Tag: skepticism

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Definitions

Definition Friday!

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Just as a heads up the next few weeks of Definition Friday are going to be dealing with logical fallicies. I’ve been somewhat studying them in my spare time. There is a great resource here if your interested in reading more. I’ll spend a little time defining the fallicies and then give examples from how they’ve had an effect on my life. Anyway on with the show!

Special Pleading

Special pleading, sometimes referred to as “moving the goalposts”, is when one puts out a specific set of rules, or premises that apply to everything inside a set and then saying that something inside that same set has a different set of rules.  A good real world example of this is nepotism.  A company has a set of standards that every applicant must go through in order to be hired.  The company’s owner wants his son to work at the company even though he isn’t qualified.  The owner tells HR to put him in the job anyway, circumventing the rule that applies to everyone.

Bringing this back around to my atheism, I never realized how much special pleading is used in defense of god.  The first that comes to mind is “killing people is wrong, unless god does it.  Then it’s ok because it’s his will.” I’ve heard people say that “he created us so he can destroy us.”  Really?  I created my son does that make it ok for me to kill him?  Me thinks no.  What kind of mental gymnastics did I go through to think that this was in anyway ok?

Kalam

I’ve recently come across a bunch of theist vs atheist debates on the youtubes.  One of the arguments that I hear time and time again is what’s know as the Kalam Cosmological Argument.  In a nut shell it states that everything that has a beginning has a cause, the universe has a beginning, therefor the universe has a cause…which must be god.  The first time I heard this argument I was lead to follow it.  It seemed to make sense.  Then I thought, well if the universe had to have a cause, and that cause was god, what caused god.  It leads to an infinite regress of “well then who created that?”

Typically the defense that I hear back is where this logical fallacy comes into play.  It goes something to the effect of “well god lives out of space and time so this doesn’t apply to him.”  There is the special pleading.  You can’t have a set of constants and then say that these constants don’t apply to something within that set.

 

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Thoughts

The God Delusion

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I went to the library for the first time in a long time this weekend.  While there I found the “required atheist reading” and decided to pick it up.  I haven’t read a book for pleasure since probably high school.  I’ve been in and out of college for the last few years so it’s not like I haven’t read, just not for leisure.

I picked up the book and it was a bit daunting.  It’s really big. Like way bigger than anything I’ve read in a long time.  But I was up for the challenge.  I’m currently on Chapter 3 and I find myself having a hard time putting it down.  I don’t read at an amazing speed but I’m doing about 40 pages a night.  It’s been amazing.

I plan to do a full review once I finish the book but I very much appreciate how it is laid out so far.  Definitions followed by what he is defining as the hypothesis, the arguments for (which I’ve come across previously in my own research, mainly thanks to The Atheist Experience).

I think I did start reading this once as a believer,  I wonder if it would have changed my point of view then had I finished it…

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Skeptical Bible Study

Skeptical Bible Study Week 3

pexels-photo-564093Mark Chapter 3

Last Weeks Study

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

Ok so again we see Jesus doing things just to piss off the religious leaders.  I understand what is trying to be conveyed here, that it’s better to do good on a holy day than do nothing and thus changing their paradigm.  However, perhaps it would have been better to change other social ideas.  Maybe denounce slavery, or incest, or rape?

Crowds Follow Jesus

Another example of Jesus being mysterious.  He’s got people falling down and saying “You are the son of god” and he shushes them.  I still don’t understand this whole “don’t tell anyone who I am” thing.  Seems like he’d be in his prime to say who he was, if that’s who he was, in order to spread the message of it’s validity.  The one thing that comes to mind is that this wasn’t really his end game originally.

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Jesus Accused by His Family and by Teachers of the Law

This opens with Jesus’ family wanting to go collect him because they thought he was crazy.  Perhaps they were right lol.  It goes on to the religious leaders accusing him of being the devil.  Jesus refutes this saying that the devil couldn’t cast out demons because that would be him fighting against himself.  I thought about this even when I was a believer.  Wouldn’t that actually be a great tactic for the devil to do?  “Look at me getting rid of all this evil!  Aren’t I doing good things?”  It seems that even though he’s driving out theses “evil spirits” they don’t seem to be “killed”.  Can you kill a spirit?  Could you prove that?  Even if that were the case, killing a few pawns to further your end game seems to be worth it.

He then goes on to completely ignore his family and say that everyone there is his family.  I’m pretty sure one of those commandments says to honor your mother and father, saying that everyone is your “mother” seems to be a bit disrespectful to your actual mother.

 

 

 

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Ask an Atheist

Belief sign with a beautiful day

Why do you care if other people believe in God?

I’ve heard this asked a few times around the internet and I’ve struggled with this question.  I don’t consider my self an anti-theist (someone who thinks religion everywhere should be abolished) but I do have some thoughts on the matter.

I honestly don’t care if you believe in a god.  The problem is what you do with that belief and how it forms your actions.  Sort of like the saying “Your right to swing your fist ends at my face.”  When your holy book tells you to go out an convert everyone, or you hear god telling you to bomb an abortion clinic, yeah that I have a problem with.

There is also the problem of trying to legislate the laws of your holy book.  Sure it has some good points in there, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t own slaves….wait that one’s not in there…also it doesn’t say anything about not raping.  Oh yes it does…you have have to marry the person you rape is all….yeah please don’t make that a law.  Also I’d like to keep my poly-cotton blends so if you could skip that one too.

Sorry this ended up being sort of a rant and I’m going to apologize for the crudeness of the last line of text here but “Religions are like dicks, it’s ok to have one. You can even be proud of it.  But don’t whip it out and public and don’t try to shove it down my throat.”

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Deeper Story Part 3

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Continued from Part 2

So I’d been hooked.  I was all in.  Let’s do this church thing.  It was relevant, I could understand the messages, it had good music.  We started going every week, and I looked forward to it.  During this time we moved to a new town much closer to the church.  This meant a new school, a loss of friends, social isolation.  I found adjusting to the new situation very difficult.  Up until this point had I had done very well in school but the new school didn’t have the advanced classes I was slated to be in.  I quickly became bored and my grades began to slip.  This is about the time my depression started creeping in.

Desperate for friends it came as a pleasant surprise when someone that went to my school happened to go to my church.  He invited me one Sunday to a mid-week kinship (the church’s word for a small group or bible study).  I eagerly accepted.  Finally a chance to make some friends and learn more about church stuff! Looking back a 14 year old seeking community….yeah I was a perfect mark for indoctrination.  Young enough to be impressionable but old enough to think I was making my own choices.

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I stayed a steady B student in school, doing the bare minimum worth of work.  Not because I wanted to but for fear of how my father would react otherwise.  I had a knack for not studying or doing homework but doing well enough on tests that would carry my grades.  It was good enough for me.  It kept me out of the wrath of my father, but at a cost.  I essentially gave up my love of learning, which in tow killed my critical thinking ability.

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Going back a little I had a huge love of science.  In 8th grade I had a science teacher that would tell us things and I would go home and test them.  She told us once about super-saturated solutions.  Essentially if you boil water and add salt and then allow the water to evaporate over time you’d end up with large salt crystals.  I went home and tried this and I didn’t get the salt crystals.  I reported back with my findings and she told me to try it with sugar.  This time it worked and had a pretty cool looking sugar formation (I happened to win the outstanding science student that year, not to toot my own horn).  The point of the story is to illustrate that at one time in my life I didn’t just take peoples word for things and actually tested and researched things.  This died in high school.  Looking back at all of this I realize this made me even more impressionable towards religious beliefs.  I just took people’s word for it and didn’t bother thinking about things for myself.  I believed because “well this guy is an authority and he wouldn’t lie to me.”  I now know this as a logical fallacy known as the argument form authority.

I feel that I would have picked back up on critical thinking had I not been so into the church.  If I didn’t have that feeling of having all the answers.  Hindsight is 20/20, I’d have a very different life right now had I not gone all in, if I had kept my questioning hat on.  I don’t know where that would have lead me but I’d have nearly a twenty year head start from where I am now.

 Continued in Part 4

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Skeptical Bible Study

Skeptical Bible Study Week 2

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This week I read Mark 2.

This chapter give us the story of the paralyzed man that Jesus healed.  For me this whole set up feels very staged.  He’s hanging out at Peter’s house with a bunch of people listening to him and wanting to be healed.  I’m betting dollars to doughnuts that he told one of his buddies to go find some guys to put this whole thing on.  Thinking about context I can’t imagine a paralyzed man at this time having 4 friends to carry him through the crowed and the dig through a strangers roof for this.  If you were paralyzed you were cursed by god and I’m pretty sure no one would want much to do with you.  So the lower him down knowing that the religious elders were there and he doesn’t heal him right away.  He says “Your sins are forgiven”.  He KNEW this would piss of the pharisees.  What better way to get a following than to piss of “the man”?

After the first show Jesus starts another by calling out a tax collector and parting with him.  Again this was going to piss off the religious leaders to no end.  Tax collectors at the time weren’t like the IRS today.  Rome required a certain amount of money from them and they got paid by how much over that they could collect.  So essentially they were ripping off their neighbors.  At least that’s what I was told back in the day….looking at it now I’m having a hard time finding sources out side of biblical theology that states this so….

The chapter ends with Jesus talking about fasting and the Sabbath and telling a different story than that of what the religious leaders were teaching…you know the stuff that was written down…from the god that sent Jesus….and is also Jesus…yeah there’s that.  So in short I feel like this whole chapter is Jesus being rebellious in public forums to gain a following.

Last Week’s study

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Ask an Atheist

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We’re back for week two of Ask and Atheist.  I pulled the list from this site.  Still not 100% sure if it’s a troll site or not but judging by some of the other posts…no.  Anyway on with the show!

1. If creationists can’t do science, then why do Kent Hovind and Duane T. Gish, who are creation scientists, have professional degrees in science? I’m unaware of any rule that says creationists can’t be scientists. 

2. If dinosaurs turned into birds, why are we not afraid of them? That’s not how evolution works…like at all.

3. If homosexuality is right, then how come two people of the same sex not produce a child? Homosexuality and hetirosexuality it are neither right nor wrong. They just are.  I’m assuming that you aren’t a big fan of just having fun. Everything has to have a reason? 

4. What purpose do we have if evolution is real? One has nothing to do with the other but putting that kind of lense on meaning my guess would be to propigate the species. 

5. You say Jesus never existed, but have you heard of the Shroud of Turin? 1) I never said that. An historical Jesus may very well have existed. 2) That claim has been debunked many times. 

6. Why do we not see humans being born in the zoos from monkeys if we came from monkeys? Again that’s not how evolution works. 

7. Why do we go to church if God is not real? I don’t. 

8. How did the Grand Canyon form?  Millions of years of water errosion. 

9. Do you know that Jesus loves you? But somehow his love for me is dependant on me loving him?  Wouldn’t call that unconditional. 

10. If Christianity is false, then why is it popular? The Roman empire. 

11. If you say Christianity is not true, then why do hundreds of people continue to become saved every day?  Indoctrination, finding people at their most vunerable, people at the end of their rope will cling to anything. 

12. Why do we not see half trees and half carrots, fronkeys, and crocoducks if evolution is real? You really don’t know how evolution works do you?

13. Why is Richard Dawkins afraid to debate Ray Comfort? Ask him

14. Did you know Christopher Hitchens was saved before death? Source please. 

15. Are you aware Ray Comfort disproved atheism with a banana? Yeah I saw that stunt… coconuts don’t seem to be built for the human hand and have much higher benefits to us so….

16. Why do people laugh at evolutionists? Not sure I’ve seen that happen. 

17. How did the planets form when the Big Bang explosion all of a sudden happen? After all, you don’t see round objects form when something blows up. Big bang wasn’t like a bomb going off. It was the rapid expension of both time and space. Gravity started pressing particles together until we had atoms.  This atoms we’re pressed together until we had stars. When those stars died out they created heavier elements that got together and formed…and so on and so on…I’m not a cosmologist. 

18. If evolution is real, how can it explain gravity, angular momentum, human emotions, and why we worship God?  Well it can’t. Evolution explains one process in biology.  You keep using that word…I don’t think it means what you think it means. 

19. How did pond scum make living things appear out of nowhere? What you’re referring to is abiogenesis. That is one of the thoeries of how life started on Earth. This process is something that’s been studied by much smarter people than me. While I understand the gyst of it in my head, I would have a hard time explaining. 

20. How can evolution be true if we don’t see pocket watches or airplanes form by themselves? Have you been to every planet? How do you know there isn’t a planet of sentiant pocket watches. 

21. Did you know that dinosaurs and man lived together? Yeah not so much. 

22. If evolution is real, then why do caring people like Rick Santorum argue that it must be challenged in the classroom? People get scared when you show evidence that what they believe is false. It’s called the backfire effect. 

23. Why are youtube atheists like AronRa and Thunderf00t afraid to debate Ray Comfort? Ask them. 

24. Why do we celebrate Christmas if Christianity is not real? Most of the traditions of Christmas are stolen from other pagan holidays. 

25. If creationists can’t do science, then why does the website Answersingenesis have proven science articles from creationists that do science? See answer one but as far as AIG there’s a great YouTube channel that debunks most of AIG. 

26. If evolution is true, then why can’t white people compete to be good in basketball like black people? After all, white people can’t jump! This a satirical right?

27. Where do you decide to fit God in your everyday life if you don’t believe in him? The same place I fit leaporcons and unicorns. 

28. Why is Christianity the fastest growing religion if it’s false? It’s actually not…that would be Islam…better convert there bud!

29. Do you feel free to commit murders, homosexuality, go to strip bars, steal, commit adultery, and do other sins since you believe there is no God?  I can tell you I’ve killed exactly the number of people I’ve wanted to! Zero.

30. Why do the fossils say no to evolution? Yeah but they actually say the opposite of that.

31. Why did Darwin admit that how the eye formed is impossible? I’m unfamiliar with that but Carl Sagan did a great job of explaining the evolution of the eye.

32. Where did everything come from if there is no God? Not sure but that’s a more honest answer than “god did it”

33. If there is no God, then why do we have laws that govern us, such as speed limits? Mainly to keep us safe from each other. I’m kind of a libritatan. Your rights end where mine begin. 

34. Do you know where you are going when you die? In the ground. 

35. Why do we not act like monkeys if it is true we came from monkeys? We actually act a lot like monkeys but we evolved differently so we just look better doing it. 

36. Why do we display The Ten Commandments in the courtrooms if you say the Bible is not real? We shouldn’t. There is the first amendment that is supposed to stop these things from happening and many organizations around to help as well. 

37. Why should be it wrong to rape if God is not real? Consent 

38. Why is The Passion of The Christ very high on the Box Office? People like torture porn. Same reason there are so many Saw movies. 

39. How can America not be a Christian nation if there are way more churches than mosques? So what happens when there are more mosques than churches, does that make us an Islamic nation?

40. How is the bible not real if it’s the most popular book read by man? By that logic there must be a wizard named Harry Potter somewhere in London right now…

41. How did the moon form? I haven’t looked into it. 

42. Did you know that famous scientists like Newton, Sir Richard Owen, Einstein, Galileo, and Copernicus were creationists? I’d like to see the sources on these. But if they were I’d be willing to bet it was more to cohesion than genuine belief. 

43. Why do we not see black people come from white people? What?

44. Why are fruitflies still fruitflies in the lab experiments if they are claimed to prove evolution? I think I know what your talking about here but I’m gonna have to guess as you didn’t leave much information as to what your talking about. I believe you’re talking about speciation which is essentially when different groups of the same animal can no longer mate and produce viable offspring. Well that’s was evolution is. It may still be a fruitfly but it’s a new species of fruitfly. 

45. Did you know that the Piltdown Man was a hoax used for Darwinist propaganda? Yup

46. Why do we not see frogs turn into birds? THATS NOW HOW EVOLUTION WORKS!!!!

47. Why is Fox News dishonest if it is a network run by truthful Christians? No Christian has ever lied… /sarcasm

48. Why did Hitler fail to make a superior race if evolution is true? Ah the good old Hitler troupe. Not even gonna aknowladge that one. 

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Deeper Story Pt. 2

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If you haven’t read it yet here’s Part 1.

I still remember my dad “asking” my brother and me if we wanted to check out his girlfriend’s church.  Whenever he asked us a question like this it was never really meant to be evaluated by us.  We knew what the answer was to be, yes.  But even so I was kind of excited to check it out.  They told me it would be different than the church I used to go to, so I figured it couldn’t be any worse.  I did however find it a little odd that someone would go to church every single week…why?

So Sunday rolls around and we all pack in the car and drive the  half hour to a pizza place…wait what? Dad parked the car…on the street and I’m thinking to myself, “so this church is in a pizza place and doesn’t have a parking this is a joke right?”  As it turns out that the church was ABOVE the pizza place…still weird.  We got to the top of the stairs and looked around.  This was indeed very different from the Catholic church I had attended twice a year before.  There were no pews, just rows of what looked like fairly comfortable chairs.  The room was much smaller than I thought it would be.  The rooms was the size of  a gas station mini-mart instead of the size of a small mall.

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The big thing that was different, and the thing that got me hooked, was that there was a band.  Not like a group of people and an organ but like a real band.  Electric guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, a real real band.  I wouldn’t have thought that a church had something so cool!  We grabbed our little programs and my future stepmother and current father were chatting with friends as I stood there awkwardly.  We eventually took our seats and the music started.  As engaged as I was with the idea of it the actual production of it drew me in closer.

The words we on an overhead projector so it was easy to follow along.  I decided at that moment that, that was something I wanted to do.  I wanted to be someone on that stage playing and singing.  I didn’t know how to play anything other than the recorder I learned in second grade.  Nor could I sing…like at all…it was bad.  But I knew that’s what I wanted more than anything else (in my pre-teen mind).

That’s how I got hooked.  Next week I’ll talk about where that lead me.

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Thoughts

Saturday shorts – Trolls

No not the internet ones the DreamWorks movie. So there is a line in that movie that the antagonist says “There’s only one way to be happy. MY WAY!” I reminds me of the christian god. The only way to have eternal happiness is to listen to every word he has to say.  The alternative is eternal suffering.  

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Definitions

Definition Friday!

cognitive-dissonance

Today’s phrase is cognitive dissonance. Dictionary definition: the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

This has a very specific significance to me.  After I started questioning everything I was fought to hold on what I was taught to believe and the world that I actually observed.  I leaned a lot of personal anecdotal evidence to cling to my religion. Looking back all of those had perfectly natural explainations but I didn’t want to give it up. 

For me this came to a head during my wife’s second miscarriage. I tried to stuff it all down. All the conflicting views I held. The biggest being that god loves me and wants the best for me. At the same time hurting me so much. Also “all life is precious” while simultaneously taking this unborn life I already loved away before I had a chance to meet it. 

I hurt. I was confused but still played the “good christian” leading the worship service and hating good with every fiber of my being. I didn’t tell anyone about this and figured it was just a problem with my faith that I needed to sort out. I later found out this wasn’t just a me thing that didn’t effect anyone else.

Later on, after I told my wife about my atheism and how I came to this new conclusion, she told me how angry she was with me. Not that I didn’t believe anymore but that I didn’t tell her about my doubts as they came up. She had been feeling the same way too but didn’t think she could lean on me because she thought I thought god was infallible and couldn’t be questioned. 

My cognitive dissonance wasn’t just something that was in my own head, it was actively hurting the ones I love. 

I’m sorry doesn’t begin to cut it but it’s all I can offer. I denied my own thoughts to hold on to bronze aged fairy tales. I may seem cynical about the who thing but after hearing that from the person I promised to spend the rest of my life with I think I have good reason to be.