Religiosity isn't Rational

It's been proven through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748718/?tool=pubmed

Their findings:

A comparison of both stimulus categories suggests that religious thinking is more associated with brain regions that govern emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict, while thinking about ordinary facts is more reliant upon memory retrieval networks

This is why you can't talk believers out of their belief with reasoning.  They have their emotional lives and self-image involved.  You can only chip away at it.  Their leaders are so resistant to anything contrary to their "facts" being taught to their children because they know that faith can't be overturned, it can only be undone in pieces.  If children learn the truth about the real world, they'll have a self-image based on the real world, not on their fantasy world.  They will grow up, and religion doesn't want grown-ups.  Grown-ups won't get out of bed on Sunday morning and put hard-earned money into the collection plate.

They also perceive themselves in a different way than non-believers do.  They use a different part of their brain when judging themselves and others.  They also use different parts of their brain when imagining God's positive or negative emotions.  There are two parts of the brain involved for the task of self-judgment vs. putting oneself into another's mind. 

Later in life, the hippocampus shrinks more in born-agains than other believers or in non-believers.   This can lead to Alzheimers.  Why am I not surprised?

Is Ghandi in Hell?

Despite what the Bible says about "salvation," apparently American Christians are more willing to forgive people for not accepting Christ than God is:

The most striking divergence from orthodoxy, however, was first revealed in the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. That comprehensive survey of 35,000 Americans found a majority of Christians saying that people of other religions can find salvation and eternal life.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/0114/p02s02-usgn.html

So they've figured out what atheists already knew: sending good people to Hell is bad!  But if you don't have to believe in Christ to get out of going to Hell, they why do you have to believe in Christ at all?  It's not just everyday Christians anonymously admitting their disbelief, there's a controversial pastor preaching this message too:  https://www.robbell.com/lovewins/.  (I love his quote that Christian theology teaches that Jesus rescues his followers from God!)  He wants to believe that Ghandi made it to Heaven.  He also acknowledges how messed up Christianity is, and then he love-bombs.

I think the love-bombing and social network of Christianity outweighs all other considerations for a lot of Christians.  I overheard a coworker say that he gets really anxious when he travels unless he knows there's a church nearby.  That's crazy.  If he's one of God's children and God is everywhere, what difference does it make if there's a church around the corner?  The difference is that Christianity is a salve for his anxiety disorder, not a pathway to Heaven.  After all, if Heaven is so great, why not just off himself and hurry upstairs before he thinks some heretical thought and ruins his chances?

Evangelicals may be their own undoing.  There are so many splinter "denominations" and start-up churches founded by one person (like Rob Bell's) that people can pick and choose whichever one they like, or make up their own theology and appoint themselves the head of a new church.  Any storefront will do.  I've seen a jillion of these.  The megachurches are the opposite end of the spectrum.  They're not under the thumb of a central authority, either.  Even the Southern Baptist conference is losing its grip.  Mean-spirited bigotry may finally be driving believers away, but they can't let go completely, so they hook up with nicer churches.  And these new churches provide what people who no longer need to feel "chosen" need for psychological fulfillment:  a social network, a feeling of being loved, and some guidance on what constitutes right and wrong.

I admire the trend.  These people will be easier to live with than the monsters who are trying to undermine the First Amendment, turn the military into a Christian crusader army, and set science back by hundreds of years.  Now if only they will take on their nastyass cousins in court and get them to STFU about the "Christian Nation," maybe we can move on as a culture.

Richard Dawkins vs William Lane Craig: Not Happening (YAY)

Richard Dawkins has decided not to debate William Lane Faith-is-properly-basic Craig, and good for him.  Of course, Christians are taking this as a sign of weakness:

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/9901617876.html

Craig, one of the nation's leading Christian apologists, has debated many atheists on the rationality of faith and the existence of God including Sam Harris, Bart Ehrman and Richard Taylor. His upcoming United Kingdom tour has evidently intimidated Richard Dawkins as he has continually refused to debate Craig when he visits his home turf this October.

Recently, Polly Toynbee, president of the British Humanist Association, also pulled out of a scheduled debate with Craig on the existence of God. A war of words has broken out between Dawkins and his critics, who see his refusal to take on the American academic as a sign that he may be losing his nerve.

Famous atheist Sam Harris once described Craig as "the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists."

Dawkins has already shot WLC down:





I agree completely not just about WLC, but about the average believer: it's an emotional cause for them, not rational at all and therefore, not subject to debate or rational discourse of any kind.  They appeal to emotion at every turn.  In essence they believe because it fulfills an emotional need for them, and they don't want people saying their fairy tales are false.

I first heard of WLC at the blog of Randall Rauser, who has an advanced degree in bullshit apologetics, and seemed to think that his vapid responses to his atheist responders actually had merit.  Failing to convince us that love of poetry, love of love, and nice feelings in general are sufficient to justify faith in his deity, he would cite William Lane Craig and another loser by the name of Alvin Plantinga.

Their main argument seems to be, it's nice to believe in something nice, so it is therefore true.  Of course, I got that second-hand because if their fanboy, Randy, couldn't sell them to me I didn't think it was worth reading their stuff.  I did watch some of WLC's speeches and debates on youtube and I just came away shaking my head.  He really sounds like a boxer on the ropes, defending religion on the basis of intuition, and yet people say he's a great debater.

About debates... apparently you can win or lose debates based on parrying and thrusts of a verbal sort, kind of.  So if you throw out a bunch of thrusts and your opponent only handles a few of them and sidesteps the rest in the interest of time, that is apparently a "victory."  Waving your sword in air and never actually nicking or stabbing your opponent somehow makes points. 

I think the wins and losses of debates should depend on the number of onlookers whose minds have been changed.  You could do before and after surveys of the audience, and any nudge in the average score would determine the victor.  What seems to be going on in the theist-atheist debate scoring is that people who belonged to debate clubs in high school extrapolate their useless exercises into the adult world of deciding what to believe. This goes for partisans on both sides, most of whom coincidentally give the "win" to their side but who sometimes give it to the other side.  If you are an atheist, and you watch a debate between an atheist & a theist and you are still an atheist at the end of it, the theist loses!  It doesn't matter if someone lost 'points.'

Dawkins going to an evangelical college to debate during an evangelical convention against their biggest idol would indeed be a waste of time due to cognitive dissonance.  The audience would be packed with people who have made it their life's work to bullshit themselves into believing that believing is good (forget whether it's true).  Cognitive dissonance goes like this:  I invested a helluva lot into this Christianity thing, so it has to be true, or else I've wasted my life. 

I squish them to
give them a
second chance

Atheists, even activist atheists, have much less investment.  For one, we haven't had to lie to ourselves.  For another, we haven't traded a boring life in the here-and-now for an even more boring life in the hereafter.  If we're wrong, the odds of which are seriously low, there's no particular guarantee that there's an afterlife or that the Christian version is correct.  WE haven't thrown in our lot with one fairy tale over all others.  Most of us are familiar with several fairy tales.  Losing out on the Christian one is a one-in-several shot, versus the Christian wager which is all-or-nothing.  I've led a relatively good life, so if Buddhism is true, I might come back as a richer, whiter, beautiful woman with a kickin body. 



Christians, on the other hand, have been arrogant in believing their selfish theology is correct, so they might come back as cockroaches or tsetse flies.

Back to the "properly basic" idea.  WLC says that belief in a god is "properly basic," which in philosophical terms basically means it gets a pass.  These beliefs don't need evidence, but they do.  And they're valid unless they're not.  Grab some dramamine and check out his podcast on "properly basic" crap:

   

Gideon Bibles in the Doctor's Office Waiting Room

Yes.  There were Gideon Bibles on the waiting room side tables at my doctor's office.  My doctor is leaving this practice and I am following him to his new practice, but I've been sick for a few days and I really needed to see him today.

But since I didn't plan to stay with the practice I didn't mind being seen to open the Bibles and write in them. But since I didn't have to wait very long I only had time to write under the Gideon imprint:

"Purveyors of Bullshit"

When I find them in hotel rooms I have more fun with them, but I had to settle for this.

But seriously, WTF?  Why would they allow this?  It's a general practice, not an emergency room!

Oh yeah, because this is fucking Indiana.  Fucking insane.

farts you can't trust them

"farts you can't trust them"

This came up as a search that brought someone to this blog.  I don't know what this person was looking for, but I can say this:  if you live with dogs, you will often think you have a doggy pile to clean up, then upon investigation you realize it was just a fart.

The Selfishness of Christianity

One of the defenses we often hear about Christianity is how many good works have been done in Christ's name.  Of course, they dismiss the evil done in Christ's name because the perpetrators were not "true" Christians, or because it was so long ago it doesn't matter anymore.  Still, the generosity and good works of Christianity have indeed enriched the world.

I'll grant that hospitals, programs for the poor, and other social services are good deeds... as long as prosletyzing isn't the price the recipients have to pay and the good works really are good (More about Mother Teresa in another post)

At the root of these good works, though, is selfishness.  The motive isn't true empathy for suffering but a guarantee of a place in Heaven.  A secondary though possibly more powerful motive is to be seen to be doing good works.  If you're doing good things you must be a good person, right?  And if you do it in a group and happen to have an enjoyable time with your friends-in-Christ well that's just icing on the cake.  You'd work on a Habitat for Humanity house in a crappy neighborhood on your own, wouldn't you?  You don't need a church bus to take you there.  And then there is the whole doing-what-Jesus-says line.  Jesus said feed the poor, so obedient Christians will do it because he says to do it.  That's hardly an unselfish reason.  Getting in good with your savior, whose blessing will keep you out of hell.  Very nice.

The worst example of selfishness, I think, is prayer for some earthly benefit for oneself or one's loved ones.  A friend from Houston recently posted to Facebook thanking friends for their prayers.  They finally had rain.  Hallelujah! 

Rather than forward her selfish post to my friend from nearby Bastrop, who continues to be traumatized by the huge fire there, I sent a PM with a general skeptical view of prayer.  I also pointed out that if God was so good, why not send the recent hurricane that was a near miss all the way over to Bastrop to put out or prevent that fire?  Not to mention, why did God allow Texas to endure such a dreadful drought in the first place?  And why did he ignore Perry's prayers and that big prayer hoopla thing in Houston, but answer the prayers of my friend's friends around the country?  Why did God wait so long?  And speaking of timing, July & August are usually the dryest months in Texas, and coincidentally, God answered her friends' prayers in September, when it's much more likely for Texas to receive rain.

Well, I did make some of those points in our exchange but what I bit my tongue about was the utter selfishness of believing that God will answer prayers for better weather just for her.  Apparently none of the people who lost everything in the Bastrop fire had any friends who prayed for them, or else their homes would have been spared.

Chrisitans are also selfish in their entire theology of redemption.  In theory, you just have to be a believer to be spared the punishment of Hell.  This in itself is supremely selfish.  Character doesn't really matter if being "born again" or "saved" or baptized is all it takes.  Too often they write off the other Christians who don't live up to charitable or even moral standards as not true Christians, but then if pressed they have to admit that the standards for who can be called a Christian are very low.

John 3:16 makes it pretty clear:  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

How nice for them.  That's all they have to do, just believe.  Fuck everyone else, and fuck the people who didn't get rain this month.  They didn't deserve it anyway.

Evangelicals have a bit of a claim in wanting everyone to be saved, but salvation is still a selfish concept.  What about "Do some charitable things and you'll be repaid with thanks from the people you help?"  If that's all there is to missionary work, some might do it anyway.  That's because unselfishness is as much a part of human nature as selfishness is.  This is why they fear evolution -- it might show that living in a community requires a quotient of unselfishness from every member, or at least a big enough plurality to keep the community going.  And if humans are capable of being generous, kind, and helpful without a God to tell them to do it, what do they need God for?  And if rain happens whether you pray or not, why pray?

The answer is: selfishness.  They may even know their prayers are worthless, but they do it to remind themselves how special they are compared to everyone else.  It's sickening.

My Kindle Book List

I just got a Kindle for my birthday.  Wheee!  I'm saving my pennies though so instead of buying books I'm looking for good free reads.  I will consider all suggestions (except those from trolls of course)

I've already downloaded three books by Darwin, Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian, Payne's Age of Reason, and some fiction.  I'm also storing up some non-Christian religious texts, like the Bhagadvita and the Tao Te Ching, and a book on Roman & Greek mythology.  (why their beliefs are 'myths' and everyone else's count as "religious texts" doesn't make sense to me)

For future reference I'd consider suggestions for books I'd have to pay for, but I won't buy them for awhile.

Well? Suggestions anyone?