If you haven’t already guessed, or maybe I’ve mentioned it before, I am an atheist. If I was American, that confession would be like a Gay coming out of the closet, but I’m not and I probably never will be, either American or Gay, nor emerging from any closets in the foreseeable future.
Having said that, I’m not one of those ‘Hip New Atheists’, I don’t really give a raggedy dog’s arse whether you’re a ‘believer’ or not, that is entirely your decision. I realise that whatever I write is not going to change your mind one iota. As far as I’m concerned there are enough religions to go around for everybody, from Agnosticism to Zoroastrianism, choose one to suit yourself, but please refrain from trying to thrust it down other people’s throats.
Like I said at the start, I’m an atheist, which is the same as saying I’m not a ‘Theist’, defined as a person who believes in the existence of Gods or a God. Using this logic, an agnostic is a person who is not a Gnostic defined as a person usu. a Christian heretic claiming esoteric, mystical knowledge. But an agnostic is defined as (1) someone who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or (2) a person who is uncertain or non-committal about a certain thing.
Being a non-proselytising atheist can get a bit boring at times, so I wake up some mornings, feeling uncertain and a tad non-committal and decide that I’m going to be an Agnostic for the day. Most Fridays, I decide to be an a-Islamist, Saturdays an a-Judaist and Sundays an a-Christian.
Most of the time though, I’m an a-Pantheist, a Pantheist is defined as (1) a person who identifies God with the forces of nature or (2) someone who admits or tolerates all Gods. As an a-Pantheist, I don’t admit, but do tolerate any and all Gods. You could say that I’m apathetic towards the whole pantheon of them, but that would make me an apathetic a-pantheist.
If two negatives make a positive, as is widely accepted, that would make me a Pathetic Pantheist. I’m fairly certain that I don’t like that very much, but it is Sunday, so I might just partake of a few bottles of Altar Cider and think about it.
I invented my own irreligion once and called it Fosterarianism, but it has never caught on. It was quite a neat irreligion, advocating an end to Poverty, War, Global Warming and banning cars/aircraft and lots of other nasties.
I named myself the Messiah and my one and only convert was promised leadership upon my demise and descent into the Kingdom of the Worms. We were both expecting a bevy of beautiful young maidens to beat a path to the Temple/Garage door, but it didn’t eventuate.
I think the biggest problem was a lack of charisma on my part. Any Messiah worth his salt has to ooze charisma or chutzpah and I have to be honest here, a boiled turnip oozes more than I do. However, if you’re a fair young maiden at a loose end, with a fondness for boiled turnips, don’t hesitate to call.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
A sceptical view of Noah and his Ark
I was just thinking about Noah’s Ark, idly wondering how he managed to fit all those animals on a wooden boat. I thought I’d better find out a bit more, before shooting my mouth off and I stumbled on an article written by a Christian author.
According to the bible; (make that The Bible, I don’t wish to be overly offensive), the Ark when converted from cubits, was approximately 450ft long x 75ft wide and 45ft high. That is a pretty large boat in anybody’s language, and would fit a shit load of animals on it, but there are a heap of different critters wandering around out there.
This article said that the average size of an animal is about the same size as a sheep, according to some experts, or a rabbit according to others. I guess if you take into account Elephants, Camels, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotami (interesting plurals those two!) as the biggies and mice, shrews, hamsters and rats as the smallies, this could be an acceptable assumption.
It also said that The Bible, didn’t actually stipulate different ‘Types’ of animals, it could be taken as ‘Families’ or ‘Genera’ (plural of Genus, neat eh?). In other words ‘Cats’ would include Pussies, Lions, Leopards, Cheetah (no ‘s') and other assorted purring beasts, but only two generic felines would have been required. The same with Chihuahua, Siberian-Moosehounds, Wolverines and Hyena, just two canines needed?
A bit of a conundrum here with Avians though, if there were Ravens and Doves, what about Ostriches, Dodo and Rhea? Albatrosses and other Sea-birds would have been sweet, but I doubt if an Emu could have dog-paddled around the Ark for a year or so.
Which brings us to another conundrum. Marsupials! did Noah send one of his sons out in a smaller boat to round up a few Wallabies and Koala from Australia? and a couple of Penguins from Antarctica while he was down in that neck of the Antipodes? I guess another one must have taken a trip to the Americas, both North and South, there are a lot of unique beasties over there. Not to mention Africa and Asia, don't ask me why I don't mention them, because I already have, all the 'biggies' were from there.
Going by all the begatting that was going on at the time, Biblical Scholars have calculated that God created everything around 4,000BC and that the Flood occurred around 2,300BC. I’m not real sure how they arrived at these figures as Noah was supposed to be 600 years old when he entered the Ark and he was considered a mere stripling. I think that they may have underestimated by a millennium or two.
Even so, if there were only one of each genera, how did they evolve into the plethora of creatures that exist today? and while we’re about it; if you’re a Creationist and believe in Noah and his Ark, you don’t believe in evolution anyway, do you?
Finally, according to some sources, the Ark came to rest high on Mt Ararat in Turkey. Mt Ararat is 5,165m above sea-level (that’s about 16,000ft in the old money), did it only rain for 40 days and 40 nights? or is that my faulty memory? That’s about 400 feet every 24 hours over the whole wide world, where did all that water come from? Where did it all go?
Mind you, if you’re Omnipotent and have the whole Universe at your fingertips, what’s a few zillion megalitres of water? A mere drop in the ocean! or should that read a mere rise in the ocean?
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
According to the bible; (make that The Bible, I don’t wish to be overly offensive), the Ark when converted from cubits, was approximately 450ft long x 75ft wide and 45ft high. That is a pretty large boat in anybody’s language, and would fit a shit load of animals on it, but there are a heap of different critters wandering around out there.
This article said that the average size of an animal is about the same size as a sheep, according to some experts, or a rabbit according to others. I guess if you take into account Elephants, Camels, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotami (interesting plurals those two!) as the biggies and mice, shrews, hamsters and rats as the smallies, this could be an acceptable assumption.
It also said that The Bible, didn’t actually stipulate different ‘Types’ of animals, it could be taken as ‘Families’ or ‘Genera’ (plural of Genus, neat eh?). In other words ‘Cats’ would include Pussies, Lions, Leopards, Cheetah (no ‘s') and other assorted purring beasts, but only two generic felines would have been required. The same with Chihuahua, Siberian-Moosehounds, Wolverines and Hyena, just two canines needed?
A bit of a conundrum here with Avians though, if there were Ravens and Doves, what about Ostriches, Dodo and Rhea? Albatrosses and other Sea-birds would have been sweet, but I doubt if an Emu could have dog-paddled around the Ark for a year or so.
Which brings us to another conundrum. Marsupials! did Noah send one of his sons out in a smaller boat to round up a few Wallabies and Koala from Australia? and a couple of Penguins from Antarctica while he was down in that neck of the Antipodes? I guess another one must have taken a trip to the Americas, both North and South, there are a lot of unique beasties over there. Not to mention Africa and Asia, don't ask me why I don't mention them, because I already have, all the 'biggies' were from there.
Going by all the begatting that was going on at the time, Biblical Scholars have calculated that God created everything around 4,000BC and that the Flood occurred around 2,300BC. I’m not real sure how they arrived at these figures as Noah was supposed to be 600 years old when he entered the Ark and he was considered a mere stripling. I think that they may have underestimated by a millennium or two.
Even so, if there were only one of each genera, how did they evolve into the plethora of creatures that exist today? and while we’re about it; if you’re a Creationist and believe in Noah and his Ark, you don’t believe in evolution anyway, do you?
Finally, according to some sources, the Ark came to rest high on Mt Ararat in Turkey. Mt Ararat is 5,165m above sea-level (that’s about 16,000ft in the old money), did it only rain for 40 days and 40 nights? or is that my faulty memory? That’s about 400 feet every 24 hours over the whole wide world, where did all that water come from? Where did it all go?
Mind you, if you’re Omnipotent and have the whole Universe at your fingertips, what’s a few zillion megalitres of water? A mere drop in the ocean! or should that read a mere rise in the ocean?
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
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