June 2008

Did the historical Jesus exist?

June 30, 2008

Christus Statue by Midiman (cc) If Jesus existed as a human being and did so many amazing things, surely somebody at the time would have written about him? Well, actually, no. The first time Jesus is mentioned outside the Bible is sixty years after he supposedly died. By then, Paul had already spread the myth of a Jesus that he himself had never met, and the first gospels may have already been written.

After these sixty years of silence, there are five ‘early’ independent reports that Christians most often quote:

  • A discredited fourth-century attempt to insert Christian propaganda into a first-century history book.
  • A passing second-century reference to the death of Christ, which gets Pontius Pilate’s job title wrong.
  • Two uncontroversial second-century records of the existence of Christians in Rome and Asia Minor.
  • A claim, made in the ninth century, that somebody else wrote, in the third century, about somebody else writing about a solar eclipse in a lost first-century document.

There is no independent record, in all of recorded history, of any of the following: his alleged bloodline from Abraham and David, his alleged virgin birth, his parent’s alleged flight from Herod, his alleged baptism by John the Dipper, his alleged preaching to large multitudes, his alleged miracles (walking on water, reviving corpses etc), the nature of his alleged trial or death, or his alleged return from being dead to being alive again.

Here are the details of the earliest independent records of the possible existence of Jesus:

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4 funny songs by Tim Minchin

June 22, 2008


If You Open Your Mind Too Much by Tim Minchin.

I’ve just added Tim Minchin to my directory of famous atheists. Minchin is an Australian comedian, actor, composer, songwriter and pianist whose songs include the politically incisive Peace Anthem for Palestine, the inanimate love song Inflatable You, the environmental mega-anthem Take Your Canvas Bags and the self-deprecatory career-crisis confession that is Rock N Roll Nerd.

Minchin is also responsible for probably the most comprehensive atheist-related song lyric in the history of atheist-related song lyrics:

‘And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single spiritual person who has been able to show either empirically or logically the existence of a higher power with any consciousness or interest in the human race or ability to punish or reward humans for their moral choices or that there is any reason other than fear to believe in any version of an afterlife, I will give you my piano, one of my legs and my wife.’

Here are four more Tim Minchin classics from YouTube…

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Reality is basically as it seems

June 22, 2008

Faces of the City by CW Buecheler (cc)This is the third article in a series about why I assume that reality is basically as it seems to be. In the first article, I explained why I believe nothing can be objectively known. In the second article, I described five possible theories of reality. This third article examines the patterns in the five theories of reality, and concludes that:

1. Each new scenario seems closer to the evidence of my experience.
2. Each assumes the existence of extra things that cannot be known to exist.
3. Each seems increasingly functional as a working assumption of reality.
4. These apparent patterns contain a key ‘on/off’ reason-switch.
5. This leads me to assume that reality is basically as it seems to be.

And here is the detail of how I arrive at this assumption…

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Five possible theories of reality

June 22, 2008

How? by Not So Good Photography (cc)This is the second article in a series about why I assume that reality is basically as it seems to be. In the first article, I explained why I believe nothing can be objectively known. This second article deals with a sequence of five possible theories of what reality might consist of:

1. All that seems to exist, even what seem to be thoughts, may be an illusion.
2. Only independent thoughts exist. No separate being thinks them; the thoughts just exist by themselves.
3. Only one thinking being and its thoughts exist. The thoughts only exist when the being is thinking them.
4. Several thinking beings and their thoughts exist. The beings can interact with each other telepathically.
5. Real physical objects also exist, in conjunction with any of the above scenarios.

Here is an overview of each of these possibilities, and how each one fits in with my experience, my use of reason and the practicalities of living my life…

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Nothing can be objectively known

June 20, 2008

The Thinker by Brian - Progressive Spin (cc)This is the first article in a series about why I assume two things about reality: (1) that nothing can be objectively known, and (2) that reality is basically as it seems to be. This article is about the first of those assumptions – that nothing can be objectively known. Here’s a summary:

1. I seem to interpret the universe, and make assumptions, using my thinking.
2. But I can never know if any of my interpretations or assumptions are correct.
3. It is possible that this assumption may itself be incorrect.
4. However, that possibility does not prove that anything can be known.

And here is the detail of each of these points:

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Gods and space lizards – a reply

June 14, 2008

Lizard in the Serengeti by David Dennis (cc)This is a reply from Joshua Moran to this earlier article on gods, agnostics and space lizards. I’ll reply to the points in it later, but in the first instance it is worth putting up as a separate article. The quotes are from my original article, and the rest is Joshua’s reply.

‘Nobody can be certain whether or not George Bush is an alien space lizard’

Yes, but in raising this point, you – with respect – exclude the possibility of common sense. Common sense is an acceptable approach to use in formal philosophical enquiry (Aristotle and John Locke, in particular, focused on this subject).

Common sense doesn’t say: discount something out of hand – but it does say you can only give so much time or so much attention to something, and it does involve critical-thinking. From an everyday, practical point-of-view, if we didn’t apply common sense then we would go mad. Simple as that…

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The pretend Vatican State at the UN

June 14, 2008

Vatican Postbox by Dear Barbie (cc)The Vatican is by far the smallest State in the world, being just over a hundred acres in size. It plays at being a real State by issuing its own stamps, but it has no proper citizens (just transient employees of the Catholic Church), few public services (Italy provides it with police and water) and no real economy (though it does have a novelty ATM machine that issues instructions in Latin).

But that does not matter, because the toy Vatican State does not generally interact with other real States. Instead, an entity called the Holy See, which is the central government of the worldwide Catholic Church, masquerades as a State and deals with actual States from its base in the Vatican.

This distinction is very important. It is the openly religious Holy See, and not the theoretically civic Vatican State, that swaps diplomats with actual States, and that has Permanent Observer status at the United Nations and other bodies. But the Holy See does not have any citizens, or any defined territory, and all that it governs is the religious affairs of some citizens of actual civic States…

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Gods, agnostics and space lizards

June 10, 2008

Lizard in the Serengeti by David Dennis (cc)In a comment on an earlier article, Declan Chellar raises two important questions that go to the heart of atheism. They are: what exactly is atheism, and why should an agnostic take what seems to be a leap of faith by concluding that he is an atheist?

As Declan puts it:

‘For me, being a theist means saying “There IS a God and I don’t have to prove it”, whereas being an atheist means saying “There is NO God and I don’t have to prove it.”

By that measure, I consider myself neither, but respect the fact that other people feel the need or desire to be one or the other.’

For many years, I too considered myself an agnostic, and largely on the basis of the definitions that Declan uses. Here are three reasons why I changed my mind…

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Filipino happiness and hunger

June 8, 2008

Philippines by Dharion (cc)Four out of every five Filipinos are happy, and this level of happiness has remained relatively high over the past fifteen years. And poor Filipinos are only marginally less happy than average. However, seven million Filipino families consider themselves to be poor in terms of food. And hunger causes more unhappiness than general poverty does.

The research was conducted by Social Weather Stations, a non-profit social research institution based in Quezon City in Metro Manila. Its three aims are: (1) Education, so eyes may see social conditions; (2) Conscientization, so hearts may feel social problems; and (3) Analysis, so minds may understand their solutions…

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5 funny songs by Tom Lehrer

June 7, 2008


The Vatican Rag by Tom Lehrer

I’ve just added Tom Lehrer to my directory of famous atheists. Lehrer, who turned eighty this year, is an American mathematician who wrote and performed musical satire in the 1950s and 1960s. Best known for his darkly comic Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, his satire also included the Vatican Rag, National Brotherhood Week, Who’s Next and We Will All Go Together When We Go.

In 1996, Lehrer said that, while he was not a spiritual person – “I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don’t get me started!) without having to worry about God” – he believed that to be an atheist was almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. However, by 2000, he had told Cosmik Debris magazine “I used to think atheists were arrogant, but now I am one and I like it”…

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What makes Australians happy?

June 6, 2008

Botanic Gardens, Melbourne by Tim Parkinson (cc)The more money you earn, the less impact that your extra money has on your happiness. If you earn $15,000 a year, an extra $7,000 would make you one percent happier. But if you earn $250,000 a year, it would take an extra $625,000 to make you that same one percent happier. That’s one finding of a report that summarises seven years of research into what makes Australians happy.

The report is published by the health insurance company Australian Unity, in partnership with the Australian Centre on Quality of Life which is based at Deakin University. They also found that Australian women are more satisfied with their lives than men, and that the happiest Australians include those who are getting older, those who live with their partner, especially married people, and those who volunteer generally…

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The unelectable atheist President of the USA

June 5, 2008

The White House by David Paul Ohmer (cc)An atheist running for President of the United States today faces roughly the same level of prejudice from voters as a female candidate would have faced in the 1940s while women workers were being sacked to make way for returning soldiers.

Or as a black candidate would have faced in the 1960s while Martin Luther King was delivering his ‘I have a Dream’ speech. Or as a gay candidate would have faced in the 1980s while many of the straight community were blaming gay men for an AIDS epidemic…

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Is this the World’s happiest man?

June 4, 2008

Matthieu Ricard

When Tibetan Buddhist monks meditate for many years, they gradually change the molecular structure of their brains. MRI scans show that they experience more activity in the left pre-frontal cortex, a part of the brain that is associated with happiness, and less activity in the right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts.

And Matthieu Ricard, the 62-year-old French interpreter for Tibet’s Dalai Lama, has happiness levels that are literally off the scale of the measuring instruments. That’s the conclusion of American neuroscientist Richard Davidson, who has spent over fifteen years testing these theories…

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But will it make you happy?

June 3, 2008

California by Scott Klettke (cc)

Why do people believe that living in California would make them feel happier than people who do live in California actually are? And why do people, who are afraid of being rejected, want more drugs than people who have actually been rejected? There are several reasons.

If you are a typical human being, you are bad at remembering why you felt happy in the past, good at knowing how happy you feel now, okay at predicting roughly what will make you feel happy in the future, but bad at predicting how happy you will feel if specific events happen. That’s the conclusion of scientists who have researched this fascinating area…

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