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"It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists" - prologue

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on April 8, 2008

in atheism, bigotry, fanaticism, hate and religion

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Readers of Planet Atheism will probably have already been flooded with posts talking about Rep. Monique Davis’ unconstitutional and hate-filled insults against Rob Sherman, who was testifying against Illinois (unconstitutionally) giving 1 million dollars to a Baptist church. Here is Eric Zorn’s original news report in the Chicago Tribune, and here’s PZ Myers’ post on RichardDawkins.net (which I link to instead of the original on Pharyngula, as this one includes contact information for people to do something about it, instead of just posting comments ).

Well, as this post’s title says, this is a prologue for the next one, about that particular quote from Davis. I wanted that one to focus on that quote itself, which is why I’m introducing the story here, in a separate post. The “real thing” comes later today.

Also, I’m not American, so there’s little I can do about it, but if you are, and care for that pesky thing called the Constitution (not to mention the civil rights issue of having non-believers demonized and insulted by politicians without consequence — imagine if Davis’ rant had been against a particular religion or skin color!), please follow the second link above for ways to make a difference. Even if you’re not an atheist, you should still care…

Darwin Mit Uns?

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Pedro Timóteo

on March 26, 2008

in creationism, evolution, honesty and religion

. 0 Comments

I ask my readers (yes, you and that other one over there ) to please, please, spread this image (originally posted here) as much as possible.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think that this is a perfect example. A simple picture shows the utter, disgusting dishonesty of the creationists behind Expelled’s attempt to rewrite history in order to blame evolution for Nazism.

Apparently, the Nazis themselves didn’t agree with Ben Stein…

Judaism, Christianity and Islam: is it really "the same god"?

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Pedro Timóteo

on March 24, 2008

in christianity, islam, judaism and religion

. 6 Comments

While it is common for the more fundamentalist believers to believe that following their religion (or even their variant) is the only way to be saved, more liberal believers tend to claim that Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship basically the same god, that they are just varying interpretations of the same deity, and of the same “truth”.

I beg to differ.

Yes, the three main monotheistic religions have the same historical origins. Both Christianity and Islam claim to be extensions of Judaism, revere the same patriarchs (such as Moses or Abraham), but then add new claims, and refuse some of the original ones. I am not disputing this fact. Even the two newer religions’ holy books either include parts of the old one, or are inspired by it.

But having the same historical origin doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the same religion, or that they worship the same god. Not when they claim that their god has completely different attributes — sometimes even opposing ones.

Think about it. Is God a being who needed the blood of his son (which is also himself) in order to forgive humanity for their sins? One religion says yes, the other two say no. And whether the answer is yes or no, it means God has a completely different character than he would have otherwise. Does he need blood, suffering and sacrifice in order to forgive? Or can he do it on his own? Is he the kind of being who believes that guilt can be passed from those responsible to an innocent, or is he not?

I can argue that a god who wants and needs a bloody sacrifice is very different from one who doesn’t. Unless God is schizophrenic, one can’t rationally argue that it’s the same god. Either he wants that, or he doesn’t — to say that he wants it from some of his believers and not from others is far too ridiculous. In other words, if Christianity is right about that facet of God, then Judaism and Islam must necessarily be wrong — and vice-versa.

It’s easy to find more examples. Take hell, for instance. To me, with my human imagination, I cannot imagine something worse, more terrible, than the idea of eternal punishment. Can you even grasp the meaning of “eternal”? Human minds can’t quite conceive of it. Even eternal boredom, without any actual, active torture, would be a fate infinitely worse than any kind of finite torture inflicted on Earth by the worst imaginable sadist. It also follows that there can be possibly no crime — even hypothetically — that warrants such a punishment. No finite action, no finite crime or “sin” is ever deserving of an eternal anything — much less eternal torture. It follows that a god who does inflict such a fate on even one sentient being would be more unjust, more sadistic, more evil than our minds can conceive of.

Yet, of the three monotheisms, two say God is that evil. The other one says otherwise (there is no hell in Judaism, and the Old Testament says several times that death is final). Can “more evil than we can conceive” be the same as otherwise? Either God is the ultimate sadist, or he isn’t; it’s absurd to claim that Jewish sinners die a final death, but Christians and Muslims go to a lake of fire and burn for eternity. If that was so, then either God was insane, or we’d have to be talking about two very different gods.

I could go on. Does God have a favorite group, a “chosen people”? One religion says he does, and therefore doesn’t actively attempt to recruit outside of it. The other two say differently.

I’m not claiming that there are three different gods, each one worshipped by its own religion. In fact, I don’t believe that even one exists (what with being an atheist and all). My point is that the three monotheisms worship vastly different gods, with vastly different personalities and desires. They can’t all be right, of course. In fact, even if one was right, the other two would have to be abysmally wrong — worshipping not just a slightly different variant of the same god, but one with completely different (and often opposite) traits. Despite the historical origins, whatever the three main religions worship these days can’t possibly be considered the same god — unless, of course, God is the ultimate case of multiple personality disorder.

Arthur C. Clarke on Creationism

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Pedro Timóteo

on March 19, 2008

in christianity, creationism, quotes, religion and short posts

. 0 Comments

If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created that whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading mankind?

– Arthur C. Clarke

(seen on Life Without Faith, in a post about Clarke’s recent death)

Transfer of blame, and child abuse

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 14, 2008

in christianity and religion

. 3 Comments

Source: Cectic

Besides the obvious child abuse shown in the comic — and yes, telling a child about hell is child abuse, no matter how you put it –, I find the mother in the comic morally repugnant for another reason: cowardice. She is unwilling to take responsibility for her actions, and doesn’t come out and say “obey me, or I’ll punish you.” Instead, she has to invoke an external, supernatural entity who will punish the child for disobedience — and when one fails, she comes up with another… one which, sadly, most people don’t outgrow before they’re 5 years old, unlike the former. She’s such a coward that she lies just so that the child doesn’t see her as a source of discipline and therefore never resents her. Never mind that parents should be a source of discipline; it’s their responsibility, after all, what with being parents and everything.

More on the Dawkins / Hitchens / Dennett / Harris discussion (part 4): creating a false, but positive religion

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 13, 2008

in religion

. 1 Comment

Like before, before, before and before, just click on the image to go to the Richard Dawkins site and download / watch the entire discussion.

Sam Harris: You can invent an ideology, which by your mere invention in that moment, is obviously untrue, which would be quite useful if propagated, to billions. I mean, you can say this is my new religion: teach people to demand that your children study science and math and economics, and all of our terrestrial disciplines, to the best of their abilities, and if they don’t persist in those efforts, they’ll be tortured after death by seventeen demons. This would be extremely useful, and maybe far more useful than Islam, propagated to billions, and yet what are the chances that the seventeen demons exist? Zero.

First — and I should not need to tell you this, of course — Harris is not suggesting that we create such a religion. But the idea is intriguing, and certainly worth discussing, I think.

You’ve probably heard many people — both religious and otherwise — praising religion in general as a good thing, regardless of its truth, simply because it supposedly makes people both feel better and behave better, giving special importance to the latter. This is not new — you may have heard of Plato’s “noble lie” –, but I can see several serious problems in it.

One of them, of course, is that it’s not true — and, at least to me, that matters. Another, I think, is that it encourages serfdom and acceptance of one’s fate (indeed, that was Plato’s use for it). Even when it doesn’t, you’d be encouraging people to “be good”, well, “just because”. Accept a command, and don’t think about it. And if you teach people to be obedient, even if their current “commandments” are good, there’s a huge risk that their next set of commandments won’t be. Besides, a religion may begin with good intentions, with a good set of moral rules and so on, but — to quote Ayn Rand — “the moral is the chosen, not the obeyed”. It’s not “morality” to act “morally” just because someone told you to do it.

Finally, there’s the problem that Harris suggests: most current religions are actually very bad ideas, and for every good thing they teach (e.g. “thou shalt not kill”), they also teach many, many rules and ideas that are simply monstrous. In just a sentence, Harris suggested a religion that would be much better both for its believers and for the entire world, which would be much better than Islam, as he says — or than any other religion I know.

Of course, a religion whose main tenet (expanding on Harris’s) was “think for yourself, question everything, and don’t accept anything on authority or on faith” would have a huge problem — you’re basically telling people to leave it!

A fictional example of all of this is a brilliant Star Trek: TNG episode, Who Watches The Watchers, which I intend to dedicate a full post to, in the future. In it, a bronze age alien civilization begins to believe the Enterprise crew are gods, with Picard as their leader, and one of the scientists who were studying the civilization suggests that Picard “show them a sign”, give them some set of good moral rules, and leave them with their new religion. Although that would certainly be the easiest way to deal with the problem they caused by being seen (as the civilization is on the verge of chaos due to their new, fervent belief), Picard refuses; he will not leave those people with a lie, sending them back to the age of darkness and superstition they had already outgrown, and therefore has to work hard to convince the civilization’s leaders that, despite the Enterprise’s advanced technology, they are flesh and blood, not gods.

First Causes and Special Pleading

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Pedro Timóteo

on March 11, 2008

in logic and religion

. 2 Comments

A: Nothing can exist without a cause. The universe exists; what caused it? I say it was God!

B: OK, who caused God, then?

A: Nothing. God wasn’t caused or created; he always existed.

B: Then why can’t the universe have always existed?

A: That’s impossible, nothing can exist without a cause…

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

This is one of the most common examples of a fallacy called special pleading, that is, introducing an exception to a rule without justifying or proving that exception. Believers postulate God’s existance due to the fact that, according to them, everything needs a cause, or a creator, or a designer. Then what caused, created or designed God in the first place? Ah, that’s an exception. God always was. Why? Just because! And so on.

Unfortunately, arguing with someone who makes a claim like this and doesn’t see a problem with it is typically useless. We’re talking about a person who already “has” the answers, and will ignore any facts or logic contradicting them. You can’t argue with someone who sees no relation between truth and reality.

Fortunately, many believers aren’t like this, and would not use the argument above as proof of their god’s existence. Unfortunately, then we run into another problem: the more a believer is sophisticated and educated, the more he gets away from the absurd, Ray Comfort-like “proofs of God” (a banana?!? seriously…), and the closer he gets to admitting that he has no proofs or evidence at all, just faith… and if he still sees no problem with it, if he sees faith (complete disregard for facts and reality) as a virtue, then, again, there’s nothing that can be done for that believer.

Eliminating religion?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 8, 2008

in atheism and religion

. 6 Comments

Vocal atheists are often asked (and sometimes simply accused) if they want to eliminate religion (sometimes we’re even accused of trying to eliminate believers, but those idiocies aren’t even worth a reply). Of course, I can’t speak for any other atheist but myself (that’s one of the beauties of being an atheist: no dogma), but, in my case, yes, I’d like religion to disappear, because it’s useless and and a waste of time at best, and, more often, a tremendous source of irrationality, ignorance, division, suffering and death. (if I need to tell you that this doesn’t involve killing or harming a single believer, I’m very disappointed in you.)

But what about the “harmless” religions?

PZ Myers put it wonderfully:

As for the charge that these New Atheists are unable to tolerate a harmless religion, and that their goal is the elimination of the enemy, that’s complete nonsense. We want to eliminate them in the same sense that we want to eliminate illiteracy; we will educate, we will talk, we will stand up for our ideas.

(the underlining is mine)

It’s a beautiful comparison, in my opinion. I had thought about comparing a non-harmless religion to a disease of the mind (you can’t possibly claim Fred Phelps or the 9/11 hijackers is/were “healthy”, can you?), but I now think that any religion is at least like illiteracy; that is, it’s not the fault of the believers/illiterate, but it limits them, limits their choices, their abilities, and their future, and they would surely be better off without it.

FAQ: What if you’re wrong, and God does exist?

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Pedro Timóteo

on March 6, 2008

in atheism, atheism faq and religion

. 6 Comments

(Note: this is not the same as the previous FAQ, “Isn’t it better to believe, just in case? After all, if I’m wrong, then I don’t lose much, but if you’re wrong…”. That one is a repudiation of Pascal’s Wager; this one is an answer to the remote possibility that there *is*, indeed, a God.)

This is a question often asked by believers (especially Christians) to atheists. What if we’re wrong, God does indeed exist, and after we die, as the saying goes, we do indeed meet our maker?

First, let me say that this is not a possibility that actually worries me, as I have every reason to believe that no god or gods exist. The universe appears 100% natural, and, while science is far from knowing everything, there isn’t anything out there, so far, that absolutely requires a supernatural explanation and can’t possibly — ever — be explained in naturalistic terms. In other words: a complete lack of evidence “for” is in itself very good evidence “against” (and it’s not like humanity hasn’t searched, for millennia), and therefore evidence suggests there are zero deities out there.

Second, if there was a god, it’s still virtually impossible that the human religions are right. Their gods are small, provincial, territorial, petty and tribal. And very human-like. They have human emotions (including a lot of jealousy), they tend to have a “chosen people”, they supposedly created a universe that we now know is incredibly vast and complex (and which was unknown when the religions appeared), but our insignificant little planet is still the only thing that matters in the universe — and our physical lives here aren’t even what really matters. (The idea of a universe old and vast like this, as simply “background scenario” for a test to see whether we’re saved or not… it boggles the mind.) The anthropomorphic gods of our religions are too obviously man-made to be the real thing. If there was a god out there capable of creating a universe, he/she/it would probably be much too complex for us to even notice — and he/she/it wouldn’t certainly be concerned with us, our morality, our sexual lives , nor would he/she/it judge us and create places for us to go after we died. In other words, if there was a god, it wouldn’t affect us in any way — and it would be infinitely greater than the petty anthropomorphic fictional deities of our religions.

Third, what if, despite all the above, there still was a god, and he/she/it was concerned with us, and did judge us in some way after our physical deaths? Well, it depends on its standards of judging. Maybe it didn’t care about our morality, or about being worshipped, but about something completely different. We have no way of knowing.

But suppose it did care about our actions. Then, the final question would be: is God good, or evil? I’m dismissing any corruptions of the meaning of “good” such as “whatever God does or wants is by definition good”. There must be some standard, other than the whims of a powerful being.

Therefore:

a good god — which precludes the insecure sexuality-obsessed tyrant the three monotheisms believe in — would reward someone who lived a good life, generally being nice to other people, and full of curiosity to discover things, and to follow the available evidence to the logical conclusion. The available evidence doesn’t in any way suggest the presence of a god, so to believe in one anyway is nothing more than intellectually dishonest wishful thinking. A good god would reward good atheists and good believers, and punish evil atheists and evil believers — but would probably be a bit disappointed with the lack of curiosity and honesty shown by the believers (but then again, he/she/it would have some explaining to do: why stay hidden and make it so that the universe implies his/her/its non-existence?). A good god wouldn’t be an insecure or immature, so he wouldn’t need, desire or care about worship or any kind of ego-stroking at all. Therefore, I have no fear at all of a good god.
an evil god — much like Yahweh or Allah (and if you don’t agree with me, you haven’t been reading your holy books) — would be much like a brutal dictator in a totalitarian dictatorship. No one is safe from such a monster; there’s no use in expecting justice or fair treatment. He owns you; you’re his property: a slave, no more. Sucking up might work for a time, but he can always torture or kill you on a whim, because, to him, you’re not really a sentient being; you are a tool to be used, a toy to play with. Still, sucking up — that is, worshipping him, and living your life just for him, obeying his commands blindly, no matter the suffering it causes — would probably be your best bet. Of course, that would also make you a disgusting little coward, devoid of any moral integrity. This god is the kind of being that would indeed create two places for us to go for eternity — one for endless torment, the other for sucking up to him even more. The only moral thing to do in the presence of such a monster, as he condemned and damned us for having the morality he lacks, would be to spit in his face, as a final act of defiance.

Fortunately, I don’t believe any of the above exists. I have no reasons to, after all. And the result? A feeling of freedom.

(Note: please keep any comments related to the above question / answer, and not to other subjects, such as whether God exists or not. Thanks.)

More on the Dawkins / Hitchens / Dennett / Harris discussion (part 3): "God exists" implies Christianity?

Published

Pedro Timóteo

on March 6, 2008

in atheism, christianity and religion

. 0 Comments

As always, click on the image for the source and to download the videos, yada yada yada.

Christopher Hitchens: You had a marvelous quotation from Francis Collins, the genome pioneer, who said, while mountaineering one day, he was so overcome by the landscape, and then went down on his knees and accepted Jesus Christ. A complete non sequitur.

Indeed it is. One doesn’t follow from the other, unless you already had some nasty preconceptions.

Much like C.S. Lewis did before, Francis Collins doesn’t realize that the idea that some god exists (because he’s looking at something which seems to imply some form of design) does not mean Christianity — or any other particular religion — is true.

Why is it that supposed atheists or agnostics, when they have an experience like that, never “accept” the “truth” of a less common religion where they live? Why wasn’t Collins convinced of the “truth” of Islam, Judaism or Hinduism, from watching that beautiful landscape?

Because of his background, I’d say. Much like many Westerners, Collins was probably brought up to believe that religion means Christianity (regardless of whether its claims are true or not), and that then there are some other creeds out there, mostly weird, exotic beliefs. Therefore, a sudden realization that “yes, there is a god!”, to him, must necessarily mean “Christianity is true”. In other words, “there is a god” is synonym with “God incarnated as a human 2000 years ago and sacrificed himself to himself in order to change his own mind about damning us all”.

Needless to say, it takes a pretty warped mind to not only move from one to the other, but to see no problem with doing so.