Atheism is not a religion

If you think Atheism is a religion then I have a cure for your problem. First you will need to collect some supplies. You will need a large vacuum chamber, a hose and a vacuum pump. Connect ‘em all up. Now you need to plug in the vacuum pump and quickly climb into the vacuum chamber, taking care to close and seal the hatch behind you. Now this may sound a little dangerous, but as you well know, the absence of a thing is still that thing. Absence of religion is still religion and absence of air is still air. You’ll be able to breathe just fine! Run along now. The rest of us will wait until you come back.

Well, actually I’m not going to wait. I suspect those folks might be a while getting back. If you’re still here reading, then I assume you don’t need to be cured of the silly belief that Atheism is a religion. You must instead be interested in why I would write about something as obvious as the fact that Atheism is not a religion. As you might have guessed, the slick disinformation campaign operated by the religion industry aggravates me just a bit. I view the claim that Atheism is a religion as just another lie told to keep gullible people confused and protect the profitable business of religion. The difference between Atheism and religion is that Atheism doesn’t make up stuff to answer supposed questions. No fairytales. No mythology. No unicorns. Just the facts, Ma’am!

Publicity banner #4

A fellow counter-protester at the Catholic empire’s “West Coast March for Life” noted a grammatical error on one of the other publicity banners. Oops! Can’t have that – Atheists are supposed to be the intelligent ones. So reordering that banner with correct grammar. Because of all the positive comments on the three original banners I decided that while I was ordering anyway, that I would go ahead with this fourth design.

Hopefully the banners will get origin-of-religions.org under the noses of the religious fundamentalists, “creationists,” and those other delusional folks I see posting their irrational bibble babble across the Internet.

Monkeys in Government: Congressman Jack Kingston

Just saw Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) repeatedly deny that his ancestors included some in common with monkeys. He tried several gambits which are popular with “creationists.” One gambit was that if evolution took place over the millions of years claimed by the theory of evolution then there would be a lot more fossils. Jack thinks there should be more fossils. This demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of the natural sciences and the “big picture.” First of all the entire world economy is fueled by the fossil record. Every bit of coal and every drop of petroleum extracted from the planet was once part of a living plant or animal. There is a reason why coal and oil are called “fossil fuels.” The fossil record is huge. Now in fairness Jack was probably referring only to bones. But if one wishes to consider only bones then they must consider the odds against any particular specimen being preserved. The odds are overwhelmingly against it. Most carcasses are destroyed by scavengers. The relative few carcasses which get buried quickly enough to be preserved are then subject to destruction by massive recycling processes which constantly reshaped the continents. Land is uplifted at the edges of continents by the movements of tectonic plates which form the planet’s crust. Then erosion breaks down the resulting mountains and carries the sediment to the sea. These processes efficiently erase huge amounts of the geological record and any fossils contained therein. One must also consider that fossils which remain buried are also effectively out of reach of scientists. Fossils only become available to scientists when erosion removes most or all of the overlying layers. If erosion exposes fossils and scientists do not quickly find and recover the fossils then those fossils are lost to scientific cataloging and study. When one considers all these factors it is clear that the fossil record which we have collected is actually amazingly large and complete.

$1000 Prize for Evidence Disproving Evolution

I had planned to wait until February 13^th to announce this, but there is so much idiocy out there that I have decided to go ahead early. I will award $1000 to the first person presenting unambiguous evidence which supports “Creation Science” or “Intelligent Design Theory” or which disproves certain conclusions published at origin-of-religions.org or which disproves the Theory of Evolution. The governing rules will be posted at the origin-of-religions.org website. Here are the particulars. The $1000 will be presented to the first person who presents unambiguous evidence which

1) Disproves the modern understanding of the theory of evolution, or

2) Disproves certain conclusions published at origin-of-religions.org, namely that religions evolve according to rules similar to those driving evolution of computer viruses and the evolution of life, that the resulting religions have acted and continue to act as a significant selection pressure on the human gene pool, and that as one consequence of that selection pressure, the human gene pool has been skewed toward brains with a genetically mediated predisposition to harbor religion.

3) Proves “Intelligent Design Theory” (Prize award only for proving the original “Intelligent Design Theory” not my version as defined in the Essay “The Irony of the proof for Intelligent Design Theory,” because I’ve already “proven” that version!), or

4) Proves “Creation Science.”

Evidence presented must be “scientific” in nature, where “scientific” means some combination of repeatability, knowledge of provenance, or other characteristic of the evidence which proves its scientific validity. In particular, evidence is not “scientific” if it is self-referential or relies on “circular logic.” For example, “creationists” often advance the Christian Bible as evidence of “God” and “creation.” The “Christian Bible” is in fact nothing more than evidence of the syncretic evolution of religion. The history of the “Christian Bible” reveals multiple authors and unknown provenance of the various writings which have been bound together. Evidence presented must be presented publically and be subject to scientific scrutiny and inquiry. For example it took a very long time to prove the “Shroud of Turin” was a fraud perpetrated by charlatans centuries after the purported time frame of the alleged crucifixion. This delay in getting at the facts was because legitimate scientific scrutiny and testing was not allowed by the Catholic owners of the forgery.

An example of evidence disproving evolution would be fossils found “out of order” in the geological record. For instance if fossilized primate bones were found embedded in sedimentary rocks which also contained fossilized bones of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Even better would be any fossilized bones found in igneous rocks as that would basically disprove central tenets of geology along with biology. Of course I am very confident that such things will not be found (or easily forged).

Why? It is my aim to shame and educate. If successful then some “creationists” will be shamed into silence as they try and fail to claim the $1000. Hopefully one or more of these attempts can be elevated to public “spectacle” and thereby serve to educate people who might otherwise be taken in by the slick lies of “creationists” such as those seen in the “Creation Museum.”

Prize offer void in jurisdictions where it is unlawful or regulated.

Prayer is a Total Cop Out

The Christian prayer ritual is utterly ridiculous – it enables people to believe they've done something for the poor, hungry or afflicted and get a big hit of self righteousness without actually doing anything. They even get to close their eyes and rest whilst supposedly doing this noble act.

Venn Diagram for Religion, Stupidity, and Politics

Love this graphic from Saint Gasoline:

I imagine if there were room then the intersection of “Politics” and “Religion” would have included the Spanish Inquisition and the Government of Iran in addition to the Dark Ages.

Evolution vs. Vegas

Silly “creationists” simply aren’t smart enough to understand evolution. Evolution is like going to Las Vegas. The outcome appears random when the cards are shuffled or the dice are rolled. But somehow on average most people leave way more money in Vegas than they take home. This is because there are underlying rules which favor “the house.” Evolution is like that – there is an underlying rule which heavily favors whatever worked best in the last version and this drives life toward genetic combinations which are best at getting copied. On average “the house” wins and on average the best replicators either consume, starve, or crowd out less efficient replicators. This simple logic even applies to the evolution of religion. That is the central theme at origin-of-religions.org – please go have a read!