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I’ve never been a fan of Halloween – I see no more reason to celebrate the supernatural in October than at Christmas – and so I will be spending tonight pretending not to be in and waiting for the trick-or-treaters to bugger off. I did, however, come across an interesting Halloween legend recently, and for those who don’t already know it, I’d like to tell you the old Irish story of Stingy Jack…
Jack, as everyone for miles around knew, was a bastard, a complete and utter scoundrel. Not in a good, Han Solo sort-of-way, but in the worst way imaginable. Drunken and violent, thieving and vicious, he gave offense to all and gave charity to none. Talk of Jack’s antics eventually spread all the way to Hell, where the Devil was none too pleased to hear of a mortal whose evils were comparable to his own. Up he jumped, and headed off to Ireland, where he lay down in a lane that Jack frequently travelled.
Along came Jack, pissed as a fart, and stumbled over the body in the lane. “Wassat? Whoosis?” he slurred, only to see the body rise up before him. Jack sobered up fast when he saw the Devil’s grinning visage. He had long known that his activities would one day draw the wrath of Hell upon him, but hadn’t counted on it happening so soon. But Jack wasn’t a man to take death lying down, so to speak.
“Sure, and ‘tis the Devil, come no doubt fer to take me soul of’n to Hell,” said Stingy Jack. “An’ here’s me all parched and wid nary a drop of ale to soothe me passing. Say, Old Nick, will ye take a drink wid me afore we travel to the netherworld?”
The Devil saw nothing wrong in this, and allowed himself to be led to the nearest bar. There, he and Jack caroused until dawn, chugging down wine and ale until they were both tighter than a gnat’s arsehole. As the sun rose, the Devil turned to his drinking companion, and gave a horrible leer. “Time to go, Jack,” he said.
The barman blocked their path to the door. “There’s still the matter of last night’s bar tab,” he announced. “You’ve all but drunk my tavern dry – let’s see some payment, before you go waltzing off.” The Devil, being without pockets (having the hindquarters of a goat has its disadvantages sometimes) turned to Jack, who shrugged and pleaded poverty.
“But Oi’ll tell ye what, Old Nick,” he whispered conspiratorially. “If ye’ll only transform yeself intae a shiny silver penny, Oi can pay the barman’s tab. Then, later, ye can change back, an’ sneak off in the dead o’ the noight, leavin’ him out o’ pocket an’ all.” The Devil laughed raucously, and agreed to Jack’s plan. He transformed himself into a silver penny with which to pay the bar tab. All at once, quick as winking, Jack snatched up the penny and stuffed it into his pocket – a pocket in which he had earlier secreted a small gold crucifix he had stolen from a church.
The Devil raged and stormed, but he was trapped by the crucifix and unable to transform back into his real form. Laughing, Jack laid down the terms of his treaty. The Devil was to leave Jack alone for ten years, and promise not to take his soul into Hell. Trapped and humiliated, the Devil agreed, and Jack removed the coin from his pocket. Taking his true shape, the Devil glared at Jack, and stormed back off to Hell.
Ten years passed, and Jack was still a bastard. He lied, and he drank, and he stole, and he fought. He was having such a wonderful time that he barely noticed the body lying in the lane, but when he tripped over the prone figure the memories came flooding back.
“Ah, begorrah, ‘tis Old Nick once more, come for te take me soul te Hell!” moaned Jack. “An’ here’s me wid a pain in me belly, on account of Oi’ve not eaten today. Pray, Old Nick, will ye have pity on an old man an’ fitch me an apple from dat dere apple tree?”
The Devil, seeing no reason to deny his victim a last meal, shinned up the tree and picked an apple for Jack. Turning to go back down, though, he found himself unable to descend – a mystery, until Jack started laughing.
“Hahaha, sure an’ ye’re an easy mark, Old Nick,” chortled the drunk. “Oi’ve carved a cross on this old tree, and Oi’ll not let ye down ‘til ye repeats yer promise!” Trapped by the crucifix that Jack had carved on the trunk, the Devil glowered down from his tree, but there was nothing he could do to escape Jack’s trap and he knew it. Grudgingly the Devil agreed once more to Jack’s terms – the man was to be unbothered for another decade, and his soul would never enter Hell.
As Jack defaced the carved cross and the Devil climbed down from the tree, a strange look crossed his face. He had been tricked and bested twice by this truculent drunkard – so why did Old Nick look so pleased with himself?
Time passed, but barely five years later Jack’s fortunes ran out, and he died after yet another binging session. “Good riddance,” said the folk who lived around, and nobody turned up to the funeral. Jack’s soul drifted up to the Heavenly Gates, where Saint Peter was waiting to receive him. But Peter took one look at Jack’s rum-sodden features, bloodied fists and tattered, ale-soaked clothing, and barred the gates of Heaven to him forever. So Jack went down to Hell, but, thanks to his pact with the Devil, he was eternally prevented from entering there as well. Jack sat on Hell’s doorstep, and the Devil came out to meet him.
“Ahhh, Jack,” said the Devil. “You know you can’t come in here, even if you wanted to. And I dare say that the Old Man upstairs doesn’t want you sullying his nice pristine carpets either. You’re cursed now Jack – cursed to wander the cold earth forever, unable to rest and unable to pass on, neither dead nor alive. But never let it be said that I’m completely heartless…”
He handed Jack a small ember. “Here, Jack. Out of respect for your cunning and phenomenal debauchery, I’m giving you a little piece of hellfire. Take care of it, mind you – where you’re going, it’s the only warmth you’ll ever find… Now begone!”
And with that, Jack found himself standing in the lane again. The wind whipped around him and chilled him to the bone. His little ember of hellfire flickered and wavered in the breeze. Desperate to protect his one source of light and heat, Jack found a turnip at the side of the road, hollowed it out into a lantern and dropped the hellish coal inside. Then he set off down the lane, doomed to wander the world for the rest of time…
Nowadays, few know the story of Stingy Jack, or Jack of the Lantern, as he was later known. Nonetheless, each year we hollow out vegetables and put a candle inside, in unknowing memory of the original Jack o’ Lantern.
Andrea the Nerd has a fascinating and well thought-out post up at the moment regarding the idea of Christian salvation. I urge you to read her full article, but in summary she is basically pointing out the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in Christianity. This idea, that “lapsed” Christians were never really Christians in the first place, is clearly nonsense in the majority of cases – most ex-theists were devout believers before they became sceptics – but I’ve been re-examining my own beliefs in the light of the atheist meme that’s been doing the rounds, and I think I may not have been a true Scotsman after all. To expound on this, here are my answers to the meme, which I think began with The Atheist Jew (if you know otherwise, please correct me!)
Can you remember the day that you officially became an atheist?
Not as such, no. I remember the day I started thinking Christianity was a bit ridiculous (the He-Man episode), and I remember the day I read the God Delusion and thought, “Fuck! He’s absolutely right!”, but I’m coming around to the idea that I probably took to atheism so easily because the seeds of doubt were always there.
Do you remember the day you officially became an agnostic?
Again, not exactly. Even from an early age I liked the idea of God far more than I liked the logic of God. It was nice to think there was a Heavenly Father who loved and cared for me, and sent his son to die for me, but I think I clung to this idea more out of need and (after a while) habit than because I truly believed it. Too many contradictory ideas beset the God-concept, and so even though I enthusiastically defended Him throughout my childhood and adolescence, I was trying to convince myself more than anyone else.
How about the last time you spoke or prayed to God with actual thought that someone was listening?
Never did. I prayed passionately, but I also wished on stars, magpies, eyelashes, wishbones and (thanks to the children’s book The Queen’s Nose) fifty-pence coins. All of these, in my child’s mind, had equivalent chances of achieving the desired outcome. I think I believed it was the act of wishing that made the difference, rather than any heavenly response.
Did anger towards God or religion help cause you to be an atheist or agnostic?
I don’t recall ever being angry at God, partly for the reasons outlined above (I wasn’t convinced He was there to be angry with) but mostly because I Pascal-ed my way into figuring if He was up there then I shouldn’t piss Him off. I did get pretty annoyed at my co-religionists, though, mostly in the waning years of my belief when they refused to see that my arguments about the early Christian church and the nature of God were clearly right!
Here is a good one: Were you agnostic towards ghosts, even after you became an atheist?
I never believed in ghosts, even when I believed in Heaven, God and Santa Claus.
Do you want to be wrong?
Actually, no. I would prefer that there was not a neurotic, voyeuristic, sex-obsessed, vain, supernatural sky-daddy watching my every move and judging my every thought. The world seems to work fine without God – so what would we need Him for?
So, one has to ask, what makes a Christian? Is it a belief, a lifestyle, a set of actions or (as some claim) simply having at one point sincerely said a certain prayer? I considered myself a Christian, but since I’m now an atheist, many would contend that I was never “really” a Christian. Part of me agrees with them. But then, who’s to say that my accusers are “really” Christians themselves? What if they are one day in a position to respond to the above meme – does that mean they never actually had true faith? Personally, I’m quite content with my unbelief, but what happens if I have a Road To Damascus-style moment in later life and convert back to religion? Am I still unsaved?
More importantly – aside from the poor, delusional Christians, who the hell cares?
Didn’t donate to the Atheist Bus Campaign? Shame on you, you naughty heathen! Nevermind, there’s other ways you can make a difference – why not pledge a few quid to the push to get religion-based school selection out of the UK? The BHA’s Campaign Against Faith Schools is up and running, and they need a hefty wodge of cash to boost their lobbying potential.
Hands in pockets, people!
With the American Presidential Election coming up soon, I feel it’s imperative that I share an important realisation I’ve just had. Barack Obama is, in truth, the AntiChrist, who will bring about the end times and the destruction of the world. No seriously! See, it says in Revelation that the Number of the Beast (that’s the AntiChrist) is 666 (Rev 13:18), and if you look at Obama’s name:
Barack = six letters
Hussein = seven letters, which is only one away from six
Obama = five letters, which is also really close to six.
In fact, if you spell his name wrong – Barack Husein Oblama, for instance – then it’s easy to make the number of letters into 666 – the number of the Beast. Barack Husein Oblama is therefore the AntiChrist. QED.
Of course, the earliest texts of Revelation, like the one discovered three years ago at Oxyrhynchus (in a rubbish dump, of all places), demonstrate that the original number of the Beast was actually 616, not 666. In fact, other papyrus manuscripts offer 665 and 615 as possible numbers as well. 666 has survived as the canonical version because of support from Irenaeus of Lyons, a second-century bishop who condemned the other variants floating around amongst his contemporaries. So the actual number could be anywhere between 616 and 666 – about 50 possibilities…
But Obama’s obviously a Muslim, so you should vote for McCain anyway.
Why is Scripture considered by so many to be the literal Word of God? One of the commonest verses quoted by fundamentalists to back up this point of view is in Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy:
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” 2 Tim 3:16
This was, according to 2 Tim 1:1, the opinion of “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ”, and why should we doubt the words of one of the Church’s founding fathers? Here’s one good reason: he didn’t write them.
2 Timothy purports to be a letter from the very end of Paul’s life, when he was in Rome and nearing his eventual execution. Timothy had been imprisoned with Paul in Rome previously, and had also accompanied him across Asia – they were close companions. Why, then, does 2 Timothy make no reference to their shared experiences, no mention of mutual acquaintances in the city, and no reference to conditions in Rome at the time? All these were matters that should have been of great interest to Paul’s mate Timothy, yet the author of the Epistle doesn’t even touch on them. In fact, Paul only refers to events in the distant past, in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra – cities which he and Timothy (we know from Acts) never visited together.
Okay, that’s not a wholly convincing argument. Maybe Paul had good reason for leaving out information which would have been more relevent to his friend. Let’s look at the letter’s information concerning Paul and Timothy’s fellow evangelists in Chapter 4. 2 Timothy 4:20 conveys news of the unfortunate Trophimus, whom Paul left at Miletum because he was ill. Sad for Trophimus, since he wouldn’t be able to accompany Paul on his future travels.
Except… Acts 21:29, which takes place after Paul’s trip to Miletum, features Trophimus in a rather vital way – the Jews in Jerusalem belive that Paul has taken the Gentile Trophimus into the Temple, thus offending against Jewish law. Trophimus of Ephesus most definitely left Miletum along with Paul, since Jerusalem was next on their tour’s itinerary. This gives the lie to the writings of 2 Timothy, since the story of Acts is well-attested by archaeological and extra-Biblical sources.
Why would someone write a letter in which they pretended to be Paul? Well, let’s look back into the mindset of those First Century Christians. Theirs is a faith with few celebrity names, and although the schisms of later centuries would generate charismatic leaders by the bushel, the most prominent, influential and well-regarded Church elder is one Paul of Tarsus. Suppose you’ve had a few pertinent thoughts on how your church should be progressing; suppose also that you’re not a bigshot leader like Paul, but a fairly low-ranked member of the developing clergy. Why is anyone going to listen to your views on how to run a religion? You decide to pretend that Paul is in fact the originator of your ideas; this lends them weight if you can convince your own congregation, but any of your flock travelling further afield will no doubt hear stories that suggest Paul never said any such thing. To avoid this, you concoct a letter, address it to a known companion of Celebrity Paul who conveniently stuck around in the East rather than return to the Mediterranean stomping-ground you call home, and write down in it all the stuff Paul should have said. Then you circulate it amongst the Early Church and bingo! your ideas are now part of mainstream Christian theology.
There’s more evidence than the above that the Timothy Epistles are forgeries (you may enjoy browsing here and here), and if they are, it gives the lie rather ironically to the verse quoted at the start of this post. “All Scripture is given by the inspiration of God” – if so, why didn’t he give it to Paul himself?
It’s happening again – and this time Richard Dawkins is offering to pony up some of his fortune to help the project go ahead. They’ve already reached their target, but a few more pence never go amiss, so go over there and donate.
(H/T to Psychodiva for the link)
The other day I was watching Transformers: The Movie for about the twenty-seventh time (no, not the Michael Bay number from last year (although I did nearly wet my pants with uncontrollable fanboy glee when we saw it at the cinema, as Wifeshui will attest) but the classic 80s cartoon film featuring such luminaries as Leonard Nimoy, Eric Idle and Orson Wells (playing the role of a gigantic, planet-sized creature which devours everything in it’s path – so no method acting required there, then.)). Anyway, as I eagerly recited the dialogue alongside the characters, it occurred to me that there are certain religious themes in the subtext of the story, primarily Christian but with a few elements of Buddhist and Hindu cosmology incorporated as well. It’s easy to draw parallels between Optimus Prime, leader of the heroic Autobots, and Jesus Christ, for example.
Joseph Campbell, most notably in The Hero With A Thousand Faces discussed at length the idea that there is a certain archetypical hero myth which informs most human stories. The hero travels a very specific path. From ordinary beginnings he receives a “call to adventure”, travels a “road of trials” and achieves a goal or “boon” before returning to the ordinary world again. Campbell’s “monomyth” is apparent in many religious stories, from the ancient Egyptian myths of Isis and Osiris, through Jesus and right up to Luke Skywalker in the present day. As a result of this thematic unity, we still see what appear to be religious motifs arising in popular culture – a film with similar themes to Transformers: The Movie comes out at least once a week (albeit usually with fewer giant transforming robots in). The apparent religious undertones (the Christ-like Prime, dying for humanity; the god-like Unicron, “baptising” Megatron to give him a new and better life in servitude; the “Heaven” of Cybertron, only attainable after great struggle) are not there because the film is based on Christianity, but because both Transformers and Christians share a common mythological archetype. Its origins are lost in the mists of prehistory, in Freudian psychology and in the endless game of Chinese Whispers which transmits human culture, but we can see its footprints in Transformers, in Christianity, in Ancient Greece, in Babylonian beliefs, in folk-tales, in fairy stories and even in modern biographies. Stories of Jesus are just as much products of this universal human story as any other myth, and the sooner it is realised that Optimus Prime has as much right to our worship as Christ, the better for everyone.
Well, it finally got published (although not over here yet)… and the first review I’ve read has turned me off completely. “Bodice-ripper”? “Cringe-worthy meladramatic prose”? It sounds like Mills & Boon with a slight Islamic twist.
It’s a shame, really. I was hoping after all the hullabaloo surrounding its publication that The Jewel Of Medina would be at least a well-researched read, but it sounds bloody awful. Mind you, Gibson Square (the UK publishers who have the rights to it) have something of a reputation for publishing books which are more “controversial” than “classic”, so perhaps it should come as no surprise.
If there are any atheists out there who like this sort of pap, I’d be interested to hear your reviews. I’m sure Shelina Zahra Janmohamed’s review is at least partially coloured by her religion, so if you have no god and no literary standards, I’d love to know what you think.
It started out so well…
Wayne Holland’s The Bible: Why God Had Nothing To Do With It opens with a straightforward and easy-to-follow piece of logic. To summarise his conclusions: a god with the attributes normally claimed for the Christian God would have never had a hand in the writing of the Bible, since He would only allow himself to be known by faith, and setting down His word in the Bible would be a form of evidence. It’s not the most profound piece of theological reasoning ever set to paper, but Holland does a good job of expounding the theme. If you accept his definition of godhood, then you also have to accept his conclusion that the Bible is not divinely inspired. This little essay, in itself, makes for a nice little atheist argument, and if the author had confined himself to illustrating and expanding it I would have no gripe with his work. What follows this opening chapter, however, is a remarkably shoddy piece of scholarship, meant (it appears) to demonstrate that the Bible is in fact an economic instruction manual.
Holland’s central thesis seems to be that the books of the Bible form a sort of socialist tract, encouraging state support for the poor and the egalitarian distribution of resources. Being somewhat inclined in that political direction myself, I’d love to be able to accept such a notion (if for no other reason than to fling it in the face of conservative evangelicals who believe capitalism was the eleventh commandment), but the argument put forward in The Bible: Why God Had Nothing To Do With It is so weak and confused that any fundy worthy of the name could pick it apart with one hand. The author displays no knowledge whatsoever of the historical context behind the Bible’s many disparate texts, and even seems in places to assume that the Old Testament documents are essentially contemporaneous with one another. He cherry-picks verses with abandon, basing the meat of most of his argument on a single verse in Psalms and about half-a-chapter of Isaiah. He applies vastly speculative interpretations to the letters of Paul, and makes assumptions about Jesus’ teachings based on little more than imagination. Not only that, but the entire content of the book seems to reject the conclusions arrived at in the opening chapter, and assume that there is some sort of divine authority behind the Bible.
As an example of how the Bible can be subjected to myriad interpretations, The Bible: Why God Had Nothing To Do With It is an excellent study. As a piece of biblical scholarship, however, it is sadly very much lacking.
Communist regimes are not renowned for their support of religion. The descent into totalitarianism which has followed most of the world’s dalliances with Communism tends to discourage religious development. That lovable scamp Kim Jong Il in North Korea seems to have got the balance about right in this respect, though, since the nuttiness of his Juche ideology and personality cult is matched only by the balls-out craziness of North Korea’s only other significant religious movement, the strange synthesis of faith that is Chondogyo.
Chondogyo is a relatively recent development, being only about a hundred years old. It’s a strange brew of Christianity, shamanism, traditional Korean ancestor worship and Buddhism, with a hefty seasoning of patriotic Korean nationalism as well (which is probably why it survives under Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship). It has its roots in the peasant movement of Donghak (again, lending it a smattering of Communist kudos), although modern Chondogyo was actually formulated when the Emperor Gojong combined Donghak with Buddhist and Christian elements to form his new state religion.
Donghak’s basic tenets were created by a nineteenth-century monk named Choe Je-u, who concocted his belief system from Confucian and Taoist teachings and twisted it into a national faith for Korea by adding elements of Korean shamanism.. He was eventually executed in 1864, on an ironic charge of spreading Catholicism – a faith which he considered highly deficient in its theology. It was not until 1905 that a later leader of the movement, Son Byong-Hi, changed the name of Donghak to Chondogyo and promoted its nationalistic ideology in the face of growing Japanese expansion. When Japan annexed Korea in 1910, Chondogyo became immediately popular with the Korean resistance movement, and it was under these conditions that Emperor Gojong converted to the faith and developed its modern form. This resulted in the great paradox of Chondogyo – in spite of its substantial foreign sources, it is highly insular and nationalistic. Chondogyo sees Korean culture as sacrosanct, and resists any influx of foreign influence, advocating exclusionism wherever possible.
Chondogyo’s basic theology claims that God (“Haneullim”, a Korean sky deity whose attributes were tacked onto the Christian God by Empeoror Gojong) resides not in an abstract and distant heaven, but in every human being, and that our goal is to create heaven on Earth. In some respects, one could see Chondogyo as a humanist religion, since its tenets follow roughly the same philosophy; however the key difference is that the Koreans believe in an actual presence, separate from their own humanity, which inhabits them – a sort of parasitic god, if you will.
The humanist aspirations of Chondogyo, together with its nationalist tendencies and emphasis on social improvement, have made it the unofficial state religion of North Korea, where about 12% of the population practice it openly. Other religions are suppressed, but this one seems to have Kim Jong Il’s tacit approval – there is even a political party affiliated to the faith. It looks as though Korea’s home-grown theology may survive Communist rule and remain in the Korean mindset long after Kim has passed away, promoting Korean nationalism and a god that reminds me of Ridley Scott’s Alien…
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