Bad Reasons to Believe numbers 185021-185026

I think I finally get why Pharyngula has Christian ads all over every post.  First it was Christian Mingle, then this:

Does God exist? Here are six straight-forward reasons to believe that God is really there.

I get it now!  Atheists want to click on the links either for a good laugh or similar motivations, the Christian cite has to pay FTB through advertisers for the traffic, and they don't get a single new user or convert out of it.


Now I feel like I shouldn't even dignify this site with a response, but reason 5 pushed my buttons so here goes.

All of these reasons are more flushed out on the page, but I'm just going to list most of them.

1. Does God exist? The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.
2. Does God exist? The universe had a start - what caused it?
3. Does God exist? The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. Why does it?
4. Does God exist? The DNA code informs, programs a cell's behavior.

Reasons 1-4 are simplified forms of the Fine Tuning Argument with Complexity, Cosmological Argument, Argument from Uniformity of Nature, and Argument from Design of DNA respectively.  I won't spend any more time on these.

5. Does God exist? We know God exists because he pursues us. He is constantly initiating and seeking for us to come to him.

This one rubs up against one of my pet peeves: when someone tells me "You were never a true Christian."  It starts with this gem (emphasis mine):

I was an atheist at one time. And like many atheists, the issue of people believing in God bothered me greatly. What is it about atheists that we would spend so much time, attention, and energy refuting something that we don't believe even exists?! What causes us to do that? When I was an atheist, I attributed my intentions as caring for those poor, delusional people...to help them realize their hope was completely ill-founded. To be honest, I also had another motive. As I challenged those who believed in God, I was deeply curious to see if they could convince me otherwise. Part of my quest was to become free from the question of God. If I could conclusively prove to believers that they were wrong, then the issue is off the table, and I would be free to go about my life. 

I didn't realize that the reason the topic of God weighed so heavily on my mind, was because God was pressing the issue. I have come to find out that God wants to be known. He created us with the intention that we would know him. He has surrounded us with evidence of himself and he keeps the question of his existence squarely before us. It was as if I couldn't escape thinking about the possibility of God. In fact, the day I chose to acknowledge God's existence, my prayer began with, "Ok, you win..." It might be that the underlying reason atheists are bothered by people believing in God is because God is actively pursuing them.

First of all, most atheists don't spend any time being bothered by God questions or believers.  A very small percentage of the atheist population are activists in any sense.  And those of use who are activists have damn good reasons to be angry and vocal about it.  Looking at believers as poor, delusional people is condescending and often not true, and trying to convince them that their hope is ill-founded rather than misplaced is not appropriate.  As for conclusively proving believers to be wrong you can't prove the negative.  There's no good reason to believe in God and that is a good enough reason not to.  You were already free to go about your life regardless of what other people believe.

Finally, this idea that God was seeking after me and He wants to be known.  Then why does he take such pains to hide himself Isaiah 45:15?  As Bertrand Russel would say to God if he existed:
"Sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?"  So many atheists that I've met including myself were sincere believers who sought and sought after God yet never found him.  For someone who wants to be found he's damn good at hide-and-seek.

6. Does God exist? Unlike any other revelation of God, Jesus Christ is the clearest, most specific picture of God revealing himself to us.

See above rant.  Why is Jesus so special? Because "He did what people can't do. Jesus performed miracles."  Exactly!  People can't do those things, so why should we believe Jesus could or did?  Just like Muhammed, Joseph Smith, Krishna, Buddha, etc etc etc.  This idea that Jesus is unique in claiming to be God and therefore Christianity is true is not only flawed it's patently false!  The uniqueness of Christianity proves nothing because every religion is unique.

Only the Koran is the literal Word of Allah!  The Bible is just inspired by God, the Koran is actually written by him in God's language: Arabic!  Why are you not convinced already?

Transitive property of the Trinity?

Anyone remotely familiar with Christian theology has seen this diagram.

This is the typical representation of the holy Trinity. 

It is supposed to make the dogma clearer and easier to understand but it always struck me as a clarification of the contradiction.

Warning! I am about to use logic and maths on theology:

There's a wonderful little property of equality known as the Transitive Property.  If two values are each equal to a third, then the two values are equal.

if A = B and B = C

then A = C

Let us assume that by "is" in the diagram theologians mean "equals".  (note Rational Wiki does a similar exercise by interpreting "is" as "subset", but since the "is" goes both ways (i.e. God is Father and Father is God) I just skipped a step and went straight to equality).

Using standard logic, we would expect that:

if Son = God and God = Spirit

then Son = Spirit

But according to our lovely diagram, Spirit is not equal to Son.  

Is this a contradiction? I certainly think so and haven't found any explanations of how this works out.  I did however find one guy who used the transitive property to prove the Trinity.  

Anyone able to make sense of this or explain what I'm missing?  I seriously don't understand how this one gets out of the gate!

This is all just too confusing:

 

That'll do Pig...That'll do.

From the Atheist Pig:

Really sums up my most frustrating conversations.

Neil Degreasse Tyson on Scientific Progress

I recently came across this quote:

“Every great scientific truth goes through three phases. First, people deny it. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say they’ve known it all along.” —Neil Degrasse Tyson

I found it in a clip from Real Time with Bill Maher.

 

I think that it generalizes a bit too much. Everything goes through the first phase for varying lengths of time, because new knowledge is not instantaneously distributed. Also, science is a process that resists paradigm shifts until overwhelming evidence is brought forth. There are some major scientific theories,such as quantum mechanics, that did not go through phases 2 and 3. People found no conflict with the bible and quantum mechanics (some more liberal churches even took it as a method of God's divine intervention), and they certainly didn't say they knew it all along because it is so darn counter-intuitive.

The big bang theory is another matter though. The term "Big Bang" was coined to poke fun at the theory (phase 1). Many prominent Christians spoke out against the theory because it proposed a naturalistic origin to the cosmos as well as a timescale that was incompatible with their literal interpretation of the Bible (phase 2). Now, most Christians accept the Big Bang claiming that it was already fully described in Gen 1:1-2 (phase 3).

The heliocentric model is another good example. The Geocentric model was pretty good for all practical purposes, so there was pushback (phase 1). The official church position was geocentrism, citing verses such as 1 Chronicles 16:30, Ecclesiastes 1:5, Psalms 93:1 96:10 104:5, Job 28:24, and Isaiah 48:13 among others to demonstrate that the earth stood firm and did not move through the heavens culminating in the infamous trial of Galileo in 1633 (phase 2). The church did not lift its ban on heliocentric books until 1758 and did not allow them to be printed in Rome until 1822. The church finally apologized in 2000. Now people simply say they were wrong in their interpretation of the Bible all along and that it doesn't actually support Geo-centrism, although they do not now claim that the Bible supports Heliocentrism (phase 3).

The theory of evolution is currently in phase 2 and has been for roughly 150 years, though a growing number of denominations are moving into phase 3.

Those Darn Fundamentalist Atheists

http://xkcd.com/774/

"From one previous atheist to another"

So I just got back from the Midwest Freethought Conference.  It was a blast!  I met a lot of old friends and made a few new ones.  The speakers were great, and the conversation was better.

But then this happened:

My friend Josh was at a Starbucks wearing a "Born Again Atheist" t-shirt Sunday morning, when a young woman walked over and handed him this letter.  Apparently she had seen the shirt and wanted to do something about it.

Here's the transcription:

From one previous atheist to another. 

Hello Sir, 

I know you might think me approaching you was rude or not very comfortable.  But couldn't help but notice you look like a man of great wisdom & truth.  If you are curious or if you like science you should look up the protein Laminin & its purpose. 

Funny right? I am a science major this took me by surprise.  I grew up in a broken home.  My mom was an alchoholic, I has an abusive step mom & started drugs at an early age and raised my brother and sister.  Plenty of people have the same situation, I understand.  But I wonder how many people with this background & anger find a solution.  I studied philosophy my favorite was Friedrich Nietzsche.  Existentiallism -> shortened purpose for existence.  That we control how our life to be.  I was determined to find my destiny.  I searched.  I hated God so that wasn't an option at the time I was an atheist you could say.  I continued to

Off to the Midwest Freethought Conference

Tomorrow I'm leaving early with a bunch of friends from S.A.A.F.E. (Skeptics Agnostics Atheists Freethinkers and Empiricists) for the Midwest Freethought Conference.

I'm really looking forward to it and hope to meet new people like Hemant Mehta and old friends like Jerry DeWitt and PZ.