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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Vexen Crabtree's Blurty:
- Infanticide and Heaven: If the unborn go to heaven when they die prematurely, as is assumed by many, then it means that these babies have not yet experience the suffering of life. If they can enter heaven without experiencing suffering and evil, then, it cannot be true that God created suffering because it is good for us, and God should put everyone in heaven immediately.
- Real suffering is not necessary: God could simply give us an innate knowledge of what evil is like, without us having to experience it. We have a lot of instinctive emotional reactions to pain and suffering, these are not learned. They are proof that innate understanding is valid, and God can easily endow us with as much innate understanding about evil as required. We would then know about it, and not need to experience it. We could all happily appreciate its absence.
- We don't need an experience of suffering. Forgetting the fact that unborn babies don't seem to need it and that God could give us knowledge of it without us having to actually experience it, it seems that there is no particular reason why we need either knowledge or experience of suffering and pain. Any advantage that is gained from experiencing these things could simply be granted to us directly by God, therefore bypassing the need.
- Angels and God: If angels, and if god, exist in heaven then it shows that it is possible for beings to be in heaven without first going through an experience of suffering in life. If it possible, then if God is good, it would immediately place everyone in heaven. However, god is not good, so it continues to let us suffer.
- Established Religions Become Default Religions
- People Say They Attend Services Twice As Much as They Actually Do
- Popular Religions Diversify and Encompass Many Beliefs
- Cultural Ties Distort the Statistics of Religion
- Vague Beliefs Get Classified as Concurring With the Dominant Religion
- Minority Religions Become Under-Represented in Polls
- Conclusion
| Monday, October 24th, 2011 | |
| 9:39 pm | Biblical Justifications for Murder and Heresy-Hunting I've added this text as Section 3 of "The God of the Christian Bible is Evil: Evidence from Scripture and Nature" by Vexen Crabtree (2006), and section 5.3 of "Religion, Violence, Crime and Mass Suicide" by Vexen Crabtree (2009): The Old Testament was rife with occasions when God not only sanctioned the murder, pillage and rape of the enemies of his chosen people, but, often God itself joined in, directly smiting people itself. Jeremiah 48:10 declares: "A curse on him who is lax in doing the LORD's work! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed!". It is clear that violence has a divine Biblical endorsement. But for what ends? Luke 14:23 says "Compel people to come in!" for the purpose of "filling" the Church. Jesus himself declared "think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). And henceforth, Christian history contains many unfortunate chapters where Christian groups anathematized one another as heretics, and proceded to burn, torture and murder those who disagreed. Victims have been anyone who disagreed even on confusing technical points of Christian doctrine, members of other religions such as Muslims and Jews, and it seems, many other innocent victims ranging from outcasts who were accused of witchcraft ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" - Exodus 22:18), homosexuals and finally, a small number who have genuinely plotted against the Church.
Current Mood: busy Current Music: "Peace of Mind (Dave Foreman Remix)" by Wynardtage |
| Saturday, May 28th, 2011 | |
| 10:58 pm | Psychology and Crime by Clive R. Hollin (1989) I've finished whizzing through this book - I'm slowly getting through the psychology and legal books I acquired en masse in 2005! I've used this book on two of my texts, which are updated accordingly. They are: * Crime runs in families: "UK Trash Culture" by Vexen Crabtree (2004) * Gender separation, male dominance and strict religion are correlated with high levels of rape in society: "Religion Versus Womankind" by Vexen Crabtree (2007) Current Mood: tired |
| Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 | |
| 10:31 pm | The Ritual Slaughter of Animals in World Religions I've spellchecked this page (http://www.humanreligions.info/animal_slaughter.html ) (corrected one or two things) and added a quote from Jocelyn Cesari on European law and how it has tended to accomodate Islamic slaughter as a also-exempt alongside Jewish practices. She also notes that public protests sometimes - and rightly - endager the practice of the ritual slaughtering of animals. |
| Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 | |
| 3:27 pm | Marriage and Islam I've added a section here: "Marriage: Its Diversity and Character: 5.4. Islam and Marriage" by Vexen Crabtree (2004) which includes sections on arranged marriages, 'fetching marriages' and EU immigration, and polygamy. |
| Friday, February 11th, 2011 | |
| 2:20 pm | Secular, Secularism and Secularisation I've added some clearer definitions of key terms to the beginning of my page on secularisation: Secular means without religion. Non-religious people lead secular lives. Secular government runs along rational and humanistic lines. This is the norm in democratic countries. The individuals that make up the government are rightly free to have whatever religion they want, as are the populace. Because of this freedom, in a multicultural world, there is a requirement for governments not to cause resentment or divisions by identifying itself with a particular religion. The most well-known phrase proposing secular democracy as an ideal is Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state" [paraphrased]. Secularism, promoted by secularists, is the belief that religion should be a private, personal, voluntary affair that does not impose upon other people. Political secularism ensures that religions, and non-religious, people are treated fairly, without bias being given towards one religion or against others. It is the only democratic way to proceed in a globalized world. Secularisation is the process of things becoming more secular. Most of the Western world has seen this paradigm come to dominate politics and civil life, starting from the time of the Enlightenment. Religion, because it causes issues, retreats from the public sphere as people prefer to meet on neutral terms, in peace. Secularisation Theory is the theory in sociology that as society advances in modernity, religion retreats. Intellectual and scientific developments have undermined the spiritual, supernatural, superstitious and paranormal ideas on which religion relies for its legitimacy. Therefore, religion becomes more and more "hollow", surviving for a while on empty until loss of active membership forces them into obscurity. The evidences and shortcomings of this theory are discussed later in this text. Some take the process of secularisation as a personal affront, and think that mere lack of bias from government implies an active attack. They see any reduction in (their own) public religion to be bad, and apparently they do not understand the causes or reasons behind the secularisation of officialdom. Hopefully this page will address this. On "Secularisation Theory: Will Modern Society Reject Religion? What is Secularism?" by Vexen Crabtree (2006) Current Mood: busy Current Music: "Craving" by Seize |
| Saturday, October 30th, 2010 | |
| 11:20 am | My Satanism website redesign continues Six more pages have been brought into the new style and lightly editted. They are: "The Description, Philosophies and Justification of Satanism" by Vexen Crabtree (2010) "How many Satanists are there?" by Vexen Crabtree (2002) "The London Satanists Group: Now Closed" by Vexen Crabtree (2010) "The Book of Satan" by Vexen Crabtree (2006) "The Book of Satan 1:1-4" by Vexen Crabtree (2002) "The Book of Satan 1:5-7" by Vexen Crabtree (2006) Current Mood: happy Current Music: "The Irreperable" by Glis |
| Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 | |
| 9:24 pm | God Cannot Change: Physics Versus Traditional Religion I've added a little bit to "The Four Dimensions and the Immutability of God: 3.2. Traditional Religious Beliefs" by Vexen Crabtree (2007): Traditionally the Creator of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and many other religions, is a creator that is emotional, creative, moral, judgemental and personable. Nearly all monotheistic religoius books contains descriptions of God portraying emotions that require the creator to be subject to time, not outside of it. For example in Genesis, God is found 'looking' for Adam and Eve; on other occasions, a Human being changes God's mind through the use of a rational argument in one instance, and through the use of a blood ritual in another occasion. The creator of time cannot change its mind - nor can a perfect being. To change is to be subject to time, and to change implies that what comes after was better than before, which would contradict God's perfection. God, in all religious literature up until recently, resembled a being with human emotions and thoughts. Whoever wrote religious books tended not to understand the complexities of multi-dimensional abstract mathematics nor the physics of the space-time continuum.
Current Mood: happy Current Music: "Supersonic Snakebite" by Project Pitchfork |
| Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 | |
| 8:18 pm | The Short History of Romantic Marriage in the West I've added some details to "Marriage: Its Diversity and Character: 3.2. The Short History of Romantic Marriage in the West" by Vexen Crabtree (2004) Modern marriage, "for love", is a relatively rare and new institution. Not only is monogamous marriage common in only 20% of present-day societies, but romantic marriage itself has only been common in the West for a few hundred years. According to the sociologists Anthony Giddens, Lawrence Stone and John Boswell, even as late as the 1500s modern ideas of romantic marriage had not found common acceptance. Religious authorities regarded marriage as a necessary, pragmatic solution to unhealthy sexual emotions, and not something to be done for pleasure, romance or affection. The idea of romantic marriage, steeped in personal choice, coincidence and love, had begun to flourish in cities and urban centres. Until the 1800s, marriage was still a deal sought for practical advantage - a peasant could not maintain his holding on his own, without a committed and hardworking wife. When bereaved, a peasant married almost at once, often to whoever was simply most willing to work hardest. It wasn't until the 1800s that ideas of romantic marriage began to emerge from the cities. “The traditional conception of marriage as essentially a business contract, an arrangement based on mutual practical advantage in terms of property-ownership or the labour-power needed to work a peasant holding, the conception which had been taken for granted in pre-industrial peasant Europe, was now rapidly decaying. The idea of it as the result of free individual choice based on individual tastes and preferences was now seeping from the large city into the countryside and the smaller urban centres. In one small French town, for example, during the two decades after Waterloo, the average age of women at marriage was relatively high (about twenty-five) and about a third of brides were older than their husbands. Quite rapidly, however, the average age of marriage fell to twenty-one; and from about 1865 onwards only one woman in ten was older than the man she married. A basic aspect of human nature, the fact that, given a free choice, men prefer to marry women who are younger than themselves and who are physically attractive, was now increasingly able to assert itself.” -- "The Ascendancy of Europe 1815-1914" by M S Anderson (1985)Although romantic marriage was destined to dominate the ideas of what marriage should be in the West, it actually has a rather short history of less than 200 years of general acceptance. Current Mood: happy Current Music: "The Tongue of Fire" by Emperor |
| Saturday, March 27th, 2010 | |
| 9:38 pm | Perception of Crime Rates in the UK I've added this section to "Modern Mass Media: 1.3. Perception of Crime Rates in the UK" by Vexen Crabtree: "Crime stories have long been a staple of news reporting, but crime news doesn't reflect the real world" says Professor Justin Lewis, head of the School of Journalism at Cardiff University. He continues: "Crime is usually reported because it is dramatic or alarming, not because it is typical or likely to have an impact on our lives. So while increases in the crime figures are seen as dramatic, decreases are seen as dull. The first will be headlined, the second glossed over. [...] Many people have assumed in recent years that crime levels are going up when they have actually been going down". For example in the 1990s the annual total crime rate was over 15 millions crimes per year on average in the UK. This was according to the large-scale British Crime Survey which quizzes people about crime, rather than rely on police or government statistics. In the 2000s the average was closer to 10 million crimes per year. This significant drop has occurred despite an increasing population in the UK. "Despite these changes, 65 per cent of the population believe that crime levels are increasing in the country as a whole". Aside from this independent source, the UK government's Home Office has itself complained of the mistaken opinions of the masses, noting that in particular, readers of poor quality newspapers are the most likely to have skewed perceptions of crime: “The Home Office says that [...] Crime in England and Wales actually peaked in 1995 and has now fallen by 44% in the last 10 years. 'Despite the number of crimes estimated by the British Crime Survey falling in recent years, comparatively high proportions of people still believe the crime rate to have risen. This is not true.' said Jon Simmons, head of Home Office research and statistics who put part of the problem down to media reporting. 'Readers of national tabloids were around twice as likely [39%] as those who read national broadsheets [19%] to think that the national crime rate has increase 'a lot' in the previous year', he said.”Populist news outlets prefer to headline what sells rather than practice good journalism. And aside from crime rates, populist papers tend to report the negative side of pretty much everything. The next section on that page is about "Modern Mass Media: 1.4. The Pessimism Syndrome" |
| Monday, March 15th, 2010 | |
| 10:47 pm | The 'Experience of Evil' Theodicy I have revamped http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/theodicy_experience.html , the bulk of it now reads: Some people say that God created suffering, pain and evil because we need to experience these things. But there is no 'greater purpose' that can justify the existence of the amount of suffering and superfluous evil that exists for humankind or in the natural world. There are a few major arguments against the experience theodicy. It is inadequate to say merely that knowledge or experience of suffering is requirement for us to enter heaven as a justification of why suffering exists. God can give us innate knowledge of evil, rather than let us experience it directly, and if babies or the unborn go to heaven then is clear that experience of the suffering of life is not actually required, after all. If angels or god exist in heaven then it shows that it is possible for beings to be in heaven without first experiencing suffering. The experience theodicy does not work. “To the present day, all theodicies have failed to explain why a good god would create evil, meaning that the existence of evil is simply incompatible with the existence of a good god. After thousands of years of life-consuming passion, weary theologians have not formulated a new answer to the problem of evil for a long time. The violence of the natural world, disease, the major catastrophes and chaotic destruction seen across the universe and the unsuitability of the vastness of reality for life all indicate that god is not concerned with life, and might actually even be evil. Failure to answer the problem of evil sheds continual doubt on the very foundations of theistic religions.” |
| Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 | |
| 6:36 pm | "Thought processes are accompanied by localized physical activity in the brain" I've added text to "Emotions Without Souls: How Biochemistry and Neurology Account for Feelings" by Vexen Crabtree (1999): Neurology and science has enabled us to understand the brain to such an extent that such an ethereal concept is no longer needed to explain anything. Modern brain scanning methods include a wide range of technologies, including fMRI, PET, SPECT and EEG. Using these, neuroscientists have made many exciting discoveries, including the physical basis of important thought processes. In all cases, the firing of neurones in these parts of the brains come before awareness and conscious choices are made. “All these techniques confirm that thought processes are accompanied by localized physical activity in the brain. Let us look at just a few of the examples relevant to our discussion. Using fMRI, scientists in the United States and Brazil have discovered that the region of the brain activated when moral judgments are being made is different from the region activated for social judgments that are equally emotionally charged. [... It] is not just that physical processes in the brain take part in thinking; they seem to be responsible for the deepest thoughts that are supposed to be the province of spirit rather than matter. [...]” Prof. Victor J. Stenger (2007) Some people reject this type of thinking. The science is new (even if the idea of a physical basis of consciousness comes from antiquity) and it often takes a while for new discoveries to find their way into popular thinking - neophobia may play its part too.. Prof. Stenger warns that "the implication that "we" are bodies and brains made of atoms and nothing more is perhaps simply too new, too disturbing, too incompatible with common preconceptions to be soon accepted into common knowledge", so, we, as scientists and enlightened readers, should always strife to spread the great depth of our scientific understanding of neurology and consciousness. The rest of the page linked contains several discussions and examples from various fields of medical science which are all only possible because emotions are physical, not spiritual, in nature. Current Mood: loved Current Music: "Feier Dich!" by Unheilig |
| Monday, December 28th, 2009 | |
| 8:55 pm | The Struggle for Existence I stumbled across a letter from Charles Darwin, where he is despairing at the violence found in nature. I have added it to "The Food Chain: 3. The Design of Earth's Food Chain is Evil" by Vexen Crabtree (2007): Many single-cell lifeforms survive off of sunlight, water, and transient chemicals found in the oceans. These simple lifeforms are a Buddhist ideal: They harm no other creatures and feed on nothing living. In a perfect world, all life would have evolved to survive in such a way. With modern technology, we can produce energy to make digestion mostly unnecessary if only we'd have evolved in a way that didn't evolve eating-other-life. All animal life has evolved in a way that makes killing other things necessary. I think that not a single multi-cellular species on Earth survives without directly harming other living life. [...] This desperate, deadly struggle for existence was agonized over by the father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, who wrote: “I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly create the Ichneumonidae [wasps] with the express intention of their [larva] feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.” [Charles Darwin (1860)] Current Mood: excited Current Music: "Apology (Move!)" by Human Decay |
| Friday, November 27th, 2009 | |
| 1:22 am | The Folly of Abstinence-Only Sex Education I've added some data to "Birth Control and Contraception: Wisdom Versus Superstition" by Vexen Crabtree (2007): In 2009 new data revealed that in the USA at least, abstinence-only education was not only ineffectual, but was actually making things worse. “To the surprise of few outside the rarefied world of the Religious Right, it has emerged that George W Bush's "abstinence only" policies led directly to a rise in teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. The Centres for Disease Control (CDC) says that after years of falling rates, teen pregnancies and STDs started rising after Bush was re-elected in 2005. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but rose sharply in more than half of American states after 2005. The number of teenage girls with syphilis had risen by nearly half after a big decrease, while a 20-year fall in the gonorrhea infection rate was being reversed. AIDS cases in adolescent boys had nearly doubled. [...] The number of teen pregnancies is double in areas where abstinence is the only method of birth control taught as opposed to areas where there is comprehensive sex education and condoms are handed out. [...] Religious proponents of the "abstinence-only" policies still insist that the reason for the rise is because their policies were not promoted hard enough.” The Bible Belt is a swathe of Southern states in the USA famous for their embrace of tough Christianity. It was here, where abstinence-only programmes are popular, that the CDC reported the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs. Current Music: "Fear" by Project Pitchfork |
| Monday, August 31st, 2009 | |
| 7:17 pm | Self-Isolating Religious Groups, Mass Suicide and Belief in the End of the World! I have added large sections to "Religion, Violence, Crime and Mass Suicide" by Vexen Crabtree (2009) on Self-Isolating Religious Groups, Mass Suicide and Belief in the End of the World! Here is some of the new text: We saw the Jim Jones' Peoples Temple movement progress gradually from mainstream Christianity, through to a fully-fledged survivalist cult. An emphasis on the end times (when in Christian belief, apocalyptic wars and death scourge most of humanity) emerged slowly. Such ideas are present in most mainstream religions so it is hard to tell believers that it is a dangerous belief. Isolationism, extremism, idealism and an intolerance of people without the same beliefs: these are all commonplace across religious communities. Once you believe in some of those principles, it is hard to draw a firm line and stop a community progressing down a slippery slope to a place where they consider their ideals to be more important than human life. Such a slope met the Peoples Temple in the Jonestown disaster where over 900 of them lost their lives in 1978. Another American group, the Branch Davidians, also took on an increasingly them-and-us attitude. They started out with Biblical ideas about the cataclysms of judgement day, and ended up stockpiling weapons. It culminated with the Waco siege where over 80 of the religionists died during a shoot-out with authorities in 1993. Irrationality and susceptibility to believe some unlikely things about the universe can lead to ideals and sectarianism that separate 'others' from their humanity, and allow despicable acts to be undertaken. Aum Shinrikyo was the religious movement responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway that killed a dozen people and injured thousands. The movement had also already murdered others in order to protect itself. The leader believed in karma, and preached that murder was justified because it stopped people accumulating bad karma. He had picked up Christian ideas, and preached that such actions were an act of mercy, and started preaching about Armageddon. "Political failure and a feeling of national rejection led to increasing millenarianism"; again, the idea of a cataclysmic end of the world fuels seemingly insane bloodshed. The victims are not only the suggestible adherents of the movement, but the relatives, friends and communities that are affected by the religion's otherworldly aims. The rest is on www.humanreligions.info. |
| Sunday, June 7th, 2009 | |
| 12:45 am | Deceiving the American Public: How the Oil Lobby Manipulates the Press From my page "The USA Versus the Environment: Oil, Pollution and Kyoto" by Vexen Crabtree (2002). Many of the large oil companies are related, and together they have conspired (in history) to avoid legal pronouncements of their practices. Since oil and petrol industries have become under fire from environmentalists, moralists and activists the world over, they have fought back with well-funded public relations campaigns. These go as far as to supply their own scientists to argue against scientific truths and who appear on radio and news reports.
My page which criticizes the mass media explains why such lobby groups find it so easy to insert content into the news: “Modern journalists work at breakneck speed to process stories as fast as possible. Therefore most news services rely heavily on public relations (PR) material in order to rapidly produce the stream of news. Much of this news comes from trusted wire agencies, but these also rely on PR input. Because of these pressures, public relations firms and commercial companies are having a heyday and find it easy to insert material into news media. In general, over half of all news stories are mostly PR or contain substantial PR-sourced material. Journalists themselves do not check the facts or figures of such inputs, nor admit in the articles themselves that PR material is the true source of the information, so the news often appears unbiased. Powerful commercial lobbies use this weakness to pervert public opinion. This situation of large-scale misinformation can only be rectified by a strong government that is willing to stand up to the commercial-media free for all, but, during the period covered by this article the USA has had its politics dictated by commerce rather than by long-term good sense. |
| Friday, April 24th, 2009 | |
| 11:46 pm | Military Issues I've redesigned my Military pages. Some of these pages are actually down at the moment due to psuedo censorship issues. The full list of pages is: Religious Coercion: Memorial Services, Church Parades & Tolerance Religion in the British Army The Responsibility to Defend the Developed World Uniforce: An International Military Force Military Drill: Its theory & purpose. Its use in training, psychology and politics Weeding Out the Weak during Army Basic Training Inspections and Basic Training: What's the point of Army bullshit? |
| Thursday, March 12th, 2009 | |
| 7:40 pm | Institutionalized Religions Have Their Numbers Inflated by National Polls I've completely rewritten this page! The contents of "Institutionalized Religions Have Their Numbers Inflated by National Polls" by Vexen Crabtree (2009) is now: Current Mood: busy |
| Friday, January 16th, 2009 | |
| 11:10 pm | Christian bus driver Ron Heather refuses to drive bus with atheist advert on it Christian bus driver Ron Heather in Southampton, who drives for First Bus, has refused to drive buses with the atheist "There is probably no God" advert campaign. Ridiculously, the company have been bending to his wishes and avoiding making him drive those buses, although both parties agree that if there is no other bus, he will have to drive one of them. This is ridiculous; imagine if vegetarians could demand not to work in places advertising meat-based food; if atheists refused to work in (for example council town halls) that display religious propaganda such as leaflets (i.e., opening times) from a local church. His personal pride and arrogance may seem fine to him, but he certainly hasn't given this much thought. If religious beliefs trump practicalities, then society falls apart amidst sectarian intolerance for almost anything. The daft Ron Heather forces society down one of two roads: (a) All beliefs are permitted to enforce their dogmas on others, leading to anarchy and chaos, and almost essentially, to the complete segregation of people into clusters, by beliefs, so that they don't have to see each other's religious symbols or adverts. (b) Hard secularism, where all religious statements are barred from the public sphere. Tell us, Ron Heather and First Bus (who are encouraging those like him), which route you want to take us down! |
| Monday, December 8th, 2008 | |
| 9:30 pm | Not enough time! There isn't enough time to write everything that should be written, or to quality-check everything that I've written so far! I need an editor, a helper, a spellchecker! Despite being academic, I like real life too much to be the recluse that I could be - meaning, I like communicating with people personally, in depth, and there is too much to take in, in life, to avoid going out into the world and losing yourself in it. Although you can get lost in life and enjoy it... the greater and harder path is the more solitary study and writing, the accuracy-checking and statistics-crunching, and it seems that it is this path that is worth something, whereas the former path is merely nice. It is so nice, it would be selfish (and unproductive for everyone) to pursue it too much. Current Mood: curious |
| Sunday, November 30th, 2008 | |
| 2:29 am | Satanism: The Absence of Satanic Proselytizing I've added a quote to "Satanism: Conversion, Deconversion and the Absence of Satanic Proselytizing" by Vexen Crabtree (2002). It is from the High Priest of the Church of Satan, Peter Gilmore:
I like the way he states that the masses 'follow' their inertia (something which doesn't move). It implies an active passiveness, something which I think gets to the truth of the matter quite poetically! |
