Atheism, the gate way drug to Communism, Pedophilia, Murder, and anything else bad that can be thought of. Part 2

Now, another common accusation towards atheism is that it leads to communism or that, more generally, that it is responsible for the many terrible genocides of the 20^th century.   I have heard this attack from many people over the years but one of the more recent examples I have seen was in this video where Matt Dillahunty debates father Hans Jacobse, who despite being fairly liberal religious leader still believes this slanderous lie.

There are many more cases of this but rather than just start going through all of them if you doubt that this McCarthy era argument is alive an well just take a look at this Google search.

Atheism leads to Communism

Of course most will admit that bad things have been done in the name of religion but, they will say, Hitler, Marx, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao Zedong were all atheists and they killed more than any of religion ever killed throughout history.  First I’ll point out that this argument, even if correct, is an affirmation of consequence and thus does nothing to prove god actually exists.  Arguing that god must exist because not believing in him might make us violent is not even an argument worth refuting.  However, this argument is flawed; indeed it is flawed in so many ways I am not even sure where to begin in refuting it.  

Bullshit at it's best.

First, since Hitler was the only member of this group who was not communist, at the risk of invoking Godwin’s law, I will speak about him shortly.  There is basically no evidence that Hitler was an atheist, though I will not claim to know exactly what his religious beliefs were he never once said that he did not believe in some kind of god.  First it needs to be mentioned that no matter was his religious beliefs were all of Europe had been steeped in an antisemitism based upon Christianity for well more than a thousand years.   Martin Luther, the German reformer, wrote a book entitled “On Jews and their Lies” in 1543, nearly 4 centuries before the Third Reich, and his views were hardly uncommon.  

Good Christian literature in the 16th century.

Hitler’s speeches were peppered with religious symbolism.  You can easily dig up many quotes from him on the internet, but just one will do for the purposes of this article.

"I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work."   [Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]

Of course it is not possible to know how much of it he actually believed and how much was used just to manipulate the German populace, but to argue he was clearly atheist is entirely contrary to the facts we have available.

Perhaps by lord he meant the flying spaghetti monster?  Oh wait FSM doesn't condone this sort of shit.

Communism is something quite a bit different of course in that it is atheistic, or at least very anti-religious.  Of course we can look back into the history of communism and see the thinking in the famous quote by Karl Marx

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo"

One will noticed that Marx speaks about religion not god, but clearly he was no friend of religious beliefs and certainly many communist regimes seem to mandate a lack of religion

I could get bogged down in a debate about the history of Marxism here, but quite frankly this is a blog post not a graduate dissertation, so I will simply stipulate that the most if not all communist governments have mandated atheism.  

One exception I must note.  I personally think that North Korea may well be an exception as they believe that the current leader is a reincarnation of his grandfather Kim Il Sung, which strikes me as, if not a religious claim, then something rather like such a claim.  In any case I do not think communism's support of atheism says anything about the modern atheist movement in America.

Though we might want to check under the bed just in case.

There are two reasons that the argument that atheism is to blame for the atrocities of the 20^th century fails, one is a factual problem and the other a philosophical one.  

First, there these communist countries forced atheism on people, this is not only ethically wrong it is entirely contrary to the goals of the modern atheist movement.  While I will not hide the fact that I think the world would be a better place if it were less religious, (not perfect, just better) how one reaches the conclusion of atheism is actually more important than the conclusion itself.  I happen to believe that the world would be a better place without religion because religion is not rational or evidence based and it is far better to believe in something for rational reasons.  However, forcing a belief using political or physical force does not make anyone more rational.  

Many societies other can communists ones have forced a belief onto its people such as many Middle Eastern countries where many governments are Islamic theocracies or Europe in the middle ages being controlled by Catholicism in many ways.  None of these are examples of humans behaving rationally, and forcing any view onto a populace using political force is not something that leads to more rational people.

On second thought maybe I should reconsider Catholicism.

There is a further philosophical problem with ALL of these claims.  It must be asked if atheism is both necessary and sufficient to justify the atrocities of these totalitarian regimes.  “Necessary and sufficient” is a phrase in logic used to define the two elements needed to prove causality.  

One must ask if atheism is necessary, meaning that totalitarian regimes, and the atrocities they commit are necessarily atheistic.  Second, one must ask if atheism is sufficient, meaning that the mere lack of belief in a god is sufficient to justify the atrocities.

Of course there is no argument that manages to prove either necessity or sufficiency.  In fact, plenty of empirical data exists to show that atheism is hardly necessary.  There are plenty of examples totalitarian regimes and human rights violations from a variety of cultures and religions.  

Now when it comes specifically to communism I could grant that atheism is necessary for it, except that there are quite a few theists these days that support Communism.  Liberation theology for instance seems to be rather chummy with a lot of communist ideals. 

Now, as to atheism's sufficiency, even if you take the most extreme definition of atheism where it is defined as a total rejection of even the possibility of any god existing, (no atheist I have ever met would go this far) one could not state that such a claim could, on its own, justify genocide, eugenics, communism, or totalitarianism.  Each one of these ideas are completely irrational, there is no empirical support for them and there is no valid reason to assert that just because atheism is sometimes mixed up in these things that it is integral to why they all went so wrong.

This argument is made more out of fear and prejudice than anything else, the cure for those prejudices is for us to be out and letting people know that these are not the sorts of things we believe in.  Preachers and other religious leaders may keep attacking us with all the prejudice and bigotry that they can muster, but more and more people will realize that the things they say just do not mesh with reality, and that we atheists are not the bogeyman that religion makes us out to be.   

I believe that the idea that atheists do not care about ethics and that we turn a blind eye to human suffering will become increasingly laughable, and that the views of the bigots who say such things will eventually be ignored by most people in the same way people ignore the KKK today.  Indeed it is quite the opposite, many atheists think this way precisely because we do care and we see the harm religion does to people and societies.  As long as religion is used as a tool to hurt our fellow humans beings we will be here calling out the religious for their bull shit.

Atheism, the gate way drug to Communism, Pedophilia, Murder, and anything else bad that can be thought of. Part 1

Continuing the discussion on accusations/questions that are often leveled at atheists, these particular accusations come from theists of all sorts of backgrounds.  Fundamentalist Christians are probably the most common of course, but I have head the same accusations from Jews, Muslims, liberal Christian’s and even the occasional pagan.  

 This article may end up a bit long because I want to tackle several of the most common arguments as well as the historical and philosophical problems with these arguments.  I've decided to break this up into a few separate posts, I'll start with the topic of pedophilia because I just ran across an article which argues this.

.

Atheism and pedophilia part II the incoherent moral philosophy of Michael Ruse

Moshi Averick pictured. Smug bigotry was unavailable for photo.

I recently ran across this article online written by a Jewish Rabbi, Moshi Averick arguing that the moral framework of “atheist philosophy” which makes it completely rational to be a pedophile.  Of course there are many problems with his argument, first he acts as if there is a singular moral philosophy from the atheist view point.  He takes his views from atheist philosophers such as Michael Ruse, even though Ruse’s ideas are generally not shared by much of the modern atheist movement.  Of course, since they align with Averick’s ideas about atheism he assumes they must be the correct ones.

Averick dismisses any atheistic moral philosophies that are not nihilistic in nature as being irrational and then proceeds to dismantle nihilistic philosophy as if it were the sum total of all atheistic thinking.  The reason for this, I think, is that theism and nihilism actually agree on several key points that are key to the type of argument Averick is making.   

Well, at least one person seems happy about it.

You see, nihilism and theism both agree that any real valuation of anything requires that in continue to exist for eternity.  Theists generally argue that something, namely us, will exist for eternity in some form, the nihilist says we will not, and thus because any action we take will eventually be rendered useless by the passage of time it is effectively useless now.  To me this sounds rather more like an opinion than a philosophical argument.  Sure my actions may essentially average out to basically nothing a in a billion years, but what rational reason can one give that eternity is a more valid context to judge actions in than the here an now?

Further I would point out that history does not bear out the claim Averick is making.  To be fair, he does not argue that there are more pedophiles among modern atheists than there are among theists, which is good since the facts don’t support such a claim.  Though to me this exemplifies the most basic problem with such arguments, Averick, and those who argue like him, do their best to posit an argument which is built entirely around bare deduction without reference to reality.  They are careful to not allow the argument to make any claims about the real world results we should expect to see if their arguments were correct.  

Of course he says that atheism should lead to pedophilia but he is careful to posit this as some portent of future danger rather than actually make a testable claim.  This, of course, has all the same hallmarks of pseudo-science.  If you design your claim to be untestable the no one can ever refute it.  

Personally I think this place has far more to do with pedophilia than atheists.

Of course when we look at the evidence the trend we actually see is exactly the opposite, in ancient civilizations as well as many modern third world countries relationships and marriages that would be considered to be pedophilia in the modern United States have been common faire, and by and large these civilizations have been far more religious than we are, or ever have been in this country.  Indeed in recent years several groups have been uncovered even here in the U.S. that were engaging in pedophilia, and every one of these groups were not only religious, but the pedophilia was being protected, sanctioned or even commanded by the religion in these communities. 

Now,  I do not want to suggest that religion is a cause pedophilia either, one has to be clear that correlation does not always amount to causation and I don’t necessarily think religion is to blame for pedophilia, it is often just a convenient cover for it.  However, to argue, given the facts, that any sort of theism is going to be a cure for this problem or that a lack of theism will cause it to get worse is just laughable.

I don't really need a caption here, it pretty much speaks for itself.

Next up is a discussion about totalitarian regimes and the attempts that have been made to associate atheism with them.

Asking to be treated as equal citizens is "whiny"...apperently.

First I'll apologize for not posting more.  Skyrim has been taking up a lot of my time lately so I haven't been keeping up with things very well.

I happened to read something interesting today between calls at work and thought I would post a few comments on it.

You Whiny Sniveling Little Atheists Are Pathetic! 

This article, found on a catholic blog was published just two days ago.  First, as a bit of back story this was commenting on the suit that the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed against Arizona governor Jan Brewer over her proclaiming a day of prayer in the state of Arizona.  The state in which I happen to live for those who don't know.

Now, FFRF lost that case, and from what I have read it seems that it was poorly argued by the atheist side.  The issue, of course, is one of church state separation.  I don't particularly care what religion Jan Brewer belongs to, she can worship Jesus, Allah or Pez dispensers for all I care.  However, using her position as governor to as a pulpit for her beliefs is (or at least should be) wrong.

My god dispenses candy, what has yours done lately?

I may speak more in another post on that issue later, but to be honest I'm not educated enough on the particulars of the actual lawsuit to really make a more detailed analysis of it.  I mostly wanted to speak about the article by Mary Kochan that I posted a link to.

She starts out by suggesting that, and I quote:

Let’s get this straight.  The atheists are suing because they had to turn off the television to avoid the topic of religion or news announcements about the Day of Prayer.  They had to alter their conversation to avoid the topic of religion. This made them feel like “outsiders”.

To be clear, as I mentioned previously, the issue is about something a little be bigger than just feeling like outsiders.  The ironic thing is that in her third paragraph she actually intones the exact fundamentalist view point that this is really about.

Yes, you are outsiders. Go start your own damn country.  This one was started by Christians, you puerile dimwits. It is Christians who established and largely Christians who fought and died to maintain the freedoms you enjoy. And Christians are still the majority. Apparently your vaulted belief system doesn’t equip you to handle being in the minority. (added bold for emphasis)

Without realizing she her very article justifies the reasons for the FFRF's lawsuit.  She apparently wants to use religion as a criterion for citizenship.  Then she goes on to justify the abuse of power by saying Christians are the majority so we just have to suck it up if we want to live here.  Now irregardless of the religious beliefs of the founding fathers, they very carefully setup the U.S. government to avoid a tyranny of the majority.

The further irony of this article is that it is written by a Catholic, who is conveniently the friend of the founding fathers even though those of them who were religious were undeniably protestant and did not have a lot of nice things to say about Catholics.  In fact an anti-catholic sentiment was rather common for most of American history and they were often views as unpatriotic because of their allegiance to the Pope.  There were plenty of people in our country at that time who would have loved it if Catholics gone and found some other country to live in.

Isn't it odd that as soon as Catholics became accepted as part of the majority they turn around and and join in persecution of some new minority all the while claiming that us atheists are attacking them and we are somehow the real danger.

Help, Help, I'm being repressed.

If anyone has a question about the inherent bigotry against atheists that most of her article intones just mentally replace the word atheist in her article with Jew, Black, or Hispanic and reread it and ask how many KKK members would suddenly agree with her article.

Now if only Kochan could managed to produce this kind of unbridled anger at her own church for protecting child rapists then maybe us "evil" atheists would have one fewer things to complain about.

Question 2: Why don’t you just leave believers alone, their beliefs aren’t hurting anyone?

The first thing that comes to mind when theists bring this up is how evangelistic they are.  Though truthfully, many theists are, in fact, not very evangelistic.  Some believe religion to be a private affair, and many say they believe in the idea of evangelism but very rarely make any effort to “convert” anyone.

"I should totally convert her to Christianity...well maybe tomorrow"

The thing is, most atheists don’t really do this either.  Of course there are exceptions, there are people in any group who aren’t satisfied unless everyone else sees the world the same way they do.  

Stop believing in god or so help me I will end you with this spork.

However this behavior seems rather rare from atheists, at least no more common than it is from theists.  As a theist I frequently engaged in forms of evangelism, including walking up to strangers in a beach to convert them.  As an atheist I have yet to approach one stranger to start evangelizing them.  Every serious conversation I have ever had about religion with someone I was not very good friends with were initiated by the theist trying to convert me or someone else in the room.

I imagine atheist evangelism looks something like this.

Personally I think this problem is in part due from the normal bias that anyone has with beliefs they disagree with.  I’ve often found myself discussing interviews/debates done between famous atheists like Hitchens or Dawkins with theists and I am surprised that they say how abrasive or mean that the atheist was; even during interviews where I felt that the atheist was rather tame or circumspect and the theist was.

I had just such a conversation about the above interview between Dawkins and O’Reilly in which Dawkins comes across rather gentlemanly and O’Reilly comes across, as usual, as a jerk who immediately attacks Dawkins’ atheism despite the fact that Dawkins had not mentioned religion or god at all.  Don't get me wrong I'd happily admit Dawkins can come off insulting at times, just not this particular time.

Now, that being said, there are a few topics which often invite the ire of atheists.   Things like church-state separation related issues or religious based bigotry tend set quite a few of us off.  I believe that one of the main reasons this question gets asked is often because our weighing in on these topics is often viewed as a type of evangelism.  

I, of course, disagree with this assessment, but it does bear some discussion.  I think part of the problem is that, in this country, theists (Christians in particular) have a certain natural sense of entitlement when it comes to their beliefs.  

It seems a little like this to us.

 I have had many conversations with Christians who are offended that other groups, Muslims for example, should have certain freedoms that they feel are an intrinsic right of their group.   Those of you who question my assessment may want to give a moment of consideration to the significant group of Christians who believe that prayer and creation science should be reintroduced in public schools.  Yet the Christians who argue for this are unlikely want Muslim prayers or Hindu creationism taught in school.  

Exactly what evolution predicted humans evolved from.
Our early manophant ancestors were strange and wonderful creatures.

 This is typically where we atheist step in and say that given the disagreements among these groups the safest thing to do is not have any prayers from any religion publicly endorsed by any teachers in the school.  This is where we recommend simply teaching scientific facts about our universe and limit the teaching of creation myths to that of history class.  The best way to allow society to flourish is to keep government out of the business of mandating beliefs.

Some disagree.

 Unfortunately despite not being evangelistic in the least it is often interpreted as such by theists largely, I suspect, because atheism is viewed as just another competing religion to most theists.  They do not want to allow non-prayer in schools for the same reason they don’t want to allow Muslim prayer in school.  They try to remove the teaching of evolution in schools for the same reason they reject the teaching of the Japanese creation myth in science class.  

If you have ever heard a fundamentalist Christian say that evolution is just a creation story for atheists then you may have an idea what I am referring too.  I have heard them say, indeed, when I was a young believer I said it myself, repeated from sermons I heard.  To them non-prayer is viewed as a sacrament of atheism the same as prayer to their god is a sacrament to them.  Science, rather than a process by which we explore the natural world, is viewed as part of the “religion of secularism.”  Too many theists who ask this question secularism is just another competing religion that is seeking to drive their religion out of the public square and replace it with our own.

Extremism does differ a bit from group to group.

I wish a knew a way to win this particular debate because I truly think a secular government is not only better for me, but its better for theists of all types as well.  However some theists strongly believe that their religion should be given favored treatment by whatever government they live under, and any attempt to undermine that will be seen as an attack on their beliefs.

How dare you make laws saying we can't burn people at the stake!  Stop interfering with our religious freedom.

Question 1: Why do you lump all theists together into one big group when there are many nuanced views of religion and god that are not fundamentalist?

The short answer to this question is that I don’t do this, or at least I try not to.

In fact, I will admit, atheists do this from time to time.  For the most part, however, this is not done out of any malice, this is simply human nature.  It is the way our brain has evolved to work.  We create categories in our head to fit people or things into, and once in that category our mind automatically assumes a certain level of similarity between all things in that group.  This is just basic psychology.

This conversation is generally brought up by theists who are more moderate or liberal in their beliefs.  I have often had conversations, for instance, with more liberal Christians who seem to think that I only find their beliefs objectionable or incorrect because I have incorrectly assumed that their beliefs are the same as fundamentalist Christians simply because both groups are attached to the name “Christian.”

“Why would you disagree with my beliefs, it’s not like I think being gay is a sin (insert any other fundamentalist talking point here), just because I'm a christian doesn't mean I agree with all those fundamentalist beliefs,” they will say.

Being gay is OK, but tell me you think my religion is wrong and I will break you.

 I can’t speak for every atheist but for me I think this question is the result of a basic misunderstanding between these two groups.  First, I am well aware that there is a wide variety of Christian beliefs.  I may have been a fundamentalist myself, but I interacted with many moderate/liberal Christians while I was a believer and since I became an atheist.

 

Some of these theists, like me, left some form of fundamentalism themselves, and I think they, more than anyone else, have trouble understanding my issues with religion.  I did actually consider becoming a more liberal Christian during my own disillusionment with fundamentalism; I also considered becoming a Buddhist and Taoist and several others.  I ultimately decided against all of those options because I felt the claims of all of those options were not proven by the evidence.  

See, I think the key difference is that the more liberal believers were offended or bothered by the social results of certain fundamentalist teachings, while atheists, by and large, have an issue with the lack of proof that religious people offer for their claims.  Don’t get me wrong, atheists also often have a problem with much of the social teachings of fundamentalists, abet for different reasons, but it starts with empiricism, which translates into a basic philosophical disagreement about how best to understand reality.

(From SMBC)

 Every person who believes there is a god must, at a minimum, believe in something for which they can offer no conclusive empirical evidence.  Indeed insistence on evidence is often maligned by more liberal believers, and I have found myself on the receiving end of criticism from so called “open minded” liberal Christians.  The thinking among more liberal believers seems to follow a post-modernist bent where the emotional content of your beliefs is more important than the factual content.  In an odd twist I have had many of these same theists suggest that I was just another form of fundamentalist no better than Christian fundamentalists I left, which relates to another question I plan on answering.  

So to sum up, I acknowledge that there is a myriad of various theist beliefs out there that weave a rich tapestry of diversity…and all of them have failed to produce evidence to suggest their beliefs correspond to any being that actually exists.

Maybe he is hiding behind the couch.

Christians say the darnest things...to atheists

The last few months I have been feeling the urge to write down my thoughts on a set of questions that seem to come up repeatedly whenever Christians or other theists engage me in debate or conversation.  Of course these “questions” are rarely actual questions.  You see when someone asks a question they usually are looking to find information they currently do not know yet, in other words they actually care to listen to the answer that is given.  

With these questions that is rarely the case, they are usually asked by a person who thinks they have come up with some question that will stump all atheists and presumably cause us curl up into a ball in a corner and lament the meaningless of our existence.  

Perhaps they imagine me doing this.

 To be honest some seem surprised when I don’t.  “How can this question not make you see how vacuous your world view is?” they seem to wonder.  Though I am, perhaps, projecting a view onto them that only exists in my head.  It does seem a reasonable assumption since I find time and time again if a discussion goes on very long the theist will ask the very same question again, often claiming I never answered it the first time.  

Maybe if I ask a few more times.

Now I am sure the answer I gave was not satisfactory for some reason but I have never had any of them explain why it is not satisfactory, they just repeat the question.  In many cases this is likely because they heard the question from a pastor or read it in an apologetics book presented as a question to stump atheists, and books on apologetics are usually bereft of a section on counterpoints to the argument they just made.  

They apparently think this is kryptonite for atheists.

You might think that as common as these questions are they have already been answered about a billion times, and you would be right.  This is probably the number one reason I had not bothered to write something on these before.  However, given the likelihood that these questions will come up I thought it would be a good idea to write out my own explanations.  If nothing else I will at least have a sort of FAQ to point to every time they are brought up. 

I'll make a post on the first of these questions tonight.

Personal issues

I'm going through some personal stuff in my life at the moment and as a result I am going to be taking a short hiatus from blogging.  I just don't have the presence of mind to continue with it right now.  Hopefully I will get back to this soon.

Biblical stories that will freak you out. #1

After going through the ten commandments I began thinking about all of the really disturbing stories in the Bible and thought I might start an occasionally writing about passages in the bible which were disturbing or immoral.

www.thebricktestament.com

Today's entry is a gem of a story from Judges 11.  Jephthah goes to make war against the children of Ammon, this in itself is not that remarkable, but the there is much more to the passage starting in verse 30.

And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. Judges 11, 30-31

So we see here at the start of the passage Jephthah makes a promise to God.  He tells god that if he is granted a victory over the Ammon he will kill and make a burnt offering of whatever comes out of his house first.  I find this a really odd promise to make, given that he was going to be coming home from a war did it not occur to him that it might not be an animal that came out, but a fellow human being?  Further, God, though silent in this passage, seems to find this arrangement acceptable.  He certainly speak up to tell Jephthah he might want to rethink his promise.

While we are on this subject I think it might be worth bringing up that this bargain looks very much like some sort of magic spell.  Offering up blood sacrifices in exchange for deities reorganizing reality in your favor seems very similar to the sort of things I often hear Christians condemn about other religions.

So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands.  And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. Judges 11:32-33

So, fairly straight forward here, Jephthah goes out to war and wins.  Indeed he apparently chases them across 20 cities.

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.  Judges 11:34

So, unsurprisingly, Jephthah's daughter comes out to greet him.  His only daughter as it turns out.  You might think Jephthah would have deemed it a good idea to tell his daughter not to come great him when he got back, but clearly he did not think that far ahead.  His daughter came out to greet him because she was presumably happy that he hadn't been killed in the war, unaware that he had struck a blood bargain with his preferred deity for that safe return.

And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.  Judges 11:35

Well, at least he is upset about this turn of events.  However, he simply says that he can't go back on a promise he made to God so he is going to have to kill her and make a human sacrifice of her.   Again, God could have popped in at this point to tell him human sacrifice is wrong, and killing ones own daughter is even more wrong, but He continues to be silent.

And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.  And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.   Judges 11:36-38

To being told her dad is going to have to kill her now she responds rather calmly in this story.  I rather expect if this event were real she would not be so understanding.  She only asks that she be allowed two months to hang out with her friends to bewail that she will die a virgin.  Considering the age of marriage at the time this means that Jephthah's daughter (funny they never give her a name) would probably be no more than 13 or 14.  There is also some rather inherent sexism in this passage, the fact that she chooses to bewail her virginity rather than the fact that she was about to be made a burnt offering focuses on her role as a producer of babies to the exclusion of any other value she might have possessed.  "It's just a shame she has to die before she could pop out a few babies," is the way this reads to me.

And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year. Judges 11:39-40

www.thebricktestament.com

Well, as promised she calmly comes back to her father so that he can preform the sacrifice.  If she had any sense she would have run away from that abusive nut job that calls himself her father, but she comes back and he goes through with it.  Again it should be noted that God could have intervened here but did not.  He did so for Abraham, not that God showing up at the last second up and yelling, "Psyche" makes the story all that great, but at least there was no actual human sacrifice in that one.

I have actually had Christians try to absolve this story by treating it as a object lesson about the need to keep the promises one makes to God.  The passage actually even supports this conclusion when Jephthah says, "I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back."  I personal think if there is any lesson to be found here it's that we shouldn't make bat shit crazy promises to invisible beings, but I am just weird like that  I guess.  Mostly I just point out to them that this kind of thinking can only lead to a rather openly relativistic moral position.  (you know, the sort of position that Fundamentalist Christians claim is a flaw with atheism)

How does one know that all of those parents who killed there kids weren't doing God's will?  Perhaps all those pedophile priests in the Catholic church were told by god to do what they did?  God wouldn't do that?  Why? Because it is wrong?  Just like human sacrifice is wrong even if its to keep a promise to god?  One cannot have it both ways, either we always keep our promises to god and this guy is a spiritual hero for his actions, or there are somethings that should never be done in any circumstance and this guy is the poster boy for what religion can make people do at its worst.

If it is the first, then Fundamentalist can not reasonably claim to have the moral high ground on anything, If it is the second then the it becomes increasingly difficult to treat the Bible as if it has anything useful to say about our morals.