After viewing some of Sam Harris's videos/articles, I realized that he makes the same observations about religious beliefs -- while I am not too impressed by his oratory, his writing is very lucid, and he is able to state his arguments very clearly. Particularly, I liked his "10 Myths & 10 Truths about atheism" that was published in the LA Times (Link here). This article was also quoted on RichardDawkins.net, eliciting the same old responses from some Christians -- which basically rehash stuff about design vs. "chance", the basis for morality, the relationship between science and atheism, and ultimately the "meaning of life" itself.

This is a reprint of an essay I wrote for another blog.

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Today, I will attempt to piss off Moderate Christians. This is going to be a difficult task, because one of the primary reasons I'm calling them out is their obstinate refusal to be offended. I had a long conversation tonight with one of my friends, who is some variety of theist, although he's very difficult to categorize. He was relating to me a dilemma he's going to face this weekend when his Moderate Christian family is going to ask him to go to church. The question of whether he should go, even though he disagrees strongly with many of the Christian church's teachings, is very close to me.

Or at least most of their beliefs. I find it confusing how theists attack a proven observation, always starting with the creation of life. None of them seem to realise that evolution is not the description of the formation of life. It merely explains how life can change from one form to another, ending up with a diversity of life such as that found on Earth, starting from a very few simple organisms or a single simple organism. Evolution has nothing to do with the appearence of life itself, just what happened after the fact.

Well we’ve just about come to the end of another full rotation around the sun, and still God blesses us with life. This ball of dirt and rock we call earth is still here, it hasn’t just vanished (not surprising is it).We’ve got air to breath and water to drink, or better beer and or wine. I’d say we’ve got a lot to be thankful for.
Yep life is good. Just look around and think, “How could this happen by chance?” If you’re into math and probability try figuring that out. You know our planet is just the right amount of distance away from our sun. Any further away we’d freeze any closer we’d burn up. Try getting that right on accident. Yep life is good.

When you are speaking to someone, it is not wrong to use any manner of terminology to express concepts and ideas, just so long as there is an agreed upon definition of what those terms represent. Frequently, however, people use terms without having any idea of what they are actually saying.

A fascinating experiment that proves this fact can be accomplished anytime with virtually anyone. Take a simple term that is used fairly widely, and when you hear someone express themselves by using that term, ask them to explain it.

Take, for instance, the term "stupid". I hear people all the time talking about someone who was so stupid, or actions that they deemed to be stupid. Yet, when asked to define what "stupid" means, they are completely dumbfounded.

Having lived in the US for over five years now, I am struck by the number of people who beleive in the inerrancy of the Bible. True, this is a predominantly Christian country, but one of the aspects that I have always admired is the secular nature of this nation (which, of late has seemed to be pretty shaky). When faced with a crisis, do people always need to turn to religion to get past it? (This brings to mind the "there are no atheists in foxholes" reasoning). Of late, religious commentators seem to have a stronger grip on the minds of people. So when someone beleives in whatever your religion states, take a step back, and look at the various faiths around the world.

1) Common misconception: Big bang theory is a creation account.

The "big bang" theory is not a 'creation theory', but a description of what occurred at Planck time, and immediately afterwards:

"A common misconception is that the big bang provides a theory of cosmic origins. It doesn't. The big bang is a theory, partly described in the last two chapters, that delineates cosmic evolution from a split second after whatever happened to bring the universe into existence, but it says nothing at all about time zero itself. And since, according to the big bang theory, the bang is supposed to have happened at the beginning, the big bang leaves out the bang. It tells us nothing about what banged, why it banged, how it banged, or, frankly, whether it ever really banged at all."

- Brian Greene "The Fabric Of The Cosmos."

Big bang theory only tells us about our universe from 'Planck time'. Big bang theory can tell us nothing about the universe prior to this time. (this is what grand unified theories seek to accomplish)

"Before a time classified as a Planck time, 10-43 seconds, all of the four fundamental forces are presumed to have been unified into one force. All matter, energy, space and time are presumed to have exploded outward from the original singularity. Nothing is known of this period (and nothing can be known from this period from the perspective of big bang theory).

I am Vastet, and I am god. Or at least, as much a god as anything is. I chose the field of gaming to watch over as my passion, though slapping around religious nuts and showing them the error of their ways has become a past time of mine over the years. Since this is an athiest site, I probably won't spend a tonne of time here. It's not as fun slapping people when they believe the same thing you do. > >

Why is it that those who have issues with it cannot actually state in an intelligent manner, a rational manner, what their problem is? Why do they resort to schoolyard insults, such as giving disparaging comments on someones hairstyle, someones perceived beauty, stating "I wouldn't fuck you!", or simply ranting in a butchered raped English that *I* am stupid???

Vid here

So many things that were said in the video, so many things that could have been picked for a rational discussion of our disagreements, and they totally invalidate their own opinions by picking something as shallow as my appearance, or something as obsolete as the "fuck it" comment. WHY NOT PICK FROM THE COMMENTS DEALING WITH THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD??? Why not pick from so many of the other comments, such as why they feel they NEED the fear of divine retribution to be a moral person!? Instead, there is one idiot who goes on and on that we're only atheist because we don't want to have to be moral... Did he miss the Newsflash? ATHEISTS DO HAVE MORALS AND ETHICS! Oh wow, and these morals and ethics differ from atheist to atheist! We think for ourselves, we don't have some jackass telling us what morals and ethics we MUST have to be "true atheists".

The bible does nothing and can do nothing towards inculcating moral behavior on its own. Christians must steal from secular moral systems, and then merely graft their 'god threats' on top of a purely secular moral system which already includes the concept of punishment. Any system that relies on external motivations for  behavior is not morality as much as it is consequentialism - an immature form of maturity that we must rely upon with infants, until they develop empathy.

The bible actually undermines the concept of morality. It holds that

1) All 'sins' are equivalent.

2) All positive moral behavior is immaterial, because works cannot save a person

3) There is an infinite reward for blind obedience (heaven) which undermines any intrinsic motivations for behavior - which is the basis for real morality.

4) There is an infinite punishment for disobedience, which is a mockery of justice, seeing as a) an omnipotent creator and sustainer must be perfectly, ultimately responsible for all actions (See my entry on the incoherence of god and the problem of evil) and b) no finite act by a finite being can logically incur 'infinite punishment', seeing as 'punishment' itself is necessarily finite in nature (i.e. punishment is defined as the addition of an aversive stimuli, or removal of a pleasant stimuli, that alters future behavior).