Morality does not come from God

I've ran into this debate so many times recently, or rather I've ran into the wrong answer to this important question several times in debate. My opponents state that morals come from God, scripture and holy books. Which are basically the supernaturally inspired writings of men. I have heard time and time again that without these holy guidelines in society, man will become his own god and choose his own individual interpretation of morality. The religious feel that without holy books to follow, people will do whatever they desire with no regard to anyone else including stealing, murdering, committing adultery etc....

NOTHING could be further from the truth. Our moral compass, has no origin in scripture. I will attempt throughout this post to intellectually destroy the concept of morality derived from religion. I will also try to present a logical alternative to the origin of our human morals. The purpose of this post is to provide a source for atheist to reference when confronted with similar religious arguments as those mentioned above, as well as for religious persons to perhaps reevaluate the credibility of their beliefs. The proof of this argument is longer than what is usually considered courteous for a comment reply in the blogosphere, so whenever the issue comes up please feel free to reference a link to this post to drive your point home. This post shall be divided into a two separate arguments.

Arguments against moral origin from holy bible

All one need do is look through the old testament and there you will find countless examples of deplorable moral instruction. In Deuteronomy we are instructed to take our disobedient children and bring them forth to the elders of our community to be publicly stoned to death. 21:18-21
If a man is found lying with a married woman they shall both be put to death. 22:22
If your community worships another god than that of Christianity, God will instruct his people to proceed with a thorough extermination of all inhabitants of your community, including your children. 2:33-36, and 3:3-6. (there are many more examples of Gods love of genocide.) One need only look to the story of Lot and the Sodomites in the book of Genesis to find some wonderful accounts of morality. "I will not destroy it for ten's sake."-God

I guess God couldn't find even ten good Sodomites because he decides to kill them all in Genesis 19. Too bad Abraham didn't ask God about the children. Why not save them? If Abraham could find 10 good children, toddlers, infants, or babies, would God spare the city? Apparently not. God doesn't give a damn about children. 18:32 Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in 2 Peter 2:7-8. 19:7-8 God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining "fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." Well, almost everyone -- he spares the "just and righteous" Lot and his family. 19:24

Many Christians today feel that Jesus did away with all this barbaric morality in the New Testament, However Jesus himself can be found to show his complete support for old laws on several occasions throughout the New Testament. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."-Jesus from Matthew 5:17 Also see Matthew 5:18-19 and Timothy 3:15-17. Christians will argue that these statements reflect Jesus' comments on how he will change the law after his Crucifixion is complete, pointing out his last words on the cross to reflect this notion. Yet if such reworking of old laws was coming why wouldn't God allude to this at all in the Old Testament? God, being omniscient and knowing the future could have specifically said- " Someday I will send my son who is also me, to the earth in human form, and whatever he speaks of law shall be the new law, and if it contradicts my word, you shall take his and follow his there after." Why did he speak so adamantly about preserving his word, and offer so much warning to changing his laws, if he knew he would someday undo it all through Jesus? Take for example passages in Deuteronomy 12:32 -"What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. " and 12:28-"Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God. " The part For ever, stands out the most to me, clearly this god had no intention of changing his mind at any point in time.

Some will point out that Jesus was a large advocate of the Golden Rule, which is a wonderful advancement from the old testament brutality. Christianity, like most religions, repeatedly claim to be the only way of morality and most all ironically claim to be written under the authority of the true creator of the universe. Yet advocates of the Golden Rule, can be found in all religions, some dating to much earlier times than that of Jesus. Check out this list of religions advocating "the rule" Such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Islam, Baha'i Faith, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism. So how does one decide which moral doctrine to follow?

This leads us to a very important question: By what criteria do you decide which passages in the bible to follow? What criteria did you use to decide that your religion is the best representation of morality? All religions have their own claims to superiority, so one cannot logically, refer to the bible for guidance on which religion to choose. The statement "I used the bible for moral guidance in determining that the bible is the best source of moral guidance.", is circular reasoning, and totally irrational. Even if the previous statement was accurate and a humans moral compass can only follow Gods words in the form of ancient text , then all passages would have the same credibility. God certainly made it very clear that not one passage is to be neglected. It is obvious to me that we have moral intuition contained within ourselves that allows us to decide (without gods help), what is right and wrong. The fact that you choose one doctrine over another proves that you are using your own moral intuition to determine what you feel is the best doctrine of morality. You are also using your own justification to support your choices. Moral intuition cannot be connected to scripture by any reasonable arguments. It is noteworthy to point out that there is no correlative data to suggest in any way, that atheism is linked to bad morality. However, since over 80% of America identifies themselves as a Christian, and with our high ratio of criminals per capt, it is quite easy to find correlative data to suggest that religious affiliation has nothing to do with morality. Of course that is not the basis of this argument since correlative data can be easily misused. (One might even try and argue against my moral intuition argument by stating that our high rate of crime is proof that we are inherently immoral. I will show that this is untrue later in this post.)

It is not a stretch of the imagination to say that the teachings of Christianity are so muddled with moral contradictions, that ideas like slavery, burning of heretics, torture of heretics, oppression of women and child abuse have been happily endorsed by the Church for the past twenty centuries. Today's Christians feel that all these past atrocities represented a skewed version of their faith. Yet Sam Harris points out how strange it is that today's Christian feel that they finally got it right in the last 50 years, despite the fact that all the saints and most predominate figures in their religion somehow got it wrong for 2,000 years. It seems either very arrogant, or more likely that their present moral opinions have nothing to do with the words of religious doctrine. Scripture is fixed, and yet morality has advanced in a slow upward trend. The only way to explain this upward trend is to look outside of religion. And so we shall.


Argument for a natural cause of morality.

I am convinced that like all dead gods and deities explained away by science, society will ultimately come to the conclusion that all things have natural causes, science has already disregarded the supernatural hypothesis, now it is time for the masses to toss aside the mythology that is crippling our minds. I will do my part by trying to spread some of the ideas that i have read about, ideas that could offer natural explanations for our moral intuition. Unlike the morality from religion theory these explanations are consistent with the progress of our moral development throughout our history.

The most convincing explanation is the theory that morality evolved from altruistic behavior in our ancestors. Before i begin this argument i would like to acquaint you with some terminology. Altruistic behaviour can be defined as- 1 : unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others 2 : behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species. Examples of altruism are found in a broad variety of species on this planet. I will only list a few to illustrate the point that it does exist in nature. Worker bees, which sting potential honey robbers, and do so at the expense of their own lives. Their vital organs are torn out, and they die soon after from the damage. Why would an organism give its life to save a food supply that it will not be around to enjoy? Why do many species of birds sound an alarm to warn the flock when danger is spotted, when making sounds puts them at a higher risk of danger than the bird who flies off silently. At first glance the concept of survival of the fittest seems to have gone backwards. This is just an illusion, once we consider the knowledge we have about genes, the picture becomes clearer.

The truth is that every bee in the colony carries the same genes. The selfish worker bee could fly away, and leave his colony to be pillaged, while saving its own life. If it did, the potential for its selfish survival traits to be passed on has been almost completely ruined, since most of its genetic descendants have just been squashed in a honey raid. By contrast, the altruistic bee who self sacrifices, and gives his life for his colony, has averted the destruction of his genetic decedents. The altruist gene prevails in almost all scenarios. The same holds true in humans. I am not implying that we evolved from bees, i am simply saying that natural selection favors altruistic behavior. This is most certainly so in humans. Early humans lived in small tribes, members of which, are likely to be carriers the same genes. The survival of my genes are not entirely based on my own survival. If i live and have two children, i have replicated some of my genes twice. If i die protecting my tribe of 20 humans, and those humans go on to have have 40 children. By giving my life to save my tribe i have ensured the replication of some of my genes by 40 times. Odds are that many of the tribe members would have similar altruistic tendencies. Thus the altruist multiplies even in death. The concept is of course, more complicated than is being presented here on this blog. Yet the idea remains the same, basic math shows the self motivated gene to have replicated twice, while the altruistic gene has replicated forty times. It would not be a stretch of the imagination to envision our ancestors slowly building our internal moral compass, through evolution. Morality can be explained by this type of altruistic evolution down to the smallest concepts like trust. Individuals who are trusted have an advantage in survival compared to the deceiver. Deceivers, thieves, murders, are all outcasts in tribal communities. If they are expelled from their group, their survival is hindered. While those who help, tell the truth, defend family and tribe members, are favored by the group, and for obvious reasons, their genes are more likely to be passed on. Once this concept is understood, there is little about human psychology that cannot be explained by evolution.

I would like to take a second to point out something about evolution. This next point is an obligatory response to my creationist opponents who might say something like: "YA, well i think evolution is just a bunch of lies, so i don't believe any of this altruistic evolution crap explains our morality." Unfortunately, there are two kinds of evolution. Micro and Macro. Macro evolution is the development of new species through a series of mutations. The theory that men evolved from monkeys is an example of macroevolution. Microevolution explains variations of adaptations within a species. For example dogs that adapted to colder environment by developing thicker coats of fur. Microevolution explains every variation that occurs within a specific species of animal, just before the point in becomes so distorted that is no longer the same species. Creationist acknowledge that micro occurs all through nature, but hold the view that no species has ever become so distorted that it became a new species. In other words, creationist think macroevolution is false, but micro is true. With this in mind, the concept of morality derived from altruistic evolution is still compatible with microevolution, and even a creationist will have to entertain this possibility. Morality could have evolved entirely in the human species, and does not have to originate in monkeys in order to make sense. That is not the opinion that i hold, but for the sake of argument, simply disregarding evolution, is not an option. ( I would like to point out that chimpanzees have a moral code that is more advanced than the rest of the animal kingdom. Of all the animals in the world they behave in a way that is most similar to human social behavior. I am quite sure it is not by coincidence.)

Explaining our upward trend in morality

The upward trend in morality can be described as a bad ideas repeatedly being embraced by the public as acceptable, only to be disregarded as immoral after a period of time. Often in our history, humanity has taken many centuries to recognize the errors of our ways. Though it seems to be a repeating pattern that all bad ideas will be righted in time. Slavery, justified by biblical passages, took centuries to fix. Heretics are no longer burnt, at least by western cultures. Women rights, have made much progress in the west as well. The western cultures have repeatedly overcome bad ideas, or rather immoral ideas, time and time again.

This trend shows that we have an natural desire to create and live in a moral society, but it also poises a larger question that must be answered to truly understand our moral origins: Why does an organism with an internal moral compass developed through evolution, repeatedly embrace bad morals? I could take the route of many atheist and simply right it off as the fault of the worlds many religions and their conflicting agendas. This is very tempting to do since most atrocities in human history have some religious origins, but that argument only hits the tip of the iceberg. The question still remains: why would we follow an immoral scripture, if it goes against our altruistic intuition?

The answer is found in another of our evolutionary traits. Our desire to follow a leader. Natural selection favors a desire to follow someone whom we perceive is more intelligent than ourselves. This trait would be beneficial to any group of early humans. Our genetic information would be more likely passed on, if we trust and follow a human that we perceive as more intelligent than ourselves. Based on the likely possibility that an intelligent human will lead us a safer direction than could be obtained by following our own perceived lesser intelligence. No doubt the "leader role" can be found in many species that live in groups throughout our world. In most lower mammals the leader is chosen based on a show of strength. In the case of humans, our survival was not based entirely on our strength. Intelligence played the larger role as our brains became more useful than our muscles. The end result of this process is an instinctive desire to follow an intelligent leader.

What this means for our moral development is that an individual, or group of individuals could easily lead the masses in an immoral direction. Our desire to follow the smarter fellow, temporally blinds our judgement. The more people that embrace an idea, the more desirable it becomes. Our ability to stray from the pack, also goes against our evolutionary hardware. When the group runs, you don't question why, you just start running. This served a function at a point in our evolutionary history, but today the function manifest itself by not allowing the individual in society to honestly question ideas that are commonly held.

There have been many leaders in human history and sure many of them were good, but on more that several occasions our leaders have lead us in an immoral direction. One might ask in a very similar way: " Why are we so easily lead in immoral direction if our instincts are to create a moral society?" Good question, it seems that humanities altruism and good morality toward strangers is almost certainly an afterthought in every case of our history. This phenomenon could be explained by another evolutionary trait called the hierarchy of needs. Self-preservation makes up the 1st level of needs, the foundation. (altruism for genetic descendants is a form of self-preservation). However altruism toward strangers only occurs after the physiological needs to self-preserve have been met. And so on and so on. When one priority of needs is met, we try to meet the next level filled with less priority needs. All the way up until people start worrying about irrelevant ideas like "is my dog depressed" or "is my cat happy."

I strongly believe that most leaders who have lead humanity in an immoral direction did so based on some aspect of our needs not being met. When our needs are not met, our ideas about morality are often bypassed. To illustrate this point one need only look at the high crime rates in impoverished communities. This does not mean we are immoral by nature, it means we self-preserve at the expense of morality. Moral ideas only occur in times when our lower level needs are met, at that time our altuistic nature kicks in and we re-evoluate our actions and the immoral ideas are rejected. It is no suprise that as our technology advances and our basic phisiological needs are quite easily obtained, our society rockets to a moral standard never seen before in human history.

The upward trend in our morality is summarized like this: At some point in history an event or change took place which made our basic needs appear to be threatened. We identified a leader, whom we felt was intellegent and trustworthy. This person might have had ideas which were immoral, but would help us obtain our needs. Our evolutionary hardware told us to follow. Immoral behavior may have taken place, and would be embraced by the masses as a justified means to and end. At some point another change or event takes place, sometimes centuries later maybe its an invention or discovery of a new resource. Our physiological needs become fufilled and our altruistic hardware kicks in. Whenever our physilogical needs are met, our altruistic hardware trumps our desire to follow and we "re-group" in a positive direction. This does not mean that ones need must be met for our altruistic side to shine. The above summary is just the more frequent route of moral advancement.

We are internally good, so long as our needs are met. Humanity in our modern form takes this concept one step further by creating precautions to preserve good morality even if the future brings an era of hardship. Morality is enforced by police. It is worth noting that police are representatives of laws that are inspired by our societies good intentions. Many laws are voted on by public, because we live in a democracy designed by the very altruistic instincts that make moral preservation desireable. We take the precautions to ensure that our children and grandchildren will have a safe and moral environment with abundant resources. Our moral origins are not the result of ancient scriptures instructing us. Morality has only existed because it was benifitial to our species survival. It certainly exist today only because it has been programmed into us by natural selection through many generations of altruistic behavior.

Religion in Politics

I used to find comfort in knowing that my political representatives were on an invisible religious leash. What i mean by that is this: I thought that a believing person, who had the fear of Gods judgement would be more honest in a position power. However, i no longer support the position in favor of religions ability to control a persons morality. I have found no correlative data to support the idea that religion has control over the individual to self-govern. Sure there are probably people out there who genuinely feel afraid that god is watching and judging their every action and thought, and behave solely because of that fear. To those people i would like to ask this: If you knew there where no God, would you turn to a life of crime? Would you suddenly disregard the feelings, rights and suffering of your fellow humans. Hopefully the answer is no, and I would bet, that even ones feelings of pride when helping someone in need aren't diminished just because there is no subsequent reward by God.

Back to my original point, i was examining the requirements for holding a position of political office. For the most part, the only restrictions were put on age, and time spent as a citizen. You can even be a convicted felon and still be a U.S Representative. This is very scary to me. My daughters teacher in kindergarten needs at least a bachelors degree and a clean record. Aside from the specific requirements noted in the constitution, there are several requirements that are not written, but useful to persons with an interest in a political career. Professed affiliation with certain religious groups, such a Christianity, is certainly important in a country with a population that is over 80% Christian. It is a well known fact that in most areas of this country, if a potential candidate were to identify themselves as an atheist, the public mass disapproval would be the equivalent to political suicide. In order to be a member of government in a modern superpower, one is not required to be a student of political science, economics, law, civil engineering, military history or international relations. One need only be an expert fund raiser, look good and carry his or herself well on television, and profess a belief in the popular mythology. In our present political setup, a well spoken actor with knowledge of the bible, would defeat a quiet genius with a Nobel peace prize, who doesn't accept supernatural doctrines.

This brings me to my point, and my rather recent change of heart. I would support an Atheist candidate just on the idea that he is likely to be more honest than a religious one. While it is true, that we can never know the true motivation of any politician, any man or woman can claim to be religious to gain the upper hand in an election by supporting a popular idea. But only an honest person would claim to be an Atheist knowing that releasing such information would only hinder his or her campaign.

On a final note, i would also like to point out that any politician who claims to act on the authority of God, is the most terrifying person that i can imagine to be in control of a modern superpower. If you consider the strong possibility that God does not exist, you have to wonder, where did that voice that our leaders mistook for God come from? When someone prays for guidance, and then imagines that they heard an answer, they hold that answer to much higher degree of validity than that of their own opinion. They may disregard all reason, and act on whatever advice they imagined came from god. A religious person would certainly feel that the divine advice they received should not be subject to the same scrutiny as advice from a friend. Maybe it was the wind, maybe it was someone in the next room, maybe it was their own internal monologue, maybe it was an imaginary man whom they feel is infallible. Whatever the possibility, it is a truly frightening notion.

The Concept of Self

I am currently working on a thorough and complete argument against religious claims to humans moral dependency on God. It is an important piece of writing for me, because as I've said before, Religion can only attempt to claim jurisdiction in a few areas of understanding, morality and creation. My up coming post is my best effort to put the nail in the coffin on the subject of morality. In the mean time please enjoy an interesting perspective on the human soul that i came across a few years back while visiting The Agnostic Mom. Great debate has been made in the past about possibility of the souls existence. However, science has made such enormous progress in mapping the human mind and is close to a full understanding of how our mind works, the debate is over as far as I'm concerned. We have matured intellectually, and allowed science to eliminate all supernatural hypothesis to describe our world. The concept of the soul has washed away with the rain of science and understanding, but for some reason, a circular debate amongst believers will continue. On the atheist side of the coin, here is a fantastic analogy from Dale McGowan, taken from an interview on http://www.agnosticmom.com/ on the subject of what happens to our "self" when we die....

"Whatever sense of self and personal identity we have springs entirely from the constantly recomposed electrochemical symphony playing in our heads. Some find that horrifying; I find it utterly amazing. And asking where our “self” goes when that electrochemical symphony stops playing is just like asking where the music goes when an orchestra stops playing."
- Dale McGowan

The Easter Story

Sir Lionel Luckhoo is the Guinness book of world records "Most Successful Lawyer", with over 245 successive acquittals for persons charged with murder. He is also a Evangelical author of several famous christian propaganda booklets. In one of these booklets Sir Lionel uses his persuasive lawyer skills to "prove" that Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, and such a fact would hold up in a court of law. Quite an impressive feat no doubt, and yet doubt is my speciality! The reason is am posting this is for two reasons:

1. Today is Easter.

2. I have recently been reassured by a friend that the evidence proving Jesus' Resurrection is very compelling because the most successful lawyer ever is says it would hold up in a court of law.

The first thing that comes to my mind when i hear about a man helping people to be acquitted in over 245 straight murder cases, is this: Statistically some of these people were guilty, and were set free by this alleged pious man. This only goes to show that this mans orator strength is not found in his ability to tell the truth, but rather, his skill is to persuade ones opinion in spite of what is truth. Not a very noble man, in my opinion. Ultimately the claim that "Because a really famous lawyer says the Resurrection story is true, it must be true." does not prove anything. A trial has been famously summarized as 12 people trying to decide who has the best lawyer.

Here is an excerpt from a book called: Losing Faith in Faith, by Dan barker. In this excerpt, Dan shows some of the discrepancies in the gospels accounts of Jesus' Resurrection. I will ask you a jury of my peers, a similar question that has been asked by Dan Barker: Try to decipher some type of story, that would hold up in a court of law, based on the bible.

What time did the women visit the tomb?
Matthew: "as it began to dawn" (28:1)
Mark: "very early in the morning . . . at the rising of the sun" (16:2, KJV); "when the sun had risen" (NRSV); "just after sunrise" (NIV)
Luke: "very early in the morning" (24:1, KJV) "at early dawn" (NRSV)
John: "when it was yet dark" (20:1)

Who were the women?
Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)
Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)
Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (24:10)
John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)
What was their purpose?

Matthew: to see the tomb (28:1)
Mark: had already seen the tomb (15:47), brought spices (16:1)
Luke: had already seen the tomb (23:55), brought spices (24:1)
John: the body had already been spiced before they arrived (19:39,40)

Was the tomb open when they arrived?
Matthew: No (28:2)
Mark: Yes (16:4)
Luke: Yes (24:2)
John: Yes (20:1)

Who was at the tomb when they arrived?
Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)
Mark: One young man (16:5)
Luke: Two men (24:4)
John: Two angels (20:12)

Where were these messengers situated?
Matthew: Angel sitting on the stone (28:2)
Mark: Young man sitting inside, on the right (16:5)
Luke: Two men standing inside (24:4)
John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed (20:12)

What did the messenger(s) say?
Matthew: "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead: and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you." (28:5-7)
Mark: "Be not afrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." (16:6-7)
Luke: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." (24:5-7)
John: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (20:13)

Did the women tell what happened?
Matthew: Yes (28:8)
Mark: No. "Neither said they any thing to any man." (16:8)
Luke: Yes. "And they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest." (24:9, 22-24)
John: Yes (20:18)

When Mary returned from the tomb, did she know Jesus had been resurrected?
Matthew: Yes (28:7-8)
Mark: Yes (16:10,11)
Luke: Yes (24:6-9,23)
John: No (20:2)

When did Mary first see Jesus?
Matthew: Before she returned to the disciples (28:9)
Mark: Before she returned to the disciples (16:9,10)
John: After she returned to the disciples (20:2,14)

Could Jesus be touched after the resurrection?
Matthew: Yes (28:9)
John: No (20:17), Yes (20:27)

After the women, to whom did Jesus first appear?
Matthew: Eleven disciples (28:16)
Mark: Two disciples in the country, later to eleven (16:12,14)
Luke: Two disciples in Emmaus, later to eleven (24:13,36)
John: Ten disciples (Judas and Thomas were absent) (20:19, 24)
Paul: First to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. (Twelve? Judas was dead). (I Corinthians 15:5)

Where did Jesus first appear to the disciples?
Matthew: On a mountain in Galilee (60-100 miles away) (28:16-17)
Mark: To two in the country, to eleven "as they sat at meat" (16:12,14)
Luke: In Emmaus (about seven miles away) at evening, to the rest in a room in Jerusalem later that night. (24:31, 36)
John: In a room, at evening (20:19)

Did the disciples believe the two men?
Mark: No (16:13)
Luke: Yes (24:34--it is the group speaking here, not the two)

What happened at the appearance?
Matthew: Disciples worshipped, some doubted, "Go preach." (28:17-20)
Mark: Jesus reprimanded them, said "Go preach" (16:14-19)
Luke: Christ incognito, vanishing act, materialized out of thin air, reprimand, supper (24:13-51)
John: Passed through solid door, disciples happy, Jesus blesses them, no reprimand (21:19-23)

Did Jesus stay on earth for a while?
Mark: No (16:19) Compare 16:14 with John 20:19 to show that this was all done on Sunday
Luke: No (24:50-52) It all happened on Sunday
John: Yes, at least eight days (20:26, 21:1-22)
Acts: Yes, at least forty days (1:3)

Where did the ascension take place?
Matthew: No ascension. Book ends on mountain in Galilee
Mark: In or near Jerusalem, after supper (16:19)
Luke: In Bethany, very close to Jerusalem, after supper (24:50-51)
John: No ascension
Paul: No ascension
Acts: Ascended from Mount of Olives (1:9-12)

Special thanks to The Atheist Revolution for the link to Dan Barkers fantastic website.

Obama Speaks To The Muslim World

A few days ago president Barack Obama addressed Turkey with promises of peace, declaring that "The U.S. is not at war with Islam." What a wonderful concept: a Christian nation and a Muslim nation working together for a common good. I wonder if anyone in Muslim audience at the press conference regrets that Barack Obama will burn in hell. That is the accepted belief in Turkey, not about Obama specifically but about all Christians. IF true how unfortunate for the 81% of Americans that feel that 86% Of Turkey will also burn in hell. Apparently our political representatives feel this is a minor obstacle.

While noting this insane viewpoint, its even stranger to watch politicians tip-toe around each others religious viewpoints, both sides feigning respect for each others dogma. I have to question the political sincerity of our efforts. American political policy is riddled with disdain for apparent sin agendas of the pro-choice and homosexuals. I wonder what is considered worse in the Christian mind: Aborting your unborn child, or raising your child Muslim? It would seem that from a Christian perspective, an unborn child would at least have a chance at heaven. Yet from that same perspective, raising a child to worship a false god would seem to be far worse, considering that instilling a child with Muslim beliefs is the christian equivalent of a ticket straight to hell . Why don't Christians openly fight Muslim parents who are sentencing their children to hell?

I wonder..... if turkey was a homosexual nation, would Obama fall under heavy criticism from the right-wing Christians my for his show of diplomacy? I could almost certainly say yes. Would America even attempt diplomacy with a homosexual nation? Probably not, such is the warped perspective of religious logic. Obviously "a homosexual nation" is just a made up concept to illustrate a point. The Christian political agenda, should put more effort into fighting false idol worship, since going to hell is the worst possible thing that could happen to a person. Yet this is not the case, and only further illustrates the inconsistencies of religious views in America. As much as i detest Islamic extremist (or religious extremism in general), at least they are logically consistent in their warped moral beliefs.

I only hope that before the "perceived" end of the world comes, we can overcome these pointless obstacles. I fear that if something were to happen, which humanity thought was the start of the end, Christians certainly wouldn't aid the damned, for fear of damnation themselves, and Muslim nations certainly won't offer any support to infidels. I know Christians won't wanna be caught showing support for the apparent Muslim anti-Christ and his nation if they strongly believe that God is about to make an appearance and reign down fire on the sinners. The same is probably true for Muslims

This whole scenario is not a long shot so long as religion is the primary guide of our action, yet it is so pointless that it makes me disgusted. Perhaps someday people from two different nations can meet and unite together with no imaginary boundaries to lead us to hate or disagree in policy. Disagreements which are based on two incompatible pretend ideas, that shouldn't even be a consideration in matters of great importance.

Great atheistic accomplishments

Recently i was challenged by a friend and fellow blogger, to take a different approach to my debate tactics. Instead of pointing out problems with religion and diminishing its value to mankind, (which is not what i was doing anyway) why not write a piece pointing out all the wonderful things atheism has given humans. I suspect that this fellows request was based on the assumption that i would be hard pressed to find accomplishment that could be directly attributed to atheism. Though he is quite wrong, i feel his comments represent a common misconception about atheism. A misconception that atheist don't carry or possibly even recognize. Maybe this is why atheist don't feel a need to write about this topic very often. The religious or perhaps even agnostics however, do not see what atheism has contributed to society, or why we so proudly promote atheism. I shall do my part to put this concept to rest, and explain why proving atheism's importance is not always the focus of our atheist vs. theist debates, as it is truly common sense, yet unrecognized by mainstream society.

Before i offer some examples of atheistic accomplishments. I must try to define what an atheist is and what an atheistic accomplishment would be.

Atheist- One who believes that there are no supernatural entities.

An atheist looks at all things, as having natural causes. Now having said that, it is possible that many people who believe in a god may still take an atheistic approach to life. Will god help me win the game? Or will practice, hard work and dedication help me? If you feel that practice is more important, then you've taken an atheistic approach to winning. Will god maintain my health? Or will proven things like diet and exercise? If you feel the latter is the correct way, then you've taken an atheistic approach to health. To summarize: An atheistic accomplishment is an accomplishment that can be directly attributed to not-believing in supernatural entities. Now all of a sudden atheism doesn't seem so uncommon does it?

Lets start with all of science: I would like to remind you that everything unexplained was once attributed to God. Learning that hurricanes, volcanoes and earthquakes are not the result of Gods wrath and truly have natural causes, has allowed humans to make very accurate predictions about the "how and when", which I'm sure has chalked up a few saved lives. Then of course there is all of modern medicine. I would like to remind you again, that for thousands of years demons or angry gods made people ill, not viruses. Prior to medicine only religious rituals could aid the ill.

I'm sure you could argue "hey many of the people who made these scientific discoveries were religious." True, yet despite whatever beliefs they held, they took an atheistic approach for solving problems, or rather a scientific approach that does accept the supernatural as a plausible hypothesis. I feel its safe to say that all breakthrough advances in science would be left in the dust if mankind had persist down the religious path and clung to theistic hypothesis to explain our world. In matters of science, atheistic accomplishments are the only accomplishments.

So isn't everyone by that definition kind-of an atheist?

Sure, but not totally, this is what i mean: Today's definition of atheist states that all hypothesis' have a natural origin or explanation. Here's where the total atheist of today and the scientific atheist in practice deviate. While many scientists might take an atheistic approach to solving a problem in biology they still go home and thank god for their life and and many blessings. This is the only difference. Atheism is predominate in all of modern society, it is directly responsible for all advances in science, and yet is completely unrecognized for its contributions by the religious and religious supporters.

Today the domain of the supernatural clings only to morality and creation. That is the difference, when someone today says 'I'm an atheist' they are really only atheistic about two extra subjects than most religious. So why should modern atheist be identified as radical for trying to put a natural hypothesis to explain morality and creation? Great scientist throughout history who refused to accepted the god hypothesis have been viewed as radical. The best example of atheism is our society was pointed out by Richard Dawkins who said: "We are all atheist about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." Perhaps if the atheism in all of us was recognized, those of us who push atheism one step further wouldn't seem so radical.

With regard to my thoughts on the atheistic approach I have been told to "Remember, Secular (atheist) scientists fought hard to keep the Big Bang Theory out of the classrooms because they dismissed it as religiously based." This comment was supposed to show how the atheistic approach could hinder science.

I would like to remind everyone that all new idea's in science are dismissed at first, not because of credibility or context, but rather, because the old ideas have so many supporters. Scientist have dedicated there lives to supporting theories, written books, based subsequent theories upon said theories, and are not so quick to have their pride and life's work tossed out. Further, the big bang theory is still in direct contradiction with the genesis version of creation, which states that all of existence was created in six days. Trust me there are a lot of people who still hold this view. The fact that the big bang theory was put forth by a catholic priest named Georges Lemaître only proves that the religious often take an atheistic approach to science. Had he represented the theistic approach he would have directed his efforts to proving how the universe was created in a day, which took place only 6,000 years ago as the holy bible clearly states.

Atheism is an approach to problem solving, its not anything other than that. Those who try and state that atheism is new kind of religion are way off. Such a statement could be compared to calling the scientific method a religion. For truly that's all atheism is; It's just an unrecognized step in the scientific method that rules out supernatural explanations. I'm grateful for atheism, and so should anyone who appreciates the level of knowledge and understanding that we have today.