…then he is one evil bastard.
Why are you worshipping such a malignant entity?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
…then he is one evil bastard.
Why are you worshipping such a malignant entity?
Yes. Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.
I saw this from Dawkins today. I think its a little new. Tim Minchin does it again
I hate not having yutub.
I’m missing out.
—-
What is God’s IQ?
Since He’s Perfect, is it 100?
I was raised Christian and it took me a long time to shrug off the indoctrination. These days if anybody was to convince me that a god did indeed exist I would have to declare war on it.
That yootoob is Tim Minchin: “Thank you God”, been around for a while but ever powerful.
Cthulhu is as Cthulhu does. We are as bugs, unable to comprehend his divine spirit.
Well if they cherry pick the good bits from the bible, why would one expect them to not do so with “creation”.
Having just read The Stranger, by Albert Camus, this video seems to reiterate and amplify the premise of Mersault’s denouement.
Fear?
Because they are malign themselves.
“What does God need with a starship? ” — James Tiberius Kirk.
It always seemed to me that Kirk was saying in star-trek-ese what I said about “why would an omniscient, omnipotent being create such inferior creations as mankind?”
If you’re going to build a bridge, you don’t build a bridge that will randomly fall down n number of hours after it’s built, or that will allow cars and trucks to pass over it’s surface on Tuesday but only bicycles on Wednesday. Oh bother.
Denial.
Everything good and beautiful is from God, everything bad is either deserved or waved away as a result of God giving us choices and letting us be (and look what bad things happen when Daddy leaves us home alone).
Because when he throws a tantrum, boy oh boy look out…
Similar point made by a group a few people here may of heard of.
“What but design of darkness to appall?–
If design govern in a thing so small.” — Robert Frost
Because the clerical classes of various societies have exerted vast effort and spent collosal fortunes of money over many centuries in order to indoctrinate as many people as possible into a belief system that maintains their unearned status and privilege. And they are in no way above seeking to destroy anyone who dares to dissent with their dogma, using ritualised murder when and where they have the power to do so, more covert force when presented with the opportunity (such as severely restricting or even completely denying access to abortion services in order to enforce their backward, toxic sexual pseudo-morality upon society by means of the deaths of innocent women), and the application of social pressure such as ostracision and loss of life opportunities when no other means are available.
Religion is so ubiquitous, and has endured for so long despite the rise of scientific knowledge that clearly demonstrates that it bears not the slightest resemblance to reality, principally because it serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful that it should continue to exist.
What better prison could there be than one where you convince the inmates that they don’t want to be free? That is religious belief in a nutshell – a prison for the intellect and the conscience that needs no bars, locked doors or chains.
If there is a God, then that’s a very good excuse for maltheism.
there was never any of those things before “The Fall” everything was perfect piece in Eden but Adam and Eve sinned against God and were expelled and all that bad stuff was started because it was the punishment God decided on., We were also guilty even to the end of time and will suffer for “the original sin” of Adam and Eve. unless of course we completely surrender to those (mother church) who are telling the story and do everything they say. then we get to live forever and bow down to this creator god..
at least that’s how I remember it being explained in Catechism class
which is a pretty good indication of what kind of god this creator is supposed to be
uncle frogy
If there is a designer, it either didn’t project-manage the cowboys doing the actual construction work, or it needs to take another look at the blueprints.
If the choice is worship or be blasted to smithereens, wouldn’t you worship?
You don’t hafta like it.
Never mind the blemishes of the ‘natural’ world, as alleged. Its mighty thoughtful of The Designer to purposely provide all those evil devils and demons to tempt and torment us all into doing all kinds of unthinkably nasty things to ourselves and one another.
How perfect we would all otherwise be without the Designer’s Little Joke. [If one listens very carefully one can just make out that “heh, heh, heh” deep basso-profundo in resounding cosmic reverb]
Also, still can’t understand why an Omniscient Creator finds it necessary to test his created flock, ostensibly to filter out who has already been determined ‘will be’ chosen. Why would an Omniscient Creator find anything of interest at all in a design if all is planned and preordained and every outcome that ever transpires is long since forgone and grokked in its entirety by the Designer from the get-go?
Why would a designer creator – who is omniscient as well as infallible – bother to run the program? To check if it has any flaws in it?
A better description for such an entity would be Supreme Idiot.
I can’t understand the necessity of worshipping anything that one believes has already prepared all one’s thoughts, will, mind, or convictions, however they may change or evolve along a preordained plan. Where’s the slightest intelligence involved at either the Designer’s end OR the product in such a preposterous state of affairs?
Or, if some Imprimatur of Imperfection, as a being interested only in administering the all-important ingredient of entropy into an otherwise Perfect Work in order to extract some illusion of novelty? Behold the Master Jackoff, a pathetically bored being that must entertain itself with departures from perfect order – disaster, mayhem and tragedy – to maintain its jollies. What depths must be plumbed to worship anything that low and miserable?
—
BTW, to PZ and all who organized and participated in the first FtBCON — well done!
A little operatic agreement: In Verdi’s Otello, Iago sings “I believe in a cruel god, in whose image I am made” BTW I don’t think his librettist Boito got the line from Shakespeare.
I like “the eternal damnation of billions” at the end.
Of course my first thought was “one of those things is not like the others”. But if you accept it for the sake of the argument, it’s really outstanding how wasteful it is to create billions and damn them to hell. Isn’t that Stupid Design!?!
Praying to something omniscient makes no sense at all whatsoever. The only explanation for why religions with omniscient gods have prayer is that everything is the way it is because it got that way – they’re descended from religions where the top gods were just morally ambiguous superheroes.
David:
Exactly. But if there is any reason behind it or explanation for it, I would second Nick Gotts suggestion: fear drives most if not the whole of it. That’s the reason why it got that way and people are welded to traditions that maintain it.
Nothing breeds or fuels fear like ignorance. Humans have spent an enormous amount of time and energy to cultivate cultural traditions which exploit our conscious awareness and dread of death. And those cultures are filled with people who have been indoctrinated to shut down their curiosity in favor of the warm cozy sensations provided by a long, systematic and, above all, static tradition of manufactured falsehoods.
The lies exist for reasons of exploitation. Religious authority maintains them for the power it confers; the believing masses beneath them give them credence because of the rewards they promise, of a very unreal and anti-natural afterlife that saves them from oblivion as well as a very real worldly sense of community. Many are eager to point to their large numbers to demonstrate the commonality and therefore ‘truth’ of their adopted belief, but otherwise they do not care a spit about testing it against natural actuality.
They do not need to check it: religion is the tradition that does away with curiosity and the hard work of the acquisition of knowledge necessary to nourish it. Fresh information is anathema to the tradition, especially since it is likely to challenge it. Since they consider their tradition to be immune to challenge, they are apt to consider their ‘knowledge’ to be complete. Anyone offering evidence or facts that contradict them can take a hike.
The gratification of curiosity is a potentially risky and exhausting exercise that can challenge convictions. Although many who routinely gratify it through scientific habit find the exercise exhilarating and welcome the fresh and evolving insights that enlarges and refines their world view, many more equate their belief system with their personal identity, the ‘self’, leading to the goofy notion that since self is inviolate and unchanging, so must the beliefs they personally identify with be.
Ignorance takes no effort at all. Its the couch potato state – all that the lazy recliner needs to ‘do’ is passively absorb whatever processed ‘information’ vomits forth from the television of religious programming. They don’t need to think about it; its all already been figured out by whoever they’ve accepted to be expert authority. They don’t need or want to enlarge, refine or correct it. They think questioning it is insulting, checking it to be a personal assault. They are proud of their belief tradition. They’ll claim their belief to be a matter of personal choice and freedom, yet many of them also think that in order to preserve it they must require everyone else to dispense with theirs.
They themselves insist that thinking about their beliefs is unnecessary. They don’t have to think about it. They already ‘know’ they’re right. They consequently cannot be practiced let alone fluent in logical reasoning. Why should anyone respect their views on anything?