The Choice Is Now

The whole concept of “mother” infuriates me, or maybe I’m infuriated by my own concept, the concept modeled before me from birth until now. Growing up, my concept was a parent who sacrificed everything for his/her children. That is a mother. To me, a “mother” is the epitome of altruism. This is simply based on how I was raised.

I don’t agree with this concept at all, at least from a pragmatic standpoint. I think we have to look at parenting—mothering and fathering—logically; we need to place the emotional connection we have with children on the back burner just enough to analyze the logistics of the parent-child relationship.

From what I’ve experienced, we only ever bring children into this world for selfish reasons, and that’s not necessarily a “bad” thing. What is detrimental is that people refuse to recognize this. Instead, motherhood is framed as some sort of completely unselfish, altruistic activity, at least regarding the ideal.

There is no logical reason to have a child. Not one that I can think of (aside from that you’ll need someone to put you in a semi-decent retirement home). Other than that, getting pregnant and carrying to term and parenting are purely done for selfish, emotion-driven reasons. Maybe it’s because we need love, or maybe it’s because we want someone to “stick around,” or maybe it’s because we want to pass on our genes.

Again, it’s not “bad” that parenting is selfish, but we need to recognize that parenting is not this altruistic act as it’s been presented to us.

For example, young children don’t love their parents. They simply cannot. They are dependent on their parents, and they mimic the behavior of others. This is how they learn; this is the beginning of the development of critical thinking. When the child gets older and starts to rebel, the parents hate this, but I can’t understand why. This is the time when real love is in its early stages of development, and no matter how difficult this time is—to see your child make mistakes, to be hurt—it is a necessary part of growth.

Love is voluntary, and it is always in reference to something. It is not a stand-alone emotional state. One cannot know what love is without knowing what apathy or hate is. Until a child knows critical thinking and has experience to draw upon, a child simply cannot love.

So we have mothers who are mistaking a child’s dependency for love. And yes, of course, we need emotional bonds with our children—it makes evolutionary sense—but we don’t need to lie to ourselves and think motherhood is some divine right, some way of “fulfilling destiny,” or (I shudder at this one) the epitome of womanhood.

I’ve seen women whose entire identities have changed after having a child. Rather than allow motherhood to enhance their well-being, it becomes them. They see nothing greater than raising children, and maybe for them that’s pragmatic, and maybe that is a truth, but I see it as avoidance, as suppressing one’s potential.

I think my issue is with our concept of “woman,” in that “motherhood” is the end-all-be-all of womanhood, that we have no greater purpose than to raise our children, and while that is a very important task—it’s the shaping of the future!—we can’t give what we don’t have.

Teaching people that selfishness is a vice prohibits us from contributing to society, from being better people, from actualizing our potential. Selfishness is wanting the best for yourself—not at the expense of others, but so that you can give to others. I respect good mothers, I appreciate good mothers, but they are more than mothers—they are persons with rights and identities and privileges and flaws that are mutually exclusive from motherhood. That whole notion of self-sacrifice that I saw growing up was needless; it became nothing more than self-inflicted martyrdom. I want to be a mother, but I don’t want to be that kind of person.

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t been updating as frequently as I used to. Here’s why:

(I know it’s a really blurry, low-resolution picture. All I could find was my cell phone at the time.)

Yes, dear readers, I am pregnant. We are both incredibly excited. I don’t know what else to say except that you should probably expect many more hormone-charged rants in the next few months.

If you want to follow the pregnancy, and if you’re interested in reading all the mushy mush that comes with it–and if you want to make sure I don’t turn into one of those women who’s more worried about what color to paint the nursery than discourse on philosophy and science–e-mail me.

Until next time, I’m going to be staring inside the refrigerator, pining over the booze I’ll have to throw away.

Many people, from what I can tell, care deeply about what others think of them. Caring about what others think of us is a waste of time, unless there is something in it for us, some type of gain. In other words, I’m not going to stroke your ego unless I know I can get something from you. For most people, though, they’ll compromise between themselves and their ethical principles. They need attention, and they know they’ll get attention by compromising (i.e., sacrificing or otherwise completely abandoning) their integrity and even their own credibility.

For me, integrity and credibility are the most precious commodities we possess in human interaction, and to compromise those for the sake of emotivism or attention-seeking–or for anything–is truly despicable.

Most people know the truth but are afraid to confront it. The person who is offended by and subsequently tries to avoid the truth needs a reality check. It seems people are, all too often, expected to acquiesce to the bullshit the ego produces–especially since most people can’t recognize it–in order to live out their delusions of blamelessness, utter innocence, and importance.

We should derive no pleasure from compliments or from criticism, from anything designed to make us feel good or bad. From my own perspective (oh, this will sound so paradoxical), I’m objective. At least as much as I can be. Prove me wrong, and I’ll gladly acquiesce; rationally persuade me in a logical fashion, and I’ll change my mind. Don’t give me emotional appeals or anything that does not have an element of intellectual stimulation; I have no patience for these. They truly are the offspring of insecurity and the desire to avoid, and I don’t have either, and I won’t waste my time if you do.

If a person is truly outstanding in his/her art, and you say so, that’s not a compliment; it’s a truth, at least from your perspective. If a person is not truly outstanding in his/her art, and yet you remark otherwise, that is nothing short of dishonesty, of deceit. The latter, however, has been elevated to some sort of altruistic tendency. Lie to people to make them feel good. Feeling good trumps all. That’s bullshit.

We need to totally disregard this way of thinking. We can’t keep basing our own identity construction on what someone else thinks, nor can we continue to lie to people for no reason other than to bandage their already-fragile ego. If we allow that to happen, if we lie and expect others to lie, the produced fabrications will inevitably be mistaken for truth.

When we care about what others think of us personally, we become their puppet, and every time they say something about us, our own self-perception is affected, thus we are affected. How utterly pointless! I think that’s giving away way too much power and autonomy. We all deserve better than that.

Lao Tzu writes in the Tao Te Ching: “Seeking favor is degrading: Alarming when it is gotten; alarming when it is lost.” For people to care about what others think of them (in most instances) is almost pitiful, an act of desperation. What matters is what you think about yourself; no one else should matter, not even your closest friend/lover. The only time to care is when there is constructive criticism there to draw from.

If criticism is warranted, accept it with gratitude. It’ll make you a better person. Compliments are useless when you already know what good you’re providing people to the world. You need no feedback except improvement, and you can use your logic, rather than emotion, to determine which criticism is constructive and which can be cast aside as useless.

Stand on your own two feet. Favor independence, favor yourself, attempt to always retain objectivity is human interaction as much as possible, avoid emotional reactions and instead generate rational responses, treat everyone with respect, and expect the same from your fellow human beings. After all, if we cannot afford this to one another, we have nothing to offer.

According to fark,

Nightline reports as creationists go through a natural history museum and explain it to home schoolers. There are no words.

Two Creationists take home schooled kids on a tour of a natural history museum filling their minds with Young Earth Creationist Bullshit.

I’m sure I’ll have commentary on this later. For now, watch and enjoy.

I was reading Time magazine online earlier, and I came across this article titled “The Origin of Obama’s Pastor Problem.”

First, let me say that I found Obama’s speech to be awe inspiring. I’m not sure how many people share that sentiment. Initially, I found many people who connected with the speech on one level or another. The speech got them talking; for example, the speech seemed to have somewhat cracked open the socio-political barriers inherent in discourse on identity politics regarding race. That I can admit. Subconsciously, however, there seemed to be some sort of dissonance, some sort of lacking element that was essential to making the speech truly successful, truly progressive, what could have really helped it avoid the inevitable “pandering” title.

Listening to and reading public commentary both on TV and online, I recognized something I initially missed, and the concept did not appear anywhere in public discourse. It did not appear on television, on radio, even online—at least I didn’t see it until this afternoon.

What bothered me as I watched the speech live, streaming over cnn.com, was not the emotional presentation and delivery (which I believe is genuine—I have no reason to believe otherwise); it was not the nearly perfect linguistic structure or perfectly situated word choice. No. It’s that in the 21st century, Obama still embraces a dogma (i.e, Christianity) and the physical representation of that dogma (i.e., Wright) that propagate nonsensical beliefs, superstitious drivel, blatant gobbledygook, and vacuous platitudes. These purposely distort information; they produce disinformation. They are exploitative and downright wrong.

So what? Simply chalk it up to pandering? Claim Obama was forced to right a social wrong (or at least anesthetize the public to it in an attempt to solidify the party’s nomination)? I don’t think any of this type of commentary does the speech justice. Obama, it’s claimed, dictated the initial draft himself. I have no doubt, after watching the speech, that it was given from the heart. I see no disingenuous motives.

But this still bothers me.

Obama—embracing said nonsense, elevating faith-based beliefs, and glorifying willful ignorance and the inherent barbarism within Christianity, utilizing such elements as a way to communicate with people, to connect with constituents. Think about that. I don’t know about you, but that bothers me. While this seems to be acceptable (even expected) by millions of Americas, my moral principles dictate it an automatic disqualification for any person who runs for president and requests my vote.

Of course, I don’t vote my principles. I wish I could. I vote for the person who best represents what this country needs (and we need a lot), even if that pragmatic part of me doesn’t always coincide with the intrinsic ethical principles in my psyche.

So yes, I have a problem with Obama’s speech. The problem is not overwhelming enough to prohibit me from voting for him should he secure the Democratic presidential nomination, but I think Sam Harris said it best in a recent article in the Huffington Post:

Despite all that he does not and cannot say, Obama’s candidacy is genuinely thrilling: his heart is clearly in the right place; he is an order of magnitude more intelligent than the current occupant of the Oval Office; and he still stands a decent chance of becoming the next President of the United States. His election in November really would be a triumph of hope.

But Obama’s candidacy is also depressing, for it demonstrates that even a person of the greatest candor and eloquence must still claim to believe the unbelievable in order to have a political career in this country. We may be ready for the audacity of hope. Will we ever be ready for the audacity of reason?

And so I wonder when the day will come when a politician can say, in all candor, “Personal beliefs are personal. They do not belong in the public sphere. I will not speak on my own beliefs, I will not judge what is best for this country based upon my own personal beliefs. Faith will have no place in my administration. Reason is the gold standard.”

Barefoot Bum and Nicest-Girl rated my blog “E” for Excellent. I accept this with thanks. I have much admiration for great writers and writing, and I am so privileged to read and discuss excellent writing.

I nominate the following bloggers (in no particular order):

Atheist Ethicist
Tales of an Ordinary Girl
Prufrock’s Revenge
Lisa Gorski
The Meme Pool
Elliptica
Agnostic Lectionary
Letters from a Broad
Feminist Figure
Grrl Scientist
Floyd Henderson

I found out I was also tagged by The Meme Pool to post six unimportant things, habits, or quirks about myself.

• I was a feminist from the time I was 5. When my first-grade teacher (a nun) asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told her I wanted to be a priest. She said I couldn’t be a priest. I responded, “I don’t care if I need a pickle [penis] to be a priest. Priests have all the power. Nuns don’t have any, and it’s a waste of time to be a nun if you can be a priest.” My parents were called in.

• I never recognized race until it was taught to me. In kindergarten, there was one African-American kid in my class (I went to a Catholic school where most people who attended were white). His parents were white. I never knew he was adopted until someone told me and asked me why I didn’t know because he’s of a different race. I didn’t realize this until I was in eighth grade.

• I have been able to lucid dream since I was a child.

• On a family vacation to Dutch Wonderland, I got lost, and I was perfectly ok with that. The Mamagon (my mother) was not.

• I learned people cannot be trusted to be even mildly competent when I was 4. I was at the public pool, and somehow I ended up in the deep end. Realizing my feet didn’t touch the bottom, I asked for someone to help me while I flailed my arms and kicked with all my might. No one ever did help me. (Now that I think about it… where were my parents?) The experience did, however, teach me how to swim. I have applied this lesson to all areas of life thus far.

• I didn’t stand up for myself until I was in the sixth grade. Until then, I was always getting picked on. Still, it took me another 5-6 years before I stopped taking things personally and learned that it’s quite healthy to have opinions. (I can’t believe it took that long!)

If you just read this, consider yourself tagged.

By the way, since I was searching Sesame Street on YouTube, I found one of my favorite Sesame Street cartoons:

So the Exterminator has created the “Googl-oem.” Ordinary Girl, the Chaplain, and Chanson have completed theirs. Being a person who rarely gives into peer pressure unless it’s of the literary variety, here is my first Googl-oem (I admit I added conjunctions and other transitions) using some keywords from the month of February:

What is another name for a politician’s podium?
Where are norm referenced given?
Is a circle one-sided?
What are the metal spokes on an umbrella called?

Kelly Gorski is a bitch.

The pot that you don’t have to stir
creates a perspective circle in 2 point

Everything we do represents a choice.

Humanity’s psychological need to assign value
and
fables on the subject of jealousy, envy, and gossip
can
bring about deaf culture awareness
and
an ad commercial featuring employees

Some people say bad word are a part of our society
and others they just add color to our language.

“5 ways to get over being dumped”
Confessional writing.

faith evidence atheist
world humanity musing
women in heave corsets
signifiers and signified – umbrella
sermon insecurity false beliefs

Tell me about eating during the super bowl
and its impact on our waist line
open-caption superbowl commercial

Christianity and ethical behavior
and
the intellectual bankruptcy of faith-based morality
cause
feminist identity in 2008
and
Victorian dominatrixes
and
Americanized valentines
and
valentine cunt
and
feminist theories
and
minimizing corsets
and
clinch corsets

but
“atheism is a religion”

How much is this picture worth?
How much is Tyra Banks worth?

Another name for ill will for public relations
is
EMPATHY AND SELF ESTEEM

What causes a feminist?
“Jane Fonda” and the Christian church in 2008

    What did that stupid cunt Jane Fonda say now? 

Oh well.

I am a firm believer in that the quest for any semblance of spiritual truth is a relatively short journey for most people, but particularly for theists. While all people tend to respond to the internal craving for “something more,” theists are perfectly willing to satisfy this need with compartmentalized, one-dimensional answers that are not only unfalsifiable, most are patently false. In truth, then, this “quest” becomes nothing more than a matter of convenience, of expediency. While I don’t doubt that theists attempt to discover truth and “something more” honestly and sincerely, they tend to not be truly interested in anything deeper. A disturbing number of theists, then, exhibit faith-based beliefs that are a mile wide and an inch thick; their beliefs are used more for aesthetics than any intellectual pursuit. For these people, faith serves a utilitarian purpose—be it social, cultural, redemptive, reactionary, or perhaps a conglomeration of various personal motivations (including such attributes as arrogance, inferiority, or a need for structure). There is very little underlying their spiritual yearning for truths when they call their ignorance “God,” place faith in such a god concept, and call it a day.

For the few that attempt to search and question, they are generally still steeped in the various elements of their either supposedly chosen or birthed-into faith set. (For most people, theism is not a choice; it is a lifestyle.) They are similarly captured by the lingua franca of their faith set. The underlying guilt that rears its ugly head whenever analysis becomes a catalyst for doubt is a calculated and effective element of anything based on faith. As an adolescent and into adulthood, it was with great trepidation that I initially peeked over that sanctuary wall, because I so often mimicked the inaction of others who were actively avoiding that view or even denying the wall’s existence entirely.

Now, I do believe that the majority of theists hold moderate, mostly benign faith-based beliefs, and they would stand up any day to any perceived injustice. They wish no harm on those who do not believe as they do, but they simultaneously manifest this as pitying those people who are “in the dark.” While they may not necessarily recognize the fact that their belief system is inherently exclusionary, this type of pity does promote social cohesion and identity among those in the faith set (via othering). They do feel, however sincerely, that said darkness is avoidable and choice-driven, and perhaps they really do exhibit genuine sympathy for those who haven’t been brought into the light, but, no matter how subjective it is, I still consider this disingenuous and overtly arrogant.

For them, faith-based belief is utterly an exercise in superiority. At faith’s base level, particularly present in the Abrahamic traditions, there is an element of being “chosen.” These theists know just enough doctrine and dogma to justify their own spiritual (and empirical) elevation and others’ spiritual and empirical damnation, even going so far as to extend this type of judgment toward those who adhere to a somewhat  similar faith-based ideology (viewing this as an outsider, of course; as someone who was once “in the light,” I can tell you that the small differences have major faith-based, spiritual consequences).

Overall, faith has become a predominant sorting device for eternally separating ourselves from others when empirical justification for such prejudice isn’t there at all. This, I think, stems from willful ignorance, intellectual laziness, and dogmatic fossilization, but all these are based on fear.

In discussions and debates with theists, overall, many were fruitful, even with the most solid of believers, particularly those who operate from, what I can tell, purely altruistic motives. The problem, however, is that when questioned, most people claimed not to know or not to have the answer, and there didn’t seem to be a semblance of curiosity to find an answer to the question. It seems most theists are perfectly happy to allow their faith just enough intellectual rigor to support various claims within the faith (and these are generally based on natural information available to everyone, and thus they do have empirical support which can manifest itself as collective agreement on various things regardless of faith) and just enough intellectual avoidance as to not allow the faith to fall in on itself, even though it inevitably would when questioned.

Using ambiguous, even vacuous terms to describe an ambiguous, vacuous, and unfalsifiable concept is nothing more than circular reasoning. While circular logic works because circular logic works, it does not aid us in our quest for truth.

For example, a mystery is one thing, but claiming a natural phenomenon has a supernatural cause is simply selling the pass; it promotes more confusion than it alleviates. If something is beyond our comprehension, it’s utterly pointless to cite it as an explanation for anything. It’s like asking a person, “Why is there a rainbow in the sky?” and she replies, “Washerno did it.” When you ask the obvious question, “Who or what is Washerno?” and she replies “I have no idea,” nothing has been gained. This earthly mystery about rainbows has been replaced by one that’s less likely to be solved by rigorous investigation or analysis. So instead of advancing toward truth, she’s thrown up a confusing and completely unnecessary obstacle on the road to it. This unfalsifiable obstacle can be disregarded, just like all god concepts can.

Without empirical evidence or simply epistemic indicators to at least make it probable for a god to exist and thus lend credence to a specific religious belief system, the whole point is moot. Yet theists have no problem making empirical claims (e.g., “God exists”) and then having nothing empirical to support the claim and no drive to go about finding the answer. This, to me, is either dishonest or lazy. We cannot settle when it comes to truth, and we certainly cannot continue to allow others to deify their ignorance.

Ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
Robert Ingersoll

The base of human ethical behavior is one simple principle: never intentionally subject others to avoidable trauma. It is a combination of empathy and logic, realizing that ethical and moral properties are subjective properties given to something or someone by an observer, and while these are socially constructed and change with each observer, this is the common thread that connects humanity. Regardless of how one feels about another, there is a certain amount of empathy that should extend to all people. This is simple enough.

That being said, I don’t think anyone would deny that extremists of any religion have perverted this ethical principle, but when we analyze the ethical principles of Christianity—the very base of Christianity—those who claim to be mild believers to full-blown fundamentalists have one core faith-based belief: Jesus saves.

(Of course, we know that faith is belief without evidence or even in the face of contradictory evidence. Since most people call their ignorance “God,” and then they place faith—willful ignorance—in God, they’re basically placing willful ignorance in their own ignorance.)

Before I go any further, let me say that one of the criteria which scholars use to determine the accuracy of historical events is the criterion of independent attestment, or multiple attestments (and still others demand consilience). This means that if there is more than one independent and uncollaborated-upon observation of a historical event having occurred, it increases the probability the historical event did, indeed, occur.

There are several independent attestments of the existence of Jesus documented within, say, 100 years of his life (100 years being a generally accepted limit of reliability). There are the Christian sources, such as the canonical gospels and the more recent coptic gospels. There are a few pagan sources such as Pliny the Younger (although that may be a stretch). And at least one Jewish source –Josephus, although some argue that, too, is a stretch. So all this stretching is making any historical data on Jesus’ actual existence quite thin, but let’s assume, anyway, that Jesus existed.

By that criterion, it is more probable that Jesus did historically exist rather than that Jesus didn’t exist. In other words, he’s not really this concept, a reconstruction of earlier mythologies, but rather was a real, living and breathing person. Of course, none of this affects the nature of supernatural occurrences attributed to Jesus as true or even divinely inspired.

This is why Christians take various elements and events of Jesus’ life on faith, and they make a conglomeration of these their core tenet of faith: “Christ is died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” (I was raised Catholic; I can’t forget these things. You can forgive me, right?) Yet, regardless of all this, for the sake of argument, let’s assume Jesus lived and died, and that all these aforementioned supernatural or divine attributes and events are true. Let’s assume all this.

One element still remains, and this is the basis, the very jugular, of Christianity: the sacrifice of Jesus.

Is it ethical for a supposedly omniscient and omnipotent being to demand the blood sacrifice of an innocent to atone for the guilt of the majority? I say this is obviously not ethical. But when I pose this answer to Straw Man Christian (SMC), I generally get an explanation like the one below:

Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, as He was without sin. He paid the price we can never pay. He paid the price for my sins. I can acknowledge and believe that fact. What gospel do you consider valid? “No greater love hath one than one who would lay down his life for another.” Why God let his son go thru the most humiliating and painful death devised at the time to pay the price for the sin of all mankind is beyond my comprehension. I can only give Him my thanks, gratitude, love, and service. If I am lacking, it is not for you to say or to judge. There are certainly far worse blueprints for behavior than Christianity. I feel the sacrifice and resurrection was needed in order for Christ to fulfill the prophecy and reveal God through him. Christ willingly went through the suffering to reveal what he would endure for us due to his love.

When one false or unsupported premise is accepted as true, the entire system that is based upon it can be logically consistent and still be untrue. I think most of us know this. Consistency does not necessitate truth. All consistency means in this case is that you’re really good at rationalizing, denying, claiming ignorance, going in cirlces (circular logic works because circular logic works!), or you really are just making it up as you go along.That being said, I often listen to all these explanations, but they never answer the question, or if they attempt to, it’s always an appeal to ignorance (e.g., “I don’t know God’s ways” as SMC said above) or a demand for an explanation as a way to digress and beg the question (e.g., “Who are you to question God?”). No theists have ever told me how they’ve been able to reconcile the moral paradigm espoused in the Bible (such as “Thou shall not murder”) with the ethical nature of their own god demanding blood sacrifice, or how they can ethically accept such a scapegoat in the first place. Generally, they either claim they’ve never thought about it, or they refuse to question their deity.The only reason there was ever a “debt” for “sin” (i.e., “the price we can never pay”) was that God arbitrarily made it so. God simply decided, according to scripture (that we’ve accepted as true for the sake of argument), to make the wages of sin death. Now, SMC would state, “Well, it’s not arbitrary. God laid it all out in the Garden of Eden, and when Adam and Eve disobeyed Him, He simply administered the suffering that was promised before they disobeyed Him, like any good parent would.”

But, SMC, it is arbitrary. If your god is omniscient and omnipotent (and let’s assume for the sake of argument that these two are not self-contradictory absolutes defined as deified attributes), then any demand or punishment or even consequence is arbitrarily decided upon by the god itself. That means God chose to make the “wages of sin” death and that a blood sacrifice of one innocent would be required to atone for the guilt of the majority because, as scripture reminds us, everyone sins. (How convenient.)

Now, the SMC can say, “God is moral, and all His decisions are just,” but that just begs the question to the point of desperate pleading. Does God dictate what is moral (which is arbitrary), or is God bound by moral limitations (which negates omnipotence)?

Any way one looks at the ethical nature of Jesus’ sacrifice, the Judeo-Christian god demanding a blood sacrifice as repayment for a debt He Himself created is just utter nonsense and unethical. It is a system that creates a need and fulfills it. It may be a logically consistent system to the theist who believes it to be true, but that doesn’t make it true. In fact, I have no problem telling you that it’s completely false and disinformative, even exploitative. None of it is true.

So how is the sacrifice of Jesus this supposed ultimate expression of love? If it is necessary to die for another one loves, I can see that as being an act of love, but it is not an act of love to just off yourself for no reason or become a martyr for your own ego. It is not love to demand one kill oneself.

Theists can no longer claim ignorance of the god they worship as a justification for their faith-based beliefs, nor can they claim that a faith-based belief justifies an unethical, atrocious, and stupid act.

They can no longer expect people to refuse to question the very deity the theist claims we’re expected to worship, honor, and respect. This supposed god’s ethics already supersede our own ethics, so we are morally obligated to not worship that which is unethical. As I’ve said before, I would never subject another to avoidable trauma, and if the Judeo-Christian god finds this ethical (with animals or Jesus), then I want no part of that. I refuse to worship, honor, or respect something that is ethically weaker than myself.

So even if Jesus is real, and even if Christian theology is a true reflection of reality, and even if there really is this supernatural world of clouds and hellfire, we still have to ask ourselves:

1. How is it ethical to accept a needless sacrifice—a bloody, torturous, and humiliating sacrifice that was not needed but demanded by a god— as a scapegoat, with gratitude and obedience, in our place, in payment for our own supposed unethical behavior?
2. How can a god that demands such sacrifice and works on such logic be acceptable to us humans?
3. How can a text that explains all this as true and ethical be deemed the ultimate purveyor or human ethical behavior and moral properties of the empirical world when we intrinsically know it is unethical to subject others to avoidable trauma?

These are not questions Christians can ignore any longer. They must be answered. And if the answers cannot be reconciled with one’s ethical principles, if they are diametrically opposed to the tenets of a free society, then one has to question why anyone would hold these types of beliefs about a god, human nature, and ethics at all. God is not immune from criticism, and if we are going to worship, honor, and respect something/one, we must first determine if it is worthy of such attention. I assure you, the Judeo-Christian god concept is not.

NBA great Charles Barkley called conservatives “fake Christians” recently on CNN. He also said he is pro-choice, he’s supportive of same-sex marriage, that he’ll be running for governor of Alabama in 2014… oh well, just watch the clip.

Now, Barkley brought up some valid points, but what I didn’t like was his quoting the Bible’s infamous and most ridiculously misinterpreted verse (Matthew 7:15) “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” What Barkley forgets is that these self-righteous egotistical Christians actually think they’re judged (or will be judged) and “saved” (after all, John 7:24, which states, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment” allows for such idiocy), which means they have autonomy and even moral authority to run around making sure women are punished for having sex and that their fear of male-male rape prevents any form of marital rights and privileges of same-sex couples.

Who cares about logic, ethical behavior, and moral and legal rights when you have Jesus on your side?

But this does irritate me to no end. I often see those who criticize faith-based beliefs quoting the original text from which the faith-based belief is derived, as though it is possible to prove the self-contradictory nature of Biblical and scriptural text to a “believer.” It’s not.

In the same vein, however, we, as humans, need to judge. We judge every day. Whether it’s about the weather outside or during a heated debate about politics or religion, we do judge. We have to. We have to discriminate. We have to make calls. We have to make decisions–legal and moral–about various subjects that socially and privately concern us. Claiming “Judge not, lest ye be judged” as some gospel truth does nothing but hinder us on the discovery of truth. It forces us to remain passive observers at its best, to sell the pass at its worst.

We can’t deny the need to judge. We can, however, call people on their bullshit. When a judgment is made because it pushes one’s personal prejudice forward, when a judgment is made that lacks substantive logical and empathetic support, but especially when a person thinks because some book supports such stupidity it should be immune from criticism, we have to judge. We have to call bullshit when we see it. We can’t hide behind “Judge not, lest ye be judged” because when we know we are in the right, when we know what bullshit is, can recognize it, and call it out, we should judge it and simultaneously be judged, and our moral integrity and intellectual honesty should stand on their own merit. They should stand up to scrutiny. If something is somehow immune from criticism, something is very wrong.

So yes, Charles, keep doing what you’re doing if you want, but for the love of all things pragmatic, don’t quote a self-contradictory book, and don’t ask people to shy away from their responsibility to make society better by refusing to judge. Ask them, instead, to support their claims and beliefs, to rationally persuade people rather than emotionally seduce people, to demand of them that they be honest rather than passive or even unethical. After all, if you want to be governor, you’ll have to rationally persuade a lot of people, and you don’t do that well (especially in Alabama) by showing your lack of Biblical understanding.