Euthyphro’s Dilemma summed up nicely
Every once in a while Plato would write something with which I can actually agree. Here’s one of such things.
Serve in Heaven?
So the consensus on Christian views of “Heaven” and “Hell” are that believers go to Heaven and spend eternity worshiping their deity. Non-believers go to Hell and spend eternity being punished for their failure to believe and obey.
Does this not strike anyone else as a bit egotistical and totalitarian? God makes a bunch of these creatures named humans, then demands that either they worship him unconditionally for eternity or they will be punished for disobeying his will for eternity.
Am I the only one that, given these theological concepts, even if true, would rather stand resolutely rebellious and free-willed and be punished for using his free-will than spend an eternity on his knees as a praising slave?
I fucking love Canada!
The atheist group behind last year’s controversial bus ads suggesting “there’s probably no God” is rolling out a provocative new set of posters on buses across the country that places Allah beside Big Foot and Christ beside psychics.
The new posters bear the slogan: “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” with “Allah, Big Foot, UFOs, Homeopathy, Zeus, Psychics, Christ” listed below.
It’s nice to see atheists getting into the festive spirit around the world!
Don’t keep the faith,
I H8 RELIGION
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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
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| — | Ayn Rand |
CNN) — When talking about so-called family values, pastors, popes, and politicians routinely quote the Bible as if it were an unassailable divine authority — after all, they assume, God wrote the Bible, and therefore it is absolutely and literally true.
But that is a misconception. As the Bible itself makes clear, its authors were human beings, many of whom are named: David, Isaiah, Luke, and Paul. These human writers wrote over the course of more than a thousand years, and their writings reflect their own views and the values they shared with their contemporaries. So it’s not surprising that inconsistencies are frequent in the Bible, both trivial and profound.
good read here, folks.
Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.
“
| — | Kurt Vonnegut (via downsouthsally) |
If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able
Then He is not omnipotent.
If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?
“
| — | Epicurus (via ageofreason) |
Ah, the Internet squabble. It can make even the most analytical mind sound like a shrieky high-school girl. Wouldn’t the Web be a better place if everyone learned to argue logically?
To that end, Craig Ward, a British-born New York-based designer, has produced an excellent flowchart on how to prove people wrong online. The guide reinterprets Paul Graham’s 2008 essay “How to Disagree,” a primer for Internet commenters and bloggers on the hierarchy of effective argument forms.
God himself created man and woman and placed them in a garden, in “his own image”, but got righteously angry at them when they ate, against his wish, and after being tempted by a talking serpent that god himself had somehow allowed to slither about in the garden, a tasty, beautiful fruit, though he himself had placed it there but neglected to instill in his creations the knowledge of good and evil so that they would know it was wrong to eat it. Being omniscient, of course, he knew all this before he started, but was apparently unable to do anything about it because he had planned it this way from the beginning, and apparently god cannot change anything he already knows, in spite of the fact that he’s omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.
Later, God himself impregnated a virgin so that he himself could be born a human, a ManGod. This was necessary, apparently, because only his own ManGod blood could appease himself and deliver humans, who he created, and who he knew would muck things up by eating the fruit, from his own righteous anger.
Of course, he waited several thousand years to implement this divine plan, in the meantime taking the righteous action of drowning every creature on the planet except a few he could stuff on a boat. Not to mention handing down a Law that served to further condemn every one of us, and in which Law he himself had them frequently sacrifice animals to appease himself, though he knew the blood of animals didn’t really appease himself.
Much later, god, in a garden, prayed to himself to “take this cup” away from himself, though he himself knew that he himself had planned the coming events from the beginning and knew that not even he himself could save himself, even though he was god and omnipotent, omniscient, etc. Accepting this, he said, in effect, “Not my will, but my will.”
God then sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself. (or had himself sacrificed; not much of a distinction between the two, really) Before dying, he himself asked he himself why he had forsaken himself.
He himself, being dead, then raised himself from the dead less than 40 hours later, though he himself had said he’d be dead for three days and three nights, which he could do because he was still alive, and later he himself pulled himself up into heaven where he himself apparently already was, and where he himself is described as now sitting at the right hand of himself.
He himself then sent himself (or a ghost of himself, if you please) back to earth to be a comfort to us, though he himself is still sitting at the right hand of himself.
And, glory hallelujah, he himself promised that he himself will return someday, though he himself is already here, and will still be there, to snatch up those who believe the god blood sacrifice story he himself told us, and kill the rest of us who don’t believe the god blood sacrifice story, no matter how nice we were otherwise. But, since killing us isn’t enough to appease his righteousness, he himself will then judge us, though according to ManGod he himself will also not judge us, and being a god of love will cast most of us into hell for an eternity of suffering. He has to, of course, because he is a righteous, just god, and can’t figure out a way to save anyone who hasn’t been redeemed by god-blood, even though he is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, and loves us all.
“
| — | “Mageth” |
Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
Why is the burden of proof placed on the non-believer?
If I professed a belief that there was an invisible pink unicorn that is secretly running the world, would you not necessitate I prove its existence, rather than you prove its non-existence?
“The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.”
- Pierre-Simon Laplace
“And when such claims are extraordinary, that is, revolutionary in their implications for established scientific generalizations already accumulated and verified, we must demand extraordinary proof.”
- Marcello Truzzi
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”
- Carl Sagan
