God’s Help to You

Ok, so I’m going to do a bit of a Q&A scenario between an Atheist (A) and a Theist (T).

The true story behind this Q&A is essentially that the Theist prayed for an Atheist to pass an exam. The Atheist passed with a good score. This Atheist also put in a lot of study time as well, yet feared that they might fail the course.

When the Atheist passed with the highest grade in the class, the Theist, basically stated: “See I believe in my Lord, I knew he would intervene, even though, I know you don’t believe, he never leaves those who believe in him, behind.”

Ok, so obviously this success was due to god’s intervention per the believer. Now granted that the Q&A below are one of many possible paths it can take, the main purpose of it, is the purpose of query, of rational thought, of finding the evidence for the statement above, so that it can be irrefutable if it were true, otherwise it isn’t a solid base or argument.

This is the post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacy.

A: Is what god does perfect?

T: Yes (we know that Theists believe that god’s actions and thoughts are perfection themselves)

A: So we know that a perfect score is 100% and what I received was a 92%, so either god can’t do something perfect or he had nothing to do with this.

T: Even though you received a 92%, that was done perfectly by god.

A: So this actually begs a few more questions. Firstly, human standard which is what god is trying to affect for the benefit of the receiver is 100% and god’s help can only help raise my score up to 92%, a lower standard than human standard.

Can he reach the human standard or just merely, or doesn’t feel like it, doesn’t want to, what does the evidence show? Why 92% & not the passing grade of 82% instead, if it is not going to be the perfect standard?

What if every time the theist prayed, the score would be 100%, would it not signify that there is some divine intervention? Because, by god! It’s happening every time!

Would theists take advantage of a situation like that & point to it as irrefutable proof of divine intervention?
Or would theists argue, God shouldn’t be so obvious & should instead allow people to arrive at faith by just believing? Hence an imperfect 92%.

There usually comes the occasion wherein the fault lies with the human, so the excuse added is: “you need to help yourself first before god helps you.” Well, nah no duh! It is established that the human is working towards their goal; there may be some who do want a free ride. But it would be an insult to the majority who do put an effort.

This just begs the question:

Where do we draw the line between what god does and what our effort is?

Then there is the god “escape clause”: so essentially if the test taker were to have failed this exam then, the fault would be due to her or his lack of faith or because it’s an endeavor that’s not “god’s plan” so it couldn’t go into fruition.

A farther yet related question is:

If everything that happens is god’s will , then why try anything? Afterall that would be god’s will too.

Abraham and his son Isaac

The story of Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac told in Genesis 22:1-19 is illustrative of how religious people should hold their faith, how they should behave with regards to faith, namely by not questioning a single word of “god”. Even if it means killing their own blood, their own kith and kin.

However, we know that that isn’t how believers would behave, because one, of the times we live in and two the evolution our mind set has gone through since that time. This demonstrates how this story and the grotesque act detailed therein would be unacceptable in this day and age, a change that goes against the tenets that the bible or torah is the word of god, because for it to be the word of god, it makes sense and indeed believers state that it is the word, that it must stand for all times.

As we can see, not so. Which mother (who is sane) in this day and age would allow her child to be slaughtered? Which father (again who is sane) would stab his own son with a knife because god said so? If you heard a voice telling you to sacrifice your child wouldn’t you think it’s the devil instead (if you’re religious)? Wouldn’t you think it might be some sort of hallucinatory experience? Wouldn’t you look around to make sure it wasn’t some sort of sick joke or trick by someone?

I’m pretty sure that in and around 2300 – 1000 BCE, such an act would have constituted the highest piety. In our day it would constitute a criminal act, from a deranged human being. And therefore for the most part this act would be questioned even if a disembodied voice requested it.

Therefore based on these behavioral differences from Bronze age to modern era, we can state that the scriptures on faith are basically being ignored. Believers today have essentially broken their connection to this act of faith, but have rewired it so they only have to refer to the piety of Abraham. It is essentially putting blinders on.

The act of Abraham of tying his son up, placing him (his son had asked about the sacrificial lamb) on the altar, and then raising the knife over his helpless body, if analyzed within psychology, this would no doubt have been confirmed to have caused some sort of mental and emotional trauma on Isaac. So even if there is no direct physical harm, there surely was the aforementioned which tends to eventually affect the physical.

Then comes one of the more ridiculous lines with regards to this matter. Genesis 22:12 “Do not lay your hand on the boy, neither shall you harm him: for now I know that you are a man who reveres God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

God had to prove to himself that Abraham was faithful to him. What type of god is this? He’s been said to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, why does he state to just know this (making a story up, is not acceptable)? Another question that can arise is, was this really the JudeoChristian god of love, or the god who knows when even one hair falls from your head? Maybe it’s just the Judeo god, but that distinction isn’t allowed dogmatically.

See, what can be seen in these texts is how god himself evolves, based on the writers perception of how god is or was. In the old testament, he hates everybody, hates Israel too, every once in a while. It shows how he loves the smell of blood from women, children and even animals from other cultures. In the new testament, he is just a loving and condemning god.

Discrepancies

So I ran across this blog by Rosa Rubicondior (atheist extraordinaire in my opinion):

http://rosarubicondior.blogspot.com/2011/09/have-you-found-jesus.html

It shows the discrepancies in the “Word of God”

In particular, of when he was born, where he was, and so on.

Here’s another one about women knowing their place according to Christianity.  This lets you know that it isn’t being practiced according to what the bible requires, in America.  So that means 95% plus of Christian women in America are apostates for not practicing this as recommended.  Christian men too for not putting women in their place. Here it is:

http://rosarubicondior.blogspot.com/2012/10/women-are-you-free-or-christian.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Rosarubicondior+%28RosaRubicondior%29

“God the abusive spouse – You made me angry.  Beg for forgiveness or I’ll get angry again…I don’t want to have to hurt you…” – Rosa Rubicondior

“If you get your answers from the bible then genuine questions probably aren’t really your thing.” – Adrian Briggs

Cosmology: (I will touch upon this later)

God outside Space and Time: (I will touch upon this later) A concept oft uttered by theists, that God is eternal, outside of time, not affected by space. This concept is an abstraction of the human mind, of extolling to the ultimate. 

First we have to ask how do we “know” that god is eternal? Through the scientific method we would measure and in the very least, if true, we would come up with a measurable even if limited number as in the case of the age of the universe. We don’t have this number through any scientific channels, as a matter of fact, the concept of theistic eternity is a recent concept. If we want to attribute more antiquity to this concept, we may in generosity state that it arose at the time of the writing of the Bible, of which, Genesis is a plagiarized and adapted version of earlier Creation myths. It may have a passed down through oral tradition, with the stories changed in the context of different cultures.

The oft uttered concept of outside of space and time. Is not one I’ve heard being mentioned by astrophysicists, theoretical physicists and such specialists. The boundaries that humans experience that humans know are within the space-time continuum. A very interesting understanding to say the least, provided and elucidated to us by these previously mentioned scientists. In essence, for there to be time there must be distance between point a and point b, even if at the measure of the molecular level. If we speak of distance we know it takes time to get there.

This concept/dogma basically denotes god immaterial existence

Science and Religion: (I will elaborate on this more, later)

Believers align their beliefs so it can match with scientific facts and not the other way around, i.e.: the anthropocentric universe, such as the universe revolving around the sun, cosmic “fine tuning”.

If god thinks, and he created humans and other beings, and gave humans thinking capacity as well as a soul.  This soul is purportedly able to think as well. Why did god create a body for this soul, why did he create a brain?

From what we know from neuroscience, neurology and related fields is that for there to be any thinking there must be a brain, there is no thinking without a properly developed brain or a brain developed to the degree that humans have.  Most animals, cannot reason, they act for the most part instinctively.  Therefore for the human animal, the development of the prefrontal cortex is what has led them to be able to think in an advanced manner.

But we see that god talks and thinks and finds out and gets jealous and gets angry and gets revenge and needs praise otherwise your soul goes to hell. These are all human characteristics which need a brain, neurons, synapses, neurotransmitters, biochemical interactions, all quite obviously imposed on a god concept.  God was essentially created in the image of humans.

I will add more as the days pass and I collect more.