Why Slavery Damns Biblicism

Dan Savage called the Bible a “pro-slavery document”. I tend to agree. Through exegetical gymnastics, inerrant Biblicists either refuse to acknowledge or legitimize a historical reading of the Bible devoid of value-judgement or theology. Even so, I think that today’s understanding of the Bible from these inerrantists still damns the Bible for what they want it to be. For fundamentalists, the Bible is a straightforward guidebook on how to live one’s life. Without scriptural authority, they see life and morality as unmoored and adrift in a sea of relativism.

Concessions

To make my argument, I’m going to concede some things that are going to make my fellow atheists howl. I’m going to concede, for the sake of argument, ambiguity on the status of slavery in the New Testament. I am still waiting to hear a coherent argument that the Bible speaks against slavery, but one has to at least admit to tolerance of the status quo of NT slavery.

What is the Bible for?

While the Protestant tradition is responsible for basing all doctrine on sola scriptura (scripture alone), it is was a US invention that the Bible become some kind of readable handbook for life. One has to notice the marked difference here, for in the mainline Protestant tradition, while one had direct contact with God yet again, there was no claim that the Bible was a straightforward text available to the interpretation of any man. What the modern conservative evangelical wants from the Bible is the authority and certainty that an inspired textual reference can provide apart from subjective things like opinions, traditions, or fashion.

Apparent contradictions, harmonization, and Christian tradition

At the very least, the Biblical inerrantist has to admit to “apparent contradiction”, or “seeming contradiction”. The accounts differ in ways in which the scripture directly contradicts itself when straightforward hyper-literal frameworks are used. To solve this, harmonizations are created and passed down through Christian tradition. Because Christians hear these harmonizations before they read the Bible, they read these harmonizations into the Bible. The stories, as understood by the reader, often do not happen in their entirety in the Bible and the reader will “read in” their version over the text as they follow along.

There are many places in the passion narrative that this happens, and one of the ones I know offhand is that of Simon of Cyrene picking up Jesus’s cross. There is no place in the gospels that mentions that Jesus dropped his cross halfway through and Simon of Cyrene picked it up. In the synoptic gospels, it only says that Simon of Cyrene was passing through and was forced to carry Jesus’ cross, and it seems from a plain reading to suggest that this happened at the start of his journey to Golgatha:

Mark 15:21: A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Matthew 27:32: As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross.

Luke 23:26: When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.

But in the Gospel of John, it says Jesus carried his own cross:

John 19:17: They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.

Nowhere in John is Simon of Cyrene mentioned. In order to harmonize John in with the synoptics, the story goes that Jesus drops his cross at some point in the journey and Simon of Cyrene was made to pick it up. Note here that there is no account in the Bible where Jesus drops his cross. I bet it would take at least the better part of an hour to convince the pew potatoes that I’m right on this. I’m not going to argue how valid this harmonization is, I’m just going to point out that it is not plainly obvious from reading the texts. What happens is that a church tradition is created and buttressed by the Bible in such a way that the lay person gives the tradition the same authority as the Bible itself. The interpretation and harmonization of events in the Bible becomes co-equal with the Bible in the mind of the believer by sloppy reading. The key here is that no one notices that this information is passed down through tradition and only an illusion of sola scriptura is maintained.

Back to slavery

I posit that Christians all form their beliefs based on tradition before they ever read the Bible. They are told what the Bible says and how it says it before they even begin to read. I’ve heard apologists claim that we can only read the Bible through the help of the Holy Spirit, in which case the text is only symbolically important if reading the words leads to private revelation. It should be impossible, but we have different understandings by earnest believers claiming conflicting holy spirit inspired interpretations of the text, so someone is either lying or confused (and God is not the author of confusion).

When it comes to slavery, Christians already know it is wrong from cultural transmission (church tradition being a kind of cultural transmission). When they read the Bible, they aren’t interpreting the plain version of the text, but they are supporting their own cultural interpretation of what it means to be a good Christian. When cultural artifacts can leak into Biblical interpretations, what’s to stop human depravity from reading into the Bible? And in the lay person’s mind where sloppy thinking combines the interpretation with the Bible itself as identical in authority, what does this do to excuses we make for our behavior?

It is popular for apologists to say that without God morality becomes a popularity contest. If that is so, and slavery is just unpopular right now, where is the Biblical evidence showing that thousands of years of Bible readers were wrong? The fact that it took over a millenium and a half for Christians on the whole to uncover the nature of the Bible as, at the very least, neutral on the question of slavery makes any claim for plain reading or basic exegesis and hermeneutics from the laity dubious in the extreme. The anti-slavery of modern Christians is just not scriptural, whether or not the Bible is pro-slavery or just ambiguous. Is silence or ambiguity on one of the greatest sins of mankind an option for a truly inspired Holy Text Handbook?

Why Do I Argue?

I’m a pretty confrontational arguer. Frankly, I’m often an ass. But why do I have to be such an ass? Well, I honestly don’t mean to be, but sometimes I just don’t care enough to not be an ass. I try. Sometimes, anyway.

I argue about things because finding the truth is primarily a moral issue for me, and I think it should be for almost anyone else as well. If you respect the autonomy of the individual, and you respect that they have moral responsibilities with their decisions, then you are under moral obligation to argue with them about things that affect their decision if you disagree with them. If they don’t want the argument, I’ll back off. I just can’t make that decision FOR THEM in advance. It’s related to an old SCOTUS saying about free speech: it’s the right to hear other people you disagree with. And that also means that I’m required to listen to people that infuriate me (though mostly, I think it’s cute).

This is what a functioning public square is supposed to look like.

Public Piety and the Ecumenical Truce

I have a few ministers on my Facebook that I interact with, and I find most of them interesting. Kevin Childs has written a post about publicly pious Christians, and I think I would like to do him the honor of criticizing and extending his post.

A Quick Criticism

The problems I had with the post are so minor as to border quibbling, but I did want to criticize part of a paragraph:

[...] An increasingly secular culture screams (and litigates) louder and louder for outspoken Christians to get more and more silent. And plenty of Christians seem to agree that religion is a personal, private thing that should not be voiced in polite company.

I think this is the conflation of two issues. Our culture may becoming slightly more secular than it was, but it is a predominantly Christian culture. How I would divide things is that at least 15% (probably closer to 20%) of people are unaffiliated with any specific religion and many of those (5-8% of the population, total) now explicitly identify as atheist, humanist, or agnostic (these are not mutually exclusive categories). About 25-30% of the US is religiously conservative and most of those are evangelical Christians of some stripe. Minority religions don’t make up much of the remaining percent, leaving most of the rest to be nominal Christians of some type. In short, these are your guys doing this to the culture, don’t blame us for that.

The other issue is that of government-sanctioned speech, that is speech of officials in their official capacity that crosses the church-state separation line. I have a post in progress right now about the dangers of allowing communities to instill the locally popular flavor of Christianity over other religions. In short, it creates a culture of diverse religious ghettos where minority religious preferences are devalued. We only have to look back at the religious Jewish ghettos that attempted to execute Spinoza for heresy, or the execution of Michael Servetus at the behest of John Calvin.

Pluralism and Paternalism, Respect and Repression

True pluralism is about celebrating differences, but there is something sinister in a special kind of paternalistic pluralism. This is the pluralism I find conservatives railing against, it is the pluralism of religious ghettoization, and it is some of the pluralism found in ecumenical and inter-faith discussions as well as that of many liberals.

So what does a true secular pluralistic public square look like? Due respect is given primarily to individuals. Individuals have to make the free choice about their religions, and so adherents are free to morally extol and condemn others in the public square. Ideas are given their most accurate rendering by their adherents, and while caricature is openly condemned. Ridicule is commonplace, but satire and arguments ad absurdum are never used to foment intimidation. No one is to seek public sanction for their ideas from the government, and no one in the government is to use their political office to provide a state imprimatur.

I think what we have now in popular culture is a kind of pluralism in silent assent. We focus on what is “common” between us, and ignore the differences…and sometimes think them harmful. People are now not able to disagree about things they disagree about. They run towards a consensus “commons” where they can find common cause so that they can feel good about not criticizing other people. This does serious damage in that truth is disrespected, and by extension the free will choice of every serious adult to pursue happiness and flourish in their lives vanishes. Silence, particularly that of those who have profound disagreement (with whom common ground is difficult), and older fundamentalists (who remind them of the incompatibilities) is necessary to enforce the peace. This is a fragile peace, and one that certainly protects falsehood from criticism.

What’s ironic about this kind of ecumenical truce in the public sphere is that it speaks nothing of what happens within the respective religious communities. While the truce allows adherents from multiple religious backgrounds to mingle in society in polite quietude, the communities themselves enforce their same old standards. Their members are often not allowed to disagree and are also silenced in the interest of the majority of the believers of that community. Apostasy is a serious crime against the community. For example, it’s not uncommon for apostates in my area to be accused of betraying their Cajun heritage for leaving the Catholicism, even to another Christian denomination. I give full credit to those religious individuals who brave judgement from their fellow-believers to talk to friends who have left. I encourage everyone to make sure to respect the individual by trying to convince rather than condemn or psychologize.

On Tim Tebow and Evangelism

Now, my criticism of Tim Tebow is not on what he should and shouldn’t have the right or what is or is not appropriate in the public sphere. My criticism is of the form of his evangelism. I think in modern times we’ve focused too much on orthodoxy over orthopraxy. While I personally believe that knowledge of the truth doesn’t always make you a better person, Christianity makes the strong claim of personal transformation through Christ. When it comes to Tim Tebow, I am blinded by his evangelism and I cannot tell anything about his personal character. He makes statements of orthodoxy–and as far as I know he follows them–but I am just not moved by his testimony.

There’s something about personal testimony in the public sphere that is something like seduction. While I personally don’t make the strong claim that my atheism makes me a better person, I do believe that I have developed to be a better person having given up Christianity. I don’t loudly attribute my good deeds to everyone, I just hope to live authentically. I try to bear witness to honesty and truth as best I can, and I hope to do due respect to individuals, and to morally exhort them towards increasing the well-being of themselves and others, with respect to everyone. These are my intents, and I don’t always live up to them, but authenticity is its own seduction. I want to seduce people with the life they can live for the search for damn-the-consequences truth.

I do know some Christians who succeed with these kinds of seduction methods of testimony through their daily lives to great effect. It’s in the living of daily life itself, and not the artificial imposition of piety into every aspect of life, that lends credibility to this method. And to extend the analogy, Quinn is a prude, and Tebow is already naked and I’m not sure I like his personality. When it comes to Yousef, I can’t exactly find value in dying for Christianity (because I don’t actually believe martyrs will see heaven), but I do see the value in the principle of dying for autonomy. I have respect for honest apostasy, because it’s the only way to know when individual choice is exercised, and I have respect for open and honest dialogue.

Evolutionary Telos

Belief in God naturally leads to conversations that revolve around telos or “the ultimate purpose or aim” of something. When propositions such as evolution come up, telos takes a kind of sideways turn. A personal creator God (classically generic monotheism) not only creates things, but through his personal nature gives telos to everything in reality, and living creatures particularly. Most arguments for God that result in a personal God are those that revolve around lending this telos, but evolution destroys this. While evolution can account for the mechanistic account, it is not a plausible account of “Creation” to a believer because it does not contain telos.

How does evolution destroy telos and not replace it? Because evolution accounts completely naturally for life in a functional way, and in that the only telos available is self-purpose, which is tautological. But there is something like telos that’s available for reasoning about things that’s compatible with evolution, and works very analogously to telos: Nietzsche’s metaphysical power.

The power of a thing is its inclination or intention to be the best of itself. (Aside: I know, I know, this is anthropomorphic. Don’t care. I’m not doing science, guys.) Speciation events occur when there are 2 or more paths towards being a better thing that do no preclude the other option. Telos also fails here as well (not only as a tautology) because it would require at least 2 separate telos for speciation. For example, if evolution were true and bacteria were made to evolve into man, why are there still bacteria? Their means are met, and their continued existence flies in the face of teleological reasoning. (Note to apologists: so, you could say that bacteria have the telos to support man, but there are bacteria that have evolved so that they harmed man. Telos defeated yet again.)

Another way that telos get messed up with regards to evolution is that evolution thus becomes proscriptive. Evolution as being some kind of propositional/conditional truth becomes part of the natural theology that came before it. Society itself must operate under evolutionary rules to become the most efficient. This isn’t a bad idea with telos if you think that the environment itself is also driven by a purpose. If that’s the case, then there are no random events. But because telos is ultimate, teleological reasoning ignores alternatives and places no value on diversity. Whatever fits the environment for its telos is the telos of the thing, including humanity. Nietzsche’s power, by contrast, recognizes the great worth of diversity. Power has preservation against circumstance as part of its nature. When we’re talking about survival, the largest range of survivable circumstance is the best long term option.

This is why I find it so odd that so many creationists when faced with Nietzsche and evolution will bring up Hitler and the Nazis or eugenics. Any consistent understanding of either Nietzsche’s power dynamics or evolution shows the ludicrous nature of the kind of eugenics proposed during the first half of the last century as well as Hitler’s views on the concept of a master race. What Hitler and eugenics have in common is a teleological reasoning about ultimate purpose that is singularly-minded and is ill-adapted to reality. Both have in mind a singular purpose for humanity, while Nietzsche’s power creates the diversity required for the best chance of human existence and Nietzsche’s overman (not covered here) is about the pluralistic self-discovery of ways to be more than human.

Note: It’s late at night, but I’m publishing this anyway. I’m tired.

Some Things are Biblical and not Christian

I see atheists mixing up 2 adjectives: biblical and Christian. The difference is actually rather simple. Christianity is a heterogenous set of beliefs and in its modern carnation is probably best described as being centered around belief in the atonement of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. As I’m about to go on to talk about, there are things in the canon (hence biblical) that are not part of Christian tradition, and thus calling them Christian is just confused.

Sola Scriptura

The role of scripture in Christianity has differed over time. The Roman Catholic church places greater emphasis on tradition than the Bible. For Catholics and many other Christians (not just the liberal ones), the Bible is inspired, but it is not inerrant. When Martin Luther broke with the church, he sought to get back to basics by going with scripture alone or sola scriptura.

While many Christians make the claim that their only inspiration is the Bible, there really is no actual modern denomination that is truly sola scriptura. All of them take some type of stance on the Bible before actually reading it. The closest to having the fewest assumptions is probably the Jehovah’s Witnesses who often misunderstand the text and create elaborate doctrines out of confused interpretation. The set of assumptions and methods one uses in order to interpret scripture is called exegesis.

Now, most evangelical Christians do, as a matter of fact, claim that only the scripture is needed to interpret scripture, but most people are idiots. The pew potatoes don’t really know what they’re talking about and aren’t aware of the de facto standards they use. There are definitely a few different genres in the text called forms (like apocalyptic, parable, etc), and there’s a kind of common sense one takes on reading them. For instance, a parable doesn’t literally have to have occurred (some biblical literalists do, in fact, take this stand). Some Christians maintain biblical literalism even while saying apocalyptic poetry is about symbolism and doesn’t need to come true in order for the Bible to be inerrant.

So, because of these reasons, I think I’m justified in saying that slavery is a Christian value is just not fair because slavery has been outside of every major Christian denomination for centuries. It’s somewhat like saying that slavery is an American value as it was enshrined in our Constitution (which is apparently, a holy document). I think both of these statements are unfair in the same way, but what would be a fair criticism?

The Bible and Slavery

One could accurately say that slavery is biblical. I wouldn’t have any qualms about that, and it’s a fair criticism. The Bible does in fact legitimize and codify slavery. But is there something more we could say?

I think through the New Testament one can make reference to numerous places where slavery may not be endorsed, but it is definitely accepted. There is nothing in the Bible against slavery, and in the New Testament slaves are told to be good slaves and obey their masters. It even seems as though slaves are to be rewarded for their supplication to their masters no matter how cruel. Slavery is even used positively as a metaphor: the Bible exhorts us to be slaves to Christ. There can be no biblical argument that slavery is intrinsically wrong.

I’ve heard only one plausible explanation for this mismatch between the Bible and Christians on the question of slavery that preserves the Bible as the sole inspiration for doctrine. The most generous description I can give is that the narrative trajectory of the Bible appears to create an upward moral trajectory where God works on the hearts of men in order to get them to behave more morally. We are called to be as upright as we are capable, and God has a kind of dispensation for those who are still learning how to be good (even though we deserve to be judged by his absolute standard).

My problem with this explanation is that you can use it on any doctrine you find intrinsically wrong in some intuitive sense. I’d even wager that intuition is the most common exegetical tool being used today. If this is the case, you can hardly say that your doctrines are scripturally inspired or scripturally sourced. You can only say that you find justification in the Bible. And when it comes to that kind of standard when relating to the Bible, why not slavery? I’m sure someone could come up with some kind of morally flavored sensus divinitatis that tells us how to interpret scripture properly, but now we’re getting just way too ad hoc.

Atheist Comes to Jesus?

There’s an old adage in the newspaper industry: “If the headline asks a question, the answer is ‘no’.” But it’s an interesting turn of phrase. So what brought it about?

Lately, I’ve had ministers/pastors/priests add me on Facebook. Apparently, I’m good conversation. My arguments with them have been pretty fun, and I’ve even had fun making some theological arguments against some of their positions (most of them are politically hard-right). I’ve learned a lot about what kind of arguments and counter-arguments do hold actual sway.

Lately, I’ve also been somewhat disappointed in the average atheist I’ve seen argue. Sometimes even some of the internet-famous atheists have just seemed to not even try to understand what the theistic argument they’re being presented is even about. They just rebut the argument exactly as stated, but often not as what the believer usually meant. I even started to think that I might prefer talking to these active clergy more.

I was wrong. And now I’m “coming home to Jesus” in a sense. I still have these disagreements with some atheists, but most of them are worth arguing with. I’ll continue arguing with most of the ministers, but lately one of them has really gotten on my nerves. I try to make my counterarguments against the best construal of his argument, but I just don’t get reciprocation. He’s insinuated that I’m arrogant (which is probably true, but I’d prefer my argument addressed), and he retreats to pedantry or to metaphysics when he feels boxed in by arguments. Now, I’m afraid that he’s just one person not worth arguing with.*

Anyway, for the short time being I have to say it: The best reason to be an atheist is because it’s true.

* I still want to kick his ass for using Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism without realizing the potential heresy in it that I think I’ve found.

New Blog with a Real Title

So, I think in order to blog seriously, I need a more serious blog than what I was doing at tumblr. But what does the blog’s name mean? Well, I might explain later, but I think I should introduce myself.

My name is Alex Songe. I code programs for a living, and I like to think I do philosophy for fun (among other things), though I always have a sneaking suspicion that I’m failing at doing philosophy (but never at fun). I grew up a fundamentalist charismatic Christian, believed it all, spoke in tongues, was slain in the spirit, and now I’m a pragmatic naturalist. Okay, I’m an atheist. I want this blog to show how I like to stumble around subjects I barely understand, and try my hardest to explain what about them I do understand.

So what’s with this blog’s name? Having grown up a Christian, there were certain values that were instilled in me that do happen to be things I still value, even if I don’t always practice or possess these qualities. One of these qualities was to know what is true. I can’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t value knowledge just for its own sake. To me, there is bliss in knowing something. Ironically, my grades dropped in school because I felt more justified in learning new things than in studying for a test. To study what one knows just to pass a test seemed crass to me. It ruined what knowledge was for. In the Christian sense in which I was brought up, the Bible was intended to be a mirror for humanity’s sinful nature. This was even taken in devotional readings of the Bible. The Bible would “beat you down” about some sin in your life, and the guilt, shame, and low self-esteem you felt from this was taken gladly. This was a form of “correction” from the Holy Spirit, and God only chastises those he loves. This was just God’s way of making you more perfect. To fall short of these high standards without reference to your fellow-man (who is just as depraved in comparison to the standard) is the “Hard Truth”. I say that “is” the Hard Truth because unattainable goals of morality and goodness still appeal to me, even after leaving the faith, though I have learned how to live within the practical potential I am able to achieve.

In another sense, the title of the blog is a lie, and I want that to stand out as well. I believe Truth to be direct and perfect propositional knowledge of some aspect of reality. When one undertakes this standard for Truth under some belief that no system is causally unlinked from the whole of physical reality, Truth seems unattainable. We can make modest claims to justified beliefs, or possibly even knowledge, but truth and Truth seem to be unattainable on their own. We can make educated guesses as to how close to the truth we are, and collectively people can approach it, but I just don’t see how one can justify possessing Truth itself. Truth is hard to obtain, and Hard Truth is impossible to possess. But it is worth seeking.