The "Christian" definition of marriage

I find it quite amusing, especially nowadays (because gay marriage has somehow become such a big issue recently in many countries) how Christians define the "traditional" and "Christian" marriage as "between one man and one woman."

Where exactly is this definition found in the Bible? Sure, there are some passages that allude to marriage, but nowhere is polygamy prohibited. On the contrary, polygamy is not only allowed (and quite many of the greatest and most righteous men of God were polygamous) but there are laws governing such marriages, such as for example (Deuteronomy 21):

If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.

There is, in fact, no passage in the Bible that forbids polygamy, or even recommends against it. So where exactly does this "between one man and one woman" come from?

A few Christians will argue that either those laws were for the ancient Israelites only, or that they do not hold anymore (because of Jesus or something.) This doesn't help much, though. Nowhere in the New Testament is this corrected or changed, and nowhere is it said that it's exclusive to Israelites and that gentiles have a different rule for this. What's worse, that argument would imply that God's universal, objective law about such an important thing as marriage does not apply to all of his followers equally or, what's worse, has changed.

The two "ten commandments"

This is something that surprisingly few Christians, even those who avidly study the Bible, know or think about, even though it's very plain and direct, and it's a very well known thing among most biblical scholars. I find it quite curious and strange how largely unknown this is, even among avid readers of the Bible.

According to the story described in the book of Exodus, after the people of Israel escaped Egypt, Moses climbed the Mount Sinai, where God gave him two stone tablets with the famous and well-known "ten commandments." These commandments are listed in that part of the story (in Exodus 20.)

Moses spent a long time there, and when he descended from the mountain, he saw that the people of Israel were worshiping a false god, he got extremely angered, broke the stone tablets and ordered the perpetrators to be killed (way to obey the commandment he just got about not killing, but that's besides the point here.)

After the whole mess was sorted out, he climbed the mountain a second time and got two new tablets with the commandments.

This is the version of the story that 99.9% of Christians know and love. But here comes the tiny detail that, quite amazingly, very few Christians are aware of: The commandments written on that second pair of tablets are quite different from the first ones. (A few of them slightly resemble their counterparts in the first set, but the majority are completely different.)

What makes this especially egregious is that the scripture explicitly states that these new tablets contain the same commandments as the previous one. The beginning of the chapter (Exodus 34) that describes God giving Moses the second pair of tablets explicitly and unambiguously states:

The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

This is not something that's up to interpretation. It couldn't be much clearer than that. It quite explicitly states that the words are the same as those on the first tablets. Yet quite obviously they are not.

Moreover, and even more egregiously, after the new commandments are listed in this chapter, they being the ten commandments is then explicitly reinforced like this:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

It couldn't get more explicit than that.
 
This is a well-recognized discrepancy among biblical scholars. The two sets of commandments actually have names: The well-known ones are named "the ethical decalogue" and this new set of commandments is named "the ritual decalogue."

Yet, among most non-scholar Christians, even those who study the Bible a lot, this is surprisingly little-known.

Grand-scale projection and scientific revisionism

There's a section of Christianity that not only has the "classical" set of dogmas and religious beliefs, but on top of that has built a large-scale revisionist world view that basically rewrites the history of science, as well as its current state. The size and scope of this world view is actually quite incredible at times. It could almost be classified as a religion all in itself.

Two of the core tenets of this revisionistic world view are the (mostly made-up) concepts of "atheism" and "evolutionism", as well as the complete rewrite and reversal of the history of science.

The historical fact is that science started to proliferate in the so-called Age of Enlightenment when science was separated from philosophy and religion (before that, the three were generally considered parts of the same thing.) A new movement of science emerged, which was based on rationality and evidence, and the examination of reality without any preconceptions or biases. It is also a very well known fact that religion, especially Christianity and Islam, have always hindered scientific progress, sometimes to incredible lengths.

As incredible as it may sound, this Christian revisionist movement tries to completely reverse this. They claim that Christianity actually spawned modern science, and that Christianity has always encouraged scientific progress. Moreover, they claim that "atheism" and "evolutionism" (as they define them) has on the contrary hindered scientific progress. They say that "atheism" and "evolutionism" have never produced any scientific theories nor practical applications, and that it's the theistic Christians who have.

The amazing revisionism actually doesn't stop there. They claim that even today "atheism" and "evolutionism" are hindering science, and that only a Christian world view can help science progress. (As "evidence" of this, they cite some mistakes that science has made during history, and claim that, somehow, they were caused because of the "atheist" world view, and that, somehow, if they had a "Christian" world view, they would have not made those mistakes.)

In other words, they are projecting the known effects that the Christian religion has had on scientific progress during history, and even today, onto "atheism" and "evolutionism", blaming them for their own faults, completely reversing the known facts.

And no, this is not just a fringe idea that some random people on the internet have come up with. There are many publications, "documentaries" and a lot of material written about this among these revisionists. There's an entire web of material that reference one another, rivaling and even surpassing the largest conspiracy theories out there. Completely in par with holocaust denialism, AIDS denialism and the anti-vaccine movement.

Like conspiracy theories, I consider this revisionist movement a religion of its own, even though it stands on top of Christianity. (It endorses Christianity, but in principle it's pretty independent of it.) The people advocating this are extremely religious and dogmatic about it, have built an incredible amount of psychological defense mechanisms to counter any criticism and objections (rivaling those of Christianity itself,) they have an astounding amount of material, and discussing this with them is basically futile. It's as impossible to change their minds as it would be to convince them that the Christian god doesn't exist.

Christians don't actually read the Bible

It's a kind of an old adage among atheists and skeptics that most Christians haven't actually even read the Bible. And this is true.

It's extremely hard to estimate any kind of numbers, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if, worldwide, less than one self-proclaimed Christian in a thousand has ever heard more than about 20 verses of the Bible in his or her life. Heard. Much less read. (I wouldn't be surprised if less than one Christian in a hundred thousand has actually personally read more than about 20 verses from an actual Bible.)

Most curiously, the majority of regular churchgoers read surprisingly little of their own holy book. These have obviously heard significantly more verses (because of them being preached from the pulpit) but surprisingly many have never even opened a Bible themselves.

The obvious problem with this is, of course, that they are fed only certain selected parts of the Bible. They never get to hear or read the most problematic parts.

Not that it matters much, though. Even if they stumble upon some of the more problematic parts, they just tend to ignore them and quickly shove them aside (with at most a thought of "there's probably an explanation to this.")

Just to take one example, and not even from the Old Testament, but the new one, consider this (from 1. Corinthians 14):

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

This notion isn't isolated. There are other passages that affirm it, such as this one  (from 1. Timothy 2):

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

There are, actually, some denominations of Christianity that take these passages seriously and apply them in their congregations. However, quite obviously these denominations are a very, very small minority among Christianity in general (unless we count Catholicism as one that applies these verses.) In the vast majority of them these and other similar verses are happily ignored.

The vast majority of churchgoers don't even know of the existence of these verses and have never even heard of them. Those who have heard of them simply ignore them or make up hasty rationalizations. In denominations which completely ignore these verses and allow women to preach and speak in churches, obviously these particular verses are never preached to the congregation. If someone asks about them, the explanations become quite wild and varied.

Dinosaurs being alive disproves evolution?

There's a really common notion among creationists that if dinosaurs were alive today, it would somehow disprove evolution.

I have never quite understood where this notion comes from, or what the rationale is behind it. I have never actually seen any creationist explain why this would be so.

The theory of evolution has nothing to do with when or how some specific clade went (or didn't go) extinct. Dinosaurs going extinct 65 million years ago has exactly zero relevance with respect to the theory of evolution. The theory does not deal with history and extinction events. It deals with the biology of large groups of living beings.

There have been actual cases of clades that were thought to have gone extinct tens of millions of years ago, yet only recently it was discovered that they did not. So what? It doesn't say anything at all about the theory of evolution.

I think this is yet another case of creationists having a completely mistaken notion of what "evolution" actually is, but in this particular case I am having hard time figuring out what exactly it is that they are thinking. I have yet to see any actual explanation from them on this.

Slavery in the Bible

The fact that the Bible talks about the people of Israel owning slaves is so utterly undeniable that basically no Christian dares to even try to deny it. However, the majority of them often go to incredible lengths to try to justify, whitewash and rationalize it.

The typical whitewashing goes something like this:

"Slavery" in the Bible should not be confused with what we commonly understand as slavery, ie. the kind of slavery that was prevalent for example in the southern United States in the past. In the United States slaves were basically like animals, often even less. They were regularly mistreated, abused, tortured and even killed, and of course they were slaves for life. "Slaves" in the Bible, however, were more like servants. They were well cared for, they could own property, and they could even buy their freedom. God's law imposed severe punishment on those who mistreated or killed their slaves. Slaves were also freed as a matter of course each seven years.

This kind of whitewashing sounds good and grandiose to those believers desperate to have slavery in the Bible explained to them, and why it's not a bad thing there. With rationalizations like this they can shut the nagging voice in their head that casts doubts on this particular aspect of the Bible (which should otherwise be perfect.)

However, this rationalization (which is extremely common) ignores several facts, all of them found directly from the Bible itself. (There are also many other facts that we know from history.)

Firstly, this kind of rationalization glosses over the fact that many of said slaves were spoils of war. There are numerous examples in the Bible where, very directly and unambiguously, it is told how the people of Israel invaded an enemy city, killed all of its men, and took its women and children as spoil of war.

Most apologists dare to object to this by claiming that this was actually an act of mercy. So let's get this straight: Enemy combatants invade your city, kill your husband, father, brothers and other male family members, possibly before your very eyes, and then take you and your sisters and children against your will as slaves to a foreign country. And this is supposed to be an act of mercy? In which universe?

Most importantly though, regardless of how "well treated" these slaves might have been (which in itself is a suspect claim,) it's undeniable even from the Bible itself that they were considered property (which is directly stated as such,) and that they were not free to do whatever they wanted and leave as they wanted.

Owning other people as property is an abomination, and nowhere does the Bible forbid this practice. If the Bible were truly perfect and the word of a benevolent God, most certainly there would be clear prohibitions against this, along the lines of "you shall not own other people as your property, for that is an abomination in the eyes of your Lord."

Moreover, not only does the bible not forbid owning people as property, it actually does not forbid mistreating them either, unlike the typical rationalization claims. There is an infamous commandment in the old testament that if you hit your slave and he dies immediately, you must be punished, but if he dies a few days after, then no punishment. Curiously, and quite inexplicably, apologists take this very passage to demonstrate how God forbids mistreating of slaves, and how killing them is deserving of punishment. (They argue that the exception in that law exists because if the slave dies a few days later, it's not possible to tell if he died because of being hit or because of something else.)

These apologists are missing the main problem with this, and that's that the passage doesn't actually forbid hitting your slaves. It only forbids hitting them so hard that they will immediately die. In other words, according to the Bible, it's allowed to hit your slaves.

(By the way, it's quite incredible and outright amusing how much some apologists and Christians read between the lines and add their own embellishments to this particular passage in order to whitewash it. One of the worst ones I have seen claimed that it's actually talking about a soft rod used to discipline unruly children, and slaves, and that you were only allowed to hit once... because you know, the passage talks about hitting once, therefore we can deduce that hitting the slave twice is forbidden. It doesn't matter that nowhere does it say anything like this. But we can read it between the lines, of course.)

From history we know that there were several types of slaves in Israel; and in fact there are references to this in the Bible itself as well. The two major types of slaves were, as already said, foreigners taken as spoils of war, as well as indebted Israelites who paid their debts in the form of involuntary servitude. If we examine the passages talking about slaves buying their freedom, and being freed each seven years, it becomes quite clear that these passages are, in fact, talking about the indebted people who are paying their debts with servitude, not the ones taken as spoil of war.

The New Testament does nothing to correct any of this. The status of slavery is taken as a matter of fact, as a fact of life. Instructions are given in several passages to slaves (for example to be subservient to their masters.) Nowhere is it declared as an abhorrent practice nor prohibited.

As far as the Bible is concerned, slavery could well be practiced today without it being against any commandment or teaching in the Bible. Yet, curiously, no Christian endorses this. (And quite ironically, no Christian ever thinks where this new moral code came from. It most certainly did not come from the Bible.)

Argument from fossil forgeries

Many creationists keep repeating the half dozen most famous fossil forgeries (and at least one misinterpretation of events) over and over like parrots, as if that had anything to do with whether the theory of evolution is true or not, completely ignoring the facts.

People create forgeries of all kinds of things, usually for money or fame. Forgeries of historical and archaeological artifacts are being made all the time. Sometimes forgeries of fossils are made. This is something that just happens, and there's nothing that can be done to avoid it, other than study carefully all alleged findings that are of potential importance to determine their authenticity.

And that's the main point: How exactly do we know that those fossil forgeries are indeed forgeries? Because the people who have the necessary expertise, the scientists, are examining those fossils and determining whether they are genuine or not. In other words, the same people who creationists claim are trying to fool us into believing a false theory.

So why, exactly, would the "evolutionists" (as creationists call them) expose their own forgeries, if their intent is to deceive us into believing that they are genuine and to promote the theory of evolution?

Moreover, the claim is that "evolutionists" are trying to fool us with all kinds of fossil forgeries, and the half dozen famous examples are cited. Never are any names or actual examples presented of this happening in the present. If you ask them "who exactly is trying to pass these forgeries as genuine?" they never answer the question.

What's really happening is that individual persons are creating forgeries for profit or fame, and the scientific community are exposing them, as they should. This is exactly what one should expect to happen. It's unfortunate that some individuals are trying to make money from this, but it's inevitable. The important thing is that these forgeries are studied and exposed as such.

One thing that these creationists never acknowledge is that hundreds and hundreds of forgeries of biblical artifacts have been created during the history of humanity. By their own logic that should mean that the biblical stories are likewise false. But no, this is somehow different, even though they cannot explain why.