Beyond the Bounds of Extinction

What I'm Reading

2009-06-29T04:38:00.000-05:00

Equal treatment for gays has been coming for quite some time. That time hasn't arrived yet, but we've come a long way in 40 years:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/us/28stonewall.xml

Some conflicts are appearing in whether to push the NY senate for gay rights in their moment of turmoil:
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/jun/28/0627_gaybill/

Can you equate a camp that tries to teach rational thought to an atheist camp? Only if you agree that religion is irrational:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5674934/Richard-Dawkins-launches-childrens-summer-camp-for-atheists.html

Pascal's Wager is alive and well. This Christian Worldview Examiner's lack of knowledge and logical failure are on display for all to see. Let's just hope his personal god isn't Baal, one of the Hindu gods or goddesses, one of the Greek gods or goddesses, or even one of the Egyptian gods. If it is, he might wish he was an atheist or agnostic after all:
http://www.examiner.com/x-4865-Christian-Worldview-Examiner~y2009m6d28-What-do-Ed-McMahon-Farrah-Fawcett-Michael-Jackson-and-Billy-Mays-all-have-in-common

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Faith in Atheism

2009-04-26T13:02:00.002-05:00

It seems like one of the things I am constantly hearing is that it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. What I can't understand is where people come up with ideas like this? Does anyone really believe that it takes more faith to be an atheist than it takes to be a member of a religion? Is it just some argument that is supposed to make people feel better about their own faith? Is there some other reason for the argument that I have missed? If there is, I wish someone would tell me.

I suspect that many people that make this claim are thinking in terms of the number of questions answered by the things we believe. But when the answer is to slather a heaping helping of "god-did-it" on top of any question that you can't answer, it might sound like that doesn't take much faith, but I submit that it takes an incredible amount of faith, just not much in the way of education or understanding.

Let's start out with something simple like the color of the sky. Why is the sky blue? I don't know many people that have actually performed the experiments necessary to authoritatively state the reasons that the sky is blue, but if you simply say that god-did-it, that is a statement of faith. Now let's look at something different. If we ask why the grass is green, again not many people have done the experiments to be able to state from experience why the grass is green, but if we say god-did-it, then I submit that we have made a separate claim on faith. It isn't just one god-did-it faith claim, but two.

But what about the science involved in telling the color of the sky and the color of grass? Both of these answers are tied together. There is underlying science that answers these questions. If one answer is wrong, it casts doubt on the other answers. There is a scientific theory built up about reflected and absorbed light, different wavelengths of light, how they combine, and how we perceive those combinations as different colors. Does that mean that we put our faith in science? Perhaps, but not science as something that is simply poured into our heads, but science as a process of knowing. It is an understanding that science is the best system ever envisioned to provide us with answers about how things work. Science makes predictions that can be tested and verified or falsified.

So what does the Christian Bible do with its mistakes? Absolutely nothing. There is no god saying 'Oops, I got that wrong. Somebody needs to fix that entry.'

Now I have to ask, where does atheism fit in to all of this? While I can only speak for myself, I have to say that once I decided that the bible contained too much incorrect information to be the word of God, I began to doubt the entire god theory. To me, it seems that the entire theory has become so cumbersome that there is no way to salvage it. Any possible ways I could see to salvage it are explicitly ruled out by the words in the Christian Bible. So, what, am I supposed to make up another religion? Since I know it would be false, there is no point in doing that.

But back to my question of faith. Does it require faith to say that there are questions that we don't have the answers to yet? Not really. That is merely a statement of fact. Does it require faith to accept science? Only if we aren't willing to get the education and put in the work to verify scientific results for ourselves. Does it require faith to not believe in any god or gods? Only if there is proof of those god or gods.

So one final question. Is there proof of a god or gods? Not that I have ever been able to find.

Where does Religion go wrong?

2009-04-17T06:03:00.001-05:00

Ibrahim Abusharif writes an opinion and quick review of the book "Is God a Delusion: A Reply to Religion's Cultured Despisers" by Eric Reitan (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). The review does little more than any good review in that it whets my appetite to read the book. Mr. Abusharif comments, however also bring to the forefront in my mind one of the greatest problems with religion: its desire to force its dogma on other people.

It isn't religion in and of itself that I see as destructive. I, personally, could care less whether someone finds the arguments for the existence of a god or gods compelling. My problem is with the people that are so sure of themselves that they would impose their will on other people. Since religion just happens to be one of the better mechanisms of ordering people and imposing a specific will on others, that is my main reason to stand against religion.

I view the need to control religion in much the same way that I see the need to control certain drugs, kings, and violent people. In my opinion, religion needs to be controlled to protect people from the dangers of charismatic leaders and fanatic followers.

Here in the United States our forefathers were wise enough to put a system of checks and ballances in place to prevent tyranny by the government. Religion has no such checks and ballances.

Religion is a clear and present danger to any that don't agree with its decrees or dogmas. This is the reason I stand against religion.

But maybe I need a better word than religion. Since I don't care what other people believe, maybe I, and the people that feel as I do, should come up with a word that describes the organized threat of religious people that would impose their will on others in the name of a god or gods and doesn't include the individual beliefs of people.

While I think people that put their belief in a god or gods are mistaken, I don't consider that any of my concern. I believe in allowing as much freedom as it is possible for people to have as long as they don't trample the freedoms of others. They might call their beliefs religion, but it isn't their beliefs that I have a problem with.

If you want to read Mr. Abusharif's review, it can be found here:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1332/rdbook:_there_is_nothing_new_about_the_new_atheism?page=entire

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Holy Shroud of Turin

2009-04-17T01:28:00.001-05:00

It seems that Dr. Joe Nickell, Ph.D., has been looking into the latest claims about the Holy Shroud of Turin. Dr. Barbara Frale, the Vatican's Medieval Specialist, thinks she has discovered why the Shroud had been missing from the time of the death of Jesus until its first historical appearance in the 13th century.

You can read about it here: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blog/latest_shroud_pseudohistory/#When:14:04:52Z

Or, to sum it up; the only way the Shroud of Turin could be holy is to turn the moths loose on it. But then again, that's what the scientific tests have been showing for years anyway.

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Beyond the Bounds of Extinction

2009-03-31T23:58:00.002-05:00

What a silly name for a blog! But I chose it for a reason. I believe that if a person is really interested in finding information that asymptotically approaches the truth, they have to get beyond the conditioning of society. It isn't the condition of right and wrong, but the conditioning imposed on what we should think.

It seems to me that, much like Pavlovian conditioning, we are given a complete laundry list of things to think and believe all the time we are growing up. Many of these things are right, and some are necessary. The problem arises when we reach adulthood and we really want to know more. Some of the information has changed and been updated, other information was never right to begin with. We have to dig through all the things we believe in order to reevaluate the information we have and see if it is actually correct or not. Only when we have taken this inventory of our beliefs can we move forward and find the best information available to us to replace the information that was dumped in our heads.

It is a place to start.