A Sermon From an Ignoramus

In an earlier blog, dated Feb 6th, I wrote about a friend who attends a fundamentalist church (Church of Christ) in another state. It was titled, “Reason and Knowledge vs. Faith and Belief.” Through the magic of the Internet, I listened to a recent sermon by his preacher. I was not prepared for the ignorance displayed by this man. Listening to him made me physically weak.

Will Rogers said, “We are all ignorant; just about different things.” He was right. We humans tend to know a lot about one or two things but very little about most other things. If congress passed a law banning ignorance, I would be one of the first to be incarcerated.

But I think what Will Rogers might have overlooked is that there are two kinds of ignorance; one: my kind of ignorance which always causes me to get sparks when I mess with anything electrical, as opposed to a knowledgeable Christian electrician who never gets sparks, and two: willful ignorance. Willful ignorance is defined as: “The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs.”

There are a number of reasons for willful ignorance, not the least of which is due to laziness--people not wanting to have to do the work to rethink their opinions, the fear of the unknown, the fear of being wrong, or sometimes simply close-mindedness. When this preacher in his sermon inferred that anyone who believes in evolution is a fool, he was guilty of willful ignorance.

In his sermon he managed to do what fundamentalists always do; cherry pick verses in the bible to support his view, while completely ignoring verses that contradict each other. For example he brought up the biblical example of the futility of claiming to love god while hating your brother; completely ignoring Luke 14:26 which clearly and unequivocally states, "If any man come to me, and HATE not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE."

Contrast that to what we find in John: “If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. “ (1 John 4:16-21 NKJV)

Well preacher, which is it?

Imagine there really is an omniscient god that desires to convey his presence by revealing a book to a trusted prophet or scribe. Just think what a wonderful book that might be! No doubt (since the Christian god is supposedly benevolent as well) germ theory would have been discussed. Instead, hundreds of millions died before it was discovered in the 19th century that the simple act of washing one’s hands could prevent disease. Would that have been asking too much from the Christian god; letting us know we should wash our hands? Is that the mark of a benevolent benefactor; causing hundreds of millions of agonizing deaths, just because he didn’t want to reveal to us that the mustard seed was actually not the smallest thing on earth; that we could fit a hundred thousand aids viruses on a mustard seed.

As I sat and listened to this idiot rattle on for 30 minutes,I became both depressed and dumbfounded. I was reminded of the great thinker, Robert Ingersoll who, when asked about the bible had this to say:

IS THE OLD TESTAMENT INSPIRED?
If it is, it should be a book that no man -- no number of men -- could produce.
It should contain the perfection of philosophy.
It should perfectly accord with every fact in nature.
There should be no mistakes in astronomy, geology, or as to any subject or science.
Its morality should be the highest, the purest.
Its laws and regulations for the control of conduct should be just, wise, perfect, and perfectly adapted to the accomplishment of the ends desired.
It should contain nothing calculated to make man cruel, revengeful, vindictive or infamous.
It should be filled with intelligence, justice, purity, honesty, mercy and the spirit of liberty.
It should be opposed to strife and war, to slavery and lust, to ignorance, credulity and superstition.
It should develop the brain and civilize the heart.
It should satisfy the heart and brain of the best and wisest.
It should be true.

The fact is the bible fails every test. Here is the ugly truth. There is not a single line in it that could not have been written by a first century ignoramus. Thousands of words are expended on who begat who, which animals should be sacrificed, how to treat slaves, which tribes to wipe off the face of the earth, stoning recalcitrant teenagers to death (by their own parents) even how we should dispose of our fecal matter: And you shall have a paddle on your weapon; and it shall be, when you will ease yourself abroad, you shall dig therewith, and shall turn back and cover that which comes from you: (Deut 23:13) And here is the reason: For the LORD God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee. Is there anything more ridiculous than that? God would seem to have no trouble in the 20th century observing the horrible sight of tens of millions suffering from aids but we wouldn’t want him to see, or step in, or smell, our bodily wastes. The author wasted a lot of words on how to cover up our crap (as if that was necessary) but nary a word about how to prevent malaria or cure polio; nothing about electricity or TV or telephones. Not a hint of air travel or the Internet. The bible is not divine, it's disgusting.

This ignorant bigot went on in his sermon to stress Jesus’ essential doctrine that we should take no thought for the morrow. He preferred to demonize those who have the foresight to accumulate savings and to invest. He would rather see them walk away from the obligations they have to their children; no investments, no savings, no thought for those they have brought into the world. The important over-riding thing is we should “follow Jesus.” What a ridiculous and immoral idea! Just like present day end of world advocates, Jesus thought that, very shortly, the world was coming to an end. This alone should be enough evidence for any clear thinking individual to understand there was nothing divine about him. If h existed at all, the best that can be said of him is that he was a deluded crackpot, just like the people who committed suicide so they could follow the Hale-Bopp comet to heaven.

The thing that depressed me the most about the sermon was that adults are actually taking their children and grandchildren to listen to this guy. Young minds are so easily indoctrinated. The very act of going to this church is an implicit approval of what this nutjob is saying. Children pick up on that behaviour and emulate it. If you were born in Saudi Arabia you would be taking them to a mosque and they would soon believe in a prophet Mahomet. As I mentioned in a previous post, anyone raised in Missouri or Alabama who professes to be a Christian, knowing full well that if they were brought up in Saudi Arabia they would be a Muslim, knows what it means to be indoctrinated as a child. Let these children grow until their brains have acquired the necessary critical thinking skills. Them offer them choices. You can have Hindu elephant headed gods, Muslim flying white horses, Christian pregnant virgins and talking snakes and donkeys..or none of the above. Which do you think they would most likely choose if we had the courage to keep them away from these ignorant misguided preachers for 20 years?

Jesus Saves?
The very idea of vicarious redemption is itself immoral. Given, I can volunteer to go to jail for your sins, or even die for them if I have the courage. But one thing I cannot, do, is impossible for me or anyone else to do, is resolve you of your responsibility. It would be immoral for me to do that and nobody has the right to ask me to do that. By doing that, by doing what the bible teaches that Jesus did is immoral because it has no concern for the victims of all the crimes and atrocities, it only has concern for those who committed them.

He even went on to deny the undeniable evidence of evolution. His remarks clearly showed he had no idea what is meant by the "theory" of evolution, or how scientists view the word theory. Of course scientists always leave room to be wrong. That is why they are scientists and not preachers! Scientists rely on is evidence. And the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution. If I were to offer to pay the expenses of this preacher for a two year college course in evolution he would turn down the offer because he is terrified of evidence. Why waste two years accumulating evidence when all one has to do is call on faith? Faith is just so damned easy! Takes no effort whatsoever.

There is now no excuse for ignorance. Information is readily available to anyone who has the courage and curiosity to seek it. Allowing your children and grandchildren to be influenced by an ignoramus like this preacher is the greatest sin of all. You are in effect, teaching them to be willfully ignorant.