Personal Testimony on Reasonable Doubts

One of the podcasts I enjoy listening to on a regular basis is Reasonable Doubts, hosted by three former religious believers who now discuss religion, science, and anti-apologetics from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

One segment of their podcast is called "Gospel of Doubt" in which listeners are invited to submit short testimonies of their experience with doubt:

We're looking for your stories and your reasons for joining the ranks of the godless. When did you lose your faith? Why did you lose your faith? Did you ever have faith? What are the arguments you ran into that started you down your path to disbelief? What books did you read, what friends did you make, or what events did you go through that helped you embrace the natural over the supernatural?

I submitted an entry which was broadcast in Episode 47, posted July 24, 2009 and can be downloaded here. The entire podcast is over an hour long, and my brief essay is near the end, at the 56:50 mark. I blame the ethereal sparkling background noise on my recording equipment.

Father testifies he hoped God would heal his child

It's a heart-breaking story. An eleven-year old girl is dying of diabetes. Her father doesn't take her to a doctor or a hospital. Instead, he prays for her and asks his God to heal her.

The girl dies in her home, surrounded by her father and other people praying for her. In the end, she couldn't walk, speak or even eat.

Dale Neumann, 47, has been charged with second-degree reckless homicide, and recently testified on his behalf in court in Wasau, Wisconsin. When asked why he didn't seek medical help for his child, Neumann told jurors:

"I can't do that because Biblically, I cannot find that is the way people are healed."

Source: MSNBC.com

Neumann is partially correct. In the New Testament, many people are healed through divine providence, be it Jesus or the apostles. There's almost no mention whatsoever of medical science in the New Testament, primitive as it must have been.

In three gospels, Jesus cites the often-quoted phrase, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31) What's more, the quote was in response to criticisms that Jesus was spending too much time with sinful people, whereas Jesus replied that who better needs to experience God than those farthest from him. So this line can best be seen as an analogy to make a spiritual point, rather than a piece of advice to those wondering what to do with a sick child. At any rate, this one sentence must have been thin gruel compared to the numerous fantastical accounts of Jesus touching people and having them rise off of their sickbeds, or even from their graves.

On the other hand, the Gospel of Mark tells a story of a woman "subject to bleeding for twelve years." (5:25) Mark tells us that she had "suffered a great deal" when visiting the doctors, who had taken all the money she had and yet had gotten worse, but she was instantly healed when touching Jesus' cloak. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the power of medical science, and this makes it understandable why Neumann may have been skeptical of doctors.

Of course, this still goes on today. Never mind what inefficiencies the sick undergo when dealing with insurance companies, it is still common for someone today to spend themselves into bankruptcy without ever receiving a cure. Medical science has significantly improved in the last two thousand years, but what we don't know about the human body can still leave the best of medical science baffled.

But Neumann's daughter sufferered from diabetes, not some exotic tropical disease that no one has heard of. She suffered from a treatable disease and could have lived a long, full life under medical supervision. Instead, her parents just wanted to pray for her, even as she declined in health. Neumann's wife Leilani was tried separately and found guilty, and now faces up to 25 years in prison.

Side note: According to Colossians 4:14, the apostle Luke was a doctor, and in his gospel he also recounts the story of the sick woman healed by touching Jesus' cloak (8:40-48). For some reason, though, Doctor Luke omits the line that the doctors had bled the woman dry of all her money. In a nice example of closing ranks, Luke simply states, "No one could heal her."

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Update: As expected, Neumann was found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide. He'll be sentenced along with his wife in October.

The Sex Lives of Shamans

Last month I wrote about a pastor who was indicted for attempting to rape out a lesbian demon. Is this some modern perversion of religion, a diseased mutation descended from the purity of old-time paganism, when man lived close to nature and shamans worked selflessly to connect their people to God?

No.

Robert Wright, author of the recently-published book The Evolution of God writes:

What I do doubt is that these earnest, selfless spiritual leaders were any more common in the heyday of shamanism than today, or that the spiritual quest was any less corrupted by manipulation and outright charlatanism than today, or that there was a coherent philosophy of shamanism that makes more sense than the average religion of today.

Source: Slate.com

While it's difficult to study the writings of prehistorical societies to examine their religious beliefs (since by definition, they don't have any writings--that's why they're called prehistorical), anthropologists have done the next best thing. They've studied current hunter-gatherer societies that haven't been influenced by the modern world to examine how we might have lived before the rise of Western modernity.

What they've discovered is that shamans do what they do primarily for money and sex.

In exchange for treating a patient, a shaman might receive yams (in Micronesia), sleds and harnesses (among the Eastern Eskimo), beads and coconuts (the Mentawai of Sumatra), tobacco (the Ojibwa of northeastern North America), or slaves (the Haida of western Canada)...

[A]mong some Eskimos, "A forceful shaman of established reputation may denounce a member of his group as guilty of an act repulsive to animals or spirits, and on his own authority he may command penance. … An apparently common atonement is for the shaman to direct an allegedly erring woman to have intercourse with him (his supernatural power counteracts the effects of her sinning)."

Despite other observations of outright fakery and extortion, Wright observes that not all shamanism is bad. Natural Selection has made us to be "self-absorbed, with a wary sense of separation from most of humanity. And it's true that various shamanic techniques—fasting, for example—can improve things in this regard." But don't be fooled into thinking to today's neo-pagan shamanism can lead us back to a golden age of spirituality. That age never existed.

In fact, one could perhaps formulate a rule regarding the shaman and his people: The more superstitious the group, the more likely they will be hoodwinked by their shaman . . . and be compelled to have sex with him.

Church sign: "Islam is of the Devil"

The members of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida erected a sign on its front lawn last Sunday that reads, "Islam is of the Devil."  The sign was vandalized and torn down that same evening but was re-erected the next day.  Pastor Terry Jones had this to say:

“We think we are losing our heritage as a Christian nation.”

Source: The Independent Florida Alligator

Mr. Jones is mistaken; the United States is not a Christian nation, nor was it ever intended to be, even if Christians comprise the majority of Americans.  By that reasoning, the US is also white nation, and a female nation. 

“To be a Christian, you would have to agree with that sign,” Jones said.

More poor reasoning.  While Christians have long argued with each other over what the requirements of being a Christian actually are, no one until now has declared that Christian membership requires agreeing with anti-Islam sentiments.

African albinos killed in the name of superstition

Boston.com's The Big Picture features a set of heartbreaking pictures of sub-Saharan African albinos.  These white-skinned Africans have long faced discrimination because of their appearance, but lately they've been hunted by monsters:

Albinos in Tanzania are increasingly targeted by those who would kill them for their body organs, limbs and even hair to be used in luck potions by others seeking wealth and good fortune in business and professional circles. According to local residents, witch doctors use the organs and bones in concoctions to divine for diamonds in the soil, while fishermen have been known to weave albino hair into their nets hoping for a big catch on Lake Victoria. More than 50 albinos have been killed in Tanzania and neighboring Burundi in the past year

Much like rhinos are captured to have their horns cut off so that poachers won't kill them for their horn's non-existent healing powers, these unfortunate people are hidden by humanitarians to protect them from superstitious murderers.

For those who would ask, "What's the harm?" in allowing people their religious nonsense, I suggest you pray to whatever God you worship that someone doesn't come to believe that your body parts have magical properties.

Genie sued for theft, harassment

In Saudi Arabia, a family is taking a genie (or 'djinni') to court, claiming the invisible spirit has thrown rocks at them when leaving the house and has stolen cellphones.

Genies are mentioned in the Koran ("I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me." 51:56), so per Islamic tradition they must be real, although the BBC correspondent reports that belief in genies predates Islam.

According to Sheikh Amr Al Salmi who is presiding over the case, "We have to verify the truthfulness of this case despite the difficulty of doing so."

Good luck with that.

Oakland raises tax revenue from marijuana

Many cities in America are suffering from budget crises due to the poor economy. The city of Oakland, California is finally doing what many advocated for years: Taxing marijuana sales.

Oakland residents overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to approve a first-of-its kind tax on medical marijuana sold at the city's four cannabis dispensaries...

Oakland's auditor estimates that based on annual sales of $17.5 million for the four clubs, it will generate an estimated $294,000 for city coffers in its first year.

The United States has wasted billions of dollars fighting the consumption of certain chemicals. And yet, after forty years since the War on Drugs was declared, not one beachhead has been secured, not one city has been liberated, not one hilltop has been claimed in victory. We can't keep drugs out of schools, or out of workplaces. We can't even keep them out of prisons. But every year, the war continues at a horrendous cost to our society.

The legalization of medical marijuana in California was a tiny but important step in a sensible policy toward drugs. Lawmakers are slowly waking up to the notion that rather than spending money to suppress a product that will be consumed anyway, they can make money on it instead.

I recently watched the film "Layer Cake", a seedy violent story about back-stabbing drug dealers in the UK. Daniel Craig plays a drug dealer who tries to maintain a level of integrity in his work.



The relevant portion starts at 1:00:

Drugs. Changed. Everything. Always remember that one day all this drug monkey business will all be legal. They won't leave it to people like me. Not once they figure out how much money is in it. Not millions. F*ing BILLIONS. Recreational Drugs PLC: "Giving People What They Want." Good times today, stupor tomorrow. But this is now. So while prohibition lasts, make hay while the sun shines.