“48. National Atheist’s Day: April 1st.”

“69. The Big Bang Theory: God spoke and BANG! it happened.”

“70. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.”

“97. Evolution: True science fiction.”

And so on.

Although, this one-liner is just weird:

“43. God made mankind. Sin made him evil.”

The tract part is a tiny little part called an editorial on the third internal page.

This tract manages to provide its message with only one singular Bible cross-reference and one paraphrased line.

“Probably the most thought-provoking one-liner is ‘Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.’ It’s sad but true—no matter what you do, you will die.”

Basic appeal to fear.

One of the next lines is particularly weird. “Jesus said, ‘Whoever looks up on a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery already with her in his heart.’” I look at other females quite often to lust after them, to this date I have not suddenly become male. I am not an amphibian or fish, I am a mammal. Unlike amphibians and fish, mammals have never demonstrated spontaneous gender changes. (Perhaps this tract is only meant for the boys and I just don’t know that it this line means it doesn’t apply to me.)

“You know that you will be guilty, and end up in Hell.” The threat of Hell canard once again. I am going to take a poll here, my readers, who wants me to come up with a series of categories for grading and I’ll tick them off when I dissect one of these tracts. Certain themes do crop up again and again, I hypothesize that their frequency will match the relative strength of any given dogmatic meme in the religion. Threatening people with Hell is one of the most frequent and across-the-board. Demonstrating Hell exists isn’t.

In fact, I don’t know that I’ve read a single religious tract that manages to demonstrate Hell in any meaningful fashion. Insofar the threat only appeals to Christian mythology. This is another example of the Big Lie propaganda mechanism combined with the appeal to mythology. Not only is this threat repeated over and over, it relies on the reader of the tract to never attempt to discover or unveil the lack of evidence for any Hell.

“Please do that today…you may not have tomorrow.” This is a favorite line spoken by life insurance salesmen in movies. I don’t know about how they sell life insurance in the real world, but making creepy assertions about the possibility that you might not survive the night is another appeal to fear.

At least a few of the one-liners were actually funny.

Looking for a good gift for the infidels and heathens on your holiday shopping list? Check out our shop this weekend. Not only have we put every item on sale from now through Monday (11/30/2009), but all order over $40 get an extra 25% discount with the coupon code CYBER29!

It’s not often that we can offer such a large discount, so this weekend is a great time to pick up some wearable blasphemy for friends and family or just for yourself.

Blasphemy Day can be used to further inflame these psychotic zealots with their “religion of peace”, but there are many other gods to blaspheme as well!

The multitude of Hindu gods don’t get enough blasphemy, so perhaps this would be a good day to bash Brahma, vilify Vishnu, or curse Kali? Or you could go with the more traditional western target and deny the “Holy Spirit” on YouTube as part of The Blasphemy Challenge.

The religious have also taken note of the event. As with so many things they see us infidels doing and saying, this unholiday doesn’t fit with a delusion that is common among Bible believers. This delusion is that everyone knows they’re right, that their god is real, and we’re all just denying it, so they pretend that Blasphemy Day is exactly the opposite of what it is. Albert Mohler, Jr. writes in the Christian Post:

“…see this observance for what it really is - an unintended testimony to the existence of God and the foolishness of those who deny Him. The sheer foolishness of a blasphemy contest with t-shirts and mugs betrays the lunacy of it all. They can do no better than this? One testimony to the power of God is the fact that his self-declared enemies come off as so childish and manic. The heathen rage and God sees the foolish grasshoppers.”

Why is it that people like this guy see everything as a testimony to the existence of their god?

The reality here, Al, is that most of the world does not believe in your religion, and quite a significant amount of us don’t believe in any gods at all. Does not the “sheer foolishness of a blasphemy contest” show clearly that huge numbers of people in fact legitimately do not believe? This is in no way a testimony to the existence of any gods, let alone yours.

You’re right, if we did actually believe that your religion was correct and we persisted in our endless blasphemies, it would be lunacy. The fact that we do persist, despite our sanity, is proof that International Blasphemy day is no kind of testimony to your god, but a clear and undeniable expression of our disbelief.

“My friend are you saved? Saved is a Bible word, not a term thought up by man.” There are a cornucopia of errors in this single line. Saved is an English word, from Middle English via Old French sauf, from Latin salvus, safe. The Bible’s early manuscripts are written in Hebrew and Greek with some Aramaic translations. Pay attention class: see English anywhere in there? German? Anglo-Saxon? Or anything in the direct ancestry of English? No.

“Saved” is certainly not a Bible word.

It also seems to want to claim that something that is a “Bible word” is not therefore a term thought up by man. To assess this claim, however, I need an instantiation of a “Bible word” to examine. Since no definition is provided, and the only example is patently bogus, I suspect this phrase has no meaning.

Maybe the author of this tract is referring instead to the specific jargon he’s applying to the word “saved” according to usage in the Bible. If so, he really put his foot in his mouth that time.

“I have been a Christian for almost twenty years, and I find that most people still do not have an understanding of God’s message of salvation.” Bad editing here, this sentence isn’t even a separate paragraph, yet it has absolutely no transition or context connection to the previous line. Except maybe that the word “salvation” happens to be a cousin of that Latin word salvus.

“Plato, Aristotle, or Einstein could only think as far as their finite minds were able. They could not even solve the problems of this life, such as sickness, disease, pain, hunger, and death, let alone know anything about eternity.”

And the author is about to claim that he himself has these answers? No, wait, he is but a mere messenger.

“God knew we needed something to go by, so He put everything there is to know in His Bible.”

Like Cre recombinase and Tre recombanaise—recently discovered enzymes used to combat HIV. No? No mention of it? Perhaps this isn’t part of “everything there is to know” or maybe it has nothing to do with “sickness, disease, [and] pain.” In the world of propaganda this is known as a glittering generality—it’s also an example of a Big Lie. To effect the Big Lie propagandists spread a particular false belief into the population, “the Bible includes everything there is to know,” repeating it ad nauseam until a large enough portion of the population believes it to be true.

The tract does not go on to clarify what it means by the above statement so we can take it at face value: it’s simply asserting a bald falsehood expecting the reader to swallow it.

“So you and I, like our father, Adam, are born sinners. We have not obeyed all of God’s commandments.”

This is an appeal to mythology. First time I’ve seen this specific instance! Adam is a figure in Biblical mythology touted as “first man.” Except that Adam wasn’t born a sinner, so this sentence isn’t actually consistent with Biblical mythology after all.

“Your guilt as a sinner is shown by the fact that you will eventually die.”

And Germans are evil because of the fact that have large noses and speak a different language. As a proud citizen of the USA you should buy war bonds to aid our soldiers in fighting the German scourge! This sort of false assertion attempts to bond two things that have no causal connection. According to this logic: plants and animals are also sinners shown by the fact that they will eventually die.

And, of course, if all else fails end the tract by threatening the reader using an appeal to fear:

“Please hear this. People do not go to hell for their sins. They go to hell for rejecting Jesus Christ as their Sin Bearer, their Substitute, and the One who died in their place for their sins.”

Wait, you’re thinking. God doesn’t have to obey anyone! So what if Cesar claimed to be able to call down the Lord’s wrath upon me? That doesn’t mean He’s going to do it.

But why, though? This deity, who would necessarily have to be very well acquainted with who I am, knows what proof I need to believe in him, and to thus be “saved”. If he can perform such enormous feats as destroying Sodom and Gomorrah and (paradoxically) impregnating a young woman sans genitalia, why can’t he blind me to save me from the fires of Hell? Surely he knows that I would be more inclined to believe after such a miraculous experience.

Perhaps the Lord is as I suspected: a cruel god, a tyrant unmatched. Perhaps he truly does not care for his followers one bit…

Or perhaps, just perhaps, He is not the god of the Bible. He could be a different god entirely, one who never claims to intervene. Or maybe it is a deist god, who does not interfere with the universe much after creating it, leaving its creations (us) in a state of benign neglect…

Or maybe, and much more likely, it’s none of these things at all. The reason Cesar couldn’t blind me using the power of the Lord is because there is no Lord. There is no power to call on outside of ourselves to get the things that we want. Didn’t Jesus claim several times (in Mark 11:24 - 25, for instance) that whatever a Christian believed would happen and prayed for would take place? Not so, it would seem.

Science has never found much in the way of evidence for gods at all, and nothing that can’t be explained by naturalistic causes. And thankfully, when science (and the scientifically-inclined mind) doesn’t know something, it tries its damndest to discover what it is. That’s in direct opposition to religion, which can only spew the same nonsense it ever has, with some obnoxious apologetics thrown in for flavor.

My point is this: I very much doubt that there will ever be evidence for a god or gods. With so much progress being made by science in the past few hundred years, evidence has begun to increasingly show that the natural world has far more explanations and answers than any religious book. And as this progresses, the gaps for God to exist in become smaller and smaller. When you get to present times, He becomes little more than a handyman, stepping in to do the heavy lifting when things get too hard for poor little science to handle. And nearly all hypotheses involving God have either gone kaput or are regarded as nonscientific.

Religion is simply not reconcilable with scientific observation. Hence the overwhelming majority of atheist/agnostic scientists. They’re applying the scientific principles of skepticism to their own lives, as all of us should.

And as for those who believe in the Christian God, the one called upon to blind me, they have no basis at all for what they believe other than an ancient book written by men and deemed infallible. The God of the Bible could never have created the universe or us. I doubt he could ever do more than sit and have a temper tantrum of the floor of some cosmic nursery.

However it may be (and my position on the matter should be obvious), the truth remains that I am not blind. Hooray!

Then I remember that Father’s Day was yesterday. I can’t expect so much out of God. I mean, like any good dad He was probably partying into the early hours with His son Jesus, going all Old Testament on a keg of prodigious size. The resulting hangover will surely take a day or two to overcome.

Meanwhile I sit and wait for the proof that he even exists. Surely blinding an 18-year-old girl shouldn’t be too hard for him? Once He can get up off the couch without puking up a universe or two, I’m sure he’ll get right to it. Cesar’s request is probably not far down the queue, right?

We’ll see.

Last night was a fairly calm night, as Phil and those with him were the only ones hanging around. The exception was Edwin, who vanished soon after we arrived. With Phil was Cesar, a preacher I’d seen around only a few times.

He came up to us immediately as we approached the post office corner, and started in on his usual shtick. “I love you. You are my sister,” he said, indicating me, “and you are my brother.” He waved his hand at Kazz. “I love the both of you. But you need to respect us.”

He rambled on in the vein of “respect” for a while, and his main premise seemed to be that we would be bringing the wrath of God down on us if we continued to do what we do. He ignored me when I told him that while I respected their right to preach what they wanted to preach, I didn’t have to respect what they were saying. Also, the very fact that he seemed to be threatening us with God’s wrath was not terribly “respectful” of him to do.

“I can make you blind,” he said, looking at me. “For a little while, you will be blind.” I took this again as somewhat threatening, until he assured me that he had no need of touching me. He had only to speak to God, telling him that I was a child of Satan and to reveal himself to me. He did this, at my request, and he told me that the blindness would start some time the next day.

Phil made his usual mischief (including the hilarious misspeak below), and Jim rolled up to discuss the “merits” of creationism with us. We were at one point convinced that everyone was leaving when it turned out they were just making a final lap around Mill, preaching out of their portable loudspeaker. We followed behind, our megaphone held at the ready. The cacophony of the mixed sounds migrated down the street as we tailed them, and we left them only when they began to preach directly into the bars. I was sure that the police would be along soon enough to stop them from disrupting the merrymaking of the bar patrons.

The night itself was fairly nondescript, with the main event being Cesar’s little séance. Today has not brought me blindness, but I am willing to give him some leeway. Today was Father’s Day after all. Perhaps God was busy; perhaps Jesus took him out for a nice lunch and a Mylar “Best Dad Ever!” balloon. I’m willing to wait and see if this blindness thing will come through.

I can’t wait.

Quote of the Week
Phil: “Jesus said if you have hated in your heart, then you have committed adultery!”

According to the Bible, what should marriage not be, and more importantly what should marriage be?

Ah, false dichotomy, how long has it been since we last danced? It seems but yesterday I held you in my arms, as you whispered sweet nothings; but I have so many dance partners and you imagine yourself the only one.

“Are you going to heaven or to hell?” asks the first line of this tract. “The Bible teaches that many seemingly good people are going to hell, because … Sin has a price. You might be wondering what happens to people when they die in their sins.” And so on. The parts that I’m skipping are lengthy references to the Bible that don’t mean very much to the message that’s being demonstrated here. Except maybe the bit where it mentions people being “cast into a lake of fire.”

Does anyone else find it strange that the word “hell” in these doesn’t have a capital letter? To me this is a weird modification of English grammar; here I thought that Christians considered Hell to be an actual place—or at least a proper noun. Heaven doesn’t get a capital in this tract either, so maybe it’s a style issue.

The tract goes on to say, “The Bible tells us God desires to save everyone. … Do you want to be saved? The Bible teaches that there are several things you must do in order to be saved.”

The propagandist here makes several assumptions that haven’t been addressed. The first: the reader may not believe in the concept of sin. Without sin this threat is totally moot. Can’t die in your sin if there is none. It also assumes that Heaven and Hell are meaningful places to the reader. As if they don’t believe in Olympus, Valhalla, Elysium, any other afterlife–or none!

I’ve been looking at a lot of these tracts and this type seems to be directed at other Christians.

“The way to be saved is so simple! Yet many refuse to be saved. They will not accept Jesus Christ alone for salvation from sin and its penalty. They refuse to believe that Lord Jesus is powerful enough to save them by Himself. Do you?”

Or, Mr. False Dichotomy, maybe there isn’t a Jesus.

Parsing this tract gives me a unique segue into something that I’d like to talk about, not just false dichotomies, but the implementation of “conversion by threat.” To instantiate such a piece of propaganda first I must set up a paradigm that includes the elements that I am going to threaten with: in this case Heaven and Hell. Then I set up a balance between them by exploiting the human reaction to threats: explicit focus.

When presented with danger or stress things get really simple: safe and not safe. So, I set up something extremely dangerous, “Eternal torture in Hell!” and on the other side of the proverbial coin, I put something extremely safe, “Eternal bliss in Heaven.” Although, oddly, neither Heaven nor Hell are described in this entire tract, so really it’s not offering Heaven except in the title, only being rescued from the threat of Hell. Saved.

Once I’ve got that threat up, and I have my audience hooked on it, I sell my solution. At this layer of abstraction the human mind sees the two necessary elements of a stress action and, of course, chooses the case that doesn’t involve the serious danger. Threatening people with eternal torture to get them to agree must be one of the most cynical mechanics that I have ever seen in Christian propaganda.

“Do as I say or this bad thing will happen.”

In the parlance of my academic peers this is called an appeal to fear. It works by instilling fear, in this case via threat, in the reader and then feeding on that in order to make the rest of its case. This appeal is particularly fragile in that it has no depth to it. Appeals to fear require that the reader not examine the appeal too deeply, in this tract, not to question the assumptions made in the tract:

If there is no Heaven or Hell then this threat is moot.