There is only One Reality (Draft)

This is something I'm working on.

Science is interesting and if you don’t agree you can fuck off. –Richard Dawkins

I do not respect religions, faith, superstitions or anything supernatural that people take seriously. This is not because I had a bad experience growing up (although I did go to a catholic school for 4 years, but all that really taught me about religion is how to read biblical references and that religious people do not like their ideals being questioned). It is because there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to take it seriously, but also because there is no logical reason to respect it. And by “do not respect”, I mean I will pull people up on their beliefs and question them, ask, and try to make them ask themselves, why they think it is compatible with the real world.

We are free to argue about politics, economics, social structures, historical events, legal systems, etc, but as soon as we enter the field of how the universe and everything in it came to be, that is for some reason respected and not questioned. Things that are “holy” are not questioned based on some social rule that has been put into place. Well, why so much respect? Why can’t we pull these people up on their religions? The concept of “faith” comes into it. Faith is belief without reason. People with faith do not have to provide reason or evidence for their beliefs, they simply believe because they want it to be true. This is no reason to believe anything, and it is certainly not deserving of any respect.

I find the concept of faith appalling and very harmful to society at large. Even moderate religious teachings, which might not be directly harmful, do teach people that unquestioning faith is OK. Muslim extremists and Christian fundamentalists can then get away with saying that their motives are driven by faith, and we cannot question them, not even place their beliefs in negative light. Muslim extremists and Christian fundamentalists do what they do because they truly believe what they say they believe. That they will go to a martyr’s heaven for blowing people up, or that natural disasters, or AIDS is God’s punishment for societies that accept homosexuality. This is not something to respect. Religion and religious teaching needs to be severely questioned and not respected.

I think that religion prevents many benefits in modern society and science, not just from the extremists. Abortion is a fine example. There are many arguments for and against abortion. According to religious absolutism, an unborn fetus is a baby, killing it is murder, end of story. I’m not interested in discussing when an unborn fetus becomes “human,” I don’t think it is as black and white as that. I am all for abortion, not merely because I think the world is over populated as it is, and I have three main arguments for it. Firstly, I’m more concerned as to when the fetus suffers. An unborn fetus does not have a nervous system, let alone a consciousness, until a certain time in the pregnancy and do certainly does not suffer when it is aborted. There are religious fanatics that will kill doctors in order to “save babies.” These fanatics cause real suffering, not just of the doctor, but of their families.

Secondly, an objection to abortions is that it prevents that “child” from having a fully fledged go at life. By the same logic, deciding not to have unprotected sex also prevents a child from having a life. One might as well say that any decline of any offer to have sex between two fertile members of the opposite gender prevents a child of a life.

Thirdly, some people will argue that the unborn child’s soul will be impure if it has not been baptised. Despite the fact that the arguer would then have to support the claim that the fetus, or anyone, actually has a soul (I don’t think anyone does, so I would reject this claim straight away), but wouldn’t that be the same as all the fetuses a mother’s body naturally aborts, or still born babies?

In many places in the world (not just countries, but in homes and schools), the bible is taught as literal truth. However, if you actually go through this holy book, the morals are appalling. According to Deuteronomy 28:15, all the rules according to the bible are perfect and are to be taken not symbolically, but literal. They include the ten commandments, but there are many others. Here is a taste, it is part of the reason we should not respect religion and should be less tolerant of it:

· You cannot wear clothing made of more than one material, or plant two different seeds in a field (Leviticus 19:19)

· You cannot have tattoos (Leviticus 19:28)

· You should not pray in public (Matthew 6:5-6)

· Attempt to convert another to Christianity in public will land you in hell (Matthew 6:1)

· When you pray, keep it short and sweet (Matthew 6:7)

· God will not forgive those who refuse to forgive others (Matthew 6:15)

· God can’t stand handicapped, blemished, injured or disfigured people (Leviticus 21:17-21)

· If you are a party to someone else’s sin, you might as well be dead (Matthew 18:6)

· Non-believers must be killed (Deuteronomy 17:12)

· Speak unfavorably of God and you get killed (Leviticus 24:16)

· Religious people should disassociate with non-believers (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)

· Prayer cures all (James 5:13-15)

· If you believe in God, you can speak in tongues, handle snakes and drink deadly poison without being hurt (Mark 16:17-18 & Luke 10:19)

· Whatever you want, all you need to do is pray (Matthew 21:22)

· Heathens put up Christmas trees, not Christians (Jeremiah 10:2-5)

· The more people dislike, insult and persecute you, the more righteous you are and the more likely you will get into heaven (Matthew 5:11-12)

· Talk unfavorably to your parents and you will be put to death (Leviticus 20:9)

· You must submit to the government authorities, including paying taxes (Romans 13:1-7)

· You cannot be in debt to anyone (Romans 13:8)

· When you do good deeds, do not take credit for them (Matthew 6:2, 4)

· Do not collect material treasures (Matthew 6:19-20)

· You cannot love God and money (Matthew 6:24)

· All debts must be canceled after seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1)

· We are judged by our works (Corinthians 5:10)

· We are not judged by works, only on our faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)

· If you want to go to heaven and you have a penis, you must first cut it off (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

· God does not like male genital problems (Deuteronomy 23:1)

· Work on a Sunday, even gather sticks, and you should be stoned to death (Numbers 15:32-35 & Exodus 35:2)

· Not only are you not allowed to work on Sunday, but you cannot cause anyone, servant nor animal to work (Deuteronomy 5:14)

· You are not allowed to build a fire on Sunday (Exodus 35:3)

· Slaves must submit themselves to their masters, regardless of how cruel they may be (1 Peter 2:18)

· Take slaves from foreign lands, but also tourists in your town (Leviticus 25:44-45)

· Engage in male homosexuality and you’ll be put to death (Leviticus 20:13)

· Lust and looking at a woman is the same as adultery (Matthew 5:28)

· Sleep with a woman on her period and you both should be banished from her community (Leviticus 20:18)

· No masturbation, or even pulling out during sex (Genesis 38:9-10)

· If your wife is not a virgin at the time of her marriage, she’s a whore and must be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

· Divorce is not permissible (Matthew 19:6 & Mark 10:6-9)

· Divorce is permissible, but women can’t re-marry, only to get back with her original husband (1 Corinthians 7:10-11)

· Re-marrying is adulterous (Matthew 10:10-12, Mark 10:22 & Luke 16:18)

· Having an atheist wife or husband is not grounds for divorce (1 Corinthians 7:12-14)

· Bastard children and their descendants burn in hell (Deuteronomy 23:2)

· A married man must take a year off work (Deuteronomy 24:5)

· Wives must do everything their husbands demand (Ephesians 5:22-24)

· The only legitimate reason for a divorce is if your wife is not a virgin (Matthew 5:31)

· A widowed woman without children must marry her husband’s brother (Deuteronomy 25:5)

· You cannot wear clothing made of two different fibers (Leviticus 19:19)

· Long hair is a disgrace (1 Corinthians 11:14)

· Do not trim hair at the sides, sideburns or beards (Leviticus 19:27)

· Smoothliness is next to godliness, no hairy underarms or pubes (1 Corinthians 11:16)

· Stay away from women on their period (Leviticus 15:19)

· If a woman grabs her husband by the testicles, cut off her hand (Deuteronomy 25:11)

· If someone sues you for the shirt off your back, also give him your coat (Matthew 5:40)

· Disobedient children must be killed (Mark 7:10)

· You cannot consume any type of blood (Leviticus 17:10)

· No pork (Leviticus 11:8)

· You cannot eat any animal fat (Leviticus 3:17)

· You cannot plant different kinds of seeds next to each other in the same garden (Leviticus 19:19)

· If it moves, you can eat it (Genesis 9:3)

· Women were created to serve men (1 Corinthians 11:8-9)

· Women are not allowed to speak in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

· Women must dress modestly and discreetly, with plain hair and no fancy jewelry (1 Timothy 2:9)

· Women are not to teach nor speak, and never have authority over men (1 Timothy 2:12)

· Women are forbidden to show their hair and should cover their heads unless they are bald (1 Corinthians 11:6)

· Women are worth half as much as men (Leviticus 27:1-7)

· Women are considered property (Exodus 20:17)

· Women are twice as unclean as men (Leviticus 21:1-5)

· To be a Christian you must not only reject, but hate yourself and your family (Luke 14:26)

· It’s OK to sell your daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7)

· Resist God and be damned (Romans 13:2)

· God says take what you want from the heathens (Psalms 2:8)

· God doesn’t care if you are a slave (1 Corinthians 7:21-24)

· The bible is not open to interpretation (2 Peter 1:20-21)

· You should not think; there is only right and wrong, black and white, yes and no, nothing in between (Matthew 5:36-37)

· Jesus will return during the lives of the prophets (Matthew 24:34 & Luke 21:32)

· Jesus will return and anyone who offends him will be burned alive (Matthew 31:41-42)

· You are not allowed to consult with psychics (Leviticus 19:31 & 20:6)

No person in the world would truly follow all of these, even those who take their scriptures as literal fact. More bad advice includes the following:

· It’s OK to consume food cooked over the flames of burning human feces (Ezekiel 4:12)

· If a man rapes a woman, he must pay her father 50 Shekels and then marry her (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

· Find a prostitute and marry her (Hosea 1:1-3)

· Purchase a piece of property and get as woman a part of the deal (Ruth 4:5-10)

· Cut 200 foreskins off of your future father-in-law’s enemies and get his daughter for a wife (1 Samuel 18:27)

· Don’t be picky with your wife. Make up for quality with quantity (1 Kings 11:1-3)

· Give your wife holy water with dirt from the floor to drink, if she gets sick it means she is adulterous (Numbers 5:11-28)

· To heal leprosy, take two birds; kill one, dip the live one in the dead one’s blood and sprinkle the blood over the leper (Leviticus 14:3-7)

· You must look at the world in absolute extremes (Matthew 5:36-37)

· Don’t worry about things like global warming; don’t plan ahead (Matthew 6:34)

· Beating slaves is OK so long as you don’t kill them (Exodus 21:20-21)

· God classifies a herb as a tree (Matthew 13:31-32)

· We can do whatever we want, so long as we have faith (Ephesians 2:8-9)

· Jesus thought that the world was flat (Matthew 4:8)

· The bible states that a hare chews cud (Deuteronomy 14:7) and birds walk on four legs (Leviticus 11:20-21)

· Pi = 3 (1 Kings 7:23)

There is, of course, good advice given by the bible, however I find many of it greatly contradicts the rest. Here are some examples:

· Refrain from anger and vengeance; “turn the other cheek” do not harm those that harm you (Matthew 5:39 & Psalms 37:8)

· We are judged by what we do, not by what we think (Corinthians 5:10)

· Love your enemies (Matthew 5:43-44 & Leviticus 19:18)

· Charity towards others is most important (1 Corinthians 13:13)

· Treat others as you would like yourself to be treated (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 7:12, 6:31 & Galatians 5:14)

· Love is all that’s important (Matthew 22:35-40 & Romans 13:8)

· Use your own judgment; be skeptical and don’t believe everything you are told based on authority (Proverbs 14:15 & 1 Thessalonians 5:21)

· Be tolerant of immigrants and aliens (Exodus 22:21, Leviticus 19:34 & Malachi 3:5)

Supporting God’s existence through scripture does not need to be discussed any further.

One of the strongest “proofs” for the existence of God is the initial mover. The universe had to have a beginning; an initial starter. This is stated as proof for God’s existence. However, scientists are getting closer and closer to finding the most basic particle of all matter. Quantum mechanics is one of the strangest areas of science and understanding, completely not like anything we could possibly experience (it has been said that if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics). And it is quantum mechanics that will ultimately explain the big bang and why there is something instead of nothing at all. Concepts like the fact that a vacuum is not really nothing, but matter and anti-matter existing in the same place demonstrate the plausibility to make something out of “nothing.” Of course, the Big Bang was not really a “bang” at all, but we can go into the science of it another time.

Even if it was demonstrated that the start of this universe did have to have a supernatural beginning (I doubt it), that does not impose the right for the religious minded to give that cause any other properties such as thought, observance, the name “God”, judgment, to be worthy of worship or even the status of still existing. It is even more absurd to claim that if you are trying to prove God to exist by this argument, you also try to claim, as a direct result, that anything in holy scriptures is true. I think this is a very weak argument for the existence of God, and especially the God of the bible.

People arguing against God using science and evidence (such as Richard Dawkins central point in The God Delusion that anything capable of creating a universe can only come into existence as the end product of a long slow process of something like evolution by natural selection) are often confronted with the argument that God exists outside the laws of science and observation. Then what laws exactly does he lie within? If God lies in a different set of scientific laws that us, then we cannot we exist in those laws as well? Why must they be kept so secretive? And isn’t that just too easy to say that God exists outside the realms of our laws of science? You don’t therefore have to come up with any logical argument or explanation if you say he exists outside our reality. To some people this is satisfying, but I find it deeply unsatisfying. We are able to explain so much about the natural universe by using the known laws, and even more and science and understanding advances. Why should God exist in a different plain of existence? Arguments have always been God existing in this universe, but as soon as the evidence contradicts it, the response is not “Oh, you’re right, God doesn’t exist” it’s “well that means we have to re-define where God exists.”

This paper is no just dedicated to God (although it is the focus). I have a huge problem with anything supernatural being taken seriously and as fact in today’s society. Astrology, homeopathy, psychics, all religions and cults, ghosts and spirits, new age concepts, fate, even superstitions as simple as walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror or having a black cat cross your path, are deeply unscientific. If any of these were to be even remotely true, pull on one thread of their reasoning and all scientific knowledge comes crashing down. There would be nothing reliable in the universe, and we know that science works because you are reading this after being typed out on a flat screen Windows 7 laptop. Not promoting the computer, but if we did not know how science worked, technologies like this could not exist as they would not be reliable. If any of these were possible, then we would live in a universe where anything was possible. And the simple fact is, there are millions of things what are simply NOT possible, although I’m sure there would be several people that would disagree. To them I say, where you can demonstratively fly without the aid of a machine or birds tied to a string, then come and see me.

One other comment I have a problem with that people make is “everything happens for a reason.” They make the assertion that this “reason” is to take place in the future. It is a perfectly valid statement if the “reason” is clarified as a long series of small events which lead up to the present.

Astrology is another big one. I’m going to leave aside the fact that the Earth has changed positions since astrology was invented several thousand years ago and that the constellations are no longer where they were back then, both because it has been put forth many times before, but also because astrologers have made up bogus reasons why their beliefs are still valid. The biggest problem I have with it is that it was invented at a time when it was thought that the Earth was the centre of the universe and humans were created special. It puts humans at the centre of everything, not just geographically, but with the idea that we hold some sort of special status in the universe. One horoscope I read when talking about the differences between astrology and astronomy with my year 7 classes last year was the idea that a “dislike” of some particular zodiac sign was “toothpaste lids left open.” That to me is one of the pettiest things in our life. How could the rise of Saturn or Venus through a particular random mix of stars which just happen to form a vague resemblance to a recognizable shape according to some very imaginative join-the-dots players 4 000 years ago POSSIBLY account for this? Or to any other part of our lives?

In taking the words from Tom Frame’s Losing My Religion, I think that humanity will not reach its full potential and will not finally be free until the world is rid of the infantile superstitions and delusions associated with God [and all superstition]. It is not just that belief is bad, but positive unbelief is the necessary foundation for a better future.

The bible also says the humans can have dominance over all other life and the planet. Now, putting aside the fact that humans are not special and we are just as important in the scheme of things as all other life, all Christians must realise that we do not have dominance over other things. Species extinctions, global warming, ozone, over population, etc, shows that we have tried to be dominant, and we are failing. What is even worse is that there are many people, some government officials, whose attitudes towards such crises is “we don’t need to worry about the environment, the second coming is at hand.” This is truly frightening.

Here is a quote I came across recently: “I do not seek to understand in order that I might believe, I believe in order that I might understand.” I find this quote deeply absurd. It shows how the religious thing and make predictions and conclusions. The scientific way of seeking to understand the universe is not to make conclusions first. If it were, again, we would not have any of the technology that we have today. We would get nowhere as a society, and slowly. Religious minds of the type quoted have already made up their minds before they begin any form of seeking.

Scientists spend their lives trying to advance human understanding and technology through research and experiment, where as creationists spend theirs trying to debunk science and everything that made modern society what it is today.

Religions take concepts that is either not fully understood yet by scientists (e.g.: the origin of life, the origin of the universe, the evolution of consciousness, etc) or something that the religious themselves simply do not understand even if it is completely understood by science (e.g.: evolution by natural selection, the big bang theory) and decide that it must have been done by God. This is absurd. For one thing, concepts that are not yet fully understood most probably will be one day, some probably pretty soon. But this is not a reason to say that it was done by God. There are many things that were not understood for ages, such as how the planets stay in orbit, what causes earthquakes and volcanoes and how are rainbows formed, and so the people of the time decided to attribute these mysteries to God. But they were since and are now well understood. I have very little doubt that these things will be found out soon. Why wouldn’t they? A Christian might say they won’t be understood scientifically ever because it was done by God, but as I am trying to say, this is an argument that has been made many times before and has been proven wrong every time it has been invoked.

Saying that everything that is not yet fully understood is caused by God is an intellectual dead end. Introducing the supernatural to explain anything leads us nowhere as a species, not to mention as a society.

There is absolutely no rational reason to believe in a God. The bible is a collection of stories passed on from one illiterate desert man (obviously not woman) to the next over thousands of years. That is not evidence for it being true at all. God was thought up at a time when it was thought that the earth was the centre of the universe and everything is created for us. We are so small and our place so incomprehensibly insignificant it is amazing. To think this ever-expanding and mysterious universe was created for us is ridiculous. The universe doesn’t know we are here; it doesn’t care if we live or die in anyway.

God being taught to you as being true is not a good reason to believe it. There are thousands of people being taught exactly the same thing about other supernatural beings around the world which are meant to be on “equal par” with the god of the bible. It makes it all the less plausible.

The bible says that the Earth was created in less than week (being that the earth is 5 billion years old, this is not a trivial error), and that all life was created as it is without any room for evolution (the most obvious and fundamental concept in all biology), and that Adam named all the millions of species on the planet (is that the common name or scientific name? And does that include the bacteria?), and that two of each of these species rode on a boat because of a world flood (why are there so many extinct species that were not saved by Noah? And what about all the plant species? And all the bacteria? They were not saved. And almost all the water on earth is just that, ON earth. There is not a shred of evidence that suggests that there was ever water underneath the Earth as stated in the bible), and that this flood was caused by 40 days of rain (still the driest summer recorded in Glasgow), and that Abraham almost sacrificed his son to prove his faith (something that would now consider him a child abuser), and that Moses parted the red sea with his stick (splashing it from side to side really fast like a paddle? was this during drought? Are they sure it was the Red Sea not the Reid Sea, which regularly dries up?), and that Jesus turned water into wine (did he know what he was doing at a molecular level? where did he get the carbon atoms from that are in alcohol, not water?). It is points like that which make the bible less authentic and it is held up as the proof that God exists and that he created us as opposed to us creating him (as evidence from all historians and scientists would indicate), that's where one of the main problems lie.

We are like detectives, looking at how the world should work if certain things took place. The world and universe is the way it is if evolution and big bang took place, not if some supernatural being snapped its fingers and the universe appeared, but religious people still hold up the bible as evidence for God’s existance.

Ancient literature or documentation is not what is considered evidence. It is evidence that people were imaginative and could write. Those stories directly contradict physical hard evidence that exists. They cannot both be right. I think the question of if the universe had a designer is a scientific one, and it does not hold up scientifically like evolution does. The world and universe are extraordinarily fascinating, and even more so that the more we discover, the more we realise we do not need a supreme designer to explain it. Why would god create the universe and world and life on earth to look like it was not created? A test of faith? I don’t think so.

Religious people reject evidence based concepts whenever they do not agree with their holy books. But whenever there is any indication of any scientific evidence that might AGREE with their scriptures, they are on it like a priest to an altar boy.

There are thousands, millions of books throughout history covering every topic your can think of from every angle and point of view imaginable, and they were all written by people, what makes the Christian bible so significant? The bible has been re-written hundreds of times for thousands of years, and most of that time, the entire thing was just word-of-mouth, stories to explain the then unknown. Don't you think if dinosaurs were discovered before the bible was "written" then there would be some mention of them in the bible? Or were they too big to go on Noah’s arch? Don't forget the majority of them were smaller than humans. But if there were giant lizards you think they would mention them somewhere in the bible.

Another big issue I have is why did all the biblical events primarily take place near the Middle East? Why is there no Jesus figure in eastern Asia or southern Africa or Australia or the Americas? Or were they just left to wallow in sin for an extra few thousand years before missionaries turned up with their so very accepting and sympathetic methods? why would all these rules and word of god etc, only be shown to a small proportion of the human population? There were people in north Europe, South Africa, the Americas, Australia, East Asia and various pacific islands, that did not hear the word of god for hundreds, thousands of years after Jesus’ time. Why were they allowed to wallow in sin for so long? Or did they get special exemption because god couldn't be bothered giving them a Jesus or Moses or Abraham etc?

I think the word of God is really the word of racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, bullying, dominant men, but if the literal interpretation of the bible means that all of those millions of people went to hell simply because they had not been told yet, that is absurd. And what about still born babies, or infants that die for whatever reason that have not yet had a chance to repent, or if a 5 year old lies and tells his father that he didn’t steal a cookie before dinner so he doesn’t get a smack and then goes to hell for it, that is absurd, revolting and I don’t want any part of it.


The main point is, I think there needs to be much more than one book, no matter how well it is written or what the topic is, as proof or evidence for anything in it to be fact. Anyone can write something down. There is hard, solid, scientific evidence for evolution and the age of the earth and the age of the universe and the big bang and our kinship with apes (not our evolution from them, as we did not evolve from them) and plate tectonics all other scientific facts that contradict what ONE and ONLY ONE ancient book says.

Ancient written evidence is ordinary evidence, it can support ordinary claims, such as if Jesus existed. I think he did exist, and I think he was a great teacher, way ahead of his time, but, obviously, I don’t think he was the son of God. Extraordinary claims, such as the world being created and everything in it being created by a supernatural being, water being turned into wine, Moses parting the Red Sea, Noah’s flood, or even God being real at all, require extraordinary evidence. And those claims do not have extraordinary evidence; they have ordinary evidence, which cannot be backed up. It doesn't matter how many times it has been translated or re-written, text is not enough to hold it.

This is the main problem I have, and the fact that people take the first book they read, and say "ok, that will do, that answers my question, I’ll leave it at that and defend it whenever it comes up." As soon as a different idea comes up then they instantly dismiss it. The same thing happens with religions that are not from the Jewish/Christian/Muslim branch, what about Hinduism? What about Satanism? What about ancient Greek or Roman gods? What about ancient Aboriginal gods and spirits and dreamtime legends? They are as old as the Old Testament, some even older. They all contradict each other, but they claim to be of equal value, and they have as much going for each other in terms of credible evidence. There are thousands of gods throughout cultures, I just go one god further, and Christians are so close to being right!

There is also the concept of sinning. According to many Christians, lying and murder the same. So if I say "I have neat handwriting" (an extremely false statement) that is just as bad as killing my partner because she didn’t put her toothbrush away.

Many Christians will also say that because I have had sex and am not married or because my mother had me before she was married, and then decided she was gay, and neither of us are religious and therefore not going to repent our "sins", we are going to hell. I'm a good person; I love my partner, my family and myself (regularly). I am respectful (of those who are respectful back) and passionate about my ideals. If I fight it is only every with words and rational logic (depending on your point of view). But I do not believe in God and I think sex before marriage, homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, contraception etc should be practiced, and I will not repent my "sins". I am not Christian, so will that mean I am going to burn in hell for all eternity? Or because I am a good person over all, I will be allowed into heaven? I am not looking for an excuse to live without religion; these are my opinions and understandings of the universe and life.

I have asked a Christian woman these exact questions before, and her answer was (with what appeared to be genuine regret and grieve) yes, I am going to hell.

This just re-enforced to me why I am so passionately against religion. It is absurd. How could look possibly look at that and say "yes, that makes sense"? There is the argument of essentially "tough love", but that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever considered (and I am not just considering it now, I have been considering it for years). And it’s not because I am offended, but it is the idea that a god who "loves us" would send 99.99% of his children to a place of fire and torture and torment and humiliation for all eternity. For what? Being skeptical? Being open minded? Not taking words on authority? For drawing my own conclusions? Admittedly there are many branches of Christianity that say living for God is being a good person and helping others, but that comes back to the faith and accepting someone’s unquestionable beliefs.

I’m a teacher, I love my work and have wanted to be for a long time (either that or a scientist. and yes, a science teacher), so my whole career is about setting others up for their lives for the better. I will be a positive part of the upbringing of hundreds of others in my career (which is currently short, but that is because I am young). And my reward is going to hell. Well fuck that god. Fuck him right up his authoritative ass.

I’m not trying to be rude, but I make no apologies about my language, I’m not attacking anyone real, I’m attacking the god of the bible. Blasphemy, thankfully, is a victimless crime.

I think if God did exist (I don’t think he does, but just this is hypothetical), then a truly loving god WOULD want us to live for ourselves, be we religious or not.

Are Christians really comfortable worshiping a God that does all those things? This idea of God sending you to hell for a white lye for all eternity (let me repeat that, because it is important, ALL FUCKING ETERNITY) says that he does not give a second chance. It is not about teaching us to be good, it is about saying "do what I say, or else." That is not all loving. That is not glorious. That is jealousy. He is a jealous god, no different from a man being jealous and beating up his wife for smiling at another man, even if it is her brother. That does not deserve praise of any sort.

I truly cannot accept that nice Christians look at that, make that interpretation and think it is OK, because that is the interpretation they are giving me. A fear campaign is no way to operate, no way to demand respect and love and authority. "Do what I say or I will kill you" is a bulling technique, and one of the oldest in the book (yes, the bible book). God, then, is one of the cruelest, most sadistic, jealous, bullying characters in all fiction.

Even if he did exist, there is no way that this is his true rule. An all loving god that stands for good and glory and that deserves praise and respect and love would only punish cruel and wicked people.

What is even more absurd is that all these rules and instructions are written in one and only one book, that has not been updated for 2 000 years. Why do only people of Jesus’ time and before get to be physically shown the way of God and amazing undeniable miracles? (Parting of the Red Sea, walking on water, Noah’s flood etc and all undeniable miracles. I don’t think they happened, but I’m being hypothetical here. The "miracles” we have today are only small in comparison and things that are easily explainable scientifically. They do not measure up)

I am a scientist at heart. I love science and I love my job, a science teacher. I see the position as an ambassador for science, taking its spine tingling beauty to the next generation. But science is not a single way of looking at the universe. It is the ONLY way of looking at the universe. Its methods have been refined since before the invention of the stone axe. There is nothing outside science; the suggestion that there is existence outside science (which I hear a lot) doesn’t even make sense, because science is the study of reality. If something exists outside science, then it exists outside reality and hence doesn’t exist at all. I think the question of if there is a god or not is a purely scientific one. There either is a god or there isn’t. It is a distinct fact about the universe with a definite answer, yes or no. (Needless to say, all the scientific evidence says “no.”)

“Science doesn’t know everything.” This is another comment that many religious people make. But so what? In the words of the great Dara O’Briain, “of course science doesn’t know everything, it knows this. If science did know everything it would stop. And just because science doesn’t know everything, that doesn’t mean you can fill in the gap with whatever fairytale thing you like.” In short, I have to take another quote from the Australian radio host Robyn Williams, “science is the best bullshit filter ever invented.”

Another comment made by religious people is “there has to be more than just this.” I find this frame of mind painful to encounter. If your view of the universe is so poor that you are led to complain about the lack of it, then you have some serious eye opening to do. I find the universe (and everything in it, including the Earth and life) fascinating beyond worlds and completely satisfying as an answer to how we got to where we are.

Almost every generation in the past millennium has had a major scientific breakthrough that would completely change the way we look at the universe and our place in it. About 400 years ago (10-15 generations?) Galileo discovered bodies orbiting Jupiter, which turned out to be the planet’s four largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The Earth was no longer the center of the universe.

Not long after Galileo, Isaac Newton introduced his three infamous Laws of Motion, proved white light is made up of what we know as a rainbow and introduced the concept of gravity and its laws.

4-5 generations ago it was Darwin’s theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Our place in life was completely revolutionised. No longer did we have to be created or designed by some divine intelligence, but we evolved and are still evolving by slow, step by step improvements over the past 3.5 billion years (the estimated time since life originated). This also means that we are related to every other species on the planet. We are cousins to all humans as well as chimpanzees and gorillas, further cousins of dogs and cats, further cousins of lizards and birds, further cousins of fish and crabs, further cousins of mushrooms, further cousins of gum trees and bananas (we are closer related to fungi than to plants because unlike plants, both fungi and animals cannot make their own food).

Evolution works on the principle that there exists variety within a population (which is undeniable). Those with the traits that allow... individuals to survive and reproduce do so and pass those traits on to the next generation. I'm glad you can conceive micro-evolution (which is evolution on the small scale), macro-evolution (evolution on the large scale) is exactly the same, just over a longer period of time. The only thing that creationists say hold it back, is the time. The earth, if you count the ages of everyone in the bible, is about 6 000 years. The real age is about 5 billion years. This is like saying the width of Australia is about 7 meters. This is supported by about the same amount of evidence as there is to support the fact that the Moon is smaller than the Earth.

Evolution is the most fundamental concept in all biology. It is as important to biology as atoms are to chemistry (try debating that). We know that scientists understand atoms (and hence the age of the earth and universe) because there are plasma screen TVs, mobile phones and the internet etc. If we didn’t understand how the atom worked we wouldn’t have these things. The same principles are used to determine the age of the earth (5 billion years).

In the same way, we know our genetic kinship with apes, our genetic kinship with apples and everything in between. We know how evolution works and how the world should look if it has occurred just the way science explains. And the world looks this way. We know scientists understand biology and genetics by some examples I will give shortly.

Early last century, new discoveries in radioactive decay led to the realisation that the Earth is not thousands of years old, not millions of years old, but thousands of millions of years old; 4.5 billion years old. My favorite illustration of this was demonstrated by Richard Dawkins and I regularly show it to my classes whenever the topic of the age of the Earth or of the universe comes up.

Hold up one of your hands. Imagine that the middle of your chest is the beginning of the Earth and the furthest tip of your finger is today. At this scale, life began about half way between your shoulder and your elbow. The first multicellular life evolved about at your wrist. Between the middle of your upper arm and your wrist is just single celled organism like bacteria, only less complex. The dinosaurs lived and died between the two joints in your middle finger. Now, most spine tingling of all, if you were to take a nail file and make one stroke from the nail of your middle finger, that would be all human history, the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, Roman empires, Jesus, even the Neanderthals, gone, blown away as the dust on your nail file. Our time on Earth is incomprehensibly small, so we need to make the most of it. Make it full of enjoyment and experiences because, to an atheist like myself, it is the only one we get.

Around the same time (not to mention Einstein’s revolutionary Theory of General Relativity) Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies appeared red when looking through a telescope. In the same way that an ambulance siren drops in pitch as it speeds past you, this meant that the light waves, which should theoretically appear white, had been expanded, meaning that the galaxies are all moving away from us at tremendous speeds.

This is caused by what we now know as the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe as we know it, which is over 14 billion years old. There were no stars for over a billion years until hydrogen gas clumped together with enough gravity to begin fusion reactions and turn the chemical into higher and heavier elements such as iron, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon. There were no planets around these stars. It was not until the first generation of stars began to die and explode as a nova or supernova that these elements were released into the cosmos and formed a new set of stars, with plants. The chemicals on these planets were made in the hearts of stars. We are made from the chemicals on the Earth. We are literally made of stardust.

Another discovery made early last century is that white light, and what we can see, is only a tiny part of the broader Electromagnetic Spectrum. The rainbow shows the colours of white light that we have evolved to see in order from shortest wavelength (violet) to longest wavelength (red). But imagine if we could expand those wavelengths even more, could we see even more colours? The answer is that there are more colours, because there are more wavelengths, we just cannot see them with our eyes. The wavelengths of the spectrum of colours ranges between a few hundred billionths of a meter, but if we decrease the wavelength less than that of violet to ultra violet, x-rays and gamma rays, we could find thousands of more colours. The same goes if we increase the wavelengths greater than red light to infrared, microwaves and radio waves. Indeed there exists thousands of colours that we cannot imagine. I once tried to imagine a fourth primary colour (other than red, yellow and blue) and rattled my brain. I simply could not do it. But these colours exist. There are animals that can see into the infrared or the ultraviolet section of the Electromagnetic Spectrum such as insects and some birds, however they might not be able to see some colours that we can see, like red or blue.

My parents (or maybe grandparents) generation were young and present for the confirmation of plate tectonics; the fact that the surface of the Earth is made up of several massive plates, like ice sheets, moving about one another, which led to the realisation that South America and Africa were once joined and have moved apart (and are still moving apart) at the speed at which fingernails grow. In the same way that rice or pasta in boiling water rises, moves across the surface of the water and then falls back to the bottom of the pot, liquid rock beneath the Earth is doing the same thing. The density of the Earth’s inner core is like a continuous hotplate, heating the magma in the mantle. This magma rises, and is then pushed aside and back down the mantle after it cools (this all happens and considerably slower speeds than water on a stove top due to the viscosity of the magma). There are countries that lie right on the boundary between two of these plates, and the geology is deeply moving (literally!). New Zealand is a good example of this. There is only one way to describe the rock formations in these type of places; chaotic.

Black holes have been theoretically predicted and their traces observed in the later part of last century. After a star dies it explodes and then collapses into a small dense star. Our Sun will become a white dwarf in about 6-7 billion years. A star a few times larger than our Sun will become a neutron star. This is the mass of about 10³⁵ kg (100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 kg) crushed into a sphere with a diameter about the size of Sydney. This means that the density of a neutron star is so much that a teaspoon full of the stuff that makes it up would have a mass of about 100 tones. But a black hole is an even bigger star that has collapsed. It has a mass so huge and will continue to decrease in size until it is, in practice and mathematically, infinitely small. A mass of a super massive star in an infinitely small space only screams disaster, and that is indeed what happens. A black hole is where this mass tears a hole in the fabric of space. It creates a gravity well so strong that nothing can escape. Matter, light and even time is sucked in with no escape. If you were sucked into a black hole you would be stretched until you were as thin as a strand of spaghetti, but that wouldn’t bother you because time would have stopped.

My generation has many new discoveries. To me, the most fascinating concept discovered in my short, yet colourful life is the discovery of planets around stars other than our Sun. 20 years ago, there were 9 planets, the then 9 of our Solar System. There have been about 500 planets found around other stars at the time of writing. As telescope technologies advance, more and more planets are discovered; it seems that where ever there could be planets, there are planets. If you hold up your thumb at arm’s length to the night sky and look at the space covered by your thumb nail, you will be covering as many as 20 000 galaxies. Not stars, galaxies. Each with about 400 billion stars, and about 50% of those have planets. There is estimated to be as many as a trillion trillion planets in the universe.

Another major break though in my generation is the advancements in genetic manipulation. Theoretically we can do anything, anything we can think of, so long as there is a gene for it already. There have been flies with eyes on their legs and legs on their eyes, mice with human ears on their back, mice with transparent skin and mice that glow in the dark. Scientists know how genes work. We could have humans that could fly or with gills or both. We could have aardvarks smarter than Stephan Hawkins.

We could manipulate the human species so it could live on Mars. We could have scaly skin to protect us from the Sun’s radiation, which is not reflected by Mars’s thin atmosphere. We could make ourselves taller with different types of muscles to deal with the planet’s low gravity. We could even drink a highly concentrated oxygen solution instead of breath to compensate for the lack of oxygen on Mars. We could change what it means to be human. The only thing that gets in the way is religiously directed ethics.

On a similar topic, I have always found the following two pieces of information interesting, especially when learned together: 1. Humans are closer related to chimpanzees than horses are to donkeys. 2. Horses and donkeys can breed and have an offspring, a mule.

I often wonder what discoveries will be made in the next few years. Scientists are on the lookout for extraterrestrial life, a search that I think has a lot going for it. Some think they have already seen it, and I’m not talking about crackpot UFO sightings (I don’t believe any of those). In 1984, a meteorite hit Mars, and large chunks of it broke off. One of those chunks hit the Earth. In 2002 this piece of Mars was examined with more updated techniques and bacteria-like structures were found fossilized in the rock. This is not confirmed as evidence of life and the debate still continues.

We only know of one kind of life chemistry: our kind, DNA/RNA kind. However, recently scientists have discovered a type of bacteria that has been able to replace the phosphorus in their DNA molecules with the element arsenic. This is a major breakthrough in that it tells us that there are types of biochemistry other than the one we are familiar with. So far in the search for extraterrestrial life scientists have looks specifically for water, and water is indeed a good sign that life might exist; it is certainly something that our type of life chemistry vitally requires to live.

However, this discovery has opened our minds to the possibilities of life with completely different chemistries. Perhaps all that is needed is some type of liquid. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn (a planet that is fascinating in itself in that it is so undense it could float on water), has the only other known permanent liquid in the solar system on its surface other than Earth, made of methane, ethane and propane. Perhaps some types of life could exist there? Titan is also the only place that has a substance in both liquid and gaseous states. This means that when it rains, it rains oil. Also if you were standing in Titan during a storm, due to the low gravity the raindrops would be the size of golf balls and falling at walking speed. Such an alien world; oily rain drops the size of golf balls slowly falling all around you, and so relatively close to our home planet.

I think that if one and only one planet was found that has life other than Earth that would mean that there was a second life origin and hence, life would not be uncommon in the universe at all. If only one other planet was discovered with life, it would be undoubtedly be concluded that the entire universe is teeming with life. I have no reason to think this would not be the case.

Another concept that has a lot going for it for the future is String Theory. String Theory or M Theory is not really considered a theory like evolution or gravity or atoms, but it is still given the name. It is a hypothesis that is yet to be tested. String Theory, as the name suggests, states that all matter is made up of incomprehensibly tiny vibrating strings of energy, like a string on a cello, so small that if an atomic nucleus was the size of the solar system, an energy string would be the size of a person. The particle that is made by the string totally depends on the intensity and direction of its vibration. This might not seem that impressive to begin with, however when we look into it you will see why I brought it up here. Throughout the last century scientists have been trying to discover the “Holy Grail”: A Theory of Everything. Quantum mechanics very accurately describes the very very small and Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity very accurately explains the very very large and fast, however the two theories are mathematically incompatible. String Theory works if applied mathematically, and nothing can work in practice if it does not work in mathematics.

What is truly breathtaking is what String Theory implies about the greater universe. When applied this way it has been renamed to M Theory (I’m not sure what the “M” stands for and I don’t have the patience to describe why the name changed). The strings are not only found in our three dimensions (up & down, left & right, forward & backwards) but in up to 11 dimensions, all tightly coiled around each other, out of reach of our most powerful microscope.

This would also imply that our universe is part of an even more massive “megaverse” or “multiverse.” It means that there exists different universes right next to ours. Imagine a two dimensional world living on what would be like a massive piece of paper, let’s call it “Paper Land”. According to M Theory, there are countless other Paper Lands sitting right beside each other, each with slightly different constants that make up the physics of their two dimensional universes. The people of one Paper Land are only millimeters away from the other Paper Lands, all they have to do is reach out and touch it with their fingers, but they cannot because all they know is up & down and left & right. They lack the, for them, incomprehensible concept of forward & back required to reach their parallel dimensions. It is the same for us. All we have to do is reach out and touch our parallel universes that are hanging millimeters away from your face, but we are trapped in our three dimensions. We cannot comprehend a fourth set of dimensions required to reach the next Paper Land.

This is just a very minor taste of what is known, understood and hypothesised by the science community. This is what happens when we do away with religious and supernatural dogma; we open our eyes and open our minds to what could be out there. Why has no religious group looked at the universe and said “this is so much better than our scriptures and profits predicted, so much grander, so much more elegant and beautiful”?

So to respond to the comment “there has to be more than just this,” open your eyes and allow in the overwhelming flood of ideas, TRUE ideas, which have been provided by science and based on evidence and observation. My ultimate answer is simple: How much more do you want