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-title: Who consecrates the tabernacle? (Ex 29)
-description: A quick, cursory and possibly completely rubbish observation I've made on Exodus 29.
-pubDate: 2024-04-11
----
-
-I've been reading Exodus recently, and the ending of Chapter 29 stuck out to me.
-
-For pages and pages (since Chapter 25!) God has been giving Moses exact and
-exorbitant instructions for how to build the tabernacle, what offerings to give
-upon it, who the priests are going to be, what the priests are going to be
-wearing. It's the fanciest IKEA manual you've ever read. No expense spared.
-Everything is drowning in gold, silver, incense, myrrh, silk, fragrant oil, you
-name it.
-
-What's this about? The answer seems obvious: it's to sanctify the temple! To
-make it beautiful enough and pure enough that even God could live there.
-
-But right at the end of Chapter 29, in vv 43-44, there's this wonderful twist:
-
-> ... and the place will be consecrated by **my glory**. So **I** will
-> consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his
-> sons to serve me as priests. (NIV, emphasis mine)
-
-All this work, and at the end of the day, it's **God** who sanctifies his own
-temple? So why all the fuss? Well, it looks like the final two verses of the
-chapter give us the answer:
-
-> Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I
-> am the <span class="small-caps">Lord</span> their God, who brought them out of
-> Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the
-> <span class="small-caps">Lord</span> their God.
-
-So on a cursory reading, it looks like God is telling them something
-extraordinary about the kind of God he is. He is not like the other gods, who
-demand this kind of worship to appease their pride. Nor is there, unlike the
-other gods, anything the Israelites could do to make a place habitable for him.
-That's because there's nothing the Israelites could do to cleanse themselves of
-their sin: only the 'glory' of God could do that. And indeed, God has no need of
-worship to puff up his pride, since his glory existed before the world was made,
-and human beings can do nothing to either add to it or subtract from it.
-
-Instead of a vain god who seeks tribute, this is a Father God who seeks to
-'dwell' (literally to 'camp') among his people. The God who has put into motion
-a rescue plan to pull the Israelites out of Egypt specifically for this purpose.
-As it was in the beginning, when God dwelt in the Garden with Adam and Eve. This
-is his mission. This is what he's like. And he wants his people to know this, so
-that they can dwell together.
diff --git a/website/src/content/blog/2024/04/14/god_is_not_great.md b/website/src/content/blog/2024/04/14/god_is_not_great.md
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-title: God Is Not Great, initial thoughts
-description: >-
-  My spark notes on Hitchen's classic 2007 polemic against religion, plus some
-  initial thoughts on how I want to respond to it.
-pubDate: 2024-04-14
----
-
-These are my 'spark notes' on _God Is Not Great_, Christopher Hitchen's classic
-2007 polemic against religion in all its forms, and call to adopt secular
-humanism as its rightful replacement.
-
-The book can be coherently read as a collection of independent essays. That
-said, with a few exceptions, each chapter in _God Is Not Great_ contributes to
-one of three main themes, and I think this is a helpful way of summarising the
-overall movement of the book. The three themes I've identified are as follows:
-
-<ol>
-  <li>
-    <a href="#1-religion-is-evil">Religion is evil</a>
-  </li>
-  <li>
-    <a href="#2-religion-is-untrue">Religion is untrue</a>
-  </li>
-  <li>
-    <a href="#3-secular-humanism-is-a-better-alternative-to-religion">Secular humanism is a better alternative to religion</a>
-  </li>
-</ol>
-
-As for the exceptions: Chapters 13 and 17 in part contribute to both the first
-theme and the third, while Chapters 1, 3, 12 and 14 don't fit into these broad
-themes, and are self-standing.
-
-## 1. Religion is evil
-
-- Chp 2
-  - Religion is violent, because:
-    - It has to be missionary, because it is insecure in its own beliefs (p17)
-    - It provokes tribalistic conflict, in a similar manner to racism (pp35-36)
-- Chp 4
-  - Religion is bad for your health, because:
-    - Faith in medicine is a threat to religion's thrall (p47)
-    - Religious doctrines may contradict sound medical advice
-    - The right to religious freedom may be abused to deflect criticism of
-      unhealthy practices (p50)
-  - Religion has a special relationship with child abuse, and is incapable of
-    accepting open moral criticism of itself for this
-- Chp 13
-  - Religion tends towards evil, because it requires fanaticism in order to
-    spread, and fanaticism tends towards evil (p192)
-- Chp 16
-  - Religion causes child abuse, because:
-    - Terrifying children with eschatology is child abuse
-    - Religious education is propaganda and should not be inflicted on children
-      who are not yet mature enough to respond to it rationally
-    - Religion consistently mandates cruel genital mutilation of children
-    - Christians and Muslims have spread misinformation about masturbation,
-      which leads to dangerously sexually repressed adult men, which in turn
-      leads to sexual abuse of children by those men (as well as sexual abuse of
-      women)
-    - Child abuse in churches is not a case of a few bad eggs, it is
-      institutional and based on an ideological need to control the minds and
-      sexual organs of children
-  - Religion institutionalised torture in medieval Europe
-  - Religion makes honest and nuanced debate about abortion impossible, because:
-    - Nuanced debate is pushed out by extreme and implausible religious doctrine
-    - Religious people would rather use the unborn as objects of doctrine than
-      human beings in need of protection
-- Chp 17
-  - Religion is the only reason anti-Semitism is possible
-  - Religion in its fullest expression is indistinguishable from
-    totalitarianism, because:
-    - The defining characteristic of both religion and totalitarianism is the
-      absolute right to rule of the ruler, even when they rule with caprice
-    - Religion and totalitarianism are also characterised by the need to
-      extinguish heresy with violence
-    - Religion and totalitarianism alike must propose a total solution to all
-      life's problems, require blind faith from its adherents, and demand all
-      aspects of life public and private be submitted to total supervision. This
-      doesn't bring out the best in us
-    - Religious/totalitarian systems are unable to take accountability and
-      therefore improve over time, in contrast to secular humanist systems
-    - History has proven this as fact:
-      - In the ancient world, religious totalitarianism was the normal form of
-        government
-      - Calvin, the inspiration for the Presbyterian Christian tradition, which
-        included South African apartheid, was the epitome of a totalitarian
-        dictator, demanding total control on the private lives of his citizens
-        in Geneva, on the pain of humiliation in this life and eternal torment
-        in the next
-    - History has also proven that, rather than standing in opposition to the
-      supposedly secular totalitarianisms of the twentieth century, religion
-      actually aided and abetted totalitarianism:
-      - Rome supported fascist movements throughout Europe, including Italy,
-        Hungary, Spain, and Ireland
-      - Rome accommodated Naziism by handing over control of its schools,
-        permitting the use of parish records to identify those with Jewish
-        ancestry, disbanding Catholic opposition political parties, declaring
-        Hitler's birthday a Church holiday, and running the 'rat line' to South
-        America after the military defeat of Naziism
-      - Although not quite as arse-licking as the Vatican, Germany's Protestant
-        churches also mostly capitulated to Nazi totalitarianism
-      - Japanese soldiers committed enormous atrocities across the Far East in
-        the name of their god-emperor, Hirohito
-      - The strategy of the Communists was first, to use religion as a prop to
-        gain power, and then to replace religion with itself. Notice the
-        striking commonalities between religion and communist totalitarianism:
-        - Infallible leaders
-        - A permanent war on heresy
-        - Institutionalised torture
-        - Scapegoating the innocent rather than accepting accountability for
-          failures
-        - Justifying any means necessary in order to achieve an ultimate end
-
-## 2. Religion is untrue
-
-- Chp 5
-  - Religion was a barbaric attempt to explain physical phenomena. Science now
-    does a much better job, so religion can be discarded as a redundant theory
-- Chp 6
-  - Religion is 'solipsistic', which is to say:
-    - Religion divides the world into an in-group and an out-group
-    - When the in-group receives good fortune, that is interpreted as God's
-      blessing
-    - When the in-group receives bad fortune, this is inexplicable
-    - Whatever happens to the out-group is irrelevant
-    - This is a redundant theory which explains little, and therefore we should
-      not believe it
-- Chp 7
-  - We should believe that the Pentateuch is a fiction, because:
-    - Exodus is inconsistent with the archaeological evidence
-    - Textual evidence in Deuteronomy suggests the texts were written much later
-      than the supposed events were supposed to have taken place
-    - Throughout the Pentateuch, Moses is referred to in the third person, which
-      is not consistent with the claim that Moses himself authored it
-    - The Pentateuch contains events we should _hope_ to be false, such as Moses
-      ordering multiple massacres, and the Ten Commandments classifying wives as
-      their husbands' property
-    - The Pentateuch - indeed, the whole Bible - is limited in scope to a small
-      corner of the Middle East, which is not consistent with the universal
-      nature of the supposed God who is supposed to have inspired its authorship
-  - Chp 8
-    - We should not believe the Gospels, because:
-      - Matthew and Luke disagree on the virgin conception
-      - Matthew and Luke disagree on the genealogy of Jesus
-      - Matthew and Luke disagree on when Mary and Jesus escaped to Egypt
-      - Luke dates the birth of Christ during both the reign of Herod in Judea
-        and the governorship of Quirinius in Syria, but these two events did not
-        overlap, so this is impossible
-      - As far as we know, the Romans did not, and would not, demand that the
-        people assemble in one place in order to be counted for a census
-      - The Gospels disagree about the Sermon on the Mount
-      - The Gospels disagree about the Anointing of Jesus
-      - The Gospels disagree about the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus
-      - The Gospels disagree about the betrayal of Judas
-      - The Gospels disagree about the denial of Peter
-      - John suggests he thinks Jesus was probably born in Galilee to an
-        ordinary family with no proven link to King David's genealogy
-      - Mary's attested behaviour during the ministry of Jesus is not consistent
-        with the Nativity story
-      - John 8:3-11 (the stoning of the woman caught in adultery) is a later
-        insertion to John's Gospel
-    - Chp 9: the Koran is borrowed from a hotchpotch of Jewish and Christian
-      myths
-    - Chp 10
-      - Miracles (such as the Resurrection of Jesus) should not be believed,
-        because:
-        - See Hume's _On Miracles_
-        - Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
-        - Believing miracles is comparable to believing reports of aliens (p144)
-    - Chp 11
-      - Religions are founded in credulity
-    - Chp 15
-      - The crucifixion story makes no sense, because:
-        - I'm supposed to be morally responsible for Adam's sin, but I amn't!
-        - Even Adam can't be fully blamed for Adam's sin, because he was set up!
-        - The Jews who crucified Jesus are supposed to be blameworthy for their
-          crime, even though the crucifixion was allegedly both necessary and
-          inevitable
-        - I'm allegedly given the free will to either accept or deny the offer,
-          even though denying the offer will lead to an eternity of torment: any
-          sensible God who cared a mite would not have given me the choice
-      - Religious rules are impossible to follow, and this leads to either
-        spiritual policing, organised hypocrisy, or both
-
-## 3. Secular humanism is a better alternative to religion
-
-- Chp 13
-  - Faith has inspired great heroism. But the heroism is better explained by the
-    heroes' humanism than it is by their faith itself
-    - For example, Martin Luther King Junior didn't really preach Christianity,
-      because he preached forgiveness, while Christ preached eternal torment for
-      the 'inattentive' (pp175-6)
-- Chp 17
-  - Religion is the only thing sustaining anti-Semitism
-  - Secular humanist political systems can take accountability, respond to
-    criticism and improve over time, while religious systems exempt themselves
-    from legitimate criticism, stifling progress
-  - The only alternative to totalitarianism is pluralism, which is inherently
-    secular
-- Chp 18
-  - Secular humanism has been a powerful positive force throughout history in
-    face of oppression by religion, as proved by example:
-    - Socrates proved that conscience is innate, and that a great way to mock
-      dogma is with satire which pretends to accept that dogma
-    - Lucretius, Democritus and Epicurus had better explanations for the way the
-      world worked than religion (which is why their work was suppressed in
-      Christian Europe and nearly lost forever as a result). Once rediscovered,
-      their ideas kick-started the Scientific Revolution in Europe
-    - Spinoza's deistic ideas had a huge influence despite Jews collaborating
-      with their Christian oppressors to try and ban his writing out of
-      existence
-    - Boyle and Voltaire may have been closet atheists, agnostics or deists
-    - Kant 'overthrew' the cosmological and ontological arguments for the
-      existence of God, and proved (by means of the Categorical Imperative) that
-      human decency does not require any theological assumptions
-    - Let's chuck some more names in the ring: Gibbon, Hume, Paine, Franklin,
-      Darwin, Einstein
-    - Jews were once doubly ghettoed: on the outside by oppressive Christians,
-      and on the inside by oppressive self-racialisation. Secular humanism freed
-      Jews from both these ghettoes, which in turn led to an outpouring of
-      secular Jewish brilliance
-    - Ancient Jews were on the road to a quasi-secular Hellenism, before that
-      was ruined forever by the tyrannical and fanatical Judas Maccabeus, with
-      disastrous consequences for the history of Western civilisation. The
-      Abrahamic religions we know today were not inevitable, and it is possible
-      to imagine what Western history would have been like without it
-- Chp 19
-  - Secular humanism is a better alternative to religion, because:
-    - Religion requires clinging to immovable dogma and being unwilling to
-      change your mind
-    - Seeking truth requires being willing to change your mind
-    - Secular humanism is therefore on the side of seeking truth, and religion
-      is on the side of wilful ignorance
-  - Secular humanism is on the side of progress, because it is what enables the
-    expansion of scientific knowledge and the development of new technology
-
-## The odds and ends
-
-- Chp 1: an introduction to the themes of the book with little substantial
-- Chp 3: titled 'A Short Digression on the Pig', it does what it says on the tin
-- Chp 12: titled 'A Coda: How Religions End', it does what it says on the tin
-- Chp 14: contrary to the hopes of some Westerners disillusioned with organised
-  Western religion, Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism are not
-  a solution to the problems of religion
-
-I would be interested to try writing apologetic and/or evangelistic responses to
-these ideas. But it's not a priority for me right now. Anyway, if I ever want to
-come back to it, I'll probably come back to these spark notes to give me a head
-start.