How to talk to a Christian

"If you wake up tomorrow morning and think that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes will turn them into the body of Elvis Presley you're said to be out of your mind. If you think the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus you're just a Catholic."

Awkward questions for Theists - No.5

How are the rites of Mass or the Eucharist and various other religious practices distinguishable from those of witchcraft or voodoo?

Awkward question for Theists - No.1

Awkward question for Theists - No.2

Awkward question for Theists - No.3

Awkward question for Theists - No.4

Still no news of God . .

 "One by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. A new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without.

These are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of superstition. These are the splendid facts that snatched the scepter of authority from the hands of priests."

A quote by Robert Ingersoll in 1872. . . Before Einstein, the electron microscope, the Hubble telescope and the Large Hadron Collider. . . .

Holy holly

The Druids believed that the sun never deserted the holly tree even at the winter solstice. The start of the Celtic Samhain was marked by the departure of both the Earth goddess and the Oak Lord. This left Herne and the Holly Lord to rule over the winter. People decorated their dwellings with branches of holly and other evergreens during the winter in the belief that woodland spirits could find indoor shelter in the greenery during the coldest part of the year. This vegetation was kept inside until Imbole (early in February) when the Earth Goddess returned and life began to spring anew. 

~ Patrick Harding, The Xmas Files

Sounds reasonable . . . . .

Ethical atheism - a draft manfesto

1. Promoting reason, critical thinking and science

2. Promoting atheism over supernaturalism

3. Promoting natural compassion and ethics

4. Promoting inclusive, caring atheist groups

5. Promoting fair and just societies

6. Promoting secular government

7. Promoting local, national and global solidarity

 

See full article:- "A draft Manifesto to promote Ethical Atheism" by Michael Nugent.

Crazy caller

This is either a "wind-up" call or a classic illustration of the effect of religious indoctrination on the feeble mind.

The Armageddon that wasn't. PZ is angry . . . .

"Sure, everyone is laughing at Harold Camping now, except his followers, who are undeterred. But you're missing the real joke. Look at every Abrahamic religion, with their myths of prophets and favored peoples and fate. Look at the crazy conservative church in your town, that preaches homophobia and anti-science and supports Israel because of the Armageddon prophecy. Look at the liberal Christian church down the street from you that has the nice Vacation Bible School and puts on happy plays for the older kids, and also teaches that one day you will stand before a great god and be judged. Look at your family members who blithely believe in death as a mini-apocalypse, in which they will be magically translated into another realm, again to be judged.

It's the very same rot, the poison of religion that twists minds away from reality and fastens them on hellish bogeymen. They're demented fuckwits, every one, and the big lie rests right on the fundamental beliefs of supernaturalism and deities, not on the ephemera of one crank's bizarre interpretations."

Complete post here.

A Happy Easter

Image by Thalia Took

Over millennia, legions of christian mind-benders have hi-jacked the period around the spring equinox for the celebration of their own gruesome beliefs and rituals. Yet, unlike Christmas, they have failed to impose on it, an English name of uniquely christian significance.

The etymology is complicated but 'Easter' is believed to have developed via Old English from the word for April, Eostur-monath, in the Germanic calendar; and the Venerable Bede reckoned that this was so named after the pagan goddess Eostre whose festival was celibrated in that month. Other, more recent,  linguistic scholars have identified the goddess as a Germanic reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, 'Hausos'. In short the name has its roots in pre-christian beliefs, and from ancient time customs associated with it, frequently involving hares, rabbits and eggs, have survived to this day.

With that clarification in mind we can wish each other a "Happy Easter" safe in the knowledge that we are not celebrating the image of a scourged, crucified body and its mythical resurrection, or by a process of tortuous, insane reasoning extracting some theological message from it;  but rather being glad that the earth is still rolling round the sun, that the season of growth and renewal is once again upon us, and that we are here to enjoy it.

"To have lived at all is a dream come true; to live in awe of the dream is cause to celebrate and revel in the wonder of Life and all its delicious bedlammy; from lovers spurned and fortunes lost to plots unbound and rivals crushed, let us bask in the splendifery and wallow in the mayhemble - be it good or bad, we celebrate Life!" ~ Marco Dodo

"Storm" - the movie

The empty name of God

"I would wish people to live without superstition, to govern their lives with reason, and to conduct their relationships on reflective principles about what we owe one another as fellow voyagers through the human predicament – with kindness and generosity wherever possible, and justice always. None of this requires religion or the empty name of “god”. Indeed, once this detritus of our ignorant past has been cleared away, we might see more clearly the nature of good, and pursue it aright at last." ~ A C Grayling

God and Disaster

by A C Grayling on Richard Dawkins.net

One thinks with sorrow of the hundreds of thousands whose lives have been horrendously lost or affected by the great Japanese earthquake and tsunami, which will put a black mark against this year 2011 in the annals, coming so soon after the earthquake that hit Christchurch in New Zealand. The events are almost certainly linked tectonically, reminding us of the vast forces of nature that are normal for the planet itself but inimical to human life, especially when lived dangerously close to the jigsaw cracks of the earth’s surface.

Someone told me that there were to be special prayers in their local church for the people of Japan. This well-intentioned and fundamentally kindly proceeding nevertheless shows how absurd, in the literal sense of this term, are religious belief and practice. When I saw the television footage of people going to church in Christchurch after the tragic quake there, the following thoughts pressed.

Read more.

The allure of religion

Part of the allure of religion is that it suppresses one's perception of one's own ignorance.

It's a scary world out there, and it was even scarier back when religions arose. Back then it was virtually impossible to acquire knowledge of anything, without a lot of work, and/or access to information, all of which was not readily available, much less capable of being obtained. 

So having a book handed to you with the explanation that it contains everything you need to know is very comforting, allowing you to believe that you are far more in control of your scary world than you would be otherwise. It's delusional, but for most people not being hit by lightning, or succumbing to infectious diseases, or being killed by natural disasters, there is no reason to believe otherwise. And those exceptions, well, they can be rationalized away too, simply by referring to this book.

With such a handy dandy guide to life, you really don't need to even think about or acknowledge your real ignorance.

Life might still be a bitch, but at least you feel good about yourself.

See also:  "The Dunning-Kruger Effect."

(The above has been slightly adapted from a comment on "Debunking Christianity" by "The Spanish Inquistor". I thought it needed a wider circulation.) 

Captain Picard lays it on the line . .