Ayn Rand, Anarchist

Anarchism is a theory of the good society, in which justice and social order are maintained without the State (or government). Many anarchists in the libertarian movement (including myself) were heavily influenced by the epistemological and moral theories of Ayn Rand. According to these anarchists, Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds.

In Defense of Rational Anarchism

Why Disrespect Christianity?

First, I want to preface this by saying that my hostility and disrespect for Christianity is not based on any experiences with Christians. Almost all of my experiences with Christians have been very respectful. I have nothing against Christians per se, and if someone decides to be a Christian of his own free will then I accept that (even though I wouldn't support it).

That being said, here are the biggest reasons why I have no respect for the ideology and worldview of Christianity:

1. I disrespect Christianity because it is a Big Lie. The Big Lie was a technique attributed to Hitler, by which one repeats a lie with a gigantic scope over and over until it becomes commonplace. The lies that "God exists," "God created the universe," "God created man," "Jesus existed," "Jesus was fully man and fully God," are all so nonsensical, much like any other fairy tale. But because they are given a privileged position in our society, one would not dare to say that Christianity is a lie on the same order as any other fairy tale peddled as truth (Santa Claus, tooth fairy, etc)

2. I disrespect Christianity because it is absurd. Nothing in Christianity makes sense. God is outside the universe, but thinks and acts like a material being ("he" even gets mad!). Jesus is fully man and fully divine. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three beings that are one that are three. Jesus was executed so he would change his own mind about a rule he made. Adam and Eve are condemned for an act for which they could not possibly have any moral responsibility. If you think about anything in the Bible for more than ten seconds, it makes absolutely no sense. That's where the occult aspect of Christianity comes in: they say you need to "have faith" and you will read these absurd stories with "new eyes."

3. I disrespect Christianity because it is immoral. As someone once said, anyone who followed the OT would be considered a murderer: anyone who followed the NT would be considered insane. This blood-soaked book, filled with stories of murder and genocide of the most horrendous immorality, is not spiritual and it is not moral. And the Jesus stories are equally immoral, although not because of their violence but because of the immoral principles that they invoke (there are exceptions, such as the parable of the stoning, although even there the moral principle underlying Jesus' actions is dubious at best).

4. I disrespect Christianity because it goes against the fundamental principles of justice. This is probably the single clearest example of why Christianity deserves to be stamped out. In Christianity, "salvation" is achieved by believing in Jesus as saviour. Then you get to go to Heaven. If you refuse to believe, then you suffer. This is what Christians believe justice is. Not judging people by their fruits, but by their belief or lack thereof in a lie and a fiction. By any reasonable human standards, there are millions of morally upright people, even heroes, who are condemned by Christianity for not believing in Jesus. Christianity rejects everything that is good in human beings in the name of being a good Christian believer: therefore it stands against everyone, everywhere, even Christians (although of course Christians believe that they are worthless sinners, and so have no good in them apart from Christianity- this is how they justify hating morally good atheists).

5. I disrespect Christianity because it contradicts the very essence of human existence. If Christianity is true, then our lives have no purpose, controlled by a being that we cannot understand and a plan hidden from us. If Christianity is true, then nothing else can be true, since God (or indeed any powerful transcendent agent) can make it so that 2+2=3, that the Earth does not rotate in 24 hours, or that murder is good (the last two having been done in the Bible). If Christianity is true, then we do not have free will (as, once again, proven in the Bible). If Christianity is true, then concepts are invalid (because they are predicated on induction, and induction is predicated on a uniform universe). If Christianity is true, then any meaning we find in the things around us is pure invention, because there is no truth and concepts are a sham.

In short, to be Christian contradicts what it means to be human.

When do I disrespect Christians? I disrespect Christians when they try to enforce a culture of tolerence for Christianity, and a culture of intolerence against every other worldview, morality or creed. Christianity should not be tolerated. Christianity should not be allowed to state its case without objections. It is a primitive, unjust, tribal ideology that needs to be stamped out from public discourse.

I also disrespect Christians when they show their hypocrisy through their actions. And no, I do not mean televangelists or pastors who grub for money. I mean Christians who, for instance, cry at funerals (which contradicts believing in an ever-benevolent afterlife), or commit crimes (which contradicts the belief in always being watched by an omniscient creature that judges you).
-Francois Tremblay

graveyard of the gods

You can read more from Francois Tremblay at his blog Check Your Premises .

Blog of the Moment: Historians Against the War

The Hawblog

Attempts to Reconcile Science and Religion Are Doomed to Fail

On one side we have a scientific establishment and a court system determined to let children learn evolution rather than religious mythology, and on the other side the many Americans who passionately resist those efforts. It is a depressing fact that while 74 percent of Americans believe that angels exist, only 25 percent accept that we evolved from apelike ancestors. Just one in eight of us think that evolution should be taught in the biology classroom without including a creationist alternative. Among thirty-four Western countries surveyed for the acceptance of evolution, the United States ranked a dismal thirty-third, just above Turkey. Throughout our country, school boards are trying to water down the teaching of evolution or sneak creationism in beside it. And the opponents of Darwinism are not limited to snake-handlers from the Bible Belt; they include some people you know. As Karl Giberson notes in Saving Darwin, "Most people in America have a neighbor who thinks the Earth is ten thousand years old."

Seeing and Believing

The Main Source of Hatred In the World

"I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hatred in the world is religion, and organized religion."-Christopher Hitchens

The Problem of Good

Occasionally one encounters the notion that an atheist faces an equally difficult problem in explaining goodness. It is a foolish notion because the atheist has no need to explain either good or evil. Of course if one could muster up belief that God is supremely evil, then a problem of good might arise. It could be justified (as atheists sometimes do in jest) by asserting that all the good we experience is necessary to make possible greater pain. What better means could a Supreme Devil use for maximizing evil than allowing his creatures to enjoy life for a brief time, even to live with hope for another life, only to meet with final annihilation or perpetual torment in hell? But for the atheist or pantheist there is no problem of good or evil.-Martin Gardner

Now, what some theists mean when stating that the atheist faces a similar "problem of good" (as opposed to the Problem of Evil) is that in the godless universe of atheism, nothing can have any meaning. But it is only in a universe that is the product of a consciousness that this would be so, for then you could never rely on your senses, you could never be sure this god wasn't deceiving you or controlling your thoughts. Nothing could be determined with any certainty in such a world, including the nature of God itself, for it might be lying to you.

I DO Believe In Coincidence

"That a particular specified event or coincidence will occur is very unlikely. That some astonishing unspecified events will occur is certain. That is why remarkable coincidences are noted in hindsight, not predicted with foresight."-David G. Myers

Coincidences come in all sizes, some are large, some small, but all have a certain power to amaze the human mind and convince it that purpose is lurking behind the curious events in question. I once had a dream of a train crashing; it collided with another train heading in the opposite direction. The very next day, as I met someone for dinner at one of those not-very-good but inexpensive cafes, I saw a newspaper headline announcing just such a crash. It felt eerie for a moment, and I could have convinced myself with little effort that I'd had a precognitive experience. If I had done so, however, I would have ignored the dozens of dreams I'd had over the years of planes falling from the sky, none of which coincided with any actual event. But that is exactly what most people do, and they do it often. A common occurrence is to be thinking of someone, perhaps a friend you haven't heard from in a while, and then to hear the phone ring, answer it, and discover it is that very person you were just thinking of.

Of course, there are also those events that seem to dwarf something as mundane as a phone call in their apparent inexplicability. These are the coincidences that seem to really excite people such as talk radio show host George Noory (Coast to Coast AM) leading to the absurd statement "I don't believe in coincidence", which Noory repeats at every opportunity. He may as well say "I don't believe in the laws of probability" which, of course, is what he's saying. But is there any reason to invoke spooky, hidden causes to explain such events? There was the case of the two little girls, both ten years old, and both named Laura Buxton. One released a balloon with a note tied to it and the other, living 140 miles away, found it later in her yard. Did Laura number one specify in advance that she was sending the balloon and its message with the purpose of finding another Laura Buxton of the same age? That would have been a great deal more remarkable, but still not necessarily miraculous. And in any event, from what we know of the case, that was not Laura Buxton the balloon sender's intent. But if dozens of other little girls had released such balloons with their names attached at the same time (as part of a school project, perhaps) and all or at least a significant percentage of them had landed in the yards of children with identical names, you would've had something to wonder about. But nothing so striking happened, and we can safely assume that indeed, the two Lauras in this instance were brought together not by mysterious mystical forces, but by plain and simple coincidence, and that's something anyone can believe in.

The biggest coincidence of all, though, would be if there were no coincidences! Think about it. What if you NEVER had a phone call from someone you were thinking about. What if you never ran into an old classmate at the local supermarket. What if there were never any occurrences where seemingly random events appeared to go together. Wouldn't you think something strange and out of the ordinary was going on? But if indeed you would, then you can stop thinking that the coincidences that you do encounter are something that can't be explained by, you know, coincidence.

My mother met my father at a dance at a hotel ballroom one weekend a few years before I was born. My mother was not exactly enthusiastic about going out that evening, but she was finally persuaded by her sister to go. Suppose though that she hadn't gone? My dad was a complete stranger to her, and their meeting was pure chance. Or was it? Am I so special, so wonderful, so valuable, that I deserved life while the unlimited number of other possible humans that could have existed had my parents each have mated with someone else, did not? Was my conception part of some divine plan? Or was I a mere coincidence, a lucky accident (lucky for me, that is, unlucky for those others never to be born), a lottery winner in the ultimate game of chance? I think it's fairly easy for people to acknowledge, that "yeah, I was an accident" (in fact, many will put it exactly like that, or say the same of their own children). But they will be unable to admit the same of the human species itself. But both cases are really no different. If the dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out when they were, or if any number of other random events had been just a little different, there might have been no human race at all. But people can't be cured of superstition so quickly or simply. They will ask how life got started and how long the odds are of it happening by "chance". They wouldn't think it remarkable if one person out of the six billion plus alive at this time were to win a hypothetical global lottery and become a billionaire upon collecting the jackpot. On the other hand, there are at least one hundred billion galaxies, each containing one hundred billion stars, in the known universe. Is it so odd that one of those stars, belonging to one of those galaxies, should have a small planet orbiting it that won the lottery of life?


A minister called on Robert Ingersoll once to say: "Colonel, I understand you do not believe in a special providence." "I do not." "Well, I want to prove it to you beyond all question, in my own case. Some years ago I engaged passage on a steamer, to go abroad. Before she sailed, I had a fear, a presentiment, or feeling -- call it what you will -- that something would happen to that steamer. I got so worked up over it, that I took it to the Lord in earnest prayer. As the result, I gave up my stateroom. Colonel, that steamer never reached port. She went down, and every one of the four hundred souls on board sank to a watery grave. Will you tell me that that was not a divine interposition in my behalf, in answer to my prayer? Is it not proof positive that God cared for me in a special, personal way?" "But, my dear sir," was the Colonel's reply, "what do you suppose the families and friends of the four hundred drowned thought of your special providence? Do you think that God cared only for your one little soul and forgot to warn all the rest? It won't do. Besides, do you feel comfortable at the thought that having such a warning from the Lord you did not, day and night, beseech the captain of that ship to postpone his sailing, at least till you could get word from heaven that it was safe to go?" The minister did not reply. "Now, let me tell you my case," continued the Colonel. "Providence cared for me a little while ago in a striking way, though you may not believe it. A thunder-bolt struck the Young Men's Christian Association's building which adjoined my own office in Washington, and I escaped! If that shaft was aimed at me, I certainly think your providence was a very poor marksman!"

Proclamations and Reminders 2

When you're not feeling well (when you're sick!) it's hard to update your blog and write more posts.

Cows wear bells because their horns don't work.

There is such a thing as coincidence.

A zebra is 25 times larger than an abra.

When an elderly relative examines your face and asks you "Do you know where you got your eyes?" tell them the truth and just answer with "Yes, they came with my head".

Jack Black and Jack White are like night and day (or are they?).

God is an atheist (he doesn't believe in a higher power).

This post needs more proclamations and reminders.

Losing Our Religion

What is the cumulative effect upon outside observers of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker living like lords on the largesse of the poor, multiplied by Jimmy Swaggart's pornography addiction, plus Eric Rudolph bombing Olympians and gays in the name of God, plus Muslims hijacking airplanes in the name of God, multiplied by the church that kicked out some members because they voted Democrat, divided by people caterwauling on courthouse steps as a rock bearing the Ten Commandments was removed, multiplied by the square root of Catholic priests preying on little boys while the church looked on and did nothing, multiplied by Muslims rioting over cartoons, plus the ongoing demonization of gay men and lesbians, divided by all those "traditional values" coalitions and "family values" councils that try to bully public schools into becoming worship houses, with morning prayers and science lessons from the book of Genesis? Then subtract selflessness, service, sacrifice, holiness and hope.

The Trend Is Clear

Among industrialized nations the trend is clear. Atheism (or simple lack of explicit religious commitment) grows, while organized religion and belief in God declines. In the long run, the prospects for Christianity don't look good.

The Coming Collapse of Evangelical Christianity(h/t to Debunking Christianity )

The Empty Freezer

I'm all out of ice cream. Not to worry though, I'll get some more soon.