Author Archive for StaksPage 2 of 12

Much To Do about Nothing

Published
by
Staks
on January 12, 2012
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Apparently “Nothing” is almost all there is in the Universe and that “Nothing” is something after all. Last night, I attended a lecture by Dr. Lawrence Krauss about his new book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing.

It was an awesome lecture and I learned a lot about cosmology, the age of the universe, and how we know what we know about the universe. However, I almost certainly won’t be able to explain it. It was pretty complicated stuff and I don’t know it well enough to explain it. Fortunately, Dr. Krauss does.

While I talked about the substance of the lecture a little bit in my Examiner article, what I found more interesting was the theological implications. As we learn more about nothing, we start to understand more about the universe.

Krauss makes the argument that Edwin Hubble did for the creation of the universe what Charles Darwin did for the creation of man. Both men presented evidence which takes God out of the process. This leaves religious believers with nowhere to go. The gaps are closing and God is left out.

The lecture itself was educational and fun. Krauss had fun playing with the word “nothing” and cracking jokes about string theory (which he notoriously opposes). Hopefully his book will have the same wit and humor as his lecture. It is interesting to note that Christopher Hitchens was working on the forward to the book, but never finished it. Richard Dawkins wrote the afterward.

Buy the book: A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing.

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Pause and Consider

Published
by
Staks
on January 11, 2012
.

One of the main problems with arguing against religion is that people get very passionate about the subject. Religious believers have invested a great deal of time and often money into their beliefs and as a result, they are very resistant to reconsidering their opinion on the matter.

Politics is viewed in much the same way but just quite to the same extent. A great example of this is when people wanted to end the war in Iraq, the main criticism from the other side was that if we left without “winning” (whatever that meant) then all those soldiers died for nothing. Therefore, we have to send more soldiers to die because we were as they say in poker, “pot committed.”

In any case, these issues make people very passionate in their arguments and sometimes when this happens people let their passion control the argument. It is one thing to use passion in an argument to make a more compelling case, but when we let our passion run away with us, we lose control of the argument.

Sometimes we need to pause and consider. Sometimes we need to take a step back from the argument, calm down, and consider what the other person is saying. This refocusing will help us understand their point of view and if we still disagree, we can refocus the argument into a better direction using logic and reason.

The real trick is to get the other person to pause and consider too. Especially when dealing with religious believers, having them take a step back and re-consider their position without “fire in their belly” might help to shake them loss from their dogmatic delusions.

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Doubting Personal Experiences

Published
by
Staks
on January 10, 2012
.

One of the most common pieces of “evidence” religious believers claim supports their belief in their deity of choice is the argument from personal experience. They claim that they have personally felt the presence of God. When challenged on their beliefs, they often ask how an atheist can possibly doubt their personal experience.

First, it is important to point out that personal experience does not qualify as actual evidence. Anecdotal evidence is not really evidence. Obi Wan Kenobi put it best when he said, “Your eyes can deceive you; don’t trust them.”

Second and more importantly, it isn’t the religious believer’s personal experience that I doubt; it is their interpretation of their experience that I question. To best illustrate my point I am going to use a personal experience of my own. When I was in college, I was auditing a class on religion. There was a person in the class who told us about how they had prayed for money and then found a quarter in the cushion of the car seat. This was their personal experience and iron clad proof that God exists and had answered the prayer.

The problem with the story is that people lose change in the cushion of their car seats all the time. If you pray for money and start searching around in places where you are likely to find some, a more plausible explanation can surely be found. People love patterns and we love to draw conclusions based on insufficient data.

First X, then Y, therefore X caused Y. But that isn’t necessarily true. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. I have no doubt that the person in my class prayed to some deity and I am certainly not doubting that they found a quarter in the car seat cushion. I do not even doubt that the person considered this to be a profound moment of deep connection to the world around them. It isn’t the experience that I doubt; it is the interpretation of that experience that I question.

There is a lot going on in the world and there is a lot going on in our minds and bodies much of which we are not even slightly aware of. Here is another anecdote. Last week, my father got sick. Nothing serious, but he was puking and shitting a lot. He felt like crap and he blamed it on a food that he thought might not have been cooked properly. Earlier that day he noticed that the food in question looked a little discolored, but ate it anyway. Then he got sick. Conclusion: The food did it. However a day later, my brother got the same illness and he didn’t have the questionable food. This implies that it wasn’t the food that made either of them sick and that it was most likely some sort of virus.

According to my father’s personal experience, the food had made him sick. But later evidence suggested that was not actually the case. Religion works in much the same way. A Christian is in a rut. They have hit bottom. They pray. Then things get better. What they fail to remember is that they hit bottom and then they did something to help their situation. Things got better because they did something to make them get better.

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Christians vs. Christianity

Published
by
Staks
on January 9, 2012
.

When I criticize religions like Christianity, I almost always criticize the system of belief rather than the believers in the system. There are reasons for this however many Christians don’t see this distinction.

I view the belief system of Christianity as a living system, like a virus. They system adapts and changes in order to remain relevant. It takes advantage of weaknesses within the human psyche and cements itself into people’s lives. While people push this belief on others, they do so because the belief system uses them to spread itself.

I don’t blame religious believers as much as I blame the system which has taken control of them. When someone is sick and pukes, we don’t blame the person for puking; we blame the illness for causing the person to puke. The same is the case with religious believers.

When a particular Christian hates gay people, it isn’t there fault as much as it is the fault of the belief system which has distorted their moral sense.  While there are a few Christians who don’t hate gay people, it is because the system of belief has identified that compassion toward gay people would be a liability toward the spread of the belief system in those cases. As a result, the system of belief has adapted to focus on some other issue while finding a way around this issue despite the obviously fact that the Bible strongly opposes homosexuality.

Ironically, much like how Christians claim to hate the sin and not the sinner, I hate the belief system of Christianity rather than the Christian. Curing the Christian of this system of belief is difficult and takes a great deal of time. Usually, the Christian has to find their own way out, but we can help my dismantling the excuses they use to protect them from the seeing the problems with the belief system. Some of those problems are logical and some are moral. These problems must be exposed so that the believer can see them clearly and find their own way out.

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Perfection In Relation to Sentient Beings

Published
by
Staks
on January 6, 2012
.

I was talking with a liberal Christian recently and she was talking about how human beings aren’t perfect and how we God loves us anyway. As our conversation continued, I asked why it matters that we aren’t perfect and what that even means. What does “perfect” mean in relation to sentient beings… God included?

When we are doing a task which has a known final outcome, I can understand what perfect mean. For example, when doing a puzzle if we are able to put all the puzzle pieces in the correct spots, we can say we did the puzzle perfectly. But people are a little different. There is no single final outcome. This means that there is no real perfect in relation to people.

Sure we can always strive to be better people. We can understand what that means. It means that we observe that certain traits make us happy and make others happy. Certain traits lead to a better quality of life for all involved. Being a better person would entail maximizing those traits for the wellbeing of ourselves and others. But is there a perfect way to maximize those traits? Are there perfect traits to be maximized?

I don’t think so and if there are, we as a society have not yet identified them yet. We don’t know what perfect is or even if there is a perfect. We do know that we are not perfect. We make mistakes all the time. But that isn’t a bad thing necessarily. It can be part of the learning process.

The character of God as he is thought about in Christianity and other religions is deeply flawed. He’s flawed because he is alleged to be perfect. God can’t learn. He can’t progress. The flaw is that his journey is over.

God can’t love us despite our flaws. In fact, he can’t love at all. Love is a journey; it changes and there is no room for change in perfection.

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Comparing The Bible To Other Fiction

Published
by
Staks
on January 5, 2012
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Christians almost always get into a tizzy when atheists compare their holy book to other works of fiction. It doesn’t matter what aspect is being compared, it is the comparison itself that seems to generate the outrage.

Usually when I compare the Bible to some other work of fiction, I am comparing a particular aspect of the books. For example that they both list real people and/or places. Like when I use the DeVinci Code for comparison. Sometimes, I will compare the Bible to Star Wars when talking about moral themes (to which Star Wars blows the Bible out of the water).

Another comparison I often make is on the fancifulness of the story with the Harry Potter series. Sometimes I will compare characters like Jesus and Superman. It isn’t always even a negative comparison either. Superman is a great guy. But it doesn’t matter. Religious believers still get angry.

My thought is that the Bible is fiction and when it is talked about in the same breath as other fictional stories and/or characters, it becomes all the more obvious just how fictional the Bible really is. This is why Christians hate when the Bible is compared to other works of fiction even if those comparisons are positive.

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‘Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face’

Published
by
Staks
on January 4, 2012
.

Whenever I complain about how crappy a President Obama is and how I probably won’t vote for him unless he starts acting real progressive real fast, I get people telling me that not voting for Obama is a vote for the Republican. Then they tell me that I am “cutting off my nose to spite my face.”

Well that is a graphic analogy, but if that is the analogy they are going to use, I guess I’ll stick with it. Expanding from that analogy, it seems my nose has cancer and so it would be stupid to not cut off my nose to save my face. Your nose as cancer too, but you are probably going to die because you refuse to cut it off to save face.

Politics is not a horse race in which you win if you back the winning horse. Politics also isn’t about our gang colors. I’m a Democrat because I agree more with their stated platform than I do with the Republican platform. But if there is an individual candidate who I strong disagree with, I am not going to vote for them because we wear the same gang colors.

I don’t believe any politician is entitled to my vote. No politician owns my vote either. Every politician has to work hand to earn my vote. Obama isn’t doing that and he doesn’t get my vote by default.

Obama supporters have to stop blaming the victim. If I don’t vote for Obama and he loses, it isn’t my fault; it is his fault for not earning my vote. If he was a better President, he would have earned my vote. I value my vote, but it seems that Obama doesn’t. He seems to think he is entitled to my vote or that he can use fear to terrorize me into giving my vote away.

Then his supporters tell me that we lost a lot of seats in 2010 because Democrats like me didn’t vote Democrat (although for the record, I did vote Democrat). To this, I point out that the Party hasn’t learned their lesson. They are going to do the same thing they did in 2010 and they are expecting a different result. I think that is the definition of insanity or something.

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Tokens or No Tokens

Published
by
Staks
on January 3, 2012
.

I’ve taken this post down because it was poorly thought out and I agree with some of the criticisms made about it. It doesn’t help the community and I have never been a fan of the drama. Having caused it was not my intent and I apologize. I think the whole award thing was probably a bad idea to start with.

Welcome To The Year 236 AE

Published
by
Staks
on January 2, 2012
.

Happy New Year! I know most people are using a calendar based on the alleged birth of Jesus (which even Biblical scholars disagree with), but I think it is time to change that. I actually started this campaign a few years ago, but was reminded of it again for obvious reasons.

I never liked using BC and AD and to be honest, I am not even a fan of BCE and CE since the “Common Era” seems to perfectly coincide with the “Year of Our Lord.” But given the choice, I would prefer BCE/CE over BC/AD any day. Still, I think we can do better and fuck with the Christian Right at the same time.

We could base our new year on anything and someone will object. Some people think we should base it on the publication of the Origin of Species, others suggested the birth of the internet. People use whatever significant event in their field of interest, but it doesn’t really make a point.

I recommend that we base the year on the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I say this for a couple of reasons. First, the American Revolution set the seeds for resurgence in democracy all over the world. Second and more importantly, it puts the Christian Right in a difficult place. These are people who generally wear their patriotism literally on their sleeves and who always talk about putting America first. Well now they have the chance to put America first and Jesus second.

The problem for them is that they also put God first. So how are they going to choose what to put first, America or God? Obviously I think they will go with God. But then we can question their patriotism and criticism them for not putting America first.

It will be fun. So I am once again asking people to write their politicians and tell them that you want them to propose a bill to change the dating system to the American system. This would make the new year 236 AE (American Era). Anything before the signing of the Declaration of Independence would be BAE (Before the American Era).

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Twas The Blog Before Christmas…

Published
by
Staks
on December 23, 2011
.

Twas the blog before Christmas, when all through the blogosphere
Every atheist was stirring, even Christopher Hitchens was here.
The banners, signs, and billboards were hung by the crèche with care,
In hopes that Dr. Dawkins would soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of the Flying Spaghetti Monster dancing in their heads.
And Stephen Hawking with his robotic tone, and I with my Kindle,
Exciting my brain for a long winter’s cosmology riddle.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a the Wright brothers,
Tore off my boxers and threw up the covers.

My frontal moon on the breast of the new-fallen rain,
Gave the lustre of distain to those who are sexually constrained.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But an annoying politician, and eight homophobia Christians coming near.

With a little old preacher, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be a prick.
More vapid than reasoned his angry slurs came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called me many an ugly name!

“You Satanist! You slut! You communist and Nazi!
You heathen! You homo! You enemy of orthodoxy!
Get out of this country, you are making it unwell!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away before we send you to Hell!”

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on my computer,
The reasoning and sound arguments of many a YouTuber.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
There over my speakers, Hitchens was the sound.

The microphone in hand tight to his lips,
his voice was steady as he refuted the apocalypse.
He had a broad face and a slightly round belly,
He pointed when he laughed and called his opponent Machiavelli!

He was witty and articulate, a right jolly guy,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of the passersby!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke such fantastic words and went straight to his work,
He eviscerated his opponent, then called him out as a jerk.
Laying my finger onto my mouse,
I give a nod and turned toward the window of the house.

I sprang into debate, refuting their God with a shout,
And away they all ran, out of the fear of their own doubt.
But I yelled and exclaimed, before they ran out of sight,
“Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good-night

 

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Christian Conspiracy Nuts

Published
by
Staks
on December 22, 2011
.

It is bad enough when atheists dogmatically believe in the nonsense of grand conspiracies, but when Christians believe this crap, they are two levels of crazy.

The other day, I posted an Examiner article about how Christians have been tweeting death threats to atheists. Yesterday, a Christian called me out on this. He claimed that all those people who left those death threats were probably atheists who are part of the hacker group Anonymous pretending to be Christians to make Christianity look bad.

I pointed out to him that I cited at least ten twitter accounts with their twitter identities and that it wouldn’t be hard to just look those people up and see how long they have had their accounts for and what the content of their tweets has been. This would certainly show that they are Christians. He wasn’t having it. Instead, he insisted that the members of Anonymous are devious.

So I had to point out to him that threatening violence and even carrying out violence is not really out of character for many Christians. Without going into the long history of Christian violence (from the crusades to the inquisition),  I told him that often times all it takes is an atheist wearing an atheist themed shirt, going into a fundamentalist church and that atheist is sure to be threatened if not beat up. I also told him that it doesn’t even have to be a fundamentalist church sometimes nor does it even have to be in a church at all. I have had Christians yell threats out of a car window because I had a Darwin Fish on my car.

But I guess the old saying is true, God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son and that whoever believes in him will believe in ANYTHING!

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Christianity: The Religion of Peace

Published
by
Staks
on December 21, 2011
.

Christians are always complaining about how mean atheists are and how Christianity is a religion of peace and compassion. But this is just another Christian delusion. The fact is that the opposite is true.

It is pretty rare for atheists to threaten Christians over some expression of their religiosity. Sure, there may be atheists that do, but it is extremely rare. It is even rarer for threats to come from an atheist who is part of the greater community of reason. What do I mean by that? I once worked with a guy who was a fellow atheist, but he wasn’t knowledgeable about religion, didn’t attend any atheist groups, and was just an angry guy in general. He was not part of the greater community of reason. People who go to atheist groups or write and advocate about and for atheism tend to be humanistic and not prone to violence or to delivering threats. Atheism is just a lack of belief in gods.

On the other hand, it is not unusual at all for church going Christians to issue threats and act violently. Yesterday, I posted an article on Examiner about how Christians made threatening tweets on Twitter over an atheist hash tag.  This wasn’t an isolated incident either. Christians are always making hateful and threatening comments and actions towards atheists because we lack belief in their ridiculous deity.

The only thing Christians can do is to jump into the No True Scotsman defense. But that doesn’t really work because anyone who reads the Bible will see that it is a series of books which often advocates a great deal of violence. Sure Jesus said to love your enemy, but he also said that he didn’t come to bring peace, he came with a sword. He also advocated cutting off your hands and plucking out your eyes. The God of the Bible is over the top violent. So if he the the example that Christians want to live up to, it really is no surprise that they act so violently.

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Hitchens Has Risen!

Published
by
Staks
on December 20, 2011
.

On Sunday, I was on the Twitter and saw that some of the atheists that I am following had experienced a miracle. It turns out that Christopher Hitchens was seen alive three days after he died of cancer. The evidence is clear, Hitchen has risen!

People tweeted about seeing an empty coffin and others saw him arguing with religious believers. Then before their eyes, he just vanished into another dimension. Christopher Hitchens has defeated death itself. He has fulfilled the prophecy, died, and on the third day he has risen.

Now, no religious believer with even the miniscule sense of reality would accept this as true. Yet these people on Twitter have no reason to lie. In fact, talking about their experience only opens them up to ridicule and might even cause them to lose their jobs in our theocratic infested nation.

So who wants evidence that Christopher Hitchens had really risen from the dead and is alive today in another dimension? Who will accept the testimony of these people on Twitter as proof of this? Who will pretend that this is a claim that has nothing to do with science or that it is somehow beyond science and yet equally as valid as anything that the scientific method has done or could do?

Now let me offer this; Adolf Hitler didn’t believe that Hitchens returned from the dead. Therefore, everyone who doesn’t believe that Hitchens did not return from the dead must be like Hitler. In fact, not believing that Hitchens returned from the dead leads to the mass murder of Jews.

Think about it, how many people who believe that Hitchens rose from the dead are in prison today? Zero! How many people who believe that Hitchens rose from the dead killed Jews or anyone else? Zero!

Admittedly, these are all terrible arguments and yet atheists have to address these very arguments on a daily basis from Christians. How can a Christian really prove that Hitchens didn’t rise from the dead as so many people claim that he has and that they have seen him? They could present the body, but that doesn’t really deal with the issue since we all know that the body is just an empty vessel and that Hitchens’ personality lives on in another dimension in the form of spaghetti sauce or something.

It actually takes more faith not to believe that Hitchens has risen on the third day than it does to believe that he has. One would have to claim to know everything in the entire universe in order to reject the belief that Hitchens has risen. How arrogant! These people must hate Hitchens and are just angry people. One must at least be willing to admit that it is possible that Hitchens did rise on the third day and that he is the world’s true savior. Kneel before the Hitch!

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Meeting Halfway

Published
by
Staks
on December 19, 2011
.

When atheists and Christians discuss religion we often talk past each other. That being the case, I came up with an idea that might change that. I think we should try to meet Christians halfway… as long as they are willing to meet us halfway.

Here is how it works. First, we offer to meet halfway and let them know that we are willing to consider the possibility that there might be a god and that we can’t rule it out with 100% certainty. This seems like a reasonable concession to make.

Then we ask them to admit a concession. Specifically, we ask them if they are willing to at least admit that on the surface, the whole Christian story does sound a little farfetched. You can go into the whole virgin birth, walking on water, raising the dead, raised from the dead thing in you want, but the point is to get them to at least try to understand why someone might not take such a stseriously. It is pretty absurd.

That’s as far as we need to go. While the whole god concept is possible and we can’t rule it out with 100% certainty, it is extremely improbable and as we just pointed out and they admitted, it is a bit ludicrous.

Now we have given them something to think about and we don’t need to concede another inch. We’re done here. The seeds of doubt have been planted and watered.

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The Remarkable Mr. Hitchens

Published
by
Staks
on December 16, 2011
.

I had an entirely different blog post in mind for today, but sadly that will have to wait until next week. Sadly, Christopher Hitchens has died and that is something that needs talking about because he was such a remarkable person.

Late last night, when I heard the news I posted an Examiner article on his death. But after reading it this morning, I am not happy with it. While my writing skill could never match or even come close to Hitchens, I really thought that I could do better and that I should do better. So this morning I wrote a second Examiner article.

But the real tribute to Hitchens didn’t come after he died, but rather while he was still alive to appreciate it. Last month, atheists raised their glasses to Hitchens. Today, atheists all over the world will surely be raising our glasses to the remarkable Mr. Hitchens.

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It’s Okay to be Takei!

Published
by
Staks
on December 15, 2011
.

Former Star Trek actor, gay activist, and Humanist George Takei has been on fire lately. When a bill was on the table in one of the southern states (I forget which one) that attempted to restrict teachers from using the word, “gay” in the classroom, George Takei stepped up with his, “It’s okay to be Takei” campaign.

The idea of Takei’s campaign is that instead of saying gay, you can say Takei. He created a logo for the campaign featuring the Starfleet insignia and rainbow colors. Last night he posted a contest on twitter to create a new logo. I answered his call and as far as I know, I was the first to do so.

If my logo makes it as a finalist (which I think it might), then voting will be on Sunday, December 18th 2011. George Takei will create a special photo gallery on his facebook page for the contest and the logo that gets the most “likes” wins.

You don’t have to vote for mine, but I hope you will because you all love me so much and I don’t want to brag or anything, but my logo is pretty kickass. Take a look:

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