Month: February 2020

Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – hearing voices

Occasionally, I come upon a post by a theist and then comment on it.  A couple of exchanges in, suddenly there are “rules” that are enforced when the Christian can’t find an answer or finds the line of debate less than flattering to his points.  Oh well, that doesn’t stop reality from existing.

The post I found was on hearing the Christian god.  This claim of directly interacting with the deity is pretty common in Christianity, where each Christian is sure that they were told directly what this god “really” means when it comes to the bible, etc.   Our author states “Without God personally speaking to us, we are not able to follow Him. And without following Him, we are left following a Book and the dictates of the religious community in which we live. The problem is: The Book points to Him, and in Him alone do we find eternal life.”

That does present a problem since Christians don’t agree on what this god is saying.

The claim that god speaks to someone is fraught with peril.  In addition to the wildly differing claims by Christians about what this god says to them, we also have that Christians claim that their god tells them to kill their children, or do other heinous acts, and they follow through.  There is no way to tell who is telling the truth, if any at all.

The author states that “If someone thinks they are hearing from God, there is no telling what they might do to act upon what they are hearing.”  This is true, we have no idea and this god does nothing to show any differences between hearing this god and hearing voices if you are schizophrenic.   He also states “The other difficulty we have (and this applies to believers) is knowing the difference between what God is saying and what we are saying.”  That is indeed the case: how can one tell since each Christian comes up with a different message from this god?

In that we have these problems, there is no reason to think that anyone is hearing from this god.

Our author also tries to claim that we simply must be hearing from this god because the mind isn’t the chemical lump in our skull, it has to be something else.  What this something else is seems to be a little beyond our author since he never explains it or explains how it is interacting with the brain and acting just like the brain is its source.  We also get the usual willful ignorance from a theist that the entire universe is supposed random, when that’s not what the evidence indicates.

It’s easy to simply say “no” when you want to claim that the brain isn’t the source of the mind, but a lot harder to defend that position in reality.  That’s why our author ends up making very silly claims that if we don’t believe in his magic, then we simply must believe that our minds are “illusions” and life is meaningless.  All he has are baseless claims intended to gin up fear.

And as one final attempt to gin up fear, we have the common Christian claim that atheism somehow is responsible for atrocities, when that is not the case.  But it sure does make a theist happy to spread such fear and try to convince people that only they are the salvation, they and the “word” of their god.  How dare we know that we don’t need them and their god to be humane humans.  Humans are good without their god or any other.

Father along down the comments we have other comments by our author and the site owner like “”One things I found when I became a Christian is how much Christian denominations actually agree, doctrinally. The examples you cite are not, to my knowledge, differences held among Christians. They seem to be opinions held by those that are not.”

This was in response to a post I made that our Christians edited to not show that Christian have doctrinal difference.  What are those differences you might ask?

what morals does this god want?

what is heaven/hell?

is there free will or predestination?

what is the purpose of prayer?

What/who really was Jesus Christ?

how is one baptized and what is the significance?

do saints exist/intercede?

what will get one saved?

what parts of the bible are to be taken literally, metaphorically or ignored? 

This isn’t even remotely the end to those points. Rather inconvenient when an atheists shows that a Christian is either ignorant or is making false claims intentionally, isn’t it?

I was told that Christian are to look to the life and behavior of Jesus as captured in the Gospels and not religious doctrines.  However, again, we have problems with what JC does in the gospels and in Revelation, something that many Christians don’t like to admit to at all.

Those posts showing where JC calls people a dog, says that people should hate and abandon families and kills a lot of people in revelations are also being held in moderation.

“what would Jesus do” ends up being quite a lot of different things and that is evidently embarrassing.

Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – another “clever” Christian

Another “clever” Christian with their lists of questions.  They never acknowledge the answers and just run away. Oh well, it’s an easy post to show how little so many Christians think.

  1. Why is there something rather than nothing?

We don’t completely know yet. Still no evidence for this god or any gods.

  1. Is there any evidence that suggests the universe is eternal?

We don’t know what came before the BBT.  There are some hypotheses.  Again, we don’t know yet, and still no evidence for a god.

  1. If not, why do Atheists hold onto the idea and say you have debunked the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

Because we have.   The cosmological argument fails because it depends on an a priori assumption that can’t be shown to exist.  The laws of physics have as much chance of being an eternal cause as a god, and probably more hance since Christians and theist can’t agree on a god.

  1. If so, why do the vast majority of scientists reject this idea?

They don’t.

  1. Why is the universe so fine-tuned?

It isn’t.  When 99.999…% of the universe is deadly to humans, there’s nothing “fine” about it.  If you want to claim a god did this, what an incompetent god.

  1. If your answer is the multiverse, why is there no evidence for that theory?

I don’t and we don’t have any evidence *yet*.    Poor god of the gaps argument.

  1. Is it possible that there is no natural explanation for the origin of life?

Evidence please.  But sure, anyone of a billion gods can be responsible.  Show that it was your version of the Chrsitain god.

  1. Where does consciousness come from?

We’re not sure yet.   Seems to be from the brain since injury to the brain or an imbalance of brain chemicals changes it.

  1. Do you lack a belief that God exists or would you say that God does not exist?

The gods defined by humans don’t exist.  There is no evidence for them.  Could there be some vague thing?  Maybe, but that’s not the god you worship is it?

  1. Do you lack a belief that Zeus/God exists, or do you believe that Zeus does/God not exist?

See above.

  1. If you just lack a belief that Zeus/God exists, why are you centuries behind the rest of the world who say that Zeus doesn’t exist?

See above.

  1. Do you act according to what you believe, or what you just lack a belief in?

Yes to both.

  1. What evidence is there that Atheism corresponds with reality?

Evidence that theists claims never happened and that other things entirely did.

  1. Is Atheism a worldview?

No.  You do need to get a dictionary, don’t you?

  1. If not, what is your worldview?

Pretty close to Epicureanism.

  1. What would convince you that God exists?

Evidence.  And hmmm, which god since theists can’t agree, not even among themselves?   How about Christians being able to do what the bible says, that every baptized believer in Christ as savior can do miracles like Christ (Mark 16, James 5)?

  1. Are you willing to follow the evidence, even if it leads to a different understanding of how the universe works?

Yep.

  1. If Jesus rose from the dead, would you become a Christian?

Nope, since Christianity is based on a disgusting god.  I might believe that the entity exists.

  1. If you wouldn’t become a Christian, why would you ever accept that he rose from the dead?

Evidence.

  1. Why do Atheists keep insisting faith is blind trust, when that’s not what Christians or the Bible say?

That’s what the bible says:  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11  Why did you try to lie about that?

  1. Why do you want material evidence for an immaterial God?

Per Christians and the bible, this god has interacted with the physical on earth.  Where’s the evidence of this?

  1. Is there a purpose to life?

Yep, we each give our own life purpose.

  1. If there is, by what standard do you determine life has purpose?

My own.  No god needed, any of them.

  1. If not, what is the point of listening to this video?

Sorry didn’t see a video to watch.

  1. Where does morality come from?

Humans.  Theists can’t agree on what morals their god/s want.   They also change their morals as humans advance, insisting that they have a “new” interpretation of the same old nonsense.

  1. How do you determine what is right and what is wrong?

Based on myself and what makes civilization work.

  1. When a lion kills a cub from another pride because that’s what natural selection has raised it to do, is that morally acceptable?

For a lion it is.

  1. If evolution has put a sense of morality into us to help us survive, what makes our actions any better than any other animals actions?

They aren’t.  Again, theists don’t agree on morality so claims of an objective morality are just false claims.

  1. Is it morally acceptable for you kill a toddler because you can no longer financially support it?

Nope, but that is what makes our civilization work.

  1. Is it morally acceptable to kill a fetus in the womb because you couldn’t financially support it?

Yep, since a fetus isn’t a child.  Thanks for indicating you know the difference.

  1. Is it morally acceptable to kill a baby after it has been born?

Nope, unless it can’t live without pain and misery.   Anyone who wants to prolong pain is a monster.  Do you agree?

  1. How can you morally differentiate between a baby in the womb at 6 months and a baby born prematurely at 6 months?

You need a biology book too.  A fetus in the womb at six months has a chance thanks to modern medicine and would be treated exactly like the premature birth.  But nice try with the lies.

  1. Who was Jesus?

Perhaps a real person who was deluded.   However, this character is not the son of God, the one you claim to worship.  They aren’t the same being.  “Close enough” only counts for horseshoes and hand grenades.

  1. Why did his disciples die saying that he rose from the dead?

Because they wanted it to be true, however there isn’t much evidence for the apostles at all and we only have unknown authors writing decades after the supposed events, which we have no evidence for.  Why did the members of Heaven’s Gate say that they would be taken up by aliens and cut their genitalia off?

  1. Why does the Bible keep lining up with archaeology?

It doesn’t, but nice try with a lie.   None of the essential events of the bible have ever been supported by archaeological evidence.  No flood, no exodus, no sudden change in language, no fabulous palaces and temples, no battles of hundreds of thousands, no major earthquake/day darkening/dead wandering around Jerusalem on one certain day.

  1. Why do the three bloodiest regimes in History, (Mao’s China, Nazi Germany, and Stalin’s Russia) come from Atheistic ideas?

They don’t.   Hitler wrote voluminously about how he is following god’s will in persecuting the Jews in Mein Kampf.  Mao was acting like a megalomaniac as was Stalin.  That was the cause of their blood regimes.  Genocide isn’t an atheist idea, but we can sure see it is a theist one from the bible.

What the Boss Likes – Meet my grandfather

William Dudash

So, folks, here is my connection to World War II.  I never met my grandfather.  He was a young man when he died in a training plane crash of a B-26, which was known as widowmaker and lived up to the name.

He was originally drafted and was a MP (military police). But he had to fly.  He left behind his wife Bette and his daughter Sandra.

and eventually I came along.