Mexico has Catholic pedophilia problems too?!

Child rape inside the catholic church is spinning madly past the zone of WTF and straight into the twilight zone of "can this really be happening?"

Another predatory preacher in the land that tries to sell itself as something like a constitutional republic has come forward and admitted to molesting over 200 kids, including two of his own children!

Words don't describe the depth of this kind of crime. Maybe if these child raping pigs had a faith that actually held them accountable for their own actions, they'd act like civilized people.

Just sayin'

David Cross

I don't know who this is, but I like his style.

Also, the game.

Spring cleaning

I want to touch on a few misconceptions that are floating around. Since we know that progress relies on knowledge, and knowledge relies on clarity, I think it'd be beneficial to strip away some of the false notions that have attached themselves to ideas we trade in religious debate. By scrubbing these ideas under warm soapy water we can clear away the muck that has been allowed to gather on them, and by doing so we help move the conversation along since we'll all be armed with a higher grade of ideas. So here we go!

“It takes more faith to be an Atheist.”

This idea is both wrong and strange, I'll start with showing why it's wrong. Atheism is not a faith position. At all. Not even kinda. It's simply the disbelief in one or more deities, or the supernatural. And since we don't have any evidence for believing in any of the near 10,000 Gods that humans have put forward over the years, the act of not believing in any one of them doesn't require any faith at all. Gods have never met their burden of proof and so they can be safely dismissed as a non-truth. (as one man puts it: that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.)

If I told you that there was a square-circle on your head right now, and you didn't believe me, would you say that it requires faith to disbelieve? Of course not, since you know that a square-circle can't exist, it requires no faith at all to dismiss my assertion. Now If I would've said something rational, like: “broseph, you have some hair on your head” – that would've been a different story since you know hair can exist on heads.

“Atheism can't tell me how we got here, so I'm sticking with God.”

This is like your boss telling you that since you can't breath acidic fluids, he's going to replace you with a square-circle that claims it can. The first problem with your boss's thinking is pretty obvious: humans aren't meant to breathe acidic fluids, so to criticize them for not being able to is really illogical. Atheism isn't a scientific discipline, it isn't an answer factory – it's a reply to claims of the supernatural. If you don't require Atheism to bake you a delicious cake, then why would you expect it to do any other task it's not meant to do? Should we not believe in Judaism simply because it can't explain what's occupying the galactic center?

The second problem with this scenario is the choice of “replacement”. Again, a square-circle cannot exist; so when a person comes to any conclusion that requires the existence of one, we know the conclusion will fail since it relies on an impossibility. Think of it like this: if you submit a mathematical proof that starts off by stating “this proof assumes that 1+1=Bacon”, we don't have to continue past the start since we know the proof will fail. Saying that God explains how we got here is not much different than saying 1+1=Bacon – they're both wrong. As a side-note, at least Bacon can deliver eternal life and unending bliss, can your God do that?

“Well, Hitler and Stalin were Atheists, so belief is better than unbelief!”

Wow, really? First I'd point out that Atheism was not the cause for what those two did. Stop the internal dialogue, that wasn't the reason. Hitler and Stalin are great examples of authoritarian style of rule, and what it produces. Secondly, to say Hitler was an Atheist is to be pretty dishonest, he never once denounced his catholicism, as a matter of fact he said he was doing “the lord's work” in his book. He rallied against secular schools demanding religion be taught, and the first deal he cut as the new leader was with the catholic church, a church that liked him enough to celebrate his birthday every year! He talked about not only God, but about Jesus, in his speeches and in private; and he went so far as to have “God with us” put on the belts of his soldiers. I think the religious right is trying to pull a fast one on us, trying to pin the mess of their creation on other people like Atheists and socialists.

Lastly, this argument really fails and here's why: if we grant the dishonest tweaking of causation to make Atheism the cause of what those two did, the religious really screw themselves – their body count can then be measured not in millions, or tens of millions, not even in hundreds of millions – but we soar all the way up to the one billion mark (some say more). So it seems that after some really... creative... tactics the arguer only manages to present a rod for his own back. If I had the evils of religion weighing heavily on my shoulders I'd be very humble with any talk about force and violence; but in the highly compartmentalized mind of the average monotheist no such need exists, since their religion is only the one in their head, and things outside of their construct, like reason and evidence, often fail to penetrate.

Proofs for the existence of God part 3

The third proof we'll look at is presented by William Lane Craig, a leading Christian apologist and philosopher. Craig is known for being as well thought out in his philosophy as he is well rehearsed in his debates. Given some of his great performances against some of the better thinkers in the Atheist movement, he has painted a bit of a target on his back – he's wrecked Hitchens, put Stenger on the ropes, and has been dodged by Dawkins. Here is a syllogism of the argument:

p1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
p2. The universe began to exist
c1. Therefore the universe had a cause

The argument is similar to Aquinas' proof that we looked at in a previous post, except this version goes a bit further by putting the Christian God (CG) outside of Space and Time (S/T). In putting the CG way out there, it makes the proof a bit more believable when it states that the CG was the creator of everything in the universe. After all, it's crazy to assume a being that exists inside of S/T created that S/T – everyone knows you can't exist in something you haven't built yet.

Craig start running aground because even if we granted the claim of the CG transcending our S/T, it doesn't mean that it necessarily exists outside all space and time, that's an assumption on his part, not a claim backed by our knowledge. It may be plausible that since the CG exists outside our S/T, it could have its own S/T, but William Lane Craig doesn't roll with a God that has it's own S/T, he maintains that the CG transcends every S/T – the CG is space-less and time-less – and he does so by simply asserting it as true. We have zero empirical evidence to believe this, it's another faith position.

This argument seems to have some special pleading as well, that's a common problem with these kinds of arguments, if a believer can't make the argument work, they'll just change the rules to help it along. The problem with this proof is that it grants the CG an immunity to the infinite regression while at the same time stating that nothing can be immune to the regression. Well, how logical is that?

I don't normally hear a lot of talk about this next problem, but I think it's worth considering at least; there seems to be an equivocation fallacy relating to one of the terms being used. It's not so clear in the syllogism, but if you ever hear brother Craig talk about this proof it becomes much more clear. In the early part of the proof, the word “cause” is used in the sense of coming from preexisting materials, in the same way my nephew builds his playthings from a preexisting pile of Legos. But as the argument continues, the definition of the word “cause” changes to reflect something that doesn't come from pieces preexisting. One minute we have a pile of Legos which we use to build something, and the next minute, we act as if the Lego pile never existed – I think there's something wrong there.

But that's not all, this argument has another problem: if the CG has a mind – which it must if it's making choices, taking conscious action, or otherwise exercising its own volition – then its mind must exist outside of S/T, with the rest of the God. If that's the case, it follows that we could characterize the CG's mind as being non-temporal (having no time) and non-spatial (having no space, or matter). But that's a big problem since a mind that's non-temporal (read: non-changing) is by definition non-functioning: a mind has to be allowed to change, since it has to be able to reason, will, and feel to be considered a mind, and the only way a mind can do those things is if it has time to do so. A timeless mind would get nothing done since it couldn't take in new information, it can't think about that new information, or form thoughts about what to do with it, since it doesn't have the time to do any of that. By putting the creator outside of S/T, Craig has only accomplished making a self-contradicting entity – one having a changeless mind – and entities of that variety cannot exist.

Thanks again for sticking with these longer posts, I hope some of you found it worthwhile. If you think this subject is worth hearing about, subscribe or digg it please!

Proof for the existence of God part 2

I'm a fan of Thomas Aquinas, he contributed a fair share to philosophy. Among his better known contributions is the first mover argument, or the argument from first cause. This one goes waaaaay back to around 1250. Though Aquinas was a great thinker, he was a bit odd when it came to the supernatural: I heard he claimed to have flown around the towers of Notre Dame. This proof for God is as follows:

p1. Everything must have a cause.
p2. Nothing can cause itself.
p3. A casual chain cannot be infinite.
c1. Therefore, a first cause has to exist.

This seems like a fairly good argument to some people, but overall this is another argument of wanting, it only convinces those who are friendly to the conclusion to begin with. The first problem we see with this proof is familiar: it's illogical to simply plug your favorite god into the argument as the first cause, or the unmoved mover. This isn't 'Nam man, we have rules. If it can be the Christian God (CG), it can just as easily be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's another one of those arguments that starts with a canvas of logic, then quickly spirals into a work that resembles a confused watercolor from yours truly after half a day on the whiskey.

Putting that aside, another obvious problem is presented, a pretty bad self-contradiction haunts this proof. It's not kosher to say everything has to have a cause, then turn around and say that one special cause itself doesn't need any cause at all. This has the familiar stench of special pleading, which is reflective of the time Aquinas did his philosophy; back then, if your work didn't include the CG you may have found yourself out of the evolutionary contest.

Also, this argument calls for the question of where does the God come from? Does the God have a cause? If it does -- or could -- then all we've done is stalled the proof at the insertion of God with no empirical way to move forward. It may be said that adding the CG to this argument only muddles the infinite casual chain even more, since we can't determine if the CG has a cause or not.

On the subject of infinity, it's worth noting that our minds are not fond of dealing with it, but that doesn't mean the rest of reality shares our baggage with the concept. This solipsism is obviously not supported when we look at how little the universe seems to care about our comforts and welfare; are we supposed to believe that the universe with an age of about 14,000,000,000 years cares about the mental constraints of a young (200,000 years tops?) upstart race on a remote planet that itself is hostile to their very existence? Clearly, the universe doesn't have a care for us: one day it will give you beautiful child that fills your life with a purpose far beyond driven, and the next morning: a fatal brain aneurysm. It's clear to see that our kind isn't meant to stand as the primary benefactor of all creation, and it stands to reason that reality doesn't care about our uneasiness with infinity.

In relation to infinite casual chains, there have been more than a few scientists armed with information unknown to Aquinas, that have come forward to say that the big bang was the beginning of everything, in all dimensions, so asking what came before the big bang is like asking what's farther north than the north pole.

Overall, this argument isn't going to convince that many thinkers (anymore), but considering what Aquinas had to work with, and the conditions he had to work under, he made some real pieces of work that have lasted quite a long time.

Thanks for sticking through the longish article, I hope you found it worth the effort.



5EH7DKN7WAEA

Beauty

Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics.

You're all stardust.

You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter, for evolution, weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode.

So forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be here today.

- Lawrence Krauss



I'm sure we've all seen this before, but it really is mind-blowing.

Freedom of Expression

Given the recent climate of political and religious debate, I thought I would dig up an old essay about one of our most important freedoms: the right to speak as we see fit. As a free-thinker I believe the FoS is extremely important to all of us, and I feel incredible gratitude toward anyone who has helped us along our way of instituting and preserving this freedom.

I'm going to try the embed feature on Scribd rather than copy/paste the whole thing, hopefully it works well.

Freedom of Speech

Also, this video absolutely rocks. Thanks again for reading.