The Atheist Blog

How Can We Debate Religion When This Is What We’re Up Against?

I love a good debate about religion.  If you come across a practioner of a religion who is willing to listen to you, and argue their views, it can be a very liberating experience.  Of course, I’ve never entered into a debate with such a person that hasn’t ended with the line “Well that’s why they call it faith…“.  I’m sure the same has happened to you.  You debate, argue, discuss to the point where the only logical conclusion is there’s no God, only for them to throw that in your face.

Anyway, for both parties the experience can still be a positive one.  There are, however, some religions, and some believers of those religions that are so far entrenched in their own beliefs that debating them isn’t an option.  These are the people who are currently protesting in Sudan over a British Teacher who allowed her class to name a Toy Bear Muhammad.

The teacher involved, Gillian Gibbons, has already been imprisoned for 15 days and now the protesters want her shot.  I’ll repeat that.  They want her shot for allowing a class of children to name a toy bear Muhammad.  The 15 day sentence already seems absurd to any logical person, especially Christian Americans who have seen Jesus plastered all over some of the tackiest merchandise known to man.  I’ve written before how the restrictions placed on describing, painting Muhammad is a form of self-preservation, but this is taking it a step further.  It’s taking it into absolutely, barking mad, swinging from the ceiling absurdity.

Not only is the punishment already passed down for this “crime” ridiculous, but there is open debate amongst Muslims as to whether this is even wrong.  There’s a nice write-up here.  This seems to demonstrate, probably better than any other recent event, that the only place religion will take us is into the dark ages.

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Running the Risk of Religion

In my post on why I’m not a Christian, I mentioned that it was more risky to be religious than not. Some of you may be thinking, “that’s not what Blaise Pascal said, and he’s way smarter than you!” Well, you’d be right on one count, Pascal looked at it logically and decided to believe in God, even though he didn’t really. What I’m talking about, of course, is Pascal’s Wager.

To summarize Pascal’s Wager, Blaise Pascal theorized that it is impossible for man to prove or disprove the existence of God. Therefore, if we could never know that God didn’t exist, the safe thing to do would be to act as if he did. The reasoning being that, if you were to logically assess the pros, cons and effort involved. If you do this, there are four outcomes, which I’ve conveniently tabulated below, along with the outcomes.

So, there you have it. In a nutshell Pascal drew that matrix and made his decision. And to be fair, you can sort of see his reasoning. I God does exist, and you don’t believe, the punishment is infinite. If God does exist, and you fo believe, the reward is infinite. These are two polar opposites in terms of outcome. The two extremes of this matrix. By contrast, betting on the fact that God does not exist, has seemingly minor implications. Essentially, it boils down to your own integrity (can you go around saying you believe on God when you don’t really) and whether or not you get your Sundays free to sit around in your underwear. No brainer really.

That’s Pascal’s view. I don’t buy into it, and, in fact, I think he’s got it completely wrong. To me, the biggest risk is believing in God. Or, to be more precise, a God. Imagine, if you will, the scenario where you have arrived at the entrance to heaven. For your entire life you have been worshiping a God, and it turns out you got the wrong one. What’s worse? Worshiping a false God, or not worshiping a God at all? If I was a betting man, I know where I would be stacking my chips.

Of course, that’s not the only flaw in Pascal’s argument. He conveniently skirts around the fact that if there was a God, he would surely know that you were only believing in him because you were betting on the outcome which was associated with the least risk (although I question that), and not because you actually believe. There’s also the small fact that believing in God isn’t enough to get you into heaven. You also have to live as a practitioner of that religion. Depending on which religion turns out to be right, that could involve some major sacrifices on your part. Thereby skewing the logic of Pascal’s Matrix.

Have you ever tried to apply logic to your (non)beliefs?

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I Didn’t Realize the BBC Was So powerful…

I know it’s not funny, but I chuckled.  I was reading the feeds in my feed reader and came across this story from RichardDawkins.net.  It’s about a British Teacher who has been arrested for allowing her pupils to name a toy “Muhammad”.  It’s an unfortunate story, but the headline still made me laugh:

Now, I’m no British Solicitor, but I had no idea the BBC was powerful enough to actually arrest people.  I guess if you collect a tax, you can also enforce.

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Like Funny Church Signs? Create your own!

I came across a fantastic site today that lets you generate your own church signs! Literally hours of fun can be had. if you come up with any particularly good/devious/humorous ones, post them in the comments.

Found via Way of the Mind.

   Misc    1 Comment

Taking the hit for us. Pictures from the Creationist Museum

I’m incredibly grateful to whoever put together this gallery of pictures from the Creation Museum because there is no way I could ever walk round that place with a straight face.  I’d be lynched (or crucified, perhaps) for rolling around of the floor laughing.  Comedy on such a scale that little bits of wee would be coming out.

I’d recommend you take a look at some of the pictures in the gallery, it’s a real eye opener to the levels of ignorance Christians are willing to partake in just to perpetuate their beliefs.  For example, take a look at this image and tell me how any reasonable person can buy into the “God” side of things.  Especially bearing in mind that we know, 100% that the world is older than 6000 years.  There are parts of the world older than that.

Another pearl of wisdom, in answering the question “How did dinosaurs fit on Noah’s Ark?” they came up with the following.

Most dinosaurs were reasonably small - the size of a sheep or pony, on average.  Even large sauropods, as young adults, were not overly large.  So Noah’s Ark had plenty of room for all the land animal kinds, including every dinosaur “kind”.

To really grasp the absurdity of that statement, you have to realize it sits pratically next to a model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, albeit a hugely scaled down version.  Maybe even the Christians would find it hard to believe if they had a visual way of comparing a T Rex to the Ark.  And lets be clear, there are so many things wrong with that sentence, I don’t really need to go on.  Maybe if I just leave you with the thought that if the average size of a dinosaur is that of a sheep or pony, what are the extremes of the set?  Considering we know the Diplodocus was 60 feet tall.  So to be clear, the ark would have been about the size of an average American town.  Believable.

   Propoganda    1 Comment

Did Jesus Deal with the Devil?

I’m no bible expert, so any questions I raise about the bible are always from an outsider, non-expert viewpoint. Having said that, maybe someone can clear something up for me. In the bible, it suggests that the devil tried to tempt Jesus with things like food, power and, important for this article, invincibility. Jesus, obviously, turned him down. Or did he? Later on in the bible Jesus, after being crucified (and killed) comes back to life. Does this mean that Jesus did a deal with the Devil? Was it the Devil, and not God, who allowed Jesus to come back to life?

I’d be interested in what you think about this. It seems as if the Devil made the offer to Jesus and at a later point Jesus exhibited one of the attributes the Devil offered to furnish him with. Like I said, I’m no bible scholar (nor would I want to be) but it seems this is at least a possibility. Just putting it out there.

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Self-Preservation Built into Religion

It’s easy to see that whoever conceived certain religions was clearly thinking logically, unlike the followers of these religions.  There are many aspects of many religions designed solely to prevent members of these religions converting to non-believers. Sometimes these measures are blatantly obvious, sometimes you have to apply a bot more logic.

I’m going to use two examples to demonstrate my point.  Firstly, Christianity.  The fundamental selling point of Christianity is that when you die you can either to to heaven or hell.  Heaven is a wonderful place, hell is a terrible place where you will be tortured.  Forever.  This is a pretty compelling sales pitch.  To get to heaven you must do two things. Firstly, die.  Secondly, follow the teachings of the bible, including the 10 commandments.  We all think we know the 10 commandments, but have you ever really thought about their purpose?  I’m guessing you’re currently muttering something about keeping order or instilling moral values or something, right?  If that’s the case, look again, more closely this time.  For the purpose of this little examination, we’ll have a look at the Anglican 10 commandments, just to keep it simple.  That gives us the following:

I am the Lord thy God.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol.
3. Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5. Honor thy Father and Mother.
6. Thou shalt not murder.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.

So there you have it, the 10 most important rules to follow in life.  I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that 40% of those rules are to do with making sure you don’t question the religion.  Look at them.  Only the last six have anything to do with morals, order, law etc.  So to be clear, it is as important to have no other Gods as it is not to murder.  It seems obvious that whoever wrote these commandments, they had self-preservation of the religion close to their heart.

And it’s not just Christianity.  Fairly recently there were riots all around the world when a Danish newspaper published derogatory cartoons of the Islam Prophet Muhammad.  This goes against one of the most important rules of Islam, not to provide a visual representation of the Prophet Muhammad.  You have to question why a religion would prevent it’s followers from visually representing one of the most prominent characters.  The reason, logically, seems clear.  This”person” didn’t exist and if visual representations were allowed, they may differ substantially enough so as to cast doubt on the reliability of the material that talks about this person.

This is a reoccurring theme throughout religion.  It’s like Fight Club.  The first rule of religion, is don’t talk about fight club to make sure no one questions and everyone falls in line.

   Opinion    14 Comments

Woman Dies Giving Birth, to follow the word of God

I know I’m a bit late to the table on this one, and it’s a table that many have been sat at for years, but this is just staggering.  A Jehovah’s Witness, in her 20s, in the UK has died after giving birth.  All indications are that if she had accepted a blood transfusion, she would have lived.  Strangely, as pointed out in the article I’ve linked to at the BBC, the law protecting the religious beliefs of those who want to die because of something written in a book, comes under the umbrella of human rights.  Oh the irony.

While I do believe human rights are important, of course, they are such a slippery subject to argue about.  So many grey areas, and so many opposing views.  In this case, for example, you have the human rights of the woman giving birth to consider.  She, seemingly, signed a document refusing a blood transplant.  We know her husband and family are also Jehovah’s Witnesses so we can’t say with any conviction that, if able to, she would have refused a blood transfusion when dieing.  What no one seems to be considering is the human right of the baby she was giving birth to.  Is it a human right to have a mother?  Do you even have human rights as a newborn baby?  In this situation it seems as though the only person who’s view mattered was that of the husband.  So essentially, the human rights of two people were decided by another.

There is also the medical staff.  Surely their human rights have to be considered.  Of all the things you could possibly witness in this world, the mother of a new born baby dieing in front of your eyes, due to something you could prevent, must be right up there as one of the worse.

To make the decision to die from a condition that can be prevented crosses into the realms of mental illness in my book.  It is to decline and suppress one of the most powerful instincts, the instinct to survive.  The Johova’s Witnesses interpretation of the relevant bible quote can also be questioned.  The text specifically refers to drinking blood.  To drink another person’s blood is not the same as having a blood transfusion.  A transfusion using blood from a willing donor.  I can’t see how any decent, loving God would be against this and just reaffirms my belief that, if there was a God, I wouldn’t like him.

There’s an account of a similar incident here.

   Opinion    1 Comment

The Truth? You can’t HANDLE the truth!

I wanted to share an email I was recently sent, just so you can see how some religious zealots form arguments in the name of a God.

I came to your site out of curiosity and was suprised to see that your arguments
are so weak and full of false statements touted as undisputable facts. I
expected it to be more of a honest appraisal instead of a mindless rant. Let
me cut to the chase for you. Both positions require faith. In my study and
investigation, the evidence for intelligent design so far outweighs evolutional
theory as to be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Sad becuase most won’t dig and
study for themselves. I read scientists who admit that evolution is wrong, but
that it’s the best thing we’ve got right now because there can’t be a God.
You’ve made your profession of faith in science and in the theory that all
animal, plant, bird and fish life forms came from an explosion of really
condensed dirt. So I believe in the beginning God and you believe in the
beginning dirt. One thing we both agree on is time will tell. Take good care,
my friend.

This gave me a right chuckle. In fact, I may have actually snorted. So, just to be clear lets look at what this (valued) visitor as to say.

Firstly, I’d like to be alerted to any false or untrue statements on this blog made by me. If something is touted as an undisputable fact, it is because to any sane and logical person, it is undisputable. i.e. beyond dispute, widely accepted. If you dispute the fact, you must not be a sane or logical person.

So, this whole intelligent design thing.  Where’s the evidence?  Please, someone show me this evidence.  And remember, a book written thousands of years ago doesn’t count as evidence.  If there really was enough evidence in favor of intelligent design to render evolution laughable, I’m sure we would have heard about it.  Instead, there seems to be a move, even amongst Christians, away from creationism and intelligent design.  Maybe it’s the overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution.  Even where Christians try and cast doubt on scientific studies, the truth will always out.  As a starting point for your enlightenment, I’d suggest the references section of the Wikipedia article on evolution.  Considering the article doesn’t delve too deeply into the mechanics of evolution, there are still 170 references, which I’m sure makes it one of the more trustworthy and researched articles on Wikipedia.

Please, I’d like to see evidence and places on this blog where I haven’t been accurate.  Just saying there is evidence and saying this blog is inaccurate doesn’t make it true.  Unless you believe inaccurate statements with nothing to back them up, which, considering you are religious, you obviously do.

Be well, friend.

   Opinion    4 Comments