The Atheist Blogger

“Would You Like to Know the Truth?” is the title of a Jehovah’s Witness leaflet that was given to me the other day. I was in a hurry to my friends house, and a guy stopped me and told me that “there are some questions that people have tried to answer over the years but never got a good response to. This leaflet explains some of them”.

I took one look at the document in my hand and saw the word “God” mentioned a couple of times. Together with the picture of the sunset, I knew I was dealing with a religious guy. My mind worked through several scenarios; I could stay and talk to the man, telling him I don’t believe, and be late for my friends, or I could go be sociable. I chose the latter (mainly because of the aforementioned rush I was in), thanked the man, and went on my way.

Of course, I’m not going to let the questions in the document go unanswered…

Does God really care about us?

No, because there probably isn’t a God, and if there were, does it really look like it gives a shit?

Will war and suffering end?

No; humans are very social creatures, but we tend to subscribe to different types of society. Unfortunately, these societies do not like each other very much. Major suffering might end when we cure all major illnesses, but that doesn’t stop new illnesses, inflicted wounds, etc.

What happens to us when we die?

We rot in the ground, although I personally want my body donated to medical science and then the remains cremated and scattered somewhere (waste not people).

Is there any hope for the dead?

Is there any hope for other inanimate objects like spoons? No.

How can I pray and be heard by God?

Once you accept that you are talking to yourself, I’m certain you’ll be able to hear.

How can I find happiness in life?

Try new things, find out what makes you happy. Pursue it.

You might also notice none of my answers involve believing in a ridiculous doctrine made up by men thousands of years ago who thought the sun was magic. It’s a slight bonus.

I do hope the Jehovah’s Witnesses come round again; I’ll be able to give them my answers!

Back in secondary school (high school for you yanks), I had a friend called Tom. He was clever, funny, witty; the kind of friend you like talking to and having around. Tom was also a very smart guy, passed all his exams with flying colours, and is now attending Cambridge University reading Law.

On facebook recently, I noticed an addition to his information:

I am an evangelical (also called “heavy duty”) Christian! Christianity in a (sizeable) nutshell:

1) God created the world and it was very good. Humans were made in God’s own image to rule over the world and enjoy it. We are especially loved by God and therefore distinct from the animals. God’s relationship to us is one of a loving (but holy) Father.

2) The first humans (Adam and Eve) chose out of their free will to disobey God. As a result, they put distance between themselves and God and came under the so-called law of sin. Every human since has been born sinful, unable to avoid what their conscience tells them is wrong or to do what they know is right.

3) Each of us has inherited a sinful nature and we are all guilty of wrongdoing, even if we try to be and seem to be “pretty good” people by our own human standards.

4) Because of point 3, we are in very serious trouble. God’s standard is perfection - being “pretty good” will not do. The price for sin has to be paid in full and unfortunately for us, that means physical death followed by eternal spiritual death.

5) However (this is the good bit), a solution has been provided! The Son of God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and met God’s standard where we were unable to, living a sinless life despite temptations. Having lived without sinning, alone among humans, he died a death which he did not deserve when he was executed on the cross.

6) Because Jesus had not deserved death himself, he died as a substitute for all of us, taking God’s judgments against sin upon himself. As he was the infinite Son of God, his sufferings and death on the cross were fully adequate to pay the price for every human sin.

7) Having paid the price for sin, Jesus rose from the dead in a glorified body which can never die again. He is at work in the lives of Christians now as a “best friend,” and his glorified resurrection body is the pattern of the body which will be given to all those God raises to eternal life.

8) Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can be reconciled to God, enjoying a relationship with Him in this life and eternal life in the world to come. To do this, we must accept Jesus by faith as our lord and saviour. Faith is not something in the mind, but rather the same thing that happens when you sit down on a chair and trust it to hold you up rather than collapse. A rickety chair may let you down, but the one who trusts in Jesus will never be put to shame.

9) If you want a relationship with God followed by eternal life, call on the name of the resurrected Jesus Christ and ask him to come into your life. This may take a long time to happen - very rarely do people ever become Christians as an instantaneous event.

10) Anything more, ask me :)

It makes me sad to see such intelligence so corrupted by religion, especially when he responded to my inquiries with this BS.

The notion of seven short 24-hour days of creation is, in my opinion, a *spiritual* misunderstanding of Genesis 1. There is, however, no evidence for evolution.

I think the notion of believing there is no evidence for evolution is an *ignorant* misunderstanding of science.

Ray Comfort has another hilarious post containing 10 questions atheists apparently cannot answer. Here to disprove him yet again, I give some possible answers.

1. What was in the beginning?

If we assume there is a beginning to reality (not just the universe) then it is probably some form of singularity or something else. We’re not entirely sure, but these are good predictions based on the evidence. Of course, we know so little about time that it is possible there was no beginning.

2. How will life on earth end?

Given that life consists of every organism, it would be very unlikely for any natural event to wipe out every example of life on the planet. Single-celled organisms will probably last until the Sun dies.

3. What happens after death?

Our bodies decompose like everything else that dies. Seeing as death happens when electrical activity in the brain ceases, and it is those electrical signals that power our consciousness, there is no evidence to suggest we can think after this event, let alone have an “afterlife”.

4. What is the purpose of existence?

There is no purpose other than the one you give yourself. There is no grand plan for any of us. We have to make our life choices ourselves, and do what we want to do in life.

5. Why there is order in all of creation?

Give me an example and I might be able to comment on it. However chaos theory pretty much destroys all arguments for order. Nothing in the universe is deterministic, and everything tends to chaos.

6. Why there is morality in every civilization?

Because morality is the active conscious extension of basic instinct. Any social animal has a form of morality. Ours has advanced because of our high cognitive abilities.

7. Why does every civilization believe in a Creator?

They don’t. Just look at Sweden.

8. Why does every sane person have a conscience, even when it is not dictated by society?

Emotions and reactions of people are very easy to read in the same species. A person who has had no human contact will still understand basic emotional concepts merely because they will have, at some point, had the same feelings. Case note: We all smile, laugh, cry, etc. There is variation in all these emotions, but not enough that you cannot tell them apart.

9. How did nothing create everything?

It didn’t. You are the only person who has claimed this. Atheists do not believe this. We have mentioned it before but you never listen.

10. Which came first–the chicken or the egg?

The egg. Although the mother looked very similar to a chicken of course. You’ll probably claim something like the “Chickaroo” existed though.

I’ve not talked about my family much on this blog, but I have mentioned a few things which I’ll clarify now:

My father is a recently remarried atheist (I found that out when he asked if he could borrow my copy of “The God Delusion”).

My sister calls herself an agnostic, but she cares little about religion so apatheist would probably be the correct term.

My mother is a Christian. My mother is now apparently an atheist as well.

I went home for the weekend to fix some computer stuff / set up internet for my mother’s boyfriend, and earlier today we went out for lunch. Over lunch, my mother started talking about her job (she works at Salisbury Cathedral) and how one of her clergy friends was going on a course with his wife where they are kept in separate rooms, not allowed to talk, and have to constantly study the Bible…for 7 days.

My mother expressed her horror with this situation, and commented how she could not “keep quiet for 7 minutes, let alone 7 days”. I then decided the press the religious issue, and said I could probably keep quiet for 7 days, but I wouldn’t be able to if I were reading the Bible. I’d be constantly saying “that’s just wrong” and crossing out stuff.

I then mentioned that the Bible was possibly the worst book ever written, what with it being sexist, illogical, and plain stupid. My mother questioned me, asking how it was sexist, and I reminded her of the Garden of Eden story; how it was a woman who was responsible for sin, and how Lot tried to give up his daughters for rape in Sodom. To my surprise, my mother had not heard of the Lot story, and hadn’t even heard of Leviticus (often used by Christians to incite hatred against homosexuals).

She then told me how the Bible was rather ridiculous, full of stories that made no sense, with people who lived to be 1000 years old. Then, out of the blue, “I don’t believe in God anyway”.

The conversation went a little like this for a few minutes:

Me: “You’re an atheist?”

Mother: “No.”

Me: “You just said you didn’t believe in God, that makes you an atheist.”

Mother: “I don’t like to use that word, I think religion is a good thing.”

Me: “Yeah, but atheists aren’t all anti-religious.”

I think she still feels a kind of spirituality in a way, some kind of force that people can tap into. A few years before her mother died, she tried some form of faith healing, and it worked wonders for my grandmother. She could walk without feeling any pain, and lived like that until she died. My mother used this as evidence that there was still some kind of force out there that we don’t understand. I pointed out that we tried the faith healer on me (I was 12 or so at the time) and nothing happened. The key difference? My gran was very religious, I was not. The “power” of prayer is not anything magical or mysterious, but simply mind over matter. In my gran’s case, her faith gave her the ability to put her mind over the pain.

I did the same thing a few years back, when I was going through a period of minor depression that slowly escalated to the point where I wanted to kill myself. Instead, I got over it by literally willing myself out, and I am a better person for it. I’m the general “happy go lucky” guy that doesn’t give a damn what people think of me. Of course, I love it when people like me (who doesn’t), but if a person expresses dislike, it is their problem, not mine.

So I guess my mother is the “Bill Maher” type of atheist. That makes my whole immediate family a lovely bunch of heathens; I’m so proud!

I get email all the time through my contact form, but I rarely get actual physical mail. The rare exceptions are when people send me their books to read. Today though, I received a letter:

A letter from afar

The “AAA” stands for “Atheist & Agnostic Alliance”, and that is my address, which I released in my post “Edging Further Away From The Closet“. The post mark says “LONG BEACH CA 908″, and there are two “USA FIRST-CLASS FOREVER” stamps on it.

What was inside was even stranger. No contact information or anything to hint to a sender; just two pages of 18 bullet points:

1. Day and night was created on day 1 - impossible since the sun was not created until the fourth day.
2. The first woman was created twice: first time on the sixth day (in God’s image) and sometime after the seventh day using one of Adam’s ribs.
3. Since Adam came into existence on the sixth day, how could he or anyone know what happen on the prior five days, and in what sequence, and how long it took?
4. Since Adam and Eve did not die after eating the forbidden fruit, God is a proven liar. If God should speaking to you, be skeptical.
5. The flood story does not make any sense for many reasons. One is that the amount of water would have to be four to five times that which presently exists on earth. Another is that the floods would have destroyed all ice and glaciers, since ice/snow will float on water. From ice core samples (using a tree ring type dating), ice has existed intact in Greenland and Antarctica for over 110,000 years - not the 4000 years B.C estimated from the Bible. Another reason is that water of a depth of five or so miles would have killed off all vegetation so that the released animal would have nothing to east except each other.
   Since the flood story is so obviously fiction, this implies that all stories (Genesis) earlier than the flood are also myths.
6. The anti-abortionists are fond of quoting “Thy shall not kill”. However, with the flood, God committed mass murder by drowning everyone except for eight Jews. The religious do not seem have a problem with these horrendous murders.
7. If the population started with eight Jews after the flood,how did the world create the large variations such as Eskimos, Australian Aborigines, Navajos, African Pygmies (under 5 foot), Tutsi (often 7 foot), etc. unless by evolution.
8. Matthew and Luke listed absolutely totally different genealogy for Joseph starting with King David. One or both must be in error.
9. After birth, Matthew says that the family went southwest to Egypt. However, Luke says the family went north to Nazareth; one or both is lying.
10. Three Magi (eastern so called wise men) went to Jesus’ birthplace. They got lost and first went to Jerusalem. Although the distance between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is only about five miles, they went to the head ruler, Herod, to ask for directions. All they really had to do was ask anyone in town. In addition, the needed a star to show the way, for five miles, barf. Any star will be about the same size as our sun, roughly a million miles in diameter, as well as very hot. Changing the star position from east to south of something that size is ridiculous. Also, something of that size could not pinpoint the manger. Placing a star close to earth would have incinerated earth.
11. Luke misstates the year of Jesus’ birth as being in the reign of Herod. Herod died in 4 B.C, whereas Jesus is believe to have been born in 4 A.D.
12. John says that Jesus was crucified the day before the Passover meal, whereas Mark says that Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover meal.
13. The Bible says absolutely nothing about abortion. The following is taken from one of Sam Harris’ books. It is estimated that 50% of all human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion, usually without the woman even realizing she is pregnant. In fact, 20% of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriages. If God exist, he is the most prolific abortionist of all.
14. The religious believe in “Intelligent Design” and are opposed to evolution. However, “Intelligent Design” would more accurately be described as “Deeply Flawed Design”. Human variations include cancer, blue babies, cleft lips, Down’s syndrome, appendicitis, allergies and allergic reactions, color blindness, seizures, polio, leprosy, leukemia, insanity, autism, etc, etc. Why would a perfectionist God take credit for these? Various individual groups of people are resistant to malaria, smallpox (which wiped out many American tribes), and tolerant of dairy products. The protection usually occurred because some of their ancestors survived these conditions, which is basic evolution. We are probably are very fortunate that there are flaws. with the millions* of animal species that have occurred over millions of years, we are one of them. [*Perhaps up to 100 million or more.] This brings up a question. It has been estimayed that 99% of the species are extince. If God is so intelligent, why the destruction of so many species?
15. The Jews were slaves to the Egyptians and Babylonians for hundreds of years. Many of the Bible stories are taken/plagiarized from the myths of these two people and surrounding communities.
16. If God ever existed, then God must have been around just prior to the “Big Bang”, some 13 billions years ago. Since the conditions immediate after the explosion were gaseous, then God was surely destroyed. Why be concern about a dead God?
17. Why would a God create dinosaurs and then kill them all off? Not a very bright move.
18. The Bible allows slavery, multiple wives, murder (of unbelievers) and the father to sell his daughters into prostitution.

Not entirely sure what to make of this. Some of the points are good, others are quite petty, and some are just plain silly (16???). So thanks for your efforts random stranger. If you feel like revealing your identity then please do, and in future if you want something posted on the blog, you could try contacting me online and save the postage costs (especially if it is just a few pages).

Not that I mind getting mail that is :D