At risk of being labelled an Islamophobe...

I find it interesting that there is, seemingly, this complete oblivion in the atheist community about when statements made about religious practitioners are unfair generalisations.

We had a look at Richard Dawkins a little while ago. In his case, I concluded that whilst he’s been hanging out with the wrong crowd he is in all likelihood, not evil. But he does appear to have made some new friends who are not quite right. Unsavoury, even.

At the time, I compared Dawkins to Sam Harris, who is prone to gaffs, except in Harris’ case, it just seems to be his own case of peculiar logic. I also consider Harris to be largely benign, although Harris lost a lot of his own cred when he tied himself in knots over racial profiling.

Where Dawkins and Harris have it most wrong though, is on the subject of Islamophobia. They're not the only ones: I know of quite a few in the atheist community who think that Islamophobia does not exist.

Of course it does.

Keysar Trad on polygamy

Keysar Trad is an interesting fellow. He's mainly been in the news as an apologist for the controversial former (Sunni) Grand Mufti of Australia, Taj El Din al-Hilaly and currently occupies the president's position in the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia.

Trad was in the news recently after writing this article for Crikey where he discusses opening a dialogue to begin the long road towards polygamous marriages.

This blogger notes that Trad is on the record as having discussed such a union with his wife. Of course, the question that doesn't appear to have been posed by the media to date is about the extent of the conversation that took place.

After thinking about this, I have to conclude that Trad does have a point. What consenting married couples do is really not society's place to say. People should, if they want and if their existing and/or prospective spouse(s) consent, be able to have multiple spouses.

I can really only think of a few reasons as to why such unions shouldn't be permitted:

1. Taxation

Our current tax laws cater, rightly or wrongly, towards singles and married couples, not married trios, quartets and other combinations. This is a potential minefield of confusion that needs to be sorted out before we can consider taxation of polygamous unions. But I don't think that it's insurmountable.

2. Social Security

Likewise welfare laws are not really friendly towards polygamous unions. I think that this may be harder than taxation to sort out, but again, I don't think that this is beyond repair.

3. Estate planning

If memory serves me correctly, estate planning has nasty little bits in it where, for example, wills get rendered null and void by marriage, in most states and territories, anyway. This would be the same for remarriage as well, I suppose, but take this example: A wife has a will in place, but then the husband marries another woman. Does this render the first wife's will ineffective?

4. Divorce

I think that this could be the messiest of the lot. Imagine that in our above example, the wife then divorces her husband. Does this mean that the second wife also has to divorce him? If not, then is the second wife divorcing the first wife? And after sorting this out, how do the property and child custody arrangements work?

5. Superannuation

This has complications as well. I thought of family law splits and contribution splitting, but these seem a dodder compared to spouse superannuation offsets and what happens in the event of a member dying who just happens to be in a polygamous relationship.

---

Anyway, these are just a few of the issues that need to be thought of before polygamy can be allowed. I don't believe that these are the kinds of thing that we can't fix, but it should be pointed out that there would be a whole stack of work involved in them.

The easiest thing to do would be to abolish marriage outright, and just lock everything under the laws covering de facto relationships that exist in each state and territory, but this is probably not an option.

The absolute last reason that we should be considering is religious considerations for or against marriage, which have been discussed to death.

So the question that the media have not asked Trad regarding his wife's position is this: What was Trad's answer when his wife asked him if he was comfortable with her having multiple husbands?

It's difficult to take Trad seriously when you know that he is most certainly not comfortable. Or even that such a question might not have been posed by Mrs Trad. Does anyone know if Trad is on the record regarding this very question?

What is religion, really?

"Well that's easy isn't it?" my good buddy "Roger" asks rhetorically, who I used to call "Bob" on this blog, but occasionally, I get another reader named Bob who reads my blog, so I've changed his name. "Religion is where you have this central supernatural premise and you structure your life around that."

"But Roger," I say, "What about Confucianism?"

He scoffs, "It's not a religion. It's a code of ethics."

Now Roger might be on to something, but I tend to view this sort of thing a bit differently. When I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, I had a real problem with his view of what religion is. Essentially, it's a belief system underpinned by some kind of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

The problem with this definition, is that according to Dawkins, we should now view such spiritual pursuits as acupuncture and feng shui as religions. You can, of course see the problem that I have with this, particularly when this definition excludes Confucianism, which doesn't really have much in the way of metaphysics.

So I'm casting my mind back to when I was a kid, and I asked someone something about what religion was. It might have been my dad. I'm not really sure.

Anyway, the person who I asked responded with this:

"Religion is a bunch of teachings. You know how there's Christianity? It's called that, because it's the teachings of this guy called 'Jesus Christ'. Buddhism is the teachings of this bloke named 'Buddha'. Confucianism is named after 'Confucius'. And so on."

"What about Islam?" I remember asking.

"It used to be called 'Mohammedanism'. The teachings of Mohammed."

So over time, religion has registered more with me as a code of ethics. I've largely viewed the fairy godfather thing as optional.

So how did the metaphysical aspect of religion take centre stage? I'd rather like to hear the answer to this one, because the whole point of religion, at least from what I can grasp is to impose a code of ethics on people. Sure, there's this almost Santa Claus-esque, "Scare the bejesus out of them and they'll obey," quality to it, but a lot of what's discussed in the major religious texts are fairly much just plain ordinary ethics.

Christ talks about doing unto others what you would have them doing unto you. Mohammed made the point that unarmed enemies are innocent, and therefore should not be harmed. In The Analects, Confucius discusses something similar to Christ, which was recorded by Mencius a good 550 years BC.

On the whole, if you take out the metaphysical stuff and the stuff which is clearly self-interested farting, you are actually left with a rather hefty code of ethics.

This is where the more smart-arsed of you lot are going to say, "Hey Dikkii. Don't the professional bodies representing acupuncturists and feng shui exponents publish codes of ethics for their members?"

They might, but if you're going to trivialise this by that reference, why don't we expand the discussion and call financial planning and medicine religions? After all, the AMA and the FPA have their own codes of ethics?

Of course, this would be silly. The ethics that I'm referring to are more generalised than professional ethics. What Buddha, Vyasa, Paul of Tarsus and the like are trying to convey in their writings is how one should live one's life. And they're using the tried and tested carrot and stick approach - do A and be rewarded. Do B and be punished.

The problem was a few of them got carried away: Buddha's central message was not, find nirvana or be endlessly reincarnated. Christ's was not, "Love me or go to Hell" although He did say this a bit in passing. Christ might have had His bad days where He thought everyone was fucked, but He was a moody bastard and prone to this sort of thing. Really, this was something that was blown out of perspective by later chroniclers in the same way that the media will seize on controversial stuff because it sells.

Buddha was all about finding peace. Christ (in His better moods) kept coming back to people being excellent to each other.

Tarsus is a real prick at this sort of thing. You know, the more I read the letters that Tarsus wrote, the more that I think that the guy was seriously pathological verging on paranoid - let's face it, the fact that he was a misogynist homophobe was just the tip of the iceberg. He was unafraid to just make shit up and he'd do this blatantly in order to get his point across.

John the Evangelist (who may or may not also have been John the Apostle) doesn't fare much better, although the Gospel according to John is seriously the most sabotaged piece of holy writing that I have had the bad grace to come across. Which is kinda weird, because when Christian apologists reference stuff from the gospels, nine times out of ten (in my humble opinion), they'll go straight to John to reference it. John is the only gospel to really bignote John the Apostle ("the apostle whom Jesus lurved"), and is also the only real attempt to explain the trinity model.

I should point out here that I'm using biblical references because they're the ones that I know best. I don't really know much about the qur'an, the mahabharata and the kama sutra except in passing only. But the end result is the same, except for the kama sutra. (It was porn then - and it really hasn't changed over the years.)

I have digressed, but the central point is clear - amongst the fire and brimstone, heavenly virgins awaiting martyrs, expectant mothers holding off births in the hope that their child is a reincarnated lama - the central messages of these religions has been completely lost. And that is a short bunch of tips to live your life as a better person. The metaphysical part remains incidental, and so it should.

This brings me up to a couple of things that I noticed when I read The Da Vinci Code, originally. Dan Brown got a lot of stuff way wrong when he originally wrote this, but there were a few things that he hinted at, or discussed explicitly which make some sense. And I might just point out, again, that while this is specifically biblical, it could relate to any holy text out there:

1. It's not just commentators like Leonardo da Vinci who are capable of inserting injokes into Christian history

This is pretty clear from the outset. There are some obvious errors which are dead giveways for this. Matthew Levi and Luke the Gentile are pretty darn skeptical about the virgin birth. So much so, that they preface their accounts of the virgin birth with conflicting genealogies of Jesus... on Joseph of Nazareth's side!!! Levi and The Gentile have cleverly inserted their own commentary regarding the claims of a virgin birth - and it can be summed up in one word: "rubbish!"

The other theory is that the bits about the virgin birth were pious frauds inserted later on. Again, someone, if not Levi or The Gentile were clearly having a good chuckle in leaving Nazareth's genealogies in. You've just gotta laugh, dont you?

This second one makes more sense - Brown writes that Christ's divinity was in doubt until the Council of Nicaea, and given the much later date of the (finalised) gospels, what's a little bit of pious fraud here and there? And if you were serious about the virgin birth, wouldn't you erase the genealogy bits? Someone had a sense of humour.

2. Patriarchal religions expose the worst aspects of male bonding

Really, you get a bunch of blokes together, they're going to come out with stories about how good/powerful their dads are sooner or later. Christ was surrounded by a bunch of guys who were either family, former outcasts or notorious two-faced toadies like Simon Peter. So of course, when He comes out with stuff like, "My Father will smash everyone," this is the signal to change the subject over to fishing or carpentry.

We only remember Christ's words on this stuff, because He was the alpha male, but it would be interesting to know what went undocumented from the mouths of His mates. Judas Iscariot, James The Brother Of Jesus and John The Apostle are the only ones in the group who appear capable of following orders.

Someone who would be interesting would be the aforementioned Peter. Peter himself was nearly as much of a sexist as Tarsus, and was a treacherous hard-arse to boot.

So really, is it a surprise that the early Christian church owes it's very livelihood to sexist pigs like Tarsus and Peter?

And why wouldn't they beef up the metaphysical aspect to further their own agendas while the ethics message - the core message vanishes amongst the whizbang special effects that seems to typify Christianity these days?

So back to my original point.

Would it be fair to say that where there's the faintest hint of something supernatural, the original ethical message gets completely forgotten? I asked Roger to suppose that if we viewed religion as the ethical bit and considered the supernatural side of things to be incidental might this change his view of what a religion is?

"No." said Roger. "A religion is just as much shaped by it's subsequent practitioners as by it's original crafters. Confucius' work has largely remained untouched by a dogmatic hierarchy. Plus, he didn't see the need to muddy the message with even the vaguest hint of metaphysics.

"Really, if you're inclined towards religion, isn't hard-core ethics just the slightest bit unsexy?"

I'm not sure if I agree with him. What do you think?

The most offensive pro-Christian video ever made

Thanks to the JREF's SWIFT newsletter of 2 May 2008, I had the extreme misfortune to come across this.

It's time that we started holding moderate Christians responsible for not speaking out about this sort of stuff. You can't get much more wronger than this. Which is not letting fundamentalists off the hook: this is a DISGRACE!!!

Express your extreme displeasure at this. Could this be any more evil?

Holy Frottage, Batman!

Here’s a highly questionable news article:

Sydney – APAA

A church in Sydney is wowing them in the aisles for what appears to be a new take on the gospel message.

Crossfire, a Pentecostal church and Sydney’s fourth largest Christian congregation has seen its regular Sunday attendances triple after the occurrence of a new style of worship. Parishioners are even talking about needing to move to a larger venue.

‘Our current church only seats 2,000. It’s awesome that our church is blessed in such a way that so many more people are able to witness the power of Jesus for themselves,’ said regular attendee, Evangeline Ng.

For the past month or so, it has been literally standing room only at Crossfire’s converted warehouse, situated in the outer south-western suburb of Ingleburn’s industrial estate. Not that this appears to present any difficulty to the church’s flock.

‘It was a miracle. About two months ago, people just stood up and started embracing each other in peace and worship,’ said Pastor Michael Hunt-Hearst, the director of the church. ‘The grace of the Holy Spirit has been with us ever since and we can personally bear witness to the love and unity that our Lord inspires.’

Indeed, love is the word. To the uninitiated, your typical Sunday service at Crossfire appears to erupt in what can only be described as a display of passion as members of the congregation throw their arms around each other and grind against the person or persons nearest to them. It was described by one witness as, ‘a frenzy of uninhibited testament to the Power of God.'

Curious onlookers have been almost turned away, due to the sheer numbers of people who have converged on Crossfire since the word of mouth started spreading. One newcomer said, ‘It’s just too unbelievable for words. The Star [local newspaper servicing the Campbelltown area] ran an article about this last week, and I had to see it for myself.’ The newcomer, who declined to give his name, went on to say that, ‘I’m not particularly religious, but I’m rethinking this as we speak. This is fantastic.’

Our non-religious onlooker proceeded to wander off into the gathered throng and rub himself up against several female parishioners in a way that more closely resembled the dance crazes of ‘freaking’ or ‘lambada’ than actual praise. The ladies in the congregation appeared more than happy to reciprocate, speaking in tongues as they did so.

Of course, the criticism from the more traditional churches in the area has started to trickle out. The minister of the nearby St Andrews’ Uniting Church, the Reverend David Fotheringay said, ‘Naturally, we all worship the Lord in different ways. I’m not sure what the Lord would make of what almost resembles outercourse, though. It’s a bit out there for some.’ St Andrews has seen its regular Sunday attendance dwindle to only a handful over the past few years.

Of the question that Crossfire’s growing popularity represents a threat to his - and others’ - congregation, Rev Fotheringay said, ‘There will always be worshippers who prefer more traditional church services.’

Father Patrick O’Riley of St Augustine’s Catholic Church in Campbelltown is more forthright about Crossfire’s more intimate worshipping style: ‘About a year ago, at the invitation of Pastor Mike, I attended one of their masses (sic). The Pastor did a sermon from Revelation about false prophets, as I recall. The Bible doesn't say anything about frottage, divinely inspired or otherwise.'

Pastor Hunt-Hearst appeared sprightly in the face of such criticism. ‘We have no problem with celebrating the Almighty Power that is God in this way. Indeed, Isaiah prophesised that people would embrace each other in worship. In One Corinthians, Paul talks about having the whole church coming together in unity, and of growing larger through the gifts of the Spirit.’

Gillian Lambert of Campbelltown Area Rape Victims Support Unit is not convinced. ‘We are a little worried that Crossfire’s services could, in time, attract the wrong kind of worshipper and believe that eventually, someone may get stalked or even attacked,’ said Ms Lambert in an email.

The Pastor believes that the ‘miracle,’ as he describes it, is here to stay.

‘We believe that the Spirit will bless other churches around the world in this way, but that there will be many witnesses who will visit Crossfire from around the world to see where it all began, just like in Toronto,’ suggested Pastor Hunt-Hearst, referring to the Toronto blessing, first seen at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship.

In readiness, Crossfire’s shop is already selling t-shirts with, ‘Feel the Spirit at Crossfire.’

And as for whether Pastor Hunt-Hearst foresees parishioners eventually having actual sex in the pews? The Pastor laughs for a bit nervously before responding, ‘That’s a bit silly, don’t you think?’

Not as silly as what he thinks.

Sympathy for the Almighty

Please allow Me to introduce Myself, I'm a Man of... OK. That is the other guy.

But let's just get one thing straight, once and for all. Wealth and taste. That's Me.

And if Lucifer utters that line once more, I'm going to fucking punch his lights out. It's fucking bad enough that he had to con Mick Jagger into believing this horseshit.

Lucifer?? Wealth and taste? Give Me a fucking break!

So why am I writing for Dikkii's Diatribe? Tom over at Dubito Ergo Sum was wondering about four things he'd do better if he was God.

Well, he can get stuffed. I am the One who is called "I AM" and I demand an end to all these shenanigans once and for all.

Dikkii was going to write about what he would do if he was Me. The guy's a fucking hippie. Oh there would be plenty of namby-pamby, "World peace!" "End to child poverty!" and "The miraculous disappearance of paedophilia!" from him.

But who would you rather read, really? Him or Me?

Particularly when Dikkii is just going to fill it up with lame motherhood statements.

So. On to the real reason why you're here.

Now you lowlives and scum better pay attention, 'cause I'm writing now. I've copped some bad press lately. And really, I don't deserve it.

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this, because really, who the fuck are you to be badmouthing Me?

There's a lot of misconceptions about My role in this world and everything in it. And you lot are mostly to blame. I mean really, My Mother could have done a better job of translating and transcribing the bible better than you lot did.

Honestly, the thing is fucking hilarious. There are so many errors throughout, that I'm frankly amazed at the more cretinous of you that think that this book is inerrant.

Sorry, I meant to say "credulous" but, well, you know what good ol' Freud would say. If Satan wasn't roasting his sorry arse back to the stone-age. The dirty old fucker.

And as for the first time I heard that Trinity rubbish... Laugh? I nearly came!

Anyway, where was I again?

Oh yes. Enlightening you imbeciles on the real Me. What I actually "do". That sort of thing.

Let's call this the New New Testament. Because you lot did such a poor job of portraying Me in the last one, that I think that it's only fair that I start again.

Not that you lot will bother listening - most of you have your heads so far up your collective arseholes that I'm surprised that you can get your iPod headphones on to listen to that 4GB of illegally downloaded music.

Oh and I know what you listen to, too:

• Little Jack, of Little Rock, Arkansas. You talk big about your sophisticated taste in music, but I know you're secretly a Destiny's Child fan.
• Janice of Macon, Georgia. How much do you want Me not to tell your congregation at the local Baptist Church that you love Cannibal Corpse?
• Paul of Blackpool, England. Not only do you love Robbie Williams, you have a secret crush on him as well. That'll be fun when the boys at the pub find out.
• Oh and Dikkii. Dikkii, of Melbourne, Victoria. How the fuck did you stray so far from cutting edge? You've dug out your Mike Oldfield collection? You are soooooooooo lame. Oooooh! Tubular Bells, everybody!

This, fartknockers, is what God actually does:

1. Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory: This was the best idea any of you came up with in the last two millennia. Pity it was from an atheist. I've had these installed in heaven, and let Me tell you that the beer - a lovely hoppy pale ale - is the best drop you've ever tasted.
2. Jesus: My Son is a complete fucking disappointment. Not only is He a hippie, but He is nowhere near as pleasant as what people make Him out to be. Get Him on one of His moody days, and I guarantee you will never call Him "Saviour" again. More like "Completeandutterbastard".
3. Omnipotence: I'm far from omnipotent. Such a concept is idiotic, and I let John of Patmos have it with three weeks in Hell for bringing the subject up in the first place. However I am plenty powerful, and this gives Me the right to carry on like a pork chop. Responsibility? I'm fucking God, fool! I answer to no one.
4. The human body's shortcomings: Folks, I fucked up. Cancer. Indigestion. Those really weird spots that old ladies get. I thought that these were a really good idea at the time. It's too late for Me to fix them now. But if I had My time over, I'd really like to fix the whole body so it lived on air and excreted purest snow. No real reason, I just think it would be cool.
5. Paul of Tarsus: Oh this guy can just get fucked. Him and Simon Peter are the two reasons why I have no respect for anyone who attends church regularly. I wanted to send them to Hell, but I thought that it would be better for Me to keep them nearby so I could smite them readily and regularly.
6. Miracles: Who in My name came up with this stupid concept? Let Me put this one on the table once and for all - I do not work like that. Anyone who insists on thinking otherwise is just being a stubborn idiot.
7. Charismatics/Evangelicals/Pentacostalists: I rather like all you lot who regularly read Dikkii's blog. Both of you. Suffice to say, you'll all be pleased to know that yes, as Dikkii asserts, I don't respect anyone who sucks up to Me like these morons. I routinely sentence them to a couple of days in Hell after they die so that they get the message. I'm saving a whole month of carnage for Ted Haggard when he dies. Should be a scream!
8. The books of Joshua and Job: Fucking embarrassing. I have no idea who suggested that these ones go in, but if I ever find out, there will be Hell to pay. You better fucking believe it.
9. Mates: Yes, I have mates. And they're all deities with their own multiverses to play with. We get together for a beer occasionally, although I do want to stress that Baal and Jupiter are complete pricks. I mean, packing up and retiring is just not on.
10. Adam and Eve: That Tree of "Knowledge" was a dud. Should have been called the Tree of Prudishness. Thanks to that fucking tree, no one can walk around naked in the middle of summer and I do like the sight of My creation wandering around naked, especially those young brunettes.

What's that, Dikkii? You want your blog back? Who the fuck are you to be giving Me orders?

Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll and other stuff.

Mojoey of Deep Thoughts maintains what is probably the internet's longest blogroll for atheists and agnostics which is called, wait for it, "Atheist Blogroll".

Regular reader Plonka, of Plonka's Blog has just signed up and suggested that I join too. And so I did, just like the sheep that I am. It wasn't long before I was happily completing my details in that everlovin' email to Mojoey that gets a blog link at 483 other blogs around the freethinkerspace.

You can see mine down the bottom right hand corner of this blog.

Says Mojoey:

"The Atheist Blogroll is a service provide to the Atheist and Agnostic blogging community. The blogroll currently maintains over 350 blogs. Membership is limited to Atheist and Agnostic bloggers."

I don't really endorse the exclusionism in the last sentence. I may have to chat to Mojoey about this, because this is a little bit uncharitable. It's not like theists would be queueing up to join such a blogroll or anything.

It's a good thing that Mojoey embraces agnostics, because the other blogroll that Plonka has joined is The Richard Dawkins-endorsed OUT Campaign. And they most decidedly don't.

Says the Out Campaign:

"Atheists are far more numerous than most people realize. COME OUT of the closet! You'll feel liberated, and your example will encourage others to COME OUT too. (Don't "out" anybody else, wait for them to OUT themselves when they are ready to do so)."

Oh, yes please!

And by joining the blog roll, you get to wear a big, red letter "A" on your blog, which is your way of telling the world, "We're here, we're, um, atheist, we will not disappear!" There was no mention of agnostics here, so I sent a question off to the blog organisers asking them about this:

Hi,

Why specifically atheists? Why not agnostics as well?

Cheers, Dikkii.

And not long after that, I got this in return:

I'm just one of the many admin's doing link and web stuff so I don't know the official RDFRS answer to that but from my personal viewpoint believing it's possible to have a god but you can't disprove it goes along the same lines as being agnostic about teapots orbiting close to Mars. You can't disprove it but it's silly. You can't disprove something for which there is zero evidence and saying that lack of evidence is proof that it's possible just isn't a valid argument.

Regards,
/Mike

Dawkins schools them well. For someone who doesn't know the Foundation's official line, he knows the next best thing is to paraphrase The God Delusion.

I must admit, I wasn't expecting that ol' straw man agnostic from The God Delusion. You know, the pants-wetting fence-sitter who assigns equal probability to existence alongside non-existence? The generalisation that I blogged about in Why did you end up agnostic (part 4)? The stereotype which doesn't exist? The negative caricature which demonstrates that even scientists as brilliant as Richard Dawkins can put both feet in their mouths at once, occasionally?

Of course, I had to fire off a response to this:

Hi Mike,

Good answer, but agnostics aren't interested in proving the negative, particularly when they know the difference between the null hypothesis and an extraordinary claim. Agnostics also recognise that it's silly.

Some would say that invoking Russell's teapot to an agnostic is a little bit insulting, patronising and irrelevant, but I wouldn't go this far. I noticed in March this year that Dawkins fell into the same trap in The God Delusion, so you're in good company.

Cheers, Dikkii.

I don't expect a response to this.

It appears that this is a blogroll I won't be joining in a hurry.

73rd Carnival of the Godless

Now up at In Defence of Reason.

And I'm there too for Pascal's diversified portfolio.

Get amongst it - I'm reading it tomorrow.

Click here to read it.

Pascal's diversified portfolio

I have to let you in on a secret - I don't read that many blogs. But I have a select group that I read as much as humanly possible. Which is why I get immensely pleased when I come across a blog post that I like.

This is one. And, as always, Bronze Dog does a smashing job. Which he referred to a post at PZ Myers' excellent blog (which I read less regularly), Pharyngula.

These posts are about something written by the increasingly unbalanced Scott Adams who created the Dilbert cartoon. I normally like Dilbert. Not passionately or anything like that, hell, give me Ernie/Piranha Club any day. But I find it better than some of the cartoons out there. Fred Basset, anyone?

Adams has been writing all sorts of weird shit in his blog lately, and given his comic timing (I love bad puns) in the strip, you would have to say that he is most definitely not taking the piss.

I mention this because if there is one thing that is guaranteed to make me angry, it's mention of this stupid concept.

Pascal's Wager has always been something that has annoyed me. The first tine that I heard it was at school when my roommate - who was previously an atheist from an atheist family - suddenly found religion in a big way. And this was one of the fastest transformations I ever saw - it all took place over a two week period.

Anyway, he ran Pascal's Wager by me. For those who need their memory refreshed, Pascal's Wager goes like this:

If I believe in God, and I find out that He doesn't exist, then I have lost nothing.

If I don't believe in God, and I find out that He exists, then I have lost everything.

Pascal had formulated a lot of what became known as Game Theory, and his reasoning was sound, except that he didn't realise one thing - he had made the assumption that only the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god existed.

Or, to put that another way, if God promises annihilation for non-believers, than what about non-believers in Shiva, the Destroyer?

Anyway, Dog suggests the following alternate probabilities to Pascal's Wager about a deity of which we know no details:

1. What if the deity punishes people for doing evil deeds and rewards them for doing good deeds, with no regard for beliefs?

2. What if the deity punishes people for blindly believing in him and rewards them for thinking critically and thus doubting him?

3. What if the deity rewards everyone, regardless of what they do or believe?

4. What if the deity rewards people on a random basis?

5. What if the deity only punishes those who step on cracks in a sidewalk?

6. What if the deity doesn't care at all about human beings and only thinks about them as a meaningless, uninteresting by-product of a brane/string experiment he conducted 13.7 billion years ago?

7. What if the deity just throws everyone's souls up on the roof, where they get stuck?

And so on and so forth. I thought of another possible outcome:

8. What if the deity is a liar?

Oh, the confusion that one would cause. And of course, this is before consideration of competing deities, to whom all the outcomes above might also apply.

Being the financial nerd that I am, I thought at that I'd take a view of this through the window that is Portfolio Theory. Portfolio theory says a variety of things, but the one most important thing that comes out of portfolio theory is this: for a set level of risk, you can increase your return by diversifying your portfolio.

Or to put that another way, "Don't put all your eggs in the one basket."

So let's take a diversified approach to investment in a god as proposed by Pascal:

Option 1 - Belief in god A but he doesn't exist.

Believing in a god would appear to have a rather high risk/return trade-off - the potential return is eternal life, however, your potential risk for this return is also infinite and given that there are quite a few gods out there, who knows if you've picked the right one?

Normally, you can't say that infinity A is greater than infinity B, so there is no way of knowing if the risks outweigh the potential returns, but you can say this: the chance of you picking the wrong god is enormous from the outset.

So for us to load all our belief credits into the one slot machine is obviously a high risk investment.

Option B - Belief in a portfolio of gods.

This would appear to satisfy a prudent approach to investing in a high risk asset class, which is what theistic belief clearly is. The problem with this is that there are many more gods that we can read about before we can profess a belief in them.

I should clarify from the outset that my problem with the word "belief" is another thing that Dog expressed frustration with in his post. Is it enough to just say that you believe in a deity?

Most theists would say yes to this. After all, quite a lot of them will say they believe, however they may actually believe something completely different. However, this is not what most of the rest of us understand by the word belief. The problem with this perspective is that a token statement of belief is clearly not belief, if the person who says it believes something completely different.

Most of us understand belief to be what we predominantly think is the case about something, when we do not know the answer. For example, if we're holding an apple, and we drop it, we know it's going to hit the ground. This is called "knowledge". However, if we drop the apple, and we think that a magic invisible hand is going to catch it before it hits the ground, this is called "belief".

There is nothing that could cause us to "know" that this magic invisible hand will catch it - you would have to be pretty darn sure to say that you knew that a hand or other such appendage would catch it.

So obviously, while belief implies some level of disbelief, it is an outright lie to say that you believe in something when you don't.

Which means that for us to have a meaningful definition of belief for the purpose of this post, we'll have to eliminate those who only pay lip service to believing in something.

In other words, we'll define belief as being that where we've studied the deity in question a little bit and decided that we have more than just a token level of faith that they'll be there to greet us at the other end.

So it is possible to believe in a portfolio of gods based on this approach. How do we construct this portfolio?

Those who understand portfolio theory know that there are many ways to construct this portfolio. In investment, there are active methods that look at various different criteria, all of which involve chopping and changing between different assets in order to reduce risk and maximise return.

There are also passive methods where assets are bought and held for a long time based on a number of criteria, though normally, the criterion is a popularity measure, such as a major index. These are all designed to get a return that matches the index or some other benchmark.

I propose that we appeal to popularity and create a passively managed index portfolio based on popularity. This makes it easy.

Our Judeo/Christian/Islamic god gets in first. The Taoist pantheon is next - the Jade Emperor is a particular favourite of mine - followed by Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva. The remaining spots in the core portfolio would be filled by the remaining major deities out there.

Now on to creating a satellite investments sub-portfolio with lesser deities. I've always had a thing for Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl, so they're in. And just because I'm Australian, the Rainbow Serpent gets the nod, too. Flying Spaghetti Monster and Invisible Pink Unicorn? They're in.

How much of an investment do we make in all these deities?

Reading the holy books of each and professing a belief should be enough I think. We don't want to make this too onerous.

And this is where our diversified approach cleans up - you get as many bets into different deities as possible.

It also minimises the downside of the other possibility that Pascal overlooked:

What if all the deities exist, and they have to fight amongst each other to see who gets to punish unbelievers?

What better way to do this, than to reduce those deities who are out to get you?

Of course, prudent investing also says to wait until the evidence is in before committing. For me, Pascal's Diversified Portfolio is just going to have to wait until I have enough evidence to start putting my portfolio together. I don't want to find the religious version of Enron in my portfolio.

My advice?

Theistic belief is the kind of high risk/high return investment that makes derivatives appear positively safe by comparison.

This is for ultra-ultra-ultra-aggressive investors only, folks.

What kind of atheist are you?

Over at Die Eigenheit, Einzige posted this, so I thought I'd give it a go too.

Not surprisingly, this is how I turned out:

You scored as Agnostic, Agnostics consider the possibility that they may be wrong about God's existence, no matter which side of the fence they stand on. Always willing to objectively evaluate the most ridiculous proof, nevertheless, these guys are skeptics of the Nth degree. Agnostic 92% Scientific Atheist 92% Apathetic Atheist 67% Spiritual Atheist 58% Militant Atheist 50% Angry Atheist 25% Theist 8% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Feel vindicated a bit by the backhanded fence reference, although I'm not sure about the willingness to evaluate the most ridiculous proof bit.

You'll notice, however as I did that there is a dead heat for first (disregarding the fact that all these add up to 392%). There was a tiebreaker question for me, so I went back and changed the result of that. This is how I'd be if I was diagnosed with a case of scientific atheism:

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Agnostic 92% Scientific Atheist 92% Apathetic Atheist 67% Spiritual Atheist 58% Militant Atheist 50% Angry Atheist 25% Theist 8% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Happy with that, too. Although I will admit that my knowledge of the Laws of Thermodynamics are not as they should be. And I've broken more than my fair share of the rules of debate in my life.

Give it a go. And leave me a comment with your results.

On marketing to kiddies

I've said it before - marketing to kiddies is a DISGRACE!!!

In the past, I've singled out the music, tobacco and alcohol industries as the main offenders, but somehow, I've missed the elephant in the middle of the room.

Thanks to Plonka's Blog, (in this post here) I'm now in a position to rectify this. This is a vid fresh from YouTube, and I've gotta tell you - it is seriously worrying.

Warning: Scenes contained in this vid are likely to offend the bejesus out of you.



And now we can add fundamentalist Christianity to the list.

Edit 12/06/2007: Bob the Austin Atheist has added his take on this. It's worth a read, particularly as he "outs" the source of this highly questionable video.

National Day of Secularism

National Day of Secularism
May the 26th

Welcome one and all, to Australia's first National Day of Secularism.

Planned for today is a number of events designed to show one and all that Australia is the warm and tolerant place that we all know and love.

There'll be fun for young and old as we show all and sundry that we love and value every point of view, but none more so than the 13th commandment:

Thou shalt not impose thy religious view upon thy brother or sister. (Cyril 13:13)

Starting this morning will be morning teas all around the nation. In Melbourne, the party starts in Fitzroy Gardens, as Premier Steve Bracks operates the tea trolley himself, bringing steaming cups of Darjeeling round for all the punters to drink with their bacon and egg rolls or their spinach croissants. After which, Mr Bracks plans to say a few words where he gives thanks to our religious brothers and sisters for obeying the injunction against proselytising that was handed down in the High Court, only yesterday.

After this, there will be activities for all the kids, including the world's biggest jumping castle. Lord Mayor John So has told us that he plans to get his shoes off and show the rest of Australia why he's known as Jumping Johnny.

In Sydney, there will be a concert on the Opera House forecourt featuring Powderfinger, Midnight Oil and a re-united Redgum. Prime Minister John Howard will motor over the water from Kirribilli House to say a few words, climaxing with why courting the Hillsong vote was a silly idea, and apologising to Aboriginal Australia for past injustices. He also plans to mention that the Dreaming is every bit as valid a religious philosophy as those imported from around the world.

A highlight of this gig will naturally be the PM, current Labor MP Peter Garrett and former card carrying Democrat John Schumann pictured together laughing and telling stories about their kids.

In Brisbane today, there will be a series of speakers at a function in Southbank praising the Fathers of Federation for their foresight in the inclusion of Section 116 in our nation's constitution:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Kevin Rudd, the Opposition Leader will use this opportunity to announce to the rest of Australia he will actively campaign to ensure that Christmas is renamed "Midsummer", Easter is moved to June and relabelled "Midwinter", as well as adding the following holidays to the Australian public holiday roster:

• UNESCO World science day - 10 November
• International cannabis day - 20 April
• International talk like a pirate day - 19 September
• Pi day - 14 March
• Pi approximation day - 22 July
• No pants day - First friday in May

This is expected to be wildly popular, so get there early, folks.

Finally, there will be a free concert in Canberra on the slope leading up to Parliament House.

The night will culminate in merriment when Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj El Din al-Hilaly and the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell drop their strides and dance the Eagle Rock.

Head of World Vision Australia, Rev Tim Costello promises to use the proceeds of the oversized novelty cheque that he receives for good and not for proselytising purposes.

What a shame none of this will really happen.

In reality, 26 May has been labelled the National Day of Thanksgiving by a group who appear to think that it should be co-opted by all and sundry as a "National Day of Thanksgiving". This National Day of Secularism blogfest is one way to protest this.

This group's agenda is up for all to see at their website and it should be clear from their "vision" that there is nothing secular about this group's agenda:

The concept of a National Day of Thanksgiving was in the hearts of many Australians for a number of years. Many people wrote to the Australian Prayer Network expressing a desire to see our nation called to prayer one day each year to acknowledge our Christian heritage and the Lordship of Jesus Christ over our nation.

The Australian Prayer Network took such thoughts and dreams to other national prayer and ministry organizations and church leaders. They received overwhelming encouragement to pursue the concept. The decision to proceed with a National Day of Thanksgiving was confirmed at a meeting of National ministry leaders at Parliament House Canberra on the 17th June 2003. They voted unanimously to support the Australian Prayer Network in their initiative. It was decided to hold a National Day of Thanksgiving on the Saturday of Pentecost weekend each year and to seek to have the day included in our national calendar.

It's interesting to note that they've got a spot where you can leave your "testimony" for all to see. I've testified that this is one step towards a theocracy that I didn't want to see our nation take.

But given that it's heavily moderated, I doubt that it'll ever be seen.

Blog against theocracy - National Day of Secularism - 26 May 2007

National Day of Secularism
May the 26th

I have been tagged by Beep Beep, the wise sage responsible for Beep! Beep! It's Me.

How the “meme” works

This “meme” works in two steps; first the “Tagging stage” and then the “Blog against theocracy stage”. (the word "meme" incidentally, is one of the most pretentious words doing the rounds of the internet)

Tagging stage

If you are tagged by the meme, then it’s the same old format; mention this entry so people can see the rules and then tag five other bloggers (preferably Australian given the nature of the NDoT.).

Blog against theocracy stage

If you have been tagged then in addition to tagging others, it is also hoped that you will write a blog entry about the separation of Church and State in Australia. It could be a critique of Pell’s “normative democracy”, the historic anti-democracy sermonizing of Archbishop Daniel Mannix, inevitable discrimination by the funding of (approved) chaplains in public schools, the state backed imposition of bans on forbidden women’s dress or whatever Church-State issue you find important.

Preferably, such a blog entry would be published on the 26th, but there is no deadline as such. Just a couple of caveats:

1) the church-state anti-theocracy blog entry should mention the phrase “National Day of Thanksgiving”, possibly mentioning that the entry is a response to the NDoT, and
2) feel free to add the (again admittedly modest) banner.

I don't really know all that many Australian bloggers, and Beep and Plonka have already been tagged, but I will tag those I do know:

1. The Second Sight
2. Crazy World
3. Contempt


I'll have to leave the rest open.

Carnival of the Godless #66

The 66th Carnival of the Godless is up at The Atheist Experience, and yours truly has got The Meaning of Life up there for all.

My attention has been taken, this time aroung by a post at Symbolic Order by Aaron Ross Powell titled, "What atheism offers: Justifying a life's purpose."

A well written post.

Also, Bob, the Austin Atheist has put this up: How Not To Persuade An Atheist #1: Bypassing the Intellect . Excellent.

Elsewhere there is plenty of stuff for all so check it out here.

Check it out here.

The meaning of life

Hi folks. I'm not going to tell you The Meaning of Life today, instead, I'm going to talk about that age-old question:

"What is the meaning of life?"

This is a question that can, depending on what mood I'm in, either make me very irate, or very silly. In any event, it's not a question that I've ever seriously entertained myself, and I plan to discuss why, further down the page.

What does it mean? What is it all about? And what is its purpose?

I'm actually asking this about our question, and not about life, people. The question about the meaning of life is one of the slyest tools that proselytising theists like to use to ingratiate themselves onto freethinkers, and it's one that freethinkers such as atheists and agnostics prefer not to address.

But they should. This is a question that is not going to go away, no matter how hard we try, so let's have a look at it.

These days, usually whenever I hear this question, it's usually framed like this:

"Everybody thinks about the meaning of life."

I think that the presumption included within this one statement is breathtaking.

Let's have a look at some of the "leaps of faith" included within this sentence, and see if we can come to some sort of idea of what this sentence even means.

1. What do people mean, when they talk about the "meaning of life"?

This one has always confused the hell out of me. What is the meaning of life? I don't mean the meaning itself, really, I'm looking for someone to tell me about what they mean when they use this term.

I've heard a remarkably diverse number of answers on this very subject, but no one has yet been able to pinpoint a single definition that appears to have any degree of consensus.

Some answers include the following:

"What is my purpose?" - I'm uncertain of this as a possibility, as it appears to interpose a significant degree of vanity upon what is at first glance an answer about existence generally.

"Why are we here?" - This is a great example of a question that cannot be answered. If you were to ask me this, I would generally answer with the question, "If I give an answer, how are you going to prove me wrong?"

"What is our destiny?" - This is merely the first question with an attempt to remove the personal vanity. This is another great example of a question without an answer.

"For what reason are we alive?" - Finally, a question with a variety of possible answers. Personally, if this is given to me as a possible interpretation of the meaning of life question, I like to answer it with the most obvious answer there is - "A happy series of accidents involving mostly Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms." Unfortunately, this doesn't cut it with our intrepid questioners, so we have to move on.

"What is life's purpose?" - Yet another question with no possible answer.

Now I could go on and on with this, but it would appear to be, quite frankly, silly to continue.

What we have is a potentially limitless series of questions without answers that are designed to obfuscate and dazzle the respondant into a situation where they are overwhelmed by this potentially unlimited series of questions.

A more meaningful definition of "the meaning of life" is one that encompasses all of these - and yet this has no meaning at all. Apart from the grammatical impossibility of all of these forming a single "meaning", we still have no firm definition of what this is.

This does my head in sometimes, but why would anyone design a question to have no answer?

Why not ask these questions one by one?

The answer is God. The questions of the meaning of life really have no answer, but this is not important to the theist. What the theist wants you to do is to be so overwhelmed, and so dazzled by all the implications of whatever it is that you think that the question is all about, that it is immediately plausible amongst all this confusion that God exists as a way to make sense of it all.

I call bullshit.

"The meaning of life" is a gigantic red herring that renders all other questions secondary - yet it should not. It is through consideration of what is essentially a bogus concept that proselytizing theists are allowed to push their worldview onto the rest of us, and I really wish that it would stop.

It is also, a question without meaning. Theists have been allowed to get away with this one for years - and if you allow them to ask it without pulling them up, you're not doing them any favours, either.

Put simply, the term, "meaning of life" means nothing.

2. Does everyone think about it?

There's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence that suggests that a lot of people consider this question, and we've seen from the first point that no one knows what problem it is that they're supposed to be solving, when they ponder the "meaning of life".

To be fair, we live in a world where at every possible opportunity, lots of people are prompted to think about this question. And not just by theists.

In his somewhat erroneously titled, Hitchhiker Trilogy, Douglas Adams came up with an answer to "Life, The Universe and Everything". The answer was, quite famously, 42.

Adams makes my first point pretty well, in that he made the point that the answer would make no sense until you could come up with a workable question.

In the real world, we're unlikely to come up with an answer until we've correctly formulated a question first, but it's interesting to note that the person doing the prompting of the reader to think about the meaning of life, in Adams' case, was a staunch atheist.

But in the examples we've used, the most interesting thing about them is that a third party has prompted the thinker to think about the meaning of life.

Nowhere do we have an example of someone thinking about this question unprompted.

So in this light, what do we make of the claim, oft stated by theists, that everyone thinks about the meaning of life?

It is implicit in the claim that people do this sort of thinking unprompted, however it is my view that the stats on this simply don't exist. And therefore, in the absence of hard evidence to suggest that people do think about the so-called meaning of life unprompted, the only reasonable position that we can take is that of the null hypothesis - that not everybody thinks about the meaning of life unprompted.

3. What use is the "meaning of life" question to us?

We've seen that the question itself is riddled with flaws as to its meaning, and we've seen that no one (to my knowledge) has ever produced stats that confirm that people naturally think about this question unprompted.

Our next question is about how the hell do we come up with some sort of viable use for such a question, once we have answered it?

The question, at this point in time is too vaguely worded to be of any use to us, and we simply have to accept that the utter meaninglessness of the question means that consideration of this question without any definable terms is an exercise in futility.

If it has any use at all, it is as an example of a completely useless question that should never have been asked in the first place - your archetypal unanswerable question.

Apart from this, it is inefficient to consider such questions.

4. How can God hope to provide the answers to such questions?

Theists are used to this sort of thing. No matter how ridiculously formulated a question is, if you ask it, He will be able to answer, goes the line.

Allow me to provide an excellent example:

"Ailwehfo;ihwe;ip' p owejf' eopj' wegopjwe wro[j wervg wegjo[asdoj skl;jsdv'phiasdf ojbvo?"

Believe it or not, a theist will maintain that there is an answer to this question.

Never mind that I formulated this question by just hitting keys at random, a sort of tactile version of glossolalia.

I've heard a theist, in exasperation, say, "Never mind the question: God will provide the answer."

The utter uselessness of this statement is staggering. How can God presume to answer a question that has no meaning?

And, more to the point, how can He presume that this question, to which I attach no personal relevance, will suddenly become more relevant after the answer has been provided?

Lastly, how useful would such an answer be?

No theist can seriously believe that God answers undefined and irrelevant questions that no one asked, really, do they?

And, one last point, can a theist really get away with the claim that everyone thinks about this "question" unprompted?

Why did you end up agnostic?

Well, I've come to the end of the line on this one, so here's the obligatory index post.

If you'd like to read them from beginning to end, here they are again:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Please enjoy, and feel free to comment.

Cocksnack gone? WTF?

(Via 95% Of You Are Morons, and Pooflinger's Anonymous)

For those of you who enjoy reading this blogger's favourite skeptical blogs, it is sad to note that a blogger known as Weapon Of Mass Information (we call him Cocksnack) has disappeared off the face of the blogosphere.

For those who weren't aware, Cocksnack was a creationist who had a blog committed to "debunking" "Darwinism" and "Evolutionists".

A bit sad, but nonetheless, to see what IDiocy creationists are capable of, check out the exchange that Rockstar Ryan has reproduced at his blog. This is but the tip of the iceberg with this guy. He was (and probably still is) one insane dude.

And then check out Matt Pooflinger's assessment of Cocksnack's disappearance.

Infophile has commented that Cocksnack may have re-located to another blog - is this Cocksnack?

Only time (pause, Kent Brockman style) will tell.