It should be obvious to all Americans that we live in a democracy and not a theocracy, despite the inevitable conflicts between church and state.

Democracies and theocracies are mutually exclusive forms of governance. You can not have a government for and by the people, and a government which exists to carry out God's laws.

For instance, take blaspheme. In Mark 3:29 we are informed that "...whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven, but is guilty of eternal sin." One such famous case of blaspheme is the Trial of C.B. Reynolds from the late 19th century.

Wait, one second... Screw you! Holy Spirit!

Anyway, where our democracy is explicit about free speech - despite some wrongful exceptions to the contrary, nowhere does the United States Constitution (a legal document) state that speech is not "free" except with a few conditions. 

Like blaspheme for instance.

Sarah Palin was interviewed by Bob Dobson of Focus on the Family (ie. hate the gay) yesterday.

"... it also strengthens my faith because I know at the end of the day putting this in God's hands, the right thing for America will be done, at the end of the day on Nov. 4."

And what if Obama wins? Will that be God's will too?

Probably not. It's only God's will when something you want happens, happens. If it does not happen, well then - it's your fault.

"It is that intercession that is so needed," she said. "And so greatly appreciated. And I can feel it too, Dr. Dobson. I can feel the power of prayer, and that strength that is provided through our prayer warriors across this nation. And I so appreciate it."

Palin thinks that God will intervene and turn McCain's and Palin's fortune around come election day. Palin ascribes to Third Wave Theology, a doctrine which asserts that the Holy Spirit is an active and approachable entity in  people's lives.

Basically, God will appoint the Republican ticket to the office of President by intervening in the vote.

If it is His will for the Palin/McCain to win all along, why the need to pray for it? God is omniscient after all, and should know a priori what your hopes and desires are. God is also omnipotent. How would the groveling by a Christian change His mind if Obama was not God's pick for President?

No. Don't bother to harmonize the contradictions. For each one you do, you invoke hundred more.

Confirming this, Dobson stated that he and his wife would pray for "God's intervention."

Funny that is.

While Republicans will endlessly cry about ACORN and alleged voting fraud by the organization, they have no problem with usurping your vote by appealing to God to rob you of yours.

It's painfully apparent to many of you that I do not hide my lack of belief in the supernatural, god(s), and outright deny BibleGod. Actually, on these boards I am quite strident about my lack of belief and in my ridicule of other specious beliefs like big foot, visiting extraterrestrials, 911 conspiracies, compassionate conservatism, creationism and other woo. Yes, that's correct - belief in God is in the same category as these other crank beliefs.

For this - as you would expect, I get some attention for blogging in a community that is largely conservative Christian and historically Republican. This attention is usually from the soul-winner, busy-body Christian that assumes that I would want to spend an eternity with them. I am not complaining though. We non-believers and religious freethinkers, up until recently, have been a silent minority. To paraphrase PZ Meyers, it's about time we push our arms out and made room for ourselves in this society.

Invariably, the soul-winner fails to have a convincing counter-argument against the incoherence of their beliefs. Instead, the tactic they resort to is to prey on me. I mean, pray for me. Where no evidence or sound reasoning is offered, emotional blackmail is substituted. As insulting as this is, I am still open to the possibility that BibleGod will intervene and answer the Christian's prayer.

Awhile back, I was informed by different Christians on this board that they would pray for me. I challenged them to do so.

Here's an email conversation between myself and a Christian from June. I'll pick up the discussion where the attempt to convince me by prayer begins. I've annotated some of the responses for brevity and clarity sake and will keep the identity of the emailer anonymous. The busy-body is in bold. I'm in regular.

(NOTE TO READERS: I read the Bible literally like a Christian fundamentalist and take the view that the Bible is inerrant because it is God's word. In this respect, I am a fundamentalist. By doing so, I lay waste to the argument that I am interpreting, which liberals and moderates are so guilty of doing. IMO, fundamentalist Christian are the only true Christians - which makes them hostile to a free, civil society.)

Off to pray. And yes, I do pray for nonbelievers like you. You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist. Can't wait until the end, it will be too late for all.

Good luck with your prayers! Hey, instead of praying for all apostates like myself, just pray for me to come to God. When it fails, could you tell me why God has not intervene to reveal himself to me like Paul on his way to Damascus? Yes, I will end up in hell. But your going to Muslim Hell anyway as you believe that Jesus is divine. Whereas you reject Islam's threat of Hell, I go one step further and reject both. And don't throw free-will in the mix, as I will answer that if I don't not have full knowledge of God's existence, then how can I truly be making an informed choice?

I did pray for you again today. But God has come to you. You just won't accept it or admit it. I will go to no ones hell. I know I have a place with God in heaven.

Prayer. I guess your not a true Christian. Shucks...

How would you know Matt?

Well, for the Bible tells me so. "I tell you therefore: everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours. ..(Mark 11:20-25). I have to ask you, where is your faith in Jesus? Only by having a true faith, will Jesus words as reported by Mark come true. We know that God never lies and that everything in the Bible is the inspired word of God. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16) Otherwise, all of the Bible is unreliable. Christians can not pick and choose what of the Bible is allegory.

But you already know of this. I'm sure you read your Bible and not just have it didactically feed back to you at Sunday only.

Since I have not come to your faith and threats and allusions of eternity in Hell "You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist." and after apologizing for calling me a liar, you go on to say in the course of this discussion "You just won't accept it or admit it."

You're way off base with this one.

I'm off base? I based my answer in the Bible and from what other apologists tell me. I was a Christian once. If you reject my answer as to why you are not a true Christian, then please take it up with God - he wrote the Bible.

My answer speaks volumes and speaks for itself.

I see. Well, it speaks to you, but to you only. Too bad that you can not write volumes based upon that "speaking" as well. I was looking forward to a good Biblical debate. :( 

Well, keep praying.

My reason is the one you never thought of: you don't want to learn about God and I'm not the type to shove it down your throat. But even more important is the fact that I know very few atheists and have had few, if any, conversation like this. I could see shortly on that you have no intention of believing in God. And it's not my job to go further to convince you. The nonbelievers I have met were all through our church. And they converted due to what I said has already happened to you: A sign from God.

I would love to learn about God. But first you must present your best evidence in order to convince me. You sitting on the other side of the internets stating that I've already received this revelation is silly. Did God communicate to you what this revelation was? If so please tell me.

You also assume that I have not tried to learn about God. My wife thinks I am obsessed with god, but really I'm obsessed with religion. It's a variety of human expression and experience and its been nearly the only way to speculate on the supernatural. Well, until science came along and we were able to determine more about the universe we live in.

Also, it makes me quite angry that you keep stating that I am lying in some way.

Turning from this, if you would like to present your best evidence or argument for God, please do. Feel free to cite the Bible or any other exegesis you like. If you would like to present your personal experiences, you may do so as well. However, what would be the point if you presented your personal experience only after I came to god? Is your evidence from personal experience not convincing enough? Apparently it must not be, and you seem to realize this anyway. Functionally, you make an appeal to blind faith. I am asking you to justify that faith on reason.

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to me. If the courage of your convictions can not weather my objections, then perhaps you should a) refrain from implying that I am lying b) threatening my soul with hell, and c) give me your best argument. 

I never called you a lair in these recent emails or suggested it.

You are quite unreasonable and I've been more than patient with you.

These are examples where you imply that I am a liar:

01. "Hi Matt...I did pray for you again today. But God has come to you. You just won't accept it or admit it."
02. "I could see shortly on that you have no intention of believing in God..."
03.  "And they converted due to what I said has already happened to you: A sign from God."

You keep asserting that some proof has come to me and that I am denying it. So am I a liar or not?

And in this quote you try to extort me with the threat of Hell:

"You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist."

There is nothing that I said about Christian belief that is not in concordance with what Christians largely believe.  

The reasoning of the busy-body is transparently hollow. When this emotional blackmail fails - the busy-body believer is left alienating the person he hopes to convince and possibly convert.

In nearly all facets of life we demand evidence.

Existence of big foot? Sure, possible - but a carcass of the animal would be conclusive proof. On the scale of unbelievable claims, big foot is on the lower end. Immaterial beings with no testable or identifiable characteristics that exist outside the normal universe and not beholden to its physical laws is on the extreme upper end. Off the scale, actually.

Yet, when the non-believer requests evidence for the existence of God, we are told by the believer to expect none and that faith without evidence is sufficient enough. It is this type of faith which is further reinforced as a virtue. In fact, all that is being reinforced is ignorance.

It was this pursuit of evidence that I had requested nicely of this busy-body what this "sign from God" was. Perhaps he did receive a revelation. That would be exciting! I would have evidence. And the more explicit this believer could be, the more likely that a god could exist.***

Instead, I was insulted and my non-existent afterlife threatened for a very reasonable request. 

Any they wonder why they fail?

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

***There are caveats to this however. Failed explanation of one thing does not necessarily make another explanation more plausible. When this plead is made, we formally have an argument from ignorance. More on that later.
 

Now that you've gone to service, said your prayers and gave God a few Franklins - it's time for a sermon from the other side of the aisle.
_________________

The other day, I was at the K-Mart in Oconomowoc, on a little visual research expedition. As I was strolling through the book section, How to Hear from God: Learn His Voice and Make right Decisions by that church lady from the 700 Club caught my attention. I quickly scanned the back. The book promises to teach you how to hear God's voice in every daily action so you can do His Divine Will. All for $19.31!

For whatever reason, this goofiness interests me. I did a quick google and this subject is almost a genre unto itself.

This site not only features a downloadable lecture, but 4 Main Keys to secure direct communication with God. This belief is predicated on one of the later prophets in the book of Habakkuk. A lesser known book of the OT, yet it does contain plenty of violence of that capricious blood thirsty God we've come to love and adore. The wiki entry states that this book is "the starting point of the concept of faith" which later NT writers grounded their emotional rhetoric and appeals of faith against the Greek tradition of materialist based reason. Paul for example.

As an aside, I did this drawing to illustrate the relationship between my own inner voice, Satan, and God. I measured the decibel levels of each.

What did you expect? Data? Verification?

Anyway, the author states that after praying, fasting, studying the Bible for one year, his previous roadblock of not hearing God's voice had been removed. He claims that "God set me aside" on this year long exercise. If your paying attention, this was before he could not hear Gods voice. Yet, somehow this born-again, Bible-believing Christian receives a directive to do so?

Unfortunately, the author gives no concrete way to confirm that in fact the voices in your head are not yours. Also, he gives no qualitative way to distinguish if the voice in your head is Satan and not God. You think that would be important, the Devil is known to be a trickster. Each step is self-brainwashing. In Key #4 you are to journal, but to "write in faith for long periods of time" and before you do, you should have adequately "submitted to solid, spiritual leadership." The shorthand, if you already believe, you already believe.

Books like this merely reaffirm the self-delusion that one can have a personal relationship with an immaterial, invisible entity that resides somewhere out there and beyond human comprehension. The believer is duped into thinking that a non-stop circle jerk of sanctimonious, self-affirming, ego-stroking is somehow a Bat Phone to God – piece-mailing advice at every trivial decision.

This variety of religious instruction does have consequences. From mothers who drown their children, to anti-abortionists who murder doctors and bomb clinics - we find that God has also a penchant for violence when he's not busy deciding plaids or stripes.

In my deconversion, hearing God's voice was an issue. I never heard God, only the familiar intonation of my own inner-voice. I never wanted to pretend or lie that this was anything but the case. In discussion with my Christian friends, they tell me they do, in fact, hear God's voice.

I have to stop and question the sanity of my friends. Can I blame them? They are victims. We have a history and a society of these flim-flammers, speaking from alleged authority, that this self-induced schizophrenia is real and not imaginary.

Remember the flap this spring over the Red Sox jersey that was buried as a curse under the New Yankee stadium during its construction? The jersey had to be dug up because of that fear.

Well, in that tradition, have you heard the report about the owners of the EPL Football (Soccer) team, Manchester City, took the extravagant steps of burying feng shui crystals in desperation to help improve his clubs chances of winning.

" Apparently the Thai owners love the superstitious principles of the Far East and hope the crystals will improve the team's performance and the club's financial success."

But that's not all. The owners are also using magic pennies, lucky fortune trees, three-legged money toads and buddhas to the point that the "stadium is littered with these bizarre symbols" in hopes to turn the fortunes of the Man City around and to keep up with Manchester United - one of the most successful pro-sports franchises in all the world. (Next to, or ahead of the Yankees, if I recall correctly.)

The EPL is an incredibly competitive league. Curious, how can the owners be sure that this new luck will only be directed towards Man City? What if all this stuff helps the opposing teams to win and not Man City? What if these rivals come with better magic at the host stadium to cancel out Man City's magic? Does this mean that Man City will inevitably lose on the pitch because they have lost in the magic department too?

While its one thing for us Americans to sit back and laugh at the "superstitious principles of the Far East" we are just as superstitions when it comes to our sports. In ancient Greece, the Olympics were dedicated to Zeus, held in his honor and for his enjoyment, and invocations and sacrifices were made at his behest.

The tradition continues even today.

Is is not uncommon for prayers to be offered at the start of every sporting event from primary education up through professional sports in hopes of courting the favor of God. Sometimes the prayer is for protection from injury and or for better performance that God may reward the faithful for their piety. To the athlete who is hauled off in a stretcher incapacitated, did he not pray hard enough for God's protection? Or were the prayers offered by the opposing team that much better? Perhaps, the opposing team prayed much better to win, and God decided to remove the competition by injury from the field. And just maybe, the opposing team prayed for the injury of the player and God complied. God does work in mysterious ways after-all.

Superstition in sports is a relatively benign thing and prayer by the athletes has no real world consequences.

Prayer becomes dangerous when it is substituted for medical treatment where faith-healing is concerned.