Get your hands off the children

Dear Christian,

You are free to believe whatever you want - no one can stop you anyway
You are free to pray - just as witch doctors are free to dance and scream
You are free to read the Bible - and we wish you'd do it more often
You are free to believe in the Bible - as much as people are free to believe in Flat Earth
You are free to condemn each other to Hell - in fact, we wish you'd all end up there
You are free to hate good, honest people who don't believe or live the way you want
You are free to indoctrinate each others and, as consenting adults, to share the religious "high"

But keep your filth away from innocent children !
Stop the Christian brainwashing and mental abuse of children.

Keep your filth away from the social institutions we are forced to share with you !
We don't want anything to do with your amorality and hatred, and we don't want it to become law.

Pray IN THE CLOSET, like Jesus asked you to. Keep your evil, disrespectful, anti-scientific, anti-freedom, racist, guilt-tripping religion to yourself.

Belief is ego

All belief is fundamentally the expression of an overblown ego. The idea that one's emotions, authorities, doctrines, somehow are superior to reality itself, and that reality will comply to them, is extremely egocentric (your religion ? what about the other dozen out there ? they all think they override reality).

It's extremely egocentric. Now if you have an experience, and that makes you believe that you've been kidnapped by aliens, well, that's egocentric. Since when the fuck does your feeling of pressure on your chest, or whatever, give you the right to claim reality bows down to your feelings ?

The notion of Christianity is that somehow, all the laws of epistemology and logic are completely unimportant when it comes to your belief : that "God" exists. That we can completely ignore reality in that case. Any other case, you can't, but in this case, not only you can, but you should. Why ? Because the person feels that it's right, or has a psychological need for it to be right. Isn't that egocentric ?

The nature of belief, in my opinion, is that to believe one first needs to lack the natural humility that all men feel when confronted with the grandeur of the natural. Indeed, as our presup friends do, belief give you permission to spit at it, to mock it. Even though you cannot escape it. It's like an egocentric spite against reality.

Let me tell you something. When you fight against reality, reality always wins.

Tom?! You sound just like....

I like to pop over to drudge and see what kind of stories he has posted. Right now he has an interview between Matt Lauer and Tom Cruise. While reading thorugh it I couldn't help but notice a number of similarities between things that Tom says and what some of our "friends" have said. A few that caught my attention:

"Tom: No, you see. Here's the problem. You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

Quite often our "friends" explain that we can't really know things and we live in a subjective world and without their view we are helpless and adrift. Tom tells Matt that because his knowledge about something is lacking it automatically makes him wrong. If Matt knew what Tom knows he would be able to have a firm footing on reality.

"Tom: all it does is mask the problem, Matt. And if you understand the history of it, it masks the problem. That's what it does. That's all it does. You're not getting to the reason why. There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance."

Again, all our thinking, all our reasoning is merely masking the problem within. We are troubled and stupid because if we knew what was really going on we could correct the real problem in our lives.

"Tom: the thing that I'm saying about Brooke is that there's misinformation, okay. And she doesn't understand the history of psychiatry. She-- she doesn't understand in the same way that you don't understand it, Matt."

And if we were able to "really know" the history of the world, its origins, its fall into depravity - with the help of their God we would be able to shed "the masking" we are doing to ourselves and discover the true nature of things.

"Tom: Matt. Matt, Matt, you don't even-- you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is."

Atheist, Atheist, you don't even know what "X" is - you're glib...

"Tom: What is the theory and the science behind that, that justifies that?"

As our friends say, what justifies "X?" Only our view can.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3tc.htm

Why I don't respect Christians

Why don't I respect Christians ?

* Indoctrinating Christianity in children is child abuse. Most Christian parents should be in jail. Not to mention that most mothers who kill their children are fanatic Christians. In general, the whole concept of Christianity is to exploit the powerless, and it feeds on powerlessness, ignorance and suffering.

* Christianity is demeaning. It teaches us that man is a cog is an unknowable divine plan, that anything man does that is not about God is worthless, that material happiness is irrelevant, and that the eradication of disease and poverty, that man's greatest accomplishments, are ultimately futile.

* Christianity teaches that God-belief, not actions, determine the moral worth of a person. It teaches us not to judge, not to evaluate, not to think. Whereas one must evaluate how other people contribute to one's own life and that of others, Christianity encourages people to corrupt society by refusing to judge.

* Christianity corrupts man's natural values by enforcing a belief system based on religion, race, sexual orientation and gender. It teaches us not to think of individuals as individuals with their own values and virtues, but as stereotypes.

* Christianity stands in opposition to man's greatest motor for progress, science. Its central tenents (everything coming from nothing, a man raised from the dead, the afterlife) are completely anti-scientific. In fact, it stands against ALL attempts at explanation, by making reality subjective to a god's will. If all that we can say is "God did it", then we must live in mystery, fear and ignorance.

* Christianity is an ideology of fear. Fear of death, fear of morality, fear of disaster, fear of uncertainty, fear of Hell, fear of God. There is no love in it, only desperation.

* Just like statism, Christianity teaches people to deal with each other not by discussion and debate, or by compassion, but by dogma and force. When one excludes reason and objectivity, the only ways to settle disagreements are by conversion, deconversion, and coercion.

So the Christian, whether he believes in these things or not, sanctions their continued existence. I don't respect Christians because of that sanction. The only good Christian is a deconverted ex-Christian.

Christians are moral retards

Professor Timothy Shortell recently came under fire for writing an article against Christianity, calling its believers "moral retards". The article, incidentally, is a great one, and makes good points, so I thought I would post some of it here. The full text of "Religion & Morality : A Contradiction Explained" is available at : http://www.anti-naturals.org/15cst/no19/p1.htm


"They persist today because they are so effective at constructing group identities and at setting up conflict between the in- and out-groups. For all religions, there is an "us" and a "them." All the ritual and the fellowship associated with religious practice is just a means of continually emphasizing group boundaries and hostility."

"Just as Durkheim suggested for aboriginal religion, all modern affiliations are ideological: they insist on a total (though contradictory) system of beliefs and evaluations. For this reason, religion without fanaticism is a logical impossibility. Anyone whose mind is trapped inside such a mental prison will be susceptible to extreme forms of hatred and violence. Faith is, by its very nature, obsessive-compulsive. All religions foment their own kind of holy war. (Those whose devotion is moderate are only cowardly fanatics.)

In a world in which individuals and events are controlled by magical forces (symbolized by spirits, angels, ghosts, gods, etc.) fear will be the equilibrium state. There is no way to understand how such a world functions; one will be in awe of those who, through their mystifications, appear to have a special understanding of supernatural mechanics. Faith is, therefore, a child-like rationality.

It is no wonder, then, that those who are religious are incapable of moral action, just as children are. To be moral requires that one accept full responsibility for one's self. Morality is based on scientific rationality. In order to act in the world as an adult, one must be able to recognize that the world is structured and the situatedness of all individual action."

"Faith, like superstition, prevents moral action. Those who fail to understand how the world works—who, in place of an understanding of the interaction between self and milieu, see only the saved and the damned, demons and angels, miracles and curses—will be incapable of informed choice. They will be unable to take responsibility for their actions because they lack intellectual and emotional maturity.

On a personal level, religiosity is merely annoying—like bad taste. This immaturity represents a significant social problem, however, because religious adherents fail to recognize their limitations. So, in the name of their faith, these moral retards are running around pointing fingers and doing real harm to others. One only has to read the newspaper to see the results of their handiwork. They discriminate, exclude and belittle. They make a virtue of closed-mindedness and virulent ignorance. They are an ugly, violent lot."

"Those who believe that they are acting out the divine plan are the most dangerous sort in the contemporary world. Make no mistake."

"It is not enough to be irreligious; we must use our critique to expose religion for what it is: sanctimonious nonsense."

Why are you an atheist ?

I don't want any of you to answer that. What a stupid question. Asking why someone is an atheist is about as intelligent as asking why he's a round-earther, or why he thinks the sky is blue. Because we recognize the obvious !

Do we really choose to know anything ? Now, I am perhaps the stongest advocate of compatibilism you'll find, but in this case, in the sense people usually mean that, I don't choose to be an atheist any more than I choose the facts of reality. In essence, if truth is a combination of fact and method, then there is really nothing to choose here. Is there ?

We must reject any idea of description of people's beliefs as some kind of window to higher truths. If people disagree, then it means that people are irrational, not that there is a fundamental problem with rational thought. Why do we automatically assume that people are rational when we talk about what is mere preference and belief ? Derek, I'm looking at you man.

Schiavo Really WAS Dead!

Today I found a CNN article That details Schiavo's autopsy. Let's take a look at the most important part of this article. Medical Examiner Thogmartin said:

"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain. ... This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

Rest assured, death with dignity was the most humane and compassionate thing anyone could have given this poor woman. It's a shame it took her to long to get it. Terri's husband didn't mistreat her at all, and he obviously loved her and cared for her best interests more than anyone else did, including her parents.

To all you theists who are incensed at the concepts of abortion and death with dignity, I tell you this: It's not quantity that matters in life, but quality.

Witnessing Nonbelief

Check out the newest Hellbound Alleee show, we've had an entire two hours to discuss about how to effectively evangelize to Christianity's emotional appeals, me, Alleee and Aaron.

The first half-hour was a discussion of my three-step approach to answering Christian justifications, which is :

Step 1. Identifying if a reason given to justify belief is a real emotional reason - a "core" reason - or a rationalization.
Step 2. Showing - not arguing - the Christian why his emotional reason is wrong or immoral.
Step 3. Showing - not arguing - the Christian why atheism is the superior alternative (because of moral responsibility, the power of science, moral autonomy, having purpose, and so on)

Other methods we discussed included testifying from your own life, and using what I call the "sandpaper effect" - in short, demonstrating that the Christian is using his moral autonomy even if he ignores that fact.

The rest of the show, one and a half hour, was devoted to eight cases, which we discussed in detail. It was a great show, and we discussed a lot of cases, and Aaron did a great job, so did Alleee. I invite all of you to check it out.

Faith, Round II

Awhile back I made a post about faith, where I equated regular faith with blind faith, showed that evidence destroys faith, and generally criticized the whole faith concept in general. Well some Christians didn’t like me doing that, and they accused me of misrepresentation and bad form because I used the dictionary for a definition of faith rather than the Bible.

I don't accept the Bible as any authority, so why should I be forced to use the Bible's definition of faith? The Bible is not the definitive source for the English language, and when I debate and write, I do so in the tongue of "English," not "Biblish". I think the Van Til quote about faith that I copied and pasted is also in "English" and not "Biblish". When Christian apologists deride me for using the dictionary definition of faith rather than the Biblical definition, they imply that the Biblical definition is something quite different than the dictionary definition. Let's take a look at what the Bible defines faith as, and compare it to what the dictionary defines it as, just so that we can settle this confusion.

Hebrews 11:1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I had this verse waiting in my notes. I deliberately did not use it at first, to see if any Christians would volunteer the verse. Nobody did. I even went so far as to deny that the Bible even defined faith, as bait to get someone to offer up the verse. Finally, here it is. Hebrews 11:1 in all its glory.

So let's compare the Hebrews verse to the dictionary definition. From dictionary.com:

Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

Hmmmm, they look kind of similar, don’t they? Substance of things hoped for vs. belief that does not rest on logical proof. Evidence of things not seen vs. belief that does not rest on... material evidence. But what is evidence of things not seen? I think that is just another way of saying "...does not rest on... material evidence".

Honestly, these two sources have remarkably similar definitions of faith. So similar, that I believe these two definitions both essentially say "belief in things unevidenced". So what is with all these "bad form" claims from Christians? And what is with the "blind faith" distinction that Van Til makes, especially considering that Hebrews 11:1 says "things not seen"? Surely Van Til was aware of this "unseen" word in Hebrews 11:1 when he said "...but surely it must not be taken on blind faith"?

Actually, no. I don’t think Van Til was aware of this when he wrote his defense of faith. I don’t think Van Til had clear definitions for "faith" and "blind faith". I think Van Til just assumed his readers would know the difference. What that difference is, I am not clear, nor have any Christians that I've encountered even attempted to explain the difference. I think Van Til had some kind of notion in his head that normal "faith" was somehow slightly evidenced, but "blind faith" was completely unevidenced. Well, the dictionary and Hebrews 11:1 both just corrected Van Til's sloppy definitions of "faith" for us, didn’t they?

It looks like we haven’t settled the whole matter. We started out with the dictionary's definition of faith. To some readers of this blog, that wasn't good enough. So now I offer up the Biblical definition of faith. Somehow, I get the feeling that this still will not be good enough for all our readers. Now I ask, does anyone have a Van Til definition of faith? I imagine that he was most likely using the same definition for faith that we find in the dictionary and Bible, which is a good thing, for it is likely the definition that all good Christians should use.

Here is a slightly revised points list:

1. All faith is blind; there is no difference between blind faith and regular faith.
2. Faith is belief without evidence or reason.
3. Faith is required for salvation (Hebrews 11:6).
4. To have reason and evidence for Christianity is to not have faith.
5. Without blind faith in Christianity, you are damned.

You might be a Christian if...

22) You think you defend your worldview successfully, but your two main arguments are based on circular reasoning (The Bible is true because the Bible says...) and ad hominem attacks (Everyone already knows God is real, and those who deny it are lying to themselves).

21) You always try to observe the ten commandments like Exodus 20:7, but you never try to observe the punishments like Leviticus 24:16.

20) You trust a book written by sheepherders in a time when humans thought the world was flat and that women determined the gender of offspring, but you don't trust a book written in modern times by a scientist.

19) You believe that fear of God and love of God are compatible and even complimentary.

18) You believe that a material universe created ex nihilo by an eternal, immaterial God makes more sense than an eternal, material universe itself.

17) You believe that a being that creates flawed, imperfect, and evil entities can be all loving and all wise.

16) You think that a story involving a God who sacrifices himself to himself in order to circumvent a law he created himself that would have forced him to send his own flawed creations to a Hell he created himself makes perfect sense.

15) You think two wrongs make a right in that everyone is born guilty, and that spilling innocent blood provides redemption for this inherent guilt.

14) You deny the first law of thermodynamics, and champion the second law of thermodynamics.

13) You claim that faith (belief in things unevidenced) is required for salvation, but you attempt to prove Christianity with material evidence every chance you get.

12) You insist that God is responsible for everything in the universe, and then insist that original sin is Adam's fault and that Satan was responsible for his own rebellion.

11) You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

10) You feel that the theory that people evolved from other life forms trivializes and cheapens humanity, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt and ribs.

9) You claim that God's love is all encompassing and unconditional, and the only condition is that you admit worthlessness and submit fully to his will.

8) Your cringe when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" -- including women, children, and trees!

7) You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

6) You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a couple of generations old.

5) You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects -- will spend eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

4) While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

3) You state that prayers are always answered even if the exact opposite of what you pray for happens.

2) Despite the fact that prisons and mental institutions have a higher percentage of Christians than the general population, and college educated people have a higher percentage of atheism than the general population, you claim that Christianity will improve ones moral code and quality of life; you claim that Christians are better people. Then when presented with this contrary evidence, you claim that the devil is to blame for this "deception".

1) Your grandest wish is for God/Jesus to come down from heaven and initiate an apocalypse, yet again committing near total genocide on all of humanity.