An Open Apology

 I would like to apologize to anyone who might stumble upon this blog in the future. My political views have changed drastically over the years. My views on Atheism and Theism remain largely unchanged and I still count myself as an anti-theist. 

I found myself drifting down what some might call the "Alt Right Pipeline" but managed to ultimately steer myself clear of it. I am no longer a fan of morons or grifters like Jordan Peterson, Carl Benjamin, etc. At some point I may return and post more on this blog but for now I thought I would issue this statement so that folks who find this blog don't think I'm some kind of right wing weirdo by mistake.

2023: I have deleted most of the posts I found problematic but will leave this apology up just to remind myself of how much of a dumbass I was for several years there.

Atheists Can't Explain...

One of the most common complaints I hear from believers and apologists is that atheists do not have explanations for many of the phenomenon that believers claim God as an explanation for. The most common example of this is the origin of the Universe. The idea is that because scientists and atheists still admit that the origin of the Universe is shrouded in mystery and difficult to explain that the lack of an explanation exposes some inherent flaw in atheism itself.

Part of the confusion is the false notion that atheism is a belief system or set of ideas that is taken up by non-believers as a replacement for religious beliefs. Atheism is merely non-belief in gods. It has no other stipulations. Someone can be utterly non-scientific and illogical and still be an atheist.

So Atheists are under no obligation to explain anything simply because they are atheists. Atheism is not a worldview or a set of beliefs, rather it is a non-belief.

In one of my earlier blogposts I talked about how the lack of an answer doesn't suddenly make God a viable option. It isn't as if we search for an answer scientifically and then when none can currently be found we give up and leap to supernatural conclusions. Yet that is the kind of leap theists apparently expect when they berate non-believers about the fact that they don't have an explanation for something.

I've also seen the Problem of Evil and Problem of Suffering directed at Atheists. For believers in an all powerful benevolent deity the conflict is obvious, evil shouldn't even be capable of existing, the Universe should be perfect and suffering should be an impossibility. For Atheists however there isn't any confusion or conflict about the Problem of Evil/Suffering and yet I hear believers throw this back towards atheists as if it is meant to stump them.

Sorry but the world is full of bad people who do evil things. We live in an indifferent and sometimes chaotic Universe despite it also having regularities and allowing the evolution of life. Suffering is a survival mechanism, a suffering organism knows it has to change its behavior or environment if it wants to thrive again. This is why you feel pain when you touch something hot, your body is warning you of danger. Suffering is the reaction of a living being to conditions that aren't conducive to the continued existence of that being. Without a God evil and suffering are not mysterious in the slightest.

But even if an atheist can't form an explanation for some reason  I fail to see how that makes the magical explanation any more viable. In primitive times it might have seemed impressive when a villager claimed that gods brought the rain because of a recent human sacrifice. A village skeptic raising the issue of what evidence there was that the two were correlated might have been laughed at, after all, the skeptic has no alternative explanation as to where the rains actually come from and why they came when they did. The fact that the village skeptic doesn't have an explanation doesn't mean his skepticism is wrong and that the absurd supernatural explanation is right.

Something completely unreasonable or outright impossible doesn't become plausible because there aren't any other explanations.

It is perfectly reasonable to dismiss, without an alternative to offer, any supernatural explanation proffered without evidence of it's own. Ideas stand and fall on their own merit, not on the lack of an explanation from the ideological competition. At any rate there is a ton of evidence suggesting that all known gods humanity has ever worshiped are fictional but even if there were not it doesn't make the gods a good explanation for anything.

UPDATE: I plan to do more posts on this blog mostly because Hubpages.com has introduced mandatory professional editing which I cannot stand the idea of. I have no desire to have my written work messed up in order to make it conform to some made up bullshit standards someone else has of what my writing should be. As such you will likely see old posts of mine from hubpages get moved here. It may take me a few months or more to make the move so bear with me (if anyone is even reading this!).

Mysticism, Superstition and Christianity

One of the things that Christians often say to reassure themselves and each other is that Christianity isn't an ordinary religion; that it's somehow special. Some even say that Christianity isn't a religion at all because of how fundamentally different it supposedly is from all over religions.

To those on the outside of the cult this claim seems utterly absurd. Christianity is one of three Abrahamic faiths built on the same foundation - JUDAISM. About two thirds of the Christian scriptures are actually older Jewish works with the New Testament only making up twenty-seven books of the Bible which has a total of sixty-six (some versions have more or less). Even within the New Testament constant reference is made to the Old Testament, so in what way do Christians contend that their religion is different, it's just Judaism plus a sprinkle of their own flavor.

Within this little extra portion the Christians have Jesus who is usually a big part of the argument that Christianity is different, because rather than getting into heaven on the merit of whether or not you do great things or are a good person Jesus offers his life and salvation even to the most wicked and fallen among us. This policy of vicarious redemption, this suspension of justice and wrath to save the wicked, is meant to make God seem more loving or merciful but actually it turns God's judgment into a complete joke.

God is said to be just and yet he is willing that a murderer get into Heaven for the act of accepting this sacrifice but not willing that someone who gives their whole life to helping others but dies without accepting should get in. Let's say there is a soldier in the second World War who happens to be a believing Jew but who has not accepted Christ and he gives his life fighting to free his brothers and sisters from the clutches of the Nazis and protects the entire free world with his sacrifice. This man who fought and died for the freedom and well being of others would go to Hell in most versions of Christianity for the mere act of not accepting the impossible tale of Jesus. In an ironic twist this Jewish man would be tortured for eternity for staying true to the version of Yahweh he was taught in the Jewish scriptures and rejecting the false Messiah Jesus Christ.

The idea that God shows preferential treatment only to those who grovel repentant at his feet and revokes mercy from any who don't no matter their character or actions makes Christianity absurdly unjust. Christians celebrate this, however, and look at it as one of the advantages of Christianity. Indeed this doctrine does help Christianity bring people in by taking advantage of the guilt of those in our society who have done something wrong. This is why prison evangelism is so strong and why conversions in prison are so common, because Christianity has made itself appealing to criminals.

But to those who aren't a part of the super secret club of Christianity the whole doctrine makes it repugnant and even more so when you consider the price, an innocent man's life. Christians claim to love Christ while in the same breath hoisting their sins gladly onto his shoulders so they can walk away without the burden of their guilt scot-free. If they truly knew Jesus and loved him would they not choose, instead, to take the punishment they deserved? In truth they love Jesus only because he did something for them, only because in his blood they are set free, and they happily WASH themselves in the blood of an innocent man.

Symbolism, Structure and Myth

Another point on which Christians insist is that their religion has better archaeology to back it up than any other. This is a heavily debatable point especially since no archaeologist has ever uncovered proof of the supernatural claims of any religion. So no religion stands on better footing when it comes to proving the reality of their supernatural claims.

Often we see Christian apologists like Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, etc trying to make the historical case for Jesus as if it isn't enough to take it on faith as if there need be proof. Rather than own up to the fact that they believe it in spite of its absurd claims they attempt to establish, laughably, that the superstitious conjurations of their sacred texts are not just the writings of adherents and zealots but are historical accounts worth taking seriously.

Jesus, they say, isn't just a figure from their faith, but is a real historical figure who really performed magical miraculous deeds and really rose again. In doing this however Christians miss out on the big slam-dunk home-run aspect of their faith that makes them just another religion - the use of spooky superstitious horseshit and symbolism.

What makes the Gospels myth and not historical accounts is their use of symbolism, allegory, themes and story-telling techniques that seem at home in mythology but make no sense when taken out of context and reinterpreted to be literal truth. Take, for example, the arbitrary period that Jesus stays in the tomb.

Christians will say that it was three days, but Jesus died on Friday and was raised on Sunday, the real amount of time he was dead is one day, he simply "rose on the third day". Now if Jesus really was the son of God and really lived in real historical times what in the fuck was the point of staying dead for a day? What took Jesus so long to come back to life?

Now some might say, "he went down to Hell and redeemed souls who had died before he came" but this is actually a legend invented hundreds of years into Christianity it's not in the Gospels. The answer is symbolism and story structure. Think about the dynamics of what happens in the story. The Disciples are torn, beaten, Peter has cursed Christ before the cock crows, they are back in Jerusalem moping around. They believe Jesus is dead and buried. This is a low point in the story, it's a moment of doubt where no one knows what to believe anymore, and then, like the sun rising again after the darkest night, Jesus returns.

And the Gospels all tell it differently. John, the latest Gospel written, has Thomas still doubting until he sticks a finger in Jesus' wounds. The original version of Mark dramatically and mysteriously ends on a cliff-hangar where the women find the tomb empty, talk to an enigmatic man and then simply scatter in fear.

The story of the dying and rising hero is so common throughout ancient times and even today in our modern myths and stories we always have a moment where our heroes look beaten only to rise from the ashes.

What other reason can there be for the delay?

In fact why would Jesus need to have died at all, in reality the idea of washing in his blood is SYMBOLIC, it's a spiritual concept, not a physical one. The idea that this MUST BE a real retelling of the real adventures of a real flesh-and-blood savior is absurd and the idea that somehow the existence of these intricately woven pieces of mythology is evidence of a historical Jesus is highly questionable at best. That isn't to say no one ever existed to inspire some of the legends rather I am saying that Christians miss the forest for the trees.

Superstition is a sign of Humanity's Design

The Old Testament is riddled with superstitious rituals and absurd claims. Witches and necromancers are considered real things and there are strict rules for "ritual cleanliness" that, if not followed, can result in you being a target for the wrath of God himself. There are, of course, detailed instructions on how to butcher an animal and make it an offering for Yahweh, and how to sprinkle its blood and arrange its organs to best please God.

Why would this be part of your religion? If you indeed claim that this God of the Old Testament is the same one you serve why in the hell did he require such bizarre and barbaric things as animal sacrifices? Why does he bear such a striking resemblance to an invention of the human mind, a warlike plague-bringer who sits upon a throne and demands the smell of burning flesh to appease his anger - AND YOU THINK THIS BETTER than ancient pagan faiths? You think this superior?

There is only one description I can think of for such practices - superstition. The sort of thing that makes people throw salt over their shoulder or take care not to walk under a ladder - the idea that somehow the rules of reality are governed by unseen forces that can be appeased or manipulated through the use of ritual or magic. And the Old Testament claims that magic, curses, speaking to the dead and bringing the dead back to life are all possible even without God and any who do these dark things are to be put to death.

Even in the New Testament rituals like Communion are set up, a symbolic act of mock cannibalism where you take in a part of the savior's flesh and blood. Many sects of Christianity today have other rituals, such as baptism, and let's not forget that both Jews and Christians cut the foreskin off of their male children, an act of ritualistic mutilation.

The point of bringing all this up is to make Christians wonder whether or not there is any reason to take all this stuff literally or to consider it necessary to read the Bible as if it is a history book. Apologists work hard to make Christianity sound somewhat historical to help ease the doubts of believers who treat the existence of God and the salvation of Christ as intellectual matters rather than merely spiritual ones. But all of those attempts fail utterly when you bring up the bizarre superstitions of the Old and New Testament, the fact that so many stories are riddled with impossible feats and mythic heroes and told with structure, symbolism and lessons to the story.

The question is, at the center of this very man-made religion with so much superstition and mythology, at it's core, are you confident that there is actually a God there?

When I dug down and read between the lines I found Christianity to be an invention of mankind and I have yet to see any evidence that it's beliefs mean anything outside of what they mean to those who already believe. Christians are welcome to the spiritual aspects of their faith, as empty as they may seem to me, but when they start asserting that it is real beyond their own belief in it they will butt up against those outside the cult who see it for what it is.

If you are a Christian and by some chance you stumbled upon this I'd ask that you do research. Read your Bible and study where it came from, how it was put together, how much it was changed and what it actually says. Don't take my word for it but also don't swallow down what some apologist or pastor says without questioning it. Remember that doubt is not something to be feared and no God worth a damn would ever punish you for it.

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!