A statement of faith by a Christian on Facebook

I believe in a Creator God who chose me before the beginning of time to Love

I think that bit has a slight problem. The disturbing lack of proof for the existence of a ‘Creator God’ aside, questioning what comes before the beginning of time is a bit pointless since the concept of ‘before’ is meaningless without time. I also think ‘chose’ is pretty much the wrong word to use: if there was a ‘creator god’, he didn’t ‘choose’ you out of a set of options, he invented you, put you together from scratch. In other words, you are now exactly as he decided before you existed. Also, the word ‘chosen’ in that context is actually a bit annoying. It implies you are important; more important than somebody else who was not chosen. Why were other people not chosen? Indeed, why were the Israelites ‘chosen’ and nobody else? Not the Chinese, not the Australian Aborigines, not the Eskimos, not the Europeans… and the list goes on. Why do you think your god plays favorites and why are some people more deserving of his choosing than others?

to Love and know Him

A great many passages in the Bible contain horror and terror actually. Fear is what your god wants most. Love should be earned, fear is demanded. Love should not be demanded yet that is what your god does. Love me or I will torture you forever. Sure, you’re free to not love me but you will be tortured for eternity if you don’t. Love? How do you love something that not only invents The Worst Thing Ever(tm), eternal torture, but then goes on to bestow that privilege on most of humanity – that he personally designed and created by the way. And know Him? Really? Through one terribly badly cobbled together, self-contradictory, reality contradictory book of dubious origin and not a damn thing else? If he wanted you to know him, he’d be talking to you unambiguously and you’d be able to prove it simply by getting verifiable information you didn’t have before. Which you don’t.

who sacrificed much

Well, no. You see, here’s the thing. You can’t have an omnipotent, omniscient, immortal super being on one hand and then claim that 72 hours of temporary loss of human existence is a sacrifice of any kind. Do you even need me to equate that to something? Ok, let me try. Let’s assume that at the time of the alleged crucifixion the world was just 4,000 years old and lets just work with that, discarding that this god had allegedly been around for a trillion trillion years before that and will be around for another trillion trillion years after that. God, being omniscient and omnipotent knows perfectly well that he will be ‘dead’, in other words, lose his earthly mobility – because he KNOWS death is not the end of existence, merely a change – temporarily. He will ‘die’ and be ‘dead’ for 72 hours and then he will be ‘alive’ again.

If he was only 4,000 years old he ‘sacrificed’ the minuscule equivalent of about 100 minutes of a human life. That’s a sacrifice? Are you kidding? Do you know what people who die of AIDS or cancer or Ebola go through? And they know the end is the end, there is no coming out the other side after a quick, temporary, 72 hour episode of death. People suffer heinous deaths every day, suffer for months even years before they die and you want to call giving up a pathetic fraction of a fraction of a percent of a never-ending life a sacrifice? I don’t think so.

to have you Love and know Him too

Yea? Me too? Well that’s pretty simple and since he knows everything and can do anything he knows how to get me to get to know him. He just has to start talking. It’s so incredibly simple – just give me some of that divine knowledge. Tell me the proof for Goldbach’s conjecture. Put the mathematical equation that shows how to fit gravity into the standard model in my head. Tell me how to prove or disprove M-theory. No? The requirement is that I have to believe in something while all the evidence points to something else? That’s a bit strange don’t you think? Why is this god trying to trick me?

He is amazing

Really? Which part of him precisely? The genocidal part? The infanticidal part? The bit that invented eternal torture and suffering? The misogynistic woman hating part? No, the stories that contain this horrible character were amazing to bronze age goat herders. What’s amazing is that you, a modern, educated, thinking person can ignore the truck load of problems, horror stories, gross injustice and just plain terrible shit, happily, to carry on sprouting this idiocy.

the best thing about my life is He is in it

And here we get to the crux of it, as it were.

Imagine for a moment, what it would take to convince a person, who repeats this kind of statement to themselves every day, that this god they think is the best thing about their life is a figment of their imagination. I think this is one of the main things that keep people in religion. Having to think that you’ve gone around for years and years saying things like ‘He is amazing and the best thing about my life is He is in it’ and having that sentiment reinforced once a week by people that you trust and then to think that the ‘he’ part of that statement doesn’t actually exist must be pretty disconcerting.

All other things aside, I think it takes a hell of a lot to get over the sheer embarrassment that the realisation that there is no god brings and I think this is why the realisation builds over time instead of just arriving like a ton of bricks all at once (usually). The knowledge that this god you carry on about is a figment of your imagination must be a profoundly uncomfortable thing to realize when your entire life up to that point essentially consisted out of ‘the best thing about my life is that he is in it’. How would you feel if you had to find out the ‘best thing in your life’ was really a shitty horror story and nowhere near even resembling the truth. And a lot of people around you know it. And you’ve been saying this really stupid shit and rubbing it in their faces at every opportunity you got… for years…

I think this is also why it is so difficult to get a person who is religious to take an objective view on what they believe, just for a moment. To take that objective view involves having to look at that statement and the thousands just like it, made repeatedly over years and consider that it was all nonsense. The thought actually has to enter your brain and I think it is kept out by sheer embarrassment.

I don’t think Christians or religionuts of any other description seriously consider what it is that they say or do. I don’t think they can. If they could, I think they’d understand how profoundly stupid and ridiculous it really is and they would stop.

While the graphics in this video aren’t always top-notch, the science described in it is mind-blowing.

The mountain of evidence for Evolution (by natural selection) is astounding and I find it really freaking difficult to understand how anybody can take even a cursory look at it and still believe creationist claptrap. The only conclusion I can draw is that Evolution deniers fall into two camps: those who are ignorant (out of choice, having been deceived, through lack of education) and those who are just plain freaking delusional.

To put it bluntly: are you prepared to convict a person in a criminal case based on DNA evidence? The overwhelming majority of people answer yes and rightly so, it’s pretty accurate. The travesty is that, at the same time as proving a criminal case (beyond reasonable doubt…), it is also rock solid proof of the common decent of all life on earth, beyond any reasonable doubt. Common decent, one of the facts of Evolution.

Virtually everybody implicitly agrees with Evolution by happily using science and technology in their every day lives that also happen to prove Evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yet a great many people somehow still deny the fact of Evolution.

Ignorance or delusion? It’s one of the two. Or both.

Part 2: Mechanisms of Evolution

Here’s the rest of the series:

• Part 02 String Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT_IVdCO4ZE&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=12&feature=plcp
• Part 03 String Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7bakDI_TwA&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=11&feature=plcp
• Part 04 String Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLd0lwQrxOw&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=10&feature=plcp
• Part 05 String Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWGb-pIAQ-E&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=9&feature=plcp
• Part 06 String Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD9vwfl2xQs&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=8&feature=plcp
• Part 07 String/M-Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PVjNlXj2WQ&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=7&feature=plcp
• Part 08 M-Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuK9Rb-tBBg&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=6&feature=plcp
• Part 09 M-Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BRhjntvGoE&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=5&feature=plcp
• Part 10 M-Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zgxvGaei6o&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=3&feature=plcp
• Part 11 M-Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6lW-8CwpM&list=UUoXC5AynOb9DMY810CUwNYQ&index=2&feature=plcp

Did you notice? Haha yea! 11 video’s for M-theory. Funny right?

I find myself wondering if there exists a list of books that one can read to get from knowing absolutely nothing to actually understanding the mathematics of string theory. Sort of like a critical path. I wonder.

Anyway, there’s a bunch of other interesting video’s at ognianks’s YoutTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ogniank

Ah. What he said. That is all.

Check out AronRa’s YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/AronRa

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.

Oh dear, I can't spot the problem...

The logic seems pretty watertight to me but I’d love to hear from a religionut or two where the problems might lie. The love of god is a beautiful thing right? Right.

Also, I do suggest checking out Atheism Resource, especially the comments on this particular picture. They’re pretty funny.

Feel the awesome Freethought Blogs

Freethought blogs, I love them all. Ok, almost all of them… or something and some more than others, but you get the idea. I read many of them very often and of course it’s where PZ is found now and god (heh) knows I enjoy his writing. And let me say this right from the start, I don’t have  a problem with advertising as such. I realise hosting servers costs money; I have… a couple of my own and I realise the hardware and bandwidth one needs to run high traffic sites like freethoughtblogs.com is substantial.

While I hate banner advertising, I can live with it. I don’t want to live with it, but I can and will because I realise that those banner adverts are paying for hosting and distributing the content I like to read. But pop-ups? I freaking despise pop-ups and the evil little bastards that have found its way onto freethoughtblogs.com drives me freaking mental. Chrome doesn’t block them. Why? Because the sneaky advertising agency makes them load on a click. So only when you click on the page does the damn thing load. Mental, it drives me that.

Anyway, it seems the script that creates the pop-up adverts on freethoughtblogs.com are served from a single domain at the moment: c5.zedo.com (I have no doubt that this domain changes regularly and I might put a little script together that polls freethoughtblogs.com to check for changes).

To block it I have added the following to my hosts file:

127.0.0.1    c5.zedo.com

It seems to be working for now – at least until they change the domain the script is loaded from (or if my shoddy early morning testing missed something…).

To the awesome people at freethoughtblogs.com, I’m sorry, but pop-ups are a gigantic pain in arse of epic proportions. Use ugly banners and bland AdWords and spurious DoubleClick and stuff but please, are the pop-ups really necessary?

Everybody else should really go around and have a look at the quality blogs hosted at freethoughtblogs.com, you won’t be disappointed. Except, perhaps, by the pop-ups.

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.

It’s a really nice video of some really nice authors talking about god… or the lack of one. Well worth the time to watch.

This list of authors in the video was, too, remorselessly pillaged from Pharyngula:

1. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Writer
2. Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Laureate in Literature
3. Professor Isaac Asimov, Author and Biochemist
4. Arthur Miller, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright
5. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature
6. Gore Vidal, Award-Winning Novelist and Political Activist
7. Douglas Adams, Best-Selling Science Fiction Writer
8. Professor Germaine Greer, Writer and Feminist
9. Iain Banks, Best-Selling Fiction Writer
10. José Saramago, Nobel Laureate in Literature
11. Sir Terry Pratchett, NYT Best-Selling Novelist
12. Ken Follett, NYT Best-Selling Author
13. Ian McEwan, Man Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
14. Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate (1999-2009)
15. Professor Martin Amis, Award-Winning Novelist
16. Michel Houellebecq, Goncourt Prize-Winning French Novelist
17. Philip Roth, Man Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
18. Margaret Atwood, Booker Prize-Winning Author and Poet
19. Sir Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
20. Norman MacCaig, Renowned Scottish Poet
21. Phillip Pullman, Best-Selling British Author
22. Dr Matt Ridley, Award-Winning Science Writer
23. Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate in Literature
24. Howard Brenton, Award-Winning English Playwright
25. Tariq Ali, Award-Winning Writer and Filmmaker
26. Theodore Dalrymple, English Writer and Psychiatrist
27. Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-Winning Novelist
28. Redmond O’Hanlon FRSL, British Writer and Scholar
29. Diana Athill, Award-Winning Author and Literary Editor
30. Christopher Hitchens, Best-Selling Author, Award-Winning Columnist

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.