:24) the soldiers present at the crucifixion of Jesus are depicted as casting lots for his garments. This brings up the curious fact that it is from the Greek word kleros, which means “lots,” or more correctly that which is assigned by lot (gambling) that we received our word for those who are ordained for “religious service”–the clergy. (Some dictionaries trace the word clergy only to Middle English, from Old French influence clerge, meaning a body of clerks; but this is not the real source.) The word clergyman is advertised and promoted to mean those who are authorized to preach the gospel and administer its ordinances. But looking at the Greek origin of the word, what is admitted is that these persons are ordained, in a sense, as gambling men! In the word clergy, from the Greek kleros, to gamble by lots, we can see why organized by-the-book faith systems, acting as pulpit casinos, have so often missed their declared spiritual purpose.

One of the disguised gambling angles in spiritual showmanship is the tenet of “free will“, the supposition that the constant choices which each individual faces daily are voluntary and are not determined by any external causes. This is something of a slight-of-hand manipulation which disguises that everything in life is a gamble. The ironic part of this clergy-style inference of free will is that the clergy then abruptly performs a U-turn and says that free will must be abandoned if we are to serve god’s higher purpose: and that abandonment of personal will must be channeled into submission to whatever they, the clergy, willfully choose to sermonize about. The resultant spiritual advice which they so liberally distribute too often implants in the faithful only a feeling of self-chastisement. We are left to wonder, are these imposed odds of the spiritual game in the seekers favor or are the odds in favor of the house?

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Evil That Men Do

Posted in Atheist, belief, Bible, faith, nature, religion, scriptures, theology with tags , , , , , , on January 23, 2014 by chouck017894

In all the scriptural texts of the western world, a devout seeker will find no judgment that directly addresses, clarifies or answers the problem of what really constitutes evil. Perhaps that should not be so surprising since genuine history has shown that religionists of every variety have very often made use of evil methods to foster their particular faith system. Today, for example, we see reprehensible behavior being put into practice in the U.S. where religious extremists labor fanatically to undermine all the long-standing noble principles of democracy and seek to tear down the firewall of church-state separation.

Those who hold the Bible aloft as their standard for “values” while attempting to tear down those principles of democracy are especially fond of the bloody tales of the Old Testament. God allegedly did a lot of verbalizing according to the early part of the Old Testament, and his active participation is implied in the accounts of land wars. But how often is it ever claimed that God proclaimed himself to be just? The nearest thing that a seeker may find in either the Old or New Testaments on the question of what supposedly constitutes evil is in the book of Job. And that holy tale happens to be a plagiarized version lifted from Babylonian literature, which the Yahweh priest copiers doctored with the assertion that Yahweh/God is always benevolent and always makes things right.

There is subtle juggling in the scriptural evaluation of what constitutes evil, such as is presented in Job–a blurred distinction of what constitutes evil and what happens to be simply an encounter with misfortune. Properly, evil should be understood as a purposeful and/or intentional impairment imposed by a person or group of persons upon other persons, or upon other living creatures. Evil is a malevolent action that is deliberately taken against others. Unfortunately, this is the “value” that fundamentalists choose to interpret as being advocated in the “good book” stories.

For an answer to the problem of evil, the common clerical explanation as inspired by scriptural tales is that evil arises from man having been given free will choice. This is more hollow than holy, for such an explanation conveniently allows a faith system the promotional scheme to sell their anti-sin safeguards. This is possible simply because the free will excuse allows the blame for any negative experience to be placed solidly on the victim by judging the victim as having done something wrong “in God’s eyes” to deserve it! That is the premise that is attempted in the biblical version of Job.

Elsewhere in holy scripture, in 1 Samuel 18:10 it states, “…and an evil spirit from God came upon Saul…” This blunt admission in”holy word” of God’s negative aspect has bewildered countless biblical scholars and clergy. They mistakenly proclaim that their personification of creative energies as God is good only. But the negative principles which are an intricate part of creative energy cannot be denied: positive/negative interactions of energy are necessary for anything to be created. That recognition of positive/negative energy interaction is also referred to in Isaiah 45:7 where God (the personification of creative energy) is quoted as saying, “I form the light, and create darkness: I am the Lord of all these things.” In the much older pre-history lessons upon which such biblical tales as these were structured it was explained that a blend of polar energies (positive/negative) are responsible for any definable manifestation. That ancient (and advanced) knowledge pops up in only in these two scriptural tales.

So the encounters with terrible misfortune that people experience, such a debilitating diseases or natural disasters are not the result of the victim’s having done something deliberately evil in the sight of a discriminatory god. Those tribulations are traceable to biological malfunction or to the exchanges of creative energies known as Nature. Electrical storms, for example, vary in intensity from gentle rains to roaring hurricanes; they are natural energy interactions, not direct acts of a disapproving God. Ditto for other natural energy exchanges such as generated earthquakes, etc.

Out of the crafted holy interpretation a double standard is utilized in the self-serving assessment of evil, for nowhere else in the animal kingdom has any creature of nature been branded as acting with plotted evil intent. Not even the carnivores. In scriptural narrative it is only man who is branded as capable of perpetuating evil, which is interesting since man is claimed to be made in the image of God. But this is then excused by claiming that man’s acts of evil are influenced by some opponent of God’s goodness i.e. Devil, Satan, etc. But giving God credit only for all that is good and pretending that this personification of creative energy has no part in the negative aspects that accompanies life is nothing more than selective blindness.

That convenient premise of God-is-good-only certainly does not provide a satisfactory explanation of what actually characterizes evil. The predator/victim relationship which exists throughout all the rest of nature makes the hypothesis of a benevolent God questionable. If that God-permissible predatory activity is representative of what some call intelligent design it means that man’s concept of evil exists only in how man chooses to perceive negative experiences; it does not define what the creative force (personified as God) would regard as evil. This conveniently leaves the field wide open for evil actions to be used in the marketing of religion and politics. We can see the result of that prominently displayed in theocratic governments.

And in choosing to hypothesize a benevolent-only God, we have been tricked into meeting our fears of victimization by labeling nearly any negative experience as evil. Around this fear of victimization the established organized faith systems have constructed an elaborate scaffolding of self-serving “values”, which are painted as different shades of morality. Then, as these faith systems point to their man-erected scaffolding, the claim is made by them that their patched together supporting mechanism proves the existence of a moral God (who favors them, of course).

Unfortunately for man, these self-serving faith systems have not guided mankind into enlightenment or toward our higher potential. All that they have blessed mankind with has been centuries of senseless conflicts over which faith practice is spiritually superior. Thus in purposefully ignoring the “evil spirit from God”, or the all-inclusiveness which is briefly alluded to in 1 Samuel and Isaiah, these faith system fanatics continuously skate alarmingly close to being evil practitioners themselves. As Shakespeare noted, “The evil that men do lives after them.”

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The Concept of Evil

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, freethought, life, nature, random, religion, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , , on March 12, 2011 by chouck017894

In all the scriptural texts of the western world, a devout seeker will find no judgment that directly addresses, clarifies or answers the problem of what really constitutes evil.  Perhaps that should not be so surprising since genuine history has shown that religionists of every variety often tend to make use of evil methods to foster their particular faith system.  Today, for example, we see reprehensible behavior being put into practice in the United States where religious extremists labor fanatically to undermine all the long-standing noble principles of democracy. 

Those who hold the Bible aloft as their standard for “values” while attempting to tear down those principles of democracy seem especially fond of the bloody tales of the Old Testament.  God did a lot of verbalizing in the early part of the Old Testament, and his fatherly participation is implied throughout the New Testament, but how often is it ever claimed that God proclaimed himself to be just?  The nearest thing that a seeker may find in either the Old or New Testament on the question of what supposedly constitutes evil is in the Book or Job.  And that “holy” tale happens to be a  plagiarized version lifted from Babylonian literature, which the Yahweh priest copiers doctored with the assertion that God, being benevolent, always makes things right.

There is subtle juggling in the scriptural evaluation of what constitutes evil, such as is presented in Job—a blurred distinction of what is evil and what happens to be an encounter with misfortune.  Properly, evil must be defined as a purposeful and/or intentional impairment imposed by a person or group of persons upon other persons, or upon other living creatures.  Evil is malevolent action that is deliberately taken against others.  Unfortunately, “good book” stories don’t make this clear, and the fundamentalists love to use these examples as their “values.”

For an answer to the problem of evil, the common clerical explanation inspired by scriptural tales is that evil arises from man having been given free will choice.  This is more hollow than holy, for such an explanation conveniently allows a faith system a lucrative market in the selling of anti-“sin” safeguards.  This is possible simply because the free will excuse allows the blame for any negative experience to be placed solidly on the victim by judging the victim as having done something wrong to deserve it!  That is the premise that hovers over the biblical version of Job.

Elsewhere, though, in 1 Samuel 18:10 it states “…and an evil spirit from god came upon Saul…”  This blunt admission in “holy word” of god’s negative aspects has bewildered countless biblical scholars and clergy.  They mistakenly proclaim that their personification of creative energies, which they call God, is good only.  But the negative principles that are part of creative energies cannot be denied; positive/negative polar interaction is also referred to in Isaiah 45:7 where god is quoted as saying, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil.  I am the Lord (law) of all these things.” 

The much older material upon which such biblical tales were structured explained that a blend of polar energies are responsible for any definable manifestation.  That more ancient knowledge pops up in only a couple of OT books, however: in Samuel and in Isaiah.

So the encounters with misfortune that people experience, such as debilitating diseases or natural disasters, are not the result of the victim’s having done something wrong in the sight of a wily god.  Those tribulations are traceable to biological malfunctions or to the exchanges of creative energies known as Nature.  Electrical storms, for example, can vary in intensity from gentle rains to raging hurricanes; they are natural energy interactions, not direct acts of God.  Ditto for other natural energy exchanges such as trigger earthquakes, and which are too often palmed off as being the “wrath of god.”

Out of this confusion a double standard is utilized in the biblical assessment of evil, for nowhere else in the animal kingdom has any creature of nature been branded as acting with evil intent.  Not even the carnivores.  In scriptural narrative it is only man that is branded as capable of  perpetuating evil, and this is attributed to man being influenced by some opponent (Devil, Satan, etc.) of god’s goodness.  But giving god credit only for all that is good but pretending that this personification of creative energy has no part in the negative aspects that accompanies life is nothing more than selective blindness.

That convenient premise certainly does not explain evil.  The predator/victim relationship that exists throughout all the rest of Nature makes the hypothesis of a benevolent god questionable.  If that god-permissable predatory activity is representative of intelligent design, it means that man’s concept of evil exists only in how man is taught to assess his encounter with negative experiences: it does not define how or why evil exists.  This conveniently leaves the field open for evil actions to be used in the selling of a faith system (or political scam).

And in choosing to hypothesize a benevolent God, we have been tricked into meeting our fears of victimization by labeling any negative experience as evil.  Around this fear of victimization organized faith systems have constructed the elaborate scaffolding of self-serving “values,” which are painted as different shades of morality.  Then, pointing to this man-erected scaffolding, the claim is made that it proves the existence of a moral God.

Unfortunately for man, these self-serving faith systems have slyly avoided any real guidance of man toward his higher potential.  And in ignoring the nature of what constitutes the “evil spirit from god” spoken of in 1 Samuel, these faith systems skate alarmingly close to being evil.

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“Born in Sin”

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, Christianity, history, life, random, religion with tags , , , , , , on July 10, 2009 by chouck017894

From the depths of antiquity the great no escape clause dreamed up by pretenders of religious knowledge has been that all life is “born in sin.”  The selling of “sin” has been a major part of Christian doctrine, with sexual magnetism cast as an especial reason for heaven’s rejection of one’s personal expression.

In life forms, including the human species, there are amoral elements encoded and blended in DNA and RNA that establish the physical sensory patterns.  These senses are not the evil or accursed condition of “inherited sin” that western religions have chosen to portray them.  The sensate nature imprinted in life forms is simply a part of the physical attributes by which material-energy conditions are confronted, experienced and qualified by individual awareness.

Life is energized out of amoral properties and is therefore guiltless when an energy-form identity is taken on, which means that life forms cannot be “born in sin.”  This is not to say that life cannot be born into conditions considered sinful.  There is irony in this, for a higher percentage of sinful conditions are most often directly linked to the intimidating interpretations that are inflicted from man-conceived and self-serving religious practices, not to the amoral elements encoded in the pattern of one’s biological nature.

Christianity owes its concepts of “born in sin” or “inherited sin” from the befuddled “saint” Augustine (354-430), who just happened to have converted to the Christian movement from the Gnostic sect Manicheanism that taught the concept of “original sin.”  Gnosticism regarded all things of the flesh as sinful, which is why they denied that god’s son and savior of man would have come in the flesh.  As all converts to any faith system tend to be, Augustine was adamant in his analysis of what constituted holy truth and fervently promoted the idea that man’s salvation from being born in sin could be achieved only through the grace of god.  This stance meant that free will could not be a factor in one’s salvation–a doctrinal arrangement that positioned the church as the only authority through which one could recieve god’s forgiveness and pardon. 

Augustine’s driving ambition to impose his interpretation upon the Christian corporate-style setup did not go unquestioned.  To a British monk named Pelagius (353-420?-430?), the idea that one was tainted with sin from birth did not match the declared efficacious grace of the maker.  It was a sane understanding that sin is not an infirmity of nature.  Pelagius taught that each person was born with free will, and asserted that man’s will is capable of spiritual good with divine aid being unnecessary.  Pelagius taught that every child is born in a state of innocence and that every person’s perseverance in virtue depends upon themselves.  This understanding, however, allowed the church too little power over each person’s life and thus threatened to cut into their potential material profits.

And so “saint” Augustine attempted vigorously to have Pelagius condemned by the church, but was for awhile unsuccessful.  This only added to Augustine’s divine detestation and he called upon political connections to persecute Pelagius—for god’s sake, of course.  Thus at several synods held between 412 and 418 Augustine managed to have Pelagius condemned and finally banished from Rome.  In 431, after Pelagius had died and could no longer defend himself, the Council of Ephesus confirmed the condemnation of  Pelagius.  With the chains of sin then firmly attached to man’s means of birth the church claimed itself to be the only means of a person being absolved of sin.

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