Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

It is simply not true that society needs religion. Countries with high rates of atheism tend to have high rates of happiness and social functioning. This doesn’t prove that atheism makes a society work better, but it does show that we don’t need religion to be happy or good.

Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

“You can’t absolutely prove that it isn’t true” is a terrible argument for God. Just like it’s a terrible argument for unicorns, fairies, Zeus, and the three- inch- tall pink pony behind my sofa who teleports to Guam the moment anyone looks back there.

Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

Atheists often get called disrespectful, intolerant, or extremist for saying things like, “I don’t agree with you,” “There are flaws in your argument,” or, “What evidence do you have to support that?” If it’s not intolerant to say these things about politics, science, art, or any other topic, why should religion get special respect?

Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

It makes no sense for religious believers to insist that they know what atheism means better than atheists do. If you’re saying “Atheism means X,” and every atheist you talk to says, “No, that isn’t what it means at all,” perhaps you ought to listen to what we’re saying instead of to your own preconceptions.

Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

Jen from BlagHag.com posed a really good question today on her blog:

“If you knew God was real, would you actually worship him?”

It’s an interesting question, though not exactly a fair one. A fair question would be, “Is there anything that could convince you (a) (G)od was real?” I could unequivocally answer that with a “yes, of course.” I’m a skeptic, not a bull-headed cynic. But as for worship this deity? Oh so many equivocations!

The real question is: What version of God are we talking about? Are we talking about Morgan Freeman God from Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty? Because that version of God seems almost worship-able. Though, ironically, that version of God seems like someone who doesn’t really need people to worship him, and would most certainly not send people to eternal torment for the crime of not worshiping him.

The more someone does not demand and require you to love and adore them on threat of pain and punishment, the more worthy they are of being loved and adored.

But if the question must be limited to the Biblical god, the question becomes nearly impossible to answer because the Biblical god itself is impossible. The El/Elohim/Adonai/Yahweh character is so fractured and schizophrenic as to be self-contradictory. He’s presented as being omniscient, and also having human-like limitations of knowledge and upcoming events. Omnipotent, and also woefully impotent. Any incontrovertible proof of the Biblical god’s existence would necessarily have to show God to be only one version of the many that is contained in the Bible.

But, in general and predominately, the god depicted in the Christian Bible is a vile, bloodthirsty, capricious, psychopathic, cruel, deceptive thug. He’s no more worthy of worship than a tyrannical dictator would be. Or a stalking psycho, who demands your love else he’ll kill you, is worthy of love. This is a character that delights in psalms that praise bashing infant skulls against rocks, that subjugates women as property and condones slavery, that commits genocide and orders others to commit genocide for entirely immoral reasons, that lies and deceives.

If God, in any version that adheres in any significant way to the Biblical god, were proven without doubt to exist, I would not worship this evil creature. It wouldn’t be worthy of it any more than Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot, or a psycho stalker would be worthy of worship.

And the fact that this Biblical god would, presumedly, have the power and ability to smite me doesn’t make the tyrant worthy. Having created me and having the power to kill me does not inherently make a creature worthy of love and adoration if their ethics and behavior is schizoid and their love is dependent upon threats of torture. They’re worthy of fear and loathing.

If this god was not omniscient, as some Biblical passages (and pure logic) suggests, then, like a subject under Stalin’s USSR or the East German Stasi, I might pretend worship in order to save my skin. Although, I’d like to think I’d have the integrity to refuse. If he is omniscient, well, he’d know I’d think he was an evil thug, wouldn’t he, and there’d be no sense in pretending.

Fortunately, the Biblical god is simply impossible. At least, any creature that contains even half of the qualities as described by the Bible. Might a deist god, an uninvolved and non-personal creator god, exist? Maybe. But the universe looks and acts exactly as it would if this god did only set things in motion and was nothing like the god of scripture. In which case, it wouldn’t seem that kind of god cares about worship anyway.

Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

We are only beginning to understand consciousness. But an overwhelming body of evidence strongly suggests that, whatever it is, it’s a biological product of the brain, with no supernatural component, and no way of surviving death. We therefore should make the most of life while we’re alive.
Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

The Iron Chariots Wiki is a fantastic collection of knowledge, info, facts, resources that serve as a “counter-apologetics.”

According to the site:

Iron Chariots is intended to provide information on apologetics and counter-apologetics. We’ll be collecting common arguments and providing responses, information and resources to help counter the glut of misinformation and poor arguments which masquerade as “evidence” for religious claims.

The complexity of issues surrounding religion ensures that any proper assessment requires us to delve into a number of philosophical, historical and sociological topics…

They got the name for their site from this verse:

“And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron - Judges 1:19″

(Kinda makes you wonder, eh?)

Anyway, I came across this comprehensive analysis of the Sermon on the Mount. As a Christian, like most Christians, I had always thought of it as the greatest example of divine wisdom possible. And, like most Christians, I never really gave it much more thought than that. Since losing my religion, I’ve done more Biblical study than I ever did as a believer, but this part of the NT has escaped my attention up to now.

This Iron Chariots investigation really makes a person question how anyone could really hold the Sermon up as an example of inspired wisdom, much less divine. At least, anyone who’s really read it. The Wiki uncovers a mess of contradictions and bad advice just from a superficial reading — and they don’t stop at just a superficial reading.

Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

Atheists do see life as having meaning. We simply see that meaning as something we create for ourselves — not something handed to us by an invisible god who supposedly created us.

Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

This is amusing: Earlier today I posted a short blog called “Getting Your Attention” in which I mention John Loftus’ observation that it looks like only believers are really interested in converting people and not any omnipotent or omniscient deity, and a quip from another on what would convince him God exists… I just discover that Greta Christina, (the writer and blogger who I take my Atheist Meme of the Days from), has a new essay: “6 (Unlikely) Developments That Could Convince This Atheist To Believe in God”

It’s also amusing that in the fantastic article she mentions how when asked what would convince her, she used to cheat and just refer to “The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists“, by Daylight Atheism blogger Ebonmuse — I’m likely to do the same and just point to Greta’s essay.

Spoiler alert: here’s part of her final summary of her list of developments:

Now, some believers will probably argue that my standards set the bar too high. They’ll argue that I’ve created standards of evidence that are obviously not being met: that I’ve created a counter-factual world in which God might exist, but that clearly is not the world we live in.

To which I reply: Yes. That’s my whole freaking point. The whole reason I don’t believe in God is that there is not one scrap of good, solid evidence supporting the God hypothesis. The whole reason I don’t believe in God is that every piece of evidence anyone has ever shown me in support of the God hypothesis has completely sucked. The whole reason I don’t believe in God is that these criteria — criteria that would be completely reasonable for any other hypothesis — are not being met.

As many atheists point out: If God were real, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. If God were real, it would be freaking obvious. If God were real, nobody would be an atheist. Nobody would even disagree about religion. The most obvious explanation for God’s existence not being ridiculously self-evident is that God does not exist. As Julia Sweeney says in her brilliant performance piece Letting Go of God, “The world behaves exactly as you expect it would, if there were no Supreme Being, no Supreme Consciousness, and no supernatural.”

John W. Loftus has a brief post in his continuing series “Reality Check: What Must Be The Case If Christianity is True,” about God getting your attention. He makes a very good point in revealing that there is no objective evidence that an omnipotent and omniscient deity is trying to get the whole world’s attention, despite scriptural claims that he’s quite capable of doing so. In actuality, the fact that his believers are doing all the work of getting peoples’ attention, and not doing that great of a job at it either, is rather telling in regards to if not the existence of said deity — then at least his actual interest level in the whole endeavor.

It reminds me of Matt Delehany (sp) of the Austin TV/Internet show “The Atheist Experience” who often responds to the question by believers “What would it take to convince you God exists,” with something like “If there is an omniscient god, he knows exactly what it would take to convince me, even better than I know myself.”

Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

People have a right to our beliefs. But we do not have the right to have our beliefs never be questioned, criticized, or made fun of. And that includes religion. Religion is a hypothesis about the world — and if you think it’s valid to question, criticize, or make fun of other hypotheses, you shouldn’t expect religion to get special respect.
Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.

(A two-fer today as they’re related…)
Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don’t; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!

Religion has no right to special respect. It is entirely fair to criticize religion, question it, point out its flaws, ask it to support itself with evidence, and mock it when it’s being ridiculous — just like we do with political opinions, scientific positions, artistic expressions, and any other ideas being expressed in the public forum.

Atheists often get accused of intolerance and disrespect for saying things like, “I don’t agree with you,” “I think you’re mistaken,” “What evidence do you have to support that?”, “I think your reasoning is flawed, and here’s why.” Criticizing ideas is not the same as attacking people — and religious ideas are no exception.

Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.