They Will Not Control Us

You are not the prisoners of context. You are not the prisoners of your own bodies. You don't have to be.

You can transcend this interaction. You can transcend stimulus-response. You can transcend your impulses and urges.

Set yourselves free. You have the key to your attitude. How will you confront the world? How will you defend yourself from the onslaught of circumstance?

You have the power to change. You have the power to stop. You have the power to start over. Will you allow yourselves the opportunity to become something greater than yourself?

Christians say that Jesus died for your sins. What exactly did Jesus change? Did he change the environment? Did he change the laws of genetics? Did he stop complexity arising from simplicity?

How did you and I get here? We evolved. To such great hands does the creator of the Universe entrust its creation! Our current state is the direct result of doing whatever we could to survive.

Fighting, fear and fate. These are the masters of billions of years of natural selection. We have been engineered to survive. You have been engineered to become amoral beings. To be or not to be.

That is the sole moral law of our universe. Every act you consider good is only designed to ensure a fair chance of survival. Every wrong you do is wrong because it hurts another survivor. What's the difference?

Everyone wants to survive. What's fair to me is what I could get in my position if I were you. It's easy to deny someone else. It's preferable to look out for number one. Let me repeat: to be or not to be is the moral law.

However, you are not the hostage of fortune. This is the good news. You can be better by cooperating. You can transcend your fortune. You can defy fate. You can master probability. Do you want to transcend your own mere survival?

We can create a better legacy. You do not have to be controlled by your environment. You do not have to be consumed by your urges and impulses. You each have the ability to question everything you do. Inquiry is the ultimate path to transcendence.

______________________

This post found inspiration in Muse's song "Uprising" and in The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

Deliver Us From Evil

I have had many worthwhile discussions with Demian Farnworth of the Christian blog Fallen and Flawed. Our most recent exchange began with his description of writer A.N. Wilson's reconversion to religion.

I found several of the statements made in Farnworth's analysis to be provocative. Perhaps the most intriguing statement I found was this claim:

Materialism can not adequately explain our complex world. Christianity, on the other hand, as a working blueprint for life, can.

Since a substantial portion of my deconversion from Christianity has hinged upon the exact opposite argument - that while Christianity cannot adequately explain our complex world, naturalism can provide a working blueprint for life, to paraphrase the structure of Farnworth's claim - I was intrigued to see a discussion of this argument from a viewpoint distinct from my own.

I decided to enter the fray, and set my naturalistic beliefs side by side with Christianity, and attempt to compare which view could actually better explain the complexities of our existence.

I made a brief argument against Christian theism via the origin of suffering.

Traditionally, almost all Christians have interpreted the text in the Genesis creation stories to imply that their god originally created a paradise on Earth, and that only the disobedient sin of Adam and Eve introduced suffering into our world.

If suffering is inherent in the nature of the world, and not brought into the world by the transgressions of humanity – if the evil that happens in the world cannot possibly be the direct result of a Biblical Fall as depicted in Genesis, then traditional Christianity is falsified. Do you agree?

I have found that suffering persisted in our world for an incredibly long time before the first existence of humanity, therefore I believe it is impossible that humanity is the direct cause of evil and injustice in our world, and that therefore almost all types of Christianity are either absurd or implausible.

Here's an excerpt from Demian's reply, which he made shortly after my original comment:

Second, your argument for naturalism hinges on suffering existing before man. I don’t quite understand that. How could suffering exist before mankind? And how do you know? Furthermore, how do you define suffering in terms of naturalism? In other words, if the natural state of things is beast eat beast, how can you say “that’s suffering?” How are you defining suffering, that’s really what’s at stake.

Those are good questions. How should suffering be defined? How could suffering exist before humanity? Here's a hint to what I believe, courtesy of YouTube satirist Edward Current:



At the end of the video, Current's character states:

"You know, it's almost like, here on Earth, it's every species for itself.

Humans don't get any special treatment at all, do they?

It's because life evolves - through natural selection, not Intelligent Design."

Is Faith More Reliable Than Science?

“Science is not only less reliable than faith, but faith is used in science."

Did I miss the science Crusades, the science Thirty Years War, or the science Spanish Inquisition?

How reliable is your faith, exactly? Are you a Christian? If so, what kind of Christian are you?

If you’re a Catholic, you may believe that your god directly revealed himself to a line of men who frequently embodied corruption, nepotism, and hypocrisy.

If you’re a Protestant, you’re already admitting that your faith is not 100% reliable, because why would there need to be a Reformation if faith is generally reliable?

If you’re Orthodox, how do you explain the abundance of Protestants and Catholics if faith is so reliable?

If you’re any kind of Christian, then how do you explain the plentiful and confusing abundance of contradicting interpretations of the same exact sacred texts?

If you're a Muslim, which tradition do you adhere to? How do you explain the existence and persistence of other sects? Why is your faith so fragile? Your holy book is even written in the same universal language, and you still have many of the same problems as the Christians.

You think faith is reliable? The wise walk by sight, not by faith.

An Indifferent Universe: The Original 'Original Sin'

Here's a thought experiment:

"Sin is the fault of humanity, but it had to be that way, and fortunately, we still have free will.

How do I know this to be true?

Well, for hundreds of millions of years, various animals and plants endured enormous levels of suffering before humanity existed. So it is difficult to claim that the direct actions of humanity are responsible for suffering in our world. However, one could say that suffering was predetermined for humanity. Essentially, it must then be our fault that the suffering of the world was predetermined for us. So everything's our fault (even if it's not), and we still have free will (even if we don't). Christianity makes complete sense."

Obviously, I'm being sarcastic here.

We can now determine that there was never a Paradise - that there was never an Eden - and that the "original sin" of humanity is merely our own existence in an indifferent universe. Sure, Christian tradition can try to pin the blame on a species which only arrived on Earth during the most recent instant of geologic time, but the growing evidence across nearly all disciplines of science can easily refute such a bold and unsupported assertion.

How can I prove that the only reason a god would permit evil is to bring about some other end? How can I know that this is not the only possible world that it is feasible for a god to create? I most likely cannot fully prove either of these things to you; what I may be able to demonstrate adequately is the incoherence of Christian dogma when its doctrines are contrasted with the harsh, vivid realities of our existence.

The Atheist Blogroll and ThunderfOOt

Avert Your Eye is now a member of The Atheist Blogroll!

You can view the blogroll in this blog's sidebar. The Atheist Blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to atheist bloggers from all around the world.

Hoo-ray!

If you would like to join *the* Atheist Blogroll, please visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.

Of course, I'm also going to throw in a mention of ThunderfOOt. As many of you may already know, ThunderfOOt is one the most popular anti-creationist, pro-science YouTubers.

His video "YouTube vs. The Users", which admonishes YouTube for not addressing votebots has been removed, and his account has been suspended for two weeks.

If you would like to make a mirror of ThunderfOOt's video, please visit the following website and download ThunderfOOt's banned video:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=4d77967b07dff9ac4012e8015643d9c840c71670e93b4d0b

Literally hundreds of users are re-posting mirrors of this video. Please support these efforts to reduce censorship on YouTube and support ThunderfOOt.

And if you're interested, please go see Mojoey at Deep Thoughts and check out The Atheist Blogroll. Thanks!

Dear Christian

I am inclined to believe that atheists will never be able to conclusively prove that the generic “god” does not exist. I can’t foretell this, but it seems that there are too many obstacles and unknowns to justify such a belief.

However, I believe that I am fully justified to not believe in the god of the Bible, the god of the Qur’an, the god of Joseph Smith, the god of Scientology, and many other gods which we know of now.

In all likelihood, I cannot disprove the existence of these gods. But there are things of which I know now which to me make it highly unlikely that any of these gods would exist.

Is evolution true? Then I cannot take the Bible literally.

Is the Biblical revelation, and more importantly, the interpretation of Biblical revelation, inconsistent? Then I cannot take the Bible (or most forms of Christianity) seriously.

Is the mind a product of the brain? Then I see no reason why I should believe in the concept of the “soul”.

A metaphorical interpretation of the Bible is more or less fine until I start to doubt the coherency of Christian dogma. But the incoherency is more or less defensible or avoidable until I doubt the existence of the “soul”.

Then I must proceed in doubting the premises of Christianity, due to this continually evolving set of circumstances.

If, once I begin to doubt the premises of Christianity, I cannot defend them, nor convince myself of their meaning or relevance or application or even existence, then I cannot in good faith profess Christianity as my religion, and then I feel compelled to move on to something else.

I am not here to insult or denigrate you.

I just want to express my beliefs, my experiences, and my struggles. I want to illuminate the discussions of religion and faith and skepticism. I want to contribute to our knowledge. I want to engage others in intelligent, calm, rational argument.

I am sure that you want the very same things that I do.