Respect faith? Hell no!

Lizzylo, a recent addition to my long list of detractors commenters seems to think the reason I write this blog is because I yearn for respect.

Well, Lizzylo, let me make this quite clear. I DON’T.

I don’t really care whether you respect me or not. I have never cared whether anyone respects me, even outside of this blog. I don’t demand respect, nor do I give it easily. In my job, I tend to piss off a lot of colleagues because I demand competency and productivity. But in the process, I make a whole lot more people happy, including my customers.

I don’t sulk when my colleagues are angry at me for being demanding. I live with it. It’s a trade-off. Similarly, when people respond negatively to my blog posts, I don’t let it affect me. The fact that I tick people off, is actually quite revealing. It puts a smile on my face, just like those positive comments do.

Another thing I get quite often is quotes from the bible or some other religious text about faith. People seem to think that these texts are authoritative and that I’m supposed to be moved or threatened into submission by them.

Let me make this quite clear. I give ZERO fucks for faith or your holy quotes about it.

I don’t believe your quotes, nor do they scare me or move me in any way whatsoever. I also think faith is a dreadful disease that needs to be eradicated. I’d really like to bash your skull in, but not through violence. All I have to throw at you is words.

So there, I hope that was painful.

The “open mind” conundrum

“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”

Variations of this quote have been attributed to a number of different people such as Richard Feynman, G.K. Chesterton, Richard Dawkins and Bertrand Russell. However, having recently debated a literalist Christian on this blog, I have realised that it sounds rather crude.

My detractor claimed that I don’t have an open mind, which is why I will never understand, let alone accept the assertions in the bible. In hasty retort I quoted the line that precedes this post.

So as I’m currently re-reading Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World – Science As A Candle In The Dark, I was reminded of that encounter in a chapter titled The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder, which I think perfectly settles this conundrum.

As I’ve tried to stress, at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes – an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track. Those two seemingly contradictory attitudes are, though, in some tension.

There, now everything’s clear as daylight. Thanks Carl.

Therefore God Exists

Don’t you love lists? I spent an hour or so going through this one which has literally hundreds of proofs of God’s existence. Some were quite familiar because I’ve seen them right here on this blog before, in the comments section.

Here are ten that I really like:

1. ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES (I)
(1) My aunt had cancer.
(2) The doctors gave her all these horrible treatments.
(3) My aunt prayed to God and now she doesn’t have cancer.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

2. MORAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) In my younger days I was a cursing, drinking, smoking, gambling, child-molesting, thieving, murdering, bed-wetting bastard.
(2) That all changed once I became religious.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

3. ARGUMENT FROM FEAR
(1) If there is no God then we’re all going to not exist after we die.
(2) I’m afraid of that.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

4. ARGUMENT FROM AMERICAN EVANGELISM
(1) Telling people that God exists makes me filthy rich.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

5. ARGUMENT FROM FALLIBILITY
(1) Human reasoning is inherently flawed.
(2) Therefore, there is no reasonable way to challenge a proposition.
(3) I propose that God exists.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

6. ARGUMENT FROM META-SMUGNESS
(1) Fuck you.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

7. ARGUMENT FROM LONELINESS
(1) Christians say that Jesus is their best friend.
(2) I’m lonely, and I want a best friend.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

8. PROOF BY ANECDOTE
(1) God can be seen by those who believe in Him.
(2) If the God is seen, then He must exist.
(3) I have seen God.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

9. ARGUMENT FROM SPEAKING IN TONGUES
(1) My friend here, once started spontaneously speaking some jibberish that sounded to me kind of like Russian.
(2) But neither he nor I know anything about Russian.
(3) The only explanation is God.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

10. BENDER’S ARGUMENT (I)
(1) One day, demons were tap-dancing on my roof.  I prayed and they went away.
(2) Therefore, demons are really good dancers.
(3) Also, God exists.

Okay that last one is pretty stupid not as clear-cut as the others, but you get the point. So if you have some time to kill, you’ll find a lot more here (657 to be exact), from what looks like a growing list.

In response to a bigoted Christian politician…

It’s not often that men of the cloth admit to the follies of the Church and religious scripture. But when such a man does speak out against the crass wrongs perpetrated on society by the religious or political establishment, he deserves praise, not condemnation.

So you can imagine my consternation at reading this disgusting letter by one Thamsanqa Enoch Bam in an online publication, in response to Archbishop Desmond Tutu who spoke out against the vile and draconian anti-gay bill being proposed in Uganda. Tutu earned the ire of Bam by likening the hateful legislation to South Africa’s apartheid laws.

Bam, who also proclaims himself as the President of the People’s Party (a recent addition to the absurdly long list of insignificant South African political parties), asserts that the Archbishop was “going against” God’s Laws by condoning homosexuality. His conviction, unsurprisingly comes from the bible and is backed up by the quotation of a few hand-picked scriptures which I won’t repeat, such is my revulsion.

Is there a more revolting blend than a politician and a religionist?

Bam asks how the Archbishop could miss such clear scripture [referring to the revolting quotations I earlier sidestepped like a pile of steaming horeshit]. Off course, we would not be allowed the courtesy of asking how this cretin [Bam, and others of his ilk] misses with unerring conviction, all the other contradictory and hateful biblical scriptures that don’t confirm his/their prejudices.

This letter in the Times Live appears to be an extract from a lengthier blog he wrote, which also condemns gay marriage, and confoundingly professes support for the dreadful ANC [ruling party], if they “made an about turn and ended their duplicity, corruption, mismanagement and disregard of the poor masses.” And to add further insult, he concludes that the ANC’s manifest incompetence would be solved if the “country goes back to God.”

And like all fundamentalists he is off course intimate with God’s will:

As a Christian, I pray that gays and lesbians will eventually see their folly, repent, and turn away from their abominations. That is the will of God.

What a slimeball? The will of this atheist is that you change the name of your political party to Asshole’s Party, because you will never represent the people, just bigoted assholes like yourself.

17 shopping days until the end of the world?

Image via Wikipedia

October 21, 2011 approaches!

According to Harold Camping, the world is supposed to be in the final stages of 5 months of horrible torment since the fabled Judgment Day which passed with hardly any fuss, on 21 May 2011. With just 17 days to go before that supposed all-defining moment in the brief history of mankind, die-hard believers are presumably wringing their hands in glee, while those who have not accepted Camping’s Lord, should either be wondering if there’s anything to all this flim-flam, or laughing hysterically.

To be fair, the last five months have been kinda unusual. Could Camping be onto something? Or is he on something, which seems to be the consensus of opinion?

World events over the last 5 months have been rather unusual. Or so it would have seemed to the casual observer. I’m not even going to try to imagine what it must have seemed like, to the stoned observer.

Despots who were apparently well-loved by the people being ousted in North Africa, the darling of the freedom movements, the ANC revealing themselves to be plain old scum, economic crisis in Europe, snow near Sun City and tornadoes in other parts of South Africa, Julius Malema being disciplined and the ANC Youth League losing popularity, and Arsenal languishing just above the relegation zone in the English Premier League table.

Now those were just some of the mighty unusual occurrences over the last 5 months. Or Harold Camping will have you believe so.

Either way, whether you’re a believer or not, it’s the ideal time to get in some shopping. Whether it’s to buy some wine for that last supper, a gift for Harold for warning everyone, a new bible to search for those passages to help you repent, or a bottle of the usual plonk, to ease those mouth muscles while you laugh at those who fell for it again…

Misery and hope make strange bedfellows

A friend posted a religious text from Romans 5 on Facebook yesterday, to which I left the comment “That’s a really sad outlook on life.”

I can’t be sure though that my comment was exactly like that, because it has since been deleted.

The excerpt in question from the New International Version (NIV) of the bible goes like this:

…Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

I found a variation of this excerpt from the King James Version (KJV) which reads as follows:

³And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

⁴And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

⁵And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Both glorify pain and anguish and rely on faith and hope for the elimination of these afflictions. The upside to pain and anguish according to this religious text is the building of character and experience.

Essentially the text expects us [man] to accept and believe that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity designed us [man] to suffer in order to build character and gain experience. We [man] is further expected to accept and believe that the imposition of this torture is designed to inculcate within us the pitiful feelings of hope and faith.

Anyone who does actually accept and believe this nonsense is utterly devoid of self-respect and actually deserves every bit of suffering coming his or her way. Any plausible deity who inflicts suffering on his or her creation, in order instill knowledge, or exact reverence, is not worthy of worship, but is deserving of derision.

Such a deity warrants his/her/its all-powerful ass being booted into a galaxy, infinite light years away from Earth. But since Superman, an eminently nicer supernatural entity hasn’t called around recently to oblige with this chore, it would be much simpler to suspend credulity…

Reading is about to become a lot more pleasurable

Cover via Amazon

I finally joined the world of the chic and got the Amazon Kindle earlier this week.

And yes, it’s a little beauty. I’ve already spurned the paper versions of three books that I’m currently reading, by purchasing the e-Book versions for my new Kindle. They’re lying on the table right beside me as I write [type] this, looking rather rejected with their paper bookmarks sticking out like drooling cardboard tongues.

And naturally I got a little carried-away and bought a stack [can I still call it that?] of books – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Choice of Hercules by A C Grayling, Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie and the Believing Brain by Michael Shermer (Audiobook version), among the one’s I haven’t read yet.

But one of the books I bought among that lot mentioned above, that’s intriguing me the most at the moment is The Good Book: A Secular Bible by A C Grayling. It’s styled along the lines of the  King James version of the Bible, but presents meanings, morals and values from a secular or non-religious viewpoint.

…All who read this book, therefore, if they read with care, may come to be more than they were before. This is not praise of the work itself, but of its attentive readers, for the worth to be found in it will come from their minds. If there is anyone who learns nothing from this book, that will not be attributable to faults in it, but to that reader’s excellence. If readers judge candidly, none among them can be harmed or offended by what it asks them to consider. Yet all who come hungry to these granaries of the harvest made by their fellows and forebears, will find nourishment here…

If that excerpt from the introduction is anything to go by, I think I’m going to be wrapped up in this book for a little while…

This time it’s for real, and you can bet your ticket to heaven on it…

Image via Wikipedia

So May 21, the day of the Rapture passed us by with only a small volcano eruption in Iceland to show for it. There was off course the more tragic tornado ripping through Joplin, Missouri in the USA a day later, but even the most optimistic Rapture devotee will find that to be a rather abysmal display of the Christian god’s wrath, as predicted by the now infamous Harold Camping.

I think by now most people who predicted that the Rapture would not happen are smugly making fun of Harold Camping and his credulous supporters – and rightly so. They are collectively responsible for spreading an ideology that undoubtedly is going to have severe repercussions for a lot of people; mostly those who fell for it. But it did provide hours of fun for the rest of us and for that we’re awfully thankful.

Considering that it’s not the first time he’s done something like this, it’s no wonder that so many people are not only calling Camping a fraudster and demanding that he reimburse those who donated money to him, but some are actually demanding that he be prosecuted criminally as well.

It must therefore come as something of a shock with Camping now claiming that the world will actually be ending on October 21, 2011. But an even bigger shock is that many of his followers who were naive enough to believe him the first two times, are actually going to believe him yet again. I don’t know whether to despise them even more, or take pity on them.

Perhaps its best to just let them continue thinking that the Rapture did indeed occur on May 21, and that the Christian god, finding nobody who qualified for ascension into his version of Heaven this time, have given them all a reprieve until October 21, when he will return to exact real vengeance and perhaps cause a few more volcanos to erupt, even extinct ones.

Somehow, I expect Camping to still have many delusional followers even after this, even if he’s found criminally liable in the interim.

Cometh the hour, cometh the Rapture

According to Harold Camping who predicted that all righteous Christians in the world will be Raptured on 21 May 2011, 6PM is the magical hour when it will start.

While Camping didn’t elaborate in which time zone it would occur, we would have to assume that he either meant 6PM local time California where he is based, or 6PM simultaneously around the world. I’m sure all of you who don’t qualify to ascend to Heaven on May 21 because you’re ridiculously rational, will immediately see the problem with the magical hour put forward by Camping. Those of you who are non-Christian believers shouldn’t even bother.

But rather than spoil the last moments on Earth for the selected few by posing these scientific questions which you no doubt have no appreciation for, I would just like to wish you well on your flight upwards to Heaven. May you get great service and an open bar.

I would like to dedicate the song Rapture, by Blondie to all you good Rapturees. I hope you take one last listen to some good earthly tunes before you subject yourselves to an eternity of harp music. This particular version which is a clever mix of Blondie and Jim Morrison of the Doors, may not be to your purist tastes, but just live a little before you depart.

I’m sure those of you who will remain behind like me to face the Tribulation, will appreciate this too while we party on regardless.

Drop Everything and Read…DEAR

Today, April 12 is Drop Everything and Read Day, or D.E.A.R Day.

I heard about it on local radio this morning, but it doesn’t seem to be an international event. It appears National D.E.A.R Day is commemorated annually in the USA to remind and encourage families to make reading together on a daily basis, a family priority. It’s celebrated on 12 April each year to honour American author Beverly Cleary who wrote many books for children and young adults.

Setting aside a day for encouragement of reading is a marvelous idea, and should be celebrated internationally. The statistics for literacy in South Africa is appalling and I’d venture to assert that the figures for the rest of Africa is not much better, probably worse. So any initiative to improve these statistics should be seized upon and disseminated widely. Sadly the government in South Africa seem set on a path to diminish the standards of education further and further each year and need constant reminding about their inanity.

However, the rest of the world should consider themselves lucky to not be governed by dodgy miscreants; so grab yourselves a book and get stuck into a few chapters. But for the love of literacy, please let it not be the Bible or the Koran or the Bagavad Gita or any other religious text. Please read something that imparts at least some intellectual enlightenment, not useless dogma.

Now that I’ve done my bit for R.E.A.D Day, I’m off to complete the last few chapters of The Form of Things by A.C Grayling…