God Offers No Choice

God's judgment, as seen by most theists, can only be just if those judged choose to sin or be saved. I believe we are not free to choose anything if our present and future is known by an omniscient being. Allow me to show my work by analogy.

Just before his death, Lincoln seemed to have made a choice to go to Ford's Theatre. From the President's perspective he felt he had a choice, but look at it from our perspective. Lincoln's action is an historical event which is known. Lincoln, essentially as a character in a history book, has no choice but to go to Ford's Theatre because any action on his part has been acted. Even if we went back to Lincoln's time, armed with our fore-knowledge, Lincoln would still be bound to the actions that we know he will make (providing we don't interfere, of course.) This means that Lincoln's perceived choices, and our own, are an illusion if a being is capable of viewing us as history either in the present, future, or independently of time.

Set up a camera on someone. They will do a variety of things that you probably wouldn't be able to predict in the moment if you were there. However, if you watch the video later, then watch it again, upon second watching you will be able to predict perfectly their every move. The person on camera, while acting, perceives free will from their perspective. However, the recording of the person, from the perspective of the omniscient video watcher, is not free to act. To anyone who knows our future, we are essentially a recording.

A being with all-knowledge of an event, whether it be God or a well-studied time traveler, would view the present as a history or recording. There are no surprises to this being because there is only one way for the events to unfold. Each person involved follows only one path. No choices are made because choice deals with the availability of options and there are none.

If choice is only an illusion of our limited perspective as this shows, then a god's sentence of eternal reward or eternal punishment is exacted upon helpless people with no ability to change their fate. It is exactly as fair and just as arbitrarily and immediately sending newborn babies to heaven of hell.

Morality and the Definition Divide

Search “morality” in Merriam-Webster and the first definition you’ll see is “beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior.” That’s beliefs, plural. This implies that what I believe is right and wrong isn’t the only belief out there, which should be obvious. Add the word “objective” in front of a word with a definition like this and the result is an oxymoron. Morality, by definition, is subjective. Case closed.

Well, of course the case isn’t closed. I can’t cite Merriam-Webster and expect millennia of philosophy to buckle.  Honestly, it isn’t even justified. Merriam-Webster has four definitions for the word “morality,” and MW is hardly the only dictionary in circulation. Should I go with the terminology of Google? Wikipedia? Who is the linguistic authority here?

Few theists will deny the reality that different beliefs of right and wrong behavior exist, they just believe one in particular belief is true in an absolute and objective way, conveniently, it’s their own. Digging deeper we need argument on more definitions. What does right mean? What does wrong mean? According to the first entry of Merriam-Webster, right behavior is that which is morally or socially correct or acceptable. Apologists reject any definitions of right and wrong in terms of what is acceptable because those definitions are subjective. They say, “what if people find rape acceptable, then is rape right by this definition?” That is true, by this definition. Finding it distasteful doesn’t strike it from the vernacular. If it did, we likely wouldn’t have a word for “rape” to begin with. Still, they want another definition. Lucky for them, there are 15 other definitions in MW alone, some of which tell us little. Right behavior is defined as what is moral, what is moral is defined as good behavior, and good behavior is defined as right behavior. Thanks. Zero help.

Apologists also don’t like definitions that are relative. This means defining right behavior as that which benefits others or causes no harm is a no go. They don’t see morality as a social contract, they think it exits independent of those capable of moral choices. In other words, rape was wrong in some transcendent way even before living creatures existed to rape or be raped. Where does that leave us?

It leaves the majority of us using relative and/or subjective definitions while apologists demand words with meanings that are absolute and objective. Words like...okay there are no words like that. Language is a human invention that at some point paired concepts with arbitrary strings of letters. I’ve spent the last couple weeks trying to understand how apologists arbitrarily paired their words.

I tried asking apologists to define “right” behavior. They did their best not to, but when pushed I received the following responses.

• “The right thing is what we ought to do.”
• “The right thing is part of God’s nature.”

There is something interesting about each of these apologetic definitions.  “Ought” implies obligation. Ought to according to whom? The answer is, of course, God. The second answer explicitly mentions God as part of the definition. It’s clear from this that many religious apologists frame their understanding of morality with God as a fundamental prerequisite. Given this understanding, they are completely correct to say morality requires God, but not by logic or deduction, rather by definition. The perceived validity of the moral argument for God then is a product of indoctrination. Any outsider with a secular understanding of the terms, should see the moral argument for God as entirely circular. The conclusion, that God is required for morality, is assumed from the start.

"How can you judge something as immoral without a divine moral foundation?"

Some theists claim that when atheists judge the character of God in the Bible as immoral, they show that they have a sense of objective morality which could only be present if God is a foundation for morality.

By claiming this they are implying that the atheist's judgement is objectively correct. These theists either must agree that God is objectively immoral or admit that the atheist's judgement isn't objectively true thereby discounting their claim that the atheist's judgement shows that we have a sense of objective morality.

Religion and Geography

The following is a syndicated post by the wise Ugo Cei.

"If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, you would have a 98% chance of being a Muslim."

You've heard that argument already, right? You have also probably heard the rebuttal that it's an example of the Genetic Fallacy: The fact that what you believe depends on where you were born does not mean that what you believe is false.

In a sense, those who object to the argument on those terms are right. When interpreted as an argument against god, it just doesn't hold. However, the true power of the argument is not as a tool to prove there is no god and I am not sure whether it is mostly the believers who like to interpret it as such, so they can have an easy job tearing it down, or the non believers, who didn't really think it through.

The fact that, exceedingly, religious affiliation depends on geography or family history, is only useful together with the fact that, for almost every believer, geography is the main reason why they choose to believe in a particular god. All other possible reasons play a very minor role. If this weren't true, we'd see much more of a patchwork in the map below.

The argument is not that, if your belief depends on geography and family history, your god is likely false. That would be an example of a genetic fallacy.

The argument is that, if your belief depends only on geography and family history, then it has no more chances of being true than the god of the muslim guy, or the hindu guy, or the christian guy who lives right across the border.

And this is not a genetic fallacy.

When Christians Tell Me How Nuts Scientology Is

The Failed Prophecy of Jesus' Return

Hat tip to Hausdorff for actually reading the damn thing.

Sins as Crimes

Imagine you have a son mid-puberty. He appears to grow another inch every day, but his vocal cords are struggling to keep up with the man he is becoming. You’ve had the “birds and bees” talk, but whatever knowledge or values you managed to impart were filtered through the teenage mind. One day the police come to your door with a warrant for your son’s arrest. They take him into custody and make his bedroom a crime scene. You don’t get a full explanation until you follow the police cruiser to the station. Internet traffic monitoring provided just cause to make the boy a suspect for multiple counts of pornography viewing. Their CSI team then did a blacklight sweep and discovered suspiciously placed sperm discharges. Your son goes to court and is found guilty of both consuming pornography and masturbation, both serious felonies. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In this alternate reality, not only are watching porn and beating off crimes, they carry the same penalty as the crimes of rape and murder. Replace the word “crime” with “sin” and “police” with “God” and this alternate reality mirrors the divine judgement as described by many religious denominations. Catholicism, for example, considers porn, masturbation, rape and murder interchangeable as mortal sins--meaning that if any of these go unrepented God will send you to hell.

My question to theists is this: would you be comfortable with your government judging crimes the same as you believe God judges sin? I doubt anyone could truthfully answer “yes,” which implies that they’d be fine with their son being hauled away in the above scenario. If I were to guess, I’d say I won’t get many theists answering this question at all. To make this easier, allow me to address what I suspect will be their two main issues with the hypothetical.

“God judges, man should not.” Okay, then I assume you are comfortable with revoking all laws of man. From now on no earthly repercussions for murderers and rapists, let God sort them out. Not ideal? Okay, moving on.

“God sacrificed his only Son to save us from the punishment we deserve, providing we repent and/or accept Jesus as our Savior.” Applying this to our analogy, anyone convicted of a crime, be it masturbation or murder one, will be let free as soon as they admit to the crime and ask forgiveness. This will free up the prisons and put everyone at risk by, again, effectively taking away earthly consequences. I understand that for most religions the asking for forgiveness is ideally sincere and paired with an honest attempt to never sin again, but theists must also admit that the attempt nearly always fails and cite our sinful (or in this case criminal) nature as the cause. Same applies here. A stricter reading of this issue would make the criminal in question need to beg forgiveness from the State, worship either the arresting officer or the President of the State, and act in service of the State until they die in order to escape the sentence of life in prison. God, if he exists in any capacity similar to the beliefs of Abrahamic religions, is no more just or merciful or loving than a totalitarian government with 24/7 surveillance and absolute enforcement. Knowing that I once thought otherwise is a testament to the power of indoctrination.

Would I Play By God's Rules If I Knew He Was Real?

If I could know that the Christian God exists, would I worship him? Let’s explore the angles.

Why I should not worship Jehovah:

Regardless of apologetic talking points, the God of the Bible is imperfect. He makes mistakes and he contradicts himself. Between creating a talking serpent that thwarts his own plan and feeling the need to sacrifice himself (or his son, depending on who you ask) to change his own rules of eternity, God has done little to inspire worship. I would also have to excuse divine choices that I fundamentally disagree with--like allowing anyone to suffer infinitely for finite sins. I imagine some of those suffering I even knew in life. Complying with God’s wishes and humbling myself to him would be like a German with freshly dead Jewish friends admitting allegiance to Hitler.

Why I should worship Jehovah:

While their commitment to extreme punishment for those they consider distasteful is on par, God and Hitler have some major differences. God forgives and shows mercy as long as you follow his strict criteria. I doubt Hitler would consistently allow Jews to live even if they all agreed to become Nazis. Also, unlike Hitler, we wouldn’t be here if not for God. The man upstairs also managed to impart some positive life lessons, so perhaps the Almighty deserves at least as much respect as my parents. More than this, the nummero uno reason why I am compelled to worship Jehovah is because I will go to hell if I don’t. Yes, heaven also factors in, but the stick is more compelling then the carrot in this case.

Weighing the options. I completely understand the anti-theists who call God evil, but I wouldn’t go that far. Yes, he kills humans, but I kill bugs. I eat cows and chicken and delicious, delicious pigs. I don’t consider myself evil so I would be hypocritical to call God evil. We are inferior to him in all respects (unless you include human-centric morality.) I can call God irresponsible, unfair, even cruel--but not evil. When it comes down to it, I would be completely unprincipled and play according to God’s rules, yet I think I would. I’m not proud of it. I am fully aware how that makes me a Nazi, but I’m also aware how it doesn’t. I like to think I would have sacrificed everything to fight Hitler even as a German under the pressure of death and threat to my family. I think I would because I could have rationalized that Hitler could be overthrown and any contribution to that cause is worth anything. I can’t rationalize that the Almighty can be overthrown. It’s right there in the name, all mighty. I would worship an erratic tyrant and try desperately to convince others to follow suit because no cost or benefit in our x number of years on earth compare to the forever after. To keep some scrap of dignity I would tell myself that one day in heaven I’ll be able to talk some sense into God...that won't happen. Mostly because Jehovah doesn’t fucking exist.

Doubting Solo

This week’s meme got my thinking about Han Solo one-liners.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. 

Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls *my* destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense. 

I've got a bad feeling about this.

His quotes apply wonderfully to our world but I can’t quite embrace him as a skeptical role model because, in the Star Wars universe, his is dead wrong. The “hokey religion” in question, the Force, is true. Han had the right idea to doubt the Force because Jedi were inactive during his formative years making the extraordinary claims of the Force a matter of faith. He, rightly, came around when he witnessed his new friends levitating shit.

Theists seem to think atheists are close minded and in denial. We aren’t, we just need that demonstration. It is within God’s power (supposedly) to levitate objects and bend natural law, theists should pray to get him to do it. If I saw someone using the Force I’d immediately drop my career in favor of Jedi training. Likewise, you better believe I’d become a Christian.

Want to convert me? Use the Jesus, theists. If he can’t do it, you might want to rethink his power, influence and existence.

Hokey Religions & Ancient Weapons

Top Ten Authentic Biblical Miracles

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On Persecution

After the man we know as Jesus kicked the bucket, his followers had a hard road ahead. The ruling class was largely unimpressed by the alleged miracles and sought to suppress speech and action that could be seen as revolutionary or offensive to their god of choice. Early Christians would meet in secret for their safety at a kind of church speakeasy. I imagine the first rule of Christ Club was that you did not talk about Christ Club. When met with a newcommer, they faced a dilemma. Should they turn away a person of faith or reveal themselves to a potential sting operation?

I doubt what follows is the invention of the secret handshake (especially since hands aren’t involved,) but it was likely an early iteration of the concept. Here’s how it went down: A Christian would draw an arch in the sand with his sandal, then a second Christian would reveal himself as a friend by drawing an intersecting arch--making what we would recognize as the Jesus fish in the sand.

A Catholic priest told me this story. It may or may not be true. I don’t have a great track record gaining accurate information from clergy. Since this tale contains no miracles and Snopes wasn’t around back then, I’ll at least accept it’s premise. Christians were persecuted. They are still persecuted in some parts of the world, Muslim countries for example. You know who else are persecuted in Muslim countries? Atheists and Jews and, well, non-Muslims. Every minority viewpoint that runs contrary to the majority is persecuted.

What gets me is that Christians in America still say they are persecuted. Relatively speaking, that is ridiculous. We just came out of an election year where one of the more accepted-as-kooky Christian sects. Mormons, had a candidate that almost won! To the so-called persecuted Christians out there, what chance would an open atheist have had running on the Republican ticket? None. Zero. Come 2016, there isn’t a political advisor in the country, Democrats included, that would recommend coming out as atheist prior to election.

“Coming out.” We actually have a name for the reveal of our divine disbelief. Technically, we share the term with gays...who I should mention are far better represented in the media then atheists. Out of the 20 proud atheists I've interviewed, only seven use their full real name--or should I say at most seven, I haven't confirmed even those names aren't aliases. Each blogger has put a ton of time into their projects and can barely take credit of them because of the association to their real life could bring negative consequences. It's sad. And here I am, Grundy. No, my parents weren't mean enough to name me Grundy, but if they knew the extent of atheist activism I engage in, I would never hear the end of it. I am forced to live with an alias and not teach my mom how to use a computer.

If you're a put-upon Christian or make-believe martyr, I don't want to hear it. My country is one where those who don't accept a history of magic are pariahs.

The Vampire Clause

Why the Church Fears Gay Marriage

I’ve been thinking about the repercussions of legal gay marriage. We’ll have happier gays, obviously, with the longstanding joke that this will swiftly be followed by unhappier gays. Many of the religious say it will be followed by a drive for legalized bestiality, cat and dogs living together, and mass hysteria...but I think they’re just saying that. I bet they know that the much more likely consequence is that it will lead to a more secular America--an even scarier thought from their point of view.

In the not-so-distant future, gays will be able to marry in any courthouse and many progressive churches across the land. Hold outs, like the Catholics, we be able to deny gay ceremonies within their church. The gay rights wave will likely have enough momentum to brand this as the kind of discrimination that is no longer allowed outside of the umbrella of religious freedom. While a popular reception hall owned by a Catholic businessman will not be able to turn away paying homosexual newlyweds anymore than an office can stop a woman’s progress up the corporate ladder on account of her gender, a church can refuse to wed gays as easily as they can prohibit women from going into the priesthood. Religious freedom trumps discrimination in the eyes of the law, but in public opinion? That’s a different story. As the exceptions for the Church’s otherwise illegal actions continue to mount, I see their congregations continuing to shrink and their leadership continuing to bend. Eventually, a Pope will finally agree to give his blessing to gay marriage, overruling biblical text as they’ve done in the past.

At this point, the church will be two-fold weaker. The delay in their decision will have diluted their numbers and the decision itself will have diluted their relevance. There will be the usual sects that break off to maintain their conservative (read backward) views, but they will become the mocked fringe in a culture that has moved on. Outside of the self-hatred of closeted religious homosexuals, I think fear of this scenario is the central cause of the disproportionate outrage over gay marriage. They don’t fear for the souls of gay sinners so much as for their own lost legitimacy.

What To Give The God Who Has Everything?

I’ve written before about how the omni-traits of the Christian God make him logically impossible. We've got the common paradox asking whether God could create a stone so heavy even he couldn’t lift it. Then we've got paradoxes that show God is in some ways less capable then us puny humans. For example, I can make a sandwich so big that I couldn’t eat it, which God shouldn’t be able to do without exposing a limitation. I can also commit suicide, which is off the table for any eternal being.

Now, beyond the paradoxical, I thought of another way Jehovah can’t be omnipotent--because he either needs or wants glorification. A common theme of the bible and therefore Christianity is the call for humanity to worship the Almighty and give all glory God. This is obviously very important to the big guy. My question is: can a being who needs or wants for anything be omnipotent? I’d be interested in my readers thoughts on this.

Not Blessed, Lucky

Flip a coin. Call heads. It’s heads! Congrats, you are on the winning side of what was a 50% probability. This means that your guess of a random, binary outcome was correct. Few would say it was because the god of loose change smiled upon you. However, the few become many when the odds become increasing hard to overcome. Take the long-shot win of a lottery for example. It is understandable that one would conclude that reality is playing favorites. Since the universe can’t make choices, an agent with control over the universe is invented to explain the great fortune of some and the misfortune of others. I would guess this is one of the many reasons that contributes to the origin of religious belief in almost every culture.

It’s not all simply a numbers game of financial gain either. Say, you meet the right person and fall in love. It can feel like a supernatural force brought you two together to fulfill an ultimate destiny. Humans are romantic like that. In reality it means that you were open to sharing your life, found someone compatible of the pool of hundreds of people you come across weekly, and had your feelings reciprocated. There are many such seemingly serendipitous events in our everyday life.

My favorite microcosm of luck confirmation bias is finding the bright side of a calamity. Consider that you are spared the full consequence of some misstep of tragedy. We’ve all heard someone say how blessed someone was for surviving a car accident. “You must have a guardian angel,” they say, “God was watching out for you.”

This combination of optimism and superstition is at the heart of faith. We can see the silver linings of such dark clouds and dress them as a deity who didn’t cause the accident, but rather rescued someone from the jaws of death. It's not only mistaking angelic intervention for human ingenuity in the form of seat belts, airbags and crumple zones; it's not acknowledging that shit happens, both good and bad. Belief in magic informed our past, but moving into the future we should all keep in mind...we’re never blessed or cursed, just lucky or not.

Don't Assume Your God is an Asshole

Pascal's Wager is a gamble for a favorable afterlife built on one wild assumptions after another. If you use this, you're assuming there is a God first and foremost. Then you assume there is an afterlife. Then you assume there are multiple versions of the afterlife. Then you assume that belief can dictate where you go in the afterlife. Whether your assumptions are correct or not is no big deal up to this point, but that all changes when you assume that you know the very specific nature of God and what he wants from you. If you're wrong, then you could be the one forfeiting heaven just as easily as anyone else--Christian, Muslim, Pagan, Atheist, whatever. In fact, by making the wager you are worshipping a false idol, a damning sin in most deities books. The end result of the wager is the same for everyone. You are guessing at something that, if you are wrong, could earn you hell. Opting out of the wager is the safest move to avoid the "having other God's before Him" scenario.

The only reason to make the Christian assumptions is to accept the authority of the bible, and, let's face it, if nonbelievers did that then there would be no need for Pascal's Wager in the first place. Turning the gamble on it's head by assuming God will reward atheism and punish theism suddenly puts believers at risk. Why would God reward atheism and punish theism? I could answer "mysterious ways" here and make my wager just as valid as the next apologetic argument, but if you think about it, it is consistent with our own nature. I don't want my kids to worship at my alter, I want them to think for themselves. If I was an absentee father I certainly wouldn't expect them or likely want them to the look for me. Since God shows no sign of his existence, at least to me, He is like an absentee father, but if theists want to assume He's a narcissistic asshole as well, I hope they are comfortable in their very real codependency with a very imaginary master.

Gay Marriage Opponents are Bigots

It’s no secret that the religion fueled, hot button issue of the day is gay marriage. Like it's religion-fueled issue of abortion, gay marriage one of those nasty debates where generalized accusations fly based solely on one’s stance. Gay marriage supporters are endorsing immoral behavior. Gay marriage opponents are bigots on the wrong side of history. Both sides not only deny the accusations, but frame them in such a way that they no longer makes sense. I’ll argue that only one side of the issue has internally consistency.

Gay marriage supporters deny the claims by refuting the authoritative worth and/or truth of the bible, which is the only possible reason homosexual behavior can be seen as immoral. This makes me happy on a few levels. Since the America is pretty evenly divided on the morality of homosexuality, that means roughly half the population refute the authoritative worth and/or truth of the bible. Considering how many people belong to Bible-centric religions in the US, this means that most of them aren’t nearly as sold on their faith as survey data shows. They are my favorite kind of Christians--those that are Christian in name only. The most secular gay marriage supports make the accusations against them nonsensical in their warranted rejection of “sin” as a concept.

The opponents of gay marriage originally pushed that homosexuality was a choice, but this argument didn't hold up. First, there was a problem calling the majority of those who are an authority on homosexuality, gays themselves, liars. Second, there was a problem that if homosexuality is a choice, then so should heterosexuality be a choice. The straight opponents refused to accept this. Now, opponents deny claims of bigotry with their “hate the sin, not the sinner” rhetoric. Denying a person rights and branding them immoral for who they fundamentally are is the definition of bigotry, but focusing their intolerance on the one action that separates the gays from the breeders (that is, homosexual sex) is a loophole in the bigotry label--at least in their eyes.

This loophole is many things, but internally consistent isn’t one of them. Since the only way to see gay sex as immoral is by appealing to Abrahamic religious traditions, then we should measure their entire argument by the same standard. The bible repeatedly states that sins of the heart and mind are just as damning as sinful actions. Hell, it’s even in the commandments. Thou shalt not covet is an entirely separate command from thou shalt not steal. When using the bible as their guide, the unavoidable and internal homosexual attraction is just as sinful as the active and external homosexual sex act. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that gay marriage opponents are, in fact, bigots.

Divine Entrapment

I'm on a Noah kick this week. I know it's an easy target. I know not all Christians take it literally....but if you are a theist who doesn't take it literally, I have to ask why not? I would guess it is because it is too unbelievable, but if that's the case...why believe the resurrection? What makes return from the dead more believable than world-wide flooding?

Magic Salvation