1. In Defense of Witchcraft

Comment #52388 by api on June 27, 2007 at 12:25 am

I was once given a book for my children called something like, "The Witch Who Made Children Cry", about, well about a witch who made children cry, by playing nasty tricks on them. She gets her come-uppance when the children steal her broom and refuse to return it till she promises to be nice to them.

Anyway, I tried replacing the word Witch with Bishop. Hey - certainly a few in the clergy have certainly made children cry over the years, especially choirboys.

The other adults didn't like it much, even when I explained that the book was another insidious attack on Wicca and witches in general, based on religious persecution during the middle-ages (and even more recently).

Funny how language has the power to challenge and change attitudes.

Keep it up Sam and Richard et al!

2. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #27503 by api on March 25, 2007 at 3:59 am

And here is the crux of the whole matter - one I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else. Andrew admits to it himself on the 7th March:

"I also found myself a little embarrassed in retrospect by the forthrightness of my claims to faith. I feel an unworthy apologist for Christianity in many ways. I'm not a trained theologian nor a priest nor even someone who thinks of himself as a good Christian."

Now why does a creator require a book, a history and a whole bunch of people (priests, clergy etc) to act as an intermeditary between itself and humans (and why just humans? - wouldn't the world be a better place with more than one sentient species?)

If even a "specialist" like Andrew doesn't feel qualified to completely understand the thing, what hope for the average person? Doesn't this strike you as odd? Shouldn't it just *be* simple for everyone to understand?

Similarly, bible study classes in itself proves the futility of this religion. The Bible shouldn't need to be "studied" and "interpreted" for clues as to the real meaning, the real history or the real message. It should be - I think as lawyers say - self evident.

For a book as supposedly as important as the Bible - to it's followers - why has it required humans to keep it up to date? I mean by translating into langauges of the times, and even translations into variants of a language (e.g. Good News vs King James). Why not have a creator simply drop a copy in the appropriate language onto every scrap of land occupied by humans every 10 years or so? Not such a difficult trick compared to defying other laws of Nature mentioned in this book. And a lot cheaper for those poor organisations printing it now. Come to think of it, why not have a Bible miraculously appear in the hands of all babies as they are born - in the language they'll eventually learn to speak in? Imagine how informed we all would be then!

But then, given the gullibility of these religious people, such a straight-forward and proveable demonstration of the existence of a deity would force them to come up with another unlikely and unproveable world-view of the universe.