Off to recharge my atheist batteries

My wife and I and our three little heathens and taking off for a two week sojourn to Jamaica not far from the Montego Bay scene pictured above. I plan to read plenty, rest up and work on my golf game here:

Let it never be said that I didn't try to make the most of my brief stay on this 5.98 x 10 to the power of 24 kg chunk of rock located some 26,000-28,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way.

Richard Warren and Christian "Love"

This fellow makes a very good point about the hypocrisy of Christian ideology (warning to those with kids within earshot - offensive language):

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 40

Living with Purpose

I made it folks. 9 months after I was challenged to read The Purpose Drive Life by the Christian missionary da, I finally dragged myself through the last chapter of this rag.

Richard concludes his book by asking 3 questions which I will attempt to answer:

Who are you? A father, husband, neighbour, lawyer, golfer, skier, traveller, blogger, procrastinator and citizen of the world. Contrary to what I am told in this book, I don't need an imaginary friend to get a grip on my identity.

Do you matter? If you exclude my family and friends, most certainly not. Postulizing a supernatural creator who demands adoration certainly wouldn't give me any greater feeling of importance.

What is your place in life?It's the sum total of the effect which my life has on others. After I'm gone, I expect that is all there will be of me.

Richard summarizes the thesis of this book when he writes:

"Who are you going to live for? What are you going to build your life around? You can center your life around your career, family, a sport or hobby, money, having fun, or many other activities. These are all good things, but they don't belong at the center of your life. None is strong enough to hold you together when life starts breaking apart. You need an unshakable center." According to Richard, that emotional crutch is god.

Surprisingly, I finish this book agreeing with Richard on one point. If an individual is going to be thrown into existential despair at the thought that all good things come to an end, perhaps they are better off convincing themselves that the center of their life is an imaginary friend. In fact, the delusion can become quite convincing when it is shared by millions of like-minded brethren.

I share the same attitude as Dr. James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a noted atheist. The purpose of life is to live well and the prospect of a good lunch tomorrow is more than enough to keep me going.

Hichens' sibling scared into faith

Years after burning a bible, Christopher Hitchens' simple-minded brother Peter let a painting scare him back to Christianity. Now he's an avid Christian apologist: http://bit.ly/bPdUJ8

I love this quote by Peter:

Left to himself, Man can in a matter of minutes justify the incineration of populated cities; the deportation, slaughter, disease and starvation of inconvenient people and the mass murder of the unborn.
.....

For a moral code to be effective, it must be attributed to, and vested in, a non-human source. It must be beyond the power of humanity to change it to suit itself.

Peter ignores two significant problems with this line of thinking:

1. If the non-human source of the moral code is imaginary, the human imagination is the only limit to what can be deemed moral and immoral; and

2. Assuming that the non-human source of the moral code exists, there is nothing to stop that source from deeming any action, no matter how deplorable (i.e. rape), to be moral.

Kissing Hank's Derriere

This is very well done:

Deconstructing The Purpose Driven Life - Chapter 39

Balancing Your Life

I would love to know what percentage of those poor suckers who started reading The Purpose Driven Life made it to chapter 39. A safe bet would be less than half and my money would be on far less.

In this chapter, Richard sums up his lordy's five purposes for your life. The Golden Rule is included in this list and I would never criticize Christianity for promoting that purpose. My difficulty lies with the other four purposes listed by Richard (he really likes lists):

• "Love God with all your heart" (i.e. worship). Two problems with this one. How can you love someone/something that you are fairly certain does not even exist? Even if you could accept lordy's existence, how can you love someone/something that demands adoration?


• "Go and make disciples" (i.e. evangelism). Richard is a generous supporter of the efforts to tackle global poverty and disease, including the spread of HIV/AIDS. He also supports literacy and education efforts around the world. While these charitable efforts should be lauded, he clearly has an ulterior motive - he wants to "save" those he helps. This is precisely why I wince when people talk about all the good works performed by religious institutions around the world. If you give a dollar to Richard's Saddleback Church, they will spend some of it helping those in need but only after they pay their clergy, maintain their opulent place of worship and train those who they will fly to the far stretches of the earth to preach the gospel. Why not just give your dollar to Oxfam and cut out the proselytizing middleman?


• "Baptize them into ..." (i.e. fellowship). What Richard is talking about here is the importance of maintaining interaction with those who share your delusions. This is Cult Maintenance 101.


• "Teach them to do all things" (i.e. discipleship). This is Richard's way of saying that his followers should become like Christ as disciples of Christ. In this regard, I would concede that Jesus of Nazareth was a great moral teacher. This is not meant to suggest that I would want anyone to emulate all of Jesus' teachings. For example, in Why I am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell (pictured above) observed:
  

"There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching -- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance find that attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation".

Proud to join the Humanist Association of Toronto

I am proud to announce that I am now a life member of the Humanist Association of Toronto ("HAT"). For those unfamiliar with the concept of humanism, it is defined in the HAT constitution as follows: "Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art and motivated by compassion. We seek to understand and improve the human condition through the development of secular ethics, for the benefit of all."

HAT's declared principles are as follows:

1. Freedom of Inquiry: Every individual should be free to inquire into any and all areas of thought, to explore, to challenge, question or doubt. Without freedom of inquiry, we lose the ability to improve the human condition.
2. The Use of Reason: Reason provides a common standard against which we can test our perceptions. Without reason there is no valid tool for making judgements.
3. Knowledge: The only thing that can be called knowledge is that which is firmly grounded in human understanding and empirical verification. Without human comprehension and verification we lose our connection with the natural world around us.
4. Creativity: Human creativity is essential to the ability to solve problems, expand knowledge, and fulfill our cultural needs.
5. Fallibility: Human knowledge and human ethics have changed over time and will continue to change. Without acknowledging fallibility we risk descent into dogma.
6. The Natural World: The physical world is the world in which our ethics must operate, rather than in any imagined Utopian societies or afterlife. Because the physical world is the only one of which we have empirical knowledge, it is irrational to sacrifice benefits in this world for supposed gains in imaginary ones.
7. Human Ethics: Ethical decisions should be made in the context of real people, real situations, real human needs and aspirations and the consideration of real consequences. Humanism combines personal liberty with social responsibility. It affirms the dignity of every person, the right of the individual to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others, and the need for community. Without this context we risk the worst excesses of ideology.

For more information on HAT events and how to become a member, please visit their website at: http://humanist.toronto.on.ca/index.php Also, please visit the Humanist Toronto blog (which you can access through HAT's homepage) and you will see that they display exceptionally good taste in their list of "Blogs of Interest".