AM I GETTIN ALL UP IN YOUR HEAD THOMAS? I do love it, if I didn't live in fucking warragul i'd dress like that all the time :D

We’ll team up. I’ll get some rocker shirts and do my hair and we can get coffee. Gangster as fuck.

New followers recently and I don’t have any recent pictures of myself on the interblaagh, so I put my iPhone to good use and took some selfies to show you all my beautiful face.

It occurred to me afterwards that I should have done duckfaces and peace signs to make these ironic, but let’s not kid ourselves. I’ve just taken pictures of myself and put them on the internet. As a man.

Rockabilly

I’ve been relistening to a bunch of Rockabilly records and stuff lately.

I have always loved the music and the style and it’s just getting into my brain. Seriously, THIS close to just selling all of my stuff, buying some new clothes, a hotrod and an upright bass.

Literally googled pomade today. This could either be really good or really bad. Hoping really good.

Stay tuned.

That’ll be all for now.

-Thomas.

New home made, totally custom desk. Phase one of the dude pad revamp. It’s called the ‘Glottal Stomp’ by Rian.

Still needs sanding and painting, but the sawdust was making me sneeze, so I’ve stopped for a while.

You seem like one who might like Ravi Zacharias. Just check him out.

kennethgcampbell

Thankyou Ken for the suggestion.

I had a look through some of the things that Ravi had to say. Read a few articles and watched some lectures.

He is no doubt a very charismatic and well spoken man, but unfortunately, I’m remaining very unconvinced by the things that he’s saying.

In an interview I found, he outlines 3 reasons for believing in a God (In his case, a Christian God.)

I’ll outline these reasons and explain why I can’t take them as serious evidence. I will also put some links at the bottom of this entry so that anyone who thinks I’ve missed something important can send it to me. Here we go.

1) However you section the universe, you end up with something that needs to be brought into existence by something outside of the universe. Ravi claims that nothing inside the universe can explain how it came about.

This unfortunately for Ravi is a line of argument that has been levelled at Atheists for a long time now.

I am not a physicist and certainly don’t claim to know everything about how the universe was started, but I can give a general sort of idea and refer you to what some people who are far smarter than I have written on it.

First of all, Ravi is assuming that the creation of the universe had to be something that could happen within the universe – that is – following the laws of the universe we’re currently living in.

People living in our universe like you, me or Ravi, can only understand how things can happen inside that same universe. Causality in our universe is something that we understand. We know how cause and effect operate within the confines of our laws of gravity, &c. We can’t really assume too much about the big bang.

How the big bang happened in the first place isn’t really a problem for Atheists anyway.

What reason is there too assume that because we don’t know how something was put together, it must have been a god? This sort of plays to Dawkins’ “God of the Gaps” idea.

Besides, a prime mover like God would have to be very very complex to be able to create a universe, and then we’re left with the question of who created God? It’s a cranes and skyhooks problem.

Life starting on Earth is a different question that we’ve got a much better understanding of. Amino acids assisted by the sun grew in Earth’s early oceans &c. I’ll put referencing at the bottom of this so that I can avoid writing out too much stuff that people already know or can look up.

2) The Argument to Design.

Without trying to sound arrogant, which I undoubtedly will, it’s kind of disappointing to see this presented as an argument that is supposed to carry any weight.

I won’t go into how evolution works, because you can look it up or just click on of the links at the bottom of this page and have a good read.

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the most well put, thoroughly proven and sensible ideas floating around.

It’s beginning to seem that all of those people who are railing against Evolution must either not understand it or be deliberately ignoring facts. Calls by creationists and others who disagree with the theory for evolution have had their requests met many times by physical fossil evidence, DNA evidence as well as the actual observation of it happening in the cases of diseases evolving to be resistant to drugs or flowers and mice growing in labs. If observation of the fact isn’t enough evidence for you, I’m afraid there’s not much anyone can do for you.

As for people saying that it all came to chance, you just have to read a book to understand how incremental progress was guided by nature. For those who say that it’s all very unlikely, remember that it only had to happen once.. ever.. and it must have, because here we are discussing it.

3) We need something to explain why people are moral, why there is an assumed right and wrong. Without a previous mind to decide what thing are and aren’t accepted within human morality.

This is an assertion without evidence. Why do we need something to tell us what is right and wrong?

Altruism isn’t something that is human alone. In the animal kingdom, particularly with our cousins the apes, we can see them acting in good or bad ways to one another.

There is an interesting piece of writing about the way that altruism in animals helped certain individuals gain favour, reproduce and therefore, have that altruistic gene carried on to the next generation. I’ll put it in the reference section at the bottom.

Good and evil aren’t good an evil because they are, they are good and evil because we as humans have decided they are. The universe doesn’t care if I get stabbed; my parents and friends will, but the Earth and stars don’t change a bit.

Empathy is a word I’m sure you’re familiar with. People feel it. We can relate to others in pain, we think, “Oh man, I’d hate for that to happen to me”, and do our best to stop whatever it is causing pain. Obviously there are exceptions to that, but we have special names for people without empathy.

*****

He had a great deal more to say, but these three points were something that I saw a few times.

As well as being unconvinced by most of his speaking and writing, he believes that the bible is completely true all of the way through, which is a really hard position to defend today.

He also had the general ‘diplomatic’ view of homosexuals. “Don’t hate them, just what they do”, which is just a way to sound moderate when really you don’t like a certain group of people for what they are.

Thanks heaps for the name, and I’d love to hear what it was about him that gets to you.

I think that’ll be all for now.

-Thomas.

http://deanmcdonnell.hubpages.com/hub/Altruism-dmd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EonZXFd0Afw&feature=related

http://www.evolutionfaq.com/

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_02

Closed minded Atheists.

While exploring Tumblr, I came across a post written by some person or other that said “If I ever met god, I’d tell him to go fuck himself”.

Now, attacking this on the face of it probably isn’t entirely fair, because based on some of the content on the guy’s page, (boobs, stories of sexual conquests, pictures of his car) he didn’t really seem like the thinking type. Clever people who post things like this on their blogs, feel free to email me, I’d happily be proven wrong, which to me, is the whole point.

Problems with a god that stand idly by while people are dying and suffering notwithstanding, telling a god that you have met, face to face that they can go fuck themselves and that you’re an Atheist is ridiculous!

When I die, if I come face to face with a god that says to me, “Thomas, buddy, why didn’t you believe in me?” like our old friend Berty Russell, I’d say “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence”.

My dying and meeting this god would obviously be evidence enough for me to have a serious think about my position.

I’m not saying that I’m unsure of my unbelief, but as someone who likes to discuss the idea of the supernatural, the divine and the weird, I dream of a day when a religion person, ghost believer or weirdo gives me something to really think about.

Unfortunately the standard of argument when it comes to belief is often set fairly low, which is a real pity. I know plenty of clever, well-spoken and interesting people who are able to reconcile a healthy rational view of the world in their minds with a religious outlook on life.

Someone able to take that ability, and then explain it to me in a way that is convincing and thought provoking would certainly be worth listening to.

I suppose this hasn’t really gone anywhere, but the chief point here would be that religious people looking to convert someone or “spread the good word”, shouldn’t assume that those of us who don’t subscribe to their particular brand of belief will be as easily convinced of things that at the face of it, sound a bit outrageous.

Also, if you meet a god that’s got to decide whether you’re going to Heaven or Hell, perhaps don’t tell him he doesn’t exist and that he can go fuck himself.

That’ll be all for now.

-Thomas.

Our Berty.

I rode it like I stole it.

My uncle John, upon returning a pushbike he borrowed from me.

Gangstah as fuck.

Aguaxima, a plant growing in Brazil and on the islands of South America. This is all that we are told about it; and I would like to know for whom such descriptions are made. It cannot be for the natives of the countries concerned, who are likely to know more about the aguaxima than is contained in this description, and who do not need to learn that the aguaxima grows in their country. It is as if you said to a Frenchman that the pear tree is a tree that grows in France, in Germany, etc . It is not meant for us either, for what do we care that there is a tree in Brazil named aguaxima , if all we know about it is its name? What is the point of giving the name? It leaves the ignorant just as they were and teaches the rest of us nothing. If all the same I mention this plant here, along with several others that are described just as poorly, then it is out of consideration for certain readers who prefer to find nothing in a dictionary article or even to find something stupid than to find no article at all.

Denis Diderot - From his Encyclopedia

Call me a Humanist

The self important and sometimes incoherent ramblings of a mad man.

Rockabilly

Closed minded Atheists.