TF Chapter 6 - This means WAR!

I, again, have to question the idea of using war terminology that Colson is using to represent his religion.  This book was first published in 2008, which is well after another group of fundamentalist religious zealots used war terms and attacked Americans and others in the World Trade Center Towers.  It is as if he wants to be associated with this kind of right wing militarism.

Colson even goes on to compare Christianity to an occupying force:

His [Jesus] own ministry and then by establishing a peaceful occupying force, His Church, which would carry on God's redemption until Christ's return.

There is no definition of occupying force that allows you to include peaceful.  It is impossible.  The idea is that you install your force by, well, force.

Then of course there are the specifics of Christian history.  What was so peaceful about the Crusades, witch hunts, the Peasants' war, St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Thirty Years' war, and so on?  These altercations involve the groups that Chuck Colson's Christian foundation is built upon, and the foundation that all Christians' faith is built upon.  "For all who draw the sword will die by the sword."

Colson goes on, dropping the military analogies, talking about bringing the Gospel to prisoners.  How the prisoners get excited upon hearing how Jesus will free you.  Then Colson talks about how people are excited when the Bible is translated into other languages, and oppressed people here a redemptive story.  This really doesn't surprise me.  People have an innate sense of justice, including babies. The oppressed want to hear about how at some point in the future they will not be oppressed and how those oppressing them will receive punishment.  The prisoner wants to hear how his "sins" will be washed away and new life can begin in freedom.  The fact the Bible tells them this will happen does not make it true.  That they, prisoners and the oppressed, want this to be true, does not make it true.

The one thing Colson does get right in this chapter is stating that Jesus was not a white Anglo-Saxon.  Jesus would have been Semitic and born in the Middle East.  He would have looked like anyone living on the West Bank today.  He would have looked something like this:

From Religious Tolerance: What did Jesus look like?

Raping and Murdering

This is from Ray Comfort's Blog:

"Starbuck wrote: Now Let me ask you or any athiest why they insist on spreading their beliefs? I have asked a few and the response is that people need to know the truth. And they are there to show them.

Now why on earth would you want to go and do that? Because of this percieved Chistian Religion evils that have been perpetuated upon mankind?

Or did you in your own intelligence come to the conclusion that you are better and smarter then God? I suppose so, seeing you don't believe in him.

Why would you want to take away my hope? So many people need that. Hope. Why do you want to steal and destroy that for them?

I am assuming you are a decent person? Of course you are. Well, before I turned to Jesus, I was NOT a decent person. I lied, I drank and did drugs. I was violent. But I had no direction. I was angry, fearful and mean. I hated blacks, I hated gays, I hated mexicans, I hated chinese. I hated pretty much everyone. I hated my parents, I hated my siblings. I hated school and then I hated work. I hated the police. I hated doctors. Did I mention I was violent? I loved guns. I loved knives and swords and other weapons. For some unknown reason, I never hated God and I always knew he existed but sometimes had doubts. Evolution to me was just silliness. Even when I had turned my back on God.

I was headed for a confontation..
with someone or something.

Before you say I need to get my head examined, they did. They put a label on me.. paranoid schizophrenic. Thought disorder. They measured my IQ at 210. Although It would be nowhere near that. I have no idea why it was so high. But at the time I prided myself at how clever and smart I was.

I wanted to kill. Kill on a large scale. The doctors gave me medicine that toned it down a bit, but it made me feel sick all the time. Which made me angry.

But then a person very special to me talked me to about God and how he could help. Well I reached out and God grabbed me so hard, I could feel he was around. perhaps just my imagination. But when I accepted him as my Lord and Savior, I remember I had felt so tainted before. And everything started to wash away. And I had HOPE. Finially, hope!

And you athiests want to take that away?

Don't you think Churches are filled with idiots like myself? REALLY bad people who turned to God? What would happen if you took it away?

Those people would revert BACK to what they were before.. well a lot of them would. Only now I know I would have a target. The people who took away my hope. I would hate them beyond words. I would kill them on sight. I would hate athiests with all my passion I could muster.

I know I would do that. Because I would have no hope.

I know you cannot understand why a person would do such a thing. but that is because you are decent. Without God, I am not a decent person. I am worse then Jeffery Dahmer.

But with God, I am a ok father, and an ok husband... my wife says I am a great husband.. but I digress. My kids do talk to me. And I don't hate anyone. Plus I am a great technician... pays the bills and keeps me fed.


Now, let me ask you one more time athiests.. Why do you want to take that away?"

The emphasis was added later by someone else. The claim is that without god this person would be out raping and murdering. Obviously, this particular person has mental issues and he admits that, but the claim of raping and murdering is not uncommon to most Fundamentalists and other Christians. I find this claim comes after the theist is backed into a corner where they have to admit that either A) their morals do not come from god or B) without god they would be out raping and murdering. For some reason instead of making the sane rational choice, they opt for B.

Even with the more extreme circumstances, like that which I quoted, I do not believe these people would rape and kill if it was proven there was no god. If one is so inclined to violence then that person can justify violence through the Bible and teachings of Christianity. For example the murder of Dr. George Tiller recently by Scott Roeder. Scott justified his murder as earthly judgment by god.

The fact is it is not god keeping these people from murdering. No, it is the same thing that keeps us all from murdering each other. The golden or platinum rule. The rule that developed through the process of evolution. Humans are social animals. Our ancestors had to work together to survive. In turn that working together required some form of trust between everyone in the group. Those who are inclined to kill and rape, would not be trusted. For the sake of the rest of the group they would be thrown out to survive on their own or killed. This is a simplified version of how morals evolved but one can get the general idea.

This is why I don't believe the people that say they would murder, steal, and rape if it was proven there was no god. Sure they wouldn't have some super natural power to answer too, but they would have their own genetics and the people in their community to answer too. Also anyone should be able to understand, it is better that they don't do these things because they don't want these things done to them. Where we arrive back at the Golden Rule.