Thus spake wikipedia. It means fear of the number 666.
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There was a very interesting reader comment today on Andrew Sullivan’s blog about Atheism & Mystery.  My interpretation of the situation is the exact opposite.  (Go read the comment now, I’ll wait).

The reader says that this (atheist) obsession with "good answers" is central to the frustration with faith.  They explain that non-believers cannot tolerate ‘mystery’ and must always have an answer, whereas believers are content with not knowing and therefore better attuned to reality.

I think the reader has it right when they say the obsession with ‘good answers’ is central, but it seems to me that believers place the emphasis on the word ‘answers’, and non-believers place the emphasis on the word ‘good’.

My experience of atheists (being one myself) is that most are very ready to admit things they do not know. I do not know what happens when we die (neither does Sam Harris, as he states).  I don’t know why the Big Bang happened, I don’t know why the universe has the properties it does.  There is a lot I don’t know.  I would like to know, which I think is a basic human trait, and so I’m glad science is working on it.  But right now, I just don’t know.

It has always seemed to me that it is believers who cannot abide not knowing and who insist on there being an answer.  Believers have erected this edifice of religion to provide answers to all the unknowns.  This generally includes belief in the existence of an creator, in an afterlife, and that the universe was created specifically to support us and with a purpose in mind as well as filling in lots of other gaps in our knoweldge.  To an atheist mind, the certainty with which these things are believed is just not supported by evidence.  It would be more honest to simply acknowledge that we don’t know the answers about these matters.

For atheists, it is very important that our answers be ‘good’ – that they be properly justified with evidence.  That is precisely why atheists do not accept Christianity, Islam or any other religion – we find the evidence to be insufficient.  To us it appears that theists are so desperate to have an answer (any answer) that they are willing to completely disregard whether the answer has any truth to it.

Although atheists prefer ‘good answers’, we would rather not have an answer at all than to have the false certainty of an answer that is not based on any good reason or evidence. 

Public Function Prosyletize as String

   Try

     Prosyletize = "God is good and perfect and the creator of all things."

     Process.Instill_Faith(Bible)

   Catch clsDebate as Exception

     Select Case clsDebate

       Case BasicBeliefs

         Prosyletize = "The Bible is the literal Word of God."

       Case Inconsistency

         Prosyletize = "God works in mysterious ways."

       Case UnansweredPrayers

          Prosyletize = "God only answers the prayers of true believers."

       Case Else

          Prosyletize = "Your point about the Bible is out of context."

     End Select

   Finally

     MsgBox("You must read the Bible to understand. I will pray for you.")

   End Try

End Function

– In Visual Basic by JohnNotTheBaptist 

10 PRINT "The Bible is True because the bible says so"

20 GOTO 10

– In Basic by Aegis

"There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don’t know that much about it does not bother me in the least."
AV1611VET, Christian Forums [Comments (43)] [2006-Sep-12]

Well, he got the award for fundamentalism in a nutshell.

"[Replying to 'as for not seeing evolution it takes several million years... incase you missed that memo...']
several million years for a monkey to turn into a man. oh wait thats right. monkeys dont live several million years."
Queen of the tigers, Gaia [Comments (44)] [2006-Apr-19]

The fact that she knows nothing about evolution appears not to bother her in the least either.

"One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it."
awesomestnerd, SmashBoards [Comments (63)] [2005-Nov-07]

Yes, scientists certainly would know about it.  But apparently fundies have their heads so far up their own asses that they haven’t noticed the big fireball in the sky. And no, this wasn’t someone just taking the piss.

"The earth can’t be billions of years old because it is slowly spinning down due to energy loss. If it was billions of years old, it would have to have been spinning at millions of miles per hour, throwing the dinosaurs that were supposed to exist then off of the earth (maybe that’s why they’re extinct, eh?)"
Ærik¯Thª¯Nøt¯®eD, Myspace [Comments (41)] [2006-Nov-01]

Well, I guess since the Bible doesn’t mention gravity as far as I can recall, he can be forgiven for his ignorance. 

"Me and my parents have decided that I will not date. We believe in courting. Dating leads to foolish things. By courting, I mean the young man participating in outings with my family and such. Very safe places! I have decided to fully give my heart to my dad. He will be the authorty over me until my wedding day. I (with God’s help) hope never to even hold hands with my future husband until my wedding day. I wear a purity ring to remind me of that daily. One day, my purity ring will be molded into my future husbands wedding band as a sign that I am fully giving my heart to him. And that is my whole heart, not a broken heart that I have waisted on other guys."
Bluegrass_Girl, Teens-4-Christ [Comments (73)] [2006-Nov-05]

Um, "fully give my heart to my dad".  Ewwwww.

"No, liberals most closely resemble fascists. I prefer freedom, something you libs hate. "
BillyBob, FSTDT Comments [Comments (44)] [2006-Nov-01]

Okaaaay.  Is there a special fundy dictionary that I don’t know about?  Fundies seem to take words to mean the exact opposite of what they are defined to mean.

"EVOLUTION IS NOT SCIENTIFIC. It is a theory! Notice the word THEORY… T-H-E-O-R-Y. Wiki it. It is an idea. One which breeds Atheism, is the tool of Satan and will bring about the destruction of man."
ArgoFett, Saber-Scorpion’s Lair Forums [Comments (47)] [2006-Aug-02]

Was this definition taken from the special super secret fundy dictionary as well?  He clearly didn’t take his own advice to wiki it.

"No, everyone is born Christian. Only later in life do people choose to stray from Jesus and worship satan instead. Atheists have the greatest "cover" of all, they insist they believe in no god yet most polls done and the latest research indicates that they are actually a different sect of Muslims."
Trinidad and Tobago, CARM [Comments (115)] [2006-Oct-01]

Everyone is born Christian.  Riiight.  That’s why you need church, Sunday School and Jesus Camp for indoctrination.  I’d love to see the polls that show atheists are a Muslim sect.

[On the Harry Potter books]
To suggest to any child…that there is a way to escape the unhappy, real life world they live in and to retreat into a mystical fantasy world to find happiness is totally irresponsible and deceitful."
Freedom Village USA Ministries, Reachout Trust (site) [Comments (56)] [2006-Oct-01]

Well, I’m glad they agree on that one.   No, wait …  I’m catching the distinctive odour of hypocrisy.

"I wish some other creationists would help me. The flood becomes harder and harder to support when you get more information."
Bible Defender, Christian Forums [Comments (13)] [2005-Aug-05]

This guy has to get credit for his honesty, even if sadly lacking in common sense.

This was in yesterday’s Herald:

A Christian school in Auckland is seeking parents’ permission for staff to strap students despite corporal punishment in schools being illegal.

Afterwards the child is to be spoken to or prayed with, or both.

This is how I picture the scene:  "You have sinned."   Thwack!  "Now we are going to pray to our merciful God that he makes you behave properly so I don’t have to belt you again." 

I must’ve missed the part in the Bible where it says the way to discipline kids is to whack them on the palm of the hand.   I thought the appropriate biblical handling of disobedient children was stoning them to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). 

I wonder why Tynedale Park doesn’t use the bible-sanctioned method – after all, they clearly don’t feel obliged to obey New Zealand law.  Or maybe they just reserve the stoning to death for the real problem kids; three smacks and you’re stoned to death.  

I’ve seen a few Christian arguments for (proof of) the resurrection of Jesus.  As I’ve mentioned previously, most of the evidence they use comes from the bible itself.  One of the articles on apologetics.com had a very interesting argument that the very existence of Christianity is proof of the resurrection of Jesus.   I’ll quote the whole section below before I comment on it:

<quote> 

The Fact of the Origin of the Christian Faith

Even the most skeptical NT scholars admit that the earliest disciples at least believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. In fact, they pinned nearly everything on it. To take just one example: the belief that Jesus was the Messiah. The Jews had no conception of a dying, much less a rising, Messiah. The idea that the Messiah would be killed was utterly foreign to them. We find this attitude expressed in John 12:34 "The multitude therefore answered him, ‘We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say "The Son of man must be lifted up?" Who is this Son of Man?’"<

Here Jesus predicts his crucifixion, and the people are utterly mystified. The Messiah would reign forever-so how could he be "lifted up"? It is difficult to overemphasize what a disaster the crucifixion was, therefore, for the disciples’ faith. Jesus’ death on the cross spelled the humiliating end for any hopes they had entertained that he was the Messiah.

But the belief in the resurrection of Jesus reversed the catastrophe of the crucifixion. Because God had raised Jesus from the dead, he was seen to be Messiah after all. Thus, Peter proclaims in Acts 2:23,36: "This Man… God raised… again… let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ-this Jesus whom you crucified." It was on the basis of belief in the resurrection that the disciples could believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

Thus, without this belief in the resurrection, early Christianity could not have come into being. The origin of Christianity hinges on the belief of the early disciples that God had raised Jesus from the dead.  But the question is: How does one explain the origin of that belief? As R.H. Fuller says, even the most skeptical critic must posit some mysterious X to get the movement going.16 But what was that X?

</quote>

The author goes on to speculate about where the idea of resurrection could have come from, dismissing pagan sources, despite the fact that many legends commonly known at the time centred around the death and resurrection of the primary hero.

But what I find very interesting is this line:  "Thus, without this belief in the resurrection, early Christianity could not have come into being."  The author of this article obviously believes that this constitutes an argument for the fact of the resurrection.  I think its an argument for exactly the opposite.

As he explains, the disciples were basically screwed when Jesus was killed.  If you believe the gospels, they’d followed him around for years and proclaimed him as the messiah.  (Against many competing claims – there were apparently lots of Jewish Rabbis claiming to be the messiah back then.)  Then suddently, their messiah was dead, and messiahs aren’t supposed to die. 

So, they are faced with accepting that they were wrong, they’ve wasted their time and effort. And anything they’d given up to wander around with Jesus was all in vain. Next, there are a few possible things that could’ve happened:

1. Jesus really does come back from the dead, because he really is the son of god.
2. The disciples, unable to accept his death, convince themselves that he must have come back to life, and so they were right after all to follow him.  You really only need one person to say they saw him in a vision to start the whole thing – urban legends are nothing new.
3. The disciples, unable to believe that all their efforts to establish a church based on Jesus as messiah are down the toilet decide they can maintain their constituency and perhaps even get more followers by telling people that Jesus was resurrected (borrowing from pagan stories).
4. Nothing.  Jesus stays dead.  Maybe 50 years later someone, maybe a disciple of one of the disciples, decides to revive Jesus’s ministry.  He (through either misunderstanding or deception) starts telling his followers that Jesus rose from the dead, in order to attract more followers.

I just don’t see option 1 as being the most plausible.   Personally, I’d vote for a combination of 2 and 3.  One or two disciples hide the body and start the story, the others are only too willing to believe it, because, as the guy argues above, their budding church is literally fucked if they don’t.

The article I cited does somewhere consider the fact that the disciples may have deceived but dismisses it as impossible because the gospels say how good and devout they are.  But an organisation doesn’t usually confess its lies in its own propaganda, does it?

As House says, everybody lies.

I’ve been learning a bit more about Christianity recently.  This is the first of a set of posts on and around the topic.

Disclaimer:  I am an atheist.  My views on Christianity may not be flattering. If you may be offended by it, don’t read it.

Most Christians I know are Christian because their parents were.  They have been told that god exists and that the bible is the word of god since they can remember.  They believed what their parents told them, just the same way they believed in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.  Although their parents eventually confessed that they really were leading them up the garden path with the last three, most people still believe that their parents were telling the truth about god.  

Questioning the beliefs and values you receive from your parents and deciding for yourself what to believe and value is part of the transition to adulthood.  However, many people I’ve met have never actually questioned their belief in god/Christianity.  (I suspect this is partly because the god idea double entrenches itself by discouraging questioning and making a virtue of irrational belief, aka faith.)

When you ask some people why they believe in god, they will often include ‘because the bible tells me about him’ in their justification.  When you ask them why they believe in the bible, they will say ‘because it is the word of god’.  It seems that religion is so effective at discouraging logical, rational thought that many people don’t even seem to notice the circular argument.   (Or maybe the lack of logic and rationality is what causes people to be religious.)

Obviously, the god belief and the bible belief go together and mutually reinforce each other.  If you have the two planted in your mind, then I guess the whole thing makes some kind of internal sense. If not, then you’re screwed, because it’s just not possible for a sane rational person to believe either thing.  Unless you believe one of them, the other makes no sense.

The strongest argument (I think) that can be put forward for believing in christianity is the resurrection of Jesus.  This is the bible basher’s best chance of coverting people, and is the evidence that some of the more logical christians cling to to try to reassure themselves that they aren’t deluded.

If some guy really did die, and really did come back to life again before eventually floating up to heaven, then a supernatural god is probably the best theory that could explain it.  And since the event was documented in the bible, it lends credibility to that as well, making it possible to swallow the two together.

Now, obviously Christians realise this too.  Just google ‘proof of resurrection’ or ‘evidence for resurrection’.  You’ll find millions of hits.  But almost all these proofs assume you already believe the bible is true (and hence already believe in god).  They use the bible to try and ‘prove’ the resurrection.  Obviously, if you already believe the bible, you’ll probably find this argument compelling.  Otherwise, you just have to wonder what has happened to their brains that they consider this proof or evidence.

You can’t use Corinthians to prove the gospels.  You can’t use John to prove Matthew, Mark and Luke. You can’t use the bible to prove the truth of the bible.  It just doesn’t work like that.  The only way to prove that the events of the bible (say, the resurrection) actually occurrred, is to have them independently verified by non-biblical sources.   Does religion so damage people’s ability for logic and reason that this simple fact is not blindingly obvious?

Oh no! The Rapture is approaching! The Rapture Index is currently 156. This is slightly down from its all time high of 182 just after the September 11 bombings.

BTW, in the unlikely event that any of you are as ignorant as I was about the full depth of Christian gullibility, I’ll briefly explain what the rapture is. It refers to the belief that sometime during the armageddon (maybe at the start, maybe in the middle, maybe at the end), god will physically, bodily lift all the believers and they will be yanked up to heaven.   Better hope you weren’t mangled in a nasty accident just before the Rapture, eh, that would suck

After the christians are all safely raptured, they sit around on fluffy clouds, watching as the resulting battle between Jesus and the antichrist completely destroys the planet and kills all the nonbelievers. This is supposed to last about 7 years. Anyone unfortunate enough to live through the whole thing just ends up going to hell anyway.

There’s really no full description of this in the bible, though, since it was basically spun from the literal interpretation of two passages that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians:

16. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (Thessalonians 4:16-17)

It seems as though everyone thought Jesus’ second coming was imminent, and Paul wanted to reassure them that if they (or their relatives) shuffled off their mortal coil prematurely, they would still live happily every after (dead in Christ rise first). That’s pretty much the only reference to it.

Some christians have also cherry picked a few other scattered passages about other topics, smothered them with an enormous dollop of interpretation, and tried to cobble it all together into this elaborate story about the end of the world.

The bible says (in Matthew, about the return of Jesus) that nobody will know exactly when it will happen.  However, Jesus said it would be within a generation. Whoops, got that a bit wrong, didn’t he?

The Rapture Ready people seem to think it is very imminent and they have a very complicted algorithm for calculating the impending likelihood of the rapture, with 45 categories, including:

• The level of satanism and the occult
• High inflation and high interest rates
• Nuclear tensions and arms proliferation
• Globalism and world alliances (breaking down of barriers between nations)
• Liberalism and civil rights
• Volcanoes, earthquakes, drought, plague and famine

The higher the level of all these things, the more ungodly the world, and the closer it gets to armageddon. Many of these people seem to believe (sometimes even overtly state) that by contributing to the worseningof society, they are hastening the (desired) coming of Jesus. At the very least, they don’t believe that christians should be (for instance) environmentally conscious, because that might delay the end, and also because god will soon destroy the whole world anyway. If only we could convince them that they should hasten the end times by supporting (apparently evil) liberalism and civil rights.

I can’t figure out why they need to predict the date anyway.  The only reason I can see that it would be useful is if they were planning on living an enjoyable but sinful life right up until the last minute.  If they really believed that they lived their life in a god-approved fashion, why would they be concerned when the rapture occurred?  They’d only need to know when its coming in order to maximise their sin time, and avoid getting caught with their pants down.

Watch this: http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1145695609/Fox_News_Baptist_Protestor

The good thing about these people is that they are considered the lunatic fringe by both sides of the US political spectrum.

Their ‘god hates fags’ message probably resonates with the conservative christian right (who are the main demographic of Fox News and Hannity and Colmes in particular).   However, to many on the right of the political spectrum,  saying anything even vaguely anti-war is considered tantamount to treason.

Liberals are likely to be sympathetic to an anti-war message, but no rational and compassionate person is going to agree with a ‘it’s good for soldiers to die because it’s god’s punishment’ message, especially the way they keep phrasing it: "Thank God for 18 dead troops. We wish it were 18,000"

I can’t even stand reading their website.  When I first saw it, I was sure it must be satire, but it’s not.  It is unbelievably hate-filled.  They’re basically convinced that god hates just about everyone but especially gays (and presumably not them).   Their logic with the soldiers is that because there are gays in America, America is evil, and because the soldiers are fighting on behalf of America, they too are evil (and probably gay) and therefore all deserve to die. 

But God must surely hate them for continuing to live in such an evil hate-filled country, right?  They could have emigrated.

The good thing about this is that these people are so far out there that it’s hard to imagine that they can gain any serious political or moral traction.

Now, I believe in free speech, so this woman is within her rights to say what she likes.   I’m just disturbed by the possibility (even likelihood) that there are people who might consider her to make sense, particular since she is a representative of the Westboro Baptist Church.   And frankly, I’m a little sickened that she seems to have such little compassion for others.  I wonder if she is actually a sociopath?

I don’t think ignoring this sort of thing is going to work – if society doesn’t denounce it, it gives it some credibility (if only to the more of the lunatic fringe).  Try god loves fags, for a start.