Introduction

I've often considered writing a page or two about religion, but have decided against, primarily to avoid an inbox full of religious quotes and threats from the 'righteous' believers. However, with the growing threats from the various religious groups to freedoms everywhere, I've now decided to bite the bullet and add my voice to the growing clamour for the rule of reason in the world.

I don't have the command of language, or the insightful logic, or the witty turn of phrase of the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris or the myriad of newly popular atheist writers; I can only offer my own experiences and perspectives, and whilst these are unlikely to be novel, they may be of use or interest to someone.

It would also be foolish of me to try to offer the sort of exhaustive analysis of religious material offered by some long standing websites, instead I'll link to the many sites used in recent years as my atheism has honed its rational edge. Living here in the UK, my main experience has been with the Christian world and that may be reflected in my writing. However, unlike the majority of believers, I have not only read various versions of the Bible, but also the Qur'an, the Tanakh, book of Mormon and religious material from the majority of the other well known world religions. I have also taken time out to research the history of the various religious texts both from religious champions and more academic sources which some view as neutral or even hostile.

For the trolls and preachers out there, I am not inviting comment or dialogue with anyone, but if you feel compelled to invade my inbox on the subject of religion you must accept that such action gives me permission to publish any or all of such material, probably to be held to ridicule. To anyone who may write in the spirit of enquiry I will attempt to answer as soon as possible.

Where do I stand on religion?

Labels are always problematic, as they rarely mean exactly the same thing to different people, so I try to avoid them, but I've come to embrace the label atheist, despite the way it is often used and abused by some religious illiterates. I've seen nothing that raises the likelihood of the existence of any supernatural being, including any god, above the infinitesimally small probability everyone would associate with flying pink unicorns. Like all of a scientific persuasion who are continually open to new evidence it doesn't preclude me in the meantime being prepared to round the infinitesimally small probability down to zero for most practical purposes.

With my broadly scientific upbringing I cling to the principle that if you propose some hypothesis you have the burden of proof, and have to offer evidence to support it. In the case of the various god hypotheses it is clear for all to see that the only evidence offered is various 'religious' texts(often of dubious origin and later revision) and anecdotal and/or emotional experiences, nothing in the slightest compelling.

The religious often like to point to the many "miracles" performed by their god. They will quote stories of people afflicted by all sorts of misfortune and disease who's prayers have been "answered" and been miraculously healed; note that they are not so keen to highlight the much larger number of prayers that remain "unanswered". There are many documented cases of the body's immune system performing remarkable feats of recovery, and there are too many cases of illnesses being mis-diagnosed so there is always at least some doubt in these cases. However, why won't god restore missing limbs? A simple question, but a quite telling one. It is hard to mis-diagnose a missing limb and we have never experienced a human limb spontaneously regrowing, so there would be no possible doubt in such a case. There must be many with missing limbs at least as worthy of god's help as some of the others claimed to have received such a miracle, so why doesn't it happen?

It is important to understand the nature of any god under discussion. If the god in question is of the deist kind, the initial cause of the big bang who takes no further part in the world, then there is no way to disprove this sort of god. One can resort to Occam's razor and point out that the existence of an eternal entity is less efficient than accepting that the universe(in whatever form) may be eternal, but the argument is hardly worth having as that form of believer has no oppressive agenda. The problems arise from those who think they have some 'truth' that they feel obliged to impose on others.

It has often been pointed out to the religious who feel that they have the only 'truth', that if they'd been born in another part of the world their 'truth' would be something completely different. Try to explain to the fervent believer, of whatever persuasion, that they are 'atheist' with respect to the tens of thousands of other gods proposed by others, and that you have merely added their one to the list, but don't hold your breath!

When we get down to specific religions, rather than the abstract ill defined concept of god, then we can prove them to be contradictory and often factually in error, and thus highly unlikely to be the inerrant text from a supreme, omnipotent god that the believer would profess. The major religious texts are surprisingly littered with contradictions; you'd expect better from texts that had been around so long and edited on so many occasions! If you're interested in checking some of them out you could do worse than look at Skeptics annotated bible, major repository of contradictions and un-Christian values in the bible now expanded to cover the Qur'an and the book of Mormon. You could also visit Biblical innerancy at liberalslikechrist or 101 contradictions in the bible or the more in your face site Evil Bible.



My personal journey through religions and mythology.
The historicity of Jesus, separating belief from historical fact.


Other religious links that may be worth a look.