Altruism vs The Ten Suggestions

I'd been planning on writing about this for a while, as it's a pretty common argument for God's existance. My friend Quinn is not the only one to have posed the question "how does an atheist perceive right and wrong," or "without God, what reason would we have to be good?"

The first thing I usually point out when asked this question is that in the US and Canada, atheists average about 13.75% of the population (11% in the US, 16.5% in Canada) In our prisons, however, the atheist population is less than one percent. (.25% in the US, .4% in Canada.) While this doesn't nessecarily prove that atheists are "more morally concious," it definately sheds a little light on just how morally concious our religious counterparts are. These statistics are occasionally met with another suggestion, "those people committed crimes, and then 'found God' once they were in prison to repent." When you consider that in Canada alone, over 50% of released prisoners will become repeat offenders, it would appear that "finding God" did little to help their morals.

Biblical morality indisputably stems from The Ten Commandments, a collection of suggestions handed down by Zeus to Minos of Crete to... wait, no, I've already done that one. Handed down by God to Moses as the ten most important rules for how to live our lives. These, in my opinion, can be summed up in 4 commandments.

1: God Angry
2: Don't kill
3: Don't steal
4: Sex Bad

These Ten Commandments, these rules from god, are these really the ten most important rules to live our lives by today? They don't include things like rape, discrimination, animal cruelty - "thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal," and "thou shalt not bear false witness" are pretty vague when compared to all of the subjects that could be tied into those, like genocide, fraud, embezzlement, the list goes on.

Not only that, but the bible actually encourages some of those things. In the story of Job, when he was met by angels, in order to prevent a mob from raping them, he offered them his own daughters to rape. What a stand-up guy. Everything from discrimination against non-believers (If a man doesn't abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned) to animal sacrifice, to "holy wars" is contained in the bible, often ordered by God, or at the very least by his favourite prophets. (And I'm not even going to get into genocide.)

So how are we "good," anyway? If we don't get our sense of morality from God, where do we get it? First off, we aren't the only creatures on the planet with a built in desire to help those we perceive to be in distress. Nature is abundant with examples of animals willing to put themselves at risk, not only to help members of their own species, but even other animals. This can't be attributed to God or the Bible, because after all - according to God, none of these animals have souls. There's no heaven for them, no risk of hell if they turn a blind eye. There was no Doggy Moses that came down with the Ten More Commandments for all of the animal kingdom. They just do it, not all the time, not every time, but it happens. I'm not a biologist, and I won't claim to have a higher understanding of genetics than I do, but I will say that there is something within these animals that has given them the drive to lend a helping hand, or... paw, I guess.

The same could be said for human beings. We don't always strive to do what we perceive as the right thing to do, but we do it anyway. It happens all around the world; in places where nobody's ever even heard of the bible - yet they've survived anyway, and it's safe to assume that they're probably pretty nice people.

I'd like to conclude this little rant with, ironically, a bible quote. A bible quote with an atheist spin on it.

Romans 6:14
For Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye lie not under law, but under Grace.

In religious terms this means, with a finger pointed in your direction, "GOD IS WATCHING, DON'T FUCK UP." I however, prefer to interpret it a different way;

You're going to do the right thing, not because you're afraid of punishment, but because you know it's the right thing to do.

All of the statistics and links provided in this short article were found with relative ease; and I encourage anyone who reads this to check up on them. Educate yourselves on the subject, read about altruism in nature, or even biblical morality (for all of it's faults :P )

Thanks for your time.

Child Abuse

Today I'd like to touch on a story I read out of New Jersey. It's a strong belief of mine that teaching children religious values is borderline child abuse, however this story steps beyond that line. Stories like this are emerging with ever increasing regularity, and it seems that each time the parents in question are almost striving to set the proverbial bar on "crazy" even higher. This woman, however, is apparently not crazy. After psychiatric testing, she was deemed competent to stand trial. Devout, yes - psychotic, no. I wonder parents in other cases like this would test.

For a brief recap of the story itself, a New Jersey woman named Estelle Walker moved into a church retreat cabin with her five children. Her reason for doing so at the time was to escape her estranged husband's alleged alcoholism. She was broke, and unemployed. They stayed there for about one year, and for the last three months that they were in the cabin she apparently made no attempt to feed the kids. They would go days at a time without eating - the longest streak being eleven straight days. Walker said that "God would provide" them with food. By the time the police were called in the kids "were so malnourished they had difficulty talking." This was three years ago, and Walker's trial is set to resume on Tuesday.

Most people who read this article will see it at face value; one crazy lady neglecting her kids because of her blind, irrational faith. The religious people I know would never do this, they're intelligent, (sometimes even rational :D ) human beings. In my opinion, however, this article cannot be taken at face value. This is one of many radical fundamentalists, people who take the idea of faith or religion entirely too far, and they do so while riding on the backs of the moderates. She'll use her faith as a shield, and "God as her defense," and I can guarantee you right now - there will be other fundamentalists who will stand up for her, other religious people who see her plight as admirable.

In my opinion, she should be locked away. Throw away the key and never look back. After all, God will provide her with all the food and company she needs, right?

Hypocrisy

I just wanted to share this news story with you. I've always found hypocrisy among religious people particularily amusing, and setting the serious tone of the article aside, this story is quite hilarious.

Granted, it's not quite as funny as Ted Haggard's scandal - a leading Evangelical preacher found having sex with homosexual prostitutes while using methamphetamines - but it's still a good story to take a look at.

Chriscientudaislamormofarianism...

After talking with some friends, I received quite a bit of criticism regarding my last entry, apparently it was regarded as a cheap, comedic shot - not having to do with religion or atheism. Scientology, in most people's minds, does not qualify as a "religion." It's perceived as nothing more than a common joke, and treated without the respect that most faiths are given.

Why?

Scientology may be new, but to be completely honest - it's no more "crazy" than any of the more common religions practiced today. When broken down, all religions have crazy bits - bits that even followers of these faiths will admit is nuts. People who hold onto a moderate amount of their faith for comfort will say, for example, "Yes, I believe most of what the Bible has to say, but I'm not a creationist."

Why make the distinction? Why separate that which some people consider believable from that which they know not to be true? How can people who openly admit that they don't even buy into half the stuff their religion purports claim that the words of another religion can be outright false, even insane?

What I'm trying to say is that Scientology, whether you follow it or not, is just another religion. It's no more, and no less crazy than any of the major monotheistic faiths - nor any more or less crazy than ancient polytheistic religions.

"Scientology? Yeah, that's some crazy shit... Jesus, the ark and the dove, the snake who talked in the garden - that's cool." - Bill Maher

Red Rover, Red Rover, we call Lord Xenu over!

Now we've all heard about Scientology, about all the crazy mumbo-jumbo, about Mr. Tom Cruise. I'd like to set the record straight - there is nothing crazy about Scientology. I'll put a few facts out there, and let you see for yourself. After joining the Church of Scientology, one is encouraged to take several very expensive "upgrade" courses. Each upgrade comes with a new title, or rank, within the church. After many of these expensive courses, the rank "Clear" is given. A Clear is, as defined by the Church of Scientology;

"A Clear is a being who no longer has his own reactive mind, and therefore suffers none of the ill effects the reactive mind can cause. The Clear has no engrams which, when restimulated, throw out the correctness of his computations by entering hidden and false data."

Higher ranks come with access to more information about the church. After becoming a Clear, the story of Lord Xenu is revealed.

Approximately 75 million years ago, Earth was part of a large group of planets - 76 planets and 26 stars to be precise. At that time, Earth wasn't even called Earth. The planet we live on today was called Teegeeack. The planets were overpopulated, with an average population of 178 billion (that's Billion with a B). This was the Galactic Confederacy, and their civilization was (aside from space travel and communication) very similar to our own, circa 1950-1960. The citizens of the Confederacy used planes, trains, and automobiles to get around just like we do - and wore clothing similar to the clothing of that decade.

Xenu was about to be removed from power, so he enlisted the help of psychiatrists and summoned billions of his citizens together under the pretense of income tax inspections. The people were then paralyzed using a mixture of alcohol and glycol, this would freeze their bodies and capture their souls. Xenu loaded the frozen people onto several Space Planes, and took them to the extermination site - the planet of Teegeeack. The Space Planes looked exactly like today's DC-8 aircrafts, with the exception that the DC-8 has jet engines, whereas the transports used by the Confederacy did not.

When they arrived on Teegeeack, the paralyzed citizens were then placed around volcanoes - specifically Loa, Vesuvius, Shasta, Washington, Fujiyama, and Etna, although "many many other" volcanoes were used. Xenu would then drop Hydrogen bombs into the craters of the volcanoes, causing them to erupt - killing billions of frozen citizens. Lord Xenu wasn't finished there, however. Using an "electronic ribbon" suspended over the planet in space, Xenu captured the disembodied souls (called "Thetans") of the dead. This space ribbon would "suck" all of the souls into various "vacuum zones" around the world.

These thetans were then... taken to the movies. Yes, Lord Xenu killed billions and then forced them into a giant cinema, where they watched a 36 day (864 hour) movie. This movie would contain all of the myths which Xenu wanted Teegeeacks future society to be built on. It had to do with God, the Devil, and specifically crucifixion. This 864 hour presentation was designed by Xenu to deprive the thetans of their personal identities - to leave them lost, forever wandering the planet. Attracted to living things, the thetans would surround people, slowly leeching their spiritual energy and personal identity - causing depression and unhappiness.

Xenu would later be captured by a Galactic Confederacy government agency called the Loyal Officers, and locked into "an electric mountain trap" from which he has yet to escape. This prison is said to be located within the Pyrenees mountain range in western France. Teegeeack was then abandoned by the Galactic Federation, and kept only as a pariah "prison planet."

To rid yourself of the thetans which are undoubtedly cluttering your mind, contact the Church of Scientology immediately. Records show that to reach the rank of "Clear" it should only cost approximately US$106,500.

See? Nothing crazy about it.