IDoNotGetIt

I was invited to church recently by a good friend who was getting baptized. Although, it was more of a sad event from my perspective as opposed to it being a quite joyful experience for him, I figured it would be interesting just to get to go to church again. It has been a while, after all.

I ended up being disappointed with the whole experience. It was a new church and very non-traditional. The first thing I noticed upon entering the fellowship hall was that they had rows of individual chairs rather than the traditional pews and the stage was – well it was a stage – like a rock band with rock band equipment set up on it. There was no podium. This room basically looked like a concert hall with a dark open ceiling and big stage lights hanging down.

Service began with the baptism which took about 15 or 20 minutes for several folks then led straight in to a Christian rock band playing some of the most non-inspirational, mediocre Christian rock songs I’ve ever heard. Instead of hymnals, they have projectors on each side of the auditorium projecting the lyrics on the wall. I just kept thinking that I really wish they had a choir and organ.

Finally the band stopped playing and the preacher got up. It took me a while to figure out if it was the preacher because he was wearing the same t-shirt as everyone else at the church. He didn’t give a traditional sermon, just kind of sat down on a stool and talked conversational style to us. I kept my ears open for anything unique that I could blog about but he didn’t give me much to go on. It seems to me that modern Christians are trying to be as vague as they possibly can so as to lure in more gullible folks without alienating those who might think a little about what they are being told. And there is no question about it, they want children! They are well aware that they need those young impressionable minds to peddle their crap. This church was, in my opinion, absolutely targeted at young adults and children.

He did call up a couple with 2 young children to do some kind of dedication to them; I guess it was a way to officially welcome them into the church or something. He gave them each a bible. Then he said that God has a purpose for them, as he does with everyone. This is one idea that I’ve never been able to get a believer to expound upon without getting upset and giving up. I mean, if God has a plan and he has this plan for everyone, does that mean that anyone who does bad things is going against God’s plan? And if you can go against God’s plan then what is the point of his plan in the first place? Does he have to keep changing it to account for those who fuck it up?

Something else he said struck me as odd. He said that God is the giver of every GOOD gift. I wonder if that means, to him, that God is not also the giver of any bad gifts like an infant dying in an automobile accident.

He also said something that made me giggle. He said that Jesus gave us a gift that is simple enough that a child can receive it. I thought to myself that it was simple enough that only a child’s mind could think it was real to begin with. Then he went on to babble about how Jesus paid the highest price. Really, what price did he pay? He gave up a few years on earth to go to heaven and reign as a God. Ouch, the poor guy, I hope therapy helped. And honestly, if he wanted to, couldn’t he come back to earth any time he wanted? It only takes the slightest bit of critical thinking to show what a load of crap this story is.

They also gave communion which I declined to participate in. My friend (not the one getting baptized) almost made me cry laughing when everyone, in unison, drank the “kool-aid.” He looked at me and said “Jim Jones;” it was a struggle for me to keep from laughing out loud.

I just read this article on foxnews.com. Texas Teen Basketball Player Dies During Tourney

Here is a quote from that article.

“Robert was a great, great human being,” Escobar told The Monitor. “I’m very, very sad. The Lord asked for an angel to come to Him today. He took care of his body. He ate all the right things. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Then don’t explain it! Most likely it was caused by an undiagnosed preexisting condition but this repulsive person admits that he doesn’t know what he is talking about immediately following his idiotic explanation for why it happened.

Read this and tell me what is wrong with it: “I do not have an explanation for what caused this event, so let me offer this explanation for what caused this event” As far as reasoning goes, it’s a logical fallacy called Argument from Ignorance. When put that way, isn’t it clearly nonsense?

It never fails, if you want a taste of stupid just go to Ray Comfort, he has an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I decided to take a peek at his blog today to see what kind of lies he is telling and not surprisingly he has some related to the earthquake in Japan.

“But atheism says that there is a good reason for the 8.9 earthquake killer quake and the horrific Tsunami that followed. It is nature making improvements. Everything is getting better. People being crushed to death or drowned in a Tsunami is just part of the work of nature.”

It is unbelievable how religious nuts have the ability to project their own stupid beliefs onto others so they can dismiss it and completely miss the irony of doing so. Assuming that there is an “atheist movement” that can collectively “say” anything, it certainly would not say anything in the preceding paragraph. As a matter of fact, replace nature with God and it sounds exactly like what a Christian might say. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read or heard “It’s all part of God’s plan” in reference to the earthquake.

His point, however, is merely to get to talk about a subject that he knows absolutely nothing about – despite having it explained ad nauseam – but which he loves to talk about as if he has a deep understanding of the subject. It’s a common misconception that ignorant people (willfully in this guys case) have about evolution. Neither evolution nor nature have a goal of making anything better in the sense that he is using the word better. If I were to describe evolution as the process of making living organisms better – and I wouldn’t, but for the sake of argument if I did – better would not necessarily mean smarter, stronger, tougher, longer life, etc. (i.e. the things that we humans think would be better). Evolution simply makes the changes necessary to make a population more likely to survive, it may be the case that a smaller, weaker and dumber version of humans have a better chance of surviving in a million years on Earth and if that is the case, that is what will evolve. “Better” to evolution is not necessarily what we would consider better.

At any rate, rest assured that the earthquake in Japan has nothing to do with evolution. Earthquakes are an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of living on a planet that is itself quite alive and active. Atheists, like most decent people, are horrified by the effects that the earthquake and tsunami have had in Japan.

Ray would know this if he weren’t the stupidest person I’ve ever witnessed. That isn’t hyperbole either. Discounting people who are literally mentally handicapped in some manner, I’ve never heard of anyone so incredibly willfully ignorant, he is un-teachable. His mind is a solid block of “God did it” that can’t be reasoned with.

I’m paraphrasing this so I don’t have to post the whole paragraph. This is from a one star review of Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World on Amazon. The commenter was trying to make the point that Sagan puts forth invalid comparisons and gives this as an example.

“The story about Mary appearing in Lourdes, France is based solely on faith, whereas the tabloid headline about NASA hearing voices in space is based on nothing.”

It’s just so damn sad that he doesn’t realize that faith is the same as nothing!

I was just reading an article about Elizabeth Smart’s testimony.

”God would never tell someone to kidnap a young girl from her family’s home in the middle of the night, from her bed that she shared with her sister, from her sister’s side, and continue to rape her and sexually abuse her. … I know he was not called of God because God would never do something like that.”

My first thought was “that woman needs to read the bible”.   He’s done much worse.  I remember this one time where he got really mad and KILLED EVERYONE ON THE PLANET EXCEPT ONE FAMILY.  Sorry but that one instance alone is worse than what happened to Mrs. Smart.  And really, that story is “low hanging fruit”.

It always amazes me how believers can make statements like that.  I guarantee I could get her to say “God is beyond our understanding” within 10 minutes of a conversation about God.  It seems to me that hypocrisy is a prerequisite to being a Christian.  Everyone knows what God wants when it is convenient and then he is unknowable when that is convenient.

I found this little page on the web.  It’s the Christian Research Institute’s (CRI) take on God vs Atheism.  The subtitle is “Is Atheism Logical?” and I suppose they are trying to answer this question.  Let me start with the irony alert, the site has a trademark slogan at the top of their page, “…because Truth matters”. Not surprisingly, they have no interest in truth – capital T or otherwise.

GOD VS. ATHEISM- Introduction
They start with an attempt to define atheism and they fail.

“Atheism is the world view that denies the existence of God. More specifically, traditional atheism argues that there never was and never will be a God. But is this position logical?”

Atheism is not a world view, it is a response to one question, “Do you believe in one or more god?” An answer in the affirmative means you are a theist otherwise you are an atheist. An atheist may believe that “there never was and never will be a God” but that is not a requirement for them being an atheist.
GOD VS. ATHEISM- Suppositions

“Atheism positively affirms that there is no God.”

So they have set the stage to argue against a straw-man atheist.  The next part of their argument is true, this claim would require evidence and to prove “absolutely” would require omniscience.  However, we do not, typically, require “absolute” proof to make affirmative statements. If I leave my house and lock the door before going, I am not being unreasonable to make the statement that “my door is locked at home”. After all it is possible that someone has broken into my house and unlocked my door or any other number of possibilities as to why my door may no longer be locked as I left it. We make affirmative statements all the time without omniscience. How about “Santa is not real”? Are you being unreasonable to make that claim without omniscience? Certainly not, in reality, in Science, we don’t make statements of absolute certainty. Every claim is subject to change with the introduction of new evidence. The statement quoted above is not a logical fallacy and is not dogmatic as they claim, because without evidence in favor of the extraordinary claim that there is a god, the reasonable conclusion is that there isn’t one.  Also, it’s not dogmatic because that claim is subject to change in the event that convincing evidence is provided to the contrary.

GOD VS. ATHEISM- The Failings of Atheism
The straw-man continues to be picked apart here. As I’ve stated, atheism isn’t a world view, if there were no theist, there would be no need for the word atheist. So while it is true that atheism can’t adequately explain the existence of the world, it isn’t true that the existence of the world can’t be explained without injecting the supernatural. Science is the method we use to study reality (including the existence of the world) and it does a fine job, we have no better method to study and know about objective truth than science. So if you replace “atheist world view” in this part of their argument with “science” what you get is lies. Science does provide us with explanations and will continue to allow us to refine our knowledge about the universe.

GOD VS. ATHEISM- The Claims of Christ
Here they just devolve into preaching but I still want to address their claims.

“…let them consider the claims of Jesus Christ. He claimed to be none other than God in human flesh (John 1:1). This astounding claim was supported, however, by His matchless personal character, His fulfillment of predictive prophecy, His incredible influence on human history — and most importantly, the historical fact of His resurrection from the dead.”

The claim that one is “God”, in any form is an astounding claim indeed. So the evidence would have to be pretty astounding to back that claim up. So what astounding evidence does he provide here?

1. His matchless personal character – I would argue that Jesus’ personal character wasn’t matchless. As described in the bible, Jesus was no better a person than most people. He lied, he got angry and behaved in a petty manner, mistreated his mother, etc. There are many examples. Sorry, this point does not amount to evidence of divinity.
2. His fulfillment of predictive prophecy – Some examples need to be provided here. I can find no examples of predictive prophecy made by Jesus (or anyone else for that matter). This also does not amount to evidence of divinity.
3. His incredible influence on human history – Many people have had an incredible influence on human history, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus, and Muhammad. Is this evidence for the divinity of all these people as well?
4. The historical fact of His resurrection from the dead – There is no meaningful way to call this a fact. There is no evidence for it, there is no contemporary evidence that it ever occurred.

All of this adds up to nothing, no evidence what-so-ever that Jesus was a “God” in any form.

And that’s the “CRI Perspective”. I think Hank Hanegraaff needs to do a lot more research.

I had an interesting conversation in my office today. It began when my office mate told another co-worker (I’ll call him Don) that he “don’t believe shit ‘till I see it”. At that point, yet another co-worker (I’ll call him Eric) entered the conversation and said “you have to believe some things without seeing it”. At that point, I couldn’t resist jumping in and said “Of course you don’t. You should never believe anything without reason.” To this Eric said “Is the earth round or flat”? You can imagine where this went; he assumes that we accept that the world is a spheroid on faith rather than good reason. I explained that you can easily prove that the earth isn’t a flat surface by simple measurements and math and humans have known this for thousands of years now (i.e. it isn’t necessary to go into space and actually look at the planet). His reply was “where does math come from”? Presumably we accept math on faith. As I was trying to contain my exasperation, Don, who I’ve had arguments and discussions with previously, was trying to discourage Eric from continuing this particular argument. He said, in reference to me “He lives for this kind of argument, he just likes to argue”. I later talked to Don in his office and explained why this question makes no sense, because math, being an abstract concept, didn’t come from anywhere. It is a fundamental consequence of the universe. It isn’t faith that leads us to accept math as real. To deny math is to deny objective reality.

It is true that I enjoy a good argument, however, not just for the sake of arguing. In fact, when I’m arguing with someone and realize that the argument isn’t going anywhere and I can’t think of anything to get it back on track, I usually get disinterested and find a way to end it. The real reason I enjoy a good argument is because it gives me a chance to either learn something new or to correct some misinformation that another person believes or is spreading. Later, when I talked to Don about math as an abstract concept, that discussion is the reason I like to argue. Those earlier arguments lead to an opportunity to teach someone something awesome about reality. Whether I’m learning or teaching, that is why I enjoy a good argument.

Lately, I’ve been getting aggravated a lot at the constant lying coming from religious observers. I know some would object to using the term “lying” to describe the untruths they are telling because many may not know that they are untrue but I’ve decided that at some point they must be held accountable.  Kooks like Ray Comfort have been told time and time again that the things they say are not true but they just ignore this and continue to spread their lies.

I believe that they, often know that they are lying but sincerely believe that it is ok to lie to protect their ideology.

Tomorrow, I will begin a series of post pointing out a few of these lies.  These are just a few of the lies that you will commonly hear from religious adherents whose ideology conflicts with reality and so they say reality must be wrong.  I’m just going to cover the big ones, not the ones that deal with details.  Things like carbon dating being inaccurate or that a flash flood could have carved the grand canyon, etc.  There are too many of those.

Arguments from authority are certainly one of the favorite fallacies used by the “faithful”.  So not that it REALLY matters what Einstein thought on the subject but since he is often quoted out of context by religious liars to try to make him seem more “godly” than he actually was, I want to present the following quote from a letter he wrote not long before his death. 

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

I love The Atheist Experience TV Show.  It is a weekly local cable show in Austin, TX.  I’ve seen (or listened to) every episode.  The show may be taking a 3 month hiatus due to construction and upgrades on the studio that it is broadcast from but they are going to try to continue to do live shows from a home studio.  We’ll  just have to see how that goes, I hope it works.

At any rate, the point of this post is to say that I thought it was getting a little stale lately.  As their popularity has grown and more people from outside Austin started watching them via the internet, there were just too many “I just wanted to say I love your show and tell you a personal anecdote of mine” types of calls.  The best calls are the ones where a theist calls to point out where they believe the show’s host is wrong or to give their reasons for their own beliefs.

This past episode (#607) was the best episode I can remember.  It had lots of calls from theists who, although desperately wrong, seemed to have a decent grasp on reality.  In other words not the kind of crazy that calls in every now and then and ask questions like “why don’t we die when the sun goes down?”  These calls are funny but that’s about it.  You can’t have a serious conversation with them.

I’m including the video for anyone interested in watching it.  I may post about some of the things that are brought up by the callers but really, Matt is such a master at handling these people that I’m not sure I could bring anything new to the table.