Dear Christians, from Ben Evans

In November last year an open letter was posted on answersingenesis.org directed as Atheists (or more correctly addressed to atheists but directed and other religionists seeking to feel superior).

I wrote a response letter almost immediately and apologise that it sat in my draft tray for so long before being posted

Dear Christians (C/o Bodie Hodge)

[An open letter in response to Dear Atheists]

Tired? Not at all...

I am happy to say the only people who associate evil with atheism are those who thoughtlessly misinterpret history and who conveniently disown christianity's own violent, bigoted history, claiming all the negative actions are taken by not "true" christians. Thankfully modern atheist societies deriving their morality from humanism, have far fewer murderers, tyrants, rapists and crime in general than christian societies, and we manage it on our own recognisance. It looks like "true Christ followers" lack the self control expected in polite society... or perhaps you are just taking advantage of all that forgiveness you've been promised?

Do you feel conflicted that your morality is defined by religious edict? That human values of compassion and tolerance can only be expressed if they comply with religious dogma? Of course it could be your worldview getting in the way of your own moral judgment. Being given a set of badly written laws set down over three thousand years ago doesn't give you much scope for developing a truly moral set of human values based on mutual respect. If someone stabs you in the back, treats you like nothing, steals from you, or lies to you, it doesn’t ultimately matter in an christian worldview as long as they pray for forgiveness, right? If they are truly repentent they can be forgiven by Jesus even if you are still suffering from their acts. After all - if you accept the infinite suffering of hell as the same punishment for all crimes then all crimes are the same regardless of how many people got hurt, right? That must be disheartening...

I don't get tired of atheism providing no basis for logic or reason because logic and reason are basis for atheism... you're putting the cart before the horse if you accept a moral and ethical framework before you have the tools to determine if it's claims are true... although, that would explain a lot. Luckily I do believe in facts that can be seen in nature, that rationality can help me understand them and that claims of truth must prove their veracity. This cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, analysis and verification is called "science", you should give it a go sometime as it's far better at finding laws like E=MC² and F=MA than a book that gives a manifestly wrong figure for a basic geometric value like Pi.

I do like to take a weekend off once in a while, after dealing with the insane people of the world, and I try to spare a thought for the people first broke the calendar down into weeks... the babylonian civilisation from which we also get the 24 hour day and 60 minute hour that predate both christianity and judaism. I am, however, very worried that without the word of god and the urging of the bible that you think you would never take a respite... are you sure you are looking after yourself properly?

For professing christians these issues must be overwhelming. Forcing yourself to believe a collection of mis-translated creation myths and parables, living under the threat of eternal punishment and having to assume the position that there is a single, all powerful god and that you personally know what he wants... Being an atheist I can only make up my own mind, I cannot claim to know the mind of god. I am forced to look at the unsupported claims, the contradictions, the blatant horrors committed in the name of your "loving" god and the total lack of evidence for his existence. Being an atheist I am forced to deal with truth and reality and must see jesus and the christian god in the same light as unicorns, hobbits, leprechauns, the Loch Ness moster, and other fanciful creatures, although I cannot prove absolutely that they do not exist, I can assume so beyond reasonable doubt and relegate them all to the realm of fiction until some actual evidence or even consistent rationality can be presented on their behalf.

Do you feel conflicted having to work so hard to explain and defend a story that is so obviously wrong? If god exists and wrote his laws in the hearts of all men why would anyone need to be told about it? Why would there need to be a book? Lets face it, life seems tough enough as a christian if, as you claim, you need the bible to tell you dress when it is cold. If you cant see good and practical reasons to keep yourself clean than I am glad you have that book to make up for your lack of basic common sense. However if you do not love someone enough to want to commit to them, to want to spend your life with them, if you think that the commitment of marriage flows from a book, then I would suggest that you avoid it altogether. People marrying for biblical reasons instead of considered personal emotional commitment (like you get from any normal heterosexual or homosexual couple) would simply be watering down the institution, so perhaps christians should not be allowed to marry if they do so only breed for jesus.

Are you weary of grasping at straws to defend the biblical creation story? Tired of closing your eyes to avoid seeing the mountain of evidence contradicting the literal claims of the bible? Tired of repeating the same flawed arguments in support of the unsupportable? Or perhaps the constant fear has finally gotten to you... the knowledge that you only cling to a literal interpretation of the bible because you lack the strength to be moral on your own, to make a good decision without threat or reward.

In fact, why would a christian care to live one moment longer in a fallen universe where even your very existence is considered an expression of sin and all you have to look forward to is another day trying to avoid any minor transgression that could get you cast into hell for a punishment so cruel and long that 467 trillion years would feel like just the beginning... A universe where your entire life is nothing but a test and you are nothing but a sinner born of a sinful act and cursed for the crimes of your ancestors in the christian worldview. Of course as an atheist I disagree, while atheists share not a single worldview, I see you as a valuable person able to make their own moral decisions and able to live a good life without threats or rewards. A life that can have its own meaning, made all the more precious because it is transient.

Invitation

I invite you to reconsider that the fictitious god of your holy book is simply that. I'm here to tell you that christianity is a lie. As an Atheist, I understand that truth exists because things can be proven to be true, not because we would like them be. Unlike a christian whose worldview is given to him in a form that denies any critical evaluation and demands belief without reason, the atheist starts with logic, with rational thought and uses these tools to see lies from truth, fact from fiction, and reality from dogma. This is because believers in god and his word have no authority on the subject, they simply make claims to justify false beliefs.

There is no god and our image has been shaped by our environment. This means you have value. Whereas consistent christians teach that you are fallen, I see you differently. I see you as kin, as a relative no matter how distant. I see you as one who (like all life on this planet) stands at the front line of the long march of evolution, and stands now able to see the wonder of their own existence and to strive to live, to love, to learn, to build and to be something even better. Without the constant claim of sin, the assumption that you are imperfect that the creator blames the creation for it's faults like a painter blaming the paint for his inability to make a straight line. Our society sees you differently too, it will not punish you for the crimes of your parents, it will not punish anyone for the crimes of another and it gives you the freedom and opportunity to make amends and reconcile with anyone you may wrong without denying them the chance to forgive.

Christians are commanded to proselytise their faith to spread a story that people would never believe without arguments, threats, and as little as two hundred years ago physical violence and murder. Atheists do not have a worldview, we do not hate christianity or any other faith, we simply see it as wrong. We do not claim devine knowledge or holy guidance, we use the same tools of science and rationality that creates cures for the sick, makes it possible to build houses and improve crops to feed the poor. We only give you the tools and point out the chains we cannot break the shackles of someone who does not want to be free.

Where christians reject logic and reason in favor of shallow dogma (for anything in the world that contradicts the teaching of the bible must be wrong for the bible to be true), Atheists can understand that mankind is a thinking being having achieved a higher level of cognitive ability than any other creature on this world. Hense atheists seek to make sense of things instead of assuming that knowledge is "hidden" in a work of fiction. Atheists also have a basis to understand why people sometimes dont think logically due to their fears and emotion weaknesses. The most logical response is to give up christianity and accept responsibility for your own actions, to be moral by choice not edict. Instead of a life of servitude Atheism offers you the choice to give your life meaning, to choose how to spend your precious time in this life, to be human and to be proud that you chose your ethics and morality and contributed to the ethics and morality of others through thought and example.

Atheists wear clothes because we need to, we express our social modesty but understand that simply having a body under our clothes does not make us sinners. Atheists uphold marriage because it is a valuable and good social commitment, an expression of the love two people share for one another, and not the expression of an order to breed. Atheists keep clean because we understand the benefits for our health and happiness and are able to do so without unnecessary practices like forced genital mutilation. As Atheists we have a strong foundation in humanistic morals for saying that back-stabbing, theft, lies, and the enforced adoption of dogma are all wrong and we can do so without flawed systems like the ten commandments.

I invite you to leave the false beliefs of christianity and it's various forms and return to humanity with logic and reason. To know that all the people who have died across the centuries fighting over whose god was strongest, or whose belief was purest, or even who was reading the bible correctly, to know that all of them died because they sentenced themselves, finding it easier to accept a morally flawed absolute belief than to take responsibility for seeking to correct it.

The day is coming when people will have the moral strength to see the crimes committed in the name of christian dogma, the hatred it spreads under the banner of love and the suffering it gives under the claim of salvation. When humans understand their dignity, that slavery was never acceptable, that sacrificing another for your sins is never acceptable and that wanting something to be true does not make it so. I invite you personally to become an ex-christian, to join the growing ranks of people who accept their own moral responsibility, who see the beauty and awe of our transient life, who seize the opportunity to make life better now with the limited time they have advancing humanity in the truth and peace that only rationality can provide.


Yours factually,

Meditation hijacked

When exactly did meditation get hijacked and become a "spiritual" phenomena?

When I was young I was given a book of Sherlock Holmes stories. I loved them and became a life long fan of the them, it was the first place I had ever heard of meditation.

Sherlock meditated, it was the first thing he ever did when people came to him with a case.

This did not involve him sitting cross legged or repeating a mantra/sutra under his breath until he absorbed his mind into the present moment...

It did involve him focussing his mind bringing all his faculties to bear on the problem as presented and contemplating the information he had just received.

Interestingly this defintion of meditation is much older than any spiritual definition you'll find today - in older dictionaries "focussing and contemplating" are likely the be the first definitions presented, in some modern dictionaries that definition is almost completely omitted.

To meditate on something is to reflect, or contemplate, to think. This can mean focussing but can also mean just letting your mind wander over a problem/topic without any guidance or distractions.

Meditation can perhaps be best described at pointing your mind (sometime away from the target).

The modern religious/spiritual/supernatural implications of meditation are not even very accurate. When people wished to commune with the supernatural it is very like meditation but was specifically called prayer. Meditation in eastern terms is most often to seek to achieve a particular state of mind rather than for any supernatural purpose.

In Bhuddism for example, the practice of meditation is more about emotional self knowledge and management.

People think of eastern meditation when they use the word, the images that come to mind tend to override the simpler forms of meditation.

We have effectively lost a word for thinking.

This might not be George Orwells 1984 but popular religion/spiritualism is responsible for a horrible bit of "new speak". One less word that means "Stop and think" and one more word that means "treating the metaphysical as if it's real".

Personally I think the world needs more thinking.

Creationist Crazy

Some of the most agressive proponents of young earth creationism can be found in Ken Ham and the "Answer In Genesis" (AIG) crowd. A quick view of that website however raises some spectacular bits of crazy.

Here are some of my favourites:

1. It's only incest when theres a health risk

AIG are happy to claim that the sons of adam must have taken their own sisters as wives. I'm not exaggerating this, they make this claim plainly and dont see any reason to justify it or hide it. Their argument is that there was no law against incest until the Mosaic covenant, after god supposedly saved the slaves.

So apparently up till that time it was fine to marry close family members. AIG goes on to say that the only reason the rule against incest was introduced was to "protect offspring from mutations shared by both parents".

The article in question even lists all the other times in the bible people married sisters, half brothers, nieces, and cousins.

2. Lies, truth and the literal bible

AIG will argue to the cows come home that when the bible says day it means day, 24hours, no negotiation. They are also pretty dead set on the fact that god and Jesus do not lie... at all... ever. In fact they claim that god cannot lie.

This is interesting because the Genesis 2:17 says

"and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die."

This is according to the most literal translation possible. God told Adam he would die the same day he ate the forbidden fruit... What went wrong?

Remember: the bible is literal truth, day means day, and god is not capable of being wrong or lying.

3. Its our fault people die

When the question of evil gets raised AIG makes it clear that god made the universe perfect, not just god, not just really really good, but perfect.

Adam stuffed it up, he went against god and ruined it for all of us, but we cant blame Adam because we are all just as flawed (people in glass universes huh?)

But they skip over a really obvious contradiction here. God can make things perfect, Jesus was perfect so according to their own doctrine god can make a perfect man... So what happened with Adam? First draft? Couldn't get the right parts?

At this point in the argument you will hear "free will" thrown in, but this again fails by their own evidence, the whole thing with Jesus at the garden of Gethsemane shows that he had free will to make choices and made the right one (because he was perfect remember?)

The next come back here is the serpent.. the serpent made it happen! But that just leads us back to the same question: How did a perfect universe get such a creature in it?

Of course god doesn't make mistakes thats why when he flooded the world to destroy all evil it worked perfectly and we live total peace and harmony... right?

4. Born of sin

One of the big things in christianity is that we are all born of sin, but a literal interpretation of the bible proves that god had no problem with Adam and Eve making the pitter patter of little feet.

Specifically Genesis 1:28 says

"And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth."

(Notice this happens before god mentions anything about the fruit... Also try to ignore the word "replenish" indicating that the earth had already had life on it.)

So god was down with the whole procreation thing, and the assumption of incest it carries when two people are ordered to fill the earth by themselves.

What then was original sin? Disobedience. It was not that we had sex, god had been expecting that, after all he made the equipment, no it was the crime of making a mistake.

5. God gave up so much for us

The cost of love is a pivotal point for christians... Jesus gave up so much.. which is why he is now sitting by the side of god destined to live for eternity in heaven.

Hold the phone...

Thats meant to be the greatest reward imaginable right? What did he lose again?

Oh thats right he suffered more than any man has ever suffered by getting beaten and dying on the cross. Of course he just died on the cross pretty much right after they put him up, the other guys they put up get the same kind of treatment but had a nice relaxing three or four days to die of thirst and exposure... obviously they took the easy way out.

AIG refers to the sacrifice of Jesus as a "no strings attached" kind of love. Thats why we're all saved without having to do anything like worship Jesus right? Rats... there goes that pesky bible getting in the way again.

Next time god wants a bible written he should check with Ken Ham first to make sure they get the details right.



Theres more:

Correcting the AIG website would be more than a full time job because it takes much less time to come up with badly reasoned arguments that it does to come up with well reasoned ones. Plus of course we all need to look at the evidence and figure out the truth, whereas AIG start off thinking they already know the answers...

Blind faith is soooo much easier than thinking.

Fish in a barrel

Long time no post... Sorry.

I've come back from spending time with my work and family at a time when taking shots at religion is a little like shooting fish in a barrel.

The recent scandals (I say recent but this spans several years now) facing the vatican, now topped with the abdication of the pope on health grounds has basically opened up the flood gates for cheap shots.

However...

While the vatican needs to be taken down a peg (or even better totally disbanded), none of the current scandals reflect on the christian faith only on the individuals involved and on the institution that protected them.

This is a slightly unpopular position with some atheists but I think it's important not to make the kind of non-transitive, unsupported, ad-homonym attacks that we dismiss so quickly when they are used against the atheist position.

Just to be clear: The scandals facing the vatican are real and reflect badly on the vatican and its members and institutions - but while this undermines some of the claims of of piety that would otherwise support a position of faith, it does not undermine the position of faith directly - we have other arguments for that.

Where faith is failing is that people are placing trust in individuals within the church and giving them the kind of reverence they have for their faith. Priests and bishops are only human, subject to all the same flaws as the rest of us, assuming that they are incapable of moral failings just because they are trained in a religious morality is like assuming that a doctor cannot be an overweight, unfit, alcoholic or a drug user just because they are trained in medicine and understand these things to be unhealthy.

That is not to say that the vatican does not deserve to be opened up and have some of its larger festering  wounds given a little air. If you cant stand the smell of corruption there is a great deal to see under the hood of the vatican, beyond pedophilia and the coverups there are mob ties, corruption, bribery, and political manipulation to be seen.

Two great articles to start with can be found here:

Why the Pope Hates Nuns

The 10 Most Corrupt and Compromised Cardinals Voting For the New Pope

Faith Vs. Science

Science and rational thought erodes faith.

I need to be clear here, it is not the scientists that erode faith, but science itself, because faith claims never stand up to independent tests. Religious faith and science are simply incompatible, and while people may choose faith over science, nobody develops vaccines by faith, prayer does not create new cancer drugs, and the quantum physics that makes modern electronics possible was not found in a holy book.

People can argue non-overlapping magisteria till the cows come home but they have already relegated religion to a combination of metaphor parable and personal revelation. While comforting, personal revelation is just that, personal, it will never be a compelling argument for the masses. metaphor and parable suffer similar inadequacies.

In short, any attempt to combine current science and true rationality with religion, removes the absolute nature of gods word. It becomes an idea that can be compared and evaluated against other (more useful) ideas.

So we have a population whose fundamental beliefs are under threat, not a directed intentional threat (although some anti-theists may have that intent) but a threat that is intrinsic in science to all unsupported, contradictory, unprovable, or generally untrue claims.

When people feel threatened, they run, hide, or attack. Anyone looking at the creationist movement flowing out of America or the fundamentalist Islamic teachings flowing out of the middle east can see all these strategies in combination.

The so called "War of Faith" has started as religionists fight to defend their beliefs. The problem is that in order to defend their beliefs they must hide from and attack science and rationality.

Rationality has been the cornerstone of human society and progress, the so called "dark ages" began when the philosophies of the ancient greeks and the east were removed from western europe in favor of a single bible in latin read and dispensed only by the anointed. That same dark age broke with the enlightenment as we re-discovered the philosophies and rationality that had been buried in the past.

We have seen what happens when rationality is denied in favor of dogma.

But rationality and logic are not enough, because they are entirely conceptual. They must be checked against reality, assumptions verified, conclusions confirmed and results shared and replicated to eliminate bias or dishonesty. This is the role of science.

Science is useful, it tells us which plants grow best in which environments. Science lets us know how much a drug is good, and how much is harmful. Science tells us if the faith healer is really pulling out cancer from a persons stomach without breaking the skin or if the bowl is full of chicken giblets and pigs blood.

But science, like justice, is blind, it has no intention, it has no agenda, the weight of evidence determines which direction the needle will point. So science when pointed at the age of the earth disagrees with the bible and religious texts. Science tells us that mankind evolved and shares a genetic heritage with all life on this planet. Science tells us that there was no global flood, Science tells us the that the creation stories of the bible are not supported by the evidence.

Science is not being mean or agressive, it judges these claims on evidence, not on the source of the claims. Science does not know or care that they came from the bible or any other holy book. It cares only if the claims are true, if the evidence supports or refutes. Science is the method not the motivation.

Because science tells them things they do not want to hear, people run away. People will proudly proclaim they do not know any science. They will revel in their ignorance and crow about their lack of education. They portray themselves as rejecting an academic elitism, but this is claim is false because more people have better access to science in their education now, than at any time in history.

Science and rationality are not the exclusive realm of any elite. Science and rationality are the great equalisers, they allow a man with little education from a poor family like Michael Faraday to teach himself and become one of the great scientists of his time. This is possible because he could experiment, test and prove his claims to others.

Hiding from or rejecting science has left many people without the ability to assess the veracity of claims for themselves, all these people are able to do it trust to their intuition to tell them fact from fiction.

An example of the failure of intuitively evaluating ideas is our historic understanding of gravity. The accepted intuitive belief for thousands of years was that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. This reasoning is so "intuitive" that people can be found who still make the same mistake today.

It took Galileo to prove this was wrong, first in a thought experiment where he proved it rationally then by physical experimentation that could be repeated by others.

The claim that something is intuitively true is basically saying that it "sounds right", "looks right", or fits with our other assumptions but we know it can still be wrong. Stars were intuitively pin holes in the curtain of night, the moon and the sun intuitively circled around the earth. We know these things are wrong. Yet people still want to trust intuition in the face of verifiable fact.

Hiding also means that one can only get new information from trusted sources, this is the idea of information from authority.

In science even people who are considered authorities on particular topics are open to question, claims must be verified, a claim that is consistent with all other knowledge may have more weight initially but it still requires verification.

In religion information flows from trusted authority, from the bible, from a preacher, from god.

This leads to the assumption by religious people that science works the same way. Religious people without any understanding of science claim darwinism is a religion, or assume that people take the works of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein as gospels.

And they look shocked and disbelieving when you attempt to correct this assumption.

Much of Darwins work has been revised, the concept remains constant but the details have changed incredibly. Newtons works are used even today, and it would be possible with nothing more than newtonian laws to navigate our solar system with amazing accuracy. But newtons ideas of gravity and time have bee almost completely superseded.

Einsteins ideas were being dismantled even during his own lifetime, and lived long enough to see new models for the nature of the universe evolve in quantum physics. Today we know these models are not perfect and the search is on for what physicists call the unified theory.

As a matter of convenience scientists give each other a certain level of trust, but the right to check and challenge is always there. Nothing in science exists purely because an authority has decreed it so. And in fact one only has to look at Darwins work to see that many of the greatest leaps of science suffered the greatest critical analysis because they challenged the standing knowledge of the day.

In fact the controversy of new scientific ideas is being exploited by religionists.

The attacks on science are best seen in the creationist movement in the US which constantly produces "scientific papers" to support their positions, they cherry pick and misinterpret evidence in their favor.

When religious supporters are unable to get their papers published and peer reviewed by real scientists they claim discrimination, then they create their own peer review panels and journals in order to give the appearance of respectability to their flawed work.

The failure of their claims to pass scientific rigor, the failure to be reproducible, the failure of them to find new evidence that has not already been debunked, discarded and disproved is the worst kind of dishonestly.

Religion fights dirty when it attacks too, It uses its position of trust to spread inaccuracies to those whose faith blinds them to critically evaluating information from such a source. Christians are told there is evidence for Noah and the great flood, islamists are told that all science flows from the Qur'an. Both groups will routinely claim that Hitler was an atheist, that Darwin had a death bed conversion back to faith, and that man is above all animals because we alone are capable of morality.

All these statements are verifiably false, but they are repeated in debates, they are repeated in halls of worship, they are repeated by church and religious leaders who know the weight their position of authority gives to their claims.

In America the attacks on truth and rationality are worse with people redefining history to support their beliefs. People believe that the country was founded as a christian nation and that the founding fathers were all christian. The nation was founded to escape religious persecution, many of the founding fathers were not christians at all but open deists and Thomas Jefferson even created an edited version of the bible without miracles or any discussion of the devine.

Perhaps most disturbing is that people believe "In god we trust" has always been the US motto and in the pledge of allegiance, but it's only so since 1956 and 1954 respectively both changes within living memory. In fact it was changed only because the McCarthyism of the era decided that the previous de facto motto "E Pluribus Unum" (latin for "out of many: one") sounded too much like an endorsement of communism.

The creationist movement is perhaps the the most guilty of all faiths movement it its perpetuation of actual mistruths. They attack carbon darting, sedimentation, tree rings, ice cores, and anything else that points to the age of the earth older than 10 thousand years.

They deny evolution, demanding to see fossil evidence but refusing to look. They claim a controversy where none exists, and they do so out of christian dogma not scientific evidence.

We come then to the most important question: "What harm is being done?"

The inability of so called "creation science" to explain human genetic diversity has forced the adoption of ideas from the middle ages to explain the existence of people with different skin colours - specifically claiming african people as being descended from Noahs cursed grandson and the colour of their skin marks them as slaves. This argument is not only utterly false scientifically, it is morally reprehensible and repugnant.

Worse still people are actually beginning to mistrust science in general, and I dont mean the general populous but the actual people responsible for making decision in the US government. The people supposedly governing the largest economic and military power int he world today.

When children are taught that evidence does not matter and that all points of view are equally valid regardless of how illogical they are you create a population of people who cannot be trusted to make rational decisions, and whose higher education will suffer in any area that requires critical thinking skills.

Taken to it's logical extreme we have a systems that allows a professor to be sued for refusing to recommend students to study medicine if they deny evolution, one of the basic tenants of biological science required to study in any medical field.

Science is a tool, a method, a safeguard against believing what we want to believe. Religious faith is it's antithesis, faith declares the truth in the face of evidence the contrary. Faith tells us that what we believe is more important, more truthful, and more trustworthy than anything you can test or prove. These two principles are not compatible, religion will fail in the light of rational evaluation unless it takes a step back and presents as a philosophy rather than an explanation of the universe.

Faith Makes Evil Bedfellows

I am a child of the internet, I grew up with the information super high way and was perhaps one of the first generations to do so.

Debates, flame wars, and irrational arguments are part of my heritage.

The thing about a discussion is that you present your views and your arguments and you understand that lies and aggression dont resolve disputes... ever. When people get nasty the debate becomes a war and people will fight it not because they feel they are right but because they think the other side does not deserve to win.

The other day I made a comment on an article on a pro-life website. It was a small comment but it triggered some interesting responses. Specifically the person was of the opinion that "To discuss a moral issue without [the christian] god was [insane]" effectively throwing out any non-theistic argument.

I dont claim this person is representative of the people who read and comment on this type of article... In fact I think the vast majority are much more moderate in their views and would never say that a person who did not believe in Jesus should be banned form a moral debate.

But where were these people?

I comment on blogs often (faith based, secular, and atheistic) and I never see the moderates telling off the radicals on faith based forums. In the secular and atheists forums/comment threads it's different I have seen people pulled up for saying "I hope the burglar gets caught and that he is punished" simply because the person writing it used the masculine pronoun assuming the thief in question was male.

Outside of faith-based discussions people have far less problems calling out someone on their side for making a non-factual or fallacious argument.

I made a comment myself about what should and should not be allowed to be taught to kids in an atheist forum and was pulled up on it by another member, he was right and I changed my stand accordingly.

But on faith discussions I see far less willingness to do so...

Recently in one article on a pro-life website I have seen people in the comments claim that sex outside natural marriage was rape, and that using a condom was murder.

Why is it that the moderates of faith let those statements slide?

I know people who have been raped, for whom the experience was so terrible it still effects them years later. To liken all consensual sex, all love making outside of a christian marriage to that experience is insulting enough to me but those people who have experienced rape, it is a dismissal of all their pain with a single semantic swipe.

In other articles I have seen people claim that no woman ever dies from not receiving an abortion, this discussion just days before a woman in ireland died because they would not performa life saving procedure while there was a foetal heart beat, nor would they abort the foetus even though the child could not be saved. Savita Halappanavar was the victim of a faith based policy that says when the mothers life can only be saved by terminating the child it is better to let them both die.

Again, why is it that the only people calling these people out, the only ones willing to stand up and point out the absurdity of the claim that abortions are never needed to save a mothers life were people who were pro-choice. Did nobody on the pro life side realise that the facts had been distorted to support the claim?

As far as I can see it is because people of faith hold that others are entitled to their beliefs even if it is radicalised and would cost lives, even if it is bigoted, and even if it is manifestly wrong.

Unless of course... those beliefs contradicts the laws of god.

Then it is not a belief to be tolerated, it is immorality, it is evil, or it is "insanity".

It has been said by many people better than me that moderate religious positions create safe harbours for dangerous radicals most of who are fundamentalists or literalists.

I think this is only true because moderates too often fail in their duty to fight the extreme views they do not share. They allow tolerance of different peoples of faith to prevent them from chastising and openly disagreeing with statements and practices that go against their own morals.

They do this simply because they have been raised to think "faith" is a virtue.

It takes a major event like a woman dying after days of agony or a you girl being shot in the face to stimulate people of faith to protect against their bedfellows.

But by then it is too late and the damage has been done.

It is important for anyone engaged in a debate to remain intellectually honest, this means not trading in your ethics and not throwing away your principles in favor of flawed or untruthful arguments. It also means not silently accenting to arguments that you fundamentally disagree with just because it suits your current position.

I dont claim that only people of faith are subject to this particular weakness, it seduces anyone who feels passionate about their position but the when you consider faith a virtue you have a blind spot to the motivations of others who share that faith.

Baby and Bathwater...

The other day I reasoned that Ken Ham was afraid of the implications that the bible might not be totally true. I stand by that.

I also explained why the ten commandments were not the best of moral codes (or even in the top 5 for that matter), and I stand by that.

But I also believe in not throwing out the baby the bathwater.

Someone sent me a link to a video of Ken Ham saying that if the bible was wrong on astronomy, geology and biology then why should he trust what is says about morality and salvation.

A: Because they are separate claims made from separate positions.

I'm far from the first person to point out that not all the morality in the bible is good, infinite punishment for finite crimes is just one of the many things I dont agree with, but just because the book has many errors, does not mean it cannot also contain truths.

Kan Ham's desperation to defend the bible as absolute truth flows from his fundamental error in thinking:

"If it's partially wrong then it must be entirely wrong"

When all you can really say is:

"If it's partially wrong then it might be entirely wrong"

And while, as I said, the ten commandments are far from perfect, I dont think "thou shalt not kill" is wrong just because I dont agree with "thou shalt have no other gods before me".

Kens thinking seems to be stuck in all or nothing mode. It''s all right or it's all wrong.

I am worried that other creationists share his point of view, they seem to think that by accepting that one part of the bible may not be totally true they must throw the rest of it out too... Thus they lose the baby with the bathwater.

I'll be honest and say that I think treating the bible as an interesting book instead of the word of god would be the best possible outcome, but I dont think they need to go that far in one step, and I certainly dont think they need to assume that if the bible is wrong then the oposite of the bible must be right.

Even if the bible got creation wrong, killing is still not a good thing.

Even if mankind evolved from primate forebears, does not mean we should not be tolerant with each other.

Many christians are able to reconcile their faith without believing the bible as entirely literal truth, and many people who believe and understand the current state of science are able to get comfort from the bible without losing their understanding of the world. I dont think that christians fundamentalists can be helped however, as they are looking for a certainty and absolute truth they will not find it in more moderate churches.

But isolating christian fundamentalists will not help either, if any of them are to be saved from a life of fear induced radical misbelief then it will be because they can see another way, because moderates and atheists demonstrate that the world does not collapse or become a dark place when you allow yourself a little human doubt.

It's easy to shut the door on people with radical misguided beliefs, to stand back and assume that they cannot be salvaged. But as humans we need to be there and help them, we need to accept that they may find wisdom in strange places. But most of all, we need to show by example that there is another way that preserves the core ideal of "being good people".

For their part they have to realise that the world is uncomfortably complex, that while the simplest solution is the best the simplest available answer is not always a solution. And that being wrong on one issues does not mean you need to throw out all your values and start from scratch, only that you have to be willing to look at each belief honestly and judge it for what it is.