God and Science - Incompatible

Geology diametrically opposes theism in one word: meteorites. Did a deity really go through all that trouble to meticulously plan billions of years of development specifically to have a few thousand years of existence for humans? 

Intelligent Design generally ascribes to the “anthropic principle”. The strong anthropic principle (SAP) states that the Universe is compelled, in some sense, for conscious life to eventually emerge. Critics of the SAP argue in favour of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) which states that the universe’s ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias:  i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing any such fine tuning, while a universe less compatible with life will go unbeheld.

In short, sophisticated theists who support the concept (knowingly or not) of Intelligent Design, maintain that the evolution of life and more importantly intelligent life was inevitable and indeed planned and executed by a supernatural being in the past and at present. Humans are the Raison d’être for the very large scale and elaborate design of the universe, solar system and earth.

The geologic record has much to say about our being here. We know that approximately 99.9% of all species that ever existed are already extinct.  It’s impossible to determine the precise reasons for each species going extinct suffice to say that they simply lost out in the ceaseless dynamic (ever-changing) natural system.  Many millions of species disappeared in 5 well recorded mass extinction events as follows:

·         85% of species at the end of the Ordovician (~440 Ma);

·         80% of species at the end of the Devonian (~360 Ma);

·         96% of species at the end of the Permian (~252 Ma);

·         76% of species at the end of the Triassic (~201 Ma); and

·         The most famous of all ~75% of all species at the end of the Cretaceous (~66 Ma)

Many hundreds of small scale extinction events, some global and others local, are also recorded in the geological record.

Some of the causes of the mass extinction events are not known and are the subject of some debate.  So let’s consider the most famous and arguably best studied extinction event – the one that ended the 165 million year reign of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, 66 Ma.  It has now been fairly well established that an impact by a sizable projectile from space caused the abrupt end of the dinosaurs. Mammals co-existed with dinosaurs, but the removal of the dinosaurs from the ecological niches resulted in dramatic changes and the emergence and eventual dominance of mammals.

Suppose the projectile from space had missed earth instead of colliding with it? What would the earth be like today? Chances are that mammals would either be extinct or still eking out a precarious living on the fringes of a dinosaur dominated planet.  Now ask yourself, has a deity ever been observed pushing minor projectiles around in the cosmos/solar system?

This raises a profound question: how inevitable was the evolution of an intelligent mammalian life form, Homo Sapiens Sapiens?  Humans are quite literally the product of a cosmic accident (the impact of the Cretaceous projectile) 65 million years ago, coupled with literally hundreds of other chance events before and after the impact over millions/billions of years. The long geological record of extinctions and mass extinctions tells us in no uncertain terms that in the grand scheme of things Homo Sapiens are not the centre of all things and that extinction can happen tomorrow to any species.

And so, to get back to theism! In order to be a theist, someone who believes in an intervening, governing, organising deity, this is what you have to believe. You have to believe that 65 million years ago a deity steered on purpose, with full knowledge of 66 million years of evolution still ahead, a projectile of precisely the correct size, speed and energy, into precisely the correct spot on earth, at precisely the correct time in the evolutionary trajectory of species on earth, knowing that in doing so this would result in Christian, Islam, Hindu and thousands of other deities being worshipped by an intelligent mammalian species who would all “know” for sure their version of deity was the one who did the deed.

Tyrannosaurus rex, Palais de la Découverte, Paris

Now you need to apply your mind still further. Take the example above from the Cretaceous mass extinction and multiply that by the orders of magnitude of time 66 million years out of 4 500 million years of earth’s history (never mind the preceding 9 300 million years of universe history) and you will comprehend the staggering array and vastness of chance events that resulted in the existence of intelligent life on earth.

To think that some deity (and it appears no one knows exactly which one) had a hand in helping this along  at every step of the intricate path on a second by second basis is incomprehensible and nonsensical, even more so given the sheer immensity of the universe with over 200 billion stars in our own galaxy (Milky Way) and the billions of galaxies each with their billions of stars, most as it now transpires, with a multitude of orbiting planets.

Maybe geology does not provide conclusive proof that there is no God, but it certainly shows that the existence of a deity is highly improbable.

Imagining Unbelief

My grandmother was a sturdy soul.  Her life consisted of taking care of her demanding German husband, incessant cleaning of a spotless house, speculating about the conjunction of rain clouds and her arthritis, and calling the church rectory for updates on mass times and confession.  She came from a large, loud, tuneful Irish family, pronounced film as “filum” and laughed at jokes three minutes ahead of the punchline.  ”Hey Nonnie,” I would say, “Did you hear the one about the priest and the chiropractor?”  The laughing would start ere the words were out of my mouth.

She was patient, gullible, superstitious, carping and kind.  She didn’t like dogs or most of her neighbors, squinted at dust, sermons about Mary, and occasionally at me.  If she had secrets or dark corners to her existence they were buried with her and will remain forever unknown.

She now exists in photographs–often with the image of my grandfather standing in the background with a slight frown–not wishing to be in the picture but unwilling to move entirely out of range.

The photographs are important because when they were taken–mainly in the 1960′s–pictures were a bit of trouble: camera models, film, exposures (as in number of), light and focus were part of the vocabulary. No snapping your cellphone at any stationery or moving object that caught your fancy and then uploading images of you and your best friends by the dozen for the delectation of complete strangers.

I have a theory that the less complicated picture-taking and image- making have become the less sophisticated our memories and imaginations have become–a complaint some social theorists have leveled at “comprehensive” museums and zoos.  Imagination is not stretched.  Memory is not exercised.  Connecting impressionistic dots, sometimes captured years apart, is not required.  We live in the eternal present of the utterly familiar and the easily available Now. History is not needed to explain the familiar.  We know all about it. Thus history is a primary casualty of the widespread feeling that the unfamiliar–especially the past–is alien to the Now.

The tandem growth of religious illiteracy and EZ atheism emerges from the same matrix, one where what is “new” is regarded as good and what is old, or requires time, patience and interpretation, is regarded as irrelevant.  As the cultural gospel of America has always cherished this principle anyway (“A country without history for a people without memory”) the imagination crisis is especially prevalent in the USA.   Religious crudity is nowhere cruder or saturates politics more thoroughly or with greater dull predictability.  Discount atheism, especially of the new and in-your-face variety, is nowhere more disagreeable or less philosophical.

Henry Ford: "History is bunk."

It is enough for the American Catholic to know when the pancake breakfast begins (“after the 9 o’clock”), never mind the aesthetic torpor that his church offers as a sedative for his under-active conscience or the essentials of the faith he never bothered to learn.  It is enough for the liberal protestant to know that a collection is being taken up for Tsunami victims and for the conservative Christian to live in the cozy knowledge of Jesus’ saving grace–which entails the belief that abortion means killing babies and that Democrats want to demolish churches and put up mosques. It is enough for the atheist to see the deformed opinions of the religious majority as proof positive that he is right: God doesn’t exist and religion is for imbeciles.

The fact is, all four of the above have developed their beliefs through packthink.  Stem cell research does not entail killing babies.  America is not a Christian country.  Believing in God is not the same as belief in elves, fairies, and the Loch Ness Monster.  To be fair, the Catholic did not arrive at her position by reading Aquinas or the Protestant by reading Jonathan Edwards or the Muslim fanatic by reading Ibn Rushd or the atheist by reading Julian Huxley (an atheist supporter of Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit whohad read Aquinas).  They got there by reading pamphlets and the back end of cars.

Julian Huxley

What each group seems to be happy with is the discounted version of the “faith” they have chosen to embrace.  Coming “out” atheist, a mildly cool social stance similar to coming out gay in the nineties, requires the same level of intellectual commitment as coming out Christian, a mildly cool stance of the 1970′s when unseen forces (in Washington) convinced the believing masses they were in for a new persecution by neo-pagans, secular humanists and freedom-hating liberals.

Our presentism, symbolized in the free flow of limitless images and text messages, no longer needs ideas to survive.  That is why bumper stickers have replaced chapters in books as the all-you need-to know summation of belief and unbelief.  ”My Boss is A Jewish Carpenter,” “I Support a Baby’s Right to Choose.” “‘Worship Me or I will Torture You Forever’-God,” “Organized Religion: The World’s Biggest Pyramid Scheme.” The hostility among groups and even within groups is not about ideas but about what one side is prepared to believe about the other: fakery not fact, histories robbed of historical location and philosophical positions devoid of premises and analysis.  It is a contest for followers lifted out of the Forum and plonked down into the Colosseum–where both sides will eventually lose.

Which brings me back to the lessons we can learn from photographs.  It isn’t the case that religion has not evolved.  But it is the case that religion has been, in evolutionary terms, unsuccessful in explaining itself to the twenty-first century–and to much of the twentieth. The increasing drowsiness of the flock when it comes to core doctrines may be a blessing for beleaguered theologians who otherwise would have to go on defending what the faithful have ceased to care about.  ”Average” believers have defaulted to ground where they are more comfortable–to social issues and sexual ethics, buoyed by a thin belief in scriptural authority and a woeful lack of information about the warrants and religious justification for their commitments.  As religion can only thrive when its explanatory mechanisms are coping with change, its explanatory failure will ultimately prove to be catastrophic, and no new theological idiom will arise to save it.  In my opinion, this has already happened, and not only in liberal and radical circles.

This should serve to make atheism triumphant, but it doesn’t.  If theology has lost its voice and credibility, atheism has lost its imagination and coherence. It has done this by offering, instead of a vision of the godless future, the absurdities and atrocities of religion as the sum total of its own rectitude.  There is nothing wrong with itemizing the failures and hypocrisies of religion; but it does get repetitious after a while, and then the question becomes the Alfie question: What’s it all about?

And there is this detail: The errors-of-religion-motif does not originate with atheists but with religion.  It goes back to the reform movements of the late Middle Ages, and to the Reformation itself, unique among the chapters of western civilization in its brutal treatment of popes, doctrines and sacraments.

Reformation cartoon of the Pope as Antichrist

Religion has traditionally been the best ensurer of reforms within religion, controlling the excesses and extremities of the religious appetite for a thousand years.  It did this and was successful in keeping the beast from devouring its own tail by offering better ideas, different “truths,” a simplified diet and an accommodating attitude towards movements that would finally grow up, leave home, and not write back–secularism and humanism to name two.  What it never did, or was never prepared to do, was to offer no religion in lieu of bad religion.  It has survived into an era where many opponents have joined the chorus that all religion is bad religion.

Yet for atheists to assume that their rejection of God is anything more than an opinion based on snapshots of what they know about Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Protestants is a misshapen view of their accomplishment.

The aggregate outrages of religion do not constitute a proof of God’s non-existence, nor establish a moral case for atheism.  The accumulation and “sharing” of snapshots of things that are plainly ridiculous about religion does not enhance the claim that unbelievers are smarter than believers.  The documentation of error is not the same as the discovery of the truth.  Ridiculing the beliefs of our distant faith-obsessed ancestors or the profanity of violence that seems to soak the pages of the Hebrew Bible, and more recently the Qur’an, belongs to other centuries: it’s been done.  It’s good for a laugh, or a gasp, not for a lesson.

And a final thing. If the contemporary atheist is really interested in the harmful effects of religion, he is up against two truisms that run counter to evolutionary wisdom: the adaptability and survival of religion, despite texts and practices assumed to be harmful to human society, and the fact that atheism has so far struggled unsuccessfully to replace religion with a new diagram of human values.  Unlike Alvin Plantinga, I don’t regard these phenomena as real facts, as “evidential” of the truth of religion, or as reliable justifications of religion based on common sense.  This is because I haven’t the foggiest idea of what it means for religion to be “true” in the sense analytic philosophy comprehends the term.

But I do have idea of what values religion expresses idiomatically and crudely in ways that have occasionally challenged the human imagination.  If religion has a survivability quotient, that can be expressed in evolutionary terms, it is a human quotient.  In their independent ways, the atheist Julian Huxley and the believer Teilhard got that much right.

Blessed are the peacemakers...

I personally believe that the survival of religion can be explained in purely rational ways, and with no guarantee of lifespan.  I also happen to believe that atheism, if it is an informed and historically critical atheism–aware of its own past as well as of the religious past from which it artificially emerges–can develop new templates for human value that test the imagination in the same way that the interpretation of images and artefacts from the human past test, and are resolved in, the imagination through religion.

The elevation of atheism from opinion to something of much greater consequence begins when we see that belief and unbelief are aspects of the same reality.   Looked at in the starkest light, belief is only the other side of unbelief.  It is not a distinction that has the valence of right and wrong. It is pretty clear which came first, what images became dominant, which ones were lost in wars, through subjugation, and by assimilation.  Just like your family album when images were scarce, real and not easily improvable, the total picture of religion that the atheist is called upon to interpret is complex and requires a thoughtful charting of the distance between the rarefied image and the inquirer, a conversation between past and present which is more than an indictment of crimes.  It requires, as Gauguin said about imagination, “shutting your eyes in order to see.”

Arguments Against Atheism

As an atheist, you will occasionally meet a non-atheist who wishes to argue against your belief system. If you are interested in discussing the matter, you may want to prepare yourself by learning these simple responses to common anti-atheist arguments.

The Bible says that atheism is wrong.

"The Bible also says some guy's donkey talked."

If you believe in God and are wrong, then it's no big deal, but if you don't believe in God and are wrong, you'll be punished eternally, so it's not a good idea to be an atheist.

"What if you're wrong that God prefers unthinking self-righteous toadies to honest people who try and live a good life?"

Deep down you really believe in God.

"Deep down, you really don't believe that."

You're only saying you're an atheist to rebel against authority.

"And if the Beatles grew long hair to rebel against authority, then they really had no hair -- is that what you're saying?"

You probably are an atheist because you had a bad experience as a child.

"You probably worship God because you hate your real father."

There are no atheists in foxholes.

"Probably because we have less excuses to start wars."

If you don't believe in God, you'll go to Hell!

"If you don't stop believing in God right now, I'll punch you in the face."

Why are you mad at God?

"Because he's supposed to be all good but he doesn't even have the common decency to exist."

Atheists are Satanic.

"Just like theists are agnostic?"

Without God there is no morality.

"Are we talking about the God that ordered Moses to kill babies and asked people to set animals on fire because he liked the smell?"

God is perfect, and He couldn't be perfect if He didn't exist, which proves that He exists.

"No, it just proves he isn't perfect."

People who follow Jesus are good, so you should follow Jesus.

"Chemotherapy can cure cancer, so everyone should have chemotherapy."

Jesus was either a liar, a crazy person, or the son of God. He spoke against liars, and his behavior wasn't crazy, so the only remaining possibility is that he was the son of God.

"So you're telling me that if a polite, honest-looking, well-spoken, nicely dressed man walked up to you on the street and introduced himself as the earthly incarnation of God, you'd figure he probably is? Have you considered the possibility that you're the one who is crazy?"

There were eye witnesses that Jesus worked miracles.

"There are eye witnesses that Bigfoot exists, Uri Geller works miracles, and aliens abduct people."

Most people who know about Jesus believe in Him.

"If most people jumped off a bridge..."

I know from personal experience that God exists.

"No he doesn't. He told me so himself."

God wants you to believe in him without rational proof.

"Then he's certainly doing a fine job of not tempting me with evidence."

You say you don't believe that God exists, but the word "God" is meaningless if there is no such thing, so you are admitting that God exists even as you deny his existence.

"That reminds me, I don't believe you owe me $100."

Hitler was an atheist.

"I don't know about Hitler's religion, but I do know that he was heterosexual, so can I assume you're against that, too?"

Einstein believed in God. Do you think you're smarter than Einstein?

"If he believed in God, yes."

The founding fathers intended the United States to be a Christian nation. Atheists aren't welcome.

"Are you sticking with the whole 'slavery' thing, too?"

The universe is so complex that someone must have designed it.

"I don't know -- that sentence was fairly complex but there was obviously not much thought behind it."

Atheists believe in evolution, but if we teach our children evolution in public school they will believe that they are no better than animals and will grow up immoral.

"I've met public school children. Most of them aren't any better than animals."

Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.

"No, but God does."

Well, evolution's only a theory.

"So's your old man."

How can you not believe in Jesus Christ when the evidence is overwhelming?

"Well, Jesus's divinity is only a theory."

There's proof that God exists, like the Bible and miracles.

"If your twenty-year-old son still believes in Santa Claus because he read a book about Santa visiting and presents magically appeared on Christmas morning when he was a child, would you praise him for having faith in the face of overwhelming evidence or call him an idiot?"

My parents raised me to believe in God. Are you calling my parents liars?

"Can we talk about the Tooth Fairy for a minute?"

There are so many wonderful things in the world, how can you say there is no God?

"It's really pretty easy: 'There is no god.' See?"

There is so much beauty in the world that only God could have created it.

"My wife's beautiful, and my mother-in-law made her."

If there is no Heaven, then where do you go when you die?

"The same place you were before you were conceived, I assume."

You can't prove God doesn't exist.

"So?"

You don't know everything.

"Do you?"

You can't see air, but you believe in it.

"I can't see ignorance, but I can smell it. Right now, in fact."

You can't see love, but you believe in it.

"And I agree that god, like love, is just a concept."

God made His image appear in this tortilla!

(Eats tortilla)

You call yourself an atheist but you have faith. Everyone has faith in something.

"I have faith that this conversation isn't going anywhere. Bye!"

What Is Wrong with Religion?

Objections to ‘Faith’ Now hope that is seen is not hope,for who hopes for what he sees? Romans 8:24–25

 There are thousands of variations of religion, which suggests that its roots lies in something inherent in the human animal brain, albeit a misinterpretation of some natural by-product of natural selection but the fact that there are so many variations attests to its falsehood.They can’t all be right. It is perhaps an artefact of expanding consciousness or an expression of humanity wondering about its place in the universe but one that is observed through religious falsehood. We all may share a sense of the numinous but it doesn’t mean we’re all right about its interpretation. Why should Christianity be any more relevant than Navaho beliefs?  Only because certain men say it is and nothing more. 
When backed into a corner the theist will then produce what he considers to be his trump card. That trump card is ‘faith’. By using the word ‘faith’, the theist is actually agreeing with the atheist. ‘You’re right,there is no evidence that proves my god exists.’ Faith is the last redoubt, the last rampart to hide behind.As there is no evidence for god, the atheist is told, often in patronisin tones, to accept the vacuous idea of faith, which is nothing more than wishful thinking. Faith is a desire, a hope that something might turn out to be true against all evidence to the contrary. A theist may believe that god exists, may have faith, but nothing is there save dreams and phantoms.

 Bertrand Russell said:

We may define ‘faith’as a firm belief in something for
which there is no evidence. When there is evidence,no one
speaks of ‘faith’. We do not speak of faith that two and two
are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when
we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.


Something quite bizarre as well as revealing happens when a priest lectures his congregation about faith.What he or she is saying is that it’s better to believe through faith than evidence because there isn’t any of the latter. It’s an admission that the answers are unavailable. Faith is a magician’s trick, a sleight of hand used to confuse and befuddle. Derren Brown, in his televi- sion programmes, tells the audience that all he does depends on mind tricks and psychology. If only the priesthood could be that honest. Interestingly, in one of his shows, Derren Brown used psychological techniques to make believers out of atheists and atheists out of believers. If it’s that easy, surely religious experi- ence has a more prosaic source than believers contend. Put simply, theists have been duped.


When a man who, say, is supposed to have killed his wife is brought before a court, the jury demand evidence for the charge – even a jury made up entirely of theists. No one would accept the accusation of murder if the prosecution said they had no evidence to back it up but they did have faith that he was the murderer. Nothing else, just faith. Not a court in the land would find the alleged murderer guilty. But this is exactly what happened in the witch trials. The prosecution in such cases were simply acting on faith. Look at the destruction their faith caused. If all the theist has is faith, they have nothing at all.


Dan Barker in Losing Faith in Faith:From Preacher to Atheist wrote:




The only proposed answer was faith, and I gradually grew to dislike the smell of that word. I finally realized that faith is a cop-out,a defeat – an admis- sion that the truths of religion are unknowable through evidence and reason. It is only undemonstrable assertions that require the suspension of reason, and weak ideas that require faith. I just lost faith in faith. Biblical contra- dictions became more and more discrepant,apologist arguments more and more absurd and, when I finally discarded faith,things became more and more clear.



Faith is often a motivator for war. We have seen this  in the invasion of Iraq. President Bush talks about faith in his actions and faith in god who told him to invade. Stirring up the national psyche on the basis of faith is both idiotic and lethal. People die over unsubstantiated nonsense. (How can that be moral?) Faith can supposedly move mountains but why does that have to include mass slaughter? Through faith, humanity can be duped into religious or political compliance.


God’s Benevolence?
Charity shall cover the multitude of sins… 
Peter. 4: 8 

Is God willing to prevent evil,but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able,but not willing? then he is malevolent.Is he both able and
willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Epicurus

Theists claim that many of their charity organisations look after the needy, the hungry and those less fortunate.This is admirable indeed but does it not involve an implicit statement that their god is pretty useless? If he was a benevolent entity, why are there all the hungry children dying by their thousands every day? Some claim that the suffering are there to teach man a lesson – to be better people. Evil teaches humanity the ideas of good.This is a disgusting concept – that most of the world should suffer in order for others to learn from their misfortunes.This excuse is the last refuge of the worst kind of theistic apologist.

As Douglas E. Krueger writes in What is Atheism?:

God must not be too bright,on this view,if he can’t
think of any way to impart knowledge of good other
than to slaughter billions of people throughout human
history.If god is omnipotent why can’t he just put the
idea of good into our heads,without killing someone?

How easy would that be, for a god? If he wants us to worship him as a benevolent deity, then why all the death and destruction, often done in his name? In the universe of an omnipotent, loving deity, all would be well. If, as the old expression has it, there are no atheists in foxholes, how is it that god allowed the country to be at war in the first place when thousands of people, including theists, would necessarily die?
 One of the oldest and most obvious forms of evidence for the non-existence of god is the prevalence of evil in the world. How can a deity or deities who claim to be all-powerful, and benevo- lent, allow such horrors to continue.Theists have tied them- selves in knots to explain this but have yet to come up with anything remotely like a common sense answer.They never will. The old cop out – that ‘it’s just god moving in a mysterious way’– is lazily employed.The more stupid argument is that god gave us evil so that we can be better people. Innocents have to die in order to make us better individuals. It would be hard to find anything more blindly arrogant than that belief.Three-year-old children die lonely deaths, far from home, at the hands of murderers just so we can learn about god? Six million Jews, homosexuals, intellectuals, atheists, and handicapped people die in the gas chambers so we can know god? A suicide bomber sets off his bomb in a crowded market so we can understand god? This is truly despicable thinking and brooks no excuses.
 It should be noted that theists like to attribute the word ‘evil’ to events such as tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, floods and droughts.These are not evil.They are part of the natural processes of the Earth.A devil does not stoke magma beneath Mount Etna.These occurrences are what they are – amoral events in the natural world – and labelling them as evil provides further evidence of humanity’s ridiculous and juvenile predilec- tion for anthropomorphising everything.

Religion as a False Construct of Myth
The Christian religion not only was at first attended
by miracles,but even at this day cannot be believed
by any reasonable person without one.
David Hume, 
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. 
Stanley Kubrick

We have seen how, in the very short period of time since 1947, the UFO myth has been blown out of all proportion.The reporter who spoke of Kenneth Arnold’s experience of witnessing ‘strange craft’ near Mount Rainier in 1947 – the event which kickstarted the modern UFO craze – was the one who described them as ‘flying saucers’.Arnold did not. It would be interesting to see how things would have turned out had the reporter said ‘flying oblongs’ in his radio broadcast.Would ‘flying oblongs’ have become the norm of observed phenomena? Distortions are often the root of myths and legends – and of religion. 
 In the case of flying saucers, a mistake, (much like the idea of the ‘virgin birth’, or The Great Commission i.e. the big monothe- istic religions just out to convert people which is nothing more than a mistranslation of the Greek word, matheteuo – to teach), has developed into full-blown myth.The whole flying saucer ‘mystery’, like all pseudo-scientific and religious beliefs, is the result of one long game of Chinese whispers.Take the Roswell incident, for example. Not only is this now a massive money- spinner but also a whole religio-philosophy has been built up around something that never happened.A myth was born and, over the relatively short time frame of 60 years, it has become a legend far greater than the sum of it parts.The Roswell incident has been explained – it was the consequence of a top-secret nuclear detection system under the code name Project Mogul – but there are countless believers out there who refuse to accept this and are on their own quest for the ‘truth’.
People have great difficulty in reaching, or perhaps are unwilling to reach, consensus about something that happened in less than the span of a lifetime.The Kennedy assassination is another classic example. How infinitely more difficult is it to say with certainty what happened two thousand years ago? The passage of time has allowed the myths that make up religion to propagate, develop and evolve until the sources are lost, the truth (if ever there was any) confounded, muted and conspired against even more thoroughly than the truth about the events of Deeley Plaza in 1963. To use any religious book as a reliable source of history is profoundly wrong.
Religion, as a creation, behaves very much like the Star Trek universe or Middle Earth.A basic set of characters and ideas are drawn up which are then added to over the years by fans, adher- ents etc. Plots are discussed and debated, character motivations highlighted and pondered, and the morality at the heart of the show or book takes on great significance.The true meanings of the programmes or stories (if any) deepen as time progresses. Star Trek fans meet up and swap icons of the show.There are even some deluded theists who, in one of Christianity’s countless spin- off stories, believe that one day they too are going be‘beamed up’.Star Trek probably has greater relevance to the real world than religion. In many respects, it was not afraid to tackle social issues of all kinds – from acceptance of homosexuality (something the church won’t always do!) to the basic rights of man.And one only has to watch documentaries such as Trekkies to see how seriously followers of the show take it – Klingons doing charity work!
What about the Land of Mordor? Does it exist? There are many books that refer to such a place.There are films that also back up this claim, as well as websites and computer and role- playing games. So Sauron’s a real entity then? Or the ring of power? Some Tolkienites perhaps wish all this to be true; some might actually believe it to be. But is Middle-earth a real place? Well, no. Of course not, and it would be madness to claim that it is. But why stop there? Writers, filmmakers and fans for over 60 years have added to the characters and the history of the make-believe realm, beefing up its ‘reality’.Who is to say that religions might not spring up from Tolkien’s world? 
But the bible’s full of real places, the theists claim. So is Star Trek– San Francisco
Picard really exist? How about Adam or Noah? In short, why should one set of fairy tales be taken as (pun intended) gospel truth while others are seen for what they are – invention. Religion offers comfort? So does Star Trek to countless numbers of fans. So does any myth-based construct.What makes religious myths any more believable? Nothing. 

The freethinker WS Ross (1844–1909), who became an atheist after reading the bible during his studies for the ministry, wrote:
Jack and the beanstalk was just as suitable for the nucleus
of a religious system as Christ and his cross;but the one
has been taken and the other left.

Exactly.

Will Self’s novel,The Book of Dave, is about a London taxi driver who, 500 years in the future, becomes the unwitting instigator of a religion based on writings to his son that he left buried in the garden.This is probably nearer the truth in reflecting the source of their own holy book than any theist would admit.
There is something dangerous and sinister about myths being used to execute great crimes against humanity.What if people used Lord of the Rings as an excuse to murder people of short stature? Silly example? Maybe not.

Just Why Does the Church Fear Atheism?
Peter pumpkin head came to town
Spreading wisdom and cash around
Fed the starving and housed the poor
Showed the Vatican what gold’s for
But he made too many enemies Of the people who would keep us On our knees…
XTC,
The Ballad of Peter Pumpkin Head

 Why is the church so opposed to atheism? This question is rarely asked, if at all.There are, perhaps, several reasons.The most obvious one is that we are told the lie, repeated so often that it is unquestioned, that society’s morality is on the line if we give up faith.This is obvious nonsense. It is evident that religious morality is dubious at best – certainly it is contradictory and muddled. Being willing slaves to a capricious deistic monster is hardly the best way to live but that is exactly how theists who see no harm in mental dictatorship tell us we are supposed to act. 
Theists often make the claim that god has given us free will so that we can make our own minds up.Then, of course, they say he will punish us if we don’t believe in him.They say their god has given us the ability to think for ourselves but that he punishes us for free thought. Numerous theologians – cheery Martin Luther among them – have stated that believers must crush all reason so that they may know god.‘Give up thinking’, in other words.This makes a mockery of the idea that god has given us free will.‘Stop thinking and you can believe anything we tell you.’ This is immoral, to say the least.
Is it more likely that those who preach from the pulpit are the ones living in fear? That in their hearts they know it for what it really is? Surely, theologians who take empty degrees in theism must read about the biblical forgeries, the arguments that it’s all myth, that most of the characters in the bible didn’t exist and have no basis in archaeology or are at best, like Herod who has been re-imagined as a kind of Hollywood villain, gross misrepresentations.
 Do theologians fear the dark? (Yes.) Do they fear that the universe is an amoral place? (It is.) Do they fear that, if humanity was wiped out by natural disaster (or fundamentalist religion), everything would carry on regardless? (It would – without so much as batting the proverbial eyelid.) That we are insignificant on the cosmological scale? (We are.)
The most treasured elements of society are its freedoms and its power of democracy – religion offers neither. Religion is seen as part of the democratic process when it is nothing of the sort. Democracy is not something religious people, particularly at the fundamentalist end of the spectrum, genuinely like. In democracy, we are free to pick and choose but religion, because of the constricting system under which it operates, will not tolerate such freedoms.Theists of all faiths fear the loss of power.
At heart maybe those who shout the most about atheism, science and evolution are the ones who fear that something they believe in may very well turn out to be utter twaddle. (They are right to fear. It is.) Darwinian evolution, which necessarily goes hand in hand with atheism, is one big spotlight to illuminate the dark.That darkness, in the hands of theists, is a powerful tool for compliance.

As Steven Pinker writes in The Blank Slate: 

The religious opposition to evolution is fuelled by
several moral fears.Most obviously,the fact that
evolution challenges the literal truth of the creation
story in the bible and thus the authority religion
draws from it.As one creationist minister put it,
‘If the bible gets it wrong in biology,then why
should I trust the bible when it talks about morality
and salvation’…

The minister shouldn’t, of course.The bible is full of immorality, contradiction and savagery. In fact, to draw inspiration for morality from such a flawed work is a dubious practice at best. Any serious theologian, worth their pillar of salt, knows this.To deny this fact is to deny the very substance of a book that defies reason.

 As Thomas Paine declared: 

 Whenever we read the obscene stories,the voluptuous
debaucheries,the cruel and torturous executions,the
unrelenting vindictiveness,with which more than half
the Bible is filled,it would be more consistent that we
called it the word of a demon,than the word of God.
It is a history of wickedness,that has served to corrupt
and brutalise mankind;and,for my part,I sincerely
detest it,as I detest everything that is cruel.

Is it not likely, though, that men in positions of power simply do not want to lose their exulted pontifical posts? Would the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury give up their power and wealth and live in caves? Of course not.Why doesn’t the Vatican and the Church of England lead by example and sell its stocks, shares and assets and actually make a genuine difference in the world by sharing it with the poor. Surely that is the height of Christian benevolence, the highest moral good. 
Theists attempt to fill our minds with strident lies, among them the idea that non-believers perform great evils. Greater evil has been perpetrated by theists (often in collaboration with those they claim to despise) in the name of their myths.They revel in their ability to scare us – they demand conformity through fear. Isn’t there something psychologically perverse about that?
Pope Benedict XVI has been condemning the creeping rejection of Catholicism in South America by using scare tactics about Marxist ideology, which appears to be on the rise as a bulwark against interfering American foreign policy and Papal domination. Being a conservative, the Pope is keen to reassert theistic domination, which he thinks is better for the people. (He has stated that Catholicism is the ‘one true way’, how so?) As well as claiming, erroneously, that the people were ‘silently crying out’ for Christianity (such startling hubris and arrogance!), he’s resorting to tinkering with history (not the first or last time) and spouting the old and hideously false maxim, Ecclesia non novit sanguinem (‘the Church is untainted by blood’) in an effort to play down the role of the Catholic Church in supporting Conquistadors such as Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro who ravaged the continent and put to death great numbers of the indigenous peoples in the name of Christianity in the sixteenth century. Or the destructive extremism of the fanatical Spanish monk, Diego de Landa, who, after burning many of the priceless books of the Maya, compounded his assault on their culture by becoming interested in their system of writing but in the process making a real and insulting hash of it.The Catholic Church’s power base in the continent is under threat and powerful organisations resent rejection. Power and control are at stake.
 It may very well be that in this case, as in others in the past, a mixture of theism and politics, god and mammon, has come together in a neo-con, anti-Marxist political manoeuvre to keep an influence over (oil) resources – especially those of Venezuela. Whatever one thinks of Chavez, he is keen to keep foreign inter- ference out of his country. Wouldn’t any country want that?
Simply put, many theologians have an all-too-human love of their exalted positions.There is nothing more potent than the combination of god, money and power.Atheism threatens to take that away.There are many theists out there who really do think we have souls and that they are under threat if we disbelieve in the ‘sky fairy’. But they are surrendering themselves to archaic fears. We must always ask, what have theists got to lose?

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