I’m not a big fan of Romney’s politics, but being a Mormon myself, I have a great deal of sympathy for him in having to answer questions about his faith. I find it ironic that a man who has only been married to one woman (and for nearly 40 years) is asked questions about polygamy, while Rudy Giuliani, who’s on his third wife doesn’t face questions about his multiple spouses.

Sadly, I think Sean Hannity had it right yesterday when he said that there’s a lot of anti-LDS bigotry in this country, and it would seem that it’s not going to go away anytime soon.

Matthew 27:37 And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Mark 15:26 And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Luke 23:38 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

John 19:19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.

What I find so intriguing about these passages, is that none of them is exactly the same. If the Bible is inerrant, then there should not be a discrepancy here as to what each of the authors saw. Since they’re all describing the exact same scene, there shouldn’t be any variation. At least not something that would have been objectively verifiable as written words.

I have no problem accepting that the Bible was written by men, inspired men, but men nonetheless, who are fallible and prone to mistakes. With evidence such as this, it is impossible for me to accept that the Bible is without error. To do so would require me to abandon reason, and as Galileo so nicely put it, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

The error is duplicated in multiple translations of the Gospels.
Matthew
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/matt/27/37#37
http://bible.cc/matthew/27-37.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2027:37;&version=31;

Mark
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/mark/15/26#26
http://bible.cc/mark/15-26.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2015:26;&version=31;

Luke
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/luke/23/38#38
http://bible.cc/luke/23-38.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2023:38;&version=31;

John
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/john/19/19#19
http://bible.cc/john/19-19.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+19:19&version=31;

If I asked everyone reading this to tell me what was wrong with the statement, “Religion is responsible for more death than anything else in the world,” most of you would be able to find something wrong with it. The thing that struck me is that it doesn’t differentiate between plants, animals, or people, so it could easily be shown that more death is caused in the name of dinner than of religion. It also occurred to me that throughout the course of this planet, disease, famine, or natural disasters could each account for more deaths than religion.

Rather than get into a semantic argument about this particular iteration of this phrase, I began to question the idea behind it. Specifically, that more bloodshed has been carried out in the name of religion, than any other cause. To start with I began looking for figures on death tolls for the greatest atrocities in human history. Not surprisingly, the 20th Century was probably the bloodiest century ever in terms of deaths from genocide, mass murder, and war. The worst atrocities during this 100 year period include World Wars I and II, The Russian Revolution, the Regimes of Stalin and Mao Zedong. All totaled these account for nearly 150 Million deaths, nearly 75% of which comes from Communist Russia and China, whose leaders as communists were atheists and not killing in the name of religion. One could argue that the Jews exterminated by Hitler during WWII were killed because of their ethnicity, and not specifically their religion, but even if you exclude the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis, the non-religious death toll for the century is still nearly 144 Million.

Now consider two events that most people think of when they here about atrocities carried out in the name of religion: The Crusades, and the Inquisition. During the 200 years of the Christian Crusades anywhere from 1 to 5 Million people were killed. While the 400 years of Spanish Inquisition resulted in the deaths of anywhere from 10,000 to 350,000. The ranges of these figures is rather extreme, but even if you accept the high estimates for both, arguably the bloodiest episodes in religious history represent a fraction of those killed for reasons other than religion in the 20th Century.

I could go on with the numbers, but they are quite boring. If you are interested, I have posted links to a couple of sources at the bottom of the post with figures for some of the greatest atrocities in human history. If you look at the sources, you will find that religion has been a relatively insignificant factor in these events. Land acquisition, territorial expansion, and religious ideologies have all played a far more significant impact in mass killing than any other cause including religion.

Ultimately, we can never really know how many deaths have been caused by people acting in the name of religion. Humans have been killing each other since our earliest ancestors began walking upright. For almost as long the humans have held some kind of religious belief. It would impossible to determine how many times, throughout human history, one man has taken the life of another because of some religious conviction. As such, the statement that “religion is responsible for more deaths than anything else” can be nothing more than rhetoric, with no basis in fact.

Lastly, I hope that my readers do not feel I am in any way trying to diminish the significance of the deaths caused by people acting in the name of religion. I am appalled by anyone who professes peace yet bombs abortion clinics, or coerces followers to drink the poisoned kool-aid, or flies jets full of passengers into buildings full of office workers. I disdain politicians for whom religion is just another badge they must wear to further their vain ambitions. Yet, in spite of these radicals, I have hope that religion can and will change the world for the better. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 78 years old yesterday. He managed to effect change through his practice of non-violent resistance. A policy he adopted based on his readings of Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, and Jesus Christ. Evil people use religion for evil purposes, righteous people use it for righteous purposes. My hope is that the righteous will prevail.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstats.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_tolls

I don’t know if you believe in Christmas
Or if you have presents underneath the Christmas tree
But if you believe in love
That will be more than enough
For you to come and celebrate with me

And peace on earth will last throughout the year

Merry Christmas Everyone!

As I got ready for work, after having the dream, I tried to remember as much as possible, but only two points lingered in my conscious thoughts. The first was that I should teach my son to believe in Santa Claus, this message was so vivid that I don’t think I could have forgotten it if I tried. I wrote it down, but that wasn’t necessary. The message is just as vivid to me now as it was then, even though I have lost the scrap of paper on which I wrote the reminder. The second, was the only rationale for the first point. The emotion attached to the second part of the dream wasn’t nearly as significant as the first, but it was the only other lasting impression I carried into wakefulness. The message was that Christ taught using parables. Those two things were all my unconscious provided, it was up to my conscious mind to noodle out the rest.

Being the incredibly rational, analytical, person that I am I began breaking apart what bits and pieces I could remember and tried to fit them into a framework that made sense. A few weeks before I had this dream I read an article about a psychological study that had been done regarding morality and a belief in Santa Claus. The results of the study showed, that children who had been raised to believe in Santa Claus had a better sense of right and wrong than those who had not. I found the results of this study somewhat ironic, because one of my biggest objections to this particular part of the Christmas tradition is that it seems to be a bold faced lie. Even if it works should we be lying to our kids to teach them right from wrong? It didn’t make sense until I considered the concept of Santa Claus within the context of parables.

As a parable, Santa Claus embodies religious concepts that might be too abstract for a child to understand. A being such as god that is always watching over you and doles out rewards or punishments only when you die, isn’t going to mean much to a child that doesn’t even understand the concept of death. A jolly old elf who knows when you’ve been bad or good and provides concrete evidence of his judgment on Christmas morning provides a means of illustrating the concept of morality to someone too young to appreciate the idea of rewards after death.

Instead of being a lie, I draw a distinction between literal truth and figurative truth. Did god create the universe in seven, 24 hour, terrestrial days? Did Noah really take two animals of every kind onto the ark? I think the answer to both of these questions is no. These stories illustrates a fundamental truth about the universe and the world we live in, but, like the idea of Santa Claus, they are only meaningful when considered figuratively; as literal truth they are absurd.

Admittedly the allegory doesn’t always work. For starters, I haven’t figured out the symbolism of the flying reindeer. More importantly, one of the serious problems with using this as a tool for teaching morality is that parents often don’t follow through on their end of the bargain. As Santa’s representatives, they are really the ones doing all the knowing about the bad/good sleep/wake business. If parents indulge their children on Christmas morning even though the kids don’t deserve the reward for being good, then it destroys the message. It in fact sends just the opposite message and reinforces bad behavior. Further there are parents who are unable to provide suitable rewards to their children, even though they have had exemplary behavior. As I said before, the symbolism isn’t perfect, and it is probably better for the children of these parents to know the truth, than to believe Santa was punishing them in spite of their good behavior.

Lastly, I think there is a certain magic to kids believing in Santa Claus. Children are remarkably perceptive, and I imagine they know the truth much sooner than any of them let on. Part of the magic of Christmas morning, is that children know that the adults are engaging in a fantasy with them, and adults even go so far as to sneak around putting presents under a tree and filling stockings in order to sustain the fantasy.

In spite of the drawbacks, I intend to heed the message of that dream. One day, I hope to find out why god, or my subconscious, or whatever cosmic force decided to send me that dream that night. And, even though I have decided that my son will be raised to believe in Santa Claus, I won’t stop questioning why, and to what extent, I should foster this belief in him.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I am a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon, and have been all my life. I haven’t been the most regular church goer for the past few years, but I have always lived the Word of Wisdom. Most people who know anything about the LDS church, know about the Word of Wisdom. They may not know it by this name, and they may not have all of the finer details but they do know that Mormons aren’t supposed to smoke, drink alcohol, coffee, or tea (these last two sometime being lumped into a specific prohibition against caffeine).

As Greg and I finished our meal, we continued talking, but as any restaurant patron knows, once you’ve finished eating, the restaurant wants you out of that table. They aren’t going to make any more money off of you if you stay longer. If there are people waiting, they are likely losing potential customers, so they stop re-filling your water, and leave you with the impression that it’s time to move along. So we exited the restaurant, and with no where else to hang out we parted ways.

So then this weekend my wife and I were participating in another friend’s wedding festivities. After the rehearsal dinner on Friday, the groom invited us for drinks at a pub in the hotel where his family was staying. Most of the bridal party was supposed to be going and it looked to be a lot of fun, but we declined. With Laura being in the last few days of pregnancy, we would have turned down a late night in a bar anyway. Far too often, though, I have had to turn down a friend, or worse, an acquaintance who could have become a friend, because I choose to follow these guidelines.

I don’t regret not drinking. I am quite proud of the fact that I have never consumed a drop of alcohol, or coffee, and I have never smoked. I do regret that there really isn’t a social equivalent of a coffee shop or bar for someone like me. Something that can take the place of going out for drinks, or sitting down for a cup of coffee. An unstructured activity that is less formal than a meal, yet still provides a stimulus to conversation. In essence, a way to say, “Let’s hang out and talk” without the social awkwardness of what to do when the conversation ebbs.

I find it ironic that while Christ taught in parables so many fundamentalist Christians believe the Bible should be taken as absolute literal truth. How many of the things that Christ taught would be utterly meaningless in a modern context if interpreted absolutely literally? His parables lose all meaning if interpreted solely within the context in which they were taught. Christ even taught that he was speaking in parables to disguise the truth from non-believers. If this is the case, does it not follow that there may be other places in the Bible where a parable or allegory might be used to explain complex concepts?

I believe parables have been used from the beginning to explain things in a way that everyone can understand. At a basic level it is enough to accept that god created the Universe, but as with any parable there are multiple layers of meaning and individual understanding. In a way I feel sorry for the men making their offer on campus today, because as they cling to their strict interpretation of the Bible, they are no better off than the Pharisees and Sadducees who could not see past the literal interpretation of Christ’s teachings.