God & Religion: Evolutionary Opiates

Religion may be a evolutionary opiate.There is a theory (hypothesis) that the tendency to have magical beliefs may be an evolutionary niche that played a role in our evolutionary survival. Magical thinking gives people hope in an otherwise apathetic cruel world. It may have helped early human endure and cope with harsh survival hardships and statistically cruel adversities. What believers really seek to find through religion is a sense security, order, purpose. It is the hope that there is an answer to the “why” of their existence (sometimes a miserable one). They want to feel special enough for a deity to concern him/herself with their obviously insignificant lives; Insignificant from the overwhelmingly large perspective of the universe. A person’s life may affect other people, his immediate environment, in very rare occasions mankind and our planet. But outside this picoscopic blue oasis the significance of their lives is nonexistent. The universe carries on unaware of our existence.

The believer’s desire is understandable, even skeptics wonder about these things. Shit! On some level we all seek some kind of validation to our existence. Subconsciously, I delude myself with the idea that I am special. However, I’m just another very curious self-aware human; One of many of our species; not exactly the same as the rest, but not very different. These false ideas help me emotionally tussle with failure, adverse circumstances. I delude myself with the prospect of an incredibly bright successful future to motivate myself, knowing full well many of my fantasies will not come true. I could fall ill and die. I could fall victim to some life altering event. A jagged frozen blue turd can fall off and airplane and land on my throat or I could just fail miserably. There is no destiny, no guarantees. The universe has no bias towards or against me. The only guarantee is that someday I will die.

It is normal for individuals to feel like they are destined to someday enjoy glory, wealth, happiness, success, peace, pleasure, a sense of fulfillment etc. These are delusions in contrast to statistical reality. Most people don’t become wealthy, glorious, and successful. Many die young, poor, under miserable conditions; work their entire lives earning meager livings with little satisfaction. Most don’t become what they dreamed they would grow up to be. Many achieve their goals, but the satisfaction is short lived or not as pleasurable as envisioned. Many, who were on the road to glory and success, living dream lives, die before their prime. But if we were to be so blatantly honest, realistic and pessimistic with ourselves I suppose we would all be overdosing on Percocet and Valium. There is plenty to be depressed about. A little Intentional self deception helps us deal with what would otherwise be overwhelming.

A very common example of this conjuration we play with ourselves occurs when a loved one passes away. To try and cope people sometimes say things like “He gone to a better place now”, “we will see her again when Jesus comes”, “I know I’ll see him in heaven” or “She is in heaven smiling down on us”. Yet our emotions defraud us and contradict our statements. We cry and grieve like we will never see them again. Deep down we are well aware death is an end and the likelihood of ever enjoying that person’s company again is nil. This is the reason why many religions, if not all, concern themselves with an afterlife. They help believers cope with the prospect of their own mortality.

So I wonder if religion is an expression of a somewhat necessary “brain generated delusion” that evolution has provided the human species. None the less, this particular expression of an otherwise useful evolutionary niche, is past its prime in many ways, and is retarding humanities progress.

Indoctrinated into Ignorance. How Good People are swindled into belief.

Last week I posted a series of bible verses that would make any person without religious bias come to the conclusion that Christian god is evil, apathetic to human suffering, cruel, and far from moral and just. These verses should have made the moderate believers at least ponder the possibility that there is a problem with the accuracy of their belief. The passages were blatant and as obvious as I could find, with very little, if any, room for any other logical conclusion than “God is not good”. In these passages God very clearly endorsed slavery, the selling of daughters as sex slaves, and the murder of women, infants, and rape victims.

Not to my surprise, but not what you would expect from people who pride themselves in being just and moral, I received responses attempting excusing this gods behavior and forcefully circumventing the little thought needed to come to a rational conclusion. What is amazing is that, if I were to have told them that Sadaam Hussein made these statements they would have had him unearthed, revived and hung him again. But since their god made these statements, Killing babies and making your daughters into sex slaves was perfectly acceptable.

My point here is that I believe, based on my own religious experience as a reverends son, most believers are first taught what to think of the bible and God before they even read it. They have already been convinced of a conclusion or told what to think of the bible as they read the bible. They are told that God is always good and just, and that God is always right. When something in the bible is incongruent with this or reality, they will be told to refer to the previous assumption, pray to God for revelation, it is a mystery that only god knows, not to attempt rationalize Gods infinite wisdom just have faith and other similar bullshit. They are told how to interpret the bible as if it is not written in plain English. You are told what to think versus reading the bible without bias and arriving at your own conclusion. They totally subvert opportunity for rational thought and indoctrinate members into a delusional mindset. Questioning of God’s judgment is a sin and the virtue of impervious faith is most pleasing to God. No matter how much you are suffering or how shitty your existence is, you are told God cares about you, and if you continue serve him, he will compensate you after you die. You are told if you don’t serve him, when you die, God will make you suffer for eternity and make them wish you were really dead. When the believer dies after a life of intellectual slavery, it is too late, he has been swindled out of money, time and a sane rational lifestyle.

Why God is a Delusion. The basics.

This is not an end all to the question of Gods existence. This is more like a conversation starter. I will not provide any evidence that God doesn’t exist, this is as impossible as providing evidence of his existence. You can only prove existence, not the lack of.

The right question to ask when analyzing any claim is “why should I or anyone believe?”. It is not your job to refute every claim made. The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. A claim is not “true until proven false”. This is backwards. A claim is only deemed true when proven true. How could we otherwise determine truth?

The premise of my argument is that truth can only be verified by evidence. If there is no evidence to support a claim then there is no reason to believe it is true. Then the argument digresses into what constitutes evidence. What quality and quantity of evidence is sufficient to reasonably justify belief? That depends on the claim made. Is it ordinary or extraordinary in nature.
If you claim to own a dog, it would it is reasonable for me to take your word as true because it is a fairly ordinary claim and of little importance or ramifications. Dogs exist and plenty of people own them. Dogs are very easy to obtain.

However, if you claim that you own a dog that poops 24k gold pretzels on command, I may try to reserve judgment on your character or your mental health, but I would surely require a significant amount of evidence of great quality prior to believing you. I would want to see it with my two eyes, repeated over many times. I would want scientist to investigate and determine if the dog itself is producing the gold or are you abusing your dog by placing gold pretzels in its rectum. I would want scientist to explain how exactly the dog is able to defecate gold. As well as determining how in the world does he make it into the shape of a pretzel? A gold limacon evacuating canine would have great scientific ramifications and is very extraordinary in nature. This is practically unbelievable from the perspective of the human experience.

If we were to objectively judge the claim that “God exists and is the cause of all existence” by the same standards that we judged the claim of a gold pretzel defecating dog, we will likely come to the conclusion that there is more evidence for a the gold defecating dog than for God’s existence; Evidence for the existence of dogs, feces, pretzels, pretzel shaped poop and gold all exist. Evidence for god however… Nil. Nol. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nashingu.

If there is no evidence of god’s existence then the universe being his creation is equally unsubstantiated. This is why faith is the corner stone of many religions. For example, Christian dogma emphasizes faith that can move mountains. As if saying’” if you believe strong enough it will come true”. It innately disregards the importance of evidence as a means of justifying belief because its claim is not substantiated by evidence.
Because most of earth’s human population believe in deities, the claim that god exists seems ordinary. It gives the illusion that this belief is substantiated because it is perceived to be common knowledge. Therefore, the claim is treated as ordinary despite being an extraordinary one. Not much evidence, if any, is requested by people before the claim is accepted as truth. Religious belief circumvents the standard by which people normally evaluate claims.

Now as far as my general statement, “God is a delusion” refers to beliefs correlated with religion, that are unsubstantiated and or contradicted by well establish knowledge. The most common example is the bibles 7 day creation myth. It claims that all life on earth, as well as earth in its current form, was created by a god. Despite the plethora of evidence supporting scientific explanations for the evolution of earth and life (physical, geological, paleontological and biological), Christian creationist insist the creation myth is truth. If you notice most arguments against evolution merely attempt to discredit it but never provide scientific evidence for the creation myth other than quoting the bible. The closest thing to a scientific argument is intelligent design which is a merely a sophisticated version of creationism and is actually antiscientific in nature. This is merely one example of many that abound.

If someone believes a claim despite contradicting evidence it can be said he/she has a delusional belief because it is not only unsubstantiated but contrary to proven truths. People who believe in deities usually do not make habit of challenging claims by evaluating the evidence that supposedly substantiates it, and therefore they are prone to believe falsehoods or delusions.

I encourage you to ask me questions, analyze my statement, and do your own research. Question everything.

What Would Hitler Do? (WWHD?)

Do Christians ever stop and think what their beliefs imply? Take for instance the concept of original sin. According to Christian dogma, we are all condemned to burn in hell from the time of conception because of Adam’s and Eve’s sin. You are being held accountable and punished for crimes you haven’t committed. God will torture you for eternity because you’re related to Adam. Is this just? Is this moral?

If we assume God is all-good and always acts justly and morally, then genocide is also moral and just. In the Christian God’s eyes, the merciless killing of an entire race (Men, Women and infants) as punitive measure for the transgressions of one man, is moral and warranted. Imagine Hitler a moral icon. What would Hitler do (WWHD)? All Hitler would need to excuse his gruesome genocide, is one crooked Jew.

Since the Christian God is assumed to be all-knowing; he must have known that Adam would sin before creating humanity. So God was looking forward to torturing you for eternity. Not only that, he looked forward to having his only begotten son, Jesus, beaten to a pulp and crucified. His own son!!!

This Gods total apathy towards human suffering, more accurately phrased, lust for human suffering, can only be deemed as evil. To say “God is love” and “God loves you” is absurd and deceitful.

Frankly, if you get your morals from the god of the bible, you’re basically an evil piece of shit.

Common Christian Arguments and Atheist Refutations

This was originally an email response to a fellow atheist who wanted to know my take on Christian arguments to be able to argue more competently.

Well, if you’re an atheist then you must naturally find some falsehood in the Christian claim for the existence of their God. You can argue it philosophically or through science. It’s really easy to find fallacies and contradictions in their belief on your own, there are so many.

First off you have to know that it is the duty of the person making a claim to prove it, not the person in disbelief. So logically the first argument is there is no evidence of their God.

They make scientific claims that God is the creator of everything in the universe and argue in particular earth’s creation. Since referring to the bible as evidence would be a circular argument, they either use the philosophical argument called “the watch maker argument”, whose author is William Paley or the psudoscientific of “intelligent design”. The” watch maker” is the origin of “intelligent design”, a very old argument put to rest long ago disguised as science. He compares the complexity of a watch to that of the universe and thus since a watch has an intelligent maker (humans) so must the universe. Paley’s argument was thoroughly put to rest by another philosopher named David Hume, 40 years before Paley even wrote it. Paley’s biggest mistake is in the comparison of the two. If comparing two objects, the strength of your argument relies on how similar the two items are, thus this argument is considered very weak. You can obviously notice how disparate the two are. Secondly, he fails to realize that one can obtain similar results from different causes. For example, you can die from a viral infection or in a car crash. Very different causes same result. So there is an obvious error in presuming the universe and a watch have similar causes. This argument is seen in many versions; many replace the watch with paintings of the Mona Lisa or a Coke-Cola can. They will say things like “it’s obvious something intelligent created this”. However the fundamental errors are the same. This is a very brief summary; you should go more into depth.

Since we live in the age of science and information, the biblical account of creation can be put to shame. Of course, the theory of evolution is the most opposed to by Christians because it is the most threatening to their entire dogma. Not just because it proves the bible is an unreliable source of information and not the word of an all knowing God, but because it supports the idea that we are here without the aid or over sight of a deity. No need for a God to explain our origins. It also takes away from the anthropocentric view of Christian religion. We are not the reason why the universe exists and it does not exist for us. Humans are not any more special in origin than any other animal. We were not created in God’s image and frankly there is no heavenly purpose to life other than the one you give yourself, not to mention how impersonal God would be if despite the evidence he existed. It also obliterates their dogma; with out original sin what need for Jesus is there?

Genetic and geographic evidence both support evolution and rebut creation. Different animals fossils are specific to different layers of earth. Each layer of earth is equivalent to a specific time period in earth’s history. Humans are found in the upper most layers indicating that they arrived later in earth’s history. If the biblical account of creation were to be true, all animals should be found in all the different layers since they were all created relatively simultaneously. Which is why the biblical creation myth does not prove true and is why human remains are not found alongside a dinosaurs’. Genetically we are almost identical to chimpanzees and bonobos. We share 98-99% similar DNA with them, implying we shared a common ancestor. This does not mean we came from monkeys, it means we are evolutionarily related. Just like you and you cousins share a common relative. There is a plethora of evidence sustaining evolution and refuting creation, check them out. Don’t be scared by “intelligent arguments”, like “there is no instance where genetic information is added to DNA sequence in any natural process”, “there aren’t any transitional fossils “or “evolution has never been witnessed”. These are false, check out www.EvoWiki.com for reference. Most of the time, Christians are ill informed or repeat lies and misconceptions of evolution. Know your shit if you don’t want to look stupid and leave Christians with the illusion that truth has triumphed. Remember that the fallacy they live by is: if you can’t explain or answer a question, they are right by default. Which is a warped assumption since the burden of proof is on the person making the claim; it’s not your burden to prove God doesn’t exist. There are stock piles of science that refutes biblical claims.

Thirdly most common argument is that of morality. Where does morality come from? What is moral? Again if you can’t answer they assume they are right by default. These philosophical questions were addressed by Plato in his classic work “Euthyphro” (www.wikipedia.com ), where Socrates is famously quoted as asking “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious? Or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” In Greek, piety meant more than just religious devotion; it was more along the lines of justice and morality. The second part of the question is called the “God command theory”, implying that an action is deemed moral or virtuous merely because God says so. In which case, any action can be moral regardless if it is unjust and causes undeserved pain and suffering. There is no clear way of defining what is moral if this is the argument made, there is no reference to judge actions by, one is even unable to judge if God is all-good or evil. This way of thinking has been adopted my Islamic terrorist who defend their actions as righteous because God approves it in the Koran. The first half of Socrates question implies that God approves of morality because of its intrinsic virtue, meaning that morality exists independent of God’s judgment. This allows us to define morality by use of reason. If this is true, what need for God is there?

A general rule of thumb for knowing what moral is “The Golden Rule”, “do onto others as one would have others do onto you”. Of course Christians would claim that this is biblical and thus commanded by God. But the Idea transcends religion. In essence this has its origin in empathy, In other words, placing oneself in another person’s place. This is not original to Christianity; in fact it’s not even original to the human species. Primates such as chimps, gorillas and bonobos have been observed as showing this trait. There is an account in Frans de Waal’s book “Our inner ape”, where a bonobo rescues a bird that had flown into the wall of his enclosure. The bird was in shock and could not fly. The bonobo gently picks the bird up and climbs to the top of a tree and releases the bird. The bird falls but the bonobo continued to look after the bird, protecting it from a younger curious bonobo until the bird regained its motor skills and flew away.

Another account in his book is that of an 8 Year old gorilla coming to the aid of a 3 year old boy who has fallen into her enclosure and was injured. The gorilla runs to the boys rescue, cradles him in her arms and begins to pat his back; later giving the boy up to Zoo attendants. The truth is empathy is a trait we have inherited from our evolutionary ancestors. We are predisposed to empathetic behavior, but our environment, circumstance, and culture influences are behavior. Also empathy is not an absolute we are also able to be apathetic and cruel. Morality is much more complex of a subject and the Golden rule is much too general to encompass all our social scenarios. This is where philosophy and reason play their part is solving the moral conundrums that plague our world. In all honesty morality is a highly debated subject by philosophers. There are debates such as Utilitarianism versus individual rights. However the ground work has been accomplished through reason not divine intervention.

Last but not least is a classic argument specific to the monotheist Judeo-Christian religions. Their belief is that of God who is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent. There is an obvious discrepancy in this absolutist view of God. We live in a world full of evil, which is defined as undeserved pain and suffering inflicted by other humans as well as natural disasters like famine and volcanoes. If God is all-good then how can he allow evil to exist. Either he is not all good or he is not powerful enough to stop it. It is either one or the other but he logically cannot be both. This concepts brings about questions like “if God is all-powerful could he make a mountain he could not move”, if he can’t make one he is not all powerful and if he can’t move it he is not all powerful. Similar questions can be asked about his “all-knowing” mind.

The truth is Christians rarely come up with original arguments. They repeat the same old mistakes they made in the past. Unlike science that is always expanding its knowledge of our universe, this religion is stagnant and encapsulated in the same old rhetoric and presumptions. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself shaking your head, rolling your eyes and yawning in a debate. I call their faith a delusion because they maintain their belief despite of overwhelming evidence and rational ineptitudes of their dogma. They lack the ability to be objective and self-reflective. Reality is relative to what they want it to be and not what it actually is. Some compartmentalize their faith, as I once did; the laws of logical reasoning expire at the gates of their faith.

How I Became an Atheist

Why am I an atheist? Why do I defy my parent’s Christian upbringing? Never in my wildest dream growing up would I have believed I would become agnostic. The majority of my past life is saturated with Christian influence. My world revolved around my family’s beliefs, back then also mine. My father was a well educated devout charismatic minister. I was raised in a wholesome Christian household. I grew up in church, literally. My largest social circle was in church. Up until 2003, I was complacent with how my parents explained my universe.

As a child I was very intuitive and bright. I enjoyed reading zoology magazines and science books. Since then, I have had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, trying to piece together and solve my awesome universes conundrums. Infallible logic ruled my universe, yet I was a steadfast in my religious beliefs. I had subconsciously divided my universe between the spiritual and the scientific. They both seemed as one but never conflicted with one another. I blindly followed my parent’s doctrines and never questioned God’s existence.

Now that I am openly Agnostic (gay’s aren’t the only ones with closets), my parents believe my four year Endeavour in the U.S. Navy twisted my perception. Contrary to their beliefs, I held their belief until a year after my discharge. The culprit of my theological corruption was not the salty grime and soot of ethically deprived sailors or my alcoholic escapades in trashy neighborhoods around the world. It was the wholesome nurture of the Discovery Channel. It was my thirst for knowledge.

There came a time after my adventures as a seafarer when I came to the realization that I needed to define myself. The oppressive uniformity of military life plunders individuality and left me devoid of an identity. I lost the Ibzan Fernandez. I had lost myself in the system. It was as if I was dormant for four years. My intellect slumbered as if hibernating a long winter. But alas it was spring and I began to thaw. I rediscovered my innate passion of science and knowledge.

In my quest to find myself, I began to read a lot of scientific, historical and political articles and televised documentaries. I was on a journey to find my own path, to form my own opinions, to be myself. I wasn’t consciously on the road to disband biblical myths and ask heretical questions though. My faith was still intact. Until then I had kept my two worlds separate. But as I nurtured critical and syllogistic thinking, my once disparate worlds began their collision.

As I studied the formation of our planet and life within, the how and why scientist arrived at certain theoretical conclusions, I began to realize that the bibles creation myth was flawed. The earth wasn’t created in seven days, it took millions of years. All species of life on earth did not arrive in a day’s time of one another within the span of a week. Different sets of animal fossils are found in different layers of earth, each layer of earth representing different time periods on earth, spanning back millions of years. Human fossils are not found next to T-Rex. Why? Well, because they did not exist simultaneously. If one part of the bible was flawed why couldn’t there be other errors. I began to subject all that I was taught to critical analysis. I found other scientific fallacies. I also found logical defects in its philosophy and doctrine. Day by day my faith withered, until I came to the undeniable truth that the people who wrote the books of the bible were not inspired by an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent god. They were merely doing the best they could explaining the marvelous world they lived in. They observed their universe with ignorant eyes. The ancient did not judge and interpret events in their lives with scientific eyes. The Hebrews did what all other ancient civilizations did; they filled their gaps of knowledge with gods and superstitions.

This finally lead me commit the ultimate heresy; questioning gods existence. This did not come easy to me. I wasn’t only confronting my parent’s beliefs, I was confronting my own. I was disillusioned. I felt disoriented. I was on a mission to find and define myself and ended losing more of who I had come to be. The fundament of which I had based my existence, my orientation in life, my place and purpose in this universe, was sent into total disarray. For the first time in my life I felt truly desolate, devoid of a non-existent god’s presence.

Like when a child is told that there is no Santa, I felt a loss. Except the loss, in this case, was an all-knowing, ever vigilant and caring father figure, who had a purpose for my life in his grand plan and promised me eternal life after death. Not to mention that this would affect how I associated and interacted with, and thought of my parents. With my accepting this, in their eyes is heretical, truth; a wall erected between us. There entire existence is devoted to this marred belief. In their eyes god is everything and in everything and vice-versa.

This especially affected my relationship with my theist father. We had little in common to begin with. He was always too absorbed with his ministerial duties to observe many of life’s other aspects. Not much else left to build a relationship on, other than I love and respect him. How was I to tell him that I thought that, that which he had whole heartedly devoted his entire self too is complete rubbish in my book? Luckily my father has always had respect of my thoughts and took the news relatively well. He never forced his beliefs on me. He would say “God doesn’t have grandchildren”; meaning just because he was devout son of god did not mean by default I was. I had to have my own encounter and relationship with God. For this I am grateful, though I wonder if my father regrets it. My great father allowed me to come to my own realization, though with faith that God would reveal himself to me.

So here I am an agnostic with atheist views. Still finding myself and making my own path. Accepting and at peace with the fact that there is no heavenly purpose to my existence. Realizing I give myself purpose. Here I am, dealing with the harsh prospect living only one life, with no expectations of an afterlife.

People share the misconception that life without a God is meaningless and devalues ones existence. I say the contrary. Life with the belief of a creator depreciates the value of it. Life is that much more special and cherished when one realizes that you only live once and that there isn’t a soul factory in heaven that can replace the loss of a life. Without conscious life forms like ourselves, who would be the eyes and ears of our universe? Who would gaze in awe, discover and describe our unique planet? The fact that you are alive is more a miracle without a God. The fact that chance brought me into existence makes my everyday that much more special. I take nothing for granted and am grateful and honored to have the opportunity to observe, touch, feel, smell, hear, and taste my awesome universe. Every moment is unique and vivid, every moment is cherished as if were my last. My new stark reality has made my purpose to enjoy life and the plentiful booty it has to offer. I say booty because booty is stolen or taken by force. Live life forcefully. Live it with ferocity. Live as if you have but one.

Did a god plant the seeds for evolution?

I Myspacer asked me the following: “Do you believe it impossible for God to have planted a seed of creation for which all evolution began?”. And I responded:

I think thats a cop out argument, with the purpose of keeping ones faith without perturbing the rational side of your intellect by appeasing it. Evolution is a sloppy, unguided process in which we are a fortunate coincidence. This is consistent with the idea that there is no god, no purposeful creator or (for weak arguments sake) if there is a god he is not a personal god. You must ask yourself what evidence is there for the existence of a god? The proof for a god is tantamount to the evidence for a green three headed swan in our neighboring universe laying titanium eggs. You can’t prove there isn’t one, but there isn’t any data that implies there is. So what is the most likely scenario? The most likely scenario is that there is no god. I really wish I had a good willed invisible being looking over my shoulder. However, when I observe the apathetic universe I live in, all the human and animal suffering I observe, I would be a delusional egomaniac to think that there is a universal steward that cares about me.