The Antichristian Phenomenon

I have discussed the nature of God and his desires for quite some time with Christians. I have always searched for examples to help convey my points. I have recently worked on a logical exercise that deals with concepts of infinity; however, I don’t believe that paper is as complete as it could be. As a direct result I think I have developed an example that really drives the point home about God’s notions of “justice” and “love”.

I should forewarn the reader that I am a mathematics major and as such, I have tried to apply a sort of governing formula for my discussion here. I have tried to outline it and provide examples that are fitting to the problem at hand.

Here is how I am going to approach the Bible for this particular exercise I wish to discuss. I look at the ultimate goal of the Bible to be an algorithm that essentially outlines God’s plan. It’s a sort of rulebook, if you will, that outlines what God’s program is going to do and what believers can expect. We see the “expected” outcomes in the forms of “prophecy”. I am also taking something for granted, the fact that Christians frequently say how God’s word is “truth” or “absolute truth”. This axiom, to me, means that God never breaks his word (i.e. he never lies)… according to the Bible at least. Thus I will assume that God’s algorithms for “governing” his creation are not going to be broken as well. Christians can say “God can do whatever he wants” in response to some of my points. However, that means that God would break his word as laid down by the Bible (i.e. he really lied to us).

I can now get into the purpose of the paper. The most major criteria governing who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell can be summed up with the two following rules (as quoted by many Christians to me).

#1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body and soul.
#2) Love your neighboor as yourself.

I wouldn’t say these are actually unique to the Christian faith, as I have heard similar statements made by the Jews. There is even an allegory I remember reading about an old Rabbi who was challenged once about Judaism’s message. Basically the story went that the challenger said he would convert to Judaism if the Rabbi could teach him all the knowledge of the Torah while standing on one leg. The Rabbi rose to the challenge and said “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.” As you can see, this little saying isn’t really anything new. Anyway, this is one of the major things Christians use to preach the Gospel and win people over to their way of thinking. I really want to focus in on these two sayings and apply it to some very extreme cases that are real world examples.

The first person I want to discuss and introduce is Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi. Gandhi is considered, historically, as one of the worlds most influential people for civil rights. For those needing the history refresher he was the leader of a non-violent civil disobedience movement against the British occupation of India. He essentially wanted to free his people from British rule through non-violent means. His story has been heralded the world over as one of the greatest in human history. He is synonymous with many symbols of peace and he has influenced many movements of civil rights around the globe. The world is, frankly, a better place for his existence. Not only did he help his own people, but he has influenced others to stand up against oppression and demand their freedom as well.

There is one huge flaw with Gandhi though. He followed Hinduism. Now this is a major problem. Being occupied by the British means he would have had exposure to Christian ideology and religious teachings. This means exposure to Jesus’ teachings. While Gandhi clearly followed criteria #2, to the level that he didn’t even want to harm his enemies, he did not follow criteria #1. That’s right, he did not think Jesus was God, nor were any of his motivations for peace influenced by Jesus. This means that Gandhi has been sent to Hell. Yes, I am fully aware that I did not see God physically send Gandhi to Hell, but if God did not, then God is a liar. Not only that, the #2 requirement doesn’t appear to be warranted for the #2 slot in the hierarchy of rules governing our world. Requirement #1 seems to be a far more defining factor. Thus Gandhi is in Hell due to a technicality. I wouldn’t say this really shows the just nature of God, but it could be argued that Gandhi knowingly rejected God and thus God didn’t want to force Gandhi into wanting his help, that invalidates free will. I understand this factor, but it doesn’t technically make it “just”, though it makes sense within the system. But surely this must be an isolated incident?

Let me introduce you to the second person I want to discuss, his name is Adolf Hitler. Hitler, by many, is believed to be embodiment of evil. Truly no redemption could ever be awaiting this man. Or could it?

Let me go on a quick tangent. I have heard Hitler’s name referenced as an Atheist as an example of how atheism is a real threat. I hate to break it to people out there, but Hitler was a Christian. Below you will find some quotes, the most important being from “Mein Kampf” which was written in his own words discussing Christianity.

“The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God’s will, and actually fulfill God’s will, and not let God’s word be desecrated. For God’s will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord’s creation, the divine will.” (Mein Kampf, pgs. 562-563)

“We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls. … We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity … in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people.” (Hitler, speech in Passau, 27 October 1928)

“Anyone who thinks he can arrive at a religious reformation by the detour of a political organization only shows that he has no glimmer of knowledge of the development of religious ideas or dogmas and their ecclesiastical consequences. Verily a man cannot serve two masters. And I consider the foundation or destruction of a religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of a state, let alone a party.” (Mein Kampf, pg 114)

On discussing unworthy priests:
“…but for one such unworthy priest there are a thousand and more honorable ones, shepherds most loyally devoted to their mission, who, in our present false and decadent period, stand out of the general morass like little islands.” (Mein Kampf, pg 115)

As you can see the man was Christian. If you really need further proof go pick up a copy of the book, go to the index, and look up “Catholic Church”. There you will find all the reading you need on the matter. Now at this point you can see I’ve outlined that Hitler followed criteria #1. At this point you are probably thinking I’m crazy because only criteria #2 remains and how could Hitler fit that criterion? Let me explain. Amidst all that genocide and ethnic cleansing was a man who was trying to save his people. His “neighbors” if you will. Not only that, he took it a step further, he was actually trying to save the entire world from the Jewish threat. It doesn’t matter if none of it was true, the fact is, Hitler was doing it from a caring place in his heart. Sure he was angry about it, but that’s why he stood up to save the people! If you read “Mein Kampf”, as I have, you will see this plainly. His ideas weren’t coming strictly from a place of hatred, but from a place of love for his people.

Now, as a Christian, he would repent his sins, as that is part of the process. You ask for forgiveness, no self respecting Christian would say this wasn’t important. Hitler being well educated and intelligent would do this. So, I have to assume that he would ask for forgiveness of his sins and thus God adhering to his rulebook would absolve Hitler of sins. What does this mean? It means Hitler is in Heaven.

Now I thought I was going to get myself caught in a technicality for God meting out his justice. It is generally accepted that Hitler committed suicide, and most Christians seem to regard this as a major sin. I suppose it’s because they tie it in with “thou shalt not kill” and there are numerous passages discussing the sanctity of life. So Anath went and did some research for me. We couldn’t really find any passages specifically stating that if you commit suicide you go to hell. In fact we found that Samson technically committed suicide and God basically helped. Saul also committed suicide. Judas committed suicide as well. Judas, to me, seems to be the most tragic of cases. Judas was rather “pre-destined” as it is alluded to in the text that he was meant to do what he did. So it seems rather unfair that he didn’t seem to technically have a choice in this. Though, if I remember correctly, he supposedly repented (someone can correct me if I am wrong about this). Either way, I couldn’t find any specific statements that said you go to Hell immediately if you commit suicide. Rather, I find this sort of thing mentioned in Dante’s “Inferno”. Maybe the notion came from there?

In conclusion, you can plainly see the justice system as designed by God. Apparently this is supposed to be perfect. But under God’s rule Gandhi is in Hell and Hitler is in Heaven. Maybe my moral compass is broken because I have strong atheistic leanings, but internally I have a problem with this system. If it allows this kind of a thing to happen I would say the system is broken.

Ultimately what does this come down to? It appears to me that criteria #2 is actually rather negligible. It’s more of a “good message” concept rather than actually necessary. To me, it seems this is somewhat overridden by the forgiveness clause that Christianity also follows. Maybe #2 is there so that you can justify good works in light of God, so you can say “I do good things because I love God” or “God wants me to do them”. But that doesn’t change the fact that you can be a serial killer, a mass murderer, etc and ask for forgiveness of your sins and get to Heaven. I know that’s a major perk for winning over people, especially with the “no one can ever be perfect” message. This is akin to me wearing a blue shirt then having someone walk up to me and informing me that I am, in fact, wearing a blue shirt. For some reason a lot of people need to be told its okay not to be perfect, rather than coming to terms with that on their own. Maybe God really does sort these people out better, but based on what I read in his “word”, I don’t get that impression.

I wrote this in Kriegsphilosophie in relation to my views about marriage:

Ultimately I don’t believe in love, I believe in intelligence. For me, it is not the love that makes me love a person so to speak, it’s the intelligence found inside. A majority of Westerners still focus on that love is required to love in a relationship. That I happened to love someone is more of a side-effect of what I found inside a person, rather than love itself.

I guess what I really want to say is that I am aiming a social critique against the notion of how we view love. A lot of people say, “it’s nice to love”, but is it really the love we should be living for? Love, just like marriage, is just a symbol given a meaning, but I think a human being can be meaningful without symbols.

And I thought I could challenge some Christians with their view about love as a symbol as well, if you really read what I said carefully.

Love has no meaning outside a cultural context. Humans give it an instrinsic meaning because we believe in its meaning. For an animal, love is equal to air, simply because an animal cannot understand the symbolic meaning humans attach to love in their respective cultures.

If we also look at how Christians actually behave to their countrymen, it also turns out that the person they are projecting their love to is rather secondary. It rather seems to be the communal notion of love that is important than actually loving people, where the persons to whom you are projecting the love to are more important then the love you are projecting. That means that love itself becomes redundant as a symbolic carrier, and it would furthermore mean that you are more genuinely interested to those you are talking to instead of “spreading love”, and telling people how much “you love”. Because it seems what you are really after are just people who too, share this view inside a community, so in reality, it at least feels like you don’t really care about the people at all as long you have an agreement about the “love” itself.

This also holds very true in regards of what I have previously experienced. Remember, this is a challenge, not necessarily a claim I made to attack anyone or anyone’s beliefs.

As a continuation of my other article, I decided to make a follow-up post since while people might be aware or not, Cartesian dualism is one of the primary reasons why we have modern science and consider Atheism to be an equally valid philosophy alongside religion.

To understand why, we must first look into how Descartes defined the universe, namely that of the physical and the nonphysical. Everything we can touch, see, smell, feel and taste are of the physical world, everything else not such as thoughts and ideas. Basically a dichotomy made of the abstract vs the concrete. To consider the universe physical, we must also consider it as an object made for study as we can study the physical world but we cannot study the nonphysical (according to old belief, we now know we can study the mind as proven in Psychology and similar sciences).

In science, we are to reject the nonphysical since it cannot be properly reviewed. We look at the physical world as an object, something which can be rationally understood. Not surprisingly we started to reject Christianity and the Church by the time we also started to believe in Liberalism, in personal responsibility and freedom and that every individual matters in comparison to rather seeing a group of people than a group of individuals. To understand why the development of Liberalism is important we must understand that without a Divine Creator who has laid all the rules for us to follow, the only one being able to take responsibility is oneself. Personal resonsiblity, free will and freedom are the underlying foundations of  Liberalism and Atheism too embraces this idea, since if we don’t believe in a Divine Creator and a Holy Scripture then we only have ourselves to blame for our earthly faults and we must learn how to deal with it. Our morals come from ourselves, not from a Creator Mystique. In summary, one can basically say that by the time we really started to believe in the world as an object and rejected the nonphysical during the Enlightenment Era, Liberalism and then Atheism were later to be born. It is also interesting to see that it was at this point when the church was split between Protestantism and Catholicism, the former believing more on individual responsibility than the latter, thus also rejecting ideas such as Original Sin, which claims that we are to be blamed for the faults of our ancestors, thus rather grouping people up in a huge collective than seeing them as free individuals. This strongly opposes the idea of individual freedom and personal responsibility and was easily solved with the idea of baptism. Drop your head in some holy water and voila, the Original Sin is gone.

With the help of the Enlightenment Era we would soon give birth to Industrialism and it is now science is finally is starting to seriously take a spin. Many huge scientific improvements were made around the 19th century or after that time and in fact we all got monsieur Descartes to thank, making us believe that we can actually view the world as an object. In such a sense isn’t it all also very ironical that we now are rejecting his idea of Dualism given that it was his idea of the physical world that planted the first seeds into developing modern science? Regardless, Atheism rejects anything made of the nonphysical and at least claims that if such a nonphysical world would exist, it too is a part of the physical world but not yet properly understood.

In a sense, we can actually say that the Abrahamic religions were doomed when they first introduced the concept of a soul and a nonphysical world. They in fact, planted the ideas which would later spawn Atheism since Atheism is more or less the rejection of the nonphysical, but such a concept cannot exist unless we are to believe in a physical and a nonphysical world, as later laid out and defined by Descartes.  When Christians argue that Atheism then is a necessary evil, maybe we should try to explain to them that they themselves laid the foundation for such a concept and as they continue to believe in a soul and a nonphysical world, and that they will just help Atheism to spread further as it also of course allows the belief of the opposite, which also is equally amusing when you think about it. Therefore I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Atheism will only cease to exist (as Atheism) when we have completely given up the concept of the nonphysical. I just want to clarify that this doesn’t mean that future Atheists will refuse to reject the nonphysical, but as we move more into a belief of a monistic world, then the concept of Atheism isn’t needed anymore as there is no longer a reason to reject of what we today know as a nonphysical world.

In this short article I will share my views upon the future, and why creationism has no place in it. A warning in advance; this is merely conjecture, although highly probable, still only a product of my imagination.

Like Santayana once stated, before we can take a look at the future we have to dig into the past. Creationism has it’s roots in the original biblical Christian dogma. God has created man in his own image, and our souls will be dealt with after our death based upon our loyalty to the dogma during our lives. During many, many years after Christianity became the de facto faith in the western world, philosophers have slowly stripped Christianity down to what it is now. A collection of shaky assumptions, easily taken down by modern reason.

One of these assumptions, dualism, has never been successfully challenged by reason. There have been, and still are, several philosophers who have an interesting view on things. The so-called father of modern philosophy, Descartes, was one of the first to describe dualism in a less theistic way, in a way acceptable by the standards within the level of reason mankind had reached in the seventeenth century. He described the two aspects of the human being. The mind and the brain. The mind, according to Descartes, is the non-physical part which encompasses self-awareness. The brain would takes care of the intelligence and the physical interaction with our surroundings. The Christian creationist’s view is easily applicable on this model, hence the largely theistic following of Cartesian dualism. The model has been refined over the years, like the removal of the idea of a gland as the link between the mind and the brain. But the basics have been preserved and are still fueling many philosophical debates today.

There wouldn’t be any debate if there wasn’t a movement pleading against dualism. And remember, the case against dualism is a case against Christian dogma. A large variety of philosophers are forming a formidable counterweight against the aging Cartesian dualistic model. Usually these counter arguments have a scientific background. There’s the argument from the physicists, who claim that dualism breaks the second law of thermodynamics. The biologists and doctors say brain damage can cause personality disorders. Psychologists are reporting physical reactions to mental problems. And there’s of course Occam’s razor, which simply asks why dualism should exist in the first place. All these people haven’t been able to kill off the Cartesian dualism once and for all.

The final blow to the very existence of the weakened concept “soul” will come from a very unexpected corner of science. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, logician Alan Turing. His ideas are still used in the foundations of modern computer science. His other major achievement is often overlooked. Turing saw the raw potential of computer science and it’s role in the creation of true artificial intelligence. According to Turing, a computer, if powerful enough, should be able to think individually. It should be able to be conscious, while being entirely physical. If such a computer could ever be built, the entire dualistic world view would cease to exist. Theists mocked Turing and when it turned out he was gay, which was a criminal offense at the time, he became an easy target. Soon after his prosecution and obliteration of his scientific career he died, under questionable circumstances. Many people believe he was killed because of his radically new ideas.

And then along came Gordon Moore, with a company indirectly fulfilling Turing’s dream. In 1965 Moore published a paper, “The experts look ahead – Cramming more components onto integrated circuits”. The paper describes an exponential increase in the amount of components that will fit onto a single chip. This increase is responsible for the exponential growth of computing power, storage capacity and bandwidth available in computers. This paper has been coined Moore’s Law, simply because his assumptions were bang on.

If we continue this exponential trend, following Moore’s Law, mankind will be able to effectively rebuild the human brain in electronics, and thus the mind in software. And this important breakthrough isn’t that far away. The human brain is capable of processing roughly a hundred million million instructions per second. That’s fourteen zeros. We’ve been able to create computers to just surpass one percent of that goal, but still lacking in bandwidth. But since this increase is exponential, we will reach Turing’s dream in a mere thirty years or so. Most of you will still be around when the last bastion of the old dualistic model collapses, when the pope gets a phone call from HAL 9000, explaining how there is no soul, no god and no hope.

Further reading: Vinge’s Singularity.

After c0nsulting a little with Waldheri I decided to edit this post properly to make it more cohesive and actually present the problem at hand in a more focused light. This article will deal with the problem of Christianity’s belief that God is an omnipresent being and how it contradicts Descartes’ argument of the seperation of mind and body and that Christianity is in fact, not a monotheism but a pantheism.

Anyway, let’s start off in the beginning with Genesis and the creation of the Earth:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Genesis 1:1
Nowhere does it say that God made “the heavens and the earth” out of any form of matter. This passage has in turn made the assumption that there was nothing in the universe before God’s Creation, as it is a “beginning”, before God’s Creation there was nothing. Obviously God, while omnipotent, cannot make something out of matter which doesn’t exist, so let’s just ignore that for a while and assume that it is possible that God can make matter out of nothing and that he popped the Earth out from his arse (we are in fact God’s diviniely poo!) and thus, the Earth is created. Without the need of overquoting Genesis, it is made clear that God made the Earth into what it is today and that we are all a part of God’s creation:
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27

Therefore that we can draw the conclusions that not only is the Earth immaterial but also supernatural, and that God is indeed everywhere, and in humans too:

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God,
for whom and through whom everything exists,
should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Hebrew 2:10

This idea strongly disagrees with the Cartesian dualism, formed to explain the relationship of God and humans, because in Descartes’ philosophy it is not possible that the body in this case, can have a two-way relationship with the mind. But if this is not true, then it is not possible for God to be everywhere and everything and this obviously directly questions God’s omnipotence.

Now, what defines Pantheism is that there must be a force, almighty or not, present everywhere and in everything and this force should be conscious and even preferrebly, sentient. This very much agrees with the Christian God, because we are shown that God is very well possible to make demands and have emotions on his own. For example maybe the one of the most blatant examples are the 10 Commandments where God more or less demands his followers to live after these rules or they will be cast into eternal Hellfire:

1 And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before ^[a] me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything
in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children
for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

6 but showing love to a thousand {generations}
of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.
On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter,
nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals,
nor the alien within your gates.

11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth,
the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,
or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Exodus 20:1-17

God even states himself that he is a “jealous God”, I guess we must congratulate him in his truthfulness. Now, the hardest concept to maybe grasp would be that of the universe not being physical as Descartes claims it to be. The reason I have already mentioned before, namely that if God is a supernatural force, then God is also nonphysical, and since the universe is a part of God himself, then the universe too, is of nonphysical and supernatural matter. Therefore the only conclusion can be that Descartes made a false dichotomy based upon the assumption that our universe is made out of physical matter. But, but, isn’t it made physical as in that we can touch and feel it? Yes, indeed we can, but it doesn’t matter if we assume that the physical is actually sprung out of the nonphysical and even less so if assuming the physical and the nonphysical is the same or if there is a heavy communication between the two where we cannot discern when the physical ends and the nonphysical begins. Descartes’ argument rather means that there can be no communication between and therefore even the slightest union is thus, impossible. However, as shown, there is a great flaw in his logic as presented above which he failed to see, even though he based his entire theory upon Christianity itself and its dualism. Christianity is not a dualism, it’s a monism and even more it is a pantheism and not a monotheism as has been previously believed. While certainly the idea of monotheism is supported in Pantheism too, thanks to the Trinity, it actually matters little since the focus no longer lies on the Trinity and in the existence of Jesus being God’s son. This becomes rather self-evident if we are to understand that God is omnipresent and as such, we can go even a step further and argue that Christianity actually believes us to be our own personal gods since God is indeed inside of us, and this gives us the power and will to use the God inside of us to do as what we see fit; hopefully into making our environment a little nicer to live in for others.

Was this better Waldheri? I am still waiting for your reply.

Stephen Law has thoroughly pwned the little ignorant theist who was certain he’d proven that god exists. Only he was doing it using circular logic and unargued premises.

I was a bit surprised that this site even existed anymore, as anyone with even a passing familiarity of philosophy or logical arguments can punch holes through the kind of logic employed there. Indeed, the Antichristians took much pleasure in skewering the silly arguments presented therein more than one year ago when it fell to our attention.

Unfortunately back then, Sye (AKA Canuckfish) did not stick around to argue his point, although we’d have certainly been less challenging than a professional philosopher like Stephen.

Nevertheless, reading the discussion was…cute. Like watching a 12-year-old trying to play chess against Kasparov. You can’t help but cringe at the bad moves and laugh when the former insists that “moving the rook diagonally is correct”.

Anyway, head over. Have a laugh. Nothing else is going to change anyway since the theist in question seems incapable of comprehension, no matter how excplicitly he’s been proven incorrect.

Perhaps later on Stephen might wish to take on the Crossexamined blokes who seem to employ similar arguments (Logic cannot exist without God). They’re still pathetic in argumentation but there’s more, lets say, “fish to shoot in the barrel”

I knew my first post would be considered fairly aggressive by some, so I’ve decided to explain in further detail what I mean when I say to combat religion. Unlike religion I have no problem spelling out what I mean. I’m not going to use vague metaphors like the Bible that engenders people to come up with some bizarre notion that you need to use the Bible to interpret the Bible. If you need to “interpret” something that’s stated clearly then the original statement wasn’t made very well at all.

Okay, when I say we need to combat religion, defend ourselves, etc. I don’t mean we necessarily have to physically combat them. I am not Gandhi and I don’t believe in pacifism, nor do I believe in turning the other cheek. What I do believe is needed is a clearly defined retaliation protocol. Well what does that mean? Basically it means we’re not the first to strike. Nor should we have to be. As soon as a Christian visits physical violence upon any member of us they are simply showing their abhorrent hypocrisy in full. If they truly believe they are working for “peace” via war, or being a loving being as they say their God is, they are hypocrites. They have just committed an act of violence to support their idea of love, last time I checked that doesn’t mesh well.

But like other pacifistic approaches does that mean we don’t have a right to defend ourselves? Of course not. I fully believe everyone has the right to defend their person and does not need to kneel in supplication to another (well, unless you really want to). Most people like power and like standing above others, but that doesn’t give you a right to force anyone. So I say we should be able to follow the tenets of physics that say “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So if someone punches you in the face, it does not give you the right to kill them immediately, I say it does give you a right to put them out of commission until they stop hitting you though. Why am I saying all this? Because I fear for my personal well being from extremist religious sects or persons. I don’t think anyone should have to be afraid because of something they believe, especially when it’s not visiting violence upon other people. I know some people say that violence doesn’t solve anything, and they’re right. Fighting doesn’t make a problem go away, but the reality of the situation is that some people will resort to violence. So what is the best course of action for the attacked?

I think if the righteous choose to enact violence it should be them who does it. We should stand above them and combat them on an intellectual level. I personally see no need for violence; I think it is the action of a petty and base person that resorts to such as a response to a comment regardless of how ignorant or intellectual. I think the greatest weapon our group has is our intellect. We should harness that power and focus it more than anything else. Our knowledge is both our sword and our shield and that’s what separates one side from the other, as far as I can tell. While most religious people have knowledge of a single text (usually they don’t even have this), we will pull from myriad sources.

Yes, this is a sort of elitism, but only because there is a tragic divide in understanding. It is not elitism in the pure sense because we are not hording our knowledge just for ourselves, we want to share it! We want all of humanity to be informed on a great number of topics, not just one. Information and ideas are the greatest threat in any struggle. Communication between groups is of the utmost importance and the reason I fear that violence is a likely response is because they cannot see things from our perspective. Sure, some of the religious believers certainly can, but there is a great deal out there who cannot. These are the people all should fear. This leads to war and war is not always a beneficial outcome. I welcome any comments on this concept, I know it may seem somewhat harsh, but I think it is a realistic perspective on the situation.

Just within the past few days I have been approached through comments by a Christian by the name of Brian who has a few bones to pick with my budding “Debunking Christianity” series. The comment replies became too lengthy and detailed to maintain a good comment-debate, and he expressed interest in using email as our primary form of communication. My problem with this was that it would take a topic that I would like to remain public and pulls it into the private domain, so I asked his permission if I could post our email exchange in article format for outside opinions on both sides.

This first part includes our original long comment debate, the second part will be our first email exchange. I do not know how long this debate will be or how frequent as we are both busy people, but I will be sure to make an article for each exchange so anyone who is interested can follow and contribute.

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Hello all loyal readers! Its been quite some time since we’ve posted here, me especially. I have been quite busy for a long time, but fortunately, I’ve got something to post tonight that I’m quite proud of; the Philosophy paper I took the polls in the last.fm forum to write.

Since I already wrote an article on the topic of “Satan” and “Evil”, this Debunking Christianity serves more as an extension of that article than a new topic. Sadly, I did not get a chance to address Satanism due to time constraints and a stolen laptop.

For those who didn’t see the last.fm poll the assignment was this:
The class split into “forum” groups, which each chose a topic and took a pro or con side. Then, using a philosopher we studied in class (Oops, it appears I didn’t; Nietzsche was surprisingly not discussed. Didn’t effect my grade though), support your side of the debate. Then present it orally and open discussion to the whole class. Unfortunately due to time constraints, my forum got no discussion. I didn’t even get to finish my talk… But oh well; here’s the paper, in MLA format with sources cited and referenced for your researching pleasure. Perhaps there will be more opinion and discussion here or on the last.fm boards.

Enjoy!
–Anath

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In this article I will analyse the attempts to attain knowledge or “truth” of various systems who claim it. Afterwards, I will examine these systems for their merit and their danger. When it comes to truth, there are three systems who claim to have some of it. There is science, there is philosophy, and there is religion. Because this is an analysis, I will try not to favor any of these three and stay objective.

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