Religion is Different

I am sure many atheists that like to debate theology (like me) have been called intolerant because they openly criticise religion. People are as defensive about religion as they are about race, gender or place of birth. I contest this. You cannot choose any of those things so questioning them would be stupid. But you can chose religion so it makes seance to question it.

If I said I was a communist. People would question my reasons, and rightly so, communism has never been applied correctly so being a communist is stupid. If I said I was a monist people would question it, and rightly so. The idea that I am the only person in existence calls into question how important I consider other people. But if I say I'm Jewish, no one will question it. Even if they are an atheist, a Christian, a Muslim or a Hindu, even if their who outlook on religion and the life was different from Judaism they would think questioning it would be intolerant.

Another place were religion gets a special place as opposed to other world views is with children. Most children are automatically viewed as being part of the same religion as there parents. Even children who are too young to understand how the world works are automatically branded as being Muslim, Jewish or some other religion. If I were a communist my child wouldn’t be considered a commonest.

Now I'm not saying go around and start questioning peoples religion on the street. But, if you are debating theology or in some other argument don't be afraid of pointing out flaws in there argument just because you will be declared intolerant.


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Being Moral

          A few days ago I was talking to an atheist. He was probably what you would call a moderate atheist. He said he didn’t believe in god but he did believe that organised religion can make you a better person, I just smiled and nodded. But I disagree strongly to my fellow atheists statement that organised religion can teach us morals.

          My first argument is that ALL organised religion requires people to reject there logical senses. It tells them not to ask questions and just accept there answer about how the world works, about how the universe was created and about how we should behave. It asks that you believe in unconditionally and that you never question it.

          Organised religion also rejects all progress. When I say all I mean ALL. Every great freedom that we hold dear today has been directly opposed by organised religion. When the Americans gave freedom of speech and religion to all it was opposed by millions with biblical and church support. When Lincoln freed the slaves millions opposed him with biblical and church support. When woman were getting the right to vote millions opposed it with biblical and church support. Even today millions oppose gay marriage and find biblical and church support.

          When a state attempts to be guided by religion it always ends badly. When states are ran by sharia law they oppress woman, homosexuals, atheists, people of different religion and in some cases people of a different race. When the western world was under religious control there was murder war and intolerance on a scale that we have not seen since.

          Most of the time I get the argument that it makes individual people more moral even though it can effect masses negativity. I disagree with this. When people think only of religious they hurt other people. Jerusalem is the centre of the Abrahamic religions, it is regarded as the holy land by most the world, however there are large amounts of hate, intolerance and violence present every day. This place should be about peace, love and forgiveness.

          Every day people hurt, attack and kill for religion. And they think that they are doing the right thing. Tell me, is it really a force for good?  

Being open minded

          This will be short but it will still have a good point

          I am tired of having arguments with religious people who start to lose than call the line “be more open minded.” I say that atheists are actually more open minded and religious people are actually more closed minded.

          I will start with religious people. How many religious people will admit that they could be wrong, that there might not be a god. How often do you see a religious person admit that the bible or Koran could be wrong. The fact of the matter is that religion requires someone to close there mind to believe in.

          Now as for atheists. I say that we are more open minded than religious people! The atheist position is that there is not enough evidence for us to believe in god. If you can give me evidence that proves gods existence I will gladly change my views to believe in it.

          So are you open minded?

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Come on Christianity, you can do better!

          Ok after I compiled a list on why Islam is doing a bad job at converting people I was requested to do one on why Christianity is currently failing at converting people. There are a few reasons. 1 is because they go after less than fit people, 2 because they have a parent child view towards you, 3 because most Christians haven’t even read there bible so they simply cant keep up with an atheist in a theological debate, 4 the sheer number of Christian variations And probably the biggest one of all is the inconsistencies between the message you preach and the one in your holy book and the one you practice. So lets get started shall we

          Okay, this may be personal but most the time when Christian missionaries attempt to recruit people into there religion they don't go after people that can question or people that are of sound mind. They go after children, to young to make up there own minds, they go into prisons and give people hope that they may one day be a “good” person but only through god, they go to AA meetings, they go to third world countries were people are to hungry to think straight. To any atheist this is completely immoral and it drops the credibility of those missionaries so much in our eyes.

          When the every day Christians attempts to convert you, they don’t offer things like the missionaries do, they instead come from a view were they think they are right and they have to 'teach' us. As such they talk down to atheists and get angry when atheists talk back to them. They take the role of a spiritual parent and that really gets under peoples skin.

          Next up is the sheer lack of information the average Christian has about there holy book. Only something like 10% of Christians actually read the bible. A resent study in the US said that atheists and agnostics actually knew more about the bible than the average Christian. This is because when most people are seriously considering becoming an atheist. They read the bible, they read it than decide its crap. So don't assume we are just ignorant of what's in that book.

         There are something like 200 different variations of Christianity. 200 ways of interpreting the same damn book, 200 viewpoints who all believe there right. If you guys are so divided amongst yourselves how on earth do you expect us to believe you know what your talking about.

          The biggest reason most agnostics or fence sitters don’t listen to you in my opinion is simply because there is a major difference between what you say you are for, what you do and what’s in the bible. Your stance is you are for peace, an all loving god, mercy and forgiveness. But the very idea of your prophet contradicts this. Think about it. Your god will not forgive anyone unless they realise that Jesus got tortured for us. That basicly says that god cannot just forgive, he has to harm someone. That is the kind of thing a child would do. Now god is supposed to be all loving and forgiving. But when a person goes to hell. God will never forgive them. Imagen if our society did that. Someone stole something and didn’t confess. So we have him or her tortured forever. He or she doesn’t get any chance to redeem themselves, they just get to be tortured forever. That is not merciful and it is not forgiveness. The Christians themselves support the death penitently above all other groups. That is not forgiveness.

          In short if you want to convert us. You have to work out the kinks in your own organisation first. Common Christianity, pick up your game!


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PS: this article was about 5 times as long at first, I had to compress it for readability purposes, that’s how much I have to say about the faults with Christianity.   

Common Islam, you can do better!

Okay. I am sick of Islam. Over the last few weeks I have been in contact with an Islamic girl over facebook. She has attempted to convert me many times. I have generally stayed silent and just let her do her little cyber missionary thing. But the other day I got board and finally asked her why she believed in god.

                Her first argument was, she was born a Muslim. I said this was a worthless argument because technically everyone is born an atheist. We are not born believing in a particular religion. You just happen to be born into a family that expects you to follow a certain religion after they teach it to you.

                Her next argument was about how Islam was the religion of peace and all that stuff. To this I quickly pointed out that Islam generates more religious violence than any other religion and that Islam being the religion of peace isn’t proof god exists.

                She than gave me cases where atheists turned to Islam. I in turn gave her many more cases where Muslims turned to atheism and were hung, stoned or beheaded for that, then gave her a few examples of were Muslims turned to atheism and were lucky enough to be in a tolerant country.  After which I pulled the famous Dawkings line “what is the price of apostasy” (I love that one) I than explained to her that simply because someone turns to a particular belief system doesn’t mean it’s correct. 

                After which she gave me a video pointing out the sheer impossibility of this being the outcome of the earth we live in. I than gave her a random number generator and asked her to put in the numbers one and one hundred billion. Then asked her if the result was a mirical simply because the odds were against it happening.

                Now this is not an isolated incident, I have had many debates with Muslim missionaries. And I have some tips for them

1. When attempting to convert an atheist please don’t mock Christianity, we already know it doesn’t make sense.

2. Stop calling Islam logical simply because its more logical that Christianity. It’s still illogical. If I say 1+1= 5 that’s wrong, if I say 1+1=3 that’s still wrong it’s just makes more sense because it’s closer to the answer!

3. Don’t get into an evolutionary debate saying its wrong than ask “were did the single cell organism come from?” that just makes the atheist think he or she convinced you that evolution is correct 

4 This last one is more personal than anything else. DO NOT manipulate the words of famous philosophers to suit your means. And expectably to not do it about Christian philosophers.

5. Stop posting links about how great Allah and Muhammad are. That gets boring and doesn’t prove that Islam is correct.

           So please, islamic missionaries, if you want to convert us, step up your game!

Draw Muhammed day

          Today is draw Muhammed day (down here in Australia anyway.)  so this blog entry will be about just that. At the bottom of this page there will be a few of my drawings.


          Most people who first here of draw Muhammed day consider it an anti Islamic thing. but this is just unexamined. Draw Muhammed day is a response to the censorship. To TV stations allowing all religious profits and icons to be shown and made fun on TV but the Islamic ones.


          This however is not limited to Islam. If the media refused to put images of Jesus up I'm sure we would be drawing him too.


          It is also a protest against religouse violence! It is a message To those that would harm, fight and kill over cartoons but it is also a message to those who allow them to do this! that if you threaten violence we will not listen! if you act like a bully we will not co-operate!


          This pic was drawn by me

          And this by a friend

Church and State

          Today I will be talking about a few of the reasons why I think there should be a separation of church and state. Why the idea of basing policies on religion is stupid and ultimately shallow. Why the government should not give churches tax exempt status and why teaching religion is schools isn't a good thing.


          Okay in a nutshell I think there should be a separation of church and state is based on how religion can be used. while in rare occasions religion can bring good morals to a person or group it can also be used in another way. it can and has been used to separate socites, for prejudice and violence. this happiness on a much bigger scale when a country is a theocracy.


          Next up is the idea of a politician having Christine values or religious values. In some countries this is viewed as positive, in some it is viewed as negative (sadly there a few of them.) This is not a good thing because the particular person in power will always do as the church says. he or she will not do something because it is moral but because the church thinks its moral. This is shallow because they are saying that the church is always right without thinking about it. they are just going with what sounds good.


          As for giving the church tax exempt status. This idea is one of the most stupid i have ever come across. the churches make more cash than any company. to the point were they have there own country. Now if the churches were taxed the money would go to the government. and one thing is true of most politicians. they all want to help there country, they would gladly spend this money to help others.


          Last of all is teaching religion in schools. religion has no place in the science class room. evolution is proven. religion is not. There is also the issue of what religion to teach, if you are going to teach students on unproven theory you have to teach them all unproven theory's since the dawn of time.


Those are just a few reasons why i think church and state should remain SEPARATE


Sorry about my grammar

A free world

A free state is a good state.


A free state is one that respects freedom of speech


A free state is one that respects freedom of travel


A free state is one that let's it's citizens do what they will with there own bodies


A free state is not a religious state


A free state is not an atheist state


A free state is one that is worth fighting for

A free state does not bow down to terrorist demands


A free state offers he same rights to all. Even it's enemies


Can you name a state like this? If not it may be time for a change

Media Sucks

This blog will mainly apply to Australia as it is about the Australian media. Particularly the television. And how stupid I think it is. How idiotic and stupid it is becoming. I will be talking about a few things. The news and how shallow it is. The TV shows and how stupid they are becoming and lucky last the effect I can see this having on our everyday life. Now there is a chance that I am over reacting. And I suspect this may be happening to other western countries. But I cannot say.  I can tell you this however. The Australian media has become bland, simple and shallow.

Now as I said. Let us start with the TV. The three main channels in Australia. (Channel 7, channel 9 and channel 10.) Have become pathetic mirrors of one another. Every night when i turn the news on no matter what channel I see the same thing. The exact same stories. The sad thing is, most of the time they are not even stories. Most of the time it shows people how to lose weight, It shows women how to look prettier and it repeats the same stupid stories designed to shock the middle class Caucasian culture of witch the Australian media is mostly made out of. NONE of the media ever talks about controversy. What they call controversy is basically a topic that 80% of the public has the same opinion on. Like boat people or those “violent gen y gangs.” Once in a while 60 mins will come up with a good peace. But those times are becoming few and far between.

The next up is the TV shows that are not news or current affair based. The best example of this is. Reality TV. This is the worst crap ever to blight Australian TV. You get to see a bunch of random people sing or cook or play games on an island somewhere. There is a small amount of thought put into these but it is nothing compared to a real scripted TV show with good character development.

Now the effect that this is having on Australian society. I have seen a few examples of this, mainly in retail. Good intellectual shops are closing down. For example there was the great shop called Socrates near my house. It was in the middle of a great shopping centre (aka mall). This shop was devoted to mind games, puzzles, board games and philosophy. It is now a store with random trinkets such as buddas and oddly shaped candles that people think somehow defines there personality. This is looks and it is shallow. Another example of this is the sheer lack of coverage on world events. Most people in Australia don’t know a thing about the world outside our little island continent.

Please Australia. Stop falling for this stupid media. Start turning the channel if you hear about another wonder bra or revolutionary hair treatment. You are too good for this crap!

On that note I will quickly move to another topic. Draw Muhammad day is almost upon us. This is a day were we can tell all religious extremists that we will not bow down the terrorism. So get drawing people!

Got him!

This blog will be a short one So I hear they got the arch terrorist Osama bin laden. It took the CIA around ten years to do it. But they got him! There a few things that could come out of this.

The al-Qaida remanets could view him as a martyr and the death of their religiously insane leader could inspire more acts of violence against not only America but western culture as a whole. Thou chances are America will take most the brunt of it as most the world views them as the strong hold of western views.  The other thing that could happen is that it demoralises the al-Qaida terrorists and they cease there attacks. But based on history I don’t think that this will be the outcome. Most of the time when someone is so warped by their religion that they intend to kill for it, they don’t give up after one guy dies no matter how important that guy is to their organisation. But the really sad thing is that this will not stop the war in the Middle East. No that will not stop until every drop of oil is gone from there sands and moved into western cars.

Any way back on topic. Bin laden has been killed. Identified. And buried at sea (no country wanted the remains apparently.) but there is a lesson in all of this. We should watch religion. I have no problem with people believing whatever they want. But when they attempt to force those beliefs on me through violence and acts of terrorist coercion that’s when I see a major problem with it. So yeah just realise what actions you are taking due to your ‘faith’

OFFENDING EVERY RELIGION

In this blog I am going to do something I thought of that sounded like heaps of fun. I am going to attempt to offend every religion possible in the limited time I currently have. I have always thought religion is stupid but I think it’s time I gave some reasons as to why I think specific religions in particular are stupid. If you like this please comment below. If you don’t like this i REALLY want you to comment, I love to argue.  In the interest of fair play i will also have a go at atheism and agnostics .

Christianity.

            I think I will start with one of the most criticised religions in western culture. The good old Christians.  Okay this religion is stupid because of the core belief. A god cannot forgive anyone because he is an asshole.  But he still wants to get people into heaven (because he ‘loves’ you) so instead of just forgiving people who rape, kill, torture or steel he decides to go about it a different way. He sends his own son down to earth, than has his own son tortured to pay for the sin of everyone else.  Than has his son killed and brought back to life three days later.  Does none of the billion Christians see a problem with this? Your god is so crazy that he sees someone who is lesser than him do something that he does not approve of so he tortures his child! Imagine is a human parent did this. Let’s say you were that parent and you saw a bug steal a piece of food from the table. Now you don’t like this, but you can’t forgive the bug. So you turn to your child and stab him! No doubt we are about bugs compared to god’s power. Would you be okay with doing this just to forgive the bug? Would you allow your child to suffer for someone else’s doing. Oh and one more thing about your stupid ideas. The unforgivable sin, if I say I don’t believe in god and that god is mean I am going to hell. But if I rape a child than kill him and have sex with his dead body. I can be forgiven.  Your god is shallow and frankly I think Hell would be a much less violent place than heaven.

                        Jews

            Okay. I know shit has happened to you guys. And i know that you don’t deserve it. But STOP using that as an excuse to explain some stupid behaviour. And STOP calling anyone who criticizes your religion or Israel’s politics anti semantic when they aren’t talking about your race at all!

                        Islam

            Guys. Lighten the fuck up! You have pulled some terrible crap in recent times. Now i am not saying that all Muslims have. But Arabic states are fucking crazy with their laws. For example a pastor burned a copy of the Koran. Many UN workers were killed in mass riots over this. The UN workers would never approve of that action anyway. And stop calling yourself a race. It is not racist to attack Islam. Islam is an idea not a race. Just like it isn’t racist to attack the idea of capitalism. Oh right, draw Mohammed day is here to stay so stop freaking out over it. And one last thing STOP OPPRESING WOMEN

                        Hinduism

            Hello to the many Hindus of the world. Okay first of all. Decide on what you believe. There is so much crap out there. Some people say you are agnostic, some say atheist, some say you believe in one god and some say you believe in many. MAKE UP YOUR MIND . but i can tell you this. The idea of karma is stupid. Do good people can universally rewarded. NO, to bad people can universally punished, NO. So the next time you see someone suffering maybe you shouldn’t assume its because they are evil. Maybe you should find out!

                        Buddhism

            Now I kind of like the idea of peace that you guys seem to believe in.  But please stop claiming to be a religion. You are a life style. There is a difference.  

Jehovah’s witnesses

Okay you guys are practically a cult. Let your members have some damn freedom. And stop knocking on our doors. I already know your religion is stupid I don’t need you at my door proving my point. Oh and if someone wants to marry a non believer that’s okay!

                        Scientology

            Do you guys really think that this is real? The person who made this religion was a science fiction writer and you wonder why your core stories involve aliens and space ships! Seriously this is something i expect to find on star gate. Remember what Elrond Hubbard your maker said. “If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.”

                        Astrology

            IT’S A SCAM. But people believe it. Somehow the stars position at your birth affects your personality.  Did you know stars move? So there positions change over time. A Scorpio a billion years from now would probably be a different star sign. Oh right and if you think that there personality tests are accurate. Think again. It uses something called the barmen effect. This is basically whenever someone hears a belief enough description about themselves they will believe it.  I myself have proved this by giving 20 people the same horoscope description.  Over 80% said that it matched them even tho I made it up and they were all born on different days.

                        Wicca

            Okay. I know it may seem nice saying you’re a witch, but you are not. There is no such thing as magic so please stop trying to make this crap into another religion that we do not need. I know it makes you feel like an individual but seriously... witchcraft?

                        Agnostics

            STOP SITTING ON THE FENCE. This issue of religion and god is an important one. It is how our society and the population of the world views the entire universe. You cant just stay nutral on an issue like that!

                        Atheists

            Stop resisting organisation people! Most of the time atheists don’t want to organise because of more than just religion. Organising wont make us like them. People organise to form political parties, people organise to go out to dinner and people organise to play video games! You wouldn’t call any of these a religion.

            Well that is the 1^st of I hope many attempts to offend every religion. I hope you enjoyed this. If you didn’t too bad. It’s my blog ill say what I want.

UPDATE****

when i said Arabic state i meant Islamic state. i apologize to any i have offended

BOAT PEOPLE

One of Australia’s major issues at the moment is illegal immigrants or ' boat people' as they have been named by the media. I have a few thoughts on this. But they are relativity easy to say so this will be a short blog entry.

1

its not a big deal! Compared to other countries Australia gets little to no refugees. I mean for example Australia got a total of 27536 illegal immigrants from 1976 to 2010. America has a total of 6,650,000 illegal immigrants from Mexico alone living in the US in 2009, so yeah we really don’t have much of a problem.

2

it can cost up to $70,000 to get a visa here. Do most people have that cash here, NO. would most people who are fleeing war hatred and persecution have that money, NO!

3

we should be flattered that people want to come to our island country. This is a good thing. Not only does it help strengthen our multicultural society that we boast about. It also means that we are a successful and prosperous country, the way I see it if people stop coming here that’s when it has all gone to hell.

So in conclusion cut them some slack people!

drugs

Something I don't get about the world. Drugs, why are they so bad. And I know that the biggest argument is that some drugs may harm people health, but we would not allow marijuana even though it does less damage to you than both smoking and alcohol.

I mean even if they do hurt people, shouldn’t people have the right to put whatever they want in side there own bodies. When did it be okay for government to regulate something that has a personal effect and nothing else.

Another argument I hear about drugs is that if you by them you are supporting organised crime. This is a simple problem with a simple solution. Legalise drugs. If they were legal it would cripple the funding of organised crime and we could also tax the hell out of it thus making more money for the community.

Even if you don't like the idea of legal pot. You must realise that making it illegal simply doesn’t work, people still do drugs. People have been put it prison, kids kicked out of college and uni just because of a little green leaf?

I want to explain this part very clearly though. I do not do drugs, I have no want nor need to do drugs, I think that people who do them aren’t thinking it through, so don't assume I’m just a stoner and that’s why I have this view. I actually believe in self determination in a society and I also believe that if it isn't hurting anyone why not let people do what they want.

JosH...