October 12, 2017

A Short Summary Of The Bible

By wise sloth

Etching of Able burning a sheep on a stone altar. God looks down at Able from the smoke of the animal while Cain looks on jealously.

According to the Bible, the universe began 6,000 years ago. God created the components of the universe a few bits at a time over the course of 6 days. Some people believe the universe is actually about 14 billion years old, and the 6 “days” God spent creating the universe are actually “eras.” If that’s true, then each era lasted about 2.3 billion years. Regardless, the components of the universe were created in the following order:

1: An empty universe and the Earth
2: Light
3: Earth’s atmosphere
4: The oceans of the Earth
5: All land on Earth that is above sea level
6: Plants
7: The rest of the stars, galaxies, and matter in the universe
8: The sun and the moon
9: Fish
10: Birds
11: Animals that live on land

Genesis 1

As an afterthought, God created a sentient being out of the same inanimate matter the rest of the physical universe is made of and named his latest creation, Adam. Then as a second afterthought, God decided to create another human whose body was designed with reproductive organs compatible with Adam’s existing reproductive system.. But instead of creating the first female human out of dirt like He did Adam, God created her by removing one of Adam’s rips and then morphing it into her. Then He named her Eve.

God created a magic garden for Adam and Eve to live in. Then he placed a magic fruit tree in the middle of the magic garden and told Adam and Eve that the worst thing they could do in life was eat the magic fruit from the magic tree.

Adam and Eve obeyed God’s instructions, but one day when God wasn’t looking, a talking snake lied to Eve and told her it was okay to eat the magic fruit. Having no concept of lying, Eve believed the talking animal and ate the magic fruit.

When God found out his inventions had broken the most important rule in the universe and eaten one of the magic pieces of fruit, He got really angry and kicked Adam and Eve out of the magic garden He had given them. Then He left a flying, flaming sword to guard the garden. Historically, this was the first sword to ever exist.

Then God invented thorns and thistles to further annoy human, and He cursed all women to hurt when they give birth and ordained that men would have to spend their lives working themselves to death just to scrape by. God also cursed all mankind with original sin, which meant we would all be born destined to suffer for eternity after death unless we could make amends with our creator during the short time we have on Earth. Finally, God cursed the snake who caused all this trouble to have to crawl on its belly.

Genesis 17:9-14

Then God started handing down rules for Adam and Eve’s incestuous descendants to follow. The first rule God established was to reverse His pre-existing rule that clothes were unnatural… except God never actually said that rule. Adam and Eve just sort of magically knew it. The rest of the rules were dictated by God to humans who wrote them with God’s full authority, and they were pretty interesting:

Deuteronomy 21

  • You have to cut off the foreskin of men’s penises.
  • If you find a dead body but can’t figure out who the killer is, you have to break a cow’s neck on top of the body.
  • If you go to war and take women captive, you can marry them after shaving their head and living with them for a month. However, afterward, you can’t sell her into slavery or treat her like a slave.
  • If a man has two wives and loves one more, he still has to give his first-born son the majority of his inheritance even if he doesn’t love the child’s mother.
  • If you have a rebellious son, you should take him to the center of town where all the towns’ men will stone him to death.
  • If you execute a criminal and hang his body on a pole, you have to leave the body hanging overnight.

Deuteronomy 22:13-29:

  • If you buy a wife and claim that she wasn’t a virgin when you bought her, but her parents prove she was a virgin, then you have to pay her father 100 shekels of silver and can never divorce her. However, if it turns out she wasn’t a virgin then the men of your town must stone her to death on her father’s front lawn.
  • If a man has sex with another man’s wife, both the man and woman must be stoned to death.
  • If a man rapes a woman who is engaged, and the woman doesn’t cry out for help, then both the man and the woman must be stoned to death. If a man rapes an unmarried woman, and she cries out for help, then he must buy her from her father for 50 shekels of silver and can never divorce her.

Deuteronomy 23:1-2

  • Nobody whose testicles are crushed are allowed to go to church. Neither are people born from a forbidden marriage or any of their descendants.

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

  • If two men are fighting, and one of their wives grabs the other man’s testicles, you must chop her hand off.

Exodus 22:18

  • You must kill witches.

Leviticus 11

  • You’re not allowed to eat camels, rabbits, pigs, anything from the ocean that doesn’t have fins and scales, eagles, vultures, ravens, owls, hawks, ospreys, storks, herons, bats, all flying insects except for locusts, katydids, crickets and grasshoppers, weasels, rats and most lizards. If you eat any of these animals or touch their carcass you’ll be magically unclean for the rest of the day, and you have to wash your clothes because they’re magically unclean also.

Leviticus 19:19-27

  • Don’t have sex with animals.
  • Don’t plan different kinds of seeds in the same field.
  • Don’t wear clothes made of more than one kind of fabric.
  • If a man sleeps with a female slave who was promised to be sold to someone else, he must give a ram to the city priest.
  • If you plant a fruit tree you’re not allowed to eat any of the fruit for the first three years. You have to give all the fruit from the fourth year to God. Then you can eat the fruit yourself.
  • Don’t eat meat with the blood still in it.
  • Don’t practice divination or seek omens.
  • Don’t cut your sideburns or the edges of your beard.

If God’s children broke any of these rules, the only way they could make it up to Him was to slaughter and burn animals on an altar. This is of paramount importance in the Bible. God needed the blood of His creations to forgive his children for breaking His rules. Why did the blood of God’s creations please Him so much? There is no sane, reasonable explanation why.

Leviticus 1:1-19

God got upset once since not enough people were following His rules. So he flooded the entire earth and killed all but one family, who then repopulated the Earth incestuous. After the flood God invented rainbows. Before that time water droplets did not refract light in a way that produced the optical illusion of a multicolored arch when viewed from a certain angle.

Genesis 5-10:1

When the human population had recovered, God instructed mankind to build Him a literal home on Earth out of rocks. So men built God a house, and He lived there for a while. Once a year the high priest would visit Him, but if anyone else entered God’s bedroom they died instantly. The high priest would also die if God didn’t like him enough.

1 Kings 6

God only told the nation of Israel about how Adam and Eve made Him curse mankind and that you could be saved from your damnation by sacrificing animals to Him on His front lawn. To God, the rest of mankind was disposable. For several thousand years He helped the Israelis kill thousands upon thousands of other people and take their land. When the Israeli people weren’t obedient enough, God would do horrible things to them like burn their cities and sell them into slavery.

Genesis 19:23-26
Judges 4:1-2
Isaiah 24
Judges 15:3-20
Exodus 12:29-30
Joshua 10:11-14

Since God, Himself was literally dropping burning rocks out of the sky onto the battlefield, the nation of Israel defeated many enemies and grew large and powerful. However, God was no match for the Roman army, which conquered Israel and would later tear down all but the western wall of His house.

After Rome conquered God, He decided to alter his arrangement with humanity. In His infinite wisdom, He decided people shouldn’t have to kill animals on his doorstep to woo Him into forgiving them for breaking His rules. The only problem was that it’s impossible for God to forgive His creations without them killing other things He created. He needed blood. And since the bigger living thing you killed, the more God forgave, that meant someone would have to kill the biggest thing in the universe in order to satisfy God enough that He would not feel the need to punish his creations with everlasting torture anymore. The only thing big enough and perfect enough to kill that would appease God was Himself, and humans can’t kill God. So God found a loophole. He would come to earth and get Himself killed.

Instead of appearing on Earth instantly or building Himself a body like he did for Adam, He chose to impregnate Himself into an unmarried virgin even though He, Himself had commanded that all sexually active, unmarried women were either to be sold to their rapist or beaten to death with rocks in the street.

Deuteronomy 22: 13-28

God grew up in human form kind of knowing He was God but kind of not. Eventually, He remembered why He came to Earth in the first place, to kill himself to appease his own bloodlust so that all people, even the ones He used to think of as disposable, wouldn’t have to worry about Him torturing them for eternity. But first He got drunk.

John 2:1-11

After that, He cryptically explained to his dim-witted groupies that they wouldn’t have to give Him any more animal carcasses to buy his love. However, they would still have to know and believe that He came to Earth to kill Himself to satisfy His bloodlust, and He would force anyone who didn’t know and believe the story about His trip to Earth to spend eternity in unbearable agony.

John 3:16

He also took the time to approve of slavery.

Luke 17:7-10

Then He went to His big, stone house and yelled at the people He had ordained as His spokesmen on Earth for setting extortionate exchange rates and charging too much for animals they sold to pilgrims to slaughter on His doorstep to satisfy His bloodlust.

After being shamed and threatened by God, His spokesmen went to the Roman authorities and arranged to have God nailed to two planks of wood, which was a common punishment at the time for people convicted of treason and/or claiming to be a messiah. God allowed himself to be arrested by human police, tried in Roman court for trumped-up charges, be tortured in the street and nailed to two pieces of wood. If God loves blood, He was not disappointed that day.

In the time it took for the Earth to make three complete rotations on its axis, God experienced the supernatural torture He had been subjecting humans too, but since He didn’t deserve it, He got to leave.

On His way back to Heaven he instantly appeared on Earth (without impregnating another unmarried virgin) and scolded one of His groupies for believing He was dead after watching Him die.

John 20

Nobody ever saw Jesus again after that, but God still had a message He wanted to give to humanity. So God ordained some new spokesmen to pass out some revised rules that everyone had to live by such as:

Women shouldn’t talk in church, and if they have theological questions, they should just ask their husband at home.

1 Corinthians 14:34-38

Women should not have fancy haircuts or wear fancy clothes. Specifically, they shouldn’t wear gold or pearls. Women should also be quiet and submissive, and they’re not allowed to teach men or hold any job that puts them in a position of authority over a man.

1 Timothy 2:8-15 

Slavery should be legal, and slaves should obey their masters. This is reiterated at least four times:

1 Ephesians 6:51

Timothy 6:1-2

Titus 2:9

1 Peter 2:18

After laying down a few new laws and reiterating a few of His old ones, God dictated one final message to mankind. He promised to wipe us all out in a grotesque apocalypse.

Revelations 7-9

That was the last we ever heard from God.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

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October 12, 2017

The Mythology Test (Does your religion pass?)

By wise sloth

Picture of Osiris, Zeus and Jesus, with the caption, "MYTHOLOGY: Today it's religion. Tomorrow it's fable."

 

A myth is a story told by a specific culture that explains nature, history, and customs. Myths tend to be ethnocentric and scientifically inaccurate. Mythology is the collected myths of a culture. If you can find examples of at least half the items on this list in a religious book, then that book fits the definition of mythology.

 

1: Are there credible first-hand sources that can verify the authenticity of the events described in the book?

2: Does it have a scientifically inaccurate creation story?

3: Does it have any other scientifically or historically inaccurate events or statements?

4: Does it give supernatural explanations for natural phenomenon?

5: Does it say supernatural phenomenon exist which have never been recorded by scientific instruments?

6: Does it contain talking animals?

7: Does it contain numerology?

8: Does it advocate or condone animal or human sacrifices?

9: Does it contain multiple Gods?

10: Does it have a hero who saves the world?

11: Does it contain a demigod hero who was born from a virgin?

12: Does God or other supernatural beings have human or animal body parts?

13: Does God or other supernatural beings possess tools used by the author’s culture?

14: Does God or other supernatural beings behave like a member of the author’s culture?

15: Does God or other supernatural beings have names similar to those used in the author’s culture?

16: Is the author’s civilization the most important group of people in the world to God?

17: Do the lessons and rules in the book reflect the values of the author’s culture?

18: Does it command you to believe and hold onto the teachings in the book?

19: Does it include permission or commandments to kill certain people?

20: Does it include permission or commandments to take other people’s land and property?

21: Does it condone slavery?

22: Does it have rules regarding property rights, prices, and taxes?

23: Does it contain rules or statements that make women second-class citizens?

24: Does it say the government should be a theocracy?

25: Does it give political power to religious leaders?

26: Does it tell you to give money to God’s spokesmen?

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

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October 12, 2017

You Need To Consider The Possibility Your Religion Is Mythology

By wise sloth

Charlie Brown, "I hear you're writing a book on theology. I hope you have a good title." Snoopy, "I have the perfect title: Has It Ever Occurred To You That You Might Be Wrong?"

 

There are at least 4,200 religions in the world today, and countless more have been lost to history. It’s obvious there’s a 0% chance all of them are the true word of God. Some thinkers have speculated that each religion is at least a little divinely inspired and holds a piece of the puzzle left to us by God to put together. But the only way to come to that conclusion is to ignore huge tracts of doctrine in each religion. Ultimately, none of them are compatible. If any religion is true, there’s only one.

This means at least over 6 billion people alive today believe in a religion that was written 100% by human beings and 0% dictated by the creator of the universe. A belief system written by human beings that has no bearing on the factual nature of reality is mythology. The cold, hard truth of reality is that the vast majority of the people alive today believe in mythology and dogmatically refuse to even consider the possibility that’s true. So if you believe in religion, there’s automatically a 99% chance you believe in mythology. If you refuse to question your beliefs, there’s no way for you to know if they’re true, which increases the chance that you believe in mythology to 99.9%. This number is increased to 99.99% if your religion contains any of the following:

1: Human sacrifices

2: Moral values that reflect the needs and wants of a specific primitive culture

3: Instructions to hurt, kill or look down on other people

4: Reasons to look down on yourself

5: A pyramid-shaped authority structure

6: Scientifically inaccurate statements

7: Magical beings, powers or events that no longer exist

Some people have speculated that it doesn’t matter what religion you believe in as long as you believe in something that gives you meaning, instructions and peace. But believing in something that isn’t real is the definition of insanity. It’s not okay to be insane just because you like it because it holds you and society back.

Believing in mythology is counterproductive if for no other reason than it’s a waste of time. It keeps you busy going through meaningless motions while ignoring real world issues that have real consequences to you and the rest of mankind. Your life and everyone else’s would be improved by you focusing on real problems.

To this, you might reply, “But how can we know how to live without religion?” Remember that most of the world doesn’t believe in religion; they believe in mythology. So the real question is, “How can we know how to live without mythology?” If mythology is just a belief system made up by humans, and you’ve spent your whole life living according to those rules, you already know the answer. We can make up our own ethics, and in fact, that’s what we’ve been doing all along. We just haven’t been honest with ourselves about it.  If taking personal responsibility for your own ethics sounds scary or haphazard, consider that mythologies can contain horrible rules that can lead you to hurt yourself or others, which makes it all the more imperative you question your beliefs.

 

 

This is especially true if you absolutely insist on believing one of our religions is the divine truth.  Everyone wants to believe that their religion is the right one, but at least 6 billion people are dead wrong in their faith. Statistically, you’re probably one of them. The only way you or anyone else can find the right religion is to scrutinize yours objectively. This may sound like heresy, but it’s probably not a coincidence that you were created with the capacity for reason, skepticism, doubt, and logic. For the billions of people who believe in mythology, it’s a necessity. If your religion can stand the test of truth, there’s no danger in putting yours to it. If your religion can’t stand the test of truth, objectivity is the only way you’ll ever free yourself.

Your quest for truth isn’t just about you. Most religions encourage you to convert nonbelievers, and even without actively proselytizing on the street corner, you passively send out the message that people should join your faith just by living according to it. If you believe in one of the religions that are mythology, you’re leading unwitting victims into a trap. If enough people in one area buy into mythology, one way or another, their beliefs are going to determine social norms and even laws. This has a harsh real-world impact on people who don’t believe in that particular brand of mythology. Another danger of spreading mythology is that some people will inevitably latch onto the most violent, oppressive, absurd rules within that belief system and use them to justifying hurting other people. So before you go spreading the good word, it’s imperative that you make sure it passes the most rigorous test of truth, not just for your sake but for all of ours.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in The Bible is Mythology

October 11, 2017

Islam Needs An Intervention

By wise sloth

moderate islam

 

In November 2015 I wrote an essay entitled, “Should Islam Be Feared, Respect Or What?” in which I argued that any group of people with over one billion members will inevitably have murderers in its midst. Furthermore, most people from any religion don’t fully understand their holy book or live by it devoutly. So it would be irrational to fear Muslims moving into your neighborhood because statistically, they’ll mostly just act like everyone else. Therefore, Europeans shouldn’t be afraid of the influx of Arab refugees.

Ten days later Muslim extremists killed 128 innocent civilians in Paris, France.  Not long after, Muslim extremists killed 32 innocent people in Brussels, Belgium. There have been hundreds of Muslim terrorist attacks around the world since 1980 bringing the body count into the tens of thousands, which has made it very easy for celebrities like Donald Trump to drum up anti-Muslim sentiments to the point of hysteria.

I kept my 2015 blog about Muslims online for two years, but I finally decided to take it down, not out of bitter prejudice, but out of a stoic commitment to truth. The truth is, my original blog was lackadaisical about the risk of Muslim extremism to the point of being wrong. The arrogant part of me didn’t want to admit this, but Muslims provided evidence disproving my conclusion. I wish this weren’t true, but it is.

This doesn’t mean I hate Muslims, or that I get freaked out every time I ride in an airplane with one, but terrorism has succeeded in striking irrational fear in a lot of people. Prejudice sucks, but Muslims needs to ask themselves, how many civilians do Muslims have to kill before it becomes rational to view Islam as an imminent threat?  A hundred thousand? A million? What about when there are Muslims patrolling the streets with guns threatening everyone who violates Sharia Law?

 

 

This isn’t a theoretical question that only belongs in a freshman religious studies course. Over 100,000 people died from Islamic sectarian violence in the Middle East in 2015 alone. ISIS has killed a few thousand, and that number is growing every day. These body counts are high enough to constitute WWIII, and most of the victims are Muslims.

Islam is practically committing ethnic cleansing/genocide on itself. You may insist that Islam doesn’t pose an imminent threat to non-Muslims, but the statistics show that it’s a clear and present danger at least to Muslims. If Islam continues down the path it’s on, hundreds of thousands more will die. Even if this doesn’t shock the world into rejecting Islam, the religion will shrink as it kills itself off. On a long enough timescale, this could lead to the end of Islam as a major religion. With every death, it becomes harder and harder to explain how that wouldn’t be in the world’s best interest.

There are large Muslim organizations that have condemned ISIS, and polls show widespread disapproval of terrorism among Muslims globally, but there are a lot of Muslims who do support ISIS and want Sharia Law implemented universally. The world cannot and will not allow ISIS to survive or for Sharia Law to replace secular law. This is for the sake of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The only question is what role will moderate Muslims play in shaping the future of Islam? Any Muslim who decides to sit back and wait to see how it all unfolds is arguably guilty of tacit consent of terrorism. Even if that’s not true, that’s how much of the secular world will take their silence. The less Muslims speak out against terrorism now, the more likely they are to have to explain themselves to mobs of angry Islamophobes later.

But speaking out against terrorism isn’t enough. Muslims need to take actions such as donating to refugee relief organizations like Unicef, Rescue.org, the UN Refugee Agency, etc. or even donate to organizations that are dedicated to fighting ISIS.

Also consider that these organizations only address the symptoms of deeper problems: poverty and ignorance. As long as people are angry, hungry, uneducated and desperate for salvation, they will always be easy prey to be recruited by shrewd, militant organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda that are arguably more interested in money and power than religion and use Islamic propaganda to bait-and-switch recruits into killing for them.

 

 

Sustainable infrastructure and free education are the keys to eliminating poverty and ignorance. If every Muslim donated $1, that would easily fund the world’s first sustainable city and the world’s largest free online school. That would go a long way to solving Islam’s infighting and its public relations problem. Muslims needs to unite against Islam’s usurpers one way or another, or they may have the world united against them, and nobody but ISIS wants that.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Agnosticism 
Atheism
Secular Living
Islam
The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Islam

October 11, 2017

Karma Ghosts (My Secular Theory On Karma)

By wise sloth

Cartoon of a man pushing down a loop of giant Dominoes that lead back to him, so the last one will fall on him.

Every interaction you have with another human being gets stored in both people’s memories for the rest of their lives. Everybody remembers billions of mundane and important interactions they’ve had with countless friends and strangers. Those memories stay with us floating around in our minds long after the people who made them have gone. We dream about them. We imagine them as we’re walking wide awake through the day. We draw up old memories all day every day and play them in our imagination in front of us like looking through imaginary Google Glasses.

When you see your dead grandmother’s face behind your eyelids when you close your eyes you know your dead grandmother isn’t really in front of you, and yet you “saw” her face, and it had a physical effect on you. You could actually watch that ghost move across your brain by getting a brain scan while thinking about your dead grandmother. That’s as good as a real ghost.

The ghosts of everyone we’ve ever met don’t swarm around us all day though. We forget most people’s faces, but the accumulative effect they had on us stays with us and shapes our reality in the present. People who were treated badly by everyone they’ve ever met will have nothing but a lifetime of memories of bad people to base his perception of reality on. Even if that person can’t remember every little detail of how they got screwed over in life they remember that life is shit because people are shit. Hot chicks who get pampered by everyone they ever meet don’t remember every act of kindness done to them, but they remember that life is pretty good because people are kind. In this way, most of the ghosts of your past will merge into one big, amorphous cloud that follows you around everywhere you go and colors your perception. A life of abuse and abandonment creates a dark, rainy cloud that follows you everywhere booming with thunder and throwing lightning bolts at you; and a life of love and support creates a bright, shiny light that warms and encourages you.

In those clouds, there are ghosts whose faces you recognize. You might think of your best friends from the last place you lived all the time. The more you want to have sex with a person the more their face will haunt you no matter where you go or what you do. If a stranger did something exceptionally kind for you then you’ll remember their face multiple times throughout your life even though your interaction with them may have only lasted a few seconds. Each time you remember their face they’ll bring that warm glow with them and make you feel good even though they’re not really there. The worse somebody hurt you and the more often they did the clearer and more present their face will be in your mind, and when those ghosts show up, they bring the pain of the past back with them.

Every time you interact with another human being you both create a ghost of the other person in your mind. The more times you interact with the same person, and the more intense the interaction is, the bigger and clearer your ghost becomes in the other person’s mind. There are millions of ghosts of you circling other people’s minds haunting them in ways that you have no control over. Your past is stuck on auto-repeat in those people’s minds. Memories of you being bad are like cold, wet chains holding that person down, and memories of you being kind and admirable are like a warm sun lighting the way ahead for them.

The people you haunt negatively will act like hurt, scared, distrusting, angry animals. The people you haunt in a good way will enjoy life. Their attitude will, in turn, create more ghosts every time they interact with anyone else, and those ghosts will make new ghosts every time any of those other people interact with another person. The ripple effects add up exponentially causing all of our actions to have a profound impact on countless people.

This means you have a profound responsibility to your fellow-man. Mistreating other people is like opening the gates to Hell and letting demons loose on the world to breed and haunt innocent people in ways that literally hurt them. But being nice to other people is like creating little angel doves that fly out into the world and bring happiness and help to those who are haunted by the demons let loose by the selfish, greedy and ignorant people in the world.

The amount of karma ghosts you’ll let loose on the world during your lifetime is astronomical, but it could theoretically be tallied after you died. It would be just if they haunted you for the rest of eternity, but there’s no empirical evidence to suggest there’s an afterlife, let alone one that revolves around moral retribution. We don’t even know if there’s a meaning to life at all. It may very well be that at the end of your life you won’t have to account for the way you treated other people, but that doesn’t change the fact that people are important, and it matters how you treat them. It matters to them and everyone else. And it should matter to you because for every karma ghost you let loose in the world, thousands of the same will come back to haunt you in ways that will literally cause you pain.

It’s also worth noting that you will remember your own interactions with everyone. Your memories of yourself will haunt you more than any other ghost. If you have to share your skull with the ghost of an angry, abusive monster you’re going to be angry and miserable all the time. That’s immediate karma, and the longer you spend your life feeding your demon the bigger it will grow and fill up your reality. That’s compound karma. The sooner you break the cycle of mistreatment the sooner you can start accruing compound happiness for yourself and the rest of mankind.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Agnosticism 
Atheism
Secular Living
Islam
The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

 

Leave a comment | posted in Secular Living

October 11, 2017

9 Reasons To Be Kind Outside Of Religion

By wise sloth

1: A cosmic appreciation for life

Think about this. Everything that exists in the universe is made of atoms, which are made of energy vibrations, which have been rearranging themselves according to brilliant mathematical equations for about 14 billion years. This energy is inanimate, and yet it possesses the instructions and power to assemble itself into living, breathing, reproducing, feeling, supercomputers that are supported by a growing, healing frame that’s wrapped in layers of pulleys and levers that work in tandem to create an acrobatic range of motion. Human beings are cosmic mysteries, 14 billion years in the making.

Reality is amazing. If you’re not impressed by life or the universe, then you’re not paying attention. To anyone who is paying attention, it’s blatantly obvious that life is infinitely valuable. You don’t need a prophet to tell you that it’s wrong to hurt or kill people. You just need to open your eyes and appreciate life.

 

 

2: We’re all we’ve got.

Healthy babies will die in their cribs if they’re never touched. Solitary confinement is considered cruel and unusual punishment even for violent criminals.Nobody wants to spend the rest of their life alone, and everyone’s best memories are of times they spent with the people they loved. We need each other to survive, and we’re all we’ve got.

Sam Harris may have said it best when he said, “Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?”

If you’re looking for a reason to care about people, just go look someone in the eyes, and watch them looking back at you, affirming your existence. If you ever get lonely, you can go talk to that person, and they’ll share a whole universe of ideas and stories with you. They’ll make you laugh, cry, shout, relax, orgasm and all around live. They’re a reflection of yourself and a portal to another world. As cruel as people can be, we all know from personal experience that people are worth living for and protecting.

 

 

3: The civilian’s war debt

Countless soldiers have died horrific, selfless deaths protecting your ancestors. Countless civilians have dedicated their entire lives to studying the universe, solving problems and improving the world those soldiers died protecting. Everyone who has ever held a job is a cog in the machine that turned the savage wilderness into cities with electricity and plumbing. Granted, there have been a lot of horrible, selfish people who left the world a worse place than they found it, but that just means we owe even more of a debt of gratitude to the people who carried the slackers’ share of the burden.

Even if our actions don’t have any consequences in the afterlife, it’s still logical to be grateful when someone does something nice for you. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and we owe a lifetime of gratitude to every one of our ancestors who fought, worked and died so we could have a better life than they did. The best way we can show our gratitude to them is to continue their legacy and improve the world for future generations. The very least we can do is not be mean and tear down the world we were given.

 

 

4: Fulfilling humanity’s potential

It’s not a burden of responsibility to strive to make the world better by doing things as small as being kind to strangers or as big as devoting your life to curing cancer. It’s an opportunity to be a part of something amazing and meaningful. Look at how far humans have come in 10,000 years. We went from living in caves to flying to the moon. Humanity’s knowledge and skills have been increasing at an exponential rate, and we’re very close to reaching a tipping point in technology that will revolutionize civilization more than the invention of the steam engine or the internet. That’s worth being a part of just because it’ll be fun, and it’s not like we have anything better to do. Why not play a part in fulfilling humanity’s potential?

Sure, we might not personally reap all the benefits, but at least we can enter eternal sleep with a clear conscience, and we can rest well knowing our descendants will have a better life than we did. And if you’re having trouble finding meaning in life outside of religion, or you’re still a little worried about your actions being judged after death, you can find relief in making the world a better place. If it turns out that life really is meaningless, and nothing matters, at least you’ll have spent your life feeling good about your actions.

 

 

5: A spiritual but not religious appreciation for the divine

Agnostics and people who are “spiritual but not religious” are willing to concede that there may be some force somewhere in the universe that fits some definition of the word, “God.” If there is a God, it would be nice to know it’s true name, but we play the hand we’re dealt, and agnostics are comfortable with appreciating The Artist’s work without knowing The Artist’s name. That simple, general sense of gratitude and respect for a vaguely defined, theoretical God still tends to inspire half-believers to treat God’s creations with respect and reverence.

Many half-believers also speculate that God is everywhere and that humans are a reflection of God. Without outright believing in those two statements, the mere possibility of them being true still motivates some nonreligious people to respect life as much (if not more) than anyone who believes in ancient mythology.

 

 

6: Pascal’s Wager (modified)

Blaise Pascal posed the question (and I’m paraphrasing), “Isn’t it safer to believe in Jesus and be wrong, than to not believe in Jesus and be wrong?” This question is illogical for at least two reasons. First, Christianity is easily falsifiable. It’s blatantly mythology. Being a Christian doesn’t require faith in the absence of evidence. It requires active denial of reality in the face of overwhelming evidence.  Secondly, believing in Christian mythology is no more logical than believing in Buddhist or Hindu mythology. So there’s no advantage to picking Christianity over any other random mythology.

 

 

Still, the question raises an interesting point. Anything could have happened before the universe came into existence, and anything could happen after we die. We don’t know for sure that our actions will have any repercussions in the afterlife, but why not play it safe and try to behave while we’re here on Earth, just in case?

Of course, that raises the question, how do you know what’s immoral if you don’t have an instruction book written by a prophet? The answer is to think and talk about ethics using the brain and mouth you were given. There are logic-based moral codes out there that are far more humane and productive than mythology-based moral codes.

Atheists may laugh at agnostics for trying to guess what their vaguely defined, theoretical, laissez-faire God wants them to do. I’m not saying atheists are wrong, but they’re faulting people for hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. Hope doesn’t cost anything, but hopelessness can literally kill you. And if fear of the unknown motivates people to do what they were supposed to be doing anyway then… that’s convenient.

 

7: Immediate karma

Our actions may not determine our quality of afterlife, but they do determine the quality of our experiences in the immediate present. If we spend all day being mean to people, we’ll experience an angry, ugly day. If we spend all day being nice to people, we’ll experience a full day of pleasantness. If we’re mean for 20,000 days straight, we’ll have a lifetime of painful memories to look back on. If we’re nice for 20,000 days straight, we’ll have a lovely life to look back on. Being nice will keep us in better relationships, which is the most important factor in happiness and long life.

 

 

8: Karmic cause-and-effect

There may not be a supernatural incentive program at work that magically causes good deeds to come back to good people and bad deeds to haunt bad people. However, we do live in the world we create. If you piss off everyone in town, you’re going to live in an unfriendly town. If you’re nice to everyone in town, you’ll inspire everyone to be nice to each other, and everyone will keep “paying it forward,” creating a self-perpetuating cycle of kindness. If we keep being nice to each other, eventually we won’t have to lock our doors at night or carry weapons for self-defense. So, without even getting philosophical, kindness is just practical.

 

 

9: Humility

Religions tend to divide mankind into “the chosen” and “the unworthy,” “the good” and “the evil,” “the saved” and “the damned.” Scientific thinkers don’t have any reason to divide humanity into any such categories. From a scientific point of view, everyone comes from the same place. Everyone had their ass wiped when they were children, and everyone’s shit stinks. Everyone’s body breaks down, and in the end, we all die. You can’t level up into a more transcendental being. No matter what we do or believe, we’ll always just be walking, talking puddles of dirty water.

At the same time, we’re also cosmic miracles. We’re biological robots with supercomputers in our heads that are smart and strong enough to reshape the universe itself. A lot of care and effort went into designing us. The evidence points to the conclusion that we’re all equally, infinitely valuable…. puddles of dirty water.

As smart and powerful as we are though, we were born existentially blind. We don’t and can’t know the final answers to life’s mysteries. We’re just stranded in this cold, lonely universe to stand or fall on our own. Since we don’t and can’t know what the point of life is, it doesn’t make sense to punish the hell out of people during life or after death for getting the point wrong. We’re all equally beautiful, and we’re also equally big screw ups. At the end of the day, we’re all family too. The only logical conclusion to come to in life is that we should celebrate, forgive and help each other.

 

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Agnosticism 
Atheism
Secular Living
Islam
The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Secular Living

October 11, 2017

My Secular Theory On Ethics

By wise sloth

This essay was taken from my book, “Why: An Agnostic Perspective on the Meaning of Life,” which you can download for free.

 

KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

 

A scientific way to begin explaining the logic of morals is to look at it through a framework developed by psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg. My theory picks up where his ends, but before I get to that, I’ll explain Kholberg’s theory.

 

 

Kohlberg argued that part of growing up involves developing morals. No doubt we can all agree with that, but what he specifically focused on in his research was how our morals develop. In order to find that out he performed a study where he asked people of all ages what they thought the right thing to do would be in the following theoretical situation:

“A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, ‘No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.’ So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?”

(Kohlberg, Lawrence (1981). Essays on Moral Development, Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-064760-4.)

Kohlberg didn’t care whether you answered yes or no. He just wanted to know why you gave your answer. Go ahead and answer this question for yourself and see what Kohlberg had to say about your level of moral development.

He found that humans (have the potential to) progress through six stages of moral reasoning. Pay special attention to the last two words of the previous sentence, “moral reasoning.” Morals aren’t just answers to be remembered. Morals are a thought process, a formula to be calculated.

The first level of moral reasoning is most common in young children. They do what they’re told by authority figures because if they don’t they’ll be punished. That’s as far as their reasoning goes.

The second stage is basically defined by selfishness. Children at this stage believe that they should do what’s best for them even at the expense of others. The only time they’ll help someone else is if there’s something in it for them.

The third stage develops in adolescence. Here the individual is primarily concerned with social approval. If everyone else is doing it then it’s okay. In addition to basing morals on social standards people at this level of moral reasoning also tend to think that good intentions justify destructive behavior.

In the fourth stage, the individual believes the world has rules, and it’s responsible to follow those rules because those are the rules, and the rules are good because…those are the rules. This level of thinking is typical of older high school students.

The fifth stage is a little more abstract and is easily spotted among college students. People at this level believe that laws are social contracts we make to keep us safe, but rights are more important than laws, and laws can be changed if we change them in a democratic way. People at this level of moral reasoning also say laws should do the greatest good for the greatest number.

Kohlberg said very few people, if anybody, reaches level six, which involves abstract thinking and a commitment to following rules only because they’re true and not because the outcome will have any empirical consequence to the individual. This level of reasoning also follows that rules are made for people; people are not made for rules, and if a rule ceases to help people, then the rule is no longer valid and can be morally broken.

So what’s the secret to reaching the highest level of moral reasoning? Sure, you have to think logically and abstractly, but that statement is basically vague to the point of being useless. We can be more precise than that.

In order to think at level six you need a logical, systematic, empirically valid measuring stick. The ultimate measuring stick is the meaning of life since the value of everything you do can be measured relative to how it helps/hurts you/others fulfill the meaning of life.

Once you decide what the purpose of life is then you can judge any action relative to whether it helps or hinders accomplishing that goal. Even if you can’t figure out the meaning of life, the fact still remains that an objective system of ethics must be built relative to a goal. If you can’t decide what the objective meaning of life is then you can still decide for yourself what you think the value of life is and what you believe is the most important goal to accomplish in life. Once you have that you can reverse engineer a system of ethics around it. Without that, you’ll never be able to build a coherent, logical system of ethics.

I can’t prove that my theory on the meaning of life is the end-all truth, and my goal isn’t to convince you it is. My goal is to demonstrate how you can reverse engineer a system of ethics relative to a proposed meaning of life.

My theory is built on the assumption that the meaning of life is to fulfill your potential. Let’s see what kind of ethical measuring stick we can reverse engineer out of that.

 

MY MEASURING STICK

 

My system of ethics is based on four principles:

1. A living creature’s worth comes from the fact that it’s alive. All living things are equally valuable.

2. The meaning of life for every living thing is to fulfill its potential.

3. Every living thing needs to eat other living things to survive. Every living thing must vie for the same resources to survive.

4. The most basic need in life is survival. The second is safety. The third is self-actualization. The fourth is free will.

Let’s take each of these four principles and look at them a little more in-depth.

 

1: A living creature’s worth comes from the fact that it’s alive. All living things are equally valuable.

Every living thing is infinitely valuable, period. This also means that every person is equally valuable regardless of what they’ve done, what level of education they have, or what rank anyone has bestowed upon them.

One implication of this is that murder is inherently immoral as is the death penalty as long as the option exists to keep a murderer in prison. This rule also validates the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If everyone is equal then whatever you do to one person is morally equivalent to doing it to anyone else, including yourself. If you hurt someone else it’s the same as hurting yourself. If you kill someone else it’s the same as committing suicide.

 

2: The meaning of life for every living thing is to fulfill its potential.

If the meaning of life for every living thing is to fulfill its potential, and everyone is equal then preventing or helping someone else fulfill the meaning of life is the same as preventing or helping yourself fulfill the meaning of life.

This means you’re morally obligated to fulfill the meaning of life for yourself, and to the extent that you’re obligated to do that you’re equally obligated to help everyone else fulfill the meaning of life.

An action is only responsible if it helps you accomplish the goal of surviving and fulfilling the meaning of life in the long run. An action is only moral if it helps other people accomplish the goal of surviving and fulfilling the meaning of life in the long run.

Every society has rules that have no relationship to morality. For example, cuss words have no effect on fulfilling your potential as a living being. This means there’s no logical justification for considering cuss words immoral or punishing people who say cuss words on television or radio. The only basis for the supposed immorality of cuss words is cultural ignorance. The same thing goes for the taboos against masturbation, nudity, homosexuality, polygyny, etc.

 

3: Every living thing needs to eat other living things to survive. Every living thing must vie for the same resources to survive.

It sounds very idealistic to say that all living things are infinitely valuable, and we should help everyone and everything achieve its potential, but those ideals hit a snag when applied to the real world because every living thing needs to eat other living things in order to survive. Every living also needs to compete for the same resources to survive. This means we’re acting immorally every time we take a bite of food or collect a paycheck. How can we ever in good conscience go on living knowing someone or something else has to die so we can live?

In order to get past this, we need to take emotions out of the equation for a moment. The fact is this is the world we live in, and the survival of the fittest is one of the rules of the game. If every living thing is equal, then it we all have an equal right to consume each other in the fight to survive and grow. In cases where one living thing must die for another to live the one that should live is the one who is able.

Remember, this philosophy applies only to cases of life and death. Saying that the strong should survive is different from saying the strong should exploit the weak. Remember, we’re all equally valuable. This means we’re equally obligated to help those we can when there’s no immediate conflict for survival. Regardless of how strong you are, it’s still immoral to needlessly hurt or exploit those less powerful than you.

Look at how this applies to war and self-defense. If it’s wrong to kill then what do you do if a mugger or an army attacks you? Given that both your lives are equally valuable you would be justified in either defending yourself or allowing them to kill you. However, if you knew that your attacker was going to kill someone else after you then you would be obligated to try to disarm them by the least violent method possible. If it’s impossible to disarm them without killing them then they’ve forced your hand and made it moral for you to kill them in self-defense.

What about abortion? According to this concept, abortion would be wrong if your only reason for getting one was avoiding the responsibility of being a parent. However, if having a baby threatened the mother’s life, or if food were so scarce in the local environment someone else would have to starve in order to feed the baby, then you would be justified in aborting it.

Let’s apply this to stealing. Why is stealing inherently wrong? There has to be a more concrete reason than “because God said so” or “because it’s against the law.” Why would God or the lawmakers say it’s wrong? It all comes down to resources. You traded your infinitely valuable time to work for the money you have and the things you’ve bought. Stealing money or possession is the same as stealing life. However, this means there’s no inherent immorality in stealing what has been stolen. Furthermore, you would be morally justified to steal if it were the only way for you to survive. However, that doesn’t mean the law should let you steal either. The law has to protect people’s rights. Of course, if we all managed and shared our resources wisely in the first place nobody would need to steal.

 

4: The most basic need in life is survival. The second is safety. The third is self-actualization. The fourth is free will.

When a conflict of interest exists between two living things the one who should be allowed to proceed with their interest is the one whose interest addresses the most basic need. When the conflict of interest is equal then the creature who should be allowed to proceed with their interest is the one that can. If there’s ever a conflict of interest where it’s possible for both beings to be reasonably accommodated without one trumping the other, then they should take the path of accommodation.

Let’s apply Kohlberg’s moral dilemma to this list. Is Heinz right to steal the medicine from the crooked doctor to save his spouse’s life? That depends.

 

1. The most basic need in life is survival.

If the doctor was overcharging so he could buy medicine to save his own life from another terminal illness then the doctor was right to overcharge, but Heinz would also be right to try to steal the medicine.

 

2. The second is safety.

Suppose the doctor was overcharging solely to secure his retirement. Even though this still equates to a battle for survival the wife’s immediate survival would trump the doctor’s future safety. Thus, Heinz would be justified in stealing the medicine. However, stealing the medicine would only be justified as long as his wife’s illness was terminal. Even then, if he had to take money out of his own retirement fund to heal his non-terminally ill wife then he would be justified in stealing for the sake of his and his wife’s future safety. However, if Heinz ever came across an abundance of money in the future he would be morally obligated to pay back the doctor so he could secure his precarious retirement as well.

 

3. The third is self-actualization.

The doctor is as morally obligated to achieve self-actualization as he’s also morally obligated to help everyone else achieve self-actualization. Regardless of whether or not Heinz’s wife was terminally ill, by the doctor overcharging patients for his medicine he’s limiting the resources they can use to help themselves achieve self-actualization. If the doctor is merely overcharging to hoard profits he’s guilty of theft with no excuse and should be held accountable. If nothing else he should be forced to charge a fair amount for his medicine.

As for Heinz, he should steal the life-saving medicine and leave enough money in the doctor’s office to pay for the true cost of the medicine with maybe a little bit extra if he can afford it.

 

4. The fourth is free will.

The case of the Heinz V.S. the greedy doctor doesn’t extend this far into morality since it’s only about life and death. But once someone has secured their survival and achieved self-actualization their only obligation in life is to exercise their self-actualization by doing whatever it is they want to do (as long as that doesn’t break any of the previous three tenants of morality). Though if anyone else around you is suffering or in need, their plight takes precedence over your fancies.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Agnosticism 
Atheism
Secular Living
Islam
The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Secular Living

October 11, 2017

You Already Have Ethics Without Religion

By wise sloth

When people ask, “How can you have ethics without religion?” what they’re really asking is, “How can you have ethics without mythology?” Because religion is mythology.

So, how can you have ethics without mythology? Very easily. We’ve been doing it the entire history of our species, and everyone still does it today. Before Christianity was invented people didn’t spend their days wallowing in the mud having rampant cannibalistic orgies with their families. We were building cities, navigating the globe, curing diseases, and developing the sophisticated languages we would later write religious tomes with.

Humanity has been writing its own rules since day one. Look around you today. Your entire life is controlled by rules that nobody claims God was responsible for. There are rules for how to behave in a department store. There are rules in school, rules at work, Robert’s Rules of Order, rules for sports games, rules for war, rules for taxes, international law. Moses was an amateur. The IRS makes wrote 1000000000000000000000 commandments and counting, and those commandments have real, life and death consequences in this world.

 

 

Where do these rules come from? They came from the practical need to establish best practices to accomplish practical goals. 10,000 years ago we just needed to get firewood and food. So the practical needs of our lives were pretty simple. As society progressed life got more complicated, and we needed more practical rules to address the new practical problems standing between us and our personal goals.

We understand society’s rules and why they exist, and we still follow them even though we know we’d have to play Six-Degrees-to-God to give any deity credit for saying your car has to come to a full stop at a red light. We even have our own personal philosophies on which rules we have to acknowledge as valid and which ones are bullshit and we don’t have to follow. Every member of every religion uses their personal philosophical system to dismiss parts of the religion they profess to base their life on. Every Christian has their own personal ethics that guide which passages in the Bible they cherry pick and how they interpret scripture to conform to their existing biases.

The following experiment would prove my point: Take 100 people who claim to be religious. Have them carry a notebook with them everywhere they go for a week and have them write down every place they go and every person they talk to. Have them record a short explanation for why they decided to go and do each of the things they did that week. At the end of the week, you might have 2 or 3 actions among thousands that were directly motivated by Biblical doctrine. Yet you’ll notice they got through the week relatively okay and probably accomplished a lot of good things by following rules that were publicly and unapologetically invented by humans.

You’ll find these people even made up rules on their own, broke their own rules, broke other people’s rules and broke Christian rules without their week devolving into a cannibalistic orgy with their family. Why did they behave like such heretics, yet still manage to live a happy, kind, productive life? They used common sense to identify the most productive ways to maximize their goals according to their values.

 

 

We all do this every day, effortlessly. You put more thought into calculating your personal system of ethics than a supercomputer puts into calculating the world’s most complicated chess game. You might respond to this by pointing out that the world is in chaos and pain, but I believe that is due more to people holding onto irrational beliefs and customs than people using reason.

Bad rules stay on the books because ordinary people don’t believe they have the right to decide right from wrong for themselves, even though we’re all already doing it. When we take what we’re already doing to its inevitable conclusion, and all become unapologetic thinkers and problem solvers, then we’ll be able to agree on an upgraded social contract that effectively addresses society’s problems. But we can’t do that as long as we’re living in the past.

 

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Agnosticism 
Atheism
Secular Living
Islam
The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Secular Living

October 11, 2017

The Non-Believer’s 7 Deadly Sins

By wise sloth

1: Ignorance

Money is not the root of all that kills. Ignorance is the root of all that kills, and knowledge is the basis of wisdom. Every action is the product of a thought, and every thought is a mental equation. Just like with mathematical equations, you can’t get the correct answer without knowing all of the variables. So if there’s ever a problem in your life, you’ll have a better chance of solving it by gaining new knowledge than by praying. You should also be wary of faith-based religions that tell you that it’s taboo to learn about certain subjects. Ignorance will only cripple your ability to cope with the harsh realities of life. As Isaac Asimov said, “If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”

 

 

2: Irrational Thinking

Intelligent people still make mistakes even when they have all the information they need to solve the problems in front of them because in order to answer questions you have to know how to ask questions. You have to analyze the variables in the equation and calculate their logical conclusion objectively. Failure to do so will yield incorrect results. This is as true in math as it is in life. Thinking illogically will cause you to act illogically. Acting illogically is the definition of screwing up in life. When a large group of people acts illogically, they screw up the world. So be very wary of anyone who demonizes logic or reason. They’re a danger to themselves and others. People who think logically solve problems. People who solve problems make the world a better place for everyone.

 

 

3: Selfishness

Sometimes humans harm each other unintentionally or with good intentions. As atrocious as these transgressions may be, they weren’t done in malice. So we can say they were wrong but not necessarily evil. Legally the difference between manslaughter and murder is intent to kill. But what causes someone to want to kill someone else? I would argue that the most common cause is selfishness. Even when you’re committing a non-lethal crime such as stealing, fighting, trolling, slandering or abandoning someone, you probably have a selfish motive. There are times when it’s good to be selfish, but as a general rule, the more selfish a person is the more likely they are to harm others intentionally or unintentionally.

 

 

4: Anger

Sometimes people hurt others with selfless and good intentions. A good example would be parents who beat their children to teach them responsibility. There are very few instances in life where anger will improve your judgment and help you make the wisest decision. More often than not it will cloud your judgment and undermine your intentions. Even in the situations where anger is warranted, it’s best to channel that anger into motivation to analyze the problem in front of you logically and enact a well thought out solution.

 

 

5: Irresponsibility

Responsibility is doing that which will help you the most in the long run. This definition contradicts what I said earlier about selfishness being a “sin”, because doing what helps you the most in the long run is inherently selfish. I don’t see this as being hypocritical. I see it as being a paradox. I would make a categorical imperative that everyone should do what’s best for them in the long run as long as we add the condition that it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s quest for fulfillment. Whenever any individual fails to take care of their short or long-term responsibilities they lower the quality of their life in the present as well as the future. This causes unnecessary harm to themselves and lowers their life’s overall potential, which is all the more tragic because their loss of fulfilled potential makes them a burden on the rest of society instead of a boon. When a large group of people behaves irresponsibly then they become a massive burden on society.

 

 

6: Indifference

We elect leaders to solve the world’s problems, but often times our leaders end up creating more problems than they solve. Sometimes, we just fail to assign someone to solve very important problems. Then all of society goes on watching television wishing those problems would get solved while saying to themselves, “but it’s not my responsibility.” The world’s problems are everyone’s problems. That makes them everyone’s responsibility. Also, we all possess the capacity to think and to act. The ability to solve problems makes us responsible for solving them regardless of whether or not anyone else has blessed us with the authority or permission to solve them. We’re still responsible for solving problems even when we’ve been ordered not to by our leaders. Indifference to the world’s problems is complicity in the world’s problems. Failing to help others in need is morally equivalent to actively hurting them.

 

 

7: Faith

Your life is full of problems, and your life is your responsibility. Your world is full of problems, and your world is your responsibility. In order to solve any of these problems, you have to learn as much as possible and question everything objectively. The answers to life’s questions are too important to take on faith. At any rate, nobody has the authority to tell you that you can’t seek answers to life’s questions for yourself. Taking answers on faith makes you a slave to the people who sold you those canned answers. You’re capable of more than that, and you have a responsibility to fulfill that potential, which means you have a moral obligation to not base your beliefs on faith.

 

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Agnosticism 
Atheism
Secular Living
Islam
The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Secular Living

October 11, 2017

Should Science Be Legally Recognized As A Religion?

By wise sloth

Religion is defined as:

“1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing amoral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.

3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.”

Science is defined as:

“1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.

2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.”

People who claim to hold Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist beliefs enjoy special privileges under the law. They can demand special treatment at work to accommodate their beliefs. They can refuse to partake in activities that conflict with their beliefs. They can demand that other people alter and censor their behavior in their presence so as not to offend their religion. Religious organizations can still operate tax-free and pay their board of directors as much as they want.The military even hires chaplains to provide ethical and emotional guidance to believers and provides deceased soldiers with free tombstones in the shape of religious symbols.

 

 

Getting a religion legally recognized is a serious thing. The freedoms and advantages it gives to organizations and individuals effectively put them in a higher class of citizenship than those who can’t claim a legal religion on a human resource form. This leaves atheists and agnostics at a disadvantage in society. To a small but significant degree, atheists and agnostics are literally second-class citizens to Christians, Muslims, Jews, Mormons and Hindus since they don’t have a religion. Yet if you look at the definition of “religion,” you’ll see most atheists and agnostics do practice a set of beliefs and customs that are very compatible with that definition:

 

1: Science has a widely believed creation story

Scientists have used the scientific method to construct a far more elaborate and reliable explanation of the universe than any religious prophet. The scientific creation story has been printed in countless books that are sold in the nonfiction section of bookstores. Granted, we don’t know exactly how it all started, but we know more about the big bang than we know about Jesus. The point is that anyone who adheres to a scientific understanding of the universe holds beliefs on par with religion. Why should atheists and agnostics be punished for believing in an explanation of the universe that has independently verifiable evidence to back it up?

 

 

2: Science has widely practiced unique rituals, rites, and customs

Every religious organization has rituals, rites, and customs that define them as a unique and identifiable culture. So do scientists. By following the scientific method, scientists from different countries, who speak different languages, can collaborate on solving extremely complex problems. Science students and entry-level professional scientists get crash courses on using the scientific method to ensure conformity of behavior. These are uniquely identifiable behavior patterns that fit the legal definition of a religious organization.

 

 

3: Science has a “divine” language.

Theists may argue a belief system can’t be recognized as religious if it doesn’t have a book written by God. Though not all scientists would say math is the language of God, many have. Math is a collection of truths that predate humanity, which scientists discovered and transcribed into books. Regardless of if you believe math is the language of God, science textbooks still fit the same legal criteria religions use to justify their holy books as worthy of special honors, setting a legal precedent that science books deserve the same treatment.

 

 

4: Science has widely practiced codes of ethics.

The members of scientific organizations go to great lengths to incorporate consistent ethical values into their lives. Those organizations themselves will fire members who don’t live up to their organizational bylaws. So people live, prosper, suffer and die by secular ethical codes written in books that are already endorsed by the government.

 

 

According to the definitions of the terms “religion” and “science,” and the precedents set by protected religious groups, science should be recognized as an official religion for the purpose of honoring the rights, privileges, and freedoms due to practitioners of those beliefs and behaviors. If you think this is nit-picking and anal and not that big of a deal, then you should have no problem letting this insignificant little issue get passed into law. Or maybe we should just stop pampering people because they believe in fairy tales and let everybody be equal under the eyes of the law.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:

 

Agnosticism 
Atheism
Secular Living
Islam
The Bible is mythology
Christianity is Harmful to Society
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
Christian Culture
My Tweets About Religion

 

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