The Atheist Blogger

Just a funny image I found on the internet yesterday:

I *really* want that as a bumper sticker, or at least as a sign to go in front of my house…or in my window.

After reading Friendly Atheist’s blog post about the “Questions for God” proposed over at Ethical Atheist, I went to go have a read of them. Quite a few of the questions I thought were a bit harsh, and were either presented in a very sarcastic manner, or were extremely stupid. For example:

Do you know how to use email?  Surely you do, right?  Why haven’t you written us yet with all the answers?

and

Why do men and women have the same number of ribs if you stole one from Adam to make Eve?

The first question is just plainly meant as a joke, and the second ignores the biological fact that if a parent loses a limb or bone, the child won’t be affected. In fact, a believer actually pointed this out the the author of the question in their answer.

I think that although the idea of asking questions to God, and allowing his followers to answer is a great idea, because it allows understanding of theist thinking in ways atheists cannot understand. Some of the answers produced are actually quite rational, and only rely on partial support from the supernatural to work. However, whilst the idea itself is good, the Ethical Atheist version of the questions has taken the entire thing as a joke, which lessens the importance of the whole project, and probably accounts for the reason why most of the questions have been unanswered.

Read the rest of this entry »

Due to recent discussions on my blog post Answering “ed”, I’ve felt it necessary to clarify a few of the points I made when responding to the comments made by ed. A lot of the things I wrote were not explained well enough since I hadn’t had the time to sit down and think out my words properly. Before I do this though, I should add this simple “disclaimer”:

I am not, in any way (academically or otherwise) a sociologist and I have never studied sociology. I am however, a freethinker, and as such have formed by ideas on the origins of morality merely on what I have read, combined with my own reasoned thinking. As a freethinker, I invite anyone to criticize and even disprove my points, as long as you have decent enough evidence to suggest otherwise.

Now I’ve got that out the way, I’ll begin.

Christians love to claim that the Bible brought morality into the world, and that without God, we would all be treacherous murdering bastards (to use the term lightly). This is simply not the case, and if it were, we simply wouldn’t be here today. Can you imagine a world without morality? People would kill people simply for the fun of it, we would steal, insult, rape, and torture. Not just certain individuals…but everyone. The outcome? Extinction.

Yet supposedly this world already existed, and not too long ago either. In fact, if we go back about 2000 years, we should find ourselves in the middle of a civil war between every member of the human race. What we do find however, is a relatively peaceful society, prone to the occasional conflict, but on the whole quite sophisticated both socially and technologically. The Bible will not be seen for at least another 200 years or so (in its current format), and yet we see murderers being executed along with thieves. Some form of morality is in place here, so where does it come from?

Read the rest of this entry »

Just when you thought you’d heard of every wacky notion believers have tried to find God, they decide to direct their attention to the Sun. Not Sun worship mind…actually looking at the Sun for hours on end, hoping to glimpse the Virgin Mary. Believe it or not, this is actually what 50 people in Kottayam, India did. Until they all went blind of course.

From the article:

At least 50 people in Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after gazing at the sun looking for an image of Virgin Mary.

Though alarmed health authorities have installed a signboard to counter the rumour that a solar image of Virgin Mary appeared to the believers, curious onlookers, including foreign travellers, have been thronging the venue of the ‘miracle’.

…

“The patients show varying degrees of severity. They are mostly girls in 12-26 age group. Our youngest patient is 12 and the oldest 60. Most of them were looking at the sun between 2 and 4 pm, when UV1 and UV2 rays are harshest,” Dr James Isaac said. He added that they could identify the problem as solar retinopathy because they were aware of the local sensation.

I think the bit that really astounds me is this:

There are quite a few people still seeking the miracle, despite the experiences of their unfortunate predecessors and strict health warnings against gazing at the sun with the naked eye.

So much for Intelligent Design.

Thanks to Digg for the link.

One question that I often wonder about as an atheist is “Did Jesus Christ really exist?”. It’s something that the vast majority of Christians blindly believe without question since Jesus plays such a large part in the Bible. The entire basis of Christianity relies on Jesus being a real person, who was the real son of God, and was really crucified for our sins. As an atheist, I have the freedom to question that belief, and I have done so on many occasions since I became one.

A few decades ago, the idea that Jesus Christ was an exaggerated myth would have been shunned by the community, but in recent years, especially with the rise of atheism and free thought, coupled with books such as “The God Delusion” and films such as “The God Who Wasn’t There”, the so called “Jesus myth hypothesis” is being more widely supported and investigated.

The biblical story of Jesus covers his birth and childhood with great detail (the nativity story especially so), but then a strange thing happens. 18 years of Jesus Christ’s life are inexplicably missed out. After a 12 year old Jesus is found by Mary and Joseph in a temple in Jerusalem, surrounded by scholars and priests, he vanishes from history. The next mention of him is when he is 30, and he gets baptised by John the Baptist. The rest of Jesus’ life (from the baptism to the crucifixion) is pretty much covered completely. However, if Christ’s life was being so well documented throughout his childhood, how come there is absolutely no reference to 18 years of his life? Obviously if Jesus was as popular as he supposedly was, his trial would have been well documented, as would his subsequent crucifixion. Unfortunately, if we follow the Bible’s historical account, that documentation just didn’t exist.
Read the rest of this entry »