Some Theology in Review

*There is no independently verifiable hardcore evidence to support the concept of an invisible magic man (or men and/or women) in the sky. There are equally no reason to support the concept of angels (with or without wings, halos and harps); demons, or even satanic figures (with or without horns, hooves, a red suit, a forked tail, and pitchfork).

Reason(s): It's often claimed that absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absense, EXCEPT when there should be massive amounts of evidence, and when it comes to the existence of God, a god, gods, goddesses, deomons and angels, the evidence for them should be overwhelming! But it's not. There is just no hardcore evidence that anyone at anytime and anywhere can dish up that I (or anyone else) can independently verify for myself that any supernatural beings or entities actually exist.

*There are so many mutually exclusive holy books that the only rational explanation for the lot of them is that these are all works of historical fiction and thus pure human inventions. The giveaway is that these holy books contain dialogue that could not possibly have been recorded. The human condition is hardwired to create "what if" scenarios in the form of make-believe. That's so much the case that even you tell "what if" stories to yourself, in dreams for example.

Reason(s): Self-evident. Go to the library and check out all of the various holy books that are on the shelves.

*Just like there are tens of thousands of mutually exclusive deities and multi-dozens of mutually exclusive holy books, there are so many belief systems, religions, theologies to the point that while they can't all be true they can be (and more likely as not are) all wrong.

Reason(s): Again, totally self-evident unless for some reason you have been born and raised in isolation from the rest of human society.

*Belief systems, religions, theologies are readily explainable (desiring a need for agency; desiring an afterlife; desiring certainty; desiring a protective Big Brother / Guardian Angel) without resorting to the supernatural.

Reason(s): Be honest when asking yourself, why do I believe? Is it for any / all of the above? It certainly isn't because you have actual verifiable evidence for your faith.

*Morality comes out of the pure rationality of cooperation, the product of evolution via natural selection.

Reason(s): Many of the higher animals exhibit morality which I can verify from personal observations and they certainly haven't read or been instructed in the profiles of any holy books. But it's obvious to Blind Freddy that when humans cooperate, all benefit. As the saying goes, if you scratch my back I'll scratch your back. If you take your morality from the Bible, then you can literally get away with murder like stoning unruly children to death! And owning other people as property is also moral according to the Bible.

*Personal experiences are just that - personal. Personal experiences are NOT an independently verifiable form of hardcore evidence.

Reason(s): There are dozens of both physiological and physiological reasons why your brain experiences things that just aren't so. Further, people experience all manner of non-spiritual experiences that stretch credibility like out of the body experiences or being abducted by aliens or having imaginary friends.

*Jesus, even if he actually existed, was a normal and mortal male who performed no supernatural miracles that can be independently verified; who is as irreversibly dead as King Tut. There was no resurrection; there will be no Second Coming.

Reason(s): There is NO independent contemporary written source(s) that can verify that Jesus ever existed. There are no archaeological sources that verify that Jesus ever existed. Even if Jesus did exist, there is absolutely no way anyone can verify that any supernatural event associated with Jesus actually happened. Ockham's Razor suggests that in the absense of any such evidence that the sceptical position is the only rational position to take.

*There will be no End Times, Last Days, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, Second Coming, an Antichrist or any other similar such concept. The Book of Revelation is total fiction.

Reason(s): Prophecies of the End Times or the Last Days have been made by multi-thousands of people, including Biblical scholars, over nearly 2000 years, with a 100% failure rate. That doesn't inspire much confidence when the next 'prophet' comes along with yet another prediction.

*There is no Heaven (or equivalent like the Norse concept of Valhalla); there is no Hell (or equivalent like the Greek Tartarus (their hellish subdivision of Hades).

Reason(s): Astronomers, both amateur and professional have scanned the ‘heavens’ with ever increasingly sophisticated technologies – no Heaven spotted. Geologists and geophysicists have explored the Earth and used ever increasingly sophistical technologies to probe the depths – no Hell has been discovered. In any event, physical calculations show that according to Biblical data, Heaven should actually be hotter than Hell!

*There is no afterlife.

Reason(s): In a Mother Nature’s really real reality, it’s nearly impossible to figure out a ways and means to an afterlife since any immaterial part of you that survives death wouldn’t have any sensory mechanisms and the means to process and interpret sensory data.

The supernatural explanation is actually never actually explained. It’s just a few buzz words thrown around like “resurrection” and “miracle” and that’s just about it. It’s a case of the creation of the material – a new body – from nothing material.

While it would be relatively easy to dream, in a dream, the dead back into the living, it’s even easier to resurrect the dead and up them into an afterlife in a computer simulation. If you can simulate life, then you can simulate the afterlife.

One can’t really mention the afterlife without mentioning associated evidence such as ghosts, specters, phantoms, apparitions, etc. But these things have absolutely nothing to do with evidence for life after death. Since nothing material survives a human death, and since ghosts are material (they can be seen, heard and otherwise interact with their local surroundings / environment) they can’t be the immaterial essence of deceased humans. Furthermore, ghosts should be naked! There are also reports of animal (usually deceased pet) ghosts. Finally, there are also visions of phantom trains and ships, etc. which were obviously not living entities. But ghosts, phantoms (both once living and never living) are quite easily explained if they are a virtual part of your simulated reality. Regardless, ghosts are a phenomena that require an explanation. That’s because there are millions of ghostly encounters / sightings, even multiple witnesses, case histories going back to the very beginning; the dawn of recorded history. Further, ghosts have been reported across all cultures and all societies, it’s just that they can’t be deceased humans.