Religion!

On my way to work there are a couple of billboards with the phrase "Beyond a reasonable doubt, Jesus is alive" along with a phone number you can call for more info, curiously there is now web site that I noticed, an oversight which seems pretty obvious really.

These signs bug the shit out of me. Not just because of the whole atheism thing. There is a sort of smugness that exudes from the message that rubs me the wrong way too, as well as the fact that it doesn't support it's argument at all. Support your argument billboard, it has been some two thousand odd years since the man walked this Earth, there seems reasonable doubt at this point that he might be dead. So the premise of your billboard just doesn't work right off the bat. I mean, you can make the argument that bodily ascension to heaven or whatever means he never died, well, not after the first time anyway, but then you have to start asking if questions of life or death even apply to what is essentially a celestial being.

The real flaw of course is trying to couch their advertisement in terms of fact. The very idea of religion, and particularly Christianity in its various forms is that you can't know anything for sure, you believe, you have faith, and that faith is rewarded because you believed without proof, if I know God exists, like He manifests directly to me in a way I cannot explain as a hallucination or something, then it is not a matter of faith anymore and doesn't require anything in the way of effort or fortitude to believe in, I mean, no matter what happens in my life from then on, what challenges I face or obstacles I have to overcome, I won't stop knowing that God exists. That doesn't require anything exceptional, just the ability to accept perceived reality.

I've said it before, but Christianity has the biggest trump card when it comes to arguments about the world and God, and that is God himself, you can basically explain anything by saying "God's Will" or "Mysterious Ways", and for a person of faith that is pretty much enough, when attempts to "scientifically" explain God or logically prove his existence happen they pretty much invariable fail to follow any methods of logical reasoning, let alone the actual scientific method, falling back on "The Bible says this" as their evidence of something or another. For a believer that might be appealing, but it doesn't do a particularly good job of convincing logic minded non believers that you are playing with a full deck.

This isn't a judgement mind you, if you believe, fine, that's where it ends for me, faith doesn't need rationalization and there are plenty of religious scientists as well as shitty atheists out there. I just wish people would stop attempting to use arguments that don't belong in the conversation in the first place.