Afternoon with the LDS: Meet the Mormons

After spending about 1/2 an hour looking for the Mormon church (on a science park of all places!) I meet with 2 of their Elders (apparently you become an elder around age 18).

After the prayer we begin to discuss their beliefs.

(Italic is them)

"We believe that the Lord our God is our loving heavenly father."

"Because?"

"Because when we pray he answers."
"Does he speak to you directly, do you hear his voice?"

"Not all the time, he speaks to us in a variety of ways, sometimes it is just a warm feeling in our hearts."

"Well my heart does no thinking, it pumps blood. However all religions say the same thing, a warm feeling in the member's hearts, pretty much those exact words, they are entirely subjective, why is your's any different?"

"I know there is something more when I pray."

My first thoughts are that this hasn't answered my questions at all, the personal experiences of any person are entirely subjective, they are not independently verifiable. If we based our beliefs on personal experiences we would have to believe in alien abductions and other nuts.

"Is there anything in the Bible you disagree with?"
"Not at all, we believe it is the literal word of God."

-Let's see if I can have some fun with these guys-

"What do you think of homosexuality?"

"We oppose it, that doesn't make us popular but we oppose it. We believe it was Adam and Eve for a reason, not Adam and Steve. Homosexuality is unchaste, there can be no sex outside of marriage just as God decreed. We believe it is the function of marriage, and therefore sex, to procreate. Homosexuals cannot do this."

"What about IVF, lesbian couples can have children in this way."

"We believe that is interfering with God's plan."

"Can God's plan be changed? Doesn't he know exactly what's going to happen at any time all the time, being omniscient?"

"Yes, but people still have free will, he knows what will happen but gives us the choice."

"How? He knows what choice we will make, he knows when, it is predetermined in his plan."

"We do not agree."

That was their only response to the objection, just a blanket assertion that they do not agree.

"What religion are you?"

"I'm not."

"You must be, what belief system do you follow."

"I don't." 

"Are you an atheist?"

"That's not the term I use, I describe myself as a Humanist, but this is not a religion since there is no supernatural belief or rigid belief system."

"Do you believe in evolution?"

-This is when it hits me: Holy fuck these guys are creationists!-

"It is the best explanation of the diversity of life, it is not linked to atheism though."

"Why do you believe it?"

"I'm a Genetics and Biochemistry student, I have a good understanding of the evidence that supports it." (My Yorkshire accent really spiked at this point, actually laughing at my recording).

"Such as?"

"Endogenous retroviruses for one example, homology, genetics, observed speciation events, fossil evidence."

"OK. We don't accept that."

Again, not actual reason why, just the assertion.

After this we just kept going around in circles and nothing important really got mention so I will end it here.

Now, on to the Alpha that evening:

Week 5: Why and How do we read the Bible?

With more than just a pinch of salt I should say.

Part 1: The video

Gumbel starts with an anecdote about him smuggling bibles into Soviet Russia. I personally thought medical textbooks may have been more help.

He tells us how the bible is the single most influential book ever, how it sells 44,000,000 copies a year. My thoughts on that matter are that Twilight sells a lot too, that doesn't make it good (more on this in discussion).

We are told how it changes peoples lives and societies. Most religious texts change people, some non religious texts change people, this has no bearing on the truth of the Bible's claims.

In a fit of immense stupidity Gumbel defines science as the study of God through his creation. Just let that sink in before reading on.

Science, the single best tool ever devised for understanding how the world works apparently presupposes God's existence. Presuppositions being one of the main sources of bullshit around, look at the MMR vaccine scare, people started with the presupposition that MMR caused autism and ignored contradicting evidence. Presuppositionalism is a common tactic in apologetics.

Gumbel asserts there can be no true conflict between science and religion. Really Nicky? Do you actually believe that Nicky?

He shares with us an Einstein quote: "Religion without science is blind, science without religion is lame."

Yet it is known that Einstein was not a Christian, he was a Pantheist, he thought the whole universe was god, literally. I will share another quote by Einstein:
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

As for the statement that there cannot be a conflict between religion and science, what about the Creationists lobbying in the USA? There are countless conflicts between religion and science, to name one sacrificing birds does not cure leprosy.

Gumbel states that the bible is 100% inspired by God and that any historical errors will be sorted out with time. This is presuppositionalism again.

Gumbel states how suffering is a problem for Christians, he almost mentions the problem of evil but his response to suffering is that God allows it so that Christians can understand it. So a child in Africa starves to death as a parasitic worm is boring through his eyeball just so you can understand suffering?

We're told the Bible is a love letter from God.

Now, anyone who knows me will know I haven't had many love letters in my short life...yet. However if someone sent me the Bible:

Dear Mad Splicer,

                             I love you so very much, I want you to be with me and worship me forever, I used to kill untold numbers of people but I sacrificed myself to myself to save you from myself. I created you the way you are but want you to be different. I gave you these critical thinking skills but don't want you to use them. If you ask me for anything I will either do it or tell you I've done it.

Love

Yahweh

P.S. If you don't love me: I will tell my other lovers to kill you and I will torture you FOREVER.

Yeah, blatantly a love letter there Nicky. I don't care how beautiful, intelligent or fun to be around etc. someone is, if the threaten to burn me forever, even just burn me once, for not loving them. They just aren't my type.

His final point, which makes me laugh my arse off, is the well famed Look at the Trees argument.

It is basically an argument from ignorance which says "Look at all the beauty in the world, it must be designed."

This is an example of cherry picking, Gumbel mentions sunsets and starts, but obviously not Necrotizing fasciitis or the aforementioned parasitic worm. 

He then asks do you think God is speaking to you?

My answer should be obvious...

Part 2: The discussion.

Mary is ill unfortunately so the group is led by somebody else.

The initial subject is a comparison of the Bible and other religious works and why it sells so many. I bring up the fact that there are more Christians than other religions and that some other religions still follow the Bible.

One member says that if everyone were to follow the Bible the world would be better.

Stunned by this I mention the homophobia, slavery and sexism in the bible (see passages in last post).

Their first objection was that this was OT, I mention the passages in the NT and you can all guess their response can't you?

Context.

In his talk Gumbel mentioned that in a football game the players are more free when there is a referee to set the rules/enforce them.

He compared this to morals and life. As if saying that God is the ultimate source of morality but in a mild way.

The group leaders asks what we think of this and I use Monopoly as an analogy:
When you play monopoly there are groups that have house rules and some that throw out the rulebook and have more fun using their own rules. Even if they didn't have a referee the players still know the rules and could play just as well without one, they don't need the referee to enforce the rules. Watch the premier league the referee makes a mess of it sometimes.
In reference to morality, I usually use empathy as one source of morality. We are a social animal we can put ourselves in other peoples positions and understand we wouldn't like that so we assume they wouldn't. I don't like suffering, person X doesn't, Y doesn't etc. we can go and make a society that has lower suffering no referee needed.

The next question is what advice would you give to someone who wants to hear God?

The first, and best, answer was "Listen". Which makes sense, but it's hard to listen to what isn't there.

The next answer was "You have to expect an answer/look at what happens and try and find an answer". So you just make up an answer if you don't get an obvious one or assert that something must have been an answer.

"Just keep telling yourself it's Jesus until you believe it."

That's it for this week, this weekend is the trip away with the Alpha Course so I will have a lot to write about it.

I'm getting lots of questions about this blog so I will post an FAQ sometime, please leave any questions you have below (you can post anonymously).

Week 4, Why and how do we pray?
This is a touchy topic so I did my best not to offend...too much.


Part 1: The Video
Gumbel starts in his usual fashion, anecdotes about prayers working for him etc. and asking "What is Christian prayer?". Since it is so obviously different to Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Baha'i prayer. Apparently Christian prayer is the single most important activity in your life and it is the very reason humans were created in the first place. So the meaning of life is that God is vain, jealous and craves worship (I'm in a rather cynical mood right now). A quip about how the billions of stars are testament to God's transcendence, in my opinion they are testament to his wastefulness, billions of stars and this is the only one he cares about.


We are graced with an anecdote about a civil war soldier who, after being refused an audience with the president, went out into the park and sat on a bench crying. The soldier then poured his heart out to the child, the child (who turned out to be Lincoln's son) took him to see Lincoln.
Come on you can see exactly what Gumbel is going to say right?
"The soldier got to the father, through the son" Gumbel triumphantly states that we can do the same as well, through prayer.


As some of you may know the Alpha Course includes a weekend away, which I will be attending and blogging about. Gumbel talks about how on the weekend away the Holy Spirit fills people, which sounds to me like there will be a bit of speaking in tongues, indeed the Alpha Course has been criticised for links to the charismatic movement. I will speak in tongues if you want, suggestions of something to say like funny phrases in Klingon or Elfish will be considered.


The bible verses Matthew 6:6 and 6:9-13 are referenced, Jesus condemns prayer in public stating people should do it in private (Rick Perry should probably have read this instead of having a pray for Texas day). We are told prayer is important in the relationship with God and that God loves us. Let's think about that, if you loved someone would you torture them forever for not loving you back, even thought you knew when you created them they would not love you. Why not just put everyone in heaven to begin with? Why not just appear to people and say I am God, worship me. Right now every Christian reading this is thinking "He did do this with the Bible". I'm sorry but do you really believe an Omniscient God cannot do better than a book with multiple contradictions with not only science and history, but also itself. A book that supports slavery, sexism and homophobia. It is absurd.
I have been told an objection to the Mafia boss analogy is that whatever you do in that situation is bad (Paying protection or burning) whereas it is not with God (Believing or burning). Well what do you have to do to believe? You have to give up pretty much all critical thinking to believe absolutely everything in the bible AND sell everything to give to the poor (which is a pretty nice idea, but don't sell everything, just that which you don't need) AND hate your family.
Another analogy would be that of a fire-fighter, like Darkmatter2525 used:
There is a man trapped in a burning house, a fire-fighter comes to rescue him however he will only do so if he believes that the fire-fighter is there (most of us would believe a fire-fighter is there trying but we have seen fire-fighters rescue people before, can you honestly say the same about God?) without any evidence. This is similar to how God will not reveal himself and save you until you believe, the classical excuse for this is that it violates free will. In the analogy the fire-fighter starts the house fire in the same way God created hell knowing in advance exactly who he would send there.


Back on topic, Gumbel shares a little anecdote about how his first ever prayer was answered: He prayed for a lift to London and his friend offered him one. Obviously his lift to London was more important than children dying of starvation and AIDS. The Templeton institute's studies of prayer have shown it to have no correlation with health does this actually surprise you?. He then tells us that God not granting our prayers is still answering them, no is still an answer. It appears that no matter what happens God will always be thanked, another DarkMatter Vid on this (I am a big fan of this guy's work). The Lord's prayer is mentioned and for some reason Father Ted comes into my mind here: "You know you can praise God with sleep Dougal..."


Prayer, like the law of attraction and other bullshit, seems to be blame the victim for failure.
If the prayer is granted: Praise God!
If the prayer is not granted: You weren't faithful enough Praise God more!


Part 2: Discussion


First question asked to the group was: Do you think God answers all prayers?
My first point is to reference Matthew 17:20. It specifically states that even if you have only a little faith, nothing will be impossible for you. This could be interpreted as meaning God will grant any prayers, which contradicts what Gumbel has said.
Another point I bring up is whether or not prayer will actually change God's mind. Since God is omniscient he knows exactly what is going to happen, no matter what and everything is part of his plan. If your prayer was part of his plan then whether or not you pray is irrelevant, if it isn't then even if you pray he won't grant it.


One member mentions in passing that God is outside of time. I personally have no idea what this means, can anything actually exist outside of time? This is often used as meaning God is outside the universe, however the universe is defined as: everything that exists, including all space, time, matter and energy. If God is not included in 'everything that exists' then you can clearly see where the problem is.


Coincidences were then mentioned, and the same member as before said that she notices these coincidences more when she prays. I give the example of confirmation bias as a possible reason why she does. Some other members of the group say that praying gives them hope/reassures them, I have no doubt of this, however hope is entirely subjective. Lots of things bring people hope, that has no bearing on whether the experience is to be believed or not.

Staying on the point of coincidences, I mention Skinner's and other experiments with pigeons. Pigeons developed what were referred to as 'superstitious behaviours' when food was dispensed at a random time.
After an anecdote about healing I bring up the saying cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for with this therefore because of this) it means that just because 2 things happen at the same time they are not necessarily linked. My favourite example is that of a couple on a train, a waiter brings some exotic food, one person eats the food as the train goes into a tunnel. Later in the day the other person goes to eat the food and the first on says "Don't eat that it makes you blind". I also say that this is often used in rubbish like alternative medicine.


The healing anecdote is mentioned again and this time the statement that she stopped going to the doctors was added to it, while preparing my response of "Would you advocate prayer over medicine?" we are signalled that time is up.
My apologies about how short this post is, hope you enjoy it all the same.
Thanks for reading guys, all comments welcome!

Week 3, How can we be sure of our faith?
A fair bit to write about this and I'm adding a little bonus at the end...


Part 1: The video
Gumbel again gets going with a nice little anecdote about how he met the woman who would be his wife at university and how exciting relationships are.
I'm sure you can all see what's coming.
"Relationships are great, and Christianity is a relationship with God" I'm paraphrasing here but that was the gist of the anecdote.


Gumbel tells us that he knows we can receive eternal life and that Christians can be confident on it because of the Bible, and that faith is based on facts not feelings, what these facts are however goes unmentioned (see my previous posts for exactly what I think of Jesus's existence). We're told that God reveals himself to those who have faith, my first thought about this is Ray Comfort's argument that "If you sincerely hit your knees and ask God to reveal himself he will do". When you do this and he doesn't however the usual response is "You weren't sincere enough". So it can be boiled down to if you already believe in him then you will see God everywhere. Although this argument can be equally applied to any religion.


The Bible verse Revelation 3:20 is read and a reference to the painter Holman Hunt and how he left off the handle on the outside of the door when he painted The Light of the World. Hunt's reasoning was that the handle was on the inside and you have to let Jesus into your life, he won't force himself in.

Looking back to a previous presentation Gumbel asks "How do we know that Jesus was resurrected?" in a spectacular fit of circular reasoning he says "We know he raised from the dead because God raised him from the dead". Sitting there totally stunned by the logical fallacy, reading through my notes there is a blank patch where I just stopped to consider if I actually just heard that.


Back to the relationship we are told that Gumbel knows he was married because he has his marriage certificate, if someone came to you with only a marriage certificate and claimed to be married you might believe him, if the name of the wife was Angelina Jolie and they were married on the Moon you would want a little more evidence though. The marriage certificate alone is insufficient evidence to claim that he is currently married, he has more evidence than that though, he can introduce us to his wife and to the witnesses at the marriage, now honestly answer me if you can do the same with Jesus?


Moving on to what faith is, Gumbel defines faith a trust, in a way it is. You have faith that when you are driving along someone isn't going to come off the other side of the road and smash into you head first. Well is it really the same? or do we have evidence that people won't do this since it has not happened in our experience and we can put ourself in their position and recognise that if they do smash into us it would be bad for both parties so they won't, can faith that something won't happen based on experience, and the faith that something exists based on a religious experience? I have never doubted the strength of religious experiences, but whether these experiences are supernatural or purely psychological (such as the placebo effect) is the right question to ask.


Gumbel asserts that people's characters are changed when they become Christians and they become better people, my only thought being that the same can be said for all religions. Gumbel asserts that Christianity is a step of faith based on evidence, and that Jesus is here tonight.
And with that the video ends.
The leader of the group shares with us the stories of Nicky Cruz, David Wilkerson and the Mau-Maus, a nice little story I suggest everyone look up, my only question is could the same be achieved with purely secular means?


Part 2: The discussion:
Mary leads the discussion group again first considering what faith is, my definition is believing something without evidence, however I thought stating this would not be best.
The definition that most people agree to is any religious belief is classed as faith. I ask how they can differentiate their faith from that of the other religions. They answer that when they pray God answers them. An example is given that they thank God for everything when something goes right in their life (my thoughts on this are if you thank God for success you should blame him for failure, but this is kept to myself) Jane (another pseudonym, I'm running out of female biblical names now) says that she prayed before her driving test and thanked him when she passed, of course the systematic failure of prayer is well documented. I add that "If you pray for help before an exam, that's technically cheating" another member justifies it as "using the resources available" the inner monologue starts up with "if you can just pray why revise?" but this is kept internal.
Mary then asks if people are changed for the better when they join Christianity, among the many thoughts I have on the matter; which denomination, how do we judge better etc. The best response seemed to be "can any religion change your character?" The question goes unanswered.
The assertion that other religions aren't relationships is brought up, and that with the facts we have their faith is not based on feelings. I ask if your faith is based on the relationship, are relationships not based on feelings? The question is dodged, again...
Unfortunately this was a shorter session so we were signalled that we were out of time and after thanking Mary and everyone else I head off.

BONUS! Is there anybody there?
It seems the local CU are in overdrive this week, due to being on a busy course I cannot attend the majority of these events however this one seemed interesting.

As I sat down in the coffee shop I begin to read a booklet called "Has science disproved God", being initially open minded I am thoroughly disappointed by the blatant straw men and false dichotomies (one example being that Naturalism is the belief that only matter and chance exist).
It starts with the fine tuning 'argument', if we changed law X by amount Y everything would change and life would be impossible...
Well this argument assumes that the laws could be different, and can be summed up by the statement "If things were different, things would be different". Well great deduction there Sherlock! (I am well known for my immense sarcasm at times), the booklet then says that scientists thought of the multiverse in an attempt to explain this without using God since science is biased against God, all of you should know this is rubbish.
What the Argument from Fine Tuning/Design/Anthropic Principle/Teleological Argument fails to note is that about 95% of the universe is dark matter/dark energy the problem with the fine tuning should be obvious know, that 5% includes all the stars, gas clouds, galaxies etc. The Carl Sagan quote that "The cosmos is all there is, all there was and all there ever will be" is mentioned and used as evidence that science is biased against supernatural claims.
Science is biased against supernatural claims since there is no evidence that anything supernatural exists. Since the universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. So by definition anything outside the universe is outside everything that exists, therefore does not exist. The problem with the fine tuning argument is that the universe is not fine tuned at all, there are places of the universe that will kill us INSTANTLY, there are predators, pathogens and particles that can easily kill us, we are on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy that will obviously be catastrophic, the sun will die out and expand engulfing the Earth, sticking to Earth the majority of it is uninhabitable, we have to modify the environment so we can survive there. There is so much more I could type but I will leave you to find the many other objections yourselves.

The video begins, with low expectations after the booklet my hopes are not high.
The usual things are mentioned, how free will cannot be explained if we are "Just genetic survival machines" and therefore must have come from a God, blatant argument from ignorance.
It is said again that we cannot be just meat machines since we have thoughts, and no computers today have thoughts therefore we must be more than just matter and energy. If we are determined by solely our genes we cannot have free will etc.
We are not determined only by our genes, we are the sum of our experiences, we know how memory works, we know that our thoughts are affected by our memories and our thoughts inform our actions. This fact is somehow omitted. The false dichotomy of either A: We are determined solely by our genes, or B: There is more to the brain than just matter and energy, is set up now.
The question is then asked, one I saw coming a LONG time ago, of where do we get out morals? And that right and wrong/good and evil have to come from a God so atheists cannot say anything is right or wrong.
Can't we? My morals come from a variety of things, mainly an understanding of the consequences of my actions but also from the empathy I feel to all other human beings. The example of Oskar Schindler is used, how he risked his life to save Jews at the hands of the Nazi's and how this could not be explained by evolution or genetics alone. I make the case that this could be down to empathy again. You can see when other people, and indeed other organisms, are suffering, you know how it feels to suffer maybe not as much as they do but you can imagine. You know that if you were in that position you would want help. I compare this to me getting up and punching someone, other people would get up to stop me because they know/can imagine how bad it feels to be punched. The speaker asks whether the Nazi's felt empathy for the Jews, I referenced the Milgram Experiment about how people will submit to authority (just following orders), which I recommend everyone reads about.

It is stated that emergence is a problem for evolution, particularly the emergence of conscience/the mind. It depends on how we define those terms, the mind is just a term for what the brain does, and conscience is our own perception of what our brain does. We know that if we knock out certain parts of the brain certain functions of the mind/conscience will be affected. for instance in a stroke, the part of the brain that is affected shuts down in a way, Jill Bolte Taylor explains it much better than me here.


In the booklet there is the statement that "Science explains what/how but religion explains why". To me this one of the most ridiculous statements ever, it is just a word game. Both are attempting to answer questions about what is. There is either something there or there isn't, if there is something there then there is something you can examine. I'm not saying that things we can't examine do not exist but burden of proof lays with the claimant, if I claim X exists then I have to be able to provide evidence, it is similar to the Dragon in my garage. After a discussion with the speaker, which is just us going around in circles about morality, I thank him for the talk and head home.

Thank you for reading guys, let me know what you think in the comments.
I would like to leave you with this.