Christian Apologists Just Don't Get It.

I make no bones about it. I do not like Christianity. I found a review from one Christian who goes by the name of David Marshall (whether or not this is a pen name I do not know) and be blogs at Christ the Tao. [http://www.christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/08/aslan-vs-lion-of-judah-ii.html] In his review (in name only) DM commits so many blunders I'm surprised more people have not jumped on his review. That's where I come in. I know I've been silent for a long time but family life has taken its tole on me. Now I have some free time I this will be a nice write up to mark my return. DM's first argument is

(1) Did the Jews kill everything in Palestine?  Aslan gives the impression that the Jews killed every living person and animal in the Promised Land (16), or at least that the Bible claims this.  It was, the Bible claims, only after the Jewish armies had 'utterly destroyed all that breathed' . . . only after every single previous inhabitant of this land was eradicated 'as the Lord God of Israel had commanded' . . . that the Jews were allowed to settle here. (16) The question here is not whether God is recorded as commanding that slaughter.  Nor is it even whether such a slaughter actually occurred.  (If pressed, Aslan would no doubt deny that it did.)  The question is whether the Bible claims that all the people and animals were killed.  But all you have to do is read the bloodiest parts of the Old Testament, to see that in fact, they were not.  A few cities were fully put to the sword.  But most of the locals were either chased out, or remained.  So Aslan misrepresents the text he is criticizing.

Misrepresentation. Aslen quoted the bible accurately and only used the biblical quote to pepper his story about how the Jews “shed so much blood to cleanse the Promised Land of every foreign element” was centuries later forced to labor “under the boot of an imperial pagan power, forced to share the holy city with Gauls, Spaniards, Romans, Greeks, and Syrians – all of them foreigners, all of them heathens....How would the heros of old respond to such humiliation and degreadation?” What does DM's point have to do with what Aslen wrote? I'm not sure. His second complaint is

(2 + 3) What do we know about Q?  How much of the New Testament do the letters of Paul constitute? The Q material, which was compiled around 50 CE, makes no mention of anything that happened before Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist.  The letters of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament, are wholly detached from any event in Jesus' life save his crucifixion and resurrection (though Paul does mention the Last Supper).  That Q existed is a hypothesis.  When it was written is just a guess.  Aslan should read less Crossan (who engages in similar conjectures, also with great confidence), and more NT Wright.  But the really gross error here is Aslan's claim that the letters of Paul "make up the bulk of the New Testament."  Actually, they make up about a quarter of the NT by volume.  (Even in number, which is not the usual meaning of "bulk," they constitute just half -- that is, assuming Aslan admits all the letters ascribed to him were actually written by Paul, which in fact he does not.) 

The Q document is a “hypothesis” but he ignores the reason it was developed to start with. The reason is the very large number of cases where both Luke and Matthew share material which likely means that both writers used the same source. DM doesn't tell his readers about this. Why not? Maybe because he badly wants to believe everything in the Gospels is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Admitting this hypothesis might have merit wrecks this fairy tale of his. There are 37 books that make up the New Testament. Out of that 37 13 were authored by Paul. That leaves us with 14 books not written by him. I would say that 13 out of 37 (half of the books of the NT) would constitute a “bulk” of the New Testament. This is a ridiculous assertion by DM here. Let us take a look at his “two vital misunderstandings” because his “quibbles” are off the charts looney. DM complains that Aslan is misreading the bible because the Gospel writers down play Jesus's cleaning of the temple. DM asserts that the Gospel writers do emphasize this event. Read the four Gospels for yourself. There is nothing in any story or how the story was written that makes this story stand out. It's just one out of dozens. DM's other “vital misunderstanding” is that Jesus was unique and was not “just another miracle worker.” He quotes Aslan: “For the vast majority of Jews in Palestine -- those he claimed to have been sent to free from oppression -- Jesus was neither messiah nor king, but just another traveling miracle worker and professional exorcist roaming through Galilee performing tricks. (102)” I hate to break it to DM but Jesus was not unique. There were dozens of “miracle workers” in Jesus's day roaming the towns and country side healing the sick and performing “miracles” and other “magical” feats. See Richard Carrier's essay “Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels.” [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/kooks.html] DM's quibbling over the different between the two is puzzling. There isn't much of a difference. Look up both definitions. Magic: “the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.;” Miracle: “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.” This looks to me more of DM's ludicrous quibbles. He wants there to be a difference so he can absolve Jesus of being nothing more than the common street performer, fooling the gullible public.

Christians Kill

Christians hate abortion so much that they are willing to kill abortion providers to stop them from killing the unborn. This puts Christians in a mind morally. First they say they are against murder then they kill a human being. Don't Christians say they are against murder!?!?!?!?!!!!!??? Here is a short list of murders by Christians (thanks to Wikipedia): March 10, 1993: Dr. David Gunn of Pensacola, Florida was fatally shot during a protest. He had been the subject of wanted-style posters distributed by Operation Rescue in the summer of 1992. Michael F. Griffin was found guilty of Gunn's murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

July 29, 1994: Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, a clinic escort, were both shot to death outside another facility, the Ladies Center, in Pensacola. Rev. Paul Jennings Hill was charged with the killings. Hill received a death sentence and was executed on September 3, 2003. The clinic in Pensacola had been bombed before and was also bombed subsequently, in 1984 and 2012.

December 30, 1994: Two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts. John Salvi was arrested and confessed to the killings. He died in prison and guards found his body under his bed with a plastic garbage bag tied around his head. Salvi had also confessed to a non-lethal attack in Norfolk, Virginia days before the Brookline killings.

January 29, 1998: Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer who worked as a security guard at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, was killed when his workplace was bombed. Eric Robert Rudolph, who was also responsible for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, was charged with the crime and received two life sentences as a result.

October 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot to death with a high-powered rifle at his home in Amherst, New York.[10] His was the last in a series of similar shootings against providers in Canada and northern New York state which were all likely committed by James Kopp. Kopp was convicted of Slepian's murder after finally being apprehended in France in 2001.

• May 31, 2009: Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder as Tiller served as an usher at church in Wichita, Kansas.[11]
  

Here is a short list of attempted murders and other acts of violence by Christians:

• August 19, 1993: Dr. George Tiller was shot outside of an abortion facility in Wichita, Kansas. Shelley Shannon was charged with the crime and received an 11-year prison sentence (20 years were later added for arson and acid attacks on clinics).
• July 29, 1994: June Barret was shot in the same attack which claimed the lives of James Barrett, her husband, and Dr. John Britton.
• December 30, 1994: Five individuals were wounded in the shootings which killed Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols.
• October 28, 1997: Dr. David Gandell of Rochester, New York was injured by flying glass when a shot was fired through the window of his home.[15]
• January 29, 1998: Emily Lyons, a nurse, was severely injured, and lost an eye, in the bombing which also killed Robert Sanderson.
  

• December 25, 1984: An abortion clinic and two physicians' offices in Pensacola, Florida were bombed in the early morning of Christmas Day by a quartet of young people (Matt Goldsby, Jimmy Simmons, Kathy Simmons, Kaye Wiggins) who later called the bombings "a gift to Jesus on his birthday."[18][19][20] The clinic, the Ladies Center, would later be the site of the murder of Dr. John Britton and James Barrett in 1994 and a firebombing in 2012.
• May 21, 1998: Three people were injured when acid was poured at the entrances of five abortion clinics in Miami, Florida.[21]
• October 1999: Martin Uphoff set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, causing US$100 worth of damage. He was later sentenced to 60 months in prison.[22]
• May 28, 2000: An arson at a clinic in Concord, New Hampshire resulted in several thousand dollars' worth of damage. The case remains unsolved.[23][24][25] This was the second arson at the clinic.[26]
• September 30, 2000: John Earl, a Catholic priest, drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic after learning that the FDA had approved the drug RU-486. He pulled out an ax before being forced to the ground by the owner of the building, who fired two warning shots from a shotgun.[27]
• June 11, 2001: An unsolved bombing at a clinic in Tacoma, Washington destroyed a wall, resulting in $6,000 in damages.[22][28]
• July 4, 2005: A clinic Palm Beach, Florida was the target of an arson. The case remains open.[22]
• December 12, 2005: Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana. The device missed the building and no damage was caused. In August 2006, Hughes was sentenced to six years in prison, and Dunahoe to one year. Hughes claimed the bomb was a "memorial lamp" for an abortion she had had there.[29]
• September 13, 2006 David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan, crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions; however, Edgerton is not an abortion clinic.[30] Time magazine listed the incident in a "Top 10 Inept Terrorist Plots" list.[31]
• April 25, 2007: A package left at a women's health clinic in Austin, Texas, contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death. A bomb squad detonated the device after evacuating the building. Paul Ross Evans (who had a criminal record for armed robbery and theft) was found guilty of the crime.[32]
• May 9, 2007: An unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[33]
• December 6, 2007: Chad Altman and Sergio Baca were arrested for the arson of Dr. Curtis Boyd's clinic in Albuquerque. Altman's girlfriend had scheduled an appointment for an abortion at the clinic.[34][35]
• January 22, 2009 Matthew L. Derosia, 32, who was reported to have had a history of mental illness[36] rammed an SUV into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota.[37]
• January 1, 2012 Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, firebombed the American Family Planning Clinic in Pensacola, Florida with a Molotov cocktail; the fire gutted the building. Rogers told investigators that he was motivated to commit the crime by his opposition to abortion, and that what more directly prompted the act was seeing a patient enter the clinic during one of the frequent anti-abortion protests there. The clinic had previously been bombed at Christmas in 1984 and was the site of the murder of Dr. John Britton and James Barrett in 1994.[38]
  

• April 1, 2012 A bomb exploded on the windowsill of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, resulting in a fire that damaged one of the clinic's examination rooms. No injuries were reported. On April 3, the FBI arrested 50-year-old Francis Grady on charges of "arson of a building used in interstate commerce" and "intentionally damaging the property of a facility that provides reproductive health services".[39]
  

November 2001: After the genuine 2001 anthrax attacks, Clayton Waagner mailed hoax letters containing a white powder to 554 clinics. On December 3, 2003, Waagner was convicted of 51 charges relating to the anthrax scare.

• November 8, 1994: Dr. Garson Romalis, 57, of Vancouver, British Columbia was shot and seriously wounded. In 1994, a sniper fired two bullets into the home of Dr. Garson Romalis, who was eating breakfast. One hit his thigh, destroyed some of his muscles, broke his femur and damaged his femoral artery. Dr. Romalis saved his own life by using his bathrobe belt as a tourniquet. Dr. Romalis still performs abortions and has become more outspoken about abortion rights since he was shot, citing the harm done to women by illegal abortion and the thousands of cases of septic abortion that came to his hospital in residency.[10][43]
• November 10, 1995: Dr. Hugh Short, 62, of Ancaster, Ontario was shot. A sniper's bullet fired into his home shattered his elbow and ended his surgical career. Dr. Short was not a high-profile target: it was not widely known that he did abortions.[10]
• November 11, 1997: Dr. Jack Fainman, 66, of Winnipeg, Manitoba was shot. A gunman fired through the back window of Fainman's riverbank home in Winnipeg about 9 pm and struck him in the right shoulder, inches from his heart. The police would not comment on whether Dr. Fainman, who has declined interview requests since the attack, is still performing abortions.[10]
• July 11, 2000: Dr. Romalis was stabbed by an unidentified assailant in the lobby of his clinic.[43]
  

• February 25, 1990: Two men broke into a clinic in Vancouver and destroyed $C30,000 worth of medical equipment with crowbars.[44]
• May 18, 1992: A Toronto clinic operated by Henry Morgentaler was firebombed, causing the entire front wall of the building to collapse.[45] The Morgentaler Clinic on Harbord Street in Toronto was firebombed during the night by two people (caught on security camera) using gasoline and a firework to set off the explosion.[46] The next day, clinic management announced that the firebombing failed to prevent any abortions, since all scheduled abortions were carried out in alternative locations. A portion of a the Toronto Women's Bookstore, next door, was damaged. No one was hurt but the building had to be demolished. On the day after the firebombing, Morgentaler came to inspect the damage and a crowd of abortion-rights supporters appeared at the clinic with signs that read, "Just Say No to Bombs." As a result of the arson, the Ontario government decided to spend $420,000 on improved security for abortion clinics. At the time, all four free-standing clinics in Ontario were in Toronto. The government wanted to gather information about activities by pro-life sympathizers; at the time, law enforcement agencies in Canada did not collect statistics about harassment and violence against abortion providers, their clinics, or their clients.[46]
  

In 1999, Graeme White was found guilty and jailed for tunneling into an abortion clinic in a failed attempt to blow it up.

The Army of God, an underground terrorist organization active in the United States, has been responsible for a substantial amount of anti-abortion violence. In addition to numerous property crimes, the group has committed acts of kidnapping, attempted murder, and murder. In August 1982, three men identifying as the Army of God kidnapped Hector Zevallos (a doctor and clinic owner) and his wife, Rosalee Jean, holding them for eight days.[47] In 1993, Shelly Shannon, a very active member of the Army of God, was found guilty of the attempted murder of Dr. George Tiller.[48] That same year, law enforcement officials found the Army of God Manual, a tactical guide to arson, chemical attacks, invasions, and bombings buried in Shelly Shannon's backyard.[47] Paul Jennings Hill was found guilty of the murder of both Dr. John Britton and clinic escort James Barrett. The Army of God supported Hill, saying that "whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child... if in fact Paul Hill did kill or wound abortionist John Britton, and accomplices James Barrett and Mrs. Barrett, his actions are morally justified if they were necessary for the purpose of defending innocent human life".[13] The AOG claimed responsibility for Eric Robert Rudolph's 1997 shrapnel bombing of abortion clinics in Atlanta and Birmingham.[49]

The Crusades: Religious or political reasons?

The Crusades tore through Europe and during these battles Christians killed many Jews who they believed murdered Jesus Christ. If a Jew would not convert to Christianity they were killed. Christians were angry at the Muslims for stealing their land and they wanted it back. A letter from a Christian pilgrim authored by Guy, a Knight in 1249 AD says: "Because we know that you are uneasy about the state of the Holy Land and our lord, the king of France, and that you are interested in the general welfare of the church as well as the fate of many relatives and friends who are fighting for Christ under the king's orders, therefore, we think we ought to give you exact information as to the events of which a report has doubtless already reached you." This isn't to say political reasons were not a concern but religious reasons often underpinned the Crusades.

The Evils of Christianity

Thesis: Christianity is an EVIL that must be eradicated. Each blog post will provide reasons for my main thesis. Stay tuned...