The Lack of an Answer

One of the most commonly and openly committed logical fallacies that Christian apologists love to engage in is the use of mystery or the unexplained to propose that God is the best or only explanation that makes any sense. Often times they will steep a subject in it's own complexity and play up the intricate inter-workings or causes and effects that would have had to all come together to make this thing happen... so there must be some form of God, some agency, some purpose to it all.

This tendency to read agency into things is one of the foundations of superstition and therefore serves as a psychological crux propping up all of religion. The mysteries that apologists often exploit are those that human beings most desperately want answered. Where did we come from? What is the origin of the Universe? What is the meaning of our lives? Are we just here or do we have a higher purpose? And, if it is all by natural processes, how can that be so?

That last bit of question begging, asking HOW all this could happen by natural processes, is often the most plaintive of the questions, pulling at the hearts of everyone. Everyone wants to believe they were special and no one seems willing to accept the idea that natural processes can be responsible for everything.

Yet enduring mysteries, even ones that seem insoluble and without resolution, are not a call to invent something spooky or, even worse, to cower beneath the shadow of something spooky that ancient people invented thousands and thousands of years ago. It is utterly human to want to fill in those mysteries and even to invoke agency to do so but it is also ignorant and it is even more ignorant to merely choose whatever supernatural agent happens to have been handed to us by our parents or the society around us.

The fact that children most typically have the religion of their parents and that religious denominations are cut almost as hard as political and geographical borders is a telling one indeed. It says that many people share the psychological need or desire for a creator or some sort of superstition but it also shows how misguided they are to put their faith in the cults of the past.

And this brings in another fallacy, the idea that these ancient schools of superstition (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc) are somehow MORE likely to be true because they endured thousands of years. Of course they've changed and evolved a great deal in that time and the beliefs of believers are not only vastly different today than they were five hundred or even a hundred years ago but there are so many varieties of belief even within those religions. Sects diverging like a thousand splinters from a bolt of lightning all with varying beliefs but all with the certainty that they understand the answer to the mystery better than the others.

We all understand, at least those of us outside the cult do, that something like Scientology is a load of shit, absolutely devoid of facts at its very core - an exploitative cult with bizarre ideas about ancient galactic empires and brainwashed alien spirits. But in the same breath people will praise the unseen hand of the Jewish God - a warlike plague-bringer who, sometime in the early 1st century, dispatched a constituent part of himself into the womb of a teenage virgin so that this incarnated divine child could set up a new more merciful covenant with humanity and then, through a blood-magic ritual of atonement where he dies and returns to life, save at least some of us from the wrath we all deserved because two ancient people in a garden somewhere took bad dietary advice from a talking snake. For some reason we can all tell Scientology is bullshit but as a society we give something as old and big as Christianity a free pass to be as full of magical mumbo-jumbo as is possibly imaginable.

Feel free to use this quote:

So when someone appeals to mystery in a talk about apologetics, when they appeal to the vastness of the Cosmos, when they start talking about the "improbability" of it all coming together just so and then they run and hide beneath some Middle Eastern deity who murders children, supports slavery and brings down horrid plagues on the heads of any who displease him their reasoning is flawed. They have forgotten the very mystery they were just praising and instead invested in some horseshit humanity made up to fill in the gaps. This is why it's called a God of the Gaps argument.

This came up earlier this year when I was discussing internet celebrity Joshua Feuerstein and his absurd 100,000 dollar challenge to disprove God, the good pastor Josh makes a great appeal to mystery where he draws a circle and then puts a dot at the center. Our knowledge of the Universe is the dot and the circle, more or less, is the rest of what's OUT THERE, all of the UNKNOWN Cosmic goings on. The problem is that Josh's answer to this isn't to be inclusive. He's not asking people to become New Age gurus who accept and cannibalize different parts of all religions to build one big UBER religion, he wants you to abandon the idea of the mystery of the Cosmos immediately after you've agreed to it and agree to his bullshit theology. He only wants you to acknowledge that HIS God and only his God might be out there and, because you can't disprove it, that you're a moron for disbelieving as strongly as you do.

The problem isn't that Josh's God is impossible or is definitely not out there, it's that Josh's God is no more likely to be out there than any of the other shit human beings have believed in since the dawn of superstition. Josh isn't actually open to the vastly weird Cosmic intelligences, gods or not, that might be out there. He isn't interested in talking about Bleebblarp from the Irulian Galaxy Cluster who is an almost omnipotent psychic being that can bend time and space however he sees fit. Josh doesn't want to find out and isn't open to finding out that a group of super-intelligent interdimensional bunny rabbits were contracted by an even smarter more intelligent being called Marvin the Space Penguin to build our Universe.

Apologists making these arguments aren't open to the mystery actually being answered, they want to shove their already existing beliefs into the gap they've just opened. This is part of the proof that apologetics is just verbal masturbation, or a verbal circle-jerk. Christians making other Christians feel reassured that they aren't wrong by fallaciously appealing to mystery or complexity and making sure their God sorta kinda could maybe work as an explanation if you squint real hard, clap your hands and say "I do believe in fairies".

Part of being open-minded is admitting that you could be wrong. I openly do this, I openly admit Gods could be out there. All kinds of weird shit could be out there and I want to know if it is but faith, superstition, they're a hindrance not a help, they're far more likely to close a mind than open it. The lack of an answer is not proof that your answer is the only one and sticking an even bigger mystery into an existing one does not help.

Author's Note:

Okay so this was a very off the cuff and spontaneous post but Hubpages (where I do most of my writing) has redesigned their site to look like shit, removed feedback features that are fundamental to the site and has basically shit the bed 100%. Chances are you (who am I addressing this to? No one reads this shit) will be seeing more posts here and over on my Bible study blog: fuckthebible,wordpress.com

If All The World Forgot Your God He Would Not Be Remembered

This religion thing really holds us back and the older I get the harder it is to see religion as a positive influence in any way. It really is a shame because religion provides people with a sense of community, of greater identity and destiny and can also help prompt people to give to charitable causes and get more involved with their fellow human beings. However religion also tends to hi-jack your identity and establish itself as an indispensable cornerstone not just of your individual life but of human civilization and society as a whole.


Religion takes certain functions that a normal secular community organization might perform. It feeds the hungry, gives money to causes, organizes community wide events, etc etc. So when it is pointed out that the ideas at the heart of religion, the doctrines and claims made about supernatural phenomenon, are actually false or at the very least unfalsifiable, people use the positive functions that religion has adopted as a shield.


And it works both ways. For when churches and sects of Christianity fail to properly execute these borrowed parts of society people will claim that religion isn't really ABOUT ALL THAT and is really about the message of Jesus' love. For example let's say a Mega Church Televangelist asks his congregation for money and uses that money on opulent hotel suites, private jets and high end prostitutes. When the transgressing Televangelist is at last discovered in his sin the excuse is that “not all churches are like that” and that “no true Christian behaves that way. This person is just in it for the money!”


Thus religion can shield itself from any ugly truth by being a chameleon, or more accurately a Chimera. This is why there are so many thousands of differing views, sects and denominations of the Christian faith, because over the years Christianity has developed a flavor for almost anyone. Hell there are even Christian Atheists, a term that seems an oxymoron at first glance.


The Catholic Church is a great example of religion hiding behind just how fiercely it is embedded into society and the collective consciousness.


The Catholic Church was once the authority on what people were allowed to believe. As many nations had officially adopted Catholicism there were times in European history where questioning and speaking against the Orthodoxy of the Church was punishable by death. Galileo, whose famous observations definitively overturned centuries of false geocentric dogma, was a victim of this very tyranny. The Christian faith, as a whole, not just in regards to the Catholics, made it quite clear that the average believer was not allowed to engage in free thinking when it came to their beliefs. While theologians often questioned and decided in committee various points of doctrine questioning whatever they ordained orthodox was not allowed.


Religion established that to question the truths it put forth was taboo, forbidden, and might get you killed or at the very least run out of town and cast out of society. Religion is thus made an intimate part of people's lives and their base of knowledge, so that questioning its truths was seen as more perverse and foolish than even questioning mathematics or logic. Whatever you believe, the truths of religion were above that, they were sacred.


I personally take offense to the idea that any idea can be sacred. In point of fact I hold that the only sacred truth is that no truth is sacred. Sacred here meaning above reproach or above disposal. We should be ready, at all times, to throw out utterly any truth shown to be false and to only adopt new truths tentatively and with an understanding that they might be temporary.


So when people say that we cannot or should not tear down the Catholic Church for their organized and merciless cover-up of institutionalized child molestation I can only assume that they are operating from the point of view that the Catholic Church represents core sacred truths that must be defended. But I find it insulting that those in power at the Vatican hide behind the centuries of mind-control they have instilled in the poor folks of Europe and the Americas to get away with their sinister criminal enterprise.


Make no mistake about it that the Catholic Church is, and always has been, a Criminal Organization designed to procure opulence, wealth, and influence. That last piece may seem like a rather minor one, influence, but it is actually the main currency that the Catholic Church uses to buy its immunity from both public scrutiny and international outrage.


By embedding itself so deeply in people's identities and lives religion assures that although the ideas at its core are untrue and often rotten that it will be defended and believed in for centuries to come. And yes despite moderate announcements to the contrary religious truths are often rotten to the core. If the Bible were not widely believed before being read, that is to say if an ordinary morally decent person were able to mature first and then encounter the Bible and read it, there would be no one on planet Earth defending the Bible as some source of truth, moral or otherwise.


The older I get the more it disgusts me to have to be discussing this stuff in the twenty-first century when our thinking should have gone far beyond the minor desert god El/Yahweh about whom ancient peoples in the Middle East wrote legends and stories. Allegories and fables with lessons and morals long outdated and lacking in use for modern humans as anything other than literary curiosities and mythological vestiges of when people were foolish enough to hold things as sacred or self-evident.


We are better than this as a species and as a culture. We will not move forward until we strip away the respect and protection that has been given to religious ideas under the guise of protecting people's feelings. Hell Churches are often exempt from TAXES! Although it is an uphill battle that will likely see little progress in any of our lifetimes I think it is necessary if the human race is to have any hope of moving on from this planet and making our destiny a positive one. We must emphasize that while it is your right and your “choice” to believe whatever you want that you live in a society of other beings who must interact with you and if your beliefs and superstitions continue to get in the way of normal progress, of scientific inquiry, of education, of social equality like gay marriage and LGBT rights you will not be unopposed.


Far from sacred religious ideas are often the most suspect, most superstitious and most often disproved. Just as the geocentric model was overturned by Galileo. Just as the idea that disease was caused by evil spirits was replaced by Germ Theory. Just as the magical spoken incantation that created life in Genesis has been overturned. We should not defend or leave un-assailed ideas that assert themselves as sacred. All ideas are open to scrutiny, and the fact that religious ideas resist this openness is a telling sign that those that laid the framework of religion and those that maintain that framework, the Apologists, Popes and Preachers, in some way know that it's all bullshit.



We will stop you, one day, from poisoning the minds of generation after generation and helping to squander the hopes of the entire human race. And this goes for all fundamental and supposedly sacred truths of politics as well, for politics is just as damaging and is holding us back just as much as religion is, if not more... but that is a discussion for another time and perhaps a different blog entirely...

Authors Note:

Okay so I haven't done a post here in a few years but I plan to start doing them semi-regularly, whenever I have something to say about Christianity or atheism that doesn't really fit for a hub on hubpages. By the way that's where I've been for anyone reading this or discovering this blog today I do most of my writing about atheism/theism on http://titen-sxull.hubpages.com/

Also I didn't draw any fun MS Paint stuff for this one, which used to be my MO on this blog way back in the day. So here's one I did recently for hubpages, just threw it together, it has no correlation to the post above:

Stay tuned for more ramblings in the future...

Why is Your God Real?

This idea was rolling around in my head for a little while now and I finally decided to put it to paper, digital paper I guess. There have been a great many gods and goddesses, deities existed in almost every ancient culture and there are still many deities who are believed in today. Most gods that man has believed in are no longer believed in. The Greek Gods are the easiest example I can give of a pantheon that simply isn't believed in anymore. Oh I suppose if you looked hard enough you could find a handful of crazy people still clinging to their beliefs in Athena, and maybe even a few who pretend to believe for tradition sake but the vast majority of people understand that the Greek gods simply aren't real. So my question is, what makes your God real? What makes Yahweh anymore real than Zeus? What makes Allah more real than Odin?

I understand that the phrase "more real" probably doesn't make a lot of sense but you get the idea I hope. Why is it that Jesus is seen as being real while so many other gods are tossed right out as being absurd or silly?

Yahweh Versus Zeus

Which one of these gods do you think is more likely to exist? If you answered Yahweh I would have to tell you that you're wrong, in my opinion of course. Think about it for a moment, Zeus isn't all powerful, he isn't the God who created the entire Universe and he doesn't necessarily love everyone on Earth. He's sometimes a total douche, he comes down to Earth to seduce mortal women and he throws lightning around. Zeus isn't the perfect all knowing creator of the Universe as Yahweh is believed to be. In my mind this makes Zeus far more plausible. After all Zeus is just an ultra-powerful human being, essentially anyway, he makes lightning and is in charge of things on Mount Olympus. The Christian God on the other hand is blown all out of proportion, being essentially infinite in power, love and everything else. Yahweh is limitless, Zeus is limited, so really who is more likely to exist?



Now obviously I don't believe that Yahweh or Zeus actually exist, at least I've never encountered any compelling evidence for either of them. So the question is what makes Yahweh real and Zeus fictional? Is it the fact that the Greek religion was co-opted by the Romans who then adopted Christianity as their empire collapsed? Obviously people drifted out of belief in Zeus and into belief in the Christian God but it seems clear that whether either deity actually existed had little bearing on the shifting beliefs. They used to spread Christ at the point of a sword with conquering armies bringing Jesus to indigenous peoples by force. If native peoples in Europe hadn't been forced into conversion would the gods of these ancient peoples have survived? Would we all be praying to Odin and avoiding the mischievous Loki? Would it be Thor's wrath that caused Hurricane Katrina instead of Yahweh's?

The Lack of Evidence

I could sit here and compare gods and goddesses all day and break down their characteristics or I could get right to the point. There's no evidence for any of these deities and many of the same arguments theists use today to prove their god have been in use for centuries or even longer. So why is it that we feel so comfortable calling Zeus imaginary but the moment someone calls Yahweh imaginary people get up in arms about it? Simply because Yahweh and Allah are the mainstream delusions of the day doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to come right out and say it. I understand the desire to be as agnostic as possible and to veer away from the arrogance that sometimes comes with Strong-Atheist territory but if these modern Gods are as indistinguishable from the imaginary as Zeus why shouldn't we say so? Of course they MIGHT exist, the possibility, however remote, is still there.

This is why I propose the invention of a new term, Approximately Imaginary, the term refers to things like fairies, mermaids, Bigfoot, ghosts, greys, goblins and gods and all manner of things that are indistinguishable from the imaginary. This way we can still be sort of sensitive to the fragile feelings of the theists while still explaining that as far as we know, and to a good degree of certainty, these things simply do not exist. We must leave room for doubt of course as there is always a possibility that one of these things exists but as far as we know they are imaginary, thus they are approximately imaginary. They are imaginary to the best of our knowledge and human knowledge as a whole.

The Question Remains

So to the theists the question remains. What is it that sets your god or gods apart from the ancient gods who have all gone into obscurity and are firmly considered mythical. Do you not see the hypocrisy in claiming your God is real while denouncing and attacking other Gods as false ones who do not exist? You have no evidence that your own God is more valid than the Hindu gods or the Norse gods or the Aztec gods.

The phrase has been oft repeated that theists are atheists to all gods but their own and my question is, WHY? There are gods that we all agree are approximately imaginary - which God isn't imaginary? Please understand that I don't mean we should simply label all gods imaginary but if a god doesn't have evidence supporting its existence than what else can we truly call it and why should we believe in it? Theists - What makes your God real and all the others fakes?

Extreme Claims and Faith

Amongst people of faith that I've dealt with in my life I've noticed a disturbing trend. Even more disturbing is that this trend often extends to people who cannot be labeled as fundamentalists. Even intelligent people who know an awful lot about the world can be conned. We're not immune to gullibility, even those of us who are skeptical about a great many subjects. There have been great minds and vast intellects throughout history who fell prey to pseudoscience and superstition. The best example I can give is that of Isaac Newton. It isn't Newton's theism that I necessarily want to disagree with her but his belief in Alchemy. That's right, Newton, one of the most brilliant minds in history, believed in something as hokey as Alchemy. I've had numerous theists bring up Isaac Newton because Newton was a theistic scientist and they want to suggest that because an intelligent person believe in god that gives god claims some validity it didn't have. This idea is crushed when I bring up that Newton believed in Alchemy as well.

History is filled with this story time and time again and it truly shows the pervasive desire our species has to believe in the supernatural, or merely to believe. We want to believe but through trial and error and mastery of language we've learned not to accept most claims on faith. Oh sure I'll accept the idea that I exist and you exist, we must have some fundamental assumptions in order to get anywhere at all. I'll also accept basic information that is non-extraordinary, like if you tell me you shower daily or had a sandwich for lunch. The more mundane the information the more likely we are to believe it which is why lying is so effective.

So what drives otherwise rational people to believe the wildly unfounded claims of religion or of psychics and mediums and pseudoscientists? What causes them to abandon reason in favor of faith and why do they think this is ever acceptable?

(infamous photos of fairies which managed to convince famous author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Despite having dreamed up the always logic bound Sherlock Holmes Doyle was a spiritualist and believed these photos were genuine).

The More Extreme the Claim the MORE Skeptical we should be

When I discuss someone’s religious beliefs with them I sometimes get a statement that God must believed on Faith. That we ought to just “let go” and “believe” in God. It is as though the God concept, for whatever reason, receives a free pass. This bizarre “Get out of Criticism Free” card is played at different times but is used almost universally by religion. It is as if the people who use this KNOW full well that the claims of religion are not compelling enough to stand up to reason or scrutiny. Like many such beliefs these rely on emotional states. Someone having a really bad week or a really bad life might be excited to hear that Jesus loves them. A person wracked with guilt may hear that Jesus loves them regardless of their misdeeds and leap at the chance to be “washed in the blood”. I went through a great deal of just such emotional vulnerability growing up and each time I felt miserable religion was there to give me a little comfort. The false emotional high was sometimes enough to stave off the doubts, the guilt and the confusion that my beliefs had left me with.

In truth the more extreme and extraordinary a claim the MORE we should be skeptical of it. Claims involving the supernatural, magic, the occult, or non-mainstream “scientific” conclusions are worthy of scrutiny. There is a reason why mainstream science is mainstream, it’s been proven. There’s a reason pseudoscientists are ostracized or ignored by the actual scientific community and it has nothing to do with conspiracies of silence.

If you claim to talk to the dead, perform miracles or be in contact with God himself than you should be under MORE scrutiny and not less. I’ve often seen followers of various gurus and personalities give the person a pass when scrutiny is made. A classic example is David Icke. I have been known to criticize the claims made by Icke and his followers in regards to Reptilian shapeshifters and I often get a statement that reads something like:

“Say what you want about the Reptilians BUT...”

or

“Icke may not be right about everything BUT...”

This sort of defense works if you’re defending, let’s say, a politician who has made some good decisions and some bad ones. It does not work when someone is making wildly unfounded speculative claims about the supernatural, or, in Icke’s case, the completely batshit crazy.




(Was Jesus a Reptilian? If not than why is there is a lizard called the Jesus Christ lizard that can perform a miracle by walking on water?)



Strength in Numbers Fallacy

Another thing I see from theists again and again is this idea that they don’t have to justify their god belief or back up their claims that god(s) exist because a great deal of other people believe in it too. This is also known as an Appeal to People or Argumentum ad Populum. I find it truly amusing that Christians attempt to cling to their numbers as a support when they make up only one third of the world’s population. The majority of people on this planet are non-Christians, the majority are also non-Muslims, non-Jews and non-Hindus. There is no religious group that has more than two billion members and thus none form a majority.

Even if the majority existed that doesn’t bolster the fallacy, it only makes it worse. The prevalence of idea amongst the people is not contingent upon how correct the idea is. It was once widely believed that demons cause illness and that the sun revolved around the Earth. Both of these ideas are patently absurd by our standards today yet they would have passed for common knowledge at one time.

While theists in general do have a majority in the world they differ vastly in their opinions on god(s). Even two Christian theists will disagree on some doctrinal details or about their deity. The number of people who believe something does not lend it credibility and the fact that many people believe in the same God as you does not set your God free of the scrutiny of logic and skepticism.

One wouldn’t want to argue that because the majority of Nazis supported Hitler that Hitler was a good leader would they? (I’m not sure what the German citizens thought of Hitler, I’m just making a point).

Mediums, Prophecy and Astrology

In a similar vein with David Icke there is a wave of New Age sweeping the nation. In fact such beliefs are not new and spiritualism was fairly common as far back as the 1800s. The occult has always interested me mainly because I was never tempted to believe in it. Even back when I was a Bible believing Christian the occult seemed utterly preposterous. Even as my Father and other Fundamentalists warned me that Astrology and the occult could lead me astray I was already dismissing the claims of psychics and new agers. It was only later that I found my skepticism was well worth it.

Mediums are cons. Many of you may be aware how Cold Reading works and how masterfully some practitioners do it as they jump from person to person in a crowd. The crowd wants to believe already or else they wouldn’t be there. That isn’t to say skeptics cannot fall for the con but that the process works best with emotionally vulnerable and gullible people. If you WANT to be convinced chances are you will be as cold reading turns zero information into seemingly detailed contact with the dead in moments all with simple linguistic tricks and vague leading questions.



Vagueness, I would argue, is the key to all three of these things. Astrology and Prophecy thrive on being exceedingly vague. I noticed this first as a Christian when I would read so-called prophecies in the Bible and try to line the up to current events or ancient events and found it was easy to stretch the vague verses to fit almost anything. Astrology works in a far more general way, it is written to conform to the lives of thousands of readers. You are given the general dull dim prediction and than you attach meaning to it just like the person in the crowd attaches meaning to whatever comes out of the Medium.



When prophecies are too specific they set themselves up for failure.

False Comfort?

One of the defenses I have heard both for belief in God and belief in psychics, spiritualists and Astrology is the idea that it gives people hope, joy or comfort.

I agree. It gives people comfort in the same way that believing in Santa Claus made Christmas more fun as a kid. Taking a comfortable fantasy away from a child is one thing but taking a comfortable fantasy away from an adult is a worthy cause indeed. At some point you should be able to grow up and learn that Santa isn’t real and neither is the Easter Bunny. At some point the fairy tales and magic stop and you have to fly back from Neverland and leave the lost boys behind.

The false comfort of God beliefs are not worth all of the negative side-effects. Setting aside the millions who have died in the name of various god(s) these beliefs often hold back our current social progress. How many six year old Santa believers do you see protesting gay marriage? Yet we see grown men and women denying their fellow citizens equal rights by the mandate of an invisible magical being.

Of course you don’t see many Mediums holding back social progress either... they’re too busy conning grieving widows out of their money and filling people’s heads with false hope of an afterlife that may never come. It may not be as bad as discrimination but it is unethical. I’m talking here of those Mediums who know they are being dishonest, not those who are just as self-deluded as their customers.

Don’t Buy the Snake Oil



My conclusion - The greater your desire to believe a claim the more you should scrutinize it. I’d like to believe in a god of some sort and even in an afterlife (after all who really wants to die?) but that desire is a reason to become MORE skeptical of those selling a glimpse at God or a snippet of information from beyond the grave. Don’t be fooled and whatever you do DON’T BUY THE SNAKE OIL!

Ancient Astronaut "Theory"

During my twenty-three years of life I've come across numerous theories and ideas regarding the mysterious origins of man. The question of our origin is one that has fascinated and intrigued likely from the beginning of spoken language and certainly since the advent of written language. There are many stories and ideas, both old and new about how the human race became what it is today. It should come as no surprise that many are set in their ways about such ideas and reject outright the attempts of science to explain our origins via Evolution. Some want to claim that God, using divine power alone, summoned life into existence. Others claim that Evolution IS true but that God created mankind from a lesser form of ape. Today we'll be talking about a similar idea, ancient astronaut theory or AAT for short.

Ancient Astronaut theory is actually not a scientific theory but is a set of pseudoscientific beliefs about the biological and societal evolution of early man. After I left Christianity and Creationism behind this sort of pseudoscience was the first thing I gravitated to because, as we will see, it has its own brand of apologetics and requires faith on the part of the believer. Many ancient astronaut theorists also, like many Creationists, claim that there is a conspiracy of scientists trying to keep the truth from getting out.

The primary idea here is that extraterrestrial beings with superior technology landed on Earth in the distant past and hopped from civilization to civilization passing down knowledge to the ancient peoples of the world. Apparently everyone from the Aztecs to the Egyptians were contacted by these alien beings that descended which were mistaken as being gods.

Myths and Gods

This is the first idea that I take issue with, the idea that ancient myths about gods are actually recording alien encounters. In order to come to this conclusion one needs to rob a myth of all its context first. For instance many AAT proponents have mentioned the Biblical verse about God leading the Israelites as a pillar of fire. This pillar of fire sounds suspiciously like a UFO. In order to assume that this verse is talking about aliens you must ignore the context of the story. In particular I point to the burning bush as a counter. While it is possible to stretch a pillar of fire into a UFO it is hardly the same thing to stretch a burning bush into having ANYTHING to do with aliens, especially when the voice of God comes from the bush to talk to a guy who's been wandering in the desert looking for a lost sheep. So in most of these myths one has to ignore the rest of the story and ignore historical context not to mention having to apply MODERN UFO/Alien lore to ancient accounts.

I'm constantly reminded by ancient astronaut proponents of the Annunaki, a group of Sumerian deities, whose name supposedly translates as "those who came down from heaven" as if this means anything. This is meant to add credence to the story but I'm not sure exactly how it does. Imagine we're a thousand years into the future and I stumble upon a super-man comic book that says he arrived from Krypton from the sky... exactly how does this imply that super-man is real? Even if these myths literally stated that beings from other planets came down and showed them how to plant crops it wouldn't be conclusive evidence although admittedly it would be more impressive than the stretched interpretations of myth often presented by AAT proponents.

I've also been told by AAT proponents that the best evidence for their hypothesis is the fact that almost all gods supposedly come from the sky the way the Annunaki did. This is, of course, entirely false. There were gods for nearly everything. Volcano gods, wind gods, gods of the underworld, etc. If one is to look at it logically it doesn't seem that the domain of the gods is always the sky and they aren't always descending or ascending. It is true that the heavens are a common place for the gods to live but given the majesty and beauty of the sky and the lack of understand the ancients had for how weather works and what the son, moon and stars even are it is entirely understandable that many gods would originate or live in the heavens.

Monumental Mystery

Other supposed evidence for alien visitation comes in the form of massive monuments such as Stonehenge, the Pyramids and Machu Picchu. For some reason ancient astronaut theorists are unable to believe that human beings built these structures. While certainly there are many incredible feats of ancient engineering there is no archeological evidence that anyone BUT humans built these wonders of the ancient world. In fact there is ample evidence that human beings did in fact build them. It is true that for some of the monuments often touted the method of construction remains unknown however this is no reason to begin wild speculation. In this cast ancient astronaut proponents remind me of ancient storytellers attributing natural monuments to larger than life monsters. Case in point the Giant's Causeway:



The Giant's Causeway is a perfectly natural formation but has the appearance of design (Creationists should know that terminology) and was attributed to, well, a Giant. This is also akin to what is known as a God of the Gaps fallacy only in this case its an alien in the gaps. AAT proponents realize its still a mystery how many of these monuments were built and they don't think humans were able to build these structures by themselves and so alien intervention is a better explanation. They fill the gap with their knowledge with aliens without first having any evidence these aliens even exist.



To be entirely honest with you it bothers me that ancient astronaut theorists refuse to give credit to our ancestors for the feats the accomplished and the myths they compiled. There is a lack of respect for cultural context and the truth here that disturbs me greatly. This can be seen when they bring up something like the Baghdad battery, the Nazca lines, the pyramids or the Antikythera mechanism as proof of aliens. These are not proof of aliens they are evidence that human beings are a resourceful and creative species.

UFOS in ART?

Here is another subject that I ended up changing my mind on. Early on in my research into the idea I found ancient astronaut theory compelling primarily because of the artwork that supposedly depicts UFOs. Many paintings and works of art contain objects in the sky that can be interpreted to look like UFOs. There are numerous rebuttals of this but I think the strongest rebuttal is that actual scholars of art are not the ones claiming aliens. For anyone interested here is an excellent video debunking of some commonly held “UFOs” in artwork.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDcMYpuETw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzi6S3_wf58



So as you can see the idea that these are UFOs is essentially bunk but even if it wasn’t how exactly would the presence of UFOs immediately prove the presence of extraterrestrials. Afterall UFOs are merely unidentified flying objects and as such they cannot be identified otherwise they wouldn’t even be UFOs. So even if the ancients did see some weird things in the sky that they couldn’t readily explain does that mean that they were seeing aliens? Why presume such a thing without first having evidence? Furthermore why assume that what people see today when they see a UFO has any correlation with UFOs of the past. A flaming chariot carrying Elijah into heaven doesn’t sound anything like a shiny metallic craft moving stealthily across the night sky and Elijah hopping into the fiery chariot doesn’t sound at all like being taken from your home and floated out the window during an alien abduction. Yet that Biblical story is often touted as an ancient alien abduction.

Conclusions and Similarities with God Belief

There has never been a shred of conclusive evidence that alien beings have interfered with life on Earth either by altering us biologically or affecting our development of civilization. There is also the fact that many of the civilizations supposedly influenced by aliens were separated by centuries and had vastly different methods of doing things and vastly different myths. The Aztecs, for instance, built pyramids and are sometimes lumped in with civilizations that had alien visitors yet their empire was separated by THOUSANDS of years from the Egyptian civilization that built their pyramids. How long have the aliens been here and why have they left no evidence behind at all? Why didn’t they give ancient man real technology, why only teach us what we were capable to know for ourselves (agriculture, building techniques, etc).

WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?

Because the evidence for AAT is lacking so heavily one is required to have faith in order to believe it. Much the same way that Creationists have faith those that believe in alien intervention must ignore scientific consensus and evidence that refutes their ideas while co-opting actual science and actual knowledge to make their claims. Blending modern UFO lore with ancient texts may be a recipe for interesting fiction but it shouldn’t be presented as producing facts. Once again, say it with me:

WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?

Yahweh is Evil

In many of my posts I have actually been quite lenient to the God of the Bible. Something occurred to me a few days ago however that permanently solidified Yahweh as an evil malevolent God who, if it exists, should be opposed by all reasoning empathetic beings. I used to poke fun at Satanism both as a Christian and later when I became an atheist however after reading some more of the Bible and really thinking about it I can see why someone would rebel against Yahweh and seek to stand for everything that being hates. This will be the last blogpost I make directly regarding Yahweh's moral character, the proverbial nail in the coffin.

In order to make my point I am going to bring up a favorite historical figures who theists like to pretend was actually an atheist - Hitler. For the record Hitler was a theist, although he wasn't what anyone should consider a traditional Christian he was, indeed, a Christian. I really don't care what he was, neither Christians or atheists should attempt to use Hitler's religious beliefs as ammunition for an argument.

The aspect of Hitler and the Nazis I want to talk about is the horrible things they did. As most of you know Hitler and his minions massacred millions of Jews and people from other minority groups deemed "undesirables". In particular I want to focus on the Jews. What Hitler did to these people - forced labor in camps, gas chambers, disease and hunger and thirst and cold in the camps. People burning. Mass graves. What Hitler did was wrong.

If you are a Christian than you believe those Jews had souls and, depending on what they believed, they had a chance to go to Heaven or Hell. I imagine that many of these Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah at all and were not Christians in any sense. Some of them may have been. Those that were not Christians would have, after laboring, starving, and finally dying in horrible concentration camps, been sentenced to an eternity of torment by a God who supposedly loves them. Imagine if those Nazis had looked into the eyes of each Jew and told each Jew that they loved them unconditionally before pulling the trigger or pumping in the gas.

When I think about this I grow sick to my stomach. What sort of God do you serve Christians? The sort that would damn people to Hell after they've suffered through Hell on Earth. And you can't deny it, you can't pretend it isn't part of your religion. Its right there in Revelation 21:8.

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

The unbelieving. How many people killed by the Nazis fit that description? Only those who believe on the name of Jesus Christ can be saved, so says Christianity. Now I know that many kinder gentler Christians would dispute everything I've said here and I applaud them for seeing and ignoring the immoral aspects of their own Bible. There are also those who know that the Bible translates a number of different words as Hell leaving the actual interpretation of Hell wide open.

Who is Worse?

So who is more evil? The Nazis or Yahweh? It is generally held that with great power comes great responsibility. Hitler had an awful lot of power and he abused it to kill millions. Yahweh, however, possesses ALL POWER and therefore possesses ALL responsibility. Yahweh is considered by many to be the Lord of all, a divine King. He is essentially a dictator. Set aside for a moment that dictatorships are one of the worst forms of government imaginable and ask yourself what sort of Dictator Yahweh has shown himself to be. Remember that one of his first acts in the Bible was to drown everyone. Does this sound like the actions of a merciful and good leader? And what's his excuse - the people were the ones that were evil. What sort of God blames his creations for their imperfections and then seeks to kill them all?

Hitler was just a man. Yahweh is a God who plans on doing far worse than what Hitler did. It is my opinion that Yahweh is worse than Hitler.



Literal Hell and Free Will

How many people are burning in Hell for the mere act of exercising religious freedom? Let's not forget that the very first commandment says that YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME. Yahweh doesn't want you to think for yourself, he doesn't want you to be free. Religious freedom is a sin in Yahweh's dictatorial kingdom, and the wages of sin is death. Many people claim that God himself gave us free will and the ability to make choices so that we could freely choose him. The only problem is we are not free to make a choice other than Yahweh, if we do we are destined for eternal punishment. Think of Yahweh and other god(s) as people you might want to date. Yahweh in this case is your ex who is letting you be free to choose who you want to be with, the catch is that if you choose someone other than Yahweh he will kill you. In fact Yahweh can do WORSE to you than death and, if you do happen to use your God given freedom in a way he doesn't like, he will do worse.

4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. - Luke 12:4-5

So Yahweh doesn't like free will. Yahweh created Hell for the devil and his angels according to the Bible. So after Lucifer's rebellion God's first act is to create a place of eternal torment to throw them in? Rather than attempt to reconcile his differences with the fallen angels, perhaps offer them forgiveness of some sort, instead he plans on burning them for eternity. Imagine for a moment that God truly is a Father. What sort of Father plans on torturing his rebellious child? Is this the sort of punishment a loving Father would enact? Imagine for a moment you have a rebellious teenager who attacks you, after you defend yourself your rebellious child runs away. Would you immediately begin plotting to light your child on fire? A loving Father would want only the best even for a violent and rebellious child.



Yahweh Created and Owns Hell

I get told by Christians all the time that Satan is real and is trying to do us all in. I see ramblings posted all over the internet of people claiming demonic influence in the music industry, television, movies. Satan is apparently everywhere and he's planning on doing bad things to you. Ask yourself - Are any of the things Satan wants you to do as bad as being tortured forever? Obviously being burned forever is about as harsh a punishment as can be imagined and yet it isn't Satan who threatens us with Hell. I've also heard Christians say that Satan wants you to engage in his rebellion against God. The Biblical God, if it exists, should be rebelled against.

Salvation

Supposedly Jesus came to Earth so that he could sacrifice himself for our sins and thus become the Savior of the world. But what is Jesus saving you from exactly? Some may answer that Jesus saves us from sin but as any Christian will tell you sin is still an ever present danger long after you've accepted Christ. Many Christians are susceptible to falling into temptation, it could happen to anyone. Some claim that Christ exempts you from the law of sin altogether so that even if you do sin you don't really have to ask forgiveness again, you're automatically saved no matter what. This thought is disconcerting as it means Hitler might be up on a cloud playing a harp somewhere.

Others say that Jesus is saving us from Hell. But that's not really salvation at all. If Jesus is truly God in another form than he's the one who owns Hell and decides who goes there. God sets the criteria for who goes to Hell - so why is anyone going to Hell? Surely Yahweh doesn't think we deserve infinite punishment for a finite list of sins - does he? If he does he is even more evil than Hitler. If you're a Christian you believe all people have sinned at some point, this would include the Jews Hitler planned on murdering and the wages of sin IS DEATH. So what Hitler was doing was merciful compared to what Yahweh plans to do (remember that verse from Luke we looked at earlier).

Jesus/God are saving us from what exactly? Hell, a place that he created owns and controls where he will throw everyone who doesn't live by his rules and believe in him. Its like holding a machinegun offering salvation from it but only if you do what he says. And the audacity on top of it all is that this machinegun wielding maniac claims to love you UNCONDITIONALLY. Christianity refutes itself.

A Father should not, when his children leave the house, grab them as they leave and say, "Obey my every word, or I will kill you, but don't forget that I love you. You must do only what I say if you want my blessing or my help" - That is not the love of a loving Father, it is a conditional love and a threat of violence, yet that is how the Bible makes Yahweh come off.

In Conclusion:

If the Bible is to be believed literally than its God is evil. Whether you look at the wrathful slayings of the Old Testament where God's first inclination is typically bloodshed or if you look at what God plans to do to you after you're dead. A finite list of sins is enough to damn even the nicest person to an eternity of Hell while the mere act of belief is enough to get you a ticket to Heaven (in some interpretations anyway). If Yahweh existed I would be opposed to it but luckily there is no evidence that such a being exists so I am left having to oppose the idea and belief of Yahweh.

Just for the Lulz:

Santa and God: The Nature of Belief

For most adults the Holiday season is a stressful one, most of us are clamoring, shopping and are forced to spend time with family members we ordinarily wouldn't need to interact with. For children, however, it is a very magical time and for small children it marks the arrival of Santa Claus aka Saint Nick, aka Chris Cringle, aka, you get the picture. Santa is a magical being who grants good little boys and girls gifts on Christmas. There aren't many adults who actually believe in Santa, instead superstition of another kind takes the place of the Santa story for many adults.



Sometimes people ask me why I, as an atheist, like to poke fun at religious beliefs - in particular those of the Christian faith. Why not just leave well enough alone? I reply, "Wouldn't you poke fun at an adult who still believed in Santa?"

Some are likely to be offended by comparing belief in God to belief in Santa but I'm going to show that there is no real difference in the fundamental nature of the belief and that God and Santa have an awful lot in common.

The Santa Comparison:

God is a supernatural being.

Santa is a supernatural being.

God lives in Heaven but when we look up into space we don't see him or any evidence of him.

Santa lives at the North Pole but when we look at the North Pole we don't see him or any evidence of him.

God has supernatural helpers called angels.

Santa has supernatural helpers called elves.

God takes Elijah to Heaven in a flying fiery chariot.

Santa delivers presents in a flying sleigh.

God punishes the wicked for their misdeeds and rewards the righteous. He knows the inner workings of your mind and knows everything you do and say.

Santa punishes the naughty for their misdeeds and rewards the nice. He sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good.

God can be prayed to in order to gain things. Ask and you shall receive.

Santa can be written to in letters. Ask and you shall receive.

God must be believed on Faith.

Santa must be believed on Faith.

God is offered money and was, at one time, offered animal sacrifices.

Santa is offered milk and cookies.

God can be in all places at once.

Santa can visit all houses in one night.

You get the idea, the similarities are numerous. Why is it that as we grow up a belief in Santa is discarded but the belief in God is not? Obviously both beliefs are similar in nature and both are irrational. They are not based in evidence but in faith. So why is faith in Santa, at a certain age, deemed absurd but Faith in God not?



We would ridicule a grown man or woman who sincerely retained a belief in Santa Claus yet MANY actually revere and respect people who hold strong belief in God. Why? Surely the story of Santa brings hope, as does the story of God and Jesus but hope is not a good reason to believe the story is true. The fear of punishment is also not a good reason. If I disbelieve in Santa I might get coal in my stocking, if I disbelieve in God I might go to Hell but surely the threat of punishment isn't a good reason to accept an irrational belief. If, for instance, I was told aliens would probe me if I decided not to exist in them I wouldn't be justified to start believing in aliens. Fear is a tool of ignorance, to sway people in believing something when there is no good reason for them to do so, it is an appeal to emotion and a basal emotion at that.


[ The only real difference between Yahweh and Santa is that Santa is far more benevolent and doesn't murder children (at least as far as we know). ]

The Santa story contains many supernatural and unbelievable elements and when faced with these adults rightfully make the distinction that the story is made up. One of the main reasons why a belief in Santa is discarded but a belief in God embraced is because of conditioning. After a certain age retaining a belief in Santa is something to be ridiculed and shunned by society but in many places around the world the more tenaciously you cling to faith in God the more respect you gain in the community. If your parents instill you with religious beliefs they will likely offer positive reinforcement, congratulating you when you say a prayer, take Communion or get baptized and shunning you when you question, rebel or do something contrary to the beliefs. This positive reinforcement for an irrational belief cannot be a good thing and is, in my mind, a form of brainwashing. It should be desired to stop believing all irrational things or at least to eliminate as many irrational and unfounded beliefs as possible.

Conclusion:

So this Holiday season what will you be celebrating? Which irrational belief about a magical being will you be believing? The one about a guy born of a virgin or the one about an elf and a flying sleigh? Both are absurd and I for one won't be believing either of them. I urge you to take my advice... this Holiday season USE REASON and leave childish beliefs behind.