WARNING: CONTAINS MILK
     & DAIRY PRODUCTS.

The company that makes the cheese, Eclipse, feels we need this bold warning even though just above the warning it says in a much smaller font: "Ingredients: Cows Milk, Salt, Starter Cultures, Coagulating Enzyme." Apparently it's felt that simply listing 'Cows Milk' as the first and supposedly main ingredient is not enough of a hint that cheese might actually contain milk. It needs to be explicitly spelt out: WARNING: CONTAINS MILK, because we all know how dangerous milk is, and the harm that ingesting just a minute amount can cause. But note that the company feels no compulsion to warn about or even explain what the ingredients listed as 'Starter Cultures' and a 'Coagulating Enzyme' might be. Apparently customers know exactly what they are and what risk they might pose to their health. It's the unexpected addition of milk to this cheese that customers need to be made aware of. Of course who doesn't know what enzymes are and what a coagulating one does in our cheese — I won't insult your intelligence with an explanation — but the revelation that our cheese also has milk in it, I can't say I was expecting that.

But seriously, it's not as though cheese is a new foodstuff, it's been widely made and eaten since ancient times. Are we soon going to see stickers on our apples and oranges: "WARNING: CONTAINS FRUIT"? We have compulsory education and easy access to more information about the world than any time in history, we should have knowledge coming out our ears, and yet morons are warning other morons that ... 'You won't believe this dude ... but there's milk in that there cheese. I know, who would have thought ... milk ... in cheese! That's why I only buy organic!'

What does it say about public knowledge, or this company's perception of public knowledge, if it's believed that we need to be educated not about the origin of life or the universe or even the humble fork, but the origin of cheese? Has society in general really become that ignorant? Is the brilliance of a few masking the stupidity of the masses; are smartphones, Google and laser hair removal allowing Paleolithic Neandertals to masquerade as 21st century Homo sapiens? So should we accept the implication that the general public is ignorant of what cheese is made of? Maybe, since surely this cheese company made the decision to stamp a warning on their cheese only after performing some robust market research? After all, it's costing them money to do it, so surely they must feel the expense is justified? And it's true that there may be people out there with some sort of rare and fatal dairy allergy, and they need to avoid dairy products, but surely they're not that ill-informed, especially with an allergy like that, that they don't already know that cheese is a dairy product? In what country or culture is cheese not a dairy product? It seems unbelievable that someone would be educated enough to be able to read and fully understand a warning that says: WARNING: CONTAINS MILK & DAIRY PRODUCTS, and yet not know already that cheese was made from milk. And yet, the label suggests that apparently I'm wrong, that there are a great number roaming the supermarket aisles utterly oblivious to where cheese comes from.

When I was young and naïve and optimistic I used to think that a world as portrayed in 'Star Trek' was our destiny, a spacefaring world where things like ignorance, inequality, racism, sexism, famine, disease and religious fundamentalism would be things of the past. But now I fear we are more likely to return to more primitive and ignorant times, since while we do still have scientists and visionaries that could take us to the stars, the great majority of people don't understand the universe, nor do they think we should waste money on anything that won't immediately improve their mundane lives, which consists of constantly checking Facebook, photographing and tweeting about their food, and planning home renovations. They're interested in sports and celebrity gossip and where to get a good coffee and a muffin, but not in the knowledge revealed by science, history and philosophy, and certainly not pure knowledge for its own sake. In their view science is wasting their tax dollars if it's not designing a virtual reality version of reality TV, or explaining what the best diet is to get their body ready for that summer bikini, or discovering where God is hiding. In their opinion we don't need to waste money landing a probe on a comet, we need to figure out how to make pizzas and chocolate a healthy food choice, and how to bring back 'American Idol' to our TV screens.

Recently a guy asked me if the ancient Egyptian 'curse of the mummy' was real, and before that a woman asked me if the child's doll from the movie 'Annabelle' had really killed people, since the movie claims to be based on a true story. They both wanted to know how I might explain the mysterious deaths if they're not really caused by dead mummies and inanimate plastic dolls. How can people with a 21st century education and a smartphone be so fucking stupid, if you'll excuse my French? It's not that I expect everyone to be interested in science and history, but it's not just that these people don't understand science, it's seems more that they don't trust science. They don't just ignore science because they're not interested, they've heard the basics from school and TV and have decided that science is probably wrong, and that maybe there really are evil curses, killer dolls and invisible gods watching them have sex. In a democratic society they have the choice of who to believe best explains the world, and a great many are more swayed by nonsense than they are by science.

The other night a TV news item was reporting on the latest mass shooting from the USA, 26 people gunned down in a church, and one of the survivors was asked what they were going to do in response to the carnage. He said, 'We'll continue to do what we always do, pray'. Oh, how I wish a reporter would, just for once, ask the obvious, 'OK ... and how is that working out for you? You say God brought his own son back to life, and Jesus resurrected a couple of people when asked nicely, so have your prayers been answered and your murdered loved ones restored to life? Or has God at least done something to ensure this sort of tragedy never happens again?' How many centuries of unanswered prayers does it take before reality hits home? Imagine what our world and culture would be like if we allowed morons like that to make critical decisions that affected society, or morons that don't know the origin of cheese, or conversely, do know where it comes from and believe they need to warn the rest of us? The worrying thing is that the ignoramuses of this world greatly outnumber the few who know how to make space probes and antibiotics and plastic toothbrushes, and if it ever came to a vote, we'd quickly find ourselves living on a flat Earth, battling our redneck neighbours with pointy sticks and praying to invisible gods to help us vanquish our foes. If we lived in an absolute democracy, where the votes of a few million ignorant, superstitious idiots easily overruled those of an highly educated group comprising just a few thousand, where mob rule beat out the rule of law, where opinion trumped fact, where childish impulses guided planning rather than reasoned thought, then humanity would very quickly be dragged back to the dark ages, if not the stone age.

If civilisation ever collapsed because it was simply overwhelmed by the morons — think of something like the zombie apocalypse, but with morons rather than zombies — then not only would the luxuries of life vanish, dependent as they are on mysterious technology, but even maintaining the bare basics would be far beyond your typical moron. How could they make cheese if they didn't even know it came from milk, and even if they did hear that rumour, how many people today know how to actually turn milk into cheese? Or butter or cream or ice cream? Yes, surprisingly, they too come from dairy products! No, seriously, they do! Some things would vanish quickly without expert maintenance, eg electricity and telecommunications, while others might take decades or centuries, eg some bridges would persist even though people had forgotten how they were made. It may take some time, but even things that appear very simple would become impossible to replace without specialised knowledge and equipment, like paper and plastic and steel. Once any salvaged stock had eventually rotted or rusted away, we'd probably all become nudists, or at least wear nothing more than a few leaves, since how many people can even make clothes these days? Making artificial fabrics is beyond most everyone, and almost no one knows how to spin wool or make leather anymore. Producing woollen and leather garments may seem like a simple, ancient skill and so natural, but the reality is, like so many skills that even our great grandparents likely had, most people have no more idea how to actually make leather than they do soap or even butter. And who could make the tools needed to stitch leather together, such as metal needles or scissors, or even the cotton thread, once they rust away or are broken? And this sphere of ignorance encompasses most everything we use in our daily lives, even something as simple as toilet paper. It's scary today how reliant we all are on others to keep us alive. No single person has the knowledge or expertise or resources to maintain a modern lifestyle in isolation. Without farmers and butchers, most of us would soon starve, and without electricity and petroleum farmers would fail to produce much of anything. Without fuel for tractors how could crops be planted and harvested and distributed? Doctors may know the symptoms of many diseases, but without lab technicians, syringe manufacturers and drugs from pharmaceutical companies, they'd have no way of diagnosing and delivering a cure. Most of the basic things of life that we take for granted today are way beyond the typical person's ability to make, and often to even understand. Today, an individual's modern lifestyle literally relies on the work and knowledge of millions of others around the world, and this input is mostly invisible, from the workers picking bananas in a foreign country to the workers mining metal in another country to workers in yet another country eventually making that metal into a container ship to bring us those bananas. But because we have become so isolated from the effort and knowledge that creates our modern world, many people now know almost nothing of what it takes to make our sophisticated society tick. And they don't care either. They take it all for granted, blindly assuming that whatever they want, from food to medicine to a new cell phone battery, is just down the road at the shops, and always will be. Unlike in centuries gone by where everyone witnessed and understood to a large degree how food and wagons and clothes were made — because they were far more basic — nowadays most people are oblivious and ignorant as to the source of the things they use. And for many it's apparently easier to believe that mysterious things like vaccines are far more dangerous than beneficial, and that their smartphone works more because of a sort of magic than the complex explanations of physics.

What astounds me is not that most people don't understand exactly how their smartphone works or how all its components are made, from the computer chips to the plastic case, since I doubt if any one person does, but that they often won't accept that the scientists and engineers as a group clearly do understand. We're all surrounded by technological marvels, we're healthier, safer, longer living and happier than we've ever been, and clearly science now knows more about the universe than it ever has. If it didn't then our technological marvels wouldn't work, and yet when it comes to the crunch, when a scientist says that climate change is a threat, that vaccines are safe and work, or that homeopathy doesn't work, so many people throw up their hands and jeer, 'What do scientists know?' Are the complexities of science just too far removed from the person on the street for them to connect with, forcing them to fall back on simpler times when magic and superstition explained the world? I don't understand why they just can't think about the modern world for a minute, about the obvious science and technology and genius that brought it about, and their place in this amazing world, and say, 'Well, I don't understand the science behind antibiotics, MRI scanners, plate tectonics, GPS satellites, genetic engineering, or how they got that little rover on Mars, but clearly the scientists do, and the proof is in the technological society all around us, and thus it makes sense to place some trust in their explanations, even if I don't fully understand them'. You'd think that most people would grasp that as mysterious as the world may appear to them, the complex explanations offered by scientists have much more going for them, ie much more evidence supporting them, than do those fanciful tales offered by priests, witches and faith healers.

I accept that people don't need to know all the complexities of the many scientific disciples, and couldn't even if they wanted to, but that doesn't mean that it's acceptable to be completely scientifically illiterate in today's modern society, a society which depends so greatly on science and technology. And yet many people today proudly acknowledge that they're hopeless when it comes to science and maths, when that admission should carry a sense of shame, like admitting that you can't read or write. People should have a basic understanding of science, and know the difference between astronomy and astrology, physics and psychics, genes and jeans, climate and weather, and Homo erectus and homosexual. I heard three different news readers on TV recently read the same story from their autocue about colliding neutron stars and gravity waves, and each of them mistakenly said neuron rather than neutron. A neuron is a nerve cell in the body, they're not what some stars are made of, and while it's likely that whoever wrote the original autocue text made the error, not one of the news readers knew enough about basic science to spot the mistake. And so now, if they remember the story at all, many people will think that stars are made of neurons, of nerve cells. But even if many people don't have a basic grasp of science, barring that minimal knowledge they should at least accept that as utterly mysterious as science and technology is to them personally, clearly scientists and engineers do understand how things work, and thus there is no reason for them to fall back onto superstition and primitive guess work. And I doubt if even the person that doesn't know the difference between neuron and neutron would need to be not just informed, but warned, that their cheese contains milk and dairy products.

Of course there is an alternative explanation for that ridiculous cheese warning. It's not that the general pubic is ignorant of where cheese comes from, but the fault lies at the source. The Eclipse manufacturing company is staffed by morons, bureaucratic morons. Incompetent management backed up by an equally deluded or fearful legal department that feel that they need to protect themselves and their customers by stating the bleeding obvious. It's as if the revelation that there is milk in their cheese was simply an annoying legal requirement of full disclosure. And when you think about it, the company doesn't seem all that serious about it's warning, as if they didn't really want it to influence our purchase. This is because they put their warning on the bottom of their product where it likely won't be seen. I didn't see it until I'd finished the cheese and was throwing out the wrapper. By then it's perhaps a little too late for a warning? Surely any serious warning should be plastered across the front of a product, where customers can't fail to notice it? The stupid cheese company has decided for some inane reason that their product must contain a warning to their customers, but doesn't make that warning obvious. Why? Perhaps in case some vegan complains that they weren't expecting their cheese to be contaminated with traces of dairy products. Well, sorry vegans, but there was a clear warning on the bottom!

If scientists in the distant future ever come across one of these cheese wrappers in an archaeological dig, they'll be forgiven for reaching the conclusion that clearly the society of 21st century humans featured clear divisions, not just of wealth and race, but also divisions of knowledge, of those that sought to understand a little about their world and how it worked, and the clueless morons that needed to be warned about cheese and its origins.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 13 Nov, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

Comments:

1. Comment by Ron, 01 Dec, 2017

   Hello John. Your article about the stupid warning on your block of cheese was an interesting read. This is a subject we have often discussed. It is rife in PC crazy NZ and seriously over the top in the USA where the risk and fear of being sued scares the pants off many manufacturers. Your cheese example is obviously linked to allergies and they are covering their backsides but surely if someone has allergies re. its ingredients you would not purchase for yourself or consume cheese. We are familiar with some first-hand, plus more from talking to friends and others I've heard of from the States. Here are some for your and others amusement.

   We have seen packets of peanuts with the warning "contains nuts". Allergy risk again but are allergic persons going to eat peanuts that may threaten their life?
   A toaster we purchased warned not to touch the metal on top when toasting as it will be very hot.
   A coffee grinder told us to avoid touching moving parts. Do they think we are all imbeciles? The blades can pulverize many hard items in seconds, it would make a bloody mess of your fingers.
   A sleep aid said "warning, may cause drowsiness".
   Childrens cough medicine — "do not drive or operate machinery".
   Xmas lights — for indoor or outdoor use only.
   Child's superman costume — "wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly".
   Hair dryer — "do not use in shower".
   Cardboard windscreen sun shield — "do not drive with sunshield in place".
   On a toner cartridge for printers — "do not eat".
   A microwave oven — "do not use for drying pets".
   Leaflet with a .22 calibre rifle — "warning, misuse may cause injury or death".

   Of course, this is a small sample of the hordes of silly, inane warnings and statements that abound out there that try to protect us from ourselves. I'm surprised sunbathing hasn't been made illegal as it may cause cancer.

2. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 01 Dec, 2017

   Hi Ron. Thanks for your examples. I've heard of many silly product warnings, but apart from the nuts and toaster examples, the others were new to me. You really have to wonder about the intelligence of the people that came up with such nonsense. I mean, take the warning on the superman costume. Adults surely already know that it won't enable their kid to fly, and the kid will likely never read the warning, so it's a complete waste of time. And my guess is that there's no big WARNING plastered across the sun about sunbathing causing cancer because the sun isn't owned by a corporation with a paranoid legal department.

3. Comment by Ron, 04 Dec, 2017

   Hi John. In your origins of cheese post you happened to mention about another mass shooting in a USA church. Your comments that continued were spot on. It has prompted me to comment also. These sort of incidents are increasing but in reality have been occurring for centuries. Not long ago, here in Christchurch, a group of Malaysian visitors rented a house and were praying upstairs when the house burnt down. They barely made it out, half were hospitalised. I do not know if they were praying Muslims or Christians. The horrific incident you referred to was one of the worst. Last August in Chicago 2 men walking up the steps to a Baptist church were riddled with bullets. One victim had just started a new life at that church. Many children present all survived having dropped to the floor. This followed a morning of prayer and worship. Many could not grasp how this could happen. Another well documented incident was Charleston, USA, June 2015. A 21 yr old white guy sits through an entire service in a church for black Africans. At the end he pulled out an automatic pistol and killed 9 point blank. It was tagged a racist hate crime. There are protests, marchers, placards, churches getting together saying "stop the violence" but they continue to kill. It all angers me somewhat. What sort of callous, indifferent, ungrateful god or gods allow these incidents to occur? To happen to people who were actually praying and worshiping their god, demonstrating feelings of love and faith towards them? It is so sad and tragic. There are countless methods a loving God could have used to intervene and prevent the violent senseless deaths of those followers, eg the gun jammed, or exploded or the shooter having a bad accident on the way, etc, etc. But no. How can people continue to believe, to carry on just the same and making excuses? Looking into this topic plus why god allows children to die I find Christians do not know and say things like "we will find out in heaven". Not good enough. A christian once said "every christian I've known who has suffered severe loss and remained faithful in time understands how god used that suffering for good and through him we will find our greater purpose". We are told about free will, that we can't stop these things, the lord does not want to interfere, that he gives enough evidence of his existence that believers will have their beliefs justified, that bad things happen to christians like anyone else. Cop outs, endless cop outs. We are also told Satan and his evil rules the world, not god, apparently. 2 Cor.4:4. No promises for gods followers. Jesus said the world will hate his followers just as they had hated him. It gets worse. Christian's must be willing to suffer. John 12:24 says "he who loves his life shall lose it, he who hates his life will keep it for eternity". So, John, better start hating your life if you desire eternity. But if you think that is silly enough I will give you this quote that really makes one wonder why so many continue to revere the bible and god. It is from Matthew 5:27 and was in a book called "good news for you" published for newbies looking at becoming Christians. "If you look at another woman and want her you are already unfaithful in your thoughts. If your right eye causes you to sin, poke it out and throw it away. If your right hand causes you to sin chop it off and throw it away. It is better to lose a part of your body than lose it all in the unending fires of hell". Wow, that should secure a few converts. And in the new testament to boot. Can you imagine the bloody, gruesome horror of either of those actions. One would not last very long to enjoy the ensuing sinless life. Yet we are not any of us perfect or sinless. The bible repeatedly reminds us that we fall short and are sinners. Never mind, don't be confused. If you feel inclined towards sinning gouge or chop yourself and maybe all will be well, uh? I hope someone at the Vatican is having a sneak look at Silly Beliefs and read this. Perhaps they could kindly offer some explanations to sort out my mind for me.

4. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 05 Dec, 2017

   Hi Ron. You're right that incidents of violence against religious believers are nothing new, nor are the questions you pose: 'What sort of callous, indifferent, ungrateful god or gods allow these incidents to occur ... [since] ... There are countless methods a loving God could have used to intervene and prevent the violent senseless deaths'. But this line of thought only makes sense if these gods actually exist. If they don't exist then it's all just childish nonsense. Imagine how silly those statements would sound if we replaced the notion of God with another fantasy being, such as a leprechaun or a garden fairy or Santa? Would you take an adult seriously who said that there are countless methods a loving leprechaun could have used to prevent a senseless death? As you say, the excuses offered by the religious are all 'endless cop outs', and the weird thing is that they all recognise how empty and worthless these arguments are ... when they are put forward by believers in other gods. Christians don't believe for a moment that Allah has some greater purpose mapped out for them, Muslims and Jews don't think that Jesus is looking out for them, and none of these three religious believers think that the desires of the gods of the ancient Egyptians or Aztec need to be taken seriously. They all shake their heads in astonishment at how ignorant and gullible believers in other gods are, at how their gods failed them for century after century, no matter how sincere their prayers. How could they be so foolish, they think, as not to see that their prayers were worthless, that they were begging a fantasy to help them? This childish belief in imaginary gods has been going on for millennia, with the mantle being handed from one god that proved useless to another god that people hoped might actually turn up and do something, only to be disappointed time after time. Be they Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim or believer in some other primitive superstition, how modern people can still believe in such childish fantasies that consistently fail them is beyond me to understand.

   But of course they don't believe in their fantasies as much as they would like us to believe. A little flicker of reason still exists deep within their mind, and prevents them from truly giving themselves over to their god. There is not a Christian on the planet (or Muslim, Jew etc) that obediently follows all the commandments in their holy book, commandments that their god demands they obey if they truly believe in him. As you point out Ron, Jesus clearly demands, 'If you look at another woman and want her you are already unfaithful in your thoughts. If your right eye causes you to sin, poke it out and throw it away. If your right hand causes you to sin chop it off and throw it away.' So why aren't we confronted with billions of mutilated Christians, since what Christian hasn't sinned? The bloody hypocrites all openly admit that they've sinned, some revelations from the fallen faithful are even quite pornographic, and yet not one has done what Jesus, their god, demanded they then do to ensure they don't go to Hell. Me thinks they don't really believe everything they read in their Bible. In fact it's quite obvious that Christians only believe in the Biblical stuff that doesn't noticeably impact on their modern, hedonist, atheistic lifestyle. Most easily obey the commandment not to commit murder, while at the same time ignoring the one to respect the Sabbath. Why? Because they don't get arrested for partying on the Sabbath, lusting after that cute babe in the corner and masturbating later. While Christians may suffer pangs of guilt at church on Sunday, they never seriously consider getting rid of that sinful eye and sinful hand. Christians no longer fear the Lord, they only fear the law.

   The religious are all bloody hypocrites, professing one thing and yet doing another. Some are quite intelligent, so I don't know how they can be so stupid as to think that their superstitious nonsense is fooling the rest of us. Their refusal to truly submit to the demands of their God shows that it doesn't even fool them completely, so why do they insist on pushing a fantasy that's as ridiculous as an adult arguing for Santa Claus? I guess it's as the Christians say, if you can get to a child while they're still young and naïve, then you can truly screw up their thinking for life.

5. Comment by Ron, 06 Dec, 2017

   Hi John. I regret my last comment under the topic of violence to believers and no intervention, etc. The questions I posed are apparently old hat and pointless, even though the whole thing bugs me. As you say they are only pertinent if the gods exist. Of course you do not know whether they do or not and nor do I, you would agree? Of course. Probably I should avoid this whole theme on religion/christianity as it seems to have run its course fairly well and any well known Christians do not ever come on SB and debate and/or defend their positions and beliefs.

   However, I wish to throw this article in as comment material:

   God Does Not "Exist" — What Atheists And Christians Both Get Wrong About God

   Based on your first 10 lines of response to my comment this is different and should be interesting for you to read and, I hope, comment. It is written by someone obviously more intellectual than me, called David J. Dunn PHD, who refers to himself as a theological troublemaker and orthodox christian. I found it refreshingly different, the opposite of the personal god thing most christians adhere to and makes some sense, in my humble opinion. Like he explains how god does not "exist" and how Atheists and Christians get it wrong.
6. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 08 Dec, 2017

   Hi Ron. Your question as to why God never intervenes to help his devoted followers is as apt as it ever was, and it is a question that billions of believers worldwide should be struggling to answer. It bugs me also that devout believers, be they Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or whatever, cunningly sidestep that question and keep on harping on about how their god loves them dearly, even though he has just killed their entire family or destroyed their village or given them cancer. Of course as an atheist I believe I know exactly why their god has deserted them in their time of need — he doesn't exist! — so for me asking the question is pointless in the sense that I already know the answer, but I wish those billions of believers would tell me why they think their god has failed them. I wonder if they lose sleep at night worried over the fact that (1) God has abandoned them, and (2) they can't offer any good reasons to atheists as to why. Personally I'd love this question to be put to believers every time their heartfelt prayers fail and a flood or hurricane or mass murderer tears through their community. By not putting this question we are allowing believers to maintain their delusion, when we should be helping them come to terms with the real world, a world without gods.

   And you're right that I don't know whether gods exist or not, meaning I can't prove it one way of the other, but the reality is that we can't conclusively prove anything. Are we actually having this discussion or is one of us merely dreaming, or are both of us fictional characters in an alien's dream? We can't prove that Santa Claus isn't actually real, nor the Tooth Fairy or gremlins or the Roman god Apollo. All we can do is live our lives based on what reason and evidence indicates has a high probability of being true. I don't know for a fact that I would fall to my death if I walked off a cliff, but the available evidence suggests I likely would, so I don't even try. It's true that God might be real, the Christians might be right, but if we accept the possibility that there might be real gods, then Zeus might also be real, the ancient Greeks might have been right. If we argue that we must leave the door open for a god called God, then we must also leave it open for thousands of other gods. It makes no sense to say that god A is clearly possible but gods B, C, D, E etc are all clearly impossible. If one god is possible, then untold gods are possible. And yet strangely Christians, Jews and Muslims can't grasp this basic logic. Without hesitation they declare thousands of gods impossible, and yet somehow their god has jumped the impossibility fence and is hiding out in our world. The question is not whether God or Santa Claus might be real, and that we can't conclusively prove that they're not, the question is whether they are likely real based on the evidence we see in the world?

   I've read that article by Orthodox Christian David J. Dunn — God Does Not "Exist" — and have written up my comments in a post that can be read here.

7. Comment by Phillip, 01 Oct, 2018

   Hi John. As always a thoughtful article. But I had the sense of despair, that you had woken up one morning seen the pack of cheese and thought why is it necessary. We all have those moments. For me it was a news item back in the nineties that the first New Zealand conference for UFO abductees had occurred. But I got past that. But I realised over time belief in something silly does not always mean that the person is a complete lost cause. I have a friend, a well read, generous man who is skilled in many of the technical arts whether its repairing a house (to a Tradies standard) or even replacing a timing belt in his car. Jobs that I should point out would terrify me. When I say he is well read, I am not joking, he often quotes from Thomas Payne and other writers of a similar ilk. Yet he remains convinced that there was some kind of conspiracy around the collapse of the World Towers in New York and that the damage could not have been done by planes alone. He, like many others, also harbours strong suspicions about the assassination of JFK. We've debated these issues but I have yet to change his mind.

   However, should civilisation collapse, a very handy fellow to have around. You also pointed out a range of skills that many modern people would not have. But I would hasten to add that even in previous centuries not everyone was a generalist and in the case of making wheels and leather would have gladly left those chores to the appropriate specialists. Nor do I believe that many people in previous centuries would have known how to make needles. There were craftsmen (and women) for those chores. True in the field of cooking the knowledge of cheese making was more wide spread than it is today. But I think you might be surprised at the number of people who do in fact make their own cheese. In my youth I even dabbled in the delectable art of home brewing and wine making.

   Though I do agree it is a sad commentary on our times that ours seems to be the age of unreason. I have recently become aware that Flat Earthers are not only still a thing but seem to be a growing trend. But even here there is hope, for every Flat Earther pumping out some of the most ludicrous videos I have ever seen, there are hard working dedicated souls taking them to task and instructing them in Secondary school science. I recommend youtubers SciManDan and Conspiracy Catz as two worth following in this regard. It is people like these two who give me a sense of hope in this world that reason, critical thinking, and objective reality have not being totally banished from this world.

   Finally the warnings on packages. Yeah I know Warning contains dairy products on a block of cheese seems a bit ridiculous. However is it possible that such a warning is on there because some of the product is exported to countries that do not have the more civilised ACC as we do and where people can be sued for all sorts of reasons because someone has misunderstood the product. I imagine that any number of products imported to New Zealand may well have such warnings because overseas it could have real consequences if they don't. I have no idea if this is the case or not, just a thought.

   Keep up the good work John, we need you now more than ever.

'In the euthanasia debate, atheists need to be more self-aware'

The article starts out by boldly asserting that, 'Christians are shut out from the euthanasia debate', so let's first debunk that nonsense. If Christians weren't part of the euthanasia debate then there likely wouldn't even be much of a euthanasia debate. Does O'Farrell think it's just atheists and — who? — politicians? doctors? that are debating euthanasia, while Christians silently sit festering on the sidelines? Or does the euthanasia debate pit atheist against Buddhist perhaps? It's certainly not a clear debate between atheists and doctors since many doctors say, confidentially, that they are already performing voluntary euthanasia, and would welcome legalisation of their actions.

Everyone I know that opposes voluntary euthanasia does so because of their Christian beliefs, because they believe in the divine sanctity of life, that only God can take a life, and that the Bible clearly says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. For O'Farrell to argue that Christians aren't part, and a huge part, of the euthanasia debate is quite deceptive. Where is the bulk of the opposition coming from if not from Christianity? And look at where we learn of this conspiracy to exclude Christians from the debate. It's not from some whispered comment in the pews or even an angry sermon from the church pulpit. He's been given the opportunity to have a voice by being published in a national newspaper, which is also published on the Internet, meaning anyone on the planet with a connection can read it, and in this article where he explains his views, he claims, apparently with no sense of irony, that his views are being silenced.

It's nigh on impossible to have a debate over euthanasia where God doesn't come up. He may not get mentioned by name, but when people mention the sanctity of life or that we don't have the right to take our own life, these sentiments all rely on the unspoken assumption that if we don't, then someone else does have control over our lives, or more specifically, our deaths. And of course we don't mean a doctor or a domineering relation, we mean God. For O'Farrell to publicly claim that the Christian viewpoint isn't being heard in the euthanasia debate is nothing short of delusional.

O'Farrell's argument is that Christians are excluded 'because it's assumed we are 'biased' ... that we are in the habit of expressing pre-programmed views rather than thinking independently'. As we've already said, he's quite wrong about being excluded, but he's quite right that Christians, or devout Christians anyway, that's Christians serious about their belief, are well known for 'expressing pre-programmed views', usually prefaced with something along the lines of, 'And the Bible says ... or, God says thou ... '. You're not thinking independently when you're always quoting the Bible and saying how someone else (God) wants you to think and act. When you accept that you are but an obedient servant to the wishes of your master, then when it comes to the big picture you are not 'thinking independently', your actions will always be controlled — pre-programmed — by what God has decreed. And if you're not following God's wishes to the letter, then you're not really a Christian. You're just someone who's making your own choices in life but still likes to wear that old Christian hat.

O'Farrell goes on to say that, 'We are assured that secular people are more independently thoughtful: there is no God looking over their shoulder and, in any case, they are naturally sceptical and also more intelligent and better educated. I disagree'. It's confusing when Christians flick between different terms, but it appears that by 'secular people' O'Farrell means atheists. We're not sure who's been assuring him that 'secular people are more independently thoughtful', since we know many secular folk who aren't really any 'more independently thoughtful' than religious folk, believing in equally silly stuff such as ghosts, psychics, homeopathy and chemtrails. But we have seen studies that show that the better educated you are the less religious you'll likely be. It's also generally true that individuals have far greater independence of thought and action, and are exposed to more skeptical viewpoints, in secular countries.

O'Farrell is quite correct when he states that, 'Christianity ... believes killing can be justified in certain circumstances, so a Christian's opposition to euthanasia cannot be guaranteed'. A quick flick through the Bible reveals an obscene amount of killing that believers in God thought could be justified, as does the last 2,000 years of history. Also many Christians that we know, having seen the unspeakable suffering that loved ones have had to endure while waiting for God to act, now do support the idea of voluntary euthanasia, so it's certainly clear that not all Christians are automatically opposed. In any poll on voluntary euthanasia, we suspect a great many Christians will support it, even if that means rejecting the Bible's stance, just as they already do with the likes of abortion, contraception, masturbation, casual sex, divorce, homosexuality and the equality of women.

I can't say we agree when O'Farrell states that, 'Many Christians do a lot of hard thinking to arrive at a position on topics where the answer isn't obvious'. Our experience is that Christians and hard thinking almost never go together. Many Christians have apparently only ever read one book, the Bible, and then only parts of it. The Christians that knock on my door, arguably the most committed type, are woefully ignorant of anything outside the Bible and, surprisingly, even much that is in it. Christians may certainly feel a lot of anxiety and fear over the many commandments they're breaking, and spend sleepless nights worrying a great deal over what they should do in various situations to ensure they've still got a reservation in Heaven, but that shouldn't be confused with hard thinking. The Christians we know that now support euthanasia do so because of emotion, not hard thinking. When they were distressed by the suffering of a lingering death, not once did they consult their Bible or a minister to help them decide if euthanasia was a justified killing. Instead, their humanity told them something was very wrong when euthanasia is available to our pets but not to our parents. A hard thinking Christian is an oxymoron, like a pregnant virgin. But I'm guessing that example will go straight over the heads of most Christians — Why can't a virgin be pregnant, after all, Mary was?

Pretending that he's doing some hard thinking, O'Farrell challenges 'the view that secular people necessarily think independently', arguing that by 'removing God' from our deliberations, 'secular people have simply closed down one of many sources of ideas'. This would only be a valid criticism if the source that we were ignoring was a genuine source of valuable knowledge. It's true that the Bible and belief in God does offer a moral code and alleged scientific and historical information, along with other ideas and advice, but it's certainly not true that what is on offer is of any value. A moral code that tells us to stone to death disobedient children and vocal atheists is not one anyone should happily embrace. Likewise, ridiculous claims about the world and life, such as the sea being held back by bars and bats being birds rather than mammals, are not ideas we should blindly accept. The Bible stories are certainly a rich source of wild ideas, ideas that have been made use of for centuries, but knowing what we now know about the world, it's as ridiculous to still believe in them as it would be to believe in stories of Santa Claus. There is no evidence for any of the fantastical claims made in the Bible and much evidence against them, so it makes perfect sense to ignore them as a source of ideas. We haven't removed God from our deliberations because we don't like him or hate being told what to do, we've removed him because he's not real, and therefore considering his fictional views would be as silly as considering those of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. If secularists were to start seeking advice from the Bible, then to be fair we should also be consulting all the many other sources of ideas that O'Farrell alludes to, presumably such wise sources as the Koran, the Vedas, the 'Harry Potter' books, and the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The willingness on the part of atheists to ignore the Bible is, according to O'Farrell, because we hold 'a view that is clearly misconceived', and that we're not 'thinking independently'. He informs us that, 'There are many misconceived views of Christianity', and that they're 'trotted out with mind-numbing regularity' by atheists. He's almost right, and would have been if he'd only changed one little word and had actually said, 'There are many misconceived views in Christianity', rather than 'of Christianity'.

O'Farrell then lists six views that are supposedly held by atheists, but he claims they are 'misconceived views of Christianity'. We'll now explain why they aren't misconceived at all. The alleged atheist view is in bold, and O'Farrell's rebuttal follows.

* Christians' views are pre-programmed. As discussed, Christians are likely to interrogate their beliefs.

It's true that some Christians do 'interrogate their beliefs', spending untold hours in Bible discussions questioning why God is such an elusive and heartless bastard, but barring a few that see the light and go on to become atheists, the rest only 'interrogate their beliefs' in order to find a way to justify to themselves and to others what their God has commanded they do. They're merely looking for an excuse for their shaky stance, something that will explain their questionable behaviour and that sounds better than merely saying, 'God says so!'

* Christianity is opposed to science. Christians have always been involved in science and the Church has always sponsored it. Creationism is atypical. While we do not limit ourselves to empirical observation, we accept empirical proof at face value. We trust the God who gave us our senses and the ingenuity to use them to learn.

And yes, many Christians throughout history have been involved in science (not to mention also prostitution, homosexuality, pedophilia and the slave trade etc), and many still are, but there is a huge difference between Christians as individuals being involved in science and Christianity as a religious belief system being involved in science. Today and throughout history, most Christians that were also scientists have managed to compartmentalise their religious and scientific views. In the lab during the week it was science and reason that guided them, while in church on Sunday it was God. An extreme case I read a few years ago involved a university astronomy professor who during the day would tell his students that the universe was 13.7 billions year old, but on the bus ride home he would preach to other passengers and tell them that it was only 6,000 years old. He somehow had no problem keeping his science and Christianity views separate. So yes, there are scientists who are Christians, but it's quite misleading to twist this around and say that Christians are involved in science. Scientists, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu or most likely atheist, are all working to advance science, not to advance their personal belief system. Stating that there are scientists who are Christians is usually as irrelevant as noting that there are scientists who, in their personal life, are vegetarians or mountain climbers or keen photographers.

To claim that 'the Church has always sponsored it', ie science, can be exposed as a falsehood with just two names: Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno. Both Galileo and Bruno held scientific views that contradicted the views of the Christian Church. Galileo was threatened with torture and death until he recanted his views, and then placed under house arrest until his death. Bruno was less fortunate, he was tortured and burnt at the stake for his views. The reality is that Christianity has only sponsored science when it thought either that science would bolster the claims made in the Bible or conversely have no connection to what the Bible says. A perfect example was when the Church allowed scientists to radiocarbon test the Turin Shroud, so confident was the Church that the test would confirm its authenticity, or at the very worst, come back inconclusive. When the tests showed it was a medieval fake, the Church quickly locked it away and refused scientists further access for tests that might help reveal how it was actually made. They were only interested in science that supported Christianity, not in science that solved mysteries.

There are some Christians that involve themselves in science solely in the duty of their church. They do so in a futile attempt to find holes in scientific evidence and so expose theories like evolution to be nothing but dishonest attempts by devious atheists to discredit the word of God. That he made the world, and there's nothing natural about it. These scientists are also fundamentalist Christians and usually label themselves creationists. Some try to hide their religious motivation by saying they are investigating 'intelligent design' rather than creationism.

Which brings us to O'Farrell's claim that 'Creationism is atypical', with the implication that Christians like him that are accepting of science are dismissive of creationism. It's true that most Christians don't see themselves as creationists, with many accepting evolution and a universe that is billions of years old. But the reality for all true Christians is that they are all creationists, they're just too embarrassed or ignorant to admit it. Let's state a basic belief that all Christians would — should — agree with, the belief that God created the world and life, that it all didn't just arise naturally with no input from God. That's what creationism means, the very name gives away the meaning, that the world was deliberately created rather than just popping into existence on its own accord. And of course it's quite obvious that creationism, the belief that God created the world and life, is at the very core of Christianity. This is the big story on which the Bible begins, and if Christians don't believe it's true, if they accept that the Bible starts with a fantasy that is chock full of lies, from the world being made in six days to Eve being made from Adam's rib, then why should they believe anything that follows? Why for example should they believe that Jesus died and then rose again to forgive our sins? If Adam and Eve weren't real then that original sin, disobeying God and eating that forbidden fruit, never happened. If there was no original sin then it can't have been passed down for us to inherit, and therefore there is no sin within each of us for Jesus to forgive, so his torturous death was meaningless. So if the stories that started the Bible are all bogus, aren't the ones that end it likely to be just as bogus? Any Christian that claims to support both the Biblical view of the world and the scientific view of the world clearly doesn't understand one or the other, and probably neither.

Even if some Christians don't believe the creation story in Genesis, but still believe that God created the world and life in some different manner, for example by causing the Big Bang and then using evolution, the fact remains that they still believe a god created the world and life, ergo they are by definition creationists. And since all believing Christians do believe in a creator god, then creationism is not atypical at all in Christianity, it is found in every Christian. Claiming that 'Creationism is atypical' is just O'Farrell's way of distancing himself from the fundamentalist Christians that are committed enough to take the Bible more seriously than him. He explains away his reluctance to believe many of the Bible stories by stating that some Christians 'accept empirical proof at face value', which we take to mean that if scientific evidence shows that many of the Bible's big claims about the world and life are utter bullshit, then scientific claims win out over Biblical claims. Which of course is a very sensible and rational stance to take, but it seems that no matter how much of the Bible is proven to be fantasy — 40%, 70% or 95% — Christians will continue to believe that their God had a good reason to tell all those lies. There seems to be no nagging suspicion that if the Bible is little more than a fairy tale, then maybe the God it talks about isn't real either?

But the reality is that for Christianity to make any sense, ie the sacrifice of Jesus, then all Christians must not just be fuzzy creationists, they must be fundamentalist creationists, they must believe the Genesis story with its original sin is literally true, and yet so many don't. This crucial paradox that most Christian are apparently ignorant of is yet another reason why we dispute O'Farrell's claim that, 'Many Christians do a lot of hard thinking ... '. About movies and pizza orders perhaps, but not about what it says in the Bible or in science textbooks.

* Religions are the cause of war. You don't have read much history to see that this simply isn't true. Many wars involve religion but, as our critics know, there is a difference between correlation and causation. Besides, have they not heard of the nation state, territoriality, security, limited resources, racism, political rivalry, socio-economic castes, soccer hooligans and road rage? Not to mention the atheist communist slaughterhouses of the 20th century.

Without religion some wars would still occur, quite clearly this is true, but religion often makes wars worse than they would otherwise be, and gives yet another motivation to go to war in the first place. Consider WWII, without the religious element — Hitler's hatred of the Jews — then the death toll would have been millions less. Look back through history at wars and so often the combatants are clearly labelled as Christian against Muslim, Catholic against Protestant, Shia against Sunni or Hindu against Muslim, meaning that religious differences was likely the primary reason for the war. Look at the numerous crusades in the Middle Ages, would they have happened if not for the religious conflict between Christian and Muslim? Clearly religion was the cause of those wars. Look even at the reasonably recent events in Northern Ireland, and while not a true war, would the conflicts and deaths have occurred if not for the hatred and division between Catholics and Protestants? And what about the present 'war on terror'? Would that have happened and unfolded as it has if not for the animosity felt by some Muslims towards Christians? Again, without religion there would still be conflicts in the world, but religion gives one more reason to go to war, a reason we could well do without.

As for O'Farrell's mention of the 'atheist communist slaughterhouses of the 20th century', it's a red herring, since it really has nothing to do with religion and war. And again, if he'd done some of that hard thinking that he talked of, he'd know that the deaths caused by Stalin and the communists had nothing to do with atheism. Stalin wasn't persecuting people in the name of atheism, unlike, say, the Christian inquisitions where your religious beliefs determined whether you were tortured and possibly killed. Stalin was against anyone, believer or non-believer, that he saw as a threat to his power. It's reputed that Hitler loved dogs, but who would be stupid enough to talk of the 'dog loving Nazi slaughterhouses', with the implication that it was Hitler's love of dogs that led him to attack the Jews? Stalin did force atheism onto the USSR, although many Soviets remained closet Christians, but the horrors of Stalin's time in power weren't caused by his atheism. Let's recall that the Soviets tried to promote communism around the world, not atheism.

* The Christian doctrine of redemption is immoral, like the ancient use of scapegoats. There was once a practice of loading up a goat with gear representing the community's sins and driving it into the desert, so that the sins (and the goat) were never seen again. However, Christians believe that, unlike the goat, Jesus volunteered to, so to speak, carry our sins into the desert. And he did this some 2000 years ago without any urging from us. Having returned from the desert, He offers us the benefit of this ordeal. The two scenarios are obviously different.

But let's look at this Biblical notion of using scapegoats, but with humans. It's where someone innocent is made to bear the blame of another, someone that isn't innocent. Does that sound right, or just, or moral? If you're a Christian you're probably a little confused now, so let me give an example. Imagine if the CEO of a huge company rapes his secretary, but rather than send him to prison and lose all that knowledge, expertise and influence which might cause the company to make less of a profit, we could place the blame on one of his underlings and send him to prison instead. We would make a scapegoat of the underling. And let's also say that the underling volunteered to take the fall for his boss, with the agreement that the company makes a huge financial payment to his family. And this isn't some secret backroom deal, all the public knows that the underling is going to jail for something the CEO did.

Would you be happy to live in a society where justice was dished out like this? Where people with money or power could avoid punishment and incarceration by simply getting some patsy to serve their term in prison? If you were the secretary that was raped, would you be unperturbed that your rapist was still your boss, and wasn't being punished in any way? Would you be at all concerned that the nice guy that used to work in accounting is now rotting in jail for the crime of raping you?

This is the world that the Bible argues for. If Jesus was prepared to be a scapegoat for people he didn't even know, then why aren't Christians emulating his example and arguing to have scapegoating as part of our moral code and justice system? As an atheist, I'd argue that one element of a moral and just society is that the guilty are held accountable for their crimes and the innocent are protected from false accusations and punishment. That Christians don't see a case of the innocent being made to accept the blame for the guilty as totally immoral, is very worrying to say the least. And Jesus wasn't the only example of God punishing the innocent rather than the guilty. There are numerous references to God telling us that he will punish generation after generation of innocent children, in some cases right through to the tenth generation, for the sins of the fathers, eg 'he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation'. (EX 34:7)

Also O'Farrell says that after Jesus was sacrificed to the gods — "voluntarily went into the desert as a scapegoat" — that he then 'returned from the desert'. Surely it doesn't need an atheist to tell a Christian that 2,000 years after Jesus went into "the desert", Christians worldwide are actually still awaiting his return? To quote a favourite saying:

OK, let's move onto O'Farrell's next assertion, that Christians are accepting of everyone, contrary to what atheists say which is that,

* Christians are homophobic, Islamaphobic and, more recently, transphobic. This statement is a highly illogical extrapolation from disagreement to hatred, and from the views of a few to the views of all. It also represents a rather bumpy linguistic journey to hatred from fear (the actual meaning of 'phobia', before the dictionaries had to adapt), a journey our critics seem to have endured without discomfort.

O'Farrell argues that it's 'a highly illogical extrapolation' to go 'from the views of a few to the views of all', which is his way of saying that just because some Christians are clearly homophobic, Islamaphobic etc, it doesn't mean they all are. And we agree, which is why this statement of O'Farrell's is as bogus as his earlier one: 'Religions are the cause of war'. No informed atheist would say that 'Christians are homophobic', ie all Christians, since we all know that many are not, and some are actually homosexual. In fact there are certainly far, far more Christian homosexuals in the world than there are atheist homosexuals, so it's no wonder that many Christians are becoming more accepting. So clearly some people that self-identify as Christian aren't homophobic, Islamaphobic, transphobic or even masturbation phobic, but again, we'd argue that a true obedient Christian should be, since their God ordered them to be. Why aren't they homophobic etc, have they — God forbid — started to think for themselves, you know, like an atheist does? We're glad that the Christians we know aren't homophobic or hateful towards atheists, or if they are, they don't go all they way and go on a killing spree, but we don't see them as truly devout Christians following the word of God. They're like people that call themselves vegetarians but that still have the occasional bacon sandwich. The truly committed Christians, eg fundamentalists and many Catholics, are still as phobic as hell. Is the pope advocating to openly welcome homosexuals into the Church hierarchy, or even women for that matter, another phobia from the Bible? And since O'Farrell is well aware that the views of many Christians are changing, moving away from what the Bible dictates, from what their God dictates, then rather than worrying that atheists aren't acknowledging this (because we are), he should be worrying where this unsanctioned watering down of Christian beliefs will lead. If in the future Christians can't be blindly relied on to oppose most everything that atheists believe in, then are they not just closet atheists?

* Christians are intolerant. This involves a very serious and crafty misuse of language. Tolerance involves allowing something despite one's dislike or disapproval of it. However, in modern secular parlance, it means liking and approving, which is entirely different. We can't all like everything, but we can truly 'tolerate' all sorts things.

But of course it should be obvious even to O'Farrell that not all Christians have developed a rebellious streak, especially not those that carry protest placards that read, 'God hates fags', or those really devout Catholics. Many individual Christians and many Christian sects are blatantly intolerant of the lifestyles and choices expressed by others, eg homosexuals, Muslims, atheists and abortionists. Even the door-knocking evangelists struggle with tolerance because they can't freely allow a view or lifestyle that they disapprove of. They disturb atheists at home and try to convince us that their God is about to bring the world to a horrible end. Horrible for us atheists that is, the Christians gleefully look forward to our slaughter at the hands of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, one of them being Jesus with a big nasty sword. Other intolerant Christians protest outside abortion clinics, they try to have certain artworks or movies banned, they campaign to have nude beaches closed, they oppose stem cell research and they try to restrict trading hours around Easter and Xmas. Even though no one is forcing them to have an abortion or watch a certain movie or go to a nude beach, they can't bring themselves to tolerate them, to allow them despite their disapproval. They feel they must at least try to have them all outlawed.

And we'd agree with O'Farrell that in these modern times Christians 'can truly 'tolerate' all sorts [of] things'. I know a lot of Christians that have "reluctantly" learnt to tolerate casual sex, contraception and masturbation, not only in the lives of the non-believers around them, but even in their own lives. But unfortunately Christian tolerance has not always been a good thing. For example, tolerance of their priests and minsters having sex with children. Untold Christians turn a blind eye, and while they personally may have an aversion to the priest's choice of young sex partner, they keep going back to their churches as if nothing had happened. No doubt they're patting themselves on the back for showing tolerance and forgiveness, whereas I think they've completing misunderstood what the idea of tolerance means. Tolerance is not the notion that we should allow anything and everything despite our personal disapproval, but that we should only allow those things that do no harm to anyone. We have no moral obligation to tolerate the likes of child sex abuse or genital mutilation for religious purposes or even annoying evangelists getting us out of bed on a Sunday morning.

O'Farrell then goes on to argue that the above statements atheists allegedly make about Christians,

... are all clearly unreasonable. I suggest the uniform expression of clearly unreasonable views strongly indicates the absence of independent thought. In fact, the views of many people who criticise Christians appear themselves to be scripted.

Much of the programming occurs by repetition, to the point of saturation, in social and then public media. Visit an atheist group website or Facebook page, for example, and see the diet of memes they are fed, and see how many of these memes are, ironically, quotations of celebrity atheists (especially Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris).

But is repetition of information that is viewed as important really such a bad thing, since it's clearly not something that just atheists, scientists and historians do? Ask any Christian how they know the names of Biblical characters and the stories involving them, how they know what will happen when they die, how they know some of the ten Commandments, how they know how long God took to make the world, how they know how to pray and how to act in various church rituals. Repetition is how. When you hear a young child saying grace before a meal, or praying before going to bed, or going up to eat a wafer at church on Sunday, surely it's only repetition that allows them to do that?

Go to the Christian websites and Facebook pages and you'll see the same behaviour that O'Farrell criticises atheists for — the repetition of key claims and arguments — they're repeated over and over, albeit ones that support Christianity, not criticise it. But it's not just repetition on the Internet, which is just a new thing, there also exists Christian churches and Christian organisations that have been repeating the same claims and reading from the same book for many hundreds of years. If repetition is mindless programming as O'Farrell suggests, and harmful at that, then the Christian Church has been programming its followers for nearly 2,000 years. It's always surprising when people criticise an opponent for some action and yet fail to realise, or reveal, that they have committed the same action themselves on a monumental scale.

O'Farrell asserts that the above criticisms atheists have aimed at Christians 'are all clearly unreasonable'. Of course we've just argued otherwise, but he goes on to say that 'the uniform expression of clearly unreasonable views strongly indicates the absence of independent thought'. We do agree wholeheartedly with the second part of his evaluation, since we would remind everyone that Christians have been uniformly repeating the same clearly unreasonable views for centuries — remember the talking snake, and Jonah living in the fish, and the talking and burning bush that wasn't consumed, and Moses turning a stick into a snake and later parting the Red Sea with a different stick and ... well, there's a whole book of them. The same clearly unreasonable views expressed over and over, often word for word. And again we agree with O'Farrell, this sort of behaviour 'strongly indicates the absence of independent thought'. Surely he's not asking us to believe that billions of Christians over many centuries all independently came up with the identical explanation as to how the universe and life arose, and how we should live our lives? Surely it's obvious that some ancient goat herders dreamt up a few silly stories and Christians have just been mindlessly repeating the same stories for the last few thousand years? The fact that they're reading from the same book of old stories that was used 2,000 years ago should reveal that not a single independent thought has found its way into the Christian mantras in two millennia. I suspect that most Christians wouldn't recognise an independent thought if it propositioned them in a dark alley wearing a mini skirt and high heels.

O'Farrell argues that atheist views appear 'to be scripted', because they are in his view 'unreasonable', but more importantly, because they are repeated across various websites. But again, whatever repetition there is of atheist views, it is a minute amount compared to the truly widespread repetition of the Christian view over millennia and over every continent on the planet. At present I can receive three fundamentalist, evangelical Christian TV channels, all repeating the Christian message 24/7, and yet not a single atheist channel. And since some Christians conflate atheism and science, there are no science channels either. If you live in a Western country, the odds are you wouldn't have to go far to find a Christian church, I can see one from my kitchen window, and many people wouldn't even have to leave the house to find a Bible, the Christian programming manual. Wherever you live, in whatever country, even in predominantly Muslim, Hindu or Buddhists countries, you're far, far more likely to encounter a Christian hugging the same book and making uniform expressions than you are to find an atheist at your door wanting to talk to you about atheism. So if repetition of a view suggests a scripted response which in turn implies skulduggery, then Christianity is guilty of it in spades.

Even though he's referring to the atheists, O'Farrell then makes a statement that clearly has some truth to it when you apply it to Christians (and Muslims, Hindus etc) rather than atheists: 'Apparently, people will believe anything if you tell them often enough'. Clearly the statement is not actually true for all people and in all cases, since it doesn't matter how often you tell someone that they're a toaster, or tell a Christian there are no gods, they still won't come around to believing you.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that O'Farrell's claim is true, that 'people will believe anything if you tell them often enough'. And of course by 'anything' O'Farrell means a belief that is quite false, and that this belief is accepted due merely to annoying repetition, not from being swayed by reason and evidence. Atheists have been openly repeating the claim that there are no gods for less than 20 years, prior to that atheism was as much in the closet as was homosexuality, and it wasn't that long ago that in some countries atheism was illegal and even carried a death sentence. So for most of history there was almost zero chance of being repeatedly told the views of atheism. But what of religion, especially Christianity? Well, around 2,000 years ago some Jews started repeating a wacky belief to anyone that would listen, that a carpenter had risen from the dead, and before that he had walked on water, driven demons out of men and into pigs, turned water into wine, cured the sick and raised the dead, and oh yeah, he was born of a virgin. But wait, there's more. This belief about the carpenter was just the final chapter of a book of silly beliefs, a book that had stories of dragons and worldwide floods, of talking snakes and donkeys, even describing how a god had made the entire world in just six days. Understandably they had trouble getting most people to believe these claims for the first 500 years and growth was slow, but then it really took off and for the last 1500 years more people have believed these Biblical claims than those of any other religion. So why did most of the world suddenly believe, was 500 years the threshold that O'Farrell refers to with, 'people will believe anything if you tell them often enough'? Does 'often enough' mean 500 years of repeated claims?

If O'Farrell is correct, that you can get people to believe any old nonsense merely by badgering them, then can't he realise that perhaps that is the only reason that so many people believe in Christianity? They have been told the story over and over again, from a very young age, often every Sunday, until it became so familiar and so widespread that it was felt that it must be true, or else why would everyone know about it? And we think O'Farrell is correct. Taking his argument, it's clear that Christianity exists, not because there is any evidence supporting it, but simply because Christians have succumb to their own 2,000 year-old propaganda. And so now well aware of how repeating nonsense for centuries can cause people to believe it, we would take the advice he offers to atheists and turn it back on Christians: 'it wouldn't hurt them to be more self-aware before criticising others'.

Acting like a beneficent and charitable Christian, Gavan O'Farrell ends by forgiving us foolish heathens for our silly beliefs, saying, 'I can't blame atheists for succumbing to propaganda'. The reality is that it's actually Christians like him that have succumb to propaganda; primitive, superstitious propaganda that has been circulating relatively unchanged for thousands of years. Of course seeing through this childish propaganda would have been more difficult when it first did the rounds of the campfires, but modern Christians have the benefit of proven modern knowledge, they don't have to rely on what the Bronze Age goat herders thought, and yet they still do. They just blindly repeat the same magical nonsense that their parents told them, and of course their parents heard it from their parents. And it repeats right back to that first ignorant Hebrew sitting in the desert at night and wondering which god had made his goats, and whether it was OK to continue having sex with them (No, according to the Bible, which strangely has no such prohibition on sex with children.)

Most modern Christians continue to self-identify as Christian, but judging by the many Bible stories that they no believe and the innumerable Biblical commandments that they break on a regular basis, usually combined with an utter ignorance of having broken them, there is often little to differentiate them from atheists. Maybe just their hypocrisy.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 29 Oct, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

I know what you're thinking, that this is the 21st century, and that schools would surely be using up-to-date science and history text books, probably accessed on fancy new computer tablets. That to get information about the world, how it came about, and how we should live, teachers wouldn't have to rely on some slightly-unhinged, street-corner evangelist to bring in their old Bible, and read from it to the children?

But alas, this is the current state of affairs in many schools. In places of learning that parents and kids should rightly expect the highest standards and the most up-to-date knowledge and teaching methods, many schools are still providing lessons that wouldn't have been out of place in the Dark Ages.

This embarrassing fact was brought to our attention recently with these newspaper articles:

'New challenge to bible teaching and 'religious bias' in state schools'

'Secular Education Network challenging Bible in Schools through Human Rights tribunal'

'The Secular Education Network (SEN) filed a legal challenge against religious instruction in schools with the Human Rights Review Tribunal, claiming children were being bullied over their parents' decision to opt out of bible lessons.

While previous cases have centred on individual schools or programmes, this new case takes aim at "religious bias" in state schools and potential conflicts with the Bill of Rights Act.'

Of course this is nothing new. Over the years we've written posts criticising Bible in Schools and we also wrote a lengthy essay outlining the history of 'Bible in Schools', or 'Religious Instruction' (its official label), and explaining why it fails on all counts concerning secular education, and is nothing but harmful Christian evangelising.

What's new is this recent challenge. Back in 2015, Jeff McClintock took a case to the High Court concerning religious instruction at an Auckland school, but it was eventually thrown out over a silly technicality, meaning the appropriateness of religious lessons in secular schools was never even considered. The case is going back to the High Court and may be heard ... well ... sometime.

This more recent legal challenge by David Hines and Tanya Jacob with the Human Rights Review Tribunal looks also to be a drawn out, and expensive, attempt at justice for those of us that don't see fairies in the sky. We understand that a huge work load at an under-resourced Tribunal means that it's anyone's guess as to when the case will be heard, and we mean years rather than months. It's common to condemn, and if you're a tourist, fear, certain countries, and give them such names as 'banana republics', countries that incarcerate potentially innocent people for years while awaiting trial. But in some areas, are we that much better? Sure, we in NZ can act all superior because we've set up a Human Rights Review Tribunal, a sort of court we can complain to if we feel our human rights are being abused. But if our complaint is effectively just tossed in a filing cabinet, where someone may look at it some time in the far future, how is that really any different to those banana republics and their mere façade of justice? If we claim that an abuse is happening, now, why is it acceptable for the tribunal to merely take a note of it and then go back to whatever they were doing?

If as a society we feel that human rights abuses are unjust, and need to be actioned, then we need to do more than merely set up a Tribunal, we need to equip it with the resources that allow for quick and effective determinations to be made on any and all complaints that they receive. By the time this latest challenge to religion in schools is heard, the children involved could well be long gone, studying at university or even going in for a hip replacement.

In the TV3 news item showing the SEN protestors outside a Christchurch school, the reporter said that, 'protestors claim that children are taught to donate their pocket money to church and to convert their peers'. On camera, Tanya Jacob said that, 'The pressure that kids are put under to believe the stuff the instructors are telling them is not like anything else in school'. We don't hear what questions the reporter puts to parents at the school, but one replies, 'It's good to learn about religion and stuff like that, I have no issue with it'. This response in our view is a perfect example of how many parents have failed to grasp what is actually taught in religious instruction classes, or to give them the name their likely provider gives them, 'Christian Religious Education'. We say this because this particular parent, like most parents it seems, was apparently talking about kids needing to learn about the world's different religions in a broad and neutral manner, such as their origins, beliefs and rituals. She did not mean that she had no issue with her children being asked to believe that Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified, and other such Christian beliefs. Which is most definitely what is taught in the classes. We can know this because the woman, by all appearances, was a Muslim. And Muslims most definitely are not keen on their children believing that Jesus, rather than Mohammed, was the last true prophet. Clearly that woman had no idea what was being taught in those 'Bible in Schools' lessons, although the mention of the Bible rather than the Koran should have been a hint. Another parent said, 'I'm fine with it, my daughter seems to like it'. However, just because her daughter likes it doesn't mean that it's doing no harm. Her daughter might also say that she'd like pizza and ice cream for every meal, but would her mother be fine with that, just because her daughter likes it? The mother should only approve of the classes after she has put some effort into investigating exactly what they teach, rather than leaving it up to the daughter to decide. Is she going to pull her out of science or history classes because her daughter doesn't like them as much?

In the show following the news, 'The Project', they pretty much repeated the same item. However they did add one piece of value, a brief interview with Prof. Peter Lineham, a Massey University religious historian. He argued that voluntary Christian lessons should be replaced with a compulsory religious studies subject, that as we've said, would teach about the world's many different religions in a broad and neutral manner, and would use qualified teachers, not Christian volunteers from the local church. Cricketer turned broadcaster Mark Richardson asked Lineham if it bothered him seeing non-religious people celebrating things like Xmas and Easter. Lineham replied, 'What's a non-religious person?' ... There's many people who wouldn't claim to be Christian, who would still dabble in a little bit of stuff that is kind of religious, kind of Christian'.

What a terrible answer. As an atheist I can honestly say I do not 'dabble in a little bit of stuff that is kind of religious, kind of Christian'. The proper answer would have been to point out that Xmas was originally a celebration that involved the solstice and the change of seasons, not Jesus, and Easter was originally a celebration of the coming of spring, not Jesus. Both celebrations were deviously appropriated by Christians, so Lineham, the religious historian, should have been asked whether he was bothered seeing Christians celebrating these pagan events. And since Xmas and Easter these days are overwhelmingly associated with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, again it is the Christians that appear out of place.

Kanoa Lloyd mentioned that while not religious, she enjoyed her religious instruction classes, saying she looked at it as 'story telling and imagery', to which Jesse Mulligan added, 'In a way it's the story of the world, so far, right?'

Wrong! What utter deluded bullshit. How could Mulligan seriously suggest that the stories and imagery from the Bible are 'the story of the world'? Did he sleep through his science and history classes? Only a fundamentalist Christian would ever say something so stupid. The Bible stories basically perform two functions. One is to offer a fairy tale version of history where they explain how God created the world and life — the magical six day creation, let there be light, Eve made from Adam's rib and all that nonsense — and then they relate how God interacted with his playthings over the following millennia. His playthings almost always came off the worse for wear. Thankfully very little of what is in the Bible is true. The second purpose of the Bible stories was to spell out God's moral code for his playthings. In the Bible God went out of his way to dictate how life was to be lived, such as who you could be friends with, who you could have sex with and when, how you should mutilate your penis if you're a male, how you should treat your slaves, what clothes you could wear, how long your hair should be, what food you could eat, when you should pray and where, what sacrifices you should make, who had to cover or uncover their heads in church, when women are unclean and to be shunned, whether women could speak in church or teach men (no), when to kill children, which days you were allowed to work, how to kill homosexuals, witches and rape victims, whether some of your money should go to God or the government etc. And of course there was the associated list of punishments if these commandments weren't followed. And to think that many parents are happy that their children will learn how to live their lives and how to treat others from reading these Bible stories.

The Bible is certainly a story of the world, just as the stories found in thousands of other religions are stories of the world, from Maori myths to Aztec myths, but the Bible is most definitely not the true story of the world, not the factual story of what actually happened, and not supported by a sliver of evidence.

Following Mulligan's verbal diarrhoea, Richardson then added, 'It's a good yarn, whether you have faith or not, it's a good yarn, and I wouldn't want my kids to miss out on that'. Clearly this is spoken as someone who has never actually read the Bible, never read the 'good yarn' for himself, even though he recommends it to others. Hell, even most Christians have never read the entire Bible. But why not if it's such a good yarn? The reality is that much of what is in the Bible is as boring as hell, and even more is vile and repugnant. As we said in our essay on religious instruction, 'the Bible is a terrible source for determining ethical behaviour, and much of it, especially the Old Testament, is barbaric, disgusting, immoral, obscene and pornographic. If young school children were required to read it, and understand it, Christian parents themselves would censor much of it'.

Editing and censoring the Bible stories to turn them into a 'good yarn' for children is like editing and censoring stories of the Nazi Holocaust to make that a 'good yarn' for children too. Any storyteller that can make God or Hitler appear as cute, loving characters in their stories has really gone too far.

If parents want a 'good yarn' for kids, try the 'Harry Potter' books or Terry Pratchett's books, including his Discworld series. Libraries are full of great books that tell good yarns for children, and we guarantee that they are flying off the shelves while the Bible is gathering dust in the corner.

Only by lying can devious or deluded adults claim that the Bible is suitable for children, and if they've deleted all the objectionable stuff from their lessons, then they're not teaching about the God of the Bible, but merely a make-believe god that they wish was in the Bible.

Parents that invite Christians to lie to their children should seriously question whether they are responsible parents.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 05 Oct, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

'Speaking for myself, I really really want there to be such a thing as ESP, or psychics, or remote viewing. There just hasn't been any good evidence for it.'

And these were all intelligent, educated, informed skeptics and atheists, people that have apparently read, thought and discussed a great deal about these topics. We can understand that silly believers in this nonsense, and/or people that hadn't given it a lot of thought, might wish that the likes of psychics and gods were real, just as kids wish that Santa Claus was real, with no thought towards the poor elves slaving away under sweatshop conditions. But why do many skeptics and atheists think this way? Shouldn't they know better? After all, silly believers usually rest on ignorance and believe because they simply want these things to be true, not because they have evidence that they are true. But informed skeptics and atheists should have reached their stance of disbelief through critical thinking, and this knowledge should have revealed the bad along with the good, and thus they should realise that it's not simply an academic matter of whether these paranormal and supernatural claims are true or not, but that the world would be a very different place, and not in a good way, if these things were true. As the saying goes, Be careful what you wish for.

So what would the world be like if all these wished-for things were true?

Let's look at ESP first — extrasensory perception — which includes such abilities as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis (or psychokinesis), and precognition, or in simple terms, reading or communicating with the minds of others, seeing remote events with your mind, moving objects with the mind, and seeing the future. Generally a psychic is a term for someone that claims to have one or more of these ESP abilities, and remote viewing is really just another name for clairvoyance. We also have people called mediums or psychic mediums. Mediums are people that claim to be able to communicate with the dead, and relay messages between the dead and their living loved ones. Some mediums claim psychic abilities beyond simple conversation with dead folk, in that they are often clairvoyant — I see a body being buried near water — or they see the future, or they receive telepathic messages from living folk too. So if people were to have these abilities, what might that mean to people like you and me, the muggles of this world?

First, telepathy. If there are people out there that can read your mind then your mental privacy quickly vanishes. You'll never know if one person or many, perhaps in the same room or on the other side of the planet, are reading your thoughts and rummaging through your memories, even your most intimate or embarrassing memories. It amazes us that most people are not willing to reveal intimate or embarrassing thoughts and memories to close friends, let alone complete strangers, and yet they apparently have no problem whatsoever if an unknown number of strangers with psychic abilities are secretly spying on their innermost thoughts. If someone asks you, Do I look fat in this outfit?, then little white lies that protect feelings and maintain relationships will be impossible, since if telepathy is real then there's a chance that the person will be reading your mind and knows exactly how you really view them. The reality would be that many individuals and institutions would employ those with proven telepathy abilities to seek out answers for them. The positive side of this would be in the likes of justice and crime, where psychics could know whether a murder accused was guilty, and we wouldn't have to just take the prosecutor's word for it. We could know for sure whether the mad leader of North Korea was planning an attack or whether Saddam Hussein really had weapons of mass destruction simply by reading their minds from a distance. We could know exactly how many Catholic priests abused children and whether the pope knew, without having to even ask them. But for every positive use of telepathy, there would be many negative ones as well, such as the simple loss of a private mental life. Creativity and new ideas could be immediately stolen by devious psychics and passed off as their own. Passwords and pin numbers that give access to personal bank accounts, computers, buildings and Internet accounts etc would be useless if strangers could just pluck them from our mind while sitting in their kitchen in another country. Pub quizzes would be a waste of time because you'd never know if a team had a telepath in their number that was seeking the answers from the mind of the person who devised the quiz or some professor from Oxford University. All sports and games that involve strategy would be impossible because your psychic opponents would likely know your plans and weaknesses, eg chess, rugby, and card games such as poker and bridge. No one could keep a secret, and we're not talking the evil secrets that Catholic priests and murderers keep, we're talking about nice secrets, such as surprise parties or gifts, and planned marriage proposals, and important secrets, such as those that keep the economy going. You couldn't hide from your children the fact that Santa Claus was a lie, and could the Coca Cola company survive if everyone knew their secret formula? But we suspect it would be personal relationships that would suffer most if we could read the minds of others, and might cause a complete breakdown of society. We're sure you can think of numerous other examples of where telepathy would really screw things up.

What about clairvoyance, seeing remote events with your mind? Again, this would have positive elements, such as people being able to see terrorists building bombs, locating missing people, and spying criminals committing crimes. But again, everyone would lose their privacy, not just the bad guys. Bored with watching criminals they could watch you in the shower, having sex, or just getting dressed. You'd never know when someone was watching you masturbate or arguing with your parents or sneaking out of work early. You might as well take down your curtains and stop wearing clothes on hot days since if clairvoyants are real then they've all seen you naked, so why bother covering up? You can't put presents from Santa under the Xmas tree, because your kids might see you do it from their bedrooms. Like telepathy, clairvoyance would kill many surprises, since your girlfriend will see you buying that engagement ring even though she's miles away. Likewise, women can't refuse a date with the claim that they're 'washing their hair' or that they're otherwise busy, since remote viewing would reveal that they're actually just lounging on the couch alone watching TV. Having untold people able to secretly spy on anyone in the world would radically alter how people behaved and society would change considerably, and likely not for the best. Think of how East Germans behaved when they feared they were forever being spied on by the secret police, and didn't know who they could trust. If you're doing nothing wrong, having your privacy secretly invaded doesn't make for a better society.

Then we have telekinesis, being able to move objects, both nearby and remote, with the mind. Again, there could be both good and bad uses. Obviously it would be advantageous to use your mind to quickly move a baby out of the way of a falling piano. In war soldiers could cause the rifles of their enemy to jam, but that would work both ways of course. The enemy could mentally pull the pin from your grenade while it was still on your belt. Casinos and lotteries would cease to exist, since everyone would be trying to ensure their winning numbers came up by manipulating the device that generated the 'random' numbers. Door locks and security chains would be useless since telekinesis could be employed to trip the tumblers or release the chain. Many sports would become a joke, since the mind could be used to ensure the golf ball went straight into the hole and the basketball straight through the hoop, misses would be a thing of the past. Of course if opposing teams had equal telekinetic powers, then the basketball or soccer ball would just stay hovering on the centre line as each team's mental powers cancelled each other out. Sports like boxing would become a farce, since the mind could stop a punch from ever reaching its target. Murders could be committed remotely, and anonymously, where a knife suddenly flies from the kitchen counter into the victim's back. No fingerprints or evidence would exist to expose the murderer. Shoplifting could be committed from the safety of your bedroom, where the stolen items simply float from the store and down the street and in through your window. Injuries would greatly increase as juvenile practical jokers with telekinetic powers cause stools to suddenly jump in front of walkers and rugs to suddenly be ripped out from under them. Women would have to stop wearing dresses, or swap skimpy panties for bike shorts, as telekinetic perverts lift them up from across the street. Competing businesses could sabotage each other by remotely moving stuff around, like swapping salt with sugar, jamming machinery, stealing blueprints, unlocking secure gates etc. Again, the negative effects of telekinesis on society seem to far outweigh the positive ones.

Finally we have precognition, the ability to see the future. This is a confusing one. Most people think that if they, or someone they know, had the ability to see the future, then it would be a good thing. If they saw themselves being hit and killed by a bus tomorrow, then with that advance warning they could obviously take steps to avoid that outcome. But could they? If what they saw was indeed the future, then they MUST get hit by the bus. It's their destiny, their fate. If however, they stay at home and avoid getting hit by the bus, then what they saw clearly wasn't the future, since the glimpse they had of the 'real' future, the future they're now experiencing, should have shown them sitting at home. If they can avoid the bus then clearly they never saw the future, so perhaps their vision of being hit by a bus was nothing more than a dream. Of course they may decide to see whether the bus vision was correct, and carry on as normal, and two things might happen. One, they do get hit by a bus. But this doesn't prove that they were destined to be hit, since because they were expecting to be hit, perhaps they unconsiously put themselves in a position to be hit, and didn't do all they could have done to avoid the accident, since they thought it was inevitable. If they were resolved to being hit, perhaps they increased the risk of being hit, and so actually caused the accident. The other option is that they aren't hit, but again this doesn't prove that they didn't glimpse the future, and that they were just dreaming. Perhaps the bus driver also has the gift of precognition and also had a vision of the future, one where he hits a pedestrian. So perhaps the bus driver took steps to avoid the accident, by slowing down slightly for example, so that the pedestrian crosses the road a few seconds before the bus arrives and nothing happens. But if there are untold people around the world with the gift of precognition and even more using this knowledge to change the future to suit themselves, then there will be immeasurable changes being made to the time line every second. So with the future changing everyday, how can anyone ever claim to glimpse what the future holds in a week or a year from now? When people think of changing the future they naively imagine themselves as the only ones that can do this. They'll simply stay at home to avoid being killed by a bus. Problem solved. But in precognition an untold number of people have this ability, so perhaps a murderous bus driver then glimpses the future and sees that their intended victim is planning to hide at home, so he changes the future again by deliberately driving into their house. Man hit and killed by bus. The future is again back on track, at least the version the bus driver desires. But what if a police detective also glimpses the future and sees what the bus driver is planning to do, and attempts to make yet more changes? So why didn't the victim see the changes made by the bus driver, and why didn't either of them see the changes the detective would make to their future? If everyone can keep changing their behaviour and altering the future then it's all starting to look just like what happens normally.

In the world of precognition it would seem that we can either see the future, and NOT change it, or we can see a possible version of the future, which we can change for an unknown version, meaning that we don't actually know the future at all, we only know what might happen, but won't happen if we, or someone else, wants to change it. Taking this second option first, if people claim to see the future and also claim that with that knowledge we can change the elements we don't like, then clearly they haven't seen the future at all, since they apparently have no idea whether someone else might decide to change some element, and what the future will look like after we've finished meddling. The other option is that they can see the future, but they can't change it, because the future is fixed. So would you want to know the future if you could do absolutely nothing to change what will happen? I guess it depends on what will happen. If you're struggling to survive, living in poverty, suffering chronic pain, and fearing an invasion by some evil dictator, then learning that in a year's time your fortunes will dramatically reverse, that you'll find wealth and happiness, that a cure will be found for your pain, and that the threat from invasion is negated, then knowledge of a better future to come will buoy you through the next year of hardship. But if you learn that your miserable lot in life is not going to get better, or is going to get even worse, then you take away the very thing that often keeps people going in tough times, hope. Likewise if you currently live a wonderful life, but learn that your future is soon to be one of disappointment, misery and suffering. Hope keeps us all going, hope that things will get better or that the good times will continue. Without hope, perhaps even forlorn hope, then it would be unimaginably difficult to keep getting out of bed each morning, knowing that the future was dire and that you couldn't do a thing to change it. You couldn't even make the effort to commit suicide, since you ending it all isn't part of your future. Your future suffering hasn't reduced by your glimpse of it, in fact it's increased, since you're now painfully aware of your grim future and have to live with this realisation every waking hour.

Those that believe in precognition clearly think that with their advance knowledge they can change the future to better suit their desires. But as we've explained, if they can make changes then clearly their vision wasn't of the future. Imagine if the dangerous and moronic leaders of two countries, Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Donald Trump of the USA, both consulted their precognition experts and saw visions of being attacked and defeated by the other. With advance knowledge of how the attack succeeded, they could both make changes to ensure that they came out the victor. But how is that possible, how could they live in a future where they both win? It's a little like those stupid religious nutters who are on opposing sports teams or opposing sides in a war and who both insist that God is on their side, and has promised to help them win. When God is only helping one side or only one person has visions of the future, then a specific outcome can be predicted, but when untold people with spooky powers and conflicting goals are all competing against each other, then the only result can be mayhem, or a paradox.

Imagine you are competing for a job promotion with a colleague who has precognition abilities. In the real world you would easily get the promotion because you are far better qualified, harder working, more personable, more creative etc. You deserve the promotion whereas your colleague doesn't, but using their knowledge of the future, of how you got the promotion, they make devious changes to ensure that you missed the promotion and they got it instead. Most people would say that this manipulated outcome was unjust, but that would be the world of precognition, where things happened based not on merit or even chance, but on the whims of people with ESP abilities unfairly manipulating the future to meet their selfish desires. Many people that got the job or the girl or won the war or wrote the best selling novel or discovered the miracle cure would be those that simply glimpsed the future and took it for themselves. Of course not all people that could see the future would be devious bastards, but even those that made changes for altruistic reasons would unwittingly disadvantage others. Imagine a person learns from a psychic that their son will be killed by a stolen car, so they take steps to keep their son away from that street, but now the speeding car, rather than being stopped at the scene of the accident, continues on its way and kills a woman two blocks further on. Saving the son meant killing the woman, the grief and anger simply moved to a different family. Is this person that saved her son in some way responsible for the death of the woman, since without their meddling, the woman would still be alive? Are they justified in sacrificing the woman in order to save their son? They might argue that they didn't know that their manipulations would cause another death, but the reality is that every time someone with psychic powers changes the present to influence the future, their change, even if relatively minor, will ripple outwards to cause an untold number of unforseen events that were never destined to happen in the original version of the future. For example, people say wouldn't it be great if we could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, and therefore save millions and millions of innocents lives. Lives would be saved, but untold people that are alive today, like you and me, would likely never exist if WWII never happened. Our parents could have married completely different people, people that were originally killed in the war that now never happened, meaning that you and I were never born. While a deliberate change to what is going to happen in the future, or has happened in the past, may save a life, or many lives, it will without doubt snuff out many other innocent lives in the process. If precognition were real, then those that had knowledge of the future, or a version of it, would continually be playing Russian roulette with our lives. At any moment the rosy future that my family could justifiably be expecting could be snuffed out because some lazy bastard changed the future just to get a swimming pool in his backyard. Any positive meddling with the future that psychics might do would be vastly outweighed by negative consequences they would be utterly unaware of. A world with precognition would be a world where a gifted few would get to play God and treat you and me as inconsequential pawns.

If ESP were real, if abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, and precognition were part of daily life, how would the person that didn't have these powers behave? Whether we were flying to Australia or performing a scientific experiment, we couldn't reliably predict what should happen in any given situation, based on a good understanding of the laws of physics. Without ESP we can reliably predict that inanimate objects in our path, eg rocks or stools, will remain where they are, that knives won't suddenly lunge at us, that the enemy or opposing team won't know what our secret strategy is, that our creepy neighbour isn't watching us have sex. But with ESP some people, we wouldn't know who, would know things that they shouldn't. Machines might do things that seem impossible, or at least are utterly unexpected. Events would unfold in a way that doesn't make rational sense. Impossible things would happen seemingly at random, and if we can't reliably predict what will happen if we do certain things, then why do them? Why bother even getting up in the morning? Why study and struggle to get a promotion and a pay rise to support your family, when some psychic might trip you up at the final hurdle and take your reward? Why buy lottery tickets or play poker when some psychic is fixing the outcome so that they win and you lose? Why maintain a nuclear arsenal to deter enemies when some psychic will tell them that you don't have the nerve to use it? If ESP were real, society would collapse.

And it's not just ESP. As we said, we've had skeptics and atheists admit that they likewise see no evidence for gods or souls or a heavenly paradise, but they nevertheless wish that Heaven was real, that they could communicate with their dead parents, and that they actually had a soul that would live forever.

But again this is very naïve thinking, and again hinges on the gullible fool believing that they get to decide how it all works and fits together. Just as ESP would only be useful if only you and no one else had the ability, gods and their supernatural world would only be desirable if you get to pick and choose what bits of the mythology you want to be true.

Let's look at the afterlife, souls and Heaven. This seems to be the thing that unthinking believers and atheists alike most wish were true. People love the idea of living forever, in perfect health, surrounded by their loved ones in a paradise where dreams come true. And where do they get this idea from? For most it's the Bible, or the Koran, but let's just focus on the Bible, for the argument is the same for both. So for this Heaven to be real, then clearly what the Bible says must be true, and conversely, if what the Bible says is true, then Heaven must be real. By this we mean that people base their belief in Heaven solely on what the Bible says. If the Bible didn't exist then people would have no knowledge of a place called Heaven and no reason to believe in it. But, the argument goes, the Bible does exist, and it says Heaven is real, ergo Heaven is real. Now that may seem like a good reason to believe in Heaven (although of course it's not), but if simply being affirmed in the Bible is all the reason one needs to believe in something, then logically believers must believe in a lot more than just Heaven, since the Bible says that a lot of unseen things are real, not just Heaven. The Bible also claims that someone called God is real, that he had a bastard son called Jesus, that the world was made by said god in six days, that historically there was a bit of dampness underfoot called Noah's Flood, that God has storerooms of snow and ice, and that murder is forbidden. If pushed, most believers or wannabe believers in Heaven are willing to believe in those things too. If all those things were true, the world would still appear the way it is and Heaven would be there waiting for us. So why wouldn't atheists link hands with Christians and say that we too wish it were actually true? Because as with everything, we must always take the good with the bad.

If Heaven is real because the Bible says it is, then Hell is also real, because the Bible says it is. If it's actually true that some annoyingly good, boring and obsequious people are going to Heaven, then it's also true that the great majority of people, and we mean probably more than 99%, are going to Hell. If you wish Heaven were real, then by default you automatically get Hell as well. And Hell isn't just a One Star resort compared to Heaven's Five Star rating. Hell is a prison that makes the worst prison on Earth look like Club Med, where you and your loved ones will be tortured for all eternity. Let's remember that if you sincerely wish your dead loved ones could communicate with you from Heaven via a psychic medium, then that could only happen if Heaven is actually real. And if Heaven is real, then that means God made it, along with Hell. And if you and your loved ones manage, against all the odds, to make it to Heaven, you must live each day with the knowledge that while things are great for you, most of humanity is being tortured in Hell. How uncaring and selfish, evil even, must a person be to wish for the existence of a paradise even with the clear knowledge that for that place be real, then billions of others must go to Hell for eternal torture? I would wish that Heaven doesn't exist solely so that Hell doesn't exist either. I would happily forgo paradise in a bid to make Hell nothing more than a nightmare.

And many of the problems associated with ESP also appear if God is real and our loved ones are actually watching us from their poolside loungers in Heaven. Once again our privacy vanishes. We can pull our curtains and stop a handful of neighbours from seeing us naked or having sex, but millions if not billions of dead perverts could be watching us from Heaven. Even if our life is too boring to attract the big crowds of voyeurs, the mediums tell us that our grandparents at least are always interested in us. Would you have had sex in front of your grandparents when they were alive? I suspect not, so why don't you care now that they're dead, but still watching you? Dead folk can spy on anyone and everyone, and some, according to mediums, seem to have an insight into the future, so spooky information passed to the living can allow them to makes changes to the future time line, and so people with a connection to dead folk can screw up your hard earned future, as they seek to improve theirs by devious means.

And the problems don't just impact the living. If we entertain the fanciful idea that your soul does make it to Heaven, to live forever surrounded by your loved ones, then your problems have really just begun. Information about life in Heaven is gleaned from two sources, the Bible, and mediums chatting with those already there. Unfortunately many of our most famous mediums contradict each other and what the Bible says. We've discussed some aspects of what the afterlife would be like according to mediums in our article on medium Jeanette Wilson, so won't repeat ourselves here. But briefly, mediums claim that you spend your eternity in the afterlife frozen in the condition in which you die. So can you imagine spending an eternity as a three-year-old or as a crippled 85-year-old with Alzheimer's disease? And it may take a while, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years, but considering even trillions of years will still be but an instant compared to the eternity that awaits, eventually you'll go mad because you can only eat the same meals, watch the same movies and have the same discussions so many times before the boring repetition becomes just too much to bear. And since you're dead you wouldn't actually eat meals, so scratch that activity, but that will give you more time for praising the megalomaniac that is God. That would be fun, right? Every day for trillions of years. How could that ever get old? To think that people sincerely wish that this soul destroying afterlife exists is astounding, and just demonstrates that only childish desire informs their silly dreams.

Again, if Heaven and eternal souls are real, as claimed in the Bible, then everything else claimed in the Bible must also be real. It's all or nothing, only ignorant fools think they can cherry pick the good bits and reject the bad bits as superstitious nonsense. And yet that's exactly how most everyone views their religion, whichever one they cling to. These foolish atheists that reject God's existence while lamenting that he's not real, need to start thinking about what a terrible place the world would become if the God of the Bible was suddenly revealed to be real. Again, the worse consequence would be that Hell would be real and the destination for most of us. That fact alone would severely depress and terrify everyone, making life miserable for all. Society would likely collapse or at least stagnate. Of course the Bible has 613 commandments and other bits of helpful advice on how to live a life that might see you considered for entry into Heaven. Some people might decide to strictly obey God's wishes and try for a place in Heaven, which would make life dangerous and unpleasant for the rest of us. The Bible clearly says that atheists, disobedient children, some rape victims, witches, blasphemers, homosexuals, those that work on Saturday, people that wear socks made of cotton and wool, those that eat shellfish, masturbate or have a tattoo, or commit any of a raft of other silly sins must be singled out and killed. It would be like those zombie apocalypse movies, only it would be Christians chasing us, not zombies. And if you don't actively seek out and kill sinners, then that makes you one of them. On top of the 'marked for death' sins, there are also untold commandments that one must follow, and while breaking them won't see you hunted and killed, they will ban you from entering Heaven. For example, Jesus commands his followers to hate their parents, siblings, children and partners. If you don't hate them, then you're off to Hell with the rest of us. If it were even possible for a Christian to obey every wish of God, the life they would live would be Hell on Earth anyway.

Of course most rational people, on reading up on what transgressions will see them destined for Hell, will quickly realise that they've already committed many of the above sins, so they're already screwed, or will realise that it's impossible to live without breaking at least one. And it only takes one, so if they're going to Hell anyway, they might as well live a life of debauched excess. Better to be hung for a sheep than a lamb. Steal what they want, kill whoever gets in their way or annoys them, rape whomever they desire, blaspheme to their heart's content, and disobey their mother by getting a 'I LOVE MUM' tattoo on a Saturday from an atheist, homosexual tattooist, breaking six commandments at once. If God, Heaven and souls were real, then the frightening reality is that Hell is facing us all, because I don't even know of an annoying fundamentalist Christian that isn't breaking numerous Biblical commandments. While many of us might try to continue life as normal, it's difficult to believe that many wouldn't just give up and anarchy would erupt worldwide. And ... we're back to the zombie apocalypse.

Sure, the world's not perfect by any measure, there's crime, suffering and misery, but we're sure you can think of many more examples of how the likes of ESP and God's plan for a world of sinners would, if real, just make things a whole lot worse. That is, if you're prepared to really think, to honestly consider the whole picture and weigh up the good against the bad, and not just fixate on the rosy elements that you like while ignoring the all nasty bits. Becasue this is how most people structure their fantasies, they imagine ESP being used for good and refuse to accept that it could be used for evil, they wish for a loving afterlife and refuse to entertain the thought that their loving God would direct most people to Hell. Imagine a kid saying that they wished Harry Potter, Hermione, Ron and their magic were real, but not Voldemort. But that's just stupid since it makes no sense to think that if Harry Potter existed then Voldemort wouldn't. Voldemort is a vital part of the Harry Potter world, and one can't exist without the other.

We challenge anyone to explain how the world and society would even continue as it is, let alone be a better place, if ESP and/or God were actually real. Show us how humankind would benefit if we all knew for certain that we have Hell and an eternity of suffering to look forward to, or explain how society would progress ethically if people can secretly watch my cute neighbour in the shower and steal my passwords.

Thankfully none of this silly nonsense exists, which is great, and skeptics and atheists lose credibility when they claim to have thought deeply about it, and then go on to lament that none of it is real. Clearly they haven't grasped what is really at stake at all. We accept that gullible believers happily delude themselves, embracing the good bits and ignoring the horrible and inconvenient bits, but we don't understand how so-called 'informed' skeptics and atheists can lend a level of support to the deluded believers, honestly saying that they don't see any evidence for their claims, but oh, how they wish they were true.

Well, not me. I don't want people reading my innermost thoughts, and I don't want nightmares revealing what Satan has in store for me. I wish for none of it. All I can say is, thank God that all this ESP and God crap is just that, crap.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 20 Aug, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

Comments:

1. Comment by Rene, 01 Sep, 2017

   Hya John, another good article on faith... a different faith, but faith nonetheless.

   It only makes sense though that Christians would believe in ESP as they already believe that God knows everything they are thinking, can see the future, move objects with "his" mind, etc. So as far as they are concerned, every ESP related event is already what God does, so they are already in the self-delusional mindset.

   NOW add to that whenever they hear about some human having an ESP event, it only follows that in their mind, God gave them a miracle... a taste of his own omniscience to a lucky faithful if you prefer. Therefore the presence of ESP only helps to CONFIRM their belief in God, and his greatness. In their mind, a weird coincidence didn't occur, nor did the person evolve a new ability... God clearly gave that person a miracle to strengthen their OWN beliefs! Praise the miracle that is he... and all that.

   Of course someone could counter using their OWN beliefs that it's humans becoming to the level of God, or it's the works of another deity, or even Satan tempting humans with the power of God, but nope... it's always God and praise him. PERIOD. One could tell them that it cannot be reproduced in a lab, you could show them the coincidence factor, you could show them "selective memory" and "confirmation bias", but then you'd be trying to confuse them, probably Satan deceiving them and you. You can't win, because they've already decided the outcome they want. Plus they'd just counter with "Miracles cannot be demanded for proof and by definition cannot be repeated" and the scientist in you would just throw up their hands and wonder why you even bother discussing it then.

   Both require faith... and both require extraordinary proof. They are already used to extraordinary beliefs without a lick of proof, so ESP fits right in.

2. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 02 Sep, 2017

   You're right Rene, it must be child's play for Christians to add belief in ESP to their toy box. If you already have the mindset that believes in magical god stuff for which there is no supporting evidence and much evidence against it, then you're perfectly primed to believe in some new magical stuff, such as ESP, that might come along. Explanations of spooky occurrences can easily be twisted to fit into the myths of how their invisible God works behind the scenes.

   No matter how often we skeptics explain to believers how robust the evidence is against ESP, and how convincing that evidence seems even to them, as you say we can't win. Evidence be damned, they can quickly delude themselves into believing that Satan is simply screwing with their mind, and no matter how silly it seems, ESP and God are both real. With such flawed logic these morons could easily convince themselves that black is white and up is down, and honestly it would make more sense to discuss quantum mechanics with your cat than try and expect reasoned thought from them.

Back in 2015 we wrote of Malaysian villagers, and even government officials, making complete dicks of themselves and their country by claiming that naked foreign tourists had caused a fatal earthquake. The silly villagers spoke of a sacred mountain where they believe the spirits of their ancestors reside. We exposed the primitive, superstitious, irrational and clearly childish beliefs held by the locals that lived by this mountain, and the government officials that supported their supernatural nonsense. Mired in the ignorant dark ages, these villagers claimed that some innocent nudity on the top of their sacred mountain, nudity that none of the locals saw, so incensed the invisible (and need it be said, non-existent) spirits of their ancestors that these spirits snapped and went on a murderous rampage a few days later, killing 18 innocent tourists, their weapon of choice being an earthquake.

We also mentioned that even in NZ we've been dismayed by our own natives insisting that their own mountain spirits have been offended by the innocent actions of visitors, for example when the makers of a movie starring Tom Cruise wanted to include Mount Taranaki in one of their background shots. Mount Taranaki is apparently another sacred mountain, a place where the ancestors of the local natives hang out. Some Maori thought they could allow it if they were paid enough money, so clearly any offence to the spirits can be overlooked or forgiven if sufficient goods change hands. In Malaysia it would apparently take 10 head of buffalo to appease the spirits, but in NZ it usually seems to come down to cold, hard cash, although what use the spirits would have for cash, or buffalos, is beyond us to fathom.

We had hoped that the Malaysian nonsense and the worldwide merriment on reading their story might have given our superstitious locals cause to pause, to think before they spoke, but no, clearly no lessons were learnt. Once again the natives are restless. We've read of yet another attempt by some superstitious NZers to give the world something to laugh at over their coffee. Well, the enlightened world at least, we're sure those villagers in Malaysia will have sent the offended Maori smoke signals of support. Thankfully the offended spirits in NZ haven't killed anyone, although of course there have since been deaths in NZ, and they may have made them look like an accident. After all, the Malaysian spirits cunningly killed their victims with a "natural" disaster, and would have gotten away with it if the villagers hadn't squealed. And Christians tell us that their god kills most of his many victims with what we atheists apparently mistakenly identify as natural causes, such as floods and cancer.

So what is it that NZ's natives and some local officials have done to get us in the news in far flung countries, and not in a good way? Well, they've taken a completely harmless social media post, one that involved innocent nudity on a mountain, an event that has similar gravity to the headline: 'Man spies neighbour collecting his mail in his bathrobe', and they've childishly asserted that this particular mountain is a sacred mountain and, just like the superstitious Malaysians, that both the imaginary spirits of their ancestors and their living descendants have been grossly offended.

The following photo is what caused knickers to be twisted. Jaylene Cook, 25, a New Zealander now living in Australia, recently climbed Mt Taranaki, for the adventure of it, with her boyfriend. At the summit she stripped off momentarily and the following photo was snapped by her boyfriend, and Jaylene later put it on her Instagram account. Jaylene is a glamour model and has featured as a playmate in Playboy Mexico, and told Newstalk ZB that, 'We see nudity as art and pure and natural'. And we agree, viewing it as a stunning photograph, a statuesque nude overlooking a majestic vista. What could be more real, more natural, than a body in its natural state enjoying and admiring nature? A photograph so different from all the other boring shots of people standing on mountains cocooned in colourful jackets and pants, like visiting aliens. And surely no one could say the pose wasn't tasteful? ... But of course they could.

We read that, 'Maori academic Dennis Ngawhare said it disrespected the mountain', and that 'Stratford Mayor Neil Volzke weighed in on the issue, saying the stunt was unexpected and culturally insensitive'. Neil Holdom, New Plymouth's mayor, said, 'tangata whenua viewed Mt Taranaki as an ancestor', and therefore people 'should ask themselves how they would feel if someone took a photo of themselves naked, on the grave of a great grandparent'. We also read that Rajan Zed, the President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, 'has said that the Government should offer effective protection to indigenous Maori sacred sites. ... He urged the New Zealand government and Cook to offer a formal apology. ... [and] said the world should respect the centuries-old Maori traditions ... The Maori community should have the final decision on what is allowed on the mountain'.

The typical claims by some Maori and their supporters are that this innocent nudity 'disrespected the mountain', because 'Mt Taranaki was their ancestor and he is seen as a living being', and that it's 'culturally insensitive', but we believe the statement from the Hindu Rajan Zed, best sums up what Maori likely wants to see happen, 'the world should respect the centuries-old Maori traditions'. Do you remember when the Muslim radicals started their protests demanding that the world respect their centuries-old traditions, and how that worked out for us all?

Respect centuries-old Maori traditions? Well, sorry, it's not going to happen. As we've argued before, eg here, when people with spiritual and religious beliefs plead with others to respect their age-old traditions, they are not really requesting our respect, they are demanding our acquiescence, our silence. They want to intimidate us, make us feel that we're being rude and discourteous, and prevent us from questioning or criticising their ghost stories. As one person summed it up beautifully, 'They don't want my respect, they want my submission'.

On social media someone calling herself "maorimermaid" directed an angry comment at Jaylene Cook, 'Hope your five mins of fame was worth the curses that will haunt you for life'. Seriously ... curses? Is she studying at Hogwarts, and did she use an owl to send that message? We have two problems with that sort of rabid comment. One, these folk apparently don't realise that they're spouting silly primitive nonsense, which never wins a debate or scares an opponent, and two, they genuinely wish people harm. Rather than try and convince someone that they may have unintentionally caused offence, they go for the jugular and threaten them with evil. Silly, imaginary evil, but evil never the less. No matter how childish it is, the real desire that harm occurs is there. Directed at anyone that doesn't see the world as they do is the wishful hope that their opponents will suffer. We had hoped that humans were becoming more tolerant of people that view things differently, but unfortunately there are those that simply can't rise above their animal urges. When surprised their reflex is to attack.

We understand what people generally mean by respect and not causing offence, we do, and usually we comply, but not if it means having our own views and integrity compromised. We don't publicly challenge the nonsense the priests and ministers come out with during a church service, but if they ask how dare we offend God by not kneeling and praying, then the gloves are off. New Plymouth's mayor asked how we'd 'feel if someone took a photo of themselves naked, on the grave of a great grandparent'. If the photo was similar to the one of Jaylene, frankly we wouldn't lose any sleep over it, but we understand some superstitious people might, and we have no problem being "respectful" at a gravesite, and modifying our behaviour so as not to deliberately offend. But unfortunately Maori try our patience and goodwill when they label an entire bloody mountain as a gravesite. And not just this mountain, all the mountains in NZ. Dr Ruakere Hond, a Taranaki academic, talks of, 'our mountains and sacred places', and 'is calling on Maori to outline values and protocols for sacred Maori sites ... of what is acceptable and unacceptable'.

Clearly Maori trying to fence off their sacred spaces, what the rest of us also call, 'our mountains', is a step too far. If the mountains are sacred, and we were to meekly accept that, then soon the land these mountains walked across would be sacred also, so too the rivers they bathed in, the beaches they lounged on, and the forests they foraged in. Even the air they breathed. Where would it end? Where in NZ have the ancestors of Maori not trodden, and where have their gods not ventured? According to the DOC website, 'Mt Taranaki has great spiritual significance to local Maori: the crater and summit is the sacred head of Taranaki, the rocks and ridge are his bones, rivers his blood and plants and trees are his cloak and offer protection from the weather'. That's great if we're talking mythology, but clearly it's bullshit as far as the real world is concerned, and anyone that doesn't agree, shouldn't be allowed to dictate to the rest of us as to 'what is acceptable and unacceptable' behaviour on that mountain or any other.

When asked to comment, MP Paula Bennett made the only sensible response from someone in authority that we've come across: 'I'm the Minister of Police, not the Minister of Fun Police ... Other people are fully entitled to their own opinions, but I'm not offended'. Quite right. This is the 21st century, we've landed rovers on Mars and invented stuffed crust pizza, if we take this sort of nonsense seriously, next thing we'll be dunking suspected witches in the local duck pond.

There are two quite different issues here. One, that mature, intelligent, well-adjusted humans might find innocent nudity offensive, and two, that our ancestors, dead humans, can be offended by innocent nudity, or more accurately, offended by anything at all.

Considering the first issue — how 21st century citizens might be expected to react to nudity — we've seen above where an academic claims that it, 'disrespected the mountain', which to us seems to be an adult confusing a huge chunk of rock with a person. Surely Maori know that the myths about mountains chatting and falling in love with each other and walking around are, well, probably not true? Closer to something that could make sense, one media article reports the view that, 'Seeing a Playmate model naked at the top of Mt Taranaki would have been "horrifying", the Department of Conservation says'. We're informed that,

'DOC Partnerships Manager Darryn Ratana has come down on the side of iwi [Maori] after the picture went around the world. He said DOC would not condone behaviour that was offensive to iwi — and "it's also pretty offensive to the general public." He said if someone had walked around a corner and seen that, they would have been "pretty horrified".'

We mention Jesus because most people that are getting all hissy about their ancestors being offended will likely also be Christians. We've never met anyone who doesn't believe in this god nonsense, ie an atheist, but who at the same time believes in sacred mountains, ancestor spirits and the traditional religious beliefs of Maori. But the spiritual and religious are nothing if not experts in ignoring contradictory claims and inconvenient facts to do with their silly beliefs. They can believe in both the Christian God and the Maori gods, the Christian Heaven and the Maori heaven, the Christian sacred spaces and the Maori sacred spaces. Hypocrisy is a fact of life for them, a smart phone in one hand and a Bible in the other, crying at the feet of a tortured zombie called Jesus one moment, and the next moment complaining on Facebook and Twitter about a naked woman in the wilderness. Innocent nudity is horrifying to them, but God having his own son tortured and murdered is something they feel they need to show their kids, and even get them little crosses as souvenirs of the occasion. These deluded, immoral bastards really need to use their brains for things other than praying and ordering pizzas. There's an amazing natural world out there, and they should start learning about it and enjoying it, and that includes appreciating the naked bodies when they come along, rather than spending their lives arguing that the ridiculous imaginary worlds that their ignorant ancestors thought existed, do actually exist.

We'd argue that mature, intelligent, well-adjusted humans don't find innocent nudity offensive in the slightest, and are certainly not 'horrified' if they see it. But that said, many people don't fit that description, they are immature, ignorant, fearful and irrational, and while their outward appearance looks modern, their inner lives and beliefs are little different from a medieval peasant under the oppressive yoke of primitive superstition. So the depressing conclusion is that even in the 21st century, when confronted with innocent nudity, some members of the public will act like sanctimonious prudes from the dark ages, while others will be adult about it and say it's no big deal, and may even honestly admit that the sight of a beautiful, naked body can be quite, well, nice. Which century do you identify with?

But we must realise that this is about much more than whether 21st century Maori are offended and horrified at seeing a naked body, the real argument is that their ancestors, their long dead ancestors, are offended and horrified by nudity. Local Maori consider Mt Taranaki as a sacred site that somehow has a connection to the spirits of their ancestors and to them. One article states that Dennis Ngawhare wrote his philosophy doctorate about it, stating that, 'the mountain was considered an ancestor for local Maori and the area around the summit was tapu'. On hearing about all this, I tuned into Maori TV's current affairs series 'Native Affairs' to learn more, but they didn't mention it, having no doubt already expounded on it. However, on their website we found an article noting that,

'According to local history, all Taranaki tribes trace their genealogy back to "Koro Taranaki" ... Matehuirua Limmer (Te Atiawa / Poutama) told Maori Television that Mt Taranaki was their ancestor and he is seen as a living being. "We females would never stand naked in front of him, we have personified our koroua, would you walk on your grandfather? We relate it in the same respect," says Limmer.

Te Reo o Taranaki Chairman Te Poihi Campbell says, "It's pure bad behaviour, insensitive. It damages the reputation and takahi's on the mana of our mounga."

Trenton Martin (Te Atiawa) says, "He is a personification of us as a people and we always acknowledge him first in our pepeha. Absolutely I am offended by this, we can't make them not do it, but we can moan about it!" Martin explains all mountains throughout the country are seen as personifications of tupuna ... [and] there was a clear message from iwi members that non-Maori must be educated and respect the beliefs of Maori. "If we takahi the mana of the mounga we takahi the mana of the people," says Martin.'

And we're not fussed on Martin's conviction, 'that non-Maori must be educated and respect the beliefs of Maori', since what are they talking about here, compulsory reeducation internment camps like those that Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung set up in the past, where we're indoctrinated in Maori mythology? Instead of us learning about dead ancestors masquerading as mountains, our forlorn hope would be to have people that believe these things educated in science, history and philosophy in the compulsory camps we call schools.

We're unclear whether a human ancestor or Maori god turned into the mountain itself, or if Maori consider mountains are all imbued with some mystical life force that is considered kin, or whether the spirits of dead ancestors have simply chosen the mountain as a place to hang out, like a Maori heaven. But since they're all clearly bat-shit crazy notions, it doesn't really matter which Maori believe. All we need to know is that innocent nudity is apparently offending a dead Maori ancestor, spirit or god of some sort.

Ignoring the dead bit for the moment, does that even make sense from what we know about Maori and their historical traditions? Were they a people that worried about nudity, did they go to great lengths to cover their bodies in the centuries before the prudish Christian missionaries arrived? The answer is no, but strangely none of the news website articles that we read questioned whether historically Maori had a problem with nudity, only one person that we could find, in a physical magazine article, grasped the flaw in the Maori outrage:

'The dichotomy of this argument is that nudity in itself is not offensive, even in Maori culture, where for hundreds of years, social nudity was commonplace and not looked down upon.'

The four photos below, all showing topless Maori women, are from Michael King's book, 'Maori: A Photographic and Social History'. Top left: Rotorua, circa 1900. Top right: Swimming at hot springs, Lake Taupo, circa 1860s or 1870s. Bottom right: Opepe, circa 1870s. Bottom left: Hawkes Bay, circa 1870s.

The next photo is of six young Maori women bathing naked at the Waikato River in 1938.

Even after considerable European influence, clearly many Maori women still weren't that worried about nudity, it was the Europeans around them that had a conflicted view of the naked body; wanting to see it, but wanting it covered at the same time. And even today when Maori want to showcase their traditional culture to others, they don't dress up, they dress down. Look at this photo of a Maori greeting the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William by playing the part of a warrior. If any of us walked down the street like that, let alone tried to meet a member of the British Royal Family, we'd be arrested, even if we weren't carrying a spear or club. If Maori think any normal person would be offended and horrified on suddenly seeing a beautiful, naked woman, why don't Maori think that visiting dignitaries might also be offended and horrified on suddenly seeing an angry, almost naked man advancing on them, waving a club or spear, and screaming in a foreign language? True hypocrisy. We must put clothes on in public, but they can take them off, because for them naked flesh was traditional and nothing to be ashamed of.

So where are modern Maori getting these otherworldly messages of shock and horror from? If we humour them for a moment and don't call them delusional or outright liars, then the ancestors they're channelling are clearly their prudish European ancestors, probably their 19th century Victorian ones, and certainly not their Maori ancestors. We say this because heredity wise, 21st century Maori all have European (and/or Asian, Pacific Island etc) ancestors as well as Maori ancestors. So history suggests that if some long dead person is truly moaning on to them about their prudish attitude to the naked body, then they're more likely to have been a European who once lived in London or Glasgow than a Maori living anywhere near the slopes of Mt Taranaki. This means that if the spooky voices bugging modern Maori are actually their dead European ancestors, then they shouldn't just be griping about nakedness at the sacred sites favoured by their Maori ancestors, such as Mt Taranaki, they should be condemning nudity wherever it's found, from movies and TV to the Internet and the beaches. But they're not. Which is a good thing, of course, but it does paint them as being a little confused about what the voices are actually telling them. Their Maori ancestors wouldn't be all that worried about nudity, and while some of their European ancestors may well be, they'd be worried about nudity in public, not fleeting, unseen nudity on some distant mountain summit.

But as we've said, there are two quite different issues here. One, the shock value of nudity, and two, the unseen entity that is or isn't being shocked. The nudity is actually quite incidental, really trivial, a real red herring in fact, and concentrating on it diverts us from the truly important issue: do the spirits of our ancestors actually exist? Only if it's clearly shown that they do, should we then move on to the next question, are these dead people offended by nudity? In our view, arguing about whether real world nudity is offensive to long dead ancestors is like arguing whether Superman and Lois Lane, or Captain James T. Kirk and Mr Spock, would be offended and horrified by me watching one of their movies on TV while wearing a chicken suit and eating ice cream straight from the container. It's utterly ridiculous to think that imaginary characters, characters that have never existed. could be offended by any action of mine. And while our ancestors did of course once exist, there is no evidence whatsoever that they still exist, except in our memories. Our ancestors are no more watching us than is Superman, and any belief that some invisible person that doesn't exist in our reality is watching us is delusional, and any demand that we alter our behaviour to placate these imaginary fairy folk calls for a straightjacket.

When people hear Maori complaining that the spirits of their ancestors are being offended and horrified by the sight of a naked body, we shouldn't get sidetracked into a debate over whether public nudity is offensive (of course it's not, debate concluded), we should simply ask the important question: What evidence is there that these spirits that you talk of are any more real than those little blue Smurfs? And of course there is none. You can't offend something that doesn't exist, and you can't expect people to alter their behaviour or avoid certain areas all together just to mesh with some primitive myth. It would be like saying we can't explore the North Pole because we don't want to risk disturbing Santa Claus, and we can't explore the seas lest we anger Neptune, the Roman god of the sea.

This is not about picking on Maori, or the Malaysians, it's about challenging any and all groups that come out with unsubstantiated claims that appear to be quite silly, and who then expect us to meekly kowtow to their nonsense without verifying their claims, demanding that we respect their beliefs and compensate any perceived offence with money or buffalos.

Whether it's Christians asking us to believe that zombie Jesus will be coming for us any day now, Muslims insisting that their God wants them to take over the world and kill anyone who dissents, psychic mediums claiming that they've been chatting with your dead aunt, or Maori bleating on about what's upsetting their prudish ancestors, anyone making fanciful claims can't demand or expect intelligent, rational adults to change our behaviour or corrupt our well-supported worldview just because they are mired in more primitive, superstitious times.

If I wasn't such a wimp regarding the cold (and there's the climbing bit too), I'd be tempted to climb to the summit of Mt Taranaki and perform a scientific experiment by stripping off and seeing if any ghostly Maori turned up to complain. Perhaps someone knows of some other sacred spot on a nice warm beach? Actually, it was claimed above that, 'all mountains throughout the country are seen as personifications of tupuna', and apparently that word means (since again they don't lower themselves to translate), that all mountains in NZ are seen as one of their ancestors. Since a few of us once participated in the Homer Nude Tunnel Run with a hundred other naked men and women, and the tunnel goes through a mountain near Milford Sound, then it seems we have done the experiment. We can report that while the nude run was great fun, the results were negative for spirits of dead ancestors. No ghostly specters, à la the 'Ghostbusters' movie, chased us through the mountain or met us on the other side to give us a stern reprimand. So, ask a question: Do spirits offended by nudity live in mountains? Do an experiment: Run through the bowels of the mountain/ancestor naked. Get a result: Everyone survives, fun had by all, no spirits detected. Isn't science wonderful?

We understand how it feels to be offended and horrified, because right now we're offended and horrified that some 21st century citizens are still embracing such foolishness. Why is it all about them and their feelings, and the feelings of their long dead ancestors? Why are the hypocrites giving no thought to our ancestors, the sensible ones that viewed the naked body as natural and inoffensive, the forward thinking ones that wanted to know how the universe really worked, the skeptical ones that didn't accept that ghosts and gods were the cause of it all? We're offended and angry that superstitious fools are impeding the progress of science and society by arguing for explanations from the dark ages, and doing their best to drag us back there, and we're horrified and shocked to hear grown adults proposing, with the warped judgement of a celibate priest, that we should all feel ashamed, embarrassed and degraded on seeing a naked body in nature. You lot with your thinking mountains and sacred spaces seriously need to rethink your stance, because if your dead ancestors really are watching, you're likely just embarrassing them.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 13 Jul, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

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1. Comment by Ron, 19 Jul, 2017

   Hi John. Another excellent post re. maori spiritual beliefs, sacred mountains, etc. Your overall message I have to totally endorse and echoes my feelings of many yrs. It astounds me that in NZ in this age there is remaining so many of these beliefs, but of course the cultural thing is powerful and is surrounded by so much pc today that I think most are very reluctant to talk about these topics. There appears to be 1000's of rites and rituals existing worldwide. Japan would be a good example. You mention Malaysia as well. A country I visit at times as my wife's family live there. Peninsular Malaysia is visited by large numbers, and growing, of tourists with a fantastic, modern metropolis like Kuala Lumpur, but in east Malaysia, namely Sabah and Sarawak there lives primitive native peoples. Sacred mountains, ancestral spirits, gods, curses put on people, etc are very normal and accepted in that neck of the woods. Probably the most famous location re. this theme is Uluru, or Ayers Rock, in Australia. Hordes of tourists and visitors go there. In 1991 70% of these climbed to the summit. Now it is 50%. Countless numbers have taken rocks as souvenirs. An aborigine tribe called the Anango live nearby and have appealed to visitors for yonks not to climb to the summit or take rocks. We are told that 100s of these have, after returning home, suffered awful bad luck such as illnesses, marriage break-ups, even death. (Coincidences by any chance?) Seems panic set in when the word spread and heaps of these rocks have been posted back to the park rangers. They call them sorry rocks. Some have been over 15kgs!! The tribe appeals are based on cultural and spiritual reasons. Funny thing, John, is the aborigines admit there is no cultural tradition that states stolen rocks will bring bad luck. Also there are companies who specialize in climbing tours to Uluru. Are all these people involved copping horrible tragedies in their lives as a result? Evil spirits are claimed to live in Uluru. One Aussie guy wrote to a paper and made a point. He said "what a load of crap! I've had my little piece of Ayers Rock for 14 yrs and I'm the most contented bugger on earth". Uluru was supposedly created by 10 aboriginals that made a few others because the landscape was too featureless. Such weird and wonderful stories are attached to all the many sacred mountains. Some are well known like Mt Fuji, others obscure. but they have been always revered as places of power where gods reside or where you can connect with a god (not by phone I bet). A good example is Mt Kailash in Tibet, a mountain sacred to a number of religions, so much so that anyone setting foot on it is guilty of sacrilege. It is the abode of the god Shiva and goddess Pativa. Buddhist belief says if you circle the mountain once it will atone all the sins of your lifetime. 10 times prevents eternal damnation and 100 times (great grief) will make you as one with Buddha. You don't get these sort of promises in the bible!! One is not allowed to take black lava rocks from Hawaii either, and Easter Island is a big no-no. They are cursed. How did they become cursed, do they remain cursed for all time or does it wear off? Then there are the Dzi beads of Tibet, rare, origin unknown, but ward off evil. Losing one brings terrible luck. If a tourist finds one, leave it, even though he/she may be protected if they keep it someone else there will cop lots of crappy luck.

   I found this site: 25 Creepy Cursed Objects That Actually Exist. The owners of any of these 25 objects apparently died in bizarre circumstances. I've heard of some of these stories but most of them, never. No 18 refers to maori and tells readers that a maori museum in Wellington warns pregnant or menstruating women to stay away from certain sacred artifacts incl. particularly maori warrior masks that can invoke a curse if these particular women get too close. Tradition dictates these women to be Tapu.

   I would be interested to hear what you think of those mostly short stories in the above site, John. There is so much of this out there. Are we in the west missing out on some dimensions or is it like you said in an earlier comment there are too many people still living in the dark ages. Each to their own, I guess, but why should I or others not be able to climb the likes of Mt Kailash or similar if I damn well choose to? On visits to Malaysia I've talked to many locals from a doctor to ordinary villagers and those, at some point, will suggest we in the west have no idea about many things such as eastern medicine and the spiritual world, and that westerners on the whole do not want to believe in anything they cannot see. Who among us has all the answers.

2. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 20 Jul, 2017

   Hi Ron. There are indeed thousands of silly beliefs worldwide involving rites and rituals designed to placate imaginary spirits and gods, and they are beliefs from the dark ages. And yes, any misfortune that might befall someone after visiting some sacred site is purely coincidental, and certainly not the result of an evil curse brought about by dead ancestors or inanimate lumps of rock. Believing that misfortune is caused by curses is as childish as believing that Xmas presents are made by Santa's elves. The unfortunate fact that ignorant natives lack the benefit of a modern education easily explains why these beliefs persist in these primitive, disadvantaged, and/or remote communities. But why many educated folk still seriously entertain this nonsense is mystifying. It's generally not because they have personally had some mystical experience, since all the silly stories they relate nearly always happened to the gardener of a friend of a friend of a guy who worked with their cousin ... or something like that. In the past we had to wait until we were sitting around a campfire at night to hear about ghosts that were out to get us, but today we have the Internet, where bullshit spreads at the speed it takes to log into Facebook. People now go on about fake news, but long, long before we had fake news, we had fake stories about ghosts, spirits, gods and curses.

   Like you, I hadn't heard of most of the stories connected to those "cursed" objects, and of those I had heard of, the claims they make are bogus; complete and utter lies invented to fool the gullible. Ignorant, superstitious people have been cursing people and objects for thousands of years, and at present there are over 7 billion people and trillions and trillions of objects existing in the world, and yet these morons can only find 25 cursed objects for their list, and none of them have any supporting evidence!

   Let's very quickly look at the ones I'm familiar with. They're the famous ones, and it would be reasonable to expect that they would have the best evidence for curses.
   '# 16 — King Tutankhamun's Tomb'. The curse of the mummy is a myth, contrary to what Hollywood claims. As this article — King Tut's Curse! — explains, 'Statistically speaking, nothing unusual happened in the Valley of the Kings'.
   '# 9 — Terracotta Army'. This curse states that, 'the Terracotta Army is considered the most priceless archaeological discovery of modern times. However, for those seven farmers who discovered it ... their farmland was claimed by the government and their homes were demolished to make way for exhibition halls and gift shops. One of the discoverers committed suicide, and most of the remaining team members died in poverty'. There's nothing spooky about that, it's perfectly explained by human actions, not a curse.
   '# 15 — The Iceman'. I've read about and seen documentaries on the Iceman and none ever mentioned a curse or mysterious deaths.
   '# 23 — Annabelle the Doll'. We were recently asked if the doll was really killing people, and our reply can be read here. Short answer, people really shouldn't believe the movies that say they are based on a true story.
   As for the silly claims that taking rocks from Ayers Rock and the Blarney Stone cause them to be cursed, surely people should be able to see that these are just stories invented to scare people and prevent them from stealing souvenirs? If I could convince stupid, dishonest people that my car was cursed then I wouldn't need to lock it. Hindus believe that cows are sacred, but that was only a lie invented long ago to stop everyone eating them, when the authorities realised that there were far more people than there were cows to go around.
   As for '# 18 — Cursed Maori Warrior Masks', we discussed this moronic and degrading claim back in 2010 when it was made — 'Unclean women need not apply' — and we'd recommend that you read it as it deals more fully with that topic.

   You mention things like the curse on the Uluru rocks, and Dzi beads of Tibet, where the claim is that, 'Losing one brings terrible luck'. The problem is that unsupported statements like this are blindly accepted by many as a fact. They don't question it, or ask for evidence, they simply repeat it as a fact. Imagine hearing an adult telling a young child that if they misbehave then Santa Claus won't leave them any presents, or that if they don't put their tooth under their pillow then the Tooth Fairy won't swap it for money. Imagine hearing an adult telling another adult that black cats are unlucky due to their connection to witches, or that you shouldn't step on cracks on the footpath. Most sane adults immediately dismiss such talk as superstitious nonsense, and while they may lie to children, they don't believe any of it. The response should be the same when the talk is about bad luck curses and ghosts. Some moron claiming that some object is cursed or that their dead ancestors are watching them or that their house is haunted is as childish as expecting a visit from Santa or the Tooth Fairy. These are all silly beliefs from a distant time when we were ignorant, primitive and superstitious, ridiculous beliefs that we should have ditched long ago. As you say Ron, when we look at believers in curses and such, 'most are very reluctant to talk about these topics', because they know they can't debate their claims, can't support them with evidence or reason, and that most people will either laugh at them or pity them.

   I certainly don't think that, 'we in the west [are] missing out on some dimensions', unless you're talking about science and the likes of string theory, but I don't think that's what spiritual folk are referring to. The reality is that people that are landing probes on comets, curing diseases, building driverless cars and pumping clean water into air-conditioned homes are without exception using what people call Western science, Western technology and Western medicine to achieve these modern miracles. (Although of course there is only science and medicine, there are no Western and Eastern versions. If it works it's simply science and medicine, if it doesn't work it's called things like pseudoscience and natural healing.) And people in countries that don't have easy access to these Western miracles grab them with indecent haste as soon as they can. So-called Eastern medicine is quickly ditched for a modern antibiotic and MRI scanner. The bush telegraph and donkeys quickly lose out to cell phones and cars. Yes, there are still many societies where people still use Eastern or traditional medicines and consult with the spiritual world, but that's usually because that's the only option available to them, it's not because they've tried both modern and traditional methods and have discovered that the traditional ways work much better.

   When people claim that we in the West have no idea about traditional and spiritual beliefs then they are either lying or ignorant. Academics have done the research, produced the evidence and have written libraries on why most traditional and spiritual beliefs are just primitive, superstitious nonsense. They don't reject traditional and spiritual beliefs because they are afraid of them or ignorant about them, but because they have found them wanting. It's a childish argument to claim that we in the West refuse to believe in anything we can't see. We believe in numerous things that we can't see, like quarks and black holes, gravity and magnetism, love and the smell of a rose. I personally have never seen a bacterium or a virus, or an artic fox, but I believe they exist. Most people believe that galaxies are real, but most people have never seen one. What we don't believe in are not things we can't see or have never seen, but things that we can't detect with ultra-sensitive instruments and that reason suggests don't exist, and often logically can't exist. Even though we can't see quarks, other things that we can see argue that quarks must be real, or else the world wouldn't work and appear the way it does. If quarks and atoms and DNA weren't real, or if ghosts and evil trolls under bridges were, then the way we experience the world would be radically different.

   You finish by asking, 'Who among us has all the answers?', a question which we often find that believers in gods and primitive beliefs throw at scientists with the implication that science, by dismissing ancient beliefs, is arrogantly claiming to have all the answers. The reality is that science never says it has all the answers, not even close, and is even unjustly criticised by religious believers because scientists sometimes change the answers they do have, rewriting science textbooks, modifying theories and even thinking up new ones. In fact it is religion, not science, that has always claimed to have the absolute truth, to have all the answers. Who created the world: God. Who created life: God. Who brought a plague upon the wicked: God. Who said homosexuals are evil, that witches should be killed, that bats were birds, that the world is only 6,000 years old: God, God, God and God. The religious grow up being told that their god has all the answers, and so are naturally reluctant to embrace science, which clearly doesn't have all the answers. Twenty seconds into a conversation with evangelists, psychic mediums, faith healers or astrologers and they'll be listing the mysteries that science hasn't (yet) explained, while completing ignoring all the mysteries it has explained. Since science hasn't explained everything, and likely never will, then in their minds it's a failure, and it's better to stick with a god that already has all the answers. Let me quote Noah Lugeons who said, 'As atheists, we stand in awe of a lot of things... but perhaps the thing I'm most in awe of is the stupidity it takes to look past the entire universe of things that actually exist and stand in awe of something that doesn't'.

   Of course anyone can say that some god or spirit causes earthquakes or that evil curses cause mysterious deaths or that a talisman cures cancer, just as a scientist can say that sunlight causes sunburn. But the difference is that scientists don't just talk, they go on to prove their claim is true, or false and discard it, whereas believers in ancient traditions such as religion and magic, simply keep repeating their claims ad nauseam, they never, ever, prove that they're true. And even when others do the work for them and prove their claims false, they still keep insisting that they're true.

   Science certainly hasn't got all the answers, but as imperfect and incomplete as it is, science still offers the most well-supported view of the universe. In fact, contrary to the claims that there are many, science is the only method that has delivered results. Of all the thousands of gods that various cultures have revealed over the centuries, not one god ever told their followers about the existence of galaxies, atoms, DNA, viruses, or even exotic animals from distant countries. But they happily told them untold falsehoods, such as the world being flat, resting on pillars and the centre of the universe, that a god was needed to carry the Sun across the sky each day, that human and animal sacrifices were needed to stop the world from ending, that mental illness was caused by demons, that stars were much smaller than the Earth and very close, that lightning was thrown by gods from mountaintops, that NZ was fished up by a god ... and on and on the bullshit goes. We challenge anyone to name the mysteries that religion and its all-knowing gods have explained to the world. There isn't a single one. As Victor J. Stenger said, 'Science has earned our trust by its proven success. Religion has destroyed our trust by its repeated failure'.

   Evil curses and visits from Santa, they're both equally ridiculous, and those that disagree should either prove us wrong or simply grow up.

OK, we're not at all surprised that more people have claimed to see Bigfoot than God. But if you're like us and not religious, then not seeing or hearing from God is no different to not bumping into the Tooth Fairy at the supermarket. We just don't expect to run into things that don't exist beyond our imagination. But what about true believers, do they lose sleep over the worrying fact that they never see or hear from their Heavenly Father? They don't see him on TV chat shows talking to celebrities, and not even the persistent and intrusive paparazzi can get a blurry photo of him frequenting some tacky nightclub or drunkenly assaulting an atheist.

These days pretty much everyone agrees that God is a god that we never see or hear from, and most believers don't seem to be unduly bothered by God's absence, apparently because they simply don't think about what it might mean. But not all true believers are struck by apathy. Some modern Christians that have thought about God's absence actually argue that the reason we don't see him is not because he's invisible or is too busy running the universe, it's because God is deliberately hiding from us. They even have a name for this silly belief: the divine hiddenness argument. But even though he's playing hide-and-seek with us, these Christians go on to claim — and this is the really silly bit — that we should still believe in him. Think about that for a moment. The Christian God is supposedly an all-powerful god that is deliberately hiding from us, meaning that we mere humans clearly haven't got a hope in hell of seeing him if he doesn't want to be seen. But if we can't even catch a fleeting glimpse of God, can't find any evidence that he's real — because he's hiding it from us— why should we believe he even exists? After all, by the same logic children could argue that we don't see evidence for Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but that's not because they don't exist, but because they too are hiding from us. Once someone argues that a lack of evidence for the existence of some unseen being merely means that they are very good at hiding from us, then they open the door for a multitude of unseen beings, from Santa and Zeus to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. Surely this exposes the Christian argument for the nonsense it is? Not for the silly Christians it doesn't.

So why doesn't God want to be seen? The modern Christian argument, forced on them because of his embarrassing absence, is that if he revealed himself to the world then logically we would have no choice but to believe he is real, and God apparently wants us to come to believe in him on our own terms, or so the story goes. He doesn't want to force belief on us, making us little different from blindly obedient robots, and so he gave us intelligence and free will so that we could examine the evidence for his existence and make our own choices. It's a little like love. You can't force someone to love you, a feeling of love is something people have to arrive at on their own. To be genuine, people must see for themselves that their love for someone is justified, and feel that it is a personal choice, not one forced on them. But God goes even further, not only doesn't he want to force people to love him, he doesn't even want to force people to believe in him. Just as we can learn more about someone and grow to love them or know that they love us based on their actions, God feels that we can choose to learn more about the world and in doing so come to believe that he exists. He doesn't want to force us to believe in him, by turning up and performing miracles for example, he wants us to examine the world and freely and rationally conclude that he does exist. He wants us to freely choose to seek him out, to genuinely want to make the effort to discover he's real and believe in him.

Of course that's the modern view of God, it certainly wasn't the case in Biblical times, and this inconvenient fact throws a huge spanner in the works. In the Bible stories God is forever poking his nose into people's affairs and making his presence known. Miracles are a dime a dozen, and God's clear handiwork is there for everyone to see. From talking snakes and donkeys to women being turned into pillars of salt, from the parting of the Red Sea and the Sun and Moon stopping in the sky, to virgins getting pregnant and both Lazarus and Jesus rising from the dead. God was more than happy and willing to convince people that he was real by performing amazing feats of magic and interfering in their lives on a regular basis. He even dictated a popular book detailing his exploits, a biography that came to be known as the Bible. And if his book is to be believed, God was not only desperate to have his existence revealed to the world, he wanted everyone to accept him as creator of the universe, obey without question his commandments and worship him as dictator of all dictators. Or else! In his younger days, God was most definitely not a shrinking violet hiding in the shadows. He had no hang-ups with showing people he was real, and consequently causing them to believe he was real. His blatant actions in those early days created the stories — created the "evidence" — that effectively forced Jews, then Christians and eventually Muslims to accept that God was real. God gave ancient man no choice as to whether to believe he was real or not.

So what happened between then and now? What's forced Christians to change from saying that God often popped around for a coffee to now saying that he's hiding and waiting for us to find him? Why did the followers of God in Biblical times see God everywhere — on the way to market, in the fields, in their beds, in their temples, on the mountaintops, on the battlefield — and yet in more recent centuries the followers of God have witnessed nothing but God's worrying absence?

The reality is that ancient man didn't see God at all, all they saw was the natural — and mysterious — world that they inhabited and they wrongly assumed that everything they didn't understand must be the work of a powerful god. Day and night, thunder and lightning, earthquakes and floods, disease and fertility, success or failure on the battlefield, life and death itself, they believed everything happened at the whim of a god, so naturally they saw evidence of God's handiwork everyday and all around them, because they were experiencing the unfathomable natural world everyday. But as ancient man's knowledge of the natural world improved and as his skepticism regarding gods increased, God was witnessed less and less, or to put it another way, as science evolved God was required less and less as an explanation for why and how things happen in the natural world. No longer was Zeus required to throw lightning bolts from Mt Olympus, or Thor's hammer needed to explain thunder; no longer was an Egyptian god required to accompany the Sun on its journey through the underworld each night and return it reborn each morning, and gone was the belief that plagues and illness were caused by demons.

Of course some might reply that the world's holy books also contain stories that clearly weren't ancient man simply misunderstanding an event in the natural world. For example, if we consider just the Bible, we have the talking snake, donkey and bush (the one that was burning but wasn't consumed), and obviously talking animals and foliage aren't a natural occurrence with a natural explanation. Ditto women suddenly turning into pillars of salt, the parting of the Red Sea, the Sun and Moon stopping in the sky, stars falling to Earth, virgins getting pregnant and people rising from the dead to walk the Earth again as the undead. So while lightning may be explained by a force of nature and not the work of gods, how do we explain a talking snake and a zombie Jesus?

The reality is we can't explain how those events happened, and nor do we have to. That's like asking us to explain how Superman flies, how Harry Potter performs his magic, how Doctor Who's Tardis works, how Santa Claus delivers all those toys in one night, how the Smurfs manage to stay hidden, how King Kong could grow so large and how Fred Flintstone domesticated those dinosaurs. We cannot explain fantasies, nor do we need to; they involve fantastical people, things and events that have never existed nor happened, and that only exist, and could only exist, in our imagination. And of course the Bible stories of talking snakes and the walking dead are just fantasies too, and just as there is no need to explain Fred Flintstone, there is no need to explain Jesus coming back from the dead either. Zombies aren't real now, and they weren't real 2,000 years ago either. That old book we call the Bible was the equivalent of today's Superman comic, fanciful stories that only the naïve believe are actually true.

While these days there are still a few ignorant fools that claim to see their God's handiwork in a baby's smile, a beautiful sunset or the Ebola virus, most Christians begrudgingly acknowledge that evidence of God at work in the world is sorely lacking, and that absence — we atheists say — requires an explanation. And so they come up with the free will ploy, that he's hiding from us so as not to force our hand. Of course that doesn't explain why he's changed his mind, since his outlook is now completely different to how he used to act, nor does it explain how it's even possible for a god that's perfect and all-knowing to change his mind. Plus, as we've already alluded to, it's ridiculous to claim that if you can't see something, then that's good evidence that it exists. Reason would dictate that if you have no evidence that something exists, then it most likely doesn't. Again, just replace God's name with Santa and the flaw in the Christian argument becomes obvious.

And it's not just the complete lack of evidence for God that is worrying. We now have a huge amount of scientific evidence that argues against God's existence, that speaks against the silly Bible stories. For those stories to be true, geological and fossil evidence that shows that the Earth and life is millions and billions of years old, and not just a few thousand, must somehow be discounted. Evidence that shows that humans are related not just to chimps but even to bacteria must be dismissed as flawed. Cosmological evidence that posits a 13.7 billion year old universe must be shown to be wrong. And the list goes on and on. Not only is evidence for God's involvement in the world seriously lacking, the hard evidence for a natural explanation is overwhelming. If God were really the creator of the universe and life, the only rational explanation for all this scientific evidence is that God faked it all to fool us into thinking that he doesn't exist. He planted fake fossils and false clues in our DNA to make us think that it all has a natural explanation rather than a divine one. And being an all-powerful and all-knowing god, he'd be really, really good at falsifying evidence, meaning that there's no way in hell that we're going to see through his cunning plan to fool us.

So how would all this work? If he really is God, and all-powerful and all-knowing and all that guff, then no matter how much we look at the world and examine the evidence, we will never detect his presence. If God wants to hide then he'll stay hidden. So there is no way that we could ever freely and rationally conclude that he exists, no way that we could outwit God and see through his wily plan to hide from us. So God's wish that we examine the evidence and conclude that he exists is impossible. Like planning the perfect murder, God would have gotten away with planning the perfect fake universe. The only way that we could discover that God is real is if we found clues that expose the scientific evidence for a natural universe as a red herring, clues that reveal even stronger evidence that point to God being real after all. But these clues would either have to be deliberately planted by God, or overlooked by a less-than-perfect God, and on finding them we would be forced to conclude that God is real after all, meaning that, like it or not, God has forced us to believe in him. And that's something we're told he doesn't want to do. If God deliberately planted clues then he has forced us to believe in him, even if it might have taken some time and effort for us to find them. There's really no difference between making us believe in him by planting difficult to find but really convincing evidence and simply just turning up on our doorstep. Either way the evidence before our eyes would compel us to believe in him. And if he really was trying to hide but overlooked clues to his existence, then he's not perfect and not all-knowing, and therefore not God.

The reality is that no one sees God, and never has. Hence the childish Christian explanation that God is hiding from us so as not to force our hand, since he wants us to freely choose whether to believe in him or not. This argument fails since by definition we could never find an all-powerful God that is deliberately hiding from us, and it makes no sense to believe in something that we have no evidence for. If the Christian God is as powerful as Christians' claim he is, then we could never hope to examine the makeup of the universe and find evidence of God's handiwork, because God's plan to hide that evidence would by definition be perfect. Thus it is futile to even look for evidence of God's existence. If anyone claims to have found evidence of God's existence we know that logically they must be wrong, since said evidence would force us to believe in God, and the Christian argument is that God categorically refuses to do anything, or let us find anything, that would force us to believe in him. Therefore, using our "God-given" intelligence and free will, we can conclude that, even if it does exist somewhere, we will never find evidence of God's existence, since that is God's will. And again, using our intelligence and free will, it makes no sense to claim something exists when we have absolutely no evidence that it does, and a mountain of evidence that suggests it doesn't.

So why do most Christians continue to believe God exists and how does that impact on this argument that God is hiding from us so as not to force us to believe in him? Most Christians believe that God exists for no other reason than someone they trusted, usually their parents, said he did. And let's remember that these same parents also told them that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy were real too. Clearly much of the nonsense your parents told you as a child are not the beliefs you should blindly hold onto as an adult. So why do adults come to reject belief in Santa but many hold onto a belief in God? There are many possibilities. One is that other adults and society in general reinforce their belief in God while happily dismissing belief in the likes of Santa. On top of this, most believers in God, having embraced their belief as a child, never give it any real thought as an adult. Like buying a life insurance policy, it's now filed away in some bottom drawer. You know you have it, and that knowledge is reassuring, but it doesn't impact on your day-to-day life. Most people that identify as Christian do little more than that, they affirm that God is real in the same way that I affirm that gravity is real, and just as I don't spend my days thinking about gravity — can it really create black holes? — most Christians don't think about their belief in God either.

It truly is a paradox, since if God exists and refuses to provide evidence that will force us to believe in him, then he must actively hide from us while making the universe appear completely natural. And yet God knows, since he's all-knowing, that his secretive actions coupled with our intelligence and free will must logically lead us to rationally conclude that he doesn't exist. He desperately wants us to believe in him but has fabricated the universe in such a way that it's impossible to believe in him.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 24 Jun, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

Comments:

1. Comment by Rene, 26 Jun, 2017

   Hya, welcome back, and good article as always. I've heard that stated too, that "God just wants you to love him without reasons or proof", and I usually reply, "Then why did he send you to my door to try and provide it? Aren't you undercutting God's wishes?", but the classic "God's everywhere, if you know what to look for", is just foolishness.

   But they never think about what would be the most logical: God never gave a shit at the time, and certainly doesn't now.

   For example, here's an alternate creationism story from me, but be honest, it matches God's apparent personality:

   In the beginning God was bored, so to pass the time, he created some humans. Kinda played with them a little, but didn't really care what they did in life, as long as they were happy and not fighting and looked up to him, IDENTICALLY to a human with a PET. He'd look in every now and then, but basically didn't really care that much ... because they were harmless pets.

   NOW though, one of the pets comes across something dangerous left lying around, something that might make them smarter. NOW they aren't just innocent pastimes but a genuine threat ... hell they might figure out how to operate their cage locks! What if they start to realize that they are JUST pets? HE'S been telling them they are the center of your life so they'd look up to you among lots of other lies, but if they're smarter they're going to figure him out pretty quick. So he got rid of them without a second thought ... but discovered to his horror that they didn't die outside the "cage" but rather managed to do pretty good for themselves, and are CLEARLY a threat now!!!

   Best to FLUSH the whole lot of them and get back to his chores. But they STILL survived. So, can't keep destroying his own home to get rid of them ... eventually God had to just say "screw it, I guess the planet has humans now" and go about IGNORING the new pest infestation he just caused while you explain it to the other deities.

   That brings us to today, where in my story, God has been ignoring humans for thousands of years by this point, and yet humans still praise his name and think he talks to them 24/7. In reality he lost interest almost immediately and only cares enough to mess with the anthill occasionally for laughs and a diversion.

   Does this not describe God more accurately? Even in the Bible he's always a megalomaniac, needs constant praise at all times, and mostly is messing with people making them do dumb things for his help, even when he can barely be bothered. Then after humans got too annoying, he simply left us to our own devices, but we're too dumb to see that.

   Of course the obvious 2nd theory is: "there is no God", but if you have a Christian who flat-out refuses to allow for this possibility, my scenario covers it off too, and has the advantage of revealing that god, as he's described, is simply not worth worship. Christians HATE that interpretation, but I can defend it to anyone at any time. They simply cannot conceive of God in that manner.

2. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 27 Jun, 2017

   Hi Rene. If I had to pick one creationism myth over another, I'd certainly pick yours over the Christian one, since it ticks more boxes in what we observe in the world today. I guess this is why in the not so distant past Christianity fell out of favour with intellectuals and they adopted deism — the belief in an absent, unknown creator god — at least until science came up with verifiable explanations for a natural universe, like evolution by natural selection. If people are telling stories about what might motivate an absent, unknown creator god, then they can make up any nonsense that they want, and no one can prove them wrong. Of course, we can have them certified clinically insane and have them locked up for the protection of the rest of us. I wonder if these silly Christians suffer from a form of multiple personality disorder, since if you talk to them about politics, finance, sport, movies, engineering, plumbing or the safety of using cell phones, then they normally manage to hold perfectly rational conversations, at no time do they suddenly reveal that a fairy is helping them do their taxes. Only when religious topics raise their fetid head do they suddenly become quite ignorant and irrational. I know many people that convincingly present a persona of intelligence and rationality in their day-to-day behaviour, but on the rare occasion that talk of God enters the conversation, they suddenly dredge up a subpar personality to take over the discussion, one that was clearly dropped too many times as a baby. I seriously can't grasp how Christians can reason so well when it comes to selecting a cell phone plan and even dismissing Islam as a clearly false religion, and yet they switch over to the Neandertal part of their brain when it comes to examining God and the Bible and blindly accept superstitious nonsense. Although to be honest, maybe I'm being unfair to Neandertals, since based on scant fossil evidence we don't know if they were really that stupid.

3. Comment by Ron, 27 Jun, 2017

   Hi John. Your post about God on vacation highlights what is an issue for so many. There are considerable numbers at any time who are turning their backs on God. The number one reason appears to be intellectual but the second reason is unanswered prayer. There is much disappointment and feelings that God has failed them. I personally can identify with this. Often I've heard or have read of people who have prayed for hrs and hrs, esp. in difficult times, but no response whatsoever. The no show silent treatment. As one said "I prayed to God, but nothing fails like prayers". The inevitable question arises, "if god loves me, why does he let this happen to me, god promises me a lot in the bible but does not deliver". Many have tithed based on biblical promises and that its an obligation. The promised rewards that would be more prosperity than you can handle have not materialized for countless people. Christians will counter argue that your heart is wrong, that your motivation is only to receive rewards or that you are not tithing the full 10% plus. Christians will often say god does not answer the prayers of a sinner. But aren't we all sinners, none of us are perfect. Some will try to tell you what you can or cannot expect from god. A Baptist missionary once wrote how he begged god to show himself and to put an end to his inner torture, but of course, nothing. This business of faltering faith and doubts involves much higher religious figures like the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of 80 million Anglicans, who, in 2014, admitted having doubts about the existence of God. And questioned why the Almighty fails to intervene re, injustice. He said "sure, there are moments where you think, Is there a god, where is god?" Once when running with his dog and praying he said to god "look, this is all very well but isn't it about time you did something - if you are there?" However, he is certain of the existence of Jesus. "When life gets challenging I call Jesus to help me and he picks me up". Even the pope, as a fallible human, admitted sometimes he has "darkness" that clouds his faith. He softens it a bit by adding "some days we can't see faith and doubting the faith can be a good thing and is the key to a life of faith". He has many of these moments which he says is a sign that we want to know god. People have said these guys should not be talking like this, that the Pope has no business being a pope talking this way. It has been said the Catholic church under Francis has encouraged a sense of uncertainty about god. However, on a more papal thread the Pope recently talked about love telling us that god loves first, that he does not love us because of some reason that causes love. God loves us because he himself is love. Someones conversion is a consequence of his love and we are all gods children. He says "we don't earn gods love, it is freely given". Another quote from the Pope that would be disputed by some was the faithful who follow JC need to be reminded that their lives will not be free from troubles and tribulations, these are a part of evangelization, there is no mission in the name of tranquility. He finished by saying we can take comfort that JC promised he would always be with them and God does not abandon his children during the storm. Hmm. John, to finish here are some statistics of possible interest. Worldwide a whopping 86% of people believe in a god or gods. The flip side of that is 980 million are secular, atheist or agnostic.

4. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 27 Jun, 2017

   Hi Ron. It is truly amazing the childish reasons the religious offer to explain why God is giving them the silent treatment. For thousands of years untold millions of religious morons have had to find an answer as to why God ignored their prayers, and the pathetic nonsense they have come up with is mind-boggling, when the obvious answer is that God doesn't exist. God doesn't answer prayers for the exact same reason that the Easter Bunny doesn't deliver chocolate eggs and the Tooth Fairy doesn't collect teeth from under pillows. None of these fantastical beings are real.

   The strange thing is that the great majority of the world's population can see, and always has been able to see, that whatever god someone names, that god is not real. Whether you mention the Christian God, the Jewish God, the Muslim God, one of the Hindu gods or any of the untold gods found in other cultures, ancient or modern, if you take a worldwide survey most people will insist that the god you asked about is not real. If you ask about the Christian God, for example, only a minority of the world's population won't immediately answer that he's not real, that he's just a myth. Muslims, Jews, Hindus and atheists won't even hesitate in replying that the Christian god doesn't answer prayers because he's not real. Likewise, Christians won't miss a beat when asked why Muslims screaming 'Allahu Akbar' receive the silent treatment from their god, asking incredulously how an imaginary god could help anyone, no matter how much they plead. Christians, Muslims and Jews will quickly and rationally explain the obvious flaws that are evident in the beliefs of every faith other than their own, but when considering their own faith the blinders come down, their rationality goes out the window, and they delude themselves with excuses that your average gerbil would laugh at.

   When you get high profile Christians like the Archbishop of Canterbury, the pope, Mother Teresa and numerous others all expressing doubt over whether their god is real, they are just saying out loud what every single Christian has thought privately. Any religious person that states that they have no doubt or uncertainly concerning their faith is either lying or has never thought seriously about the claims made by their religion. However, most believers these days have been forced to confront the myriad silly claims about their god, thanks to us annoying atheists and scientists producing inconvenient evidence for a natural universe. It's no accident that Christians tell their fellow believers to dismiss reason and evidence and believe on blind faith instead. For thousands of years they've known that thinking rationally about what their Bible claims will lead to it being thrown in the trash, so they're not joking when they say that when you go to church you should leave your brain at the door.

   It's illogical for the Archbishop of Canterbury to doubt the existence of God and then claim to be certain that Jesus is real and helping him from some divine realm. For Jesus to exist, God must exist as well, since how could Jesus be the 'son of God' if there isn't a God to have a son? This just shows how stupid people like the Archbishop of Canterbury truly are, thinking that Jesus could be real without God and childishly believing that when his mood lifts that some cloud-dwelling invisible fairy magically caused him to feel better. No doubt when he finds his lost car keys he says, 'Thank you, Jesus'. It's like those screwed up Muslims that cry, 'God is Great', when a missile destroys their house and kills their family. If we could collect the stupidity exhibited by religious believers worldwide and convert it to energy we could solve our energy and pollution problems overnight.

   Another example of believers inventing pathetic arguments is when they say that 'God loves us because he himself is love'. What does that even mean? Seriously, what does it mean? Love is a deep feeling of affection for someone, or some thing. A person can express or feel love, but how can a person BE love? If I said my parents loved me, people would understand our relationship. But if I said my car is love, or an apple is love, am I not just spouting nonsense? Christians can logically claim that God loves me, they can claim he is all-powerful and all-knowing, they can claim he is invisible, cruel, jealous and intolerant, but how can they sensibly claim that he is love? To say that conversion, to come to believe in God, 'is a consequence of his love', what does my atheism say about God's love for me, one of his children? If the pope says that 'we don't earn gods love, it is freely given', then why haven't I felt God's love? Even if I hadn't wanted it, I couldn't deny the love of my parents, they easily made me aware of it, so why is God incapable or unwilling to express his love for me? Why is he willing to use Catholic priests to express what we atheists view as totally inappropriate loving towards unwilling children on weekend sleepovers, and yet not willing to even send me a birthday card? What sort of loving Father is he? If God loves me, truly I'm not seeing it. And I seriously don't understand how an all-powerful god couldn't have at least hinted at his feelings towards me, how he couldn't have got through to me.

   Regarding the worldwide stats on religious belief, while the numbers are still small, without doubt more and more people are rejecting belief in gods, mainly due to better education. But it annoys me when Christians attempt to show that they're right and atheists are wrong because roughly 9 out of 10 people believe that some god created the universe and life. Of course the truth is not arrived at by simply taking a vote. For much of history perhaps 9 out of 10 people believed that the world was flat, that angels strummed harps on clouds and witches caused havoc with their magic spells, but just because most people believed these things didn't make them true.

   The other problem with that statement is that Christians imply that it's an either/or argument, that either the Christian God is real or he isn't, and 9 out of 10 people say he is. But while 9 out of 10 people are saying atheists are wrong, 9 out of 10 people are definitely not saying the Christian God is real, only some 3 or 4 people out of 10 are backing the Christian god as the creator of the world. Others are backing the Muslin god, others the Hindu gods, still others the Jewish god, etc. And even those 3 or 4 people out of 10 that call themselves Christians are not even in agreement with their fellow Christians, let alone the Jews, Muslims etc. At last count there were some 44,000 different Christian denominations. That's 44,000 different Christian groups that are vigorously debating Bible claims with other Christians, as well as atheists. The true statement that roughly 9 out of 10 people believe that some god created the universe and life is misleading since it falsely implies that those 9 people are all backing the same god, when in fact they're arguing amongst themselves as much as they're arguing with atheists, probably more so. It's like saying that 9 out of 10 people all have a favourite colour. This might be true, but I guarantee they're not all thinking of the same colour.

   Frankly I find it embarrassing that so many people still profess belief in such a primitive, ignorant and superstitious notion as gods. It's like the Dark Ages are still with us.

5. Comment by Ron, 03 Jul, 2017

   Hello John. In your excellent response to my comment re. God being on vacation, you mention the "god is love" statement and how illogical and senseless it sounds. It has never made much sense to me either so I did some digging to see if answers are there for the reading. I will quote some of what I found here but the enigma of that statement remains in my opinion so see what you can make of it. The one thing that is repeated always over and over is John 3:16 where God gave his only son because he loved the world so much. This is regarded as the greatest expression of God's love. In http://www.allaboutgod.com/god-is-love.htm there are 2 pages where the writer tries to explain. Here are some excerpts. "When we read in the bible that God is love that means God defines love, not like a dictionary might define something, we mean that God is the very definition of love itself. There is no such thing as love without God. This means our human definition of love is false. True love only comes through a relationship with him. He is ready to pour out his love on you and teach you to love others as he loves you. His love is unconditional, not based on feelings or emotions. God's love transcends our definition of love to the point it is hard to comprehend".

   From another source came this explanation. "What does it mean ‘god is love'? Love is an attribute of god, it is a core aspect of his character, his person. God's love is in no sense in conflict with his holiness, righteousness, justice or wrath. All of god's attributes are in perfect harmony. Everything he does is loving, just and right, he is the perfect example of true love. Amazingly, God gives those who receive Jesus as their saviour the ability to love as he does".

   Got it John? Make much sense? In order to get the answers sorted you must get to know God through a relationship with him!!

   Rather a big ask if you do not believe in his existence in any shape or form. Regardless, I look forward to your comments.

6. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 05 Jul, 2017

   Hi Ron. Well, after reading the Christian explanations on both those webpages, and a few others, concerning what the phrase 'God is love' actually means, it still doesn't make any sense; as it is for you, so it is for us, it remains an enigma.

   Of course concerning God, Christians aren't worried that atheists struggle with their explanations, since as you say Ron, they conveniently believe that understanding 'only comes through a relationship with him', which is a true Catch-22 situation for us atheists. It's a bogus position which Christians feel keeps all their silly beliefs safely walled off from criticism. Of course it does nothing of the sort, but it does require a more in-depth debunking than some brief comments could achieve, something supported by reason and evidence and some embarrassing Bible quotes.

For decades now some people have accused the media, usually TV shows, of dumbing down society, and we suspect that their fears were justified. Today of course the ubiquitous Internet has been added to the mix, and this, combined with TV documentaries and historical movies that opt for entertainment over accuracy, has seen the creation of a generation that believes almost anything that they see on a screen, be it big or small. We live at a time when humanity knows more about 'life, the universe and everything' than we ever have, by a huge margin, and yet we're surrounded by credulous, ignorant plebs that believe all manner of nonsense. Nonsense they naively accept because they saw it in a movie or saw it mentioned on Barbie's Facebook page.

What provoked this rant was the following query that we received:

'Hi John,

I noticed you run this funny website and was wondering if you had any information about Professor Gene Haddlebury who works or has worked in Georgetown University. It is claimed that he and 23 others made up Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Ethics and more in the 1970s- between 1971 and 1974. I have contacted the University and the people in the National geographic Magazine who he has supposed to have told, no reply yet. Just trying to verify the information as there seems to be so much bullshit in the world today from all corners of life.

I think the bullshit is called: The Hegelian Dialectic after Hegel.

Regards

Robin'

We did a Google search on 'The Hegelian Dialectic after Hegel', and this turned up nothing. We then tried 'Professor Gene Haddlebury', and the first page of hits nearly all had this sentence, '"Honestly, we never meant for things to go this far," said Professor Gene Haddlebury, who has offered to resign his position as chair of Hellenic', which suggests that everything about Professor Gene Haddlebury relates to a single article. Strangely there are no hits that mention Professor Gene Haddlebury as a real academic at a real university. And what is this single article? The first link reveals that it originated on 'the Onion' website, and is entitled, 'Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks'. Let's again remind readers that 'the Onion' is a satirical website that writes humorous spoof articles. None of the articles on their website are true, none, they are all written to provide us with a laugh. Some are more 'believable' than others, and if you simply read the title or the opening paragraph, they often seem quite plausible. But if you read the entire article with a critical mind, and this is where most people slip up because they usually don't read the whole article, let alone with a critical mind, then you should quickly come across many claims that simply can't be true. And you should come away realising that it was clearly all a joke, one that might have fooled you had you only read the title.

So it's a hoax. Clearly it's a hoax. For example, how could the following claim in the article not raise red flags?:

"We picked Greece because we figured nobody would ever go there to check it out," Nguyen-Whiteman said. "Have you ever seen the place? It's a dump. It's like an abandoned gravel pit infested with cats."

She added, "Inevitably, though, people started looking around for some of this 'ancient' stuff, and next thing I know I'm stuck in Athens all summer building a goddamn Parthenon just to cover our tracks."

"Geometry? That was all Kevin," said Haddlebury, referring to former graduate student Kevin Davenport. "Man, that kid was on fire in those days. They teach Davenportian geometry in high schools now, though of course they call it Euclidean."

Certainly many fake news websites look professional and authoritative, they go out of their way to be utterly believable, and nowhere do they reveal or even hint that they're lying, but the likes of 'the Onion' and 'The Daily Show' will openly reveal that it's all just satire and not to be taken seriously. On the other hand, fake news websites are a scam, and just like those scammers trying to get your bank details or steal your identity, they'll do their utmost to fool you, so it's not quite as embarrassing to be conned by fake news as it is by the likes of an Onion article. But just as a little research and/or critical thinking can quickly debunk a spoof article, just a little more effort should expose fake news as, well ... fake.

Like HIV and reality TV, the world is now infected with fake news websites, so like it or not, we all have to be a little more careful before we accept some claim as true. On the bright side, the electronic medium that spews out the fake crap can also be used to combat it, if we can be bothered to be skeptical and fact check what we see and hear. But we guess it's like condoms, they only work if you use them. Like unprotected sex, too many people today are practising unprotected Internet, believing the first thing they read without a thought to whether it might actually be true.

I read it on the Internet, or saw it in a movie, so yeah, of course it must be true.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 14 May, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

Graeme Hill on Radio Live: Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Very briefly, Ayaan was born in Somalia and raised as a Muslim. As a child she was forced to undergo female genital mutilation by her grandmother. Later she flees an arranged marriage where she was to wed a stranger in Canada, a distant cousin, and she arrives in the Netherlands and seeks and gains asylum there. Through her intelligence and an amazing will and drive, and against the odds, she gains a university education and gets elected as a member of the Dutch parliament. Her education combined with her experience of Muslim, Christian and secular communities leads Ayaan to reject belief in gods and become an atheist. Anyone who abandons their religion is known as an apostate, and for a Muslim who rejects Islam, the punishment is death. Luckily for Ayaan, by the time she openly identified as an atheist, as an apostate, she was by then living in the Netherlands and not Somalia, or in any of the other Muslim countries where she had spent time growing up. She wasn't absolutely safe from Muslims that were outraged by her rejection of Islam, but she felt safe enough to become an out-spoken critic of Islam, especially its disgusting and inhumane treatment of women.

In the Netherlands in 2004, writer and movie director Theo van Gogh was murdered in the street by a fanatical Muslim, and since Ayaan had worked with him on a short movie critical of Islam, the killer left a note on the body that said she was next. Since then Ayaan has been forced to live under tight security and must generally keep her location secret. She now works and lives in the USA, and unfortunately because of the ongoing death threats still fears for her safety. Even when she visits Auckland she will still be escorted around by a security detail, since the reach of murderous religious fundamentalists doesn't stop at the border. Just rejecting Islam and becoming an atheist was enough to get her killed, but telling the world why all Muslims should reject the primitive and dogmatic elements of their religion, just made her detractors and those that hate her more determined.

I've read Ayaan's first three books, and have her latest on my tablet ready to go as soon as I finish my current read, which by coincidence is by another Muslim turned atheist, Alom Shaha ('The Young Atheist's Handbook: Lessons for Living a Good Life Without God'). Ayaan's books are not an easy read, not that they're not very well written and argued, but many of the episodes that Ayaan describes from her own life and that of other women are very confronting, and it's deeply shameful that in the 21st century we still have religious fundamentalists treating their fellow humans in such degrading ways. And not just their fellow humans in the next country or neighbourhood, but often their own daughters, sisters and wives.

'The Caged Virgin' A Muslim Woman's Cry for Reason Ayaan Hirsi Ali	'Infidel' My Life Ayaan Hirsi Ali
'Nomad' A Personal Journey through the Clash of Civilizations Ayaan Hirsi Ali	'Heretic' Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now Ayaan Hirsi Ali

And while we're at it, we need to thank Graeme Hill for all the fascinating interviews he does on 'Radio Live', with people that explain topics such as cosmology, anthropology, evolution, philosophy and critical thinking, such as Lawrence M. Krauss, Jared Diamond, Joe Nickell, and now Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Graeme is a welcome voice of reason in the media wilderness. There is a serious dearth of programs on the radio and TV that make any attempt to examine serious topics. We may get the odd sound-bite on the news from a scientist, historian or academic, but they're so short and simplified that they make the tweets that Donald Trump sends out seem like novels. Most of the moronic media seem to think that as long as people have heard of a black hole, the big bang, evolution and Muslims, then they'll somehow understand all about them too. Their work is done. What's the world come to when most people get their science and history education from silly Hollywood movies that usually aren't even 'loosely based on a true story', a story that almost always involves a beautiful woman, often in skimpy clothing?

Unlike the rest of us, Graeme is very fortunate, getting to chat with such amazing people, but thankfully it doesn't stop there, since he lets us listen in to their fascinating and enlightening conversations. Some people get to interview celebrities such as Justin Beeber, Tom Cruise and Prince Charles, but we'd rather hear Graeme interview an interesting and intelligent person with something important to say over a merely famous person any day. Of course Ayaan Hirsi Ali is quite renown in certain circles, and deservedly so, but rather than discuss an upcoming movie, her relationship ups and downs, or what she wore to the Oscars, she would rather discuss serious topics that the world needs to understand, but that many would rather not hear, and that many find blasphemous. It's worrying that your average man and woman on the street is quite negative towards Islam and Muslims in their community, and yet few know anything about the religion, or that's there's a huge difference between a liberal Muslim and a truly fanatical Muslim, just as there's a huge difference between how seriously the pope and your old uncle take their individual devotion to Jesus.

So that's our advice folks, go listen to Ayaan Hirsi Ali if you can, listen to Graeme's show in the weekend, you'll definitely learn something interesting, and for the rest of the week, try reading a book about something real and important, one that isn't about sport, fashion, cooking, gardening or the British royal family. And yes, love is real and important, but Mills & Boon books are still off limits.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 07 Mar, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

Comments:

1. Comment by Mikaere, 04 Apr, 2017

   Hi John. I have just heard that Ayaan's visit to Australasia has been cancelled due to security concerns. In Australia a few hundred people petitioned for her to be silenced. A few hundred have prevented thousands from hearing her voice!

   We have the original silly belief — belief in a god. Atheists consider all religions illogical and superstition-driven. They dismiss them as being as irrational as numerology and astrology but generally benign. With Islamism, however, another silly belief is feeding its ever-increasing demands for power and domination over unbelievers. I am referring to cultural relativism, where 'useful idiots' believe that all cultures are equal. To them, anyone who disagrees is a racist and more specifically, an Islamophobe.

   I am unconcerned about being called a racist, as the term has been so watered down to be meaningless. Some people though are more scared of this epithet than they care about their fellow countrymen, or children, hence the Rotherham scandal.

   The silly belief of cultural relativism is basically condoning, or even supporting, paedophilia, rape, honour killings, homophobia, female genital mutilation, animal cruelty and anti-semitism. I have just read an account of a Swedish 14 year old being sexually assaulted and her father being threatened with a hate crime conviction for reacting badly when police did nothing to the person responsible, a 19 year old, who from birth, has been taught that women are second class and foreign women fair game for rape and brutality.

   Canada is mooting a blasphemy law. Other western countries regularly silence critics of this barbaric ideology. In the 21st century, there is actual legislation against criticising religion!

   Why is the liberal community, feminists included, so intent on giving Islamism a free ride? Mainstream media downplay negative stories about Islamic Terrorism. After a terrorist attack in Germany a major network headline was — 'Truck Crashes into Crowd'. After the next shooting, will we see, 'Bullets Kill Gay People'?

   Note I am talking about Islamism, not Islam. No go Sharia zones have no place in civilised countries. People peacefully practising religion, no problem. Belligerently evangelising, no way.

   I believe that all people should be treated equally but I don't believe what people do should be automatically accepted if it clashes with our values. I don't believe that western guilt should be sufficient reason to lay down a blanket of immunity on practices which have no place in a civilised society.

2. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 04 Apr, 2017

   Hi Mikaere. It's very annoying to hear that Ayaan's visit has been cancelled due to the ignorant attitude of a few.

   We agree wholeheartedly with your comments. Leaders of the Western world continually proclaim that we won't let Islamic terrorists and Islamism impact on our freedoms and lifestyle, that their atrocities will only see us emboldened, and yet at the same time Western governments consider laws that make criticising religion a crime, legally permit some inhumane acts if performed in the name of religion, and enforce weakly or turn a blind eye completely to other atrocious behaviour that conflicts with our Western values. It's unbelievable that not only are we not willing to get rid of our ancient blasphemy laws, because they're unjust and unused, we're seriously looking at strengthening them and enforcing them.

   All this cultural relativism is just bullshit, and Christians and Jews siding with Islam and demanding that we respect people's religious beliefs is just a devious attempt to stop criticism of their own silly beliefs. We need to convince Islam to undergo its own enlightenment, just as Christianity and Judaism did centuries ago, but instead we seem to be willing to overturn some of our hard won enlightenment values and submit to the will of Islam. Cultural relativists will tell us it's so we don't offend their beliefs, don't force our arbitrary beliefs on them, but really it's just a bribe so that they'll leave us alone as they go on their murderous spree throughout the world. As you said, these are 'practices which have no place in a civilised society', and Islamists (and Muslims in general), are not fighting for independence and control of a single country, their God-driven duty is to take the entire world. It may not be today or tomorrow, but if left alone, eventually they will come for you.

   Just as fatal diseases can quickly spread worldwide today, thanks to air travel, so too can Islam spread if we let it. Giving in to Muslims in far away countries, letting them follow their barbaric religion, is like giving in to those superstitious Africans who believe that raping a virgin will cure AIDS. We may not know the apostates the Muslims kill or the young girls raped and infected, but we still know that horrible injustices have been committed. Just because they were committed by another culture doesn't somehow make it right or at least acceptable. No innocent human deserves to be murdered or raped just because they live in a different country or their parents believe in a different sky fairy.

   If rather than producing reasons and evidence, religious morons have to resort to legal threats, terrorism, bombs and the slaughter of the innocent to defend their belief in some invisible sky fairy, then they should realise that maybe their silly belief is just that. And while Islam feeds the great majority of terrorism these days, and continues to act inhumanely towards women and animals, let's remember that Christians, Jews, Hindus and even Buddhists have committed atrocities in recent decades. Think Christians bombing abortion clinics and murdering abortion doctors, Jews shooting Palestinian farmers, and Catholics raping little boys. Even as we write this, the secretive cult in NZ known as the Gloriavale Christian Community is being investigated for child abuse. But without doubt Islam is winning in the number of people harmed.

   Certainly there is a major difference between the great majority of Muslims that are caring, decent and law-abiding and the minority of Muslims that are hateful, cold-blooded killers, just as there is a difference between most Christians who don't stone homosexuals to death even though their holy book commands them to, and the few deluded Christians who do persecute homosexuals, but thankfully are still too afraid to kill them, eg Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church. The clear reality, as others have pointed out, is that hundreds of millions of decent Muslims and Christians are lending support to the handful that take the words in their holy book very seriously, as if they really were written by God. It may be unwilling and unwitting support perhaps, but by proclaiming that God is very real and needs to be worshiped and obeyed they are reassuring every fundamentalist that they are doing the right thing. Let's remember that the Islamists or Muslim fundamentalists that resort to terrorism to convert the world to Islam aren't making it all up as they go along. It is clearly set out in their holy books. Without the indirect support of millions, they would be as obscure a group as the Flat Earth Society. Would the Catholic Church have the power that they do if no one outside the Vatican believed in the pope and his version of God? The Catholic Church flourishes and their pedophile priests escape justice because millions of Catholics who would never harm a child continue to support them while at the same time mumbling about the child sex abuse. Likewise murderous Islamists gain new recruits to their cause because millions of Muslims keep telling them, and the world, that Allah is real and the Koran is God's guide for how we should all live — 'Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war'. (Koran 9:5).

   As atheists, we think it's bullshit to criticise and condemn Islamists but not more moderate Muslims. The reality is that they're both believing in nonsense, and when you start believing in nonsense who knows where it might lead, what dangerous paths you might stumble down. In a worse case scenario, people might even start slaughtering those who don't believe as they do.

3. Comment by Phillip, 02 May, 2017

   Hi John. I attach this link for your perusal: Can a burgeoning satanic movement actually effect political change?

   Lucien Greaves, the co-founder of The Satanic Temple (TST), was recently interviewed by Seth Andrews (of The Thinking Atheist) in a March Podcast. During the interview Greaves discussed his views and the work being done by the TST to throw a spanner in the works of those Christian groups who are trying to get around the US Constitutional requirement of dividing Church and State by demanding the same rights and privileges afforded to other religious groups (mostly Christian). Some of these protests have included offering Satanic prayers (when "inspirational" writings have been allowed at events) or demanding the erection of Satanic statues where Christian symbols are allowed.

   I'm a liberal, I make no apologies for saying that. I do not believe that I should be sticking my "views" into other peoples bedrooms or dictating what people should or should not do with their bodies or how they should live their lives. But, and there is always a 'but', such a view taken to its extreme does lead to a moral relativism where everything is okay and we really should not interfere with other people's moral or cultural beliefs. However, as you have often pointed out, some of these moral and cultural beliefs are truly awful and terrible and other people, often innocent children, pay a high price for them. So I personally have a fall back option. I chose secular Western Culture. It's not perfect, and it still has a long way to go, but in comparison with many other beliefs and cultures out there (and having studied Anthropology I have come across a few of them) I still think it has the best set of rules and morals to go by.

   So when it comes to a group who feel that female genital mutilation is okay because it is cultural and customary I can say bullshit to that. I was conflicted about the French law banning the Burkas, part of me wanted to say hey it doesn't hurt anyone and they are happy to wear it. But another way of looking at it is that this was a form of fashion designed to prevent women from being fully part of society. Should this be allowed in a modern secular state and should not the state be actively involved in protecting its most vulnerable citizens? Yet recently some young Muslim women were hassled on a French beach for wearing Burkinis, is this not heading to the other extreme? I tell you being a liberal atheist is not always easy.

   Which is why I found the interview with Lucien Greaves so refreshing — here is a group that is hitting the religious extreme where it really hurts. Yes do please pass pro religious legislation and then have to deal with the Satanic group demanding equal time under that legislation. A group whose ceremonies and prayers, I am told, are far more entertaining and interesting than the crusty old Christian ones. I have wondered if there was a place for such a group here in New Zealand or if one already exists.

   Keep up the good work.

4. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 03 May, 2017

   Hi Phillip. Thanks for the link. It says that in the USA 'The Satanic Temple' wants to 'challenge the privileged relationship Christianity has with government', and expose 'how government institutions favor Christianity in ways that would never be tolerated for other religions'. Other groups, such as the American Atheists organisation, have also challenged the duplicity of the law in the US by erecting atheistic plaques where churches have been allowed to put religious plaques, such as the Ten Commandments, or atheistic displays where religious displays have been allowed, such as nativity scenes at Xmas. Most Americans, like most citizens of deeply religious countries, arrogantly believe that signs of their religious beliefs should not only be everywhere, but also protected and supported by government, while the beliefs of everyone else should be suppressed. The USA is a real anomaly, scientifically so advanced but so backward when it comes to religion. It almost seems impossible that a country with so many ignorant, superstitious people could have made the amazing advances that they have, in everything from science to democracy, advances that generally conflicted with their religious beliefs every step of the way. I guess it's a case of the intelligent and secular few providing scientific marvels and legal safeguards that the ignorant and hypocritical masses grabbed with indecent haste, even though they weren't sanctioned by their God. They're like the Muslim terrorists who condemn the decadent ways of the Western world, but happily take our assault rifles, cell phones and porno movies.

   So we're happy to support anyone that exposes the hypocrisy of religious groups. Everyone needs to realise that laws that are fair and just must apply to everyone, not just to a particular group. Either everyone is eligible for some benefit or no one is. Freedom of expression, for example, should not just apply to people that believe in the same sky fairy as they do, it must apply to everyone. Our philosophy is that freedom of expression or actions should be unrestrained as long as no harm is caused to others. If someone wants to believe that Jesus was a 30-year-old virgin, that he could walk on water but couldn't get a girlfriend, or boyfriend, then we won't try and force them to change their minds. If they try and sway us to their way of thinking, then we'll openly challenge, and laugh, at their beliefs, but we still won't attempt to force them to reject their beliefs. But if their silly beliefs cause harm to others, say they want their children to handle venomous snakes or to forgo medical treatment in lieu of prayer, or undergo genital mutilation, then that's when we should be interfering in the lives of others. We believe Western culture is superior in the area where we apply secular ethics, where we base our behaviour and treatment of others on reason, not on barbaric and/or irrational commandments that ignorant and superstitious men imagined that invisible gods told them thousands of years ago.

   Like you Phillip, we were also a little conflicted about the French law banning veils in public and headscarves in public schools, as well as some towns banning burkinis, but if we were French, we probably would have supported it. Of course it's not a black and white issue, and veils are just an obvious symbol of a much greater problem, in our view. We feel that most Muslim women are forced to wear the veil, therefore they are being harmed. It's a form of slavery. And as you say, it prevents women from participating fully in society, because in many cases, not only are you not allowed to recognise them, you're not even allowed to talk to them. I've worked in Muslim countries like Iran and Malaysia and many Muslim women have told me privately that they hate covering up and love to wear bikinis when they travel overseas. And even those fundamentalists that choose to wear veils disrupt our secular society by dividing society. If we accept that some women can go around incognito, based on their religion, but you or I can't, then the next step for them is to want their own laws, ie Sharia, segregated communities, schools and food preparation, different days off work for prayer etc, and soon there would effectively be theocracies operating within our secular states. They would be like a cancer and if allowed to grow would eventually kill the body, or at least make it very unwell.

   

   We're a fan of that saying, When in Rome, do as the Romans do. If you don't like driving on the right side of the road, then don't move to the USA. If you hate the cold, don't move to Greenland. If you hate rice and noodles and refuse to learn Mandarin, don't move to China. Likewise, if you hate the secular nature of France, with their freedom of speech, gender equality and nudity on their beaches, then don't go there. If you find yourself in France but want to live in a Muslim theocracy where burkas are the norm, where women are the property of men and female genital mutilation and honour killings aren't illegal, then move to one of those countries, don't expect France to suppress their values to not only accommodate a lifestyle they view as barbaric, but tolerate one that is threatening their own future and wellbeing.

   

   Again, it's more than just allowing the veil, it's the harm that could result if we let religious groups become exempt to the laws, values and norms of our secular societies. There are already religious groups fighting to have any criticism of religion made illegal, for it to be seen as hate speech, which would be the first step in destroying our secular society and would put us on the road back to seeing heretics burnt at the stake. The likes of 'The Satanic Temple' and even this website only exist because we've decided as a society to allow numerous freedoms, such as free speech and wearing bikinis. Think of Muslims and their persecution of women and atheists, Catholics and their opposition to abortion and contraception, and Sikh's and their insistence on carrying knives in public. If we start curtailing some of society's secular laws and freedoms to appease ignorant, superstitious believers in sky fairies, then not only will we be sowing the seeds of our own destruction, we'll also become spineless hypocrites, refusing to live by our own values, meekly acquiescing to values that we long ago rejected as ignorant and unjust. Surely we should be as committed to our secular values as Muslims and Christians are to theirs? Many Muslims are not willing to take off the veil, so why is it that secular societies are the ones that must compromise, why do their views trump ours?

   As for whether there's a need for the likes of the 'The Satanic Temple' in NZ, we don't think there is, since thankfully religion doesn't have the same influence here as it does in the USA, or Saudi Arabia. Churches are occasionally annoying, but they're not fighting to put the Ten Commandments in our courtrooms or classrooms, Xmas is all about Santa and not Jesus, the All Blacks don't pray before a game, and soon there will be more non-religious folk in the country than religious. Our experience is that in NZ Christians often see themselves as lepers, and keep their beliefs to themselves, fearful that most people around them will be non-believers and will possibly challenge them. The USA has quite some way to go to match NZ as regards keeping God out of their public lives.

Don't believe us that the Bible is a good fantasy read? Well, here's a testimonial we recently received from Ron:

'Hello John. For the first time I dug into some of the ridiculous stories and advice in the Bible, over the weekend, and they were good medicine. They made me laugh more than I've done in a long time. I would like to share a few here. You probably know of a number of them but perhaps some readers may not be so aware.

Matt:21:18. Jesus the tree killer. He came across this fig tree which had no fruit so he throws a tantrum and curses the tree which caused it to wither and die. Not a very productive act. Being Jesus, didn't he know it was likely out of season? Some Christians argue that there are morals in all these things. ie in this story it's about righteousness and being fruitful. Hmm. Really, in most of these you would be struggling to find any hidden message or moral. Anyway, I continue.

Genesis 19:30-38. This is about Lot's daughters sleeping with their father because his libido had faded badly. Had they never heard of incest?

Deuteronomy 22:10. God says one must not plow using an ox and a donkey together. Hasn't God got better and more worthwhile advice to give than this trivia?

1 Samuel 18:25-27. David who slew Goliath and cut his head off wanted to marry into the royal family. King Saul said if he wants his daughter he must bring him 100 foreskins (circumcision was the norm then). Instead he brings 200. Oik!! I hope they don't discuss some of these passages at Sunday school!!

Ezekiel 4:11. Eze was planning the siege of Jerus but wanted God's help. God had some specific requirements incl. he had to lie on one side for 390 days, the other for 40. He also was to make bread from human faeces. In the end God allowed him to use cow pats. Delisimo!!

Zephaniah 1:12. God will search Jerusalem with candles to find those who scoff at him. But he is God, would he not know who they are and does he need candles to see in the dark?

Psalms 14:1 and 53:1. People who don't believe in a God fail to do anything good. Simply not true.

Genesis 18:17. God asks himself if he should hide his plans to destroy Sodom, from Abraham. God asking himself?? And if Abraham knew could he have stopped God anyway?

Leviticus 14 has a long recipe to cure someone of skin disease, presumably leprosy. Put very briefly it could read: kill a bird and put its blood on another bird, killing a healthy lamb and rubbing its blood on the leper plus killing 2 doves. What a bloody carry on.

Matt 5:38-43. The well known one about if someone slaps you on the face turn the other cheek to him, if someone asks for your shirt, give him your coat also and give them whatever they ask of you or borrow. Does anybody really follow that advice today? If so, with the murderous types out there and those more than willing to take advantage you could end up dead or in hospital, hypothermic, or destitute.

Revelations 10:10. An evangelist takes a book from an angels hand and eats it. He says it tastes sweet as honey but turned his stomach sour. Ezekiel 3:1-3, he ate a scroll, also sweet as honey.

And finally this doozey. Eze 1:27-28 says he saw God and described him as glowing in a metallic way from waist up and on fire down below and surrounded by light like a rainbow. You would want to cross the road to avoid that, eh?

John, I just finished the book by Ian Wishart titled 'Eve's Bite', which I got free from a Salvation Army shop. Ian comes across as very intelligent and an excellent writer who does his research. What stuns me is he freely admits that he believes every word in the Bible as infallible. And that includes that stuff I've quoted here? Of course most Christians do believe every word as he does, regardless of the numerous silly useless nonsensical verses, but I have to say lots of Christian folk ignore lots of the Bible, quoting only passages that suit. Often this is because they find many as awkward or inconvenient, maybe downright embarrassing. There is great faith that Jesus spoke only the truth. However, he tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain. Have you ever heard of this happening in history? Does this make Jesus a liar? I finish with Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding". I think that is the most commonly used quote by Christians as a cop-out, to cover all the flaws.'

And he's right about Proverbs 3:5, 'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding', it's a perfect justification for Christians to ignore and reject what they understand about the world, to reject the robust knowledge and evidence produced by scientific and historical research, and to place their blind faith in a space alien that they've never seen, and for which there is no evidence for. That commandment is identical to the demand made by con artists trying to sell people bogus investments or bogus cures, who tell their marks not to consult with their lawyers or doctors, but to simply trust them, and hand over their money.

As we learn more and more about life and the universe, the holy books of all religions, not just the Bible, become more and more ridiculous and clearly the work of primitive, hugely ignorant folk living long ago. That intelligent, educated people, like Christian fundamentalist Ian Wishart, can still take them seriously staggers belief. Seriously, any book that talks of men walking on water; stars falling to the Earth; the Sun and Moon stopping in the sky; the seas being held back by doors and bars; the Earth being flat and mounted on pillars; demons being driven out of a man into pigs; talking snakes, donkeys and bushes; men raising people from the dead, turning water into wine and staffs into snakes; snow and hail being kept in storerooms in the sky; unicorns, dragons, satyrs and flying serpents and reindeer, surely sophisticated people should quickly realise that it's all bullshit? (Oh sorry, that last one, the flying reindeer, was one of Santa's claimed miracles, after a while all the world's fairy tales tend to roll into one).

We'd like to make a few comments on some of the stories Ron mentioned, since there's always more flaws in them than first meets the eye.

Jesus and his childish hissy fit with the fig tree is one of the many, many stories that the original editors of the Bible should have rejected. It's just shows him up as pathetic, but even worse, it shows him as impotent. If he had the magical powers to make the tree immediately wither, and we know he has the power to raise the dead, turn water in wine and feed thousands by multiplying a few fish and loaves, why couldn't his magical powers bring forth some figs from a fig tree? Seems like child's play to us.

The Biblical acceptance for the incest of Lot's daughters supposedly comes from their belief that there were no men left alive on Earth, besides their father, who could get them pregnant and continue the family line as per God's wishes, ie go forth and multiply. But the Bible clearly states that while he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding plain, God spared the town of Zoar so that Lot and his family could find a place of safety. They eventually left Zoar and lived in fear (presumably of God) in a cave in the mountains, but his daughters knew perfectly well that there were men in the town of Zoar at least (and we can assume in the lands beyond the plain), so their story makes no sense. The only scenario that does make sense is that Lot raped his daughters, and made up the story of them screwing him in his drunken stupor to explain their pregnancies when they returned to civilisation. If you don't think a decent God-fearing man could do that to his daughters, then read on. Furthermore, it's highly unlikely that Lot was sober enough to get an erection and yet was so drunk that he had no memory of having sex with both his daughters, and probably on numerous occasions, as it's unlikely that both daughters became pregnant on their first attempt. We're asked to believe that these are the only three good and decent people God thought worthy of saving from Sodom and Gomorrah, he even murdered their mother for simply peeking at the destruction. And what was the crime of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah? The Bible doesn't say exactly, just that, 'the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD' GE 13:13. The usual claim is that it was sexual deviancy of some sort, and our guess, based on what happened just prior to the destruction, it was down to God's homophobia. According to the bible, a crowd of men 'called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."' GE 19:5. Instead Lot graciously offered his daughters to the baying crowd to be gang raped in return for the safety of his two males guests. That's what a good host did in those days. He said to the crowd: 'Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them'. GE 19:8 Lot offers his two daughters up for gang rape (but they escape), then later on probably rapes them both in a cave, or at least allows himself to have sex with them while drunk (always an acceptable excuse), and these people, exhibiting such immoral behaviour, are the people that God goes out of his way to save, knowing everything that they did and would do even before they did it. He killed the men for wanting to have homosexual sex with Lot's guests, but rewarded Lot for offering his daughters to be gang raped. That most Christians know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot, his daughters and his wife turned to a pillar of salt, and aren't ashamed and disgusted by it just shows how little time they've spent thinking about what really happened. (The two Biblical cartoons in this post are from the book by Horus Gilgamesh and Agnes Tickheathen: 'Awkward Moments (Not Found in Your Average) Children's Bible, Volume #1'.)

Following the verse forbidding the dual use of an ox and a donkey for ploughing, outdated advice that people can easily ignore today, it gives another prohibition that must still apply today, that we must not wear clothes made of different materials, eg wool and linen or cotton and nylon. God is like one of those kids who can't stand having the potatoes and the peas on their dinner plate touching. And an earlier verse states that, 'A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.' DT 22:5 God is such a petty god, and he clearly has some serious problems. More truly valuable advice he offers is, 'Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk' EX 23:19. I'll put a note on my fridge to remind me. That one apparently prohibits the simple pleasure of eating a hamburger and drinking a milk shake at the same time, which luckily for the likes of McDonalds and Burger King, most everyone ignores. Not the Jews though.

Following those silly verses, there is a far more disturbing commandment from God:

'If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity," then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate ... "here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town ... If, however ... no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, ... the men of her town shall stone her to death ... You must purge the evil from among you.' DT 22:13-21

Regarding the story of God compelling Ezekiel to lie on one side for 390 days etc, this is a perfect example of God acting as the bully that he is, torturing someone like a sadistic Mafia boss before he will grant them a favour. A correction though, God didn't tell Ezekiel to make bread from human faeces, he instructed him to use human faeces as fuel for his fire, but then relented and allowed him to use dried cow dung instead, which is a fuel that many societies have used throughout history. But initially telling him to use human faeces even as fuel demonstrates how cruel God can be, especially when we remember that Ezekiel was someone who worshiped him, God was dealing with a friend, not an enemy, not a heretic. The story also shows God changing his mind, being convinced by a mere human to change his plan because it was overzealous, which is something that should be impossible to do. If God is perfect and unchanging, then he can't make imperfect plans and can't change anything, since if you're already perfect, then any change can only make you less perfect, it can never make you more perfect than perfect. And in the Bible God is actually persuaded many times that he's made a mistake, and each time must have slipped further away from being the perfect, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful god that Christians claim he is.

As for the story of David bringing King Saul 200 foreskins to buy a marriage to his daughter, people fixate on the foreskins and fail to see the far more heinous elements in the tale. Ron said, 'I hope they don't discuss some of these passages at Sunday school!!', and of course the conniving bastards don't, but we wish they would, since more people would start to understand, and at a young age, what immoral and harmful things these people did, and are still doing, just to please an imaginary sky fairy. The more these embarrassing and revealing stories are publicised the more people will want to have nothing to do with the book that they come from. If adults keep hiding the ridiculous stories, the disgusting stories and the downright evil stories, and only tell sanitised feel-good stories to their children and to each other, then primitive, ignorant, immoral religions will keep staying around to harm society.

So what do Christians miss in that story? Why did King Saul want a bride-price of 100 Philistine foreskins? Why didn't he say his daughter was worth 50 shekels, 20 goats and a toaster? Were the foreskins ingredients for a special sauce? No, it was because Saul wanted David dead, and he believed setting such a dangerous and perverse task would achieve that, as the Bible explains: 'Saul's plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines' 1SA 18:25. This is the level of morality that God and the Bible promotes. And perhaps God got the idea of how to kill Jesus, while publicly keeping his hands clean, from Saul: as Saul tried to get the Philistines to kill David, God could get the Romans to kill Jesus? Everyone needs a good alibi, right? Whether it's the humans that God supports or God himself, you just can't trust the devious bastards to not try and kill you. But there's more immorality involved than just Saul conspiring to have David killed. He could have simply paid an assassin to kill him, or set him a very dangerous task, hoping he'd be killed, a task that didn't involve murdering 100 innocent strangers. But no, Saul told him to go out and slaughter 100 foreign heathens. This from a people that say they live by God's Ten Commandments, one of which says that they must not murder people. But as we've said before, the Jews felt this applied only to other Jews, not to filthy heathens, heathens with foreskins no less. And when it suited them, it didn't even apply to their fellow Jew, since Saul is conspiring to have David, a fellow Jew, killed. And God knew all this was going on, and being on David's side, may have even helped him slaughter 200 Philistines, for God also had no time for filthy heathens. God was a xenophobe, hating everyone that didn't belong to his little Hebrew desert tribe. And let's remember that the foreskins were a bride-price, the agreed price that David had to pay to purchase Saul's daughter, a business deal arranged in the same way that he would have agreed to buy a cow. To Saul, and to all fathers throughout much of history, his daughters were mere chattels, like a good sword or fast horse, his property to sell to whom he pleased for a good price. Yes, fathers valued and protected their daughters, but only to keep them pure and in good condition, which would ensure a high price when the time came to sell them. They viewed a daughter the same way they viewed a prize cow, as a valuable asset. That's why even today at weddings the father walks his daughter into the church and the priest asks, Who gives this woman away? and the father replies, I do. This is the father affirming to the community that he legally transfers his ownership of her to another man. And if the father is deceased, then they have to get another man, an uncle perhaps, to escort her up the aisle and authorise the transfer of ownership. And it used to be that priests would say, I now pronounce you man and wife, not husband and wife as they usually do now, which suggests equality, but 'man and wife', which was seen as saying, man and servant, or a man and his property. In marriage the man remained a man, but the woman changed into a wife, having been purchased by another family. Men purchased and owned their wives the way we purchase and own cars and smartphones today. Men would trade their daughters in the same way I would trade an old DVD player. Remember Lot offering to throw his own daughters to the crowd to save two complete strangers? Today decent people would give away every valuable thing they owned to keep their daughters safe, but the Bible tells us we should do just the opposite, give away our daughters to be abused to keep an invisible God happy. Of course the religious will argue that these were different times, dangerous times, ignorant times, and so morality was different back then, but that's bullshit. They had an all-knowing God advising them, a God that even today people claim is the only source of morality, that God is the only way we can tell right from wrong. Christians can't claim that the Bible characters were ignorant peasants doing the best they could in desperate times, they can't excuse their immoral behaviour and at the same time say they were devoutly following the moral guidance of a supreme being. Since God's moral code, by definition, can't change, and the only written evidence of that code is in the Bible, then clearly giving up your daughters for rape is exemplary moral behaviour. Since modern Jews and Christians now view that behaviour as abhorrent, that can only be because they believe mere humans can devise a far better code of conduct than their God can. And they can only teach their children this human devised morality if they hide the true messages buried in their Bible stories.

As for verse where 'God will search Jerusalem with candles to find those who scoff at him', there are many Bible quotes that show God to be anything but all-knowing, that he's as limited in knowledge and power as his primitive followers. In that story God didn't know who his detractors were or where they lived and didn't know of any lighting technology better candles. It was the same with one of the plagues that God visited on Egypt, the Hebrews had to mark their doors with blood so that God could recognise them and not kill their first born child. He had no idea who his followers were and couldn't tell them apart from the heathens, the Egyptians. And when Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden of Eden, to find them God had to call out, 'Where are you?' So depending on what Bible verses one reads, some show that God knows intimately who his followers are, and would recognise them even if they were wearing a Spiderman costume, while others show that he's as ignorant as the village beggar.

Ron's right that it's silly for God to wonder whether he should tell Abraham he's about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible presents God as if he were a man, a powerful man, but on a roughly similar level to Abraham, fallible, unsure of what path to take, unsure of the consequences of his plans. In later Bible stories God becomes all-knowing, but in the early ones he's often as limited in his knowledge as the men he's pushing around. In the next verse, before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, God says he needs to go down personally and look to see if it's as bad as he's heard. He's not all-knowing, he needs to go have a look. And yes, why should God care what Abraham thinks about his plans, he has no concern at all for all the innocent people that he's about to slaughter? And while the Bible might claim that all the inhabitants were sexual deviants, we can't believe that all the children, toddlers and babies also deserved to be roasted alive. This story, if it has a germ of truth, is likely the result of ignorant, superstitious people trying to explain the destruction of a village by a natural disaster, and they decided to blame the homosexuals for the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Want to cure acne or ensure the Sun rises tomorrow? First, find a bird and a virgin, preferably cute ones. Killing all those animals in silly ritualistic ways to cure disease was repeated in primitive religions worldwide, where blood sacrifices had to be offered to blood-thirsty gods, and often they were human sacrifices. Think of the hundreds of humans sacrificed by the Aztec to their gods, and the Bible starts out with human sacrifice too, only later does it reduce to just animal sacrifice, but then God reverts back to human sacrifice with a vengeance, deliberately arranging the sacrifice of his own son. Christians even acknowledge that this was a human blood sacrifice by calling Jesus the sacrificial lamb. Catholics actually believe they are eating the real flesh of Jesus and drinking his real blood at Catholic Communion, that it's not merely a ritualistic symbol, which would make them willingly cannibals and vampires. Even if one is to ignore the inhumane sacrifice and burnt offering aspect, every modern Christian should be embarrassed to embrace a book that contains such superstitious and bogus medical advice.

And Ron is right, apart from a handful of deluded Christians who quickly become destitute, none give away their belongings to people that ask for them, meaning not just their coat, but their house and bank accounts as well. This advice only made sense to the disciples because they were convinced that the world was to end any day now, and so possessions would be useless anyway. Of course they were badly mistaken, and 2,000 years later various Christians denominations are still predicting the end of the world, and getting it wrong yet again. And rather than give their wealth to those less fortunate, churches actually do just the opposite, they take money from the poor and use it to fund their decadent lifestyles, just think of the obscene wealth of the Catholic Church, TV evangelists and the mega-churches in the USA, even our own Bishop Brian Tamaki who preys on the poor and ignorant in society, and returns home at night to his mansion.

Ron wonders whether Jesus was lying when he said faith could literally move a real mountain. Of course we don't think it's all that likely that Jesus even existed, but if we treat the Bible stories like we treat the Harry Potter stories, then the Jesus character is either lying or seriously deluded. And of course his disciples should have immediately recognised that, since as Ron said, it has never happened, not then, not now. And if Jesus was telling the truth, it should have happened untold times, and not just mountains moving, but untold humongous obstacles should have mysteriously moved about to suit the desires of the faithful. This what Jesus said,

'I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, "Move from here to there" and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.' MT 17:20

As Ron said, 'There is great faith that Jesus spoke only the truth', but why do Christians believe this, and what do they mean by it? Do they mean that Jesus was a moral person and simply refused to lie, or do they mean that Jesus was incapable of lying? It's the second. Christians believe Jesus had divine access to the knowledge of the cosmos, that he knew what the truth was on any and every matter, and more than that, his nature, his perfection, prevented him from uttering anything but the truth. So, Jesus is just like God then? Well, this is where it gets confusing, since it seems Jesus is God. Wait ... what ... Jesus is God? Yes, apparently Jesus was just God in disguise; give him long hair, a false beard and a dirty old robe and no one noticed. Of course this twist in the Biblical story introduces a multitude of problems concerning what God/Jesus said and did, like how can Christians call Jesus the son of God if they're one and the same person, and if Jesus was God, then Jesus the man didn't die on the cross. It was all a charade. For the Christians that worship Jesus and argue that he isn't God, he really is the son of God, then that means that there is now more than one god up there in space, and they're breaking God's first commandment by worshiping a god other than God. We can see why the Jews didn't want a bar of the Jesus story, since it really did screw up all they work they'd done to promote the idea that there was only one god, and not families of gods up in space, all watching us from their thrones as all the other ancient cultures believed.

Also we need to mention that Jesus used the example of the mustard seed because, as he claimed elsewhere in the Bible, it was the smallest seed that existed. and of course Jesus aka God would know this because he knows everything and whatever he says is true. Only it's not true. There are seeds smaller than the mustard seed, for example, orchid seeds, and even in the time of Jesus some of his more learned audience would have known that. And even if they didn't, God certainly would have known, since didn't he create the orchid seed? Or maybe he didn't? So clearly Jesus wouldn't recognise the truth if it wore a short skirt and propositioned him in a dark Jerusalem alley.

Of course this is just a teaser, just a sprinkling of the fanciful tales of barbaric gods, silly and immoral humans, woeful ignorance, and yes, even unicorns, that can be found in the Bible. Look for it in your local library, or favourite bookshop, in the fantasy section. And if you enjoy your read, here's a sampling of books from our Recommended Books page that can reveal more about the hidden gems in the Bible:

'The Harlot by the Side of the Road' Forbidden Tales of the Bible Jonathan Kirsch	'Holy Enigma!' Bible Verses You'll Never Hear in Sunday School Steve Ward
'The Uncensored Bible' The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie and Joel Kilpatrick	'Awkward Moments (Not Found in Your Average) Children's Bible' Volume #1 Horus Gilgamesh & Agnes Tickheathen
'God Hates You, Hate Him Back' Making Sense of the Bible C J Werleman	'God is Disappointed in You' Mark Russell

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 06 Mar, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend

Comments:

1. Comment by Patrick, 06 Mar, 2017

   Hi John. Thanks for your latest post. We could also add to Ron's list the "I am a jealous God" quote Exodus 20:5. Forgive us God, we did not want to make you jealous.

2. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 06 Mar, 2017

   Thanks Patrick. We're well aware of God's problem with jealousy, and I'm hiding under my bed as I type this, I have my Star Wars light sabre next to me, I'm wearing my Harry Potter Cloak of Invisibility and my tinfoil hat is pulled firmly down around my ears. But seriously, your choice of quote, part of the Ten Commandments, is an excellent one as it again raises more problems with the God fantasy. My dictionary defines jealousy as:

   'Fearful or wary of being supplanted; apprehensive of losing affection or position; Resentful or bitter in rivalry; envious; jealous of the success of others; Vigilant in guarding something; Intolerant of disloyalty or infidelity'.

   Can humans be jealous, of course, but how could an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-loving God possibly be jealous of anything or anyone? It's impossible. Why would God be fearful of being supplanted if he's the only God that exists? Supplanted by who? It makes no sense. How could he be 'bitter in rivalry; envious; jealous of the success of others', when no one, by definition, could do anything that even remotely rivalled his exploits and accomplishments. That's like an Olympic champion with a dozen gold medals being jealous of an athlete that failed to even make the Olympic team.

   But there is a scenario where God could be rightly jealous, where he's 'Intolerant of disloyalty'. And that's where he's just a god, one among many, rather than God, the all-powerful, all-knowing God, the only one that exists and has ever existed. If God is fighting with many other gods for his share of followers, then he will of course be jealous, clearly spelling it out that he won't tolerate disloyalty. He will forever be fearful of being supplanted by some rival god, and deeply afraid that he'll lose his followers' affection. But isn't this just silly talk, what evidence is there in the Bible that there are other gods competing with the Hebrew God? I mean, other religions claim that there are other gods, like Osiris, Zeus, Apollo and Thor, but surely the Bible wouldn't openly admit that there were other gods out there, would they? Well, in the Ten Commandments, right at the start God tells his followers: 'You shall have no other gods before me'. That commandment, that order, only makes sense if people had a choice of gods, and many (most) were choosing those other gods over the Hebrew God. When the Bible tells people that they must not have sex with sheep, it means that they thought that they must put that prohibition in because clearly people were having sex with sheep, and it needed to stop. Same as when it forbids tattoos, homosexuality and working on the Sabbath. If some Hebrews weren't already getting tattoos, then there was no need to mention it. They don't prohibit people jumping off tall cliffs because of course no sane person ever would. But in the first books of the Bible there are clearly many gods for the people of the Middle East to choose from, and clearly the Hebrew writers thought they were real gods competing with their God. Only much later does the Bible start suggesting that the gods of the other nations around them, the Egyptians, Assyrians and Babylonians for example, were never actually real. In the beginning they were very real, or at least as real as the Hebrew god, and Hebrews needed to remain loyal to their jealous God, or else! Or else what? Well, following on from where God says he's a jealous god, he says that for anyone that considers other gods, he will be 'punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me'. This is the evil and disgusting threat of dictators and terrorists, who say to people that they're afraid of, If you don't submit to my demands I will find your children and torture and kill them. I will find your spouse and parents and everyone you love and I will torture and kill them. You may escape my grasp, but rest assured your children, family and friends won't. And apparently these vile scum got the idea from God.

   We all accept, even Christians, that those other gods like Osiris, Zeus, Apollo and Thor, aren't real, and that their ancient holy texts are just misguided fantasies, so why can't Christians, Jews and Muslims grasp that their ancient holy text is just as fantastical, not to mention deeply immoral? All Christians purportedly live by the Ten Commandments, and many argue to have them engraved on giant plaques outside courtrooms, hanging in every classroom and taught to children, so how can any halfway decent person condone and promote these demands when they contain such depravity? Mainly because apathetic Christians read very little of their Bible, and of the bits they do read, they comprehend even less. It's their gross ignorance that allows them to tearfully worship a god that will torture, not them, but the innocent — their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren and their great-great-grandchildren — if they step out of line in any way. It's depressing that such depraved animals still walk among us.

3. Comment by Graeme, 07 Mar, 2017

   I still love your work and the rigour with which you go about it.

4. Comment by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 07 Mar, 2017

   Thanks Graeme. As we said to someone yesterday, a short response is easy, we can just agree with comments, and sometimes we do, but the purpose of our website is not to just say that these beliefs are silly, it's to try and explain to people why they're silly. To provide some evidence and logic where we can, to add even more arguments to the cause. We can simply say that a Bible verse is ridiculous, which is fine when two informed atheists are talking, but Christians will usually reply that we're misinterpreting it or taking it out of context, so we want to provide reasons that make it difficult for them to say that, that show we aren't misinterpreting it, that our reading is what any intelligent person would be expected to take from that verse. We've found that you can't sway anyone's view by quickly hopping on Facebook or Twitter and simply saying, You know you're wrong don't you?

   

Well ... duh!

And it's taken them 2,000 years to figure that out? No, it's just taken them that long to admit it. Well OK, perhaps you might accuse us of being a little simplistic here (or are we?), since what Pope Francis actually suggested was that atheists are better than 'hypocritical Catholics'. But our argument would be that all Catholics are hypocrites, including Pope Franny, which means our original statement is correct, it's better to be an atheist. So what did Pope Francis really say?

The other day Patrick sent us a link that he rightly thought might interest us:

Pope suggests 'better to be atheist than hypocritical Catholic'

It's a brief article so we'll quote it in full below:

'Pope suggests 'better to be atheist than hypocritical Catholic''

Pope Francis delivered another criticism of some members of his own Church on Thursday, suggesting it is better to be an atheist than one of "many" Catholics who he said lead a hypocritical double life.
In improvised comments in the sermon of his private morning Mass in his residence, he said: "It is a scandal to say one thing and do another. That is a double life." "There are those who say 'I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this and that association'," the head of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church said, according to a Vatican Radio transcript.
He said that some of these people should also say "'my life is not Christian, I don't pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, (I lead) a double life'." "There are many Catholics who are like this and they cause scandal," he said. "How many times have we all heard people say 'if that person is a Catholic, it is better to be an atheist'."
Since his election in 2013, Francis has often told Catholics, both priests and lay people, to practice what their religion preaches. In his often impromptu sermons, he has condemned sexual abuse of children by priests as being tantamount to a "Satanic Mass", said Catholics in the mafia excommunicate themselves, and told his own cardinals to not act as if they were "princes". Less than two months after his election, he said Christians should see atheists as good people if they do good.'

Now Ron has written, adding his voice to the pope's surprising criticism of his own grubby organisation:

'Hiya John. You may have seen a very recent news item where the Pope is giving some Catholics a rark up [see the above article] ... The Pope is regarded as a great guy these days, so I wonder could he be into the odd hypocrisy or hidden meanings at times. Unintended, maybe. There are 2 comments I make. First, when saying it is better to be an atheist, an inference can be taken that Catholics are better than atheists anyway. Second, he brings up money laundering. Would I be not out of line saying that this statement, coming from the Vatican as such, smacks of a little bit of hypocrisy?

I found also this article quoting the Pope under the heading "Do good and you can go to heaven too". Pope Francis has good news for atheists. "Jesus died and was raised for them as well. His redemptive embrace was for all, not just a chosen few. The choice to accept its reach is our own. The church wants all to be saved" There is nothing new in those words or message from Francis really.

He continues, "Those people (atheists) must do good, this leads them to the one who is the source of all good". The article says the Popes challenge was just do good and we will find a meeting point, we will meet one another there. I'm a little unsure what the Pope was really meaning in those latter words but my imaginings give me a scenario. That atheists have this opportunity to get on one of these roads leading to heaven, that you may arrive at crossroads where you will meet this flow of Christians and others all heading to the paradise called heaven. Blimey I'm going to stop, this is sounding utterly nonsensical. Maybe John you may bother to try figure it out differently.'

The pope attacks the Catholics that say, by the example of their daily lives, 'I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, (I lead) a double life'. In other words, Catholics that are criminals and that don't care what harm they do. But why isn't the pope condemning your typical Catholic that isn't engaged in criminal behaviour, and yet is still leading a hypocritical, double life? Catholics that seldom go to Mass, that engage in casual sex, that use contraception, that blaspheme, that agree with abortion and voluntary euthanasia, that criticise the Church's view on celibacy for priests and nuns, that masturbate, that don't persecute homosexuals or treat women like second-class citizens, that live their lives as if they were atheists, and yet still identify themselves as Catholic? These typical but very 'flawed' Catholics are much better people than the money-laundering Catholics the pope condemns, but they are still a million miles from being good, pious Catholics. We know many Catholics, of varying piety — friends, extended family and associates — and while most would disagree, frankly all of them are closer to following atheistic and humanistic views than Bible-thumping Catholic views. All of them commit all or most of the sins we listed above, eg contraception, masturbation, blasphemy etc, so the reality that the pope needs to accept and acknowledge is that it's not just the dishonest and criminal Catholics that are hypocrites and leading a double life, every Catholic on the planet is a hypocrite.

The pope tells Catholics that they should 'practice what their religion preaches', but of course no one does, not even the pope himself. The above article notes that, 'Less than two months after his election, he [Pope Francis] said Christians should see atheists as good people if they do good.' But how can the pope, if he believes in the Bible, in God's Word, seriously believe that atheists are capable of doing good when God clearly states:

'The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.' (PS 14:1)

Of course when Christians gleefully throw that above quote at atheists, they almost never quote it in full, they just mention the first bit, that we're fools to deny God, and don't follow up with the bit about being vile and corrupt. Because of course even they know it's untrue. But other than that verse, are there any other Bible verses that have God and/or Jesus asserting that atheists — non-believers — are anything but good? Yes there are, and worse still, they command that we must be killed when we're discovered. For example:

'If a man or woman living among you ... is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars of the sky ... take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. ... You must purge the evil from among you.' DT 17:2-7

'If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God ... If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods you have not known) ... you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock ... completely burn the town ... It is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt.' DT 13:6-16

'The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God must be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel. All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.' DT 17:12-13

'They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul. All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.' 2CH 15:12-13

So rather than doing good in our communities, clearly God believes that atheists are nothing but evil bastards out to corrupt his followers, and must be exterminated. So in complete contrast to what the pope now claims, there is no suggestion whatsoever that God sees non-believers as generally good people doing good deeds and that most of us will be bound for Heaven to mingle with devout Christians who gave up their Sundays and casual sex to get there.

Of course many of these devout Christians will now argue that the above verses dishing out hate and death were from the Old Testament, and that Christians follow Jesus, a new lovey-dovey character introduced in the sequel, the New Testament. But we need to ask, who does Jesus follow, who does he get his orders from? And without doubt Jesus believed he got his marching orders from God. Christians may refer to the New Testament, but let's remember that there was no New Testament when Jesus was preaching, Jesus was a devout Jew quoting from what we now call the Old Testament. And Jesus quite clearly states:

'Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.' (MT 5:17-20)

'But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them — bring them here and kill them in front of me.' LK 19:27

Still not convinced that Jesus had rejected his father's war-mongering ways, and was more like a 60s hippy with the slogan: 'Make love, not war'? Then explain this 'loving' rant from Jesus:

'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man's enemies will be the members of his own household'. 'Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;' MT 10:34-37

Let's also recall that Jesus said, 'He who is not with me is against me', MT 12:30. You either believed in him and obeyed him completely or you were the enemy. There was no middle ground, no neutral parties, no atheist Switzerland. So clearly both God of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New Testament were both convinced that believers in other gods and believers in none at all were evil and needed to be confronted and destroyed. And yet Pope Francis claims that God built goodness into the DNA of even atheists, and that 'Jesus broadens the horizon ... The root of this possibility of doing good — that we all have — is in creation'. That article began by saying that, 'Pope Francis has good news for atheists. Jesus died and was raised for them as well. His redemptive embrace was for all, not just a chosen few ... The Church wants all men and women to be saved'.

Certainly the Catholic Church wants all men and women under their oppressive control, and they'll accept not just people doing good but people that have committed unspeakable evil, everyone from child molesters and rapists to vicious dictators and serial killers. But what the Catholic Church wants isn't necessarily what God wants, and again Pope Franny is being a Catholic hypocrite, since Jesus never widened the net to include all mankind, and on this the Bible is quite clear. The Jews were God's chosen people, not the Babylonians or the Philistines, and certainly not the unbelievers. What many people today don't realise is that Jesus was a xenophobe and a racist, he had no intention of permitting non-Jews into his group. Jesus told his disciples: 'Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel'. MT 10:5-6. When a non-Jew approached him he initially ignored her, explaining that only the Jews are God's children and everyone else are just dogs in comparison. When the Jews quoted their commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill', they simply meant that Jews shall not kill a fellow Jew (although they often ignored even that commandment), and killing heathens and committing genocide to get foreign land that they wanted was something their God actually encouraged, and he often helped them with the slaughter of men, women and children. The Jews only gained Israel by killing its original inhabitants, the Canaanites. Whether people claimed to do good or not didn't matter, if you weren't doing good for them then you were destined for Hell. And here's a verse from the Jesus sequel that decreed what God and Jesus had planned for atheists. Note that we're number two on their list of people that need to be taught a lesson in submission:

'But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars — their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.' REV 21:8

But what does the pope even mean when he says that someone does good? Hitler no doubt thought he was a good person, and that his Gestapo were doing good work. We atheists think we're doing good when we explain to Catholics that they're deluded, that they've been lied to and manipulated, and that they should ditch their childish belief in invisible space beings and start living in the real world. Catholics think it's good to tell the story of their God raping a virginal young girl, then abandoning her and her child, but returning decades later to have his child tortured and murdered. Of course, since God is imaginary, it means that the shameful and cowardly rape of the young girl never happened, but isn't it disturbing that Christians proudly and repeatedly tell their young children that it did? And they don't tell the sorry as a warning, as an example of how not to behave, just the opposite, they insist that their children must revere and worship a god that would rape a young girl and murder his own son. That is doing 'good' in the warped mind of Catholics. And that's just one of many horror stories they tell their kids, they absolutely revel in the immorality of their God, while lying to their children and saying that's how powerful people should behave. Catholics think they're being good when they terrorise small children with tales of demons that will torture them forever if they break pathetic rules, pathetic rules that are impossible not to break. Meaning they are doomed to failure, and each failure simply increases their terror and fear of the future, making their lives utterly miserable. That's the Catholic idea of doing good, reducing lives to Hell on Earth.

My mother once told me the story of finding a young school friend crying. When asked what the problem was, she replied that she was to again attend Catholic confession on Sunday and was expected to confess the sins she had committed during the week. If that wasn't bad enough, revealing private things to a strange old man behind a screen, my mum's friend didn't feel she had any sins to confess, she felt she had been a good girl. When my mum naively said that she should tell the priest that, her friend tearfully replied that the priests believe everyone is sinning all the time, it's in our nature, so they accuse you of lying if you say you haven't sinned, furthermore they suspect you of really serious sins, and you simply receive even more punishment. So make up some minor sin, my mum offered, but her friend, believing in God, said that God would detect her lie, and even though she hadn't sinned through the week, she would then be sinning by lying to the priest, and to God. When that lie was revealed to the priest by God, her punishment would be even worse. There was no way she could escape confession without being punished, even though she had been good. And this little girl went through this trauma most every week. I don't know, but perhaps she changed from being a good girl to a mean little bitch, just so she could have sins to confess to an old priest eager to hear what naughty things little girls get up to. And that was the Catholic priest's idea of doing good, terrifying little girls (and boys), so clearly Catholics and atheists have very different ideas on what it means to do good.

While the media reports what Pope Francis says, we need to remember that he isn't the Catholic Church or the Vatican, most of whom vehemently disagree with his surprising new views on atheism and homosexuality etc. This article stated that, 'The Vatican has quickly clarified that atheists — they believe — are still going to hell, despite Pope Francis appearing to say non-believers could be saved through Christ if they do good'. Soon Franny will be gone like all the popes before him and the Catholic Church will quickly revert back too what Jesus said, 'He who is not with me is against me', with the view that if atheists want to be saved, then they'll need to start believing in invisible beings watching them having sex. Oh, and just stop having sex for Christ's sake. It's not an approved hobby and you're not supposed to enjoy it. So that's the options, we atheists either join them on our knees in the pews, begging for forgiveness, or we sleep in on Sundays and stay on Satan's torture list.

And that's actually the choice that Pope Franny is offering atheists, since in reality there is no conflict between him and the Vatican, they both believe that atheists are going to Hell. That's because the pope's comments are misleading (deliberately we believe), and it's not as clear cut for atheists as the headlines might suggest. In the pope's mind the reality is that atheists will never go to Heaven no matter how much good we do ... UNLESS ... we come to sincerely believe in God and Jesus, unless we renounce atheism and become Catholics! This is the 'meeting point' that the pope mentioned, where atheists reach a crossroad and rather than continue down the atheism path (towards Hell), we recognise the error of our ways and turn down the Catholicism path towards Heaven. Atheists will never enter heaven, only ex-atheists that become Catholics will be admitted. The article explains that, 'it is in doing good that they [atheists] are led to the One who is the Source of all that is good'. There is this arrogant and ignorant Christian belief that atheists will come to sense that if they're doing good, then God must exist, since good can only exist if God created it. Of course you could apply the same flawed logic to evil as well, and make evil your life's work, just to please God. Catholics try and ignore that argument. The article goes on to explain that, 'In essence he [the pope] simply restated the hope of the Church that all come to know God, through His Son Jesus Christ'. The pope explained that, 'all people, not just Catholics, are redeemed through Jesus, even atheists'. And there's the catch, no matter how much good atheists do, we would never be admitted to Heaven (assuming it existed) if we don't first agree to submit totally to the will of Jesus and his daddy, giving up our atheism in the process. And in this the Bible is again quite clear, with Jesus saying:

'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.' JN 14:6-7

Personally we think Pope Francis is a little brighter and has more integrity than your typical Catholic, and is genuinely horrified with the abuse committed by his priests and covered up by his bishops, and truly does see atheists as good people. He apparently can't accept that his loving God would reward his evil child molester priests and punish good atheists, so he's creatively reinterpreting Bible verses and jumping through imaginary hoops in an attempt to show that the Catholic Church isn't the monster it appears to be. Pope Francis suggests that the Church now sees what the rest of the sane world sees, that non-believers are actually the good guys, and that by seeming to welcome us onboard the Catholic bus, the badly tarnished image of the Catholic Church can't help but be seen as a little less evil.

But we atheists aren't fooled by the pope's conciliatory claims and have no intention of helping him make Catholics feel a little more comfortable in still belonging to such a harmful, superstitious organisation. Any hint of collaboration with the Church, even if it were stripped of all it's bigotry and hatred, would still be akin to suggesting that, at its core, it possessed something real and valuable to offer the world. Which of course it doesn't, since its fundamental error would still be a childish, ignorant, primitive, superstitious and utterly groundless blind faith in an invisible sky fairy and his equally imaginary son.

The only announcement we want to hear the pope make is that the Church is closing down and donating all its considerable assets that it's hoarded over the centuries to charity, to a least try and alleviate some of the damage it's done over the last two millennia.

Posted by the 'Silly Beliefs' Team, 02 Mar, 2017 ~ Add a Comment    Send to a Friend