A visitor likes what he reads and then gets surprised when I show that I hold my ideas with conviction, defend them strongly and use rhetorical devices without reference to the Queensbury Rules. I'm sorry, I am what I am, I believe what I believe and I argue my case. Would you really want it any other way?
What if you are wrong about Jesus? If there is no second coming? What happens then? Doesn't it make sense to act as if God isn't going to save you, that you have to save yourself? Isn't that far more important for the whole of humanity? Just think about how many millions of brave, good, faithful, pig-headed people have gone to their deaths in the certain knowledge that their god (whatever god that was) would step in to save them. Can we afford to take that attitude to the survival of our species? You might think “God will find a way to save us”, but what if God's way is to act through those who think it necessary to do the work of saving the planet for themselves? Or even that God's way is to work through those people who do not believe in him? Of course I treat the idea that “God helps those who help themselves” is just a simple rationalization to explain the non-existence of routine miracles but wouldn't it be a wise motto for all believers who actually care about life before death? Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/
Either God exists or he does not exist. If he exists that fact is the most important fact in the universe. Agreed. If he does not exist the thought that there is a god is infinitely mischievous because of the nature, not of God, but of that concept of God. That concept does not come from God if there is no God. It comes from the same source as all false prophesy and heresy, a fertile human imagination. In a universe with no God the concept of a God is easy to imagine, just as it is easy to imagine ether, a flat Earth, astrology, foretelling by dreams, monsters, the innate superiority of men etc. etc. Gods are easily imagined. If Christianity is true there are thousands of false gods invented by men, if Christianity is not true there is simply one more name on that list. On the sheer mathematics of the issue Christianity looks very weak indeed. You expect people to believe that mankind has invented thousands of false gods and has one tradition of one True God. Putting to one side now the obvious point that you know you are right and you have the power of your faith (which is quite unlike the blinding forces of false faith) you surely have to admit that Christianity is simply one unlikely story among thousands. Yes, it is a world faith, but the nature of faith and the nature of the world make that claim rather feeble. Faith makes truths from whatever it is sprinkled on and the world pushes the religion of the powerful, the numerous and the well armed. Truth does not make faith, it is exactly the other way around. Can you tell me of one single instance of the religion of a hunter-gatherer people dominating the beliefs of a tribe of farmers? Or one primitive farming people's religion coming to dominate a culture with mass production manufacture? There is a gradient in beliefs, it flows from the rich powerful societies and it flows over the cultures of less numerous and well armed peoples. No missionaries left South America to tell Europeans about the South American's gods, not a single Apache set up a mission school in the Bronx, not one Australian Aborigine set off to convert the misguided ignorant Christians of old South Wales. Christianity has been exported and imposed, it was not invited in. Many tribes must have welcomed the idea of schools teaching the ways of the white man, until they learned that there was only one subject on the curriculum, and it wasn't how to develop mutually beneficial trade. Take the beam out of your own eye. What is the reason for the survival of the species? OK, you got me there, let's all just kill ourselves shall we? Theists first. Why do we need to keep reproducing? Because otherwise there will be nobody to look after us when we get old. Besides why should we stop listening to our biological programming just because you can't see the sense in it? Obeying our drives is what makes us happy. Happiness is not something abstract, it is the state of being defined by a relative absence of discrepancy from the ideal state. It is always a destination to move towards, like the horizon and the end of the rainbow, only stupid brainwashed people expect to actually arrive there. There is no reason to live, no meaning of life. Life is. I have no desire to see humanity continue to breed in increasing numbers without end, that is a nightmare. What I would see as a good future to strive towards is one in which there is no longer a struggle for existence, there might be an end to evolution. That isn't going to happen when the god who made the universe 15 billion years ago and “transformed it” by having his son killed, with no measurable effects on human life whatsoever, decides to make good on that son's promise to end the world a mere 70 generations late. “as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread” One beggar telling another beggar about his idea of a dream of bread is nearer the mark, oh yes, and often killing the other beggars who disagree. If the other beggars had noticed that you had some bread they would ask you where you got it from, they wouldn't need to be told where you hope to get it. Christians should get themselves of the world, or off it. There are plenty of people around who want to have an Earth to live on and will get a bit nervous of those people who don't share the same long term outlook. Those of us who are not expecting imminent rapture want to start treating this world as the place we intend to live in the medium to long term (a few thousand millennia or so), not like some Gypsy campsite with overflowing bins, we are not expecting to be going anywhere. Rapture merchants are very dangerous people to be sharing a planet with. Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/
There are thousands of theist explanations of reality and basically one atheist description that is oppossed to them. That is the way I see it. Your explanation is one among thousands. It seems you see the same facts in a different way: one True God explanation on one side and thousands of misguided explanations on the other. I suggest that any intelligent outside observer would agree that my analysis is the more accurate, that Christianity is simply one explanation among thousands of a similar type, explanations that you see as wrong, explanations that must have been invented by human imaginations and spread from person to person because of the authority of the people holding the beliefs. Assuming that reality is singular, universal and unaffected by personal belief it follows that at the very least most people's explanation for reality must be wrong, possibly everybody's explanation. The descriptions are mutually incompatible. I am prepared to accept the possibility of being wrong, it is what being rational is all about. In contrast, despite all your Christian talk of humility and unworthiness you Christians wallow in the “certainty” that your message is correct. This is achieved though the doublethink strategy known as faith, what you are told to believe is true and must be, and the technique you are using to create this false certainty is itself patched through the same circuitry so this lying to yourself becomes the highest form of virtue you ever acknowledge. Then you proceede to wrap your self image around this piece of foreign grit and create a new identity for yourself as a man of faith, once the idea has flashed through your brain for a few years it reshapes your entire personality. An attack on faith becomes an attack on the inner you, the ultimate reality of your being. Your entire mindscape is reshaped in the new pattern, you begin to see the world in the Christian paradigm of good and evil, Godly and evil. The Bible is a book. It has no great significance to me except as a source of allusions, metaphors and a common literary heritage. I quoted the words (translations of paraphrases) of Jesus. Alone. In a single paragraph. From that you decided I was laughing at you? Jesus wept. OK, now I admit, that one was for laughs. But the first one was serious and there was no intention of mockery, I just hoped the words would resonate with you. I am not accusing Christians of spoiling the Earth single handed, I am just pointing out the rather obvious fact that any people who do not think they have a long term future will not plan accordingly. Many Christian sects expecting imminent rapture have died out because they didn't bother to breed. I wonder if the churces of the rapture brigade fall down quicker than those with a longer term perspective? I don't recall any Norman Kingdom Halls... ;-) They were strong words, and heartfelt, but compared to what spews forth from many pulpits each Sunday they were quite tame. Expecting imminent rapture does make certain Christians dangerous to the rest of humanity. Given the choice would you prefer your bus to be driven by a young father of 30 in good health or a guy with terminal cancer? Which would you feel had the better reason to drive carefully, and which do you trust to do expensive maintenance to the bus? But the analogy breaks down here, a good man with cancer doesn't expect the bus to be taken up to rapture with all the unbelieving passengers on it. In that sense Christians are even more dangerous. But at least most of them are not trying to deliberately crash the bus. “So now it's the Christians who are the eco-unfriendly population?” No, I wouldn't suggest that the American Bible belt is anything other than a haven of wind farms, electrically powered buses, organic soybean plantations and bicycles. But if you think the cap fits... Enjoy your deluded life, Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ |
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