The Existence of God

Now, look at what is happening inside your mind at this moment. I am using solid, verifiable evidence to show you that the christian story is imaginary. Your rational mind can see the evidence. Billions of non-christians would be happy to confirm for you that the christian story is imaginary. However, if you are a practicing christian, you can probably feel your "religious mind" overriding both your rational mind and your common sense as we speak. Why? Why were you able to use your common sense to so easily reject the Santa story, the mormon story and the muslim story, but when it comes to the christian story, which is just as imaginary, you are not? Try, just for a moment, to look at christianity with the same amount of healthy skepticism that you used when approaching the stories of Santa, joseph smith and mohammed. Use your common sense to ask some very simple questions of yourself: Is there any physical evidence that jesus existed? - No. He left no trace. His body "ascended into heaven." He wrote nothing down. None of his "miracles" left any permanent evidence. There is, literally, nothing. Is there any reason to believe that jesus actually performed these miracles, or that he rose from the dead, or that he ascended into heaven? - There is no more of a reason to believe this than there is to believe that joseph smith found the golden plates hidden in New York, or that mohammed rode on a magical winged horse to heaven. Probably less of a reason, given that the record of jesus' life is 2,000 years old, while that of joseph smith is less than 200 years old. You mean to tell me that I am supposed to believe this story of jesus, and there is no proof or evidence to go by beyond a few attestations in the new testament of a bible that is provably meaningless? - Yes, you are supposed to believe it. You are supposed to take it on "faith." No one (besides little kids) believes in Santa Claus. No one outside the mormon church believes joseph smith's story. No one outside the muslim faith believes the story of mohammed and gabriel and the winged horse. No one outside the christian faith believes in jesus' divinity, miracles, resurrection, etc. Therefore, the question I would ask you to consider right now is simple: Why is it that human beings can detect fairy tales with complete certainty when those fairy tales come from other faiths, but they cannot detect the fairy tales that underpin their own faith? Why do they believe their chosen fairy tale with unrelenting passion and reject the others as nonsense? For example: christians know that when the Egyptians built gigantic pyramids and mummified the bodies of their pharaohs, that it was a total waste of time -- otherwise christians would build pyramids. christians know that when the aztecs carved the heart out of a virgin and ate it, that it accomplished nothing -- otherwise christians would kill virgins. christians know that when muslims face mecca to pray, that it is pointless -- otherwise christians would face mecca when they pray. christians know that when jews keep meat and dairy products separate, that they are wasting their time -- otherwise the cheeseburger would not be an American obsession. Yet, when christians look at their own religion, they are for some reason blind. Why? And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that the christian story is true. Your rational mind knows that with certainty, and so do billions of others. This book, the holy binky, if you will let it, will control your free thinking. If you are a christian who believes in the power of prayer, here is a very simple experiment that will show you something very interesting about your faith. Take a coin out of your pocket. Now pray sincerely to Ra: Dear Ra, almighty sun god, I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Ra's name I pray, amen. Now flip the coin. Chances are that you won't get past the fifth or sixth flip and the coin will land tails. What does this mean? Most people would look at this data and conclude that Ra is imaginary. We prayed to Ra, and Ra did nothing. We can prove that Ra is imaginary (at least in the sense of prayer-answering ability) by using statistical analysis. If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Ra each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. Ra has absolutely no effect on the coin no matter how much we pray. Even if we find a thousand of Ra's most faithful believers and ask them to do the praying/flipping, the results will be the same. Therefore, as rational people, we conclude that Ra is imaginary. We look at Ra in the same way that we look at Leprechauns, Mermaids, Santa and so on. We know that people who believe in Ra are delusional. Now I want you to try the experiment again, but this time I want you to pray to jesus christ instead of Ra. Pray sincerely to jesus like this: Dear jesus, I know that you exist and I know that you hear and answer prayers as you promise in the bible. I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In jesus' name I pray, amen. Now flip the coin. Once again, after the fifth or sixth flip, the coin will land tails. If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to jesus each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. It is not like there are two laws of probability -- one for christians who pray and the other for non-christians. There is only one law of probability because prayers have zero effect. jesus has no effect on our planet no matter how much we pray. We can prove that conclusively using statitical analysis. If you believe in god, watch what is happening inside your mind right now. The data is absolutely identical in both experiments. With Ra you looked at the data rationally and concluded that Ra is imaginary. But with jesus... something else will happen. In your mind, you are already coming up with a thousand rationalizations to explain why jesus did not answer your prayers: It is not his will he doesn't have time I didn't pray the right way I am not worthy I do not have enough faith I cannot test the lord like this It is not part of jesus' plan for me And on and on and on... One rationalization that you may find yourself developing is particularly interesting. You may say to yourself: "Well, of course jesus doesn"t answer me when I pray about a coin toss, because it is too trivial." Where did this rationalization come from? If you read what jesus says about prayer in the bible (see this proof), jesus does not ever say, "don't pray to me about nonsense" like coin tosses." jesus clearly says he will answer your prayers, and he puts no boundaries on what you may pray for. You invented this rationalization out of thin air. You are an expert at creating rationalizations for jesus. The reason you are an expert is because jesus does not answer any of your prayers. The reason why jesus does not answer any of your prayers is because jesus and god are imaginary. "I'm not religious at all, but I believe that there is a god (super-powered being) who existed originally. This cannot be explained, but there are a lot of puzzles about dark matter too..." TRANSLATION: I dont know everything, nobody knows everything, therefore since we dont understand something, god did it :) Infections 8:1--Deism is the result of exposure to theistic writings, much like stinking is the result of exposure to second hand smoke :) BestFriend 5:6--You cannot make fun of gods gifts, cancer is nothing, you dont even know how to make over 6,000 different birth defects so youre obviously not all knowing like god, he even knows how to make kids born allergic to water, best gift Ever :)