Published March 11th, 2010
You probably get too much hate mail to have time to read this, but I just wanted to let you know that this site is the only good-natured Atheist site I’ve ever seen. Thanks for showing that we’re not all dicks.
I’ve always got time to read friendly messages from readers!
I do get quite a lot of hate mail — so much so that I now only rarely post it because it all pretty much sounds the same. This is my busy season at work so I’m not posting much, but I promise that in a month or so I’ll get back to posting more “non-dick” atheism!
Category: Thanks | Tags: | Be the First to Comment »
Published February 11th, 2010
Cant you find anything better to do rather than sitting around on your computer running a website for people who propably dont have anything better to do anyways? Hopefully you all get help.
Cheers!
All offers of assistance are happily accepted, but I’m guessing that you propably dont have much to offer.
Category: Hate mail | Tags: | 1 Comment »
Published February 11th, 2010
You my friend are an idiot.
No one ever said anyone had to
be perfect, but if evolution is
so real… Why arent there people
who are still half monkeys walking
around, and where is the more advanced
creatures after us?
Reply back with some smart ass comment
all you want, I dont shove my religion down other peoples faces, and yet you seem to be providing people with some of the silliest things I have ever heard of. I am so sorry that you have been missinformed. Although it is not as
if everything I have said you havent already heard. I dont take pity on you, even though your stature is very pathetic.
Hope you find something to live for besides finding smart little come backs that sound like something from a twelve year old. Let Me geuss what your gonna say back.. So is you face?
Sounds like you completely misunderstood the site’s “Arguments Against” page. It’s really not intended to be taken seriously. Sadly, your writing makes it rather difficult for me to take you too seriously either.
For example — half monkeys? Actually, from the perspective of DNA, humans are more than half monkey. Perhaps you should learn a bit more about evolution before lobbing ridicule.
Category: Hate mail | Tags: | 1 Comment »
Published February 4th, 2010
I don’t usually link to items on other sites, but this vehemently anti-atheist letter to the editor (reported by the Friends of Irony blog) made me steamed — not just because of how awful it is, but because there are actually quite a few people who seem to feel this way.
Read the letter.
Update: A commenter helped us calm down a bit by revealing that the letter is a hoax. Which is a good thing. But there are two reasons I’m not completely placated: a) Although this letter is a hoax, I’ve seen many along the same lines (and heard people say such things in person), so it’s a little too real to be funny, and b) The Snopes page linked by in the comments mentions that the letter drew a lot of correspondence from the paper’s readers before the hoax was discovered, and I’m willing to bet that not all of that mail was against the letter’s contents (although I’d be very happy to be proven wrong on this).
Category: Anti-atheist | Tags: | 1 Comment »
Published February 3rd, 2010
From a comment on a post:
Well,what if God wanted to show his great power by letting evil exist? God, with infinite power, could destroy all the evil in the world but how much would that do for him. Wouldn’t there need to be a contrast from good to evil for either to be recognized? that’s how we can tell black from white, heat from cold, or light from darkness. If everything was one extreme we wouldn’t know there to be a difference.
In the article it also says something about God doing small things to not interfere with free will. God being the epitome of good does your life,or anybody else’s life, never have anything good in it have you heard every lie about you, lies going unheard, has a wanted man on the street never been recognized, has an assassination ever occurred that has eliminated a bad person? Ergo, i think he does do things like that…
For God not being infinitely loving. Is God not loving because he provided a way out of sin/evil through Jesus? is god not as loving to while in life the ability to go to him for protection? So, yes bad things happen but one he gives a way through it and two he allows an escape from it.
Yes, i am stating what i know from the Bible and logic. I am expecting you to say i got it from the Bible anyways and that the Bible can not be proven true or it’s wrong…etc. So your statements are wrong… I hope not. How many times has the Bible been proven true… Tell me when it hasn’t don’t tell me to say when it has. Stories of when it has been proven false are always more interesting. So my understanding is not on faith entirely it’s on the faith of the foundation of knowledge i have learned not anywhere close to the “you just gotta have faith” slogan…
You ask what destroying all the evil in the world would do for God. If God, being all good, considers his own benefit to be more important than eliminating evil where possible (as you seem to imply), then I need to hear more about what it means to say that God is “good.” In my mind, a good being does not allow evil to exist purely for reasons of self interest. It’s a bit rude of me to bring this up, but it sounds a little like you are arguing that God wants us to give us all Stockholm syndrome.
Your next point is that evil must exist so that we can recognize good. However, moral evil can exist as a concept whether or not it exists as a fact. For example, the concept of a global holocaust exists even though no such thing has ever occurred.
In terms of natural evils, you can certainly argue that great disasters help us appreciate God’s blessings. But if God is allowing or causing disasters to help glorify himself or highlight his goodness, then we once again need to talk about what “good” means.
Could it be that God does indeed do things that avert evils but do not interfere with free will? Sure. But if that’s the case, he’s missed some enormous opportunities.
You ask, “Is God not loving because he provided a way out of sin/evil through Jesus?” It sounds like you might have meant this sarcastically, but let’s take a look at it. If you’re a Protestant, then you believe that God created a system in which the only way people can avoid being eternally punished is by accepting as true something for which a great many people either haven’t heard of or cannot be convinced of because the evidence is so lacking. If you’re a Catholic, you don’t consider explicit belief in Jesus to be necessary, but think that people can avoid punishment by living a good life, in which case God could have set up the world so that salvation was possible through works without the whole resurrection business. In either case, “a way out through Jesus” sounds more like a hoop God wants people to jump through than either a logical necessity or something a loving creator would come up with.
Looking at it from another angle, I might argue that the possibility of salvation is irrelevant — God does not appear to be loving because he allows the possibility of eternal punishment in the first place.
You continue, saying, “So, yes bad things happen but one he gives a way through it and two he allows an escape from it.” At best, when really bad things happen, God allows a way through for the survivors. For those killed in a natural disaster or murdered by an evil person, it doesn’t sound like there’s much of an opportunity for escape.
I haven’t mentioned the Bible, so I think I’m avoiding dismissing you in the way you feared I would.
You ask where the Bible has been wrong. That’s a big topic, but in a nutshell it’s going to come down to what you mean when you say the Bible is true. It clearly isn’t literally correct (as the first chapter in Genesis demonstrates), and it’s not “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” as the varying descriptions of the same events in the Gospels show. Are you talking about prophecy? How about these:
- Isaiah 53:5 (NIV) reads: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Christians often cite this as a prophecy about Jesus that came true because Jesus was pierced on the cross. But at what point was he crushed? It looks to me like the first part of the text was picked as a prophecy because it “came true,” rather than because it was obviously a prophecy about Jesus, and the second part is not considered a prophecy because it didn’t come true. I think it is more reasonable to say that this is either a failed (or partially fulfilled) prophecy or not a prophecy at all. In either case, the Bible is either wrong or can be so loosely interpreted that you could find a way to argue that it was right even if it was wrong.
- According to Judaism, the messiah is supposed to establish a permanent temple in Jerusalem (Ezekiel 37:26-28), return all the Jews to Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6), create one world-spanning religion (Zechariah 14:9), and bring global peace (Isaiah 2:4). Most Christians I have spoken to about this say that Jesus is going to do those things when he comes back again. But isn’t it rather unfortunate that Jesus, if he was the messiah, didn’t do any of these huge things that were fairly clearly prophesied in scripture, but instead fulfilled dozens of small prophecies (such as riding into Jerusalem on two animals at once) that were “hidden” in the scriptures?
Category: Discussion | Tags: | 4 Comments »
Published February 1st, 2010
Tract #67, Can God Be Both Merciful and Just?, is ready for you to print and hand out. Download it, see page #3 for printing instructions, and let me know your comments! Thanks!
067_merciful-and-just.pdf
Can God Be Both Merciful and Just?
The Christian God is sometimes described as both infinitely merciful and infinitely just. But is it logically possible for one being to have both of these qualities?
Mercy means having pity or compassion for somebody in one’s power. It is typified by the judge who gives a man a lower sentence because the man’s crime was motivated by need instead of by greed. What, then, would infinite mercy be?
One could argue that infinite mercy would mean moving as far as possible in the direction of mercy — that is, always forgiving crimes. One could also argue that infinite mercy means having infinite compassion for the wrongdoer and acting accordingly. If the wrongdoer is truly unrepentant and had no excuse for committing a crime, an infinitely merciful being might still think punishment was in order.
But this runs into a problem when the infinitely merciful being is God. Because God has complete understanding of human frailties, it may be that there is no such thing as a sinful human who has no excuse for committing a crime. If we are all more or less flawed by nature, God’s infinite mercy might lead Him to forgive all sins.
But would this be just?
Justice is the administering of punishment that is appropriate for a crime. An infinitely just being would always assign appropriate punishment — no more, no less.
In the context of this discussion, justice gets us in trouble because there is no good, objective way to assign it. Is it just to let a murderer avoid jail because his violence is motivated by insanity? It might be. Is it just to punish someone eternally for disobeying the command of an infinite being? Perhaps.
Then again, perhaps not. There is no yard stick by which we can measure such things.
Christians sometimes argue that humanity is so sinful that everyone falls short of deserving to go to Heaven. Allowing humans an ultimate reward when they are “soiled” by sin would not be just, so God cannot allow it.
But because God is infinitely merciful, He sent a portion of Himself to Earth as a human to be killed, and this killing of an innocent divine being in human form became a sacrifice of such significance that it serves to justly offset the sins of anyone who accepts it. This allows both justice and mercy to be served.
Or so they say.
Is justice served if a father willingly goes to jail for the crimes of his child? Would a merciful judge allow such a sentence to be carried out? Can justice ever be served by the execution of an innocent? Is it just that those who believe in Jesus are not punished for their sins while those who have not heard of Jesus are eternally tormented? And why would an infinitely wise and loving God create a universe where something so bizarre had to be done to maintain balance?
As a moral atheist, I can appreciate the Christian desire to keep their philosophy consistent and find a solution the mercy vs. justice conflict. But, to me, it all sounds too contrived to make any sense.
Category: Defining god, Tract | Tags: | Be the First to Comment »
Published January 29th, 2010
Tract #66, Does Hell Make Sense?, is ready for you to print and hand out. Download it, see page #3 for printing instructions, and let me know your comments! Thanks!
066_problem-of-hell.pdf
Does Hell Make Sense?
Hell, in the traditional Christian sense, is a place of eternal torment where unrepentant and unredeemed sinners are punished until the end of time. Does a Hell of this kind make sense, given that it was supposedly created by an infinitely just and loving God?
The first thing we have to decide is what kind of crime is so severe that justice demands eternal punishment in payment. In those versions of Christianity that hold with this image of Hell, being born human and not accepting Jesus as your savior may be considered sufficient to earn you damnation. They might say that all the little sins over the course of one’s lifetime, particularly when added to the “original sin” of Adam and Eve, earn one an eternity of torment.
This essentially makes being tortured forever humanity’s default state, something you have to get out of instead of something that you are given as punishment for a specific act.
Others might say that the sin of rebelling against God — either by refusing to recognize him or breaking his laws — is such a large sin that eternal punishment is completely just. But isn’t the magnitude of a crime in part determined by how much damage it does or could do? And isn’t it true that a mere human could not possibly do any damage to this crime’s victim — God? That leaves us with eternal punishment for doing something that caused no damage. Not exactly just.
Perhaps sinful humanity is so dirty and repulsive that we can’t be allowed into Heaven without first being cleaned by Jesus. Okay, maybe that’s the case. But then why is the only alternative to Heaven endless torture? Why couldn’t God create a place that isn’t Heaven, but that the only thing horrible about it is its distance from God? Wouldn’t that be more loving and just?
Some argue that God doesn’t send anyone to Hell. Rather, people choose to go to Hell by rejecting God. If that’s the case, don’t you think these people would change their mind as soon as they experienced Hell? Wouldn’t they immediately repent of their sins and accept God? If they didn’t, could they in any sense be said to be in their right mind, and might not it be unjust for God to be punishing crazy people so severely?
Some religious people say that it is too late to change your mind once you are in Hell. You had your chance to repent, but didn’t take it. This makes as much sense as a parent whose child wants to eat a cactus forcing the child to eat the whole thing after it pricked its tongue and found that cactus-eating is a bad idea. And to make the analogy more exact, the parent wouldn’t just make the child eat the cactus, it would make the child eat cactus after cactus for all eternity.
This doesn’t sound like justice.
In fact, nothing about Hell sounds like justice.
Could an infinitely loving, good, and just being really have created such a system?
Category: Tract | Tags: | 2 Comments »
Published January 26th, 2010
Tract #65, What Is the Problem of Evil?, is ready for you to print and hand out. Download it, see page #3 for printing instructions, and let me know your comments! Thanks!
065_problem-of-evil.pdf
What Is the Problem of Evil?
What is the problem of evil? And can it be used to prove that the existence of God is logically impossible?
In a nutshell the problem of evil is this: If God is infinitely powerful, He can do anything. If God is infinitely good, He will want to eliminate evil. If God cannot eliminate evil, He is not infinitely powerful. If God will not eliminate evil, He is not infinitely good. Since there is evil in the world, God is either not infinitely powerful or not infinitely good.
It’s a good argument, but even if you agree that it is valid, all it can do is show that God cannot have a certain combination of attributes, not that God cannot logically exist. But is the argument valid?
Let’s look at it in the light of two kinds of evil: human evil and natural evil.
In this context, human evils include anything that is not morally good, from murder and torture down to petty theft and telling minor lies. If God was willing and able to eliminate these evils, He could easily do so by either eliminating the human desire to do such things or by dooming murder attempts to failure, helping torture victims escape, interrupting petty thefts, causing lies to go unheard, etc.
If God is good and powerful, why doesn’t he eliminate these evils? The standard answer is that preventing people from choosing to do evil would eliminate free will, and eliminating free will is a larger evil than allowing these evils to move forward.
Assuming it’s true that free will has such a high value, this might be a good argument. But what about the possibility of God eliminating great evils without meaningfully interfering with free will? Couldn’t God help an assassination attempt against Hitler succeed? Or inspire someone to recognize a wanted man on the street so that he could be captured by the police before committing another heinous crime? Or give a drunk’s car engine trouble?
Natural evils — things like earthquakes, disease, and massive accidents — do not involve human intent, so preventing them would seemingly not interfere with free will. Why doesn’t God intercede to stop them?
The standard reply is that although God created a perfect world, humanity’s sin caused the world to become imperfect, introducing birth defects, parasites, natural disasters, etc.
There are only two ways that this can make sense: either natural evil is a necessary consequence of sin, or God intentionally inserted flaws into the world as punishment for sin.
Would great sin necessarily damage DNA, create germs and viruses, and cause natural disasters to enter a perfect world? I don’t see how that makes sense.
That leaves the possibility that God created these evils as punishment for sin. I don’t see how children being killed by disease and disaster is reasonable punishment for the commission of any sin. Surely there should be great punishment for whomever committed the sin, but to punish everyone who ever lives after the commission of the sin doesn’t seem just.
Which leaves us taking God’s infinite goodness on faith. And atheists aren’t going to do that.
Category: Theology, Tract | Tags: | 2 Comments »
Published January 22nd, 2010
Tract #64, Are Atheists Evil?, is ready for you to print and hand out. Download it, see page #3 for printing instructions, and let me know your comments! Thanks!
064_atheists-evil.pdf
Are Atheists Evil?
Individual atheists may be good or bad, just as individual theists may be good or bad. But what about atheism itself? Is atheism, as some would argue, evil? The answer depends on what we mean by “evil.”
Is evil anything that causes significant harm, like a tornado or a thumbtack accidentally left where someone might step on it? This seems to be setting a pretty low bar for evil, but even so it’s difficult to call atheism evil by this definition. There are plenty of atheists who are not harmed by their beliefs and are not lead by their beliefs to harm others. Sure, there are some atheists who are depressed or immoral, but there are copious theists with these qualities as well.
Is committing a sin — by breaking one of the Ten Commandments, for example — evil? Atheism certainly breaks the first one or two commandments, but if that makes atheism evil then any set of beliefs that does not include the Judeo-Christian God — or that includes a “false” version of that god — could be called evil. In this case, “evil” becomes a synonym for “doesn’t obey Biblical morality,” and it’s trivial to point out that atheists don’t follow the Bible.
Morally objectionable things might be said to be evil, but atheism wouldn’t be evil under this definition. There is no moral requirement to believe in deities, and atheism does not require any behavior that could be said to be immoral.
You might say that things that arise from bad behavior — such as graffiti and crime — are evil. But to say that atheism is evil in this sense is to say that atheism arises from bad behavior, and that is not the case.
Perhaps you call anything that encourages or prefers bad behavior evil. Unless you can show that not believing in deities is in and of itself bad behavior, you won’t catch atheism in this net.
Similarly, it can be said that anything that takes a stand against good is evil. But atheism isn’t against good. Maybe you mean that anything that takes a stand against Christianity is evil. Although atheists don’t agree with Christianity, atheists aren’t all against Christianity. And this definition is probably not a good one, particularly considering that by using this definition one might have been able to call Martin Luther “evil” in his day since he took a stand against the established church.
Finally, perhaps you are keeping things simple and defining evil as something that forward’s Satan’s goals. But how do you know what Satan’s goals are? If Satan wants a certain politician elected to office because he knows it will lead to war, is electing that politician evil? Or perhaps Satan wants to make humanity subservient to him by ridding the world of scientific thinking and free thought, in which case moral atheism is working counter to Satan’s plans. The fact is, you don’t know for sure what Satan wants, so you shouldn’t pretend that you do.
And while you’re at it, you shouldn’t call atheists evil until you can explain exactly what you mean.
Category: About atheism, Tract | Tags: | 1 Comment »
Published January 19th, 2010
Tract #63, Answering Ray Comfort’s 10 Questions, is ready for you to print and hand out. Download it, see page #3 for printing instructions, and let me know your comments! Thanks!
063_ray-comfort.pdf
Answering Ray Comfort’s 10 Questions
Some time ago, Christian minister Ray Comfort published a list of “Questions Atheists Can’t Answer.” Surprisingly, they’re not all that tough. Here are brief responses from a moral atheist perspective.
What was in the beginning?
There probably wasn’t a beginning. The Big Bang likely occurred in the context of a space that had no starting point in time.
How will life on earth end?
The dying sun will destroy all life (if something else hasn’t destroyed it already).
What happens after death?
Physical decay.
What is the purpose of existence?
Life has whatever purpose you bring to it.
Why is there order in all of creation?
So far as there is order, it comes about through natural processes. I’d say that there’s far more disorder in the universe than order, though.
Why is there morality in every civilization?
Because without morality, there is no civilization. I hasten to point out, though, that not every civilization has a morality you’d agree with.
Why does every civilization believe in a Creator?
Because until relatively recently humanity didn’t know enough to realize that nature doesn’t require a creator.
Why does every sane person have a conscience, even when it is not dictated by society?
Because we define people without a conscience as insane (with dissocial personality disorder, for example). This makes the question meaningless: “Why does every person with a conscience have a conscience?”
How did nothing create everything?
I doubt that anyone believes that nothing created everything.
Which came first — the chicken or the egg?
It depends on how you are defining your terms. I’d say the egg.
Category: Dealing with religious folks, Tract | Tags: | 2 Comments »
