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Seeds: Do they prove an afterlife? Answers: With Hellbound Alleee Hellbound Alleee, some people say that plants prove an afterlife, because they all die and come back to life. Others say that no scientist can explain how a tiny seed grows into a big plant. Is this true? Alleee: Well, Gene, humans have known something about how plants work for over 10 thousand years! Some plants look like they have died, yet in the spring, they come back, as beautiful as ever. The plant is not resurrected, it is a perennial. That means the plant loses its greenery and all the energy is stored up in the roots. It goes into hibernation until the ground is warm enough. Some plants die, but, like in the animal kingdom, they go through the process of reproduction. The new plant is not a resurrection, but an offspring. Plants produce seeds that are carried by the wind, animals or people. Each seed contains a tiny plant--an embryo, and endosperm. When a seed turns into a plant, we call that germination. The dormancy of the seed is broken when the seed absorbs enough water and the temperature is warm enough. The sprout emerges from the hull and can now take food from the sun, the soil, and, of course, the air. Lots of theists like to use seed analogies, and that's fine. But as I always say, don't make scientific claims without research first--and don't do it with a gardener! Negatives: Impossible to prove? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. People often say that strong-atheism cannot be proven, because you can't prove a universal negative. Is this true ? No, not at all. We prove universal negatives all the time. A universal negative is a statement that says something does not exist anywhere. For instance, "there is no god" is a universal negative. Christians say that you would have to look everywhere to prove such a statement. But that is not true. We can prove universal negatives in many ways. For instance, a meaningless concept cannot exist. The statement "there is no god" is true because the word "god" does not mean anything. Contradictions also cannot exist. We know this because of the laws of logic. For instance, "there is no god" can also be proven by the existence of evil. An omnibenevolent god could not create evil, but there are a great number of things in the universe that, if they were created, would be examples of divine evil. Finally, science proves universal negatives all the time. Once you prove a universal positive, you also prove a great number of universal negatives. For instance, scientists used to think that phlogiston, an invisible, odourless substance, was the material necessary for combustion. But they found that combustion needs oxygen instead. So now we can say that there is no phlogiston. The Universe: Does it prove a creator? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. The idea that the universe must have been created, is the most common argument for theism. But does it make sense ? Christians say that God popped the universe from nothing with a flourish of its magic wand. That is illogical and absurd ! Nothing can come from nothing. Christianity is nothing more than a collection of pre-scientific myths. Science and philosophy agree that the universe is the first cause, which means that the existence of the universe is a necessary fact. Just like Christians say that the existence of their god is a necessary fact, but we know that the universe exists and that gods are fairy tales. Some Christians try to point to specific facts in the universe, such as the existence of life, and say that they are improbable without a god to create them. This is called the "fine-tuning argument". However, Big Bang theory and wave function models have disproven the idea that the cosmological constants happened by chance. We now know that, at the first moments of the universe, the laws of nature formed as matter itself formed, and that the probability of our universe starting differently is extremely low. Today, the hypothesis of string theory may help us determine what happened before the Big Bang, and opens new avenues for our exploration of our godless universe. Jesus: Did he really exist? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Most people believe that a man named Jesus existed, and Christians believe he was the messiah. What does history have to say about this ? Not much, actually. Even theologians now admit that there are no contemporary documents to show that Jesus existed, let alone credible ones. If the messiah really came down to Earth and made the incredible miracles reported in the Gospels, it would have been reported all over ! Furthermore, all the parts of the Jesus Myth existed before Christianity. For example, the virgin birth, december 25th, the miracles with twelve disciples, a last supper, a resurrection on the spring equinox, and ascension to Heaven, were all attributed to Mithra, the messiah of an eilte roman religion. Believers point to the Gospels as evidence, but none of them were contemporary and they gravely contradict each other. Thanks to literary analysis, we now know that the four gospels were inspired by a much older document, called "Q" by historians. This document only had teachings, not miracles or prophecies. The final nail to the coffin of a historical Jesus is the fact that no Church father speaks of Jesus' mortal life, or knows any detail of the Gospel whatsoever, until the second century. No, Jesus was nothing more than another pagan sun god. Rainbows : What do they tell us ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Alleee, what can rainbows tell us about science and the Bible? Rainbows are a constant, colourful testimony of the supremacy of science over religion. The tribal myths of the Bible tell us that God, after wiping out all life, made the rainbow as a promise to Noah and all mankind that he would never flood the Earth again. That would be quite a horrifying story, but we know that's just not true. Rainbows appear because raindrops separate light rays into all the colours of the spectrum, because of a process called refraction. You can see this separation yourself if you shine light on a prism. Isaac Newton did this very experiment in 1665 to prove that light is composed of all the colours we see. You can also use a sprinkler on a sunny day ! The rainbow also illustrates how wonderful structures can emerge out of simple elements, such as rainbows coming from the interaction of light and raindrops. Theologians always try to deny that it can happen, but the rainbow proves them wrong ! In fact, everything we see is composed of particles interacting with each other in accordance with causality. Finally, the rainbow is also a symbol of diversity, which religion has always tried to repress but survives all intolerence. Monkeys: Are they really our uncles? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Alleee, is it true that we came from monkeys ? Creationists like to make evolution look ridiculous by making these kinds of straw men. But evolution does not tell us that we came from monkeys. Since we all have a common ancestor, all species on Earth have an equally long lineage. For example, man, apes and chimpanzees started to diverge from their common ancestor approximately six million years ago. In fact, man and chimpanzees have 98.5% of their DNA in common ! And that's another fact proving that Creationism is pseudo-science. Apes and chimpanzees "still" exist today because they are as much a modern species as man is. Creationists like to make up all kinds of straw men to turn people away from science. They like to say that evolution is just chance, and that it is improbable for any organism to come from amino acids banging around. But evolution has nothing to do with chance. All its mechanisms, such as natural selection, mutations, genetic drift, sexual selection, and so on, are governed by natural law. The fittest animals survive and reproduce because their DNA makes them more efficient. And all those mechanisms still apply to humans and all other species living today ! 7. The Ten Commandments: Foundation of Western Law? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Some Christians say that the Ten Commandments are the moral and legal foundation of the Western world. Does that make any sense ? No, it doesn't. None of the Ten Commandments are reflected in any system of law in the world. We do not have laws against disbelieving in the Christian god or using its name in vain, despite the first and third commandments. Despite the interdiction against graven images, art is not deemed illegal. Disrespecting one's parents is not punishable by stoning, and neither is adultery or self-defense. Lying, unless in the context of fraud, is also not considered a crime. And certainly coveting anything is not, and hopefully will never be, considered a crime. There are heavy Biblical penalties to breaking most of these commandments, but none of them are reflected in our laws. It is also important to remember that the Ten Commandments followed by Christians were the first set of commandments, in Exodus 20, which Moses broke. The real set of Ten Commandments are described in Exodus 34, and include such commandments as "thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk" and "the first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock". Christianity was, and remains, a sacrificial religion. 8. Evil: Can it be explained away? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Christians like to try to explain away suffering by saying that it serves a higher purpose. Does that solve the problem of evil ? The Problem of Evil is the most popular argument for atheism. It points to all the things in nature and all the bad actions that humans do, and shows us that it could not exist if an infinitely good god created and controlled the universe. Of course, for us atheists, the existence of these things is due to the laws of nature and the fallibility of man. But the Christian believes that God created all things, and therefore natural disasters and suffering are the result of its actions. Therefore, such a god cannot exist. Believers like to argue that natural disasters and suffering serve a higher purpose. But they cannot tell us what that higher purpose is, and only assume that it exists because they believe that a god exists. It is nothing more than a rationalization. Most answers to the Problem of Evil assume that God is limited. For example, when Christians tell us that human evil exists because we have free will, they presume that their god cannot make humans with a morally perfect free will. When they say that human evil exists to test us, they presume that God needs to test anything, when an all-knowing god would know any result in advance. There is no way to explain away evil for the believer : only science and morality give us the answers. 9. Absolutes : Can Christians have them ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Theologians claim that atheism and materialism cannot explain absolutes like logic, morality, and the laws of reality. Are they right ? The universe is always in a state of change. The theologians see this as proof that our principles are useless without a god. But while change is universal, so are the identities of the things that change. Logic is the method we use to ensure we do not contradict ourselves, science is the method we use to understand facts about the identity of natural things, and morality is the system we use to act in accordance with those facts. We can use all these methods and systems because the universe is necessary. Everything that exists is a necessary consequence of the universe's existence. The theist, on the other hand, cannot hold that there are any absolutes. If a god existed, then it could decide that A is not-A, or that unnecessary cruelty is good, or that gravity no longer exists. We couldn't make any sense of the universe, or at least we couldn't expect it to remain the way it is. Because the Christian agrees about the existence of logic, morality, and scientific laws, he implicitly agrees with us that there is no god. Atheism, materialism and science are the only ways to make sense of reality, not the tribal myths of Christianity ! 10. A loving God sends people to Hell? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Alleee, most Christians believe that God created a place of eternal torment called Hell. That's not reassuring ! It sure isn't. The idea of an all-good and loving being that creates a realm with a lake of fire that does not consume, but leaves you in eternal torment, is problematic to say the least. It also does not make us want to believe in such a god ! But there is another problem with the doctrine of Hell. We know that God is supposed to be omniscient, so he knew about our fate even before he created us. So did God create people just to send them to Hell ? Many Christians think so. Hardly the actions of a being that any reasonable person would love or trust. Any dictator using these tactics on Earth would be called a monster, but at least even the concentration camps ended ! A justification used to explain the existence of Hell, is that it ensures an ultimate justice for our bad actions here on Earth. But that makes no sense, since our actions on Earth are finite but Hell is an infinite punishment. No matter how bad someone is, he certainly does not deserve eternal torture. Hell is just another scare tactic that religions use to keep their believers in line. Reasonable people don't seek justice in the afterlife, but try to make life better for others here on Earth ! 11. Faith : Is it necessary ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Popular culture tells us that we all need to have faith in something. Is it desirable to believe ? Faith is believing in things we have no evidence about. People have faith in gods, doctrines and pseudo-science because they have no evidence for them but want them to be true. We do not need to believe in scientific laws, because we know they are supported by evidence. We know they are true. We can see them around us and we can look over the experiments done by scientists, whose job it is to discover new facts about nature. We can also use our reason to think about our life and our place in the universe. Believing does not give us answers, only dogmas, and when we are wrong, we have no way to correct ourselves. But aren't we justified to use belief when we don't know something ? For example, when you cross the street, don't you believe that you won't get hit by a car ? When we do not know something, we take a risk based on what we do know. No one believes that he will not get hit when crossing the street. Any reasonable person who sees a car speeding towards him, will not stay in the middle of the street. But someone who believes cannot change his mind when reality disproves him, because he does not accept evidence. Faith is believing in what we know just ain't so. 12. Creationism : Does it make people racist ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Some Creationists claim that evolution supports racism. What does science have to say about this ? Evolution tells us that all humans are part of the same species, homo sapiens sapiens, which began to appear 100 000 to 120 000 years ago. The difference in appearance between cultures is the result of adaptation to a particular climate. However different we are, we are all part of the same species. In fact, there is a greater difference in DNA between members of a same culture, than there is between cultures ! Evolution gives us no reason for racism. Some people do justify their racism by using Creationist beliefs, such as the Curse of Ham. If the human species was created by a capricious and violent god, then it would make sense to believe that one is part of a "chosen people", like the ancient Jewish tribes thought. They thought that their status gave them the right to kill all other tribes. Now that is racist ! Of course, we know that racism really comes from xenophobia, combined with ignorance and fear. Since they propagate ignorance and fear, Creationism and Christianity are part of the problem, not of the solution. If we accept the secular virtues of rationality and benevolence, then we have no reason to be racist. 13. Jesus : Was he a moral teacher ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Even though some atheists do not believe in a divine Jesus, they still think that he was a great moral teacher. What do you think ? If you think Jesus taught good moral things, I don't want to live near you ! He was the first in the Bible to teach the concept of Hell, eternal torment after death. He said that he came to Earth not to create peace, but war, and asked us to hate our family and friends to follow him ! "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple", Luke 14:26. Jesus taught his disciples that they should impoverish themselves and that the prosperous could not go to Heaven. He admitted that he used parables so that more people would disbelieve him and go to Hell. But most importantly, he taught people to stop doubting, stop judging others, and just have faith, so that you could do anything, even move mountains. Of course we know that just ain't so. Jesus had every opportunity to decry slavery, war, or any other great evil, but never did ! The Bible itself never decries these things, indeed encourages them. Jesus was not a moral person. We can only find what is good by using our reason, not by following tribal myths. 14. Atheism : Is it a worldview ? Answers with Hellbound Alleee Alleee, what is atheism ? Is it a worldview ? Atheism is very simply the lack of belief in a god or gods. That's all it is ! It is only important because there are so many people who believe in gods and interfere with other's lives with their doctrines. However, atheism has been misconstrued to be many things, including a belief in random chance, no consequences for our actions, hedonism, nihilism, no emotions, and a lack of imagination. Some theologians even think that atheism is a worldview ! But atheism does not entail any of these things, as it is a purely negative position, a lack of belief in one single thing. Strong-atheism is a positive position, but it also does not entail any of these things. So what exactly is a worldview ? A worldview is a set or structure of principles that gives us a coherent perspective about reality and our place in it. Atheism is not a worldview. The rational-scientific perspective is a worldview, and so is Christianity. Christianity accepts all that rational people do, such as logic and science, but try to add God as the center of all things. But the belief in a god is illogical and unscientific ! Only a materialist stance can make sense of reality. 15. Science : What has it ever done for us ? Answers with Hellbound Alleee Alleee, what has science ever done for us ? For one thing, I am 37 and I'm still alive ! Before the 20th century, that would be near the end of my life. But thanks to the eradication of diseases and agricultural innovations, science has raised everyone's life expectancy and standard of living. The fact that I am talking to you now , to anywhere in the world, is another scientific miracle ! The 20th century alone has brought us an unbelievable list of technological and medical marvels, such as antibiotics, contraceptive drugs, organ transplants, the polio vaccine, utilities, the transistor, the telephone, the computer and the Internet, airplanes, the washing machine and air conditioning, nuclear energy, and many others. And don't forget capitalism and the mass production of goods, which has disseminated these advances to everyone ! All of these things have made life better and happier. Now that is human progress ! All right, but what has religion ever done for us ? It has given us centuries of warfare, the Inquisition, intolerence, the desire to believe, and almost completely stopped human progress for centuries. And don't forget the Trinity Broadcasting Network ! Doctrines close minds, independent thinking and scientific inquiry opens them. 16. Agnosticism : The only tenable position ? Answers with Hellbound Alleee Alleee, is agnosticism a position between atheism and theism ? No. Agnosticism is the position that we cannot know if a god exists. Theism and atheism are both about belief : a theist holds a belief that gods exist, and an atheist does not. A belief is a personal position, while knowledge is a position about what actually exists in reality. A person can be agnostic atheist, or agnostic theist. Since the concept "god" is transcendent and unknowable, isn't agnosticism the only reasonable position ? Most agnostics believe that we cannot know anything about gods. But if we do not know anything about a concept, it is meaningless. A meaningless term cannot be used at all, and therefore validates strong-atheism by default. This argument is called noncognitivism. Most people who say they are agnostics, are actually strong-atheists. Furthermore, there are many other arguments against the term "god", such as the Problem of Evil and incoherency arguments, which the agnostic must refute. If he cannot, then he has to concede that we do know that gods don't exist ! So being an agnostic is as irrational as being a theist. All the evidence we have proves that there is no god. 17. Reality : Is it all a simulation ? Answers with Hellbound Alleee Some nihilists like to use the argument that "reailty might just be a simulation", to try to disprove our knowledge. What is that about ? This argument was first made by Descartes, who used the example of an evil demon. This evil demon could change anything about reality or our minds, making us unsure of everything. The modern argument is that reality might be a simulation made by aliens or future human beings. The problem with the simulation argument is that it is nothing more than a hypothetical. Yes, reality might be a simulation. Santa Claus may also exist, and so could the Easter Bunny or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. To show that it is anything more than a hypothetical, the nihilist would have to show us evidence. If we can find evidence of this in the future, then we will have to agree with the nihilist's conclusion, but that will not prove that reason or our senses are flawed : on the contrary, we would find such evidence thanks to our senses. If we do not find any evidence, then the simulation argument will forever remain a hypothetical. And whatever you want to call reality, it is, after all, what we live in ! It is interesting that God is much like the evil demon : in both cases, a being controls reality and can change it in any way it wants. The Christian has no more basis for his reasoning than the nihilist does ! Only materialism and reason can help us find knowledge. 18. The Bible : Is it scientific ? Answers with Hellbound Alleee Many Christians claim that the Bible is in perfect accordance with science, is this true ? Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible is not a scientific text by any stretch of the imagination. For one thing, it gets the order of cosmology and evolution completely wrong in Genesis 1, an account which is contradicted by the one in Genesis 2. It also says that snakes and donkeys can talk, that there were giants before the Flood, that God created rainbows, that you can alter the genotype of a sheep by putting a striped rod in front of its mating parents, that the rabbit chews its cud and that bats are birds, that a house or clothes can have leprosy, that an iron axe head floats, that the Earth is flat, that demon possession can cause mental problems, that you can suffer moonstroke, and that believers can handle snakes without harm. Jesus himself said that faith could do anything, and that two people praying for the same thing will get it, even moving mountains. But we know that's just not so. For scientific answers, turn to science. Don't believe old tribal myths ! 19. Creationists : The seven questions they can't answer. Answers with Hellbound Alleee Alleee, what are the seven questions Creationists can't answer ? The first question is, is there evidence for your hypothesis ? Creationists waste their time trying to disprove evolution, but they never present any evidence for their position. Even if evolution was proven wrong, there would still be hundreds of other possibilities besides Creationism. The second question is, has Creationism ever made a true prediction ? Any good scientific theory can make predictions, either of what we will observe, or what we should find. The third question is, what is the physical evidence that species cannot evolve beyond "kinds" ? Creationists repeat over and over that "macroevolution" is not possible, but have never proven it. The fourth question is, where is your evidence of God ? You cannot invoke a non-existing explanation. The fifth question is, why do you believe that all living things popped up from nothing ? We have never seen new species popping out of thin air, but that is what Christians believe. The sixth question is, why do we have plenty of transitional forms in the fossil record ? The existence of just one such fossil disproves Creationism. The last question is, how do you explain the existence of bacterium and parasites which horribly disfigure and kill human beings ? Unfortunately for the Creationist, all of these fundamental facts can only be explained by the obvious truth of evolution. 20. Our senses : Can they be fooled ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Some nihilists use arguments such as mirages or the bent stick experiment to claim that our senses can be fooled. What do you think about that ? Our senses are, by definition, the means by which we receive input from our environment. The eyes receive light rays and translate them into forms and colours. The ears receive sound waves and translate then into streams of sounds. Our skin touches objects and translate that into pressure and temperature. These are all inputs from reality. The examples that nihilists use, only confirm the validity of the senses. For example, we know that we see mirages because of the refraction of the blue of the sky in a heated layer of air. We found this by scientific experimentation and observation of such mirages : in short, by our senses ! Same thing with the bent stick experiment. We know that, if we put a pen or stick in a glass of water, it will look bent because of the different refraction indices of air and water. Once again, we know this because of our senses. Even if we lacked such knowledge, we could still use our sense of touch to realize that the stick is still straight. Illusions are not an argument against the senses because we use our senses to come to the conclusion that they are illusions. In fact, there is no way to refute the infallibility of the senses. 21. "Family values" : Are they really values ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. What are these "family values" that Christians like to flaunt so much ? Should we promote them ? Family values have nothing to do with either families or values. Christians use the term against any element in culture that they find undesirable. There are two general categories of such elements. The first is the censorship of the media in the name of "protecting children", against such things as sexual behaviour, lewd language (by Christian standards, of course) and opposing religions and ideologies. The second is to attack any relationship which does not fit the Christian model of relationships, especially committed relationships between two people of the same gender. These "values" seek to shield children from reality and attack a great number of happy families. No reasonable person should promote them. So are "family values" really values ? In morality, a value is something that we work to gain or keep. For example, human relationships and love are important values. On the other hand, "family values" are not things we work to gain, but rather things Christians try to take away from everyone else. Calling them values is a rationalization to make these attacks sound positive, when they are irresponsible and culturally bankrupt. Real "family values" come from love and compassion, not from hatred and intolerence. Real "family values" have nothing to do with Christianity. 22. Bent sticks and nihilism : what's the connection ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Alleee, what is the connection between the bent stick experiment and nihilism ? The bent stick experiment is simple. You take a stick or pen, put it in a glass of water, and look at water level. The stick will appear to be bent ! However, we know that it appears this way because of refraction. If you touch the stick, or know about refraction, you will then know the difference between APPEARANCE and REALITY. The stick APPEARS to be one way, but if we interpret our sense data correctly, we can explain why it APPEARS to us this way by referring to REALITY. Most nihilist arguments confuse the two. The human mind feels direct and transparent from a first-person perspective, but is made of many complex material processes from a third-person scientific perspective. They use these facts to argue that we cannot really trust our minds. They are exactly like someone who says the stick is bent and won't change his mind regardless of any other information. The bent stick experiment does not disprove the senses since we use our senses to find out that there is an illusion. In the same way, appearance does not disprove the efficacy of the human mind, since we used our mind to find out that it is only appearance in the first place. The nihilist arguments are nothing more than circular reasoning. 23. Christians : Can they be moral ? Answers with Hellbound Alleee Alleee, is Christianity compatible with morality ? If I point a gun to your head, and demand that you do something, can we judge you for doing it ? No. We generally agree that threats and emergency situations are incompatible with morality. Christianity is a good example of a threat, since believers in its doctrines usually agree that non-believers are under threat of eternal torment. That is the greatest threat there is ! It does not make sense to say that Christians are moral : we should rather say that they are acting under what they believe is a threat, and are trying to stay out of Hell. Also, Christians cannot have any moral principles, since they believe that God created and controls the universe. If this is true, then there cannot be any principles, and everything is subjective because of God's will. God can decide tomorrow that unnecessary cruelty is absolutely good. Finally, even Christians cannot agree on what their moral doctrine is. In reality, we all respond to situations according to what we think is rational and beneficial, although Christians let their religion dictate what they should do in many cases. Christians are moral in spite of their Christianity, not because of it. 24. Christians : How many of them really believe ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Are all Christians, and all Christian pastors, really believers ? You'd think so, but Christian survey organizations tell us otherwise. Even if the number of self-professed Christians is not getting lower, that number includes many people who call themselves Christians out of social convention. According to a study conducted by Barna Research and released in January 2003, only half of Christian pastors beleive in a biblical worldview. This worldview includes absolute moral truth based on the Bible, belief in the sinless nature of Jesus, in the literal existence of Satan, the infinite nature of God, salvation by grace, and evangelization. The study also found that seminary graduates and experienced pastors were less likely to hold this worldview. It seems like education and experience prevents them from believing in such myths ! How about laymen ? The Gallup International Millenium Survey tells us that, in the entire world, only 60% of self-professed theists believe in a personal god. In North America, this percentage is 68%. There are almost 100 million of fake Christians in North America. Makes you think ! 25. Morality : Is it subjective ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Many atheists say that morality can only be subjective. What do you think ? I think it is a hypocritical statement. Most atheists argue that we should not believe in Creationism because it has no evidence to support it except the desire to believe in a Creator. What should we think of the atheist who believes in a subjective morality merely because he desires it to be true ? Our whims are not proper moral standards any more than they are proper science. We all have an implicit sense of moral objectivity. We all eat, sleep, work, interact with others, have relationships, because we know those actions are conductive to our life. The source of moral objectivism is causality : actions have consequences. Some of these consequences help our life and that of people around us, and others hurt both. One error that pragmatists commit when discussing moral objectivity is to ask whether a kind of action is good or evil. But kinds of actions can do good or evil depending on the context. Killing another man in self-defense is quite different from killing a deer, which is also quite different from killing someone for revenge. Only by examining the context of our actions can we understand their consequences. If we accept the fact of causality, then we can only accept that morality is an objective fact. 26. Where do we go when we die ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Alleee, where do we go when we die ? Christians ask that question a lot. They think that we make a choice of where we go when we die : Heaven or Hell. But we know that such supernatural realms are fairy tales. We know that at death, the brain shuts down, and there is no more self. So to ask where we go when we die is a meaningless question : there is no "I" after death. There is nothing that it means for me to be dead. Some believers say that Heaven and Hell are necessary because they give us cosmic justice. Maybe, but why should we believe in cosmic justice ? Because life on Earth is not fair ? Why should we think that there should be some kind of universal fairness ? Although I'm sure many people would like the universe to be fair, the universe does not care for these human concepts. In the scope of the universe, human beliefs appear as infinitely arrogant. People believe in God, Jesus, Heaven, Hell, because they desperately want the universe to give them comfort, to care about their fate. Instead of believing in such things and wasting your life, promote justice and meaning here on Earth. Sanction people who agree with rational values. That is true justice ! 27. Darwin's Quote about the Eye Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Creationists commonly use a quote from Darwin to tell us he did not believe in the evolution of the eye. What is the truth ? The quote they use from The Origin of Species is : "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances (...) could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree". Of course, they do not tell you that later in the paragraph, Darwin says : "Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory". We know that even today, there is a multitude of eyes with different levels of adaptation, from aggregates of pigment-cells which distinguish light and dark, to the eyes with cornea of higher animals. In fact, the different species of modern snail have every intermediate form of eye from a light-sensitive spot to a full lens-and-retina eye. The only way to make sense of all this diversity is by natural law, not tribal myths ! 28. Emotions : Are they immaterial ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Some nihilists argue against materialism by saying that emotions and concepts are immaterial. Does that make any sense ? Emotions and concepts are material : they exist as material entities in our mind. The brain is material, and the mind is an emergent property of the brain. We already understand a great deal about the causal links between the brain and subjective events. Nihilists argue against the human mind by using the diaphanous fallacy. In essence, they say that emotions and concepts do not feel material, and therefore they must not be. But this is a confusion between appearance and reality. We must have epistemic justification to support a given interpretation, based on science and other facts relevant to the case. Materialism must be true by default since it means nothing to claim that something is non-material. Even if we could claim that the mind was immaterial, we could not know what that really means. Same for emotions and concepts. If we are to speak meaningfully at all, we cannot claim that emotions or concepts are immaterial. They do not float around as ghosts in the universe or in God's mind : they are part and parcel of our brain. 29. Life : Was it created by God ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Many Christians agree with evolution but say that God must have created life itself. Why do they say that ? This kind of tactics is called "god-of-the-gaps". Believers use these tactics because the advances of science have explained more and more of nature, and made it irrelevant as theistic evidence. Now they use gaps in our knowledge to fill them with their beliefs. But if there is a gap in our knowledge, we cannot fill it with anything. Unless we have evidence for a position, we cannot use our ignorance of a situation as evidence for that position. The general form of this fallacy is called the Argument from Ignorance. Furthermore, we do have evidence against the notion of a god creating life, since we cannot declare divine intervention in any case. To say that a god did anything in the universe implies omniscience - that we know all laws of nature and that they do not apply to the event. As long as there remains the slightest possibility of natural law explaining an event, the hypothesis of divine intervention is not reasonable. Our only reliable means to find the origins of life is science and scientific inquiry, not religious dogma which precludes all inquiry. 30 Atheism : Is it a religion ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Atheism is popularly understood as a religious position. But does that make sense ? There are many ways to define what a religion is. We can define it as the worship of a god, but that would exclude atheistic religions like Buddhism. We can define it as the zealous pursuit of a goal or obedience to a system, but then we would have to include totalitarism and cults as religions. We can define it by the presence of rituals, but many other things have rituals, such as sport games. Our best way to define religion is to look at the structure of beliefs about our place in reality. The fact that believers in God worship it, must be a consequence of the presumed power and desires of this god. So, is atheism a religion in any of these definitions ? No. Atheism does not involve worship of any god. It does not imply the zealous pursuit of anything, or involve any rituals, or imply any belief about our place in reality. Some atheists do not believe in reality or that we can know anything, some atheists believe in their special status without a god, and some others follow science in its conclusion that all things are fundamentally united. But all that atheism itself is, is a lack of belief in a god or gods. Atheists are as diverse as any segment of the population. Atheists can follow atheistic religions, but some don't. But whatever we are, we are all human beings. 31 Answers in Genesis : Is Genesis really the answer ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Alleee, is Genesis really the answer ? Depends on the question ! If you want to know what myths a large proportion of the population believes in, then it could be the answer. But it does not answer questions about what really happened millions and billions of years ago. These questions, only science can answer ! "God did it" is not an explanation, but a rationalization for believing in a religion. Christians say it is a simpler explanation because it takes less time to explain, but it is not simpler. If Christians tried to give as much precision to their explanation as scientists do, they would have to talk up quite a storm. Science gives us the power to understand and change nature because it does not stop at saying "the Big Bang did it". It always seeks to understand more and more things, and each discovery raises three more questions. Believing that "God did it", on the other hand, does not help us understand or change anything. It fails at doing the simplest things, such as explain how the diversity of life we see all around us happened. If evolution is false, then we should not observe any change in species in time, but we see an incredible variety of life in the fossil record. Genesis does not answer our questions : only scientific inquiry does. 32 Cultures : Do we have to respect them ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Relativists like to say that whatever culture decides is morally acceptable, and that we should not criticize other cultures. Why do they say such things ? It is important to understand what "culture" means. A culture is simply the statistical distribution of behaviour in a society. For example, we say that eating particular things are part of a culture because more people eat them in a country than in another. There is no reason why we should respect "culture" any more than we should respect the actions of an individual, since culture is composed of the actions of individuals. If one person kills without reason, we must condemn him. If an entire culture supports killing without reason, we must condemn it. We would not think that human sacrifice by the Aztecs is justifiable because that is what their culture was about ! Likewise, we don't support child slavery even though it is endemic to many countries. To claim that we must respect culture at all costs, is to support evil. Believe it or not, some people actually go to the extent of believing that human sacrifice by the Aztecs was acceptable because of their culture. But no reasonable person would support human sacrifice now ! Killing for religious rituals is no more moral now than it was thousands of years ago. 33 Science : Does it prove God ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Christians are starting to boast openly in the media that science is finding God. What do you think ? Nothing could be further from the truth. By definition, science cannot find any supernatural being, because its method is based on naturalism and materialism. Whatever explanation we find for a phenomena, it has to be natural and material. The only scientific fact they bring to the table is the Big Bang. Since the universe had a beginning, they say that it proves a god created it. But Christians who say this, have not examined the Big Bang very well ! There are many facts about the Big Bang that make a Creator impossible. The fact that space and time are inseparable parts of the universe makes divine creation impossible, because there would be no time for a god to create in. The fact that the Big Bang began as an unpredictable fluctuation, disproves the idea of a controlled creation. The Hartle-Hawking model has proven that no divine intention was behind the existence of the universe. The Big Bang does not prove divine creation, it disproves it ! 34. Science : It does prove that gods do not exist ! Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Science concerns itself with natural phenomena, not belief in the supernatural. Does that mean science cannot tell us anything about the idea of gods ? On the contrary, it makes science an important source of evidence against theism. After all, gods are said to have created and acted on the universe, and have a direct influence on it. Because of this, the idea that there is a god can be disproven by observing the universe, and finding things that contradict the idea that a god created and controls everything. Science has found a number of things that prove there is no god. The fact that space and time are inseparable proves that a god could not have created the universe, since all actions require time. The fact that the human species evolved very late, that the universe is many orders of magnitude beyond any human scale, and that the vast majority of the universe is hostile to human life, all prove that the universe was not made with humans in mind. The fact that we know of only one way for intelligence to exist, evolution, proves that a non-material being could not be intelligent. Finally, the success of science in explaining the facts of the universe without resorting to religion tells us that the concept of god is superfluous. All these scientific discoveries tell us that strong-atheism is the only reasonable position. 35. Creationists : Are they really educated ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. Alleee, should we take the diplomas and body of work of Creationists seriously ? We should never generalize. Some Creationists, like Duane Gish, have proper scientific credentials. But many Creationists have fake diplomas from diploma mills, and they cannot get papers on Creationism published in scientific journals. Kent Hovind, a well-known young-earth debater with his own ministry, has a doctorate in education from Patriot University, a diploma mill located in Colorado. Carl Baugh is the main proponent of the Paluxy footprints, which are supposed to prove that man lived with the dinosaurs, and has his own museum in Texas. He has three diplomas from three different diploma mills, the California Graduate School of Theology, the Pacific College of Graduate Studies, and the College of Advanced Education. Other Creationists with fake diplomas include former Institute of Creationist Research members Thomas Barnes, Richard Bliss, and Harold Slusher. Have Creationists published papers in scientific journals ? According to research by Steven Linke on talkorigins.org, there were 26 members of the Institute for Creationist Research working in scientific fields in 1992. Only 4 of them had ever published any paper. Of these papers, none of those had anything to do with evolution or Creationism ! That is the sum total of Creationist thought : a lot of propaganda, but no actual science. 36. The Account of Genesis : Is it scientific ? Answers, with Hellbound Alleee. We hear a lot about how the Genesis account of the creation of the universe and life is in perfect accordance with science. But is this true ? It depends which account you're talking about. There are two of them, in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and they contradict each other ! But neither of them has anything to do with the scientific facts. Genesis 1 says that the Sun was made long after both the Earth and plants, when we know that the Sun appeared slightly before the Earth, around 4.5 billion years old, and multicellular organisms only started to appear around 600 million years ago. You'd think a god would know that ! It also says that sea organisms and flying creatures appeared at the same time, but we know that insects appeared after sea organisms. Genesis 2 even says that man existed before the other animals, which we know just isn't so. Christians use a variety of excuses to try to hide these scientific problems. Some claim that Genesis 1 is really an allegory for some esoteric religious truth. Some others modify the text to try to make it fit, like claiming that the word "day" really means billions of years. But if we read Genesis 1 reasonably, we can only come to one conclusion : that Christian doctrine has nothing to do with scientific fact. 37. Getting up disproves Christianity ! Alleee, how does getting up of bed disprove Christianity ? In many ways ! We know that we are awake because we can make the difference between dreaming and being awake. We know that we should get up, because we have values we desire to pursue, and that the best way to pursue them is by getting up and acting on our own world. We eat because we know that the laws of biology make it necessary for us to get some nutrition. Everything we do is based on principles and values. But principles and values are things that Christians cannot have ! Because Christians believe that God created and controls everything, all their facts are subjective and dependent on God's mind. In that perspective, there cannot be any values, principles or absolutes. The Christian cannot believe that he can make the difference between dreaming and being awake, or hold any values, or believe in any law of nature. The only logical thing for a theist to do is to pray and hope that God will provide for them. Only the facts that there is no god and that reality is absolute, permit us to have values and principles. Otherwise, reality makes no sense ! 38. Suffering : Where is the god of love ? Christians claim that God is a god of love. In the face of all the evil in reality, what should we think about Christians ? We have to question the morality and sanity of people who claim to love a being that created everything, and yet permits all the evil and suffering in the universe to exist. We rightly blame the Germans of the thirties for permitting Hitler to rise to power, and yet he only inflicted suffering on a temporary, material scale. But God threatens us with torture on an eternal scale ! Human history is filled to the brim with examples of mass suffering that cannot logically have any justification. The Plagues, the Holocaust, the Inquisition, numerous illnesses, flesh-eating bacteria, and the uncountable wars that permeate history. Human history is a history of short brutal lives, bloodshed and suffering. Only science and reason have temporarily relieved some parts of the world of these burdens. Religion, on the other hand, has only made them worse by repressing technology and freedom. Only atheism and naturalism can slow down the ravages of belief, and permit the individual to take responsibility for his thoughts and actions. 39. Reason and freethought : It's not hard ! Are reason and freethought really that hard to follow ? Most people sure don't want to do the effort. They are not difficult concepts to understand. Reason tells us that we need objective evidence for our claims. Freethought tells us that we are free to consider any possibility to find that evidence. But believers find these concepts hard because they do not want to have to give evidence for their beliefs, and they don't want to be free to consider alternatives. By their belief, they have given up trying to find reality and instead decide to believe in whatever they find most comforting and socially acceptable. Some will say that demanding evidence for one's claims is close-minded. it is close-minded in the sense that it rejects the imaginary beliefs of people, such as God, Allah, homeopathy, astrology, and so on. But we have to realize that we have only two choices : either we follow the facts of the reality we are in, or we refuse to face the facts and hope that reality conforms to what we think is comfortable. Reason, skepticism and science have amply demonstrated how wrong believers are, again and again. 40. The Prostate : Another of God's dumb designs ! If the human body was designed, wouldn't it be designed better ? You would think so ! There are many obvious flaws in the engineering of the human body that could have easily been corrected by a designer. The prostate is a good example of this. In human males, the urethra passes right through the prostate. When the prostate is infected and inflates, the urethra can be blocked, necessitating surgery. Any idiot would know that passing a conduit in the middle of an organ that often inflates is a dumb thing to do. Another example of bad design is the human eye. The photoreceptors in the eye are wired inside-out, which means both that light has to pass through the wires instead of being unobsctructed, and that the photoreceptors need a hole in the back of the eye for those wires to pass, thus creating a "blind spot". Ankle not made to support our weight : our hips and back are made for hunter-gatherers walking crouched, not for modern people walking upright. Our only possible conclusions are that either we were designed by a very stupid designer, or that we are the products of a non-directed process. And we know that only evolution explains the facts ! 41. Prophecies : Are they in the Bible ? Did the BIble make true prophecies ? Not one bit of prophecy in the Bible is true, from the beginning. Genesis 2:17 states that anyone who eats from the tree of knowledge of good and evil will "surely die", and yet Adam lived to be 930 according to Genesis 5:5. He certainly was not dying very fast ! Another famous false prophecy said that the saviour would be called Immanuel, which was know never happened. Even though Christians claim that Jesus as the Messiah fulfilled a great number of old prophesies, the Jews did not recognize Him as the Messiah, and still don't. But there are also non-prophecies - things that people, even Jesus, said were in the Bible when they are not. In John 7:38, Jesus says : "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." Yet there is no such verse anywhere. Jesus and Paul both said the resurrection of Jesus after three days was foretold by Scripture. Was Jesus lying ? If he had existed, we would have to admit he was a liar. 42. Dualism and the weather : what's the connection ? What does the weather tell us about the errors of dualism ? Most dualists and supernaturalists claim that material processes deny subjective experience. For example, they will ask atheists to justify why they believe love exists when we think that love is "just chemicals". The implication is that we should believe in a soul. Now, look at rain. What is rain ? Nothing more than the result of the condensation of water vapour. When drops become too heavy for the air to support, they fall as rain. While we can explain rain, a seemingly singular phenomenon, as the interaction of water vapour, we do the same thing we do when we describe love as an interaction of chemicals. We scientifically explain how it works. And we can perceive rain as it falls to the ground, just as we perceive love in our own minds as it arises. So the next time a Christian complains about the rain, ask him why he believes in rain ! 43. Hellbound Alleee : why the name ? Why do you call yourself Hellbound Alleee ? Are you hiding behind it ? Does that mean you think you are Hellbound? And how can an atheist believe in Hell? The name is a handle, a moniker, meant to be funny. I certainly do not hide my identity -- my name is Alison Randall. It's not meant seriously at all. It identifies me as an infidel, sort of like the infidelguy. Theists use handles too, like Warrior4christ, or Faithman, Christian Soldier, HizChild, HizSlave. Unlike such people , I am proud to be an individualist. Lots of atheists are accused of many ridiculous things: worst of all, that they will burn in hell. Including me. Atheists tend to understand the sarcasm in the handle. Of course I know I am not going to hell. It brings out of the woodwork those christians that enjoy the idea of someone burning forever because I don't believe as they do -- disproving the notion of christtian morality and love. Once one understands the sarcasm behind the name, one understands I find the belief in Hell ridiculous. A lake of fire where Jesus pitches you to burn forever in eternal agony. And this from the ultimate truth and beauty that is god? Eternal torment as true justice and good is clearly an evil idea. 44. Hellhouses: Alleee, what do hellhouses tell us about Christian morality and values ? Hellhouses are parodies of haunted houses that some extremist Christian groups set up at Halloween to scare people into submission to Jesus. They show visitors things such as people dying from abortion drugs, homosexuality, date rape, and unbelief. Then they shuffle them to "counselors" who pressure them into accepting Christianity or making a renewed commitment to their faith. Christians do not and will not debate their ideas in a rational way : their best way to get you to accept the absurd doctrines of God and Jesus are fear of Hell and social pressure. Christian values are anti-values, because they demand that you reject certain "undesirable" things in order to be a virtuous person. Instead of pointing to the good and showing what is rational to follow, the Christian morality is based on rejection of what they call "the world". Hellhouses are a symbol of extremism of all stripes : whatever their ideology is, fanatics employ the same tactics all over the globe. Everyone who tries to control you, has to lie to you. Unmasking the fear unmasks their lies. 45. Abiogenesis : how probable is it ? A common creationist argument is that abiogenesis is extremely improbable. What is the scientific truth ? Creationsits usually give a very low probability for the apearance of life. But the probabilities they give are usually of DNA, RNA, or even bacteria arising from single chemicals. This is based on a false model of evolution. Scientists say that more adapted forms evolve from less adapted forms, not that forms of life arise from random chance. The most popular model of abiogenesis has a number of steps between chemicals and bacteria, including polymers, replicating polymers, and so on. No modern position on abiogenesis upholds that organisms appeared by chance, and that is just as much a straw man as the Creationist belief that evolution is a random process. And even if the process of abiogenesis is improbable, we must remember that life had a long time and vast oceans to form in. Given the concentration of amino acids in primitive Earth, the probability of most transtiions in abiogensis is close to unity. While we do not know precisely how life appeared, we know that it is no mystery, and requires no religious magic to explain. 46. Evolution : Does it help us know ? One criticism of evolution tells us that it does not help us know about anything else, in science or otherwise. Are there other areas where evolution has helped us ? There are a great number of scientific and technological areas that define, measure or use evolution. Some of these are : Biomedical Technology, Crop Strain Improvement, Vaccines, Medicine Development, Molecular Epidemiology, Dog Breeding, Livestock Improvement, Pest Control, Vestigial Organs, Insulin, Penicillin, Synthetic Penicillin, Virology, Anthropology, General Organic Chemistry, Biostatistics, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Microbiology, Toxicology, Hematology, Metamorphic and Sedimentary Rocks, the Age of the Earth and the Universe, Dating Methods, the Distribution of Animals and Fossil Fuels, the Laws of Thermodynamics, the Quantity of Salt and Minerals in the Ocean, Sedimentary Theory, the Size of the Sun and the Speed of Light, DNA and genetics, Molecular Biology, Sociobiology, Human Behavioral Ecology, Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Programming, Climatology and Paleoclimatology. Thanks for Elephanticity for this list ! 47. Collectivism : Is it necessary ? Some statists seem to believe that collectivist beliefs are necessary to accomplish anything as sa society. Does that make sense ? They think we need a collectivist belief to do anything together, and that therefore we should enforce such systems of belief, be it religion, politics or cults. That we need to beat down the other fellow's individuality so that he does what we want. They usually give examples such as science, hospitals, roads, and corporations. But these are all activities that are in the interest of a great number of individuals in any given society, and therefore it is in the self-interest of people to cooperate with each other to achieve their personal goals within them... be it to gain knowledge, money, fame, to help society, as a hobby, or the multitude of other reasons why free individuals work and help build institutions. Even today, many, if not most, people do these things without being coerced. The individual does not require state coercion, a god, a religion, a cult organization, or any other form of collectivism, to give himself meaning or purpose. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise ! 48. The universe : Did it come from nothing ? How do we know the Universe didn't come from nothingness, as many atheists and Christians believe ? Well, the idea that a god popped everything out of nothing is ridiculous ! But some atheists also say that the universe came from nothingness. The example of the RAINBOW can help us understand why they are wrong. A rainbow is merely white light being separated into the color spectrum. All the different colors of light are grouped together to form white. White light is transparent - have you ever seen a white rainbow? It is hard to "detect". But when this white or invisible light is separated by water vapor or a prism, the colors of the light are seen individually, like the picture you see on the cover of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album. "Nothingness" is an illusion as far as existence of the universe is concerned. At best, it would be a perfectly even mix of everything. And what we are experiencing today, with planets and galaxies and stars, is the white light, or the universe, being separated into individual pieces that are easy to recognize. 49. Biblical Creationists believe in evolution too ! What a strange statement, Alleee. Do you really think that Biblical Creationists are believers in the theory of evolution ? How is that possible ? An important element in the Bible's account of lifeforms on Earth is the Flood. God is said to have flooded the Earth because of the wickedness of his Creation. It seems that God can't do anything right ! But let's look at this more carefully. The Bible says that only seven individuals of each clean "kind" and two of each "unclear" kind was on the Ark, excluding the humans. Creationists still can't explain what a "kind" is, but generally say that it means animals that look alike, like all the different species of beetles. So a "kind" seems to represent a great number of species. The Flood represents a "genetic bottleneck", because the entire gene pool of the Earth came from the animals on the Ark, including a single human family. This means that, to get all the species we have today, life must have micro- and macro-evolved at a speed beyond all measure ! In a few thousand years, millions of new species must have formed. So it turns out that Biblical Creationists believe in the power of evolution even more than biologists ! 50. Gay marriage - What are Christians afraid of ? Why would Christians work so hard to repress homosexuality if they were not scared of it ? And for good reason ! Homosexuality represents sexuality for pleasure instead of reproduction : and most cults and religions know that to allow pleasure in society is a surefire recipe for people to join "the world" instead of "the word" ! Homosexual acts are a threat to a religion's numbers as well. And most importantly, homosexuality attacks what they call the "sanctity of marriage". Well, what they actually mean is that the Christian model of the family is under attack, not marriage ! In the Bible, homosexuality is described as an "abomination", which leads to its repression. And we all know what happens when something is repressed. We see those results reflected in the problems of the Catholic clergy. The authoritarianism of religion does not fit well with sexual pleasure or any other kind of pleasure, and anyone interested in a healthy hedonism should steer clear of ayatollahs of all stripes ! 51.Intelligent Design - Not so intelligent ! Is it possible that all the things we see in nature exhibit Intelligent Design ? What we observe is not very intelilgent design ! For one thing, we are supposed to believe that an omnibenevolent god created beings that need to kill each other to survive. And we have plenty of examples in nature of things that are badly designed. Some examples in humans include the urethra passing through the prostate, putting it in danger when the prostate inflates, the backward wiring of the retina, wisdom teeth, and the "funny bone" in the elbow, just to name those. All the illnesses and malfunctionings of the human body, and the terrible malformities in some babies, are a living testimony to evil design. Other examples are less horrifying. Some self-pollinating plants have flowers, which is completely useless since they do not need to attract pollen carriers. Non-functional wings in some flightless birds, the small tails of crabs, the useless hipbones of some whales, and the formation and absorption of organs during the foetal stage, are other examples. No wonder some people have proposed "unintelligent design" as a much more reasonable assumption ! 52 : Atheism : Is our life meaningless ? Most Christians argue that we should consider life as meaningless, since we will die eventually and there is no god to give us meaning. What do you think about that position ? This is a curious argument. How does being part of an unknown divine plan give someone's life any more meaning than it already has ? As atheists, we acknowledge that we are part of material causes, and that we can understand those causes with science and reasoning. This capacity gives us progress, purpose and hope. How does believing in an unknown plan add anything to this ? As for the fact that we all die, that much is true. But the Christians have it all backwards : the fact that something is limited makes it more precious, not the reverse ! Knowing that we have only one life to live, we are much more reverent for it and see value in our actions. The Christian, on the other hand, can only see value in this life as a test for his infinite afterlife. But all these silly arguments are irrelevant anyway. All individuals, even theists, find meaning for their lives on their own terms - by what they do, what they believe in, what they want. No god is necessary to do that ! 53. What about the unknown ? Aren't there things you don't know about ? And couldn't that be God ? Although theists tend to exaggerate the amount of things we do not know, it is obvious that there are a lot of things we do not know about. Is that a blank check for anyone to use to declare the existence of their fantasies ? Of course not. We can say that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Invisible Pink Unicorns, also exist in the parts that we don't know about. So what ? Unless we can present evidence for any positive statement about reality, we should remain silent. And in the face of the mountain of evidence that no gods exist, a hypothetical based on ignorance is not enough ! Just like theologians who proclaim that their god must have a reason for evil to exist, but can't explain what it is or why their god has refused to reveal it, such excuses are little more than ways to wriggle out of a debate. Always ask them, "where's the evidence ?". 54. Insulin and Penicilin : How do they prove evolution ? This is interesting. Do you really think that insulin and penicilin prove that evolution is true ? How is that possible ? In 1978, we found one of the first applications of genetic engineering : the artificial production of insulin by E. Coli. We produce the vast majority - 95 to 98% - of our insulin by E. Coli. What we do is simple. We take out the part of human DNA that regulates the product of insulin, we remove some parts of E.Coli, and we implant that human DNA part in it. So now, in addition to doing all the things it normally does, this modified E. Coli also produces a lot of insulin. This method has helped the lives of millions of diabetics worldwide ! All lifeforms on Earth, from viruses to humans, are made from the same DNA code. Since evolution is true, we are not surprised, because all lifeforms have a common ancestor. Another illustration of the power of evolution is antibiotic resistance. Many bacteria have developed resistance to drugs like penicillin. Without a sound knowledge of evolution, we would be completely unable to fight this threat to our health. These facts together only confirm the obvious fact of evolution. 55. Theistic evolution : God did it ? Many Christians believe that God created the process of evolution. Is this a good way to reconcile religion and science ? Not at all. Mixing together a meaningless and unscientific belief with a scientific fact can only lead to lies. "Theistic evolution" makes about as much sense as "Santa Clausist economy". Just as it makes no sense to say that Santa Claus is responsible for changes in the economy, it makes no sense for a supernatural being to be used as an explanation for evolution. In fact, we already have a discipline of science that studies the conditions of the emergence of life, which is called abiogenesis. No current hypothesis of abiogenesis, based on the current data we have about the primordial Earth, uses supernatural explanations, let alone a divine one. So no "god of the gaps" can be used here. No, "theistic evolution" is a religious lie. Whatever happened those billions of years ago, God did not pop life out of nothing ! 56. God : What a bumbling fool ! If you read the accounts of the BIble, it seems that God can't do anything right ! That is quite true. In Genesis 1, God created human beings, and said that everything he made was good. Being omniscient, you'd think God would know if trouble was coming ! And yet, two chapters later, God curses Adam and Eve, and their descendants, forever for doing something he must have known was going to happen. Instead of starting over again, he lets these defective humans reproduce. Instead of stopping it, he lets Cain perform the first murder. Soon, in Genesis 6, the Earth is overrun by "great wickedness", and God finally decides to wipe them all out, including the innocent. He only saves an angry drunk and his family, and they start arguing and fighting the night after the Flood ends. So much for that ! Finally, Jesus, who is supposed to be God, said that he would come back very soon for the end of the world, and we've been waiting for almost two thousand years. Oops ! It seems that, even in his own stories, this perfect being can't do anything right ! 57. The Problem with Noah's Ark ! Alleee, how does the concept of "kinds" disprove the Noah's Ark myth ? By a little paradox. You see, one of the problems of Creationism is the notion of "kinds". Creationists are still unable to tell us what a kind is or how we can observe its limit in DNA. But never mind that. The point is that the Bible says that there were seven of each clean kind and two of each unclean kind on the Ark. Now, the Bible says that the Ark was relatively small - around 135 meters long and 13 meters high. Those dimensions would have been impossible for a ship made of wood, of course. But the point is that such a ship could not have held many big land animals, counting the need for food supplies, garbage and waste systems, and so on. If Creationists put only a few species in every "kind", then there would have been no place in the Ark for these millions of kinds. If Creationists put a lot of species in every "kind", then it would have been impossible for all of our current species to evolve from them in only a few thousand years. There are at least 3 million species on Earth today, and estimates go as high as 30 million. Did all of these evolve in a few thousand years ? No way ! 58. Homosexuality : Is it a choice ? Christian propaganda would have us believe that homosexuality is a choice. Which makes no sense whatsoever ! For one thing, no one would sensibly choose to be a homosexual in a region where homosexuality is repressed, and yet they do. But more importantly, we've had scientific evidence for a while now that homosexuality is genetic or hormonal, and there is some evidence for both. But most importantly, we now know that sexual orientation is part of the structure of the brain. A recent study conducted by the Oregon Health and Science University in February 2004, found that homosexual rams had a specific part of their hypothalamus - called the sexually dimorphic nucleus - half as big as that of heterosexual rams. This confirmed a study made in 1991 by Simon Levay on human subject, which arrived at the exact same result. Christian propaganda loses once again to real science. 59. Evil : Can "unknown purposes" explain it ? One way that theists have tried to wriggle out of the Problem of Evil, has been to propose that God has reasons to permit evil that we cannot know about. Suppose I tell you that the Earth is flat. Obviously, you'd think I was crazy ! Maybe you would ask me how I explain, for example, the fact that we can go around the Earth. Now I tell you that there are space warps all around the Earth that keeps people from falling off. Does that help my position any ? Of course not. All I've done is give you a meaningless, ad hoc rationalization that just piles us the assertions. I have no more evidence for these space warps than I do for the Earth being flat. The same thing is true here. We know that evil exists, and that this contradicts the existence of a god, and we know nothing about these "unknown purposes". Furthermore, this explanation creates other problems, such as the question of why a god would want to remain hidden from mankind even though it wants us to believe in it. The rationalization also does not answer to the problem of gratuitous evils, which cannot have any explanation. Only science has the answers ! 60 . Science changes, religion does not ! Religionists like to point out that religion does not change, but science changes all the time. And we should be grateful for that ! The falsifiability of scientific facts is what makes our scientific understanding of the universe remain true in the face of new evidence. As we find out more about the things around us, so our understanding must grow. Otherwise we would still believe that the Earth is flat, that species popped out of nothing, and that the sky is a dome ! Thanks to the vigilence of new generations of scientists, we get closer and closer to the truth. But religion does not change ? On the contrary, religion changes a lot ! The difference is that religion does not change when it finds new evidence against itself. Religion changes because some of its principles become unacceptable to the society around it. Those principles are simply rationalized away and religion continues to exist despite the fact that it has no way to falsify itself. And that is why religion is nothing more than a parasite of science. 61. Scientific laws : Are they misguided ? Presuppositionalists claim that scientific laws are nothing more than assumptions, and that we cannot know any law because we cannot observe every instance of the law in the universe. That is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between science and religion. Theists like to assume that science and reason are just like religious faith, that we claim certainty about everything we know. Certainty, however, is a religious concept. Science certainly does not use it ! Unlike religious dogma, everything in science is open to discussion. We base our knowledge on the evidence we have, and no faith is involved. This is also the case of scientific laws. We don't need to see every instance of a law to know that it is true, because we don't need certainty. When scientists conclude that they have found a law, they think that they have established something about natural phenomena. This can be overturned by new evidence, especially when we observe new areas that were not available previously. Newton's Law of Gravitation was upheld until modern physics arrived and revealed the quantum world. But we don't need certainty, only the theist does ! 62. How can an atheist celebrate christmas? Alleee, isn't it hypocritical for an atheist to celebrate christmas? The answer is simple: Christmas wasn't christian to begin with. Jesus' birth (along with the nativity of several other saviors), was deliberately placed around The Winter Solstice,. Observance of the winter solstice, by peoples who have a winter, has been marked by boistrous celebration for .as long as there has been agriculture. For the people of the west, for thousands of years, this time was celebrated for three important reasons:1. it was slaughtering time and really the only time to eat fresh red meat, 2. The alcohol was fermented, and three, the years' labour was done. In the New World, Puritans outlawed christmas-keeping as an affront to God . Cotton Mather pointed out that there is no mention of the date of Jesus' birth in the bible, and that the early church compromised itself to encourage the keeping of christmas, and all the pagan rituals like christmas trees it entailed. Indeed, even the bible,specifically the book of Jeremiah, forbad the practice of decorating trees in the home Atheists might celebrate christmas, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Human Light, or the winter solstice, for the same reasons most people do: the holidays celebrate all the earthly pleasures that this godless world has to offer. 63. The universe or God : which is more complex ? Theologians like to use complexity as a measure of design. Yes, and doing that makes no sense whatsoever. There is no relation between complexity and design. Humans can do very simple things, and nature can do very complex things. In science, we determine design by first knowing what humans produce, what nature produces, and weighing the evidence for each observation. For instance, we know that stone tools are man-made, and we can even reproduce the fabrication techniques used by prehistoric people. We also know that living beings are natural, because we understand how evolution works and can reproduce it in laboratory. But suppose we compare complexity anyway, just to please the theists. Big Bang theory tells us that at the beginning, the universe was very simple - an extremely small and dense area of primordial particles. On the other hand, we know that in general, the more powerful something is, the more complex it is. if a god exists, it must be infinitely complex. So comparing complexities only makes theists look bad yet again ! 64. Noah's Ark : Where's the evidence ? You'd think that a worldwide flood would leave some evidence, wouldn't you ? Of course. But did it ? For one thing, if the Flood happened, all civilizations would have been wiped out for centuries. That means no Mediterranean civilizations, especially the Egyptian Empire. Funnily enough, we have no such event happening at all. All those people continued to conquer each other and acted as if they hadn't been all killed in a global Flood. Not to mention the people of Europe, China and North America. Isn't that funny ? The same thing applies for the repartition of fossils and animals today. If the Flood happened, then we should observe a lot more variety of animals in the Middle East than anywhere else, and we should also see a lot of fossils on one thick layer. Where is it ? The Grand Canyon is especially problematic for Creationists. They have to claim that it was formed during the Flood, but we do not observe a great diversity of all kinds of life in it. Instead, all we find confirms the theory of evolution. Fairy tales do not disprove real science. 65. Strong-atheism : Just a belief ? Is the proposition that there are no gods, just a belief ? This question is actually more complex than it looks. Anything can be a belief. I can believe that the Earth is round, as much as I can believe that Santa Claus or unicorns exist. All that I have to do is hold something as true without any idea of what it means or why it's true. Atheism can be a belief as much as theism. So can strong atheism. But the real question is, is there evidence for that proposition ? Or if it's a matter of personal position, is it a reasonable position if we look at the evidence ? Strong atheism is supported both by the scientific and the deductive evidence. Belief in a god does not even fulfill the most simple of burdens of proof, which is to be meaningful. No one can meaningfully define the word "god". The attributes that theists give to the word contradict each other. Divine creation goes again basic logic and all of our experiences as human beings. And so on and so forth. Don't let belief get in the way of truth ! 66. Social problems : Can we blame religion ? Are religion and faith a positive or negative influence on society ? Religion is definitely a negative influence on society. Its anti-scientific doctrines cripple not only the education of our children, but also future hopes for progress, as in the case of genetic engineering. The reliance on faith creates an atmosphere of distrust against knowledge and the intellect, which corrupts popular culture and promotes stagnation. Religious fanatics fighting for a theocracy , whether Christians or Islamists, oppress free speech and freedom from religion. When theocracies are in place, our individual rights are destroyed in the name of god-collectivism and ancient tribal rules. Religion causes parents to brainwash their children into these corrupt, evil and violent doctrines, and makes them live in amorality, guilt, fear of sin and Hell. Finally, the amorality and lack of personal responsibility in religion creates criminality and fills our jails with believers. Can we blame religion for social problems ? Definitely ! 67. Creationism and the real world ! How does Creationist fantasy measure up to what people know in the real world ? That's an interesting question. People who have jobs in certain fields experience first-hand the absurdity of Creationist dogma. Glenn R. Morton gives such a testimony in his article "Why I Left Young-Earth Creationism". As a physics major, he was a devoted, some would say fanatic, Christian and Young-Earth Creationist. He then found work as a geophysicist in a seismic company. Seeing erosional canyons in the sea began to erode his faith. He frantically worked with other Creationists to try to solve this and other problems with Creationism, while transferring to seismic interpretation in order to get more data. What he saw horrified him. By 1986, he had to stop writing for Creationist publications because his doubts were too great. He asked Institute of Creation Research friends who worked in the oil industry if any belief they were taught at the ICR turned out to be true. He says : "I can not name one. No one else could either". Creationism failed the real-life test, and Morton now accepts the facts of evolution. 68. Is Capitalism unfair ? A common criticism leveled against economic freedom is that it may be progressive, but also leaves people behind. It is true that, in a capitalist system, people will never hold the same amount of resources. But this is also true in socialist systems ! The difference is that, instead of being based on market popularity, your wealth in socialism depends on whether you are a friend of the state or not. Socialist and communist systems are inherently unfair, since they set up a ruling class that has both legal and economic powers, free to exploit the mass of people who have no more powers. In capitalism, everyone is equal under the law and can pursue his own happiness as he desires. Socialism also leaves people behind in other ways. By fighting against free trade, socialists are leaving the third-world behind, by barring the possibility of technological and economic progress coming from the outside. Instead of giving the poor of the world more possibilities, they believe in tribalism and cultural protectionism. Only capitalism promotes human progress against cultural ayatollahs and power mongers ! 69. Democracy : It leads into quicksand ! "Democracy" seems to be a code-word that everyone likes. Yes, but do they understand what it means ? The ideal of democracy is based on the absurd proposition that the more people who agree with something, the more true it is. All forms of democracy are nothing more than the tyranny of the majority. The minute people realize that they can vote themselves money taken from other people, is when social warfare begins and democracy starts attacking the rule of law. With democracy comes interest groups, the intermingling of money and politics, corporatism, and social warfare. And of course the government, whether left or right wing, proposes more political power as the solution to the problems fabricated by the democratic process, making a vicious cycle. As the scope of democracy grows and the rule of law retreats, we sink into social quicksand. The War against Drugs, gun control, pork barrel subsidies, political interests, the inefficiency of socialist health care and welfare, all testify against democracy. 70. Value-based voting or fear-based voting ? Did values elect the American President? There has been a lot of talk about "value-based voting" in the last American election. Implicit in this expression is the idea that Christian prejudice is just as valid as sound rational values. Here is how to make the difference : values are things that people pursue, good examples, while prejudices are attempt to impose a model on everyone. Values are based on facts, but prejudice is based on fear and hatred. The key issues in the election - gay marriage, terrorism, abortion, the war on drugs - were all attempts to use the government to coerce individuals. To attack gay families, women's reproductive rights, and our freedom in the name of unwinnable wars, are not values but anti-values. They do not propose what we should do, but take away the freedom of the individual to do the right thing. The same is true for people who vote against a party instead of voting for their position : they are afraid and strike back without regard for consequences. In both cases, voting is based on fear, prejudice and anti-values, not values. 71. Faith : a value to uphold ? There seems to be a consensus that faith and belief are wonderful things. Unfortunately, most people's ethical thinking is about as sophisticated as a Christmas special. Our imagination may lead us to think all kinds of wonderful things, but those things do not exist. They are fantasies. Now, there is nothing wrong with fantasies, or a healthy imagination. We use it in problem-solving, and children should cultivate make-believe. The trouble comes when we teach children that the imagination is just as valid as reality, and that you should believe in things. That is when fairy tales become child abuse. It is crucial to maintain the separation of imagination and reality. We call the state when someone cannot make that difference "delusion". Unfortunately most people have grown up unable to make that difference. This is why faith and belief are considered to be wonderful things instead of the delusion that they are. They are not values : only reason and science can help us find knowledge. 72. The gecko : An evolutionary success story ! Geckos are remarkable animals. How do they demonstrate the power of evolution ? Geckos are amongst the most widespread lizards. They are classified as Gekkota, although what we imagine when we think about geckos is the family Gekkonidae. Most of the gekkos in this family exhibit a fantastic ability to walk up all surfaces, even polished glass in a vacuum. This is due to tiny hair-like structures on their pads, two millions of them on each toe, which themselves have thousands of structures on their tip. These structures are so small that they bond electronically with a surface using the molecular force known as the van der Waals force : the gecko literally becomes part of whatever it is walking on. Talk about getting a grip on things ! This method will soon be used to make dry adhesives stronger than any adhesive known. The evolution of these hair-like structures, which also evolved in anoles, shows us the power of evolution in solving natural problems. It is an object lesson in natural selection ! 73. Did the universe pop out of nothing ? Many Christians accuse atheists of believing that the universe popped out of nothing. As usual, they have it all backwards ! It is the Bible which says that the universe popped out of nothing. There was no matter before Creation, so the universe came out of nothing at all. But this is absurd ! Nothing can come from nothing, and matter cannot be created or destroyed. Science and philosophy agree that the universe is the first cause, which means that the existence of the universe is a necessary fact. For Christians, the existence of God is a necessary fact, but there is no evidence that God exists. There is, however, plenty of evidence that the universe exists ! Another question that disproves Christianity is this : how could God have any motivation for creating the universe ? There was nothing influencing him, and being infinite, he had no needs or desires. Did the universe come from random whim ? Another proof that Christianity is nothing more than pre-scientific nonsense ! 74. The Grand Canyon : It was not created ! Creationists say that the Grand Canyon was carved by the Flood, and that it confirms the validity of Creationism. Is that true ? Let's see. The Grand Canyon is 1 600 meters high. Its walls were formed from clay-rich and carbonate-rich mud. How did these gigantic walls of mud hold together during the catastrophic erosion that would be necessary for the Flood to carve them out ? Okay, now let's look at the fossils. More than half the Grand Canyon is covered in billions of fossils, some more than 1 billion years old. Did billions of animals live before the Flood, within a few hundred years ? How could the Earth possibly support all these animals in such a short period of time ? Why do we find no fossils at the lowest levels, and only simple organisms at other levels ? Did God only create worms and amoeba ? And shouldn't heavier animals sink at the bottom of the Flood waters ? What is going on here ? Well, the Grand Canyon is an open book of evolution, available for all to see. And the Creationists don't like that at all. Once again, science makes religion look foolish ! 75. Irreducible Complexity : Not So Irreducible ! People who promote Intelligent Design use Michael Behe's Irreducible Complexity concept as an attack against evolution. Yes, but Irreducible Complexity is just another god-of-the-gaps argument. What Behe is telling you is that if a system is Irreducibly Complex, then evolution cannot produce it, and therefore it must have a designer. Of course that designer is God, although they try their best not to mention that. A system is supposed to be irreducible if all its parts are necessary for its functioning. There's a major problem for Behe : the evolution of many so-called irreducible systems is documented in the fossil record ! The three small bones in the middle ear are irreducible, but we have documented transitions in the fossil record of those bones going from the reptilian lower jaw to the mammalian ear. The fact is that we should expect evolution to produce so-called irreducible complexity : as unnecessary functions are dropped, only the necessary ones remain. Irreducible Complexity is yet another attempt to knock down the power of evolution, and like all such attempts, it fails pitifully. 76. Pascal's Wager : No Cost to Believe ? Christians who use Pascal's Wager commonly say that there is no cost for believing in God. And they would be wrong, very wrong. Believing in God may not necessarily cost you any money, unless you become addicted to TV preachers, but it costs you a great deal in other areas. To become a theist demands one to abandon rationality, freethought, to lose one's individual purpose and place in the universe. The evil doctrines of Christianity, such as damnation and God's wrath, can cause extreme anxiety, child traumatism, and dull one's enjoyment of life. The immoral principles of the Bible cause people to fight against themselves, to experience guilt, shame and suffering. Christianity takes away a person's sense of values, morality, and most importantly, responsibility for one's actions. The cost to society at large is also great. Intolerence, repression and censorship are the first things to come with religion. In fundamentalist countries, the return to primitive principles means violence and death. No, I am not cruel enough to believe in God. 77. Can Materialists have Meaning ? One argument used against materialism says that meaning is impossible if our brain is just chemicals. It's funny how Christians say things like "just chemicals" or "you're only chemicals" or "just atoms banging around". That is their value-judgment, but I don't share it. The fact that everything in the universe is made of the same chemicals is something incredible and wonderful, not a put-down. Anyway, meaning does not depend on substance at all. The meaning of a concept or proposition is how much we can identify facts of reality based on them. The proposition "1+1=2" expresses the same fact of reality, whether it's made of neurons, "god stuff", "soul stuff", or anything else. So the issue of materialism has nothing to do with meaning. The fact that our brain is mde of "just chemicals" does not change its efficacy. The brain works because it's not just a mass of random chemicals : it is assembled in structures like neurons and modules, which themselves have their own mode of functioning. "Just chemicals" ? Talk to the brain ! Okay ? 78. Mutations are not random ! There seems to be a widespread belief, amongst both Christians and atheists, that mutations are "random". It seems to make sense, as long as we don't examine what that means. If mutations were "random", then we could not predict anything about them. This is absolutely false. The probability, type, and even location of mutations is subject to natural selection. For instance, we know that DNA repair and proofreading systems evolved so as to minimize rates of mutation. We also routinely induce mutations for experiments by changing the environment. It is now known that mutation rates become greater as the stress on a species goes up. In bacteria, the mutation rate can multiply by 10 000, as found in a recent 2003 study in Science, on 787 different strains of bacteria. A similar study on fruit flies was published in November 1985. In 1986, a study in Genetics called "Selection for increased mutation rates with fertility differences between matings" found that mutation rates got higher when more mutations led to greater fertility of matings. As the Annual Review of Microbiology recently put it : "(...) some potentially useful mutations are so probable that they can be viewed as being encoded implicitly in the genome". This puts to rest an old myth ! 79. Jesus : Myth or Reality ? The character of Jesus is central to the religion of Christianity. But what does the evidence tell us about it ? Well, even theologians now admit that there are no contemporary documents to show that Jesus existed, let alone credible ones. All they have is the Gospels, but none of them are contemporary, none of them are credible, and they contradict each other. Badly-written hearsay is not evidence ! Also, if the messiah really came down to Earth and made incredible miracles, those miracles would have been reported all over ! The fact is that the Jesus stories are a natural evolution from previous myths, adapted to Judaism. For example, the virgin birth, december 25th, the miracles with twelve disciples, a last supper, a resurrection on the spring equinox, and ascension to Heaven, were all attributed to Mithra, the messiah of an elite roman religion. Thanks to literary analysis, we now know that the four gospels evolved from a much older document, called "Q" by historians, which only contained Jewish precepts. The final nail in the coffin of the historical Jesus is the fact that no Church father speaks of Jesus' mortal life, or knows any detail of the Gospels whatsoever, until the third century. No, Jesus was nothing more than another pagan sun god. 80. Chance : Who really believes in it ? There seems to be a common assumption amongst Christians that atheists believe in "random chance". Usually they say that evolution is based on chance, and therefore is improbable. But evolution is not based on chance. Everything in the universe follows patterns and laws. Science predicts natural events all the time, from the orbit of planets to the evolution of bacteria. There is no "chance" regulating your brain, your body, Earth, or anything else that we see. Until believers stop believing in the false dichotomy of "chance versus god" and open their eyes to the power of science, they will never gain any understanding. Does anyone believe in chance ? Yes, but Christians are the ones who believe in chance. They believe that God created the universe, but God had no external motivation, since nothing else existed, and no internal motivation, since it had no needs or emotions. So God could only have created by random whim. So it turns out that it's theists who believe in chance after all ! 81. The mind is the brain ! Should we believe, as Christians do, that the "soul" has nothing to do with the brain, and can fly away at death ? Five scientific facts prove that the mind is in fact nothing but the brain or a property of the brain. For one thing, brain damage can make it impossible to experience mental states at all. In fact, the most accurate way to measure death is brain death ! Brain damage can also destroy some of our mental capacities, and the capacities affected depend directly on the region of the brain that is damaged. We can look into the brain of individuals and observe that their mental capacities are proportional to the development of the brain in the corresponding region. We can also stimulate the brain directly and induce, for example, religious experiences. Finally, we observe that the more complex the brains of animals are, the more mental capacities they have. The only possible conclusion is that the mind at least depends entirely on the brain, and some may even say that the mind is the brain. Either way, all the functions that we attribute to the "soul" are dependent on the brain. Man is not the slave of an undefinable nature, but rather can understand and improve himself. That is true progress ! 82. Reality : Is it subjective ? It seems to be a common belief amongst nihilists that reality is subjective or dependent on the mind in some way. But that's self-refuting. Is that belief that reality is subjective, a subjective belief ? Most people who make this claim think that it doesn't just apply to their own minds, but to all minds. If reality is subjective, that's impossible ! At best, they could only talk about what they think about themselves. If reality was subjective, there would be no way to communicate, since meaning would vary depending on every mind. There would also be no way to understand the world, since the nature of things would depend on every mind. But even subjectivists try to communicate, and think we can gain knowledge, if only knowledge like "reality is subjective". No, the only logical position is that reality is objective, and governed by definite, knowable modes of existence. This is called the primacy of existence. It also explains why a god cannot exist : by definition, a god is a pure consciousness that creates matter. But this is no more possible than a human mind creating matter. Unlike God, the laws of physics are not fantasies ! 83. A bug that evolved to eat nylon ! Alleee, did bugs evolve to eat nylon ? What's the story on that ? The Flavobacterium K172, also called the nylon bug, was first discovered in a waste pond behind a Japanese nylon factory. Local scientists were very interested in the strange bacterial mats that flourished there without any major source of food. They were surprised to discover that the bacteria had acquired the enzyme necessary to metabolize nylon ! This ability arose from one single frame shift mutation. The nylon bug is therefore an example of a mutation that produces new information. The ability to adapt to the abundance of nylon, and metabolize this new substance, is new information. The nylon bug is an example of evolution happening right now, observed and measured. After all, nylon did not exist until 1935. So the nylon bug couldn't have adapted before then. Evolution can happen extremely rapidly, given the right circumstances. Flavobacterium K172 is a small bug that illustrates big principles ! 84. Genetic Engineering is old news ! Many anti-progressive people these days protest against science. Genetic engineering is no exception ! Even though it's the key to eliminate hunger in the world, many liberal and environmental fanatics oppose it for ideological reasons. But someone who is against genetic engineering should be against virtually every fruit, vegetable and meat available on the market. We've been doing it forever - it's called artificial selection ! Everything you eat is bigger, more plentiful and oftentimes more disease-resistant than it was centuries ago. The new technology of gene-splicing in agriculture is here to stay. You can see it in any backyard garden, More than 80% of man-made foods - soft drinks, preserves, mayonnaise, salad dressings - include ingredients from gene-spliced plants. People around the world have safely eaten more than a trillion servings of these ingredients. The drumbeats of the activists continue to sound in the night, in a vain attempt to scare away scientific progress and human welfare. But reason always wins against ignorance ! 85. Jesus : a moral teacher ? Even though atheists do not believe in a divine Jesus, they still think that he was a great moral teacher. What do you think ? If you think Jesus taught good moral things, I don't want to live near you ! He was the first in the Bible to teach the concept of eternal torment after death. He said that he came to Earth not to create peace, but war, and asked us to hate our family and friends to follow him ! "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple", Luke 14:26. Jesus taught his disciples that they should impoverish themselves and that the prosperous could not go to Heaven. He admitted that he used parables so that more people would disbelieve him and go to Hell. But most importantly, he taught people to stop doubting, stop judging others, and just have faith, so that you could do anything, even move mountains. Of course we know that just ain't so. Jesus had every opportunity to decry slavery, war, or any other great evil, but never did ! The Bible itself never decries these things, indeed encourages them. We can only find what is good by using our reason, not by following tribal myths. 86. The smoking gun of evolution ! Alleee, what is the smoking gun that shoots Creationism dead ? Whales have vestigial legs tucked inside their body - their flippers. They are made of pelvic bones, arm bones, wrist bones and fingers. Despite living at sea, whales have mammalian attributes : they are warm-blooded vertebrates, regulate their own temperature, have mammary glands, a thick rounded body, and their foetuses have hair. All of these pegs them as mammals. It is obvious that whales have terrestrial species in their lineage. The ancestors of the whales were wolf-sized predators, Sinonyx, which existed 60 million years ago. The first cetacean evolved from it 8 million years later, giving us the whales we have today. Molecular biology confirms these findings, as whales have more molecular similarities with hoofed mammals, their closest evolutionary group.Whales also have a vestigial auditory system. The existence of whales shoots Creationism dead ! 87. The Seven Questions Creationists Can't Answer ! Alleee, what are the fatal seven questions Creationists can't answer ? The first question is, is there evidence for your hypothesis ? Creationists waste their time trying to disprove evolution, but even if evolution was proven wrong, there would still be hundreds of other possibilities besides Creationism. The second question is, has Creationism ever made a true prediction ? Any good scientific theory makes predictions, either of what we will observe, or what we should find. The third question is, what is the physical evidence that species cannot evolve beyond "kinds" ? Creationists repeat over and over that "macroevolution" is not possible, but can't prove it. The fourth question is, where is your evidence of God ? You cannot invoke something that doesn't exist. The fifth question is, why do you believe that all living things popped up from nothing ? We have never seen new species popping out of thin air. The sixth question is, why do we have plenty of transitional forms in the fossil record ? The existence of just one such fossil disproves Creationism. The last question is, how do you explain the existence of bacterium and parasites which horribly disfigure and kill human beings ? Unfortunately for the Creationist, all of these fundamental facts can only be explained by the obvious truth of evolution. 88. Are all mutations harmful ? Creationists sometimes say that Neo-Darwinism cannot work because most or all mutations are harmful. Actually, most mutations have no effect, simply because our DNA is mostly composed of what we call "junk DNA". Human beings have an average of 175 mutations, but only a handful of those have any effect at all. We know that mutations can be beneficial : the famous "nylon bug" is one example. Antibiotic and pesticide resistance is another. A great number of beneficial mutations have been identified in humans, producing such benefits as immunity to AIDS, stronger bones, and resistance to malaria. Another problem with this "mutations are bad" dogma is that the effect of a mutation changes depending on the environment. Sickle-cell anemia makes some people suffer and even die, but in the vast areas where the malaria parasites thrive, it gives people a much-needed protection. It's not mutations that are bad, it's Creationist thinking ! 89. Can Christians be moral ? Alleee, is Christianity compatible with morality ? If I point a gun to your head, and demand that you do something, can we judge you for doing it ? No. We generally agree that threats and emergency situations are incompatible with morality. Christianity is a good example of a threat, since believers usually agree that we are all under threat of eternal torment if we don't believe. That is the greatest threat there is ! It does not make sense to say that Christians are moral : they are only trying to stay out of Hell. Also, Christians cannot have any moral principles, since they believe that God created and controls the universe. If this is true, then everything is subjective to God's will. God can decide tomorrow that unnecessary cruelty is absolutely good. Finally, even Christians cannot agree on what their moral doctrine is. In reality, we all respond to situations according to what we think is rational and beneficial, although Christians let their religion dictate what they should do in many cases. Christians are moral in spite of their Christianity, not because of it. 90. Freedom : What's it Good For ? Some people think freedom and rights are only good if they help the "common good". Most of us like to think that we're part of something bigger than we are. That's where most belief systems come from. But that doesn't make it true ! There is no "common good", only individuals cooperating because that's how they can best fulfill their own values. Egoism is the basis of civilization and social order. So what good is it to be free ? So that we can all be happy ? Keep in mind that trying to please everyone is impossible, as we all have different values. Demanding that everyone be happy would lead to complete slavery. The freedom of capitalism and civil liberties is good because it gives each individual the potential to fulfill his values better than any other system. Not to guarantee happiness, but to guarantee the pursuit of happiness in the way we choose. Freedom is the friend of our life and values, not of a non-existing "common good" ! 91. Can we prove anything ? People sometimes argue that science can't prove anything. Apparently they think that proof is something magical or supernatural. But to prove something, only means to demontrate that it is true by showing evidence or arguments. Scientists has proven a great number of things. Take Newton's law of gravity. It has been deduced from observations of the orbits of planets and the fall of objects on Earth. After it was discovered, it was confirmed by hundreds of years of observations. It is about as proven as anything can possibly be. But the fact that it is proven did not stop us from finding out its limits. Now we know that Newton's law does not apply in certain contexts - it does not explain the orbit of Mercury, for example. But that is how science works, by searching tirelessly for new observations and adapting our knowledge to them. We prove things because we want to show everyone the truth of our propositions. It's how science progresses ! 92. Spontaneous generation : a Creationist fantasy ! Alleee, what does the disproof of spontaneous generation tell us about evolution ? In the 19th century, it was thought that life could sometimes start from water, rotting meat, or dirt. This is called spontaneous generation. In 1861, Louis Pasteur wrote his "Paper on the organized corpuscles existing in the atmosphere", which proved that the data previously thought as evidence of spontaneous generation was invalid, because it did not account for germs that float in the atmosphere. This was considered to be the end of the fantasy of living things coming from dirt. But there are still billions of people who believe that animals, including man, came from nothing, dirt or mud - believers in Christianity, Judaism, Islam. They reject the scientific hypothesis that life came from the gradual adaptation of units of heredity, and prefer to believe in the fairy tale of spontaneous generation. Science will always make religion look foolish ! 93. Can we prove universal negatives ? Some people say that we cannot prove that gods do not exist. Not so. Let me quote Jeffery Jay Lowder : “There are actually two ways to prove the nonexistence of something. One way is to prove that it cannot exist because it leads to contradictions ([such as] square circles, married bachelors, etc.). The other way is (...) 'by carefully looking and seeing.' This is how we can know that such things as the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, etc. do not exist". In fact, disproving the existence of things, to falsify them, is also how science works. We know that a law or theory is true because we have been unable to show that it is false. And when we know something is true, then every other alternative must be rejected. We can confidently say that, for example, there is no phlogiston, or that God did not create each species from nothing. So making a belief unfalsifiable does not help it at all. If something is not falsifiable, then it is not scientific, and cannot be declared true regardless of how many people believe in it. It’s just a belief ! 94. God - Where did he come from ? Christians say that God always existed. What can we make of this ? For one thing, how can God exist in time when he is said to have created spacetime ? This little question has turned theologians on their ears for a long time. But let's ignore it for now. If Christians can claim that God existed forever, then why can't materialists claim that the universe existed forever ? God is said to have infinite powers, and so by induction must be extremely complex, while the Big Bang is relatively simple. So the idea that matter always existed makes a lot more sense. Also, if God always existed, then how did we come about ? An infinite being would have no reason to create anything, not even love or loneliness. Experts think that the idea of monotheism actually started because of the use of writing, which is more abstract and doctrinal than oral story-telling. God is a fairy tale we invented to explain the order in the universe, but science puts it all to shame. 95. Are corporations enemies of the environment ? It seems fashionable for statists to blame corporations for all kinds of ills, and environmental damage is one of those. Yes, and we're all in agreement that regulations are needed to explicitly limit pollution. But beyond that, the attacks against corporations should be in fact directed against government. The US Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world. The Kyoto Protocol, which was hailed by almost all governments as our saviour, is costing the world 150 billion dollars per year and millions of jobs, and is expected to lower mean temperature by 0.07 degrees. The idea that corporations benefit from greater pollution is ridiculous. Waste of resources is a waste of money, and corporations are always on the lookout for ways to improve profits and lower waste. Factories recycle their raw resources as much as possible, simply because that's more profitable. Smoke in the air means wasted fuel. The simple fact is that corporations are motivated by the profit motive and can be made accountable, but not government. And that makes a world of difference ! 96. Neo-Darwinism in politics ? Alleee, I hope you're not talking about killing the weak and that sort of thing ? No, I'm not talking about Social Darwinism ! I'm talking about actual science, Neo-Darwinism and some effects it has on social issues. Did you know that stepparents and other non-genetic parents are a hundred times more likely to kill or seriously injure children in their care ? Evidence from the evolution of our species seem to indicate that our bodies are made for diets with more fat and exercise than governments recommend. But Neo-Darwinism goes far beyond such issues. The evolution of destructive species costs hundreds of billions of dollars every year around the world. The two main problems are the adaptation of bacteria to antibiotics, and the adaptation of weeds to herbicide. Disease is a moving target, and denying this fact can only serve to aggravate the problem. Denying the obvious truth of evolution is not just religious nonsense : it puts our lives in the balance. Taking responsibility for our beliefs and our actions is the best thing to do ! 97. Creation Science : What a Contradiction ! Is there such a thing as Creation Science ? How about Intelligent Design ? No such thing ! Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science - they are religions calling themselves science. First, Creationists believe that their god created life, but science can only work from naturalistic explanations. Anything else is not observable. Secondly, to be a scientific hypothesis, evidence is needed. All Creationists do is to refute Neo-Darwinism, but refuting another position is not evidence. Thirdly, a scientific position can make correct predictions, proving its truth and accuracy. If Creationism or Intelligent Design were true, then we should see organisms or organs popping out of nothing. But we don't observe any such thing. Intelligent Design is nothing but an argument from ignorance - it assumes that if Neo-Darwinism cannot explain something, science cannot explain it. The only ignoramus in this case is the Creationist ! 98. The Flying Spaghetti Monster ! Alleee, what is the Flying Spaghetti Monster and what does it tell us about “Intelligent Design” ? The Flying Spaghetti Monster was invented by Bobby Henderson last June, in an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education. His letter protested a decision forcing the teaching of “intelligent design” alongside Neo-Darwinism. According to this religious parody, the entire universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and it planted all the evidence for Neo-Darwinism. Furthermore, Henderson points out in his letter that the supposed rise in natural disasters, which many people believe in, may actually be caused by the decline in the number of pirates. This is meant to be a parody of the Creationist belief that teaching evolutionary theories creates violence, unwed mothers, and other things Christians consider “evil”. What the Flying Spaghetti Monster teaches us, is that “intelligent design” proponents claim to be neutral towards religion in order to get a foot in the door, but when push comes to shove, we all know that the “designer” is supposed to be the god of Christianity. No one is fooled ! 99. Sleep Paralysis : How Does it Work ? Demons, aliens and REM sleep : what’s the connection ? The connection is “sleep paralysis”. Sleep paralysis is a normal thing : our bodies are paralyzed during REM sleep so that we don’t move around when we’re dreaming. But in some situations, a person can wake up while his body is still paralyzed. People who experience sleep paralysis while awake feel intense fear, pressure on the chest as if someone was sitting on them and holding them down, and they sense a presence with them in the room. It can also be accompanied with auditory and visual hallucinations, a floating sensation, and a feeling that a lot more time has passed. As Carl Sagan noted in “Demon-Haunted World”, sleep paralysis fits well with the “abduction” experience, from the incubi and succubi of medieval times to the modern alien abduction story. That and the fact that both kinds of abductions take from the popular beliefs or movies of their time, there’s no mystery in the abduction story ! 100. The War Against Pleasure ! Alleee, it seems that many government crusades are not based on fact, but on rhetoric. That’s true. Look at the statistics for drug fatalities, for example. Tobacco and alcohol are two of the most used legal drugs. Tobacco causes almost half a million deaths a year, and alcohol causes fifty thousand deaths a year and one-third of car accidents. In comparison, heroin causes four thousand deaths a year, crystal meth seven hundred, and marijuana has never caused any deaths. Obviously drug policy is not about safety but about government interests. Anti-smoking laws are just as irrational. It is well-established by studies that smoking in public only has negligible effects, but that smoking at home is very damageable. If safety was the concern, again, the government would ban smoking at home with children, but that would be very bad politically. Same for laws against prostitution, which perpetuate a drug-laced, exploitative system, and do more harm than good. These crusades have more to do with the interest of politicians and Christian repression than scientific fact. |
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