Letting Go of God While Holding on to Biases

An interesting article appeared recently in the San Francisco Chronicle's online site SFGate.com. There, reporter David Ian Miller interviewed Saturday Night Live comedienne Julia Sweeney (of the "It's Pat" sketch fame) on her recent autobiographical play, "Letting Go of God". The next step for Sweeney will be to release a book on the same topic, entitled "My Beautiful Loss of Faith Story".

The interview is telling. When asked how she responds to people with a strong belief in God, she replies "If somebody has credible evidence that there is a supernatural power that knows what I think and cares about me and offers me a life after death, I would look at that evidence with an open mind. On the other hand, I can't imagine there would be that evidence." She also states, "I'm adding up the evidence on either side, and I'm seeing the evidence of there not being a God is overwhelming compared to the evidence for there being a God."

Now, all this sounds as if Sweeney is trying to be fair, until you see some specific examples of just how far she has actually dug for this evidence. Here is one:

"To me, the Iliad offers more insight into human character and lessons than the Bible. You know, like Jesus was angry a lot. When he turned all those people into pigs and made them run off a mountain, it was so hateful, not just to people but to pigs. I felt upset for the pigs!"

Sweeney is trying to object to the story in Mark 5:2-13. However, her woeful misunderstanding shows that she hasn't even done a thoughtful reading of the text.

Sweeney's blog gives us a bit more honest reason for her objection to the Bible. In her June 5, 2005 post she answers the Christians who've offered interpretations of various biblical passages and says

"Yes, I know that the passages I site have all kinds of theories and complicated layers of meaning. I know the theories. I know the ways that people explain those passages. I looked into it. But now, it doesn't really matter because when I, after a long learning curve, really understood how the Bible was put together, which stories were kept and which weren't, what political situations were in place and what was useful to emphasise and so forth, then the Bible became a really interesting historical religious document to me -- inspiring but not sacred. Very much the work of ancient man and not the inspired word of God. So, you see, telling me all about the meanings behind those stories is sort of beside the point at this point."

For anyone who has been following our articles, you can see where that argument falls apart.

I hope that Sweeney will continue to try and approach the subject of God with an open mind. Like many atheists, though, what she thinks is a non-biased look at the evidence may in fact turn out to be one-sided from the very start. Let her react to the Kalam cosmological argument or to some of the best Christian thinkers out there. Only then can she say with confidence that she is earnestly seeking to find the truth.

Disinformation in "Muslims in America"

Morgan Spurlock had aired a television show looking at trying to understand different types of people in the U.S., but don't expect any objectivity from the show. 30 Days , Spurlock's series on Fox cable channel F/X sought to document the changing views of individuals who are placed in a radically different environment for thirty days. The show was entitled "Muslims in America" and looked to see what happens when a "fundamentalist Christian" is asked to live and worship as a Muslim. BBC News reported this as one of Spurlock's favorites:

"We took a fundamentalist Christian from my home state of West Virginia, somebody who is very pro-war, pro-'us versus them,' that when you hear Muslim the only thing he thinks of is a guy standing on a mountain with an AK-47," Spurlock said.
The man leaves his wife and children at home and goes to live with a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States.

"He dresses as a Muslim, eats as a Muslim, he prays five time a day, he studies the Koran daily, he learns to speak Arabic, he works with an imam, a Muslim cleric, to learn the history of Islam, what are the five pillars, why are they important." And the transformation this guy goes through in 30 days is "miraculous, it's incredible," Spurlock said.

This all sounds interesting, but the main problem comes in when you find out that the "documentary" is nothing of the sort. The show's producers had the outcome determined even before they started shooting, according to Debbie Schlussel, a reporter and commentator who specializes in fundamentalist Islam.

In her blog Schlussel writes, "When I met David Stacy, I was amazed at how ignorant and uninformed he was. This newly-inducted 'expert' on Islam never heard of Wahhabism--the extremist Sunni strain of Islam that now dominates the religion. He was unfamiliar with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. He did not believe me that Hezbollah murdered hundreds of U.S. Marines and civilians in Beirut and elsewhere. He seemed mystified to learn that President Bush shut down American Islamic charities, like the Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Foundation, for funding Hamas and Al Qaeda. He hadn't a clue about taqiyyah, the Koranic principle allowing deception of non-Muslims."

Schlussel then writes, "Spurlock planned the outcome of this 'immersion' show and he found the perfect tabula rasa in Stacy. Spurlock also found the perfect 'experts' and 'key members' of Detroit's Islamic community to propagandize their easily swayed dupe.

"Paul Findley is listed as an 'expert' consultant for the show. A non-Muslim with no special knowledge of Islam, Findley's real expertise is having been an anti-Israel congressman who was defeated when he was targeted by Jewish groups. Another 'expert' is Muqtedar Khan, a faux moderate professor with close ties to Muslim extremist group, Al Muhajiroun, as documented by Militant Islam Monitor."