Category: Featured


Lies, damn lies and the people who ignore them

Filed under: Featured, Religion — 6 Comments
February 5, 2012
Got touching Adam...

God and Adam (sitting in a tree...)

What do you blog about when you don’t feel like blogging and don’t have anything to say? The Bible! Nothing like a bit of Bible study to get you going right? Right.

I thought that today, I’d go back to the beginning. You know, this bit:

1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

I think even some Christians might recognize that line. It’s the first line of the Bible (the King James version anyway…). And I know what you’re thinking: “he’s going to tear into the horse shit that is the creation story and point out how it’s not scientific at all, has no evidence and is generally laughably impossible”.

Well, no.

Instead, we’re going to have a look at the characters of the creation story. ‘Story’ since it is a story, on par with the Hindu creation myths and the ancient Greek ones and the ancient Roman ones and the Norse ones and the Egyptian ones… you get the point. There is not one iota of evidence that makes the Christian story more credible than any of the other aforementioned stories. Christians can’t even agree among themselves on the truth of their own creation story and god knows they allegedly speak to the same deity and could just ask him. They even have a ‘personal relationship’ with it. Strange no?

Anyway, there’s four characters we’ll look at:

  • God – Perfect, omniscient, almighty creator of the universe.
  • Adam – The first human being created by God
  • Eve – The second  (or third, depending on how much attention you pay when you read the Bible) human being created by God
  • The Serpent – A garden variety snake created by God. And no, I don’t see any evidence in the Bible that says the snake was anything other than a snake.

Everybody knows the story, right? Ok, fine, several billion people know the story, right? Right.

God slaps the universe together in a couple of days, gets lonely (or something) and makes a dude called Adam who seems lonely so God makes him a wife called Eve. He puts them in an awesome garden and from the rest of the story we can infer that their lives are pretty much awesome: low stress, high relaxation, essentially on an ever lasting holiday at an out of season nudist resort.

In the mean time, God had also made two magic trees. We’re not even going to go there. Ok, fine, we will, but not now.

God:
2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Pretty straight forward: eat the fruit of the tree and you will die until you are DEAD on that very same day. You picking up what I’m putting down people?

The Serpent:
3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Like I said, God made the snake, plain old garden variety. Only, back then, snakes could talk. Somehow. Not too sure where the vocal chords went since then. Maybe snakes were telepaths or something? Right? Right.

Eve:
3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

So there’s Eve telling The Serpent pretty much exactly what God said.

The Serpent:
3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

What is this? The Serpent is contradicting the almighty creator of the universe! Sure folly! No! Don’t do it Eve! You’re gonna die! You! Gonna! Die!

3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

OMG they ate the poisonous, man killing fruit! They’re gonna die! Poor bastards. Not even 5 pages into the history of the world and the original people are dead. Not a great start.

3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Say what now? No horrifying death? Must still be coming.

God:
3:11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

Yea man, here it comes, horrible horrible DEATH!

Adam:
3:12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

Good on Adam, saying it like it is. Staring certain death in the face and still manning up.

Eve:
3:13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Good on Eve. She’s about to end her short existence by dying horribly and she’s still saying it like it is. Well done. I mean, what’s the point in lying to an omniscient being anyway?

3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
…
3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
…

3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Ah, Houston, we have a problem.

Read this and remember it:

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.

1 Samuel 15:29
The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent.

2 Samuel 7:28
Thou art that God, and thy words be true.

Titus 1:2
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.

Hebrews 6:18
It was impossible for God to lie.

Out of the four characters in the story:

The Serpent – spoke the truth about the tree of knowledge
Adam – spoke the truth about what he had done
Eve – spoke the truth about what she had done
God – lied his pants off about what would happen when they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge

But God can’t lie. But he did lie. But he can’t lie. But he did lie.

Hey, don’t look at me, I don’t believe that crap. A billion or two Christians allegedly do believe that crap. Or they just ignore the lies. And the hundreds of other contradictions in the Bible.

Oh, wait, let me guess, Adam and Eve died a spiritual death, not a physical one. Oh yea? Show me the passage that says that. Quote me the verse. Show, me, it. No? Quite.

So… let’s ‘go there’. About the trees… there were two of them. The tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Why did God create these two trees and place them exactly where the creation story and the rest of the Bible would need them, to explain why we’re all wretched, disgusting immoral bastards in great need of some saving by the human sacrifice of a god-man? Oh, convenient! So all-knowing God creates these trees knowing full well The Serpent will convince Eve to eat it and she would convince Adam to eat it. Bit of a bastard thing to do, setting them up like that and acting all astonished when this played out exactly like he knew it would… And he did know:

Omniscience (all-knowing) – John 16:30 the apostle John affirms of Jesus, “Now we can see that you know all things.
Omnipresence (all-present) – Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Not only did he know what was going on, he acted like he didn’t:

3:9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Acting like you don’t know something when you do know something… isn’t that also lying?

Anyway, the second tree is pretty interesting when you think about it. The tree of life, eat of it and you live for ever:

3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

That implies that Adam and Eve were not going to live forever to begin with. Since, why create a tree that gives an ability they already have and tell them to not eat it? Why stop Adam and Eve from gaining something they already have?

So… Adam and Eve were going to die at some point anyway, they just didn’t know. (Also… when God says ‘one of us’… who’s the other’s in the us? Just a thought.)

Christians: your god lies. Actually, no, if you believe this crap the problem is with you. How, on god’s green earth can you believe this rubbish? And, might I take this opportunity to once again point out that some of you ‘Christians’ don’t actually believe this rubbish and yet those of you who do believe this tripe speak directly to the same deity than those who don’t believe this tripe. Allegedly.

I have a simpler explanation: It’s a freaking story and your god is a figment of your imagination. A pretty bad story if you ask me, and, there, is, no, god, at, all.

RAmen.

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A personal relationship.

Filed under: Featured, Religion — 7 Comments
January 29, 2012
Dude, grass, clouds and sunshine.

One happy dude, grass and sunshine... does not a personal relationship make.

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve read or heard from Christians that they have “a personal relationship” with Jesus Christ I would probably not be writing this on account of the unimaginable wealth I would have accumulated. You see, Christians love saying it:

I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

or

Getting to know Christ.

or

Jesus is my best friend!

Yeah, OK, let’s see about that.

Right, so first stop is the dictionary to get what the words officially mean:

per·son·al [pur-suh-nl]
adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or coming as from a particular person; individual; private: a personal opinion.
2. relating to, directed to, or intended for a particular person: a personal favor; one’s personal life; a letter marked “Personal.”
3. intended for use by one person: a personal car.
4. referring or directed to a particular person in a disparaging or offensive sense or manner, usually involving character, behavior, appearance, etc.: personal remarks.
5. making personal remarks or attacks: to become personal in a dispute.

re·la·tion·ship [ri-ley-shuhn-ship]
noun
1. a connection, association, or involvement.
2. connection between persons by blood or marriage.
3. an emotional or other connection between people: the relationship between teachers and students.
4. a sexual involvement; affair.

So the dictionary definition of “personal relationship” is essentially that Christians say they believe that they have “a connection, association, or involvement” with the creator of the universe that is “of, pertaining to, or coming as from a particular person; individual;”.

Some examples of personal relationships could be between:

  • a man and his wife
  • a mother and her daughter
  • two friends
  • siblings

All of the aforementioned have several things in common but one thing is crucial, without which a relationship cannot and does not exist: communication. For a relationship to be personal in nature, the communication has to be bidirectional. Both parties in the relationship must be able to take part, share ideas and convey and effect the emotional content of the communication in the relationship for it to be considered personal.

As any married man knows (or should know…), without communication a marriage disintegrates rather rapidly. If there is no (or bad) communication between a mother and a daughter, their relationship disintegrates. Can two people who do not communicate (to give or interchange thoughts, feelings, information, or the like, by writing, speaking, etc.) really be considered friends? Perhaps for a time, even a really long time, after communication ceases but to become friends there had to have been communication and interaction first – you cannot become friends with a person with whom you have never communicated in any way.

There has to be bidirectional communication, discourse, the exchange of ideas, for a relationship to be considered personal.

A person could zealously read every single article that a writer publishes without the writer ever being aware of that person’s existence. While the interaction between a writer and a reader can be considered a relationship, it cannot be considered a personal relationship. I have read a great many of Christopher Hitchens’ articles and books and while I wish that I had a personal relationship with him I cannot say that I did. The man did not know I existed.

This is not to say that every person in this kind of relationship is rational about it and accepts that an admired celebrity is not a friend of theirs.

My wife has a relationship with a woman (I hesitate to call her a friend, at least, not any more) who gets obsessed with celebrities and in some cases ends up stalking them. She’s had restraining orders taken out against her; one by a well known cricket player in particular. This is a great example of a relationship that exists and is a personal relationship in the mind of one person but most certainly is not a personal relationship in the mind of the other. Any rational person looking at the situation would agree that there most certainly is no personal relationship between my wife’s acquaintance and the celebrities that she is obsessed with.

There can’t be a personal relationship without bidirectional communication, without the ability to freely share ideas, get feedback and have shared knowledge.

A relationship between two people can be considered personal if:

  • bidirectional communication occurs – both parties are transmitters as well as receivers
  • thoughts and ideas are shared – the parties have shared knowledge
  • both parties receive feedback to their transmissions

Personal relationships are fundamental to human beings. So important, in fact, that for the first several years of our lives personal relationships are the only way for us to learn anything at all. In the beginning of a person’s life, they learn from their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles. Family, through very personal relationships, teach you the things you need know to survive very early on. A little later – and any parent can relate to this – come a flood of ‘why’ questions from a child. A child wants to know something so it transmits its request to its parent or to another who is in a personal relationship with the child. Usually (ok, sometimes) the other party responds to the query by transmitting a response to the child and this back and forth continues and the child learns, gains knowledge it did not have before.

Happily, this interaction provides us with a simple but effective way to define and test if a relationship: a) exists and if it can be b) considered personal.

For example, let’s test if I have a personal relationship with my wife. To do that, I need to answer a couple of simple questions.

Does my wife communicate with me?

Why, yes, this morning she told me she was going to the shop and that she would be back in about half an hour. I went upstairs a couple of minutes after she told me this, to fetch a hot cross bun. I found that my wife was indeed not in the house. About half an hour later my wife came down-stairs. I asked her if she went to the shop and she replied that she had and told me what she bought.

My wife transmitted information to me. I transmitted information and a request for information to her. I received feedback on my request and gained knowledge.

Do I have a relationship with my wife? Clearly, yes I do.

My wife is studying linguistics. While watching television last night she commented on the way the narrator spoke in the program we were watching; she said the show had an interesting ‘register’. I did not know what ‘register’ meant in this context so I asked her to explain it to me. ‘Register’, she said, was the type of language that being used and how the language was used to convey something. For example, using ‘father’ in formal situations and not ‘dad’ which is more informal or how one could stick to prescribed grammar or not depending on the situation or the tone one was trying to convey.

I lacked the specific knowledge of what ‘register’ meant in that context and transmitted a request to my wife upon which I received feedback from her which added to or increased my knowledge. I verified this newly acquired knowledge that I gained from my wife by reading Wikipedia – it agrees.

Do I have a personal relationship with my wife? Undeniably, yes I do.

I could easily test this empirically. And, as it happens, people do sometimes have to prove, empirically, that they have a personal relationship with another person. Let’s say for argument’s sake that I wanted to convince an immigration official that I had a personal relationship with my wife. How would I go about that?

Happily, immigration officials of the United States of America (and many other countries) do this kind of thing every single day of the week. They check to make sure that when people claim that they are married, that they really do have a personal relationship with that person; that they are telling the truth. In fact, the legality of immigration by marriage rests almost entirely on this principle: being able to prove you have a personal relationship with another person.

For those who don’t know how this works, it’s pretty simple: get a bunch of photos of them together, get some legal documents, preferably financial that show their names together, some documents that show they’ve lived together and get the two people who claim to have a personal relationship in two separate rooms, ask them the same questions about each other and see if they come up with the same answers. It’s depressingly easy to test. In the end, all they are doing is checking if a reasonable amount of reasonably exclusive shared knowledge exists and that each person really knows the things they should know if the relationship is real.

So, how do we apply these widely accepted standards to test if a personal relationship exists between a Christian and the alleged super being they worship?

First, we need to define some of the properties of this super being, Jesus Christ. Happily and fortunately, Christians have done the job for us many times over. Here are the properties of Jesus Christ as described by a Christian website backed up by the Christian Bible that was allegedly written by the Christian’s creator of the universe himself:

Omniscience (all-knowing) – John 16:30 the apostle John affirms of Jesus, “Now we can see that you know all things.
Omnipresence (all-present) – Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Omnipotence (all-powerful) – All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” Jesus said in Matthew 28:18
Eternality (no beginning or end) – John 1:1declares of Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Immutability (unchanging) – Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Can’t argue with that right?

So Jesus is omniscient, he knows everything. This is excellent news! Let’s test this relationship thing!

One might have a conversation with a Christians that goes something like this…

A note for Jesus to read...

If you happen to be a Christian, please speak to this Jesus Christ, who is omniscient and all-powerful by your own admission, and ask him to tell you what the sentence is that I wrote on a folded piece of paper that is on my desk marked “For Jesus Christ 0×001″. It should be a breeze. Write the sentence in the comments below.

Ah, but it doesn’t work like that, I hear a Christian snort. Why not? Can’t test the almighty like that, even to save the soul of an atheist? Ok. Fine.

How about asking Jesus Christ, omniscient son of the almighty creator of the universe how to cure cancer and save millions from dying unimaginably horrible deaths? No?

Then, ask Jesus Christ for a way we can get rid of Malaria without irreversibly damaging the environment? No? Cure for HIV? No?

How about asking Jesus Christ how to fit gravity into the Standard Model of Particle Physics? No? The solution to Goldbach’s conjecture perhaps? No?

But you have a personal relationship with this omniscience being? If you can’t get this being who, by your own definition knows the answers to these questions, to answer any of them, how do you know you have a relationship with it? How do you know? Something other than gaining useful knowledge that you didn’t have before must have convinced you then? What is that thing? You speak to Jesus Christ and he speaks back to you (except he can’t actually answer any useful questions)? Fine, I’ll go with that.

What does Jesus Christ sound like? What accent does he have? What is the tone of his voice? He spoke English to you? American English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, British English, which one? What were the exact words he used when he spoke to you, quote them, verbatim.

Oh, I see, it doesn’t work like that either. Fine, I have one last test, one that no Christian can possibly deny is appropriate since it’s what they do every day of their lives and go to church for.

Speak to Jesus and ask him what he wants. Simple right? Surely he can communicate to you what he actually wants you to do? I mean, that’s pretty basic right? Jesus surely is able to let you, his follower and friend know what it is that he wants you do to?

I ask because not so long ago there were some inter-Christian issues at a church in Auckland city. One Christian sect put up a Christmas poster showing Mary with a pregnancy test. Another Christian sect thought this was terrible blasphemy and tore the poster down. Once sect didn’t believe it was blasphemy, the other did believe it most definitely was blasphemy. Both sects claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Pray to Jesus now and get him to tell you which sect what right and which sect was wrong. Write the answer in the comments below. Preferably quote the actual words used by Jesus Christ to tell you this.

No?

Ok, take three Christians (hell, take three from the same Church) and put them in three separate rooms and ask each of them the same set of questions to ask Jesus Christ with whom all three have ‘a personal relationship’ and see if the answers match.

They won’t. Do you know why? Because Christians do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, whether he exists or not. They do not have shared knowledge. Not even a functionally retarded immigration official would be convinced.

You can’t get knowledge you didn’t have from Jesus Christ by asking him a specific question with a specific answer, you can’t say what he sounds like, which words he uses in which context and two Christians asking the same vague question don’t even get the same vague answer.

Even when the alleged communication is about a fundamental part of Christianity and the answer only has to be a vague guidance feeling, an internal yes or no feeling, a completely unprovable hunch or an urge, it is still inconsistent and different even between a small group of similar Christians. How, after all, can there be 38,000 denominations of Christianity if they all speak to the same deity and have the same manual as reference? Does Jesus have the worst case of split personality the universe has ever seen? A terrible memory perhaps?

‘But the Bible’ one might say.

No, even if Jesus exists and the Bible happens to be true, one does not have a personal relationship with somebody from a one way transmission, especially a single book at least a thousand seven hundred years old. I don’t think I have a personal relationship with William Shakespeare, do you? I don’t believe I have a personal relationship with any author that I’ve never met, at all. Who does? The insane? Those who are on drugs? Does any normal, well-adjusted person think they have a relationship with another person who does not take part in any communication what so ever, aside from a single book written nigh on two millennia ago (that contradicts itself hundreds of times, has fabrications, provably so and isn’t supported by modern archeology performed by people who have a vested interest in proving the book true with empirical evidence)?

I have bad news for those who believe they have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Science, reason and empirical evidence say no.

They, empirically, do not.

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The prayer before a meal

Filed under: Featured, Religion — 9 Comments
January 21, 2012

Praying. And thinking hard about it.

While speaking to an atheist friend of mine at work he asked me if I ever had a meal at the house of a mutual Christian friend. I said that I had not and he asked if it was because the Christian friend prayed before eating a meal. While the prayer before the meal thing is not necessarily the reason it certainly is a contributing reason. While at work, I strictly stay away from the subject of religion and I expect everybody else to do the same. In my private time, however, I will not shy away from expressing my opinion loudly,  so I don’t actively pursue situations where my complete and utter lack of respect for religious beliefs will cause conflict.

The conversation got me thinking about the praying before a meal thing that Christians are so fond of doing. The more religious a person is the more pious and intense the meal time prayer is likely to be. I know this since I come from a family where at family gatherings, there most certainly was going to be a bit of pre-meal praying. One uncle in particular always delivered fantastic and pious oration, bless his racist soul.

The prayer always followed a reasonably similar script, regardless of which side of the family was gathering. By ‘which side’ I mean: the Methodist side, the Methodist side that included the Jehovah’s witnesses or the Dutch Reformed side. Considering the seemingly scripted nature of the pre-meal prayers, I suspect that, mostly, Christians don’t sit down and think about what it is that they are babbling. Here are some examples of the pre-meal prayer one might experience:

For what we are about to receive, may the lord make us truly thankful. Amen

That one is the most common in my experience. I think people uncomfortable with the public spectacle of the thing opt for this version to get it over quickly. The extended version might go more like this:

For what we are about to receive, may the lord make us truly thankful. And may we always be mindful of the needs of others, for Jesus sake, Amen.

I’ve heard this one a couple of times:

Dear Lord, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and us to thy service. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

I find this one quite interesting:

Bless us, O Lord, for these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Help us to be mindful of all our blessings, and the needs of those who have less. Amen.

On the surface I guess they seem sufficiently pious, nice even. Being thankful to your Lord Jesus for the food he’s given you to eat. Remember all the good things you have and remember those who don’t have as much. Isn’t that nice?

I have composed an altogether different prayer I would like to propose. I might even try to memorize it so that if the opportunity arose I’d be ready with a nice thought-provoking appeal to the almighty creator of the universe for everybody to ponder over while consuming a nice meal. It might go something like this:

For what we are about to receive dear Lord Jesus, make us truly thankful. To help us be truly thankful, please will you also open our minds so that we may understand why you have deemed us, who are able to afford to grow and purchase our own food, worthy of this bounty while allowing millions of children to starve to death every day. We are thankful, oh Lord, that you have deemed us worthy of living in a first world country which guarantees us food and shelter but to properly appreciate this oh Lord, open our minds to understand your plan that involves the mutilation and torture of millions of people, including children and babies, who are not deemed worthy of this bounty. Dear Lord, we are thankful for the first world medicine which is provided to us, essentially free of charge, through the toil of secular scientists, sometimes in the face of great adversity from your holy church and funded from taxes paid by those who are not of our faith and who do not believe you exist, but allow us to understand oh Lord, why millions are not deemed fit for this privilege and die horribly in the most disgusting ways imaginable even though they are far more religious than we are, obey your commandments with much more zeal and believe in you much more fervently. As we consume this bounty you have provided us who do not really need assistance oh Lord, help us to understand why so many little children who are unable to help themselves deserve to die of hunger, thirst and torture. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

I can’t help but wonder why Jesus Christ, who allegedly provides food to (some) Christians, also provides food to Muslims, Hindus and Atheists among others while at the same time not providing food to literally millions of other Christians who are left to starve to death. Among them very many little ‘Christian’ Children.

How do you rationalise that? I guess you don’t. I guess you just ignore it. I guess you just put it down to God’s mysterious but good plan… that involves the most horrible deaths imaginable for millions of people.

Praying to a deity before a meal to thank him (funny how it’s always a ‘him’) for the food he demonstrably had no part in providing? Yes, I find it offensive.

Oh, and Christian, ye who would pray when thy knowest that in thy presence are those who do not believe, or, in fact, anybody at all, should probably have another look at thy Bible, lest thy eternal soul be damned or some such:

Matthew 6
6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
6:8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

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Christians, the billboard at the church and very human discord

Filed under: Comment, Featured, Religion — 12 Comments
December 18, 2011

Yesterday morning while I was having my morning shower I found myself wondering about the atheist and the skeptic movements. In particular, I was pondering why we tend to disagree so vehemently on so many subjects. In fact, there is very little we agree on. Fundamentally, atheism is a lack of belief in any god right? But us atheist don’t really even agree on that point. Some of us are quite convinced that there is no god, never was, never will be. Others insist that there probably is no god but you can’t really know. Others reckon you don’t have enough information to make up your mind either way. I think the closest we do come to agreeing on anything is the idea that it is much less likely that a god exists than the converse.

One of the things I find most trying about dealing with other atheists, especially in groups, is that you have to defend every single point you make since very few people ever agree with you completely. You very  infrequently experience agreement purely for the sake of a feeling of community. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it forces you to avoid making statements for the sake of making statements and to seriously consider what it is you want to relay; your logic, thought process and conclusions will be questioned and best you be prepared to back everything up with some convincing evidence. This can sometimes makes informal conversation… exhausting.

“How much easier the religious have it”, I briefly thought with a pang of self-pity, “the Christians especially get to go to church and everybody just gets along and agrees…”.

Then I laughed. Hard.

I’m going to pick on Christians now because they’re in the news again. You see, at the core, Christians have something fundamental in common. They all read the same manual, the unchanging perfect words of the almighty creator of the universe; the super being who can do no wrong. You’d think, then, that they all agree and get along.

Christians do not agree and they do not get along and I find this hilarious to say the least.

There is a church in Auckland city that puts up some pretty risqué billboards; you can check out their site here: http://stmatthews.org.nz/. Now, I can appreciate this, at least they’re trying to get their Christians to think about what they’re doing a bit. The latest billboard was of the virgin Mary with a positive pregnancy test.

You might not think there’s much to that. Christians do, after all, believe a virgin, Mary, was impregnated by the almighty creator of the universe and bore its son whom they called Jesus Christ. Mary, virgin, pregnant. If you’re a Christian, that’s what you believe and that’s what the poster shows: Mary, surprised, pregnant.

Apparently not. One Mr. Arthur Skinner from the Catholic Action Group took great exception to this poster. “Blasphemy!” cried Mr. Arthur Skinner. He was, in fact, so pissed off with this blasphemous affront to his personal version of Christianity that he took to the poster and cut the positive pregnancy test right off. Clearly, the poster is now much less blasphemous since the removal of the proof of pregnancy… or something.

The "blasphemous" billboard - Before

The "blasphemous" billboard - Before

The "blasphemous" billboard - After

The "blasphemous" billboard - After

From the New Zealand Herald article at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10773887

Catholic Action’s Arthur Skinner, from Whangarei, said they were protesting because the image was blasphemous.

Strange, it was put up by Christians who obviously didn’t find it blasphemous… I guess Mr. Arthur Skinner must have a different line to the almighty that says something else. Which, too, is a little strange, no?

Yesterday, stunned passers-by watched as a scissors-wielding zealot slashed the billboard and tore off a large chunk.

…

Skinner later claimed responsibility for the incident. He was believed to have earlier phoned St Matthew’s vicar Glynn Cardy to say he would “roast slowly in hell” for erecting the billboard.

“He told me I would burn in the fires of hell, that would be my final destination,” Cardy said.

Let us consider this situation for a moment. Both Skinner and Cardy claim to worship Jesus Christ. Both of them claim to have Jesus as their personal lord and saviour, to have a personal relationship with him. Seems to me somebody should just ask Jesus if he has a problem with the poster or not. Get an answer and have the deity in question settle the dispute. Seems pretty damn straightforward to me. Pray, get Jesus to tell each of them at the same time if the poster is ok or not. Simple right?

“It doesn’t work like that”, I hear them say. No? Then how the fuck does it work if you both speak to the same freaking god? If your god can’t even settle this one little dispute between devout followers amicably, what, precisely, can he do?

You see, here’s the problem with religion, Christianity in particular. They all (mostly – the Mormons had to go write their own addition to the unchanging words of the almighty) read from the same (by ‘same’ I really mean ‘similar’ since some of them took liberties in the many translations…) unchanging perfect word of the almighty creator of the universe. They all have a direct line to Jesus Christ who personally saved them and with whom they have a relationship with. And yet there are over 38,000 Christian denominations.

I shit you not. Thirty eight thousand different denominations. Thirty eight thousand different interpretations of what, exactly, it is, that Jesus Christ and his dad want from the world.

Some of the major Christian disagreements

Some of the major Christian disagreements

Look, Christians, if you people can’t even agree on the basics, how the fuck do you expect to convince us unbelievers of The Truth (… as you currently see it anyway…). Tell me, which one of you has it right at the moment? Yea, of course…

Some of the major Protestant disagreements.

Some of the major Protestant disagreements. Seriously. They even read the same holy book.

Disagreement and discord, those are very human characteristics. It is normal for human beings to disagree, to see every little thing differently. The way you view the world is shaped by unimaginably complex processes. Things like physical brain structure, brain, body and environmental chemical levels, hormone levels, altitude, electrical signals, external stimuli, culture, family, surroundings, the food you eat, the stuff you drink, the gasses you breathe, the things you’ve read, heard, watched, the parasites you carry, the diseases you’ve had, the diseases you currently have and all of this over the span of your entire life.

How could we NOT disagree? We are so fundamentally different, we have to disagree. If there was no disagreement what so ever, that would go a long way towards proving the alleged divine origins of religion since it would take a massive miracle and an almighty super being to get humanity to agree completely on any given point unquestioningly. That there is disagreement among the faithful says everything that needs to be said about that ‘faith’.

You Christians do not have a personal relationship with the same deity. You, fucking, do, not. It’s clear as daylight to anybody who looks. Grow up, accept that. There is no god. You’re making that shit up.

We do not agree on anything and we never will. The ability to compromise and work together despite our disagreements, that is what sets us apart. That is what makes us special.

“The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.” — Voltaire

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The Bible (The Happy Llama Translation)

Filed under: Featured, Religion — 5 Comments
November 12, 2011
The Bible - The Happy Llama Translation

The Bible - The Happy Llama Translation

The Almighty Creator Of The Universe, God:

So like, in the beginning there was a whole bunch of nothing. Then I created some shit out of the nothing in an order that won’t make sense to you, dumb as shit human that you are. I slap the universe together in 6 days, right, but I spend most of that time making it look older because, fuck you.

Then, I think of THE BEST PLAN! I’ll make a dude that looks just like me, out of dirt, because, I’m fucking God bro, I can do whatever the fuck I want. I put the lonely bastard in a nice garden and he gets so fucking bored he literally names every animal. When I say ‘every’ I mean the ones that… fuck you, all of them. Anyway, I realised that just one bro naked in a garden won’t do but knowing how this shit is gonna turn out, I decide I’ll keep it small; I thought I’d start with one more person, a hottie, you know, they’re difficult.

So I make the bro a shorty, but get this, out of his fucking RIB! How sweet is that? Dude from dirt, chick from bone; same species from DIFFERENT MATERIALS! I fucking rock. So I put them in a nice garden, told the fuckers I would seriously cap their asses if they ate from that one tree that I put there (I sort of had to, without the fucking tree they couldn’t disobey me you see) but they did it anyway.

Lucky for them I was lying, I didn’t kill them, just threw them out of the garden and made their lives and the lives of every one of their descendants fucking miserable! Ha! Worse than dying. Teach those fuckers to disobey me!

Anyway, so they go and breed like rabbits right. But as it turns out, they’re real assholes in a crowd. They don’t do what I tell them! That seriously pisses me off. Again.

So I think about it a bit and then it hits me. Another THE BEST PLAN! I think, screw it, lets drown the motherfuckers. Drown all of them. But then I think, creating shit from nothing is like, a real drag so maybe I’ll just save a couple of them. So I find this one dude, LOL, a bit of a drunk bastard, you know, he’ll believe anything. I say to the poor bastard he needs to build a huge freaking boat right, big enough to put a couple of every fucking animal on the planet in! LOL!

Anyway, so he actually builds this boat (with more than a little help by the way) and I make it rain. Not just any old rain bro, fucking MONSOON, for days and days. I drown fucking EVERYTHING! Little kids, big kids, woman, men, kittens, puppies, lions, EVERY, THING! Like a BOSS. Except this one floating zoo. Long story short, eventually they pile out of the boat, breed like rabbits and are everywhere again. Also, dude curses other dude, his brother I think and they become slaves or some shit.

So then, you won’t fucking believe it, they build a huge fucking tower. I mean, I know they can’t get to me way up here in the ‘firmament’ but the bastards THINK they can. Ok, maybe they don’t think they can but the fuckers are ARROGANT. Fucking high buildings, that shit just pisses me off so I mess their shit right up. Confuse their languages, spread them all over the planet. My plans to fix shit are always THE BEST PLAN.

Now, I’m not great with lots of people so I pick just one tribe to worship me and the rest of the fuckers I created be damned. They’re too high maintenance so I decide to just stick with my favourite tribe, you know?

But then, these fucking Egyptians enslave them while I wasn’t looking! So I get my main man Moses to throw some shit down in front of that Pharaoh, right. Fucking frogs and locusts and blood and good old mass death! Yea man! Nothing like having thousands of kids and people die in a night to convince a bad ass you’re more bad ass yo! So the Egyptians let them go but then change their minds and come after them. Mo and I get real mad, right, and we organise to have my peeps walk through the Red Sea; I was busy, didn’t see it coming. Hey, fuck you, I have other shit to do, universe to run and all that. When those Egyptian assholes came we fucking DROWNED those bastards. Yea! Take THAT!

So, then, this tribe of mine needs a place to live, right. I make them walk around the desert while I check some places out. At one point, I decide to give my main man Mo some rules. You know, to keep the peeps in line, make sure those ADD motherfuckers know what’s right and wrong, right. But what do you fucking know, Mo isn’t gone for five minutes and those brain-damaged motherfuckers are worshipping another, fucking, god. What the fuck is this shit? Anyway, I give Mo the rules and I make these fuckers kill each other because, fuck them, right.

Then I make them genocide a couple of other tribes while they’re walking around. Ha, fucking hard-core man! I make them kill all the kiddies and the men except the chicks who haven’t shagged. I give those to my homies to do what they want with. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Then, this other time these fuckers from Ammon decide they’re going to come fuck my peeps up. Unfortunately for THEM, there was this one hard-core dude who could fight like a Bengal Tiger right, but he was feeling a bit insecure on that day so he promised he’d kill the fuck out of the first thing he sees when he gets home if I make him slay to death the Ammonite assholes. Now that was an offer I just couldn’t refuse, I fucking loved it! He thought he knew me so well. So I let him win and surprised him with his daughter when he arrives home! She came running happy to see him, he was… less enthusiastic! Turns out he didn’t know me so well LOL! Fuck, you should have seen his face, it was classic! The whole child sacrifice scene was awesome, you know I love that shit.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Then there was this other time where I told this fool to do my bidding and judge the fuck out of a town but the stupid shit tried to flee on a boat. So I sent a huge fucking storm and the sailors chuck the little coward overboard to calm me the fuck down. Which works, you see, I fucking love this human sacrifice thing, works every time! So I send this huge fucking fish, right, that swallows the cowardly fool and he lives in there for three fucking days. I shit you not! Fuck you, I’m god, it can happen. Anyway, we have a bit of an argument over his mission, he wants to die, I’m all fuck you bro, you ain’t dying. He’s all fuck you God, don’t kill a hundred thousand people and I was all, you know, cool I can be down with that so I didn’t murder the fuckers and he convinced them to worship me. All’s well that ends well I suppose.

Anyway, so in the end, I realise these human fuckers I made are real serious assholes and I’m in a bit of a bind. I made some fucking rules and being the goddamn Almighty, I can’t just unmake them. I should have seen this shit coming, right? When I make a rule bro, it stays made! So I come up with another THE BEST PLAN!

I’ll just sacrifice myself, to MYSELF to create a loophole to rules I created myself! Only a fucking god could come up with genius like that, heh! I am so fucking awesome. This works out pretty well, you know, I send myself down there, walk around, tell some stories, do some awesome unbelievable shit and then get some fuckers to slay my ass dead!

Then I wake up again, walk around, give Saul a fucking seizure (haha, that shit was great!) and tell him to make the whole fucking world believe in me and all he has is some dubious book written by not one single eyewitness! AND, on top of that, I made it so every other fucking historian of that time WILL FORGET TO WRITE ANY OF THIS SHIT THAT HAPPENED DOWN! How awesome is that? I couldn’t even convince the whole world or my own goddamn tribe to worship me all the time and I’m THE GOD OF FREAKING EVERYTHING! Haha, so I make THAT poor bastard give it a shot and the only thing he has to back him up is this story! LOL! How awesome is that!

I told the peeps I’d be back before they croak but I’ve been busy, right, and it’s been like, two thousand years or something and the fuckers are still waiting. But like, I’m God, so fuck them, right?

Next time, imma gonna try make them less stupid though, shit got a little out of hand sometimes. That Spanish thing and those English bastards crusading in the desert and now fucking America, Benny Hinn, William Lane Craig and Westboro Baptist fucking church.  Fuck me. Who could have seen this shit coming anyway?

Nobody. Nobody could have seen this shit coming.

Shall we pre-empt some objections before they can be raised? Sure, why not.

God doesn’t speak like that you evil heretic, infidel, profane blasphemer!

Yea? And how do YOU know? Does God speak to you? Oh, he does! Great, what were his exact words when he spoke to you? What was his accent? He spoke English? Right…

God doesn’t swear!

Yea? And how do YOU know? Prove he doesn’t. Actually, no, lets start with the basics, prove he even exists and has the ABILITY to speak. Prove HE is a HE. And what is swearing anyway? What you consider swearing has always been swearing? Hmm?

That’s not what happened!

Actually, I agree, it isn’t what happened in reality but it IS what happened in that travesty of a book Christians hold so dear. And if you disagree with my take on the holy bible story, point out the bit that I got wrong.

But… but… but!

Yea, exactly.

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Sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor…

Filed under: Featured, Religion — 7 Comments
September 18, 2011

From the Holy Bible, the words of the almighty creator of the universe:

Matthew 19:

19:21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
19:22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
19:23 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
19:24 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Mark 10:

10:21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.
10:22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.
10:23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
10:24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!
10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Luke 16:

16:13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Seems pretty straight forward no? Thankfully, if you’re a Christian you CAN safely ignore the words of the almighty creator of the universe because… you know… it’s not convenient and anyway, Jesus wasn’t speaking to Christians (this quote from a Christian’s comment on this site):

Jesus was making a point and exposing the rich man, that he cared more about his fortune and wealth than he did about God. It is not an instruction to Christians to sell all their stuff.

Well, isn’t that convenient. Makes me wonder which bits were meant for Christians then and how do you decide which parts of the Bible were directed at you, exactly?

Here’s a quote commonly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi but he might not actually have said it. I think the point stands though:

I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

The actual quote is attributed to Bara Dada (Source – Jones, E. Stanley. The Christ of the Indian Road, New York: The Abingdon Press,1925. (Page 114)):

Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians — you are not like him.

I agree, most Christians are very much unlike the Christ they claim to worship but I don’t find that to be a problem. What disturbs me is that most of them aren’t even trying…

Because the words of the almighty creator of the universe are really just... like... suggestions... And

Because the words of the almighty creator of the universe are really just... like... suggestions...

What was is about Jesus, little children and something about asking and receiving…

I thieved that picture from @DanielFlorien (with much gratitude of course).

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Another study links intelligence to lack of religiosity…

Filed under: Featured, Religion, Research Blogging — 6 Comments
September 11, 2011
Your brain. It should be used.

Your brain. It should be used.

… or lack of intelligence to religious fundamentalism.

The New Zealand Herald published an article today about a study done by the Department of Psychology at Edinburgh University, “The relationship between intelligence and multiple domains of religious belief: Evidence from a large adult US sample”, that links intelligence to a lack of religious belief. I think the newspaper article does a fair job of describing the results – they are pretty straight forward: “These analyses indicated that intelligence was significantly and negatively associated with five of the six religion measures, with the largest coefficient on fundamentalism”. The only one of the six measures not significantly negatively correlated with intelligence is ‘spirituality’.

The article includes some comments from New Zealand psychologist Professor Tim Bates, who was one of the researchers in the study.

A possible reason behind the finding was a tendency for more intelligent people to challenge religious claims, said one of the researchers, New Zealand psychologist Professor Tim Bates.

“If you believe in religion, you haven’t really questioned things,” he said. “Brighter people were less likely to feel that religion plays a dominant role in their life.”

Professor Bates goes on to say:

Intelligence was an “inoculation against fundamentalism”, with each 15-point increase in IQ making people about half as likely to have strong fundamentalist views, said Bates.

You can read the article at The Herald here: Bible-bangers aren’t the brightest, study shows.

To those of us who spend significant amounts of time thinking about why and how people believe the nonsensical, self-contradictory and reality contradictory fables that religion teaches, the results of the study are not a surprise. It is hardly the first study to have linked intelligence with a lack of religious belief though it seems to possibly be the first to include 6 different dimensions of religiosity.

Obviously the religious will take exception to the study; who, after all, wants to feel like somebody is inferring that they might be less intelligent? Thankfully, reality and truth are not about sparing the feelings of some subsection of people who insist against all credible evidence in believing in unicorns, angels, demons, 600 year old men, world-wide floods, child murdering bears and people living inside whales.

The study included 2307 individuals who were surveyed for their religious beliefs and then tested for their intelligence. The study showed a good correlation between intelligence and lack of religious belief.

6. Results

…
These analyses indicated that intelligence was significantly and negatively associated with five of the six religion measures,with the largest coefficient on fundamentalism (β=−.13). Only spirituality did not relate to intelligence. This pattern of relationships did not change when education was omitted: For each of the religion variables, except fundamentalism,the association with intelligence was practically unchanged (all Δβ≤.01). For fundamentalism, however, removing education from the model increased the association with intelligence to β=−.25 (up from β=−.13). Openness had mixed relationships with the religion measures: For mindfulness, spirituality, and religious support, openness was a significant and positive predictor; however, this relationship was reversed for fundamentalism. Religious identification and private religious practice were not significantly associated with openness. Demographic variables were also significantly associated with the religion measures. Both sex (male = 1, female = 2) and age were positively associated with each of the religion measures with the exception of age on spirituality, and fundamentalism, where a null effect was observed for both age and sex.

From the results of this study it seems that level of education isn’t a huge factor, except for fundamentalism. When you remove education as an influencing factor, the inverse association of intelligence to fundamentalism increases.

You can download a PDF of the study be following this link: The relationship between intelligence and multiple domains of religious belief: Evidence from a large adult US sample or you can download the copy I have uploaded here and there is a link to the PDF from Gary Lewis’ site here.

There is the other side of the coin whose opinion is based on… well, no research really, just their own learned opinion:

The findings of the University of Edinburgh study were “a bit hilarious”, said Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn. “The suggestion that the less intelligent you are the more religious you would be seems to be degrading and insulting,” he said.

Of course the poor Mr. Patrick Dunn’s reaction is understandable; nobody likes the inference that they might be… less intelligent. The truth sometimes hurts Mr. Dunn and science is only about the truth. The researchers didn’t set out to prove that religious people are less intelligent, they looked at the data and the data says that intelligent people less likely to believe religious garbage. It’s not degrading and insulting to anybody or does Mr. Dunn think that proving the world is round to a flat-earther is ‘insulting’ and ‘degrading’ to them?

“I can’t take [the study] very seriously.”

Of course you don’t Mr. Dunn; religion and science are very infrequently good bedfellows since religion is about dogma and science is about the truth. Science requires you to change your mind when you are proved wrong and religion has fought that tiny fact viciously and lost, for several thousand years.

Let me lay it out for you, again: reasonable people cannot consider anybody who believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of the creator of the universe to be sane or intelligent. You must be delusional, ignorant or stupid if you believe that every word in the Bible is true. It demonstrably (even using the Bible its self) is not.

And again, another study proves, that the more intelligent you are the less likely you are to believe the garbage religion sells.

Edit

You can read Stuart Ritchie’s (one of the three authors of the paper) summary of the paper here: Fundamentalism, Spirituality, and IQ

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Doublethink and the Christian’s conundrum

Filed under: Featured, Religion, Science — 5 Comments
August 29, 2011
Now where could George Orwell have gotten his idea's for doublethink form...

Now where could George Orwell have gotten his idea's for doublethink form...

I have a Christian work friend with whom I avoid speaking about religion because I fear the conversation will not go well and since we work closely together, souring our work relationship by discussing religion just doesn’t seem worth it. He’s quite bright and he’s very good at what he does. I respect the work he does and he only very infrequently mentions his Christian delusion which makes it tolerable. I keep my rampant anti-theism in check and don’t comment on the religious inanities and so work carries on in a nice and productive manner.

Every now and then he does come up with quite a gem, this one in particular on Twitter recently:

Why does everyone think that if you are christian you are anti science? I LOVE science – science has bought us HEAPS of cool stuff …

Well. Where to start. I think I’ll stick to just science and Christian religion for now and leave the sheer number of issues with Christianity on its own aside.

If you’re definitely a Christian and you think you are not anti-science, then one of the following must be true:

  • You do not understand Christianity
  • You do not understand science
  • You cherry pick from both Christianity and from science

The word for what Christians do, who feel they are not anti-science, is “doublethink”.

Doublethink, a word coined by George Orwell in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts

Why doublethink? Because to hold Christianity as unquestionably true and to hold fundamental scientific theories as true at the same time, you have to employ doublethink.

Let me give you an example of the first two points together, not understanding Christianity and/or not understanding science.

Biology... the King James version.

Biology... the King James version.

Take Evolution (the theory of evolution by natural selection) for example. Evolution is a scientific fact. There is no debate within the scientific community regarding it’s truth. In fact, the only ‘debate’ around Evolution exists in the minds of Intelligent Design proponents. If you accept the truth of the fact of Evolution, you have to employ doublethink to also be Christian because since Evolution is true, there was no Adam and Eve. There was no Garden of Eden. There was no ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’. There was no ‘original sin’. If there was no original sin there is no reason to for one Jesus Christ to have died for that non-existent ’original sin’. All of that makes the following statement empty and worthless and even more pointless than it already is:

When Jesus died, He died for a reason. His death was not an accident. He came to this earth in order to forgive our sins. He had to die in order to do this. He came because Adam and Eve had disobeyed God.”

Since Evolution is true, there was no ‘original sin’ and no reason for Jesus to have been here or have been crucified. And it’s not only scientists that accept this fact. Christian fundamentalist and young earth creationist Ken Ham thinks too, that if Evolution were true it disproves Christianity; I wrote a post about the demolition of Christianity by Ken Ham a while ago (but obviously he doesn’t believe Evolution to be true…).

As another example, science has not managed to detect any supernatural influence in the world. One might (OK, not really might, Christians do think, for various… colourful reasons) think that god is undetectable but I showed in this post that clearly science is perfectly equipped for finding god or at least finding the influence of god in the real world. Science is “the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment” and any effect perceivable by human beings occur in the “physical and natural” world.

Science has not found any effects on the world that are supernatural and require a god to explain them.

As to understanding Christianity (Baptist in this case): it doesn’t take much looking into published Baptist beliefs to see the incompatibilities of the beliefs with science. Here’s just two examples:

Soul freedom: the soul is competent before God, and capable of making decisions in matters of faith without coercion or compulsion by any larger religious or civil body

There is no soul. Now, one might (and again, the religious do) argue that science just can’t detect the soul. Fair enough, that may be, but as in my post about finding God, for your soul to be you or you to be your soul, there has to be a physical interface between your undetectable soul and your physical body and brain. Without this physical interface your soul can’t influence your body and your soul can’t know anything about you. Science has found no reason to even suspect there might be a soul and just like in detecting a god’s effects, detecting things that influence the ‘physical and natural’ world, like your brain, is exactly what science is good for.

You cannot have ‘soul freedom’ without a soul.

The second example:

Historically, Baptists have emphasized the sole authority of the Scriptures, or sola scriptura, and therefore believe that the Bible is the only authoritative source of God’s truth. Chapter one of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith states:

The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience…

Contradictions: The Bible has them.

Contradictions: The Bible has them.

It’s easy enough say that the Bible is “the only authoritative source of God’s truth” and that it is “infallible” but it cannot be true since the Bible contradicts it’s self (not to mention reality) in literally hundreds of places. Would you go to a brain surgeon who learnt his craft from a book that contradict its self hundreds of times? Do you really, honestly believe that a book contrived by the almighty creator of the universe could possibly be put together this badly? It’s incompatible with science (and reality) because science wouldn’t accept a theory that contradicts its self repeatedly. When science comes across some evidence that proves a theory wrong, science discards the incorrect theory and accepts the new one, it doesn’t hold both to be infallibly true.

You might not believe me about the contradictions in the Bible and you might refuse to look at the link that contains a nice graphical representation of those Biblical contradictions so, let’s do an experiment. The single most important event in all of Christianity was obviously the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I’ve seen more cross like implements of torture and death around people’s necks  than I think is good for a person so this must be the case. Since the whole point of Christianity is ‘Jesus died for our sins’, his death then surely, is the most important thing about Christianity.

Without looking at references, what were Jesus’s last words? If I were a Christian, I would most certainly make myself remember these most important words ever spoken. I mean, they were literally uttered the moment all of my and everybody I know’s sins were forgiven and were given free passage to everlasting joy and happiness. It’s freaking important that Christians know this, right?

Do NOT take literally... and other bits of sound advice.

Do NOT take literally... and other bits of sound advice.

Let me help you out. The last words as spoken by Jesus Christ is recorded at least three times in the infallible, unchanging word of the almighty creator of the universe:

MATTHEW 27:46,50: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” …Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.”

LUKE 23:46: “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, “Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:” and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”

JOHN 19:30: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished:” and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”

And those are just the contradictions of his last words. Another example from a different part of the Bible, and this one is pretty hard to mistake (emphasis mine, obviously):

II SAMUEL 24:13: So God came to David, and told him, and said unto him, shall SEVEN YEARS OF FAMINE come unto thee in thy land? or will thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue. thee?

I CHRONICLES 21:11: SO God came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Choose thee. Either THREE YEARS OF FAMINE or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee;

Science says no…

The Baptist denomination is much more progressive than some other Christian denominations, I’ll grant that, but is there a scientific basis with empirical evidence for the next line (again, emphasis mine):

While many Baptist congregations are open to woman in all positions, ” many Southern Baptist churches have women as deacons (or deaconnesses) and associate pastoral roles, but will not consider calling a woman to their senior pastorate; others restrict all those roles to men“

There are two problems with that statement. The first one is that there is no scientific basis for women to be regarded as inferior to men and so no reason what so ever to stop women from performing any task a man performs. Now, I realise that some progressive Baptists allow a woman to hold any position a man holds (but obviously some don’t) unfortunately, this goes against what the Bible teaches:

I CORINTHIANS 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.

See the doublethink there? The Bible in more than one place says women are to be subservient to men, and Christians profess to believe the Bible; however, since we know women and men really are equal, some Churches allow women to do what the Bible expressly forbids. How does this happen? By either applying some serious sophistry and backwards rationalisation or just simply ignoring the inconvenient passages. Doublethink.

This post could go on forever but I’ll give two more examples:

Science now estimates there to be around 8.74 million species of animal on the planet. Now, it’s blatantly obvious that no man ever built a boat big enough to contain 17.48 million animals and their food for a couple of years, yet this is what the Bible says. Now, fundamentalist Christians have rationalised this problem by saying that Noah only took a couple of every ‘kind’ (so two ants instead of two ants from every single species) and those two animals then ‘evolved’ into the sheer number that are present today.

Some issues with that would include:

  • the fact that 4500 years isn’t enough time for one ant to evolve into a million species of ant
  • 4500 years isn’t enough time for animals to re-populate the entire planet from the middle east
  • that there isn’t enough genetic diversity in just two animals to re-populate the planet
  • an ant from South America would need quite a bit of help to get to and from the middle east
  • there isn’t enough genetic diversity in 6 people to re-populate the planet
  • genetics show that we aren’t descended from just 6 people
  • genetics show we weren’t descended from just 2 people
  • we have archaeological evidence from the ancient Sumerians, Neanderthals and Africans that pre-date the flood; how could it have survived?
  • there isn’t enough water on the planet to flood the whole planet
  • … where is mount Sinai, exactly?
  • who took all of the bacteria, viruses and other parasites in their bodies on the ark and why didn’t those hosts die or host’s immune systems kill the foreign organisms?

Crucially, there is no credible scientific evidence for a world-wide flood.

And while we’re on the subject of issues and evidence, accepting ‘micro evolution’ because you need it to explain a ridiculous story but refusing to accept ‘macro evolution’ (it’s in quotes because in reality there aren’t two types of evolution, just limits to what some people are willing to accept) is disingenuous. These two ‘types’ of evolution use the same mechanism and the same time frames and a) evolution doesn’t just magically stop just before speciation and b) it doesn’t happen to the extent that the flood story requires in only 4500 years.

So, back to the question: “why does everyone think that if you are christian you are anti science?”.

If a person says they are a Christian, I will believe that they believe they are but  if they believe they are both Christian and not anti-science I must question their understanding of what they profess to believe; they have to either not understand science, not understand Christianity or cherry pick and doublethink from both science and religion. None of those options are acceptable since none is the truth.

If you are religious and believe that the scientific method works, and clearly it does since you’re reading this on a global computer network, then why do you not apply it to your religion like you apply it to the religion of others?

The only logical conclusion.

The only logical conclusion.

The first picture in this post about “doublethink” is from PainfullyIrreverent.com who sell a bunch of awesomely irreverent things. Check them out here: http://www.cafepress.com/painfullyirreverent and buy all the things.

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Finding God.

Filed under: Featured, Religion, Science — 6 Comments
August 17, 2011
What? You worship water vapour?

What?! You worship water vapour and sunlight?

I’ve been considering the undetectability of god(s) for a while and after commenting on a couple of blog posts on the subject recently I thought I’d get around to finishing a draft that’s been sitting in the queue for far too long. So I took some time yesterday to have a good, hard look at what Christians and Muslims had to say on why their god in particular couldn’t be detected, didn’t show its self or was otherwise absent from general human interaction.

The god of Abraham, Yahweh, the one that Christians, Muslims and Jews worship is a theistic, personal god that believers claim interact with them and does so frequently. If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard the phrase ‘personal relationship with Jesus’… I’d probably still be writing this post (but I’d be rich. Wealthy even!). Anyway, from Wikipedia’s God page:

Theism generally holds that God exists realistically, objectively, and independently of human thought; that God created and sustains everything; that God is omnipotent and eternal; personal and interacting with the universe through for example religious experience and the prayers of humans.

So a personal god then, by definition, intervenes in the real world where humans exist and he might do so through miracles, by answering prayers and by communicating with people. I’ve been to Christian ‘revival’ meetings (Rhema specifically) where ‘the holy spirit’ was claimed to have ‘touched’ people, to the point where they fell over and lay on the floor twitching (there is a rather amusing post in that for another time). And there is the plethora of ‘testimonies‘ for various miracles and healing that a god is alleged to have caused.

I think it’s safe to say that intervening in the real world, where humans exist, is a property of the widely accepted Christian, Muslim and Jewish god.

There is, however, no scientific proof that this god, or any other god for that matter, exists which is why I spent the time researching why religious people think that we can’t detect their god and I found some… rather surprising answers from Christians and Muslims in particular. Here’s a list of reasons, provided by the self identified faithful, as to why their god doesn’t show himself to people or can’t be detected:

  1. It’s a test, or, your time on earth is a test or tribulation
  2. He shows himself all the time you just don’t realise you’re seeing him (as in nature, apparent order)
  3. He once did, people didn’t believe, people wouldn’t believe now so he doesn’t bother
  4. Only evil people ask for a sign or proof, so don’t ask, he won’t give it to you anyway
  5. He does manifests himself by answering prayers
  6. He doesn’t show himself because mere mortals couldn’t grasp his greatness
  7. He has no peers and opposites and us mere mortals can only understand things in context of peers and opposites
  8. God is closer than your jugular vein and if you stop refusing to feel god, you can feel god
  9. God isn’t man-like, he’s a force in the universe (this is deism but the answer was by a Christian…)
  10. Faith would be meaningless if he showed himself (a favourite among the faithful it seems)
  11. Free will – he doesn’t care if you believe in him or not
  12. He hides himself to expose people’s hearts (to trick them into showing their true nature…)
  13. If he had to be around he would immediately judge people for their sin, he can’t stand sin, and that would be bad for people.
  14. He lives on a different ‘brane’ to ours (see String Theory)
  15. His ‘matter’ doesn’t interact with photons and since we mostly use electromagnetic waves to detect things, we can’t, detect him

Safe to say that the time spent on the subject provided answers that were clear as mud (I do wonder why Christians can’t agree with each other, they do all read the same manual after all…). For the sake of argument we’ll accept that this personal god might exist and is, for whatever reason, outside our frame of reference and is not detectable by us or any of our scientific instruments.

While a personal god may not be directly detectable by us, by definition the effects that this god has on our world are such that we are able to perceive them. If we were unable to perceive these effects we couldn’t be aware of them. The things that people call miracles happen in the real world (statue’s crying blood for example) and communication that couldn’t be perceived would be pretty pointless and so must occur in the real world where humans exist.

Science can and does measure events in the real world. That is exactly what science is:

 The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

Science is capable of addressing, inspecting, evaluating and studying effects in the natural world, which is the same place where miracles and divine or supernatural communication and physical healing occur; anything perceivable by humans is measurable and so subject to scientific study.

This means that science is perfectly equipped and may be the only method equipped to study any of the effects that a personal god has on the world, that humans are able to perceive. If the effect cannot be measured it cannot be perceived by humans, so humans would be unable to know of the effect, or, there was no effect at all.

If a god is undetectable through its effects in the real world, it is indistinguishable from a non-existent god which has the same property of causing no measurable effects in the real world where humans exist.

If a God is undetectable, it is impotent and indistinguishable from a non-existent god. That is why to those who evaluate all religions and gods with the same set of rules without favouritism or preconceptions, Yahweh, Zeus, Apollo, Vishnu and every other god are the same; they don’t exist.

Science has not ever found any effects in the real world where human beings exist that had to be attributed to a supernatural power and religion has failed miserably to provide proof that any deity exists. Most of them make the illogical claim, as can be seen in the list above, that their god doesn’t want us to be able to detect him… but he wants a relationship with us and does things in the real world. That is, after all, why they pray, not so?

Finding god? There is no god to be found.

The only reasonable conclusion.

The only reasonable conclusion.

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Prayer.

Filed under: Featured, Furiousity — 4 Comments
August 10, 2011
Prayer: this time will be just as effective as last time. For sure.

Prayer: this time will be just as effective as last time. For sure.

I wasn’t going to write about this again. Not this soon anyway but somebody reminded me of the dumb fuckery that is currently trending on Twitter. Even though this latest bout of idiocy is inspired by the happenings in London (#prayforlondon), please feel free to apply this to any situation what so ever that the religionuts feel should be prayed over.

Right, so, “pray for <insert some disaster area here>”. Examples: pray for London, pray for Christchurch, pray for Japan, pray for Haiti.

Why should one pray, after the fact, for the victims of a disaster? Do you expect the God you pray to is going to magically fix things, after the fact? Why is this God going to do this? To demonstrate his awesome? To demonstrate how kind and good he is? Will this time be different?

No you fucking idiot. He isn’t going to do a goddamn thing. Just like he didn’t do a goddamn thing any other times he was prayed to by you pious morons. Do you know why?  Because he doesn’t exist. You are talking to yourself. There, is, no, god. Not yours, not the ancient Greek’s, the Romans’, the Norse, the Africans, no gods at all, anywhere, ever.

However, if, hypothetically, there was a god, the Christian one for example (but feel free to replace ‘Jesus’ with whichever figment of your imagination you prefer): if Jesus needs to be told about whichever tragedy just happened, he isn’t omniscient and therefore is not a god. If he knew about it and caused it, Jesus is an evil mass murdering bastard. If he knew about it and he was able to stop it but didn’t, he’s criminally negligent. If he wasn’t able to stop it, he’s not a god. Why, exactly, are you praying? What are you asking for? What is wrong in your head?

Let me tell you what praying is really all about (to borrow from one of my earlier posts). Praying is something you do so that you can feel and look like you’ve done something without actually having to do anything. Telling people to pray for whatever tragedy is primarily to flaunt your precious pious disposition, to impress others with how freaking much you believe in your deity and how little your brain actually functions.

Praying is exactly like wanking. When you get right down to it, wanking is only good for the person stroking his dick. Some people get off on seeing somebody wank in public and other people get off by wanking in little groups or large groups but fundamentally, only the wanker really benefits.

Again, this is why I am irritated. Watching people tell other people to ‘pray for whatever’ is like watching one wanker, furiously whacking away, telling a bunch of other wankers to join him.

Praying is exactly like that. Only the idiot mumbling to himself benefits while the victims of the tragedy benefit nothing what so ever. The only one better off after a good ‘ol prayer is the idiot who did the praying. In fact, wanking would probably be more productive than praying.

So instead of mumbling some inane bullshit to a non-existent figment of your imagination, give some money to the Red Cross here: http://www.redcross.org.nz/donations or give some money to Oxfam here: http://www.oxfam.org.nz/donate-online or to Amnesty international here: http://www.amnesty.org/en/donate

Then go tell a real person you love them, stop being a pious dick and learn some science. THAT makes the world better.

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