Something from Nothing

Intelligent design proponents often argue that it is impossible to get something from nothing.  They argue that something must have caused the formation of the universe and that God is that cause, himself being uncaused.  To them, this is the only reasonable explanation.  When asked where, then, God came from they claim he always was.  Let’s have a look at that claim and the explanation they give about God.

So, God is the cause for everything.  It is impossible for anything to exist unless something caused it to exist.  But God, being outside of and greater than our universe, is exempt from this rule.  Once again a perfect example of what I like to call, “The absolute and the exception” where a claim of absolute “truth” is made and an exception is made for God.  Technically in this case it is called “special pleading”.  So, does it hold up?

First, special pleading is a well known logical fallacy.  You can’t claim something is “always true” then add, “except for this one case” because then it isn’t “always true” at all.  If you allow for a single exception to a rule then you must allow for other exceptions as well.  You can never claim that there is only one, single possible exception.  Why?  How do you know?  We’ll get into this in more detail in a little bit.

So, either the rule applies to BOTH the universe AND God or it’s not a rule at all.  The rule is, “You can’t get something from nothing.”  So, what is God?  Is he something or is he nothing?  He can’t be nothing because the claim is that he created everything and the rule is that you can’t get something from nothing.  The claim and the rule are mutually exclusive.  So he must be something.  If he is something and he created everything then neither the claim nor the rule are violated, but it means that God must have had a creator, and that creator must have also had a creator back into infinity.  I’ve never heard a Christian admit that their God may have, himself, been created by an even more powerful and wondrous God.  To even suggest it seems offensive to many.  But the rule is that you can’t get something from nothing, God is something, so he could not have come from nothing.

This is where the “He always was” argument comes in.  Okay.  We can use that.  The universe DID come from “something”.  Scientists call it a “singularity”.  And the singularity always was.  This argument is not only as valid as the argument for a creator, it’s actually MORE valid as it is backed by scientific observation, an idea born of the mathematics which define the universe as we know it, a theory based on the evidence at hand and cold, unbiased mathematical calculations.  It is based on facts.  Or maybe you don’t like that.  Okay, the singularity didn’t always exist.  It was created when two 11^th dimension membranes collided.  The 11^th dimension always was.  Why are either of these explanations any less acceptable than the explanation that a giant fairy in space created everything?  For no reason other than that ID proponents believe in fairies, but they don’t believe in science.

Now we’ll get back to that “How do you know that you can never claim that there is only one, single possible exception” thing I mentioned earlier.  As I said, no Christian I have ever talked to has ever been willing to even consider the notion that God was, himself, created.  Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the universe does require a “cause” and that God is that cause.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses who try relentlessly to convert me call him the “uncaused cause”.  How do they know that?  How can they possibly be certain that there is nothing greater than their God, so far above him that he could not possibly understand it?  Perhaps God, himself, is an atheist simply denying the reality of his own creation.  And really, even if you were to assume he really existed, what reason would you have to believe that he is who he says he is?  When you get right down to it you only have the word of men who have interpreted the word of other men who wrote down the word of still other men as it was passed down to them through the word of other men who claimed it was the word of God.  By my count that’s at least a 5^th person account, and that’s just the New Testament.  Much of the Old Testament is known to have been oral tradition generations before it was ever written down.  When it all comes down to it the reason to believe is nothing more than “…because I say so because he told me it’s so because someone told him it’s so…on back nearly 2,000 years…because the writers of some scrolls told him it was so because (best case) Jesus told him it was so because God told him it was so.”  No wonder so many Christians have trouble accepting science.  It’s backed by facts, which are certainly not as trustworthy as hearsay.

The truth is you can’t possibly “know” anything about this being.  In fact, many Christians are quick to point that out the very moment you bring up something their God did which they cannot rationalize as being not evil.  But they know him very well when they claim he would never lie, that he is the greatest being in all of everything and that there is no possible way he, himself, had a creator.  Well, how can something come from nothing?  God isn’t nothing, so he must be something and it takes something to create something.

The “first cause argument” states that everything that has a beginning has a cause.   The universe had a beginning.  It goes on to state that at some point there must have been an “uncaused” first cause and that cause was God.  So, let’s look at that logically.

Everything that has a beginning has a cause.  This seems logical enough.  We live in a universe governed by cause and effect.  It is a fundamental law of the very nature of all we know within our universe.  So it seems reasonable to assume that the beginnings of the universe must have a cause.  However, you can’t make such an assumption.  The law of cause and effect are laws WITHIN OUR UNIVERSE.  For them to apply to the origin of the universe the universe would have to be within itself, which, itself, violates a law of physics or two.  The laws of physics are the laws ONLY within our universe.  They DO NOT apply to an event outside of our universe which may have created our universe.  What laws apply then?  Any answer you are given is a wild guess since we have never had a single observation or data point from outside of our own universe, thus any answer is pure speculation.  The beginning of the universe MAY HAVE had a cause, but we cannot say for sure that the laws of cause and effect even applied before our universe existed.

The very first part of this argument is true only as we have observed within our own universe.  To apply the laws which govern our universe to a pre-universe which may very well be governed by completely different laws is making an assumption that the laws of physics predate our universe.  There is no evidence to back this up.

The second part of the argument is also an assumption.  Yes, scientific evidence would suggest that the universe had a beginning, but that is not an absolute fact.  It is possible the universe existed for an eternity as a singularity and, at some point, it exploded.  Why, we cannot say.  That this explosion had a cause, we cannot assume.  But it is very possible for the singularity to have existed for an eternity if time was created by the explosion just like it appears space, energy and matter were.  This is a complex idea, so let me explain.  Imagine you have a time machine and you go back in time to the instant of the big bang, the moment at which time was created (assuming time was created by the big bang for the sake of this thought experiment).  Now try to go back further.  You can’t.  If time did not exist before the bang you could set your machine to keep going back for all eternity and it will never go back before the explosion, no matter how far back you try to travel.  This could be interpreted as the singularity existing for an eternity since traveling back for an eternity would not be able to take you to a time when it did not exist.

The final part of the argument before the conclusion states that there must have, at some point, been an uncaused cause.  Again, it seems reasonable.  I certainly can’t imagine an infinity of creators, each one created by another by another by another with no first “creator”.  That doesn’t mean it’s not possible.  Yes, it sounds absurd, but I haven’t really met many gods, so I really can’t speak to their nature.  It is possible there is an infinity of created creators.  But what’s really important here is the claim that this “first cause” or “uncaused cause” is God.  Based on what?  The word of the people who interpreted the word of the people who wrote down the word of other men who professed to deliver the word of God?  HOW DO YOU KNOW that God was the “first” cause?  Maybe he was the second; the tenth; the billionth.  Maybe there are a thousand gods above him who look down on him like we look down on a bacterium with a microscope.  Or maybe that cause was 11^th dimensional membranes which, themselves, have always existed.  Even if we concede that there MUST have been a cause in no way does that prove that cause was supernatural.

The purpose of this argument, of course, is to use science “when convenient” to give credibility to the notion of fairies and magic (Christians usually hate when you call “God’s power” magic, but really there is no difference between magic and miracles).  But science and logic is only applied when it’s convenient.  When it’s no longer convenient science and logic are thrown out and completely ignored.  Either something IS scientific and you can explain it solely with science or it IS NOT scientific and you don’t get to pretend science is explaining it.  It’s pretty straight forward.  It’s scientific or it’s not.  If it is then you must explain it using only science.  You must be able to explain scientifically how it is impossible that God has a creator who has a creator who has a creator named Reginald, who is the first and uncaused cause.  If that can’t be done using only science then there is no absolute rule which cannot be broken EXCEPT when it’s convenient.  Science doesn’t pander to explanations which are convenient to our beliefs.  Science is about facts and evidence that leads to conclusions, not conclusions for which evidence is found.

The Devil's Tools

We’ve all heard terms like “lying for Jesus” and, of course, who hasn’t heard about those lunatic hate mongers, the Westboro Baptist Church and their slogan, “God hates fags”.  I find these particular attributes of “holiness” to be quite confusing.  In fact, I find them downright stupid.  Ask any Christian who the father of lies is and they will tell you that it is Satan.  Ask them who inspires hatred and you will get the same answer.  The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that God doesn’t mind you doing his work with tools you borrow from the devil.  How does that make any sense?  Are God’s own tools of righteousness not good enough to get the job done?  Is God’s word, alone, not potent enough without using what could be referred to as “Satanic tactics” to spread that word?  After thinking about it for a while I can only come to one conclusion.  These people are Satan worshipers.

Bear with me on this one.  Jesus said in Matthew 12:30, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”  Basically you are either all in or all out.  This type of thinking is what makes Christians relate atheists to Satan worshipers.  If you are not working for God then you are working for Satan.  There is no middle ground.  Since there is no middle ground then this applies to everyone, including people who think they are good Christians.  It is a well established, Biblically backed belief that you are one or the other, holy or unholy, doing the work of Christ or doing the work of Satan.  But can you do the work of Christ with Satan’s toolbox?  Again, the Bible says no.  In Matthew 12 the Bible states that Satan cannot cast out Satan because he would be “divided against himself”.  It says that “a house divided against itself cannot stand”.  Jesus is saying that Satan cannot do that which is not in his best interest.  So when someone is going out to do God’s work, why would Satan loan them his tools?  Obviously it’s in his best interest to loan out his tools or he wouldn’t do it.

All of this suggests that you cannot do God’s work with Satan’s tools.  If you use Satan’s tools then you, yourself, would be one of Satan’s tools.  To be “Christian” is to be “like Christ” and, based on what I’ve seen in the Bible, I can’t imagine Jesus calling anyone a “fag” or any other hateful name.  Certainly, as one young boy recently pointed out at a WBC protest, God doesn’t hate anyone according to the beliefs of literally every Christian I’ve ever talked to on the matter.  As Satan is the source of hatred for God to hate anyone would mean he is affected by Satan, which doesn’t fit in at all with any Christian teachings or beliefs.

So does God “hate fags”?  I don’t think Jesus would say so.  Maybe the WBC worships Old Testament God who, let’s face it, was very much not the same guy Jesus was talking about in the New Testament.  It certainly makes sense.  Old Testament God put the smack down on just about everyone, sometimes for almost no reason at all.  Moses couldn’t see the promised land because he hit a rock instead of speaking to it.  Any other time God would have absolutely loved the dramatic show of striking a rock to make water come out.  But this time he was feeling kind of dickish, which he did a lot in the OT.  In fact, he was pissed off more than not back then, killing babies and raining shitstorms down on nations and worlds.  Hell, he even rained a pretty decent shitstorm down on his own follower, Job just to win a bet with Satan, who apparently could walk right up to God and talk to him any time he liked, even though Hell is “to be separated from God”…somehow…  Hey, just because Satan was cast into Hell to be separated from God doesn’t mean they can’t still hang out, right?

So, yes, maybe OT God does, indeed, hate fags.  Maybe he wouldn’t even have a problem using a hateful slur to describe people he created, many of whom have known they were gay since puberty, suggesting it is, indeed, an inborn trait.  But Jesus sure as hell wouldn’t have anything to do with such hate mongers.  And even OT God wouldn’t have anything to do with liars.  He once killed a man for putting his hand on the Arc of the Covenant to keep it from falling to the ground for the love of his God.  If he kills a man for breaking a rule out of love for his artifact he certainly wouldn’t have nice things to say about someone who thinks so little of him that they believe they have to lie about him to make him interesting enough to talk about.

So, I guess the good people at the WBC are actually militant Jews.  To be Christian is to be Christ-like and they’re certainly nothing like Christ.  No, they’re more like OT God, the Great Desert Dick, as I’m sure he was known in the day.  Of course, that’s assuming he was known at all.  You would think Egypt would remember him in their long history.  Yet amongst the pyramids, statues and Sphinxes there is not one depiction of frogs falling from the sky, the death of every firstborn male child, the Nile turning into blood, boils covering all the people of Egypt or any of the other ridiculous things which are claimed to have happened but which all other sources of history conveniently seem to have forgotten.

I certainly can’t argue that the members of the WBC aren’t like that guy.  And that’s the problem with having a bipolar god.  There’s a mood to match any kindness or hatred you want to spread across the world.  You’re the same person you would be without a god because you shape your god to what you want it to be.  You hate gays?  How convenient that your god hates them more.  You have to lie to people to fill the pews?  How convenient that your god doesn’t mind.  You want to help the poor?  Good news!  That’s EXACTLY what your god wants you to do!  You want to kill people who aren’t like you?  Excellent!  Because that’s exactly what your god wants you to do now!  God seems to want so many things incompatible with many of the other things he wants.

People think they are bending to God’s will.  In reality they are building a god around their own will, the way people have always done.  It’s the nature of all the gods people have ever worshiped.  Those who worship weakly custom build their god to be exactly what they want.  Those who worship strongly are, themselves, weak, bending to the will of the people who tell them what their god wants from them.  The stronger the worship, the weaker the person.  And the louder the ranting, the dimmer the mind.  I would love to see IQ tests for the members of the WBC.  I bet the scores would give me a real chuckle.

What if You're Wrong?

Atheists often hear the same arguments from many Christians over and over again.  In fact, if an atheist is active in the atheist community eventually it gets to the point where we just don’t hear an original argument any more.  One of the most common is, “What if you’re wrong?”  The argument is that if I am right about there being no God it still does me no harm to believe it.  When it comes time for the afterlife there is simply nothing, like I already believe.  No harm, no foul.  But if I’m wrong and I do not worship then I spend an eternity in Hell for not believing.  According to the argument I’ve nothing to lose by believing no matter whether God exists or doesn’t, but there’s a 50/50 chance I could spend an eternity in Hell if I don’t.

The problems with this argument, of course, are many.  Let’s start with my chances.  While a 50/50 chance sounds reasonable on the surface because we are looking at only two possibilities, that I am right or I am wrong, it is WAY off from any actual chances because what one believes does not have any effect whatsoever on reality.  I could believe that 2+2=17 and you could believe that 2+2=143.  There is not a 50/50 chance for each of us to be right just because we are only looking at two beliefs.  In fact, it does not matter one bit what we believe.  It does not affect the reality that 2+2=4 whatsoever.  In this case there is a 100% chance that we are both wrong.

The same is true when saying that there is a 50/50 chance that I am wrong.  It’s not even close.  There are many, many more gods than the Christian God, and some of them want to punish me for not believing too.  In fact, EVEN IF the Christian God were the one true God, then I would STILL have to choose the correct Christian religion to avoid eternal damnation.  How do I do that?  I would have to look at the options available to me and make an informed decision about what I should believe.  I’ve done that.  That’s why I’m atheist.

Another truth is that I very much have something to lose.  If I’m right and this life is all I have then spending hours a week in worship of an imaginary deity is a waste of what little time I have in this world.  In fact, wasting just 2 hours a week for 60 years, a very conservative figure, I would be throwing away more than half a year of my life doing something completely pointless.  Not only that, I’ve been in a fundamentalist religion before.  I know firsthand what I have to lose and, more importantly, what my children have to lose by being members of some of the wackier Christian religions.  It could potentially be even worse if we were Catholic since priests apparently can’t keep their hands off of little boys.  There have been many instances of children committing suicide as the direct result of abuses by Catholic priests.  So now the question becomes, “What if I choose wrong?”  Not only do I STILL go to Hell by some religious beliefs, but I ALSO waste my life in worship of the wrong thing AND my children may be severely emotionally damaged by a cult-like fundamentalist religion or a grabby priest; maybe even both.

To put this into perspective I like to ask, “Do you believe in vampires?”  Of course not.  That’s laughable.  But…What if you’re wrong?  What if there ARE vampires?  What if you go your whole life not believing in vampires and then one night you get bitten by one, die, come back and kill your family?  After all, you have a 50/50 chance of being wrong.  So, just in case, what would it hurt to sneak holy water out of churches and drink some every night, just in case?  If your blood is filled with holy water then you should be safe from vampires, right?  I don’t understand why EVERYONE isn’t doing that.  If you drink holy water and there are no vampires then you don’t lose anything, but if you drink holy water and vampires are real it could save your life!  Of course the argument is ludicrous, but not one bit less ludicrous than it is when used for religious beliefs.

Most atheists approach this from another angle.  There are thousands of religions on the planet right now and if I were to worship “just in case” I could not be only Christian.  I would also have to be Jewish, Muslim and any other religion where an eternal afterlife of torment, or at least the missed opportunity for an eternal life of happiness was promised if I did not worship.  So, again, the only way for me to determine which religion, if any, I should follow would be to examine them all for their merits and make an informed, unbiased decision based on the empirical evidence.  Again, I’ve already done that with as many religions as I care to and that’s why I’m an atheist.

The most annoying part about this argument is that the person making it has never asked themselves that same question.  They have never asked themselves, “What if there is a god, but not the God I am currently worshiping?”  As any atheist who’s seen all these arguments before can tell you, the person making the argument always excludes their beliefs from the argument.  There’s the argument, “Nothing can come from nothing.  The universe must have been created.”  When asked who created their God they respond, “He always was”, excluding their God from the confines of the very argument they just made, completely unaware that if it works for one thing it will work for another.  If one thing “must” have been created then everything “must” have been created.  If one thing can exist without being created then other things can exist without being created.  Each of these arguments has specific logical fallacies associated with them, but I just call them all “The argument and the exception”.  That description fits an alarming number of theistic arguments.  They will make their argument, then make an exception for their god/religion/holy writings/people/history/etc.  I’ve seen it used in creation, I’ve seen it used in arguments that priests are called and led by God, but child molesting priests are somehow different (after all, why would God call someone to the priesthood knowing that the direct result of his intervention into one man’s life would lead to the molestation of hundreds of children?), I’ve seen it used to refute all “holy” writings except one, I’ve seen it used to explain how religious people are better people but exclude religious people who were not good people…I’ve seen it used in just about every religious argument.  Technical fallacies aside, this description accurately portrays a large number of the arguments I’ve seen.

All theists seem to lower the bar considerably when it comes to their own religious beliefs.  In my experience only atheists are willing to demand the same level of evidence for their own beliefs that they demand for any other.  Most atheists I know will freely admit that they can never know for sure that no gods exist.  If they can’t prove it, they don’t claim it.  If everyone had the same standard we’d all be atheists.  Or at least Christians wouldn’t have this annoying attitude that they are absolutely right and anyone who doesn’t believe it is the enemy.  Personally, I think a lot of the anger and aggravation from theists comes from the fact that they get angry to avoid having to listen to the reasonable arguments that would cement their own doubts in their beliefs.

Religion and Me

I know that some of my posts come across as angry, so I wanted to take this opportunity to explain my position on religion.  It is true that sometimes I am angry at some religious people.  Though I don’t always specifically state it I do not group all religious people together as all being the same.  For the most part, I don’t hate the various religions, themselves.  I very much disrespect them.  Far too many Christians are under the mistaken impression that I have some obligation to respect their believes, beliefs which I find to be childish and silly.  I will never respect religious beliefs, though I can and do respect individual religious people.  My mother, for instance, is Pentecostal.  Having an intimate knowledge of that religion I also have a deep hatred for it.  I often say that Pentecostals are a compound away from being a cult.  They do work very, very hard to separate their members from the outside world and it has the effect, probably intended, of decimating anyone who leaves.  They leave behind all of their friends and the only people they know how to interact with socially, who now see them as all but a physical manifestation of the devil.  I will never respect what they do to people to keep members.  I will never respect the church, the religion or the people in charge.  I can and do respect some of its members.

But that’s a specific religion for specific reasons.  Let’s talk more generally.  Imagine, if you will, that I believed that a spirit dog named Dufus created the universe and made me his emissary on Earth.  You may still respect me, the person, but that belief is ludicrous.  Why the hell would you respect that?  I wouldn’t.  Neither do I respect a beliefs that science is out to get God or that, and this one is dumb as hell, an all powerful, loving God who loves me more than I could ever possibly imagine and wants nothing but for me to spend eternity with him would sit by silently and simply watch my life unfold and, in the end, light me on fire for all of eternity for no reason other than I didn’t believe he existed.  I love my children.  That’s why I’m there for them.  Not once have I ever been able to imagine a single thing they could do which would make me think, “Yeah, I really need to light my kid on fire for that one.”  Christians always try to defend that by saying other stupid things, like there needs to be punishment for doing wrong or that God doesn’t send people to Hell, they send themselves there.  Let’s look at those two excuses.

First, there needs to be punishment for doing wrong.  I certainly agree with that.  But if everyone thought the same way God apparently does, what would punishment look like?  Well, everyone does good and bad throughout their lives (saving the subject of morality for another day).  We wouldn’t punish individual bad things.  We would pick a point in a person’s life and then…then what?  It really doesn’t matter how bad the bad they did was.  All that would matter is if they were sorry enough for it to have gone through some cleansing ritual and really, really meant it…BEFORE we chose to judge them.  If they had, they’re in the clear and will never be judged again.  If they had not then I suppose we would ship them off to a prison for the rest of their lives to be tortured for as long as it was in our power to do so.  Once we’ve chosen a random time in their lives to judge them it’s too late at that point to make amends.  Theoretically we could have a serial killer who killed hundreds over decades and, each time he did, felt bad enough about it to go through the ritual and cleans himself, seriously meaning to never do it again.  At judgment time he would be good to go.  Yet an 15 year old boy we caught looking at a woman’s ass, having done no real “evil” in his life, but obviously “thinking impure thoughts”, would be sent off to prison to be tortured for the rest of his life.  Or what about a 16 year old girl who has never hurt anyone, but doesn’t agree with the punishment system?  Off you go, bitch, to life of torment for not believing in the system.  We certainly don’t want that type hanging around with our decent citizens like the serial killer.

Next, God doesn’t send people to Hell, they choose to go to Hell.  This one is stupid even by Christian apologist standards.  Who made everything, including Hell?  God.  For what purpose was Hell created?  Punishment.  Who punishes the wicked?  God.  Who sends people to Hell?  They send themselves…  That’s just stupid.  God made Hell to punish “the wicked” and God punishes “the wicked” in Hell.  This is like me putting a gun to someone’s head and telling them they had two choices.  They could either do whatever command I give them OR I could shoot them in the head.  Somehow I doubt the “She CHOSE to be shot in the head” defense will be of much use to me in court.  What she “chose” was not to comply with my demands in this scenario.  Then I “chose” to kill her.  And it’s even DUMBER THAN THAT when it comes to God.  There are, as I have mentioned, 38,000 Christian religions alone.  Many Christians believe that only a single one of those paths is right and all others lead to Hell.  I’m sure that no Christian, when asked bluntly, seriously believes that no Baptist, no Catholic, no Mormon, no Jehovah’s Witness, no Pentecostal, no Lutheran or no Methodist sincerely wants to follow the one right path.  The reason they are Christian is because they want to follow Christ.  The idea that there are 38,000 wrong paths and 1 right one make the whole “chose to go to Hell” argument completely moronic.  If you’ve ever been in one religion and switched to another than you know quite well that EVERYONE believes they are following the right path.  So to “choose” to go to Hell could be nothing more than to be tricked into following the wrong religion.  An accident is not a choice and the Bible says very clearly that Satan will try to trick you into following the wrong path.  Apparently there’s a sort of intelligence test administered by Satan to get into Heaven.

Of course, many religions give me specific things to hate about them, but the general premise of a belief in magic coupled with the ferocity with which Christians demand it be called by some name other than magic is utterly ludicrous to me.  I do not respect religious beliefs because they are dumb.  That is my opinion and I am entitled to it.  I realize those who are demanding that I respect their religion believe they have some divine right to respect for their beliefs.  What they don’t understand is that I’ve heard it all before.  I have had the “one true religion” bullshit spouted at me from people of so many religions that it is literally laughable.  When someone tries to use the Bible to show me how theirs is the “one true religion” I laugh in their faces, then explain how I’ve heard this from Catholics and Pentecostals and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims and countless people of indiscernible religion on the Internet.  They don’t realize their arguments are all exactly the same.  The only difference is which verses from which holy book they choose to back their claims.  I’m sure that to them theirs sounds far more credible, but it’s not.  It’s exactly the same as every other “one true religion” claim I’ve ever heard.  “Ours is right because this part of our holy book says so and our holy book is right because our religion is right”.  It’s called “circular logic” and there is nothing about that to respect.

So, no, I do not, nor will I ever respect at least any religion I am familiar with and I am under no obligation to do so.  Respect must be earned and no god has yet earned my belief, much less my respect.  I can and do respect specific religious individuals.  But for the most part the one I have in mind while writing this blog are the ones who piss me off.  They are the ones who believe that it is their right to deny others rights.  They are the ones who will never be happy with simply “live and let live”, only “live the way we tell you and let live or we’ll kill you”.  They are the dumbasses who believe that Christians are being persecuted, that some mysterious “they” is out to get them, that secularists and atheists are working hard to take them down.  They are the smug, self important twits who believe that God speaks directly to them and his commands are undeniable.  They are the Pat Robertsons and the Harold Campings of the world who spout out stupid shit and demand that we accept it as reality until it is proven that it’s not.  I’m sorry, but that’s not how reality works.  Mystical claims of divine knowledge are bullshit until it is proven that they’re not because that has NEVER happened.  All claims that the world was going to end have failed to come true.  And I’d sure like to see a copy of that pact Haiti signed with the devil.  I’d be willing to place a very large wager that this supposed document isn’t exactly on file at their local court house, nor can any person the world around produce it.  So how does Pat know?  God told him, the same way he told Harold Camping the world was going to end last year.  Respect that?  When I see a dead guy get up and fly away, I’ll respect your belief that it happened 2,000 years ago.  Until then it’s just an idiotic story about some magic dead guy to me.