One might argue that anyone who is taken in by the claims of any religion might be considered gullible, or vulnerable, but there are certainly those who are more gullible than others.  I’ve written previously about psychics and mediums, and the way they exploit certain members of our society (and there were some fantastic comments on that post by people who had been taken in by those scammers) but these tactics certainly aren’t limited to the less mainstream belief systems.

A recent example of this is the case of 10,000 people turning up to Knock in Ireland because two visionaries predicted that an apparition of the Virgin Mary would appear.  Yes, unfortunately you read that correctly, 10,000 people.  By now you’re probably assuming that one of two things happened.  Either the apparition did appear, converting every heathen atheist in one foul swoop or it didn’t, and these “visionaries” were laughed out of town.

Well, this blog is still here and active, so I guess option 1 didn’t pan out, so they must have been laughed out of town, right? Again, unfortunately not.

Mr Coleman left the shrine before 4pm, claiming he had witnessed an aparition, as he had anticipated. He said he had received communication from the Virgin Mary but insisted that he was as yet unprepared to reveal the nature of the message.

So one of the “visionaries” saw the apparition he predicted, provided no proof, no verified witness accounts and doesn’t even want to describe what happened.  Those of us who are inclined to question things might, at this point, be crying foul.  Fortunately for the “visionaries” their target audience are those who do not question, those who are used to believing absurdities, Catholics.

Like most scams, there is an ingenuity to this.  The “visionaries” announced that:

…the visitation would only be visible “to people who come with an open heart”.

This is a statement that crops up whenever supernatural acts come under scrutiny.  If you don’t see/experience/feel it, then you aren’t worthy/open (delete as appropriate).

There are two very interesting aspects to this case.  Firstly, this has been done before by the same visionaries.

Earlier this month an estimated 5,000 gathered at Knock Shrine for a similar gathering with some people claiming to have seen the sun dancing in the sky.

The sun dancing in the sky.  The sun, dancing in the sky.  To qualify that claim, I’d like to point you to this description of the TV coverage:

I saw it on TV here in Ireland yesterday. The camera panned across the crowd and there was a 50ish woman using binoculars to get a better look - of the sun! Yup, this stuff truly is for idiots.

So clearly the only logical explanation for that is the sun moving in the sky, but only being visible in that particular part of the world.  Witnesses doing damage to their eyes by staring at the sun couldn’t possibly explain what they saw.

The second interesting aspect to this is that it’s very nearly illegal to actually criticise this event in Ireland.  The absurd, draconian blasphemy law is doing it’s best to allow the vulnerable to continue to be exploited by people like these “visionaries” (to be clear, I’m not suggesting that they are directly gaining in financial terms from these apparitions) because no one dares speak out against them for fear of prosecution.  A law like that curtails free speech, permits the vulnerable to be exploited and pushes back progress in religious discourse decades.

And this really brings me back to the point of this post.  Atheists, at times, do things that I don’t agree with. They, occasionally, make me embarrassed to be an atheist.  Fortunately, this is a rare occurrence.  If I were religious, I’d be incredibly angry at events like this which make theists look unstable, deranged, jealous, paranoid and incredibly gullible.  How can theists be expected to be taken seriously when things like this happen again and again?  As I’ve learned, you sometimes get tarred with the same brush as the worst of your kind.

Sheep picture by jetteketet.

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The quotes are taken from a Guardian article that quotes Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN.

The first thing that Archbishop Tomasi addresses is pedophillia, or rather that he believes that the majority of clergy members involved in child abuse would better be classified as ephebophiles.  An ephebophile is someone who has sexual preference for pubescent males.

“Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17.”

This is PR drivel of the highest order.  Developed society considers those who have a sexual preference for those below the age of consent as pedophiles.  The 11-17 age range also seems somewhat broad and open to interpretation.  The breach of trust that is so often a defining factor in clergy abuse cases tends to apply more to the lower end of that age range.

The objective of the Church here is to disassociate itself from the negative connotations of pedophillia, and reclassify the crime as something else.  Something that doesn’t immediately cause common society to gasp in horror.  I’ve called this PR drivel, but let’s be honest, this is a rebranding exercise.  The Catholic Church is trying to rebrand their pedophiles.

The other nugget of information Archbishop Tomasi slipped out was that only 1.5% to 5% of Catholic Clergy were involved in Child abuse.  Two things should astonish you about this.  Firstly, the numbers involved.  According to numerous sources ( e.g. here) the number of Catholic Clergy is currently around 400,000 and growing.  That means there are approximately 6,000 to 20,000 pedophiles in their organisation.  And not only that, but we have to remember, these are the ones the Church knows of.  Given the track record of this particular organisation, one would be justified in assuming that the actual number is significantly higher.

At this point I should point out that this article was written a number of weeks ago and left languishing in my drafts folder.  I decided to finish it, and release it to the world after reading about Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens winning a debate on whether the Catholic Church was a force for good.  They argued, successfully, that it was not, citing amongst other things:

“institutionalisation of the rape and torture and maltreatment of children”

As an aside, if you enjoy reading news articles that were clearly written through gritted teeth, I’d recommend reading the linked story from The Catholic Herald.

Some might argue that it would be difficult to prove the Catholic Church is a force for good even without the systemic child abuse, but with it, it’s somewhat of a laughing stock.

Related posts:

1. Catholic Father Links Homosexuality with Child Abuse
2. Catholicism Continues its Downward Spiral into Depravity

The reason I wanted to draw your attention to this particular post is that Dr Beck hits on a point that we’ve discussed previously, namely people using religion to duck their responsibilities.  Ther pertinent part of the article:

Obviously, I was being a bit provocative with the student. And I did go on to clarify. But I was trying to push back on a strain of Christianity I see in both my students and the larger Christian culture. Specifically, when the student said “I need to work on my relationship with God” I knew exactly what she meant. It meant praying more, getting up early to study the bible, to start going back to church. Things along those lines. The goal of these activities is to get “closer” to God. To “waste time with Jesus.” Of course, please hear me on this point, nothing is wrong with those activities. Personal acts of piety and devotion are vital to a vibrant spiritual life and continued spiritual formation. But all too often “working on my relationship with God” has almost nothing to do with trying to become a more decent human being.

The trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. “Christianity” has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed “spiritual” substitute.

The example Dr Beck used in the beginning of the article cited a young woman who wanted to “work on her relationship with God”.  Dr Beck’s response was that she should, instead, work on her relationship with people.  Or specifically, people she had wronged.  This is a refreshing approach.  I’ve seen religious people ask their chosen deity for forgiveness rather than the people they have wronged.  I’ve also seen religious people refuse to take responsibility for their actions because they believe it to be their deity’s “will” or “plan”.  I’ve heard religious people defending this attitude in the past, so I’m glad to see it’s not universally accepted.

This does beg an interesting question.  Is it more important to have a good relationship with your deity, or with the people around you?  I’m not implying that the two are mutually exclusive, but clearly some people give preference to one over the other, and in my experience (and one would assume from the article, Dr Beck’s) it tends to be their deity.

I’ve questioned the motives of the religious before, and I’ve also questioned using religion as a source of morality, and while the post linked doesn’t take quite as harsh a view, it’s certainly interesting to hear a voice of discontent from within organised religion.  I’ll let Dr Beck sum this up:

The point is that one can fill a life full of spiritual activities without ever, actually, trying to become a more decent human being. Much of this activity can actually distract one from becoming a more decent human being. In fact, some of these activities make you worse, interpersonally speaking. Many churches are jerk factories.

Related posts:

1. Woman Dies Giving Birth, to follow the word of God
2. Did Jesus Deal with the Devil?

It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as a theist.

This, of course, is patently ridiculous.  Being an atheist requires no faith, not even a little bit.  I have to respond to this argument point so regularly I thought I’d come up with a handy chart for future reference.

Click the image to enlarge.

It’s so easy when you put it out in Matrix Form.  But just to make it that little bit easier I thought I’d add some helpful labels, so let’s explore those briefly.

Christians – The majority of modern Christians are fairly easy to pigeon hole on this matrix.  They believe in their God, yet there is no evidence for it.  There is no evidence against it, but there is no evidence supporting their position.  It’s all faith.

Creationists – Creationists occupy a place in this matrix I’ve labelled “Extreme Faith Required”.  Unlike your run of the mill Christian, creationists choose not to believe in something despite the fact there is a mountain of evidence supporting it.  Evolutionary theory, the big bang, the origin of the species, all have supporting evidence, all of which is dismissed.  This isn’t choosing to believe in something which is questionable, this is wantonly ignoring evidence and embracing ignorance.

Atheists – Atheists, or at least true atheists, have no need for faith.  If there is evidence for something, we believe it.  If there is no evidence for something, then we treat it with a healthy degree of scepticism to the point of not believing until evidence presents itself.  To see how I fit in to this, you can read what would make me believe in a a God.

I hope this clears some things up.  The take away, quite simply, is that it requires no faith to not believe in something for which there is absolutely no evidence.

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So believing in a single God is possibly more illogical than believing in multiple Gods.  Now, we know that logic isn’t a strong point of those who follow religion, but surely there must be some reason why people choose to believe that there is only one God, and it happens to be the one they worship.

The obvious answer is that the Holy Books say that the God of that particular book is the only God.  Take the Bible for example, specificly Isaiah 44:6 in which the Judeo-Christian God (Yahweh) states:

“There is no God Beside Me”

As a reader of this blog you’ll know that religions have a vested interest in making you believe that their God is the only God, so shouldn’t be trusted.  But even if you did take the Bible as “gospel”, it’s not as clear cut as one might think.

Looking at the 10 commandments, the foundations of Christian Morality (and self-preservation), we see that Yahweh acknowledges that there are other Gods out there.  Specifically:

“You shall have no other gods before me”

Like most of the Bible, this can be interpreted in a number of ways.  Upon first reading the natural response is to take this as Yahweh accepting there are other Gods and trying to assert his superiority over them.  There is a subtle but important difference between “don’t believe in any other Gods” and “don’t worship any other Gods over me”.  Any logical person would surely see this as a confession that other Gods exist.

But as I mentioned earlier, logic is not the religious person’s strong point, and as such they have attempted to explain away this little problem.  The most popular “explanation” is that the commandment is referring to temptations, worldly goods etc., rather than actual Gods.  This, of course, is patently ridiculous.  To interpret the word “God” here as meaning something other than a supreme deity opens the possibility of interpreting it elsewhere in the Bible in the same way.  Unless, of course, you choose to selectively apply this interpretation in the same way many Christians selectively believe only parts of the Bible.  This undermines the entire concept of Yahweh as a deity as proposed by the Bible.

The commandment is not the only hint that the writers of the Bible (bearing in mind it’s inspired by God) thought there was more than one God.  The observant amongst you might have noticed that part way through Genesis the way God is referred to changes.  Initially the word “Elohim” is used.  Elohim is generally used as a plural, referring to Gods of polytheism.  Much like the attempts to dismiss the use of the word “God” in certain circumstances, many have tried to claim that in some circumstances it refers to multiple Gods, whilst in others it refers to a single deity.  Their deity, of course.  Part way through Genesis, the word Elohim is replaced by Yahweh.

This is a complicated subject, and remains a point of debate. Yahweh and Elohim are Hebrew words that have been translated into English.  The commandment example used in the beginning of this post actually uses the word “Elohim” (translated to “Gods”), which only serves to underline and reenforce the points I made.

I’m interested in your opinions on this.  I find the explanations provided by theists hard to swallow.  There’s an inherent lack of logic underlying the counter points that just doesn’t sit right.  Admittedly much of this is word play, but when religion is primarily based on a book, wordplay, and the interpretation of the language used, becomes a point of upmost importance.

Related posts:

1. Bible Quotes To Live Your Life By
2. What Would Make Me Believe in a God?
3. The Arguments for Religion

One can see evidence of this behaviour in polls which question the respondents position on topics such as evolution.  For example, a recent Pew Research Poll found that 97% of scientists (unspecified disciplines) agree that Humans “Evolved over time” whilst only 61% of the public share this view.

This, I find astonishing.

To put this into context, can you imagine someone, upon being told by their doctor that they have diabetes, respond by disagreeing and instead choosing to believe that it’s actually just athlete’s foot?  It wouldn’t happen.

This alarms me because evolution is fact.  Not only does evolutionary theory match the fossil record at every turn, but we can recreate evolution in labs.  We have genetics to back up our understanding.  Yet this mountain of irrefutable evidence is not enough for some.  Why?  And just what will it take to change these people’s minds?

So how do we stem this tide of ignorance?  The simple answer is education, but unfortunately systemic failures within the education system to push objective facts, and ingrained fear of the truth from community leaders make this difficult.  Teachers can teach evolution in schools, only for fearful, misinformed, ignorant parents to turn their students against them.

Another possible option is to simply make the alternative viewpoint unacceptable.  Again, we’re dealing with facts, so in the same way espousing flat earth theories is not acceptable, so should be denying evolution.  And let’s be clear, this isn’t curtailing free speech, people can say whatever they want, but proliferating misinformation should be seen as a socially unacceptable activity.  This may be even more effective than education.  Those who reject evolution do so because their religions have offered an alternative. There’s no evidence for any of these alternatives, but they are supported by religious communities.  Followers of religions often call themselves “sheep” (The Lord is my Shepherd etc.), and it’s very apt. They follow the consensus in their community, and don’t think for themselves.  Let’s face it, anyone who chooses to believe a two thousand year old book which has very little basis in reality over centuries of scientific progress, with accompanying evidence, is not being particularly thoughtful.  Therefore, making it socially unacceptable within and around their social groups may have a big impact.

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But let’s not forget that it’s just not the religious leaders that are happy to prey on the vulnerable and gullible. If hell existed, a special place in it would be reserved for psychics, mediums and other frauds who claim to be able to contact the spirits of people who have died.

The really, truly disturbing thing about those who claim to posses these supernatural powers is that they must take an incredibly calculating approach to their “profession”. To use techniques like cold reading, and to carry out the amount of preparation they do requires a certain dedication, a certain amount of planning, to carry it off. So when you consider that these people are taking advantage of the emotionally vulnerable in such a callous way, it really drums home the unpleasantness of their actions.

Boing Boing recently posted the video embedded below. In it, three psychics are invited to do a reading in an old chocolate factory. Specifically, the host is seeking information about the boss of the establishment.

If this video doesn’t hammer home the blind face cheek and unashamedly deceitful nature of these people, you should really watch it again. Out of the three psychics, one is attempting cold reading whilst the other two have simply researched the subject before hand. All three have ended up contacting the spirit of someone who simply never existed.

This brings to mind a famous story I once heard of a very famous ghost hunting show. This particular show visited a hotel that was known to be haunted by a certain ghoul. The psychic duly contacted the spirit of the ghoul and recited information regarding the circumstances of their death. All very convincing until we learn a few years later that the current owner of the hotel had made the story up in order to raise publicity of the establishment. Like the chocolate factory in the video above, the psychic contacted the spirit of a person, and recited details of their life, even though this person never existed.

Like religion and the complete absence of evidence for any of the claimed deities, there is no evidence whatsoever for the claims these psychics make. In fact, they consistently and regularly fail scientific “double blind” tests and are incapable of performing in front of people who are wise to their tricks.

All this is important to remember because these people try to invade people’s lives when they are feeling the most vulnerable. Much like religion, they try to plug a gap that is perceived by those who are incapable of coping with a given situation. It’s hard to criticise those people, and they should very much be treated as victims of these scams. What cannot easily be forgiven is that the authorities allow these people to operate, sanctioned by the law in many cases.

However, the real enemy in this are the perpetrators themselves. Whilst many atheists give religious people a free pass on the grounds of being indoctrinated and brain washed from a young age, the same cannot be said of psychics and mediums. They know absolutely that the claims they make are not true, otherwise, why would they resort to techniques such as cold reading and research? And yet they happily give false hope, false information and take money from the vulnerable and misguided. Sickening.

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One of these areas is morality. The argument goes that our morals, as a species, are defined by our religion. What proponents of this argument often fail to realise is that it is ultimately self-defeating.

Taking Christianity as an example, it’s very difficult to see where one might look for moral inspiration. As I’ve pointed out previously, the 10 commandments are more concerned with preserving religiosity than shaping a moral, just, fair race. And the God as described in the Bible is hardly a positive influence, unless you aim to be an insanely vicious, vindictive, malicious, insecure person. Yes, Yahweh seemed to mellow a touch in the new testament, but he couldn’t have gotten much worse. Praising the God of the new testament is like praising a murderer for only blinding his latest victim.

So if the Bible cannot be looked to as a source for inspiration on morals (rape: ok. Offering your daughter for gang rape: ok. Murder: ok. Slavery: ok. Beatings: ok. Racism: ok.  And so on.) where do the religious turn? The answer has to be fear.  I’ve lightly touched on this subject before, when I asked if a religious person can ever really be good.  The two topics are highly related as they both strike at the heart of religion-based morality.  If you’re religious, and you perform what is perceived as a “good act”, are you only doing it because your God will reward you with eternity in heaven, or because you are afraid that your God will punish you by torturing you for eternity?

If you consider the two salient points above as the main drivers for morality from religion (i.e. morality by example and morality by instruction), you don’t really have much to go on.  Any good believer would have to admit that if they did good acts because they fear the punishment, or are eager for the reward, their God would view it as misguided and punishable.

And this is the dichotomy of religion-based morality.  If you don’t do good things, your God will punish you with an eternity of torture.  If you do good things because you fear this torture (and let’s face it, who wants to be tortured?), then you’ll be tortured.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, literally.  It is this that makes any argument for morality from religion ultimately self-defeating when fully explored.

So where do we get our sense of morality from?  I’ll cover this in more detail in a future post.

Related posts:

1. To Deny Atheism is to Reject Humanity
2. Can a Religious Person Really be “Good”?
3. This is Religion, and all it stands for

Being fundamentally tied to a fictional book that’s thousands of years old is quite the disadvantage and Churches up and down the country are finding that out to their cost. While in the past Churches have relied on spreading God’s word to generate a steady income for their cult leaders keep people in the Church, they’re finding that it doesn’t work.

The survey found, much to Ham’s surprise, a “Sunday School syndrome,” indicating children who faithfully attend Bible classes in their church over the years actually are more likely to question the authority of Scripture.

The above quote is taken from a World Net Daily article titled, rhetorically, Why are 2 out of 3 young people leaving the church? The article quotes from a book written by Ken Ham, the nut known for running Answers in Genesis. In fact, it’s not just church that is being dismissed by those in the 20-29 age range he surveyed:

Among the survey findings, regular participants in Sunday School are more likely to:

• Leave the church
• Believe that the Bible is less true
• Defend the legality of abortion and same-sex marriage
• Defend premarital sex

So that’s everything they were taught in Sunday School then. This proves a very important point. Education is key. We’ve seen a trend over the years of people dismissing the hocus-pocus of religion once they reach college, as they are confronted by facts and not fairy tales, but here we also see that simply educating them on religion itself is an effective deterrent. After all, who could subscribe to a religion that condones murdering children, the suppression of women, homosexuals, those with disabilities and those who do not believe?

Of course, Ham sees this enlightenment as a negative thing. But who would’ve guessed that someone so deluded that they believe the earth is only 6,000 years old would be against education? Ham tries to dress his up as a conflict between scripture being taught in Sunday School and the information taught in normal School (let’s call it Truth School), and he’s exactly right. What he fails to realise is that when both sides of the argument are presented equally, it’s clear to see which is fact and which is make believe.

An article over at Politics Daily cites a number of reasonably recent studies that have highlighted how little Christians understand of the Bible. The article is in response to a resolution being proposed by Georgia Republican Paul Broun calling for an official “Year of the Bible”. I say, go for it. This is something all atheists should fully get behind. As the Politics Daily article highlights, more people believe the Bibles account of creation is literally true than know what the first book of the Bible is called. So let’s get Bibles in the hands of everyone. When they read it, and discover what a hate filled, despicable piece of work it really is, I’m sure the churches will be going out of business closing up and down the country.

Related posts:

1. Christianity as a Polytheistic Religion?
2. Which Part of the Bible Should be Ignored Next?
3. Bible Quotes To Live Your Life By

There is also the stone paradox which takes down most definitions of omnipotence. ‘Can god create a stone so big he can not lift it?’ If he can, then there is something he cannot do (lift the stone). If he can’t, there is something he cannot do (create said stone).

This is a question I’ve seen elsewhere, and it’s always fun to explore with a theist. There are other, related questions which together form the omnipotence paradox. Essentially, it’s a set of paradoxes which makes the existence of any truly omnipotent being impossible.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to give some examples of these paradoxes and questions, and throw them open to debate. To kick off, I thought I’d offer the definition of Omnipotent:

om·nip·o·tent (ŏm-nĭp’ə-tənt)
adj. Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful. See Usage Note at infinite.
n.
1. One having unlimited power or authority: the bureaucratic omnipotents.
2. Omnipotent God. Used with the.

It is the unlimited power attribute that the omnipotence paradoxes call into question. Essentially, the paradox is whether an omnipotent being has the power to limit themselves. If they do, then they no longer have unlimited power (because of the self-imposed limit). If not, then there is something that cannot do, also meaning their power is not limitless.

Some examples:

• The Stone Paradox is the most popular, it posits the simple question of whether an omnipotent being can create a stone so heavy that that they cannot lift it. Personally, I feel this particular paradox is somewhat dated given what we understand of the physical attributes and forces involved with objects, particularly their gravitational force.
• The Triangle Paradox was posed by Aquinas in Summa contra Gentiles and asks whether God could create a triangle with three internal angles that did not add up to 180 degrees. Again, I don’t think this is a particularly useful or valid paradox as it relies on our definition of a triangle. Could God create an object that has internal angles that do not add up to 180 degrees? Yes, and so can I.
• The Atom Paradox comes from Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, and questions whether God could create something so small it was no longer divisible.

The examples above have been known, discussed and debated for some time. Each, in my opinion, has problems. So with that in mind, I thought I’d offer the following:

• Could God kill himself? One might question why God would have the desire to kill himself, but that is not a valid reason for dismissing the question. If God can kill himself, then he lacks the power of immortality (perhaps a poor choice of words, maybe ever-existence would be better), if he cannot, then he lacks the ability to kill himself.
• Could God create a truly immortal being? Similar to the above but a step removed. If God can create a truly immortal being, then he lacks the ability to end the life of that being, if he cannot create a truly immortal being, or if he can create a truly immortal being that he can then kill, then either he lacks the ability to create a truly immortal being or that being he creates is not truly immortal.
• Could God create a being more powerful than himself? You might also ask whether God can create a more powerful God? This is particularly interesting as it applies across multiple definitions of the word omnipotent (see below). If God can create such a being, then he is clearly not of unlimited power (for a being to be more powerful, there must, by definition, be something the new God can do that the old one cannot), and if he cannot, then that is an ability God lacks.
• Could God make himself no longer omnipotent? Rather than questioning whether God is omnipotent, this dispenses with that and rather asks whether God can make so that he is no longer omnipotent, or such that he is no longer a God. If so, then what impact does that have on the established belief systems, and how would we know?

These are just a selection of the paradoxes one can pose that question the possibility of an omnipotent being.

I’d love to see your responses to the paradoxes. Typically, theist responses debate the definition of omnipotent suggesting that an omnipotent being has only the power to perform logically possible actions. One could argue in response that the existence of an omnipotent being is not logical in itself, thereby creating another paradox of sorts. There is also some debate as to whether a God is omnipotent, or just Almighty, where Almighty is simply a definition of a God that lacks some of the logical fallacies and vulnerabilities of an omnipotent God. Much like theists changing their holy books, and selectively accepting them, this feels like a desperate move to maintain their beliefs.

What are your thoughts?

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1. Wise and Logical Quotes from History
2. Is God Dead?
3. Summing up the Religious End-Game, by The Bible