I no longer touch gaming now, since I’ve decided a new direction, hopefully a name change will be good for the blog, who knows.  So come and check it out!

First of all, there are two possibilities, there are 2 truths that could be only.  Either, god exists or god does not exist.  Then there are 2 claims that are being contested over this.  Claim A states that “there is a god, this god exists.”  Claim B states “there is no god, god does not exist.”  These claims correlate with the 2 possible truth states that there are.  But these are no the only 2 beliefs that one could take.

There is the belief of notA, where the individual doesn’t believe in the statement of “there is a god, this god doesn’t exist.”  This person has no belief in the existence of a god.  There is also a notB, where the individual doesn’t believe in the statement “there is no god, god does not exist.”  So this person has no belief that there is no god.  Since there are 2 claims at work, one is not the opposite of the other and so this gives the following combinations:

• A, notB – This is the typical theist position, not only do they believe the claim that god exists, they also don’t believe the claim that god does not exist.
• B, notA — This is the strong atheist position.  Where the individual believes there is no god and also doesn’t believe that god exists.
• notB, notA — This is the more common position of atheists, it is the weak atheist position or even the agnostic theist.  They not only don’t believe in the claim that there is a god, but also don’t believe in the claim that there is no god.  Evidence is not strong enough to support either claim well enough to transition over to a realm of belief.
• Finally, A, B — I’m a little unsure of this, I don’t see how someone could claim to believe in the existence of god and also believe that god does not exist.  However, you could have faith in one or both of these positions and so believe them without evidence.

The important thing to note here is that being an atheist simply means notA.  It is irrelevant what you believe with consideration to claim B.  As long as you don’t accept the claim that a god exists and instead do not believe that there is a god, that makes you an atheist.  (The difference between notA, B and notA, not B comes from gnosticism and agnosticism, strong and weak types of atheism)

To use a useful analogy, imagine I flipped a coin and am now covering it with my hand and I ask you, what is showing on the coin.  Now, we now for a fact, that the truth of the matter is that the coin is either heads or tails.  Yet, if I ask you, “do you believe the coin is heads?” You would respond “no,” (how could you say yes, you have no evidence) and if I asked you “do you believe the coin is tails?” You would also respond “no.”  Therefore, we have established that even though you have said no to the claims that the coin is heads or the coin is tails, they must be 2 separate claims.  Rejecting the claim of one, does not instantly mean you believe in the claim of the other.  If heads was theism, then as long as you didn’t believe the coin was heads, then you would be an “A-head-ist,” as it we’re.

So, hopefully, we’ve cleared this up a little.  I personally sit in the notA, notB position.  I don’t believe the claim that god exists, but I also don’t believe the seperate claim that god does not exist.  There is not enough evidence to support either one and since the burden of proof always lies with the claimant, the default position is to take notA and notB.  At least until evidence is presented, where your belief may shift to A, notB or B, notA.

Most Circular Argument Ever:

“The Bible is the word of god because the Bible says so because the bible is infallible because the Bible is the word of god…“

Circular Reasoning is circular

This is terrible reasoning, circular reasoning is just insane and in this context, it is unbelievable that so many people don’t realise they are doing it.  The Bible is highly unreliable, there is some historical events it got right, but others it got wrong, plus considering the number of translation errors and errors generated by the process of copying (which we know happened because of all the scraps of Bibles we can find in the world), the failed prophecies (despite how vague and general they were) and a distinct lack of other sources which correlate with what the Bible says.

Massive scientific inaccuracies (e.g. Earth being described as flat with a dome over the top), a lack of understanding of the world outside the authors own area in the middle east, inconsistencies (tons, Google for them) and contradictions between books and even in the same book (There’s a contradiction in the first few paragraphs of Genesis even).

Plus the number of alterations and edits added in at later dates (e.g. Jesus being resurrected was added in later, the writing style distinctly changes) and the fact that books were voted in and out by a show of hands means that even if the original authors were inspired by god, the Bible in it’s current form is going to be no where near what it was originally intended to be!

The Bible is not a perfect book, the Qur’an is supposedly a perfect book, yet you can apply the same reasoning and find similar failings in it too.  This concept of perfection baffles me, just the process of copying alone introduced plenty of errors.

This is just one of the most common and insane arguments I’ve ever had to deal with.  Screw teaching science, or the controversy.  Critical Thinking is what we need, until you can learn how to argue, you can’t really do too much with what you have learned on a particular issue.  I’m shocked that in this country, most schools ideas of teaching critical thinking is to wait until sixth form and then only do one small class of the brightest students teaching half an A-level on the subject.  Critical thinking and understanding proper argumentative technique is what we need.

The Problem With Absolute Morals

Let us have a look at the Bible, lets look at 2 of the 10 commandments.  Thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not lie/bear false witness.  Being objective morals it is never OK to lie, nor is it never OK to kill.  If you lie or kill, you have broken one of the commandments.  Simple, easy to understand.  So let’s provide 2 hypothetical scenarios and test these supposedly absolute morals.

Scenario 1:  You are living in Nazi Germany, the year is 1944, you are hiding a Jewish family in your loft.  You know that if they are found, they will be taken to a work camp and murdered.  The SS knock at your door, and ask if you are hiding any Jews in your loft, what do you do?  You can either choose to tell the truth and say, “Yes, there are Jews hiding in my loft.”  Which basically means you have condemned them to death, most, if not all people in modern society would consider this a bad decision, you had the power to prevent this family from dying, yet you did not.  You are partially responsible for their murder.  The other option would be to lie and say no, the SS leave and you have saved the lives of the family hiding in your loft.  This would be considered the best course of action, you prevented the genocidal murder of a family, a course of action that most, if not all, would say was the right thing to do.

Scenario 2: A country invades yours, their people are exactly like yours (in religious respect as well, this war is entirely political), the only difference is over a quarrel a trade agreement which went sour.  You have good friends and family living in the country invading yours, a draft is called.  Do you either lie, say that you are a conscientious objector (in this scenario you are not), or join up and risk having to murder someone.  Now I know what a lot of people will say, that the murder is justified against unbelievers and sinners.  War is sometimes inevitable, but this war wasn’t inevitable, it is against a group of people very similar, if not identical to your own.  They have the same faith as you do, yet here you are, having to decide which commandment to break.  You could always join up and simply not shoot your weapon, but is that a risk you can take. You would be letting down your platoon and your country.

Both these scenarios are hypothetical, but my aim should be clear.  I’m showing that absolute morality doesn’t work.  You also can’t claim one to be more important than the other, since the more moral course of action would be to lie and in the other, the more moral course of action would involve you becoming a killer. Each situation calls upon a different application of moral rules to decide your course of action and remain moral.  In short, the most moral course of action alters varies from situation to situation.  It would be impossible to say that there is a definitive list of actions which should be adhered to, or avoided.  The rules have to be applied differently in different situations, therefore, morality cannot be absolute and are in fact subjective.

You think it is as easy as this?

Morality Varies Geographically

What is determined to be moral and immoral differs between countries.  Let’s have a look at piracy, both versions of it.  First of all, piracy in Somalia.  To the western world, Piracy is seen as a crime, it is seen as wrong and immoral.  Yet, let’s take the perspective from some one living in Somalia.  A spokesperson of the pirates states that he used to be a fisher, yet pollution from large container ships destroyed the fishing habitat.  With no options left, he turned to piracy, not by choice, but by necessity.  Recently Somali pirates hijacked a ship with weapons on it, but had no intention to use the weapons, just to hold the ship to ransom, why?  They need the money, for food, to survive.  It is not by choice they selected this lifestyle, but by force and are actually seen as brave individuals by the families they have to feed.  To them, their actions are not bad, not immoral from their perspective.

It’s a sort of Robin Hood scenario, the poor have no problem with him stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, yet the rich do.  It is what has to be done, in a totally objective moral system, stealing would never be considered right, yet is by more than those who simply benefit from it.

The recent Pirate Bay Trials also draw our eye to this problem of defining absolute morality.  To some, the idea of showing the market failure to efficiently adjust to demand enables piracy.  Big bloated movie companies, movie stars etc.  Make so much already, there is no real problem with them lowering the price for DVD’s and CD’s.  However, the other side of the argument sees them as immoral individuals who are stealing copyrighted content.  One side views the owners of TPB as heroes, the other side sees them as villains.

What is good and bad is subjective to which side your on.  Morality is subjective, in geographical contexts, but also between communities within a society.

Morality Varies Over Time

Morality also varies over time in the same nation.  Let’s take the US, slavery used to be seen as a good idea, but dissenters to the norm brought change and supposedly today we see blacks and whites living along side each other happily.  If morality was absolute, then why did it change?  The society shifted from something being seen as fine, to something being seen as bad.  Here’s a few quotes:

[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.” Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.

“The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.” Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina

I could also sit here and ramble off a few passages in the Bible, but they are there and I have looked at them in previous blog posts.  A simple Google search will deliver proof if you want it.  The Bible supports slavery, yet today, we condemn it.  Why?  Because we know better.  Humanity has evolved morals beyond the limited scope of the Bible, there are more examples below of immoral things in the Bible that Christians seem to overlook today.

God Breaks His Own Morals

Let’s consider the big guy.  If morality was absolute, then god himself must be the source of all good in the universe and would therefore have to follow his own rules.  Lead by example as it were.  Otherwise god would be nothing more than a hypocrite, setting rules and no following them.  If morality is absolute, it doesn’t matter if your god, you still have to follow them to be good.

The argument that god is god and is therefore exempt from the rules is nothing more than special pleading and an argument from authority.  Just because god is supposedly the

Some examples of god doing what I would consider evil is a rather long list and depends on which god your looking at, but taking the Christian god:

• Killing all the innocent children and babies in the flood.
• Sending bears to kill some young people for a rather arbitrary reason.
• Rules on women, for example, god supports the idea of raping a young women so she is forced to become your wife, a women can’t speak in church etc. etc.
• Loved human and animal sacrifice, even loves the smell of burning animal flesh.
• Lied to Abraham, by telling him to kill his son.
• God kills 70,000 because David ordered a census (1 Chronicles 21).
• Supports slavery, why else would he have passed rules on slavery if god was against it?
• Supports selling your own daughter into slavery of a sexual nature (Exodus 21:1-11).
• Plus many more too numerous to list here.

All in all, there is a lot of bad stuff in the Bible (a lot of good stuff too).  But the fact that god supposedly did even 1 immoral thing contrary to his own commandments makes him a hypocrite, or much more likely is that the Bible was written by fallacious, ignorant human men.  The number of errors easily show that the Bible is not the work of god, there is a lot on this topic, a few Google searches should give you all the info you need.  Note, you can also do this with other holy books too, such as the Qur’an.

Does god follow his own rules? Nope

God Made Good And Evil

The usual argument is simple, god made the universe, therefore he makes all the good things and all the bad things happen.  The standard response is that god did make the universe, but evil things comes from humans having freewill.  Which god supposedly gave to humanity.  So therefore, god doesn’t have anything to do with evils such as murder, rape, etc etc.  But what about natural disasters?

Well, here’s a little quote from Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Makes you think, but somehow the apologist will somehow weasel their way out of it.  The argument usually goes something like this.  God created good, but good is like a doughnut, you can’t have a doughnut without the hole in the middle.  This hole is evil.  In short, god created good, but evil was a by product of this creation.  Now, this argument is pretty flawed, by the sheer belief that god created the universe, we can easily arrive at the conclusion that god must have created evil too.

And here’s why.  If evil is the hole in the doughnut of good, who made up this rule. Who decided that in the universe, an absence of good equates to evil?  If god sat there and thought that an absence of good would lead to evil, that the doughnut needed a hole, he created evil by imposing this rule.  It isn’t a case that god can’t do it either, because if god is as all powerful as apologists claim, then he could create good where the absence of it would not lead to evil.  In short, god could have created the doughnut without the hole.  But by deciding not to, god is either subject to rules an even higher god set down or is evil for deciding to create a universe where evil is even possible!  God invented evil!

Also, who is to say god is good!  Just because he says so and claims that the other one is evil is again an appeal from authority.  Just because god claims that he is good in the Bible, does not make him good!  How do you know god isn’t lying?

Cares if you masterbate, but doesn't care about solving world hunger...

Morality In The Bible

I really don’t think I need to go through all of this again.  In short, homosexuality, a sin.  Dissenting children, stone ‘em.  Women, should be submissive.  Slavery, perfectly fine.  The Bible does have some morals which correlate with what is considered good in a society today, yet it also has much we would consider bad.  Also, why is it that some of these supposed moral teachings are selectively ignored, or apologists use some of the most insane “logic” to solve these issues and make the Bible still seem like the source of all morality we have today.

Why is it that we can judge which morals are good and which ones are bad in the Bible?  Simple, we have a higher understanding of them, we can look and judge them.  Apologists always have this problem with always being a little too late to realise the Bible says something all of society has already realised.  For example, the Bible was used to justify the enslavement of Africans, but until the idea started to spread that slavery is wrong, no one ever used the Bible to describe how slavery is wrong.  Even with the obvious contradictions to this position.  The Bible (like a lot of religious texts) become the big book of multiple choice.  It’s “true” meaning is so vague, that you can reason the Bible makes any claim, scientific or moral one day, then the opposite the next.

Countries Without the Bible

So if all modern morality came from the Bible as so many apologists claim, it infers 2 things.  That any society not basing their morals on Christian teachings must be more immoral than Christian areas that apparently do (as morals are absolute).  Second other religious texts must have more immoral teachings than the Bible does.

This is obviously not true, with countries in the far east (an area which Christianity never really penetrated over the past 2000 years) having some rather low crime rates.  Japan and China both are developed countries such as UK and the USA, yet has a lower crime rate and a lower rate of repeat offenders.  So this means that the Bible isn’t the source of all morality and since very organically secular countries have a high correlation with low crime rates and other indicators of a positive life-style, we can’t draw the conclusion that teachings from the Bible are the foundations of morality.

Also, what about a time before the Bible?  Surly without that oh so unknown piece of knowledge that murder is bad, there would be killing everywhere.  But no, what we see is even in the animal kingdom, most individuals of a species know not to kill others of their species, or clan.  Even within our own species, tribes of humans with no contact with missionaries carrying the Bible don’t resort to murdering each other because that would destroy the long-term survival of the tribe.  The fact these tribes exist shows that all animals instinctively know that murder is wrong.  Other morals can be analysed this way and shows that they do not come from the Bible and come from other social and natural mechanisms.  This leads us to the conclusion that the Bible is not the source of all morality in the world.

Turns out the Religion of LOL-Cat-ianity was right.

Conclusions

Morality is a construct of society, depicting good actions, which are beneficial to the society against bad actions, which are detrimental to the society.  Not only do most Christians pick and choose their morality from the Bible, but have the sheer audacity to try and explain their way out of the corners the Bible puts them in.  We have what is obviously a rule book with no wiggle room, to say that there homosexuality to wrong!  Despite god supposedly making them that way!

Morality is not absolute, it is closer to a set of general rules which have to be applied in a certain way at a certain time.  Absolute rules simply means you no longer have to consider your impact and instead can blindly follow them, blaming the rules if something goes wrong.  For example, trying to claim that absolute morality works when everyone follows the same rules isn’t true, there is no evidence that this is true and even if everyone did follow the same set of rules, they have to be interpreted  by the individual, meaning that they will, ultimately be used in different ways.  Claiming absolute morality is almost trying to get off the hook, it removes the need to think and ultimately makes a sheep out of you.  Again, religions don’t want you to think, just to obey, questioning the rules is a big no no, because of course, we could never understand gods way (or even understand what god is).  Be brave for once and drop your comfort blanket, take a step back from your beliefs and actually take a critical eye to them and use that bog ol’ brain of yours.  Think for yourself.

Finally, it is important to note that morality fits in nicely within an evolutionary framework.  It can easily come about through evolutionary mechanisms.  In fact, we can look into the animal kingdom and confirm that even animals have systems of inbuilt, tacit morality.  Humans are animals, we are part of the ape family and morality is subjective, get over it.

Life Ends

The first and most important thing when dealing with the atheistic world-view is that atheists know and accept the life has an end.  You will die.  When you die there will be no afterlife, no judgement, nothing, your mind and ideas of self will fade as your body rots.  The reason for believing this is firstly, atheists don’t give in to religious dogma, it is this dogma which claims there is an afterlife built up in religion.  There is no actual reason to believe you carry on when you die, the main problem is that you can’t come back and tell everyone else still living if there is an afterlife.  Next, seeing as the mind is connected with the physical brain, when one dies, so does the other.  They are linked, they are in fact one.  If the brain dies, it seems logical that your idea of self will die with it.

So, that’s it, we’re all going to die and that’s that, what’s the point in anything, without god and an afterlife, why strive for anything.  Typical theistic nonsense.  To them, a world without god seems meaningless because they can’t consider the world without one.  Their life revolves around god so much so, that to remove it would shake their beliefs so much, that it would be natural to just say “what’s the point in it all, we are but a blink of life on a planet in the infinite of space.”

This is where the critical difference is, atheists view their lives on the smaller, personal, relevant scale.  To sit back and look at everything in it’s entirety, yes, everything is ultimately pointless, the universe will end eventually.  But this is a useless and unhelpful position to take, when deciding what my purpose in life is, what my goals are, I don’t look at the ultimate long run, I look at the shorter term, I look at the scale of time which matters, my life span.  I will die, but because of that, it makes life special, something to treasure, to enjoy fully and help others to enjoy.  This is the one life you get or at least reliably know your going to get, it would be a shame to waste it preparing for one that doesn’t exist.

If there was an afterlife, then this time being alive is ultimatly meaningless (it is infintecimal in comparison), if I have all infinity to look forward to in heaven, then surly I want this life to end as fast as possible.  It is meaningless because infinity is just ahead of me.  May as well kill myself now and get to the good stuff.  But, this was carefully thought of, suicide is a sin and will send you to hell.  So I ask, why doesn’t one theist simply kill all the other theists.  It may seem like a harsh idea, but think about it, all the theists will go to whatever heaven they think they are going to when they die and avoid the suicide clause in the process.  This one glorious person sacrificed himself for the benefit of everyone else, what a hero!  But no, this hasn’t happened, why?  I offer one personal answer, theists are greedy, they want to be in heaven and enjoy that glory and happiness of being with their god, so they won’t sacrifice ones self for everyone else.

Being Good Matters

When we say good, we mean acting in a way that benefits society, that benefits the super-organism.  Simply because it is the right thing to do, I want to have the chance of enjoying life as fully as possible, but I also want others to have that chance too.  We only have one life and to live it in suffrage or poverty or in an abusive household is wrong because it robs people of that chance to do so.  We have transcended the battle for survival and now look towards enjoying life as much as possible.  Working together ensures not just the continuation of the species, but also the enjoyment of living for this generation and the next.  Acting in a bad way, such as murdering and stealing is wrong because it removes the possibility for others to be happy and enjoy their limited lives.

Of corse, we still need to focus in on the shorter term, looking at it at a universe scale, it is all meaningless, but looking at a much smaller one we can see that being good is essential, it is fair and it is necessary.  I like the feeling of having fun and doing the right thing, I don’t like the feeling of being bad.  I simply want to be happy and happiness is increased by working together.  The total utility of the super-organism/society is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

A rather short post, just to let everyone know I ain’t fallen off the face of the Earth, for more info, look up the idea of humanism, the philosophy that most atheists look towards and even some theists follow.

Take the example of terrorism, it is pretty obvious to any rational modern thinker that to kill someone because their religion beliefs don’t align with your own.  Slavery, racism and sexism are 3 problems posed by the Christian belief and most main-stream Christians ignore these parts, I wouldn’t say they ignore these parts of the Bible, simply disagree with them as they know they live in a different society.  It is the extremism that can result from religious beliefs which I have a problem with.  However, these extremes have their days numbered, at least it would seem at first glance.

One current view is that religion is successfully reasserting itself in the world.  America is practically a theocracy, with European countries just a little behind, the cold tips of shadows of the dark ages creeping up on us and atheism becomes more marginalised.  I disagree with this view for two reasons.  First, America is still tip-toeing the edge (Texas is a prime example of failure, but for each step backwards, somewhere else it is being dragged forward) and Europe is becoming more and more secular each day.  Britain, a supposedly Christian nation is very tolerant of atheists and as much as the Daily Fail and Daily Torygraph will have you believe, it is actually not too bad.  Most of Europe is already highly secular, though issues are still abound.  Movement is towards acceptance of atheism, but also a polarisation of in the religious, between the extreme literalists and the mainstream rationalists.

Faith - No evidence required...

A C Grayling seems to argue the opposite, that religion is in it’s death throws, that the volume is simply being turned up by the extreme literalists, giving rise to the creationist movement in America and such.  Yet argues that it’s death is soon.  I also disagree with this view, I don’t think it is simply an increase in volume, momentum is being gained by the literalist camp, they may be gaining small victories, but the irreligious and mainstream are keeping them mostly in check.  They may be getting some victories, but are still at large and will delay the death of the biblical literalist.  Similarly, in the UK, we are still technically a Christian nation, while very tolerant of atheism and other religions, there is an increasing propensity towards stupid ideas like faith school support.  With the current political climate favouring the Tory party (Our republican party, but not as right, yet still heavily favour a religious society), I think we may be seeing a resurgence in the future.

I would like to offer a more grounded view.  With atheism becoming more and more acceptable in the West, we will hopefully see a shift towards reason.  The mainstream theists really need to look at the extreme literalists and consider their view.  There are plenty of rational Christians arguing against creationism, going as far as to argue that those Christians who promote it are damaging the reputation of their faith.  I would agree.

Increasing exposure of extreme literalism, combined with globalisation, the internet (enabling the majority access to a wealth of information and knowledge never before available) and the new atheist movement and what you will see is the extreme literalists being sidelined.  They will get loud and won’t go out without a fight, but they will eventually drop.  Atheism will become acceptable, the idea of being good without god will spread and this will see the marginalisation of religious views.  However, it may get worse before it gets better.  Atheism will grow as an acceptable ‘world-view,’ and, hopefully, science will be put at the forefront again.  The majority will still have religious beliefs, yet they will not be as important, they will not matter as much, like skin colour and gender discrimination, time will see it fade.  Having said this, atheism will not grow rapidly for much longer, we are still in the ‘coming out,’ effect, so for another 3-5 years, we can’t say for sure how well spread atheism will become.

Take your pick, or don't. It's all up to you.

This is quite speculative, what may end up happening is the resurgence of the theistic extreme forcing their beliefs on society through government.  This is a severe issue and will negatively effect the theistic and atheistic alike.  As time passes, generations will become more polarised between atheism and extreme theism, instead of a shift to the more mainstream.  We also have to consider foreign countries, especially the middle East and some far Eastern regions of the world.  Islam is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century as Christianity was, despite the extreme problems we hear through the media, this is a small minority.  The extreme literalist minority again.  They will die out soon, at least I hope so, otherwise a shift to religious extremism will cause a similar reaction in the West.

The world which I want to see, in my life-time is one a lot of people will probably agree with me.  A shift away from the literalist extreme side of things is necessary.  For the world to develop further, globalisation to continue, societies merge and get along with each other, the extreme sides of all nations religions need to be dealt with.  Religious beliefs should not be an issue, it should be a null one, such as skin colour (while there is still some intolerance, it is in the ultimate minority and will die out soon enough).  If you believe in god, fine, if you don’t, that’s equally fine!  But if you start to use these religious beliefs to threaten children (Hell), circumcise young girls (Basically cut teh clit off), promote ignorance (creationism), deny medical treatment to rely on prayer, oppress, hate or use to steal from well-meaning individuals and families, then your days are numbered.

Atheism is included here, the extreme, anti-theistic, calling religious individuals ‘moronic,’ and ‘dumb,’ is not going to get us anywhere, it will just cause furthur increases to the religious extreme.  Debate, discussion and promoting understanding of atheism, secularism and humanism is essential to the future of society, at least in driving towards a more rational one.  We all have to work together here, atheist and theist.  Yes, criticise religious beliefs, but criticise the institution and the beliefs themselves, not the individual.  Even I have been guilty of this, but sometimes creationists just really boil my blood as they parrot Hoving and Comfort.

“Atheists have faith in the scientific method”

The event kicked off and we immediately got bogged down in a big steaming pile of philosophy, most of the audience couldn’t keep up, hell 1/3 of the panel couldn’t even keep up.  The questions ranged from how we can accept the use of the scientific method, to what is logic and why do we use it.  One Christian was arguing how the realms of science prevent and understanding of god and that we, as atheists have faith in the scientific method.

The scientific method is useful because in a world where there is an infinite number of beliefs, we need a method to separate the highly unlikely to the very likely.  We need a method to distinguish what beliefs are in step with reality and which ones are not.  Let’s take a look at the scientific method, it breaks down into 4 simple steps:

1. OBSERVATION – We first of all observe the phenomenon and describe it clearly.  We need to know what the hell we are looking at first, this has always presented a problem with some theists, they cannot and do not define what god is.  How the hell could you form a belief on whether that thing exists or not without it being defined first?
2. HYPOTHESIS – A hypothesis about the phenomenon is formed, this could be a causal connection, an equation or simply an educated guess.  Then we perform tests to prove or disprove this hypothesis.  If the results disagree, we abandon the hypothesis and go back to the beginning.
3. PREDICTION – If the hypothesis is supported by evidence, it should mean that the theory can make predictions.  For example, take the theory of gravity, if I drop something, it will fall towards the earth, unsurprisingly, it does.   The hypothesis has a lot more going for it now.  In terms of god, we get into problems here, we can’t make any predictions, in fact, we can’t even form a decent enough hypothesis to test and confirm it.
4. REPRODUCIBILITY OF RESULTS – Now that we have a hypothesis which has been proven to be right and can predict things, we need to be sure it can predict things by other people.  This stage involves the testing of the theory by other individuals, I can predict that if I drop something, it will fall to the ground, anyone else can do that, as long as the conditions don’t change.  Such as an even more massive object nearer the one being dropped.  God has a real problem with allowing the reproducibility of results, take prayer for example, it is pretty damn unreliable.

“Ah!” but they say.  God still cannot be explained by the scientific method, he lies outside the observable universe.  Thus, you can’t reliably experiment on god!  Then how the hell else am I supposed to tell what is true and what isn’t!  Which beliefs are most conforming with reality and which ones are not!  Personal experience would be a really poor way, I don’t want to find out that exposure to CO2 kills you by subjecting myself to the experiment.

Humans are curious creatures, we want to know how the world works.  A scientific theory tries to do that.  A theory can only be disproved, never proven.  But we use what is the best we have at our disposal because it has been shown to work.  To quote XKCD: “Science, it works Bitches!”  Bring me a different way of looking at the world and trying to reliably understand it, science and the scientific method is the only option we have.  Obviously, since science is the thing which disproves your belief, then of course, science is wrong and not your belief.  Even though the whole point of science is to separate what beliefs fit in with reality and which don’t.

Yes, we need to assume the scientific method works, but it has proven itself to work time and time again.  Yes, this means we’re using the scientific method to prove science, but it hasn’t failed and it is the best we got.  It’s this or we use a 2000 year old, Bronze age book, which is proven time and time again to be false by science. The bigger question is, do you believe in science and everything it has brought us over the past 2000 years, or do you trust a book, where there are many others like it, which doesn’t try to correct itself, which isn’t in the business of caring what is truth, only in what makes people feel better.  Stop being so damned scared, throw off your comfort blanket of faith and embrace truth.  We should care about what truth really is, not what we wish it to be!

“The Bible is the Word of God”

This crept up fast, while it wasn’t the next topic raised for discussion, it was the next major point.  I’m not going to sit here and discuss it for long and considering only Atheists and Christians showed up at the event, this was inevitable.  All I’m saying is search for “absurdities in the Bible” and “contradictions in the Bible” in Google and you shall be rewarded with the answer.  Some people took severe offence when I claimed that the Bible is many things, but the inerrant word of god is most certainly not one of them.

The Need of Moderation

After the event, there was concensous for the need of a fair moderator.  Some people and topics did go on for too long, I tried my best to move the discussion on when we stalled, but that is pretty unfair considering my biased position as a member of the panel.  Just something for us and anyone else planning a similar event to keep in mind, if the group was any larger, shouting arguments would have probably ensued.

All in all, the event was rather sucessfuly, we learned a lot and I did too.  Atheists and theists really do seem to almost be working with different sets of axioms about the universe, this is a real barrier that needs to be overcome next time for any discussion to move smoothly forward.  I loved being the panel, but it is a shame I didn’t get to bring out my depth of knowledge on debunking creationist crap, shame I was really pumped up for that.

Yeah, that’s right, I decided to cram the word religion with the word economics.  Why, because I’ve been distracted by literature on the subject of religion and it’s economic workings.  When you think about it, religion is simply a product.  People devote their limited income on something that will make them happy (utility).  Different religions compete in a market to try and sell their particular product to consumers.  I’d like to focus this post on the actual strategy of religious organisation through the economists eye.

Firstly, we need to understand what is being traded for what.  Consumers (the general public) are spending resources of both time (going to church, praying, reading the bible etc.) and money (in the form of transaction costs and donations to the church) to get what is called utility (basically happiness, resulting from the feeling of belonging in a social group, knowledge of going to heaven, ).  With utility, there are diminishing returns, each additional unit of religion gives less utility than the previous unit bought.  This could explain why there seems to be a pattern of less people devoting their entire time to religion (like monks do) and more who simply believe in god and perhaps prays to god occasionally, rarely going to church.  Would there be a pattern between church attendance/prayer and utility?

It is an interesting question, some papers conclude there is no relationship between happiness and religiosity.  While the majority actually shows a small positive relationship between religiosity and happiness.  However, I would question the ability of such surveys to properly evaluate the situation as some papers show that religiosity is linked positively with suicide rates, when an individual is depressed (but a negative correlation when the individual is not depressed).  It is a confusing situation, but atheism fits the pattern, apparently atheists are less happy and less likely to donate to charity (donating to charity is basically buying utility).  I’m not confident about these numbers either, I would hypothesise that theists donate more to charity because they think about “Big Brother” watching them.  This happiness one too I want to bring into question, I can see how some people may conclude that atheism makes you sad, but others would argue that atheism can bring happiness as you truly understand your position in an amazing world (made all the more incredible, because of a lack of a designer).  I haven’t found any recent research into happiness and atheism, only between religiosity and happiness, so declaring ones self as an atheist and taking part in the new movement seems to have been left out.

It is of course important to remember that all of this is in modesty.  Religion makes up a tiny percentage of the actual happiness people have, societal factors are much more pronounced.  But what makes some people want to spend resources on religion over other products that provide utility?  There is a buy-off here, if you want to buy more of religion, you have to spend less of something else.  Or do you?  Is the cost so low to be slightly religious that it is practically 0?

We atheists do pose a problem.  Would atheists be classed as those not willing to enter the market to buy a religious good, instead spending their resources on other things? Would atheism be classed as an actual product people are buying, considering there is no obvious seller of the product atheism and has no costs associated in buying it?  It could be the first one, that atheists refuse to enter the market, after all, an atheist sees religion as ‘snakeoil,’ which means that no matter how many units of religion an atheist buys, they receive no utility from it.  This is a dangerous oversimplification though, looking at religions such as Buddhism, atheist may purchase units of that, because it is a belief system compatible with atheism.  An interesting 3rd option, being an atheist simply excludes you from buying certain religions, then would we class Buddhism and other religions that are compatible with atheism as a separate market all together?  The questions are mounting up and few answers are available.

Looking at the market for religion as a whole.  What sort of market is it and how does it function?  I would argue that it is an oligopoly.  A market with few players all aware of what each other is doing, strategy is key here, because your actions in the marketplace will effect the actions of others.  Do religions have a strategy?  Raise your price and you lose customers, lower your price and technically your competitors should follow suit.  This would predict that ‘religions’ such as Scientology will never gain a large following like the mainstream ones because of the cost incurred.  Christianity has the lowest cost, it is very easy to claim to be Christian and fire off a few prayers every now and then.  Being an atheist may be seen as the ultimately lowest cost, just don’t believe in a god and suddenly your buying it.  Or are you?

Yet another question pops up.  Is there a difference between declaring ones atheism and taking part in societies, debates and other activities taken on due to ones atheism?  In that case, surely those atheists who go to debates, watch films and join atheist organisations will be happier because they are buying more atheism.  Thus, should these atheists be more happy than atheists who simply declare atheism because of their beliefs about god?  I may be tempted to argue yes, but again, a lack of research is the problem.

Back to religions and strategy, differentiation is the order of the day.  By differentiating your product from that of the rest of the market, you can charge more for your product and people will pay for it because your version offers more than the competition.  Take Judaism, generally additional services, such as marriage counselling and dating services are provided, but there are higher costs of joining than say Christianity.

So why is Christianity so popular?  Because it is cheap.  There are little to no transaction costs to buy Christianity, you only have to believe in god and prey every now and then, attend church once a week and your sorted!  Other religion have high transaction costs, as to join the religion may require several ceremonies and a real commitment to that faith.  Anyone can easily convert to Christianity, same with Islam, the transaction costs are low.  But, this depends on where in the world you are, America or Europe, it is very easy to be a Christian because transaction costs are low, churches are in every town, city and village (especially in the US), yet go to the middle east and churches become a little rarer.  Mosques are much more common and so is Islam.  There are also social pressures to join a faith, indoctrination of children etc.  Which contribute much more than just the ease of access to a Church.

In fact, this whole study of religionomics is highly flawed to begin with.  People make a choice on which religion they join, not because of economic rationalisation, but because they were either brought up to believe it, or society pressured them into it.  There is some degree of freedom to choose, but few exercise it.  Atheists screw it up a little too, how we fit into the puzzle is a mind-bender, since atheism is not a religion.  The only beneficial thing to come out of the study of economics and religion is how religion impacts consumer behaviours.  It doesn’t really help when analysing the stategy of firms (religious institutions) in the market either.  It does offer some insight and raises some interesting questions, but overall, this seems like a very limited way to look at religion and as interesting as it is, I’ll no longer waste time looking into it, at least not until more research is done on the matter.

I think the reasons for the new atheist movement can be put down to several factors:

• More and more people are standing up and saying “I do not believe in god.”  Now there has always been a % of atheists in the population, but they have always remained quiet because to say your an atheist would put you into the margins of society.  This was and still is especially apparent in the US.  It is said that atheists are one of the last minorities to exist which are still being discriminated against (I would disagree with this though).
• Drive for a more secular country, caused by religious uprisings.  Take this new Creationist movement that has been happening in the US, this has pissed off a lot of people.  The very idea of this unfounded faith-based belief makes most scientists cringe.  Some people feel now is the time to push for a more practically secular country.
• 9/11.  Perhaps my reasoning may not be as obvious at first.  With memories of religious inspired terrorism still fresh in people minds.  This has perhaps seen people chased away from the idea of god.  People wanting to rise up against the idea of religious inspired terrorism.  I wouldn’t say this is a strong reason for the new atheist movement, but it has had some impact.
• The internet has enabled millions of people to easily and rapidly access a wealth of information quicker than ever before.  If anyone chooses to, finding out about anything is easy.  Knowing about scientific theories, looking into theology, philosophy etc. has allowed people to come off the fence and make informed decisions about there being a god or not.
• “The Four Horsemen” (Dennet, Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens) have all helped to inspire people to come out of the closet, announce their atheism to discover they are not as along in this world as they thought.  They have led the creation of organisations and provided literature on the subject of atheism which is easy to access.
• Atheist organisations have been appearing everywhere, which have enabled more people to stand up, group together and bring their numbers to bear and make a stance on important issues.  Having organisations like this makes it easier for people to stand up and one of the reasons I became such an outspoken atheist is because of my Uni’s atheist society.

Is this a complete list, far from it.  I’m sure many other atheists have many more rationales that made them join in on this new atheist movement.  Atheists are here, get over it.  Most theists have, at least here in the UK.  A lot of people I know simply have the attitude “oh your an atheist, thats fine by me”  No one ever seems to be shocked, or insulted, or anything.  I guess I’m just one of the lucky ones, I have heard some real bad stories before.