That supernaturalist angst!

            Without evidence, supernaturalists maintain that unless one is in the bosom of God as Augustine puts it, one will be restless. So goes their argument from angst,which they supplement with the argument for happiness-purpose, that in Him people will find true happiness and He’ll give them purpose,again without any evidence. Thereby, supernaturalists themselves, and no genetic fallacy, make an argument why they seek supernatural solace, thus supporting the naturalist position that they are depending on  a placebo or crutch. They would respond that is a necessary one for everyone, but no, the evidence comes forth that many others find solace elsewhere and make their own purposes.

        No, John Hick , no one needs the supernatural to overcome self-centeredness as most people have the evolved moral sense; they can learn to empathise with others and refine that sense. Lo, he well knows that no religion can make those who don’t want to use to refine that empathy to include others  than just  their love ones.

       Paul Kurtz, that indefatigable and indomitable humanist, in  » Forbidden Fruit, » notes the common decencies that make for a good morality.

       To prattle that without the supernatural, we are forlorn, and it’s every person for herself is just balderdash!

       No divine intent makes for that evolved moral sense, which does its part in helping us be moral. Lo, all that evil done in the name of the supernatural would exceed that of the communists had those supernaturalists of yore the means to  do evil themselves!

      Reason, instead of faith, makes for that more abundant life!

     Lamberth’s argument from pareidlia notes how people use the pareidolias of intent and design instead of what science finds teleonomy- no directed outcomes and patterns just as people find the one of Yeshua in a tortilla. This is no example of the genetic fallacy as again, ti’s the supernaturalists themselves  as noted prove that note!

The Sermon to Hell!

What a blasphemy to morality is the Sermon on the Mount! Yeshua overstates what balderdash.

Yeshua has the temerity to downgrade our earthly existence in promising such a heavenly one! Why accept that Heaven exists? Without begging the question of his being the supreme moral leader why accept his commands? How can we differentiate whenever we ought to take literally or metaphorically his commands? Should we have an independent source to know what he  deems moral, then we don’t need his commands. We revert to the Euthyphro dilemma!

How could we even live up to them, granting them full force? Ah, so again we sinners cannot meet the divine commands. No, why should there exist over the top demands that  no one could live up to ?

That has no purpose and leaves us with no purposeful existence! That construes perforce the arguments from angst and from happiness-purpose as just balderdash! What a contradiction God who gives us purpose with no purposeful meaning!

Why find this scam of the ages such a divine purpose when this ethic is only purposeful until the apocalypse anyway? Yeshua believed that he’d return in the lifetime of his hearers, albeit no one know exactly when, butin spite of apologetic rationalizations, he is forever dead!

He so proudly proclaims Hell for the many! How could anyone justify Hell were this sermon such wisdom of the ages? Yeshua appears to have bats in his belfry!

Rather than being bread for the man than man for the bread, this sermon overstates such that it goes well beyond the strictures of the  barbaric  commands of the Tanakh , except for rejecting the eye  for the eye. Why he overstates by declaring that to lust upon women is adultery, equating that with murder! He self-contemns by declaring that those who call other fools are subject to Hell whilst he calls others fools! He declares egregiously that divorce is only for wife’s unchastity. leaving men at leisure to be unchaste to the limit!  Few Christians hold to that!

Thus, he rejects Paul’s teaching about rejecting those commands? Would Paul then reside in Hell?

He actually enunciates anything really knew! Rabbi Hillel and others of other religions had already given out the Golden or the Silver Rule [ I prefer the Platinum- be nice.]. What is new comes from the idea of Hell! What rational and sensitive person would ever find even the best of Hells moral?

Now, he proclaims this sermon in Luke on a plain in a different way. There he adds that the more suffering in this world, the more compensation in the future state! Elsewhere, he declares that his flock would face persecution as any cult leader would do. He sets it up for such persecution!

He comes not to bring peace but a sword, and apologists cannot gainsay his command to hate or even to love others less than they do him as any cult leader would do! He fits the mould perfectly.

He is just another miracle monger, savior-god and just a man of his times. He  is as unique as any miracle monger or savior-god! So Christians can prattle all they wish but cannot gainsay that his life parallels others as they all partake of the same superstitious milieu! He doesn’t have to fit Mithra but fits the latter to an extent whilst being yet unique.

Today’s comments stem from reading Arthur George Well’s « The Jesus legend. » Wells now find Yeshua a historical figure with legendary matter added.

Read his hagiography in context! Whether or not he is the divine son or just the adopted son of God, in full context, he lacks appeal If divine, then  he is as guilty of horrors as is Yahweh! Those murders of the Deluge and the commands for genocide! By proclaiming Hell, he furthers the moral  objurgation against himself!

No God has the right to  do such things! What blasphemy of morality and – rationality!  Per Lamberth’s argument from autonomy, as independent beings, going beyond the Euthyphro: no God has the right to command us anyway With John Paul Sartre, I declare we have the responsibility to be moral by exercising our causal volition.

Yeshua has no relevance for moral and rational people! We rise above his barbarity!

We gnu atheists mean business! We objurgate such blasphemy!  We abjure this condemnation of earthly life for that imaginary heavenly one!

Yeshua the moral leader- that scam of the ages!

      With Miklos Jako, I find it a grave emotional and intellectual scam to find Yeshua any sort of moral leader. We agree with Col. Robert Green Ingersoll and Lord Bertrand William Arthur Russell, contrary to even many atheists, that no, he is no moral leader!

To quote Jako: » I regard it as one of the most extraordinary  intellectual deceptions of  human history, how everyone gives Jesus all this extra credit! Even atheists tend to think of Jesus as  at least  a good moral teacher. He has come to be regarded as the ideal man, the ultimate in compassion and wisdom.

But read the book! Read what he say! He overstates. He contradicts himself.. He’s intolerant. He’s a religious fanatic.

Yet people’s cultural conditioning makes them interpret his extremist remarks, his so called « hard sayings » as somehow… the pearls of wisdom. » when in fact they’re just plain misguided and wrong, if not downright goofy, as well as evil. Jesus taught Hell. He taught that remarriage was adultery. He praised  those who castrated themselves for the kingdom of God. »

Jako duly notes that Yeshua thoroughly praises^ the cruel god of the Tanakh, he disrespects his parents, he is ethnocentric sent as savior only to the Jews,  accepts slavery, supports an ascetic life,  supports wishful thinking with his admonishing others to rely so much on Yahweh, claims that faith can move mountains, believes in a utopia, contradicts himself by saying that those who take up the sword will die by the sword,yet tells his flock to buy swords and don’t call others fools but does that himself and overstates matters as when he claims that lust is as bad as adultery, declares that those who hate their brother are murderers,gives bad advice in  maintaining that we should forgive  seventy times seven , making expiation silly and forgiveness nebulous, equates himself with the king who wants his enemies  brought there… and slay them before me, and he did teach Hell!

I’ve more to maintain about that jerk! Paul preached in vain and Yeshua died in vain!

^ I use the present tense as though the person is still talking.

Both errantists and inerrantists just overlook what the Christian Testament itself reveals about him! Oh, then again, we really don’t fully know him,because those Gospels just don’t present matters without contradictions amongst themselves and with history. The former ever try to put better words into his mouth whilst the latter approve of much of his purported harsheness.

No  cult leader need  apply for moral leader!

The Scam of the ages!

The supernatural is indeed the intellectual,emotional and sometimes monetary scam of the ages.No evidence exists for it but rather the emotional idea that beyond Nature lies another dimension of ultimate reality that impinges in some way on Nature.Yet, science tells against it in that science finds teleonomy -causalism-mechanism-no directed outcomes. This goes against even a deist supernature as it admits of no intent behind the Big Bang and no designs but rather patterns.
Science finds no karma and no reincarnation. It finds no Virgin Birth , miracles, Resurrection or Marian assumption into Heaven. Were there the supernature, Nature would run with intent.
As Leucippus notes, matters happen by necessity. No intent existed for our evolution or of a comparable species as Jerry Coyne notes in  » Seeing and Believing  » @ Talk Reason.
Had the comets not arrived, the dinosaurs would have been an impediment to primates evolving to be us, and we depended also on the cooling-off period and the flowering plants and mutations.
No let it be caused any of that but necessity! It lies behind the randomness of the comets and mutations.Natural causes caused them rather than any intent.
Matters happen sequentially so that evolution proceeds by one cause permitting other factors and not by intent. Were there intent, we could have evolved fortuitously,because then no randomness would have been necessary. No intent exists for our big brain-just necessity that sequentially and randomly runs.Were there intent, then scientists could never vary outcomes,because their being intended would prevent that. otherwise, the past would happen before the present, the event before the cause,negating time and making for backwards causation.
Thus, this is not a matter of supernature directing natural causes.Without that intent, no supernatural Primary Cause,Grand Miracle Monger and so forth could exist, and then no referents for any supernatural beings such that none could exist that could impinge on Nature.
No evidence exists for the Buddhist devas- those godlings- who don’t impinge on us. No evidence exist that supernature causes karma for our actions to boomerang necessarily on us.
No evidence can exist whatsoever for supernature as per Reichenbach’s argument from Existence, Were supernature in a timeless and spaceless dimension, then again, it would have no effective intent and thus would not have referents and thus could not exist.
Thus the supernatural reeks of superstition like its twin the paranormal together make what PauL Kurtz, leading skeptic calls  » The transcendental Temptation. »
That temptation has no intent but rather manifests blasphemy against reason and- humanity!
Neither definition, nor postulation nor faith can instantiate supernature!

What else tells against supernaturalism? What might be tough supernatural arguments to overcome? How can we get people not to be animists who see only one spirit behind all Nature,that theology glorifies, but which is only a superstition?