Tuesday, 15 July 2014
An infinity of gods
Most people think there is just one god but we know many gods have sustained humans throughout time. We have counted ten thousand or so but it could be a lot more—we have no idea how many there were before our recorded history.
But counting gods can't give us the answer. Because we cannot count the gods that have yet to be invented or the gods that have yet to reveal themselves to us. How many could be in this category? Millions? Trillions? It is conceivably unlimited—there could be an INFINITE number of gods.
If you imagine there is only a handful of gods, you may think choosing one is a fair bet. But if there is an infinite number of gods, it is infinitely UNLIKELY that you have chosen the correct one, especially given that they all have the same amount of existential evidence—none.
However many gods there are, it is impossible that they are all real but quite possible that they are all invented.
Choosing the real god(s) out of an infinite number of possibilities (most of which you are unaware of) is an impossible task. Maybe that is why people don't choose a god, they just go along with whatever mum and dad believe in.
Saturday, 5 July 2014
How we know Jesus
Exactly the same process was used to write the Gospels. Everything we know about Jesus is as reliable as this image.
Thursday, 3 July 2014
The end of religion?
People sometimes ask me if I would like to see the end of
all religion across the planet. I say it depends.
It depends on what these religions would be replaced with. There
is no guarantee they will be replaced with reason, tolerance and universal observance
of human rights. They could all too
easily be replaced with something even worse. We must never forget the law of
unintended consequences…
In any case, the elimination of all religion is a fanciful
objective. Some people do seem to need the reassurance of a powerful, imaginary
friend who is looking out for them. Maybe it will always be so.
But there is a more limited objective that I would subscribe
to. I would like everyone to see their
religion in context—to understand it is one of 22 major religions today and one
of thousands of religions throughout human history. I would like them to
understand there is no more reason to believe their religion is true than any
other religion.
I would like to see every believer have a little more humility.
And whenever they feel compelled by their religion to harm another person, I
would like them to stop and remember that humility. Should I harm this person
for a god that may not be real?
The answer should always be “No”.
Sunday, 15 June 2014
Why deny revelation?
One Christian friend recently said,
"We even trust reason above revelation to explain the things that cannot be laboratory tested, such as, how the world came to be in the first place..."
We trust reason because it is all we have that we can rely on.
We know too much about the frailties of the human brain to trust revelation. And we know revelation offers us contradictory stories. Whose revelation will you believe Daniel's, Mohammed's or Joseph Smith's?
No, we have learnt the hard way, if you want to know something, find it out for yourself. We have done that. And we have done it spectacularly well.
We now daily use things like high definition TVs, computers, the internet, mobile 'phones and 450 seat airliners that, only 200 years ago, would have been regarded by those who favoured revelation as witchcraft and magic. None of these things were discovered through revelation—they are the result of hard work, rigorous thinking, rejecting superstitious beliefs and grounding our ideas on evidence.
In that extraordinarily successful project we have discovered and understood the particles from which atoms are made, we have explored the outer-edges of the universe, unravelled the inner workings of our sun and we have travelled to other planets.
None of this has brought us any nearer to confirming the existence of God. Instead, it has eliminated many of the reasons people once relied upon for their belief in God.
We have found God to be imperfect, insufficient and immoral. We have found that are no reasons left for believing in God apart from our own inadequacies.
Saturday, 14 June 2014
How logic fails God-believers
15 comments
:
Labels:
atheism
,
beliefs
,
bill flavell
,
Christianity
,
Christians
,
faith
,
God
,
logic and god
,
religion
,
why believe
“Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?” The answer can be "yes" or "no", or "cannot be determined".
Around 90% of people will get this wrong despite the fact that you are given all the information necessary to get it right.
Many of the people who fail to solve this conundrum are very sure about another, infinitely more difficult conundrum with highly incomplete information. They say, "Something cannot come from nothing therefore the universe must have been created by something outside of the universe. That something we call God".
People arrive at this conclusion:
1) Knowing it is based on inductive reasoning which never guarantees a correct conclusion (we never see something coming from nothing, therefore it cannot happen) .
2) Not knowing what, if anything, existed prior to the Big Bang.
3) Knowing the laws of physics (and, therefore, classical cause and effect) cannot have applied before matter appeared.
The Jack, Anne and George conundrum illustrates that humans typically have limited and highly fallible logic skills yet we can still be certain we have the correct answer to highly complex problems even when we lack the information to solve them.
So, for the avoidance of doubt, the "Something cannot come from nothing" argument is fatally flawed and you do yourself no credit if you repeat it.
Oh yes, the correct answer to the Jack, Anne and George conundrum is "yes". Did you get it right?
______________________________
If you need help with the logic...
Jack is married, George is not, Anne is either married or not.
If Anne is not married: a married person (Jack) is looking at an unmarried person (Anne).
If Anne is married: a married person (Anne) is looking at an unmarried person (George).
So, either way, a married person is indeed looking at an unmarried person. We have sufficient information to determine that a married person is looking at an unmarried person, but not which couple this applies to.
Thursday, 29 May 2014
How to dismiss hell forever
.jpg)
But many do have such a precious person and these people can vouch for the absurdity of heaven.
They know going to heaven could mean being forever separated from their soul-mate, and then it would not be heaven—it would be hell and there would be no escape, ever.
Actually, it's worse than that. If your soul-mate does not make it to the pearly gates, you know they have been taken to that other place—where screaming and wailing and agony continue without end. If you can't bear to think of your soul-make suffering for even a second, how will you feel when you know they will suffer forever?
This alone should tell you that heaven and hell are fiction. There can be no heaven if there is hell.
The idea of an underworld for the dead is very ancient indeed. It was a dark, gloomy place, or place for recuperation. But a hell of eternal torture seems to be the invention of the fathers of Christianity. No doubt, they saw hell as a powerful recruiting sergeant for their new religion.
But they should have given it more thought. The hell they invented makes heaven impossible and reveals the unmistakable fingerprints of human beings in the entire project.
Tuesday, 27 May 2014
How much do you love your kids?
How you bring up your kids has a massive effect on their lives. I want you to think about doing something amazing for them.
It may mean making a sacrifice and it may be the most difficult sacrifice you have ever had to make or it may be the easiest. I don't know.
I want you to think of the values you would love them to have when they grow up. The values that will make them happy and the people around them happy and will help them to succeed in whatever direction they go.
These values may be things like respecting and valuing people for who they are—not what they are. Things like consideration, honesty and integrity, tolerance, helping others, showing love and encouragement. Teach them to value hard work and enterprise.
Show them how to use their money wisely and how to share what they have. Selfishness does not make people happy, sharing does—whatever they have to share, their time, their support, their money.
And show them how to value THEMSELVES. Repeatedly tell them they are great and never that they are damaged.
Encourage them to be hungry for knowledge, to be critical, to question and to research. Teach them to think for themselves so they will be confident and never taken advantage of. And so they will flourish in our future world and not the one that has passed.
Don't tell them what to think—teach how to think and encourage them, encourage them, encourage them to do so.
If you have a religion, tell them about it but don't force it on them and don't indoctrinate them from an early age. Make a point of reminding them this is what you believe, others believe different things and many people have no religion at all.
Try to leave detailed religious discussions until they are teenagers and can put things into proper context.
Don't be disappointed if they turn out not to share your beliefs; you are not creating little versions of yourself. You are creating new people with good values and their own minds and one day you will hand your world over to them.
Trust them and let them go free.
Read More
It may mean making a sacrifice and it may be the most difficult sacrifice you have ever had to make or it may be the easiest. I don't know.
I want you to think of the values you would love them to have when they grow up. The values that will make them happy and the people around them happy and will help them to succeed in whatever direction they go.
These values may be things like respecting and valuing people for who they are—not what they are. Things like consideration, honesty and integrity, tolerance, helping others, showing love and encouragement. Teach them to value hard work and enterprise.
Show them how to use their money wisely and how to share what they have. Selfishness does not make people happy, sharing does—whatever they have to share, their time, their support, their money.
And show them how to value THEMSELVES. Repeatedly tell them they are great and never that they are damaged.
Encourage them to be hungry for knowledge, to be critical, to question and to research. Teach them to think for themselves so they will be confident and never taken advantage of. And so they will flourish in our future world and not the one that has passed.
Don't tell them what to think—teach how to think and encourage them, encourage them, encourage them to do so.
If you have a religion, tell them about it but don't force it on them and don't indoctrinate them from an early age. Make a point of reminding them this is what you believe, others believe different things and many people have no religion at all.
Try to leave detailed religious discussions until they are teenagers and can put things into proper context.
Don't be disappointed if they turn out not to share your beliefs; you are not creating little versions of yourself. You are creating new people with good values and their own minds and one day you will hand your world over to them.
Trust them and let them go free.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
Nildogma, the blogga
About Me
- Nildogma
- As a 20-year-old I was insatiably curious about the world and passionate about rejecting superstitions and all kinds of false beliefs. I still am today. Sometimes when people believe things that are not true, it make little or no difference but sometimes the consequences can be disastrous and deadly. Now, I do what I can to help people improve their thinking skills, especially in how they impinge on core beliefs, such as cultural values and religious beliefs. I have an active Facebook page for which I create memes and write articles almost daily. I also engage people in on-line debates. You can find me here: https://www.facebook.com/bill.flavell.1 I lecture at universities around the world and present or debate at public meetings. I also, draw on my management consultancy background to help freethought groups, almost anywhere in the world, to get organised, develop strategy and improve their media and presentation skills. If you would like me to present at your university or for your church group or freethought group, please contact me.
Popular Posts
-
Here is a simple problem of logic. “Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married but George is not. Is a marr... -
According to Christian theology, before Adam and Eve's famous serpent-induced transgressions, they were sin-free, just as God had made... -
God is said to be omniscient and unchanging. But what are the implications of these characteristics? 1) Stupid people cannot learn God ca...
-
Christianity is an elderly religion that is showing its age. It contains such huge helpings of magic and nonsense that it speaks to fewer an...
-
Let's do a thought experiment. I'll start by inventing a god, I'm going to call her Ninfinity. She is very beautiful and she... -
There is no corruption-free country in the world—every country experiences some level of corruption. But the huge differences in the leve... -
It was quite a stroke of luck for the Jews. Out of all the peoples in the entire world, the 12 small tribes of Israel were the chosen peo... -
Thales of Miletus In a letter to Robert Hooke, written in February 1676, the great Isaac Newton wrote, "If I have seen further it ... -
In 2012, an international team of scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the Swiss/French border announced they had dem... -
So much misinformation surrounds the lives of YHWH (God) and Jesus that it is hard to unravel what is true and what is hyperbole. Almost ...