As I said somewhere else, I don’t want to turn any of my blogs into a “hey, look at this cool link!” list. But this one is much like what I could have written, (except that mine wouldn’t be U.S.-centered, since I’m European) and I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel. 
So, here it is: The Ten Commandments vs. America.
Archive for August, 2005
The Ten Commandments
Wednesday, August 31st, 2005The “power” of prayer
Wednesday, August 31st, 2005The Christian Bible says that “faith can move mountains”.
Me, I believe all the faith in the world can’t move a grain of sand one millimeter.
But, of course, don’t take my word for it. Here’s something to do, if you’re a Christian (but it can work as well if you subscribe to some other creed which says faith has power over the material world):
- Pick a perfectly normal coin.
- Pray to God, fervently, with all your heart, for it to come up as “heads” when you throw it into the air.
- Throw it into the air.
- Write down the result in a piece of paper.
- Repeat 2-4 a large number of times (at least 100, preferably more).
- Calculate the average for “heads” (number or “heads” results divided by number of total throws).
- The average is a number between 0 and 1, so multiply it by 100 to get a nice percentage.
So, tell me… did it go the way you expected? And did you go the way you prayed it to go? Were they the same, by the way? 
I’d bet (assuming a perfectly normal coin, well thrown, a large number of times) that the average is close to 50% – about half heads, half tails. If so, that means it was random – that prayer didn’t change a thing. (If it was 90% “heads” or more, though, and you can reproduce it whenever you want, even using other coins, or having someone else do the throw while you pray, then, why, you’re a million dollars richer…)
What happened (assuming the normal 45%-55% result)? Did God refuse to be tested by our “heathen” “secular” “worldly” science?
”I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
”But,” say Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”
”Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t though of that” and promply vanishes in a puff of logic.
— Douglas Adams
Conversations with “mystics”
Tuesday, August 30th, 2005Let me know if this is familiar to you. (Though maybe you’ve been on the opposite side…)
You meet someone, maybe through a friend or co-worker, who has a strong belief in the supernatural. Maybe he/she (“she” from now on – blame my laziness) loves astrology, and believes in it with all their heart – up to the point that she says “it’s not a superstition, it’s a science”. Or maybe she’s a devout Christian, who believes that there is a God, that Jesus Christ died for mankind’s sins, and she is sure that she will be “saved” through Jesus. Maybe she is a “new age guru”. Or believes in alien abductions (probably including cattle mutilations and anal probes as well ), or believes she has “alien experiences” or “out of body experiences”. Or is a wiccan, or a druid, or…
In short, she is a mystic.
Let’s say that this is one of the open minded ones, and that she has above average intelligence – she’s a “challenge”, in a way, and you both want to discuss the nature of reality with each other. So, you talk. And talk. You refute many of her points, one by one – extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and there is no proof of any kind, only “I saw it” claims. Occam’s razor says that if two explanations explain something, then the most likely one is the one with the smallest number of entities – in other words, if something could have happened without a god or aliens, then there were probably no gods or aliens involved. Many animals die every year, and insects tend to eat the “softer parts” first, like eyes or testicles, so they appear “mutilated”. There are many contradictions in the Bible, and in the beliefs or most religions; and many people have several conflicting beliefs, like Christianity and astrology (which Christianity absolutely condemns), yet they are OK with it. Many claims of “supernatural” events were later explained as perfectly natural occurrences, and every “medium” has either been proven to be a hoax, or has refused to be tested scientifically… which amounts to pretty much the same thing. James Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge is still unclaimed, though anyone who could demonstrate supernatural powers – and, again, be tested scientifically, by a man who knows every trick of stage magicians, because he’s been one himself – could claim it. And so on, and so on. She will lose every argument she dares argue about rationally.
Eventually, the conversation will end in always the same way.
“But I want to believe in these things!”, she cries. “You lead a cold, empty, materialistic life, while mine is spiritual, it is fulfilled!”, she says. “Who cares about whether it’s real or not? It gives my life meaning, it makes me happy, and that’s what matters!”
Who can argue with that? I certainly can’t, because, at that point, that person has thrown reality, has thrown truth out of the window. She is, in a way, admitting that it doesn’t matter whether God / the spirits / the aliens are real or not, that she chooses to believe in them, therefore her life is more fulfilled this way. Nothing – including the original founder of her belief appearing and saying “sorry, it was all a joke, can’t believe you people took it so seriously!” – would change her mind, because the object(s) of her belief have been replaced by the belief itself.
And, as I said, I can’t argue with that. Because, to me, reality is what matters. It’s the only thing that matters.
Is my life “emptier” because I don’t fool myself? I don’t think so.
Creeds of Death
Monday, August 29th, 2005(once again, from my wiki, though this version is shorter…)
A “Creed of Death” (CoD) is my term for any belief (including religion), philosophy or political system which leads to death instead of life.
Note that I don’t mean “death” merely in the physical sense; in other words, I am not referring to some kind of suicidal cult, or a cabal of necromancers. I mean a “death in life”, a living death.
How I’ve become an atheist
Friday, August 26th, 2005Douglas Adams (more info) has been one of my favorite writers for years, but, until I read “The Salmon of Doubt”, a collection of essays and articles collected after his death, I only had had contact with his fiction work. But a particular entry in “Salmon” changed my life.
That entry is here, it was an interview Adams did for the American Atheist magazine.
I had a Christian education (Catholic, in fact), and, until I was about 26 or so, I really believed in it. Why? I tended to be rational in most of my life, but there was a part of it about which I apparently refused to think. It’s as if it was something so fragile, that I didn’t let anything near it – like reason or logic – , because I was afraid it would collapse, that I would “lose” it. If faith couldn’t withstand logic, then I wouldn’t let logic come anywhere near it. Why did I want to keep it? In part, I guess, because I loved the person (now deceased) who was responsible for my belief, and I wanted to respect her memory. And maybe I also felt alone – the existence of an all-powerful, all-loving God was something that would keep me company. And there was, too, the promise of “eternal justice” – that the injustices we suffered on Earth were only temporary, that eventually there would be justice, and the good would be rewarded, and the evil would be punished. I wanted it to be true, so much… therefore, I believed it.
Until I read that interview. It certainly got me thinking. And, in a way, Adams had gone through similar experiences, so I could relate. He put into words what I had only felt – that faith and religion, in me, only “survived” because I had a defense mechanism – I refused to think about it, like I thought about anything in the “real world”. But if faith and religion can’t survive a “closer look”… why is that, and, most importantly, what does that tell us about them?
That they are a lie.
Afterwards, I thought a lot about it – what I should have done during all the years before. Is there a God? I don’t think so; reality and the universe can be perfectly explained without one (Occam’s razor), and a God creating the universe in 6 days is no more believable than an Invisible Pink Unicorn or a Flying Spaghetti Monster. But assuming that there is a God… then where is he? Why is there so much suffering? Why do people pray, if it doesn’t work (any scientific test shows it, and there have been some)? Why would a god create a world, then hide all traces of doing it, then stay completely invisible except for some ridiculously minor appearances to a person or two, every couple of centuries? Why would God hide, then damn to eternal suffering everyone who didn’t believe in him?
And the existance of a god is certainly something extraordinary. That, to a scientist, requires extraordinary proof. Where is it? And no, ancient books are not proof. Many people believing in him are not proof either.
I realized that I had been guilty, through most of my life, of two of the worst forms of irrationality: wishful thinking, and refusing to think about something. I had been dishonest with myself. I had put something “above” reality, about the truth. And that is wrong.
But it’s better to open one’s eyes later than never to do it at all.
RSS2 feed change
Friday, August 26th, 2005I’m now experimenting with FeedBurner, so, if you subscribe to this site’s RSS2 feed (maybe with Bloglines, or Firefox’s LiveBookmarks, or Thunderbird, or any of the readers mentioned on the right sidebar), please change the feed.
Replace
- http://www.dehumanizer.com/wayofthemind/feed/
or
- http://www.wayofthemind.org/feed/
with:
Thanks!
Ideals or fanaticism?
Thursday, August 25th, 2005Have you ever been called a “fanatic”? (I’m assuming, of course, that you are not one…)
I have. Several times, by different people. They could never justify their affirmation: they just “felt” that I was one, because of some ideal I had (and possibly have), or because I cared a bit about something that nobody cared about.
It wasn’t something I annoyed people with. I’ve never been a “preacher” of any kind. I believe in complete honesty, yet I never went around preaching honesty or attacking people for not being 100% honest 100% of the time. I don’t pirate music, software or movies, yet most people I know do so, and I’ve never bothered them about it. If they ask my opinion, I give it, but no more.
I’ve never attacked, or told people to attack, someone for disagreeing with me. I certainly don’t intend to become a martyr and kill myself in a blaze of glory to prove some point.
But I still am labeled a “fanatic” from time to time. Why?
Fanaticism
Thursday, August 25th, 2005Another one from my wiki…
Fanaticism, or being a fanatic, can be described as being so sure about something that you refuse to ever think about it again for even a millisecond. That thing is, or becomes, the most important thing in your life, its “driving force”.
Some people confuse fanaticism with merely an intense love or belief. I believe the difference is mostly the above: a fanatic never thinks about it again, his “certainty” encompasses everything. If you love something or someone, or intensely believe in something, but can still think rationally about it, see its faults, its “chips in the armor”, then you are not a fanatic.
A fanatic is not only incapable of admitting he is wrong about something, but also incapable of admitting it is possible for him to be wrong about it.
Not all fanaticism is about religion or beliefs: it doesn’t really depend on the importance of the subject. You can be an absolute fanatic about something unimportant (like a sports club), and you can have a true belief in some philosophy, religion or creed, or intensely love something or someone, without being a fanatic about it.
Being ready to die for a belief doesn’t necessarily make you a fanatic (I believe some things are worth fighting for and even dying for), but if you’re ready to kill for it, then you certainly are one.
It’s absolutely impossible to argue with a fanatic, as he’s incapable of rational thought about it. No matter how many contradictions you reveal in his belief, no matter what proof you show him that he is wrong. If you ever get any near to provoking the slightest doubt, he will violently defend his belief, sometimes becoming murderously violent. His belief is his life; without it it wouldn’t make sense to go on.
Sex and “diminishing people”
Thursday, August 25th, 2005I’m sure to have a couple of replies showing that this entry has been completely misunderstood. Oh well…
Many people I know, apparently, believe that sex is something that “reduces” or “lowers” people, that by sleeping with someone you are in some way “diminished”, and that the only way to compensate for that is by having sex be a part of something “greater”, like love or a relationship.
Note: I’m not referring to people who really only have sex as part of a relationship. Read on…
While such people are perfectly capable of having sex with someone because of physical attraction, they feel betrayed and “used” if the sex doesn’t turn into “something more”. It’s almost as if they had sex as a “bet” or as an “investment” – weird idea, I know -, and by having the sex remain “just sex”, it’s as if the bet was lost, as if the investment didn’t work out.
Liar, liar, pants on fire…
Thursday, August 25th, 2005Pat Robertson now: “Wait a minute, I didn’t say ‘assassination’. I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things, including kidnapping.”
Riiiight…
Pat Robertson a couple of days ago: “If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
Tough luck, Pat. Video recording is a wonderful thing.
Violence, religion and Pat
Wednesday, August 24th, 2005Thinking about the current events with that madman Pat Robertson (see below) made me realize one other thing: that there is a reason why probably nothing will happen to him.
Religious violence, even in this “enlightened” age, is still very much around. You’ve probably heard about attacks on abortion clinics. But religions also fight among themselves – sometimes even among sub-sets (or sub-sects?) of the same religion. Lynchings, bombings and so on are common, and not only in Arab countries or in Ireland.
But… have you ever heard about religion-related violence by non-religious people? (note the “religion-related”). Have you ever heard of a “fanatical atheistic” group bombing churches or kidnapping / killing priests? Or, to put it in another way: it’s common to be a target of violence for having the “wrong” religion at a particular time and place, but it’s not common to be attacked for having a religion, by non-religious people.
Why? Because these same non-religious people tend not to be fanatics. They tend to think that one’s beliefs are his own choice, and not a reason to hurt anyone.
That’s why there probably won’t be any violence against a guy who wants to kill a democratically elected president for religious (and political, of course) reasons. He’s probably safe… because his opponents are a lot better than he is.
Technorati tags: Pat Robertson
Why do we put up with it?
Wednesday, August 24th, 2005Maybe you have heard about it.
Pat Robertson, an American ultra-conservative “Christian” televangelist, has just said, in a broadcast, that the U.S. should assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.”, the idiot said. Why? Well, according to him, Chávez is “going to make (Venezuela) a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.”.
Now, I’m not a Christian, but what confuses me is how anyone can believe that such a monster is one. I mean, this is not the age of the Inquisition, Crusades and so on, right? Christians today are supposed to have remembered the Thou shalt not kill Commandment, apparently forgotten in the Middle Ages. How can any Christian not instantly condemn that imbecile when he says “oh, let’s go kill that guy – he annoys us, and it’s cheaper than going to war again”? How can he still have listeners?
Remember that he’s the same guy who said feminism is a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
He’s also the same guy who agreed with another nutcase televangelist that the 9/11 attacks were the fault of “pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU and the People for the American Way.”
And yet I’m sure that little, if anything, will happen to him, or to his very successful (!) TV program.
Technorati tags: Pat Robertson
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