You mention "the Christian belief" repeatedly and then proceed to talk about all Christians as though they all hold the same belief. The Bible, and other sources of Christian theology, not being factual (i.e. evidence based) are all entirely open to personal interpretation. When you claim to be speaking for Christians it seems to me as though you are only speaking for yourself. The reason why scientific method holds so much power and is so much more useful than religion or philosophy as a tool for examining the world is that its conclusions are dictated by the evidence. The conclusions of religion are subject to whim, preference, wish or political dictate. One only need look at the world around us to see there is not one "Christian" outlook.
Science is the act of attempting to find the truth through observation and testing; gradually we get closer and closer to truth as science reduces error margins. Religion, if it does exist outside of the physical or material world, only does so by inhabiting the world of fiction. While science is the most accurate method of observing the real world, theology is at best an archaic, dogmatic and stunted method of fiddling aimlessly with the details of a fictional world. Every claim you make about god applies only to your own interpretation.
Being an atheist isn't an act of faith, it is the lack of an act of faith. Not believing in god came before believing in god, just the same as not being able to drive came before being able to drive; first there was the world, then there were gods and cars. All of your ideas about what god is and what god means and what god does are meaningless to an atheist (or at least this atheist) because they all rest on the unfounded assumption that god exists. The idea of god can and should be viewed as a scientific hypothesis (because it is possible that a universe created, maintained, observed, occasionally interfered with by god is very different from a godless universe). When I hypothesis is not backed up by observation and evidence it is rejected. This is the reason it is safe to assume there is no god. There might be, but given the lack of evidence there is no genuine reason to believe.
On the subject of evolution and what it says about god you conclude "Showing how evolution is the result of physical processes is not, in any way, contrary to this, but simply a description of what was physically resulting from God’s sovereign control." In a sense this is just not true. Evolution is a description of how species can form unguided exactly without "God's sovereign control". I agree that the theory of evolution is not direct evidence against the existence of god, but it does drastically reduce the gap god can safely inhabit.
Often people talk about there being some essential self, a spirit, ghost, soul whatever that exists as a duality with the brain or body. This is often said to have an immortal eternal life after the death of the temporary body. Look at it this way for an illustration of why I consider it inherently ludicrous: The soul (which for arguments sake I will describe as the bit of the brain that feels love, ecstatic reactions to art, music and nature) is a function of brain which can no more exist without that brain than the heart beat can exist without the heartbeat. Were I to suggest that I believe my heart beat (or for that matter my renal function) were to have an eternal life after the death of my body, you would be right to laugh at me.
Although your post contains some interesting ideas it is ruined by your insistence on speaking for all Christians, and by implication knowing what all Christians think. You also make claims to know so much about what your god is and does. When you say "The universe doesn’t“contain”God. God doesn’t“dwell within” the universe or “outside it (whatever that might mean)” it seems to me you are claiming to know so much that you couldn't possibly know. If you get annoyed by comparing belief in god to belief in a teapot in space, because of a semantic game placing god outside of "place", then how about this: Believing in god is like believing in a non-physical teapot that isn't in any place, is outside of space and existence, but still is somehow worth thinking about, discussing and offering praise and prayer to.
Actually the more I think about it your argument seems to be "atheists are wrong not to believe in a god that exists, because that is not the Christian god. The Christian god is actually a god that doesn't exist. So if you are going to be an atheist, at least believe in the non-existing Christian god". This sounds crazy, and indeed is, but that is the reading that comes from your blog.
If god intervenes in the physical world, where is the physical evidence. If god doesn't intervene, what's so amazing about god?
Indeed, this is a conversation between two people who don't speak the same language.
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogs. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
501: Comment
In lieu of a proper post I reproduce here a comment I have just written on the following blog post http://followergerrard.com/2012/01/12/the-atheist-delusion/:
Saturday, November 19, 2011
454: blog recommendation refute.me.uk by @pearce_
I'd like to recommend another blog to you all. Find it at refute.me.uk. It's written by Matthew Pearce, my university bestie who I don't see nearly enough. He holds the distinction of being among the smartest people I know and the only person who reads things properly properly. As a result of that there are posts in his blog about things that fly over my head. His blog is considered and researched, and although it doesn't have enough attribution links to papers and articles (hint, hint, Mat), and contains come technical posts clearly not aimed at me. You'll get no bullshit on refute.me.uk, but you will get factual articles rooted in the real world, and thought experiments designed to illuminate, with a weight towards economics as real-world phenomena. You know... numbers n that.
A recent post discusses the impact of a sudden influx of Star Trek technology dropped, deus ex machina, from the sky by a passing mischievous alien or time-traveller. It would improve our lives immeasurably (or is it measurably...) yet it would send many systems and structures we rely on into chaos and collapse. Useful? I don't know, perhaps. Interesting? Definitely. Numbers are another language; an almost incomprehensible barely forgotten second language from primary school. But that's my fault and my problem.
Numbers and statistics are the language of the way the world works. To understand anything true one must necessarily deal with the difficult, the obscure and the counter-intuitive. Statistics and the results of the scientific method can often produce results we wouldn't have expected, and that's the exact reason we need them. Throughout history the things we have imagined or wished to be true have mostly turned out to be myth and misconception. Then we got scientific method and the mass collection of statistics, and we finally started doing stuff right.
Damn, I'm so annoyed at myself for ignoring mathematics when I was young, for frying my brain with youthful indulgence and arrogant laziness. Now numbers make my eyes hurt. But everything in this life worth having, seeing, doing, knowing, is worth working for. Worth putting in the effort for. I want to understand the world around me; the way it really is, not the way is most comforting or the most convenient. I must remember not to confuse that which I'd like to be true, with that which is actually true. Difficult, but absolutely essential.
What was I talking about? I suspect when Matthew is writing his posts for refute.me.uk he remembers what the first paragraph was about by the time he gets to the fifth; he looks back at what he has written, rewriting and redrafting in order to achieve the clear objective he was aiming for. Good work if you can get it, but not for me. I'm not ready for that yet: further study is needed.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
289: best blog evar! best band evar!
I’ve started using twitter again. It may only be temporary, or I may stick with it for some time – who knows. If you are a big twitter user and want to follow me (and receive a tweet every time I post a blog) you can do so @iblogeveryday. If you’re not into twitter, that’s fine; it’s not that great anyway. Facebook is better; don’t be a twitter twot, be a Facebook friend, is the moral of the story (as yet unwritten).
I’ve also got all above-my-station, jumped-up, and convinced of my own worth, by nominating myself for four categories (the maximum allowed) at Blogger’s Choice Awards. I decided to put my savoury little ass on the plate for Best Entertainment Blog, Best Blog About Blogging, Best Blog About Stuff, and Best Pop Culture Blog. So please do your bit and vote for me in some or all of these categories; it’ll look pretty pathetic if I am not only self-nominated, but also having only received a vote from myself. Well everyone else thinks you are shit, but at least you love yourself. Leave a nice little comment too :) P.S. You will need to register to vote. And just to keep face here is some pop culture:
Next I’ll be nominating myself for Best Blog or Whatever in the Whole World or Wherever category of the Olympics. And after that it’s onwards and upwards to Best Thing and Person Ever Ever EVAR! But to err on the side of caution I’ll start off with Best Blog By Kevin Bradshaw, but knowing my luck I’ll probably lose out to this guy. Give me back my name, blog-boy.....
Enough from me, I’ll hand you over to Pete Cannon (aka Mr. Dick), Stoopid Ill (aka Derogatory), Jay Madden, plus new addition multi-instrumentalists Henry ‘Dank Zappa’ Roberts and Edward Marsden. Via the magic of soundcloud:
Monday, April 11, 2011
261: BMC, USG, CVD, RGB and CMYK [sic]
Blank Media Collective and MadLab are collaborating on an exhibition called User Generated Content. It’s an open-call, and the theme is “social media, self-publishing and the virtual environments that we create for ourselves”. Given my obsession (i.e. burgeoning mania) with this blog, I am beginning to suspect I should put in a proposal and get back to being a practicing artist. This blog provides a lot of material, and I fancy getting all conceptual and installation-y on all y’all asses. I’ve spent some time this evening working on a proposal, and have just emailed it to some reliable minds to get their valuable opinions. I’m excited so I hope this can go ahead. Fingers, toes and follicles crossed, yeah? Cheers, lads. I’m not involved in anything to do with selection or curation of USG, so as far as I can see it’s fair game for me to submit a proposal.
 |
| Kevin's blog, yesterday |
The idea I’ve come up with involves (to some extent yet to be disclosed) me being able to constantly turn out blog posts for long periods of time, whilst interacting face-to-face with members of the public and generally being poked, badgered, disturbed, and schmoozed. Problem is after I wrote that first paragraph I hit a dead end. It’s so bloody hot in the flat since the weather changed a couple of days ago, and all I can do now is exude a slimy film of thick resin-like sweat, which coalesces into a globulous pool of goo, gum and gunk. How will I fare better when faced with a gawping bunch of drunken art students, and curious beard-scratchers and chin-strokers mirroring my pretensions back at me? Fine I expect.
Could be one of those things that is best not to reveal too much about until it’s properly developed. At the moment it’s just an idea that has fallen out of my head and splattered messily on the desktop. Once I tidy it and form it into something strong and sustainable I’ll stand and shout about it. I had better change the subject then, hadn't I? I have some problem with colour vision. I'm not colour blind as such because this is could mean I see only in shades of grey. As it is I can see colours, just not particularly well, and often need to compare things with familiar objects in order to see the difference in colour. I remember clearly seeing fields in the distance as red when I was a little boy. On this online colour blindness test I can only see one out of ten of the numbers, the colourwheel perception thing barely changes, and I can quite clearly read the word in the reverse-colour blind test.
The reason I mention this is because I think sometimes it makes certain colours very unpleasant to look at when they are placed beside other colours. I cannot focus on them and they jump and flicker. The User Generated Content logo at the top of this post is one such set of ill-fitting colours. When I look at it my eyes immediately try to escape as if I am trying to force them into the wrong sized hole, and they keep painfully pinging out to the side. The writing itself seems to move and flash and glow, and I ... baaaarrrfffffff ... sorry about that. Just a little side effect from staring at the moving words and colours for too long.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
216: Blogger or WordPress; MySpace, now even worse!
I’m toying with the idea of moving the blog over from Blogger to WordPress. Let’s take a look at the two and see what the best course of action is. There are plenty of comparisons out there written by people with varying degrees of knowing-what-they-are-talking-about, and the general consensus seems to be a preference toward WordPress. I have no experience of WordPress but am lead to believe I could modify the entire look of a blog using my own illustrations and handwritten links and tabs. Also apparently Blogger only stores 1 gig of pictures, but WordPress can take 3 gig of pictures as well as docs and pdfs. I’ve collected together links to a few comparative articles:
- Blogger vs WordPress: In my opinion WordPress won my heart
- Blogger vs WordPress comparison chart 2011
- WordPress vs Blogger
- Blogger vs WordPress: 10 Features for Beginners
At the moment I’m comfortable here on Blogger (or BlogSpot as I always want to call it). A lot of Blogger’s knockers seem to be slipping into anti-Google anti-globalisation worries about privacy issues (which I think is missing the point, whatever that may be). And in actual fact there really isn’t much difference between the two. I imagine one day I may swap over but it’s likely to be based on a whim rather than real practical need, like when you get the sudden desire to move all the furniture around in a room.
I could do without spreading myself even thinner online than I already am. A few years ago I had a Bebo account which has long been deleted. Next to go I think should be my MySpace account. I never use it, but thought it OK as a sort of makeshift portfolio; now it is even slipping in usefulness for that as they have messed with the format ruining my carefully laid out design. Despite the fact that nobody ever uses MySpace anymore (now bizarrely styling itself as My_____) Alexa amazingly ranks it as being the 67th most popular website in the world. I have no idea how this is possible unless that is all generated by fraudsters and unsigned bands spamming each other. I also have photobucket and twitter accounts that I never use. This is too much clutter and one of these days something needs to go.
 |
| an exciting scene, yesterday |
Speaking of something needing to go, yesterday’s haircut was a resounding success. I have morphed from a scruffy pleb into a handsome young chap in the time it took to make awkward small-talk with the lady with the scissors. While I was having the snip (so to speak) a window cleaner came in and started telling the staff about his sore thighs. Then he whipped out some bootleg DVDs and CDs, and a CD with old photos of Moss Side on it. He managed to punt a few of these to the girl who washes hair and sweeps the floor. Then he borrowed a stool and went outside to clean the windows. He wobbled and tottered dangerously on the unstable stool as he over-reached to the top corners, but didn’t topple.
UPDATE:
Had a couple of hints and tips from concerned citizens.
Matthew from Refute.me.uk says:
I'd go wordpress - loads of features. Thought about getting a separate domain name? You can get email hooked up to it. Probably good for portfolios and stuff too.
Mr Ralph from Bab Kubwa says:
Don't bother with wordpress.com - you need to go self hosted with your own domain. Then you can customise as much as you like and take advantage of all kinds of clever plug-ins:
http://en.support.wordpres
UPDATE:
Had a couple of hints and tips from concerned citizens.
Matthew from Refute.me.uk says:
I'd go wordpress - loads of features. Thought about getting a separate domain name? You can get email hooked up to it. Probably good for portfolios and stuff too.
Mr Ralph from Bab Kubwa says:
Don't bother with wordpress.com - you need to go self hosted with your own domain. Then you can customise as much as you like and take advantage of all kinds of clever plug-ins:
http://en.support.wordpres
215: Recommended blogs (I was going to call it 'Tip-top shit-hot dogs bollocks blogs', but thought better of it)
The inspiration for my own blog. Comedian Richard Herring began his daily blog on 30th November 2002, and he continues with an entry for each date even as we speak. It’s sort of a diary and sort of an exercise in writing, exactly like mine (except Warming Up is a much better name than Block Chop). Before I started my own blog I didn’t think I would be able to do a post a day; I thought maybe I could manage two or three a week, but sensibly realised I would end up doing all of them at the same time on Sunday evening each week. The whole project would have crumbled within a couple of weeks. Sensibly I went for the daily option, and haven’t looked back since!
Surprisingly good fashion blog written by a 13-year old girl. It’s full of striking images, bright colours and weird hats. It seems like a fashion student’s research folder, and is well written and sarcastic. Plus it gets millions of hits and has got her jobs writing for big fashion magazines and invites to loads of top fashion shows. There was a profile about Style Rookie on BBC 2’s The Culture Show last week, so I’m joining them in jumping on a bandwagon.
A geeky freelance writer uploads his extremely geeky diary from 1976. He talks about buying comics and his favourite TV programmes, expresses guilty feelings about ‘it’, stresses about girls and school, and entertains us with some fabulously geeky photos of himself. Each post is accompanied by a modern commentary trying to explain what his teenage self is going on about.
A confused lad stresses about sex and church in one long rambling post, and then vanishes from the face of the Earth. Why has he not posted again, and has he grown up a bit?
Three excellent blogs that read the tabloid press so you don’t have to. Ever wondered exactly how much regurgitated press releases, vague unresearched bullshit, and straight up lies are printed daily and repeatedly in the Daily Mail, The Sun, and the rest of them? Now you can see the hypocrisy and the untruth picked over piece by piece in excruciating, disheartening detail. Chief enemies to keep an eye out for are Richard Littlejohn (Daily Mail columnist who makes his millions spreading lies about immigrants and local council health and safety) and Richard Desmond (owner of the Express and the Star who has withdrawn from the Press Complaints Commission). These blogs make depressing but addictive reading.
Recommendations (and downloads) of obscure, eccentric and amazing music. Its non-genre specific so has everything from noise to prog, pop to dub, classical to muzak... you get the picture; it’s varied! An incredibly great place to find things you would probably never hear otherwise, gifted to you by various contributors.
Very-occasionally updated but very funny ramblings of a regularly unemployed fellow like the rest of us. Hasn’t posted since just before xmas so I guess he’s busy. I hope he breaks a leg and is bedbound with just his laptop and his imagination to keep him occupied. Then once he’s used up all the tissues he might write another post.
Wonderful illustrator and hot chick (in whichever order you prefer). Draws and paints beautiful women, pigs in hats and octopuses. Founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a franchised burlesque life-drawing class that has spread around the world.
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