Selected articles from Dave’s Blog
Reprinted here with Dave’s Permission
Simple Solution to Iraq Constitution - Do What America Did
Intelligent
Design Has Missing Link
It's
Religious Wars, Not Culture Wars
Religion
is Harmless Until People Take it Seriously
Why Keep Government and Religion Separate?
Religious Values Defeat American Values
Constitutional Amendment Separating State and Superstition
Agnostic is the same as Atheist
Science is the search for objective truth. How do we know if
something is objectively true? By testing
it.
If it cannot be tested, then it is NOT
science.
Objective truth is important because we know objective truth
is actually true. Religious truth has no credibility. If religious truth had any
value for finding what is actually true then we would allow religious testing
into areas of life where it is currently banned, such as our drug testing
methodology. In
If we didn't use objectivity to verify the truth of our ideas our
medical doctors would still be using leeches to bleed sick people because they
"believed" in the technique and didn't bother to test their theory.
This
is why "intelligent design" cannot be called science, because it cannot be
tested. If it cannot be tested then it simply has no credibility and doesn't
deserve further consideration. Anybody could sit down for one day and dream up
500 different hypothetical supernatural origins for the universe and none of
those 500 hypothesis would be worth investigating
without at least a shred of evidence to begin with. In fact, that's exactly
where religion came from - superstitious, ignorant men who believed the earth
was flat sitting around several thousand years ago dreaming up
fantasies.
Here is a graphic example of the difference between science
and religion. Imagine you wake up and find yourself isolated in a white room.
When you went to sleep everything was normal and you have no idea how you got
into the white room. The religious approach would be to curl up in a ball in the
corner of the room and pray. The truly devout would accept the new condition as
god's will and simply wait for god to make his next
move. The scientific approach would be to start thinking and reasoning. The
rational person would reason that he isn't dead yet so someone must have put him
in the room for a purpose. He would hypothesize that someone might be monitoring
him and he would shout to see if he could get some attention. He might bang on
the walls to see what they're made of and and test for
an escape route. We could go on and on but, hopefully, you get the point. The
religious approach is to ignore reality and just believe whatever you want to
believe but the scientific (aka rational, logical,
objective) approach is to think and reason and try to understand the world and
perform tests and experiments to verify if our understanding is
correct.
But what if we find out that gods really do exist? If any gods
would reveal their existence then all rational people would believe in gods.
Suppose the gods revealed themselves to us and proved to us they have unlimited
supernatural powers. Then rational people would believe in the existence of
all-powerful gods and supernatural power (actually, it would then be considered
natural, not supernatural). But the next question would be this, do these gods deserve our respect? An objective, unbrainwashed reading of the christian bible shows that the god of christianity is a vile, filthy, evil god who deserves to be
killed, not worshipped. The god of christianity is filthy because the christian myth was created by filthy-minded, superstitious,
ignorant men who believed the earth was flat.
At this point in time, the
existence of god is just like the existence of space aliens - there may be a lot
of people who believe but there simply isn't a speck of evidence. A few
centuries ago most people believed the earth was flat. Clearly, millions of
people believing something does not make it
true.
Is there any supernatural claim in any religion that can be
objectively tested and shown to be true? No. Not even one. Therefore, believing
in god is unscientific because it is a belief that can't be tested and for which
there is no evidence.
The intelligent design proponents say that life is too
complex to have evolved naturally so it must have a designer. Their favorite
example is an ordinary watch. If you find a watch on the beach, they say, you
know it is too complex and its purpose too intentional to be a random creation
of nature - therefore it must have been designed by some sort of
intelligence.
But you know the watch is designed precisely because you
recognize it is not natural! You can see it is not a product of nature. Nature
doesn't produce such things. Nature produces things like mountains, rivers,
planets, solar systems, gravity, electricity, nuclear forces, animals, insects
and all manner of living things. Nature does not produce watches. You can look
at a watch, see it is not natural and therefore conclude it was designed by
an intelligence.
The missing link: How do you
look at nature and conclude it is not natural so it must be designed? How do we
jump from: "a watch is not natural so we know it must be designed by
intelligence" -to- "nature is complicated so it must be designed by
intelligence"? There is simply no analogy whatsoever between these two
things.
The intelligent design argument really just boils down to this,
"hey dude, nature (aka reality) is complicated and I
don't understand it so I will assume there is a god that created
everything."
The funny thing is, many natural things are complicated yet
we don't assume a supernatural creature is behind them. For example, have you
ever seen a dust devil? They are like miniature tornados and I've seen many of
them in
The intelligent design proponents think a god is the
only possible explanation for the existence of the universe but they can't
explain where god came from in the first place anymore than anyone else can
explain where matter and energy came from. We simply don't know. So, why does
the intelligent design proponent stop with just one god? If there is one, there
could just as easily be many. Perhaps there is a whole plethora of gods with
some more powerful than others. Or perhaps they are all equally omniscient and
omnipotent. But if they are all omnipotent, could one of them kill all the
others? Maybe one of them is an evil bastard and killed all the other gods and
that's why there is only one wacko god creature who feels the need to have
insignificant humans worship him. He's an unethical ego maniac. Perhaps the one
remaining god died and that's why we haven't seen hide nor hair of him in several thousand years.
If we
continue contemplating the possible existence of one or more gods, will we ever
figure out an answer? Nope. So what's the point in wasting intellectual energy
on something that may or may not exist but for which there is no evidence and
which is unprovable and untestable? The world and the universe seem to work
according to natural laws that, as far as we know, have never been broken. If
there exists a supernatural creature with supernatural powers who is not subject to the laws of nature, why don't we wait
until he shows himself before we start making all kinds of assumptions about his
possible existence and the existence of others like him?
And if some
people say this supernatural creature has already shown himself as Jesus Christ,
then where's the proof? The christian bible says that
if a person has even a tiny bit of faith the size of a mustard seed and asks god
to move a mountain, the mountain will be moved. The christian bible also says (Mark 16:16) that if a person
believes in Jesus Christ and is baptized he will be able to heal the sick by a
mere touch with his hands. Funny that christians don't
question why the catholic pope is unable to heal his own Parkinson's disease.
So, in the presence of all these claims of supernatural power yet in the
complete absense of any demonstration of supernatural
power, I challenge the christians to show that their
faith is true and that god exists. Let's set a date and time and do a
demonstration on national or worldwide television. Let's get the pope, president
Bush, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, all
the religious leaders and all the believers in all the world to pray for one
simple little demonstration that god really exists. Let's have 4 billion people
simultaneously praying for the same little thing. Let them pray and ask god to
levitate a penny just a few inches above the ground. If the penny levitates,
then god exists. If not, then they can still believe in their mythological god
but at least they won't be suffering under the illusion that prayer actually
works. Of course, the pope and the president and all the believers will not
accept this challenge. They know deep in their hearts it won't work. They'll say
we're not supposed to test god even though their god supposedly would move a
mountain for them if they asked.
Monday, March 21,
2005
Friday, February 25,
2005
The christian religion in one form
or another has been in
What is
the difference between a religious fundamentalist and a religious moderate? The
fundamentalist takes his religion seriously, believes deeply, and follows
absolutely. When the religion says kill nonbelievers, the fundamentalist follows
the command. Both the Koran and the christian bible
order believers to kill nonbelievers. The only difference between the 9/11
terrorists and the religious republicans in
Religion is mostly harmless
as long as nobody takes it seriously. When people allow their religious
superstition to rule ceremonies and funerals but rely on reason and science to
guide their actions and government, life goes on. But when people allow
religious superstition to rule government then all hell will break
loose!
The pope just had an emergency tracheotomy last night to save his
life. Clearly, when his life is on the line, he and his followers trust medical
science more than they trust god. Any time the outcome is clear, objective and
indisputable, all people, religious or otherwise, trust reason and science over
their religious superstition. It's only when something is vague, unclear and
subjective that any person in the world is willing to put their faith to the
test. Clearly, faith is unprovable, unreliable, untestable and therefore, of no value in reality.
Yet
faith is destroying
So, now religion is coming out of the closet and out of the church
and starting to have more than mere ceremonial influence in our lives. The last
time this happened it was called the dark ages. Superstition ruled and the
church murdered millions and people suffered on a massive scale. Allowing
religious superstition to rule in the nuclear age is not a good idea.
Why Keep Government and Religion
Separate?
Sunday,
January 02, 2005
Would you want your government run
by people who relied on astrology? How about electing a psychic as president?
What about a president who makes all decisions based on Tarot cards or the
voodoo pattern formed by casting some chicken bones on the floor?
So, you
wouldn't want a president to take us to war based on a hand of Tarot cards? Why
not? Could it be because you don't believe in Tarot cards? Why don't you believe
in Tarot cards? Is it because you've never seen any evidence to suggest Tarot
cards can truly predict the future? Exactly what is the evidence you've seen to
suggest the existence of anything supernatural at all?
Here's a good
little experiment: Ask a religious person how he knows his religion is correct
and other religions are wrong. After wading through some diversionary chaff,
there are really only two possible answers:
In
other words, belief in religion is not based on evidence or reality or reason.
Belief in religion is based on nothing. People just choose to believe because
they want to believe.
If religion is not based on evidence or reason, how
do you confirm it is right or wrong? If you can't confirm a religion is right or
wrong, how can you interpret the subtle and detailed meaning and intent of
thousand-year-old gibberish?
The bottom line is this: religion boils
down to mob rule. It has to be mob rule because it is not based on reason or
evidence. You can't assert a religious position by being brilliant with logic
since logic has nothing to do with it. Whoever gets the most followers is the
leader of the mob and is the one who decides religious matters. That's why Islam
has its sharia and christianity has its tele-evangelists. They are the leaders of the mob and they
decide what the religion is all about and how to interpret the thousand-year-old
gibberish.
So, if religion controls government, it means that government
is controlled by a mob. This is just another form of dictatorship. A religious
theocracy is really just a religious dictatorship.
Religion is a weed
growing in the brain attacking the natural human capacity to reason logically
and think clearly. It starts small but eventually it will take over and corrupt
and destroy all that is good in human intelligence.
Like a weed,
religion needs to be stamped out while some of us can still think clearly like
rational human beings.
Religious Values
Defeat American Values
Wednesday,
November 03, 2004
Bush won, consummating the victory
of religious values over American values.
Separation of church and state
was one of the original and foundational American values second in importance
only to the right of free speech. Both will be under attack in the next four
years. Electing Bush to a second term is a nail in
The religion virus has spread so far and wide in
Now, this clown in the white house will be
convinced he has a mandate from god to further tear down the wall between church
and state.
The last time religion ruled, it was
called the dark ages.
There is a possible silver lining - the
president's god squad might get so fanatical in the next 4 years that it becomes
painfully obvious we need a constitutional amendment separating government from
even the slightest hint of religion.
Constitutional
Amendment Separating State and Superstition
Monday,
May 31, 2004
A
few hundred years ago, the major religions were each huge evil empires with
their own armies and the power to control countries and to imprison and torture
people.
Those were the dark ages with crusades and inquisitions and
rampant religious superstition. Fortunately those days are gone.
I never
understood how the world could allow such evil. It's inconceivable that church
leaders could command armies and commit acts of torture and murder. I thought it
could never happen in the modern world because people can never be that
superstitious again.
Now I see the Bush regime trying to impose a christian Taliban on
A couple things are very obvious:
It's time for a new
constitutional amendment establishing Separation of State and
Superstition.
We have the 1st amendment but it's not strong
enough. We need a new amendment that says clearly, once and for all, government
will not get entangled with any organization that has even the appearance of
religion.
Here are some of the principles the new amendment should
establish:
In a nutshell, government should
be driven by objective reasoning, not religious
superstition.
Agnostic is the
same as Atheist
Sunday,
February 22, 2004
The
conventional definitions are that an agnostic is one who believes it is
impossible to prove the existence of a god whereas an atheist is one who says
there is no god.
Are these really different definitions?
No! They
are really the same thing! If there were a good reason to believe in god then
both the atheist and the agnostic would be believers. They are both
non-believers due to a lack of evidence or reason to believe. In fact, if there
existed reasonable evidence for the existence of god
then all rational people would be believers and the non-believers would be the
wackos instead of the other way around.
The
atheist says there is no god is because there has never been any evidence for
the existence of a god. The atheist does not hold to his belief due to faith or
conviction in his heart. He simply refuses to believe in something when there is
absolutely no evidence or reason to believe in it. If the atheist were to say
there is no god simply out of emotional desire to believe that way then, in
fact, he would be acting the same as a religious person and could properly be
called a religious atheist (also known as a superstitious wacko).
The
agnostic says he does not believe in the existence of god because it can't be
proved. He says it can't be proved because, duh, it can't be proved and there is
no evidence for it.
If there were evidence for the existence of god, then
there would be no need for faith since faith is
believing something when there is no evidence or reason to believe in it.
If there were evidence for the existence of god then both the agnostic and the
atheist would believe in god. They are logically the same thing.
The
bottom line: the agnostic is an atheist trying to avoid confrontation or else is
sheepishly trying to cover his bets out of fear that if he's wrong, he will be
tortured in burning fire for eternity by a "benevolent" god and
thinking that perhaps, if he doesn't explicitly deny the existence of god he
might have a chance to avoid hell. The agnostic knows in his rational human mind
there is no god but is afraid to say so directly. In other words, an agnostic is
just a cowardly atheist.
Mike
Newdow put it much more
succinctly:
The
distinction [between atheist and agnostic] may be illusory. An atheist denies
the existence of god; the agnostic claims that the existence cannot be known.
Thus, the agnostic (in actuality) denies the existence of the proof just as the
atheist denies the existence of the entity. In any event, both are saying that
no proof exists to justify a belief in god, and both would believe in god were
such proof to arise.
Dave’s
site:
Separation of State and
Superstition