Archive for March, 2009
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Monday, March 30th, 2009
I got a little carried away with the artwork, the hats didn’t need to be so ornate, but then again, I’m an artist and I think it’s clear from my work that I have a great deal of talent for drawing. </sarcasm>
Actually, I hope that you enjoy the comic. It deals with Ray Comfort and a billboard that he put up…
Aside: One thing that I honestly don’t understand, is that Ray is now claiming that his “bananas are an atheist’s worst nightmare” video was edited so that it didn’t show the Coke can analogy in the beginning, and just left it with the banana argument. This editing, apparently, doesn’t not show that Ray was making a parody. There is no conceivable parody he could be making against anyone except himself because he only argues for his own position.
Without further ado: Enjoy my Comic: Ray Comfort Billboard
Tags: atheism, Banana, Ray Comfort
Posted in Announcements | No Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
The tv show Nightline did a special episode on “Does Satan Exist?” which centered on a ‘debate’ between 2 hardcore Christian literalists in the “yes” camp vs. two ‘skeptics’ — Deepak Chopra and some Bishop (both of whom believe in God at least as some kind of nebulous good force, just not Satan).
I guess I found it almost funny that the skeptics were New-Age/liberal Christians… almost. I have to admit, from what I saw, the only person who made a complete thought was Deepak Chopra, which I write with surprise.
It was a terrible show and a terrible debate.
The end of the show showed some audience questions, which on balance, were as vapid as what was going on in the debate. Apparently, some side tangent got stirred up when Chopra was saying that literalist Christian beliefs were primitive (especially in the age of the earth type questions).
People were trying to get Chopra to admit that this was a somewhat offensive view to hold, and that he thinks that his own beliefs about the age of the universe ( ~ 13 billion years old) were more sophisticated.
One woman said something along the lines, “how can you say that the forces of gravity and electricity and science and physics is a more real basis than my experience with Jesus Christ?”
It was so palpably bad…
New Tactic: Accept the consequences of an accusation to move beyond it:
Sure it is offensive that I think that science is a more sophisticated and reliable method for discovering reality than your faith. Why do you think you have the right answer? Sure, I’m claiming to hold more sophisticated beliefs, what’s your point? Therefore Satan exists?
I would say to the further claims of having a relationship with the creator of the universe: “I doubt that you have communication with any being outside your own head. Partly because I don’t think this being will ever reliably tell you some true fact about the world that you don’t already know. If you disagree, here’s how we can test it in a manner that would be convincing to me. Ask God to reveal to you my license number.”
I wish I coulda been there…
Tags: Christian, Deepak Chopra, Nightline, Satan
Posted in debate | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
People frequently claim to have knowledge that their magic book is correct because they have faith that it is. It’s astounding how a person can think that faith can justify knowledge in anything, especially if there are conflicting faiths.
Anyway, I’ve recently had some success in explaining why this faith-based knowledge is completely unimpressive to a skeptic.
Check out the quick essay: Response to: Knowledge by Faith
Tags: Faith, Knowledge
Posted in Religious Interaction | 2 Comments »
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
Among the amazing claims that come up during discussions is the idea that if we didn’t have the Bible around, we wouldn’t have a clue how to operate in the world. I write a brief new essay that addresses animal sacrifice. It’s astounding to me when Christians and other presentday monotheists look at the beliefs of animist or other religions that sacrifice animals to the gods as though they hold more primitive religious beliefs. The entire basis for Christianity and at least the earlier parts of Judaism is animal sacrifice. In Christianity, especially, Jesus is supposedly the animal sacrifice to end all animal sacrifices.
Anyway, I write how I would attempt to bring to life at least partially, what modern day Christians want us to think about the earlier priests of Judaism in the post: Animal Sacrifices.
All feedback is welcome.
Tags: Animal sacrifice, Christianity, Judaism
Posted in Morality | 1 Comment »
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Getting a few quick essays cleared out of the queue. The post God: The Abusive Boyfriend is rather simple.
It contains two lists:
Ways the Christian God like the most extreme version of an abusive (and possibly psychotic) boyfriend:
And
Ways to tell if you are in danger of being taken advantage of in a relationship with this abusive God:
Enjoy!
Tags: Relationships
Posted in Negative Religious Influence | 1 Comment »
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
New post discussing Biblical errancy, the role of animal sacrifice and (briefly) what the Messiah was not expected to do.
I rarely engage in Biblical errancy types of arguments, but this one has yielded promising results for me in a number of recent conversations that I’ve had with people in person (including 2 different pastors).
Read the post here: Bible: Messiah Replaces animal sacrifice?
Tags: Animal sacrifice, Christianity, The Messiah
Posted in Announcements, Religious Interaction | No Comments »
Saturday, March 21st, 2009
Jesus is Love… God is Love… Love your enemies… it’s quoted all the time, I find that it’s rarely thought much about.
It is often quoted as some kind of amazing moral principle to “love your enemies”, but what does it mean?
I’m not sure, but if the character of the New Testament is supposed to believed, He deals with His enemies by torturing them forever in hellfire. If this is love, it’s a funny kind of love.
So, I’d argue that either
- Jesus does not practice what He preaches; or
- He is practicing what He preaches, but “loving your enemies” includes torturing your enemies for eternity.
I deal with this argument in my new post: Response to: Jesus is Love…
Let me hear your feedback!
Tags: Jesus, New Testament
Posted in Religious Interaction | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 19th, 2009
I had a great time having lunch a few days ago with 2 Mormon missionaries and 2 recent Mormon converts (they had just become or were in the process of becoming Mormon).
It was interesting to see the little stories and other techniques that the missionaries used to try to keep the meeting on their agenda. They had definitely had training, but it was really interesting to see what happened if you got them off their script.
Part of the training, I’m sure, is that they tell stories. They started out with one about, “A young man named Joseph Smith who… prayed and God and Jesus appeared before him, and gave him a message.”
So, a simple first question, “Why doesn’t God appear that way to everyone?”
“But then we wouldn’t have faith…”
“How miserable was Joseph Smith for the rest of his life after that encounter robbed him of his faith?”
“Oh he still had faith…”
I haven’t written about it, yet, but I used the “How does that work in Heaven?” question/tactic quite a bit because they just could not respond to it at all.
It works roughly as follows:
“Why is there suffering?”
– Because God gives us free will, and this results in pain and suffering …
“And it would be a bad thing if we didn’t have free will?”
– We would just be robots, and God doesn’t want robots following Him!
“So we have free will in heaven?”
– Of course!
“How much suffering is there in heaven?”
– None. It’s a perfect paradise.
“So, we can live in a perfect paradise without suffering, ever, and still have free will?”
– Yep!
“So let’s go back to that first question, why is there suffering in the world?”
– I already said this, God gives us free will!
“But, you just said that we could live in a perfect blissful harmony forever without any suffering and still have free will.”
– Wait… I guess we don’t have free will in heaven.
“So for the rest of eternity, God wants us to be robots in heaven worshipping Him without choice?”
– ….
I really need to get around to writing up the full essay on this, but hopefully that teaser was enough to whet your appetite. I plan having a number of these lunches in the future. Look for future updates!
Tags: Heaven, Joseph Smith, Mormon
Posted in Religious Interaction | 12 Comments »
Saturday, March 7th, 2009
There are many different issues that come up with how people can discover what is good and what is evil.
I find that arguments regarding this topic circle around some fairly… unproductive lines of argument from both the theistic and atheistic sides.
I will eventually write up a few arguments that I’ve found to be useful; but I just posted an argument that I’ve had some success with here: Response to: God is the Source of Morality.
Essentially, it directly tackles the epistemic question of how a person gains knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. Either there are good reasons to think that certain actions are wrong, or there are not. A theist who thinks that humans cannot discover this on their own will have a hard time in justifying how he came to believe that God Himself is good. Specifically, how does he choose to follow God and reject Lucifer? He read God’s book first? What if he had read Satan’s book first? What would that say?
If you do not think that he would have a hard time, and you think you could make the case for him, I’d love to hear someone give the defense a try.
Any other feedback is welcome, as always!
- Conversational Atheist
Tags: atheism, Evil, Morality
Posted in Announcements, Morality | 2 Comments »
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