This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a Christian give a series of stupid “proofs” that his religion is the One True Faith, but it never fails to surprise me. They’re always so blindly oblivious, and they always say exactly the same things. So here’s Ken Ham, answering a child’s question, “How Do We Know Other Religions Aren’t True?”, in one crazily breathless paragraph.
No religion other than Christianity has a book like the Bible that tells us about the origin of everything, and who we are, where we came from [The Analects, the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Talmud, the Tao-te-ching, the Upanishads, and the Vedas are all books that lay down a code of ethics, make assumptions or explanations about the nature of the universe, and in many (but not all) cases explain the origins of everything. This is pretty much what holy books do], what our problem is (sin), and what the solution to our sin problem is[Other religions have different systems of ethics; each one is unique. The question isn’t which one is different, because they all are, but which one is true]. No other religion has a Savior who is alive (He rose from the dead)[Dead gods that rise again are dime-a-dozen; it’s a common theme in seasonal/agricultural deities]. All other religions require people to do something to work out their future—only Christianity has the solution that we can’t save ourselves, only God can do it[Again, that some interpretations of Christianity have this weirdly psychopathic and nihilistic delusion does not make them true, only different]. So how can we know if other religions aren’t true? Well, if they don’t agree with the Bible they are not true![Circularity!] There are two main tests I want you to use though. First of all, any religion that claims to be true MUST believe that Jesus is God![More exclamation marks does not make it truer!] Remember, Jesus Himself told us that He and the Father are one. Many religions talk about God a lot . . . but if they don’t believe in Jesus and that He is God, and they don’t believe that Jesus’ death on the cross and His Resurrection results in our sin being forgiven if we will receive it, then it is not the truth![OK, this is just silly. Saying over and over again that your religion is true because your religion says it is true does not make it true. They all say that.] The other test is to find out if they believe that salvation is given to those who trust in Jesus. There is nothing you can do to save yourself. We could never do enough good works to get us to heaven, but Jesus did it when He died for us![This villainous attitude that living life in a virtuous and worthy way is futile is one of the reasons I despise Christianity, but that’s irrelevant, too. Restating the dogma of your faith is not a way to argue for its truth] Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.[Yeah? Prove it.]
You know, I have this crazy idea that if you’re going to say that something is objectively true, you ought to have some source of evidence external to the something; otherwise it’s just hamster-wheel logic. Internal consistency would also be nice (Christianity doesn’t even have that), and some kind of empirical way of validating truth claims is kind of essential. The wackos at Answers in Genesis even have some vague understanding that those are good ideas, since that’s the whole raison d’etre of creationism, is to contrive the appearance of having evidence for their beliefs. If that weren’t the case, they could just declare Noah’s Flood a miracle, an event and its associated consequences that were conjured together by an omnipotent being, free of our restrictions of cause and effect and evidence and even contrary to reason, and not fuss over their fallacious rationalizations.
But this whole business of responding to evidence for the truth of claim X by simply repeating claim X endlessly…it’s stupid. Maybe it works as a kind of brute-force psychological hammer when abusing the mind of an 8-year-old, but as an example of rational thought, it falls flat.
I like how an AIG defender was attacking us for saying it’s not a dichotomy between creationist and everything else and here Ham comes out and says “Shut up, yes it is!”
Sigh. Ken Ham never ceases to disappoint me. I mean, all I expect from him is inanity and dishonesty, and still he manages to test my faith, so to speak. Depressing.
In a hundred years from now his family will still be preaching the same message, making millions of dollars, and marvelling at just how easy it is.
(Where is strikeout when you need it?)
The [faith] stupid is strong in this one!
Yup, all it took was studying the ancient religions that the Romans came across (and had a habit of absorbing into their own) to make me realize that christianity was just one among many that ancient man had made up. A closer look soon showed me that xianity had also absorbed many of those ancient religions into itself.
LOL – Being a Latin teacher made me into an Atheist!
Ken Ham has the authority of The Bible, albeit he get’s it wrong sometimes. The Bible is the inerrant word of God.
However, PZ hasn’t seen the light andis afuckwit at best.
Who ordered pizza?
The Catholic church says one needs both faith and good works to get to heaven. Which it also says in the New Testament bible.
The RCC would call Ken Ham a heretic and a Fake Xian who is going to hell.
Ken Ham would call the Pope a Fake Xian who is going to hell.
I guess it all evens out.
Bob the Rain God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are both still “alive” whatever that means to the gods. Both were smart enough and powerful enough not to get stuck on a cross and killed in the first place.
Presumably this makes them superior to jesus. There is even a huge amount of proof that Bob the Rain God exists. Just about everyone has seen it rain before. QED.
Actually, it’s a derivative book, and we thus can even trace its origins to some extent. The flood tale is obviously an old Semitic legend, and there are other parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the creation tale(s) of Genesis.
Basically, it’s what religious teachings did in the past, spin a tale about the origin of everything. Not all are written, to be sure, but plenty were.
Glen Davidson
Zeno
<strike>
words</strike><del>
words</del>Ken Ham has the authority of The Bible
tell us how that authority was established, and how it relates to accuracy.
albeit he get’s it wrong sometimes.
like?
PZ hasn’t seen the light
unless you’re talking electric light or sunlight or luminescence, neither have you.
well, unless you’re suffering from a retinal tear or similar condition that makes you think you see things that aren’t there.
Oh, boy! We got a new chew toy to play with!
I didn’t, but I did order entertainment.
It had better get a lot more interesting in a hurry, though, or I’m not paying.
Glen Davidson
Ken Ham is a cafeteria xian at best. Like they all are.
The bible claims that the earth is flat, the sky is just a dome with lights stuck on it for stars, orbited by the sun, and 6,000 years old.
He kept the 6,000 year old earth, while tossing the flat earth, geocentrism, and the dome-lights theory of the night sky.
Buncha hypocrites. Biblical inerrantist my foot.
here, maybe this will be helpful to you if you think you are seeing lights…
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/vision/why-do-i-see-flashing-lights
I have several such books on my Kindle. By scientists. So by Ken Ham’s logic (oxymoron!) does that mean science is the one true religion?
Yup, the bible is completely and totally inerrant (warning: large PDF)
If the bible is inerrant, I’m the Queen of England (hint: I’m male and posting from Texas)
Then your god is a fucking moron for entrusting the bible to a dimwit who can’t get it right. Guess god shoulda called you, eh?
Then there is no way Ken Ham should be able to “get it wrong”… right?
No, PZ is a poopyhead! Get it right, religitard!
You know I always figure that it must take a complete idiot to support Ken Ham.
And then people like seadel inevitably show up to support my contention.
happens every time.
It kind of amazes me that, Christians bringing up the super-duper uniqueness of Jeezy-boy aren’t ever convinced of the stupidity of their argument by examples of unique elements to other religions. For instance, no other religion has scriptures that say women are completely equal to men, therefore Sikhism must be true! I don’t expect to deconvert them, but you’d think at least one of them would acknowledge that that particular argument doesn’t work.
no, because then you would have to redefine religion to include endeavors that lead to explanatory and predictive power.
and that’s just silly.
;)
Ichthyic #19
Does that make you inerrant?
It’s like a Möbius strip sentence.
It kind of amazes me that, Christians bringing up the super-duper uniqueness of Jeezy-boy aren’t ever convinced of the stupidity of their argument by examples of unique elements to other religions.
ditto.
One of my oldest friends is Christian, and he kept making that same argument about the uniqueness of xianity for years and years.
Didn’t matter what I put under his nose, it wasn’t “unique” to his mind.
just supports the idea that for a lot of people, religion just fills a sense of belonging to the special “in group”. And, given how the Lutheran church he grew up with operated (it was mostly based on class exclusion), it certainly fits.
try getting him to actually REALIZE this though, has been worse than trying to pull teeth.
Does that make you inerrant?
at least temporarily.
No worship though, just send cash.
@Seadel #6
Who’s Andis Afuckwit? Can’t really place the language of origin of that name… Polish, maybe? Except the orthography doesn’t match…
Ohh, I get it. You just can’t spell.
*nose goes up, sniffs the air
Do I smell a chew toy?
I hope so. My teeth are all covered with grime from reading about the Christian response to a 16 year old girl standing up for the Constitution and the law.
But if it’s just a drive-by, I’ll be very DISAPPOINTED.
A. Noyd wrote:
I suspect that, were they possessed of the amount of intellectual honesty required to understand and admit that, they probably wouldn’t be religious.
But it comes down to the fact that apologetics isn’t about conversion, it’s about retention. They don’t need to convince people that what they’re spouting makes sense to an unbeliever; they only need it to seem reasonable enough stave off cognitive dissonance in those who are starting to doubt.
Whether or not the Bible is the inerrant word of God, a middle school English textbook is your friend.
Ken Ham has the intelligence of an 8 year old.
I wish you wouldn’t say hurtful things like that. Think about all the 8 year olds you’re insulting.
I’ve had many Christians tell me that Christianity must be true because it is the only religion that “makes sense.” I think the assumption is that we humans reek so badly that God must be planning to send us all to hell and that there isn’t possibly anything we can do to redeem ourselves. It’s of course very much a cultural belief, not an obvious truism, but it’s still curious to me because I never thought it made much sense. After all if the omnipotent God wanted to let us into heaven surely it wouldn’t make much difference whether he entered a physical body and arranged for said body to undergo some mischief. In any case Ken seems to think his point of view should be completely obvious to any eight-year old.
What put another crack in the ice for me was a sermon by a Catholic priest where he came right out and said that there’s no way to discern the difference between one interpretation of the Bible and another, or whether the Bible is even true or not – only the weight of Catholic tradition can be relied upon as a way out of this dilemma. In other words, reason and actual facts won’t help you here, but our pile of accumulated horseshit is bigger than anyone else’s. I couldn’t help but recollect Adam Smith’s comments about scholars spending immense amounts of time and thought on vaporous subjects that could never be validated empirically.
Only he said it better. Off to go mine Wealth of Nations again…
Shorter Ham: The Bible says Jesus is God. God says the Bible is true. The other religions are false because I say so.
christinelaing wrote:
This means they’ve never bothered to think very much about it at all; Christianity is a seriously stupid, illogical religion, since it requires its creator god to be so inconsistent in character and capacity as to be completely unreliable for pretty much anything.
No Christian has ever explained why an omnipotent god who makes the rules was forced to ahere to the rule of requiring a sacrifice (which Jesus wasn’t by any proper definition of the word, but that’s another story) in order to ‘forgive’ humanity rather than just saying ‘I forgive humanity’ and waving his magic wand.
Same old circle here…
The Bible is true.
How do you know?
The Bible says so.
oink
Wowbagger (#28)
I agree that’s what apologetics works best for, but that doesn’t stop missionaries from trying to use it as a conversion tool. I mean, I don’t just harass random Christians who keep their religion private; I get this from people earnestly trying to convert me. But then, I suppose a genuine understanding of the mind of a non-believer would leave them vulnerable to deconversion, even if it could help them weed out the worst of their arguments.
What’s that you say Rev?
you sense freshly raped piglet?
ayup.
Kenny’s been in the barn again.
OK, now that everybody’s gone home now, here’s some Adam Smith:
“But in the universities of Europe, where philosophy was taught only as subservient to theology…at last the doctrine of spirits, of which so little can be known, came to take up as much room in the system of philosophy as the doctrine of bodies, of which so much can be known. …
But if subtleties and sophisms composed the greater part of the metaphysics or pneumatics of the schools, they composed the whole of this cobweb science of ontology…”
Pneumatics! Cobwebs! Go, Adam!
Ham refers to John 10:30 with “I and my father are one”, but when the Jews grabbed some rocks, Jesus said, “Wait! I’m talking about Psalm 82:6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’” So, Jesus never really meant that he was equivalent to god. If Ham can’t get his mythology right, should we expect him to apply it to reality properly?
carlie @#23
perfect
btw, is this:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/ken_hams_new_book.php
where the whole Kenny rapes piglets meme, er I mean FACT, started?
A little comparative religion would do Ken Ham as much good as an Archaeopteryx skeleton would.
It would just provoke a reactionary bleat.
Glen Davidson
Drop a turd and run. Typical Hamster.
It would just provoke a reactionary
bleatsqueal.That’s my favorite bit. I’m hearing it in a scary robot voice, like ED-209 from RoboCop.
“You have 20 seconds to comply!”
Ichthyic @ 25:
” ‘Does that make you inerrant?’
at least temporarily”
Reminds me of that funny quip:
‘I thought I was wrong once,… but I was mistaken.’ :)
I am so ashamed of Ken Ham.
Why oh why god did you have to make him an Australian!
We love it when Americans are crazy nutbags, and like to pretend that America is the only place were these nutbags come from.
Alas, there are crazy people all over the planet.
Oh the shame…
That has been the fall-back position of every creationist I have ever met, after I point out the flaws in their arguments.
Ken Ham, HAMsterwheel logic.
Is this a new meme in the making? Should we call Ken Ham’s brand of mischief, “hamstering”?
Mind you, I guess the smaller proportion of loonies in Australia is why he left to spin his nuttery elsewhere. Now if we could only persuade the remaining ones to leave.
Isn’t Ham the jerk whoose AIG argued not to long ago that lying to Nazis about hidding Jews in the basement was a terrible sin and telling the truth was the right thing to do because:
a) We’re all going to die anyway.
b) Its’ part of Gods plan.
c) Lying is a much greater sin than murder, worthy of eternal punishment by burning in hell.
So here is Ham and Co. declaring themselves more moral and rightous than those who risked their lives to save innocent people because they woudn’t lie even if people died as a result of truth telling.
UGH!
Cheer up Muffin, the Hamster is a slow 2nd to Ted Haggart.
What, seadel couldn’t be bothered to stick around and at least try to fend off the horde?
What a shame, I wanted a nibble.
Wrong. lying is exactly the same level of sin as murder
Cheer up Muffin, the Hamster is a slow 2nd to Ted Haggart.
meh, Haggard is boring now. Haven’t you heard?
Ted Haggard is completely heterosexual.
Glory how he blew ya.
Wait, let’s be clear here. Are we talking about unforgivable sins, venial sins, or mortal sins?
Inquiring minds want to know.
“There is nothing you can do to save yourself. We could never do enough good works to get us to heaven…”
Of course The Ham and others like him never speak to the inconsistencies in the N.T., let alone the O.T. E.g, see Matthew (keeping the Law and loving others as yourself will bring salvation) as opposed to Paul (these things were irrelevant to salvation). See Ehrman, Freeman, etc.
It’s just as well. I’m pretty sure that, were I to land in heaven through some cosmic accident (like, say, I put blood on my lintel at the right time and that moron known as YHWH and his band of halfwit angels mistook me for one of his faithful), I’m pretty sure I’d last for all of three minutes before one of Ham’s incredibly stupid followers said something dipshitty to me, at which point I’d grab them and—[explicit description of carnage]—until finally I was sent, dripping with ichor, elsewhere.
@ Raven:
The babble does not contain the 6,000 year thing. That’s just one more delusional fantasy fudge-factored by fundgelicals who understand neither math nor genealogy nor the incompetent histories of bronze-age herdsmen. Bishop Ussher gets the usual blame, but others have fallen into the same silly pit.
Children are pretty good at recognizing that kind of BS “logic” for what it is (I did). The concept of original sin was probably the first things that initially confused me about religion. Later on, when I realized that it was just the cornerstone of a much larger scam, I got angry.
“You’ve got a disease, and we have the only cure”. It was almost perfect in its perversity.
People keep falling for it. Amazing.
Dammit Ichthyic! *swabs sangria soaked screen*
Brownian @60. A toast to ye!(even tho tonight it will be with a rather cheap Italian Negrar)
Wow. Thats some seriously weak sauce.
Embarrassingly weak. Pathetic even.
See, @ 60 is why the queue for Ghey Secks with Brownian just keeps getting longer.
By the way, those of you at the front of the line, remember: Just once, then you have to go to the end of the line.
“You know, I have this crazy idea that if you’re going to say that something is objectively true, you ought to have some source of evidence external to the something…”
I’ve noticed that virtually any time certain kinds of Christians use the word “objective” (or better yet, “empirical”), what they are really saying is that they don’t have a shred of evidence whatsoever to back up their position, and hope that you won’t notice if they just say “objectively” enough times.
My first question is, is that a contraction of ‘get is’ or ‘get has’?
My second question is, where’s the faith? As soon as I read the question, I immediately expected the when you believe it, you’ll feel it, fake it til you make it gambit. I was going to pose the second question to Mr. Ham, but he doesn’t provide any contact information on the page Mr. Myers linked to, and I’m averse to exploring that site further.
Sometimes I accidentally smear ashes on my forehead. I worry about that. You just never know what the fuck they might be looking for.
the question asked is the best one the ask and the reply is always the same and
as poor as the “reasoning” is that is the best they have.
out of all the gods created by man there is absolutely no way to chose which one is “the true god”
as my doubt grew that is the question that finally did the whole thing in. It always ended in a pompous fool saying in essence because it says so which boils down to I said so. my reply was and is always so what.
uncle frogy
This isn’t unique to christianty. At least some of the bhakti traditions of hinduism have the same idea. The only way to escape maya is for the deity to personally intervene on your behalf and protect you.
It’s always hilarious to listen to christians try to explain why that’s totally different!
We could send out an army to try to pressure believers into forcing them to face how irrational their faith is yet in the end I doubt that the army would be anywhere near as effective as Ken Ham in making one doubt ones faith.
Ah, playing Pascal’s Extended Insurance Coverage, I see.
I hope the Diwali Tree I put up to supplicate the Jero Gde does the trick. This coat of skin flayed from my flowery war captive is getting kind of rank.
Of curse if you do the same analysis from a Buddhist perspective then Buddhims naturally comes out as the best I once borrowed a reincarnation card game that did just this from the point of view of Tibbetan Buddhism, which, according to Tibbetan Buddhism, is the best from of Buddhism.
It would go something like: The Buddha revealed that the ultimate goal is Nibbanna. So all religeons should be judged by how well the help you reach Nibbanna. Jesus got reborn in Heaven. Therefor he did not Reach Nibbanna and so Buddha > Jesus. Check mate Christians.
@ OP:
She rose from the dead. I put Her into a jar (“cave”) and covered with a lid (“rolled a stone before the entrance”) … after three days She Rose! It is amazing (“hallelujah”) how all the corn god’s stories look just like leavening bread (through “the spirit of god”).
Don’t forget to stab your god in its side with a
spearbread lame before dispatchingto the furnace of hellputting in the oven. This will help it to Rise Again.@ feralboy12 7
Hehehe …. seadel, the obvious troll, is obvious.
@ Ichthyic 11
Troll seadel is just bragging because it’s opticorectal sense organ sees Teh Light so clearly.
& 53
If a snake bit Ted Haggard on the wobbly bits, would The Hamster suck the poison out?
@ otrame 66
I have been waiting in line for months now just to jump the Brownian. I’m getting desperate. If this takes any longer I shall be tempted to jump the queue.
Evader is hit by stupidity for 9,999 damage.
Evader has been defeated.
@74 Okaaay. So some forms of Buddhism, in this case Tibetan (which btw ignores the fact that there were several major sects even in Tibetan Buddhism who would [psychically] strangle each other)believe that… oh I give up.
Yes, but was Ham there?
@ muffin 49
At least Ham is a Queenslander, so you know he’s not alone, and he would have spent his formative years in the Joh Bjelke-Peterson years.
Not an excuse though, just perhaps a cause?
What a Ham. It’s just too bad he thinks of his antics as anything more than standup.
I have been waiting in line for months now just to jump the Brownian
meh, it’s pretty much like jumping the shark at this point.
“No religion other than Christianity has a book like the Bible that tells us about the origin of everything, and who we are, where we came from.”
Not true. The latest ‘young religion’ is Tolkienism, and his (entirely invented) book, the Silmarillion, is structured much like the Bible, beginning with Genesis, etc. It’s all there – a complete creation myth, suitable for development as “the one true religion” – and just as valid in that respect as any other historical religious text.
Google Iluvatar Manwe Melkor, for example.
@ 75 “I have been waiting in line for months now just to jump the Brownian. I’m getting desperate. If this takes any longer I shall be tempted to jump the queue.”
You might have to jump the border.
I’m more of an awkward man-hug type guy myself.
Wait a minute–isn’t there another religion that has a book remarkably similar to the Old Testament? Uh…uh…starts with a “J” maybe?
Ichthyic
Aaaaeeeeyyy,I was wrrrooooogh!
I’ll just
runjumpskip over that one then.This (at this point) has become an I’ll check in later kinda blog comment. Off to the local to sample a Tankhouse Ale and finish with a Cobblestone (an Ontario craftbrew somewhere between a Guinness and a London Porter). And Jesus.
Glen:
What really burns about this guy is he holds a degree in applied science with emphasis on Environmental Biology. (For those that don’t know that’s the international standard english for “he has an associate’s degree in biology”). So he has to know how evolution works, and why creationism doesn’t qualify has a hypothosis.
@89 – I have the boobzs.
Tell us more, oh saucy one!
Hilarious. Ken Ham clearly knows nothing about the world’s religions, but also knows little about the world’s xtians, as his theology conflicts with that of the xtian majority. But, of course, if he agreed with historic xtianity he’d have cash-flow problems.
Today I was thinking back to William Lane Craig’s argument for the resurrection. The first thing he comes out and says is that Jesus came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority. What could that possibly mean? If Jesus didn’t come on the scene and proclaimed to be God that those supposed eyewitness accounts or lack of presentation of a dead Jesus to the devoted would be weakened? It’s word salad, meaningless pap that sounds superficially important.
This is the problem of starting with a conclusion and arguing to it! You can just find whatever you think confirms what you say and make a big deal out of that. The uniqueness of Christianity (which is what I think Ham is arguing to) could be said for any given religion, all it takes is emphasising the differences as if they somehow are objectively the measure of what makes the one true faith…
Kel,
Really?
Wellll, it’s a little of that, and a lot of this…
Oh sweet baby jesus on a foot long!! How did I do that?
SORRY PZ!
Ctrl V does that?
If I were a Christian, I’d be embarrassed to hear this frequently trotted out as an advantage. The message seems to be: if you’re lazy and selfish, this is the religion for you!
His argument: “The historical person Jesus of Nazareth was a remarkable individual. New Testament critics have reached something of a consensus that the historical Jesus came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority, the authority to stand and speak in God’s place. That’s why the Jewish leadership instigated his crucifixion on the charge of blasphemy. He claimed that in himself the Kingdom of God had come, and as visible demonstrations of this fact he carried out a ministry of miracle working and exorcisms.”
Interesting that he didn’t make such a statement during his debate with Bart Ehrman were the resurrection was the sole topic, but it was part of his debates with Dr Tooley and Dr Pigliucci where the resurrection of Jesus was but one of several arguments in the accumulation of God…
One could easily imagine the argument being one of Divine Humility if Jesus was humble in his achievements. That despite claiming no divine authority and placing psychological expectations in his followers, that he performed amazing feats that showed that he is the messiah.
The message seems to be: if you’re lazy and selfish, this is the religion for you!
SILENCE, EARTH FOOL!
That’s Bob‘s Domain, ya slacker!
Snort, that is rather circular.
I’m reminded of the mesmerising spinning disc seen in movies which the psychotic doctor uses for hypnotising people. That’s christianity. Cheap, circular and only in black and white.
New England Bob @ 30: “Ken Ham has the intelligence of an 8 year old.” Oh, I dunno about that, Bob. Hambo himself might be smarter than an 8-year-old, but the followers he’s fleecing for great gobs of cash sure aren’t.
PZ said “I have this crazy idea that if you’re going to say that something is objectively true, you ought to have some source of evidence external to the something”
The problem isn’t the externalness or circularity, it’s the whole concept of evidence. The AiG Statement Of Faith explains the whole thing: “6. By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record.”
That’s twisted, not circular.
Don’t forget to stab your god in its side with a spear bread lame before dispatching to the furnace of hell putting in the oven. This will help it to Rise Again.
aha! That’s why Crackergate was so contentious!
The Gospel…
“It’s a Cookbook!”
“More exclamation marks does not make it truer!”
Actually, apart from being a sure sign of an insane mind, each exclamation mark makes the statement preceding it about 20% truer.
“No other religion has a Savior who is alive (He rose from the dead)”
If I worship a god that has a swarm intelligence, that is, it lives on while individual components die, does that make it as awesome as Osiris, Jeshua and other deities that came back from the dead? Just asking.
— — — — — — — — — — —
BTW, I just learned that Hiram, king of Tyrus consolidated his rule by inventing a new god called “Melkart”. If actually inventing gods is allowed, can I enter one to the pantheon? You can show your comittment by giving it all your money, using the High Priest (me) as proxy.
“I’ve had many Christians tell me that Christianity must be true because it is the only religion that “makes sense.”
Actually, among monotheistic religions, the Baha´i is the most straightforward. But I am not planning to join it. Too much persecution by…just about everybody (except atheists).
birgerjohansson:
Allowed? Not only is it allowed, it’s required.
Really? I understood they claim not only Moses, Jesus and Muhammed but Siddhartha Gautama as “their” prophets, all of whose messages have supposedly been distorted. Thoroughly disingenuous, I’d say.
=8)-DX #105
This is confirmed by Cobb’s Theorem:
I have this crazy idea that 10 years from now I’m going to be reading that child’s “Why I Am An Atheist” essay
Today is Wednesday because in my workweek it is Wednesday, and my schedule says that this is my Wednesday so it is Wednesday.
Wow. Attempting HWR (Hamster Wheel Reasoning) is actually painful.
I’m really disappointed to see all of you treating Christianity as if it were in no way different to any other belief system.j
Christianity is unique among all the religions in the world. No other religion requires its adherents to simultaneously and wholeheartedly believe all three of these:
1) God personally created each individual human being, and loves each single one of them with an infinite love.
2) God has set the universe up in such a way that every single human’s default destination is an eternity of infinite torture.
3) If one of those humans ends up suffering infinite torture, that fate is entirely the human’s fault, not God’s.
Will we be old atheists then? Either, it’s going to make the child a complete atheist, or it will have the exact opposite effect. I doubt there is a middle ground, this smoked Ham is polarising.
@ Ichthyic
Eegzachary! (But shush, don’t give our game away.)
@ birgerjohansson
You are too late. Phoenicia (PBUH) is the only tolerated religion on Pharyngula. All else is heresy.
…
Re: Ken Ham (Just to get back on topic.)
Anyone who has ever tried to take up contact with the Hamster will soon realise he is the ultimate tone troll. If you do not address him (and his skygod) in perfect and impeccable obsequiousness you get ejected. As it is impossible for a thinking person not to mock the piglet(and his skygod), it is impossible to get through to him.
If the kid is smart enough to ask the question, they’re probably smart enough not to swallow bullshit as the answer.
While my computer was booting up just now I read a chapter from Frank Delaney’s novel Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show which included this character description:
“Everybody knew him by his nickname: ‘King’ Kelly. I believe he gave it to himself. Out in Montana he told them that when he was growing up in Ireland he had been nicknamed King. When he came back to Ireland he told them that in Montana they’d christened him King. You can’t dismantle a circular myth.”
seadel, your job is to get in touch with Ken and show him where he’s wrong. Get back to us with his response.
Yeah there is: get away from Christianity as fast as you can.
cactuswren [Apologize in advance for the knit-picking, I know your original post was a tad tongue-in-cheek]: I don’t really think Christianity is that unique in those respects, because the general spirit of those three is “a good God who gives out incredibly unfair punishments”, which is not too rare.
Judaism may not have eternal torture, but it still presents its genocidal God as good. In Islam, Hell is a possible eternal punishment for not believing their good God, and (according to interpretation) a finite punishment for Muslims who weren’t faithful enough, and the fact that God can end the eternal punishment if It pleases is stressed. Zoroastrianism also has multiple punishments of “the wicked” which include the possibility of eternal punishment or punishment until the arrival of a savior, at the hands of another good monotheistic god. Zoroastrianism also has something similar to the idea of “The Fall”.
Christianity is unique only in terms of degree of awfulness and injustice, but didn’t invent the idea of a “good” deity that torments people it created for their finite crimes (or for just being human). It’s just a particularly galling case, because many older religions offer up better systems of divine justice than the supposedly more moral and enlightened Christianity that is the modern world’s most popular religion. It’s also galling because the system is supposedly orchestrated by a perfectly good God, yet this perfectly good God’s system is atrocious compared to systems run by polytheistic gods that have established and accepted character flaws. Zeus regularly fucks random humans, sometimes in the form of an animal, and has a temper, yet even he doesn’t send people to Tartarus by default or simply for defying him. And the eternal punishments offered include forever pushing a boulder up a hill unsuccessfully, having a branch with fruit on it forever out of reach, or forever trying to fill a leaking tub. Only the worst offenders got sent to Tartarus, and they got punishments that sound more Twilight Zone than Biblical.
Forbidden Snowflake:
When it comes to religion, you can never say for sure what bullshit will be swallowed for reasons that completely bypass the intelligence of the swallower.
@91 Pics, or it didn’t happen. I mean, here of all places, you can’t expect us to take your statement on faith! ;->
Well, that’s the thing about swallowing bullshit – getting it down fast and whole is best… presumably you don’t want it to linger on the tongue…
@ anteprepro
IIRC, all muslims go to hell (with the exception of mohammad who is just perfect fyi). They just get out early for good behaviour.
theophontes: Oh really? That’s rather interesting. Sort of like Jesus’s day and half spa weekend in Hell, except for everyone.
@ anteprepro
I am fairly sure. I’ll have to look it up though. Also everyone must cross the razor edged bridge. (Yeah, a lot like Lord of The Rings type adventures. Crops up everywhere… from teh koran to King Kong, no fiction is complete without it.)
The dialogue of the Reapers and the indoctrinated mortals in Mass Effect always reminded me of this theology. The language is quite similar.
Once again, the wilful ignorance of the fundies shows. “Hey, bud, yer ignorantz is showin’!” Somewhat analogous to youngsters who think it’s kewl to show their undies.
As for gods who rise from the dead, Osiris is perhaps the best known outside xtianity. I think Mithras may have done something like that too, and I’m pretty sure that somewhere in Indian mythology you can find the same trick.
P-zed’s list of counter-examples can be extended with ancient Egyptian religion, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism (still practiced today by a small number of adherents). Mithraism, plus the less formal religions of “primitive” societies world wide. Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism both have fairly voluminous holy books, though those of the Manichaeans are extant only in fragments.
As for the bible itself, middle eastern archaeology has gradually revealed that much of the Hebrew bible is common stock among the various extinct polytheistic Semitic religions, and is by no means unique to the Judaeo-Christian line. And some of the OT is drawn from the Egyptians, notably but not exclusively the abortive monotheism of Akhenaton.
IOW, P-zed’s counterargument is even stronger than he presented it.
As presented in the OT, Yahweh comes across not so much as the good guy as the crazy, short-fused violent freak that you feel lucky to have on your side, but that you still have to tiptoe around lest he go all deluge on you.
Sort of a divine Mercutio.
@125
“Fuck yes” to the very appropriate Mass Effect reference!
Score 100+ for nerd reference of the day!
Erm. Does the shame he ought to feel somehow rub off on you by way of his citizenship? ~:-| If Ham isn’t your fault, I can’t see why you should be ashamed of him.
FtB turns all naked links to YouTube into embedded videos. To avoid the naughtiness, you must clothe them in <a> tags.
Hence why Carlin easily swapped him with Joe Pesci
Ah, Hammy. Circular arguments do not a compelling case make.
This would be poor even by the standards of school yard ‘logic’.
And, of course, when in doubt – exclamation points!!!!
Why on earth fundies think that meaningless additional punctuation renders their drivel more cogent is beyond me.
We Are Ing @ 125;
You mean the; “We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution; you exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it” speech from the first Mass Effect game?
Hmmm, similarities between christian theology and the attitude of a fictional race of genocidal alien artifical intelligences?
Sounds about right.
Don’t we find out (with regard to Saren and in greater detail in the second Mass Effect title) that the Reapers also employ a means of controlling their biological agents called ‘Indoctrination’, whereby they modify cognitive centres of the brain to induce hallucinations and progressively alter behaviour, with side effects including paranoia and persecution complexes?
Now, what does that remind me of…?
There seem to be more and more parallels the more you look at it…
Gah, you mentioned indoctrination in the very post I quoted.
Apologies for the tautology.
But, there is no god but Osiris, and his Son Horus!
Or was it Zeus and Dionysus ? I forget these things.
Or perhaps it’s the Flying Spagetti Monster, and his Holy Ally Mac N’ Cheese ? Somebody help me out here.
It’s confirmed in ME2 that just about any piece of their technology has the ability to do this as long as it remains even partially active.
In ME2 the Reaper talks about how nothing can stop them and how they (the reapers) are your (everyone else in the universe) salvation.
The thing is the Reapers are based on Lovecraft’s deities…which seem a lot like the Calivinist god.
We Are Ing @ 135;
You’re right. Now that I think about it, there is that level set on a badly damaged Reaper in orbit around a Brown Dwarf star (the one where you first meet everyone’s favourite mostly autonomous Geth, Legion), where the player finds all those videos of people undergoing the various stages of indoctrination, and the game codex is updated with an entry about the practice. There are also a couple of side mission where Reaper tech has turned people into Husks in part by means of indoctrination.
Is it a Reaper or the Collecter General who goes on about that? Or is it an exchange that happens in one of the DLC packs, because I haven’t played those yet.
Still, it certainly sounds like the mentality of fundies – rant about fire and brimstone and issue innumerable threats, both of supposed ‘spiritual torment’ and very temporal violence, while all the while claiming that they are bringing ‘salvation’ to the ‘fallen souls’.
Yup, got to love the Lovecraftian references. And as for similarities to the Calvinist concept of god, I would go further; capricious, genocidal evil seems to be a prominent attribute of all the Abrahamic god myths.
He may be born in Australia, but it is America where he thrives…
But the bible doesn’t tell us about the origins of everything, who we are, and where we came from. The bible gets it all badly wrong, so much so that people have to deny science in order to affirm that the bible tells the story of Life, The Universe, and Everything.
He may be born in Australia, but it is America where he thrives…
don’t forget, Kel, that CSM still is thriving in OZ. AIG originally was just a spinoff of that.
creationism is a problem in OZ too.
hell, I can say the same thing about NZ. Comfort may have only a handful of followers left here in NZ (4, to be exact – not kidding), but Tamake and the Destiny Church are still here, even if his one attempt at running for office was laughed right out.
I’m really disappointed you think that in any way describes all of the 40K sects of Christianity.
the 1st one is only true for inclusivist sects, which are far less than half of those out there, for example.
I realize where you were going with it, that xianity is uniquely more nutz than other religions, but it just ain’t so.
:P
I don’t forget, though as far as I am aware there’s no animatronic-laden Creation Museum here.
I’m thinkin’ they weren’t burdened with an overabundance of schooling.
And Australians think they’re just as good as ‘Mericans. Ha ha!
I try, but it keeps following me everywhere I go. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can get a restraining order.
I don’t forget, though as far as I am aware there’s no animatronic-laden Creation Museum here.
less money does not mean less enthusiasm, though.
oh, and minor correction on my previous, Creation Ministries International was Ham’s OZ outfit, not Creation Science Ministries.
gotta keep the loonies straight, I suppose.
Well, I’m convinced by Mr. Ham’s “Christianity is true because it’s Christianity and remember how we told you that makes is true” argument.
The only question now is which Republican are we supposed to vote for.
freetotebag:
-The answer, sadly, is no longer in doubt.
::drumroll::
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/will-evangelical-endorsement-fuel-santorum-surge/2012/01/17/gIQASz755P_story.html
-Yes, an endorsement from a group of fundamentalist, evangelical religious leaders is something to be proud of. Blech!
I wonder what they’re going to discuss at their next meeting. Oh, I know, it’s probably gays and abortion. Their favorite topics.
Spoiler:
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They’re the same thing. At the end of the game it’s revealed the Collector General is a conduit from which the Reaper Harbinger commands the others. It’s released from possession just in time to have a few moments of life before the base lows up.