Lack of consideration by Christians this Christmas

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Here is some conclusive evidence that Christianity is - far from a source of good or virtue - is indelibly bad or unhealthy. Driving back to Manila in the Philippines on Sunday 30th Dec 2012 we were coming down Mindanao Avenue, and just before Tandang Sora Avenue, in Quezon Province, we struck a fully congested area. It was congested for a number of kilometres. The reason as it would turn out was a litany of Christians 'triple-parking' along a 1-kilometre stretch of Mindanao Road. What are to make of this inconsideration. Well, as you can imagine, I, as an atheist was shocked. This does indeed convey what I have always known of religion - that it's:

1. Asystematic and institutionalised framework of ideas for the disregard for others - in this case - road users 

2. A self-righteous superiority complex that spurns accountability

3. A blatant disregard for their teachings - you are designed to fail - having sabotaged your mind

4. An acquiescence which conveys a lack of moral conviction - deference to other so-called 'superiors'

5. Tokenism - since they probably don't turn up for all Sundays

6. Repudiation of mind precluding empathy - You can't consider others well if you can't think; and faith is the repudiation of mind and evidence, i.e. Faith = acceptance without evidence

Now, you might wonder whether it was always like this? I doubt it. I suspect that most turn up for a special Xmas; so all are in attendance on this particular day. Does it matter? Some of you will no doubt cast dispersions upon some members of this congregation. The issue is not whether some are better than others; the issue is whether a so-called 'moral agency' can claim any moral credence when so many of its members perform actions such as these. Their moral standing so close to Xmas is all the more intriguing. Not true believers? Well, I disagree. This is exactly the conduct of Christian believers. They possess absolutely no moral ambitious. I don't think anyone is capable of believing in the teachings of God. You would be dead if you tried. It is a set of edicts which you were 'designed to fail'. It is a set of rationalisations which are designed to deliver power to authorities; and it really does not matter if you are a 'sinner' because that's just your nature. So long as you convey a willingness to try, God's your witness, so the ball is in your court. Is it any wonder that we don't just allow Christian law-breakers to 'go free' because they are such great exponents of moral conscience. I actually think they are quite pathetic in this respect. Ardent rationalists; given that they have sabotaged their mind. 

That is the source of their authority:

1. Your deference to God's representative on earth

2. Your moral apprehension for failing to live up to their impossible standards

Now, I personally don't think showing consideration for other drivers is a difficult task. But herein lies two problems with religion:

1. Intent - These people show no intent to consider others. You cannot block traffic to this extent and not see it. These cars were triple parked; not just double parked.

2. Empathy - These conveyed no plan or ability to anticipate the needs of others. I would attribute this to their repudiation of the mind. i.e. Their failure to think manifests in their incapacity to actually anticipate and respect the needs of others.

Given that they did not consider the needs of others; it is apparent that no one planned to avert this problem; and they did not anticipate its occurrence. This must occur every Xmas; so this appears to be a blatant, long-standing disregard for other drivers.

The church in question is the 'Our Lady of Annunciation Parish', Dioceses of Novaliches, Quezon City. You can show your disdain at their website. Here is how not to get there. I'm not here to condemn; though I am one to judge because religion is doing irrevocable injury to our communities. Not just these inconsiderate people, but the pastors who are blatantly hypocritical, who place their institution's interests upon the interests of their congregation. 

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Purpose - and the legacy of Christianity

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Purpose! If you listen to a Christian, they will imply that there is no prospect of an atheist having purpose because they have no reason to live beyond the 'greater glory of god'.

Possession of a purpose is actually the most important quality a person can possess because it underpins all else; your judgement, how you relate to people and things. The Christian is actually the most morally deprave person because they sabotage their capacity to possess a purpose. Why?There are three reasons:

1. Dogmas are not rational, i.e. There is no justification for their values

2. There is no prospect of a hierarchy of values; dogmas like statutory laws recognise no context.

3. If there is no meaning to your values, then there can be no emotional or psychological value proposition entailed in pursuing them. Which is why Christians are such vacuous, repressed persons. As I debate them, there is nothing stirring inside; just a blank space. 'Vacant'.

What can motivate a Christian to do anything - if they have no purpose? Well, first of all, not all Christians accept Christ as readily or completely as some. By the type most people reach adulthood, they have evolved as more 'practical' people than their Christian branding would imply. Most of these minds go unchallenged by a culture which accepts and legtimatises Christianity. These people have some semblance of purpose, compartmentalised or detached from their Christian beliefs. They live a life of Christian rhetoric (on Sundays), or maybe when it simply serves them, as a succession of detached rationalisations.

So where do atheists find purpose?

They find it where every other living thing finds purpose - in their nature. Humanity, like all higher species of animal, find curiosity a value by virtue of their faculty of consciousness. Bombarded by stream of sensations, protected by nurturing mothers (and fathers), animals come to feel comforted by like-minded species around them. Even observation of other species affirms the idea of life.

The highest of animal species rely only on their capacity to correlate good and bad events with certain mental sensory experiences. Animals draw upon these correlations from their life experience to survive.

Humans however possess a quality which differentiates them from animals. Its called conceptualisation or abstraction. This goes beyond the simple naming of objects, which is really a form of correlation which animals can grasp. It extends to the identification of qualities inherent and extraneous from the object under consideration. Animals cannot grasp these 'non-existent' elements. This is why animals cannot use higher level language, conceive of a post office or the field of politics.

Sadly, a great many humans cannot grasp these concepts either, but for another reason. They sabotage their minds, and thus their motivation for knowing better. They diminish their respect for logic, and they ingratiate themselves in a world of indulgence they choose not to know the greater significance of. The implication is that we have 'disciplined' Christians renouncing life for the sake of a non-existent abstraction, which is simply 'not natural', i.e. A negation of what is, and for those who cannot rightly accept Christianity, we have the 'recovering Christian' who no longer renounces, but falls into the trap of renouncing all ethical standards, a sense of purpose, and becomes therefore an utter subjectivist or collectivist. This is the legacy of Christianity. Dogmatists are destined to fall prey to collectivism, whether fascism or socialism, or whatever form they can justify. Cult leader or follower, it makes no difference. It is fundamentally a choice between victim or perpetrator. That is the legacy of Christianity. We are told Christianity is about love. No love is possible without fundamental principles or logic...yet Christianity renounces logic. We need to accept on faith, i.e. Acceptance without evidence. This is not a value system for humans; its a value system for slaves, and 3000-4000 years ago, the leaders of the Ancient World realised this. In more recent times, politicians just realise the practicality of associating with a powerful institution, particularly one with so much entrenched power. Ignorant parents raise their kids Christians thinking that they are giving them an ethical framework. They are not. They are destroying their minds. You good discipline comes from the mindless 'renounciation of values'. Life is about the pursuit of values. Not any values, but meaningful, logical, integrated, life-affirming values. For animals, they can mean 'bonking' the nearest genetically pleasing species. For humans, there is a more profound, conceptual frame of references, i.e. There is a notion of 'conceptual selection'. Evolution switched when humanity was created. We no longer evolve through 'genetic selection', we evolve through values selection. i.e. Those people with the healthiest values survive and succeed. Well, this is how it should be, if not for the legacy of Christianity. We have actually deteriorated as a society, because the intangibility of conceptualisation actually means we struggle to identify a meaningful path for living. i.e. We are destined to become materialists, both in terms of sex, wealth, reputation, and other such values. We want the tangible, because under the influence of Christianity, too many have renounced their minds. Those who retain their minds are persecuted for doing so in a democracy, so we reward materialism, the mindless extortion of wealth and soul.

In the process they will retain their Christian beliefs of renounciation, i.e. Life for society (i.e. non-self), live for dictator (i. non-self), life for the plants and animals (i.e. non-self), live for the environment (i.e. non-self). This is a negation of self, and thus a negation of your nature as a human being. It represents a disdain for your nature as a human being. Why? Because they failed to develop the right methodology, which means they were denied the validation, self-respect and efficacy that accrues to a person who knows how to use their minds.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Evidence for the existence of God

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Here is a good YouTube video explaining the implausibility of Gods or God.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

NZ Catholic school bans boys from school prom

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How can this school ban boys and accept 'outside girls'....this is the type of rationalisation you'd expect from a religious institution. Religion is wholly incompatible with education...so you ought to refrain from sending your children to such schools. There are those who will perhaps argue that this happens all the time, i.e. selective boy and girls schools. The reason it is wrong is that they have no good reason for establishing their policy. It reflects merely a disdain for homosexuality.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Religion not compatible with humanity

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The following video of animal cruelty in Indonesia highlights the problem with religion on so many levels.

For a start:

1. The dogmatic adherence to certain concrete values like the requirement under traditional Islamic values for the animal to be alive at the time the throat is cut.

2. The moral relativism which blames Australian graziers rather than Indonesians 'Islamic' consumers who stipulate such practices or abattoirs who appease them

3. The cognitive sabotage caused by religion - whether Christianity or Islam - such dogmatism is antithetical to good judgement. The problem extends far beyond religion since the contemporary values of journalists are not necessarily religious, but some derivative of religious indoctrination; and that extends to scepticism and logical positivism.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

An poignant analogy to Christianity

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Here is a clever little sketch on the implausibility of the Christian belief in God. Sometimes an analogy can provide greater clarity.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Evidence from the Universe

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Many of you are inclined to cite a lot of scientific evidence for the non-existence of God. This is the folly of the author of this video, who suggests that the Kepler astronomical orbiter proves something for Christians. It is a great video production, however its initial and final conclusions are flawed. They are:

1. Scientific arguments. The existence of a multitude of 'Earth-like' planets is going to make a difference to Christian belief - it won't. Anyone who has debated a great many Christians will find that they are impervious to reason. Why? They use it sparingly in the context of God. Their repudiation of logic is quite simply repression. They repress evidence which is contrary to their believe. They have the infallible capacity to deny reality, and to define it in terms of 'non-existence', or 'other existences', just as this guy suggests their are 'other Earths' or a person with multiple personalities creates other identities.

2. Humility. The guy in the final moments of the video advances the virtue of 'humility'. He is implying that the smallness of humanity is reason enough to feel 'humble'. The reality however is that the vastness of the universe, as difficult as it might be to comprehend, is not grounds for humility, but in fact opportunity. Look how far humanity has come in 3,000 years...given the universe has evolved (since the last Big Bang) over billions of years. Humanity (as a pspecies) is in fact amazing! Unfortunately, we spend most of our lives invested in immortality of the collectivist styles which manifested from religion, then socialism.

Humility is an act of self-repudiation...so fundamentally the producer of this guy agrees with Christianity. Belief is god is a side issue...if not god, they would still be self-loathing. There is no justification for collective 'self-loathing'. I don't even think people have good reason for personal responsibility in a world which possesses such confusing values. It is no wonder that so many fall prey to crime, low self-esteem and the 'temptation' of immoral acts. The Christian failure to utilise their rational faculty (i.e. faith is repudiation of logic since it is acceptance of ideas without evidence) is the ultimate in immorality, but it is a defiance of their nature, not of some God.

I can't help watching this video and feel excited by the opportunity. Humanity is so worried about polluting this 'Earthily environment", and its their values which cause the problem ultimately, and at the end of the day, there are thousands of plausible Earths out their upon which humanity might be able to settle.
haha...That won't stop Christianity....interestingly his final statement was in support of "humility"....which is self-repudiation...so fundamentally the producer of this guy agrees with Christianity. Belief is god is a side issue...if not god, they would still be self-loathing.

See the video.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com