Here’s a short 42 second video taken from Genesis TV where the presenters discuss the podcast I contribute to, The Pod Delusion. The best advice they seem to muster in response to our podcast, is to pray for me and my fellow contributors, presumably in the hope that we will see the error of our rational and critical thinking ways.Coincidently, I heard from a good Christian friend of mine recently who also happily informed me that he and his church were praying for me, again as a result of my preference for clear thought and logic over blind adherence to pre-enlightened myths.
Although I do not take offence when being told I am being prayed for (I’ll leave offence as the blackmail weapon of choice for the believers). I am however exasperated by the amount of genuine good intent wasted on this futility.
The cumulative amount of effort and time frivolously wasted on prayer is frustrating when there are so many worthwhile alternatives that could have a genuine effect.
Therefore, if you are religious and you wish to pray for me, in order to ensure some value is added by your good intentions, I would ask that you save your prayer until you have first recently completed at least one of the items on the following list.
- Donate time or money to a humanist secular charity
- Give blood
- Become an organ donor
- Launch an over ripe tomato in the general direction of Pope Benny XVI
- Post a fresh steaming turd through Nick Griffin’s Letter Box.
At least then I will know that you have actually done something that might actually stand a chance of having a genuine effect.
NB Actually, if you are religious and you do seriously want to complete one of the above tasks before praying for my condemned soul, please select one of the first 3, as I only added the last 2 for comic effect.
7 comments:
Wonderful. I have the feeling I'm going to need a link to this next time I'm in a thoroughly patronizing and annoying conversation . . .
"clear thought and logic over blind adherence to pre-enlightened myths" ...hmmm pop round next time you're in Durham and insult me to my face.
Your other christian friend.
I like the more honest phrase: "I'll be thinking of you."
At my last Alpha meeting before christmas I was prayed for because I was coming down with a cold. A few days later the cold had disappeared. Explain that Jago you unbeliever!!
ND
You should think yourself lucky.
The kind people at Genesis TV actually started another blog to have a go at me over my article about them.
I love this line "I’ll leave offense as the blackmail weapon of choice for the believers." I am continually amazed by the presumptive deference demanded by the religious! Some of my loved ones think nothing about wearing various Jesus slogans on their t-shirts - but where I to wear an atheist shirt I would be the provocateur.
I'd really hate to be one of "those" people, however unlike things like homeopathic medicine, nostradamus predictions, astrology etc which have a quantifiable high margin of error, most theologies like philosophies do not make physical predictions. Now there are certainly some religions you can rule out by reason and logic, 7th day adventists, clearly. However there are simply not enough claims of physicality to disprove most religions. The only other method which you can use is internal contradiction, which is to say that there is one part of the faith which negates the other. It cannot be something which you feel is a contradiction to something you consider to be an axiom of truth because it claims that it IS the axiom of truth, and resultantly you are forced to fight in its playground. Experimental proof of this can easily be found by trying to debate with a relativist or a true nihilist.
The fundamental problem is that you are attempting to use an experimental based science, to disprove a non-physical subject. You cannot disprove it as much as it cannot be proven true. It's purely theory, like the idea of the Atom in greek times.
Recognize in respect of the fact that he is your friend that there is technically an area of unprovability; and also quite probably many true things in his religion which you have chosen to take a blind eye to in light of the physically unexperimental nature of the ideology.
Us engineering majors, always the "conservative" ones. lawdy lawdy
Post a Comment