The Credibility Of Religious Dogma

To debate religious dogma is akin to debating whether fairies exist at the bottom of the garden or not.
Debate would lend both a legitimacy that neither deserves or warrants. Both being full of myths and fables and could never withstand the test of credibility or sanity.

You only need to look around you for proof of God’s existence I hear you say? Well! I am sorry to have to
dissolution you, but everything in existence was made by the pink, blue spotted unicorn God that I worship. My challenge to you is to prove that your fictitious supernatural God made everything and my pink, blue spotted unicorn God did not.

Oh yes! One more thing. Do not attempt to use the bible to verify your claims as that would be a circular
argument. Just like saying ‘The bible is true, because the bible tells me it is true’. See what I mean? The bible is here say and would never withstand a test of credibility, or stand up in a court of law.

Merely claiming a thing is true, does not actually make it true. No matter how long people have been saying
it.

One last thing. I have heard (true or not a cannot say) that they have now printed a new edition of the bible that only has blank pages. This is to be called the non-fictional bible.

Trevor E. Cowan

The Spring Equinox

From http://www.answers.com

A. The point at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator, the sun having a northerly motion.

B. The moment when the sun passes through the vernal equinox, about March 21, marking the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Spring Equinox is know as: Alban Eilir, Eostre, Eostre, Feast Of Annunciation
Of The So Called Virgin Mary, Festival Of Trees, Lady Day, NawRuz, No
Ruz, Ostara, Ostra, Spring Rites And The Vernal Equinox.

Although various groups such as religious, pagan and a few others would like
to lay claim to this time as being their own, and upsets some if
other groups lay claim to it as well, negates the fact that the
Vernal Equinox was occurring long before mankind existed, and I dare
say will be occurring long after mankind has vanished.

The rituals connected with the Vernal Equinox are just that. Rituals made
up by man. Some transposed from another date due to expediency by
groups such as the Roman Catholic church to try to smother other
groups such as Pagan groups that were more popular at that time.
While it did work for a time, modern day people are starting to see
through this ruse and Paganism is resurging.

Have you ever thought what an egg had to do with the Christian Easter? The
egg is a Pagan symbol for fertility, and the Easter Bunny (originally
a Hare) is a sacred animal to the Pagans.

The only thing we know for certain that it is the Spring (Vernal Equinox)
is the Spring Equinox, no matter what name we give it or what rituals
we hang on it, and will always remain so. The Day and Night will be
of equal periods of time.

Trevor E. Cowan

One law for all? In a pigs eye

Have you ever wondered why it is if a
public official gets caught out lying that they get let off with a
scolding and told not to do it again, (but the invariably do) but if
a member of the general public get caught doing the same thing the
receive a very heavy fine, and or perhaps a jail sentence. If they
were to claim a loss of memory to some critical piece of evidence in
a court of law, they would be incarcerated until the did remember.
But politicians use this same excuse frequently and nothing happens
to them.

Or if a cooperate tycoon or a
government official misappropriates thousands, if not millions of
dollars belonging to the public they either get off with a fairly
light sentence (quite often not going to jail) or not being convicted
at all. But if a little old lady or a solo mother on the pension
where to steal 1 lb of butter or a packet of biscuits to feed her
family they want to throw her in jail and strip her of her pension.

You know how they get away with this?
It is because people like you and I, the ordinary person in the
street let them get away with it. We are so apathetic we just shrug
our shoulders and leave it for someone else to deal with, but they
never do. They get away with it because we let them get away with it,
and we are getting exactly what we deserve. No more and not less.
silence is taken as condoning their actions.

This will continue until enough of us
so called ordinary people get off our back-sides and yell in a loud
clear voice. STOP! We have had enough of this crap. The law states
that there is only one law that covers all people, and we demand that
this law covers everybody equally without fear or favour.

Trevor E. Cowan

Brainwashing

Young children not having had any
chance to develop an effect defence against brainwashing fall easy victims
to the 100% shameless brainwashing techniques employed by religions.
Especially when that religion is presented as being an absolutely and
infallibly correct concise set of philosophies and doctrines. They
would think if mother and father believed in it, then it must be
right. Not realizing of course that mother and father had be
indoctrinated themselves when they were young, largely with the help
of the church and their parents. And so it goes…

Trevor E. Cowan

God/Goddess/Universal force

Am I claiming that there is no God/Goddess/Universal controlling force or anything else that governs the universe? No! What I am saying is that I have not seen any evidence to support there being a God/Goddess/Universalcontrolling force. Either has anybody else, or the debate on whether there is a God or not would come to an abrupt end with their claim having been proven. The onus is on the church and believers to prove that their God/Goddess/Force exists, as it is illogical and impossible to prove that something does not exist. After all, they are the ones making the claim.
What I am saying is that if such a force did exist, it would not be the type of God/Goddess/Force depicted by man made religions. Man made religions are built on unsubstantiated rhetoric that has it’s roots based in myths and hearsay, and is designed to control the masses through fear, guilt and shame, with a vague promise of salvation, provided that you obey the religious dogma implicitly.
I can understand why beliefs in religion last so long. It would take a great deal of courage to admit that you have been taken in by religion for years. Who would want to admit to themselves that they had been that gullible? It would also be difficult to stand alone, particularly if your family and friends were still believers. You would have the whole lot attempting to brainwash you into coming back to the fold again. This is one reason why religion has remained with us for so long. Because it cannot stand up to honest scrutiny, so discourages scrutiny of any kind.

Trevor E. Cowan

Freethought Defined

According the on-line dictionary ‘WordNet’ a Freethinker is Quote: The noun freethinker has one meaning: A person who believes that God created the universe and then abandoned it. Unquote

Apparently this interpretation was written by someone who did not take the trouble to get their facts correct. I might also add that ‘WordNet’ was they only on-line Dictionary I found to interpret the word Freethinker this way. It seems that they cannot envisage anything that is not connected to their God. I will endeavour to spell it out very clearly for them, so that they may be able to understand.

This more accurate definition of a ‘Freethinker’ comes from Wikipedia. A source that I have found to be most reliable. Quote: Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logical principles and not be comprised by authority, tradition, or any other dogma. The cognitive application of freethought is known as freethinking, and practitioners of freethought are known as freethinkers. Unquote.

So let’s examine the ‘WordNet’ definition again.
Quote; A person who believes that God created the universe and then abandoned it. Unquote.

Oh yeah? But Freethinkers do not believe in a God, so how could they believe that God made the universe, then abandoned it? See what I mean? A supreme invisible being is illogical, cannot be supported by science and goes against rational thinking. It also goes against everything that a Freethinker stands for.

I hope this has clarified the point in question. Freethinkers do not believe that a God created the universe, then abandoned it, simple because they do not believe in a God.

Trevor E. Cowan

Gathering Reliable Information

To be a Freethinker, I feel that one needs to deal with ‘Empirical’ information only. That is information derived from ones own senses by experiment and observations rather than from theory or hearsay.

I feel that this should be applied in our personal assessment of Global Warming.

Past experience has shown that Governments will only let out what information that they think expedient at that time. A half a truth is a lie, no matter how nicely you may wrap it. Then when they are caught out, they claim that is what they received in a report, and it is not their fault if the information was wrong. George W. Bush on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would be a classic example of this. Passing the buck in other words.

Businesses will tell you just about anything to make a sale. Take a lifetime guarantee that they offer on some products. You go back with a failed product only to find that business no longer exists, or the manufacturer has gone out of business. So much for the ‘Life Time Guarantee’.

Acquiring information via the local grapevine can be most misleading also, as the story tends to get bigger and better with the telling. How many stories have read in a newspaper that were either untrue or blatantly exaggerated so the paper could make a sale. Even information that has been collected from reputable sources tend to be unreliable if not written down immediately. Information passed on by word of mouth tends to have a certain bias to it, as it is usually told to favour the tellers sympathies.

See what I mean? They only really reliable information you can get, is what you have gathered yourself.

Trevor E. Cowan

Intelligent Design?????

I am not unintelligent enough to believe in intelligent design.

Trevor E. Cowan

Does God Exist?

Harry: ‘God exists.’
Janet: ‘What proof do you have?’
Harry: ‘None. But you cannot prove that he does not exist, therefore he does exist.’

Janet: ‘God is a green spotted five legged pink unicorn.’
Harry: ‘What proof do you have?’
Janet: ‘None. But you cannot prove such a God does not exist, therefore it does exist.’

Janet then smiles sweetly at Harry.

Trevor E. Cowan

Empiricism

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Empiricism is a philosophical idea based on the fact that all reliable knowledge about the world is gained in the process of experience. Famous empiricists were Hume, Locke and Berkley, basing themselves on ideas already postulated by Aristotle, that we are born with the Tabula Rasa which receives throughout our lives information on which it can base all thinking and knowing. The movement of empiricism was in part a counter movement to what Descartes and Spinoza had proposed as rationalism. Knowledge derived from experience is called a posteriori.