Former Fundamentalists: biblical criticism

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Testimonies of Exorcism

From: Winston
To: ed.babinski
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2004 7:02 AM
Subject: Link to my article debunking Christian fundamentalist arguments

Hi there,
I just put up my article debunking the main arguments of Christian fundamentalists. Here is the link. I was wondering if you could post it somewhere on your site. It was written to help newly ex-fundamentalists.

Debunking_Christian_Arguments.htm

Thanks,
Winston

From: Ed Babinski
To: Winston
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 2:37 AM
Subject: I read your testimony, Winston, very interesting!

Hi Winston,

Thanks for writing edwardtbabinski.us

I enjoyed your personal testimony about leaving fundamentalism at your website.

...especially this part: "My mom... took me to see some Spiritualist healers and Taoist-like temples to try to get help for the mental illness I had for 2 years. Three Different spiritualists who didn't know each other told her that they could 'see' two souls inhabiting me for a past karmic crime I committed against them. She was instructed by the leaders of a Taoist-like temple to perform these strange exorcism rites, which involved putting leaflet spells above the bedroom I slept in and having me take baths in some hot herbal water tossed in with yellow spell leaflets.

It was all weird to me and my Christian world view taught that Satan was behind these kind of things. But I thought oh well, being a Christian never helped me through those 2 hellish years anyway, so why not give Satan a chance at helping me?"

Your testimony parallels that of another former fundie friend of mine, Will Bagley, who lives in Washington state. Will was "born again," but later read the great Catholic mystics, then the great Eastern mystics, and today studies Taoism, vegetarianism, meditation, mental and bodily healing, life extension, channeling, massage, etc. Will sends out a regular e-newsletter on those topics. You two should meet for coffee and tell me all about what you discussed! Will's photo and testimony about how he left fundamentalism can be found in a book I edited, Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists (Prometheus Books, 1995). Though my book was published by that skeptical organization, it included testimonies of former fundamentalists who remained Christians, though more moderate and liberal, as well as the testimonies of two folks who left fundamentalism for Wicca and eastern mysticism, respectively. Only the final third of the book contains the testimonies of former fundamentalists who ecame agnostics and atheists. I thanked Prometheus for including such a broad range of former fundie testimonies.

Today there is a great website run by Steve Locks that features the testimonies of many former fundies, possibly the most well indexed and widest collection of such testimonies on the web. His site is simply named, "Leaving Christianity." Easy to remember, check it out by simply googling, "Leaving Christianity." It's number one.

Will and yourself also agree that the skeptics are too skeptical. Will is quite well read and also quite deeply into spiritual practices, and I am sure you two will find much to talk about, wish I was there to listen! Maybe send me a cassette tape of your conversation! And play a game of chess too! Why not some speed chess? (Will once won the championship of a large prestigious chess club in New Jersey, but hasn't played in years. Like Will, I was a top ranked high school chess player.)

Cheers!
Edward T. Babinski

edwardtbabinski.us writes:
Did you hear the story on the news about a preacher who sat on an autistic boy's chest, the mother believed her son could be healed of the demon causing the illness...

Faith kills boy, 8.

An autistic eight-year-old boy has died during a prayer service held to supposedly cure him of the evil spirits blamed for causing his condition. "[We] didn't do nothing wrong," the pastor, David Hemphill, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper.

US boy dies during 'exorcism' An autistic eight-year-old boy has died during a prayer service held to supposedly cure him of the evil spirits blamed for causing his condition. Torrance Cantrell was wrapped in sheets and held by his hands and feet while members of the Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith in the city of Milwaukee prayed over him. This procedure had been taking place three times a week. However, on Friday those involved in the ceremony - including his mother - noticed the boy had stopped breathing. Paramedics were called to the scene but were unable to revive him. The brother of the church's pastor, Ray Hemphill, who was also present at the ceremony, was arrested shortly after the incident on suspicion of physically abusing a child, local police said. "[We] didn't do nothing wrong," the pastor, David Hemphill, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper. "We did what the Book of Matthew said... all we did is ask God to deliver him." 'Tormented' Autism causes children to have severe problems relating to, and communicating with, people around them. In interviews with local newspapers, neighbours of the Cantrell family alleged that Torrance hated being touched and said that having people restrain him would likely have caused him a great deal of stress. However, David Hemphill said that the boy had been wrapped in sheets and had his shoes removed in order to prevent him from being hurt. "We were asking God to take this spirit that was tormenting this little boy to death," Mr Hemphill said. "We were praying that hard, but not to kill." David Hemphill started the independent church in 1997. It has a small congregation of six families. Story from BBC NEWS. Published: 2003/08/25 14:41:23 GMT © BBC MMIII

Common Progression in Religion

Scholars think that Jesus did not start out being "equal with God" but started out as a "heavenly mediator," a concept that became popular during the intertestamenal period, but most folks don't hear about intertestamental heavenly mediators in Sunday school, and instead think Christianity popped out of thin air. Here is a little discussion I had with someone recently on such topics:

CHRISTIAN: Jesus claim of being God was unique. He made the claim in a strictly monotheistic context and (not pantheistic) culture.

ED: We know only what others claimed about Jesus. Moreover, there were many Messiahs, Messiahnic ideas, and "heavenly intermediary" figures just prior to Jesus' day. The Melchizadek scroll found near the Dead Sea even says that God appointed Melchizadek (a human being) as a heavenly intermediary to judge the entire world. And that was before Jesus' day.

The Jewish Roman World of Jesus (great scholarly articles, great site)

Even in the Gospels you can see how in the synoptics (Mark, Matthew, Luke) Jesus pointed to doing God's will, "Do unto others, for this is the law and the prophets" (Matthew's sermon on the mount). -- "How do I inherit eternal life?" "Obey the commandments." -- "Pray this way... Forgive us as we forgive others." While in the last written Gospel (Gospel of John) Jesus is portrayed as pointing almost always at himself. So, the earliest three Gospels began with Jesus directing people to stare at where his finger was pointing, toward God, doing God's will, following commandments, while the last Gospel ends by staring almost solely at the finger itself, worshipping the finger of Jesus.

The history of religion features the same theme of the heavenly messenger getting raised to the status of the divine, superceding the message, becoming the whole message, again and again. Happened with the Buddha in Amida Buddhism (they pray "save me amida Buddha"). Happened earlier in Judaism where the "Torah" itself became holy, or the tabernacle, or things associated with God. Happened in fundamentalism in the 20th century where the "Bible" became God's inerrant words, and to doubt it's truthfulness even in little matters was condemned. Happened in Catholicism where the Popes were at one point elevated to the status of infallible "god-men," some said, "born sinless." Happens in religion, very common. The saint who loves God himself get elevated to near-divine status.

CHRISTIAN: The penalty in that CULTure, which he, Jesus, paid, was death.
He was nearly killed by stoning several times for this claim, and ultimately crucified for it. His response was not, "Hey, don't you get it?
Each of us is God."

ED: Actually that WAS Jesus' response in at least one case, "Know ye not that ye are sons of God?"

CHRISTIAN: His response was, "I am He, and if you don't believe Me, you will die in your sins."

ED: Late theological interpretation, that's from John 8:24, "I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am [he], ye shall die in your sins." Only the last written Gospel (The Gospel of John), has a theology of "believe" in a certain thing "about Jesus," or "die." (Also see John 3, "he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the son...")

Such a teaching does not appear in the three earlier synoptic Gospels, except in the LATE ADDED chapter of Mark. "he who believes not shall be condemned."

CHRISTIAN: I understand that this is not the Eastern view of the nature of God or the Muslim view.

Thing is, if you go to Buddha's tomb, his bones are in the ground. Same with Mohammed's grave. Same with Krishnamurti, etc.etc. They are all dead and have remained so.

ED: What's really remarkable is that Buddha could grow into amida Buddha, the savior Buddha, that you pray to "save me amida Buddha," even without the need of hoaky resurrection tales. Hindus also have saviors, divine avatars that selflessly incarnate on earth rather than remain in heavenly bliss.

CHRISTIAN: Go to Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem.

ED: As if any archeologists have ever proven that we know where Jesus was buried.

CHRISTIAN: They'll say come on in and look around. "He is not here. He has risen from the dead!" This is not reincarnation, but resurrection. You'll get a glorified, perfect body. Jesus walked through walls after his rez. We maintain our identity. It's going to be great. Just great. Amen and Amen. God doesn't need America. He is raising up and toppling down governments over the centuries until one day His kingdom on earth is a reality.

ED: "One day," thousands of years later. The N.T. is now older than the O.T. was when the N.T. was first written. Still, no new revelations.

CHRISTIAN: He started with just 12 disciples, now over one billion people worship the One who rose from the grave. The Good news is spreading like wild fire in South America, Africa, and India.

ED: Yes, it's spreading, especially the kind of "good news" that includes Pentecostal teachings, aggressive claims of healing, end of world forecasts, speaking in tongues, and anti-intellectualism. A couple hundred million strong. This growth is bound to deepen the rift between the southern hemisphere where such "Christianity" continues to grow, and the more secularized and academic northern hemisphere. Catholicism of a more charismatic and conservative sort is also growing fast in the southern hemisphere, where the Catholic church continues having to ordain new bishops for her more numerous diocese, and that may lead to a future rift between more conservative and miracle-mongering Catholics in the southern hemisphere and their northern hemisphere brethren, especially a rift concerning which pope to next nominate. Not to mention what's going to happen as entire religions continue to collide. (You don't unconvert 900 million Sunni Muslims overnight.)

CHRISTIAN: Some countries are now sending missionaries to the U.S! The future looks bright indeed.

ED: Do you imagine this is all just one big football game and you're a pep rally cheerleader? Christians are no different from other people, crazy about some things, crazy hateful about others. Trouble is when any LARGE group of such people gets together, trying to steamroller the world with their craziness. Then hell starts a poppin', hell between family members, between nations, etc. The drive to evangelize via emotional cheerleading is linked to the drive to demonize via equally emotional name calling. Beliefs in ancient religious dogmas and holy books are not a step up the evolutionary ladder, but more like jogging in place, because for every good thing Christianity does, it also tears apart families and weakens nations. The most Christian nation on earth fell, the ancient Roman Empire, after spending zillions on "faith based programs." And for all of Christianity's sins, not matter how many dirty ditches it fell into headlong, it never lost faith that only "it" was forgiven by God, how self-righteous. Christianity is like geocentrism, provides the same sense of confidence and security. Yes, it has survival value, because it confronts people's primal fears of death and the unknown, and simplifies it all down to "have faith, we are promised resurrection," and, "anything anyone else tells you is from the devil." No religion puts things in such a starkly primal primate fashion.

A Belief in Near Death Experiences

From: Kathy G.
To: Ed Babinski
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 2:08 PM
Subject: Jesus

I wish there was something profound that I could say to make you change your mind about this man Jesus. I wish you could know him Like I do as a comforter, heavenly father, a friend that I can tell anything to, teacher, answerer of prayers.

You are missing so much without him in your life. My father is 91 years old and loves the Lord. I know that he will be gone before long and it gives me such great peace to know that he is Heaven bound. He always tells me, "the best is yet to come, and that's Heaven."

I truly believe he lived and died for me, and I am so humbled and grateful for that, all I want to do is tell others about his love for them.

I will be praying for you that someday your eyes will be opened and you too will know, as the Bible says, "the peace that passes all understanding."

Kathleen G.

From: Ed Babinski
To: Kathy G.
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Jesus

Dear Kathleen,

I sincerely appreciate the love with which your email to me was filled.

Robert Ingersoll, America's "great agnostic," used to remark that there were sometimes hundreds of people outside his home praying for his salvation. He didn't mind he said, because it was like a boy holding a girl's hand, it didn't do either of them any harm, so long as the boy didn't squeeze the girl's hand too tightly.

I don't even feel any desire to disagree with you, or try to convince someone such as yourself of anything other than the joy you have found in your present beliefs, just as I wouldn't seek to convince anyone of any religion to leave it if they were wearing it fully, and practicing love as a result.

A mystical friend of mine who used to be a fundamentalist Christian once wrote in LEAVING THE FOLD that religion was like a cloak or clothes that you had to put on fully to see how they fit, and in the end after entering fully into love and also growing to recognize that love in others of other religions, and even in people of no religion, that cloak would grow lighter and lighter until you didn't even realize you were wearing it, but merely that you were a member of all faiths and non-faiths that practiced love.

Gandhi used to say that Christian missionaries shouldn't be trying to get people to leave their major religious faiths to become "Christians," but people should be trying to encourage each other to travel deeper into the heart of love that is found in all religious traditions and holy books. (See the book titled, ONENESS, a small volume, that mentions such verses in all the world's major religious traditions.)

So many faiths that wind and wind,
yet what the world needs most
is just the art of being kind.

Lastly, I am not an atheist, but think there may be something to Near Death Experiences.

Best, Ed

From: Kathy G.
To: Ed Babinski
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 3:56 PM
Subject: Near Death Experience

Thank you for your answer to my e-mail. You mentioned near death experiences. A few years ago I worked in an office with ten men. One of these men was a 37 year old by the name of Gene Mose. Gene underwent surgery on his foot in November of that year and as a result he got a very bad staff infection that put him in the hospital for 6 weeks. By January they realized that he had developed a heart problem and they immediately did heart surgery to replace a bad valve. During the surgery his heart stopped three times.

When he came back to work he came to my office one day and said, "Kathy, I want to share something with you. I don't feel I can tell any of the guys my story because they will think I'm nuts, but I know you will believe me." He then told he how when his heart stopped, his spirit rose above his body and he watched the surgeons frantically trying to save him. He said, "Kath, I saw Linda (his wife) sitting in the waiting room, I saw people going up and down the halls, and heard everything that was being said and done to save me. But the best part was the complete feeling of peace and joy and love that surrounded me during that time. I could feel the presence of God all around me and I really didn't care to come back. Noone will ever convince me there isn't life after death." He said, Do you think I'm nuts, Kath?"

I told him of course not. He said, "everything was as real as my sitting here talking to you today, and when they got my heart started my spirit went down until it was back in my body again."
That was in January of that year, and in August he layed down on the couch one night and died. Only 37, but he was ready to meet the Father.

If I had one wish in this life it would be that every person in the world would know beyond a shadow of a doubt what lies beyond this life. I'm sure we'd all live differently.

Sincerely, Kathleen G.

From: Ed Babinski
To: Kathy G.
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Near Death Experience

Thanks, I love hearing about such things. Who is your friend? He should contact Raymond Moody, the author of the bestseller, Life after Life, or Dannion Binkley, author of Saved by the Light (I think that was the title). They are not evangelical Christians, but they collect Near Death stories. Moody has an institute for such things up in North Carolina. Their studies revealled to them that one's religion didn't matter. You could be an evangelical Christian or something completely different, and still feel the love and the recognition that there was life after death. And yes, along with your friend I wish everybody got to experience that kind of happiness in the midst of suffering, pain and death, it would bring a lot of us closer together here on planet earth.

Or on the other hand, perhaps it would also make some of us ignore those who are suffering, since they knew they'd be going to a better place? Hmmm. A wise rabbi was once asked if there was any time in which it was best to think like an atheist, and he said "Yes, there is one time when it is appropriate to think like an atheist, in the giving of charity, since you must not imagine that God is going to right all wrongs and take care of the poor and suffering."

That being said, I still think that if everyone had such an experience as your friend, the planet would be a happier better place, with less fear and tension. Certainly if Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants both had it, along with Muslims and Christians and atheists and agnostics, then people could speak of their shared experience. On the other hand, some fundamentalist Christians and Muslims might still find ways to denounce each other's experience as "fake" or "phoney" or "of the devil." I know there are some fundamentalist Christians like Habermas who co-wrote a book on The Afterlife in which he argued that all of those positive loving and life-changing NDEs that non-evangelical Christians have are all a "delusion" and don't mean those people are going to avoid hell.

Best, Ed

Book of Enoch and the Bible's Judgment

DOUG: Hi i need to clarify how when the Lord comes with all His saints in Jude 14-15, do you think that is the day of judgment as written in Rom 2:16 "when the God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel". Plus could you tell me if you consider that Math 13:46-51 , 25:31. John 5:28-29 Rev 20:11 are all the same judgment. Then, are the saints of Ist Cor 6:1-3 the same as the "judgment was committed to them" of Rev 20:4 and Math 19:28 you who have folowed me will sit in 12 thrones judging 12 tribes of Israel. And of course Rom 2:16 and Jude 14-15 , Ps 149:9, Zec 14:6 Hope you can shed some light on these judgments and apparent judges.
Bless you,
Doug B.

ED: Dear Doug, Thanks for writing. Concerning your questions, I do not view the Bible as an inerrant heavenly puzzle book such that you can catalog and clearly define every reference to "judgments" and "judges" and fit each reference together in a tale of dogmatic, theological, and mathematical precision. Even inerrantist Bible believers disagree as to how many judgments the Bible speaks of, how many resurrections, even how many raptures. And there are dispensationalists and preterists who disagree on the "real" or "metaphorical" meanings of various descriptions of judgment, or whether such descriptions apply to the entire earth or only to the desctruction of one city on earth. Concerning such debate among Christians see:

InterVarsity Press:
Four Theologians Debate the Major Millennial Views

And Zondervan Press, Counterpoints Series:
Three Views on the Rapture
Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond
Four Views on the Book of Revelation

According to the modern historical approach to the Bible, the Bible is a book made up of many books, each of which is related individually to the times in which it was written and to the literature and ideas of its age. When the book of Jude was written, the book of Enoch was still popular. The "judgment" mentioned in the book of Jude (14-15) is actually a citation from Enoch 1:9, an intertestamental work:

Jude 14-15: 14Now Enoch, who lived seven generations after Adam, prophesied about these people. He said, "Look, the Lord is coming with thousands of his holy ones. 15He will bring the people of the world to judgment. He will convict the ungodly of all the evil things they have done in rebellion and of all the insults that godless sinners have spoken against him."
The quotation comes from the Apocrypha: Enoch 1:9.

I highly recommend the study of intertestamental works in order to understand N.T. apocalyptic passages in their historical perspective. The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (2 vols.) by Stephen J. Stein (Editor) and John Joseph Collins is the best starting point I know. The article in by Collins is a "must read" overview of the topic. It is evident that the nearness of a final judgment of the entire earth was a view held by some before Jesus' day (including a prediction in the Dead Sea Scrolls of the earth's final judgment within a generation of the death of the "Teacher of Righteousness").

Cheers,
Ed

Doug, You may also want to read my replies at my website to someone who asked me about the Bible's end times prophecies compared with modern history.

And see my online article, "The Lowdown on God's Showdown"

Cheers,
Ed

From: Ed Babinski
To: Doug B.
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004
Subject: Re: The Book of Enoch, a pseudepigraph (written under the pseudonymn of "Enoch

Doug B. writes:
Hi Ed , thank you so much for your lenghty and very interesting article on Enoch, marvellous.

Ed you touched on the expression "sons of God' as either angelic or sons of Seth, from that would you have an opinion(probably already documented, by that I mean I am sure you have) on the "Sons of God" of Hosea 1:10/Rom 9:24/Gal 3:26, now I know the Sons of God are the church, but could they relate to a position similar to the Genisis "sons of God'. Making us divine, possibly?.

ED: There are currently about nine different interpretations of the "sons of God" mentioned in Genesis. The words, "sons of God" are so general they have found usage and applications by different Bible writers, who wrote at different times, of different things. I don't think is there any one way to sum them up in any single easy fashion, just as I think it's impossible to try and get every different interpreter of the term, "sons of God" in Genesis to finally agree.

If you are interested in different opinions concerning the "sons of God" in Genesis, the NIV APPLICATION COMMENTARY ON GENESIS (2002) by Watson at Wheaton College, provides a summation of some of the major views. That commentary is an excellent read for a variety of reasons, check it out when you have the time. Watson acknowledges the original Hebrew meanings and original context of Genesis, as all scholars today must, but adds of course, his own "bridging concepts" to try and bring modern scholarship in line with 3rd century orthodox Christian interpretations of Genesis. It's an interesting attempt at being honest and also orthodox. I think his attempt fails, since his bridging concepts are really an example of "fudge factors" to try and bring his data in line with his orthodox Christian conclusions. But at least he has indeed presented the original Hebrew concepts and ideas of Genesis to the Evangelical public, including the flat earth, the firm firmament, no mention of Satan in Genesis, nor any inference that the serpent was nothing but evil (a crafty beast, a trickster, but not evil).

Besides the above commentary I suggest the following website for a scholarly list of different interpretations of the "sons of God" in Genesis.

Or, is God just relating to us a separation of Israel as , "daughters of Zion/Jerusaelm", from the, "Church/body of Christ/Sons of God", giving a feminine role to Israel and a male role to us.

Israel as daughters and us as Sons.

ED: I would suggest getting your hands on the Anchor Bible Commentary volume on Hosea, for a fleshing out of that book's historical context and what Hosea was most likely trying to get across to his readers. The Anchor Bible Commentaries are some of the most in-depth available.

THE WEBSITE BELOW WAS CREATED BY A LIBRARIAN/THEOLOGIAN, WHO COLLECTED AND ARRANGED THE PREMIER SCHOLARLY RELIGIOUS URLS INTO HANDY CATEGORIES FOR EASE OF USE:
Wabash Center