Tag: god

The sacrifice of a virgin

I wrote a book report on a story about when a businessman bangs his daughter-in-law. Then I read another short story from the same collection that might be even crazier, so I decided to report on it too. Let’s see if you can recognize what book it’s from:

There once was a great warrior named Jephthah. His mother was a hooker, so his half-brothers didn’t want him to inherit any of their father’s wealth. They sent him into exile from Gilead so that he wouldn’t be able to make a claim on their father’s estate. While in exile, he built a gang and became their leader.

In the meantime, Jephthah’s father died. A rival gang called the Ammonites smelled weakness, so they attacked his father’s turf. Hearing of the might of Jephthah, the local elders begged him to return to Gilead and act as a commander in their fight against the Ammonites. Being understandably skeptical, Jephthah asked what would be in it for him. The elders swore to make him the chief over everybody in their turf if he returned to defend Gilead.

Jephthah returned to Gilead and parleyed with the Ammonite leader. The leader laid out his grievance with Gilead and told Jephthah that he would end his hostilities if they returned his turf to them. Jephthah claimed that Gilead was blameless and said the Ammonites had actually been in the wrong. So the turf war was on.

It turns out that there was a godfather character who was more powerful than both of the gangs. Jephthah went to the godfather and made a treaty with him. The terms were that, if the godfather backed him such that Jephthah could defeat the Ammonites, Jephthah would give the godfather a prize. He would kill and cook whatever came out first to greet Jephthah when he returned in victory.

With the godfather’s backing, Jephthah was able to soundly trounce the Ammonites. When he returned from battle in glory, the first to come out of Jephthah’s crib was his own daughter, dancing to music that was played in celebration. Because she was his only child, Jephthah was distraught considering the deal he had struck with the godfather.

Jephthah’s daughter was surprisingly understanding. She figured that a deal is a deal, so she gave Jephthah permission to do to her what he promised the godfather. She asked for just one accommodation since she would be dying a virgin. She wanted two months to wander through the hills visiting her friends and weep with them.

Jephthah agreed, so his daughter spent a couple of months visiting them, saying her goodbyes and having a good cry with all her friends. Then she returned to Jephthah, still a virgin. Upon her return, Jephthah proceeded to kill his daughter and cook her up, offering her to the godfather as promised.

Samuel. Judges 11. Holy Bible. 700 BCE

I promised you crazy—I think I delivered. Do you know what short story this is? It’s called Judges 11.

Evidence of a god

Today is Atheist Day. To observe it, I am answering a question I hear all the time:

What evidence would you need to believe a god exists?

I’ve given it some thought and my answer is what you would expect. All I would need is empirical evidence of the god that is not based on a logical fallacy. Ironically, most people would give the same answer if you simply changed the word “god” in the question to almost any other noun.

Before I could answer more explicitly, I would need you to describe the characteristics of the god about which you are asking. And please don’t tell me what the god is not. Tell me what its characteristics are. What is it composed of? Where can it be found? How does it affect its environment (or vice versa)? The answers to these questions inform my decision as to specifically what evidence I would look for.

However, for that evidence to be empirical, it must verifiable by observation or experience. So once I know how the god can be observed, measured, or otherwise detected objectively, I would know what kind of testing I could perform to demonstrate that the god exists. The key is that, whatever type of testing is done, any person conducting the test would get the same result.

For example, any person who weighs a liter of water will find that it weighs the same amount that it does for any other person who weighs any other liter of water—one kilogram. Or any person who checks the temperature of water when it begins to boil will find that it is 100 Celsius. Or anyone who observes a snowflake will say that it is six-sided. These are all objective measurements or observations.

On the other hand, some people would say that their evidence of a god is the personal relationship they have with their god. But this is a subjective observation. There is no way for any other person to experience that relationship. And any evidence that any person has ever given me for the existence of a god has been subjective. It is impossible for me to experience their evidence myself.

I also stated that the evidence must not be based on a logical fallacy. The fallacy I hear most commonly is something to the effect that humans (or other life form) are so incredibly complex that it’s impossible for them to exist as a result of natural processes. But this is the fallacy of personal incredulity (also known as an argument from ignorance). Just because you don’t understand how something occurred does not mean that a god doing it is the only explanation.

Another common fallacy concerns the question of why the universe exists. Believers will say that “something cannot come from nothing,” therefore, a god must have created it. But this is a black-or-white fallacy. Maybe something simply always existed or maybe something other than a god started the universe. But nobody really knows how the universe came into existence.

I’m sure most people would consider the standard of evidence I seek for the existence of a god a completely reasonable standard for them to use to evidence most other things in life. I simply expect the same standard to be used for a god. When someone brings me empirical evidence of a god that is not fallacious, I will believe that it exists.