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Jesus Christ vs. Sathya Sai Baba

March 10, 2011 in Christianity | by | 10 comments

tissotresurrection_thumb4_thumb[11]This blog post is part of the ‘The Resurrection of Jesus’ series. In this series, evidence that has been put forward by Christian apologists in support of the idea that Jesus was resurrected will be explored and critically examined. As we shall see, most of this evidence isn’t even good evidence in the first place, and they are insufficient to justify the conclusion that the story of the resurrection of Jesus is true.

Jesus Christ

Christians believe that about 2,000 years ago a Jewish teacher called Yeshua (Jesus) roamed across Palestine healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, making the crippled walk and raising at least one man from the dead. It is also believed that he himself was raised from the dead after he was crucified by Romans.

Famed Christian apologist William Lane Craig offers the following reasons as to why he thinks the gospels should be assumed to be reliable until proven wrong:

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased.

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends." Tales like those of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill or contemporary urban legends like the "vanishing hitchhiker" rarely concern actual historical individuals and are thus not analogous to the gospel narratives.

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable. In an oral culture like that of first century Palestine the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition was a highly prized and highly developed skill. From the earliest age children in the home, elementary school, and the synagogue were taught to memorize faithfully sacred tradition. The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision. Since those who had seen and heard Jesus continued to live and the tradition about Jesus remained under the supervision of the apostles, these factors would act as a natural check on tendencies to elaborate the facts in a direction contrary to that preserved by those who had known Jesus.

5. The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.

From: The Evidence for Jesus

The few historians of antiquity who are claimed to have written about Jesus include Josephus Flavius (93AD), Pliny (110AD),Suetonius (110AD) and Tacitus (107AD). The writings of these historians are often presented by apologists as extra-biblical confirmation of the accounts of the gospels. There are many reasons as to why these writings do not constitute evidence of the reliability of the gospels (see: Examining The Extra-Biblical Evidence for Jesus).

It is on the basis of the alleged ‘reliability’ of the gospels (as claimed by Christian apologists), and the writings of the aforementioned historians which mention Jesus, that Christians believe that Jesus Christ not only existed, but was also divine, as the gospels suggest.

Sathya Sai Baba:

Let me now introduce you Sathya Sai Baba… 

sathya sai babaAccording to Wikipedia:

Sathya Sai Baba , born Sathyanarayana Raju on 23 November 1926, is a popular, South Indian guru,spiritual figure and educator. He is described by his devotees as an avatar, godman, spiritual teacher and miracle worker. The apparent materializing of vibuthi (holy ash) and small objects such as rings, necklaces and watches by Sathya Sai Baba has been a source of both fame and controversy – skeptics consider these simple conjuring tricks, while devotees consider them evidence of divinity. Sathya Sai Baba has claimed to be the reincarnation of the great spiritual guru, Sai Baba of Shirdi, whose teachings were an eclectic blend of Hindu and Muslim beliefs.

There is no real reason to doubt the existence of Sathya Sai Baba. He is very much alive today, with tens of millions of followers in over 178 countries:

 

Some of the alleged miracles attributed to him include:

  • Magically materialising a surgical knife out of thin air, and performing an appendectomy on a patient (link)
  • Demonstrating omnipresence (link)
  • Healing a crippled boy (link)
  • Performing a delivery on a pregnant woman in her dreams, only for her to wake up to find beautiful twins by her bedside (link)
  • Brings a man back to life (link)

Many, many more independent accounts of purported miracles of Sathya Sai Baba can be found here, here, here, and here – and there is no shortage of devotees alive today claiming to have been first hand witnesses to his miraculous acts.

But is there any reason to believe that these claims are true?

Fortunately, some have taken the trouble to investigate these claims and have found them to be fraudulent:

 

Even in an age of advanced scientific knowledge, and the availability of digital technology to capture and analyse images (like the above video), there are millions who believe in the miracle claims of Sathya Sai Baba despite there being no record of him performing the alleged miracles under controlled conditions.

If people can be this credulous today, despite there being in existence the tools to verify claims of alleged magic (which has so far never been demonstrated to be real) – imagine how much more credulous people must have been 2000 years ago, around the times the gospels were written.

Applying the same standards of evidence:

Here is a recap of Craig’s reasons for accepting the reliability of the gospels (inane as they are), contrasted with how they could equally be used to defend the claims of divinity of Sathya Sai Baba:

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts.

Well, Sathya Sai Baba is alive today. And so are his followers who claim to be ‘witnessing’ his alleged miracles even today.

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends."

Again, Sathya Sai Baba is alive today. And so are his followers who claim to be ‘witnessing’ his alleged miracles even today.

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable.

Stories of Sathya Sai Baba’s life have been covered by the BBC, which has a reputation for being fairly reliable by today’s rigorous standards. It certainly has a more highly developed method of transmission of its information (electronic and digital), than the Jews did 2000 years ago!

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision.

First of all, there is no way of verifying this.

Secondly, the apostles of Jesus are not disinterested third-parties, but stake-holders in the popularisation and propagation of a religious tradition. Supervision by the apostles is precisely what would lead to embellishment of stories of Jesus, and that is what we see when the gospels are examined. Embellished accounts of Santhya Sai Baba’s life are also exactly what we are getting from his followers today, many of whom claim to have witnessed Sathya Sai Baba’s miracles themselves, first-hand.

5. The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.

How so? This is ridiculous. 97% of Mark’s Gospel is duplicated in Matthew; and 88% is found in Luke. The Gospel of Mark, meanwhile, was written 40 years after the events it describes, and there is no knowledge of where the author of Mark (by the way all the canonical gospels are anonymous, with the names ascribed to them later, arbitrarily, by the Church) got his information from.

Compare this with Sathya Sai Baba, meanwhile, whose exploits have been reported by people who are still alive today, who can be contacted for more information or corroboration.

We can even go talk to the man himself if we have to, so the ‘historical reliability’ of the accounts of Sathya Sai Baba’s magical exploits aren’t an issue at all.

consistency

Going by the standards of evidence Christian apologists are willing to use in defense of the divinity of Jesus, if they are consistent, they would also have to conclude that Sathya Sai Baba is who his followers believe he is… a ‘Godman’…

But of course we don’t believe that Sathya sai Baba is a ‘Godman’, and nor can any rational person. By the same token, we can’t believe in the divinity of Jesus either. The reason is simple. The evidence being offered is simply not good enough.

As a critical thinker, when faced with a claim, before accepting it to be true, one must float as many possible explanations for that claim. These proposed explanations must then be analysed to see which one is most consistent with the available evidence. Out of all the possible explanations, the one that is best supported by the available evidence is the one that should be deemed the most likely one.

As it is, claims of this nature (miracles by religious figures) have many possible explanations… fraud, misinterpretation, superstition, etc.. which are much more likely, when compared to supernatural explanations for them. We have numerous verified instances of religious fraud. We have numerous verified instances of people being mistaken about phenomena they thought were supernatural. We have numerous verified instances of superstitions flourishing and growing into religious movements. But we do NOT have verified instances of supernatural events occurring in the world.

Conclusion:

Maybe there was a man called Yeshua 2,000 years ago roaming through Palestine antagonising the Romans and religious elites of his day with highly controversial socio-political views. As far as we know there were many such people in the region during that time, and he could have been one of them. But to say this person, if he existed, also performed miracles, walked on water, and rose from the dead, is another matter altogether.

Fictitious magical stories are told/written all the time about people who have existed historically (or exist even today), just like the examples we’ve seen of Sathya Sai Baba, and others. 

For claims of the divinity of Jesus and Sathya Sai Baba to be taken seriously, the quality of evidence should be exceptionally good. Hearsay (i.e. unsubstantiated claims) from the followers of the the people in question cannot suffice – even if reports of such hearsay appear in the news.

And because hearsay is all we have, we are justified in not taking the claims of the divinity of either Jesus or Sathya Sai Baba seriously.

UPDATE: Sathya Sai Baba died on Sunday April 24th 2011.

Related Posts:

Examining the Extra-Biblical Evidence for Jesus

March 10, 2011 in Christianity | by | 7 comments

tissotresurrection_thumb4This blog post is part of the ‘The Resurrection of Jesus’ series. In this series, evidence that has been put forward by Christian apologists in support of the idea that Jesus was resurrected will be explored and critically examined. As we shall see, most of this evidence isn’t even good evidence in the first place, and they are insufficient to justify the conclusion that the story of the resurrection of Jesus is true.

roman empireThe Roman Empire

The following are names of some of the Roman historians of antiquity who lived in and around the Mediterranean region, including some of the very places that Jesus and his apostles are said to have moved about.

Not a single one of these historians ever even mentions the existence of Jesus Christ, a man who was supposedly performing miraculous wonders and drawing crowds by the thousands, inciting the Jewish populace, aggravating the Roman authorities, and resurrecting from the dead. For if there were such a man, and he did the things the gospel writers claimed he did, is it possible for him to have gone unmentioned in Roman records? It is noteworthy that Jesus is not even mentioned anywhere in the official Roman historical records of the events in Palestine during the time of he is said to have existed.

As such, there are no contemporaneous (i.e. within his life time) historical records of Jesus.

The only historical records in existence having to do with Jesus were written several decades after the events of the life of Jesus as alleged in the gospels. The funny thing is, those records aren’t even really about Jesus at all, but about the followers of a Jewish religious sect that came to be known as “Christians”, in the Roman Empire. 

The few historians of antiquity to whom writings about this Jewish sect have been attributed include Josephus Flavius (93AD), Pliny (110AD),Suetonius (110AD) and Tacitus (107AD). The writings of these historians are, strangely, presented by apologists as extra-biblical confirmation of the accounts of the gospels.

Josephus Flavius:

Josephus’ passage regarding Jesus is part of his historical document entitled ‘Antiquities of the Jews’ which he wrote in 93AD (over fifty years from the time of the supposed life of Jesus). From this document is derived the famous passage, known as Testimonium Flavianum. It reads:

About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease [to follow him], for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvelous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.

(Josephus Antiquities 18.3.3)

There are two reasons why this passage cannot be treated as proof of Jesus’ existence, or proof of the veracity of the gospel accounts of this person called Jesus (assuming he existed).

First of all, being a document written well over half a century after the events of the gospels, Josephus writes not as an eye-witness of the supposed events, but as someone simply reporting the fact that there existed people who were called Christians, and that they believed in a resurrected Jesus. He is reporting what he has heard regarding Jesus, from the early Christians. No one disputes that in the first century there were Christians in the Roman Empire. What is in dispute is whether what early Christians were saying about a person named Jesus is true or not, which Josephus cannot, and is in no position to corroborate.

For example, imagine receiving a letter from your cousin in Nairobi that says:

Hi Gerald, Nairobi is the same as always. Oh, guess what? Last week an American evangelist was in Mombasa. People saw Jesus standing right next to him throughout his crusade…

The cousin who is writing this letter is clearly not an eye-witness, and is merely reporting what he has heard. Therefore when he says people saw Jesus standing next to the preacher – it cannot be regarded as fact – but merely hearsay. The same can be said of the Josephus passage. The same can also be said of those that Josephus heard about Jesus from, for even they could not have been eye-witnesses to the events themselves, but were only reciting what they had also heard from tradition.

Secondly, one needs to look no further than the Catholic Encyclopedia. It says of Josephus Flavius, regarding Testimonium Flavianum, ‘the passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations’. (Interpolations are later insertions made by other writers to an original text). In other words, even the Catholic Church concedes that this complementary passage about Jesus in Josephus’ document, were added on later by Christians. Its authenticity has been disputed since the 17th century, and by the mid 18th century the consensus view was that it was a forgery.

Suetonius:

In Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Roman Historian Suetonius (c. 69–140) wrote about riots which broke out in the Jewish community in Rome under the Emperor Claudius:

"As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome"

Here, Suetonius is describing events that took place about 30 years after Jesus’ death. He himself was not even born by then.

No one disputes that in the first century there were Christians in the Roman Empire. What is in dispute is whether what early Christians were saying about a person named Jesus is true or not, which Suetonius cannot, and is in no position to corroborate.

Tacitus:

Tacitus writing c. 116, included in his Annals a mention of Christianity and Christ. In describing Nero’s persecution of Christians following the Great Fire of Rome, he wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt [of starting the blaze] and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius [14-37] at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

This passage is from a document written in the second century, over 70 years since the time Jesus is said to have been killed. Again, similar to the passages of Josephus and Suetonius, Tacitus is simply reporting the fact that there existed Christians, and how they got their name. He says, ‘Christus, from whom the name [Christians] had its origin….’. This cannot be used as evidence that the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus are true, but rather as evidence that there were people at the time who believed in someone they claimed to be called the Christ, and from whom the term ‘Christian’ was derived.

No one disputes that in the first century there were Christians in the Roman Empire. What is in dispute is whether what early Christians were saying about a person named Jesus is true or not, which Tacitus cannot, and is in no position to corroborate.

Pliny the Younger:

In a letter to Emperor Trajan (who ruled the Roman Empire from the year 98 to 117), Roman lawyer, magistrate, and author Pliny wrote:

Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ — none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshiped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.

Even though there seem to be reports on the activities of the early Christians by these historians, it cannot be assumed that the Christian tradition required a historical Jesus to have actually lived in order for it to exist. Otherwise by virtue of the fact that there also exists in the historical record traditions of the worship of pagan gods Horus, Zeus, Perseus, Hercules, Osiris,Dionysus, Attis and Mithras – these pagan gods were real also, and must have existed.

OsirisOsiris

Of course, no one today believes that these gods ever existed, or exist today in reality – and with good reason.

There isn’t evidence to justify such beliefs.

While it is, in principle, possible that a socially and politically controversial Jew called Yeshua or Jesus existed, had followers during that period, and died at the hands of the Romans (there were many such individuals and movements in the region during that time in history), it still wouldn’t mean the stories about him written in the gospels are true.

Even in this day and age there are numerous alleged ‘first-hand eye-witness accounts’ of miracles performed by ‘Godmen’ and witchdoctors (see: Jesus Christ vs. Sathya Sai Baba and The Banda Witchcraft Saga) but we do not believe them to be true, with good reason. The reason being that we are aware of the human propensity to lie, fabricate (whole or in part), exaggerate, misreport, misrepresent, misinterpret, mythologize, etc.. and the evidence at hand simply isn’t sufficient to rule these out, in favour of a supernatural explanation.

In fact, the evidence available points to the strong likelihood that stories like these are the result of either lies, fabrications (whole or in part), exaggerations, misreporting, misrepresentation, misinterpretation, mythologizing, etc.. rather than anything supernatural.

Issue of Historicity:

The majority of biblical scholars believe that there was a man called Jesus who existed, though they do not think he was divine. The most common theory among bible scholars today is that Jesus was a teacher of some kind, and there are others who consider him to have been an apocalyptic prophet. The minority view among bible scholars is that the Jesus depicted in the gospels is the actual Jesus.

More here.

Conclusion:

The most we can learn from what these Roman historians (Josephus, et al) wrote is that there existed a Jewish religious sect that came to be known as “Christians” during the first and second centuries. History tells us that there is nothing particularly unusual about this, as there were several other Jewish religious sects also making waves at the time.

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End of the World? May 21st Fever Hits Kampala

January 14, 2011 in Christianity, News, Uganda | by | 8 comments

billboard on kampala road

The billboard above is currently located on Kampala Road in front of Cairo Bank  – at the centre of Kampala City. Its been up for the last 3 days.

This particular ‘end of the world’ prediction comes courtesy of a Christian broadcaster named Harold Camping who had earlier prophesied that “Jesus would return in 1994”. He is also the founder of FamilyRadio.com in which more of this type of nonsense can be found.

And people wonder why we don’t take religion seriously…

This Season, Celebrate Reason

November 29, 2010 in Atheism, Christianity, Religion | by | 13 comments

Okay, so the overwhelming majority of New testament scholars agree that the story of the Nativity of Jesus is a religious work of fiction. December 25th was celebrated long before the advent of Christianity as the day of the Winter Solstice, and was very much a pagan holiday until it was co-opted by the Church several centuries later. The pagan origins of the December 25th holiday are well known even among Christians, with some denominations even going as far as rejecting it wholesale specifically because of this.

So what’s new?

Well, an organisation called American Atheists has put up a huge billboard (pictured below) that features a nice warm and fuzzy message, based on what most of us already know about Christmas, for people in the New Jersey area.

click to see larger image of billboard

Perfectly appropriate for this holiday season, wouldn’t you say?

Celebrate Reason.

Anti-Gay Pastors and their HYPOCRISY

September 24, 2010 in Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Christianity | by | 1 comment

It now comes as no surprise.

Evangelical pastors are often among the most homophobic, anti-gay public figures one might ever encounter, but in the end, its always the same result. For the more prominent ones, at some point, their dirty little secrets come pouring out and the world gets to see them for who they really are.

Lousy HYPOCRITES.

Here are examples:

  • Ted Haggard, who was pastor of New Life Church and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals was found, in 2006, to have been secretly visiting a male prostitute over a period of 3 years. In 2009 he admitted to a second homosexual relationship with a male church member, and has since declined to discuss his other homosexual relationships. Haggard is married, and has five children.
  • George Rekers, a far-right Christian leader, Baptist minister and member of the board of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), was in early 2010 photographed at Miami International Airport returning from an extended overseas trip with a twenty-year-old gay male prostitute.

The latest entrant in the string of scandals among anti-gay Evangelical pastors is one featuring Bishop Eddie Long.

The New York Times reports:

Two young men in Georgia said Tuesday that the pastor of a 33,000-person Baptist mega-church, Bishop Eddie L. Long, had repeatedly coerced them into having sex with him.

… and what do we know about Bishop Eddie Long? The New York times article continues:

Bishop Long is an outspoken critic of homosexuality and has been called by the Southern Poverty Law Center “one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement.” 

Long currently denies the charges against him.

Bishop Eddie Long

Bishop Eddie Long

This continuing trend of anti-gay pastors getting exposed proves one thing about them when it comes to homosexuality… he who preaches loudest, and judges harshest, is so very often the greatest offender of the thing he preaches so heavily against.

It would have been one thing for it to just be about these hypocrites. If it were, we would simply laugh them off as the clowns they are and paid no further attention. Sadly, its not just about them. Millions of LGBT people have suffered indescribable misery as a result of the vilification that homophobic preachers like Eddie Long and people like him in Uganda and elsewhere around the world have caused through their sustained public advocacy of bigotry.

Related posts:

‘God’ the Protector?

September 19, 2010 in Christianity | by | 4 comments

If Christians believe that…

Psalm 91:

1 Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 This I declare of the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I am trusting him.

3 For he will rescue you from every trap and protect you from the fatal plague.

4 He will shield you with his wings. He will shelter you with his feathers. His faithful promises are your armour and protection.

5 Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night, nor fear the dangers of the day,

6 nor dread the plague that stalks in darkness, nor the disaster that strikes at midday.

7 Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you.

8 But you will see it with your eyes; you will see how the wicked are punished.

9 If you make the LORD your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter,

10 no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your dwelling.

11 For he orders his angels to protect you wherever you go.

12 They will hold you with their hands to keep you from striking your foot on a stone.

13 You will trample down lions and poisonous snakes; you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet!

14 The LORD says, "I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name.

15 When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue them and honour them.

16 I will satisfy them with a long life and give them my salvation."

…is true, then how come…

Pope-Benedict-on-Lambeth--006

_44578467_popemobile_afp466

_41691996_popemobile_afp416

popemobile_gallery__578x400 

 

..the Pope is always so heavily guarded? Doesn’t he believe in what Psalm 91 says?

 

political-pictures-pope-benedict-xvi-faith-bulletproof Maybe not.

Pope Benedict XVI Associates Atheism With Nazism

September 19, 2010 in Atheism, Christianity | by | 4 comments

VATICAN POPEPope Benedict XVI  is in the U.K. for a four-day visit. He is in Britain from September 16-19, making the first Papal visit to the UK for 28 years. Coming at a time when there is a a lot of discontent regarding the Catholic church’s handing of issues such as the child sex abuse scandals, and its controversial views on condom use even in AIDS ravaged third world countries, among others.

More than three-quarters of British citizens consider this visit to be a waste of tax-payers’ money. This isn’t surprising considering that the UK is a country where church attendance in the UK is at an all time low, with only about 40% professing belief in ‘God’.

Soon after his arrival, during his opening address to the Queen of England he said the following:

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a “reductive vision of the person and his destiny”

Understandably, many atheists are upset by these remarks. Some think this statement was an attempt by the Pope to shift the focus from the child sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic church, to atheism and its alleged association with Nazism. Atheists might then spend more time defending themselves against this (ludicrous) allegation, instead of bringing undesired attention to the problems some of them might see with the Catholic church, during the Pope’s visit.

But just so that we can set the record straight, and since the many of the Catholic Church’s problems are already well known to all, I think I should join others in debunking the claim that ‘Nazi tyranny’ wished to eradicate ‘God’ from society.

Adolf-Hitler Below are some quotes by Adolf Hitler himself, leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, better known as the Nazi Party:

"The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge."

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

 

"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work."

[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]

 

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 46]

 

"What we have to fight for…is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator."

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 125]

 

"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief."

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.152]

 

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so"

[Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]

 

"Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise."

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1]

 

"For this, to be sure, from the child’s primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: ‘Lord, make us free!’ is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: ‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’

[Adolf Hitler’s prayer, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 2 Chapter 13]

 

"The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life"

[Adolph Hitler, in a speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933]

 

"Today Christians … stand at the head of [this country]… I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press – in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* during the past … (few) years."

[The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872]

hitler - catholic Adolf Hitler and Catholic Papel Nuncio Archbishop Orsenigo

Adolf Hitler was a self-professed Christian, and the Nazi adoration for ‘God’ is evident as was also reflected in the uniform of the German army. Below is a belt-buckle of the Wehrmacht (unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945) during World War II. The inscription reads “Gott Mit Uns” which is German for “God With Us”.

1069962

Anti-Semitism:

What about the anti-Semitism that paved the way for the murder of 6 million Jews – the Holocaust? Where did it come from? A Nazi desire to eradicate ‘God’ from society?

concentration camp 

Nope.

Let’s hear from Hitler himself:

“I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognized. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church, and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.”

[Adolf Hitler, speaking during a meeting with Roman Catholic Bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabrück, April 26, 1933]

Did the Catholic Church consider the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years?

Many of their influential thinkers certainly did:

“We may thus assert in utter confidence that the Jews will not return to their earlier situation, for they have committed the most abominable of crimes, in forming this conspiracy against the Savior of the human race…hence the city where Jesus suffered was necessarily destroyed, the Jewish nation was driven from its country, and another people was called by God to the blessed election.”

[Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.) – A ecclesiastical writer and teacher who contributed to the early formation of Christian doctrines.]

 

“The synagogue is worse than a brothel…it is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts…the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults…the refuge of brigands and dabauchees, and the cavern of devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jews…a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ… a house worse than a drinking shop…a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and a abyss of perdition.”…”I would say the same things about their souls… As for me, I hate the synagogue…I hate the Jews for the same reason.”

[John Chrysostom (344-407 A.D.) – Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. The Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches honor him as a saint.]

 

“How hateful to me are the enemies of your Scripture! How I wish that you would slay them (the Jews) with your two-edged sword, so that there should be none to oppose your word! Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live to you!”

[St. Augustine (c. 354-430 A.D.), Confessions, 12.14 (Augustine was a a Latin church father, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity.)]

In 1543 Martin Luther, a former Catholic monk, and leader of the Christian reformation, published the horrific  “On the Jews and Their Lies” which includes the following quotations:

    • "Such a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous and devilish lot are these Jews, who for these fourteen hundred years have been and still are our plague, our pestilence, and our misfortune."

    • "Therefore know, my dear Christians, that next to the Devil, you have no more bitter, more poisonous, more vehement and enemy than a real Jew who earnestly desires to be a Jew. There may be some among them who believe what the cow or the goose believes. But all of them are surrounded with their blood and circumcision. In history, therefore, they are often accused of poisoning wells, stealing children and mutilating them; as in Trent, Weszensee and the like. Of course they deny this. Be it so or not, however, I know full well that the ready will is not lacking with them if they could only transform it into deeds, in secret or openly."

The strained relationship between early and medieval Christianity – which at the time was overwhelmingly Catholic – and Jews is well documented, and beyond dispute.

Hitler was therefore correct in alluding to the fact that the Catholic Church did, in fact, consider the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years.

Attitude towards atheism:

Ironically, the Nazi regime, was, in fact, virulently hostile to atheists and freethinkers:

"For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant."

[Adolf Hitler, in a radio address October 14, 1933]

 

"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."

[Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered in Berlin, October 24, 1933]

The Nazi regime also outlawed atheist and freethought meetings:

"ATHEIST HALL CONVERTED

Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers

BERLIN, May 13. – In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership.

The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had about 500,000 members …"

[New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 2, on Hitler’s outlawing of atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree]

From this it is obvious that the last thing Hitler wanted to do was to eradicate ‘God’ from society. It is also true that the rabid anti-Semitism that eventually led to the Holocaust was nurtured by the Catholic church over almost 2000 years, and had NOTHING to do with secularism.

Therefore, in saying what he said, the Pope (Joseph Ratzinger) is either confused, trying to shift attention away from himself (and/or the Catholic Church), or intentionally lying in order to vilify non-believers and secularists. I suspect the latter two – in which case, his actions can only be described as despicable.

Joseph Ratzinger should be ashamed of himself.

Charismatic Christianity in Uganda (Part 1 – Introduction)

September 6, 2010 in Christianity, Uganda | by | 2 comments

Anyone who is familiar with this blog knows that I am not religious. Not only that, but I am also an atheist, meaning, I do not have belief that a ‘God’ exists.

That said, in principle, I have no objection to people having religious beliefs – whatever they may be. It is their constitutional right to hold whatever religious beliefs they wish to hold, in just the same way it is my constitutional right not to hold any. My concern is, and has always been, specifically when religious beliefs end up harming people, or are somehow detrimental to people’s well being.

What prompted me to ‘come out’ and begin trying to promote reason and critical thinking in today’s Uganda is because of the high degree of superstitious thinking being aggressively perpetuated by the new wave of charismatic Christianity that has swept across the country. This new wave goes by a variety of names – such as Savedees, Born-Agains, Pentecostals, or Evangelicals. Locally, they are known simply as Balokole.

Church_01

A number of common themes prevail across most Balokole churches, including:

  • Emphasis on miracle healing
  • Speaking in tongues
  • Prosperity doctrine (where believers are all destined to be financially successful)
  • All problems afflicting believers being the result of curses/demons/Satan, and solutions to these problems come in the way of divine intervention

Background:

witchdoctor1Prior to the arrival of Christian missionaries to Africa, the natives of sub-Saharan Africa practiced traditional religion which included various forms of ancestor worship. Their worldview included a belief that illness, drought, natural disasters and other misfortunes were the result of angry (or evil) spirits, and that rituals had to be performed to appease these spirits. Various shamans and traditional healers have, throughout African history, claimed to have the ability to intercede between humans and these spirits, making available to them (at a price, of course) charms and other concoctions designed to either appease or repel such spirits.

Where as the early denominations that came to Uganda (Anglicanism & Catholicism) denounced ancestral worship as indulgence in ineffectual superstition, charismatic Christianity (which first took root in Uganda about 50 years ago) instead incorporated these African traditional practices and ancestral worship into their worldview as part of the wider cosmic battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. The ancestral spirits became reinterpreted as ‘demons’, and the shamans, mediums and traditional healers who interceded on their behalf became ‘witches’ or ‘witchdoctors’ – all of them allegedly working in collusion with Satan to make life difficult for followers of Christ.

The pastors of these charismatic churches in effect became the ‘new’ shamans, wielding, this time, the power of ‘God’ to be able to ‘bind’ and ‘cast out’ these demons. Like the local shamans, they too rely on incantations – usually invoking ‘the name of Jesus’ -  to perform exorcisms and alleged healing miracles. Indeed, the typical charismatic church exorcism resembles what one might see being done in a local ancestral shrine:

The popularity of this form of Christianity has exploded over the last few decades because the doctrine promises poor, under-educated believers miraculous solutions to their everyday problems. Understandably, on an impoverished continent like this one, a religion that offers quick fixes to all the pressing problems in life will be immensely popular, and that is exactly what we see happening. Among charismatic Christians, things like unemployment, failure of business, failure of marriage, sickness, corruption in government… all the problems an individual or society could possibly face… are attributed to Satan, demons and other evil spirits – and Jesus is presented as the antidote.

Such an iteration of Christianity fits perfectly well with the mindset of most native Africans, most of whom have, since time immemorial, taken seriously the perceived threat of curses inflicted upon them by spirits and other bad omens. This is probably why charismatic Christianity has proven to be a raging success in sub-Saharan Africa.

This has literally created a cottage industry of make-shift balokole churches all over the country, typically run by  unscrupulous, opportunistic individuals looking to earn a living from the lucrative business of ‘selling’ Jesus.

Competition is fierce among pastors of rival local balokole churches, after all, having more worshippers usually means bigger collections.

The Problem:

While probably succeeding in assuaging the everyday anxieties of legions of believers, and in some cases even doing decent charity work, the charismatic Christian belief system has yielded some rather undesirable consequences, such as:

  • Encouraging a reliance on miracle healings, rather than seeking science based medical treatment

  • Many HIV positive believers dying because they were abandoning ARVs based on unsubstantiated miracle testimonies

  • Believers parting with large sums of money in order to receive the purported blessings of ‘God’

  • Pastors conning believers by stage-managing miracles

  • General undermining of science (especially pertaining to medical science, the theory of evolution, Big Bang cosmology, and psychology)

  • Making people believe that the problems they face are as a result of spiritual forces, and that solutions to those same problems lie in the spiritual realm

  • An increased reliance on prayer to solve problems, rather than on efforts to find rational, practical and demonstrable solutions

  • Promoting an overly apocalyptic mindset (the belief that the world is ending anytime soon)

The result of this is that an unprecedented amount of irrational and superstitious thinking has permeated across Ugandan society (often practiced in its most extreme form).

I just wish they’d tone down on the spooky magical woo woo stuff, and practice their religion with a little more rationality, like some other mainstream Christian denominations (that don’t go overboard).  But this could be wishful thinking on my part – all indications show that the mainstream churches, who are rapidly losing members to the charismatic churches, are now adopting many ideas from them in a bid to retain their flock.

In an upcoming post I will review a Christian book called ‘Charismatic Chaos’, and also look at how other Christian groups view the charismatic movement.

Related posts:

Christianity and the Destruction of Human Dignity

August 16, 2010 in Christianity | by | 5 comments

prayer“I am worthless without you, God”

An excerpt from Atheism – The Case Against God by George H. Smith:

A man of self-esteem is an unlikely candidate for the master-slave relationship that Christianity offers him. A man lacking in self-esteem, however, a man ridden with guilt and self-doubt, will frequently prefer the apparent security of Christianity over independence and find comfort in the thought that, for the price of total submissiveness, God will love and protect him.

In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince men that they need salvation, that there is something to be “saved” from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy man living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, man is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation.

‘How can you live without God?’ believers often ask atheists. Having been brainwashed by their religion into thinking that their lives are devoid of purpose, and that they are worthless without their imaginary deity, believers find it difficult to understand how atheists can be happy.

Indeed many, many people lead happy lives without belief in ‘God’.

sunset

Human beings were not ‘created’ to serve any gods, and there is no intrinsic purpose or meaning to our existence. We are a rare cosmic accident – the product of blind, impersonal natural forces acting upon naturally occurring chemical systems, that spawned the first self-replicating molecules which then evolved over billions of years through natural selection.

But this doesn’t mean we live our lives as if we have no meaning or purpose.

Far from it.

Our genetic makeup has imbued us with the desire to survive, the desire to seek social bonds with fellow human beings, the desire to mate, and the desire to nurture our offspring because this maximises the degree to which we will be successful in propagating our genes. The fulfilment of these genetically programmed desires is what gives our lives purpose and meaning – which we all experience subjectively. Our brains are constantly generating this subjective purpose and meaning that feel real enough to motivate us to be good people and try to live our lives as happily as we can.

You are therefore not worthless, as religions like Christianity want you to believe.

It says a lot about a religion – when its adherents believe that their sole purpose and meaning comes from the need to grovel before a celestial dictator, which a ‘God’ would be, if at all it existed. This tragedy is made worse by the fact that there is no good reason to think one actually exists.

Related posts:

SERIES: The Resurrection of Jesus

May 25, 2010 in Christianity, Series | by | 6 comments

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:17

The above words of St. Paul encapsulate the core tenet central to Christianity – the claim that Jesus was resurrected. Without a resurrected Jesus, there is no Christianity; as Paul points out, ‘your faith is futile’.

The ResurrectionChristians DO believe that the story of Jesus’ resurrection is true, and so believe their faith is not futile. The story of the alleged resurrection of Jesus is also frequently put forward by Christian apologists as evidence of the existence of ‘God’. (According to Christians that hold a Trinitarian view, Jesus is in fact ‘God’ incarnate)

But are there are any good reasons for concluding that the resurrection story is actually true?

In this series, evidence that has been put forward in support of the idea that Jesus was resurrected will be explored and critically examined. As we shall see, most of this evidence isn’t even good evidence in the first place, and they are insufficient to justify the conclusion that the story of the resurrection is true.

This series page will be updated (inclusive of active links) as an when new posts pertaining to the subject matter are generated.

The Resurrection of Jesus:

Related posts:

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