Cosmic Justice

A woman told Matt Dillahunty, “I believe in the Christian God, because I don’t want to live in a world where those with power impose their evil intent on the masses and not face any type of consequence.  Without God, people can easily escape human justice.”

Dillahunty replied:  I don’t buy into that.  She also raised the point that someone had mentioned pedophile priests, and being a pedophile is immoral, but they can escape from human justice, therefore, God’s justice is eventually gonna get them.

“What kind of world do you live in, if this is your principal objection to world views that don’t include some cosmic justice in them??  If you’ll excuse the condescending remark, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’  Life isn’t fair, and the desire for justice that you talk about, is one of the key foundations of most every religion.

We’re all aware that sometimes Good goes unrewarded, and Evil goes unpunished, so some justice-seekers invent a security blanket to insure that they aren’t mired in depression.  It allows them to avoid facing the harshness of an indifferent reality, whether it’s Heaven, or Hell, or Karma, dictating infinite rebirths.  It serves the same purpose.

Some of us realize that there’s no good reason to believe that the Universe is anything other than indifferent to our existence and our perceptions of good and evil, and that dealing with Reality on Reality’s terms is the only way to make any real improvement in the situation.

Life isn’t fair, and that’s actually comforting if you think about it.  If Life were fair, it would mean that you actually deserve the bad things that happen to you, and that those who benefit from evil deeds similarly deserve.  The knowledge that there is no reason to expect justice is the reason that we ensure that we impose justice.

The realization that good is not always rewarded, is what drives us to reward it when we see it.  The realization that evil is not always punished is what drives us to work together as a co-operative society to deal with our problems collectively and individually, in a way that drives real change, and minimizes harmful actions.

Realizing that justice is not guaranteed allows us to appreciate it when it happens, and work toward causing it to happen on a more regular basis.  Your particular God-view of justice represents the height of irresponsibility and injustice.  Your chosen religion has us born as reprobates, guilty before we’ve taken a single breath, responsible for things we’ve never done.  It offers instant, undeserved forgiveness for the most horrible of crimes, and punishes those whose only crime is disbelief, forever!

It advocates slavery, denigrates women, curses homosexuals, orders the stoning of unruly children, sanctions wars of extermination, condones human sacrifices, and poisons every mind it touches.  It includes only one unforgivable crime – disbelief.  Is that just??  This justice that you so admire is no such thing.  It is divine edict.  It’s arbitrary, capricious, and ultimately unjust and immoral.

Yes, I realize that there are pedophiles out there, who’ve escaped our flawed justice system.  Do you realize that your system says that they are all eligible for an eternal paradise??  How does that address your objection?  Under the rules of Christianity, the pedophile who escapes justice here, can also escape your ultimate justice.  He may spend eternity in paradise, while someone who spent their entire life doing good, helping others, and contributing in a generally positive way to the one and only life that we’re sure to get, ultimately is judged unworthy of that reward.

Don’t kid yourself.  You haven’t accepted a comic sense of justice that alleviates the problem.  You’ve accepted one that you believe alleviates the problem –for you.  It is a selfish justification that shows no regard for real matters of justice.  It is the height of arrogance, and your desire to feel special, because somebody up there thinks you’re special.

Well, according to the paradigm you advocate, He thinks that anyone willing to worship him is special, with no regard to justice or character.  Go!  Read Romans.  No-one makes this point clearer than Paul.  The Law was established with full knowledge that no-one would be able to fulfill it.  It was established to demonstrate this inability, and damn us further – and then a loophole was created to allow some people through, regardless of their standing with The Law.

Your religion has made you a slave.  It has made you uncaring.  It has made you support immorality and injustice, while claiming that arbitrary edicts and loopholes count as either.  It is a reprehensible lie, that poisons the mind, and prevents you from understanding reality.  When the scales drop away from your eyes, as they have for many of us, we’ll be here, and you’ll realize that you’re not alone, and not to blame.

’24 A To Z Challenge – B

Some cultures and languages seem very definite, and sure of themselves – Greek, French, Russian, and Chinese.  Others are not so confident.  I’m Jew-ish.  I’m Engl-ish.  I’m a drunken sot Ir-ish.

None of which has any relationship or reference to this week’s Wonderful Word

BRANDISH

This is not a fluid which thinks that it is kinda, sorta, a spirit distilled from wine or from the fermented juice of grapes or of apples, peaches, plums, etc.  The word is not an adjective.  It is a verb which means

To shake or wave, as a weapon- flourish

The most terrifying weapon to shake, wave or flourish, in the United States of Marshmallow America, has become the video camera, mounted on a supporting staff, wielded by Civil Rights Auditors in public spaces.  They drive cops and security guards nuts, and many of them start barking unlawful orders and restrictions.

After one storm trooper was shown that he was wrong, and the auditor’s actions were protected by the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, he shouted, “Oh yeah??  What if I just took that away from you, and erased it all?”  The cammer calmly replied, “Then you would learn about things like *upload to the cloud*, and live-streaming.  There are about 125 people watching you right now, and you would learn the consequences of attempting to tamper with evidence.”

In the waiting area of another Government office, the security guard insisted that videotaping in that area was absolutely, positively, completely prohibited.  He, and several of the customers loudly objected to being recorded – even after the cammer pointed to the two CCTV cameras in the ceiling.

Why the fuss??  Were they doing something immoral or illegal??  It’s all part of the process by leaders to maintain control of the masses, by polarizing them, and keeping them frightened.  More and more minor things are panicking Americans.

They came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I said nothing.
They came for the Catholics, but I was not Catholic, so I said nothing.
They came for the Gypsies, but I was not a Gypsy, so I said nothing.
Now they have come for me, but there is no-one to say anything.

Don’t let your rights be stolen from you.  Stand up and brandish your citizenship, your Constitution and Bill of Rights, and your determination to be governed, but not Ruled Over.  😦

Peace, For A Change

The Man Who Does Not Trust Himself – Beats His Wife

The initial furor and uproar about gender reassignment, seems to have largely died off.  Just a few observations.

Men are the most likely to be present at these rantings.  From the comments – the more testosterone-infused, the more Bible-imbued, the more likely a comment, the more numerous the comments, and the more judgmental and moralistic the comments, about something which really is none of their business.

Women appear seriously under-represented at the sermonizings.  Maybe they’re just happy that there is one less dick-waving guy, and one more empathetic gal, or are smart enough to know that it really doesn’t involve them, or their religion has conditioned and controlled them not to speak up, especially in the presence of men.

Another observation – all the light and heat seems to be generated only when a male tries to become a female.  When male swimmer William Thomas wanted to become female Lia Thomas, the He-Man howls could be heard from coast to coast.  When Ellen Page decided to become Elliot Page, a male actor/performer with no discernible talent or presence….  Crickets!!

While I was ensconced in a downtown Toronto hotel when the wife was having cancer surgery, a theater down the street was crammed to the SRO signs.  I had to walk on the far side of the street because the sidewalk was jammed with people trying to attend a show titled, Pageboy.

I wondered what kind of a program was being presented, but quickly decided that it didn’t matter.  She/he/it/they could stand on the stage for an hour, and recite the entire American ZIP-code catalog, from sea A to shining Zee – from Maine to Hawaii.

These folks weren’t here for the talent or entertainment.  P. T. Barnum’s freak show had closed.  They just wanted a look at the little weirdo.  They wanted to be reassured that someone else had a life even more bizarre than theirs.    😮

’23 A To Z Challenge – U

Tom Jones said, It’s Not Unusual

and he was right.  The word for this week is not ‘Unusual.’  It’s not even really unusual.  It’s just a little archaic.  Fresh off a Christmas and New Year’s feast soaked in turkey fat, I give you the word

UNCTUOUS

1. characterized by excessive piousness or moralistic fervor, especially in an affected manner; excessively smooth, suave, or smug.
2. of the nature of or characteristic of an unguent or ointment; oily; slippery or greasy
3. affecting an oily charm

“How like a fawning publican he looks.”  A publican being an innkeeper or pub (public house) owner – a distinction without much of a difference – a businessman who had to wrangle an establishment full of drunken customers for his income, without driving them away.  A little butt-kissing seldom went astray.  The difference between a brown-noser and a shithead – is just depth perception.

Publicans were not the only ones to perfect this art.  Many politicians, Christian Apologists, religious leaders, salesmen – con-men, again, not much difference.  Recently, that began to change.  Oh, there are still lots who seem to have graduated from Shell Oil U, or Wesson College, but more and more are becoming outspoken, rude, and aggressive, turning to bombast and vitriol.  The servile have become volatile.

Whether in politics, or religion, he who shouts the loudest, and hurls the nastiest insult, carries the debate.  These guys…. actually, the women are getting to be just as bad – I’m looking at you, Lauren Boebert – are as polarized as the plugs on my lamp cords.  There is no give, although many are still busy taking.  Donald Trump is not the cause of the American social and political decline.  He is merely a symptom.  In the United States, citizens have the right to remain silent, but far too few have the ability.  Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.  😮

One Flew Over The Ego’s Nest

The most famous Atheist of the 20^th century found God.
(Writer’s note – No he didn’t! – Rebuttal below)
He Wrote a book about it.
I read the book.
Tickets to the Pity-Party are available for a nominal fee, at the box office in the lobby, as you exit the blog-site.

For fifty years, Antony Flew was the world’s best-known, and most vocal Atheist, a legend in his own mind.  He wrote a book titled There Is No God.  But he wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Atheist.  He didn’t merely not believe because he had not been presented with sufficiently convincing evidence.  He wanted to use words and debates and arguments and philosophy to prove that he was too smart to be gullible.

Just before he died, at age 80, he wrote another book.  The cover was identical to his earlier book, with the cutesy twist that, the word No was stroked through, and the word A was added.  The first half was about him.  Atheism was just an excuse to prove his brilliance.

He wrote and published a paper making some unsupported Atheist claim.  A year later, he wrote another paper, supporting the unsupportable.  He debated with a well-known Theist, and of course, won.  He wrote a paper rebutting and debunking another Theist.  He engaged in an ongoing correspondence contest with a Christian Apologist – and trounced him.  I’m surprised he didn’t dislocate his shoulder, patting himself on the back.

When he published the, There Is A God book, the Christian Apologist and Debater Society immediately adopted him.  The book’s blurb says, “The world’s most famous Atheist changed his mind.”  They clasped him to their bosom, and erected a life-sized cardboard cut-out of him, like Iron Man, despite the fact that his book specifically denies the existence of the needy, personal Christian God who knows your every thought, answers prayers, performs miracles, and hands out morality, and penalties for not obeying it.

He didn’t really change his mind; he just refined his reference points, and therefore his conclusion. He very unscientifically decided that there was some sort of underlying order and control to the cosmos.  He had ‘discovered’ Spinoza’s Deistic “God,” or Einstein’s.  He had found a (incorrectly spelled) Copernician, non-personal “God”.  He still had 26 angels, dancing on the head of a pin, but these ones were black-clad Goths, not golden, white-robed, haloed ones.

His statements – claims – were all null, because they had no referents.  The book is full of philosophical and debate buzzwords, open to interpretation.  He made claims based on ungrounded assumptions from unproven methodology.  The most common word in the book is IF!  If there is order in the Universe, GOD must have put it there.  If objective morals exist, then GOD must have commanded them.

The ‘Laws of Nature’ are descriptive, not prescriptive.  They are established by Mankind – scientists – who state observed reality.  Light does not travel at 300,000 Km/sec because God stands out in the cosmos with a crossing-guard paddle and a radar gun, yet Flew wanted to know “Who wrote the Laws of Nature?” with no evidence, no proof, that such a thing was even possible, or if it was, that it was a WHO that did it.

He firmly declared that he could not believe in Abiogenesis and evolution, that life – intelligence – could come merely from matter.  I guess that he was so busy being famous, that he missed the Miller-Urey experiments which proved that it was possible.

Yet another ‘Religious’ book that I was unimpressed, and underwhelmed by.  It seems that the only thing that Philosophy and debate prove, is that Philosophical debaters can be some very uninformed, ivory-tower assholes.

***

Later, I learned that the book was actually written by a Christian Apologist, with a Religious bias, who blamed credited Flew with having actually penned it.  After the cover claims that There Is A God, it shows Antony Flew as author, with Roy Abraham Varghese, as if he was only there to sharpen pencils, make coffee, and look up definitions.  Varghese wrote and published the book without Flew’s knowledge or authorization – Standard Practice!  😦  😳

Good Without God

A (relatively) new Atheist at seekinghistruthblog.wordpress.com had some things to say about

BEING A CHRISTIAN VS BEING AN ATHEIST
(MY EXPERIENCE)

Someone asked this in one of my groups:
What does an Atheist claim to see when holding a mirror to their mindset?

This made me think about how I used to feel and think and how I feel and think now.

What I used to see when I was Christian was a broken, sick, failing, struggling, worthless, unworthy, imperfect, felt-like-I-didn’t-belong anywhere, fearful, trapped, did not think I was judgmental but I was, person who was awaiting death to find freedom. The only beauty I saw was in something I was taught was there, but I could never see. I had moments I felt loved, but only when I felt I had asked for forgiveness for being me enough, or tried to be someone I wasn’t enough, which almost destroyed me many times.

What I see as an Atheist is a courageous, beautiful, caring, compassionate, loving, kind, strong, worthy, patient, understanding, nonjudgmental (my judgment resides in a space for when people cause harm to other people and animals for unjust immoral reasons), healing, desire to experience being human, mentally and emotionally free me. I struggle, but my struggles don’t carry so much weight. I fail, but I keep trying and see that each failure is one step closer to success. I’m imperfect but now realize that perfection doesn’t exist, as we are all so beautifully unique. I see beauty in this world I never saw before. I see me!

When all you have is God, you lose so much of your own humanity chasing a nonexistent deity and suppressing yourself. You lose more in a lifetime than you could ever imagine. Those spaces in my life when I was a Christian were stolen from me, as I was indoctrinated as a small child. It was time I could have experienced being human and not living in constant fear, inner turmoil, guilt-ridden, pain, and suffering, all coated in “God loves me and wants me to be this way or that, or I’ll burn in hell forever.” While I was singing, My chains have been loosed; I was carrying the heaviest of them on my shoulders. A burden I should’ve never had to bear.

This cat is no longer a Republican kitten, because their eyes are opened.  I think that they’ve come a long way, in a short time.  What do you think?  😀

Objectively Speaking

There are no objective morals, but there are ethics that work well with civilization and we should follow them for our benefit and the benefit of others.

So, your argument is that there are no objective moral standards, that we each conduct ourselves according to our own desires at the moment.  Presumably you want people to treat others with respect, the way you do, right? Why should anyone do that?

Let’s ignore “morality”, because it’s a concept invented by the religious, particularly, recently, by the American ‘Christians,’ but about the specifics of which, no two Christian groups totally agree with each other, and go with the Secular Humanist concept of The Greatest Good For The Greatest Number, which benefits the individual, their society, and the human race at large, and which is empathetically NOT according to our own desires at the moment.  If you don’t want the greatest good for the greatest number I don’t even want to know why not, just a previous warning. If you want to know if slavery is immoral – ask a slave.

What an original thought! The dictatorship of the wise and just majority. The majority won’t enslave anyone. That’s never happened before.

Yep! We will just declare the majority our god and take a poll every time we need to make a decision about anything.

Do Secular Humanists agree about everything? Does any large group of people? Would it not be a miracle if they did? Would it be a good miracle? Without some sort of basis for judging the matter, how would we know? Because everyone is in agreement? Would that be it?  I can explain why something is right and why something is wrong. Do you have an answer? Nope! All you do is make unsupported assertions.

Oh dear!!  You do seem to expend considerable time and energy, putting words into other people’s mouths.  Us ignorant Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and Secularists don’t declare anything to be God(like).  There is no compulsion – which far too many Christians ignore, anyway – but you are expected to think for yourself to make informed self-interest decisions.

Perhaps you have heard of Secular Humanism under its other name – Representative Democracy and Rule of Law.  It is the absolutely worst system of governance – except for every other one.  You might give it a try.  A few minor, unimportant World Nations have, and surprisingly, it seems to work.

This is where the populace selects wise and capable leaders.  They tell them what they want their country to look and act like.  They trust their elected officials to deal with the BIG moral issues, like assault, theft, and murder.  They know that the legislature will enact laws to forbid certain acts and actions, and provide penalties for those who do.  That way there’s no need for a referendum for every moral decision.  The answer to the basis of right and wrong, is mutually-agreed-on enacted laws.

Sadly, far too many Good Christians fail to join in.  They clog up divorce courts, rehabilitation clinics, and prisons.  Per capita, there are ten times as many Christians in penitentiaries, than Atheists.  In States like California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, every second inmate is named Jesus.

This then leaves individuals free to personally judge the finer moral points, like….  Should my bodily autonomy be violated, and I’m forced to carry a fetus to full term, if I’m told that I must, by a priest with no ovaries, or wife who has them??

Should I hate fags and homos, if ordered to do so by a priest/preacher who is raping altar boys??
Should I take marriage advice from an unmarried priest??
Should a priest (Who isn’t supposed to be having sex) be allowed to dictate how, when, how often, what position, whom I may – and may not – have sex with??

Why do you look at the mote that is thy brother’s eye, but do not see the plank that is in thine own eye?  👿

MAID Service

DON’T CUT ME OFF!

1Jaded1 recently asked about local views, and my opinion and views, on medically assisted suicide.  There’s very little mention, or pushback, here.  After all, we’re safe, sane Canada, not the Bible-thumping Southern Excited States.  Do whatever you please, just don’t scare the horses.

The issue does exist here.  Locally, it’s been given the cutesy acronym MAID – Medical Assistance In Dying.  I don’t know how far that label extends.  The very day she asked this question, an Op-Ed letter demanded that “death with dignity” access should be legally guaranteed, as a right.

I stand foursquare behind that.  I believe in the maximum of personal freedom.  I don’t feel that my bodily autonomy, or anyone else’s, should be violated by some do-gooder’s trumped-up morals.

HOWEVER!!!….

Be (VERY) careful what you wish for.  I can appreciate some people’s worry about the thin edge of the wedge, or the slippery slope.  Two days later, another Op-Ed letter arrived.  17 years ago, a man’s family and doctor fought him tooth and nail, to prevent him from accessing MAID.  With medication and psychotherapy, he is now a reasonably-functional citizen.  He was never promised that he would recover, but he now has hope.  He admits that he really didn’t want to die, he just didn’t want to live his nightmare any longer.

I am all for informed personal consent, but to ensure that cases like this do not occur, is going to require some administrative oversight. – a three-doctor panel?  This is where the bigots and the bureaucrats get their hooks in, and have a field day ruining running other people’s lives – as they see fit.

The same applies for gender-reassignment therapy.  INFORMED personal consent is paramount.  If little 8-year-old Billy wants to grow his hair down to his shoulders, and wear hair-bows, nylon panties and dresses, and call himherself Suzie – let IT!  Even non-bigot observers are rightly concerned when WOKE parents are authorizing treatments for pre-pubescent children.  You’re not even supposed to get a tattoo until you reach the age of majority – the age of informed personal consent!

Let Billy/Suzie live with the public fallout of the temporary decision for a while.  If he/she/it/they are still determined to go ahead, we can be reasonably assured that the choice is valid and duly considered.  Both these decisions have offices on a one-way street.  Once you start down it, there’s no turning back.  Considerable contemplation should be displayed, before a doctor is authorized to prescribe an overdose amount of Nembutal or Propofol, or before they lop Billy’s wiener off, and start pumping hormones in.

Pragmatically, especially on the suicide issue, I say go ahead – unless they’re directly related to me.  Earth’s population is now over 8 BILLION!  The overcrowded rats are beginning to nip at each other.  I can see you, Vladimir Putin.  I fear that a drastic reduction in population is going to occur anyway.  I can see you, COVID19, and all your mutant cousins.  A bunch of suicides might help reduce the social pressure by eliminating the emotionally inadaptable from the gene pool.

A lad from Montreal committed suicide on his 16^th birthday.  On the next anniversary, his distraught mother also committed suicide.  On the third anniversary, his bereaved father also committed suicide.  I don’t wish to appear hard or uncaring (Oh, go ahead) but, apart from cleaning up the mess, and the confusion and sadness of friends and relatives – perhaps we are all better off without their contagious weakness.

A representative of the Council of Canadian Academies wants all levels of government to do something about the profusion of scientific misinformation which has caused many preventable COVID deaths.  In addition to regulating social media platforms and private messaging apps, Ottawa needs to support the production and distribution of science-based, factual information.  Science communication is facing an uphill battle.

This is one of the things that most irks me most about some Christian Apologetics debaters.  They ask, “Even if Atheists could prove that there’s no God, (That’s not our job – or our aim!) what’s wrong with believing something that’s false?”  Because it can get you killed!!  Worse yet, you can take your family, your neighbors, your friends, and even ME along with you.  I see you, Jim Jones, and David Koresh.

That’s when and why I begin to care – deeply, strongly!  In the movie, Spy Game, Robert Redford played an old agent, training a new agent.  At one point he advises, “If it comes down to between you and him – Send flowers.”  I’m sorry that you are so dumb and gullible that you will believe internet/religious conspiracy theories.  Please accept this lovely bouquet of Chrysanthemums.  We’re all probably better off without you.”

Despite those who see only in black and white, there is no perfect world, and there is no one-size-fits-all, perfect answer to either of these problems.  We’ll just have to live (or die) with imperfect humans – and keep your nose out of other people’s business, lest someone use it as an exclamation point.  😳

Questioning Christian

He’s only been on WordPress for a month.  His blog-site is definitely Christian, and he has found a bunch that definitely aren’t, so he came up with Five Questions For Non-Believers – how original.  Actually, it was Five Questions for…. You Know.  Wouldn’t say Shit if he had a mouthful, and apparently can’t even type the word Atheist.

1.  Would you say you are Convinced that God or gods do not exist, or simply that you don’t Believe that they do? (Two very different statements. The first applies to Knowledge, the second only to Belief)

1. Yes, to both. I have never been presented with sufficiently convincing evidence to cause belief. I am convinced that God/gods does not exist, in the same way, and to the same degree that I am convinced that fairies, genies, Bigfoot, unicorns and the Loch Ness monster do not exist.  I can not offer Absolute Proof, because a negative cannot be proved, and there is no Absolute proof of anything.

I  usually refrain from admitting that, because some smart-ass Apologist will spin it, use it as a wedge, and claim that I actually know that God exists, and have a little bit of belief.  No, I don’t!!

2. We’re you ever at one time in your life a Believer in God or Gods, and if so… which one or ones? (Mind you, I’m not asking at this time why you left, just did you previously Believe)

2.(Were – not We’re) No! Even 6 and 7 years old in Sunday school, and later in church, I heard pretty stories, but the ones that began, In the beginning sounded just like the ones that started, “Once upon a time.” It wasn’t till I became an adult that I was surprised to find that most others took them seriously.

3. Have you ever had any Experiences that might be described as “spiritual” or “supernatural” that others might see as “experiences with God”? And if so, what did you think of them at the time… and what do you think of them Now? (I apologize for the “3 in 1”. They seem linked to the same question, yes?)

3. No. In a naturalistic universe, I don’t even know how anyone could demonstrate or prove anything Supernatural. Spiritual is a word with too many definitions, and no real meaning.  Most such experiences can be shown to be neurological, or hormonally induced.  Even those that can’t are not justified in having “God” shoehorned in as an explanation.

4. How do you view those who do Believe in God or gods? Are they ‘brainwashed’, ‘stupid’ or just wrong? (I know the first two are ‘loaded’, but I’m looking for your mindset as well as what you perceive ours to be)

4. The more rabid the believer, the more likely they are ruled by desperation and egotism – the belief that they are so important in the cosmic scheme of things that they will not just wink out when it’s all over. It’s the constant fear of inevitable, inescapable, impending death.

“Brainwashed” is a loaded term, but Sunday schools do a great job of constant mental conditioning of impressionable children.  Very intelligent people believe many incorrect, unprovable things – and not all of it is religion.  It is far easier to convince someone of something, than it is to convince them that they are in error about it.  I don’t regard them as “wrong,” but, despite many requests, I still have not been shown proof that they are right.

5. What Evidence or Experience or Arguments would lead you to believe in God or gods generally… or Christianity specifically… if any? (Mind you, I’m not asking “Why you don’t believe”. I’m asking what would lead you to Believe)

5. The correct answer is, “I don’t know.” Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The Christian God – the God of the Bible – suffers from so many definitional contradictions as to be impossible.  Were He to exist, He would be an immoral asshole.  Richard Dawkins had 14 rather scathing adjectives for Him.  If He exists, He knows exactly what it would take to convince me that He exists.  Since He has failed to present such evidence for over 2000 years, either He does not exist – or – He is far less concerned with my acceptance of your claims than people like you are.  😯

Walk This Way

We all do it, to some extent.  Christians do it more than Atheists.  What is IT??!

“IT” is to assume that other people think, feel, and act just like you do.

It is like comparing British English to American English.  The words are the same, but the conclusions they reach and the information they convey, are vastly different.  I think that I felt it, but I had it clearly pointed out to me by a young, Atheist YouTuber.

He had been raised as a fervent, evangelical Catholic.  In his teens, he began to question!!  By twenty, he admitted that he had become an Atheist.  His Bible-thumper Mother was appalled, and tried to lure/force him back.

First, she accused him of “Just blindly believing what those Atheist books say.” – because she blindly believed in a book.  He explained that he had not read most of the books she was worried about, and the couple that he had, he had not read until after he had declared himself an Atheist.

While he had not read the evil Atheist books, and had arrived at his position through years of careful study and research, she then accused him of just unquestioningly accepting the non-religious claims of Atheists who establish themselves in authority – because she unquestioningly accepts the self-declared authority of The Catholic Church.

I recently listened to a Christian apologist try to wiggle out from under an Atheist complaint about the Christian concept of infinite punishment in Hell, for the finite crime of not believing.  His justification was that, the infinite punishment was not for merely not believing, but that Atheists die, and go to be judged, and are cast into Hell, and the infinite punishment is because, even in Hell, they continue to ‘deny God.’

I find this apologist scenario preposterous.  Any Atheist who dies, expecting to just fade out, who finds his spirit, his soul, his consciousness, his personality, still coherent and miraculously transported to Heaven, faces God, is condemned to Hell, and who is suffering horrible tortures – would admit to observed reality and accepted truth – not petulantly continue to ‘deny God,’ whatever that means.  But the Christian apologist believes that the Atheist would – because he would!

Frank Turek, a Christian debater, whose slick, used-car-salesman face beams down from the top of this post, was asked if there was any information or argument that might make him change his mind.  He responded with a Bible verse which orders the loyal to reject anything which might cause them to doubt.  No matter how reliable, proven, or convincing the facts and evidence are, Turek and his ilk will simply deny it!  😳

To even try for a non-believer to have a discussion with a Christian about morals/morality, seems doomed to failure.  It will not become a debate or a conversation.  It is like two solitudes, shouting past each other.

The Christian will allege that there are Objective Morals, things which are good or evil, whether or not people exist.  Without any evidence that either of them exists, they claim that God defines and enforces morals, despite the fact that great swathes of Good Christians disregard and disobey them, filling prisons, divorce courts and rehab facilities.

The very words morals, and morality have been hijacked by Christian debaters.  Like sin, they are something that their God wants mankind to do, or not do.  Atheists have ethics, and evolution-induced empathy.  If Atheists can get Christians to agree that reduction of harm and increase in happiness and wellbeing is an acceptable subjective basis, then we have Objective Atheist Morals, and all without God.