Religious people often ask where morals could possibly come from if there were no gods (or more often if their god wasn’t real). This video is not a complete explanation, but it should be enough to make more open-minded believers take another look at the issue of what morality is and where it comes from.
Maybe Jesus was the son of God. Oh, and he was God too. Maybe he did send himself to Earth with the intent of getting himself killed in order to satisfy his own blood lust, and this blood sacrifice of him to him somehow worked to make up for our sins and take the place of the endless animal sacrifices he demanded in the Old Testament.
Supposedly Jesus was perfect and sinless, and somehow the murder of someone completely innocent constitutes justice for every horrible thing that every other person would ever do, as long as they believe it. If they don’t believe, then they get what they all deserve, from the worst mass murderer to a kid who told one single lie. Unimaginable, unending torment in Hell.
Despite the staggering lack of evidence, it is remotely possible the Christians are right and this was somehow necessary, even if it makes no sense, and maybe it was in some twisted way the best thing that has ever happened. It would require a bloodthirsty and cruel god that I personally can’t imagine worshiping.
On the other hand, it’s quite possible that the Jesus of the Bible was never a real person. He may have been intentionally made up, or he may have been mistaken for a real person by some of the people who heard or read stories which were never meant to describe a real person.
If he was a real person though, and he was actually crucified, then there’s a very good chance that he wasn’t supernatural at all and he was simply a human religious teacher who pissed off the authorities and got totally pwned.
| February 28, 2009 | ||
| 3:30 pm | to | 5:00 pm |
In addition to the table we will have at the Local to Global Teach-in at ASU this weekend, our friend Ezra Niesen will be conducting a workshop titled Planetary Biology and the Anti-Capitalist Revolution.
I’ll let him explain it to you:
Scientists have been hard at work studying global environmental unsustainability for 40 years, which includes the evolutionary origins of human psychology (www.clubofrome.org, www.clubofbudapest.org). The War on Terror, the war in Iraq, the greenhouse effect, the immigration crisis, and the energy crisis are all various effects of humanity’s over-exploitation of the environment. 15 years ago, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, a global revolution against America’s economic imperialism began, which no one ever talks about in the commercial media in America (chiapas.indymedia.org, www.indymedia.org). The scientists who discovered global unsustainability have been saying from the very beginning that if global environmental disaster in the 21st century is going to be prevented, radical social change is necessary. Now the War on Terror is being used to equate radical social change with terrorism. Now environmental activists are being accused of terrorism, including 8 organizers of the protests at the Republican National Convention last fall against the Republicans’ complete disregard for environmental science (rnc8.org). The biggest reason these problems aren’t getting solved is because so many powerful people are spreading so much disinformation about science to mislead the public. Even President Obama promised to violate the Laws of Thermodynamics in his inaugural address. This is a crash course on pivotal discoveries that have been made and how to reclaim the future by reclaiming the public education system. An accurate understanding of how the world works is the rightful property of everyone.
Oh, and did I mention that there will be punch and pie? Okay, maybe not punch and pie, but there will be some type of free food at the event, so come out and see us if you can. It will be fun, and most importantly educational!
Wow, I intended to give Christians a break and post video of someone who believed in something completely crazy and unrelated, and then I picked one and watched a few of his videos and realized that I had failed. He’s actually some kind of a Christian too, he just believes that the world is run by reptilian aliens and Free Masons on top of it.
At first I was tempted to believe that he was making a very long and elaborate joke, but the more I watched the more I realized that I actually see someone on a fairly regular basis who seems to share some of the same beliefs!
I’m going to have to look into this whole reptilian/Free Mason conspiracy thing in more detail, especially since this guy claims that 99% of businesses are run by one or the other, and I’d hate to think I was funding a global conspiracy to destroy us, but for now let’s just sit back and enjoy the crazy.
Today is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, the day to go crazy before Lent kicks in. For 40 days, starting tomorrow, we’re supposed to deprive ourselves and do penance for the debauchery that hits its peak today.
Traditionally people give up something for Lent. It may be something as minor as not eating ice cream, or something as major as fasting and self-flagellation for all 40 days.
I would like to suggest something even more radical. Rather than the relatively unhelpful sacrifices like starving or beating yourself, why not do the one thing that could most dramatically change your world view? Why not make the ultimate sacrifice and give up God?
Compared to a lifetime of belief, 40 days of unbelief should not ultimately be enough to make a dent in your faith. That is unless God doesn’t exist. Are you brave enough to find out?
| February 28, 2009 | ||
| 8:30 am | to | 6:00 pm |
| March 1, 2009 | ||
| 8:30 am | to | 6:00 pm |
Since 2001, Local to Global Justice has held annual community education events at ASU, and this year we will be participating.
By “community education” I mean that it is not a series of lectures all given by professors and professionals, it is an event where we can all learn from each other. There will be presentations by many people of different backgrounds, both the highly educated and laypeople, on many different subjects.
The theme for the teach-in this year is “Reclaim the Commons!” This includes everything from natural resources and spaces to “intellectual property” and creative expression.
Better Than Faith will have a table at the event, and we should be there all day Saturday and Sunday. We will be happy to talk to people about anything, so come out and see us!
The Mill Avenue Resistance reports are written by Kyt Dotson as an extension of anthropological research on the population of Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona. Since the Resistance does their protests Friday and Saturday there are two reports a week. The supporting material not related to the Resistance reports can be found on the Under the Hills blog.
The night opened up with Brant and his blonde companion camped out at the Post Office without amplification, holding a sign talking to passersby; Jeremiah, Al, and other Way of the Master evangelical preachers set up in front of Borders; and Jonathan—around whom the most major drama erupted—decided to set up in an unorthodox place: at 6th and Mill Ave in front of the Hippie Gypsy. This is probably because there is little room kitty-corner from the Hippie Gypsy, Bruce the spray-paint artist had taken the Urban Outfitters corner, and Coffee Plantation security is well known for harassing people who set up there.
The Resistance split themselves between the Hippie Gypsy corner and the Borders corner for the first part of the evening after members heard that Jeremiah had returned to the Ave. He is well known and spoken of among them because of his particular unchanging preaching style, defiance against changing his show to match current fact, and his interestingly abrasive speaking style which include known insulting falsehoods, and now quickly irrelevant non-facts presented as truth. “I don’t believe in atheists,” said Jerimiah. “If you say that you’re an atheist or an agnostic, I don’t believe in you.” In spite of his infamy drawing Resistance members that direction the real action seemed to keep itself at 6th and eventually everyone focused on those corners.
Along with Jonathan came a couple other speakers including a man named Phil who wore a tweed snapped-peak cap. When they set up with their loudspeaker it drew the attention of a Bun Devils hotdog stand worker—a tall black man, with very short, thick black hair, and a red “Bun Devils” t-shirt—and the owner James. Together they repeatedly complained at Jonathan and Phil about their speaker, at the crowd themselves to go away, claiming that the people with amplification had no right to be there several times; repeating that they were driving away business, that they were losing money.
James set off the car alarm of his large SUV parked right next to the corner (and his store) at about 9:34p.m. and was finally deactivated thirteen minutes later when three police officers on bikes showed up and waved James over. His discussion with them apparently did not favor his desire to remove the preachers, the Resistance, and the crowd from the corner, however, because they didn’t stay to talk about it.
Some exchanges with Jonathan became rather funny because the worker from the hotdog stand would come over and engage him in attempted conversation. Often, to which Jonathan would interject into his preaching that people should go buy hotdogs, but he also spoke some about the car alarm going off—“We are here today. We’re Christians. I don’t want to yell, but there’s a lot of noise.”
“I want you to buy something,” the black worker said.
“I have no money,” replied Jonathan, rubbing at his pockets with a shrug.
“Then go somewhere else!”
At another point, James went out and waved twenty-dollar bills at Averroes and Phil while they argued on the corner complaining that he’d give them money if they would only go away. At this point it was because both of them were using amplification and he just wanted them to change corners.
“I don’t want to hear them fussing,” James said. “That’s why I left my home and came out here tonight—because I don’t want to hear my wife and kids fuss, now you guys are making me sick to my stomach.”
At one point one man, looking for a fight or drunk, knocked Kazz’s “THINK FOR YOURSELF” sign out of his hands.
Hippie Gypsy increased the volume of the music that they play from their overhang, possibly in their own passive-aggressive gesture to show the crowd/preachers that they didn’t want them there.
Finally near 10 p.m. the preachers decide to take their show across the street in front of Coffee Plantation. Security there manage to not harass the set up there. Kazz even went to his vehicle and got his amplification (which had not made a debut yet.) About then another group of evangelical preachers appeared and began using the amplification that appeared to be similar to, if not actually, Jonathan’s amp—although he wasn’t seen again, but Phil was still around.
One of the new group said something about “Campus Ministry” who were visiting. Amid them a few names that were picked up by members of the Resistance were Shannon, a visiting scholar who was introduced as someone who “liked to argue with skeptics,” and happened to spend time talking to Joe; and Scotty B. who started out the night by talking to Kazz, trying to hold conversations with superfluous equivocation discussions about the “laws of logic” even though that’s not what he meant (he listed off a number of logical fallacies and rhetorical rules, but it was difficult to understand what he was getting at.)
Rocco and Joe managed the floor with the new group of preachers for most of the night. Rocco spending most of his time attempting to explain how claiming that something is “outside of logic” is akin to being able to make no claim about it at all because the very foundations of logic (truth values, for example) could not be applied to it rendering any substantive discussion of it utterly moot. Joe talked to Shannon for a while, rolling around logical arguments including the “omnipotence and omniscience” together form a contradiction in terms. Including certain other direct problems with special pleading for the supernatural.
Jonathan vanished sometime near 11p.m.
The new preacher groups left Mill Ave at about midnight.
Overall a few interviews were had with various elements, but it was difficult to formally report on individual events. Since tonight was particularly scattered, members of the Resistance and others in the public are encouraged (moreso than usual, if we may) to reply to this post and add to the knowledge of the experience.
The Mill Avenue Resistance reports are written by Kyt Dotson as an extension of anthropological research on the population of Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona. Since the Resistance does their protests Friday and Saturday there are two reports a week. The supporting material not related to the Resistance reports can be found on the Under the Hills blog.
And he didn’t impress.
Fridays on ASU campus have a weaker contingent of students who are finishing up their last classes for the week and are looking forward to the weekend. They really weren’t biting. Between Brother Jed and Sister Pat’s inflammatory and rude speeches (claiming girls are whores, and boys are rapists) they failed to hook anyone and only faced the SFTS the entire time.
Even the klaxon yells of, “Pervert alert! Pervert alert! Girls close your legs, it’s a fraternity boy!” didn’t garner much of any response from any passerby.
Slow to start up, Jed and Pat were equally slow going, and eventually petered out entirely around lunchtime.
I stopped and talked to him a little while. Where he showed a certain amount of ignorance of my dress aesthetic—which I don’t entirely blame him for, he is a Christian evangelical preacher, and would not fit in on the floor of a Goth dance club. Claimed that I was limiting my influence by dressing the way that I do; although, I attempted to explain that I’m dressed like this for show. He then noticed my nametag that states that I’m an Anthropologist and said, “So you study anthropology. That’s the study of man. Tell me: what is the purpose of man?”
“If my badge said that I was a geologist, would you have actually asked me, ‘What is the purpose of rocks?’”
I knew what I was getting into when I started talking to him. Really, I want to talk to the person not to their religion, but an evangelical Christian out on a campus talking to anyone is essentially working. They’re not being themselves—they’re being their job, and that job is to sell their religion. However, Jed did talk about some real world things in between his farcical carnival act gestures and religious gesticulations.
During our little discussion, over which I did more listening than actual talking but I’m not sure that I can bridge the generation gap between Jed and I, he decided that I was a good candidate to read his book. So, now I have a copy of it. Which he claims is going out of print. I did promise to read it, so I will certainly attempt to do so. After I am done, I am donating it to the SFTS so that they can put it into their library.
After I disentangled myself from him, he took his chair and sat amidst the SFTS and talked to people there. I will have to interview the various members of the group to find out what exactly they talked about because I spent more time instructing other ASU students.
The STFS had a massive turn out of worthwhile people including Kevin, Max (the Jewish guy from last year), Brian, Cale, Kyle, Kazz, Todd – I am probably missing some but people were out in force.
Hell, the dark pit of sorrow, the prison of fire and brimstone where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. A place of eternal torment where an all-powerful and all-loving god sends most people to suffer terribly. Forever.
Wow, what a dreadful place! It’s worse than the witch’s candy house in Hansel and Grettle. Worse than Grendel’s foul lair. Worse than The Bog of Eternal Stench. Fortunately, it is just as fictional!
There are a few people in history who I would almost wish eternal torment on, but if you can imagine what eternity really means then it’s hard to justify. No one is capable of committing an offense terrible enough to justify an infinite punishment. That would require an infinite crime, and the only infinite crime would be sending someone to Hell. So if the Bible’s god were real, we know where he should go.
The rest of us, for ourselves and for the rest of the world around us, should try to live the best lives we can, but out of love, not out of fear of a nonexistent Hell.
Religious people are fond of telling us how great faith is, but what does it really do for us? Sure it provides a sense of comfort and security to believers, but can it make them do more?
How about Jihad, genocide, murder, crusades, lies, inquisitions, intolerance, Sharia, guilt, terrorism, infanticide, stoning, pogroms, war, fear, 9/11, bigotry, theocracy, slavery and hate? That is not nearly an exhaustive list, but these are just some of the terrible things that have been done through faith in various gods, and most of them are still happening today because of people’s religious beliefs.
Next time someone asks you how you can live without faith, why not ask them how we can all live with it?