“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Imagine with John Lennon a world with no religion..
Richard Dawkins
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
John Lennon
Around 10 years ago, during an online chat, there was a mention of God. As usual in these circumstances, I said that I don’t believe in god(s), to which the reply came:
Who made the World?
The tone and surprise in the response were as if I’d said that I didn’t believe in Henry Ford and the knee-jerk response was on a par with ‘Well, who made the Model T Ford?’. I explained that the world was not ‘made’ by ‘anyone’ but had formed through natural processes. It might have been a waste of time to continue the discussion. When trying to explain that the Bible didn’t have all the answers and that Adam and Eve weren’t the first humans, I asked about dinosaurs. The reply I got regarding dinosaurs was that the Devil had made them.
As I’ve now come to realise, when some people don’t have information on which to base an answer, they sometimes say the first thing that they think of. I’m almost making excuses for the American chat friend here, and wonder if (hope) they may have come up with another answer if given time to think about it. Or perhaps lacked the general knowledge or education to grasp the concept of evolution.
Jump forward to more recent times. When chatting to some younger members of my family, probably about school, the subject of God came into the conversation. When I said that I didn’t think God was real, my 6 year old nephew said:
Who made the world?
The difference in this case was that the child in question, in my opinion, was more able to understand that the Earth had formed naturally. This is not because it was ‘my view’ but more that we can find out the facts for ourselves. I’d hope that this sort of knowledge would be learned at school. It would be a great shame if children are going to school in Britain and being taught that God made the world, along with stories of Adam and Eve and Noah. It seems almost cruel to tell young children such things as if they are facts. They are myths from a time when we did not have answers to many questions. Let us not perpetuate these Myths of Creation, for they are no more than fantastical lies.
..teaching creationism ‘alongside’ evolution … is no more defensible than teaching the stork theory alongside the sex theory of the where babies come from.
Those who deny scientific evidence concerning issues such as the age of the Universe and the Earth, evolution including the existence of dinosaurs should be denied access to other achievements of science such as the following:
air travel and motor vehicles,
television (terrestrial/satellite),
telephones, the internet, computers,
radios, all electrical appliances, electric lighting,
electronic supermarket tills,
food, clothing and other items manufactured by technological methods,
or transported by motorised transportation including magazines, books and newspapers,
medicines (developed by scientists) and surgery (by physicians with scientific knowledge),
money – coins and bank notes produced by machinery,
electric guitar or other instrument, microphone, refrigerator, microwave oven,
XBox360, PS3, Wii,
toothbrushes or other battery-powered hand-held items.
In other words, those who deride science should not use/purchase/consume any devices that science has developed, or items that have been manufactured, transported or otherwise interacted with science: anything with an internal combustion engine, a motor, a battery, a bulb, a transistor, light emitting diode, liquid crystal display, cathode ray tube, etc, etc.
If those who denied scientific evidence adhered to their principles, they should not be able to promote their ideologies through methods which utilise science and technology. Religious fundamentalists should not promote creationism (or any other messages whatsoever) via the Internet, nor use mobile phones or air flight in their terrorist activities. In doing so, they contradict themselves and their ideals.
Science is knowledge gained through testing and evidence. To dismiss the method as evidence for some knowledge should mean denying scientific methods altogether.
Denying scientific methods and knowledge would be to deny the existence of television and the aeroplane.
Therefore, those who choose to ignore the geological evidence for the age of the Earth should forego the right to watch TV or fly on an aeroplane. To not follow the example is hypocrisy.
We call for International Law to allow only those who accept the findings of science to be able to enjoy the full advances of technology, and ban fundamentalists from doing so.
In response, we will accept letters from fundamentalists written in quill and ink and transported by horse or donkey to any normal person who may then copy the message to the Web. We do not deny the right of fundamentalists to learn and become enlightened through education and then go on to enjoy the modern era and listen to CDs and make telephone calls. Some may become fascinated by the delights of the so-called ‘digital watch’.
