atheism under attack

well, atheism is under attack. that’s right, someone in the “mainstream media” badmouthed my belief system. rabbi gellman says atheists are angry, and think people are atheists because of traumatic events in their childhood. i’m not angry at him, of course; although he is spouting nonsense, it is just because he is a victim of religious brainwashing. he has no idea that the things he is saying are total crap. and he is trying to be nice and understanding towards atheists, which is good. and he says all sorts of ridiculous generalizations about atheists, which are really a large group of people. i know i have done the same thing about large groups of people too (like, i do that all the time), so that is excusable. but the most ridiculous part is, he thinks we are “threatened by the idea of god”. uhm. no. there is nothing about the idea of god that is in the least bit threatening. amusing, yes. ridiculous, yes. self-contradictory, very much so. but threatening? nope. and apparently ann coulter is coming out with a new book all about attacking atheists and liberals. whoop dee friggen doo. guess what bitch? atheism and liberalism are both correct, and YOU are WRONG! it would take forever to explain why liberalism is correct and conservatism is dead wrong, since there are so many different issues, but monotheism vs. atheism is easy. you see, there is something called “logic” that we can use to resolve issues like this.

proof 1) ooookay. so, basically, the issue that monotheists and atheists disagree on is “does god exist?” simple enough. but you have to define the word god first. so, let’s have a go at it, shall we? to avoid any sort of bias, i took the definition straight from dictionary.com. “a being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.” now, the 2 key words are omnipotent and omniscient. omnipotent means all-powerful and omniscient means all-knowing. if god is all-powerful, this means he is capable of doing anything that the human mind, or any other mind, could possibly conceive of him doing. and if he is all-knowing, this means he knows all information that could ever possibly exist. now, what about the passage of time? if god knows all information, he knows what will happen in the future, ahead of time. this is obvious. however, if he is all-powerful, this includes the power to do things differently than the way he predicted they would turn out. this is also obvious. now obviously, if he decides to do things differently than the way he predicted, this makes his predictions turn out to be wrong. oops! this is a contradiction, because god knows all and is perfect and infallible. the properties ascribed to god in his definition are inherently self-contradictory. no thoughtful, intelligent person can deny this. this proof is absolute and flawless, and proves without a doubt that god does not exist, if he is defined in such a way.

proof 2) but there are ways to weasel out of that. simply define god differently. or define omniscient or omnipotent differently. they say “god exists outside of time”, which is basically meaningless gibberish that shows how clueless they are, but that type of nonsense is enough to sustain some people’s faith. or someone could simply say that god would never do things any differently than the way he decided in advance, which means that god is essentially powerless for every moment of his existence except the first, because after that time he is forced to act exactly how he predicted in the previous moments. that would suck. so let us pretend for the sake of this second proof that the first proof is invalid or god does not fulfill that dictionary definition 100% and somehow finds a way to exist. now god is said to be the creator of the universe, and of everything that exists other than himself (and of course he is male). he is also said to be infinitely good, righteous, or merciful. yet there is evil and suffering in this world, not just a little, but a whole lot. in this world that god created. he created this world, knowing in advance about all the evil and suffering. he is the ultimate root cause of all evil and suffering. and if somebody is evil and goes to hell, this is god’s fault, because god knew even before this person was born exactly what would happen. in fact, satan was once an angel, and god created satan, too, with full knowledge of what would happen. all that exists, other than god, is a part of god’s creation. so, god is directly responsible for all evil and all suffering, and it happened because he wanted it to happen. he could have done things completely differently if he wanted to, and made things a perfect utopian paradise. but did he? no. and not only is he punishing us by making us live out our crappy little lives on this dying planet, but he will also punish those who happen to have the wrong beliefs, by sending them to hell for all eternity. even though god himself created each and every one of us and designed us so we would end up having those beliefs. so god is designing some (or many) of us to be hellbound heathens. or if you think people go to heaven or hell based not on their beliefs but on whether they are good or evil, the argument still holds true... he still designs each person to either be good and go to heaven, or be evil and go to hell. but evil or heathenous people are not responsible for their beliefs or actions. god is! he made them that way, knowing in advance everything that would happen. so it is immoral to punish them for god’s sins. that would be like punishing every soldier in the nazi army but letting adolf hitler get off scott-free. if we are the puppets and he is the puppeteer, shouldn’t he be held responsible for our actions? some people contend that free will and determinism are compatible, but that is patently ridiculous. there is no way people could possibly have free will in a deterministic system. it is plain as day, as obvious as gravity. so, since the determinism caused by god’s existence reduces us to his pawns with no free will who he willy-nilly decided what to do with in an immoral fashion, god cannot exist, because this defies the simple maxim “god is good”. the only way around this is if god is evil, in which case, there is absolutely no reason anyone should bother worshipping him. thus concludes my second proof.

proof 3) okay, let us start out with the premise that the last 2 proofs are wrong, so we can pretend god’s existence is not self-contradictory. this proof regards the trinity, not the existence of god. here is the doctrine of the trinity, from dictionary.com: “1. that god is one, and that there is but one god 2. that the father is a distinct divine person (hypostasis, subsistentia, persona, suppositum intellectuale), distinct from the son and the holy spirit. 3. that jesus christ was truly god, and yet was a person distinct from the father and the holy spirit. 4. that the holy spirit is also a distinct divine person.” this doctrine is complete and utter nonsense. translated into mathematics, it says 1 = 3. rubbish! either there is one god, or there is no god, or there is more than one god. the trinity says there is a father, a son, and a holy ghost. fine! so then there are 3 gods! but then the doctrine says they are all the same, even though it also says they are all distinct and separate! which is it?!? are they the same entity, or are they separate, distinct entities? the doctrine of the trinity tries to have it both ways, which is a logical contradiction. almost all christian denominations believe in this ridiculous doctrine of the trinity, despite the fact that it is so blatantly self-contradictory that any idiot can see how it is nonsense if it is explained to them properly. another thing that is really weird about the trinity is, if it is the holy ghost who impregnated the virgin mary with jesus, then how can the “father” claim to be the “father”? the holy ghost is the REAL father. the entity which is called the “father” is really not a father at all, because he is not the one who impregnated the virgin mary, so how COULD he be the father? and another problem... what about back BEFORE the virgin mary got impregnated with jesus? weren’t there only 2 elements of the trinity then, because jesus did not exist yet? and why on earth must there be a separate holy ghost and father anyway?!? it makes no sense! if christianity is supposed to be a form of monotheism, christians should really only believe in one god! yet they worship three! clearly this is an example of worshipping false idols, because the old testament says that there is but one god, and if you worship any other god you are worshipping a false idol. so, christianity, with its polytheistic trinity doctrine, is really not monotheistic at all.

proof 4) this is another proof that god does not exist, and this one requires that quantum physics is true (which has been experimentally proven on countless occasions). one of the principle parts of quantum theory is the heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that you cannot know exactly what the location or momentum of any particle is, and the more accurately you know one of those attributes, the less accurately you know the other. since that time, quantum theory has developed to the point where they have realized that all quantum attributes occur in pairs of opposite attributes, where the better you know the value of one attribute, the less you know the other. we can consider this as being a “range of freedom” for each particle. particles do not like being measured, and whenever a particle has one of its attributes measured, it rebels against this, by changing its properties such that the conjugate attribute is muddled up a bit (there is more muddling up if the measurement has more precision, and vice versa). now some people, when they hear about this, think “aha! so measurement is fundamentally flawed, and we can never truly find out what attributes a particle possesses! but of course it possesses inherent attributes that actually have real values prior to being measured!” but no. no no no no no. that is not how quantum physics works at all. it has been experimentally proven that particles can become waves and have indeterminate values for their attributes, which only take on fixed values when measured. this is known as “wavefunction collapse”. a famous thought experiment based on this is called “schrödinger’s cat”. anyway, those quantum physicists have basically proved that the real world does not exist, unless you make really bizarre assumptions that totally contradict what 99% of people assume is true about reality. the only way out, the only way that an omniscient god could exist, is if the correct theory is a nonlocal hidden variable theory, according to bell’s theorem. and, while nonlocal hidden variable theories haven’t really been disproven, most people in quantum physics don’t believe in them. anyway, god’s existence is only compatible with quantum physics if the interpretation of quantum physics that is chosen is a nonlocal hidden variable theory. and there is a very famous nonlocal hidden variable theory that a physicist named david bohm came up with, and it is the most popular nonlocal hidden variable theory. oh but here is the good part: it really does contradict god’s existance, i think. yeah, that’s right, i just changed my mind about that in the last sentence. you see, according to einstein’s theory of relativity, information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. in any “nonlocal” theory, there is stuff that goes faster than the speed of light, but it is not “information”, nor is it “matter” or “energy”. it is “causality”... the origin of so-called “randomness”. in a nonlocal hidden-variable theory, cause and effect is something that can travel instantly from anywhere in the universe to anyplace else in the universe, and all events are deeply interconnected by a hidden web of causality so complicated that all we can ever perceive of it is “randomness”. but this cause and effect is secret, and it is not information. it is transmitted in such a fucked up way that it is impossible for any sentient being to figure it out, even impossible for god. because if god broke that rule, it would disprove the theory of relativity, and it would destroy the very structure of the space-time continuum, which is based around the speed of light being the maximum speed for everything in the universe. the universe is a closed system, by definition, yet god, as its creator, sits outside the universe, unable to interfere at all. if he interfered, it would violate all the laws of physics. and whether your quantum interpretation is a nonlocal hidden-variable theory like david bohm’s, the everett many-worlds interpretation, the copenhagen interpretation, or any other, they all contradict god’s existence. which is why the vast majority of quantum physicists are atheists. just consider 2 photons that are connected by “quantum entanglement” of their polarization, and they have opposite polarization. measure the polarization of one, and the polarization of the other must be the opposite. but, god doesn’t know the polarization of either, because if he did, this would disrupt the experimental results. experimentally physicists have found that they can measure things that have never been measured or observed before, not by anyone, even god. such as the polarization of a photon in that experiment. another experiment, called the double slit experiment, proves that there is no god that actively observes everything in this universe, because if god did do that, it would yield different results than what they got. anyway, this has been too much of a diversion into physics, away from theology.

so my main point: the idea of god does not scare me in the slightest. i have thought a lot more about the idea of god than most people, and while i find it very interesting and thought-provoking, it is still clear to me that god simply cannot possibly exist. so i wish people would stop going around claiming that god said this or that, and that they can do whatever the hell they want because god told them to and they are acting on god’s behalf. god is used to justify all sorts of crazy things, like the 9/11 attacks. god is used as a crutch by intellectually lazy people who don’t want to have to think about anything. but if people 2,000 years ago knew so damn much, how come they did not have electricity or any of the modern conveniences? why should we read the so-called “holy scriptures” written by prehistoric neanderthal types who didn’t know anything? people who thought the earth was flat, and all sorts of other rubbish that modern science has disproved. why do people still cling to creationism, when evolution has all the answers? it’s just weird... i think most people are stupid. to quote j.r. “bob” dobbs, “you know how dumb the average person is? well, by definition, half of 'em are even dumber than THAT.” now, to be fair, in its january 1, 2000 issue, a time magazine internet-based poll named j.r. “bob” dobbs the #1 "phoney or fraud" of the 20th century, so you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt. but, i think i will keep him as my short duration personal savior (or shordurpersav in the original tibetan) for the time being, because his exploits are so legendary.