Was That Jewish Peasant Girl Lying?

There are probably a million other things you could be doing right now rather than reading this post, I truly am humbled by the fact you visited here today.

We truly don't read much about inspiration or hope anymore and as Easter 2010 rolls around this weekend it is even less likely that you are going to hear anything positive in the news or even be reminded of what happened nearly 2000 years ago. If you turn on the nightly news on TV you might see a little video clip of the pope giving an Easter Mass in the Vatican. It is all but certain that there will be a Whitehouse Easter Egg hunt with lots of children running on the lawn. So, these things that happened long ago are mostly forgotten. This is a holiday to celebrate Spring, the new life is in nature. It is not about historical events, the historical accuracy or facts. Anti-Jewish sentiment long has influenced history, so even if you are not feeling like Easter is any different this year, I understand. Anything I write here will most likely not make any difference in how or what you believe about Easter, but can you give me a chance? Even if it doesn't work, at least you have ammunition to  get into a scholarly argument with some Christian on these talking points. Who knows, you might even talk some sense into them and they will give up this fable called Christianity.

There is a scholarly group who has studies these Easter events extensively. They formed a group called the "Jesus Seminar" and, for lack of a better word, disenfranchised evangelical Christians with their conclusions. Dr. John Crossan is an original member of the Jesus Seminar group and co-chaired it. He has excellent academic credentials and was a professor at DePaul University for 26 years. Basically, his premise is that we have a historical Jesus Christ and a second one, a Jesus hailed as the leader of the Christian religion as we know it today. So, bottom line what are his historical conclusions about the events we know as Easter? I mean only be fair and objective, it is very difficult for me to articulate his position and some of you may "blast" me for trying to do this. Anyway, here we go.

1. Jesus of Nazareth actually did exist, but the resurrection is more of an allegory than a historical event.
2. The burial story of Jesus is inaccurate; most likely Jesus was buried in a common "ditch" much like the other common criminals executed in his day. Most like his body was eaten by dogs.
3. The visit of women to an empty tomb was a fabrication made up by the gospel writer, Mark.
4. The disciples never experienced any postmortem appearances of a risen Jesus.
5. The disciples never really believed in the literal resurrection of Jesus.

These conclusions for many non-Christians will seem perfectly plausible and will carry much weight because this group, the Jesus Seminar, was based on a consensus of responsible scholarship. So, there you have it. Stripped of all the embellishments of tradition and objectively written and published by professors who know a great deal about history.

If you want to quit here, I completely understand. Maybe you don't want to read a rebuttal or some persuasive argument to the contrary of the five above points. Or maybe, in the interest of being politically correct and because you might know me, you let me have a shot at it. Fair enough, exit now or read on!

Christianity is unique from other world religions for on two key issues about their "religious leader." What are these? It all relates to Jesus of Nazareth's 1) Virgin birth and 2) Resurrected body following his death.

Got it? These 2 facts only. Now there are differences in claims and identity as well. BUT, I am trying to keep things simple.

On fact #1, I guess the real question is was that Jewish peasant girl lying? She said she was a virgin and that she was pregnant. Let me "up" the "spin" of this story, she said an angel had visited her and told her these things.  OK, right. You don't believe it. On the surface, I wouldn't either. Yes, there are some other facts on this story like "God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream to verify Mary's story." But, really an entire world religious movement dependent on this young woman's claim that she was a virgin and that this child was conceived by someone other than a human being? I could go off on so many tangents right now, but I won't. Let your imagination run wild if you wish here. Hey, I am with you. Honestly, that single fact alone doesn't convert me to Christianity and I don't expect it will you either.

On fact #2, I don't even know how to write this. It is my sole basis for being a Christian. It is a matter of faith that I accept fact # 2. Yes, and so a lot of you are going to shut me down right there. You might say, "OK it works for you." Great. To be honest, when you say it that really ticks me off. It seems like you have put me in a category of blind, stupid people who somehow believe in fables. Even though on the surface, you won't offend me with saying that out loud. You believe it, don't you. You believe something about me that is false.

What am I trying to say? No, I don't believe in the resurrection simply because I believe, I believe that I believe. Maybe you've been watching too many "Shrek" movies.

Jewish belief in a resurrection at the time of Jesus death was just about as strange a concept as it is today. According to Jewish law, the execution of Jesus proved that he was a heretic. The Messiah, as they knew it, was going to raise the dead at the end of earth MAYBE.

Bottom line, the death of Jesus was proof that the Jewish peasant girl was lying. The historical Jesus, according to Crossan, was really an ordinary man sent by God with an extraordinary message. Dr. Crossan would argue that he also believes in "a resurrection," but not the one most Christians believe in. He sees it as an "equal and important" resurrection, but one that is about the resurrection of new beginnings. He sees Easter as a embellished story of good news for everyone, that we can have a fresh start in life. But, a physical resurrection of a dead body? No.

So, there is NO REASON to my faith in the resurrection. Only a "belief" in a mystical fable that was written many times though the centuries. Thank you Dr. Crossan - that is a message of hope to me personally. I can know that I will die, maybe my friends will have a funeral for me, and what an encouragement that will be in my post-mortem unconscious existence.

Or, do we have a very detailed account of what happened. Was Joseph of Arimathea, a leader in the Jewish Council that convicted Jesus of heresy in the middle of the night, a wealthy man and did he have an unused tomb? What was the social cost of him sending a formal request to Pilate to remove the remains? We still have the clock "ticking" folks. The next day, after a hurried burial, a political theory is emerging. The religious leaders knew his teachings about "rising on the third day" and asked for a Roman Seal to be placed on the tomb. Clock is still ticking, plenty of time to prevent any misunderstanding. What else could be done, they knew the body was going to be stolen by the disciples. After all, none of them were afraid. During the crucifixion didn't you see them marching around Jerusalem with their signs "RELEASE JESUS NOW" ????

Historical credibility in what happened after, you ask? Now if Jesus appeared to the leader of the Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin, maybe you would be convinced. Wasn't that the ultimate most trustworthy person to document a risen Christ? Why not Pilate or Herod? After all, Herod was involved in the legal proceedings and hoped that Jesus would do some magical trick at this house. Pilate, all he had was his wife begging to let him let Jesus go because she had a bad dream that night.

No, again the credibility of this story lies with women. Gender is a common theme in Jewish tradition. If a you have a woman on the witness stand in court, you lost buddy. Women were prone to gossip and lies, they were not valid character references. However you feel about what I just wrote, that is the historical context. So, on Easter morning we have women as the first witnesses.

What about Jesus corpse? Was it possible he was only wounded and revived? After all it was a hurried burial. See my later blog posting on where that premise goes.

Did we have any eye witness appearances? You know, no matter what I write here many of you are going to blow it off. Not that I am being pessimistic, it is just that there is no mound of evidence that is ever going to persuade you to believe in the resurrection. So, don't review the evidence. But, all the disciples were witnesses. MAYBE THAT WERE WILLING TO DIE for an embellished tale told by Jewish women. I don't know, your call on that one. Maybe those names are not enough, or the list of eyewitnesses who were not part of the Jesus inner-twelve. Maybe you find that a member of the Jewish court, Joseph of Arimethea, a likely candidate to ask for the body of the religious leader. Maybe it is the stuff of legend, maybe 500 people didn't see the risen Christ. First-century Palestine skeptic, James (the brother of Christ and the one who tried to get him thrown in the insane asylum) was certainly not a prime candidate to know to about the risen Christ.

Oh my, what do we do with James. His own mother probably didn't talk about the virgin birth thing much while he was growing up. He had no sibling rivalry over his childhood brother, did he?

Why did Jesus specifically tell his disciples, please tell my brother James I am alive.

Jame's mother, the Jewish peasant woman. His mom.  Was she lying? Tell me what you think!

Is He Risen?

Easter is absolutely the most polarizing holiday in Western culture. Some simply anesthetize the controversy of the most remarkable claim in human history, you know, the one about a man who claimed to be the Son of God who physically rose from the dead, with Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies. Others think Christians are absolutely insane.

So what is the legacy of Easter to you? An empty tomb or an empty promise?  Is the whole notion of Jesus rising from the dead the "Frankenstein" of human religion or is it a mythological story penned by pathologically grieving disciples? Maybe there wasn't this disenfranchised Judas, the most trusted guy in the bunch who Jesus appointed as treasurer of his "band of brothers." Maybe there was no crucifixion at all, perhaps Jesus was a carpenter fellow and this whole story of death on a cross is about some guy who was deified posthumously.

What do all of these stories of the resurrection prove anyway? Is the resurrection of Jesus Christ a historical fact or is it fiction? Certainly there are opposing positions on the bible narrative. Islam claims that Christ was a prophet, not God incarnate, as no God-equal would himself to suffer the humility of persecution and death on a cross. God simply would not do this. Christ was a prophet, a notion that Muslim people at least admit openly. He was indeed mortally wounded, but suffered unconsciousness and regained cerebral perfusion after being entombed for a few hours. Besides, Christians are polytheists believing in a "trinity" or 3 gods. Pagans, infidels, lost people who worship the pope and have sex at the center of their culture.

Besides, was Jesus really dead? I mean the fact that the staff sergeant on duty broke the legs of the other two men crucified with him and shoved a spear into the thorax of this Jesus guy, well it probably means he was only wounded when he was taken down from the cross, right? A little IV fluids, some putting his legs up on a pillow, and yes - Jesus good as new in a couple of hours.

Listen, I know you don't want to hear the sublime monotheism explanation offered by evangelical Christians, do you? There are many things in the biblical narrative that defy any rational explanation -  a virgin birth. Yes, come on you don't really believe that do you? Who would claim such a thing? A risen Christ, why bother? This man, Jesus, is dead. Let him rest in peace.

Imagine you are not a Christian in first century Palestine, you are walking along a dusty road and you hear this story of this prophet or teacher or whatever you want to call him - was recently arrested for civil disobedience and that his misfit followers were all scattered because they also feared for their lives.

After all, this Lazarus story (see prior blog entry) was circulating around town and you were in a hurry to get to Jerusalem. It is early Sunday morning and this story about some women going to cemetery to put a few flowers on the grave are now reporting that he is alive again. What does it mean to you?

There are many reasons why you should not believe this story. First of all, any good Jewish man will tell you that women are not allowed to testify in a court of law. The WORST WITNESS you could have, if you were trying to prove some legal or historical fact, was to have a WOMAN testify on your behalf.  Women are naturally more charitably inclined to embellish their stories. If you were trying to popularize some story about a Messiah rising from the dead - definitely put a woman on the witness stand. Oh, also put a fisherman who denied he even knew you a few hours before on the stand. Oh, also call this fisherman the "rock" on which you build this new religion. Definitely a plus, don't you think?

Also, don't draw any attention to your funeral. In fact, die penny-less. Borrow someone's tomb as you know lots of people are going to show up for your funeral.

Speaking of funerals. Who was this Jesus, the president or something? Why post soldiers around his grave? Did we miss the parade through the rotunda or the flag-draped coffin somewhere? Besides, there's some misunderstanding about all of these Roman soldiers falling asleep on the job. I see this happening a lot at funerals, don't you?

OK, what about the state funeral procession for this Galilean? After all, wasn't he in Jeruselum the week before and thousands of people were waiving palm leaves as he rode into town on a donkey, side-saddled, like King David.  Everyone knows that carpenters from Nazareth (especially those that belong to the carpenter's union and have expanded fringe benefits)  have expensive funerals and soldiers posted by their government-sealed burial sites, right?

Also, the accounts of the resurrection are all messed up by these women. Most likely they just saw a ghost. Everyone knows that when you lose a loved one, well you just miss them so much it just sort of happens that you don't sleep well the night after the funeral and people bring all these strange foods to your house that cause you to have bad dreams.

Don't you agree? Tell me what you think.

Postmortem Destiny?

Shows like FOX's  "Fringe" show autopsies and dead bodies strung around the crime scene. I especially like Fringe because the plot line involves a somewhat "confused" Dr. Walter Bishop played by John Noble. He is sort of a professor type genius who has memory problems, but solves complex crimes other investigators won't touch. There is Walter's son, Peter, who doesn't really have pleasant memories of his childhood and has carried years of remorse over how his dad treated him. There's a tension there, Peter calls his father "Walter" rather than "dad."  Yet, Walter has moments of lucidity about he treated his son and there is a remorse in some of the things he did to Peter as a child.  Agent Olivia Dunham (played by Anna Torv) is a young FBI agent assigned to multi-agency task force that oversees Walter's (Dr. Bishop) work so he doesn't get too strange with his requests.  Agent Dunham takes on the "special" cases and immediately calls on Walter when something borders on the "weird."

Americans are obsessed with death and shows like "Fringe." We love to mix up crime and science fiction in our entertainment and speculate about death. There is something about seeing a dead body close up or an autopsy being performed with blood spattering. We also like to hear the grinding noise of a saw blade cutting into skull and the "plop" of the brain falling into a metal basin. We love it when the pathologists sips on his Coke or bite's his Godfather pizza as he lifts the liver out of a body cavity.

Most of us in the health science professions have been to an autopsy before. I took human anatomy and physiology at both the University of Colorado and the University of Iowa. Many times I've taken bodies to the morgue. When I was in the Air Force in the "70s" this happened a lot and late at night.  I have some funny stories too, but I won't tell them here. Anyway, in medicine we call an autopsy a "postmortem" exam or "post" for short. 

About 2000 years ago there was a postmortem exam on someone named Lazarus. There also was a woman like Agent Olivia who was deeply involved in the investigation into his illness and the non-arrival of help when she needed it. Her name was Martha and she was also a member of a multi-agency task force. This small family lived in Bethany, a small village about 2 miles from Jerusalem. Martha and her sister Mary were "old maids" of sorts, they argued over spiritual things. Both followed the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They sent a message to him to when Lazarus got sick, they'd seen him cure people of illnesses like this before. Does Jesus have a memory like "Walter"?

Do you ever feel like God forgets? I know I do. When I want him to intervene in my problems immediately, it seldom happens. When the disciples saw him reading Mary and Martha's message, they sort of shrugged it off. Jesus said Lazarus was "sleeping."  They thought he had taken too much Ambien. John 11:7 says that Jesus stayed 2 more days before they departed to Bethany.

Can you imagine the scene when Jesus finally arrives? There had been a large funeral, everyone had seen the dead body, everyone had been a witness to the death. How many were there? Possibly several hundred, but it isn't recorded.  When word spread that Jesus was coming to town the number of people present rose exponentially. Some were friends of Jesus and some were not. I would venture to say there were more "NOTS" than friends. They wanted to accuse him. He healed others, doesn't he look out after his own friends?

What kind of words do you say to a widow a funeral? Do you stutter a bit? How is it that death leaves us speechless? It truly does. But, Jesus was late to his friend's aid and he was late to the funeral. The body was already in the tomb. Flowers were wilting, the women still dressed in black. Trust me, if Walter knew what was about to happen, the good doctor would wat to be there.

Second question, have you ever been late to a funeral?

Martha is a lot like Agent Olivia in the sense she always gets to the heart of the issue. She is very objective and analytical.  When we hurt, when we experience loss, we become a lot like Martha. We start to analyze and comb the evidence. Anyway, Martha comes running down the road when Jesus nears the village and she simple says to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Listen, if you don't know the rest of the story. I beg you to finish reading John 11. Lazarus was dead, his body did stink, his tomb was sealed, and his friends and enemies all watched what happened in plain daylight. So many, in fact, that Jesus own death was plotted that very day. It made that many people mad that he was raise up a dead man on the sabbath.

If you doubt that Lazarus was raised up, consider the "party" the following week where all the skeptics could come and ask him and his sisters questions. Would would you have asked Lazarus? I wonder what "Walter" would have said to Jesus?

It begs the question, if this even actually happened... what does it mean?  Have you ever seriously considered the notion that Jesus Christ from Nazareth is about to conquer death. It doesn't matter how smelly, how morbid, how gross you thing the topic is. Life isn't about splatters it is about what matters. Send me a note or write something here, I welcome your comments!

Is Death Simply A State of Unconsciouness?

Ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death and the afterlife. Other cultures focused on deities that either collect or rule over the dead; many polytheistic religions and mythologies have a death theme or a belief about what happens after we die.  There was such an emphasis on death in history, the people saved their entire lives and set aside an "investment" to have their bodies preserved. In fact, they did a better job than modern funeral homes do today. See for yourself, this guy is 4,000 years old.

Science seems to have replaced some of these death myths, but offers no escape from death. Many of those in my collaborations through the years in the clinical sciences feel that death is simply an eternal state of unconsciousness.

What is unconsciousness? There are a few medical explanations, mostly dealing with unconsciousness ranging from a transient state to a permanent state (comatose).  Fainting due to a drop in blood pressure and a decrease of the oxygen supply to the brain is an illustration of a temporary loss of consciousness. Several years ago I received substantial funding from the National Institute on Aging to study cognitive impairment due to poor oxygenation and medications causing changes in mentation.

There are also legal definitions of unconsciousness, sometimes related to the terminally ill and sometimes applied to the accused. This stretches things a bit, but it  may entitle the criminal defendant to argue that they should not be held criminally liable for their actions or omissions because they were not in "their right mind" or mentally insane.

Pop culture is really interested in near-death experiences, films focus on terror and calamity. While Egyptians buried their dead and spent lifetimes preparing monuments for their death, today we largely avoid funerals and visiting cemeteries. If we attend a funeral, many people don't hold the service in a church anymore. Religion has historically been a part of death, but today it is more about obtaining a "peaceful" death and grief counseling from psychologists rather than the clergy.

For many of us, death is something a long way off. We don't want to talk about it. We would rather not focus on the cold earth that consumes our remains, the dark silence inside a coffin, or the state of  our existence after death. We simply pass from being a living "BEING" to an inanimate object.

Death is concealed in our thinking really, although we love scary movies we don't like to imagine ourselves in coffins or friends attending our funeral. We live as if there is no death really, a remarkable influence of the way Hollywood has conceptualized it for us.

Death is final.


To be able to come to the conclusion there is no life after death, every single one of us defies all of the major religions and history. Ghosts, poltergeists, angels, and spirits are all mythological creatures of our imagination or there is some other explanation for the meaning of death, like getting a second chance through reincarnation.



Though everyone makes there own conclusions, I am trying here to be as objective and unbiased as possible. There is an academic side to my own inquiry, but also a spiritual one and I don't think science answers all the questions. In fact, the more I investigate this the closer I come to the conclusion that we have a soul that survives physical death. Scientists have  aimed to study what really happens to the brain and consciousness when someone is on the verge of dying, reports of a "halo" or seeing friends and loved ones in people who have lost their pulse for a short period of time and been revived have often been dismissed by the medical world as hallucinations from cerebral hypoxemia or due to metabolities from medications given during the resuscitation.

How can I try to justify death and what happens after if I have never experienced death? I can't. But, in the bible (gosh, I know I lost half of you when I wrote the "B" word) there is someone who did experience death and came back to tell his friends about it.

Some wonder, well if there is some life after death, what about life before birth? I believe that I am created, that means I had a beginning. I don't know that I existed before birth, it isn't crystal clear to me though and I am not sure. Although as a follower of Christ, I have eternal life, I am not immortal. Immortal means existing through the ages, no beginning.

There is a scene in the "B" that points to this. The disciples were walking around this temple and taking in the beautiful structure - the polished marble floors, the huge blocks of limestone, and the thick pillars that held up the portico. Jesus said nothing, walking along side them thinking about his brief time with them. Up ahead, the rulers of the temple thought if this was God's son he would surely be impressed with this "church" they had built for him.

Imagine the interaction for a minute - even if you don't believe Jesus as a "Messiah" or whatever. Go back in time and imagine the hot sun overhead, the sweat beading on his forehead. In their minds, these "pastors" thought he was nothing more than a carpenter from Galilee. A man who appreciates craftsmanship in wood, a builder in the shop of his father Joseph. But, they decided to test him. "If you are the Son of God, prove it" they said.

He looked down at his own feet. He could see the scratches on his foot from the stones on the road, the leather was dusty as it wrapped around his ankles. Nothing special about this man. His robe was home spun, probably give to him by his mother who also tried to put him away. In fact, his brothers and his family did try to take him away from the crowds and put in a "hospital" of sorts. Yes, the men in white jackets were coming to take him away. Why would any one believe him? His own family didn't. His hands were calloused from working with saws, hammers, chisels and nails. He was a carpenter, not a prophet. He was a man with body odor and a bristled, unshaven face, not any Son of God.

His accusers waited for an answer. They knew they were smarter, they'd studied the scriptures and were learned men. They wanted to trap him in his answer. Most likely they were like me, a professor, sitting on a PhD committee waiting for the student to defend their dissertation. We ask tricky questions, the theory behind their decision, the statistics used. I know the process well, it is sometimes even humiliating and I try to be gentle. But, some of my colleagues go after the student like it is pleasing to "show them" their place.

OK, before I finish the story. I don't know all the answers. I am only going to give the answer HE did to his accusers.

Jesus looked up at them and said, "tear down this temple and in 3 days I will build it up again."

Dissertation time. Defend your thesis Jesus. They looked at it him and said, "this temple took over 30 years to build and you will restore it by yourself? You are barely 30 years old, how can you say you will rebuild this temple."

In academia, this is usually when the student fidgets. It is the time when your get butterflies in your stomach and you think you are defeated. By the way, for all of you and this has been some 20 years ago and my own children may not know this. I FAILED MY DISSERTATION DEFENSE. I couldn't answer all of the questions the professors asked me. I couldn't justify the statistics I used. I came up short.

OK, back to the story. Can Jesus defend himself? Does he have an answer for his skeptics? Yes, he does. It isn't a very smart answer though if that is what you are looking for. In fact, the answer was "dumb" by human standards. It was rejected by his accusers. His answer was so far fetched his own disciples didn't get it. Do you know what it was? If fact, it took a long time for his answer to even be understood by his own followers. But, they did get it and wrote about it so you and I could understand it.

He wasn't talking about the temple, he was talking about his body. He wasn't talking about the destruction of marble, but the destruction of life. Death.

Think about it. Did he live up to his answer? Tell me what you think!

Is God Dead?

Do you remember the Death of God Movement? Ted Fiske’s 1965 article in the New York Times was celebrated in the Elton John song "Levon" who was "born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas Day when the New York Times said God was dead."  We also have the April 8, 1966 Time magazine article posing the question "Is God dead?" on the cover - was one of the first times it was published without a photograph.  John T. Elson's article in Time begged the question - did God ever really exist?  Elson described what was actually being taught in liberal seminaries, so it could be said that his conclusions were largely based on the "experts" who sat around thinking about God alot. Radical theology was really behind the movement, but not entirely.

Where did all of this come from? Nietzsche is largely responsible. What was his motive? I am sure there are people in philosophy that are way more knowledgeable than I am on Nietzsche and we all know you are smarter than the rest of us "deists" anyway. After all, anyone who believes in God can't actually be a person of reason.

Actually, if you believe in God you may not be able to read and follow big words very well. In fact, I probably shouldn't tell you that there is an academic label for what we are talking about - "theothanatology."  The Greek word "theos" means God and "thanatos" means death.

Some say this had nothing to at all with the death of God as much as it had to with the death of commonly accepted standards of morality (Timothy Keller).

Who murdered God anyway? Nietzsche claimed we did. By now we are supposed to smell God decomposing, but the sweet fragrance of "reason and science" shall perfume the odor. Nietzsche claimed that the blood of God is all over our hands, all over our clothing, and all over our minds.

I couldn't agree with him more. Where our paths differ is on why. Nietzsche claimed that reason and science put God in the cemetery. God's obituary was supposed to be written long before 1965. The French philosopher Voltaire, boasted that within 100 years of his death, the Bible would disappear. What year was that? 1778. According to David Hume, a contemporary of Voltaire and also a skeptic and atheist, there cannot possibly be such a good and powerful God because evil exists. Thus intellect and empirical reasoning were the only ways to destroy evil. Hume basically was saying, of course God is dead because evil lives. Mr. Hume, therefore, has a claim on truth, the truth exclusively based on logic, logic exclusively based on atheism.

Nietzsche, also had a "truth-claim." Interesting because Jesus also said "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).  Nietzsche's claim not only from those in the philosophical world, but also in the science world. After all, if you deify "science" and if you say that all "other" truth-claims about religion and God are just psychological projections to deal with your guilt and insecurity, you gain a following! It is pleasant to hear, isn't it? After all, if we have science and we have reason, we don't have any insecurities. We now "know" and we are self-sufficient as human beings. We don't need God anymore.

When something dies, you can smell it. I remember when time when a mouse was caught in a trap I set in the kitchen. It took a few days and we could smell the odor, but for the life of me I couldn't find the trap. It was frustrating, the longer it say undiscovered the worse it smelled.

In this case, it isn't a deity who is in a state of putrefaction. It is man. Michael Foucault claims that Christianity and other religions are the cultural straitjacket of science and reason. So, it begs the question. Does a belief in Jesus Christ render a person intellectually bankrupt? Do the philosophers of our time deify their ideas over God's?

I don't know. I guess each of us have to sort it out for ourselves. Did God die?

As Nietzsche said, I do have blood on my hands. Really what our modern day philosophers are saying is that when Christ proclaimed "It is finished" as documented in John 19:3 that God actually died. If the bible is to believe, the soldiers present at the crucifixion and trial actually tried to kill God.

The gospels claimed they stabbed Christ to verify that he was dead as they were going around to break the bones of the two other criminals. Why? So that they could die faster. They wanted him dead.

So they took Christ down from the cross, lifeless. No real funeral for this "dead" God. No memorial service.  It was the sabbath (a religious holiday) and they needed to bury him quickly as it was against the law to work on the sabbath.

They bought perfume 3 days later to cover the "death smell" that Nietzsche talked about.

Gosh, the science versus deity debate really was 2000 years ago that Sunday morning when these women brought ointments to cover the death smell. Any normal person knows that after 3 days any "body" will stink. We have embalming fluid today, but it really just postpones what eventually happens to all of us. Decomposition of proteins, especially by anaerobic microorganisms, and bacteria liquefy what we see in the mirror.

Anyway, back to the original question - is God dead? Certainly the followers of Christ thought so. Most of them ran away as they were frightened the authorities were going to arrest them now that their leader was dead. His executioner thought he was dead. Pilate gave this wealthy guy, Joseph of Arimathea. Politicians thought he was dead.  The Jerusalem Post post in 33 AD could have written the exact same article as Ted Fiske - God is Dead.

So now, it is a matter of faith - isn't it? Did God die? Is this a dead carpenter from Galilee? Is this a mental patient who was really under court order to be admitted to a "facility" as when his mother and brothers attempted on several occasions?

You see, the question really isn't "is he a good teacher?" or is he "a prophet of God" as Islam and other religious leader claim. The question really is - IS GOD DEAD? Since anyone who believes in him today is illogical, stupid, and largely deceived by lies and errors in the transcription of the ancient texts, we must conclude that  Nietzsche was right and Jesus Christ was wrong?

My own belief is that the tomb was found empty that morning - not "because of" a stolen body or a wounded man who revived himself and moved a large boulder with a Roman seal and guard posted outside.  But, because of a risen Christ. A living God, not a dead one. It isn't a claim that I can back up with physical evidence or science. But, it is a one that can be backed up with logic and reason. Is science able to explain everything? I guess you have to answer that for yourself. At least consider what is written here, the arguments have been laid out squarely and without "spin" on them.

Historical Revisionism

Historical revisionism is usually based on challenging orthodox views, most commonly accomplished by modern day academics who have studied all of the original documents and understand contemporary issues that relate to a particular point in history. The premise is generally that traditional opinions are sacred and that modern historians are better able to scrutinize history than others. Generally, revisionism is targeting contemporary issues of great importance and one of these is the religiosity of our nation's founding fathers. Is this a deliberate attempt to distort the historical record?

What is an example of this?

Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore decided to defend the American principle of the separation of the church and state by writing a book called "The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness." It is a college classic on many campuses today. If you read in the beginning of their book, you will find a "disclaimer" of sorts - one that says they have dispensed with using footnotes (normally used in historical academic works). Interesting isn't it?

Not that I am an expert in historical research, but I do know something about scholarly writing. Kramnick, a 30-year faculty member who serves as the Richard J. Schwartz Professor and chair of the Department of Government at Cornell, writes a book used in classrooms around the nation and doesn't document his conclusions with "facts" or evidence? Does it raise suspicion about his motives? Did you know that R. Laurence Moore's wrote the book "Selling God" and that makes him qualified to write this work? Moore's basic premise is that religion has used the principles of marketing to manipulate people into "buying" religion. Sound like a bias to me. But, I could be mistaken since this book is adopted in college classroms I am sure presents a fair and balanced viewpoint.

I have some more examples of objective writing. Steve Morris claims the early presidents and patriots were generally deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal God, but not Christianity.

We also have Bob Massey of the Sun Herald who says that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were "enemies of Christ."He notes that Thomas Paine, who drafted the Declaration of Independence, was also the author of "Common Sense" (none of these facts are untrue) and most likely not a Christian (also true). However, the only thing he wants you to know are that the 2 signers of the Declaration were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Were these men Christian? No. I agree. But, how did he arrive at the general statement about "deists" and "Unitarians" and do these conclusions match up with the facts?

OK, now everyone reads this stuff and takes it as the "god-awful" truth, right? Our founding fathers were somewhere between atheists or at least semi-religious?

Did you know there were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence? Of these, 29 had seminary degrees (David Barton). Yep, sounds like they all had the same opinion as Franklin and Jefferson.

Did you know that in the Treaty of Paris (1783) when we signed with Britain following the revolution, at the very top it says "In the name of the most Holy and undivided trinity" (top image here, click on it for a detailed view). Does that sound like they were enemies of Christ? Does that even sound like they were "Unitarians" or dieists? The signers were David Hartley (ambassador and member of the British Parliament) and Ben Franklin / John Adams? You can view this document on your next visit to Washington, DC if it hasn't been redacted.

Did you know that in 1782 congress published the "Bible of the American Revolution" and that one of the signers was John Witherspoon - signer of Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Jersey. He was probably the most noted Christian evangelical of his day? Ever hear of Charles Thomson? How about Robert Sherman? Benjamin Rush? Yes, these men all of historical records of agnosticism. I am certain they agreed 100% with Thomas Paine.

Come on, let's get real. Why don't people just come out and say they are anti-Christian in the preface of their books when they want to write about history? Be sure and strike out the fact that Benjamin Rush, who is considered the father of American medicine and established the American College of Physicians was a devout Christian and has a well-documented historical record of that fact. Charles Thomson, immediately chosen secretary of the Continental Congress at its first meeting, was a believer in Jesus Christ. This is also well documented. How do we know this? In 1808 he translated both the old and new testaments from Greek and published it!

Note that John Adams never said "there is no authority, civil or religious, or no legitimate government, but what is administered by the Holy Ghost." Please strike from the history books that Roger Sherman, also a signer of the Declaration, read through the entire bible each year he was in congress and wrote notes in the margins. Why? He gave the bible to each of his children so that they could have their own copy. Roger Sherman had 15 kids.

Now really, the liberals - probably inflate things a little bit - especially when they claim the bible is full of errors because of historical revisionism. They claim, the bible has been copied over and over and is full of transcriptions errors. For example, what the bible says about homosexuality is really been misunderstood according to Daniel Helminiak, who is incidently a Catholic priest and way more educated than the rest of us.

Radical revisionists are also ignoring the Dead Sea Scrolls (a collection of 850 documents written between 21 BC - 61 AD) that include the texts of Isaiah and quite possibly the earliest known document of the Gospel of Mark (fragment 7Q5 - José O'Callaghan). Some liberal theologians are so certain the Dead Sea Scrolls are false that they've gone to the extreme saying these were not written by the Essenes (religious community about the time of Christ), but rather this was nothing more than a pottery factory (Norman Golb).

After all these scholarly opinions, it makes your head spin doesn't it? I for one, but my faith in the accuracy of the scriptures. It is the one rock solid foundation in my life. As for faith-connection of the founders of my country, well I am certainly not leaving that to the scholars. At least in that case, I can go to the National Archives and Washington, DC and examine the original documents for myself.

Science, Religion and Racism

Richard Dawkins (God Delusion) and David Brooks ( Necessity of Atheism ) maintain that religion is basically a crutch and a hindrance to mankind and the antithesis to intellectualism. Isn't this really a repetitive self-serving assertion? In essence what they are saying is that science is the deity and religion is basically irrational. Isn't it a bit insulting, as a Christian, to be told you are not a scientist or a person of logic because of a belief in God? Are science and theology really at odds with each other?

Brook's book "Necessity of Atheism" was written in 1933; Dawkins seems to harp basically on the same premise 50 years later. Dawkins repeatedly emphasizes the grievous harm that religion inflicts on society, and how no rational human being could believe in God. Others (Jim Herrick, Peter Cave) propose a less divisive proposition, more in the social scientist realm, that that the doctrinal differences between Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism were superficial and insignificant, that really we all believe in the same God. Basically, Buddhism doesn’t believe in a personal God at all. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam believe in a God who holds people accountable for their beliefs. Judaism and Islam hold that God's attribute could not be all reduced to a "loving" God and assert some racial identity to it's members. Christianity, on the other hand, breaks from the Hebrew racial and national identities held in the "Old Testament" and extends it's reach to "gentiles" of all nations through a belief in Jesus Christ.

Two extremes - Dawkins claims that the Christian view of sin can basically be attributed to a "selfish gene" and Paul Kurtz who maintains the notion that man is basically good and all religions are good. While one may sound biologically plausible and the other may sound like a nice way at reconciling all of the world's religions, do they offer any real "breakthrough" in explaining good and evil? Are there ethical values and principles that nonreligious individuals can live by? Of course, it is called civility. So, does this resolve or explain why we have evil in the world? Dawkins claims that religion is basically the reason for our stupidity and that evil can be genetically "engineered out" through recombinant DNA pharmaceuticals. Kurtz is like the well-endowed blond in the Miss America contest calling for "world peace."

As a Christian, I want to examine these approaches seriously. Does the human record (a subject called history) demonstrate that the atheistic or agnostic approach or, dare I say the "scientific approach" uphold this premise? Darwin's "Origin of Species," published 150 years ago, did set the scientific community in motion in better understanding the diversity of CREATION (I know this will sound archaic) . I respect Darwin, his work was fascinating and a major breakthrough. But, he seemed to stir a deep division between religion and science. He was perhaps the first person to offer some evidence on the origin of man, the scientific explanation, but it was theory. He wasn't there to observe man evolve. What is interesting is his view on race. He asserted something additionally that many scientists would disclaim - that race (human skin color) traveled different distances along the evolutionary path. Caucasians in his mind were at the top of the racial hierarchy , while black and brown people ranked below.

Is racism evil? Of course. Did it get a helping hand from Darwin? Yes. Consider Pekka-Eric Auvinen, a Finnish schoolboy who murdered eight people at his high school in November 2007, wrote on his blog that "stupid, weak-minded people are reproducing ... faster than the intelligent, strong-minded" ones. Sounds evolutionary, don't you think? What about the "KKK" in the United States, isn't some of their thought based on the "gene pool" being pure?

I know, some are going to say that this is no different than the harm Christianity or other world religions have imposed on society.

So we have made strides in alleviating racism, as we know it today. But, why, is it heralded as a " humanistic achievement" and why is racism now stripped of it's "roots" in Christianity? A logical or reasonable approach would say no, racism, at least in the United States, was brought to it's knees by a Christian - Dr. Martin Luther King. He implemented the teachings of Christianity in bringing out the "end" through non-violence and civil disobedience. I know some will claim those are not exclusively Christian ideas, but I don't recall Rev King running around giving speeches about Buddha so please be fair with the historical record.

Scientists claim that the bible is full of mistakes and atheists espouse the replicate errors in the "good book" - they are essentially making these same mistakes in documenting how humanism and the social sciences brought us to understand the evil of racism. Didn't social scientists perpetuate racism by proposing African Americans had lower IQ than whites (Galton).

Jesus Christ is a controversial figure historically. But in order to be empathetic to my agnostic friends, a "theologically abstract person" confabulated by idealistic religious fanatics through the evolutionary rewriting of the scriptures. I know, either way, it still comes to a name - doesn't it? Jesus of Nazareth. I believe him to be a real person and the manifestation of God in human form. You may not. But, belief is not an abstract thing. Your belief in not believing in Jesus Christ is real. My belief in the deity of Christ is just as real. But, I do take issue with people like Dawkins who claim I can't be a good scientist or person of reason because I believe in a creator God. I read and agree with findings from atheistic scientists, why should Dawkins not accept people of faith who are scientists? Albert Einstein was Jewish and Louis Pasteur was Catholic. Do we throw out their contributions to science?

There is a flaw in mandating that all scientists be agnostic or atheistic, that we are somehow disabled in our inquiry of the empirical because of our faith. I don't stream "truth" through the lens of religious fanatics and I don't compromise my clinical research findings by worrying that it will interfere with my religion or beliefs. What is humorous to me is the "scientist" who truly believes that "love" and "evil" are biological phenomena and the social scientists who claim "exclusive" rights to discovering the evil of racism and social justice. Are religion and science adversaries?

Bottom line - is intellectualism impeded by faith? I don't think so. The fact that evolutionary scientists assume "no responsibility" for racism, offer silly explanations for good and evil, and rant about how religion invades science amuses me. I do understand that the Catholic church tried to squelch Galileo and that religion also has it's abuses throughout history. But, let's not say that science and religion are adversaries, ok? Isn't it time to bury the hatchet? We are not in the era of the Scope Trial. Can't the two camps trust each other a bit?