uberkuh

From religulousmovie.net:

With religious fanatics like George Bush and Osama bin Laden now taking over the world, it seemed to me in recent years that this issue—this cause of debunking the man behind the curtain—needed to have a larger, more insistent and focused forum than late night television. I wanted to make a documentary, and I wanted it to be funny. In fact, since there is nothing more ridiculous than the ancient mythological stories that live on as today’s religions, this movie would try to be a real knee slapper. Unless, of course, you’re religious, then you might not like it.

When Atheists Attack

“Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child’s brain?”

“Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I’m an avid hunter.”

“But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind.”

“That’s just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink.”

The Turkish government has forbidden its residents from accessing richarddawkins.net, thanks to complaints by Islamic creationist author and convicted felon Adnan Oktar (a.k.a. Harun Yahya (a.k.a. Adnan Hoca)). Goddamn, pick a name, already.

From here:

“Faith is not based on science,” Mr. Campbell said. “And science is not based on faith. I don’t expect you to ‘believe’ the scientific explanation of evolution that we’re going to talk about over the next few weeks.”

“But I do,” he added, “expect you to understand it.”

I applaud Mr. Campbell and Florida’s Department of Education for embracing evolution as a fundamental part of science education. And I understand Mr. Campbell’s strategy behind his presentation. However, I cannot agree with his reasoning.

Faith is always based on something and that something is always a product of our experience, even if it does not exist. Faith, like any mental construct, is experiential. And because it is experiential, it is, like any mental construct, amenable to scientific exploration.

So, while faith might not be based on science, it is misleading to imply, as Mr. Campbell seems to be doing, that faith is not open to scientific scrutiny.

As an aside, I noticed from this graphic that Florida stands out as a progressive Southern state, while Iowa unfortunately stands out for the opposite reasons (i.e., northern and regressive).

In a recent radio interview with David Mills (mp3), a 70-year-old man called in and argued, in part, that he was not trying to convert David to Christianity. A following caller supported this position while criticizing David for calling certain biblical beliefs, like the belief in a 6,000-year-old Earth, ridiculous. Let me ask you something. Is it possible for someone with a given belief to argue for that belief without also implicitly trying to convince the opposition to accept that belief as true?

If I am arguing for a belief and I admit that I accept that belief as true, then how can I possibly truthfully claim not to be defending that belief? I don’t see how I could possibly remain neutral in this case. If I believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years young and you believe that it’s millions of years old, then I cannot argue that it is so young without, at the same time, trying to convince you of that belief. Just can’t happen.

Gunman critically wounds 7 in Tennessee church

George Carlin explains:

“Do you believe in god?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in my god?”

“No.”

BAM! Dead!

I must share with you an admittedly kooky, but strangely reasonable, thought that struck me today. It is that evolution is proof of sin! Well, sin doesn’t exist. But if it did, then evolution would be proof of its existence.

Here is my reasoning. Because we and our environment are constantly coevolving, we are forced to constantly adapt to evolving environmental demands. It evolves. We evolve. It evolves. We evolve. And so on it goes, round and round, always changing and, sometimes, arguably progressing.

Enter sin. Sin is basically a genetic flaw or imperfection, right? And the need to constantly adapt means that we are genetically imperfect. (I would actually argue against the employment of imperfection as a valid concept here, but let’s pretend for now that it makes sense.) So the need to constantly evolve means that we are sinful by nature!

What good is this little revelation? (As an aside, I’m pretty sure without looking it up that some liberal Christian, somewhere, has argued this point before.) As a representative, if you will, of Atheism, you can tell theists that evolution must exist because sin exists (to them, anyway).

Argument

Your religious belief is based on faith.

If it made sense, you wouldn’t need faith.

So your religious belief doesn’t make sense.

But if it doesn’t make sense, then why have faith?

Faith has to be based on something.

And that something has to make sense.

Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense to have faith in it.

Conclusion

You shouldn’t have faith in something that doesn’t make sense.

There used to be a thousand gods.
They ruled antiquity.
What are the odds?

The fear and hope of countless sods
Lay shrouded in mystery.
There used to be a thousand gods.

All but one were damned as frauds.
There were so many.
What are the odds?

From fires to floods,
They cursed iniquity.
There used to be a thousand gods.

Every race lauds
Its chosen divinity.
What are the odds?

A million synods
Voted what to believe.
There used to be a thousand gods.
What are the odds?

—

This form of poetry is called a villanelle. I learned about it last night and wanted to try my hand at it. It’s not that hard to make.

Polytheism used to be all the rage. Monotheism became popular because people were lazy and didn’t want to pray a thousand times to a thousand different gods. Oh, we need rain today? Let’s pray to Rain God. Oh, we need sunshine tomorrow? Let’s pray to Sun God. And so it goes. It gets old, I imagine. The only semi-reasonable solution is to consolidate your deities into one gigantic, all-powerful savior. Now you can pray for everything at once and your one awesome god will take care of it all with his infinite capacity and goodness.

Yet, even when you have decided to worship only one god, you can still find a thousand other gods. This absurdity of worshiping one out of a thousand gods is what inspired this poem. One of the silliest presumptions of any monotheist is that his or her chosen god is the only true or existing god.

How does anyone know that other gods don’t exist? Maybe they do. Maybe they sit up in Heaven together and play games with our minds. Can’t you see Zeus, Odin, and Jesus sitting around a cloud-filled roulette wheel, betting on when some poor sap will kick the bucket or lose his marbles from some preordained misfortune?

If anyone tries to tell you that only one god exists, ask that person how he or she came to know such privileged information and why the rest of the world is still so confused. It’s a good question. And faith is not the answer. It’s avoidance of it.