One of these areas is morality. The argument goes that our morals, as a species, are defined by our religion. What proponents of this argument often fail to realise is that it is ultimately self-defeating.

Taking Christianity as an example, it’s very difficult to see where one might look for moral inspiration. As I’ve pointed out previously, the 10 commandments are more concerned with preserving religiosity than shaping a moral, just, fair race. And the God as described in the Bible is hardly a positive influence, unless you aim to be an insanely vicious, vindictive, malicious, insecure person. Yes, Yahweh seemed to mellow a touch in the new testament, but he couldn’t have gotten much worse. Praising the God of the new testament is like praising a murderer for only blinding his latest victim.

So if the Bible cannot be looked to as a source for inspiration on morals (rape: ok. Offering your daughter for gang rape: ok. Murder: ok. Slavery: ok. Beatings: ok. Racism: ok.  And so on.) where do the religious turn? The answer has to be fear.  I’ve lightly touched on this subject before, when I asked if a religious person can ever really be good.  The two topics are highly related as they both strike at the heart of religion-based morality.  If you’re religious, and you perform what is perceived as a “good act”, are you only doing it because your God will reward you with eternity in heaven, or because you are afraid that your God will punish you by torturing you for eternity?

If you consider the two salient points above as the main drivers for morality from religion (i.e. morality by example and morality by instruction), you don’t really have much to go on.  Any good believer would have to admit that if they did good acts because they fear the punishment, or are eager for the reward, their God would view it as misguided and punishable.

And this is the dichotomy of religion-based morality.  If you don’t do good things, your God will punish you with an eternity of torture.  If you do good things because you fear this torture (and let’s face it, who wants to be tortured?), then you’ll be tortured.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, literally.  It is this that makes any argument for morality from religion ultimately self-defeating when fully explored.

So where do we get our sense of morality from?  I’ll cover this in more detail in a future post.

“One of the things I find strange about religion…”

There’s a good reason for this, I find many aspects of the world’s organised religions strange, odd and peculiar. There are certain points of religion I just can’t rationalise. Or, to be more precise, I can’t rationalise why people blindly believe and follow some of the stranger parts of their various religions.

One of these aspects that I find puzzling is the seeming lack of activity by the creator God in the last couple of the thousand years. It seems like he was very active, very tangible and very overt in his activities during the time of the Bible (the Christian God at least), but has since ceased. See the chart to the right for my take on his activity. I’m sure those who have studied the Bible intensively could point out some errors in the chart, but I don’t think anyone could deny the general direction in which it heads, downwards.

So what’s happened? As always, there are multiple possibilities. So let’s take them one-by-one.

God Never Existed

By far the most feasible explanation is that God never existed. After all, we know that the time line above, as informed by the Bible, completely missed out a few billion year’s worth of history. As we understand more of our creation and subsequent evolution, the need for a creator God to explain things diminishes. If God didn’t create us, then what did God do, and why should he be considered a God?

I say this is the most feasible option because it seems highly unlikely that if there were a God, his influence would decrease over time. Especially during a period where his very existence is constantly being called into question, the world is waging holy wars in his name and scientific advances are revealing that feats once credited to God are nothing of the sort. It would seem, logically, that God would want to be more involved now, than ever.

God is Dead

Another option might be to consider that there once was a God, who interacted regularly with his creations in a real and tangible way, but has since died. It would at least explain the recent lull in his activity. This must lead to some important questions for those who choose to follow the religion that holds this dead God as a deity. If there is no God, is there still a heaven and hell? And if so, can you still get into them?

Could it be that God was the spark that triggered creation, then the spark that set our moral boundaries before disappearing? Obviously, all signs point to an emphatic “no”. I mentioned above that it would be logical to assume that God would want to be present and overtly influential over the world at this time, and used this as an argument for suggesting that he never existed. It may be, however, that he is simply incapable of exerting influence any more. This may be because he is dead, or it may be because his powers have subsided, in which case he can no longer truly be considered a God.

While I suggest death may be the cause, it might be that the God simply stopped caring.  Retired, if you will.  The particular reason you choose to assign to this lack of activity is largely irrelevant, as the end result is the same.

The Unproven, is no Longer Believed

Logically, this is a logical extension of the first point. During the time of the Bible, writing was rare. The ability to write, read and certainly publish work was not as commonplace as it is today. Therefore, if you had a story to tell, and had the ability to publish it on a grand scale, you were more likely to be heard and believed. It’s a simple case of a drought of information. As time moves on, the ability to convey one’s ideas has grown. Now, if anything, we have an untameable flood of information available to use. A flood that’s been steadily increasing over the years. This wealth of information has allowed us to be far more selective of the things we choose to believe. For example, in scientific quarters, claims are challenged and peer reviewed multiple times before being accepted. We can effectively weed out the false, unproven, unsubstantiated claims.

This may not have always been possible in the past. Could the claims, and fantastical stories in the Bible have been treated as facts because they were one of only a few sources available at the time? I have absolutely no doubt that if such a story came about now it would be treated as fiction, the authors dismissed if they claimed it to be true, and rightly so.

Extending this point for the sake of discussion, it might simply be that the supernatural acts described in the Holy Books were simply exaggerated beyond reality for the sake of story telling.  For example, the parting of a sea may simply be crossing a low flowing lake. When people hear that someone has crossed said lake, and revisit at a different time of year, it may seem impossible.  Only a miracle could have allowed it.  There may also be events that are accredited to a God but were simply acts of nature, but the lack of scientific understanding at the time lead to the mis-attribution.  Couple that with the possibility of exaggeration, and “Chinese Whispers“, and you’ll have quite the fantastical story on your hands.  This completely absolves the authors of any wrong doing and discounts the possibility that they embellished the stories for personal gain.

Are you listening, God?

Given the absence of God as an obvious influence in the world, it seems highly unlikely that he is present at this point in the earth’s history.  This is likely because a creator deity has never existed, but one might put forward a case to argue that it’s because God has become increasingly impotent over the years.  Either way, he ceased to be what we would commonly describe as a God a long time ago, in the unlikely event that he ever existed in the first place.

On Labels and Atheism

This is, of course, a spurious argument. Atheism, either as a label or as a movement, does not give credibility to theism and it is not a reaction to theistic ideas per se. Rather, it is a reaction to the proliferation and popularity of theistic ideologies and the pervasive impact they have on our lives. We do not accept the atheist label because of the idea of theism, we accept the label because of the societal implications of abandoning it (note that there’s a difference between the reasons for being an atheist and the reasons for accepting the label of atheism).

So what are, in my opinion, the potential impacts on society of rejecting the atheist label? I believe labels will always be necessary amongst the religious fraternity. Even those who follow the same holy book have significant enough interpretational variations to warrant different labels. The net result of the various religious groups happily accepting labels is that those who oppose their views, yet do not adopt a similar approach, risk being lost in the noise. Having a label gives the impression of stability and organization. It is something to rally behind. It also acts as a beacon for those who are struggling with theistic and/or spiritual issues. Do not underestimate the power of a label to those who need comfort, to those who need to know they are not alone.

It’s important to note that accepting the atheist label means that you reject all forms of theism. If nothing else it’s convenient, and avoids a situation where we have to constantly refer to ourselves as achristians or amuslims depending on the context.

Much like other atheists, I believe that in an ideal world the label wouldn’t be necessary. Atheism should be the default position. If this was the case, the label would become redundant, and no doubt sink into disuse. While I’m happy to accept the atheist label at the moment, nothing would make me happier than it becoming redundant.

On Anonymity

A few months ago I was called out by Craig A. James and, with a host of other bloggers, told to “get out of the damned closet!“. It’s a piece that calls on currently anonymous atheist bloggers to reveal their true identities. “What would Bertrand Russell say?” is the general gist.

However, I thought it important to engage the question of anonymity, and to make it clear why I remain anonymous. This isn’t an issue of fear, far from it in fact. It’s more an issue of consistency of voice and levelling the playing field. My age, gender, location, profession and cultural status are all left intentionally unstated. I do not want a reader’s opinion to be tainted or affected by this information when they read the posts (although I’m sure you could piece parts together from various posts, and the resourceful amongst you could no doubt identify me). I think my opinions and thoughts should stand on their own merit, especially where they are grounded in logic.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to address the issue of voice. You’ll note that in some of the posts my tone changes between the post and the comments. This is in line with the aim of this blog – to encourage debate. I want to get people thinking, and spur a response by airing on the side of sensationalism and provocation in the first instance. I always try to keep it as mild as possible, and you won’t find me completely changing tact. It’s more likely that I leave certain questions lingering unanswered, so they may be addressed in the comments (I think we’re very lucky to have a well educated, well informed and opinionated readership on both sides of the divide, so the comments threads tend to be thought provoking and preconception-challenging).

So, in closing, I hope my approach is working so far. As I said, the goal of this blog is to provoke discussion and debate, primarily because it’s something I enjoy. If I can educate and inform along the way, then all the better.

I’m fascinated by this carrot and stick approach, and the lengths established religions go to in order to keep up the charade.  The lengths they go to in order to suppress rational and critical thought, and the lengths they go to in order to convince those that will listen that the rewards, and punishments, are real and present.  It occurred to me that this is unique in our world, there is nowhere else an unproved threat is so feared, and an unproved reward so coveted.  Even considering what I would consider to be “edge cases”, such as the threat of prison for accumulating parking tickets, or the reward of winning the lottery, we do not rely on unsubstantiated claims, we can do the math on lottery odds and we can read the law that law enforcement officers apply.  For religion, it is the various deities that hold us up against their own, in some cases unknown, standards.

One facet of our lives that does seem to hinge on a similar carrot and stick mechanism is actually an offshoot of, or a poor relation to, religion.  Children up and down the land will be familiar with Santa Claus, and his unique brand of “justice”.  Much like a deity, he judges people based on their behaviour and rewards or punishes (punishment through the lack of reward in light of the children’s peers being rewarded) them based on his judgement.  And much like religion, the criteria for gaining this reward is largely unknown and ambiguous. “Be good” isn’t a sufficiently sophisticated mantra on which to live one’s life. “Good” varies based on a persons emotional and psychological make-up and their current situation. To you, someone with money and a job, stealing a loaf of bread may not seem like an altruistic venture, but to someone with no money, and a family to feed, it may seem like a judicial, justifiable, “good” act.  The concept of “Good” as a measurement is relative to a large number of variables, and as such leaves those who are being judged unsure as to where the measurement points lie.

The preceding paragraph is a fairly detailed analysis of what should be a simple concept. “Be good and you’ll get toys” is how it usually plays out, or, equally regularly, “stop that or Santa won’t bring you anything for Christmas”.  The carrot, and the stick.  So why do we grow out stop believing in Santa, but not a deity? Is it because it becomes socially unacceptable to continue your belief in one but not the other?  The similarities are obvious to all, the unproved being that judges us and dishes out rewards and punishments, the mountains of evidence that contradict eithers existence (Santa could no more travel around the earth in the space of a single day than God could create the earth, heaven, the universe, billions of stars and billions of planets in seven) and the clear intent of the creators of these myths (control and power).

While you’re pondering the acceptability of believing one imaginary being over another (remember atheists only disbelieve in one less God than theists – depending on the brand of theist), consider whether Santa Claus is a form of theistic grooming of children.  Is it a way of making it acceptable to believe in such unfounded claims later in life?  Is Santa, and the rewards believing in him provides in your early life, simply laying the groundwork for future theism?  It may just be that the rewards are more fitting to adults.  Many people get to a stage in their life at which point they can just purchase items they desire, in which case offering physical, tangible, rewards to believe in a deity may not be the convincer it is to a child.  It may also be that the punishment is so great that fear drives followers to religion, an eternity in hell is far worse than not getting the latest G.I Joe toy.

However, it is my belief (and I’m no psychologist) that not only is the concept of religion ingrained on our psyches at a a young age, but being encouraged to believe in Santa lays the ground work for a life of non-questioning belief.  It’s but a small piece of the jigsaw, admittedly, but a part nonetheless.

Did you believe in Santa as a kid? If so, why did you stop? And if you currently believe in a deity, why have you continued to believe in that deity long after discounting Santa as a credible, existing, entity?

*Note – I’ve heard of stories where parents have used the tradition of gifting at Christmas to push their children towards Christianity.  If you don’t believe in Christ, then you don’t celebrate Christmas, and you don’t deserve a gift.  As I touched on earlier, this threat can be simply brushed away in adulthood, but when you are reliant on your parents, it’s not so simple.  Quite frankly, these actions are pathetic.  If your child wants to better themselves by freeing their mind from the shackles of religious, dark age teachings, then you should exceptionally proud and encourage it at every opportunity.  The focus of this article is not to deal with these cases, which I hope are few and far between.

Could I ask: what would it take for you to accept that there is a God? I hope I am not maligning Richard Dawkins, but I think somewhere he says that even if a statue of Mary waved to him he would attribute it to a freak coincidence that the random motion of molecules happened to occur in the same direction for some short space of time. If anyone has a “faith” in atheism that would surely be it. That is to say, it is hard to see what could count as proof. As Jesus points out: “Not even if a man should rise from the dead would they believe.”

Jonathan Baker

It’s an interesting question, and one that I have pondered in the past but never articulated.  I thought it best to begin by stating what will not lead me to believe in a deity.

Something Science Cannot Explain

There is a school of thought that believes atheists can be converted if they can be shown something which cannot be reasonably explained by science.  This falls into the realm of the “God of the gaps” argument.  For me, personally, seeing something which cannot be reasonably explained by science simply means that it cannot currently be explained by science.  Science is a constantly evolving beast by its very nature, and problems which seemed insurmountable only a couple of decades ago are now taught to school children.

Any Holy Book in Isolation

Note the clause at the end of that statement.  I don’t believe any book can change my world view enough so as to make me believe in a deity.  The reason I trust science is that there is no trust required.  If I read a book that proposes a theory, I can exercise my right to validate the theory.  If I choose not to do this, I can look upon the works of others and examine their methods in order to determine whether they meet my standards of proof.  And even if they do, I can repeat the experiement in order to be sure that I am happy with the method and the results.  Of course, I rarely exercise this right, so there is an element of trust, but there are two key differences between trusting a holy book and trusting a scientific theory.

1. Even if I put my trust in the results of a scientist, I can still go out and prove it myself.  This is not possible with holy books.
2. Trusting a holy book is putting your trust in a single source.  Scientific theories are, in the vast majority of cases, confirmed or rejected by many other scientists who approach the experiment with an open yet critical mind. It’s very rare that science has to rely on a single source, and such theories are always treated with the requisite scepticism.  This is not a quality generally shared by the religious community.

The “in isolation” clause should be fairly self-explanatory.  While I cannot accept any holy book as it stands (plus, which one would I chose, there’s so many!), there may, in the future, be evidence that comes to light that substantiates all of the claims made in such a book.  And let’s be clear, evidence would have to exist for all the claims made.

A Miracle, a Message from God, a “Spiritual Experience”

The example of Richard Dawkins, who would dismiss an image of the statue of mary waving at him is an interesting one. I am sure that I would also dismiss such a thing, and I’m sure many others would to.  If I was already a believer, I would be even more ready to question anything that confirmed by belief, anything that I wanted to be true. Taking the specific example of a statue appearing to wave, there are many reasons this might appear to happen. As we know, light can bend altering the appearence of objects, statues can actually move as their structual integrity decays.  There’s a myriad of ways to explain such an event.

Similarly, many spiritual experiences can be easily explained through known phenomena. I would also be careful to consider all aspects of such an event, such as similar experiences that didn’t make sense or fall into some sort of plan.

What Would Make me Believe?

The answer to this question is “nothing”.  There is nothing that would make me believe in any deity. However, I do not, and cannot, rule out the possibility of my accepting a deity exists.  Note the subtle but important difference in wording I’ve used. I will never believe in a deity, but if the presence of a deity can be proved to the point where belief is not necessary, I will accept their existence.  And at that point, I would no longer be an atheist.  I have so far yet to witness any evidence whatsoever for the existence of any deity and therefore find it hard to believe such a day will come.  It would be very un-atheistic of me, however, to not examine any evidence should it ever be produced.

Do I Want God to be Real?

Jonathan posted a second question, which I feel obliged to answer.

Finally, how about a second question: would you like there to be a God? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that that would prove anything. It would just give some idea of your perception of God.

Jonathan Baker

Again, an interesting question, but the answer really depends on what your definition of a God is. For example, I would not want the Christian God to be real having read the Bible.  It is a vengeful, spiteful, angry, jealous, arrogant God who seems more interested in being worshipped, like some celebrity, than guiding people down the right path. I feel similarly about any deity that builds into their religious teachings (used under advisement! I do not believe any deities exist and therefore do not believe there are any teachings from these non existent beings) any intolerance of any other belief (or absence of belief) system or that requires any form of worship.  I cannot concede that any being powerful enough to create the universe, and wise enough to impart such knowledge and wisdom, would be as egotistical to demand that the creatures he has created constantly worship him.

On a personal level, I don’t actually care whether a deity exists or not.  While, if they were proven to be real, there would clearly be an impact on all of our lives, at this moment in time I don’t really mind.  I don’t care whether my origins are primates or a creator.  I would say that in my experience those who believe, and especially those who come to religion later in life, do so because they need to believe, and I do not have that need myself.  I can accept that my life is unplanned, and not part of some great scheme of a creator, that doesn’t worry me or make me feel inadequate in anyway.  In fact, I feel quite comfortable with it.  So my response to the question “would you like there to be a God” would be “I have no need for there to be a God”. A slight cop-out, perhaps, but an honest answer.

Rise

By far the most common way to become religious is to simply be raised religious.  It happens all the time, and allows sects and fundamentalist groups to thrive within confined and controlled environments.  Take the Westboro Baptist Church for example.  Their beliefs are, to many, conflicting with good Christian values, yet their leader claims to be one of the best versed people on the planet when it comes to the scriptures.

Yet those within the church accept the teachings of Fred Phelps without question, so the question has to be asked, why? For many, the simple answer lies in their susceptibility to Phelps’ charisma (an interesting aside, one of the best definitions of charisma I’ve seen stated that an attribute of a charismatic person is the ability to resist other charismatic people) and authoritative way. For others, they are simply raised as part of the extended family and know no difference.  I’d highly recommend this documentary by British journalist Louis Theroux. One of the most telling aspects of that documentary is the responses given the Theroux by the children he talks to.  They don’t know any different, and they believe everything that protest, even though they don’t understand it.

The Westboro Baptist Church is an extreme example, but in reality, it’s no different to the situation being played out up and down the country, and all around the world.  Children are being formally and informally indoctrinated into religion without really understanding it.  This is something organised religion relies upon in order to perpetuate. Trying to convert developed adults, people who aren’t vulnerable, is difficult because they understand religion and can question it.  They can see the obvious, gaping chasms in the logic of religion and rightly reject it.  Children do not possess these skills, and in the end just become vulnerable victims of organised religion.

The baptism or christening of a child is, quite frankly, a crime against decency and should be punished as such.  I always find it strange that we restrict the age at which people can drink, or get married, to protect them, to ensure they have developed mentally to the point where they can freely make informed decisions.  Yet we allow children, babies even, to be indoctrinated in to a cult.

Fall

I mentioned above that it is difficult to convert adults to religion.  The exception are those people who really want, or need something else to be out there. These people find themselves in difficult or traumatic circumstances and simply can’t cope. Talking to religious people, as I do, I have found that the vast majority of those who came to religion later in life did so in the midst of some form of traumatic event.

The explanation for this should be immediately apparent. People want something else, they want a way to absolve themselves of responsibility.  They want something else to blame, or they want something else to do the hard work for them so they can get out of the situation they find themselves in.

One of the most common examples you’ll hear of, where people come late to religion, is a person who has lost everything, their job, their house, their money and their family.  Then they “find God” and get back on their feet.  What doesn’t  get acknowledged is the fact that they have been helped by people working on the premise that they will receive help in exchange for joining the religious group providing the help. It’s the classic missionary scenario – “before God we had nothing, now we’ve found God we have running water and crops”.

The classic debate relating to these situations goes like so: -

• The Religious say that when people open up their hearts to God in their hour of need, God will help them.
• The Non-Religious say that vulnerable people are being exploited, they want something to blame, to take control, and that it’s easier to believe in something when you really want, or need it to be true.

You will of course know which side of the argument I stand on. In much the same way I don’t believe Children should be indoctrinated in religion, I don’t believe people in a vulnerable position should be either.

You’ll notice that both means described above rely on exploiting those who are vulnerable.  Either through age or circumstance.  This is a consistent thread throughout different religions and cults. It is difficult to convince people of something that isn’t true, and has no evidence to present unless they are in a compromised position, or are unable to logically assess the premise you are putting forward.

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?

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.

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.

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.