Dismissed With Prejudice—The Lawyers of Religion

Dismissed with prejudice is a legal term used in court cases, meaning that it’s dismissed permanently. The case case is over and done with, once and for all, and can’t be brought back to court. A case dismissed without prejudice means the opposite. It is not dismissed forever, and can be re-examined when new evidence comes to light, a missed legality was acknowledged, or you just decide a new approach.

An acquaintance of mine took the school district to court over their special needs child. They basically bet the farm on winning this case, and after four years of lawyer fees and court costs, the district prevailed. They had to liquidate their home and assets to pay attorneys, and are now renting an old double wide trailer. Case dismissed with prejudice! Ouch! I feel their pain, but they’re a litigious minded couple looking for a payout—it backfired. They also have small children at home. Betting everything on the opinions of a lawyer always goes one way. The lawyer gets paid! Which bring us to religion…

Before betting your life in the words of a paid minister, it might be a good idea to think for yourself. Experts in gods-law, but right or wrong, he’s getting your money based in a phony presumption of misdeeds and guilt—your guilt, instilled by ‘men of words’ and followers based on assumption.

Most of us that have deconverted have dismissed the Bible and the churches without prejudice. It could be a cool story if it were true, and we have so many years sunk into it, wouldn’t it be nice if it came through for us? Some real evidence to present? I would easily take a new look at everything—if but one part were true?

Betting the farm on the words of another—mere belief, that’s all it is, a life to lay in waste on the word of another. Why would you discard your own mind and potential on the word of a paid lawman, or one of his lackeys, while you actually have the power and ability to chart a much more interesting—yours!

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Author: jimoeba

Alternatives to big box religions and dogmas

79 thoughts on “Dismissed With Prejudice—The Lawyers of Religion”

    1. Glad you liked it. The preachers are but legal wranglers of scripture. The good ones can carry a jury, or captivate an entire nation twisting the intent of the law to suit their presumptions. Even through lying. Not addressing damming evidence (or non evidence) like a pro

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            1. I’m familiar with this particular apologist’s terms of engagement from observing previous encounters with others. He frames the narrative in his favour and then plays whack-a-mole when things go south.

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            3. Thanks! But I’m not quite so confident. It’s his house, so he can exercise the ban hammer whenever it becomes unbearable. Plus, there’s his penchant for editing comments after the fact (which I find even more egregious than outright censorship).

              As for your convo, I would stipulate that you are requesting empirical evidence — i.e. the ultimate proof of Jesus’ resurrection is the physically resurrected man. Where is he? Why doesn’t he show up in real life in a tangible form? (Notice BillT never responded to my request for biographical info about the gospel authors?)

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            4. Oh, he knows this is what we mean but I won’t allow him to shut me down by stating this as this then allows him to veer off on anther apologetic tangent.
              Mel Wilde, CS, Branyanetc … We know where that leads.
              He insists what’s in the bible is evidence when it is nothing but an unsupported claim.

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  3. Indeed. Settled out of court often has a good ring to it. I wonder what the litigation equivalent of Pascal’s Wager would be. Lawyers? Don’t get me started. LOL Name for a dangerous gang: The Priests and Lawyers.

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    1. Ooh! Pascal’s wager to a tee! I should’ve seen that. This family I’m referring to is also involves the lady that my wife’s racist post was about. They are quite sure of themselves, even though juries and half the world thinks they’re wrong. She’ll cut off her nose to spite her face, which is sad they have to drag their kids through this. She should actually be blaming god about now. He’s the one that gave her the superiority complex.

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  4. How would you address the fact that your premise is hoisted by its own petard? For example, don’t bet the farm on the words of men (religious writ) but to instead accept your words (of a man) as offering the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

    Presumably you believe that men can discover and record truth. What is it that sets yours over theirs, for example?

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    1. It may not be it’s own petard, but certainly a grain of sand in the boot of religious tricks. In physics observable is defined as something that can be measured. The basic realities in life also can be measured. Outcomes can be predicted based on experience, consensus, repeatability, and yes, our eyes (usually). Only what a person can observe, measure, and demonstrate can be deemed as truth. Prayer is certainly the most falsifiable instrument on plane earth. Let’s start there.

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      1. Forgive my lack of experience with your page. I’ve been out of this for a few years and I’m sure you’ve posted a lot about how you came to many of your conclusions so I realize I’m asking you questions you’ve answered a thousand times before.

        It sounds like you’re a strict physicalist, is that right?

        The majority of theistic proofs and evidences come from philosophical and historical enterprises. Neither of which rely on repeatability. But then again, many things we know are not repeatable but are nonetheless true. Many things aren’t physical or repeatable but can be shown to be true.

        So what does any of that have to do with whether there is a God and whether or not we owe Him anything, behavioral or otherwise? Thanks

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        1. It sounds like you’re a strict physicalist, is that right? No not at all. My strengths lay in connecting seemingly disparate ideas and connecting dots. One of the greatest tricks is we are always given two wrong choices to select from. The ultimate is possibly belief vs atheism. True I am an atheist. I see no evidence for a god. However, I see tons of evidence it is a human construct. Based on mostly science, but as a conscious observer I have noticed after fifty years of belief, not one single doctrine nor religious catch phrase or scripture is not loaded with conjecture and contradiction…and the results don’t match the promises.
          That being said, the universe is an incredibly complex system of energy, matter and human variables. Billions of different experiences, neurologies, physiologies, and yet somehow the big box religion has funneled all this into one-way, which is 40,000 ways, which each person chooses from the platter what they want. Proof right there that individual spirituality is the reality and Christianity nor Islam can satisfy that truth.
          I am A-spiritual myself. I have a deplorable lack of interest in it personally, but many find it interesting. My wife is a strong metaphysical presence. She does not believe in god, but she sees things and predicts things and dreams about future events. She would have been burned in 17th century Europe as a witch! Really. But her abilities are not god. It is part of this complex universe. Religion is founded solely on spectral evidence, has been debunked at every level of scientific inquiry except creation. I’m sticking to the odds. Explanations are coming faster and faster, while Christianity tries to prove its scientific claims by waiting.

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          1. siftingreality.com/2011/09/20/a-peek-behind-the-foster-grants/

            Same, delete the link out of the comment if you’ve got a policy against it. Curious how you’d address some of my reasons for my convictions. Plus I’m in the market for post ideas, so new objections and perspectives are appreciated

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            1. Sure. I’ve got no policy except I frown on people that criticize without content to back it up, or critically analyze writing style and hand-wave the intent. Fair enough? Sometimes arguing faith turns into sweeping generalities which is unfortunate, but Christianity makes some awfully large sweeping claims. I try to use the right verbiage to avoid that.

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        3. But then again, many things we know are not repeatable but are nonetheless true. Many things aren’t physical or repeatable but can be shown to be true.

          Could you give some example of things that aren’t physical, but can be shown to be true?

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          1. Information, numbers, even gravity isn’t physical. Intentionality, emotion.

            One’s birth isn’t repeatable, the beginning of the universe. Nearly every personal event.

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            1. I asked you for examples of things that weren’t physical but aren’t true.

              Information? Not even sure where to begin here…there is a lot of physical information out there.

              I am not sure what you mean by gravity not being physical. It is a property of our universe. It is the curvature of space and time, and insofar as space and time exist, that it is a physical property of our universe. It impacts physical objects and physical objects cause varying degrees of curvature of time and space.

              As our intentions are a result of our biological selves, intentions are physical. and repeatable. I can intend the same thing twice most certainly.
              Emotions are most certainly physical. As they again are a result of our biology, a function on neural transmissions in our brain, changes to our body chemistry. They also seem quite repeatable as I seem to cry every time Forrest Gump gives his speech to Jenny’s grave at the end of Forrest Gump. The research on emotions has just begun relatively speaking and is finding many measurable and repeatable results.

              Birth is certainly a physical event. It’s also repeatable, but depends on what you mean by repeatable. If you are saying “exactly the same” well then of course not…everybody, but identical twins has different DNA, but the process is highly regular and has a high degree of predictability in its outcome.

              Personal events are physical.

              The beginning of the universe also physical. We also don’t know if it’s not repeatable.

              Numbers are an interesting one. You might be right, except that numbers would have no value if there weren’t physical things to measure or count. A number in of itself doesn’t exist. We don’t know if 2+2 = 4, unless of course we had two objects and two more objects to get 4 objects. Without a physical universe numbers aren’t true. We might be able to postulate the reality of numbers and still get mathematics, but without a physical world numbers are meaningless. They are an attempt to describe reality, or what is possibly real. But mathematical theorems in the latter sit on a shelf and have no value unless we find something physical that can be described by it. So math is not true unless it actually fits reality. Otherwise it’s just a premise that says “if A is true, then B follows”. I can do that easily by saying if God is real then all sorts of things follow, but until I prove that God is real we don’t if what follows is true, and if what follows is true there could be other explanations.

              So you have yet to give me something that is not physical, yet true.

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            2. You wrote a lot so I’ll just clarify with examples.

              Gravity isn’t physical. All that can be measured it it’s effect on objects, but not the force itself.

              Information is not physical. It can describe data in a physical sense. For example. The key strokes you’re reading are physical blips on a computer screen, but the MESSAGE the information it conveys, the MEANING is not physical.

              Intentionality is not physical. Yet again, you can see the manifestation of what the intention brought about. But the ABOUTNESS is not physical. WANTING to knock the glass on the floor is not the same as your arm moving to nudge the glass and it moving through space to crash onto the floor.

              Birth is a physical event, but not repeatable. I can not be birthed again. Same with personal events. I can experience my daughter’s flute recital. But only one time. Even if it’s recorded, the event can not be repeated.

              Set theory and numbers are abstract ideas and processes. They are in no way physical even if you use physical objects as representations.

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            3. Another example would be logical processes. They may represent physical things, but the processes are not physical by nonetheless true.

              As well as ideas. Sure, you can measure the electrical synapses but the content of the idea is not physical in any sense.

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            4. Christianity is not a logical process representing physical evidence. You seem to be conflating, which is the nature of faith-first framing of arguments.

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            5. I’m not conflating anything. You asked for examples, and I provided.

              Christianity would be defended using philosophy and history, neither of which are physical enterprises.

              But again, truth isn’t only found in the physical. Truth is that which comports with reality.

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            7. It seems you’re diverting from the original objection/question. I see it a lot.

              Truth is that which comports with reality. If given the proper venue I think it can be shown that a God exists, necessarily..that among competing religions, Christianity is true.

              It’s not a “mere” belief and it’s not an argument from absence or blind “cuz the Bible says so”

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            8. Well where have you demonstrated this? You think, based on belief, that it can be shown to be true. To who? Can you see any conflict of interest here?
              “Intense focus on a task or belief can make people effectively blind, even to stimuli that normally would attract attention —Daniel Kahnemn; Thinking Fast and Slow. He also states “We are often confident even when we are wrong, and an objective observer is more likely to detect our errors than we are”. Painstaking Nobel winning research acknowledges your bias. The question would be, does anyone outside of your beliefs agree with you?

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            9. You seem to think you’re immune to the “confident when wrong”.

              Your question of “does anyone outside my beliefs agree” is literally a nonsense question. If people agree by definition they are inside my beliefs. Which also speaks to the “there’s no non-Christian sources to the resurrection” complaint. By definition it would be difficult to report “yes Jesus definitely raised from the dead but I don’t believe it..but it happened”. You don’t see the WTF-ness in that objection?

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            10. I’m not immune to being confident when wrong, but I do pursue multiple disciplines and have no dog in the fight. I carefully observe and see discrepancies of belief—of any kind. That’s all.

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            11. I’m not here to promote my own blog. However, the focus of mine is refuting objections, rather than the positive affirming. So pretty much every thing you’ve presented, I’ve addressed. If you have time take a look

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            12. Pardon my skepticism, but that puts Islam and Hinduism as equals with Christianity. All based on spectral evidence.

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            13. It doesn’t even a little. Islam is self defeating and so is the pluralism if hunduism. Not only do I think they are false, philosophically speaking, according to their own claims they can’t be true.

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            15. Hinduism is pluralistic. That by definition can’t be true. A worldview that claims competing claims can all be true literally can’t be true. If you say A can both be true and false at the same time in the same sense, it cannot be true. That worldview fails.

              Islam claims that God’s word cannot be changed and is true. It also claims that the Gospels are true and are God’s word. The Gospels say Jesus is God and was resurrected which Islam denies. Therefore Islam is false since it affirms claims that logically can’t be true.

              Get it?

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            16. Monotheism by definition can’t be true. If so, why hasn’t the same god ever came on the scene twice? Always a re-creation, a conception from the minds of men.

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            17. That’s not the case. First if (a) God(s) exist, only monotheism can be true. And yes, God has made Himself known in the same place more than once.

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            18. Even the Bible contradicts the “one god”. Why the ecumenical councils had to get on the same page. One authority (the writers) can exude much stricter control.

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            19. Except it doesn’t. It affirms the trinity. The ecumenical councils were more on the same page than not. They affirmed, not collaborated as it were. Dan Brown was not a history writer.

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            20. Never read dan brown. Lol. Be real here. Philosophy won the councils on clever wording. The Bible contradicts trinity.

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            21. I get it. You have to admit you’ve got a bent toward looking for issues. I don’t believe the Bible contradicts it at all especially given that it’s authors were all Orthodox Jews who were strict monotheists who also affirmed Jesus as God.

              The councils weren’t philosophical in nature. They focused on theology and not having to defend with philosophy their positions concerning the foundations of Christianity.

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            22. I’m not bent at all. I just don’t sugarcoat through the lens of faith. You’ve submitted your thoughts to authority from the beginning of the conversion. Jesus certainly didn’t pray to himself in the garden of gethsemene, and the councils were so solid that inserting Fillioque itself caused the east/west schism dividing the churches. I know, there are miles of apologetics, but the Bible ain’t so clear with them, and it gets even more mired without them. The churches don’t agree on it either, but I’m supposed to?

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            23. I might concede on gravity only that gravity is an elementary start to a concept that was much more complex. It works for describing and predicting many things, but it’s not really what’s going on. So gravity in essence isn’t true either, it’s just approximates observations on scales humans are interested in. But the phenomenon is describable because of a real physical property of the universe describe by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Newton’s Law of Gravitation turns out to be just a small portion of what’s going on. Just as his other laws are incomplete, but work on certain scales of motion and reference frames.

              I am not sure you understand mathematics correcty, but math is just a language that describes reality. Just like I can use language to also create fictions, so can I with math. Set theory is nothing without things to put in a set. It was borne out of a need to describe reality. And certainly we might expand the logical chains to more abstract ideas, but unless those ideas actually describe reality, which I suspect they one day might, it still represents language. Albeit a very precise one.

              Your other arguments about ideas and intentions are all essentially the same. I am not sure if you aren’t just moving the goalposts here, but you are drifting from your original arguments which are that things that aren’t repeatable or physical can still be true. There is a lot of classic apologetic logic here which simply doesn’t hold water, because if we are talk about what is true then intentions, emotions, the words I am reading must be physical. It requires a physical being to express idea just as it requires a physical being to receive it. Without the physical there is no idea. Ideas, whatever you want to believe about consciousness, are of a physical origin, if life disappears from the universe then so do any ideas. But the first law of thermodynamics does not. It is still a part of the universe even if there is nobody there to conceive it is part of objective reality. Now beings like ourselves may not perceive the universe as it is, but we approximate it. We have an idea of what the universe is like. That idea, however close to reality it is, disappears along with the physical beings that had it. Masses still warp time and space without us, our idea about how masses warp time and space go away.

              So if you are talking about true things, the physical is a necessary condition. Repeatability is not a necessary condition, but again this is another flawed argument that theists often use. “Well since not all things are repeatability a virgin birth still could have happened and been true.” But given the strong similarity of births among other humans, and other mammals the event doesn’t need to repeatable for us to say that is extremely unlikely for it to be true. In fact if it’s something that can naturally happen, regardless of how rare we would certainly have observed it happening at least a few other times by now in our species or another mammal species, and if a deity is responsible and only cared to do it once in a small region of the world a couple hundred thousand years after we were modern humans existed in a dead language, well then it would still be up to the theist to prove the existence of said deity for that “miracle” to be true.

              By your definition an idea is not physical but true, Thus Sherlock Holmes is true but not physical, and I willing to concede the argument that Sherlock Holmes is as real God. I mean I do love a good mystery. Sherlock Holmes is said to have deduced in mysterious circumstances.

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  5. “if but one part we’re true.”

    Yup, I’d be happy to look at it all again and rethink my position if one part of the story I was told was true. That’s not so much to ask, is it? You have a religion based on several ancient stories. Wouldn’t it be a reasonable request for at least one of them to be true before going all in? Just one?

    Great post Jim.

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  7. Beautiful analogy. Since theists are incapable of bringing any empirical evidence to the table, I’ve dismissed religious ideology with extreme prejudice.

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    1. It would at least be interesting if there was something new to talk about. But I agree…mostly. Dealing with that last bit of hope that something I was so thoroughly duped by, had at least a smidgeon of reality to it. But alas…to bad I know about sunk cost fallacy.

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  8. I myself throw the case for the existence of any superbeing of any ilk out with prejudice, extreme or otherwise. I do the same for karma, or any cosmic list of rewards and punishments that we might build up or save for future use–that too requires a purposeful universe. There are no places of paradise or nirvana for succeeding at living a life of not hurting others.
    Yet I believe in life, because it is always here. And the instant life ceases to be, if such can happen, then everything disappears, because there will be no life to comprehend it. I call myself an atheist to differentiate myself from theists, who occupy most of the world. But no ism really matters, they are all human folly. “The rest is silence.”

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    1. Nice. The universe is a pretty interesting and complex thing. No single dogma, religión, or belief can encapsulate but a small fraction, but if your mind is open, the distinct talents, awareness, and individuality can be experienced for your own peaceful or productive existence. No one-size-fits-all big box religion can fill it. Hence the reason even the members of such faiths glean the parts that work for them and discard what doesn’t. Proof of its inadequate design.

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      1. You think it was designed? I see it as a hodge-podge of different thinkers trying to correct what was seen as mistakes by previous writers, and thereby giving fodder to their future apologists. Just like the no-god, I see no-design. Which is why you see it as inadequate, I guess. When there is no one being in charge of the whole project, there is no rational process to it. Which right there demonstrates there is no god.
        Or somethging like that, lol.

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        1. I don’t think it was designed. Elements do these things all the time. They find a way to bind, bond, arrange, and hang on. Like oil and water, they find their equilibrium. That is the formation of worlds. Not that complicated. A lot of time though. A lot!

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            1. It may sound strange to say that the universe has always existed but it has a finite age, but this is the way it is. The universe has always existed—there is no time at which it didn’t. There is just a finite amount of time, hence why the universe can be said to have an age.
It is an interesting concept, and in no-way proves an ultimate beginning, other than of this particular universe. Before this there was something—never nothing.


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            2. No way you can state absolutely the universe is finite. Believing it is does not make it so. But however it came into being, it was not “created,” as that would take a creator.

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            3. I think, not believe, the universe is a brute fact. There was never nothing—but 15billion years ago it may have had a different form.

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            4. I’m okay with that. Just one question, is it okay to measure the age of the universe using one itsy bitsy part of it as a standard length year. I think a universal year should be the time it takes to rotate on it’s own axis, or how long it takes to revolve around its mother universe. That would cut its age immeasurably to something our electron-sized brains could actually consider. Or is that giving us too much brainpower?

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            5. The measurements are human constructs of familiar cycles. Do it however you want as long as it’s universal and consistent. And don’t think to hard on this. Leave the science to me. You’ve got your end covered pretty good.

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            6. This is what I am wondering about. When did humans first determine how long a year should be. If, as many claim, the bible is the word of God, why is the length of a year a human construct. Should it not be a universe-sized godly-construct?
              Let’s theorize that 1 universal year is equal to, I don’t know, 2.5 million human years. Then the universe may have come into being 6000 universal years ago. Would that not satisfy the bible version of events? God, of course, being God, would not differentiate between universal years and human years, because human years would not have been invented yet.
              On the other hand, if human years were actually measured by the time it took for the moon to go around the earth–what we today call a month– then Methuselah would have only lived about 75 years, which is not at all spectacular.
              I’m not really sure what I’m driving at here, but I hope your scientific mind can get there for me.
              It really all depends on when we measured how long it takes the earth to go around the sun, and then how long it took to be accepted by the scientific community.

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            7. I see what your getting at. The babylonians and Sumerians had year long calendars, the oldest that we know of (2100 and 3300 BCE) but I think we’re slowly discovering that men have been around a long, long time. Cyclic advanced civilizations have come and gone for a lot longer than we have record. The problem with your hypothesis is, using the Hebrew calendar and using the English translation of the Hebrew word year as in the text, is the same year. A year is a year. This is year 5779 in the Hebrew calendar, or 5779 since the earth was created.
              I know your idea makes sense, but these books were written by men using known calendrical systems. I think the best option is methuselah is a fable like the rest.

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  10. This may sound harsh, but I don’t even think the theologians have any expertise. How can you know anything about an essentially unknowable god?

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