Vexen Crabtree's Live Journal

My tweets

Sun, 12 May 2013 11:00:10 GMT

Sat, 23:33: A few updates http://t.co/KcXE2tU6cJ

A few updates

Sat, 11 May 2013 22:33:30 GMT

"Why Did Some People in the Bible Live So Long?" - I've updated section 4. "Sociological Data on Life Expectancy Versus Religion", given it a new scattergraph with data from 2009/2011 to replace the 2002 data, and the associated text is rewritten. Over those 7 years, the trends have remained the same.
What is the Best Country in the World?: An Index of Morality, Conscience and Good Life - I have added a section on Gay Rights and Equality. The Netherlands, Belgium and Canada are the most equal and accepting countries. This has changed the rankings, with Switzerland and Germany just dropping out of the top 10 best countries in the world.
Errors in Thinking: Cognitive Errors, Wishful Thinking and Sacred Truths - I've added section 3.1 "Story Telling and Second-Hand Information", and, added some notes from psychologists Jonah Lehrer's and Daniel Kahneman to sections "Pareidolia: Seeing Patterns in Random, Complex or Ambiguous Data", and 6.1 "The Prevention of Errors: Skeptical Thinking".
Christian Moral Theory and Morality in Action: Biblical Morals and Social Disaster - Added a few things to this page. (2.5) A description of the horrible morals of the story of Lot and the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18 and 19, (3.1) The rise of Pauline Christianity and its eradication of earlier forms of Christianity, (3.2) Christianity and the slave trade.

My tweets

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:00:05 GMT

Tue, 00:47: http://t.co/BS7Nn2dOSf : added stats on who makes most spam & malware + added Economic Freedom Index. New Zealand + Switzerland moved up.

My tweets

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:00:05 GMT

Sun, 00:58: Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN): In Southwalk, London, UK http://t.co/bVZBwdvuc2

Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN): In Southwark, London, UK

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 23:58:01 GMT

A new page: "Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN): In Southwark, London, UK"

The contents menu is:

Headed by T.B. Joshua, this chain of Christian evangelical churches has its headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria, and claims that healing touches can cure HIV and AIDS amidst other diseases, even over prayer lines. They are affiliated with Emmanuel Global Network (UK) Limited (UK registered charity) and run their own TV channel, Emmanuel TV. They have been responsible for at least 6 deaths from patients who were told to stop taking their medication, and, advise people as that their faith healing as a 100% success rate, HIV infected patients can after treatment by the church (through prayer lines and healing hands), go on to start families. Such incredibly irresponsible and ignorant beliefs cause the spread of HIV/AIDS and other serious infections. Shockingly, their UK branch is a registered charity, based in Southwark, London.

My tweets

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:00:18 GMT

Tue, 20:49: Re: "Jesus Did Not Exist"… http://t.co/735gLllA

Why Do Women Have to Cover Their Hair in Judaism, Christianity and Islam?

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:56:38 GMT

A new page! "Why Do Women Have to Cover Their Hair in Judaism, Christianity and Islam?"

The contents menu is:

My tweets

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 12:00:26 GMT

Fri, 12:43: Don't Panic: The World is Not About to End and Western Culture is Safe!… http://t.co/J2Yk9yXa

Don't Panic: The World is Not About to End and Western Culture is Safe!

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:43:38 GMT

A new page! "Don't Panic: The World is Not About to End and Western Culture is Safe"

The contents menu is:

The long introduction reads...

Popular culture is worse than it ever has been. The education system is following it into disordered inadequacy. Unemployment is undermining society and perhaps as a result, crime rates are getting scary. Immigration is out of control. It is going to be like the fall of the Roman Empire, with weak government no longer in touch with the lives of the citizenry. The European Union is on the verge of collapse, and, the Internet era is eroding our ability to form friendships. Computers games and TV are increasingly violent and graphic, films are now nearly all shallow and simple. Did I mention that crime rates are rising? Global warming and the global economy have created insurmountable problems. All of us, in our lives, are going to face chaos and witness the mass failure of morality and decency. The young no longer respect the old. Jobs and marriages are no longer for life. Did I mention the crime rates?

This, with a few variant details, is what they will think in the 2020s, beause they also thought it in the 2010s and 2000s. The 1980s was a decade obsessed with the rising power of computers - they'd turn against us soon, for sure. And recessions were seemingly endless - the anarchists were winning. But perhaps they were right in the 1960s where they warned that mass immorality and liberality would destroy civilisation - if we survived nuclear war, that is. Still further back, those same feelings were echoed in the Industrial revolution, at the end of the era of Empires and at the foundation of global shipping which heralded unheard-of immigration and globalisation (hundreds of years ago). As mankind moved into cities, or into towns, the outcry against the changes in morality and customs was as loud as it was paranoid. However do we survive?

Luckily for us, it seems that the more people predict chaos, uncertainty, cataclysms and the end of the world as we know it, the less likely it is to actually happen. Crime rates are falling, large scale wars have apparently ceased to occur, worldwide poverty is decreasing, literacy has been on an unstoppable rise for hundreds of years, and technology and medical science are making astounding strides in preventing diseases (many of which are now gone for good). Jobs and marriages may not be for life, but we are living twice as long. Absolutely nothing is as bad as people say. The press thrive on bad news. Our egos trick us into thinking we are living in the most important times during our own lives. We're not. Those times are yet to come. The end is yet to come. Just remember to take a leaf from the British: Keep Calm, and Drink Tea.

My tweets

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 12:00:22 GMT

Tue, 14:25: ECHR rulings on Chaplin, Eweida, Ladele and McFarlane's cases of suppsed anti-Christian persecution… http://t.co/3XmTHEKF

ECHR rulings on Chaplin, Eweida, Ladele and McFarlane's cases of suppsed anti-Christian persecution

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:25:37 GMT

These were 4 separate cases, I've written them up on "Legislation and Faith: Religious Rights and Religious Wrongs" by Vexen Crabtree (2013).

Lillan Ladele refused to deal with same-sex couples in her public sector job.
Gary McFarlane refused to treat gay couples equally in his job as a sex counsellor
Shirley Chaplin was a nurse who refused to accept that a Christian cross was covered by the prohibition against wearing jewellery around patients.
Nadia Eweida refused to accept that British Airway's uniform code meant that she was, as a Christian, also covered by the code

The first three cases were all kicked out because being a Christian is not enough to make yourself exempt from equality law or immune to spreading infectious diseases (a nurse should have known better, really).

The judgement on the two anti-gay Christians (Ladele and McFarlane) was surely correct for many reasons. (1) It is immoral to discriminate against gays - even if you are Christian. (2) The government is impartial and treats people fairly. If you work for the government, it can of course fire you for not treating people respectfully and fairly. (3) If you receive public money, in a democratic country, you can't expect your biases to come before human rights.

The third case, nurses and medical staff cannot wear jewellery because it is KNOWN to be a serious carrier of infectious disease.

The Christian airline stewardess who wanted to wear her cross on the *outside* of her uniform was just being ridiculous and obnoxious - she was offered a job in BA where she didn't have to wear a uniform but turned it down. How she *won* this case was due to BA's short-sightedness in the years following their argument with her.

Read the ECHR's press release here if you want the actual facts... I'm getting the impression most news reports are a little on the sensationalist side! http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/webservices/content/pdf/003-4221189-5014359

None of these cases were anything to do with anti-Christian persecution and the sensationalist reports in the Daily Mail and Telegraph are just plain misinformed and misleading.

The Telegraph's article by Cristina Odone</i>

The Daily Mail's article just focused on the idiotic Eric Pickles' rant against immigrants. It starts with "traditional religious freedoms are under assault from the ‘intolerance of aggressive secularism’, a Cabinet minister will warn today", not mentioning that by "traditional" he actually means "freedom to be prejudiced against homosexuality while in government pay", and, "freedom to not have to obey dress codes if you're a Christian". Which is of course, not actually aggressive secularism at all, it is merely the lack of pro-Christian bias.

Anyway, both those articles are full of ludicrous, shallow and sensationalist comments from viewers, most of whom have clearly been misled by the articles. I suspect that they will not heed my warnings to go and actually read the ECHR case summary, because it is rather mundane and boring.

The Internet and Religion

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:49:23 GMT

A new page! "The Internet and Religion"

The contents menu is:

Noah, the Ark and the Flood from Genesis, and Its Historical Precedents

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:30:34 GMT

New page: "Noah, the Ark and the Flood, from the Bible Book of Genesis" by Vexen Crabtree. Menu of contents is:

Scientific Mistakes in the Qur'an

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:20:44 GMT

A new page! "Islam and Science: Errors in the Qur'an"

The contents menu is:

Docetism: Early Christianity of the 1st to 7th Century

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 23:13:17 GMT

A new page! "Docetism: Early Christianity of the 1st to 7th Century"

Related both to gnosticism and adoptionism but not necessarily one or the other. A bit hard to get good references on this type of Christian belief.

The New Age

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 23:00:06 GMT

A new page! "The New Age"

The contents menu is:

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:17:29 GMT

A new book review! A Book Review of "Key Thinkers in the Sociology of Religion" by Richard Fenn

The central theme of this book is Fenn's commentary on time (past, present, future), "possibilities" (being used in a mystical but undefined way) and about how the sacred can effect individuals a society and the relationship of the sacred to religion. The author uses words about time and the sacred in confusing and abstract ways, and, this book needs an opening chapter where Fenn lays out his own basic ideas as to what those words mean. The eleven Key Thinkers each have a chapter, and Fenn mentions some of the texts and ideas of those authors. But much of the book is unreferenced and unclear waffle. The key thinkers are not examined methodically or clearly. Each one has only a few works referenced, and one of those is generally a compendium, and very few are directly quoted from. This book suffers from a lack of prime sources.

Arguments and contexts are fragmentary and incomplete, sentences and paragraphs often state "therefore" and "then" but do not follow from previous sentences or paragraphs, and in general it feels like this is a collection of essays whereby Fenn puts forward his ideas of time, past, present and future and the sacred, and pads out each chapter with some commentary on a sociologist.

Lot and the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: In Genesis 18 and 19

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:50:10 GMT

A new page! "Lot and the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: In Genesis 18 and 19"

The menu:

Is God All-Powerful? Can God or Anything Truly Be Omnipotent?

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 02:33:28 GMT

A new page! "Is God All-Powerful? Can God or Anything Truly Be Omnipotent?"

The page menu goes:

Incest in the Bible

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 21:39:41 GMT

A new page! "Incest in the Bible: Adam and Eve and Their Children, and Noah and His Family"

The Second Epistle of John (just one chapter long!)

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 01:02:26 GMT

New page: "2 John - The 2nd Epistle of John" by Vexen Crabtree (2012)

The Second Epistle of John (2 John) is very short, just 13 verses. The author writes using the name of a well respected Christian in order to convince others that a particular belief is wrong. The entire epistle is about this one point. He writes against the belief that Jesus' body was spiritual in nature, and not fleshy; a belief known as docetism.2 John says that if you don't have the right beliefs about the relationship between Jesus-as-god and Jesus-as-man then you are godless (2 John 1:7-9), and Christians can't greet you politely nor welcome you in to church or home (2 John 1:10-11). Just to greet people with wrong beliefs, says 2 John, is to be in league with evil! This has no doubt helped encourage the intolerant and fundamentalist streams in Christian history. 2 John does contradict a few other verses in the Bible that say Christians should debate doctrine patiently and respectfully (1 Peter 3:15-16, 2 Timothy 4:2, Titus 3:2 and Colossians 4:6).

Some of the earliest groups of Christians were docetist but after the rise of Pauline Christianity they were forcibly silenced and mostly eradicated. Pauline Christians, who finalized the choice of what books went into the Bible, obviously then accepted 2 John as authentic, even though historians doubt its history.

Proverbs Chapter 6

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:12:56 GMT

A new page! "Proverbs Chapter 6" by Vexen Crabtree. The page breaks down Proverbs 6 into sections, but here is the overall summary:

Proverbs 6 often makes little sense. It argues that to promise your word is to be trapped and that a good way out is to engage in mutual sleep deprivation between you and your friend. Ant-watching is good for lazy people despite ants organizing mostly into war-waging tribes and food-stealing crime syndicates. It erroneously states that ants don't have leaders. It contradicts several verses from Matthew and Luke in a denial of universalism. In a list of 7 things God detests manages to list the same thing twice, and, contradicts several of the sayings of Jesus. It manages to argue against adultery on the grounds of avoiding the consequences, rather than on the grounds of morality. Proverbs 6 makes most sense when it warns that lazy people will become economically poor.

Another epic project!

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 16:49:45 GMT

OK... armed with some database kung-fu, I have set out to produce a Bible and Qur'an analysis website. This means, one html page per chapter (1100 or so them in the Bible), one page per Book (70+ Bible books, across various traditions), one per major section of the Bible (Pentateuch, New Testament, Old Testament), etc.

On the one hand I'm tempted to mechanically inject tons of database-driven notes (i.e., insert all the historical bible commentaries over the past thousand years). But the result would only ever be long lists of mostly junk commentary. So, I'm more inclined towards manually picking out Bible commentaries and writing them into sentences and paragraphs: the problem is, this is a humungous task.

So the solution is to do it in bits and bobs. Advantage: Can start producing bible-chapter pages straight away. Downside: It will start off looking sparse, and anyone browsing will find that most chapters have no commentary, just copies of the KJV and YLT text.

I'm still working on the back end, the navigation bar that floats on the right, etc, but, those things will have to improved as I go along as the site grows.

This has been done many times in history:

There are hundreds of sickening verse-by-verse Bible commentaries all written by God-fearing, Jesus-loving, gullible types.
There are critical texts but mostly based on historical evidence, for example Bart Ehrman's books.
There are idiotic "two hundred Bible contradictions!" sites that are shallow to the extent of being ignorant.
There are some very good "bible tools" and "bible gateway" sites out there that bring together all the others (apart from number 3s^^), presented on easy-to-navigate sites

There are no sites that bring together all sensible commentary and criticism in written English (The Skeptics Annotated Bible is list-driven).

So this project will rumble along with all my others! This post is mostly an apology for the fledgling site as long as it remains in its mostly-uncommented phase!

1 John Chapter 5

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 16:14:39 GMT

All about 1 John Chapter 5

Why Did Some People in the Bible Live So Long?

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 22:01:04 GMT

Launched a new page:

Why Did Some People in the Bible Live So Long?

Has a long list of the long-lives of many people according to the Bible, from Adam (930 years) and Methuselah (969 years), comparable to the extreme ages many cultural heroes were said to have lived to in Mesopotamia, Persia, and other ages that embraced mythology. The Bible has several contradictory ideas on longevity; the contradictions between Gen. 6:1-3 and Psalms 90:10, between Gen. 5:5 and Gen. 2:17, have led many to consider the whole idea of the extended longevity of early Biblical characters to be symbolic of their influence rather than to mean their actual physical lifespans.

But best of all, all countries with life expectancy worse than 60 years are highly religious (80% or more). All countries that are more than 60% religious have life expectancy under 75. There are no countries that have developed high life expetancy and retained high rates of religious adherence. And, finally, nearly all the countries with over 75 years life expectancy have low (under 40%) rates of religiosity. In other words, mass-religiosity is bad news for longevity.

Graph: