Deity Shmeity Quickies

Faith, as unsubstantiated belief to the degree of perceived certainty, is the most anti-intellectual concept ever created. When applied to religion, it's effectively ignorance worship.

Last month's PewResearch data that shows how atheists are viewed relative to religious groups. (Spoiler: not great)

I find that theists tend to project their beliefs onto reality. Concepts--like right and wrong, the mind, love, truth to some extent--are all more than abstractions, they are considered real in some way beyond the use of the people that conceive them. The support for this is always along the lines of "I feel it's true" or, my favorite, "we all know it, even those who put on a show of denying it." You can believe something, you can even really believe something, but you can't believe something into existence.

You Are Not So Smart is becoming one of my favorite podcasts. Each episode goes over a topic related to the human experience with a focus on thinking and biases. This episode is particularly relevant to those who spend probably too much time arguing on the Internet (or anywhere.)

Religious apologists have a problem with infinite regress, but considering they believe in a being who has always existed, I don't understand why. If we ask when an everlasting being existed before any given moment, the answer would be the moment before, ad infinitum. If we ask what caused any given effect in an infinite causal series, the answer is the cause before it, ad infinitum. So far, no one has showed what the essential difference is between the two claims or why infinite regress is logically inferior. If you know, let me know.

Deep Thoughts on a Thursday

The only way your prayers might be answered is if you say them out loud around people who love you, preferably with power & money.

There is no evidence against God. Evidence has always been natural. God is, by definition, supernatural. There has never been supernatural evidence for or against anything. The lack of supernatural evidence, is, in a way, evidence against the supernatural in general and God specifically. It's impossible to prove the existence of a criminal if he never committed a crime.

To take the slippery slope argument one step forward and one step back, we have something like this: If we allow men to marry women, next thing you know we'll have station wagons marrying palm trees.

Jesus's lessons were 90% positive, the other 10%* was his sponsorship of the Hebrew Bible, which has pro-violence rhetoric and out-dated rules. If the guy wanted to make up a new religion from scratch without staying in Jewish continuity, things might be better off today. However, I doubt he could have gained the momentum without claiming to be the Jewish messiah.

If you have faith, then you don't need apologetics. If you are confident of your apologetics, then you don't need faith. I don't understand why or how some people claim both.

I love it when a company labels itself a "faith-based" company. Do they pray for profits? I'm sure they are still a cash-based company. (this was on my mind because a "faith-based" company wanted a logo designed for them recently, I turned them down)

Ever wake up, look in the mirror, and say "I devote an awful lot of time debunking a zombie who is his own father"?

*the percentages of this post are completely subjective and guesstimated.