If I told you that the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe was first proposed by a Roman Catholic priest, how many shots of vodka would you assume had passed my lips? But truth is stranger than fiction (just look at Paris Hilton if you want proof), and Father Georges Lemaitre was the man who set the wheels in motion for one of science's greatest discoveries.

How he explained that one to God when he died in 1966 is anyone's guess.

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Footnote: This doesn't relate to the Big Bang, but I found the following piece of the article telling:

In fact, Lemaitre derived what became known as Hubble's Law in his 1927 paper, two years before Hubble. However, since Lemaitre spent his entire productive life in Europe rather than emigrating to America, American publicity machines have preferred to stress the contributions of scientists such as Hubble or Einstein who can be claimed to have a US connection.

Proud European Nick Gisburne signing off!

I found a great source for interesting opinions today, which always makes me wonder why I never realised it was there earlier:

ScienceBlogs

The name gives it away really, but there is far more to this than interesting chats about global warming, or developments in cancer research.

The many blogs on this site often cross-reference each other so there seems to be a healthy debate going on here, and the credentials of the contributors are sound - this is not a site for dumbed-down opinions. You can search the entire site, covering everyone's blogs. Obviously, the nature of my blog means I had to search for 'atheist', and found close to 700 posts. That's enough to be going on with!

This post definitely caught my eye:

Is Atheism a Civil Rights Issue?

Make sure you follow all the links to the other articles referenced in this discussion. The following paragraph is one which which most atheists will certainly be able to relate:

Let us begin with the observation that "us vs. them" is, regrettably, an accurate characterization of the facts. The "them" in this case is not all religious people. It is, instead, the distressingly large percentage of religious people who are openly contemptuous of atheism, who have no problem with chipping away at the separation of church and state, who endorse balancing evolution with ID or creationism in public schools, who would have their own blinkered view of morality imposed on scientific research or on people's personal sexual habits, and who generally believe that their religious views have some relevance in setting public policy. You will not win these people over by talking about the beauties of atheism or by being polite in your writing. And they are not some small minority you can work around by appealing to the reason and good will of people on the fence. They are people to whom you must raise your voice, to make it clear to them they will not have things their own way.

Sound familiar? One of the reasons that atheism is such a hot topic in the news at the moment is that some of us, in fact more and more each day, are finally making a noise, telling the world we are fed up listening to religious nonsense, and we want to stop the discrimination against those whose only 'crime' seems to be that they don't believe in an invisible magic man spying on us from a cloud, just outside the universe.

If atheists weren't making a noise, who would be listening to us? Who would have listened to the suffragettes, or the gay rights movement, if they had quietly sat in their homes and said nothing? Often 'keeping quiet' is the only way you could avoid getting attacked for your opinions, but silence never won an argument, doesn't get any media attention, and allows the status quo to keep on rolling over the rights of people who have opposing views.

As someone once wrote, 'the atheists are revolting'. About time too. Hey, wouldn't that make a great title for a book?!

I wish they'd organised events like this when I was younger:

Camp Inquiry 2007
A week of adventure, discovery and exploration for children, ages 7 to 16 years of age.

At Camp Inquiry we will explore the night sky and learn about the constellations and how ancient civilizations explained what they saw in the skies above. We will examine mythologies and how they have led to the prevalent beliefs of our time. We will learn about astrology, UFOs and the idea of heaven and hell. We will look at the diversity within the world; religious beliefs, cultures, lifestyles and more.

On our nature hikes we will explore topics such as cryptozoology and evolution. Arts and crafts will feature fascinating looks at holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. Campers will also create a variety of items that they can take home. Some of our special Camp Inquiry games will involve using our five senses and our thinking skills. A day of magic will provide us with an understanding of perception, illusion, and mind trickery. We have a wonderful line-up of activities planned - guaranteed to provide an enjoyable experience for our campers.

Cool! Click the logo for more information.

Remember this mad, creationist video?

Well, you might not be able to get new life from peanut butter, but accordinging to this article, 'peanut butter is being turned into diamonds by scientists with a technique that harnesses pressures higher than those found at the centre of the earth.'

Bet they didn't teach that one in Bible class!

The article where I found this opinion isn't particularly strong, but I'm mentioning it here because one of the comments attached to the article makes some great points.

First, the article itself:

Atheists suggest belief in God is irrational and atheism is rational

And the comment (I've added some paragraph formatting to make it more eye-friendly):

Atheism is NOT a belief system. Ms. Golden's attempt to label it as so shows that she hasn't thought about it very hard. If atheism is a belief system, then "not collecting stamps" is a hobby and "bald" is a hair color. The reason Harris says the word shouldn't exist is because, other than "sane," we don't have a specific word for someone who doesn't believe in elves, leprechauns, banshees or other mythical creatures. Atheism doesn't mean "I BELIEVE in this set of rules," it means "Yes, I've heard your claims, and I'm not buyin' it, because they're not realistic claims."

And as for the dramatic life changes that would occor should the claim of God be definitively proven or disproved, consider this: I used to be a confirmed Catholic. When I became an atheist, almost nothing changed except for dropping the weight of that ominous looming mindreader in the sky. I still help people in need, donate money, and refrain from stealing or anything else illegal or immoral.

If God were to be proved, yes, I would change in a heartbeat to do his or her bidding. But this won't happen because there is no god up there. If it were to be proven that there was no God, I seriously doubt that the religious people of today would start killing and stealing with wild abandon. You don't see the members of the National Academy of Sciences running around committing heinous crimes, and 93 percent of them are atheists. More likely than not, freed people would realize that there is no afterlife, making life on Earth so much more valuable. They would realize that no is coming to save us, so making life better for our children is up to us. Wars would cease to be so prolific. Who would willingly die for a politician if there was no heaven?

This may be old news, but it's the first time I've read about it so here's a story about the 2012 Olympics, to be held in London:

Muslims' anger as London Olympics clash with Ramadan

Unlike Christmas, Ramadan moves around, and apparently in 2012 it is scheduled for the end of July and most of August. In the UK, that's also around the time the schools are closed for 6 weeks in the summer, and when everyone in the world wants to go on holiday. And in our rainy climate it's probably the best best for at least some sunshine. Hence, it's a great time to be hosting the summer Olympics.

Not good enough for Muslims. It's also Ramadan, and Muslims can't eat from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan. So they will be disadvantaged, according to the report. And why exactly is this the problem of the London Olympics?

The Olympics only come around every four years. Ramadan is an annual thing. Here's the perfect solution: move Ramadan. Just this once. It's still 5 years away, after all. With a bit of rescheduling it should be fairly straightforward shouldn't it?

Alternatively if Muslims want to take part in an international sporting event which has no connection or association with religion whatsoever, remind them that they have to take part when and where the event is actually being held. They can't ask it to be moved because it's a bad time for them. Nobody is forcing them to fast during the day - not even Islam. The Turkish Olympic president says as much: "They don't have to observe Ramadan if they are doing sport and travelling but they will have to decide whether it is important to them."

Exactly. They don't have to observe Ramadan. So their religion is even telling them it's okay. What exactly is the problem here?

Perhaps the most ridiculous comment of all is this one:

They would not have organised this at Christmas. It is equally stupid to organise it at Ramadan.

Know why they wouldn't organise it at Christmas? Because in the UK that's in the middle of fucking winter and these are the summer Olympics, stupid. And, of course, Christmas doesn't move around the calendar every year like a lost dog.

There are three options here:

• Knowing they will be fasting, adapt the athletes' training regime accordingly. When the Olympics were held at altitude, in Mexico City, athletes worked around it. They didn't complain that the city was too high up for them. They dealt with it. And the Jamaican bobsleigh team (winter Olympics, obviously) don't even have any snow in Jamaica, but they get off their arses and have a go anyway.

• Break the fast around the time of their events, which their religion allows them to do.

• Stay at home, sulk, and blame the 2012 Olmpics committee for staging the Games on the most advantageous dates for the remainder of the world.

Besides, half the Muslim countries don't allow their women to take part at all, so how fair is that? When they start giving equal opportunities to women, maybe they might have a case. Until then, don't come complaining about what your religion forces you to do.

Either way, don't bother us about the date of the 2012 Olympics again. We've got enough to worry about with the crappy pink logo they designed for it:

The Catholics may think they're clever when they invent sneaky rules to allow their flock to get a divorce, while disguising it as something else (see the previous post), but for in-depth, comprehensive religious laws, Islam leaves those pope kissers eating their holy dust.

Islam takes the concept of rule-making and fine print to a whole new, and insanely detailed, level althogether. Muslims have rules for everything, and I mean everything, so many in fact that the ordinary Muslim could not possibly remember what is haraam (forbidden by Allah) or halal (okay with him) in every single circumstance. This leads to much confusion and guilt, and to the asking of really important questions like...

Is it forbidden to shit towards Mecca?

It comes as no surprise that many great scholars of Islam have looked deep into this dark and murky subject, poked it with the stick of truth, and trod on it with the sandle of enlightenment. But mostly they seem to have looked in the hadith and read about Mohammed's numerous trips to the toilet, before coming up with some varied, often conflicting, opinions.

On the one hand, if there's a wall between you and the holiest place in Islam, some say it's okay to squeeze one out. But if you're in a field, with Allah's cool breeze caressing your straining cheek muscles, it's best to point your fudge tunnel at a tangent to the Kaaba (the black, cube-like building in Mecca). To be safe, the general opinion seems to be that, wherever you are, you should never syphon the python either facing directly towards Mecca, or indeed facing away. Identical rules apply for 'number twos', or 'taking the kids to the pool' as we call it in these parts.

So it seems that you must be squatting at a jaunty angle with respect to the Kaaba at all times. I did try to find out if it's okay to give a cheeky wink towards Islam's holiest place once the last piece has plopped out, but was unable to find any solid rules, or even slightly runny ones. You probably shouldn't try it, just in case. Allah may be a stickler for personal hygiene, but he isn't known for his sense of humour.

You don't need to take my word for it. Many different rules and opinions have been given by worthy scholars, who probably always leave the seat up. Here's an example:

And it was narrated that Ibn 'Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: One day I climbed up on the roof of the house of Hafsah and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was relieving himself, facing towards Syria, with his back towards the Ka'bah. Narrated by al-Bukhaari, Muslim and the authors of al-Sunan.

So that settles it - don't point it towards Mecca, but if you know where Syria is, piss in that direction instead. The only question remaining is: why was Mohammed taking a whizz on the roof of a house?

If you think I'm making it up, here's a link. - these are genuine Islamic teachings. Silly religion, silly rules. The fact that someone has to think carefully about offending God even before they have a dump speaks volumes. And don't forget, Allah says that Muslims can only wipe with their left hand. If you're right handed, try that yourself next time you're in the smallest room (if you have long fingernails, don't even go there).

See more Muslim toilet rules here, and notice this fine reason for recommending Islam as the one true religion:

Do you know of any other religion or system in the world that has brought laws like this? This is enough, by Allaah, to prove its perfection and beauty, and the necessity of following it.

In other words, Islam is perfect and beautiful because it teaches you the right way to shit.

Watch out for future articles in this series, where I shall be discussing the correct protocol for farting in someone's face while praying at the mosque. This has been a production of 'Green Eggs and Haraam, Inc'.

When is a marriage not a marriage? When it's a Catholic annulment of course. Catholics don't do divorce. Catholics can't do divorce. Marriage in a Catholic church is a one-time-only deal - once you're married in the sight of God, it's permanent, until death (and not divorce) do you part.

Yes, you can legally divorce in the civil court, but for Catholics that's not the same, because of course there's a 'higher law', invented by the beardy man upstairs. So even when you get your divorce papers through, sell the house, arrange a settlement, sort out who the kids are going to live with, chop the dog in half... all the stuff you have to go through to get yourself as far away from your ex-spouse as you can... you are, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, still married.

Damn.

That's a bit of a problem really isn't it? Because if you want to get married again, and people do, but you're a Catholic, you can't. Ever. At least, not in a Catholic church ceremony.

Hmmm, what to do? If only there was some loophole in God's Holy Law that Catholics could use to wriggle out of this awkward situation. Come on, Herr Pope, think hard. You have thousands of people wanting to get re-married and you must be able to think of something. After all, didn't you just tell people that limbo no longer exists? If you can wipe out centuries of unquestioning belief in a special place for the souls of dead babies, surely divorce is going to be a doddle - for one thing, all parties are still alive and obviously willing and able to side-step the divorce rules if it means getting another white wedding out of it. I mean, just think of all that extra champagne and cake on offer.

So the pope (not this one, one of the dead ones), thought for a while. And lo, there was a loophole, and the loophole was called a 'Declaration of Nullity', and it was good. For yea, although it was a bit of a cheat, at least it got lots of people out of a tricky situation, which is what mattered. And the people gave thanks, and formed an orderly queue. A long, hypocritical, snake-like queue, because what they were signing up for was a way of saying that their marriage wasn't real, when they knew all the time that it was, and just wanted a divorce by the back door.

In a Declaration of Nullity, or annulment, the Roman Catholic Church can look at a marriage, examine the cirumstances under which it happened, and then declare that the marriage wasn't valid at all. And if it wasn't a real marriage, you don't need a real divorce. In other words, you're free of that bothersome 'no divorce rule' on a technicality. How incredibly convenient!

But wait, if the marriage wasn't valid, surely the children are illegitimate? Nope, they've thought of that one too. There's a rule which says it's okay, so hey, who are the parents to argue? They've got their divor... er, annulment, and they're free to marry again, er, for the first time.

The Catholic annulment rules are more evidence that religion isn't the rigid, unbending word of God after all. It's a set of ideas designed by men (and it's invariably men) to (a) keep the faithful obedient and coming back to church with their donations and (b) manoeuvre out of difficult places where the rules are likely to upset the very people they were designed to keep on their knees. If you don't like the old rules, just make new ones!

In other words, even if 'God said so', and even when it's in the Bible, the people running the God business in the real world are the ones who make the rules. And if they can make the rules, why are they even bothering with the Bible in the first place?

Organised religion is a set of rules by which people lead their lives... until such time as they wish to selectively abandon any or all of them and do what they damn well please. While still claiming to be more righteous than the rest of us, of course.

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Links:
The rules of annulment (Chicago Sun-Times article)
Annulment in the Catholic Church
Pauline privilege (more weasel words)
Petrine Privilege (ditto)
Limbo is no more

Of course this will never happen, but I have a challenge for all those creationists who want to see 'intelligent design' taught in schools. Proponents of this ridiculous pseudo-science (it's not even that) say that students must be given a balanced view, that all sides must be considered, that the 'evidence' for ID must be looked at and discussed fairly. Let the students decide.

Well okay, how about this: every week, at your local church, you should set aside 15 minutes of each hour-long service for the teaching of secular, atheist or scientific topics. There are plenty to choose from. The pastor could explain evolution and how it makes a nonsense of Biblical creation, or look into how radiometric dating proves beyond any doubt that the Earth is a million times older than young-earth creationists say it is.

This could be a regular thing. Weekend camps could be organised where children are taught to decide things for themselves, to question the Bible, just to see what it feels like, and to understand the difference between blind faith and free thinking.

Better yet, one Sunday in four could be a 'no Jesus day'. Forget about church and donate the weekly offering to a local charity which doesn't use the money to build more churches or maintain old ones. Use that hour to help out in the community in some way - actually doing something, rather than praying to God and waiting for it to happen.

Give out atheist badges to the congregation, bumper stickers with the Darwin fish or 'There is no God' on them, and display them with pride, giving equal space next to their Christian counterparts.

Wouldn't that be fair? Just to give a balanced view, with all sides of the argument considered, looking at evidence and discussing it openly and honestly? Of course it would. That's why it's never going to happen.

Of course, we could always adopt a far better, more reasonable approach: don't teach religion in science class and in return you won't have to mention anything awkward like 'science' or 'evidence' in your churches.

Article found via the News Feeds page:

Atheism is not about removing the right to religion

I picked out the following comment, attached to the article, which probably reflects the view of most atheists: pray all you like, just don't try and discriminate against those who do not share the same beliefs.

Lori Lipman Brown is the sole lobbyist to Congress for secular Americans in her work for the Secular Coalition for America, and the alliances she has forged are equally surprising and profound. She has worked together with many religious organizations to drive a separation of church and state. These religious organizations work with her in order to stave off any hint of a state religion (including fighting the falsehood that the United States was founded on "Judeo-Christian principles") in order to protect their own religious rights.

From "About the Secular Coalition for America":

"The Secular Coalition for America holds that freedom of conscience, including religious freedom, is a fundamental American value as evidenced by the fact that this is the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights. Freedom of conscience is best guaranteed by protecting and strengthening the secular character of our government. Religious tolerance, a necessary product of this freedom, must be extended to people of all religions and to those without religious beliefs."

There is no movement by mainstream secular organizations to suppress religious expression; some even believe that the pushback against religion has gone too far in making personal prayer taboo in some circumstances. Few atheists would be sorry to see a church demolished because nobody attends it anymore, but this is only because we generally feel there is a better use of time and resources than worship. But that's a personal opinion, and everybody sees groups of people doing something that they think is a waste of time and money, particularly where our government is concerned.

Atheists, secularists, humanists, naturalists, skeptics and all the other labels for those of us who are generally non-believers ARE angry, upset and frightened right now. The encroachment of religion upon our governments is something we are not going to tolerate, because it infringes our rights to NOT believe. That one must say, "So help me God," at the end of the oath to take to become a nationalized citizen of the United States is profoundly discriminatory and ignores that up to 63 million Americans are atheist or agnostic. Bush's endorsement of "faith-based initiatives" strikes us as a blatantly unconstitutional funding of religious groups by the government; Mr. Bailey made the reasoning behind this very clear.

I think that while atheists are becoming very vocal about the omnipresence of religion in our public systems, very few would ever deny the right of any person or group of people to worship whatever they wished, so long as that worship does not unduly infringe upon the rights of others. Generally, we have all been accused of thought crimes, being threatened with eternal damnation by someone; this leads many of us to the position that thought crimes are oxymorons. There can be no punishment, no penalty for thoughts or ideas that exist only in your head. It is only when these thoughts turn into actions that we feel society should step in; especially when part of our government attempts to lend support to these actions when the government must remain explicitly neutral.

Go ahead and pray. Believe. Build churches and go to them. I don't care, and I will argue for your right to do so. But when you attempt to force your beliefs and behaviors upon me through either laws or actions by our government, I will speak out. I, and other secular Americans will not allow our right to NOT believe to be infringed without a struggle.

I am not the author of any of the above, so it's a 'this message is approved by Nick Gisburne' type of thing!

I found the following comment left on an atheist video, and am about to go to bed with a smile on my face as a result:

I believe in fuck all how does that grab you, you preaching fuckers? ha ha

Sometimes one sentence says far more than a whole page ever could!

Atheists have a problem, and it's a problem we are not addressing very successfully. It's the fact (and I do mean fact) that atheists have been responsible for the death of millions and millions and millions of people. Three of the worst mass murderers in modern history have been atheists: Josef Stalin (USSR), Mao Zedong (China) and Pol Pot (Cambodia). How do we answer the charge that, historically, more deaths can be attributed to these 'atheist regimes' than to all the religiously-motivated conflicts in history?

In my book I have a short chapter called 'Killing for Atheism', which I will repeat here, word for word:

The Problem?
It was communism, not atheism, which motivated these men, undoubtedly, so that's that, end of argument, right? Wrong. The key to one of the most serious issues faced by atheists today is the fact (and again I use that word fact) that although these men did not wipe out millions of lives because they were atheists, being atheists did not seem to do anything to stop them.

Think about that for a moment. Think of all the videos you've seen on YouTube where atheists extol the virtues of being free of the belief in God. How marvelous it is to be a freethinker, to not have our morals dictated to us by an ancient religious text. We unconsciously, and sometimes deliberately, set ourselves up as something better, 'higher' than the religious communities, and the Christian or Muslim speakers we see on YouTube, or elsewhere.

You are all fools, we tell them. You are all deluded. Christians and Muslims in history killed so many millions, all in the name of their God, but we are atheists. We can develop our own morals and... oh yeah, being atheist did nothing to stop the massacres in the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia.

Even if communism was the driving force, where was atheism when it was needed, to put the brakes on, to stop the killing? How dare we, as atheists, claim to have found something so much better than religion if, in being atheists, we have to admit that such atrocities are possible?

The Answer?
Is there an answer? Is there a way to defend atheism from this seemingly crushing blow? There is, in fact, only one thing we can do: push home the unalterable and undeniable truth of the matter - an atheist's morality does not come from being an atheist.

Atheists don't believe in 'nothing', but as atheists we are able choose those things which are important to us. An atheist is simply someone who has no belief in any god. Everything else is of our own making, our own choice, and our own design.

We choose our morality. Whether we are pro-choice or pro-life, either can be a valid stance for an atheist, unless religion is part of the decision process. An atheist's sexual preferences are his or her own, and no priest or pope, bishop or book is able to take away that freedom. Moral dilemmas for an atheist involve making the same decisions as those made by theists, but religious rules and laws play no part in that process.

And yet, atheists can choose cruelty, vice, corruption, and yes, genocide, if they wish. Lacking belief in God doesn't stop them doing that. Why would it? How could it? It didn't stop Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot.

But these were evil men, corrupt to the core, in positions of power which allowed them to rule unobstructed, unchallenged. Absolute power corrupts absolutely was never more true than on the modern world stage, where industry and technology cranked up the pace of change in several key areas: weapons, communications and transport. In the twentieth century, corrupt leaders could kill faster, easier, and on much larger scales than ever before.

If tanks and machine guns had been around in the time of the Crusades, and the world's population had been ten times greater, who can honestly believe that fewer people would have died at the hands of the armies of Christendom than were killed on the orders of Stalin in the Soviet Union?

If all the governments in all the world were led by men calling themselves 'Christian', would wars end? We only have to mention the words 'Catholic' and 'Protestant' to know that that is something not reflected in the pages of history, where those of different sects and creeds have fought each other fiercely and often. Islamic history tells a similar story, of Muslims killing other Muslims.

Those who pin the 'greatest mass murderers in history' label onto atheists do so without any concern for context and the realities of history. More people died because, of course, more people were alive in the first place. As the world's population grows, so does the potential for larger and larger death tolls. But the same is true for deaths caused by famine, or earthquake - where more people live, more people will die.

As the weapons of war grew more and more potent, it became possible to destroy entire cities with a single bomb. Maybe I should note that, so far, only one country has dropped those bombs in anger, and it was not one calling itself an atheist nation.

Atheists should not be too comfortable about this situation. We haven't made our case very well, and we make it worse by looking back to history and accusing Christians of their wars and their atrocities. Is there any wonder that Christians turn the same arguments back on us?

Never forget that holy wars and persecutions were started by human beings, people in positions of power. Religion was simply the banner under which they marched, the excuse they needed to rally the people. Similarly, the massacres by the (atheist) communist dictators were also carried out by human beings. Again, these were the people in positions of power, who were corrupted by that power. Their cause was a different one, communism, but it was still a powerful force, one which, as with the holy wars, led to the deaths of many, many people.

Maybe now is the time for us to stop accusing those long-dead villains from history, both religious and atheist, and admit that we are able to see their mistakes and learn from them. This is why the study of history is so important. We can explore the minds of the past and try to ensure that the same terrible things never happen again. Sadly, and the old cliche reminds us by the simple fact it is now a cliche, history has a tendency to repeat itself.

We certainly need to push one of the major qualities of atheism: the ability to think and learn freely, openly and honestly from the mistakes of the past, and refuse to make the same mistakes again. Religion does not have such an advantage. It remains fixed, unchanging, unbending, dogmatic, tied to its holy texts, bound to the words and wishes of its God. The atheists of 21st century western society in no way reflect the mindset of 20th century eastern communist dictatorships, but compare 21st century Islam to any of the previous 1500 years of Muslim history and you will find little progress and a great deal to be cause for concern.

I quoted a chapter from my book, and I will recall its closing sentence and change it so that I can refer to all wars, to all persecution, terrorism, death and destruction carried out by political leaders, whether small-scale or on a national or international stage:

What motivates the actions of these killers, the root cause of their behaviour, what drove them to execute millions of people, was a misguided and absolute belief that they were right, that everyone else was wrong, and that because they held the reigns of power they had the right, and the might, to wipe out any and all opposition.

When the people in power become corrupt, it doesn't matter if they believe in God or not. They are all human, and where opinions differ there will always be conflict. Where belief systems are at odds with one another there will always be wars. Theist or atheist, with God or without, the most deadly threats to human life are the people most responsible for its safety - the people in power.

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Footnote::
The above video is typical of religious propaganda exaggerating the truth and mixing in an unhealthy dose of lies. Although my essay explains that we should no longer use the 'your religion did this or that' style of argument, outright lying and misrepresentation by those seeking to discredit atheists as a whole certainly needs to be addressed:

• The maker of the video evidently has no concept of history. The Byzantine Empire was Christian, founded by Emperor Constantine, in Constantinople (the clue is in the name), who was the first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire. Arguably, without Constantine's adoption of Christianity its spread would have been greatly reduced. The Roman Empire split into two - the Western Empire 'fell' and the Eastern became the Byzantine Empire. If you look at the flag of the late Empire you'll note that it its four quarters contain crosses, which is are obviously Christian symbols.

• Amazingly he tries to tell us that Catholics are not Christian, which is ludicrous, and something which only certain ignorant evangelical churches teach. If the pope is an atheist, then my pet dogs are green elephants. The Byzantines were, and Catholics are Christian. And they sure as anything were/are not atheist.

• He skips over any deaths during World War II. 6 million Jews were killed by Hitler (certainly not an atheist - he believed in God), and 10 million Russians dead, again because of war with Hitler. Remember also that the Christian God is (they believe) torturing all those non-believers forever in Hell.

• As for 'proof that there is a loving God'? That 'Christians can endure persecution and survive'? Doesn't the video say that millions of them died? If there is a 'loving' God, why then did he let all the victims die and their killers live? That's not love. At best it is total indifference to suffering. Which is to say, it's the same as having no God there at all... which is exactly what is the truth of the matter. The (non-existent) 'loving' God let them all die.

Take a look at some of the video replies to this video, which make some other excellent points.

Finding Robert Ingersoll has for me been like uncovering a buried treasure. He was always there, but I only now know where to look. Here's the best source of his work, where you will find pretty much everything he ever wrote:

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/index.html

Again, I've been inspired to make an audio recording of one of his essays. This time it is 'What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?'

Don't be surprised if I produce more Ingersoll audio soon. Check my Robert G Ingersoll page for more details. You can download the MP3 from there too.

I was inspired to read some of Robert G Ingersoll's work recently, when I saw that YouTuber Rhonda9 had made two videos, reading from 'About the Holy Bible'. I chose a lecture from the book 'Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest', which you can download as an e-book for free from Project Gutenberg.

The lecture itself is a fierce indictment of the Bible, particularly the cruelty to be found in the Old Testament. I hope I was able to do it justice.

To download the MP3 file, please click here.

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I've just added RSS newsfeed capabilities to this blog. You can now subscribe to the feed so that the latest blog posts alert you of their presence, soon after they go live on the site.

All you need to do is click the orange icon at the top of the page. Give it a try, and if you don't like it you can still visit the web site and view the articles exactly as you did before.

People who don't check their facts annoy me. People who make unsupported claims really annoy me. People who tell lies annoy the crap out of me. So when I read some bullshit like this article I have to say something about it.

In fact, let's go through the whole article here and pick it apart:

Well, I see that the atheists are combining forces in an all-out effort to mock, belittle and besmirch anyone who believes in a deity.

Why would you not mock someone who bases their whole life around some invisible, mythical being for whose existence there is absolutely no material evidence whatsoever? You would certainly mock someone who prayed to pixies and elves, or who knocked on doors trying to convince people that Tinkerbell was the One True Fairy. Belief in God is exactly the same. There simply is no difference whatsoever. Hence, ridicule is absolutely appropriate.

Note the best seller, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, in which he tries to make a case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. Also on the New York Times best seller list is Christopher Hitchens' book "God is Not Great: How Religions Poison Everything." In it he says all the atheists should designate themselves as "brights" to differentiate them from all the knuckle-dragging morons who believe.

This man has patently not read "God is Not Great" so he is lying. I bought the book last week and so far have only had time to sit down and read the first chapter, so that is the only part of the book on which I would be able to comment. However, on page 5 Hitchens says (I quote):

My own annoyance at Professor Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, for their cringe-making proposal that atheists should conceitedly nominate themselves to be called "brights," is a part of a continuous argument.

In other words (and I agree with him on this - the word "brights" makes me cringe too), Hitchens writes the exact opposite of what he is claimed to have said. And this is on page 5 of the book. The author of the article has not even bothered to read the book properly, any of it, which would be fair enough if he hadn't decided to lie about it and completely misrepresent Hitchens' viewpoint. This is a typical Christian tactic and it's not even using a quote out of context, it is a blatant and calculated falsehood.

This is name-calling at its best, and unfortunately it is this kind of rhetoric that sets atheists off as being arrogant and insulting.

Name calling which the article's author has invented and presented himself, in the form of a lie. This is why there is need to insult people like this. Atheists don't need to lie about what Christian authors have written, because they talk so much bullshit anyway. The Christians' case against atheism is so weak that they feel as if they must use any tactic, including lying about the contents of a book which can be easily checked. Of course, devoted Christians would probably not read the book and therefore not check the facts, and this is how lies are propagated. If someone reads the article they will assume it is the truth, may reproduce the (false) quote themselves, and so on. If you talk shit about atheists, expect to get shit thrown back at you.

Since atheists do not believe in a higher power they are often considered by believers as being amoral. However, in fairness, atheists can live just as moral a life as any Christian.

Some common sense at last! But of course to the author this is of course not good enough, because punishment awaits...

The conflict between atheists and believers will never be bridged on this earth. The real difference between them is what happens after death. And if the atheists are right, unfortunately neither they nor the believers will ever know which philosophy was correct. Atheists believe that when they die it is all over - no hell, no heaven, no anything.

Why is it 'unfortunate' that if atheists are right they will never know it? If there is no consciousness after death, how would the dead person care about it? Before I was born I didn't know I was dead and I wasn't all that bothered. After I'm gone I'm sure that I will be equally unconcerned... because I will be dead and unable to be concerned.

There is another view, however, to which I, as a believer, subscribe. It is Pascal's Wager, which states that either God exists or does not. If not, then at life's end it is all over, but since I have led a good Christian life, I will have at least left a favorable imprint on society on my way to eternity. However, if God does exist, then any virtuous acts that I performed on earth will be rewarded in an afterlife.

Pascal's Wager. Pascal's fucking Wager. What moron still tries to use Pascal's Wager to prove that their viewpoint is a sensible one? You wonder why atheists ridicule people like this? This is why. A centuries old bullshit premise, which has been shown to be utter garbage by hundreds, if not thousands of different people, is still showing up, and still being used by idiots like this to make the case for belief in God. I'm not even going to go into it, it's a waste of time trying. If you don't know what the flaws in Pascal's Wager are, read the Wikipedia article, and realise that anyone who even hints that it is a sensible viewpoint is deserving of any and all ridicule addressed to him. This man is an idiot.

As Bishop Fulton Sheen so aptly put it when referring to the funeral of an atheist, "He's all dressed up and no place to go."

When you're dead there is no place to go. Funerals are for the living, to mourn the death of their loved ones. The dead don't care. They can bury me in my underpants in a cardboard box for all I care, but I suspect that if I have any relatives or friends around when I snuff it, they would prefer to see me looking smart (which would be a first) when I'm in my coffin. Remember that atheists have exactly the same opinion about Christians: they are also dressed up, and they also have no place to go.

Frank Labmeier of Green Township, a Thomas More College graduate, is a retired auto dealership executive.

He seems to have retired his mind too, although somehow I have my doubts that it was ever gainfully employed.

Try this link to The Atheist's Wager, which is almost as fallacious as Pascal's version, but that is the point - it shows exactly how stupid the premise of believing in God (or not), simply because it's a 'safe bet', really is.

And my own take on it this subject:

I found this on the News Feeds page today. It's an excellent piece from an atheist who cannot see why believing in God would make any difference whatsoever to his life.

Click here

Good and evil do not exist. The standard Christian line is that people need God, and the message contained within the Bible, in order to recognise evil and fight against it. The atheist line is 'if there is a God, why would he allow so much evil to exist in the world?' I'm having none of it, and I don't defend either viewpoint. There is no such thing as 'evil', and equally there can be no such thing as 'good', if what we are describing are concepts in some way detached from the people who carry out good or evil acts.

What is this vague concept that people call evil anyway? To my mind it appears to be a description of some form of ethereal, invisible cloud-thing, hovering over the world, settling now and again and infecting people and, even more ridiculously, non-living objects or natural events, with its 'evilness'. But like God, nobody seems able to define evil. Nobody can describe what evil is. The closest we get is a list of the bad things carried out by this mysterious, intangigle force.

A gunman murders a dozen people and not only is the gunman described as evil, but people say that 'there is evil in the world', as if evil itself is partly to blame for the deaths. An earthquake kills thousands and in some corners this is also described as evil. God has allowed evil to happen. Or perhaps the Devil has brought evil to that part of the world. 'Deliver us from evil', so says the Christian Lord's prayer.

Both theists and atheists use the word 'evil' to describe this force, this perceived blanket of wickedness which occasionally touches our lives, without really giving any thought to what they are saying. But despite this, evil is not something which infects people like a disease. Certainly we can point to the actions of many people throughout history and say that they were 'evil', but what we are doing is simply attaching a label to their harmful actions. Yes, the killing of 3000+ people by flying two planes into the World Trade Centre was an evil act, but it does not naturally follow that 'there is evil in the world' and that the hijackers of the planes were infiltrated by that evil force or power.

The WTC hijackers were not infected with evil. Rather, they were taught to do bad things. Evil is something which can be taught, but it is not something to be caught, like a disease. And we are certainly not infected with it from birth, as Christianity would suggest with its doctrine of being born into sin.

The point of this article is actually to show that morality is not something given to us by God. I have read many Christian articles which describe us as having a built-in ability to determine what is right and what is wrong. The example I saw most recently was: if you saw a blind person trying to cross the road, you would know that the right thing to do would be to help him, and the wrong thing would be to push him into the oncoming traffic. This, the article, claims, is evidence of an in-built sense of morality, something which could not come from anywhere other than a higher power, ie from God. We can look at a situation and we know what is the right course of action. And apparently atheists have morality because, says the author, God gave it to them, even to people who don't believe in him.

How many times do I have to see that and groan with frustration before I see someone giving me the real reason for knowing that it is right to help people in situations like the one described above? We know it's right to help people not because God injected us with a dose of his magical morality wonder-serum, but because we are taught what is right and what is wrong. It's as simple as that.

Your parents taught you right from wrong. If you hit your little brother, you were scolded for it. If you persisted, your punishment was repeated or increased. You saw your parents treating each other kindly, and learned from it. Other people flash by in a child's busy life, and as a rule he/she doesn't see these people harming each other. If they do, someone explains that this is 'a bad thing'. Children quickly find out that nice things happen to people who do nice things. Shout and curse and you will be less likely to be rewarded than if you play nicely.

This is easy, basic stuff. This is how we learn our moral values.

Of course not all children have the perfect childhood. Sometimes parents don't teach their children right from wrong. And when they don't know that something is unacceptable, their perception of what they can and cannot do becomes less well defined. If they are not taught to have moral values, they will not adopt good moral values. It may not be the fault of the parents. Just as 'good things' can be picked up from the many people we encounter in our lives, so can 'bad things'.

Beyond this, some parents, teachers and friends actually go out of their way to teach people to ignore what is acceptable in society, and instead indoctrinate them with ideas which we would consider abhorrent. Look at the Palestinian children dancing proudly around at their kindergarten graduation class... wearing ski masks and brandishing toy machine guns, swearing that they will die for Allah. Were these children born this way? Of course not, they were taught what to do at an early age. They were taught to hate Jews, to hate the West, to despise America. And no God put those thoughts into their heads, it was their parents and their teachers, and the friends around them who were brought up in a similar environment. These are children who might easily see the blind man struggling to cross the road, recognise him as a Jew, and push him under a truck.

There is no such thing as 'evil', at least not as a detached, abstract concept. What we see as evil acts are products of the life experiences of the person who commits such acts. Someone who murders a child, or tortures an animal for fun, has, if we discount physiological/genetic reasons, lived a life where daily experiences over a period of many years have influenced the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions, the morals, of the person committing the reprehensible act.

Similarly, 'good' is something which can be taught, rather than caught. Take a new-born baby and you can certainly teach him that murder, rape, theft, torture, even genocide, are all acceptable, normal, even desirable. Take the same new-born baby and, equally, you can teach him that all these things are wrong. That some people assume that parts of our morality are 'built-in' may be understandable, but only because 99.9% of us have been given similar moral guidance from birth. It seems that it is a natural thing to want to help someone who is in difficulty, but only because nearly all of us were taught that that is the right thing to do.

So to say that morality comes from God is ludicrous. None of us had an in-built concept of right and wrong when we were born, and all of us have slightly different views on the finer points of morality because we all have different life experiences. If you're someone who delights in crushing beetles with your boots, well at least you are not someone who loves to crush the heads of children underfoot.

As for 'good' and 'evil', they do not exist in the way that religious people (and many atheists) like to describe them. Where is this 'evil' we are supposed to fight against? Where, if it comes to it, is the 'good' we are using as a weapon in that fight? When it comes down to it, our notions of both good and evil are all to do with what is acceptable in our society. Child abuse is not acceptable, so we choose to call it 'evil', but 'child abuse' itself cannot exist without the people who abuse children. Good and evil do not exist in and of themselves. We need to teach our children (and our adults) what is right and what is wrong. And if we need to do that, if that is the only way that we can differentiate between good behaviour and bad, it surely means that religion has no place in the origin of our moral values. God doesn't put morality into us. We are simply taught our morals as we go through life. Not only is God non-existent, he is absolutely irrelevant.

Okay Intelligent Designers, and out-in-the-open Creationists, here's a challenge. You say that science can't explain where the universe came from. You say it can't possibly have come from nothing. You say that God made everything. It's written in the Bible: God created the heavens and the earth and all life in six days, and rested on the seventh. We, as atheists, as so-called 'believers in the religion of science' cannot explain the origins of the universe, and therefore you look down on us and tell us that we are wrong. So my challenge to you is this:

You say that God did it. Fair enough. How did he do it?

That's right, not who, but how. You say that God made everything. So tell us how. Did he create each atom one by one and stick them all together? Did he get a big box of stars and suns and shake them out into space? At some point in time there was no universe. So if God made it, he must have started with nothing, and made it from nothing. How is that possible?

If scientists can't explain it, but the Bible can, then let anyone who is a Bible scholar, and who also knows his science, explain how God made the universe. Because if you can't, then you have as much knowledge of the origins of the universe as the rest of us.

Will the first Creationist ever to openly admit that he doesn't actually know please step forward. Then can we finally all agree, theists and atheists, that we simply do not know where the universe came from? Atheists are never afraid to say that we don't know. Only when you admit to not knowing the answers can you work to find the explanations, the answers that we all want to know.

But if you know it all already, if you know that God made everything we see around us, then all you need to do is share the information with us: how did he do it?

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Footnote: Don't think the universe can come from nothing? Welcome to Vacuum Fluctuations.

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Footnote: The idea for this question came from two sources. The first, and most obvious, is the relentless Christian insistence that scientists cannot explain where the original matter/energy came from which gave rise to the universe in the process we call the Big Bang Theory. The second was an interview of Richard Dawkins conducted by Bill O'Reilly, which I've blogged about before (15 June 2007). I've attached the interview video again, but here is the relevant part of the conversation:

O'Reilly: I'm throwing in with Jesus rather than throwing in with you guys, because you guys can't tell me how it all got here. You guys don't know.

Dawkins: We're working on it.

O'Reilly: When you get it, maybe I'll listen.

O'Reilly was so proud of that come-back that he related his 'victory' in other interviews, and wrote about it in his own blog column. But he is as clueless as anyone, and furthermore he completely misses the point.

Dawkins asserts that scientific principles are behind the origins of the universe, but we don't know how, hence 'we're working on it'. O'Reilly thinks that God/Jesus did it... but that is not how, that is who. Christians have no more knowledge than scientists, and God is no more an answer to 'how did the universe get here?' than it is to 'what is the capital city of Spain?'. It's the answer to an entirely different question. Putting it another way, I could pose the question 'how do you bake a loaf of bread?' But what kind of a non-answer is 'the baker did it'?

Science is not looking for a creator, it is looking for an explanation. In science these explanations are known as theories. We are, indeed, working on it.

This is a follow-on from yesterday's article, 'The drug of religion' (so please read the other post first if you've just arrived). I mentioned in it that religion can give people positive benefits. The important question is: as an atheist can you live happily without those apparent benefits? To determine that, we need to look at some of the things that religion has to offer.

Last thing first - the after-life. As an atheist, you're not going to get one. Is your life unfulfilled because you do not have this blissful state of ever-lasting wonder to look forward to? Of course the flip side is that you might end up in Hell if the stories are true, but again, as an atheist that shouldn't really worry you. In fact, not having to prove anything to God, that you are worthy of going up rather than down, should be a great relief to most people. The pressure is off. Everybody makes mistakes, but you can deal with them while you're here, and put them behind you. Nobody is going to write down your indiscretions in a book and read them back to you later, and there's no need to worry that you've not been devout enough in your worship of God. Remember also that nobody has yet given a solid definition of what happens in the after-life (the Bible certainly doesn't), so if you don't know what it is how can you miss it?

Purpose. Religious people worship God. They glorify an invisible man and spend a lot of time doing so. In return they expect a reward - their place in Heaven, presumably where they will spend a billion more years kneeling and praising and generally being subservient. Atheists have no purpose but their own. We attach meaning to things which are important to us. You may feel that your purpose in life was to raise your children. Equally, you may be quite happy striving to eat as much pizza as possible before you die. Those of us in developed countries have far more time to devote to leisure activities than our ancestors, so we don't have to spend every waking hour working ourselves into the ground. We can enjoy life in whatever way we choose. And to a certain extent many of us can choose work which, by and large, we enjoy. Such a life has meaning. Your personal goals may not match my own, but they are just as important to you as the meaning I'm currently attaching to my own life (part of which is writing this blog for like-minded atheists). There is no single answer. No purpose. It's all truly relative, individual and personal. We don't need religion to give us a purpose in life.

Love. A tricky one. Some Christians feel the love of Jesus flowing through them while they praise him, and get a genuine psychological 'high' from the experience, often heightened in their place of worship. But that kind of love is easily replaced with love for your family, your partner, your friends, even your pets (have you seen my dogs? I love 'em to bits!). Remember the feelings that you had the first time you kissed your partner. Or the emotions at the birth of your child. That's love, and it's love which is as strong as any love a Christian or Muslim has for their God. You don't need to be in a crazy, trance-like state every Sunday to appreciate that. The rarer the high points are, the more precious they will become. Quality rather than quantity. Atheists can give and receive just as much love as those who have religion.

Friendship and companionship. Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, all bring together like-minded people in a place where they can share a common belief, a common goal. When you have the support of others you naturally feel stronger. How can atheists replace that community spirit? A simple, and perhaps obvious answer is to make friends and have a variety of interests. You might enjoy sports, or dancing, or board games, or yoga, or painting. You could meet people who study the same subject at college or night school, take a cookery class, volunteer to hand out soup to the homeless, become a member of a parents association at the local school, join a political party. I could list thousands of activities and opportunities where people to are able make friends and form relationships, either close or casual, with others who share similar interests. You don't need religion to become part of a community, or indeed part of many different and varied communities.

Charity. No doubt about it, religion is well known for collecting money on behalf of charitable causes. Often, I might add, in return for 'brand placement' of their particular type of religion. Very few churches will donate time, money and resources anonymously and discretely - it's usually 'help provided by God'. Atheists, on the other hand, are just as happy to donate to worthy causes, but unlikely to deliver a speech about secularism when they do so. Only when religion is involved are strings attached - remember that some churches have notoriously refused to help in non-Christian countries unless they are allowed to proselytise at the same time. Atheists also refuse to donate to self-serving churches who simply want to pay for more churches, rather than help those in genuine need. Finally, atheists are charitable not because a pastor told them, not because a TV evangelist sold them a promise of salvation in return for money, but because charity and generosity are characteristics of all human beings, and helping others is simply a good thing to do.

The ability to question everything. Why should this go away if you're an atheist? Not believing in God should not take away your ability to think for yourself, to question everything, to put your trust only where there is sound evidence, to be sceptical. Hmm. Did I just say 'not take it away'? Did I also mention that if you are a 'person of faith' that is exactly what is taken away from you? When was the last time you heard a Muslim say, 'well actually, that part of the Qur'an is not relevant in our modern society and I disagree with it'? How many Catholics will say, 'I think the Pope is wrong - the wide-spread use of condoms would be beneficial in preventing disease in African nations'?

So we're one up on religion there. We can think freely, unrestricted by dogma. The holy books say 'it is so' and their sole reason is 'God said it'. Moreover, the words are not subject to questioning, and certainly cannot be changed. Atheists can agree with the (relatively few) good teachings of the Bible, fair enough, but we can equally easily point to outdated, useless stories which in our modern lives are meaningless or indeed offensive and immoral. We can question old values and develop new ways of living. Morals and ethics change as societies change. In short, without religion we can ask more questions, find new answers, and become better people.

This was not a comprehensive list by any means, but whatever perceived advantages there may be in being part of a religion, being part of no religion can provide equally fulfilling substitutes. Atheists can and do live good, happy, meaningful lives. Being an atheist is most definitely enough.

Religion is a drug, let there be no doubt about it. But let's not talk about that right now, let's talk about The Matrix.

That's right, The Matrix. The movie. From what Christians and Muslims will tell you, atheism is like the hidden underground city in The Matrix, where people live in a grim world, fighting for survival, eating bland, tasteless, textureless food. Existing. That's what life is like without God. You wouldn't want to go there, because the alternative is so much better.

The alternative: a life of faith, of belief, accepting religion as your reason for existing. Letting Jesus or Allah into your heart. The world looks great because you have all the answers - it's in the book, the holy book which contains all the wisdom you will ever need. So much better than that dark, meaningless existence in which atheists trudge through life knowing that they have no purpose, and believing they will simply die and cease to exist.

Except that in The Matrix the dark, dangerous, underground city, that grim place where people eke out their lives, that is the real world. In the movie, the Matrix itself is just a fantasy, something implanted into the minds of humans while their bodies exist, unconscious, elsewhere. And the people who have escaped, the people who now look on this fantasy world from the outside, know the truth.

It's all fake. It's all false. It's all lies.

Of course The Matrix is just a movie, and the analogy I'm drawing is not that atheists live lives of hard, endless toil, but that we do not have the luxury of religion to comfort us, or the promise of never-ending bliss to look forward to. The believers do. They have their faith to lean on, their extended church 'family' to support them, a future of eternal life in Heaven to give them purpose. Atheists have to look elsewhere for meaning in their lives.

Comparing both sides of the coin, it's easy to see why religious people choose faith. It genuinely has so much to offer. If you surround yourself with people who share the same outlook on life, what better way to live that life? Everything you understand will be constantly re-affirmed by your Church friends. If you have problems, doubts, hardships, they will be there for you. Truly a wonderful experience.

But is it real? Of course not. This whole way of life depends on the belief in a fantasy. And once you believe in the fantasy, the alternative doesn't look great, not at all. Those atheists believe that when you die you just stop living. So what is the point in being alive at all?

Both Christianity and Islam demand that you praise their God. Willingly, yes, but... it's not optional, so if you want to belong, you have a lot of praying to do. For Muslims I mean a lot - 5 times a day. Islam means 'submission', so it's appropriately named. Atheists don't need to pray. There's nobody up there listening, so it would be a pointless exercise, and theists should know by now that prayers never get answered. They are just wearing out their knees and storing up arthritis problems and backache.

Still, even if it's a fantasy, religious people feel happy, you cannot deny that. And I say good luck to 'em. I don't have any problem with them being happy. They can sing and praise and pray and dance around and wave their hands as much as they like. I'm just as happy not having to do any of those things. Remember that episode of The Simpsons when Homer stayed home from church? That's atheists - we do what we like, don't harm anyone, and can even take a whizz in the shower if we want to.

So we're all happy. The believers are stuck in the Matrix, and to them it looks good. The atheists are in the real world, and though the theists might think it's a dark place, did you see the party they had in second movie? The real world rocks!

Of course those funny old Christians and Muslims don't really like what the atheists are doing. In fact they don't like a lot of what other Christians and Muslims do either, but in their eyes the atheists are the worst offenders. All that immorality, the homosexuality, the acceptance of science, and worst of all not believing in their brand of religion. The atheists are wrong. In fact everyone else must be wrong. So they try to change the lives of the people who aren't part of their little groups.

They try to convert us - endless knocks on the door every weekend from smiley Christians wanting to share 'the word', but not able to understand when they are given two choice words in return. Stronger stuff: alienating people who are not part of their religion. Not allowing them to be part of the wider community because they don't believe. Stronger still: removing the right to choose (abortion rights, gay marriage bans, prohibitions on stem cell research). And the ultimate: physical attacks, even murders, including wife beatings and honour killings (hello Islam once again).

So it seems that if you're in the club, the religious clique praising a particular brand of God, you're happy. If you're not, you're not. And the ones who are in want you to join or will make sure you are repeatedly told you're not happy - even when, if they left you to get on with life in your own way, you really would be happy.

I started with 'religion is a drug', and don't worry, I'm scratching my head too, wondering how this all ties together with drugs. Okay, here's what I think: if you're a Christian or a Muslim, you show all the signs of addiction to hard drugs (heroine, cocaine, etc). The more you have, the happier you are. Religion gives you tremendous highs, it really does. Nobody can deny that - I've seen evangelicals, and damn they are happy!

Of course if you're an addict you can't come off the Christ crack, it's just too good. Anyone who tells you otherwise just has to be evil, someone to be shunned, ignored. The more religion you get, the deeper you immerse yourself in Jesus and those who believe in him, the less you want to associate with any other types of people. Fundies don't want to sit in a room full of atheists, they want to sit in a room full of fundies. Even if the atheists aren't banging on about religion like the fundies, well... they should be! They should be praising the Lord, not reading about that satanic Charles Darwin fella.

Like a drug addict, they need to see their dealer, the preacher, as often as possible, to give them another fix, another injection of faith. When they are down, they want that instant high, the Jesus pill. H is for hallelujah, not heroine. But the higher they get in church, the more frenzied the sermon, the more they seem to look at outsiders as if they are, well, outside - someone to be pitied. And if those foolish atheists don't like pity, why not give them some good old fashioned condemnation?

Drug addicts may steal from others, even from their own families, to buy their drugs. Religion divides families just as easily. The cousin who won't go to church ('we don't speak about him now'), or the son who is the cause of so much shame ('he says he's an atheist and we can never let him back in the house until he returns to Jesus'). Politicians use their influence to fight their religious agenda. Abortion controls, bans on sex education materials, promotion of faith-based initiatives, and the introduction of creationism back into schools.

The dealers/preachers want your money, and they'll not spend it on charitable causes, they will invest it in impressive super-churches, million-dollar structures designed to bring in more people, who will give more money, paying for more churches. Sure they will give some to the poor and the sick and the needy... after they've taken out their cut, the overheads for the massive buildings, or maybe sent a few thousand dollars to help build the Creation Museum or some other shrine to religious dogma.

Meanwhile the atheists look at this from the outside and try to explain to the God addicts that what they are doing is wrong... but you can't tell a drug addict that something is bad when they are high on it. It all looks too good from the inside, and the alternative, that God might not be real, is just too much of a nightmare for them to face. That particular brand of cold turkey is not one they want to try.

Religion sets people apart from their fellow human beings. It gives them too much of a good thing, but like The Matrix it's all in their minds. I have no problem with religion if it stays there and doesn't affect my life. If it does (and yes, it DOES), I'll speak out and, hopefully, help others to speak out. Meanwhile, for those who've kicked the habit, or those who have always been free of the religion drug, there's a party going on in the real world, and you're all invited.

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Footnote: I can't mention The Matrix without adding my favourite quote from the movie. I think of this as a statement from atheists to those caught up in the delusion of religion, those who simply will not listen to reason:

I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Neo - The Matrix

Why do we give the word 'religion' so much dignity and respect? Is there so much gravitas in those few syllables that we cannot help ourselves, and afford religion a higher place than perhaps we should? Has it been passed down for so long and become embedded in our psyche so deeply that we are unable to say 'religion' without imagining something grand, worthy, lofty or wise, something we should put on a pedestal and admire?

Well fuck that.

Next time you are tempted to say 'religion', try to use one of these words instead:

• Superstition
• Cult
• Magic
• Supernatural
• Occult

Examples:

• Christians are certainly believers in the supernatural. Angels, demons, God himself, are all supernatural by definition - not part of the natural world that we see around us.
• Mormons are members of a cult, just like Scientologists are part of a cult.
• Religions are just cults with added time, tradition, larger numbers of believers and a dead founder.
• The occult is defined as 'of, relating to, or dealing with supernatural influences, agencies, or phenomena'... like God, for example?
• Prayer is superstition - 'an irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.'
• Turning water into wine? That's magic. Feeding the 5000 with loaves and fishes? Magic. Walking on water? Magic, all magic... if any reliable witness had seen these tricks, of course.

If you use these words, religious people will not thank you for it. They will probably be more than a little upset that you are belittling their faith. But give them the dictionary definition of each term and ask them, 'Which part of this definition does not apply to your religion?'.

If it looks like a cult, if its members believe in a God outside the natural universe (ie supernatural), or if it fits any of the other definitions, then that is what it is.

Excuse me while I look up the word 'bullshit', will you? I have a feeling that could be added to the list too...

The Creation Museum, aka The Flinstones Museum. We've all seen reports of it, read about it, and laughed about it. Personally, I welcome it. Why? Because it will do the cause of the fundamentalists some real harm. If moderate Christians can look at it and think, 'hold on a minute, this is stupid, I don't want to be associated with these idiots,' it will help to push Christian fundamentalism back where it belongs, out of the mainstream and into the margins of public life. They'll always be there, of course, but they'll always be ridiculed for their belief that the Flintstones was not a cartoon but was in fact a documentary. The Creation Museum will make a laughing stock out of Young Earth Creationists, and that's fine by me.

Reported figures for attendance on the opening day of the Creation Museum were 4000. That's it? With all the press and TV coverage they still only had 4000 visitors on their big day? Give it a year and hardly anyone will be visiting this place. Of course it won't close, because it's funded by donations and could probably run at a loss while fundie churches keep pumping money into it. But as a 'popular' attraction my guess is it will sink like a stone.

Another thing to remember is this: once you've been there you probably won't ever need to go there again. Most museums will regularly change their exhibits, make new purchases, adapt their presentations to fit in with new discoveries. Curators travel the world exchanging ideas with other museums - for example the British Museum recently loaned some of their 'Treasures from Assyria' exhibit to China, in exchange for some of China's terracotta warriors. Click here to read more.

The Creation Museum can't do any of these things. For one thing, the Bible story won't change. There simply will not be new evidence, new material, new artefacts. If it's all in Genesis, then Genesis is all there is. End of story. And if you think that any museum worthy of the name is going to want to build up a cultural exchange plan with this crazy dinosaur park, think again. So I predict that people will visit the place out of curiosity, once, and then never set foot in the place again.

Now if the Scientologists could raise the money for a museum that would be incredible - all those aliens and spaceships, with people dropped into volcanos and a huge reproduction of Xenu... now that is something I would pay to see!

This made me laugh, but it's from a Christian, and I would expect no less. However, as the author is also a Professor of Ancient History, it does worry me, as a lover of history, but certainly only a keen amateur, that such a man would produce such shoddy work (but see my earlier article on bias, below).

I was searching for some information about Josephus, who is one of the sources Christians claim as proof that Jesus was a real person in history, when I found the following page:

Josephus and Jesus

I won't probe too far into the extraordinary omissions this page has, but if you've done a little reading into the subject you'll know that quoting Josephus in relation to Christ, without mentioning the work of Origen, is like trying a man for murder while the murder victim sits there, not dead, watching the trial. This is evidence you simply cannot ignore... but the author, predictably, does so. Click here to read more about Origen's importance.

But the comedy started in the second sentence of the article, so let's read it, along with the first:

Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37 - c. 100) was a Jewish historian born in Jerusalem four years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth in the same city. Because of this proximity to Jesus in terms of time and place, his writings have a near-eyewitness quality as they relate to the entire cultural background of the New Testament era.

So can anyone tell me what a near-eyewitness is? Did he see Jesus or didn't he? If he did he's an eyewitness. If he didn't, he isn't. But a near-eyewitness? How can you nearly be a witness to something?

Go back to the first sentence. He's already saying that Jesus was dead, and had been so for four years, before Josephus was even born. So he certainly was not an eyewitness to any of the life of Christ.

Let's give the writer the benefit of the doubt, and say that he was a near-eyewitness to the cultural background of the New Testament era. Well was he or wasn't he an eyewitness? Nearly? Ohhh, so close, but sorry, you missed it - should have looked down the street, no it went by so quickly. Damn.

Don't worry, I'm just being picky, and his choice of phrase was probably a poor one, but it's this flagrant over-emphasis of outside sources, in a desperate attempt to give credence to the claim that Jesus Christ was a real historical person, which is the mark of all Christian apologists. Come on, if Josephus wasn't an eyewitness, don't imply that he was something almost as good as one. He wasn't alive at the same time as Jesus, and his works weren't written until the mid-70's AD at least.

As I hinted at earlier, his failure to explain the that fact Origen, a Christian apologist who wrote volumes in his quest to defend his Christian faith, entirely fails to mention the key passage from Josephus on which Christians rely, is the biggest omission in this article.

Let's make a comparison using dates relating to a writer still alive today - me. If Josephus was a near-eyewitness of the 'entire cultural background of the New Testament era' then I am a near-eyewitness of the 'entire cultural background of the 1950s'. And of course in the 1950s I wasn't even born. Anything I could tell you about the 1950s would have to be told to me by other people, or found in books and other sources. If I could not show you those sources, it would all be hearsay... and even Judge Judy doesn't accept hearsay. If I only read about something, I certainly cannot claim to have been there.

This is one of the problems with ancient history. If it is not verified by other contemporary sources (eg Origen) you only have one man's word for it. And if you know that your other sources surely would have a mentioned such important evidence but do not, the historian should immediately start to question the source. Which is exactly why historians are so critical of the Testimonium Flavianum, the important paragraph which Josephus supposedly wrote, believed by most to be an interpolation (ie a fake, added later), and to which Christian apologists give such importance.

Christian apologists love Josephus. But they would love me too, because I nearly saw Jesus myself the other day. It was a near-religious experience. Of course in this case for 'near' you should read 'not'. And in the case of the article itself, assume 'not true'.

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Footnote: Josephus mentions Hercules too. So we have a genuine 'near-eyewitness' to attest to the existence of one of the heroes from Roman mythology. How cool is that?

Last week I pre-ordered God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. It has only just been released in the UK, and while it's still en-route to my letter box I thought I'd look at some of the reviews for the book on Amazon. One of them stood out immediately because it starts thus:

Hitchens presents a biased view of religion rooted in white, secular attitudes.

No shit, Sherlock. Christopher Hitchens is white, he's an atheist and (the book criticises his emphasis on Judaism, Christianity and Islam), he is a US citizen, so is surrounded by the influences of Jewish, Christian and Islamic beliefs and believers. From what other viewpoint should such a person be expected to write?

If you're writing on a subject which you feel strongly about, such as organised religion, which offends many people, myself included, and of course the author of the book, Christopher Hitchens, you are hardly going to take an even-handed approach, and make the case for the other side to avoid bias are you? People who write books aren't under the same constraints as those reporting the news (which I will get to shortly). You can be as biased, critical and downright venomous as you damn well please, refute the other side's arguments as you see fit, and utterly destroy the opposing viewpoint, if that is what your book sets out to do.

That's certainly what I tried to do with The Atheists Are Revolting!. There's no pussy-footing around when you're criticising religion - you show it for what it is, destroy its flimsy, nonsensical dogma, then kick the shit out of it while it's down.

You can't be truly critical of something without showing your own personal bias. Bias encapsulates your opinions, your feelings. It's what you are made of, shows what side of the fence you stand on, makes people know that this is what you believe and you're not going to accept any other opinion.

News reports are different. If you watch (almost) any UK news report you will not see bias. They will do anything and everything to avoid any hint of bias. Why? Because it's the law. Yes, when they are conducting interviews reporters will play devil's advocate, but they will put their questions in such a way that the reporter's own personal opinions are not obvious, or even relevant. You know that if Jeremy Paxman interviews Richard Dawkins, he will grill him just as robustly as he will, say, Ted Haggard (I would love to see that interview!).

So it always amazes me when I watch US newscasters conducting interviews. US news bulletins seem to be filled to the brim with bias. You can probably tell how an American votes by the network on which he watches the news. The politics and beliefs of US news anchors are immediately apparent in ways that I, from a British viewpoint, find to be totally extraordinary.

Here are two examples, both from Bill O'Reilly. In the first, he does his best to trivialise the opinions of Richard Dawkins, and makes it quite clear that he won't try to understand Dawkins' viewpoint. Why? Because O'Reilly openly declares his bias as a Christian. In fact in the second video, talking to the dumbest Christian on TV, Kirk Cameron (that was my bias, but hey, the man's an idiot), O'Reilly claims to have 'beaten him (Dawkins) in the debate'.

Huh? Why is it in any way appropriate for a newscaster to try to beat his interviewee in a debate? That strongly tells us that O'Reilly was deliberately putting forward his own opinions, head to head with Dawkins, rather than interviewing the man to get a balanced and open view of what Dawkins had to say. And meanwhile he interviews Cameron, who would snap like a twig under the merest hint of a well-constructed argument, gives him simple, sypathetic questions, and lets him hold up his ridiculous picture of a crocoduck... without critical comment! O'Reilly even rubbishes the Big Bang Theory by speaking in terms of 'whatever crazy thing they're trotting out here'.

That is bias. And if it's part of something called 'news', it should never be shown on TV. And, I'm glad to say, in the UK it never would. The BBC, and in fact the independent networks too, would be dragged over hot coals for such bias, beaten soundly around the testicles with the book of broadcasting guidelines, heavily fined, and told to apologise and never do it again.

There's a place for poltical or religious commentary, for personal opinions, for bias, but that place is not on national TV news.

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Footnote: Jeremy Paxman doesn't have a perfectly clean record for 'correct' interview questions. Click here to see what is quite clearly an overly aggressive line of questioning.

I'm going to step into unusual territory with this one. This is me sympathising with someone who was an atheist but in later life turned to Christianity. Here's a story I just read:

'Country doctor'