Most of the debate was tough to watch; there were almost as many fallacies as there were blank stares. Analogy after analogy, Erhman and D’Souza tried to one-up each other with superior appeals to emotion and examples of science. They attempted to educate us in Geology and evangelize for their side, but neither came out a victor.

A particularly painful claim was made by Erhman on several occasions. Apparently, the concept of free-will is overly simplistic and should be ignored. He went on to “disprove” it using this argument: If one believes that free-will results in suffering on Earth, and that we will have free-will in Heaven, then there must be suffering in Heaven- something contradictory to what we are led to believe by the Bible.

However, Erhman failed to consider a few important factors. The Bible does not guarantee admission into Heaven. In fact, sin is not permitted to enter Heaven, so only Christians will be present (Because we are all inherently sinners, and only Christians have accepted Jesus as their Savior). This is not to say that Christians do not sin, just that everyone in Heaven should have a drive to please God.

It is not free-will that causes suffering, it is the decisions that people make with their free-will. It was sin that brought suffering into the world, when Adam and Eve decided to disobey God. Consequently, both “moral” and “natural” evil emerged, talked about extensively by both debaters. Moral evil is when our choices deviate from God’s will, and natural evil results from the initial instance of moral evil. As far as we know, death and horrific natural disasters would never occur if we were not forced to leave the Garden of Eden.

We must also remember what led to the fall of man. It was, of course, spurred by Satan tempting Eve. Satan, known previously as Lucifer, was an archangel who became power hungry and lusted for God’s throne. In turn, he was banished from Heaven, and thus the great spiritual war begun (we all know this Sunday School story). It is easy to overlook the fact that Lucifer, a creature of Heaven, still had the free-will to chose not to follow God. Although free-will is present in Heaven, and we have the ability to use it to our detriment, suffering will only affect us individually. We will not be able to inflict pain or murder, since we will all be eternal beings- we will only be able to violate God in our thought and our speech. This may subsequently get us sent downstairs, but it will not torment others.

When Ehrman so affirmatively concluded that free-will had an inherent flaw because of Heaven, he did not take into account Hell or Lucifer. How easy it is for people to use the Bible for their own purposes and conveniently leave out passages that may oppose their pre-formed opinions. Ehrman did it, and perhaps even D’Souza. I’d even go as far as to say we all have done it at one time or another.

We learn Popular Christianity, and Christians and non-believers alike love to throw around phrases like “judge not lest you be judged” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” What a travesty. I cannot say I know too much about the Bible, or being a “good” Christian for that matter, but I am pretty sure this is not what God intends. Regardless, we have the ability to do it as autonomous humans. We can make God in our own image without fear of immediate punishment; this is our right. God will never force us to love Him because that would not be genuine love. We must do so voluntarily, in spite of our circumstances. This is the crux of the free-will argument, and it makes sense to me.

Obviously, not even I can say for certain that I am completely correct on the issue of suffering. My entire point of view, like D’Souza’s, is based around the premises of the existence of divinity and the infallibility of the Bible. But oftentimes we must make these leaps of faith. Religion cannot be explained with reason, only experience. It would be naive for us to think we could understand the logic of our Creator. We want to know the unknowable. Did Adam have a belly button? If God can do anything, can he make a donut too big for Him to eat?

Maybe we should be more concerned with using our free-will to love others and help those who most need it. Maybe we can make the most compelling argument for God’s existence by being like Christ, because He is in us. Maybe bickering over unanswerable questions does more harm to the Kingdom than good. Just some food for thought…

For the questions that plague the theistic position (or at least one that assumes a benevolent, Creator God) is if there is suffering, why does God allow it?  If God is truly omnipotent and all-loving (caring, whichever word you wish to use), how can he allow evil to occur?

Initially, D’Souza failed to answer that question.  He may have obliquely referred to it in making his claim that, for example, the Nazis perpetrated the Holocaust, so how can we blame God?  Well, yes, certainly that are immediately responsible, but that doesn’t address the fundamental point that, if God were truly omnipotent and all-Caring, then how could He allow it to occur?  Obviously, He is not responsible, but that event nonetheless happened.

Ehrman honed in on the fact that D’Souza wasn’t answer that question and asked for a good deal more specificity of what D’Souza actually believed.  And finally, D’Souza fleshed out the Christian position (though not adequately, in my opinion): we are moral, responsible, autonomous agents, so for God to remove suffering, it not only removes our free-will, but it stunts our growth as men and women created in the image of God.

As we are created in the image of God, we are to use our reason and our will to solve these problems seen before us, but for God to remove suffering doesn’t allow us to do this, and doesn’t allow our souls to grow and develop.  D’Souza raised the point that at some point in our lives, our parents stopped sheltering from the evils and vicissitudes of the world (by allowing us to go to college for one), because we cannot continue to live as children.  We have to gain wisdom and depth by experiencing these things.

D’Souza argued that God approaches the issue in the same manner: to remove suffering would leave us children, merely sitting around in a vegetative state.  Basically, we would have no higher telos or purpose in life (which D’Souza said implicitly if not explicitly).

So we have the option of two worlds: one where we are eternally children not capable of making decisions because we are not given the opportunity; the other, the world we live in, where, yes, suffering exists, but deepens our souls and allows us to act upon our God-given talents and, ultimately, our free-will.

Ehrman, however, disagreed with that dichotomy.  He envisioned a world where we could have both free-will and no (or limited) suffering.  I couldn’t understand fully whether he believed there could be free will and no suffering or merely free-will and limited suffering.  He raised the Holocaust in this context, but, from what I understood, was displeased with the extent of the suffering (millions of lives were taken, and the way in which they were taken was horrendous), but he seemed to implicitly be saying it would have been okay if it were a smaller tragedy.  Instead of 12 million lives, 6 million lives.  He questioned God allowing such a large number of people to be killed, but seemed to accept the notion of God allowing a smaller number of people being killed.

He said that it was completely arbitrary that, in this context, some people’s lives were saved, but others’ were not, but left open the question as to the arbitrariness of this new “Ehrman Limit,” where some suffering was allowed, but not too much.  Why his number?

But towards the end, he seemed to quell this notion of God being able to accept a less extensive amount of suffering and said that God and suffering are incompatible, yet held on to his claim that this world would be compatible with free-will, because he places importance on our ability to act.

He complained that D’Souza was limiting God in saying we could either have free-will and suffering or suffering and no free-will, yet never established a framework or a plan for how this world would take shape.  He never articulated this vision of a world with no suffering, yet with men and women being responsible and autonomous agents who act.

This I found to be the major flaw in his argument, but D’Souza faltered in never pressing Ehrman on that point.  In that regard, the debate overall was disappointing.  They never seemed to connect on these major points and address the issues and questions each raised.

But in the end, I entered as a committed Christian and exited similarly, but I’m grateful for Ehrman in that he made me question the underpinnings of my faith and left me with questions to ponder about the character of the God of the Bible.  And that is the beauty of events such as these.

My last three posts were long, serious (for TMWWT), and narcissistic. So my next few posts are going to be short, silly, and have nothing to do with me. Today, I have some satirical news items. Some are just headlines; some are story fragments. If you like them, I’ll post another batch next week (actually, I’ll probably post more next week no matter what, because I have a surplus). Hope you enjoy…

Local Man receives millions from Nigerian Prince

CHAPEL HILL (CR)- When Prince Obayuwana’s father was deposed during Nigeria’s latest military coup, he was afraid that his massive fortune would be confiscated by the country’s new rulers. He needed to get his money out of Nigeria as fast as possible, so he sent a desperate email to every address he could find. One man replied to that email: John Galloway.

“I knew the Prince’s email was important because it was in all capital letters,” said Galloway. “I always respond to emails in all-caps.”

Mr. Galloway and Prince Obayuwana said that the details of their deal were to remain secret, but it seems that Galloway gave Obayuwana a small loan in order to bribe a bank official. In return, Obayuwana gave Galloway approximately 10% of his fortune, equal to about $21 million.

Midgets play game of basketball; passerby’s heart explodes because of the adorableness

DENVER (CR)- According to a witness, “She was fine when she first saw them. I mean, she was definitely overwhelmed by the cuteness, but it wasn’t until she saw the referee, dressed up in his little outfit, with the little stripes and everything, that she was overcome by giggles. You could literally hear her heart explode.”

State officials have duly begun a study concerning the threat posed to the general public by midget recreational activities.

Entire advertising industry quits when they discover that the advertising industry is nothing like the TV show “Mad Men”

Unitarian Universalist accidentally prays to the right God

CARRBORO (CR)- A practicing Unitarian Universalist, Scott White appreciates all religions and all religious figures. So, he prays to each religion’s deity in turn. However that all went awry on Thursday night.

White, who keeps an ever-expanding list of Gods to pray to and another list of prayers to recite, from which he chooses randomly each night, “usually end[s] up praying, say, a Hindu prayer to Mohamed.”

But, Thursday night, White randomly chose to say the Lord’s Prayer to the Christian God. “I was discomforted by the real sense of a true, fulfilling connection with the almighty creator of the universe,” said White.

When asked if he is going to continue praying to the Christian God, White said, “No. I much prefer the vague sense of spiritual uplift that being Unitarian gives.”

Upon further inspection, crop circles revealed to be gigantic game of Tic-Tac-Toe

Obama gives Megan Fox to Vladimir Putin

MOSCOW (CR)- Last week, Obama decided to scrap Bush’s missile defense system in Eastern European in hopes of appeasing the Russians. This week he is going a step further by personally handing America’s greatest natural resource to the Russian Prime Minister and ultimate decision-maker.

Junior preemptively dumps potential girlfriend

CHAPEL HILL (CR)- When David Cooper met Megan Dillard at a house party two weeks ago, he thought they hit it off (though neither of them was completely sober at the time). For the last two weeks, they’ve been texting back and forth. Then, earlier this week, David finally asked Megan to “grab some lunch or something.” It was on this lunch-date that he discovered the shocking truth.

“She seemed genuinely ignorant of my favorite movies, TV shows, and music,” said David. “She didn’t even know my activities. It was like she hadn’t even Facebook stalked me at all.”

When confronted with this galling accusation, Megan admitted that, indeed, she had not Facebook stalked her potential beau. David was forced to end their budding romance.

“How can she really be serious about a relationship if she isn’t even willing to put in a little bit of effort and scour through each of my 382 Facebook photos?” asked David. “If we’re already having problems like this, how are we ever going to get to the change-both-of-our-profile-pictures-to-pictures-with-both-us-smiling-happily phase, or even the sign-each-other’s-walls-daily phase?”

Ideology – that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination… Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions.
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

When I first began writing for Carolina Review, one line of our mission statement caught my eye: “We believe any attempt to establish utopia is bound to meet with failure and, more often than not, disaster.”

The truth of this statement is borne out again and again throughout history. Mankind has tried to establish utopia over and over again, and all attempts have been doomed to failure.

Very early in the Bible, the book of Genesis reports that man attempted to build utopia in Mesopotamia, at Babel. This attempt ended in such an abject failure that “Babel” is now a term for man’s failure to create his own utopia. And modern archaeology backs up the basics of this story: When man settled down from his nomadic existence, he merely created a whole new host of problems for himself. Instead of finding food, food now had to be grown through back-breaking labor. Where he could once get a balanced diet by hunting and gathering, he now had to work to obtain proper nutrition. Instead of possessing only as much as he could carry, man accumulated possessions and all the trouble that these bring. Eventually, the early Sumerian civilizations were overrun by invaders, their cities laid waste and their people scattered and replaced by new peoples. History flowed on.

Fast forwards to the twentieth century, and many men in many countries were once again promising to lead their people to utopia. Leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong promised a land of plenty if the people would just put their faith that the ideas of Marx would see them through. Instead, after taking power from the old tyrants, the new hope only became a new form of tyranny. The ruthlessness of the Tsars was replaced by Lenin’s proclamation that protecting the revolution required “terror unrestrained by any form of law.” As Marxism begat Leninism which begat Stalinism, as the flow of refugees from South Vietnam turned into a flood of boat people fleeing the new communist rulers, as China made a great leap forwards into overpopulation and mass starvation, as the righteous cries of Viva La Revolucion turned into righteous cries of Cuba Libre, and most of all as the world’s great communist power collapsed on itself in spectacular economic and political ruin, it became apparent to the world that communism was a false hope. The hopes for classless utopia and equality in all things would not happen. In fact, they could not happen.

So man turned to other ideologies. In the 1920′s, another man had the idea that since international socialism was a false promise, a different form of socialism was needed. Rather than an international revolution, this man preached utmost loyalty to nation and a faith in its  destiny to rule the world for a thousand years. Two decades later, the arch-enemy in the east had overrun much of the German nation. Germany’s Drang nach Osten had turned into one of the greatest mass expulsions in history, as millions of Germans had been driven from their homes in the east. Even the Nazi’s most hated targets now had their own state in their ancestral homeland. Germany was in ruins, and its former demagogues met their fate either by their own hand or the hand of the hangman. Once again, man-made utopia was a false hope which only lead to greater human suffering than before.

As Dave Breese writes in his excellent book Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave, “Fascism, Nazism and Communism sounded in the mouths of their respective polemicists like very different things. As it turned out, they were merely different names for the same political excuse used by a dictator to grab a country, throttle it into submission, kill everybody who disagreed with him, and then smilingly inform the world that nothing had happened.”

The truth is, all ideas that promotes a man-made utopia on this earth are doomed to failure. The technological revolution replaced physical problems with new moral and spiritual problems. The American Dream became an ideology of hedonism and materialism, and the same is true of the ideology that free market capitalism will save the world. Its counter-weight in the eastern world, militant Islam, has begotten pervasive cruelty in an attempt to force human society to become virtuous. The creation of colonial empires in the name of the “civilizing mission” led instead to the enslavement of many peoples. Later, the leaders in these colonies who promised their people happiness through independence instead became a whole zoo of psychopathic dictators. The fall of communism failed to deliver any new utopias: Eastern Europe became host to problems of organized crime, corruption and violence, while most of central Asia is still under the control of men who believe themselves to be demi-gods in suits and ties. Attempts to spread democracy around the world have met with varying levels of success, but democracy is no closer to Francis Fukuyama’s  “end of history” than it was in ancient Athens.

As Breese writes, “The mind of man has been so created by God that it cannot function as an autonomous entity. It must have an ultimate truth, a final authority, a god it sees as a fountainhead of all values and from which all final truth is derived.”

And yet, all man-made ideologies are doomed to failure because all man-made ideologies are created by imperfect, self-centered human beings. When man puts his faith in his ideology, what he is doing is setting up an idol. Man-made ideologies have all been “gods that failed.” Any attempt to use man-made ideas to create utopia is doomed to failure. Any future ideology which promises to bring heaven to earth should be warned against, and treated with the utmost suspicion.

Universalist symbol

Chapel Hill Community Church is putting on a play entitled “Jesus – The Teen Years,” a pathetic excuse for art which, according to its director, Julie Tomkovick, is an attempt to take “a familiar story and [turn] it into something recognizable.”  Read: the play treats the subject of the holy life of Jesus Christ as if it were a cheap circus act.   Tomkovick presents the audience with an over-the-top comedy that doesn’t let the facts get in the way. One thing’s for sure, however: she chose the correct church at which to host her production.

According to one of the actors staring in the play, “Jesus is no different from anyone else.”  A visit to the Chapel Hill Community Church’s website will leave one with a similar impression.  You see, Community is a Unitarian Universalist congregation and Unitarian Universalists don’t allow themselves to “’be bound by a statement of belief.’”  No, Unitarian Universalists have many “beliefs within” their “faith” among which Christianity holds a dubious place along with “Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and others.”  And, lest we commit a sin against the diversity god, let us not forget the Wiccans or the witches and other “earth-based spiritualities” that, according to the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations’ website, make up 19% of the denomination.     

Glory ‘hallelu! Hopefully it won’t be too disheartening for the eager beaver Unitarians to learn that there exists a Law of Non-Contradiction; either there is a God, or there isn’t. But the ‘Communi ‘Unis won’t even admit that much.  Therefore, Community’s doctrine amounts to a meaningless collection of stupid platitudes that (just oh, by the way) make a mockery of Christ’s teaching, which brings me back to the ridiculous play at hand. 

 Among the more revealing details of Jesus’ teen years, he discovers that his sister is a lesbian.  And, apparently Judas Iscariot was Christ’s childhood chum.  Why Judas?  Well, according to the director, Judas “got a bad rap” because “without Judas’ eventual betrayal…the rest of the story wouldn’t have happened.”  And, the play’s summary found on the play’s official website goes on to say, “Judas’ act comes from love and courage, not cowardice.”  I see.  So, when Jesus said, “but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born” he was just kidding.  Hahaha!

Community Church’s teaching constitutes nothing short of moronic mumbojumbo that is accompanied nicely by “Jesus – The Teen Years.”  And, in it’s rejection of Christ’s exclusive teaching (i.e. John 14: 6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”) the local church spits in the face of the Lord’s work on the cross.

(Note: there seems to be more than one Community Chruch; we are refering to the one located on 106 Purefoy Rd., Chapel Hill, NC)

In this year of our Lord 2008, UNC dogmatically promotes “intellectual freedom” and is opposed to discrimination on the basis of “religion” or “creed.” Chancellor Thorp has stated his “profound commitment and support of Carolina’s efforts to achieve a diverse and inclusive community.” According to him, “Diversity constitutes a strategic goal of our Academic Plan and a key element of our aspirations for being a great university.”

This the mantra of a university that ended a thirty year tradition of a Christmas tree display in Wilson Library because there was a “diversity of feelings and opinions about it.” In other words the display’s implication no longer fits the university’s creed. But fear not! “The Friends of the Library will continue to provide a seasonal event in Wilson Library on Dec. 11 that will include the telling of winter-themed folktales.” Yes! Now that’s more like it; it’s not offensive, stale, and stupid. Hear ye, hear ye: “All holiday celebrations must involve politically correct bull crap.”

I wonder what the members of the General Assembly who chartered the UNC system would say. After all, their language is a far cry from the neutral, we are a blank slate, fill us in, language of today’s UNC. I’m talking about the General Assembly that offensively commanded, by law, that if “any student shall deny the being of a God, or the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, or shall assert, and endeavor to propagate among the students any principle subversive of the Christian religion, he shall be dismissed.”

What a distance we have come. Today the law should be written as follows: “if any student shall be offended by the female orgasm he/she/whatever shall be dismissed.” After all, if there is, as the university asserts, such a “diversity of feelings and opinions” about a non-descript Christmas tree, and that diversity prompted the end to a thirty year tradition, what, I wonder, is the diversity of feeling about an “I Heart Female Orgasm” event in which you can “learn how to have your first orgasm, or how to have better ones.”

I can see the class reunion of us, the future leaders of America, now: “Remember back in ’09? That certainly was a great female orgasm event; I met my wife there.”

I assume the women’s rights groups who promoted this and other like events on campus care about such problems facing our society such as unwanted pregnancy, fatherless homes, and violence against women. If so, may I suggest the solution to these and other related issues involve not the advertisement of a “FREE Sex Toy Raffle” in the name of “empowering women,” but a return to what the founders of UNC understood; that morality and religion (specifically Christian values) are the foundation for a healthy society. Let UNC Chapel Hill stop its dishonest jargon regarding non-discrimination and say what it means: that it is decidedly anti-religion (for, if it is for all religions, it is for none).

Now, having “killed God,” UNC rots in the rank stupidity of its own purposeless existence. God help us.