Obama is God

We are experiencing trying times.  Law enforcement officers are shot on the job.  Horrible, scary events that should never happen.  Unarmed men and women are shot by police.  Horrible, scary events that should never happen.  We see all this as a new problem.  It is not.  We have had separate but unequal races in this country for generations.  More of one race in prison.  More of one race dies via gunshot wounds.  More of one race experiences unemployment.  More of one race in colleges.  More of one race teaching in the classrooms.  More of one race in law enforcement.  We are lopsided.  We can scream all day that these differences are due to the behaviors of one race more than another.  Perhaps.  But we should be screaming that we must stop judging people by skin pigment, hair style, holes poked in their bodies, ink injected under their skin, and the relationship between their belly buttons and the top of their pants.  (I have contended all along that if teenage girls simply laughed at and refused to date any teenage boy who allowed his underwear to show above his belt the fad would disappear quickly.)

The problems are huge, both races have responsibilities.  Both races have tough steps to take to fix it because both races must modify their culture and their beliefs to end the disparity in data that confirms one race is treated differently and/or behaves differently than another.  That will be very hard.  Or so I thought.

Until I listened to my conservative friends.  Perhaps I should say my very conservative friends.  My moderately conservative friends and my liberal friends are not promoting the same message.  Just those folks on the far right.  Only they have seen the light.  And here is what they are saying.

The violence in our country is Obama’s fault.  Shooting police officers is Obama’s fault.  Increased racial tension is Obama’s fault.  Still no affordable universal health insurance is Obama’s fault.  Proliferation of semi-automatic rifles is Obama’s fault.  Probably sexual harassment at Fox News is Obama’s fault.  He caused it all.  He did it.  He is the villain!

If they are right, then Obama is God.  I have been praying to God to stop the violence, but Obama still made it happen.  I have been praying to God to stop senseless shootings of suspects and police, but Obama still made it happen.  Therefore I guess I should agree with my conservative friends that not only is Obama at fault, he is more powerful than we ever imagined.  More powerful than the god I followed.  It is time to worship Obama, pray to Obama, and ask him please to stop all the violence, all the killings.  If he caused it, he can stop it.  I am so surprised that enterprising right wingers have not marched out evidence of Obama’s deity status which should be easier for them to get than his birth certificate, and establish the Church of Obama, tax free. 

Why, now that we know Obama is a god the violence in France must be his fault too!  In fact, violence everywhere must be his doing.  Intolerance of other races everywhere must be his fault too!  Even global warming must be his fault. 

Yes dear conservatives, such a powerful deity merits our awe and respect.  Thank you for enlightening me.

Imagine

I am inspired by the Facebook post of a dear friend.  My friend has a friend in dire straits both financially and mentally.  Her FB post was addressed to Prayer Warriors seeking prayers for her needy friend.  And I thought, her friend does not need prayer and prayers will not help.  Her friend needs money and professional support.  Prayer feels like a cop-out.  I pray and I have done my part and the need goes on unabated.  So, why do we do this?  Why don’t I hop in the car, find her friend, buy her breakfast, and take her to a clinic?  Why do we seek the path least likely to be of real help?  So, I imagined:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today.
 John Lennon - Imagine Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

OK, John.  Let’s try to imagine a planet where no one believes in gods or an after-life.  There is no religion.  I think I can see some of the characteristics of such a life and the subsequent impact on human culture and behavior.  So, I will imagine.

If there is no heaven, no hell then we know that when we die we simply die.  We are done.  Self-awareness ends.  We have no fear of hell and no aspiration for heaven.  We all know that all we have is the time here and now.  Today.  I have no sense of anything before my birth and will have no sense of anything after my death.  We know we will not be greeted by loved ones already dead.  We will not “pass” as though there is somewhere else to go.  We will park, turn off the engine and never move.  We will not stand before a deity and be judged for our actions.  We have had our life and it is over.  Period.

As a species we would be intolerant of misery, pain and anguish.  If this is all we have, if today is all we get, then we have an obligation to ourselves to improve the quality of today as best we can.  We quickly realize that improving the quality of my life requires the improvement of the quality of all lives.  The tide raises all boats.  We can no longer promise those who suffer that they shall be rewarded in the next life because there is no next life.  We must fix the problem now.

If we knew the above and had followed such beliefs I think we would be much further down the road to a real utopia.  Disease would have been vanquished, hunger and thirst abolished.  Heartbreaks due to loss of a loved one would remain, but the understanding that we will never see them again is likely to make our time with them here and now much more meaningful.  Why care for my aging mom if I believe I will spend eternity with her?  Why mend fences with others if I believe I am either religiously justified in my offense, or I will have eternity to build a new fence?  I believe we would take each other much more seriously and would be much more supportive.  The numbers who have acquiesced in their misery due to a promise of a better life would drop to zero. 

Science would have made many more advances un-restricted by ancient sayings that we prove to be false.  There would be no persecution for new discoveries, there would be celebrations.

All those who died and suffered in wars triggered by religious belief would not have done so.  No one would care to fight for their faith if there was no such thing as Christianity or Islam, etc.  We would not have had witch trials or the Inquisition.  We would not have had lynch mobs.  If we worked to improve the quality of human life across the board, we would have no need for firearms or armies.

We would have an incredible amount of resources that are now and have been tied up in religious operations.  We would not need clergy, we would not need churches, and we would not need missionaries.  We would all be missionaries for a higher quality of human life and we could pursue such goals much better with more resources.

We would be healthier if we were living without fear of the after-life, the judgement yet to come, and the guilt for failing to achieve perfection.  We would have more time off and could celebrate our loved ones rather than spend the hours we do sitting in silence listening to fictions on Sunday morning.  We would be supportive of individual rights regarding our bodies and lives.  Those who choose to die could be helped and supported rather than treat them as criminals and mentally ill.  Those who choose abortions would not be treated as killers but would be treated as anyone is treated when they opt to remove a tumor.  Human life would not be viewed as de facto “sacred.”  It would be viewed as a once in a lifetime experience with each human making decisions regarding how they will live and end their lives.

We would have more understanding of our appetites and would have found healthy ways to satisfy those appetites without committing harm to ourselves or others.  Food, sex, drugs, and other addictions would not be judged but would be sated sans judgement.  Human physical reality and appetites would not be viewed as inherently evil, but would be viewed as simple attributes of our life forms.  You have brown hair, green eyes and love to eat.

I see a planet where the quality of human life is much better than we have it today.  I see a planet with less war and conflict.  I see a planet with a greater appreciation for each other and the common good.  I see a planet that is in fact more moral than our current planet where religion runs rampant in the streets.  We would learn to trust ourselves and each other because trust in imaginary friends and deities never really existed.

I can imagine that.

I’m off to buy breakfast for a stranger.

Missed Opportunities

I sat with Mathew and read the Sermon on the Mount.  Amazing.  Over several chapters Jesus outlines what it means to be a Christian.  The Beatitudes are poetic and demonstrative, though I still have a few questions.  How have modern Christians missed the whole turn the other cheek and love your enemy theme?  But that is future fodder.

Despite the wealth of philosophical foundation present in these chapters I cannot help but think that while Jesus talked about the golden rule he missed some golden opportunities to make a few things more clear.  He was, after all, addressing a mostly illiterate crowd probably not steeped in subtle innuendo.  Direct statements could have really helped his followers then and now.  Plus, if he knew all things surely he knew the trials and tribulations to come and could have stopped much of it with a few more beatitudes or in depth explanations.  He did a great job of making it clear that we are to love our enemies and even used tax collectors as an example.  He did a great job of making it clear that the comfort of wealth is bad, that mourning and humility will be rewarded, etc.  (Has Trump read these?)  But there are other areas he seemed to avoid.

How about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender folks?  Bible is pretty tough on such folks.  He fixed the whole notion of an eye for an eye, so why didn’t he fix the notion of persecuting people for their sexual identity and preference?

How about slavery?  I know, many claim that his message to free the oppressed addresses slavery, but that is pretty obscure for that audience, and even today some do not get it.  He could have simply said slavery is evil, no person should claim ownership of another person, human trafficking will get you sent directly to hell, and use of another human for your own personal wants is wrong.  Nope.  None of that was clear and Christian slave owners were around for eons, even today.

How about theocracy?  Did Jesus support a government grounded and supportive of one religion over another?  What would he have thought about the forthcoming proposed Islamic state?  What would he have thought about the current trend in America to push for a Christian nation under God?  That remains pretty vague.  I personally belief he would have opposed such chicanery and, if so, come right out and said that faith in God is not a governmental function and no people should make it the law of the land.  God is a personal God who created us both in His image as well as endowing us with free will.  If God wanted to mandate belief he could have done it somewhere around Adam and Eve.

How about military spending and individual ownership of firearms?  Man, could we use some holy standards on that today.  I suspect the entire “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy” means we do not support weaponry and should pursue a path of pacifism.  But that is too big a leap for his audience then as well as his followers today.  When he blessed the peacekeepers wasn’t he really cursing the violence proponents?  We could have used some real clarity here.

There are other areas that are issues today that he could have addressed.  Is it nobler to pursue knowledge of the stars than pursue star wars weaponry?  Should education and science be pre-eminate in our pursuits, or should we simply continue to live as shepherds and carpenters?  When science seems to conflict with previous holy beliefs couldn’t he have said that God created the universe and endowed us with the curiosity to understand his universe.  All efforts toward seeking an understanding of the operation of God’s creation is good.  Scripture was not meant to compete with knowledge.  On and on I could go, but I think you get my drift.

If Jesus was God and was omnipotent and omniscient and knew these issues would cause great pain and turmoil in the years to come, why in the world did he not nip it in the bud?  Sure seems like either a condemnation of his omniscience or an erroneous missed opportunity.

Missed opportunities is the kindest conclusion.

Ark, Ark, Ark

I have just read about Ken Ham’s Ark, constructed in Kentucky following Biblical standards, and am totally, jaw-dropping flabbergasted, amazed and bewildered.  In a time when information is so readily available how can people possibly spend so many resources pursuing such fictions?  But, I am getting ahead of myself, so I shall back up.

Do you believe in and worship a God?  What are the attributes of your God?

If you believe in the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the Old and New Testament, then I suppose there is a chance that you still believe the story of Noah’s Ark.  That chance could only be based on a lack of information and reflection.  To build a vessel in the Bronze Age capable of housing two of every kind of animal on the planet is a preposterous and impossible task.  There are 7.7 million types of animals on our planet, and science guesses we have identified about one-half of all the life forms here.  If we eliminate all the animals that live in water and all the bugs, then we are down to a mere 2 million animals.  The very most conservative estimates the types of animals and birds is 60,000.  There is no way to build a wooden vessel capable of housing, much less feeding two pair of that many life forms.  Ken Ham claims he built it to house 1,300 pairs of life forms.  Well, OK, but that is a drop in the 2 million life forms bucket.  If it were true that Noah took 1,300 pairs of life forms into a closed environment we now know two things Noah didn’t know.  First, the only way it could possibly be true is to argue for evolution postulating that somehow those 2600 creatures evolved rapidly into the 2 million we know today.  Sadly, Ark believers “believe” the scientific fact of evolution is false, so that cannot explain it.  On the other hand, if it were true and these became the only existent creatures on the planet, then having a gene pool of two specimens damns the life form to become extinct very shortly, not to mention the incest that would have to occur for reproduction.  Noah’s Ark is a fiction.  A fiction that depends on ignoring the knowledge we have accumulated in the past 4,000 years. 

But what is most amazing to me is that the point of the entire Noah story is lost on Ham.  The story is about the wrath of God.  God got so mad at humans that he drowned every single living thing.  Millions of people.  All kinds of animals.  It was genocide and extinction across a life-form spectrum we cannot imagine.  It was a temper-tantrum of universal proportions.  But because the ancient writers could not yet fathom evolution, there had to be a way to tell the story of a mean, wrathful God willing to wipe everything out and start over while explaining the diversity of life even those writers observed.  Hence the Ark.  Hence Noah.  Hence the sideline story of how God in his wrath saved himself the trouble of re-creating all the animals he had already created.  The problem, of course, for humans today is that we know the fiction is impossible, and if true, reveals an attribute of a God more worthy of prosecution than worship unless the worship is based on fear.

And the great flood was not a stand-alone event.  We have Sodom and Gomorrah, entire cities destroyed because they did not follow the rules as prescribed 3,000 years before Jesus.  Once again, a wrathful, mean God shows his true colors.  We have the banishment of Adam and Eve from the garden, not only punishment for Adam and Eve for disobeying this wrathful, mean God, but the punishment continues to this day.  Would a loving and forgiving God carry a grudge for what would have to be hundreds of thousands of years?   

The God of the Old Testament is not a God I could worship.  He demands unchallenged control of human life and is willing to execute any number of people if we do not comply.  And the rules he set up to follow are absurd:  stoning to death of humans who are not virgins on their wedding night, children who disobey parents, prostitutes, homosexuals – in fact, anyone who does not toe the line.  If those are attributes you are willing to worship, then I lament the fact that your faith is founded on such a negative supernatural being.  Superman becomes a better role model than God.

Some say that the New Testament in many ways replaces all the rules of the Old Testament via the sacrifice of Jesus.  OK.  The basic premise haunts me.  Prior to Jesus animals were sacrificed to God.  In the New Testament, not only is there human sacrifice, the human to be sacrificed is God’s son.  Really?  In terms of moral behavior has God moved to higher ground in the New Testament moving from animal sacrifice to human sacrifice?

Worse in my mind is the implication that the God of the New Testament is not very bright.  Here is a God that created everything.  He did it in 6 days.  He mapped out all those life forms he later saved on the Ark.  He was brilliant.  He was omnipotent.  But he gets really stupid in the New Testament because he cannot figure out a way to forgive humans for their sins except by the torturous death of his only son.  Amazing.  He would have a better image had we stuck with animal sacrifice.  Is the sacrifice of our children a behavior we should emulate?  Should I love my neighbor so much I am willing to kill my son?  Such a godly requirement is not one I can follow.  Why didn’t he send Jesus to perform miracles and simply announce that the punishments administered to Adam and Eve are now over for anyone who worships God?  I suspect the number of believers would be huge if believers did not have to toil and there was no pain in child birth for those who believe.  Why didn’t he simply allow Jesus to live forever on earth preaching love and forgiveness?  Why all this continued death and destruction in the name of sacrifice, anger and jealousy?  Worse, these deeds do not align with the words:  Love thy neighbor, unless of course, he does not do what God told him to do.  Even God approves a death penalty for those who disobey him, and the ultimate death penalty is an eternity in hell.

So, if you are of the Judeo-Christian heritage you worship a God who is wrathful, angry, willing to kill humans and entire species if we do not behave.  You worship a God that could not see a way around sacrificing his own son to implement forgiveness.  You worship a God who holds a grudge for a very long time.  You worship a God whose basic tenets in many cases go against the scientific rules of reality; rules that he theoretically created and implemented.  You worship a God who says one thing and does another.  You worship a God that supports slavery and no rights for women.  You appear to worship an all-powerful, supernatural being who has consistently demonstrated all the behaviors we abhor most in our fellow man. 

Or, it is all just a great story, a marvelous fiction written to promote certain beliefs and behaviors.  In that case the Ark is no more real than Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox, Tinker Bell and Never-Never Land, or even Oz.  In fact, if you heard that someone worshipped Tinker Bell and spent millions of dollars in the lab to create fairy dust so that we could all fly and never grow up, I suspect you would be totally, jaw-dropping flabbergasted, amazed and bewildered. 

And even though it is so sad, you would laugh, and your laughter would sound like, “Ark, ark, ark.” 

Bible Dilemma

I suppose the very first question should be, “Do you believe that the Bible is the holy word of the Lord, written and/or inspired by God and should be taken literally, verbatim, just as we have it today?”  Or, “Do you believe the Bible is a guide, subject to interpretation and that you (or other humans) have the authority to decide which verses are real and you will believe those verses, and which verses are not real today and we are not obligated to believe them?”  The first group that views the Bible as the literal, infallible word of God, I shall refer to as Type A Christians.  The second group who revere the Bible but do not take it literally I shall refer to as Type B Christians.  From where I sit, both groups have an intellectual dilemma that cannot be resolved.

Type A’s must believe everything in the Bible.  They must believe the earth is flat.  They must believe the sun orbits the earth.  They must believe the earth is about 6,000 years old.  They must believe it is better to offer your virgin daughters to a group of men than allow those men to have sex with other men.  They must believe that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night she should be stoned to death.  They must believe prostitutes should be stoned to death.  They must believe homosexuals should be stoned to death.  They must believe that God created everything and evolution is a theory that cannot be proven.  And they must believe that Jesus believes all these things as well because Jesus said he did.

The intellectual dilemma for the Type A’s is that we know so much more about the universe than the authors of the Bible knew.  We know for a fact that the earth is not flat.  We know for a fact that the sun does not orbit the earth.  We consider it a crime to promote your children to have sex with men, stone women for not being virgins, stone homosexuals, and stone prostitutes.  We know for a fact that evolution is not a theory in the common use of the word, it is a scientific fact that has been confirmed over and over again.  In fact, there is no evidence that contradicts evolution and every new piece of data we get confirms it even more.  If there was evidence contrary to evolutions then scientists would be the first to say that this theory does not work because we found an exception.  Whether the Type A’s believe God dictated the Bible, or God whispered in the ear of those men who could write in that age, their dilemma is, much of the Bible is false.  (If God inspired the Bible, I wonder why He did not throw in some anti-slavery, pro-human rights verses.  Did He know it was coming?)  The Bible in many cases is confirmed by scientific fact to be false.  Type A’s now have a problem with clinging to the word of God if we prove God wrong.  Can we believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful God when we know he was wrong? 

Type B’s are much more laid back and much less bull-headed about the Bible.  They see the Bible as a holy work, but believe it must be adapted to the times.  Verses that advocate stoning, advocate treating women as second class citizens, support slavery, condemn homosexuality, etc., etc. must just be ignored.  Those were the rules in the Bronze Age and they no longer apply.  We choose not to follow those passages that conflict with our current social beliefs.  OK.  Type B’s are much more open and comforting and tolerant.

But the intellectual dilemma for Type B’s is that someone gets to just say, “I do not believe this verse to be true today,” and act as though it is irrelevant.  They have made the Bible as false as the Type A’s.  God must be wrong, so we have updated Him.  Even harder to resolve is the question if any passage can be declared inappropriate and inaccurate, who is to say that the virgin birth and the resurrection cannot be declared the same?  Are they not in the same book from which we have chosen only the verses that comply with our thinking?  If we can do that, then this becomes our book and not God’s book, and we declare, once again, that God must be wrong and this book cannot be holy, or at least not worth reading until we have corrected some things.

Perhaps there is a Type C, but I cannot fathom what that belief system might be.  If you believe it all you are wrong and so is God.  If you get to cherry pick which verses you want then it is not a holy book, you could simply ignore anything you wanted to because we have given permission to do so, and the book becomes superficial.

So, where does all that leave us?

If the Bible and our common history of Jesus disappeared, would we re-discover God as we have discovered evolution, gravity, human rights, the order of our solar system, the history of our solar system, our planet and our universe, etc.?  If we forgot all we knew, would we re-discover what we currently know based on science and math?  Yes.  But I suspect we could not and would not discover God.  We would not be as wowed today with burning bushes, parting of seas, water into wine, etc.  We would look for the causes and explanations of such phenomenon and would not make the de facto assumption that they were magical events.  In fact, we would probably look to the authors who described such things as the culprits thereby rendering one more piece of evidence that the Bible cannot be true when we know authors made stuff up.  The question should be, “What factual evidence do we have to support the stories and claims made in the Bible?”  If any are shown to be false, are they all false?  If any are shown to be false should we base an international belief system on this book?  And sadly, it will be up to the Christians to prove it happened not the non-believers to prove it did not happen.  Believing it is true is not the same as knowing and showing it to be true.

Therein is the Bible dilemma.

My God Moment

I was in the 7^th grade, sitting in the Astrodome with my friends and peers from church.  We traveled there to hear Billy Graham.  The Dome was full of the faithful, the curious, the saved and the sinners.  I could smell popcorn and beer though the concessions stands were closed and the confession stands were open. There were many musical performances prior to the main event, warming up the crowd.  Graham finally emerged and the crowd went wild.  I was curious.  As he spoke in his distinct drawl about God loving even me, forgiving even me, I felt a warmth I had not felt before.  It was a glow, a sense of being worthwhile.  I knew I was a sinner.  My sins were easy for me to list and worry about.  I did not know it at the time, but I was depressed.  I felt worthless.  I felt unloved.  I felt incomplete.  All my teenage urges were overpowering and “sinful.”  The message that there was a supreme, supernatural being that loved me anyway was incredibly powerful.  I was so ready to hear such a sermon.  I was so needy of love. 

When Billy asked those who felt the spirit moving to stand, I stood.  Tears rolled down my cheeks.  He asked us to make our way from wherever we were sitting to the floor of the Dome.  I left my group, wandered down ramps and emerged on the Astroturf with hundreds of other people.  Many were crying.  Many were smiling and laughing.  A man met me as I stepped on the turf.  He asked me what was going on and I told him I felt the spirit of the Lord, I wanted to let Jesus take my life.  He got my name, address and phone number, and I was dismissed.  I was now on the roster of converts.  I was now on the mailing list.

While others at the microphone continued to urge folks to let Jesus in and come on down, while gospel music blared, I wandered upstream back to my seat.  My peers looked at me either as though I had lost my mind or with a warm smile of approval.  Adult church sponsors came to sit by me and praise my new commitment, my conversion, and my born-againness. 

Life quickly returned to normal.  There was school, church, girlfriends, sports and I detected nothing different.  I prayed fervently.  Nothing happened.  I asked for things but did not get them.  I asked to be relieved of things that remained with me.  I began to feel more and more like the fool.  I kept all this buried deep within.  For the religiously fervent in the church I was now a real member, an insider.  For everyone else I was still just Bob.

So, after my 7^th grade God Moment in the Houston Astrodome at the feet of Billy Graham I have wondered if I am now officially “saved,” once and for always no matter what I do.  That makes no sense to me.  My prayers remained un-answered and un-recognized.  My depression lingers.  I may have been touched by God, but what I really wanted was a life-long embrace.  I remain un-hugged by the supernatural.  The God Moment came and went and life went on as usual. 

It must be my fault.  I hear God does not make mistakes.  

Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel is promoted as an investigative search into the evidence that supports the existence of Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection.  Strobel is a lawyer and a journalist.  I believe if he practiced either profession while scrutinizing his own book he would trash it and recant.  Now that all my Christian Evangelical friends and Christian Apologist friends are jumping up and down and reaching for their blood pressure meds, please allow me to re-state the above in a different context.

Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots, was accused by the Indianapolis Colts of masterminding a plan that reduced the volume of air in the footballs he used as quarterback during the 2015 AFC Championship game.  The scandal became known as Deflategate.  Less air in the balls, better grip, more accurate pass, etc.  Camps of the Brady faithful immediately lined up to say this must be poppycock and balderdash.  The Tom Brady they know would never do such a thing.  Others, noticeably pro-Colt fans, believe Brady was involved.  Others who question the priority placed on professional sports in our country were aghast at the hurrah around ball psi.  This group says it doesn’t matter what the pro-Brady camp says, it is football, and football is harmful whether air was reduced from balls or not.  If footballs were deflated, then show me evidence because I believe anyone who plays ball is a crook and shyster and will do anything to win.  And Tom Brady must have either done it himself or orchestrated the air loss to support the football win.  Let’s call Brady the anti-Christ and the Colt fans the believers that he did it.  Brady fans believe he did not do it.  Did Brady deflate balls?  Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Into the fray marches Lee Strobel, lawyer and journalist.  Lee will get to the bottom of the issue and help all of us, both pro and con Bradyites, know what really happened.  Lee will bring his array of formidable skills to the task, but implies right up front that he believes Brady did it.  (Jesus arose.)  Strobel is not a Brady supporter.  He is a Colt believer.  Strobel conducts his investigation by conducting a series of interviews with experts in the field.  His printed product is a recounting of those interviews, and sadly I am still laughing.

The only experts Strobel interviews are those who support the notion that there is evidence that Tom Brady did it.  He only interviews Colt fans!  Each so called expert is in fact asked if he is more convinced Brady did it after his scholarship than before, and each expert says yes.  Each expert provides a series of anecdotes regarding Brady, and Strobel confuses anecdotes with evidence.  Each expert implies what he says is accurate because they each know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows Brady and believes that Brady did it.  Therefore, Brady must have done it and Strobel is a best seller.

Now just a minute.  The lawyer in Strobel should have pointed out that the only witnesses that were interrogated for this trial were witnesses for the prosecution.  The only case we hear is the state’s case that Brady did it.  The journalist in Strobel should have realized that hearsay and second hand sources are not admissible in this debate.  Further, many of the expert witnesses should likely have recused themselves because they so deeply believed Brady did it.  I am convinced if Strobel turns either his lawyer’s eye or his reporter’s ear to his own book he will recognize there is no real evidence here, and if so, it is perceptual and one-sided.  Strobel concludes Brady did it after consulting not one single argument to the contrary.  This is hardly hard core investigative journalism or court room witness extraction.  This is a one-sided sales pitch.

That’s what Strobel did in The Case for Christ.  He interviewed believers.  He heard tales and anecdotes and arguments that those who believe in Jesus just must be right because it makes sense to other believers that they are right.  If you engage in this book hoping for a meaningful discourse on the reality of Jesus, his death and resurrection, you will only hear one side.  Amazingly, as I read other reviews, Christians love the book because, well, it was written by Christians.  Skeptics will scoff and go in search of real evidence.

I am left with the feeling that the Christian belief is so strong in some that they simply cannot perceive another way of thinking.  I am left with the feeling that the support of Christianity as described by the Apologists is unacceptable in a court of law and is pretty slim for any rational person.  The Patriots will never believe Brady did it, and the Colts cannot conceive of any other outcome.  Christians will always believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and skeptics will never believe such a thing.  And as for Strobel’s heavy arguments, it turns out that air has little weight.