Religion

With the International Atheist Convention starting in Melbourne, Australia today (March 12), I felt I had to do something to mark the occasion, seeing as unfortunately I am unable to attend myself. So it seemed like an appropriate occasion to launch a new venture we’ve been planning for some time now: Sachiko’s sexy Bible readings! It does seem that when a lot of people first see me (or at least conservative types), they immediately think “when it comes to brains, she’s got great tits”, simply because I have big tits, and I am a nude model. So I thought it might be fun to really play up to this stereotype, and channel my inner bimbo, as I figured this would be a very funny and effective way to show up the absurdity of a lot of what is written in the Bible, as well as some of the utterly ludicrous contortions of logic people use to defend religious belief. I have to say: it’s really fun to play dumb!

For quite some time now I’ve been meaning to do an article on why creationism should not be taught in science class, but I think A.C. Grayling covers it very well in this video. I guess the only thing I would add (although he does already touch on this point toward the end of the video) is that the only thing that should be taught in science class is, well, science, and that creationism simply does not fit the true definition of science. That is, not trying to make the facts fit a preconceived notion (as in the case of the Biblical creation story), but rather, looking at the facts objectively, and seeing what conclusions it leads us to, then testing our conclusions through objective, repeatable experiments.

Oh yes: calling creationism “intelligent design” doesn’t make it any more scientific or respectable.

Okay, yes I know I posted this video last Christmas, but it’s just so damn funny that I had to post it again! Besides, I thought some of my newer readers may have missed it when I posted it last time. A word of warning though: this video may be highly offensive to Christians of delicate sensibilities.

Speaking of Christians, I’ve been starting to receive emails letting me know that not all Christians are extremists who want to force their beliefs on other people. Well of course I do know that: if all Christians practised the sort of modern, progressive and - above all - peaceful and tolerant outlook advocated by such people as Bishop John Shelby Spong, then I wouldn’t feel any need to write about Christianity at all. But sadly, we know that isn’t the case, especially in the US, where fundamentalist Christianity is on the rise. And many moderate Christians make apologies for such people, instead of attacking them head on as the threat to the future of humanity (and indeed Christianity) they are.

So having said that, I would like to wish a merry Christmas to all my more progressive and tolerant Christian readers and fans, and a happy holidays to all!

Outspoken atheists like myself obviously spend a lot of time debunking the so-called ‘evidence’ for the existence of God, but it often seems to me that evidence is largely irrelevant to theists. Their beliefs are based on a need to believe in God for emotional reasons, and there are many. I’ve talked about some of these before (fear of death, fear of the unknown, the need for a “higher justice” etc.), but there’s one very big one that I haven’t tackled directly yet: morality. It seems that a big reason a lot of theists feel they have to believe in God is that without him, humans would have no morality.

Let’s begin with their most often cited ‘evidence’ for this idea, the great tyrants of the 20th century: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-Il etc. These people were supposed to have been atheists, yet they are responsible for the greatest acts of genocide in the last 100 years. Surely this must prove that - whatever problems religion might have - atheism is actually far worse? As a matter of fact, it doesn’t prove that at all - indeed, when we look at the evidence more closely, it actually leads us to the opposite conclusion. For a start (unlike the countless examples of people killed in the name of God), none of these people committed any of their atrocities in the name of atheism. They committed them in the name of Nazism, Communism etc., which tells us what is actually going on here. These were in fact new religions - the only reason these tyrants denounced other religions is so that they could become Gods themselves. It is noteworthy that communism spread far more effectively in the east than it did in the west, and I think there are two key reasons for this. One is that the oriental countries have basically always accepted the idea of their king, emperor etc. being an earthly God, so it wasn’t really anything new to accept their communist leader as one. The other reason of course is that full democracy was already well established in the west, which naturally leads the people of those countries to question their leaders, and not blindly follow them. Which leads to my next point. Read the rest of this entry »

As an outspoken atheist who also happens to be a female nude model with big tits, the email I get from religious types is perhaps a little different to what most men who speak out about atheism get. Instead of simply cursing me as an evil sinner, they often want to “save my soul” (presumably in the hope that they can have a relationship with me in either this world or the next), and indeed often tell me about how I lead them into sin. My standard response to this is: “If God didn’t want you to look at my tits/naked body, then why did he make you enjoy it so much? Does he want to torture you or something?” Their standard response to this is that God gave them the free will to do evil things, and that they just can’t help themselves committing the sin of looking at my tits/naked body. Hence it seems to me that we should take a good, long, hard look at this “free will” concept, as it is crucial to the credibility of religion - without it, they cannot explain how a perfect, all-loving, all-seeing and all-knowing God can allow evil, sin, pain and suffering in the world he is supposed to have created. Quite frankly, the blatantly obvious logical flaws in this argument make it amazing to me that I even have to point them out, but given that millions of people depend on this concept to make sense of how the nature of their supposed creator conflicts with the nature of the world, clearly I must do so. Read the rest of this entry »

We have finally found a couple of billing options we can use for our new project - we now just have to integrate them with our systems. We have also found a third party site we can work with should this prove too difficult, although for the best possible user experience at the lowest possible price, we still want to do it ourselves if we can. We are aiming to get this underway by next month (I hope!).

For now, enjoy this hilarious video from DarkMatter2525, the person who brought us the creation story cartoon I posted previously. I also highly recommend his Let God Sort Them Out video - it is along similar lines to the An Atheist Meets God video I posted a while back, and once again shows the sheer absurdity of the Bible’s statements on who goes to heaven and who doesn’t. I also really like his Epic God Fail video, which lists many of God’s outrageous atrocities, with a great punch line!

There has been a lot of research in recent years as to why we like to believe in religion, and where it came from in the first place. A lot of theories have been suggested, and there’s probably an element of truth to all of them. Plus of course, there’s our deep-seated fear of the unknown, especially death. We are so afraid of death that we desperately want to believe that we don’t actually die, a desire that religion fulfils in our minds. And before we had science to explain the true nature of reality, religion provided us with an explanation for the way the world is, however fanciful it may have been. The discussion we had after my last post, however, leads to another possible idea as to the origin of religion - surely not the only reason religion came about, but quite possibly a very important one.

As social animals, human beings are biologically programmed to co-operate with and care for each other, as it enhances our chances of survival, both as individuals and as a species. This is actually the origin of the moral sense that religious people have such a hard time understanding without God, but which is in reality a very simple and logical consequence of our evolutionary history. But like all animals, however, we also have a selfish survival instinct, particularly when resources are limited. This naturally leads to tribalism - we tend to form groups that are large enough to give us what we need to survive, but not so large that we run out of resources. Of course, just how big that group can be depends on how efficiently we are able to use the resources available to us, hence technology has led to an increasingly globalised society. But at the time the holy books of most of the world’s major religions were written, tribalism was rife, as our ability to utilise resources was indeed limited. Read the rest of this entry »

Jr posted a link to this article in a comment on my last post, but it had me so outraged that I think it deserves a post of its own. Here is a quote from the opening paragraphs of this eye-opening article:

EKET, Nigeria - The 9-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse.

A month later, he died.

Can you imagine the excruciating pain this poor boy must have suffered over that month? This must be some kind of crazy, whacko religious cult, right? It is in reality Christianity, as brought to Africa by American evangelicals. And as shown by this article, this boy’s case is not an isolated incident.

So why on earth are preachers condemning innocent children to this fate? That’s the most shocking part of all: it’s good for business. The preachers and churches who identify the most “witches” are seen as being the most powerful, and parents actually pay them willingly to exorcise their children.

This is a great example of why atheists like myself can no longer accept religion as a benign belief that gives people comfort. Because when a person’s most cherished belief is something for which there is no physical evidence, they are susceptible to believing anything - including that their own children are witches and must be tortured, or that blowing themselves up to kill “infidels” will give them 72 virgins in the afterlife. Religious moderates and liberals will argue that these people are extremists, but their actions are a logical consequences of their belief systems, and are very often actually directly supported by their own holy books. Yes, these people are often poor and desperate, but certainly not always (most of the September 11 terrorists were actually fairly wealthy and well educated), and only religion could twist their minds so much as to do something like this. Indeed, the more poor and desperate people are, the more powerful the false certainty of religion becomes. This then allows business interests to prey on their desperation, as is so tragically the case here.

I also find it absurd that we condemn new religions as cults, while allowing larger, more established religions to do the same sorts of things, or worse. They are both equally delusional - and dangerous.

I’m sure you’ve all heard about this story by now: Obama gets asked by a 4th grader why everybody hates him so much! Although I obviously can’t personally agree with his Christian sentiment, he actually does make a valid point: Christians are supposed to be loving and tolerant, but far right wing conservative Americans have shown themselves to be about the most hateful and intolerant group of people this side of fundamentalist Islam. And at least Muslim fundamentalists are honest about their hatred and intolerance - fundamentalist Christians go on about love when all they do is hate, and go on about freedom when they want to suppress the freedom of everyone who disagrees with them. They claim to represent American values when in fact America was founded on secular values (hence the separation of church and state in the constitution), and they claim to represent Christian values when in fact their behaviour is very much against to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

And why do they hate Obama so much anyway? I mean, Bush sent hundreds of Americans to their deaths in a senseless, illegal war, but that’s okay for them. On the other hand, Obama is trying to do something to bring health care to more Americans - even if you disagree with his plan, surely any sensible person can see that he is at least trying to do something for the benefit of the American people? Bush basically sent hundreds of innocent Americans to die for the benefit of Halliburton and the arms trade, while Obama is at least trying to save American lives, by taking them out of this war and trying to improve their health care. How could anyone have such a twisted value system and delusional world view as to think they should hate Obama, while at the same time supporting Bush?

POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to ask everyone what they think of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize! Personally, I agree with Obama himself that he doesn’t yet deserve it, and I hope he makes good on his statement that he will take it as a call to action. Perhaps he can start by putting some teeth into his administration’s demand that there should be no more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land…

We’re currently working on something pretty big and serious, so while we’re doing that, I thought I’d post this hilarious bit of comic relief - it’s actually a very accurate retelling of the Biblical creation!