When I was in Standard 2 at primary school we had Bible Study classes for two hours every week. The first time, a few students went away to another room and the rest of us were ushered down to sit on the mat. A very smiley woman named Mrs Brown came and perched her ample backside on one of our tiny chairs and told us stories about Jesus. I don’t remember any of the stories, but I do remember singing a song about how “Jesus is the apple of my eye, and that’s why I’m bananas for the Lord”.

Afterwards, one of my friends told me that instead of Bible Study, all I had to do was tell my mother to write a note to the teacher and I could go to “Peaceful Relations” with her instead. That night, I made my mother write the note.
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Thus spake wikipedia. It means fear of the number 666.
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There was a very interesting reader comment today on Andrew Sullivan’s blog about Atheism & Mystery.  My interpretation of the situation is the exact opposite.  (Go read the comment now, I’ll wait).

The reader says that this (atheist) obsession with "good answers" is central to the frustration with faith.  They explain that non-believers cannot tolerate ‘mystery’ and must always have an answer, whereas believers are content with not knowing and therefore better attuned to reality.

I think the reader has it right when they say the obsession with ‘good answers’ is central, but it seems to me that believers place the emphasis on the word ‘answers’, and non-believers place the emphasis on the word ‘good’.

My experience of atheists (being one myself) is that most are very ready to admit things they do not know. I do not know what happens when we die (neither does Sam Harris, as he states).  I don’t know why the Big Bang happened, I don’t know why the universe has the properties it does.  There is a lot I don’t know.  I would like to know, which I think is a basic human trait, and so I’m glad science is working on it.  But right now, I just don’t know.

It has always seemed to me that it is believers who cannot abide not knowing and who insist on there being an answer.  Believers have erected this edifice of religion to provide answers to all the unknowns.  This generally includes belief in the existence of an creator, in an afterlife, and that the universe was created specifically to support us and with a purpose in mind as well as filling in lots of other gaps in our knoweldge.  To an atheist mind, the certainty with which these things are believed is just not supported by evidence.  It would be more honest to simply acknowledge that we don’t know the answers about these matters.

For atheists, it is very important that our answers be ‘good’ – that they be properly justified with evidence.  That is precisely why atheists do not accept Christianity, Islam or any other religion – we find the evidence to be insufficient.  To us it appears that theists are so desperate to have an answer (any answer) that they are willing to completely disregard whether the answer has any truth to it.

Although atheists prefer ‘good answers’, we would rather not have an answer at all than to have the false certainty of an answer that is not based on any good reason or evidence. 

Factually maybe, but philosophically no.

For fundamentalists, religion and science are just plain incompatible on all levels.  The findings of geology, geometry, astronomy & history directly conflict things in the Bible, and fundamentalists believe the Bible to be literally true and inerrant.  Since they believe a bronze age manuscript to be the ultimate source of knowledge, they reject the findings of science.

Most non-fundamentalists would probably say that religion and science are perfectly compatible.    There is no problem reconciling (say) liberal or mainline Christianity or Islam with our knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology or pretty much any branch of the physical and social sciences.  The knowledge base of science, the facts of science, are not in conflict with an allegorical reading of the Bible.

However, I think there is an enormous conflict between the philosophies of science and religion.

Science involves a mix of creativity and skepticism.  Ideas and hypotheses about reality can come from anywhere – dreams, hallucinations, insights, plucked from someone’s ass or even from ancient manuscripts.  But the skeptical half of science requires thoroughly testing those ideas against reality.  Ideas that don’t fit with what we observe are ruthlessly discarded.  In this way the gold is separated from the muck and we can find nuggets of truth about the universe.  No individual scientist is perfect, nobody is correct all the time, but Science as a whole is an error-correcting, evidence-based process for finding out what is really going on.  So far, this is the only reliable method humanity has figured out for discovering truth.

Religion is based on faith.  Faith is belief without evidence (or even in spite of the evidence).  While it may happen that the proposition believed is in fact true, this is accidental.  Religion has no method to find out which of its beliefs are true and which aren’t.  If there happens to be evidence, religous people will use it, but if not, the need for evidence is dismissed.    Doubting Thomas is not held up as a role model of honest intellectual inquiry, but as an example of what not to do.  It is better to not doubt or require evidence, as Jesus makes clear: "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (John 20:29)

In science, evidence is everything.  Ideas that aren’t supported by evidence, that don’t match up with reality are rejected, however elegant or desirable they are.  The ideas that survive give us useful knowledge about the world. In religion, evidence is nothing.  Ideas that aren’t supported by evidence are proclaimed as truth, and belief in them regardless of evidence is deemed a virtue.  The ideas that survive give us nothing of any use.

Religion and Science couldn’t be more opposed.

One of the central tenets of Christianity is that Jesus was crucified for the sins of humanity and then rose from the dead three days later.  Rising from the dead is a pretty spectacular stunt.   In fact, many Christian apologetics site hold this up as the singular reason for believing Christianity is true.   So what makes people believe that a Jewish Rabbi pulled it off 2000 years ago?

The short answer is the Gospels.  The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John tell the story of the life of Jesus.  They weren’t written by eyewitnesses to the events, but were dedicated to the apostles.  The gospel of Mark was written (at the very earliest) 40-50 years after the crucifixion, Matthew & Luke more than 50-60 years after (and with a copy of Mark in hand), and Luke at least 60-70 years after (with copies of the other three in hand).  (Bear in mind the average life expectancy was 30 and most people probably wouldn’t have made it much past 50).

(Paul was converted to Christianity by seeing Jesus, but even Christian scholars believe that he saw Jesus in a vision, not in the flesh.)

So, what do the Gospels say about the resurrection?

According to Mark; two Marys and Salome found the tomb empty and one young man in white there said that Jesus would be seen at Galilee. It doesn’t say whether he will be seen in body or in spirit.  A little bit more was added a couple of hundred years later, but the original version of Mark stops at this.

According to Matthew; two Marys found an angel that blazed like lightning, paralyzed two guards, rolled back the stone and said that Jesus would be seen at Galilee.  The two Marys rush off to tell the apostles, and see Jesus on the way home.  They grovel at his feet, hinting he is physically present.

According to Luke; two Marys and Joanna (and perhaps others) found two young men in white.  Peter also checks out the empty tomb.   They meet Jesus who tells them explicitly he is physically resurrected, and eats a fish to prove it.

According to John; Mary, Peter and one other disciple find the tomb empty.  Peter and the disciple leave and Mary sees two angels in white, then sees Jesus, which she announces to the other disciples.  He appears to them and proves he is physically resurrected by showing off his wounds and even letting Thomas put his fingers into his wounds.

Chinese whispers anyone?  70 years is a long time for rumours to grow.   How accurately do we know events that happened within the last 50 years?  Look at all the competing theories around things like Elvis’s death (or is he really still alive?), Marilyn Monroe’s suicide (or did the Kennedys kill her?), Apollo (was it staged in a Hollywood back lot?) or even really recent things like 9/11 (were the twin towers actually dynamited from inside?).  Who is to say that one of these won’t end up being the generally accepted theory in a thousand years time?

Remember that the Jews at the time weren’t convinced there was anything special about Jesus.  And the small Christian sect itself had other branches who didn’t believe in his divinity or in a physical resurrection.  The dominant branch eventually had those other branches declared heretics and put them to death if they didn’t renounce their beliefs.  It’s that dominant branch that became the Chrisitanity we have today – the victors get to write history.

So, in the Gospels we have four successively embellished versions of a story written down at least 40 years after it happened, by people who didn’t witness it and at a time when there probably weren’t many people around who did (and who probably wouldn’t bother to correct the recruitment propaganda of a small fringe Jewish sect anyway).

Clearly on their own, the Gospels don’t cut it as evidence that the events they narrated really happened.  Do we have any corroborating evidence outside the Bible that this happened?

Well, no, actually.  The best most Bible apologists can come up with is casual mentions of Christians from around 115AD onwards.  Clearly there were a sect of people who believed Jesus was the messiah and rose from the dead.  They most likely got their information from the Gospels.  The existence of Christians does nothing to prove the truth of the resurrection.   There is almost no evidence that Jesus even existed at all, never mind that he performed miracles, was crucified and then was resurrected.

The writings from the period chronicle all sorts of events, but are largely silent about Jesus.  The historian Josephus (who was born around the time Jesus died) wrote about the period in which Jesus was supposed to have lived, however the only mention of Jesus is one paragraph which even many Christian scholars (and most secular scholars) believe was added later by a scribe.

So basically, we have zero evidence for the resurrection.  The evidence for Jesus’s existence and crucifixion isn’t much better actually, but let’s assume we believe at least that Jesus really existed and was crucified.  How could the resurrection story have gotten started?

Jesus was proclaimed to be the messiah.  He was supposed to lead the Jews into battle to throw off the Roman oppression, to restore Israel, destroy the wicked and judge everyone.  The one thing he was mostly certainly not supposed to do was get killed.  His followers were pretty much screwed when that happened.  They’d been following him for years trying to establish their own Jewish sect.   After his death they continued his teachings, and some of them saw him in dreams and visions.  Over the following decades the story evolved from a few apostles seeing visions of their dead teacher to become a full bodily resurrection and ascension.

This is just one explanation, one which assumes fairly pure motives on the part of everyone involved.  There are many other possible explanations as well, all of which are plausible and which can be explained in terms of natural events and human motivations.   A walking dead guy seems to be the least likely explanation.

There is simply no evidence that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

What is truth?   A common definition is ‘agreement with fact or reality’.   Religions claim to be able to provide truth about the universe.   But do religious people really understand the meaning of the word?

Sam Harris (author of The End Of Faith) and Andrew Sullivan (author of The Conservative Soul) have been having a debate about this (Part 1 and Part 2).  The question was  ‘Is Religion Built Upon Lies’? which is essentially probing the truth of religion (and Sullivan’s Christian religion in particular).  Throughout this discussion, I think Andrew Sullivan constantly misuses the word truth.  

In his first post, he speaks about fundamentalism and says to Harris, "You find it troubling, I think, purely because it upholds truths that cannot be proved empirically or even, in some respects, logically."   Yes, fundamentalism makes claims to truth.  However, the fact that we cannot prove them empirically or logically (and in fact, many of them we have zero evidence for, and even evidence against) means that these claims aren’t truth, they are just unsubstantiated truth-claims.

Later in the same post, Sullivan paraphrases the Pope in saying "I believe that God is truth and truth is, by definition, reasonable."  he goes on to say, "Science cannot disprove true faith; because true faith rests on the truth; and science cannot be in ultimate conflict with the truth."  I suppose he’s right that science cannot be in ultimate conflict with the truth.  Science is simply a process or method for discovering truth (the only reliable process for this that humanity has discovered).  

But what does it mean to say that ‘faith rests on the truth’?  Faith, in the sense that Sullivan and Harris are using it (Harris defined it in his first post) means belief in a proposition without sufficient evidence for doing so (sometimes even in spite of evidence to the contrary).  The phrase ‘faith rests on the truth’ is therefore nonsense.   ‘God is truth’ is equal nonsense.   

In his third post, Sullivan says "My response rests on an understanding of truth that is not exhausted by empiricism or materialism. I do not believe, in short, that all truth rests on scientific premises and can be ‘proven’ by empirical or scientific methods."   Further on he says, "… there may well be a higher truth beyond empirical inquiry or proof."  In other words, he is prepared to call ‘truth’ things which are not in agreement with fact or reality, things which by definition, are not truth.

In his most recent post, Sullivan says: "… God is love. … [This claim] can be reasoned about, but its truth itself is not reasonable or reachable through reason alone. But I believe it to be true – not as a fable or as a comfort or as a culture. As truth." (Italics in original.)  But merely proclaiming something as truth does not make it true.   And the statement that the truth of the claim cannot be ascertained through reason is just stupid.  That leaves what?  That the truth of the claim can only be reached by believing it?   Simply believing things is not a valid way to discover truth – the only valid way we know of is the scientific process.

Religious use of the word truth seems to be a kind of doublespeak.  Sullivan calls his religious beliefs ‘truth’, even though he admits "I know of no "proof" that could dissuade me of [the existence of God], since no "proof" ever persuaded me of it."   He seems fundamentally unable or unwilling to separate his hopes from reality.  In not separating fact from wishful thinking, he is blurring the line between the two and trying to cover it up with a grotesque twisting of the meaning of the word truth.  And he’s certainly not the only Christian I have seen doing this.

One of the things that has long puzzled me is that many religious people I have met don’t really seem to care about truth.  I know people who will freely admit that there is no evidence whatsoever for their religious beliefs (and even evidence against).  But they argue that they believe anyway because their religion provides comfort.  They don’t want to imagine the world existing without them, they don’t want to die, or they want to think they always have a friend to talk to (even if he’s invisible).   I can see how these ideas would be comforting.  I wouldn’t mind believing myself, but only if they are true.  I can’t see anything comforting about believing a delusion or a lie.

That’s probably why I’m an atheist.  I would rather know the truth, even if it’s not all love and peace, paradise and perfection.  If you don’t have truth, what do you have?

I’ve written before about feeling uneasy about the idea of having ‘respect’ for other people’s religious beliefs.  Respect for religion seems to mean that religion is beyond criticism.  All our other beliefs and opinions are considered fair game for argument, but religious beliefs have special status in our society.

If someone expresses an opinion about taxation, social welfare, relationships or solving traffic problems, it is normal to expect them to explain why they hold this opinion.   We are all generally expected to have good reasons for things that we believe and things that we do (and the things that we believe usually motivate/influence the things that we do).

For instance, the war in Iraq isn’t ipso facto a bad thing.   We expect people to have damn good reasons for doing things like invading other countries, but if they do have those good reasons, many people will support it.   If the invasion was motivated by solid evidence of a nuclear weapons program and those weapons were found and taken out of commission, many people would consider that to be a great result.  If it was motivated by solid evidence of a nuclear weapons program that was later found not to exist, then that wouldn’t be considered such a good result, since the question should rightly be asked why the evidence wasn’t sound.   However, if it was motivated by flimsy inaccurate evidence (or worse, no evidence at all) then people would be understandably upset.  In our society, it’s just not acceptable to do things like that without good reason.

The same thing that applies to countries and Presidents also applies to all of us in our everyday lives.  We expect that the people around us have good reason for behaving the way they do and for believing the things they do.  When people don’t, we consider them abnormal and possibly even mentally ill.

Imagine that a mother tells you that she believes her month-old baby son should eat nothing but pureed strawberries for the first two years of his life in order to grow up healthy and strong.  You would probably be appalled at such stupidity, and would most certainly argue with her that it isn’t healthy.  If she couldn’t be persuaded by arguments about nutrition and the studies showing the need for protein, fat, calcium and other vitamins in the diet, you would probably start becoming a bit concerned for the child’s wellbeing.   If she explained to you that the reason she firmly holds this belief is because her neighbour’s 6-year-old told her so, then you might be inclined to start looking up the number for CYFS and hoping she gets some psychiatric treatment.

Not only are we all expected to have reasons for our beliefs and opinions, we are expected to have good reasons.  It is perfectly socially acceptable to ask someone why they think what they do.  We also think nothing of debating ideas with other people, offering our thoughts and our reasons for them.  Both sides use evidence to back up their arguments, although in most social situations nobody has enough evidence at their disposal to settle the issue one way or the other.

But religion is somehow off limits.  It is not socially acceptable to ask someone for evidence of the truth of their religious beliefs.  Religious beliefs have to be protected from inquiry, shielded from critique.  It’s considered ‘disrespectful’ to point out to someone that you think their religion is just an ancient myth and to give them the reasons why you think so.

I do firmly believe in freedom of speech and freedom of thought.  People have the right to believe whatever they want.  However, part of being a member of human society is that we are expected to have good reasons for the beliefs we hold and the actions we take.  Religion is the only area of life that gets a free pass.  Why?

Surely, if it could withstand criticism, argument and evidence, we would treat religion the same as any other area on which there can be different opinions?   Are we required to ‘respect’ religion because the set of ideas can’t survive on their own merits?

Present both sides of the argument and let people make up their own minds.  That sounds like a very fair and rational thing to say, doesn’t it?

Present the evidence for both evolution and creationism, oh excuse me, intelligent design.   After all they are both just theories, right?  Let people make up their own minds.

Well, how about we change the school syllabus to make sure we give equal time to these alternative "theories" of science?

Chemistry – elements

1. There are four types of atoms: earth, air, fire & water.   Fire hurts because its atoms are sharp and jagged.   Water flows because its atoms are smooth and slippery.  Everything is made up of a blend of the four types of atoms.

2. All matter consists of atoms, which have a positively charged nucleus made up of protons and neutrons, surrounded by an orbiting  cloud of electrons.  Each type of atom has a different number of protons in the nucleus.

Physics

1. Light travels through the luminiferous aether (a massless, rigid, transparent, non-viscous fluid) and the speed you measure depends on your own speed.

2. Light is both a wave and a particle and is its own medium.  Its speed is constant for all observers.

Chemistry – combustion

1. Some things contain phogiston, a colourless, odourless, tasteless, weightless element, which can be released explosively to cause combustion, leaving behind the dephlogisticated material

2. Combustion occurs when oxygen explosively reacts with other molecules

Geography

1. The earth is flat 

2. The earth is almost spherical

Medicine

1. Sicknesses like cholera or the plague are caused by bad air and can be cured by making the air smell nicer

2. Sicknesses like cholera or the plague are caused by germs and can be cured with good hygiene and antibiotics

Astronomy

1. The Earth stays still at the centre of the universe, with the moon, planets, Sun and stars (suspended in a fixed firmament) rotating around us in perfect circles.

2. The Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun, which is a star like billions of others in this galaxy.

I could imagine these other "sides" being presented as a historical curiousity, and they might make an interesting teaching vehicle for explaining how we know they are not true.   But would you want your kids to learn these things as equal-status competing theories?

You see, the catch with this idea that we should present both sides is that sometimes there really aren’t two sides to the argument.

The one sin that the Christian God apparently cannot ever forgive is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. — John 3:28-29

The website Blasphemy Challenge is asking people to create videos of themselves committing the unpardonable sin and uploading it to YouTube.   They get a free DVD of ‘The God Who Wasn’t There’ (only if they live in the US).  I’ve already downloaded the movie (although I haven’t watched it yet), but I’d still take the challenge.  Sadly, I don’t have any means to video myself.

So, for the record, I would like to state the following:

I completely and utterly deny the existence of God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit.