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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What Are Christian Missionaries For Exactly?

Let's play a little game. Let's pretend for a moment that there is a god, that people have souls, that there is a Heaven and a Hell and Satan; that the souls of people go either to Heaven or Hell when they die and that only Christian know the way to get into Heaven and to avoid being thrown into Hell.

Let's enter the world that Christians claim to inhabit in fact.

If it really is essential to accept Jesus to get into Heaven, as Christians are forever telling us, how did this god arrange it so his message did not even get revealed to us until about 2000 years ago, and in a way which ensured it would take another almost 2000 years for it to reach everyone?

Clearly, if this god thought it's message was that important and accepting Jesus is the only way to get to heaven it would have ensured that ALL people were aware of it and understood it - if it cared that is.

So, we can be sure of one of two things (and we are still pretending this god actually exists, remember). Either:

1. It isn't a loving god.
2. It isn't necessary to know about it, or accept Jesus, to get to Heaven.

So, let's give this god the benefit of the doubt and assume it is as loving as it's followers tell us.

Now, consider a person living at the Cape of Good Hope in the 15th Century, on some remote Pacific island in the 17th Century, the Central Highlands of Papua-New Guinea in the 19th Century, or the Amazon Rain Forest in the 20th Century, or indeed anyone living outside the Middle East 2000 years ago. None of these people would have known the first thing about Jesus. None of them were even capable of reading any of the translations of any of the books this message was supposedly written in.

Surely, any reasonable god would give these people a free pass to Heaven, wouldn't it? How could they have disobeyed it if they had never heard about this god and had no knowledge of it's laws or what they needed to do? In their case, ignorance would have been a passport to Heaven and their souls would not have been accessible to Satan. Their innocent ignorance was their shield.

Now, along comes a Christian missionary and tells them about his or her god's laws, and about Satan, and about sin, and what they have to do to make ammends. And how they need now to accept Jesus to avoid Satan getting their souls.

So, what has the Christian missionary now achieved? He has taken souls which were guaranteed entry into Heaven, taken away their free passes and has made them accessible to Satan. To get their passes back they now have to do what the missionary says and give him control over their lives, their customs, laws and culture - all to be in exactly the same position they were in before. The missionaries haven't saved souls for God, they've made them available for Satan - if you buy into that superstition.

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Jomo Kenyata,
first president of independent Kenya

Either that, or missionaries believe their god is not the loving god they claim it to be; that their god has been happily creating people for millions of years with no hope of avoiding eternal pain and suffering; no hope of salvation because it didn't tell them how to be saved. People created to live a life of blissful ignorance not knowing what's in store for them and completely denied any opportunity to avoid it.

And this god waited until 3500 years ago, then only told a small band of desert-dwelling nomads so it took 1500 years before anyone else heard the message and another 2000 for it to spread to everyone.

Could it be that Christian missionaries are simply trying to guarantee their own entry into Heaven at the expense of those whose 'souls' they make available to Satan?

Or is there some other agenda going on which has nothing to so with 'saving souls'; something like wanting to control people and even take away their land and destroy their culture?

Perish the thought.

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How Dan Destroys The Bible

First, a word from Thomas Paine:

Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian tales, without the merit of being entertaining; and the accounts of men living to eight or nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the immortality of the giants of the Mythology.

Thomas Paine - The Age Of Reason

And, self-evidently, Thomas Paine is right.

So, what is the evidence?

A few facts, all from the Bible itself:

And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.

Genesis 14:14

Clearly, this could only have been written after there was a place named Dan, just as an account of someone going to, say, New Hampshire, could only have been written during or after 1629 when New Hampshire was first named.

And now this:

I Can't Believe It! The Bible Is Made Up!

Death of Moses (James Tissot)

Just look at what we find in Deuteronomy 34:1-7!

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho.  And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, And all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, And the South, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar.

And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.  And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.  And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

Hmm...

So, if we're to believe all the Christians and Jews who tell us Moses wrote the Pentateuch, including Deuteronomy, we have to believe Moses wrote about his own death.  Even the great Jewish historian, Josephus, tells us that Moses wrote it.  Josephus is the historian Christians quote as the earliest existing 'evidence' for Jesus.  They tell us his authority is beyond dispute.

Hmm...

Thomas Paine

Rather than go into the obvious problem here myself, I'll quote Thomas Paine who says it far more eloquently than I could:

The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, (for it is not an anonymous work), is obscure, and also in contradiction with himself, in the account he has given of Moses.

After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it does not appear from any account that he ever cam down again), he tell us that Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab; but there is no antecedent to the pronoun he, there is no knowing who he was that did bury him.  If the writer meant that he (God) buried him, how should he (the writer) know it?  or why should we (the reader) believe him? since we know not who the writer was that tells us so, for certainly Moses could not himself tell us where he was buried.

The writer also tells us that no man knoweth where the sepulchre of Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which the writer lived; how then should he know that Moses was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, as is evident from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a great length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly was not at his funeral; and on the other hand, it is impossible that Moses himself could say that no man knoweth where the sepulchre is unto this day... "

"... The writer has nowhere told us how he came by the speeches which he has put in the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore we have the right to conclude, that he either composed them himself, or wrote them from oral tradition.  One or the other of these is the more probable, since he has given in the fifth chapter a table of commandments, in which that called the fourth commandment is different  from the fourth commandment in the twentieth chapter in Exodus....

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason. 1795

So, as Thomas Paine has clearly shown, Moses could not have written Deuteronomy at least, and the laws Christians and Jews believe were given directly by their god to Moses, and which he wrote down, are nothing more than oral traditions at best and just made up by the Bible's real authors at worst.

And so the entire body of Old Testament biblical law, including all the food taboos, dress codes, marriage laws, proscribed punishment for transgression, etc, has no divine authority at all. It is nothing more than an oral tradition later written down or even the invention of one or more writers writing long after the events they were describing.

And all the genocides, child abuse, misogyny, sanctimonious homosexual condemnation, racism and war crimes supposedly ordered by this god are nothing more than retrospective self-justifications for antisocial acts and attitudes and attempts to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own actions.

And the entire foundation of both the Jewish and Christian religions has collapsed. All because of a few careless words in the Bible and poor editorial control.

You really would have expected an omniscient god to make a better job of it than that, wouldn't you?

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Holy Moses! Another Bible Blunder!

Holy Moses, Meek and Mild

Everyone knows that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, don't they? You know, the first five books of the Bible which includes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Ask any Christian and they'll tell you Moses wrote those. Even the laws in them are called the Laws of Moses or the Mosaic Laws. That great Jewish historian, Josephus even confirmed it and all Christians will tell you what a reliable historian he was. He even 'proved' Jesus was real, so they claim...

But what's this we find?

(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

Numbers 12:3

Blimey! If Moses wrote that about himself, that wasn't very meek of him. In fact, the terms 'vain' and 'arrogant' are more apposite. There'll be no inheriting the earth for him!

So what's going on here? Is Moses lying or is that someone else writing about him?

If it's someone else, who is it? There's no mention anywhere of Moses having a personal scribe who wrote everything down, including all the laws the Bible says Moses heard God speak unto him.

So, was it all made up later and the story about Moses writing it is just a lie, or is Moses lying about being 'very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth' when really he was vain and arrogant?

And if it WAS all made up later, so were the laws which supposedly God gave directly to Moses. They are just the work of the author and have no divine authority whatsoever... Oops! Crikey!

What a Bible Blunder! You'd have thought an omniscient god would be a little more convincing than that wouldn't you. (Tweet this)

I expect Bible literalists have a sensible explanation and can clear it all up for us.

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Good Thing The Good Samaritan Wasn't A Christian!

Remember that tale in the Bible about a man from Samaria who came across a man on the roadside who'd recently fallen among thieves? He did the decent thing, like any Humanist would, and helped where he could. He could have passed by on the other side but chose not to because he was, basically, a decent human being so he helped a fellow traveler in trouble.

A few months ago a thief named Harold Camping thought up a scam for taking literally millions of dollars off gullible and vulnerable people. He told them he was receiving messages that a magic man in the sky was going to come and kill everyone but he would save people who gave Harold Camping all their money. So people even sold their homes and all their possessions hoping they would be saved.

He tried the same scam again a few months later and stole even more money off more gullible and vulnerable victims.

Strangely, even though Christians claim to follow the man who supposedly told the story of the Good Samaritan and used it to illustrate how good Christians should try to be like Humanists and behave decently, no Christian seem to have come forward to help the victims who fell prey to Harold Camping.  Instead, to a man, and to a woman, they seem to have passed by on the other side.

Clearly, Christians still have much still to learn from Humanism.

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On the Eve Of The Rapture.

Written the day before the End Of The World scheduled for 21 May 2011. Several more have come and gone with no one noticing since then.

So, Christians! Tomorrow is the big day, eh? The day you've all been awaiting eagerly for about 2000 years. The day Jesus finally keeps his promise and comes back to Earth.

But, what if you’re wrong?

What if it’s NOT Jesus but some god from history, like Ra or Apollo?

What if it’s a god you’ve never heard of, say a god only believed in by a tribe of Amazonians or from a Papua-New Guinea mountain valley?

What if it’s a god from some other planet entirely in a far-off galaxy we’ve not discovered yet?

What if it’s a god no one anywhere in the universe knows about because it was too modest to make its existence known – until now; a god who detests religion and has come here looking for free-thinkers...?

Whatever will you say? How will you explain why you told everyone it was a false god and they shouldn’t believe in it? How will you explain telling other people that they’re going to be burned alive for not believing in the wrong god and how your god is going to come and kill everyone who disagrees with you?

I’ll bet you just WISH you had some evidence you could show it to explain yourself; to offer up as an excuse for misunderstanding it. Something you could blame for your mistake. As it is all you have is the excuse that someone told you it was true, but you never checked because they also told you it was wrong to doubt...

You see, that’s the problem being fooled into accepting what you’re told and swallowing the notion that ‘faith’ is a virtue so you shouldn’t question, just believe.

And you thought Pascal’s Wager was such a GOOD argument..!

Don’t worry too much though. Both you and I know it’s not going to happen don’t we! It’s just that I don’t mind other people knowing I’m an Atheist because I have the courage to think for myself and don’t mind if others disagree with me; I don’t feel I have to pretend to be conforming to something I suspect most people are just pretending to believe in too, because they’re also too afraid to be honest with themselves.

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The Slug Mite - What is it FOR Exactly?

The White Slug Mite Riccardoella limacum

As a youngster I often used to look for the large garden snails which are common everywhere in England. I also use to find the larger, creamy white 'Roman' snails, also called the edible snail or escargot. These are fairly common in and around the area of north Oxfordshire where I lived.

One of the things I found fascinating was that some of them would have several tiny white creatures moving over their surfaces and very often going in and out of the hole in their side, the pneumostome, which leads to the air sack under the shell and through which snails breath.

I've since learned they are a group of mites. Mites are a group of arthropods similar to spiders but lacking the abdomen. Very many of them are microscopic - you will almost certainly have one or more living in most of your eyelash follicles. One particularly nasty little thing, Sarcoptes scabiei, sets up home in human skin and causes the intensely itchy rash called scabies.