What’s With the Story of Elisha and the Bears?

brown and black animal shape artwork painting

One of the strangest stories in the Old Testament comes at the end of 2 Kings 2 with Elisha, the bears and 42 children.  After God took the prophet Elijah up to heaven in a chariot, Elisha became his successor and received a double portion of Elijah’s anointing. Just your typical prophet stuff, no big deal. Shortly afterward, as he’s strolling along, this bizarre incident happens:  “He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them … Read more

9 Famous Thinkers Who Said They’d Rather Go To Hell than Worship God

CS Lewis famously remarked that “the gates of hell are locked from the inside.” In other words, the residents of the damned are there based on personal preference. It’s not because they’d rather be in heaven but only lacked sufficient information.  Echoing Lewis, Christian philosopher Dallas Williard wrote that hell isn’t “an ‘oops’ or a slip. One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by a constant effort to avoid and escape God.”  But are these famous Christian thinkers correct? Doesn’t it seem crazy that anyone would prefer hell? Based on the statements of many influential skeptics and atheists, the answer might surprise you. Many hardheartedly reject the Biblical picture of God. If such … Read more

Jesus the Jerk? A Response To the Friendly Atheist

the friendly atheist

A few weeks ago, CNN Tonight host Don Lemon said: “But here’s the thing, Jesus Christ, if that’s who you believe in Jesus Christ, admittedly was not perfect when he was here on the Earth. So why are we deifying the Founders?” As you can imagine, this caused quite a stir over social media and on the blogs, since the Bible clearly teaches Christ’s sinless perfection. While a few right-wing Christian leaders went a little overboard in their denouncements of Lemon,  “The Friendly Atheist” took it as an opportunity to take some jabs at Jesus. Hemant Mehta, the author of the blog, writes:  “Let’s talk about what Jesus did. Jesus once got so angry he flipped … Read more

Animal Cruelty, Errors, and Contradictions: The Story of the Madman of Gadara

One of the weirdest stories in the Gospels is Jesus’ encounter with the Madman of Gadara. Here you have a demonized man living in tombs, naked, and cutting himself with rocks. Jesus cures the man but allows the evil spirits to enter into some nearby pigs, who end up drowning themselves immediately afterward. Not only does this raise some moral red flags about Jesus’ lack of concern for animals, but there are more problems with this story. Mark and Luke report this event happened in the country of Gerasenes. But Matthew says it was in the land of the Gadarenes. So right off the bat, there’s a contradiction. But it gets even worse. Gadara is … Read more

Was Jesus Hangry When He Cursed the Fig Tree?

Jesus said that he was gentle and lowly of heart. But elsewhere in the gospels, we see Jesus doing some pretty non-gentle things, like supposedly killing fig trees in a rage fit. (Mark 11:12-14) Some skeptics have said this makes Jesus look like a petty punk. For example, here’s atheist Marshall Brain: “The son of God is hungry. He approaches a fig tree. The tree is out of season and has no fruit. Jesus wants fruit. So he kills the tree. What a total jerk! Why didn’t he wave his all-powerful hand and cause figs to appear? Or how about borrowing a raisin from someone and turning it into 5,000 baskets of figs? Only a true … Read more

Was God being cruel for striking Uzzah dead for touching the ark of the covenant?

If you want to find a story where Yahweh looks like a merciless dictator, critics will say look no further than the story of David returning the Ark to Jerusalem. There was dancing in the streets as they were bringing the Ark back when all of a sudden the proverbial needle scratched off the record. Uzzah was struck dead for trying to keep the cart from falling when one of the oxen stumbled. Here’s the passage in question: David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name … Read more

Did Jesus cleanse the temple twice? Was he throwing a temper tantrum?

Noted biblical scholar and critic Bart Ehrman says that the gospels have hopelessly irreconcilable differences. Therefore they can’t be trusted as reliable documents. One big difference would be the story of the cleansing of the Temple when you compare John and Mark (and the other synoptic gospels). Here’s Bart:  The Gospel of Mark indicates that it was in the last week of his life that Jesus “cleansed the Temple” by overturning the tables of the money changers and saying, “This is to be a house of prayer…but you have made it a den of thieves” (Mark 11), whereas according to John this happened at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry (John 2). Some readers have … Read more

The way skeptics argue against God reveals why God is so hidden to them

Christianity says that God loves everyone. It also teaches that God is all-powerful and he’s worked some crazy-amazing miracles in the past. The Bible also says that God knows everything, so he’d know what kind of convincing people need. So why are there atheists? Therefore, the reasoning goes that there probably is no God, or at least not one who cares enough to communicate clearly with us. This is a pretty common thing you’ll hear when talking to skeptics. There are certainly fancier ways of laying out this argument, but this is what philosophers call the problem of divine hiddenness. One of the things that critics of this argument have pointed out is that God … Read more

How could an all-loving God command Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac?

is god into child sacrifice?

In 2003, Deanna Laney stoned two of her young children to death. She tried to kill her third child, who was only 14 months old, but the child survived his injuries. During the police investigation, Laney claimed God ordered her to kill her sons. Horror stories like this often get co-opted by anti-religionists. The question posed to the believer goes like this: If God told you to kill your children, would you do it? If you say yes, you’re deranged and insane. If you say no, then you’re not as faithful as God’s man Abraham. According to the critics, the story of Abraham and Isaac shows that God is not above child-sacrifice. How could an … Read more

Marry your rapist? Female POWs as war trophies? Does the Old Testament really condone rape?

When attacking atheism, Christians will say without God, there is no objective right or wrong. With no divine lawgiver, everything is permitted. Rape might be taboo, but there is no way the atheist can say that it is truly evil. If the skeptic knows a bit about the Old Testament, they might be glad you brought up the R-word. “Oh really!? Well, then how can morality be based on a divine lawgiver that condones and allows rape?” Admittedly, there is some funky sounding stuff in the Old Testament. For example: We read in Judges that the Israelites hatched a scheme to allow the pathetic Benjaminites to essentially rape 400 women at Jabesh-Gilead so their clan’s … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?