Continuing with my current theme of responding to questions for atheists, I came across this set from Geeky Christian. And it comes around full-circle in that the questions on this site/page came from Norman Geisler, co-author of I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist, the book that inspired the title for this blog!
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1. Are you absolutely sure there is no God? If not, then is it not possible that there is a God? And if it is possible that God exists, then can you think of any reason that would keep you from wanting to look at the evidence?
This is three questions in one!
a) I'm not sure there is no God, but I do find both the concept and the evidence that God exists to not withstand rational scrutiny, in much the same way that the evidence for Zeus does not withstand rational scrutiny. And if it the evidence doesn't withstand rational and objective scrutiny, then it doesn't warrant belief.
b) It is possible there is a god/God, but without better data, that possibility will never be anything more than statistically insignificant.
c) It's not that I refuse to believe in God because I simply don't want to look at the evidence lest my worldview be turned around - ten years ago I was a Fundamentalist Christian, until I became an atheist because I looked at the evidence with an open mind. I found the arguments for God either did not stand up to scientific scrutiny, or were philosophical rather than scientific.
2. Would you agree that intelligently designed things call for an intelligent designer of them? If so, then would you agree that evidence for intelligent design in the universe would be evidence for a designer of the universe?
Another multi-part question.
a) Design is more to do with origin rather than complexity. For example, a plastic shopping bag is not complex, but we know who designed them and where they are manufactured, whereas something complex like a bacteria we know is formed as a result of natural processes - bacteria and other life forms seemingly need no designer nor a manufacturer to exist.
b) It really depends on what you consider evidence of intelligent design, and if that evidence makes better sense in an intelligent design hypothesis or a methodological naturalist hypothesis. So far, all the evidence listed as evidence for design is actually better explained with naturalism, and this highlights the beauty of science against the vague 'God-did-it' scenario - science looks at mechanisms and probable causes, and in the field of the naturalistic sciences, you have to prove your case among numerous people are actively competing to prove you either right or wrong. However, under the Creationist 'God-did-it' scenario, sure, it's complex and it looks pretty, but that's simply the end of the matter.
3. Would you agree that nothing cannot produce something? If so, then if the universe did not exist but then came to exist, wouldn’t this be evidence of a cause beyond the universe?
a) I would agree on this point because we have never seen something come out of nothing and cannot find a reasonable science-based explanation for how something could come from nothing.
b) I do not know if the universe existed before time existed, so I can't answer that part in the affirmative. It is possible there was a cause beyond our universe for the existence of this universe, but we then have no way of determining what that cause is if it lies outside of our universe. But from what I've read, some of the best minds that have looked in to the topic don't seem to find the need to shoehorn an intelligent or sentient cause into the equation.
4. Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes—such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind—that does not mean it doesn’t exist?
I would happily agree with you.
But where we may differ is that in my opinion, even though we don't see that something, what we do see are its effects on our world, and from that we can determine why and how that something operates. And in a lot of instances, we can use that something to our benefit.
For example, magnets are used all the time in electronics, the wind is used in farming, and gravity is great for distributing water.
5. Would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean He doesn’t exist?
Finally, a simple, single-sentence question!
I would agree - just because we can't see God doesn't count as evidence against his existence.
6. In the light of the big bang evidence for the origin of the universe, is it more reasonable to believe that no one created something out of nothing or someone created something out of nothing?
This is a misunderstanding of the concept of the big bang hypothesis. It's not that everything suddenly existed ex-nihilo - it is that all the energy and matter in the initial state of the universe was condensed in to a singularity which then expanded. The universe went from a hot and dense state to a sparse and cool state over the course of billions of years.
But it's ironic that some Christians consider the big bang as proof for God, whereas some Christians vehemently reject the big bang as a conspiracy by scientists to push an anti-Christian doctrine in the schools.
And to me, this is a failing of the Bible - the God that created the universe should be able to clearly tell us how and by what mechanism he did so, and it should be clear enough in order to put either Big Bang-proponents or Steady State-theorists or whoever else in their place.
Otherwise, it becomes a case of humans needing to teach God science so he can tell us how he created the universe.
7. Would you agree that something presently exists? If something presently exists, and something cannot come from nothing, then would you also agree that something must have always existed?
a) Yes. Something presently exists.
b) Something may have always existed, but that something can have existed in various other states, or even existed merely as separate constituent components, before it became the state that we observe it in.
8. If it takes an intelligent being to produce an encyclopedia, then would it not also take an intelligent being to produce the equivalent of 1000 sets of an encyclopedia full of information in the first one-celled animal?
This line of thought doesn't quite resonate for a number of ways:
Firstly, the first one-celled animal is not an animal. An animal is defined as a multicellular organism with an internal digestive tract, so calling the first one-celled animal an animal does not make it an animal.
Secondly, saying that something has the equivalent of 1000 sets of encyclopedias is not saying that someone wrote 1000 sets of encyclopedias then inserted that in to the first one-celled animal. Its's just saying that something is incredibly complex, which I agree - genetics is something that only a handful of people will ever fully comprehend.
Thirdly, just because you call it 'information' does not mean it actually is information as we would use the word in common parlance as if we were reading a technical manual. The letters we use to represent the genetic code, T, G, A and C, are representative of the chemical chains of the constituent proteins. It describes what we see - not prescribes.
If we look at a CD, the pits on a CD track form the prescriptive 1's and 0's which are the encoding that the CD laser reads of the information that becomes the sound you hear. But in a genetic code, the TGAC we see are simply chemical reactions. The TGAC aren't pits in a CD track put there by a designer - they're descriptive of the chemical interactions we observe and we use TGAC as a simplified way to describe those relationships. If there was a designer producing babies with TGACs like record companies produce CDs, then the design analogy stacks up. But it doesn't because we know babies aren't mass-produced in a factory according to a template.
9. If an effect cannot be greater than its cause (since you can’t give what you do not have to give), then does it not make more sense that mind produced matter than that matter produced mind, as atheists say?
This is where I feel the arguments for Christianity retreat to philosophy and word salad, rather than hard data and the scientific method.
Firstly, the only minds we know of are in material brains (and simulated by computers).
Secondly, minds are made of the same matter that is part of this universe.
So to say that a separate mind created the matter that our own minds are made of is to beg the question two ways:
Either you believe in a magical disembodied mind (which means in something that goes against all rationality), or that the mind that created this matter was itself the result of other matter that itself was created.
10. Is there anything wrong anywhere? If so, how can we know unless there is a moral law?
We don't have moral law. We have morals and we have morality, but what theists would call moral law basically boils down to a mixture of legislation and culture in order to enforce our ideals. So there definitely isn't a moral law so to speak, but more an ideal of how we should govern ourselves to increase cohesion and reduce suffering in our societies.
11. If every law needs a lawgiver, does it not make sense to say a moral law needs a Moral Lawgiver?
No, it does not make sense.
Acts of parliament that we call law needs lawgivers, so the analogy holds up here. But things like the laws of nature that we observe in science, or moral laws that we observe in culture, are more descriptive rather than prescriptive. They are simplifications of already-existing concepts, rather than something created by parliament to be enforced in a courtroom.
Besides, every time period in history has had a different understanding of morality - the Israelites owned and used slaves without any compunction, the Romans sent people and animals to die against gladiators for entertainment, and Catholic Germany persecuted Jews for hundreds of years because they believed it was their duty as a result of deicide. Does this then mean that this hypothetical moral lawgiver changes their mind every couple of hundred years and gives a different moral law in different countries?
12. Would you agree that if it took intelligence to make a model universe in a science lab, then it took super-intelligence to make the real universe?
A model universe, as in a Grade 6 science project, is just a replica of what already exists. It isn't creating anything new.
But let's say someone created a new universe in a science lab - then they're just using natural processes to make something that continues the chain of natural processes.
Or are you then confirming that the hypothetical Grade 6 kid in science class is now a super-intelligence (euphemism for God)?
13. Would you agree that it takes a cause to make a small glass ball found in the woods? And would you agree that making the ball larger does not eliminate the need for a cause? If so, then doesn’t the biggest ball of all (the whole universe) need a cause?
a) Yes, I would agree that if I found a glass ball in a forest, it had a cause. For example, if I found a ball of obsidian, then because we know how obsidian forms, I would say it is the result of natural processes (especially if the forest is in the vicinity of a volcano). If I found a clear crystal ball that looks like a fortune teller's, I would presume someone dropped it after they bought it from a shop.
b) Depends on the glass, and what effect making the ball larger has.
c) The universe has different shapes depending on the density, so calling it simply a ball is somewhat ignorant of the reality. Brian Cox says the universe is actually flat!
d) This ball we call the universe is 99.99999% empty, radiation-filled space. If it was created, it was created incredibly inefficiently.
14. If there is a cause beyond the whole finite (limited) universe, would not this cause have to be beyond the finite, namely, non-finite or infinite?
Not necessarily. The best of our understanding is that the formation of our universe was the result of natural processes that while we aren't certain of the details, not many (if any at all) degree-qualified experts on the subject give any credence to the idea a universe-creating being, and only a few more give any credence to a multiverse theory.
15. In the light of the anthropic principle (that the universe was fine-tuned for the emergence of life from its very inception), wouldn’t it make sense to say there was an intelligent being who preplanned human life?
Looking at the earth, our position in space and the vastness of space, it is a stretch of credulity to say that the universe was designed for life, especially human life.
Firstly, we have to consider that humans themselves are neither the tallest, heaviest, fastest or strongest organisms, nor do we live the longest. We are, however, the most intelligent, so we at least have one thing going for us.
Secondly, for a universe designed for humans, the humans it was designed for are strictly confined strictly to the surface of just one rocky ball adjacent to a minor star in one far-off part of the universe. This is hardly the epitome of anthropic design.
Thirdly, anthropists forget that the humans that the universe was designed for need a specialised suit to survive in anything above the lower parts of earth's atmosphere, and this is before we even consider outer space. Furthermore, even on this one solitary rocky ball, we can only inhabit the surface because the interior gets hotter and more poisonous the further in you get, and even on the surface we can inhabit at most 30% of that surface because the other 70% is covered in water (the humans the universe was designed for can't talk or breathe in the most abundant chemical in the universe). Further still, the 30% that isn't water, some parts are simply inhospitable due to it being either too close to the poles, too low relative to sea level, too high relative to sea level, or some other factor that is inconducive to human life.
Let's just say that if there was an intelligence that pre-planned human life according to divine design, that designer is woefully inefficient.
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There you are - Geeky Christian's Questions For Atheists answered.
I hope these answers give you good reason to pause for thought.
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Until next time, stay safe and rational.
21 Facts That Evolutionists Can't Answer - Answered
And yet more anti-evolutionist and anti-atheist hilarity. Some time ago (though I only came across it recently) a video was produced titled 21 Facts That Evolutionists Can't Answer, but carded as 21 Facts Stupid Scientists & Atheists Can't Answer.
This video has the logo of The Discovery Institute, and purports to be from them, but I seriously doubt it was produced by or was affiliated with them in any way, firstly by the tone of the video not matching anything that TDI produces, and there's nothing on the TDI website to indicate this was ever released by them. But if this was indeed produced by them, then this is a poor way to engage those on the other side.
But regardless of who made the video, the questions are still out there, so I am going to answer the questions so that my responses can be read and evaluated as part of the wider religious/atheist dialogue.
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1. Why are the planets round?
Of course an evolutionist can't answer this question - it has everything to do with physics and nothing to do with biology.
But why are the planets round? Because nature has a propensity to make round things, especially in a vacuum - the sun, the moon, the other stars, comets (being roughly round), etc.
2. Go to the zoo and tell me, why doesn’t a chimpanzee give birth to a man?
Do I have to go to a zoo? Why can't I do it from home?
Because every living thing belongs to its parent clade - in short, you can't outgrow your lineage. Chimpanzees are of the genus Pan, whereas humans are of the genus Homo - they're not in the same genus.
If a chimpanzee actually did give birth to an actual verified human, this would destroy evolution as we know it.
3. Have you ever seen a mountain form?
No. But again, this has nothing to do with evolution. If you want to know how mountains form, ask a geologist.
But regardless, we don't need to see mountains form directly on camera to know how they form.
4. Why doesn’t new life show up in a jar of peanut butter?
Because peanut butter doesn't have the correct chemicals in the correct balance to create the chemical combinations for new self-replicating cells to form.
5. If the big bang started as a singularity…who held up the singularity?
Why does it have to be a someone, and not a something?
Plus, the singularity didn't hold together - it expanded to become the observable universe we exist in today. If it held together, the universe wouldn't have expanded and we wouldn't have existed.
6. A painting had a painter…therefore the Universe had a maker.
This is correct on the first part - paintings don't occur in nature, so therefore any painting you see had a painter. But in regards to the universe, there is only one universe we can study and we are inside of it, so attempting to study its origins requires some advanced technology and understanding. And some of the most brilliant minds around have studied the question of the beginning of our observable universe and they almost universally rule out any intelligent or sentient cause behind the formation of the universe.
The problem here is that science doesn't care what you personally find reasonable or think is common-sense. For example, if you went back in time and told someone in ancient Greece that both good and bad germs exist, Jupiter has 79 moons, or by using sound waves we can see babies before they are born, they would be just as dismissive as what anti-evolutionists are now because it would go against their common-sense. But we know both good and bad germs exist, that Jupiter indeed has 79 moons, and anyone who has had a baby knows what an ultrasound is, so when science tells us all life forms are inter-related via inherited genetic mechanisms or that the observable universe came out of a singularity, yes, it goes against common-sense - but I would much rather have the facts about reality determined by knowledge rather than personal opinion.
7. If a monkey gave birth to a man, who would he (or she) mate with?
Great question. If this actually ever happened, it would put a massive hole in our current understanding of genetics and evolution, especially as the resulting offspring (if it was fertile) would break the definition of species.
But it may be best to wait for it to happen so we can study the how, rather than get ourselves tangled in a weird hypothetical.
8. How can you explain gravity?
Again, not a question that relates to evolution.
Gravity seems to be the result of the conditions that formed particles in the big bang. To me, the answer to this question is very similar to how electricity, the strong nuclear and the weak nuclear forces are explained.
9. If we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
We didn't come from monkeys. Humans and monkeys are cousins in the biological tree of life, not ancestors.
10. If the world is “millions of years old”, why is it only 2008?
Yet again, not related to evolution.
But we base the year off of the Gregorian calendar, which was based off of the Julian calendar. But in other calendar systems, it is different years - in the Assyrian calendar it is 6770, in the Chinese calendar it is 4718, and in the Islamic calendar it is 1441.
The short answer is yes, the world is thousands of millions of years old, but we only just started counting recently to keep a track of relative time.
11. If I throw dirt up in the air, what are the odds it will fall into the formation of a living man?
Zero. Unless you threw the dirt over a mannequin, or over an actual living man for the dirt to fall in to the formation of a living man.
12. Can you see electricity?
Yes. That's what lightning is.
13. Science changes. The book of Genesis is perfect.
Yes, science changes, and this is the beauty of it - when we find something we thought was right was actually wrong or incomplete, we correct or add to what we got wrong. Science is a process.
But to say Genesis is perfect is more a reflexive position rather than a considered evaluation of the evidence.
14. The holy Bible is the truth because the Bible says it’s the truth.
Again, this is more of a defensively reflexive response to an accusation, rather than a considered evaluation.
But believing the book is the truth because the book tells you it is the truth does not prove to us the book is the truth. Besides, given the numerous pronouncements of genocide and slavery (1 Samuel 15, Numbers 31, Exodus 21), you're confirming that the authority behind the Bible was complicit in the commission of war crimes and human rights abuses.
15. Evolution is a religion, and science leads to killing people.
Is evolution a religion? No. Evolution imparts no moral values, has no prescribed texts, has no mandated meetings, ceremonies or rituals, and has no notion of the afterlife or the supernatural. Furthermore, evolution has a replete body of scholarship backing up the claims made.
The line 'science leads you to killing people' reminds me of something very similar Ben Stein said in an interview. However, from what I've seen of him on various media, I'm not sure I'd be taking lectures on either morality or on science from Mr. Stein.
But does science lead you to kill people? No. While I haven't seen the complete body of research, I am quite confident no criminologist or forensic psychiatrist has listed 'science education' as a causative factor behind homicidal behaviour.
Plus, people were killing people well before the scientific method was established.
16. Scientists around the world are all jointly involved in a conspiracy against god!
Aren't the Discovery Institute themselves a religious (if not explicitly Christian) organisation? If this video did come from them, this is one of the strangest claims I have ever seen them make.
But even on the face of it, no, there is no worldwide conspiracy amongst scientists to hide the evidence for God. Especially when you consider that a large number of Nobel Prize have been been Catholic, Protestant or Jewish!
17. Bananas are perfectly designed for the human hand.
This one is ironically true. The yellow Cavendish banana that is the most common variety available today does indeed fit the primate hand - but that is because that variety was artificially bred (cultivated) to be the size and shape it is after a disease wiped out the Gros Michel variety.
But if we look at other types of bananas, we see the idea of design for the human hand breaks down. Plantains are typically longer than the Cavdendish and can't be eaten straight - they have to be cooked before consumption because they're so high in starch.
18. Millions of years for a monkey to turn into a man? Monkeys don’t live that long.
Monkeys don't live millions of years? Genius observation right there. That will surely rattle the foundations of biological science.
But this gets the theory of evolution completely wrong in a couple of ways - no animal turns in to another species in its lifetime, and evolution happens to populations, not individuals.
19. Why would a man want to have sex with a monkey?
You would have to ask a behavioural psychologist that one.
20. Archaeologists always remove the human remains first when they find a dinosaur so they can continue the LIE.
Including the Christian archaeologists?
Or is it that, due to superposition, human bones are always in the strata above dinosaur bones, so you will find human bones before you find dinosaur bones if you're digging through relatively undisturbed strata.
21. Can you speak monkey? Didn’t think so…
And this is a mark against evolution in what way exactly?
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21 questions answered. Done.
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Stay safe, wear your mask, stop the spread!!!
This video has the logo of The Discovery Institute, and purports to be from them, but I seriously doubt it was produced by or was affiliated with them in any way, firstly by the tone of the video not matching anything that TDI produces, and there's nothing on the TDI website to indicate this was ever released by them. But if this was indeed produced by them, then this is a poor way to engage those on the other side.
But regardless of who made the video, the questions are still out there, so I am going to answer the questions so that my responses can be read and evaluated as part of the wider religious/atheist dialogue.
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1. Why are the planets round?
Of course an evolutionist can't answer this question - it has everything to do with physics and nothing to do with biology.
But why are the planets round? Because nature has a propensity to make round things, especially in a vacuum - the sun, the moon, the other stars, comets (being roughly round), etc.
2. Go to the zoo and tell me, why doesn’t a chimpanzee give birth to a man?
Do I have to go to a zoo? Why can't I do it from home?
Because every living thing belongs to its parent clade - in short, you can't outgrow your lineage. Chimpanzees are of the genus Pan, whereas humans are of the genus Homo - they're not in the same genus.
If a chimpanzee actually did give birth to an actual verified human, this would destroy evolution as we know it.
3. Have you ever seen a mountain form?
No. But again, this has nothing to do with evolution. If you want to know how mountains form, ask a geologist.
But regardless, we don't need to see mountains form directly on camera to know how they form.
4. Why doesn’t new life show up in a jar of peanut butter?
Because peanut butter doesn't have the correct chemicals in the correct balance to create the chemical combinations for new self-replicating cells to form.
5. If the big bang started as a singularity…who held up the singularity?
Why does it have to be a someone, and not a something?
Plus, the singularity didn't hold together - it expanded to become the observable universe we exist in today. If it held together, the universe wouldn't have expanded and we wouldn't have existed.
6. A painting had a painter…therefore the Universe had a maker.
This is correct on the first part - paintings don't occur in nature, so therefore any painting you see had a painter. But in regards to the universe, there is only one universe we can study and we are inside of it, so attempting to study its origins requires some advanced technology and understanding. And some of the most brilliant minds around have studied the question of the beginning of our observable universe and they almost universally rule out any intelligent or sentient cause behind the formation of the universe.
The problem here is that science doesn't care what you personally find reasonable or think is common-sense. For example, if you went back in time and told someone in ancient Greece that both good and bad germs exist, Jupiter has 79 moons, or by using sound waves we can see babies before they are born, they would be just as dismissive as what anti-evolutionists are now because it would go against their common-sense. But we know both good and bad germs exist, that Jupiter indeed has 79 moons, and anyone who has had a baby knows what an ultrasound is, so when science tells us all life forms are inter-related via inherited genetic mechanisms or that the observable universe came out of a singularity, yes, it goes against common-sense - but I would much rather have the facts about reality determined by knowledge rather than personal opinion.
7. If a monkey gave birth to a man, who would he (or she) mate with?
Great question. If this actually ever happened, it would put a massive hole in our current understanding of genetics and evolution, especially as the resulting offspring (if it was fertile) would break the definition of species.
But it may be best to wait for it to happen so we can study the how, rather than get ourselves tangled in a weird hypothetical.
8. How can you explain gravity?
Again, not a question that relates to evolution.
Gravity seems to be the result of the conditions that formed particles in the big bang. To me, the answer to this question is very similar to how electricity, the strong nuclear and the weak nuclear forces are explained.
9. If we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
We didn't come from monkeys. Humans and monkeys are cousins in the biological tree of life, not ancestors.
10. If the world is “millions of years old”, why is it only 2008?
Yet again, not related to evolution.
But we base the year off of the Gregorian calendar, which was based off of the Julian calendar. But in other calendar systems, it is different years - in the Assyrian calendar it is 6770, in the Chinese calendar it is 4718, and in the Islamic calendar it is 1441.
The short answer is yes, the world is thousands of millions of years old, but we only just started counting recently to keep a track of relative time.
11. If I throw dirt up in the air, what are the odds it will fall into the formation of a living man?
Zero. Unless you threw the dirt over a mannequin, or over an actual living man for the dirt to fall in to the formation of a living man.
12. Can you see electricity?
Yes. That's what lightning is.
13. Science changes. The book of Genesis is perfect.
Yes, science changes, and this is the beauty of it - when we find something we thought was right was actually wrong or incomplete, we correct or add to what we got wrong. Science is a process.
But to say Genesis is perfect is more a reflexive position rather than a considered evaluation of the evidence.
14. The holy Bible is the truth because the Bible says it’s the truth.
Again, this is more of a defensively reflexive response to an accusation, rather than a considered evaluation.
But believing the book is the truth because the book tells you it is the truth does not prove to us the book is the truth. Besides, given the numerous pronouncements of genocide and slavery (1 Samuel 15, Numbers 31, Exodus 21), you're confirming that the authority behind the Bible was complicit in the commission of war crimes and human rights abuses.
15. Evolution is a religion, and science leads to killing people.
Is evolution a religion? No. Evolution imparts no moral values, has no prescribed texts, has no mandated meetings, ceremonies or rituals, and has no notion of the afterlife or the supernatural. Furthermore, evolution has a replete body of scholarship backing up the claims made.
The line 'science leads you to killing people' reminds me of something very similar Ben Stein said in an interview. However, from what I've seen of him on various media, I'm not sure I'd be taking lectures on either morality or on science from Mr. Stein.
But does science lead you to kill people? No. While I haven't seen the complete body of research, I am quite confident no criminologist or forensic psychiatrist has listed 'science education' as a causative factor behind homicidal behaviour.
Plus, people were killing people well before the scientific method was established.
16. Scientists around the world are all jointly involved in a conspiracy against god!
Aren't the Discovery Institute themselves a religious (if not explicitly Christian) organisation? If this video did come from them, this is one of the strangest claims I have ever seen them make.
But even on the face of it, no, there is no worldwide conspiracy amongst scientists to hide the evidence for God. Especially when you consider that a large number of Nobel Prize have been been Catholic, Protestant or Jewish!
17. Bananas are perfectly designed for the human hand.
This one is ironically true. The yellow Cavendish banana that is the most common variety available today does indeed fit the primate hand - but that is because that variety was artificially bred (cultivated) to be the size and shape it is after a disease wiped out the Gros Michel variety.
But if we look at other types of bananas, we see the idea of design for the human hand breaks down. Plantains are typically longer than the Cavdendish and can't be eaten straight - they have to be cooked before consumption because they're so high in starch.
18. Millions of years for a monkey to turn into a man? Monkeys don’t live that long.
Monkeys don't live millions of years? Genius observation right there. That will surely rattle the foundations of biological science.
But this gets the theory of evolution completely wrong in a couple of ways - no animal turns in to another species in its lifetime, and evolution happens to populations, not individuals.
19. Why would a man want to have sex with a monkey?
You would have to ask a behavioural psychologist that one.
20. Archaeologists always remove the human remains first when they find a dinosaur so they can continue the LIE.
Including the Christian archaeologists?
Or is it that, due to superposition, human bones are always in the strata above dinosaur bones, so you will find human bones before you find dinosaur bones if you're digging through relatively undisturbed strata.
21. Can you speak monkey? Didn’t think so…
And this is a mark against evolution in what way exactly?
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21 questions answered. Done.
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Stay safe, wear your mask, stop the spread!!!
31 Questions For Atheists
The other day, I was going through The Amazing Atheist's YouTube channel, and I have to thank him for leading me to 31 Questions For Atheists from the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM).
Here are my 31 responses to 31 questions:
1. How would you define atheism?
Not accepting the affirmative claims that supernatural entities that we call gods exist.
Some atheists also do not accept affirmative claims of the existence of the supernatural as a basis for not accepting claims that supernatural gods exist, but at its very core, atheism is not accepting the claims that gods exist.
2. Do you act according to what you believe in or what you lack belief in?
Not quite. I act according to what I believe creates good/positive/beneficial outcomes for the situation I am in that comes with as little risk as reasonable. It's not so much what I believe in, but what I believe is reasonable and does not harm.
In terms of theism, theistic and atheistic considerations do not factor in to any decision making. I don't decide "I am going to drink a dangerously large cup of coffee because God doesn't exist".
3. Do you think it is inconsistent for someone who "lacks belief" in God to work against God's existence by attempting to show that God doesn't exist?
Atheists/antitheists don't work against God's existence - they already don't think God (or gods) exist, and no atheist I know of can make God disappear.
What atheists/antitheists try to do is show that belief in God/gods is not warranted because it goes against the best-available evidence, does not always lead to increased human well-being, and in some extreme cases, is used as justification for ethical abuses.
4. Why are you an atheist?
Because I can't prove God exists outside of my head.
And also, the best arguments for God/gods are philosophical, not scientific, and to me, a God who can only be justified in philosophy is no greater than whatever imaginary god I create for myself.
5. How sure are you that atheism is proper position to hold?
I'm fairly sure because atheism (not simply my atheism) is the most logically justifiable position to hold scientifically, morally and rationally, based on the evidence we have at hand.
But I am happy to declare that if the existence of gods could be proven, I would no longer be an atheist.
6. On a scale from 1 to 5, one is weak, 5 is strong, how sure are you that God does not exist?
4, or maybe 4.5. Mathematically speaking, there exists the slim (though infintesimal) possibility that God does exists, but I am yet to come across a situation where a supernatural/theistic explanation has warranted, or had enough explanatory power, to replace a naturalistic explanation for a particular observed phenomenon.
7. Why do you believe your atheism is a justifiable position to hold?
Because the Null Hypothesis is the most honest and reliable starting point when testing a positive claim. It is one of the foundational aspects of research, as well as in the judicial system. When applied theologically, the claim that God exists or that any gods exist is assumed false until it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
God has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt. Though there are refined and well-thought out proofs for a God-like being philosophically, there are none that stand up to scrutiny scientifically.
Therefore, the Null Hypothesis remains intact and God is not guilty of existing.
8. Do you affirm or deny that atheism is a worldview? A Worldview is a set of unproven beliefs and/or assumptions that a person uses when interpreting the world around him.
Atheism is not a worldview, though some atheists as well as some Christians take the meaning of atheism too far to mean something that it shouldn't.
Atheism, at its most basic, is not accepting the claims that gods, plural or singular, exist, let alone have any affect in earthly matters.
9. What is your opinion of the Bible?
The Bible is made up of mythosymbolic texts for the purpose of transmitting cultural values, mixed in with liberal doses of historical fiction.
I believe there are some morally beneficial teachings in the Bible, as well as some morally reprehensible ones.
But I am not convinced that something is good or beyond criticism just because it is stated in the Bible.
10. What is your opinion of Jesus?
I'm not convinced that the Jesus of the Bible existed as the Bible portrays him, and especially not simply because the Bible tells us so.
I accept there could well have been an ordinary man around whom grew legend, and I believe it is possible that there never was an earthly Jesus at all, though the best data we have at hand is sketchy.
11. What is your opinion of the concept of the God of the Bible?
At best, inconsistent and an overly-sensitive manipulator.
At worst, a homicidal, genocidal, racist, sexist and infanticidal bigot.
12. What is your opinion of the Christian concept of hell
I'd like it if there was an actual accepted definition of hell. Some preachers say it is the fire-and-brimstone place of torture, some preachers say it is just a place of misery and separation from God. Some say it is something else altogether.
I'd like to know which Christian concept of hell you are presenting before I give an opinion of it.
But if we're referring to any form of eternal punishment for finite transgressions, that is immoral.
13. What is your opinion of Evolution?
I'm not too sure why evolution is capitalised as a proper noun here.
But the theory of evolution is one of the most scientifically accepted and documented theories of the observations we have of the natural world, especially because it explains a lot of the data we have.
14. How would you define what truth is?
A statement, judgement or proposition that is concordant with reality.
15. Do you affirm that the physical universe is all there is and that all things can be explained in terms of motion, matter, chemical reaction, etc.?
No. But the physical universe is the only thing we can verify exists, and we can only study and observe what we can study and observe.
Until someone can come up with a way to verify the supernatural - aside from the asinine definition that the supernatural is just what the natural hasn't explained yet - we should not accept supernatural explanations for material reality.
16. If you were at one time a believer in the Christian God, what caused you to deny His existence?
I wouldn't say 'deny his existence' as much as I would say 'stopped accepting the claims that he exists as an assertion that shouldn't be tested or criticised'.
And again, I stopped accepting the claims of God's existence when I could not prove God existed outside of my mind.
17. Do you believe the world would be better off without religion?
To me, it actually more depends on how we get to a world that doesn't have religion in it in the first place rather than the world not having religion per se.
If religion were banned or outlawed and religious people were thrown in jail solely on the basis of their religion, I would not accept that and would see it as a horrible thing.
However, if we came to a world without religion because science education became so ingrained in our cultural psyche that supernatural explanations of reality were no longer accepted due to the sheer ridiculousness of them, I would embrace that.
18. Do you believe the world would be better off without Christianity?
This, I don't know and don't have a simple yes-or-no answer to. Christianity has both helped and harmed society throughout history, and some of my best friends are theists.
19. If you oppose Christianity, which of the following options best fits your reason: Christianity is morally wrong, dangerous, oppressive, or I don't oppose Christianity
I don't oppose Christianity per se, it is more that I oppose the bad reasoning that Biblical Literalism espouses. And the biggest reason for me that I oppose this ultra-conservative Christianity is because it is oppressive, especially in terms of science education and mental health care.
Numerous Christians, under the umbrella of Creationism, are actively teaching unscientific notions of biology, cosmology and geology. I also know of some Creationists who are lobbying to get the theory of evolution removed from school textbooks. This, to me, is abjectly wrong. We should be teaching more science, not less science.
Regarding mental health issues, they were (and still are by some Fundamentalists) considered to be the result of supernatural causation whose treatment of such also lies in the supernatural. This leads to both delayed diagnosis and ineffective treatment (as my own personal struggles will testify), increasing or prolonging the suffering.
So I don't oppose Christianity - I oppose those who take their religion too seriously.
20. Do you believe that faith in a God or gods is a mental disorder?
No, especially because some of the most intelligent and revolutionary people have been people who believe in God.
The closest I will say that I do believe that a large number of people are much more prone to phenomena like hallucination, cognitive dissonance and agency overdetection when they embrace and immerse themselves in the concept of immaterial beings affecting material reality.
21. Must we be able to demonstrate God’s existence through the scientific method?
Only if we are comfortable with being treated for sickness and diseases, driving cars, flying in planes or walking in to buildings that were done people who haven't studied or understood the results of the scientific method.
What I am trying to say is that we use the scientific method to benefit so many areas of our lives (cars, healthcare, transport, engineering, manufacturing, etc.), yet for the most important question we could possibly ask - does God exist - for some reason we have to put the number one tool we have for filtering data aside and instead rely on vague feelings, logical fallacies and ancient texts?
22. Is it a category mistake to require material evidence via the scientific method for an immaterial God?
I think you've defeated your own argument in that one sentence - if God is immaterial, then God is not material.
To counter some theistic arguments for why we don't detect God, if God supposedly exists outside of time and space, then that means he does not exist inside time and space, and if something does not exist in time and space, it simply does not exist.
Besides, if God does materially affect our reality, then there should be some way of determining when and how God does that. When and how that is determined, then I will look at theistic claims seriously.
23. Where does morality come from?
Morality comes from both the surrounding culture, as well as our understanding of how our decisions affect both ourselves and those around us.
24. Are there moral absolutes?
If we take absolute morality to mean moral principles that are applicable in every possible situation, regardless of who, what, when, where or why, then no, there are no moral absolutes - morality is subjective. But I do believe that there are universal moral values.
Moral values such as prohibitions against murder, against theft and against deception are universal to most if not all cultures, but there can be cases made where murder, theft and deception can be morally justified (murder in self-defence, stealing a gun from a bank robber to disarm them, or lying to get someone the help they need when ordinary channels have failed, are all justified instances of murder, theft and deception). In a morality system that had firm and cast-iron absolutes, this should not be, thus lending weight to my notion of universal - but not absolute - morality.
25. Is the following statement true or false? “It is always wrong for everyone to torture babies to death merely for one’s personal pleasure.”
True. This is because we know torture is harmful, and that the pleasure gained by the torture is temporary compared to the damage the baby is likely to suffer both physically and psychologically.
This makes torture morally wrong.
26. Should morality be based on reducing unnecessary harm?
Morality should be focused on both reducing unneccessary harm as well as increasing well-being.
27. What would it take for you to believe in God?
A video or photo of God would be a great start - in this time where our recording equipment is the most advanced it has ever been, where we have been able to video a single electron, yet we can't record, let alone interview, God?
Also, an argument that is based on empirical data and not philosophy would go a long way to convincing me God exists.
28. Do you think that a society that is run by Christians or atheists would be safer? Why?
An atheistic society is more likely to be safer. Various statistical analysis of various societies shows that demographics with high religious affiliation (Christianity included) have lower Human Development Index scores.
Further to this, the top 5 countries with the highest intentional homicide rates are all countries that have over 70% combined Catholic/Protestant affiliation.
29. Do you believe in free will? (free will being the ability to make choices without coercion).
I believe that while free will may neurologically be an illusion, our brains and thinking processes simulate it pretty well.
Let's just say that no-one has been acquitted of a crime because they successfully argued that no-one has free will.
30. If you believe in free will, do you see any problem with defending the idea that the physical brain, which is limited and subject to the neuro-chemical laws of the brain, can still produce free will choices?
I don't see a problem. Our brains are the hardware that runs the free will software.
Yes, our brains are limited, but not useless.
31. If you affirm evolution and that the universe will continue to expand forever, then that would require an infinite number of evolutionary possibilities. In an infinite number of such possibilities, do you affirm that life forms would then evolve to the point of exceeding mere physical limitations and become free of the physical and temporal, and thereby become "deity" and not be restricted by space and time?
I don't affirm the universe will expand forever. It is possible, but not something I necessarily accept without studying it further. The universe is expanding, but it may not do so forever.
Evolution and cosmology have nothing to do with each other, so this question is malformed.
Furthermore, in evolution, nothing can outgrow its phylogeny. If something could, this would actually be a proof against evolution.
-----
There you have it. 31 questions answered.
CARM then put two further questions, one of which seems to be an ad hominem against Matt Dillahunty, and the other asks for personal opinions on Matt Slick himself.
These, I am not interested in.
---
Stay safe, warm, and coronavirus-free!
-Damien
Here are my 31 responses to 31 questions:
1. How would you define atheism?
Not accepting the affirmative claims that supernatural entities that we call gods exist.
Some atheists also do not accept affirmative claims of the existence of the supernatural as a basis for not accepting claims that supernatural gods exist, but at its very core, atheism is not accepting the claims that gods exist.
2. Do you act according to what you believe in or what you lack belief in?
Not quite. I act according to what I believe creates good/positive/beneficial outcomes for the situation I am in that comes with as little risk as reasonable. It's not so much what I believe in, but what I believe is reasonable and does not harm.
In terms of theism, theistic and atheistic considerations do not factor in to any decision making. I don't decide "I am going to drink a dangerously large cup of coffee because God doesn't exist".
3. Do you think it is inconsistent for someone who "lacks belief" in God to work against God's existence by attempting to show that God doesn't exist?
Atheists/antitheists don't work against God's existence - they already don't think God (or gods) exist, and no atheist I know of can make God disappear.
What atheists/antitheists try to do is show that belief in God/gods is not warranted because it goes against the best-available evidence, does not always lead to increased human well-being, and in some extreme cases, is used as justification for ethical abuses.
4. Why are you an atheist?
Because I can't prove God exists outside of my head.
And also, the best arguments for God/gods are philosophical, not scientific, and to me, a God who can only be justified in philosophy is no greater than whatever imaginary god I create for myself.
5. How sure are you that atheism is proper position to hold?
I'm fairly sure because atheism (not simply my atheism) is the most logically justifiable position to hold scientifically, morally and rationally, based on the evidence we have at hand.
But I am happy to declare that if the existence of gods could be proven, I would no longer be an atheist.
6. On a scale from 1 to 5, one is weak, 5 is strong, how sure are you that God does not exist?
4, or maybe 4.5. Mathematically speaking, there exists the slim (though infintesimal) possibility that God does exists, but I am yet to come across a situation where a supernatural/theistic explanation has warranted, or had enough explanatory power, to replace a naturalistic explanation for a particular observed phenomenon.
7. Why do you believe your atheism is a justifiable position to hold?
Because the Null Hypothesis is the most honest and reliable starting point when testing a positive claim. It is one of the foundational aspects of research, as well as in the judicial system. When applied theologically, the claim that God exists or that any gods exist is assumed false until it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
God has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt. Though there are refined and well-thought out proofs for a God-like being philosophically, there are none that stand up to scrutiny scientifically.
Therefore, the Null Hypothesis remains intact and God is not guilty of existing.
8. Do you affirm or deny that atheism is a worldview? A Worldview is a set of unproven beliefs and/or assumptions that a person uses when interpreting the world around him.
Atheism is not a worldview, though some atheists as well as some Christians take the meaning of atheism too far to mean something that it shouldn't.
Atheism, at its most basic, is not accepting the claims that gods, plural or singular, exist, let alone have any affect in earthly matters.
9. What is your opinion of the Bible?
The Bible is made up of mythosymbolic texts for the purpose of transmitting cultural values, mixed in with liberal doses of historical fiction.
I believe there are some morally beneficial teachings in the Bible, as well as some morally reprehensible ones.
But I am not convinced that something is good or beyond criticism just because it is stated in the Bible.
10. What is your opinion of Jesus?
I'm not convinced that the Jesus of the Bible existed as the Bible portrays him, and especially not simply because the Bible tells us so.
I accept there could well have been an ordinary man around whom grew legend, and I believe it is possible that there never was an earthly Jesus at all, though the best data we have at hand is sketchy.
11. What is your opinion of the concept of the God of the Bible?
At best, inconsistent and an overly-sensitive manipulator.
At worst, a homicidal, genocidal, racist, sexist and infanticidal bigot.
12. What is your opinion of the Christian concept of hell
I'd like it if there was an actual accepted definition of hell. Some preachers say it is the fire-and-brimstone place of torture, some preachers say it is just a place of misery and separation from God. Some say it is something else altogether.
I'd like to know which Christian concept of hell you are presenting before I give an opinion of it.
But if we're referring to any form of eternal punishment for finite transgressions, that is immoral.
13. What is your opinion of Evolution?
I'm not too sure why evolution is capitalised as a proper noun here.
But the theory of evolution is one of the most scientifically accepted and documented theories of the observations we have of the natural world, especially because it explains a lot of the data we have.
14. How would you define what truth is?
A statement, judgement or proposition that is concordant with reality.
15. Do you affirm that the physical universe is all there is and that all things can be explained in terms of motion, matter, chemical reaction, etc.?
No. But the physical universe is the only thing we can verify exists, and we can only study and observe what we can study and observe.
Until someone can come up with a way to verify the supernatural - aside from the asinine definition that the supernatural is just what the natural hasn't explained yet - we should not accept supernatural explanations for material reality.
16. If you were at one time a believer in the Christian God, what caused you to deny His existence?
I wouldn't say 'deny his existence' as much as I would say 'stopped accepting the claims that he exists as an assertion that shouldn't be tested or criticised'.
And again, I stopped accepting the claims of God's existence when I could not prove God existed outside of my mind.
17. Do you believe the world would be better off without religion?
To me, it actually more depends on how we get to a world that doesn't have religion in it in the first place rather than the world not having religion per se.
If religion were banned or outlawed and religious people were thrown in jail solely on the basis of their religion, I would not accept that and would see it as a horrible thing.
However, if we came to a world without religion because science education became so ingrained in our cultural psyche that supernatural explanations of reality were no longer accepted due to the sheer ridiculousness of them, I would embrace that.
18. Do you believe the world would be better off without Christianity?
This, I don't know and don't have a simple yes-or-no answer to. Christianity has both helped and harmed society throughout history, and some of my best friends are theists.
19. If you oppose Christianity, which of the following options best fits your reason: Christianity is morally wrong, dangerous, oppressive, or I don't oppose Christianity
I don't oppose Christianity per se, it is more that I oppose the bad reasoning that Biblical Literalism espouses. And the biggest reason for me that I oppose this ultra-conservative Christianity is because it is oppressive, especially in terms of science education and mental health care.
Numerous Christians, under the umbrella of Creationism, are actively teaching unscientific notions of biology, cosmology and geology. I also know of some Creationists who are lobbying to get the theory of evolution removed from school textbooks. This, to me, is abjectly wrong. We should be teaching more science, not less science.
Regarding mental health issues, they were (and still are by some Fundamentalists) considered to be the result of supernatural causation whose treatment of such also lies in the supernatural. This leads to both delayed diagnosis and ineffective treatment (as my own personal struggles will testify), increasing or prolonging the suffering.
So I don't oppose Christianity - I oppose those who take their religion too seriously.
20. Do you believe that faith in a God or gods is a mental disorder?
No, especially because some of the most intelligent and revolutionary people have been people who believe in God.
The closest I will say that I do believe that a large number of people are much more prone to phenomena like hallucination, cognitive dissonance and agency overdetection when they embrace and immerse themselves in the concept of immaterial beings affecting material reality.
21. Must we be able to demonstrate God’s existence through the scientific method?
Only if we are comfortable with being treated for sickness and diseases, driving cars, flying in planes or walking in to buildings that were done people who haven't studied or understood the results of the scientific method.
What I am trying to say is that we use the scientific method to benefit so many areas of our lives (cars, healthcare, transport, engineering, manufacturing, etc.), yet for the most important question we could possibly ask - does God exist - for some reason we have to put the number one tool we have for filtering data aside and instead rely on vague feelings, logical fallacies and ancient texts?
22. Is it a category mistake to require material evidence via the scientific method for an immaterial God?
I think you've defeated your own argument in that one sentence - if God is immaterial, then God is not material.
To counter some theistic arguments for why we don't detect God, if God supposedly exists outside of time and space, then that means he does not exist inside time and space, and if something does not exist in time and space, it simply does not exist.
Besides, if God does materially affect our reality, then there should be some way of determining when and how God does that. When and how that is determined, then I will look at theistic claims seriously.
23. Where does morality come from?
Morality comes from both the surrounding culture, as well as our understanding of how our decisions affect both ourselves and those around us.
24. Are there moral absolutes?
If we take absolute morality to mean moral principles that are applicable in every possible situation, regardless of who, what, when, where or why, then no, there are no moral absolutes - morality is subjective. But I do believe that there are universal moral values.
Moral values such as prohibitions against murder, against theft and against deception are universal to most if not all cultures, but there can be cases made where murder, theft and deception can be morally justified (murder in self-defence, stealing a gun from a bank robber to disarm them, or lying to get someone the help they need when ordinary channels have failed, are all justified instances of murder, theft and deception). In a morality system that had firm and cast-iron absolutes, this should not be, thus lending weight to my notion of universal - but not absolute - morality.
25. Is the following statement true or false? “It is always wrong for everyone to torture babies to death merely for one’s personal pleasure.”
True. This is because we know torture is harmful, and that the pleasure gained by the torture is temporary compared to the damage the baby is likely to suffer both physically and psychologically.
This makes torture morally wrong.
26. Should morality be based on reducing unnecessary harm?
Morality should be focused on both reducing unneccessary harm as well as increasing well-being.
27. What would it take for you to believe in God?
A video or photo of God would be a great start - in this time where our recording equipment is the most advanced it has ever been, where we have been able to video a single electron, yet we can't record, let alone interview, God?
Also, an argument that is based on empirical data and not philosophy would go a long way to convincing me God exists.
28. Do you think that a society that is run by Christians or atheists would be safer? Why?
An atheistic society is more likely to be safer. Various statistical analysis of various societies shows that demographics with high religious affiliation (Christianity included) have lower Human Development Index scores.
Further to this, the top 5 countries with the highest intentional homicide rates are all countries that have over 70% combined Catholic/Protestant affiliation.
29. Do you believe in free will? (free will being the ability to make choices without coercion).
I believe that while free will may neurologically be an illusion, our brains and thinking processes simulate it pretty well.
Let's just say that no-one has been acquitted of a crime because they successfully argued that no-one has free will.
30. If you believe in free will, do you see any problem with defending the idea that the physical brain, which is limited and subject to the neuro-chemical laws of the brain, can still produce free will choices?
I don't see a problem. Our brains are the hardware that runs the free will software.
Yes, our brains are limited, but not useless.
31. If you affirm evolution and that the universe will continue to expand forever, then that would require an infinite number of evolutionary possibilities. In an infinite number of such possibilities, do you affirm that life forms would then evolve to the point of exceeding mere physical limitations and become free of the physical and temporal, and thereby become "deity" and not be restricted by space and time?
I don't affirm the universe will expand forever. It is possible, but not something I necessarily accept without studying it further. The universe is expanding, but it may not do so forever.
Evolution and cosmology have nothing to do with each other, so this question is malformed.
Furthermore, in evolution, nothing can outgrow its phylogeny. If something could, this would actually be a proof against evolution.
-----
There you have it. 31 questions answered.
CARM then put two further questions, one of which seems to be an ad hominem against Matt Dillahunty, and the other asks for personal opinions on Matt Slick himself.
These, I am not interested in.
---
Stay safe, warm, and coronavirus-free!
-Damien
The Man After God's Own Heart
The book of Acts describes David as "a man after God's own heart".
For example, the Bible records that David had killed numerous people as per 1 Samuel 27 in order to kill and to steal. On top of this, David was the one who killed Goliath, had his mistress' husband killed, and a refrain of the people of Israel was made that credited Saul with thousands of kills, but David was credited with tens of thousands (1 Samuel 18:7).
We then see that God had killed tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions. One just needs to look at the Noachian Flood, the plagues of Exodus (in particular, the last one that whose specific purpose was to kill children), the numerous times God killed people who complained, people he didn't like, nations he judged, and times he pronounced familial cannibalism as a punishment.
So we see that David was indeed a man after God's own heart - God was a war god who had no problem killing people to get his own way, and David had little problem killing people when it suited him as well.
Furthermore, there are only two instances in the Bible where God has a problem with David's actions:
God's unhappiness when David slept with another man's wife and had the husband killed (2 Samuel 12), and in 1 Chronicles 28, God basically denies David a planning permit for a temple on the basis that he (somewhat ironically) "has shed much blood", however God never chastises or punishes David directly for all that killing like he did when he took away another man's wife.
It's almost like God has more of a problem with informed consensual sex than he does genocide...
So when the Bible says David is a man after God's own heart, it is entirely correct. Both have no problem killing people to get their way, both have no problem taking things for spurious reasons, and both say really nice things about each other.
For example, the Bible records that David had killed numerous people as per 1 Samuel 27 in order to kill and to steal. On top of this, David was the one who killed Goliath, had his mistress' husband killed, and a refrain of the people of Israel was made that credited Saul with thousands of kills, but David was credited with tens of thousands (1 Samuel 18:7).
We then see that God had killed tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions. One just needs to look at the Noachian Flood, the plagues of Exodus (in particular, the last one that whose specific purpose was to kill children), the numerous times God killed people who complained, people he didn't like, nations he judged, and times he pronounced familial cannibalism as a punishment.
So we see that David was indeed a man after God's own heart - God was a war god who had no problem killing people to get his own way, and David had little problem killing people when it suited him as well.
Furthermore, there are only two instances in the Bible where God has a problem with David's actions:
God's unhappiness when David slept with another man's wife and had the husband killed (2 Samuel 12), and in 1 Chronicles 28, God basically denies David a planning permit for a temple on the basis that he (somewhat ironically) "has shed much blood", however God never chastises or punishes David directly for all that killing like he did when he took away another man's wife.
It's almost like God has more of a problem with informed consensual sex than he does genocide...
So when the Bible says David is a man after God's own heart, it is entirely correct. Both have no problem killing people to get their way, both have no problem taking things for spurious reasons, and both say really nice things about each other.
New Book Is Out!
I am excited and proud to announce the release and (electronic) publication of my first book, "The Best Religion For The Task At Hand - A Response To Creationism, And Why Humanism Is Morally Superior To The Bible".
It is available on both the iTunes Bookstore, and the Google Play Bookstore for $10.99AUD.
I sincerely hope you enjoy the book, even if you completely disagree with my point of view.
And if you do enjoy the book and you believe the ideas are worth spreading, then share it amongst your friends, family, colleagues.
Enjoy!
-Damien (quiterationaldad@gmail.com)
And if you do enjoy the book and you believe the ideas are worth spreading, then share it amongst your friends, family, colleagues.
Enjoy!
-Damien (quiterationaldad@gmail.com)
What Is Prayer?
One of the burning thoughts I have always had about prayer over the years since my deconversion is that all prayer seems to be is speaking words that you expect to either be psychically or magically heard by forces unseen, unheard, undetected and undiscernible.
When a pastor or someone in a church prays, they're not so much praying to God as they are speaking words so that the people hearing them feel better about something - the more emotional conviction you put in to your prayer that other people are hearing, the more social weight it carries.
Because if God truly answered prayer based on whether the prayer aligns with his will or not (which then leads to the question: if prayer is to bring about God's will, then why do we pray to change a situation when it was obviously God's will that the situation that you're praying about is happening in the first place) that was spoken like a personal dialogue between two people, then shouldn't prayers be full of things like expletives, personal attacks, snide remarks, complaints and other things that don't line up with grandiose verbosity said to please an audience?
Especially when the prayer is said in to a camera - like what is happening with churches being forced to do services online - the grandiose prayers of a clean shaven pastor with a nice suit, or a youth pastor with funky facial hair, are meaningless in terms of the actual prayer, but completely meaningful in terms of tickling the ears of the audience hearing the words.
What I'd really love to hear is a prayer from a church service where the pastor prays infront of their audience exactly as they would pray in their office - expletives, insults, judgement values, everything, and then seeing the reaction of the people who were personally offended by the prayer...
TL:DR - prayer isn't for God, prayer is so someone feels better.
When a pastor or someone in a church prays, they're not so much praying to God as they are speaking words so that the people hearing them feel better about something - the more emotional conviction you put in to your prayer that other people are hearing, the more social weight it carries.
Because if God truly answered prayer based on whether the prayer aligns with his will or not (which then leads to the question: if prayer is to bring about God's will, then why do we pray to change a situation when it was obviously God's will that the situation that you're praying about is happening in the first place) that was spoken like a personal dialogue between two people, then shouldn't prayers be full of things like expletives, personal attacks, snide remarks, complaints and other things that don't line up with grandiose verbosity said to please an audience?
Especially when the prayer is said in to a camera - like what is happening with churches being forced to do services online - the grandiose prayers of a clean shaven pastor with a nice suit, or a youth pastor with funky facial hair, are meaningless in terms of the actual prayer, but completely meaningful in terms of tickling the ears of the audience hearing the words.
What I'd really love to hear is a prayer from a church service where the pastor prays infront of their audience exactly as they would pray in their office - expletives, insults, judgement values, everything, and then seeing the reaction of the people who were personally offended by the prayer...
TL:DR - prayer isn't for God, prayer is so someone feels better.
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