Technology, Science and Morality

Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite writers. I have read all of his books. There is only one thing he has ever written that disappointed me. In "The God Delusion", he wrote about how the "moral zeitgeist" (the standards of morality that are part of the spirit of the times over the centuries) has improved dramatically over the past two centuries or so. (By "morality", I mean true morality, of minimizing suffering and maximizing happiness in conscious beings, not the phony, often upside-down "morality" of religious fundamentalists, that often considers pleasure to be immoral and suffering "good for the soul".)

For the first time in history, slavery, genocide and raping and pillaging are almost universally considered beyond the pale. War is not generally looked upon as glorious anymore. Sexism and racism are widely considered beyond the pale. Women and minorities supposedly have been granted equal rights, and certainly have much more equal rights than they did in the past. Even in these relatively regressive times, we have not fully returned to the sort of economic harshness that Dickens wrote about, and debtors' prisons are a thing of the past. Aside from the U. S., all of the developed world and some of the developing world has instituted universal healthcare. In the advanced countries, the circle of who deserves rights, which finally expanded to include all humans, has even started expanding beyond humans to other conscious animals. I can remember in my childhood in the 1960s when westerns still portrayed our genocide of Native Americans as a good thing, and comedians made homophobic jokes on TV, and those things were not considered in any way controversial, but no longer.

There are exceptions, of course. This is only a trend, not absolute. Slavery, genocide and raping and pillaging still go on, but mainly in the non-developed world, which lags behind the developed world. Germany in the 1930s went back to barbarism, but notice that it did so after it was temporarily pushed backward into poverty by war reparations after World War 1 and then the Great Depression. The United States, never a paragon of virtue in the first place, despite what most Americans are led to believe, sank back into barbarism after Bush took power in 2001, and has tortured people and denied them basic rights, and started an unprovoked war. While most Americans have advanced morally, that did not stop a small number of depraved people from taking over our government. Few Americans know that even slavery still goes on in the United States, on our territory of Saipan in the Pacific Ocean. But those are just exceptions to the general improving trend. The general population's attitudes have kept advancing, even if our leaders' attitudes have not always.

Just the fact that this unprecedented improvement in the moral zeitgeist, after millennia of little or no improvement, happened at the same time as the unprecedented rise in technology since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, should make us wonder if there could be some connection. While it may be impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is easy to see why there might be such a connection. Desperate people who are starving and don't know where their next meal is coming from are likely to do anything it takes to make sure they have food. And since everyone is doing that, everyone is also likely to do anything it takes to defend themselves from all the other desperate people who are doing that. Satiated people with full stomachs are much less likely to be violent.

Here again, this is only a trend, not absolute. It's likely that the higher the economic level of people, the greater proportion of them will have higher moral standards. But for whatever reason, maybe genetics or upbringing, some people will continue to act desperate no matter how economically secure they are, no matter how much they have, in a form of mental illness. The billionaires and multimillionaires who have seized control of the United States, who always want more, more!!, MORE!!!!, and spend their time driving everyone else into poverty in order to get it, are the ones who drove this country back into barbarism. A likely reason for this exception is that when a whole society rises in affluence, people may feel more secure, but when just a few people rise in affluence far above everyone else, they feel less secure, knowing how precarious their extreme affluence is.

Some people, especially extreme leftists who are anti-technology and want to go back to an agrarian society, don't even buy the idea that the moral zeitgeist has improved, but think it has gotten worse. This topic could make for an essay in itself. Such people operate under a standard set of misconceptions.

They believe the myth of the Noble Savage, that primitive peoples were peaceful, and that this is the way humans are inherently. All one has to do is read the Bible to see the savagery of primitive tribes. In fact, anthropologists have yet to find a primitive tribe with a murder rate as low is in our worst inner cities. Anthropologists studying hunter-gatherer tribes in New Guinea and the Amazon found murder rates of from 15 to 60% of males, a rate 20 times higher than that of the people who were killed in all the wars and genocides in the 20th Century. Just the opposite of what these people think, people in previous centuries used to kill and torture people and animals in sadistic, ingenious ways far worse than even Bush could have done, and think nothing of it.

They claim that the 20th Century was the worst in history, and cite the Holocaust, the tens of millions of people killed by Stalin, the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and many other events, as proof. They cite the fact that Stalin and Hitler killed more people than ever before in history, and others such as Pol Pot in Cambodia killed millions. But that is only because our population is so much greater than ever before. In per capita terms, violence went way down. In fact, the greatest genocide known, in terms of the proportion of the population killed, was by Genghis Khan, who wiped out 90% of the population of Persia, and 50% of the populations of China, Russia and Hungary. And he did it without advanced technology such as nuclear weapons. Just the opposite, the fact that we could easily wipe out everyone on earth with modern technology, and haven't, shows just how peaceful we've become. If we were still as violent as we used to be, you would have long ago been vaporized rather than reading these words.

They cite how bombing people from the air and using remote-controlled weapons makes it psychologically easier to kill people, and how video games and action movies desensitize people to violence. But people had no trouble at all being violent in past centuries, whereas modern technology turns most people into contented couch potatoes, and that more than makes up for the effects they cite.

They cite all the bad uses that technology has been put to, such as in warfare, and destroying the environment, and automating away workers' jobs. But technology is by itself neutral. It depends on what uses it is put to. Notice that all of these bad uses are caused by conservatism. Conservatives are the ones who are nationalistic, paranoid about foreigners and want to defend their "tribes", now nations, against all the other "tribes". Conservatives want corporations to make profits at any cost to the general welfare, such as destroying the environment. Conservatives want policies that enable only the rich to benefit from the increasing amount of stuff and leisure that comes from automation, instead of spreading the benefits to everyone. But such anti-technology leftists somehow get confused and blame technology rather than conservatism. Just the opposite of what they think, eliminating technology would bring us back to that past barbaric world, whereas advancing technology in conjunction with the leftism they advocate would bring us to the sort of gentle world they want. Technology could improve our lives much faster, but population increase undoes much of the improvement, and here again, conservatism is to blame. It is religious conservatives who push for "family values", which include encouraging and forcing women to have as many babies as possible.

I think the ultimate reason that such anti-technology leftists convince themselves of the upside-down lie that people are inherently good, and were so before technology supposedly made us increasingly violent, is because socialism has the problem of how people will have enough incentive to do the necessary work under socialism, despite everyone being paid more equally. Since they are anti-technology, they do not believe in solving the problem by automating away the work, so they can only insist instead that people are inherently good and will do the work voluntarily.

Technological improvement has been the only thing that has improved morality. We couldn't end slavery until we invented machines that took over the work that the slaves had done. Until we didn't have to worry where our next meal was coming from, we didn't have to luxury of worrying about the welfare of animals, much less humans. The moral zeitgeist didn't improve noticeably in the first 1800 years of Christianity, or from any other religion, only started improving after technology started advancing rapidly at the start of the Industrial Revolution, around the late 1700s. Even today, the most morally backward regions are the ones that are the most religious, such as the Bible Belt and the Middle East. Most Christians today want to forget the fact that while small groups of Christians were anti-slavery before the Civil War, the vast majority were pro-slavery, and the most pious people tended to be the most pro-slavery. That continues today, for the Bible Belt contains the most reactionary people who favor an economic system little different than slavery. The most religious countries, such as the United States, have the lowest social indicators, such as crime, divorce and poverty, and the Bible Belt has the lowest social indicators within the United States. And the highly-religious Middle East and backward regions of Africa are where the most mayhem in the world occurs.

Since technology depends on science, and since religion tends to stifle science, that means that, ironically, religion slows down moral progress, the exact opposite of what religious people claim. Just imagine where we would be now if ignorant Christian mobs hadn't burned down the Library of Alexandria, destroying most of the knowledge of the ancient world that had been painstakingly built up over centuries, and if Christianity hadn't imposed ignorance upon Europe during the Middle Ages. Christianity set back technological progress, and therefore moral progress, by 1500 years. If it hadn't, we would now have had the level of technology from the year 3500, whatever that will be. Ironically, when a major thing that drives people to religion is the fear of their own mortality, and the false hope of an afterlife that religion provides, we surely would have found a cure for the aging process by now, a REAL solution to the problem rather than that fictitious one.

So the improving moral zeitgeist is one of the best arguments against religion, and I expected Richard Dawkins to use it in "The God Delusion". Instead, to my bafflement and disappointment, after talking about how the moral zeitgeist has improved in the past 2 centuries, Dawkins then said that he has no idea why it improved! He blew a golden opportunity to present that argument.

In the future, I hope that science and technology continue to advance and increase the happiness and eliminate the suffering of all conscious beings. I want to see a cure for the disease of aging. Now that slavery has largely ended, I want to see automation bring about the end of wage slavery, so that people are not forced to spend their lives doing something they don't want to be doing. I want to see meat grown in vats so that we don't have to raise animals in order to kill and eat them, or hunt them. Environmentalists want to preserve the environment, but the natural world is a horrific place filled with suffering. I want to see the whole earth turned into a giant park, carefully managed by armies of robots, where lions do not kill antelopes, but chase realistic antelope robots to keep from getting bored, while antelopes live their lives peacefully. Where all mosquitos on earth have been driven to extinction by hordes of tiny flying robots, or some other technology. Where technology maintains this world park the way we maintain a garden, rather than from the horrific processes that maintain the ecological balance. None of that will happen until enough people wake up from the delusion of religion (and related delusions such as the work ethic), and such a world will wake up the rest.

Evolution Right Before My Eyes

I went diving today, and saw an amazing creature I'd never heard of before, called a guitarfish. Here is a picture of one, taken from wikipedia:


As you can see, it's like the missing link between sharks and rays, except it isn't missing. It looks like a shark that's starting to evolve into a ray. The back end looks like a shark, but the front end is somewhat flattened and spread out like a ray, but not as much as a ray. It swims along the bottom like a stingray. Like sharks and rays, it is a cartilaginous fish, which has cartilage instead of bones. For comparison, here are pictures of a shark (also from wikipedia), a guitarfish and a stingray (my picture).










(People get so many misconceptions about evolution, I should point out that it's not like one is currently evolving into the other. The initial cartilaginous fish was probably more shark-like rather than flattened, and the flattened shape evolved out of that. An intermediate form didn't go extinct, but survives today as guitarfish. There are even some skates (a type of ray) with tails intermediate in form between guitarfish and stingrays.

I should also point out that the reason this creature seems amazing to me is because I hadn't known of it before. If I'd never known about salamanders, I would have found them equally amazing, the link between fish and lizards. "They start out like a fish, and end up like a lizard -- wow!", I would have said.)

I'd love to take a religious fundamentalist and drag them down to the bottom to show a guitarfish to them. Preferably without them having any scuba gear on. So they would drown. Because I know they wouldn't change their mind no matter what I showed them, and it would be easier than strangling them. :-)

There are no Christians, only Meta-Bibleists

No Christians actually follow Jesus. In fact, nobody even follows what the Bible "actually" says, since it doesn't actually have any specific, coherent, and determinable doctrine that can be unambiguously derived from it. My purpose here will be to elaborate on this contention, and to maintain that there are no real Christians; in fact, the whole concept of "real" Christians is utter nonsense. There are only people who worship and follow what they think the Bible says: Meta-Bibleists.

Nobody knows for sure whether or not Jesus Christ existed as an historical figure. While it is certainly possible there was someone upon which the mantle of the magic Jesus of the Bible was placed, the fact remains that little, if anything, of this person is known, and it is not completely out of the question that Jesus was, in his entirety, a manufactured myth.

None of us have any records whatsoever of his actual birth, or his death. The whereabouts of his body are unknown, and the only way we know about are from copies of collections of his sayings and stories about his life compiled by mostly unknown people who may have known some of his direct followers, along with a few mentions of what his followers believed about him in dubious histories that are likely to have had fraudulent insertions added to them by his followers. In other words, we have no direct historical evidence of his existence, only evidence that there are people who claimed he existed.

The Bible has gone through dozens of translations. We have no original copies of any of the original texts. Much of the Bible may not even be original texts – some of Paul’s letters are probably fraudulent insertions, and some of the synoptic gospels are likely composites of an original source text. Much the same is true of the Old Testament.

Furthermore, barely a third of the bible books we do have were included in the “official” canon, which sought to distill which books went together best according to internal consistency and according to their own beliefs (maybe it had something to do with their political agenda, that’s not relevant. The point is, it was regular, mortal, unguided-by-god people making these decisions, unless Christians want to continue to insert the heavy and direct hand of God in every process of the Bible’s formation. Perhaps God inspired the translators, too?), and, out of all of these, what percentage of Jesus’s actual teachings and recordings were written down, even if he did exist? Practically none, no doubt. We actually don’t have much in the way of information or teaching from Jesus at all. An embarrassingly small amount, in fact, and much of it is ambiguous, confusing, and even contradictory, as are the stories about his life. It is, at this point, next to impossible for us to untangle the truth about who the real Jesus was.

All we have to go by is the Bible, and, in fact, Christians simply use the Bible as their Truth, their guidebook for what’s right and wrong…sort of. Most of the Bible isn’t even about Jesus. You have vast portions of writings by Paul, Revelation, the Old Testament, various letters and stories that are outside of the Gospels, and so on. It is from this plethora of texts that Christians derive their doctrines, but, more to the point, only indirectly. Christians do not, as a whole, give a direct and literal reading of the Bible, and follow its teachings. Instead, they rely on interpretations, often ones they did not derive themselves, and on dubious and varied translations, on the preachings of pastors and ministers, who derive their “Christian” views from a synthesis of exegetical treatises and the accumulated ruminations of various Christian thinkers over the centuries.

One could also floor the argument that the specific doctrines of Christians have consistently morphed to suit the zeitgeist of the times, and are really just deformed reflections of local ethics derived extra-Biblically. The constant revisions and updates to “core” Christian beliefs are so dramatically different today than they were even 200 years ago, much less 1500 years ago, that the religions would be as unrecognizable as the same one to each other as English would be today to someone centuries ago. They are no longer the same religion. If the Bible is so malleable that we can still be convinced that our beliefs are derived from it even when the beliefs of different people in different times were also supposedly derived from it but which are completely different, then really what we have is a book that can mean next to anything, to anyone, and all that leaves us with is a book that really means nothing; it is simply amorphous enough to suit anyone’s needs and confirm anyone’s prior inclinations about what principles we ought to hold.

It is from this last fact that I argue that, not only do modern “Christians” not actually follow Jesus, since they don’t know what his actual teachings were and must rely entirely on the Bible, but the “truth” of the Bible is so ephemeral, so plastic, that nobody even knows what the Bible means. It has been said, not without justification, that the Bible doesn’t say much mean what you say it does, but it says you mean. In other words, it is not that you read something in the Bible, believe it to be true, and then go out and practice that, but that you believe something to be true, find a way for the Bible to confirm this, and then go out and practice what you wanted to anyway. Susan B. Anthony recognized this when she said,

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
-- Susan B Anthony.

The point has been elsewhere, but it’s a rather powerful point against Christians: they do not derive their ethics from the Bible. Their ethics are derived from society, and then imposed on the Bible. Thus, not only do Christians not follow Jesus directly, they do not even follow him indirectly through the teachings he actually approves of in the Bible. What they actually follow is a menagerie of mismatched interpretations pooled from a variety of sources than foisted upon the Bible. They are Meta-Bibleists.

Christians may respond to this dismissively, saying, “I don’t follow the Bible! I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ himself, and it is the guidance and wisdom I receive through prayer, by directly communing with him that I derive the truth from.”

But isn’t it interesting that for each individual Christian, the Jesus they have a relationship with always shares the exact same interpretation of the Bible that they do? I’ve never once met a Christian who said, “I was convinced the Bible told me so and so, but when I spoke with Jesus about it, he said no, the Bible was wrong or my understanding of it was wrong, and instead to do something else”. No. Jesus ALWAYS says EXACTLY what they think the Bible says. Every single time; which is odd, since there are thousands of interpretations of the Bible between different Christians, all of whom insist Jesus directly informs them in their personal judgments concerning what it means. They cannot all be correct. In fact, most of them must be wrong. And what criteria do they attempt to use? Their interpretations of the Bible! What this all comes down is, in reality, they just follow whatever the particular views of the Bible they’ve been convinced Jesus approves of and, when they pray or ask Jesus for guidance, they are really just asking themselves, and, of course, they virtually always confirm their own beliefs, since the “Jesus” they have a relationship with is their own damn psyche.

Suppose this is not true. Suppose some really are communicating with Jesus. Which ones are, and which aren’t? And how can we tell? Throw the possibility that Satan is contacting individuals and convincing them he’s Jesus into the mix, or that Jesus was Satan to begin with, not to mention that they cannot provide any evidence whatsoever that any sort of communication is going on, and never mind that their claims are mutually exclusive and thus it’s logically impossible that any more than a fraction of them are actually communicating with Jesus. No, the personal relationship bid does not help the Christian; it only mires them in even more problems, problems from which they can never hope to escape because they can never provide any plausible evidence that could convince any reasonable person that they have a relationship with Jesus, nor do they really have any justification for believing so themselves.

Christians cannot escape this problem. In fact, Christian is really a bogus term entirely, since none of them actually follow Christ. They follow this or that metainterpretation of the Bible. There are no Christians, just meta-Bibleists.

There are ONLY atheists in foxholes

(I don't plan to write much about this, but I'd like to get the meme out there that "there are ONLY atheists in foxholes". So if, after reading what I've written, you agree with what I've said, then please make sure to use it as a counter response any time you hear someone making the tired claim that there are no atheists in foxholes.)

I'm sure by this point that a lot of those involved with the new atheist movement are all too familiar with the phrase "there are no atheists in foxholes", the reasoning behind which is that no one in a desperate situation can possibly disbelieve in a god. - I couldn't disagree more though. I would argue that it's during those desperate times that everyone has doubt., that when one finds themselves in a "foxhole", so to speak, that it's actually a difficult task to continue believing in a god.

Let's explore the idea of a soldier literally in a foxhole. What would be going through a soldier's head in that situation? Would such a soldier be relaxed, confident that his god will shield him from all oncoming bullets and shrapnel? Or would he be overjoyed at the prospect of getting to go to heaven? - I've never been in a foxhole, but something tells me that that's not what they're like. I'd imagine that men who find themselves in foxholes are anything but relaxed or overjoyed. And indeed, that's the very idea behind the original saying that everyone in a foxhole suddenly finds themselves believing in a god.

So some of these soldiers might start to pray, but does that really mean that they're believing in a higher power at that moment? Or does it mean that they're just desperate? Someone who's grown up believing in a god, but suddenly finds themselves in a situation where they don't quite feel so protected, might start praying just because they think it's what they're supposed to do (or in some situations, because there's no other recourse of action), but that doesn't mean that there's any actually believing taking place. And as I mentioned earlier, the behavior of someone in such a situation would indicate that they would indeed be having a lot of trouble believing their own bullshit.

So it's not a shortage of atheists that we should expect to find in the trenches, but rather of theists. If one day someone can show me some evidence of a soldier in a foxhole who feels completely safe and/or excited about getting to go to heaven, then maybe i'll change my tune, but until then, I maintain that there are only atheists in foxholes.

The Bible's Pro-Slavery! -- It's a Fact! -- Deal With it!

(A rebuttal to the essay Defending the Bible’s Position on Slavery)


Anyone who feels that the bible should be held in a high regard must eventually come to a difficult decision in regards to the bible's stance on slavery; either the bible is wrong and should not be followed (at least in this one respect), or there's nothing immoral about slavery (at least, the types of slavery condoned by the bible) because the bible says so. Since it's undeniable that the bible promotes slavery, these are really the only two possibilities. Many Christians, perhaps not surprisingly, will go to great lengths to avoid addressing this dilemma as to keep from committing to one side or the other, but it might come as a surprise to you to learn that buried deep within all its meandering, this essay does actually end up committing to a side. And if you think for a nanosecond that it ends up coming to the conclusion that the bible is in error about something, then you must not know sleazy Christian apologists very well. As awful as it is, the conclusion reached by this article is that the slavery in the bible is OK, and that the bible has done a good thing by giving instructions on how such slavery should be carried out. If you don't believe me, then scroll down and read the part labeled "conclusion" (paragraph 90), in which the essay says:

"The fact is, certain types of “slavery” not only are permissible, but sometimes necessary to the well-being of a society at large."

This sentence is of course accompanied by sentences that follow it in an attempt to justify it; sentences that I'm sure apologetic Christians would be quick to call me out on for not including, insisting that my leaving them out has resulted in the quote being taken out of context. So let me just go ahead and post the rest of the paragraph:

"...For the biblical stance on slavery to be condemned as unjust, it must be established that the specific regulations of slavery described in the text are immoral and unfair. However, when closely scrutinized, the biblical stance on slavery aligns itself with true justice. All regulations found therein were established for the just treatment of all parties involved. Many times, slavery as regulated in the Old Testament was a mutually beneficial relationship between servant and master, similar to an employee/employer relationship. Furthermore, slavery often was a substitute for the death penalty—which certain nations deserved. Debt accumulation caused many free persons to sell their labor and become slaves."

And now allow me to explore the justifications for such a conclusion and demonstrate how weak they are.

It isn't until paragraphs 11 and 12 that this conclusion that slavery is sometimes a good thing begins to rear its perplexing head.

"And, they [those who attack the bible] argue, since all slavery is morally wrong, the Bible must not be the product of a loving God. However, those who take such a position fail to consider that certain types of slavery are not morally wrong."

You're not hallucinating. This essay is trying to make the point that some types of slavery are morally acceptable. It goes on to elaborate upon this by saying that imprisonment and peonage (forcing people to work in order to pay off debt) are "technically" forms of slavery and that if they're OK, then it must be that not all slavery is bad. Without dwelling on the points however that imprisonment is NOT a type of slavery but in fact something entirely different and that many people would object to peonage as even being moral, there's a much bigger problem that the author of this essay faces, which is that EVEN IF such practices are morally acceptable, that doesn't mean that the types of slavery specifically promoted in the bible qualify as imprisonment, peonage, or any other type of "morally acceptable slavery". And a quick glance at a passage like Leviticus 25:44-46 proves that the bible is talking about something much different; namely, one man having the right to own another man (or woman or child) based on race or nationality.

"44 Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."

Feel free to look up the surrounding quotes to see if they add some sort of missing context that could possibly make sense of such a barbaric mentality (I assure you, they don't). Then feel free to light your bible on fire and throw it in the toilet, because only a lunatic could deny how immoral this passage is. And the fact of the matter is, regardless of how necessary it is that we have ways to imprison criminals and deal with debt, the verses above have nothing to do with either of those. Rather, it's straight up race-based (or at best, nation-based) slavery.

So what does the essay mention about this sort of slavery, which is so prevalent throughout the bible? Well, as it happens, the essay does in fact address this verse (in paragraph 18), but only briefly, by saying "We must keep in mind that on occasion it was an alternative to the massacre of enemy populations in wartime and the starvation of the poor during famine".

Does this cut it for you though? Do you agree that it's OK to enslave people from other countries as long as they were going to be massacred or starve to death anyway? That doesn't really do it for me, and I can only imagine that you're left every bit as dissatisfied and sickened as I am. These are the depths though that Christian apologists must sink to in order to give the illusion that the bible's not so bad.

An especially aggravating conclusion reached by this sort of faulty logic can be found in paragraph 40:

"What about the children of those wicked men and women? Must they become slaves as well, suffering for their parents’ evil actions? First, let us acknowledge that, even today, children often suffer because of their parents’ poor decisions. Consider the sad and pitiful plight of a child whose father is an alcoholic or child abuser. That child will suffer physically, emotionally, and financially. Even in modern times, the children who are born in poverty or cruelty often remain slaves of those elements their entire lives."

The author is arguing that because some children are born to alcoholics or poor families, that that makes it OK to enslave children. That's what the above translates to. It is every bit a logically flawed as maintaining that some children are born handicapped, therefore it's OK for doctors to sever other children's spinal cords. -- I have trouble believing that anyone reading the essay could be taken in by such bad logic, which is why I think the author held off until paragraph 40 to say something so stupid, because he knew that hardly anyone would still be reading his indirect, meandering essay by that point.

It actually gets worse from there though. The paragraph goes on to say:

"Would it be better for that child to grow up in a country where the slave laws protected him or her, or would it be better for the child to have to “pass through the fire to Molech”?" (The phrase "pass through the fire of Molech" is a reference to human sacrifice.)

and

"When nations were conquered by the Israelites, what was to happen to the nations’ children who remained alive? They could be left to die on their own, or they could be given homes, food, and jobs. Which of the two options is more humane?"

Again, how could anyone's logic be this flawed? The author is arguing that it's OK to enslave children from nations that have been destroyed because enslaving them is better than allowing them to die on their own or be sacrificed. Has it seriously not occurred to him that it would be an even BETTER option for the Israelites just to take care of them, and not put them to work? I'm sure it did occur to him, but he's not in the business of offering good ideas, but rather, in the business of doing whatever he can to make his client (the bible) not look like a bad guy. This is what's so wrong with apologetics. It's essentially no better than twisting the facts in a court case to keep a murderer out of jail.

In addition to making light of enslaving children on the grounds that it's not as bad as sacrificing children, the author seems to also think it's OK to compare the bible to other ancient religions and point out that since those are worse, that the bible is good. An example of this can be seen in paragraph 65:

"The text states that the eyes and teeth of slaves should not be knocked out or destroyed. However, the nations around the Israelites did not adhere to any such standards."

and also in paragraph 61, in which the author comments on genesis 21:20-21 ("If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property."), saying that:

"This [genesis 21:20-21] was a protective right granted to slaves that they should not be beaten to death! If that seems like a small blessing to us, let it be remembered that under the system in vogue all over the pagan world of that era, and extending down even till apostolical times, the Roman Law, in force all over the world, provided as a penalty against slaves, even for trivial and unintentional violations, that shame of the whole pagan world “flagellis ad mortem” (beaten to death), a penalty usually inflicted in the presence of all the other slaves of a master."

If the wording is confusing, allow me to translate. The author is saying that because other nations and religions of the time punished their slaves by beating them to death and removing their eyes or teeth, that the bible is progressive for the time. And that may be true. Be that as it may though, it's not progressive enough to indicate that it was dictated by a god and it sure as hell isn't progressive enough to be used in modern day society. If these were really the words of a god, then that god would be less advanced and more barbaric than every single human being that I know.


This is really just the tip of the iceberg. This essay's too long for me to be able to reply to every bad point that it makes, but let me attempt to tackle a few.

Paragraph 36
"Add to this the fact that kidnapping a man and selling him as a slave was a crime punishable by death, as noted in Exodus 21:16: “He who kidnaps a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, shall surely be put to death.” Certainly, any parallel to slavery in early America can be easily refuted."

Part of the bible's charm, and what it no doubt owes a lot of its success to, is that it contradicts itself left and right. This makes it the perfect tool to justify any situation. If a society makes use of slavery, then it can justify its ways with bible quotes. Then, if later, it becomes a society that no longer practices slavery, it can justify its NEW ways with other bible quotes. Indeed, this is exactly what America has done over the past century and a half. And more precise ambiguity further allows it to bend and meet any nuances it needs to. For example, in the verse above, it says that he who kidnaps and sells a man will be put to death, but such a verse could easily be countered by a slave owner who doesn't recognize blacks or other races as actually being "men". And this is another major problem with the bible, that it's very unclear and easy to interpret in different ways. That's bad in and of itself. If a god really did dictate the bible, he didn't do a very good job at making it clear.

(To add a side note: After I first wrote this critique, it was pointed out to me that this verse doesn't actually contradict the other pro-slavery verses and is itself very pro-slavery. It's not against owning human beings, but simply against stealing human beings (who already belong to someone else). Since the bible treats slaves as property, it's not surprising that there would be laws against theft of that property.)

Paragraph 87
"Jesus and the apostles didn’t go on an anti-slavery crusade, because doing so would have been futile and a hindrance to their primary mission. The priority of Jesus was the provision of salvation. For the apostles it was the proclamation of the gospel. But both Jesus and the apostles undermined the basis for slavery by making it clear that God equally loves rich and poor, free and slave, male and female."

Allowing slaves to join a cult isn't anti-slavery, it's just a good way to help the cult grow. And there's nothing worthwhile about "salvation" because there's no such thing as heaven or hell. So what Jesus wasted his life doing (assuming he even actually existed) wasn't good. It would have been a much better mission for him and his apostles just to have focused on slavery or bettering the world in some other way. And this goes for modern day people to. We have real problems in our country and on the rest of the planet, and "spreading salvation" doesn't actually help anything.

Paragraph 13
"Who has the right to determine when slavery can be imposed on a certain person or group of people? The answer, of course, is God."

It's dangerous any time there's a person who thinks they're allowed to do anything as long as a voice in their head tells them it's OK, and it's easy to see how such logic has probably led to all sorts of bad things throughout history, but a more important I want to make is that morality is bigger than any god that might potentially exists. Slavery is immoral. End of story. If there's a god who says slavery is OK, then that doesn't actually mean that slavery is moral because the god says so, rather, it simply means that a god who says that is wrong. We need to get away from this idea that morals are dependent upon the whims of a god, and begin to wake up to the fact that morals are not negotiable. And I think that anybody who maintains that morals can be reduced to whatever a god dictates should be recognized as morally imbalanced.


As a final point, I'd like to explore the idea that just because a god instructs a slave owner on how to beat his slaves, that that doesn't mean that he necessarily condones it. This is of course utter bullshit, but the author tries to make this point in paragraph 84, attempting to distract from the issue of slavery with other less extreme examples:

"Furthermore, it is a false notion that God condones something just because He mentions it without an immediate condemnation of it in the surrounding verses. Skeptics point to verses like 1 Peter 2:8 and Ephesians 6:5, and then insist that God condones abusive slavery because He instructs servants to be obedient to their masters. But, let us analyze that line of thinking. In Matthew 5:39, Christ instructed His listeners: “Do not resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” Because Jesus told His listeners to be kind and turn the other cheek, does that mean that He condones the actions of the one who did the slapping? Absolutely not! Or what about the fact that Paul, through divine inspiration, instructed his readers to be subject to civil governments and to pay taxes to those governments. Was Paul condoning all practices of all governments to whom his readers would be subject and pay taxes? Certainly not. God never has condoned such unjustified behavior on the part of any individual or group."

Should Jesus have instructed his listeners to be nice to evil people? And should Paul have instructed his readers to pay taxes to such governments? I can't really say, because I don't know enough of the details, but I DO know that it is immoral in itself to instruct someone to go along with immorality and that the only question we should be concerning ourselves with here is "should god be instructing people on how to beat their slaves?" (the answer to which is of course "No!").

To put this logic in perspective, imagine for a moment if god, or Jesus, or Paul had told the citizens of Nazi Germany not to protect or hide Jews and to go along with whatever the Nazi laws said. Would this be acceptable? Would that really be the sort of thing that it would be OK for a god to instruct citizens to go along with? I don't think so, and I'm sure you don't either. Similarly, it is unacceptable for a god to condone, promote, or give instructions in regard to slavery.

The bible is disgusting, and we owe it to ourselves to recognize it as such. If you are still on the fence about the moral value of the bible, please go beyond this essay and the rebuttal I've written and check out for yourself what the bible has to say. It is pretty much a guarantee that if the slavery doesn't turn you off, then the misogyny and bigotry will. So, if you haven't already committed yourself to this book like how others have, then it's not too late for you to keep from becoming a cornered apologist burdened with the unfavorable task of trying to pass the foulness of the bible off as insight. Now's your chance. Get out while you can!

What's god's excuse for pain and bad days?

The problem that I see with the whole "one needs coldness in order to appreciate warmth" idea is that I don't think it's actually true. To take the most obvious example, do people who live in Hawaii their whole lives deal with the same discomfort that people who live in Siberia their whole lives must deal with? I don't think they do. I think Hawaiians can easily appreciate their own weather without having to know what it feels like in Siberia. And I think the same can be said for any other example that this coldness/warmth analogy can be used for. (For example, I don't first need to be paraplegic in order to enjoy my ability to move around and not be confined to a wheelchair).

Now, it might be true that a Siberian would be able to enjoy an average day in Hawaii better than a Hawaiian would (or that a paraplegic who suddenly gained the ability to move his limbs would enjoy it more so than those of us who sometimes take such luxuries for granted would), but I hardly think that this increase in happiness would be enough to outweigh all the cold days (or paralysis) one would need to endure in order to achieve it. And honestly, I have my doubts that this would even be the case at all. It seems to me that bad days and sadness damage people and make it even more difficult for them to enjoy the good days than they would have been able to had they just had normal lives.

Even if humans are constructed in such a way that we can't be happy all the time (which i don't think is actually the case), does that really mean that that's any sort of "law of the universe"? wouldn't it really just be a part of being human? In other words, just because people DO tend to become complacent with good things and sometimes need a bad experience to get them to appreciate how good they've got it, why is that any sort of a mindset that a god would NEED to include in people in order to keep from disobeying the laws of logic? If a god had made his people able to be happy all the time, without ever requiring sadness to compare it to, then would that god really be in any sort of violation of the physical laws of the universe? I don't see how (though, if your answer has something to do with freewill, I'm getting to that). And of course, that doesn't even begin to touch up on the question of,,, How omnipotent could a god really be if he has to follow laws of physics and logic anyway? Such a god would clearly be one who had no say in what the laws of the universe would be. Not much of a god at all, truth be told.

And so the question still remains, why would a god have instilled this duality in us, making it impossible for us to be happy on a consistent basis?

Before we delve into possible reasons for why god would have "had" to have done this, let's look at the implications of this. Will it be just as impossible for people to have perfect, continuously happy lives once they're in heaven? Or will they be able to appreciate heaven fully simply because they've already experienced imperfection while here on earth? And if this is the case, then what does that say about aborted fetuses and miscarried babies who go straight to heaven without ever even being able to experience a bad day? (And if you're thinking that being vacuumed out of a womb is traumatic, then know that it is not until the third week of development that anything remotely nerve-like appears, and so quite factually speaking, it would be impossible for such an embryo ever to be able to feel pain or have bad thoughts, despite what sort of a "soul" they might already be in possession of.)

Would these aborted and miscarried individuals not be able to enjoy heaven as much as everyone else there simply because they have no concept of badness? If so, then that's a markedly unfair thing to allow to happen (even for the god of the bible). I have trouble believing though that anyone would maintain such a position. But if it's not the case, then HOW will such individuals be able to experience happiness without first knowing sadness, and WHY isn't this something possible for the rest of us? --- Let me rephrase that last bit just to make my point clear. If aborted babies ARE IN FACT able to appreciate heaven to the full extent that everyone else is, despite their never having experienced anything bad, then that invalidates the idea that people can only experience perfection if they first know imperfection. In other words, the idea that fetuses enjoy heaven as much as other people do CONTRADICTS the idea that one must first know pain in order to experience joy. You cannot believe both.

Let's now leave behind the notion that one needs bad in order to appreciate good, since it's been pretty much entirely dismantled, and let's move on to the notion of freewill.

There are two ways in which freewill can be used to argue for why a god would allow evil to occur. One argument is that we can't be happy unless we have the freedom to make choices. Is this really true though? In many cases it's important to be able to choose between things because that's what allows us to get what we want. But if we only have one option, and it just so happens to be what we want, then isn't that all we need?

To illustrate this, allow me to propose the following hypothetical. Imagine that you're headed toward an ice cream store and are desperately craving banana ice cream. You've been to this store before, and you know that they offer three flavors (coconut and lime being the other two flavors). Upon arriving though, you learn that there was an inordinate amount of business done that day and that the store has run out of most of its ice cream. Now, without my revealing to you which flavors the store still has left in stock, ask yourself, which of the following two situations would you prefer (keeping in mind that banana ice cream is the flavor you most desire)?

Situation A, in which banana has run out but you can still choose between coconut and lime? or Situation B, in which only banana is left? --- Doesn't situation B seem like the more preferable situation of the two even though you're not able to choose between more than one flavor?

This example might sound ridiculous because it's rare that things work out this way, but it's not ridiculous when we consider the idea of a god who can create individuals in any way that he pleases and who wishes them to live fulfilled lives. Imagine if we were to create an artificial intelligence, and instead of installing in it a program that allowed it to do whatever, we programmed it to behave in a very precise and specific manner. But imagine that we also equipped it with the ability to enjoy its existence 100% of the time. Would this really be such a mean thing to do? Provided that the happiness of this artificial intelligence didn't get in the way of its survival or the happiness of others, then I don't see how it could be.

For some of you though, the idea might still seem a little weird., the idea of a god who creates beings to sit around and enjoy things all day without ever having to choose anything. You might feel that a lack of being able to make choices (even if what you wanted always came to you without your ever having to choose it) would somehow prevent one from ever being able to feel truly comfortable. And while there are so many facets of this topic that we could explore, I'd like to focus on just one. If the idea of a god who creates people without the ability to choose makes you uneasy, then ask yourself if this isn't exactly what you believe in. Because if you believe that god made everything and that god knows everything, then is freewill even a possibility?

Every day, everything you do is something that your god knew would happen, whether it's what clothing you decide to where or where you end up when you die. So even if you are the one in control of your choices, there's still no variation. You were ALWAYS going to choose coke over pepsi, or paper over plastic. There was never a "maybe" about what would happen., at least not for your god. There might have been a "maybe" for you, but only because you can't see your own future (which is set - it must be if your god knows that something definitely WILL or WON'T happen), not because there's any sort of actual possibility that things could happen any other way.

And if it doesn't bother you that everything is set and either will happen or won't, then further consider that every faculty you use to make decisions is a part of a brain that was made not by you, but by your god. When you choose what you want on your pizza or what color to paint your bathroom, are you really choosing? Or are you simply obeying your taste buds and the parts of your brain where preferences are stored? And if that's what you're doing, then how can you not be said to be an automaton programed by a god, with no actual freewill? -- Simply put, in a godless universe, it's conceivable that individuals might make their own decisions, whatever exactly that means, but there's really no room for it in a universe where everything was made by a god.

The other way in which freewill can be used to argue for god's allowing evil to exist is one that occupies a much more base level of reasoning. It basically states that if god prevented evil, that he would be taking away man's freedom to sin (and by consequence, hurt others and run the risk of landing himself in hell), and that this would somehow be an immoral thing for a god to do.

There are a number of problems with this argument though. For one thing, it only explains actions done by other people. It doesn't explain things like natural disasters and diseases. Things like earthquakes (and presumably viruses) don't practice freewill and can't be offended by being restricted from carrying out certain actions, and so this argument does nothing to explain why a god would allow millions of people every year to be killed by floods, malaria, car accidents, or falling off of balconies. For another thing, if it's so immoral not to allow people to go around raping and killing, then are police officers being immoral when they try to prevent such acts? Are we going against god by insisting that thieves and murderers not be allowed to do what they want, or to put it another way, execute their freewill? Moreover, can god even be credited with always upholding this idea that it's wrong for him to restrict people's freedom to harm others? Surely he intervenes some of the time, allowing good to triumph over evil. But does that mean then that in these examples god is guilty of restricting the bad guy's freedom?

Yet another problem with this argument is that we're already so restricted anyway. If we DO have freewill, we don't have much of it. We can't, for example, choose to grow wings and fly around, or shapeshift or explore other dimensions. We're very limited. So if freedom is so important and integral to our happiness, then why are there so many things that god simply does not give us the freedom to do? And what harm would it really have done for him just to go the extra step and take away man's ability to kill? Denying man the ability to fly but then granting him the ability to kill people seems like somewhat of a design flaw to me.

My biggest problem though with the whole "god allows person A to harm person B because it would be immoral for god to control what person A does" idea, as if there aren't already enough problems with it, is that it focuses only on what's good for person A and neglects what's good for person B. In order for a god to be moral, he needs to do more than just allow people to do what they want., He also needs to protect people. And in a situation where god sits back and watches as a serial killer cuts a victim into little pieces or a leader of a nation genocides some minority group, then I'd say he's failing to carry out his moral obligation to protect the victims of these crimes. What this would boil down to, if any of it were actually true, is that god is more concerned with being moral to murderers than to the victims that those murderers harm. And how can that be said to be moral, to prioritize one person's freedom to harm over another person's freedom NOT to be harmed? The answer is, it can't be. It's just a poorly thought through excuse that people use to try to reconcile the idea that there's a loving god who can guarantee that everything will work out with the reality that clearly no such god actually exists.

If the christian god is real, then the most moral thing for us to do is hate him, even if it means going to hell.

I of course don't believe that there's such a thing as a god, but I used to think that it wouldn't be so bad if there were a god. In other words, I used to wish that god were real. In retrospect, I think that all I really wanted was an eternal life in heaven, which is a nice idea. But there's no need to confuse the idea of an eternal paradise with the idea of a mentally insane god. When one looks at things honestly, the idea of a god like the one in the bible really isn't such a nice idea at all.

Let's pretend for a moment that the bible is true and that god actually exists. Would you believe in him? Would you become someone who believes in god? I think I would, I mean, provided I were able to be led to that conclusion based on evidence. And at one time I probably would have gladly worshiped a god like that too. After all, who wants to spend eternity in hell?

I've changed though. Nowadays, if a god were to reveal himself to me, I think I would become the single member of a new, bizarre church., the church of people who believe that god exists but refuse to call him good. This opinion of mine has less to do with the way the christian god acts in the old testament, despicable as it is, and more to do with his behavior in the new testament, which, upon closer inspection, is actually much worse. And it is my goal to convince everyone who's reading this, that if god we're real, it would be morally irresponsible to worship him, and that the only moral thing to do would be to hate him, even if it meant spending eternity in hell.

Imagine for a moment, a society in which the government has gone mad with power. They now care not only that you refrain from acts like murder and theft, but from acts such as lying as well, and even completely harmless acts such as looking at others lustfully., along with thousands of other nit-picky and intrusive DOs and DON'Ts. The laws are so strict and unreasonable in this society in fact, that the government just assumes that it's impossible for anyone not to break them. Newborn babies are automatically labeled as criminals, and it is decreed IMPOSSIBLE for anyone ever to be a good citizen. And the methods of punishment used by this country are far worse than the death penalty. Through technology, they have devised a way to keep people alive eternally and have invented torture devices more heinous than anything imaginable. And according to this government's understanding of morals, this is the fate that each of their citizens deserves.

It becomes obvious to the government though that having nothing but criminals for citizens is not a very good way to run a country, so they enact a plan. One of the men who runs the country has himself publicly executed (and then promptly brought back to life via their advanced technology). The government then declares a new law stating that if you opt to love this man, that not only can you avert your impending eternity of torture, but can actually go live in a paradise instead. The only thing is, you can't just love the human sacrifice a little. You must love him as much as is possible for a person to love someone else. You must love him more than yourself, your parents, your spouse, and even your children. Indeed, not killing your children at his mere request is a grave insult. -- And all this is justified by the idea that what this man has done is noble, because he gave his own life to save the citizens from punishment (which is close to meaningless, since he was just brought back to life again later anyway), even though he was the one who came up with the absurd and unreasonable laws in the first place.

To keep disobedience to a minimum, the government requests that their citizens continue to refrain from committing criminal acts as much as possible, but make no secret that if you lie or kill someone, it will not go against your eternal bliss plan, provided you maintain an unconditional love for the human sacrifice. If however you do not offer your love to the human sacrifice, then the government has no choice but to allow you to be tortured for eternity, regardless of which specific laws you have or have not broken.

I can't imagine that a single person reading this would approve of such behavior from a government, and yet this is no worse than what christianity teaches. According to christianity, every man, woman, and child deserves to spend an eternity in hell simply because they are unable not to sin. Then, to add insult to injury, one's "debt" can be forgiven, regardless of which sins they've committed, but only if they accept jesus as their savior. In other words, christians are forgiven, but jews, muslims, hindus, and atheists must burn in hell. A businessman who refused to provide service to someone based on their beliefs would be viewed as a bigot. So why then shouldn't we think the same thing about a god who only provides salvation based on what people's beliefs are?

The truth is, there is no such thing as a god, but if there were, he would be a bigot. And much in the same way that it would be immoral to respect the demands of a government like the one I described earlier, I think it should also be considered immoral for people who believe in a bigoted god to worship and love him. It's delusional for anyone to believe that such a god exists, but for anyone who does, I would at least hope that they hate him for what an awful being he is. But where are these people? A third of the world's population believes in the god of the bible, and presumably most of these people have the idea that their god allows some of his children to suffer eternally while others go off to live in paradise, based on nothing other than what religion they subscribe to. But I know of not a single church that condemns god for judging people based on their beliefs. That saddens me. What that says is that these people, a solid third of the earth's population, are not only dangerous in that they believe in fairy tales, but that they're also dangerous in that they see nothing wrong with religious discrimination ultimately resulting in eternal torture. This cannot stand. There is no excuse for not being disgusted by behavior like this, and there's nothing moral about religious discrimination, regardless of whether it's being practiced by a man or by a god. Anyone who is unable to see that is morally unbalanced.