God is imaginary part 3
3 views
Skip to first unread message
watermouse
Jul 29, 2010, 8:19:35 PM7/29/10
to watermouse
ORIGINAL FROM THIS WEBSITE: http://godisimaginary.com/
Proof #21 - Understand Jesus' Core Message
Simply take a moment to think about the following statement:
"Hello, my name is Jesus. I love you deeply. I have loved you since
you were conceived in the womb and I will love you for all eternity. I
died for you on the cross because I love you so much. I long to have a
loving personal relationship with you. I will answer all of your
prayers through my love. But if you do not get down on your knees and
worship me, and if you do not EAT MY BODY and DRINK MY BLOOD, then I
WILL INCINERATE YOU WITH UNIMAGINABLY TORTUOUS PAIN IN THE FIRES OF
HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!"
Yes, this is the central message of Christianity. See John 6:53-54 and
Mark 16:16.
Think about this message. We have a being who, according to the
Standard Model of God, embodies love. Yet, if you do not get down on
your knees and worship him, you will be physically tortured for all
eternity. What sort of love is that?
The utter silliness and contradiction of Jesus' core message should
make it obvious to you: God is imaginary.
Proof #22 - Count all the people God wants to murder
If you look in the Bible, there are an amazing number of people that
God wants his followers to murder. For example, in Exodus 35:2 God
lays down this commandment:
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your
holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it
must be put to death.
Think about that how many people work on the Sabbath -- all the
employees of Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Linnens & things,
grocery stores, convenience stores, power plants, airlines, hospitals,
emergency services and on and on and on. Don't rabbis, priests and
preachers work on the Sabbath? God wants all of them dead.
Then look at Deut 21:18-21. It says:
If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his
father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him,
then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him
out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall
say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and
rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then
all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge
the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.
That is a whole lot of teenagers that we need to kill.
Then there is Leviticus 20:13:
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed
an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.
All homosexuals need to be killed. What about this:
If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the
adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
That's a lot of people who need to be killed.
In other words, if we actually listened to what God says, we would
need to kill at least half of the people in America tomorrow. After
all, Isaiah 40:8 says, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the
word of our God will stand for ever." The word of the Lord tells us to
kill half of the U.S. population.
There are two things in this that show you that God is imaginary.
First there is the utter stupidity of these verses. Second, there is
this fact: If God is an all-powerful being, he would kill them
himself. There would be no need for people to do the murdering. These
people would already be dead, and Wal-Mart would be closed on the
Sabbath through lack of employees.
Notice that believers completely ignore these parts of the Bible. That
is because they know that the verses are insane. By acknowledging that
their God is insane, they prove that their God is imaginary.
Proof #23 - Listen to the Doxology
The "Doxology" is a song sung in millions of Christian churches around
the world every Sunday. It opens with this sentence:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
With that one sentence we can prove that God is imaginary, just like
Santa Claus.
We can prove that Santa is imaginary in a variety of ways, but here is
one way: we note that he brings mountains of toys to rich kids while
leaving other kids to starve to death. In the same way, we can prove
that God is imaginary by noting the inbalance of his blessings. If God
existed and handed out blessings as described in the Doxology, then
the blessings would be spread uniformly among his believers. And non-
believers would get none. As a result, the hand of God, through his
blessings, would be plainly visible for all to see through statistical
analysis.
Let us suppose that God is real and that all blessings actually do
flow from him. If that is the case, then the utter unfairness with
which he disperses his blessings is proof positive that God is
ridiculous. If all blessings flow from God, then the fact that Bill
Gates is worth $70 billion while 10 million children will starve to
death this year is specifically God's fault. That is ridiculous.
Here is a typical church in Raleigh, NC:
Colonial Baptist Church
The church's web site has this to say: "In May of 1993 the church
fellowship voted unanimously to relocate our church campus. As a
result of God's gracious plan, our Tryon site almost immediately
became inadequate to facilitate our growing numbers. Thus, the church
body once again demonstrated its pioneering spirit, faith and vision—
vision to be a church not only blessed with a wonderful past, but
faith and trust in God for an enduring, effective future. As of May
21, 1996, we became the owners of 33 acres on which to build our new
facilities. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" This church has
soccer fields, indoor basketball courts, dozens of meeting rooms and
classrooms, several buses, a library, a huge sanctuary and ample free
parking.
One obvious question to ask after reading the church's statement is
this: If all blessings flow from God, then why are his blessings so
amazingly unbalanced? Why are tens of thousands of children dying of
starvation every day on this planet [ref], while Colonial Baptist
Church is blessed with such wealth? Why wouldn't God spread his
blessings evenly among all his children? Answer: Because God is
imaginary.
Proof #24 - Ask why religion causes so many problems
If God were to exist, wouldn't you expect there to be a huge benefit
to those who follow and obey him? Why, instead, do we see the
opposite?
For example, there is growing evidence that the delusion of religion
causes significant social dysfunction. Statistical research is
revealing the problems that go with religion. For example, a recent
article in the Journal of Religion and Society points out that
religion is correlated to the significant social difficulties that we
can see in America:
In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator
correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult
mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the
prosperous democracies (Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous
democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin
predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional
of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost
always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a “shining city on the
hill” to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic
measures of societal health. [ref]
The prevailing view is that religion is harmless even if it is
delusional. That turns out not to be the case. America is the most
religious country of those studied in the developed world. America
also has the biggest problems in terms of things like homicide,
juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen
pregnancy, and abortion.
This article by Sam Harris puts it this way:
While most Americans believe that getting rid of religion is an
impossible goal, much of the developed world has already accomplished
it. Any account of a “god gene” that causes the majority of Americans
to helplessly organize their lives around ancient works of religious
fiction must explain why so many inhabitants of other First World
societies apparently lack such a gene. The level of atheism throughout
the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that religion is
somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia,
Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark
and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on
Earth. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report
(2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life
expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment,
gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the
50 nations now ranked lowest in terms of human development are
unwaveringly religious. Other analysespaint the same picture: The
United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of
religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also
uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen
pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison
holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern
states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition
and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the
above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively
secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. Of course,
correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality--
belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction
may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both
may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the
issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly
compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also
prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a
society’s health.
Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in
terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link
between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by
other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-
tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France
15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the
population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475
to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through
the eye of a needle.
In other words, religion is harmful, not helpful. The reason is
because God is imaginary and religious delusion is hurting all of us.
Proof #25 - Understand evolution and abiogenesis
Recently there has been a remarkable change in the Christian
community: Many members of the Christian faith are embracing
evolution. For example, there is this article:
At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution: "On the 197th
birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches
around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to
undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many
Christians say exists between science and faith is false. At St.
Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the
pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85
worshipers gathered yesterday, 'A faith that requires you to close
your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all....' At
the Evanston Mennonite Church, Susan Fisher Miller, 48, an editor and
English professor, said, 'I completely accept and affirm the view of
God as creator, but I accommodate evolution within that.'"
And this letter, signed by more than 10,000 clergy members:
An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science: "...We the
undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe
that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern
science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of
evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to
rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and
achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory
among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and
transmit such ignorance to our children..."
The interesting thing to understand is that when you accept evolution,
what you are automatically doing is rejecting the concept of a soul.
Here is why: As soon as you accept that evolution is true, you also
accept that the creation story in the Bible is false. It is pure
mythology. The concept of the "soul", which comes from the same book,
is exactly the same sort of mythology.
Simply think through the logic. What the theory of evolution says is
that every living thing on this planet has evolved through a
completely natural process. Every species that we see today is derived
from simple, single-cell organisms over the course of hundreds of
millions of years. In other words, there was no supernatural creation
process for humans as described in the Bible's book of Genesis.
As you think about this, what you will realize is that evolved beings
have no souls. Human beings are no different from any other animal,
insect, plant or bacteria in the way that we have evolved. In the same
way that every other living thing on planet Earth is soul-less, humans
are soul-less. The whole notion of a soul is a figment of human
imagination.
This makes complete sense. The biochemistry of life powers evolution.
That biochemistry is amazing and complex, but it is nothing more than
a set of soul-less chemical reactions. When the chemical reactions
cease, you die. There is no "soul" mixed in with the chemicals.
Where did the first cell come from? Many believers will argue that God
magicallycreated the first living cell. This, of course, is silly. The
scientific principle that describes the origin of life is called
abiogenesis. In the same way that there is no supernatural being
involved in evolution, there is no supernatural being involved in
abiogenesis. Both the creation of life and the evolution of species
are completely natural processes.
There is no "supreme being" in heaven who reached down to create life
on Earth or human beings. Nor is that being answering prayers. There
is no soul. There is no everlasting life. Science tells us all of
these things with complete clarity. God is imaginary.
<<< Proof #24 | Home Go to Proof #26 >>>
Understanding the Rationalizations
Many believers will say, "This is simply untrue. Even though humans
are the product of evolution, humans are still special in God's eyes.
God manipulated the evolutionary process in some magical way to
divinely create human beings, and God magically gives each human being
a soul at conception."
In order to see the truth, you need to understand that all
explanations involving "magic" are false. The fact is, God had
absolutely nothing to do with the creation of life on this planet nor
with any part of the evolutionary process. As soon as you accept this
fact, you realize that you have no soul. God is imaginary and the
biblical concept of everlasting life is a fairy tale.
The fact that we exist as a conscious, intelligent, rational species
is an accident of nature that involved no supernatural intervention.
There is no part of the scientific explanation of evolution that says,
"a mythical supernatural being reaches in right here and guides it."
Evolution, by its very nature, is a supernatural-free process.
There is no way to simultaneously "accept evolution" and "believe in
an everlasting soul as described in the Bible." If evolution is true,
then the Bible describes a creation process that is a complete myth.
The concept of a soul is myth in exactly the same way.
Proof #26 - Notice that the Bible's author is not "all-knowing"
Why, when you read the Bible, are you not left in awe? For example,
look though this small collection of Bible verses:
• Deut 25:11-12
• Genesis 38:8-10
• Deut 21:18-21
• Ex 35:2
• Lev 20:13
• Isaiah 13:13-16
• Exodus 21:20-21
• 1 Tim 2:11-12
• Col 3:22-23
• Luke 14:26
• Deut 22:13-21
• Isaiah 40:8
These verses feel like utter nonsense, don't they? We can find
thousands of verses like these in the Bible.
So we are forced to ask a question: Why doesn't a book written by God
leave you with a sense of wonder and amazement? If you are reading a
book written by the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of
the universe, wouldn't you expect to be stunned by the brilliance, the
clarity and the wisdom of the author? Would you not expect each new
page to intoxicate you with its incredible prose and its spectacular
insight?
Instead, opening the Bible inevitably creates a feeling of
dumbfoundment. Have you ever noticed that? Instead of brilliance, much
of the Bible contains nonsense. Several of the topics of the previous
proofs, for example where we discussed the Bible's advocacy of
slavery, are excellent examples. But they are just the tip of the
iceberg. You can open the Bible to almost any page and find nonsense
instead of wisdom.
Why, in other words, is the Bible so useless? Why does the author of
the Bible, who is supposed to be God, who is supposed to be all-
knowing, know so little? Why is the knowledge of the author limited to
the knowledge of the primitive men who wrote the book? If you think
about what you are reading in the Bible in the context of an all-
knowing God who supposedly wrote it, none of it makes any sense. But
if you think about the Bible as being a book written by primitive men
like you would find in the remote regions of Afghanistan today, it
makes complete sense.
The reason is because God is imaginary. "God" had nothing to do with
the Bible. The Bible was written by primitive men, many of who were
obviously insane.
Proof #27 - Think about life after death
If you are a Christian, then Jesus promises that your soul will have
everlasting life. In John 3:16 the Bible says: "For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life." All that you have
to do is believe in Jesus and your soul gets to go to heaven.
But have you ever really thought about your soul? Have you ever
thought about how the afterlife would work? Which life forms get an
afterlife and which do not?
Start with a bacterium. Does it have a soul and does it get an
afterlife? A bacterium is a cell membrane filled with a variety of
molecules. These molecules react together in different ways to create
what we call life. Although all of these molecules are reacting in
fascinating, interlocking ways, they are still nothing more than
chemicals reacting. The "miracle of life" is no miracle -- it is a big
chemical reaction. When those reactions stop, the cell is dead.
Now here is the question: When the bacterium dies, does it get an
afterlife?
There are not many people in the United States who believe that
bacteria go to heaven. The Bible does not talk about heaven being
filled with all the disease, putrefaction and pestilence that bacteria
cause. And what, exactly, would go to heaven? Do all of the
bacterium's molecules get transported to another dimension so that
they can keep reacting? If that were happening, there would be
thousands of tons of chemicals leaving earth every day. Clearly there
is no afterlife for bacteria cells.
What about mosquitoes? A mosquito is much more complex than a
bacterium cell. For one thing, a mosquito is a multi-cellular insect
with amazing capabilities. But if you look at each cell in a mosquito,
it is very much like a bacterium in its basic functioning.
Do mosquitoes get an afterlife? Clearly not. Think of how many
mosquitoes have lived and died over the course of millions of years.
No one imagines heaven being full of septillions of everlasting
mosquitoes. There is also the problem that we saw with bacteria -- the
only way for a mosquito to go to heaven would be to somehow transport
all the chemicals in a mosquito from earth to heaven.
What about mice? They are no different from mosquitoes. Mice are
multicellular organisms, but each cell is a little chemical factory
very much like a bacterium. Dogs? Ditto. Chimps? Ditto.
So what about humans?
The human body is nothing but a set of chemical reactions. The
chemical reactions powering a human life are no different from the
reactions powering the life of a bacterium, a mosquito, a mouse, a dog
or a chimp. When a human being dies, the chemical reactions stop.
There is no "soul" mixed in with the chemicals, just like there is no
soul in a bacterium, a mosquito, a mouse, a dog or a chimp. Why would
there be an afterlife for the chemicals that make up a human body?
The whole notion of your "soul" is completely imaginary. The concept
of a "soul" has been invented by religion because many people have
trouble facing their own mortality. It makes people feel better, but
the concept is a complete fabrication.
It is when you think about the chemical reactions powering your life
and your brain that you realize how completely imaginary your "soul"
truly is. And at that point, everything about religion comes
unraveled.
Think back to when you were a kid and you realized that Santa was
imaginary. As soon as you knew it, it was obvious. Reindeer cannot
fly. A man cannot slide down chimneys. There is no way for one little
sleigh to carry all the toys for all the kids in the world. Etc. It is
obvious that Santa is make believe.
In the same way, it is obvious that human beings are big, walking
chemical reactions (see this article for a description of how the
reactions work). Your "soul" is make believe just like Santa. When the
chemical reactions cease, you die. That is the end of it.
Knowing this, you can see that everything about religion is imaginary.
God, the Bible, Jesus, the resurrection, prayer, the Ten Commandments,
the creation story, your soul, everlasting life, heaven... every bit
of it is the product of human imagination. The same goes for Allah,
the Koran and so on. As a species we have believed all of this
religious dogma for centuries, and most of us believe it today to some
degree. And yet... it is all fiction. Today's "God" is just as
fictional as were the gods of the Egyptians, the Romans and the
Aztecs.
<<< Proof #26 | Home | Go to Proof #28 >>>
Understanding the Rationalizations
Christians will rationalize the concept of the soul by saying that the
soul is a magical element that has nothing to do with cell chemistry.
God divinely "instills the soul in each of us." According to
believers, the soul is of another dimension and therefore is beyond
science.
Whenever you hear people talking about "magic" and "other dimensions",
it is a clear marker for delusion. It is as simple as that. The soul
is a completely imaginary concept, as is God.
Proof #28 - Notice how many gods you reject
There are literally thousands of religions being practiced today. Here
are 20 of the most popular, along with an estimate of the number of
followers:
1. Christianity: 2.1 billion
2. Islam: 1.3 billion
3. Hinduism: 900 million
4. Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
5. Buddhism: 376 million
6. African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
7. Sikhism: 23 million
8. Juche: 19 million
9. Spiritism: 15 million
10. Judaism: 14 million
11. Baha'i: 7 million
12. Jainism: 4.2 million
13. Shinto: 4 million
14. Cao Dai: 4 million
15. Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
16. Tenrikyo: 2 million
17. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
18. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
19. Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
20. Scientology: 500 thousand
[Source: Encyclopedia Britannica]
If you believe in God, you have chosen to reject Allah, Vishnu, Budda,
Waheguru and all of the thousands of other gods that other people
worship today. It is quite likely that you rejected these other gods
without ever looking into their religions or reading their books. You
simply absorbed the dominant faith in your home or in the society you
grew up in.
In the same way, the followers of all these other religions have
chosen to reject God. You think their gods are imaginary, and they
think your God is imaginary.
In other words, each religious person on earth today arbitrarily
rejects thousands of gods as imaginary, many of which he/she has never
even heard of, and arbitrarily chooses to "believe" in one of them.
The following quote from Stephen F. Roberts sums up the situation very
nicely:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other
possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
A rational person rejects all human gods equally, because all of them
are equally imaginary. How do we know that they are imaginary? Simply
imagine that one of them is real. If one of these thousands of gods
were actually real, then his followers would be experiencing real,
undeniable benefits. These benefits would be obvious to everyone. The
followers of a true god would pray, and their prayers would be
answered. The followers of a true god would therefore live longer,
have fewer diseases, have lots more money, etc. There would be
thousands of statistical markers surrounding the followers of a true
god.
Everyone would notice all of these benefits, and they would gravitate
toward this true god. And thus, over the course of several centuries,
everyone would be aligned on the one true god. All the other false
gods would have fallen by the wayside long ago, and there would be
only one religion under the one true god.
When we look at our world today, we see nothing like that. There are
two billion Christians AND there are more than one billion Muslims,
and their religions are mutually exclusive. There are thousands of
other religions. When you analyse any of them, they all show a
remarkable similarity -- there is zero evidence that any of these gods
exist. That is how we know that they are all imaginary.
<<< Proof #27 | Home | Go to Proof #29 >>>
Understanding the Rationalizations
You will frequently hear believers make the following rationalization:
Suppose you are right. Suppose there is no God. Then when I die as a
believer, I have lost nothing. I just die, as a man that devoted his
life to love and morals. But if you, as a non-believer, are wrong and
I am right, you have to spend an eternity in hell. See, I have nothing
to lose, but you have everything to lose.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that there are thousands of
gods that humans have imagined. A person who believes in Allah can
make this statement, and so can a person who believes in God, and so
can a person who believes in Vishnu.
The fact is that religion is a form of delusion. By believing in an
imaginary god, you have not "lost nothing." What you have done is
commited yourself to a lifetime of delusion, instead of commiting your
life to reality. Non-believers live moral and loving lives without
having to resort to delusion.
The fact that there are so many gods proves that all of these gods are
imaginary. If there actually were an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-
loving "god" in any form, that would be obvious to everyone and we
would all align on him. His existence would be undeniable and
impossible to hide.
Proof #29 - Think about Communion
Because Christians have been participating in the communion rite for
many years, they tend to forget just how bizarre this ritual is. The
whole idea of "eating Jesus' body" and "drinking his blood" is
grotesque in the extreme.
Have you ever wondered where this ritual came from, or why billions of
people would participate in a ritual that is this bizarre? First,
let's look at the part of the Bible that prescribes the ritual. You
find it in Mark, Chapter 14:
And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and
gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." And he took a cup,
and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of
it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is
poured out for many.
There are a few lines in Luke chapter 22 that are nearly identical.
Jesus gets far more graphic, however, in John chapter 6:53-55:
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;
he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my
blood is drink indeed.
To any normal person, this sounds very much like the script of a
gruesome horror film. It sounds like some sort of revolting satanic
ritual. It definitely does not sound like the words of the all-loving
creator of the universe.
Imagine that you are a normal person, and you have never been exposed
to Christianity before. Now imagine that a Christian comes up to you
and quotes John 6:53. Any normal adult would rightfully assume the
Christian to be insane. Thus, you never see a bumper sticker that says
"John 6:53."
However, the assumption is accurate. The dictionary describes
cannibalism in the following way:
The usually ritualistic eating of human flesh by a human being
What Jesus is demanding is cannibalism.
What does your common sense tell you about all of this? What we are
talking about here is cannibalism, and what Christians are doing looks
exactly like a pagan/satanic ritual. If you are a Christian, the two
questions you may be asking yourself right now are:
1. Why in the world am I, as a sane individual, participating in
ritualistic cannibalism? How in the world did I stoop to this point?
2. Why would an all-powerful, all-loving God demand that I do this?
What sort of God am I worshipping?
The source of the ritual
If you are curious, here is why Christianity contains this bizarre
ritual. It is not the case that an all-powerful God in heaven demands
this behavior. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-
made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan
religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in
order to be more palatable to converts. The process is described
succinctly and accurately in the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan
Brown. The book offers these two accounts of the acretion process:
• "The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are
undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints.
Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became
the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby
Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the
miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating"
- were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions."
• "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras
- called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on
December 25, died was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in
three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris,
Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was
stolen from the pagans."
To any normal person, the practice of communion is one of the most
bizarre things that Christians do. Jesus' cannibalistic tendencies
offer explicit evidence that Jesus is not God.
When you research it historically, you realize that Jesus was a human
being like any other. The mythology of his birth, life and death are
pagan stories that are all man-made because God is imaginary.
Proof #30 - Examine God's sexism
If you would like to prove to yourself that God is imaginary, here is
one easy way to do it: Look for places in the Bible where God is an
absurd, unmitigated jerk instead of the "all-knowing", "all-loving",
"fully-enlightened" being that he is supposed to be. The utter
contradiction proves that God is imaginary.
There are many parts of the Bible that display these tendencies, for
example thisand this. However, if you are a woman, the place where
God's absurdity becomes completely clear is when you look at God's
sexism.
The dictionary defines a misogynist as "One who hates women." [ref] It
defines the word "sexist" as:
1. Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against
women.
2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of
social roles based on gender
Is God a sexist? Let's look at the evidence. We find this in 1
Corinthians chapter 14:
As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent
in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in
submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something,
they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for
a woman to speak in the church.
This seems like a straightforward passage. And God is the one who
inspired the Bible. In Isaiah 40:8 God says that the word of the Lord
will last forever, and he says the same thing again in 1 Peter
1:24-25. So here we have God, in his eternal and everlasting Word,
saying that it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
This quote from 1 Corinthians 11 is important:
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the
head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man
who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but
any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her
head--it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will
not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is
disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil.
For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory
of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from
woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but
woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head,
because of the angels.
You may find it hard to believe that something that confusing is in
the Bible, yet if you look it up you will find it is there.
Then there is this section from 1 Timothy chapter 2:
Also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in
seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly
attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a
woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to
teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
It is hard to miss God's meaning when he says something as direct as,
"I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to
keep silent."
If you think about it, you will realize that God started this type of
sexism at the very beginning of the Bible. In Genesis chapter 17 God
says:
This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your
descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You
shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a
sign of the covenant between me and you.
God makes no mention of forming any sort of covenant with women.
There are many other examples that we can find in the Bible:
• In Matthew 25:1 Jesus says: "At that time the kingdom of heaven will
be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the
bridegroom."
• In John 20:17 Jesus says to Mary: "Touch me not; for I am not yet
ascended to my Father," as though the touch of a woman is somehow
improper, but a few verses later, is happy to have Thomas touch him.
• In Genesis chapter 3, God punishes Eve, and all women for thousands
of years, with greatly increased pain during childbirth. No such pain
is inflicted on Adam.
• In Ephesians 5:22-24 we find this: "Wives, submit to your husbands
as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is
the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as
the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their
husbands in everything."
• In 1 Peter 3:7 we find: "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as
you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker
partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that
nothing will hinder your prayers."
• In 1 John 2:13, John says, "I write to you, fathers, because you
have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children,
because you have known the Father." No mention is made of women.
• And so on. There are many, many examples like these throughout the
old and new testaments.
There are other, broader examples of misogyny that are readily
apparent in the Bible as well:
• Are any of Jesus' disciples women? No.
• Are any of the elders in the book of Revelation women? No.
• Are any of the books of the Bible written by women? No.
• Etc...
God, it would seem, wants nothing to do with women.
Keep in mind that the Bible's misogyny has affected society for
centuries. The United States constitution, for example, was originally
drafted to specifically deny rights to women. Women could not even
vote in the United States until 1920, and only then after decades of
battle in the women's suffrage movement.
If you think about it, you will realize that there is something quite
odd about this situation. In spite of the fact that the Bible is
supposed to be God's eternal Word, modern human beings totally reject
God's sexism. Modern human beings completely ignore God:
• We make women the CEOs of major corporations.
• We elect women to high government offices.
• We appoint women as presidents of universities.
• We fill our schools with female teachers.
• We allow women to speak freely in church.
The contradiction should be as obvious as a lighthouse here. There is
no ambiguity. We do all of this in direct defiance of God's Law in the
Bible because we know God and his "eternal word" are completely wrong.
We know that God is imaginary.
If God is going to take the time to write and publish "the Word of
God," why does the book contain so many problems?
• Why isn't each page of the Bible astonishing us with its brilliance
and insight, and filling us with wonder?
• Why, instead, does the Bible contain so much nonsense or, in this
case, bigotry?
• Why are Christians constantly having to justify, rationalize, excuse
and explain the Bible? In this case, we find modern Christians trying
to defend a God who obviously hates women on many different levels.
To any unbiased observer, the reason for sexism in the Bible is very
easy to understand: The Bible was not written by a "all-knowing", "all-
loving", "fully-enlightened" "god". It was written by primitive men
who were flagrant sexists. Just look at how men in primitive countries
like Afghanistan treat women today. Those are the kind of men who
wrote the Bible.
And we all know it -- Christians and non-Christians alike. The reason
why modern societies totally reject sexism is because we all know that
the Bible's sexism is completely contradictory and completely wrong.
It is exactly the same situation we see when Christians face slavery
in the Bible. Christians and non-Christians alike reject the Bible's
teachings in these areas because the Bible is obviously wrong. The
part that is profoundly strange is that, while completely rejecting
these parts of the Bible, Chistians will claim that other parts of the
Bible areGod's word. They are blind to the obvious contradiction
because of their utterdelusion.
Once you break the delsuion, it is completely obvious: God is
imaginary.
Proof #21 - Understand Jesus' Core Message
Simply take a moment to think about the following statement:
"Hello, my name is Jesus. I love you deeply. I have loved you since
you were conceived in the womb and I will love you for all eternity. I
died for you on the cross because I love you so much. I long to have a
loving personal relationship with you. I will answer all of your
prayers through my love. But if you do not get down on your knees and
worship me, and if you do not EAT MY BODY and DRINK MY BLOOD, then I
WILL INCINERATE YOU WITH UNIMAGINABLY TORTUOUS PAIN IN THE FIRES OF
HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!"
Yes, this is the central message of Christianity. See John 6:53-54 and
Mark 16:16.
Think about this message. We have a being who, according to the
Standard Model of God, embodies love. Yet, if you do not get down on
your knees and worship him, you will be physically tortured for all
eternity. What sort of love is that?
The utter silliness and contradiction of Jesus' core message should
make it obvious to you: God is imaginary.
Proof #22 - Count all the people God wants to murder
If you look in the Bible, there are an amazing number of people that
God wants his followers to murder. For example, in Exodus 35:2 God
lays down this commandment:
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your
holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it
must be put to death.
Think about that how many people work on the Sabbath -- all the
employees of Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Linnens & things,
grocery stores, convenience stores, power plants, airlines, hospitals,
emergency services and on and on and on. Don't rabbis, priests and
preachers work on the Sabbath? God wants all of them dead.
Then look at Deut 21:18-21. It says:
If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his
father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him,
then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him
out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall
say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and
rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then
all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge
the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.
That is a whole lot of teenagers that we need to kill.
Then there is Leviticus 20:13:
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed
an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.
All homosexuals need to be killed. What about this:
If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the
adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
That's a lot of people who need to be killed.
In other words, if we actually listened to what God says, we would
need to kill at least half of the people in America tomorrow. After
all, Isaiah 40:8 says, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the
word of our God will stand for ever." The word of the Lord tells us to
kill half of the U.S. population.
There are two things in this that show you that God is imaginary.
First there is the utter stupidity of these verses. Second, there is
this fact: If God is an all-powerful being, he would kill them
himself. There would be no need for people to do the murdering. These
people would already be dead, and Wal-Mart would be closed on the
Sabbath through lack of employees.
Notice that believers completely ignore these parts of the Bible. That
is because they know that the verses are insane. By acknowledging that
their God is insane, they prove that their God is imaginary.
Proof #23 - Listen to the Doxology
The "Doxology" is a song sung in millions of Christian churches around
the world every Sunday. It opens with this sentence:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
With that one sentence we can prove that God is imaginary, just like
Santa Claus.
We can prove that Santa is imaginary in a variety of ways, but here is
one way: we note that he brings mountains of toys to rich kids while
leaving other kids to starve to death. In the same way, we can prove
that God is imaginary by noting the inbalance of his blessings. If God
existed and handed out blessings as described in the Doxology, then
the blessings would be spread uniformly among his believers. And non-
believers would get none. As a result, the hand of God, through his
blessings, would be plainly visible for all to see through statistical
analysis.
Let us suppose that God is real and that all blessings actually do
flow from him. If that is the case, then the utter unfairness with
which he disperses his blessings is proof positive that God is
ridiculous. If all blessings flow from God, then the fact that Bill
Gates is worth $70 billion while 10 million children will starve to
death this year is specifically God's fault. That is ridiculous.
Here is a typical church in Raleigh, NC:
Colonial Baptist Church
The church's web site has this to say: "In May of 1993 the church
fellowship voted unanimously to relocate our church campus. As a
result of God's gracious plan, our Tryon site almost immediately
became inadequate to facilitate our growing numbers. Thus, the church
body once again demonstrated its pioneering spirit, faith and vision—
vision to be a church not only blessed with a wonderful past, but
faith and trust in God for an enduring, effective future. As of May
21, 1996, we became the owners of 33 acres on which to build our new
facilities. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" This church has
soccer fields, indoor basketball courts, dozens of meeting rooms and
classrooms, several buses, a library, a huge sanctuary and ample free
parking.
One obvious question to ask after reading the church's statement is
this: If all blessings flow from God, then why are his blessings so
amazingly unbalanced? Why are tens of thousands of children dying of
starvation every day on this planet [ref], while Colonial Baptist
Church is blessed with such wealth? Why wouldn't God spread his
blessings evenly among all his children? Answer: Because God is
imaginary.
Proof #24 - Ask why religion causes so many problems
If God were to exist, wouldn't you expect there to be a huge benefit
to those who follow and obey him? Why, instead, do we see the
opposite?
For example, there is growing evidence that the delusion of religion
causes significant social dysfunction. Statistical research is
revealing the problems that go with religion. For example, a recent
article in the Journal of Religion and Society points out that
religion is correlated to the significant social difficulties that we
can see in America:
In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator
correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult
mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the
prosperous democracies (Figures 1-9). The most theistic prosperous
democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin
predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional
of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost
always scores poorly. The view of the U.S. as a “shining city on the
hill” to the rest of the world is falsified when it comes to basic
measures of societal health. [ref]
The prevailing view is that religion is harmless even if it is
delusional. That turns out not to be the case. America is the most
religious country of those studied in the developed world. America
also has the biggest problems in terms of things like homicide,
juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen
pregnancy, and abortion.
This article by Sam Harris puts it this way:
While most Americans believe that getting rid of religion is an
impossible goal, much of the developed world has already accomplished
it. Any account of a “god gene” that causes the majority of Americans
to helplessly organize their lives around ancient works of religious
fiction must explain why so many inhabitants of other First World
societies apparently lack such a gene. The level of atheism throughout
the rest of the developed world refutes any argument that religion is
somehow a moral necessity. Countries like Norway, Iceland, Australia,
Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark
and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on
Earth. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report
(2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life
expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment,
gender equality, homicide rate and infant mortality. Conversely, the
50 nations now ranked lowest in terms of human development are
unwaveringly religious. Other analysespaint the same picture: The
United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of
religious literalism and opposition to evolutionary theory; it is also
uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen
pregnancy, STD infection and infant mortality. The same comparison
holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern
states, characterized by the highest levels of religious superstition
and hostility to evolutionary theory, are especially plagued by the
above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively
secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms. Of course,
correlational data of this sort do not resolve questions of causality--
belief in God may lead to societal dysfunction; societal dysfunction
may foster a belief in God; each factor may enable the other; or both
may spring from some deeper source of mischief. Leaving aside the
issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly
compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also
prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a
society’s health.
Countries with high levels of atheism also are the most charitable in
terms of giving foreign aid to the developing world. The dubious link
between Christian literalism and Christian values is also belied by
other indices of charity. Consider the ratio in salaries between top-
tier CEOs and their average employee: in Britain it is 24 to 1; France
15 to 1; Sweden 13 to 1; in the United States, where 83% of the
population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead, it is 475
to 1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to squeeze easily through
the eye of a needle.
In other words, religion is harmful, not helpful. The reason is
because God is imaginary and religious delusion is hurting all of us.
Proof #25 - Understand evolution and abiogenesis
Recently there has been a remarkable change in the Christian
community: Many members of the Christian faith are embracing
evolution. For example, there is this article:
At Churches Nationwide, Good Words for Evolution: "On the 197th
birthday of Charles Darwin, ministers at several hundred churches
around the country preached yesterday against recent efforts to
undermine the theory of evolution, asserting that the opposition many
Christians say exists between science and faith is false. At St.
Dunstan's Episcopal Church, a small contemporary structure among the
pricey homes of north Atlanta, the Rev. Patricia Templeton told the 85
worshipers gathered yesterday, 'A faith that requires you to close
your mind in order to believe is not much of a faith at all....' At
the Evanston Mennonite Church, Susan Fisher Miller, 48, an editor and
English professor, said, 'I completely accept and affirm the view of
God as creator, but I accommodate evolution within that.'"
And this letter, signed by more than 10,000 clergy members:
An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science: "...We the
undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe
that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern
science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of
evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to
rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and
achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory
among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and
transmit such ignorance to our children..."
The interesting thing to understand is that when you accept evolution,
what you are automatically doing is rejecting the concept of a soul.
Here is why: As soon as you accept that evolution is true, you also
accept that the creation story in the Bible is false. It is pure
mythology. The concept of the "soul", which comes from the same book,
is exactly the same sort of mythology.
Simply think through the logic. What the theory of evolution says is
that every living thing on this planet has evolved through a
completely natural process. Every species that we see today is derived
from simple, single-cell organisms over the course of hundreds of
millions of years. In other words, there was no supernatural creation
process for humans as described in the Bible's book of Genesis.
As you think about this, what you will realize is that evolved beings
have no souls. Human beings are no different from any other animal,
insect, plant or bacteria in the way that we have evolved. In the same
way that every other living thing on planet Earth is soul-less, humans
are soul-less. The whole notion of a soul is a figment of human
imagination.
This makes complete sense. The biochemistry of life powers evolution.
That biochemistry is amazing and complex, but it is nothing more than
a set of soul-less chemical reactions. When the chemical reactions
cease, you die. There is no "soul" mixed in with the chemicals.
Where did the first cell come from? Many believers will argue that God
magicallycreated the first living cell. This, of course, is silly. The
scientific principle that describes the origin of life is called
abiogenesis. In the same way that there is no supernatural being
involved in evolution, there is no supernatural being involved in
abiogenesis. Both the creation of life and the evolution of species
are completely natural processes.
There is no "supreme being" in heaven who reached down to create life
on Earth or human beings. Nor is that being answering prayers. There
is no soul. There is no everlasting life. Science tells us all of
these things with complete clarity. God is imaginary.
<<< Proof #24 | Home Go to Proof #26 >>>
Understanding the Rationalizations
Many believers will say, "This is simply untrue. Even though humans
are the product of evolution, humans are still special in God's eyes.
God manipulated the evolutionary process in some magical way to
divinely create human beings, and God magically gives each human being
a soul at conception."
In order to see the truth, you need to understand that all
explanations involving "magic" are false. The fact is, God had
absolutely nothing to do with the creation of life on this planet nor
with any part of the evolutionary process. As soon as you accept this
fact, you realize that you have no soul. God is imaginary and the
biblical concept of everlasting life is a fairy tale.
The fact that we exist as a conscious, intelligent, rational species
is an accident of nature that involved no supernatural intervention.
There is no part of the scientific explanation of evolution that says,
"a mythical supernatural being reaches in right here and guides it."
Evolution, by its very nature, is a supernatural-free process.
There is no way to simultaneously "accept evolution" and "believe in
an everlasting soul as described in the Bible." If evolution is true,
then the Bible describes a creation process that is a complete myth.
The concept of a soul is myth in exactly the same way.
Proof #26 - Notice that the Bible's author is not "all-knowing"
Why, when you read the Bible, are you not left in awe? For example,
look though this small collection of Bible verses:
• Deut 25:11-12
• Genesis 38:8-10
• Deut 21:18-21
• Ex 35:2
• Lev 20:13
• Isaiah 13:13-16
• Exodus 21:20-21
• 1 Tim 2:11-12
• Col 3:22-23
• Luke 14:26
• Deut 22:13-21
• Isaiah 40:8
These verses feel like utter nonsense, don't they? We can find
thousands of verses like these in the Bible.
So we are forced to ask a question: Why doesn't a book written by God
leave you with a sense of wonder and amazement? If you are reading a
book written by the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving creator of
the universe, wouldn't you expect to be stunned by the brilliance, the
clarity and the wisdom of the author? Would you not expect each new
page to intoxicate you with its incredible prose and its spectacular
insight?
Instead, opening the Bible inevitably creates a feeling of
dumbfoundment. Have you ever noticed that? Instead of brilliance, much
of the Bible contains nonsense. Several of the topics of the previous
proofs, for example where we discussed the Bible's advocacy of
slavery, are excellent examples. But they are just the tip of the
iceberg. You can open the Bible to almost any page and find nonsense
instead of wisdom.
Why, in other words, is the Bible so useless? Why does the author of
the Bible, who is supposed to be God, who is supposed to be all-
knowing, know so little? Why is the knowledge of the author limited to
the knowledge of the primitive men who wrote the book? If you think
about what you are reading in the Bible in the context of an all-
knowing God who supposedly wrote it, none of it makes any sense. But
if you think about the Bible as being a book written by primitive men
like you would find in the remote regions of Afghanistan today, it
makes complete sense.
The reason is because God is imaginary. "God" had nothing to do with
the Bible. The Bible was written by primitive men, many of who were
obviously insane.
Proof #27 - Think about life after death
If you are a Christian, then Jesus promises that your soul will have
everlasting life. In John 3:16 the Bible says: "For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life." All that you have
to do is believe in Jesus and your soul gets to go to heaven.
But have you ever really thought about your soul? Have you ever
thought about how the afterlife would work? Which life forms get an
afterlife and which do not?
Start with a bacterium. Does it have a soul and does it get an
afterlife? A bacterium is a cell membrane filled with a variety of
molecules. These molecules react together in different ways to create
what we call life. Although all of these molecules are reacting in
fascinating, interlocking ways, they are still nothing more than
chemicals reacting. The "miracle of life" is no miracle -- it is a big
chemical reaction. When those reactions stop, the cell is dead.
Now here is the question: When the bacterium dies, does it get an
afterlife?
There are not many people in the United States who believe that
bacteria go to heaven. The Bible does not talk about heaven being
filled with all the disease, putrefaction and pestilence that bacteria
cause. And what, exactly, would go to heaven? Do all of the
bacterium's molecules get transported to another dimension so that
they can keep reacting? If that were happening, there would be
thousands of tons of chemicals leaving earth every day. Clearly there
is no afterlife for bacteria cells.
What about mosquitoes? A mosquito is much more complex than a
bacterium cell. For one thing, a mosquito is a multi-cellular insect
with amazing capabilities. But if you look at each cell in a mosquito,
it is very much like a bacterium in its basic functioning.
Do mosquitoes get an afterlife? Clearly not. Think of how many
mosquitoes have lived and died over the course of millions of years.
No one imagines heaven being full of septillions of everlasting
mosquitoes. There is also the problem that we saw with bacteria -- the
only way for a mosquito to go to heaven would be to somehow transport
all the chemicals in a mosquito from earth to heaven.
What about mice? They are no different from mosquitoes. Mice are
multicellular organisms, but each cell is a little chemical factory
very much like a bacterium. Dogs? Ditto. Chimps? Ditto.
So what about humans?
The human body is nothing but a set of chemical reactions. The
chemical reactions powering a human life are no different from the
reactions powering the life of a bacterium, a mosquito, a mouse, a dog
or a chimp. When a human being dies, the chemical reactions stop.
There is no "soul" mixed in with the chemicals, just like there is no
soul in a bacterium, a mosquito, a mouse, a dog or a chimp. Why would
there be an afterlife for the chemicals that make up a human body?
The whole notion of your "soul" is completely imaginary. The concept
of a "soul" has been invented by religion because many people have
trouble facing their own mortality. It makes people feel better, but
the concept is a complete fabrication.
It is when you think about the chemical reactions powering your life
and your brain that you realize how completely imaginary your "soul"
truly is. And at that point, everything about religion comes
unraveled.
Think back to when you were a kid and you realized that Santa was
imaginary. As soon as you knew it, it was obvious. Reindeer cannot
fly. A man cannot slide down chimneys. There is no way for one little
sleigh to carry all the toys for all the kids in the world. Etc. It is
obvious that Santa is make believe.
In the same way, it is obvious that human beings are big, walking
chemical reactions (see this article for a description of how the
reactions work). Your "soul" is make believe just like Santa. When the
chemical reactions cease, you die. That is the end of it.
Knowing this, you can see that everything about religion is imaginary.
God, the Bible, Jesus, the resurrection, prayer, the Ten Commandments,
the creation story, your soul, everlasting life, heaven... every bit
of it is the product of human imagination. The same goes for Allah,
the Koran and so on. As a species we have believed all of this
religious dogma for centuries, and most of us believe it today to some
degree. And yet... it is all fiction. Today's "God" is just as
fictional as were the gods of the Egyptians, the Romans and the
Aztecs.
<<< Proof #26 | Home | Go to Proof #28 >>>
Understanding the Rationalizations
Christians will rationalize the concept of the soul by saying that the
soul is a magical element that has nothing to do with cell chemistry.
God divinely "instills the soul in each of us." According to
believers, the soul is of another dimension and therefore is beyond
science.
Whenever you hear people talking about "magic" and "other dimensions",
it is a clear marker for delusion. It is as simple as that. The soul
is a completely imaginary concept, as is God.
Proof #28 - Notice how many gods you reject
There are literally thousands of religions being practiced today. Here
are 20 of the most popular, along with an estimate of the number of
followers:
1. Christianity: 2.1 billion
2. Islam: 1.3 billion
3. Hinduism: 900 million
4. Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
5. Buddhism: 376 million
6. African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
7. Sikhism: 23 million
8. Juche: 19 million
9. Spiritism: 15 million
10. Judaism: 14 million
11. Baha'i: 7 million
12. Jainism: 4.2 million
13. Shinto: 4 million
14. Cao Dai: 4 million
15. Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
16. Tenrikyo: 2 million
17. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
18. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
19. Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
20. Scientology: 500 thousand
[Source: Encyclopedia Britannica]
If you believe in God, you have chosen to reject Allah, Vishnu, Budda,
Waheguru and all of the thousands of other gods that other people
worship today. It is quite likely that you rejected these other gods
without ever looking into their religions or reading their books. You
simply absorbed the dominant faith in your home or in the society you
grew up in.
In the same way, the followers of all these other religions have
chosen to reject God. You think their gods are imaginary, and they
think your God is imaginary.
In other words, each religious person on earth today arbitrarily
rejects thousands of gods as imaginary, many of which he/she has never
even heard of, and arbitrarily chooses to "believe" in one of them.
The following quote from Stephen F. Roberts sums up the situation very
nicely:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god
than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other
possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
A rational person rejects all human gods equally, because all of them
are equally imaginary. How do we know that they are imaginary? Simply
imagine that one of them is real. If one of these thousands of gods
were actually real, then his followers would be experiencing real,
undeniable benefits. These benefits would be obvious to everyone. The
followers of a true god would pray, and their prayers would be
answered. The followers of a true god would therefore live longer,
have fewer diseases, have lots more money, etc. There would be
thousands of statistical markers surrounding the followers of a true
god.
Everyone would notice all of these benefits, and they would gravitate
toward this true god. And thus, over the course of several centuries,
everyone would be aligned on the one true god. All the other false
gods would have fallen by the wayside long ago, and there would be
only one religion under the one true god.
When we look at our world today, we see nothing like that. There are
two billion Christians AND there are more than one billion Muslims,
and their religions are mutually exclusive. There are thousands of
other religions. When you analyse any of them, they all show a
remarkable similarity -- there is zero evidence that any of these gods
exist. That is how we know that they are all imaginary.
<<< Proof #27 | Home | Go to Proof #29 >>>
Understanding the Rationalizations
You will frequently hear believers make the following rationalization:
Suppose you are right. Suppose there is no God. Then when I die as a
believer, I have lost nothing. I just die, as a man that devoted his
life to love and morals. But if you, as a non-believer, are wrong and
I am right, you have to spend an eternity in hell. See, I have nothing
to lose, but you have everything to lose.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that there are thousands of
gods that humans have imagined. A person who believes in Allah can
make this statement, and so can a person who believes in God, and so
can a person who believes in Vishnu.
The fact is that religion is a form of delusion. By believing in an
imaginary god, you have not "lost nothing." What you have done is
commited yourself to a lifetime of delusion, instead of commiting your
life to reality. Non-believers live moral and loving lives without
having to resort to delusion.
The fact that there are so many gods proves that all of these gods are
imaginary. If there actually were an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-
loving "god" in any form, that would be obvious to everyone and we
would all align on him. His existence would be undeniable and
impossible to hide.
Proof #29 - Think about Communion
Because Christians have been participating in the communion rite for
many years, they tend to forget just how bizarre this ritual is. The
whole idea of "eating Jesus' body" and "drinking his blood" is
grotesque in the extreme.
Have you ever wondered where this ritual came from, or why billions of
people would participate in a ritual that is this bizarre? First,
let's look at the part of the Bible that prescribes the ritual. You
find it in Mark, Chapter 14:
And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and
gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." And he took a cup,
and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of
it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is
poured out for many.
There are a few lines in Luke chapter 22 that are nearly identical.
Jesus gets far more graphic, however, in John chapter 6:53-55:
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;
he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my
blood is drink indeed.
To any normal person, this sounds very much like the script of a
gruesome horror film. It sounds like some sort of revolting satanic
ritual. It definitely does not sound like the words of the all-loving
creator of the universe.
Imagine that you are a normal person, and you have never been exposed
to Christianity before. Now imagine that a Christian comes up to you
and quotes John 6:53. Any normal adult would rightfully assume the
Christian to be insane. Thus, you never see a bumper sticker that says
"John 6:53."
However, the assumption is accurate. The dictionary describes
cannibalism in the following way:
The usually ritualistic eating of human flesh by a human being
What Jesus is demanding is cannibalism.
What does your common sense tell you about all of this? What we are
talking about here is cannibalism, and what Christians are doing looks
exactly like a pagan/satanic ritual. If you are a Christian, the two
questions you may be asking yourself right now are:
1. Why in the world am I, as a sane individual, participating in
ritualistic cannibalism? How in the world did I stoop to this point?
2. Why would an all-powerful, all-loving God demand that I do this?
What sort of God am I worshipping?
The source of the ritual
If you are curious, here is why Christianity contains this bizarre
ritual. It is not the case that an all-powerful God in heaven demands
this behavior. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-
made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan
religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in
order to be more palatable to converts. The process is described
succinctly and accurately in the book "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan
Brown. The book offers these two accounts of the acretion process:
• "The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are
undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints.
Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became
the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby
Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual - the
miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of "God-eating"
- were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions."
• "Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras
- called the Son of God and the Light of the World - was born on
December 25, died was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in
three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris,
Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity's weekly holy day was
stolen from the pagans."
To any normal person, the practice of communion is one of the most
bizarre things that Christians do. Jesus' cannibalistic tendencies
offer explicit evidence that Jesus is not God.
When you research it historically, you realize that Jesus was a human
being like any other. The mythology of his birth, life and death are
pagan stories that are all man-made because God is imaginary.
Proof #30 - Examine God's sexism
If you would like to prove to yourself that God is imaginary, here is
one easy way to do it: Look for places in the Bible where God is an
absurd, unmitigated jerk instead of the "all-knowing", "all-loving",
"fully-enlightened" being that he is supposed to be. The utter
contradiction proves that God is imaginary.
There are many parts of the Bible that display these tendencies, for
example thisand this. However, if you are a woman, the place where
God's absurdity becomes completely clear is when you look at God's
sexism.
The dictionary defines a misogynist as "One who hates women." [ref] It
defines the word "sexist" as:
1. Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against
women.
2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of
social roles based on gender
Is God a sexist? Let's look at the evidence. We find this in 1
Corinthians chapter 14:
As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent
in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in
submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something,
they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for
a woman to speak in the church.
This seems like a straightforward passage. And God is the one who
inspired the Bible. In Isaiah 40:8 God says that the word of the Lord
will last forever, and he says the same thing again in 1 Peter
1:24-25. So here we have God, in his eternal and everlasting Word,
saying that it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
This quote from 1 Corinthians 11 is important:
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the
head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man
who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but
any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her
head--it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will
not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is
disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil.
For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory
of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from
woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but
woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head,
because of the angels.
You may find it hard to believe that something that confusing is in
the Bible, yet if you look it up you will find it is there.
Then there is this section from 1 Timothy chapter 2:
Also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in
seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly
attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a
woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to
teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
It is hard to miss God's meaning when he says something as direct as,
"I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to
keep silent."
If you think about it, you will realize that God started this type of
sexism at the very beginning of the Bible. In Genesis chapter 17 God
says:
This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your
descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You
shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a
sign of the covenant between me and you.
God makes no mention of forming any sort of covenant with women.
There are many other examples that we can find in the Bible:
• In Matthew 25:1 Jesus says: "At that time the kingdom of heaven will
be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the
bridegroom."
• In John 20:17 Jesus says to Mary: "Touch me not; for I am not yet
ascended to my Father," as though the touch of a woman is somehow
improper, but a few verses later, is happy to have Thomas touch him.
• In Genesis chapter 3, God punishes Eve, and all women for thousands
of years, with greatly increased pain during childbirth. No such pain
is inflicted on Adam.
• In Ephesians 5:22-24 we find this: "Wives, submit to your husbands
as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is
the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as
the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their
husbands in everything."
• In 1 Peter 3:7 we find: "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as
you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker
partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that
nothing will hinder your prayers."
• In 1 John 2:13, John says, "I write to you, fathers, because you
have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children,
because you have known the Father." No mention is made of women.
• And so on. There are many, many examples like these throughout the
old and new testaments.
There are other, broader examples of misogyny that are readily
apparent in the Bible as well:
• Are any of Jesus' disciples women? No.
• Are any of the elders in the book of Revelation women? No.
• Are any of the books of the Bible written by women? No.
• Etc...
God, it would seem, wants nothing to do with women.
Keep in mind that the Bible's misogyny has affected society for
centuries. The United States constitution, for example, was originally
drafted to specifically deny rights to women. Women could not even
vote in the United States until 1920, and only then after decades of
battle in the women's suffrage movement.
If you think about it, you will realize that there is something quite
odd about this situation. In spite of the fact that the Bible is
supposed to be God's eternal Word, modern human beings totally reject
God's sexism. Modern human beings completely ignore God:
• We make women the CEOs of major corporations.
• We elect women to high government offices.
• We appoint women as presidents of universities.
• We fill our schools with female teachers.
• We allow women to speak freely in church.
The contradiction should be as obvious as a lighthouse here. There is
no ambiguity. We do all of this in direct defiance of God's Law in the
Bible because we know God and his "eternal word" are completely wrong.
We know that God is imaginary.
If God is going to take the time to write and publish "the Word of
God," why does the book contain so many problems?
• Why isn't each page of the Bible astonishing us with its brilliance
and insight, and filling us with wonder?
• Why, instead, does the Bible contain so much nonsense or, in this
case, bigotry?
• Why are Christians constantly having to justify, rationalize, excuse
and explain the Bible? In this case, we find modern Christians trying
to defend a God who obviously hates women on many different levels.
To any unbiased observer, the reason for sexism in the Bible is very
easy to understand: The Bible was not written by a "all-knowing", "all-
loving", "fully-enlightened" "god". It was written by primitive men
who were flagrant sexists. Just look at how men in primitive countries
like Afghanistan treat women today. Those are the kind of men who
wrote the Bible.
And we all know it -- Christians and non-Christians alike. The reason
why modern societies totally reject sexism is because we all know that
the Bible's sexism is completely contradictory and completely wrong.
It is exactly the same situation we see when Christians face slavery
in the Bible. Christians and non-Christians alike reject the Bible's
teachings in these areas because the Bible is obviously wrong. The
part that is profoundly strange is that, while completely rejecting
these parts of the Bible, Chistians will claim that other parts of the
Bible areGod's word. They are blind to the obvious contradiction
because of their utterdelusion.
Once you break the delsuion, it is completely obvious: God is
imaginary.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages