Saint Augustine's Blunder

St. Augustin - Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674)
(Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Here's an interesting quote from one of Christianity's favourite thinkers - Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE).

First, a little background information:

[Saint Augustine] was a Latin philosopher and theologian from Roman Africa and generally considered as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all times. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity...

After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in AD 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, and he framed the concepts of original sin and just war.

When the Western Roman Empire was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Catholic Church as a spiritual De Civitate Dei (City of God), in a book of the same name, distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the Church, the community that worshipped God.

In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order... Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of the Reformation due to his teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is also considered a saint, his feast day being celebrated on 15 June. He carries the additional title of Blessed. Among the Orthodox, he is called "Blessed Augustine", or "St. Augustine the Blessed".

Source: Wikipedia - Augustine of Hippo

So, St. Augustine is famous and respected throughout Christendom as a philosopher and one of the fathers of theology whose writings are regarded as at least semi-divine if not actually divine.

Unfortunately he made a crass blunder: he made a testable prediction - something that is almost a cardinal sin in religious apologetics.

Here is what he has to say about the subject of a spherical earth and whether people could exist on the far side of it:

But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they say that the part that is beneath must also be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled.

It is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man. [My emphasis]

Source: De Civitate Dei, Book XVI, Chapter 9 — Whether We are to Believe in the Antipodes,
translated by Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D.; from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College.

So there we are, using Bible 'science', one of Christianity's foremost thinkers and the father of theology has proved that, even if earth is spherical, the idea that there could be people living on the far side is absurd because, being all descended from one man, namely Adam, they couldn't possibly have got there.

Yet, when European explorers got to the New World, to the East Indies, the Pacific Islands and the 'Antipodes' of Australia and New Guinea, not only had we shown that earth was indeed spherical and the 'Antipodes' existed, but there were people living on the far side of it, and had been there for thousands of years.

Augustine's confident prediction had been falsified.

Now, when science has a theory which makes a testable prediction which turns out to be falsified this is normally considered grounds for abandoning the theory. Not so with religious apologetics. Augustine's prediction was based on the theory that everyone alive on Earth was descended from Adam (actually the Bible says we are all descended from Noah but be that as it may). Was that theory abandoned when the prediction it made was falsified?

Of course not. Like so much else with theological 'proofs', reality didn't support it and, as is usual with Christian apologetics when the facts turn out to be the opposite of what was predicted, suddenly the 'reasoning' behind the prediction is also dispensed with. For example, you never hear creationist theologians who still admire Saint Augustine, turn his 'logic' round and argue that, because there were people living on the far side of Earth, they could not have been descended from Adam.

Yet, if St. Augustine's argument, that there could not be people on the far side of earth if we are all descended from Adam, was true, then the presence of people on the far side of earth proves we are not all descended from Adam.

Strangely, to a theologian, the brilliance of an argument, the validity of the 'facts' upon which it's based and the reliability of the logic is contingent on the conclusion. If the conclusion turns out to be different to the one required, the once brilliant argument suddenly dulls and loses its utility value, and can be dispensed with. As usual, when the dogma isn't supported by the evidence, the evidence must be ignored.

But of course, the person who dreamed it up in the first place is no less brilliant for being shown to be wrong, just so long as his other arguments still have a utility value for theologians and religious apologists by supplying them with the conclusions and 'proofs' they want.

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Matthew's Bad Beatitudes

Continuing my quest for the source of the 'superior' Christian 'morality' which they are forever telling us they get from the Bible, I turned hopefully to Matthew 5 to read the so-called 'Beatitudes' from the quaintly named 'Sermon on the Mount'. Apparently, according the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus stood on a hill and made a speech to a multitude setting out the basis for a moral code.

For doubters, here is a nice photo of Jesus delivering his sermon.

I've noted before how Matthew reads more like someone trying the discredit Jesus, for example, 'Are These The Silliest Verses In The Bible?', 'Pull The Other One Matthew!', 'Hey Christians! Is Matthew For Real?' and 'Christians - Try Not To Think About Matthew', so I was not really surprised to find Matthew, true to form, showing us a Jesus with the morality of a mule stringer who thinks his charges only respond the threats and promises.

As Dan Barker points out in Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists, none of these are truly ethical because they are all conditions for a future reward. This is a précis of Dan Barker's analysis of them:

Beatitude	Comment
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	Nothing by way of ethical actions here. All it says is that if you happen to be “poor in spirit” then you're going to heaven. Verses like this have been cited to keep slaves and women in their place.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.	Again, nothing by way of ethical actions. Why didn't Jesus tell us to comfort those who are in mourning? That would have been ethical.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.	This is only stating that if you happen to be a meek person then you're okay because you won’t be left out. This is like saying, “Be nice to Grandma because she might put you in her will.”
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.	This is about observing rituals and has nothing to do with ethics. Politically, righteousness breeds censorship, segregation, persecution, civil inequality, intolerance and the death of millions. If “righteousness” means “morality,” then why not just be moral?
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.	This is nothing more than a threat: God won't be merciful to those who aren't merciful. Why would God not be merciful in this situation if mercy is a good thing?
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.	What does “pure in heart” mean? Feeling kindly towards others? Not wishing for misfortune for other people? Not being judgemental? Not thinking about sex? Never trying to mislead? Being 'spiritual'? Leaving aside the biological nonsense of believing thoughts occur in a heart, this is just a nebulous cliché which can mean almost anything to anyone. And how can a person be “pure in heart” if we are all sinners by virtue of being born in the first place anyway?
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.	Jesus even flatly contradicted this when he said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” In biblical times, peace was a military concept. In Deuteronomy 20:10-11 God told his chosen people: “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.” So 'peace' means turning non-Jews into slaves, or killing them. Are these the 'blessed' to whom Jesus is referring or didn't he know his scripture?”
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.	Again, no specific moral behaviour, just an encouragement to invite and praise confrontation and dispute; to seek persecution for its own sake. This persecution complex contradicts the seventh Beatitude but if you stir up trouble for Jesus, you will be blessed and will receive a great “reward in heaven.” You are supposed to “rejoice, and be exceeding glad” when your actions incite others to treat you badly! We only need to look at the hate-filled antics of the Westboro Baptists to see what happens when people take this one seriously.

So, again, Matthew portrays Jesus as a sanctimonious hypocrite and purveyor of empty rhetoric - not so much Beatitudes as platitudes - and once again, no worthwhile morals can be found in the Bible. I'm really beginning to wonder if this book of origin myths and accounts of competing primitive sects called the Bible has anything worthwhile to offer at all.

I've shown that the 'Ten Commandments', whichever version you read, are next to useless, so can anyone suggest some other chapter which might contain a semblance of this 'moral compass' that Christians seem to be so sure is in there somewhere?

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Randomly Refuting Creationism

It's an article of faith of the creationist/ID movement that information cannot arise by a random event, so it was some amusement that I received some information on the radio as I was driving home this evening. It was a classic example of what William Dembski calls 'Complex Specified Information' (CSI).

It almost goes without saying that creationists can ever explain why new information can supposedly never arise by a random event, and few if any of them ever seem to see any need to even try to understand the argument. It's sufficient merely to quote it like a protective mantra when the going gets tough and all the other arguments have been refuted yet again.

The information I heard was that a couple from Suffolk have become millionaires by winning £148,000,000 in a lottery. Here is a BBC TV news item about the same thing. Listen to them telling about how they received the information that they were now millionaires.

The information arose by a random process which was witnessed by millions of people across Europe and is carefully audited to ensure it is indeed entirely random. It involves randomly selecting balls with numbers on them. In the context of an environment in which the couple from Norfolk had previously selected some numbers on a card, this random signal translated into meaningful information just as randomly produced information in a genome can be translated into meaningful information by the environment.

Sorry about that creationists but you're now going to have to find another protective mantra and start looking for another hero who can hide his missing logic under a heap of impressive-sounding verbiage. I'm afraid reality has once again intervened and refuted another of your favourite fantasies.

William Lane Craig's Logical Kalamity

Let's have another look at William Lane Craig's filched (from mediaeval Islam) argument for a god (in his case, of course, not the Islamic god but the Christian god, which is the only one he will allow) the Kalâm Cosmological Argument.

I've previously debunked this fallacy in Favourite Fallacies - The Kalâm Cosmological Argument but a closer look at the argument reveals the basic flaws in logic with which Lane Craig bamboozles his credulous audiences using the same tactics as a televangelist wringing donations out of lonely, vulnerable and gullible people.

This argument isn't mine - I only wish it were - it's from Dan Barker's must-read book, Godless: How An Evangelical Preacher Became One Of America's Leading Atheists.

Basically, the KCA argues:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therfore the universe had a cause.

Of course, like medieval Islamic scholars who wanted to prove the universe was caused by Allah and so declared Allah to be the cause, William Lane Craig concludes that it must be his preferred god (or more accurately, his desired conclusion) and so declares the Christian god to be the cause.

It's fun to substitute anything you like for 'God' in Lane Craig's argument and so 'prove' it was anything you want. It works. Try it! You can 'prove' a peanut-butter sandwich created the universe if you want to.

So, where is the fallacy? How come something which Craigites love to tell us proves their favourite god created everything, can also, with equal ease, 'prove' it was anything you like which caused everything to exist? The answer of course is that there is a subtle trick in the argument which Lane Craig hopes you won't see.

The trick Lane Craig pulls is hidden in the first line - everything that begins to exist has a cause. This clearly implies that there is a set things which don't begin to exist. So what is there in this set of things-which-don't-begin-to-exist? Can you think of any? Are these natural things? If not, why not?

How do we identify these things and, more importantly, if there are such things, how does Lane Craig eliminate them as candidate causes of the universe?

What Lane Craig does, having created this convenient set of things-which-don't-begin-to-exist simply by including the deceptive clause, 'which begins to', is to allow only his desired conclusion to occupy it, and so he rigs the argument by stating it in such a way as to exclude everything but the answer he wants.

If you deny him that right and, with the same justification that Lane Craig uses (i.e., no justification at all) put any number of things you want into that set of things-which-don't-begin-to-exist, you can create as big a range of choices of causes of the universe as you want.

You can also choose, with the same justification, to say this set-of-things-which-don't-begin-to-exist is empty; that there are no such things. After all, if Craig can simply deem his preferred conclusion to be in that set, we can equally deem it not to be. We can, if we assume the same right that Lane Craig claims, declare that there is nothing that could have caused the universe, and conclude that therefore the universe had no cause. QED!

But why should there not be perfectly natural things which don't begin to exist, such as a non-zero quantum energy field, a black hole in another universe, or simply 'something' which may be the default state of existence rather than the nothing assumed by the KCA?

In essence, the KCA as used by William Lane Craig is nothing more than saying, "If the universe had a cause it must have been my god.". It is of course, the religious ploy of fact by fiat. Fiat Deus! Let there be God!

The only thing it proves is that there is a gap in William Lane Craig's knowledge and understanding into which he has projected an imaginary deity. Once you take away his deception of the rigged argument, you open up the possibility of perfectly natural causes of universes whilst still retaining the logic of 'everything which begins to exist' having a cause.

And you don't need to subscribe to that other logical absurdity in the KCA: the notion that there can be such a thing as nothing. How on earth can something which, by definition doesn't exist, exist? How can there be nothing for any possible meaning of the word 'be'? And how can anyone possibly claim to be able to assign properties to it or to make any meaningful statement about nothing, like declaring that nothing can come from it?

This may well be the most absurdly irrational assumption ever made. I'd certainly like to hear of a more absurd one.

Christian 'Logic'

@bibleraps Also I invite you to check out my article about the historical facts surrounding Jesus' death. thereforegodexists.com/2012/08/did-je…
— Richard (@AChristianWord) August 12, 2012

I just came across this outstanding example of Christian 'logic' in a blog by one Richard Bushey entitled Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?. Richard is setting out to 'prove' that Jesus was really resurrected from the dead using 'historical evidence', or so he implies in the tweet linking to it.

So, sit back and enjoy Richard's exposition of this historical evidence which, under normal circumstances would be expected to win the discoverer instant world-wide fame and fortune and a heap of awards:

As a Christian, I do believe that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. God incarnated himself in Jesus, and in confirmation of this, three days after Jesus’ crucifixion, he was resurrected, returned to the disciples and hundreds of others, and ascended to glory and immortality. I believe this, as a Christian, just as I believe that the scriptures are divinely inspired.

But when approaching an issue historically, one cannot take their presuppositions with them. Therefore as difficult as it may be for some people to read, I will not be treating the New Testament as though it were a divinely inspired text. I will be treating it as though it were a collection of historical documents. [My emphasis]

Er... and that's it. Richard is going to treat the New Testament "...as though it were a collection of historical documents", and, presumably, that is enough to turn them into historical evidence. No further verification, authentication, validation with external sources; no analysis of writing styles and/or cultural references. Deeming them to be evidence is all that's needed. To 'prove' your religion you start with your conclusion and works back from there, taking whatever leaps of logic and mental contortions may be needed on the way.

If all else fails, simply proclaim facts by fiat. Let there be evidence!

Well, not quite. Richard couldn't resist presenting us with a last clinching piece of evidence - an authentic photograph of an empty tomb. No! Honestly! Look!

Of course, Richard is only aping other Christian apologists who take great pride in performing these mental gymnastics with scant regard to reality so long as the bottom line comes out the way it's intended. No doubt he too has been impressed with the enthusiastic appreciation of an audience eager for any crumbs of comfort with which to handle the inevitable cognitive dissonance from having to live in the real world whilst still believing in magic.

And it's with 'logic' like this that Christians like Richard Bushey condescend to the rest of humanity, declare our children to be sinners for merely being born human, claim the right to make laws to constrain and compel us, claim the right to relegate half the population to second-class status, claim the right to frighten our children with threats of eternal pain and torture if they don't comply, declare themselves to be the arbiters of human ethics and morality and try to abrogate the right to political power over the rest of us.

In the past, logic like that was used to excuse the killing of anyone who dared to question it, and doubtless would be again if it ever manages to slip the leash we've managed to put on it in the civilised parts of the world.

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Feminism

Taslima Nasreen

I have contributed an article about feminism on Taslima Nasreen's Blog 'No Country For Women'.

Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima

It is a huge honour for me to have been asked to contribute to her blog.

The article may be read here: 'Why I Am A Feminist'.


'via Blog this'

The Immoral Bible

"The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp." - God

If you are Christian, imagine reading a story in the Qur'an in which Allah orders the killing of a man who was not harming anyone or anything, merely for providing for his family. Would this induce you to convert to Islam because Allah is such a kind and merciful god and a source of such wonderfully humane and just rules for humanity to live by?

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.

And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.

Numbers 15:32-36

Really? For picking up firewood instead of obeying a god who doesn't even seem sure why we should observe the Sabbath, judging by its change of mind between the different versions of the fourth of the 'Ten Commandments'?

What possible reasons could this man have for collecting firewood? Who exactly is the victim in the 'crime'? Who got hurt or suffered loss?

The only reasons for collecting firewood was for fuel to keep his family warm or to cook food. The man was doing good to others and got killed for the victimless crime of not observing the Sabbath to the letter of the law.

What on earth standard of morality for humanity is that? What does it say of the morals of a god whose ego is so precious that it can't be a little understanding and grant a little mercy to a man who was only trying to provide for his family? In fact, in what way exactly is providing for others not 'remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy'? Isn't that exactly what people should be doing if they are remembering a kind, caring and benevolent god? The god of the Bible doesn't think so. The god of the Bible wants us to remember a petty tyrant.

"I hear you killed another young son, Mr Smith."

"Surely did. Warned him not to run across the road without looking and what did he do? Ran right on across the road. Had to kill him to teach the other kids a lesson!"

"Guess you had no choice, eh? Killing's the only language these kids understand! Probably going to have to kill a daughter or two myself soon. See you in church on Sunday?"

"Certainly will pastor. Praise the Lord!"

"Do it because I say so and I'll kill you if you don't!" Would you respect a father who brought his children up using the tactics of the tyrant and who saw nothing wrong with threatening his unfortunate children with death if they disobeyed him?

How could society work if the only reason for doing anything was the fear of execution? Why is it that we don't allow employers to stone their employees to death if they fail to comply with a management directive? How about if school teachers could kill disobedient children or police officers could execute any petty criminal without trial?

That's the 'morality' this petty mendacious and vindictive little god is ordering in the Bible. Very clearly we are better than that. And yet this god presumes to lecture us on morality.

And, just in case you're tempted to think somehow Jesus changed all that and replaced God's perfect and omniscient laws with some better, more civilised ones, Jesus enthusiastically endorses it too, with:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:17-19

No wonder people are rejecting this primitive barbarism in droves and are adopting more humane moral and ethical standard.

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Why Black Athletic Supremacy Evolved

An interesting theory was proposed on BBC TV this eveningt prior to the Olympic 200 meter final, in which Jamaican athletes, Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake and Warren Weir won gold, silver and bronze respectively.

Only one white athlete, the Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre, has ever run a sub-twenty second 200 meters and black athletes have dominated many Olympic events, especially those from the USA, Britain and the Caribbean nations although, curiously, they are noticeably absent from swimming events.

The theory is that this is the result of a Darwinian evolutionary process caused by the slave trade. Almost all the African slaves which were taken to the new world came from West Africa and were selected from amongst the fittest because these commanded the highest prices and were most likely to survive the appallingly inhumane conditions in the slave ships.

So, in addition to fittest being selected initially, another selection occurred on the slave ships, with only the exceptionally fit surviving the journey to the New World.

Then another selection process occurred on the plantations where the work was hard and physical and, with slaves being cheap and disposable, those who failed to work hard enough were simply killed and replaced by more bought from the next slave ship to dock. And of course, a wise slave owner encouraged his fittest (i.e. hardest working and most productive) slaves to breed, just as a herdsman breeds from his best stock.

And so the slave trade produced an intense Darwinian selection for fitness from which today's population of African Americans, Caribbean Islanders and Britain's Afro-Caribbean population is descended. It's not surprising therefore that they contribute disproportionately to the sporting success of their respective nations.

It's ironic that they tend to subscribe disproportionately to a religious superstition which teach that Darwinian Evolution by Natural Selection doesn't happen. A religion moreover which slaves were originally forced to adopt because it made them easier to control by accepting a place allotted them by the slavers' deity, using scriptures in the slavers' Bible, and so less likely to use their superior fitness against the slave traders and the slave owners, who of course had all the guns, dogs and instruments of torture and execution, the better to ensure obedience and adherence to the 'faith'.

A 'faith' which sold them the lie that accepting your place without complaint in this world would ensure freedom and happiness after death (when they were no longer any use and couldn't complain) and which, in some countries, is still being used to give false hope when all real hope is being denied by those who still depend for their wealth on a supply of cheap, compliant and passive labour who humbly accept their place as allotted by a 'white' god.

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I Have Mail

Rt.Hon. Michael Gove, MP, Secretary of State for Education

I, along with tens of thousands of other secular humanists, recently emailed the Education Minister, Rt.Hon. Michael Gove, MP, to protest about possible plans to allow 'Free Schools' to teach creationism and even to allow it to be taught as a valid alternative scientific theory. Michael Gove recently spent public money on supplying a new Christian Bible to every school in England and Wales.

'Free Schools' are schools which have been taken out of the control of elected local government. This has opened the door to 'faith groups' taking a much closer control of the syllabus than they previously could.

There have already been attempts to implement the American fundamentalist Christian neo-conservative 'Wedge Strategy', which seeks to get the Christian superstition with which the American ruling class controls the under-class, in the form of creationism and 'intelligent design', inserted into mainstream science teaching in state schools, to get at our children whilst they are still young and gullible.

It's pleasing to see that, almost certainly due to the campaigns run by various secular Humanist groups like the BHA and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, that Michael Gove has now clearly stated the Government's position on this issue and confirmed his earlier u-turn.

It will be interesting to see if this policy is maintained:

Dear _______________

Thank you for your recent correspondence, addressed to the Secretary of State, expressing disagreement with his decision to support a number of Free School projects that you believe intend to teach creationism. I hope you will appreciate the Secretary of State for Education receives a vast amount of correspondence and is unable to reply to each one personally. It is for this reason I have been asked to reply.

No Free School is allowed to teach creationism. The Free School application guidance published by the Department now specifically says creationism, intelligent design and similar ideas cannot be taught as valid scientific theories.

Furthermore, the funding agreements for all Free Schools state that divine creation should not be taught as an 'evidence-based view or theory' (a scientific theory) in any lesson: so if a school did do this they would be putting their funding at risk. We are confident that the Free School projects you mention will follow the rules, having explored these questions robustly with them at interview.

Prior to entering into a funding agreement, the Academy Trust is required to carry out a consultation about their plans to open a Free School. Consultations can be run in a number of ways including surveys, the launch of a simple website, meetings of key individuals and open public meetings.

Academy Trusts also need to demonstrate that they have considered the views of their stakeholders. Most do this by publishing a report setting out the key findings of their consultation.

Every application approved, including those mentioned in your letter, has had to demonstrate that the new school will provide a broad and balanced curriculum. Free Schools are subject to Ofsted inspections in the same way as all other state schools, and the government has powers to intervene in a school where there is significant cause for concern.

Please be assured that the Department will be working with the projects mentioned over the coming months to ensure that the assurances they have provided us with are honoured.

As part of our commitment to improving the service we provide to our customers, we are interested in hearing your views and would welcome your comments via our website at:

www.education.gov.uk/pcusurvey

Yours sincerely

Alison Owen
Public Communications Unit
www.education.gov.uk

Now what we need is a ban on teaching any religion or religious doctrine or dogma as factual in any UK school. If religion has any place in schools it is only as part of a humanities course like sociology, history, psychology or mythology.

Our children should not be taught falsehoods as fact just to suit someone else's political agenda.

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What Jesus Thought About Slavery

Here's Jesus's opinion of slavery, according to whoever wrote the Gospel According to Luke:

Peter said, “Lord, are You addressing this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?”

And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more."

Luke 12:41-48

So, slaves have their rations at the allotted time, just like feeding the livestock, and if you leave one in charge of the others, there is a good chance they'll abuse the others, eat your food and get drunk, because it goes without saying that you can't trust a slave. No protection from the law for slaves; no right to fair trial. No value as human beings and no right to respect and human dignity.

If they know what the slave owner wants but don't have it ready they are to be beaten severely but if they didn't know what he wanted, they can be let off with a not so severe beating. So, no protection from assault for slaves. Their fate is at the whim of their owner.

Never once does Jesus condemn slavery or give any indication that he saw anything wrong with it. Never once does he point out the moral repugnance and inhumanity of owning another human being in the first place, let alone the denial of human dignity it entails. No where is there any indication of any principle of equal worth as human beings or of all people being created equal.

The fact that Jesus never condemned slavery and that slavery is only mentioned incidentally and not condemned by the 'Ten Commandments' or anywhere else in the Bible, was used to justify the slave trade in the first place.

If you are a descendant of a former slave, biblical passages like this were almost certainly used to justify slavery and the inhumane treatment of your recent ancestors. Your great great grandparents were treated like this by people who quoted Jesus to justify it.

Was Jesus right to say when slaves should be beaten by their owner, how severely slaves should be flogged and to never condemn slavery?

If so, why do you think slavery is wrong?

If not, why do you worship someone who taught that slavery was okay and on what basis do you justify holding different moral values to Jesus?

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Makes Perfect Sense!

Creationism

The belief that there was nothing then a magic man made from nothing popped up and made everything from nothing then made a man from dust and grew a woman from a cutting, then made a talking snake.

Then he killed nearly everything because he loves it.

And he hates gays, people who wear cotton and wool together and foreskins.

Yep! Makes perfect sense [giggle].

LOL At Creationists

Refuting God With Simple Logic

A god cannot be both just and merciful, let alone just and infinitely merciful.

I'll let Dan Barker explain it. He had been debating with an Islamic scholar, Hussanain Rajabali, who had stated that Allah is a "just" god as well as an "infinitely merciful" god. Oops!

Justice means that punishment is administered with the exact amount of severity that is deserved for the crime that is committed. We don’t put children in prison for stealing cookies, and we don’t merely fine a murderer $50. Mercy, on the other hand, means that punishment is administered with less severity than deserved. When the police officer lets you off with a warning instead of a ticket for breaking the speed limit, that is mercy. If God is infinitely merciful, he can never be just. If God is ever just (not to mention infinitely just), then he cannot be infinitely merciful. A God who is both infinitely merciful and just not only does not exist, he cannot exist. This is one of the positive arguments for the nonexistence of God based on incompatible properties (or incoherency). If God is defined as a married bachelor, we don’t need to discuss evidence or argument; we can simply claim a logical impossibility."

[...]

[If] God is infinitely merciful, then I cannot go to hell. It wouldn’t matter how I lived or what I thought, infinite mercy would absolve me of any crime, no matter how great, including the crime of refusing to believe in God, accept his authority or admit that I had done anything wrong.

Barker, Dan (2009-05-01).
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists (p. 79-80).
Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

An exquisite example there of how religions require their followers to hold two or more mutually exclusive views simultaneously, like the belief in an omniscient god and free will. Don't you just love it when those simple little arrows of irrefutable logic hit home like an Exocet and destroy centuries of unthinking dogma? What could mankind have achieved if ignorant superstition hadn't been allowed to hijack our cultures and condition our thinking, replacing reason and logic with dogmas and knee-jerk reflexes, just to provide an easy living for a parasitic class of religious clerics?

What a waste of two thousand years!

So Muslims, is Allah just or is Allah infinitely merciful, and how did Mohammed get it wrong about the other one?

If Allah is infinitely merciful, why does it make any difference how you conduct yourself or what you believe?

Christians and other theists, before you rejoice at the discomfort of those you hate, you might like to consider helping Muslims out here, because this argument comprehensively refutes your god too, unless you want to tell me your god isn't "just" or isn't "merciful".

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More Infinitely Impossible Gods

Theists who believe in an infinitely omniscient (i.e. all knowing, with special emphasis on the 'all') deity believe in a god which must hold a conceptual model of the entire universe, and, if there are other universes, of all of those as well. This model will need to be constantly and instantly updated even to the exact position of every elementary particle and every vibration of every super-string.

Have you ever done that thing with a mirror where you hold it up to another mirror and see a tunnel of diminishing mirrors disappearing into the distance, usually round a bend, unless you're holding the mirror exactly parallel to the other one? This looks like an infinity of mirrors, but there is a lower limit to the size of the image of the mirror you are holding which can be reflected back to you, even if your eyesight is perfect. This is directly related to the wavelength of light. Below that distance, using visible light two objects will appear as one.

Near Beaconsfield, just a short ride west down the M40 from London, UK, is a model village of Bekonscot, reputedly the world's oldest, and as accurate as its creator could make it in 1929. It includes a model of the model village in which there is a model of the model village... and so on, until it becomes a shapeless blob, because, with the best of intentions no one could create accurate buildings, streets, roadside furniture, etc to sufficient detail to be seen by human eyes.

In the theists' god's conceptual model will be a model of itself complete with it conceptual model which will also need to be constantly updated in real time, as will the conceptual model of itself within that conceptual model of itself, and every other infinitely diminishing model within it.

Evolution For Creationists Who Can Recite Jack & Jill

Okay! If you're still having a problem understanding evolution, try this mind experiment. It should only take a few minutes.

Imagine you have thousands of robots which have only three instructions:

1. If you can, step up.
2. Never step down.
3. Otherwise move in random directions.

Now, place those robots randomly in a landscape which includes hills and valleys, a bit like the one on the right, and leave them to wander around for a few months.

Now answer these two questions:

1. Where will your robots be when you go and look for them?
2. Will they still be randomly distributed in the landscape?

Correct answers win the Grand Old Duke Of York Award for understanding evolution.

For those few who still don't get it, I'll explain it in a few days.

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The (Honest) Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed is the Catholic statement of faith which was retained by the Lutheran Protestants and just about all of their 38,000 offshoots.

I offer this honest version for people who purport to follow a god of truth and so can be assumed to want a creed that is factually correct. 

My helpful insertions are in red.

[Because I was labelled 'Christian' by my parents when I was too young to have a say] I believe in God the Father Almighty [who some primitive and scientifically illiterate people claim was the] creator of Heaven and Earth and in Jesus Christ [who early Christians claimed to be] his only son, who [,according to some accounts and in line with traditional claims of parthenogenic births for human manifestations of gods at the time] was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate [but no records were made], was crucified [on two different days if you read the later accounts], dead and buried. On the third day [it is claimed by his followers but no one else that] he rose again from the dead [,though the accounts are muddled, confused and implausible and the only alleged witnesses didn't seem to be convinced by it,] and [,so some of his later biographers report, though they disagree where and when,] ascended into [a notional place called] Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of [a notional and purely hypothetica] God the Father [who is also alleged to be the same person who is sitting on his own right hand]. From thence [so his followers hope] he will come to judge the quick and the dead [and kill everyone who disagrees with us so we can have everything for ourselves]. And in the Holy Ghost [who is also 'God the Father' and 'Jesus Christ' but doesn't seem to be very important in this triple-headed god].

I believe in the Holy Catholic Church [though not the Roman version if I'm not a Catholic, obviously], the communion of saints [whatever that means and it's definitely nothing to do with communism] and the life ever lasting [though I know I'm going to die like other people but it's nice to pretend I'm not]. Amen [,which is a magic word we say to make everything we've just said true, like putting 'Fact!' at the end of a tweet we're not at all sure about - not that there is any doubt, mind you!].

C.S.Lewis Shows His Double Standards

Probably one of C.S.Lewis's more careless arguments was:

Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.

C.S.Lewis: The Case for Christianity

It is hard to believe he thought this through but perhaps he had just got carried away with his early success and was taking his target audience too much for granted and getting careless.

Creationists Fooled By Hoaxes

You have to pity the poor creationists.

Living in a world in which there is no known physical evidence to support their beliefs, they are prey to almost any conceivable hoax and will eagerly pay out to read about it, listen to a charlatan talking about it or to go and see it in a 'museum'.

The irony is that at least one of the hoaxes they use to try to discredit science is itself a hoax on them. 'Nebraska Man' was never claimed by scientists to be a man. The hoax is that a highly imaginative article written in a popular magazine - The Illustrated London News - was a scientific publication and represents a serious claim by science to have discovered an archaic hominid.

The God Of Low Standards

The God of Low Standards is a utility god. It can be whatever its followers want it to be and it can excuse anything its followers want it to excuse. It's a tailor-made god, perfectly fitted for its followers needs and infinitely adaptable for any purpose.

You find it in the Kalam Cosmological Argument where everything must have had a beginning and nothing can happen without a cause but The God of Low Standards doesn't have a beginning, so doesn't need a cause.

You find it in the Teleological Argument where the God of Low Standards can be defined into existence by humans and becomes real by fiat.

You find it in the Ontological Argument where any gap, real or imaginary, can be filled by the God of Low Standards with no evidence at all.

You find the God of Low Standards in holy books where writing about it is enough to make it real, unlike science where hundreds of books full of evidence are never enough.

Humans On The Ark Must Have Had STDs

The problem started when the Bronze-age pastoralists who decided to fill the gaps in their knowledge and understanding with some invented narratives, didn't know enough about the real world outside their small part of it, so made a lot of silly mistakes. For example, they knew nothing of germ theory so one of their tales is implausible unless the characters in it were riddled with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Noah, or at least one member of his family, must have had one or more venereal diseases and must have had extramarital sexual relationships.

We can be sure of this because humans, like many other species, are hosts to a number of obligate, species-specific, parasitic pathogens, i.e., parasites which are obliged to live in or on their host in order to survive.

For example:

Chlamydia trachomatis
Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular pathogen (i.e., the bacterium lives within human cells) and can cause numerous disease states in both men and women. Both sexes can display urethritis, proctitis (rectal disease and bleeding), trachoma, and infertility. The bacterium can cause prostatitis and epididymitis in men. In women, cervicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), ectopic pregnancy, and acute or chronic pelvic pain are frequent complications. C. trachomatis is also an important neonatal pathogen, where it can lead to infections of the eye (trachoma) and pulmonary complications. C. trachomatis is the single most important infectious agent associated with blindness; approximately 600 million worldwide suffer C. trachomatis eye infections and 20 million are blinded as a result of the infection.

Source: Wikipedia - Chlamydia trachomatis

Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum pallidum.T. pallidum pallidum is a spiral-shaped, Gram-negative, highly mobile bacterium (see electron micrograph - left). Three other human diseases are caused by related T. pallidum subspecies, including yaws (T. p. pertenue), pinta (T. p. carateum) and bejel (T p. endemicum). Unlike T. p. pallidum, they do not cause neurological disease. Humans are the only known natural reservoir for T. p. pallidum. It is unable to survive without a host for more than a few days. This is due to its small genome (1.14 MDa) and thus its inability to make most of its macronutrients. It has a slow doubling time of greater than 30 hours.

Source: Wikipedia - Syphilis

Gonorrhoea
Gonorrhoea is a common human sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. It is unique to humans.

The infection is transmitted from one person to another through vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Men have a 20% risk of getting the infection from a single act of vaginal intercourse with an infected woman. The risk for men who have sex with men is higher. Women have a 60–80% risk of getting the infection from a single act of vaginal intercourse with an infected man. A mother may transmit gonorrhea to her newborn during childbirth; when affecting the infant's eyes, it is referred to as ophthalmia neonatorum. It cannot be spread by toilets or bathrooms.

Source: Wikipedia - Gonorrea

So, each of these sexually transmitted diseases is entirely dependent on humans both for their existence and for their transmission and, if you believe the account given in Genesis of Noah's flood, you believe every living substance outside of the Ark was destroyed by God and everything alive today is descended from those few who were on the Ark.

And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Genesis 7:23

If this were true, it would mean that members of Noah's family were carries of these venereal and sexually transmitted diseases.

Would any creationist like to speculate on who they might have been?

The same question can be asked of the species-specific ectoparasites such as lice, especially the sexually transmitted pubic louse, of course, but the human head and body louse are unique to humans too.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 6:7-10

So that's four men and four women. Did just one of them carry all three sexually transmitted diseases or were they spread around? We can be fairly sure that their partners would have been infected too so at least two and maybe as many as six of the humans on the Ark had sexually transmitted diseases normally, though not always, the result of having several sexual partners. One thing we know is that you can't catch them from virgins unless they had a congenitally acquired form acquired from their mother, so, if the tale were true, we can be fairly certain that one or more of the people on the Ark must have had extramarital sexual relations of some sort, to acquire the STDs they carried.

So, is this yet another example of an unintelligent god who hasn't thought things through? In a fit of pique it decides to destroy everyone and everything because they are sinners, then realised it needs to save sinners too in order to save the diseases it's also created, so negating the entire purpose of the whole multi-ethnic, multi-species genocide, but it does it anyway.

Or is it just a nonsense tale made up by people who were in complete ignorance of bacteriology and microbial causation of disease?

What A Waste Of A Life - Grovelling To God!

What's with this idea that somehow belief in gods gives your life a purpose? What is it that induces otherwise normal people - at least I'll assume they are in the absence of evidence to the contrary (though I concede that these tweets may indeed be that evidence) - to tell the world this sort of thing?

Prophesying A Powerless God

Ancient of Days, William Blake

A god which can accurately prophesy the future is an utterly powerless god and a powerless god is no more worthy of worship than a pebble.

Leaving aside debate about whether gods exist or not, and whether the absence of evidence for them is evidence of their absence, like it is for just about everything else, neither Christians nor Muslims seem to know what sort of god they believe in. They will often cite as 'proof' that their favourite holy book was divinely inspired by quoting some passage or other which can, usually at a stretch, be presented as some sort of prophesy of the future.

These 'prophecies' normally fall into three sort:

1. Imaginary prophecies: Those they claim have been fulfilled, for which they normally have to ignore the context of the 'prophecy', make claims about history which are not born out by the facts, and/or stretch reason beyond breaking point to map the 'prophecy' onto real events. Prophets of these events never manage to foretell the exact year.
2. Retrospective prophecies: 'Prophecies' written after the events they supposedly prophesied. A bit like prophesying what you ate for dinner yesterday or who won World War II
3. 'Gunner be' prophecies: 'Prophecies' which have not actually been fulfilled, but we are assured are 'gunner be', at some point, and often "real soon... you'll see!"

Like the 'prophecies' of Nostradamus, Biblical and Koranic prophecies seem particularly good at predicting the past but are singularly inept at predicting the future. For example, Muslims will tell you that the Koran predicted all the scientific discoveries, yet they can never look in it to find out what the next discovery will be. As always, it's usefulness as a predictive tool seems to have ended last week.

But there is something which proponents of these prophesying gods don't seem to have worked out, despite having 2500-3000 or more years to think about the problem. You see, to prophesy the future you need to know not only the future, but everything leading up to that future, and nothing at all could change, or the future would be different and the prophecy would fail. This is no less true for a god than for a person or a computer. You can only prophesy the future if the future is absolutely fixed and unchangeable and that means the present is also fixed and unchangeable. A god which lived in a universe in which everything is fixed and unchangeable is a powerless god, indistinguishable from an absent one.

A universe with a fixed, unchangeable future is indistinguishable from a universe with no god in it.

I'll let former evangelical Christian Dan Barker, author of 'Losing Faith In Faith' and founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, say it far more eloquently than I ever could hope to in the transcription of a radio interview phone-in he did on a Christian radio show hosted by creationist loon, Jason Gastrich. It's a bit long but worth the read, as is the even longer transcript of the complete interview:

Dan: You're saying that there is a god that knows the future, and that this god is a personal being with free will who can make decisions, right?

Jason: Hmm . . . I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we're getting away from the question, but let's go ahead. Go ahead and tell me . .

Dan: Well, you're talking about prophecy, right?

Jason: I was talking about a specific prophecy, but let's talk about what you're saying. Go ahead.

Dan: Well, if this god exists . . .

Jason: Uh-huh.

Dan: . . . and if he knows the future, like you pretend he knows here, . . .

Jason: Right.

Dan: . . . that means that the set of future facts is fixed. It cannot be changed. If God knows it in advance, then the future is fixed and unchangeable. Otherwise, God wouldn't be omniscient. He wouldn't be able to predict the future.

Jason: Um-huh.

Dan: If the future is fixed, then that sets some limits on God's power. And also, how can a personal being with free will have any ability to make any decisions if the future is already fixed. God Himself cannot even make any decisions, because he can't do what he knows that he's not going to do. Therefore, if this kind of god exists, philosophically, this god is not a personal free being. He's more like a robot or something.

Jason: I think you jump from God knowing the future to the point where you asserted that God controls the actions, all the actions of human beings.

Dan: No, I'm talking about God's own actions, not human beings.

Jason: Ok.

Dan: I'm talking about God . . . If God knows what he's going to do . . .

Jason: Ok.

Dan: . . . tomorrow at twelve noon, right?

Jason: Uh-huh.

Dan: Then God can't change in the meantime what he's going to do between now and then. He knows it.

Jason: Well, I think there's an instance in Jonah, where God had told Jonah to tell Nineveh that Nineveh is going to be wiped out because of their sin. And then Nineveh decided to repent with weeping and fasting, and God decided to exercise his perfect mercy on them.

Dan: Yeah, but that was clearly conditional. That was a supposed conditional prophecy. I'm talking about these prophecies that are supposedly clear prophecies of something that will happen.

Jason: I don't know if that was conditional. In Jonah there's only four chapters, but um, as far as I could tell, it was God telling them judgement will come on you. And some people have said that looks like God has changed his mind, or changed. How could this happen with a changeless god? But in reality, he decided to use his perfect mercy instead of his judgement.

Dan: So, before he exercised his mercy, did he have one idea of what the future would be like, but after he exercised his mercy, he changed his mind and had a different idea of what the future would be like? In other words, was he not omniscient to begin with? Was the set of future facts changeable or fixed? [Do] you know what I'm saying? If it's changeable, then God doesn't know the future.

Jason: Why is that?

Dan: Because he doesn't know how the ball is going to bounce. He doesn't know. He's like you and me, right?

Jason: Um-huh.

Dan: So if God doesn't know the future, then he can't prophesy anything, because anything can happen between now and then. Do you see the philosophical problem here? He's either a free being that can make decisions openly, or else he knows a fixed future that cannot be changed. He can't have it both ways. He might be omniscient, in which case he's not omnipotent. Or he might be prescient, in which case he's not a free being, and he's not worthy of my worship if he's like a robot or a computer program or something.

Jason: Ok, I see what you're saying, I think. And um, I think that the rub is just because God doesn't step in and do the things that you do think he should do if he were to exist. That doesn't necessarily mean that he's not there, or not powerful or couldn't do something.

Dan: I'm not saying that at all. That wasn't my point. My point was that if your definition is right, then something's got to give. You have a mutually incompatible definition of a god: one who knows the future, and yet is also a free personal being. I'm not telling him what to do. If there's a God, he can do what he wants to. But I'm just saying that you have a problem with an incompatibility in your definition of what God is like. According to you, Ezekiel 38 tells, predicts a future which will happen, right?

Jason: Uh-huh. Right.

Dan: And there's no way that you or I, or even God can change that.

Jason: Um-huh.

Dan: Right? It's predicting something. And if God can't change that, then God has limits on his power and on his freedom.

Jason: Ok.

Dan: Therefore, he is something less than the being that you claim to worship.

Jason: Ok, well yeah, the argument that you're using is much more tied into what I said than you realize, because it's the same kind of argument that atheists have used before to say, "if God can't lie, if God can't steal, if God can't do evil. If he can't do these things, then we're not worshipping an omnipotent god." But um, it's just I think how much this argument stems from a lack of understanding.

Dan: I'm not saying that either, but -- I've heard atheists say that, and I disagree with it -- because if there is a god, he has a nature, right? And he would want to act in accordance with his nature, so I'm not saying that.

Jason: Right.

Dan: I know enough about theology and the Bible to know that this god that Christians worship has a particular nature that he usually acts in accordance with. Not always, but . . .

Jason: That doesn't mean that he's not omnipotent, it just means that he's not doing the things that you, or someone else, would see as a complete, powerful, all-powerful god.

Dan: Well, [Laughs] then it's not just omnipotence, but it's freedom. If, if . . . in order for you to make a decision . . Let's say you're going to make a choice about who-knows-what. Let's say you're going to have coffee or tea, or you're going to chose a mate, or whatever. In order to have freedom, or the illusion of freedom, you have to have at least more than one option available to you, each of which could be freely chosen or rejected, and there has to be a period of time during which there's an uncertainty during which you could change your mind, right?

Jason: Yeah, all humanly speaking you're correct, I think.

Dan: Yeah, and so that's the definition of "free will" and freedom.

Jason: Um-huh.

Dan: If there is a god who is a person, and [being a] person requires this freedom to make decisions, then this also applies to God. He also has to have the freedom during a period of uncertainty to be able to change his mind and to exercise mercy or justice or to change . . . Do you know what I mean? Otherwise, he's not a free being, right?

Jason: Hmm.

Dan: He has to have that period of potential, but . .

Jason: I think God has just bound Himself to the promises he has made to us. If you want to say that that makes him less omnipotent than some other god, then maybe you could say that.

Dan: I'm not saying [less] omnipotent. I'm saying less of a person, less of a free person. As a personality, he's more like a robot than . . He might be totally omnipotent, but he's not the kind of person that I would find admirable to worship as a person. He's more like this force of a huge computer program or something. Do you know what I'm saying? He's not a being. He's not a personal being if he knows the future. He can't be because he has no freedom, no choice, no period of potential to change his mind and be and to be merciful or warm or friendly. Do you know what I mean? He's not like you and me. He's some sort of a weird creature up there who's running things in a colder kind of impersonal way, and that's the kind of creature that I could not worship or respect.

Jason: But on a human level, it's possible to know the future and then, I mean, to an extent, and still be loving, or . . . Isn't it?

Dan: Well, none of us knows the future. We get lucky a lot.

Jason: Yeah, I just mean like I'm going to go to [laughs] to work today, or I'm going to do this, or I'm going to do that, or my kid's going to do this tonight . . .

Dan: Yeah, but on the way to work you still have the option, you probably wouldn't exercise it, but you could still change your mind and go somewhere else, right?

Jason: Yeah.

Dan: That's what makes you free.

Jason: Um-huh. Dan: But if you did not have that option, you wouldn't be free. Your hands would drive to work no matter what. You wouldn't be, you wouldn't have free will. You wouldn't . . .

Jason: I suppose it would give me, it's given me even more of a respect for God, realizing now, that he has laid down his omnipotence in order to give humans comfort by promising them things.

Dan: So he's not omnipotent, you just said?

Jason: Well he's surely omnipotent, but his type of omnipotence is different from the type of omnipotence that you want him to be, apparently.

Dan: I don't want him to be anything. I'm just trying to make sense of this Bible. I don't want God to be anything at all. If he exists, he can be whatever he wants to be. I mean, that's not up to me to decide. I'm trying to decide whether or not I think he, first of all, exists at all, and secondly, even if he did, if he is worthy of my admiration. Because I have the free will to choose, don't I?

Jason: Right.

Dan: I don't have to like him do I? But I don't have to respect him. You know, I could denounce him if I choose. That's part of my freedom, right? And so it's my choice whether or not I find this kind of a being worthy of my respect. And I find him unworthy of my respect. I mean, what's wrong with me exercising my judgement, based on moral intellectual principles, to say such a thing?

Jason: Ok.

See 'Barker Tears A New One' for a full transcription.

Love that different type of omnipotence, Jason!

So, as Dan Barker so patiently explained to the hapless Jason, "You have a mutually incompatible definition of a god: one who knows the future, and yet is also a free personal being." Not for the first time do we find religion requires it's believers to hold two or more mutually incompatible views simultaneously.

So, Christians and Muslims, and anyone else who has an omnipotent, omniscient god who makes accurate prophecies, how do you square that circle and have both an omnipotent, omniscient god who is bound irredeemably by his own inerrantly omniscient foresight and so is utterly powerless?

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