The Ineffectually Inferior Nature of Supernatural Thinking: Or a Short Blasphemy

Scottish philosopher David Hume put the nail in the coffin, so to speak, on the philosophical plausibility of miracles over 200 years ago.

The Benson study of intercessory prayer at Harvard University settled the matter beyond a reason of a doubt. If you can’t wish for a miracle, nor be able to ask God for a miracle, then what good is a miracle?

Like Professor Daniel C. Dennett I agree that anyone who still affirms a belief in miracles needs to give a really really really good explanation. (Emphasis on the reallys is mine)

With no prayer there can be no miracle, unless God is omniscient, knowing all, and then a whole slew of logical problems arise. For example, if God knew everything, this would make his knowing that humanity would sin sort of creepy.

It would be total subjection and submission to worship a being which framed us into committing the worse possible crime against him and then chose to punish us for it (which he already knew he was going to do—which makes it premeditated). A bit depraved and cruel if you ask me. Again, why worship such a God?

Then there is the matter whether or not God was truly omnipotent, because if knowing everything wasn’t enough, being ALL powerful comes with its own set of worries. For example, if we were living under the suppressive force of a tyrannical *all knowing *all powerful God, then there would be absolutely no reason for Jesus Christ’s death, because like Muslims, I’d have to agree, when they say Allah just forgave humanity--because he is that powerful. End of discussion.

So for God to know the mind of a sinner and be an all loving being, as the theologians like to remind us, but not have the power to forgive them *outright* for these sins is a contradiction. Christians will often say, but... but... but he chose to sacrifice his only begotten son and redeem all of humanity! Christ is our salvation, they will plead. And this shows the limit of their imaginations, because if God was *all knowing and *all powerful and and *all loving are we to believe this plan--to kill his own son--was the absolute best he could think of?

To save someone else’s life (vicariously) by sacrificing one's own son in a ritualistic blood sacrifice is nonsensical. How does this exactly atone for our sins? Instead, if Christ was divine, and chose to masturbate in a symbolic ritualistic way (not that much better and spilling blood) wouldn’t this suffice? I mean, if God was *all powerful, and this was the best way to save our immortal souls, would he not have chosen this means of symbolic masturbation instead?

See, the idea of a blood sacrifice IS that disturbing and grotesquely ludicrous, not to mention, inadequate for a God who supposedly has the power to will any alternative into existence. A blood sacrifice seems rather primitive and Bronze aged if you ask me. In fact, if you think about it, it's just plain stupid. Sort of like a masturbating Christ.

Not that it really matters anyway, after all, Jesus came back alive a few days later (or so the story goes). Why even waist one's time with a blood sacrifice? At least we know why people masturbate, it's fun, and occasionally pleasurable. Picture it with me for a moment--not the masturbating part but the aftermath of the atonement (get your mind out of the gutter)--so Jesus dies a horrible and gruesome death by crucifixion, and while all the disciples are in mourning, sitting around lamenting and reminiscing about the messiah’s death, low and behold, who should materialize through the wall? In bursts a fully materialized Jesus (in the flesh!) and freaks everyone out!

“Holy hell! You scared the living bajeezus out of us Jesus!”

“Well it’s me! I’ve died and come back for you!”

But looking awfully divinely reconstituted, Thomas doubts, and says, “Oh yeah?! Prove you’re actually the same Jesus we knew!”

“Oh ye of little faith, gaze upon my completely new heavenly body and behold the wounds I received from yesterday! Or the day before, or before that even! Actually, it doesn't really matter. Go ahead, touch them, just stick your fingers in and wiggle them around a bit, see for yourself!”

But when some of the women disciples rush up to touch Jesus he warns them that he cannot be touched! And in the same story in another book, there is no Jesus but just an empty garden, with perhaps a gardener. So you could either conclude that they mistook Jesus for the local gardener, or else, that the gardener was Jesus? 

But what’s this business about not being able to be touched when he then tells Thomas to dig around in his wounds? Logic FAIL! And where does this mysterious garden come from and what's it's purpose in the Gospels--since it has absolutely nothing to do with the continuity or setting of the plot? Continuity FAIL! Just like the torn shroud and the last supper, major continuity fails all around.

Eventually Thomas does come around, but his skepticism is well deserved, because the two possibilities are this: 1) this is the messiah resurrected—in the flesh! The very son of God no less! (Let's not forget that Jesus is also co-eternal with God, therefore God kills his son and commits suicide to save us! Wait... what? How does this map out?) 

OR... 2) It’s some lunatic who popped a couple of metal stakes through his hand as to appear to be a resurrected messiah and is now joyfully asking people to painfully inflict more damage by aggravating his open wounds! And what kind of sick, perverted, sadomasochist would do such a thing?

Indeed, no amount of celestial glowing techniques will do away with the inherent contradictions of the story. But just ignore them, why not, it’s certainly easier to just go along with the larger themes, because these are what really matter; unless of course, they seem so incredible, so utterly unbelievable, and so ultimately irrational in such a magnitude as to cause the story to lose its significance and be totally ridiculous.

I'm sure God has better things to do, such as stopping the universe (he apparently designed) from imploding and self destructing. But oh well, let's ignore the science, since it seems as though he was a crackpot designer anyway, since he designed the universe in just such a way as to make it seem that he does not exist! That or somebody fell asleep behind the wheel again.

I mean seriously, after getting out a few blasphemies I guess I'll go play with my useless nipples (thanks God for them, they're great! But what on God's green earth are they for? On women, yes! Love it, wouldn’t change a thing! They serve a purpose. On me… really? Is it an aesthetic thing? 

This design thing baffles me. Strange though that the whole intelligent design thing is predicated on the necessity of purpose in nature, that obviously specific and purposeful traits then act as proof of having been designed to fulfill a specific purpose, all except for my man-nipples that is. So maybe design doesn’t need a purpose? But then doesn’t this negate the argument in the first place? Has anyone even seriously thought about this? I mean, come on! I think I’ll stick with the theory of evolution, at least it doesn’t cause me any cognitive discord).



So thanks for reading, and I apologize if I had any spelling errors, but at least the space time continuum is stable! (For now) And since a blasphemy is technically a sin, and a death sentence for an eternity in hell (if you can't dissuade yourself from believing--and you're just stuck a debased sinner regardless) then I say why not add a little coveting to it just to make it juicier and all the more scandalous?

 

I like big butts and I cannot lie.

How about a little idol worship on top? (But it's okay, honest to God, because it's the Judeo-Christian God's wife Asherah, as if we could forget about her!)

And heck, is it so wrong that I find Haruna Ai attractive (even though she's a trans)?

An Unassuming Historicity: Tracing Jesus’ Historical Roots

 

1.      If we have a clear cut idea of when a supposed historical figure lived and died, and what they did in-between, we can have a better overview of events of their lives which tie into the fabric of history, and if they hold up well against scrutiny, gain credibility. If, for some reason, these events are indistinct or else lack corroboration then it becomes increasingly difficult to place the person or event in the proper historical context.

2.      Consider these simple questions:

a.      When and where was Jesus of Nazareth born?

b.      When and where did Jesus of Nazareth die?

c.      What was his mission/ How does history contrast this with what his followers said?

A-1: An uncertain birth date quite often means an uncertain existence, or else a mythologized one. It is a well established fact that Jesus was not born on December 25^th in a manger in Bethlehem as commonly believed in the Christian Nativity tradition. In fact, from what I can discern, the Jesus Christ of the New Testament is, in all likelihood, mainly an amalgamation of mythic deities and heroic figures such as Oedipus, Apollonius of Tayana, Hercules, Romulus, Empedocles, Adonis, Tammuz, Osiris, Attis, Mithra, Dionysus, and Odysseus.[i]

Where was Jesus born? Not in Bethlehem. Most historians agree that Jesus was born in Nazareth, since this is the city he was initially from, where his parents lived, and where he had family ties. When was he actually born? Nobody knows, although there have been numerous speculations and guesses, none of them historically substantiated, and as such, they become negligible as they don’t get us very far. We do not know when Jesus was supposedly born and we have an unconvincingly vague guess as to where.

B-1: Jesus death is as about as curious as his popping into existence. This second date, the demise of Jesus, believe it or not, is as mysterious and perplexing of a mystery as that of his birth date. Again, we are left to surmise.

Good critical thinkers know that evidence which should exist but does not gives reason to be skeptical. Either the evidence is lost or else nonexistent. By contrast, we happen to have impeccable records of the time periods both prior and hither to the already well documented first century. Subsequently we know, to cite one example, that Cleopatra VII, the last of the Ptolemies, was born in 69 B.C.E, became co-ruler of Egypt in 51, was exiled in 48, restored by Julius Caesar in 47, met Mark Antony at Tarsus in 41 consequently sparking one of the greatest love affairs in antiquity, had children together in around 37, and after all this lost everything to Octavian Augustus in 32 in the Battle of Actium. Finally, we know that her empire divided and her fortunes plundered, a destitute Cleopatra committed suicide in 30 B.C.E.[ii]

Now if the news of Queen Cleopatra’s death resounded throughout the ancient world, certainly the news of the King of the Jews, a genuine messiah, who returned to life after being put to death by Imperial Rome, would have been news worthy enough to have been recorded by numerous keenly interested historians. This would yield an ability to corroborate all of their detailed accounts of this unforgettable event and give us an exact date of such an incredible event. But low and behold, before any such date can be given we need to know when Christ died, if he died, so that a resurrection account would be at all believable. Quite unlike Cleopatra’s headline suicide several years earlier however, we have no idea when the man Jesus, called the Christ, actually died. We have approximations and estimates which (according to the barely reliable Gospel sources and the frequently unreliable Jewish historian Josephus Flavius)[iii] estimate that Jesus died somewhere between c.30 and 33 C.E.

The lack of sturdy historical corroboration and indistinct dates surrounding Christ’s death and rebirth scenario is indicative that it is a later Christian tradition which was amended to the already established atonement story that was conveniently historicized to fit, or rather align, with mainstream history for all too obvious reasons.

C-1: What do we know of Jesus’ spiritual mission? A lot actually. Modern scholarship and Higher Criticism of the New Testament, such as Form, Source, and Redaction criticism, along with new archeological finds such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library,[iv] have done wonders to reveal the roots of early Christianity. The problem is most all of it is trapped within the confines of Judeo-Christian tradition only, and few if any reliable sources exist independently outside of the Christian framework within that time frame which can be validated. This alone should leave us highly suspicious since the overwhelming predisposition is that, basically, only Christians have the historical “truth” because no other historical account exists, therefore are free to state any Christian story they deem satisfactory as a Christian truth, according to themselves, and this is a bias which shouldn’t be overlooked when considering the trustworthiness of a historical piece of information.

The fact that we only have Christian tradition to rely on and inform us on Jesus Christ’s life may even be an indirect indicator for why record of Jesus’ birth date and physical time of death did not survive. One plausible explanation is that, Jesus, a rather controversial Jewish preacher, became mythologized, as to lose his historical ties, therefore Yeshua of Nazareth’s real life birthday and death are supplanted by orthodox Christian tradition, displaced by his larger than life legend, and become antiquated and soon forgotten in the process. Accordingly, the Jewish Yeshua, a humble servant of Yahweh and an apocalyptic preacher of unassuming class, becomes the mighty messiah, King of the Jews, aka Jesus the Christ almost overnight! Another possibility is that the real historical Yeshua was just too inconsequential, so insignificant, that nobody cared to remember his personal details enough to care to write his biography. A man who was not of nobility or of renown could not possibly hope to grab the undivided attention of important historians under commission of the Caesars and Kings. Indeed, this is what we find to be the case. Only later doe the Jesus legend become note worthy, but by this time it already caries with is the stamp of evangelicalism and the prevailing attitude of the early Christian church.[v]

Conclusion: Contrary to what Christians might think, the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are highly suspect, and what’s more, cannot simply be considered historical facts. Because the fact of the matter is, when investigated in detail and critically scrutinized, they fall short every time of meeting the basic prerequisites for what qualifies as historically reliable.

For me personally, this information detracts from the Christian faith immensely. It makes it, in all honesty, uncertain. Christian apologists will claim that since we cannot prove that Jesus did not exist, or that he did not die upon the cross, or that he wasn’t born of a virgin birth then they are safe to maintain their overly confident faith, but only (I might caution) at the sake of making it exceedingly vague and nebulous thus impervious to exacting criticism, and therefore, this formless variety of Christianity is even less likely to be the authentic historical account. In fact, Christians are only left with what is, quite frankly, unbelievable, and that’s before getting into the philosophical arguments about the shakiness of Christian doctrine and theology. Suffice to say, what we have here, everything we know about Jesus’ historical record, just isn’t good enough to establish a basic historical conviction to hinge a belief on.

Biblical scholar and historian James D. Tabor has recently put forth, “The history of ideas always remains a tenuous enterprise with no definable terminia post/ad quem,” that is to say, no precise knowledge can ever be gained as to what really occurred absolutely. I tend to agree. Definitive historical conclusions are always the hardest to establish, we only have our best guess, but at the end of the day our best approximations must be based on solid and sturdy research, and not simple unfounded convictions, and that’s why I find that Jesus Christ’s historical chronology is nowhere near trustworthy. As for his historicity, that too is put into question by the failure to establish a reliable historical chronology of confirmed (basic) events.

---

[i] See: The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by historian Barbara Walker

The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man by Professor Robert M. Price

Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? by Dennis R. MacDonald

The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark by Dennis R. MacDonald

The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “original Jesus” a Pagan God? by Peter Gandy & Timothy Freke

[ii] See: The Oxford Dictionary of World History and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra

[iii] See: The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave Ed. By Robert M. Price

The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty

Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier

Who Wrote the New Testament: The Making of Christian Myth by Burton L. Mack

References and Resources on Josephus Flavius:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10.htm

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/josephus.html

http://www.oldwritings.com/writings/josephus.html

[iv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nag_Hamadi and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea_scrolls

[v] See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Christianity

Psalm 14: Poetry or Propaganda?

 

“The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.”(KJV)

Many evangelical Christians like to quote from Psalm 14:1 to show that atheism is a rebellious form of foolishness which corrupts the person so that “They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.”

Yet is this unflattering attempt at demonization simply directed at nonbelievers in general? Or is it something more?

First a distinction needs to be made. Atheism is not an emotional position of understanding, nor is it a nihilist philosophy about the belief in nothing (as so often wrongly assumed). It lacks a dogma to drive it toward devotional convictions and believing blinding in doctrine (a doctrine it lacks). Atheism, simply put, is the lack of belief in the supernatural, period. It's not unbelief, it is disbelief. Atheist believe in many things, God just isn't one of them.

Religion, by and far, is largely predicated on emotional feelings of a deep seeded desire to be loved, to belong, to be worthy, all seemingly human desires, with the exception of the last bit to prove oneself through pious service to a divine being. This amendment, in God we trust, makes religion a romance affair between peoples emotions and their supernatural inclinations, hopes, and fantasies. Atheism is not any of these things.

Instead, one might define atheism as a cogent position stemming from an epistemic knowledge gained by sound reason and solid logic. It’s a deduction of the evidence we do have, a criticism of the evidence we should have in prolific abundance but do not (the more problematic element I would add), and finally, the conclusion the atheist makes is that there is not enough trustworthy evidence to sustain a belief in the supernatural, and everything else is philosophically unstable or fails to hold up to exacting scrutiny. This doesn’t mean a believer can’t have faith, because their concept of deism is (at the least) plausible, but what it does mean is that faith is virtually untenable, therefore unjustifiable, from a critical, skeptical, and well informed outlook.

Atheism is a skeptical position derived from the keener understanding of the proposition, and it uses rationalism as a tool to logically scrutinize and critically analyze the claims of religion. So the question is, when Christians cite Psalms 14:1 as a proof that atheism is a deficiency, and that it can only lead to corruption, abominable acts, and no good can come from it, are they simply reacting to an emotional conviction based on the dogma which with impolite persiflage attacks the character of the atheist in an attempt to pervert public opinion by subverting any redeeming goodness a nonbeliever might innately have?

I would argue yes, insofar as the way modern Christians tend to use this verse as a form of blackmail. A form of blackmail which tries to subvert the goodness of the nonbeliever by perverting their moral character, thereby degrading the nonbeliever, and giving religious people an excuse to despise, or otherwise, distrust the character of those who don’t subscribe to their belief or sect. But even this religious wrought moral persecution is not without criticism, since if we take time to actually think about it, the verse in question merely talks about the “heart” and not the mind. Accordingly, we cannot blame the atheist who has rejected the tenets of religious faith based on rational means. Most atheists I know are privy to the fact that religion does not answer many questions which they can find in science and other world philosophies, and that faith is by no means an enhancement to this deficiency.

As for the propensity to believe in the supernatural, one traditionally has to set aside rational arguments in order to defend their faith based position, and this only leaves a one dimensional emotional layer left to criticize, and often believers feel offended at any askance which should befall them. Apologetics is necessary to defend the believers position, but I find apologetics is never, and can never, be fully objective since it always takes the supernaturalist’s position and begins from there. In order to be truly dispassionate, one must approach one’s beliefs strictly objectively, and take the role of the scientist. Only then will a person see into the inner depths of their own beliefs, but refusing to do so is simply a stratagem that seeks to avoid answering the questions religion is incapable of answering.

Suffice to say, if any religion did answer all questions fully, properly, and satisfactorily there would be no need for apologetics to defend the merit of the religion or the faith in the first place.

But Psalms 14:1 is not just a way to subject the other to slander, but it’s also a form of fideism, or the doctrine that knowledge depends on faith or revelation from god. It’s saying quite literally that those who reject the Christian God are not only being foolish, but they literally equate to fools, since without faith they could never gain proper knowledge about God—and so their opinion is worthless. Again, I cannot see how this is not a biased position which automatically denies any other possibility or belief system than its own.

Even so, when we read Psalm chapter 14 in full, particularly 14:7, we find that it has a very specific agenda in mind. “Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.”

Indeed, the hidden agenda is not so hidden after all. It is apparent that Psalm 14 is a planned attack on those who inhabit the land holy to Jews yet do not believe in the Jewish god. It is a verse which demonizes the gentile and the pagan and the Roman and the Greek and the Arab and all those who are not of the chosen people. It is saying quite clearly, “There are fools in our land! But we will rejoice when God takes Zion back and restores our fortunes!” Never mind how bad of an idea this is in today’s nuclear world. Never mind that Israel’s establishing settlements on the West Bank constitutes theft, and is illegal. Never mind about all that, what is important to note, is Psalm 14’s political message is clearly, without a doubt, propaganda and not poetry.

Antiquated as the sentiment behind Psalm 14 is in the twenty-first century, I still can’t help but find it a little bit insulting. For of a couple of reasons:

1) Ad Hominems: There is no reason to demonize and devalue other people simply because you disagree with them. Ad hominem attacks are used in one of either two ways. First, as a sensationalist tactic to direct attention to oneself, and secondly, as a way to run around the issue without having to account for dodging the question. If anything ad hominem attacks are evidence of someone who is failing to win the argument and is, in all likelihood, incapable of defending their position so they seek to tear down their opponent instead of having to admit defeat and forfeit the debate.The reason religious types resort to it so often it is almost absurd, is because in three thousand years their arguments haven't gotten any better. The atheist and skeptical ones have--as they have progressed along with advances in science and human understanding.

2) Brazen Audacity: As I stated earlier, I never based my atheism on baseless emotionally charged faith based proclivities, but rather, I came to my atheistic stance via a process of objective reasoning, and since it was the choice which left me with the least cognitive dissidence, it was the preferable choice. Granted I may be wrong, but to be proved wrong requires better evidence and explanation, and I am fully open to correct my opinion and changed my mind when I am shown convincing evidence, but as every erudite person knows, incredible claims require equally incredible evidence.

With confidence I think we can say that so far no person of faith has offered any convincing evidence which would hold up to scrutiny adequately enough to cause the most resolute skeptic to reconsider the religious proposition, otherwise we would not be having this debate. And I simply cannot just give them the benefit of the doubt, since their position is not readily tenable. When supposition is all you have to offer you need to earn your comeuppance, that includes gaining credibility and trust and so on.  But religious people often like to pretend they know more than they actually do, state emphatically that God is certain, swear on their holy books that if faith is good enough for them then it should be good enough for anyone, they propose a never ending myriad of ways you ought to live according to their worldviews, and it is in this audacity where they lose my respect, and it is in their failure to answer basic questions they swear they have the answers to where they lose my interest. The bottom line is this, believers need to make their beliefs believable before others will even start to consider them.

So when a believer quotes to me “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,” I can’t help but see this as a clear admission that they have no real ground to stand on. For this ad hominem is the first step to the inevitable surrender of faith, it’s the first sign that, whether they will admit it or not, they are losing ground, and their position is in danger of being overtaken by the advancing forces of science, rationality, and better reason. And although this predicted scenario may not be entirely certain, something even I admit, what is certain is, if it should come to pass, as an atheist I have nothing to lose. The person of faith has everything to lose.

The fool may have said in his heart there is no God, but let me tell you what the atheist has said, while holding fast to intellectual honesty, prove God to me in a convincing fashion, that is testable, dependable, and which is corroborated, and which stands up to scrutiny, and does not have discrepancies or irreconcilable difficulties, and which offers a better alternative to everything I believe in, and which makes good on its promises, and is supported by a superfluity of evidence so convincing that it is virtually undeniable, and this might be persuasive enough to sway my intellect. 

But fool I am not, and that’s why I always wait for the evidence to come in before making decisions. Being prudent and thoughtful is a better virtue, in my estimation, than resorting to brash zealousness. Moreover, an educated guess resulting from a long process of tried and tested, not to forget, critically applied methods is far superior to making a leap of faith and hoping beyond hope that you *might be right. If anything at all, if I may be so bold, it is the religious who take things on faith who are being imprudent, which, ironically enough, is nearly indistinguishable from the foolishness they claim about everyone else—the claim being that a foolish person is one who refuses to understand the truth when it is staring them in the face. In this sense (fideism aside) I would have to agree, those who wish to remain ignorant rather than come to an improved understanding are being fools.

Sincerely,

The Advocatus Atheist

My Atheist Goat Got Trumped!

Yesterday my atheist goat was irate, but today a friend I grew up with who has had a born again Christian experience has made this fundamentalist statement:

Personally, everyday I thank God that I'm his slave/servant/bond-servant.

I can't even put into words how deeply sad this made me feel. To live under this kind of delusion and think it is in some way healthy or okay?  

It’s, regrettably, the surf mentality and the abject worship of authority. It's sadomasochistic devotion to a capricious and unruly dictator whether or not one believes it is their brand of god.

Not to mention it's creepy, like the Pope whipping himself. But I think this pitiful opinion speaks for itself.

My Nonbelieving Goat Gets Irate!

I was reading a Christian friend's Facebook page when I stumbled across a post on what "God Wants You To Know," a quaint devotional bit sent out as a motivational faith bolstering piece of propaganda to subscribers. It read:

... that there is a miracle waiting for you this minute, -please make room for it in your thinking. God has no need to prove anything to you, so if you don't believe in miracles, you are not likely to receive one. How do you believe in miracles? You believe by keeping ...your eyes open, - miracles often come in ways unexpected, and might leave unrecognized unless you pay attention.

My reply was thus:

"...if you don't believe in miracles, you are not likely to receive one."

That's conjecture on the behalf of whoever wrote that. They are assuming God does not work in mysterious ways, as if they knew the mind of God in the first place, neglecting to consider that as God he very well could perform a miracle on a nonbeliever just for kicks and giggles.

I hate it when people write stupid things without thinking about what they are saying. "God has no need to prove anything to you..." Indeed. Why should he if he is an almighty being? But this begs the question, why do believers need "proving"? Because faith would not exist without that which it is predicated on--the proof in God's words. Let's take the whole story of Jesus away, in fact, let's pretend the Bible never existed at all, and see if "God has no need to prove anything to you..." still makes any sense. Prove what, again? One's religion maybe? For that would require doctrine to put one's faith into in the first place.

Logic is lost on some people. (I'm merely making generalizations... this isn't anything about anybody  personally, but things like this just really get my goat.)

We haven't even addressed the impractical nature of miracles and incredibility of miracle claims, but instead of actually offering reliable support of a miracle to substantiate the bald faced assumption that miracles are real, this blurb simply asks us all to "believe" by making room in our minds for the implausible.

Notice what it's doing, it's asserting that it's position is valid (without offering anything which could validate it), it asks that we don't question it (a common tactic in apologetics), and it presumes to know what God is thinking while taking the stance that all skepticism is unnecessary for believing in unsupported, unfounded, and virtually impossible claims. It's asking you not to doubt, not to think critically, and not to demand validation for the claim. Just go along with it... and you'll see.

Yes, I see. It is asking us to happily submit to intellectual slavery, relinquish our better reason, to believe in bogus claims, bunk, and balderdash. To me, this is the epitome of OFFENSIVENESS.

And Christians wonder why atheists are always angry? Well, it would be good advice to stop provoking us by poking and prodding us with your sticks of mass stupidity and aggravating our logic with time wasting twaddle and claptrap so immense, so utterly and completely void of logic, that like a black hole, it generates its own gravitational field. I mean, if believers want to be taken seriously they have to offer something more than ill-(in)formed, unsupported, and logically unsound arguments so deficient a three year old could point it out to you. I dare say, it's just not worth all the aggravation, but somebody had to say it.

The Bible Geek Speaks

Worth listening to the Bible Geek, aka Robert M. Price, at least once.

Live TV by Ustream Click here for David F. Strauss' The Life of Jesus: critically examined made available by Google Books.

Atheist Tactical Secrets: Overwhelming Christians with Information

I've been receiving friendly emails from believers and nonbelievers alike commenting and sometimes even complimenting my writing here. I'm truly grateful for all the positive feedback.

One recent email got me to thinking, and I want to re-post my commentary here, because I think it's a great insight into one of the many transitions of the religionist mind set to a more free thinking mind set.

Dear Friend,

I've been out of Christianity for roughly a year now. I was a Fundamentalist Christian for 29 1/2 years, nearly 3 decades. But even though I'm happy that I've gained enlightenment, I don't regret my time as a Christian, because I learned a lot about the faith and without those more evangelical and radical experiences I may still be a believing Christian today. So in a way, I have my piety and zeal to thank for showing me the corrupted and dangerous ways of dogma.

That said, one does have to desire to, as Kant phrased it, dare to know. Pretending to know, as many Christians are wont to do, just doesn't pass muster. What's more, I tend to agree with Socrates that the unexamined life isn't one worth living, since you'd simply be living somebody else's ideal life according to their views, not your own. It would amount to little more than intellectual slavery, and I find that's what most religion amounts to too.

Friend, I'm glad you think I express things clearly. That's been the biggest challenge... to write comprehensively.

When I get emails from Christians they are frequently all over the place, they rarely ever have a decisive point, other than they're rehearsing all the rhetorical arguments they know, quoting them line and verse. Theists rarely ever support their comments with sources or citations. They rarely ever go outside of the Bible to argue their position. They know almost nothing about Christianity's origins or the history of their faith. When I realized I was this sort of Christian, I realized I was talking out of my hat, and I went back to re-educate myself on what I thought I knew.

I have many friends which are still devout Christians who email me regularly with criticisms of my writings or things I say and they always seem more confused than clairvoyant to me. That is to say they don't see all they claim to and rarely do they ever make any decent sense of what they affirm a belief in, since much of what they profess to believe in is nonsense anyway.

They often make simple logic mistakes, but this is forgivable, logic and critical thinking are skills which need to be honed. They state that they are using reason and then say something totally unreasonable,  such as talking about Croccaducks and how Hurricane Katrina and the disastrous earthquake which rocked Haiti was the consequence of sinfulness. They defend their positions as rational and then ask you to take at face value irrational assumptions and unfounded claims. They often cite their championed holy book (whatever version it might happen to be) as the definitive authority on matters, even as they show their own credulity by doing so.

And all this is called Christian apologetics. 

So, I appreciate your comments about my crystal clear clarity. I'm trying to avoid the pitfalls of what I know all too well to be an inadequate defense when it comes to arguing for what I believe in.

Assuredly, the best way to argue your position, I find, is to be well informed. I don't expect anything less of anybody regardless of their educational background. We all have the ability to find the nearest library and check out a good book. I hold everyone to the same stringent standards I hold myself to. 

Knowledge is the atheist's greatest weapon, and it is the Christian's greatest foil, because anytime an atheist overwhelms a believer with information this puts upon the believer a great hindrance, for now they are stuck with the responsibility of checking up on that girth of information for validity and confirmation.  If they refuse they are ducking the obligation and this detracts from their argument instead of bolstering it.  It's not surprising many choose the latter. It's easier to assume you're right and pretend what you know is credible than having to do the work to prove something correct and thereby gain credibility. Yet this stratagem will never be sufficient to make your claims truth, because the truth is, if it doesn't hold up to scrutiny then it's probably not very reliable.


Most of us find that experience plays a big role in helping us formulate our views and opinions, but it's the uniformed opinion which leads to uniformed views. No matter how convincing the experience may be, it still has to meet the prerequisites of dependability. So, in actuality, I do not pity those who cling to a dwindling faith for the consoling sort of comfort they find in it, but I do pity them because this is the only sort of faith they'll ever allow themselves to have. For those who chime in with the catch phrase 'faith is all you'll ever need', just know that for some people it's not.

There is more. All you have to do is dare to know. 

Meanwhile the atheist is re-arming herself with further details, facts, and increasing her knowledge until she is brimming with information. Why does this tactic work? Because it simultaneously builds the strongest defense for atheism and also causes the most devastating volley against the theist claims. 

Probably this is why so many Christians resort to making the defensive claim that atheists are being snobbish, elitist, sophists as a way to dodge the intellectual attack. But in the end, all that fancy footwork doesn't ensure victory for the theist, it merely postpones the inevitable--the increasing difficulty of validating their claims the more nebulous and out of touch with reality they become. 

When the religious held convictions, views, and ideas no longer fit within the frame or scope or human experience, then they have ceased to be pertinent, because they have ceased to be real to us. This is when religion recedes, slowly growing antiquated, only to turn into mythology, as most religions seem to do given enough time. Faith is reserved for other things, such as science, reason, and humanism; just to name a few selected from an unlimited string of philosophies to gain from.

I find a proper education often leads to a keener understanding--or to put it another way, an education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. Once properly informed, you might find out that you are wrong about your assumptions, and you can re-educate yourself on what you thought you knew. It boils down to what is quantifiable, not what is merely plausible, and certainly not what is supposedly possible. Being erudite will yield a greater chance of actually being correct, and likewise, being knowledgeable will give one the greatest chance of recognizing the truth whenever they should stumble upon it.

In my opinion, Atheism is currently winning the religious debate for the following reasons: 1) the atheist has the unique ability to admit that they don't know what they are talking about, or that they are wrong, or that they have erred, and 2) they have the distinct privilege of going back and correcting their mistakes. 

How many religious people have admitted they were wrong and dropped certain religious claims altogether? Very rarely I should think, since one finds it increasingly difficult to override their dogmatic convictions so easily. That's why there are still people such as Young Earth Creationists, Calvinists, Evolution deniers, not to mention Ray Comfort and Pat Robertson. I guess the adage is true: ignorance is bliss.

The challenge of examining the evidence and looking at all the information is too great for some people, so denial becomes their greatest ally. The religious hardly ever admit error, because if they did, their beliefs would be more than just challenged, they'd be largely discredited. 

Changing one's mind about one's convictions without losing one's faith is a rarity, but I suppose it happens in ecumenical settings often prompting larger overall changes in orthodox opinion when that opinion has ceased to be sensible, such as the Vatican relinquishing the doctrine of Limbo.  It will only be a matter of time before the erroneous doctrine of transubstantiation follows suit and becomes extinct as well. Perhaps after that the idea of virgin births. What will be next? It stems to reason that you can only hold conflicting or incongruous beliefs so long as you are able to reconcile them away. When that luxury ceases to be possible, skepticism wins out.

More importantly though, is that all this assures that Atheism has the upper hand. Thomas had it right, doubting is the only way to test the sincerity of the claim. If you say you are Jesus reborn, then I too want the proof. Balderdash is no supplement for the authentic truth, especially when the truth is readily available! 

Only the foolish would take up blind faith and follow a person without first authenticating the claim or without so much as a care in the world. I guess this means Obi-wan was right to inquire, "Who is more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?"

Free thinking, critical inquiry, diligent scrutiny, along with a healthy dose of skepticism are the atheists tools. But more importantly still, intellectual honesty is our greatest asset. It makes our atheistic position that much more genuine--therefore all the more believable.

And every time a true believer and a Christian brushes aside my skepticism as rebellion, I simply retort, "I guess the devil is in the details."

Sincerely,

Advocatus Atheist