Noah's Ark Revisited

Edward Hicks
Wikimedia Commons

I have a toddler, which means that for the last year and a half two years (wow, this has been in my drafts for that long?) I have seen a lot of kids toys and books. One thing that has really stuck me is that Noah's ark shows up a lot. I always find this striking as, by my reading, the Noah's ark story is really horrible. God decides to murder almost every person and animal on the planet, and the person he decides to save almost instantly shows himself to not be that great of a person. It's amazing to me that anyone would want to expose their children to such a story.

But then I started asking myself what I was missing. I look at this story and see a violent, maniacal God attacking his own creation, but clearly a great number of parents see something else. They see something that they value and want to share with their children. I want to find out what they see.

This kind of thing has been scratching at the back of my brain for a while. As I have read through Genesis I see very little of value. Much of it is nonsensical, God is often very violent, and his chosen people seem to be very shady indeed. And yet, this has been people's holy book for thousands of years. What am I missing? What would it take to see this story in a positive light? In an attempt to explore this angle, I have looked around at a few sermons online to see what positive messages they get out of the story, I will start by listing a few of these from their perspective. (I will respond to each point below).

1. Cleansing Evil

As one sermon put it "Mankind had become unbelievably evil... so much so that God was grieved and filled with pain and decided to send a flood to destroy all of mankind".

I can understand this view of things, it is pretty easy to look around the world today and see many evils. There seem to be evil people everywhere and I can certainly imagine a world where things are even worse than they are today. A few references to Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer can easily get us imagining a world full of people we might want to wipe out. Plus, God is doing this to get the world to a place where good can thrive. God is pained to have to go to such extreme measures, but ultimately he is getting rid of the bad to make way for the good.

(This first point is really the big one for this story. The remaining points below are interesting and worth talking about, but honestly, #1 is it. You have to fully accept this point or the story becomes pretty awful.)

2. Noah was Saved

As this sermon puts it, Noah was saved by the grace of God.

3. Noah was Obedient

God asked Noah to build the ark and Noah obeyed. By obeying God good things happen to him. If we also obey God good things should happen to us as well

4. Noah was Faithful

Noah had faith in God, that he would follow through with his word and cleans the world of evil by drowning. He also had faith that God would spare him and his family if he followed his commands

5. Noah was Fearful

Noah obeyed God out of fear. He was afraid of what would happen to him if he did not obey.

My Responses

1. Are the people who drowned in the flood irredeemably evil? To me, this is the crux of the story. If someone is rotten to the core and there is just nothing that can be done to make them a good person, then killing them seems like a reasonable thing to do. If we know that someone has committed a serious crime (say murder), and we also know that no matter what we do they will do it again given the opportunity, then the death penalty seems like a reasonable option.

However, what if they can be redeemed and made to see that what they have been doing is wrong? What if they can be changed in some meaningful way so that they will never commit such evil acts again? In this case, the evil has been cleansed without killing that person, and from the perspective of a loving God this seems like a much better solution. For the "cleansing evil" narrative to hold water, we must believe that every evil person who is going to be drowned in the flood is irredeemably evil. Are there some people in this category? Perhaps. Is everybody on the planet (including children) in this category? That's hard to believe.

When I look out in the world today, I see that most people are good. There are also many people who do bad things, but are really just in a bad situation. I think that for most of those people, if they could get dug out of whatever hole they are in and get a decent support system they would be much less likely to continue doing those bad things (I even saw a "documentary" about this). So in theory, if we really set our minds to it we could help most "bad" people to improve. Of course, there are some people who are rotten to the core, sociopaths and such that we really don't know how to get through to. For this story to make sense, everyone in the world (except Noah and his family) must be in this category. Furthermore, it has to be beyond God's power (not just ours) to improve them.

I just find this outside the realm of possibility and this seems to be the disconnect between most atheists and Christians on this topic. If the planet is full of people who are rotten to the core, who are so far gone that even God himself can't fix them, then it makes sense for him to kill everyone to make way for good people. But if people are not quite that bad, then the flood story is a tale of mass murder on an unimaginable scale. When I was a Christian I took for granted the idea that the world was full of evil, but that was mostly because I hadn't really thought about it. When I started questioning things this was definitely something that bothered me.

2. My first thought when I hear "Noah was saved" is that God is simply saving him from a death caused by God himself. If I almost killed you then stopped at the last second, you wouldn't exactly be giving me high-fives. The fact that God saved Noah from his own wrath does not earn him any brownie points from me.

But then I thought that perhaps the point was that God was saving Noah (and his lineage) from an evil world. If this is what is meant, I suppose I can grant that point. God is making the world a better place for Noah.

3. Obedience is one of those things that comes up in the bible a lot as a virtue. There is certainly a time and a place for it, obedience is really important in some circumstances. But there are also times when it is a bad thing. If someone commands you to do something awful (like murder your children) you shouldn't do it. Although I suppose in this story obedience is fine. If someone tells me they are going to murder everyone around me and they give me a way to avoid their wrath, I would probably do it too.

4. Noah has faith that God would follow through with his plan to murder nearly everyone on the planet and that if he built the ark he would be saved. I suppose that is a demonstration of faith, if Noah hadn't believed God he just wouldn't have done anything and died along with everyone else. Faith worked out for Noah in this story, but in general is it really a virtue?

5. This is one of those things that really confuses me. The whole idea of it being a good thing to be "God fearing". I should probably devote a whole post to this later on, but the idea of being God fearing seem antithetical to a loving God. Why is it a virtue to be fearful of a loving God? It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Work, Parenting, Blogging, and Time Management

It's been almost a year since I have posted anything, and over a year since I've posted anything of substance. I have been trying to spend as much time as possible with my son (who recently turned 2) and pretty much all of the rest of my time goes to my job. That combined with some horrible times management skills means that pretty much everything else in my life has fallen by the wayside. I've been trying to find ways lately to be better about time management both in work and at home and I'm really hoping to be able to add a little bit more balance to my life.

When it comes to blogging, for the most part I haven't thought about it, but it does sit in the back of my mind and I miss it. I really enjoy fleshing out an idea through the process of writing a blog post. It's still surprises me that some idea which I thought was completely solid and put together is actually very vague and nebulous once I try to put "pen" to "paper". I also really enjoy interacting with commentors and other bloggers.

I very much want to get back into things. I have a few ideas for the blog which I have been slowly forming over the past year or so. Of course I want to get back to the bible posts, although I think I have somewhat of a format change. I started writing a post reflecting on Noah's ark (which I never quite finished) and I really like how parts of it worked. I am planning on going back and finishing that post, and probably integrating parts of the style into the regular bible posts.

I also have some ideas on counter apologetics that I would like to explore. Of course, tons of atheist bloggers have done such posts, and since apologetics don't really seem to change in any interesting ways, we are all just treading the same ground for the most part. What I am mostly interested in is how to organize that information. My ideas on this are nebulous, but once I can really get back into the swing of things I would really like to pursue this and hopefully I can grow it into something useful.

I'd love to set some kind of a schedule, to post once a week or something, but I probably would just immediately fall behind (even this post sat in my drafts for a month). It's probably going to be somewhat erratic, but if I can get my feet under me a little bit at work I really do hope to be able to spend some time on the blog in the near future. If anyone is still watching this blog, I look forward to chatting with you in the near future. And stay tuned for that Noah's ark post, as I recall, it was almost done and just needed a little bit of editing, but it has been since around Christmas since I looked at it, so who knows :)

Busy Summer

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those of you who have stuck with me through the last year even though I haven't been posting very often might have noticed that my posts have dropped off even more as of late. Well, it has been a pretty crazy summer. Since my last post we have

1. Moved across the country (2 and a half day drive with dog and 1 year old baby in tow)
2. Bought a house
3. Bought a car
4. My wife started her job (which was the impetus for the move)
5. I got a job in our new location

It's been nuts! It's awesome, but we are fucking busy. I just wanted to poke my head out and say that I haven't gone away. I love blogging and I do intend to come back to it when I can. I miss it. When I get things under control I hope to get back to doing at least 1 post a week, hopefully more. Realistically though, I doubt I'm going to get a real post out in the next month or so. I am definitely going to continue with the bible posts, I have another long term project I want to get going when I have time for it (hahaha), and I think my new job will give me some material.

Those of you still following me, thanks for sticking around, I'll have a real post up as soon as I can manage it.

Exodus 14: Moses Parts the Red Sea

Scripture summary is in black
My comments and questions are in purple and numbered
Christian commentaries and my responses to those are in blue. Unless otherwise stated, these are from Guzik's commentary
(Note: I've changed my format a bit with this post, let me know if you like/dislike the changes)

Today's Podcast

Previously:

The Israelites are enslaved by the Egyptians, so God tells Moses to go rescue them. Moses proves to Pharaoh that God is on his side, but God hardens his heart so he won't let the people free. Then God sends plague after plague upon the Egyptians so Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go.

Crossing the Red Sea (v. 1-31)

God tells the Israelites to go to a particular spot and set up camp where they will be trapped by the sea. Then God will harden Pharaoh's heart to make him pursue the Israelites. Then God will "get glory over Pharaoh" and the Egyptians will know he is the lord. The king of Egypt was told that the Israelites had fled and his mind and the mind of his people was changed toward the people. They pursued the people of Israel as they had gone out defiantly.

1. Free Will: Once again, God has taken away Pharaoh's free will. He didn't simply make Pharaoh aware of the Israelite's apparent poor tactical position, he hardened his heart. 

Even after the horror of the death of the firstborn, the change in Pharaoh's heart was only temporary. He was quick to strike at Israel when he had the chance.

Wow, if Pharaoh was so quick to strike whenever he had the chance, then why did God have to harden his heart?

2. God's Motivation: The reason that God has done this is to "get glory over Pharaoh" and so "the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD". It really does appear that God is doing this just for his own ego, how does him getting glory help his people?

3. Do the Egyptians Know God is Powerful? God does this in part so that the Egyptians will know that God is the LORD. Why is this necessary? God just plagued the shit out of Egypt to convey this message. And the message was apparently received earlier when the people of Egypt insisted that the Israelites leave, have they forgotten the plagues already? It just doesn't make sense. 

i. This demonstrates how we are often quick to forget what God has done and what He has shown us. It is easy to quickly move from walking in the spirit to walking in the flesh. 

ii. Perhaps Pharaoh thought that the LORD had shot all His arrows and had no more "ammunition" against Egypt. After all, no more died after the plague of the firstborn; but God isn't short on resources. He had plenty of ammunition left.

ii doesn't make much sense to me, if Pharaoh thought that then he wouldn't have let them leave in the first place, right? i though, is exactly the kind of thing I remember hearing from church all the time. Seems like a good way to relate the story to our lives "don't be forgetful, don't fall into your old ways" etc. Seems good for that purpose I suppose, still though, for the story itself it doesn't make a lot of sense. Are you really going to forget so fast with so much death and destruction around you? 

4. Pharaoh and the King of Egypt: I was actually a bit confused on whether Pharaoh and the king are the same person. Verse 8 seems to suggest they are the same person. However, in verse 5 seems to suggest that the king is surprised that they Israelites have been set free even though in chapter 12 Pharaoh was the one who let them go in the first place. It's possibly a minor point, but the story doesn't really make sense if they are the same person. I wonder if this is a case of two different stories being merged into one. This would also explain why he has two different titles for no apparent reason.

5. Defiance: Verse 8 says that the people of Israel "were going out defiantly", but that makes no sense as they were told to leave Egypt. In fact, they were pushed out of Egypt so fast they weren't able to finish their bread, which is supposedly the origin of the unleavened bread at passover. Am I missing something here?

6. My Previous Christian Perspective: I often like to think about how I would justify things back when I was a Christian. I'm pretty sure that in this case I would have said that the Egyptians would chase the Israelites at some point in time no matter what God does. Therefore God is only manipulating the timetable of things rather than actually changing Pharaoh's ultimate actions. I'm fairly certain this would have satisfied me back then, but the problem is it is not supported by the text at all. If that's what God was doing why not say it? Instead he says he's doing it to get glory. I suppose it doesn't contradict the text, but if that was really the reason it seems like it should have been stated.When the Egyptians got near to the cornered Israelites they were very afraid and complained to Moses. They even said that they would rather have stayed in Egypt as slaves than to be killed out here. Moses said that God would fight for them and save them out here.

7. Should they be afraid? I've seen atheists complain about the reactions of the Israelite slaves in the past. "They have an all powerful God helping them, why would they be afraid?". And while that might play in a bit here, I can totally understand them being afraid anyway. Imagine yourself in the same situation, even if there is a really powerful being who can save you, are you sure he will? Hell, even if you were convinced that he was going to save you, it would still be scary seeing that army close in on you.

God complains that the people are crying to him. He tells the people to walk forward and for Moses to lift his staff in order to divide the sea so the Israelites can walk on dry ground there. God will then harden the hearts of the Egyptians to ensure that they will follow, then they will know that god is the LORD once he "gets glory" over them.

8. God's Attitude: I don't really understand why God is complaining about these people. He's put them in a very scary position with no apparent way out and they are asking him for help. He seems to be put off by it, like they should have known that Moses could part the sea for them. It kind of reminds me of the stereotypical douchebag IT guy from the 90s.

The children of Israel cried out to the LORD: This was a good thing to do. When we find ourselves in dangerous places with no easy escape, we must cry out to God, because God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1)

This I find interesting, he says that crying out to God was a good thing, and yet it seems to me that God is saying they shouldn't have done it. In verse 15 God says "Why do you cry out to me?" I was thinking perhaps I was reading too much into it, but then Guzik says

Their fear could be understood and their cry to the LORD made sense. Yet their words to Moses show a great lack of faith and loss of confidence in God.

So it's good to cry out to God, but you shouldn't need to if you have faith? I dunno, seems a bit mixed up to me. And one final comment along these lines

The children of Israel were not yet a week out of Egypt and they were already distorting the past, thinking that it was better for them in Egypt than it really was.

This just made me laugh. Yes, they were slaves in Egypt and the conditions were terrible. But they are comparing it to the fact that they think they're about to die. 

9. Free Will Again: Seriously, is there any part of this plan where God isn't manipulating the Egyptians to do what he needs them to do?

parting the red sea (Photo credit: amboo who?)

The pillar of cloud moved to be between the Israelites and the Egyptians and the two groups stays separated throughout the night. Moses raised his staff and there was a strong east wind all night that made the sea part like walls so the men could walk on dry land. The Israelites went onto the path and the Egyptians followed. In the morning God looked down from the pillar of cloud and fire and threw the Egyptians into a panic by clogging the chariot wheels so they would be slow. God had Moses hold his staff toward the Egyptians and the water rushed over them, yet the Israelites still were able to walk on dry land, having walls of water on both sides of them.  The Israelites saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore, so they feared the LORD because of the great power he used against the Egyptians, and they believed Moses.

10. How Long Did This Take? It's funny, my mental picture of this story has the water turning into walls pretty much instantaneously, yet in the actual story it takes all night. I suppose it's from a smattering of popular culture references that my impression is wrong here.

11. Omniscience? I find it interesting that God was looking down from the pillar of cloud and fire. This appears to be describing a powerful being in a specific physical place rather than an omniscient God.

12. Fear: I find the very concept of being "god fearing" and odd, it certainly seems to fly in the face of an omnibenevolent God

13. Violence: Once again, we see extreme violence from God, he kills tons of Egyptians apparently to prove a point to his people.

An oppressed people are slow to believe they are free while their tyrant still lives. God wanted Israel to know that their oppressors were dead

I guess that is a decent explanation as to why God would go to these extremes. Really seems like a fucked up route to go though.

Verses of Note:

--Fear--

Exodus 14:31 The Israelites fear God, which seems to largely be the point of this story

"Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses."

--Free Will--

Exodus 14:4,8,17 God takes away Pharaoh's free will again

"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD." And they did so."

"And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly."

"And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them..."

--God's Ego--

Exodus 14:4,18 God's motivation seems to be stroking his ego

"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD." And they did so."

"And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen."

--Violence--

Exodus 14:27-30 God killed all of the Egyptians in this story (through Moses)

"the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea....and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore"

How Hard is it to Follow My Bible Posts?

It's really interesting how being away from something for a while can give you a new perspective on it. The last bible post I did was about 3 months ago and I'm currently working on my Exodus 14 post. I went digging through an older post looking for something and I found the style of my bible posts kind of annoying. I do my summary in normal text, my reactions in italicized text, and Christian commentary in blue text. The italicized text doesn't look different enough from the normal text, so at a glance it's not always clear what is what. Further, I don't explain this scheme anywhere on the blog, so a newcomer won't know what the hell I'm doing (this is an easy fix with a quick explanation at the top, but god dammit man).

So I'm thinking the easiest fix will be to replace the italics with another color. I want something that is different enough from the black regular text to be easily identifiable, yet not to bright to be annoying to look at long enough to read the post. Yellows and reds seems to be out, I don't think I like those too much. I thought I would hate orange too, but now that I write it, maybe it's not so bad. There's also that green I used for other things. That looks fine, but like I said I have used it elsewhere. This purple looks alright as well. I dunno though, I kinda suck at colors (just ask my wife). I think I like all of the colorized versions (demonstrated below) better than the old italicized version, I'm just not sure which to go with. Also, if anyone is reading this and is actually good at this type of thing I'd love to hear other suggestions, either of different colors or just something else that I haven't thought of. The easy color options are shown below. Of course, I can use any color I want with a hex value, but doing it that was is much more of a pain in the ass, so I'd rather use one of these unless something else would look much better

Another thought I have is that I've been going back and forth between the story summary and the responses too fast. Sometimes a single line of story then a paragraph of responses. Feels really disjointed. I think a good fix to that will be to do much more summary at a time and then reply to multiple things at once in a reply section.

I have a few examples of the colors I'm toying with below. I think I'm leaning toward the purple, the orange seems a touch jarring to me and I've used the green for other things.

I know a number of you guys are bloggers yourselves and have probably had to think of these types of things before, what do you guys think?

Old style

Pillars of Cloud and Fire (v. 17-22)

When the people left Egypt, God didn't send them via the most direct route (through the land of the Philistines) because they might see war and return to Egypt.

Wait, what!?! They were slaves in Egypt, they would return to that voluntarily because they see war? Do they have to fight in this war if they pass through this land? I looked through other translations, and some indicate that they would have to fight to get through the land. Even still, fighting to get through a country would be different than actually taking a direct part in the war right? Especially with 600,000 men, you would think they can pass through without getting too terrible involved with the fighting.

But that's irrelevant anyway, they were cast out of Egypt so fast they had to take their bread without finishing it, and they didn't have other provisions ready. They wouldn't be allowed to return if they wanted to. It just doesn't make sense.

From Guzik:

It would have been easy for the Israelites to think that the Via Maris was the way to go; it had good, easy roads, the shortest distance, it was a trade route so food and water could be bought. But the dangers of the way were too great, even though they could not see them. The same is true of our walk with God; a way that seems right to us may turn out to be full of danger we can't even think of.

This is an interesting way to use this passage as a connection to our lives I suppose. I remember hearing this kind of thing in church all the time. It still doesn't solve the problem of the inherent ridiculousness of the passage itself. Even Guzik points out that if they go that way the people would see war and might return to Egypt. That makes no sense. 

New Style with three color options

Pillars of Cloud and Fire (v. 17-22)

When the people left Egypt, God didn't send them via the most direct route (through the land of the Philistines) because they might see war and return to Egypt.

Wait, what!?! They were slaves in Egypt, they would return to that voluntarily because they see war? Do they have to fight in this war if they pass through this land? I looked through other translations, and some indicate that they would have to fight to get through the land. Even still, fighting to get through a country would be different than actually taking a direct part in the war right? Especially with 600,000 men, you would think they can pass through without getting too terrible involved with the fighting.

But that's irrelevant anyway, they were cast out of Egypt so fast they had to take their bread without finishing it, and they didn't have other provisions ready. They wouldn't be allowed to return if they wanted to. It just doesn't make sense.

From Guzik:

It would have been easy for the Israelites to think that the Via Maris was the way to go; it had good, easy roads, the shortest distance, it was a trade route so food and water could be bought. But the dangers of the way were too great, even though they could not see them. The same is true of our walk with God; a way that seems right to us may turn out to be full of danger we can't even think of.

This is an interesting way to use this passage as a connection to our lives I suppose. I remember hearing this kind of thing in church all the time. It still doesn't solve the problem of the inherent ridiculousness of the passage itself. Even Guzik points out that if they go that way the people would see war and might return to Egypt. That makes no sense. 

Pillars of Cloud and Fire (v. 17-22)

When the people left Egypt, God didn't send them via the most direct route (through the land of the Philistines) because they might see war and return to Egypt.

Wait, what!?! They were slaves in Egypt, they would return to that voluntarily because they see war? Do they have to fight in this war if they pass through this land? I looked through other translations, and some indicate that they would have to fight to get through the land. Even still, fighting to get through a country would be different than actually taking a direct part in the war right? Especially with 600,000 men, you would think they can pass through without getting too terrible involved with the fighting.

But that's irrelevant anyway, they were cast out of Egypt so fast they had to take their bread without finishing it, and they didn't have other provisions ready. They wouldn't be allowed to return if they wanted to. It just doesn't make sense.

From Guzik:

It would have been easy for the Israelites to think that the Via Maris was the way to go; it had good, easy roads, the shortest distance, it was a trade route so food and water could be bought. But the dangers of the way were too great, even though they could not see them. The same is true of our walk with God; a way that seems right to us may turn out to be full of danger we can't even think of.

This is an interesting way to use this passage as a connection to our lives I suppose. I remember hearing this kind of thing in church all the time. It still doesn't solve the problem of the inherent ridiculousness of the passage itself. Even Guzik points out that if they go that way the people would see war and might return to Egypt. That makes no sense. 

Pillars of Cloud and Fire (v. 17-22)

When the people left Egypt, God didn't send them via the most direct route (through the land of the Philistines) because they might see war and return to Egypt.

Wait, what!?! They were slaves in Egypt, they would return to that voluntarily because they see war? Do they have to fight in this war if they pass through this land? I looked through other translations, and some indicate that they would have to fight to get through the land. Even still, fighting to get through a country would be different than actually taking a direct part in the war right? Especially with 600,000 men, you would think they can pass through without getting too terrible involved with the fighting.

But that's irrelevant anyway, they were cast out of Egypt so fast they had to take their bread without finishing it, and they didn't have other provisions ready. They wouldn't be allowed to return if they wanted to. It just doesn't make sense.

From Guzik:

It would have been easy for the Israelites to think that the Via Maris was the way to go; it had good, easy roads, the shortest distance, it was a trade route so food and water could be bought. But the dangers of the way were too great, even though they could not see them. The same is true of our walk with God; a way that seems right to us may turn out to be full of danger we can't even think of.

This is an interesting way to use this passage as a connection to our lives I suppose. I remember hearing this kind of thing in church all the time. It still doesn't solve the problem of the inherent ridiculousness of the passage itself. Even Guzik points out that if they go that way the people would see war and might return to Egypt. That makes no sense. 


Pillars of Cloud and Fire (v. 17-22)

When the people left Egypt, God didn't send them via the most direct route (through the land of the Philistines) because they might see war and return to Egypt.

Wait, what!?! They were slaves in Egypt, they would return to that voluntarily because they see war? Do they have to fight in this war if they pass through this land? I looked through other translations, and some indicate that they would have to fight to get through the land. Even still, fighting to get through a country would be different than actually taking a direct part in the war right? Especially with 600,000 men, you would think they can pass through without getting too terrible involved with the fighting.

But that's irrelevant anyway, they were cast out of Egypt so fast they had to take their bread without finishing it, and they didn't have other provisions ready. They wouldn't be allowed to return if they wanted to. It just doesn't make sense.

From Guzik:

It would have been easy for the Israelites to think that the Via Maris was the way to go; it had good, easy roads, the shortest distance, it was a trade route so food and water could be bought. But the dangers of the way were too great, even though they could not see them. The same is true of our walk with God; a way that seems right to us may turn out to be full of danger we can't even think of.

This is an interesting way to use this passage as a connection to our lives I suppose. I remember hearing this kind of thing in church all the time. It still doesn't solve the problem of the inherent ridiculousness of the passage itself. Even Guzik points out that if they go that way the people would see war and might return to Egypt. That makes no sense. 

Prison, Hell, and Child Abuse

(Photo credit: Chris.Gray)

Today's Podcast

Prison is a scary place and no parent wants their child to end up there. As part of teaching your children about the world, it is a good idea to tell them about prison and the kinds of things that people can do to end up there. If you think your children are particularly at risk for going to prison, you might spend a fair amount of time warning your kids about the kinds of activities that land them there. If you see them engaging in dangerous behavior, a prudent course of action would be to warn them against those behaviors.

However, suppose you obsess about the possibility of your kids going to prison and talk about it all the time. Perhaps even with the intention of scaring them to keep them safe. Your children could easily suffer some psychological issues from this and we might want to call this child abuse.

Now, suppose we hear about a parent who is teaching their child about prison, do we assume that the action is child abuse? I would argue that such an assumption would be irresponsible of us. Sure, it is possible that the parent could be obsessing about prison and causing their child to live in a world of fear. But it is also possible that they are teaching their children about prison in a reasonable way.

For my purposes, prison is just an analogy for hell. The point here is that I "recently" (damn, more than a month ago) wrote about my dislike of the common atheist meme that indoctrination is child abuse. A very brief summary of my argument was that since the Christians truly believe that hell is real we shouldn't call it abuse when they tell their children about it. In the comments, Cephus pointed out that some NAMBLA members really believe that having sex with young boys is good for the boys, by my logic we couldn't call this abuse either*. Clearly with this example at hand it is clear my logic was flawed. The beliefs of a person committing an act does not affect whether or not their action is abuse.

So I thought back about what had been annoying me in the first place that motivated me to write that post. What I don't like is the wholesale statement that indoctrination is child abuse. Teaching your children your religion does not necessarily constitute child abuse, it depends on how you do it. Replace "prison" with "hell" in my first 3 paragraphs and we can see an example of this. Teaching your children about hell can be very damaging psychologically, but it doesn't have to be. If it is mentioned briefly and never emphasized it probably won't cause any issues (my wife grew up in this type of environment).

In my first post I focused on the wrong detail. Whether the parents believe in hell or not is irrelevant. If they teach their kids about hell in an abusive way then it is abuse. If they teach their kids about hell in a responsible way it is not. Whether or not hell is a real place is irrelevant to the discussion (although it does add a dimension of disgust for atheists to think the kids are being subjected to psychological torture for nothing).

So is indoctrination child abuse? I think the only reasonable answer is "sometimes". Certainly some denominations are worse than others. I would say that fundamentalists fit this category more often than other churches. But even that is not universal. If you want to talk about religion as child abuse, I think the only reasonable thing to do is focus on a particular behavior and identify why you see it as abusive. This could spark an interesting discussion, who knows, you might even convince someone of your point of view. But making the broad statement that all religion is child abuse will just turn off any religious people who are listening.

(*note: I am in no way saying that the actions of NAMBLA members are equivalent to teaching your child about hell. In fact, the whole point is that they are significantly different, and yet my logic applied to both indicating that the logic is flawed)

Indoctrination and Child Abuse

Today's Podcast

It is not terribly uncommon to see atheists make the claim that raising someone with religion is tantamount to child abuse. Recently (say, over the past year or so) this has really irked me when I hear it. I wish atheists would stop using the argument as it seems quite hyperbolic to me. Statements like this have huge potential to alienate exactly the types of Christians that I would like to engage with. On the other hand, I have to admit that when I was going through the early stages of my atheism this type of statement resonated with me big time. In this post I am going to explore these two conflicting thoughts on this common statement.

Why does this stuff resonate so well with many atheists?

I first heard the "religion is child abuse" meme when I was new to atheism. At the time I was very angry at religion, I see it as responsible for a lot of the pain I experienced as a child. The fear of hell and thought-crimes were the biggest offenders, but there were a great many things about the religion that affected my childhood in a negative way. I was terrified of hell a lot during my childhood, there were plenty of nights where I was unable to sleep as I had these fears running through my head. I was afraid to try new things unless I was certain it was acceptable from the church's perspective. I was afraid to ask questions as the answers might lead me to losing my faith. Being mired in fear is a really shitty way to grow up.

The fear was instilled so deeply that there was even a couple of years when I didn't believe in any of it anymore and yet I was still afraid of hell. I definitely wasn't a Christian and I was pretty sure I didn't believe in God anymore, and yet I just assumed this meant I was going to hell. I had some pretty serious struggles with depression during this time. I have heard similar things from quite a few atheists, it really shows how strong indoctrination can be. Many atheists say that the reason this kind of fear is instilled in people is so the church can keep members, although I would guess that the causation is the other way around, the church still exists because it instills this kind of fear but they don't subject people to fear for that reason.

Source

But details aside, the point is that I look back at my childhood and I see that the indoctrination I experienced as a child definitely caused me years of unnecessary anguish. In this state I heard people say that religion is child abuse and it really resonated. Furthermore, pictures like this will pop up from time to time and I find them creepy as hell. I feel really sorry for those kids, it seems to me that they will either be Christians for life or they will experience the kind of pain I did when they leave the church. I really wish there was something I could do to make that not happen.

But is it appropriate to call this child abuse?

What makes something abuse? Is it simply that it causes someone distress? Imagine my son is playing in our front yard and I scream at him, which makes him stop what he's doing, sit down, and cry. If I'm doing this just to fuck with him I'm a horrible father and we might want to call it abuse (especially if it is a regular occurrence). If I just stopped him from running in front of a car then perhaps I just saved his life.

So where does indoctrination fall? Let's focus on the doctrine of hell for a moment, is it abuse or not? I think many atheists see it as causing pain for no good reason. Hell doesn't exist and yet they were tormented for years because of the thought of going there after they die. Being tortured for eternity is terrifying, and the made up threat is designed to keep them in line. From this perspective it definitely feels like abuse.

But what if hell were real? Whether or not it scares them is beside the point, you must warn your children about hell and in so doing help them avoid it. If hell were real it would be your duty to tell your children about it, a little fear is a small price to pay compared to an eternity of torture. If my son was running in front of a moving car and I sat back and did nothing I would be a negligent father, if hell were real and I said nothing the same logic would apply.

So what is the real situation? Does hell exist and the Christian parents are doing their due diligence by telling their children about it, or is hell made up nonsense and they are causing their children undue pain? This is the disconnect, Christians think we are in the first situation and atheists think we are in the second. Many atheists see the unnecessary pain and call it child abuse, but the Christian parents think they are saving their children's souls. Even if we are right, I think child abuse is an unfair charge.

Return to my analogy with my son running out in front of a car. Suppose that after I scare him I realize that the car was parked. He was never in any danger, it turns out I scared him for no good reason. Does this make me a bad father? Does it make my actions child abuse? Hell no! I should probably pay more attention to my surroundings and those of my son, but an abuser I am not.

The Christians see a car aimed at their children and they are trying to keep them from getting run over. It is up to us to convince them that the car is parked. We need to work to convince them that hell is not real. We should tell them that we think they are wrong and more importantly tell them why. But we should not call them monsters for doing what logically makes sense based on the beliefs that they hold. All that does is make us look like dicks and gives them a reason to dismiss us.

**edit 27 April 2014** I have been reconsidering my thoughts on this topic. I am still working through some of and I am planning on writing another post on the topic soon (probably in a couple weeks, this week and next weekend will be very busy for me). If you have anything to add please throw a comment in. I'd love to hear more perspectives on this.

2nd edit: I finally wrote a follow up post