By Richard S. Russell (RSRMadison@aol.com), Atheists and Agnostics of
Wisconsin:

Available on our Atheist Hotline at 608+233-7239. Feel free to copy and use
any part of this for your own purposes.

*** 3 Commentary on Issues - 1997 Feb. ***

This is Option 3: Commentary on issues of interest to atheists.

1st a brief commercial: We are pleased that the March meeting of Atheists and
Agnostics of Wisconsin will feature a presentation by Selena Fox, priestess
of Circle Wicca (often called a witch), speaking on "Pagan Origins of Easter
and Other Xian Holidays". The presentation will start at 11:00 AM Sunday
March 9 at the studios of WYOU Community Television, 650 E. Main St. in
Madison. All are welcome to attend; there is no admission charge, and there
will be a question period afterward.

And now this month's message: "Stupidities from the Bible".

When the Packers won the Super Bowl, defensive end Reggie White, as is his
custom, praised God for helping them do it. No word from Reggie on why he'd
been in the NFL for 13 years before God got around to him. Our theory is that
God favors the team with the best players and coaches.

Reggie did what David had done thousands of years earlier - taken a bunch of
perennial losers to a victory over a powerful foe. The difference is that,
when David gave credit to God for being able to defeat Goliath and the
Philistines, people took him seriously and eventually made him king. His rule
over God's "Chosen People" was pretty much an unmitigated disaster from start
to finish, which is something to bear in mind when football heroes run for
public office.

The story of David is just 1 of many ludicrous tales you'll find in the
Bible. We could spend this entire message on how dumb the story of Noah's ark
is - and someday soon we will - but for now just ask yourself 1 question:
"Where did Noah come up with the penguins and polar bears?".

People have this idea that the Bible is full of truth and wisdom. In fact,
it's full of contradictions, bad advice, and nonsense. We'll just give you
another taste of that today.


So, God is supposed to be a good guy, is he? Just listen to Isaiah 45:7: "I
form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the
LORD do all these things."

Same story in Exodus 15:3, where Moses sings: "The LORD is a man of war ...."

Kind of a jerk, huh? Is his "peace-loving" son Jesus any better? Luke 19:27:
"But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them -
bring them here and slaughter them in my presence."

Or Matthew 10:34: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came
not to send peace, but a sword."

This is the kid who's supposed to be the son of God (if you believe the fairy
tale about the virgin birth). Or maybe he was descended from King David (if
you believe the Bible's other version of who his father was). But notice that
there are 2 contradictory genealogies that claim to report the family tree of
Joseph, Matthew 1:2-17 (running forward) and Luke 3:24-38 (running backward).
They can't both be right.

Does God play tricks on people? Not according to James 1:13: "Let no man say
when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth he any man."

Yet in Genesis 22:1 we find: "And it came to pass after these things, that
God did tempt Abrahamx."

God supposed to be omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. But, if you
believe that, how do you explain Genesis 3:8-9, Genesis 11:5, and Judges
1:19?

Well, we could go on like this for hours, just like the sermons in church,
but we can only stomach just so much tripe. Your chance to respond coming up
after the following beep. Or press "4" to hear our responses to callers from
last month.

By Richard S. Russell (RSRMadison@aol.com), Atheists and Agnostics of
Wisconsin:

*** 4 Personal Reply Line - 1997 Feb. ***

The is Option 4: The Personal Response line.

We got quite a few calls on the Atheist Hotline last month, but only 1 person
left a message. That's probably because we used our main message to trash
Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and hardly anyone with a brain is inclined to spring to
the Moonies' defense. Just remember the bottom line on what we said: The
Moonies may believe a lot of weird things, but your mainstream Xian churches
believe things that are just as off-the-wall; the only reason it doesn't seem
that way is because their particular forms of idiocy are more familiar.

The 1 message we did get questioned our tactics in operating the hotline:

I can't really believe that you seriously think that true believers,
fundamentalist Christians, are going to call this hotline, listen to you
insult their beliefs, and then say "You know, these people are right; I'm
going to turn into an atheist.".

The caller is probably right about true believers. If you read Eric Hoffer's
book entitled The True Believer, you will see that people who fit this mold
are after some kind of emotional satisfaction, that they are looking for some
great leader to follow, or a noble cause to be part of, and that the last
thing they want to do is think for themselves. We as atheists aim at the
head, and, if our aim is true, we are going to miss the heart and the gut.

About the best we can hope for from the true believers who call our number is
that they will realize that they can't simply take it for granted that
everyone is a god believer, let alone a Xian.

When we publish our messages, we don't expect that everyone who listens to
them will be persuaded of their correctness. But this is true of every idea
that gets pushed forward into the public forum. Just the other day, for
example, I received a religious tract which was itself filled with quotations
from the Bible, just as this month's Hotline message is. This tract laid out
the biblical evidence supporting 4 propositions:
(1) You must accept that you are a sinner.
(2) You must accept that as a sinner you owe a penalty.
(3) You must accept that Jesus Christ has already paid our sin penalty.
(4) You must accept by faith what Jesus Christ did for you.
The tract was put out by Sword of the Lord Publishers of Murfreesboro TN.

Of course I didn't believe it and wasn't convinced by it. That's partly
because anything that uses the phrase "You must accept" over and over is just
handing out orders that you're expected to follow without question, and I'm
an ornery son of a gun who keeps asking "Why?". But there's another failing
to that message: it relies on the Bible as a reliable source of information.
Why don't I find that convincing? Because I have seen the parts of the Bible
that the evangelists never mention - the dumb and ugly parts that make you
question the wisdom and reliability of the Bible, the very parts that we
mention from time to time here on the Atheist Hotline.

We atheists are just doing what the Xians have been doing for years: putting
our message out before the public, hoping our seeds of thot will land on
fertile soil. Even if we don't convince people, we're planting doubts about
the infallibility of the Bible; that's progress.

And, of course, from time to time we run into someone who's searching and
questioning, and we do reach them with a message about atheism, and they do
turn their brains on and realize what a hoke religion is. Whenever that
happens, we believe, the world becomes a better place.

Any reactions from you? Speak up after this beep.