CHRISTIANITY SETS THE STAGE FOR CREATING BIAS PARTICULARLY IN THE UNWARY
Bias is a contagion and a nuisance. Only if you keep these ABC rules have you
any hope of making it minimal or insignificant.
Accept nothing.
Believe nobody.
Check everything and every bit of everything.
Christianity is the religion of miracle It makes researchers and believers too biased to be worth listening to when it comes to miracle testimonies. When a religion is biased it has to put the bias into practice.
Bias is practiced in the following ways.
- through selection of only the information that fits what you want others to
believe so you are omitting the things they need to know to get the right
picture
- through placement – organising information in an article so that what you want
people to believe is given prominence with problems downplayed
- bias in newspapers can show up in biased headlines that focus on something
other than what they should
- bias through tone or language – eg using loaded terms and using gentle
language to describe things that are terrible eg "loss of life" instead of
genocide
- bias through source – use a source that is dishonest or biased itself
Miracles are made out by Christians to be from a loving God who wants us to see his love and his truth. Thus it is important to Christians to refute or ignore or dismiss or laugh at any miracle claims that do not seem to promote Christianity. That is dishonest. It shows that miracles and a biased attempt to use them to evangelise for a religion or an interpretation of the religion go together.
The how is important - the miracle must be from God or believed to be if it is to help evangelise.
The why is ultimately about evangelism.
For God the how is the why and the why is the how. There is no division in God and the Church defines God as pure act.
Therefore the how is the why and the why is the how when it comes to a miracle. But religion cannot really know how a miracle happens. To say God did it is not really an answer. It does not deal with the how. For us we only want the why but we cannot have that either for God never says why he does a miracle.
If you believe you have experienced a miracle, I do not
have to agree with you. I can agree or I may be undecided or I may disagree.
Religion obligates you to agree with some miracle testimonies. For example, the
Catholic is pressured to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. This is a form of
bullying and unacceptable.
The God of Christianity commands that we believe in the miracles of the Bible
and believe in the resurrection of Jesus. True helping of others does not
involve suggesting what they can do or should do. It certainly does not involve
commanding them like religion does. It involves questioning and challenging them
to help them find their own answers. Miracles do nothing in that respect at all.
They are said to be verbal or non-verbal commands to believe in the truth and to
obey and believe in Church authority.
Religion says that faith and hope and love go together so I have to agree with
the Bible and the Church that certain miracles such as the resurrection of Jesus
from the dead really happened. I am unloving if I don't at least do my best to
believe. This causes a bias. Religion accuses the unbeliever of bias when it is
biased itself. It is more reasonable to be biased against miracles than to be
biased in their favour.
The resurrection of Jesus would prove that he was the Son of Satan if it had
really happened. It is madness to take the claims of the gospels about
Jesus’ miracles seriously when they come from a cult that has always openly
advocated dishonest thinking. I mean that Christianity condemns wilful
doubt as a sin after you believe. This bans sincerity for if you are
sincere you don’t mean any harm and if you are insincere you are not really
doubting. The gospels agree with this fanatical fascism and that is reason
enough for refusing to take them seriously and to be confident that the authors
were dishonest for if doubt is to be avoided so is objectively no matter how
many things ring true for their attitude was no minor flaw but a foundation one.
It had to colour all they did and wrote and had to be very serious indeed.
Real belief is honest and unafraid of the truth and of criticism. Jesus
said we must love God with all our hearts and to accept God as Lord with all our
hearts - ie do good or whatever because God says so! If God is boss as religion
says, it follows that we have an obligation to believe in the miracles he has
done. The atheist does not like this for if we have obligations, we have enough
of them without religion adding more into the mix. Any religion that puts us at
risk of spending time and energy on what may not be true is bad religion.
Jesus said that we must agree with him to be saved and that we will go to burn
in Hell forever if we don’t (John 3,8:21) – what stronger hatred towards
unbelievers could be possible? They were the injured party for heaven’s sake!
How could dishonest men be chosen by God to speak of a holy man who committed no
sin? They show that Jesus must have been shifty too.
When Mary appears at Lourdes or Fatima or wherever to testify to a Jesus who was
a fake then it has to be a demon pretending to be Mary or a hallucination no
matter what the witnesses say. It was anything but the real Mary. Unless she is
a demon herself!
Religion uses theological and social pressure to get people to believe or think
they believe. Even if miracles did not deserve scepticism, those who testify to
them are not much of a support.
Two big scams are miracle claims and praying for others.
Accepting something as a miracle is bias for anything that cannot be tested is bias by default. You cannot ever prove that there is no natural explanation for a miracle for you cannot think of all possible explanations. If it is natural then it is not a miracle. You cannot test if God did something for if something is supernatural the true cause cannot be seen or found.
Prayer is bias for anything that cannot be tested is bias by default. Even when you do not get what you ask for you are told the prayer just worked in a way that was best for you. It is too biased to be about anything other than feelings. It is not right to use the suffering of others to make yourself feel good by praying for them.
There is no point in miracles happening if prayer is immoral for prayer is the one thing you need to develop a religion or a theology. Miracles are supposed to be about showing God's love not about mere showmanship.
The person who wants to bias you dishes you out untestable but attractive stuff. Do not lose sight of that.
