More Evidence of Theist Blindness

The earthquake in Haiti was and continues to be an unmitigated disaster, relief efforts are being hampered by political slowness, thousands in need of aid. However it is bizarre to me that every time another person is pulled from the wreckage of their house somehow god gets the credit.

Apparently the hard working people of the international aid effort is only a side line to the great hand of the almighty. The small fact that if god had wanted to stop this disaster he could have done with a wave of his hand, if you believe this kind of thing, seems to have been forgotten. More the point as everything apparently happens to his design then he caused the damn thing in the first place, hence anyone who survives is a testament to either his incompetence or fickleness.

Neither of these attributes is particularly desirable in a mortal leader let alone an all powerful sky daddy. Consistency and aptitude are what you want, and yet the blatant lack of either of these traits never seems to phase the faithful.

Yet again we see god being credited with the hard work of us mere mortals, sadly often by the very people who should be cursing the very concept of a benign, loving god. I am sorry but if you want to give god credit for rescuing you then please apportion him the blame for dropping you house on you in the first place. Also ask yourself why you are so special that he had to go kill the rest of your family but save you?

Religious Morality

This is a topic that seems to keep coming up, including in a comment to one of my previous posts. Brazen Hussey effectively asked the old question how can you be moral without god?

I have never quite understood this stand point, particularly when being spouted by people who have abrogated all responsibility for there actions to a being that cannot be questioned, either due to his ineffability (their argument) or lack of existence (mine).

How can you consider your self moral when you accept no responsibility for the decisions behind your actions? If it is claimed that god has said a particular action is good then does that make it so by definition? even if that action would be counter to common good and or against the golden rule?

Surely this is just a case of might makes right, in their world view, god is the most powerful being hence can dictate the rules, to go against these rules invites ultimate punishment and to pander to them ultimate reward, this does not speak of the morality of these edicts, simple the ability of the one making them to enforce his will. Further this does bring into question the motives of anyone doing 'good' because of pronouncements made on the behalf of such a being. If the only reason to do good is to either avoid punishment or gain reward then the choice is not moral but mercenary, not a question of ethics but expediency. How is being a good Samaritan to get into heaven any different from being paid by a dictator to uphold his laws? both are done on the basis of the results of your actions rather than whether the actions are them selves are justified.

I also find it interesting that most Christians, sorry to have to bang on about only one religion but it is the one I know the most about, seem to want to pick and chose the rules they follow. There are plenty of laws in the bible that Christians ignore and yet they still claim the ones they follow are divine. Either the whole book is godly or the whole book can be questioned, you don't get to pick and choose, if you do how do you decide which ones to follow and which ones to ignore? If some of these 'divine' laws can be ignored, what is the rational for doing so?

Suffice to say I do not need a god to be good, I have sympathy and empathy to allow me to understand the consequences of my actions, I have a good understanding of the common good to allow me to make decisions that are bigger than just myself and, most importantly, I accept responsibility for my actions rather than trying to hide behind the edicts of the biggest bully around.

Loss of faith in Humanity

For a little while i have been reading the 'Atheist in a mini van' blog, it seems that due to her blog some unpleasantness befell her children when they went camping. While there are no details the commenters seem to assume that some one took information about the trip to work out where they would be and then attacked them about the mom's blog.

It is things like this that really wreck my faith in humanity, there can never be a good reason for taking out your issues with some one on there kids. PZ Meyers has recently received a number of threats against himself and his family because of his wish to destroy a cracker, surely no-one can think that this is an acceptable way to behave in anyones (good) book.

I don't want to make this about religion, I actually don't care about the motivations of people who are so broken that they feel that this sort of behaviour is not only acceptable but positively laudable. Have these people forgotten the basic rules of citizenship and society, do they not understand that, regardless of peoples beliefs or lack of them, threatening people or there loved ones with violence is no way to convince people of the rightness of their arguments and more to the point should result in punishment.

Unfortunately my writing skills are not up to really saying how I feel so I guess this is about as far as I go.

Mauled by a Christian

I have not been posting for a while, I am sad to admit that I almost gave up on all of this after a rather unpleasant encounter with a poster on a christian blog.

This guy was arrogant, rude and abusive. He was posting stuff that would have got pulled on any site that was not moderated by someone who considered him the second coming. On the one hand he did manage to demonstrate just about all the issues that most people come up when trying to talk to a fundy, he ignored my questions, or refused to answer them, insisted on using personal attacks, did not read my citations and insisted on using a number of logical fallacies (appeals to authority and appeals to popularity). All the verbal garbage I could have dealt with but when he started accusing me of being either uneducated or to young to understand,(I am university educated and rapidly approaching middle age) I rather felt there was little that he could say that would be of any interest to me.

The worst thing of this whole affair was that he said he was a professor, an educator who thinks that belittling the person who has come ask for information seems a very poor teacher indeed, it made me feel briefly sorry for his students, until I realised that he probably lectured in theology (given his stated expertise in the subject) and it was unlikely many of his students would be challenging the fundamental basis of his world view. It was also sad to see the sycophantic hangers on that basically sat on the side lines and cheered him on regardless on how pointless and personal his attacks became.

I suppose I get that people get angry when you start to suggest that their sky fairy may be all made up but if it is going to make them abusive they should probably not be in the public domain.

Perhaps I need to develop a thicker skin? strangely I don't feel that I should extend courtesies to people on the Internet that I would not in real life. If some one insults me to my face the least they should expect is for me to walk away from them.

Well this is turning into a long post

Another point that came up during my little eye opener was he was questioning my ability to argue based on the fact that I say I am an atheist because there is insufficient evidence or argument to believe in any god, rather than because I fundamentally believe that there is no god. This actually really wound him up, which baffled me. As a believer in the scientific method surely I have to allow for the fact that we cannot prove there is no god, otherwise you are not a non believer, you are a devotee to a religion that has core beliefs (that there is no god). Would that not make me as biased and closed minded as the theists?

I know that theists have a real problem with understanding that most atheist do not actively disbelieve, I was reading a post saying that atheists all appear a little dumb because they are using up most of their brainpower denying the creator, as if I walk around all day reciting ' there is no god' to myself? I think it bothers them that I only ever think of god when someone or something brings it up. Why should I spend my time thinking about something that does not exist?

Any way I think I shall bring this ramble to a close, I shall see if anything else is happening in the real world.

Religion and Work

So some christian registrar thinks that same sex civil partnerships are sinful and refuses to officiate at them. Now as far as i am aware her job was to fulfil the duties of a registrar not to shove her bigoted christian morality down peoples throats. She is at liberty to believe what she likes however surely it is her responsibility to take a job that does not force her to go against her religion. If her employer cannot discriminate against her because of her religion how come she gets to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation.

This kind of crap makes my blood boil, if you won't do all aspects of a job why should you continue to be paid for it. How far would i get as an atheist siting a moral objection to something i wonder? what if i was a surveyor but refused to enter a church because of what it represents, does anyone really think i would get any more than very short thrift from my boss and a tribunal would laugh at me.

It is strange how she is allowed to discriminate against gay people, replace gay with black and suddenly the whole situation would be very different. Not only would she have been sacked but also vilified by the very people/papers that are citing her bravery for fighting for her beliefs.

I think the worst thing about this case is that it is being heralded as a victory for religious liberty, rather than condemned as another example of religious intolerance

Arguments from Ignorance

I have been browsing around the web and I still don't get how people can put up statements that amount to -

I don't understand how something happened therefore Goddidit'

Surely this level of mind numbing ignorance should be impossible in a world with so much easy to access information. Unless the subject is very obscure or advanced simple use of a search engine should show you the answer to nearly any question you care to ask, if anything you will get too many theories, to much information.

I wish people would learn to research before venturing dumb ass comments.

Opinion is a fine thing, it promotes discussion and forces people to evaluate their own beliefs. There is no such thing as a stupid question, there are vacuous questions and pointless questions, questions designed to limit rather than expand knowledge, there are loaded questions, but no stupid ones. Stupid answers, however, come by the bucket load

Stem cell research

There has been a lot of shouting about the new developments in stem cell research, namely the creation of cybride cytoblasts. Unsurprisingly various religious notables have been spouting off about 'human dignity' and 'playing god'. The particularly amusing shoutiness was about allowing MPs to have a free vote on the bill governing this very useful bit of science, the fact that all the religious MPs where not actually expected to vote their conscience, so much as be good little followers and do what the mother church tells them really shows the startling ability of the religious to honestly believe two mutually exclusive things at the same time.

I have a fairly personal stake in all this, my mother suffers from Alzheimer's, one of the conditions that they believe this sort of research may be able to help with. I try to keep my anger in check but there is only some many times i can hear someone say that a bundle of cells smaller than a pin head has more right to life than my mum before i feel my knuckles start to itch.

The enormous hypocrisy of defending the 'human dignity' of a cytoblast while at the same time failing to recognise the very real needs of the actually ill manages to sadden and sicken me in almost equal measures. I am not a supporter of unregulated scientific experimentation, at all times the gains must out way the losses and that is a very difficult line to follow, but in this case this really should be a no brainer.

Interesting times at the Vatican

It looks like it is alright to believe in ETs. Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes claims that an ET would simply be another part of creation, and that we should not limit the 'Creative Power' of god to only creating things on this small ball. Seems funny to me that there is no mention of extraterrestrials in the 'good' book, surely any other intelligent creation would get a mention somewhere?

To be honest I am on the fence as to alien intelligences, the math of probability is compelling but we simply know to little about the origins of life on this planet too really speculate. That being said it would be excellent to see what knots various religions tie themselves in to justify their continued existence when the first little green man appears on the scene and blows some fairly big holes in a number of ancient texts.

Simple starts, small thoughts

I have been browsing the offerings at Fundies say the darnedest things and while some of quotes are funny, and some down right scary, the theme running through so many of them seems to be fear of the unknown. Why is it that the religious mind seems to be obsessed with being able to answer all the questions? What is so wrong with 'We don't know the answer'?

The irony is that one of the most common complaints levelled at atheists is that they remove the wonder and mystery in the world, when reducing all the unknown to 'God did it' has to be the worst kind of removal of wonder that there is. Where are the questions? The curiosity?

It would be easy to rant about how the want to fill all the knowledge gaps with a god risks ending the development of technology and science, but I think that the saddest thing is when someone losses the will to ask 'Why', such a simple question and yet one that seems to cause the most problems. A lack of belief in a supreme being does not reduce the beauty of the world, it makes you realise how lucky we are to live in universe so amazing and complex.