See the magic

Submitted by exrelayman ~

Saw a wonderful comment that I felt merited submission here as a short article. Not able to contact Billyjobob for approval, but assume by the public forum in which it appeared and by its nature, that Billyjobob would be pleased to see it given more attention. The first line gives credit, the rest is the comment/article:

Billyjobob, comment in Miami Herald article 2/17/2011 about a Richard Dawkins lecture:

See the magic

When you look at different religions, they usually contain "magic." For example:

Image by madmaxx via Flickr

The Mormon religion contains the magical golden plates, the magical angel, the magical seer stones, the magical ascension of the plates into heaven, etc.

The Muslim faith contains the magical angel, the magical flying horse, the magical voices, the magical prophet, etc.

The Christian faith contains the magical insemination, the magical star, the magical dreams, the magical miracles, the magical resurrection, the magical ascension and so on.
The presence of "magic" is a clear marker for "imaginary." For example, how do we know that Santa is imaginary? Because (among other things) he has eight magical flying reindeer. How do we know that Jack and the Beanstalk is a fairy tale? Because (among other things) the story contains magical seeds. In the same way, how do we know that God is make believe? Because God is surrounded by magic.

According to believers, God is an all-powerful being who has the divine, magical power to do anything. How do we know that this belief is a fairy tale? One way to know is to try to invoke God's magical power. For example, as described in , the Bible tells us in many places that God answers prayers. However, whenever we try to pray, we notice that nothing happens . That tells us that God is completely imaginary. The magical powers ascribed to him are a fairy tale.

Another way to know is to read the stories of magical events in the Bible. There is the magical flood, yet we know with certainty that the flood never happened. There are the magical miracles of Jesus, but (predictably) none of these miracles left behind any tangible evidence . There is the magical resurrection, yet there is zero evidence that it ever occurred and no reason to believe it

God is identical to Leprechauns, mermaids and Santa. God is a magical fairy tale creature. The magic surrounding God tells us that God is imaginary.

Comments

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