The Atheist Blogger

Hitchens: Waterboarding is Torture

Adrian Hayter — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:39:14 +0000

Well known atheist author Christopher Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded by the U.S Military in an effort to see if it constituted as torture or not. Waterboarding is used in interrogation and is effective because it “simulates” drowning and forces a gag reflex on the victim. It involves having layers of towel placed over the head, and the entire body restrained. The towel is held down firmly and water poured over it, which seeps through and enters the nasal passages of the victim.

Christopher Hitchens described the entire experience in his article for Vanity Fair:

The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

He was subjected to the procedure twice, both times lasting only a matter of seconds before signalling for the process to stop. There is a video on YouTube depicting the first session, and includes Hitchens’ views on the entire process.

Hitchens concludes that Waterboarding is indeed torture, and as such should not be used by the military who respect the Geneva Conventions.

Death Toll: Theism vs. Atheism

Adrian Hayter — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:20:43 +0000

Many theists argue that atheism has caused only death and destruction, whilst their respective religions preach only peace and love. So what does the evidence look like? The Teapot Atheist did a load of research and counting and has reported his results.

His findings don’t bear well for theism, even with his extremely generous methodology in its favour:

Where deaths from theism are concerned, I have normally low-balled the estimates as a favor because the differential is so staggering and theism needs all the bones it can have tossed in its direction. For atheism, I go with the highest possible estimates.

To add insult to injury, The Teapot Atheist included in the atheism section, deaths caused by Pol Pots regime even though there is no evidence that he was an atheist (his regime was harshly anti-religious though), as well as Stalin, who has recently been considered a deist / closet-theist by historians.

So how do the scores match up?

Theism has managed to kill an estimate of 2,229,074,100 people.

Atheism has managed to kill an estimate of 95,000,000 people.

Just let those figures sink in a bit. Over 2 billion people are dead as a result of theist wars and actions. That number is about 33.3% of the current human population of Earth. In contrast, atheism is responsible for the deaths of just less than 100 million, roughly 1.58% of the current human population of Earth.

Now, these results don’t in any way suggest that theism causes people to commit murder, but that the main factor in most of the wars and conflicts in history has been a difference in religious beliefs. Every holy book of every theist religion preaches love and respect for fellow man, there is no way I can debate that. However, every holy book also preaches the destruction of anyone who says otherwise and stands against the words of whichever god it claims is the “correct” one.

This is the deep deep flaw of theism. There are too many varieties, and whilst each one has a similar story, its author has taken an extraordinary amount of time making sure that it differs in some conceivable way. Just enough to provide the necessary contradictions to send all religions colliding against each other in a never-ending war.

The victims are both those who get killed and those killing in the name of religion. Brainwashed by men who wanted to control the world, and used religion to try to achieve their goals. The heroes in this tragic truth are easy to point out. They are the freethinkers, the skeptics, the naturalists, the rationalists; every single person who has ever seen the flaws of theism and said “Enough is enough”.

If atheism has proved anything, it is that without a god, humans still murder for no good reason; they just do it much less often.

The Cathedral of My Lost Faith

Adrian Hayter — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:01:11 +0000

I lost my faith in Christianity (and religion in general) at the age of 11. At the time I had just started attending secondary school (high school) that was located next to the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral. The school was founded by a Bishop of the cathedral, and was an all boys school. It is quite appropriate to say that whilst worshiping at Salisbury Cathedral, I lost my faith.

However, the building itself is remarkable, and nobody could deny the fact that it is beautiful. The medieval architecture, combined with the tower and spire (the tallest in Britain) makes for great tourism and photography. I recently went on a amateur photography course at the cathedral which was great fun. I have been playing around with WordPress image galleries, and I have uploaded the photos for anyone who wishes to have a look.

The best way to view them is to let the page load completely, and then click on the first image thumbnail. The screen will darken and the image should load. You should then be able to go through the images by clicking on the arrows at the bottom.

A truely godless amount of posts

Adrian Hayter — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:21:58 +0000

Book of Revelation 13:18

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Which is why I find this screenshot I took of the forums quite amusing:

Some changes to the book club procedure…

Adrian Hayter — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:21:03 +0000

The problem with running an online book club is that we don’t do a vote on the day of discussion, instead saving it till a later date and having 7 days of voting so everyone has a chance to choose the book they want. This leads to some problems with getting the book, and then reading it, all before the month “deadline”. This month Oliver managed to get through the entire book, but I only made it to the final chapters. So essentially Oliver could talk about Hemant’s conclusions whilst I had no idea.

I have hence devised a more complicated system which should make things easier. Instead of having a 7 day vote starting on the 23rd of month 1 to choose the book for month 2, we will have a 7 day vote starting on the 1st of month 1 to choose the book for month 2.

The book for July has been chosen already, and although it was a narrow vote (3:2), Daniel Dennett’s book “Freedom Evolves” has been chosen. I usually try to keep the discussions on the weekend, so that might mean a slightly early date of 26th/27th July. I am also thinking of putting the time forward slightly so that people in the USA can get home from work, and (more importantly) our Aussie members can get out of bed!

We’ll worry about the date somewhere down the line. I already have enough things to do this month (including moving into a new house) without that on my mind too early.

As I mentioned a few paragraphs up, we are using a new voting system. Today is the 1st of July, so here is a 7 day vote for the book for August. On the 7th of July I’ll announce the result and you can go and buy the book if you so wish. You may even start reading it if you aren’t reading Dennett’s (or if you are a freak and can read multiple books at the same time).

I got fed up of the lacking submissions of new books, so I added a few new ones I have recently bought.

As always, do not vote if you do not intend to read the book or contribute in the discussion!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Which is the most secular / non-believing state in the USA?

Adrian Hayter — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:31:55 +0000

A the title suggests, I would like to know which state (or area) of the USA is considered the most secular / non-believing. Since I live in the UK I am putting this question out to all my American readers in hope that they can throw back some figures for me.

Why do I want to know? Well, I’m currently going into my second year of university studying Computer Science with Information Security (which is way more interesting to me that it sounds to you). It’s a three year course, and at the end I will weigh up my options before deciding whether to do a PhD in it. Whenever I actually leave university, I have always had plans to emigrate to America. Truth be told, there are far more jobs in the computer industry over there, especially in the areas I want to go into (Gaming and/or Web Technology).

I don’t want to end up in a Bible Belt area for obvious reasons, so I’d like a place where I could feel at ease with my beliefs, and find other secular people to hang out with. California’s “Silicon Valley” is a good place to start, since it has the technology and I know of at least one secular/atheist group for workers there. Amiable Atheist recently made me aware of Arizona which has an increasing number of non-believers.

So, which state do you consider the most secular / atheist? Do you have any figures to show this result? What other aspects of this area would make it desirable for a liberal atheist technology geek like myself?

I await your answers!

Book Club Reminder

Adrian Hayter — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:43:47 +0000

Tonight at 11PM (UTC+1) we will be discussing Hemant Mehta’s book “I Sold My Soul on eBay” in the IRC Channel. Find out what time you need to be there using this worldclock. The discussion should last about an hour depending how many people turn up, and as usual a forum discussion thread will follow.

Hemant Mehta is going to try to turn up for the discussion, so you will have your chance to share your views with the author.

Ray Rewrites

Adrian Hayter — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:00:57 +0000

A few days ago I mentioned how wrong Ray Comfort was when he remarked:

Light is invisible. We can’t see it.

I’ve checked back to Ray’s blog regularly to see what he does about this basic misunderstanding of physics and how the eye works, and to check up on the comments that his post got (almost all of them were mocking him). He appears to have now edited the article so it reads:

The essence of “white” light is invisible. We can’t see it. Despite this, science has taught us that it’s actually made up of seven beautiful colors that are undetectable to the human eye until they are refracted through a prism. Of course, we know that the seven colors are the amazing colors we see in a rainbow–red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Nice bit of rewording he has done. Unfortunately it makes even less sense now than it did before his edits. What exactly is the “essence” of white light? Is he talking about the spectrum? That’s not invisible either. In fact that’s exactly how we see colours.

Take a red book and look at it. The “white” light from the source (Sun or lightbulb) hits the book, and all the colours in that spectrum are absorbed, whilst only red is reflected. The red light goes into our eye and we see the book as red. So no, the “essence” of white light is perfectly visible, and you’d be stuck in the dark without it (literally).

This explantion also debunks his next point in which he claims that the spectrum is only visible through a prism. The light was visible before it went into the prism, and the only reason we now see all the colours separately instead as one beam of white light is that the light gets slowed down in the prism. Light towards the violet end of the spectrum travels faster and get’s refracted more, whilst light towards the red end of the spectrum travels slower and get’s refracted less.

Ray is also mistaken in his childish view that white light is made up of 7 colours, when in fact it is made up of countless billions, all slightly different from its neighbours in the spectrum. The human eye separates these colours out into groups that are similar, which just happens to be 7, although depending on light conditions you can see many more or less.

So nice try Ray, but you have failed at science yet again. Leave it up to the educated next time, or if you really insist on writing more, do a bit of research…

Terry Pratchett turns to god?

Adrian Hayter — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:49:25 +0000

The Amiable Atheist commented on an article in the English newspaper The Sunday Times entitled “Alzheimer’s leads atheist Terry Pratchett to appreciate God” where the 60 year old author claims that he may have found god after years of atheism.

He is quoted as saying:

I’m certainly not a man of faith, but as I was rushing down the stairs one day . . . it was very strange. And I say this reluctantly, because I am trying to deal with this situation in as hardheaded a way as I can. I suddenly knew that everything was okay, that what I was doing was right, and I didn’t know why.

…

It was a thought that all the right things are happening in the circumstances; and I thought, ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

Brushing everything aside, what exactly is he saying? That one day he was doing a perfectly ordinary thing, and realised that everything was fine? Is that god? Really? If so, I’ve been a believer pretty much my entire life then. Not a day goes by where I don’t think “Is this really what I want to do with my life?”, and the answer I always come to is “yes”. Whether I am considering my career, education, social life, and even the “atheist community”, I work something out through rational thought.

I fail to see how a sudden feeling that everything was okay defines god? When I donate to charity, I get the feeling I am doing something right, not because I believe I am pleasing a god, but because I am helping my fellow man. It seems Mr. Pratchett has discovered the wonders of humanism, not any form of “god”.

As for the right things happening in the circumstances, is he talking on a personal level here, because I fail to see how this applies to the rest of the world, where decisions are currently electing an evil dictator in Zimbabwe, and many more people are killed on the streets of Iraq. Even if it is on a personal level, how can he reason that out? He is suffering from a mental illness that will slowly destroy his memory. Hardly the “right” thing to happen to an author of all people.

In a slightly more rational moment, Pratchett said:

It is just possible that once you have got past all the gods that we have created with big beards and many human traits, just beyond all that, on the other side of physics, there just may be the ordered structure from which everything flows.

That is both a kind of philosophy and totally useless – it doesn’t take you anywhere. But it fills a hole.

So at least he is admitting that the “god” he might have found is completely ridiculous. It isn’t a theist god but a deist god, something completely outside our universe and undetectable. Yes it fills a hole, but that doesn’t make it any more truthful. For many years people believed the Sun orbits the Earth because that’s the logical explanation from basic observations and it fitted the hole, but it’s completely false.

I’m not saying Pratchett is wrong for thinking there might be a deist god out there, and if he likes the fact that it fills certain gaps in our knowledge then that’s fine as well. I just don’t think there is any reason to believe in something like that without evidence for it. If anything, he’s stuck halfway between atheism and deism, wanting to believe that there is something beyond our universe, but reasoning that such belief is borderline absurd given the circumstances.

It’s a tricky one to call in his situation, but at least he hasn’t started claiming he is the Messiah or anything like a few people would in his situation…

Update: It appears as though the media might be at fault here. According to the Daily Mail (eurgh), Terry Pratchett has denied he has “found God”. Of course the Daily Mail being who they are ignored what he said and the title is “I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist” which bares no resemblence to anything he says in the article…ah well.

Why I am offended when told I am going to Hell

Adrian Hayter — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:39:35 +0000

As an atheist I get told “You are going to Hell” quite often, whether it be from a person I know or in an anonymous email through this blog. I get quite offended by this which many might consider odd seeing as I believe that “Hell” doesn’t exist. My reasoning for my offense is quite simple though, and I suspect many atheists feel the same way about things like this.

If we go by most religious beliefs, Hell is a place where sinners are sent if they do not repent. A lot of religions believe that a murderer can get into Heaven if they repent their sins before they die, or sacrifice themselves to save another. In short, there are quite a few “get out clauses” that one can consider. My “crime” though, isn’t murder, nor is it rape or thieving. An atheist’s crime is simply thinking, or reasoning. So by this definition, I am offended that someone would believe that a murderer, rapist, or thief who has said they are sorry for their crimes would get into Heaven, whilst a person who has done nothing but think would go to Hell.

Conversely, if we take the religious belief that Hell is a place that all sinners go to regardless of whether they repent or not, I am still offended. It seems that whilst a god may or may not have given us free will (depending on what you believe), we do have it. Therefore it seems ever so slightly unfair that a person should be sent to Hell for using a mental ability that doesn’t cause harm to anyone else. By this definition, I am offended that anyone (gods included) would consider murder an equal crime to using free will.

As I have said, I do not believe Hell exists, but it can be assumed that anyone telling me I am “going to Hell” believes that it does. Therefore if they believe that I am going to Hell, they must also believe that I deserve it, since their beliefs are based on religion which claims to be the truth, and to question the truth would be a crime equal to my own. By this definition, I am offended that someone would believe that I actually deserve such a punishment for using my own questioning abilities.

Continuing this line of argument, we get to the believers who say that God doesn’t want us to go to Hell because he loves us. They claim that Hell is only for those who don’t repent, but this entire argument is based on their own questioning of scripture. To appear more neutral in the eyes of an ever-growing secular world, they have questioned their own interpretation of scripture, resulting in the conclusion that a loving God would rather have people in Heaven that Hell, and that some scripture shouldn’t be taken literally. The only difference between us is that I have concluded that the scripture is hypocritical, and they have concluded that the original interpretation is wrong. By this definition, I am offended that others would claim their own questioning isn’t a crime whilst my own is, based solely on the outcome of said questioning.

There are a lot of reasons why atheists should be offended when told they are hell-bound. Ist doesn’t matter if you personally don’t believe in the place, but that someone does and thinks that blind faith is the only way to get there. It’s not like atheists hate the idea of god, or that if faced with such a being after death would give him the finger. Surely any being who created free will would be more impressed by an honest skeptic than an unquestioning dogmatist?

The Atheist Blogger

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