godisimaginary.com

After five years of debating with religious folks, I have reached the conclusion that no matter how rational a person is, it’s extremely hard to have them apply reason to their religious beliefs.

The only approach that remotely seemed to work was the Socratic method. Here’s an excerpt from my essay on applying the Socratic method to debate religious believers:

Note the insidiousness. This is not a topic you can fight with your cards in plain sight.

Skeptic (in disguise): I just watched Schindler’s list last night and was horrified. How was it possible to murder so many people, in the name of what? My mind cannot grasp a tragedy of that scale.
Believer: That was definitely atrocious, let’s pray to God it will never happen again.
Skeptic: Let us… Such an evil act… Do you think the Holocaust was evil?
Believer: Um, yes, of course?
Skeptic: I still can’t grasp its size… So many people… Would you think that killing 26,500 children each day is evil?
Believer: Yes…
Skeptic: If someone were to commit that crime, what should be done to them?
Believer: Death penalty? Life sentence?
Skeptic: What if someone very rich could intervene to greatly reduce that crime at little to no cost to them, for example by distributing a vaccine which they have anyway, and would expire in a few weeks if not distributed, and is already there? Should they do so?
Believer: Absolutely! Why let the poor children die when you can prevent it?
Skeptic: But what if that someone just wouldn’t do it? What would you think of them?
Believer: I think they are a cold-blooded murderer by non-intervention!
Skeptic: It saddens me to no end that these 26,500 children actually do get killed each day. Have you read about the study published by Global Issues?
Believer: What do you mean?
Skeptic: Take a look at this article, Today, 26,500 children died.
Believer: Nobody’s killing these children. They just die of disease, or because nobody feeds them, but nobody is exactly obliged to.
Skeptic: Well, I don’t know… May God have mercy on them… You do believe in God, do you?
Believer: Of course, and in Our Lord Jesus Christ!
Skeptic: Do you believe God is almighty?
Believer: Yes!
Skeptic: And all-knowing?
Believer: And all-knowing as well!
Skeptic: And all-good and all-loving?
Believer: That too.
Skeptic: Have you heard about chaos theory or the butterfly effect?
Believer: I’m not sure I see the point, but yes. It means that very very tiny changes in the physical world, like a butterfly flapping its wings in New Zealand, can have wild effects across the planet, say causing a tornado to happen in Mexico instead of Florida.
Skeptic: Do you believe in chaos theory?
Believer: I guess I do… God Almighty can certainly arrange for it.
Skeptic: Do you believe that we have free will?
Believer: That is one of God’s greatest gifts to us.
Skeptic: Would something like a butterfly flapping its wings affect anyone’s free will?
Believer: I don’t see why it would.
Skeptic: Now what if God caused such a butterfly to flap its wings and trigger a chain reaction of events that would eradicate the Anopheles mosquitoes that transmit malaria?
Believer: God can certainly do that, but probably has His reasons not to do it!
Skeptic [internally: WTF?!]: We agreed earlier that if someone could save those children, they should, and if they don’t, you think they’re a cold-blooded murderer. Why does God get away with it?
Believer: God is above this kind of logic! He has His plan and we are too limited to understand why 26,500 children must die each day as part of it.
Skeptic: If God is above logic, can he do logically contradictory things, like draw a square circle?
Believer: I suppose so?
Skeptic: Or tell a truth that is a lie at the same time?
Believer: God doesn’t lie!
Skeptic: If God tells the truth all the time, but at the same time he’s above logic, he can then tell truths that are lies all the time, no? Like the truth that you will end up in Heaven if you accept Jesus as your Savior.
Believer: God doesn’t do that!
Skeptic: How do you know?
Believer: I just know!
Skeptic [internally: end of debate…; returns to a different track]: OK, so maybe God just has a different definition of good and evil than we do? In other words, to us things like the Holocaust or the 26,500 daily children deaths are evil, but to God in is unknown infinite wisdom, they are not?
Believer: Yes, we cannot understand God’s will, but it’s ultimately for our good. Imagine that one of those children would become a genocidal terrorist who would kill millions.
Skeptic: What about the other millions of children mass-murdered to kill one potential terrorist?
Believer: God’s mysterious plan.
Skeptic: If we don’t understand these big things that God does, why do we claim to understand the little things, like when we should fast, or what day of the week to observe the Sabbath?

I was watching Bill Gates’ Harvard address and one of the usually inane YouTube comments caught my eye:

You’re an idiot and go preach your Atheist views somewhere else. I hope when you die. You become a tree!! I am going to chop your ass down and send you to the paper mill and print the bible on you!

This is a hysterical “Best of craigslist” post:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/ksc/725674463.html

[...]

Have you ever thought about what will happen to your pets after Jesus comes back to claim the souls of the saved during the Rapture and deliver them to heaven to enjoy ever lasting life? The Bible clearly teaches that only those that have accepted Jesus as their savior will enter heaven (John 14:6, Romans 3:23), and we all know that pets do not have the cognitive ability to do this, so what will happen to your beloved pets? Surely without you there, they would be stuck inside your empty house, starving to death with no one to feed them, let them out to potty, or clean their litter box. This is probably not what you envision for your pets after you are gone. This is where I come in.

I am here to offer you pet care service for after the rapture. As an atheist, I will surely still be here on this earth post rapture and would love to look after your pets for a small fee and make sure they are still well taken care of after you and your family have been raptured. You will be able to look down on them from heaven and see them being well cared for by me and living happy, healthy lives. Do not let my atheism scare you! I am a moral and loving pet owner and would never do harm to any animal.

For a small deposit of only $50, you can be assured that your pets will be well cared for from the time that you are raptured until the end of their natural life. They will get adequate amounts of food, water, and shelter as well as plenty of exercise and socialization as I would imagine there will be a lot of pets that will be abandoned by Jesus the pet hater that will need to be cared for.

If interested, please email me for my PayPal address (you can also send me a check if you prefer) so you can assure that your pets will be taken care of after Jesus comes to take your soul to heaven. $50 is only a small price to pay to know that while you are enjoying everlasting bliss, your pets will be cared for until their end days. Thanks and have a great day!

Please do not flag this ad. It is very serious.

http://charterforcompassion.com/

From an e-mail sent by TED.com:

What we’re doing, starting today, is to begin writing the Charter for Compassion that Karen Armstrong called for earlier this year when she made her TED Prize wish. And the exhilarating twist here is that the writing won’t be done behind closed doors. It will be done by you… and perhaps millions of others around the world. Because we’re using special collaborative web tools created by the geniuses at Kluster to enable this be truly a charter “created by the world for the world”.

Later this week millions of Muslims, Christians, and Jews will be sent an email inviting them to come to the site and offer their choice of words, in their own language, to help create a charter capable of inspiring the world to focus on what the great religions share, as opposed to what divides them.

“What the great religions share”... belief in imaginary crap.

Really, does each of those leaders believe that they (and only they) are right, and all the other leaders are wrong, on a myriad of unprovable topics? Is it not far more likely that they are ALL wrong?

For Pete’s sake, don’t they realize how pointless it is to agree to disagree on issues such as whether an animal is kosher to eat or not, or which direction you should face when you pray?

Does it not emerge that what they share are basic human values, which – surprise – have NOTHING to do with any God, but simply make up what’s called Humanism?

I came across the bumper sticker in the picture, and, naturally, I wanted to check how accurate it was. After a quick websearch, I found this site quoting well-referenced research:

Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes—one child every five seconds.

The ironic fact is that the site in question is Hunger Facts: International, “A Christian Voice for Ending Hunger”.

_{Note: the study quoted was conducted in 2003. As of 2007, the number of children who die daily of hunger is 18,000 and the number of children who die every day of all causes is 26,500}

This is perhaps the most serious religious parody I’ve ever seen. The article itself is inspired from a snope, but the comments are juicily delicious and the blogger is a SERIOUSLY TRUE believer ;)

Very few commentators get it. The whole comment thread is ROTFLMAO.

Man has invented enough Gods already, but never really wondered if they made any sense.

But hey, maybe your God makes sense. Why not put Him to the test:

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/whatisgod.htm

Pray-in at S.F. gas station asks God to lower prices

[...]
Twyman – a community organizer, church choir director and public relations consultant from the Washington, D.C., suburbs – staged a pray-in at a San Francisco Chevron station on Friday, asking God for cheaper gas. He did the same thing in the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, with volunteers from a soup kitchen joining in. Today he will lead members of an Oakland church in prayer.

Yes, it’s come to that.

“God is the only one we can turn to at this point,” said Twyman, 59. “Our leaders don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. The prices keep soaring and soaring.”

New sins everyone: hurting the environment, and anything bioethically arguable. Courtesy of the Vatican:
Vatican lists ‘new sins’, including pollution.

The meta-lesson here is that we can see, right under our eyes, religion in the making. Why did the Church have to make these amendments? Why wasn’t the Bible/Jesus smart enough to foresee environmental issues and warn us way ahead of time? Would’ve also helped improve Bible’s impressive failed prophecies record.

Times changed, and the Church invented these new sins, with the obvious motive of gaining popularity in the midst of a “green” trend in the civilized world. But what if they invented a few sins before these, for other motives, such as self-preservation, or increased obedience of the populace? What if they had invented a few others even earlier in history? What if THEY MADE IT ALL UP?

From San Diego CityBeat:

Heath Ledger is in Hell and has
begun serving his eternal sentence.

That was a quote from the leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church, who, among others, are claiming that God killed Heath Ledger for portraying a homosexual in a big-time Hollywood movie.

While it is true that this particular church is wildly extreme, there have been plenty of other God-worshipper types who have made similarly despicable comments.

Like when local Christian crusader James Hartline said God started the San Diego County wildfires because he was mad at us for being hospitable to gays. Like when Pat Robertson said Hurricane Katrina was God punishing New Orleans for being gay-friendly. Like when Jerry Falwell – may he Rot In Purgatory (RIP) – said 9/11 happened because America’s got the ACLU, the pro-choicers and, of course, the gays.

To me, the saddest part about you hardcore God-worshipper types isn’t that you actually believe The Almighty is capable of this sort of behavior but, rather, that you believe it and continue to worship him.

Just look at his record:

1. Your God is a Jerk: This is the most obvious reason not to worship the kind of god you Hardcore God Worshippers worship. Among countless other transgressions, killing gays and sending them to Hell seems the sort of thing only a jerk would do.
2. Your God is Stupid: So, the Hardcore Worshippers believe The Heavenly Father smote Heath Ledger because he portrayed a homosexual in a big-time Hollywood movie. Does The Heavenly Father think movies are real? Does He not know that Heath Ledger was an, um, actor? It seems to me that an important quality of the ruler of the universe – creator of all things, all-powerful, all-knowing – is to not be a dimwit.
3. Your God is Inconsistent: If God’s policy is to exterminate celebrities who portray homosexuals in Hollywood movies, then why is Gary Oldman still alive? Harry Hamlin? Patrice Donnelly? John Leguizamo? Why the hell is Matthew Broderick not dead yet, or at least suffering a Hell on Earth? The movie Torch Song Trilogy, in which Broderick acted gay, could easily be the poster film of the so-called homosexual agenda: It highlighted the injustices perpetrated amid an inhospitable culture. It delivered an awareness of and disgust for gay bashing. It testified to the rewards and benefits of gay adoption. Torch Song Trilogy has all the content a homophobic god would detest, yet Broderick’s life is far from hellish. He’s married to Sarah Sexica Parker, for crying out loud. It’s just not consistent to allow him a life of bliss while worms burrow into Heath Ledger’s eyeballs.
4. Your God Has Bad Aim: Even if the ridiculous were true, that God targets gays and people who act gay in movies, well, his collateral damage is unacceptable. Even a blindfolded Dick Cheney in a room full of 100 old white guys and one quail has better aim than Your God.
   How many heterosexuals who never acted gay in any Hollywood movies died on 9/11? How many hetero homes and lives were destroyed by Katrina and the wildfires? And what about the hetero babies, Lord?! How many straight babies must suffer before you consider subcontracting your hits to a pro!?
   I could never worship a deity with bad aim. I need a sure-shot god who can put a bullet between the eyes of an actor who portrayed a homosexual in a Hollywood movie without getting so much as a speck of blood on any heterosexual infants who never played a homosexual baby in a movie.
5. Your God is Bad at PR: Waiting until now to whack Heath Ledger is a weak PR move. God could have garnered way more press had he exacted his vengeance at the time of Brokeback Mountain’s release. You know, like at the world premiere – on the red carpet – maybe drop an anvil on his head with a thousand shutterbugs recording it for the world to see and heed.
   PR prowess is a profoundly important skill for a deity to have. Even Zeus knew that. All his smitings made front-page news – like when he chained Ixion to a wheel and cooked him slowly over the fires of Tartaras. That’s how to get a message across.

I know what you’re thinking, Hardcore God Worshippers. You’re thinking The Lord’s actions don’t seem logical to us because “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Well, sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say God works in a manner unknowable to man and then presume to know why he makes gay-acting actors overdose on pills. Besides, who wants to worship a mysterious deity? “Ooooh, you’re so mysterious God. Spooky spooky. We don’t know what you’re doing or why, but we love you soooo much.”

To hell with that noise. I need a god that works in transparent ways, a god I can keep tabs on – a real god would want that because a real god’s got nothing to hide.

You know, for thousands of years, humans have argued, fought and killed one another over which is the one true Lord. It seems to me, there’s no way any person can know this. It seems to me, the best we can do is just choose a deity that’s worth worshipping. Then, if we’re wrong, at least we aren’t wrong and worshipping a stupid jerk.
It’s simple, really: All we have to do is look at our all our god options, scrutinize their manifests and the commandments until we find one we can get behind – a kind and wise god; a reasonable god; a common-sense kind of god that understands that movies are make-believe; a god who does not say, “Burn in Hell, queer,” but, rather, says, “I made you as you are, child, so go forth and be the best damn gay you can be!”; a god who loves all the people he creates, unconditionally, unless they are total losers – like rapists, murderers and Patriot fans – each of which The Almighty will deliver a thousand lightning bolts unto their faces, with sure-shot aim, so as not to hurt others. Anything less deserves our contempt, not devotion.