FB Humour

The result of an attempt to hide one of those annoying FB applications that fill up one's newsfeed:

What Would Jesus Do?

Heal some sick people, feed some hungry people, spew a few fairly common but still for the most part decent platitudes, and then die. If only most of his followers took this question as seriously as they pretend. (Of course, if they really focused on healing and feeding, I wouldn't want them to die). Also, if by some miracle they should come back to life like him, they should (like him) go away.

The Scientific Study of Religion

"The Religious Studies community, especially as it is represented by the American Academy of Religion, has to a large degree continued to espouse a form of postmodernism, largely, it appears, in order to provide room for religion and humanistically inspired socio-political agendas as part of the Religious Studies enterprise. By curtailing the scientific agenda with its search for testable hypotheses about religion, or some element or aspect thereof, the student of religion, it seems, is justified by postmodernism in seeking---or is at least permitted by it to see---something other than mundane knowledge about religious belief of behavior."

- Donald Wiebe "The Scientific Study of Religion and Its Cultured Despisers"

Hell is not the threat you think it is

Got another email from my friend:

well if all you're going to do it spout off the commonly heard atheirst cliches, without even reading the material at the site I showed you, then there's no point wasting time with you. you clearly WANT to believe in no God, and one day soon you'll find out just how wrong you are.
sorry i wasted your time

One day soon? Cool. Anyways, my response:

I thought it was you who was spouting cliches. I did read the material on the site. In fact, someone sent me the link before. So it if it is your site, congratulations; you may not be reaching atheists, but other Christians seem to find it useful. (I suspect it is not yours, since I doubt if you were Michael Caputo that you would use jbooks email.) In any case, if you want to see a proper response to each of your/his points, I am happy to do so. It would take at least 18 emails. I have a life and a job, so I couldn't do it right away.

Also, you might want to consider the fact that most other religions make similar absolute claims. You and I might well end up in Muslim hell together, or perhaps have this same argument in another life. Perhaps in both cases, we'll be friends. In other words, your bifurcation of the world into Christians and everyone else seems to suggest that you need to get out more. You may be less willing to condemn fewer people to hell if you get to know them.

Otherwise, I accept your apology for wasting my time. And yes, I WANT to believe there is no God. If he exists, I want to go to hell. Only there can I spend an eternity saying "no!" to Him. Why? If he exists, he has permitted the greatest evils in this world to continue. If he were just apathetic, I could forgive him. But since almost all religions claim that he does intervene in human events (i.e., miracles) from time to time, he is culpable for what goes on here. He could have stopped the holocaust for example, but he did not. He could have stopped a baby from burning to death in a car crash, but didn't. He could have stopped 9/11, but didn't. He could have created a world without cancer, but didn't Even if he makes it "right" later, justice delayed is justice denied. (I.e., how long does a Muslim girl have to spend in heaven for her to feel good about being gang-raped to death in Bosnia in the 1990s by Serbian Christians, who presumably asked for forgiveness and are in heaven with her. Or is she in hell?) I don't think God exists, but if he does, I want to be as far away from him as possible. If you are right, hell is were I want to be.

Is there any point in debating him/her? This is my issue with the New Atheists. Must we become missionaries, adopting the very methods of those who despise us so much? I hope not.

I Got (hate) Mail!!!

From a reader of by blog, I presume:

1. Bertrand Russell was not an atheist.
2. Darwin rejected Atheism.
3. Sartre rejected Atheism.
4. David Hume was not an atheist. He saw God's presence in the intricacies of the universe.
5. Einstein believed that Judaism and Christianity possessed the answers to all human problems. 6. Madalyn Murray O'Hair's son, William, became a Christian evangelist.
7. The fathers/mothers of modern atheism were "not-so-moral" people.
8. The greatest social advancements were due to the work of believers, not atheists.
9. The greatest scientists of the past were fervent Christians.
10. Many modern Nobel Prize winning "scientists" believe in God.
11. The Scientific Method was conceived by philosophers and scientists who believed in God.
12. The greatest minds of the past believed in God.
13. Atheists were responsible for more deaths than any other group in history.
14. Sir Anthony Flew was arguably the foremost defender of atheism in modern times -- He is now a believer.
15. Jesus Christ is a proven historical figure and fulfilled all the requirements to be the Messiah.
16. The Bible has withstood the test of time.
17. There are ample explanations for alleged Bible discrepancies.
18. The facts supporting Jesus Christ's resurrection are unassailable.

to expand on these points you can check the website they came from
http://atheismexposed.tripod.com/atheist_secrets.htm

If you go to the link above, you see the same points, but you can click on it to get the "evidence". My response:

Never said they were all atheists. Of course, you are confused on some issues. Some people whom you list were agnostics on philosophical grounds and some did not profess atheism for fear of their lives (such as, Hume, who posthumously published his harshest critiques of religion.) Hume has the Christian destroy Deism and had the deist destroy Christianity --- there is little doubt where he stood. His critique of atheism is so tongue and cheek that is hard to read another way. I'll send you the quotation if you need it.

As for 7, look at Baron D'Holbach. Besides, this is an ad hominem attack. The refuge of those with no real argument.
As for 5, you are wrong. Read Einstein more carefully. The term "God" is often a metaphor with him.
As for 9 - 12, everyone was a Christian in the West once, just as every one once believed the earth was flat. It convinces me of nothing. Besides, the more education on has, especially in the hard sciences, the less religious one tends to be. Damn, you really don't read much do you?
As for 13, you are wrong. Bad atheists exist as do bad Christians. Even if Hitler was an atheist, about which there is some debate, almost all the concentration camp guards and soldiers were Christians. Stalin, the other person Christians pull out of their ass, was probably an atheist. So what? All the Crusaders were Christians. It tells us nothing about Christianity or atheism. Don't be stupid.
As for 14. Flew is not the foremost defender of atheism. And now he is hardly a Christian.
As for 15 and 18, you have clearly not read much on recent scholarship on the historical Jesus. Read Myth of Innocence by Burton Mack.
As for 16 and 17, the Bible is an iron age book, full of barbarism, contradiction, and the most vile morality this world has ever produced. It's not even written particularly well, but I doubt you can read Hebrew and Greek. Therefore, you don't know shit about what you are talking about.

Read some books written by your opponents before you criticize them. Don't rely on a very poorly written websites. It makes you look stupider. Your inaccurate facts are typical of ignorant Christians. Even well-read Christians would be embarrassed by your defense. I am. Go away.

(Or pray that your mighty God smites me. The little fucker has been unable to get me these last 50 years or so, since I became unborn again. I once thought like you, but I had been indoctrinated and as was poorly read and young. I hope the same is true of you.)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Sorry for long absence. You need not worry though; I haven't found the Lord, nor has he found me. If he's been looking for me, well, he's probably not as bright as his omniscience implies. All he has to do is Google me after all.

Anyways, ... I do not believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder. First, no one seems to has missed my posts, and second, God has been absent from my life for some 25 years, and if anything, I moved from mild fondness, to loathing, and then to apathy for this figure. However, much of humanity seems to have the opposite reaction. The more the evidence piles up for the absence of this being from the universe, the fonder of him some people seem to become.

I was wrong ...

worth a chuckle:
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm (hundreds of silly proofs for the existence of God. It is surprising how often they are used.)

Joke of the Day

Atheism is a non-prophet organization