The Benefits of being an Atheist

For the first time in this blog's history, I have a guest article. Reference can be found at the bottom of the post. Enjoy.

Benefits of Being an Atheist

More often than not as an atheist, people want to pry into your reasoning and motivation for making such a choice. Reason and logic are the glue that holds atheists together, so a challenging discussion is always welcome. However, when the argument becomes heated, religious adherents often fall back on faith and the notion that their “plan” will one day become evident. This idea may offer comfort, but there are benefits of having an atheist worldview as well.

Adaptability

While religious people hold hard and fast to outmoded beliefs, atheists learn to adapt to change and don’t have to resist the inevitable. Evolution, be it societal or otherwise, will continue to push forward whether you like it or not. Social Darwinism is alive and well, and those who aren’t ready to change will soon find themselves left in the dust.

Healthy Realism

Realism is another notch in the atheist’s belt. Being able to look at things through a paradigm developed through authentic experience and education enables the atheist to accept things that are true and real without fear of repercussions in the religious context. When new discoveries or knowledge become available, atheists can look at the facts and make judgements based on reason and logic.

Skepticism

Questioning social and religious mores is another thing that atheists do quite often. Rather than blindly accepting what is given to them, atheist perform their due diligence and judge things based on their merit, not on the source of information. If the same source seems to be giving consistently inaccurate information, however, then the credibility of that source can be judged accordingly.

Education

Many atheists seem to know more about religion than religious adherents. That said, atheists can read religious texts dispassionately and take in the information to develop logical and reasonable arguments to the contrary. Spending time learning about what the other side thinks, feels, and believes can empower you to make informed arguments if need be without attachment.

Freedom

Ultimately, atheists experience true freedom. Being able to evaluate information and make choices without doing them because of an arbitrary belief system is one of the most empowering things that you can do. Additionally, being able to think and act without fear of retribution by an omnipotent being enables you to feel true freedom.

This post was contributed by Courtney Phillips, who writes about the cheapest MBA. She welcomes your feedback at CourtneyPhillips80 at gmail.com

Why is Darwin nearly extinct in textbooks?

From the website of the University of Salford, where I'm currently studying as an exchange student.

Why is Darwin nearly extinct in textbooks?

Friday, 6 February 2009

Charles Darwin is missing from many textbooks.

As Charles Darwin's 200th birthday approaches, new research from the University of Salford has identified a decline in references to the pioneering scientist in A level textbooks - despite the continuing presence of creationist theory.

Dr Paul Rees, a lecturer in biology and former A level teacher, examined textbooks and syllabuses used in the UK since the sixties, and found that textbooks currently in use sometimes completely fail to mention Darwin, and often only deal very sketchily with the theory of evolution.

On the other hand, creationism gets several references in current textbooks, including Hall et al 2006 which says the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is a minority view among the people of the world.

Dr Rees, who teaches in the School of Environment & Life Sciences said: "While the historical context of important theories, and the names of their proponents, are commonplace in textbooks written for some other subjects, such as psychology, in biology textbooks Darwin is sometimes not deemed important enough to mention.

"If people are giving space to nonsense like creationism, then they should certainly be mentioning the most important figure in our understanding of the natural world.

"Role models and icons are important to help young people become inspired by science. It's a shame that biology examiners and therefore textbooks don't always recognise this."

Dr Rees' research was first published in the journal School Science Review.

Nature vs. Nurture, round 295324329563234...

I had written a bit more than four or five long paragraphs as my personal reaction to an article I've just read on the latest issue of New Scientist but I was forced to delete everything as it turned out to be as awful and rambling a piece of writing as the article itself. I'm not usually that picky about it, but the more I read it, the more I think it is a confusing article, mixing - perhaps intentionally - things up.

It goes from claiming we have an inborn inclination to believe in the metaphysical to also claiming that there are no adaptive advantages in religion and belief. Unfortunately it forgets to explain how abstract beliefs have "permeated every human society" and survived this long without having been selected for together with their social construct-counterparts, religions. If Paul Bloom and Scott Atran's claim is really that belief in the supernatural is a natural trait resulting from "unique cognitive capacities that have made us so successful as a species" which also "work together to create a tendency for supernatural thinking," but that "a belief in life after death, for example, is hardly compatible with surviving in the here-and-now and propagating your genes," I'd love to see them try and explain how a trait can survive this long and being this pervasive without having been selected for. However hurtful it might be to me as an atheist to admit such a thing, religion does have its odd evolutionary advantages, and that's the only reason why faith still plagues our world today. For one, most religions have some sort of prohibition or regulation concerning self-inflicted death. Sure, the occasional religion will go as far as to reward death under certain circumstances, but luckily enough such strict religious observance is still limited in rate. Furthermore, it is fairly obvious that religions guarantee social cohesion amongst those who share a common belief, increasing stability and resulting in a clear evolutionary advantage. Also, has Scott Atran never heard the tenet "be fruitful and multiply"? Many religious regulations - ban on adultery and even religious tenets being the basis for civil and penal codes - no matter how narrow-minded in today's social context, are indeed aimed at ensuring some degree of stability within families, so as to make sure that the offspring can be raised relatively safely. Makes one wonder where Scott Atran found his degree. Cereal box? Plus, "unique cognitive capacities" must overlie neurological - and hence at least party genetic - elements. Unless, of course, we posit the existence of an unproven mind or soul and claim that goddidit.

However, following a long tradition of similar - and equally (self-)contradicting - articles, this one just can't but bring children under the spotlight once more. Apparently:

There is plenty of evidence that thinking about disembodied minds comes naturally. People readily form relationships with non-existing others: roughly half of all 4-year-olds have had an imaginary friend, and adults often form and maintain relationships with dead relatives, fictional characters and fantasy partners.

By any chance, am I the only one the two statements above give the creeps to? I, for one, have never had an imaginary friend - except for during the few years I was raised as a church goer and assumed god was real because everyone else around me did. And by all means I certainly don't have any sort of relationship with dead relatives of mine, fictional characters or fantasy partners (the odd fantasy about this or that Hollywood start doesn't count...). What the article describes - except for the part concerning kids' imaginary friends, a fairly common phenomenon and relatively harmless in most cases - are clear signs of schizophrenia.

The following, obvious step in the article is to give an appearance of scientificity to the whole thing by quoting some experiment allegedly proving that children are naturally prone to building a teleological view of the world. Yeah, I'm talking about Deborah Kelemen and her experiments. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Deborah Kelemen is a psychologist working at the Child Cognition Laboratory at Boston University. According to the author of the article:

When Deborah Kelemen [...] asked 7 and 8-year-old children questions about inanimate objects and animals, she found that most believed they were created for a specific purpose. Pointy rocks are there for animals to scratch themselves on. Birds exist "to make nice music," while rivers exist so boats have something to float on.

However, reality is a tad different. Quoting from one of Kelemen's publications:

Analyses of the individual tasks to this point can be summarized as follows: Across age groups, children’s clearest intuitions about origins occurred with artifacts and natural events, with both purpose and design seen as highly relevant to explaining artifacts (which children view as humanmade) but somewhat irrelevant to explaining natural events (which children view as having physical–causal antecedents).
Children’s explanations for animals and nonliving natural objects fall somewhere between these poles but although Year 2 and Year 5 children had an equivalently strong tendency to generate artifact-like teleofunctional ideas when answering open-ended origins questions about animals and natural objects, it was younger children who showed more pronounced teleofunctional and intelligent design intuitions in closed-ended tasks. For example, Year 2 children were more likely to actively endorse teleofunctional over physical causal accounts when explaining natural objects and were more likely to endorse intelligent design rather than nondesign when explaining animals.
In the case of Year 5 children, the shift from being likely to generate teleofunctional explanations of animals and natural objects in an open-ended task, to then becoming ambivalent or eschewing them in the closed-ended origins-teleology task, potentially reflects children’s increasing scientific knowledge base—physical–causal response options probably triggered children’s latent knowledge of popular scientific explanations that they have not yet mastered enough to generate for themselves. There is some evidence, then, that older children’s reasoning undergoes some form of transition around 9 to 10 years of age as they increasingly retain and elaborate physical–causal explanations that are alternatives to teleofunctional and design explanations of the biological and nonbiological natural world.

I apologise for the long quote, but it was necessary. For those who can't be bothered to read through it all, I'll sum it up for you. What Kelemen is saying is that - surprise surprise - kids grow up. Yep. Two-year-olds are more likely than five-year-olds - and five-year-olds more likely than nine or ten-year-olds - to resort to teleofunctional arguments to explain the biological and non-biological natural world - e.g. birds exist to make nice music and they were created by god, rain exists so that we can have water and plants can grow and rain is sent by god. That's it. The oh so revolutionary discovery made by Deborah Kelemen is that as kids grow up and acquire deeper scientific knowledge of how the physical, natural world works they will progressively leave teleological - and theological - arguments behind unless imprinted to do so by their social environment (e.g. family, school, community).

Then the article "leaves them kids alone" to focus on adults and how, supposedly, they find it overwhelmingly difficult or even impossible to jettison their religious, superstitious beliefs and are bound to fall back into them whenever difficulties strike. Now, while that might be true of some, even many, people, that in no way means that religious belief is inborn, for the reasons I have just explained. It simply means that childhood imprinting might be harder to overcome for some than it is for others, something I can totally agree with. Harder but by no means impossible. Therefore, the claim that "god isn't going away, and that atheism will always be a hard sell. Religious belief is the 'path of least resistence' [...] while disbelief requires effort," is bollocks, as proven by the overwhelming number of atheists who tread happily though their godless existence. I'm one of them. Atheism was never a "hard sell" to me, rather the obvious solution to the cognitive dissonance that learning more about the world had caused in me as it conflicted with my previous upbringing. Disbelief requires no effort, only curiosity and a bit of opennes.

Finalmente ateobus

Direttamente dal sito dell'UAAR.

Genova, gli ateobus UAAR ‘tornano’ in circolazione

Avrebbero dovuto sfilare per la città dicendo che Dio non esiste, ma sono stati bloccati dalla concessionaria degli spazi pubblicitari che li trovava lesivi delle convinzioni religiose. Oggi gli ateobus hanno ottenuto il semaforo verde per un nuovo slogan e si preparano a dare ai genovesi due notizie allegre: “La buona notizia è che in Italia ci sono milioni di atei. Quella ottima è che credono nella libertà di espressione”.
«Dopo tutto l’inatteso bailamme per i vecchi ateobus, - spiega Raffaele Càrcano, segretario generale dell’Uaar - volevamo lanciare un altro messaggio: volevamo dire che, tra gli italiani, uno su sette è ateo o agnostico, anche se politici, media e aziende municipalizzate non ne tengono conto. La nostra è una campagna per la loro visibilità, perché più visibilità significa meno discriminazione e più rispetto». La IGP Decaux, la concessionaria degli spazi pubblicitari della società di trasporti genovese, ha dato il via libera al nuovo slogan, al posto del prece-dente: “La cattiva notizia è che Dio non esiste. Quella buona è che non ne hai bisogno”.
Intanto la Uaar non ha desistito con il vecchio slogan, anzi. Il gruppo Facebook che sostiene gli ateobus ha già 4000 sostenitori e sono stati raccolti 23 000 euro di donazioni per metterli in circolazione in altre città. «Non desistiamo perché è in gioco la libertà di espressione: – insiste Carcano – dobbiamo ribadire che, per la nostra Costituzione, credenti e non credenti hanno gli stessi diritti, compreso quello di dire “Dio c’è” o “Dio non c’è”».

Comunicato stampa Uaar

L’Uaar ha diffuso questo comunicato perché la notizia, a sua insaputa, era già trapelata sulla stampa. Ne ha infatti dato notizia questa mattina Repubblica, nella cronaca di Genova, e la notizia è stata prontamente ripresa dal Secolo XIX e dall’ANSA.

Nota tecnica: l’UAAR ha deciso di parlare di “un italiano su sette” in base ai dati forniti dall’ultimo rapporto sulla libertà religiosa redatto dal Dipartimento di Stato Americano, non certo sospettabile di simpatie nei confronti dell’ateismo e dell’agnosticismo. Vi si può infatti leggere che “the most recent data indicate that approximately 14 percent of the population identifies itself as either atheist or agnostic“.

Che il dibattito abbia inizio. A quanto pare la comunità di atei e agnostici sullo stesso sito dell'UAAR sembra essere piuttosto divisa nelle sue reazioni al nuovo slogan. C'è chi ritiene che si tratti di un passo indietro, di una pubblica "calata di braghe," e chi invece sostiene si tratti di una seplice risposta "al nuovo fronte" apertosi in Italia in seguito al primo slogan, bocciato dalla IGP Decaux. Personalmente non penso si tratti di un passo indietro o di un compromesso al ribasso da parte dell'UAAR, che, dal canto suo, ha comunque ottenuto una notevole copertura mediatica nonostante la bocciatura del primo slogan. E tutti sappiamo quanto sia difficile ottenere copertura mediatica in un paese come l'Italia.

Quindi l'UAAR - e con l'associazione anche l'intera comunità di atei e agnostici italiani, membri o meno - ha dovuto e deve chiedersi se sia più utile perseguire la via della provocazione su un tema "teorico" quale l'esistenza di una divinità o mostrare un po' di pragmatismo e sfruttare questa occasione per affermare un'altra realtà di fatto con potenziali benefici sociali per tutti i non-credenti. Quello che l'UAAR sta dicendo al paese con questo nuovo slogan è che gli atei esistono e sono tanti, e che essere atei non è un disonore. Se davvero si tratta di una guerra, sfruttare le circostanze piuttosto che ostinarsi a perseguire una strada senza via d'uscita non significa calare le braghe, significa mostrare una notevole superiorità e adattabilità. Darwin sarebbe orgoglioso.

Ancora ateobus.

Oggi ho ricevuto una e-mail di risposta dalla IGPDecaux, risposta che non avrebbe potuto essere più insignificante.

Buongiorno

con riferimento alla Sua richiesta d'informazioni sulla campagna UAAR pervenutami via mail, precisiamo quanto segue.

Abbiamo ritenuto di non poter esporre il messaggio cosi come si presentava sul bozzetto inviatoci dall'agenzia, dato il combinato disposto dell'articolo 10 e 46 del Codice di Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria ( il codice è scaricabile all'indirizzo: www.iap.it/it/codice.htm)

Ricordiamo che il Codice di Autodiscilplina Pubblicitaria è giunto alla 44° edizione ( la prima risale al 1966 ) ed è adottato da tutte le concessionarie e da tutti i mezzi pubblicitari italiani.

Cordiali saluti

Benedetta Arlati

Direzione Marketing - Responsabile Comunicazione e Immagine

tel. +39 02 62498294

fax. +39 02 6599037

www.igpdecaux.it

IGPDecaux S.p.A.

Piazza Cavour, 1 - 20121 Milano

Punto primo, io non ho mai richiesto informazioni, bensì ho scritto una e-mail di protesta. Punto secondo, anche se avessi richiesto informazioni, tale e-mail di risposta non riporta nulla che i precedenti comunicati stampa non contenessero già. Punto terzo, il fatto che il Codice di Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria abbia una lunga tradizione e venga adottato da tutte le concessionarie di pubblicità non rende la sua applicazione nel caso della campagna UAAR meno ingiusta.

In sostanza, in questo momento sono ancora più arrabbiato come persona e come cittadino. Perché sembra sempre che certa gente cerchi disperatamente di sotterrare le cagate che fa, invece di porvi rimedio?

Ateobus e IGPDecaux

Una piccola nota tecnica per chi fosse interessato a intervenire sulla vicenda degli spazi pubblicitari negati all'UAAR dalla società che li gestisce, la IGPDecaux. Invito tutti gli utenti con un account Facebook a iscriversi al gruppo relativo alla campagna. Invito inoltre tutti a inviare e-mail di protesta alla responsabile relazioni con il pubblico della società che ha deciso di uccidere la libertà di espressione di una minoranza già abbastanza discriminata in Italia. L'indirizzo è benedetta.arlati@igpdecaux.it

Autobus "atei" finalmente anche in terra italica...o forse no.

Ci sono momenti particolarmente importanti che semplicemente richiedono un nuovo post sul blog, non importa quanto sia impegnato con saggi da scrivere ed esami da sostenere. Purtroppo la notizia qui in Inghilterra, dove mi trovo al momento, mi è giunta con lieve ritardo ma colgo ugualmente l'occasione per congratularmi con l'UAAR per il coraggio dimostrato nel dar vita alla campagna sociale in questione e per esprimere il mio cordoglio per il (rinnovato) trapasso della libertà di espressione in Italia.

Pare infatti che non avremo, almeno per ora, "ateobus" a Genova o in altre città italiane. Questo perché la IGPDecaux, società che gestisce gli spazi publicitari sugli autobus in questione ha negato all'UAAR la libertà di parola e agli italiani la libertà di pensiero, senza dubbio sotto forti pressioni da parte della curia genovese. Riportando dal sito dell'UAAR:

La concessionaria di pubblicità IGPDecaux ha comunicato le motivazioni alla base della decisione di non accettare la pubblicità degli autobus UAAR “in base al combinato disposto dell’articolo 10 e 46 del Codice di Autodisciplina Pubblicitaria“.

Tale Codice recita:
Art. 10 – Convinzioni morali, civili, religiose e dignità della persona
La comunicazione commerciale non deve offendere le convinzioni morali, civili e religiose dei cittadini. Essa deve rispettare la dignità della persona umana in tutte le sue forme ed espressioni.
Art. 46 – Appelli al pubblico
È soggetto alle norme del presente Codice qualunque messaggio volto a sensibilizzare il pubblico su temi di interesse sociale, anche specifici, o che sollecita, direttamente o indirettamente, il volontario apporto di contribuzioni di qualsiasi natura, finalizzate al raggiungimento di obiettivi di carattere sociale.
Tali messaggi devono riportare l’identità dell’autore e del beneficiario della richiesta, nonché l’obiettivo sociale che si intende raggiungere.
I promotori di detti messaggi possono esprimere liberamente le proprie opinioni sul tema trattato, ma deve risultare chiaramente che trattasi di opinioni dei medesimi promotori e non di fatti accertati.
Per contro i messaggi non devono:
sfruttare indebitamente la miseria umana nuocendo alla dignità della persona, né ricorrere a richiami scioccanti tali da ingenerare ingiustificatamente allarmismi, sentimenti di paura o di grave turbamento;
colpevolizzare o addossare responsabilità a coloro che non intendano aderire all’appello;
presentare in modo esagerato il grado o la natura del problema sociale per il quale l’appello viene rivolto;
sovrastimare lo specifico o potenziale valore del contributo all’iniziativa;
sollecitare i minori ad offerte di denaro.
Le presenti disposizioni si applicano anche alla comunicazione commerciale che contenga riferimenti a cause sociali.

Adesso, che l'Art. 10 non sia applicabile alla campagna UAAR lo capirebbe anche un bambino di sei, in quanto i messaggi sociali proposti dall'associazione non includevano alcun invito ad iscriversi alla stessa o a contribuire economicamente ad essa. Per quanto riguarda l'Art. 46, non posso che sperare che tutte le emittenti televisive comincino ad applicare un simile codice di comportamento per quanto riguarda gli spot pubblicitari che mandano in onda. In quel modo potremmo finalmente dire addio alle odiate pubblicità sull'8x1000 all'ugualmente odiata Chiesa Cattolica, in quanto essi senza dubbio sfruttano "indebitamente la miseria umana nuocendo alla dignità della persona" e sovrastimano "lo specifico o potenziale valore del contributo all’iniziativa."

Inoltre posso dire di conoscere personalmente persone che senza dubbio hanno sentito, in innumerevoli occasioni, le loro "convinzioni morali, civili, religiose e dignità della persona" polverizzate da esempi di comunicazione commerciale senza dubbio discutibili in gusto e intento. Tali pubblicità sono tuttora visibili su mezzi pubblici presenti sull'intero territorio nazionale. Non mi sento neanche obbligato a riportare esemi specifici. Scegliete una pubblicità a caso e state pur certi che almeno una volta quella pubblicità avrà insultato qualcuno.

E che rispondere a coloro che ritengono la campagna dell'UAAR come "l'ultima delle provocazioni contro la Chiesa Cattolica?" Piuttosto triste che i media debbano dare anche in questa occasione un tale esempio di inveterato servilismo nei confronti di una monarchia assoluta, di uno stato straniero a cui permettiamo di interferire con la vita politica e sociale italiana. Esattamente quale parte del testo pubblicitario proposto dall'UAAR:

«La cattiva notizia è che Dio non esiste. Quella buona, è che non ne hai bisogno»

faceva menzione della Chiesa Cattolica? Il fatto che l'Italia sia un paese a maggioranza cattolica fa necessariamente di ogni attacco logico, filosofico, scientifico e puramente razionale contro la semplice nozione di un essere supremo un attacco contro la Chiesa Cattolica? O si tratta più semplicemente di quello, di una critica alla pura idea di dio e ai devastanti effetti che essa ha avuto nella storia umana e nel nostro presente, non solo a livello globale ma anche a livello strettamente individuale? Consiglierei al pontefice e al suo club un po' di sana modestia - lo ammetto, piuttosto difficile aspettarsene da coloro che hanno la pretesa di essere rappresentanti in terra di una divinità la cui esistenza non è mai stata provata nonostante millenni di tentativi.

C'è da dire che forse l'UAAR il suo risultato lo ha raggiunto ugualmente e che tutta l'attenzione mediatica a livello nazionale potrebbe aiutare la giusta causa dell'incredulità e dello scetticismo molto più di quanto un paio di cartelloni nel capoluogo ligure avrebbero potuto fare. Resta tuttavia il fatto che l'Italia non potrà mai e poi mai considerarsi un paese moderno finché la libertà d'espressione continuerà ad essere repressa dalla paura della maggioranza dominante di contemplare la possibilità che si stia sbagliando.

Children ain't born believers.

I've been wanting to post a blog entry on this for quite a while but university's been awfully exhausting lately and I haven't had a chance to. A few days ago I stumbled upon an article on the subject and I've decided to actually chip in my two cents on the topic now that I have a few minutes to spare. There you go, the original article on the Telegraph website. It is a few weeks old, but as I've said I haven't had too much time on my hands lately.

For those who can't be bothered to read the article, it goes on about Dr Justin L. Barrett's "research" and bold statements. Dr Barrett - formally known as a psychologist and cognitive scientist, but de facto a Christian apologist - claims that, according to psychological experiments carried out on children, kids seem to possess an innate tendency to identify purpose or meaning in things. True. What is ignored in this reasoning, though, is the why. Barrett obviously needed to assume that such a tendency be actually a yearning for divine presence in our lives, but there is absolutely nothing suggesting any such thing. What kids do is form a basic assumption, a framework, on which to base their development. Dr Barrett, it seems, has studied kids desperately trying to find in them proof that his own personal belief was worth something but has never bothered to talk to kids and understand them. Anyone who has ever had any sort of contact with a young child will be familiar with that exciting - albeit sometimes annoying - phase kids start going through at about three to four years of age. The "why" phase. Their brain goes "look at that! There HAS to be a reason why that thing is like that! Let's ask mum!" That's really all the mystery there is to it. It's a phase, one kids slowly grow out of as they acquire more factual knowledge of the world. Barrett's assumption is that the natural world and man-made objects will innately appear as different to children and that couldn't be any more wrong. Quite the opposite. Their tendency to, at first, consider the natural world as equal to common objects created by man - therefore as having a first cause - is physiological and is exactly what pushes them to enquire about it, stomping parents with questions and absorbing notions where available. They have no reason to assume there is any difference between the universe and a telephone because they don't know any better - yet. It's an autocatalytic reaction and it's part of children's development. Hardly proof of a divine.

He also goes on to say that such a tendency inevitably leads kids to develop a belief in a superior, intelligent entity that imbued everything that exists with a purpose. Wrong. If anything, kids' curiosity is the essence of scepticism. Kids believe in Santa Claus. Kids believe in the Tooth Fairy. Kids believe in what they are exposed to - until they start getting dangerously curious - but kids do not develop complex theologies unless imprinted to adopt one first.

Ultimately, what the experiments have actually proved is that children possess:

• a certain notion of causality, needed to make sense of this new, big, confusing world in our early developmental stages, when we lack actual knowledge.
• an impressive creativity.
  

Nothing more.

You owe me, bitch!

Free Software explained by Stephen Fry

Atheism 101 FAQ pt. 8

Q: How do we account for the historical Person of Jesus Christ? He has made such an impact upon history that we even measure our calendar by Him. 2000 years on and millions still follow Him.

A: Since the previous FAQ proved to be rather ridiculous, I've decided to answer two in a day and get this farce over with. Now, the historicity of Jesus. There's no such thing. Not a shred of evidence outside the Christian writings, and self-reference hardly counts as evidence. The theory of Jesus as a historical figure relies almost entirely on the four gospels, anonymous texts (the names of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were added to the titles - or, rather, the titles themselves were added - only around 180 CE, out of thin air) supposedly based on older texts which, will you look at that, are lost, nowhere to be found. What all of this means is that:

The almighty god of the Judeo-Christian tradition sent his own son - that is, himself - to save mankind from a ruling he himself had issued and, in so doing, he had to sacrifice himself to himself. In the process, though, he forgot to write down anything of his own, no revelations and no prophecies, trusting oral communication to be enough. And now we have a canon Bible, with four gospels said to be an accurate report of the deeds and words of Jesus and his apostles but whose earliest versions available are written in Koine Greek - whereas the languages of the alleged Jesus and his apostles had to be Aramaic - and which are anonymous as well as undated. That is basically to say that the belief of all Christians around the world is based on secondary documents, translations - if they actually are translations of previous texts - whose source texts are not available for quality assessment because, apparently, this almighty god did not care enough about the original manuscripts to prevent them from being lost or destroyed. Not only that, but these translations - although officially recounting the same events - also contradict each other more often than would be acceptable even for a historical document by a human, fallible, mortal author. One example, but many others could be made, is that of the description of Jesus' lineage. The authors of the gospels trace Jesus' genealogy to the house of David through Joseph, Jesus' human father. As they do this they contradict each other, which is difficult to imagine if said authors had actually been contemporaries of Jesus. Matthew says Jesus descended from the house of David through Solomon, whereas according to Luke it was through Nathan. Then Luke tells us that the name of Joseph's father was Heli whereas Matthew says it was Jacob. Then again, all attempts to trace Jesus' genealogy back through the house of David through Joseph are rather silly, if Jospeh really wasn't Jesus' biological father as the Bible would have us believe. All these incongruences are difficult to justify and the only explanation is that the authors of the gospels were not really Aramaic-speaking contemporaries of Jesus and that the Greek "translations" we have are actually the originals, written by later authors to support the Jesus myth.

It is then easy to see how using texts inherent to the very Christian faith in order to prove Jesus' historicity is a clumsy choice at best. Unfortunately for Christian apologetics, non-Christian sources are not all too useful either, and actually make the situation even worse for proponents of an historical Jesus. Sometimes Christians like to claim there to be an impressive amount of first-hand historical evidence of the existence of Jesus. Unfortunately, there is not a single document dating back to the alleged Jesus' lifetime, or immediately after, and bearing witness to the man's deeds and words. Not from Josephus, a Romano-Jewish historian contemporary of the alleged Jesus, outside of a later, Christian interpolation recognised as such even by prominent apologetics. Not from a contemporary and rival historian of Josephus, Justus of Tiberias, who, in the words of Photius, 9th-century Patriarch of Constantinople, "makes not one mention of Jesus, of what happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did." Not from anyone else. There is an impressive lack of whatever historical reference to a Jesus for centuries - and for decades even as far as Christian writings go - after his alleged lifetime and death. It's as if he had been forgotten and rediscovered by historians who, as a result of tradition and religious compliance, were obliged to take his existence for granted, as is still the case. Well, it's about time we destroyed the myth of a general consensus in the scholarly community.

Atheism 101 FAQ pt. 7

Q: How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Jesus Christ?

A: How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with the Buddha? How about those whose life has been changed for the better by abandoning metaphysical belief entirely? Seriously, do you really think this an actual argument? I think I've said enough already.

Atheism 101 FAQ pt. 6

Q: Where does all the matter in the universe come from?

A: Well, this is easy. We don't know. There are different theories but unfortunately we cannot test them as we can't travel back to the moment of the Big Bang or to the time before the Big Bang, given that there was most likely no "where" and "when" prior to the Big Bang itself. The general consensus is that the Big Bang did not happen inside our universe, but that it created it, giving birth to space - and consequently time - itself. Basically, asking what was before the Big Bang is not only irrelevant but also makes little sense, as there was no before and the knowledge of it would in no way mutilate the power of the theory to explain how the universe came to be or the power of all physical theories to describe how it currently works. Still, if we insist on asking this question, then we should assume an agnostic stance on the origin of the universe while waiting for further discoveries - which, of course, is not the same as to say that we should consider an almighty creator as a possibility.

It's funny. Whenever arguments against the existence of god are given - and no matter how convincing they are - the Creationist reaction is to call everyone arrogant, claiming we should define ourselves at least agnostic about it. But then, when the scientific community admits not to have all the answers yet and that we should not jump to conclusions while waiting for further study to be carried out, the Creationists are the first to claim that gap for themselves and their deity, whatever it may be. All of a sudden, science's "dunno" becomes in their eyes an admission to ignorance and powerlessness. Double standards only make the Creationists out there laughable, I think.

Ultimately, Creationism will never be an answer as it raises more questions than it answers even assuming, as some Creationists do, that the Big Bang actually happened but that god was behind it. Where was god before the Big Bang? Where is he now? Who created god in the first place? Were the materials used by god to create the universe also created ex nihilo? How is that possible if a singularity arising from nothing is not possible either? Creationism is not scientific and will never be. The notion of god's existence is not falsifiable and requires the existence of a metaphysical power that cannot be tolerated by natural laws unless we strip it of its omniscient and almighty side. God is not the answer to the question.

Atheism 101 FAQ pt. 5

Q: What about the evidence of design in all of creation? It is obvious that anything that is designed has to have an intelligent creator. For example, a computer never came about by mere accident, but had to have been thought out and planned by an intelligent designer. It is the same with creation, and more so, as the natural world is far more complicated than anything humanity can create.

A: Enough with the Watchmaker analogy, already. It was rejected by scientists and liberal theologians alike already in the late 19th century, there was absolutely no need to resuscitate this crap. But still, Creationists did and here we are, in 2008, still fighting the same absurdities William Paley had come up with in 1802. The only difference being that he did not have the means to know how foolish his argument was and that, indeed, considering the knowledge of the day it probably also made sense. Anyway, let's go over this one more time.

The Argument from Design goes like this. Suppose you're walking on the beach and all of a sudden you see a watch being washed ashore. You pick it up and the first thing you think, apparently, is "how cool is that. This watch and its inner functioning are so complex that it surely must have been designed by a great mind." For this reason, Creationists think, the universe and its incredible complexity and order must have been the creation of a Creator.

Wrong. I'm not sure exactly how many rebuttals to this arguments have been proposed throughout history, but I think I know at least a few.

I) A watch is complex.
II) A watch was designed and created by a watchmaker.
III) The universe is complex.
IV) The universe was therefore designed and created.

• The consequence does not follow from the premises. The fact that watches and the universe share characteristic X, which is complexity, does not imply that they will also share characteristic Z, having been created. Furthermore, watches and the universe do not share characteristic Y, that is being orderly, as will be shown later on. Leaves and money bills are complex cellulose structures, yet money bills do not grow on trees, no matter how strongly some people wish they did.
  

• A watchmaker is bound to create watches from pre-existing materials, whereas the Creationists' god is supposed to have created the universe ex nihilo. The analogy, as it is, doesn't stand on its own, unless we assume there was a creator who created the materials the other creator worked on to build the universe, or that one creator did both things.

• But even then, if so complex a universe just had to be created by a god, then so complex a mind that it could, in its turn, create such complexity had to be created as well. If we assume, as Creationists always do, that their god requires no first cause and that it has simply always been, then there is no reason not to assume that the universe and its complexity have always existed, in one form or another, and that they require no first cause. Creationists, from the height of their wisdom, have never been able to address this point.

• Also, the watchmaker from the analogy most likely had a father. Most likely he also had a grandfather, a great-grandfather, a great-great-grandfather and so on. Assuming that at least a few of these men had been watchmakers within their lifetime, they had probably learnt the skills from someone and then passed on the knowledge to the following generations. With each passing generation, however, the knowledge was worked upon, expanded, slightly modified with a pace equal to that of technological evolution, improving materials, tools and techniques. All this, if anything, resembles much more Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, unless we assume that the Creationist god had a nearly endless series of gods coming before him, passing the noble art of universe-making down to each generation, improving it all the time.

• All this, however, would make the Creationists' current god only a newcomer and a sucky one at that. I contend that the nature of the universe is far from being as orderedly complex as Creationists like to assume. This god wouldn't pass Engineering or Architecture 101 in any decent university. As far as universes go, this one is a real mess. There was a time even scientists believed our universe to be not only incredibly complex but also incredibly orderly, but then Einstein came along and started proving to us that we were sorely mistaken. There is absolutely nothing designed in our chaotic and violent universe. Think of Einstein's relativity. What omniscient and almighty creator would create a universe in which time is dilated by high gravitational potential? What god would disseminate his creation with exploding stars, black holes - placing one at the centre of most galaxies -, bathe everything in a deadly dose of ionizing radiation, then pick a random pale blue dot in an insignificant corner of one of the countless galaxies of this universe and then populate it with such an astounding number of species including us, not bothering to correct flaws that an eight-grader could pinpoint? Why create genetic mutations and deadly viruses and bacteria? And why make us, who are supposed to be god's greatest creation, susceptible to all this? Why make our bodies so weak and imperfect? Was god simply unable to create something better or unwilling to create something better? Sorry, but Epicurus nailed it a long time ago.

I could go on like this for a little longer, but I'm honestly growing tired. I'll leave it at that, so that everyone can draw personal conclusions.