"ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) - A woman accused of taking more than $73,000 from the Arlington church where she was an administrative assistant blames the devil. Papers filed with a theft charge Wednesday in Snohomish County Superior Court say the 62-year-old Arlington woman told detectives "Satan had a big part in the theft." The Everett Herald reported the woman was accused of forging the pastor's signature on 80 checks from the Arlington Free Methodist church. She was fired in February 2008. She told detectives she used the money to cover household expenses because she couldn't stand the thought of losing her home."
While it is easy to laugh at these types of stories, it demonstrates, in a fairly unique way, the effect that religion has on personal responsibility. There are large swaths of my country, (U.S.) where people genuinely believe the ideas behind this woman claims. They really really truly believe that there is a Satan who is out to get them. They believe that when their friends and family screw them over, it is to some degree, not their fault. Satan made them do it.
My point here is twofold. First, as stated above, religion removes a layer of personal responsibility for a person. Even if this example is silly, just talk to any born again Christian who is born again via a drug recovery program. They will swear to you that "I couldn't have done it without Jesus." When asked, "Do you ever think that you DID do it with out Jesus?" they talk about the feeling they get when the Holy Spirit is with them, etc. (See, also, professional athletes thanking Jesus for their victory, as if Jesus cares.)
My second point is that while even "reasonable" Christians scoff at the concept of Satan (and talking snakes and Noah's ark, and a 6,000 year old Earth and a virgin birth and walking on water and...) there are many many people who really believe this stuff. they don't just SAY they believe it like many other Christians. They believe it. They take it to heart when their pastors say that the Bible is the infallible word of God. To the atheist, these "fundamentalists" or "true believers" are actually more intellectually honest than all the other Christians who no longer believe in all of those "myths." While the Reasonable Christians "RCs" give lip service to the infallibility of the Bible, the True Christians "TCs" really believe it. This is one of the biggest disconnects in my country right now. The RCs don't understand that there are a HUGE number of TCs out there. When they see the end results of TCs beliefs (Gay hate speech, the Kansas school board inserting creationism into the science classes, etc) the RCs recoil. "Crazies" they shout. "Fundamentalists" they cry. "Is that REALLY what my religious scripture says?" they ask themselves on the inside. I suspect that a large number of RCs suppress that doubt by demonizing the TCs. But the point is there, festering.
LOGICAL ISSUE
Assertion: The Bible is supposed to be the best guide to moral behavior.
Observed behavior: Many RCs pick and choose which parts of the bible are true and which are not. thus they pick which morality pieces to follow and which to discard since they are incompatible with the RC's world view. (E.G. Bible says gays should be stoned to death along with adulterers, disobedient children, and someone who wears a garment made of two fabrics. No RC advocates for the death of gays, but, as documented in the movie The God Who Wasn't There, there ARE TCs who say that exact thing.)
Conclusion: If one picks which parts of the Bible's morality to believe, then there must be some guiding morality outside of the Bible that guides the RC in her choice of Bible passages. Something outside the Bible tells us that stoning children for disobeying their parents is wrong. the Bible does not. Since that something is outside the Bible, the Bible cannot be the final word on morality.
Note: I am choosing to avoid the whole "Old Covenant vs New Covenant" debate. I will just say this. At a minimum the Bible is unclear as to whether the old Mosaic laws still apply. In reality, there are several passages where Jesus says that they do. (e.g. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.") One of the main stories used to show that they do not ("Those of you without sin throw the first stone") has two main issues: 1) it doesn't actually say the mosaic laws are wrong or that they no longer apply, 2) has been proven by many people including Bart Ehrman, to have been added to the Gospel of John a long time after the gospel was written, probably in a clumsy attempt to resolve this (The old laws still apply) problem in the Bible.
UPDATE: After a technical issue and an absence, I have had to re-post all of my old posts. As a result there will be many posts listed as published today, Dec 3, 2009, that were posted sometime earlier in the year, but I do not know the exact date. this post is one of them.
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