MiloCast

While contemplating the ludicrous  scribblings of an apologist, I had an epiphany. Creationists, and other people who allow religion to limit their thinking, do not only fail to have any curiosity (because their religion already has all the answers), but they persecute anyone who is curious. Consider the whole concept of a geocentric universe: Once you believe a story that says a magic invisible man created Earth for humans and gave us a light bulb called the sun, you’re all done. There’s no need to consider the sun rising in the morning or setting in the evening. Obviously the sun is a mere accessory for Earth — we are the center of the universe as we know it.

Then some guy has the nerve to make observations, write things down, do some math, and ask questions. With nothing other than solid evidence to back him up, he claims that Earth orbits the sun.  What happens? The Catholic Church persecutes him and places him under house arrest until his death.

Of course, now that the  fact is completely indisputable, the church has apologized. But that’s not the point. That they were completely wrong is not the problem at all. People are wrong all the time, and they disagree with others all the time. What is so aggregious about their behavior is that they forced their self-imposed limitations on others. It’s like being afraid of the monster under the bed, but refusing to turn on the light and look. Silly, sure. But when it becomes evil is when you punish your brother for trying to check under the bed himself.

For those who choose to limit their sphere of knowledge, that is a sad thing indeed. But inflicting your ignorance on others is just evil.

While trying to explain to a theist why it isn’t their fault that they were raised irrationally, I hit upon a fantastic rule of thumb. Basically, it goes like this: “The less likely you would have been to believe something if you had heard it from an unknown source, the more you need to examine it before accepting it.”

Parents force religion onto their children before they learn to think about something before accepting it as true. For young children, accepting their parents’ words without question is vital — it keeps them from getting hit by cars and burning themselves in the kitchen.

The same idea applies to anyone we trust. Spouses, parents, teachers, and friends have undue influence on us. So the next time someone tells you about some government conspiracy, a new-age “alternative” to medication, or a UFO sighting, consider the facts before believing them — even if they are someone you love.

As time passes, the whole idea of religion just gets sillier to me. We live in a world where most people  believe in something they can not see. The results of their prayers are indistinguishable from random chance, good things are attributed to their favorite deity, and bad things are written off as beyond our understanding.

Not a single person has a sound reason for their religious beliefs. If such a reason existed, they would have spread it and large numbers of people (if not everyone in the world) would have converted to their religion. Instead, each religion has a set of teachings which were written by people who didn’t know that germs cause illness and that washing your hands prevents the spread of disease.

It’s just a thing people do. Like becoming obsessed with a favorite TV show or celebrity. Some people are so into a video game that they dress up as characters from it and go to national conventions. Humans are a social species, and we like to find others to identify with to become part of an in-group. Religion fills that need very well. The problem is that it comes with a lot of baggage which cause people to do harm to one another.

Basically, being a devoted member of a religion isn’t any different than being a devoted Star Trek fan who speaks fluent Klingon and goes to all the conventions in costume. It’s all a lifestyle choice. So if you have a pet religion at the moment, take a look at it. Ask yourself why you believe it, and what reason you would give someone else so that they can believe in it. You’ll find that it all comes down to the fact that you choose to accept it without reason because you feel like you’re accepted somewhere. You can find that in many other places without all the built-in guilt, fear, and tales of eternal hellfire.

I realized recently (probably fairly late to the game), that there is a simple refutation to all religious beliefs. It can not be contradicted by any honest person. There are only two possible responses: Think about it honestly, or choose to ignore the truth.

Here it is:

Anyone who believes in any gods does so for no other reason than somebody else telling them to. If their religion has a holy book, they only believe the book to have authority because someone told them it does.

That’s it — plain and simple.

If there was any proof of Islam, Christians would convert.

If there was any proof of Hinduism, Jews would convert.

If there was any proof of Buddhism, Muslims would convert.

The simple truth is that more people de-convert and become atheists than convert from one religion to another. Recent polls show that the fastest growing group on surveys about religious affiliation is “None.” Makes perfect sense to me. As a society, we have moved further from superstition, and have become much more capable of dealing with the natural world as it is. Some of this comes from understanding the previously unexplained.

I am happy to see that reason is overcoming superstition at a growing rate. It has come to the point where theists are publishing books with which desperately try to refute the legitimate criticisms of their preferred religion — and failing in that task.

I have started reading a couple of books in that vein, and will write about them on this site. In the meantime, you may perform an extremely simple test. Go to the book store and find a book which attempts to attack rational arguments about how their particular religious beliefs don’t hold water. You will probably find that their representation of the argument against is pretty accurate — they don’t want to be accused of skirting the issue. Next, read their “refutation.” It will always be wordy, imprecise, and will fail to back up any of its claims with facts.

These are exciting times indeed for human enlightenment.

I was listening to the podcast “A Christian and an Atheist” on my way to work this morning, and I had a lot of thoughts about things which were said, but even more about things which were not said. In my next few posts, I’m going to go over some of those things. In this episode, Emery (an atheist), interviewed Pastor Scott Barger. They discussed a list of questions Barger had prepared for atheists.

The first question from Barger was how so many atheists could claim the knowledge that no god exists. He further claims that such people should more honestly refer to themselves as agnostics.

I have two main thoughts about this. The first one is that atheism is simply disbelief in any gods. The fact that some atheists will go further and claim that no gods exist is simply a matter of choice. This shows a misunderstanding of atheism, which was also hinted at when Barger refers to atheism as a “system” and to atheists as people who follow that system. For more on this, see my article “Everything You’ve Heard About Atheists is Wrong — Except one Thing.”

Secondly, the unstated implication of Scott Barger’s question is that people who claim that no god exists should be agnostics, because agnosticism allows for the question to remain open. Obviously, this sentiment stems from his belief in the existence of a god, and his desire for the rest of us to leave the possibility open in case we’re wrong. There are, however, two major flaws in this idea. First, an atheist is open to new information, and can be convinced of the existence of a god if the evidence is presented to us. Most of us will freely admit that. However, agnostics take the position that it’s impossible to know in either case. So while they would, in theory, be convinced as quickly as an atheist in the presence of evidence, their philosophy precludes even looking for such evidence, since they don’t believe there is any possibility of finding any for or against.

Also, and most importantly from a logical perspective, is the simple fact that leaving yourself open to the possibility that there may be a god does not mean that it is just as likely as the non-existence of a god. It’s not a 50-50 bet. Based upon the evidence we have, there is no reason or evidence which indicates that a god exists. That makes the bet more like 100-0 against than 50-50.

Full credit for civility goes to both Scott and Emery for this conversation. It was a respectful, non-combative conversation, which is rare between theists and non-theists. In fact, I don’t remember ever hearing a conversation in which points were made strongly by one side and conceded by the other. I can only hope that these concessions mean that our global conversation on these issues can begin to shed the tired old arguments which have long since been decided and discuss the core of the matter.

Putting up good content regularly requires a lot of time. I did it for a few months, then I asked for some feedback from you (see most recent post before this). Nearly two weeks have passed since then, and not a single person said so much as “hello.” I intentionally did not post since then so it would remain the top post, and get more exposure.

So, I’ll be posting irregularly when I have something I really want to write about, but I will no longer add content multiple times weekly. I was hoping to have a community of readers who were interested in discussing some of these topics, but maybe most of my readers are hitting the site through Google searches.

Also, I have already posted the most important topics I really wanted to get out there, and I don’t want to be repetitive. I will maintain the site for the foreseeable future in the hope that people will stumble across my favorite essays, and hope that I do some good in the world.

Shawn

In the months that this site has existed and I’ve been posting content, I’ve seen my stats rise steadily. There are now a lot of people who visit MiloCast.com regularly. However, I have received no e-mail from strangers, and almost no comments from people I didn’t already know personally.

In the interest of making this site better, (but mostly out of curiosity), who are you? Send me e-mail (address in the CONTACT/ABOUT tab above), or contact me on IM or Skype. My name is ShawnMilo on both. I’d really like to hear from as many people as possible and see how my writing is being perceived by real people. I don’t care if you have positive or negative things to say, but I’d like this to be more of a two-way conversation. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Shawn

Is it just me, or is “Family Guy” one of the greatest shows of our time? And is it just me, or is it going downhill in a sad, stumbling way? Some of the most original, funniest, and wittiest writing I have seen from a network show (animated or otherwise) has come from “Family Guy” writers.

But lately it seems that Seth McFarland is falling out of love with the show that made him what he is, and is instead pouring his creative genius into a second-rate cartoon, namely “American Dad.” Granted I heard it has gotten a lot better since I stopped watching it (around episode one), but that can’t be difficult, considering how much it sucked.

I really don’t have much of a point here other than to gripe in public about the loss of vitality in “Family Guy” — so here’s more. By having Stewie bludgeon and in many other ways mutilate Brian last season, Seth showed that he really doesn’t care about the characters that he created anymore. The latest halfhearted attempt at a plot is even worse — a “simulation” which spanned two full episodes, while being self-aware about how much they were pissing off their fans.

The problem, in my never-humble opinion, is that Seth McFarland made it huge with “Family Guy” because he went with what he thought was amusing, and made the mistake of believing that just because he thought something was fun to do, others would agree. What made “Family Guy” great was that it broke boundaries, violated norms, and shocked people awake. It made us think. It challenged authority in a very serious way, but wrapped in a (sometimes paper-thin) humorous package.

The retarded “American Dad” concept took old, used up, and completely over-done ideas and tried to replicate the success of “Family Guy.” An alien with an accent that shouldn’t be on television from this millennium, a caricature of a caricature fish with a German accent, and brain-dead main characters should have prevented this show from getting any further than McFarland’s garbage can. But he was able to ride his “Family Guy” success (while betraying that creation) to fuel his childish passion for this partial-birth brain dump.

In closing, I’d like to thank Seth for the great time we all shared, and ask him to please stop now, before he embarrasses himself any further, and does any more damage to the remaining legacy of “Family Guy.”

I have come under heavy fire from some local magicians after I called for a vote to remove an officer of my local magic club from office (but not from the group) for a major ethics violation. Of course, those who are attacking me haven’t been able to find fault with what I said — the guy is guilty and they all know it. So they have resorted to ad hominem attacks against me. For fun, and to bridge my freethought and magic categories, let’s talk about them today.

An ad hominem attack is an argument against something a person says to try to discredit the person themselves. Someone says something you don’t like, so you point out what a bad person they are to try to convince others they’re not worth listening to. There really isn’t much more to it than that.

The mistake I made was to stand up and have the guts to say something about someone who is very popular. As is so often the case, people respond emotionally instead of intellectually. They see an attack on “one of their own,” and instinctively rally around them and fight the accuser. It’s a good thing to help out your friends, but it’s not a good thing to spread lies about the person making the accusation in the process.

This is a sad and pathetic thing to do. For example, I have received private e-mail from several people congratulating me for having the courage to do this. However, not one of them has e-mailed the group supporting me. Why not? I’m guessing it’s because they don’t want any backlash. However, the people who are using ad hominem attacks are sending them to the group in some cases, and posting them as comments to this site in others. Considering I never e-mailed the group about my article regarding the case, this is a clear attempt to defame me in retaliation.

One of them even went so far as to make an anonymous comment on one of my older posts about religion and told me I’d have to answer for this deed in heaven. That goes to show you how well-thought-out their argument was. I know those same people are going to read this. I just wonder how they’ll respond.