Of all of those Big Questions central to philosophical concepts
that surround life, the universe and everything, the realms of theology
and religions and the nature of deities continue to fascinate. Opinions
proliferate in books, articles, videos, conversations in bars and pubs,
and in fact anywhere and everywhere two or more humans are in proximity.
There's the pro side; there's the anti-side. There aren't too many
fence-sitters. I'm still in the anti-camp as the following bits and
pieces illustrate.
Regarding Religion
*There have been and are thousands of mutually exclusive religions throughout the world. As implied, not all of these religions can be correct. There have been and are therefore thousands of mutually exclusive deities worshipped throughout the world. As implied, not all of these deities can be correct. Therefore, many of these religions / deities must have been inventions of and by the human mind. Therefore these / those deities that fall under that category have been created in the image of man and not vice versa. Since all of the True Believers in each and all of these religions will claim that all other religions except theirs are man-made inventions / fabrications, what odds that all are man-made since all-but-one have to be man-made and nobody can agree on which one that is? What's more likely - that 999 out of 1000 religions are pure human inventions and thus mental realities and therefore that one religion is a really real reality imposed from the outside-in, or that all 1000 religions are humanly derived from the inside-out? Don't the Mormons believe Christianity and Islam are false religions? Don't Muslims believe Christians and the Mormons are delusional? Don't Christians debunk the Mormon as well as the Islamic religion?
*Religion A to Religion B (and vice-versa): Our supernatural is the only really real supernatural and your alleged supernatural ain't worth a bucket of spit!
*Did you choose your religion, or did your religion choose you (i.e. - was your religion chosen for you)?
*Religious claims are not evidently true and evidentially not true (via Aron Ra).
*That fact is that your invisible 'friend' in the sky, be it God or be it Allah, is just as imaginary as any creator god, any fertility deity, any storm god, or any sun god.
*Christianity states that Jesus is actually God manifest on Earth who manifested Himself to save us from our sins (which we never committed; our ancestors did the dirty deed, not us) which, being all-knowing, He knew our ancestors would so do those dirty deeds before-the-fact. In any event, God sacrifices Himself (as Jesus) to Himself (as God) from Himself (since God set in train the events that led to sin in the first place). Does this make any real sense? It must, after all, the Father (God) condemns you, but the Son (Jesus) saves you - they're one and the same 'person', but what the heck, that still makes sense, doesn't it?
*Christian philosophy: In order to be a good Christian, never, ever try to think on behalf of yourself. Instead, read, re-read and defer to our holy book written thousands of years ago. Why? Because you could never hope to improve upon the moral lessons, teachings, instructions, principles and sensibilities that's been handed down to you from the Bronze Age.
*Faulty logic, as pointed out by The Bible Skeptic, Brett Palmer.
That Jesus exists proves God exists.
But then again, that Mohammad exists proves Allah exists.
And that crop circles exists proves extraterrestrials exist.
And that lumber yards proves that Paul Bunyan exists.
And that forests in Oregon prove that Bigfoot exists.
*We should take note of how statues devoted to the Buddha in Afghanistan were dynamited and hacked to pieces by a rival religion (Islam) on the grounds that these statues were just pure idols. This example as a sort of religious behavior could be given thousands of times over across history, and across religions.
*When one person sees or hears something that isn't there, that something is a delusion. When millions upon millions of people see and hear something that isn't really there, that something is called a religion.
Regarding Kim Davis
Do you have a constitutional civil right as a government official to deny and to prevent others from exercising their civil rights if those rights conflict with your worldview and philosophical, especially religious beliefs? It would appear so. Take the recent case involving government official Kim Davis.
Christians demand to have special privileges, at least according to the actions and statements of Kim Davis, Mat Staver, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and lots of others as well. Kim Davis is, if you recall, of course that duly elected Clerk in Kentucky who refused to perform one of her elected duties, specifically granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a duty for which she was employed to do and was being paid to do. We note to whit that she wasn't drafted against her will into her employment. Her position as Clerk was a free will choice. Still, she refused performing that one particular duty, even following a court order to do so, on the grounds that performing that duty violated her religious Christian beliefs and she justified her actions by noting that the bottom line for her was that God's law (as stated in the Old Testament) trumped human law (which allowed for same-sex marriage). For taking that position and that stand she was cheered on by anti-gay far right-wing fundamentalist Christians and defended by Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and formally by Max Staver (who also sprang to the legal defense of Judge Roy Moore who also has frequently defied human law in favour of God's law).
Naturally Kim Davis and followers claimed that Christians, like themselves, were being persecuted by the godless and that their religious freedoms were being violated. Kim Davis and company alleges that she and they were being discriminated against on the grounds - let's call a spade a spade here - that she and they weren't being allowed to discriminate. The obvious upshot is that Kim Davis and followers have no interest in equality and that she and her followers all want special privileges as Christians to do as they damn well - oops - as God damn well wants them to do. So Kim Davis believes she is above the law - human law at least.
Now the question needs to be asked if Kim Davis (and others noted above) were denied some form of entitlement or justice by someone of a non-Christian faith, wouldn't she and her supporters scream blue-bloody-murder in protest? You bet they would. I mean a Muslim clerk could refuse her a driver's license on the grounds that women should be allowed to drive; a Muslim cop might arrest her if she was on the street unaccompanied by a family-related male or for not covering her head or face. Even another Christian could refuse her a marriage license on the grounds that she has already been married and has divorced - several times in fact.
By her own belief system Kim Davis should be put to death for adultery as she has been divorced and remarried several times, and that, according to her own Bible (Mark 10: 12) is adultery and the punishment for a woman's adultery is to be put to death (Leviticus 20: 10).
What Kim Davis should have done is either ask to be relieved of that particular duty and assigned another duty in its place, or, if that wasn't a possibility, resign. Regardless, the basic principle is that you have to leave your personal worldview and philosophies at home when you go to work. When at work you have to be able to integrate with other people holding other worldviews and other philosophies. Further, you need to obey human law even if you personally feel God's law is above human law.
I've said it before but it bears repeating that right-wing fundamentalist Christians feel persecuted when they are prevented from persecuting others. Right-wing fundamentalist Christians do NOT have a moral philosophy of live-and-let-live, rather they feel quite free and obligated to ram their moral values down your throat.
Regarding Religion vs. Science
*Billions upon billions of years of physical, chemical and biological evolution / natural selection is patently ridiculous. It's just so obvious that life, the Universe and everything had to have been created in just six days.
*No scientific mystery that has ever been solved has had that solution be of the theological kind.
Regarding Faith & Belief
*Lacking belief in something (like God) doesn't require any proof or evidence other than providing evidence or proof in having that lack of belief in and of itself.
*Everyone is born a non-believer, born without the belief of a god. Belief of a creator comes later after your family and community has had a chance to indoctrinate you into whatever religious tradition you have the misfortune of being brought up in.
*If you are a True Believer, it doesn't really matter what the facts are because it really doesn't matter to you what the true is. Belief / faith is your be-all-and-end-all.
*Here's a shortcut to rational thinking: "God said it; I believe it; that settles it".
*According to atheist Aron Ra, faith is an assertion of unreasonable convictions that is assumed without reason and defended against all reason.
Regarding Prayer
*God answers prayers - except when God doesn't answer prayers. Yet according to Matthew 7: 7 ask and you shall receive. And that's not a one-off. Try Matthew 21: 22 where if you believe and pray you will receive. But do you always get what you ask for from God? Where does the "oops" lie?
*Try this experiment. Pray to God for one month and record the hits and the misses. Next month, pray to that orbiting teapot around Jupiter and record the hits and the misses. Or perhaps pray to your pet dog instead of the teapot. Did you note any difference between the two results? Was there any difference between the two results? If not, what does this experiment tell you about the nature and the reality of God?
*Everything happens for a reason and God has a plan for you. Now let's say a prayer and try to change that!
Regarding Animal Morality
*You frequently see animals, especially birds and mammals grooming each other in places where a solitary individual couldn't reach. So even in the animal kingdom you get examples of "if you scratch my back I'll scratch your back".
Regarding the End Times
*It is logical to assume that there will never be an End Times; no need for any Second Coming. Why? Satan, being an intelligent sort of devil, will obviously have read the Bible and the Book of Revelation. Having done so, he will have gotten a spoiler alert and so he will know the ultimate outcome - his ultimate outcome resulting in his demise. So in order to avoid that ungodly fate, Satan just calls it quits and retires to Arizona where it is nice and hot and takes up writing poetry as a hobby (the satanic verses).
Regarding the Soul / Afterlife
*The afterlife, or at least the Christian version of it, has one major flaw - when does it end?
*If, as theist William Lane Craig insists, there has to be a First Cause then there has to be a Last Cause as well, otherwise you still have an infinite Universe, which, as William Lane Craig asserts can't be the case. The only way to have a finite Universe is for it to be temporally finite on either side, the Alpha side or the Omega side. But a Last Cause contradicts Christian theology - that bit about an eternal everlasting afterlife.
Regarding the Bible
*The Bible is the Word of God because the Bible tells us so and the Bible is infallible because the Bible is the Word of God. This is what is known in philosophical circles as circular reasoning.
*If you are mocked by little children, it's okay to curse them unto death in the name of the Lord. And so it came to pass that the Lord carried out the wishes of one so mocked and who issued such a curse upon little children using bears as the instrument of their death. Check it out in 2 Kings 2: 23-24.
*I've noted before how the Bible, and therefore how God, endorses the concept of slavery. For just one example, check out 1 Peter 2: 18. Now many translations try to be politically correct and substitute the word "servant" for "slave", but many other translations call a spade a space here, or should I say they call a slave a slave. A rose by any other name...
*If you are into Biblical contradictions check out:
1 Kings 5: 16 vs. 2 Chronicles 2: 2: How many people did Solomon employ to oversee his workers? Was it 3,600 or was it 3,300?
2 Chronicles 9: 25 vs. 1 Kings 4: 26: How many stalls did Solomon have for his horses and chariots? Was it 40,000 or was it 4,000?
Acts 1: 18 vs. Matthew 27: 6-7: It's not clear who purchased a field. Was it "this man" or was it the "chief priests"?
Question: Why didn't God proof-read The Word of God?
*Do your own experimental investigation. Compare and contrast the relevant size, staffing and number of animals in Noah's Ark vis-a-vis any standard animal park or zoo in order to ascertain just how ridiculous the Biblical concept is.
Regarding God
*More faulty logic, as pointed out by The Bible Skeptic, Brett Palmer.
Anecdotes are not proof of God's existence.
Faith is not proof of God's existence.
Hope is not proof of God's existence.
Hallucinations / visions / personal experiences are not proof of God's existence.
Even the supernatural (if it exists) is in itself not proof of God's existence.
*Everything we know about God, god or the gods was written by humans for humans and no doubt all such humans had hidden agendas.
*God can never substitute as The Answer just because of the current state of our own ignorance.
*You can't explain every detail of biological evolution so therefore evolution must be false. On the other hand, you can't prove that there is no God so therefore it must be the case, it must be true, that there is a God. This is what is known in some religious circles as logic.
*If cats had a deity, that deity would have whiskers, fur and a purr, a tail and jaws, paws and claws. Cats were clearly made in the image of such a feline deity.
*Even if something bad happens to you, it is really good because all things that happen are all part of God's Master Plan. Check out Psalm 139: 6. That means that all abortions, all murders, all rapes, etc. are good since they are all part of God's Master Plan. Further, since God has a Master Plan, that means that nobody has any free will and therefore prayer is meaningless - which is contradicted by both God / Jesus in the Bible.
*Does God or Allah pray, and if so, who does God (or Allah) pray to?
*How long have theists had (not to mention God Himself) to convince sceptics that God actually exists? Why haven't they succeeded? Why hasn't God succeeded? Because there is no God, that's why!
*Why can't an all-powerful God who answers prayers and who performs miracles recreate an amputee's missing limb? Why? Because there is no God, that's why!
*God must be really insecure and have a massive inferiority complex since he demands all and sundry worship Him 24/7/52. I wonder what Freud would have to say about that!
*Speaking of worshipping, God just loves burnt offerings and the smell of burning meat and not just animal flesh but human flesh as well. In fact you'll find over 250 references to burnt offering(s) in the Bible (KJV).
*If God doesn't know what lust feels like then God isn't all-knowing. If God does know what lust feels like, then He isn't really all-good now, is He?
*Why did God bother with His "Be fruitful and multiply" order when He could have just created more people all by Himself from dust and ribs?
*God isn't exactly the brightest of deities on the market. Shortly after "In the beginning" an alleged all-knowing God decided (although that implies God has free will which is paradoxical in the context of being also all-knowing) to create the human species. This was basically a bad move but one which He thought was a good idea at the time. Anyway, this rather psychotic megalomaniac created a human male and a human female and saw that it was good - for a fraction of a godly day or so depending on what time units God uses. Of course things quickly went from bad to worse once that "Be fruitful and multiply" commandment really kicked in and started to achieve results. Then God became so angry with Himself for His monumental screw-up when He realised that the humans He had created were totally flawed - in God's eyes - being wicked and full of corruption and doing violence and so on and so on. So, God's psychotic solution was mass murder and so He killed everyone (animals too for some unexplained reason) without fear or favour. Drowning was God's chosen method of humanity's execution (except for Noah and company who weren't wicked or corrupt or prone to violence). Did that ultimately result in any real improvement? Do pigs fly? No! With God's "Be fruitful and multiply" order still in force the world was repopulated with a new crop of the same sorts of idiots that pissed Him off the first time with predictable results. So what was the whole point of the exercise? As I said, God's not the brightest of deities.
Regarding God's Intelligent Design
*Creationists (anti-evolutionists) love to cite the human eye as something so obviously intelligently designed that only the omniscience and the perfection of God could have designed it and that any evolutionary stage between no eye and a fully developed eye is worthless in terms of survival of the fittest. Quite apart from the fact that evolutionary biologists have adequately countered that argument, I could argue that if God so intelligently designed the human eye then there would never arise a need to see the optometrist. There would be no need for glasses or contact lenses and everybody's vision would be an uncorrected 20/20 from cradle to grave.
*According to some creationists, one obvious proof of God's intelligent design is the shape of the banana. A banana fits perfectly in the human hand just perfect for the eating, an obvious proof of God's intelligent design! But what about the design of the pineapple or the coconut?
Regarding God's Omnipotence
*Premise: God is all-powerful and can do anything (that's not logically inconsistent).
*Premise: God answers prayers.
*Premise: Amputees pray to God to restore their missing limb(s).
*Observation: God does not do this - ever.
*Conclusion 1: Therefore God is not omnipotent, or
*Conclusion 2: Therefore God does not answer prayers, or both.
*Conclusion 3: Therefore by the grace of Ockham's Razor, God does not exist.
Regarding God's 'Morality'
*If God is all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, all-benevolent and therefore God can only do good, then clearly any suffering in the world, animal or human, must be all for the good in the mind of God since He does nothing to change the status quo. Of course the real answer is that God is not all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, and all-benevolent as even a cursory reading of the Old Testament will reveal.
*Pope Benadict XVI as reported on 15 September 2006 in response to Islamic jihads noted that violence is contrary to God's nature and to reason. Conclusion: therefore the Pope has never ever even read the Bible!
*God is the ultimate source of all morality, so you should do as God does and as God commands which is kill, Kill, KILL! You need to kill disobedient children, witches, gay men, Sabbath workers, adulterers, fortune tellers, non-virgin brides, and a host of others. Despite God's commandment "thou shall not kill", God kills just about all the men and (innocent) women in Sodom & Gomorrah, all of the firstborn in ancient Egypt (plus equivalent livestock), and a host of others. Even if God doesn't kill Himself, God relishes when others kill in his name.
*Without my making any additional comments, just compare and contrast Jeremiah 9: 24 with the following:
Deuteronomy: Chapter 20
Deuteronomy: Chapter 28
Exodus: Chapter 32
Ezekiel: Chapter 9
Ezekiel: Chapter 35
Genesis: Chapter 7
Genesis: Chapter 19
Hosea: Chapter 9
Hosea: Chapter 13
Isaiah: Chapter 13
Jeremiah: Chapter 9 (except Verse 24)
Joshua: Chapter 6
Joshua: Chapter 7
Joshua: Chapter 8
Joshua: Chapter 10
Judges: Chapter 1
Judges: Chapter 3
2 Kings: Chapter 17
Leviticus: Chapter 26
Numbers: Chapter 31
1 Samuel: Chapter 15
1 Samuel: Chapter 18
Now go back and re-read Jeremiah 9: 24.
Regarding Jesus
*Compare and contrast the Jesus who equally states that you should honor your Mum and your Dad (Mark 10: 19; Luke 18: 20; Matthew 19: 19) and you should hate your Mum and your Dad (Luke 14: 26). So which is it to be?
*Jesus, born on the 25th of December? As Jaclyn Glenn is noted as saying, or singing, "Have yourself a merry little myth-mas", with the accent on the "myth".
Regarding Atheists & Atheism
*Christian Logic: Atheists hate God. Atheist Logic: You can't hate something you don't believe has any existence in any really real form of reality. Yet it's been claimed by many theists that the reason atheists are atheists is that they reject God's authority, they don't want to be told what to do by God, they don't want to be accountable to God and they don't wish to bow and scrape to any almighty deity. Alas, that would mean that atheists actually believe such an almighty deity actually existed which is the exact opposite of their actual worldview. Atheism is not anti-God or hostility to God. You can't be anti or hostile or give the middle finger to something that you believe doesn't exist! This is what is known in the trade as real logic, something theists aren't always very good at exhibiting.
*Another common claim is that more atrocities have been caused by atheists than by theists, and people like Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot are cited as proof. That reasoning is faulty since atrocities committed by atheists are NOT done in the name of atheism whereby atrocities done by theists are done in the name of their religion and in the name of their god - usually God (or Allah). There are lots of examples of the latter; no examples of the former.
*So why is atheism Public Enemy Number One? Why don't I see Christians go hammer-and-tongs debating with the Mormons, or Muslims with Scientology or the Hindus versus Satanists? No, it always tends to be atheists who are the villains!
*Atheists are considered to be bigots just be saying "I don't agree with your faith, your religion or your god(s)." In fact any criticism of someone's faith, religion and god(s) are normally considered insulting and just a bigoted opinion by that someone of faith.
*Theists tend to insist that atheism and the non-belief that atheists have is in itself a belief system and thus a religion in its own right. But take that to its logical conclusion. How many non-beliefs do Christians have since Christians don't believe in hundreds of non-Christian religions? Since they believe these other religions are false religions, well that belief makes their own brand of atheism against other religions a religion. That also means that non-belief in fairies (and the Loch Ness Monster, and the Easter Bunny, etc.) is really a belief and thus a religion. Christian logic - not.
Regarding Religion
*There have been and are thousands of mutually exclusive religions throughout the world. As implied, not all of these religions can be correct. There have been and are therefore thousands of mutually exclusive deities worshipped throughout the world. As implied, not all of these deities can be correct. Therefore, many of these religions / deities must have been inventions of and by the human mind. Therefore these / those deities that fall under that category have been created in the image of man and not vice versa. Since all of the True Believers in each and all of these religions will claim that all other religions except theirs are man-made inventions / fabrications, what odds that all are man-made since all-but-one have to be man-made and nobody can agree on which one that is? What's more likely - that 999 out of 1000 religions are pure human inventions and thus mental realities and therefore that one religion is a really real reality imposed from the outside-in, or that all 1000 religions are humanly derived from the inside-out? Don't the Mormons believe Christianity and Islam are false religions? Don't Muslims believe Christians and the Mormons are delusional? Don't Christians debunk the Mormon as well as the Islamic religion?
*Religion A to Religion B (and vice-versa): Our supernatural is the only really real supernatural and your alleged supernatural ain't worth a bucket of spit!
*Did you choose your religion, or did your religion choose you (i.e. - was your religion chosen for you)?
*Religious claims are not evidently true and evidentially not true (via Aron Ra).
*That fact is that your invisible 'friend' in the sky, be it God or be it Allah, is just as imaginary as any creator god, any fertility deity, any storm god, or any sun god.
*Christianity states that Jesus is actually God manifest on Earth who manifested Himself to save us from our sins (which we never committed; our ancestors did the dirty deed, not us) which, being all-knowing, He knew our ancestors would so do those dirty deeds before-the-fact. In any event, God sacrifices Himself (as Jesus) to Himself (as God) from Himself (since God set in train the events that led to sin in the first place). Does this make any real sense? It must, after all, the Father (God) condemns you, but the Son (Jesus) saves you - they're one and the same 'person', but what the heck, that still makes sense, doesn't it?
*Christian philosophy: In order to be a good Christian, never, ever try to think on behalf of yourself. Instead, read, re-read and defer to our holy book written thousands of years ago. Why? Because you could never hope to improve upon the moral lessons, teachings, instructions, principles and sensibilities that's been handed down to you from the Bronze Age.
*Faulty logic, as pointed out by The Bible Skeptic, Brett Palmer.
That Jesus exists proves God exists.
But then again, that Mohammad exists proves Allah exists.
And that crop circles exists proves extraterrestrials exist.
And that lumber yards proves that Paul Bunyan exists.
And that forests in Oregon prove that Bigfoot exists.
*We should take note of how statues devoted to the Buddha in Afghanistan were dynamited and hacked to pieces by a rival religion (Islam) on the grounds that these statues were just pure idols. This example as a sort of religious behavior could be given thousands of times over across history, and across religions.
*When one person sees or hears something that isn't there, that something is a delusion. When millions upon millions of people see and hear something that isn't really there, that something is called a religion.
Regarding Kim Davis
Do you have a constitutional civil right as a government official to deny and to prevent others from exercising their civil rights if those rights conflict with your worldview and philosophical, especially religious beliefs? It would appear so. Take the recent case involving government official Kim Davis.
Christians demand to have special privileges, at least according to the actions and statements of Kim Davis, Mat Staver, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and lots of others as well. Kim Davis is, if you recall, of course that duly elected Clerk in Kentucky who refused to perform one of her elected duties, specifically granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a duty for which she was employed to do and was being paid to do. We note to whit that she wasn't drafted against her will into her employment. Her position as Clerk was a free will choice. Still, she refused performing that one particular duty, even following a court order to do so, on the grounds that performing that duty violated her religious Christian beliefs and she justified her actions by noting that the bottom line for her was that God's law (as stated in the Old Testament) trumped human law (which allowed for same-sex marriage). For taking that position and that stand she was cheered on by anti-gay far right-wing fundamentalist Christians and defended by Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and formally by Max Staver (who also sprang to the legal defense of Judge Roy Moore who also has frequently defied human law in favour of God's law).
Naturally Kim Davis and followers claimed that Christians, like themselves, were being persecuted by the godless and that their religious freedoms were being violated. Kim Davis and company alleges that she and they were being discriminated against on the grounds - let's call a spade a spade here - that she and they weren't being allowed to discriminate. The obvious upshot is that Kim Davis and followers have no interest in equality and that she and her followers all want special privileges as Christians to do as they damn well - oops - as God damn well wants them to do. So Kim Davis believes she is above the law - human law at least.
Now the question needs to be asked if Kim Davis (and others noted above) were denied some form of entitlement or justice by someone of a non-Christian faith, wouldn't she and her supporters scream blue-bloody-murder in protest? You bet they would. I mean a Muslim clerk could refuse her a driver's license on the grounds that women should be allowed to drive; a Muslim cop might arrest her if she was on the street unaccompanied by a family-related male or for not covering her head or face. Even another Christian could refuse her a marriage license on the grounds that she has already been married and has divorced - several times in fact.
By her own belief system Kim Davis should be put to death for adultery as she has been divorced and remarried several times, and that, according to her own Bible (Mark 10: 12) is adultery and the punishment for a woman's adultery is to be put to death (Leviticus 20: 10).
What Kim Davis should have done is either ask to be relieved of that particular duty and assigned another duty in its place, or, if that wasn't a possibility, resign. Regardless, the basic principle is that you have to leave your personal worldview and philosophies at home when you go to work. When at work you have to be able to integrate with other people holding other worldviews and other philosophies. Further, you need to obey human law even if you personally feel God's law is above human law.
I've said it before but it bears repeating that right-wing fundamentalist Christians feel persecuted when they are prevented from persecuting others. Right-wing fundamentalist Christians do NOT have a moral philosophy of live-and-let-live, rather they feel quite free and obligated to ram their moral values down your throat.
Regarding Religion vs. Science
*Billions upon billions of years of physical, chemical and biological evolution / natural selection is patently ridiculous. It's just so obvious that life, the Universe and everything had to have been created in just six days.
*No scientific mystery that has ever been solved has had that solution be of the theological kind.
Regarding Faith & Belief
*Lacking belief in something (like God) doesn't require any proof or evidence other than providing evidence or proof in having that lack of belief in and of itself.
*Everyone is born a non-believer, born without the belief of a god. Belief of a creator comes later after your family and community has had a chance to indoctrinate you into whatever religious tradition you have the misfortune of being brought up in.
*If you are a True Believer, it doesn't really matter what the facts are because it really doesn't matter to you what the true is. Belief / faith is your be-all-and-end-all.
*Here's a shortcut to rational thinking: "God said it; I believe it; that settles it".
*According to atheist Aron Ra, faith is an assertion of unreasonable convictions that is assumed without reason and defended against all reason.
Regarding Prayer
*God answers prayers - except when God doesn't answer prayers. Yet according to Matthew 7: 7 ask and you shall receive. And that's not a one-off. Try Matthew 21: 22 where if you believe and pray you will receive. But do you always get what you ask for from God? Where does the "oops" lie?
*Try this experiment. Pray to God for one month and record the hits and the misses. Next month, pray to that orbiting teapot around Jupiter and record the hits and the misses. Or perhaps pray to your pet dog instead of the teapot. Did you note any difference between the two results? Was there any difference between the two results? If not, what does this experiment tell you about the nature and the reality of God?
*Everything happens for a reason and God has a plan for you. Now let's say a prayer and try to change that!
Regarding Animal Morality
*You frequently see animals, especially birds and mammals grooming each other in places where a solitary individual couldn't reach. So even in the animal kingdom you get examples of "if you scratch my back I'll scratch your back".
Regarding the End Times
*It is logical to assume that there will never be an End Times; no need for any Second Coming. Why? Satan, being an intelligent sort of devil, will obviously have read the Bible and the Book of Revelation. Having done so, he will have gotten a spoiler alert and so he will know the ultimate outcome - his ultimate outcome resulting in his demise. So in order to avoid that ungodly fate, Satan just calls it quits and retires to Arizona where it is nice and hot and takes up writing poetry as a hobby (the satanic verses).
Regarding the Soul / Afterlife
*The afterlife, or at least the Christian version of it, has one major flaw - when does it end?
*If, as theist William Lane Craig insists, there has to be a First Cause then there has to be a Last Cause as well, otherwise you still have an infinite Universe, which, as William Lane Craig asserts can't be the case. The only way to have a finite Universe is for it to be temporally finite on either side, the Alpha side or the Omega side. But a Last Cause contradicts Christian theology - that bit about an eternal everlasting afterlife.
Regarding the Bible
*The Bible is the Word of God because the Bible tells us so and the Bible is infallible because the Bible is the Word of God. This is what is known in philosophical circles as circular reasoning.
*If you are mocked by little children, it's okay to curse them unto death in the name of the Lord. And so it came to pass that the Lord carried out the wishes of one so mocked and who issued such a curse upon little children using bears as the instrument of their death. Check it out in 2 Kings 2: 23-24.
*I've noted before how the Bible, and therefore how God, endorses the concept of slavery. For just one example, check out 1 Peter 2: 18. Now many translations try to be politically correct and substitute the word "servant" for "slave", but many other translations call a spade a space here, or should I say they call a slave a slave. A rose by any other name...
*If you are into Biblical contradictions check out:
1 Kings 5: 16 vs. 2 Chronicles 2: 2: How many people did Solomon employ to oversee his workers? Was it 3,600 or was it 3,300?
2 Chronicles 9: 25 vs. 1 Kings 4: 26: How many stalls did Solomon have for his horses and chariots? Was it 40,000 or was it 4,000?
Acts 1: 18 vs. Matthew 27: 6-7: It's not clear who purchased a field. Was it "this man" or was it the "chief priests"?
Question: Why didn't God proof-read The Word of God?
*Do your own experimental investigation. Compare and contrast the relevant size, staffing and number of animals in Noah's Ark vis-a-vis any standard animal park or zoo in order to ascertain just how ridiculous the Biblical concept is.
Regarding God
*More faulty logic, as pointed out by The Bible Skeptic, Brett Palmer.
Anecdotes are not proof of God's existence.
Faith is not proof of God's existence.
Hope is not proof of God's existence.
Hallucinations / visions / personal experiences are not proof of God's existence.
Even the supernatural (if it exists) is in itself not proof of God's existence.
*Everything we know about God, god or the gods was written by humans for humans and no doubt all such humans had hidden agendas.
*God can never substitute as The Answer just because of the current state of our own ignorance.
*You can't explain every detail of biological evolution so therefore evolution must be false. On the other hand, you can't prove that there is no God so therefore it must be the case, it must be true, that there is a God. This is what is known in some religious circles as logic.
*If cats had a deity, that deity would have whiskers, fur and a purr, a tail and jaws, paws and claws. Cats were clearly made in the image of such a feline deity.
*Even if something bad happens to you, it is really good because all things that happen are all part of God's Master Plan. Check out Psalm 139: 6. That means that all abortions, all murders, all rapes, etc. are good since they are all part of God's Master Plan. Further, since God has a Master Plan, that means that nobody has any free will and therefore prayer is meaningless - which is contradicted by both God / Jesus in the Bible.
*Does God or Allah pray, and if so, who does God (or Allah) pray to?
*How long have theists had (not to mention God Himself) to convince sceptics that God actually exists? Why haven't they succeeded? Why hasn't God succeeded? Because there is no God, that's why!
*Why can't an all-powerful God who answers prayers and who performs miracles recreate an amputee's missing limb? Why? Because there is no God, that's why!
*God must be really insecure and have a massive inferiority complex since he demands all and sundry worship Him 24/7/52. I wonder what Freud would have to say about that!
*Speaking of worshipping, God just loves burnt offerings and the smell of burning meat and not just animal flesh but human flesh as well. In fact you'll find over 250 references to burnt offering(s) in the Bible (KJV).
*If God doesn't know what lust feels like then God isn't all-knowing. If God does know what lust feels like, then He isn't really all-good now, is He?
*Why did God bother with His "Be fruitful and multiply" order when He could have just created more people all by Himself from dust and ribs?
*God isn't exactly the brightest of deities on the market. Shortly after "In the beginning" an alleged all-knowing God decided (although that implies God has free will which is paradoxical in the context of being also all-knowing) to create the human species. This was basically a bad move but one which He thought was a good idea at the time. Anyway, this rather psychotic megalomaniac created a human male and a human female and saw that it was good - for a fraction of a godly day or so depending on what time units God uses. Of course things quickly went from bad to worse once that "Be fruitful and multiply" commandment really kicked in and started to achieve results. Then God became so angry with Himself for His monumental screw-up when He realised that the humans He had created were totally flawed - in God's eyes - being wicked and full of corruption and doing violence and so on and so on. So, God's psychotic solution was mass murder and so He killed everyone (animals too for some unexplained reason) without fear or favour. Drowning was God's chosen method of humanity's execution (except for Noah and company who weren't wicked or corrupt or prone to violence). Did that ultimately result in any real improvement? Do pigs fly? No! With God's "Be fruitful and multiply" order still in force the world was repopulated with a new crop of the same sorts of idiots that pissed Him off the first time with predictable results. So what was the whole point of the exercise? As I said, God's not the brightest of deities.
Regarding God's Intelligent Design
*Creationists (anti-evolutionists) love to cite the human eye as something so obviously intelligently designed that only the omniscience and the perfection of God could have designed it and that any evolutionary stage between no eye and a fully developed eye is worthless in terms of survival of the fittest. Quite apart from the fact that evolutionary biologists have adequately countered that argument, I could argue that if God so intelligently designed the human eye then there would never arise a need to see the optometrist. There would be no need for glasses or contact lenses and everybody's vision would be an uncorrected 20/20 from cradle to grave.
*According to some creationists, one obvious proof of God's intelligent design is the shape of the banana. A banana fits perfectly in the human hand just perfect for the eating, an obvious proof of God's intelligent design! But what about the design of the pineapple or the coconut?
Regarding God's Omnipotence
*Premise: God is all-powerful and can do anything (that's not logically inconsistent).
*Premise: God answers prayers.
*Premise: Amputees pray to God to restore their missing limb(s).
*Observation: God does not do this - ever.
*Conclusion 1: Therefore God is not omnipotent, or
*Conclusion 2: Therefore God does not answer prayers, or both.
*Conclusion 3: Therefore by the grace of Ockham's Razor, God does not exist.
Regarding God's 'Morality'
*If God is all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, all-benevolent and therefore God can only do good, then clearly any suffering in the world, animal or human, must be all for the good in the mind of God since He does nothing to change the status quo. Of course the real answer is that God is not all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, and all-benevolent as even a cursory reading of the Old Testament will reveal.
*Pope Benadict XVI as reported on 15 September 2006 in response to Islamic jihads noted that violence is contrary to God's nature and to reason. Conclusion: therefore the Pope has never ever even read the Bible!
*God is the ultimate source of all morality, so you should do as God does and as God commands which is kill, Kill, KILL! You need to kill disobedient children, witches, gay men, Sabbath workers, adulterers, fortune tellers, non-virgin brides, and a host of others. Despite God's commandment "thou shall not kill", God kills just about all the men and (innocent) women in Sodom & Gomorrah, all of the firstborn in ancient Egypt (plus equivalent livestock), and a host of others. Even if God doesn't kill Himself, God relishes when others kill in his name.
*Without my making any additional comments, just compare and contrast Jeremiah 9: 24 with the following:
Deuteronomy: Chapter 20
Deuteronomy: Chapter 28
Exodus: Chapter 32
Ezekiel: Chapter 9
Ezekiel: Chapter 35
Genesis: Chapter 7
Genesis: Chapter 19
Hosea: Chapter 9
Hosea: Chapter 13
Isaiah: Chapter 13
Jeremiah: Chapter 9 (except Verse 24)
Joshua: Chapter 6
Joshua: Chapter 7
Joshua: Chapter 8
Joshua: Chapter 10
Judges: Chapter 1
Judges: Chapter 3
2 Kings: Chapter 17
Leviticus: Chapter 26
Numbers: Chapter 31
1 Samuel: Chapter 15
1 Samuel: Chapter 18
Now go back and re-read Jeremiah 9: 24.
Regarding Jesus
*Compare and contrast the Jesus who equally states that you should honor your Mum and your Dad (Mark 10: 19; Luke 18: 20; Matthew 19: 19) and you should hate your Mum and your Dad (Luke 14: 26). So which is it to be?
*Jesus, born on the 25th of December? As Jaclyn Glenn is noted as saying, or singing, "Have yourself a merry little myth-mas", with the accent on the "myth".
Regarding Atheists & Atheism
*Christian Logic: Atheists hate God. Atheist Logic: You can't hate something you don't believe has any existence in any really real form of reality. Yet it's been claimed by many theists that the reason atheists are atheists is that they reject God's authority, they don't want to be told what to do by God, they don't want to be accountable to God and they don't wish to bow and scrape to any almighty deity. Alas, that would mean that atheists actually believe such an almighty deity actually existed which is the exact opposite of their actual worldview. Atheism is not anti-God or hostility to God. You can't be anti or hostile or give the middle finger to something that you believe doesn't exist! This is what is known in the trade as real logic, something theists aren't always very good at exhibiting.
*Another common claim is that more atrocities have been caused by atheists than by theists, and people like Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot are cited as proof. That reasoning is faulty since atrocities committed by atheists are NOT done in the name of atheism whereby atrocities done by theists are done in the name of their religion and in the name of their god - usually God (or Allah). There are lots of examples of the latter; no examples of the former.
*So why is atheism Public Enemy Number One? Why don't I see Christians go hammer-and-tongs debating with the Mormons, or Muslims with Scientology or the Hindus versus Satanists? No, it always tends to be atheists who are the villains!
*Atheists are considered to be bigots just be saying "I don't agree with your faith, your religion or your god(s)." In fact any criticism of someone's faith, religion and god(s) are normally considered insulting and just a bigoted opinion by that someone of faith.
*Theists tend to insist that atheism and the non-belief that atheists have is in itself a belief system and thus a religion in its own right. But take that to its logical conclusion. How many non-beliefs do Christians have since Christians don't believe in hundreds of non-Christian religions? Since they believe these other religions are false religions, well that belief makes their own brand of atheism against other religions a religion. That also means that non-belief in fairies (and the Loch Ness Monster, and the Easter Bunny, etc.) is really a belief and thus a religion. Christian logic - not.
Science librarian; retired.
By
John Prytz
Flonida 5% Cream It is not likely that other medicines you take by mouth or injection will affect the way this medicine works, but talk to your doctor before using it if you have recently used another cream for the treatment. This medicine is not advised to use if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. Ask your doctor if it is safe. It makes your skin more sensitive to sunlight, wear protective clothing or use an effective sunscreen.
ReplyDelete