The Atheist Blogger

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.

It took me a while to plan and execute, but my video for Current TV is up. I had 30 seconds to explain my views on religion, and I managed to do it within 45 (I expect some bits will be cut). I tried to make it appear as if I wasn’t just reading off a script (which I memorized anyway), and I think I appear quite relaxed in it. My hand movements and constant moving back and forth is most likely Tourettes being an ass.

Here is the video: http://current.com/items/89432918_an_atheist_s_view_on_religion

Anyway, I’ll let everyone know when the show goes on the air.

From a comment:

Arrogant Atheists,

Nothing can only create Nothing. Before the universe began, something must have always existed. And it is called Energy. Energy is eternal. The first law of thermodynamics confirms that.

The law states: “Energy cannot be created or destroyed”. No beginning or uncreated and no end. That’s the definition of “ETERNAL”. You also can’t claim that this energy always existed in the known universe because science has proven that the universe didn’t always exist. Stephen Hawking once said: “The universe and time didn’t always exist”.

This energy source that was present BEFORE the universe began had to have power beyond anything we can even begin to imagine, considering it had to transfer it’s energy unto the trillions of stars and billions of galaxies. A separate ETERNAL energy source that exists OUTSIDE of the universe had to have supplied or transferred it’s energy unto the universe (because we know the universe didn’t always exist) It is not unreasonable to assume this ENORMOUS energy was the creator GOD. Listen atheists, we reasonably have to options to determine what WAS this powerful always existing energy. It could be a dumb, unconscious and vague energy source. (However this seems extremely illogical considering that we can observe complexity, order, and design throughout the universe.) The most logical answer would be that an intelligent mind constructed the universe, or a GOD. It’s as simple as that.

If you can’t agree with this logic then you’re stubborn, unreasonable, and don’t want to believe in the possible existence of GOD.”

When I sit down to write an article, I do research. Unless my article is written from a purely philosophical angle, I usually look up and check the facts. I also do research when writing responses to comments such as this one, but the writer of this comment, “Costiliani”, had not done research at all. In fact, he (I’m assumed male just for ease) had lifted the entire comment out of a video he had come across on YouTube. This one to be precise. So it seems that my response to Costilani will also be to the maker of the video as well (who knows, they could even be the same person).

In the video, the supposed source of the Hawking comment is made (http://hawking.org.uk/lectures/bot.html). However, not once in the entire lecture did he say the words “The universe and time didn’t always exist”. I know for a fact that Hawking believes the universe winked into existence all by itself at some point, but the creator of the video seems to mix up meanings. Indeed, his quote is a paradox. The only reason why we use the word “always” is because we have time. It’s a word that means “all the time” very literally.

I have no problem with Hawking believing that universe didn’t exist at some point. It’s a good a theory as any when it comes to the beginning of the universe. Whether you go with the singularity beginning or Hawking’s version, we know nothing about either event. The real problem with the use of Hawking is that it is a blatant appeal to authority. Hawking is not omnipotent, and has in fact been wrong on several occasions. The man is fallible; he makes mistakes.

I also love how you make a massive assumption by saying that it was both an eternal and external energy source that powered the universe. The last time I checked, “multiverse theory” was still at the purely hypothetical stage. Since we reckon the universe is a closed system (at least theoretically), energy transfers are impossible both ways. So the simplest explanation is either that the universe “always” existed in some form, and with the Big Bang grew to the point is it now, or the universe itself is eternal, expanding and collapsing every 30 billion years or so (see Big Crunch).

You then claim that it isn’t unreasonable to assume that this energy was God. I say it is. It’s unreasonable to assume anything unless you have valid evidence for it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest an idea or hypothesis that it was “God”, but at the same time I don’t think it’s very likely either. Of course, you use the standard arguments that the universe is complex, ordered, and designed, which are all blatantly untrue. Sure, the universe is kinda complex, but not enough so that a bunch of evolved apes that only really started using science in the last 500 years (if that) can’t understand it. Sure, the universe is kinda ordered, as long as you conveniently forget about the increasingly entropy making the universe more “disordered” on the particle level. Sure, the universe is designed, if you ignore that most of it empty space, most planets don’t support life, and even the ones that do support it don’t do a very good job. Add to that the sheer amount of objects that serve no purpose (black holes spring to mind) and the design theory fails completely.

So I don’t disagree with your “logic” because I don’t want to accept the possibility of God. I accept that possibility already (agnostic atheist remember?). Then again, since you lifted your entire comment out of a video I bet you didn’t bother to read the rest of the site. I disagree with your logic because it assumes too many things, and it doesn’t answer the assumptions with rational logical arguments. Where you could have natural explanations, you have the supernatural, and you think this is the best possible explanation.

That, and I HATE arguments that use CAPITAL LETTERS in order to EMPHASIZE words.

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!