Creationist 4th grade science quiz makes Christian school infamous, Answers in Genesis responds

You guys remember that 4th grade science quiz called “Dinosaurs: Genesis and the Gospels” that was making its way around the internet recently? You know, the one that asked questions like “True or False: The earth is billions of years old” and “True or False: Dinosaurs lived with people.”

Yeah, this one.

Well, it seems that this particular quiz came from a private K-12 Christian academy from South Carolina that was using resources from the creationist organisation Answers in Genesis.

AIG responded to the “hate” that the school was receiving from the “intolerant atheists” who were “viciously” attacking the school in a piece that is just full of fundie goodness.

They start off with the story of a German family that was trying to seek asylum within the United States so that they could homeschool their children.

Yesterday on this website, we highlighted the plight of the Romeikes, a German Christian family who is seeking asylum in America because the German government forbids their homeschool instruction. The Obama Administration is siding with the German government and its view of homeschooling, and they are seeking to deport this family who wants to educate their children in accord with God’s Word. If the U.S. Attorney General succeeds in denying their asylum, it may have chilling ramifications for religious and educational liberties in the United States.

I don’t know much about this case, but I’m pretty sure US is not denying them asylum, because they are trying to educate their children themselves.

Anyway.

The atheist buzz about the dinosaur-and-Bible quiz, however, is not really all that surprising. Over the past few years, we have seen atheists becoming more aggressive and intolerant towards Christians. (See the sidebar for just a few of the many examples we could cite.) They are attempting to impose their belief system (yes, their religion) on the culture.

Do you know how to say “projection,” kids?

It seems that since the last presidential election, atheists have grown more confident about having something of a license to go after Christians. These secularists want to impose their anti-God religion on the culture. They are simply not content using legislatures and courts to protect the dogmatic teaching of their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years in public schools. There is something else on their agenda: they are increasingly going after Christians and Christian institutions that teach God’s Word beginning in Genesis.

I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please. “…their atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years…”? What?

I can slightly understand them saying “atheistic religion of evolution,” because that is usual creationist rhetoric, but “millions of years”?

The quiz’s posting to the internet resulted in a number of atheist websites reposting the questions and answers, and many of them responded in rage and vehement attacks on the school.

Oh noes! Something stupid was called out as stupid!

The school administrator, relatively new as the head of the academy, was shocked to find her school becoming the target of atheist attacks and even some threats. Articles on mainstream websites (like a Seattle TV station over 2,500 miles away), a UK website, and other places on the internet made the controversy grow even larger.

No links to screenshots or news articles or anything at all to show that these alleged “threats” actually happened. Nothing whatsoever. But there are mentions of how that evil, liberal media was bringing attention to the school!

Now, this Christian academy is not a large school. Yet the atheists went after it with incredible fervor. The school administrator informed us she knew that the school would be involved in a spiritual battle after the quiz went public, but she was not expecting such ferocity. She told us she was shocked at the level of hate that the atheists poured down upon her, the teacher, and the school in general.

Now, assuming the threats and “hate that the atheists poured down upon her” did happen, which there is no evidence to suggest that anyone was actually harassed or even contacted, then the people committing the threats are not good people, and we do not support what they were doing. Simple as that.

For the next two years, our special theme for the Answers in Genesis ministry is “Standing our Ground, Rescuing our Kids” (Galatians 1:4). We, too, have experienced recent increased attacks by atheists, especially whenever they discover we are influencing children with the truth of God’s Word. These anti-God people hate the fact that Christians are teaching children to stand on the authority of the Bible; they want to be the ones teaching children and indoctrinating them into atheism. Even children’s TV host Bill Nye has recently made many harsh statements against those of us who teach creation to children.

That’s because Bill Nye actually knows what he is talking about, unlike you, Ken Ham.

Atheists don’t “hate the fact that Christians are teaching children to stand on the authority of the Bible.” You have the Constitutional right to do so. No one is taking that right away from you, even if you would say otherwise with your anecdotal story about the German family.

However, we have the right to say that the way that you are educating children is just flat out wrong. You are teaching them lies and falsehoods. You are teaching them to ignore the evidence if it conflicts with your dogma. You are also teaching them how to respond to people who might try to teach them the facts with nice little apologist talking points like (see the last question on the quiz’s back), “The next time someone says the earth is billions (or millions) of years old, what can you say? Were you there?”

But you are still projecting, Ken.

It is you who are attacking atheists, secularists, and public education, especially when you discover that public schools are teaching children about reality. You anti-science people hate the fact that public schools are teaching children to stand on reason, rationality, and evidence and turn away from stubborn dogmatism and willful ignorance. You want to be the ones teaching children and indoctrinating them into Young-Earth Creationism and other pseudosciences. You, more so the Creation Truth Foundation, have even gone so far as to invade public schools.

My favourite line from Ham’s piece (emphasis mine):

In a way, what is happening to this Christian school and also to the Romeike family should be a warning to all Christians: the atheists want your children. They are aggressively trying to demonize and marginalize Christians in their attempts to recruit your children for atheism or secularism.

Even more projection!

This next part is kind of scary.

Though we praise God for the minority of Christian “missionaries” who work as teachers in the public school system (and who need our prayers), government schools have increasingly become, in essence, churches of atheism.

Wait, what? So you’re admitting to the fact that some public school teachers are only there to indoctrinate children into Christianity? Where the fuck is the ACLU when you need them?!

The rest of the article is trying to get people to donate to the academy and to stand “unashamedly for the authority of His Word,” because us evil secularists and atheists are just so evil by trying to indoctrinate children into our “atheistic religion of evolution and millions of years” and are persecuting the poor Christians that are nearly 80% of this country. Play the victim card all you want, Ken. It won’t matter.

The fool says in his heart ‘There is No God’?

Last night, Shayrah and I were listening to the most recent episode of Apologia Radio, a Christian podcast.

I have listened to this podcast before, and they are possibly the most passively aggressive, condescending Christian podcast (that means well) I have ever come across. Hence, why I have never gone back and talked about them before.

This week they had on Christian apologist Sye Ten Bruggencate from proofthatgodexists.org. On a quick side note. When I was in high school, a Christian “friend” of mine showed me this site. All it does is lead the reader down a rabbit hole of semantics and other wordplay to “prove” that God exists. It then ends with a Bible verse. *facepalm*

Shayrah started listening to it though, and I couldn’t help but overhear (as there is only a foot in between her and I as I write this).

Throughout the podcast, they keep referring to atheists as “fools.” They then immediately say every time that they are not calling atheists fools, even though they are.

What they are quoting is a Bible verse; Psalm 14:1, which says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”

This is somehow an argument for why atheism is foolish. This is somehow proof for their god. Mockery of the other position is somehow proof. Not just mockery, but mockery from the source that we do not accept as the infallible word of some deity.

Most people don’t know this, but on the website of the soft drink Pepsi, it says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘Coke is better than Pepsi.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good who drinks Coke.” That right there is obviously objective proof that Pepsi is better than Coke and Pepsi is the One True Pop and anyone who drinks Coke is a horrible person.

Then there is the part of that verse about “their deeds are vile.”

• Bill Gates: Billionaire. Philanthropist. Atheist.
• Warren Buffet: Billionaire. Philanthropist. Atheist.
• George Soros: Billionaire. Philanthropist. Atheist.
• Todd Stiefel: Millionaire. Philanthropist. Atheist.
• Mark Twain: Author. Atheist.
• H.P. Lovecraft: Author. Atheist.
• Ernest Hemingway: Author. Atheist.
• Ronald Reagan Jr. (yes, President Ronald Reagan’s son): Political Commentator. Atheist.
• Albert Einstein: Physicist. Atheist.
• Richard Feynman: Physicist. Atheist.
• Kevin Bacon: Actor. Atheist.
• Bruce Lee: Actor. Martial Artist. Atheist.
• Pat Tillman: NFL star. Army Ranger. Atheist.
• I could go on…

All of these people have done evil deeds? Nothing they have done is good?

This is the immorality of Christian thought. No matter what anyone does, if they don’t accept their god, then they are horrible people that deserve eternal torment.

Moving on.

One of them said, after I tuned them out for a minute so I could write something (and protect my brain cells), “If you reject God, then I can’t convince you that a donkey talked.” They are referencing Numbers 22:28, where God made a donkey talk.

So the only way to believe that a donkey could talk is to already believe that a donkey talked.

They then try to justify their ridiculous beliefs by attempting to claim that in an atheist’s worldview there are ridiculous beliefs. “Fish becoming philosophers,” stuck out in my mind.

This is all Christian apologists have. Quick, (not-really) clever retorts that try to make evolution look ridiculous. I’m sorry, but there is evidence for evolution. No evidence exists that a snake or donkey could talk. The only way to believe that a donkey could talk is to reject everything that we know about mammal anatomy. The only way to believe these kinds of things is to reject reality and instead choose to believe in the irrational and unprovable.

Be sure to listen to the whole episode to get a taste of what I had to go through last night. They bring on a member of a local Secular Student Alliance affiliate. That was…fun.

Proving the existence of Spider-Man through Christian logic

I’m going to do it. I’m going to come out and be proud of who I really am, no matter the hate I may get for it!

I am a nerd!

Yes, I am a nerd. I like nerdy things like RPGs, video games, and much more. What really makes me a nerd though is that I love superheroes and comic books (fuck DC though, Marvel all the way).

By far my favourite superhero is Spider-Man.

The reason I love Spider-Man is because when I was growing up, I could really relate to him. Peter Parker was this nerdy, awkward kid that did not have many friends, but he led this secret life where he could do these truly amazing things and help people that were in need.

Spider-Man was also always the youngest of the Avengers (excluding maybe some really young X-Men), and I was always the youngest of my friends. I still am to this day.

However, I know that Spider-Man is not real. He is just a fictional character that was made up years ago by Marvel to sell comic books (and eventually toys, movies, and television shows, all of which I absolutely loved).

But I know that I can prove that Spider-Man is real through Christian logic.

Many Christians will use the Bible to prove the existence of God. This is like me using Spider-Man comics to prove that Spider-Man is real.

When that fallacious reasoning is exposed, Christians will then point to certain stories and events in the Bible as proof that the Bible is the Word of God, because these events really did happen and are backed up by independent historical evidence. These places, which are real, are talked about in the stories of the Bible.

Yes, certain events detailed in the Bible did happen (most did not or are depicted inaccurately, but let’s ignore that fact). Yes, the Bible does talk about real places and people in history. That does not mean the Bible is historically accurate though, let alone the supposed message and commandments of some deity.

Put it this way: Spider-Man is set in New York City. That’s a real place, and real people live there. Real people are talked about in Spider-Man comics, including President Barack Obama.

Not only that, but Spider-Man has real events talked about in the comics too. The September 11th terrorist attacks are depicted in one.

Real places. Real people. Real events.

By the same logic used by Christians, Spider-Man should be just as real as the god of the Bible.

The only difference between the god of the Bible and Spider-Man though is that Spider-Man is actually a moral character that children should model themselves after.

Spider-Man didn’t order people to kill babies (1st Samuel 15:3). Spider-Man isn’t a fearful, hateful bigot that wants people to kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13), witches (Exodus 22:17), adulterers (Leviticus 20:10), people who like other superheroes more (Exodus 22:19), etc.

In a couple hundred years comic books might start being taken a little too seriously, and Spider-Man comics will be seen as divine revelation and turned into the next great religion that tramples the globe and causes people to kill each other over nothing.

Just Some of the Stupid Things Ray Comfort Says

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to insult Christians with this. I am trying to insult Ray Comfort though.

If you have been paying attention to Facebook, you might have noticed the attention given recently to Ray Comfort (a.k.a. the Banana Man) and his Facebook page for just all the hilariously stupid stuff that he says.

I decided to go through his Timeline and take screencaps of the most bizarre and stupid. Unfortunately, that seems to be pretty much everything that he says.

For the vast majority of these, I don’t think I have to say much of anything. I think they speak for themselves.

We will start with the most recent and just work our way backwards.

I’m just not going to say anything…

This actually makes me a little scared to be around you, Ray. Kind of sounds like martyrdom.

With a lot of these posts, he seems to be taking the usual atheist talking points and just adding a little Christian twist.

Then how come Europe is trying to ban porn? No seriously. They are trying to have a continent wide ban on porn.

A little homoerotic there. I think Ray has the hots for Jesus.

Coincidentally, one of my middle names is Thomas.

So you’re admitting there is a bunch of dirt in the Bible then, Ray?

Just… ugh…

Let’s see what Numbers 3-4 actually say.

Numbers 3 starts off with God telling Moses to essentially make the tribe of Levi the slaves of the Israelites (Numbers 3:5-10).

The chapter then ends by God ordering Moses to take a census of the different clans of the Levites, such as Gershonite, Kohathite, and Merarite, and then the entire tribe of Israelites. I don’t know why God would need to take a census, since He is supposedly omniscient, but whatever.

Numbers 4 is entirely about taking specific censuses of the able-bodied men of the clans of the Levites (again, why would God need to know this?) and assigning them different work to carry important religious artifacts and other things for the Israelites, just further insinuating that they are slaves.

Unnecessary censuses and slavery. Why does this make you smile, Ray?

I actually completely agree with you, Ray (except for the part about trying to sell us an “eternal life”).

This statement seems entirely contradictory. God has “everlasting love and mercy” and yet a “terrible wrath” too? Seems like an abusive husband. Loving you one moment, beating you the next.

Yes, I’m going to use the Bible to prove the Bible is correct!

As you can see, I only got to the 21st of February before I finally just gave up trying to find anymore.

I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I hated it. And Ray, I hope you keep doing what you’re doing, because you are the biggest advertisement for godless liberalism since former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said conservatives will never have “smart people on [their] side.”

God: I create darkness and evil

I don’t know why I do it, but I keep tuning into 91.3 FM KDKR, one of the local Christian radio stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

The stuff that is said infuriates me to the point where I feel the need to bash my head up against the steering wheel. Luckily, I have not yet.

I don’t remember what exactly was being said, but I do remember when I was recently listening to it, the host of the show was talking about how people blame God for all of the bad things that happen to them.

The host just kept saying that it was the Devil’s fault, that it was Adam and Eve’s fault for eating from that damn tree, that it was the fault of humanity’s free will (that God gave us no less).

He specifically said that these things are not the fault of God.

Apparently, this guy doesn’t know his own Bible. Isaiah 45:7 says explicitly, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”

So tornadoes (something the Christian radio host brought up), hurricanes, earthquakes, rape, disease, famine, murder, war, genocide, and every other evil thing in the world are actually God’s fault, so we can blame God for these things.

The Christian response to Sandy Hook

When New York Times bestseller, Susan Jacoby, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times called The Blessings of Atheism, I was surprised to see it reprinted in the Dallas Morning News, which is where I first saw and read it. When it started getting around the internet and media worlds, I think we were all expecting major backlash from the religious right. Lo and behold, it happened. My favourite so far has been from WND’s Dennis Prager, who wrote The Atheist Response to Sandy Hook.

Amid the copious amounts of strawmen and atheist-bashing in his piece, Prager claims, “…[the] atheist message offers no consolation at all when compared to the religious message that we humans are not just matter but possess eternal souls.” Prager reiterates this a paragraph later with, “[Atheists] would have to acknowledge that, in terms of consolation, there is no comparison between ‘The dead do not suffer’ and ‘Your child lives on, and you will be reunited with her.’”

He then goes on to build his biggest strawman of all, which is what he thinks the atheist response to the tragedy that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary should be, “As atheists, we truly feel awful for you. And we promise to work for more gun control. But the truth is we don’t have a single consoling thing to say to you because we atheists recognize that the human being is nothing more than matter, no different from all other matter in the universe except for having self-consciousness. Therefore, when we die, that’s it. Moreover, within a tiny speck of time in terms of the universe’s history, nearly every one of us, including your child, will be completely forgotten, as if we never even existed. Life is a random crapshoot. Our birth and existence are flukes. And you will never see your child again.”

The atheist is made out to be a nihilist, which is not the same thing, not at all. The atheist is made out to be this cold, emotionless person that has no tact.

If the atheist must be this heartlessly rational being that can offer no secular solace to those affected by tragedy, then the Christian must have this response, “As Christians, we truly feel awful for you. And we promise to do nothing about gun control (because guns don’t kill people, people do). But the truth is God watched this man walk into an elementary school with an assault rifle. God watched this man burst into that first grade class. God watched this man open fire and kill twenty children in a matter of seconds. God watched this man, and God did nothing. And you will see your child again, whether in Heaven or Hell, and you will be in the presence of God, who let your child die a senseless death, and you will be forced to worship Him for all eternity.”

If the atheist position can offer no solace to the parents who lost their children at Sandy Hook, or to anyone who experiences a tragedy for that matter, then it is still far more comforting than the revolting thought that an all-powerful and, more importantly, all-loving being did nothing to stop it.

Can We Disprove God?

I asked a while back on my Facebook and Twitter if we could prove a god does not exist. The general response was, “We don’t need to. The burden of proof is on the theists.” A few said, “It’s an unfalsifiable hypothesis,” or that we cannot prove a negative. Some went a little further and said, “We can prove theistic gods do not exist, such as that of the Bible, but we cannot prove a deistic god does not exist.”

It is often asked of atheists to prove the nonexistence of a god, specifically the god(s) that the theist believes in. We will respond with, of course, that the burden of proof is on the believer, not the nonbeliever, and we usually leave it at that. That is a proper response. The person who makes the claim is responsible for proving such a thing. So far, nothing has been found that would even suggest the existence of a deity, whatever that actually is, so there is no reason to believe in one. However, ignoring that it is not our job to do so, could we actually disprove the existence of a god? I believe we can.

The burden of proof I will deal with first, as it will be the quickest to handle, but possibly the most important. Atheists will say that there is no reason to try to disprove a god, since it is the job of theists to provide proof for their god and the claims that surround him/her/them/it. Others say that there is no point in trying to even argue with theists or creationists, since they are just delusional people and nothing will change their minds. These people either do not remember being theists or never were them. I was a Jehovah’s Witness. I am sure all of my atheist friends of the time would have thought it utterly pointless to try to reason with me, but look where I am now. Doing nothing solves exactly that.

If we keep saying that we do not have to do anything until proof is given or because the believers will not change their minds, these false ideas will continue to spread while we twiddle our thumbs and do absolutely nothing about them. Yes, we do not have to disprove any claims, but unless the claims are disproved, people who are ignorant of the truth and how vacuous these claims really are will continue to believe in them. Even when they are proven to be absolutely false, such as Creationism, people still believe in them, because scientists and science advocates refuse to go after the sacred cow of religion.

Ideas are dangerous, especially when they are wrong ideas. Just because they do not have evidence does not mean anything to the people who seriously believe in them, because they believe they are right, and they are going to cause change that will affect the rest of us, such is clear with the Intelligent Design movement of the United States. Chapman Cohen, a British secular activist and atheist from the late 19th through the early 20th centuries, had this to say on the subject in his 1921 book Theism or Atheism: The Great Alternative (emphasis mine):

It is not, then, because I believe the question of the existence of God to be of intrinsic importance that an examination of its validity is here undertaken. Its importance to-day is of a purely contingent character. The valid ground for now discussing its truth is that it is at present allowed to obstruct the practical conduct of life. And under similar circumstances it would be important to investigate the historical accuracy of Old Mother Hubbard or Jack and the Beanstalk. Any belief, no matter what its nature, must be dealt with as a fact of some social importance, so long as it is believed by large numbers to be essential to the right ordering of life. Whether true or false, beliefs are facts mental and social facts, and the scheme of things which leaves them out of account is making a blunder of the most serious kind.

Yes, the burden of proof is still on the believers, but the burden of the believers, and the consequences thereof, are on the nonbelievers and the people who think they do not have to do anything.

Many people simply give up on the existence or nonexistence of a god and say that it is an unfalsifiable hypothesis and unscientific. The same is said of Bertrand Russell’s Celestial Teapot and a whole host of other claims and imaginary things. People say that it is not science, therefore there is no reason to even consider it, but that we cannot prove or disprove the claim (even if they claim to not believe, such is the case with “agnostic atheists”).

Calling something not science in order to avoid having to answer or think about difficult questions is intellectual laziness. Like it or not, things like Creationism, homeopathy, aliens, Leprechauns, etc. are scientific questions that must be solved, not simply disregarded because the question might be hard to answer for some or we find the notion to be idiotic. Richard Dawkins in his famous book The God Delusion said, “…the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other. Even if hard to test in practice, it belongs in the same TAP or temporary agnosticism box as the controversies over the Permian and Cretaceous extinctions.”

However, people will continue to say that it is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, therefore we cannot test it, therefore it cannot be proven either way, true or false. The interesting thing is that the very idea of falsifiability may be a mistaken. Karl Popper, the philosopher of science who popularised falsifiability, said in 1976 that evolution “is not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research programme.”

He did recant this statement a few years later, but this makes one question falsifiability itself. If the man who got falsifiability off the ground once applied his most notable philosophy to the scientific theory that has over 200,000 scientific papers concerning its validity, saying that it is not science, can it really be applied to a god or anything at all? Is it nothing more than a shaky philosophy that simply happened to get popular with some people?

The next most common thing that people say is that we cannot prove a negative. Philosopher Steven Hales argues that we can indeed do such a thing. I suggest reading his entire work on the subject to get a better grasp of what he is saying, as I only give tiny excerpts from it here:

…any claim can be expressed as a negative, thanks to the rule of double negation. This rule states that any proposition P is logically equivalent to not-not-P. So pick anything you think you can prove. Think you can prove your own existence? At least to your own satisfaction? Then, using the exact same reasoning, plus the little step of double negation, you can prove that you aren’t nonexistent. Congratulations, you’ve just proven a negative. The beautiful part is that you can do this trick with absolutely any proposition whatsoever. Prove P is true and you can prove that P is not false.

We prove negatives all the time. By proving that I am on a Macintosh, I am also proving that I am not on a Dell, HP, Acer, or any other kind of PC. We can prove that Creationism is not true by proving evolution true. In fact, we do not even need to prove that evolution is true in order to prove Creationism false. If the claim is made that the Earth is 10,000 years old, which is a key aspect of Young-Earth Creationism, with radiometric dating on certain things such as meteors, fossils, or even man-made artifacts, we can prove that the Earth is actually more around 4.5 billion years old. This does not prove evolution necessarily, but it most certainly proves that Creationism is false.

Maybe when people say, “You can’t prove a negative,” they are saying that we cannot prove that something does not exist, such as a god or Santa Clause, as James Randi likes to use as an example. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” as Carl Sagan put it. Not only would Steven Hales disagree, but so would particle physicist and philosopher Victor J. Stenger, author of such books as The New Atheism: Taking a Stand For Science and Reason and God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist.

The example that Hales gives is alien abductions:

So why is it that people insist that you can’t prove a negative? I think it is the result of two things. (1) an acknowledgement that induction is not bulletproof, airtight, and infallible, and (2) a desperate desire to keep believing whatever one believes, even if all the evidence is against it. That’s why people keep believing in alien abductions, even when flying saucers always turn out to be weather balloons, stealth jets, comets, or too much alcohol. You can’t prove a negative! You can’t prove that there are no alien abductions! Meaning: your argument against aliens is inductive, therefore not incontrovertible, and since I want to believe in aliens, I’m going to dismiss the argument no matter how overwhelming the evidence against aliens, and no matter how vanishingly small the chance of extraterrestrial abduction.

The example that Stenger uses often to show that we can prove negatives is a favourite of mine, which is elephants in Yellowstone:

Elephants have never been seen roaming Yellowstone National Park. If they were, they would not have escaped notice. No matter how secretive, the presence of such huge animals would have been marked by ample physical signs — droppings, crushed vegetation, bones of dead elephants. So we can safely conclude from the absence of evidence that elephants are absent from the park.

If there were evidence for elephants in Yellowstone, then some kind, any kind, of evidence would have been found. The person claiming that there are elephants in Yellowstone may try to make excuses and add on ad hoc hypotheses like, “There is evidence; it just hasn’t been found. They’re in the places you didn’t look. They’re hiding. They’re invisible. They’re very complex and are not able to be detected by human or animal senses or technology.” Does anyone see a similarity between this and theists when they push the goal post further and further back to avoid having their deities proven false as science pushes forward?

We can reasonably say that there are no elephants in Yellowstone, that we know there are no elephants in Yellowstone, and that we have proven that there are no elephants in Yellowstone, even with the unnecessary, unreasonable, and unintelligible ad hoc hypotheses that try to avoid the axe of disproof for as long as possible. The absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Can this be applied to a god though? Some might say, “Yellowstone is far different from the Universe. Maybe somewhere there is a god. We do not have full knowledge of the entire Universe, so you cannot say definitively that there is no god. You might as well say definitively that alien life does not exist, when it most probably does.” The idea that we need knowledge of everything in order to know one thing is ridiculous, and the equivocation of a god to alien life is just as ridiculous. The problem is that life does most certainly exist in the Universe. It’s here on our planet Earth, and with that we can predict that life similar to what we may define as alien probably does exist somewhere else in this vast Universe. The same cannot be said for a “god.”

I digress though. If a criteria of existence is set, we do not need to know everything of the Universe in order to know something about it. Looking at the criteria for the claim, it can be answered. Some of the gods may be answered by simple logic. The second law of thought is the law of non-contradiction. Aristotle put it as, “[One] cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.” Most gods, by their own criteria, are self-refuting. Some are said to be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, among other things, and these characteristics simply do not work together.

If the criteria for a god is that they made the Earth 10,000 years ago, we can test that as we did earlier to prove Creationism false, thereby proving false this specific god. If the criteria for a god is that they made the Universe, which is the criteria set for the deistic god that people say is unfalsifiable, that one might be a little trickier to answer for some. This is why people will say that while we can prove that Jehovah, Vishnu, Ra, etc. do not exist, we cannot prove that a deistic god does not exist. The problem with this line of reasoning, other than the fallacy within it which I will get to soon, is that it is not up to date with contemporary thought.

Physicist Lawrence M. Krauss recently came out with a book called A Universe From Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing, where in it he uses modern cosmology and physics to show that things do just come into and out of existence, apparently from nothing, all the time and that the Universe came from a structureless void that he dubs, just that, “Nothing,” which he admits is difficult to define in it of itself. Despite the semantic complications, there are reasonable explanations for the existence of the Universe that do not require a god or designer or “unmoved mover.” If falsifiability is correct, then these are the tests and observations that can be made in order to falsify gods, even if certain ones may seem like they cannot be tested, which many people state.

I said earlier that there was a fallacy contained within stating that we can prove theistic gods do not exist, but we cannot prove a deistic god does not exist. Another way it is worded is, “We know the theistic gods do not exist, such as those of the world’s holy books. The origins of the Universe are still unexplained though, so we, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’ too, do not know that a deistic god does not exist,” which I just showed how they are not unexplained. Anyone catch the fallacy? Anyone see how this is similar to what theists say? It’s the God of the Gaps Fallacy, only it is atheists who are using it now. X is unexplained, therefore it could be a god. Am I supposed to take anyone who says this anymore seriously than I would a theist who asks how the tides go in and out, then claims in their ignorance that it could be a god (specifically the god that they believe in)?

Everything about human history and progress dictates that what once was the field of religion, superstition, and ignorance will one day be the realm of science and knowledge. In Theism or Atheism, Chapman Cohen said something very similar, “…one may safely predict that just as the advance of scientific knowledge has taken over one department after another that was formerly regarded as within the province of religion, so one day it will be borne in upon all that an hypothesis such as that of theism, which does nothing and explains nothing, may be profitably dispensed with.”

What is left now of “god”? We know that the gods of theism most certainly do not exist, and we now have reasonable certainty that the god(s) of deism, which are merely theistic gods watered down by philosophy and science, also do not exist. So what is left of the claims made by believers? Richard Dawkins said it best in the afterword to Krauss’ book, “Even the last remaining trump card of the theologian, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ shrivels up before your eyes as you read these pages.” The very concept of “god” at this point is a meaningless word, an “unintelligible proposition,” as Chapman Cohen put it.

For some this may not be satisfactory. This is not enough for some people to say that a god does not exist. Chapman Cohen, who I have mentioned and quoted multiple times now, said this following his comment about the importance of examining all claims that affect people’s lives in Theism or Atheism (emphasis mine):

Certainly, conditions were never before so favourable for the delivery of a considered judgment on the question of the belief in God. On the one side we have from natural science an account of the universe which rules the operations of deity out of court. And on the other side we have a knowledge of the mode of origin of the belief which should leave us in no doubt as to its real value. We hope to show later that the question of origin is really decisive; that in reaching conclusions concerning the origin of the god-idea we are passing judgment as to its value. That the masters of this form of investigation have not usually, and in so many words, pushed their researches to their logical conclusions is no reason why we should refrain from doing so. Facts are in themselves of no great value. It is the conclusions to which they point that are the important things.

If the conclusions to which we refer are sound, then the whole basis of theism crumbles away. If we are to regard the god-idea as an evolution which began in misunderstandings of nature that were rooted in the ignorance of primitive man, it would seem clear that no matter how refined or developed the idea may become, it can rest on no other or sounder basis than that which is presented to us in the psychology of primitive man. Each stage of theistic belief grows out of the preceding stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose in a huge blunder I quite fail to see how any subsequent development can convert this unmistakable blunder into a demonstrable truth. To take a case in point. When it was shown that so far as witchcraft rested on observed facts these could be explained on grounds other than those of the malevolent activities of certain old women, the belief in witchcraft was not “purified,” neither did it advance to any so-called higher stage; it was simply abandoned as a useless and mischievous explanation of facts that could be otherwise accounted for. Are we logically justified in dealing with the belief in God on any other principle? We cannot logically discard the world of the savage and still retain his interpretation of it. If the grounds upon which the savage constructed his theory of the world, and from which grew all the ghosts and gods with which he believed himself to be surrounded, if these grounds are false, how can we still keep in substance to conclusions that are admittedly based on false premises? We can say with tolerable certainty that had primitive man known what we know about nature the gods would never have been born. Civilised man does not discover gods, he discards them. It was a profound remark of Feurbach’s, that religion is ultimately anthropology, and it is anthropology that gives to all forms of theism the death blow.

This next part comes from the next chapter in his book:

Finally, the suspicious feature must be pointed out that the belief in God owes its existence, not to the trained and educated observation of civilised times, but to the uncritical reflection of the primitive mind. It has its origin there, and it would indeed be remarkable if, while in almost every other direction the primitive mind showed itself to be hopelessly wrong, in its interpretation of the world in this particular respect it has proved itself to be altogether right. As a matter of fact, this primitive assumption is going the way of the others, the only difference being that it is passing through more phases than some. But the decay is plain to all save those who refuse to see. The process of refinement cannot go on for ever. In other matters knowledge passes from a nebulous and indefinite stage to a precise and definite one. In the case of theism it pursues an opposite course. From the very definite god, or gods, of primitive mankind we advance to the vague and indefinite god of the modern theist a God who, apparently, means nothing and does nothing, and at most stands as a symbol for our irremovable ignorance. Clearly this process cannot go on for ever. The work of attenuation must stop at some point. And one may safely predict that just as the advance of scientific knowledge has taken over one department after another that was formerly regarded as within the province of religion, so one day it will be borne in upon all that an hypothesis such as that of theism, which does nothing and explains nothing, may be profitably dispensed with.

The first part I really wish to point out is in the second paragraph of the first excerpt. “If we are to regard the god-idea as an evolution which began in misunderstandings of nature that were rooted in the ignorance of primitive man, it would seem clear that no matter how refined or developed the idea may become, it can rest on no other or sounder basis than that which is presented to us in the psychology of primitive man. Each stage of theistic belief grows out of the preceding stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose in a huge blunder I quite fail to see how any subsequent development can convert this unmistakable blunder into a demonstrable truth.”

The next part I want to bring further attention to is from the second excerpt given, “In other matters knowledge passes from a nebulous and indefinite stage to a precise and definite one. In the case of theism it pursues an opposite course. From the very definite god, or gods, of primitive mankind we advance to the vague and indefinite god of the modern theist a God who, apparently, means nothing and does nothing, and at most stands as a symbol for our irremovable ignorance.”

I recently discovered this book, and its author, only a few days prior to publishing this post, but I have been saying the exact same thing for months now! Apparently, Cohen has been saying it for a nearly a century, and his works go unnoticed by most atheists.

If it were not for these primitive peoples and their fears and misunderstandings of the world, no one on Earth would even understand the word “god,” and the labels that divide us and that some people kill over like Christian, Muslim, Hindu, theist, atheist, agnostic, and all others would not even exist (sure, we would still kill each other over other things). There would be no one fighting over who has the best god or if there is a god or not, because the word “god” would mean absolutely nothing to us.

It does not matter what definitions or criteria or ad hoc excuses are given to a god. It does not matter how vague and nonsensical the definitions of “god” become as science progresses, whether they be Odin, Jehovah, or a deistic god. The simple fact of the matter remains that the very concept of “god” originated from primitive men who knew absolutely nothing of the world and tacked on a meaningless word to explain the things around them that they could not at the time that we now can. All claims of a god that stem from this “huge blunder” are just as blundering and just as primitive in thought.

With this, the question must be asked again: can we disprove god?

Yes. We just did.

RE: Love Your Neighbor

So apparently, John Christy, the Christian that was on Dogma Debate recently who I wrote about in my most recent post The Christian Listener, has his own blog. I was unaware of this until I got a call from David Smalley about John’s response to the discussion we had on the show.

After thanking us for having him on the show for half the post, he starts off with this:

Smalley kept using Malachi 3:6 as a reference stating, “I the Lord do not change.” Smalley used this claim as the Bible’s support of killing homosexuals and slavery. What he did not read, and I failed to bring to his attention, was the second half of that verse which also states “So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed”.

Looking at the full context of this verse, which John is so big about, we see that what David said was not out of context.

“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

Always, every time, every single time an atheist quotes the Bible, a Christian will say some variation of, “You’re taking it out of context!” Even if they’re wrong, they will say it, because they will immediately say that we are wrong for “taking it out of context” once you say something from the Bible that they disagree with. “I the Lord do not change,” is not taken out of context. I have seen Christian apologists even quote Malachi 3:6 just as David did to prove similar points.

However, there are verses from the Old Testament where God does change his mind on things, as is clear from Jeremiah 18:7-10.

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed,and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted,and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

This could be construed as changing his mind, but if God is omniscient, then he knows what nations and kingdoms will do what he wanted and which ones will not, so it’s not really changing his mind if he knows what is going to happen.

Then Hebrews 7:21 says, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind…”

So God does change his mind from the Jeremiah verses, but also he doesn’t from the Malachi and Hebrews verses. This is but another contradiction in the Bible for people to cherry-pick all the verses that support their interpretations of it.

Next in his post, John says this.

Smalley also avoided my continual usage of Jesus’ statement to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31). This is why a proper contextual understanding of the Bible is so critical to not only bring balance and understanding to God’s word but also to his nature.

Yes, it is true. Jesus did say the greatest commandments are to love God to love your neighbour. So what? It doesn’t mean the Malachi verse was taken out of context.

“You’re taking it out of context!” is not an argument unless you can show how it actually has been taken out of context. If someone quotes a person as saying, “I want to kill everyone,” and we look at the actual context of what that person said and what they actually said was, “It’s not like I want to kill everyone, but I am angry,” then that is an example of something being taken out of context. Quoting Malachi 3:6 as, “I the Lord do not change,” is not something that has been taken out of context. Please understand the difference.

46% Of Americans Under 28 Are Atheists?

The site Skeptic Money recently released a post about a study conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), which is affiliated with the University of Chicago. The study is called “Belief About God Across Time and Country,” and it details people from across many different nations and if they are certain that a god exists. Skeptic Money’s post on the study is short (at about seven sentences) and not so sweet, as it presents fallacious reasoning about what an atheist is.

At the top (or bottom) of the list in the study is East Germany with a whopping 0% under the age of 28 saying that they are certain that a god exists or not. The United States is over half at 53.8% of respondents under the age of 28 saying they were certain that a god exists. This is bad news for us in the United States’ irreligious population but great news for Europe’s (fuckers).

I digress though. The author of the post had this to say:

If the person says yes [to are they certain that God exists] then they are a theist (the belief that at least one deity exists).  If they say they don’t know, or are not sure etc… then they are an atheist.  If you are not sure if god exists then you cannot have a belief in that deity.  Therefore, you are an atheist!

This new report says that only 54% of Americans under the age of 28 are “Certain God Exists”.  That means that 46% are NOT sure that god exists.  If you aren’t certain that god even exists then you ARE an atheist!

This is just flat-out false.

One does not have to be certain that a god exists in order to be a theist. Being uncertain, however small of doubt there may be, does not make someone an atheist. Sure, some amount of doubt might someday years down the road turn some into atheists, but simply because they are not certain does not mean that they do not believe or are not theists.

If the same logic is applied to atheism, one could easily say that in order to be an atheist one must be certain that a god does not exist and that any kind of admittance that one is not sure means that they are a theist. We would be quick to call this ignorant and downright stupid, because it is.

This kind of definition of atheist is a strawman in order to get more numbers for the atheist demographic, and it is a terrible attempt at that. A similar tactic is also used by people who think that one is either an atheist or a theist in order to get agnostics on their side, even though agnosticism is its own separate category.

I am sure that the majority of those 46% of people still believe in a god and would resent anyone who dare call them an atheist. If anything is counterproductive to the atheist/secular movement, calling someone something that they clearly are not or do not identify with definitely is.

Belief, Knowledge, and Ignosticism

be·lief

noun /biˈlēf/
beliefs, plural

• An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists
• Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction
• A religious conviction
• Trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something

knowl·edge

noun /ˈnälij/
knowledges, plural

• Facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject
• What is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information
• True, justified belief; certain understanding, as opposed to opinion
• Awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation

I would like to draw attention to that second to last line there.

“True, justified belief”

It is often said that because knowledge and belief have two different definitions that they are two separate things, that belief equates theism and knowledge equates gnosticism. This is based entirely off etymology alone, not usage of modern language, vernacular, or human psychology.

Knowledge and belief are not two different scales or options that split people into four, exclusive little categories based solely on etymology. Knowledge, according to Plato, is a belief that is justified by evidence and reason. They are not separate things that go in two different directions. Belief and knowledge are simply different sections on the same sliding scale.

On one end of the spectrum, there are claims that fly in the face of evidence and reason, such as Intelligent Design/Creationism. As we go further down the spectrum, more and more evidence supports the claims that are made, making them more justified to believe; eventually, we can start saying that we know them to be true instead of simply believing that they are. At the other end of the spectrum there are claims that people accept and know to be true beyond a reasonable doubt because of a mountain of evidence supporting it, such as the theory of evolution.

Another spectrum that can be used in this discussion would be Richard Dawkins’ seven point scale of belief that he talks about in his famous book The God Delusion. On one end you have “strong theist” (1) and on the other you have “strong atheist” (7). These could be called states of mind on the existence of a god. In the book Dawkins calls himself a six. In several interviews since the book has been released he has repeatedly called himself a 6.9 instead of merely a six. I personally would call myself a 6.999999999999999…999999 (you get the point). At that point, I might as well just round up to seven, even though it is not quite fully seven.

A nice metaphor I would like to draw is one that is commonly used against Creationists to help them understand evolution and how small changes occur over time.

What is the first purple (agnostic) word? What is the first blue (atheist) word? Where does atheist switch over to theist? Where does etymology come into play here? Conversions, reconversions, and deconversions can take years. It is not something where someone is automatically now an atheist. There is a time of transition when someone just does not know or claim to believe either way or even know where they stand on the issue. Some might even stay that way.

Now I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I really hate playing “My Definition is Better Than Yours,” but I’ll keep doing it:

ag·nos·tic

noun /agˈnästik/
agnostics, plural

• A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God

That last part is what I have come to realise what an agnostic person is, “A person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.”

Agnosticism is a valid and stand-alone position, despite what some people may say that because they do not claim belief in a deity, they fall into the false dichotomous position of atheist. They also do not claim disbelief, or lack of belief, in a deity either. They are not atheists or theists. They are neither believers nor non-believers. They are agnostics. They are “I don’t know-believers.” Let’s go with “IDK-believers” for short and to appeal to the youth out there.

Do not confuse agnostics with “apatheists,” who I will call “meh-believers” just for the hell of it. Apatheism is a peculiar position that I will go into very quickly. An apatheist is someone who may or may not necessarily believe in a deity, but they just do not care one way or the other if a god exists or not, or they claim neither belief nor disbelief simply because they do not care one way or the other. The god question is not something that they care about or think is relevant to them. Personally, I think they are foolish for thinking that. The question, “Does a god exist?” and the resulting actions taken out by people on either side has profound societal consequences for everyone, as we have seen from Republicans trying to take contraception away from women based entirely off religious reasons.

A person who is agnostic may fall close to atheism or close to theism on the belief and knowledge spectrum, so I can partially understand why someone might call themselves an agnostic (a)theist if that is the case (or even an (a)theistic agnostic), but describing all atheists and theists as agnostic or gnostic is simply unnecessary at best. There is no need for any qualifier to the words atheist or theist.

If someone really wanted to, then as we go further and further on ends of the spectrum, one could call themselves a “gnostic (a)theist.” Just like with the “agnostic (a)theists,” I can partially understand it, even if I disagree with the labeling. I know from some of my most recent videos, such as I Know God Doesn’t Exist, that people have started calling me a “gnostic atheist,” and several friends and followers of mine have started saying that they are “gnostic atheists” as well because of my videos. I would like to say that I do not call myself that. I am an atheist. No extra words needed.

In my videos, I was not endorsing “gnostic atheism.” I was, if anything, explaining my views on ignosticism (not agnosticism for those of you who think I misspelled something). I have run into similar problems with ignosticism that I have had with agnosticism. People seem to think that because they do not believe in a god that they are automatically atheists. However, they also do not lack belief. They also are not “IDK-believers.” They are “what the fuck are you even talking about-believers.” Possibly “WTF-believers” for short.

Using the word “believers” at all for agnostics, apatheists, and ignostics may cause some confusion. I do not recommend using these terms to describe anyone; I’m just using it here alone and possibly within my own blog to help make sense of these stances and philosophies.

Since I have made these videos, some people have been confused with my stances, saying that I can not say I know a god does not exist if I claim ignosticism. This is from ignorance of the stances themselves. To make it as clear as possible, I am “gnostic,” for brevity’s sake, about the theistic gods. I know they do not exist. I can prove definitively with science that they do not. There is no question in my mind that Jehovah, Vishnu, Thor, etc. do not exist. This is why I call myself an atheist, but I do not say that I am a “gnostic atheist” simply because I see no point to these extra labels.

Now an ignostic is someone who does not take a position on the god question until the very term “god” itself is properly defined. Do not confuse this with agnosticism. Agnostics take a stance somewhere in the middle on the belief and knowledge spectrum. Ignostics are not even on that spectrum. They are their own little group separate from the three other categories.

I would say that I am ignostic about a deistic god. Because the term “god” itself is so poorly defined once all claims of theistic gods are destroyed, there is no reason to believe or not believe in a deistic god or gods. The theistic gods have qualities and characteristics that we can test for and see if they really do exist, such as Jehovah’s creation story in the book of Genesis.

A deistic god, which is basically a theistic god watered down by science and philosophy, is too vague to properly define, and those that have been defined, such as those touted by philosopher William Lane Craig, have also been discredited and debunked just like any theistic god out there. All claims about a god, whether theistic or deistic, have been debunked.

This is why I say that I know even a deistic god does not exist. I am not agnostic about it. I am just as agnostic about a deistic god as I am about the Celestial Teapot or the Zsadlfkjasdiagrb. For those readers who do not know what in the hell I just typed, do not be alarmed.

“God” is so poorly defined, but people, as in some atheists, say that they do not know if one exists or not. This is why I created the term “Zsadlfkjasdiagrb” (pronunciation: Zuh-sad-loofk-jaz-dee-ahh-gurb), in a discussion with a (former) friend of mine and fellow atheist (I think), in order to show the vagueness of the term “god” itself. I do not know what the Zsadlfkjasdiagrb is, what its characteristics or qualities are, but I know it is not real.

It is a made up thing. It does not require my belief or disbelief. Doing any of that gives undeserved credence to the concept of the Zsadlfkjasdiagrb. The same can be said of a god. The very concept of a god was made up by fearful, superstitious people that did not understand the natural world around them and attached “god” to the things they could not explain. These evolved into the gods of the world’s religions that we see today. Characteristics and qualities that we could recognise and partially understand were attributed to different gods for different things, and we debunked them all. We showed with science how these gods simply do not exist. Once the theistic gods are gone, what is left? Nothing.

Characteristics were given to the Zsadlfkjasdiagrb when I first made videos about it. People said they imagined a drunk, French Zoidberg from the show Futurama. Does this exist? Obviously not. Once that is gone, the Zsadlfkjasdiagrb no longer exists as anything but a word that someone made up, same with a god.

Another pretty picture to help explain this.

Is anyone agnostic towards the invisible chair? No. Is anyone a theist towards the invisible chair? I would hope not. Is anyone an atheist towards the invisible chair? There is no need to be. Calling oneself an atheist towards the invisible chair or “god” is giving unnecessary credit to the very concept of such a thing when it simply does not exist.

Another problem I have run into is when I say that I am a 6.999999999999999…999999 on the seven point Dawkins scale. People will say, “Then you aren’t 100% sure, therefore you can’t say you know a god doesn’t exist!” Again, with my stance I might as well round up to a seven or up to 100% sure. I will not though, because I cannot be 100% certain of anything by certain people’s definitions of knowledge and certainty, even my own existence, and I do not care to go down that rabbit hole, but I still know that the invisible chair and “god” do not exist.

To explain this, I wrote a quick post in response to this common objection weeks ago, which I have since slightly tweaked from its original form that I think is appropriate to be used here as a closing statement.

If I draw a square in the sand, it is not perfect, but it is still considered a square by most. If I draw a square with the aid of a ruler, even though we are getting closer it is not perfect, but it is still considered a square. If I draw a square with the aid of a computer that gets it within one-millionth of an inch in accuracy, it is still not perfect, but it is still considered a square. None of these are perfect squares. You can say a square is when all four sides are perfectly equal, but even the most advanced pieces of technology and machinery cannot make such a thing. Even if it is only one atom off, that automatically makes it not a perfect square. Closer and closer we get to a perfect square with the advancement of science and technology, but we will probably never be able to make a perfect square, but for semantic reasons we say that these are still squares and not rectangles or trapezoids. The same can be applied to disproving the existence of a god. We may not be able to definitively disprove its existence and be one-hundred percent sure, much like we cannot make a perfect square, but for semantic reasons we know that a god, even a deistic god, does not exist.