Do Christians have a sense of humour?

It is never easy writing blog posts on a Friday, too much to do in the run up to the weekend, so please forgive the “easy” targets today. Yesterday I took a cheap shot at a post on the unique Parabiodox blog. I knew it was a bait post but I was bored and couldn’t pass up the chance to poke fun at what came across as a very self-important Theist post.

Parabiodox has responded to my comment and seems to damn me with faint praise (more of that later), but oddly seems to continue the “self important” tone I thought the original post had. Do Christians have a sense of humour or was he just all cut up over the death of Jerry Fallwell…(*) Anyway, trying to claw my way back to seriousness, in a nutshell, Parabiodox (paraphrasing the luminary Ayn Rand…) asked a question about which faith/belief system spends it’s time attacking others to hide the fact it has nothing to offer. It was fairly obvious this was a poor attempt to attack Atheism (agnosticism etc) and that is the answer the Theist wants to get.

The reality is far from the truth (for example, Atheism is not a faith nor is it a belief system) so, I pointed out that if you are not a follower of the Abrahamic myths, then they seem to spend a lot of time attacking others in an effort to mask the fact they offer nothing of value. The irony of the very question did not go unnoticed here… How does Parabiodox respond?

Continue reading

Evolution – Humour or Crank?

Once more, the Great Tuatatis has guided me to some more erratic websites (I suspect I actually found it as a link on someone else’s blog, but unfortunately I cant remember who to tip my hat to, sorry).

Anyway, however it happened, on the phs1966.com blog, there is a post called “Can we really call evolution science.” It is a short post, so I will copy it here in full: Continue reading

Atheist Belief

I know it is done to death in the past, and this is probably preaching to the converted but it constantly amazes me how many theists (and even some atheists) labour under the idea that “atheism” means believing there is not a God.

On YouTube there is a video from davidbpearson2 (calling himself FireFly515) about Atheists (which I strongly suspect is a joke anyway) which provides a good example of this thinking (I am not going to mention the rest of the nonsense in the video because he is either trolling or doing it as satire). (There are quite a few posts by FireFly515 in which he rants about destroying Atheism and the numerous responses but that is the subject for another post one day).

In a nutshell, lots and lots of the religious propaganda which mentions Atheism describes them as people who believe there is no God.

I don’t think I can agree with this.

I can only speak for myself (remember this is no Atheist Doctrine which tells all Atheists how they can think…), but I personally do not believe in any deities existing and to me this is an important difference. Saying I do not believe in God takes the prior assumption that God exists and makes it appear I am wilfully refusing to accept this.

Saying I believe there is no God is equally weak (again, please remember this is my personal opinion), belief is a characteristic of faith. Atheism is not a faith. I do not hold a belief in the face of evidence. I do not hold a belief on the basis of there being no evidence.

All I can say is, I do not believe in imaginary things, this includes deities, Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, Elves, Faeries, The Grinch, Goblins, Bogeymen, Little green martians, Witches, Ghosts, Hobbits, Treants, Orcs, Mordor, Harry Potter, Angels, Demons, The Devil, dragons and so on. To me a theist is some one who has cut this list a little bit shorter.

It would be interesting to see how others describe their Atheism.

Are All Atheists The Same?

I was browsing through the excellent posts on “The Atheist Jew” website recently and I came across one entitled “Atheism as a theory,” which is very interesting but posts some points I really do not agree with. The crux of them come from the Top 10 Atheist Myths website, so it is there I turn the rest of my attention.

, in my mind, is nothing more (or less) than the absence of any belief in any supernatural entity. You can call the entity Thor, Odin, Bahommet, Azura Madhra, Pluto, Set, Bast, Hermes, God, Allah, Vishnu or whatever. I still dont believe in it.

That pretty much sums up everything have in common. Other than that, they are “normal” people just like a theist. There are Atheists who do bad things, there are Atheists who do good things. There are Atheists who are irrational, just as there are ones who are rational. Atheism is an opinion about one aspect of your interaction with reality and, as such, cant really be used to determine any other aspects.

Ok, so there is “my” take on atheism. On the “Top 10 Myths” site, there are a list of the top ten (oddly enough…) so I will repeat them here:

  • Myth 1 : “Atheists are all the same”
  • Myth 2 : “Atheists have no morals, since they don’t believe in God”
  • Myth 3 : “Atheists believe in evolution, but that doesn’t answer as many questions as creationism”
  • Myth 4 : “Atheists cannot know there is no God, since you cannot prove he doesn’t exist”
  • Myth 5 : “Atheists seek to remove religion from society, and to force all people to be atheists”
  • Myth 6 : “Atheists are so closed-minded, they can’t see that miracles happen every day!”
  • Myth 7 : “Atheists are pushing a negative sentiment, and have a dreary life”
  • Myth 8 : ” If atheists are right, then religious people are wasting their time, but at least they’re happy. No harm in that! If religious people are right, then atheists are going to hell. It seems logical that atheists should become religious just to be safe.”
  • Myth 9 : “There are no such things as atheists” a.k.a. “There are no atheists in foxholes”
  • Myth 10 : “This country was founded by Christians, on Christian values, and should therefore be a Christian country”.

Now, it doesn’t take the most imagination in the world to see how these myths are, in fact, all flawed and Dave Silverman’s website does a good job of dismissing them (myth 10 is obviously very specific for the US so I will ignore it for now).

There is a common thread which runs through all the myths, and it is the theistic assumption that all Atheists think the same. This is the same lack of logical thought which leads people to assume is the “pope” of Atheism. As logical thought goes, it is more than wrong.

Sadly, despite Dave Silverman’s otherwise excellent commentary, he makes the same mistake himself a few times. For example, in response to Myth 2 he writes: (emphasis in original, underlining mine)

Humans have the idea of right and wrong imbedded in them by their own brains, as well as their upbringing and society. Atheists do good, not out of fear of reprisal, but because it’s the right thing to do. We value family, society, culture, and, of course, freedom. Many of us will – and have – defend these values with our lives.

While personally, I do think I value family, society, culture and freedom, I also think it is a stretch of reality to imply all Atheists do. There are atheists who are simply nasty people. Being an atheist does not mean you hold yourself to a higher standard and there is no Holy Book Of Atheism to tell people how to live their lives. Just like theists, atheists are a mixture of people. The main difference (in my opinion) is that Atheists are a LOT less hypocritical.

I may be out of order, but I get the suspicion that Dave Silverman is an ex-Christian/Jewish Atheist, which seems to come through in his comments. For example, in response to myth 8, he writes:

I like getting this question. I sense another list coming :

1) Drug addicts go through life happy, so would theists suggest we all use drugs and stay home? We would be happy, and not hurting anybody, so where’s the harm?
The harm is the same for believers. They go through life happy, but it’s a false, wasteful happiness. Atheists get happiness from family, contribution to society, charity, and truth.

2) Religious people should not be lumped into one category for this question. Remember, religions are also biased against each other (Jews vs. Catholics Vs. Protestants, etc), so no matter what religion the speaker follows, most of the world thinks they’re going to hell (or other punishment), just like atheists. Ask them which religion has the worst punishment, and whether they would convert to that religion on that one factor, just in case they’re right. When they tell you how absurd that question is, remind them that they asked it first.

3) To convert and practice a specific religion just to ingratiate yourself with God and avoid going to hell is pure, self-serving greed, which is one of the seven deadly
sins. Therefore, by their own thinking, even if they are right and I do convert, I’d go to hell anyway, along with everyone else in the flock whose actions are so motivated (possibly including the speaker).

All very much along the Abrahamic religions lines. In reality, this myth is a variation on Pascals Wager and can generally be dismissed in much simpler terms (and was mentioned here previously).

All in all, both sites are interesting and worth visiting, they just have a different view on Atheism to myself – which goes to show, all atheists are different!