Complete Transcript via WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com

and now..

An intelligent and rational person's response
to WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com's popular YouTube video, "10 Questions that every intelligent Christian must answer."


Being "an intelligent and educated Christian," I shall formulate an intelligible response to a discouragingly unintelligent challenge. "I have a college degree, and I have been trained to think logically about the world we live in." Using these acquired skills, let's examine the overt inconsistencies of this flawed video's purportedly-rational proposals.

First, the intended audience is somewhat unclear. It naturally states clearly to whom the video is directed, yet it will likewise "hook" the people who wish to defy these supposedly intelligent Christians, rally and renew their vigor to support a belief built upon inadequate context and unwillingness to actually research the issues. The video systematically fails, in every question, actually research the issues thoroughly like an "intelligent" and "college-educated" person would. Apparently the university from which WWGHA proponents graduated, taught the importance of making quick-tempered assumptions and rampant disregard for actually looking stuff up. Nice.

Among the deluge of faults this video offers us, 2 key errors very clearly stand out to me -- (a) commits precisely the same crime it accuses its "audience" of perpetrating, (b) enslaves language regularly exploited by advertisers that lacks the complete story in attempt to make a point using only a limited context in which the message actually works.

(A) The video repeatedly commits the identical crime it accuses its supposed audience of committing -- making weird rationalizations -- while at the same time, stating that a "rational" person would think otherwise. This is like applying paint to a canvas that that critically illustrates how painters of paintings make "weird" paintings. It is it's own worst criminal. It seeks to destroy itself. It is self-negating.

Casting everything aside that you're not willing to actually examine as therefore "imaginary" is identically bizarre, if not overtly some ilk of "blind faith" strategy of which Christians are oft-accused of being. The video continually and reduntantly reports the identical assumption without thoroughly examining all of the evidence, and even subjectively selecting which evidence it chooses to offer to make it's point. Is that rational?

(B) I have oodles of training experience in the skills for a print advertising copywriter (writing the persuasive language employed by snail spam to hook a reader). I have since discarded the practice for its overabundance of half-truths, turning downsides into uplifting positives, and artificially inflating statements that seem legitimate but when examined in-depth with the information after the purchase, would only in some abstract technicality actually be true. However, I sometimes enjoy reading snail-spam to pick apart how well the writer actually followed the proven rules for ensnaring a reader using as little information as possible and pumping up the product with such enthusiasm by using compliments that make the reader feel as if they are not actually just another sales statistic. It is entertaining to see where the writers fail to adequately cover territory, and how the letter could have made vastly greater sales percentages by simply change this word or that. This video is right on the money for using an absurdly small amount of information to make an outlandish point, using specialized language to make it seem as if the writer is genuinely credible. The language, in the advertising copywriter's perpective, is hard-hitting and powerful, but the message is still the same. Believe in our product, even if it really is just junk. "God is imaginary" is the junk product you are being sold.

Before opting for the current wordpress blog format of thehomeland.org, I had begun construction on an as-yet-undebuted website that would systematically refute each individual point of the infamous EvilBible.com. I had created a fairly lengthy 20kb essay about the very process of simply asking questions and the multitude of problems associated with providing an "acceptable" answer based on having to guess the limited knowledge of the asker, the degree of trust they assign the knowledge they correctly/incorrectly possess, their willingness to actually be open-minded about getting an answer, or whether the question is actually a deception to trip you up therefore not genuinely seeking answers. The introduction to the site, alone, itself was 20kb. This is the kind of background information needed to answer these questions. There's no quick answer, because there is a ton of background information you probably don't even know about that could drastically influence your decision to quite the opposite of the video's rationalizations.

As an intelligent, rational, and college-educated human being, I know that nothing is "that simple." Something as "simple" as an ordinary street curb is made of trillions of particles in a specially measured and calculated formula documented by extensive manufacturing processes and years of real-world chemical testing to calculate precise ingredient balances to create an efficient product, which was sold by means of marketing plans and strategies to meet the needs of social and traffic engineers who, after years of study in their fields, aquired a job with the city department who hires hard-labor workers that are trained to shape and form this street curb, based on the plans and schematics of architects who arranged the plot design for the residential neighborhood that the curb was built to act as a border. There are dozens of types of curb designs, not to mention methods of creating the curvatures of the curb. WWGHA's simplistic questions might have you believe that, "curbs too complicated to bother thinking about" and leave it at that. What college did you go to again? Was the diploma tri-folded in a regular envelope and printed on a dot matrix? Dear dear.

This response quotes the transcript in its entirety to pick apart each individual statements and the flaws associated thereby. This intelligent, rational, college-educated BA holder (English/journalism) will effectively dismember, thoroughly analyze, precisely incise and methodically pry with logical, legitimate, and exquisitely sound reasoning that isn't at all weird. After reading it (providing you don't fall asleep), you will inevitably come the the same conclusion, that WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com is not a credible source for information.

But not so fast, there, Christian. I'm not done with you, either. I was a red-in-the-face atheist before I prayed that Christ's righteousness replace my own at age 22. There are TONS of crap that Christians say that is nowhere in the bible as well as issues that this video brings up that are misconceptions of subjects you yourself don't even fully understand. I can't claim complete understanding, but I can sure as sandwiches provide a skosh of insight about why your prayers aren't working. If you've ever read a "nit-picker's guide" to a movie, consider me that author in regard to Christian doctrinal issues. I will soooo call you out on your mamby-pamby ideas on baptism, and you will sooooo find answers to prayers that were right there in the playbook the whole time.



In this short video, I am going to assume that you are an educated Christian. You have a college degree, and you have been trained to think logically and rationally about the world we live in. For example, you might be: an enginer, scientist, doctor, pharmacist, nurse, teacher, manager, administrator, a government employee, business owner, account rep, executive, lawyer, accountant, financial sector, human resources, architect, designer, software developer.. You are a smart person. You know how the world works. You know how to think critically.



Let's take note of a few points to recall for later. I am apparently someone capable enough to "think logically" and thereby not make any outlandish assumptions based on evidence I've learned from a YouTube video. I am a smart person, who does not take "therefore it must be this" responses to all questions, as someone with a blind faith would do. I am capable of temporarily suspending my decision to commit to a specific belief based on only the information I've been given, and not be influenced by emotion-tugging absurdities. I am capable of reading the entire story, aside from simply a potentially misquoted sentence. I am capable of asking questions like, "To whom was God actually speaking in the quoted passage?" and "What assumptions about scripture do I possess are actually truths found within it?" and "Could answers to questions I have about the bible not found in a YouTube video, actually be answered in the very scripture the video is declaring insufficient?"


If you're an educated Christian, I would like to talk with you today about an important and interesting question. Have you ever thought about using your college education to think about your faith? Your life and your career demand that you behave and act rationally. Let's apply your critical thinking skills as we discuss 10 simple questions about your religion.



Oh, so I am about to be asked an "important and interesting question." Thanks for pressing your beliefs onto me there, pastor. I'll be sure and treat it as if it really were important and interesting. After you're done, I'll come up the front and make a "faith promise" in your doctrinal hooey so you can feel good about yourself. But later, when I walk out of the sactuary, I'll laugh. Let's get down to some in-depth critical thinking!


Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about: As a Christian, you believe in the power of prayer. According to a recent poll 3 out of 4 doctors believe that God is performing medical miracles on earth right now. Most Christians believe that God is curing cancers, healing diseases, reversing the effects of poisons and so on.



The poll referenced was taken of 1,100 doctors. This number is more than likely a fraction of one percentage of the number of doctors in the United States. The plausibility that 1,100 other doctors makes this poll genuinely non-information. It is a conclusion based on the limited scope of the survey itself and quantifiably cannot represent "3 out of 4 doctors" in any sense other than simply those that were surveyed. The unintelligent irrationality of someone claiming to possess legitimate information would not even bother with such trivialities as this survey. Someone who tries to make a point based on such insignificantly minute parameters of research might even be considered delusional. Maybe.

While we're at it, let's actually get down to speculating about what a miracle is. There is an absurdly massive difference between what common, assumption-bearing atheist poppycock thinks that Christians believe miracles to be, from what many Christians actually think miracles are. A miracle can be defined as simply an event that occured for a reason that is temporarily unexplainable. It may be defined as something at which point incredible odds come together at precisely an opportune moment as if they had been assigned for that very original task, but really could be just a nifty coincidence. Having experienced an unusual amount of coincidences would lead a rational, intelligent human being to speculate about whether these instances were actually coincidental. To assume that these events are only coincidental, only by accident, and scientifically definable by current levels of perception would be frankly, unscientific. This type of assumption that WWGHA would presume to be legitimate, actually bears no remarkable similarity to the scientific method. By immediately assuming that something is automatically "not" something, WWGHA is, in fact, committing its own accusation by implementing blind faith strategy to appear is if it is correct, without actually investigating the matter.

There is another verse that isn't oft cited that provides a skosh of insight into why a prayer might seemingly have gone unanswered. Romans 8:26-27 provides that insight, noting that we're not actually sure what we really need to be praying about, and that the Spirit (of God) interprets it correctly for us. For instance, if I were to ask in prayer, "God, give me a million dollars." I think that (had you known, you'd might soon after asking recall the stipulation of praying "in his name" and his name isn't "God", plus Christ also chastises a few newbs by retorting, "Why do you call me Lord but don't do what I say?" ..something to think about) a reasonable Spirit-translation might instead be, "Help me to realize how rich I already am," "Help me to appreciate living efficiently," or "Help me to realize that I am neither Aladdin, nor are you some two-bit genie that must obey me, since I dutifully read the entire verse without getting bored." Don't you suppose that God, in his bountiful wisdom, would actually not grant me this prayer, firstly, knowing that I would probably just go blow it all on multiflavor, individually wrapped chunks of saltwater taffy and stockpile a collection of Morning Musume DVDs? By instilling some kind of filtering system, the deeper, inner question could be answered and cancel out the need for such a desire to even warrant asking in the first place (but you don't get that, unless you ask =P)..

For instance, take the "does this dress make me look fat?" question posed by many a manipulative temptress striking significant other. Is the correct response a yes or no? I suspect the answer may actually be neither, as the underlying reason for asking such a question might be one of a multitude so great that Jesus himself might develop the traditional anime sweatdrop ^_^;; ). Instead, one might simply answer, "I love the way you look, regardless of what you wear," hoping to answer the more hidden "reason" for asking the question of whether you yourself still finder him/her still attractive and/or whether attraction is a major motivating factor that affixes the relationship securely in place, for fear that becoming unattractive to you might somehow warrant unfavorably parting ways. Defiant teenagers asking this "why didn't God give me a pony?!?!" may simply not have enough relevant life experience to be able to decypher a sub-question being corrected without directly somehow answering the original.

There are loads of other questions that in effect answer themselves by simply knowing more background information about a subject, that are clarified by a further question from the answer-giver. In an office situation, say a co-worker sees another take the last three doughnuts from the break table, pulls them aside and asks, "What gives you the right to take so many?" two which is clarified by another question (that negates the necessity of even asking the first), "Who do you think brought the doughnuts? (implying himself). If you're really interested in this subject, take a look at my absurdly confounded essay called, "On Questions" for more discussion of this nature.


So here's Question #1 - Why Won't God Heal Amputees? It's a simple question, isn't it? We all know that amputated legs do not [spontaneously] regenerate in response to prayer. Amputees get no miracles from God. If you are an intelligent person, you have to admit that it's an interesting question: - On the one hand, you believe that God answers prayers and performs miracles. - On the other hand, you know that God completely ignores amputees when they pray for miracles.



Here's a major flaw that is often overlooked. The question asks from the perspective that the authority for whether miracles occur is itself in the act of prayer, and not from God. This presumes that God is some sort of genie, that, by kneeling and rubbing one's hands together (or otherwise for an amputee, perhaps), appears in a puff of smoke to grant you your everloving desire. This is very simply not the case! WWGHA also is even so bold as to make an abstract, absolute statement that God completely ignores amputees when they pray for miracles. And yet, with just an eensy smeenchy widdle biddle of imagination, you could quite easily come up with a scientifically explainable "miracle" (as defined above that also includes coincidences) whereby an amputee could acquire a new arm. Perhaps not "grow" a new arm, but surely acquire a new one. Perhaps there is a recent death nearby of a young man who was of the same age/height/etc who was listed as an organ donor, from whom an arm could be legitimately pilfered and attached to said amputee. Perhaps, by some unusual coincidence, a recent death in the family causes a large inheritance to enable the amputee to fund a prosthetic, enabling the amputee to perform wider and more varied tasks than he/she could have with any regular flesh/bone arm. These types of things would, to the regular Christian, be considered on the same plane as miraculous, having convenient timing, but perfectly possessing adequate scientific explanation. The two are not mutually exclusive. However, apparently there are a great many atheists walking the streets these days with delusions that all Christians believe that miracles are never scientifically explainable. Some might call that insane to believe such things. *insert scary ghost sound woooooooooooo*


How do you deal with this discrepancy? As an intelligent person, you have to deal with it, because it makes no sense. In order to handle it, notice that you have to create some kind of rationalization. You have to invent an excuse on God's behalf to explain this strange fact of life. You might say, "God must have some kind of special plan for amputees." So you invent your excuse, whatever it is, and then you stop thinking about it because it is uncomfortable.



A key point to note here is the phrase notice that you have to create some kind of rationalization. Saying instead, that the very simple answer of "God is imaginary" to apply to all questions, is itself, a rationalization. Rationalizations are what rational people make. It is a conclusion based on an amount of evidence. However, there is quite a bit more evidence that the video carelessly overlooks from the equation that makes the God=real rationalization seem silly, when in fact it's based on loads more than just looking at a tomato and calling it a vegetable. The actual discrepancy is the assumption that all Christians believe in the convoluted image that WWGHA reports them to believe.. Interestingly enough, WWGHA "stops thinking about it" based strictly on this limited perspective without actually looking stuff up, perhaps because it is uncomfortable. Oops! They said that themselves. *cough*hypocrit*cough*


Here's another example. As a Christian, you believe that God cares about you and answers your prayers. So Question #2 is, Why are there so many starving people in our world? [Look out at our world and notice that millions of children are dying of starvation, it really is horrific.] Starving Children searching for insects to eat in Sudan, from "Take it Personally" Anita Roddick. Why would God be worried about you getting a raise, while at the same time ignoring the prayers of these desperate, innocent little children? It really doesn't make sense, does it? Why would a loving god do this?



Ah, the classic, "if exist tragedy, goto ;nosuchgod" strategy. Here is probably the biggest place that WWGHA fails to do some research. If this sounds weird to you, keep in mind that it comes from scripture itself. If you'd actually read the whole thing, you'd be fully aware of this and it would not be surprising or weird:

Your preferences are not especially important, and if you're under the impression that it really is, you haven't really been paying attention and are just making stuff up to create a religion that appeals to your own wants.

It is a common saying among university students in relgious groups to remind each other, "it's not about you" and is something very easy to forget. Any single definition of tragedy is absurdly, obscenely, excessively and insurmountably relative to your current focus of the world. The bible points out, many times, what the actual focus is on, and it's on the soul, not the body. It's on the soul, not whether you have food. It's on the soul, not whether you have clean water. It's on the soul, not whether your parents died of natural causes or whether you blame God for "killing" them in some accident (and therefore not taking responsibility that they really could have been drunk).

"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28).

This crucial understanding answers loads and piles of other questions, like why God slew so many people at the seeming drop of a hat. It's because people hold excessively high value on their very lives whereas God is saying there is something waaaaay more important. If you were to highly value, say, saltwater taffy, and nothing pleased you more than receiving a fresh bag of individually wrapped, multi-flavored, soft and gooey saltwater taffy.. would a national shortage of saltwater taffy be a tragedy? Yes, to you, because you value it so much. Tragedy is based on your own personal preferences, rather than hard facts and this "my opinion = truth" is called PRIDE. Your PRIDE is hurt when you suddenly realize that spouse you had intended to be with "forever" is suddenly taken by cancer -- because you probably self-deluded yourself into believing that "since I'm a good person (not true, according to the bible), therefore we'll be happy!" Then the natural consequences come around that you've been blissfully oblivious of, and poof, you blame God of all possible choices. An immensely significant amount of people cannot, or simply refuse, to consider this as something plausible to even contemplate. The fact is that, what matters is, not what you think is or isn't, but what actually is or is not. Truth can be defined as an opinion of the credibility of a source. Atheists commonly discount the bible as evidence, because they blindly disqualify it on the grounds of self-rationalized merits that the bible doesn't meet as being something that agrees with their own motives. Newsflash -- it's not about you!

And a loving God would let consequences mete as they rightfully and naturally should. How else would you learn?

You might even check out this verse, that not a lot of Christians are even aware of:

"The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to man." (Psalm 115:16)

Think about that for a moment. but the earth he has given to man. I personally assert that most answers to most prayers can be answered with this one verse -- you're responsible for your own consequences. If you stub your foot on the coffee table, don't be go swearing at God for putting that table there. You know darn well you yourself put it there. Earth is not paradise. Man has been kicked out of Eden and has been set to toil about the Earth himself. The reason so many children are starving is because man has made it that way. You can't expect to be held as a rational, intelligent, college-educated human being and simultaneously blame God for man's own foolish nonsense AND say that he is imaginary.

I am highly critical of Christians who even think they can just pretend a prayer is going to work somehow, and just leave up to the guess that it probably will. I am highly critical of the absurd ways prayer has been exploited these days, in starkly contradictory ways that it is described in the bible itself. It is tossed around like it's just another street curb.

God has provided a way to be free of this, but it is found outside of your preferences. It is tucked waaay back out of the way so that when you're finished doing your thing, we can actually get down to business without having to messing with all this nonsense you pulled directly from your keister, sutherland. The emphasis of most all, if not exactly all, of God's responses to man's misadventures, is to point directly to the importance of the soul and who has control over that. Is the death of thousands of people by fire and brimstone a tragedy? Yes, if your primary concern is limited specifically to whether or not people stay alive, or whether you believe or disbelieve in souls. If souls are outside of your realm of attention, then death is really the end according to you, and really seems like a tragedy if lost. So when circumstance wipes out a couple hundred, according to those who don't believe in souls it is tragic -- but according to those whose focus is on where those souls will be divided unto, the tragedy isn't even here yet.


To explain it, you have to come up with some Sort of very strange excuse for God. Like: "God wants these children to suffer and die for some divine, mysterious reason." Then you push it out of your mind because it absolutely does not fit with your view of a loving, caring God.



By skipping past all of the backstory, WWGHA can appear to generate a plausible conclusion, but it is again only based on inconsequentially small details and not anything near the whole story. And in staying true to irrationality, offers only one possible outcome, which is starkly hypocritical to the critical accusation that there could possibly be any other answer that exists outside their assertion of what is or isn't evidence. Then you push it out of your mind because... well where's the follow-up, WWGHA? You seem to just push it right out of your mind here yourself, satisfied that "God is imaginary" just because you've got some stank concept of logic that no college graduate would bother calling you out on. Which says a lot for me, I guess =P


Question #3 - Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible? Look up these verses: Exodus 35:2 - God demands that we kill everyone who works on the Sabbath day. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 - God demands that we kill disobedient teenagers. Leviticus 20:13 - God demands the death of homosexuals. Deuteronomy 22:13-21 - God demands that we kill girls who are not virgins when they marry. And so on. There are lots of verses like these. It doesn't make any sense, does it? Why would a loving God want us to murder our fellow human begins over such trivial matters? Just because you work on the wrong day of the week, you must die? That makes no sense, does it? In fact, if you think about it, you realize that it is insane. So you create some kind of rationalization to explain these verses.



It makes plenty of sense if you've got even moderate intelligence and a rational mind to actually research your subject matter before going out and making blind accusations.

Okay, many many problems here. These individuals are, by even your own definition "disobedient" and therefore not innocent. The deaths are not innocent deaths; they did something that according to God warranted death, plain and simple. Also, the argument that WWGHA makes here is that "the death penalty is too severe" for the crime committed. However, if you were a potential criminal and were to examine how severe the penalties were for a particular crime, you could estimate how serious of a crime is by the punishment alotted. The "penalty is too severe" excuse is made by people who absolutely REFUSE to consider that, perhaps, the crime is really that serious.

Seriously, think about it.

If you're a modern day criminal, and you believe sincerely with all your heart that the death penalty is too harsh of a consequence for your own self-justified actions.. does that really matter? Could it not be that your estimation of what a genuinely harsh penalty is could be limited strictly by your own personal delusions? I can think of many cruel and unusual things that could be done to someone while they're alive that would be far worse than simply being killed. I think a major issue here is that, collectively as humans together, one man killing another man is too harsh of a penalty for something committed against someone else. However, these cases are not simply the crime committed in relation to man's forgivenness to another man, but to God. It boils down to relative perception again -- If an inventor of free-will robots instructs his robots to only recharge on Tuesday, he has absurdly clear authority to deactivate any robots that refuse to recharge on Tuesday. Whether or not one of these robots would forgive a fellow robot for disobeying such an order, doesn't matter. What matters is the inventor's declaration. Whether the robots think they, themselves, wouldn't do something quite so drastic as deactivation for disobeying this decree, what matters is whether the inventor thinks it is drastic or not. To the inventor, who can deactivate or reactivate at will any given robot he chooses, doesn't see anything especially drastic about it. However, since the robots do not possess this ability, the penalty is drastic. There could be plenty of explanations of why Tuesday is reserved for recharging -- perhaps that Tuesday is the day there are fewer dangerous surges and that recharging on a Wednesday is too risky for frying critical robot innards, but the inventor is at no point obligated to explain why. If the robots are really that valuable to him, he will deactivate any robots who refuse to recharge on Tuesday, because of the danger they put themselves in that could be much worse than simple deactivation. Any assumption on the behalf of robots that the inventor is full of crap is completely their own contrivance. The reason I use such a seemingly silly illustration is the insignificance of physical death actually is, compared to the importance of the danger of soul-death, rather than body-death.


Question #4 - Why does the bible contain so much anti-scientific nonsense? You have a college degree, so you know what I'm talking about. You know how science works. You happily use the Products of science everday: your car, your cell phone, your microwave oven, your TV, your computer. These are all products of the scientific process. You know that science is incredibly important to our economy and to our lives. But there is a problem. As an educated person you know that the Bible contains all sorts of information that is total nonsense from a scientific perspective. -God did not create the world in 6 days 6,000 years ago like the Bible says. -There was never a worldwide flood that covered Mt Everest like the Bible says. -Jonah did not live inside a fish's stomach for three days like the Bible says. -God did not create Adam from a handful of dust like the Bible says.



Misinformation abounds. The bible doesn't contain anti-scientific nonsense, unless you heap together a bunch of facts that you and your buddies thought about while drinking one day, assumed they were in the bible because it sounded bible-ish, and then wrote down on a piece of paper titled "scientific nonsense" and listed a bunch of verses that would sooner be found in your ear than actually in scripture.

If we know how science works, let's use some scientific method by proposing a suspicion and then asking questions and researching to see whether it actually works out, eh?

#1. "God did not create the world in 6 days 6,000 years ago like the bible says." -- (a) the bible does not say the earth was created 6,000 years ago. That number was estimated by a monk who took into account various estimates for how long each person lived, extrapolated with MonkMath® v.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1, and made a rough guess about how old the earth would be ****IF**** we were to interpret the literal word "days" as "days" and not "some division of time" as one might would metaphorically. It is perplexing that atheists will post massive text responses in forums about how the bible can't be taken literally, while at the same time, use the "days" instance at the beginning of Genesis to prove invalidity of the Bible. Pick one, will ya? (b) Not everyone is cool with the whole 6-day thing. Although not technically impossible in miracle land, it certainly seems implausible to me. And really, whether or not the earth was or wasn't created in six days isn't really a dealbreaker. It's here now. It's like tireless debating over grassy-knoll shooters. That JFK's dead is the news.

#2. "There was never a worldwide flood that covered Mt Everest like the Bible says." -- (a) I'd really like to get your sources on where this idea comes from. Numerous nonbiblically-associated cultures have folklore and passed-down beliefs of a massive deluge of earth-encompassing scale. Fish fossils can be found on mountains. (b) What you consider "evidence" clearly does not include "the bible" as valid portion. The fact that the bible, from whats-it-thousand years ago, is itself part of the proof that there once may have been one. And for atheists to just totally discard the bible as any part of evidence would be like a Christian demanding science to "prove evolution is real using only the bible".. because the fossil record and such is WHERE evolution's proof can be found. By deliberately excluding a widely accepted source of proof, you're setting yourself up to become known as a scientist who just decides to overlook plainly available evidence, and thus not being at all scientific.

#3. "-Jonah did not live inside a fish's stomach for three days like the Bible says." -- (a) Shall we even dare to use evolution against WWGHA? So what they're saying is that there's no possible way, that ONE SINGLE sea-dwelling creature (the bible does not say "fish") could have some type of nonevolutionarily-necessary compartment? Not even one? As in, some mutated freak of a leviathan, mishapen since birth, that never produced similar offspring? And WWGHA was there? What exactly is unscientific about this? Let's talk extinction. What science calls extinction is actually translated to, "we can't find any." I recall reading that an ultra-rare bird of some kind was recently found in Australia that was believed to have been extinct since the 1940's after the last one died in the US. So basically what WWGHA's telling me is that they want proof outside of the bible that Jonah was engulfed. You know, let's just discard all of the currently available reference to the dodo bird, all of the fossils collected, and all of the first-hand accounts of settlers. Now prove to me that the dodo bird once existed. That's what WWGHA's really asking here. It's WWGHA's personal assertion of what they arbitrarily considers to be valid evidence.

#4. "-God did not create Adam from a handful of dust like the Bible says." Mhmm. Go back to that part about metaphors and literalisms. Not every Christians believes everything in the bible to be literally true. Even Jesus himself uses parables and metaphors to explain higher concepts in a way that people with the mechanical prowess of a slingshot manufacturer could understand. And besides, this isn't altogether different from evolutions "pond of goop" origin.


These stories are all nonsense. Why would an all-knowing God write nonsense? It makes no sense, does it? So you create some type of very strange excuse to try to explain why the Bible contains total nonsense.



It makes no sense if you approach it from an extremely limited amount of information with little to no context. If I am pushing a vial's worth of deadly fluid that is attached to an artificial vein inserted into your arm while you're strapped to a table, you might naturally declare that my actions make no sense considering that you've never done anything to me. However, after realizing that I am the lethal injection executioner for your sentencing, you might realize that yes, this is actually quite fair. However, WWGHA doesn't bother to tell us about the trial, so therefore it makes no sense.

Secondly, God didn't "write" it. The bible is not just one book book of stuff God wrote. It is a collection of geneologies, written by loads of people about first-hand accounts of historical matters. The first five books of the bible were purportedly written by Moses, although the book of Job is speculated as being the oldest book of the bible written even though it appears in the middle of the Old Testament. When Jesus was around, there wasn't a New Testament, and the NT is filled with letters Christians wrote to each other in encouragement and berating, historical accounts of eye-witnessed events, and predictions held by people known to have personally dwelt and dealt with Jesus himself. There's listings of rules that God gave Moses, as well as things that went on that God didn't say to do. It tells about the mistakes the people supposedly selected as God's made, and the mistakes they made in dealing rashly or wisely with their own commandments. It doesn't paint a favorable or infavorable picture of Jews, and has loads of "matter of factly" type sentence structure that drastically lacks emotion. Some of it can be downright boring, and some of it can be overtly counter to what God wanted -- for instance, God ordered there not to be a census (and killed a bunch of people because of one). One verse says not to bother with boring geneologies, when right there in the bible are loads of them. The bible is very obviously man-written and man-compiled, but just as you would with any history book, adequate scrutiny toward the validity of the statements made is a necessary exercise. You might want to read a smidgen more of it before you go making wacky statements about it.


Question #5 - Why is God such a huge proponent of slavery in the Bible? [And why do all intelligent people abhor slavery and make it completely illegal?] Look up these Bible verses: Exodus 21:20-21, Colossians 3:22-24, Ephesians 6:5, 1 Peter 2:18, And so on... You have to come up with some kind of weird rationalization to explain it.



Check this out. What if I were to tell you that slavery isn't a bad thing? Would you disagree? It's the slavemaster that makes the slaves' experience poor or great, not the actual slavery aspect. Say perhaps that we were in pre-CivilWar days in the US, and purchasing slaves was perfectly legal. Perfectly legal and a socially acceptable practice. These are people who founded our country, who had the amazing foresight and established the constitution that we now claim all manner of court-decided rights within. Is it outside of reason to guess that slavery isn't the issue here, but instead poor slavemasters being the problem? If you had as much respect for each person as a valuable individual regardless of race as you do today, and were living back then, could you not actually choose to purchase slaves -- and treat them well? Educate them, dress them pristinely, treat them with honor, dignity and respect (that each person deserves), and even write them their freedom papers? Slavery is a significant part of biblical accounts because the social structure of the times described included slavery as an everyday, common concept. If sometime in the future, all jails were eliminated and greater counseling techniques were employed with an extremely effectiveness, could you be held with legitimate accusation that you were a proponent of the jail system? You're looking at it from a completely seperate and unfair perspective. Be careful to note that a very extensive portion of the Old Testament is "what happened when" type details, such as Person B went to City X, Donkey F stopped in the middle of the road when he saw Angel Q, etc. and is not all filled with "you shall have twelve slaves" kinds of rules all over the place. Parts of these rules, however, dictate fair slavetrading practices. WWGHA is totally coming at it from an abstract angle. It was simply a matter of life then, and widely accepted by all people there. And believe it or not -- you're a slave to something now. You can't survive without food and water, so you're a slave to money to purchase these goods. Christians themselves are "bought with a price" according to scripture, thus making it moreso less about the people and all about God as the good slavemaster who treats his servants properly.


Question #6 - Why do bad things happen to good people? [It makes no sense. You've created an exotic excuse on God's behalf to rationalize it.]



At this point, WWGHA begins to slack on using any kind of backup at all, simply copping out with "you've got to create an excuse" without even bothering to research whether maybe, just maybe, WWGHA could be overlooking something.

The term "good people" is used by people who have not read the bible, or have adequately realized the difference between good and bad people are from a biblical perspective. Perhaps also, the Psalm 115:16 verse mentioned above should come into play. The bible says all people are bad people, that everyone, from disobedient teenager to mass murderer is guilty of the same penalty. So the idea that bad things happen to good people is a misnomer -- in that the assignment of "good" status is applied only be yet other people, and not by God whereby better or worse things might befall them. It says so, right there.

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)


Question #7 - Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles in the bible leave behind any evidence? [It's very strange, isn't it. You've created an excuse to rationalize it.]



Again with the fact that none of the bible is considered evidence here. If we're talking scientific evidence, historical reference of first-hand accounts is scientific evidence and widely acceptable as a very typical form of evidence. First-hand testimony is used to prove or disprove court cases even today. The bible contains detailed, first-hand accounts of these then-unexplained events that Jesus performed. If you actually looked at the feats Jesus did, you naturally wouldn't expect any evidence of them to be around in the first place, so this is actually just a filler question. Notice how WWGHA doesn't even bother to try to explain any of his reasoning, because it's plainly obvious that fossilized evidence of water-to-wine casks wouldn't exist, quite naturally, because they would likely be reused because that's what they were made for. There wouldn't naturally be any evidence of the blind man seeing again (except for the recorded first-hand accounts of the man himself and the people that worked with him and saw it take place, but that's discarded according to WWGHA's "intelligent, college-educated logic".


Question #8 - How do we explain the fact that Jesus has never appeared to you? [Jesus is all-powerful and timeless, but if you pray for Jesus to appear, nothing happens. You have to create a weird rationalization to deal with this discrepancy.



Appeared to me? What?

That itself is a weird attempt at trying to sound smart, but coming up horrendously short. That's like going up to a modern day army general and asking if he remembered to check whether to restock the quivvers. Um, we don't have archers anymore, Sherlock. Why would you pray for him to appear to you, is he a genie? The bible says he will return later, but not at the request of John Q. Thinksheknowssomestuff. The discrepancy is that WWGHA has no clue what they're even asking.


Question #9 - Why would Jesus want you to eat his body and drink his blood? It sounds totally grotesque, doesn't it? Why would and all-powerful God want you to do something that, in any other context, sounds like a disgusting, cannibalistic, satanic ritual?



Ooh, WWGHA breaks out the C-word. And even admits that "in any other context" it sounds disgusting. Gonna have to go with metaphor on this one, dude. Even for the lax standard of "you just have to make something up" gripe that WWGHA unintelligently, uneducatedly, and irrationally cops out with, I'm gonna just have to retort, "See above."


And finally Question #10 - Why do Christians get divorced at the same rate as non-Christians? Christians get married (supposedly) in front of God and their Christian friends, all of whom are praying to God for the marriage to succeed. And then they say: "What God has put together, let no man put asunder." God is (supposedly) all-powerful, so if God has put two poeple together that should seal the deal, right? Yet Christians get divorced at the same rate as everyone else. To explain this, you have to create some convoluted rationalization.



Firstly, where exactly does it state in the bible that, "that shalt have less divorces than yonder pagans" ? What's convoluted is that God is somehow responsible for the inadequacies of individuals to get along with each other, and that whatever Christians (or people who claim to be Christians) pray, will be granted as if God is some kind of magic genie who grants your every wish. Not so. Is is necessarily true that just because two people join together in a ceremony that gives (perhaps genuine, perhaps not) tribute toward God that, maybe, just maybe, God might not actually be pleased with it, and what you're believing is just the words of the people saying it and paying no actual heed as to whether it is or isn't blessed? If you dial a number on the phone, and say to your friend you're calling your mother, even though you didn't dial your mother's number, are you really calling your mother? If you pray to a makeshift God who is in favor of your wedding just because you think God should be and thus favors all marriages ever, does that mean God has to bless it? Are you actually praying to the real one, or one that you just thought up yesterday and claim it to be the real one? There are way too many possibilities on this one. The convolusion is to clump all of them in one encapsulated form, and just discard it all. That's not a very intelligent thing to do.


So we've looked at 10 fascinating questions. In order to believe in God, you have had to create all sorts of strange rationalizations and excuses.



The questions asked were based on convoluted assumptions that weren't even part of the context that the mistaken verses were even taken from. Some of the questions were abstract extrapolations that aren't even part of the bible and were viewed from a completely different wavelength, like trying to detect precise specks of distant light with your eyes closed. It doesn't make sense because your eyes are closed. And I'm the closed-minded one! But if you believe God is imaginary, by just assuming that what you read in the bible has no bearing at all on context, it is perfectly acceptable to just discard everything? Um... no?


If you're an intelligent, college-educated person, all of these excuses and rationalizations probably make you uncomfortable.



Yeah, I'm uncomfortable that WWGHA can actually self-enforce a belief of having intellgent, college-educated discourse while making all manner of illogical, irrational, up-ended abstractions without any kind of research, weighing of issues, and blind faith answers of "you've just got to make an excuse," while simultaenously making excuses itself.


If you think about it honestly, using the critical thinking skills that you learned in college, you have to admit that your answers to these questions make no sense at all. Now, let me show you something remarkable. What if you instead assume that: God is imaginary ?



I'm actually going to entertain this line of reasoning, by forming my own sarcastic, nonsensical reason: Gloobidy-foop. As a rational, intelligent, college-educated individual who is smart, you will realize that Gloobidy-foop is clearly the answer. It's simple, and it effectively answers all questions that have ever existed. And we all know simple is the best, right? It's the WWGHA way. Gloobidy-foop is a concept I just pulled right out of my ear. It may be sticky, but it means something really important: That we can just discard everything without actually researching to see whether it has reasonable explanations. That, in a nutshell, is Gloobidy-foop. Just carelessly tossing out all information without bothering to look it up. Just making up crazy questions that make sense only when applied to colloquialistic information without doing any real research. That's the beauty of Gloobidy-foop.


A funny thing happens... The answers to every one of these questions make complete sense. Just look at all ten questions as an intelligent person [would]...



Carelessly discarding all desire to actually look stuff up to see whether they're true or not, or having anything resembling an open mind and potential things we could have overlooked embodies the Gloobidy-foop worldview. Let's begin.


Question #1 - Why won't God heal amputees? Because God is imaginary, and he doesn't answer any prayers. Every "answered prayer" is actually a coincidence. All scientific evidence supports this conclusion.



"I'm not even sure whether amputees even pray for a miracle, because I don't bother to actually research the bizarre questions I pull out of my various orifices. Gloobidy-foop is clearly the answer here."


Question #2 - Why are there so many starving people in our world? Because God is imaginary, and he is therefore unable to answer their prayers.



"Gloobidy-foop is clearly the answer. We can just discard God because we can't be bothered to actually read the rest of it because my foot hurts. I can't be bothered to read how God says that man is responsible for his own lame-brained problems in Psalm 115:16, but I don't care because I'm intelligently going with Gloobidy-foop."


Question #3 - Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible? Because God is imaginary and the Bible was written by ridiculous, ruthless men rather than any sort of [all] loving being.



"Again, Gloobidy-foop hits the nail on the head. My perception of tragedy can't possibly be flawed, because mankind has the most superior perspective on how the world should properly operate, even though we can't even figure out the VCR clock for figure out where exactly cancer comes from. The death penalty is, of course (in great Gloobidy-foop style), the end of everything and there isn't any such thing as a soul, so a God that kills people is the harshest penalty ever given. Plus, my flawed view of what I assumed God was supposed to be like after taking a few hits of salvia divinorum, doesn't seem to match up with what the bible says, and everyone knows that what you believe while on hallucinogens must be true. However, since we employ the Gloobidy-foop style of intelligently discarding all effort to actually look stuff up, we can just cast the bible aside as fiction! Yipee!"


Question #4 - Why does the Bible contain so much anti-scientific nonsense? Ditto. Primitive men wrote the bible, not an all-knowing being.



"Gloobidy-foop. We didn't actually bother to check whether the bible really did say those things, we just assumed that it did because someone we respect said so, and I didn't want to say they were wrong. Plus, we weren't there, so we can naturally discard all effort to research any statements we made, because this is, after all, a YouTube video. Everyone knows YouTube is the source for all college-educated banter."


Question #5 - Why is God such a huge proponent of slavery in the Bible? Ditto.



"We can't even be bothered to formulate a response! Isn't Gloobidy-foop great? I've got a Doctorate of Mental Hiccups from Gloobidy-foop Yooniversity. See? My diploma is printing right now on the dot matrix. GFY! GFY!"


Question #6 - Why do bad things happen to good people? Because God is imaginary, and bad things happen at the same statistical rates to everyone.



"Because we can't be bothered to actually look it up to see whether the bible actually has an answer to that. We're not being lazy, we just think Gloobidy-foop is the way of the future. It trumps all those outdated things in the bible like procreation and eating meat. I actually came close to answering my own question correctly, but I didn't even know it because I didn't bother to even check!"


Question #7 - Why didn't any of Jesus' miracles in the Bible leave behind any evidence? Because God is imaginary and Jesus' miracles are myths.



"In nouveau Gloobidy-foop form, I carelessly discarded any attempt to recognize that the very item from which the story comes, what is it called, um.. a bible? Whatever. That couldn't possibly be evidence, because it was written by people. In fact, we're not even going to bother to check whether this very YouTube video was made by people, because that would be counterproductive to intelligent, rational, Gloobidy-foopism."


Question #8 - How do we explain that Jesus has never appeared to you? Because God is imaginary."



"Because I'm too lazy to see whether or not that question is already answered in the bible. Long live careless disregard for genuine research. Try Gloobidy-foop today."


Question #9 - Why would Jesus want you to eat his body and drink his blood? Because God is imaginary, and this bizarre ritual came from a pagan ritual.



"There's a difference between literal speech and using parables and metaphors? Oh, but that would actually require doing work! Let's just cop out with Gloobidy-foop, and be done with it. It makes sense to all intellectuals."


Question #10 - Why do Christians get divorced at the same rate as non-Christians? Because God is imaginary.



"Because I can't spend the time to investigate whether ceremonies are actually held in accordance with biblical standards for how a marriage is to operate, nor do I believe that marriage seperations can possibly at the fault at the naturally sinful individuals, or whether the people who do the bulk of the seperating are actually Christ-followers or people who simply claim to be because they have a church membership. So therefore I must be right, if you're intelligent."


Do you see what has happened here? When we assume that God exists, the answers to these ten questions make absolutely no sense. But if we assume that God is imaginary, our world makes complete sense. It's interesting, isn't it? Actually it's more than interesting. It is incredibly important. Our world only makes sense when we understand that God is imaginary. This is how intelligent, rational people know that God is imaginary. When you use your brain, and when you think logically about your religious faith, you can reach only one possible conclusion... The "god" that you have heard about since you were an infant is completely imaginary. You have to willfully discard rationality, and accept hundreds of bizarre rationalizations to believe in your "god".



I think you're pretty well versed on why these questions make no sense: because of the blatant abhorrence for genuine research into whether the claims WWGHA makes are (a) actually in the bible, (b) logically sound when applied to the whole story and not just some convoluted corruption of half-truths made to sound smart, and (c) actually examined in a way that WWGHA itself recommends we pursue them -- with intelligent, rational, colleg-educated critical thinking that doesn't include simply discarding it because it's too much work to actually look up to see whether it's true or not.


Now, let me ask you one last question... Why should you care? What difference does it make if people want to believe in a "god", even if he is imaginary?"



What matters is that you are making a gamble, not with your life, but a gamble with eternity. WWGHA is callously using half-witted language to avoid looking at the real issues, discard any desire to actually research the questions posed, and to walk totally obliviously by the huge sign saying BRIDGE OUT that is right in front of you. Now, if you want to "guess" that the bridge is not actually out, feel free to just walk out past the ledge while whistling carelessly as if the bridge were actually still there. When you fall down into the gorge and drown the shallow stream below that you could have lifted yourself out of had you not broken your arms off from the jagged outstretched crags on the way down, who exactly will you have to blame? Someone who didn't quite tell you the whole story? Or yourself, for not actually checking it out first? To say that God is imaginary without even bothering to check it out first, to read the bible to see what it really says instead of what you just think it may say, you're taking a precariously flawed leap of blind faith that everything will be OK.


It matters because people who believe in imaginary beings are delusional. It matters because people who talk to imaginary beings are delusional. It matters because people who believe in imaginary superstitions like prayer are delusional. It's that simple, and that obvious. Your religious beliefs hurt you personally and hurt us as a species because they are delusional. The belief in any "god" is complete nonsense.



I would actually agree with you there. People who believe in imaginary beings are, yes, delusional. However, you have wantonly cast aside God as imaginary, despite ample evidence starkly to the contrary that you, in your own little world, have just "decided" isn't actual evidence. All of your evidence comes in the form of YouTube videos, from people who claim to have a college education, and pridefully toss aside any inkling that you, of all people, the master of knowledge elite, could possibly be wrong. A systematic and unrelenting denial of a concept that intelligent, college-educated, rational thinkers ALSO believe it be correct is approaching insanity, as you yourself have illustrated.


You're a smart person. It is time for you to use your intelligence to free yourself from these delusions. It is time for you to begin thinking like a rational human being, rather than clinging to imaginary friends and childhood fantasies.



You seem to be capable enough to create a YouTube video. The delusions I have freed myself from are carelessness in research, completely failing to consider whether issues may in fact be complicated matters and not "let's just play house and forget about it" simplicity as a child might be interested in pursuing, and actually examining the scripture I was formerly, as an atheist, so highly critical toward.



Answered by m.james moore, lay-apologeticist and author. You may contact him at walkwithx@gmail.com.

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