33. Why would God give pigs better sex lives than humans?

[Warning: Contains Mature (and Immature) Content]

It’s hard to imagine a topic more filthy than pig sex. In fact, I almost withheld the question, but I decided it’s one worth asking.

There are many gifts and abilities that God bestowed upon animals that He denied humans. We can’t fly like eagles, or breathe underwater like fish, or run like cheetahs, or regrow limbs like salamanders. And we’re not at all like pigs because… well… God must really love pigs.

According to Swine Genetics International, a boar (male pig) can experience orgasms lasting from 5 to 15 minutes (not seconds). If male humans could do that… well… we’d all spend a lot more time in the shower.

And the female pig also has it better than her human female counterpart. A female pig actually has its clitoris located on the inside of the vagina. If you can’t understand why this might be advantageous, then… well… gosh… how can I explain this? It’s kinda like those really old cars… the ones you had to hand crank from the front to get them started, before you could get in and go for a ride. It was horribly inconvenient, because instead of enjoying a nice drive — which is what you really wanted to do — you had to stand out in the cold, cranking and cranking and cranking to get the damn thing going. And sometimes, while you’re driving, it sputters out and dies… and you have to go back around to the front and crank it some more to get it going again. Today, we can start cars from the inside, and no engineer would ever dream of moving the ignition switch to the front.

But that’s not all. Like humans, female pigs are also able to achieve orgasm. What the hell does a female pig need with an orgasm? I thought such things were designed for our enjoyment… not for pigs. Talk about throwing your pearls to swine (Matt 7:6)!

Conclusion

I suppose — if we tried hard enough — we could come up with reasons why God would allow pigs to have more satisfying sex lives than us. For example, maybe before the fall, human sex was just as good as pig sex. And after the fall, God rearranged Eve’s lady parts and reduced male orgasms from 15 minutes to 15 seconds. But it’s a bit self-defeating for God to say He desires humans to be fruitful and multiply, and then go and increase the pain of childbirth (Gen. 3:16) and make sex less satisfying.

While it’s true that evolution also hasn’t done us any favors, we don’t really expect thoughtful design choices from evolution; evolution is only concerned with what works well enough to produce another generation.

32. Can prophecies prove the Bible is true?

If you’ve ever heard a sermon on “How I know the Bible is true,” then you know that prophecy is one of the primary pillars used to support the Bible’s authenticity. You may have also heard that the Bible is unique in its prophetic ability (unlike all other forms of prophecy… which are all hooey… and prove nothing).

But before I delve into any specific Bible prophecies, I want to take a look at prophecy in general, and its potential to confirm the Bible and the existence of God.

What is Prophecy?

Prophecy is simply the ability to predict the future. Because the future is unknown, it’s sometimes inferred that someone with prophetic ability must be in contact with someone from another realm, a realm where our future is already known. But proving that someone has accurately predicted the future, and that this information originated from another realm, can be quite challenging.

I believe prophecy could be impressively demonstrated if such a thing exists. But I also believe that there are a lot of non-miraculous explanations that need to be ruled out before concluding a prophecy is proof of an extraordinary claim. With that in mind, here’s my own “Top 20 list” of problems facing prophecy. Enjoy!

Top 20 Problems with Prophecy

1) Everyone who’s anyone is doing it

Prophecy is a popular phenomenon. Nostradamus, astrologers, psychics, palm readers, mediums, cult leaders, fortune cookies, present-day prophets, voodoo priests, religious texts, and your mother’s real estate agent have all claimed to see the future. Regardless of how they do it, the fact that everyone claims to do it should make us skeptical of any claim built upon prophecy.

2) Prophecies are always made prior to their fulfillment

One of the most obvious problems with prophecy is that the prediction always precedes the predicted event. This can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, confirmation bias, or to people lying about the prophecy’s fulfillment (more on these below). When examining a prophecy, we must make certain that the prophecy couldn’t have influenced the event.

3) Prophecies are often vague

Another common problem with prophecy is that it is often vague and can have many different meanings applied to it. The more meanings it can take on, the greater the probability that someone will find a match.

Specific prophecies are much more compelling. For example, if a modern prophet could repeatedly predict upcoming lottery numbers, or give the GPS coordinates of any missing person, I would find this quite remarkable. I might also accept very specific prophecies, such as ”On May 12, 2017 at 3:14PST, there will be a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in San Francisco that will kill 665 people… and Cameron Diaz.”

4) Prophecies can be self-fulfilling

For example, if Warren Buffet predicts the stock market will crash, everyone may sell and crash the market. Or if millions of people believe that Israel will become a country again, they may work towards seeing this prediction come to fruition.

5) The prophecy may have been probable

Every prediction has its own probability of coming to pass on its own. For example, it means nothing to predict “The sun will rise again tomorrow” or “In the future there will be earthquakes and wars.” If a prophecy is probable, it is of little value.

6) Prophecies may be based on good observation

A good prophet may just be very observant. For example, before watching a chick flick I will sometimes say to my wife, “I predict that they won’t like each other, but then they’ll fall in love, and then he’ll do something stupid, and spend the rest of the movie trying to make up for it.” I’m no prophet; I’ve just seen enough movies to observe a pattern.

7) The power of suggestion may create an expectation

When you read your horoscope, you become aware of what to look for and, as a result, often find it. However, if I hand you last week’s horoscopes with all the signs removed, you’d probably be hard pressed to determine which horoscope was intended for you. Suggestions can create an expectation, which cause us to actively search for events that we would’ve otherwise ignored.

If the Old Testament never predicted a Messiah, would we have ever found one? We seem to find new prophets even when we’re not even looking; how much more then should we find a Messiah when we are looking?

8) We may be ignoring the failed prophecies due to confirmation bias

We humans tend to seek out and interpret information in a way that aligns with our preconceptions. This effect is even stronger for emotionally charged issues and deeply entrenched beliefs.

For example, Christians often point to the destruction of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:1-21) as an example of prophecy, but seem to ignore (or reinterpret) the failed prophecies concerning the destruction and abandonment of Damascus and Egypt (Isaiah 17:1 and Ezekiel 29:8-12). Is there really a good reason for doing this? Or is it confirmation bias?

9) Prophecy may be read into a text where a prophecy was never intended (aka “shoehorning”)

Many religions read prophecies into the Bible to support their own conclusions. For example, many Mormons see the following verse as a prophecy concerning the golden plates that Joseph Smith would one day dig up:

Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. ~ Psalm 85:11

And Muslims see the following verse as a prophecy concerning the coming of Muhammad (not the Holy Spirit):

“Unless I go away, the Counselor [Advocate, Helper, Paraclete, etc.] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” ~John 16:7 

But did the Bible really predict the coming of Muhammad and the Book of Mormon? Or is it just easy to read whatever you want into the Bible? And if Mormons and Muslims can do it, why not Christians?

Ironically, Jews accuse Christians of reading way too much into their scriptures, while Christians accuse Jews of not reading nearly enough into them. Who is right?

Even Christians disagree with other Christians over how much prophecy should be read into the Bible. Some Christians say there are hundreds of fulfilled prophecies, others say thousands, and still others say tens of thousands. Is prophecy really so subjective that there can be thousands of disagreements over what qualifies?

10) A prophecy may have been written after the fact (aka postdiction)

To prove a prophecy, we must be able to prove it was written before the event it predicted.

11) A prophecy may have been edited after the fact

A prophecy may also have been doctored after the prophesied event. If we don’t have the original documents, it may be impossible to prove that the details remained unchanged from the original prophecy.

12) Failed prophets may have been excluded from the Bible

We don’t know how many tens, hundreds, or thousands of prophetic texts were excluded in antiquity. Perhaps out of a thousand prophetic texts, only a small handful made the final cut many years later.

Imagine we asked 1,000 people to write prophecies about the future, and in 100 years someone compiled a book (with the benefit of hindsight) featuring only the top 10 most impressive predictions. The resulting book might seem quite extraordinary… if you didn’t know they’d eliminated 990 other prophecies.

13) Prophecies may be translated with bias

When going from one language to another, some Christian bias can slip in. For example, if a translator translates Isaiah 53:5 to read “He was pierced for our transgressions” instead of the less compelling (but more accurate) translation ”He was wounded for our transgressions,” then he probably already has someone in mind.

14) The person defending a prophecy may be employing a double standard

If we agree to accept prophecy as proof of a claim, then we must also be willing to accept someone else’s prophecy as proof of their claim, otherwise we may be employing a double standard.

To avoid a double standard, some Christians will claim that other prophecies are a test from God (Deut. 13:1-3). But if competing religions also have fulfilled prophecies, then prophecy alone is no guarantee that God is endorsing that religion.

Additionally, this presumes that the Bible is true. Perhaps Zoroaster’s Ahura Mazda is the real God, and the evil Angra Mainyu has inspired Bible to mislead us. Or perhaps Satan is behind the Jesus story, in an attempt to lure Jews away from God.

15) A prophecy may be considered fulfilled regardless of the outcome

If a prophet says “God will spare your city if you repent,” then he has actually predicted all possible outcomes. If nothing happens, then he predicted God would spare the city. If the city is destroyed, he predicted its destruction.

16) The prophet could’ve gotten lucky

Even prophets sometimes get lucky.

For example, in 2006 Pat Robertson prophesied that “something as bad as a tsunami” would hit the Pacific Northwest. And… well… nothing happened. But had it happened, you can bet he would’ve added it to his resume and played it up on The 700 Club. (For the record, God didn’t warn Pat that 230,000 Indonesians would die from a tsunami in 2004, or that thousands would die from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. God waited until 2006 to warn Pat of a non-event.)

17) A prophecy might be “eternally pending”

If a prophecy doesn’t have a deadline, it increases its odds of coming true and reduces its odds of being labeled a failure. For example, it’s been 2,000 years since Jesus said “I’ll be back,” and this still isn’t labeled a failed prophecy.

18) Failed prophecies can be reinterpreted as being spiritually or metaphorically fulfilled

When a specific prophecy literally fails, you can sometimes claim it was fulfilled spiritually or metaphorically instead of labeling it a failure.

For example, when Harold Camping’s May 21, 2011 rapture prediction failed, he said it was fulfilled spiritually. And when Jesus failed to fulfill a number of Messianic prophecies, his followers simply said He’d fulfilled them spiritually or metaphorically (or they are eternally pending).

19) A prophecy’s fulfillment may have been lied about

It’s easy to lie about details that are difficult to disprove. For example, if Jesus wasn’t actually born in Bethlehem, or didn’t ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, someone could’ve lied about it decades later and no one would be the wiser.

It’s much more difficult to lie about well-known events. For example, you couldn’t lie and say “Jesus became the literal king of Israel!” or “Jesus returned all the Jews to Israel!” or “Jesus brought about world peace!”

When “easily lied about” prophecies are all fulfilled, but “difficult to lie about” prophecies must be fulfilled spiritually, metaphorically or are eternally pending, this should raise suspicions.

20) Prophecies may not be from God

Finally, even if someone could give specific prophecies, it doesn’t guarantee that they are in cahoots with God or Satan. It may be a trick, or extreme luck, or aliens, or Ahura Mazda, or a new unknown god, or they could’ve found ways to predict or control certain events, or they may be from the future or a parallel Universe. Point being, God is being inferred through indirect evidence.

Conclusion

In order for a prophecy to be convincing, it should be:

1. declared a prophecy from the beginning (not converted into a prophecy in hindsight),
2. highly improbable,
3. well out of human control,
4. not the result of any cognitive bias,
5. specific enough that only one event will satisfy it,
6. fulfilled in a narrow time frame,
7. fulfilled literally (never spiritually or metaphorically),
8. well documented, unedited, and the fulfillment difficult to lie about,
9. not hit-and-miss, and
10. unchallenged by any equally convincing but competing claims.

I still believe that Bible prophecies can be demonstrated effectively, if they can manage to somehow successfully navigate the gauntlet of aforementioned objections. But with all the problems facing prophecy, it’s a wonder why God would ever choose such a questionable medium to qualify His claims, especially when there are so many other good ways to demonstrate His authority (such as sending fire from heaven, revealing insider information, demonstrably healing His people, or making public appearances).

If God is able to deliver on hundreds of questionable prophecies, but not demonstrate His existence in any other arena, it would lead me to suspect His prophecies are no better than anyone else’s. I’m willing to take an open-minded look into Bible prophecies, but I predict there will be problems.

31. Can God be both perfectly merciful and perfectly just?

The great thing about God is He’s chalk full of admirable traits; He’s kind, loving, just, merciful, Republican, and He hates all the same things we hate. He’s also perfect — perfectly good, perfectly just, and perfectly merciful. Or is He?

Dan Barker (former preacher turned atheist) often points out that a perfectly just and perfectly merciful God cannot exist, because any extension of mercy necessitates a suspension of justice.

For example, if God allows someone into heaven who truly “deserved” to go to hell, then He is being merciful, but not just. But if He sends them to hell, then He is just, but not merciful.

And yet, the Bible seems to insist that God is both just and merciful…

And therefore will Jehovah wait… that he may have mercy upon you: for Jehovah is a God of justice.
~ Isaiah 30:18

His work is perfect; For all his ways are justice.
~ Deuteronomy 32:4 

With everlasting lovingkindness will I have mercy on thee, saith Jehovah thy Redeemer.
~ Isaiah 54:8

I will have mercy on whom I have mercy…
~ Romans 9:15

A tale of two judges

To put it another way, imagine there are two judges at either end of this extreme. The perfectly merciful judge absolves everyone of all their crimes. The perfectly just judge, on the other hand, consistently passes down appropriate sentences.

Now imagine that these two judges are one in the same person. How can a judge simultaneously dismiss and demand punishment? If God operates on absolutes, He must do either one or the other.

Can Jesus save us from this contradiction?

Maybe we can get out of this contradiction by assuming that God isn’t actually being merciful, because someone else is paying the price for our transgressions — Jesus! But how exactly this exchange takes place is a bit of a mystery.

It’s definitely not a quid pro quo or eye-for-an-eye exchange, as Jesus is not taking our place in hell. If he’s sitting at the right hand of God, then he can’t possibly be taking on the full extent of our punishment.

If God is not demanding that someone pay the price for our sins, then perhaps God is just forgiving us because we had faith in Jesus. The problem is, if no one is being punished for our sins, then God is back to showing mercy again, and is no longer administering perfect justice. And even if God did punish Jesus for our sins, then we can’t say He’s perfectly just, because He allows the guilty to be rewarded while an innocent scapegoat is punished.

Mercy for some, but justice for all?

The problem with the above objections is that they don’t take into account who defines what is justice. If it is God, then it could be argued, and I think reasonably so, that God’s definition of justice may include an escape clause for those who sincerely repent.

If such is the case, then God could be both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. His justice is perfectly applied to everyone, and His mercy is perfectly applied to those who have repented under that system of justice. Ergo, mercy is no longer a suspension of justice, because extending mercy is a part of justice.

Our earthly systems of justice operate in much the same way, as we often extend mercy to those who have shown remorse for their crimes.

And this explanation also seems to sync with the Bible, since God is said to be perfectly just in all His ways (Deut 32:4) but (as far as I know) it never promises perfect mercy to all people.

Do I have problems with this system of justice? Possibly, because unless God makes it perfectly clear that He exists and that the Bible is His truth, then we may end up in hell over a simple misunderstanding, which doesn’t seem very just. Unless… of course… God says it’s just, in which case we’re all just screwed.

But I’m a reasonable man, and I have no problem confessing my shortcomings to a creator god whose existence is clear and undeniable. But if it’s not made clear, then I must also repent to Zeus, Ra, Baal, Mithras, Vishnu, Ahura Mazda and a thousand other imagined gods… because it’s all just the same.

Conclusion

So I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to say that God could be both perfectly merciful and perfectly just, so as long as we define justice as allowing for mercy. If such is the case, then God would be unjust if He didn’t allow for mercy.

[And for the record, yes, I did just defend a Christian viewpoint against an atheist objection. Hopefully this demonstrates my willingness to side with sound reasoning over any personal bias.]

30. Should we all stop having children?

If having children leads to some percentage of them ending up in hell, is it still reasonable to continue having them? Possibly.

I wish I had been buried like a baby who never saw the light of day.
~ Job 3:16 

Should all children be left behind?

Controversial philosopher David Benatar argues in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence that since life begets pain, there is a moral imperative not to procreate:

“We infrequently contemplate the harms that await any new-born child—pain, disappointment, anxiety, grief, and death. For any given child we cannot predict what form these harms will take or how severe they will be, but we can be sure that at least some of them will occur. None of this befalls the nonexistent. Only existers suffer harm.”
~David Benatar

I don’t know if I agree with David, but it’s certainly true that the unborn will never have to endure things like: sickness, hunger, bullies, work, disease, divorce, poison ivy, stress, depression, confusion, cancer, canker sores, rejection, miscarriage, migraines, the macarena, incontinence, paralyzation, disabilities, heartaches, toothaches, flu, traffic jams, vomiting, colonoscopies, seizures, strokes, surgery, sunburn, STDs, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, chemotherapy, the loss of loved ones, grieving, aging, dying, and all the other horrors that can plague mankind.

It’s also true that the unborn won’t experience any of life’s pleasures, but we cannot reason that the unborn are being deprived of these pleasures, any more than we can reason that a rock is being deprived pleasure. As long as the atoms that would’ve gone into making a new life remain unassembled, these souls remain oblivious and at rest.

But if hell exists…

If hell exists, the situation becomes infinitely more dire. Now, not only are we sparing the unborn from the pain of this life, but potentially eternal pain in the next. If hell exists, we should all stop procreating immediately, lest we risk adding one more soul to hell.

As Balise Pascal may have reasoned, if there’s even the slightest chance of our ending up in hell, then it is in our best interest to never be born.

Even if 99 people out of 100 go to heaven, it’s still not worth the risk. We needn’t concern ourselves with the 99 who enter paradise, as they are in no more pain than the unborn. But for the 1 who must suffer eternal torment, it would’ve been better had none of them been born, as the sum total of those in torment would’ve remained at zero.

So while it’s true that the unborn will never have the opportunity to enter heaven, it doesn’t matter, since 1) the unborn are oblivious to this opportunity, 2) the odds of getting in were slim anyway (Matt. 7:13), and 3) bringing souls into existence only increases the total amount of pain in the universe.

So should Christians stop having children? Surprisingly… no.

If Christianity is true, then the above argument begins to fall apart when we factor in the unsaved.

Currently, 2000 years after Christ, roughly 2/3rds of the world remains unconvinced by Christianity. If all Christians were to suddenly stop procreating, it’s a safe bet that the beliefs of the other 2/3rds would take over, and Christianity might even disappear.

Christians, then, can reason that it’s better for 1/3 of each future generation to be “saved” than none at all. (They might even reason that Christians should try to have as many offspring as possible, to push out other faiths in future generations.)

The same argument can be made against Christians killing their young. While killing your young might ensure they get into heaven, if all Christians killed their children, then few would remain to carry the torch.

Should God stop creating children? If hell exists, yes!

How could God, at present, stand idly by while 2/3rds of every new generation enters hell? Why let such a travesty continue? If He’s going to end the world anyway, why not do it now, before any more souls can enter hell?

This harkens back to the problem of evil. If, in the beginning, God knew the majority of us would go to hell, then why create us at all? And why ask us to be fruitful and multiply, when He knows damn well the majority of these souls will go to hell?

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” 
~ Genesis 1:28 

You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.
~ Matthew 7:13 

This problem truly baffles me. The Bible tells us that God ultimately wins the war against Satan, but how can God declare Himself the victor when Satan has collected more souls? God may win the final battle, but Satan has won the war.

Should atheists/naturalists stop having children? It’s debatable.

Unlike the Christian, the atheist is under no mandate to be fruitful and multiply, or to spread the gospel. With no great commission, Christians will sometimes ask “Why don’t atheists just kill themselves?” I think most atheists would answer that their life is not filled with so much sorrow and despair that suicide is the most attractive option. Even when there is pain, there is usually hope that it will subside, and there is almost always something else to look forward to (e.g. love, laughter, music, movies, food, books, art, games, friends, family, travel, weekends, etc.). Life will end soon enough on its own, and we will have the rest of eternity to enjoy being dead. So right now, during our few short moments here, we might as well have a look around.

If you are fortunate enough not to be one of the millions of people who suffer in severe poverty or the horrors of some war, life can be a fantastic ride with or without gods.
~ Guy P. Harrison, 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God 

For these reasons, many atheists assume their children will also conclude that life is, overall, a worthwhile experience. But as Guy Harrison points out, quality of life is definitely an important factor to consider.

Personally, I find there are very few days in which I can honestly say that I would prefer not to exist, (though, there are days when I wish other people didn’t exist).

Conclusion

If Christianity is true, then there are good reasons for Christians to continue procreating (which they seem to enjoy doing, anyway). But I don’t find any good reasons in the Bible for why God would want this experiment to continue, or why He should desire it in the first place.

If God doesn’t exist, then the question of whether or not to continue procreating is much more complicated. If there are no gods, then we are forced to occupy their roles, and we must ask ourselves ”Should we continue bringing more life into existence, even if it means creating more pain?”

Earlier today, I pondered this question as I walked alongside my 9-year-old son. I decided to ask him point-blank “Are you glad you’re alive?” He answered (as if it wasn’t a totally stupid question): “Yes. I love my mom and dad, not only because they love me, but also because they chose to bring me into existence when they didn’t have to.” I think he gets it. And while I hate that he will have to experience some pain in this life, I’m hopeful that he will be able to keep it in context.

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings. 
~Richard Dawkins 

29. Was Jonah really swallowed by a whale?

Growing up Pentecostal, I was raised to believe the Jonah story was a literal event. But even back then, I found the story a little difficult to swallow (pun intended).

I used to imagine that when Jonah was inside the whale, it must’ve been like when Pinocchio and Geppetto were trapped inside Monstro. (Yes, I realize that’s the second Pinocchio reference in two posts, but I’m going somewhere with this.)

Now that I’m a older and wiser, I know that a whale’s stomach isn’t filled with oxygen, it’s filled with things like saltwater, krill, dead fish, algae, digestive enzymes and acids.

But the contents of a whale’s stomach are irrelevant, because, as most apologists will tell you, Jonah’s whale was no ordinary whale (or “big fish”). Jonah’s whale was miraculously and specially prepared by God for the task of swallowing Jonah. God customized this torture device whale with seating for one, and enough oxygen to keep Jonah hyperventilating for three days.

So while some Christians believe that Jonah’s story was a literal event, many will also admit that it was a miraculous event, which isn’t really a problem for Christianity, where miracles are just par for the course.

The problem with miracles…

So the first reason Christians are able to accept this story is because they accept the existence of miracles. The problem with this belief is it impairs our ability to differentiate between fact and fable. Allow me to demonstrate…

Imagine we hop into a “specially prepared” Delorean and travel back in time to 2000 BC. Once there, we insert the story of Pinocchio into the scriptures (we’ll call it “The Book of Geppetto”). The only change we’ll make to the story is to call the “blue fairy” an “angel of God.”

When we get back to the future, we’d likely find that modern fundamentalists actually believe that God once made a cricket talk, and that He turned a wooden marionette into a real boy, and that He helped a man survive for several days inside the belly of a… oh, wait… they already believe that…

Okay, scratch that idea, let’s say instead that we inserted the story of Paul Bunyan. When we got back to the future, we’d likely find that some Christians actually believe that giants once roamed the earth… oh, wait… crap!

Okay, fine, let’s say instead that we inserted the modern fairy tale Shrek. When we got back to the future, we’d likely find that some Christians actually believe that a donkey once talked and… oh, wait… uggggh, never mind.

The point is, many fables and fairy tales contain logical absurdities that allow us to recognize them as fiction. When we allow for miracles, it greatly impairs our ability to separate reality from fantasy. If it turns out that someone from the future has inserted the story of Jonah into the Bible as a joke, by what measure could we tell?

The problem with the Bible…

The second reason Christians are able to accept this story is because it’s in the Bible. When we accept other parts of the Bible, the fishy tale of Jonah comes along for the ride.

If the story of Jonah wasn’t in the Bible, or appeared in some other ancient text, we would simply dismiss it as fiction. But because it’s in the Bible, we assume God wants it there.

If we were to question the validity of the Jonah story now, then what else should we toss out? Questioning Jonah is a slippery slope, because a man being swallowed by a whale is really no less ridiculous than a virgin giving birth to the son of an invisible god.

The Problem with Allegory…

The third reason Christians can accept this story is because some will write it off as allegory. Allegory is sometimes used to salvage problematic Bible stories by turning them into parables or prophetic events, and insisting they still have substance and relevance.

For example, David Steinberg says “It is possible that Jonah (meaning ‘dove’) represents Israel, the fish represents Babylon, the time in the fish the Babylonian exile and the expulsion of Jonah from the fish represents God’s return of Israel to its own land…”

Sure. It’s also possible that Jonah represents George Lucas, the fish represents the original Star Wars trilogy, the time in the fish is the three decades before the prequels, and the expulsion is the poor reception the prequels received from fans and critics.

Or better yet, perhaps Jonah represents the moon landing, where the fish represents Apollo 11, the time inside the fish is the three days it took to travel to the moon, and the expulsion is how the we used the moon’s gravity to propel the astronauts back home.

Heck, even the authors of the New Testament used the Jonah story as a metaphor for Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection (Matthew 12:40), even though Jesus wasn’t exactly spewed from the tomb after disobeying God… but close enough.

The point is, it doesn’t take much work to turn a story into a reasonable sounding allegory. But if we turn every miraculous event into an allegory, it takes away from what makes the God of the Bible special.

The Problem with Paine…

So the question we have to ask ourselves is “Which is more likely, that a man has lied, or that a miracle has occurred?”

“Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.”
~ Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

Thomas Paine makes a fair point. In modern times, we no longer observe God’s people turning sticks into snakes, or parting great seas, or commanding the sun to stand still, or calling down fire from heaven. And we no longer observe God turning people into salt, or raining fire on evil cities, or raining manna on the hungry, or making donkeys talk, or giving men with long hair super strength. Yet… we do observe that just about every culture invents fables, myths, lies and legends.

So atheism would have us believe the Jonah story is simply a fable. Christianity would have us believe that there is an invisible god who occasionally violates the laws of nature in spectacular ways, but doesn’t anymore, and that the Hebrews weren’t lying and making up fables like every other culture that has ever existed.

Conclusion

In all honesty, we can never disprove the story of Jonah, and it may even be true! But there are certainly alternate explanations that seem far more probable.

Miracles, allegories and sacred texts my help to suspend our disbelief, but they also make any story defensible… even Pinocchio. If Pinocchio were in the Bible instead of Jonah, I might be concluding with something like this…

The Old Testament story of Pinocchio may be literally true, but we would have to accept that a miracle occurred, which isn’t a problem for God (if He can create a Universe, He can turn a wooden puppet into a real boy!). But because lies and fables are far more commonplace than miracles, it’s more likely that the story is fiction. Although, it’s possible that Pinocchio (meaning ‘baby pine’) is allegorical, and that Pinocchio’s conversion to a real boy represents the renewing of our spirit through salvation, which was made possible by a sacrifice upon a piece of wood (possibly pine).

Of course, that’s complete and utter nonsense, but you can see how miracles, allegories and sacred texts make it easier to defend just about anything. But just because we can defend it, doesn’t make it true… or even reasonable.

28. If someone never hears the gospel, can they still go to heaven?

If God condemns them, then He is unfair (because they’ve never heard the gospel), but if God saves them, then evangelism is unnecessary. What’s a god to do?

The opening joke…

A missionary travels to a remote village to spread the gospel. He talks with everyone there about Jesus, telling them that if they do not accept Jesus into their hearts, they will burn in hell for all eternity. Before the missionary leaves, the tribal elder asks, “What if we had never heard about Jesus? Would we still burn in hell?” The missionary replies, “No, I suppose you would go to heaven for all eternity,” to which the elder replies “Then why the hell did you tell us about him!?”

This joke makes an important point: if God doesn’t condemn the ignorant, then why evangelize?

There are even a few Bible verses that suggest the ignorant will not be held accountable for their sins…

If I had not come and spoken to them [the world], they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
~ John 15:22

The Law brings about wrath, but where there is no Law, there also is no violation.
~ Romans 4:15 

If the ignorant are excused from sin and wrath, then the first rule of Christianity should be “Don’t talk about Christianity,” because it only brings condemnation.

In fact, we might even question why Jesus came at all since, according to John 15:22 and Acts 17:30, God overlooked our ignorance and didn’t hold us accountable until Jesus came.

Well that doesn’t make sense, so we’ll say the opposite…

There are other verses that seem to suggest that the ignorant will be punished…

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law…
~ Romans 2:12 

He will punish those who do not know God… they will be punished with everlasting destruction…
~ 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 

But if God condemns those who sin apart from the law and don’t know God, then He is unfair, because these people have never heard the gospel (more on this later).

There are even verses that hint that judgement will vary according to our knowledge:

But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.
~ Luke 12:48

My brothers and sisters, not many of you should be teachers… we who teach will be judged more strictly than others.
~ James 3:1 

But if less knowledge means less punishment, then we’re back to the first rule of Christianity — don’t talk about Christianity!

We should probably just stop here and admit the Bible contradicts itself on this issue. But fundamentalists insist there are no contradictions, and that we should look for the larger Biblical themes to facilitate a more accurate understanding of these verses.

So how do most Christians answer this question?

Not every Christian will agree, but in researching this question, I found that the consensus view is that the ignorant are guilty of sin and are still in need of salvation.

I believe the reason this conclusion is reached is because salvation and evangelism are two overriding themes in the New Testament. If the ignorant are innocent, then evangelism is pointless. Ergo, the ignorant must be made guilty in order for these themes to matter.

But how can a man be guilty if he’s never heard the gospel?

How to make an ignorant man guilty

Many Christians will answer that the ignorant are innocent until they break one of God’s “natural laws.”

Natural laws are a subset of God’s Law (the Bible), and God has made these natural laws instinctive by writing them on our hearts. These natural laws speak to us as our conscience — that little Jiminy Cricket voice inside our head that says “Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, don’t kill, and don’t touch yourself.”

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them…
~ Romans 2:14-15 

The only problem is, we all break these natural laws.

…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
~ Romans 3:23 

We don’t break them because God has set the bar too high, or because God failed to create us with enough willpower, we break them of our own free volition… because we’re dicks. And as it turns out, being a dick just once is enough to get you cast into hell forever. Yikes!

Natural law is also great for God’s reputation. Good-guy-God gives us all a get-out-of-hell-free pass, but we reject it when we break one of His natural laws. So it’s not God’s fault we ignored our inner Jiminy, we should’ve known better!

If this consensus view is the truth, then I have few problems with it…

Problem #1: God has created different tests with different standards

Problem #1 hails back to my previous post; if God has created different tests with different standards, then He has given some of us better odds of becoming saved.

For example, one man might be born under God’s Law, to Christian parents in a Christian culture. When he violates one of God’s Laws, his Christian culture tells him of the dire consequences and provides him with a way out. He may sin 100,000 times in his life, but he can still get into heaven.

But a man born under natural law is ignorant of all this. When he breaks one of God’s natural laws, he is never informed of the consequences or how to repent. What’s worse, if forgiveness only comes though Jesus, then redemption may never be an option. He is allowed ZERO sins!

No one comes to the Father except through me.
~ John 14:6 

These are two very different tests; one is fairly easy, the other is nearly impossible.

Problem #2: God did not write all His laws on our hearts

It would’ve been just as easy for God to write His entire message (or at least the important bits) on our hearts as half a message. Why give us a conscience and make us feel guilty, but not tell us we’re in danger of eternal hellfire, or how to repent through God’s son Jesus?

Some Christians will say that if any man seeks God, God will reveal the truth to him. But if God is capable of this, then why send missionaries? Why not reveal the entire truth to anyone who seeks Him? Not only would this preserve the original message, but it would validate that it was from God, and not just another false religion being disseminated by men.

Problem #3: How can we obey God’s natural laws when we’re not sure what they are?

If God has written a subset of His laws on our hearts, what exactly are they?

According to Romans 2:14-15, God’s laws are an instinctive part of our conscience that accuse us when we do wrong. So if we were going make a list of God’s natural laws, we might start by looking for “instinctive” morals that most humans seem to share. Also, violating these morals should result in feelings of guilt.

So let’s imagine we’ve performed such a study and found several behaviors that are universally seen as immoral, stuff like:

• Murder
• Rape
• Injuring others
• Lying
• Cheating
• Stealing
• Torture
• Infidelity
• Slavery
• and Downloading music illegally

If we went on to publish this list as “God’s Official List of Natural Laws,” we might encounter a few objections.

The first objection might be that any fairly intelligent group of humans could observe that these behaviors result in negative consequences (such as anger, sadness, mistrust, inequality, conflict, and RIAA lawsuits). Because of these negative consequences, these actions are deemed bad.

A second objection might be that God’s Law sometimes contradicts His natural laws.

For example…

• Natural law tells us that killing babies is wrong (duh), but God’s Law says it’s sometimes permissible (Gen. 7:21, Exodus 12:12, Psalm 137:9).
• Natural law tells us that owning and beating slaves is wrong, but God’s Law provides us with a how-to manual (Exodus 21).
• Natural law tells us it’s wrong to steal and rape, but God’s Law says He may send men to steal from you and rape you if you disobey Him (Zechariah 14:2).
• Natural law also tells us it’s wrong for a man to rape a young woman, but God’s Law says it’s fine, so long as the girl is forced to marry her rapist and he tips her dad a few bucks (Duet. 22:28-29).

How can natural law also be God’s Law when the two sometimes conflict?

A final objection might be that our conscience and guilt are unreliable guideposts, and sometimes mislead us.

For example, the independent consciences of many early cultures concluded that the sun was a god. Did God write this message on the hearts of the Aztecs, Incas, Egyptians, Greeks, Hindus, Persians, West Africans, Celtics and others?

And what of guilt? A starving anorexic girl may feel guilty after eating a sandwich, but is she right? Is God using guilt to condemn her?

How can we trust that conscience and guilt are driven by God if they mislead us?

To sum up…

If we’re going to say that God finds the ignorant guilty, then we must also accept that:
1) God seems to make salvation easier for some than others,
2) God could’ve written His message on all our hearts, but He didn’t,
3) God chose the same unverifiable method to deliver His message as all other false religions,
4) God sometimes contradicts His natural laws with His other laws, and
5) God instructs and judges us using an unreliable system of conscience and guilt.

The Naturalist View

Naturalists will claim that such contradictions and logical paradoxes exist because Christianity is man-made. But the Naturalist must still explain why some morals seem instinctive, and why ignoring these morals can result in feelings of guilt.

As mentioned above, many morals seem to be based on our observation of negative consequences. Other values may have been bred into us through natural selection.

I think the reason we feel guilty when we do something “wrong” is because we know we shouldn’t have done it, but we did it anyway, and our minds must wrestle with this contradiction. We can either make excuses, or admit we’re weak and lack self-control; we regret our actions and we’ve let ourselves down. We may also dread the possibility of being ostracized by our family, friends and society.

But it’s equally important to recognize that our guilt depends greatly on what we’ve been taught. Change the teaching and we can feel good about doing bad, and bad about doing good. (And why would God design such a malleable conscience?)

Conclusion

When answering this question, many Christians will conclude by saying something like “We just have to trust that God is fair and just,” because there really is no good answer. No matter how many of the ignorant ultimately end up in heaven, there is always a problem.

• If we say that fewer “unreached” than “reached” enter heaven, then God is unfair for having given the unreached a more difficult test.
• If we say the exact same percentage of both enter heaven, then salvation and evangelism are unimportant, and the Bible is wrong for stressing them.
• If we say that more unreached enter heaven, then God is unfair for giving the the reached the more difficult test. Also, evangelism of the unreached only results in fewer people entering heaven.
• And finally, if we say that everyone goes to heaven, then the Bible should just say “Good news everyone! We’re all getting in!”

Unfortunately, like many Christian debates, this one ends up being backed into an “untestable corner.” The Christian can always claim that an unknown extra-Biblical explanation exists, perhaps in the spirit world. The skeptic can only point out that no evidence exists for that world, and that these contradictions and illogical scenarios are evidence that the story is man-made.

27. Do we choose our religion, or does God choose it for us?

If I had been born in Iran instead of the United States, I have little doubt that I would be a Muslim today. And if I grew up in a predominantly Catholic, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist culture, I have little doubt that I would’ve emerged as one of those.

As a Christian, I found this fact a little unsettling. My geography seemed to have more to do with my religion than any kind of free will choice. The obvious problem with this is that if only one religion leads to heaven, then the odds of us finding that religion are greatly diminished when God places us into a “deceived” culture. God is effectively blocking us from salvation, He is saying, “I don’t want you in heaven, so I’m placing you over here.”

As Christians, we’d all like to think that if we had been born into another culture, God would eventually lead us back to Christianity, but how realistic is this? Especially when most people seem to take on their parent’s religion, or a religion that is prominently featured in their culture.

So how does God go about reconciling these inequalities? I can think of several possibilities:

1) Our souls are predestined, so it doesn’t matter where God puts us,
2) We have free will, but God is unfair,
3) God somehow makes allowances for these situations, or
4) God has nothing to do with it.

1) Predestination of the soul

If our souls are predestined, we might reason that God would place us into non-Christian homes because we were either designed to reject God, or He’s precognizant of the fact that we would reject Him regardless of our circumstances.

“Before the creation of the world, he chose us through Christ to be holy and perfect in his presence.”
~ Ephesians 1:4 

In many ways, predestination makes perfect sense. After all, if God creates the game, the rules, the players, the scenarios, and every atom in our brains, how could He not be controlling (or greatly influencing) the outcome?

But if God knows or controls the outcome, then the problem with predestination is similar to the problem of evil: if God designed you to go to hell, or He knew for certain you’d go to hell, why did He create you at all? Especially when it’s His desire that everyone become saved (1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9)?  If God knows all this, and creates you anyway, then isn’t He guilty of being evil?

The other problem with predestination is that it means we’re mere puppets, playing out roles that God has written for us. If that’s the case, why didn’t God just create some of us in heaven and some in hell, and skip this whole charade?

2) We have free will, but God is unfair

God may insist He’s fair (2 Thessalonians 1:6), but life certainly seems unfair. There is inequality everywhere you look. Some children are born into wealth and others into poverty, some are born healthy and others are born sick, some are born geniuses and others are born developmentally disabled, some live to 8 while others live to 80, and some are born into Christianity while others are born into other religions. With all these variables, how can we say that God has created an even playing field, where everyone has the same odds of getting into heaven?

For example, if God knows that 99% of Muslims will never convert to Christianity, He isn’t giving us much choice when He delivers us to Muslim parents in a Muslim country. He has, in no uncertain terms, assigned us to Islam. And when we eventually die, is it fair for God to ask “Why didn’t you convert to Christianity?” Our response would be something like, “Seriously? You placed me in a culture that was 99% Muslim! You knew exactly what would happen! I should be asking you why you placed me in a Muslim culture if you desired a Christian! The Qur’an also taught that ‘For those who disbelieve, I will punish them with a severe punishment in this world and the Hereafter,’ (3:56) so why should I be punished for believing what I thought you instructed?”

For the Christian, this would be like arriving at God’s judgement and being asked “Why didn’t you obey the teachings of my prophet Muhammad?” We would be in shock, not feeling like we had much say in the matter. “How was I supposed to know my religion was wrong? You placed me where I would be raised with the Bible, which teaches that it is impossible to please you without faith (Hebrews 11:6). Did you really expect me to investigate every religion, just in case it wasn’t faith that pleases you?”

3) God somehow makes allowances for these situations

If we have free will and God is fair, but our world is clearly unfair, we can only assume that God must make allowances to compensate for the various circumstances He places us in.

Perhaps, for example, God gives or takes away points based on every advantage or disadvantage we experience in life, thus compensating for all inequalities.

Assuming that’s the case, God’s judgement would still seem unfair to the person with 999 points who gets eternal punishment, while someone with 1,000 points gets eternal bliss. God’s accounting may now be spot-on, but His all-or-nothing punishments seem grossly unfair, especially when the final score is so close.

In order to preserve God’s fairness, we’d also have to assume multiple levels of punishment and reward. So, say, the person with 999 points doesn’t go to hell, but they don’t get a mansion, either. Perhaps they’re awarded a nice tudor in a suburb of heaven, one without a private pool.

But even then, is it fair that God should levy eternal punishments for temporal infractions? Is there never any hope for reprieve? Even after 10 million years? And on the other end, is it fair that someone who had a little more difficulty in life should be eternally rewarded?

This ideological answer has some other serious theological implecations.

For example, the existence of such allowances would imply that religion doesn’t ultimately matter, since all roads can lead to heaven. Many religions would vehemently oppose such an idea, and for good reasons.

John 14:6 says that “No one comes to the Father except through me,” so most Christians will not readily accept Buddha as a substitute for Jesus. And Muslims insist that believing Jesus is God will land you in hell, so they too are not about to say that your beliefs don’t matter.

So if God is making allowances, then many religions have gotten it all wrong.

While the idea that many paths can lead to heaven is gaining in popularity, it still strikes me as an attempt to evolve religion into something new so it can still be deemed reasonable.

4) God has nothing to do with it

If there is no God, then the question is moot. These religions are all just human stories and explanations that took hold in various locations for various reasons. The stories you hear as a child are simply the ones that had the greatest influence on your parents or in your particular area. And the reason religious contradictions exist is because God had nothing to do with organizing them.  (If God’s “spirit of truth” revealed the same truth to everyone, all cultures should share the exact same revelations.)

Conclusion

To avoid the need for all these special allowances, God should make all our experiences similar and our choices clear, somewhat like He did with Adam and Eve. God should create each of us and say “Hi, and welcome to Eden! My name is God and I’ll be your savior today. Today we have a choice between Plan A or Plan B. Plan A is eternal bliss and comes with a free McMansion, and Plan B is knowledge and comes with eternal pain and suffering. Please take your time deciding while I fetch you some holy water.”

“For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.”
~ 1 Corinthians 14:33

Instead, we are born into a bizarre world that says: “Hi, and welcome to earth! Here are plans A through FF. One of these plans leads to heaven… or nirvana, or reincarnation, or your own planet, or 72 virgins, or something nice like that — we’re not exactly sure; and the others lead to eternal torment… or purgatory, or eternal isolation, or a lower level of heaven, or 2 ugly non-virgins with crabs, or unconsciousness — again, not really sure… in fact, we’re not even sure which plan leads to which! But it is important that you choose wisely, or you will suffer eternal consequences for being wrong. Good luck!”

The whole situation just seems nonsensical and unfair. A good and just designer should create a uniform test, yet God creates an inconsistent test that requires Him to make special allowances (or become unfair). And even accounting for these inconsistencies, God is then said to only levy extreme punishment or reward, with no hope for a reprieve. We excuse God by saying He only deals in absolutes, but He comes across as being absolutely unfair.

If there is no God, then there is no great equalizing event. It is nature that is unfair, though she can’t even comprehend her own unfairness, she rewards the strong (good or evil) and punishes the weak (good or evil). It’s only we humans that comprehend nature’s unfairness and try to make up for it, with religious explanations and other deeds.