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100 Facts Every Atheist Teen Must Know PDF

109 Pages·2011·20.064 MB·English
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A n o ny m o u s Alan Turing........................20 Introduction Richard Feynman...............21 Rationality & Reason Carl Sagan.........................22 Atheism................................1 Stephen Hawking...............23 Critical Thinking...................2 Humanism Epistemology.......................3 Rights................................24 Epicurean Paradox...............4 Privacy...............................25 Russell’s Teapot...................5 Health Care........................26 Pascal’s Wager....................6 Logical Fallacies...................7 Money Disinformation.....................8 Saving................................27 Donating............................28 Science Lending..............................29 Scientific Theory..................9 Banking..............................30 Scientific Method...............10 The Big Bang.....................11 Drugs Earth..................................12 Alcohol...............................31 Evolution............................14 Cigarettes..........................32 Dinosaurs...........................15 Marijuana...........................33 Stem Cells..........................16 Shroooms...........................34 Scientists Sex Galileo Galilei.....................17 Masturbation......................35 Charles Darwin..................18 Pornography......................36 Albert Einstein...................19 Health Benefits..................37 Condoms............................38 The Qur’an.........................65 Anal Sex.............................39 Book of Shadows...............66 Conception.........................40 Religious Icons Sublime Priests................................67 Purpose..............................41 Mother Teresa....................69 Morals................................42 The Pope............................70 Ethics.................................43 Jesus Christ........................71 Forgiveness.......................44 Virgin Mary........................72 Lies and Deceit Religious Holidays God....................................45 Christmas...........................73 Abortion.............................46 Easter................................74 Abstinence.........................48 Lent....................................75 Homosexuality...................49 Hanukkah...........................76 Creationism.......................50 Holiday...............................77 Apologetics........................51 Hocus Pocus Sin......................................52 Soul....................................78 Female Priests...................53 Heaven & Hell....................79 Cults Miracles.............................80 Scientology........................54 Faith...................................81 Jonestown..........................55 Prayer................................82 Solar Temple......................56 Speaking in Tongues..........83 Heaven’s Gate...................57 Transubstantiation.............84 Exorcism............................85 Religions Beastly Number.................86 Buddhism...........................58 Satanism............................87 Catholicism........................59 Purgatory...........................88 Christianity........................60 Angels................................89 Watchtower.......................61 Demons.............................90 Voodoo...............................62 Homeopathy......................91 Lindy Hop...........................63 Sacred Texts The Bible............................64 Destructive Behavior Religion and Politics Child Abuse........................92 Church & State..................98 Genital Mutilation..............93 Australian Aboriginals........99 Alexandrian Library............94 Catholics & Nazis.............100 Book Banning.....................95 Fundamentalism..............101 Crusades............................96 Marriage..........................102 Death Penalty....................97 Manhattan Declaration....103 Introduction What ideas are so dangerous that Catholics want to prevent you from reading about them? The ideas in this book. Every Sunday, hundreds of millions of people gather together, united by their belief that their god is the One True God. They meet in churches to give thanks and to pray. The power of the Catholic Church is unquestionable: over a billion devout believers en masse. And yet belief can be deadly. It is paramount that we understand how the world really works. What if astronomers were prevented from sharing observations they had made while peering through telescopes, by penalty of death? People would never have been told that planets orbit the Sun, or that massive rocks on a cataclysmic collision course could extinguish all life on Earth. Somewhere, a rock is headed our way. Without sufficient notice, any asteroid deflection strategy will fail. As time is our most precious commodity, arresting advancement or dissemination of knowledge is an intolerable transgression. It does not matter how old you are right now. Whether you are a teenager or an adult, you always have a choice of what you want to do with your life. You can always choose how you want to make a positive contribution to humanity. It is important to point out that science does not have all the answers. The scientific method allows us to systematically examine nature to discover how the Universe works. Science continually refines itself based on new findings; whereas, belief vehemently denies new information to preserve faith. This booklet contains commentary on many topics that religious people tend to preach out of ignorance, faith, or arrogance. This is not a complete list. There are topics that are not included that are just as important as the ones that are, but booklets usually have a beginning and an end. Keep this booklet with you; keep a copy on your laptop. Distribute it to your friends. Visit reddit.com/r/debatereligion if you need a kind voice. Refer to the booklet when your friends and family members have questions. Use it to refute the Bible. Take time to understand the arguments, learn about logical fallacies, and grow as a good, kind, and moral free-thinking individual. Realize that you are never alone. By the end of 2011 there will be 7 billion people on the planet. All of whom, like yourself, need food, love, comfort, friendship, education, and support. Take up hobbies, make friends, see the world, learn a field of science and contribute something tangibly meaningful to humanity. You are actively and strongly encouraged to research every fact in this booklet for yourself. Aug 22, 2011 Rationality & Reason Atheism Atheism is a lack of belief in any god; no more, no less. Atheistic morals are driven by a desire to do good in the world. Atheists need not be threatened into doing good deeds by fictional beings. So what stops atheists from killing people? • Friendship. Treating people with kindness and respect sets an example. Killing other people seriously hampers long-term friendships and other relationships. • Kindness feels good. If a god told an atheist to sacrifice her child, she would tell that god to go fuck itself with a solar-powered chain saw while standing a quarter-mile from the Sun's searing surface. Theists would kill the kid. • Death is final. Murder devalues human life; socially well- adjusted people value others due to empathetic responses, which are not the exclusive domain of god belief. In stark contrast, religious reasoning has justified murder, torture, genocide, infanticide, and slavery. If anything, propensity for violence increases in proportion to the fundamentalism of a person's religious faith. 1 Critical Thinking Thinking critically means understanding whether an opinion or argument makes logical sense. There is a difference between critiquing the Bible and applying empirical evidence to highlight parts of the Bible that are false. Critical thinking requires reason over emotion, recognizing and acknowledging factual evidence, finding the best explanation (not necessarily the most comfortable), and asking questions. It also means changing your opinion when you are shown to be wrong. Always approach subjects with an open-mind. If you believe with absolute certainty that you are right, leaving no room for doubt, then you have stopped thinking critically. Faith-based thinking is the opposite of critical thinking: it purges rationality from the mind. When you believe something on faith alone, you have closed your mind to other possibilities. The statement, “there is no god” is not closed-minded. It is simply a shorter way of saying, “there is neither empirical evidence nor any logical reason to believe any gods exist.” Facts must have independent confirmation; encourage debate; avoid arguing from authority; consider many ideas; quantify; every step of an argument must work; if two ideas are nearly equivalent, pick the simpler; and theories must be falsifiable. 2 Epistemology This -ology is the philosophical study of knowledge that asks some fairly profound questions: • What is knowledge? • How do we acquire knowledge? • How do we know what we know? Without understanding how knowledge is obtained, how our senses serve us, and how we formulate concepts, our thoughts will have no coherent path. The debate between atheists and people who believe in faeries (or gods) hinges on criteria for truth. The atheist favors logical consistency, coherence, and observable evidence as truth; the theist stands upon custom, faith, revelation, and intuition. The atheist sees the world as nature presents it; the theist twists the natural world with ideas that are inconsistent with reality. 3 Epicurean Paradox The problem of evil, posed by Philosoraptor Epicurus, states: If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to Then He is not omnipotent. If He is able, but not willing Then He is malevolent. If He is both able and willing Then whence cometh evil? If He is neither able nor willing Then why call Him God? And yet Philosoraptor Lactantius argues that gods are all- powerful, he insists that an all-good god does not exist. He says that gods are distant and uninvolved with the concerns of humanity; gods are neither our friends nor enemies. Then why waste time thinking about them? If we cannot prove that they will intervene to help us, then we must abandon them to save ourselves. If gods exist and they are benevolent, they will understand completely. A simpler answer as to why evil exists in the world is that socially maladjusted people do stupid, malicious things (sometimes for religious reasons). Plus, there are no gods to stop them. 4

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