One more and then I'll shut up. For a while...

The Anglican Church in Australia has appointed its first female bishop, Kay Goldsworthy. This is considered controversial around the Anglican Church - despite the fact that my calendar indicates that this is the 21st century. It's hard to believe that there are still some gasping old windbags in the church who believe that women should be barefoot and pregnant.

Not long after this, Barbara Darling was appointed as Australia's second female Anglican bishop.

The Anglican Church of Australia has allowed female priests since 1992 - that's 16 years. By now, female bishops should be being appointed. It is expected that, even with the rampant sexism that goes on in religion, at least one of them should be being appointed to the post of bishop by now.

Unbelievably though, a protocol was agreed last year that reads like this, and I quote:

Archbishop [Roger] Herft [Anglican Archbishop of Perth] and his diocesan council came to the unanimous decision following an agreement last month between Australia's Anglican bishops on a protocol to handle opponents of women bishops.

Under the protocol, parishes that cannot in good conscience recognise the ministry of a woman bishop will be offered the services of a male bishop.

This followed the affirmation by the church's legal body last year that it would not breach church law to appoint a woman bishop.

A bit offensive, I'm sure that you agree.

As befits a momentous occasion like this, Goldsworthy's ordination was presided over by the Archbishop of Brisbane and Primate of the Anglican Church in Australia, Phillip Aspinall. However, noteworthy by their absences were the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, his brother and the Dean of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, Phillip Jensen and the Bishop of Northwest Australia, David Mulready.

Mulready has already indicated that Goldsworthy will not be welcome to conduct services in his diocese, one of only three in Western Australia, where Goldsworthy has been appointed bishop.

Disgustingly, there has been a clamouring silence from moderates within the Anglican Church over the boycotts by the Jensens and Mulready. No one appears to be game to publicly call upon the Jensens or Mulready to resign, or to even condemn their actions.

(Phillip Jensen, you might recall, in a bizarre attack, described "holders of high office in the Church of England" as prostitutes, immediately after criticising Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) for his tolerant views on homosexuality. During the same speech, he is reported as describing Prince Charles as an adulterer, yet denied that this was a 'personal attack' shortly after.)

I'll put this on the record once again. Moderates who do not speak out about this sort of stuff are either cowardly, or they secretly support this sort of sexism.

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.

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.

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.

Mallrat missionary mistakes

Once again, Akusai has provided a great story, this time of missionaries in shopping centres.

Given the circs, I would have thought that three charges of assault would be in the offing here.

But I'll let Akusai tell it as he does this sort of thing quite well.

Read it here:

Action Skeptics: Action Skeptics Storytime: Mallrat Missionary Mistakes

Paley's Rock

William Paley's Watchmaker Analogy is held aloft by creationists everywhere as proof that the earth and everything on it was created by God, or at least, a higher power of some sort.

Critics of creationism are quick to refute the Watchmaker Analogy, and rightly so.

Let's just quickly re-cap on what Paley himself had to say about the whole matter, in his book Natural Theology:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (...) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.

– William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)

Now this is all largely nonsense. Paley is suggesting, on the basis of his watch example that everything in this world is intelligently designed by someone or something to serve some sort of purpose.

Charles Darwin accepted this while studying theology at Cambridge and came to the conclusion that this argument held up.

He later, after sailing away on the Beagle to study nature and the distribution of species around the world, refuted this analogy quite explicitly in the Origin of the Species by explaining that the Law of Natural Selection was a better model for explaining the diversity of species around the world. In so doing he paved the way for Evolutionary Biology which took Darwin's findings one step further and developed into a field primarily concerned with examining the origins and evolution of species.

By far the most famous evolutionary biologist on the planet today is, of course, Richard Dawkins. Dawkins had a serious bash at the Watchmaker Analogy in his book The Blind Watchmaker and concluded that, as complex as evolution sounds to the layperson, it pales next to any creation argument. The very idea that everything is the subject of complex design implies an even more complex designer.

Which of course implies an even more complex designer for the first complex designer, a sort of "Turtles all the way down" scenario.

Stephen Hawking, in A Brief History of Time explains this concept very well, by quoting a story that may or may not have involved Bertrand Russell:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

- Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988)

And this is good, because it is pretty clear from these arguments that evolution is easily the simplest explanation for life on this planet.

But it has occurred to me that Paley's argument falls on its face in a much simpler and much more embarrassing way.

Darwin and Dawkins, as well as countless scientists and creationists have been led astray by what was a magnificently well-placed red herring in the story.

The Watch.

How much time has been spent poring over the Watch?

How many mental pictures have been created in peoples heads - what the face looked like? Was the glass scratched? Was it a gold watch? Did it have a 2mm or a 5mm chain? If it was gold, how many carats would it have been?

The problem with Paley's example is not with the watch, though.

If we go back and accompany Paley on his hypothetical walk across the heath again, we'll see that he didn't just hypothetically come across a watch that day.

Paley also came across a stone, which he gave very short shrift to. His answer to what he thought of the stone appears to be complete disinterest:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.

So why does he not subject the rock to the same level of scrutiny which he gave the watch?

Paley has no, repeat, no idea of how the stone came to be there, nor does he consider it to be important.

What is important, though, is that in dismissing the stone as being unimportant to his story, he is essentially applying a double standard to the stone compared to the watch.

He mentions it in passing, because it is important for comparison to the watch.

But Paley's comparison ends there.

It should not.

Why has everyone, Darwin and Dawkins included, appeared to have missed the bleeding obvious on this? Paley does not at any time discuss the "purpose", "contrivance" or the "design" of the rock at any stage.

Paley has had a free kick on this for over 200 years - so why don't we do what Paley did not, but should have done?

Paley lauds the watch as, "There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer;"

But a rock? We would need to know its "purpose".

The rest of the story serves no purpose unless someone can come up with way of assessing the rock in the same way that Paley evaluates the watch.

Its a great trick - introduce the rock and then dazzle us with implied bling - and for all we know, the watch that Paley finds on his walk might only have been a cheapie made in Sheffield.

And being the humans that we are, the flashy piece of chronometry has everyone's attention, whereas the drab rock - basalt perhaps, diamond, maybe - vanishes into the background.

The wonder of it all this is this: why hasn't anyone taken Paley apart for this?

It's really that simple folks.

Someone should call their blog Paley's Rock.

Why did you end up agnostic? (Part 2)

This is Part 2.

Part 1 is here.

We were discussing in the previous part about how, thanks to no pressure at all from anyone, I grew up an apatheist.

I did point out in that part that atheists and theists have a problem with apatheism in that they don’t understand it.

If you're an atheist or a theist who doesn't get it, I can probably tell you about apatheism by asking the following question:

When cutting a 100mm slab to put in an air-con drain pipe, and assuming that the cut required is 50mm deep by 50mm wide, is there a school of thought as to whether this is allowable based on current building regulations?

Some would suggest that if it’s roof slab, you need to be aware of the rate of decay of the reinforcing bars, regardless of re-concreting over and waterproofing.

Others would add to this any time that the slab covers a void of some sort, including basements, crawlspaces, passageways etc.

In my honest opinion, this is all very important stuff and all, and it probably affects every apartment block ever built, but do I really care?

Getting it wrong can affect tens or hundreds of lives. But do I really care?

I mean, really. Should I care?

This is how religion appears to the apatheist. Irrelevant. Boring. Full of rules that make no sense at all to the uninitiated. Or, more accurately, indoctrinated.

Ask yourself this: Football. Music. Chicks. Religion. Is it really any wonder that the last one just couldn’t find space in my short attention span?

Oh, I forgot to try to cram schoolwork in there, too.

I think that it was third year uni when I began to start thinking a little more deeply about religion than what I had in the past.

It all happened one lunchtime in Union House. I was manning the ticket table for a play that was being staged at the residential college where I lived at the time. I had, at various times that day, been approached by various members of all three major Christian campus groups and asked about my thoughts about the meaning of life, whether I believed that Jesus had died for my sins and whether I would like to come along to a prayer meeting or three.

The major campus Christian groups had tables set up somewhat permanently in Union House, and would be hassling everyone who passed by to come along on a daily basis. I thought that by virtue of manning another table, I’d be immune, but I still got hassled.

In fairness, I also got hassled by a rather attractive brunette in a top showing her bellybutton with a tray of brightly coloured drinks that I was assured would make me smarter.

Even though I was in third year at university, the pseudoscience of Smart Drinks™ would probably have been completely plausible to me, had I heard a word that she was saying. As it was, I suspect that I was concentrating on flirting way too hard to actually take in anything that she was saying and can only dimly recall the words “amino acids”. I had about three different coloured thimble-sized samplers that day, and I can tell you right now, felt no different at all.

Anyway, being hassled by the campus Christians was a daily occurrence. Being hassled by scantily-clad marketers on campus was slightly more unusual – the Womens’ Collective normally would frighten this sort of marketing initiative off into another state.

But the “wimmin” didn’t appear to be around today, so our young Smart Drink™ sample dispenser could go berzerk. I’m sure that it wasn’t lost on her that every bloke who went up to her to sample her wares was flirting with her big time, if not hitting on her outright, but I’m digressing here. The sight of those flawless, tanned, athletic legs disappearing into a ridiculously short pleated mini-skirt was, I’m sure, not noticed by anyone there that day.

I had just breathed a sigh of relief as a third, over-ardent young Christian tacitly admitted defeat in getting me to attend one of their prayer meetings. He’d scarcely handed me one of his group’s flyers and gone on his way when another young gentleman came up to me.

Swearing under my breath, I greeted our new addition, whom I’ll call “The Dude,” with bemused insincerity. Our conversation went a little like this:

Dude: I see the campus Christians won’t leave you alone either.

Me: *winces and waits for inevitable approach line*

Dude: My name’s The Dude, and I was wondering what your thoughts on religion are?

Me: Dude, I don’t have any thoughts on religion.

Dude: That’s great, cause you know, our group is always looking for fresh ideas and thoughts especially with regards to the relentless bombardment of everyone with other students forcing their religion down others' throats.

Me: Um, when I said, ‘I don’t have any thoughts on religion,’ what I meant to say was, ‘I have no interest in religion.’

Dude: And that’s fine. Our members have no interest in religion, either. In fact, one of our topics this week will be taking action to stop the insane amount of proselytising that all the campus Christians have been doing lately…

Me: What did you say your group was called?

Dude: We’re the University Atheist Society.

Me: Dude, has anyone noticed that you’re proselytising?

Dude: No I’m not… That’s like saying atheism is a religion and it’s not… And there has to be a belief system for proselytising… [Insert atheist cliché here]… [And here]… Blah blah-dy blah.

Me: Right. When you stop rambling, please try to understand this. I have no interest in religion. This directly implies that I have no interest in joining the uni’s atheist society.

Dude: But atheism isn’t a religion.

Me: I never said it was. But it's irrelevant anyway - having no interest in religion almost completely infers no interest in atheism.

Dude: No it doesn’t…

Me: Don’t argue, Dude. And, let me finish – I don’t really care who comes up to sell their wares to me, be they Christians, atheists or nubiles with Smart Drinks…

Narrator: At this point we both looked over at the sensuous figure in the pleated mini-skirt and crop top as she had a laugh with another bloke who must have been on his fifth or sixth Smart Drink sample.

Me again: …all I ask is that they don’t get hypocritical or sanctimonious. Do you understand?

Dude: Yes. I’m sorry I disturbed you.

And then he slunk off. I felt a bit bad, actually, like I’d been too hard on him, but it was nearly the end of my shift on the table, and quite frankly I was a bit rattled. I may also have been hung-over, although I don’t recall this specifically.

I also may have been a bit dishonest with him – I rather liked our young Smart Drink dispenser looking for conversation and picking me out of everyone there. That is, I probably would have tolerated a bit of hypocrisy or sanctimoniousness from her.

This event was a bit of an epiphany for me, as I now went out of my way to learn a bit more about religion, atheism and the like. This took about two or three years.

Apathy does take a long time to shift.

Atheism, I saw in the dictionary, was one who believed that God doesn’t exist. Tossed that one around in my head for a bit. Decided it was too “final” for me.

I came back to agnosticism, which was a word that I recalled learning at school. I remember having someone tell me that an agnostic was one who doubted.

I looked it up and noticed that this particular definition was right up my alley – agnostics expect that evidence will never be found concerning the existence or otherwise of God.

I had been listening to the long running Skeptics show on 3RRR (don’t think it’s on anymore which is a real shame because it was an excellent show put together by the Australian Skeptics that introduced me to the work of James Randi) and I noticed that you could turn this definition on its head and view it another way – that is, an agnostic will not accept a position concerning the existence or otherwise of God without evidence.

This fitted me like a glove at the time, and I don’t believe that I’ve changed all that much since then.

I have however, noticed that theists and atheists really, really don’t understand agnostics. Probably more so than how they don’t understand apatheists.

And I’ll discuss this some more in part 3.

Adam and Eve

I've been meaning to put something up here for sometime on this one.

Over at Action Skeptics, a great blog that I really must read more, Akusai has put up a brilliant and brutal assessment of who was culpable for Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

In a nutshell, these are the conclusions that he reaches:

1. God creates a tree containing fruit that allows the eaters to know right from wrong and bans Adam and Eve from eating it. If they don't know what's right or wrong, then, well they're going to eat it, aren't they? It's as simple as that. The fact that God told them not to do it becomes immaterial.



2. If God is omniscient, then it's His fault that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, because He knew that they'd disobey Him. This also makes their mental state immaterial.



3. If God is omnipotent but not omniscient, then point 1 applies. The fact that God created Adam and Eve without the ability to determine right from wrong further incriminates God. God could be reasonably expected to know that eventually, Adam and Eve would eat the forbidden fruit. (It is assumed in points one, two and three that God is not stupid.)



4. Lastly, if God is an idiot, then he's culpable through negligence. He's negligent for setting "up a dangerous situation".

I'm still pondering the last point - negligence necessarily implies a duty of care, and I'm not sure what the duty of care is, and to whom it is owed, but it's a very minor point.

Anyway, it's a very humorous story told with much merriment.

Check it out here.

And after you do that, Beep Beep It's Me! has been at it again.

She pretty much comes to the same conclusions regarding the whole matter, and comes up with another one:

If God is omnipresent, and He wanted them to not eat the forbidden fruit, He could have stopped them easily at any time. Plus He would have seen them do it. So why did He go through the charade of coming down to the garden to investigate?

Beep's assessment is here.

It looks pretty bad for God. He's pretty much fully responsible for this whole debacle, no matter what way you look at it.

His goose, as they say, is cooked.

Why did you end up agnostic? (Part 1)

I get asked lots about this, so I thought I'd put this one on the table. For some reason, theists and atheists alike can't handle the agnostic point of view.

I don't actually get this myself, because, to me anyway, it's a very easy perspective to grasp.

And, for reasons that I'll explain later, I suspect most people who claim to be atheists are really agnostic anyway.

But I'll get on with it.

My parents brought me up to believe that someone's thoughts on religion or the like were their own business. In other words, you never ask and you certainly don't proselytise.

To this day, I have not the faintest idea whether my parents are even remotely religious - they never made us go to Sunday school, they never went to church. I don't ask, because this little voice in the back of my head reminds me that, "It's none of your business."

My mother's parents never rammed religion down her throat. My father's dad was a Methodist minister who insisted on saying grace before all meals and who never touched a drop of alcohol in his life.

I secretly think my mum is an atheist and my dad is agnostic. But this is me just speculating based on various things they've said over the years. I could be 100% wrong.

Anyway. As a result of all of this, I grew up apatheistic.

Apatheism is another concept that is completely misunderstood by atheists and theists. Wikipedia, for example, considers apatheism to be a subset of atheism. And that is clearly wrong.

Now, apatheism, as I understand it, is where you don't even consider the god(s) question, for one or more of the following reasons:

1. You don't consider the question to be relevant or important; and/or
2. You don't even know that such a question exists.

Belief or disbelief doesn't even come into it when the question either is refused to be considered, or doesn't even make it to the interviewee in the first place.

Now this can completely bamboozle your average person. Mainly because most people are prompted at some stage to consider the god(s) question. I was.

But I never directly answered it, as I never believed it to be a question that added value to my life.

Sorry, I never perceived it to add any value. I’ll discuss the “belief” word later.

So I became a happy little apatheist doing my own thing and not really giving a stuff about God, religion, or anything like that.

Oh sure, I was approached by many people along the way to convert me. One of my friends from high school joined a megachurch in the Upper North Shore area of Sydney and managed to get me along to a few shows (services? They always seemed too showy for this word). I went a couple of times out of curiosity, and tried unsuccessfully to pick up one of the girls there.

But after these little fact finding missions – I was the guy with his mouth wide open in the back row as the “congregation” (not sure what you call the parishioners in a megachurch. Not sure if “parishioners” is correct, either) went into the undignified hysteria that is glossolalia – I came out of there with the impression that (a) these guys were nuts and (b) they had no decorum.

So I started at university in Melbourne and continued on as a happy little apatheist.

While I had no ostensible interest in religion, I did have my own thoughts. The overriding ones were that evangelical/charismatic/pentacostal (I’ll call it ECP from now on) Christianity was extremely funny, and traditionalist Christianity was incredibly tedious.

And I continued like that until one day, in about second or third year uni when things changed and I became an agnostic.

And I’ll tell you about that next time.

Hate mail to Bobby Henderson (updated)

I wrote this post on 27 July.

Since then, Bobby has updated his site to include spots for commenting on each of the hate mails.

So, so much more quality reading. And so many comments in the space of 24 to 48 hours.

This is going to be a rip-roaring success.

Ramen!

Note: (13/08/2006) Since I wrote this, I've realised that I didn't put the new link to the comments page, as I thought that Bobby hadn't changed it. Seems that I made an erroneous assumption, but anyway, the new comments page is here.

You must check it out.

Hate mail to Bobby Henderson

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How, exactly, does prayer work?

When I was growing up, I never understood the point of prayer.

I still don't.

I don't see the point of it, and I don't get what use it is to anyone, least of all, God or anyone else.

Certainly, in the context of the Christian interpretation of God, praying seems like the silliest activity a worshipper could possibly engage in.

Consider this:

1. It is God's prerogative as to whether or not He answers, or even agrees to, a request in a prayer.

2. If God wants something done, He goes ahead and does it.

3. Everything is meant to be done the exact way that God intended.

4. God never gets anything wrong.

We know from the information provided that God is omniscient, omnipotent and perfect.

We also know that no one dictates God's Will except for God.

(What we also know is that, in all my years of observing believers in the act of worship, I have never once heard anyone use the word, "Please". A fairly major liberty to take with an perfect, omnisicient, omnipotent being, I would think. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that if God exists, he must be Almightily pissed off with people making demands of him all the time and not saying please, but I digress.)

Therefore, for prayer to have any benefit over no prayer at all, one or more of the following must occur:

1. God must have a rule that He agrees to the request in a prayer more often than not. This kind of overrules God's Will a wee bit, so we can rule this out.

2. There could be stuff in this world that happens independently of God's instigation or knowledge. Unlikely, given that God is meant to be omniscient and omnipotent.

3. God double-thinks Himself. A perfect being double-thinking Himself? Yeah right.

4. God gets things wrong occasionally and has to be put right by us mortals. See point 3.

On the face of it, this means that prayer simply cannot work. Unless, and this is quite likely, I've missed something.

Could someone please explain it to me?

The Chaser takes the war to religion.

Adam Scanlan's blog Crazy World is one of the most honest blogs I know.

This time around he has included a snippet from The Chaser's War on Everything which is enormously funny - and it has a go at Australia's biggest megachurch, Hillsong.

I can't believe I missed this episode. I love the work of the Chaser/CNNNNN boys. Love it lots.

Anyway, this is a song titled "I Have All Heaven's Riches Thanks To You Stupid Bitches."

Elsewhere in the episode, they set up a stall at a market and peddle all sorts of made up woo.

Cannot believe I missed this one.

Crazy World - The Chaser takes the war to religion. - WhitePage

Easter re-visited

I was recently prompted to re-visit an old post of mine ("Uoy Sevol Natas") that I stuck out there in April 1998.

My post was an attempt to put two and two together on some logical inconsistencies that struck me about Christian dogma.

More recently, I have become convinced that it will take a mind a lot more powerful than mine to put it all together in a way that doesn't use God's "get out" clause. That is, His "ineffability".

To gist my post from that period, the key points that I made were as follows:

1. At least some of the Bible is a lie;
2. God was not a good bloke;
3. God is a homophobe;
4. Judas Iscariot was a saint;
5. The Holy Spirit is none other than Satan; and
   
6. God is neither perfect nor omnipotent.

Anyway, it was with some interest that I read an article this week about a Gnostic Gospel according to Judas which has been recently discovered.

On top of this was an interesting doco on the ABC, narrated by Christopher Eccleston, which investigated who was responsible for Christ's death, called "Bible Mysteries".

Now, while I'm not so quick as some to judge who did what to whom, it always struck me that pinning the blame on Judas Iscariot was more a convenience thing, if nothing else.

What Bible Mysteries did was examine who the prime suspects were, and narrowed it down to three:

• Pontius Pilate
• Caiaphas; and
• JC Himself.

Leaving JI out as a suspect caught my interest.

Actually, in hindsight, I'm gunna start calling him by his name, or at least his "surname". JI sounds a bit like "Jemaah Islamiah".

The doco went through and itemised why it believed that these three were responsible.

I felt that Pilate's inclusion was clutching at straws a little bit.

Basically, Pilate told everyone that he was washing his hands of the whole thing. Well, what was he to do, really?

Caiaphas, Annas and the rest of the Sanhedrin had whipped up a lynch mob which was out for blood. Should Pilate have encouraged them by saying that this gathering was illegal and that if they didn't disperse, there would be carnage?

Pilate, as governor of Judaea, a self-governing Roman province, would not have had any interest in potentially losing troops from the local garrison if he could help it. Yet Pilate handed JC over to the mob despite the fact that he considered Christ to be innocent - again, what was he to do?

The Council of Nicaea sealed Pilate's fate by stating unambiguously that "Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate", indicating that Pilate should shoulder some of the blame for this, but is this warranted? Anyone would have caved in to this mob.

After all, when threatened by the church, Galileo recanted his views. We don't regard Galileo as having "sold out" - we regard Galileo as having been sensible.

Caiaphas was an obvious choice. But no Annas?

It does appear that Caiaphas would have had more impetus to shaft Christ - after all, he was the current sitting high priest. Annas was 'retired'.

I sided with the producers on this one.

If anyone killed JC, it was Him.

The evidence was compelling:

• Christ came in to Jerusalem in what would have been a pretty defiant entry that would have ruffled a few feathers.
• Christ was out to get attention when He unleashed a six-pack of whup-arse on the commercial activity in the temple forecourt; and
  
• He did, point blank, command Iscariot to betray Him.

I had to agree that if anyone was out to get Jesus here, it was Him.

The programme's producers were perhaps a little oblique about this, but the truth of the matter is that they could have summed all this up in a few short sentences:

1. He had to fulfil a celebrated prophecy by dying and coming back to life again.
2. He had to give just enough powerful people the shits for them to want Him dead
3. What better place to annoy a concentrated bunch of powerful people than the biggest city in the area, home to the Sanhedrin, and capital of the province?
4. How better to get noticed than by running amok in the temple forecourt?
5. He had to arrange for someone to betray him. Judas was a pawn who was used.
6. He had to be put to death. This would have been easy if you had got the first 5 of these points right.
7. As high priest, Caiaphas would have been forced to do something. Threatening the power of the high priest by claiming to be the Son of God probably sealed it.
8. Pilate would cave in to a lynch mob. "Incidents" would have been frowned upon back in Rome.
9. To summarise, Christ himself played everyone like they were accordions. Not even Macchiavelli could have done it nearly as well.

As far as I can tell, Christ was dead lucky that he wasn't born in this day and age.

Except for a few African countries, lynch mobs are harder to whip up now.

People tend to forget your name if a few thousand others get massacred at the same time.

2 and a half crosses for stringing me along. 2 more for actually having a Semitic-looking cast.

Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids

Just have a read of this. It's yet another one that Beep! Beep! has found.

I had to look at this several times to make sure that it wasn't April 1.

Seriously, how can anyone support a church that endorses the spreading of life threatening diseases just to support its own dogma? It's pretty awful.

Beep! Beep! It's Me. Cogito Ergo Sum. I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.

I don't know where Beep! Beep! gets these, but this is brilliant.

Beep! Beep! It's Me. Cogito Ergo Sum. I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.

Sadly, conflicting reports suggest that this case might have been dismissed, but I have an inkling that we're getting closer and closer to a case that actually goes the distance against a religion.