Imagine - New Hampshirite Liberation Organization

Just imagine.

Imagine a tribe of Native Americans who previously lived in New Hampshire, the Abenaki for example, had as part of their traditional origin myths a story of how what we now call New Hampshire had been granted to them for ever by one of their gods some 4000 years ago. This belief was central to their sense of identity, to their very idea of nationhood and ownership of this part of North America.

Imagine now that history had turned out differently; that this tribe's land had been occupied by other people with superior technology and that they had been scattered across the world to be a minority people in other nations, but always staying loyal to the tribal myth of rightful ownership of New Hampshire; indeed, clinging to this myth was the one thing which kept them together as a people but always a minority wherever they settled.

Meanwhile, back in New Hampshire history moved on and new people arrived, set up home and developed a new state; the state we now call New Hampshire. These people who called themselves New Hapshirites had built homes, created towns and farms, and set up industries and prospered. They had their own religion and knew little and cared less for the old religions of people who used to live there. These people were justifiably proud of the state they had created and were determine to defend it at all costs and to keep the freedoms they had won for themselves.

Roll on a couple of thousand years to a time when the displaced, dispossessed people had lived through periods of repression and persecution and of determined attempts to wipe them out entirely in genocides and pogroms and denials of basic civil liberties. Now they were enjoying a revival in more enlightened times and earning a new respect as progressive bankers, scientists, artists, craftsmen and lawyers and had become influential within the ruling class of a new world powers; a world power that had found itself to be the political and military power in New Hampshire, to the general irritation of the New Hampshirites.

Imagine if this new power had been persuaded that the original people of New Hampshire had a case; that they had a right to live in their former homeland of New Hampshire; that there was actually something in their claim to be the rightful owners because their god had said so several thousand years earlier.

And this new power allowed them to flood into New Hampshire under their protection until they were strong enough and powerful enough to launch a bid for independence; a bid for independence which included expelling the New Hampshirites from their homes; from the towns, villages and farms, and herding them into refugee camps to be treated as lesser people whose land could be taken at will and a people now subjected to the strange laws and customs of these invaders.

Now, imagine the New Hampshirites are trying to gain their state back; to return to live in their former homes, and are engaged in a guerilla war with the occupiers.

Whose side would you be on? Would the New Hampshirite Liberation Organization be terrorists or freedom fighters?

Would the traditional legend of a Native American tribe be a good enough reason to ignore the basic human rights of New Hampshirites?

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The Probability Of Being

What was the probability of you existing at all?

For it to happen, for as many generations are their have been human generations, and for as many generations as there has been life, every single one of your ancestors needed to meet exactly the right mate at exactly the right time and to produce one of your ancestors with exactly the right combination of genes. In each generation the right sperm needed to fertilise the right ovum.

And if any one of these had been different, you would not exist.

So how to calculate the probability of you existing? Don't bother to do the math; the result is so small that it would have more zeros after the decimal point than there are elementary particles in the universe.

And yet you exist.

Isn't this evidence of a controlling force; some intelligence running things? How can something so hugely improbable happen at all? Well no. That view only makes any sense if you assume the purpose of everything was to produce you.

Favourite Fallacies - The Ontological Argument

The Ontological Argument was invented by Anselm, an 10th century Archbishop of Canterbury who was later made a saint. Anselm 'reasoned' that you can conceive of a perfect god and an essential element of perfection is existence, so a god must exist.

Er... and that's it.

No. Really!

Of course, it went without question that the only perfect god was the Judeo-Christian one, so the Ontological Argument could only be an argument for the Judeo-Christian god, and no other.

Anselm has been féted through the centuries by Christian apologists for this 'proof' of their god. You still see and hear them trotting out this 'killer proof' at regular intervals and then sitting back in smug contentment as their opponent struggles. What they don't seem to grasp though is that the thing their opponent is struggling with is to understand just how they imagine they've proved anything with it.

And of course, there is always the blissful ignorance, feigned or genuine, that, if it were true, it would apply to any god which would be conditioned on the cultural ideas of perfection being used, one of which might even be non-existence.

So, if you're tempted to believe there might be something in this argument, put it to the test. Go to your window and 'conceive of' (i.e. think about) a perfect car outside.

Did one appear?

Maybe it takes a day or two to work, so if you want to wait a while and check later, please feel free...

Well, okay! Let's put these practical considerations to one side and enter the fantasy world of philosophers and religious apologists for a moment. Let's play with the Ontological Argument to see what we can do with it.

Try conceiving of any perfect thing you like, no matter how ludicrous. Does it exist? According to the Ontological Argument it must do. All you need is to conceive of something and it shall be yours...

I can conceive of a perfect universe. To me, a perfect universe is one where everything about it is amenable to reason; one in which, given the right tools, the right technology and the right understanding, everything can be understood in materialist terms. A perfect universe to me is fully understandable without the need for supernatural explanations. A perfect universe is one in which there is no need for gods or mysteries. A perfect universe is a god-free universe. Exactly like the one we live in, in fact.

According to Anselm of Canterbury, such a universe must exist.

Oops! St Anselm has now proven there is no god.

So, how can Christianity's favourite 'proof' of god prove gods don't exist? How can the same logic lead to two mutually exclusive conclusions?

Because, by simple logic, using a simple mind experiment, we've now proved the Ontological Argument to be the nonsense it always was. The Ontological Argument is like a conjuring trick where even the rabbit is imaginary, or, to put it another way, The Emperor's New Clothes. Who in their right mind was going to put their hand up and say, "Er... rihthámsócn, úre Ár, ðu bist gemaðel sceallan!" ("Er... actually, your Grace, you are talking bollocks!", as a 10th century Englishman would have said it). And who would have listened to them before they went to the stake?

Anselm's Ontological Argument is nothing more than our old friend, anthropocentric arrogance. It's nothing more than the idiotically arrogant argument that a god must exist because I believe it does; that somehow human imagination controls reality in an obedient universe which exists merely to serve the needs of humanity, so 'faith' is enough.

And that of course was exactly the universe which Anselm imagined he lived in and why he and others who shared his arrogant ignorance found his argument so convincing.

I wonder why modern theologians have never managed to update their view of the universe from that of a 10th century cleric who thought the earth was flat, the centre of it all, and all made especially for him.

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Yes Dear! Of Course Atheism Is A Religion.

One of the more bizarre accusations theists, and especially creationists, level at atheists is that atheism is a religion and requires faith.

It's almost as though they believe if only they can persuade people this is true it will somehow justify their religious faith whilst simultaneously disproving the atheist position that there is no evidence for any god and so no reason to believe in one.

One wonders if they've actually thought about this or if, as seems more likely, they are simply mindlessly parroting some charlatan or other who is obviously supplying them, probably for money, with the spurious rationalisations they crave to maintain their infantile belief in magic. These people don't seem able to work out that if they could discredit atheism by calling it a religion or saying you need faith to be one, they are also discrediting their own superstition.

They seem quite capable of holding two diametrically opposite views of religion and faith simultaneously: that religions and faith are false therefore atheism must be because it's a religion, etc., and that religion and faith is the only way to determine ultimate truth and of acquiring unquestionable knowledge and understanding of the world.

Quetalcoatl.

And of course, they are capable of holding diametrically opposite views simultaneously. Indeed, they pride themselves in their ability to do it. This is an essential mechanism for self-delusion. This is precisely why they are religious in the first place.

A whole industry has grown up supplying them with books and on-line articles (with the give-away 'donate' button conspicuously displayed) providing them with the arguments, lies, deceptions and mental techniques required to do so. Many people earn a very good living supplying this industry and assiduously maintaining through fear and misinformation, the ignorance upon which it depends.

So, how much 'faith' does it take to not believe in Zeus or Ra, or the thousands of other gods which different people at different times have believed in with just the same level of evidence as exists for the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Shinto or Hindu god or gods? How much of a religion is not believing in Wotan, or not believing in Quetzalcoatl?

The answer, of course, is none at all. It takes no more faith to not believe in Apollo or Horus than it takes to not believe in some god once believed in by Amazonian Indians or New Guinea Highlanders of whom no one alive now has ever heard.

It takes no more faith to not believe in those gods than to not believe in Yahweh, the god of an insignificant tribe of Bronze Age nomadic pastoralist marauders whose god just happened to be taken up by the ruling class of a declining Iron Age Roman Empire, who could equally well have adopted any other of the many mythical gods then on offer, leaving Yahweh to sink into the obscurity of myth, or maybe to be forgotten altogether, the way so may gods have done in the past.

Surely the charlatans who feed these unfortunate simpletons this pap can come up with something just a LITTLE more intelligent than "It takes too much faith to be an atheist!", and "Atheism is a religion!" for them to trumpet under the sad delusion that it shows deep wisdom instead of revealing their shallow stupidity.

Surely they can think up some slogan which makes their victims look just a little more intelligent and just slightly less thick than two short planks. Or can't they? Maybe that would be asking the impossible.

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Questions For Christians 2

Does your god tell you something is wrong because it is wrong, or is it wrong because your god says so?

Think before you answer.

If you tell me your god tells you it's wrong because it is wrong, you are telling me there is a higher authority than your god; that your god is subject to that higher authority and needs to defer to it for its own knowledge of right and wrong.

If that's so, then surely it's this higher authority which is the real god and yours is merely a subordinate, lesser god.

That's fine, if that's what you want to say. Only now you need to answer the above question with regard to this new, higher god...

On the other hand, you might tell me something is wrong for no other reason than that your god says it is. That's equally fine by me, so long as you realise you're telling me there is no objective morality; no objective right and wrong. That you're telling me, in fact, that there is no objective standard by which you can say whether the god you worship is a good god or an evil one and that when you tell me it's the god of love, you have no way of knowing if that's true or not. That you're telling me you have no objective way to know if it's your god or Satan who's giving the orders and commanding you to act.

So which is it?

A higher god than your god, and no real answer to the question other than a infinity of higher gods all handing down morality to the one beneath it with no end in sight and an answer that's no answer at all?

Or no way for you to tell whether it's a good god or an evil one; a loving god or Satan, who's telling you what to do and a moral code that's as useful as a back pocket in a vest?

Or do you have a third option - that your god has nothing to say about morality and it only has the morality you project onto it?

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Xeno's Religious Paradox

Xeno (pronounced Zeeno and often spelled Zeno) was a 5th Century BCE Greek philosopher who specialised in paradoxes.

One such, known as Xeno's Paradox, says that Achilles (a legendary Greek runner) should not be able to overtake a tortoise if the tortoise is given a head start in a race. By the same reasoning, it should be impossible for an arrow to hit a running rabbit.

This neatly illustrates how 'philosophy' can be used to confuse people and explains how it can be used with equal success to 'prove' whatever dishonest (or maybe, to be charitable, just not very bright) philosophers want you to believe, usually for money, and often to 'prove' diametrically opposite conjecture simultaneously, especially in different cultures. More of that later. Now back to Xeno...

Xeno's reasoning was this:

Questions For Christians 1

I often ask myself why Christians don't seem to act any better than others when they alone claim to have the power, wisdom, and guidance of God right there within them. Apparently, the Holy Spirit didn't properly do his job here.

John W Loftus,
Why I Became an Atheist

So, Christians: why don't you seem to act better than others?

Could it be that your claim to have higher morals, which come straight from your god, is just a lie intended to deceive or to cover over something you want to keep hidden?

You might want to read Children of an Amoral God before you answer.

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At The Going Down Of The Sun, And In The Morning...

Passchendaele 1917	Once upon a time we used to do this for real to young men; to sons and lovers; to husbands and fathers; to brothers and childhood friends. To real people in fact. And now they're not even a memory...

But we're better than that now.... Aren't we?

Jesus Is Risen - And Pigs Can Fly!

As though the idea of Jesus being born specially to saved us from his father's anger with a blood sacrifice isn't bizarre enough, Christians would have us believe that his death was only for a few days and that he rose again, ascended into Heaven and is still alive to this day. One wonders what the point of dying in the first place was, but enough has probably been said on that already.

Let's now look at the rose again and ascended into Heaven part.

The evidence for this is to be found where? You've guessed it; in the Bible which was written by people who wanted you to believe Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and is still alive. No other evidence exists outside the Bible and no contemporaneous written accounts of it appear anywhere in any records or any non-biblical sources whatsoever.

A Fantasy Horror Story.

I believe I may have hit upon the plot for a scifi fantasy horror book and film. The basic idea is quite simple:

An organism, say a virus or a bacterium, or maybe a parasitic worm or even a fungus - it really doesn't matter other than having to think up some way to pass it on - develops the ability to control human minds. This organism then depends for its success on making it's host determined to infect anyone and everyone they meet, including their own children, by any means, in the belief that being infected is normal and being free from infection is somehow abnormal, even dangerous - so dangerous in fact that infection-free individuals should be denied basic rights and even killed if they won't become infected.

Are These The Silliest Verses In The Bible?

Surely this must rank as one of the silliest things written in the Bible, sillier even than some of the very silly claims made in Genesis and Exodus.

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Matthew 27:51-53

I think few people can have summed up this verse better that Thomas Paine, writing what must rank as one of the most devastatingly satirical commentaries on the Bible in "The Age of Reason" in 1794:

It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told

The writer of the book of Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the city, and what became of them afterward, and who it was that saw them - for he is not hardy enough to say he saw them himself; whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, hesaints and shesaints; or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their dresses; whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they were received; whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions of crim. con against the rival interlopers; whether they remained on earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or working; or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and buried themselves.

Strange, indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, and nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have anything to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us everything and we should have had posthumous prophesies, with notes and commentaries upon the first, a little better at least than we have now. Had it been Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Samuel and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained in all Jerusalem.

Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the time then present, anybody would have known them, and outfamed all the other apostles. But, instead of this, these saints were made to pop up, like Jonah's gourd in the night, for no purpose at all but to wither in the morning. Thus much for this part of the story.

Thomas Paine then draws the all-too-obvious conclusion from this ridiculous passage:

The tale of the resurrection follows that of the crucifixion, and in this as well as in that, the writers, whoever they were, disagree so much as to make it evident that none of them were there.

Perhaps there are some Christians who can answer the questions Thomas Paine raised over 200 years ago and can counter with reason the conclusion he draws...

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A Charming Little Christian Festival

Remember! Remember!
The fifth of November.
Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot!

Bonfire night. Until recently, the night English families, often in larger groups, gather together around a bonfire and let off fireworks. Traditionally the bonfire would have a human effigy or 'Guy' on top and a cheer would go up when it burned.

Nowadays these events tend to be very large organised events due to the frequency with which people fell in the bonfire of blew hands off or eyes out with fireworks which, inexplicably, shops sold to children and even adults thought were safe to hold.

Oh! Those were the days! How well I remember my mother's screams as the threepenny rocket bounced off my little sister's head. I had clearly misjudged the angle of the home-made bamboo rocket launcher with cotton-reel handles. Her hair was quickly put out though, and the swelling went down in a few days, so no real harm done. I must say though that the burn on my hand from the flaming paraffin which ran down the handle of my home-made flaming torch lasted a few days longer. Maybe I should have made a better seal in the bottom of the treacle tin where the nail went through.

But enough of this sentimentality...

This annual festival celebrates the burning at the stake of Guido (Guy) Fawkes, one of the alleged conspirators in a Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. So alarmed were the Protestant authorities by this plot that they instigated an annual celebration of it as a reminder of the ever-present danger of an overthrow of Anglicanism, God's one true faith, by the agents of Satan in the form of the Whore of Babylon (The Pope) and his satanic minions (Catholics).

There are those who argue that the Protestant authorities might well have encouraged, or even fabricated the entire 'plot' as an excuse for yet another pogrom against Catholics and a bout of yet more blood-letting in the name of the God of Love in that charming way Christians have for settling theological matters between themselves.

Roman Candle	The fireworks will include the ever popular and charmingly named, 'Roman Candle' which shoots coloured flares and 'screamers' into the air to simulate the Satanic demons being released from the bodies of Catholics as they were burned on fires - the prescribed punishment for Catholic heretics in those days.
Another popular firework is the 'Catherine Wheel' named after a legendary Greek Orthodox saint from Alexandria who was condemned by the Roman Emperor Maximus Daia to be 'broken on the wheel'. However, God intervened and broke the wheel instead. Phew! Unfortunately, God then seems to have lost interest, as Maximus Daia promptly had Catherine's head cut off instead.	Catherine Wheel

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And Let Them Have Dominion...

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (KJV Bible)

Photograph: Martin Harvey/WWF International
The white rhino Ceratotherium simum. Killed by poachers for its horn and fuelled by demand from Vietnam,
rhino poaching in South Africa shows no signs of abating, with a record 341 killed there this year to date.

Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up.

Which is the real Jesus?

Is he the one who:

• was born when Quirinius was Governor of Syria (6-12 AD) (Luke 2:2)
• or the one born when Herod the Great was King (37-4 BC) (Matthew 2:1)?

Is he the one whose adopted father Joseph was:

• the son of Heli (Luke 3:23)
• or the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16)?

Children Of An Amoral God.

How many times do you hear a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Sikh claim there can be no morality without a god? How many times do you see Atheists on Twitter and elsewhere being told they have no morals and have no way of telling right from wrong; that you can't trust an Atheist because they don't know why it's wrong to kill, rape, steal and abuse children?

Let's look at this for a moment.

Do these people really believe that, before their holy book was written down and people heard about their god's laws, people simply went around killing, raping, stealing and abusing children and it didn't occur to anyone that it was wrong in any way? Do they really believe that suddenly people heard of these new laws and thought, "Ah! In that case I had better stop this killing, raping, stealing and child abuse, or a god will punish me"? Is it realistic to assume that, before the Bible or the Qur'an were taken outside the Middle East to Europe and Asia, society consisted of people raping, murdering and stealing and that no child was safe?

Richard Dawkins on William Lane Craig

Richard Dawkins' explaining why he refuses to debate with William Lane Craig.

Interesting as much for Dawkins' reasons as the revolting WLC quotes where he attempts to justify genocide and child murder. One can almost hear Adolf Hitler saying "I wish I'd said that!" (Tweet this)

Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig | Richard Dawkins | guardian.co.uk:

'via Blog this'

It speaks volumes of certain branches of modern Christianity that William Lane Craig is highly regarded as a leading exponent of the faith. Other leading Christians have been noticeable by their reticence to come forward and publicly dissociate themselves from William Lane Craig's repugnant views.

They may, of course, avail themselves of the comment section of this blog should they wish to purge themselves of that sin of omission.

The Darwin Creationist Award - A Clear Winner

This year's Darwin Creationist Award winner, by a very clear margin, is

@ImHome with:

"obviously evolution is garbage because rocks are not conscious,"

@ImHome received 8 times the number of votes of the next closest candidate who was... er... also @ImHome with:

"@JoeUnseen Believing stupidly w/out knowing, that ur Origin are Unconscious Dead Stones over Conscious GOD, is also an exercise of freewill."

Candidates to be highly commended include:

 @yprimachenko With:

"@JoeUnseen Secondly... Every other religion their god died and has a grave... But when you go to Israel you will find His grave is empty..."

@JeffreyHarkins With:

"@RosaRubicondior You know your an atheist when you kill your brother because he looks to much like a ape."

And @GodsDontExist With

"so one last time: Good and evil are distinguished by distinction. and youre a moron if you dont think so. #god #atheist"

The Darwin Creationist Award is for a Creationist chosen by popular vote as having produced a tweet on Twitter so outstandingly stupid it reduces the influence of the creationist meme in the human meme-pool and so progresses human cultural evolution.

@ImHome is a very worth first winner of this award.

You may still enjoy the other candidates efforts here.

Come See A Christian Promoting Genocide

Yesterday we in the Twitter community witnessed the grotesque spectacle of another Christian apologist trying to justify and defend genocide and child murder:

Admittedly he was only taking his inspiration from a leading apologist, William Lane Craig.  Apparently, it's fine, just so long as you remember to blame it on a god.

Anyone wishing to copy this image is more than welcome to do so.

A Few Words From The Big Book Of Love

A quick word/phrase count using my searchable KJV Bible on my Kindle:

In order of occurrence:

Brain (0)
Intelligent/Intelligence (0)
Logic (0)
Rational (0)
Conscious (0)
Ethic(s)/Ethical (0)
Thoughtful (0)
Hopeful (0)
Equality (0)
Democracy (0)
Vote (0)
Jury (0)
Rights (0)
Racism (0)
Slavery (0)
Freed (2)
Freedom (2)
Abuse(d) (3)
Trial (6)
Liberty (27)
Happy/happiness (28)
Edge of the sword (28)
Conscience (32)
Care/carest/careth (38)
Tremble (54)
Pleasant (58)
Smitten (63)
Kindness (78)
Captive(s) (100)
Hate/Hated/Hatest (100+)
Fear (100+)
Obey (118)
Captivity (122)
Smite (139)
Slay (151)
Slain (181)
Afraid (191)
Slew (194)
Smote (229)
Destroy(ed) (461)
Command (902)

Some of those latter words really whizzed up the count. Unfortunately, my Kindle only counts up to 100, otherwise we could be seeing some really impressive numbers on those latter words.

I'm saying nothing, of course...

[Later Note: I am indebted to Plasma Engineer for supplying some of these numbers. See his comment below]

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What Is Life?

We all talk as though we understand what 'life' is.

We all use words like 'alive', 'living', 'lively', 'life' without any real thought as to their meaning.  We all know what we mean when we talk about a new life, don't we?  We mean a new instance of life; a new example of it, as though some new 'life' has entered the universe.

So what is this stuff called life?

Let's see if we can define 'living' as it applies to 'non-living' things:

Living things grow and repair. Well, yes, to an extent. But single-celled organisms don't repair in the sense that a human can grow some new skin to heal a wound, or can grow new bone to repair a fracture. They may be able to repair some damaged membranes but growth is limited to splitting into two smaller versions and then growing to full size to repeat the cycle.

Alternative Reality

Joshua having a vision in Jericho. (Why would an angel need a shield?)

Here's a strange tale from the Bible. It started me wondering about the role of hallucinations, mind-altering substances and plain old insanity in religion.

And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?

And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the LORD's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.

Joshua 5:12-15

And that's it. Nothing more of this tale at all. Tactfully, no one mentioned it again...

I wonder what people thought when they found Joshua standing there with his shoe off, claiming a magic man told him to do it. Maybe others were feeling the effects of eating of the 'old corn' and the 'fruits of the land of Canaan'. Ergotamine sandwich, anyone?

Perhaps wacky baccy was a lot more common then than we realise....

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