A Universe From Nothing | Unreasonable Faith

Creationists won't watch this (Tweet this)

a) It tells them something they don't want to know and answers a question they don't want answered

b) It's far to long for their normal attention span of about 4 seconds.

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Jesus the Sinner

Baptism of Jesus - looks like there was some difficulty pushing him under.

Listening to his supports you'd think Jesus was pure and free from the sin we are all supposed to have inherited along with our humanity. Mary was free from sin, having been 'immaculately conceived', and was still a virgin when he was born, and Jesus' father was God, so he wasn't contaminated by any inherited paternal or maternal sins, so Jesus was free from sin, so we are told.

But was he?

John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins

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And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in Jordan.

Mark 1:4-9

So, if John was "preaching baptism of repentance for remission of sins" and part of that baptism was confession of sins, why did John need to baptize Jesus?

Set a Trap to Catch a Fool

In Psalms 14:1 credulous believers are handed a useful slogan to use in lieu of rational thought: The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.

They're handed another in Proverbs 26:11: As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

You'll see Christian fundamentalists especially, still using these today, presumably assuming their targets are equally credulous.

And yet in Matthew 5:22 we see: ...but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire

Blimey!

I wonder what possessed God to set this trap to catch the foolish bigots who haven't read the Bible but like to pretend they have.

And not so much as a hint of an escape clause... Nasty! Lucky it's just a story, eh?

The Ancestor's Likely Tale.

LUKE 2.3-4. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

So, Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because Joseph was descended from David, who lived about 1000 years earlier.

Obviously it was different for Joseph but I have a father, two grandfathers, four great grandfathers, eight great great grandfathers, 16 great great great grandfathers, etc.

With some four generations a century, forty in a thousand years, that gives me 1,099,511,627,776 (i.e. over 1 trillion) male ancestors who lived about 1000 years ago.

But, isn't that more than the population of the earth now, let alone then?

Okay, allow for a few marriages between cousins, second cousins, etc and say only a billion or so. Still more a than the population of the earth 1000 years ago. Well, let's be generous and say marriage between cousins, second cousins, third cousins, cousins once removed, etc, was common place and say I probably only had about a million, or maybe just a few hundred thousand male ancestors.

And I don't know anything about a single one of them with any certainty. Some of them could have been people we know about. It would be surprising if a few weren't. Apparently, most of us Europeans are descended from Charlemagne I, and a lot of us from Genghis Khan but most of them would have been complete nonentities who left no mark on history other than the genes they passed on and which eventually found themselves in me. (Thank you very much).

With that many ancestors, I could probably pick practically any town or village in England and probably most of Europe and a good deal of Central Asia, and claim it as my ancestral home.

But not so for Joseph, if we're to believe the Bible. Joseph only has ONE male ancestor from 1000 years ago, and he knew who that was and where he lived. He was King David from Bethlehem.

So too did the Roman authorities, it seems. How else would they check that no one had cheated and just popped down to the nearest town? And they knew it for everyone else in Judea, who also knew their (only) remote ancestor's home town. This is record-keeping far above what any modern, bureaucratic state can accomplish.

Blimey!

Can YOU name all the towns all your ancestors from 1000 years ago lived in? Do you know any of those ancestors' names?

A mystery, eh? No doubt Christians can explain this curious puzzle...

Twinkle, Twinkle.

Now here's a conundrum.

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

Matthew 2:9-10

So, this star stood over where the child was!

Don't take my word for it. Go outside tonight, go some distance from your house and find a star that's over your house but not over any other.

In fact, make it easier... find a star that's over your town and not over any other...

I wonder how the 'wise men' managed it.

Still. I can't see anyone getting away with a silly tale like this nowadays.

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I Know It In My Heart

How did the authors of the Bible understand the function of the heart?

... and thou the mightiest know the thoughts of thy heart

Daniel 2:30

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... thou didst set thine heart to understand...

Daniel 10:12

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The pride of thine heart has deceived thee...

Obadiah 1:3

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Why reason ye these things in your hearts?

Mark 2:8

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... and shall not doubt in his heart...

Mark 11:23

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And Jesus perceiving the thoughts of their hearts...

Luke 9:47

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Why are ye troubled and why do thoughts arise in your heart?

Luke 24:38

Quite clearly, they believed the heart is where thoughts occur and emotions are felt.

Science vs Religion - The Lesson from CERN

A couple of days ago, scientists working at CERN published a paper with data which seems to question one of the very fundamental principles upon which modern physics is built - that nothing can travel faster than the velocity of light in a vacuum (c). They appear to have discovered that a fundamental particle - the neutrino - does, by a very small, but significant margin.

They have asked the scientific community to scrutinise and criticise their data and methodology, in short, to pull it apart and find fault with it. To crawl all over it, to shoot it down in flames whilst blowing it out of the water (mixed metaphor intended).

They have applied the basic principle of scientific honesty and integrity which understands that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and they have submitted their findings to peer review.

15 Answers for Creationists.

Written in reply to 15 Questions for Evolutionists.

This list of questions is depressing, not because they are difficult - any intermediate level biology student should be able to answer them with no more than a moment's thought - but because they reveal the depths of ignorance, dishonesty and credulous stupidity on which Creationism relies. The questioner, apparently in all seriousness, believes these are difficult, killer knock-down questions which will challenge even the best of evolutionary biologists. Either that, or he imagines his target audience is that dishonest, ignorant and credulously stupid.

It would be funny, if it weren't so representative of so many semi-literate and wilfully ignorant, yet politically active and dangerous individuals. These questions tell us a great deal about the cavalier approach of creationists to truth and honesty.

No doubt they will not want to read these answers, preferring, as they do, to remain stoically and proudly ignorant of anything which might shake their 'unshakeable' faith.

Q1. How did life originate?

A1. The origin of replicators is not a question for Evolutionists since the Theory of Evolution (TOE) deals with how living organisms develop and diversify, not how they originated. However, this question can be, and is being, addressed by science. There are several theories which can be found by a search on Google.

The disingenuous nature of this question can be gauged from the following quote:

“Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.”

Of course, as the questioner probably knows, no serious TOE hypothesises this. The question is asked to mislead the credulous and gullible. The entire basis of any TOE is that organisms evolve slowly, over time, by a series of natural selection from amongst a population containing variations on a basic theme. Variation comes about by randomly imperfect replication. Evolution always occurs in a population, not in individuals. There was never any spontaneous self-organisation.

Most theories of the origin of replicator assume that RNA became involved early on in the process and self-replicating examples of RNA are known.

In fact, this is just another form of the God of the Gaps fallacy. The questioner is implying that, if science doesn't know the answer now, a natural answer will never be known, and that the only possible explanation is a supernatural one. This fallacy also depends on the parochial ignorance of its target to assume that the only possible supernatural explanation is the one the questioner is pushing.

So, from the first question, we can see plainly how the questions are intended to mislead rather than to inform, and the contempt the questioner has for his target audience.

Maybe it gets better...

Have You Found Jesus?

If you're looking for Jesus you should be able to find him in the Bible... shouldn't you?

1. How did Mary and Joseph know Mary was Expecting God’s son?
   
   • Joseph was told about it in a dream, so he decides not to divorce pregnant Mary. (Matthew 1:18-20)
   • An angel told Mary. (Luke 1:26-31)
2. When was Jesus born?
   
   • When Quirinius was Governor of Syria (6-12 AD) (Luke 2:2)
   • When Herod the Great was King  (37-4 BC) (Matthew 2:1)
3. Where was Jesus born?
   
   • In the house in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary live (Matt 1:18 – 2:23)
   • In a stable in Bethlehem to where Joseph and Mary have travelled to take part in a census (Luke 1:4 – 2:40)
4. Who came to see Jesus when he was born?
   
   • Unspecified number of 'wise men' from the East (Matthew 2:1)
   • Unspecified number of shepherds (Luke 2:8)
5. When did Jesus become God’s son?
   
   • When he was resurrected (Acts 13:32-33)
   • When he was baptised (Luke 3:22)
   • When Mary conceived him (Luke 1:35)
6. When did Jesus cleanse the Temple?
   
   • The week before he died (Mark 11:15)
   • Right at the beginning of his three-year ministry (John 2:14-16 )
7. How many ‘signs’ did Jesus do in Jerusalem?
   
   • Water into wine – the ‘first sign’ (John 2:11)
   • Many more signs follow (John 2:23)
   • Then he heals a centurion’s son – the ‘second sign’ (John 4:54)
8. When was Jesus crucified?
   
   • The day before Passover at about noon (John 19:14)
   • On the day of Passover at 09:00 (Mark 15:25)
9. Who asked Jesus where he was going at the ‘Last Supper’?
   
   • Peter – “Lord, where are you going?” (John 13:36)
   • Thomas – “Lord, we do not know where you are going.” (John 14:5)
   • Jesus – “... none of you asks me where I am going.” (John 16:5)
10. What were Jesus’ last words on the cross?
    
    • “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
    • “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” in Aramaic. (My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?) (Mark 15:34)
11. When was the land cast into darkness and the  curtain in the Temple ripped?
    
    • At the moment of Jesus’ death (Mark 15:38)
    • When Jesus was still alive (Luke 23:45)

So, if those claiming to be eye-witnesses to the events can't agree on anything, no use looking in their records to find Jesus.

Which leaves us with... precisely nowhere, because no contemporaneous historians noticed anything worth writing about, apparently.

No wonder Jesus' followers keep asking us if we've found him.

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Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them) by Bart D Ehrlman

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Teach evolution, not creationism! | Joint statement on creationism and evolution in schools

British Humanist Association Campaign:

Teach evolution, not creationism! | Joint statement on creationism and evolution in schools:

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The Curious Case of Giant Pacific Tube Worms

The giant tubeworm, Riftia pachyptila.

Photo: Monika Bright, University of Vienna, Austria.

The giant tubeworm, Riftia pachyptila.

Photo: Monika Bright, University of Vienna, Austria.

The Giant Pacific Tube Worm (Riftia pachyptila) were discovered in the late 1970s in the eastern Pacific Ocean at depths of around 8000 feet. It is an ‘extremophile’, living as it does around the rim of volcanic hydrothermal vents - so-called ‘black smokers’ because of the colour of the sulphur-rich water welling up from them. The temperatures can reach 360 degrees Celsius and the pressure at that depth is around 150 times that at sea level – enough to crush an ordinary submarine hull.

No sunlight reaches these depths, so, unlike normal ecosystems which depend on sunlight as the source of energy, the entire system depends on bacteria which manufacture nutrients from the chemicals welling up from the vents. The energy source is heat and hydrogen sulphide. Hydrogen sulphide is highly toxic in a normal environment.
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Beyond Belief - The Ten Plagues of Egypt.

Why did an omniscient, omnipotent god need ten tries to convince Pharaoh?

1. All the water turned into blood. The Egyptians never recorded this. Nothing happened.
2. Frogs. Millions of frogs! The Egyptians didn't notice them either, so nothing happened.
3. Lice. Nothing.
4. Flies. Still Nothing.
5. Pestilence to kill all the livestock. Nothing.
6. Boils. Even the livestock... er... see 5 above.
7. Thunder and hail. [Shrug]
8. Locusts. Now this is just being silly. Still nothing.
9. Make it dark for 3 days. You've guessed it. Nothing. Not even a marginal note in the official records.
10. Kill all the ‘first born’. Even the ‘maidservant behind the mill’ (what did she do?), and the livestock, yet again. (And the Hebrews find lambs to sacrifice... even though they all died in the fifth plague).

Phew! After only ten tries!

But even then Pharaoh changed his mind again and sent the army after the Hebrews ... riding in chariots pulled by horses ... er... that had all been killed in the fifth plague.

Amazing how inept an omniscient god can be when the story requires one.

Beyond Belief.

How many chances does the Judeo-Christian god need for goodness sake?

First it goes to all the trouble to create a vast universe out of nothing just so it can have a tiny speck of dust on which to create humans, complete with all the plants, animals, air, water, etc., they need.

And they promptly go wrong.

Religion's Misguided Missiles - Richard Dawkins - The Guardian - RichardDawkins.net

Written 4 days after 9/11.

Worth reading 10 years on.

Religion's Misguided Missiles - Richard Dawkins - The Guardian - RichardDawkins.net:

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Science vs Religion

In the search for truth it seems many people believe science and religion are either opposites or at least alternative means to an end.

Let's take a look:

As scientific observation improves and greater understanding is achieved, so interpretation of evidence leads to a closer and closer approximation to the truth. This is a fundamental of science. The 'truth' is assumed to be out there waiting to be discovered.

Science has inbuilt mechanisms for removing bias, including submission to peer-review and, even though some scientists may get away with false results due to bias or dishonesty, other scientists will eventually discover these errors and correct them. There is no surer way to fame and respect in science than in overthrowing an established school of thought. This way leads to Nobel Prizes. There is no surer way to ignominy and disgrace than to be found to have deliberately falsified results or allowed bias due to religious, political or cultural prejudice or for financial gain.

Science is thus self-correcting over time, all the while driven towards discovering objective, culturally neutral truth.

Different researchers working independently can, and often do, come up with the same conclusions. Scientists working in different cultures will still arrive at very similar conclusions and resolution of differences is normally free from cultural bias. Whether working in Japan, Europe or USA scientists will produce results regarded as equally valid by each other. During the Cold War, Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc scientists produced results regarded as no less valid by their opposite numbers in the other bloc on the grounds that they were from the 'wrong' political system.

Christian, Atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or Taoist scientists will all, using the same methodology, produce equally valid results. Science is blind to culture, race, creed or politics. The only test is whether the observations are valid and the conclusions flow logically from them.

Because science is entirely based on observation of evidence and facts are neutral, freed from interference from religion or politics, science tends to converge on the same theories.

For this reason we can be sure that, if in some way we could scrap an entire body of science, say, the Theory of Evolution or the Theory of Gravity, and start again, science would in time come up with identical theories.

Rational theories which flow naturally and inevitably from the neutral facts.

But with religion, things are quite different.

We have many examples of religions being started afresh, just as though the existing 'theory' has been scrapped and started again. They are ALL different.

There are no examples of different religions in different parts of the world converging on a common form or explanation for the universe or life on earth or indeed any of the other answers all religions purport to provide.

Science puts people on the moon.
Religion flies planes into buildings.

In stark contrast to science, religions diverge and fragment and claim all manner of irreconcilable versions of the 'truth'. The 'Christian' religion alone has diverged into some 38,000 different sects and cults, each claiming to be the only true version and to know the truth.

As a means for discovering truth, religions are about as useful as random guesses or examining the entrails of chickens.

This is because there are no neutral facts in religion, no rational interpretation of those facts, no attempts to measure the evidence more and more accurately or to resolve differences between different groups of researchers or between cultures. Indeed, if religions proceeded this way they would be science and no 'faith' would be required.

Religions are about enforcing unquestioned conformity to dogma and often the notional guesses of technologically backward remote ancestors.

In the search for truth, science wins because science can demonstrate the truth of its claims. (Tweet this)

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The Kalâm Cosmological Fallacy

The Kalâm Cosmological Argument (KCA) has its origins in medieval Islam of the Kalâm tradition but it has been adopted by Christian apologists, notably William Lane Craig, who appear to believe it proves only the Christian god of the New Testament, ignoring the fact that it was originally formulated to ‘prove’ the Islamic god of the Qur’an.

1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause.
2. The universe had a beginning.
3. Therefore the universe had a cause.
4. That cause must be God.

In essence, the KCA is arguing that:

1. There can be no natural cause for the universe.
2. Therefore the cause must be supernatural.
3. The only possible supernatural cause must be whichever god the argument is being used to promote.

Clearly, we only need to refute 1 for the entire argument to collapse since this is the premise from which the rest is assumed to flow. We only need to show that a natural cause is possible to refute the KCA. The onus of proof lies with those using the KCA to prove their implicit claim that the cause MUST be supernatural, so the onus is upon them to refute our possible natural cause AND show that there are no other possible natural explanations.

Unless they are able to do so, reliance on the KCA is dishonest and disingenuous.

Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause.