Richard Dawkins interview & Anti-religious bell ringing

Bit of a short post, but here are two links you might be interested in. :-)

The 5 minute Richard Dawkins interview

And Liverpool Cathedral will play an 'anti-religious' song with the church bells today!

Conversations with a (nice) christian.

This is a response to my 'Alpha Course' post. (If it has scrolled off the bottom of the page then 'clicky!' )
'JL' is one of those nice christians who (in my experience) make up the majority of christians that are willing to talk to me. Currently we are in the middle of a friendly 'holy war' at our school, where she is trying to get me to appreciate Jesus and I am bestowing the gift of Pastafarian knowledge. I have shown her undeniable evidence of FSM's power by making her jump and pointing out how the kind FSM brings her safely back to Earth with his noodly appendages. (He loves us all and keeps us safe - FACT!)

Randomfish, I believe I might even have been the long-haired born-again that suggested an Alpha course to you.

Yep, The most recent one.

It's not like you have anything to lose, anyway :-p

Well, my scientific reasoning for one...

re: 'based on a relationship, not knowledge'
It always makes me smile that people get so OUTRAGED that the Bible is younger than Jesus, or at least most of it. That it's been *gasp* ADDED TO(!!!111) over the years. Of course it has. Ours is a living God. He didn't just speak once 6000 years ago (you heard right, DB!) and that was it. If you develop a relationship with your living God, he will speak to you. And he will tell you do not have a religion based on laws, you have a new life based on His loving gospel.

We agree here. Religion (especially christianity) has evolved. It has HAD to! Let's face it, if we had the same thinking as we did 1000 years ago, you would look pretty stupid now.
We don't get ill because god is punishing us. We get better because we 1) take medicine or 2) naturally get better over time.
Gods don't live in the sky. We are not the centre of the universe. Evolution is happening. The Earth is over 6000 years old. Morality is not owned by any religion...
Damn those astronomers, doctors, biologists, historians, geologists, philosophers...! They have had to make those crrraaaazzzyyy christians do some drastic rejigging of what to believe! LOL.

'Faith is more important than logic'

Logic is more important than blind faith. Blind faith is an insult to intelligence and reason. Blind faith can be harmful. For example, feel my pain when Arsenal lose! (Thankfully rarely!)

Don't pretend that you have faith in nothing, that faith in itself is ridiculous. You have faith in love, if nothing else, surely.

I DO have faith in humanity; kindness of strangers; love and hope. They are essential for understanding our humanity. I just don't attribute an imaginary friend to fill the gaps in knowledge.

Logic tells me that you can't get evolution from one species to another, only within species. Science tells me that even after thousands and thousands of generations of fly mutations, a fly is still a fly. So how did every living species in the world evolve from a fish? Including, presumably: turnips, scabies mite, chinchillas, sharks etc etc? Are you not putting your faith in a straaaange theory of evolution, hmmmmmm? ;)

Fellow humanists/ atheists, JL is a really nice person and please do not judge someone on their lack of understanding of evolution.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/different-patterns-of-evolution.html
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/sat-ii-biology-understanding-origins-of-life.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

'Because of who god is, we will always have questions'
Of course. And let's face it, when Jesus came and proclaimed himself the Son of God, not many people believed him, and what more proof could God really give us? Perhaps you would like a book full of graphs and diagrams, haha.

I proclaim to be the leader of Alpha Centauri. Can you see the problem with that? Jesus was not the first prophet to claim to lead the Jews. He happened to be the most famous. Stories told, generations later, wrote the gospels with a bias to make him more holy. Events were taken from a wide variety of religions (resurrection, death on a cross, virgin birth, claim of godhood, miracles, 12 followers, betrayal, ascension) sometimes even directly rewriting existing religions. See Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra...
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa3.htm
Jesus, the man, existed.
Jesus, the son of a god, sadly (but it would actually have been rather groovy) is HIGHLY UNLIKELY. More likely a work of fiction and copyright theft.

"You are sinners and in need of a lord and saviour".
Hell for you probably isn't the same idea of hell for me. I think there is a cartoon idea based on lakes of fire with a little red devil with pitchforks. In reality, to me anyway, hell is death; it is separation from love and joy; from contentment and safety and the Lord. For me, now that I know the Lord, no pit of burning sulphur could ever hold as much sadness and fear as separation from His love. But that's just me.

Ahh, you refer to the 'nice' Hell. Depends on how literally one takes the bible doesn't it? Even Jesus refers to Gehenna.
Two very useful sites below
http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/jesusteachingonhell.html
and this is pure class.
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/hellreal.htm (This nutter is doing theism no favours!)

And finally...
My final point I made in a rather fun theological debate is that JL is ACTUALLY a 'humanist with an imaginary friend'.

Peace to you all.

Proofs of God (part 2b)

"Yeah, but evolution is only a theory... so god must exist!"

(sigh)

Seriously, you wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard this one... And the sad thing is, I always HAVE to respond, even though I know I'm wasting my breath!

(I do see the funny side though!)

Proofs of God - part 2 - Intelligent design?

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

I only just found this today. If you haven't read it, it's worth a quick chuckle. :-)

Anyway, in my further attemps to find god(s) I am looking at 'Intelligent design'
The basic argument of creationists is "Concept and design necessitate an intelligent designer. The presence of intelligent design proves the existence of an intelligent designer." And then they go on to explain how a watch can't spontaneously appear. Animals are in a food web, simple cells are far too complex, the human eye, half a wing... the list is quite impressive!

You will have to forgive me, I am trying to blend an entire branch of science and popular mythology into a single post and hopefully trying to find some 'truth' :-) I'll try not to cause too much offense to either side.

Well, often the simplest idea is the best. And you don't get much simpler than ID. Why, it just explains EVERYTHING! So I suppose I could just go to bed happy (and many people do!)
Good night!

I see you are still here... thanks!

But the principle of ID is the single premise that there HAS to be a creator for there to be... 'stuff'. And where is the proof of that? Er... the bible says so. I don't believe that there were any first hand witnesses to creation... except god. And the bible isn't exactly accurate at times. (Seriously, don't even bother to argue that. You WILL look stupid.)
OK, we have the fact that we are incredibly complex and even the simplest forms of life have intricate systems that are quite simply... amazing! But the idea is that we were all designed this way. Pre-constructed and ready to go! Every creature on the planet has a role to play, every plant has a reason, nature is primed and set up for humans to live in perfect harmony on Earth...

And along came Charles Darwin with his dangerous idea: every species on the planet has evolved and adapted to their environments. Not put on the planet, by a god, but changed over thousands - millions - of years to survive and breed. Not necessarily 'Survival of the fittest' - that is just the 'TV soundbite' version which oversimplifies the process, but a series of almost insignificant, sometimes random changes or mutations that sometimes improve the chance of the species' survival.

This seems to make sense. Our similarity to other primates, cavemen, fossils, extinction of dinosaurs, the age of the Earth, the purpose of the appendix, 'junk' DNA, actual observed changes in species...

...or because the bible says so. Creationists (some of them), to their credit, look to science to explain their creation theory. And there are some great websites out there. However, for the purposes of my research, I tend to look at sites that contain both sides of the argument. http://www.talkorigins.org is possibly the best mix of debates you can come across on the internet. Evolutionists need their theories challenged! That is what makes science so awe inspiring. The fact it is allowed to be disproved, improved or debated.
http://www.evcforum.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation-evolution_controversy

So if Darwin is correct, then the claim that we are made in god's image is simply wrong and it brings into doubt the validity of the bible and its claims made in the book of Genesis.

If the bible is correct, then we have all this evidence that attempts to disprove the bible. What would be the purpose in that? Perhaps it is an elaborate miracle that is there to test the faithful and punish the reasoned thinkers. Seems a bit unfair to me. (I'm one of those people who always look both ways before crossing the road.)

The catholic stance has changed over the centuries. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/ You can believe in god and accept evolution - the modern christian idea is that god must have had some part in the process and accept that the Genesis story is just an allegory.
Lo and behold! And there we have proof of religious evolution! ;-)

Intelligent design? I'm not even sure that we are designed that well! We are prone to illnesses, injuries, back problems, limited understanding or our surroundings, easily fooled by illusions, misinterpret information, violent by nature, subject to a range of emotions, take risks needlessly, have a method of reproduction that can be quite dangerous, the list could go on... We are NOT designed 'intelligently'! Unless of course, this 'god' has a warped sense of humour!

My conclusion? Evolution has, by far, the greatest wealth of evidence supporting it. It does not explain why there is life but shows us our place in nature. Not as chosen masters, but as part of an amazing journey with nature.