The Triumph Of Reason Over Religion



"The Cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan
The atoms in our bodies
were created in exploding stars

Who can forget the measured, poetic presentation of Carl Sagan when in Cosmos (1980) he first explained to a wrapped world of television viewers the fantastic fact that we are star stuff? (Scroll down to watch the video.)

Previously existing stars had blown apart to produce some of the elements from which our human bodies are composed. More of our elemental atoms were the product of a second generation of stars accumulating that same star stuff and in their explosive deaths compressed those lighter elements further along the atomic table to produce all of the remaining heavier atoms essential for our existence.
 


Theoretical Christadelphianism

After 165 years of failed predictions
Christadelphians are confident
that they understand prophecy!
In the same way that theoretical physics seeks to expand the limits of our knowledge about the physical sciences, theoretical Christadelphianism seeks to expand Christadelphian thinking by speculating about things that are not stated or clearly explained in the Bible.


But while theoretical physicists think of experiments by which their theories can be falsified or confirmed, theoretical Christadelphians are not constrained by any sort of reality check.

For example at the recent "Rugby Prophecy Day" theoretical Christadelphianists boldly speculated whether the latest reports from Debka File, events in Syria, global seismic and volcanic activity, rough seas and closed ATM machines in Cyprus means that Christ's return after two thousand years of absence is finally about to take place.

An Open Letter To A Christadelphian Who Is Losing Her Faith

 
Losing one's faith can be
emotionally distressing.
This is an open letter reply to a Christadelphian sister who wrote to me this morning saying that she "has almost lost" her faith and is no longer attending the meetings.

If you are a Christadelphian, or a believer in another religion who feels the same way, this reply is for you.
 

When You Lose Your Faith You Gain your Reason

"The path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

The nine words of the title to this article condense all that I have been trying to say on this blog over the past few years into a single sentence.

I was watching a video of Christopher Hitchens the other evening and he said it as a throwaway line. He never developed the idea and it was hardly relevant to what he was talking about. He almost said it as a mistake and he quickly moved on to talk about something else. But I seized upon the quote and resolved to write something about it for you.

"You Can't Prove That God Doesn't Exist"

Where is the Evidence???
I must have heard it a thousand times from Christadelphians and other believers when debating the existence of God: "You can't prove that God doesn't exist."

They say it after their initial arguments for the existence of God have crumbled and they find themselves on the defensive. They think that it is some sort of unanswerable debate clincher and indeed it is; but not in the way they expect.

Because a moment's thought will show that if you can't prove that something does not exist, then for the very same reason, you can't prove that it does exist.