Why Hate Religious People?

Sometimes, as someone who is an “unbeliever,” I am asked why I hate believers; why am I so against their beliefs?

It’s a funny question. Maybe I come off arrogant and intolerant. That’s entirely possible (I’ve been known to be so), and if that is the case I must apologize both to people of faith, and atheists. I apologize to the people of faith because I really don’t mean to project hate. I apologize to the atheists because I don’t want to contribute to the stereotype “angry atheist” that is often portrayed.

Let me be perfectly clear: I don’t hate “believers.” I hate their beliefs.

What people of faith are probably picking up from me is impatience and my discomfort with an absolute certainty on their part, and a double standard.

Somehow, it is okay to question and debate someone’s beliefs about physics, astrology, medicine, politics, psychology, parapsychology and astrophysics. Yet it is (as far as I can tell) not acceptable to debate someone’s religious beliefs.

Here I am simply re-phrasing Sam Harris. None of this is new to atheists, though I am sure it is new to some people of faith. For them, I would suggest reading Mr. Harris, or at least spending twenty minutes watching him here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J3YOIImOoYM

He’s not perfect, and I don’t agree with everything he says.

But I do think he makes quite a few good points.

Let me be clear: I don’t hate religious people. I just hate their religion. I’m not entirely sure how different this is from “love the sinner, hate the sin.”

I hate what religion does to people. I hate the evil that has been committed in this world in the name of God/Allah/Jehovah — whatever.

To be honest, that’s kind of a funny thing because I don’t believe in evil. Let me quote Robert Jay Lifton of Harvard (visiting professor of psychiatry):

“…one has to be aware of any claim to absolute virtue, because it’s absolute virtue that you call forth to kill large numbers of people. It may be impossible to do that without that claim.”

I’m hard-pressed to come up with a more apt description of the horrors of history.

Most of the evils of the world can probably be traced back to such sentiments. It is the adherence to absolute virtue, the belief one is serving God, that provides us with the means to commit unspeakable horrors. Some evils can be traced to selfishness, competition for resources, exploitation, racism, untreated mental illness and just plain stupidity. But I still believe the majority of the atrocities that have taken place on our planet were done in the name of “absolute virtue.”

I’m posting this on an atheist site, obviously. I suppose I am posting this to ask all of you atheists to recognize that we don’t hate people, we just hate what their beliefs have contributed to.

In a future post, I’ll address the popular belief that atheism has given us the dictators of the world. What makes that ludicrous is the belief that atheism is a philosophy that has adherents.

But for now, let’s agree that people of faith are not people to be hated, and we (atheists) don’t hate them. We just don’t like the bi-product.

I’m new here. But ….. Is that a fair start?

New in the Mail Bag

An interesting dialog developed as someone contacted me via our contact page. The following is the transcript of our communication thus far. Read more

An essay on free will - Section 2

By nature, some people are more inclined to enjoy certain activities. I’m sure we can all think of an instance, where you or someone you know just has that natural drive to do something. I have been a thrill seeker for as far back as I can remember. As a child, I would jump off of buildings into snow; I’d build jumps for sleds; I’d ride snowmobiles as fast as they’d go; I was into gymnastics and all sorts of physical things. No one pushed me to do these things. I simple had an innate (in born), strong desire for such things.

On another level, I was always searching for answers, and getting into arguments until something made sense to me. My mother joked that I would grow up to be a lawyer, because I would argue people into corners, and tear apart their reasoning until there was nothing left. My siblings were not like this. We grew up with the same basic environment, but I ended up being the only agnostic-atheist out of a long line of christian fundimentalists on both sides of the family. On my mothers side, their history goes back to the Mennonites (similar to the Amish). My mother’s family helped found one of the largest churches in my area. On my father’s side, we have missionaries. So, here I am, the little black sheep. I take no credit for my release from religion. I was simply lead to it by my strong drive to face reality.

Now, I can’t prove for certain what exactly caused me to be the way I am, but we can look at some obvious, more extreme cases which are scientifically proven to be founded in biology. Look at certain mental disorders, such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. These are caused by pre-natal exposure to alcohol.

I once knew a guy who had serious behavioral problems. My girlfriend and I had him pegged for a FAS Disorder. One day, we were sitting in our sociology class in college, and the professor started talking about FAE (a term that is being phased out in place of FASD). Our “friend” (I use quotes because, by then, he had shown quite a bit of bad behavior) fit into the category so well, that it was ridiculous. His brother had some sort of retardation, so it stood to reason that his mother was drinking during our friend’s development as well. He had serious issues with compulsive behavior. He was a compulsive liar, and would act without thinking. He did not understand consequences and felt little or no sympathy for other people. On one hand, he could be a lot of fun, because he was just balls-to-the-wall crazy when we’d go out. On the other hand, he could be incredibly obnoxious, and could take things to far. When your “friend” starts talking about blowing up vending machines with grenade powder, making up stories about you and other friends, or breaking into various businesses, it’s time to call it quits. You might say some of this is normal post-high-school male behavior, but when you look at all of the other behavior involved, it’s right in line with FASD.

The point of all this is, from birth, he was inclined to this activity. He never chose to be subjected to alcohol in the womb, and have his mind warped. His exposure to prenatal forces is mild compaired to that of many others. Look at the brain of some people with an FASD. Besides FASD babies, we have crack babies, meth babies (it’s all the rave these days), heroine babies, and so on.

Substance abuse is not the only cause of biological problems. Some mental disorders are passed down through genes. Bipolar Disorder runs in my family. My great uncle had Bipolar Disorder; my brother and sister have also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so I’ve witnessed first hand what that can do to a family.

People that claim all of these disorders are made up, just to make excuses for people’s behaviors obviously have not actually studied them one bit. Why is it that everyone who has a degree in psychology or sociology accepts these things as valid disorders? Could it be because they study them thoroughly and have enormous amounts of scientific data to back it up? You don’t even have to be a scientist to observe many of these differences in humans with these diseases and disorders-you just have to spend time around them. Since we do have people that study these things, you can look at some of their findings. A picture is worth a thousand words:

FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders)
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0127302/ThinkFASpage4.htm

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder)
http://www.adhd.org.nz/neuro1.html

Clinical Depression
http://www.scienceclarified.com/images/uesc_09_img0510.jpg

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
http://www.brainphysics.com/graphics/petscan.gif

Schnizophrenia
http://www.scienceclarified.com/images/uesc_09_img0510.jpg

Clearly, there is something wrong with these brains. I’m going to extremes with all of this to prove a point, but what you should be gathering from this is that your biology and environment define you.
Whether you have a disorder or not, these two elements shape and control your personality, and we have no reason to believe there’s anything else to it. It simply wouldn’t make any sense. If biology and environment can account for all of these aspects of personality, it’s obvious you have no magical “free will” spot somewhere inside of you.. The fact that you can severely change a personality through the physical manipulation of the brain proves that there is nothing overriding all of this. It might be a little scary, but you are a slave to these factors.

You can’t simply will yourself out of clinical depression; you can’t will yourself out of Bipolar disorder; you can’t will yourself out of FASD, or ADHD, or Borderline Personality Disorder, and so on. It’s not like people chose to have these disorders in the first place. These things ruin lives. That’s why they’re called disorders, because they’re horrible things that no one wants.

Now, for the sake of covering all bases, let’s pretend that there is some sort of “free will” center that hangs out inside of you somewhere, and that biology and environment don’t determine your personality and the choices you make. What would account for the difference in choices between two people if biology/environment were not factors? What makes the free will of one person stronger than that of another? If we are not all given a level playing field by having equal free will centers, then that must mean god is creating people with these differences.

Even if you believe that god can help you to not sin, why is it that all people sin? Is it because people don’t really want god’s help? If so, then can you be blamed for having a faulty design? People do not choose to not want god’s help anymore than many children choose to not like broccoli. Whenever you make a supposed choice, there is something in your head driving that preference, and it’s not under your control.

If I were to give you a choice between getting shot in the face or getting a massage, you would choose the massage, unless you really, really, really don’t like being touched. Either way, your mind is already made up. You’re only going with what you have a preference for. Now, let’s take a situation where it’s a really hard choice, and part of you doesn’t want what the other part does. Many people use this as proof of free will, because there is an inner struggle. Let’s say that it’s a choice to either steal a wallet full of 100 dollar bills, or to return it to the owner. Part of you really wants that money, but part of you thinks you should return the money to it’s rightful owner. Some would say that this is a struggle between good and evil; that satan is tempting you, and it’s up to you to be strong, and use your free will to choose the right thing. So when you choose to return the money or keep it for yourself, you might say that you exercised your free will, because it was a hard choice and you had an interal struggle. Really, your brain is just struggling to decide the best course of action, and neither desire for either choice is outside of your physical brain. One just happens to be stronger than the other.

Now, let’s take something that isn’t a matter of good or evil (unless you consider certain deserts evil). If you are given the option between only eating ice cream or only eating cake for desert for the rest of your life, it will be a difficult choice if you like both of those almost equally. Does this mean that your brain is choosing one while your free will chooses another? Not at all. It’s perfectly logical and reasonable to have a hard time making a choice when more than one option is tempting. You most likely enjoy having money, but you also enjoy doing “the right thing.” Also, you most likely enjoy at least two different deserts. Now, when you look at your final decision, what was responsible for that decision? Did you choose to like one over the other, or was your choice based on what you simply desired the most? I think we all know the answer to that question

When we’re speaking of issues of right and wrong, it would make a little more sense to think that satan is tempting you to make the other choice, but when we’re talking about desert, I don’t think satan has a preference for one over the other…unless it’s devil’s food cake, but let’s not get into that. With this in mind, if you can have an inner struggle that is not over good and evil, does it not make
sense that all of these struggles are merely between different parts of your own self? Why anyone
thinks that having an inner struggle proves free will, I will never know, but hopefully, after reading this, certain people will never use it again.

Some of you might think I’m beating a dead horse with 10 different sticks, but when people don’t accept that it’s dead, you have to utterly destroy it…and then, send them a memo.

Now, whatever the reason you give for what determines our choices, it all comes back to god. In christianity and some other religions, god is the creator of all. In most religions, he is omnipotent and omniscient. If, at the moment god creates the first element of the universe (whatever that might be), he knows how everything will interact and play out, based on his creation, so our fate is set in stone. If god knows no boundary of time, and can see or be any where in history, present, or future, it’s as if he’s dictating every single event in time.

Reposted with permission of AKR

An essay on free will - Section 1

I thought I would tackle the topic of free will. Some of my argument will relate to any religion involving a god or gods (or no god at all), but when I use scriptural references, they will be biblical, as that is the religion I am most familiar with, and it is the religion of most people I argue with. I made this essay fairly detailed, because I have addressed this topic again and again with people, and I always end up banging my head against the wall. I feel this tends to be because most people do not understand psychology, and if you don’t understand what forms your personality in the first place, then you really aren’t in a position to debate the topic. It’s like debating the big bang when all you think you know was that it was a literal explosion, or debating car engines when you’ve never even looked under the hood of one.

First, let’s lay down the basics of what a personality is and where it comes from. According to Columbia Encyclopedia, “personality, in psychology, [is] the patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion unique to an individual, and the ways they interact to help or hinder the adjustment of a person to other people and situations.” I’m sure you’re all saying “duh,” but I want to be clear.

So, how do personalities develop? Today, the majority of psychologists agree that it is a combination of nature and nuture, that is, there are both biological and environmental factors that help shape and change a personality.

Let’s look at the environmental aspect. Sociology is the scientific field of study that focuses on how a person’s environment affects them mentally. In sociology, “environment” isn’t just talking about trees, grass, bears, rainbows, and other hippy stuff-it’s talking about any stimulus that is perceived by the brain. So, our interaction with other people, animals, smells, tastes, sounds, etc-these are all stimuli which make up our environment. These help shape who we are.

Look at a culture on the other side of the planet. Why are they that way? Has their biology driven them to have a culture different than yours? No, because you can take a baby from any culture around the world, bring it up in your culture, and it will speak your language and for the most part, follow your ways.Children are not pre-programmed for their culture. Now, there is always the exception, in which you will have someone go outside of the norm, but these are never cases of someone having the instinctual drive to behave according to the culture you took them from.

Is it a coincidence that most religious people believe in the same religion as their parents, regardless of whether or not they are adopted? Is it a coincidence that children who are abused are more likely to grow up and abuse others? Is it a coincidence that most children grow up to have the similar political views as their parents? Is it a coincidence that children of overweight parents often grow up to be overweight as well? Is it a coincidence that children with parents who have addiction problems tend to grow up to have similar issues?

Anyone who spends time around children knows what sponges they are. You can shape them to a large extent. There is a well known story of a girl called Genie, which every North American psychology or sociology student learns about at some point. It’s a sad story of a thirteen-year-old girl who was found locked in a closet. She had been locked in there for ten years. She spent her days tied to a potty chair, and her nights tied in a sleeping bag. She was never let out for social interaction. (http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=genie)

She was studied by many scientists, and ended up being fostered by the head of the scientific group that studied her. She behaved like an animal at first, and after about six months, she was more like an 18-20-month-old child. Throughout the years, she showed great improvement, learning complex ideas and non-verbal communication, but she never learned to form normal sentences. The scientists determined that she was not retarded, but that the lack of stimulus during crucial development stages had caused her left brain to become virtually inactive. As far as we know, she never aquired the skills of sentence construction.

When you look at the story of this girl, you realize just how much your environment (socialization) determines who you become. Without a “normal environment, you do not develop a “normal” personality. There are countless cases of abused children growing up to become abusers themselves, or be attracted to one. They are also more prone to substance abuse and criminal activity.

Now, some of you are probably thinking “oh, he’s just making up excuses for them.” You might even have your own personal experience, where you went through a tough childhood, or know someone who did, and you think things “turned out just fine.” Well, that’s great for you or them, but that only shows that you or others are biologically more resilient than most. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that adults with certain problems are more likely to have had a terrible childhood? Do you think those children chose to grow up and have terrible lives? Who really wants a drug problem? Or anger issues? Who wants to ruin their life and everyone elses life by being an alcoholic? Who wants any number of personality disorders caused by a tragic child hood? Anyone?…..Anyone at all?

On a superficial level, you may think we have choices, and we all choose who we are, but can anyone really deny that everyone struggles with certain problems? According to the bible (and many other religions), everyone sins (Romans 3:23). I’m sure you have your own “vices.” There are “sins” or bad behavior that you wish you had no desire for, but you do, and sometimes, you partake in that activity. People end up with addictions. Would you deny that a person with a clinical addiction to alcohol has a harder time staying away from a drink? Or that a person addicted to pain pills, or other drugs has a harder time staying clean? Or that someone who’s smoked a pack a day has a harder time staying away from cigarettes? These addictions are actually caused by physical activity in the brain. It’s not due to some magical entity, like a demon, or some other spirit. Scientists can observe this activity in the brain.

People who believe in free will within their religion tend to think that, ultimately, the choices are up to us, and we can either seek help from god, or give in to the devil, who’s making it difficult. But when you can observe the physical causes and effects that define our actions, there’s no room for “spiritual warfare” in these cases. We can observe the cause and affect in the lab, and that’s all there is to it.

The tobacco industry doesn’t put satan in their products-they put in nicotine. Pharmaceutical companies don’t put demons into their products-they put in elements that cause a chemical change in the brain, which can cause addiction. There are physical explanations for these behaviors.

Now, let’s talk a little about the biological factors. Biology is hard to separate from the environment, because, technically, the enviroment affects our biology. Our senses pick up information from the environment, and cause a physical reaction to our biology. But in this instance, I mean biology as it relates to your genetic makeup, and how that affects who you are.

Reposted with the permission of the author AKR

What is a Skeptic?

Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:19 pm    Post subject: What is a Skeptic?
It can be hard being a skeptic sometimes. It seems like everywhere you turn there is more and more nonsense. Television shows like “Psychic Detective” pass off anecdotal stories as fact. Even so called informative channels, such as the History Channel and Discovery Channel have more than their fair share of nonsense. Shows about UFOs, bigfoot, and the supernatural seem to overshadow the good programing. These kinds of shows on such legitimate channels give an air of respectability to these claims that are often backed up by poor evidence. And the public’s knowledge about science, history, geography, and just about every subject seems to be getting worse. A Gallop Poll from 1991 shows the level of belief in nonsense in the US, and it isn’t pretty. Even though it is a somewhat old poll, I suspect that the numbers haven’t changed much. 52% Astrology 33% Atlantis 41% think dinosaurs and humans lived simultaneously 65% Noah’s flood 35% Ghosts None of these have any solid evidence to back them. I think Michael Shermer put it best when he asked “What is a Skeptic?” “What does it mean to be a skeptic? Some people believe that skepticism is rejection of new ideas, or worse, they confuse “skeptic” with “cynic” and think that skeptics are a bunch of grumpy curmudgeons unwilling to accept any claim that challenges the status quo. This is wrong. Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas—no sacred cows allowed. In other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. Ideally, skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe. Skeptics are from Missouri—the “show me” state. When we hear a fantastic claim we say, “that’s nice, prove it.” Skepticism has a long historical tradition dating back to ancient Greece when Socrates observed: “All I know is that I know nothing.” But this pure position is sterile and unproductive and held by virtually no one. If you are skeptical about everything, you would have to be skeptical of your own skepticism. Like the decaying subatomic particle, pure skepticism uncoils and spins off the viewing screen of our intellectual cloud chamber.” Skeptics should not be too closed minded, but instead base our knowledge on evidence. As Carl Sagan said “Extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary evidence.” Skeptics should use the scientific method of observation, description, prediction, control, and falsifiability to evaluate claims. Sagan also came up with the Baloney Detection Kit, which skeptics should utilize. http://www.skepticreport.com/skepticism/baloneydetectionkit.htm Skeptics should also be able to tell a bad scientific argument from a good one. http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/arguments.html In Shermer’s book Why People Believe Weird Things he lists some tactics of pseudoscience. Even though he is talking about the holocaust denial movement, he describes the tactics as “eerily similar” to other groups. 1. They concentrate on their opponents weak points, while rarely saying anything definitive about their own position. 2. They exploit errors made by scholars and imply since some of their conclusions may have been wrong, they all are. 3. They make use out of context quotes. One example is the Darwin and the eye quote often used by anti evolutionists. 4. The mistake honest debate over the details in a particular field as a sign of weakness of the entire field. 5. They focus on the unknown and ignore what is known. I also recently read about some research into Chiropractors who reject germ theory and vaccinations. The tactics are similar to what Shermer noted, but they deserve mention. 1. They doubt the science. Basically they claim the science to support what goes against their personal beliefs isn’t good enough, no matter what the amount of evidence is. 2. Question the motives and integrity of scientists. This is common in pseudoscience as many people believe there is a huge conspiracy among scientists to further some secret goal. For instance, the claim that climatologists who study global warming are in it for the money and are trying to bring socialism to the US is a serious claim, backed up by poor evidence, usually quotes. 3. Magnify disagreements and cite gadflies as authorities. This is similar to Shermer’s number four tactic. The citing of Gadflies is where someone ignores 99% of all scientists in one field but accept the one that supports their personal beliefs. 4. Exaggerate potential harm. This is like when creationists claim that teaching evolution in schools will lead to violence, which once again, is not supported by any good evidence. 5. Appeal to personal freedom. To use creationists as an example again, this is similar to when they want the schools to teach religion in science class and “let the students decide.” Of course they usually only want their religion taught and no others. 6. Acceptance repudiates key philosophy. This is when someone refuses to accept something, no matter how much evidence there is, because it will destroy their personal beliefs. For instance, germ theory deniers will not accept the fact that disease is caused by germs because it goes against their belief that disease is caused by other factors. The amount of evidence is irrelevant to these people. They are True Believers. Posted with permission from the author Gerald (Riptor) an author of http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/forum/index.php http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4881

AskMeHelpDesk.com

Yippee! This is yet another forum where we can let our voices be heard. There are many other cool things on there as well, but I joined a couple of days ago and if nothing else it’s driving traffic to our site, just like some of the people on that site say. A lot of the talk about Luci’s issue is whether or not it’s legit, and I can understand their concern. However, I, as well as Luce and Rival, are trying to impress upon the readers there that this isn’t a ploy for Luci to get money nor is it something that we are using to get people to our site. Let’s get over there and give all the information that we have. The more the merrier!!

The Demonization Of Matthew (or Religion is the Problem, not the Answer)

Matthew Murray’s world was haunted by demons.

Somehow, a child of a prominent doctor, someone who was home schooled in a comfortable Denver suburb, evolved from would-be Christian missionary to a killer trying to rain Columbine down on the Christian world.

A family spokesman said Murray grew up in a loving home. But other interviews and what appear to be Murray’s own online ramblings portray a disturbed individual who resented his sheltered upbringing, had problems with his mother, heard voices in his head, felt rejected and abused — and yet appeared to be searching for a place to belong.

He sought refuge in everything from an online forum for recovering Pentecostals to an occult group.

End of quote and beginning of my rant.

I feel so much pity for this young man. It was no loving home he grew up in; if it was his parents would have known about his problems. Voices in his head? Did they think it was Jesus talking to him? Wasn’t it a warning? Or is it a given that the religious expect to hear voices? Isn’t that what is taught from the pulpit and in the Bible where and everpresent but invisible being hears and sees everything we do and say, but only speaks to the chosen in the heads?

I know only too well about the isolation of growing up in a fundie home. No one to talk to, no one to discuss anything with; from religion to social aspects. God is supposed to be your best friend and he is supposed to provide all the answers. The contrary is however true. God is not the answer, it is the problem; remove God/Allah with his unfair and inhuman expectations out of the equation and leave us to be normal human beings with normal desires and emotions.

I blame Mathews parents and ultimately religion for what happened. When the bubble burst and Mathew needed support, he was alone; so he went on internet forums to have the outlet he so desperately needed. He wanted to disassociate himself from his religious background but was so brainwashed that it caused him only pain and anguish, intense bewilderment and in the end, a tragedy.

What will happen now is that fundie parents will prohibit their children to have access to the internet - and the snowball becomes only bigger. The young men and women will become increasingly isolated and bewildered in a world full of temptation, a flesh and blood body screaming for release which is sinful in the eyes of the God they pray to.

A few of Mathew’s cries for help on forums:

I remember growing up in pentecostalism/evangelicalism, we were always told to support the republicans/conservatives and to “hate those evil satanic democrats.” Jesus never said to put our trust in any political leader, yet we see so many christians trying sooooo hard to believe that “America was founded on fundamentalist evangelical christianity and we must turn america back towards God!!!(the evangelica/fundamentalist/pentecostal version nontheless)”

Another one:

Internet was treated as one of Satan’s special weapons in the “end-times” to promote sex(which everyone knows is of the Devil…..) Everyone was terrified that one of us teenagers *might* get a glimpse of a naked body and become demon possessed. This always confused me for how can viewing what God designed be satanic at the same time? And if we “lust” are the demons able to read our thoughts and somehow *know* to seize upon us? Isn’t it possible to see nudity without *lusting* somehow? Of course, the senior pastor’s two oldest children, one male the other female, got someone pregnant and got pregnant; the other two younger ones were proven to be sexually active. Other church leader’s children were sexually active.

More important:

Well, I got all fed up with the insanity, hypocrisy, conflicting doctrines, the and lack of absolute answers in regards to “salvation,” heaven and hell and other theological issues, the child abuse, brainwashing, lies, gossip, scandals, threats and fear mongering. I got tired of always hearing “oooohh, you’re saved by grace, not by works!” “Everybody loves you! Jesus loves you!” only to hear about how I was going to hell for watching “The simpsons” or could lose my salvation and could never be certain if 30 years from now I might lose it due to some odd sin and die in an accident and end up in this eternal hell preached to us day and night.

Me, I found a new Law to live by and I realized……I don’t have to be abused nor submit to these liars and their lies nor do I have to be afraid of this make-believe hell and false theory of salvation which no fundamentalist Christian could ever give solid answers on.

Me and many others are waking up.
We will rise up above and against these abuses against humanity.
Men will no longer be ruled by fear and superstition, oppressed by bigotry and tyranny.

In his own words.

The absurdity of religion - Part 2.

Part 2 of my summary of:

An introduction by Christopher Hitchens to the book: The Portable Atheist.

The Human Species has been in existence for at least 150,200,000 years. It’s a mere instance in evolutionary time.

In order to subscribe to monotheistic religion, one must believe that humans were born, struggled, waged wars, loved, worked and died during all this time; often dying in childbirth for want of basic nurture, died young of diseases, and with a life expectancy of perhaps 30 years at the most.

Add to these the turf wars between discrepant groups and tribes, alarming outbreaks of disease which had no germ theory to explain it, let alone palliate them, plus associated natural disasters and human tragedies.

And yet, for all these millennia heaven watched with with indifference and then; only in the last 6,000 years at the very least; decided it was time to intervene as well as to redeem. Heaven would only intervene and redeem in the remote area of the Middle East, thus ensuring that even more generations would expire before the good news begin to spread.

The willingness to even entertain such elaborately crazy ideas involves much more than the suspension of disbelief, or the dumb credulity that greet magic tricks.

It also involves ignoring or explaining away the many religious beliefs that pre-dates Moses. Richard Dawkins may have phrased it most pungently when he argued that everybody is an atheist in saying in saying there is a god - from Ra to Shiva - in which he does not believe.

The man made character of religion from which monotheism promises to deliver us at least in its pagan form, persists in a terrifying shape in our own modern time as believers fight each other over the correct interpretation, even kill in battles over doctrine.

There seems to be what the poet Shelly once called the necessity of atheism. Ons cannot avoid taking a position. Either one attributes one’s presence here to the laws of biology and physics, or one chooses intelligent design.

Once one chooses to believe that human life is worth living, one can combat one’s natural pessimism by stoicism and the ignoring of illusion. There are beauties in science and extraordinary marvels in nature; there is consolation and irony in philosophy, there are infinite splendors in literature and poetry. There is the grand resource of art and music and architecture - any one of these enough to absorb in a lifetime.

We as atheists can find awe and magnificence and splendor without having to invocate the supernatural. Anyone surrounded by art and culture and literature and philosophy is likely to be bored by by supernatural and spiritual gibberish.

Religion is more than the belief in a supreme being or creator. It is the cult
of that being and the belief that it’s wishes have been made known or can be determined or even altered by prayer or meditation.

Something horrible has now happened to religion. Apart from places where it can still be enforced by fear, superstition and ignorance, it has become one opinion or interpretation amongst many. It is forced to compete in the free market of ideas and ideologies and has to stand in open debate and submit to free inquiry. The main enemy they now, face is “faith-based”.

Reposted from  The Atheist Toolbox

The absurdity of religion - Part 1.

A short, condensed summary of the first part of:

An introduction by Christopher Hitchens to the book: The Portable Atheist.

The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish episodes of ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus “miracles” attested to , and scapegoats, like Jews or heretics or witches - hunted down and burned. The few men of science and reason and medicine had all they could do to keep their libraries and labs intact, or their very lives safe from harm. Of course, when the evil had “passed over”, there were equally idiotic ceremonies of hysterical thanksgiving, propitiating whatever local deities may be.

One is usually told, as an unbeliever that it is old fashioned to rail against the primitive stupidities and cruelties of religion because after all, in the enlightened times the old superstitions have died away. Nine times out of ten in debate with a cleric, one will be told not of some dogma or religious certitude but of some instance of charitable or humanitarian work undertaken by a religious person. Our response is to issue a challenge: name an ethical statement made or action performed by a believer that could not have been made a non believer.

Against the insane eschatology with its death wish and its deep contempt for the life of the mind, atheists have always argued that this world is all we have, and that our DUTY is to one another to make the very best of it all. Theism cannot coexist with this unexceptional conclusion.

To be charitable, one may admit that the religion often seem unaware of how insulting their main preposition actually is. Exchange views with a believer even for a short time, and let us make the assumption that this is a mild and decent believer who does not open the bidding by telling you that your unbelief will endanger your soul and condemn you to hell. It will not be long before you are politely asked how you can possibly know right from wrong.

The working assumption is that we have no moral compass if we do don’t somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship.

Religion was the human race’s first and worst attempt to make sense of reality. It was the best the species could do at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine.

We did not know we lived on a round planet, that the said planet was in orbit in a minor and obscure solar system, which as at the edge of an unimaginably vast cosmos that was exploding away from it’s original source of energy.

We did not know that micro-organisms were so powerful and lived in our digestive systems in order to enable us to live, as well as mounting lethal attacks on us as parasites.

We did not know of our close kinship with other animals. We believed that sprites, imps, demons and djinns were hovering in the air about us.

It has taken us a long time to shake off the heavy blanket of ignorance and fear, and every time we do, there are self-interested forces who want to compel us to cower under it again.

Religion was our first attempt at philosophy, alchemy was our first attempt at chemistry and astrology our first attempt to make sense of the movements of the heavens.

All of these things cater to our inborn stupidity, and our willingness to be persuaded against all evidence that we are indeed the center of the universe and that everything is arranges and created with us with us in mind.

Let us grant the assumption that some “thing” was indeed present at creation and gave the order to let matter explode to let th evolutionary process begin here on the far away little blue planet.

On what authority can he hope to show that the original flying part of matter was set in motion with the object of influencing life on a minute speck of a planet , billions of years later, at the very margins of the whirling nebulae and amid the extinction of innumerable other worlds?

Isn’t id odd that religion, which continually enjoins an almost masochistic modesty upon us in the face of god, should encourage such an extreme and impossible form of self-centerdness and self-regard?

What kind of creator is so wasteful and capricious and approximate? What kind of creator is so cruel and indifferent?

And- most of all: what kind of designer or creator only chooses to reveal himself to semi-stupefied peasants in a remote desert reason?

Not even highly intelligent believers understand the “mind of god”.

The religious person claims to KNOW that this creative force is an intervening one who cares for our human affairs and is interested in what we eat and with whom and how we have sexual relations, as well as in the outcomes pf battles and wars. (Not to mention sporting games).

To be continued.

Cross posted from The Atheist Toolbox.

Creationist Fired, Sues

Nathaniel Abraham takes a job at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He then writes a letter to his boss, basically saying “I think evolutionary theory is wrong” and offers to work in the non-evolutionary areas of this evolutionary biology lab. Instead, his boss fires him.

Apparently, they already had a janitor.

Anyway, he is suing for $500,000, claiming he was a victim of religious persecution.

Let me get this straight: You’re hired to do a job. You tell your boss that you can’t do the job. What, exactly, do you think is going to happen?

I’m scouring the classifieds for church jobs…

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