Tag Archives: creation

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What Is Reality?

Many people, from just folks, to philosophers, want to know what “Reality” is.  The search for reality is a commendable project, but ultimately an unachievable goal.

In debates between Theists and Atheists, the Theists often ask, “What is truth?” as if their unsupported belief in the existence of a deity is somehow valid.  Truth is that which most closely comports to reality.  Aha, but there’s the rub.  What is reality??!  In this situation, reality is what doesn’t go away when you stop believing

Since we don’t have an external definition or description of ‘Reality,’ we wouldn’t know it if it jumped up and bit us in the face.  There is absolutely no way to know that we’re not living in a ‘Matrix,’ or that we are not merely figments of someone’s – or some Thing’s – imagination, or that the Universe was not created this morning, complete with our memories and history.  Occam’s razor forces me to act as if none of these are true.

Many Christian Apologists claim that Atheists deny God, and anything supernatural.  I can’t speak for all Atheists – which is more (or less) than many Theist debaters – who claim to speak for all Christians, and tell Atheists what they think and believe.  I don’t deny the existence of the supernatural, I’m just too damned busy dealing with what actually impinges on my reality, to have time to insert a slice of maybe, possibly, perhaps, if, or could be.

Apologists become so committed to the idea of the existence of their “God,” that they unthinkingly believe the wrong things, and ask the wrong questions.  I recently heard one such, demand of an Atheist debater – not once, but three times – “If God didn’t create the Universe, then WHO did?”

Why does it have to be a WHO??!  Why can’t it be a WHAT?  Just because they can’t think of any other possibility, why can’t it simply be a localized overpressure bubbling in the Quantum Fluctuation field.  That can bring up “Eternity,” and WHO/What created that.  Why couldn’t it simply be the equivalent of a cosmic vending machine, occasionally spitting out random Universes??

Even worse, for the strait-laced, blue-nosed fun-shunners, why couldn’t it be the equivalent of a cosmic slot machine??!  We may all just be the result of three Heavenly lemons, or Douglas Adams’ “Big Sneeze,” waiting for the return of The Great Tissue.  We may be the Gay Universe, shunned by the rest of the Multiverse.  😮

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’25 A To Z Challenge – A

AGATE

Is a way through afence – unless you go in stile.

Marbles were originally made from little broken pieces of marble – hence the name.  Now, most ‘marbles’ are molded from glass.  Hmmm, glass marbles??!  That’s as self-contradictory as plastic glasses – both kinds.

“Aggies,” the more often and more roughly-used playing marbles, also known as taws, were made from agate, a super-hard, super-strong, ultra-compressed type of sandstone.  The pleasing stripe/swirl patterns were created when the original sand was disturbed by waves or water currents, before it became extra-compacted.

I recently saw a video where an excited man pulled a dinner-plate-sized stone from the edge of some water.  He took it home and split it in half with a special saw. (Video agate coral)  The pattern inside was gorgeous.  He claimed that it was a special type of agate, composed of fossilized coral.

I thought agate was only the sandstone type, but I guess I was wrong.  (Hey, could happen??)  I suppose that the same thing occurring, in the same place, under the same conditions, to two similar materials, rates the same name.

I’m gonna roll on out of here.  Be careful on your way out.  I think I picked up all the aggies, but….  😉

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Does Religion Make You Arrogant?

Why do humans think that they are the center of the universe?  Why do so many of them insist that they’re part of a grand design, a cosmic plan specifically tailored for them?  The truth is, religion – despite its claims of humility – is often rooted in something deeply ironic, arrogance.

To think that, in a universe so vast, where Earth is but a speck of dust orbiting an ordinary star, in one of billions of galaxies, everything revolves around us.  Yet, religion tells us that we’re not only important, but essential to the entire operation.  That the same Being that crafted black holes, supernovae, and the laws of physics, is deeply concerned about what we eat, who we love,  or our private thoughts in our moments of desperation.

Consider the claim of creation, that mankind was made in the image of a perfect, omniscient being.  The implications of this belief are staggering.  Not only does it place us at the pinnacle of existence, but it also suggests that the Universe exists for us.  Does that hold up under scrutiny??

Let’s think about the Universe itself.  Over 99.9% of it is completely inhospitable to life.  Earth’s surface is mostly water, much of it too salty to drink.  Natural disasters – earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions – have wiped out billions of lives, human and non-human.  If we were the purpose of creation, wouldn’t the world be more accommodating??  Why design a planet that – by all accounts –seems indifferent to our existence?

This arrogance extends beyond the physical.  Religion often claims exclusive access to truth and morality.  It is no coincidence that many religious traditions assert that those outside the faith are lost, damned, or in need of saving.  This worldview doesn’t just separate people, it elevates the believer.  They think that they know the truth, and others don’t.  It is a subtle, but potent, form of superiority.

Reflect on history, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the colonization of entire continents.  These events are often justified by religious conviction.  The conquerors believed that they were spreading divine truth, bringing light to “the ignorant.”  But how much of that was ‘divine will,’ and how much of it was human, our way is not just better – it’s the only way!

Ii is not just history.  It persists!  When religious leaders insist that natural disasters are punishments for societal sins, or that their prayers can alter the course of a hurricane, what is that, if not extraordinary arrogance?  It assumes a direct line to the divine, a belief that they can influence the cosmos because of their special status.

Consider the statistics.  In surveys, a significant percentage of people in highly religious countries, believe their prayers can affect outcome, whether curing illness, or ensuring success, yet controlled studies show no measurable effect of prayer on external events.  The cognitive dissonance isn’t evidence of humility, it’s a stubborn insistence that belief trumps evidence.

Some might argue that religion teaches humility by emphasizing our flaws, but think about that message.  “You’re flawed – but also chosen. You’re nothing – but God loves you specifically.”  It’s an odd duality, one that oscillates between degradation, and exaltation.  This teaching doesn’t encourage genuine humility: it fosters a kind of spiritual narcissism.  It says, “I’m broken, but that makes me special.”

Let’s not forget the scientific discoveries that have challenged religious narratives, from Darwin’s theory of evolution, to the Big Bang, science has consistently shown that our origin is vastly more complex – and less personal – than ancient texts suggest.  Yet many religious communities reject these findings, not because of evidence, but because they threaten the idea of human centrality.  It’s uncomfortable to admit that we’re not the product of a divine plan, but rather, a series of natural processes, over billions of years.

Real humility comes, not from claiming divine favor, but from acknowledging our place in the Universe.  Carl Sagan once referred to Earth as “a pale blue dot, a tiny world in an unimaginably vast cosmos.”  That perspective doesn’t diminish us.  It liberates us.  It allow us to see ourselves as part of something much larger, something awe-inspiring, not because it revolves around us, but because it doesn’t need to.

And yet, religion often rejects this kind of humility.  It insists on specialness, on chosenness, on being watched and judged by an omnipotent being who somehow prioritizes our species above all others.  Isn’t that the epitome of arrogance?  There’s another way to live, a way that doesn’t require us to be the center of the story, a way that finds meaning, not in divine approval, but in human connection, in the pursuit of knowledge, and the beauty of existence itself.

This perspective doesn’t offer all the answers; it acknowledges that we don’t have them, but in that uncertainty lies true humility.  So the next time someone claims that religion is about modesty, ask yourself, “Is it modest to believe that the Universe was designed for us?  Or is it more humble to simply marvel at the Cosmos, without needing it to revolve around our existence?”

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Wanna see religious arrogance?  Click here!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP2jn3_WrqM&pp=ygUFR0JUSFY%3D

 

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In The Beginning

And God said, “Let there be a Big Bang,” and there was a big bang; and from the Big Bang emerged matter and radiation.

And God saw the Big Bang, that it was a great explosion; and the evening and the morning were the first billion years, 14 billion years ago.

And God said, Let there be hydrogen and helium and let them swirl randomly; and let some of the gas swirl into regions of higher density; and let those regions of greater density contract themselves into proto-galaxies; and let the proto-galaxies contract themselves further into galaxies.

And when they had done so, God said, Let there be stars.

And the first stars began to form within the galaxies; and when the gases whereof they were made had sufficiently compressed, there began thermonuclear burning and lo, there was starlight.  And the evening and the morning were the third billion years, 11 billion years ago.

And to assure that man would not quickly understand His great works, God gave unto the speed of light, a finite limit of 300,000 kilometers a second, and to the atmosphere of the Earth, when He got around to creating it, five billion years ago, He gave turbulence and distortion, and opacity to many kinds of radiation; and further to confound Man’s understanding, He placed throughout the universe, quasars, neutron stars, black holes and other strange peculiarities.

And God looked upon the work of His singularity approvingly and said, Lo, it is a puzzlement.  And it was a puzzlement.

Could we ever expect a universe with anything as strange as Man in it, to be simple?  God the mathematician, God the astrophysicist, moves in mysterious ways.  Simple theories set forth by simple men with very limited knowledge mean that the creation story of the Bible is likely to be wrong, and the likelihood of the Bible being wrong on any given subject increases as Mankind’s knowledge and understanding increases.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?  Then he is not omnipotent.  Is he able, but not willing?  Then he is malevolent.  Is he both able and willing?  Then whence cometh evil?  Is he neither able nor willing?  Then why call him God?

Epicurus: circa 300 BCE

 

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Real Fake Fibbing Friday

Last week Pensitivity101 gave us some real words, but these are my definitions!

1. Bafflegab

    That would be anything that falls out of Elon Musk’s mouth.  I used to think that Donald Trump was the champion of Talk Much – Say Little, but Elon, his left-hand man, amazes and awes me.  He may be a genius who will get us to a colony on Mars, but no-one will understand why.

    2. Batrachomyomachy

    This is a word which means possessing an excess of Woke.  When God made Man, he was explaining to some angels.  “He might not look like much, but He will be strong, brave, tenacious, and clever.  He will fight off huge wild animals.  He will survive fires, floods, earthquakes, volcano eruptions….  Eventually, He will become afraid of words.”
    3.  Boondoggle

    This is my online friend who rescues and finds homes for unwanted and abandoned canines.

    4.   Borborygmus

    You’ve heard that “You can lead a horse to water’??!  This is the guy who can’t.  He vainly attempts to organize and run the team Zoom meetings, with all the style and panache of low-fat yogurt.  People follow him only out of morbid curiosity.

    5.   Bowyang

    It’s the vee-shaped wave, pushed ahead of the front of Viking Cruise river boats on the Danube.  Not amusing, or even very interesting – just something that we cannot afford to do – but I definitely dislocated my fibula, typing it out.

    6.   Blitzkrieg

    Blitzkrieg is a candy bar manufactured in The Netherlands, similar to a Mounds bar.  It contains dark chocolate and nuts, and is heavily infused with THC oil.  You will get as fat as a little pot-bellied pig, eating these things…. but you don’t care, man.

    7.   Brimborion

    This word describes the food provided at many hospitals.  It is contracted out, produced in bulk, shipped to the hospitals, warmed back up, and served to unsuspecting patients, with Hobson’s choice.  Maximum profit is obtained through minimum variation.  It contains no salt, because of heart patients.  It contains no sugar because of diabetics.  It is warm, filling, nutritious – and about as palatable as mucilage.  I lost 20 pounds in 10 days.  A previous cardiac patient was the Food Manager for all of Ontario’s penitentiaries.  He said that he could/would not serve this pap to his prisoners.

    8.  Boffola

    This is the ‘Dirty Talk’ portion of foreplay (If there is any) for #9

    9.   Boff

    Boff is the verb to describe aggressive, positive sex – usually with the male as initiator and controller.  The “Boff” quotient of American presidents has declined significantly over the years.  John F. Kennedy used to boff all kinds of movie stars and socialites.
    Monica Lewinski became Bill Clinton’s whistle-blower, when she took it into her head to become famous.
    Eeny, Meany, Miney, Moe
    Trump grabs them by the camel-toe
    He has oral sex when he tells them how much they want and enjoy his ‘HUGE’ hands.
    10. Buzzwig

    Renaissance hair-pieces were not white because they were heavily dusted with talcum powder.  It was arsenic, to kill all-too-common fleas.

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    One Flew Over The Ego’s Nest

    The most famous Atheist of the 20th century found God.
    (Writer’s note – No he didn’t! – Rebuttal below)
    He Wrote a book about it.
    I read the book.
    Tickets to the Pity-Party are available for a nominal fee, at the box office in the lobby, as you exit the blog-site.

    For fifty years, Antony Flew was the world’s best-known, and most vocal Atheist, a legend in his own mind.  He wrote a book titled There Is No God.  But he wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Atheist.  He didn’t merely not believe because he had not been presented with sufficiently convincing evidence.  He wanted to use words and debates and arguments and philosophy to prove that he was too smart to be gullible.

    Just before he died, at age 80, he wrote another book.  The cover was identical to his earlier book, with the cutesy twist that, the word No was stroked through, and the word A was added.  The first half was about him.  Atheism was just an excuse to prove his brilliance.

    He wrote and published a paper making some unsupported Atheist claim.  A year later, he wrote another paper, supporting the unsupportable.  He debated with a well-known Theist, and of course, won.  He wrote a paper rebutting and debunking another Theist.  He engaged in an ongoing correspondence contest with a Christian Apologist – and trounced him.  I’m surprised he didn’t dislocate his shoulder, patting himself on the back.

    When he published the, There Is A God book, the Christian Apologist and Debater Society immediately adopted him.  The book’s blurb says, “The world’s most famous Atheist changed his mind.”  They clasped him to their bosom, and erected a life-sized cardboard cut-out of him, like Iron Man, despite the fact that his book specifically denies the existence of the needy, personal Christian God who knows your every thought, answers prayers, performs miracles, and hands out morality, and penalties for not obeying it.

    He didn’t really change his mind; he just refined his reference points, and therefore his conclusion. He very unscientifically decided that there was some sort of underlying order and control to the cosmos.  He had ‘discovered’ Spinoza’s Deistic “God,” or Einstein’s.  He had found a (incorrectly spelled) Copernician, non-personal “God”.  He still had 26 angels, dancing on the head of a pin, but these ones were black-clad Goths, not golden, white-robed, haloed ones.

    His statements – claims – were all null, because they had no referents.  The book is full of philosophical and debate buzzwords, open to interpretation.  He made claims based on ungrounded assumptions from unproven methodology.  The most common word in the book is IF!  If there is order in the Universe, GOD must have put it there.  If objective morals exist, then GOD must have commanded them.

    The ‘Laws of Nature’ are descriptive, not prescriptive.  They are established by Mankind – scientists – who state observed reality.  Light does not travel at 300,000 Km/sec because God stands out in the cosmos with a crossing-guard paddle and a radar gun, yet Flew wanted to know “Who wrote the Laws of Nature?” with no evidence, no proof, that such a thing was even possible, or if it was, that it was a WHO that did it.

    He firmly declared that he could not believe in Abiogenesis and evolution, that life – intelligence – could come merely from matter.  I guess that he was so busy being famous, that he missed the Miller-Urey experiments which proved that it was possible.

    Yet another ‘Religious’ book that I was unimpressed, and underwhelmed by.  It seems that the only thing that Philosophy and debate prove, is that Philosophical debaters can be some very uninformed, ivory-tower assholes.

    ***

    Later, I learned that the book was actually written by a Christian Apologist, with a Religious bias, who blamed credited Flew with having actually penned it.  After the cover claims that There Is A God, it shows Antony Flew as author, with Roy Abraham Varghese, as if he was only there to sharpen pencils, make coffee, and look up definitions.  Varghese wrote and published the book without Flew’s knowledge or authorization – Standard Practice!  😦  😳

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    Book Review #30

    Because I am retired, there is no external, commercial, reason for me to continue to attempt to improve my mind and my knowledge.  But self-satisfaction, and the ability to intelligently communicate, discuss and debate, drive me to occasionally read a book that is deeper than a rain-puddle oil slick.

    The author: Lawrence M. Krauss

    The book: A Universe From Nothing

    The review:  The very title gave the first indication that this author thinks deeper and more profoundly than many, especially Theists, and Christian apologists.  When I asked Bing for an image of A Universe From Nothing book, the results page was titled The Universe From Nothing.  Krauss has not ruled out the possibility that our special universe may not be the only one.

    This book does for astrophysics, what Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time did.  It describes and explains The Big Bang, and the universe, in simplified terms that anyone not wearing a MAGA hat can understand.  Not that I sailed through its 191 pages in one evening.  I limited myself to 10 pages a day, taking time to comprehend and assimilate.

    Christian assholes apologists sometimes ask, “How can Something have come from Nothing?”  Apparently, they either forget, or ignore the fact that, this is exactly what they claim their God did.  Krauss explains recent cosmological discoveries, and how they are changing the definitions and usage of some words.

    “Nothing,” whether outer space, (which is actually full of stardust and hydrogen atoms) or inner space, between the nuclei and electron orbits of atoms, or between the atoms of ‘solid’ matter, is not really “nothing.”  Just below the quantum surface, it is aboil with huge amounts of energy and creative potential.  “Nothing” is unstable!  It is almost inevitable that something will pop out, to relieve the quantum pressure – anything from individual virtual particles, to our entire universe.

    “Why is there something, instead of nothing?” implies intelligent intent and control.  The question should be asked, “How is there something, instead of nothing?”  Theoretically, The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter, and anti-matter, which annihilated each other.  A tiny random fluctuation in the initial expansion produced slightly more matter than anti-matter.  The rest blasted itself back into the bubbling quantum energy morass.  All the matter in the Universe is only a tiny fraction of its total mass.

    Some Theistic arguers have claimed that the existence of pure, clear, mathematics, somehow indicates the existence of God.  The same mathematics does not ‘prove’ that God does not exist, but it does show that God is redundant, unnecessary, and not evident in any of the research.

    The Universe is not only stranger than we know; it is stranger than we can know, but we keep asking questions, and finding more and more answers.

    ***

    What are you doing for Easter??
    Oh, just hanging around.  😳

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    Smitty’s Loose Religious Change

    Actually, there’s not much change left.  The God-botherers want it all dropped in the collection plate.

    “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” – Epicurus circa 300 BCE

    The God of the Old Testament is a vindictive, bloodthirsty, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capricious, malevolent bully.

    1. If God exists, God is perfectly loving.
    2. If God is perfectly loving, then God is always open to personal relationship with finite persons.
    3. If God is always open to personal relationship with finite persons, then if any person fails to believe in God, it must be because they are resisting God.
    4. Therefore, if God exists, there are no nonresistant nonbelievers.
    5. There are nonresistant nonbelievers.
      Conclusion:
    6. Therefore, God does not exist.

    The Roman Catholic Church is losing followers faster than Donald Trump.  In mid-July 2022, Pope Frank came to western Canada to make nice to the Indigenous natives, apologize for the Church’s past actions, and hopefully get more paying people in the pews.

    I saw a televised interview with the Bishop of Regina, talking about Papal Bulls.  At first, I thought he meant that His High and Mightiness was doing some trick-riding at the Calgary Stampede, using techniques he’d learned in Brazil.

    He started babbling about how the Pope was going to issue a Papal Bull, officially rescinding previous Papal Bulls on the Discovery Doctrine, and colonization, like this first one, below, to build bridges, and bring the relationship between the Church, and the Canadian Indigenous, more in line with current social conditions.

    AD 1493; Pope Alexander VI issues a papal bull or decree, “Inter Caetera,” in which he authorizes Spain and Portugal to colonize the Americas and its Native peoples as subjects. The decree asserts the rights of Spain and Portugal to colonize, convert, and enslave. It also justifies the enslavement of Africans.

    The interviewer asked if this document was in process right now.
    Well, no.  Not yet.
    When could we expect it?
    Well, he didn’t exactly know.
    Turn around and face the other way, Bishop.  It’s hard to understand you when you’re just talkin’ outta yer ass!
    ***

    Overheard on the Interwebz

    Human beings eat meat and vegetable matter.  Vegans don’t eat meat, just vegetation.  If the Big Bang created humans, it wouldn’t have known what we would eat, so it couldn’t have created anything for us to eat – therefore, God created us, because only He would know what we would eat.

    I don’t know how anyone could be this dumb, and not be on life-support.  The Big Bang was an occurrence, it isn’t/wasn’t A Thing, and it didn’t create human beings – or anything else.  It was the unfolding of a singularity, into the Universe we now inhabit.  Abiogenesis created the first primitive life forms, and evolution through thousands of intermediate forms, finally produced human beings.  At every step along the way, each form ate meat of some other form and/or vegetable matter.  It was what was available – no planning ahead (or God) needed.

    ***

    I live up here in Washington State.  Some of the teenagers do stuff like get their nose pierced, or dye their hair blue.  There aren’t any real Atheists, just people desperate for attention, who claim they are.

    Are you related to the fool above??!  There might be the faintest of possibilities for that, if Atheism were visible or obvious.  Unlike having blue hair, or gauged earlobes, Atheists don’t run around with signs, declaring their (lack of) belief, or shouting it in your face.

    You won’t know whether I, or anyone else, is an Atheist until you ask, or make some stupid, unsupported claim and get argued with.  My Atheism is not like a trendy jacket that I just put on when I want to impress someone.  It is as much a basic part of me as my name, or my Scottish heritage, and I am far past the teenage – or Christian – need for attention and peer support.

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    Somebody Kicked His Imaginary Puppy

    Even when I Have Nothing To Say About Christianity, some of them get all butt-hurt about it.  Yay me!  I’d take a victory lap – if it was a real accomplishment.

    One fundamental reality that those who call themselves atheists don’t realize is this; there is an extraordinarily cunning being who is elated that they refuse to believe in God and will do what it takes to keep them in that state of delusion.

    I mean, he even offered God in the flesh incentives to deny Himself.

    Awwww.  Did someone kick your imaginary puppy??!  I’ll pray that Jesus comes to stroke your fevered brow, and make everything all better…. while you’re busy refuting these memes.  That Iceland one might be a problem.  You could claim that God-appointed, Donald Trump was prevented from buying it, and folding it into the Holy Christian American Empire.

    So few words – so many misconceptions.

    The most cunning trick that the Mother Church ever pulled, was to convince the faithful that Satan exists – and They (and only They) can protect you, if you just give up…. 10% of your income, your autonomy, your ability to think – critically.

    The language usage is devious, and questionable, being used to prop up shaky assumptions and claims.  The existence of God, or the Devil, is not a fundamental reality, unless and until proof or at least sufficiently convincing evidence is presented.  Your blind belief, no matter how strong, does not ensure that it is the truth.

    those who call themselves atheists  Atheist do not “call themselves Atheists,” like it was some trendy term they just pulled out of their ass, any more than Christians just call themselves Theists.  These are linguistic definitions, based on individuals’ belief, or lack thereof.  Some people’s gullibility level is just higher (or lower) than others’.

    Atheism is generally, just not believing in the existence of God – or gods.  It is having not been presented with sufficiently convincing evidence.  There are some Atheists who would refuse to believe in the Christian God.  Most Atheists I know, myself included, would quickly and rationally believe – just as soon as that evidence is provided.  To even suggest otherwise is foolish.  I mean, c’mon, salvation, eternal life, Heaven…. and especially Hell, if they were clearly shown to exist.  It is the religious who most often reject any position which does not agree with their presuppositions.

    Especially for the believers in the tripartite God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – there are some convincing refutations.  If Jesus is God, who did He pray to in the Garden of Gethsemane?  While he was on the cross, He said, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”  If Jesus was God, why did He have to report this?  Was the Internet down that day??!

    Bobby Butthurt has unintentionally provided me with yet another contradiction – an arguing point that I had not previously considered.  I mean, he even offered God-in-the-flesh incentives to deny Himself.  If Jesus is God incarnate, creator and owner of infinity, and all that is – what could Satan possibly offer him as incentives??!  What do you get a deity Who already has everything?  😕

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    Through A Theist Glass, Darkly

    How fear of Atheism gets some Christian Apologists all turned around, mirror-image.

    If Atheism are true, and there is no God

    1. Humans were moist robots
    2. Humans had no mind
    3. Humans had no emotion
    4. Humans had no free will
    5. If universe is at it is, and yet we know that universe will end one day, then the universe will be in doom
    6. There is no good and no evil if atheism is true

    If there is no final Judgement, it’s like somebody murdered someone else, deep in the forest and nobody saw it happen, then they wouldn’t get arrested or charged or put in prison.

    # !  That’s a very emotion-driven, sensationalistic claim but, SO WHAT.  We are what we appear to be – sentient beings, constantly striving, constantly learning, constantly improving, always trending upward, for the betterment of ourselves as individuals, and as a race – and all of it without an absentee-landlord puppet-master, so, we are hardly robots.

    # 2  Oh, these poor Christian Apologists – they are nothing without their God-crutch.  I don’t know how to rebut this assertion, except to say that it is silly and untrue.  I did not ask the writer to explain and justify his claim.  Previous similar attempts have just produced bewildered responses like, Of course it’s true!  That’s obvious! when it is definitely not obvious.

    #3  First we had no thought.  Now we have no feelings, without God the orchestra leader.  Such a bleak, morbid, and dismal outlook!  😯  While the belief in the existence of God can’t be proven, for writers like this, perhaps it is better that he continue to do so.  He seems to need some solid emotional and psychological support to keep from slipping into the abyss of clinical depression.

    #4  Another unsupported, mirror-image claim.  😕  If God exists, as writers like this claim, and He ‘knows all,’ past, present and future, then His perfect and unchanging plan means that everything we do is predestined, and there is no such thing as free will.  Only the nonexistence of God in any way makes us free – but that’s only another thing that worries such writers.  We should only be free (?) to agree to worship their God.

    I don’t know how he equates free will, with a deity which has a Top Ten and 603 following commandments about what you can eat, drink, wear, and who you can do it with.

    #5  English is not his first language.  Perhaps this cavil makes more sense in Korean.  He’s right.  Whether God exists or not, the Universe will, one day, die the heat-death of entropy – a very natural occurrence.  It’s just that we won’t be around to experience it, so he’ll have to explain to his mental-health counsellor, why he attaches the word ‘doom’ to it.

    #6  “Good” and “Evil” do not exist as tangible entities.  “Evil” tends to be a term used by religious/Christians, indicating intent.  Atheists usually substitute ‘good and bad,’ natural descriptors which can exist without a God.  Good is that which increases my well-being and/or happiness.  ‘The greatest good, for the greatest number.’  Bad is that which decreases my well-being – and those around me, and the entire human race.

    Being convinced to drink disinfectant to, ‘cure COVID’ might even make me happy, but it does not increase the well-being of my widow, or my children, who are now without a father and provider.

    ***

    While he does not use the word in his final complaint, he implies the Hell out of the concept of ‘Fair.’  Fair is where you take your pig, to have it judged.  The Universe is supremely disinterested in the human concept of justice.  Things like his example occur all the time.  Again, SO WHAT??!  !sneppah tihS

    Even the existence of his hypothetical God does not guarantee justice, or ‘fair.’   Someone like failed-Catholic, Adolf Hitler, might repent at the end, confess his sins, plead for forgiveness, and go to Heaven, while Anne Frank is sent to Hell.  👿