WHAT THE HELL? * * * * * * * RATIONALITY VS SCIENCE &RELIGION * * * * * * * CAN ANY USEFUL SENSE BE FOUND, BETWEEN MEMES, BRAMES AND AN INFINITY OF DIMENSIONS AND UNIVERSES ON THE ONE SIDE AND TRANSUBSTANTIATION, SNAKE-HANDLERS AND MESSIAH-ON-A-POTATO-CHIP ON THE OTHER? A RATIONALIST'S POINT OF VIEW...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
BEYOND RELIGION
FOR FUN: The Skeptics Annotated Bible http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/abs/long.htm
Friday, November 6, 2009
SCIENCE IV
COSMOLOGY
“From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world because, they say, one man and one woman ate an apple? And, on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world in the boundless creation had an Eve, and apple, a serpent, and a redeemer?”
- Thomas Paine
“Paine is saying that we have a theology that is Earth-centered and involves a tiny piece of space, and when we step back, when we attain a broader cosmic perspective, some of it seems very small in scale. And in fact a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the God portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much less of a universe.”
- Carl Sagan
I would add to these comments that it isn’t even one world God is concerned with, but only one nomadic people in a very small country, to the point of favoring those from a particular family line, out of only 12 tribes. How small a god is that? That he can only “appear” in Israel and Egypt (and sometimes parts of Rome?), and even that for what turns out to be very few generations when weighed against the number of our generations. Your God is small, he only cares about one people, and only for a small blip of time. When he supposedly sends his son to die and thereby change his message to “us,” even that son is sent only for the Jews. It isn’t until the very last minute that God and/or Yeshua supposedly suddenly says, “And those other guys, too.” Yet those “other guys” have defined that religion for centuries, and even used it as justification for the mistreatment of Jews!
CONCLUSION
I urge that the same logic and method we use to test any fact be used to test religion. And if all the proof isn’t in yet, let’s admit that, without glorifying the lack of proof as something heroic. And if it’s something that needs to be interpreted, let’s require proof of correct interpretation, and a sensible explanation why this is the case.
As we’ve discussed, science relies as heavily on its priesthood and interpreters as religion does. And some of their hypotheses may remain forever impossible to prove. However, the things that have been proven we have cause to believe because there is at least some method to that proof. Thus we believe in things like gravity, even though we don’t know exactly how gravity works, because scientific method demonstrates that it exists. Religion has had no method in the last two thousand years other than truths revealed to one human at a time, with no method of interpretation other than “I saw,” or “I KNOW.”
A decade ago, when eminent scientists warned us about Global Warming, many of us didn’t believe them because they could not infallibly show it to the satisfaction of the man on the street. Now that the North Pole is all but subject to tides, there is proof. Why do some of us still fail to believe? Yet if a charming–enough stranger tells us they had a vision involving God, most of us believe him; he can make millions founding his own church and broadcasting on his own TV network while collecting Rolls Royces.
Most people don’t believe in psychic powers because they can’t be reliably replicated (a requirement of the scientific method), yet we believe in the power of prayer even though it can’t be reliably replicated, either. If we were as rigorous in our religious beliefs as we are in our scientific beliefs, the Earth would be a very different place.
Of course we can’t go back and change our history based on today’s wisdom, but we can go forward from today using reason and logic. The prejudicial belief in religion over science has been proven wrong at every turn, and as I hope our logical look at the Bible has shown, religion is NOT reliable, logical, nor replicable, is NOT based on reason, and is entirely UNPROVABLE. If God is so powerful and wants us to know he exists, let him show us in a way that can’t be denied. If he is either not so powerful, or doesn’t care what we believe, then he is irrelevant to our existence. I say he is irrelevant because faith in this unproven being does not lessen the possibility of: Divorce, Addiction, Adultery, Infection, Crime (smaller percentage of atheists in prison than Christians), Homosexuality, Cancer, Autism, Mental Illness, Birth Defects, Abandonment, Poverty, War, Starvation or Death.
The religious pay tithes to their churches even when it’s clear that the money is going to the church and not to the poor. They continue to pray for peace even though that prayer has never yet been answered; would it not be wiser to DO something about it? Or are we still not that wise? Let us think, for once, what it would be wise to do. We are no longer adolescents on this planet; it's time to grow up.
“From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world because, they say, one man and one woman ate an apple? And, on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world in the boundless creation had an Eve, and apple, a serpent, and a redeemer?”
- Thomas Paine
“Paine is saying that we have a theology that is Earth-centered and involves a tiny piece of space, and when we step back, when we attain a broader cosmic perspective, some of it seems very small in scale. And in fact a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the God portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much less of a universe.”
- Carl Sagan
I would add to these comments that it isn’t even one world God is concerned with, but only one nomadic people in a very small country, to the point of favoring those from a particular family line, out of only 12 tribes. How small a god is that? That he can only “appear” in Israel and Egypt (and sometimes parts of Rome?), and even that for what turns out to be very few generations when weighed against the number of our generations. Your God is small, he only cares about one people, and only for a small blip of time. When he supposedly sends his son to die and thereby change his message to “us,” even that son is sent only for the Jews. It isn’t until the very last minute that God and/or Yeshua supposedly suddenly says, “And those other guys, too.” Yet those “other guys” have defined that religion for centuries, and even used it as justification for the mistreatment of Jews!
CONCLUSION
I urge that the same logic and method we use to test any fact be used to test religion. And if all the proof isn’t in yet, let’s admit that, without glorifying the lack of proof as something heroic. And if it’s something that needs to be interpreted, let’s require proof of correct interpretation, and a sensible explanation why this is the case.
As we’ve discussed, science relies as heavily on its priesthood and interpreters as religion does. And some of their hypotheses may remain forever impossible to prove. However, the things that have been proven we have cause to believe because there is at least some method to that proof. Thus we believe in things like gravity, even though we don’t know exactly how gravity works, because scientific method demonstrates that it exists. Religion has had no method in the last two thousand years other than truths revealed to one human at a time, with no method of interpretation other than “I saw,” or “I KNOW.”
A decade ago, when eminent scientists warned us about Global Warming, many of us didn’t believe them because they could not infallibly show it to the satisfaction of the man on the street. Now that the North Pole is all but subject to tides, there is proof. Why do some of us still fail to believe? Yet if a charming–enough stranger tells us they had a vision involving God, most of us believe him; he can make millions founding his own church and broadcasting on his own TV network while collecting Rolls Royces.
Most people don’t believe in psychic powers because they can’t be reliably replicated (a requirement of the scientific method), yet we believe in the power of prayer even though it can’t be reliably replicated, either. If we were as rigorous in our religious beliefs as we are in our scientific beliefs, the Earth would be a very different place.
Of course we can’t go back and change our history based on today’s wisdom, but we can go forward from today using reason and logic. The prejudicial belief in religion over science has been proven wrong at every turn, and as I hope our logical look at the Bible has shown, religion is NOT reliable, logical, nor replicable, is NOT based on reason, and is entirely UNPROVABLE. If God is so powerful and wants us to know he exists, let him show us in a way that can’t be denied. If he is either not so powerful, or doesn’t care what we believe, then he is irrelevant to our existence. I say he is irrelevant because faith in this unproven being does not lessen the possibility of: Divorce, Addiction, Adultery, Infection, Crime (smaller percentage of atheists in prison than Christians), Homosexuality, Cancer, Autism, Mental Illness, Birth Defects, Abandonment, Poverty, War, Starvation or Death.
The religious pay tithes to their churches even when it’s clear that the money is going to the church and not to the poor. They continue to pray for peace even though that prayer has never yet been answered; would it not be wiser to DO something about it? Or are we still not that wise? Let us think, for once, what it would be wise to do. We are no longer adolescents on this planet; it's time to grow up.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
STATISTICS OF FAITH AND OTHER FUN
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html/
MOVIE RECOMMENDATION (The God Who Wasn't There)To purchase the movie: www.thegodmovie.com
Listen to "Hereby Chants" for something different at: www.herebychants.com
And to wrap up with fun: www.400monkeys.com/God//
And Movie: Religulous (a Bill Maher comedy about religion in America)
MOVIE RECOMMENDATION (The God Who Wasn't There)To purchase the movie: www.thegodmovie.com
Listen to "Hereby Chants" for something different at: www.herebychants.com
And to wrap up with fun: www.400monkeys.com/God//
And Movie: Religulous (a Bill Maher comedy about religion in America)
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