At its AGM on 14 December, the National Secular Society (NSS) voted Continue reading “NSS no longer affirms atheism”
Girl Guides Drop the Pledge to a God – Some Christian Leaders Not Happy!
As reported earlier on in the year in a bid to be more inclusive and to encourage wider membership in the organisation Girl Guiding UK planned to drop the pleadge to “love my god” in the promise. This has now been done but a group up in Harrogate have decided to defy the leadership and retain the old promise. In a letter the leaders of that group stated:
“The spiritual aspect is recognised in girlguiding and ‘God’ has been part of the promise since it was founded,”
“The divine is fundamental to everything it stands for. No one need join Girlguiding, so removing the reference to God in the interests of inclusivity removes much of what we stand for.”
“Girlguiding has God at its core and anyone who has issue with this is free to start their own organisation.”
The national leadership has stated that only the new promise will be recognised and this group may be forced out if they fail to comply.
Let’s address a couple of the points raised.
1. As there are almost certainly no gods nor supernatural entities: there is no “spiritual” aspect as we would define it.
2. “God” has been part of the promise since it was founded – so what? Things can change and an argument from tradition doesn’t mean it is right!
3. “The divine is fundamental” – see point 1 above. Anyway I thought Guiding stood for fellowship, so actually it is inclusivity is what should be all about for rather than defending a narrow minded priviledge of a dwindling few.
4. “..anyone who has an issue is free to start thier own organisation”. Or alternativly someone who opposes inclusivity and whose priviledge is being removed is free to leave and form their own group!
Girl Guiding UK should be applauded for this forward thinking move to modernise and open up their organisation to those that would have been excluded in the past. Don’t let this group of narrow minded individuals get in the way.
HIV Patients Told by Pentecostal Pastors ‘to rely on God’
Please read this report from the BBC, and then comment. I am still too angry to say much except point to our detractors who keep asking “What’s the Harm!” and wanting to yell at them!
It’s no wonder every time I see the word “pastor” I see the phrase “personnification of evil!”
UK Guides Drop God from Promise
The Girl Guides in the UK have dropped the reference to ‘god’ from thier promise.
This follows consultation which revealed that the organisation needed to be more open to those of other faiths and none.
This is definite progress, and we look forward to see if the Guide’s fellow organisation Scouting UK also changes following its consulation.
Sex and God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality
Poll – Is It OK For Prime Minister To ‘Do God’ In Public
The Guardian has asked the question, following David Cameron’s Easter reception, where even devout Christian, Tony Blair, wouldn’t do this…did God.
He quoted the Book of Luke and spoke of a ‘Christian Fightback and so The Guardian has asked the question: Is it OK for a Prime Minister to ‘Do God’ in public?
Now I’m actually torn on this one, I would rather the Prime Minister stick to his duties in a secular fashion not praising a non-existent sky-fairy, but with these pronoucements we now can confirm he is a deluded man who does not care about reality….
By the way this poll closes in 2 days from time of writing….
Remove God reference from Guide promise – Please sign petition
The Girl Guides in the UK have indicated that they may drop the religous element of their “Promise” that all of its members have to make in order to join.
This is following complaints made by non-religious parents (and their children). Whilst the Promise is optional, Guides who do not take the Promise are ineligible for the highest awards including the Baden-Powell Challenge Award and the Chief Guide’s Challenge.
This is an important step in creating a fairer society to include those that do not have supernatural beliefs.
You too can add pressure on Girlguiding UK by signing the following petition.
Your assistance would be gratefully recieved!
Angry at nothing
“Anger at God common, even among atheists” Continue reading “Angry at nothing”
Arguments for the existence of a god debunked part 3
The next topic in our series of debunking arguments. Continue reading “Arguments for the existence of a god debunked part 3”
Arguments for the existence of a god debunked part 2
Arguments for the existence of a god Part 2 – The Argument from Fulfilled Prophecy
Continuing our examination of why people believe in the existence of a god and the arguments put forward as to why everyone should believe.
Many people will cite that a prophecy that was written down long ago in a holy scripture (or made by a recognized prophet) has come true. This validates the holy scripture or prophet and therefore the god that is believed in by the followers of that prophet must exist.
There are a number of problems with this argument, although it does seem to be one that many believers find compelling, and this article intends to look at those problems and show why it does not follow that a fulfilled prophecy is evidence for a god.
1. Which god / religion will that be then?
The first problem with this argument is that followers of almost every religion make it! Christians, Jews Muslims, Hindus and the followers of smaller fringe religions (for the sake of simplify I’ll call them cults) they all do it. Which leads to the question that as they are almost all mutually exclusive, which one is actually right (if any)?
If a Christian makes a claim that a prophecy in the Bible makes the Bible true and therefore Christianity correct, and a Muslim makes a claim that a prophecy in the Koran is correct and that makes Islam true, which one is right, because according to the scriptures the two religions cannot both be true (You have to believe that Christ is the son of God to be a Christian and you must explicitly reject this to be a Muslim).
So it does not follow if a prophecy is fulfilled then it proves that a religion is true.
2. The Vagueness Problem.
Have you ever read a horoscope and the prediction made came true? Most people have, but have you ever noticed how vague some of these predictions are? In fact they can be written so vaguely that any number of real world events can fit.
A classic example of this would be “Two powers shall strive, and an empire will fall”. This could be prophesising a war between two counties or powers of which one loses e.g. the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime to the coalition forces in Iraq, or “The two free newspapers that were given out to evening commuters would battle it out and one of the papers would go bust, and the Evening Standard (or the company that owned it) would win out and be the sole free newspaper distributor.” Or the competition between VHS and Betamax for the VCR trade in the 80s and 90s. Or many other examples, a possible future prediction could be the forces of Microsoft and Apple will battle it out and Apple will vanish…
As you can see if it is vague of course one can point to it being fulfilled, many many times. So what, it proves nothing.
As a relevant side note the prophesies of Nostradamus fall squarely into this category.
3. When is that going to be?
Any prophesy that does not include some sort of timeline is not a useful prophesy. The reason for this is, what happens if the prophecy fails?
Usually when a prophesy does not occur it is either declared that it simply hasn’t happened yet, or when a specific timeline is given, (a classic example is that of the second coming of Christ, where he prophesised that he would return within the lifetime of his followers), the prophesy is simply re-interpreted.
Clear timelines must be given so that success or failure can be determined.
Also, if a prophesy is likely (or even conceivable) to occur (see below) then the more exact a timeline needs to be. E.g. “The forces of Microsoft and Apple will battle it out in the open marketplace and Apple will go bankrupt on 21st October 2019 at the close of business of the US Stock Market”
4. Is the prophesy already likely to occur?
If the event that the prophesy is predicting is already likely to occur then is not really much of a prophesy. For example, I prophesise that an earthquake will hit San Francisco at some point within the next ten years, this is not going to be very impressive if it does happen as the city has a past history of regular earthquakes and it sits directly on the San Andreas Fault (again referring back to the issue of timeline, an exact time might make the prophesy better, but you can still chalk things up to chance).
Even if it is not very likely, when you look at chance, the number of countries, people and events that have happened over the past 10,000 years or more of recorded history then even unlikely events become probable.
5. Did the event the prophesy predict actually occur?
One very key example of this is when Christians say that the coming of Jesus in the New Testament fulfils the prophesies of the Old Testament.
Leaving aside for the moment the problem of a prophesy in the Bible being fulfilled in the Bible, can we be sure that any of this actually happened? Where is the evidence? Of course for this specific example we have practically none. It may just be the case (and in this example it is certainly the most probable explanation) that someone has made up the events that is said to fulfil the prophesy.
Also under this section we must look to see if the prophesy has been altered to “make it fit” the events which it is describing. If it has then it must be dismissed.
Again, what we ask for is evidence, the key element to rational thinking.
6. Is the prophesy self fulfilling?
If a prophesy is made and there are enough people who are aware of it, in a position and with a desire to make it happen, then it will happen.
An example often alluded to by Christians and some Jews is the founding of the state of Israel. However when you look closely at its founding in 1948 it happened because people made it happen. They worked together and founded the new state and at least some of them were aware and were motivated by the prophesy. No gods were needed in its founding (not to mention that the prophesy had not time scale and scolars now believe from evidence, there’s that word again, that that prophesy was about the founding of Israel by the Maccabes).
Another potential prophesy is that I may predict a united Ireland within the next 50 years. It is possible (although not for a while under current political and religious divides), and there are people who desire this to happen and are working towards it, and if it did happen it would be because of these people and their work and not because I predicted it!
7. A prophesy must be written down before the events which it predicts.
This may seem a little obvious but some historical documents that have been discovered describe events that happened before or during the times they were written and have been mistaken for prophesies.
The documents must be examined and evidence collected!
8. Conclusion
Any prophesy that has ever been made to date will not survive the seven points above. The conclusion is very clear there is no prophesy that is reliable and has come true which actually shows that a god exists. So the next time someone points to a prophesy and claims that as evidence for their god, question it using the above points as a guide and again demonstrate that this is not evidence.