Some people object to me saying that children must not be exposed to religion.
‘What’s the harm’, they ask.
Indeed.
Image Credit: Source Unknown
Category Archives: Religion
Hell’s bells!
A believer recently told me that I was ‘going to hell’ – not because of something I did (even though there are enough crimes listed in the bible that would make me a prime candidate for that journey: for example, I work Sundays), but because of something I am not: religious.
All the urgency and obvious distress my friend was having notwithstanding, I wasn’t overtly concerned. I really like her, and usually heed her advice. But when you threaten an atheist with hell, it’s even less effective than when a child threatens to persuade the bogeyman to eat you tonight.
Now, unfortunately I’m also not diplomatic.
So I encountered hell there and then.
Moral’s low watermark
When discussing the obvious shortcomings of biblical morals (slavery, misogyny, homophobia, genocide), I often hear a peculiar argument, one that never sat well with me:
‘you have to understand that biblical morals were meant for the people at that time’.
That argument is peculiar for multiple reasons:
First, it is a tacit admission that the morals as written in the bible aren’t up to today’s standards, and should, therefore, not be used today.
But underlying this is a much bigger issue. Unfortunately, most people are caught up in their biblical history; we often don’t realize that we can’t see the forest for the trees:
According to the bible, God made us. But if he made us, why did he make us the morally backward people we where then? After all, we were able to improve to the point we are today. He could have saved us a lot of suffering, had he poofed us into existence with the morals and ethics we have today.
Yet he didn’t.
Why not? And why make the situation even worse at some arbitrary point in time and encumber us with written rules that from that point on forward were retarding moral progress? If God had wanted us to be moral, shouldn’t he have used the bible to proscribed advanced morals, instead of the de-facto barbaric standards of the time?
Since all we got were primitive morals, that only leaves one conclusion: when he gave us the ten commandments, God thought that we were nearing the apex of morality; that apex was his own moral standard.
If you argue that biblical morals have to be interpreted in the context of time you therefore also argue that god’s morals represent the low watermark of human morals; that we have long surpassed him.
Observational vs. Historical idiocy
Aside from the documentation HBO produced, some Creationists are actively trying to spread their idea of ignorance over fact. That is required in order to claim with a straight face that there is scientific proof that the whole universe is only 6000 years old, and that the story of Genesis, as narrated by the Abrahamic Bible is literally true.
In a recent debate, Creationist Ken Ham asserts that instead of science, we really have two kinds of sciences: ‘observational’ and ‘historical’. The ‘real’ science Ken claims, is the ‘observational’ one, with ‘historical science’ being a lesser discipline. To someone who doesn’t know what science is, his words may even make sense.
Alas, they don’t. Ham simply tries a semantic sleigh of hands, hoping that his audience doesn’t know better. He even tried this in the debate. He asserts that the word ‘observational’ is closely linked to ‘eye witness evidence’, hence ‘observational science’ is science where you see the result with your own eyes.
Now, in science – and in court – evidence from eye witnesses is generally regarded as the least reliable form of evidence. Need I really detail the eye witness accounts of UFOs, Yetis, Loch Ness Monsters and Alien Abductions? No, the human eye, memory and mind are easily fooled.
The brouhaha surrounding the issue of ‘observational’ science results from Ken’s deliberate misrepresentation of what the words ‘observational’ and ‘historical’ mean in scientific terms. The truth is that all scientific evidence is observational, including indirect evidence that can’t directly be seen with your eyes. Paleontologists never saw a living dinosaur – but they observed their remains, and deduced, after correlating lots of similar evidence, how these animals looked and lived. That knowledge then was used to predict future findings, most famously when paleontologists predicted that they should be able to find smaller dinosaur remains in the footprints of Argentinosaurus huinculensis. And they were, equally famously, able to deduce how fast such a large beast could walk.
So why the false distinction? According to Ken, only experiments that can be reproduced in a lab should be accepted as ‘observational science’, all other is ‘historical’. Any science dealing with the past is therefore merely conjecture, not science. So if a scientists comes up with some findings in a lab today that nevertheless touches upon something of the past (say age of Earth), Ken is now free to dismiss that as ‘historical science’, and, therefore conjecture.
Plus, that’s where the Bible comes in. For everything in the past, we should use eye witness accounts, and Ken asserts that the Bible is full of accurate eye witness accounts. If all historical science is conjecture, he argues, the Bible is as accurate as the Big Bang theory (not the series).
Put that way, it’s actually quite pathetic. Too bad so many fall for it.
When Creationists speak…
You know, talking with Pentecostals is already strange; it feels like talking to someone over a cell phone with bad reception. Talking to New Earth Creationists, however, is the intellectual equivalent of an out-of-body experience: Surreal. A recent video on youtube shows excerpts from HBO’s documentation ‘Questioning Darwin’.
It begins with Pastor Peter LaRuffa
‘If the bible said that two plus two equals five, I wouldn’t question it – I would believe it, accept it as true, and then do my best to work it out and understand it’
Again, that’s a pastor talking. The video is an impressive document that shows how unquestioning faith, willful ignorance, and stubborn self-righteousness can make you dangerously out of touch with reality: these people know the (scientifically) correct answers, they even quote them, but then take a step into la-la-land to assert the most disingenuous, stupid and narrow-minded fantasy as the truth.
Dr. Charles Bonner (obviously not a scientific degree)
“To put man down as just an animal […] is totally preposterous. God made us in His image. […] Are you saying God is nothing more than an animal?”
The rhetoric question Bonner poses illustrates that he not only completely missed the boat, but showed up at the airport instead. Darwin must be wrong because Bonner thinks he himself looks like a god? If you watch the video, you’d see how even god would object to that.
Angel Dague:
“I just can’t fathom it. [Evolution] just sounds crazy to me”.
… because making the first human from clay, and the second from a rib of the first doesn’t? This is the caliber of thinking we are dealing with here. Then again, Angel burned her brain with drugs during her youth, so we’ll cut her some slack.
So let’s examine this Creationist’s analysis:
“If that’s the way the world works […] then you believe in a God that doesn’t intervene in nature. That takes away any possibility of miracles, any possibility of answered prayer, or any possibility of the resurrection. In reality, you take away the possibility of Christianity to be true at all”
Spot on! Unfortunately, this was meant as an argument against Darwin.
I recommend you watch the video. See how people over and over say “if [some basic truth] was true, then that would mean that God doesn’t exist”, only to conclude “I don’t like it, so I don’t believe it”.
An interesting study of how wishful thinking replaces rational thought. I feel sorry for these people.
Religious food rules
In Switzerland, the federal council just decreed that insects are not a food group, and thus can’t be sold as food. As insects are an established food source for millions of people, this decision has probably more to do with personal preferences than anything else. Or was it perhaps religion? Possible, but unlikely in Switzerland.
Yet, some religions do have dietary laws. For example, neither Jews nor Muslims must eat Pork. Arguably, some of these rules made sense at the time and context they were passed. For example, the Jewish rule to forbid lobster or shrimp can be read as a cautionary tale: meat from these animals spoils quickly, and not eating it can prevent some severe illness. Most Jews and Moslems at the time lived in hot countries, where the temperature significantly shortens the time until food goes bad. Also, high temperature favors infections, so adhering to the dietary laws increased your chance to survive; at the time they were good rules.
Today, these laws are completely irrelevant: we know about infections, and refrigeration technology allows us to keep meat fresh for a long time irrespective of the weather and temperature outside. Whoever still adheres to kosher or halal diets does so either in ignorance of their origins, or out of tradition.
Or, of course, for religious reasons: because your God said so. In this case, though, you’ll also have to contend with the fact that the god who gave you these rules did so simply because he was too cheap or ignorant to spring for the refrigeration- and hygiene know-how. So which isn’t he: ‘all-knowing’ or ‘loving’?
Sssssnake Oil!
Ah, faith healing. And dumb-as-doornail Pentecostals. They make good examples of how evolution works: if you are too stupid to stay alive, it’s curtains.
What happened? Pastor Jamie Coots was known for his ‘Snake Salvation’ church services. In it, he used snakes to demonstrate his faith, and to promote faith healing. Like so many other idiots, he believed that faith could suspend the laws of nature.
He believed a passage in the Bible suggests that church members cannot be harmed by venomous snakebites as long as they were anointed by God,
The foundation of his belief: the Gospel of Mark 16:17-18
17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Guess what? It doesn’t work. The sick don’t recover, and snakes are dangerous. Coots was bitten by one of his snakes, refused treatment from paramedics, and died from the venom. His death is tragic, agreed. On the other hand, people like the late Pastor persuade others to refuse medical treatment in favor of ‘faith healing’. There is some poetry here, just not the inspiring kind.
At least Coots didn’t die in vain: he gave tangible proof that his belief was dangerous bullshit.
Morans pray for Earthquake
As Reuters reports, a group of extremist Islamists has called upon all muslims to pray for an earthquake in Sochi to kill everyone and ruin the ‘games of the atheists and pagans’.
A couple of things. First, to quote Ambrose Bierce:
PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy
Praying never accomplished anything, and won’t help here. Then again, I much prefer an extremist wasting his time on prayer than spend his time wasting people, so maybe in this case, praying does accomplish something.
But is praying for a calamity to befall, and kill, scores of people just harmless idiocy? After all we know that praying won’t change a thing. No, it’s not harmless. Unfortunately, intent does matter. And for all intent and purposes, these Islamists believe they have their hands on a weapon of mass distruction: Allah. And they want to use it.
If Allah did create an earthquake that hit Sochi, it would end the lives of hundreds, if not thousands people, many of them innocent. This callous disregard of human life permeates the belief of whoever prays for earthquakes. A belief, we should remind ourselves, that their practitioners call the ‘religion of peace’.
If you are religious, pray thanks to your god that these extremists are really, really stupid.
… you moran!
(Image credit: St. Louis Indymedia Center)
On-Line Exorcism
For some people, no low is too low. Preying on the weak-minded, desperate or possibly schizophrenic, ‘Reverend’ Bob Larson has a business model that is difficult to be less moral: as CNN reports, he exorcises demons (speciality: gay demons), and now offers his services digitally via Skype. For $295 an hour, you can have your demons exorcised on-line. No word on the required bandwidth.
I guess the ‘good’ reverend thought that if he can sell the existence of demons to his flock, he can also sell it online. And why not? So do fortune tellers and seers. Opportunities abound on-line, and to quote David Hannum, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’. Gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘wire fraud’, doesn’t it?
Mormon video takes shot at the Oscars
It’s time for the Oscars again, and we are anxiously awaiting the nominations. In the category “nice sentiment, bad execution” the mormon church scored particularly high. They published a video that encourages doing the right thing: when you see a friend with problems, you should try to help. So far, so good.
But in their ‘Wounded On The Battlefield’ video, the mormon church chose, of all things, addiction to pornography as the affliction that needed immediate attention. Now, addiction to anything is indeed bad – but pornography? There are far worse addictions, with far grater consequences that are much, much more common: alcohol, tobacco, drugs. The message, even if well-intentioned, gets muddled by the presentation. Like so many Christian-derived religions, Mormonism is obsessively preoccupied with sex, and this neurotic obsession completely overshadows any deeper meaning. All that remains after watching the video is the impression that Mormons are an uptight, sexually dysfunctional bunch that want you to go to church instead of watching porn. Which is probably not the message they wanted to get across.
And then there is a glaring disconnect with reality: far more people are addicted to religion, with much direr consequences to their families and themselves than those who are addicted to watching porn. It’s obvious that the video’s creators didn’t think of that.
The Mormons, it seems, can’t get out of the woods because they don’t know they are in it.