Tuesday, May 31, 2011
We don’t believe in God, but we certainly believe in Christians.
We don’t believe in God, but we certainly believe in Christians. They’re everywhere, it seems. And while most of them are harmless, a number of them are annoying… or worse. Much worse. They bomb abortion clinics. They do their best to hinder the advancement of science and the arts. They elect candidates based not on their competency, but on whether “he prays” (and says so more often than his opponent). They try to interfere — and get laws to do it — in the sexual lives of consenting adults. They ban stem cell research and contraceptives, thus condemning millions around the world to disease and suffering, because of books written by primitive desert nomads thousands of years ago. So, yes, Christians are a problem.
Wouldn’t you try to help someone descending into alcoholism? Wouldn’t you care if you saw someone destroying their lives because of booze? Well, in a way, religion is like alcoholism. It attacks the mind, the power of reasoning, it makes people believe in absurd things. It destroys lives – both of the alcoholic / believer, and often those of their family, too. So it’s natural that some of us care — even about strangers. We don’t think we’ll ever “unconvert” fundamentalists; by definition, they’ve long stopped thinking about their belief critically — indeed, they believe that doing so would be a sin. But some people may be at a “crossroads”, so to speak. They may believe simply because they’ve never thought about it; everyone around them believes unquestioningly, and they’ve never even heard of an alternative. So maybe an atheist can make a difference.
Wouldn’t you try to help someone descending into alcoholism? Wouldn’t you care if you saw someone destroying their lives because of booze? Well, in a way, religion is like alcoholism. It attacks the mind, the power of reasoning, it makes people believe in absurd things. It destroys lives – both of the alcoholic / believer, and often those of their family, too. So it’s natural that some of us care — even about strangers. We don’t think we’ll ever “unconvert” fundamentalists; by definition, they’ve long stopped thinking about their belief critically — indeed, they believe that doing so would be a sin. But some people may be at a “crossroads”, so to speak. They may believe simply because they’ve never thought about it; everyone around them believes unquestioningly, and they’ve never even heard of an alternative. So maybe an atheist can make a difference.
kalam
P1: nothing which exists can cause something which does not exist to begin existing ex nihilo.
P2: given (1), anything which begins to exist ex nihilo was not caused to do so by something which exists.
P3: the universe began to exist ex nihilo.
P4: given (2) and (3), the universe was not caused to exist by anything which exists.
P5: god is defined as a being which caused the universe to begin to exist ex nihilo
C1: given (4) (5), god does not exist by definition.
P2: given (1), anything which begins to exist ex nihilo was not caused to do so by something which exists.
P3: the universe began to exist ex nihilo.
P4: given (2) and (3), the universe was not caused to exist by anything which exists.
P5: god is defined as a being which caused the universe to begin to exist ex nihilo
C1: given (4) (5), god does not exist by definition.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Robert M Price exposes William Lane Craig - Part 1 of 2
This is the opening statement of Robert M Price in the debate he had against good old Bill on the historicity of the resurrection. If you want to hear what Craig said, you know very well what to do: go to any of the other debates, you know he allways presents the same arguments.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree... Yeah, Christianity makes perfect sense.
The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
Yeah, Christianity makes perfect sense.
Yeah, Christianity makes perfect sense.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Becoming an Atheist is the single most rational sane thing that ever happened to me.
Becoming an Atheist is the single most rational sane thing that ever happened to me.
Friday, May 20, 2011
#atheist #christian
#atheist #christian
“The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong sanction to both- and mixes explosively with both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today. Without a doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East. Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different now. All is changed, changed utterly.”
— Richard Dawkins
“The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong sanction to both- and mixes explosively with both. Only the willfully blind could fail to implicate the divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the world today. Without a doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East. Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are different now. All is changed, changed utterly.”
— Richard Dawkins
Friday, May 13, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
reasons for not agreeing with pascal's wager
Reason 1: In the case where God does not exist, there really is a clear advantage to not believing. In other words, the payoff is not zero. For one thing, if you go through life believing a lie, that is a bad thing in itself. Besides that, there is more to being a believer than just saying "Okay, I believe now" and getting on with your life. Serious believers spend a lot of their time in church, and contribute a lot of money as well. There's a reason why some towns have very affluent looking buildings for churches, and why large and elaborate cathedrals are possible: they're funded by folks who donate 1/10th of their income throughout their lives to tithing. This is surely quite a waste if the object of worship isn't real. That's to say nothing of the persecution of other groups that's been instigated in the name of God throughout the ages.
Reason 2: Even if you buy into Pascal's wager and decide you should believe, that doesn't give any basis for choosing which religion to believe in. Fundamentalists often use the wager to prove that you should be a Fundamentalist, but of course, Pascal was Catholic and was using it to prove you should be a Catholic! This just highlights the whole problem of which religion is the right one. Since many Fundamentalists believe that Catholics are going to go to hell, Pascal's not much better off than an unbeliever. We don't know if the Jews are correct, or perhaps the Muslims, or if reincarnation is right... or worse, if there's a perverse God who only lets atheists into heaven! It's not impossible. For all we know, maybe God exists but he doesn't care at all whether people believe in him.
Reason 3: If you can accept Pascal's wager as a realistic reason to believe, that leads you to a point where you have no choice but to believe just about everything on the same grounds. Maybe if you don't own a complete library of Seinfeld episodes, you'll go to hell! Why not? You don't know. Maybe you have to send $10 a week to the Atheist Community of Austin for life. Hey, what's a measly ten bucks if it will save you from eternal hellfire? Or maybe God really likes nude mud wrestling and he will punish those who do not partake of His gift.
Does all this sound utterly silly to you? Good! That's probably because you know that you should only believe things that have some sort of clear evidence favoring them. You don't believe just any old preposterous claim about UFO's, pyramid shaped get-rich-quick schemes, or magic pixies just because somebody tells you they're true and because there's a chance you might be wrong. You have a brain—use it!
Further reading: "Pascal's Sucker Bet" by "Reverend" Jim Huger
from http://bit.ly/k8ySY2
Reason 2: Even if you buy into Pascal's wager and decide you should believe, that doesn't give any basis for choosing which religion to believe in. Fundamentalists often use the wager to prove that you should be a Fundamentalist, but of course, Pascal was Catholic and was using it to prove you should be a Catholic! This just highlights the whole problem of which religion is the right one. Since many Fundamentalists believe that Catholics are going to go to hell, Pascal's not much better off than an unbeliever. We don't know if the Jews are correct, or perhaps the Muslims, or if reincarnation is right... or worse, if there's a perverse God who only lets atheists into heaven! It's not impossible. For all we know, maybe God exists but he doesn't care at all whether people believe in him.
Reason 3: If you can accept Pascal's wager as a realistic reason to believe, that leads you to a point where you have no choice but to believe just about everything on the same grounds. Maybe if you don't own a complete library of Seinfeld episodes, you'll go to hell! Why not? You don't know. Maybe you have to send $10 a week to the Atheist Community of Austin for life. Hey, what's a measly ten bucks if it will save you from eternal hellfire? Or maybe God really likes nude mud wrestling and he will punish those who do not partake of His gift.
Does all this sound utterly silly to you? Good! That's probably because you know that you should only believe things that have some sort of clear evidence favoring them. You don't believe just any old preposterous claim about UFO's, pyramid shaped get-rich-quick schemes, or magic pixies just because somebody tells you they're true and because there's a chance you might be wrong. You have a brain—use it!
Further reading: "Pascal's Sucker Bet" by "Reverend" Jim Huger
from http://bit.ly/k8ySY2
Sunday, May 1, 2011
#christian 's took themselves to the mountain top. Science took the entire world to the moon. #atheist
#christian 's took themselves to the mountain top. Science took the entire world to the moon. #atheist
the #christian religion has never set anyone free, but it has set quite a large number on fire. #atheist
the #christian religion has never set anyone free, but it has set quite a large number on fire. #atheist on fire. #atheist
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