Human knowledge has progressed exponentially since the dawn of modern science. It is no longer reasonable to accept claims without sufficient objective evidence. The harm from religion, alternatives to medicine, conservatism, and all other false beliefs will be exposed on this blog by reporting the findings of science. This blog will also reinforce what should be the basics of education: History, Civics, Financial Literacy, Media Literacy, and Critical/Science Based Thinking.
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
No, The Religious Are NOT More Moral. In Fact - - -
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
"You" Are Not What The Religious Say You Are
Click on the link below for a 15-minute video that shatters the concept of a supernatural soul as the base of our consciousness:
Another Failed Refutation of Atheism
The experiments and treatments splitting the brain's corpus callosum falsify the supernatural human soul. |
Sunday, December 31, 2023
The Universe Is Probably Eternal, No God Necessary
Thursday, December 28, 2023
An Excellent Tool For Teaching Critical Thinking To Children
Don't be put off by the title:
"The Sunday school teacher is out. Good thing a substitute is available: Satan!Directed by documentary filmmaker Zeke Piestrup (APOCALYPSE LATER: HAROLD CAMPING VS THE END OF THE WORLD) and produced by animation filmmaker Tim Johnson (ANTZ, OVER THE HEDGE, HOME)"
Thursday, October 26, 2023
The Fine Tuning Argument AGAIN?
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Religious Apologists: Your Services Are Useless
All religious claims have been evaluated by branches of science with the strong probability that there is nothing new that will change the findings that religion is a construct of the human brain for comforting and controlling.
You instead need to adopt the state of the art regarding knowledge/information encased within the scientific disciplines of modern science. Since religion takes advantage of the weakness of the unassisted brain to understand reality, the understanding of the basic science of psychology is necessary to change the brains of you folks.
Friday, September 8, 2023
Neil deGrasse Tyson: A Clear And Concise Rebuttal Of Religion
Saturday, July 29, 2023
Christian Theology Does Not Support A Non-Material Soul
To hear conservative Christians, and even most liberal Christians, speak of the Soul or Spirit, one would assume that the Bible supports an immaterial quality to such. In fact, the Old Testament is clear that the Soul or Spirit is associated with the material "Breath." In addition, Jesus preached this same concept of the Soul. Click on the link below for a video on the matter, which, once again, debunks apologist William Lane Craig:
Thursday, July 20, 2023
The Criteria For A Prophecy Being True
Christians talk about how Jesus was prophesized in the Bible but is that true? The list of criteria for a prophecy to be true, according to the counter-apologist Paulogia, is as follows
- It was made clearly and demonstrably prior to the events predicted.
- It was intended to be a prediction.
- It was a non-mundane claim.
- It was answerable only by a single, transparent, and verifiable occurrence.
- It is not open to interpretation.
- It is not something that people are actively attempting to fulfill.
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
The Way Christian Counter-Apologetics Should Be Done
One of my favorite Christian counter-apologist is the YouTuber Paulogia. Click on the link below for an example of his knowledge and skill in debunking Christian dogma. In this example, he picks apart virtually every statement of Trent Horn, one of my least favorite people, let alone apologists (link to my prior blog posts addressing his actions), regarding his claim that, because the apostles died for their beliefs, Jesus' resurrection is true. Oh, also read at least some of the comments, as there are essentially none that support Trent:
This Resurrection Argument Doesn't Add Up (Trent Horn response)Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Exhibit A For Pretending To Be An Expert
One of the main flaws of religious apologists is rejecting the consensus of scientific experts in fields pertinent to the claims made by the apologists. While that's bad enough, some, like William Lane Craig, pretend that they actually know more about the subjects than the true experts!. Click on the link below for a video debunking such nonsense:
William Lane Craig Thinks He Knows Evolution Better than BiologistsSaturday, May 27, 2023
Emergence Explained, From Atoms To Humans
Sunday, May 21, 2023
The Latest On The Brain
- It's a tool for survival and comfort
- It distorts reality to achieve such
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Exposure Of The Delusion Of Christian Apologists
Why atheists accept Christianity, according to one major Christian apologist organization:
1. GOOD LITERATURE AND REASONABLE WRITING.2. “EXPERIMENTATION” WITH PRAYER AND THE WORD OF GOD.
3. HISTORICAL STUDY
4. HONEST PHILOSOPHICAL REASONING.
5. REASONABLE BELIEVERS.
6. MODERN ADVANCES AND LIMITATIONS IN SCIENCE.
7. EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION.
8. BEAUTY.
Sunday, May 7, 2023
Souls And Identity
The TMM YouTube channel is one of my favorite counter-apologetics sources. Click on the link below for a detailed rebuttal to the claim that humans have a material body and an immaterial Soul.
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Stop It: Dictators Do NOT Commit Atrocities Because Of Atheism
Click on the link below for the counter to this apologetic lie:
Thursday, December 8, 2022
The Birth Of Christianity And The Telephone Game
Christian apologists attempt to support their religious beliefs by looking at history but fail terribly. Click on the link below for a debunking of the reliability of the Bible, and Christianity in general, through the analogy of the Telephone Game:
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
The Gaps Continue To Get Smaller and Fewer
Anyone who is aware of the interactions between religious apologists and their counter-apologists knows that virtually ALL arguments for a God involve the God of the Gaps fallacy: a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence.[1][2] It's clearly a logical fallacy, an appeal to ignorance.
Click on the link below for a podcast discussing a recent finding that gets us much closer to solving one of the mysteries that is used by religious apologists; abiogenesis:
Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Free Will Rebutted
Click on the link below for a 13-min video clearly and concisely debunking all of the main claims for contra-causal free will:
Friday, October 21, 2022
Theology: How It Is Related To Other Disciplines
Philosophy, religion, and science are each involved with a search for truth. Science describes the way the world is. Philosophy and religion attempt to answer questions about what ought to be and why. But religion, unlike philosophy and science, is usually based on divine revelation and authority.
The word “theology” comes from the Greek words theos meaning God and logos meaning the word about (or the study of) God. Theology assumes that the divine exists in some form, and evidence for and about that existence may be found through personal spiritual experience or historical records of such experiences as documented by others. In short, theology is the study of God and of God's relationship to the world.
I consider myself to be an expert on theology. Why? Because I think the number of experts on any topic is inversely proportional to the evidence available on that topic. And by that criterion, we are all experts on God because there is absolutely no evidence for her/his existence. Many theologians make up stuff about God or quote stuff from books made up by others. My acknowledgment that I know nothing about God makes me more of an expert than those who claim to know God or to know about him/her.
Nobody can produce evidence that God is more than a thought or belief. Scientists can see stars that have been dead for billions of years and can document microscopic bacteria that lived on Earth eons ago. But of God we have no trace, except reports about God that neither the writers nor those around them ever witnessed, and the faith of millions who convinced themselves that God lives and reigns somewhere in the sky. If I told people I have an unverifiable, invisible friend that I speak with, they would think I have an overactive imagination, if not outright insanity, unless I named this friend “God.”
Most theists recognize how intellectually feeble faith is when they see it applied to anything other than their personal god belief. Competing and contradictory claims for thousands of gods by billions of people throughout history only says that humans can believe just about anything. Religious belief is not a logical conclusion arrived at after researching all the world's faiths and deciding on the most sensible one. It usually comes from childhood indoctrination and is wrapped up with values and loyalties developed at that time. People don't make a rational choice to believe in a god, so they are unlikely to make a rational choice to stop believing in that god, though some do if they become evidence-based.
In debates, I've had with Christian theologians my opponents use what is called “apologetics,” a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity against objections. Scientists don't need apologetics because nobody must believe in science for it to exist. When I provide debate opponents with biblical contradictions or questions they can't answer because no answer matches reality, I sometimes hear the unfalsifiable response “God works in mysterious ways.”
Confirmation bias also plays a large role when interpreting passages in “holy” books. For example, some theologians claim that the Bible has it right in ways that prominent scientists had it wrong. Many scientists once believed in an eternal, steady-state universe before we learned about the “Big Bang” and an expanding universe. Genesis opens with “In the beginning,” which some Christian apologists interpret as scientific evidence that the Bible describes a Big Bang beginning. I point out that Genesis goes on to say that God then created two lights, the greater to rule the day, and the lesser the night. Almost as an afterthought, God then made stars (which biblical writers did not know were other suns, many larger than our sun). The Bible contains so much anti-scientific nonsense because it's a product of an Iron Age culture, and the Bible has no more knowledge in it than the people of Mesopotamia had at that time.
I think there is a place for teaching the philosophy of religion in academia, including by religious studies departments at public universities. Also, perhaps, in theology departments, depending on how the topics are taught. Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of gods, the examination of religious experience, the analysis of religious vocabulary and texts, and the relationship of religion to science. A good religious studies program should expose students to all kinds of religious beliefs, and some students might realize that the religion in which they were raised makes no more sense than do a lot of other religions.
A fine book for philosophy of religion or religious studies is Karen Armstrong's A History of God, though more accurately it should be called “A History of God Belief.” Within authentic academia, in the absence of proof of the existence of something that something must be deemed not to exist until verifiable proof is found. So “God” should be held not to exist pending some sort of verifiable evidence.
College theology departments that mainly promote apologetics in religion-affiliated schools do not undertake a legitimate search for truth. At such schools, I like to see what science courses are in the curriculum if any. Some religion-affiliated schools “teach” why evolution is wrong. I don't so much mind theological viewpoints that incorporate legitimate science, but too many don't. It is difficult, I would even say impossible, for apologists to show how their “holy” book is consistent with modern scientific findings. I remember a time when people would feel a little embarrassed when they admitted they knew almost nothing about science. I never expected to hear what I hear from so many today, that they don't believe in science, as if science (like religion) is no more than a belief. Ignorance is not bliss and refusing to accept what we know is ignorance squared.