Most Atheists Are Actually Agnostics

This rough conversation (or parts of it) happens far too often...

Believer: What would you call yourself?
Non-believer: I'm an atheist.
Believer: A strong atheist or weak atheist?
Non-believer: What's the difference?
Believer: A strong atheist says they know that there is no god with 100% certainty. A weak atheist believes there is no god but there's room for doubt.
Non-believer: I'm a strong atheist.
Believer: Really? How do you know for certain there's no god?
Non-believer: There's no evidence for it.
Believer: You mean you haven't seen any evidence. There could be some hidden under a rock on Pluto. Have you checked there?
Non-believer: No.

Mr. Tree Shows Us How Irrefutable The Kalam Cosmological Argument Is

So one of the regulars decided that the best way to defeat theism would be to try and show how its best arguments don't work. Actually that makes sense! Find out what it is we actually believe and what evidence we use, and show how it is wrong. Good work Mr. Tree! Now you're working on our level!
Let's see how well he does.

Mr. Tree on this occasion has put together his explanation for why the Kalam Cosmological Argument fails.

 

It's great that he has no problem with P1. We're already agreeing on half the premises. So it's only P2 where there's disagreement.

2&3: Relies on equivocation, what do we rightly mean by ‘the universe’. The original arguments from which this is derived did not restrict themselves to asking “where did the universe that sprang from the big bang come from”. The ancient philosophers were asking where the world came from and working back towards the cause of all things, the universe, the totality of existence, reality.

Whatever the ancient people who used similar logic to the KCA were talking about is completely irrelevant to what we're talking about today. We might have taken some inspiration from them, but things have changed and we use the argument in its modern form.
If you're worried about definitions, then it's simple and it's no secret what we mean by the word 'universe'. We mean this space/time thing that started at the Big Bang, is expanding, and will die out in a heat death.
So no... there is no equivocation. We don't say 'universe' when we mean whatever the ancients were talking about.

Archbishop of Canterbury Embarrasses The Faith

I saw this article in The Times this week and just had to comment. I don't usually read The Times, it just happened to be lying around in a waiting room and I needed something to browse.

So anyway, I was pretty surprised to find this. What a way to make Christians look dumb!

Not the stuff about doubts. That's fine, that's normal. Everyone has moments of doubt. But that's not limited to Christians. People have doubts about everything. There's no issue there.

The thing I found a little shocking is the part that says "Christians are unable to explain why suffering exists in the world".

It might just be me, but I don't think a Christian leader, particularly an Archbishop, should say that. There should be a test when you're being signed up and one of the questions should be 'Why does God permit evil and suffering?'
If you don't have a reasonable answer, you should fail the test.

Why Do Christians Feel A Need To Evangelise?

It's pretty often that an attempt to talk about belief is met with hostility. "Keep your beliefs to yourself", "Don't try and shove it down my throat", "I don't care what you believe, but I'm not interested".

What I usually find to be the most unusual thing is that I wasn't the one who brought up the subject to begin with. I'm not the sort who opens a conversation with "Do you believe in God?". If I ever start talking about it, it's usually because someone else has said something that prompts a response. You know like "I'm not Christian because I don't believe in sky fairies" and I feel I have to clarify the understanding of the facts.
So having simply stepped in to correct someone else when they've said something on a subject they clearly don't understand, somehow I'm shoving my beliefs down their throat. It might be something as simple as reassuring them that it's a historical fact that a man called Jesus did live and preach at the time the Bible said it happened. In no way does that mean they have to suddenly start saying hail Marys...
Maybe it's the same kind of irritation as when I sometimes politely remind people the difference between 'their, there, and they're'. But is that really irritation at me or is it irritation that they've been shown up for making a mistake?

Anyway. Before you jump in and call me a hypocrite for saying I'm not trying to spread the word and yet I've written a blog all about it let me just say that the blog is different. The blog is here open for anyone who wants to check it out. I don't force people to come and read it. I've made it available for anyone to come to it. I'm also available as a person to come to speak to if someone wants to. It's an open invitation to come to me, not an attempt to throw stuff at everyone else.

I Believe In Evolution, So I Don't Believe In God

"I Believe In Evolution, So I Don't Believe In God"

This (or a paraphrase of this) is heard really really often when asking atheists why they don't believe.

It seems simple, but there's so so soooo much wrong with it, that it gets embarrassing for the person who said it when the mistakes are explained to them.
There's so much wrong with it, that it's difficult to know where to start.

So ok. First let's ask 'what do you mean by evolution?'
That word could refer to a few things, or all of those things as a bundle. It could mean stuff like how birds wings might get a little bigger, or their beaks might change shape a bit, or they might get a little faster. It could include natural selection or 'survival of the fittest', where the creatures best suited to environments will survive while the rest die out. It could (and I think most often does) refer to Darwinian evolution i.e. the theory that all life today gradually grew and mutated from a single celled organism over several million/billion years.

If we're talking small changes and natural selection (which is sometimes referred to as micro-evolution) then we're all good. That stuff has been observed, proven, and has to be accepted as factual.
If we're talking Darwinian evolution, then the evidence for that is on pretty shaky ground. Essentially what's been done by scientists who hold to it is they have seen the small changes and from that concluded it must go all the way back to the big changes that have to happen to make something like a lizard mutate into a dog. Unfortunately, the fossil record doesn't back them up. The oldest known relative of modern dogs is an ancient dog. The oldest known relative of modern horses is an ancient horse. It's the same for everything we have today. There aren't any cat/wolf hybrids or anything else that's split into two different things.
Trouble is, atheists have to believe in evolution, because they have nothing else. If Darwinian evolution was disproved, then it would be the final nail in the coffin for atheism.

The Atheist Lead In 'Orange Is The New Black'

'Orange is the New Black' may sound like some sort of 'Sex and the City' in prison type of show, but it's actually really good!


It's great to see a show where men are the minority, dealing with real issues and things anybody can relate to - not just stuff that's 'by women, for women'. It's not a chick flick. It's a normal show that just happens to mainly star women, just like every normal show where most of the cast are men.

Religion plays a part in the show and for the most part is handled well. There's a chapel in the prison that has to be shared between the various faiths and denominations, so time allowed for its use is split up evenly. There's a preacher who seems to be a rock of compassion for those who need her, the Spanish community pray at mealtimes and it's left at that, there's a Buddhist yoga instructor, and there are a couple of extremist nuts that give faith a bad name.

That's all fine. It reflects reality. It's OK to show the messed up side of religion. It's good even. This stuff needs to be highlighted so it can be dealt with. All the while the moderate and compassionate normal people of faith are also on screen to show that they aren't all nutcases, there should be no reason for viewers to complain.

I don't know the beliefs of the shows writers and producers, although episode 12 seemed to be an example of the main character Piper acting as a voice for their views.
As I say, for the bulk of the series, they've been respectful and handled faith well. The cast includes Kate Mulgrew, who is well known to be a devout Catholic, and also Laura Prepon who is a Scientologist, as well as a number of other people of various faiths, so the producers probably are sympathetic to the belief systems of other people.

So I don't want to come down too hard on the show for the things that were said in Episode 12. It might have been the writers speaking through Piper, or it might have been just another character expressing a poorly thought out world-view. Piper is hardly the beacon of reason and morality anyway - being involved with drug dealers and cheating on her fiancé.

Whichever it is, I'm just a little concerned that what she said might be taken by viewers as good rational sense. So I'm gonna go over it and try to clear up the mess. WARNING: MINOR EPISODE SPOILERS

Not All Dogs Go to Heaven - Family Guy's Atheism Episode

I used to be a big fan of 'Family Guy'. When it first aired I was one of the few people I knew who gave it a look. The next day I was telling all of my school friends about this amazing new show that was a bit like 'The Simpsons' but better now that the quality of that show had considerably dropped. It had a super genius baby who wanted to kill his mother, a wise cracking talking dog, and wacky flashback scenes that meant gags could come through even faster.

Like 'The Simpsons' though, the quality of 'Family Guy' dropped after a few seasons. although it took nowhere near as long. The show became a string of self-references, repeating old jokes, drawing out gags for a lot longer than they were funny, plagiarising obscure musicals and viral videos hoping to pass them off as original, and random insertions of Conway Twitty. It got to a stage where the only decent episodes were the ones where Brian (the dog) and Stewie (the baby) had some crazy adventure together (e.g. Road to the Multiverse).

I recently discovered that the quality of 'The Simpsons' has actually picked up again in the most recent few seasons and was surprised to be enjoying the show again. So, I figured maybe 'Family Guy' might have done the same thing.

Flicking through the options I found an episode with the synopsis "After a day at the Quahog Star Trek convention, Stewie builds a transporter and beams the cast of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' into his room".
I didn't take much notice of the episode title 'Not All Dogs Go to Heaven'. It didn't seem to tie up with the exciting plot summary.

So thinking this crossover episode would be a great place to catch up on an old favourite I settled in.
I was pretty surprised with what I got. BEWARE EPISODE SPOILERS COMING UP.

It started out pretty well, despite Stewie saying he preferred Picard to Kirk, but that's not a big deal. I've always said Kirk is a better captain, but I'd rather be on Picard's crew.

So when Meg catches the mumps, and after some of the tired trope of unnecessarily mistreating her, she watches Kirk Cameron speaking on The Religion Channel and becomes a born again Christian.