I recently received a comment from a Christian pointing out that the Bible supports fasting for health reasons and that a scientific study has shown that fasting can be beneficial to cancer patients on Chemotherapy. The commenter then added that “this was another case of science catching up with God’s advice.”
Category Religion
When we think about religious believers, we tend to think that they all actually believe in the belief system that they identify with, however that might not always be the case. Many religious believers are brought up in the traditions of religion but might not really believe in the actual beliefs – and really, who can blame them. Many of those beliefs are pretty ridiculous.
The argument goes like this:
The universe is made up of matter and energy.
We are made up of matter and energy.
Therefore, we are the universe trying to understand itself.
Therefore, we are God.
Often religious believers will claim that science can’t apply to religion. What they really mean to say is that they would rather not apply science to religion because if science were to apply to religion, it would be extremely obvious that religious claims are not actually true. So of course they will assert that science can’t apply to religion because if you are a religious person, you have to believe that or sacrifice your religion to the alter of science.
Many more progressive religious believers and a few misguided atheists insist that religion isn’t really the problem; the problem is merely how some extremists interpret religion. They claim that atheists like me want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I disagree. I just don’t want to drown the baby in baptism.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy claimed that prayer (even explicitly Christian prayer) is not really religious; it is just ceremonial. It is merely a tradition and has no real religious purpose.
I was having a discussion with a Christian recently and we were talking about blood sacrifice and how Jesus was the Innocent Lamb of God. My Christian friend reminded me that because of the sacrifice of Jesus we don’t need to sacrifice animals any more. That reminder jarred me back into reality and I had to remind my Christian friend what century this is.
Religious believers love to claim that God is the only possible source for morality. While I have made it clear in a previous article that God does not ground morality at all and that the true source of morality is human empathy and compassion, many religious believers still hold on to their dogmatic view. Not to worry, I have developed a test to see which one of us is correct.
The other night, I re-watched the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Who Watches The Watchers.” This is probably the episode that most obviously deals with religion and has become a favorite among atheists.
The news is abuzz at the thought that the head of Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, is near death. There has been talk about picketing his funeral and everything. For starters, Fred Phelps was excommunicated from his own church last year and even if that were not the case, WBC members don’t believe in having funerals.