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.
- Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
- Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol.
- Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God.
- Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
- Honor thy Father and Mother.
- Thou shalt not murder.
- Thou shalt not commit adultery.
- Thou shalt not steal.
- Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
- 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.
This is all wrong. Going to heaven is not AT ALL about keeping the 10 commandments. Being a Christian is also not at ALL about keeping the 10 commandments.
I am not a theologian, just a teenager who has recently come to faith, but I will offer some very basic points from Romans chapter 3 that may help here:
Point 1: “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short”. No one is expected to have kept the 10 commandments.
Point 2: “Therefore, no one will be declared righteous (ie. go to heaven) by keeping the law”. Rather, the 10 commandments simply allow us to see how we are not perfect and everyone falls short.
Question then arises: If everyone falls short, how can anyone ever go to heaven?
Point 3: “A man is justified by faith alone, not by observing the law”. We can’t go to heaven by trying to be ‘perfect’. Christianity is about realising we aren’t perfect, and having faith.
By faith alone may we enter the kingdom of god.
(Romans 3 explains all of this better than I, it even says at the end “Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we see the value of the law.”)
Have fun reading the bible guy.
Atheist, you hold a belief: that there is no God.
You should practice what you preach, and QUESTION your belief.
I would like you to post a blog seriously questioning atheism, and earnestly exploring the possibility of god and intelligent design.
Until you actually QUESTION and explore all angles, you lack the credibility to challenge others to question.
Uhm, why do you have to have a god? Why not just enjoy being?
The problem I have with your comment, Agnostic, is that if organised religion didn’t exist there would never be a question of whether a God exists or not. It is the religious, the theists, who have introduced this idea of a God (or Gods) and therefore it is that statement that should be questioned. I, nor anyone else in a civilized, educated world, should have to take a position of belief when it comes to the non-existence of God in the same way we don’t have to take a position of belief that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t exist. It’s preposterous to suggest that a flying spaghetti monster, and it’s preposterous to suggest that a God exists. Would you consider yourself religious in that you don’t believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t exist? Its non existence can never be proven, and it’s existence is well documented, just like the Christian God’s existence is well documented in the Bible.
All well and good. I fully agree that God’s existence should be questioned and that religion should be critically debated.
What I am saying is that you are being just as one-sided and closed-minded as the dogmatic people you criticise, in that you are failing to question your own position.
Why not earnestly explore the reasons FOR the existence of God? Why not earnestly acknowledge the great aspects of religion and the genuinely wise teachings of Jesus, as well as just the shortfalls? Or are you too proud?
Step outside the box for a bit rather than just regurgitating Stephen Dawkins books over and over again. Enough with the bloody spaghetti monster. Think for yourself!
Only then can you earn the credibility and impartiality that a man of “reason” deserves.
I want to address the statement that ” if organised religion didn’t exist there would never be a question of whether a God exists or not.” There are these troublesome people who say they have seen God, they are often called prophets, perhaps they are the ones to blame for the issue being on the table?
A little more to the point: I get the impression that many atheists have adopted their belief without a thorough investigation of the issue. If so, then they have not been honest with themselves. Others seem to equate ignorance with religion as if to say that only dumb or weak people believe in deity. I suppose that people like Einstein give them a bit of heart burn. The point is this – if I say that just over the top of yonder ridge is an elephant with a yellow ribbon tied around its neck you will probably say that I am crazy. But, unless you go look for yourself, you will never know.
I say that there is a Creator and that he can be found, but you have to at least be curious enough to look. If you are sincere in your search, you will find him. Now you will say that of course he can be found under such circumstances because of the principles of self-hypnosis, emotional programming, etc. etc. I have to respond with “Yes, there are many religions people who have succumbed to such nonsense, and a great deal of suffering and pain have been perpetrated upon the world by such. You must remember the principle that “just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they are not after me.” Just because you were bit by a brown dog doesn’t mean that all brown dogs are biters. A great number of organized religions have given religion a bad name, no question about it.
Uhm, have you ever looked up at the sky? There is no creator, we are just here by chance, just like you and me. Enjoy the simplicity. Stop complicating your life with non scientific mumbo-jumbo. By the way, not that it matters anyway, but out galaxy will be swalloed up by our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, in 5 billion years. The question I have for you now is why? Think about that my friend. Ha-ha, who cares?
Well said, Jackson Pemberton. Let us all be sincere in our search for the greater truth.
Let us focus on our own search, rather than assuming we’ve completed our search and can judge everyone elses.
This is what I will endeavour to say, sincerely: “God, I have no conclusive proof you exist. I acknowledge that such proof simply can’t be established either for or against your existence. Therefore, it’s up to me to choose what I think. Since I’ve already spent my whole life assuming you don’t exist, I’m now going to spend the next month as if you do exist and sincerely explore what this would mean for me.”
I’ve got nothing to lose, especially if god doesn’t exist. I will still have embarked on an interesting experiment. And if god does exist… then I guess I’ve got everything to gain!
We certainly all need to search for truth, and if we align ourselves with the truth we already have it can lead us to more truth. Any errors we have adopted will only tend to muddle our search. That said, I am a bit troubled by your saying that you have nothing to fear, especially if god doesn’t exist. Is that a confession of bias perhaps? If so, it will color your search. I am convinced, based on my own experience, that we have to be unafraid of truth in order to find it. We have to have a strong faith in the benefits of the discovery and a determination to align our own behavior with it. Otherwise, we are not completely sincere and we will trick ourselves.
I believe that this human characteristic is deliberately built into us by our Father who has us here in school so we (he and us) can see what we really want in the eternities. Then, after we have lived this life, we will be put in a place that will make us the happiest possible, which includes places where we can fiddle with truth and sort of follow it and live with our own knowledge of that weakness and knowingly miss out on the far greater benefits of having disciplined ourselves by faith and by practice to enjoy the liberating and empowering effects of truth.
It is very stimulating to engage in these discussions – the ones that are not just name calling and chest thumping – it has caused me to try to really understand the atheist and I have the audacity now to suppose that maybe I have a bit of that religion (sorry, but if you are a believer in any system of thought, you are religious in my book) sorted out. Here were my thoughts this morning while waking up –
There is a question that ought to plague the mind of the atheist: Upon what basis do I reject the testimony of the astronauts?
One of the “virtues†of atheism that attracts its adherents is the promise of an amoral philosophy of life; a liberating system of belief in the fallacy of allegiance to higher authority and of responsibility to a creator. The atheist dialog glows with this victory over the tyranny of the ignorance of man and his allegiance to the deity he created. This victory is ill founded and dubious when held up to the light of modern scientific advances.
The astronauts, every one of them, and with no dissenters, have returned to earth bearing testimony that the earth is indeed round, that is moves majestically in its orbit around our sun and that indeed our entire solar systems appears to be exactly as modern astronomy has described it. They saw it from a new and distant perspective and witness its accuracy. This gives great credence to astronomy and to the claimed recent discoveries of planets where life is almost sure to exist. If we are to accept the objective testimony of the astronauts and their associates the astronomers, then we must venture into a realm that denies atheism its fundaments. Here’s why.
There is serious discussion among astronauts and astronomers about the existence of other habitable worlds and the possibility; nay, the likelihood of life on other orbs and, of course, that can only lead to the possibility of beings with intelligence superior to our own, perhaps even far superior. There are well thought out plans on the table for the conversion of the atmosphere of Mars to an oxygen rich gas that would support human life without any special provision for breathing. These plans include a kind of mega-leveraging of natural processes to cause the planet’s present gas balance to shift to one where oxygen is released and retained. The whole study of this group of intelligent beings is to create a new habitation for our race. This would make these beings creators in at least a limited sense. There can be no other conclusion if we are to adhere to the commonly accepted usage of these words.
It is thence a simple matter to add together the testimonies of the astronauts, the plans of their associates and the postulates of beings of superior intelligence to arrive at the exciting possibility that this earth may actually be the creation of such beings and, by extension, that we, the human race, could actually be their creation, perhaps even their offspring. Furthermore, we are naturally led to the supposition that we may have been placed here as a test to see what we would do in our little home in the heavens.
By definition we have arrived at the distinct possibility, nay, the likelihood of the existence of beings whose description coincides with that of deity.
After considering these facts and their attendant possibilities, it hardly needs to be said that the opinion of the atheist (an opinion very religiously held, by the way) comes into serious doubt and thus atheism’s promise of amorality falls empty at the feet of the ongoing scientific discovery of deity and the true origin of man.
The atheist, upon considering all this may well ask, “If this is all true, why haven’t we been told.†and I answer that we have. There have been many prophets in the world, most of them have self-serving agendas and should be ignored, but there are a few that we may call “holyâ€. This leads to my final question for the atheist, “Upon what basis do you reject the testimony of the holy prophets?â€
“If organised religion didn’t exist there would never be a question of whether a God exists or not.” Are you not aware that atheism is a relatively recent phenomenon? The question of God arises naturally, for it is also the question of whether life has (inherent) meaning, whether there is life after death and so on. No one who bothers to write in an atheistic blog is totally indifferent to the idea of God, but is constantly raising the question themself. Keep it up!
Jonathan,
I fail to understand your point. Are you saying that an organized religion is a sentient being? and/or that individuals cannot reason on their own? Why the connection between organized religion and the question?
On the other hand, I love your point that the question of the existence of God is also the question of whether there is inherent meaning in life. I have this niggling thought that the atheist is really trying to distance himself from accountability. There has to be some motivation for him to believe in a proposition that is completely impossible of proof. But then, maybe that’s also the point.
Jackson, regarding your first point, I was just quoting the original author and disputing it. I think that religion arises naturally in the human spirit. It is also very deep and I would therefore caution against assuming that there is a particular motive for atheism common to all. Nevertheless it is reactionary by nature, for it is a negation of theism. If there was no such thing as theism, there would be no atheism for the same reason that there is (currently) no need for a-fairyism.
Jonathan, I agree that there is likely no common motive for all atheists – that would be too simplistic. And yes to the opposition thing. If there were no light there would be no name for darkness – in fact, we would probably be unaware of its existence. You might be interested in a little essay I wrote recently called Atheism is Dead (an obvious rejection of God is Dead). I think I will just go ahead and post it. I posted a very similar group of thoughts a few weeks ago and got absolutely no response so I have to believe that either it totally stumped the atheists or it was so bad everyone ignored it. Hmmmm.
Atheism is Dead
One of the “virtues†of atheism that attracts its adherents is the promise of an amoral philosophy of life; a liberating system of belief in the fallacy of allegiance to higher authority and of responsibility to a creator. The atheist dialog glows with this victory over the tyranny of the ignorance of man and his allegiance to the deity he created. This victory is ill founded and dubious when held up to the light of modern scientific advances. Mathematical reason also has something to say about the nihilism of atheism. In summary, it goes like this.
There are some postulates that are inherently unprovable and the one relevant to this discussion is the proposition that some particular thing does not exist. To illustrate: If I should say that there are no x’s, I have in effect said that I have been throughout all dimensions of time, space and all other yet undiscovered universes and there is not one x in any of them. The atheist may bring forward mountains of evidence to support his opinion but they are never sufficient because they can only be circumstantial. There is, in fact, only one proposition provable of nonexistence: nothingness. Thus the rigors of mathematical logic illuminate the fact that the atheist’s opinion is an act of faith. Interestingly enough, this makes him guilty of the crime he most loathes and stamps him with the label he most abhors for he must accept his position on more or less blind faith which in turn makes him religious.
Good science, based as it is on the rigors of calculated skepticism, is not particularly speedy in its discovery of the true nature of our universe. It too is based on a faith in the virtues of investigation of circumstances, the projection of theories and the testing of propositions. Nevertheless, in the last few decades it has uncovered some truths whose implications are intriguingly intertwined with the proposition that at least there is a creator who just might turn out to be deity. This leads to a question that ought to plague the mind of the atheist: “Upon what basis do I reject the testimony of the astronauts?â€
The astronauts, every one of them, and with no dissenters, have returned to earth bearing testimony that the earth is indeed round, that is moves majestically in its orbit around our sun and that indeed our entire solar systems appears to be exactly as modern astronomy has described it. They saw it from a new and distant perspective and witness its accuracy. This gives great credence to astronomy and to the claimed recent discoveries of planets where life is almost sure to exist. If we are to accept the objective testimony of the astronauts and their associates the astronomers, then we must venture into a realm that denies atheism its fundaments. Here’s why.
There is serious discussion among astronauts and astronomers about the existence of other habitable worlds and the possibility; nay, the likelihood of life on other orbs and, of course, that can only lead to the possibility of beings with intelligence superior to our own, perhaps even far superior. Besides that, there are well thought out plans on our table for the conversion of the atmosphere of Mars to an oxygen rich gas that could support human life without any special provision for breathing. These plans include a kind of mega-leveraging of natural processes to cause the planet’s present gas balance to shift to one where oxygen is released and retained. The whole study of this group of intelligent beings is to create a new habitation for our race. This would make these beings creators in at least a limited sense. There can be no other conclusion if we are to adhere to the commonly accepted usage of these words.
It is thence a simple matter to add together the testimonies of the astronauts, the plans of their associates and the postulates of beings of superior intelligence to arrive at the exciting possibility that this earth may actually be the creation of such beings and, by extension, that we, the human race, could actually be their creation, perhaps even their offspring. Furthermore, we are naturally led to the supposition that we may have been placed here as a test to see what we would do in our tiny home in the heavens.
Thus, by scientific discovery and by definition we have arrived at the distinct possibility, nay, the likelihood of the existence of beings whose description falls ever closer to that of deity. Thus the opinion of the atheist has come into serious doubt and atheism’s promise of amorality falls empty at the feet of the ongoing scientific discovery of deity and the true origin of man.
The atheist, upon considering all this may well ask, “If I suppose that this is all true, then why haven’t we been told.†and I answer that we have. There have been many prophets in the world, most of them have self-serving agendas and should be ignored, but there are a few that we may call “holyâ€. This leads to a final question for the atheist, “Upon what basis do you reject the testimony of the all the holy prophets?â€
Mathematical postulates? Don’t make me laugh! Did Turing believe in god, did Einstein? If there is a mathematical proof why are you sitting on it?
FACT:There is no God. Disagree? Prove it. There is not one single scintilla of evidence to indicate otherwise. The burden of proof is on the believer in whatever god, fairies, santa to prove they exist. Why can’t the religious and agnostics understand this?
The whole god concept is human-made, and obviously false – full of contradictions, paradoxes, all conveniently ignored by the religious. Both the Bible and the Koran contradict themselves. If it were legal testimony it would be thrown out, (how ironic is it you swear on them?).
Creationism/Intelligent design is nonsense, it isn’t science, just the flailings of the ignorant to adapt their superstitions to reality.
Its a superstition, there are no gods, ghouls, fairies, monsters, bogeymen, elves, spirits, ….
The human race should just grow up.
This kind of mindless ranting and name calling does your cause no good. If we should apply your logic to politics we must conclude that because no one can agree on how we should interpret the Constitution, it should be summarily thrown out and we should just quit deluding ourselves that there is any good in it. Talk about grow up!! Take a look in the mirror.
Jon,
I looked up Turin’s biography out of interest and found it fascintating that he embraced atheism as a result of the tragic death of his lover.
It reminded me of another post on here (
https://www.the-atheist.com/the-two-ways-to-become-religious-rise-or-fall) in which Athiest complains that conversions to religion very often take place in the midst of personal tragedy. I think rather we must conclude that these moments often drive us to ask the truly important questions of life –the ones we try to avoid under normal circumstances: what is the meaning of our short lives on earth? is there an afterlife? is there a God? etc… While it may be true for some that these opportunities are answered by the first passing fad, for very many it can indeed be the moment where these questions are examined with a genuine openness of mind that is difficult to achieve in the normal run of things.
These are profoundly religious questions. In a sense the question of the existence of God is not since it is possible to have a completely theoretical concept and “belief” in God without raising them.
As I have stated before many times on this blog site, these questions are not scientific by nature. Another way of putting this is to say that religion is not measurable by science. Thus there are many great scientists who believe in God (and Einstein, in his one way, was one of them). To expect the existence of God to be proven by science is a little like expecting the existence of justice to be so proven. Prove to me that the principle of non-contradiction is true! (You can’t since you must use it just to think. It is the very possibility of thought). Demonstrating the existence of God is of that nature.
You also assert that “The whole god concept is human-made, and obviously false…” It is interesting that every known culture has deities. The questions I mentioned are spontaneous for human nature and need to be stifled to be ignored. Atheism is always manufactured since it always arises out of and in response to theism.
Indeed it is about time that we started asking these critical questions. We get distracted easily about some minor star in some far distant galaxy or drown out our interior existential questioning with loud music and hyperactivity. All this is a bit childish. I agree with your last comment, therefore.
The human race should just grow up.
The search for the truth has always been the way of those who are agnostic. Such is my way of life. It does not make any claims of knowing truth and being doubtful to other claims, but rather being objective to all possibilities and weighing so called claims with truth. When one makes a claim one has burden of proof. When I was a Christian I use to be in so much doubt and denial, but now that I am agnostic I face the truth, accept the truth, and respect it. Thus I am able to move on.
Humility has taught me to be wise as to how to find truth with an open mind and heart.
I give consideration to all possibilities and if I find a contradiction then I know that it can not be truth. Truth never contradicts itself. To be naive is to innocent, but to be ignorant is to be guilty.
Wisdom and knowledge are the subjects to the nobility of truth, so if thy caution thyself not to be the fool and thy have a boastful tongue, then let it be that which rest upon thy head the Crown of Truth.
The destination of wisdom and the enlightenment of truth is traveled along the path of humility.
I say three cheers for Eupraxsophy! There at least is an open mind, what a refreshing breeze I feel. I absolutely agree with you. If you want truth you have to do a couple things: be humble enough to be honest with yourself (this is usually the most difficult thing), and be courageous enough to steel yourself to deal with whatever you discover as you open mindedly and objectively and carefully search for it. For me, finding truth has been much more of a journey than an event and when I am careful to look into the corners of my own heart, I find that there are still some truths that I am avoiding. I love the proverb: “If you avoid the truth long enough, you will eventually never find it.” But the corollary is even better: “If you embrace the truth you already know, it will invite its closest friends to join in.”