Proselytes or Pitchmen?

I want to take a few brief moments of your time to point out something that most freethinkers are attuned to when it comes to evangelical Christians: they are buying and selling... souls. The WOTM crew does it in a very clever manner and disguises it with a false sense of concern for the eternal destination of your immortal soul but, come on, can they even demonstrate that such a "thing" or "place" exists? Of course they can't; that's where their carefully crafted, finely honed sales pitch comes into play.

A quick internet search will reveal a great deal of interesting information on the perfect sales pitch. Here is the tried and true harangue:

* Start with conviction
* Winning against negative sentiments
* Preparations are the Key to Success
* Use emotions in the sales process
* Complete focus on the customer
* Objections are buying statements
* Closing thoughts

The way in which these points translates to the cookie-cutter WOTM speech is blatantly obvious. Knowing that Todd, Ray and Kirk are not only attuned to these sales methods but employ them, we can further understand why Living Waters and Way of the Master marketable goods are in such high demand. They've cornered a very large evangelical Christian market; they sell their products to both evangelists and the newly-converted alike.

We have to ask ourselves if they are really concerned for our souls or if they are simply looking for the next great sales gimmick. In all actuality, Todd would make quite an effective and prosperous replacement for Kevin Trudeau.

Todd Friel is a moral relativist and he doesn't even know it.

The WOTM crew is fond of speaking in terms of moral absolutes.  The whole "Good Person Test" is, of course, rife with them.  Occasionally, Mr. Friel will find himself witnessing to someone who disputes this claim.  He has some very clever ways of tripping them up, and he usually succeeds in making the mark look foolish.  But that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that the critics are right.  There are no moral absolutes.  There is no action a human being can commit that is intrinsically wrong in all possible contexts.  The moral value of an action is determined by its context.  For example, nearly all of us, regardless of faith or lack thereof, would agree that killing people is morally wrong...  Most of the time.  However, we would likely also agree that killing a person might be morally justified (or even morally imperative) in some rare cases.  We may quibble over exactly where the line is, but we agree that the line exists:  Killing people is usually morally wrong, but sometimes it's not.  The morality of the act is determined by the context in which it is committed.  This is true for all possible human actions.

Recently, while broadcasting from the Minnesota State Fair...

We interupt this blog entry for a trip down memory lane.  My first encounter with Mr. Friel was at the Minnesota State Fair in 2005.  Ah, those were the days.  Todd, if you're reading this -- and I know you are -- I was the guy who wanted to pretend Darth Vader was real on the grounds that he's a much cooler fictional character than God.  You also commented on my t-shirt, which read "Talk nerdy to me."  We now return you to your previously scheduled post.

...Mr. Friel witnessed to a young man who argued a similar case.  Todd, however, successfully tripped him by citing rape as an action that is intrinsically wrong in all contexts.  The young man, unfortunately, was unable to respond adequately.  Mr. Friel ended up looking right, and his victim ended up looking foolish.

But as we know, appearances can be deceiving.  Our young, anonymous friend was right, he just didn't know how to enunciate it.  Here's the response he was unsuccessfully floundering for:

Yes, rape is morally wrong in all possible cases.  However, it is still a matter of contextual morality rather than absolute morality because the concept of rape has contextual elements built right into it.  Strip the contextual factors from the concept of rape, and you're left with sex.  Now, it's a near-certainty that secularists and theists would quibble a whole lot about where the line between moral and immoral sex lies, but again, we can agree that there is a line.  Sex performed in a forced or nonconsensual context falls on the "morally wrong" side of that line.  But just like with killing people, it's the context that makes it wrong.

Now, I know some theist is going to come along and smugly ask about where atheists get their morality from in the first place.  And yes, there is an answer to that.  But it's a topic for another day.

Point To Ponder

Do the doctrinal beliefs of the folks at Way of the Master and those of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church really differ all that much? Aside from their approach and delivery, both use the ten commandments to show "sinners" their shortcomings in the sight of God as well as sharing their predeterminalism.

What's the difference between the Phelps clan and the Friel clan? Who's the heretic?

Todd Friel: Still A Liar

I am nothing if not fair and in fairness, I must retract a statment that I made in an earlier post; due to recent communication with Todd, a copy of the Evidence Bible is now on its way to my door via the United States Postal Service. I couldn't be more thrilled!

However, Todd is still a liar. He willfully misrepresents atheists as "God-haters" and, following Todd's logic, telling one lie makes you an untrustworthy liar. If Todd will lie about his supposed opponents, the atheists, what is keeping him from lying to his listening audience about salvation, redemption... even the very existence of God? Nothing, that's what.

Willful Misrepresentation

This entry might also have been titled "Lying."

Todd uses the ten commandments to show the "lost" that they have sinned against a holy and righteous god, will stand in judgment before him after they die and must repent and receive the forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ's shed blood on the cross of Calvary (let me know if I've misrepresented this; I think I've expressed it fairly accurately).

If Todd uses the commandments to show the unsaved their transgressions, why does he knowingly and repeatedly continue to break the ninth commandment by lying to his listening audience?

When Todd is asked of all the historical atrocities committed in the name of god by the pious, he indefinitely shifts the focus away from the reformation or the crusades and towards the Holocaust and other such contemporary examples of cruelty. He claims that the reformation and crusades weren't fought by True Christians™, but by heretics and hypocrites. Of course, if a freethinker were to use that sort of caveat against Friel, he would of course decry it as a foul.

Much to the chagrin of the WOTM staff, atheists do not feel it necessary to defend Adolph Hitler as an atheist because, in fact, he was not; Hitler was a Catholic mystic. Just take a quick glance at the photo embedded in this entry and you will notice that it is Nazi Germany-era military regalia. Now, for those of my non German-speaking readers, the script emblazoned across the top of this belt buckle reads "God With Us."

Todd Friel knows this historical fact and continues to disregard it for the spiritual benefit of his listeners. Shouldn't someone call him up and remind him what his god says about lying?

The (Opposing) View

For those of you who may be interested in reading more about views that differ from my own but don't have the time or the desire to wade through the mire that is Way of the Master, I have posted a new link in the left margin of this blog. It is relatively well-written and will give you a taste of what is being taught by WOTM. The writer's doctrinal views are incredibly similar to those of Friel, Comfort and Cameron all the way down to his concept of "grace through the law".

To better understand the mind of a fundamental, evangelical Christian literalist, visit Anathema Unbound (Jason Seipp) at "The 'ology' of Theology" and tell him Former Follier sends his greetings.

Absolute Proof God Exists -- Part Two

Second Non-Biblical Proof of God -- "Conscience"

Before we begin, let's define the word "conscience" and take a brief look at its root words:

Conscience: The inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action (from the roots con meaning "together" or "with" and scientia meaning "knowledge").

Supposing that humans are born with an innate sense of right and wrong, we must further assume that , at birth, we have enough information from which to come to "knowledgeable" conclusions. When my daughter was an infant, it became abundantly clear that she was a blank slate and was only ingrained with the most primitive of functions: the ability to drink, breathe, expel waste, sleep and explore her newly-formed vocal chords when she perceived duress or desire. Those are the basics that all human infants are born with; the basic will to survive.

All of my daughter's "knowledge" since her birth has come from her surroundings: interaction with her parents, brother, grandparents, sight, taste, sound, touch, etc. How, then, can fundamentalist evangelicals like Todd Friel claim the knowledge from which you make moral or ethical assessments to be an inborn trait? Nothing happens in a vacuum... certainly not the psychological growth and development of a child! Every factor imposed on a human (man, woman or child) will have some sort of affect on their perceptions and interaction with the world around them.

The human ability to discern between perceived "good" and "bad" decisions start at childbirth and grow through adolescence and into adulthood. When parents raise their children, the majority feel it their obligation to instruct them in a way in which they will grow to be productive, with the ability to make social contributions. It eludes me how theists can extrapolate divine providence from something that is so clearly socially driven.

More than half a century before the gospels of Christ were written, the ethic of reciprocity was first being alliterated. Today, we know this code of ethical conduct as "The Golden Rule", the foundation of humanistic (the only viable) ethical principles.