Religious Spam Round-Up 10: Isplam

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

Sometimes, several times a day, we get this…

Tidal Wave of Bullshit

Coordinated spam, all at once, dominating the feed and the hashtags. Usually #atheism and #atheist but often other faiths and whatever happens to be the trending topics at the time. Always linking to the same stuff and when you can get a reply referring to eDialogue where you can sign in and be proselytized to by an implacable Islamic parrot. If it’s them trying to attract traffic, bad show. If its spammers acting independently, bad show too.

Ignoring it is hard because searches don’t always honour blocks and filtering will make discussion and debate impossible with legitimate people.

I suggest logging on to it, reporting this and linking back.

Religious Spam Round-Up 9: Just Watch this Video!

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

Just Watch this Video!

A sort of Gish Gallop by proxy, linking to a video that you’re expected to watch, some of which go on as much as two hours, seems to be a tactic more designed to shut you up than to actually engage. These videos usually contain a torrent of fallacies, lies, half-truths, no-truths and nonsense and it’s impossible to reply to all of them in any sort of short order.

If you don’t watch the whole thing you’ll be whinged at. If you do they’ll have moved on and stopped replying.

My current tactic is to stop watching after the third bit of bullshit or to ask them what they consider the best argument that’s presented. Rarely will anyone take me up on it though.

Using the above, just as an example, here’s all the problems…

0:38: Fallacy of shifting the burden of proof. Believers must provide evidence for god. There’s no onus on non-believers to disprove something for which there’s no evidence.
0:43: But you can get something from nothing – energy and particles (vacuum fluctuations). Regardless, even if we couldn’t we’d simply be saying ‘I don’t know’. If we don’t know something, that doesn’t mean god did it. This is the fallacy of the argument from ignorance.
0:47: It’s not a rational explanation if there’s nothing to support it and no reason to believe it. Appealing to the majority of people as any reason to believe something is another fallacy. Argument from popularity. That lots of people believe something doesn’t make it true.
1:00: Feelings etc, all these aspects of our lives can be explained natrualistically and this would simply be an argument from ignorance again anyway.

That’s four problems within the first minute, so you can see how it’s not worth continuing.

Religious Spam Round-Up 8: The Phear

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

You’re Going to Hell!

While we’re gratified that you are so worried about the ultimate fate of our immortal soul (that we don’t believe in).

It is very nice of you to warn us that unless we repent god (the one who supposedly loves us and who we don’t believe in) will condemn us to eternal hellfire unless we believe exactly the same thing you do.

Here’s the problem though.

We don’t believe in hell, so the threat is about as terrifying as being told a dragon will eat you if you don’t finish your vegetables. If we don’t believe in god, sin or hell how can it scare us and why would you think this would persuade us?

If I tell you that unless you send me $100 via paypal that Bigfoot will come and kick you in the nards/tits you’re not that worried about it happening, are you? Why? Because you don’t believe in Bigfoot the Debt Collector.

And we don’t believe in hell. So don’t bother.

Religious Spam Round-Up 7: There’s No Book Like it!

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

Magic Book

Typically Muslims, but sometimes other faiths, try to claim that there is no other book like theirs. That it is magical, irreplaceable, that it cannot be imitated.

Obviously this is somewhat subjective. What one person sees as brilliant another may see as terrible. However, there are certainly a large number of books and writings of this ilk, so nobody’s religious tome is unique or special. That’s without even taking into account fiction books that exceed the brilliance of often rather stodgey, boring and self-contradicting religious texts.

There’s only one real answer to this claim.

Religious Spam Round-Up 6: Science in the Koran

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

Science in the Koran

Christian creationists have, again, largely been beaten back to the fringes, despite their undue influence in the USA. The idea that their pseudoscience is actually scientific is not a wide, globally held belief within Christianity since they’ve taken a drubbing on that score year on year.

Muslims, however, very much like to believe – and it seems in a more mainstream sense – that somehow their belief is not only compatible with science but that the Koran contains miraculous scientific knowledge.

Balderdash and piffle and much of this runs into the same logical problems that assert claims of prophecy.

1. This is post-hoc reinterpretation of vague, poetic scripture to fit modern understanding. The original passages are so vague as to be able to be interpreted any number of ways and, indeed, they have been over the ages. Many modern claims of science in the Koran use older, discredited scientific conclusions in their claim that the Koran is accurate.

2. If the Koran is so amazingly scientific where are the scientific discoveries attributable to the Koran? As with prophecy, what’s the use of a prophecy that can only be interpreted after the event? Post-hoc reinterpretation yet again.

3. The few things that sound remotely credible are accountable for from ancient knowledge. We consistently underestimate our forebears. Greek knowledge of the period and before is recognisable and other claims can be accounted for from simple observations available to even the crudest peasant.

Short version, there’s no reason to believe any of these claims.

If you want a longer version, TheIslamMiracle on Youtube is a great debunking resource.

Religious Spam Round-Up 5: Things About God

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

God Qualities

Day in, day out…

God loves you!

God wants you to be happy!

God has done so much for you!

You should be grateful to god!

Etc, etc, etc.

Free advice to the theistic. Odds are you will get nowhere whatsoever with this approach. Emotional appeals aren’t convincing and before you start asserting things to an atheist about god you should first establish that a god exists.

Good luck with that.

Religious Spam Round-Up 4: Atheism is Irrational! Somehow…

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

Atheism & the Denial of Reason

This charming individual even has their own special definition of atheism, which they conflate with materialism and various other factors. While it is common that atheists are also materialists, rationalists, skeptics etc it is by no means guaranteed and the definition of atheism is just ‘I don’t believe in god/s’. Anyway, moving on with the article…

The article is actually nothing to do with ‘reason’ but to do with determinism. It attempts to suggest that as an atheist (as they define it) one must necessarily believe that anything and everything is deterministic and that there’s no free will whatsoever. From there it somehow tries to suggest that determinism denies reason.

There’s several problems with this.

1. A deterministic ‘clockwork universe’ is an old-fashioned, Newtonian view. It does not mesh with modern understanding via chaos theory and quantum mechanics. The tiniest changes in a complex system can lead to different results and things are in constant flux.

2. Determinism wouldn’t deny that we’re rational agents anyway. Computers work entirely deterministically and operations only work if they are logical, with correct syntax. A rational conclusion is one reached via the evidence given. A logical conclusion. Damage the mind, bias it and it won’t come to logical conclusions. You could consider religion akin to a computer virus in this instance.

3. Religious beliefs don’t allow for free will. An omniscient agent precludes free will. You can either have an omniscient deity or free will, but not both as they’re logically incompatible. This either results in no human free will (Calvinist approach) or an imperfect or non-existent god.

Religious Spam Round-Up 3: Won’t Somebody Think of Society?!?

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

Atheist Morality!

So the claim runs, I think, that by dismissing god somehow that means an end to basic morality and empathy between human beings. Needless to say, numerous lines of evidence show nothing of the sort. The less religious the nation the less criminal and violent it tends to be (Scandinavia). Atheists are less likely to be criminals of any sort.

Why is this?

Well, it’s a complex number of interlocking things. Less religious nations tend to have better social safety nets and less existential fretting about the future. Atheists tend to come from more educated and financially secure demographics and that has been shown in various studies to be the biggest deciding factor in criminality.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that irreligiosity has fuck all to do with people being horrible to one another and, if anything, the reverse is true. Needless to say, even if religion made saints out of everyone, that wouldn’t mean its assertions were true and if atheism made everyone into monsters that wouldn’t mean its conclusion was false.

This whole line of argument is an enormous irrelevance if your concern is what’s true.

Religious Spam Round-Up 2: DUDE, ISLAM IS RAD!

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go. Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

 

Blessed to Be Muslim

Islamic spam, like Eastern European fashion and music, tends to be about twenty to thirty years behind the curve. It’s typically the sort of creationist nonsense that has been amply and roundly refuted since the dawn of modern science. Where Christian creationists have been beaten back to the fringes of their faith however, there’s a passionate ignorance and arrogance to the Islamic spammers and seem to be much more populous and mainstream.

Of particular note are the claims that Islam is unique, scientific and absolutely correct, compatible with a modern outlook.

Obviously this is untrue. There’s nothing unique about Islam, it’s a rehash of Judaism and Christianity, it just hasn’t had the 2+ millenia it seems to take for a religion to mellow, chill out and stop killing people quite so often. Nor, despite protestations, is Islam compatible with the scientific method.

This article is of a type that claims this sort of thing.

The situation which man faces is similar. God has given him freedom of will and action so that he may choose whatever attitude in life he likes and considers proper for himself; Islam or kufr(disbelief).

The implicit assumption is that god is so obvious because of the intricacy and wonder of the universe (argument from ignorance/personal incredulity) that one has to wilfully choose to be ‘disobedient’ in order not to believe. That certainly doesn’t characterise my atheism which is an inescapable conclusion given the examination of the evidence. I don’t ‘choose’ to be an atheist. If I apply logic and reason to the question it is an inescapable conclusion.

One should not believe what one wants, and indeed this makes zero difference to what’s real or not. One should believe what the evidence shows. You may still be wrong, but at least your position is rational, able to change with new evidence and the odds of being wrong are vastly reduced.

Such an attitude of revolt and defiance can never be entertained by a Muslim scientist -only akafir (disbeliever) scientist can fall prey to such illusions and, by submitting to them, expose the entire human race to the danger of total destruction and annihilation.

How powerful the instilled, irrational fear of a god is. Deiphobia perhaps? If nothing else, allowing god belief to colour ones assumptions a priori is going to be bad science. Science strives for objectivity at the personal level and through processes to eliminate bias (peer review and repeat experimentation). Starting with your conclusion (god did it) invites bias and twists perception of results. One need only look at the insane pseudo-sciences of creationism, homeopathy and energy healing to see how pre-existing bias twists interpretation of results and seemingly allows the true believer to selectively ignore results that debunk their beliefs.

Instead of arrogance there will be humility. Instead of power drunkenness there will be a strong realization of the need to serve humanity. His freedom will not be unbridled. He will be guided by the tenets of morality and divine revelation.

I have never understood this theistic attitude that a scientific and rationalist outlook is arrogant. Is it not more arrogant to believe that we are supremely important playing pieces in some vast god game? That this whole wide, vast, incredible universe was built just for our sake and that an omniscient and omnipotent being takes special interest in what kind of sex we have and with whom? Compared to that the atheistic outlook is humble indeed. We are specks in a vast cosmos, infinitesimal fragments of self-aware matter in a vast universe to the operations of which we are virtually irrelevant.

Similarly, in history, economics, politics, law and other branches of arts and science, a Muslim will nowhere lag behind a Kafir in the fields of inquiry and struggle, but their angles of view and consequently their modus operandi will be widely different. A Muslim will study every branch ofknowledge in its true perspective. He will strive to arrive at the right conclusions.

And yet, in so many fields of endeavour, Islamic countries do lag behind. Not such STEM topics but human rights, political institutions, equality, justice. This is not to say individual people brought up under Islam are somehow more stupid or less capable, just that something about the belief system – especially when adopted politically – seems to hold back, rather than push forward, human endeavour.

The assertions of this kind of article, about the supposed perfection and infallibility of Islam are simply countered by scanning the daily news headlines. That anyone feels able to assert this sort of thing in that context beggars belief and demonstrates just how far removed from reality people can be.

Religious Spam Round-Up 1: 12 Things About God

Every day social media users, especially those identifying as agnostics, atheists and skeptics, are subjected to a barrage of religious spam from true believers. This tends to be repeated, day in, day out, several times a day with no attempt to engage or discuss the matter. It’s spam, plain and simple. Some groups even seem to use small botnets, multiple accounts or proxies to spam hundreds of identical or similar messages all in one go.

Let’s look at some, all from one afternoon and evening on Twitter and only a small sample…

 

12 Things Atheists Believe About God

This article has been doing the rounds for about a while now and seemingly getting retweeted a lot. From my point of view it’s essentially devoid of meaningful content, so quite what people see in it I’m not sure.

It opens with a rather selective definition of atheism from Websters and it is, sadly, the case that many non-specialist dictionaries don’t define atheism in its modern and most inclusive meaning. Simply being those who do not believe in god.

The author, a ‘Pastor Mike’ enters into the poorly judged tactic of trying to ‘drag atheism down to his level’ by asserting that atheists must and do believe things about god. A sort of ‘Ha ha, you believe things too!’ measure. Well, yes, atheists do believe in things, many things, just not god and asserting that they believe certain things about god is just silly.

Each example is linked to a Bible verse but since we have no reason to take anything in the Bible seriously or to treat it with any gravity at all I won’t both linking. It’s the usual fare.

The things we supposedly believe though…

1. He’s a figment of our imagination.

Well, we don’t believe he exists. It’s someone else’s imagination or delusion impressed upon others though so it’s not an internal process of your own imagination per se. If it doesn’t exist save as an idea, a loose collection of memes, what terminology would you prefer? This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

2. He’s not real.

Sadly, the idea of god is very real. It’s the actual figure of god that is not. This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

3. He’s a liar.

If we don’t believe he exists, how can we consider him a liar? He’s no more a liar than Saruman. In discussing the Bible claims and content this may come up because the character of god/Jesus in the Bible does lie. That doesn’t mean we think an actual entity lied.

4. He didn’t create the world.

Again, we don’t believe in god so how could something we don’t believe in create a world? This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

5. He wasn’t born a Man.

This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

6. He didn’t live a sinless life.

Again, this’ll only really come up discussing the Bible. Not the absence of belief in god. This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

7. He didn’t die on the cross for sins.

This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

8. He didn’t rise again from the dead.

This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

9. He won’t be returning to earth.

This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

10. They won’t be standing before Him for judgment.

This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

11. He isn’t named Jesus.

This is really part and parcel of not believing, rather than a positive belief.

12. They are Him. (Atheists are “god.”)

I don’t know a single atheist that asserts this. We’re human beings, same as everyone else. No special powers or anything.