If anyone has been following the recent happenings in the presidential campaigns, they would know that John McCain just legally changed his name to John McChicken. When asked for comment, he said “I want to suspend my campaign because I want to postpone the debate that I will get anhilated in.” When asked to clarify, McChicken said:
So we gave him a second chance to clarify what he knows about the economy. And this time he responded with…”Why so serious?”…What a bizarre character, he also sent us a picture via telegram.
This past Wednesday (September 17th) David Mazza and I went on WUSB to promote our new campus club, SBUFreethinkers. The entire show was pretty hectic as the station had all sorts of technical difficulties but it was a great experience overall. The DJ (Angelo Cannella) was really cool and so was the rest of the staff. I think I was a tad bit nervous, but the show came out pretty good. I will update this post with some Youtube and cleaned up versions of the radio show, but for now, here are the two unedited parts of the show:
This is one of the most common questions I get with regards to my blog and community work. This question comes from both sides as well and actually probably more frequently from non-believers. It also comes in a few different forms, such as:
It’s an easy target, its almost like stealing candy from a child.
It’s a pointless activity, you should concentrate on something else.
Religion is here to stay, just get used to it
Why are you so militant/hostile?
Let people believe their delusions, what difference does it make to you
Without religion, there is no right or wrong, so let it be
These six forms are really not too different from each other, but they come up quite often and I think they should be addressed.
Easy Target?
Intellectually yes, but what about politically? Pretty much anyone with a functional brain can crush a theist in a debate about theology (considering the theist has no new arguments). That is not the issue, I think both sides have realized religion is an intellectual midget while the naturalistic/atheistic world view is an intellectual giant in comparison. However politically their arguments are very strong and carry a lot of weight in America. That is the troubling aspect. They have achieved a non-taxable status even though most don’t do much charity work. Even when they do charity work, they end up spending more money on travel expenses and wages than on actually helping the people (who they are also trying to convert). Don’t also forget the preacher driving away in his new car. Lastly, they have somehow achieved a “don’t criticize” status in public discourse which is absurd (since we criticize everything else freely) and that is what makes it difficult.
Pointless?
Hardly. My main reason to believe this is based on history. Just take a look at Europe, when the governments were essentially theocracies, intolerance and ignorance ran supreme. Once the governments began to become more and more secular, (it was a slow process) the countries began to rise to heights the world has never seen before. Beginning with the Renaissance (not a fully secular movement) then the Enlightenment (the most successful secular movement ever), we see the advances in intellectual thought, science, reason and rationalism progress much faster than ever before. So, everything we do to limit religion’s power is a small step to creating a more perfect nation. When we get closer to making religion a minority, (which is going to happen) the entire society benefits from it. Take a look at medieval Europe or the modern day Middle East to see the opposite of my example.
Get Used to it?
One could have used the same argument against the Founding Fathers of America (Britain is going to rule us, get used to it!)…in fact I am sure that some foolish cynic said something along those lines. Whats the point of life if we accept the status quo and just get used to it? If we wish to see real progress, we must minimize religion to its rightful spot, the private delusion of fools.
Why so Hostile?
This usually comes from non-believers, though I had heard it from a few believers lately. The reason is very simple, I am hostile to non-thinking. Religion promotes non-thinking, and thus, I am hostile to religion. I simply cannot stand by and watch people actually talk about the virtues of faith. It is not who I am, perhaps that will change over the years. But, I don’t really see it changing anytime soon. Also, my hostility is much different from a religious persons hostility. The end result of a their hostility is something like the 9/11 attacks or bombing abortion clinics, the end of result of my hostility is carefully crafted and witty articles.
Let People Believe Their Delusions
This is another common one from fellow atheists and agnostics. They agree with me that religion and god are absurd, and that theism is negative aspect of society, but they end by saying, let people believe their delusions, what difference does it make to you? Well, beliefs result in actions. Sometimes they don’t, but usually they do. Unfortunately, believers don’t live in a vacuum, their beliefs effect others whether they like or not. They teach children nonsense in their churches and brainwash them, they usually support radical right wing politicians who attempt to remove the separation of church and state and because these people don’t leave us alone. People should be able to believe whatever they want, but they aren’t satisfied with just that, they always want someone else to share their delusion.
Morality without god
This video is Richard Dawkins reading out part of his book “The god Delusion” and he explores this question. I agree with this entire video, and I usually repeat something similar whenever people bring this point up.
My normal routine online consists of me vigorously checking various news sources for interesting material. Today, I came across this interview with a former-Muslim, now Atheist Mohammad Asghar. The full interview is located here.
Arabic and Muslims
“…there are over 1.565 billion Muslims in the world today. Out of these Muslims, only about 300 million understand and speak Arabic. Since a good part of the Quran is written in colloquial Arabic, spoken by the tribe of Quraish of the 7th century Mecca, understanding it even by many modern-day Arabic speaking Muslims is not an easy task.”
Lets think about that for a second. The majority of Muslims actually follow word for word a book that they themselves don’t understand whatsoever. They rely on others to tell them what exactly it says in there, and most of them never read the translations. If only these people could actually read what is inside there, maybe they would be more likely to leave their faith.
Education in the Muslim World
“There are 57 member-countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities, and intriguingly, not one university from the Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.”
Now consider this, not a single one of these universities is in the top 500. Bad education and religion closely related? Coincidence? I think not.
The Daily Prayers
Before the advent of Islam, the Pagans of the Arabian Peninsula prayed three times each day; about sunrise, at noon and about sunset, turning their faces towards the Ka’aba (Washington Irving, Mahomet & his Associates, p. 31). Muhammad retained this pagan ritual in Islam and, in some unguarded moments, he told his followers to pray twice, thrice or four times in a day. Since the norms to be followed while saying these prayers were well known to his followers, he did not mention them in the Qur’an. For want of clarity on the number of prayers that Muslims must offer everyday to Allah, Sunnis believe it to be five; Shias, by and large, consider it to be three (Dr. Rafiq Zakaria; Muhammad and the Quran, p. 74).
The Prophet of Islam, retained daily prayers in Islam for a specific reason: being militarily and economically weak, he needed to tell the Pagans of Mecca that the religion he was preaching was not drastically different from the one they themselves were practicing and, as such, they should accept it without resistance. He continued to follow his policy of appeasement even after his arrival in Medina, where the Jews vehemently opposed most of the precepts of his religion. In order to win them over, he changed the direction of the Muslim prayer from Ka’aba in Mecca to Jerusalem. When the Jews refused to budge, he expressed his mild displeasure by asking his followers to face Ka’aba at the time of saying their prayer.
All of these Abrahamic religions are just plagiarisms of former myths and gods. This provides the historical background of the daily prayers by Muslims. If everything inside Islam has already been uttered or practiced by someone else before it, then how much of a stretch is it to believe that all of it is man-made.
I am a Secular Leftist and Anti-Theist with a goal to explore and discuss any topic or person which is interesting and relates to politics or religion in a modern world. For a longer about me, click on the about me.