There is always a caveat – can you converse with a person of faith?

I was inspired to write this little rant after having read this hilarious piece by “Pastor” Daniel Nalliah:

Religious nutter claims Australia is doomed because we have an atheist PM

Two screws loose and a microphone

Now you would be forgiven for thinking that the above link is a pisstake, but unfortunately; it isn’t.

Strangely though, I find myself appreciating the unprecedented audience that the Internet in its current form gives the religious nutters.

They, better than any atheist – Dawkins and Hitchens included – provide a potent deterrent to those wavering in their “faith” or those considering absconding from reason.

They also do a better job of parodying religious belief than the likes of the wonderful people over at Landover Baptist

The fellow who wrote the article on that site is also the fellow who claimed that his god murdered people in  bushfires throughout Australia. The reason? Because he was angry with homosexuals.

This fraud then goes on to say:

“Then we stretched our hands over federal parliament and prayed for ungodly leaders in parliament to be removed and righteousness to be restored”

“Many Christian Leaders believed that Kevin Rudd was God’s man for the hour and promoted him as many Christians voted for Labor in that election.   Unfortunately, due to a lack of spiritual discernment by much of the Church , Kevin Rudd was elected as PM.  He was not God’s choice, but the people’s choice.  God gave the people what they asked for”

Yes with a maybe, no with a but.

Preach to me, preach to me now - 1902 GODHATESFAGS

This kind of rubbish, the “it is god’s will” or the “he is omniscient but gives us choice” type argument is not only illogical, but it makes it impossible to have a reasoned, logical conversation with anyone of religious belief.

Those of us who have engaged in debate or discussion with fundamentalists know that it can be frustrating – and is, indeed, ultimately a waste of one’s time.

It isn’t just the fundamentalists though, that it is pointless attempting to discuss “faith” rationally with.

Faith, by its very nature, is incompatible with reason.

Why? For many reasons, but one of them is:

Because there is always a caveat.

In the case of Nalliah, his twisted caveat invokes free choice in the face of omniscience.

He is loathe to admit that when he and his deluded friends talk to their imaginary friend, nothing more than a reinforcement of their own delusions is achieved – yet who is he to question the whims and fancy of this all knowing, all wise sky pixie?

Instead of admitting that he is delusional, or that he is – point blank wrong – it is so much easier to invoke the tired old cliché of “god works in mysterious ways”, or “he is testing his people”.

Put simply:

• - Nalliah and his deluded flock prayed that the godless heathens would be removed from power
• - The most pious and piously arrogant Prime Minister we have ever had assumed office
• - Said PM, Kevin Rudd – conducted pressers from his church every Sunday morning
• - Said overtly pious PM was replaced by, gods forbid, an atheist (and a woman – let not that significance go unnoticed)
• - Ergo, Kevin Rudd was a tool of Satan and has been replaced by a heathen who will lead all Australians toward a fiery pit unless they vote for the fundamentalist Catholic Tony “The Mad Monk” Abbott

This is his god’s plan.

Nalliah is obviously missing several vital synapses in the rats nest that he indulgently calls a brain, but how is he any different than the “moderate” believers who cherry pick from the bible citing such inanities as “well, it is an anecdote, a message on how to live your life”.

No.

You either take the bible chapter and verse or you don’t take it at all.

At least fruitcakes like Nalliah and his flock have the courage of their insane convictions and completely ignore modern science, wisdom, proof, evidence and logic in favour of the superstitions of ignorant shepherds of aeons past.

The worst kind of believer is he or she who decides instead to attempt to flirt with modern knowledge yet tentatively clutches at the straws of ancient ignorance through a disheartening fear of their own mortality.

If you think that that is harsh, ask a “moderate” Christian if they believe in the story of Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, if they subscribe to everything mentioned in Leviticus.

I would be willing to bet my left testicle that they present to you a caveat.

The “moderate” Christians will look you in the eye and tell you that their god didn’t answer their prayer for a child dying of leukaemia because it was “his will”, yet will happily turn around and claim that their prayer for rain or the success of a friends child at a job interview was granted.

Doesn’t sound like the will of an omnipotent being to me.

Of course we know better than to stone homosexuals and adulterers to death in this day and age (do we?), though yes, this man called Jesus died and rose again, turned water into wine and raised a man from the dead…

Yes, of course, and bushfires, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like can’t be explained by science – they are of course a sign from a sky pixie unhappy with same sex attraction, abortion or an atheist Prime Minister.