God is Indeed Dead: It is Scientifically Provable

A common claim in the discussion surrounding, made by both the religious and atheists or agnostics, is that God cannot be disproved. I think that many or most atheists allow this misconception based on the true premise that science cannot disprove a phenomenon without evidence for or against it. And, I think some of the more enlightened and less fundamentalist of the religious out there claim the same thing. They understand enough of the scientific method to understand that their claim of God cannot be disproved. Some of the religious use this as a petty form of argument: “You can’t disprove my God exists, therefore there is a good chance He exists.” But in this post I blame atheists and agnostics for their stance on this issue. I am disappointed to say that I have yet to meet an atheist who doesn’t concede this point, that God cannot technically be disproved, even if there is no evidence in support of His existence and even if it is overwhelmingly unlikely that He exists.

The reason I have a problem with this point of view is as follows. It is true that the notion of a non-specific deity cannot technically be disproved, but in reality we rarely talk about the potential existence of a non-specific, non-meddling, impersonal deity who shows no evidence for his or her existence. And, in practical terms it is the very specific gods of human history (Yahweh, Allah, or plain old “God”) who cause most of the debates about religion. “God exists, I have a personal relationship with Him, and you can’t disprove that.” Well, I beg to differ. Once you make your deity specific, as all who follow organized monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Islam, or Christianity necessarily do, then you put all the evidence for that specific deity out there for judgment. You can’t make very specific claims about the nature and the actions of your deity and then claim that since science cannot examine the evidence for that deity it cannot disprove it’s existence.

Let’s take a look at some of the very specific attributes attributed to the Christian God as an example.

• It was claimed of the Christian God that He created the world in six days. We know scientifically that the world was not created in six days.

• He is the same God that people claim answers their personal prayers. We know scientifically that prayers are not systematically answered. (Some scientific blinded studies have even been done showing no effect of prayer on health outcomes).

• He is the same God that people claim sent himself to earth in human form through a virgin in the Middle East two millennia ago. We know scientifically that this is not possible, and we have pretty good reason to believe that it did not happen when you examine the verified records of the time.

• He is the same God that people claim died and the came to life again a couple of days later. Again, we have very good reason to believe scientifically that this never happened. For such an unheard of event there should have been many, many written records of the event. Indeed, everyone who could write at the time would surely have written something about the event, especially considering it was apparently accompanied by a massive earthquake and a number of zombies walking around in plain sight in Jerusalem, none of which is recorded.

• He is the same God that people claimed would come back to the Middle East in person within the lifetimes of the people there at the time. We know that did not happen.

These are a few examples of specific claims about a particular God which have been convincingly shown not to be true. So, it is no longer reasonable to simply say that science cannot disprove the existence of God, when you make such a claim about a very specific God whom you have defined carefully beforehand.

Some of these claims will be dismissed by more liberal-minded Christians by claiming that they were not intended to be taken literally. But this attitude is simply one of trying to move the target as needed. No one ever claimed that the Genesis account of creation was not to be taken literally until science showed that it couldn’t be true. Only after that did the religious alter their claims out of necessity and start to claim that it’s just a story that describes something more profound. A classic case of making your beliefs fit the irrefutable evidence as needed.

If, when you refer to “God”, you are referring to the God in the Bible, the God that most Christians would consider their deity, then it is entirely reasonable to state that God does not exist. It is also entirely reasonable to state that science has proven He does not exist. The religious would be flawed to then claim that science can’t technically disprove the existence of their God, because most of the qualities and history of that God have been disproved. To alter the qualities and history of God to fit the new evidence that arises from science (such as the fact that the world was not created in six days), is to simply ignore the facts and to adjust your target in order to cling to your belief.

If you really want to be convincing in your argument that science cannot disprove your God, then you need to define your God, explain what he/she is like, what he/she does, what he/she has done in the past, and then let science take it’s best crack at disproving it. The only deities so far that science is unable to disprove are the ones that are specifically poorly described such as the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, gods such as Allah, Yahweh, or other monotheistic deities have long since been disproved as convincingly as has the notion that the sun revolves around the earth.

You Can Never Have Too Many Unicorns

The unicorn analogy to religion is an old and common one. Many atheists pull out the Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU), a fictional deity (well, I guess one doesn't really need the redundant word "fictional") used to point out that any god really isn't any more supported by evidence than one that has been dreamed up deliberately within recent memory. The whole point of the IPU, in my opinion, is to point out the silliness of believing that one god is real just because he is written about in an ancient book and is accepted by many millions of people, while rejecting a similarly made up god (the IPU) which is not.

The IPU has probably run its course in some ways because it is often used in ridicule, something that is not a very productive form of communication (I've never known anyone to be ridiculed out of their religious beliefs). It is also dismissed superficially by the religious without really considering how it relates to their beliefs. Nevertheless, it is an analogy worth repeating, and often.

Today I was listening to the radio and heard a snippet of an interview that was an ad for an upcoming interview with a Christian scholar. The man was talking about persecution of Christians in other places around the world, and pointing out that, by comparison to the genuine and often violent persecution of Christians in various places around the world, North American Christians can't really claim persecution of their faith. But, he objected, North American Christians can genuinely claim to have been marginalized, a trend that he obviously did not agree was a good thing. The interview was going to discuss his views on this marginalization. Unfortunately my car ride ended before the interview, so I profess ignorance to his actual points about the marginalization of Christians in society, but I thought it was an interesting startint point for some thoughts.

Are Christians marginalized in North America? And, if so, is that a good or bad thing?

I would argue that Christians and Christianity is most definitely not marginalized, but I do understand how someone with a Christian bias might think so. Christianity and Christian beliefs are at the forefront of almost every political discussion, particularly in America. We all know that no political leader will ever get elected to high office without professing a personal faith in Christianity. There is a constant battle to introduce Christianity into schools, museums, and legislation in the United States. Canada might be a bit more openly secular, but Christianity runs pretty deep in parts of this country too. The reason many Christians think they are being marginalized is because of a warping of their importance in the past. Their voice has been far louder than other groups, both religious and other. There probably has been a diminishing in this in recent years, or at least an examination of it, with the trend of "new atheism". But, to say that Christianity has become marginalized in society is to way overstate things. Its impact might be decreasing slighly, but it still carries far more weight in societal discussions than other religions or beliefs do. Often more than the facts and evidence that science brings too.

Is it a good or bad thing for Christianity to be marginalized? Well, this is where the unicorn analogy comes in. We don't want a society in which individual people are marginalized. That does happen, of course, but we should strive for a society in which it is minimalized. But, we do want a society in which Christianity is marginalized. Many Christians would initially object and talk about how their religion is the foundation of a civil society. But, they need to embrace the unicorn analogy to understand their position objectively. If there were a group of people who believed in unicorns, and indeed who believed that unicorns talked to them privately, told them how to live, told politicians when to invade other countries, et cetera, would we not want that group marginalized? Surely we would not want a crowd like that to have a loud voice in decision making in society. We would not want people who believed in something that we all know is fiction to be more important in society than everyone else, would we? That is the exact position that the rest of us have with regards to Christians. We think their beliefs are fictional. We think that the voice of God that they hear in prayer is simply in their head. We think that when they make decisions based on their Christian beliefs, and especially when they push them on others, that the result is often disastrous and negative.

When you think that your religion should be afforded more respect, ask yourself how much respect you would give to a group of unicorn-believers. Then expect exactly the same amount of respect and clout in society yourself.

It's a Miracle! Oh...wait, nevermind.

This post is aimed at moderate, intelligent Christians (or those of other religions that require the supernatural). Many times the popular media, comment boards, and blogs involve discussions with and about those of the religious who are frankly out of touch with reality and a bit extremist. If you think the world is 10,000 years old, then this post is not for you. But, if you are the kind of Christian who accepts science and evolution, and who also believes in Jesus Christ as your personal saviour, then I'd be happy to hear your comments on this post.

Image courtesy of Google Images

My question is this. Why do you likely reject the "miracles" that some people make in our modern world which are obvious shams. Do you realize that when a grilled cheese sandwich seems to have the image of the Virgin Mary on it, it is just a coincidence of the cooking pattern of the bread combined with our human bias to recognize human faces where they are not actually in existence? If so, then you probably reject the notion that God is speaking through the grilled cheese sandwich as a bit of a silly side of your religion, right? So, if you're still with me so far, then let me ask why you likely don't reject the equally amazing miracles described in an ancient book? Do you believe that the Red Sea physically parted and allowed thousands of Israelites to walk through on dry land? Do you believe that Lazarus rose from the dead to live again? Do you believe that fire came down from heaven and consumed Elijah's offering and the stones that it was built on? Do you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, died and then came to life again a couple of days later? (Presumably you must believe this latter miracle, since it is part of the basis of the Christian religion). So, why the discrepancy? Why reject the crazy, ridiculous things that people claim today as miracles and yet accept and embrace the stories from the ancients about similarly ridiculous, physically impossible events? Is it only because they are written down in the Bible? Is it because the Bible is the inspired word of God? Wouldn't anyone who wanted to start a religion simply tell you in their book that the book is the inspired word of God and that you should accept it as such?

So, if you are reading this, if you are a Christian, then I would sincerely like to hear your point of view on this matter.

Canadian Theocracy

For several years when current Prime Minister Stephen Harper was becoming prominent in the federal political landscape and then was leader of the opposition, there was a feeling that he had a hidden agenda that was undesirable to most Canadians in that it was regressive socially and dominated by antiquated religious dogma. The best trick Harper managed to pull was to get the public to forget about that worry and actually elect him to the highest office in the country. How he did so was by using two words: "jobs" and "economy". Stephen Harper is smart enough to realize that money makes the world go around. You are not going to get elected in Canada by talking about how gays shouldn't marry, about how abortion is wrong, and about how we should generally be a "Christian nation with good family values", whatever that means. That rhetoric might work in Republican dominated states south of the border, but not in a country like Canada that is dominated politically by the main socially progressive cities.

But, most people do care about money and about having a good job, even if they already have a good job. For some reason, when a politician talks about jobs and the economy over and over and over again like a broken record, even those people who have lots of money and a secure job start to listen and start to believe that maybe he's their best bet in the Prime Minister's office. And so, to make a long story short, Stephen Harper and his gang of religious Reform Party (Americans can read this as Tea Party) wingnuts achieved a small majority government in 2011.

And then, as surely as a leopard that has coloured over its spots with some cheap water based paint, the jobs and economy paint because to wear off and the real spots began to show through.

First, it was the Office of Religious Freedom, purportedly established at great expense to Canadian taxpayers, to promote religious freedom in a world in which religion is under attack from all sorts of places. But, of course, this office was solely intended to promote Christianity. Photo ops with the foreign minister were taken with the pope and not with imams or the Dalai Lama. Comments by readers in the popular media were overwhelmingly against this office on two counts: it was a waste of tax payers money by a government that promised fiscal restraint; and secondly it was pretty obvious that it was a thinly veiled and politically spun attempt to spread Christianity with no regard for other religions, never mind those with no religion.

Now, the Conservative government has boldly cancelled the contracts of any religious counsellor for inmates who is not Christian. Therefore, if you are a federal prisoner and happen to be Muslim or Jewish, you can only expect counselling to come from a Christian counsellor. The Muslim or Jewish counsellor you previously had, to help with your rehabilitation and help get you ready for society again, is gone. Of course, every Christian on earth has the goal of increasing the number of Christians, of converting people to the "good news". There are varying degrees of how blatant Christians are with their proselytizing, but a good Christian can hardly claim to not care that their fellow human is headed of to an eternity of hell. No, whether public or private, they want you to convert to Christianity.

Maybe this is simply a voting tactic. Maybe Stephen Harper realizes that most of his votes come from undereducated redneck conservative Christians and therefore the more of them he can create in the voter pool the better his chances of re-election. Watch next for a new law that limits immigration into Canada to places that are crazy fundamentalist Christian. If you are from the deep south or the mid-west of the U.S., well come on in. If you're from Afghanistan or France, well not so much.

But, all joking aside, this is a very frightening trend. Stephen Harper never grew out of his immature, self-serving, Bronze Aged secret agenda. He just figured out that the average Canadian wasn't going to buy it wholesale and so he had to really bury it until he got elected. Harper stopped making all his ridiculous statments about gay marriage, homosexuality, and abortion for a few years, focused on the economy and jobs in his election campaigns, finally got elected when the 65% of the electorate that hates him divided their votes between other parties, and then brought in his crazy theocratic reform.

This all illustrates a characteristic of Christianity that is absolutely deadly in politics: close-mindedness. Christians all believe they are 100% right. They have been told by God what life is all about and what is right and what is wrong, so when they get in positions of power nothing else really matters. If God didn't mention the environment in the Bible, then anything to do with care for the environment must just be some evil anti-God made-up conspiracy and can safely be ignored. If God tells you homosexuality is wrong, then it doesn't really matter how enlightened your society has become on human rights, you can just plough ahead and try to make it illegal because that is what's right. (See American politics for more examples of this type of bull-headed dogmatic "leadership". George Bush was a walking example of it. Never mind that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that the whole world thinks I'm wrong for invading Iraq, God told me to do it so I'm right). Can you imagine bringing this type of 100% right attitude into any other scenario such as a marriage, a workplace, a friendship? Disaster. Just like when religious people bring their stubborn and ignorant dogma into politics.

Paralysis...It's Actually Your Fault

Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk."

Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk."

The New Testament includes some pretty significant healing stories. Lame men getting up and walking for the first time, blind men rubbing scales off their eyes and seeing for the first time. Even the odd resurection. It's all very wonderful, at least for those fortunate few souls who happened to be around Jesus and his followers at the time and could cash in on the medical miracles being handed out.

But, as is usually the case in the Bible, while initially the stories seem loving, peacful, and happy, the real story is a bit more gruesome and immoral. The story of Noah and the flood, on the surface is all about new beginnings, but in reality is all about death and destruction from an obsessive and vindictive deity. The story of Moses leading his people out of Egypt is, on the surface, a story of peaceful victim slaves overcoming oppression and finding their deserved freedom, but in reality is about innocent Egyptians suffering for simply doing what everyone of the day did. And, the story of medical miracles in the New Testament are, under the flowery surface, equally horrific.

I've known a few paralyzed and chronically ill people in my time. Most of them amaze me with their positive outook on life and their desire to achieve the most they can with their limited mobility. None of them have ever sat around waiting for a miracle. But, think of what the Bible stories of healing really say, deep underneath the fluffy surface. What they really say is this: If only you had more faith, you could be healed. They say that medical miracles are possible, that paralyzed people can simply stand up and walk around and be healed on faith alone.

What a horrific, evil message.

Paralysis cannot be healed. At least not yet. There is much medical research going on in the field of central nervous system neuron regneration. But, to date full healing is not possible. If it ever does become possible, it will be through medical research not through revelation and faith.

The Hitch Remembered

Christopher Hitchens was a unique man of immense intellect. All one needs to do is type his name into YouTube and tune into one of the dozens of videos to get a sample of his incredible command of language, his rational approach to any debate, and his wit. Hitchens achieved his greatest fame when he tackled the issue of religion, and it was not until the last five years or so of his life that he became a real household name. As one of his contemporaries describes, Hitchens hated dictators and he gradually progressed in his writing towards the greatest controlling dictator of them all: God. It was his book God is Not Great that really brought him into the limelight, probably due to the negative reaction of so many religious people. But, as they say of The Hitch, love him or hate him, you could not ignore him. Sadly, Hitchens passed away last December.

Martin Amis was by all accounts Christopher's closest friend. Just hearing each of them describe their friendship makes one envious of the strength of their relationship. The following video clip is Martin Amis giving the eulogy at a Christopher Hitchens memorial, in which he attempts to unearth why Hitchens was so beloved by so many. With his characteristic dry humour, Amis recounts a few tales of this four-decade long friendship with Hitchens: 

The previous evening, Charlie Rose spends an hour interviewing four of Hitchens' friends, writers Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, James Fenton, and Martin Amis. These are the men who knew Hitchens the best. Some of them knew him since he was a young man at Oxford. Though this clip is an hour long, it is a very good window into the character of "The Hitch", it is also very funny at times, and of course sad when they discuss his eventual death. Well worth watching and remembering what the world lost when The Hitch passed on:

Questioning your Faith Part I

Are you a Christian?

If you are, the first question you should probably ask yourself is why you find yourself on this blog. Why are you reading a blog about atheism, written by someone who used to be a Christian? Is there something about your religious faith that nags at your subconscious? Or perhaps your doubts are more obvious to you. Perhaps you have started to have serious questions about your religious beliefs. Either way, maybe you have doubts, and maybe you are wondering...what next?

I thought I would aim my writing towards those who consider themselves Christians or religious but who may be wondering about their religion or their God. Does God really exist? Are there really people who don't believe in Him? Am I alone in having doubts about the religion I have believed for so long?

Firstly, if you don't have any interest in questioning your religion, then there is probably no point in reading any further. Questions, whether big or small, are the key to understanding your religion in a new light. If you still believe that God exists and you have a personal relationship with Him, if it makes you angry when people deny His existence, then these writings are unlikely to be of interest to you. But, if you've ever wondered whether it is OK to question God's existence, please read on.

I've written earlier on my blog about the time when I started to question my religion and my belief in God. It can be a frightening propostition to question the existence of God. You fear what He might think if you question Him and if you wonder if He even exists. You worry where it might lead. What questions might come next. Put aside your fear. If God exists, surely he would want followers who do ask difficult questions. Surely he would want you to ask every difficult question, even the ones that seem to have no answer. Surely your loving Heavenly Father isn't going to strike you down in anger just because you question His existence. On the other hand, if God does not exist, then that is a question you really, really need to ask. The stakes are very high, there is the rest of your life to consider...do you want to take the chance that you will waste the one life you'll ever have by believing in something that doesn't exist? After all, hundreds of millions of people from other religions do just that, don't they? What makes you right and them wrong?

Christianity doesn't like difficult questions. Some Christians even teach that questioning God is the Devil's work. See, that's the trick of it all. If you have been taught your whole life that you shouldn't question something, and have fear put into you of what might happen if you do, then you're going to stay in line. Just ask anyone who lived in the Soviet Union. Never question the authority. Just keep your head down and believe, right? No. Put your fears aside and question. Ask yourself the really difficult questions that might have been nagging at you.

If God exists and loves everyone, why did tens of thousands of children die painfully from hunger this week? Is it really all part of his loving plan for humanity? Is it really the result of original sin that entered the world through one man and one woman, and it's just too bad that all those children are suffering as a result? Or is it just the painful and sorry reality of the world we live in, without a God?

If God exists, why has He never once really shown himself to you? Oh sure, you've "felt" his presence from time to time, but there's never been anything conclusive, has there? He's never appeared to you in the same way as another human being does. You've never heard his voice as clearly as you hear the radio out loud, have you? It's always just a feeling that you have that He wants you to do something or to live a certain way. Why?

If God exists, then why is there not a single documented case ever of an amputee being healed by Him? Sure, there are lots of wonderful miracle stories of invisible diseases like cancer being cured, but it's never the obviously visible ones that God tackles. Why? Does he really have a problem with amputees? Or is he really trying to keep himself that hidden, so that only those who really, really, really seek Him will find Him? Or, is it more likely that there are no miracles at all, and that sometimes people are cured of diseases for unexplained reasons but that incurable things like amputations do not happen without explanation?

If God exists, then why were there relgions around before the Abrahamic religions of the Bible? Wouldn't He want His one true religion to be the first documented one? Yet it is not. There were religions in the Americas before the time of Christ. Did Satan really mislead all those tens of millions of Native Americans before they had a chance to even hear the Gospel? Why not just leave them alone and let them have no religion at all? Doesn't make any sense, does it?

If God exists, then why did most human beings in history die young, painful deaths? Before science discovered the incredible finds of modern medicine, you'd be lucky to make it to 35 years of age. Many, if not most, children died in infancy or childhood. Doesn't that sound a bit of a cruel way for a loving God to set up the world? Is all that death really fair punishment just because one man and one woman once ate the wrong piece of fruit?

Why are there so many "paradoxes" (i.e. contradictions) in the Bible? Anyone who has gone to Sunday School must have noticed them. First God tells people to not eat certain foods and to be circumcized, then he says it doesn't matter after all. First God tells you that he is all-loving, but then he lashes out in anger all the time at innocent people and animals. Then there are all the things in the Bible that contradict known facts in our world. In the creation story, why was time divided into day and night before the creation of the sun? A global flood at the time of Noah is physically impossible. There is no way to cover the earth with water to a height of the highest mountains on earth (roughly 30,000 feet). There is not enough water on earth for that too happen. Where did it all go afterwards? Et cetera, et cetera. All of these contradictions can be explained away if you want. Most Christians will find a way to reconcile the Biblical contradictions with their belief in God...but that's not why you are here. You already raised these questions yourself, didn't you? So, why are there so many contradictions in the one book handed to humanity from an all-wise, all-knowing God?

Perhaps the hardest part of questioning one's faith is not wondering about these few questions I've raised. The harder part is accepting that it is OK to question. It is very hard to set aside one's fear of what is going to happen if you question your faith. What happens if you lose your faith? Won't you go to hell?

It is time to ask yourself to answer a question very honestly. If there was no such thing as an afterlife, would you still stick with your religion? If Christianity ended when you die, and you just ceased to exist like a plant does when it dies, would you still be a Christian for the rest of your life? What would be the point? Sure, you might like to think that life would have more meaning being in a relationship with God, and following his lead in your life, but be honest, would you really stick with it? If not, then consider what you are really saying is that you are only a Christian because of fear of Hell. Time to set that irrational fear aside and ask yourself some more questions.