Here’s a nice one to ask bible-thumpers after they quote the bejeezus out of your patience:
According to holy scripture, who is this:
He was called the son of God, born of a virgin, performed miracles, raised the dead, had disciples, was crucified, then resurrected after three days, and was worshipped 1000 BC?
The answer: indistinct. It could be both Mithra and Horus.
It could also have been Krishna – if we moved up the ‘worshipped’ date to 400 BC.
Tomorrow will see the release of “God’s not Dead”, a christian movie (based on Rice Broocks’ book with the same name). OK, so the title invokes Nietzsche – interesting. According to the blurb, the story revolves around a philosophy student who has to fight a dictatorial philosophy professor. The professor requires all students to sign a ‘God is Dead’ statement to get a passing grade, and the student strikes a bargain that he will pass if he can defend his position ‘God is Alive’.
Well, that’s quite some stereotyped cliché’d trope (pleonasms be damned); the movie itself is highly reminiscent of a 10 minute (and logically embarrassingly inept) movie I watched on YouTube some time ago (which pretty much re-told the aforementioned links).
But then, the movie is officially advertised with this tagline:
Atheists say ‘No one can prove the existence of God’. And they are right. But I say, ‘No one can disprove that God exists.’
Ouch. And this is supposed to happen in philosophy class? Is this the level of intelligence we can expect from the movie?
Now, I do understand that this movie is primarily aimed at the average american christian. But do the producers really hold their viewer’s intellect in such contempt that they lead with kindergarden logic? This is going to be one long movie to watch.
Martin Luther, reverend über-father of all Protestants had a sharp wit, and an even sharper pen. He knew that for the church to rule supreme, there was but one enemy.
He wrote 1546 in his last sermon in Wittenberg:
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but–more frequently than not–struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
Up to here, every atheist in the world nod in agreement. Except for his conclusion:
Reason […] is the devil’s greatest whore.
It’s obvious that Luther wanted – needed – people to remain stupid in order to fill churches.
With supporters like these, faith doesn’t need enemies.
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’?
Many a believer thinks that debating with an atheist is easy – after all a religious person ‘believes’ that they know the truth: that this universe was created by their god(s), and it’s just a matter of showing this truth to the unbeliever. There’s always holy scripture to fall back upon (which the believer may have read), and if all else fails, there’s always Hitler. Debating atheists is easy.
Until, that is, they actually meet an atheist. Trying to convince these ungodly creatures can be a rude surprise:
It’s usually much easier just to tell them: ‘I believe because I don’t know what else to do’. That saves a lot of time.
It’s also more honest.
Recently I watched a movie depicting a dystrophic future. A line from one of the protagonists stuck with me:
There are no happy endings any more.
Ultimately, there never is, and never will be, a happy end. In the end, we will die. It has always been that way. There never were truly happy endings. People don’t like this, and they are afraid. That explains why so many people become religious: they crave a happy ending. But deep down they know perfectly well that there isn’t going to be one.
And so they play make-believe. They waste inordinate amounts of time preparing for the end. And doing that, they become miserable and miss the great time they could have had. When you obsess with your end, you quickly stop living and start dying. That’s the real tragedy. We all know that the end will come – but it will be neither happy nor sad. It will simply be the end.
Stop focusing on the end. Enjoy the brief time we have here before the end.
Live.
I don’t understand people who say they are ‘mostly atheist’. It’s quite easy: you either believe in something supernatural, or you are an atheist. Saying ‘I can’t completely rule out the possibility that Gods exist’ is not a contradiction to being an atheist – it’s merely stating a scientific, obvious fact.
Likewise, I don’t get ‘moderate’ believers. What kind of silly is that? Either you believe in your infallible super-being, or you might as well stop right now. Hoping that there is a benevolent god is not believing it. Hoping that there is a benevolent God is what many atheists, me included, do. It’s like a lottery ticket. You might get lucky. You have some hope. But you don’t have ‘faith’. You don’t go out and buy a new Ferrari in expectation of winning a million dollars. And you certainly don’t start inviting people for a ride.
So what does ‘moderate’ belief really mean? How can there be moderation in their belief? Either you believe that the Bible is the true word of the one true God, or it isn’t. There is no ‘perhaps true God’. It’s not as if scripture is lacking any clarity in this matter.
Being a moderate christian is like being moderately pregnant. This isn’t rocket science. Perhaps these moderates should find out what they really are, and act accordingly.
Sometime, when discussing religion with a believer, a peculiar accusation comes up: ‘you are so closed-minded’.
Personally, I find that statement to be a near-insult. Deep down I feel that what this person really thinks is ‘You should think like me’, not that I should be open-minded. The fact remains that my mind is open to the possibility of gods – that’s why I ask for proof instead of rejecting the notion out of hand.
In a rational world we are convinced about the existence of things. We don’t really ‘believe’, we merely assume something to be true. These assumptions can easily be invalidated without crushing our self-esteem. Unfortunately, we colloquially often use ‘I believe’ when we mean to say ‘I’m convinced’. Believers latch onto this linguistic imprecision and assert that since we believe these things to be true, science is also a religion. But even if science was a near-religion, the differences between religion and science are staggering:
Let’s assume I’m convinced of a certain assumption: earth is flat. Along comes someone with incontrovertible proof of a different view. A short while later (hopefully) I’ll have accepted the new view on reality and integrated it into my own.
Wishful thinking? No, this happens regularly. Here are two of the most spectacular changes from the past 100 years: Einstein’s theory of relativity over Newtonian Physics and the current model of continents drifting on lava over the Monolithic Earth model. Each time new evidence is found, it is examined, and when a new model fits better, the old one is discarded.
Contrast that with religious thinking: The Bible is the unchanging truth, any evidence that does not fit the ‘truth’ is rejected or laughed away as ‘theory’. Somehow believers sucker themselves into believing that their minds are open when they, on the same grounds that they accept theirs, reject the notion of another god. That is pure dogma – as closed-minded as you can get.
The ‘open your mind’ line is almost as stupid as the other old chestnut ‘you should be more humble’.
To paraphrase Ricky Gervais: “Ignorance may be bliss for the ignorant, but it’s a pain in the ass for the rest”. But why are so many Christians hell-bent (ha, ha) on remaining ignorant, and are actively closing their eyes to science and reason? It’s actually quite logical. Here’s the proof:
We know that for Christians
So: With
And:
Follows
That’s why believers prefer to remain dumb. If they become knowledgeable or employ reason, they blow their chance at paradise. Which is pretty much what Marin Luther wrote in 1569: “Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has”.
Hence if you are a Christian, it is your religious duty to stay dumb.
I just wish they weren’t so successful at being dumb religious.
Sturgeon’s law states that ’90 percent of everything is crap’.
With regards to science, that is probably true: almost every thesis has been overthrown or changed at least once. Less than 10% of all laws have remained as they were originally formulated. Is that a bad thing or good? Religions are quick to point to the ever changing landscape of scientific discoveries and laws, and interpret that as a flaw, calling it ‘unreliable’.
But let’s look at the alternative:
Religions tout their ‘absolute truth’ and ‘unchanging, objective morality’; out of necessity they can’t change. Confronted with mountains of evidence that contradict their religious dogma, they try to ignore, re-interpret or laugh away facts as said unreliable evidence.
Perhaps 90% of all science is crap. But if we look at religions through the eyes of a rational, ethical being we discover another important fact:
With regards to religion, Sturgeon was 10 percent short.