The Bible – Marriage

Equal marriage rights have been a huge argument both in the past, and today with gay marriage rights. The first place to pass the right for homosexual marriage was Amsterdam, with the first same-sex marriage being performed on the 1^st of April 2001. Other places that have passed laws allowing same sex marriage are:

Belgium – 2003

Spain – 2005

Canada – 2005

South Africa – 2006

Norway – 2008

Sweden – 2009 (The parliamentary vote was a landside with 226 voting yes to same-sex marriage and only 22 voting no)

Portugal – 2010

Iceland – 2010 (One of the only countries with an openly gay head of state. The parliament passed the law with 49 votes voting yes for same-sex marriage and 0 voting no)

Argentina – 2010

The Idea of Marriage in the Bible

Genesis 2:18-24: Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

This means that in the Bible, the idea of marriage is between a man and a woman, and nothing else. This idea however, infringes on the basic human right of equality for all homosexuals, when is about 10% of the population.

Marriage in the Bible – Women must submit to their Husbands in Everything

Ephesians 5:22-24: Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

So now, not only are the rights of 10% of the population disregarded, but around 50% of the population is now considered inferior, all because of the “Good Book”. These laws were enforced up until a few hundred years ago, and some are still enforced today, all in the name of a “loving God”.

Marriage in the Bible – Rape

Deuteronomy 22:28-29:  If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father.  Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.

Considering that this verse if quiet self-explanatory I will leave it as food for thought.

Written by Max

Young Earth Creationism; Part 2

This is part 2 of our report on young earth creationism and the proof against it. Instead of cluttering one article and not explaining everything as well as possible, we wanted to spread it across two. Remember all the convincing evidence we manifested in our previous article? Some may say that isn’t enough evidence (and then accept the concept of a god with almost no evidence). Why would God create false fossils, DNA and trees which “look” to be thousands of years older than the Earth? He obviously doesn’t love us if he spends so much time and effort screwing around with us, or maybe, he doesn’t even exist!

Even though there is a ton more of evidence we’ll keep it brief with another simple example; continental drift. This is a theory that there was once a super continent and they separated to become the 7 great landmasses we have today and they’re in constant motion. Evidence for this is that the continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, there are identical fossils found on continents no longer connected. Continental drift is extremely slow so this process would have taken millions of years!

If the Earth is only 6000 years old, how could humans have been around for the past million years or so? From fossil evidence we can see that the first appearance of Homo sapiens was roughly half a million years ago, and ‘modern’ (anatomically speaking) Homo sapiens “arrived” at about 100 000 years ago. One point of view must be wrong, so we eliminate the one with less/no evidence, which is of course the theory that the Earth is 6000 years old.

If the Earth is only 6000 years old, why do we have fossils (which have been dated using radiometric dating) from dinosaurs which lived millions of years ago? Dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years, probably due to their comparatively swift adaptation. Some theists claim that humans lived alongside dinosaurs; however this argument can be demolished by a 6 year old (okay, this maybe a slight exaggeration, but the point is it is very easy to destroy this argument)

Cave paintings illustrate modern humans, there actions their beliefs and what they looked like. Even paintings of animals can help us distinguish the age of the civilization. The have been painting of animals that have become extinct over 6000 years ago. For example, if a civilization of humans had cave paintings of mammoths, we’d know that they lived more than 10 000 years ago.

Truth may not always prevail, however with this mammoth pile of evidence, these on-going discoveries being broadcasted and taught to kids in school it’s really hard to escape the truth. There is no excuse for ignorance.

Written by K.M (regular writer) and Max

Young Earth Creationism; Part 1

There’s no place like home. Most of us can’t remember much of our early youth, probably only major events from our childhood maybe an illness or traumatic event. No one remembers when they’re born though which is unfortunate scientifically. But today we’re going to discuss and disprove youth Earth creationism.

By going through the genealogy from the Adam to Jesus, the dates add up to just over 4000 years. Then add on the 2000 years since the born of Jesus and you get 6000 years, which is the “age of the Earth”. This means that creation happened roughly 6000 years ago. Of course as an intelligent being, I cannot grasp that extremely inaccurate figure. There is an astounding amount of evidence against young Earth creationism.

Let us take a moment to notice how many branches of science you have to ignore to make the concept of young Earth creationism a valid one! To start us off, I’ll name a few branches which you must ignore, astronomy; the speed of light. When you look at an object you are looking at it in the past, the further away it is, the further back  in the pare you are observing it. On Earth however, this effect is extremely minor as when you see an object 1 mile (1.6km) away, you are observing it 5 microseconds in the past. You are also observing the sun is roughly 8 minutes in the past when you see it. When astronomers look in a region of space known as the Hubble ultra-deep field they see it, as it was billions of years ago! Wait, if the universe is only 6000 years old, how can objects which are billions of light years away be seen by us?

Dendrochronology, which is how we measure the age of a tree, also contradicts young Earth creationism. Each layer/ring of a tree represents the cycle of a year. Some trees have been found that go back way before 6000 years ago.

Evolution also counters the argument for the creation of a 6000-year-old earth. The process of evolution is incredibly slow by human standards and 6000 years is not enough time to create such a variety of species, let alone multi-cellular ones. You can see Max’s report on evolution in this article.

Considering the amount of evidence against youth Earth creationism, we have decided to make this part one of two articles, the second one will come out in the next few days.

Written by K.M (regular writer) and Max

Richard Dawkins – Biography

Richard Dawkins – Evolutionary Biologist

From now on, every fortnight I will be writing a short biography on a scientist or atheist who has been influential to society or to me. In today’s article, I will be doing a short biography on Richard Dawkins. He was one of the people who inspired me to make this blog, and has also helped many people “see the light” so to speak, and become an atheist or agnostic atheist, and will continue to do so. Richard Dawkins first become known when he published the book, “The Selfish Gene” and is now known for writing other books, and being a critic of creationism and intelligent design.

Clinton Richard Dawkins was born on the 21^st of March, 1941 in Kenya. His father was an agricultural civil servant. Both his parents were interested in natural sciences and influenced the career choice of Dawkins, answering his questions in scientific terms. He was brought up as an Anglican and was a part of that branch of Christianity until his mid-teens, when he decided that the theory of evolution via natural selection was a better explanation of life, where he changed his views on the creation of life.

At the age of 21, he graduated from Balliol Collage after studying a degree in zoology and was tutored by Nikolaas Tinbergen, a Nobel Prize winning ethologist and ornithologist. From 1967-1969 he was an assistant professor in zoology at the University of California and in during this period, the university was heavily involved in anti-war protests, in which Dawkins become involved. From 1967-1984 he was married to Marian Stamp, another ethologist. Since his time at the University of California, he has delivered many lectures, at a range of universities, as well as working at others.

Over the years, Richard Dawkins has written many books, covering topics including as evolution (Such as The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution and The Selfish Gene) as well as the topic of the nonexistence of god(s) (In books such as The God Delusion). He also recently wrote a book aimed at children (called The Magic of Reality: How we really know what’s true) which explains how we know what is a myth, and what is the truth in a way (intelligent) children can understand. He has also made appearances on a few shows, including Doctor Who, as himself.

Richard Dawkins has recently had a genus of fish names after him (Dawkinsia), as the level of diversity amongst the genus was much greater than previously suspected. Rohan Pethiyagoda, the lead researcher on the team explain the reason behind the name; “Richard Dawkins has through his writings, helped us understand that the universe is far more beautiful and awe-inspiring than any religion has imagined,” as well as saying “We hope that Dawkinsia will serve as a reminder of the elegance and simplicity of evolution, the only rational explanation there is for the unimaginable diversity of life on Earth.”

So to conclude, I would like to thank Richard Dawkins and hope it inspires future generations, the same way it inspired me,

Max

Noah’s Ark

The well-known religious tale of Noah’s Ark is pretty straight forward however, there are some manifest flaws in the story that have made me ponder the evidence for the event. So let’s get into it!

Genesis 32:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth. Here is our first illogical piece of writing, God knows exactly of what we will do in our life from the second we’re born to the point which we die, or does he? Why would God create imperfect beings that he knew would disobey him? If he didn’t that humans would sin, then he isn’t all knowing, correct?

Genesis 32:13 So God said to Noah, I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So much for all loving and forgiving! Surely, without raising a finger, he could just remove all the “wickedness”. Surely destroying most of our planet is taking it a bit too far.

There is currently no conclusive scientific evidence to help the case of Noah’s Ark. Scientifically speaking, it would take more than 5 times the amount of water in the oceans and atmosphere to submerge the earth up to its mountaintops AND if that amount of water entered the atmosphere, the resulting pressure would crush people’s lungs.

Noah’s Ark raises a lot of logical questions that many creationists cannot answer. Probably the main question is how did he fit all of the animals on the ark? Many theists could argue the flood was only local but ill remind you again of Genesis 32:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth. It had to have been a global flood because how would he eliminate the entire human race with a local flood.

Another point is that yes, the ark is big, but the number of animals on the planet is huge, especially when you consider that there are TWO of each! Some other popular question asked by people who doubt the tale, is how did they store all the food for the animals? How did he feed all the animals? How did animals get from their places of origin to the ark and vice versa? The kangaroo from Australia probably struggled!

Another valid point is; there are a giant number of carnivorous species on the earth. Where would they get their food? Do the authors of the Bible really expect me to believe that the meat eaters stood right next to their prey without temptation or hunger?

So as you can see, Noah’s ark is just a tale, the same as Lord of the Rings or any other fiction story (however Lord of the Rings is much more entertaining). It shouldn’t be taken literally. Next time someone is trying to convince you otherwise, direct them to this article and get them to answer all the questions I asked. I guarantee you they will have a difficult time!

Written by K.M (Regular writer) and Max

Biblical Contradictions

Over the years, many contradictions have been pointed out in both the New and the Old Testaments. Considering the Bible is the “word of God”, doesn’t that mean that God is in fact, imperfect, as he made multiple mistakes throughout the Bible? There are both serious and inconsequential contradictions, however some of the major ones include; the creation of the world and Jesus’s last words.

Let’s start with Genesis; the order in which life is created varies, at first it says that animals were created first and humans after all animals, but then, soon after, it contradicts itself saying that humans were created first as shown in the following verses:

Genesis 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:26 And God said; Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

One of the biggest contradictions in the Bible, are the “last words” of Jesus Christ. There are three different accounts, all of which are “inspired” or the “word of” God. It is clear that the Bible is NOT, the word of God, and therefore, should not be taken as the truth. The three different “last words of Jesus” are stated as follows:

Matthew 27:46, 50 “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” …Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.”

Luke 23:46 “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, “Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:” and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”

John 19:30 “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished:” and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”

As you can see, the Bible has many contradictions, many of which are on key issues. If God is perfect, then the Bible is not written or inspired by him, as it is imperfect. If God is imperfect, then he may have (however almost certainly didn’t) write or inspire the Bible, and even if he did, would not be worthy of worship.

Max

Filling the Void

Since the beginning of human existence, we as a race have been wondering how we were made, why are we here, are we alone? People have created many beliefs, answers and explanations to try and account for the lack of knowledge surrounding this topic.

Throughout the history of mankind, thousands of different “explanations” have been formed and throughout my lifetime, I have been exposed to a variety of religions, gods and beliefs. Humans have roamed the planet and even outer space searching for answers hoping to find the truth. Many people and societies of the past have used myths to cope with their lack of knowledge, and they have claimed to know the answers. I myself have indeed looked for an answer, along with the rest of our species. There have been thousands of gods made to fill the void we cannot fill ourselves. People in the Bible couldn’t explain the formation of the Earth so they created God to do it.

The Egyptians couldn’t understand how the Sun arose and set each day so they created the god Ra to explain it. These days, we have logical explanations for this phenomenon. People these days disregard the ancient Egyptians beliefs, as scientific explanation can now answer the question; however they refuse to do so with their beliefs.

Some people who use the defense “Just look at the amount of people who have and do believe in Jesus/Allah/God!” May I remind you, just because a majority support you, it doesn’t mean you’re right. In the past, everybody thought the Sun and all the planets orbited the Earth. Just because this belief was widespread doesn’t change the fact that the earth actually orbits the Sun.

Scientists attempt to answer questions such as where did we come from, and how did we get here. Evolution has very successfully answered the question of how we, as a species, got here. There is also a theory in the scientific community suggesting life originated from chemical reactions. This theory has a lot of evidence and merit, however it hasn’t been proven.

Hundreds of years ago, we couldn’t answer all of these questions. We turned to religion as they seemed to have all the answers. Religion then also gave us the answers for other things and rewarded people for believing in what they taught, and encouraged ignorance. Nowadays, we have the answers in front of us, and there is no excuse for ignorance.

The future of the human race does not lie in the hands of preachers; it relies on us working together logically and rationally. We may not have all the answers now, but we are working towards a brighter tomorrow.

Written by K.M (Guest Writer) and Edited by Max

An Introduction to Evolution

One of the most typical topics that cause debates between some theists and atheists is evolution. The type of evolution that is agreed upon by scientists is evolution via natural selection. To understand evolution, we need to understand what a few words and phrases mean.

Adaption – The adjustment or changes in behaviour, physiology, and structure of an organism to become more suited to an environment.

Natural Selection – A process in nature in which organisms possessing certain traits that make them better adjusted to an environment tend to survive, reproduce, increase in number or frequency, and therefore, are able to transmit and perpetuate their essential traits to succeeding generations.

Evolution – The change in genetic composition of a population over successive generations, which may be caused by natural selection, inbreeding, hybridization, or mutation.

Traits – Characteristics or attributes of an organism that are expressed by genes and/or influenced by the environment.

Genes – A segment of DNA (on a specific site on a chromosome) that is responsible for the physical and inheritable characteristics or phenotype of an organism.

Evolution – A simple explanation

The mystery of how life got here has been a question that was baffled scientists and scholars alike, for millennia. To explain this amazing concept, people throughout history have invented stories and fables, to try and explain it, however in the 19^th Century, a person called Charles Darwin answered this question brilliantly.

For a simple, single celled organism to evolve into a complex organism, like ourselves, as taken millions upon millions of years, and has been a complicated process. It happens very slowly and gradually, but the result is amazing. To explain the concept of evolution, I must use an example.

Imagine two ant colonies, both equidistant from their food source. The first ant colonies ants’ have lots of strength, and time after time again, they reach the food and have enough of it to bring it back for the rest of the colony. The second ant colonies ants’ don’t have enough strength to provide the colony with enough food to help it survive. Slowly over time, the second colony dies out, and the stronger colony is now the only one left.

Now, imagine this on a population scale, with all the weaker colonies being wiped out. The gene pool now only consists of the stronger ants, and the population will therefor survive longer.

This is the basis of evolution via natural selection; it is survival of the fittest. This however, would be a more gradual process, happening over generations and generations. I will provide a more in depth description of evolution, as this was just a simple explanation that could be understood by anyone.

Max

Open Mindedness

As an atheist, I am often called “close-minded” by theists, simply because I don’t believe what they believe. They say I need to be open-minded; however open-mindedness is simply the willingness to consider new ideas. Just because atheists like myself then reject those ideas (which are based on a lack of evidence and flawed thinking) doesn’t make us “close-minded”, in simply makes us intelligent. In fact, science promotes open-mindedness as open-mindedness gives us new theories, which can lead to a scientific breakthrough. Some people also claim that a scientist needing evidence to accept a theory, are close minded. The idea that requiring evidence makes you close minded, is illogical and this idea should be erased.

Just because an event has no explanation that is obvious to you, it doesn’t mean that the event is supernatural. By calling is supernatural, you are almost certain to misinterpret any future evidence that suggests otherwise and you will also remove whole worlds of alternate possibilities, before it is clear which one is appropriate, which is in fact, the very definition of close-minded.

Some people “back up” their claim, by providing an experience or situation that they cannot explain, implying that somehow this makes their claim more plausible; however this does not strengthen their case. It only and simply shows, that your case cannot be explained. Many people are also happy for people to express scepticism about the things they express scepticism, but not the things about which they don’t express scepticism and in these cases, they seem to think that you are open-minded if you agree with them.

There are many ways to become more open-minded. By considering every possibility, you open new paths in your mind that you never knew existed. When it comes to religious and other beliefs, go through a list of the things you believe. If you a not sure whether you believe one, go search it up, learn more about it, and then make an informed decision about it. Remember, and I cannot express this enough, when researching things different to what you believe, try not to be biased, and watch out for biased sources. Consider what the side that you don’t believe has to say, and if you are ill informed about it, go search it up.

So next time you go to tell someone that they need to be more “open-minded”, think about this article and how to be more open-minded and whether you instead, should be taking your own advice.

Max

Why I am an Atheist

Before I get into the main part of this blog, I would like to say a little bit about myself and why I believe what I believe.

My name is Max and I live in Australia. Due to the fact that this is a controversial topic, and I am likely get receive some description of hate mail, I am not going to give any more information than that. I was brought up in a family that consists of atheists and agnostic atheists. There was no talk about religion until I had stumbled across the concept of it myself. It wasn’t until the early years of primary school that I began to grasp the concept of religion. Even then, I didn’t believe in the concept of a god, despite the fact that I was too young to make a sound and informed decision.

In the middle of primary school, people figured out I wasn’t a Christian, and decided to try and take changing that into their own hands, from there they tried to pressure me into becoming a Christian. Each time they tried, they provided no evidence to support what they were saying, so my opinion of then and their beliefs dropped lower and lower, for each time they provided no evidence for what they were saying.

In high school due to the larger diversity and number of people, there was a more diverse series of religious beliefs. I did Christian Education in the first two years, but then near the beginning of my second year, realised that the subject wasn’t compulsory however I decided to stick it out, and see what else Christianity had to offer. By the middle of the year I started to have problems regarding Christian morals and philosophies, especially the ones regarding women and gays. I asked my Christian Education teacher about them, but he tried to brush them aside, saying that I was interpreting it wrong I didn’t pursue the topic as I didn’t want to have too much attention directed at me. I went to a youth group and though I was impressed by their charitableness, I never felt entirely comfortable.

By my third year at high school, I was a reasonably strong atheist, and became pretty sceptical and it took a while to convince me of anything that was improbable. I started watching videos of people like Richard Dawkins, and every time somebody tried to argue with him, they were annihilated by his logic and reasoning. After seeing what he could do, I starting thinking, well maybe I can make a difference, so I started debating with people who claimed that evolution is a lie or a “creation of the devil to deceive us”. As you now know, since then I have decided to make a blog/website and am currently updating it. Hopefully you enjoy it, and if you don’t believe what I believe, please refrain from death threats.

Thanks for reading,

Max