Faith Vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible (A Book Review, sort of)

Well, Fuck.

Just when I thought I was wrapping up my anti-theist (or as they often say "militant atheist") blogging days I had to go and read Jerry Coyne's new book. He's officially part of the "New Atheist" clan now, joining the "four horseman" (Dennett, Harris, (the late) Hitchens, and Dawkins). I read Coyne's other book "Why Evolution Is True" years ago and had always respected him as a renown geneticist and evolutionary biologist. This book was such a fun read and really fans the flames of this historically long debate between religion and science. All the years I've discussed and debated with theists friends via email and social media are reflected in the pages of this book. If I was a Christian curious about atheism and read this book I would become an atheist more than any other "pro-atheist" book out there. I went through an extremely long back and forth discussion with a New Christian friend of mine via email for about a year discussing many of these topics. Almost everything we brought up and argued about is addressed in here and Jerry knocks each point out of the park. 

In the end he summarizes the real dangers of religion besides the obvious issues in the Middle East. He mentions child abuse (denying children medical treatment due to religious affiliations), the suppression of research and vaccination due to religious affiliations, opposition to assisted dying (which I still don't understand - let's see, my religious relative is in pain and I want them to suffer here on Earth as long as possible and also withhold the speed at which they will be at peace with their creator. Makes sense. Not cruel at all.), global warming denialism and so on. 

I read Kenneth Miller's book called Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution. Initially started this book as another book discussion with my New Christian friend who didn't think common descent was true and dismissed human evolution. My goal was to get this friend to see accepting evolution doesn't necessarily mean you need to become an atheist. This of course is true but Coyne addresses the folly of theistic evolution. It's simple really. Teleology is not science - period. What is theistic evolution? evolution with a purpose. This is a useless hypothesis to a scientist. There's no getting around this fact. It's just political. It's simply just good PR to not step on anyone's toes for fear of offending the sensitive religious community.

It's also a special pleading fallacy - for the theistic evolutionist- they take credit for the beauty of design and "irreducible complexity" (which has been debunked by the way) of organisms and the amazing wonders of the human eye - attribute it all to the glory of God. However, when it comes to evolutionary suffering and mass extinctions (99% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct) that is NOT attributed to the glory of God but to "the fall of man". The fall of one single species of animal. - us.

Of course explaining the past evolutionary suffering of most species (99%) going extinct due to "the fall" of man before Homo sapiens even existed is a tad problematic. Truly if you ask a New Christian why so much suffering and waste and extinction or really anything in the world that causes pain and seems to fly in the face of a moral, just, loving god they will 99.9% of the time attribute this to "the fall of man". You see, sin is like a virus infecting not just "Adam and Eve" (the first two humans that according to genetics didn't actually exist. This is also explained in great detail in this book) but all of their descendents and of course all other poor animals that had no say in the matter.

Or to quote Jerry Coyne on this point,

The flavor of special pleading is strong here, for surely God, were he really omnipotent, could have designed a world whose physical fabric lacked floods, drought, and evolutionary suffering. And, of course, if God gets the credit for the adaptive mutations that led to humans, why is he exculpated for the maladaptive ones, like mutations that cause cancers, genetic diseases, and deformed children? If mutation were a process designed by God, there's no reason why the vast majority of mutations should be harmful - though that's exactly what you'd expect if the process were purely a naturalistic one involving random errors.

Coyne tackles all aspects of religion - it's self-proclaimed superiority in all things "moral". Of course this is a mere walk in the park to debunk by simply quoting immoral passages in the Bible. Putting that aside, what I've heard from the New Christians is at worst atheists are simply "borrowing" from the religious ancient moral foundations (well some of them not others obviously or we'd be stoning people and bashing babies into rocks) to create their moral landscape (to borrow a phrase from Sam Harris). I disagree of course because our morals actually were derived over time by naturalistic means through our evolutionary past and evolve with differing cultures. Even if this claim by the New Christians were true - I would simply answer to that. OK. So what? Thanks. we'll take those and we all have the same moral values now.. asking them to then explain how/why the religious win the morality debate. I don't get it. Why again does religion take credit for morality again?

There was another passage in this book I found interesting...

The fine-tuning argument for God gets even weaker because it includes the proviso "life as we know it" - that is, carbon-based life. But creatures sentient enough to perceive and worship God need not be the kind we know and love: our imaginations are limited by the life with which we're familiar. There could, for instance, be life based on silicon instead of carbon, life that could live at higher or lower gravity, or life that could have come into being instantly, rather than having evolved. After all, the Abrahamic God is omnipotent and so could fine-tune for whatever universe he created, rather than fine-tune the universe for life.

Indeed, why should life be based on matter at all? To many people, God is a humanlike spirit, one with feelings and some sort of consciousness. Couldn't he create a race of similar immaterial but whorshipful beings: bodiless minds that lack his powers? After all, any being with the power to determine physical constants could create any conceivable form of life, and God already is said to create souls, which are in effect bodiless minds. Why not just have a conclave of souls instead of material beings on Earth? The problem is that we simply don't know what forms of humanoid life - and here I mean "sentient, rational beings made in God's image" - are possible. Nor can theists explain WHY souls MUST have bodies."

Something to chew on for the religious.

It makes me wonder why God put souls of humanoids through the grinder of the physical world in the first place, having physical bodies then having to send his son / himself to the physical realm to be an ape to die for this species of apes for rules he logically shouldn't even have to follow in the first place. Stop to soak that in.

The idea that an all powerful being has "rules" he must follow is nonsensical. An all-powerful, Uncaused Cause, Mind that created this universe is mandated to accept blood sacrifice rules should set off mild skepticism in most people's brains. The spell of religion is strong in many people but just stop to think about this... Who is enforcing these rules?! You know how when a New or Old Christian argues for irreducible complexity all you simply have to do is say if complexity is a requirement of design then by definition God must be designed by a more complex entity? "Who created God?" you have probably often asked a New Christian and they of course say - no one! God is where it ends.. Though it seems we're seeing some "data" piling up here against this response. It seems maybe God does have a God who's rules he must follow - like the rule of atonement.

If God set up the "blood rules" (who else did unless my God's God hypothesis has merit) that due to the "fall of mankind" (his most beloved species, created in his image - remember God is a man with a penis) a perfect "sinless" being (his son/himself) must be killed then resurrected to make amends it raises the question "to who?" To who is God making amends to? Who set up these rules that even God must follow? I think quantum mechanics is less complicated than theology. It certainly makes more sense and I don't understand anything about quantum mechanics.

Often from a few of my New Christian friends I've heard that science has no philosophical basis or that "you can't use science itself to show that science is the best way - or even the only way - to discover truths about the universe."

Jerry responds,

Let's start with the last view, one often raised by philosophers (the argument is called "justificationism")... It sounds quite sophisticated, and in fact it's technically correct: science cannot justify by "reason alone" that it's the surest route to truth. How can you prove from philosophy and logic alone that scientific investigation, rather than, say, revelation, is the best way to determine the sequence of a newly discovered gene? There's no a priori philosophical justification for using science to understand the universe. 

But we don't need one. My response to the "no justification" claim is that the superiority of science at finding objective truth comes not form philosophy but form "experience". Science gives predictions that work. Everything we know about biology, the cosmos, physics, and chemistry has come through science - not revelation, the arts, or any other "way of knowing". And the practical applications of science, channeled into engineering and medicine, are legion.

In the end, it may smack of circularity to use empirical results to justify the use of the empirical toolkit we call "science", but I'll pay attention to the circularity argument when someone comes up with a better way to understand nature. Science's results alone justify its usefulness, for it is, hands down, the single best way we've devised to understand the universe.

Many of you reading this have moved beyond such childish things as religion. Many of you, if religious at all are probably more deistic or Unitarian-like. If nothing else you may be someone who doesn't even think or care to think much about these ideas, often called "apatheists". However, I urge you to read Coyne's book, it should dispel any delusion that religion (and Coyne specifically defines this term right off the bat in the book) and science (again defined in book) are compatible. They are not. Never were or will be. 

Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.  - James 5:13-15

In the last part of the book Jerry talks about faith as a substitute for medicine.

It's not just the parents who are at fault. Religious exemptions are written into law by the federal and state governments - that is, those who represent all Americans. In fact, thirty-eight of the fifty states have religious exemptions for child abuse and neglect in their civil codes, fifteen states have such exemptions for misdemeanors, seventeen for felony crimes against children, and five (Idaho, Iowa, Ohio, West Virginia, and Arkansas) have exemptions for manslaughter, murder, or capital murder. Altogether, forty-three of the fifty states confer some type of civil or criminal immunity on parents who injure their children by withholding medical care on religious grounds.

This got me thinking... find yourself a die-hard fundamentalist Christian American - You could find a Ray Comfort/Ken Hovind type of believer and ask them first where they stand on this new debacle of the religious rights of Christan (obviously not other religions) business owners to refuse service to homosexuals. You'll more than likely see they side with the Christian business owner to support their notion of religious freedom in this country. Now see how far they take this "religious freedom". Do they accept religious freedom or exemption on religious basis for vaccinations or withholding care by Christian parents from their sick or dying children? Does the state not have the right to step in seeing as to most of us this is child abuse?  
 
You may see there could be a few caveats to their thoughts on religious freedoms. 1. of course, "religious freedom" often only applies to Christians - not Satanists or especially Muslims (eww). and 2. It doesn't apply when letting a child die. Or does it? Maybe they do go as far a the Jehovah Witness or Christian Science devotees. You guild these religious people trapping them right into a corner created by their nonsensical religious moral dogmas. Hopefully they can see what's happening here - you are a moral person - DESPITE your belief in your chosen religious dogma.

I think this book is very important. Of course Richard Dawkins' atheist manifesto book "The God Delusion" was a huge de-converting tool for many of the young religious. I was already an atheist when I read that book but it certainly informed me on a few aspects to the "god argument" I hadn't been exposed to. Since then the book has had a hefty handful of counter-books by religious authors. Most criticisms of Dawkins and the "new atheists" as a whole, as Coyne points out at the beginning of this book, are that they simply beat up on the literalists and the extreme fundamentalists of each religion. Reza Aslan says the same thing about Islam as a Muslim apologists. Bill Maher and all the "new atheists" simply have a child-like, simplistic view of what religion is.

I couldn't disagree more. The world in which Reza Aslan paints is a world I would love to live in but sadly we're not quite there yet. The general whole of the religious are not like liberal theologians in each religion. Sorry. The fact is most people in this country think some really unfounded, debunked drivel often derived from their religion. Creationism (just google the percentage of American citizens that don't accept evolution), global warming denial, alternative medicine, astrology, new age woo and so on. There is a serious need for books like these from the "new atheists" because there is still such a large audience of brain-washed people still under the spell of religion - often since childhood. If any book could dissipate the spell of an entire lifetime of religious indoctrination I think this is one of them. 

"Anthropic Deep Time" or "Such Beautiful Buildings for a Celestial Dictator" (A Blog Short)

I live right down the road from a Catholic church. I often jog by it when I do laps around my block for exercise. The other day I stopped, pulled the headphones out of my ears and just stared at the artwork on the side of the building. Sweating, my heart pounding from running I felt a deep connection to that building. I had no idea why at the moment. I thought at the time it was due to my upbringing. I was brought up in a very religious home and there is often a sense of "home" or nostalgia I feel when I see a churches, attend church when I visit it my father, or hear an old hymn I remember from my childhood. I know, I know, the Christian would say that's God's way at pulling at my heart, but I am too much of a skeptic to accept such things now. The equation to something like that would look something like this: All things good in life = God/ All things bad = God works in mysterious ways or "the fall". My understanding of the world does not allow for such cognitive dissonance anymore with things like that, but what is it with these buildings that give me that connection, that emotion?

I have a hypothesis. That feeling, that emotion is "anthropic deep time". When we hear deep time it's relative to what we are talking about. When we think of deep time we think of the age of the cosmos or the Big Bang. We think of ancient rocks in Australia that formed 4.4 billion years ago as the Earth was forming. Think of the (dare I say?) "spiritual experience" you get when you go hiking in an old canyon (like Red Rock Canyon near me, for example). If you know some basics in geology you know that canyon and those rocks formed millions of years ago and once was an ancient ocean bed. Zero in on that feeling you get when you stare out at geologic deep history or hearing the poetic words of cosmologist Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson about the true deep history of our own body and what we are all made of (atoms that formed in the hearts of other stars).

We humans have our own "deep time". Think of how entrancing it is to stare at old photographs of our great grandparents. There is a magic that goes with looking into anthropic deep time. We listen with absolute attention as our grandparents or senior citizens tell us stories of how the world was when they lived what we read about in our history books. We relish in stories of our past. There's an entire channel on cable TV called the "history channel" (though the "history" part of their name is debatable). Think on how we revere the Native Americans. If you read any accurate historical books on Native American history you will read the horrific, immoral acts implemented by these various tribes. Our new "liberal" way of viewing Native Americans is often skewed the other direction. (Did I just parody Ann Coulter without thinking about it?!) Of course before this all white children were told in school was that the Native Americans were savages. As usual the truth is a mixed bag with nuances from both extremes not just one or the other, but the Native Americans were far from perfect and we almost deify them when we look back on their very foreign culture compared to ours today.

Religion (as a very humanistic expression in art) can fall under the "deep time" wonder we can experience. Hear me out: It's been around since pre-history for our species, and there is spotty evidence that maybe our fellow hominid species might have had a rudimentary religion as well; there really is "magic" in religion. And that sentence sounds odd coming from an atheist, but its true. Not the way the fundamentalist mean "magic" but we need to start taking some of these terms back, in my opinion. It's "magical" only if religion isn't used as "the way the cosmos and this Earth works". Daniel Dennett wrote about religion as a natural phenomenon in his book "Breaking the Spell". I recommend it. Many authors have given a long history of religion, quick to point out the wonderful things religion has given the human race. I know this sounds weird coming from me and trust me - I am on the anti-theist side of most things religious, but that is mostly because now when we weigh everything out there is more harm that comes with religion than good. We need more of the religious to treat their religion as a cultural phenomenon and not "take it so seriously". This is the way we make progress and get somewhere as a species. We reflect and even celebrate the art in religion, but let go of the useless dogma that does nothing to help society flourish.

I don't need to tell you that the most beautiful of religious buildings are mosques. If you want your breath taken away google image search mosques. I have a close Muslim friend that designed a local mosque. He is an architect and a really talented one. A year or so ago he showed me the blueprints to the mosque he was designing and it stunned me. It was gorgeous. The level of craftsman that goes into the buildings of the Muslim religion is unparalleled in my opinion. Mormons are most definitely up and coming in the craftsmanship of their temples, and of course Christianity has had some truly gorgeous buildings. Synagogs? Eh. Just kidding! Google image search: "most beautiful synagogues in the world" and hold on tight! Obviously the Christian artwork during the Renaissance was some of the best paintings ever painted and the sculptures are breath-taking. Go to any art museum and you'll know the true beauty of religion.

The key for the future in my opinion is to get people to treat religion like art or a game (like Dungeons and Dragons) not as something that makes "real" claims about the natural world and cosmos. We have to also be honest about the "holy texts" - it isn't all bad, it isn't all perfect and good, it's a mix bag again and they are books written by men. That is what we know for sure. We need to stop hanging our hat about how things operate with some "cosmic plan" or "universal purpose" when we have no such evidence. We can't just ground our lives in things with no evidence. Instead we must take what we know and be honest about it and go from there. I love the way many people I know are religious - it's OK. I don't want to yell at them for being crazy or whatever, I just want more people to be "culturally" religious. This desperately needs to happen in the Muslim world overall. Look at the polls, we need this for our species to thrive. We need more people understanding religion as art and culture and letting go of these "way the world works" unfounded concepts. When religion "makes theories" about the natural world this is where it hits a wall. This part of religion must have the heart ripped out of it so we can truly appreciate the beauty of religion and that is simply - anthropic deep time.

"Such Beautiful Buildings for a Celestial Dictator" - from a text from my friend Forrest who at some point will join me as "Gog" on this blog!

Just look at this mosque!:
http://blog.oliver-meili.name/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DSC_7818_stitch_2.jpg

and come on. the Old Christians make the best art:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/The_Sacrifice_of_Isaac_by_Caravaggio.jpg

Your Child's Religion of "Choice?"

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6 (Bible)

O you who believe! Ward off yourselves and your families against a Fire (Hell) whose fuel is men and stones, over which are (appointed) angels stern (and) severe, who disobey not, (from executing) the commands they receive from Allah, but do that which they are commanded. 
Tahrim 66:6 (Qur'an)

There are a lot of bizarre, quirky memories I have from my earliest conscious experience growing up (almost literally) in church. I remember the dogma vividly right now, things told to us as matter of fact from no one with any actual academic expertise in theology. None of my Sunday school teachers I had when I was in the first decade of my life had degrees in Bible scholarship or theological discourse. Most were very kind, well-meaning stay-at-home moms without a college education. "Facts" about world history (via Bible stories) were dogmatic and made real before our eager eyes on felt board. If you aren't familiar with flannel board click on the link at the end of this blog entry. 

My mother and father brought me in a fundamentalist evangelical Christian home. We went to church every single Sunday without exception, two times - morning and evening service, as well as choir practice before the evening service since both my parents sang in the choir. Every Wednesday night we would attend Bible study (basically another evening church service). Early on I recall my parents going to visitation (which was essentially going door to door sort of like Mormon or Jehovah Witness-style). My brother and I, all the way through high school, attended a Christian private school that was in the same building as the church we attended 2 days out of the week. So this is what I mean when I say I nearly literally grew up in church.

If you read my blog entries from a few years back titled "Into the Lion's Den: Notes On a Recent Trip" I explain the emotional connection I feel with that very building. When I go home I will often attend a church service in that same building with my dad and it's always a trip down memory lane to walk into the gym or my old Sunday school classrooms. There is a strange mix of emotions like nostalgia with a deep realization at how far I've come in my life. The little child intently listening to stories of Jonah and the whale or singing in unison about Jesus' love for little children seems like a whole other consciousness that I can barely relate to anymore. It's a weird thing to step back into rooms like that.

I have a few Christian friends now. And a handful of these friends grew up in the same church/school or just church. I see some of my Christian friends having children and recycling the same pattern I had growing up. These little children begin religious (Christian specifically) indoctrination at a very young age. This is just like my past. I started in the church nursery and ended with walking out of Bible college in my 20's to eventually completely stepping outside the bubble and breaking the spell religion had on me all of my life. 

It concerns me when I see documentaries like "Jesus Camp" or hear of my Christian friends indoctrinating their children with a specific myth they believe in like it is a fact of life. Of course we know it's not and of course we know this is how you spread the religious meme and let religion continue to evolve from one generation to the next. It's the way the old ideas continue to thrive. We see it in Middle Eastern countries with Islam all the time. It's the same here in the U.S. and I feel this must be addressed and ended.

¹³ And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
¹⁴ But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
¹⁵ Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
¹⁶ And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.
Mark 10:13-16 

We were taught growing up that there is a specific "age of reason" or "age of accountability" in every young child wherein they will finally understand that 1. they are a sinner (and grasp the story of "original sin") and 2. that God's son died in actual history for their sins then rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven where he is now, and 3. accept Jesus into their hearts to save them from their sins. Some of this is not difficult. At a very young age you can get a child to admit guilt in wrong doing, so the "sin" thing is easy. The complicated part is getting a small child to understand the very weird story of the cosmic blood rules of blood sacrifice. Even as a small child I remember finding it sort of gross and odd that a whole group of people killed innocent animals for God. I still ask this question - why again does the Perfect Almighty God of the universe need animal blood? Is he a vampire? When small children are easily questioning your religious dogma and you need apologetics to defend your faith against babies- that's when you know your religion might be bullshit.

I was saved first at the age of 5. This is something I barely remember the specifics of now. However, I do remember it wasn't based on the alternative of NOT believing - which was burning forever. THIS is the best way to get a small child to accept Jesus into their heart. At the age of five hell wasn't as clear to me, but obviously a savior is needed if all other options get you endless torture when you die. Once the full picture of a never-ending Lake of Fire came into part of the narrative as I grew older I asked Jesus into my heart just in case once again. This was around the age of 8 or 9. 

Call it "fire insurance". 

You just can't be too safe when it comes to burning forever. Then into junior high, in one of the Wednesday night AWANA services, I watched some of those apocalyptic "end times" rapture movies from the 1970's called "Thief in the Night" and a new fear was born!-- The fear of being "left behind" in a world with an evil fascist new world order (called UNITE in the film), losing my Christian parents and everyone I knew. I thought maybe -- just maybe, I would have to live in a Walking Dead-type world. I would have to fend for myself, on the run from this tyrannical evil world government. I was terrified of having these creepy men wearing brown hoods (like some evil monks that worshiped Satan) coming after me to kidnap me. So, I was saved again for fear of being "left behind". Triple saved (so you know it's good).

I don't blame my family for raising me in a world in which they thought was the correct view of reality. What's the point? They too have evolved in some ways to adapt to new information and their worldview in many ways has loosened a bit since I was a young child. Change can be good and I think overall we've all changed for the better. I do think it is essential for us to have this discussion and to express how we feel about child indoctrination to our New Christian friends as they continue the pattern. Some atheist call it child abuse. That's a strong word I suppose, but I can agree with it in some ways. It is certainly taking a human at it's earliest cognitive years (where impression is so vital, raw, and malleable) and filling those gaps in knowledge with a very specific worldview of reality that is based in zero evidence and magic.

That's the issue. 

What's the alternative then? Well, you could start by being honest. By honesty I don't mean preaching to your children what you know in your heart is the right faith. I mean real global, worldly, historical, philosophical honesty! If you don't know better than maybe educate yourself about other worldviews before bringing a conscious being into the world. One should present religion as it is to their child - a set of beliefs by some people and a natural phenomenon throughout human history. Explain that religions have their own rule books they consider are "words of god" but contain some good information on ethical and moral living and some immoral ideas. Children are not stupid. They can decide from there what to do with all this information. Promote freethinking in the young. Explain to them that caging ideas and thoughts (which is what religion is at its worst) is the enemy. Think of this as promoting liberty for their young minds and raising up a child in truth and reality.

Felt board for Sunday school class:
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Deluxe-Flannel-Board-English/dp/B000TMB6MK

Salvation for Kids (YAY!)
http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-f005.html

Salvation Quantified.

Dear human,

Did you know that before you were saved by grace by the Son of God himself people once had to sacrifice other species of animals to atone for their sins? Did you know these animals had to be perfect, with no blemishes? It's not easy to find an animal like a lamb or goat that had no imperfections. You see we all have sinned, or so we've been told by our fathers and their fathers and their fathers before there were cars and smart phones and twitter.

The Great Mind "before" the cosmos, behind the curtain of all things known or unknown, the Omniscient, Omnipresent, The Beginning and the End... the Alpha and Omega who created every molecule, every quantum soup, every wave, every particle, every human laugh, every sunset, every swirling galaxy, every point of light in space, all life on Earth,  every human mind and eye, every something over nothing ...

... really needed goat's blood at one point.

I know it seems barbaric and outdated. I know. I know... you may be reading that last part confused in an age of (let the understatement of the year begin...) taken-for-granted science with hyper-advances in communication and innovation, when technology is growing before your very eyes exponentially. Information is getting to sources as like never before. It has been said the internet is where religion goes to die. This is happening.

I'm not done.

Dear human,

Did you know that this Uncaused Cause. This Prime Mover. The Creator of all. Almighty God or I Am that I Am had a son that is also himself? Did you know, dear human that all that you know, everything you can ever imagine is known by this perfect God/Son? He created everything, giving us the story in his divinely inspired words penned by mere men, .. manly godly men, scribes of old that made some serious copying mistakes, but be encouraged because basically this perfect Deity (God and Son) got his points across (sort of).

Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord sent his perfect Son. The good news is coming... Be of good cheer! He sent his Son/(himself) to die for you for everything you ever did that was wrong, for "original sin". Let me tell you about original sin. It began when the first representative hominid of our species ate a forbidden magic fruit from a tree that would give him the knowledge of morality that only God/and His Son possessed. This is in the first book of God's Word. Did you know that this first book, Genesis is Hebraic poetry so either way you know that whether metaphor or realty it's ultimately about magic. Because of this original sin God/(himself) sent his perfect Son/(himself) to appease himself(his Son) for the earliest known homo sapien representative eating that magic fruit (poetically).

this is the complexity of the gospel. Here's the simplicity of the gospel:

Jesus (the Son of God/the Father) was made by himself/(His Father) to become God in ape (homo sapien) flesh. The Lord came down to Earth and was sacrificed like all those animals mentioned before, without blemish, to satisfy himself/(His Father) for the cosmic rule of the blood of things. The Romans nailed poor Jesus to a cross (a torture device) and the weight of the world's sin was put on his poor body (the human part that could feel pain). Poor Jesus (the human part of him) was heavy with the sin of all humanity. Poor Jesus shed his righteous blood, the ultimate atonement, (better than all the goat's blood put together).

The good news is Jesus did all of this for you. He did all this for every human that will ever live. If only we believe in him and accept him into our hearts we will be forever spared from the flames of hell. Oh, right.. hell .. I should mention that. So the Unmoved Mover, the Prime Primer, the Ultimate Champion created a place of forever flame. Think the worst parts of the holocaust but with it lasting forever. This is your introduction to Hell. If you deny Christ you will be sent here when you die. You rejected the gospel. The skepticism, the doubt won and you fell for the fallen angel - Lucifer (the snake I failed to mention in that human origins story of magical fruits and "first humans" that tempted Eve) It's all poetry though.. It's probably over your head. Anyways, what I failed to mention is that that human part of you (that part of you that feels pain - those nerves) THAT survives into the afterlife with you in Hell. So you will burn forever, basically if you reject this story.

You may be a skeptic (sinner), you may be a Christian reading this (sinner saved by *see above). Either way you may be asking what happened after Jesus (Father/Son) died?! I mean a God/Son/Himself cannot just die and save all humanity according to the blood rules. You would be right to ask that. Here's the thing... you HAVE to rise from the dead if you are a perfect Unmoved Mover, Cosmic Creator-Mind, I Am to or else come on.. you're just another guy saying shit without backing it up. So in 3 days Jesus rose from the dead (conquering death btw) and yada yada yada ... talking to people .. then going up to heaven (where the element Au - Gold exists in street form) to sit on the right hand side of God/Himself. (in reality, hang on.. doing the math.. he hasn't left the Milky Way galaxy)

What happened though in those three days with humanity's salvation? Think about this. My friend recently wrote me regarding this very detail - Do you ever wonder about exactly when people became accountable to the gospel? . I think we should really look into the math here. Jesus died (the human part) on day 1 we can assume safely I suppose. Though a death on day 2 would be something to delve into theologically. Day 1 - Day 4 there is zero accountability (the old blood law with unblemished lambs, goats etc has ended and the new blood law has not yet begun since Jesus has not yet arisen). When Jesus finally rises on day 4 where is the accountability still? It's in limbo state because Jesus hasn't even begun talking to his disciples to get the ball rolling with the gospel. So... there surely was someone in the human race who was around and died in this time frame - what of their restless souls? Do the math.. they are the remainder. Christianity's error bar I suppose.

Keep in focus Hell. A very REAL supernatural place with a chemical combustion and gnashing of enamel. From day 2 of the Son of God/Himself death to the decades it took for the gospel to spread is a real black hole of "where the fuck did my soul go?!?!"

Dear human,

I know you know this is all ridiculous baggage from past uncultured culture.

Dear human,

I know you know that these things can weigh on your brain and your emotions and your very core. I know you were taught these things in this slice of your existence- the size of nothing in a cosmos of everything. Maybe you were never indoctrinated with these mythical stories presented as truth growing up, but you came into the "good news" of the gospel when things around you .... well, were utter shit. Or your heart was "tugged" in a youth camp or someone showed you unwarranted kindness that explained reasons for said kindness as their Savior, Jesus' goodness. I understand tapping into the empathy, the hope, the love, Awe, the sheer emotion and elation. It can still happen with human contact. THIS is the key. We are the very answers we've been waiting for. We are growing into ourselves and growing into our own minds. Evolution take time for apes with large brains. There is no Uncaused Prime Mover, Creator, Lord, Allah, Yahweh, I AM, Jehovah, Son/God/Ghost. There is only us (for what we know for now). You are conscious. You are human and you are not alone. Find us.. we are many.

Jesus: The Original Ant Man. (A Blog Short)

<sup>Matthew 14: 22-33

22</sup> Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
²⁹ “Come,” he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat 
worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

As many of you know I don't believe in God, his son, miracles, or ghosts so this story loses all power from when I was a child and believed it to be a true historical account. Plus it loses all power when I've seen a man walk on the moon in my lifetime (at least on TV). As mentioned before one of the funnest thing in the world to do is to try to scientifically understand what is going on with all these miracles in the Bible. The all-powerful, all-knowing Mind behind the cosmos who actually created the law of surface tension would obviously be using this law of nature when himself/his son walked on water as told in this story. 

Oh, just to clarify, for those believers that could be reading this right now (doubtfully but hopefully) if you are thinking - God is the author of the natural world thus he can on the spot change, bend, recreate laws of natural at his will during these miracles... to this I would offer a few more thoughts: if there was a scientist at the time that could physically study the mechanics of "what was going on" when Jesus walked on water then THAT would be a new constructable framework for a scientific understanding of what is happening in nature at that moment. So, I will let you use the "God is the author of all nature thus does with it what he wills" idea you may be clinging too - but I get to call it what it actually is - MAGIC. If you are an adult reading this and use that idea - you believe in magic. OK. you better own that shit. Now, don't you shy away from "magic-talk" because it sounds childish!

I have another hypothesis. I haven't explored to see if anyone has ever written about this, nor have I even really thought this through before spewing out this silly blog, but who's to say Jesus didn't become the original Ant Man when he walked on water? Nice try Paul Rudd, you are too late! God/Jesus is all powerful after all, could he not have shrunk down to the size of a water-walking bug (or sometimes called "water striders")? Once down to this size he could have easily walked on water with ease using natural surface tension of water laws. This would be a greater miracle than just walking on water wouldn't it?- (since no skeptic was there to verify if he really didn't have something just below the surface. Remember and repeat often a good rule of thumb: Extraordinary claims = Extraordinary evidence.)

Ah, you might come back at my crazy hypothesis - No Magog, the disciples saw him walking on water from very far away! However, let me get my Christian apologetics chops wet here! Look, in the account of the miracle in Matthew it's simply just saying that the disciples saw him .. nothing about seeing him from far away. They don't mention his tiny size and how many things does the Bible leave out that would be rather important or helpful for us to know in 2015! So much, right? They think it's a ghost in Matthews account. I guess technically they were right, but more accurately put it was a Father/Son/HolyGHOST walking on water that night! But who says ghosts can't be the size of small water spiders?! We have yet to construct a working scientific theoretical framework for ghostology yet. OK you might say - what about Jesus reaching out his hand to catch Peter?! Well, clearly this is the time in which Jesus turns to normal size. Duh.

Maybe this is a stretch, but if a donkey and snake can talk a full sized man can live inside of a whale for a few days and survive I think it's a pretty valid hypothesis. Who wants to join me in my quest to understand the tiny ghost/father-god-lamb-son-Mind? Any takers? Also, remember according to these accounts what do we see is the lesson - never DOUBT! Skepticism is the enemy of all constructed philosophies or religions without evidence to support them. Let that shit go.

Marvel's Ant Man Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdKf3MneyI

Water Strider Bugs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerridae

How Cosmology Can Fill That "God"-Shaped Hole In Your Heart

 
I was driving to the university I attend today when a particular song came on through my CD player. It's called "Let It Carry You" by Jose Gonzalez off of his newest album called "Vestiges and Claws". These lyrics hit me as the vocals and music climaxed during them:

Let it carry you away and dissolve into the foam... of things near of things gone... to remind our restless souls of the beauty of being here at all.

After this beautiful song ended I quickly found on YouTube the Richard Dawkins video titled "We Are Going To Die" and seamlessly added to my "spiritual" moment of elation I was experiencing.

I had all the characteristics of a "spiritual" experience (chills, hairs standing on end, overjoyed, awe, wonder, rapture, heightened emotional connection, transcendence- an almost out-of-body floating experience). Do I believe in spirits if we are using the term to mean "supernatural beings"? .. Nope. Do I like to use the word "spiritual" or "soul"? .. not really because of all the religious baggage but i have no problem doing it with a disclaimer of course. Does it take away from my elevated "spiritual" experience to not believe in the supernatural realm or in a god? Nope.

Once Christopher Hitchens offered up a challenge to anyone in the audience at many of his debates. He said, "I challenge you to find one good or noble thing which cannot be accomplished without religion." There is nothing the religious have that we don't. Nothing is off limits to the atheist - EVEN SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE! - as demonstrated by my account above. You could line up my experience with a religious experience many people have had in church (in fact religious experience I even had in my past when I was a Christian) and physiological effects would be mirror images of each other. I wrote a blog a few years back called "The Spirit Among Us All" comparing elation at sporting events to charismatic worship services in churches. These experience are identical if you merely drop out the context.

There is a completely valid argument that could be made that Christianity or any religion offers us nothing original. We don't need their moral laws (despite what we've heard by some New Christians recently that atheist's "feet are planted firmly in mid air" when it comes to a basis for our morality). This is an easy argument to eviscerate from multiple angles. Don't even stress, friends. Of course I would suggest firstly and correctly the God I read about in the Old Testament is immoral. One merely need eyes to read for this conclusion. You've heard it all before - slavery, genocide, homophobia, bigotry, sexism, racist, etc. My morals (baseless apparently as they are) are far more superior than that of the god of the Old Testament. I would even point out that many of the New Christians have a much higher morality themselves (even with all their awkward anti-gay talk while still trying to love their gay neighbors - comical to watch in real time by the way) than the God of the Old Testament.

So, that's one thing - this old theological argument handled without much brain power at all. The other angle is that this quest of definitive objectivity is a red herring. There is no reason for us to think that complete objectivity is even possible. In Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?" he writes, "It may be more accurate to think of objectivity as a direction in which the understanding can travel." New Christians seem to always require definitive end points with absolutes. One major problem as pointed out in Nagel's essay- many beings here on Earth have subjective conscious experiences observing the universe. New Christians love to use god as "the get out of philosophical arguments for free" card all of the time in these debates. Theology is really just bad/lazy philosophy, isn't it? What's the answer to morality? God. What's the answer to the beginning of the universe? - God. What's the answer to free will? - God. (I'm still a little confused on how this makes sense- adding another agent to understanding"free will" seems to needlessly complicate things and go against free will doesn't it?). What's the meaning of life? - God. What's evolution by natural selection really? - God's way of changing life over time. and so on and so on. Science is just a tool to explain all of god's creation. What a terribly sad way to view scientific inquiry. It sucks the awe, wonder, and most importantly MYSTERY right out of doing science!

In reality, Good Philosophy saved our "souls". Science saved our "souls". (*See below my brief thoughts and links on what I mean when I use soul-talk.) We have reasons to be filled with joy every day of our lives. Listen to the Dawkins' speech to get a better reason why than I can type in that last sentence. Reality, consciousness, this cosmos, our planet, life is spell-bounding in it's stark beauty and the cosmos is also spell-bounding in its nightmarish destruction and utter disregard to human life (and clearly other animal life too when 99% of all species that have ever existed have went extinct). Rearrange the way you view the world and it will open your eyes to all kinds of wonderful things. It is heartbreaking to realize many New Christians are still wandering around inside the bubble under the spell of religion. They comment on this piece of reality (through the lens of "the gospel") or they observe that piece of reality (through the lens of the God of the Bible). They cannot be free from it. We've all heard the faithful Christians say (and I did as well when I was one) they have been "set free" when they accepted Jesus in their heart but how is one free when it's mandatory to be a "slave to Christ"? Even in Romans 6:18 (NIV) it says "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."No, being a slave to anything does not equal freedom. True freedom comes from freedom of the mind (letting go of ALL dogma/rules in ancient books). Atheists are free in this regard.

I have never felt more free than I have as an atheist. It's really true, because I feel like I've graduated to a newer level (a more educated level) of my picture of the cosmos. This picture of the universe is coming at me via raw information and what I can conclude through my subjective conscious experience about the cosmos I'm encased in as it is encased in me (via the molecules that make up my body). Cosmology can fill that "god"-shaped hole the shitty Christian rock band Audio Adrenaline sung about years ago. Carl Sagan is akin to a priest to us secularists. The priest of cosmology, if there ever was such a thing. He had this amazing way of connecting that awe and wonder based in emotion to the tediousness and dryness of science and mathematics. We have Neil deGrasse Tyson now filling Sagan's shoes quite well, though he will never be Carl. We miss Carl deeply. He was a great science communicator and knew how to make science poetic. Richard Dawkins is also a beautiful science writer. Rewatch Sagan's Pale Blue Dot again on YouTube. It's one of the most profound powerful poetic things I've ever heard as a human being. We are unbelievably lucky to be alive today. And you are all so unbelievably lucky to have reached the end of this amazing blog post.

Jose Gonzalez "Let It Carry You":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV0fnQCdXmk

Richard Dawkins: "We Are Going to Die":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOXMjCnKwb4

*I mentioned "the soul" as part of a lyric of a Jose Gonzalez song... As you can imagine I don't believe in souls as in the soul (ghost organ) many religious believe in. I am pretty confident that neither does Jose Gonzalez. His lyrics are pro-reason over superstition and religion. Can we that don't believe in souls use soul-talk? Yes. Here's how:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuwEJhrliGU

Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like To Be a Bat":
http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf

My blog "The Spirit Among Us All":
http://godsaiditibelieveitthatsettlesit.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-spirit-among-us-all.html

Audio Adrenaline's "God-Shaped Hole" (WARNING: This is a terrible fucking song)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzCvkFwRfvE

Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PN5JJDh78I

Science Saved My Soul:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk

I Don't Believe in Hell and You Don't Either, My Christian Friends!

One of the more obvious observations to make about the New Christians is their cognitive dissonance with this idea of hell. Of course the Bible is such a pieced-together, contradictory, non-unifying book taken to fit the context of whoever decides to use it to their advantage. We would expect with this book to get a million different narratives. We have the doctrine of hell and I recall hell very much growing up. As I've mentioned before, as a child I watched in church-related activities horror films of the "End Times" and heard countless sermons on the burning flesh and gnashing of teeth that is synonymous with hell as a destination for those that are not "saved". The terror one can feel as a child with these baseless threats can be traumatizing. Maybe the New Christians realize this and that's why their sermons don't have quite that same "fear-based" punch to the child-gut they used to.

Many New Christians feel the need to bend and stretch their worldviews to fit with a more progress (frankly healthier) modern society we are so lucky enough to live in. This is a good thing but many of the fundamentalist within Christianity despise the "watering down" of fear-based sermons or softening on stances like homosexual rights. I stand with the New Christians that ignore verses in the Bible that seem obvious to most fundamentalists or Biblical literalists that promote bigotry, homophobia, sexism, racism, and fear. We want a better society as a whole and the best way to do that is to reform religions and make them more secular and cultural rather than dogmatic. Religions of the future will hopefully resemble something more evolved, better adapted for a healthy society overall and not just blind adherence to a Bronze Age rulebook.

To date many of my New Christian friends (those that try to modernize that old-time religion for a younger generation, and research and vastly growing worldviews like atheism and agnosticism) have never approached me either via email, by phone, or in person about their concern of my eternal damnation in hell. Why? I have asked at least one of my New Christian friends. His answer was essentially - what's the point? I know all the usual Christian narratives that involve hell being for those that reject god and I don't accept that as true. My New Christian friend said he respected me enough to expect me to have my intellect (not just my heart - aka emotions) bring me to Christ once again.

I have another suggestion... My New Christian friends do not actually believe in a literal hell. God's so evasive you see, the God most of the New Christians argue for is a deistic god - a simple debate between the "god or no god" question, using various methods to try and prove that - to this date none are successful by the way, obviously you may have figured that out by now if you've been paying close enough attention. The distance on the bridge that would connect a deistic God or Godlike-notion to the God of the Bible or any other "holy" text is insurmountable. All one has to do is take a few hours reading the Bible or the Koran and seeing that THIS god is unbelievable and could not exist.

Take what that piece of shit Duck Dynasty guy Phil Robertson said recently about atheists. Fantasizing about raping, murdering, beheading, and dismembering an atheist in front of his atheist family. Someone that would do that to an atheist could on his death bed say that magical prayer that gets you into heaven (AKA accepting Jesus death and resurrection in your heart blah blah) and they would be forever spared from the lake of fire and be in the presence of the almighty, all-loving creator of the cosmos. At the same time the atheist that just had his penis severed off in front of his recently raped wife and children gets to then suffer some more in hell! Yay!... Oh and like forever too! Seems fair. Of course this absurd loophole is what you get when you try to square a circle logically with barbaric superstitious doctrines... but I've heard a few New Christians say that Sam Harris is the one that is being so laughably ridiculous when trying to give a scientific basis for morality!

Please. Look at your logically-contorted worldview first before nitpicking.

Don't get me started on peaceful, loving people like Gandhi burning in hell for picking the wrong god and/or religion.

So my dear New Christian friends - I offer that you do not actually believe in a hell. May I suggest a more watered-down easier liberal version of the doctrine of hell in your holy book... Maybe hell is a representation? (sort of like the genetically and biologically not possible "first two humans" Adam and Eve). Maybe hell could just represent a sort of nothingness like the Jehovah Witnesses think. Maybe they got that one right, no? Maybe hell is just NOT getting to go to heaven (which as Christopher Hitchens rightly points out sounds like a celestial North Korea which sounds fucking awful doesn't it?!).

New Christians, unlike the pastors and traveling evangelists that scared my delicate psyche growing up telling me stories of burning forever in a lake of fire I must reiterate that you do not actually believe in hell. I am a proud atheist and i know for sure you do not /actually/ believe I will spend eternity burning. Not just because many of the New Christians reading this are close friends and maybe even some family members that know overall I'm a decent guy that does his best to treat others fairly, love more than hate my fellow human being (otherwise known as humanism). No, it's not JUST because you feel it quite uncomfortable to tell someone you care about that he will writhe in pain from a burning sensation that will literally never end (apparently we have skin in the afterlife). It's because it's a clear example of your cognitive dissonance, it's a clear example of paying lip service only to the doctrine of hell in your antiquated superstition.

We can simply accept that this cosmos is all that there ever was, is, or could be as far as we know and the natural world has natural laws that govern the way it operates. Our species (or kind if you prefer ;) have figured out many of these natural laws, some we haven't yet I'm sure, but what you have to ask yourself is if you need to be intellectually immature and malformed or have a scientifically sound view of reality and this cosmos.

OK here's an atheist's altar call... Now bow your heads and close your eyes - Just kidding.. but you do have a choice right now.. not between heaven or hell or some false dichotomy between Jesus or nothing, but a real choice between REALITY or MAGIC. Do you want to accept that a supernatural Male Being (Father/Son/and Spirit all in one) decided to magically POOF our species into existence millions of years ago after dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 65 million years? Or do you want to accept the scientific fact that we like all other species of animals connected to the evolutionary tree of life are another species of animal.

You have got to let go of this "special creation" juvenile mental thought-turd. Maybe you are scared if you accept the fact of human evolution you will become a communist or that nihilism is all that there is in exchange. No! Please stop that! It's not true and it's certainly insulting to our intelligence because we are smart enough to differentiate between psychology, anthropology, and sociology with the evolutionary sciences and human biology. In 2015 in a technologically advanced, industrialized, free nation there is zero excuse for you siding with MAGIC over reality! We know magic isn't real. Teenagers and some children have figured this out already. Fairy tales die as one turns into an adult. Right? Well, they should and there is no excuse for grown men and women to think supernatural MAGIC is an actual answer to ANY QUESTION!!! Do yourself a favor and let go of this notion of mystical, magical afterlife destinations like heaven and hell and grow up enough to face the highly more accurate choice of "what it was like" before you were born is "what it is like" after you die. Just nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. Choose nothing because you choose to use your brain that NO god gave to you.