Is there a God? Some thoughts and questions.

Posted on by Opher

Is there a god who created the universe? Perhaps one who created the big bang and then left it to get on with things? Or one who created the universe and life and is involved with how it develops?

Now that is the nub of the matter. Put aside all the religious books that were so obviously (to me) written by man and one still has the major questions about creation. How did the universe come out of nothing? That is something that is beyond our comprehension (not surprising really with our tiny brains and limited intelligence). Did god create it? Is there a god?

For me it is obvious – there is not.

For me the very idea of a creator is such a human concept and merely kicks the can further down the road. It creates more unknowns than it answers:

We humans cannot conceive of something coming from nothing.

We solve this by having a superbeing who is capable of creating everything from nothing.

What does that solve? Nothing as far as I can see!

How logical is it? Not logical at all to me!

Is there any evidence for this superbeing? None whatsoever in my view.

We still have a universe created out of nothing.

We now have a superbeing who has come from nowhere with the ability to create whole universes. How much more incredible is that than what we had in the first place? It just poses a whole series of other questions:

Where did this superbeing come from?

Who created him?

Did he arise out of nothing spontaneously?

He has to be even more incredible than the universe doesn’t he? How can that happen? – – The spontaneous creation of a amazingly complicated god with stupendous powers out of nothing?

Or has he always been there forever? Just think about that for a moment and see if that makes sense.

What was his motive in creating the universe?

Where was he before the universe was created?

It certainly doesn’t make any sense to me. It sounds like a human construct to explain the unknowable, nothing more.

What do you think?

My Best Antitheist Books – Please Take a Look!!

Posted on by Opher

I have written a number of books about religion. I do not think religion has been a positive force in human history. I believe it to be a fiction created by man to try to explain the mystical, spiritual and unknown aspects of the universe, life and death.

They are, in my opinion, mysteries that are not captured by the dogma of any religions. All religions have been used for power, hate and accruing of wealth. They are not among man’s best ideas.

These are my best Antitheist Books:

 

In the UK:

 

The Antitheists Dictionary

 

A humorous set of definitions of religious terms.

https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/books/book-detail-page?ie=UTF8&bookASIN=B00MOLZLE8&index=default&pn=irid82031849

 

The Book of Ginny

 

A novel about a religious cult.

 

https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/books/book-detail-page?ie=UTF8&bookASIN=B00MW8IHUS&index=default&pn=irid82031849

 

In the USA:

 

The Antitheist’s Dictionary

 

A humorous set of definitions of religious terms

 

https://www.amazon.com/Antitheists-Dictionary-Opher-Goodwin-ebook/dp/B00MOLZLE8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1531382684&sr=1-1&keywords=Opher+Goodwin

 

The Book of Ginny

 

A novel about a religious cult.

 

Muslims in Britain – 4.8% of the population – are the scare stories with foundation?

Posted on by Opher

2.7m Muslims in England and Wales – 4.8% of population

  • 33% aged 15 or under
  • 68% of Asian descent
  • 8% are of white ethnicity
  • 47% born in Britain, 36% in the Middle East and Asia
  • 6% say they are struggling to speak English
  • 37% of Muslims live in London
  • 20% are in full-time employment (compared to 35% of the general population)

 

The report shows that while 47% of Muslims in England and Wales were born in the UK, 73% state their only national identity is British, and only 6% of Muslims say they are struggling to speak English.

Support for the research was provided by the race equality think tank the Runnymede foundation, whose director Omar Khan argues the report is important in making it clear to the public that Muslims do not have a problem with “British values” or identifying with Britain.

“It nails some significant myths about Muslims,” said Mr Khan, “The number of Muslims – which is often exaggerated, how proud Muslims are to be British, how well they fit in and the narrative around British values. They’re proud to call themselves British, don’t have allegiances to other countries in any major way and they don’t have any confusion around where their identity lies.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31435929

Male Circumscision – is it Child Abuse?

Posted on by Opher

We have no problem whatsoever in declaring that female circumcision is child abuse. If a parent allows their female child to be mutilated then most civilised people would shout loudly that it is wrong.

It does not matter if the parents erroneously believe that it is a religious practice.

Religious practices are not above the law.

Some religious practice declares that it is not only alright, but an absolute mandate from god, to take the life of a nonbeliever. It is never right.

Some religious belief declares that it is right for a wife to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her husband.

Female circumcision is an abuse. It is wrong. It is illegal. It never should happen.

Neither should male circumcision be allowed. It is nowhere near as bad as female mutilation but it is the same principle. A child should not be subjected to such a mutilation unless there is a sound medical reason.

That child should be free to make that decision for themselves when they are old enough to understand. I would suggest that sixteen is such an age.

Under the age of sixteen I believe that imposing religion on children is wrong; I believe that mutilating children against their will is wrong.

The Religious Madness Merry-Go-Round.

Posted on by Opher

So another religious Muslim fanatic leaves a bomb on an underground train with the intent of blowing up innocent Christians. They planned it and put the bomb together with the intent of murdering and maiming as many people as possible in the name of god.

The Myanmar Muslim Rohingyas are being massacred by militant Buddhists in a new bout of ethnic cleansing with hundreds of thousands driven from their homes, the torching of villages, shooting, rapes and pillaging. There are bodies lying in the rivers.

The Sunni Muslims are blowing up Shia Muslims and vice versa, targeting mosques and markets. Hundreds of thousands have been massacred and they all believe in the same god.

Religious schools, Madrassas and Jewish and Hindu and Buddhist and Christian schools take in the children to indoctrinate.

Atheist bloggers are hacked to death in India for suggesting religion is nuts.

The Jews and Muslims in Israel are shooting and knifing each other on a daily basis – year after year.

The fanatical Hindu extremists are attacking Muslims in India with clubs and machetes.

Christian priests abuse young children.

Saudi Arabia and Iran continue their power struggles to establish their version of Islam through proxy wars and terrorism.

The fanatical Muslim Taliban are attacking other Muslims in Afghanistan.

The fanatical ISIS are practicing genocide on the Yazidi Christians, taking sex slaves, killing and raping.

The Christians are, or have been, bombing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan.

Fundamentalist Islamic Boko Haram are on the rampage in Nigeria.

There are many more examples of persecution, intolerance, violence and evil. They all claim to have the only truth, to serve the right god and that all the others are wrong. They claim they have divine right to kill, maim, rape and pillage, to take land and impose their beliefs on others. They are all mad. They are all part of the great Religious Madness Merry-Go-Round.

Buddhist, Jew, Christian, Hindu and Muslim – all on the never ending merry-go-round of hatred, revenge, genocide and ethnic cleansing – all wanting to impose their views on the world – all insisting they are right and all others are wrong. Where does it end?

Well it seems to me, from outside as an atheist, that they can’t all be right. If there is a god, which I do not believe, there is surely only one and she would be the god of all. So why do some believe that she demands fasting, costume, diet, prayer and rites, while others insist of a totally different set of costume, rites, diet? Doesn’t it make a stupidity of it all? Isn’t it obvious that all these religions are man-made?

We need to get off the merry-go-round. Spread the love.

Quote Challenge – Quran – Humanity is but a single Brotherhood: So make peace with your Brethren.

Posted on by Opher

Thank you Shreya for challenging me with providing three quotes a day.

I do not usually like doing challenges or awards but this one quite appealed.

I shall quite enjoy sorting out three quotes a day.

I’m not sure about nominating other bloggers. I’ll have a think.

I’ve got to be sure they’d want to do it. It is a bit of a faff. Particularly if you are busy.

This is Shreya’s blog site – https://shreyasharmasite.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/quote-challenge-day-2/#respond – so check that one out.

This is the first of my quotes for today:

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Check this out on https://gainperspectiveblog.wordpress.com/author/gainperspectiveblog/

If only religions selected the nice stuff from the texts we wouldn’t have a problem. Unfortunately they select the texts to support their own psychopathic urges, power madness and cruelty.

In my view making peace with your brethren (and I would include women) does not include throwing them off high buildings, burying them alive, make them sex slaves, gang raping, beheading them, crucifying them, burning them alive, drowning them, blowing their heads off with explosives, hacking them with machetes, slowly crushing them with rocks or all the other barbaric practices favoured by ISIS, Boko Haram, A Qaeda, Taliban or other fundamentalist groups.

You can twist religion to suit your power-mad games.

The Prophet said – Make Peace with your Brethren!

Might be an idea for people who believe to take note of him.

My three nominees are:

Dave Kingsbury – an intelligent voice of sanity in the midst of a sea of madness:

https://davekingsbury.wordpress.com/

Anna Cottage who should be able to come up with some great Rod McKuen quotes:

https://annacottage.wordpress.com/

Cheryl at Calensarial who is a font of knowledge and can knock a few interesting quotes off the top of her head

https://promptlings.wordpress.com/

And Mary at Walking my path – I’m sure she would have great nature quotes

https://marybmaulsby.wordpress.com/

There – I’ll nominate some others later!

If you would like to try one of my books they are all available on Amazon.

In Britain :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1461306850&sr=1-2-ent

In America:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=opher+goodwin

In all other countries around the world check out your regional Amazon site and Opher Goodwin books.

ISIS Savages in Belgium

Posted on by Opher

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Once again the twisted fundamentalist ideology has created terror. Religious fundamentalists from the Dark Ages wage their senseless war against the twenty first century.

They want to take us back in time to the intolerant cruelty of a thousand three hundred years ago.

They believe they are doing god’s will.

They are indoctrinated fools.

They believe they will wake up in heaven as holy martyrs. They are mistaken. They will never wake up. All they have achieved is to waste life.

Life is precious.

I affirm life not death. Their doctrine is disgusting. It should be opposed by every means possible. Fundamentalism, in whatever form, is a disease.

Do repressed cultures create violence and misogyny?

Posted on by Opher

The book of ginny

At present there are thousands of young men streaming in to fight for the caliphate of ISIS/ISIL. They are all fired up to defend the values of Islam against the influence of the West.

So what are the things that are things that are attracting them? Well, as with all wars, there is the excitement and comradeship of fighting for a cause. There is also the desire to be seen as a hero, a real brave man, to do heroic deeds and be respected. There is the added attraction of sex. They can take their Jihadi brides, rape infidel women, and sate their sexual appetites in a way that would be impossible within the constraints of their culture.

ISIS is attractive because it is the Rock ‘n’ Roll of religion. The young men have freedoms they never dreamed of. They can kill, rape and destroy to their heart’s content. They don’t have to be content with chucking TVs out of windows, driving Rolls Royce’s into swimming pools or dynamiting toilets. They can do it for real with no limits and god not only sanctions it but gives them backstage passes in the bargain!

The only downside is that it isn’t going to last too long. Having your legs and nuts blown off, getting burnt, maimed and blown to smithereens by American, Russian, Iraqi, Kurdish, Jewish or Jordanian forces can be a slight negative.

The further shock comes later still when you see that your mutilated comrades do not die with smiles on their faces as they are lifted up to paradise by Allah to spend eternity with their allotted virgins.

What attracts the women to such a fate is a different matter.

What do you think?

Humanism – I am a Humanist – This is what it means:

Posted on by Opher

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I am a caring, positive human being who believes that religions are created by people and not handed down from some god who is concerned with our fate or has a purpose for us.

I believe religion is used as a means of gaining power (and wealth) by leaders and nations.

I believe that religion has been a source and focus for violence, oppression and intolerance and still is.

I believe people can create clear moral ethics and laws, a purpose for their existence and structure for society without requiring religion.

I took the following from the British Humanist Party. It’s something I agree with:

  • trusts to the scientific method when it comes to understanding how the universe works and rejects the idea of the supernatural (and is therefore an atheist or agnostic)
  • makes their ethical decisions based on reason, empathy, and a concern for human beings and other sentient animals
  • believes that, in the absence of an afterlife and any discernible purpose to the universe, human beings can act to give their own lives meaning by seeking happiness in this life and helping others to do the same.

https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/

Heroes of the modern world – Nicolaus Copernicus – Opened up thinking for scientists and changed the universe.

Posted on by Opher
Engraved portrait of Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus (1473 - 1543) drawing the sun as the center of the universe. (Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images)
Engraved portrait of Polish astronomer Nicolas Copernicus (1473 – 1543) drawing the sun as the center of the universe. (Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images)

Copernicus was a polish genius who was born in 1473.

At the time he was alive Europe was a theocracy. The Catholic Church had immense power and exerted it. It was heresy to refute the words of the Bible. If you denied Jesus was born of a virgin you could be vilely tortured and cruelly burnt to death.

The prevailing views of the church, based on the words of the Bible, was that the Earth was the centre of the universe, created by god. To say otherwise was heresy.

Ptolemy had set out a model for the Earth-centric solar system which was widely accepted. It worked except for the peculiar motions of the planets. He went to great length to try to explain this.

Copernicus realised and worked out mathematically that the Earth was not the centre of the solar system; it was circling the sun with the other planets. He did not publish his paper until on his deathbed for fear of ridicule and persecution.

Copernicus’s theory opened the door for other scientists to work out the true nature of the universe. Without him we were literally in the Dark of the Dark Ages. Religious fundamentalists are completely insane and intransigent when it comes to the words in their books. We see it today with US Creationists who claim the world is only a few thousand years old and men walked with dinosaurs. We see it with ISIL where beautiful history and culture, like the Buddhist Bamiyan statues, are being systematically destroyed because of texts.

The church had to be dragged screaming from its view that the Earth was flat, at the centre of the universe with the dome of heaven above behind which was the glory of heaven. Underneath was hell.

If it wasn’t for the heroism of Copernicus, Giordano Bruno and Galileo we’d still be wandering around in mediaeval costume, going to public burnings and being in ignorant rubbish.

Strangely it took sixty years for the Church to declare Copernicus’s work as heresy but then Giordano Bruno had his tongue pinioned, was tortured and burnt to death for believing it and Galileo nearly met the same fate under the Spanish Inquisition.

These men are heroes. They stood for truth in the face of the most vicious and intransigent fundamentalist theocrats. Without them we would not know the truth.

Fundamentalism (belief in the absolute truth of the word of religious texts), is obscene, ignorant, incorrect and has led to some of the worst atrocities.

Whether it is ISIS or the Creationists with their suits it is the same stupidity and barbarity. The truth is out there – not in ‘holy’ books.