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“Atheism”
What is it?
Authors Name
Dr Reginald Le Sueur
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PUBLISHERS DETAILS
“Atheism”
What is it?
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Type Dedication here
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Foreword
Preface
Bibliography.
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Foreword
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Preface
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Chapter 1
Faith and Dogma
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Science has similarly been reified into
“Scientism”, and added to Plato’s list of
Forms,- an alleged faith and dogma which we
now worship as a new God, having abandoned
belief in Yahweh the God of Israel. Why
should I be obliged to worship the God of
Israel?-I am not even Jewish.
Science as “Scientism” is of course equated
with atheism, in the minds of the followers of
Abraham’s god.
So what is “Atheism” anyway? It has been
classified into a number of types, but two main
ones will be considered:
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4. Straw-Man arguments, which
misrepresent Science by attacking a false
version of a theory , eg of Evolution.
More examples:
Bishop Eusebius, the official
propagandist for Constantine,
entitles the 32nd Chapter of his 12th
Book of Evangelical Preparation:
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such as Secular Humanism,--the belief that
real human beings come first, before the
worship of primitive deities, and Metaphysical
Naturalism, ie, the philosophical basis for
natural science. This might seem unimportant
until you recollect the opposition by the
Catholic Church and other assorted Christians
to human welfare in the form of contraception,
Stem cell research, euthanasia, condoms, HIV-
control, population limitation, child
indoctrination (and abuse), genetically
modified crops, surgical anaesthesia (until
recently), opposition to the abolition of the
Blasphemy Law, and suppression of free
speech,- or anything which goes against their
dogma that God created Nature and that we
should not tamper with it.
They are committing the Naturalist Fallacy by
claiming that Nature (as allegedly God’s
creation)-must be perfect, and we should
therefore be “natural”. But civilisation itself is
unnatural when compared with a hunter-
gatherer existence, (Adam & Eve?), and
Christians appear to enjoy all the benefits of
scientific civilisation, like the rest of us.
In so doing they demonstrate that they are anti-
human and anti-life itself, and only concerned
with a fictitious future life, and that we should
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have no concern for this one, or store up
treasures on earth.
Strangely, this does not seem to prevent them
from living surrounded by sumptuous luxury
and enjoying a few palaces, tax-exemptions
and unwarranted status within some
governments, and in medieval times profiting
from a roaring trade in the sale of Indulgences,
extortion, and the mass production of holy
relics.
I can hear the uproar arising from those
Christians who routinely use the “No True
Scotsman” fallacy, in addition to all their other
logical fallacies, (more on that later).
They will be saying, “but we are not like that,
we are not all fundamentalist fanatics, they are
not the real Christians, we don’t despise
education or revel in ignorance, on the
contrary we Christians created Science, art,
music, poetry, literature, civilisation itself “,-
you name it, they will say they did it, and of
course give (or pretend to give) the credit to
the Trinity.
The inconvenient truth is that the basics of the
human accomplishments to which Christianity
lays claim were prior achievements of earlier
civilisations notably, Egyptian, Babylonian,
Greek and Roman.
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Within the Christian era including the
Scholastic period, there was only continued
speculation about God, his supposed Nature,
and Mankind’s alleged relationship with him,
which had been started anyway by the Greeks,
and the Roman statesman, Cicero in his
“Nature of the Gods”,--and of course frantic
attempts to prove God’s existence by Bishop
Anselm’s very shaky Ontological argument,
and Thomas Aquinas’ Five proofs, which were
just variations on the usual arguments from
Design, and the First Cause argument. In fact
Aquinas himself demolished the Ontological
Argument shortly after its inception. Briefly,-
this argument says that there must be a God
because I can imagine Him, and that I can
conceive of Something greater than which
nothing more perfect could exist. All one has
to do to rebut this argument is to imagine the
opposite, or to imagine something different in
the same way,-like say, a perfect island.
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Morality is innate, and based upon fair trade,
and reciprocal altruism, and kin selection for
our nearest relatives, and giving honorary kin
status to unrelated “friends”.
These conclusions are based upon modern
psychology, social anthropology, genetic
relatedness and unbiased common sense.
Hitler & Co
Stalin
Stalin was an atheist, but he was brought up in
an orthodox seminary where he no doubt
learned the typically Russian, (or Georgian)
authoritarian, autocratic attitude of Tsarist
Russia, ruled as it was by a God-Tsar, and
where the Church-State alliance kept the
Russian serfs in a state of abject poverty and
suppression,-( as ordained by God, and so
much agreed with by Victorians,--(“the rich
man in his castle, the poor man at his gate”)).
Stalin was a politician, and he favoured or
persecuted the Church and Christians as
politics demanded. The Orthodox Church was
a rival for the hearts and Minds of the people,
and it had to be contained one way or another.
Do people start rampant murder if they don’t
happen to believe in the God of Abraham and
his alleged Son? Do I? How many people do
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you think I have raped and murdered since I
got up this morning? What nonsense.
The truth is that people behave because of
early social conditioning, peer pressure, and
the fear of punishment by society (not God).
We need police on the streets, not Angels with
flaming swords.
Stalin’s actions were on account of political
and economic ambitions. I doubt if he was
thinking “ I am an atheist,-yippee, more killing
to-day”.
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Chapter 2
Creationism/Intelligent Design
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So a certain qualified Lawyer rose up, and
teamed up with a Mathematician, (neither of
them was a natural scientist, eg biologist) to
re-invent Creationism under the new title of
Intelligent Design. This was intelligently
designed in order to bypass the First
Amendment which forbade teaching of
religion in schools, and ensured separation of
Church and State. Other qualified personnel,
even scientists joined up with them, notably a
genuine biochemist, Michael Behe and the
whole war was re-started culminating in the
Dover, Pennsylvania trial in which Michael
Behe’s book, “Darwin’s Black Box”, and his
theory of “Irreducible Complexity” was torn to
shreds,-metaphorically speaking, in a
testimony by Prof. Kenneth Miller, whose own
book “Finding Darwin’s God” effectively
demolished Behe’s “Irreducible Complexity”
thesis,
This was the result of a cunning attempt by
Creationists to infiltrate a School Board, and
was opposed by concerned parents. As a result,
the Board members had to resign and a new
one elected.
To his credit Prof Miller did a wonderful
demolition job despite being a “cradle
Catholic” himself.
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It makes one wonder though about those 40%
of world scientists who believe in God (of
some sort). It is as if two opposing theories of
the origin of things can be stored in pigeon-
hole compartments in the brain without
causing a schizophrenic breakdown. This
appears to be how the Mind works in some
people.
It seems a coincidence that the US, home of
fundamentalist Christianity should throw up so
many believing scientists. My theory is that
they are indoctrinated from birth, and then
come into science with the intention of
destroying it from within,-for Jesus; except for
the admirable Prof Kenneth Miller of course,-
though he still hangs onto his God for
“theological reasons” (not scientific ones. We
had a brief e-mail chat not so long ago).
More charitably, I could also concede that
there are some believers who go into Science
in order to discover more about “God’s
creation”; this notion is of course assumed
beforehand as a pre-supposition, and therefore
seems rational to them at the time, in their
uninformed, ie-ignorant state. But one would
think that having become aware of scientific
explanations, they might modify their faith
position;-but no apparently not. So therefore
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they are not being so scientifically rational as
they would like us to believe.
I should point out that 40% of believing
scientists means 60% of unbelieving ones, and
if one looks at the top US scientists in the
National Academy of Science,--the proportion
of atheist and agnostic scientists rises to 93%,-
and in the British Royal Society it rises to a
staggering proportion of about 96.7%.
How does a God act in Biochemistry,
including molecular biology and genetics?
Does he personally move atoms and molecules
around, or does he have Cherubim (you know,
-those fat babies with wings),-to do it for him?
And how does a qualified mathematician make
the blunder (unless deliberate),-of trying to use
Probability Theory after the event (of the
existence of complex life)?
It is as if I claimed a miracle because I, and
only I, won the lottery, despite the fact that
someone has to win it. Or,-supposing I went
out in the street and saw a car with a specific
number-plate, say ARG 42,--and then threw up
my arms and cried “Miracle”!—of all the
billions of number-plates in the world I just
happened to see ARG 42;--and on a Thursday
too—double miracle!
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It all sounds to me like a conspiracy to pervert
science.
You may think it all a storm in a tea- cup, but
nowadays we have ample evidence of what
irrational belief combined with explosive
power can do,-and the US, headed by Bush has
explosive power in abundance. We should all
be very afraid.
There are in the US, fundamentalists who are
awaiting the Rapture, an event in which those
who are “saved”, will be taken up directly into
Heaven,(no matter what they are doing at the
time,--even piloting a Jumbo-jet. Many
believe that in order for Christ to return, or the
Rapture proceed, it will first be necessary for
the Jews to be converted. Another way to
inaugurate the Second Coming would be to
start a nuclear war, in which the Forces of
Righteousness (themselves naturally), -would
triumph, and Christ would reign in Jerusalem;
in other words another Crusade. George Bush
let slip this repressed desire in his inadvertent
mention of a Crusade in Iraq, -site of the
original Whore of Babylon itself.
Nor is I.D. confined to the US. In my small
home island of Jersey (UK), population about
90,000,)-we have at least 4 aggressive
proselytising Creationists known to me
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personally, and lots of others who think Jesus
rules, and that Genesis is literally true.
Rational science still has a struggle ahead.
You may ask, “But don’t lots of Christians
including the Pope, accept Evolution?”—well
sort of,-but only if they can tweak it, and say
God created and sustains it, and inserts a
“soul” somewhere along the line of human
evolution. They either deny, attack, or try to
absorb it.
This polluted version of Evolution is no part
of Darwin’s original thesis. It goes under the
name of “Theistic Evolution,-and I would like
to insert my own comments on it at this
point,--something which I prepared earlier:
Theistic Evolution
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first Mammals),-of haphazard, multiple-
path random production of humanoids to
achieve a small proportion of rational
beings,-eg (Scientists and Philosophers),
amongst an otherwise irrational Human
species.
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Coitus interruptus and “spill his seed on the
ground”!
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when the Bible states clearly that it was the
other way round,--order came out of chaos.
Although natural selection overall appears
random, nevertheless, at a lower level of
explanation, all evolutionary change is finely
tuned by selective competition, sexual
selection, and a kind of arms war among
and between species.
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God find it necessary to create carnivorous
animals who cannot digest grass etc, but
instead tear each other to pieces and devour
each other,-including we humans, who have
to farm animals, fish and poultry and shoot
and slaughter them for our food, thereby
causing animal suffering and the spread of
parasitic, bacterial and virus diseases among
animals and humans,--eg Bird flu?
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Schönborn later clarified that while "unguided,
unplanned" evolution is not consistent with
Christian faith, he has no problem with a
theistic (God-guided) evolution, see Theistic
Evolution), recognizes the great work of
Darwin and the progress of science, that
science and faith answer different questions,
and they need not conflict if each respects the
other's world view.
In an October 2005 catechetical lecture he
stated:
“Darwin undoubtedly scored a brilliant coup,
and it remains a great oeuvre [work] in the
history of ideas. With an astounding gift for
observation, enormous diligence, and mental
prowess, he succeeded in producing one of
that history's most influential works. He could
already see in advance that his research would
create many areas of endeavor. Today one can
truly say that the 'evolution' paradigm has
become, so to speak, a 'master key,' extending
itself within many fields of knowledge....I see
no difficulty in joining belief in the Creator
with the theory of evolution, but under the
prerequisite that the borders of scientific
theory are maintained. In the citations given
above (from Julian Huxley, Will Provine, Peter
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Atkins), it is unequivocally the case that such
have been violated. When science adheres to
its own method, it cannot come into conflict
with faith. But perhaps one finds it difficult to
stay within one's territory, for we are, after all,
not simply scientists but also human beings,
with feelings, who struggle with faith, human
beings, who seek the meaning of life. And thus
as natural scientists we are constantly and
inevitably bringing in questions reflecting
world views....I am thankful for the immense
work of the natural sciences. Their furthering
of our knowledge boggles the mind. They do
not restrict faith in the creation; they
strengthen me in my belief in the Creator and
in how wisely and wonderfully He has made
all things."
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and in how wisely and wonderfully He has
made all things."
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Chapter 3.
Theology and Atheology
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Christian cult, with the same political
purpose,--strength through unity.
It has been claimed that only because of
Judaeo-Christian monotheism was the West
able to invent science and achieve political and
technological dominance over Islam and the
Far East. This may be partly true, but not for
theological reasons, ie because Jesus and the
God of Israel were watching and guiding the
process,--but rather because strict monotheism
with its God, represented as Kings and Popes,
provided the social structure for large scale
reforms.
However the ancient polytheistic Greeks
developed Philosophy, mathematics and early
science without benefit of a long lasting stable
Church-State alliance.
The Chinese did great things with a powerful
Emperor figure-head, but minus Jesus or a
divine God. The Muslims likewise, with strict
monotheism and occasional political unity, but
no Jesus,- and the ancient Egyptians had their
powerful god- king Pharaohs, but still no
Jesus,-but were able to accomplish massive
engineering works like the pyramids and the
temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak. Still no actual
God directing things though,--and even less
Jesus.
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One could make a good case that Western
development occurred because of the
Renaissance recovery of lost classical
antiquity, the Reformation which repulsed the
Catholic domination,- the necessity to find
new ocean routes to the Far East, since the
Turks had captured Constantinople. This
undoubtedly spurred new science and
technology, ship-building, weaponry and
navigational astronomy. And then came the
Industrial Revolution, the Chartists, trades
unions and Suffragettes. Christianity formerly
comfortable with slavery throughout it’s whole
history, now jumped on the bandwagon of the
above social reforms and claimed to have
abolished Slavery;-mainly because William
Wilberforce was a Christian (wasn’t nearly
everyone at that time?).
The gulf widened between Roman Catholicism
and the new Protestant cults of Lutherism,
Calvinism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism,
Methodism, and now the affair of women and
gay priests, as mentioned earlier. The Word of
God?—which one?
The Catholics have Transubstantiation, in
which the wafer and wine become the literal
body and blood of Christ.
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Recently in 2008, an tremendous row
occurred when someone at a Catholic Mass
held in the University of Central Florida,-
having received the Host (wafer, Eucharist))
into his mouth, removed it, ran off out of the
Church with it, kept it in a Ziplock bag for a
week before surrendering it, and was pursued
by a furious congregation for desecrating the
Host, -and later received death threats. As a
popular America writer PZ Myers later
observed; “it’s only a “Cracker for Chrissake;-
something to die for?”
Big problems also arise if the priest
accidentally drops the Host on the ground.
The Protestants are more sensible; they have
“Consubstantiation, where God is only present
in spirit. Invisible spirits, and gods are immune
to desecration,--something which the Jews and
later the Muslims caught onto quite soon,-
whereas temples and statues are easy targets.
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itself. But Intelligent Design has taken
advantage of the new understanding of
molecular biology to claim that it could not
happen “by itself”, and that some biochemical
systems are “irreducibly complex”, i.e.-if you
take away one essential part then the whole
system becomes non-functional.
Therefore God-did-it.
Or they say things like: “Look at that Rose”
(Tree, peacock tail etc) It couldn’t happen “by
chance”, therefore God.
Quite apart from logical rebuttals,-Evolution
has now advanced to be the “inference to the
best explanation” for Nature’s complexity.
This is abductive logic, based on empirical
evidence.
Inductive logic makes the reasonable claim
that more often than not, events which have
always happened within recorded cosmic time,
like over the last 13.7 billion years since the
Big bang,--will probably continue like that for
a good while. This is a probability argument,
not a deductive proof; (the sudden appearance
of a black Swan could destroy the claim that
all Swans are white).
But it works well enough for science to
produce from it a highly consistent and
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workable model of the Universe and the events
which occur within it.
Most people are happy to fly in a jet airliner,
confident that the inductive laws of
aerodynamics will continue to be valid, at least
for the length of their flight,--or that God
won’t suddenly appear and perform a magic
miracle and turn the plane into a jelly-fish or
something.
There are no final proofs of anything outside
of mathematics,--and even that has to be
qualified since Gödel’s theorem showed that
there are true propositions which cannot be
proved. Creationists expect too much,-like
also demanding a continuous running video of
evolutionary change, and not accepting the
reasonable indication of evolution as
demonstrated in some fossil sequences which
contain clear “transitional” forms from one
species or Genus to another, as in Horses,
Humans, and Whales.
They don’t do this because they are stupid,
(not all of them anyway),- but merely because
they are bigoted. (The word “bigot” is derived
from “Bei Gott”,--which is what German
evangelising monks were noted for saying).
How can Lawyers, mathematicians and
biochemists be stupid?—unless of course there
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was something wrong with their qualifications
or the (Creationist) Universities and
Academies at which they qualified.
Or perhaps they have not been reading the
latest scientific journals, and are about 2000
years out of date.
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We can now think of the universe as a tiny (or
huge as you like, there is nothing to compare it
with) 'bubble' existing in an infinite nothing
and expanding into it. This model rather
conveniently does away with the need to have
a moment of creation for the universe because
within nothing time does not exist. Without
time it would be meaningless to ask when the
universe was created, it was simply there all
the time, existing in the same way as nothing,
as it always has. Within the universe of course
time does exist, as does everything else. With
this description of nothing its existence, and
that of the universe, is now possible. Or is it?
What does it mean to say the universe was
always there? We believe it started with the
Big Bang, but can we say the Big Bang was
always there? This doesn't seem logical to me,
it needed to have actually come into existence
at some point, even the very term 'big bang',
suggests a beginning. Let's step back a little
and look at the creation of the Big Bang from
the viewpoint of a 'perfect observer' in
nothing. At the moment of creation what
would our 'perfect observer' see? Nothing at
all! The universe is self contained, nothing at
all can escape from it into our nothing, and our
observer would notice no change whatsoever!
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As no detectable change at all has occurred
from the viewpoint of nothing, and no change
could ever be detected regarding the
expanding universe, no 'real' change has
occurred, (It may help here to visualize the Big
Bang as an infinitely small event in the
unimaginable vastness of an infinite void. In
other words, a singularity, as indeed it is
believed to have been.), therefore our
definition of an unchanging timeless nothing is
still valid. A quick (!) read of Stephen
Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" will
clarify my point about nothing escaping from
the universe and the Big Bang starting as a
singularity.
Let's now look at the implications of an
infinite nothing containing an expanding
universe, ignoring for now the actual creation.
We will consider two possible problems,
expansion and infinity.
1) Expansion. Can the universe be described
as expanding? From our viewpoint within the
universe, yes. From our 'perfect observer's'
viewpoint in nothing, no. Why not? Because a)
as stated above our observer can have no
knowledge of the universe, and b) what is it
expanding in relation to? Nothing does not
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contain anything, other than the universe, so
there is no possible way to determine either the
size, or the expansion of the universe, as both
can only be measured in relation to something
else. Size and expansion are meaningless
terms here. This would appear to suggest that
from within the universe things are as they
appear to be, but from the point of view of our
perfect observer in nothing, the universe does
not exist! Furthermore with the absence of
time in nothing the fact that it contains an
aging expanding universe is meaningless from
the perspective of nothing. So far so good, our
nothing is still intact; from the point of view of
our infinite nothing- it still contains nothing!
(The creation event, if it actually happened,
still needs explaining however)
2) Infinity. We now have a picture of nothing
as being an infinite void, containing an
expanding universe that it has no knowledge
of, but is it still infinite? We have not put any
restrictions on nothing's 'size' it is still infinite,
but it contains a universe so surely that puts
restrictions on its ‘completeness’; nothing is
'barred' from the area containing the universe!
I think we are still okay here, to contain the
universe is within our definition, but as to
whether or not we have somehow a little less
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infinity is open to question, but it does not
contradict our definition. I can see no reason
why an infinite nothing can not contain a finite
universe.
What caused the Big Bang and how could it
form out of nothing? Without introducing a
mysterious source of energy into the equation,
as a magician might pull a rabbit out of a hat,
it simply can't be done; it's as simple as that.
It's logically and scientifically impossible to
produce something from nothing. I realize that
in Quantum Mechanics it is (arguably)
possible, but that is in an already existing
universe, not in nothing. Having said it's
impossible we are left with a paradox, it has
happened, we ARE here. There are only three
logical conclusions to be drawn from this,
assuming of course that our definition of
nothing is valid.
1) The universe did not come from nothing, it
came from something. Taking this route
however offers no explanation either; we
would still need to explain where this new
something came from.
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2) We have to introduce a mysterious source of
energy, which creates Universes out of
Nothing.
3) The universe did NOT have a creation
event, it always existed.
So what is this mysterious source of energy
that we are compelled to introduce? Many
people will say that it is God and that He
always existed. We either accept that or accept
that the universe itself must have always
existed.
We are now left with just these two possible
solutions, either God created the universe and
He always existed, or the universe itself
always existed. The solution requires that
something has always existed in order to
avoid the problem of creating something out of
nothing. The choice of introducing God is
purely a matter of faith, for if we accept that
God could have always existed then why not
the universe? From a logical point of view
within this model we do not need the existence
of God; God is just a further complication that
in turn would require to be created. If we
ruthlessly apply Ockam’s razor to the idea of
introducing God into the model we are left
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with the universe always existing. I am NOT
saying (here) that God does not exist, only that
the idea of introducing God into the equation
is not necessary in order to make it work.
I know that some would argue that God is
necessary as a Creator and Grand Designer of
the universe but I disagree. The universe can
simply be the way it is by pure chance alone, it
need not have been designed to be the way it
is. For those that argue that the universe
requires such a high degree of 'fine tuning' for
things to be so well suited for our own creation
and evolution that it could not have happened
by chance alone I disagree again. If the
universe were not so well suited for us then we
wouldn't be here! (The Weak Anthropic
principle) The fact that we are here does not
mean that the entire universe was designed just
for our benefit.
All of the above would seem to suggest that
the universe has always existed. I appreciate
that the idea seems unsatisfactory to our way
of thinking, but our way of thinking is
probably part of the problem. In our universe
we take for granted cause and effect, in that
order. Everything we know of happens that
way and even our minds work that way! Our
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very existence would not be possible if it were
the other way round. When therefore we try to
contemplate the idea of something always
existing we simply can not manage to
understand it, we are seeking a 'cause' for the
'effect' of the universe existing. The universe
however is different to us, it exists in nothing,
whereas we of course exist in the universe.
There is no cause and effect in a timeless
eternal infinite nothing!
According to our definition of nothing as
being timeless, then in order to contain the
universe, the universe MUST have always
existed within it. It is not possible for it to
have been CREATED within it for that would
require a moment in time. It is not a matter of
convenience to suggest this idea; it is the way
it simply has to be.
If however you are uncomfortable with the
concept of anything having always existed
then I see no solution at all, because you will
simply have to accept that at some point
something came from nothing, and personally
I find that prospect totally unacceptable. Either
that or you have to conclude that the universe
does not exist! And that could be right.
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So after all the arguments I have made, what
model do I prefer to describe where the
universe came from? An infinite eternal
unchanging nothing that has always existed
and has always contained a finite but
unbounded closed universe that constantly
changes but is itself eternal. In this model the
Big Bang is NOT required as a creation event,
it is merely a phase in the cycle of an eternally
expanding and collapsing universe and has no
special significance at all. There is no need to
look beyond it, there is only a previous cycle
beyond it, and no need to say it is meaningless
to try to look beyond it!
Conclusion
'Nothing' would appear to the casual observer
to be a 'natural' state, but as I have outlined
above, it seems to me it is not, it would appear
to be a very special state.
With the model for nothing that I have
described, it would appear to be possible to
exist and to contain the universe, but it still
does not give an explanation of how the
universe could be created from nothing. This
problem appears to be insurmountable. I can
not 'fix' my theory to explain such an event
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and it would seem to suggest that the universe
did not come from nothing but must have
always existed or never existed! I tend to
favour the view that the universe does exist,
but of course we have no proof that it does!
It may be possible that we have not grasped
the concept of nothing. Perhaps to exist it
requires a structure, its own form of 'space',
but I am not going to go down that particular
road because that is not the nothing that I
began with as a model of how it may exist.
That would be a entirely new theory! Anyway,
I don't think it possible to apply the term 'exist'
to nothing, it doesn't 'exist', its just a concept!
I think that trying to explain where the
universe came from is something we will
never be able to do, we are contained within
the universe and our understanding is
restricted to the universe, anything else is
guess work. That aside, this is the best attempt
of describing where the universe came from
that I could come up with: An infinite eternal
unchanging nothing that has always existed
and has always contained a finite but
unbounded closed universe that constantly
changes but is itself eternal.
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With this model I can detect only one possible
problem, and that is the acceptance of the
Universe having always existed. Having said
that I would suggest that the route to take in
order to establish the concept of 'always'
requires a more precise understanding of
exactly what time is.
In the meantime, to answer the original
question 'Where did the universe come from?'
I believe that it didn't come from anything, it
always existed.
Christians have no problem saying that their
God, presumably a Being of immense power,
has always existed uncreated, yet deny the
possibility he might have evolved from a
simpler state just like Life on Earth as we
know it. This seems highly improbable, and
some theologians, like Richard Swinburne,
have instead asserted that God is the “simplest
possible thing”. But can such a simple thing
have intentionality, hear prayers, and create
Universes? Besides, we already have the
simplest possible things,--quarks and
electrons,--but they are part of the Universe
not designers of it. Is God an electron?
91
Nor do Christians have problems with magical
creations of a Universe by an unknown Being
without any pre-existing tools, factory , labour
force, or somewhere to put the finished
product -and for no apparent reason—except
perhaps that he was lonely and wanted
someone to love!
Yet they pour scorn on modern theories of the
Megaverse and multi-dimensions which are far
more probable, and have a solid basis in
Mathematics, Quantum mechanics and
Relativity Theory. But then, as with biblical
interpretation, -a cherry –picking approach is
their standard method.
A “multiverse-of-the-gaps,” is said to be no
better than the “God-of-the-gaps”. The
Multiverse does however have the merit of
some theoretical backing. Its denial is just
another desperate attempt to insist that a God
designed the Universe deliberately so as to
make it appear undesigned,--which really is
scraping the barrel. Is God a deceiver?
92
93
Chapter 4.
Evolution, Determinism, and the
Properties of Matter
99
just have happened that way because there was
no other way it could happen.
Perhaps we will find out some day.
It does seem though, that Mass/Energy is
constrained in the way it can act,--perhaps
through mathematical laws which themselves
are based upon logical necessity.
We observe and discover these laws, and think
of them as “descriptive” laws.
Religious types think they are “proscriptive”
laws; that is, they are prescribed by a Law-
giver. Though this Law-giver has to be
specially invented in order to “explain” these
pre-existing laws.
Christians continually muddle cause and effect
relationships,-getting them back to front.
This is “a posteriori”, or backwards,- thinking.
They are also fond of analogies; though in this
case they are thinking akin to saying that a
rabbit has a white tail in order that huntsmen
can more easily shoot them;-or legs are
designed to fit trousers, or noses are designed
to fit spectacles.
Also they exhibit “teleological” thinking
(“telos”, Greek, meaning “far”-as in television
(far-seeing). This way of thinking assumes a
distant far-off goal or purpose to which the
Universe is striving.
100
This is why they have trouble with Evolution.
They think “Man” is the goal of creation, and
therefore find it extraordinary that living –
processes, and the Cosmos itself, should be so
fine-tuned as to produce this end goal.
The evolutionary explanation is that “Man” is
just one of many possibilities which evolution
produced; just consider,--all the vast numbers
of different living things which exist apart
from Man. So we are a random product,--just
like seaweed or scorpions.
We seem “different” largely because we have
specialised in big brains and expanded
intelligent consciousness.
But we are still at the mercy of the next viral
pandemic, caused by simple viruses which are
only half-alive themselves.
Teilhard de Chardin, the Catholic writer is
partly responsible for this teleological
assumption; he wrote of an end –state, the
“Omega point” to which the Universe is
striving. This concept was thoroughly trashed
by the biologist Sir Peter Medawar.
Christians inherited these ideas from Plato.
According to Plato, Socrates had a
conversation with a cocky young Athenian
lawyer called Euythpro. They were arguing
about the origin of “goodness”.
101
Socrates concluded that if “Goodness” or “the
Good”, was defined and created by God,--then
God could call anything “good” that he wished
(even eating babies), and we would all be
obliged to obey Him and do likewise. So God
would just be a fickle tyrant.
On the other hand,--if God’s nature was to be
good, and he could not be otherwise,--then
“the Good” was something that existed prior
to, and independent of God, -to which God
was obliged to conform; also God was
constrained by his “Nature”, and therefore did
not have complete Freewill. Interesting eh?
Of course the atheist would say there is no
God, -in which case the whole conundrum is a
fictional pseudo-problem, and can be
disregarded. Atheism wins! So does
Determinism.
102
identical clones of them. That is obvious to
anyone, even God-believers.
We know from the fossils, backed up by
molecular biology of the genes themselves,
that human-like creatures have existed for at
least 6 million years, and that they have
changed as time moved on, up to the present
day.
Therefore, there was once a time when an
indeterminate sort of anthropoid/simian
mammal existed which produced at least two
children which became separated, but
survived.
One of these bred with others of the parent
stock in the same jungle environment, and
continued the same ape-like lineage. The
other bred likewise, but probably wandered
out of the jungle onto drier and hotter
savannah,-or was pushed out by competition,
or rejected by the “tribe” for being “different”,
but managed to find a mate.
Then owing to the digital nature of genetic
transmission, one of its children was like itself,
and better adapted than the others for the new
conditions, and it survived;-the other children
perished.
This would of course be happening in other
families as well, --not just one,--so there
103
would have been other potential mates
available,-so more grand-progeny would
survive who were better adapted to life on the
savannah.
This scenario can be empirically constructed
from observation of animal behaviour in the
wild. No longer being able to continue jungle-
life, further variations would have gradually
arisen involving loss of body hair (a protection
against jungle insects), further development of
an efficient cooling system by sweating,--
owing to greater exposure to the sun. Standing
upright to maximise heat-loss, improve vision,
and free the ape-like hands for carrying
children, food, weapons etc. There was no
longer much fur left on the mothers for babies
to cling to,-so they had to be carried.
Carrying infants in the front improved
maternal/infant bonding and growth of
intelligence and cognition, and with it the
growth of the human brain.
The forced change of diet from jungle fruits
and berries, meant rapid adaptation of hunting
skills, aggression, bipedalism, so that eye-level
could be raised up higher to scan for predators
and prey, giving early warning of them. Loss
of body fat, and increase in leg length for
better bipedal running.
104
Unlike the big cats and other predators who
had evolved soon after the demise of the
dinosaurs 60 million years previously, there
had been no time to evolve killer teeth and
claws, so these early humanoids had to use
their dexterous fingers and improving brain
power to develop new skills and artificial
weapons.
And so on. You see how it all ties together
reasonably and logically, and how it occurs
quite naturally and arbitrarily, shaped only by
environmental changes, and genetic
variations,-ie Natural Selection.
So all of the above slight modifications of the
new humanoids can be regarded as transitional
forms, from original parental stock,-and
between each other.
Then as human populations increased, they
formed cooperative clans and tribes as apes do,
-and then started competing with, and killing
neighbouring tribes;--and so began “Evil”.
Creationists stick their heads in the sand and
shout “there are no transitional forms—God
made each “kind” of animal separately.”
But why? Why make millions of slightly
different animals, which therefore all have to
be given separate names by biologists, when it
is obvious that all these slight variations are
105
not fixed,-but flow into each other in a smooth
(or sometimes punctuated) manner?
Consider Sea-lions: is it not obvious how
similar they are to dogs? They even bark, and
do tricks and have similar mannerisms. As
well as whiskers.
Consider their “legs”, which are so mal-
adapted to moving on the ground, but so
efficient for swimming. Look at them, and see
the obvious transition between proper legs, eg
like those of a frog, and the tail-like flukes of
their close relatives,--Whales. All one has to
do is stick a sea-lions stubby legs together with
cellotape down the middle, and you have an
instant whale’s tail-flukes.
Similarly other animal series, eg Horses,
where there is a steady transition from early
Hyracotherium to modern Equus.
There is no denying it;-if you are rational.
106
107
Chapter 5
Evidence, Logic & Fallacies
108
5.
We need to know if he is the personal loving
God he is claimed to be, and sustains the
world, or are we just pets and he amuses
himself teasing us.
6.
How do we know God will keep his promises
in the Bible?
7. We would need to know that the Properties
of Matter are inadequate to explain their own
self-assembly into living things, and that a
man in the Sky was actually responsible.
Comments on above:
1.
The error made by Creationist fundamentalists,
(and isn’t every true Christian necessarily a
fundamentalist?)—is that they look at Nature’s
life-forms, eg a Tree, as an individual single
object in isolation. Thanks to Darwin we now
know that all trees everywhere since the very
beginning of trees have to be compared and
contrasted with each other and with their
extinct fossilized remains, in order to really
understand “Tree-ness”. Only then will it
become apparent that Trees and every other
organism also, have become changed
109
throughout the generations, ie-they have
evolved.
But could not God, (whose existence had
already been proven),-have made the changes
himself bit by bit?
Well we already know that genetic mutations
occur randomly, as well as sometimes for
identifiable reasons like toxins or cosmic or
man-made radiation. We also know that it is
usual for any repeated copying process to
make errors, eg as with scribes copying
manuscripts, (including biblical ones). Now if
you compare these reasonable events with the
religious hypothesis that an unknown, or even
a known superman God, created millions or
billions of plants and animals of the same
“kind”, -to use Creationist jargon,-but
introduced deliberate minute changes in each
succeeding generation for no useful or artistic
purpose,--then I think the first, naturalistic
process is more reasonable than the second
supernaturalistic one;--especially as the
changes can be recorded and analyzed by
laboratory technicians.
Creationists claim that Matter is inert, like a
pile of plastic ping-pong balls, or billiard
balls,-incapable of self-organization without a
God-Person to do it.
110
The first rebuttal of this notion concerns the
unproven-ness of the existence of God, and the
fact that he would have to be a complex
evolved Life –form himself in order to have
Divine powers of omnipotence, as Richard
Dawkins first pointed out. He cannot be self –
made,-pulled up as it were, by his own
bootstraps,- or eternal; if these latter two were
possible of a God, they would also be possible
of the Universe itself, and one could just
eliminate the God-hypothesis as an
unnecessary complication ,-using Occam’s
razor.
111
Apart from chemistry, which involves only the
outer shells of electrons being shared between
neighbouring atoms to effect a chemical
bond,-- there is the little matter of the atomic
nucleus, and the Strong Force, which binds
together it’s constituent protons and neutrons,
and their own constituent quarks and gluons.
This force is partially released in atomic
reactors and atomic bomb blasts,--something
which even fundamentalists cannot deny.
113
So what constitutes valid Evidence for
anything?
116
Humans already have a degree of freewill for
different evolutionary reasons; but God is
unchanging and does not alter his Divine
Nature,-otherwise what use would he be as a
fixed example and beacon of stability for
humans to look up to?
If you prayed to such a God, you could not
rely on any response he might make because
his nature could change from day to day, and
he would be as fickle as any human; you might
as well pray to your next-door neighbour.
117
contrary or no evidence at all,-in other words,-
defiant irrationalism.
One of God’s attributes is his omnipresence,--
he is always around, watching you like a
“peeping Tom”, judging you,-looking for the
slightest excuse to send you to burning Hell-
fire;--but of course he loves you and only
wants to save your soul so that nasty Satan
can’t get it. Incidentally, what is an immortal
soul anyway?
Self-Organizing Complexity
Chaos Theory
Logical Fallacies
121
These are committed by Christian and Islamic
theologians in spades.
We have already mentioned the “No True
Scotsman” fallacy;--We don’t believe that at
all ( or anymore),--that is a different kind of
Christian who has misinterpreted Jesus.
Psychological projection
122
committed;--attack being the best form of
defence.
False dichotomy
False Cause
Saying “God-did-it”,-as the answer to
everything.
Non-sequitur
The conclusion does not follow from the
argument
Eg. “Look at that Rose”;--therefore God exists.
False Conclusion
Similar to above;--just getting it wrong
basically.
126
There are those who pretend Science and
religion are compatible, and even offer bribes
like the Templeton prize and con some
scientists into making nice noises about
religion.
In the last few issues of the New Scientist the
scientists and the religionists have been
attacking each other; even John Polkinghorne,
ex–physicist turned fundamentalist has
resurrected himself in order to dispute a recent
claim that religious belief is no better than
astrology. Not much reconciliation there then.
One exasperated reader demanded they stop
doing it and let the scientists have their
magazine back for science, out of the clutches
of the Christian invaders who are trying to
infiltrate it.
Special Pleading
In this fallacy, two similar propositions are
considered,--one of them is supported, the
other denied. The Christians would like their
God to have existed eternally, but they deny
this state to the Universe itself. But if a God
can have existed forever, then why can the
Universe not also have existed forever?—
especially as we know the Universe exists,--
but this God-person remains elusive. If the
127
Universe is eternal and uncreated, then God is
unnecessary, and should receive the Occam’s
razor treatment.
129
Lies and forgeries.
The Testamonium Flavium, or adulteration of
Josephus’ work to make it appear he was a
Christian convert, or confirm that Jesus
actually existed, to the bare-faced cheek of the
Donation of Constantine, in which 8th century
Monks forged a document purporting to prove
that the Emperor Constantine had donated the
Roman Empire to Pope Sylvester, the False
Decretals,(see notes), and others too numerous
to mention;--see “Forgery in Christianity” by
Joseph Wheless.
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul claims that 500
people saw the risen Jesus;- a conveniently
round number,--no names and addresses, or
cross-referencing mind you. What it really
comes down to is that just one man, Paul, says
that 500 people witnessed the risen Jesus; not
the same thing at all. There is the scandal of
the medieval forgeries, not least the Shroud of
Turin, carbon-dated to the 14th century. Also
enough bits of the True Cross of Christ to
build a barn with,--and not forgetting dozens
of Jesus’ original circumcised foreskins.
More recently claims of the alleged recantation
and conversion of Charles Darwin on his
death-bed,--the so-called “Lady Hope” affair,--
denied by Darwin’s daughter,-and one of many
130
attempted such claims, including David Hume
being pestered by priests on his death-bed also.
This brings us to the present-day repeated
assertions in Church and outside of it, by
clerics, that the Gospel writers were all eye-
witnesses of the crucifixion and /or
resurrection of Jesus,--when in fact the
earliest, that of Mark, was written around 70
AD, 40 years after Jesus’ death,--if he ever
existed and there is any truth at all in the story.
There is a good case to be made that Jesus was
a mythical figure, or some local preacher who
attracted stories of earlier charismatic
characters to himself,-a sort of syncretic
composite one-size- fits-all figure, with all the
stolen attributes of other pagan heroes and
deities. In Church it is repeatedly asserted
through traditional prayers and hymns that the
creator made the world in 6 days as in
Genesis,-that Adam and Eve lived, and
Original Sin is real, and still requires expiation
by continual worship and supplication. No
theory of Evolution there,-not even among
moderate Anglicans. The Catholic Church
grudgingly accepts its own parody of
Evolution.
It should not be necessary to point out that
gradual naturalistic evolution over 4 billion
131
years, is not compatible with intentional
creation over 6 days by a Designer God about
6000 years ago; and all the squirming over
whether a “day” actually means 24 hours, or a
few million or billion years,--will not fix the
problem;-just another example of
Equivocation.
132
documents, authentic or apocryphal, written
before Isidore's time.
133
Chapter 6
134
Roots and fruits
138
So why are we still slaves to it, and still being
brain-washed and threatened by it’s leaders
and their gullible converts?
144
Daniel Bovarin a professor of Talmudic
culture at The University of California at
Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a
growing body of evidence suggesting that
Jesus could be best understood through a close
reading of the Jewish history of his day.”
“Some Christians will find it shocking- a
challenge to the uniqueness of their theology-
while other will be comforted by the idea of it
being a traditional part of Judaism”—Mr
Bovarin said.
This stone tablet is akin to the Dead Sea
scrolls and Nag Hammadi texts which provide
interesting extra material outside of the
Gospels and Pauline epistles. However it is
interesting how many Christians assign as late
a date to them as possible, and pronounce
them to be inauthentic and unreliable.
Whereas the Gospels and Epistles, if not
actually the Word of God himself,-are seen as
contemporary with Jesus and literally true and
independent testimonies,--as if Jesus had been
followed around by a short-hand secretary
recording his every utterance; instead, all of
the Gospels copy each other, beginning about
40 years after Jesus’ death, -perhaps also using
different bits if oral tradition, -and in any case
145
anonymous.—the writers whose names are
attached to them being unknown.
Tempting God
The recently deceased George Carlin, (no
doubt God’s punishment; still he was old),--in
one of his stage performances asked God to
strike the audience dead if God considered
George to be blaspheming and denying the
Holy Spirit;--which I thought was a nice touch,
as well as hedging his (George’s) bets. But
God didn’t,--so presumably we can consider it
to be open season as far as denying the Holy
Spirit is concerned,--especially also now that
the antiquated British Blasphemy law has been
repealed at last.
146
believe god in the sky,--and the priests might
lose face.
In “Kings” in the Old Testament we have the
story of Elijah challenging the priests of Baal,
whose altar was consumed through the
invocations of Elijah, -and then stood around
obligingly while Elijah and co massacred them
all;--probably sabotage.
I suggest we might repeat this “Elijah test”
under controlled conditions, with an altar of
God (Jehovah) in one corner, and a display
by Richard Dawkins and all the other New
Atheists, even myself,--in the opposite corner;
and then pray for one or other of them to be
blasted by a thunderbolt from Heaven.
147
148
Chapter 7
Globalism and Tribalism
151
being swamped by a tide of advancing secular
global Capitalism.
Until there is a surer sense of citizenship in a
global order, religious visions of moral order
will continue to appear an attractive, even a
rational, solution to the problems of identity
and belonging in a global world.
152
be ethical relativism,-so someone must be
absolutely wrong.
154
Jesus allegedly said “The Meek shall inherit
the Earth”. This is very un-Darwinian,-the
meek never inherit anything, -but even if they
did it would not take long before a slightly less
meek variant among them claimed leadership
of the Meek, and thereby creating an ipso facto
dictatorship, no doubt soon followed by the
inevitable religious and political corruption,
and a globalist theocracy which would
suppress all political and cultural opposition.
It happened before, at the end of the third
century. The Christianised Roman Empire
banned pagan temple worship, burned
libraries, and persecuted “heretics” and
dissidents, until only itself remained, in the
form of the Church,-which then was able to
claim to be the font of all culture and wisdom,-
having eliminated the opposition.
But nothing lasts, and the Church is now
diminished in power compared with its
medieval heyday as the “Church Triumphant”
before the Renaissance, Reformation, and
Enlightenment severely weakened it.
155
156
Chapter 8
Mind, Brain, Soul, Spirit
157
A conscious animal is one that can remember,
and associate past memories with new in-
coming information via the senses, -compare
and contrast them, and produce an output of
appropriate behaviour, and anticipate the
future in the light of knowledge so gained.
Traditional religions tend to downgrade animal
consciousness, as this is in their view, a God-
given gift to his highest creation, Man.; and
incidentally allows Man to ill-treat animals on
the grounds that they are not conscious Beings
with a “Soul”.
Researchers like Pavlov and B.F. Skinner
developed ”Behaviourism”, -the concept that
the brains, especially of animals were a kind of
“black box”,-whose internal workings were
unknown and unimportant; all that mattered
was that that they mediated somehow, a
stimulus- response circuit of behaviour,--rather
like a reflex knee-jerk.
Behaviourism was eventually eclipsed by
Cognitive studies.
In “higher” animals the balance and
coordination of the body is controlled in part
by these reflex arcs, where for instance a slight
stretching of a muscle is compensated by a
rapid contraction of it so as to maintain
posture,--as in the knee-jerk.
158
A electro-chemical message is rapidly
propagated from the muscle via an afferent
nerve, to the spinal cord,-and the motor
response ordering the muscle to “tighten-up” is
sent back to it from the spinal cord via an
efferent nerve.
Simultaneously the message is also sent up the
spino-thalamic tract to the brain’s “Clapham
junction” processor, and then on to the
cerebral cortex where it becomes a conscious-
awareness response, telling the owner what is
going on in the body; not every single detail,
just the important bits.
This conscious cerebral cortex level is the
tricky bit, not yet fully understood,-- but it
makes sense to regard it not as God-given
magic, (a God-of-the-gaps “explanation”) but
as a processing system which involves feed-
back loops between neurons and modules of
neurons, in which past memories of the body’s
physical state, and stored and concurrent
information from the physical senses are all
involved, and which are then output via
efferent nerve fibres or inter-neurone synapses
to those parts of the brain which are the end-
terminals of the sense organs –eg skin, eyes,
ears, taste, smell,-so as to stimulate in them a
kind of hallucination in which the animal or
159
Man is aware of himself and aspects of his
environment.
161
“—but the Soul, it comes from God, from
God!!”
Eventually I got on my high horse and
informed them rather tartly, that this was a
philosophy group, not a bible-study class.
They went.
162
163
Chapter 9
Psychology
164
early man “knew” God.-(Adam presumably).
This has been discredited.
Rather, early attempts at religion involved
spirit and ancestor worship, human sacrifice
and ritual cannibalism, animism, totemism,
fetishism, polytheism, and eventually
monotheism;-which is not necessarily
superior,--it just means that when you live in a
desert you only really need one god of the sky,
sands, earthquakes and volcanoes.
Whereas an urban civilisation (like ancient
Egypt), had lots of gods for this that and the
other,--all the complexities of civilised living;
eg gods of the hearth, of the Underworld, of
Judgement, and recording of one’s deeds in
life.
166
All good clean fun you might think,--except
that this sort of thing is taught to children as
fact, and as a substitute for modern medicine,-
as well as being highly socially disruptive,-
into “us” the Saved, and “them” the Damned.
All of these strange beliefs continue to be
propagated by those who would rather cosy up
together in a Brotherhood of Silliness than use
their “God-given” intelligence. “Fools for
Christ” –indeed!
It further reminds me of the time I was turned
away from visiting the Sistine Chapel because
I was wearing shorts. I thought of explaining
to the Swiss Guard that as God had made my
knees, presumably it was alright to display
them;--but I thought better of it.
I got in later, after getting changed; same thing
happened at the Catacombs.
Placebo Effects
The psychological effects of rituals,
incantations and “magic”,- as well as the
medicinal use of “dummy” pills, is not fully
understood according to a recent article in
New Scientist magazine; but although they
occur, they do not seem to last;-paralysis is not
cured for longer than it takes the patient to
take up his bed and walk and then disappear
167
round the corner out of sight and out of mind,-
whatever claims are made later on by gullible
wishful-thinkers, or by actual deception to
propagate the myth of miracle cures. The blind
do not really regain their sight, except in those
rare cases of hysterical blindness; and so-
called glove-and-stocking hysterical
anaesthesia in a hand or foot happens
occasionally but is a known medical
phenomenon. Limbs do not grow back,-
despite the assurances I had recently from a
Christian lady, who quickly changed the
subject when asked for a demonstration to be
arranged. Yet I am sure she believed it
somehow, and was not deliberately lying for
Jesus, though that does happen.
Otherwise doctors and surgeons would be out
of business.
Similarly “glossolalia,-or “speaking in
tongues”, which is claimed to be ancient
languages, cannot be identified as such, eg
Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek.
It seems to be genuinely believed that a Holy
Spirit descends upon those who are taking
Communion, or being blessed with Holy
Water.
All these blessings and baptisms had their
earlier counterparts in Jewish rites, and in still
168
earlier pagan practices. The use of Holy Water
is clearly a sanitised, Christianised version of
animal and human blood sacrifice, derived in
part from bathing in the blood of a bull during
the worship of Mithras (also born 25th
December),-as is the consuming of the “blood
and body of Christ” at Holy Communion.
169
Chapter 10
170
Christian Questions
171
in on his day to day plans and opinions. But
then we all like to feel important.
Of course they believe this, otherwise why
pray unless they think their prayers are being
answered in the form of an update on God’s
personal program for them and everyone else
whom they wish to convert? This, despite the
recorded fact, that clinical trials show no
influence at all on medical cures or benefits
though prayer,-other than statistical chance,
which works out at a level of about 0.02% of
prayers answered favourably, (which for the
non-mathematical readers means 99.98% of
prayers are unanswered,)- but who cares as
long as you have faith?
It is evidently hard to determine objectively
what counts as a favourable result from
praying,-which is why all such conclusions
have to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
Naturally those wishing for favourable results
will see them everywhere; but always
subjectively. It is notable that missing limbs
never regenerate no matter how hard one
prays,--and the British Royal Family, possibly
the most prayed-for group on Earth, still
experience their statistical share of
misfortunes.
172
Do they not know that prayer is blasphemous?
Think about it; you are demanding that God
should change his Divine Plan just for your
convenience, and maybe just for 5 minutes,
after which you may give him permission to
carry on as ordained from the beginning of
Time? Are you then surprised when we
atheists conclude that you invented God for
your own human purpose and not the other
way round?
But you can rest easy; thanks to secular efforts
for the last 140 years, the archaic British
Blasphemy Law (which only applies to
Anglicans),--has finally been repealed. So you
won’t burn in Hell,--though this has the
downside that you will not be allowed (at least
in theory), to carry on burning and torturing
atheists and heretics either.
Christian tactics
178
Why so many liars for Jesus, including Paul,
Bishop Eusebius, Lactantius?
Why did Celsus write against them and cause
the Church father Origen to write “Contra
Celsum”—in an unsuccessful attempt to rebut
him?
Why did Julian the Apostate try to reverse the
conversion of the Roman Empire?
179
All of the above are distinguished by their
intelligence and intellect.
To confirm this point, many recent studies
have shown an inverse relationship of
intelligence and religious belief.
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and have the motivation to build great
monuments and edifices.
182
183
Chapter 11
Early Critics of Christianity
185
The above is just a sketchy summary of
Christian claims and their refutation.
Apart from the deceits of the early Christian
Fathers, including Paul, that we touched on
earlier.-there were early stronger critics such
as Celsus,--whose works have been lost
though Christian censorship; we only know of
it because of Origen’s reply to him,- “Contra
Celsum”.
Then “Julian the Apostate” tried to undo the
ruination of Rome under the Christians, and
was assassinated for his pains, (see Gibbon’s
“Decline & Fall” and his primary sources eg
Ammianus Marcellinus.)
Libanius, was a Greek speaking- pagan
philosopher of the late Empire, born around
the year 314, who spoke up for religious
tolerance, before their way of life was
submerged beneath increasing fanaticism.
Prior to that, as well as afterwards,- there were
the dozens of “heretical” sects, which had to
be gradually stamped out by Rome,--which
tends rather to undermine any Christian claim
to a monolithic claim to authenticity by any
one of the various “interpretations” of the
“greatest story ever told”,--except for the
surviving one of course.
186
Since then, we have had the Dark Ages, the
Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, and
the “New Atheists”,--all expressing discontent
with the Christian juggernaut under which we
were and are submerged,-imposed by the
Catholic Church, and enforced by the
Inquisition,--which still survives under the
more innocent- sounding title of the
“Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.
As mentioned earlier, the “fruits” of Christ’s
teachings, even if distorted by Christians since
his time, have further undermined it as being
anything other than a human institution which
exists only for it’s own benefit.
The only thing that is good about it is it’s
sporadic Humanism, which was pre-existing
anyway, and in other places,--and its strong
centralized governments in the Vatican and its
Christian post-Roman colonies. Everything
else is myth and fiction.
188
6. - You are willing to spend your life
looking for little loopholes in the
scientifically established age of Earth
(few billion years), but you find
nothing wrong with believing dates
recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen
sitting in their tents and guessing that
Earth is a few generations old.
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3. The reason a mother tries to rescue her
children is because of God. !! (Look
up Natural Selection).
4. The reason why a preponderance of
helpless babies and young children
perished in the tsunami is because they
are the poorest and live closer to the
coasts and have less supportive
infrastructure. This was offered by a
Christian as an “explanation”. Well
precisely:-it is a naturalistic
explanation, not a God explanation.
They have stolen a naturalistic
explanation from atheists.
5. The old favourite: “It happened so that
good might come out of it”- ie that
people would join together in rescue.
So God has to cause, or negligently
allow, tens or hundreds of thousands of
deaths in order to make people feel
good about themselves and each other?
6. People help each other because they
have a “Divine spark”. This is an
unprovable metaphysical assertion,-
also meaningless if there is no God.
7. And of course the obvious: “It is God’s
punishment”—for what? What
behaviour can justify such slaughter?-
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maybe they weren’t Christians , but
heathens?—maybe they were the
wrong sort of Christian? Maybe they
were the right sort of Christian but not
diligent enough in praising God?
8. “God’s ways are beyond human
understanding”. !!!
9. Satan did it.
10. God was demonstrating his Power, and
culling his creation---Homicidal
maniac!!
11. “It was nothing to do with God”—
precisely;- so then, what good is God,
and all that prayer and adulation? If
God did not even notice, or care, - what
good is he?
Could the reason be perhaps that he
does not even exist?
12 .One Apologist asserted that Men have
killed far more people than God. This
raises two points: 1. Even if true,- is God
then synonymous with Natural Disaster-
and just a metaphor for it? 2. Who created
Men to behave that way, and gave them
Freewill?—God, allegedly. So we can
justifiably blame God-if he exists,-or more
justifiably assert that he does not.
13. God was testing our Faith!
192
193
Chapter 12
The Future
194
The Church, right from the start, has
demonstrated typical Darwinian evolution by
adaptive radiation; that is,-by throwing up new
variations (heresies),-spreading out into
ideologically unpopulated areas where such
variants can find an ecological niche, and
spreading out to increase their influence in the
meme –pool; yes I am talking “memetics” not
“genetics”, but it is an apt analogy.
Nowadays, missionary activity continues
unabated, without producing more than
superficial civilising effects,-but rather,
increasing sectarianism within third-world
populations. The most religious and belligerent
nation on Earth, the U.S., considers it it’s
divine mission to encircle other nations
militarily, to impose its own idea of democracy
and freedom of religious worship, just so long
as secularism is weakened, despite it’s own
First Amendment, and preferably some major
Christian sect,- or as a poor second best, Islam,
is encouraged to flourish, in order to check the
growth of “unbelief”.
The world is becoming increasing polarised
between contending versions of belief,-just as
in the major historical schisms within the
Church, -but now on a global scale; perhaps,
as mentioned above, it will become a war in
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the heavens between Catholic, Islamic, and
various Protestant and secular ones.
The Catholic Church of course wants to give
the impression of monolithic, monotheistic
unity of belief and dogma,--but of course it is
vulnerable to the “Darwinian imperative” like
all evolving systems; hence its continuing war
against Liberal Theology, Progressive
Revelation, renegade priests and bishops-and
godless scientific activities like the use of
condoms, euthanasia, contraception , abortion
and stem cell research;--all the things with
which scientists try to reduce human misery,-
mostly caused by unchecked population
growth.
Hence the rise of the New Atheism as an
attempted check on runaway religious world
domination.
We will just have to wait and see how it all
pans out, though it seems difficult to see how
the Catholic Church can continue in its fixed
rules and dogmas without becoming increasing
isolated and marginalised by an educated and
secular populace who have a greater grasp of
science, and of logical rational arguments. In
addition there is increasing knowledge of
biblical origins and ancient history and
archaeology by scholars which is filtering
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down into the population at large, the original
intention for which was the confirmation of
Christian dogma, but which instead is serving
to undermine all of its supernatural claims.
On the other hand if the Catholic Church
relaxes its grip and allows itself to “evolve”,-
then the original authenticity of its teachings
will become diluted out of existence.
How can this happen to the assertions of a
fixed and unchanging Holy Book?
It must be an impossible dilemma for the Pope
and cardinals; change or die; change and die
anyway.
The Protestant sects face the same problem.
The Anglican Church is already in trouble with
rifts and schisms occurring over women priest
and bishops, and gay clergy.
More evangelical sects are arising from the
third world, whose rather naïve and simple –
minded proponents try, amidst increasing
ridicule, to purvey their frankly daft message,
and methods of encouraging it,- in the post-
Christian West. Christian “retreats” and
“Alpha courses” may have novelty appeal for
some young, bored and naïve teenagers,-but it
appears to soon wear off, generally. It has
become a simplistic faith for mainly senile old
women, and staunch conservative middle-class
197
die-hards, and their uncomprehending
children.
Then they have to contend now with the
competition of Islam, and the ridicule and
opposition of atheists.
“Suffer little children”,--Jesus is supposed to
have said. I don’t think he meant for his
followers to become simple-minded and
gullible ignoramuses whose knowledge of the
real world is in direct inverse proportion to the
amount of time they spend hymn-singing,
Bible- reading, praying, as well as preying,-
on the rest of us.
Surveys have been done which confirm this
inverse relationship. See below:
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to be published in the journal Intelligence, the
Times Higher Education Supplement reports.
Lynn and his two co-authors argue that
average IQ is an excellent predictor of what
proportion of the population are true believers,
across 137 countries. They also cite surveys of
the US Academy of Sciences and UK Royal
Academy showing single-digit rates of
religious belief among academics.
That professional skeptics don't believe in a
creator is perhaps not all that surprising. Lynn
argues, however, that it is their intelligence
that directly gives rise to the boffinated
classes' non-God-bothering tendencies. He
said: "Why should fewer academics believe in
God than the general population? I believe it is
simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have
higher IQs than the general population."
Lynn pointed out that most children do believe
in God, but as their intelligence develops they
tend to have doubts or reject religion.
Similarly, as average IQ in Western societies
increased through the 20th century, so did rates
of atheism, he said.
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The researchers' claims of a direct causal link
have drawn criticism from others in
intelligence researches, who argue their
conclusions are too simplistic. London
Metropolitan University's Dr David Hardman
said: "It is very difficult to conduct true
experiments that would explicate a causal
relationship between IQ and religious belief.
Nonetheless, there is evidence from other
domains that higher levels of intelligence are
associated with a greater ability - or perhaps
willingness - to question and overturn strongly
felt intuitions."
Numerous studies have also failed to
demonstrate any effect, greater than chance,-of
prayer upon medical conditions, or any other
useful effect of it, other than it’s placebo or
psychological effects; certainly not enough to
claim that it contribute to objective knowledge
in any way.
Summary
200
evangelists that their efforts to bend us to their
will are not welcome.
Reginald Le Sueur.
Jersey. Channel Islands. U.K.
201
202
Appendix:
Reasons not to believe
204
17. Genesis is incompatible with
modern science, so is the whole of
science wrong?
18. Gods cure for leprosy is
Incantations and the blood of a
bird!
19. Heaven is to be inhabited in part,
by 144,000 virgin men who have
not been defiled by women!!
(Revelations 14:1-4)
20. Jesus has not conquered death. He
has caused 2000 years of murder
and mayhem instead, and confused
our children.
21. Other God-men like Jesus, eg.
Krishna, Mithras, Attis, and Jesus
imitators like Apollonius of Tyana,
Alexander etc.
22. Random pain, suffering, and
destruction.
23. Irreconcilable attributes of God.
24. Trying to explain one mystery (the
Universe and Life), by inventing a
second mystery (God).
25. Pascal’s Wager is inconclusive at
best, on logical and moral grounds,
and dishonest, and can be applied
to any god or belief system. (We
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had better believe in Zeus or
Apollo, just in case.)
26. Religious Harm; Time & money
wasted on building Churches. Time
wasted on prayer. “Miracle
healing” that
goes wrong. Opposition to contraception &
Euthanasia. Interference with human
rights, eg Gays & unbelievers. Promoting
AIDS by opposing condoms. Honour
killings. Brutal punishments. War &
genocide. Opposing modern science,
especially Evolution & geology,- & so
damaging Education, and censoring free
thought & free speech. Damaging
“primitive” cultures.
27. The persistence and increase of
unbelief, after 2000 years of
Christianity,-as well as rival faiths.
28. Faults of the Church, especially
child abuse.
29. Animal suffering.
30. “You can’t prove God does not
exist”-Answer:”Nor can I prove
Amon-Ra, Zeus, Aphrodite, and the
Great Invisible Pink Unicorn in the
Full Glory of Her Ineffable
Pinkness don’t exist—therefore
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“obviously” they all do, and we
should build temples and worship
them all!
31. Hitler tried to exterminate the deaf-
mutes and infirm of all types from
the population,- and was therefore
“evil”.
Nature does exactly the same thing
through Natural Selection; therefore
Nature is also “evil”.
If Nature is God’s evil creation, then
God is “evil” in the same way as
Hitler--- Discuss.
.32.Two different versions of Book of
Genesis.
33. People have been brainwashed into
dependency on God or Jesus, by
Churches with vested interests.
34. The Roman Catholic Church is the
continuation of the Roman Empire in
the West, and uses psychological
blackmail, ie the threat of
Excommunication (and formerly
torture and burning), instead of the
Legions in order to try and keep
control; of its former provinces.
35. Nuns are converted Vestal Virgins.
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36. The unsolved (for Christians)
Problem of Evil
37. Countries and Cities divided by
Religion.
38. If Jesus was the last word in God’s
revelation,- then why Islam?
39. It all goes back to Isaac or
Ishmael,--which one to follow? ( as
Believers feel obliged to follow, rather
than lead.)
40. Beware a Superpower controlled by
religious fanatics, the U.S.,-it will try
to provoke Armageddon,- as it sees it.
41. Long lists of Biblical absurdities,
atrocities, inconsistencies, fraudulent
forgeries, and false or inaccurate
testimonies eg. the Testamonium
Flavium of Josephus, and the irrelevant
comments of Suetonius and Tacitus.,-
Apocryphal, non-canonical, and
carefully selected NT Gospels.
42. Messiah rivals, contemporary with
Jesus, Theudas, and Simon of Galilee
43. EUTHYPRO argument: “Is
something “Good” because God says it
is, - if so, then God is just a tyrant
dictator.
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If something is “Good”
anyway, then there is something higher
and prior to God, so he is not
completely omnipotent, but has to
conform to higher realms of Morality,
just like the rest of us.
44. “God is always good and acts
according to his nature”,--comment:--
but then God is restricted to having
only one nature and being obliged to
stick to it,- and so again, is not
omnipotent.
45. Is the existence of Yahweh more
credible than that of Zeus , Apollo, or
Amon-Ra?- if so, explain.
46. The most credible explanation of
the Jesus saga is that he planned to be
the expected Messiah himself, and
acted the part even down to a mock
crucifixion which he survived,” in
order that ”the Scripture might be
fulfilled”—(John 19:32,33,36.)
47. The “Freewill” defence fails
because 1. God could have made us to
always choose to do good, rather than
evil.. 2. Natural disasters are not the
fault of man. 3. The doctrine of
Original Sin means that humans are
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born in sin and unable to not sin, and
therefore do not have freewill.
48. God tries to persuade us that he
created us in 6 days, and then shoots
himself in his divine foot by sending
along Charles Darwin to teach us the
exact opposite, --that we gradually
evolved over 4 billion years;--absent
minded, or what?
49. Can God do the impossible,-make
2+2=5 or change the value of pi. If not,
he is not omnipotent, if so, then the
Universe would be in chaos and
without any logical causality.
50. Can a decomposing body be
resurrected? Even if hermetically
sealed (and how many are?),-in order
to prevent the escape of gaseous
breakdown products, eg. Ammonia,
methane, hydrogen sulphide.
51. Supporters of the Kalam
Cosmological argument delight in
saying how the Universe could not
even begin to arise out of nothing.
Even if God was omnipotent, his
creativity would be limited by the
material he was working with: ie,
-precisely nothing. Could even God
210
scoop up a handful of nothing, and
create a Universe out of it?
52.Why should anyone believe in a
Deus Absconditas? (an absent God)
53. God is (allegedly) conscious and
intelligent himself already; so why
create an inferior copy in Man? And if
(allegedly), it was an act of love and
sharing,- why not just procreate
himself in Heaven with a chosen
superior Divine consort whom he could
have first created, and not bother with
Earth at all? And further; as God’s
love is (allegedly) perfect, infinite, and
boundless,- then why are all the
neighbouring planets in our solar
system not bursting with intelligent life
(and all praising God while they’re at
it),- as far as we can observe. And of
course what about the rest of the
Universe,- all dark and empty, or
pulsating with god –fearing Christians?
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55. . The absurd variety and volume
of living things (similar to the
absurd size of the Universe). If
created, it signifies a Creator gone
mad. However natural genetic
variation over billions of years
explains it far more plausibly.
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67. Omnimax God is incoherent
(Necessarily false). 1. Existence
of Evil which God being
omnipotent and omniscient could
abolish but does not.
Is Evil so good for us? Does so
much good come out of it that it is
worth continual slaughter, sickness
and mayhem? (AIDS, Tsunamis,
9/11)
215
68. God, in the OT, was a stern
punisher of sinners, and was always
smiting people: why then does he
suddenly decide to become a victim of
all those sinners by getting himself
crucified?
218
73 Christians propose the
Transcendental Argument for God,
which is supposed to prove his
existence logically. (TAG).
They propose that Logic and Science
are dependent on Christian Theism.
However, any statement about the
existence of god, or the veracity of the
Bible is itself dependent on pre-
existent Logic. Logic is therefore a
necessary truth, and God himself is
dependent upon it. (See also the
Euthypro argument above.)
1) God exists.
2) God is omnibenevolent.
219
3) God has a plan of salvation.
4) God wants his sheep to spread
his word to all unbelievers.
5) Despite God's desire for all to
be saved, there are many
millions, probably billions of
people who have died or will die
never having heard his word.
6) Since God is a just God (from
#2) it follows that those who
have never heard the word will
still go to heaven.
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223
Bibliography and acknowledgements
224
Alistair McGrath “The Twilight of Atheism”
(See page 272)
Voltaire “Candide”
225
Francis Wheen “How Mumbo-Jumbo
conquered the World”
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229