Thought for the Day

What's New at No Bull

Several articles are new and others have been updated or modified recently. Be sure to read How Old Is the Earth, and How Do We Know?

It's just a simple overview, but I think it explains the subject fairly well, in principle. Is the earth about 6,000 years old? Or is it vastly older?

No, we don't have a time machine; so we can't "go back" and see the earth forming. But there are some very reliable methods for determining approximately how long ago it happened. Read it for yourself. Links are provided to further information, and I plan to write more about it as time permits.

You are always welcome here.

This award-winning website is designed especially for ordinary, reasonably literate people who don't accept whatever other people believe "just because." We need evidence to reason with so we can make up our own minds about things. A lot of things.

Intellectuals and professionals are welcome along with everybody else. They are encouraged both to read and contribute articles to No Bull. But No Bull is not mainly for them; it is primarily intended for ordinary, every day people who just want to understand a few things a little bit better. Please come often and stay long.

Programming

The programming "behind the scenes" has also been improved to make my own work faster, easier, and more accurate in the future.

Those of you who are curious about such things can read more about it in the No Bull Update. Just ask for your FREE subscription using the link in the left-hand column. If you subscribe before the next edition goes out, I'll be sure you get the October issue. Otherwise, you may read the archived copy.

I got rid of the right-hand column on most pages and placed the Table of Contents into a Javascript menu, so it doesn't take up so much space.

"Third Party Ads" are now limited to a rotating set of small text ads below the Table of Contents on each page. I wrote the program myself, and will experiment a little and try to improve it from time to time.

This first set of rotating ads is for a few of the very most popular affiliate items in ClickBank's database of nearly 12,000 downloadable information products. I realize that being popular is not good enough for a skeptical readership, and I'll be working to improve that. I definitely want a mixture of products that will provide dependable information for skeptical, thinking people; but I'm not sure we are there yet.

I hope you like the changes. Let me have your thoughts, please.

Simple Information and Ideas

I want to provide real information, evidence, and ideas for you "skeptics, doubters, questioners, and thinkers" to work with; and I want to do it as simply as possible. I prefer NOT to try to do it by myself, either. I'd love to have input from other informed people who want to help. If you have written something you think should be posted on No Bull, please email it to me at the link below. If I can use it, your "payment" will be the satisfaction of encouraging somebody to think rationally and helping provide the necessary information with which to do so.

I know this site is already performing the service of making people think, because of the email I receive, like the following:

... you have raised quite a few interesting questions that I personally am having a hard time answering. Just when I think I have answers to one end, I see disturbing discrepancies that go against my teachings, making me wonder how much of it really is "Hog Wash." Spiritually and intellectually these are trying times for me, as one is pulling against the other.

As Socrates said, "I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think." Even that usually isn't easy! As I've said before, if I can just make a few people really think, I'll be pleased with my work.

I sympathize with the writer above. I spent a very traumatic decade trying to sort out the truth from the falsehood of the religion I had believed so deeply. After finally concluding that there is no evidence of anything supernatural, though, the rest fell into place pretty quickly; and I have found a peace and freedom I never knew before.

I hope the writer of the email is able to resolve his "trying times" more quickly than I was able to. This is one of the reasons why I do NOT try to convince religious people there is no god. Because it is just too painful for many believers to lose their invisible friend.

However, for those thinking people who want something more than blind faith in an ancient mishmash of supposedly revealed nonsense, No Bull is here to help. On this site -- as well as the Update and related media -- I assume people come because they want to learn something; and I try not to "pull any punches" here.

We'll talk about some "intellectual" subjects as often as possible, but we'll discuss them simply in terms that non-intellectuals can understand.

I am a layman writing for other laypeople. I MAKE NO CLAIM to being a "brilliant intellectual thinker," a professional, or an expert of any kind. Neither do I claim that "just because (I) or some other fool says something, that it necessarily 'over rides or out ranks' anything anyone else may have said, thought, or written." I wish I were that smart and that highly educated, but I am not.

Actually, I don't even claim you'll ever see an original idea here. What I believe I can do is simplify and explain many complex subjects, and maybe make them interesting to more people. That's my specialty. You'll have to decide for yourself how well I do it.

Math is called "the language of science." Indeed, it is impossible to do very much science without math. On this site, though, we will not be "doing science." For this reason, you'll find VERY LITTLE math on these pages.

To simplify does not mean to "dumb down." I hope there's nothing dumb here. We'll simplify complex information by not going into all the details and math of each subject. We'll concentrate on the principles needed to generally understand a subject and leave the details and math for the professionals somewhere else. When it seems appropriate, though, I'll provide links to more information to help you dig as deep as you want to.

I've mentioned before that most of the original content of No Bull was adapted from my previous Skeptic's Soapbox site. For this and other reasons, a large part of it discusses problems with religion.

It seems useful here to provide a general definition of the word "religion." As I discuss it here, I'm referring to a set of beliefs based on a god or other supernatural or supernormal being or force. There are a lot of variations on the general theme.

There are also other definitions of the word "religion" that have nothing to do with anything supernatural or supernormal, but I am not referring to these. At least, not right now. If I do, I'll try to make it clear.

My real preference is to veer away from the subject of religion when possible. I want to write mostly about science and nature for other non-professionals who may not have the time or desire to study these subjects as I do.

I want to discuss things like these:

• What makes the sky blue and the sunset red, and where do all the colors in a rainbow come from?

• How do green leaves turn red, brown, or yellow in the fall? Why do they fall off the tree?

• How do we think? Can animals think? Do they feel pain and emotions as we do? What about computers? Can there ever be a truly intelligent or thinking or feeling machine?

• Should we go back to the moon? And Mars? And beyond? Why? Or why not?

• Did we really descend from "lower" animals? Does it matter? Is it better to be molded mud or a modified animal? Is evolution "just a theory?" How could anybody come up with such a ridiculous idea, anyway?

• If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? (Yes, these two questions do have answers; and they're not even difficult.)

• When does life begin? Maybe more to the point, DOES new life ever begin? Are there better or more important questions to ask about a fetus?

I've defined my main purposes in creating NoBull.ws as these:

1. To think skeptically and rationally.

2. To encourage my readers to think skeptically and rationally.

3. To use skeptical, rational thinking to understand a variety of difficult and sometimes controversial concepts and (when possible) to reach appropriate conclusions.

4. To share some fun with my readers. After all, skeptics need fun, too. I want to infect you with an enthusiasm for learning that you'll spread like the flu.

Actually, this "covers a lot of ground."

I want you to catch my fascination with science and knowledge. I want to present things in such a simple and interesting way that you'll understand it, enjoy it, and get the fever of discovery.

However, as I've also said before, I am reminded daily that we are drowning in a sea of superstition here in the United States; and most of it is presented as religion. In some parts of the world, this irrationality is even deeper and deadlier than in my own country.

I don't oppose religion to hurt people. I oppose religion because religion hurts people. I offer a few supporting opinions in the right-hand column of this page.

Dealing with religious nonsense requires more of my writing energy and time than I would prefer, but I consider it necessary. As a result, I will be writing even more about religious nonsense, which is nothing more than superstitious bull. I respect religious people, but I have no respect for their dangerous superstitions.

Most of my closest friends and relatives are "believers," and I love and respect them all. They're the people I love MOST in all the world. My antipathy toward religion comes from the harm I believe it does to those people and others around the world.

Belief in an all-powerful father-figure can be comforting. Maybe it can even help some people get through a crisis occasionally. Certainly I know people who THINK their faith has saved their lives.

But, as Bishop Spong, author of The Sins of Scripture and many other books puts it, "Religion is primarily a search for security and not a search for truth. Religion is what we so often use to bank the fires of our anxiety."

However, there are other comforts in life and other ways to get through a crisis without depending on the confusing and contradictory writings of 40+ ancient, superstitious men and women, written in several languages over a period of about 1,100 years, and then translated and re-translated until we no longer know what they originally said, even if it mattered. That's exactly what the Bible is.

Evidently, such superstition had some kind of survival value in our evolutionary past, or it would not likely be so pervasive now. In this age of powerful technologies, though, it may very well hasten our extinction in several different ways. We'll talk about some of these ways in the future, but the events of September 11, 2001, and others should be obvious warnings.

All religions are harmful if they include belief in a supernatural god, because there is NO serious evidence any such god exists.

I'm sure I'll be getting emails like the following:

• You are absolutely right about religion, Bill; but BlahBlah Worship is not a religion. It's a way of life revealed to us by our Lord BlahBlah. (Of course, that's what we usually call religion.)

• You are right about all religions but ours, Bill. Come let us teach you the True Religion of the True God. (Yeah, Right!)

• Bill, don't be put off by a few hypocrites and phonies. There are bad people everywhere, but the god we worship is real. (Did I say anything about hypocrites or phonies?)

• If there is no god, who created the universe? (I don't know where the universe came from. Maybe it always existed in one form or another. The real question is, "Who created your god?")

• If we didn't have religions, who would build hospitals, schools, and colleges? Who would collect money for disaster victims and send them help? Who would comfort the families of dying people? (I don't have all the answers for this one, but good people would still be good people. If the nation were 90% atheist instead of 90% religious, I feel sure these things would still be taken care of. Regardless, these questions have nothing to do with the TRUTH or UNTRUTH of any religious belief.)

Religion is religion is religion, and ALL religions that include anything supernatural are pure baloney! This is my considered opinion; and I intend to write about it from time to time, as I have already done.

I will NOT attempt to prove there is no god.

It is not up to me to prove God's non-existence; it's up to the believers to prove he is real. They're the ones who make the claim. I claim there's no evidence for any god. (In addition, however, I have said there's plenty of evidence against an all-powerful, all-knowing, god of love. As Quentin Smith wrote in The Anthropic Coincidences, Evil and the Disconfirmation of Theism, "If any spirit created the universe, it is malevolent, not benevolent." See a couple of paragraphs below.)

If I claim, for example, that I have a three-inch-tall, purple alien from another galaxy living in my shirt pocket, you should be pretty skeptical. It is not your responsibility to disprove the alleged alien's existence just because you have no faith in its reality. It is my claim. Therefore, it is up to me to provide sufficient evidence to support my own claim.

In the same way, it should not be necessary for me to try to disprove God's existence. An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god who "spoke the universe into existence" is an even more outlandish claim than the alleged alien in my pocket. So it's up to those making the claim to show us their evidence, if they want us to believe in their god.

Nevertheless, I've explained elsewhere on this site why I can no longer believe in the god described in the Bible, and I plan to discuss this further. (See Saved in the Nick of Time!, for example.)

The same arguments apply to the god described in the Qur'an, which is essentially the same as the Old Testament god. (While some disagree, most Muslims and many informed Christians consider him to be the same.)

So then should I believe in Zeus, Aphrodite, Mars, the Sun god, or the Moon god instead? I think not!

Jehovah of the Jews and Christians, Allah of the Muslims, Jesus of the Christians, Zeus and Aphrodite of the ancient Greeks, the "unknown god" of Mars Hill, or any of the thousands of gods people have created for their own comfort -- one is as likely to be real as the next, and there's no evidence for any of them.

As time permits, we'll also discuss such things as these:

• Are there intergalactic aliens who abduct humans for medical examinations and/or sex?

• What can we believe about astrology?

• What should we say about witches, magic, good and bad luck, black cats, broken mirrors, "and so ad infinitum"?

But we'll keep on asking this kind of question, too:

• Is God any more real than Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy?

• Is there any real, credible evidence that the Bible is a revelation from God? What about the Koran (or Qur'an, if you prefer)?

• How much of the Bible or Qur'an is suitable reading material for children?

I promise to do my best to keep this site both informative and entertaining, as well as thought-provoking. With subjects like these to discuss, it shouldn't be difficult, should it?

The Semi-Blog

Friday, October 21, 2005

For several months I have wanted to create a blog for No Bull, but I just don't have the time and energy to do everything I want to. I've decided to solve the problem by using this page as a "semi-blog." In two or three weeks or less, I'll begin using this home page as if it were a simple blog.

We have archives of our previous home pages, and I'll add this one. Then I'll begin adding shorter, hopefully more interesting articles and comments a lot more often on this "Semi-Blog" home page. I think it'll create a more lively home page for people to see when they come to NoBull.ws, as well as drawing more attention from the search engines; because it'll contain something new several times a week.

Lots of new material is likely to get more attention from people and search engines alike. Also, it'll provide a forum for some of the short, informal comments and observations that I love to write. If you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them, this will work great! Also, I'll be able to provide short reviews of other websites here from time to time.

As with most blogs, I'll place all new material near the top of the page, with older material underneath it. When it gets too long, I'll archive the page and start over. All archives will be available through the Table of Contents menu near the top left corner of every page.

This will be an experiment for a while, of course. If it doesn't work well, we'll try something else; but I think it'll be very useful. In general, I'm fairly pleased with No Bull; and I hope you are, too. But there's always room for improvement, and we'll find ways to make it better as often as we can.

This page was last updated 08/21/09 04:43 PM.

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