I was discussing the relative worthlessness of “debates” between rationalists and theists with a fellow atheist recently, and he expressed the opinion that it seemed like both sides just spew forth their own dogma, nobody considers the opposing opinion, and nothing positive comes from the effort. I don’t personally feel that debating is a waste of time, although it usually is for most of the audience because they already have their minds made up.
However, my main problem with his statement was that he referred to the position of the rationalist as “dogma.” As everyone knows (or should), dogma is a bad thing. It is taking a position as true and defending it regardless of whether there is any valid reason to believe it, and even when there is clear evidence against. The reasons I gave for the rational point of view not being dogma are as follow:
- They are based upon scientific consensus.
- They are subject to change based upon evidence.
- They are bolstered by an understanding and dismissal of pathetic opposing arguments, not a refusal to listen to opposing arguments.
All three of these are in direct opposition to the way a true believer thinks. They refuse to believe the results of scientific research when it conflicts with their beliefs, they won’t change their minds even when the evidence suggests their beliefs are flawed, and they refuse to listen to or understand opposing arguments.
So, just remember: “Beware of Dogma”
No sane person who believes in any supernatural things — including gods, will claim that there is any evidence or proof. In fact, they find virtue in believing without evidence. Many of them think this makes them better, or at least more enlightened, than the rest of us.
Follow that line of reason logically, and the inescapable conclusion is that these gods prefer more easily-led people who are willing to accept apparent nonsense, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
To put a slightly finer point on it, Yahweh prefers fools to thinkers.
Christianity and Islam are founded on the idea that you have a serious problem. Namely, you’re going to hell for eternity, and only they can help you. Of course, you have to live your life according to their arbitrary rules, disagree with established fact, and it would be really nice if you would give them a bunch of your money.
It’s like going to a doctor and being told you have an illness, but they can cure you for a fee, and then finding out you never had the disease in the first place and they were just after your payment.
The simple truth is that there is no such thing as hell, or eternal torture. Those are ideas invented by the religions themselves. Even worse, you can look back in history to when the concept of hell didn’t even exist in those religions, or when those religions didn’t even exist. There is no reason in all the world to even consider that a hell exists outside of religious dogma.
What a great scam. Promise deliverance from something which doesn’t exist, and reap the benefits. So for those of you who still believe in eternal torment, get a second opinion. To those of you who have broken free of that scam, have a nice day!
When I wrote about agnostics last week, I received some feedback disagreeing with the idea that agnostics are atheists by default. Agnostics are atheists, and I tried to explain it as clearly as I could. However, as is often the case, someone else put it much more simply than I could. I heard this simple description on “The Non-Prophets” show, episode 6.21.
Here it is: You are assuming that I am claiming something is either A or B. If you’re not A, then you must be B. That’s not the case. I’m claiming that something is either A or not A. If ‘A’ stands for someone who believes in a god, then you’re A or not A. The definition of “not A” is atheist.
Being an atheist by definition does not make any other claims about you. You can love religion, you can be spiritual, and you can love animals and babies and pretty flowers. Remember — atheism isn’t really anything specific. It’s not even a claim. It’s just not believing in an invisible friend.
Considering that it’s Friday, it’s a good time to mention some entertainment. Music, actually. Greydon Square is an atheist musician who put out a rap album mostly dedicated to freethought and rationalist lyrics. Greydon is a member of the Rational Response Squad, and apparently a college student studying science.
His CD, “The Compton Effect,” is available on his site and is pretty good. There is a mix of things he wrote years ago and more recently, so there is some inconsistency to the theme of the overall work. In my opinion, there is also some inconsistency in the quality from track to track, but there were several songs with very clever lyrics which made me nod my head in agreement, laugh, or both.
For the record, I usually avoid any music which could be considered “country” or “rap.” Of course, there are exceptions to most rules, and this CD is one of those. Check it out.
Agnostics are people who claim that since they don’t know whether a god exists, the best thing to do is pretend they’re equally open to either side of the argument, and will stay that way until one side is proven.
This is, obviously, foolish. As Richard Dawkins often points out, nobody says they’re agnostic in regard to fairies. Nobody is agnostic about invisible pink unicorns. What’s the difference between an invisible pink unicorn and a creator god? Nothing. They are both made-up characters. So why should someone be agnostic about a god just because such a god has not been disproved?
The easy answer is that they are trying to avoid offending others. Either they’re atheists who are afraid of the word “atheist,” or they prefer not to think about what they actually believe so they don’t have to confess to actually disagreeing with anyone about religion.
At this point, most readers will think I have a problem with agnostics. I don’t — quite. I have a problem with their intellectual wimpiness, but I have no problem with them in general, because they are unlikely to do harm in the name of their beliefs as long as they are unable to decide what those beliefs are.
If you’re an agnostic, realize this: You’re an atheist. Seriously. Look at it this way: Do you believe in a god? If your answer is “no” or “I don’t know,” then you’re an atheist. An atheist is simply someone who does not have a specific belief — a belief in the existence of a god. If your answer to “is there a god” is not a confident “Yes!”, then you’re an atheist. And it’s not a dirty word. Welcome to rational thought!
It’s fairly clear why people used to think the sun revolved around the earth — that’s how it looks to someone standing still on earth. That is, until they observe the positions of other things in space, such as other stars. But still, it’s completely understandable that the geocentric universe theory was the generally accepted one for a long time.
The same goes for creation. Humans create things. When they see things they didn’t create, their first thought is about who (or what) created it. If you say “God made this,” then it makes sense to anyone who doesn’t have a better explanation. They are “standing still,” mentally. But once we start to explain things formerly attributed to gods, the gods are no longer necessary to explain the natural world. Once we become mentally active, and stop standing still (start asking questions), we learn and grow.
So what would this world look like with no creator? Exactly the way it looks now.
I read an article this morning which is a wonderful example of faulty thinking. The basic gist of the article is that school deaths don’t seem to happen in Catholic schools, which indicates that prayer might make a difference. Please read the article in order to better understand my comments below.
1. The writer says that there aren’t any Catholic school killings, suicides, or murders “to my knowledge.” This is a rather meaningless statement. Unless she claims to study these things, then not knowing something is not useful in any way.
2. The writer specifies Catholics as the religious group which seems to be singularly blessed. Why is that? Did she hear about a shooting at a school run by a church of a different Christian denomination? If there was any evidence that Catholic prayer in particular had any unique effect, it would be all over the news. For the record, all properly-conducted studies into efficacy of prayer have produced negative results, regardless of particular religion.
3. Although her ignorance about deaths of Catholic school students is pointless, I shall also point out that her attribution of the lack of deaths to prayer and bible study is also unfounded. If there were, in fact, no deaths at any Catholic schools, it would still take a lot of evidence to prove the cause.
4. The writer then goes on to blame a the United States Supreme Court for making it illegal to force children in schools to study the bible. More nonsense.
5. Finally, I’d like to take issue with her final sentence: “Perhaps, a new Supreme Court will reverse itself and once again God will take the place of violence.” Trust me lady, there is more violence done in the name of your god on this planet than we can handle. Just read your bible. There is no time in recorded history when any god replaced violence, although a great many, including yours, have ordered mass murder on a horrible scale.
If you believe in an afterlife which includes a heaven and a hell, I suspect you haven’t really thought about it much. If hell exists, then someone who went to hell for murdering one person will suffer longer than Hitler if he happened to die first. Just think about that.
If that’s not enough, how about this: The person who goes to hell for some small sins which never hurt another living creature will be tortured for eternity.
In other words, the entire concept is flawed, and obviously invented by people to scare other people into believing in a certain fairy tale.
Have a nice weekend!
Don’t forward that e-mail! I don’t care if the warning says that unless your friends do or don’t do something specific that something bad will happen. Your cell phone number is not about to be released to telemarketers. Forwarding a poem will not raise money to help a child with cancer. The conspiracy about the oil or food company is not true, and boycotting or preferring a specific brand will not hurt or help anything.
Before you take any action based on something you see on the Internet, check Snopes.com. They update regularly, and they research these kinds of claims.
Snopes is not a “debunking” site. Some of the items listed are labeled as true. Some things are even labeled partially true, when a true story was somehow modified before making it into your mailbox.
Do yourself, your friends, and Internet traffic a favor. Have a legitimate reason to believe something before you make yourself part of a propaganda machine. Otherwise, you could contribute to harm, you’re definitely contributing to misinformation, and you could be promoting the agenda of someone seeking to use you for their own schemes.
