Burnt at the stake for speaking the truth! – That’s religious fanaticism for you!

Posted on by Opher

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Giordano Bruno was a genius.  He lived in the late sixteenth century. He was a follower of Nicolaus Copernicus .

Giordano stated three things:

a. That Jesus was not divine

b. The sun was the centre of the solar system

c. The universe was infinite and had an infinite number of habitable planets

The Christian Church (loving, kind and nurturing) took exception to his words. They pinioned his tongue so that he could no longer speak the heresy and burnt him at the stake.

This is what ISIS are doing right now. This is what religious fanatics and fundamentalists do when they have power.

Fortunately we had an Enlightenment in Europe and fought for the right of Free Speech. We no longer get burnt to death in agony for heresy.

 

Poetry – God – the musings of a mystical antitheist.

Posted on by Opher

I’m an atheist. I do not believe in god or religion. I believe in science, carbon dating, Darwin, evolution and the Big Bang.

I believe the Bible and Koran were written by men. They are not ‘the word of god’.

I see no evidence of creation in the human body or the universe. I see a lot of things we do not understand with out limited intelligence and perhaps we never will.

I acknowledge the good things that religion has produced: the cathedrals, works of great beauty, poems and writings that move people, morality that helps people live their lives happily, comfort and purpose in times of desolation.

I believe in tolerance, peace, love, free speech and the right of people to believe what ever they want. I think we should argue our case with passion.

We don’t all have to agree – just respect each other.

I also see the terrible things that have been carried out in the name of religion (and still are), the slaughter of unbelievers, pogroms, crusades, jihads, persecution, holocausts, genocides, crucifixions, beheadings, burnings and discrimination. I see the crazed fanaticism of the fundamentalists and the intolerance, bigotry and hatred it induces. I see the indoctrination of small children and cultural brainwashing.

I find the beliefs of creationists and fundamentalists (along with the dogged quoting of religious texts) absurd. I have studied how those texts were put together and find their formation, translation and content all extremely suspect. They were written by various men, long after the events, passed down generations by oral tradition and accrued into books. These books were then further culled to remove ‘heretic’ works and mistranslated. What we have is a mish-mash of contradictory offerings, purporting to be the word of god but really a collection of writings from many suspect sources. No more the word of god than my poems.

We seem to have a need to believe in some deity and magic. It is a psychological need. We’ve worshipped suns, moons, rocks, idols, ancestors, cats, trees, and supernatural superbeings who we have placed in the sky in heavens, valhallas, cloud palaces above Olympus, paradises and the rest. We have had gods and goddesses cavorting in human form, creating catastrophes, drinking, fornicating and causing mayhem. We have idolised, worshipped, sacrificed and beseeched them all. Most of the ones that were previously idolised to the point of martyrdom and believed in to the point of death have fallen by the wayside. Once they ‘ruled’ over millions but now we no longer know their names.

It just so happens that we have a few that are presently flavour of the month. Wars will be fought over them, sacrifices made, much prayer and offerings will be carried out. The only trouble is that they do not exist. They were invented by men (few by women) and are now being used to gain power.

Our present religions will fade and die. No doubt they will be replaced by others equally incredible.

Meanwhile science continues to push back the frontiers of knowledge so that we understand more and more.

I believe all religion is a product of human imagination but I can be persuaded that there are mystical forces at work in the universe. They are probably scientifically verifiable – given time.

My idea of a ‘god’ is more akin to atomic energy. It’s an incredible force that pervades the entire universe. I do not think it is conscious, has purpose or thinks we humans are anything special. It is. It is something in the midst of nothing. It came into being and that in itself is miraculous. Forget the rest.

I am an antitheist because I believe all religion is false, it creates more harm than it does good and it is used by the powerful to gain more power and wealth. It is one more cause of misery, hatred, violence, bigotry, intolerance and arrogance. We’re better off without it.

The end verse is meant to be humorous.

God

God is energy

God is light

God is sound

God holds the atoms

That swirl in the ground

 

God is flowing

Through you and me

God is the galaxy

And electricity

 

Religion is dogma

Religion is a lie

That separates us from energy

And puts God in the sky

 

I don’t believe in God

Jesus, Buddha, Krishna or Mohammed

They’re all just people

That lived on this planet

 

I don’t believe in prayer

Or a God that cares

A force for good or evil

With a face that stares

 

Religion is an evil

Full of pomp and hypocrisy

Useful by the powerful

There for all to see

 

If God were alive

In such simplicity

Guiding our lives

On a planet in this galaxy

One tiny speck of dust

In a raging sea

He’d appear the same to you

As he does to me

 

Not as Jesus to some

Just the chosen few

Jehovah to some others

Creating pagans and true

Giving out commands

Ordering us around

With strange beliefs

And dictats profound

 

No – God is the atom and the energy

The fuse that makes them dance

And the time to let them be

God is around within and without

With no Heaven or Hell

On this magic roundabout

 

When I think about religion

Perhaps there’s something I missed

Maybe God’s just punishing me

For being an atheist.

 

Opher 8.2.99

Creationism – a nonsense. Stop indoctrinating our children with your pseudoscience!

Posted on by Opher

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Creationists believe that:

  • the world was created by god in six days
  • Genesis is a literal truth
  • The Earth is less than 10,000 years old
  • All life is predesigned by god
  • Evolution does not occur
  • The flood created a new start and laid down all the sedimentary rocks
  • Fossils were implanted in rock strata by god
  • Carbon dating is wrong
  • They believe the writings of a tribe of Arabs in the Middle East thousands of years ago are the literal word of god
  • They believe the creation myths and writings of all other tribes are not the work of god
  • They believe science has got it all wrong

They probably believe in tooth fairies, Santa Claus and Easter bunnies. There is as much validity in those as the Sumerian creation myths.

These are the people who are wanting to educate our children.

 

ISIS vandalism of historic sites – a symptom of ignorance, disrespect and stupidity.

Posted on by Opher

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ISIS seem intent on destroying the heritage of the world in their ignorant treatment of their own history.

The region was the seat of civilisation right up to the time of Mohamed. Agriculture, writing, mathematics and science were created and flourished. The area contains the historic roots of culture.

But what is culture and art to a savage?

With utter disdain for the rest of humanity the uneducated ignoramuses are destroying what they do not understand. For them all that matters is Mohamed and his teachings. Everything else that exists is blasphemy.

It is a sad, intolerant attitude that is the ultimate in intolerance. No other view is permissible. No other religion is tolerated. No other culture respected.

Where-ever Islam has gone it has desecrated and destroyed culture. India is littered with the result. Hindu and Buddhist temples with statues and facades destroyed. Through Turkey and Jordan you find icons defaced.

It is a tragic bigotry.

The recent destruction of the wonderful Buddhas’ of Bamiyan in Afghanistan was an act of unprecedented wanton destruction; a crime against all humanity. They destroyed their own heritage and discarded it as of no worth. In the future, when Islam is no more, it will be seen by their descendants as a crime. They will feel rightly robbed.

Now ISIS is destroying the ancient palaces, statues and building of Hatra and Nerdrum; places of startling beauty and human ingenuity. It is mindless.

If more evidence is needed for their fanatical intolerance; this provides it. They are fascist Philistines!

Religious Schools – a recipe for disaster.

Posted on by Opher

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The whole concept of religious schools is a throwback to the Dark Ages. They should be abolished. I have two huge objections:

1. Integration

The key theme of our society should be integration to shared values.

I cannot think of anything worse that separating children into different schools to be brought up apart with a biased, partisan ethos. It is poison to the whole concept of integration, understanding and shared values.

We have seen the effects in Northern Ireland and we are seeing it in the rest of Britain.

2. Brain Washing

To have religion in schools is disgusting. To have it forced into young minds before their brains have developed sufficiently for them to rationally refute the logic of religion is brain washing.

As the Jesuits used to say ‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man’. It works for girls too! Once the insidious seeds have been psychologically planted they take root and destroy the ability to rationalise.

We see this taking place with Jews, Christians and Muslims. Probably the Jewish and Muslim go to the extreme with their enforced reciting and memorising of religious texts but the Christians have had their day.

I do not give a damn if the results are better. The social outcomes are disastrous. The abuse of our children and the effect on their psychology is permanent. They are being damaged for life.

This is nothing short of child abuse!

There should be a law against it!

The murder of the last witch in Scotland.

Posted on by Opher

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In the 1740s the meek and mild followers of gentle Jesus who resided in the hamlet of Knockdoor in Scotland barbarically killed the last witch. The old lady was dragged from her house given a rigged trial in a kangaroo court and murdered in the most cruel manner they Christians could devise.

There was no turning of the other cheek, no love, peace and understanding, no taking of beams from their own eyes, but instead was a lot of casting of the first stones.

The evidence for this ghastly institutionalised crime was that she had turned her own daughter into a pony and had ridden her around town.

She was publicly tried for the offence and the clincher was that she stumbled over a word when reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Gaelic.

The sentence was death.

This evil witch was then dragged out by the mob and plunged into a barrel of boiling tar and set alight.

I cannot imagine what it would feel like to be thrust into boiling tar. I think I might have preferred crucifixion.

All the good Christian town-folk came to gloat over their neighbour’s agonies, argue over her possessions and rejoice that another evil witch was gone. It was probably the daughter who inherited the house and pony!

It sounds dreadful but our meek and mild followers of the Saviour of love did away with an estimated 2 million witches in Europe.

It has a lot of resonance with what is going on with ISIS burning pilots in metal cages, beheading, burying alive, crucifying, stoning, pressing and delighting in torture and cruelty.

Theocracy is great isn’t it?  The wonder is that anybody questions why I’m a confirmed Antitheist!

I think we need to build a more positive zeitgeist than anything religion can provide. Their history does not look good!

The God Helmet – Dr Persinger’s magnetic helmet induces feelings of mystical experiences.

Posted on by Opher

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People wearing Dr Persinger’s God Helmet report feeling a presence, seeing Angels, even experiencing God. It seems to produce mystical experiences in a lot of people.

Seemingly stimulating the brain releases these feelings.

They are not real. They are induced through magnetic stimuli.

Dr Persinger suggests we are stuck within a climate created by our belief in mediaeval religious doctrine. It seems it has been culturally implanted in our brains.

These experiences are not real; they are the result of artificial excitement of specific areas of the brain.

Perhaps people that experience mystical experiences merely have over-excited cortex’s.

God, Angels and mystical experiences, no matter how real they may appear, are probably nothing more than brain hysteria.

I’ll stick with being an antitheist for the time being thanks.

Taliban, Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haraam, ISIS and a dozen more Jihadist terror organisations – founded on oil.

Posted on by Opher

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The barbaric thrust of these groups is to create terror and subjugate.

They believe that all non-believers are subhuman and can be slaughtered with impunity.

Their aim is to bring their distorted version of Islam to the world and impose their mediaeval sharia law on everyone. If they had their way all our women would be locked up in doors, dressed in veils from head to foot, and forbidden to be educated, to drive, vote or walk alongside their men. Alcohol would be banned. Music would be banned and we would all be walking about looking like part actors in a biblical film. There would be public lashings and executions.

Now I am quite happy if people down my street or in another country voluntarily wish to live like that. That’s their choice. What I object to is the imposition of these practices on unwilling participants.

The funding for this present is being bankrolled from billionaires in Saudi. The oil bonanza is fuelling this. When the oil dries up their money will dry up and they will return to be inconsequential.

This version of Islam has no future. The indoctrinated ‘product’ of the Madrasas will not be the scientists and technologists of the future. For that you need a good education. When the oil money dries up so will their importance.

Long live green energy and thank heavens for good education.

The only way to deal with fascism is through education!

Je suis Charlie – What a shame the murderers were killed!!

Posted on by Opher

It is a great shame that the murderers were killed. I cannot help thinking that in their misguided logic it is what they wanted. They and the other religious fanatics really believe that they are martyrs and will wake up in paradise.

There are brainwashed fools. No sane God would give their blessing to callous murderers. The Yemen fanatics behind this are nice and safe hundreds of miles away.

Charlie Hebdo

No man is above the law. The murderers would have been better dealt with in a court where their barbaric crimes could be spelt out. They would have been committed to prison for life and had a long, long time to contemplate how they have been duped.

In order to combat immoral people it is necessary to be completely spotless. I wish they had not been shot.

I hope the whole sane Muslim community of the world unites to condemn this abuse of Islam. Young people the world over need to be told in no uncertain terms that this sort of murder does not result in paradise; it is not allowed by the teachings in the Koran and it is not condoned by any God.

If there was a God they would have to explain their actions. They are cold-blooded killers. The courts were the best place to ascertain their guilt.

Al-Shabab beheads quarry workers for not being Muslim. Where are the moderate voices?

Posted on by Opher

Al-Shabab and IS are both targeting non-muslims. The penalty for not being a Muslim is death.
If you cannot recite tracts from the Koran without a flaw you are shot or beheaded.

Seems a little bit extreme to me but I still haven’t heard all those moderate Muslims speaking out against this bigoted intolerance and extreme savagery.

What would the response be if British thugs decided to butcher all Muslims in Britain? Would that provoke a response?

It is time that reasonable, civilised Muslims speak out against all violence.

Help build a new positive zeitgeist!! Two wrongs never make a right!! Violence breeds violence!!