…and this is a 
Now blind in two senses
Category: Religion
Posted on: March 12, 2008 1:45 PM, by PZ Myers
People in India were told that there was a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary floating in the sky, so about 50 of them suffered burned retinas by staring at the sun. I think we can see that religion definitely attracts stupid people to its ranks.
I sure hope no one tells them that if you hit yourself on the head with a hammer real hard, you'll see swarms of angels dancing everywhere around you. Or, more likely, that if you mail all your money to a preacher, you'll get rich. But no one would be that sadistic, would they?
Comments
Ummm... they'd be doing us a favor.
Posted by: zer0 | March 12, 2008 1:47 PM
Or at least the desperate and hopeless.
Posted by: Jennifer | March 12, 2008 1:51 PM
Is it wrong to goad the local Christian fundamentalists into proving that they are really believers via Jesus' litmus test: Drinking deadly poison and surviving (Mark 16:18)?
Well, if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.
Posted by: Jason Failes | March 12, 2008 2:01 PM
"I sure hope no one tells them that if you hit yourself on the head with a hammer real hard, you'll see swarms of angels dancing everywhere around you."
No, it would be birds.
Posted by: Rey Fox | March 12, 2008 2:08 PM
When we say the stupid burns, we mean it!
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | March 12, 2008 2:10 PM
makes me sad. what a waste.
Posted by: kid bitzer | March 12, 2008 2:10 PM
It's called blind faith for a reason?
Posted by: Eric | March 12, 2008 2:21 PM
I dunno. Given the descriptions of God's words and deeds in the bible, placing a miracle in the sky next to the sun to maim his followers sounds about right.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 12, 2008 2:27 PM
Maybe they were just dyslexics trying to learn "Amazing Grace". "I once could see, but now am blind"...
I'll get my coat.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 2:33 PM
Jason Failes,
For crying out loud Jason, why do you keep going around challenging with Mark 16:18 (from the so-called Marcan Appendix, Mark 16:9-20) when you've be told a gazillion times that most biblical scholars (of all stripes) believe it (the Marcan Appendix) is a redaction? It is, as everyone knows, not present in the earliest manuscripts. There are plenty of difficult biblical passages--why not challenge believers with some that are indisputably canonical? I can email you a list of really puzzling and difficult passages, if you like.Your practice is analogous to going around challenging evolution through never-ending references to Piltdown Man.
Posted by: heddle | March 12, 2008 2:33 PM
Is God really maiming them, Brownian?
Or, is he lovingly enhancing their remaining sensory modalities?
Posted by: s1mplex | March 12, 2008 2:36 PM
Here is just another example of the insane hold religion
has on uncultured minds. These are the same people who
bathe in the Ghanges River while a group is pissing and
shitting upstream from them. This is a holy ritual and
never considered otherwise, so when a human turd floats
toward them they clasp their hands together, bow toward
the holy object and exclaim, "Holy shit"! India will
always be backward, and if Britain had never occupied that
pestilential shithole they would still be in the throes of
their myriad gods and rituals and dying at a rate higher
than they still experience. Even with the atmosphere of
web technology they will remain as a basket case because
of the entrenchment of their religion. Even one of their
not-by-birth countryman, V S Naipaul, summed it up
succintly by quoting Macauly: "All the learning of India
was not worth one shelf of a European library."
"Oh look, that cloud appears to be of a cow shitting; quick, let's open our mouths to receive the holy offal!"
Posted by: Holbach | March 12, 2008 2:40 PM
Maybe, they should have been looking at the clouds instead of the sun.
"I thought I saw a horsey and duckie, but I changed my mind." - Charlie Brown after Linus describes biblical images formed by clouds.
Posted by: Corey Schlueter | March 12, 2008 2:41 PM
MAJeff got the "burning stupid" line in before I even ready the article - but I'm happy to find my sense of humor matches his...
Posted by: Owen | March 12, 2008 2:44 PM
A redaction? So how do you tell which scriptures were written by God and which were written by liars? Can you do the same for the Bhagavad Gita? Or is that all lies? Maybe you'd better get some scholars of all stripes to check for you.
Poor ol' Twaddle's got his knickers in a waddle over the Biblical piffle that makes Sky Daddy sniffle.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 12, 2008 2:44 PM
Oh my. Is it wrong of me that my first thought was to spread a "Jesus appears in a sunspot" meme, and then start handing out binoculars?
I'm so sorry. Bad Calladus!
Posted by: Calladus | March 12, 2008 2:50 PM
The Marcan appendix is an interpolation, not a redactions. Redactions are when you remove something from the text, not add something to it.
Regardless, the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians believe that the Bible, as we have it, is the word of God. The consensus of modern scholars (liberal Christian and secular)--that the vast majority of it is written long after the events they supposedly describe, that the books have been edited and rewritten for ideological reasons, that the vast majority of the signed works are pseudepigraphical, etc--is rejected by many fundamentalists. So even though the snakes and poison verse in Mark is in reality a later addition to a heavily corrupted book, most fundamentalists don't believe that (because their beliefs have little to do with reality).
Posted by: Wes | March 12, 2008 2:55 PM
@ #3
You forget, some of them already do that. I'm related to more than a few, strong doctrine or not.
Posted by: Ranson | March 12, 2008 3:01 PM
I don't know... somehow, when I saw the "send the money" we should just capitalize on it and get them to send the money to us instead. You know, for building our churches and the like (said with an eye-roll for those sarcastically challenged)
Posted by: dWhisper | March 12, 2008 3:13 PM
Jason may have been writing facetiously, but there are plenty of snake handling churches in my neck of woods. Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama have passed laws against the practice, according to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_handling
It is still legal here in Texas, and the state may be particularly well suited to it, since we have plenty of all four families of poisonous snake found in the US.
Posted by: Russell | March 12, 2008 3:13 PM
Brownian, OM,
Here is how we tell: We don't do any scholarly research. We don't study the earliest manuscripts. We don't compare linguistic styles. We don't look for the sudden onset of different vocabularies. We start with our baseline canon dictated to us by Constantine and his minions. But we play fast and loose. If brilliant scholars such as yourself and other commenters on here point out previously unrecognized difficulties with certain passages, we quickly circle the wagons and declare "redaction!" Because, as everyone knows, the Marcan appendix was considered autographic and canonical for two millennia until that rascal Jason started pointing out that it meant we should be willing to drink poison.
Wes,
No, redaction means a revision or an edit. It can certainly include additions to a manuscript.
Gee, what do you mean most fundamentalists don't believe that? Some habitual commenter on here always accuses me of "projection" when I say what most fundamentalists believe. I can only say that I have been called a fundamentalist on this blog, and hence it follows, reasonably, that I associate with fundamentalists, and yet every one that I know of who has discussed this passage including every fundamentalist pastor of whom I have ever heard mention it recognizes it as a probable redaction, as they recognize some other passages that we wish were not redactions, such as 1 John 5:7-8 in the KJV (a proof text for the Trinity, if it were authentic) and the beautiful story of the adulteress in John 8.
But, I don't need to tell everyone on here, we cleverly sacrifice those "nice" passages for the greater good of giving us credibility to toss out problematic text like the Marcan Appendix.
Posted by: heddle | March 12, 2008 3:19 PM
Why doesn't God just tell you what's true and what's not? Doesn't He want you to go to heaven?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 12, 2008 3:25 PM
Prettty close.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3525245.ece
One poor sod learns the hard way:
Posted by: pedlar | March 12, 2008 3:35 PM
Brownian, OM,
A theological/soteriological criticism with this level of gravitas is rarely encountered. I'll freely admit that I don't know how to respond.
Posted by: heddle | March 12, 2008 3:35 PM
Heddle: You're missing the point. Your position may be historically accurate, and may even be in the best traditions of modern theology: but it is simply *not* what people believe.
Your analogy to evolution is false. No modern textbooks on evolution refer to the Piltdown man in any respect except as the fraud it is, but modern bibles have the Mark quote, and few challenge its authenticity. Bibles are not published with disclaimers on the front stating, "the views represented as being expressed by Jesus in this book may never have been uttered". My own bible, the NIV Compact edition (with bible guide) is utterly silent on when Mark 16 was written. So it's kind of irrelevant whether it was redacted or not; it's not printed with that disclaimer.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 3:45 PM
Oh I'm sure, given enough time, you and the rest of your theological hand-wavers will make something up.
If you're really stuck, I suggest you scour the Indic religious traditions for answers. After all, they've been at it for a heckuvalog longer than you Jesu-Come-Latelys, so their thoughts must be so much more profound than your dilletantic hubris.
Or is there some reason we're supposed to bow down to the Abrahamic profundities you proffer from your years of serious scholarly bible study, but you're under no obligation to pay the same respects to those whose apologetics pre-date yours by millennia?
My, but the Emperor's invisible raiments are especially fine today, are they not?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 12, 2008 3:45 PM
Re: soteriological
Having Greek or Latin roots doesn't automatically make something not bullshit. Astrology and phrenology also take their endings from λογος.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | March 12, 2008 3:49 PM
Armchair Dissident,
Am I, and all the members of my church (A conservative Reformed Baptist church in the bumpkin land of southern Virginia) not members of the set "people?" And yet I don't think you could find one person in my church who believes that the Marcan Appendix should not be viewed with suspicion.
You need to get another bible. I'm fairly certain that every bible I have--a KJV, a NKJV, an ESV, an NIV, and an NASB all have the disclaimer--some embedded, like the chapter headings in the text itself (such as the NIV--of that I am absolutely sure--I don't know what's up with your NIV) and some in footnotes. Even the most widely used online bible has the standard NIV disclaimer:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark%2016&version=31
Of course there are some people who do accept those and other disputed passages as canonical. But it is certainly not "all" people.
I agree the analogy I used is far from perfect. But it is not totally off base either. Jason using the poison passage over and over to discredit Christianity is not unlike, in my opinion, using the Piltdown man over and over to demonstrate what undiscriminating oafs we scientists are. I wouldn't push the analogy beyond that--but that is the point I was making.
Brownian, OM,
How many times must I cry uncle? Your objections are unanswerable by the likes of me.
Posted by: heddle | March 12, 2008 4:08 PM
Armchair Dissident:
Can you back up the later generalization? Of the five Bibles I have at hand, four do mark it as a later addition.
(Possibly significantly, the one that doesn't is from 1958 while the others are from the '80s or '90s.)
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | March 12, 2008 4:12 PM
Yeah, but Heddle...you're nuts, and I expect you congregate with similarly nutty people. I'll concede that you're a "people", but you're far, far from rational.
Posted by: PZ Myers | March 12, 2008 4:14 PM
I beat you to this one PZ. Plus, I point out that this isn't the first time it's happened. :P
Posted by: The Angry Astronomer | March 12, 2008 4:18 PM
You may be a set of the member "People", but you are clearly not a member of the set, "people who believe that a guy called Jesus said that". That does not, in any way, mean that the second set does not exist. That second set, of course, appears to include the authors of the NIV Compact Edition which was the standard text the three churches I belonged to in my Christian years.
And yet, I could find many in the churches I attended who didn't. Correction: I could find many in the churches I attended who didn't even know there was a theological problem with the passage.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 4:19 PM
Yup. "Holy Bible, New International Version, Compact Edition with bible guide"; ISBN 0340374071. This is the 1998 edition of that bible.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 4:26 PM
Heddle @28.
Every fundamentalist with whom I have discussed the Bible claims the King James Version is the literal word of God and without error. So are you saying you belong to a fundamentalist church which believes the KJV is not literally inerrant?
I'm not being argumentative, I'm just astonished at your comment. Did I misunderstand your position?
Posted by: Jim | March 12, 2008 4:27 PM
This seems to imply that staring at the sun can make someone completely blind. Does anyone know if that is accurate, or if it just creates a blind spot, like a laser would?
Posted by: Mark | March 12, 2008 4:32 PM
Any religion that starts off with the Nicene Creed as its basis has no claim to gravitas in the first place.
It's a sanity test. If you believe it, you fail.
Posted by: Owlmirror | March 12, 2008 4:35 PM
@Armchair Dissident: Read my post again. The generalization I asked you to back up was "few [modern bibles] challenge its authenticity" - repeating that some edition of the NIV doesn't in no way backs that up.
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | March 12, 2008 4:38 PM
As Darwin (possibly) would have said: Add more chlorine to the gene pool.
Posted by: Chris | March 12, 2008 4:38 PM
Mark, it might not make you totally blind in your peripheral vision, but I bet it'd nuke your fovea pretty good.
Psh. These people wanna see the Virgin Mary so bad, why don't they smoke some ska pastora (Salvia divinorum)? I'd bet on 75% of them seeing her. 90% if I get to tell them about it first.
Posted by: octopod | March 12, 2008 4:39 PM
Armchair Dissident in #25,
I believe Andreas Johansson in #29 was challenging your generalization that few bibles challenge the authenticity of the passage in question. Repeating that your bible does not is not, it seems to me, an adequate response--but what do I know, being the irrational creature that I am?
Jim,
If you define fundamentalist as someone who believes in the literal inerrancy of the KJV then I am not a fundamentalist. In fact, I have blogged about why we have very good reasons to believe that the KJV is the worst of the broadly accepted English translations. Furthermore, I have only belonged to conservative evangelical churches, and not one of them ever held the position than any English translation is inerrant--the claim of inerrancy is always limited to the original manuscripts. And yet I still get called a fundamentalist all the time on this and similar sites--so I guess it depends on your definition of fundamentalist.
Posted by: heddle | March 12, 2008 4:42 PM
I just want to add: seriously, "WTF!"
This is supposed to be a book either inspired, or actually written (depending upon who one listens to) by God himself and the principle objection to a quote in Mark is that, basically, "it might have been faked". Yet Mark is in the Bible as a story of God's supposed son!It's the F'ing bible! People throughout history have died over the interpretation of this book, and people like Heddle feel safe stating that one passage may be open to interpretation?
You don't need to look at Intelligent Design or their like to see that God is made up. You just need to read Heddle. God. Creator of the Universe. Creator of everything. Screws up a "Universe for Dummies" guide, and - given his output - couldn't get a job as an editor in "Gods weekly".
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 4:42 PM
But, even if a bible mentions the issues with quotes like Mark 16;9-20, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good note. The copy I have uses a rather vague note, to the effect of, "some manuscripts and ancient translations don't have this segment." If it's not being very specific about, say, the estimates on the year of the passage's earliest appearance, it can be rather easy to ignore a note on the issue, by absentmindedness or willful ignorance. That being said, I don't know how frequently the bible's footnotes are written in such a way for recent editions. It's just a possibility that should be considered.
Posted by: mona | March 12, 2008 4:43 PM
For crying out loud Jason, why do you keep going around challenging with Mark 16:18 (from the so-called Marcan Appendix, Mark 16:9-20) when you've be told a gazillion times that most biblical scholars (of all stripes) believe it (the Marcan Appendix) is a redaction?
hey, heddle, why not go yell at someone who might care what you have to say on the issue, like maybe the pentecostal snake handlers?
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 12, 2008 4:45 PM
And yet, my bible still does not. So explain to me, precisely, why - if I were a christian - I should not believe that chapter. My bible is - according to your definition - wrong. Which other bits are wrong? How do I know they're wrong? How many other bibles are wrong? For that matter, why should I have to read through the countless redactions and revisions? I thought God was "God"! Why couldn't he get it right the first time, and everytime!
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 4:47 PM
How many times must I cry uncle?
why bother coming back here again and again just to do so, then?
I'm sure I speak for all regulars here when I say we wouldn't miss your "contributions" even a tiny bit.
seriously, you don't need to worry about us.
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 12, 2008 4:48 PM
It is still legal here in Texas, and the state may be particularly well suited to it, since we have plenty of all four families of poisonous snake found in the US.
I'd be willing to import some black mambas* if any of them get bored with regular old rattlesnakes.
BTW, aren't all but one of the venomous snakes in the US pit vipers of one sort or another? That makes two families (Viperidae and single Elapid)
*Yes, I know the inland taipan is far more venomous. The black mamba is, however, one of the world's crankiest snakes.
Posted by: Graculus | March 12, 2008 4:50 PM
No. You didn't:
Where's, "modern" mentioned?
My bible was published in 1998. Is that sufficiently "modern" for you?
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 5:01 PM
There is no such thing as a biblical literalist. The book contradicts itself in hundreds of places, some critical. So they all quote mine, skip over weird stuff, and fill in the blanks. The most egregious one is the Rapture Monkey Syndrome. Which is poorly supported in the first place to the point where the vast majority of Xian sects don't believe it.
It is also flat out contradicted by the OT, Genesis myth. After god murdered all but 8 people and destroyed the biosphere, he promised to never do it again. I'm sure the Rapture Monkeys have some lame ad hoc response that makes sense only to morons. They always do.
Next time you run into one, point this out and watch them turn reason, logic, and their sluglike brains inside out. It is very funny.
Posted by: raven | March 12, 2008 5:02 PM
I was raised Southern Baptist (I got better, thanks) and my granddaddy was a preacher. While I'm open to those who think "Fundamentalist" can include folks willing to entertain the notion that some of the bible is not inerrant, my grandpa would have considered calling that a slippery slope to be too kind.
Here's what the American Heritage Dictionary says:
"Fundamentalism:
1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism. 2a. often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture. b. Adherence to the theology of this movement. "
I once spent a shift on guard duty with a fundie who insisted that the KJV was the only inspired version of the bible - including the original Greek and Aramaic.
Posted by: Freehand | March 12, 2008 5:31 PM
I was on a flight waiting to take-off from Charlotte, North Carolina to San Francisco and placed "The God Delusion" on the seat next to me (face-up). Given that Charlotte has at least one foot firmly planted in the bible-belt, I was interested to see the reaction from the fellow passenger in my row. Within a minute, he asked me about the book. "Is it pro or anti?" was his first question. I explained who you were, what the book was about, and that I had only finished a few chapters.
As soon as I finished speaking, a disgusted look crossed his face and he said, "Well, I hope you don't base your decision on just one book." I smirked and turned away.
Posted by: Adam | March 12, 2008 5:54 PM
Armchair Dissident,
For the same reason that you should not believe, uncritically, the other passages that scholarly research has indicated as probable redactions. If, for example, there was good evidence that an eighth century scribe penned the book of Jude, then we should not accept it as canonical, even if Zondervan puts it in the bibles it publishes. Nor should we believe the errors Jerome made in producing the Vulgate, just because they are there. For the same reason we don't claim that the accounts of the resurrection attributed by some to Josephus are anything but what most scholars believe them to be: redactions by misguided Christians.
With this particular "poison" passage, it is convenient for you to believe that we have no legitimate reason to reject it--that our arguments are capricious rather than related to the scholarship end evidence that cast doubts upon its authenticity, because that would spoil the fun. No, it must be accepted uncritically, because it can be used to your advantage, a la Jason.
This is argument ad absurdum. I could tell you what passages are suspect, I already mentioned a few and they are in fact the most widely cited. There is a small handful of others. (Furthermore, none of the passages in question have any substantive effect on the core gospel message of scripture--so in some sense it doesn't matter if you believe them or not--apart from the risk to misguided snake handlers.) And here is a newsflash--these problems have been known for a long time--they did not remain hidden until revealed by "the blog with the most intelligent comments of all blogs in the history of blogs" dug them out. Again, It is not the case that there are many passages in dispute, and it is not the case that Christians willy-nilly toss out passages when convenient--as I already mentioned in some cases they are passages that we'd dearly love to keep in. But the fact that we treat them with suspicion (as to their authenticity) even though they may be beloved (e.g., the adulteress of John 8) just doesn't jibe with the view that we Christians are all uncritical, nonintellectual, irrational, red necked bumpkins with multiple rows of buck teeth. But, of course, that's the picture you'd like to paint.
OK, that critique is simply too Brownian, and is beyond my limited capabilities.
Posted by: heddle | March 12, 2008 5:55 PM
"Gee, the Virgin Mary sure looks an awful lot like a giant, thermonuclear ball of fi...AHHHH MY EYES!!!"
Posted by: AgnosticTheocrat | March 12, 2008 6:09 PM
There's more passages that are wrong?
Once again, this is supposed to be the word of "God", yet apparently only those sufficiently educated in the nuances of what is truth and fiction, in a grand work of fiction, are supposed to be able to discern the truth from the fallacy! The fabled concept of the human soul is supposed to be dependent upon this correct interpretation, and yet it can be wrong?
So, to cut it short: a simple question: who's right? The catholic church or the anglican? Why, and upon what basis.
No, it would be argumentum ad ignorantiam; but by all means do. But I want every single one, and by that I mean every single passage in the bible which is wrong; why, and why it is not mentioned in my bible that it is wrong.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | March 12, 2008 6:15 PM
Slightly off topic, but some more religious nutiness, this time in Russia.
http://www.russia-ic.com/news/show/5932/
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-03-12/russian-protestant-leaders-call-for-ban-on-ikki-tousen
Posted by: Knight of L-sama | March 12, 2008 6:20 PM
Hmmm, an annotated bible would be interesting. (e.g. "This section was added in the 200s by Christians trying to distance themselves from Jews."
Posted by: Monado, FCD | March 12, 2008 6:24 PM
What are we considering "authentic," heddle? Do you mean (in the cited case) authentically Markan, or authentic in that you think there's a reliable way to know that a given passage comes from Jesus himself?
Posted by: CJO | March 12, 2008 6:25 PM
Hmmm, an annotated bible would be interesting. (e.g. "This section was added in the 200s by Christians trying to distance themselves from Jews."
I believe the Jesus Seminar has published something along those lines.
Posted by: CJO | March 12, 2008 6:28 PM
The whole "Christ's ascent into heaven" is a later addition according to biblical scholars.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | March 12, 2008 6:28 PM
Wow! how did this thread end up being about biblical literalism and fakery?! (apart from the lone brit troll who went unanswered and I suppose thankfully unfed)
Anyway, the bit about this story that caught my eye is that most of the victims were young girls! I hope that observation doesn't trigger some other crazy thread here about gender differences in gullibility (if not intelligence) now! I rather charge the parents and churches with systematic mental abuse of the poor girls!
Posted by: Madhu | March 12, 2008 6:38 PM
Armchair Dissident,
I certainly hope you are wrong! And I must say I have never heard of "salvation by access to the correct translation of the bible, one without error." That would be very bad news indeed. And just as bad would be "salvation by not believing anything that turns out to be false," or its cousin "salvation by believing only things that turn out to be true." Man--in any of those cases there would indeed be no hope. Did they teach you such doctrine at your church?
Yowz'm Mastah Dizzdent. How would I know why anything is or is not mentioned in your bible's commentary? Do you see my name on the editorial board? The only other NT passage of substance that comes to mind is Acts 8:37, when Philip is witnessing to the Ethiopian eunuch. It is simply skipped in many modern translations--that is Acts will go from 8:36 to 8:38, because, again, it is not found in the earliest manuscripts. For example, see:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%208;&version=31;
The suspect verse reads:
So you can see why we are embarrassed and arbitrarily leave it out, and without merit attribute its absence to some unnamed scholars,--it is so damaging to Christian theology and it leaves us at the mercy of our critics. We just had to dump it, before people like Jason used it against us.
Posted by: heddle | March 12, 2008 6:46 PM
That's a real odd thing to assert especially as you well know that there is not a single autograph of the scriptures in existence. It's inerrant, you know for sure, although there is no evidence for your assertion. Typical.
Posted by: Rick T. | March 12, 2008 6:54 PM
I'm afraid there's only one way to resolve this paradox with the various bibles and their disparate contents.
If the god who presumable dictated those passages is not imaginary, then he must be either 1) evil or 2) insane.
Accept this conjecture and all the paradoxes disappear.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my quest to return a coke bottle to the almighty.
Posted by: amphiox | March 12, 2008 6:55 PM
Wow! how did this thread end up being about biblical literalism and fakery?!
Heddle.
what else?
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 12, 2008 7:00 PM
On a lighter note, looks like the Bertrand Russell Appreciation Society has failed in their effort to launch a giant teapot into geosynchronous orbit.
Posted by: raindogzilla | March 12, 2008 7:01 PM
^^Link^^
http://gods4suckers.net/archives/2008/03/12/im-a-giant-teapot/
Posted by: raindogzilla | March 12, 2008 7:03 PM
So out of over a billion people in India, only 50 were stupid enough to look at the sun? That actually sounds pretty good.
Posted by: Baratos | March 12, 2008 7:13 PM
@ #55 "Hmmm, an annotated bible would be interesting."
They're rather easy to come by. My most recently printed English language bible is "The Oxford Annotated Bible" RSV from 1962. It doesn't even inclued Mark 16: 10 - 19 in the text, though it refers to it in a footnote, with a comment regarding its stylistic problems.
The Oxford annotations are very similar to the ones found in the Bibles supplied in the churches I attended when young.
I have found the religious whack jobs who seem to have infiltrated every layer of US politics and garnered so much media attention to be utterly alien to my own experiences in the liberal, mainline, denominations I grew up in. Yet there they are...
Posted by: MTran | March 12, 2008 7:25 PM
This is tragic. I don't even know what to say.
So instead, I'll go here.
:-/
Posted by: Kseniya | March 12, 2008 7:39 PM
I'm an Indian Christian, and I feel really bad.
@holbach :
Fuck you ! Racist,imperialist bastard. Rot in hell, you
son-of-a-bitch motherfucking pigshit-covered asshole.
@PZM :
Sorry for besmirching these fine pages. But, I can't stand
such shit.
Posted by: astrolieber | March 12, 2008 8:09 PM
Armchair Dissident:
In the claim of yours I was quoting and replying to, from post #25:
You decide: you introduced the "modern" qualifier.
I don't doubt that you've got a Bible that lack any indication that Mark 16:9-20 is a later addition. What I asked you to back up was that few, implying a minority of, modern Bibles (for whatever definition of "modern" you were thinking of) has such an indication.
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | March 12, 2008 8:14 PM
Neither. Astronomer Andrew Young has a page about this: http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/vision/Galileo.html#religious (scroll down to "Naked-eye solar hazards". Phil Plait used this as a source for a chapter in "Bad Astronomy".). People might do minor damage to their eyes if they look at the sun for several minutes (the figure given is 1000 seconds or more), but nobody goes blind from looking at the sun with the naked eye.
Posted by: Eike | March 12, 2008 8:22 PM
That news story Prof. Myers cited doesn't seem very substantial.
Am I the only one having flashbacks to the Great LSD Hoax of 1970-71?
My science teacher promoted that one in class before it was debunked, contributing immeasurably to my later bitter cynicism.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | March 12, 2008 9:21 PM
With the difference that there are millions of pentecostal snake-handling non-tongue-non-speaking Christians out there in the USA who really believe in all that stuff. That's as if there were universities all over the globe where Piltdown Man were taught in paleoanthropology courses and even published upon -- which, however, ain't the case.
You do realize you're making arguments from consequences here?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | March 12, 2008 10:05 PM
"For crying out loud Jason, why do you keep going around challenging with Mark 16:18 (from the so-called Marcan Appendix, Mark 16:9-20) when you've be told a gazillion times that most biblical scholars (of all stripes) believe it (the Marcan Appendix) is a redaction?"
I suppose it's because if you take out every part of the Bible whose authorship is in question, every part of the Bible we're not sure when it was written, and every Biblical passage that is otherwise factually questionable, metaphoric, allegorical, based on older legends, or completely erroneous, there really isn't anything left, or at least nothing left that is miraculous.
Indeed, resorting to picking on the particular problems with a particular passage (without treating the entire rest of the Bible, by degrees I admit, as similarly suspect), is just a cheap way of defending the indefensible....and I was in no mood to play the shifting goalpost game.
That, and it was a joke, kinda.
I don't actually go into churches with bleach (that often). I usually only save it for door-to-door faith peddlers who, universally, have no idea that that passage is suspect and also, universally, have refused me (thankfully, I suppose, it's more to make a point than to off someone with their own credulity...you never could get them all, I suppose)
Oh, and to everyone, sorry for Heddle. I fed him once, and he kind of follows me around now.
Posted by: Jason Failes | March 12, 2008 10:06 PM
astrolieber, the indian christian @ 69
Stark history is such a bummer, especially when it's
effects are still so evident in the India of today. I will
not recant any of my statements, caustic or factual, and
still state that India is a product of its myriad fanatical
religions and the impoverishment of its populace, both in
civilized culture and basic health structure. Railroads
came by way of Britain as did so many worthwhile and so
necessary infrastructure. Statistics show that in 25 years
India will surpass China in population. Incredible, that
there will be close to 3 billion humans in just two Asian
countries! No attempt is made to control this eventual
devastating phenomena, as at least in India, religion will
remain as pernicious as ever and continue to retard any
semblance of intelligent population control. By then, there
will not be a blade of vegeatation left in that country,
with even the natural areas used to accomodate the run-away
hordes. It's no wonder that life expectancy will always
be below the rest of the world. There will be a tremendous
increase in human and bovine excrement that will eventually
engulf the sub continent. Even the tigers in the Sunderbans
will be killed off and eaten as necessary food.
Your pathetic profanity only exacerbates your plight in that nightmarish hellhole. Hell is an imaginary place
made up by your religion to instill fear into your puny
life and hope it engenders the same in mine. Why don't you
call on your imaginary god to improve your plight in that
fifth world cesspool. And why don't you get your god to
smite me down and prove to you that your pathetic life is
in its power. Let's see your god, you insane moron.
Since you are indian christian, perhaps pig shit will be
more suitable for your diet. Why don't you vent your spleen
and religious insanity on a site other than Pharyngula.
There are many deranged religious sites that will be happy
to digest your freaking religious crud.
Posted by: Holbach | March 12, 2008 10:14 PM
I fed him once, and he kind of follows me around now.
i know the feeling.
have you tried a rolled-up newspaper yet?
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 12, 2008 10:18 PM
Holbach,
As a non-religious Indian, I can happily assure you that your comments are batf*** insane.
Posted by: anon | March 12, 2008 10:43 PM
Since there was nothing on, I spun through the channels and saw one of those preachers with lists on posterboards behind him. Well those lists were the blessings you would receive if you made a passover offering to god. I was thinking that he would want a lamb roasted or something. No no no! Todays currency of exchange (I thought he said god wanted the offering) is not lambs or wheat or any of that rot. No, it's Money! (color me surprised) Now this offering had to be beyond your tithe and outside of your building fund and not what you normally give to Hinn/Roberts/[some others I don't remember]. And you've got to offer your $200 right away so it'll be a passover offering to receive your seven blessings.
Are evangelicals becoming Jewish?
Oh, and the blessings? I think some were about prosperity and such, but the two I remember were an angel to follow you around (don't you get one of those when you become xian?) and you won't die before your appointed time (wow, that's a relief!)
Posted by: Don Smith, FCD | March 12, 2008 11:39 PM
heddle is a hoot isn't he.